#wallace gets his own blog and these three are popping off

[hcrv3lles-a]

"the harvelles can be happy" ha ha ha cool IM CRYING

YAH NO BESTIE WE'RE SO FINE ACTUALLY!!! NOT CRYING OVER THE HAVELLE SIBLINGS AT ALL!!! WHY WOULD YOU WONDER ABOUT THIS EVER????

[fixing-bad-comic-art]

You said you dont know much about comics, but you do know about anatomy, so i am curious what else you know about. What are your hobbies, what do you like to read/consume (as in media lol)? If its too private ofc u dont have to answer, i am just curious about the person behind the blog! (Also, is there a nickname we could give you, like fibacoa?)

Fibacoa is Very Good. but i did have to google it because i have one brain cell and couldnt figure out where you got it from... lmao i got it now. Fibacoa is good, other places on the web folk call me zaz or zazzy, but my human flash name is Zachariah, and yall are welcome to call me that too. or just Zach! and since we're on the topic of proper nouns ill just add pronouns to the bunch, i mostly use he/him but tbh any work.

In terms of media, im pretty notorious for having no grasp on pop culture. I like educational stuff, and not paying for things. So i mostly watch channels i can learn from on youtube.

Bernadette Banner makes these beautiful historical dresses using the techniques of the time period, i Adore her videos and i could listen to this woman read a phone book. her videos are extremely detailed as she shows all the steps she takes and all the mistakes she makes while working on her projects. she also does videos on things like the history of ppe, Costume College, historical corsetry, and one of my favorite videos is the one where she buys a knock off version of the dress She Made and just tears into it.

Mumbo Jumbo and Grian are both fairly popular minecraft youtubers and i love watching them work on these Massive projects on the server they play on

D'Angelo Wallace does like gossip? videos i dont know what to call them, but theyre informative and i like his whole attitude and how he presents the topics hes covering.

i need to stop listing youtubers adafakll, this list was about 5 entries longer before i realized thats Too Long ajklaj. I have a lot of love in my heart for a bunch of different youtubers.

other than that my favorite media is undeniably fan fiction, usually of properties i know nothing about. I like trying to piece together the source material from what bits can be learned from the fans writing. and i like the complete lack of exposition. Fanfic assumes you already know the characters and setting so it spends no time trying to hand hold and just gets to the meat. and its just Very Nice.

my top picks are

The Descriptavists Approach, which is a critical roll fanfic about molly and caleb and its just Nice.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854460/chapters/34387928

Friendly Competition, also cr, but Caduceus is there to now and hes Very Cute, the fic is about caleb accidentally falling in love with both molly and cad at the same time and trying to figure it out. it has three different endings, and they all make me Cry, the first two from sadness the third from happiness.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17634050/chapters/41579228

and Finally Jouney to the West. a breath of the wild fanfic with my favorite depiction of Link in any fic. hes a feral little pun man who loves the noble shark man, what more could you ask for? https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548447/chapters/31290981#workskin

hobbies wise... Thats A Long List. im a zach of all trades and i tend to bounce around different hobbies a Lot. to the point that if you can name it, and its not metal working, glass work, or skydiving, ive probably done it at least once. but right now the general fiber arts category has taken over my life, primarily spinning. i Adore it. and i adore my 6 spinning wheels only four of whom function and only 2 i paid full price for. (fun story: i got my second wheel as a gift because one of the women in my spinning group deemed my first wheel too dangerous.) Most of my time is being spent spinning rn because i have to get Christmas presents done for 10 people before december and i need something done for early September for my fathers bday. my family has a tradition of not buying the adults anything, so every gift has to be hand made. which is also why i haven't been very active, i got Shit to Finish.

I also adore d&d! and play it a lot. but i was assigned dm at birth so ive never been a player character and ive played... like 15 campaigns?

[argentdandelion]

Ghost Code

After a music critic seriously insults Napstablook, "ghost code" demands Napstablook's cousins rebalance Napstablook's honor...by whatever means necessary.

Link: Review of Napsta Blook’s “Boo Ballad”

MaddestDummy: HOW DARE HE INSULT MY COUSIN!!!

WWW-MTT: AND MY SOUND MANAGER.

This post was liked by The Ruins Dummy

---

Everything started so normally for Wallace Smith, music critic of Ebottville. He woke up, made coffee, had a sip, and read the newspaper.

“Oh, baby, baby, you’re a beep in my heart...” Another song from the robot pop-star. Ugh. His face wrinkling, Wallace turned the thing off. The auto-tune and knocking noises in it were so annoying. “You’re abusing my desire for radio serendipity.” he muttered.

As he gently watered his houseplants, the knocking noises came back. Wallace bent over the radio, glaring at it, but it was still off.

Voices. He heard voices. They sounded angry, and made a strange echoing noise.

---

Thunk .

Mad Dummy recoiled from slamming their head against the wall, then stood up straight and shouted.

“In case you didn’t hear me the FIRST FIVE TIMES—OPEN UP!”

Three ghosts (or, rather, two dummies and a robot) stood in front of Wallace Smith’s door. In the back, Ruins Dummy stared at the entrance.

Mad Dummy and Mettaton turned around. “Well OF COURSE he’s here! We checked the public records and everything!” Mad Dummy shouted back at Ruins Dummy.

“And I tracked his cell phone.”

“..WHAT?!”

“Oh, I just used a little program called ‘How to Just Stumble Into Meeting Undyne’.”

Ruins Dummy stared emptily in what might have been Mad Dummy’s direction.

“What am I gonna do? What am I GONNA DO? I’m gonna rip out his SOUL, and use it to break the barrier!”

Mettaton waved a hand dismissively. “The barrier was broken months ago.”

“I’m gonna MAKE a barrier, and then BREAK IT with his SOUL!”

“There are multiple reasons that won’t work.”

“Like you have any better ideas.” Mad Dummy grumbled.

Mettaton tilted limply, an arm to his chest. “Why, yes. I do have a good idea. I’m going to publicly humiliate him on my TV show! Millions shall know him as the scoundrel he is!”

Mettaton briefly tilted his body meaningfully at Ruins Dummy, and leaned in closer to Mad Dummy’s face with a hand around his own tiled screen of a face. “After all, slicing a human with a chainsaw is very off-brand right now. And it’s a lot more practical than someone’s elaborate vengeance plan.”

Ruins Dummy’s eyes still faced the threshold.

“WHAT? Who is here? You gotta SPEAK UP—”

“Is here something I can help you with?” said a politely displeased voice.

Mad Dummy jiggled, startled, before stiffening in a professional fashion. There he was, the scoundrel of the hour, with rumpled clothes and a mug of hot coffee in his hand.

Mad Dummy tilted their head, glaring at him with one beady eye, as Mettaton hoisted a camera. Wallace glanced over them all, frowning at the aura of overwhelming... something coming from the dummy in the back.

