#this may. have taken an american girl doll route

[bebemoon]

look for the name SAMANTHA (requested by anonymous) | sandy liang "napkin" navy gingham pleated mini dress w/ oversized sailor collar, aurembiaix silver-grey knitted spats w/ hook and eye fastenings, alaïa criss cross patent leather ballerina flats in black, vintage pearl screw-back earrings, thom browne "lucido mrs. thom" mini bag in black

[mtvswatches]

Wynnona Earp 1x01 Purgatory

Spoilers disclaimer (please read before sending messages or writing comments.)

Stray thoughts

1) I thought I should preface this by saying that I have literally no idea what this show is about. I had some idea about the basic premise of Jane the Virgin, but Wynnona Earp? Nothing, nada. I do know that there are some F/F ships, but that’s about it. I have no idea what the show is about. Is it sci-fi? Mystery? Drama? Is it set in the past, the present or the future? Is Wynnona Earp a character or a place, or something else? I truly don’t know! But a lot of you suggested I should watch this show, so here I am, ready to find out!

2) So I’m guessing this is Wynonna…

And she has some kind of history in this town, obviously.

I wonder whose funeral she’s attending…

3) This was some intense flashback…

A lot of information but nothing is spelled out. There were at least three sisters – I’m guessing – and their dad. One of the sisters mentions their mom, but I’m guessing she was already dead. And who are the bad guys and why are they attacking this family?

4) If someone from the area tells you not to go outside, and you even call her “smart” because of it, then why on earth do you not listen?! I’m sure she could’ve held it for two more minutes.

5) Yes, lady, this is what you get for saying “hello” to the roaring beast and taking a stroll in this creepy ass forest instead of running back to the bus.

6) Okay, I’m into this. (sorry, lady, but you kind of had it coming.)

7) Yes, super into this, but I have so many questions! Was the creepy birthday ringtone kind of like a trigger? Because she started kicking some serious ass the minute she heard it. And what about the creature? Why did it look like a man at times and like a beast at others?

8) So is this like a western supernatural show? Well, I wasn’t expecting that.

9) Why doesn’t she want anyone knowing who she is? Is she some sort of fugitive or is it because of her history in the town? And is the town literally a purgatory? I mean, those creatures in the forest seemed like they belonged in hell, not in purgatory. I have so many questions, sorry!

10) Who are Gus and Curtis to Wynnona? They don’t seem to be family, for some reason. And it seems Wynonna suspects he didn’t die of a stroke.

11) I was about to go on a rant about this…

SHERIFF: Runaway? Whore? Who knows what kind of trouble this girl got herself into?

DEPUTY DOLLS: Spoken like a man who finds a lot of dead girls. And you've had three of 'em in the past six months.

…but thankfully someone shut him up.

12) There’s an actual saloon in this town, it seems time stood still in Purgatory. Makes sense.

13) Wynonna delivers a line to give us some background information about her…

Two stints in juvie, a summer riding with the Banditos, and I'm still wanted for questioning in the Bleaker case.

…and I have more questions than answers. Why was she in juvie? Who are the Banditos? (which, btw, I’m guessing is “Bandidos” – Spanish for “bandits” – misspelled) And what is the Bleaker case?

14) Okay, so Curtis was Wynonna’s uncle. Got it.

15) So, she’s been called insane, cursed, and a freak. I wonder what special qualities she has that make these small-town dumbasses describe her like that.

16) OMG, I love this girl already!

But why is Wynonna’s sister dating this douchebag?

17) This is the dude that Wynonna fought in the forest, right?

18) WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!

19) So there is a curse, and there is a magic gun that Wynonna’s ancestor used against these creatures or whatever.

20) Damn, this girl really has a chip on her shoulder!

21) So is Dolls a Mulder? 

22) What happens to the Earps when they turn 27? Why is she spooked? I’m sorry, this must be a crappy recap because all I keep doing is asking questions! Oh, oh, is that when the powers kick in? Is that why she started kicking ass the second she turned 27?

23) So the house has been uninhabited since the night of the fire. And we finally get a little more backstory:

They say Wyatt took down 77 outlaws with this gun.

And all those outlaws are resurrecting as revenants coming for us.

They won't rest until they gain freedom from their earthly prison.

You'll stop them, Daddy!

You'll get 'em.

Willa is the eldest, the next Earp heir destined to inherit Wyatt's abilities. Because the only thing that can put these demons down again is you.

I really couldn’t tell who each of the girls is supposed to be, but apparently, there was an older sister, Willa, who was supposed to be the next “chosen one” to defeat the demons but she was taken and, I’m guessing, killed.. It seems it’s Wynonna’s turn, now.

24) So Wynonna has been diagnosed with a mental health disease because of her speaking out about the demons. Reminds me of Buffy.

25) So the Deputy is trying to recruit Wynonna. And Willa is most definitely dead.

26) Wait, did Wynonna shoot her own father?

27) Who the fuck was crawling out of the well?

28) I’m really liking the tension between the sisters because I understand where each of them is coming from. Wynonna carries a lot of guilt because of how she accidentally shot her dad, and Waverly wants revenge and to break the curse, probably so that both her and Wynonna can be safe and free.

29) So this is the guy that was crawling out of the well…

He’s definitely hiding something.

30) “Sometimes life chooses for us.” I’m guessing this will have relevance when it comes to Wynonna’s own destiny.

31) Is there going to be a fucking duel?

They took Waverly. You'll fix this. He said, "Tomorrow high noon.”

32) Yep, Dolls is a Mulder. He knows about the fucking demons.

33) Is Waverly going to be the “put Willow in danger” girl? I hope not. I mean, it works, but I hope that as a character she’s not reduced to the damsel in distress.

34) Okay, more backstory, thank you…

You see, when the Earp heir turns 27, those of us killed by the last one, well, we resurrect. A little more demonic than the time before, but, one way or the other, we all end up in Purgatory.

35) Okay, but he said they killed Curtis to lure her back, but she turned 27 when she was already back in town, so that means they couldn’t have come back and killed Curtis before then? Plot hole? Or am I missing something?

36) “Nobody shoots my family but me.”

37) I guess he’s going to hell now.

38) So Dolls did help after all. 

39) Oh, this was some steamy shit…

40) So, the guy that crawled out of the well and met Wynonna at the bar is a revenant, but he’s helping her out. Could he be an Earp that was killed by another Earp? Listen, I don’t know who he is but he’s hot af.

41) Okay, I’m really interested to see where this show goes. We have a female hero who can kick ass, there’s this “curse” and the demons who walk on earth and are stuck on Purgatory – literally, there’s this cool sister/sister dynamic, and the government is involved in actively fighting the demons. And the modern-day western setting, let’s not forget that. I’ve never been a fan of Westerns, that’s a very American thing and well, I’m not American, but I think I may actually enjoy this.

I do have a lot of questions. There’s been a lot of action and very little exposition, which sometimes is a necessary evil. But it seems the writers have taken the “show, don’t tell” route, which I appreciate. So I guess we’ll get more details as the season progresses. Hopefully.

42) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!

[jojotier]

((thanks a bunch for extending the fic requests!)) could you write something really angsty like kak coming back home and having to explain to his parents? thanks! :)))

(Hey, sorry about taking so long on this!!! Hopefully this was worth the wait.. ;; I decided to do something a little different, and have this entirely from his mother’s POV instead of kakyoin’s. I hope you enjoy though! Link to the ao3 is in the title)

Vanishing Act

The cherry blossoms would come into bloom soon.

The days seemed to go by ever more quickly, sun up then the slow streaking of the sun across the sky then sunset, repeating again with the rise and crest and fall of the moon in passing waves and pulses of light. The chill wasn’t so bad anymore. Perhaps there would be an early night parade, her husband had fancifully told her, as if any of them still had the energy to get swept up in those sorts of stories. The old man could talk about yokai and inverted days and strange occurrences all he wanted- he’d stopped looking.

Her husband had stopped looking. As did the police, the search parties- no one searched for her son. He was a runaway, they said. He’d been kidnapped, others claimed. He’d be better left for dead.

But Masako hadn’t stopped.

One hundred days ago, Noriaki went missing. 

It was getting close to dusk. Even with the days lengthening, things still dimmed early on, and the chill bit at her ankles as she made her way again through the town, taking route five of the thirteen separate rounds she’d taken upon herself. She may have given up on posters- if anyone had seen Noriaki around the city, it would have been impossible not to find a place where she hadn’t plastered their contact information. It was very likely that he wasn’t even in this city- but still, she walked the same paths anyway. Even if she wouldn’t find Noriaki, there was a certain… well, not peace. But it took her mind off of things.

Masako passed by an alleyway, feeling a dry wind come her way and threaten to blow the ties holding her hair back into the concrete wilds. There were plenty of places where she’d felt such drafts- the cers, blowing with nearly enough force to rival that toppling Mistral wind of Marseilles, blowing her back into her husband’s arms and then again nearly into the Mediterranean; the Foehn in the Alps, seeming to melt snow right before any weary traveler’s eyes; the winds during a particularly hot day in Cairo, on the last trip they’d gotten to go on together. The wind blew again and it gave her pause, as she watched it whip past her and rustle fallen litter and jostle whatever rusty scraps were in its way, racing off to try and carry them around the world on its lonesome.

