#was released in like the mid 70s and early 80s

[bluebellthesponge]

1977 to 1979 in bohemian rhapsody

[gollancz]

Why I'm Not Allowed On Twitter Unsupervised Any More: A Photo Essay

Key Notes:

Since this was posted I discovered that the books had briefly been available in the UK under the name Peter Beagle rather than Peter S. Beagle in the mid-90s, which is why they didn't show up on the British Library search

The article by Tor.com @torbooks: Peter S. Beagle Has Finally Regained the Rights to His Body of Work

If you want our gorgeous limited edition, I believe there are still a handful left (except for the US and Canada, sorry lads), and you can get it here. I'm not kidding when I say I got a little teary-eyed when these showed up.

[Image Description: A tweet thread from the Gollancz twitter dated 20th July 2022, which goes as follows -

Tweet 1: You may have seen that we're printing a Brand New Edition of The Last Unicorn. We're very excited! I was asked to tweet about it. I wasn't asked to do it quite like this, but I also wasn't asked NOT to do it like this, and I have the twitter login so whose fault is that? (Thread emoji, and gif from the film Scream reading 'The Call is coming from inside the house!')

Tweet 2: Imagine, if you will, you are a small child in the UK during the late 80s/early 90s. You might look a bit like this, or you might have had parents who didn't choose suffering (ask my mum about The Saga of the Hat) (an image of a small girl approximately 3 years old wearing a blue dress and a big white hat)

Tweet 3: Imagine you have a cool older cousin, one who, as you get age, introduces you to fantasy films like Ladyhawk and The Princess Bride and has a post the whole family knows as 'the vampire and the naked lady'. She's extremely responsible for the way you turn out as an adult.

Tweet 4: One year, for your birthday, this cousin buys you a video. It's the first video that is yours, not to share. It has a bright yellow cover. The butterfly scares you. But you watch it on a loop. You don't realise how special it is, but it's a seed that burrows into your brain. (An image of a VHS of The Last Unicorn)

Tweet 5: A decade or so later, in your teens, you rediscover it. None of your friends have heard of it, despite also being fantasy-inclined. That's odd, you think. Is this an outlandishly weird title? Then you get older and you realise: no, it isn't. (Principal Skinner meme reading 'Am I out of touch? No, it's the people who don't know about The Last Unicorn who are wrong')

Tweet 6: Time and tech march on, you get a DVD of the film. You realise it's got Christopher Lee in it! And Angela Lansbury! Your mum tries to get you to listen to songs by America other than the soundtrack, but the only one that really sticks is the other one they did about a horse. (Gif of Walter White from Breaking Bad singing along to Horse With No Name)

Tweet 7: You realise that the film is based on a book. Like The Princess Bride, which you've also read (after spending longer than you're proud of trying to find an unabridged edition). 'Neat,' you think, 'I'll have to read that!'

Tweet 8: And then you can't find it. Because, as mentioned previously, you're in the UK. The Last Unicorn was published for the first time in 1968. But, if you look at the British Library's National Bibliography (super neat resource btw), that was, uh, about it. (screenshot of the search results from the National Bibliography showing four editions of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, one from Gollancz in 2022, one from IDW in 2019, one from Tachyon Publications in 2018, and one from Bodley Head in 1968)

Tweet 9: The Tachyon edition is the unfinished first draft of the story. The IDW edition is a gorgeous graphic novel. But in terms of the novel? I don't know how many reprints it had (if anyone knows, I'd love to find out), but there's a good chance it went out of print in the 70s.

Tweet 10: The film, however, was released in 1982. Although it didn't make it to the UK until 1986. Conservative estimates could put that between 10 and 15 years since the book was last available in the UK. This gives you a generation in the UK who only know the story through the film! (A screenshot of the IMDB page showing the different release dates for The Last Unicorn around the world)

Tweet 11: The screenplay was written by Peter S. Beagle, and made by the legendary animation directors Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass. That's right, the guys behind Thundercats and 2 out of the 3 films based on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Tweet 12: The Book has been in print in the USA (and possibly all of North America) constantly since its publication, so it seems baffling that people in the UK haven't heard of it. As the internet became more prominent, however, it became easier to just... import a copy of the book.

Tweet 13: But! This also isn't quite as simple as you think. You see, until last year the rights to The Last Unicorn were tied up in legal limbo. And the US edition of the book contained changes that Peter wasn't happy with. (Link to the Tor.com article about the rights)

Tweet 14: Back to you, the 80s/90s kid, who is now an adult, happy that unicorns are A Thing again and you're living your best life. You're very easy to buy presents for. Your partner despairs of unicorns. You get a job working in books about magic and space. (unicorn emoji and photograph of a collection of unicorn memorabilia, including three different versions of The Last Unicorn)

Tweet 15: You mention that one day you would like to publish The Last Unicorn. That if you did, you would like to do a really beautiful edition of it. And you would like it to be purple. Because since the film is what you know, you associate it with purple.

Tweet 16: And, after taking a very circuitous route, here we are! This is the original text, that was first published in 1968. Reading it after you have only seen the film is the strangest experience - like being introduced to a very dear friend that you have never met before.

Tweet 17: Peter's screenplay kept the voice of the story so well, you can hear the characters when you read the book. But now there's so much more depth, softness and warmth to it. The butterfly doesn't seem so scary any more. And, it's beautiful. And it's purple. (Image of a hardback edition of The Last Unicorn, with a black base, purple background, and a linocut image of the unicorn in her wood. On the black cover underneath is a foiled unicorn with the moon and butterfly, the page edges are sprayed purple, and the endpapers are black with silver butterflies)

Tweet 18: Anyway, I've taken you on a three day trip that could have been done in a single tweet, but that's what happens when you let me drive. This edition is the limited exclusive one only available through the Gollancz Emporium and you can preorder here: (link to Gollancz Emporium)

Tweet 19: But there is also a standard edition available through all booksellers! You'll be getting the author's preferred text, with an introduction from Patrick Rothfuss. There's also a brand new audiobook and it will be available in eBook for the first time ever.

Tweet 20: It's like going from famine to feast, and I wasn't able to talk about this for months so now I am able to talk about it, I'm going to make the social media team cry. UNICORNS. SPECIAL EDITION. PURPLE. The End.

Tweet 21: Additional behind the scenes bonus detail - I did take this cover to the art meaning while wearing a unicorn onesie.

Tweet 22: The comms team wrestling me away from the twitter account: (gif of Ross from Friends shouting 'Stop typing! Stop typing!')

End ID]

[thisnightissparkling089]

Update on my lungs under the cut. People should only have to be subjected to this health update if they want to, mainly because it's a lot😅

I had a second opinion appointment 2 weeks ago in the (what feels like) never ending quest to figure out what the hell is happening with my lungs and if this can be fixed.

My first pulmonologist wanted to do a lung biopsy. Which is a major surgery and a lengthy recovery, not to mention incredibly expensive.

I just heard back from my new dr, and he has finally reviewed the scans and feels the next steps should be a bronchoscopy and a bronchoalveolar lavage.

The bronchoscopy is a procedure where a thin lighted tube is placed down my throat and into my lungs to get a better view of my lungs and what is happening with them.

The lavage procedure releases saline into my lungs, suctions it back out, and that sample is then sent out to be tested.

Both should be able to done in the same procedure, under light anesthesia.

I continue to hope that whatever this is is something that can be reversed or at the very least better controlled.

The main issues I have is that it's hard to properly take a deep breath without pain. Like you just sucked down a slurpee, and your chest feels ice cold. That and the fact that my oxygen levels will drop doing basic things. I could take a bath and between getting out of the tub and getting dressed, my oxygen levels could drop into the 80's, sometimes even into the 70's.

The procedures will be scheduled for sometime in the coming weeks, hopefully early to mid May.

He asked if I had any questions, and the one I do have that no one can seem to give me a straight answer on is if I will die. Because any time I google something, it's like, you have 3-5 years to live, congratulations! 🙄

He of course couldn't give a definitive answer, but did his best to try and reassure me that he doesnt really think death is iminate from this within the next 5 years and he's hopeful we can either fix or better control this. But until we get a full view of the lungs, it's hard to know exactly what's happening.

It occurred to me on Saturday that I've actually been depressed for weeks now and just couldn't see it because it's presenting a lot differently now than it previously has.

Typically when I'm depressed I can't even get out of bed. I can't eat, I sleep all the time, I feel empty, I cry.

This time around it's so different. I feel like I'm overeating, I can get up, go out with friends, work fine. But I'm also struggling to fall asleep and stay asleep and such little tasks such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, washing my hair, etc. Feel so overwhelming I can't even think about them.

I was able to get an appointment this morning with my primary doctor and got back on my medication. I'd previously been off it for 2 years and was doing well, but this whole lung issue has thrown me for a loop, especially since it's lasted as long as it has.

I know there is no shame in seeking help and getting back on my meds. I also know that it doesn't mean I'll have to be on them for the rest of my life.

Right now I'm just taking everything day by day and am so grateful to be surrounded by such supportive people and have a space where I can vent.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and listening💜

[meikyuunolovers]

Happy Birthday Bob Henrit !

(02/05/1944-)

Happy birthday to the Kink with the wanderlust !

A writer who always has anecdotes and stories to tell, he writes for Mike Dolbear's website, but he a few books he worked on got released to the public as well, including his autobiography, Banging On!, in 2013 (although it's currently unavailable to read or buy anywhere on the net...).

He also holds a massive, genuine love and interest towards drums in themselves. According to the introduction in the 'All Together Now' albums, he likes to rearrange his drum kits in his free time. There was a point in his life where had his loft full of snare drums and complete drum kits at one point, and it reached the stage where he had to get them out of there because the roof was threatening to fall over his head! He also wrote articles and reviews for drums, and he even had his own drum shop in the late 70s-early 80s! It, sadly, only thrived for a few years before being closed.

Linking, once again, the drum solo performance just because.

[I feel like I'm going to drop and fall asleep at any time now... His mid-late 80s hair is quite hard to draw, but looking at it again, it kind of looks like Mikazuki's... the goooood times.... im done, I can finally drop asleep without worrying I might wake up on the 3rd...]