“Yeah you can!” Mad Dummy exclaimed. “You gotta pay for what you did to my—OUR!—cousin!”

“Who?”

“Don’t you ask WHO!” Their head waggled madly as they hovered three feet above the ground, shedding stuffing in rage. Wallace stood back, eyes wide in shock, before scrunching up his nose and sneezing out clumps of cotton.

“They mean Napstablook .” Despite his lack of facial features, Wallace could almost imagine a quiet look of disdain from Mettaton’s calculator-like body. “You do recall how you insulted them, don’t you?”

The man’s face scrunched up. He took a sip of his coffee, as if nothing was wrong, as if two ghosts weren’t threatening to “rip out his SOUL” (whatever that meant) and humiliate him on public television. Mettaton’s long, shapely, egg-frying-hot metal legs tapped impatiently, and Mad Dummy scowled as they hovered in place.

Finally, Wallace spoke.“To be frank...not really. I review the work of a lot of people. And I don’t think it’s necessary to go to such...extremes?....to resolve this problem. Anyway, I always give a fair evaluation of music, so you needn’t—”

“YOU CALL YOURSELF A MUSIC CRITIC?!” Mad Dummy screamed, snout-to-face. “I’VE SEEN MOLDSMALS WITH BETTER MUSICAL TASTES THAN YOU!!”

Wallace looked back, speechless and utterly aghast. Fluff flew around the doorway. Mad Dummy stared at him with beady little eyes, and then frowned. “It’s ‘CAUSE MOLDSMALS ARE DEAF!”

Wallace took a step back, arms stiff, before looking down and noticing...

A piece of cotton in his coffee.

“My shade-grown Arabica....” he muttered absently.

“YOU’RE GOING TO GET A LOT WORSE THAN CELLULOSE-ENRICHED BREAKFAST BEVERAGES! And you know why?! It’s GHOST CODE, you dummy! The honor MUST be rebalanced!”

“May I ask...why?”

“You get insulted, insulted REAL BAD, and your cousins gotta go defend your honor! It's GHOST CODE!”

“Excuse me. I’m not ready to have my... ‘honor rebalanced’ yet.” Wallace said, stepping behind the door.

“You spawn of a—”

Mad Dummy launched themselves at the critic—only to slam into a closed door and slide slowly down.

“It’s for the best. The camera wasn’t on.” Mettaton said, tapping the camera. “I must get this fixed before the real drama starts.”

---

Wallace slid down on the other end of the door. Those ghosts were still talking...“on-brand”, “soundstage manager”, something. The door was too thick to hear their muttering.

Thank goodness, he thought. Wouldn’t want those maniacs getting in . The music critic tapped at his chin. Police phone number, police phone number ... ah !

One digit away from the full number, something floated into his mind…that robot popstar’s super-catchy song. Oh, baby, baby, you’re a beep in my heart... Wallace sighed, shaking his head. The song wouldn’t go away. He pressed his finger to the final digit...

OH BABY BABY YOU’RE A BEEP IN MY HEART!

“Fine!” he muttered to that poorly-timed and hideously catchy pop song. “I’ll pull a Frisk and be a sweet goody-two-shoes.”

After a quick search, he found Napstablook’s phone number. It rang three times before the other person picked up.

“Hey, this is Wallace Smith. From earlier.”

“....oh....it’s you...”

“There are some people...claiming to be your cousins. Claiming they want to...rebalance your honor.”

“Oh. Oh no...”

“What?”

“...it’s alright...they’re just trying to rebalance my honor...”

“Okay, so what does that entail?” Wallace said impatiently.

“...”

“What does it entail, Napstablook?”

“Well....you...hurt my feelings really badly, so...”

“Are they going to kill me, Napstablook?”

“...”

Napstablook hung up.

Wallace tensed, stress building up inside his body. With another look at his home’s door, he left the kitchen.

Some research was in order.

---

"...why are you here again? It’s a FAMILY MATTER!”

“And Napstablook is also my soundstage manager. So, it’s definitely on-brand to get revenge for them.”

"Also?! ALSO?! You’re acting like Napstablook is FAMILY!”

“Sssh.” Mad Dummy’s eyes bugged out from the harsh, jarring feedback of the metallic shush to their not-ears.

Mettaton looked around: the time was too early for there to be many witnesses. “Do keep it down. Remember? I’m the ghost who lived next door with Napstablook. I reported on snail races. I've told you this before, darling." “Oh! I FORGOT!”

Mettaton’s arms clenched onto what would be Mad Dummy’s shoulders (had they had arms). Those arms are the strongest noodles I’ve ever faced, Mad Dummy thought. “And I am trying to reveal the sweet, sweet secret identity details on Friday evening, prime time. Please don’t spoil the surprise.”

Mettaton stopped clenching Mad Dummy’s not-shoulders and stood back, taking an enormous camera out of the thin air again.

“Why’d you even bring a camera?” Mad Dummy asked.

“For the drama, of course!”

---

Are ghosts easily offended ?

The results were only lists of ghost jokes, made pre-barrier-breaking.

Wallace tapped his foot, a hand by his chin. He typed in something else.

Are monsters easily offended?

Wallace clicked the top link. There was so, so much information about life in the Underground...

Oh no. What did I say earlier?  Wallace checked his blog.

The Harmonics

A column by Wallace Smith

"Overall, "Boo Ballad" is so pointless and devoid of any joie de vivre it's rendered bodiless, lifeless dreck. I dust my hands of the whole affair."

Wallace stood up—and flinched from both his sinking feeling and the sudden pain in his head.

Oh schist.

He gently picked up his rock paperweight that had oh-so-inconveniently fallen from a shelf onto his head.

Bodiless. Lifeless. To a ghost.

And... Dust . Monsters corpses are piles of dust.

Oh no .

---

Click click.

Wallace held the phone up to his ear...and Napstablook didn’t pick up.

He grit his teeth, and called again.

“...I’m sorry...I don’t know what to do....”

“Well, I’d rather stay alive , if they’re going to kill me.”

Suddenly, Wallace heard a whump against the door, and ghostly shouts.

“And I’m pretty sure they’re trying to break in.”

He stuck his tongue out and squinted in thought, before putting his hand beneath his chin for good measure.

“What would you do to ‘rebalance’ one of your cousins’ honor?”

“...um...I would...say something mean? I guess...”

Wallace’s face broke out into a silly grin, as relief cascaded over him.

I have a plan .

---

He brought the phone all the way to the door and turned the volume all the way up.

Napstablook’s wavering, ghostly voice emanated from the phone’s speakers. “I...don’t like you. Sorry. I know, that’s too harsh...”

Wallace smacked his forehead.