“Perhaps he was whisked away,” Her husband had said, trying hard to be lighthearted and whimsical but sounding more sorrowful than anything. She understood why- she used to love those stories. He was trying to be strong, but she was already strong for the both of them. “by the night parade? Any yokai would love to whisk away a small bit of sunshine for themselves during such a horrid winter…”

Perhaps he’d been whisked away- it was certainly something that had crossed their minds, and it had kept her awake at night, trying not to imagine some terrible beast laying a hand on her son- or trying to do worse to him. Every single scenario that had passed through her mind was too terrible to name, and every rewind and rerun of the possibilities grew more and more mutations, adding a layer of infection that she could sometimes feel on the surface of her skin.

She continued walking forwards, eyes sweeping across the slowly narrowing path of the sidestreet she was on. Masako knew this part of town wasn’t exactly the sort that a seemingly feeble woman pushing her mid sixties should be walking down- she’d grown up alongside streets just like this one, back when the war had hit and back when the Americans had come, and through the subsequent decades. They were streets she’d tried her best to make sure her son didn’t have to walk down.

And they were streets that held jeers from between the margins, countless old faces staring out at her like ghosts. They were simply remembered- the face of an American soldier who’d tried to make her his bride, an young beaming blond with a simple demeanor and a gap in his front teeth. An old boss, seedy to the point where every pore of his skin was strawberry like, but who was kind to children and had a soft spot for old women, back when she worked. Old women, now dead, who started up rumors during the war effort that her hair became red because of grotesque stains she spilled behind closed doors- girls who wondered if she was an antique doll the few times she was able to get away with more traditional dress in public and who asked her for secrets about times before- countless whispers from countless travels in thirty or so tongues, twenty-five of which she knew sparingly and five she was intimate with herself.

But none of the faces were her son’s.

She found herself on the main road, looping back around towards the house again.

There was laundry to be done. Her husband usually wrote about this time, or read the newspaper and complained to her about the bizarre adventures he could never seem to capture. She’d promised tonkatsu, but what was sorely needed was a good hotpot. It wasn’t often she was nostalgic about when she was a girl, but she thought of anglerfish nabe- too much stigma around catching those nowadays…

She hadn’t made it for Noriaki, yet. Anglerfish was rarely caught, and now expensive. He would’ve at least loved trying it- it was the sort of oddity her son had been habitually drawn to.

That her son is drawn to.

He isn’t dead.

She felt that deep in her heart- he wasn’t dead. Not her Noriaki. Not her little miracle, the tiny babe who they said would never make it and who’d grown into such a fine young man. Not the strange, quiet child who laughed in the face of what made others fearful with a sunshine delight.

He had a certain fighting spirit- one that couldn’t be quenched even after one hundred chilly moons had passed.

She would find him soon.

She would.

She walked to the front steps of their rich house. Masako had been able to afford it with her husband, as they had both worked, since for the longest time there was no child for her to raise. She was traditional, in many respects- it was one of the few things that kept her afloat when the war passed and Papa died in the Pacific, when the Americans had come and turned their way of life inside out to try and gore their identities now that they’d gorged themselves on enough lives taken then gored their skulls to boot. In all else, it was what she enjoyed most- the routine of making house and motherhood, of telling stories to and playing with Noriaki as he toddled around the house and watched shadows when there seemed to be none.

She dreaded coming home to this, now. It was large. Luxurious. The years of hard work, of learning and striving to better herself, paid off. It reminded her of vacations in a hundred and one cities and experiences and teaching, always teaching and guiding her son around. He’d had trouble with making friends, so she tried to be his friend as well as his mother, and then tried make the world his friend as well. Any chance to open it up to him- any opportunity to give him everything she had only dreamed of as a child- all started here.

Masako had known that she would have an empty nest soon. She’d come to terms with college and new avenues, of tours around the world without her and with infinitely more quiet days without the gentle tap of Noriaki moving around the house, or his occasionally helping with chores she didn’t need assistance with in the first place, or the excitable sounds of whatever virtual console or sumo match he would privately be excited for drifting from the living room.

Walking inside a house she expected to be silent, Masako heard something that gave her pause. Low hushed whispers in the living room gave way to the habitual silence that she was expecting, and she quickly gathered herself, eyes narrowing. Had someone broken in? There was an iron poker somewhere in this hall if needed….

There were a couple more whispers that wafted out as she crept forward, before they were cut through by a deep, gravelly voice that blankly said, “Give me a break… Just go already.”

There was silence, and then the sound of someone heavily getting to their feet. Shuffling, and the sound of something dragging, and then, the paper door to the living room slid open. There was a little snag, that the screen tended to hit if one didn’t know about it- since this house had been one of those stately Western-style affairs that rich ladies bought up once upon a time, complete with drawing rooms and parlors, all having been remodeled to suit her and her husband’s tastes, but they never did get the installation of that one screen right- but she didn’t hear the snag hit. Her husband, then-?

“… Hello, mother.”

Her heart skipped a beat suddenly, and in front of her, there was her son.

For a moment, she was cowed into silence- he was still as big and tall as ever, an inch taller than his father and a head and half taller than her. His hair was done in that style he liked, still red- eyes still the same too.

But it was all so different as well, and not just because of the crutches he clung onto for dear life or the scars that now adorned his eyes. His shoulders had wilted a little, though his chin was up, lips pressed tight together in a more secretive array. There was more burden on him than just the stoop of his posture now, more than even when he’d been growing up and saying strange, cryptic things, reminding her of changelings and spirit children and whatever other whimsical nostalgia she’d surrendered herself to.

The world had not been kind to her son.

Still, Masako had to steady herself against one of the side tables against the wall, feeling faint as the gravity of the situation pulled down on her eyes. She covered her mouth as the tears finally began to roll.

“Ah-!” Noriaki tried to move forward quickly, and now she could see through her blurred eyes that his steps were almost as shaky as a faun’s- weakened. Atrophied. Broken? How many times? How many times had she faced the thought of the worst, of her son being maimed and brutalized in any conceivable way with no way to help himself and no one to help him? He still kept somewhat of a distance, hands hovering slightly as if trying to figure out what to do. “No, don’t cry, please-”

“Oh, my son…” Masako moaned through her sluggish tears, “Noriaki, what happened to you? Who would do such a thing… Why were you gone? Were you taken-? Or… did we do something….” To make you run.

For once, it wasn’t she who attempted to initiate any affection- she’d learned early on that hugs and hand holding and other such coddling simply wasn’t something Noriaki enjoyed too much, so she was polite and tried to ask before invading any boundaries- it was her son. He finally moved forwards, letting one crutch fall to the ground as he tried to pull her in for an awkward little hug. It was only then when she realized that his hands were shaking.

In a tight voice, Noriaki told her, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m just glad you’re home.” She whispered.

For a moment, he allowed her to stay like that, pressing tight against him and crying, forgetting herself and any number of manners in the visceral relief of knowing that finally, finally, he was home. One hundred days gone, and if one day more had passed she might have had to take him for dead- no matter the effect it would have on her old heart.

Finally, she managed to find her composure again. She finally pulled back, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket to delicately dab at her eyes so that she could fall back into the old pattern and routine that was herself. Taking a breath, and then another for good measure, she managed to smile somewhat at Noriaki, already bending down to pick up his fallen crutch. A little normalcy was in order, in the face of this- if only to help process everything. “Now then- you have a guest. Has your father brought tea?”

“He hasn’t-”

“Then do you mind entertaining your guest and your father while I bring some some out?” Masako smoothed out the edges of her shirt, letting out a breath. It had been an emotional one hundred days, and she’d let her feelings get the best of her- and there was still more emotion to come, she was sure. The least she could do was provide something to eat so that no one’s energy ended up depleted by the time this draining talk would end. Besides, making a tray would help clear her mind. “We have… much to talk about.”

“We do.” Noriaki acknowledged, though he didn’t seem too enthused about it. Neither was she, truth be told, but the both of them would simply have to smile and bear it. Like they do with most talks- even if this talk was of the misery that had seized this household. “… I’ll tell Jotaro that we may be here a while yet.”

“Thank you. I’ll be sure to properly welcome him then- and Noriaki?” She looked over him, “Don’t strain yourself.”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’ve only been standing for a bit-”

Masako repeated, looking up at him, “Don’t strain yourself.”

There was a quiet moment before Noriaki lowered his gaze politely, head bowing slightly, “Yes, mother.”

She beamed, and then moved past him to go to the kitchen.

They still had jade drop tea- an expensive gift given from a friend who regularly visited, to try and ease off the pain with distraction. She finally opened it, and was able to finally make it, filling a teapot she’d gotten in Morocco with the stuff and setting aside some yōkan as well. It was a normal gesture- and it almost felt surreal, being able to do bring in the tray and still see her son there, sitting down and not straining himself. Thankfully.

The one beside him was dark and looked annoyed, taking up half the couch with his size. Despite looking to be a man in physique at first glance, his face still betrayed boyish indications and his countenance was of any adolescent in a vaguely uncomfortable situation. Masako lowered her eyes merely out of courtesy and set the tea tray down, speaking softly, in a controlled way so as to not rudely burden their guest with the full brunt of her rather harried state as of the moment, “Welcome- my name is Kakyoin Masako. I do hope that you’re comfortable.”

The teenager nodded, and Masako started pouring tea. “Now then- if I may be so bold, may I ask what has been discussed so far?”

“As if one could stop you from being so bold.” said her husband somewhat humorously, a wry smile playing on his lips. His eyes had long since sunken in from sleepless nights- though thankfully, he was able to steal some precious slumber time at work.

