#the original is SUCH a cornerstone of my sense of humour

[the-starry-seas]

ICE AGE 6 ANNOUNCEMENT?????????????????????????????????????

[vigilskeep]

do you have any refs for Minerva’s relationship with the other dao companions? I did not realize she and leliana was estranged 😭 also if im remembering correctly she makes loghain do the dark ritual? sorry I do like spinning her around in my head and knowing the little details she’s such a great character!!

leliana and minerva did not have a clear breakup in the alistair minerva sense but they did grow apart because of the simple reason that post dao minerva becomes politically at odds with the chantry while leliana is serving its leader. leliana is not a type of person minerva finds very easy to like or trust so while they did grow on each other over the course of dao they never had a simple friendship in the first place

alistair you probably know about bc its kind of the cornerstone of minervaposting but theres a post fully explaining it not much further down in her tag

zevran is her romance <3 i hesitate to use the word “soulmates” exactly but they definitely fit together in a way no other minerva pairing could match

morrigan she has a weird close complicated vaguely homosexual friendship with, i’m sure this is par for the course for f!wardens. they probably could have been in love if morrigan had been willing to pursue it in the start and if minerva hadn’t already gone for someone else by the end, and all that is unspoken but very present in everything about them

sten is i guess kind of the typical high approval relationship as presented in game? not much more unique. a lot of respect a lot of arguing a lot of dry humour. they could hang out in silence comfortably and they’re also both know and respect that they’re very capable of killing the other if their greater purposes ever demand it

oghren she kind of doesn’t pay much mind in origins when she doesn’t have to but he becomes part of the family in awakening. they bond over having their insane shared experiences of the blight, and also over him trying to quit drinking and her trying to quit blood magic which leads to some really wild out of context conversations for the others. and hey, eventually over first attempting to parent at similar times

wynne she has a bit of a sharp relationship with. i think this could vary a lot if i pick her up earlier, but in my main minerva playthrough i picked her up late by which time minerva had absolutely no fucking interest in getting the kind of lectures she grew up with. sorry grandma </3

uhhhh who else. shale idk man im sorry for being a fake fan but shale’s dlc truly does nothing for me it’s unfunny and i dont think abt it at all 💔 this would be written in less harsh terms if i wasnt sleepy

loghain is. well that’s a kettle of fish. minerva spares him because it happens to be a preferable move for her agenda and her way of thinking, it’s not rlly about him as a person at all. she doesn’t absolve him of anything he did, like, she still thinks he’s a bastard it’s just that she doesn’t really believe at all in the concept of justice being done if it doesn’t serve a purpose. when he’s in the party they do build up respect and a weird kind of friendship. he sucks and she’s bitter about what sparing him cost her, but that isn’t relevant, it’s not going to stop her learning from him, or fighting at his side as the best team she can quickly make them, or simply finding him entertaining to talk to. so by the end it’s as a friend that she asks him to do the dark ritual, whatever that means. post dao she agrees with weisshaupt that him being assigned outside of ferelden is wise but they continue to write to each other extremely regularly, mostly on matters of news and strategy but occasionally on the more personal

is that everyone i think thats everyone

[mashounen2003]

Sonic opinions - 2

In large portions of every fandom, it looks like it prevails the idea that you can only take one of two positions: praising the story in every respect, including both the ideas themselves and their execution by the writers, or admitting not to like the story and not to praise any element of it at all. I think my ideas regarding the Archie-Sonic comics and the Sonic franchise in general cannot be pigeonholed into either of these two extremes.

More below the "keep reading" cut.

I loved all the world-building in Archie-Sonic, the elements the comic introduced, their many characters and the potential to tell stories about them; I also really liked much of the art and personal styles of several artists Archie-Sonic has had throughout its history, with very few exceptions (and such exceptions include Ron Lim, of course). That's why, of all the Sonic continuities, I often use the pre-reboot Archie-Sonic comic as the primary source for world-building elements and story ideas.

What really makes me feel bad about that comic, what motivates most of my criticism, is the ideas’ execution by the main writers, as well as aspects that I think are more linked to each writer as a person, the unique way in which each of them has written their stories.

Firstly, Michael Gallagher: the writer for the first few dozen issues of the comic had a terrible sense of humour, and this hurt the comic hugely since those first issues were fundamentally based on that low-quality comedy style. The characterization of the entire cast also suffered greatly from this; in Sally's case, something quite ironic happened too: Gallagher portrayed her as bossy, annoying, temperamental, usually bickering with Sonic, and now that's also how Sally is seen by many fans of the videogames’ continuity (at best). Other than this, not much more could be said about him.

Karl Bollers wrote quite decent stories with some nice comedy, with “Return to Angel Island” being his best work, one of the best stories in the entire comic and perhaps even one of the best in the franchise; but Bollers’s work was "torpedoed" by Ken Penders and then-editor Justin Gabrie, which ruined the stories’ final versions sometimes or led to elements introduced by Bollers being "retconned" and overwritten by whatever Penders smoked and decided to do when taking over. The characterization of Fiona Fox is one of the main examples, with Bollers's Fiona being a quite under-utilized character but with a great potential that would later be wasted by both Penders and Ian Flynn. Another similar case was Sally breaking up with Sonic: Bollers tried to give context to such a drastic decision by Sally and show how she was the one who was suffering the most at that time and also that both she and Sonic were partially right, but Penders and Gabrie didn't let Bollers develop this subplot properly and all we had was a quite infamous scene that unfairly made Sally one of the most hated characters. It’s also known of several plans Bollers had for future stories, and one of them was Antoine being corrupted by the Source of All and turning into a villain; this had the potential to be a good story by subverting the concept of the Source of All and making it an actual threat, but on the other hand, it’d have meant resorting once again to the resource of "this character isn’t doing anything, let's make them evil", something quite disappointing, which later would have disastrous results when Flynn did the same with Fiona a few years later. However, these plans of Bollers were just ideas, and the quality of a story created from them still depends a lot on execution. In the end, I can't say anything about how good or bad Bollers was as a writer, simply because I have no way of knowing what his stories would have been like if he had been given more freedom and had stayed as the writer longer.

There were two writers who influenced Archie-Sonic comics far more than any other writer in its history: Penders and Flynn. The first of them was a retarded pervert with an overly inflated and fragile ego. He became obsessed with the primitive, toxic ideal of "family" North-Americans have. He wrote nonsensical, contradictory stories, having already decided the end down to the last detail long before even thinking about how the story would come to that end (I also made this specific mistake a few times when I was just starting to write fanfiction, I must admit). He increased Fiona's age in order to be able to pair her with the Don Juan that Sonic had become, which also ruined Fiona's characterization forever. The issues 150s -right before being replaced by Flynn- were the worst part of Penders’s run, as Bollers was no longer there to put a stop to his madness in any way, and it was at this time when there was the most egregious case of Penders pouring into the comic his worst perversions and retarded ideas: he hinted at a sex scene in one of the most infamous cases in the history of the entire Sonic franchise, although it wasn’t infamous for the implied sex per se but rather because what happened was technically a rape by deception; to add insult to injury, the writer implicitly blamed the victim some years later when asked about it on Twitter.

I could go on talking about “Ken Perverts”, but I think that's not necessary and would be a waste of time since, as everyone here already knows, he's been the laughingstock of the entire Sonic franchise for years; @ponett even has a whole secondary blog, @thankskenpenders, mainly dedicated to this. On the other hand, there’s still another writer who has also contributed a lot and also made huge mistakes but is not criticized in the least by almost anyone, simply because he was better than Penders.