“A ghost so formidable as you has surely practiced for this very moment ! A ghost so fearsome surely has a well-prepared SCRIPT!”

“...oh.”

Everyone heard a clicking noise from the phone.

“...so, um...your music criticism...it’s...pointless. And hurts people. You’re...not a nice person.”

“...and...that’s why your wife left you.”

Wallace snorted. Never had a wife, but good try.

“Oh, I have been brought low!” Wallace exclaimed, an arm postured behind his head in mock shock. “How ever will I recover from this humiliating defeat! ”

Then he opened the door. "As you can see, it is no longer necessary to do...whatever you were going to do. The honor has been rebalanced."

Mettaton turned the camera off. Somehow, despite the robot’s lack of a face, Wallace thought he detected disappointment in his actions. (Probably from the sad sashay of those blisteringly hot legs.) Mad Dummy grumbled incoherently, before they, too, hopped away.

Finally, only Ruins Dummy stared at him.

Wallace stared back.

And Mettaton’s noodle arm pulled them away, so much like a shepherd’s crook pulling away a bad comedian.

----

If you enjoyed this post, you may be interested in the author’s Patreon and Ko-fi.

[tessatechaitea]

Deathstork #10

I wish Deathstork were real. I think it's okay to hire a pedophile for the contract I'm thinking about.

Me on Facebook.

Here's a helpful hint if you want to add footnotes to your own terrible blog! If you want a superscript one, you hold down the alt key and type 0185 on the keypad. Guess how you get a superscript two? WRONG! It's alt plus 0178! You can figure out superscript three because it follows the pattern you probably thought would be a pattern starting with the one. Guess how you type superscript four? WRONG! I have no idea how to fucking type that. I usually find one online and copy and paste it. I guess you're only supposed to have three footnotes per written work.³ I suppose I could learn the HTML codes for them but that's being too rational for a paragraph that was meant to engage in some hyperbolic elements for humorous effects. Don't you hate it when you say something in an exaggerated manner and then somebody matter-of-factly corrects you? Like when I say, "Donald Trump is an asshole!" Then somebody, probably a conservative cousin, says, "Actually he's just a human being like me or you and not a sentient anus that has removed itself from the original organism, swept some long butt-hairs across the top of its sphincterish shape, and squelched its way into the White House." I want to amend the previous paragraph. There is no way a conservative cousin could come up with that response.

Fucking hell. This is all I've ever fucking asked for out of a Deathstork comic book! Don't make his morality easy! The reader doesn't need to feel comfortable liking him!

Popular entertainment loves to tell stories where the audience automatically knows who to root for and who to denounce. I like my characters to be more complex. I suppose there isn't any real evidence for that being that I'm still reading comic books in which complex is a dirty word. Not that Slade Wilson killing people who might kill him makes him complex! But Deathstork writers have a history of making sure he kills the bad guys and ultimately does the right thing so that he can be seen as a hero (or, for want of a word that losers don't love, anti-hero). Killing people shooting at him is par for Deathstork's White's Only course. But killing people who are innocent victims of a genocidal war against their people because he's desperate to get paid for a job they want to stop? That's a bit to ambiguous to defend. He's adding to the misery of a people for his own pocketbook. That's the Deathstork way but no fan ever really wants to accept it. They're all such sycophantic ass-kissers. The Room Four story ends with Slade getting a promotion to Captain and walking past Dex, the interrogator from Room Two. That's how those tie in! Anyway, Dex from Room Two explains to Slade how they have enough evidence to convict him of some political shenanigans. Right. As if something won't come up where Dex will be all, "You know what? We could use Deathstork's help right now! We won't convict! EEE!" Meanwhile over in Room One, Jericho is learning some medical mumbo-jumbo from Doctor Villain. He's all, "Deathstork's sword is coated in Promethium! That shit is whack! Now you got super powers!" Over in Room Three, Xia (Rose Wilson's Hmong name) meets her mother Lillian's family. She also beats the crap out of a disrespectful gang-banger and deftly fends off the advances of her cousin. Not in the usual way with a sword but just with her words. There are a lot of entertaining words in this comic book. Isn't that interesting that the best Deathstork comic book is the one with more words and conversations than bullets and corpses? Finally, the Red Lion comes to break Slade out of prison. But first Slade has to read something about the new Flash and alternate universes to remind readers that this comic book still takes place in the same universe as all of that other boring Rebirth shit. The Ranking! +1! _______________________________ ¹Not that any regular reader probably ever questions why I suddenly begin discussing anything. If you do, I apologize for making my commentaries so confusing.² ²I had to make that comment a footnote since the sentence it footnotes stated "the following sentence" which would have been wrong if followed by the footnote. ³Take that, David Foster Wallace!

[aliahaider-blog]

The time flamenco pop sounded like my Pakistani mom’s cleaning music

Boring, I thought. The first time I listened all the way through Rosalía's debut album, Los Angeles, all I could think about was that, boring. 12 tracks and an hour later it felt like I had listened to the same song over and over again, the same guitar strum repeating itself with some off-beat vocals scratching on top of it. This had been right after discovering Rosalía on J Balvin's new record, Vibras, in which she delivers an interlude ("Brillo") that completely overshadows Balvin and the rest of his guest features on the album. The hype built up later as I discovered her latest single at the time, "Malamente," and loved the choreography, the production by one of my favorite Spanish artists El Guincho, that sexy repetition of "malamente" aided by the claps in between. So with all the dance-y hype built up in me, I decided to listen to her debut album, reaching that first impression I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post: boring.

It had to be impossible, though. It couldn't have been that this singer rose to fame among her peers had they thought she was boring. So I listened to Los Angeles again two or three times, and its beauty and elegance struck me in weird and nostalgic scenarios: as I cleaned my room, as I folded my clothes, as I drove to hang out with my friends. Her vocal range and constancy of such a raw performance took me back to childhood when my mom played her old Ghazal and Qawwali cassettes in those exact scenarios: when she cleaned, or folded clothes, or drove me to my friends' houses. Los Angeles likened itself to that hour-long string of consciousness prevalent in performances by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the feeling like you're listening to one long song with fragments of various identities that tie in with its overarching theme of love or loss or peace. Where I saw the beauty in the variety of her talents through "Brillo" and "Malamente," I now also saw in Rosalía's range of whispers and shrill screams compiled together into a central theme. Listening to "Si Tú Supieras Compañero," you inch towards the desire she emanates through her lyrics and lilting vocals (as my friend would classify them), following her through an awaited climax that never arrives, just as she does when she remarks,

Ay te voy pintando y pintando

Al laíco del brasero

Y a la vez me voy quemando

Por lo mucho que te quiero

Válgame San Rafael tener el agua tan cerca y no poderla beber

Oh! I am painting your portrait, painting you,

by the faint light of the brazier;

and at the same time I am burning away slowly,

consumed by my love for you.

May Saint Raphael help me, oh!

The water I need is so near, yet I cannot drink of it.

-Translation by Anonymous

The same effect captures you in the next song "De Plata," as Rosalía expresses her mere 14 lines of anguish towards this unrequited love for 4 1/2 minutes. The elongated "Cuando yo" at the beginning takes you inside that raw emotion, those periods that seem like forever just waiting for that person to understand the extent of her love. The pattern goes on from song to song, the concise feelings of loss piercing deeper in Rosalía's vocals and getting heavier in each song's lyrics. Time passes as the narrator's mother dies, and little brother dies, and the town's gravedigger buries his daughter, and by the time you can't handle anymore she concludes her narration with a cover of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's song "I See A Darkness," an ending that dually traps the narrator in her own head yet brings her closer to the ones she loves through her familiarity with imminent death.

Los Angeles and its similarity to Ghazal and Qawwali helped me connect to these feelings of loss in such a larger-than-life manner. This connection as well as Rosalía's objective with flamenco-pop moving forward helped me realize the quickly-changing landscape of music that she is adapting to. For me, this isn't the first time I've been exposed to South Asian/Arab and Spanish cultures coinciding. The Bollywood movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara draws connections between flamenco and Hindi music in its hit song "Señorita."  Indian authors like Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy incorporate elements of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude into their tales of India and Pakistan. El Guincho, Rosalía's co-producer for her newest album, has incorporated Hindi samples and Indian influences in songs like "Cuando Maravilla Fui" and "Bombay." I even wrote about a project by Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili in which she juxtaposes speeches by prominent (albeit controversial) North African leaders and revolutionaries next to those by Latin American leaders and revolutionaries to universalize the experiences of Maghrebi immigrants in Europe. For Rosalía, she's not the first to try and bring a niche, traditional genre like flamenco into the pop or hip-hop world. "Despacito" became one of the most widely-heard songs in 2017, Riz Ahmed and Heems integrated Bollywood-inspired production with East coast rap and grime in their duo Swet Shop Boys, and Skepta found his way into every rapper's feature list from A$AP Rocky to Playboi Carti to Drake. But what seems to be so unique about Rosalía's flamenco-pop integration is that it embodies her transition into a purely diasporic art-form, beginning from the foundation of authentic Catalan flamenco and shifting according to her surroundings. In an interview with a fellow student named Jon a few months ago, we discussed the essence of diasporic identity being the ability to take the morally-rich parts of our parent-country's heritage and the morally-rich lessons we learned from the new environment we were raised in and combine them to create our own identity, one that transcends any doubt we experienced trying to fit into exclusive circles throughout our lives. Through that experience we learn to identify with people who experience the same feelings as us, like displacement and the necessity to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings, rather than exclusively people who look like us or share the same traditions as us. That's not to say I didn't mostly hang out with South Asians anyways. Sometimes people who experience the same feelings as us are also the ones that look like us. It's not mutually exclusive. And perhaps this inclusiveness, or absence of exclusiveness, is what allows Rosalía the ability to delve into these new areas of her music while staying true to her roots. This flamenco-pop wave she basks in is not a new era but a transitional one. In an interview with Tom Tom Mag, she discusses her perspective of creating popular flamenco, stating, "It is not my intention to alter, in any way, the status quo of this genre. It is more like….I sing flamenco from my perspective. For me to make music, and specifically flamenco, it is absolutely necessary for me to play in my own way." In this sense, she maintains that diasporic identity through the creation of her own perspective of flamenco, one that she hopes younger generations who were not exposed to its pure form since birth can identify with. And through this perspective, she capitalizes on the expanse of the genre without denouncing its purists. In a video set in Barcelona, a camera follows Rosalía through her favorite square. She reminisces on randomly meeting friends every time she goes there, and then the video quickly switches to her explaining the process of creating her new album, El Mal Querer. Through it all, I get to see how she manifests her explanation of this transcendental identity my friend and I talked about, but through her music. She remarks, "It's quite different from Los Angeles, but the essence remains. You can sense the flamenco inspiration," she says as she mimics the snaps and claps common in flamenco, "but at the same time, it's a whole new thing." This brief explanation rings throughout my head as I contextualize this leap in her career. Perhaps all the artists who pivoted to other genres of music and creativity never truly departed from their past crafts but just adapted to the environments they found themselves in. And perhaps as diaspora dominates more and more aspects of our lives, the preparedness to embrace unfamiliar circumstances opens the doors to many new forms of expression.

As I sat here writing this after hearing that quote in the video, I remembered where I had read something similar before. It was an interview with Riz Ahmed written by Carvell Wallace of the New York Times. In it, he explains his experience listening to Riz Ahmed's verse in the Swet Shop Boys song "Half Moghul, Half Mowgli." He ends that verse with four different voices talking to him, one of them calling him a "Paki" terrorist, one of them praising him for representing South Asian kids, one of them saluting him for his raps, and lastly an old Muslim man condemning him for his explicit content. Wallace explains his experience hearing that verse and coming to truly understand it, writing, "But the reason it unraveled something so deeply inside of me was that it also represented four different ways you can look at yourself. All completely opposite one another, and completely isolated, and yet completely validated by the world you live in. And when there are so many versions of self, maybe the only way to maintain safety is to develop a view that can see, literally, everything." Reading that passage a few months back brought me full circle in coming to terms with this "transcendental identity" Jon and I coughed up in our discussion, and now finding myself in the wake of this album that popularizes the artist's own perspective of flamenco, pop, love, loss and everything in between, I understand Wallace's notion of viewing "everything." I understand it through being a Pakistani-American who identifies with a piece of art from halfway across the world, one based in a language I can barely speak and a form of music I have virtually never heard before.

Through this piece and Rosalía's own expression of her diasporic identity, we get to see her perspective of flamenco come to life, whether it be in the fierce pop choreography in "Malamente," in the flamenco-inspired crescendo of the guitar and background of emphatic snaps and claps in "Que No Salga La Luna," or in the Bedouin-style auto-tune riffs in "De Aquí No Sales."

Throughout her performance in everything--video, song, and stage--we see the two worlds of Rosalía combine to create a third. We see her perspective of pure flamenco come together with the pop and R&B she came to know growing up; we see extravagant displays of color and flare in costume, fabric and setting yet also her casual streams of consciousness through fluid dance, concise lyrics and steady cinematography; we hear the theme of love and loss carried over from Los Angeles--even hearing that lyric from "De Plata" in which she asks her love to tie her hands together with their braids carried into "Di Mi Nombre"--yet we find our narrator with a brand-new air of confidence in her; and we see her Catalan roots become universalized as listeners around the world share her experience.

In the song covers (yes, she has a different cover for each song) we see these elements come together even more, such as in the “Bagdad” cover as Rosalía lays on her side pointing towards the sun with stigmata in her feet, a fitting expression of the Catholic undertones for her liturgy rendition of Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River.” The cover for “Que No Salga La Luna” displays two versions of Rosalía shaking hands during the flamenco medley, the left dressed in chic white clothes as if a pop icon, the right dressed in an embroidered flamenco suit. Keys of different colors float in between them as if to open a door not accessible previously.

In the beautifully-crafted lyrics we hear the story of the narrator play out through the darker stages of her love. In “Que No Salga La Luna,” we hear a male singer repeat “Que no salga la luna que no tiene pa' qué / No tiene pa' qué, no tiene pa' qué,” saying the moon has no reason to rise because the narrator has filled herself with light, yet deeper into the song those repetitions soon bring out the loss of oneself in this obsessive relationship. Whereas the line once serves as a reason for hope, it soon becomes a reason for doubt in the confines of this love full of diamonds and undying loyalty to each other. In “Bagdad,” the narrator prays to God repeatedly to see her way out of the trapped relationship, yet despite the descent of an angel she again falls in love with her evils. The story of this love bound to end in flames continues through “Di Mi Nombre” as she basks in the sexual moment between her and her love. The last three tracks show the narrator confront her desire to find that exit and maintain the hope of finding herself again too. The final track, “A Ningún Hombre,” brings us to her realization of self-worth, remarking that no man can dictate her life, asserting that she will tattoo his initials to remember what he did and how she came out of it. These songs, layered as chapters, tell the coming of age story that is born out of this obsessive love in a way so unique to the genres they touch. “Di Mi Nombre” epitomizes the sex-fueled undertones of pop and R&B, getting its name from the famous Destiny’s Child song “Say My Name.” The experimental production of “De Aqui No Sales” meshes flamenco claps, auto-tune riffs, and car engine sounds in a way that perfectly matches the scattered and fluctuating feelings of pain and infatuation this relationship causes. It seems that with every line comes its corresponding piece of instrumentation to fully embody the narrator’s circumstance.

Throughout this listening experience we perceive "everything" the way Carvell Wallace explains. We can be both the purists and the adapters, both the flamenco and the pop, both the familiar and the unfamiliar. Somehow, while having to balance all of these ambiguities, Rosalía does not fail to leave out any aspect of her new identity that she’s embracing, that of a powerful, self-realizing woman, a pioneer of the emerging genre of flamenco pop, and a product of cultural eclecticism and diaspora. 

Listen to El Mal Querer below:

[mysteryshelf]

BLOG TOUR - Vengeance

NEW BOOK RELEASE !!

Book 2 of the thrilling Tip of the Spear series by Belle Ami

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Book Unleashed Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

VENGEANCE

Belle Ami

Series: Tip of the Spear Book 2 Genre: Romance, Thriller, Suspense Publisher: Hartwood Publishing Publication Date: September 12, 2017

Add to Goodreads

A Mossad agent will do anything to rescue his kidnapped wife and to stop a terrorist plot to blow up a nuclear facility.

Vengeance is a sexy thriller teeming with romantic suspense. A well-researched tale, scary in its possibility, packed with excitement, it will leave you breathlessly turning pages.

Layla Wallace Hassani is living her dream, curating a major art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. She has it all, a fabulous career, the perfect marriage and the perfect child. She’s madly in love with her husband Cyrus Hassani, a Mossad agent, and lives in Tel Aviv with their four-year-old daughter Cerise. Her life takes a disastrous turn when she’s kidnapped by Iranian terrorists during the bombing of a restaurant in Manhattan. Chained to a bed at a remote location, Layla is a pawn in a deadly game. She’s the bait to lure Cyrus to his death.

Driven by vengeance and a love that knows no bounds, Cyrus will do anything to rescue his wife and stop the terrorist’s plot to blow up a nuclear facility. Teaming up with the FBI he’s the only man capable of stopping a bombing that would result in the deaths of millions of people. Filled with vengeance, stopping the terrorists is his goal, but saving Layla is his mission.

Layla knows her Superman, Cyrus, is coming to save her. She also knows, unbeknownst to him, that by doing so it will mean the death of their child. Caught in a mousetrap, she struggles to find a way out of her deadly situation and to fend off the sexual advances of the kidnapper terrorist who’s fallen in love with her.

Layla must make a choice, save her child or sacrifice herself and her marriage. The clock is ticking.

Another page turner by Belle Ami. Suspense fans and those who enjoy a well crafted story won’t be disappointed.

– Therese Gilardi, Goodreads Reviewer

Belle Ami’s Book 2 of this Series may be my favorite yet. The depth of this story line, the suspense, kept me enraptured and breathless. I’m blown away! Congratulations!

– Amazon Customer

Purchase Links

Available now for $4.99 only. Grab your copy today.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

Interview With the Author

What initially got you interested in writing?

I’ve written my whole life. Whether it be screen treatments, screenplays, poetry, speeches, or short stories, however, I didn’t get serious about writing until 2007. My mother is a Holocaust survivor. She was a child of ten, living happily in Poland when the war broke out. No one knew her story better than me. My mother’s story, In the Face of Evil, was born. It was my first full length novel and I was very proud when it was awarded Finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards.

  What genres do you write in?

My first series The Only One is romance/suspense/erotic. My new series Tip of the Spear is really romance/thriller with a teaspoon of sex. For me, it’s all about the story and the struggles of the characters to reach their goals. For my own personal satisfaction, I must push the envelope or I’m not fully engaged.

  What drew you to writing this specific genre?

When I finished In the Face of Evil all the stories and characters inside of me clamored to be heard. I’d been making notes on restaurant napkins for years, it was like a hobby: drink wine, dine, and dream up storylines. The problem was I felt spent from the intensity of writing a historical novel that focused on war and survival. I needed a writing vacation. Around this time, just like everyone else in the world, I read Fifty Shades of Grey. I enjoyed it. I knew I wasn’t reading Tolstoy. My first thought was, you can do this and you might even have a good time with it.

  What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

I’ve always been a voracious reader. Through books I travelled the world, time travelled through history, learned about different cultures, ventured into imaginary worlds, rode the wings of dragons, and combed through the minds of some of the most extraordinary people that have ever lived. I hope that through my books, my readers will learn something they didn’t know before, feel something they’ve never felt before, and escape to somewhere they’ve never been before.

  What do you find most rewarding about writing?

Reviews, of course. Hearing from readers about how my books affected them is always a thrill. I just received a Kindle review for Escape (Tip of the Spear) that made all of the blood, sweat, and tears worthwhile. The reader wrote: “I recently read this and I really liked it. I liked the political intrigue and espionage aspect of the plot; It was packed with details and action. This drew in someone like me, who rarely reads romances. There is a lot of story packed into one short novel and I read it very quickly. The story moves at a fast-pace, but not so fast that you can’t keep up with what’s going on. I’m considering reading book 2 in the series, which is not something I’ve ever done with any romance novel before.”

  What do you find the most challenging thing about writing?

The most challenging part of writing for me is the research. I’m a stickler for authenticity. I do a ton of research for my books. It has to be real whether I’m writing about setting, the FBI, Mossad, culture, religious background, food, nuclear facilities, or guns and roses. If it’s not based on fact, it won’t make it onto the pages of a Belle Ami book.

  What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

Do your homework, and learn your craft. Writing, like everything else requires an education. Writers are not born. They struggle to find their voice. Then they fine tune that voice and clarify it with courses, education, practice, great editors, and hard work. I write every day, no matter what. There is no easy path to becoming a successful writer, regardless of what you may think.

  What types of books do you enjoy reading?

I’m a book junkie. I read everything from romance, thrillers, biography, historical novels, paranormal, and pure literary past and present. A good book is a good book.

  Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

Of course, I’m interesting. Otherwise, my books wouldn’t be interesting. I’m a classical pianist and a music freak. Just like my reading, my musical tastes are broad and diverse. I love country western, classical, hard rock, oldies, opera, and pop. I’m also a gourmet cook and take great pride in creating beautiful, tasty meals. Somehow, I also manage to fit in a vigorous workout three or four day a week, which keeps me fit for my other passion skiing. Travelling is always a pleasure, and I’ve done my share of it. Sometime, around Christmas I’m planning a trip to Vienna and then to Eilat, Israel where I’ll visit my daughter who’s studying hotel management at Ben Gurion University.

CONTACT ME:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/belle.ami.96?fref=ts

Twitter:  @BelleAmi5

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/belleami96/

LinkedIn:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/belle-ami-86916094/

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/temamer/

Website:   www.belleamiauthor.com

  Buy Links:

Amazon buy link:   https://www.amazon.com/Vengeance-Romantic-Suspense-Thriller-Spear-ebook/dp/B074XZ7BNN

Amazon buy link:  https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Tip-Spear-Book-1-ebook/dp/B01N1X508R

Smashwords:   https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/692572

Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/escape-120

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/escape-belle-ami/1125408729?ean=2940157291785

Amazon buy link:  https://www.amazon.com/One-More-Time-Not-Enough-ebook/dp/B01HSDJLLA#navbar

Amazon buy link: http://bookshow.me/TheOne

Amazon buy link: http://bookshow.me/TheOneAndMore

Amazon buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Holiday-Ever-After-Nora-Flite-ebook/dp/B01M8KZIRK

Other Books by Belle Ami

Don’t miss the other books in the Tip of the Spear series:

ESCAPE

Series: Tip of the Spear Book 1

Escape, a sexy romantic thriller that “what ifs?” a nuclearized Middle East.

When Harvard student, Layla Wallace and her Saudi boyfriend are kidnapped to Iran, a deep-cover Mossad agent is activated and given a mission. He’s ordered to either get Layla out of Iran, or if failing that—kill her.

Buy Links: Available on Amazon.com

This story is suspenseful, it’s smart, it’s sexy, it’s a page-turner that you will be loathed to put down. – Romance Reviews

Giveaway

WIN $25 GIFT CARD AND MORE!

Prizes up for grabs: $25 Amazon Gift Card 3 Digital Copies of Escape (Tip of the Spear Book 1)

Contest runs from October 13 – November 2, 2017.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About Belle Ami

Belle Ami writes romantic/suspense/thrillers with a teaspoon of sex. Escape (Tip of the Spear Book 1) is up for a RONE Award in 2018. Her latest is entitled Vengeance (Tip of the Spear Book 2) published by Hartwood Publishing. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two children, a horse named Cindy Crawford, and her brilliant Chihuahua, Giorgio Armani.

Official website: http://belleami.us/

Connect with Belle Ami on social media:

Facebook | Twitter | Linked-In | Pinterest | Instagram

Book Tour Schedule

Follow the book tour from October 13 – November 2, 2017.

Visit each tour stop daily and discover more features, excerpts, reviews, interviews, fun facts and other extras on the tour.

To check the latest tour schedule, visit the Vengeance Book Page at Book Unleashed.

In partnership with

Book Unleashed Blog Tours

BLOG TOUR – Vengeance was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf with Shannon Muir

[garynsmith]

Belly Up to Your Own Home Bar: Our How-to Guide

http://ift.tt/2spvrdQ

A home bar can up your entertaining game and transform your social life, making your abode the coolest one on the block. Of course, a home bar can also be where you mix yourself a nice drink after a long day at work.

From a small wet bar tucked into a nook to an oversized freestanding bar, there are plenty of options for creating a watering hole in your home. Here’s how to get started.

Consider the placement

First, consider your floor plan. Determine if you have the space, and consider the rooms you entertain in. Do friends and family congregate in the living room? Or are the kitchen and dining room the social hubs?

If you want to install an ice maker or sink in your wet bar, you want to build it where there’s existing plumbing - perhaps on the backside of your kitchen or near a powder room.

"I say skip the sink, because it limits your counter space and makes the project more expensive," says Richmond, VA, interior decorator Lesley Glotzl. She notes that not many homeowners use wet-bar sinks for washing hands and glassware, and the space can be put to better use.

Glotzl, who has rehabbed several clients’ wet bars, suggests maximizing your counter space, and in lieu of a sink, use plumbing for an ice maker. If you are a cocktail connoisseur, an ice maker will be more useful than a sink.

"What’s fun about a home bar is you can do it very affordably," says Glotzl. She recommends building a wet bar when doing a kitchen or bath renovation, because it’s more cost-effective and an easy project to tack on when you already have someone designing cabinets and countertops.

Photo from Zillow listing

Fine-tune the details

A wet bar can be as simple as a piece of cabinetry with a countertop, upper cabinets, or shelves. If you want to get fancy, add appliances like an ice maker and refrigerator.

Cabinetry below hides plumbing and tucks away bar tools, while open shelving above the bar is a fun option for showing off fancy cocktail glasses and a collection of spirits.

Glotzl notes that a mirrored backsplash is worth considering, because it makes a wet-bar nook seem larger, while reflecting light back into the room. Glotzl recommends textured vinyl wallpapers by companies like Osborne & Little or Thibaut as another fun backsplash option. "The wallpapers are durable, and give the bar a little pop," she says.

Don't be afraid to get adventurous and creative. Add drama by painting cabinetry a bright color, or add a high-gloss lacquer finish. You can make a bold statement in a small space.

Hang a funky pendant light or mount two sconces to showcase your small saloon. Glotzl notes that lighting is essential, because it helps to highlight and frame the space.

Photo courtesy of Martha O’Hara Interiors

Get fancy

If you’re looking to up your game, you can add specialty appliances like dual-zone refrigerators. "What's nice about ice makers, wine coolers, and beverage refrigerators is that they are a standard size," says Glotzl. "You can just pop it into place like a cabinet." So, no need to worry about installation -  just move it into place and plug it in.

For a small-scale wet bar, go straight to a kitchen design company, or coordinate it yourself by hiring a handyperson, electrician, and plumber.

On the other hand, if you want to go big and turn an entire room into a bar, or create a custom wet bar with unique appliances and restaurant-grade equipment like beer and wine taps, that's another story. For a high-end bar with modern accouterments, you'll need to call on a company like Wallace & Hinz, which specializes in custom bars for restaurants, clubs, and residences.

Photo from Zillow listing

"When you really look at the home bar, it’s much more difficult to create than a commercial bar, because it's usually for a smaller space, and you want as much as you can get packed into that little space," says Tom Tellez, CEO at Wallace & Hinz. "They can be far more complicated, and there’s room for error."

For homeowners who request high-end dishwashers, refrigerators, and ice machines that all need to be tucked under the bar, Tellez recommends appliances from Perlick Corporation, because they specialize in beverage equipment like wine reserves, dual-zone refrigerators, and beer dispensers.

If space is tight, Tellez says the company sometimes sources tiny appliances that are traditionally used on yachts or in motorhomes. Companies like Furrion or Westland manufacture pint-sized appliances that will save your bar some inches.

"There's the architectural side of what it looks like and feels like, then there’s how you’re going to fit everything in so that it's seamless and operates efficiently with all your plumbing and electricity," says Tellez.

Along with the functional aspect of bars, Tellez's company designs the look of them, too, taking into account millwork and details like shelving and foot rails.

Photo from Zillow listing

Get inspired

Rick Magnuson called on Wallace & Hinz to transform the front parlor of his Los Altos, CA, home into a bar. After living in the 1920s farmhouse for three decades and only using the parlor a handful of times, he and his wife, Amy, decided the room was wasted space. The couple wanted a place where they could spend time with friends and family, and Amy had a lightbulb moment to add a bar in their home. "We didn’t want to put a bar in the room; we wanted to make the room a bar," Magnuson notes.

The Magnusons got in touch with Tellez and requested a custom mahogany bar with carved details, shelves to display glassware and bottles, a handful of barstools, a mirrored backsplash, LED lights, a dishwasher, refrigerator, ice maker, and two beer taps that are now kegged with Sierra Nevada and Trumer Pilsner. They wanted their entire 16-by-20-foot front room to be transformed into a pub.

Tellez took detailed measurements of the room and discussed its layout with the Magnusons. A CAD drawing was created, and after several back-and-forths, the Magnusons finalized the design. Tellez took two to three months to build the entire room and bar in his Blue Lake, CA, workshop, then disassembled it and drove it to the Magnusons’ home, where he installed the bar, which took around a week of 10- to 12-hour shifts.

Before the bar installation, Magnuson had the parlor drywall demolished, so Tellez could install not just the bar, but custom millwork throughout the room, too, from the wainscoting to the window trim and the bar back cabinetry and shelving.

The Magnusons’ home bar is now dubbed "The Wasted Space," a nod to their unused parlor and the drinking that now happens in their transformed space.

Do it yourself: How to hack the home bar

If you fancy yourself a skilled DIYer and don't want to break the bank, consider these options:

$ Bookshelf bar An existing built-in bookshelf is an easy and affordable route for creating a bar. Add cabinet doors to the bottom as a place to tuck away bar tools. Adjust shelving to create plenty of space for a tray, ice bucket, and spirits.

If you feel adventurous, apply an adhesive wallpaper to the backside for a pop of color or pattern. If you need lighting, simply add Light Tape or adhesive battery-operated LED lights. Use existing shelving to display pretty glassware. And finally, style your bookshelf with any other accessories that pull your bar together.

$$ Repurposed furniture bar

In lieu of a bar cart, repurpose an unused console, record cabinet, or secretary desk into a bar. Bring the piece of furniture back to life with a coat of paint or a fun finish. Above the bar, add wall-mounted shelving from Restoration Hardware or CB2 to display your stockpile of spirits, along with sculptural glasses like coupes, highballs, and whiskey tumblers.

Photo courtesy of Michele Safra Interiors

$$$ Salvaged cabinetry bar

Glotzl recommends salvaging a cabinet from a kitchen renovation company or a place like Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Give the cabinet a fresh coat of paint, and for a custom look, top it off with a countertop remnant from a stone company.

$$$$ Cloistered bar

A closet is the perfect place to tuck away a bar. Glotzl recommends removing the door and molding, along with the drywall from the doorway to the ceiling, to create a seamless notch in the room.

"The problem with using the closet is, it's going to be deep and not a standard size," says Glotzl. For this, you need precise measurements to ensure that your cabinetry and countertops fit snuggly. From there, you can accessorize the space with bracketed shelving and a fun pendant light to illuminate your new favorite drinking spot.

See more bar design inspiration on Zillow Digs.

Top image from Zillow listing

Related:

A Home Bar for Every Budget

Entertaining Essentials: 5 Items Every Host Needs

Styling Bar Carts: 4 Irresistible Looks

from Zillow Blog http://ift.tt/2sputyl via IFTTT

[junker-town]

When exactly did you become a fan of your college football team?

Here are a bunch of fun stories. Give us yours!

SB Nation has a cool series right now: each of our team sites discussing the origins of fandom. I wanted to share a few of the best from our college team blogs, though there are many other good ones. (To join in and enter a contest, find your school's blog.)

College fandom often goes deeper than the pro kind, whether due to regional history or alumni status or family ties, and a lot of these stories stand out as pretty unique.

Like becoming a Texas fan because your mom was into Russell Crowe's rock band:

Mom decided to visit Austin in 2001 to see TOFOG and re-connect with a friend from graduate school.

I was looking at at a handful of schools at that time — Montana, Montana State, CU-Boulder, a liberal arts college in Minneapolis, and Indiana as a back up. I wasn’t really sold on any of them and basically eliminated the school in Minnesota because I made the smart choice of visiting it in December.

Mom and her friend decided I should visit Austin, so I did in October of 2001.

Or finding UCLA by way of the New York Yankees:

In the late 70s, it was all about the Yanks, no matter how much you Dodger fans hated it. My guys on those Yankee teams were catcher Thurman Munson and first baseman Chris Chambliss, who kickstarted the Yankee dynasty of that era with a walk-off home run in the 1976 American League Championship Series to send the Yankees to the World Series.

It would be years later that I came to know that Chambliss had played his college baseball at UCLA.

My next step towards the Bruins probably didn’t come until the late '80s when Troy Aikman faced off against Rodney Peete.

Or finding Penn State because the Browns pulled a Browns:

On Nov. 9, 1993, the Browns made a shocking move by releasing Bernie Kosar, a hometown hero whom every kid (and many adults) in my region idolized. He was the ultimate underdog, a slow-footed quarterback with awkward mechanics. Kosar was able to use his understanding of the game to become one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks throughout the late ‘80s and into the ‘90s.

I was too heartbroken to cheer for the Browns for the remainder of the season. I followed Kosar to the Cowboys and cheered as he filled in to lead them to an NFC Championship victory by filling in for an injured Troy Aikman and took the field for the final play in Super Bowl XXVIII.

I was determined not to cheer for the Browns again until Art Modell had sold the team and Bill Belichick was long gone from Cleveland, and decided to pay more attention to college football and my adopted team of Penn State.

Well, let’s just say my timing couldn’t have been better. As you know, the Nittany Lions went undefeated behind one of the most electrifying offenses in the history of college football, led by the likes of Kerry Collins, Ki-Jana Carter, Kyle Brady and Bobby Engram.

Or becoming a Sooner immediately after immigrating from India:

When my family made the move from India decades ago, we first settled in the great town of Norman, Oklahoma, where my uncle’s family who’d sponsored ours for immigration had been living. My uncle, a professor and administrator at OU through the 1980s and ‘90s, gets most of the credit for teaching me about American sports, and my two older U.S.-born cousins get the rest. Truth be told, the first football game I remember was Notre Dame taking on West Virginia. My attention was fixated on the Irish’s helmets.

Forgive me, for I was only six and had never before seen the crazy game of football. (I will mention, however, I was a pretty damn good cricketer.)

My fickle infatuation didn’t last long, and the colors of the Crimson & Cream took over. I remember my cousin, Vijay, would fill me in on all things OU daily, and I’d eat up that knowledge. About a month into my indoctrination, I knew all about Coach Switzer, the wishbone, Mookie Blaylock and the Kansas Jayhawks, who had robbed the Sooners of the 1988 basketball crown and were the epitome of evil.

Or getting the full brunt of Oklahoma State pain right up front:

On October 30, 2004, I cried like the nine-year-old I was. Since the first home game I’d attended nearly a year before, I'd developed a passion for Oklahoma State. What happened on October 30, 2004?

Adrian Peterson happened.

It was another classic Bedlam. Back-and-forth, and neither team could stop the other. Peterson had 249 yards on 33 carries, and rattled off an 80-yard touchdown run that all of us remember.

A Vernand Morency touchdown with 11 minutes left cut the second-ranked OU lead to 38-35. The momentum swung toward OSU, and it felt like if the Cowboys could just score one more time, they’d steal a Bedlam win.

With ten seconds left, OSU set up Jason Ricks for a 49-yard field goal from the left hash.

Good snap. Good hold. Wide right.

From our seats, I thought it went in. I went ballistic. I then looked at my dad and saw the horror on his face.

Or becoming a Louisville fan at an even younger age:

I can't tell you when precisely when I "decided" to become a Louisville fan. All I know is there are tapes of me asking which team is "the good guys" very soon after the time I learned to talk. All I know is there are videos of me in a U of L basketball uniform performing mock starting lineups at an age where psychologists say I couldn't form conscious memories. All I know is that for as long as I can recall, Cardinal sports have been something that I've cared about far more than I care about most things.

Or being literally born into fandom:

Following a discharge as a Major, this family put in roots in South Jordan, Utah. Partially due to the chance to go to BYU sports.

Early in the 3rd quarter, Steve Young threw a dart to Mike Eddo for a 24-yard TD, and a Lee Johnson PAT put BYU up 42-7 against the Bowling Green Falcons.

It was around this moment when I pulled my best Lee Johnson imitation — in my mother’s uterus. That’s right. My mom not only went to a football game while she was 9 months pregnant, she also went into labor.

Or finding rivalry while in the middle of making your college decision:

In February of 2008, I visited the University of Oregon for the first time. By the time I completed the tour, I knew this place was special. I just felt like I was at home, especially because I am a runner, and how could I turn down a town with running at its core?

On the way back up to the airport, we stopped at Oregon State for a visit. As soon as I heard they didn't offer a journalism program, I popped the trunk and pulled out my Ducks sweatshirt I’d just acquired and tossed it on while still on campus.

I also visited Washington State and loved the campus. What crossed it off the list was when someone on the campus tour asked what people do for fun in Pullman. Well, they can't be honest and say drink heavily, so they pointed us to Moscow, Idaho, where I think there was a Walmart and maybe an IHOP.

(Our Washington State fans are over here.)

Or having one of those geographically disparate piles of fandoms that mark a person as being from a time, rather than a place:

I got into sports when I was five, and I was five in 1995, and the Gators were great at football then. I would be up early for school every morning, and started reading the sports pages of the Orlando Sentinel daily and watching SportsCenter almost as often, falling for the Gators and Atlanta Braves and Green Bay Packers and Orlando Magic because they were all prominent and potent.

I was a bandwagoner, but we who are fans all are bandwagoners at least once, whether we jump on the back of the wagon, or are placed on it by parents, or amble up onto it as children who would have no use for the word “bandwagon” in the first place.

Or the greatest fandom explanation of them all: picking a lifelong allegiance just to troll your friends:

I followed the best players and tuned into whatever the prime games on ESPN and ABC were. That is until I got sick of my friend and his borderline obsession with [Iowa State QB] Seneca Wallace. I’m not embellishing when I tell you that at the peak of this love affair, he owned three Seneca Wallace jerseys and had them in a rotation. To top that, when Wallace made it to the league, my friend would trade him to whichever team he used to play me in Madden.

So, I did what all of us would do to their friend… I started rooting for his favorite player’s rival, just to bust his huevos.

Now, I didn’t know anything about Iowa to start. I thought their jerseys were some of the cleanest in college football. But that was about it. As I started watching more intently, it didn’t take long for me to get hooked.

I was raised a fourth-generation Georgia Tech fan in Atlanta. My first sports memory is a Clemson fan roaring in my face when I was three. The first sports thing I cared about was the Yellow Jackets' 1990 national title season. I assumed things would stay good forever, so I became a Falcons and Hawks fan too. Things didn't stay good.

I went to Kennesaw State, a little north of Atlanta, but mostly rooted for Tech until KSU's 2010 announcement that we were starting an FCS team. I'd never identified with Tech's fans, because I'm not smart and because Jackets aren't used to embracing sidewalk alumni, so transferring all my emotions was easier than it sounds.

Otherwise, in my job covering college football full-time since that season, I think I just root for whatever would make the most people happy at the time. Clemson winning a good title game made people pretty happy.

Tip on over to your school’s blog to share your own story.