#they both I guess have more seamless words then English does

[nightly-ruse]

Learning Spanish and French atm has taught me I really like words that come out nicely. Like Spanish I’m having a lot more fun with even if I’m still pretty bad purely bc I like the words more while French is harder for me to get attached to

[poresorpixels]

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

The Duke of Burgundy

(2014)

lulbuozets: Giallo meets Brakhage, sensssoohaahlity, style as substance, savory>sweet, brittle grasps, (p)lush interiors, asmr, vixens, dominance/submission, sedate hysteria, dissociative gracenotes, tuff luv, dream illogic, september/may

In a sense, English director Peter Strickland is a sort of executive lounge perv - like those chin stroking suits in Enemy, watching high-heeled women squish exotic spiders in a secret, dark room. Not unlike Cronenberg, he's an unapologetically glazed over sensationalist, dragging the intrepid moviegoer into his tantric hedonism kaleidoscope. Both of his films here are the sort where you are more likely taken for a blind ride by their signature quality than premeditatedly engaged. They don't offer expansiveness in the traditional sense, more often content to snuggle up to their vividly rendered seedy spaces and graze.

He is tremendously good, so far, at doing him. Already having a calling card style is quite astonishing, given an ouvre standing at two as I write this. Though it is technically his third film (with one on the way). Sadly, his first - 2009's Katalin Varga, is available next to nowhere (in the uk, on region 2 dvd). It seems like something else entirely, which has me abuzz with curiosity. Hopefully it will turn up somewhere soon.

Berberian Sound Studio has much to love and explore. The soundtrack contains the last work of the fantastic early 2000's group, Broadcast, its production sadly coinciding with lead singer Trish Keenan's sudden passing. It is a fine thing, and their hard-charging harpsichord title sequence song is arguably the most exciting passage in the film. The sequence cleverly (perhaps confusingly for some) contains credits for the film within the film, which i'll annotate forthwith.

producer: Francesco Coraggio (Cosimo Fusco) A vile mysoginist, who doesn't have anything positive or neutral to say about anyone or anything.

director: Giancarlo Santini (Antonio Mancino) A self-aggrandizing, work averse glad-hander. Doesn't seem that interested in post-production studio rigors, beyond pawing at his female cast.)

Il Vortice Equestre (The Equestrian Vortex) In Santini's witch torture-fest, this title never comes to mean a damn thing. Not even some foley coconuts - which is hilarious.

music: Hymenoptera (Broadcast) Defined as a large order of insects, comprising sawflies, wasps, bees and ants. This never comes to any sort of significance either, and Burgundy is preoccupied with lepidopterology. I'm guessing its something to do with the gynecological root of the word.)

The doleful, adorable puss of Toby Jones is a special thing, and Strickland surely isn't the only one to've capitalized on this fact. But I don't know if I've ever seen him oogled quite to this extent, at one (seemingly signicant) point being rippled and mushed like a wad of celluloid playdough. Perhaps his sweet, daddy long-leg rescuing Gilderoy is too sympathetic for a film so resistant to a storyline. His disgust with the lurid set pieces he is producing sound for is a hook of sorts, but it doesn't pay off. Despite his grounding of a winningly surreal setting full of clunky vintage gear and sudden power outtages, Strickland seems content to merely fold him up like wallpaper origami. The shift to him, and his increasingly dire letters from mum, being the subject of another film within a film, comes off like a solipsistic punch-out.

But it's a fun mess, with all its noisome fruits and veggies and demented, face contorting soundbooth histrionics (was reminded of Mike Schank's blood curdling soundbooth howl in American Movie). One I was sure I'd enjoy more than the S&M love affair of his next film. But I was decidedly wrong. Where Berberian Sound frustrates, and lunges for a cheap beginning-to-end loop with its blurry film reel image, The Duke of Burgundy is an impressively well rounded circle.

Again there is repetition. But rather than mere recurring visuals (that flashing "SILENZIO" sign of diminishing returns) it is direct reckoning with the practice. Particularly, when it fails to make perfect. Perfection in role playing seems to be the goal in the relationship on display. But despite fooling us with their act at the onset, it becomes clear that the imperiously beautiful Cynthia (Borgen's imperiously beautiful Sidse Babett Knudsen), who is older, is mostly driven by the desire to make Evelyn (an eerily faux-innocent Chiara D'Anna) happy. We see their routine, day-spanningly meticulous as it may be, going from refinement to going through the motions.

The world of moths and butterflies seems infinite to Cynthia, the imagery of her studies juxtaposed with her more traditional gratification from Evelyn when the play is done. In these moments, there are whispered devotions (uncannily spooky, like those of Let's Scare Jessica to Death) that we do not see Evelyn mouthing. When we see the fear in Cynthia's eyes, it comes clear that these reassurances are in her head. When the strain of trying to keep up the charade later reaches its peak, these whisperings shift to one word: "pinastri" (Sphinx pinastri aka the pine hawk-moth). Their safe word, a discouraged protest for Evelyn, becomes Cynthia's haunted keening on the doubt infesting and devouring her love's foundation.

Perhaps Evelyn tries to be accomodating, but she is unmistakably insatiable in everything she does. Even her delvings into encyclopedic butterfly trivia feel like but a fetishized extension of Cynthia's confectionarily domineering role for her. Cynthia has to be someone else, while Evelyn only need be served. Even after Cynthia finally breaks down in tears under the rigors of keeping up the routine and Evelyn vehemently consoles her, the older woman knows its 'either buck up, or let this girl slip through your fingers'.

Much moreso than his previous work, The Duke of Burgundy expertly arranges its drama, deadpan humor and surrealist chills into a satisfyingly seamless whole. And even more compellingly, these elements are often interchangeable. Cynthia's sonorous snoring, for example, is both a funny contrast to her sleek routine and a touchingly sad tell after she has exhausted herself to the utmost for her love's devotion. Elsewhere, acts that might be repulsive are rendered kind of bittersweet. Without bespoiling his (their) heightened tableau, he gives the unglamorous rigors of human frailty their full thematic due.

Once again, we are graced with a drop dead gorgeous soundtrack, this time from the duo, Cat's Eyes (awesome cat in this movie as well, who is content to just look on). The opening Belle & Sebastianesque piece is particularly winning (there's that harpsichord again) with its distinct use of a single clipped breath on the downbeat. It closes with a much sadder, Julee Cruise kind of thing, which is fitting given that Cynthia will likely keel over in mid face-sit some day.

Worth mentioning as well is the welcome return of instantly striking Romanian actress Fatma Mohamed, who plays a kink specialist carpenter with unnerving, Lynchian command. She was a spirited, camera-beloved highlight of Berberian, giving no quarter to her dickhead bosses. Luckily she's back for this year's release, In Fabric, along with Knudsen, Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth herself), Julian Barratt and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (who played one of the best characters ever with the lovable, all-suffering Hortense Cumberbatch in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies). With that cast, and the significant improvement ratio between these two films, I'm chomping at that bit to see what that dirty birdy Strickland has in store.

[fighterfortheforgotten]

PINOF Through the Ages

ah, November, that special time of year between halloween and christmas where i can buy “fun sized” (read “thumb sized”) chocolate bars and tinsel in the same aisle at walmart…

it’s also that time of year where members of the phandom, young and old, come together and collectively binge watch all the PINOF videos in preparation for the newest installment, as we wait with bated breath for what fresh hell we’re gonna be hit with this year.

today, i would like to share with you my observations of PINOF Through The Years, as we embark on the fucking trip that is sure to be PINOF 9…

Phil is not on fire (25 October 2009)

- can you IMAGINE what the hell Phil’s parents and/or brother must’ve thought when they were filming that/saw it for the first time?! Phil brings home this random kid he found in a train station and they start giggling like actual 12 year olds and wandering round the house talking about The Shining, using the exercise equipment Phil has probably never stepped foot on in his life, and drawing on their faces in sharpie? i can fucking HEAR Kath saying “Phil…honey…are you on the drugs?” and Martyn cackling like a lunatic in the background at his brother and his weird friend….

- Dan is trying so. damn. hard. not to laugh throughout the entire video.

- Speaking of Dan, even back then he was a sassy, cocky lil shit… “every animal makes that noise with you…” “wow Phil, i bet they’re all so glad they can see the diagram…” “no, okay, Phil has really crappy GHDs that don’t even work…they don’t even work…they are Poundland GHDs.”

- everyone always talks about The Tackle™ at the end of the video, but not NEARLY enough people talk about the lil smirk Phil gives the camera just before it…like, seriously?! that’s a “haha, here goes nothing!” kinda smirk. thats a “lol watch this!” kinda smirk. thats a “give the people what they want” kinda smirk…im just sayin’…

Phil is not on fire 2 (29 May 2010)

- okay, first of all, Dan…sweetheart…did you borrow that cardigan from your mum?

- Dan: “if you could choose which surname you had, what would be your decision?” Phil: “…umm…” *almost imperceptible but still definitely there jumpcut* Phil: “Striker!”….yeah, yeah, yeah, alright, everyone knows that Phil really said “yours” in an incredibly sheepish and embarrassed voice to Dan that made him go “awwww!….you’re cutting that out…”, but lets appreciate the editing skills it took to make the cut so completely (almost) seamless….

- oh. my. GOD! there is an ENTIRE post JUST about the microwave moment, but i have to reiterate it again for those who have recently entered this hellscape: imagine you are Phil Lester, a 23 year old adult with an ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEGREE, and in comes this adorable 18 year old twink trying to tell you that “microwave” is a fucking onomatopoeia! if i was Phil, THIS would be the moment i’d never let Dan live down. fuck “hello internet”, if he ever pissed me off i’d just be like “yeah, well, at least i know microwave isn’t a fucking onomatopoeia…” and walk away. argument done, you win every time.

- and that being said, again, lets appreciate how much we can learn from the facial expressions of Philip Michael Lester. in that moment, the look he gives Dan is pure “are you fucking serious…?” it is incredulity in a nutshell. it is shock and fondness and “oh my god you are such a twat…”. if there were a dictionary of facial expressions, Phil’s face at the moment Dan says fucking microwave is his favourite onomatopoeia would be the one next to the definition of “wtf?”

Phil is not on fire 3 (1 November 2011)

- 2011 was, by far, the WORST year for Dan and Phil’s hair. tragic. absolutely tragic…

- wow, Dan was right, every animal DOES make the same noise to Phil, including horrific genetic hybrids of land and sea mammals…

- Dan’s ability to almost unhinge his jaw is terrifying…and i’m sure has played a part in lots of phanfic that i’m definitely not going to look for ever…

- okay, seriously guys?! the word is vagina. say it with me: vagina. come on! all together now! it’s not a *awkward silence and weird hand gesture*, it’s not a “birth area", it’s just a vagina…for someone who knows so much about placenta, it strikes me as odd that Dan can’t say the word vagina out loud…

- i’ve never heard anyone giggle as much as Dan does in this video…

Phil is not on fire 4 (12 September 2012)

- the hair is better this year…slightly…

- whoever decided that those face mask things were a good idea needs to be buried alive…the way they look when they move is so horrifying, it gives me nightmares.

- the “gu-hoy!” noise Dan makes in this video (ts 3:21 if you’re at all interested) is my text alert on my phone and it makes me panic every time i watch it because im like “wtf is someone texting me for at 11:53 pm?!” but then i realize it’s just the video and that i’m actually still very alone and have no friends…

- (bloopers bonus!) petition to have 2012 be known in the phandom as, ‘The Year Dan Was Finally Comfortable With The Word Vagina’. that’s all it was guys! he learned a new word and just wanted to show how broad his vocabulary had become!

Phil is not on fire 5 (22 November 2013)

- and right off the bat we’re affronted again by the fact that Dan and Phil have zero concept of how female anatomy works….

- this is probably the most uneventful pinof in the entire series.

Phil is not on fire 6 (6 November 2014)

- to return to the hair discourse, i firmly maintain that 2014 was the best year for their haircuts/styles.

- Phil has no concept of what a sassy face is…

- #StopPhil201X needs to just be a recurring thing every year…

- that poor, poor snake…

- petition for Dan to sing the national anthem at every tour stop in 2018

- the idea of Dan trying to carry on the legacy of Phil Is Not On Fire after Phil’s death is so damn heartbreaking to me…i need a minute

- my lil demon soul is convinced that Phil was doing *something* to Dan’s neck when they both tried to fit through that sweater…i mean, look at his face when he laughs and says “stop". seriously?!

- something about Dan with his fringe swapped, on the wrong side of the bed, and wearing Phil’s shirt makes me feel almost uncomfortable, but in a way that i’m not entirely sure how to process…

- (bloopers bonus!) to reiterate! every animal does, in fact, make the same noise to Phil. this has now been confirmed 3 times.

- (bloopers bonus!) the amount of pleasure Phil is able to derive from any mention of Hello Internet warms the deepest recesses of my soul like the light of the sun after a 1000 year winter.