Ian Flynn usually reduced the characters to slightly oversimplified portrayals, similar to the personalities of the characters in the most recent videogames. Under his pen, Sonic was more sympathetic but his words sometimes sounded too empty and shallow, his apologies for past mistakes didn’t lead to genuine changes on his part, and sometimes he even seemed plain insensitive to all the tragedies happening around him, especially at the Mecha Sally Arc (I nickname Ian Flynn’s Sonic "Plastic Smile" for this). Admittedly, this had already happened several times with previous writers (Penders portraying Sonic as a Don Juan, as I already mentioned), and this is why I think the original Sonic from Sonic SatAM was always better for feeling more "genuine", less "empty", and more heroic and likeable as a result. Perhaps the only ones to escape the oversimplified portrayal have been Shadow and E-123 Omega, whose characterizations in Archie-Sonic were the best in the whole franchise.

Besides, Flynn had strong favouritism for Amy Rose, which only made things worse because this Amy was much more similar to the one in the videogames from Sonic Heroes onwards. Anyway, this also happened with previous writers, like when Amy wished to be younger at the cost of a chance to save Sally's mother and no one ever berated her for it.

Let’s look at the villains. Unlike the typical Eggman from the videogames, with his follies, eccentricities and other absurd aspects, the Robotnik “inherited” by the comic from Sonic SatAM was explicitly a genocidal bastard and crueller while at the same time being sane enough to realize everything he was doing (@robotnik-mun already spoke in detail about this once); however, Flynn tried to combine the two characters into the pre-reboot Archie-Sonic Eggman, and the result created some severe problems with the stories’ tone. Something derived from this was how Sonic let Eggman live and even felt sorry for his fall into madness, in addition to treating him as if they were the Sonic and Eggman from the videogames, Sonic X or Sonic Boom; it’s worth remembering this Eggman technically is a sort of reincarnation of the SatAM Robotnik (his exact nature is quite complicated and includes parallel universes, but yes, he’s supposed to be exactly the same as the SatAM Robotnik, with memories and everything) and this Sonic is supposed to have fought a bloody decade-long guerilla war against him just like his SatAM counterpart.

Scourge was turned into a massive Mary-Sue who achieved easy victories, as subtle as a huge neon sign saying "the bad guys win"; he was also an abusive manipulator towards Fiona Fox, and Flynn was unable to show that properly for fear of making his pet look no longer cool, which makes you wonder how alike Flynn and Penders might actually be in some ways. To clearly understand the horrible damage this has caused: it not only created a generation of young Sonic fans -mostly boys from the USA- who romanticize abuse either consciously or unconsciously, but also there are even women -including scholars, committed feminists and transgender people who are also activists for social justice- who either sympathize with Scourge or think Fiona made a right, wise, rational or informed decision by joining him in the story (I’ll not give names of those women, I’m not really eager to get into heated fallacious discussions about “the true meaning of Feminism”); to top it off, among the writers who started working with Ian Flynn either on IDW-Sonic or the last years of Archie-Sonic, there’s at least one person who got the job of writing official Sonic comics after gaining quite a bit of fame with a fan-comic where they used the pairing of Scourge & Fiona to inspire its readers to feel sorry... for Scourge. And speaking of Fiona specifically: the subplot of her career as a villain was ill-conceived, was built by using as a cornerstone the A-story of Issue #150 (that quite infamous and widely known story written by Penders where Scourge may or may not have raped Bunnie by deception), and was also seemingly "abandoned" as Fiona ended up merely being Scourge's new abuse victim girlfriend and her status as a traitor didn’t even have a significant emotional effect on the Freedom Fighters.

Flynn also followed something like a pattern of taking tropes from famous works and then using them when writing the comic but not actually understanding why those tropes had worked in the first place. Perhaps the prime example of this was Scourge giving Sonic the Joker's "One Bad Day" speech: it almost felt a bit like giving the same speech to the Batman of Batman vs. Superman, as Sonic had already had a whole "bad decade" and was still a hero despite it; also, Sonic's answer to that speech (telling Scourge it only takes a tiny bit of selflessness and decency for him to be a good person) wasn’t that great, not at all compared to the mildly masterful answer Batman had originally given to the Joker in The Killing Joke, and it even made Sonic look more like a bad judge of character.

Lastly, the entire Mecha Sally Arc was poorly planned, had some contradictions with itself and with previous stories, was stretched through dozens of comic issues no matter if that felt forced, and the main events and plot twists throughout the story arc were heavily based on shock-value without giving any substance to this or making it a bit more sense when putting it under scrutiny; meanwhile, Flynn always seemed to have quite a hard time when writing long story arcs, so these long stories looked like he was trying and outright failing to imitate Toriyama (someone quite known for putting together stories ad-lib according to what seemed most convenient at the time).

Despite this, it looks like those Sonic fans who are still interested in material outside of the videogames will keep buying and reading whatever Ian Flynn or one of his colleagues writes, simply because they’re better than Penders... even though it's been 15 years since Penders wrote something official about Sonic. Seriously, we should have gotten over it by now, instead of continuing to compare all material in the franchise with Penders's work, which sets the bar too low for any official content creator. Now that I think about it, Penders's work is to the North-American Sonic canon what Sonic 2006 is to the videogames: people can criticize the latest games all they want, and rightfully so, but if someone even casually mentions Sonic 2006, any Sonic game from 2010 onwards instantly becomes a masterpiece just for being marginally better than Sonic 2006; the same happens between Penders's work on pre-reboot Archie-Sonic and any other North-American Sonic comic written by Flynn after Penders left.

Right now it looks like it's also forbidden to criticize Flynn as a writer at all just because he's much nicer in his personal life and engages with fans more directly through his podcasts, or because Flynn is truly progressive while Penders claimed to be progressive and a feminist and was affiliated with the USA Democrats but his work showed how misogynistic, perverted, retarded, reactionary and downright sick he was. Also, now saying something about Flynn other than total blind admiration for him and his work, even asking for the Freedom Fighters to return in the IDW comics, has become synonymous with agreeing with those assholes who cry "Rally4Sally" or "Udon4Sonic" on Twitter: "nostalgic" fans of SatAM and Penders's work on Archie, in their 40s or 50s, deeply conservative and absurdly paranoid, who claim that those new inclusive cartoons such as Steven Universe or She-Ra "are ruining their childhood", are mad at Flynn just because he hinted Sally and Nicole may be a lesbian couple (and in a rather platonic way, not even romantic in the traditional sense), and try to justify their own warped ideas and fantasies about SatAM by ignoring any “liberal” political messages SatAM may have had at the subtext level.

[joel-furniss-blog]

Freddie Robins

The medium of textiles is a well-used one in the art community, even through the avenue of traditional clothing. The textiles technician Sue introduced me to the artist Freddie Robins, who tackles the traditional craft of knitting with a lens suited for contemporary arts. Currently positioned as Senior Tutor and Reader in Textiles at the Royal College of Art, London, Robins’ work has been displayed in exhibits in England and around Europe and is hailed for the subversive challenges she presents in her work.

Robins typically works through the medium of wool, specifically knitting her work into what specifications are desired. Some work is no bigger than a few feet, while others scale to human-sized pieces and even larger beyond in the case for sculptures such as Anyway (2002), a large machine knitted soft sculpture consisting of twenty-seven lime green turtlenecks sewn together seamlessly by the arms, hems, and their titular turtlenecks into the imposing shape of a 33 cube that hangs from the ceiling. The previously mentioned sculpture holds a reason of why I originally became interested in Robins’ work, her subversion of both the function and theory in knitting.