“Talked about what you’ve been doing.” Noriaki’s guest- Jotaro, a rather grave boy, even at his age- said plainly. Straight to the point- Masako appreciated that. “About your thirteen routes.”

“Unfortunately today I only had time for the one- I was a little preoccupied because I thought I saw anglerfish on sale someplace.” She said cordially, acknowledging that it would only make sense to wonder where she’d gone. “And have you said anything about the extent of your condition, Noriaki?”

“No…” Masako laid the mugs out, calm even as her fingers shook a little- out of anger, out of despair, out of fear for the extent of what she didn’t know. The only reason none of the tea dripped and her long sleeves remained free of any stain was years of practice. “There’s… a lot to discuss, and it won’t make sense without context.”

“Well, that is the point of a discussion, is it not?” Masako said easily, tilting her head.

“I would suppose that the point of a discussion is communication.” Noriaki said back, and Masako’s eyes narrowed. She knew stalling when she saw it- her son wouldn’t get away with beating around the bush here. Not in this house.

“Communication of contexts, dear. Everything must be understood in context, so how shall we communicate if you give us none?” She glanced at Jotaro, softening the blow with seeming indifference and quick passing into polite deference so that Noriaki would have no time to get a word in edgewise. Flighty though it may seem, it was always effective. “Would you like some yōkan, then?”

“I don’t eat sweets.” Jotaro replied gruffly, simply watching the proceedings. Smart- it was good to know when and when not to speak.

“Pity… but in any case, then, that leaves more room for you to tell us what happened.” She turned to Noriaki, who looked calm on the outside but who’s eyes habitually drifted towards the door. “Noriaki… where were you all this time?”

“I…” He sighed, and then finally, began speaking. “I ran away with four other men to travel across the world to help save Jotaro’s mother’s life.”

“How noble of you.” Masako said gently, then said, “Is that why you didn’t tell us? Because of what I assume to be a dangerous venture, or because that nobility seemed a little less great if you were to have permission first?”

“… No.” Noriaki said as Masako took a sip of tea. “Listen- this is the part where context may seem rather… outlandish.”

“No more outlandish than most things I’ve heard being said at the office.” Her husband quipped a bit, trying to lighten the tense mood being masqueraded.

“… Right…” Noriaki said, eyes sliding back to his mother. “Do you remember the… imaginary friend I had?”

“Yes.” Masako said, giving a tight smile.

“Well… it… has to do with that.”

“Ah, so did this friend of yours convince you to join the night parade.” Masako said rather flatly.

“The- actually.” Noriaki said, sighing. “I’ll just demonstrate. After all, it’s rather helpful, and you did say not to strain myself.”

“That I did.” Masako confirmed, and Jotaro looked between the both of them, eyebrows raising.

She was about to ask how those injuries came about in the first place, but the words came to a screeching halt. Suddenly, the tea cup in front of Noriaki began to float. Just. On its own, as if it were a casual everyday occurrence. The cup came into Noriaki’s grip, and he took a calm sip, posture even more stiff than before. His back was straightened up though, at least, and his companion watched in vaguely amused silence, eyes following something that Masako for the life of her couldn’t know.

“That was my imaginary friend.” Noriaki said, looking a little smug, but honestly Masako couldn’t blame him after that entire magic trick he’s just pulled off. Masako didn’t know what to say, and if she said anything, it would have come out gobsmacked and stuttering, so she said nothing. She simply took another long sip of tea. Her husband’s mug dropped from his hands in shock, only to be caught by the invisible force and gently placing it back into his hands.

Both of the teenagers in front of them seemed slightly uncomfortable, silence coming to them as well. Masako could have denied that this was real- but that was the coping mechanism of a coward with a disdain for reality, and truth could be stranger than fiction. She could have also trembled, or screamed, or any number of things that many other people would have done, but at this point- after her son had disappeared, after all these years of seeing his odd development, after all the events in her own life, it was far easier to remove herself from the emotion of the situation first and observe before assigning them the emotion due to it.

Making sure that she was suitably numb to it for the moment, Masako said simply, “I see.”

“… That’s it?” Noriaki said, face twisting in disbelief. “Just… that? That’s all? You didn’t see for the past seventeen years…”

“Actually,” Masako said, as calmly as possible, “I’m very close to fainting at the moment. You’re psychic.”

“Not quite.” said Jotaro, just as calm but seemingly a little more at home. “We actually have ghosts that come because of fighting spirit that only we can see.”

“We or… other stand users. They’re called stands.” Noriaki finally said, relief setting into the dip of his shoulders. He shifted, and then winced. “We went on a trip around the world due to these stands, and I… rather liked it.”

“There’s no shame in liking a trip- though I don’t understand why you’d like one that left you…”

“… like this.” Noriaki let out a breath. “If it helps- this isn’t forever. I’ll be able to walk soon. But… I will need medications for the rest of my life. And I may need more surgeries, depending on how my… new spine is.” He shifted, visibly pained, and Masako felt her heart twist in her chest. “My vision won’t be the same either, but there’s no… guarantee that it won’t get worse, one day. It will come at great cost, and I do have a way to pay for expenses-”

“Nonsense.” Her husband said, and Masako let him take over for a bit, simply watching. Noriaki gently gravitated to Jotaro’s side, and Masako observed this. “You know for a fact that expense is of no concern to us, Noriaki- nor room, board, and access to whatever help and therapy you need. So let’s stop with that sort of talk. I’m rather interested in your new friend-” He finally turned his attention to Jotaro, eyes shining a little. “I do hope Noriaki didn’t give you grief- when he wants to be, he can be quite the chatterbox-”

“Hold on just a moment-!” Noriaki tried to say.

“Ever since he could first talk-”

“Do we really need to do this…?” He looked to Masako, who took a final sip of tea, looking him dead in the eye and saying not a word. This was his punishment- mostly because Masako didn’t have the heart to do anything as harsh as grounding him or the like. He’d been through enough already. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t handle a little embarrassment in front of that friend of his.

She smiled, despite it all. There was still much to process- still a lot of questions that she had, but for now, she knew to keep quiet. Noriaki had been interrogated enough for one evening, and now was the time to relax and celebrate.

“I’ll bring some more tea.” She said politely.

Her son was home.

[solarbird]

old soldiers, chapter 1: you look good in black

[2077]

"Gabe!" Lena shouted, running down the stairs towards the former Blackwatch head. "Hi!"

"Lena!" the tall Angelino replied, beaming. "Wow, you look good in black and violet." He picked the younger woman up like a doll, and she giggled. "I still can't believe you pulled this off," he said.

Venom laughed. "Hold on a mo, I'm on Lunar soil." She pressed a set of buttons on her grapple holster, and her clothes went to tangerine, orange, and while. "There we go."

Gabriel Reyes looked over the Overwatch version of Lena Oxton, and considered. "I like the violet better."

"So do I, luv, but - appearances, you know. Does this mean you're in?"

"An Overwatch where I don't have to run black ops? Hell yeah, girl, I'm in! I've been watching you operate, you need someone who can make some plans that work in the field."

"Ah, c'mon mate, we're doin' all right."

"Sometimes, yeah, when you're there calling the shots yourself," he agreed. "But then you look like badly-disguised Talon, and I don't think either of you need that."

"True 'nuff," Tracer smiled. "So you're here to run strategy for Winston?"

"I'm right over here, you know," said the Lunar Ambassador. "It took some talking, but yes, he's in."

"Hi, Winston!" Lena teleported over and gave the gorilla an enthusiastic noogie.

"Hey! Cut it out!" But he still laughed. "You're in a good mood - I take it you have something for me?"

"Here y'go!" She popped a small memory card out of one of her pockets. "Everything we'd hoped for and more."

"Oh, that's great news!" He knew not to ask how she'd got it. "You'll want to see this immediately, Gabe."

"Excellent. And yeah, if that didn't make it obvious, I'm in," said the former Blackwatch head, picking up the card, all smiles... until he wasn't. "But Lena, there are some things you need to know. Amélie too, for that matter." To himself, he thought, Not that I could tell you and not be telling her, even if I wanted to...

Lena looked down at her scientifically-minded friend. "What's this about, then?"

"It's... Jack Morrison," said the ambassador.

"...oh," said the assassin. "Him." She frowned, an unpleasant coldness twisting in her stomach.

"Yeah," said Gabriel, confirming. "Him."

Lena took a long, deep breath. "Right. Let's get the staff together."

[A Lunar embassy conference room, half an hour later]

"I thought Jack was dead," Lena said, anger, nervousness, and some small dismay in her voice. "I thought he died when the UN moved on him, in Geneva."

Gabriel Reyes nodded. "We all thought he was dead. Everyone. When the UN stand-down order came through, I ordered my chain of command to obey it immediately. We knew it was coming, and frankly, we deserved it. I've been owning up to that since it happened."

"Before," Angela noted, charitably.

Reyes looked down at the table in the direction of the doctor for a moment, left whatever he was thinking unsaid, and continued. "Jack, of course, decided he knew better, and I guess we all know how that went down..." He shook his head. "What the hell that man thought he could get by launching a counter-assault, I'll never know."

"He was bound and determined to keep the mission going, no matter what," said Winston. "Maybe it was the statue, maybe it went to his head."

"Yeah, well, it had all come apart by then, he should've figured that out," Gabriel replied. "Public opinion was not on our side."

Mei-Ling Zhou - present in virtual form, at least, from her satellite research laboratory in the north of China - shook her head, looking down. "I can't believe he changed so much. He used to be so nice!"