Phil is not on fire 7 (29 November 2015)

- uh, excuse me? do not drag my country in such a way. Canada is indeed real. it’s where maple syrup comes from. as someone who enjoys the simplicity of a good pancake, i expected better from you Mr. Philip.

- i feel so bad for their neighbours during the stress mushroom tug of war…like, can you imagine what those poor people must’ve thought of them? i’d love to interview their neighbours one day…better yet, their neighbours should write a book: “I Lived Next To YouTubers For 5 Years: The Adventure" and just have it be a chronicle of every weird thing they ever witnessed/encountered.

- with every passing year, Dan’s knowledge of fanfiction tropes and writing styles becomes increasingly disturbing…hide the smut everyone Daniel Howell is coming for it.

- Phil! with the puns! honestly Dan, how do you put up with this man?

- (bloopers bonus!) the way dans voice changes when he grabs Phils underwear and is just ENTHRALLED with the fact that he’s colour coordinates his boxers to his bedsheets is probably the single most disgusting thing i have ever witnessed in my entire life…i mean, i love it, but why are you SO EXTRA?!

Phil is not on fire 8 (29 November 2016)

- NOTHING in the animal or cutlery kingdoms should be born or created in the way Phil describes the birthing process of a spork!

- okay. OKAY! i love the fringes, i really do. i’m a fringe fan from way back, but the hair pushed back thing they get going on sometimes? i can get on board with that.

- aaaannd at 1:57 into pinof 8, the little game i like to play called “Phan or Viktuuri" had all of its lines blurred so far beyond recognition i’m not even sure which universe i’m living in anymore.

- the PSA for “staying hydrated"…such a harmless, and beautiful message about health and self care that the phandom managed to turn into a sex meme…but no one is surprised by that now, are they?

- i need to know why that stock photo exists in the first place…also, why the hell was Phil wearing sandals in November?

- (bloopers bonus!) Phil: “phil is not on fire 8! this time its…what the tagline?” the phandom: “…gayer than ever?” Dan: “full of regrets.” the phandom: “…i mean I GUESS!!!”

- (bloopers bonus!) everything about this blooper reel just confirms even more solidly that Dan is the biggest Phil fan in the world. i’m not gonna wax poetic about the compliments or the comparisons to sunshine or anything else, because at this point is it really necessary? no. i thought not.

and there we have it. just in time for PINOF 9 to be released, a full (and much more in depth than intended) recap of the saga thus far…wake me up when Gamingmas starts, cuz after this video comes out, i’m gonna need a solid week of sleep

[eyestumblin]

Was invited to go see Isle of Dogs tonight, and although I hadn’t been expecting to see this movie it was enjoyable, beautifully made, and very, very weird.

Wes Anderson’s attention to detail and creative use of screen space makes even mundane moments of storytelling feel charming and inventive, and stop motion suits his fascination with little details well. What could be tiresome repetitions of old tropes turn into a chance to get distracted with the texture of cotton balls, an elusive expression, a moment to savor a twist in conversation. 

The mix of stop motion and 2D animation was seamless and a great choice for selling this bizarre fantasy world. It would be nearly impossible in live action to make a compelling retro-future “Japan” in which dogs not only speak English, but can whistle, and the murder weapon of choice is Wasabi Poison. Individually, the pieces seem tacky or too unrelated to fit together. But the stylishness of the aesthetic manages to unite its elements. After the movie I tried explaining this as, “Anderson’s films are a bit like flea-market kitsch turned into high art”. Smart camera movement, framing, and editing somehow compresses this mishmash of visual homage to old Godzilla films, Kurosawa, and traditional Japanese art such as woodblock print and Kabuki  into a cohesive whole.

On one hand Anderson’s choice to set this story in “Japan” puts an interesting spin on his usual story and character tropes, and there is a clear love for old Japanese film aesthetic and traditional arts. It is a detailed and stylish collage of a fantasy world that doesn’t feel fake or cheap. But on the other hand, making a film for non-Japanese, English speaking audiences in such a setting raises mechanical problems that left me ultimately wondering about the choice. This story of cats vs dogs could have been set anywhere. So did the film gain or lose more from this setting?

Because subtitles are kept to a minimum and translation is only done through characters in the movie, Japanese speaking characters are almost always spoken over by an interpreter, or moved to a small corner of the screen to make room for the translation. The vocal performance of the lead Japanese protagonist is rather weak and emotionless, even in moments meant to hit a sincere mark, possibly because the audience isn’t expected to understand him. The face of an entire group of Japanese people becomes a white American, because she is the only character who can speak complex dialogue directly.

 Wes Anderson’s way with words is fantastic both in visual text and in the script, but his strong dialogue is limited to English. The English being warm and witty and the Japanese being kept simple enough to figure out without translation has the unintended effect of minimizing the Japanese-speaker’s ideas and emotions. It is clear that a Japanese-only audience would not get as much out of the movie as an English speaking one. Does hearing raw Japanese to preserve an illusion of the film being bilingual make up for this diminishing of the Japanese characters’ connection to the audience? 

I think the retro-ness of the world could also easily come across as offputting. Anderson seems locked in the 60s and 70s in all of his recent films, but in this case it feels even more anachronistic, as the story is set “20 years in the future”. When trying to explain how out of place the outsider’s view of old fashioned Japanese cultural trappings were in that context, I suggested imagining watching Blade Runner, but all the people looked and talked like Little House on the Prairie. When guessing what kind of emotions this aesthetic might invoke for Japanese people, my best estimate was “reminiscent of grandma’s taste”, and I wondered if it would inspire nostalgic charm. Seen only as its own film, despite the craft and consideration put into details, this obsession with small chunks of culture could teeter into the realm of insulting ignorance of what modern Japan is actually like. But in the context of his other work, it’s easy to see how his retro-modern “America” is similarly out of touch with modern reality and more in line with a world only seen in old films and novels.

With those thoughts in mind, I still think this is worth watching. It’s a somewhat brutal concept executed in a weird, cartoony way. But it’s fun, satisfying and interesting to look at.

[noiseartists]

FLEUR DU MAL: A perfect blend of Shoegaze, Post-Rock and 80s indie pop

FLEUR DU MAL is a duo from Paris, France, created in 2019.

“We offer a seamless blend of a wide array of sounds, from French "chanson" to Post-Metal, and everything in between.”

It is an apt description. I am really fond of their music that cleverly includes some of the music I have loved (and still love) with clear influence from 80’s French Pop (Etienne Daho), French Shoegaze (Welcome to Julian, Dead horse One) and French Post-Rock (Alcest) .

It seems an unlikely mix, but FLEUR DU MAL managed bringing everything together, never copycating, creating their own unique blend of music. They may be the only band to have suceeded such an extraordinary feat. Etienne Daho would been proud (listen to the cover below).

Their way they singing also reminds me of one of my favourite French Shoegaze bands of the 90s, the Sigh, that you can find in exclusivity on Noise Artists Bandcamp portal (LP is available, EP will be soon).

Needless to say that I quickly became a huge fan of their music, with so many sounds I love and so many memories arising from listening to their music. I recon that many French indie fans of my generation will have the same reaction and hopefully all the following generations.

The music work to date is:

2020: Spleen II, EP

2019: Spleen I, EP; Regrets, single; Soleil, single

Their 2 EPs have a similar structure:

An intro mixing electronica an guitar indie without Lyrics but with simple and captivating melodies and structures.

Song 3 is a cover (Etienne Daho and Jean-Louis Murat respectively, 2 of the godfathers of the French 80’s Indie movement).

Song 5 is a finale with a more Postgaze feel that draws longer, over 7 minutes

And now the (great) interview.

Who are the group members?

The band is comprised of Obermann and Faber. We are two veterans on the Parisian indie scene, played in too many bands to mention them all. Suffice to say we played almost everything, from French pop to Stoner.

How did you meet?

We met through friends and began to go to concerts together and talk about music. When you’re both fans of Prince and Deafheaven, there’s a lot in between to chew over!

How did you come up with your name?

FLEUR DU MAL, the name as well as the overall concept, was Obermann’s idea. We wanted to have something literary, which refers to French classicism with a hint of subversion thrown into it. And romanticism, too. Our nicknames, also, refer to literary figures.

What is your music about?

Our music is mostly about feelings and atmospheres as opposed to tangible things. We favour escapism and sentiment over reality. Besides, we prefer to have people make their own minds about our lyrics, which are very general and open to interpretation.

What are your goals as an artist artistically/commercially?

First, we want to play for ourselves and the people we love. Almost all good music, from Stax soul music to old school hip hop, has been created to bring people together, not to make money. That being said, we want to be heard by as many people as we can.

What are you trying to avoid as a band?

Doing things solely for commercial purposes, copying things that are fashionable. Being really indie and getting to a certain age brings you some perspective. We probably won’t get rich doing this so why bother doing things that get in the way of artistry just for success?

Why do you make the music you make? Is it in you? Is it your environment?

Both, we guess. We don’t believe in revelation, this idea that music comes at us naturally and that we’re just vessels for it. It’s first and foremost a lot of work. That being said, once we come up with a new idea for a song, things progress very quickly.

What inspire you for the music or for the Lyrics?

We are ardent fans of music. We listen to a lot of things and love “pop culture” in the largest sense of the term. For this project, specifically, we dug deep into the records we were listening to when in our teenage and early adult years: 90s alternative rock and metal, early post-rock, etc. Our lyrics, on the other hand, are very personal and always in French. It makes for an interesting encounter, we think.

Tell us what you are looking when trying to achieve your sounds. Do you experiment a lot or have a clear idea of what you want?

From the very start, we had a very precise idea of what we wanted to achieve sound-wise: a mix of shoegaze, post-rock and alternative metal. Very early in the creative process, we decided we would do this without live drums because a drummer tends to impose a specific aesthetics that would have undermined the overall coherence of our sound.

Also, because we sing in French and French has a specific sound that does not always match rock music so well, we wanted to have our voices slightly higher in the mix than what is usual heard in this type of music. This, we think, renders our sound more original than most non-Anglo-American Shoegaze and Indie Rock bands, who rarely sing in their native language.

One way to make sure our sound would have some personality was to record covers of our favourite French artists. We treated those songs as if they were originals and this helped us sharpen our sound.

Describe your palette of sound.

There is duality in everything we do. On the one hand, there are ethereal sounds, overdriven guitars that are drenched in delays and modulation effects.

On the other hand, there is a ground- shaking bass sound and heavily saturated rhythm guitars, both reminiscent of 90s alternative metal. Our gear is pretty straightforward, though.

We mainly use Boss and Electro-Harmonix pedals, either stock or modded, as well as a few fancier toys, but not too many. Drum machine sounds are kept as minimal and dry as possible, to provide a space of expression for anything else.

Who would you want as a dream producer, and why?

One of our pride has been to be able to produce a highly personal and recognizable sound without the help of a producer. We just have someone working on our mastering. But if we had to choose someone, and because we’re talking about dreams, here, why not Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross?

If you could guest on someone else’s album, who would it be and why? What would you play?

What would be fun to do would be to bring our heavily distorted and ethereal sound to artists that do not usually have this sort of musical universe, like a country or pop singer. If Etienne Daho, the godfather of modern French pop, wants us to produce his next record, we’re ready for this!

What musical skills would you like to acquire or get better at?

It’s great to play within your own limitations, right. That being said, we always like to try new things: practice palm-muted rhythmic parts at high tempos, for instance. Obermann likes to train playing technical prog death metal.

Which other musician/artist would you date?

We do not make music in order to get laid!

Is there a band that if they didn’t exist you wouldn’t be making the music you make?

Hard to name one but Alcest has been particularly influential to us. Neige has invented a style of music that merged the spirit of Black Metal with elements of Shoegaze and Dream Pop and there is no word to express how indebted we are to him. We strongly identify with his artistry and work ethic.

Also, he proved you can be French and make a strong impact abroad.

You are from France what are the advantages and inconvenient?

France has long had a bad image as a rock making country. John Lennon famously made fun of us by comparing French rock music and English food. But as English cuisine itself has gotten better and better throughout the recent period, French rock music has also improved a lot and does not pale anymore in comparison to the scenes in other European countries for instance.

Straightforward rock music sung in French will always sound quite appalling but French musicians are very good when it comes to step aside and mix rock with other elements, electronica for instance. Besides, French metal is now wonderful.

Bands like Gojira or Blut aus Nord are leaders in genres they sometimes contributed to forge. Simply put, there’s no inconvenient in being a French band, only advantages.

What are some places around the world that you hope to play with your band?

Anywhere possible .We had a couple of articles published by South American webzines. It would be great to play there.

When is the next album/EP due?

Our first EP was released in September on Shore Dive Records. The new one just came out , also on Shore DIve Records. It’s relatively brighter than the previous one. There will be a third, darker and metal-indebted one to complete the trilogy. Then, we’ll see… [it was released on Shoredive Records on 24th October]

Some artists you recommend.