The subversion of function and form in the work typically comes in very simple but very engaging ways, for example one of her earlier collections titled Odd Sweaters is built from basically unwearable (or at least undesirable) turtleneck jumpers which include one with two arms in the expected location as well as two on the chest and back, one which completely envelops the hands and head, a jumper in which the sleeves elongate past the wearers feet, another which features a smaller jumper sewn into the hem, and one turtleneck where the turtleneck part extends ridiculously long. These pieces along with other examples of Robins’ work is handled with a playful wit rather than an overwhelming sense of seriousness, which is something I feel personally inspired by as I sometimes find myself taking my project a bit too seriously with too many parameters and explanations, whereas some playful exploration could go a long way.

Robins’ subversion of cornerstone trends in fashion also extends to the theology of her work, as she both bends the relationship between arts and crafts as well as engaging with contemporary trends of both the domestic and gender. Knitting as a craft is intrinsically associated with women, it was originally a craft used almost exclusively by the matriarch of a house and a skill passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter who would use it as a necessity to cloth their children. In its early days, women would often gather to knit collectively in circles as a social ‘watering hole’ where friends would gossip in a safe and exclusively female environment. This has linked it with feminist thought and practice through association, and Robin’s plays with this expertly by channelling the more rebellious aspects of feminism into her work by creating the ‘unwearable’ as a confrontation and ultimately a defiance of the classic trope of the subservient female knitting for the good of the family, as Robins is knitting with no point (or at least no functional point). Due to the female association of knitting as well as its perceived ease, Robins also seeks challenge with knitting’s roots as being a quaint ‘craft’ rather than being accepted as the more respectable art. Robins’ takes the nostalgically attractive craft of knitting and thrusts it into the gallery space with only a few extra amenities to save it from being discarded, with which she asks the patrons and the gallery owners what actually draws the line between craft and art. With the previously mentioned Odd Sweaters, take away the unusual additives and the jumpers become complacent with their standard block of colours and mundane typicality, in other words they have no place at a gallery, but with some extra arms and some exaggerated features suddenly they become worthy of display, which incurs the question of where is acceptable for the gallery owners to draw the line on the spectrum between arts and crafts.

Overall I respect the subversive qualities of Robin’s practice and theory and have found her inspirational to my own work. While the specific issues of gender and crafts are something I don’t engage with personally, the overarching ideas of Robin’s work as well as her utilisation of play and humour are something I will try to pursue within my own work.

[lit--bitch]

‘Hello’ by Crispin Best (2019)

(Disclosure, again: I don’t know Crispin Best, I know I’m “friends with him” on Facebook, but it’s one of those things where random poets/writers/artists add each other on social media platforms and there’s like a weird community in it but we still don’t actually speak to each other? That, basically. Hello is published by Partus Press, which is run by Vala Thorodds and Luke Allan. I don’t know either of them. They specialise in publishing Icelandic and international literature. Hello is a gorgeous book, the cover is like a pastel colour rainbow, I feel like it should taste of marshmallows. The paper is rich, the spine is strong af, it’s just a lovely, satisfying book. Also Partus Press’s website is incredibly pleasing to surf, it’s really slick, their interface is smooth. Buying books on there feels as good as having one of them in your hands. End of suck-up.) 

I have known and loved Crispin Best’s writing since I picked up his pamphlet from Faber New Poets, which my friend Lenni Sanders recommended to me. There was this one line I read and I just fell in love: 

‘I wish for you the perfect banana.’ 

It’s from Crispin’s poem, ‘is it still brunch if i am alone’, and of course it features in Hello. Every time I read it, I get such a great big smile on my face. Because there really is nothing more universally understood than the perfect banana, whatever the perfect banana is to you. (Side note: I like it when the banana’s skin starts to really freckle and yellow up). And images like these are totally emblematic of Crispin Best’s writing, because he has a gift for expressing feelings, in all their variations, within absurd, perfect metaphors that still somehow makes sense.

I mean this in poems like the very first in Hello’s collection, which incidentally is called, ‘Hello’. He writes, ‘i know that i’m here for the moment / that the pickles hit the plate / i’m here for good and to pair your socks / by windowlight’, it’s just so loving, so adoring, so doting. There is nothing more immediate and in-the-moment than pickles hitting the surface of a plate and yet it’s so random. I’m amazed by the assemblage of images in this collection, how the ordinary is so cleverly personified. 

Hello sets out to beautify the triteness of our day-to-day, to kiss the things we sometimes ignore, like the word ‘fireplace’ (p. 42), or how the wind brings your clothes to life (p. 29). It is totally modest in its appreciation of everything, and experiences just about everything as having impact. It is funny, it is sad, it is grateful. It is a kind book. 

There is an inherent “now-ness” in Hello. As I read each poem, I felt like I was in there, in every room, looking at every landscape, looking over the ‘I’s’ shoulder. It’s synonymous in the form that the poetry takes. 

A lot of Crispin’s work is rooted in Internet culture, and this is plain as day in Hello, you can see how the Internet permeates through into the language and formatting of the writing. Most of the poems read like you would if you were receiving texts from somebody. Grammatical rules are thrown out the window, capitalisation is minimal. For many of us, when we’re texting, we’re not adhering to the rules of language, y’know, we’re not punctuating every sentence with proper full stops, or commas. This is evident in ‘what do i know’: 

i love it when poems  are dead and the light  creeps under the door and not too far away something important is about to be crushed  by that beautiful truck 

There is a tightness to the work, which restricts where we look across the page. This technique, I think, recreates the action of the infinite scroll. We scroll down with our eyes, like we do with our thumbs, or fingers. Even the line-breaks mimic the dimensions of a phone screen, that rectangulation. It’s rare that sentences ever exceed half the length of this A5 book’s pages. 

Sometimes I think this SMS-written style in Crispin’s poetry intimates other characteristics of texting-culture. A lot his poems are a mish-mash of images and thoughts which are relative to the sometimes anomalous-ness of texting correspondence. Not every conversation we have with someone over text starts with hello, nor ends with goodbye, and a lot of the time, conversations are staggered by minutes, hours, even days. If you were to visually recreate this in real-time, it’d be the equivalent of somebody saying something to you, standing there for 5 hours or however long you don’t speak for, and then finally responding. It’s such an absurdity that Crispin contains within these non-sequitur images: ‘if you can’t do the crime / don’t do the crime / and don’t thank me for the birthday wishes / please / just let me grow my beans’ (from ‘don’t call it a dream’). It’s hilarious—I can’t always understand why one sentence follows its predecessor in the way it does—this is absolutely intentional, though it might not be for the reasons I’ve interpreted. These non-sequiturs mirror the jagged, staggered incontinuity of how we sometimes interact online. And whilst they can distort and confuse the readability of the poetry, these non-sequiturs are a cornerstone to the collection’s confessionalism. In masking oneself behind these blurted, odd utterances, the ‘I’s awkward disposition is revealed. It promises to open up, slowly, someday. And it makes these promises in wonderful, subtle ways. Like ‘poem at the dinner table’: 

here is the thing:  the real reason i don’t let people get close to me is this faux denim shirt i’m scared that  they will be able to tell [...]  here is the thing:  there are even tiny movements  of your fingers that i don’t  completely understand  [...] here is the thing:  between the boiler’s ticks  i hear you whisper that you had a hunch  about the shirt from this great distance i make my arms the perfect length

The realism in this poem really makes me smile. In just simple fragments, the ‘I’ says so much in a short, modest description. I understand the scene, simply denoted by the title, ‘poem at the dinner table’. The great thing about this stanza is how it’s prefaced by such seriousness: ‘here is the thing / the real reason i don’t let people / get close to me’. You’re misled into thinking that a sincere confession will follow, and it does, but not quite in the way you thought: ‘/ is this faux denim shirt’. The faux denim shirt—an analogy for the object of his insecurity in looking worth more than he actually is. The subversion is funny, but it equally intimates the personage’s insecurity about expressing what he really means, how he really feels, his shyness. By the end of the poem you find that the ‘I’ has acquainted himself with someone who understands, someone who helps him feel his wholeness again, and he jumps the distance. All of this is at the dinner table. And it’s in the spirit of the vernacular that Crispin Best does what he does, best, which is to take the ordinary and load it with meaningful subtexts, implying something much deeper is going on.