Here's a link with most Bob Henrit interviews and videos available on YouTube ! His interviews are always interesting and full of anecdotes and stories ! This playlist is currently on 'Unlisted' (anyone with the playlist's link can view).

[singlesablog]

The Closet, Part 1.

“Everything She Wants” (1984) Wham! Columbia Records (Written by George Michael) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 1

Not since Warhol painted his silkscreens of Mao Zedong in the early 70s had a project as blatantly propagandistic as Wham!, and their second album, Make it Big, appear on US shores.  It was a record with its intentions splashed across the LP cover in large, unironic text above the image it was selling: the nubile duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, hairdos perfectly coiffed, all done up like doe-eyed fashion models in high-end sportswear.  Even the colors of the album were strategic: red, white, and blue.  Wham! was clearly setting their ambitions straight for the Reagan 80s, and toward US domination.

Andy Warhol, "Mao", 1972, Silkscreen.

Like the Reagan 80s, the ideas behind the first single, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, were as fun, retro and catchy as his signature jelly beans.  I wasn’t terribly impressed with the song (first heard over the piped-in radio at the Chick-Fil-A I worked in at in the mall) until I saw the video.  There he was: George Michael, costumed in short shorts, wearing a white sweatshirt that screamed Choose Life, hugging himself as he ponied and swam about in a sea of neon colors.  It was then that the song really took off for me: George, Andrew, Pepsi and Shirlie, all having a romp, signaling that the New wave was over, and that something much bigger was ahead of us: pure, unadulterated fun.  Of course I zeroed in on George, his Greek curls laboriously blown out into a perfectly feathered mane and dyed into the colors of artificial sunshine, and in the pivotal video moment, hugging himself tightly with fingerless cotton gloves, two gold-hooped earrings glittering for the camera.  I am telling you, those earrings on George Michael were the gayest thing I had ever seen (not the straight “one” earring, but two), and thereby an annunciation: looking at him, right there on regular TV, I felt reborn.

Make it Big would spawn five top ten singles in the United States (if you count “Last Christmas”, a one-off that would appear as a double A side with “Everything She Wants” in England) and included three US number ones.  “Everything She Wants”, which followed “Wake Me”, “Careless Whisper”, and “Freedom”, would be the last to be released from the album, and it was unique in that it did not seem to be cut from the same cloth as the other singles, which were in essence modeled after Motown.  It was a song that also did not depend on a video to sell itself (not that they didn’t make one).  I was in the bathroom blow-drying a crest into my swing bang when I first heard it on the radio, and I know I must have frozen mid-bang.  Something was very different with this track.  First and most importantly it was entirely built on a synthesizer, from the Linn drum bongos that open it (George’s rough demo sample was kept for the final product) to the beautiful synth notes; in fact, like “Last Christmas”, the entire song was written and performed on one instrument, a Roland Juno-60, and both songs would be performed solely by George without any other musicians to sweeten it. He wrote and arranged it overnight, with no thought of it being a single until everyone responded to it so well. According to engineer Chris Porter: 

"I think this was when George started to realize that if he wanted to, he could do everything himself. He could [just] cut out all these other people and their ideas."

Back in my bathroom, frozen in place, I wouldn’t have perceived any of this.  What I was perceiving was something even gayer than George hugging himself in “Wake Me Up”: this new George had a voice speaking directly to me.  “Everything She Wants” is a song about a man in an unhappy marriage, an unhappy 80s marriage, to be precise, because the female in question is fixated upon perfection through consumerism.  George in the song is projecting the role of the long-suffering woman, and in an act of pure subversion instead plays the hard-working husband who has to pretend that he is fulfilled by having a wife.  He is, in essence, bitching about having to play it straight, and in my mother’s bathroom I understood completely that a song dripping in sarcasm about being in a marriage was the queerest (and possibly most liberating) thing I had ever heard in my life up until that moment, the peak, the essence, being when he sings the lines: And now you tell me that you're having my baby I'll tell you that I'm happy if you want me to But one step further and my back will break If my best isn't good enough, then how can it be good enough for two?

Not only were these priceless, hilariously bitchy lyrics (the song is punctuated with his backing vocals screeching “work!”, “work!”) it directly expresses the reality of a gay man suffering miserably in the closet, and delivers a pungent commentary about the reality of living in the shadows of straight conformity.  The most delicious thing about it was the era it was tucked into (with its new rush of bubblegum pop)—if the song had a real message, it was sure to be lost in all of the neon fun.  The import was not, however, lost on me. 

Looking gay, as Wham! did, does not make you gay.  Making fizzy, lush pop songs, in and of itself, of course does not make you gay.  Being a male pop duo does not make you gay.  After taking over the world, hit after hit, the final No.1 for Wham! in “Everything She Wants” definitely, definitely made me gayer.  In sound and vision, it would mark the beginning of George Michael as a real solo act, on the precipice of joining the ranks of the biggest pop stars in the world.  Soon, George would have all the fame he could ever desire; sadly, it would prove to be the biggest closet of them all.

Last Christmas, 1984

Written in 1983, recorded in August of 1984, Wham’s “Last Christmas” would of course be announced as a December release (George had performed the song alone in a studio fully decorated for Christmas with engineer Chris Porter to set the mood).

In the UK there is a long history and competitive spirit surrounding a Christmas No. 1 , which meant the hit should be the last to chart for the year.  Famous examples of a Christmas No. 1 in the UK would include The Beatles’ “I want To Hold Your Hand” (1963), The Human League's “Don’t You Want Me” (1981) and Pet Shop Boys’ “Always on My Mind” (1987).  In 1984, during the filming of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, which was produced for famine relief in Ethiopia by Bob Geldof, one can see George Michael lamenting that the song they were recording would surely keep the Wham! track from going to No.1, and he was right.  “Do They Know It’s Christmas” won the year, with “Last Christmas” coming in as No.2.  He had smiled shyly when he said it, but one could tell he was over it.  If George Michael was anything in the 80s, it was ambitious.

In 2006, Michael released a Greatest Hits, Twenty-Five, featuring four new songs, one of which, “Understand”, would serve as a sort of apologia to “Everything She Wants”, imagining the couple 30 years later, and seeing the relationship more from the woman’s point of view.

George always insisted that “Everything She Wants” was his all-time favorite Wham! song, and he performed it regularly in concert.

[randomvarious]

KC and the Sunshine Band in Concert (Live in Miami, FL) 1975 Funk / Disco

Here's one of the most important groups in the history of disco music lighting up a hometown Miami crowd, right in the middle of their legendary run that would see them place five different singles atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart between the mid-70s and very early 80s. This terrific set contains KC & the Sunshine Band performing both "Get Down Tonight" and "(That's the Way) I Like It," along with "Boogie Shoes," which originally appeared on their self-titled sophomore LP, but wasn't released as a single until 1978, after it was featured on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

And as a whole, KC & the Sunshine Band may not be able to lay direct claim to making disco's first ever #1 US hit, but two of their members certainly can, because back in 1973, two years before the group would score their own first #1, bandleader Harry Wayne Casey and bassist Richard Finch would co-write and produce George McCrae's unexpected 11-times-platinum seller, "Rock Your Baby," which is, to my mind, really, just one of the greatest songs that's ever been made, period. And within this very set, the band happens to deliver a great instrumental performance of it 😊.

So, it's safe to say that KC & the Sunshine Band's contributions during disco's early period really went a long way towards altering the entire trajectory of the genre, overall. Harry Wayne Casey and his group found a way to bring the music front-and-center and into the heights of the mainstream, where it would spend a good period of time usurping rock music's long-held spot as America's top genre. And this concert catches them in the middle of enacting that very process. 

More fun videos here.

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

A Somewhat Condensed Timeline of Aristasia.

Aristasia is sometimes very difficult to grasp, because there are many parts in motion, and it's been many different things, either at the same time or in different eras. In Aristasian lore, time and space are one. Western Aristasia butts up against our reality, and the further east you walk, the further back in time you go.

The sun rises in the East. The early-to-mid 1970s is where it began with a group of girls in their twenties who were deeply into the idea that the earth had an ancient, secret, matriarchal history and that God was a woman. Several different groups with this same belief got together to publish a magazine that explored these beliefs, writing as if they were part of an ancient and secret matriarchal society. There were scriptures, songs, holidays, and personal histories being presented in this magazine as an attempt to legitimize their belief.

By the early 80's some of these people had formed something of a hippie commune in Ireland, and attempted to live what they had preached in their magazines for the better part of a decade. These were called the Rhennish. They were a little bit like Amish hippies, rejecting modernity and living spiritually. Their spiritual beliefs were referred to as Lux Madriana.

Only a couple of years later, by the mid 1980s, the men had been kicked out of the club and the aesthetics had turned very Victorian. In this era they still claimed to exist without electricity, but they also published a number of text-based adventure games for computers. This was the St. Brides era. This was the name of their publishing company, as well the name of their "school" that ran week long events. It was a bit like a role-playing game or a LARP. Women would pay about £ 120 to spend the week reliving their school days for fun. The inhabitants of the St. Brides School called themselves the Silver Sisterhood.

The late 1980s saw an Aristasian off-shoot that included men called "Romantia". They held similar anti-modern values to the Aristasians. They produced some newsletters and zines about their world view and perhaps hosted events. Aesthetic wise, they tended to drift further into the 20th century than the Silver Sisterhood's pseudo-Victorian role-play. The groundworks for what would later become familiar in Aristasia were laid here, but they referred to themselves as "Olympians" when they didn't call themselves "Romantics". What would later be known as "The Pit" or "The Void" was known as "Babylon".

The early 1990s saw the end of the St. Brides School. They seemed to have had some disagreements with the landlords, stopped paying rent, and then left one day, leaving a lot of their stuff behind. The early 1990s also saw an assault charge against the woman who would become Miss Martindale, for some whipping her live-in-maid, who was acting as a maid in order to learn about the female-divine religion that they popularized in the mid-70s and still seemed to practice behind closed doors. Newspaper articles came out about some very problematic materials found in the house, including correspondence with National Party members and anti-semitic publications, as well as BDSM pornography, catalogs, and equipment. They largely denied this had anything to do with the Sisterhood, and insisted it was junk mail sent by perverts and things their boarders brought into the house without them knowing.