Dead Horse One [hopefully soon on Noise Artist ndle], Computers Kill People, Venice Bliss, Brusque, Opium Dream Estate, Catherine Watine, La Féline, Pauline Drand, all good French bands/artists and, more importantly, people we love and respect as human beings. Check them out.

Anything else you want your fans to know?

We already revealed too much!

Where to find Fleur Du Mal:

Bandcamp

Facebook

Youtube

[josieswrk]

Mustard Seed Generation Summit on Mental Health in the Korean Community

So, first things first. I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack and I feel a little queasy, but I’m going to process my thoughts out here first before I crash. It all started because I said my final goodbye to a friend who is moving away to Baltimore. We first returned her library books, and then I bought her a cup of coffee. We sat on a bench together for only ten minutes or so because I was planning on meeting another friend at 10. But in those ten minutes I was able to geek out about how I believe there is both predestination and absolute free will, and how this is compatible with certain philosophical theories on the nature of time. 

And then, as I’m walking to meet my friend at the thrift store, I’m thinking - I probably can’t take this coffee with me into the store - because the thrift store has clothing items and they probably don’t want customers to spill drinks on them. So I down it. Five blocks, grande-sized hot coffee, emptied and thrown into a trash can. I walk around with my friend in the thrift store for like forty-ish minutes (really delightful place, by the way), and then handed off a friend’s new apartment keys (giving like a mile a minute explanation because the summit is about to begin), ran into my apartment (at some point in all this rushing I changed out of my t-shirt into a blouse), sat down at my desk, and joined the zoom session for the summit. 

Part 1. S t e v e n  Y e u n 

My heart rate is already ramping up because of the blast of coffee on an empty stomach, and then it’s time for opening remarks by S t e v e n  Y e u n. His face filled my computer screen in casual clothes with large black earphones, his characteristic facial hair gone, his mouth talking about such wonderful things... When he looked into the screen it felt like he was talking to me, that we were having a conversation about our observations of the world.  I find the way I type his name very funny because I saw someone else on the summit FB group type his name this way too. I guess there’s something about Steven Yeun that makes us want to t y p e  o u t  t h e  l e t t e r s. Maybe add some ** and some ~~. ~*S t e v e n  Y e u n*~. At the end of the summit, we were asked to summarize our summit experience in one word and someone wrote “Steven.” Haha girl, we are with you. 

I also find the way I feel very funny because I had zero interest in Steven Yeun when he was growing in popularity because of The Walking Dead. People would always comment on how good looking he is, but I don’t know, I didn’t really care. (To be clear, it’s not because he’s not good looking, I just think my recognizing-good-looking-people part of my brain isn’t very well developed. As one friend observed “너 진짜 얼굴 안 보는구나...”/”wow you really don’t care if someone’s good looking or not...”) It wasn’t until I read one of his interviews and heard him speak on random podcasts that I started to want to space out the letters~ It wasn’t until he opened his mouth that I realized wait, this is quite the attractive human being (who is happily married with two kids, ahem). 

A n y w a y, as I am smiling and twirling in my chair and thankful that we don’t have to show our video for this portion, I did write notes on the wonderful things he was sharing about. He has a depth of insight, vulnerability, intellectual honesty, love for his family, and passion for his work that I find very attractive... *Chair twirl* Right. Back to the content of what he said: 

He shared about how he sees mental health issues in the Korean and Korean American community as the result of Korean Americans having to reconcile contradicting realities - something he experienced as a Korean immigrant kid growing up. He also shared about how, in his experience preparing to play a native Korean man in Burning, he learned to embrace the loneliness of being forever an “other” as a global citizen of the world, instead of stressing about belonging to one culture or another. 

He talked about the overwhelming fear and anxiety he feels about the future, whether it’s triggered by the birth of a child or taking on a new creative project, or wondering whether after his current project ends he will be able to find the next job. Sometimes, the fear is so overwhelming that he ends up crying in the shower. But these are the moments where he *feels* his faith and can move forward with gratitude and confidence knowing that these things are gifts. (I understand, after talking with some friends, that the nature of his faith is ambiguous, though he does have some background in the Christian church. But I appreciate and value the way he is radically honest about the process and his questions, and doesn’t pretend to know all the answers). 

He mentioned that the pandemic is breaking down structures, which allows us to see our humanity again. I resonated with this observation as someone who has been feeling confused and vulnerable this season as the pandemic muddles my expectations of what my life and future will look like. I have been beginning to understand this process personally for me as grace, the process by which God is bringing me back to a place of humility and vulnerability, to know that the things I sometimes want aren’t necessarily the things that are promised, but that, if I let God take control, I can trust Him to take me to where I need to be. 

He also talked about how he is growing in empathy for first generation immigrants (specifically, his parents) and what they went through, something that the panelists in following portion of the summit loved to quote...

Part 2. Keynote Panel on Mental Health in the Korean Immigrant and Korean American Community

The keynote panel addressed mental health themes and differences in service delivery for first and second generation Korean immigrants/Americans. First, the experience of listening to the 6 or so panelists was absolutely incredible. All the clinicians had varying levels of experience and acculturation with Korean culture, American culture, and third culture. They were also all fluent in both Korean and English, so the panel was this seamless flow between Korean and English language that I have never seen before. It was so exciting to see people having the freedom to express their observations in the language that was better equipped to express it. Acknowledging that not everyone in the audience was probably bilingual and I am not sure if accommodations were made so that monolingual speakers wouldn’t miss out on the content (the rest of the summit was great in this regard), I was reveling in the flow. Here are some of the takeaways:

Q: How have you dealt with the Western orientation of psychology and psychotherapy training in academic institutions? One of the clinicians talked about how when she was in school, everything was so process oriented. Assess, assess, assess. It’s about the process. But she learned that this was not always effective with Korean clients, who are more goal-oriented (빨리 빨리 culture), and want to solve problems right away. “Tell me what’s wrong with me and how to fix it.” So this clinician learned that a great way to build trust with (typically first gen) Koreans is to provide concrete, tangible homework and tools. Korean clients love this because they can feel the effects right away. And once you have gained their trust, then you can venture to address the deeper, more process-oriented issues. 

 Speaking of 1st gen, Q: What are some specific ways to address mental health issues in the 1st gen Korean community? 1st generation Koreans typically aren’t using to talking about their emotions. So one clinician does a *lot* of practice with emotion identification with this population. Another clinician talked about the important of normalizing family dynamics and stresses, “다른 가족들도 비슷해요, 어머니...” / “Other families are like this too...” Helping people understand that they’re not alone, they’re not crazy, that other people and other families go through experiences and emotions like this too. 

Q: How can we address the stigma of mental health in the Korean community? 1) Psychoeducation, educational workshops, or working through churches. If mental health-related information is shared in a public forum, it takes away the shame and stigma of seeking individual services. It also helps to work through churches or other organizations that Korean community members might trust. It also helps to brand things in an indirect way, I.e. “well-being” or “healthy life” instead of “suicide prevention,” “건강" instead of “정신 건강" 2) Creating spaces for people to talk about their mental health and encouraging people in power to talk about their mental health struggles and emotions, e.g. encouraging “pastors in the pulpit” or “fathers at the dinner table” to talk about their emotions and struggles 3) One clinician talked about how she really tries hard to spin things in a positive way for her clients because there is so much shame and stigma around mental health. For example, if her client is going through menopause, she will say “Menopause is God’s blessing! Maybe it’s an opportunity for you now to finally live for yourself instead of devoting your life to taking care of other people.”

Q: How can we teach/talk about boundaries while affirming Korean family connectedness? This. question. The million dollar question. I think about this question A LOT. And talk to my Korean American therapist friends about it all the time. In fact, I was too busy texting my friends that I didn’t quite catch what the panelists said about this question HAHA. I need to wait for the recording to see. But if I can share with why this question is so important... I think boundaries is a *huge* point of cultural division for Korean Americans. Most Koreans have no experience with boundaries or reference point for it. “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.” A lot of Koreans feel like there is no point to a relationship unless you feel that deep closeness, that 정. When I talk to certain Koreans or Korean Americans about boundaries, it really is a foreign concept to them. They have *no* idea what I’m talking about and sometimes interpret it as selfishness or coldness. Now, flip to the other side. I often find the Western concept of boundaries too harsh for Korean families. In general, I deeply believe in the value of boundaries for healthy emotional well being and healthy relationships. For example, with romantic relationships, I think it is important to have clear delineations between who is a significant other and who is a friend of the opposite gender. C l e a r. But a lot of times when (white) therapists ask their Korean clients to set boundaries, it doesn’t feel right. A KA friend once had a white therapist who asked her to set boundaries with her mother, and when my friend tried, her mother went absolutely ballistic. I think a culturally sensitive therapist would either have prepared my friend for that reaction OR came up with a solution of how to set boundaries that are more flexible, porous, and gentle (baby steps). I had another KA friend whose white friends told her to just cut off contact with her parents if her parents are saying harmful things to her. She reacted as I would, saying that you can’t just completely cut off your parents like that. This is a concept I struggle with personally as well. I am an only child, a daughter, and I am *v e r y* close with my parents. I am aware that I probably talk to my parents more often and about more things than the average person. I had a therapist tell me to fight this codependence and fight to become more independent. I absolutely see his point, because there are moments when I do feel codependent, I.e. feel highly dysregulated and emotional when I feel at odds with my parents. I have grown in this. And yet, it also doesn’t feel right for me to completely throw away our closeness because I value their wisdom and support. So I’m always in this dance of is this codependence? Is this closeness? Tune in next week to find out. Lol. 

Part 3 (Breakout Session 1). Neuroscientific Play Therapy with Korean American Families

So... Between you and me, this session was underwhelming. 90% of the session was about common mental health challenges for Korean American families, children, and adolescents, including racial trauma and micro-aggressions. I thought the information the speaker provided was important but too basic and general for an audience that is probably familiar with these themes as MH professionals. I also thought it took time away from what *was* fascinating and her area of expertise, and that was using play therapy specifically in the context of Korean American families. 

For those of you who are not familiar, play therapy is usually used with young children to help them express their emotions and process traumatic events. Children use mediums like sand tray & toys or art to share with a trusted & safe therapist about their family and the things they’ve been through. (It really is fascinating what children can express with their toys... I had a former colleague who did this and it’s so powerful). 

What was interesting was that this clinician used sand trays, toys, and art activities with middle aged adults, too. She shared pictures of what her clients created with toys and drawings, expressing their experiences with domestic violence, sexual assault, and family separation - expressing their deepest desire to be protected, to feel free from the chains that weigh down their mind, etc. I also appreciated the reminder that human brains are plastic (I.e. neural pathways can be re-programmed) with positive, sensorimotor, patterned, and repetitious activities. Left to their own devices, humans don’t change. Change is *hard.* And yet, it is not impossible. That’s why the work of the Holy Spirit will never get old to me, because what is more not-of-this-world than a changed heart? It is rare. It is *hard* for people to change. (Think about the last time you changed your mind about something! As for me, I’m as stubborn as hell...) But with commitment to sanctification (which may include some therapy!), it is *possible* for people to change. W o w. 

Part 4 (Breakout Session 2). The Intersection between Identity, Trauma, and Racism for Korean Adoptees

In comparison to the first breakout session, this session was amazing. Moses Farrow, a bi-racial Korean adoptee who also provides mental health services to other adoptees, talked at length about the experiences and traumas of being a transnational adoptee to America with vulnerability and honesty. He was also such a gentle, intentional soul. First, he read from his own autobiography about how complicated one’s search for identity can be when you are adopted. He shared about how questions that have obvious answers to most people were complicated for him. “Who do I look like? (He looked at us and said, all of you.) What is my birthday? (The date when I arrived in the U.S.) Where am I from? (I was found in a telephone booth somewhere in Seoul).” Then he played a clip from the documentary “Adopted,” where a Korean adoptee tries to talk to her white adoptive mother about her experiences. “But people liked you, you fit in,” says her mom. “No mom,” she corrects, “I didn’t. [She talks about being bullied for her small eyes in school].” “But you never said anything,” said the mom. “I couldn’t” replied the daughter. “It was hard to explain” (sometimes it’s difficult to put experiences into words when you are going through it). Finally, he ended by reading “Coming Out of the Adoptee Fog,” a piece written by another Korean adoptee by the name of Mark Hagland to describe the experience of feeling a perpetual *fog* and self-loathing about his identity growing up and how he came to his own in his mid-40s and 50s. Mark urges adoptive parents of Korean children to move into spaces of diversity and to face their discomfort for the sake of their children. 

Here are some other takeaways from this session:

*Importantly* he talked about the need for differential diagnoses - that behind what you see as anxiety, depression, eating disorder, etc. may be the trauma of adoption, many times adoption into families that do not share the same ethnic heritage. 

Moses talked about how most adoptees are isolated in their self loathing, deep anxiety, and addiction, and not connected with other adoptees.