I was going to talk about ‘centralia’ last, because it’s my fav poem in the book. But there’s something about the structure of ‘centralia’ which intersects my previous point regarding the value in the ordinary. 

‘centralia’ feels more like a section of the collection, rather than a poem. It’s 20 pages long and yet it’s only 405 words... I think. Might be a couple more or less. I was sad enough to count (but I’m shit at counting). How does a 405-word poem last 20 pages? Well, ‘centralia’ is made up of ellipsis which to me have a dualistic function in this poem: firstly they recreate the action of texting in real-time. You know when somebody’s texting you back and that little bubble comes up with three dots? The ‘...’? It’s kind of like that, except that there’s a superfluous amount of ellipsis which take up the whole space of the page, and they’re structured in such a way to form shapes and undulating curves bound by short quips of writing. The function of ellipsis is to omit words, sentences or whole paragraphs from a text without compromising the overall meaning. They can indicate unfinished thoughts or pauses. In ‘centralia’ they illustrate the  series of written images which roll on from each other almost act like random, yet successive thoughts. But the ellipsis here doesn’t just precede the literary antecedent, it also succeeds it. The effect slows down the writing, and I read this piece very, very, slowly, as if to consider the ellipsis and the writing as inextricably bound, that the dots were were words in and of themselves. ‘centralia’ boasts some of my favourite lines in the work, like: 

‘....today we’re going to talk about.......... / / / ........ how it feels to be ......... / / / / / / ...........how even a low moon....................... / / / can paint a bridge on a lake...........’ 

 ‘........picture a passion fruit........ / / / ..........why is it called that name... / / / ..............my only kink................ / is having my clothes blown off.......... / ...........by a leaf blower.............’ 

and, 

‘..........i like things like...... / / ........how fast you climb the stairs.............. / / / like how werewolves............ / ..............don’t kill people................ / / / / / / .........full moons do............ / / / / / / / ............ like how ............. / / ........... you can just....... / / .............wear a pair................. / ............of trousers................ / / / ..........and people will assume............... / / .................they are................ / / / / .......................your trousers.......’

Obviously the way I’ve typed these particular parts out doesn’t do the format justice (you’ll have to buy the book to properly get a look) but I wonder if other people find themselves reading the text slowly as a consequence of this form. 

‘centralia’ makes such beautiful and original observations about the things in which we take for granted, or things we don’t necessarily think twice about. It unpicks clichés, employs humour, it thinks laterally, by this I mean lines like ‘what if cum is ghosts’ ...  'centralia’ is like a whole collection within itself. It also makes for great Twitter material. It comes back to appreciating the immediacy of things around you besides what flags up on a phone screen, and that’s inherent in the way Crispin speaks to ‘you’. You just have to stop and enjoy the writing, in the same way you ought to stop and enjoy the world around you, as fleeting as it is:

(from nature poem) we’re here realise that at every moment you’re the only visible part of        an almost infinite conga line  ok now imagine crying while wearing cargo shorts it’s hard to do  tonight we share a rocking chair toothpaste this blue-orange night sky

And you can’t help but feel as if you’re being directly addressed as a reader in the work, even though some poems are defined by their context; it’s clear some are break-up poems, lamentations on loss, or to Barack Obama. In some pieces, it seems like Hello is imploring us (the readers) to see reason, and catch up with ourselves, to contemplate the tangibility of what’s around us and remove ourselves from the artificialities of the virtual. I feel like this is evident in other poems like ‘🐬 but do dolphins want to swim with me ’ (the dolphin emoji in the book actually faces the other way and is a black silhouette). 

the cooking apples / have long gone brown / on the  countertop / nights arrive like iguanas in suits / and with  them the long dream / on a beach / where a pop-up notification / blocks the sunset / these poems are the kiddie pools / i inflate while i’m alive

We’re confronted by these sorts of messages about social media all the time, like “take a break from your phone”, and it’s sort of an overdone cliché now, like the way people talk about bubble baths and retail therapy as ‘self-care’. Crispin approaches these clichés in his work but he does it in an unexpected, refreshing way, like imagine if a pop-up notification actually blocked the sunset. Again, it’s like, ‘put down the fucking phone, stop letting it get in the way of other things, stop letting myself get in the way of things taking their natural course’. This piece is a case for living without the reminder of one’s phone, a dissuasion of our present-day lifestyle gripped by the constant need to notified by blue-light disturbances. It asserts that is what is most healthy to us is the stuff we can physically touch. Tangibility is our final currency over which nobody else has any jurisdiction. Some things are more tangible and real and specific than others, and it’s up to us to choose and define that for ourselves. 

Hello reminds me a lot of an ex I had a while ago. He didn’t have a lot of things, but he did hoard a lot of weird, random stuff, y’know like actual rubbish that needed to go in the bin, biscuit wrappers for example. When I stopped to observe why he kept these things, it seemed to me that it was because he’d glean more from a memory in a biscuit wrapper, than he might from a photograph of a loved one. He was invested in this vernacular trash we share together as human beings, rather than the typical artefacts we traditionally use to create memories, i.e. photo albums, or personal diaries. For him, it was like there was something much more profound, intimate, and vivid in sharing a packet of hobnobs together, than say taking a selfie at a pub. I feel like that’s something Crispin Best also shares in common with his “ode” in ‘io’: o tub girl in the rain / o modern american poetry / [...] / o fisher price / o fiddlesticks / [...] / o curly wurly wrapper / o nokia 3210 / o crepitating autumn leaf / o mars bar ice cream in september and the rain’. We can take comfort in these things, because they do, in a way, bring more order to our confusing truths, to the bewilderment of ourselves. We can confide in them and nourish ourselves in their familiarity, and keep on living, because like us, they too are objects and beings of impermanence in a trashy, ever-changing, impermanent world. 

This is best summed by two lines in Hello. Page 16, in ‘one good thing’: 

one good thing  about being alive is the view

and from ‘io’ again, page 92:

when i die  know that i died how i lived:  not wanting to die 

In life’s disposabilities, in the changing faces of the moon, in the oscillations between heartbreak, self-loathing, wheezing with laughter, eating pizza and sitting transfixed by a lover, life is still, well, life. Life is implied in these momentary consumptions and feelings. In fact, life is made better by them, as well as eggs and books, snowballs and party rings. Crispin Best’s poetry is contemplative, thankful and admirable. You can sit with his writing and appreciate it in the same way one might appreciate tulips or butterflies. You don’t necessarily have to understand it, but just be present with it, for now. It’s about taking stock, and loving every inch of your boring, amazing life.  Hello has made perfect timing in our current predicament, felt by the world all over. In times like these, you need books like Hello. You need these soft lamentations and appreciations. You need these written reassurances. Hello is like being gently stroked as you wake up from a weird dream. It’s comfort food writing, where when you’re caught up in the chaos of our present-day, you’re reminded to slow down and look, and I mean really look. It’s a wonderful debut collection that is a testament to Crispin Best’s talent. 