"And he really just outright refused the stand-down order?" asked Tracer. "I'd read that, but..." She kept tapping the buttons on her grapple, fidgeting. Winston eyed the device nervously, a little worried she might accidentally launch the hook across the room, but kept it to himself.

"Yeah," said the Californian, "flat out said no."

"That's mad."

"I agree. I evaced my team as soon as I saw where the show was going, and we mostly got out fine. Some of Jack's side of the organisation got out too, but... a lot stayed with him, for whatever reasons." He shook his head. "He always had a knack for putting together a loyal team."

"Yeah," said Tracer, flatly. "Loyal. One direction, anyway."

"Regardless," Rayes carried on, "the UN response was heavy, and his counter was heavier still, but utterly futile. Nobody could've survived the implosion - or so we thought. I sure as hell wouldn't have."

"It's not just a solid pile of rubble, though," Oxton insisted. "There's big sections still intact, deep enough in. Amélie got pretty far down."

Angela contemplated those words. "That was when she retrieved Winston's accelerator, yes? The medical unit near Winston's laboratory... could it have been reached?"

"No idea, luv. She's never mentioned it." Tracer said, nervously.

"Find out, if you could."

"What're you thinking, Angela?" asked Winston.

The researcher and field doctor shook her head. "We had a full compliment of medical supplies there - including ample stocks of regen gel and nanomachines. More than enough for a badly injured man to repair himself, if he knew how."

Mei-Ling looked over to Angela, her expression uncharacteristically severe. "The research unit versions? Do you think maybe he might've..."

"Regardless of how," Rayes interrupted firmly, "there is evidence he's active again. Not openly, but there have been rumours for a couple of years - mostly in Mexico - of a white-haired American soldier vigilante. And I received this yesterday." He threw an image up in the centre of the table - "It's not the best photo in the world, but I'm pretty sure this is him."

The shot, taken in an alley in Dorado three weeks earlier, was from the back, at night, in fog, a bit blurry, and showed a leather-jacketed man, white-haired, with the clips of what could - with a lot of imagination - be a tactical visor showing over the ears. Really, it could've been anyone of that general build - but the way the figure carried himself, that was familiar, and the gun slung over his back - that was unique.

Mei-Ling gasped at the image. «Halla die Walfee,» exclaimed Angela. "I think you may be correct."

"I'm sure you are," Lena said, voice low and quiet. "That's him."

"And if it is," the Angelino said, "given what went down, I'm pretty sure he won't be happy there's an Overwatch not under his command."

"I have to go," Venom said, suddenly again in black and violet. She hit more buttons on her grapple, and talked into her collar. "Widowmaker, message, urgent: Venom heading back immediately. Will brief en route."

"Lena," said Winston, alarmed, "What are you..."

"I owe him," said the Talon assassin, as she strode to the door, old anger drawn across her face. "If he's still alive, I've got a job to do."

"Lena, don't..." called the scientist, but it was too late, she younger woman was already down the corridor. "Athena, raise Amélie, if you can. Route it to my office, I'll be there in a minute. We've got to try to talk Lena down."

"Wow - she didn't used to get that mad that fast," Gabriel said, confused. "Is this about the Slipstream failure? She still torn up about that?"

"Oh yes," said Angela. "She is. Amongst other things."

"For good reasons," Mei said quietly.

"That wasn't even Jack's fault," protested the former Blackwatch head, "Not at all."

"No, it wasn't," agreed Winston. "But not letting me try to save her - that was."

[sheilacwall]

The Year is 1964 & Nina Simone is About to Take on the Authorities

Black History in America – When Nina Simone Sang What Everyone Was Thinking

“Mississippi Goddam” was an angry response to a tragedy, in show tune form.

Nina was angry, damn right too and she channeled her energy into music, but it could have gone another way…

On June 12, 1963, in the early morning after president John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights address, activist Medgar Evers was shot in the back as he stood in the driveway of his Mississippi home.

He was returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers and officials, and carried an armload of T-shirts that read “Jim Crow Must Go.” Evers was taken to a local hospital, where he died less than an hour after being admitted.

On September 15, 1963, four girls were killed when white supremacists planted more than a dozen sticks of dynamite beneath the side steps of the African-American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The children were preparing for a sermon titled “A Love That Forgives.” According to one witness, their bodies flew across the basement “like rag dolls.”

When she heard the news, jazz musician Nina Simone was paralyzed. “It was more than I could take,” she remembered, “and I sat struck dumb in my den like St. Paul on the road to Damascus: all the truths that I had denied to myself for so long rose up and slapped my face. The bombing of the little girls in Alabama and the murder of Medgar Evers were like the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that made no sense until you had fitted the whole thing together. I suddenly realized what it was to be Black in America in 1963, but it wasn’t an intellectual connection…it came as a rush of fury, hatred and determination. In church language, the Truth entered into me and I ‘came through.’”

Simone’s initial reaction was less than Christian. “I had it in mind to go out and kill someone,” she remembered. “I tried to make a zip gun.”

Andy, her husband and manager, intervened. “Nina,” he said, “you can’t kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do.”

An hour later, Nina Simone had composed a song called “Mississippi Goddam.” “It was my first civil rights song,” she recalled, “and it erupted out of me quicker than I could write it down.”

“Mississippi Goddam” became one of Nina Simone’s most famous compositions. It redirected her career. Crisply honest, it is a pure expression of rage and an indictment of inequality. Stylistically, it leapfrogged the righteous, passive anthems that characterized protest music of the time. It was knowing, biting, and inciting.

It was a step Simone was reluctant to take. “Nightclubs were dirty, making records was dirty, popular music was dirty and to mix all that with politics seemed senseless and demeaning,” she wrote in her autobiography I Put a Spell On You. “And until songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’ just burst out of me, I had musical problems as well.

How can you take the memory of a man like Medgar Evers and reduce all that he was to three and a half minutes and a simple tune? That was the musical side of it I shied away from; I didn’t like ‘protest music’ because a lot of it was so simple and unimaginative it stripped the dignity away from the people it was trying to celebrate. But the Alabama church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers stopped that argument and with ‘Mississippi Goddam,’ I realized there was no turning back.”

“‘Mississippi Goddam’—that’s using God’s name in vain,” said comedian and activist Dick Gregory. “She said it, talking about ‘Mississippi, goddamn you.’ We all wanted to say it, but she said it. That’s the difference that set her aside from the rest of them.”

Shortly after the song’s debut in New York, Nina Simone performed it to a mostly white audience at Carnegie Hall in March, 1964. It starts off at a clip. “The name of this tune is Mississippi God-DAMN,” Simone declares to nervous laughter as the band vamps behind her, “…and I mean every word of it.”

Alabama’s got me so upset

Tennessee made me lose my rest

And everybody knows about Mississippi

Goddam

The arrangement is at apparent odds with the sentiment. It’s a vaudeville tune, a clip from a musical review. It makes you see chorus boys, bright in the footlights, dancing in unison. But this is a dark message, delivered in a white envelope. Simone repeats the first verse more insistently, then asks for a witness in the middle eight.

Can’t you see it

Can’t you feel it

It’s all in the air

I can’t stand the pressure much longer

Somebody say a prayer

…then a recapitulation of the verse, to complete the standard AABA form.

What happens next is fascinating, and we need to discuss a little music theory to talk about it. Simone doesn’t change key, but begins playing in the relative minor. Musically, it’s like looking at the opposite side of the same coin: major chords (in this case A-flat, the song’s key base) are generally considered bright and happy, while minor chords (F minor here) are understood to be more melancholy and sinister. Because A-flat and F minor reside in the same key, we understand them as being of a piece. They may have a different root, but share the same scale. Not only that, A-flat is the very note that changes an F chord from major to minor. Simone is demonstrating, tonally, that there are two very different stories to be told from the American perspective: one of majority and one of minority. Furthermore, the existence of one causes the desolation of the other.

“This is a show tune,” Simone explains over the new minor vamp, “but the show hasn’t been written for it yet.” More tittering from the uncertain audience.

Then, a little over a century after president Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Nina Simone slaps gradualism in the face and throws politeness out the window. “You don’t have to live next to me,” she sings. “Just give me my equality.”

Yes you lied to me all these years

You told me to wash and clean my ears

And talk real fine just like a lady

And you’d stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies

You’re all gonna die and die like flies

I don’t trust you any more

Keep on sayin’ ‘Go slow’

“Everyone knows about Mississippi,” Simone sings as the song comes to a racing close. “Everyone knows about Alabama. Everyone knows about Mississippi. Goddamn.”

“Mississippi Goddam” was included on the album “Nina Simone In Concert,” and released as a single, with the offending word bleeped out. “It may be the most topical selection in years,” read the sleeve notes. “This outstanding message song, with the great ‘SIMONE’ feel and rhythm, makes this a @*?!!;; hot disc.”

One box of promotional singles was returned from South Carolina with each record broken neatly in half. Most southern states banned the song.

“Nina Simone In Concert” contains another original composition, “Old Jim Crow.” Jim Crow was a character originating in a blackface minstrel song from the 1820s, and was the name of the prevailing racial caste system in the South after slavery.

“Oh I’m a roarer on de fiddle, and down in old Virginny,” goes the original lyric to “Jump Jim Crow” from 1828,

They say I play de skyentific like Massa Pagannini

Weel about and turn about and do jis so,

Eb’ry time I weel about and jump Jim Crow

“Old Jim Crow, what’s wrong with you?” Nina Simone sings in her song.