He pointed out that the ACES study does not include adoption as a childhood traumatic experience. A score of 4+ on the ACES scale increases suicide attempt by 1220%.

Adoptees are 4x more likely to commit suicide than non-adoptees. 

Someone asked a question on how we can assess families for readiness to adopt children so that protective factors would be in place to mitigate the trauma of adoption. Moses had the following suggestions/thoughts:

KAN trainings - there are trainings out there by Korean adoptee organizations to this effect.

Educate people. There is a whole library of memoirs, blogs, books, and articles written by adult adoptees about their experiences.

Do the parents understand their own trauma? The adoptive parents should do their *own* trauma work to avoid transmission of intergenerational trauma. 

Do the parents understand trauma reactions and know how to support a child exhibiting them? If their adopted child is exhibiting trauma symptoms, do they know how to handle that?

The need for differential diagnosis as explained earlier.

Most adoptive parents are isolated and under supported. 

Part 5. Ending Session

Once the breakout sessions were over, we all gathered in one space. There was a raffle for prizes, and then everyone was asked to summarize the summit in one word and share it, written on a piece of paper. I wrote “united.” I felt a 든든함, a sense of security, knowing that there are other Koreans and Korean Americans out there defying stereotypes, fighting stigmas, and caring for the people in our community. 

[visionnepal3-blog]

The LARB Ball NBA Roundtable

NOVEMBER 1, 2018

With the NBA season in full swing, I reached out to Theresa Runstedtler (Associate Professor of History at American University) and Yago Colás (Professor of English at Oberlin College), sports scholars with expertise (and books in progress) about the pro game, to discuss the state of the league today and its history. Moving between on- and off-court issues, and from the 1970s to our expectations for the new season, the conversation takes up topics including LeBron’s move west, NBA vs. NFL politics, race and power, the basketball version of “moneyball,” the league’s embrace of gambling, and the past and future of business-minded player-celebrities. How long can Golden State’s stranglehold on the league last? Will big data analytics sap the game of its pleasing uncertainty? Can a new generation of players, coaches, and owners steer the league to a more politically progressive place? And for those interested as much in reading about the sport as watching the games, stick around to the end for book recommendations. Enjoy! – BRJ

Brian Jacobson: Let’s start broadly: what story lines—on or off the court—most interest you as the NBA season kicks off?

Theresa Runstedtler: I’m interested to see what happens as LeBron James makes his transition from the Cavaliers to the Lakers. Will he continue to be vilified for his lack of loyalty and individual career ambitions? I’m also interested to see what happens with Vince Carter’s year with the Hawks. I was part of the Raptors organization during his first season in 1998. To hear him talked about as the “old guy” at 41 years of age is amusing to me (and tells me I’m getting old too). I guess even though I haven’t lived in Toronto for 17 years, I’m still a Raptors fan at heart. I’m curious to see whether the addition of Kawhi Leonard will improve or hurt the team’s chemistry on the court. #WetheNorth

Yago Colás: I share Theresa’s interest in LeBron’s move to the West, but for slightly different reasons. I’ve lived half an hour from Cleveland for the last seven years, and my sense is that, at least in this region, fans wish LeBron well.  They are grateful for the 2016 championship, and recognize all he does (and will surely continue to do) for the area. As the mother of one of the youngsters participating in the LeBron James Family Foundation educational initiative told Howard Bryant on the radio program Only a Game, “I don’t care where he works.”

I am interested, however, to see how LeBron responds to his changed competitive circumstances. He now has a young team around him and will be facing the much deeper Western Conference.  Will the Lakers make the playoffs? If they struggle early (they are 2-3 as I write), will they add a superstar? What will Kobe’s legendary legion of insane fans do to LeBron if LA is horrible? On the other hand, if they do make the playoffs, how deep a run can they make? And, as a massive LeBron fan, OH MY GOD, what if they beat the Thunder, Rockets and Warriors to get to the finals and then beat the Celtics or the Raptors?!! LeBron will have become, as Obi Wan once said, “more powerful than you can possibly imagine.��

The other interesting story emerging from LeBron’s move to the Lakers is what will happen in the East now that the roadblock to the Finals named LeBron James has been removed. Toronto or Boston should be ready to come out of the East, but will they?  Will the young Sixers continue their ascent? As I write, Toronto is undefeated (congrats Theresa!), but the other unbeaten teams in the East are Milwaukee and Detroit! Of course, it’s early, but with so many exciting and talented young players distributed on different teams, I think the Eastern conference could be very exciting.

A week or so into the season, the one league-wide trend that has caught my eye is the marked uptick in both scoring and pace (meaning: possessions per game) this season.  Though it’s early in the season, both figures are on pace to easily set historic high marks and observers have attributed this to the convergence of a number of factors, one of which is NBA officials calling defensive fouls away from the ball more closely, which obviously works to the offense’s advantage, especially given the penchant in today’s NBA for Warriors-esque action away from the ball.  It’ll be interesting to see if this early offensive explosion prompts any effective defensive adjustments, provokes any kind of backlash among fans and, if so, any kind of adjustments from the League.

Finally, at a personal level, I’m always interested to see how my former University of Michigan students fare as they adjust to the demands of pro ball.  As the season opened, former students of mine were playing for Brooklyn (Caris LeVert), the Knicks (Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway, Jr.), the Pistons (Glenn Robinson III),  the Trailblazers (Nik Stauskas), and the Lakers (Moe Wagner). Having gotten to know these hard-working players when they were just 18 year old freshman with big NBA dreams, I’m happy to see that they have all stuck with it and are beginning, each in their own way, to make a mark.

BRJ: I too am interested in Lebron’s move and how a single player can shape so many storylines. Here in Boston, where I spend part of my time, the Celtics still appear to be built for long-term success, but the reintegration of Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward hasn’t been as seamless as fans might have hoped. Will that allow Toronto, finally, to get to the finals (and perhaps even keep Kawhi from packing his bags for LA next summer)? Or will this be the year the 76ers move from process to product? (*paging Markelle Fultz’s jump shot*)

I guess we’d be remiss if we didn’t also mention the Jimmy Butler situation (fiasco?) in Minnesota, which represents fairly well, I think, the internal and individual tensions—among players, coaches, and management—that PR-minded teams and agents usually do so well to keep out of the spotlight—but that sports journalists, when given the opportunity, just can’t seem to get enough of.

But in the interest of other stories, I want to shift directions now to talk about the politics of the NBA, especially in comparison to the NFL, which was covered in the column last month. The NFL, and especially its owners and commissioner, have (rightly, I think) been denounced for their conservative politics and failure to respond to Donald Trump’s comments about and implicit threats against players kneeling during the anthem. In contrast, some critics see the NBA as a progressive league, with younger, more liberal owners and both players and coaches who have spoken out against Trump, racial injustice, and other political issues without receiving the kind of backlash as Colin Kaepernick or Eric Reid. Is this a fair contrast? If so, how do we account for the NBA’s comparative progressive politics—or at least the impression of it?

TR: When I tell people I’m working on a project about race and professional basketball in the 1970s, they often take the opportunity to tell me that the NBA is “so much more progressive” than any other professional sports league. I think that there is some truth to this statement when you compare the NBA to the NFL. However, something about this idea that the NBA is racially progressive doesn’t sit well with me–and it doesn’t really hold water when I look at the demonization and disciplining of both black players and black style over the decades. I think that if the NBA is progressive at all, it is because they have to be. In other words, since the 1970s the majority of the players have been black, and the NBPA has had many black leaders. The global audience of basketball has become increasingly multicultural and multiracial. It is not good business to be overtly racist. That said, the NBA has been very clever about how to depoliticize and aestheticize blackness for the sake of profitability, while also containing and managing its mix of danger and respectability for its corporate partners and white fans.

YC: I absolutely agree with Theresa’s more sober view of the NBA’s much-celebrated political progressiveness.  Sure, it looks great compared to the NFL, but that’s not saying much. The NBA’s racial containment strategies (e.g. the dress code), especially under former commissioner David Stern, from the late 70s through the 2000s were real and must be kept in mind.  (Readers might be interested in Todd Boyd’s Young, Black, Rich & Famous, David Leonard’s After Artest and Jeffrey Lane’s Under the Boards for accounts of these dynamics.)

At the same time, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of NBA players.  The NBA is a much smaller league than the NFL, and one in which individual stars have a much greater impact (not just on competitive outcomes, but on financial outcomes, and on the culture surrounding the league).  I sense that over the past eight years, the players have begun to experiment with exercising the power they have. Some of these experiments have involved internal power differentials within the league (like LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh “usurping” team formation powers that had always resided with GM’s and owners) or the NBPA resisting the use of biometric devices in game play, others have involved the manifestations of racism within the NBA (the Chris Paul-led reaction to the Donald Sterling case in 2015), and of course many have involved players acting or speaking out against police lethality against black men, transphobia, Donald Trump, or just racism more generally. ��

I also think it’s important to note that 1) there is nothing politically retrograde in the NBA that is not also to be found in American society and 2) I’m wary of the general expectation that professional athletes have some sort of unique responsibility, different than any of the rest of us, to make the world more free and more just.

BRJ: As your answers make clear, even if the NBA is comparatively more progressive than the NFL today—which, as Yago says, is hardly a rousing endorsement—no doubt it remains an institution with a history of racism and front offices dominated by just as many white men as the NFL. Last year, Draymond Green accused one of these men, New York Knicks owner James Dolan, of having a “slave master mentality.” Meanwhile, a recent investigation into sexual harassment by former Dallas Mavericks president and CEO Terdema Ussery revealed “a corporate culture rife with misogyny and predatory sexual behavior,” followed just weeks ago by another report about sexual harassment by a Mavericks team photographer. What do these kinds of reports tell us about the league’s progressive claims?

TR: These incidents are hardly surprising to me. Racism and sexism are very much alive and well in professional basketball. All we need to do is look at someone like the LA Clippers’ former owner Donald Sterling to see that team owners (behind closed doors) still view their majority-black players as mere pawns (if not property) who are there to earn them money. Also, I was a dancer for the Toronto Raptors back in the late 1990s and can attest that aspects of toxic masculinity pervaded the league from bottom to top. That said, I don’t think there is anything exceptional about the NBA in this regard. Big-time sports leagues are all complicit in the production of anti-blackness and toxic masculinity. At the same time, they also reflect and reinforce the racism and sexism of society at large.

YC: Of course, I agree.  But what do we mean by “the League” when we talk about its politics. Are we talking about the Commissioner? The various owners? The legal corporation? The players? The superstar players? The NBPA?  I think we get different answers depending on who we are talking about. And, as I say, for me personally the most interesting political phenomenon over the past decade has been the increasing autonomy players are showing.  I’m very curious to see what the immediate and long-term effects of this will be.

The work I did to write Ball Don’t Lie! taught me that the whatever the League administrators and owners and their corporate partners, and even some more conservative fans may want, the players make the game and it is a game that is at its most essential level on the court about getting free.  I wouldn’t underestimate the cultural and political power of a group of young wealth, influential black men with a strong sense of shared interests and collective responsibility who have spent most of their lives dedicated to the embodied practice of getting free.

BRJ: It has become a common refrain that the NBA is a year-round league, with fans just as, if not more, interested in what’s happening off the court as on it—whether in free agency or the constant rumor mill about which player wants to play on which team, not to mention off-court politics and the players’ various entanglements in non-sports work. For those who love the game itself, this might seem like a sad state of affairs, but it also brings into focus something critics of course know: that the game itself is just the beginning. My question is this: is there actually anything new about the “year-round” nature of the league, or are we just more attentive to what happens beyond the games? If it is different, what has prompted the change?

TR: I don’t think there is anything particularly new about year-round reporting on the NBA and its players; however, the volume of reporting has definitely increased. I think there are a number of reasons for the uptick in coverage. Firstly, before the advent of the ABA and the players’ victory in removing the option clause as a condition of the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, there simply wasn’t as much player movement to report. (The option clause meant that a team retained the rights to a player even after the expiration of his contract. Thus, the team had full control over when a player could be re-signed, traded, or released.) Free agency has added another storyline to the sports news cycle. Since the expansion of professional basketball in the 1970s, publications have reported on players’ non-sports work—particularly the charitable, mentorship kind—because the league wanted to improve its public image. On the flipside, the press also has covered basketball players’ misdeeds, crimes, etc.—especially those of black players. However, changes to the media industry landscape have ramped up this coverage. With the move to a segmented marketplace of growing numbers of niche publications/networks, on both traditional and internet media, there is now a constant demand for more and more content. I suppose this kind of coverage might be dismaying to basketball “purists,” but it has long been part of the game.