Things were quiet for about a year, until the girls came back in full force in the mid 1990s. This was Aristasia's first big day in the sun and the height of the Wildfire Club, their lesbian publishing company that leant heavily into BDSM and master and servant relationships. A large portion of their most well known books were published in this era, which were largely erotic stories interspersed with Aristasian lore. There was a lot of push and pull between releasing racy material, calling attention to it, and then insisting it has nothing to do with sex. I believe this was the first time they called what they did "Aristasia". Aesthetics in this era largely shied away from the Victorian and focused more on the glamourous 30s-50s. There was a big focus on vintage stockings. Aristasians began setting up early websites in this era. The infamous "A Weekend with Miss Martindale" was aired on late night BBC.

This era kept on rolling into the late 90s throughout the early 2000s, with Aristasian nights at local lesbian bars, as well as fetish clubs. They sold fetish supplies, vintage clothing, vintage style stockings, as well as their own books and other fetish books. This was the height of Aristasia-in-Telluria, with several households of Aristasians living together as Embassies. Girls could schedule appointments online to meet with Aristasians to see if they were a good fit for their world. The woman who was known as Miss Martindale was something of a celebrity and had gained international renown for the brief BBC documentary about her from 1996, although she had perhaps moved to America in the late 90s.

The mid-2000s put a screeching halt to Aristasia-in-Telluria and their embassy was moved almost entirely online. The girls gradually seemed to move away from real-world events, and perhaps each other, and they moved their Aristasian adventures to forums, chat rooms, and the Second Life game, where they set up their Aristasia-in-Elektraspace. Operation Bridgehead was announced in late 2005, which seemed to make a very big statement about Aristasia: It was a real place, Aristasians are aliens from that planet, and all that spanking stuff was just a big misunderstanding and not that serious at all. This is the era of Aristasia Pura. The game got very serious: the religious parts came back out in the open, the world building got elaborate, more websites popped up, and more girls started showing up to play in their sandbox. A mysterious girl known as The Mushroom Princess was the Aristasian welcome committee on Second Life and seemed to play a big part in charming new girls and directing the game. The mysterious Mushroom Princess was, in fact, one of the girls who played a major part in creating the religion that was the underlying belief that linked all of these eras together.

The mid-2000s also saw the Miss Martindale BBC documentary go online, being uploaded to early Youtube, seeming to attracting a mixed group of people to Aristasia. Some people saw it as an intense group of friends where they could create a fantasy world together online, complete with a built-in spirituality, and others were seeing the racy 1990s erotic and stylish club of ladies in vintage clothes aggressively rebelling against modernity with their femininity. Something of a fanclub for Miss Martindale popped up online, completely separate from the true Aristasians, with a big emphasis on their Romantia and Wildfire Club days. Small Romantia revival meetups pop up in the UK after people online, particularly men, discover the old Aristasia and want to experience it for themselves. The old Romantia magazines are put online. These new groups were completely unaffiliated with Aristasia.

Things chugged on, more or less the same, through the late-2000s with the Aristasians-in-Elektraspace becoming more and more interested in Anime and learning Japanese language. The fall of Second Life perhaps shrank their numbers, because in this era they seemed to put out a lot of sites attempting to entice people into their belief system, without outright calling it Aristasia. You see them making "femmekin" blogs to attract otherkins, multiple Filinist/Deanist religious blogs, several sites about Amazon warriors, and other "all girl world" websites.

Things start to get rocky in the early 2010s. The last remaining true UK Aristasians, who seemed to have receded completely into elektraspace at that point, sell their vintage school girl supplies on Ebay to fund a move to America. Anime and Japan becomes more and more important to every conversation they have. Their aesthetics change to the kawaii. Discussions in the forums often take place in Japanese. However, despite this, they start Sun Daughter Press, and publish two fiction sci-fi adventures that seem to harken back to an the early days of Aristasia Pura.

In 2013 the boat is thoroughly rocked, the seas are stormy. Old-style Aristasians, and the Miss Martindale fan club, are sick of talking about anime and kawaii things, they have noticed the gradual change and don't understand why the game has changed so drastically. They miss the old Aristasia and notice the name of their homeworld is hardly ever mentioned any more and their old ways are downplayed or utterly erased. Critical blog posts are made. "Turncoat" and "traitor" accusations are made. There's evidence an Operation Bridgehead Version 2 was in the works. The old URLs that were allowed to lapse were bought by Aristasian purists, perhaps the people that had come in from the mid-2000s, who were looking back to the 1990s. All their old archived sites were put back online to preserve the old ways. Even the near-pornographic sites that were associated with the 1990s Aristasian empire are back in the Aristaisa Preservation Project. Almost immediately after the APP goes online, Aristasia changes its name to Chelouranya. Operation Bridgehead Version 2 is, presumably, cancelled. The old Aristasia is dead, and is claimed it never really existed, Chelouranya reigns supreme. Those who have been shut out of the new Aristasia suggest starting "Nova Aristasia" to revive the old ways, but it never comes to pass.

Chelouranya is quiet throughout the mid-to-late 2010s. It's a small group of girls who are devoted to Japan. Or rather, to the Aristasian version of Japan. They learn Japanese, The Mushroom Princess visits Japan and has something of a religious awakening where she realizes that Japan is as close to their lost Motherland of Aristasia as they're ever going to get, they speak in Japanese. They start teaching Japanese to outlanders and it's surprisingly successful. The early proto-Vtuber Cure Dolly is created for this purpose and controlled by The Mushroom Princess. She has a successful patreon. If any more Aristasian world-building happens, it's done privately. The woman formerly known as Miss Martindale lives in America, her husband (for that's why she left for America) dies in the mid-2010s, she dabbles in hosting non-Aristasian spiritual retreats in California, she does some art, hosts some plays. Meanwhile the mysterious mushroom-shaped figure who brought anime into Aristasia continues teaching outlanders to speak Japanese and the former Miss Martindale helps her out, and perhaps even lends her her home. In the late 2010s and early 2020 there is a bit of a revival of the Filianic beliefs, with several independent Filianists, some of which used to be involved in the offshoots in the 1980s. Through some intense research they make all of the old 1970s religious works available online, release their own version of the scriptures, and untangle the complicated web of the authorship of the early Filianic works.

In late 2021, the Cure Dolly Patreon made a vague announcement implying that the little Mushroom alien controlling Cure Dolly has died. There is some debate amongst her online patreons, who have probably never heard of Aristasia and couldn't tell a Blonde from a Brunette, whether or not she has really died. Shortly after this the woman who was once Miss Martindale hosts a meetup called "Wonder Woman's Island Society Recreated", with an emphasis on the ancient knowledge of the Amazons. The sun has set in the West, and is rising in the East again, but Aristasia very well may be empty of loyal subjects.

[pikolswonderland]

Garten Of Banban: As Above So Below…EXPLAINED!

HELLO BITCHES AND BROS AND NONBINARY HOES

It’s about time I FINALLY explain my GoBB rewrite, titled “As Above So Below”. However, before we get started there is some things I need to explain.

This is NOT a full explanation of the WHOLE rewrite, such as complete descriptions of characters and the ENTIRE storyline (those will be saved for future posts). This is just an introduction to the main premise, characters, world building, and LLOOORRRREEE~! Additionally, some details may change in the future due to new offical GoBB content (at the time of making this post, Chapter 5 and 6 have not been released yet). Finally, this rewrite will discuss and portray some potentially triggering content, although this explanation won’t touch any of that sort of stuff yet, this is just a warning for the future.

Now, without further ado, let’s begin!

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The story is set sometime in the early to mid 2000’s, taking place somewhere around or near Montréal, Canada.

Banban’s Kindergarten, despite its name, is more of a recreational daycare for children with mental disabilities and can’t function in a normal educational environment. The kindergarten was particularly known for its positive reputation, supportive and enjoyable learning environment, and its huge cast of fun mascot characters! 

The kindergarten was first opened sometime in the late 80’s to the early 90’s, though the property was first purchased by the kindergarten’s founder, Uthman Adams, sometime in the late 60’s to the early 70’s. The building was first constructed as a massive storage facility and bomb shelter, but was abandoned and put up for grabs after WW2 ended. The building was mostly underground with many floors, but most of them went unused and were supposedly sealed off. However, there was secretly some fucked up shit going on behind closed doors.

In reality, the building was secretly an illegal science facility that began production shortly after being purchased. The kindergarten was later built as simply a means to help fund the experiments and further disguise what was happening. The floors that were claimed to be sealed off were actually where the facilities experiments were being done in private. Uthman Adams was in reality both the founder of Banban’s Kindergarten and the co-founder and lead scientist for the science project.

The secret experiments almost entirely revolved around creating and raising genetically spliced hybrid creatures using a mysterious extraterrestrial substance known as Givanium, or GV for short. 

The substance was first discovered on a meteorite (which also had traces of DNA from an unknown extraterrestrial life form, that will be important for a particular character later), and it was the discovery of GV that lead to Uthman Adams and (NAME REDACTED) to begin the experiments in the first place. 

The experiments were split into two main categories, the Mascots and the Mutants. The Mascots were any experiment that was considered “successful” in their creation and development, and the Mutants were the failures. The Mutants were kept in the lowest floor of the facility, and their numbers were in the HUNDREDS, while the Mascots were on the second lowest floor, and were only made up of…well…every single canon monster character (except one or two, that will be VERY important) in the actual games so…only about 17…yeah. The Mascots, as their name suggests, were used as inspiration for the kindergarten’s mascots (so instead of like most mascot horror stories were “oH wE wAnTeD tO bRiNg OuR mAsCoTs To LiFe” here it’s the exact opposite, it’s “Oh we based our mascots on our horrible unethical experiments for shits ‘n giggles”).