It’s not your name, it’s the things you do

Old Jim Crow don’t you know

It’s all over now

There were many songs sung during the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March in early 1965, a year after Nina Simone’s concert at Carnegie Hall. The marchers burst into “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem of the Civil Rights movement, several times. (Folk music icon Pete Seeger had taken the old spiritual and replaced “I will” with “We shall” in the title, making it a more universal pean to perseverance and gradualism.) Two young supporters sang “Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed on Freedom” after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s remarks in Selma on the morning of the march. Along the route, white supremacists blasted “Bye, Bye Blackbird” from loudspeakers.

At the end of the march, in Montgomery Alabama on March 25, a concert was given. Ten thousand people gathered around so tightly that 57 of them fainted. Accompanied only by her guitarist, Nina Simone sang “Mississippi Goddam” on a stage made from empty coffin crates. After the performance, she was introduced to Martin Luther King.

“I’m not nonviolent!” she declared, sticking out her hand.

“That’s okay, sister,” Dr. King replied. “You don’t have to be.”

The terrible decade ground on. A tense interview with Down Beat in January, 1968 was interrupted when segregation came up. “What kind of thing are you doing?” asks husband and manager Andrew Stroud. “We’re not interested in the race issue.” Later that year, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Simone and her bassist Gene Taylor composed “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead).”

Nina Simone moved to Europe and Africa in the early 1970s. “I left this country because I didn’t like this country,” she told an interviewer. “I didn’t like what it was doing to my people and I left.” She was ever after associated with the Civil Rights movement, even though her ultimate conclusion was that political music was a professional liability. She told one interviewer that she regretting writing “Mississippi Goddam” because it hurt her career.

“There is no reason to sing those songs, nothing is happening,” Simone told the interviewer in the 1980s. “There’s no Civil Rights movement. Everybody’s gone.”

But there had been a reason to sing those songs, even when it was done at personal expense. “It was dangerous,” she said about performing for the movement’s marches and rallies. “We encountered many people who were after our hides. I was excited by it, though, because I felt more alive then than I do now because I was needed, could sing something to help my people, and that became the mainstay of my life, the most important thing.”

On another level, Nina Simone, as a musician, understood the universality of being human. Music, after all, is our common emotional language. It does not know age, or race, or class, or gender. Though it informs each, it is available to all. Protest music, specifically, is nothing more than a complaint when such equality — a condition articulated by our founders, but not yet fully achieved — is violated.

“It’s funny about music,” she said at the end of the Down Beat interview. “Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel…through music…Whew…you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment. Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing…Oh my God! Ooh…Wow…You can see colors through music. Anything! Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with music. You can take the same phrase from any song and cut it up so many different ways — it’s infinite. It’s like God…you know?”

by Tom Maxell – source

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[intergalactic-zoo]

There's a new "Child's Play" movie out. I'll start by saying that, despite being a big fan of slasher movies, I've never actually watched any of the "Child's Play" franchise. Even though it somehow managed to outlast "Nightmare on Elm Street," "Friday the 13th," and "Halloween" without rebooting, I've just never taken the plunge. So keep that in mind as I talk about this stuff from a complete outsider perspective.

With that out of the way, here's the new Chucky. 

I've seen a few different pictures of the updated doll, with varying degrees of uncanny valley-ness and similarities to the old version, largely depending on the lighting, but they all make one thing pretty clear: this is the same basic doll from 1988, but a little sleeker and slimmer. 

The thing I appreciate about that is that they haven't gone the same route as "It" and "Annabelle," making their titular creatures look actively creepy, which eliminates the surprise and scare factor of having something innocuous and commonplace made scary by doing scary things. Which is good, because that seems to me to be the whole point of "Child's Play" and the larger "killer doll" genre as concepts. 

But I see a related problem here: Chucky isn't commonplace anymore. The original Chucky doll was styled after the My Buddy and Cabbage Patch Kids dolls that were incredibly common in the mid-80s. I remember the My Buddy commercial, and the only reason I never got the Cabbage Patch Kid doll that I wanted for like a week when I was four is that my mom thought they looked ugly. But today? Sure, the thirty-year nostalgia cycle has brought Cabbage Patch Kids and Teddy Ruxpin back to big box store shelves, but the new Chucky has ditched the Cabbage Patch cheeks and chin, leaving only the slightly-updated My Buddy elements that look like nothing on the shelves today. 

If you wanted to do "Child's Play" in 2019, the place to start isn't by putting a fresh coat of paint on the original film, it's by cracking open the movie and getting to the core concept: a toy that looks disturbingly like ones that children love comes to life and murders people. My generation had Chucky, my parents' generation had Talky Tina. And I've seen enough of my mom's old dolls to know that Talky Tina looked a lot like what little girls were playing with in 1963. 

As someone who spends a not insignificant amount of time browsing toy aisles, I think your best basis for a modern "Child's Play" would be some kind of blind-box toy, like Hatchimals or LOL Surprise or other things I see advertised when I watch "Teen Titans Go!" like I did this morning. If you want to go the doll route, I think options are a little limited by the domination of multimedia franchises, your DC Superhero Girls and Barbies and Disney Princesses. I assume Monster High and My Little Pony still hold a decent share of the willowy wide-eyed doll market, which NuChucky seems to be leaning into facially, if not in any other aspect. I suppose you could also do something closer to the American Girl dolls, which would have a closer look and size to the original Chucky, even if they'd require some other changes. 

It's similar to some of the problems with 2017's "It." It's all well and good to want to move the children's section from the 1950s to the 1980s, but that transition doesn't work without making other alterations, so that the story concept—in particular, the aspects that make it scary—fit in the new cultural context you've transplanted the story into. In 1958, "clown" meant Bozo and Red Skelton and Barnum & Bailey. In 1985, "clown" meant John Wayne Gacy and "Poltergeist." In a lot of ways, It as a novel tracks how clowns lost their innocence just as the protagonists did. 

Pennywise works in the It novel and original miniseries because it's familiar. It's somewhat believable that Georgie Denbrough would see a friendly clown and strike up a conversation with it in 1958. That's a lot less believable in the Stranger Danger 1980s, where even aside from the fear of child kidnappings (something the new movie did incorporate into the update) clowns were viewed with a much greater level of suspicion and fear.

If you wanted Pennywise to be something friendly and familiar in a 1988 setting, you'd either make him a cartoon character with heavy merchandising, or you'd make him a Muppet. I suppose he could be a Mister Rogers/Captain Kangaroo/LeVar Burton-style children's TV host, but I think that would require more significant changes to the story structure. Though playing on some of the more salacious urban legends about characters like Barney the Dinosaur and Fred Rogers could make for very interesting horror. 

Similarly, in the novel, Eddie Kaspbrak is a hypochondriac and germophobe, so to terrify him in 1958, Pennywise takes the form of a "leper"—who's later determined to be a syphilitic hobo. The recent movie keeps this scene intact (though losing a lot of what gave it context), but as someone who was a kid in the '80s, syphilitic hobos weren't exactly commonplace fears. Instead, D.A.R.E. and urban myth and TV drilled into me a fear of "junkies" and AIDS even in the rural midwestern towns where I grew up. It's especially galling because there is a thematic thread of homophobia and the AIDS epidemic running through the 1980s segments of the It novel, so it wouldn't have been a whole-cloth invention either. 

The problem here is one of transliteration rather than translation. When converting a text from one language to another, you can try to do a one-to-one, word-by-word literal transliteration, but in doing so, it's likely that you'll lose some of the meaning. On the other hand, you can try to capture the intended meaning and connotation, but may have to be a little less literal in your word selection. The balance between these two approaches is part of why there's so many different modern English versions of texts like Beowulf and The Odyssey that were written in (effectively) different languages. It's why there's a current furor among Internet man-children that Square Enix censors shrunk Tifa's breasts in the new Final Fantasy VII remake. 

I think a similar issue plagues these nostalgic horror movies. They try to update only the setting and aesthetics without realizing how integral those things are to the story and the scares. The result is a warmed-over remake that doesn't pack the same punch as the original because it's tapped into fears from thirty years ago instead of current fears.

And it's not hard to see why this would happen. If you remade "Child's Play" to be about an American Girl-style doll, you'd end up alienating the Chucky fans and creating immediate bad press from the people most likely to pay for a ticket. And I'm sure the copyright holders and corporate powers are in play here: Chucky is a known quantity with merchandising possibilities and brand recognition, and especially in the current Hollywood economy, I can't imagine many of the pursestring-holders ditching that for a less recognizable main character. 

I'm not one of the doom-and-gloom types who decries the current state of Hollywood as relying exclusively on adaptations, sequels, and reboots. Frankly, I think that's always been true of Hollywood to one degree or another. But it's true that Hollywood is increasingly dominated by a few large media corporations, and that the economics of moviemaking and theaters in general mean that there's even less willingness to branch out and take risks. And that is a pretty distressing state of affairs, and not just for horror.

"Child's Play" and It weren't made to fit some nostalgic idea of what they should be. They were made to comment and capitalize on issues and anxieties of a particular culture at a particular moment in time, and that's what made them memorable and effective as horror. You can no more sever a story from its context and setting and expect it to work in a new one than you can transplant a heart from one body to another without reconnecting any of the vessels. If you don't connect your story to the rest of the setting, you're going to end up with a bloody, lifeless mess. 

[downjacketjp]

What you need to know before visiting Atlanta’s High Museum of Art

Atlanta’s High Museum of Art is the leading art museum in the Southeast, housing a large permanent collection of more than 15,000 works ranging from ancient to contemporary.