If this review’s won you over, then you can buy Hello from Partus Press here, follow them here and find Crispin Best all over the Internet via his website here. 

[ruffoverthinksthings]

I've thoroughly enjoyed the Claudine/Frollo headcannons, do you have any in mind for Esmeralda/Phoebus? If the sequel movies are wiped from this universe, that means their son doesn't exist (or not yet). Also, do you have another headcannon for onesided fresme on frollo's part? How would he handle being unable to obtain her in this universe?

Ilike to believe the sequels and spin-offs are valid, as the bookseries (which is, as of the Rise of the Isle of the Lost, is canon…to a certain extent) makes reference to characters that could onlyexist outside of the original movies, such as:

Diegode Vil, presumably the child of Ivy de Vil from the 101 DalmatiansTV series, or a descendant from the rest of the extended de Vilfamily, and

Jade,Jay’s cousin and presumably the daughter of Nasira, Jafar’ssister from the Aladdin video game series

There’sa level of personal bias, with the amount of work I’ve already putinto expanding the world with my own ideas, but I think we can allagree that the Isle and Auradon would be a whole lot less interestingif we didn’t have the likes of:

Mozenrath(Aladdin animated series) acting as Maleficent’s longsuffering middle manager, and personal chew toy as an “inferiormagical being,”

LadyWaltham (Tarzan animated series) adding an element of sympathyto the Isle of the Lost with her regretting her brother Clayton andher nephew are still on there and unable to return, and

LadyCaine (Tangled: Before Ever After), who adds a deliciouselement of grayness and a MASSIVE stain on the otherwise pristinereputation all sympathetic Disney monarchs have.

Ontothe headcanons:

Phoebusbecomes one of the new Captains of the Guard in France once theoriginal forces are merged with, or completely replaced by the newlyestablished Auradon Royal Guard. Though the actual administrative andexecutive power lies much higher up the ranks (such as theCommander-In-Chief, Beast), he himself is an incredibly influentialmember, well-known and well-loved by the citizenship and the fellowsoldiers he patrols the streets with.

Auradonhad to rely heavily on translators, human and machine, or translatingmagic during its tumultuous first years, as everyone struggled tofind one common language for every state to use as the internationalstandard (it’s English still). A LOT of things get lost intranslation or don’t translate too good into another language, orsomeone gets VERY offended when someone who is fluent in both Frenchand Chinese tells you exactly what they meant, and howunflattering it is.

Andthis isn’t even going into all the numerous cultural clashes andfaux paus, such as one unfortunate Louisiana chef realizing you’renot supposed to serve pork to most Agrahbans until he was alreadyuncovering the dish...

Phoebusbridges the gap through his calm, professional demeanor, alwaysshowing politeness and civility to everyone whoever they may be, andof course, his sense of humour, given “a real workout” when hehas to figure out how to make someone laugh with universallyunderstood comedy (someone falling face first into a pile of horsedung), non-verbal humour (wearing a silly, pink, fuzzy bunny earswhilst on duty), and using simple plays on word that foreigners caneasily get, or are tailored specifically to their language.

“Inever quite realized eggs could be such a huge source of humour,”he muses when he has to speak to Spanish speaking citizens.

However,his usefulness quickly dwindled as the culture clashes settled down,people started learning English, and of course, the already olderPhoebus found himself growing ever older and unable to keep up withthe rapid pace of advancement and pop culture references in Auradon,not to mention his disadvantage of “not being gifted a smartphonefor my first birthday.”

Hehas an incredibly cushy administrative position that pays well,commands respect from his soldiers still, and gives him great hoursto spend with his family and other pursuits, but as he’s no longergoing out (or being allowed) on patrols and interacting personallywith the people in his jurisdiction, he can’t help but wonder ifhe’s just being eased into the idea of retirement, and Auradon issimply too nice to boot him for the much feared “chainsaw HR” ofsome corporations from BGU London.

(Forthose not familiar with the term, “chainsaw HR” is when entiredivisions, and numbers into the hundreds are suddenly, and oftentimeswithout proper recompense or retirement packages, fired or forcedinto early retirement.

It’sa play on the term “axed” for being suddenly fired, and chainsawsbeing a modern, much more efficient tool for the same job as aliteral ax.)

It’ssafe to say that at the age of 55 or so, and having already lived oneillustrious career then a brief revival, he’s having a midlifecrisis, not helped by the fact that many other Auradonians about hisage are feeling as obsolete as last year’s ayGem.

(“Butit came out just a year ago!”

“Yeah,but they updated to a new, much better firmware and hardwarearchitecture, all the hot new apps don’t even bother with legacyupdates.”)

Esmerelda has fared much better.

Shehas become an activist in this world, using the power of theinternet, the normalization of the “other,” and the erasure ofthe national and ethnic boundaries that once separated communities tohelp her fellow Romani people (I won’t use “gypsies,” as that’san offensive term to them), and other marginalized, and forgottengroups, such as much of the Wild Fae population.

Shealso owns and teaches at a dance studio, using them to train the nextgeneration of performers (“Be they for the street, the stage, orthe screen”), and waging a subtle campaign to remove the stigma forblatant and shameless use of sexuality.

I’vealways known Auradon is a conservative wet dream in many respects,and the fact that ripping a tiny tear in your skirt is considered“scandalous” by teenagers says a lot.

Beforeyou ask, YES, Esmerelda is still as desired and lusted afternow as she was BGU—probably even more so, now that we have thecombined populations of all the states, and she is a very popular andcommon presence on the internet.

Beforeyou also ask, Phoebus has long gotten over it and considers it “partof the package.”

Sheis one of the most knowledgeable and well-versed with moderntechnology out of the “Travellers” (Auradonians who were adultsor close to it Before Great Uniting), seeing as her troupe ofperformers have always been highly adaptable and all to ready to dowhatever it takes to survive, fit in with the locale they have foundthemselves in, and afterwards, thrive.

Thatthey have generally relied on being couriers and brokers ofinformation, and the internet basically being a giant free market ofinformation has helped GREATLY.

Withher religion, she still isn’t 100% on the existence of God, onlyever praying to Him during times of crisis or as a show of good faithwith the religious institutions of Auradon, but the Greek Pantheonhas given her hope that Supreme Beings like Him do exist.

“Atthe very least, He’s been very light on throwing down lightningbolts from up on high.”

(Thoughmuch less murderous and many other negative traits than the original,Disney Zeus is still INCREDIBLY fond of “warning shots.”)

Andonce more, before you ask, I can seriously see her making a cameo inthe canon as a guest dance instructor for the Descendants, if sheisn’t already a full-time staff member of Auradon Prep, and yes,she would definitely mentor Evie by showing her much healthier waysof expressing her sexuality and femininity without feeling like she’sdegrading herself, or turning herself into a “slab of meat in thebutcher’s window.”

Zephyrwas born BGU, and if my idea that the states had been communicatingfor a few years before the idea of fusing is canon, has a veryunique perspective of being a “Traveler Tot,” living with theideas and concepts imported over through the portals andcommunication crystals, before he got to live it in Auradon when thetechnology and materials could be more easily accessed and produced.

Heis still hyperactive and excitable as ever, though most of that wasbeing channeled into a combination of soldier training and becoming acircus performer like his parents; in his mind, there really isn’tmuch difference between the two, as they both require incrediblephysical skill and endurance, a sharp and creative mind, andrelentless, dedicated training, day-in, day-out.

“Itall really comes down to what you mean when you say you ‘slayedthem,’” he says.