Of course, that’s just the background info, when are we going to get to the ACTUAL plot?! Well, right now!

Of course, as Murphy’s Law suggests, anything that can go wrong WILL go wrong. One fateful day, the massive ball pit in the kindergarten’s indoor playground mysteriously collapsed the day before the kindergarten’s fabled “Friendship Day” (Which was also the last day of school for the year).

All of the children and staff members also disappeared, as well as nearly all police officers sent to investigate.

After a few days of searching with no luck, the mother of one of the missing children, known as Morley Newmaker, decides to take matters into her own hands and sneaks into the building at night to investigate. Unfortunately, she ends up getting trapped in the facility instead. Even worse, the experiments have escaped their containment, running amok in the facility and many of them killing any human on sight. Thankfully, shortly after getting trapped, she meets one of the Mascots, Banban, and the two decide to team up and make a truce. Banban will help Morley rescue the children as well as protect her, and in return, Morley will help Banban and the Mascots escape to the surface.

Now, it is up to Morley, Banban, and their future companions (those companions being Banbaleena, Stinger Flynn, Little Beak, Sheriff Toadster, and later on BitterGiggle) to brave their way through these deadly walls, defend themselves from the murderous Mutants and Mascots, save the children, and discover the horrible secrets buried deep under the earth…especially what exactly is the deal with that strange giant moth…

QUOD EST SUPERIUS EST SICUT QUOD INFERIUS, ET QUOD INFERIUS EST SICUT QUOD EST SUPERIUS

****************************************************** …annnddd there ya go! That’s was the main introduction to the rewrite! I’ll go in further detail with the plot in characters in the future, but this is how the story stands for now. PLEASE feel free to send me asks about this rewrite, I REALLY want to see what you have to say!

Thank you!

[denimbex1986]

'A writer is an essentially lonely person. Someone, in fact, who usually prefers to be alone. Except when they start to realize that perhaps they became a writer precisely because of that inherent loneliness in the first place. This seems to be the case for the mononymous Adam (Andrew Scott), living practically alone in a new building that still has yet to lease out any of its apartments to fresh tenants. The apartment tower seems to lie just out of reach of London, though Adam and his soon-to-be-lover, Harry (Paul Mescal), keep referring to how they live “in” London. Indeed, Adam admits that he’s the last of his friends to remain “in” the city, with everyone else surrendering to the inevitable move to the country, where they can properly raise their families. Adam, being a gay man, automatically counts himself out from “that life.” The so-called conventional one, that is. Because, even for as “modern” as these times are supposed to be, there are still so many judgments and limitations projected onto the LGBTQIA+ community. And for a man of Adam’s generation (X), there remains so many lingering insecurities about his sexuality as a result of a childhood spent not only in the “wrong” era to be gay, but the wrong place as well. For Thatcher-run Britain wasn’t exactly open and inviting to the homo set (any more than Reagan-run America was).

Which is why homosexuality started to feel like an “underground movement” rather than a mere sexual preference. The illicit nature of it, particularly in the late 70s and early 80s, served as a means to condition many gay men to get off on the secrecy and anonymity aspects of it more than the sex act itself. Not quite knowing how to “function” sexually once things became slightly less taboo. This is the transitional mind fuck Gen X gay men were subjected to, enduring the repression of sexuality in the 80s, the AIDS scare that lasted from the beginning of that decade and well into the mid-90s and the sudden about-face toward total gender and sexual fluidity in the twenty-first century. It would be enough to give anyone sexuality whiplash, particularly a British person, with their background so fundamentally steeped in stodginess and restraint. This is the place Adam (whose biblical name feels deliberately tongue-in-cheek [no BJ pantomime intended]) is coming from. And it’s compounded by the fact that he’s partially “stuck” at the age he was when his mother (Claire Foy) and father (Jamie Bell) both died in a car accident on Christmas Eve of 1987 (this year is also significant as it’s when the book the film is based on, Strangers by Taichi Yamada, was released).

Our introduction to Adam is one of palpable loneliness as writer-director Andrew Haigh (known for Weekend and Looking, among other things) shows him staring longingly out of his floor-to-ceiling glass window at the outline of London. Which is, again, just beyond his reach. The city hasn’t fully expanded to his neck of the woods quite yet, though with rising prices and a shortage of housing, London will make it to his “outskirts” soon enough. The building, in fact, was actually shot in East London’s Stratford. Which is at least forty-five minutes’ worth of travel into Central London. His perennial position as an outsider is thus solidified to viewers geographically as well. This “outsiderness” extends even to his chosen profession as a writer (though, as he says, not a “proper” writer, but one for TV). This being the most voyeuristic kind of profession there is. A skill rooted in observation and recording. Never being quite “in the story” yourself, though constantly trying to put “a version” of who you think you are in it. That Adam chooses to write scripts wherein he can control the narrative also has Psych 101 implications. Since he couldn’t control the death of his parents or the way in which he was treated by homophobes in his youth. But he can control everything in the scenarios he comes up with on the page.

Unlike trying to control Harry’s direct approach one evening after seeing Adam so many times staring up at his window from down below. This being the umpteenth time he’s done so after a false fire alarm goes off and Adam is the only person (out of two) foolish enough to fall for it by vacating the building. Knocking on his door once Adam goes back inside and essentially begging to, er, enter, Harry makes a final effort to win Adam over by riffing on Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “The Power of Love” with the line, “There’s vampires at my door.” This specifically alludes to the lyrics, “I’ll protect you from the hooded claw/Keep the vampires from your door.” While Harry likely wouldn’t have any idea what that song is (if we’re to go by Mescal’s own cusping between millennial and Gen Z age of twenty-eight), it’s nice to think that he could be attuned enough with British pop music’s past to make such a casual reference. To that end, there is a moment where he tells Adam he wants to “watch old episodes of Top of the Pops from before I was born” with him. Sit on the couch eating takeaway together like a right proper couple that’s surrendered fully to the dull comfort of monogamy. Because, yes, even the gays have settled for it by now. Gotten used to the idea that monogamy is for everyone. Even though, as Henry Willson (Jim Parsons) in Hollywood put it, “Sure, holding a guy’s hand in public, walking down the street, you know, you wait for a brick in the back of the head. It doesn’t come. Well, then, before you know it, your guy wants to play house. Have you ever spent a Saturday picking out some cheerful, daffodil-colored linoleum for the kitchen? I have, Ernie. And it is enough to make you wistful for the days of secretive sodomy.”

Adam is not necessarily “that type of gay,” but he is very clearly still imbued with the “gay guilt” of his generation. This being one of the reasons why he refuses Harry’s initial forward advances. That and, well, his heart sort of had to close entirely after his parents died. An automatic defense mechanism against ever attaching again. What with getting so badly burned the first time around via every person’s most formative attachment: the one with their parents. This is why Adam seeks so desperately to return to the past—the only known period in his life where he still had two (theoretical) protectors.

While Adam tries to wrap himself as much as possible up into the past by writing about it in screenplay form, he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s been trapped in it for quite some time. Perpetually locked inside that traumatic period of his life. Not just because of his parents’ death, but because losing them, in a certain sense, kept him frozen in a false identity. That is, a false hetero identity. One that didn’t allow him to ever fully be himself, or rather, be known as his true self. Because, although it’s “liberating,” in a way, to lose your parents and be forever free of any judgments they might have over you, it also means that you’ll never know if that formerly hidden part of yourself might have actually been accepted and embraced. As Haigh stated, “What I’ve always been interested in doing, and especially with this [film], is talking about queerness in relationship to family, and how complicated it can be in relationship to family…especially if you grew up in a generation of the 80s and into the early 90s, where it was very different than it is now—thank God.” And yet, there are times when it doesn’t seem that different. And the fact that a still-young Harry can recall his own childhood being rife with anti-gay sentiments (“It’s probably why we hate [the word] ‘gay’ so much now. It was always like, ‘Your haircut’s gay.’ Or, ‘The sofa’s gay.’ ‘Your trainers are gay, your school bag’s gay’”) speaks to how “drastic change” didn’t occur until very recently (something the present generation of twinks takes endlessly for granted).

This is part of why, when Adam tells his mother about his sexuality, she can’t believe he would actually “choose” such a life. Such a lonely life, at that. Still trapped in her 1987 Britain mentality, she asks, “Aren’t people nasty to you?” He assures, “No, no. Things are different now.” She asks again, “So they aren’t nasty?” He shrugs, “Not allowed, anyway.” But, of course, as Trump supporters (and Trump himself) have shown, people always find ways of getting around things that “aren’t allowed.” When Adam also informs her that men and women can marry the same sex now, she balks, “Isn’t that like having your cake and eating it?” Turns out, his confession to Mother isn’t going as well as he thought. Is actually bringing him a worse kind of pain than before. Compounded by her saying, “Oh God, what about this awful, ghastly disease? I’ve seen the adverts on the…on the news and with the gravestone.” “Everything is different now,” he insists again. Or so we would like to believe…

In an interview with Time, Haigh addressed one of the criticisms the LGBTQIA+ community has accused the movie of, which is that it reemphasizes the notion (which was only just starting to slightly go away) that being queer is the most isolating and alienating experience a person could have. But Haigh feels differently about the underlying message of his film, stating, “I understand that that can be an interpretation. Personally, I don’t feel that. There is hope in the fact that he has understood that, basically, he is capable of being in love and being loved and being there for someone else that might need him in that moment. By the end of the film, to me, it is basically saying that what is important in life is love in whatever way you manage to find that, whether it’s in a relationship, whether it’s with your parents, whether it’s with a friend. You go through life finding love, losing love, and finding it again.” And Adam has found it again, however ephemerally, with his spectral parents.

As for Adam’s mother, the more she thinks about it, the more his gayness makes sense to her. He was so “odd” and “sensitive,” after all. And apparently always trying to run away. When she asks where he was trying to run away, he tells her that he reckons London. Making him yet another Bronski Beat cliche. Luckily, Haigh stops short of featuring “Smalltown Boy” in the movie, instead opting for a “less overt” queer band in the form of Pet Shop Boys. Who have never much talked about their sexuality (why bother when all of their music is dripping with the subject and “lifestyle”). But as recently as their latest single, “Loneliness,” it’s clear the duo knows all about the distinct kind of loneliness that a man such as Adam suffers from. A loneliness that his mother is also convinced gay men are more prone to, even if, as Adam asserts, “Everything is different now.”