YC:  I agree with everything Theresa has said here: it’s not new, though factors like free agency and transformations in the mediascape around the game have definitely fueled an expansion in the volume of coverage and interest around both off-court and off-season happenings.  My own current research (see below) is on the effect of quantification and big data analytics on the sport (i.e. the hoops version of “moneyball”) and I’ve found that this issue of year-round coverage is one of the areas of the sport’s culture impacted by the phenomenon.  As in other areas of American society, big data analytics in the NBA has the explicit aim of maximizing competitive and financial efficiency. I suspect that fans and journalists know a great deal more about the financial side of the sport than they previously did and that, together with the player assessment data available to fans through the media today, it’s easier to generate (and publish) opinions about off-seasons transactions.  

BRJ: It seems to me that part of the reason the league garners so much coverage beyond the games has to do with the celebrity power of today’s NBA stars, and probably no more so than LeBron. This summer, his foundation launched the “I Promise” school in Akron. Meanwhile, as many journalists have noted, his move to Los Angeles to join the Lakers seems to have as much to do with media production ambitions and life after basketball as NBA ambitions. And of course LeBron isn’t alone: we could say something similar about Kevin Durant’s move to Golden State and his ties with the Bay area startup scene, or about Russell Westbrook’s turns through the fashion world, or about Dwayne Wade’s wine business. What can we expect of the new NBA celebrities who have their sights set on personal brands and long-term non-basketball franchises? NBA players have long been spokesmen and some have gone into politics. Is the new generation—with its enormous salaries and business acumen—any different?

TR: I think the scale of their wealth and fame is certainly different. However, I was doing some reading in a 1970s-era publication called Black Sports a couple of weeks ago, which suggests that this idea of player-businessman is not so new. (Black Sports was the first major sporting publication to specifically target black readers from 1971 to 1978.) There was a monthly feature called “Taking Care of Business” that featured former professional athletes who translated their success in sports to success in the corporate world or as entrepreneurs. I think there has long been the expectation, particularly among black athletes, that they should parlay their sporting achievements into wealth and an elevated socio-economic status. When I was part of the Raptors organization back in the late 1990s, I also recall many of the players talking about side-hustles/hobbies that they hoped to turn into full-fledged businesses upon retirement. However, I do think that the players nowadays have much more access to contacts and capital to launch their own companies. What’s also interesting is the emergence of second-generation NBA stars such as Steph Curry (father Dell Curry played in the league from 1986-2002). They have an even better sense of how to work the business of basketball to their own advantage.

BRJ: Can you imagine any of today’s players going into politics? Is Lebron gearing up for a presidential run?

TR: Perhaps. Hey, if Donald Trump managed to become president, a former basketball player certainly can.

BRJ: Let’s talk more about the game itself. Even readers who don’t follow sports are likely to be familiar with the “moneyball” phenomenon that hit baseball with the publication of Michael Lewis’s book fifteen years ago in July. Has the “analytics revolution” shaped the NBA in similar ways?

TR: Obviously, some aspects of data analysis have contributed to the success of teams like the Golden State Warriors. How can one deny that the strategy of taking more three-point shots has been a good one for the Curry and the Warriors? However, I want to think about the analytics revolution in light of the ongoing negotiation of power between team owners and the players. I know that proponents of the data analytics revolution have tended to scoff at naysayers like Charles Barkley, casting them as less-evolved luddites who are simply suspicious of change. I’m no Barkley fan, but I’m wondering if part of this critique has to do with fears about the players losing control over the game. It seems as if the rise of data analytics has the potential to shift the balance of power more so in favor of the team owners, potentially taking away the autonomy and creativity of the players in practicing their craft. As Yago asks in Ball Don’t Lie, who makes the game? The league and the team owners or the players?  Also, what about the invasiveness of the statistics garnered from trackers that some players now have to wear? What is the bodily autonomy of the athlete in this case? Data can be used as a means for increased surveillance, discipline, and punishment. I also wonder if the data analytics revolution may change the character of the game. What is the end goal of the game? Is it the efficiency of scoring? Is it creative, entertaining play? Are these incompatible? I’m not sure, but they’re definitely things to think about. Basketball, much like soccer, is one of the few professional team sports that encourages free-flowing play. How will data analytics impact this aspect of the game? It suggests a potential move away from the ethics and aesthetics of black streetball that have come to define modern basketball. I’m not sure this is a good thing.

YC: As I said above, I’m writing a book called Numbers Don’t Lie! Counting and What Counts in the Culture of Basketball (forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press) to explore the question of the impact of basketball analytics on NBA play and culture.  It’s played out a little differently than in baseball simply because in the NBA, the use of advanced statistical methods, enabled in part by computing power, to discern hidden patterns (which was what baseball’s moneyball was about) has coincided with the use of very sophisticated digital data production technologies (such as Second Spectrum’s optical tracking cameras, installed in every NBA arena, and which capture the movement of the ball and all ten players 25 times per second, thus delivering 800,000 data points to each franchise every game) so that basketball analytics is, at this point, essentially big data analytics.  

The most obvious and frequently noted impact is the continued rise of the three-point shot in response to the statistical insight that it’s greater point value, given the skills and patterns of play prevailing in the league, make it a more efficient scoring play than many two-point shots.  Another major trend that is still unfolding involves the use of wearables and other kinds of biometric technologies. Currently these can only be used in training and practice. Players understandably may want to know all they can about their bodies, their tendencies, and their futures. But the use of these devices should occasion serious discussion about the ethical and political implications related to quantification, surveillance, and the use of predictive algorithms in situations (like the NBA) where power differential exists.

However, as fascinating and powerful as basketball analytics are, and as important as the political and ethical questions raised by them are, I find myself personally even more compelled by a possibly more esoteric question raised by these techniques and technologies.  Let me put it to your readers this way. Nobody argues that the purpose of analytics is to minimize risk by maximizing the capacity to forecast future outcomes. In other words, when owners and GMs use the data to project career arcs for players and correlate those with financial cost-benefit analyses, when coaches use the data to make decisions about matchups and rotations, and when players use the data to make tactical and technical decisions, they are all hoping that they will not be surprised.  

Now, speaking for myself, most (not all, but most) of the delight I derive from watching basketball comes from being surprised.  The wonder and awe, the beauty and grace and power, that I experience when I watch basketball play depends, at least in part, on players and teams doing unexpected (and even probabilistically unadvisable) things.  I feel pretty sure that chance, randomness and surprise will continue to play a role in the NBA, but I wonder how that role will change with the continued expansion and advance of various kinds of predictive technologies.  The predictability of the Warriors’ dominance of the league over the past four seasons (2016 is the exception that proves this rule) may be interpreted as a sign of this.

To wit, here is a slide from a lecture I recently gave to members of International Association for the Philosophy of Sport.

Just sayin.

BRJ: The risk that probability and big data could take some of the fun out of the game by limiting surprise rings true to me. To wit, the conventional wisdom about Golden State seems to be that they can only lose in the unlikely event that one of their stars gets injured. That’s hardly the kind of surprise eagerly awaited by most fans. At the same time, one might rightly argue that the pleasure also comes from watching the game at its finest, and what could be finer than the Warriors offense? This, at least, was the argument many of Kevin Durant’s supporters made about his decision to boost this juggernaut by joining the already great team he couldn’t quite defeat.

The other argument might be that enough chance will always remain, especially for the casual fan. After all, even the best shooting teams—currently the New Orleans Pelicans(?!)—only make 50% of their shots, and so, one might argue, any play could always go either way (if you’re wondering, Pelicans star Anthony Davis is shooting over 59% after 3 games). And perhaps part of the fun is simply the work of calculating the odds—and betting on them. Earlier this month the Mavericks, following something of this logic, hired a former professional gambler as “director of quantitative research and development.” This follows the announcement, back in September, that the NBA had entered an agreement with sportsbook provider MGM Resorts, now the league’s “official gaming partner.” What does this official sanctioning of gambling signal about the league’s future ambitions? Can you see any long-term consequences for the game itself?

YC: The NBA, in its earliest years, benefited enormously from the disrepute that befell college basketball in the early 1950s as a result of the CCNY game-fixing scandal.  So I certainly expect that the League will do everything possible to avoid anything like that occurring.  But as my comment above suggests, everybody involved in the NBA (from owners, to GMs, to coaches, to players) are all already essentially gamblers and already using quantitative data to inform their bets.  Because of this, I see the official sanctioning of gambling more like the simple addition of another revenue stream rather than some sea change in the nature of the sport.

TR: I agree with Yago. It seems like a move to create another revenue stream. Nevertheless, this discussion makes me think back to the blackballing of Connie Hawkins for nearly a decade for his suspected ties to gambling ring leader, Jack Molinas. (Molinas ran a game-fixing operation.) Because of these unsubstantiated claims, Hawkins’ was first blackballed from the NCAA and then from the NBA, which nearly destroyed his chances of playing professional basketball. Forced to play in the ABL, ABA, and for the Harlem Globetrotters, Hawkins finally sued and won a settlement from the NBA in 1969. However, by then, his best playing days were over. Against the backdrop of this move to incorporate gambling, Hawkins’ story is all the more tragic.

BRJ: Thinking more about the NBA’s future and its relationship with college athletics, last week the New York Times reported that top high school recruit Darius Bazley, having already decommitted from Syracuse to sign with the NBA’s development league (the “G League”) has now opted instead to sign a deal with New Balance that will pay him $1 million to be an intern next year while he waits to meet the minimum age requirement (19) to enter the league. This is just the latest in a long struggle over when players should be allowed to enter the league—and what role the scandal-prone NCAA should play in the development of amateur athletes. Where do you see this debate going? Is the NBA headed for a system more like Major League Baseball’s minor league? This gets us away from the NBA, but what might this mean for the college game?

TR: At face value, the age minimum strikes me as paternalistic and unjust. Moreover, I can’t help but see the age minimum rule as part of the gentlemen’s agreement between the NBA and the NCAA to preserve the interests of both leagues. For a long time, the NBA needed the NCAA and its stars and player rivalries in order to capture their fans as college players moved on to the professional game. At the same time, the NCAA relies on being the proven path to the NBA in order to replenish its talent pools and suppress labor costs. In the course of doing research covering from the 1970s to the present, I’ve found that the critiques of the NCAA acting as the NBA’s defacto farm system have been very consistent over the decades. (i.e. the academics for NCAA basketball players are a sham, the “student-athletes” involved in Division I basketball are amateur only in name, the players are being exploited, the punishments of the players are draconian while the NCAA and its teams wash their hands of any culpability of rule violations, etc.) I don’t think it would be bad thing to disrupt this gentlemen’s agreement between two organizations that act as monopolies (Taylor Branch even called the NCAA a cartel). This is what happened back in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the advent of the ABA (the NBA’s rival league from 1967-1976) and then with Spencer Haywood v. NBA (1971), which struck down the league rule that a team could not draft a player until four years after his high school graduation. Thanks to these and other disruptions of the monopolistic control of the NCAA and NBA, the players were eventually able to use their position of increased power to end the option clause. I’m not really much of a prognosticator, but rules violations are endemic to the NCAA system, so I’m not terribly sentimental about it losing some of its control over the fates of players. I think that the fact that it has survived the way it has for so long has something to with the racial makeup of the players. People don’t care; they just want to be entertained regardless of what it is doing to the players.

YC: Theresa, again, is right on the mark as far as my experience (personal and scholarly) with these issues goes.  She’s also wiser than I in refraining from prognostication. But what the hell: there are so many leaks in the NCAA boat right now that I have a hard time imagining its current D1 basketball model functioning too much longer into the future.  On the one hand, college athletes seem to me to be growing in their awareness of their economic power and in their willingness to exercise that power as leverage (e.g. Missouri football), while on the other hand, the recurrent scandals and generally unsavory air of corruption and racialized exploitation surrounding the NCAA I think is already spurring (and is likely to continue to prompt) various individuals and organizations (even simply entrepreneurially motivated) to imagine and attempt to implement competitive models of sub-NBA caliber basketball play.  One of the most interesting of these to me is the HB league, an initiative to create a national college basketball league that would compensate the college students who played in it beyond simply covering the costs of attendance .  I like it because it addresses the racist dimensions of the current situation, acknowledges the importance of the financial piece (not only to players but to investors in any viable alternative to the NCAA), and seems to be trying to value education.  

BRJ: We’ll have much more to say about the NCAA in future LARB Ball pieces, but I share your sense that D1 basketball needs to change.

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to talk with me. A couple of quick questions to end: Yago’s inevitability slide aside, can anyone unseat the Warriors—or, put another way, when and how does this reign end? And for those interested in tracing some of the issues we’ve discussed in more depth, what basketball books—aside from your own, of course—should we be reading, or anticipating, this fall?

YC: I don’t see anyone knocking off the Warriors this season (barring, as you mentioned, Brian, a major injury to a member of the core).  But after this season, KD is a free agent, and there’s already lots of talk of him moving on to new challenges. But even if that doesn’t happen, time, eventually catches up with every great team (such as the Spurs currently). Players age, their skills diminish even if only slightly, they become more vulnerable to minor injuries and fatigue, and in the meantime, a new cadre of young players is on the rise who are themselves exhibiting new combinations of size, athletic ability and skill that may, eventually, make the on-court innovations of Curry & Co. seem routine.