Thisquickly changes in Auradon when he finds himself addicted to HeroRising, the video game that Carlos was seen playing during hisfirst night in Auradon. While initially Phoebus sees it as a good wayfor him to blow off all his excess energy and get some physicaltraining done, and Esmerelda tolerates it as he’s not going offstealing and rearranging stop signs, it evolves into something muchmore for him in time.

Atfirst, he’s the best player on the block, then in theneighbourhood, then the school, then the city, then the state, andfinally, one of the Hall of Famers in Auradon. As he grows older, hejust barely passes his high school subjects as a conditional for hissponsors support and working with the Hero Rising developersas a PR person, community idol AKA a “Paragon,” and beta tester.The height of his fame and success comes when the latest release,Hero Rising: The Lost Legion, features a new playablecharacter based off of him, and his unique dance-like fighting style:

“Twister.”

Trueto the name, his life is sent into a spin cycle after that.

Afew years pass, a new Hero Rising is released, and everyone isgushing over the new characters, and Twister gives up his place onthe cover art alongside the series “cornerstones” to give them achance to shine.

NewParagons are brought in as the old guard goes off to college, retiresfrom the business into different, less-demanding pursuits, or isquietly given a send-off as they simply aren’t as salable nor asgood as they were a few years ago.

Zephyrquickly realizes that while he’s still got it, these new kids areinsane, and have so many advantages he didn’t, like muchbetter nutrition, a much more generous school schedule, and havingthe infrastructure, the audience, and the sponsors for Hero RisingParagons already there, rather than helping spearhead them.

Hecontinues on, making less and less public appearances, awkwardlybeing one of the only adult Paragons in crowds increasingly filledwith little kids and teenagers, and new characters based off the newParagons get the spotlight.

“Everyonealready knows Twister, and played him to death in all the specialinstance maps, the players want someone new!”

Thedeath-knell of his career and the cold, hard slap from Reality comeswhen Twister is removed from the roster due to development costs, andthe fact that Zephyr’s fees and royalties were considered too highfor the relatively lower cost of a new, fresh face who the fans aremuch more eager to see digitized.

Heand Phoebus both find themselves facing obsolescence, being leftbehind by a world that has simply moved too fast for them and leftthem in its dust, as they were only ever good at one thing each:fighting, either real bad guys or fictional ones.

Andso, with Esmerelda’s love and support, the two go off to reeducatethemselves and train in the new industries and careers Auradondemands, incidentally becoming the inspiration for the blockbusterfeel good movie of eight years from this time of writing:

“WithHonours”

Thestory of how a father and son went back to college, forced to startfrom scratch in a brand new world, learning new tricks, makingstrange friends, and doing a whole lot of growing up they didn’tknow they still needed to do.

Nowonto Frollo:

Helaments his permanent loss of Esmerelda (unlike the other Villains,he harbours no fantasies of Claudine getting him off the Isle—notwhen there’s still so much Good Work to be done here in this landof Sinners and Nonbelievers), and takes the disastrous results of hisobsession and lusting after her as a cautionary tale, the catastrophethat befalls those who turn away from God and the Right Path, and howthey take the whole world down with them.

Publicly,he is “that” preacher yelling about modesty, the sanctity ofmarriage and sexuality, and how pretty much everyone on theIsle is damned for engaging in such scandalous, salacious acts likepremarital sex, sexual intercourse without the intention ofprocreation, and of course, homosexuality.

Privately,he seeks a form of redemption by raising a good, Christian child inClaudine, the child he would have born with Esmerelda and raised ifcircumstances had been different (yeee-eep), and is looking for awoman with whom he can have a much healthier relationship with, toshow someone from this Isle what marriage and the word “love”truly means than the perversion the Islanders have turned it into.

Asboth Claudine and Not Esmerelda will attest to, he’s failedmiserably on both counts, but as usual, is blissfully unaware ofeither.

[greatdrams]

Chivas Regal announces winners to compete in Chivas Masters Global Final

Chivas Regal, the world’s first luxury whisky, has revealed the 15 national winners who will compete to be crowned the 2017 Chivas Masters Global Champion, at the Chivas Masters Global Final taking place next month in Tokyo.

Now in its fourth year, the 2017 Chivas Masters Global Final (1st – 5th July) will focus for the first time on the celebrated traditions of Tokyo’s bartending scene – whose unique cocktail customs continue to fascinate and inspire bartenders across the world. Throughout the week, the contestants will take part in a number of individual and team challenges, and will need to showcase both exemplary bartending skills and team spirit to impress the judges.

The 15 finalists, who have each excelled in their national competitions running across four continents, will be hosted in Tokyo by Masahiro Urushido, the first ever Chivas Masters Global Champion. They will be mentored by a distinguished panel of internationally-acclaimed judges, who will share their expertise through a series of inspirational masterclasses.  The panel comprises:

Iain Griffiths, hospitality industry pioneer and co-founder of Mr Lyan Ltd;

Micah Melton, beverage director at the Alinea Group (Aviary Chicago & NY) and renowned ‘ice chef’;

Chris Lowder, spirits evangelist and ‘New York’s Rising Star Bartender 2015’ (StarChefs);

Dré Masso, ex-director of bars for the Potato Head Group in Bali, Jakarta, Singapore and Hong Kong; worldwide Cocktail Mentor and spirit creator

Rogerio Igarashi Vaz, owner of Tokyo’s Tram & Trench, celebrating the modern interpretation of Japanese bartending

Max Warner, Global Brand Ambassador for Chivas Regal, comments: “Our 15 national winners have already hugely impressed us with both their skill and character, but there’s still much more to do if they want to be crowned our 2017 Chivas Masters Global Champion. The values of community, collaboration and generosity lie at the very heart of this competition, and successful participants must not only impress a world-renowned panel of judges, but demonstrate that they embody these values every step of the way.”

The Chivas Masters cocktail competition is built on Chivas’ belief that great bartending is measured not only by the achievements of an individual, but by the ability to work in harmony with others. The ultimate winner will not only impress with their individual bartending skills, but – crucially – will also prove their ability to work collaboratively with an international bartending team, and inspire others to achieve shared success, through the Chivas Masters Collective team challenge.

Max Warner continues: “I cannot wait to put our contestants through their paces in Tokyo, and see who will walk away with the 2017 title – and beyond that, watch as they, together with their Chivas Masters Collective, take what they have learned to further develop and inspire their bartending communities back home.”

The 2017 Chivas Masters Global Champion will be decided on the evening of Wednesday 5th July, and will win an all-access, all-expenses-paid trip to Tales of The Cocktail 2017 in New Orleans. The winning Chivas Masters Collective team will walk away with the pinnacle of the range, Chivas Regal The Icon, presented in a bespoke decanter with customised Japanese glassware.

Meet the 2017 Chivas Masters Global Finalists

Sandra Šalatová (Czech Republic)

Prague’s Sandra Šalatová has already achieved the remarkable feat of qualifying for the final by winning her first ever major competition – the Czech Republic regional heat. Sandra now has her eyes firmly set on a new first, becoming the first ever female Chivas Masters Global Champion.

“So far I would consider my biggest achievement to be reaching the final, competing alongside some of the greatest bartenders in the world. I’m going to go one better in Tokyo, as I hope to be crowned the first woman to win the Chivas Masters.”

Ryan Nightingale (Hong Kong)

Representing Hong Kong, Ryan Nightingale loves the variety of bartending, experienced both through the drinks that he makes, and in the exciting mix of customers coming through the door. With plentiful experience of crafting his own creations, Ryan takes his greatest enjoyment from watching his customers enjoy what he has worked tirelessly to perfect.

“The constant aim for perfection is a cornerstone of the Japanese bar community. I’m heading to Tokyo ready to gain a better understanding of this, which I then hope to express in my final serves.”

Atsushi Suzuki (China)

Having started bartending as a means to an end as a 17 year old, China’s Atsushi Suzuki’s work behind the bar has rapidly developed into a career that has enabled him to travel the world. Runner-up in 2016’s Chivas Masters China heat, Atsushi went one better in 2017, and now has his sights set firmly on Tokyo.

“Teamwork and respect are definitely a must to run a bar well. But for me the most crucial aspect to bar work is the desire to learn.”

Masato Sakurai (Japan)

Masato Sakurai first encountered cocktail-making after the tragic passing of his grandfather, devoting his time to craft his skill as a bartender to help him deal with the grief. As a proud son of Japan, and with the hometown support fully behind him, Masato is hoping to honour his grandfather’s faith in him by being crowned the 2017 Chivas Masters Global Champion.

“I am obviously determined to be crowned Chivas Masters Global Champion, however the greatest experience that I can take away from the final will be the brotherhood that I will gain with my fellow finalists.”

Benjamin Boyce (United Arab Emirates)

Like many of this year’s finalists, Benjamin Boyce’s first experience of bartending was a chance encounter, which has blossomed into a fruitful and impassioned career. For Benjamin, the key to success for any bar team is the application of the three Ts: training, teamwork and trust.

“The Chivas Masters is an amazing opportunity to learn from the experiences of different bartenders, all coming from a wide range of countries and cultures, to experience Japanese culture, and to have a lot of fun while doing so.”

Hyacinthe Lescoët (France)

Parisian Hyacinthe Lescoët thrives amidst the pressures of his craft, providing everyday creativity in a socially demanding and highly competitive environment. But above all else, the greatest value that Hyacinthe finds in bartending is achieving the appreciation of those around him.

“Great bartending is all about passion and sharing. Once those are instilled in your work, the rest will flow.”

Wouter Bosch (The Netherlands)

Winner of the regional final in The Netherlands, philosophy graduate Wouter Bosch’s love for bartending centres upon the memories and experiences that his drinks create. Rather than be the star of the show himself, Wouter’s bartending style is all about letting the drink do the talking.

“Nothing is as rewarding as having people coming up to the bar and telling you that you've made their night. I'm inspired by that, and hope to create many lasting experiences for my guests.”

Adam Schmidt (USA)

Representing the USA, New York native Adam Schmidt enjoys mixing his sense of humour into his drinks. Having previously spent time exploring Barcelona’s vibrant cocktail scene, Adam can’t wait to get out of his comfort zone again in Tokyo.

“What inspired me to be a bartender? As a youngster I had a part-time job dishwashing in a local bar. To me it always looked like the bartenders were having the most fun. I was right.”

Rhys Wilson (United Kingdom)

An actor by trade, the UK’s Rhys Wilson’s bartending style stems from his belief that performance on the stage, and that behind the bar, are not too dissimilar. Rhys is already looking forward to all that he can take away from the experience in Tokyo, especially having the opportunity to collaborate with his fellow finalists.

“A great bar is not just about what's in the glass, it's about the whole show. I love taking care of my audience and putting on a great show for them.”

Aloisek Rodríguez Martínez (Cuba)

Winner of the national final in Cuba, Aloisek Rodríguez Martínez is a bartending purist. The art of mixology is Aloisek’s greatest passion, allowing him to showcase his creativity and share the pride that he has for his culture.

“A great bar team is one in which everyone is working for the same purpose and vision, making each individual bartender a complement of the other.”

Abner Barrientos (Puerto Rico)

Having originally taken up bar work to support his studies, Abner Barrientos’ perfectionist qualities were realised through bartending, soon transforming into a passion for the trade. Abner’s flexible and open outlook to his work has enabled him to embrace new cultures and perspectives from all of the customers that he has served on his bartending journey.

“As a bartender, every day is a challenge, however every challenge should be viewed as an opportunity to grow and develop.”

Patryk Biadacz (Poland)

Poland’s Patryk Biadacz place in the final is the culmination of ten years of hard work crafting his bartending skill. Patryk’s passion for the trade stems from his love for every aspect of bar work, and he is eager to prove that in Tokyo

“Just like the mixing of cocktails, a perfect balance of ingredients is crucial to a great bar team.”

Daniel Huggins (Germany)

As Germany’s representative in the global final, Daniel Huggins’ love for the craft of cocktail-making is cemented by his passion for hosting – forever seeking to provide the perfect experience for his customers. For Daniel, the camaraderie and respect found within bartending is what makes it so special.

“I want to be known as a bartender with empathy and expertise, always willing to turn your evening into a great experience.”

Roger Grüter (Switzerland)

Hailing from Basel, Roger Grüter is dedicated to perfecting his craft as an expert cocktail-maker, a dream that he hopes will come true in Tokyo. Roger is looking at the final as an opportunity to enhance his bartending skills, taking away all that he can from the much-revered Japanese culture.

“Attentiveness and authenticity are key ingredients to the cocktail experience. I always work to ensure that my guests leave happier than they came.”

Haydée Barron Flores (Mexico)

With dreams of being considered an ambassador of Mexican bartending, Haydée Barron Flores’ love for her work comes from the creativity that it allows her, and then having the opportunity to share her creations with others and witness the moment that the drinks create first-hand.

“In learning my craft I believe that I have learnt more about myself, my flaws and my strengths. It has all lead me to this moment – the chance to represent my country in the Chivas Masters Global Final.”

  The post Chivas Regal announces winners to compete in Chivas Masters Global Final appeared first on GreatDrams.

from GreatDrams http://ift.tt/2tbnto2 Greg

[wellesleyunderground]

A Celebration of Female Authorship

March 8th is International Womens’ day and as alumni of Wellesley College, we believe in celebrating female accomplishments everyday. We’ve reached out the Wellesley community for their suggestions on which fierce female authors have inspired them through the ages. We had an overwhelming response so we’ll be posting more of these compilations in the months to come.

Author

Toni Morrison

Title

Beloved

Nominated by

Victoria Hills '14

Nomination Notes

I've read most of Morrison's novels and really liked or full-on loved  all of them -- but Beloved is my favourite. It's possibly the most powerful  book I've ever read: beautiful, disturbing, frightening, wrenching, tender.  It changed my understanding of both slavery and novels' possibilities and  limitations.

Synopsis

Staring  unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms  history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.  Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is ��still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm  where so many hideous things happened. Her new home is haunted by the ghost  of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single  word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope,  Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison

Author

Elena Ferrante

Title

The Neapolitan Novels

Nominated by

Clare Minnies '07

Nomination Notes

I think these books are amazing in how they portray the experience of  the female characters in the books and their experiences within their female  friendships. While also laying bare the undercurrent of male violence towards  women. The books manage to weave domestic violence, and sexual assault, and  sexuality, and what intelligence and success mean, together seamlessly.

Synopsis

The Neapolitan Novels is a 4-part series by the Italian  novelist Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein and published by Europa  Editions (New York). They include the texts: My Brilliant Friend (2012), The  Story of a New Name (2013), Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2014), and  The Story of the Lost Child (2015). The series follows the lives of two  perceptive and intelligent girls, Elena (sometimes called “Lenù”) Greco and  Raffaella (“Lila”) Cerullo, from childhood to adulthood as they try to create  lives for themselves amidst the violent and stultifying culture of their  home– a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Italy.[3] The novels  are narrated by Elena Greco. (From Wikipedia)

Author

Mary Roach

Title

Bonk

Nominated by

Jess Planos '10

Nomination Notes

Mary Roach is the queen of footnotes and the reason I know as many  random facts about death, the esophagus, and the science of sex. As a fellow  trivia junkie, I love her endless enthusiasm for the wormholes of science  specializations. She brings such life to her topics, and creates real  characters out of her interviewees—usually people who don't get much  mainstream attention. I never know what her next book will cover, but I'm  always first in line to pick it up.

Synopsis

The  study of sexual physiology - what happens, and why, and how to make it happen  better - has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as  far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken  place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig  farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic. In 'Bonk', Roach  shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex,  delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to  achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more  satisfying place.

Author

Octavia Butler

Title

Kindred

Nominated by

Vicky Austin 1979

Nomination Notes

Maybe the only African American female scifi author, but in any event  one of the best

Synopsis

The  first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a  cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir,  fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity.  Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an  African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time  into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds  herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the  present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying  episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been  given: to protect this young slaveholder until he can father her own  great-grandmother.

Author

Nicole Yoon

Title

The Sun is  Also a Star

Nominated by

Meredith Fenton '98

Nomination Notes

WOC YA author who writes compelling narratives about diverse characters

Synopsis

Over the course of a single day in New York City, two  teenagers who have nothing in common randomly meet and fall in love. Now I  know that sounds absurdly cliché, but somehow in Nicola Yoon’s hands, it  doesn’t read that way. Natasha is a practical young woman trying to keep her  family from being deported in a matter of hours. Daniel is a poet at heart,  but on this day he is dutifully making good on his familial commitment to a  college interview. The two are inexplicably drawn to each other and somehow  their paths keep converging. The novel is told in alternating points of view,  and one of the special touches of Yoon’s book are the chapters narrated by  people who are unintentionally part of Natasha and Daniel’s story, mirroring  our almost spooky interconnectedness. The Sun is Also a Star is a  thought-provoking story of possibility, fate, and the illogical beauty of  love. --Seira Wilson, The Amazon Book Review

Author

Helen Oyeyemi

Title

Boy Snow Bird

Nominated  by

Victoria Hills '14

Nomination  Notes

Tough to assign Oyeyemi a genre -- fantasy, literary fiction, magical  realism? Her novels confuse me; plots and characters unfold slowly, and it's  usually difficult to decipher either until late in the book. But her language  is so lovely, her stories so quirky and unique, that the reward is always  greater than the effort expended to figure out what the f is going on.

Synopsis

(Boy Snow  Bird) Novak turns twenty and decides to try for a brand-new life. Flax Hill,  Massachusetts, isn’t exactly a welcoming town, but it does have the virtue of  being the last stop on the bus route she took from New York. Flax Hill is  also the hometown of Arturo Whitman – craftsman, widower, and father of Snow.  SNOW is mild-mannered, radiant and deeply cherished – exactly the sort of little  girl Boy never was, and Boy is utterly beguiled by her. If Snow displays a  certain inscrutability at times, that’s simply a characteristic she shares  with her father, harmless until Boy gives birth to Snow’s sister, Bird. When  BIRD is born Boy is forced to re-evaluate the image Arturo’s family have  presented to her, and Boy, Snow and Bird are broken apart. Sparkling with wit  and vibrancy, Boy, Snow, Bird is a deeply moving novel about three women and  the strange connection between them. It confirms Helen Oyeyemi’s place as one  of the most original and dynamic literary voices of her generation.

 Editors’ Choice:

Author

L.M. Montgomery

Title

Anne of  Green Gables

Nominated by

Rebecca Danos '98

Nomination Notes

Anne is true to herself, spirited, and is always trying to be positive  and improve herself. She makes mistakes but doesn't let them keep her down.  And she has a great sense of humour. She is ambitious and doesn't allow her  initial grim circumstances from stymieing her. The classic underdog who rises  above her obstacles using her intelligence and imagination and finds success  on her own terms and in the process enchants everyone around her with her  quirky magic.

Synopsis

Everyone's  favorite redhead, the spunky Anne Shirley, begins her adventures at Green  Gables, a farm outside Avonlea, Prince Edward Island. When the freckled girl  realizes that the elderly Cuthberts wanted to adopt a boy instead, she begins  to try to win them and, consequently, the reader, over.

Author

Yangsze  Choo

Title

The Ghost Bride

Nominated by

Hoi-Fei Mok '10

Nomination Notes

WOC YA author. A fantasy story based in Chinese mythology of the  afterlife/ghosts and set in pre-colonial Malaya. Great storytelling and  imagination.

Synopsis

Li  Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But  fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and  powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's  only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced,  a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a  union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a  terrible price

Author

Tamora Pierce

Title

Circle of  Magic (Series)

Nominated by

Mijeong Takahashi '12

Nomination Notes

Kickbutt characters. I like the Circle Universe collection because of  the diverse characters and their relationships

Synopsis

Circle of Magic is a quartet of fantasy novels by Tamora  Pierce, set in Emelan, a fictional realm in a pseudo-medieval and renaissance  era. It revolves around four young mages, each specializing in a different  kind of magic, as they learn to control their extraordinary and strong powers  and put them to use. (Wiki)

Author

Cheryl Strayed

Title

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Nominated by

Tiffany Chan '15

Nomination Notes

I have always felt as though Cheryl's memoirs demonstrate how she  lived her life absolutely unapologetically, despite consequences. I have a  huge amount of respect for her complete honesty about her own imperfection  and vulnerability in her writing. And of course, she undertook a Herculean  task that she was not at all prepared for. But nevertheless she persisted and  to a fantastically motivational result.

Synopsis

At  twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of  her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon  destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most  impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only  by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest  Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington  State — and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling  with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of  one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened,  strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

[queerenteen]

⚡️ Movies?

Zindagi na milegi dobara--Please, this is my favourite Bollywood movie of all time. It's about three friends who go on a bachelor vacation through Spain and it's just one of the most well thought out movies ever?

It's beautiful, the videography is amazing, the characters are so well developed and each of them goes on a life-changing journey, it has brilliant humour and gorgeous poetry and music.

Go watch it--I have binged it more times than I can count.

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising (the second one)

It took me five minutes to figure out the name ngl. In my head I call it the gay one (can you blame me?)

This one will only make sense if you've seen my hero academia but holy shit I love this movie?

It's about 1a on a tiny island and acting as the resident heroes when villains attack and they are the only ones able to defend the islanders.

It has some of the best wholesome moments with the entire class, two adorable children (so sad this doesn't count as canon because I would love to see them interact in the main storyline) and the ending is the meant to be original manga ending which is very intriguing...

Doctor Strange

This one is personal because I have some great memories of watching this movie in theatres with my parents and a lot of movie nights my friends have ended with us just giving and putting doctor strange for the nth time.

Also, it has Benedict Cumberbatch.

But it is a great story with good characterisation and it really was a cornerstone (get it?) for the entire Infinity Saga.

Mulan

Where do I begin?

Mulan is perhaps the most feminist and diverse movie that Disney ever came up with and it is over twenty years old.

It has a brilliant soundtrack, an amazing storyline and the idea of Mulan going to war on her father's behalf is one of the best portrayals of familial love.

Also, Shang Li is definitely bisexual.

It is my favourite Disney movie of all times.

Marley and Me: It's a wholesome movie about a dog with Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson. That is all.

(This also remains one of the only few--like I can count them on one hand--movies that has made me cry.)

(I wanted to post only one but I can't choose!)

I know I said top 5 but honourable mention: Princess Diaries 2 The Royal Engagement (i think that's what it was; great movie)