The past itself is, alas, as much of a ghost as his parents are. And it’s a kind of haunting that Adam seems to relish for its unique sting of pain-pleasure. For example, listening to Fine Young Cannibals’ “Johnny Come Home” as he writes, “EXT. SUBURBAN HOUSE, 1987” on his computer, it’s easy to see that the past is the present for Adam. As it is for many other people who prefer not to admit that to themselves. Even Adam tries not to fully admit it aloud, brushing aside Harry’s heartfelt apology when he finds out that Adam’s parents died in a car accident just before he turned twelve. “It was a long time ago,” he tells Harry. “Yeah, I don’t think that matters,” Harry replies. And it doesn’t. For trauma and woundedness never really go away. Especially when ceaselessly suppressed.

And yes, listening to the music from his childhood is a key part of crawling into the “comfortable” pain of his youth. Comfortable because it is familiar. Seeing his room just as it was when he was a preteen leads him to thumb through records like Erasure’s Circus and Frankie Goes to Hollywoood’s Welcome to the Pleasuredome (which “The Power of Love” appears on). Even when Adam goes out to a club with Harry, the song playing for the dance floor, Joe Smooth’s “Promised Land,” is straight out of 1987. Everywhere he goes, that year, that time in his life haunts him. At one point during post-coital candor, he muses to Harry, “Things are better now, of course they are, but…it doesn’t take much to make you feel the way you felt.” It reiterates what he already told his mother, but with the admission that, if you grow up a certain way, are conditioned to have a certain “look over your shoulder” response to people, it doesn’t ever truly dissipate. Even in the late 90s, when things were starting to shift more palpably, especially with AIDS “calming down,” a Gen X man like Adam was never truly going to feel “safe” enough to be “himself.”

Talking of the 90s, Haigh’s decision to include 1997’s “Death of a Party” by Blur as the soundtrack to a very trippy portion of the club sequence is also pointed. For, in addition to Blur speaking about the end of Britpop’s reign, this song has long been regarded as a metaphor for AIDS. After all, gay men were only too happy to party in the late 70s and early 80s…until an unknown disease, a “mysterious illness” started making people—primarily “fags”—drop like flies. So much for the “party.” A word Madonna famously included as part of an AIDS awareness insert placed among the liner notes of her Like A Prayer album with the phrase, “AIDS Is No Party!” In other words, don’t think you can go around fucking freely as you used to in the days before the novel virus. With AIDS came yet more cannon fodder for suppression. To turn inward and avoid one’s desires altogether. As Adam seemed to do, telling Harry, “I’d always felt lonely, even before [my parents died]. This was a new feeling. Like, uh, terror. That I’d always be alone now. And then, as I got older, that feeling just…solidified. It just, uh, it did not…” He motions toward his heart after trailing off, finishing the thought with, “…here all the time.” Harry looks at him with teary-eyed empathy, prompting Adam to continue, “And then losing them just got tangled up with all the other stuff. Like being gay. Just feeling like…the future doesn’t matter.” Of course, it also felt like it didn’t matter when, as a gay man, death was all around. Pervasive. Perhaps, in some sense, Adam could even associate his parents’ death with the “gay disease” that caused everyone who came into contact with “queers” to die.

Getting the chance to tell his parents—even if only their ghosts—who he really is proves to be, if not “cathartic” then at least a release. When Adam’s father tells his son that he’s proud of him, Adam replies, “I haven’t done anything to be proud of. I’ve just muddled through.” His father rebuts, “No, but you got through it. Some tough times, I’m sure, and…you’re still here.” Even this, too, feels like a nod to the generation of gay men who were not only mercilessly ridiculed, but also forced to watch so many of their own fall prey to the cruelest kind of death. To survive through something like that would, of course, serve as a lingering trauma unto itself. Indeed, there are times when the viewer might think that Adam himself is a ghost who doesn’t know it yet (Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense-style), that maybe his telltale “fever” was a symptom he had while dying of AIDS. But no, that’s not the Shyamalan-oriented element here. Instead, Adam is subjected to a much more heartbreaking fate.

One that only Frankie Goes to Hollywood (“The Power of Love” is a subliminal essence during the tripped-out club scene as well, its presence seemingly omni—a punctuating motif to cut through the loneliness) can try to even vaguely soothe. The band’s lead singer, Holly Johnson, was himself diagnosed with HIV in 1991. But it was even before then that he sang on “The Power of Love,” “Dreams are like angels/They keep bad at bay, bad at bay/Love is the light/Scaring darkness away/I’m so in love with you/Purge the soul/Make love your goal.” Even when you’ve been burned in such an inexplicably horrible way by it in the past.'

[mackmp3]

Very long post with an intro into music I like! i have posted about most of these bands before at some point, but here's a masterpost of sorts.

@literatureisdying here it is! it is intimidatingly long sorry but I really hope you enjoy it! i tried to group the songs, they are in a more or less logical order but feel free to just pick some or shuffle.

Patti Smith - my favourite! I could talk forever about Patti I love her with all of my being. she was initially a poet and artist before turning her poems into rock and roll in the early seventies in the New York punk scene - she is very influential to just about every female rock musician since. her four earliest albums are the best, her debut Horses is generally regarded as one of the best albums ever. in more recent years she has written a series of memoirs which are also amazing and definitely worth reading even if you don’t know anything about her or her music. her androgynous style and generally i-don’t-give-a-shit punk attitude have become iconic. (***disclaimer for this part - she has one song using the n-slur, she isn’t racist, she was trying to reclaim the word but she’s white and it came off wrong. it was the wrong choice of word. she’s not racist, i don't support use of that word, the fanbase as a whole understands what she was *trying* to do and then ignores that song and moves on. this is a PSA, please no one try to argue with me about this thanks. sorry to put this right at the top.***)

Einstürzende Neubauten - German industrial band led by Blixa Bargeld, they formed in west Berlin in the early 80s and had a bit of a reputation for wrecking stuff - a lot of their early stuff is shouting in German with distorted guitar and hitting metal stuff but as they evolved they wrote some really beautiful things.

PJ Harvey - my other love! PJ is a constantly evolving artist and every single one of her albums is something different and also very good. She has an amazing voice and plays guitar and piano and has incredible stage presence, especially from 1995 with all the costumes and makeup - a lot of her songs kind of fit the ‘female rage’ vibe (especially Rid Of Me) but she does it very very well - since the mid 2000s she has done some stuff concerned with england and the folk history of it, her new album I Inside the Old Year Dying is amazing and slightly bizarre. some vaguely sapphic undertones to some of her stuff :)

Radiohead - a band to obsess over if there ever was one. They are stereotyped as being music for depressed loner virgins which is a little funny but also kind of true haha. A lot of their music is very ominous and emotional and a bit dark and pessimistic, but that’s the appeal. they are all top-tier musicians - Jonny Greenwood plays a lot of instruments including some you’ve never heard of and Thom Yorke has one of the most iconic voices, and his lyrics are just brilliant. they started off as like a britpop adjacent - prog rock sort of band but then in 2000 they released Kid A, which has not a lot of guitar and lots of ominous electronics instead - all their albums have their own distinct vibe. Thom and Jonny also have a new project called the Smile which are currently releasing and touring. 

*interlude* - This Mess We’re In by PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke - my two favourite 90s musicians make a song together!! this is from PJ pop-rock album, she wrote it but Thom sings the second part. I don’t know if they recorded this in the same studio or if she sent him a tape to sing over, but if they did do it together there are no photos of them together which was a missed opportunity if you ask me.

Hole - Courtney Love’s band. sort of riot-grrrl adjacent grunge, very angsty (a lot of this is very angsty though haha). lots of very female - specific songs which is cool. pretty intense, lots of screaming but she’s very good at screaming

the Slits - 70s feminist punk reggae band! they only made one album when they first started but it’s very cool. also quite female-centric, songs about being yourself and fighting conformity and capitalism yay

Bob Dylan - arguably the most influential figure in western music, he has like 40 studio albums but Desolation Row is my favourite song of his. he started off doing folk music, then did stoner psychedelic folk-rock and then almost died and did some country, then folk rock but with a massive band, then gospel rock, etc etc he keeps changing. very enigmatic, hard to place. still tours at age 82. famously has a kind of grating singing voice but lyrics make up for it.

Joan Baez - folk singer and activist - Silver Dagger is a traditional song from her first album - she was only 19! she has an incredible voice, really string vibrato. she was big into anti-war activism and civil rights, did a mix of covers of traditional and contemporary stuff and wrote her own songs too. played at Woodstock festival of music and arts!

Pentangle - late 60s english folk-rock band. they are all insanely talented musicians and Basket Of Light is one of my favourite ever albums - it’s all acoustic instruments but played in really interesting ways.

Led Zeppelin - they may be a band mainly enjoyed by middle aged white men but damn are they good. another band where every member is insanely talented - jimmy page and john paul jones between them can play everything with strings. blues rock - III is their best album and super underrated. songs about lord of the rings, folklore and wizard battles, because y’know, they’re also hippie nerds. some of their stuff is a bit problematic :/ Jimmy was weird and also into occultism.

Joni Mitchell - a folkpopjazz musician - very inventive guitar style, only two of her songs are in standard tuning, and she is also an amazing piano player, and has one of the best voices - she is the originator of the confessional-singer-songwriter-very-specific-lyrics-acoustic-guitar-women, she did it first and best. alas most of her stuff is no longer on spotify, she left the platform to protest antivax podcasts on the site, but everything is on youtube and there are always cds. Raised on Robbery That Song about the Midway Ray's Dad's Cadillac

Aldous Harding - she is from very close to where I live! she does completely bonkers art-folk-something with John Parish who also produced PJ. she’s wonderful. she describes her performance as ‘song acting’ more than singing. i love her. she’s so awkward.  Warm Chris was definitely my album of the year for last year.