As for book recommendations, my gosh, there are so many great, thoughtful books inspired by by basketball.  One of my favorites is Aram Goudsouzian’s riveting biography of Bill Russell, King of the Court, which gives a superb account not only of Russell himself, but of the overlapping contexts of sport, American society, and race that shaped Russell and that he also helped to transform in the 50s and 60s. In a different vein, the pioneering works by the FreeDarko blogging collective (The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac and The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History) are great introductions both to basketball and to the innovative creative writing that has emerged around the game in the past 15 years.  I’m looking forward to Theresa’s work on the 70s, but in the meantime, I think that historian Adam Criblez’ Tall Tales and Short Shorts: Dr. J, Pistol Pete, and the Birth of the Modern NBA gives an excellent account of that pivotal decade, perhaps paired with Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game.  Boyd’s and Lane’s books that I mentioned above do an excellent job tracing the complicated intersections of race, class, and culture converging on hoops in the 80s and 90s.  Among the most recent works, I think that Jonathan Abrams Boys Among Men (on the prep-to-pro generation) is not only thoroughly reported, but very beautifully written.  It may in some ways be a bit outdated, but your readers might appreciate this more extensive list of my favorite basketball books that I posted a few summers ago on my blog.

TR: There is always a human element to the game, so you never know what is going to happen. As I said before, I’m not much of a fortune teller, but bodies fail, minds get side-tracked, and unforeseen circumstances are always in the wings.

As for books, I agree with Yago’s selections. A few that I would add are Sam Smith’s book on the Oscar Robertson et al v. NBA suit, Hard Labor: The Battle that Birthed the Billion-Dollar NBA, John Feinstein’s, The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, And the Fight that Changed Basketball Forever, and David J. Leonard’s After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness. My own book, tentatively titled, Black Ball: Rethinking the “Dark Ages” of Professional Basketball, is still very much a work in progress. According to popular memory, the NBA struggled during the seventies because it was too black, too violent, and too drug-infested for its majority-white audience. Black Ball critiques this declension story. It explores how professional basketball emerged as a site for public debates over black politics and culture in the late twentieth-century United States, as African American athletes not only became the demographic majority (approximately 75 percent of the players), but fought for more control over their labor. I also explore how black players changed the aesthetics and rules of the game, infusing it with the style and ethics of urban black streetball. This underlying tension played out in the form of numerous “crises” throughout the decade—over not just on-court violence and drug abuse, but also the league’s monopoly status, the option clause, and the slam dunk—as NBA league executives and team owners tried to figure out how best to market and monetize a sport now dominated by African American players. It promises to shed light on this relatively understudied era that gave rise to the modern NBA.

Source: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/larb-ball-nba-roundtable/

[cvolx]

Paul Ferns, Best SEO Expert in Karachi, Pakistan

I want you, to take a good look at the terms below and tell me what do you see. SEO Karachi, SEO Pakistan, SEO services in Karachi, SEO agency Karachi, SEO agency in Karachi, best SEO company in Karachi, best SEO company in Pakistan, top SEO companies in Pakistan. Right, you guessed it. SEO is the acronym that stands out the most in addition to other words connected to it. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and is one of the most important processes for a website’s or businesses’ success and failure. What you have read above, are keywords that people type on Google, in order to discover what they’re looking for. And as I’m crazy about SEO and consider my name out there among other search engine optimization experts, I have decided to use similar keywords to explain where I’m getting at and what I’m trying to tell you. A little bit about me I’m writing (yea ok, typing, whatever), after a really long time. 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Medium and large business have the budgets and they can even take a hit if paid search fails or decent results fail to materialize. For any other business, it could mean a hefty hit out of their budgets. Ecommerce If your entity specializes in ecommerce, then you are in luck. At CVOLX SEO Services company, we also employ CRM platforms such as WooCommerce, Magento and Shopify to enable our clients to get the best in ecommerce website. Coupled with our prowess in SEO, your business will take off in the least possible time! So the above was a bit about what services we offer in addition to best local SEO services in Karachi for our clients. Some info on our digital marketing team Our team is comprised of seasoned digital marketers that involves content producers, social media marketers, paid search managers, SEO experts, web developers, graphic designers and animators. Rest assured, our team is what any best SEO company of the world would work with and we can confidently say that CVOLX is among the top 10 seo firms in Pakistan. The individuals pack years of experience and can handle any task assigned by our client professionally and will execute them to perfection! What do we charge? Pricing is the key element that any client prefers to go in detail. We have designed packages that will suit your needs and business size. You can have our SEO services coupled with any of our other services mentioned above. That was a little something about me and my journey to be one of the agency’s offering the best search engine optimization in Pakistan. That being said, patience and perseverance pay off in the long run. The best thing anyone can do to be successful is to always consider themselves students and keep learning while staying humble. In my time of being connected to the online field over 4 years, I have seen many fake ass gurus in all fields and they get caught sooner or later. I will also write in another article about how I was scammed by one of the top sites of the world offering one of the best SEO tools names Xrumer. Written on my phone, might edit this later. Thank you for reading. Cheers! Read the full article

[wealthbronze59-blog]

The LARB Ball NBA Roundtable

NOVEMBER 1, 2018

With the NBA season in full swing, I reached out to Theresa Runstedtler (Associate Professor of History at American University) and Yago Colás (Professor of English at Oberlin College), sports scholars with expertise (and books in progress) about the pro game, to discuss the state of the league today and its history. Moving between on- and off-court issues, and from the 1970s to our expectations for the new season, the conversation takes up topics including LeBron’s move west, NBA vs. NFL politics, race and power, the basketball version of “moneyball,” the league’s embrace of gambling, and the past and future of business-minded player-celebrities. How long can Golden State’s stranglehold on the league last? Will big data analytics sap the game of its pleasing uncertainty? Can a new generation of players, coaches, and owners steer the league to a more politically progressive place? And for those interested as much in reading about the sport as watching the games, stick around to the end for book recommendations. Enjoy! – BRJ

Brian Jacobson: Let’s start broadly: what story lines—on or off the court—most interest you as the NBA season kicks off?

Theresa Runstedtler: I’m interested to see what happens as LeBron James makes his transition from the Cavaliers to the Lakers. Will he continue to be vilified for his lack of loyalty and individual career ambitions? I’m also interested to see what happens with Vince Carter’s year with the Hawks. I was part of the Raptors organization during his first season in 1998. To hear him talked about as the “old guy” at 41 years of age is amusing to me (and tells me I’m getting old too). I guess even though I haven’t lived in Toronto for 17 years, I’m still a Raptors fan at heart. I’m curious to see whether the addition of Kawhi Leonard will improve or hurt the team’s chemistry on the court. #WetheNorth

Yago Colás: I share Theresa’s interest in LeBron’s move to the West, but for slightly different reasons. I’ve lived half an hour from Cleveland for the last seven years, and my sense is that, at least in this region, fans wish LeBron well.  They are grateful for the 2016 championship, and recognize all he does (and will surely continue to do) for the area. As the mother of one of the youngsters participating in the LeBron James Family Foundation educational initiative told Howard Bryant on the radio program Only a Game, “I don’t care where he works.”

I am interested, however, to see how LeBron responds to his changed competitive circumstances. He now has a young team around him and will be facing the much deeper Western Conference.  Will the Lakers make the playoffs? If they struggle early (they are 2-3 as I write), will they add a superstar? What will Kobe’s legendary legion of insane fans do to LeBron if LA is horrible? On the other hand, if they do make the playoffs, how deep a run can they make? And, as a massive LeBron fan, OH MY GOD, what if they beat the Thunder, Rockets and Warriors to get to the finals and then beat the Celtics or the Raptors?!! LeBron will have become, as Obi Wan once said, “more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

The other interesting story emerging from LeBron’s move to the Lakers is what will happen in the East now that the roadblock to the Finals named LeBron James has been removed. Toronto or Boston should be ready to come out of the East, but will they?  Will the young Sixers continue their ascent? As I write, Toronto is undefeated (congrats Theresa!), but the other unbeaten teams in the East are Milwaukee and Detroit! Of course, it’s early, but with so many exciting and talented young players distributed on different teams, I think the Eastern conference could be very exciting.

A week or so into the season, the one league-wide trend that has caught my eye is the marked uptick in both scoring and pace (meaning: possessions per game) this season.  Though it’s early in the season, both figures are on pace to easily set historic high marks and observers have attributed this to the convergence of a number of factors, one of which is NBA officials calling defensive fouls away from the ball more closely, which obviously works to the offense’s advantage, especially given the penchant in today’s NBA for Warriors-esque action away from the ball.  It’ll be interesting to see if this early offensive explosion prompts any effective defensive adjustments, provokes any kind of backlash among fans and, if so, any kind of adjustments from the League.

Finally, at a personal level, I’m always interested to see how my former University of Michigan students fare as they adjust to the demands of pro ball.  As the season opened, former students of mine were playing for Brooklyn (Caris LeVert), the Knicks (Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway, Jr.), the Pistons (Glenn Robinson III),  the Trailblazers (Nik Stauskas), and the Lakers (Moe Wagner). Having gotten to know these hard-working players when they were just 18 year old freshman with big NBA dreams, I’m happy to see that they have all stuck with it and are beginning, each in their own way, to make a mark.

BRJ: I too am interested in Lebron’s move and how a single player can shape so many storylines. Here in Boston, where I spend part of my time, the Celtics still appear to be built for long-term success, but the reintegration of Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward hasn’t been as seamless as fans might have hoped. Will that allow Toronto, finally, to get to the finals (and perhaps even keep Kawhi from packing his bags for LA next summer)? Or will this be the year the 76ers move from process to product? (*paging Markelle Fultz’s jump shot*)

I guess we’d be remiss if we didn’t also mention the Jimmy Butler situation (fiasco?) in Minnesota, which represents fairly well, I think, the internal and individual tensions—among players, coaches, and management—that PR-minded teams and agents usually do so well to keep out of the spotlight—but that sports journalists, when given the opportunity, just can’t seem to get enough of.

But in the interest of other stories, I want to shift directions now to talk about the politics of the NBA, especially in comparison to the NFL, which was covered in the column last month. The NFL, and especially its owners and commissioner, have (rightly, I think) been denounced for their conservative politics and failure to respond to Donald Trump’s comments about and implicit threats against players kneeling during the anthem. In contrast, some critics see the NBA as a progressive league, with younger, more liberal owners and both players and coaches who have spoken out against Trump, racial injustice, and other political issues without receiving the kind of backlash as Colin Kaepernick or Eric Reid. Is this a fair contrast? If so, how do we account for the NBA’s comparative progressive politics—or at least the impression of it?

TR: When I tell people I’m working on a project about race and professional basketball in the 1970s, they often take the opportunity to tell me that the NBA is “so much more progressive” than any other professional sports league. I think that there is some truth to this statement when you compare the NBA to the NFL. However, something about this idea that the NBA is racially progressive doesn’t sit well with me–and it doesn’t really hold water when I look at the demonization and disciplining of both black players and black style over the decades. I think that if the NBA is progressive at all, it is because they have to be. In other words, since the 1970s the majority of the players have been black, and the NBPA has had many black leaders. The global audience of basketball has become increasingly multicultural and multiracial. It is not good business to be overtly racist. That said, the NBA has been very clever about how to depoliticize and aestheticize blackness for the sake of profitability, while also containing and managing its mix of danger and respectability for its corporate partners and white fans.

YC: I absolutely agree with Theresa’s more sober view of the NBA’s much-celebrated political progressiveness.  Sure, it looks great compared to the NFL, but that’s not saying much. The NBA’s racial containment strategies (e.g. the dress code), especially under former commissioner David Stern, from the late 70s through the 2000s were real and must be kept in mind.  (Readers might be interested in Todd Boyd’s Young, Black, Rich & Famous, David Leonard’s After Artest and Jeffrey Lane’s Under the Boards for accounts of these dynamics.)

At the same time, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of NBA players.  The NBA is a much smaller league than the NFL, and one in which individual stars have a much greater impact (not just on competitive outcomes, but on financial outcomes, and on the culture surrounding the league).  I sense that over the past eight years, the players have begun to experiment with exercising the power they have. Some of these experiments have involved internal power differentials within the league (like LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh “usurping” team formation powers that had always resided with GM’s and owners) or the NBPA resisting the use of biometric devices in game play, others have involved the manifestations of racism within the NBA (the Chris Paul-led reaction to the Donald Sterling case in 2015), and of course many have involved players acting or speaking out against police lethality against black men, transphobia, Donald Trump, or just racism more generally.  

I also think it’s important to note that 1) there is nothing politically retrograde in the NBA that is not also to be found in American society and 2) I’m wary of the general expectation that professional athletes have some sort of unique responsibility, different than any of the rest of us, to make the world more free and more just.

BRJ: As your answers make clear, even if the NBA is comparatively more progressive than the NFL today—which, as Yago says, is hardly a rousing endorsement—no doubt it remains an institution with a history of racism and front offices dominated by just as many white men as the NFL. Last year, Draymond Green accused one of these men, New York Knicks owner James Dolan, of having a “slave master mentality.” Meanwhile, a recent investigation into sexual harassment by former Dallas Mavericks president and CEO Terdema Ussery revealed “a corporate culture rife with misogyny and predatory sexual behavior,” followed just weeks ago by another report about sexual harassment by a Mavericks team photographer. What do these kinds of reports tell us about the league’s progressive claims?

TR: These incidents are hardly surprising to me. Racism and sexism are very much alive and well in professional basketball. All we need to do is look at someone like the LA Clippers’ former owner Donald Sterling to see that team owners (behind closed doors) still view their majority-black players as mere pawns (if not property) who are there to earn them money. Also, I was a dancer for the Toronto Raptors back in the late 1990s and can attest that aspects of toxic masculinity pervaded the league from bottom to top. That said, I don’t think there is anything exceptional about the NBA in this regard. Big-time sports leagues are all complicit in the production of anti-blackness and toxic masculinity. At the same time, they also reflect and reinforce the racism and sexism of society at large.

YC: Of course, I agree.  But what do we mean by “the League” when we talk about its politics. Are we talking about the Commissioner? The various owners? The legal corporation? The players? The superstar players? The NBPA?  I think we get different answers depending on who we are talking about. And, as I say, for me personally the most interesting political phenomenon over the past decade has been the increasing autonomy players are showing.  I’m very curious to see what the immediate and long-term effects of this will be.

The work I did to write Ball Don’t Lie! taught me that the whatever the League administrators and owners and their corporate partners, and even some more conservative fans may want, the players make the game and it is a game that is at its most essential level on the court about getting free.  I wouldn’t underestimate the cultural and political power of a group of young wealth, influential black men with a strong sense of shared interests and collective responsibility who have spent most of their lives dedicated to the embodied practice of getting free.

BRJ: It has become a common refrain that the NBA is a year-round league, with fans just as, if not more, interested in what’s happening off the court as on it—whether in free agency or the constant rumor mill about which player wants to play on which team, not to mention off-court politics and the players’ various entanglements in non-sports work. For those who love the game itself, this might seem like a sad state of affairs, but it also brings into focus something critics of course know: that the game itself is just the beginning. My question is this: is there actually anything new about the “year-round” nature of the league, or are we just more attentive to what happens beyond the games? If it is different, what has prompted the change?

TR: I don’t think there is anything particularly new about year-round reporting on the NBA and its players; however, the volume of reporting has definitely increased. I think there are a number of reasons for the uptick in coverage. Firstly, before the advent of the ABA and the players’ victory in removing the option clause as a condition of the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, there simply wasn’t as much player movement to report. (The option clause meant that a team retained the rights to a player even after the expiration of his contract. Thus, the team had full control over when a player could be re-signed, traded, or released.) Free agency has added another storyline to the sports news cycle. Since the expansion of professional basketball in the 1970s, publications have reported on players’ non-sports work—particularly the charitable, mentorship kind—because the league wanted to improve its public image. On the flipside, the press also has covered basketball players’ misdeeds, crimes, etc.—especially those of black players. However, changes to the media industry landscape have ramped up this coverage. With the move to a segmented marketplace of growing numbers of niche publications/networks, on both traditional and internet media, there is now a constant demand for more and more content. I suppose this kind of coverage might be dismaying to basketball “purists,” but it has long been part of the game.

YC:  I agree with everything Theresa has said here: it’s not new, though factors like free agency and transformations in the mediascape around the game have definitely fueled an expansion in the volume of coverage and interest around both off-court and off-season happenings.  My own current research (see below) is on the effect of quantification and big data analytics on the sport (i.e. the hoops version of “moneyball”) and I’ve found that this issue of year-round coverage is one of the areas of the sport’s culture impacted by the phenomenon.  As in other areas of American society, big data analytics in the NBA has the explicit aim of maximizing competitive and financial efficiency. I suspect that fans and journalists know a great deal more about the financial side of the sport than they previously did and that, together with the player assessment data available to fans through the media today, it’s easier to generate (and publish) opinions about off-seasons transactions.  

BRJ: It seems to me that part of the reason the league garners so much coverage beyond the games has to do with the celebrity power of today’s NBA stars, and probably no more so than LeBron. This summer, his foundation launched the “I Promise” school in Akron. Meanwhile, as many journalists have noted, his move to Los Angeles to join the Lakers seems to have as much to do with media production ambitions and life after basketball as NBA ambitions. And of course LeBron isn’t alone: we could say something similar about Kevin Durant’s move to Golden State and his ties with the Bay area startup scene, or about Russell Westbrook’s turns through the fashion world, or about Dwayne Wade’s wine business. What can we expect of the new NBA celebrities who have their sights set on personal brands and long-term non-basketball franchises? NBA players have long been spokesmen and some have gone into politics. Is the new generation—with its enormous salaries and business acumen—any different?

TR: I think the scale of their wealth and fame is certainly different. However, I was doing some reading in a 1970s-era publication called Black Sports a couple of weeks ago, which suggests that this idea of player-businessman is not so new. (Black Sports was the first major sporting publication to specifically target black readers from 1971 to 1978.) There was a monthly feature called “Taking Care of Business” that featured former professional athletes who translated their success in sports to success in the corporate world or as entrepreneurs. I think there has long been the expectation, particularly among black athletes, that they should parlay their sporting achievements into wealth and an elevated socio-economic status. When I was part of the Raptors organization back in the late 1990s, I also recall many of the players talking about side-hustles/hobbies that they hoped to turn into full-fledged businesses upon retirement. However, I do think that the players nowadays have much more access to contacts and capital to launch their own companies. What’s also interesting is the emergence of second-generation NBA stars such as Steph Curry (father Dell Curry played in the league from 1986-2002). They have an even better sense of how to work the business of basketball to their own advantage.

BRJ: Can you imagine any of today’s players going into politics? Is Lebron gearing up for a presidential run?

TR: Perhaps. Hey, if Donald Trump managed to become president, a former basketball player certainly can.

BRJ: Let’s talk more about the game itself. Even readers who don’t follow sports are likely to be familiar with the “moneyball” phenomenon that hit baseball with the publication of Michael Lewis’s book fifteen years ago in July. Has the “analytics revolution” shaped the NBA in similar ways?

TR: Obviously, some aspects of data analysis have contributed to the success of teams like the Golden State Warriors. How can one deny that the strategy of taking more three-point shots has been a good one for the Curry and the Warriors? However, I want to think about the analytics revolution in light of the ongoing negotiation of power between team owners and the players. I know that proponents of the data analytics revolution have tended to scoff at naysayers like Charles Barkley, casting them as less-evolved luddites who are simply suspicious of change. I’m no Barkley fan, but I’m wondering if part of this critique has to do with fears about the players losing control over the game. It seems as if the rise of data analytics has the potential to shift the balance of power more so in favor of the team owners, potentially taking away the autonomy and creativity of the players in practicing their craft. As Yago asks in Ball Don’t Lie, who makes the game? The league and the team owners or the players?  Also, what about the invasiveness of the statistics garnered from trackers that some players now have to wear? What is the bodily autonomy of the athlete in this case? Data can be used as a means for increased surveillance, discipline, and punishment. I also wonder if the data analytics revolution may change the character of the game. What is the end goal of the game? Is it the efficiency of scoring? Is it creative, entertaining play? Are these incompatible? I’m not sure, but they’re definitely things to think about. Basketball, much like soccer, is one of the few professional team sports that encourages free-flowing play. How will data analytics impact this aspect of the game? It suggests a potential move away from the ethics and aesthetics of black streetball that have come to define modern basketball. I’m not sure this is a good thing.

YC: As I said above, I’m writing a book called Numbers Don’t Lie! Counting and What Counts in the Culture of Basketball (forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press) to explore the question of the impact of basketball analytics on NBA play and culture.  It’s played out a little differently than in baseball simply because in the NBA, the use of advanced statistical methods, enabled in part by computing power, to discern hidden patterns (which was what baseball’s moneyball was about) has coincided with the use of very sophisticated digital data production technologies (such as Second Spectrum’s optical tracking cameras, installed in every NBA arena, and which capture the movement of the ball and all ten players 25 times per second, thus delivering 800,000 data points to each franchise every game) so that basketball analytics is, at this point, essentially big data analytics.  

The most obvious and frequently noted impact is the continued rise of the three-point shot in response to the statistical insight that it’s greater point value, given the skills and patterns of play prevailing in the league, make it a more efficient scoring play than many two-point shots.  Another major trend that is still unfolding involves the use of wearables and other kinds of biometric technologies. Currently these can only be used in training and practice. Players understandably may want to know all they can about their bodies, their tendencies, and their futures. But the use of these devices should occasion serious discussion about the ethical and political implications related to quantification, surveillance, and the use of predictive algorithms in situations (like the NBA) where power differential exists.

However, as fascinating and powerful as basketball analytics are, and as important as the political and ethical questions raised by them are, I find myself personally even more compelled by a possibly more esoteric question raised by these techniques and technologies.  Let me put it to your readers this way. Nobody argues that the purpose of analytics is to minimize risk by maximizing the capacity to forecast future outcomes. In other words, when owners and GMs use the data to project career arcs for players and correlate those with financial cost-benefit analyses, when coaches use the data to make decisions about matchups and rotations, and when players use the data to make tactical and technical decisions, they are all hoping that they will not be surprised.  

Now, speaking for myself, most (not all, but most) of the delight I derive from watching basketball comes from being surprised.  The wonder and awe, the beauty and grace and power, that I experience when I watch basketball play depends, at least in part, on players and teams doing unexpected (and even probabilistically unadvisable) things.  I feel pretty sure that chance, randomness and surprise will continue to play a role in the NBA, but I wonder how that role will change with the continued expansion and advance of various kinds of predictive technologies.  The predictability of the Warriors’ dominance of the league over the past four seasons (2016 is the exception that proves this rule) may be interpreted as a sign of this.

To wit, here is a slide from a lecture I recently gave to members of International Association for the Philosophy of Sport.

Just sayin.

BRJ: The risk that probability and big data could take some of the fun out of the game by limiting surprise rings true to me. To wit, the conventional wisdom about Golden State seems to be that they can only lose in the unlikely event that one of their stars gets injured. That’s hardly the kind of surprise eagerly awaited by most fans. At the same time, one might rightly argue that the pleasure also comes from watching the game at its finest, and what could be finer than the Warriors offense? This, at least, was the argument many of Kevin Durant’s supporters made about his decision to boost this juggernaut by joining the already great team he couldn’t quite defeat.

The other argument might be that enough chance will always remain, especially for the casual fan. After all, even the best shooting teams—currently the New Orleans Pelicans(?!)—only make 50% of their shots, and so, one might argue, any play could always go either way (if you’re wondering, Pelicans star Anthony Davis is shooting over 59% after 3 games). And perhaps part of the fun is simply the work of calculating the odds—and betting on them. Earlier this month the Mavericks, following something of this logic, hired a former professional gambler as “director of quantitative research and development.” This follows the announcement, back in September, that the NBA had entered an agreement with sportsbook provider MGM Resorts, now the league’s “official gaming partner.” What does this official sanctioning of gambling signal about the league’s future ambitions? Can you see any long-term consequences for the game itself?

YC: The NBA, in its earliest years, benefited enormously from the disrepute that befell college basketball in the early 1950s as a result of the CCNY game-fixing scandal.  So I certainly expect that the League will do everything possible to avoid anything like that occurring.  But as my comment above suggests, everybody involved in the NBA (from owners, to GMs, to coaches, to players) are all already essentially gamblers and already using quantitative data to inform their bets.  Because of this, I see the official sanctioning of gambling more like the simple addition of another revenue stream rather than some sea change in the nature of the sport.

TR: I agree with Yago. It seems like a move to create another revenue stream. Nevertheless, this discussion makes me think back to the blackballing of Connie Hawkins for nearly a decade for his suspected ties to gambling ring leader, Jack Molinas. (Molinas ran a game-fixing operation.) Because of these unsubstantiated claims, Hawkins’ was first blackballed from the NCAA and then from the NBA, which nearly destroyed his chances of playing professional basketball. Forced to play in the ABL, ABA, and for the Harlem Globetrotters, Hawkins finally sued and won a settlement from the NBA in 1969. However, by then, his best playing days were over. Against the backdrop of this move to incorporate gambling, Hawkins’ story is all the more tragic.

BRJ: Thinking more about the NBA’s future and its relationship with college athletics, last week the New York Times reported that top high school recruit Darius Bazley, having already decommitted from Syracuse to sign with the NBA’s development league (the “G League”) has now opted instead to sign a deal with New Balance that will pay him $1 million to be an intern next year while he waits to meet the minimum age requirement (19) to enter the league. This is just the latest in a long struggle over when players should be allowed to enter the league—and what role the scandal-prone NCAA should play in the development of amateur athletes. Where do you see this debate going? Is the NBA headed for a system more like Major League Baseball’s minor league? This gets us away from the NBA, but what might this mean for the college game?