+ Spectators reviewing exhibitions at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia on February 3, 2017.

The museum has a particularly diverse array of highlights, including American and European paintings and sculptures, one of the largest collections of civil rights-era prints in the U.S. and a significant folk and self-taught art collection.

For High Museum hours, location and and ticket details, click here.

If you’re visiting Atlanta’s High Museum, these are the 6 must-see art works in 2017, according to the museum’s staff:

+ Djenne artist, Mali, "Portrait of Sogolon, Mother of Sundiata, Founder of the Empire of Mali."

Djenne artist, Mali, "Portrait of Sogolon, Mother of Sundiata, Founder of the Empire of Mali"

Location: African Art galleries, Wieland Pavilion, lower level

Why it’s a must-see: The art of ancient Africa is a particular strength of the High’s African art collection, and this unusually animated, elegant sculpture is a wonderful representation. It’s been dated to between 1214 and 1514, which was the height of the Mali Empire – one of the largest kingdoms the world has ever known. The sculpture depicts a snake wrapping around a female torso, the subject of which has been identified as Sogolon, mother of the founder of the Mali Empire.

+ Marcel Wanders, "Crochet Chair, prototype," 2006, crocheted fiber and epoxy resin.

Marcel Wanders, "Crochet Chair, prototype," 2006, crocheted fiber and epoxy resin

Location: Contemporary design galleries, Stent Wing, Skyway level

Why it’s a must-see: The Crochet chair was formed of hand-crocheted pieces dipped in resin and is a part of the High’s growing collection of international contemporary design artwork. Dutch artist Marcel Wanders’ pieces show a range of material, process, intent and form, in addition to maintaining an element of surprise in each. The chair’s upholstery, a traditionally decorative element, also functions as its structural element.

+ Claude Monet, "Autumn on the Seine, Argenteuil," 1873, oil on canvas

Location: European Art galleries, Stent Family Wing, second level, Gallery 204

Why it’s a must-see: It’s representative of the works of the late-19th-century impressionists, whose works were often created outside and captured their immediate impressions. Monet may have painted it from the small boat he converted into a floating studio, and his use of brilliant colors is mirrored in the waters below, making it hard to distinguish between the reflected colors and their sources.

+ Nellie Mae Rowe, "When I was a Little Girl," 1978, crayon, oil pastel, marker, colored pencil and graphite on paper.

Nellie Mae Rowe, "When I was a Little Girl," 1978, crayon, oil pastel, marker, colored pencil and graphite on paper

Location: Folk and self-taught art galleries, Stent Wing, Skyway Level

Why it’s a must-see: Nellie Mae Rowe lived on Paces Ferry Road in Vinings, Georgia, in a home known as "Nellie’s Playhouse." It was decorated with found-object installations, handmade dolls, chewing gum sculptures and hundreds of drawings. The High’s folk and self-taught art collection is one of the world’s most significant public repositories of contemporary American self-made art and also features works from Howard Finster, another famous Georgia artist who was self-taught.

+ Julie Mehretu, "Mogamma (A Painting in Four Parts): Part 2," 2012, ink and acrylic on canvas.

Julie Mehretu, "Mogamma (A Painting in Four Parts): Part 2," 2012, ink and acrylic on canvas

Location: Modern and contemporary art galleries, Wieland Pavilion, Skyway Level

Why it’s a must-see: It shows how contemporary painters are influenced by social upheaval and political disruption. One in a four-part series of large canvases, this contemporary artwork at the High Museum features deeply layered architectural renderings from Tripoli, Cairo and other social gathering sites where Arab Spring uprisings occurred.

+ James Karales, "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Home with His Family, 1962 (in Kitchen)," 1962, gelatin silver print

Location: On view through March 12 next to the entrance to the High’s Greene Family Learning Gallery (Stent Wing)

Why it’s a must-see: The High has one of the country’s most significant collections of photographs documenting the civil rights movement, with more than 300 works. Karales’ photos showed a personal side of Dr. King and his family, and this intimate photo of the family was taken when they were expecting their fourth child, Bernice.

High Museum hours and ticket information

The High Museum of Art is open Tuesday-Sunday. Hours are from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, from 10 a.m.-9 p.m. on Friday and from noon-5 p.m. on Sunday. The High is open until 10 p.m. every third Friday of the month for Friday Jazz.

Advance tickets are recommended, but not required. In addition, you can buy tickets at the museum, including at self-service ticketing kiosks.

Tickets are issued until one hour before closing and are $14.50 for ages 6 and above and free for ages 5 and under.

Special promotions to help you save on tickets to the High include:

Second Sundays: free admission on the second Sunday of each month with family-friendly programming from 1 p.m.-4 p.m.

Bank of America Museums on Us: free walk-up admission on the first full weekend of each month for Bank of America and Merrill Lynch cardholders (for cardholders only)

How to get there

The High Museum of Art is located at 1280 Peachtree St., NE, Atlanta, and can be reached by rail, bus or car.

By rail: The museum is directly across the street from the MARTA Arts Center (N5) station. Exit the station at the top level, and follow the signs directing you to the museum.

By bus: Check out MARTA’s schedule to find a route that takes you to the High.

By car: Drive to the High via I-85 Southbound or I-75 Southbound, or I-75/85 Northbound.

Garage parking is available underneath the museum for $10 on weekdays for the first four hours until 5 p.m.; $15 after four hours on weekdays until 5 p.m. only; $15 for 5 p.m.-7 a.m. on weekdays; and $15 for all day Saturday, Sunday and for special events. Event valet parking is $25, and High Museum members can park for $8 during museum hours, based on availability.

For more information about the High, call 404-733-4444 for recorded information, 404-733-4400 to speak to a receptionist from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekdays, or the box office at 404-733-5000.

You can also visit the museum’s website at www.high.org.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO: Artist Mac Stewart on being youngest artist to be featured at the High

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[kimberlyairey-blog1]

Why Do Guy Retreat? If You, even Your Supermodel Good Appears Will not Maintain Him.

You should have the freedom to go scuba diving, swimming or browsing diving whenever you simply. Splurge and also purchase the real American Female doll, and then discover offers on the doll garments and add-ons. Create her smile, chuckle as well as laugh by your incredible tricks as well as awesome sense of humor. Make your female believe that a queen through recommending her in a romantic like establishing. ALL OF bad children DO N'T like to become told just what to carry out. In gain, you receive the enthusiasm that they use (do not should enter THAT considering that the females know just what I am actually discussing). ADDITIONALLY, alot from you are actually confusing loser/asshole along with poor kid ... negative boys do not need to have a drinking trouble, trump females, medication you, rip off on you, etc I have actually been actually with the very same female for 5 years. ultimately discovered one that doesn't presume ... I like you indicates, I possess you don't piss me off. My little female already has the launch from Olaf's X-mas on the calendar (he was the most ideal aspect of Frosted). Our experts salute Dorothy for being an initial bad lady of talent, design, drug and also stability. Bad designs are actually carried out terribly-- horrendous concept, uncaring layout as well as style, terrible line work, laughably useless creative skill-sets, incongruities in colours as well as pigment quality-- and merely simple dumb. If you possess the room after that you can easily create a true Super Mario system level and also have the youngsters compete to observe who may complete that fastest. The label of Hearsay Female Time 4 episode 19 'Petty in Pink' is actually motivated coming from an outdated film, which was actually released in the past in the year 1986, along with the label 'Pretty in Pink'.

One day my pal (bossy as well as customer) is my pal, the following day, she is actually enjoying my other close friend (bossy) and being disrespectful to me) My close friend and I reside in an animosity (bossy) and it is actually due to the fact that I talked with the lady in my lesson that she despises. I am actually not attempting to claim that if you wan na be a gamer the exact same point will certainly happen also you, I'm certainly not also viewing that being a player is necessarily a negative thing, but just before you choose to go that route you ought to definitely understand just what is actually involved as well as what various other alternatives there are actually. But, I really did not sit up and see her until an expecting woman with no shoes is deserted at The United States's department store in Where the Heart Is actually. Taken on through a ridiculous married couple, she expanded from a childlike teenager into a specialist lady who lastly learns the best ways to reputable her heart again. Doing yoga gloves are actually typically made up from all-natural rubber to bobbyforyou.de provide you along with added footing so you don't slip during those additional perspiring workouts. Come this Halloween, the Medusa Appear could be the response to an outstanding costume tip.

Juri created her first-ever appearance in Super Road Competitor IV which obtained discharged in 2010. This appeared that Juri may have been the 2nd-in-command that desired to exact her retribution on M. Bison while securing Seth so she can manage S.I.N. To get the point from Juri's story, one may view her beginning and view the unique Super Street Fighter IV OVA which focused primarily on Juri. If you may have this state of mind when texting a girl or even socializing along with women typically, you are going to discover on your own effortlessly managing to understand just what to say or even do following. Although you are actually certainly not going to perform that by being actually very extremely great as well as kiss her evaluate.