Marlon Williams - from the same place! last year he invented a new genre, as you do, Māori disco pop, on his album My Boy. very soulful voice, he was a choir boy, used to do very folk stuff but not so much anymore.

*interlude* Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore by Marlon Williams and Aldous Harding.

SO - Aldous and Marlon were romantically involved for a while a few years ago, he produced her debut - when they broke up he wrote the album Make Way For Love about her, AND THEN invited her to sing with him on this song, he sang his part then sent it to her. so very tragic emotional and cool. BUT THEN - i saw Marlon live last year, and he BROUGHT ALDOUS ON STAGE TO SING THIS WITH HIM. FOR THE FIRST TIME. anyways i was so excited and also very normal about that. there’s a bad phone video of it on youtube but i was thrilled and also astounded to say the least. i have also been lucky enough to meet both of them :D benefits of living in a small country i guess. 

The Beths - NZ’s best indie band! lyrics are much darker than the cheerful music and backing vocals would suggest. very good vibes, their music videos are delightful as well.

Courtney Barnett - queer Australian singer-songwriter! she’s very cool, a nice mix of folkier and grungier stuff, has that sort of talking singing style - plays her own guitar, likes fitting as many syllables as possible into the line.

Björk / The Sugarcubes - the Sugarcubes were an 80s Icelandic band doing sort of new-wavey pop stuff but with bonkers lyrics - when they split Björk started doing bonkers electronic pop music. she’s delightful. she’s very good at screaming and singing wordlessly.

Spiritualized - shoegaze-inspired space rock, atmospheric alt-rock - this song borrows from Elvis

the Flaming Lips - delightful 2000s indie rock this album makes me so happy

Voom - another NZ band! indie band very good

Built to Spill - indie rock, fantastic guitar in this one

Pulp - britpop, songs about sex and despair in a way that makes it sound like an intellectual pop-culture review, if Jarvis Cocker says something weird it’s almost definitely tongue-in-cheek

Neutral Milk Hotel - bonkers indie album about loss of innocence inspired by Anne Frank. it’s a bit of a joke that people are like ‘i’m so alternative i like Neutral Milk Hotel’, it’s not as obscure as it sounds like it is.

Dean and Britta - these songs accompany Andy Warhol’s Screen tests, where people would be sat in front of a camera for a couple minutes. designed to match the vibe of the person.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Australian gothic rock - a lot of their stuff is kinda intense, Nick had some issues, but a cool mix of *sex and death* and yearning love songs. Blixa Bargeld (mentioned above) was in the band for a while - their songs range from full sleaze to full orchestra.

*interlude* Henry Lee by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with PJ Harvey. hehe now this song - it’s a traditional murder ballad re-written by Nick for his album Murder Ballads. he wanted a woman to sing this with him and so asked PJ - now go watch the VIDEO. like stop reading this right now and go watch the video. it is the single most romantic tension-filled video clip i have ever seen and i love it so much. they hardly knew each other at that point!! and they’re dressed the same and the touching ashajkshakjhs anyways. in one live version Nick has pink nails too hehe. they started dating shortly after this, intensely but not for very long - when she dumped him Nick wrote The Boatman’s Call and the stuff PJ wrote for him is on Is This Desire?. 

Sigur Ròs - Icelandic post-rock ambient band - very cool rolling wave of sound music, atmospheric doesn’t even begin to describe it. Svefn-g-englar translates to ‘Angels of Sleep’,  sleepwalkers. the sometimes sing in Icelandic and sometimes in Hopelanic, a made-up language

my bloody valentine - one of the first and best-known shoegaze bands - loveless took them a really long time to record but is amazing, the layes of reverb and delay - you can't ever really hear the lyrics but it’s more about the general feeling.

Slowdive - another shoegaze band, a bit lighter instrument-wise, but lyrics way more tragic. Souvlaki Space Station is a really good album.

The Smiths - original emo band for sad introverts. lots of songs about being alone and unloved, rife with literary references. tragic but in a good way. great guitar, great bass, Morrissey has good voice & good lyrics but some *problematic opinions :/*. lots of plagiarising both lines in songs from books & poetry and also using other people’s photos for album art but it’s cool. 

Sonic Youth - new york no-wave band - lots of distortion, ten-minute-plus songs etc. Kim Gordon is the bass player and lyricist/singer of some of the songs and she’s very very cool. another one of those bands with a lot of music

Rowland S Howard - he was in Nick Cave’s goth band in the 80s, this is his solo work from later, it’s pretty heavy musically and lyrically, but it’s cool. there’s just something i really like about how this sounds and how al the instruments work together.

The Cure - they’d make a goth album, then a pop album, then another goth album etc etc - the pop stuff is fun but the goth stuff is way angstier.

anyways, there’s a very long introduction to my taste in music! i hope you like at least some of it :D <3

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

That time Disney released cartoons made by Max and Dave Fleischer on home video... Under the Disney name, no less!

I don't own a volume of "The Fabulous Fleischer Folio" (yet), but these releases - put together by Kit Parker Films - are quite fascinating amongst Disney's home video history.

Ever since the mid-1980s, they did indeed license titles not made or financed by the company, to put on video. Usually this was through the Buena Vista Home Video label, but I guess because the colorful Fleischer cartoons were not that dissimilar to Disney's animated output over the years, these were straight-up Walt Disney Home Video titles for a while... Until they weren't. Later versions of the original volumes, known as "Max Fleischer's Cartoon Capers", were Buena Vista titles.

I get a kick out of the diagonal banner saying "From the creator of Popeye and Betty Boop!" Popeye, as many in the know about this kind of stuff would know, was the creation of E. C. Segar in his comic strip THIMBLE THEATRE... Which later became POPEYE THE SAILOR, after the character instantly caught on... Which was ten years into the strip's existence. That's how you know he's an icon. But I guess "From the adapter of the comic strip POPEYE" would be a mouthful when you're trying to get someone to take this tape off the rack circa 1991, lol.

These tapes are a rather curious mix of cartoons. You have some films in Fleischer's "Color Classics" series that ran from 1935 to 1941, when making cartoons or any kind of film in color was still a HUGE deal. Walt Disney and his crew had done their first in 1932 with FLOWERS AND TREES, one of their Silly Symphonies in which Color Classics was an answer to. Ditto... Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, Happy Harmonies, Swing Symphony, you get the idea. And then some post-Fleischer Studios efforts from Max, such as his 1948 RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER cartoon made for Jam Handy Organization that was more or less overshadowed completely by the Rankin-Bass special over a decade later. And even, for some reason, cartoons that didn't involve either Fleischer brother... Like the Paramount Screen Song cartoon THE GOLDEN STATE, which came out in 1948.

During this period, Disney had also done volumes of things like a Welsh cartoon called SUPERTED, the late '70s PADDINGTON cartoon, Australian Western FIVE MILE CREEK, and many more. Later on, this would be a strictly Buena Vista Home Video thing. That's how you got "Disney" releases of things like the classic Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, compilations of '80s ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS, THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, a stop-motion Barbie workout tape, and many more.

But to think... Walt Disney and Max Fleischer, two titans of animation who both relentlessly innovated the medium in the 1920s and 1930s... And were rivals to some degree or another for a good while... That was, until Max's son Richard Fleischer directed the studio's live-action epic 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, which was released in 1954. Apparently Walt and Max were good friends thereafter. Neither Fleischer, however, saw the amount of success Walt and his people would enjoy into the '50s and early-to-mid '60s. Could you imagine an alternate history where the Disney studio went under during World War II, and that it was the Fleischer Studio that stayed together and became what the Disney company is now? It's a fun thought to ponder...

Anyways, if you thought that Don Bluth movies that 20th Century Studios had under their umbrella now belonging to Disney (THUMBELINA, ANASTASIA, TITAN A.E.) was weird, there's these Disney-released Fleischer video volumes...

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 28 - Athena - "I Love Mud On My Face"

Türkiye and TRT are hosting Eurovision in 2004 after winning for the first time ever the previous year. Who's going to represent the country at their home gig? Why not the biggest rock band in Türkiye, beloved of all Turkish football fans and who have a contemporary and different (for Eurovision sound) that will do well across the continent? Welcome Athena.

The one minor negative about asking Athena to represent them is that it means Şarkı Yarışması has turned into a song selection final for 2004. My least favourite format. In this case I'm not complaining too much as I really like Athena. They've been around since 1987, starting out as a thrash metal band before pivoting to ska-punk in the mid-1990s.

This change of genre confused the Turkish music industry. Thrash metal as one thing, but ska-punk? It's basically unknown in Türkiye so it took a while for their album Holigan to get a release. Confounding received wisdom, the Turkish public loved it, adopting the title track as a football terrace anthem. Athena had made it. In 2000 they supported the Beastie Boys on tour in Germany and headlined the main millennium celebration concert in Taksim Square in Istanbul. This is all before Eurovision - Athena are big. Big in a way many Eurovision acts aren't.

I Love Mud On My Face is one of the three songs they submitted to Şarkı Yarışması for their Eurovision appearance. It's authentic to their sound, and indeed their genre. It sounds closer to the original ska-punk of the 70s and early 80s and the mid-90s Britpop ska influenced bands than the ongoing mainstream skater-punk sound. It's hugely refreshing, bringing to mind outdoor concerts in the light drizzle of a cloudy summer day. It's fun, fast and very much in your face.

Of the three songs, this fared the worst, finishing last a significant distance behind the winner. What else are Athena going to put forward? Maybe we'll find out shortly...

[strangledeggs]

Has Remix Culture Run Out Of Steam?

The short answer is "no". The long answer is...

A couple days ago, I was talking with @philippesaner about the failures of postmodern critical theory to come up with a viable alternative to liberal-democratic politics given all its critiques of the latter (this subject seems to inevitably come up at least once every time we meet in real life). The famous article he brought up that the title of my current essay here is referencing is of course Bruno Latour's "Has Critique Run Out Of Steam?" which if you haven't read and are at all mystified by why we would be discussing something like this in the first place, I'd recommend reading.