TR: At face value, the age minimum strikes me as paternalistic and unjust. Moreover, I can’t help but see the age minimum rule as part of the gentlemen’s agreement between the NBA and the NCAA to preserve the interests of both leagues. For a long time, the NBA needed the NCAA and its stars and player rivalries in order to capture their fans as college players moved on to the professional game. At the same time, the NCAA relies on being the proven path to the NBA in order to replenish its talent pools and suppress labor costs. In the course of doing research covering from the 1970s to the present, I’ve found that the critiques of the NCAA acting as the NBA’s defacto farm system have been very consistent over the decades. (i.e. the academics for NCAA basketball players are a sham, the “student-athletes” involved in Division I basketball are amateur only in name, the players are being exploited, the punishments of the players are draconian while the NCAA and its teams wash their hands of any culpability of rule violations, etc.) I don’t think it would be bad thing to disrupt this gentlemen’s agreement between two organizations that act as monopolies (Taylor Branch even called the NCAA a cartel). This is what happened back in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the advent of the ABA (the NBA’s rival league from 1967-1976) and then with Spencer Haywood v. NBA (1971), which struck down the league rule that a team could not draft a player until four years after his high school graduation. Thanks to these and other disruptions of the monopolistic control of the NCAA and NBA, the players were eventually able to use their position of increased power to end the option clause. I’m not really much of a prognosticator, but rules violations are endemic to the NCAA system, so I’m not terribly sentimental about it losing some of its control over the fates of players. I think that the fact that it has survived the way it has for so long has something to with the racial makeup of the players. People don’t care; they just want to be entertained regardless of what it is doing to the players.

YC: Theresa, again, is right on the mark as far as my experience (personal and scholarly) with these issues goes.  She’s also wiser than I in refraining from prognostication. But what the hell: there are so many leaks in the NCAA boat right now that I have a hard time imagining its current D1 basketball model functioning too much longer into the future.  On the one hand, college athletes seem to me to be growing in their awareness of their economic power and in their willingness to exercise that power as leverage (e.g. Missouri football), while on the other hand, the recurrent scandals and generally unsavory air of corruption and racialized exploitation surrounding the NCAA I think is already spurring (and is likely to continue to prompt) various individuals and organizations (even simply entrepreneurially motivated) to imagine and attempt to implement competitive models of sub-NBA caliber basketball play.  One of the most interesting of these to me is the HB league, an initiative to create a national college basketball league that would compensate the college students who played in it beyond simply covering the costs of attendance .  I like it because it addresses the racist dimensions of the current situation, acknowledges the importance of the financial piece (not only to players but to investors in any viable alternative to the NCAA), and seems to be trying to value education.  

BRJ: We’ll have much more to say about the NCAA in future LARB Ball pieces, but I share your sense that D1 basketball needs to change.

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to talk with me. A couple of quick questions to end: Yago’s inevitability slide aside, can anyone unseat the Warriors—or, put another way, when and how does this reign end? And for those interested in tracing some of the issues we’ve discussed in more depth, what basketball books—aside from your own, of course—should we be reading, or anticipating, this fall?

YC: I don’t see anyone knocking off the Warriors this season (barring, as you mentioned, Brian, a major injury to a member of the core).  But after this season, KD is a free agent, and there’s already lots of talk of him moving on to new challenges. But even if that doesn’t happen, time, eventually catches up with every great team (such as the Spurs currently). Players age, their skills diminish even if only slightly, they become more vulnerable to minor injuries and fatigue, and in the meantime, a new cadre of young players is on the rise who are themselves exhibiting new combinations of size, athletic ability and skill that may, eventually, make the on-court innovations of Curry & Co. seem routine.

As for book recommendations, my gosh, there are so many great, thoughtful books inspired by by basketball.  One of my favorites is Aram Goudsouzian’s riveting biography of Bill Russell, King of the Court, which gives a superb account not only of Russell himself, but of the overlapping contexts of sport, American society, and race that shaped Russell and that he also helped to transform in the 50s and 60s. In a different vein, the pioneering works by the FreeDarko blogging collective (The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac and The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History) are great introductions both to basketball and to the innovative creative writing that has emerged around the game in the past 15 years.  I’m looking forward to Theresa’s work on the 70s, but in the meantime, I think that historian Adam Criblez’ Tall Tales and Short Shorts: Dr. J, Pistol Pete, and the Birth of the Modern NBA gives an excellent account of that pivotal decade, perhaps paired with Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game.  Boyd’s and Lane’s books that I mentioned above do an excellent job tracing the complicated intersections of race, class, and culture converging on hoops in the 80s and 90s.  Among the most recent works, I think that Jonathan Abrams Boys Among Men (on the prep-to-pro generation) is not only thoroughly reported, but very beautifully written.  It may in some ways be a bit outdated, but your readers might appreciate this more extensive list of my favorite basketball books that I posted a few summers ago on my blog.

TR: There is always a human element to the game, so you never know what is going to happen. As I said before, I’m not much of a fortune teller, but bodies fail, minds get side-tracked, and unforeseen circumstances are always in the wings.

As for books, I agree with Yago’s selections. A few that I would add are Sam Smith’s book on the Oscar Robertson et al v. NBA suit, Hard Labor: The Battle that Birthed the Billion-Dollar NBA, John Feinstein’s, The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, And the Fight that Changed Basketball Forever, and David J. Leonard’s After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness. My own book, tentatively titled, Black Ball: Rethinking the “Dark Ages” of Professional Basketball, is still very much a work in progress. According to popular memory, the NBA struggled during the seventies because it was too black, too violent, and too drug-infested for its majority-white audience. Black Ball critiques this declension story. It explores how professional basketball emerged as a site for public debates over black politics and culture in the late twentieth-century United States, as African American athletes not only became the demographic majority (approximately 75 percent of the players), but fought for more control over their labor. I also explore how black players changed the aesthetics and rules of the game, infusing it with the style and ethics of urban black streetball. This underlying tension played out in the form of numerous “crises” throughout the decade—over not just on-court violence and drug abuse, but also the league’s monopoly status, the option clause, and the slam dunk—as NBA league executives and team owners tried to figure out how best to market and monetize a sport now dominated by African American players. It promises to shed light on this relatively understudied era that gave rise to the modern NBA.

Source: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/larb-ball-nba-roundtable/

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How to Become the Most Persuasive Copywriter on the Planet: Copywriting, when compared to other forms of writing, is a different kind of animal. It's not necessarily about writing well. It's about writing persuasively. It doesn't matter if you're a world-class wordsmith or a literary genius. If you can't effectively move readers through the proper sequence of steps and ultimately convince them to buy, your conversions are going to suffer. Now, I'll be the first to admit I'm not the world's greatest writer. You probably won't see me publishing a novel anytime soon. But I'd like to think I'm good at copywriting, which, in its simplest form, is “the act of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing.” In this post, I'd like to provide you with a straightforward formula you can use to become a highly persuasive copywriter with the end goal of maximizing conversions. I'll explain both the basic structure and the specific techniques you need to use to become more persuasive. Start with a killer value proposition Research from Nielsen Norman Group found that you have a very small amount of time to grab a visitor's attention before they leave your page. In fact, you usually have a max of 20 seconds. Your first order of business is to make it abundantly clear what your value proposition is. Now, there are several ways to go about this, but I believe in keeping things simple. Getting too complex tends to dilute the message and confuse prospects. What I've found to be most effective is keeping my value proposition short, sweet, and clear. Like this: I think the Moz homepage does a really good job at this as well: Don't make them guess what you're offering. Let them know in a split second what you are offering with your crystal clear value proposition. To accomplish this, try to condense the essence of your product down to just a few words. Swiftly move to the benefits “What's in it for me?” That's what most visitors are thinking after hearing your value proposition. But here's the thing. Most people have a tendency to emphasize features over benefits. But it should be the other way around. Just look at this Venn diagram from ABC Copywriting: Notice that benefits are valued over features. Of course, you need to explain how your product works. But you can elaborate on that later. What you want to do first is explain how the product fulfills a need or desire. In other words, explain how your customers' lives will be better after they buy your product. Here's a great example from Moz: See how prospects instantly understand the benefits of using Moz? It will save them time and make things more efficient. They also don't have to worry about deciphering complex data because Moz takes care of this for them. When it comes to describing benefits, there are three main types to cover: Tangible Intangible Commercial This illustration from ABC Copywriting explains these various types of benefits in more detail. As they point out, “Benefits need not be unique, but they must be compelling.” Keep this in mind when deciding on an angle. I personally find that it's best to highlight the benefits before getting down to the nuts and bolts of the features. That way prospects should be more receptive and willing to wade through the details. But if you go the other way around and cover the features before the benefits, you're probably going to lose a sizable portion of your leads. Just sayin'. Now explain the features “What's in the box?” That's what Brad Pitt's character David Mills wanted to know in the closing scene of the movie Seven. While the contents of the box were quite grisly (his wife's severed head), this question demonstrates the importance of promptly telling your leads what they'll get by making a purchase. In other words, let them know what's in the box. They already know what you're offering and what the benefits are. Now it's time to succinctly break down the features of your product. Again, I feel like Moz pulls this off flawlessly, so I'll use this as an example: I prefer breaking features down into bullet points or concise little sections like Moz does. “Digestibility” is huge, and you want to present your product's features in an easy-to-absorb, intuitive way. You also want to touch on specifics to distinguish your product from competitors and to add a sense of value. Here's how I did this with Quick Sprout: Keep it simple, but include a few key details that explain why your product is the bee's knees. CTA By now, your prospects should understand what your product is, how it will benefit them, and what the features are. Your final task is to tell them what to do next. In other words, it's time for your CTA. You can liken this to battling a boss in the final level of a video game. It's arguably the most challenging aspect of the process, but if you've done what you were supposed to do in the previous steps, you should see a reasonable conversion rate. Once again, simplicity reigns supreme, and I see no reason to complicate your CTA. Here's how I approach it on Quick Sprout: And here's what it looks like on NeilPatel.com: Notice that it's very clear what action I want prospects to complete. As always, I strongly recommend doing at least some basic A/B testing on your CTA to see what works best. Some specific elements to test include: button style button color wording positioning Being hella persuasive Okay, now we've covered the basic structure of well-crafted copywriting. The general structure of a landing page should be roughly as follows: Value proposition Benefits Features CTA But how do you ensure you're hitting all the right notes and being highly persuasive? Obviously, the value proposition and benefits will offer some motivation, but here are some other things I've found to be impactful. Make your content scannable I'm not going to launch into a huge sermon about the importance of creating scannable content. You probably already know people read online content differently than they do offline content. But if you want to efficiently get prospects from Point A (your value proposition) to Point B (your CTA), it helps to make everything in-between easily scannable. Luckily, the formula for scannable content is quite easy. Just include headers, bullet lists, and a considerable amount of white space along the way. Apple, being the savvy marketers they are, do this perfectly on their MacBook Pro landing page. Here are a couple of screenshots: It's seamless. Persuasive words An article on Business 2 Community talks about the three different brains we have: the new brain the middle brain the old brain According to the article, the old brain is the part that controls decisions, and it also happens to be the most primitive. In this way, the words you use to market to the old brain will often be the most direct, simple, arresting, visual words you have. So if there was ever a copywriting hack, it's using highly persuasive words that make the “old part of the brain light up.” Here's a list of those words: And according to research, the five most persuasive words in the English language are the ones in blue, which are: New You Free Because Instantly Peppering these words throughout your copy in key locations should have a noticeable impact on conversions. Social proof This is my last point, and it's a biggie. Incorporating social proof into your copy is the icing on the cake. This was actually one of Robert Cialdini's six principles of persuasion, which maintains that people are especially likely to perform certain actions if they can relate to the people who performed the same actions before them. I'm not going to go into all the gory details of social proof here. You can learn about it from this Kissmetrics article. But I will say that testimonials are usually your best bet, pound for pound. Here's how I incorporate them into my landing page on NeilPatel.com: You can also use things like: ratings media logos subscriber counts social connections (your number of followers) clients you've worked with Just be practical, and provide whatever type of social proof you think would most persuade your prospects to take action. Conclusion The way I look at it, there are two main components of effective copywriting. The first component involves properly structuring your content so that it's presented in a logical, sequential manner. This means explaining your product in a way that makes sense to an average person and systematically covering your value proposition, benefits, features, and CTAs. The second component is weaving in persuasive elements to quell fears, clear up any misunderstandings, and ultimately motivate prospects to take action. By appealing to people on these two different levels, you can create very persuasive copy and crush it from a conversions standpoint. What do you think is the single most important aspect of persuasive copywriting? http://bit.ly/2ryyr6v