[gabrielholt]

Societal Barriers to Transgender Health Care in North America

Term paper for CSOC104 (Intro to Sociology) July 2016

*Glossary included below*

Eight years ago, I realized that I was transgender. At that time, I was in an all-girls’ school, closeted, repressed, and depressed. My school provided no counselling services, and my GP did not know or care what it meant to be trans. I had no idea that I would end up in a nursing program after my first degree, or that I would have to wait until my early twenties to embark on a medically-induced second puberty.  I also had no idea that in a few years I would see people like me on the covers of Men’s Health, Vanity Fair, and Time magazines. Eight years ago, I had never heard my identity spat like profanity from the mouths of politicians and news anchors on mainstream television. Today, the general public is more aware about the existence of trans people, but not necessarily more informed about the barriers we face within health care settings and society at large. These barriers include the pathologization of trans identities, pervasive binarist and cissexist societal ideologies, and intersectional struggles.  

The pathologization of trans identities in medical communities is similar to the sensationalizing of trans stories in the media: trans people are seen as an oddity, afflicted by a disorder of perversion. Trans identities are frequently understood as a medical and psychological illness requiring medical treatment (Johnson, 2015). To access treatment in the form of hormones, psychotherapy, or gender affirming surgery, many transgender people must obtain a formal diagnosis of “gender dysphoria,” a term which has replaced “gender identity disorder” in the DSM-5 (Johnson, 2015; Roberts & Fantz, 2014). Though the term no longer contains the word “disorder,” it remains in a book of mental disorders – as homosexuality was until 1973 – and must be diagnosed and treated. Our identities are controlled in paternalistic ways: doctors must document our dysphoria, stamp our name change papers, sign our surgery letters, orchestrate our insurance coverage, and approve our actions. We must gain official permission to be ourselves. This medical control over trans identities leads to an even greater power imbalance between medical professionals and transgender patients, further disempowering trans individuals within society (Johnson, 2015). Poteat, German, and Kerrigan argue that the stigmatization of trans people serves to replicate and reinforce unequal power relationships within our society. The pathologization of trans identities also reinforces the stigma that transgender individuals face from society at large: that we are not “normal;” that there is something wrong with us that must be fixed. Many transgender people keep from disclosing their identities to doctors, for fear of being refused care based on such stigmas (McClain, Hawkins, & Yehia, 2016; Roberts & Fantz, 2014).

Furthermore, health care education is based around binarist and cissexist (please see Glossary below) concepts and language: phrases such as “pregnant women,” “both genders,” “the opposite sex,” and “men’s heart attack symptoms,” are commonplace and unquestioned. Transgender needs and issues are absent from most health care curricula (Poteat et al., 2013). In my first year of nursing school, I only heard trans people referred to once, during an equity training session. Yet I, a trans patient and a trans nursing student, am present in a health care context every day. Outside of schools, most medical professionals remain unaware of trans people and our challenges (Roberts & Fantz, 2014). When I reminded my former doctor of my name and pronouns, she turned to me and said, “Oh… still?” Her tone was one of surprise and mild amusement. Also ignorant of trans issues and reliant on binaries are governmental institutions and medical administration (Roberts & Fantz, 2014). The sex on my health card is still listed as “F,” in spite of my baritone voice and the testosterone levels that rival my cisgender fiancé’s. When the clinic receptionist calls a name, it takes me a few seconds to realize that this girls’ name is supposed to be mine.  Medicine, like the rest of our society, relies on a biological determinist lens through which to view trans people. Naiman (2012) recognizes that sex and gender have become conflated in today’s language (then proceeds to conflate them herself), which facilitates biological determinist theories of gender – that gender is inevitably based upon distinct physiological characteristics. Trans people defy biological determinism, as our self-identified gender does not align with our assigned sex and socially-assigned gender. Poteat et al. (2013) describe how stigma against transgender people has been justified by functionalist order theory as well as biological determinism: because we challenge binarist and cissexist gender norms, we are a threat to societal ideological stability. Naiman (2012) might argue that in challenging gender norms, we also threaten the capitalist class which relies so heavily on gender inequality for social control and profit. Naiman (2012) also points out that biology in our society is informed by cultural theories of gender, and vice versa. Our colonial North American society abides by a strict gender binary determined by biology. In this way, social transition and medical transition are bound to each other. Trans people are typically expected to socially “prove” their gender to medical professionals in order to physically transition. We must do this in a way that conforms to our society’s biological deterministic concept of gender. This reflects the sociological model of “doing gender,” in which gender must be socially performed and accomplished (Johnson, 2015; Westbrook & Schilt, 2014). Transgender people are thus accountable for performing gender “correctly;” that is, according to the cisnormative and frequently heteronormative societal ideals of our “chosen” genders. In most medical contexts, there is a typical “trans narrative” that we are expected to embody in order to obtain a gender dysphoria diagnosis and care. For instance: a trans man must have always hated societally-designated “girlish” things (dolls, dresses, etc.), and instead been interested in societally-designated “boyish” things (cars, sports, etc.). He must have realised from a young age that he was “different from the other girls” and must have always wished for a penis. We must prove, even if we must lie about ourselves, that we fit within a biological determinist mold of gender in order to be taken seriously by the gatekeepers of medical interventions (psychiatrists and medical doctors). This occurs not just in the medical field, but across societal institutions. As Naiman (2012) writes, gender is a “core identity,” one which follows people everywhere. Transgender people face barriers throughout society, including in employment, housing, educational systems, prison systems, shelters, treatment centres, governmental administration, and numerous social situations such as bathroom usage and clothing shopping (Poteat et al., 2013).

Since transgender discrimination is present in almost all environments, it is vital to also acknowledge the intersections of other marginalized identities within these environments. Many trans people face discrimination based on other identities such as race and sexuality. Discrimination may also be based on unemployment, disability, mental illness, imprisonment, homelessness, transmisogyny, stigma around HIV positivity and stigma around sex work. Naiman (2012) describes the consideration of diversity and intersectional oppression within marginalized communities as the goal of socialist and Third Wave feminist change theories. Such intersectional feminist theories tend to focus on discrimination against poor trans women of color (TWOC), the most vulnerable members of trans communities. Economic inequality is a large factor in trans discrimination. In the USA in 2010, the unemployment rate for trans people was twice the national average, meaning that many trans people are not covered by employment-provided insurance and cannot afford medical care (Poteat et al., 2013; Roberts & Fantz, 2014). Additionally, when refused or unable to access health care, some trans people may seek treatment such as hormones outside of health care institutions (Poteat et al., 2013). This can, as in the case of street hormones and unsupervised injections, be a dangerous route. Many transgender people, especially TWOC, live below the poverty line due to the double employment barriers of racism and transmisogyny. People who cannot contribute to the capitalist economy are devalued and marginalized in our society, which leads to the further stigmatization of un- or under-employed trans individuals (Naiman, 2012). Some trans people – again, especially TWOC – turn to sex work for survival, which increases their risks of HIV vulnerability, getting arrested, and becoming victims of violence (Graham, 2014). Due to structural inequality, trans and other marginalized groups are already at greater risk of contracting HIV, attempting suicide, and becoming victims of violence than the rest of the population (Bauer et al., 2009). In spite of all these barriers, there is little legal protection for transgender people (Bauer et al., 2009). As Naiman (2012) describes with racism, the responsibility for these consequences falls to oppressed individuals, not oppressive systems. It is left to the victims of trans discrimination to pursue legal action against oppressors, which is often beyond our means. This is a consequence of neoliberal ideology in a capitalist society. Even for the marginalized, emphasis on individual responsibility takes precedence over the accountability of an unequal society.

While I personally benefit from white privilege, masculine-of-center self-identity, and a financially stable family background, I do experience the intersections of transphobia, homophobia, and ableism. I have experienced multiple acts of discrimination in health care; for instance, sitting for years on a waitlist for CAMH’s gender identity clinic, then being refused treatment because the doctor deemed me “too feminine.” I work to remain aware of the marginalization faced by other trans people, especially the fifteen trans people murdered in the past seven months (most of whom were Black trans women). Part of the reason I am entering the health care profession is to understand and work to challenge the systemic discrimination that marginalizes and kills so many of my trans siblings.

Glossary

Binarist

Referring to ideas that reinforce the biologically-determined theory of the gender binary, ignoring the experiences of non-binary individuals.

Cisgender, or cis Not transgender; identifying with the gender corresponding to one’s sex assigned at birth.

Cissexism, or cisnormativity The belief that everyone is, or should be, cisgender; that being cisgender is superior to being transgender. Typically a biological essentialist concept.

DSM-5 The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.

Transgender, or trans Not identifying with the gender corresponding to one’s sex assigned at birth. For the purpose of this paper, the term “transgender” includes all trans-identified, non-binary, some two-spirit, and gender-non-conforming (GNC) individuals.

Transmisogyny The intersection of transphobia and misogyny; individual or systemic hatred of, discrimination, or bias against trans women and transfeminine people.

 References

Bauer, G. R., Hammond, R., Travers, R., Kaay, M., Hohenadel, K. M., & Boyce, M. (2009). “I don’t think this is theoretical; this is our lives”: How erasure impacts health care for transgender people. Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 20(5), 348-361. doi:10.1016/j.jana.2009.07.004

Graham, L. (2014). Navigating community institutions: Black transgender women’s experiences in schools, the criminal justice system, and churches. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 11(4), 274-287. doi:10.1007/s1317-014-0144-y

Johnson, A. (2015). Normative accountability: How the medical model influences transgender identities and experiences. Sociology Compass, 9(9), 803-813. doi:10.1111/soc4.12297

McClain, Z., Hawkins, L., & Yehia, B. (2016). Creating welcoming spaces for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) patients: An evaluation of the health care environment. Journal of Homosexuality, 63(3), 387-393. doi:10.1080/00918369.2016.1124694

Naiman, J. (2012). How societies work: Class, power, and change (5 ed.). Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

Poteat, T., German, D., & Kerrigan, D. (2013). Managing uncertainty: A grounded theory of stigma in transgender health care encounters. Social Science & Medicine, 84(2013), 22-29. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.02.019

Roberts, T. K., & Fantz, C. R. (2014). Barriers to quality health care for the transgender population. Clinical Biochemistry, 47(10/11), 983-987. doi:10.1016/j.clinbiochem.2014.02.009

Westbrook, L., & Schilt, K. (2014). Doing gender, determining gender: Transgender people, gender panics, and the maintenance of the sex/gender/sexuality system. Gender & Society, 28(1), 32-57. doi:10.1177/0891243213503203

[sheilacwall]

The Year is 1964 & Nina Simone is About to Take on the Authorities

Black History in America – When Nina Simone Sang What Everyone Was Thinking

“Mississippi Goddam” was an angry response to a tragedy, in show tune form.

Nina was angry, damn right too and she channeled her energy into music, but it could have gone another way…

On June 12, 1963, in the early morning after president John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights address, activist Medgar Evers was shot in the back as he stood in the driveway of his Mississippi home.

He was returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers and officials, and carried an armload of T-shirts that read “Jim Crow Must Go.” Evers was taken to a local hospital, where he died less than an hour after being admitted.

On September 15, 1963, four girls were killed when white supremacists planted more than a dozen sticks of dynamite beneath the side steps of the African-American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The children were preparing for a sermon titled “A Love That Forgives.” According to one witness, their bodies flew across the basement “like rag dolls.”

When she heard the news, jazz musician Nina Simone was paralyzed. “It was more than I could take,” she remembered, “and I sat struck dumb in my den like St. Paul on the road to Damascus: all the truths that I had denied to myself for so long rose up and slapped my face. The bombing of the little girls in Alabama and the murder of Medgar Evers were like the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that made no sense until you had fitted the whole thing together. I suddenly realized what it was to be Black in America in 1963, but it wasn’t an intellectual connection…it came as a rush of fury, hatred and determination. In church language, the Truth entered into me and I ‘came through.’”

Simone’s initial reaction was less than Christian. “I had it in mind to go out and kill someone,” she remembered. “I tried to make a zip gun.”

Andy, her husband and manager, intervened. “Nina,” he said, “you can’t kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do.”

An hour later, Nina Simone had composed a song called “Mississippi Goddam.” “It was my first civil rights song,” she recalled, “and it erupted out of me quicker than I could write it down.”

“Mississippi Goddam” became one of Nina Simone’s most famous compositions. It redirected her career. Crisply honest, it is a pure expression of rage and an indictment of inequality. Stylistically, it leapfrogged the righteous, passive anthems that characterized protest music of the time. It was knowing, biting, and inciting.

It was a step Simone was reluctant to take. “Nightclubs were dirty, making records was dirty, popular music was dirty and to mix all that with politics seemed senseless and demeaning,” she wrote in her autobiography I Put a Spell On You. “And until songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’ just burst out of me, I had musical problems as well.

How can you take the memory of a man like Medgar Evers and reduce all that he was to three and a half minutes and a simple tune? That was the musical side of it I shied away from; I didn’t like ‘protest music’ because a lot of it was so simple and unimaginative it stripped the dignity away from the people it was trying to celebrate. But the Alabama church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers stopped that argument and with ‘Mississippi Goddam,’ I realized there was no turning back.”

“‘Mississippi Goddam’—that’s using God’s name in vain,” said comedian and activist Dick Gregory. “She said it, talking about ‘Mississippi, goddamn you.’ We all wanted to say it, but she said it. That’s the difference that set her aside from the rest of them.”

Shortly after the song’s debut in New York, Nina Simone performed it to a mostly white audience at Carnegie Hall in March, 1964. It starts off at a clip. “The name of this tune is Mississippi God-DAMN,” Simone declares to nervous laughter as the band vamps behind her, “…and I mean every word of it.”

Alabama’s got me so upset

Tennessee made me lose my rest

And everybody knows about Mississippi

Goddam

The arrangement is at apparent odds with the sentiment. It’s a vaudeville tune, a clip from a musical review. It makes you see chorus boys, bright in the footlights, dancing in unison. But this is a dark message, delivered in a white envelope. Simone repeats the first verse more insistently, then asks for a witness in the middle eight.

Can’t you see it

Can’t you feel it

It’s all in the air

I can’t stand the pressure much longer

Somebody say a prayer

…then a recapitulation of the verse, to complete the standard AABA form.

What happens next is fascinating, and we need to discuss a little music theory to talk about it. Simone doesn’t change key, but begins playing in the relative minor. Musically, it’s like looking at the opposite side of the same coin: major chords (in this case A-flat, the song’s key base) are generally considered bright and happy, while minor chords (F minor here) are understood to be more melancholy and sinister. Because A-flat and F minor reside in the same key, we understand them as being of a piece. They may have a different root, but share the same scale. Not only that, A-flat is the very note that changes an F chord from major to minor. Simone is demonstrating, tonally, that there are two very different stories to be told from the American perspective: one of majority and one of minority. Furthermore, the existence of one causes the desolation of the other.

“This is a show tune,” Simone explains over the new minor vamp, “but the show hasn’t been written for it yet.” More tittering from the uncertain audience.

Then, a little over a century after president Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Nina Simone slaps gradualism in the face and throws politeness out the window. “You don’t have to live next to me,” she sings. “Just give me my equality.”

Yes you lied to me all these years

You told me to wash and clean my ears

And talk real fine just like a lady

And you’d stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies

You’re all gonna die and die like flies

I don’t trust you any more

Keep on sayin’ ‘Go slow’

“Everyone knows about Mississippi,” Simone sings as the song comes to a racing close. “Everyone knows about Alabama. Everyone knows about Mississippi. Goddamn.”

“Mississippi Goddam” was included on the album “Nina Simone In Concert,” and released as a single, with the offending word bleeped out. “It may be the most topical selection in years,” read the sleeve notes. “This outstanding message song, with the great ‘SIMONE’ feel and rhythm, makes this a @*?!!;; hot disc.”

One box of promotional singles was returned from South Carolina with each record broken neatly in half. Most southern states banned the song.

“Nina Simone In Concert” contains another original composition, “Old Jim Crow.” Jim Crow was a character originating in a blackface minstrel song from the 1820s, and was the name of the prevailing racial caste system in the South after slavery.

“Oh I’m a roarer on de fiddle, and down in old Virginny,” goes the original lyric to “Jump Jim Crow” from 1828,

They say I play de skyentific like Massa Pagannini

Weel about and turn about and do jis so,

Eb’ry time I weel about and jump Jim Crow

“Old Jim Crow, what’s wrong with you?” Nina Simone sings in her song.

It’s not your name, it’s the things you do

Old Jim Crow don’t you know

It’s all over now

There were many songs sung during the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March in early 1965, a year after Nina Simone’s concert at Carnegie Hall. The marchers burst into “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem of the Civil Rights movement, several times. (Folk music icon Pete Seeger had taken the old spiritual and replaced “I will” with “We shall” in the title, making it a more universal pean to perseverance and gradualism.) Two young supporters sang “Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed on Freedom” after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s remarks in Selma on the morning of the march. Along the route, white supremacists blasted “Bye, Bye Blackbird” from loudspeakers.

At the end of the march, in Montgomery Alabama on March 25, a concert was given. Ten thousand people gathered around so tightly that 57 of them fainted. Accompanied only by her guitarist, Nina Simone sang “Mississippi Goddam” on a stage made from empty coffin crates. After the performance, she was introduced to Martin Luther King.

“I’m not nonviolent!” she declared, sticking out her hand.

“That’s okay, sister,” Dr. King replied. “You don’t have to be.”

The terrible decade ground on. A tense interview with Down Beat in January, 1968 was interrupted when segregation came up. “What kind of thing are you doing?” asks husband and manager Andrew Stroud. “We’re not interested in the race issue.” Later that year, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Simone and her bassist Gene Taylor composed “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead).”

Nina Simone moved to Europe and Africa in the early 1970s. “I left this country because I didn’t like this country,” she told an interviewer. “I didn’t like what it was doing to my people and I left.” She was ever after associated with the Civil Rights movement, even though her ultimate conclusion was that political music was a professional liability. She told one interviewer that she regretting writing “Mississippi Goddam” because it hurt her career.

“There is no reason to sing those songs, nothing is happening,” Simone told the interviewer in the 1980s. “There’s no Civil Rights movement. Everybody’s gone.”

But there had been a reason to sing those songs, even when it was done at personal expense. “It was dangerous,” she said about performing for the movement’s marches and rallies. “We encountered many people who were after our hides. I was excited by it, though, because I felt more alive then than I do now because I was needed, could sing something to help my people, and that became the mainstay of my life, the most important thing.”

On another level, Nina Simone, as a musician, understood the universality of being human. Music, after all, is our common emotional language. It does not know age, or race, or class, or gender. Though it informs each, it is available to all. Protest music, specifically, is nothing more than a complaint when such equality — a condition articulated by our founders, but not yet fully achieved — is violated.

“It’s funny about music,” she said at the end of the Down Beat interview. “Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel…through music…Whew…you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment. Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing…Oh my God! Ooh…Wow…You can see colors through music. Anything! Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with music. You can take the same phrase from any song and cut it up so many different ways — it’s infinite. It’s like God…you know?”

by Tom Maxell – source

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