Anyway, around the same time (maybe it was even the same day?), my sister happened to show me Youtube music critic Toddintheshadows' 10 worst songs of the year list for 2023. A notable entry on the list that I hadn't heard prior to seeing the video was a song that was essentially a cover of Haddaway's "What Is Love?", kind of like that previous Bebe Rexha basically-a-cover "remix" of Eiffel 65's "I'm Blue".

That struck me as interesting, given that both songs seem exemplary of a current trend that takes the very simple approach of reviving an old song that was already a "proven" high-charting hit by doing the bare minimum work on it to get it considered a "new" song, then re-releasing it and watching it climb the charts again on the power of nostalgia alone. If it seems like I'm making this out to be a more deliberate process than you'd think it might be (instead of just a coincidence born of nostalgia for the 90s/2000s), that's because I have good reason to believe it is. This Pitchfork article from a few years ago pretty much predicted this exact phenomenon, as it details how venture capitalists started buying up the song catalogues of major songwriters with specifically the intention of marketing new songs based on the licensing of older, already well-known songs.

What does this have to do with Bruno Latour? Well, many of you may not remember this, but pop music (pop culture in general, I would argue, as we'll see through some other examples) went through its own moment of "postmodern theory" not long after the political theory took off mid-20th century. There were many different ideas tossed around for a while, some of them conflicting, but most of them centered on the deconstruction of the individual artist as a singular creative originator of things, much like certified post-structuralist Barthes' "death of the author" (actually, you could argue that Barthes' original essay was the first shot in this assault on the cult of the pop-star-as-creative-genius). This culminated in a fierce debate over what started happening with the birth of hip-hop in the late 70s, but especially the 80s and 90s. Early hip-hop was often heavily dependent on the DJ's use of "samples" of already-recorded music. This sparked accusations from more traditionalist musicians (nowadays we tend to call these "rockists", which isn't entirely fair because there are many rock musicians that appreciate the nuances of this debate and many outside the genre that don't) that hip-hop was a fundamentally unoriginal genre because it relied on playing "other people's music".

At the same time that early sample-based hip-hop was emerging, a new form of recording started to be sold, first in conjunction with hip-hop DJ culture but quickly expanding beyond these bounds. This was the format of the "remixed" song, which I won't bother to explain here because I'm pretty sure everyone is familiar with it at this point. Between the growing popularity of remixes and hip-hop, many of the traditionalists seemed to feel that we were heading towards a future in music where no one would bother to create new music again because we'd just plunder the same songs from the past forever, leading us into a creative dead end that would constitute the much-threatened, long-dreaded "death of music".

This is where the postmodern streak in pop music comes in. Speaking in response to these accusations of creative bankruptcy, the postmodernists pointed out that actually, all of music had been nothing but "remixes" from the start, since no one has a truly "original" idea and all new music can be traced back through the music that influenced it in a chain that only ends at our recorded history of music. This is obvious enough from genres like rock (which used the basic structures of the blues as its jumping-off point) and jazz (which often featured artists "quoting" other songs by playing their melodies mid-solo, a kind of proto-sampling when you think about it), but it could even be observed in how classical composers would take musical themes from popular folk songs and imitate each others' compositional structures.

The point of music, the postmodernists went on to argue, isn't to create something totally "original" anyway, since that's basically impossible. It's instead to simply create something "new", and "new doesn't have to mean that it isn't built on the back of some older work; "newness", in fact, comes from the new combination of older elements, which, placed in a new context, will now seem unfamiliar as a whole even if the individual parts are familiar. As Buck 65 says, and then re-constructs through a sample of someone saying the same thing at the end of his song "Leftfielder", "And you never heard it like this before".

The postmodernists were, I think, indisputably right, and for a while it looked like they had won this particular culture war. Hip-hop went on to experience a golden age of creativity through sampling and remixes (something reflected in reference-heavy lyrics too, as any hip-hop listener will notice). Pop music in general got a lot more explicitly self-conscious and self-referential. It was (and continues to be - we're not out of this era yet, despite what I might be implicitly foreshadowing here!) an interesting time for people like me who enjoy nerding out over "spot-the-reference" games, as well as debates over the relationship between form, content and historical placement of music.

But there is a dark side to the arguments the postmodernists made. If there is truly, as an ancient source claims, "nothing new under the sun", then maybe the answer to this is not to try and create new things (since this would be a waste of time) but to stick as close as possible to those things from past times that we know have already worked. This is an argument for aesthetic conservativism, which claims on some level that there are actually a finite number of "good" art pieces (songs, stories, poems, etc.) that we can create, and if we try and deviate from these, we will either end up accidentally reproducing a worse version of one of those "originary" pieces anyway, or produce utter nonsense that will be of interest to no one.

How deep this theory goes depends on who you ask. I would argue that the originator of this argument is as far back as Plato, who claimed that there were metaphysical "forms" constituting the "real" existences of all things in the world that were, in themselves, just defective imitations of those forms. This kind of thinking is reflected in psychoanalyst Jung's idea of "archetypes", different kinds of narratives that exist eternally in all human minds which can be seen as the blueprints for all other stories we tell each other. And this idea would be highly influential on comparative mythology scholars like Joseph Campbell, whose own book "Hero With A Thousand Face", which argued that there is only one real story humanity has ever told known as the "monomyth", in turn influenced George Lucas in the writing of Star Wars.

But it doesn't have to get that deep. To many who espouse some version of this view, aesthetic conservativism is simply a shorthand for commitment to "formula" in the arts. Many of these people wouldn't even go so far as to completely deny the possibility of entirely original art - they just think it's usually a waste of time, and that 99% of what's worth making is made by the use of a "proven formula" that works because we have evidence of it already working in the past. It's a kind of bastardized "scientific" approach to creating art, where you claim to create through "evidence-based" methods, but you only ever draw your evidence from historical data and ignore the possibility of current tastes changing. It's the approach of any screenwriter who's told you about how "Save The Cat" changed their life. What's kind of funny with these types is how many of them worship George Lucas; after all, they tend to value what's successful on the market over all else, and Star Wars is nothing if not that. So the ghost of Plato (and Jung, and Campbell) lives on in these "formulaic conservatives" even if most of them never get around to thinking that much about it.

Anyway, for the record, I think this philosophy of aesthetic conservativism is completely full of shit. I'll keep my own beef with Plato for the separate essay it deserves, but I will make my case for the pop postmodernists on this issue here: just because you can retroactively identify patterns of things that "work", doesn't mean those will be the only things that will ever function as art. For one thing, canonical tastes change over time, and what we considered to be a masterpiece 100 years ago isn't always the same as what we consider to be a masterpiece today. Further, I would accuse some of these aesthetic conservatives of a kind of reverse "forest-for-the-trees" view: they can't see the uniqueness of individual trees because they're too focused on the forest as a whole! While you can point out the similarities among different works across time, you can also point out their differences, which frequently lie in their specific details - combinations of which, I might add, come from the distinct circumstances of a sum of past influences that result in an ever-new "remixed" cultural product over time. You can, in fact, just produce minor variations on the same thing and end up with wildly different results as long as you know what to focus on. Case in point: though "Cool Hand Luke" might feature a similar story to that of Jesus in the Bible, no one would ever mistake it for the Gospels, and we certainly don't view those two things as equivalent.

This might seem like I'm nitpicking here, but taking the aesthetic conservative stance has real consequences for the kind of art that gets produced. Consider the movie industry, where this kind of thinking seems to have dominated for a long time; it feels like only now, we're coming out of a long winter of cookie-cutter superhero movies which, while certainly driven economically by IP licensing deals, were justified critically to many by the idea that they're constructed according to a certain "proven formula". It was a fundamentally backward-looking paradigm of culture, one that suggested that lazily regurgitating the same thing over and over again was not only all that was possible, it was desirable because it had already worked in the past! This is the same logic expressed in those interviews with the venture capitalists buying up song catalogues in the hopes that they can prey on people's nostalgia for already "proven" hits. And you might say they're transparently only in this for the money, so what does their logic matter anyway? But I'd argue that the financial victors of culture wars like this have a significant stake in people buying the logic of what they're doing on some level, because if everyone recognized what they were doing to be obviously bad, they'd stop consuming it and move on to something else.

I would contrast this aesthetic conservativism with a more "forward-looking" approach, one that uses the postmodernist cultural theory to look towards creating new combinations of things out of old things in ways that feel genuinely surprising. Think something like DJ Shadow's "Endtroducing.....", the first album constructed entirely out of samples, or more recently, 100 gecs bizarre genre-pastiches that leap from one sound to another with little warning. You'll note that neither of these artists sound like each other, or much else that came before them, despite taking obvious influences from the decades of music that immediately preceded them.

The change doesn't have to be that drastic, either. You could be a country-rock band playing in a 70s style, like the Drive-By Truckers, but you're experimenting with songform and subject matter for a change, or a rapper incorporating a slam-poetry influence into your flow like Noname or R.A.P. Ferreira. The point is that you can, in fact, make new music with a forward-looking approach, and there is something truly disturbing to the thought that the future of the industry might be several more years of covers of the already successful hits of yesteryear, like those of "I'm Blue" and "What Is Love?" If that's the case, then we might start to see a backlash against the postmodernist cultural theory, since those growing up in the current generation would only know it by means of this aesthetic conservativism which takes the conclusion that "everything is a remix" as a license to do the barest minimum of remixing possible for the safest return on investments. And what we might see then is a return to pre-20th century ideas of the sanctity of the individual artist's creation and "originality", which will simply throw more fuel on an already raging fire of support for devastatingly overreaching IP laws, which will ironically only make it easier for this phenomenon of re-animated Hits From The Dead to continue. Because you know who can afford to buy up that IP so that their own remixes are the only "legal" ones...

As a final note here, I wanted to bring up the original "Everything Is A Remix" guy, Kirby Ferguson, whose video essay series released under that title is still available in its original form here (it's just past the "updated 2023 edition", which I haven't watched yet). I first watched this series almost 15 years ago and I felt like the guy was basically summarizing everything I had been saying about the postmodernist theory of art at that point - nothing is truly "original", remixing isn't the same as "stealing", intellectual property law is a plague, etc. Anyway, I haven't kept up with what he's been doing these days, and taking a quick glance at the site, it looks kind of grim: he's got a dubious-looking course on using AI in art as well as several self-help-y looking ones on "unlocking your creative potential". I guess he had to make some money on his idea somehow (ironic, for a guy whose thesis kind of necessitated a destruction of the laws that allow people to profit off their ideas), but this is a bit of depressing direction to see him take. Anyway, check out the original videos if you haven't seen them, they make a compelling argument even if I think I would find it kind of oversimplified now (disclaimer: I haven't rewatched them at the time of writing this and am relying on my memory from almost 15 years ago, so I take no responsibility here if they turn out to actually kind of suck).

[whoredmode]

is there any definitive amount of time stated for how long the saints had been around prior to playa joining? i was flipping through troy’s journal (the sr1 game guide) and i found myself really curious on how long he’d been a part of things and just in general wondering how long the saints had been around. it’s several months at the least, but with the timing of things like aisha joining then eventually leaving, it makes more sense they’d been around for at least over a year. assumedly more?

like ok. we’ll guesstimate mid 70s to early 80s is the several years of the vice kings (including julius) VS the carnales. the vice kings remain, and let’s say some time in the early to mid 80s kingdom come records is born. vice kings are still, well, king and somewhere in here julius + others drop their flags. (also somewhere during this time several characters are born). how long between julius and some ex-vice kings leaving does it take for the saints to materialize? i’m assuming they didn’t start to really form until the 90s/early 2000s because it was in response to the vice kings and carnales starting shit again, then the rollerz form being funded by william sharp and akuji (assumedly in the 90s/2000s as well). marshall winslow gets elected in 2004, and the saints “make themselves known” by 2006 but had to have been around longer bc aisha would’ve had to join, then leave and release her album in 2005. troy also had to have been around long enough to become 2nd-in-command, though imo julius knew from the start he was undercover (and troy knew he knew) and made him that to more-or-less keep an eye on him. keep your enemies close or whatever.

this feels so longwinded but i hope it makes sense what i’m trying to figure out. idk i feel like this all begs the question of “y’all have been around How Long and couldn’t get anything done”😭 and if there IS a definitive date. ignore all of this ig LMAO

[terrascosmicstartover]

Some influences on my comic...

Cartoon CARTOONS. Pretty self-explanatory. Cartoon Network practically raised me in the late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s. I liked Nickelodeon a lot, too, but I gravitated towards CN for not only their dynamic and varied original shows, but also their then *vast* library of Warner Bros. cartoons, MGM cartoons, and the Hanna-Barbera catalogue. And of course, [adult swim] had a massive influence on this as well. The varied art styles alone, they're just so burned into my brain, how can I not draw something and have it look kinda like - say - DEXTER'S LABORATORY or THE GRIM ADVENTURES OF BILLY & MANDY?

CRASH BANDICOOT in general, particularly the original trilogy for the PS1 from Naughty Dog, and CRASH BANDICOOT 4: IT'S ABOUT TIME... Absolutely. In fact, when I was watching a playthrough of IT'S ABOUT TIME from a favorite commentary group (BrainScratchComms guest starring Caddicarus), they were on the space levels, and they talked about going to restaurants like Denny's at 4am... And I just got this image of two characters in a diner somewhere in the cosmos, just up super-late and eating this early in the morning. That was more or less the genesis of my webcomic, in addition to a few other things... In a way I gotta thank them for that. Anyways, the space and futuristic city levels in the CRASH games? Big influences, from CRASH BANDICOOT: WARPED's Future Frenzy/Gone Tomorrow to CRASH 4's Bermugula's Orbit. Yes indeed.

Not just GALAGA... But also the cabinet art to *many* '70s and '80s arcade games. Heck, just games from that period alone. The Golden Age of Video Games. A long-time passion and hyperfixation of mine. But I wanted to include the GALAGA art specifically, given the space setting.

The logo for GALAGA was an influence on my studio logo. The art style for many arcade cabinets, for me, recalls the mesmerizing and varied art of '60s and early '70s album covers...

Hence... The inclusion of a late 1960s album cover. That's for CAULDRON by Fifty-Foot Hose, a short-lived San Francisco psych-rock group. CAULDRON, by some accounts, was either a late 1967 or late 1968 release. Either way, the album - which I totally hear when drawing for this comic - is like a mix of that Frisco psych vibe with lots of homemade electronic instruments drizzling cosmic effects throughout. Quite a unique and game-changing album, a little ahead of its time perhaps. This was around the same time the Silver Apples' self-titled debut came out, which was also a marriage of psychedelic rock and otherworldly mechanic noises.

...

Now for some real-life people who were inspirations for the main character, Terra Forma...

So we've got... Avril Lavigne, Ashnikko, Lauran Hibberd, and Debbie Harry of - in case someone lives under a rock - Blondie fame.

I feel Terra's a got a little bit of the early aughts pop-punk edge of Lavigne (heck, she STILL has that edge. One of her new songs, 'Bite Me', is a BANGER), and certainly Ashnikko's blue hair. I feel Ashnikko's music also has a unique edge to it, as does they, and there's a peculiar weirdness to them that I feel Terra and her weird-ass adventures kind of line up with. Hibberd also has that pop/punk rock kickass girl edge, too. What I also find great about Hibberd is how she unabashedly talks about her IBS. I suffer from IBS, and so does Terra. I guess being so cool means you have to be cursed with a garbage stomach! And of course, Debbie Harry needs next to no explanation, an OG punk rock chick.

Funny how they are all musicians... Terra dabbled in that before!

...

[missanthropicprinciple]

Chanel fragrance review 

My dad bought this set for my mom in the mid-90s. I can’t seem to find the exact thing online but I believe they were from the Les exclusifs de Chanel line. We got them at Dayton’s, a famous department store that was started in Minneapolis in 1902, was rebranded in 2001 as Marshall Field’s, and was bought out by Macy’s in 2006. I’m wondering if the bottles Dad chose were in a pick-your-own situation. The bottles came with a soft, diamond-quilted black travel case with a handle. I imagine this was not a cheap purchase for my dad. My mother never really used it, often falling back on her vintage Karl Lagerfeld Chloé. So I just “borrowed” this set and was told I could just continue to keep using it indefinitely. I use them sparingly as they’re expensive and may have gone through reformulation.

N°22 eau de toilette: It seems that all les exclusifs were reformulated in 2007, so my review won’t reflect the current formula. It’s also difficult to find a review of N°22 eau de toilette, as the parfum is more common. According to the one review I could find, the top notes are aldehydes which accounts for its metallic sharpness, the middle notes are Jasmine, Tuberose, Ylang-Ylang and Rose  - this combo gives it a deeply balanced scent, and the base notes are Vetiver, Vanilla and Incense, which give it a smokiness. Overall, it’s powerful for a toilette and the talc scent hits you right off the bat, reminiscent of Guerlain Shalimar but more fruity. The jasmine and Ylang-Ylang linger on my skin.

Coco eau de toilette: The general consensus is that eau de toilette is weaker after reformulation in recent years. I also have the new eau de parfum but that’s still quite strong. This eau de toilette is a warm and complex scent. Even the note analysis reads like a shopping list. “Top notes are Bulgarian Rose, Peach, Coriander, Mandarin Orange and Jasmine; middle notes are Cloves, Rose, Mimosa, Orange Blossom and Clover; base notes are Sandalwood, Opoponax, Amber, Civet, Vanilla, Tonka Bean and Labdanum.” Needless to say, it’s a very spicy scent. The sandalwood balances out the floral notes, making it the classic evening fragrance. Both the older eau de toilette and the current Coco I have linger on the skin a fairly long time. I wear this in all seasons, though it seems to be favored for an autumn and winter fragrance. You really can’t go wrong with this one.

N°5 eau de toilette: Another shopping-list scent. “Top notes are Aldehydes, Ylang-Ylang, Neroli, Amalfi Lemon and Bergamot; middle notes are iris, Jasmine, Rose, Orris Root and Lily-of-the-Valley; base notes are Civetta, Sandalwood, Musk, oak moss, Vetiver, Amber, Vanille and Patchouli.” The jasmine and rose stand out to me. For such a famous scent it’s remarkably light, certainly not in a bad way. Perhaps it doesn’t work for my skin, but is a bit bitter and talc-y once applied and much of the nuance is lost. I still recommend it, even if just for the novelty of being one of the most famous perfumes in the world. It certainly strikes me as a spring fragrance but it works in winter just as well.

N°19 eau de toilette: I would call this a unique fragrance, spring in a bottle, though mildly astringent. According to the Fragrantica profile the top notes are “Green Notes”, Bergamot and Neroli; middle notes are Iris, Rose, Narcissus, Lily-of-the-Valley and Ylang-Ylang; base notes are oak moss, Vetiver, Leather and Sandalwood. Atmospheric perfumes that try to capture a particular scene or experience are popular these days and this is an early example of that. You’re metaphorically transported to a woody glade full of dew on a spring morning. It was released in 1970, a year before Coco Chanel died, well into her 80s. The fragrance certainly reminds me of 70s aesthetics and could be called “dated” if you’re not into it, but I think it’s a great slice from the history of perfume.

Cristalle eau de parfum: At the time my father bought this in the mid to late 1990s, this was a new perfume, having been released in 1993. “Top note is Mandarin Orange; middle notes are Melon, Jasmine, Peach and Ylang-Ylang; base notes are Oakmoss and Vetiver.” A bit harsh, very 90s, kind of smokey, and slightly bitter. The orange fades a bit too fast, leaving the melon to sort of fester. You can smell the peach but only if you concentrate really hard. The consensus is that it’s a scent most suited to spring but honestly I’m getting strong autumnal vibes. I feel like you could wear this to the park for a picnic date or to a nightclub. It can be fairly versatile. 

Here’s the travel bag they came with: