#which then falls on allen ginsberg's head

[weaponizedmoth]

scene redraw from iwtv.

ko-fi | inprnt | commissions

[fallen-angel-adam-frankenstein]

Thinking about how the Big Four of dark academia really feels like the Big Three of dark academia that a last-minute addition was added onto, not because it’s any less a part of and representative of the aesthetic but because its mood and message differs so greatly from the other three - that last-minute addition being Dead Poets Society. Hear me out as I rant about character types, classism, doing it for the aesthetic, themes, tones, and substance abuse (and, obviously, spoiler warnings for Dead Poets Society, The Secret History, If We Were Villains, and Kill Your Darlings):

Firstly, I want to draw comparisons between who I consider to be the protagonists of each story, focusing a lot on how I feel that each of them has a barrier between himself and another group of people within the story. Starting with the one that I relate to the most and progressing in no organisational order after that, we have from The Secret History Richard Papen, an English major who came from an impoverished old town in California to the lovely little college in Hampden, Vermont on account of loads and loads of scholarships. Fascinated and a bit infatuated with the Greek class, he is able through partly his own talent but mostly dumb luck to join their ranks, only to find out that the people he admired and romanticised are all a bunch of classist, selfish, rich addicts. Desperately wanting to be a part of this group, Richard has to break the financial barrier (as well as the seclusion engineered by Julian) between him and them in order to get in with the “cool kids.” However, this doesn’t work out for him at the end, as he doesn’t even get invited to their bacchanal or Bunny’s murder and yet has to suffer for the fallout of both events. It’s made clear that this is not the kind of life you want to live, and Richard even returns to California after the main body of the book concludes. Allen Ginsberg of Kill Your Darlings is confronted with a similar barrier, although his is less financial (he’s well-off enough to make it to college without scholarships) and more the sort of subcultural difference between the life he left at home and how Lu and his friends live. Just like Richard, he risks and loses it all to gain the affection of this new group, who, just like in TSH, leave him high and dry in the end. Oliver Marks also risks it all for his group in If We Were Villains, although they don’t necessarily abandon him in the same sense and really he alienates himself by taking the fall for Richard (Stirling)’s death. His barrier is also mainly financial, as he ends up having to pay for Dellecher through scholarships and a work-study deal, something which you can tell he is ashamed about (hmm classicism -_-) as he tries to hide it from the rest of the group, who can all afford the school on their own (or their families can). Since this story differs from the rest because it starts off with Oliver already a part of the tightly-knit group, you can’t really talk about him vying for approval as in TSH or Kill Your Darlings, but the sense of him being a part of a slightly different world is still there. Meanwhile, you don’t get this same sense in DPS. I maintain that Neil is the central figure in DPS, but for the sake of this let’s look at Todd, who does have to make his way into the group after it was already formed. Todd’s barrier is not financial but all in his own head: his social anxiety and awkwardness prevents him from initiating a relationship with any of the other Dead Poets. Because he has this different kind of barrier, it’s easier for him to overcome it, and it turns out well for him in the end, while it doesn’t for the protagonists of the other three stories.

Besides that, the other characters also play a role in how DPS feels separate from the other three. All four dark academia stories are about rich kids at their core, but DPS is the only one that doesn’t feel like it’s about rich kids. Why is that? I think it’s because of how they chose to present the characters. In TSH, the whole main cast, essentially, sucks - Henry is full of it, Bunny has all sorts of problems, Charles is an abusive drunkard, not to mention his incestuous relationship with Camilla, and Francis knows about this relationship and is fine with it, even being fine to casually fuck Charles on top of it (and he’s classist as fuck, but that’s a discussion for a later date). You might think, “oh, but Richard isn’t too bad” - yeah, but he did let them all get away with not one but two murders and was only worried about Charles abusing and fucking Camilla because he felt attraction to Camilla himself, so. Anyway, my point is that everyone in the Greek class is either a rich asshole or wants to be like the rich assholes, so that’s not good. There’s a similar thing in Kill Your Darlings where they’re all addicts and alcoholics and people who generally don’t give a fuck about how other people react to their drama and fun times, and you can see how Lu even uses David and later Allen and then throws them both away casually. Yeah, they have a cool vision of revolutionising poetry, but they’re not really characters that one can necessarily relate to, because they’re all just too caught up in themselves. IWWV, too - you don’t see this as much, but it comes out a bit when Oliver hides in shame the fact that he has to work to pay for school. While IWWV has a cast of characters that I can relate to and like the most out of the three I’ve talked about so far, there’s still a little bit of disconnect, an unattainability about them, and it’s clear that they’re all deeply fucked: Richard, before he died, was an abusive asshole, James killed Richard and then not only started mirroring him a bit when he hurt Oliver but then let Oliver while away ten years of his life in prison for Richard’s death (and either killed himself or faked his death), Alexander got even worse into drugs and then presumably got clean but man did he have PTSD from that school year, Meredith is surrounded by men lusting after her and feels lonely, Wren also has PTSD from that school year, and Filippa . . . got into a relationship with her teacher and we don’t talk about this? So while they’re three-dimensional, engaging, and entertaining, they’re all still just plain messed up. However, the Dead Poets aren’t like this. Obviously, there’s Neil’s suicide, but that’s different - it’s not messed up because he was already messed up, it’s messed up because the authority figures in his life (excluding Keating) messed him up themselves, breaking his spirit with the pressure they put on him and with the criticism of his passion. But to the point, in the sense of the characterisation of the main cast, DPS feels different from the other three because the Dead Poets are three-dimensional, engaging, entertaining, and even likeable in a way that the characters from the other three are not. And they’re all rich enough to attend a very well-to-do private boarding school, but they’re not stuck-up and classist, in fact hardly ever bringing up matters of money and even making fun of the Danburrys a bit. They feel more accessible than any other group does, which is what I respect about them.

And last but not least, the message. As far as the moods/tones and themes of the Big Four go, DPS is the only one with any sort of hope at the ending, and the only one with a “true” aesthetic for the characters to chase. The three of the dark academia Big Four all focus on taking something too far and it going horribly wrong - the Greek class gets so into studying the Classics that they have a bacchanal and kill a man and then kill a man to prevent him from telling someone that they killed a man, which leads to yet another man dead and the rest of them unhappy; the Dellecher fourth-years get so into Shakespeare and the roles they play/their typecasts that Richard ends up dead, Oliver ends up in prison, James ends up either dead or faking his death, and everyone else suffers like I mentioned earlier; and in Kill Your Darlings, David ends up dead, Lu ends up in prison, and Allen ends up expelled. TSH has a very bleak epilogue - Richard is confused and yearning, Charles is still drunk and who-knows-where cut off from the rest of them, Camilla has her dying grandmother to worry about, Henry and Bunny are dead, and Francis is forcing himself to marry a woman he doesn’t even like as a person, let alone not being physically attracted to her whole-ass gender, because he would rather make himself miserable than be cut off from the financial support of his family. Donna Tartt leaves us with a depressing, unsatisfying ending - which is all part of the theme, but I’ll get to its relation to DPS later. All in all, TSH’s tone is a very dark one, and its message to not let yourself get so caught up in the aesthetic that you let yourself fall/sacrifice your morals (and also not to idolise rich assholes because they can and will use you and ruin your life), while relevant and important, is far from inspiring or uplifting. Similarly, they go too far in IWWV, pursuing Shakespeare until it fucks them all up, and it has a similar theme to TSH. Its ending, while I like it better than TSH’s, is still quite pessimistic; there’s a little glimmer of possibility there, but not really all that much, and you get the sense that things are never going to fix themselves. In Kill Your Darlings, too, Lu and Allen get so caught up in the New Vision that they let the rest of their lives fall apart around them, and the ending is a bit confused and “meh.” DPS, however, has a lot of hope in its ending. Yes, Neil’s death was sad, and so was Keating taking the fall for it, but despite that, Keating is able to walk out of that classroom with a smile on his face; the ending isn’t entirely sad, it’s bittersweet. DPS’s message is all about carpe diem, seize the day, make your lives extraordinary, and they all presumably go on to do that (except Neil, who died because he was unable to do that). While the aesthetic the characters chase in TSH sort of hinges on their rich assholery, the aesthetic the characters chase in IWWV more or less depends on their isolation and general fucked-up-ness, and the aesthetic the characters chase in Kill Your Darlings is pretty much based on substance abuse and not giving a fuck, all of which lead to their lives being ruined on varying levels, the aesthetic the characters chase in DPS not only doesn’t really ruin their lives and also seems to be much more attainable in a tangible way. While Keating loses his job, he’s able to walk out of the classroom with a smile on his face because he knows that he did what he came there to do - he inspired his students to live life to the fullest and think for/be true to themselves, which is actually a quite healthy aesthetic to strive for, especially compared to the other ones I’ve talked about. The ending of DPS isn’t entirely happy, but there’s so much hope in it, something which the other three lack, and because of that, it feels separate from them.

Anyway yeah. I’m not going to write a big ol’ conclusion because I’ve already taken up so much space, but yeah. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk lol.

[ialwaysknewyouwerepunk]

copy of a copy of a copy - a close reading

why hello!! here i am again with my nonsense. thought i'd give it another go yk. with fine line and walls done and dusted i barely knew what to do with myself but then i remembered there are so many songs i haven't even so much as glanced at. so here we are.

enjoy this angry sadness! <3

LYRIC ANALYSIS

beginning: echo of stop crying your heart out by oasis

It's an old curse, dreamers diving head first

"curse": deeply negative

"dreamers": word often associated with people's ambition to make it big in the acting world/music industry

"diving head first": naively going all-in, agreeing with shit that might not be in their best interests without being aware of it

Broken beaks and dead birds

Can't get through the glass

"broken beak": can't sing/speak

those who tried to break the curse, get through the glass ceiling, got hurt or worse

～ "breaking through the atmosphere", sott

There's no use crying over spilled blood Caring only kills(,) love A kiss won't bring it back

whose spilled blood? my own, someone else's? who spilled the blood?

"a kiss won't bring it back", unlike in sleeping beauty, snow white, the little mermaid, etc. this isn't a fairytale (～ only the brave "it's a tall tale")

be selfish and you'll make it

I know that the first blow hits you cold

"i know", i've been there

when realisation hits, that first disillusionment

Young man, hush your crying, dry your tears away

"young man" - specifically male: singing to his younger self as much as a young person going through the same things he went through?

～ "just stop your crying", sott

～ "stop crying your heart out", oasis (sonically inspired!! see below)

Nothing is original, there's nothing left to say

cynical

don't bother trying to be unique, be you, there's no room for that here

better be quiet? "shut up and sing"?

You won't be the first or be the last to bleed

shit's not changing anytime soon, don't waste your breath

Every broken heart as far as your eye can see

where are you seeing them? in the crowd in front of you? in the falling stars?

It's a copy of a copy of a copy It's a copy of a copy of a copy

～ copy of a, nine inch nails !!!!!!

every broken heart is a copy of a copy - the hearts have been broken the same way. let down, pushed down, hidden away

it's happened over and over, forever: closeting of queer people in the industry

I can hear you, howling 'til your lungs hurt

(probably no actual reference but i'd still like to link it:) howl - allen ginsberg (very very gay poet / celebrating ppl choosing to live free artistic sexual queer lives outside of society's norms) "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" "who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love" "who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar" "who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation"

So let this be your comfort

louis's music in general seems to want to offer comfort, no matter how cynical or angry he gets in the lyrics - he hasn't lost his heart, despite the "lesson" of dropping all emotion he's trying to teach the young man

You're not the only one, no In a strange way, all in this together Been this way forever, you're not the only one

"it's an old curse"

we won't be able to change it, but if we stick together we'll survive

"been this way forever" ～ otb, history repeating itself

SYNTHESIS

Copy of a Copy of a Copy is in many ways a smart trick of a song. First of all, we've got the title, that could very well be a reference to a Nine Inch Nails song. Then there's the instrumental intro, which sounds a whole lot like Oasis's Stop Crying Your Heart Out. Not to mention the hint at Sign of the Times at multiple points in the song, sonically as well as lyrically.

Let's start with the Nine Inch Nails thing, because they have a song called Copy of a. Here are some snippets from the lyrics just to point out some obvious parallels:

I am just a copy of a copy of a copy

I am just a shadow of a shadow of a shadow Always trying to catch up with myself I am just an echo of an echo of an echo Listening to someone's cry for help

You need to play your part

See I'm not the only one

Doing everything I'm told to do

Stop Crying Your Heart Out is, to me, a conscious reference to give this song, that can get very cynical and disillusioned, that typical Louis 'it is what it is' comfort. I've spoken about Louis's references to Oasis in my Walls analysis, where he echoes Acquiesce to the point where he gave Noel Gallagher a writing credit. In any case, Stop Crying Your Heart Out is a hug and squeeze, a 'chin up, love' because shit hurts but "you'll never change what's been and gone". You won't be the first or last, best not waste any of your precious time mourning what can't be changed.

Then, the parallels with Sign of the Times are of a significance I surely don't need to spell out. The theme of both songs is one and the same, even the general tone of the message is similar. Seems like the results of a common opinion, almost. With Sign of the Times (analysis coming soon btw), Harry chooses the dream of an escape to deal with the shit that's handed to them, while dishing out eerily calm but still cynical lyrics about misfortune and sadness. This cynical tone is also present in Copy of a Copy of a Copy, although much more prominent. It's this is shit and i hate that i can't change it and i can't help anyone or myself or the one i love BUT i can be fucking angry about it and write it into a song and make sure millions listen. In Sign of the Times that feeling is a bit more buried, but it's definitely there.

Copy of a Copy of a Copy is an angry song. In typical Louis fashion, the anger comes out sarcastic, layered and strategic. It sounds like a Grimm-esque old folk's tale that uses curses, birds and kisses to convey the deeply unsettling lesson. The violent imagery of the dead birds and spilled blood might remind us of Only the Brave, with all its fires, falls and graves, which is also a song that, unsurprisingly, matches this one. It's the same furious sadness that fuelled both songs. Anger at being a bird in a cage, told to sing, and having your beak broken the moment you dare to speak your mind. Anger at being made into a carbon copy of some heteronormative money-making success. Anger at almost losing your heart to a ruthless industry where being selfish gets you the furthest.

The song does build up to a note of warmth, where Louis offers the young man he's singing to the solace that he's not alone, and never will be (despite that message also being a bitter one, since that means the industry and its toxic practices will never change). There's no way to change what's been done or what's still being done to us, so all we can really do is stick together. Find our nook.

Obviously, though, there is no implication of a happy ending. The only bit of that is caught in the "you're not the only one", but how does Louis suggest you go on? Is the only way really to conform to the industry's rules and expectations, to not fight back bc it costs you too much? More than anything, I think this is Louis not backing down and stating very clearly that there is no solace to be found in the way it is right now, besides sticking together with the ones who are in the same boat. He doesn't want to twist the story into something positive, in the end, because it isn't. "A kiss won't bring it back", this is not a fucking fairytale. He will stay furious until shit changes, and his hopes aren't very high for that.

The fact that he made this song, though, means he wants to achieve something with it. There is the will to fight for that change. He wants people to listen to his story. He's fighting against the cage by describing life inside of it. It's a signal to those who know that shit's still shit, and it's a way to get even more people up to speed with how the course of history is actually running. All we can do is hope that there will be change, and that Louis's life and career take a turn in a direction that he fully chose himself. That the cage is open and he's free to fly.

[citylightsbooks]

A Women’s History of City Lights: Interview with Nancy J. Peters

We'll be celebrating Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s 102nd birthday on March 24, and what better way to remember his legacy AND to mark Women’s History Month, than to honor Nancy J. Peters, Lawrence’s business partner, friend, and longtime comrade at City Lights Books. While Ferlinghetti certainly deserves all of the accolades he’s received, the fact of the matter is there would literally be no City Lights without Nancy Peters. Beyond shepherding City Lights through various fiscal crises and providing the steady anchor that allowed Ferlinghetti to travel the world as a poet and activist, Nancy's vision as an editor and acumen as a publisher were a vital key to the success and longevity of City Lights Publishers.

 ***

City Lights: How did you come to know what City Lights was? How did you meet Lawrence Ferlinghetti?

Nancy Peters: In Greece in the early 1960s, I became friends with Nanos Valaoritis and Marie Wilson who were at the center of an international bohemian/surrealist community. They had a large home which was always full of traveling writers and artists whom they made welcome. The Beat writers were among their guests, and City Lights was frequently talked about as a place everyone would meet up someday. I met Philip Lamantia there and in 1965 he introduced me to Lawrence in Paris at one of Jean-Jacque Lebel’s anarcho-surrealist festivals of free expression.  Before a riotous crowd Lawrence gave a show-stopping rendition of his “Lord’s Prayer.” I was impressed by his powerful stage presence. Later that year, when Philip and I were living in Andalusia, Lawrence wrote Philip, asking for a selection of poems for a Pocket Poets Series volume. We corresponded some while we were putting the book together, but I didn’t see him again until 1971 when I moved to San Francisco.

I’d been working as an executive-trainee librarian at the Library of Congress in the fall of 1968. In April, Martin Luther King was assassinated and the impassioned protests that ensued left Washington neighborhoods in ruins. There was shockingly little assistance to residents from the government and my part of the city was under military surveillance, helicopters hovering over my apartment through the night. A Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam took place in Washington the following year. Over 750,000 people peacefully demonstrated. In a small way, I was involved in the planning and, during the protests, my apartment was crammed with fellow activists.

The Library of Congress was an amazing, fascinating place with compatible co-workers from all over the world—thousands of book people all in one place. However, the mission of the Library is to serve Congress, and the institution was a huge conservative bureaucracy serving a conservative and ineffective Congress as I saw it. I believed that if I stayed there I would have little contact with actual books or opportunities for civic activism.

So I moved to San Francisco, where Philip was living and urging me to come, and spent an enormous amount of time at City Lights while I was job hunting. It seemed like paradise, such a stimulating atmosphere where people could sit down to read, share ideas, and have conversations about books, politics, art. One day in early 1971 when I was walking down the street in North Beach, Lawrence hailed me and asked if I would like to help him with a bibliography of Allen Ginsberg’s writings.  After just a brief meeting at the publishing office, Lawrence went to Europe and his editorial assistant Jan Herman suddenly decided to move to Germany. Jan showed me how all the editorial work was done in the office, told me Lawrence “wouldn’t mind,” and so I found myself beginning an exciting new career in publishing.

 What was your experience taking over as executive director and co-owner in 1984?

The store back then employed seven people: six men at the bookstore and one (me) at the publishing branch. So “executive director” is far too grand a title. City Lights was a small, failing organization by 1982. The store was not founded to make profits for the owners and it never did make a profit. Breaking even was the goal. But every year the losses mounted and there came a time when there were very few books left on the shelves. No one had seen a customer venture downstairs to the lower part of the store for many months.  

At the time, Lawrence was immensely popular and in great demand as a performer and a speaker, so he was traveling much of the time, visiting foreign colleagues, living abroad, finding new writers to translate. At this low point in the store’s history Lawrence told me in a frustrated moment that if I’d like to own City Lights, he would give it to me outright if I would run the business, freeing him to do all the other things he wanted to do. I declined, but told him I would be honored to be his partner. Theft was seriously addressed, and a protracted payment plan was agreed to by Book People, the East Bay employee-owned distributors who extended us credit for a generous period. Savvy booksellers Richard Berman and Paul Yamazaki headed the re-stocking plan. The three of us would go every week to Book People and Lou Swift Distributors to collect enough books to sell the following week. As time went on, everybody at the store consulted book catalogs and took on the responsibility for buying subject sections. I envisioned a participatory structure. If not a co-op, I wanted a bookstore where all the staff had responsibilities and power.

Why the decision not to have multiple bookstore locations around SF?

At one time we seriously considered additional locations. We explored sites in San Francisco’s Mission district and visited city officials in San Jose to talk about a second store there. But our resources were limited, and we were concerned about the time and money that would be required to create a sister store that would embody the same spirit and ethic as the original. During my time as director, the evolving challenges from chain stores and especially Amazon made beginning a new store a very risky enterprise. In retrospect, so many independents were closing that we decided to invest in our present, iconic location. In retrospect I think it was a good decision after watching attempts by other stores fail to duplicate their success elsewhere.

How has North Beach changed, how has it stayed the same? With the exodus of Big Tech and falling rents, how do you think that will affect North Beach and San Francisco in general in the future? Will there be “a rebirth of wonder”?

North Beach when I came to SF was a small bohemian village, where neighbors shared meals on their flat rooftops watching the sun set over the Bay. My rent was $125 a month, cheap even then. City Lights and the Discovery Bookstore (used books) next door to Vesuvio were key places to spend an evening. Two large Italian grocers delivered (no charge) bags of groceries up four flights of stairs to my apartment. The neighborhood was full of inexpensive Basque, Italian, and Chinese restaurants, and many cafes, many of which seemed unchanged since the 19th century. Change happens, and City Lights is well prepared for the future. It’s never easy to predict how things will develop, but the feeling of a lovely Mediterranean town persists, with the wooden buildings painted pastel colors, and the shimmering sea light on misty days. I feel certain that the light of City Lights will prevail for a long time to come.

 Do you feel that your gender had any impact on your experience during your 23 years as director? Do you have any comments about women in bookselling or publishing in general?

Gender always has an impact. The Beat movement was certainly male focused. Even though the undaunted Diane di Prima was recognized, she was never enthusiastically supported by the inner nucleus of Beat poets. It was a long time before the Beat women came into their own. From the start, Lawrence, who insisted he wasn’t a Beat, had eclectic tastes and was open to women’s poetry. He admired Marianne Moore and Edna St. Vincent Millay as much as he did T.S. Eliot, Jacques Prévert, and Allen Ginsberg. In the Pocket Poets Series, he’d published di Prima and, very early in the series, both Marie Ponsot and Denise Levertov.

Women’s rights and opportunities are always vulnerable and cyclic. The Women’s Movement of the 1970s was very powerful and widespread, its impact on women’s lives enormous. At City Lights we hired more women; we published more women. There have always been outstanding women in publishing and bookselling, and during that time increasingly more women writers were published, reviewed, and were given accolades and awards. Women opened general bookstores and women’s bookstores, founded feminist and lesbian presses. It was a thrilling development, to see so many marginalized writers, and not just women, finding established publishers or creating their own presses. Together they created a larger, much more diverse national literature.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with many talented women at the bookstore. And in the publishing branch: Stella Levy, Kim McCloud, and Patricia Fujii. Gail Chiarello collected and edited our bestselling Bukowski stories. Annie Janowitz proposed the timely Unamerican Activities, and Amy Scholder brought us classics by Karen Finley, Rebecca Brown, and others. I’m happy to say that Amy Scholder is again working with City Lights as an editor.

When did you meet the now current publisher and executive director Elaine Katzenberger? What was her position at the bookstore? When did you know that she was the right person to take over as director?

Ah, Elaine, the woman who can do everything! Elaine began at the bookstore sales counter, then reorganized files and the store accounts, and very soon excelled as a book buyer. She had a great feeling for good writing, so I asked her to become an editor and she immediately began adding excellent books to City Lights’ list. She’s smart, witty, multitalented, and politically astute. We are very lucky to have her at the helm.

What is your understanding or vision of what of City Lights is and what it could be? How has Lawrence’s passing impacted this?

Lawrence’s democratic inclusiveness made him the best-selling poet in the U.S. His moral principles, his courage and resilience are a model to be emulated. He conceived City Lights as an educational institution that would open minds to explore and relate to the world through books. “One guy told me he’d got the equivalent of a Ph. D just sitting in the basement reading all our great books,” he often reminded us.

His “literary gathering place” was to be a fulcrum of San Francisco cultural experience, where our bookselling and publishing could amplify the voices of diverse experiences, connect with other creative communities, and serve as a center of dissent and, at the same time, a force for creating a better society.

Lawrence’s vision will continue to be our guiding light. An optimistic realist, he believed that City Lights would long endure as the co-creation of all the dedicated people who work here and make it what it is.

[ginzyblog]

• Blind Curse By SImon J. Ortiz • You could drive blind for those two seconds and they would be forever. I think that as a diesel truck passes us eight miles east of Mission. Churning through the storm, heedless of the hill sliding away. There isn’t much use to curse but I do. Words fly away, tumbling invisibly toward the unseen point where the prairie and sky meet. The road is like that in those seconds, nothing but the blind white side of creation.  You’re there somewhere, a tiny struggling cell. You just might be significant but you might not be anything. Forever is a space of split time from which to recover after the mass passes. My curse flies out there somewhere, and then I send my prayer into the wake of the diesel truck headed for Sioux Falls one hundred and eighty miles through the storm. Simon Ortiz, “Blind Curse” from After and Before the Lightning (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1994). Copyright © 1994 by Simon Ortiz. • Acoma Pueblo poet Simon Ortiz,  Boulder Colorado,  July 1985 (photo: Allen Ginsberg, courtesy Stanford University Libraries/Allen Ginsberg Estate) #simonortiz  #naropauniversity #kerouacschool #bouldercolorado #AcomaPueblo #allenginsberg #poetrycommunity #nativeamericanrenaissance #fromsandcreek #simonjortiz #indigeneous #nativeamericanoraltraditions (at Boulder, Colorado) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPG-etRhoH4/?utm_medium=tumblr

[the-moldy-sunflower]

Day 1 Prompt: It’s pointless to count the stars

It’s pointless to count the stars. It’s also pointless to count freckles, but I know that she has 24 on the bridge of her nose. I know that her auburn hair smells like strawberries and she only paints her toenails black. I know that her favorite book is an Allen Ginsberg anthology she found at a yard sale.

I know that right now she is pacing the floor between her closet and the foot of her bed, brow furrowed and lower lip trapped between crooked teeth. She’ll cross the room and find her reflection in the mirror, staring at her features, trying to understand how it is that anyone could feel about her the way I do.

My words to her are bouncing off the walls in the room and in her mind. She can close her eyes and feel the sting of the winter air on her face as I pulled her close and told her the truth once and for all.

“I am wholly and irrevocably in love with you. Can’t you see that?” I shouted at her, making her eyes go big. She reached up and wiped her nose with the back of her wind-beaten hand. I softened my voice. “I don’t know how or when, but I do know why. Shit, I could go on for hours explaining why. I could write books-no, encyclopedias describing all the magnificent parts of you that have me completely hooked.”

“But-”

“But I won’t do that now,” I interrupted. It isn’t like me to interrupt her. After all, I have always valued her thoughts, felt privileged that she would want to share them with me. But at that moment, I realized I might have waited too long. I needed her to know before it was too late. “I won’t go into detail about every little thing now. I plan on using the rest of my life to prove to you that you are worth more than you could ever know. I plan on proving that I am worthy of you, even though I could never possibly feel like what you deserve. I’ve seen you when you feel worthless, Maggie. And I have made it my mission to make sure you never feel that way a-”

Then she kissed me. In her defense, I was a babbling mess. It really was the only thing that could have shut me up. My eyes were watering from the cold January air and the release of the words I had waited too long to say. She just grabbed my face and slammed her lips into mine. I put my hands on her arms and pulled away, looking down at her, sure that I would find she had only been a figment of my imagination, that I would pull away and she would be gone. But there she was, looking up at me with glowing green eyes, separated by a grove of freckles and framed by soft, sweeping curls. I slid my hands around her waist and pulled her onto her toes, kissing her the way I had wanted to kiss her for 2 years. 

So we stood there, in the yellow glow of my truck’s headlights, my arms wrapped around her, her hands still clutching my face. The kiss was tender, but the great longing we both felt was palpable. It was as if all the other opportunities we would have to kiss each other didn’t matter. As if all we had was that moment in that parking lot. As if we were the only people in existence. 

I don’t know who pulled away first, but it probably wasn’t me. We stared at each other for a moment, practically humming with anticipation. I waited for her to say something, but the words never came. She touched my arm and looked at me with a sad smile. Then she walked away.

Which brings us to me, sitting in my rusty old Dodge, still in that parking lot, thinking about all the constellations I could make with her freckles; thinking about how her hair would feel brushing against my face as she sleeps tucked into the crook of my arm, in which she fits perfectly. Anything to keep myself from imagining how it felt to have her lips on mine, how her bare skin would feel pressed against mine. 

I know I’m in front of her apartment building, but I can’t remember how I got here, can’t remember the click of my seatbelt or the rattle of the Dodge’s heat blasting to counteract the cold. I don’t remember buzzing her apartment, nor can I remember the ring of the door as I was let in. 

I just know that I am standing in front of apartment 325 but I can’t bring myself to knock. I know that her not opening the door would shatter me. I would fall into a thousand pieces onto her doormat and she would have to sweep me up and toss me down the garbage chute. But the door is opening now, and suddenly she is standing in front of me. Her eyes are puffy and red and her hair is tousled and gathered into a chaotic knot on the top of her head and her cheeks are wet and she’s wearing stained pajamas and mismatched socks and she is beautiful. I want to gather her into my arms and tell her I love her a hundred more times. I open my mouth to say this but she is the one to cut me off this time. She pulls me inside and shuts the door. 

“Mags…”

“Just, give me a second.” She mutters, “Please.” She is facing the closed door, her hand still gripping the knob, her back to me and her head down. Her head lifts abruptly and before I can blink, she’s crossed the few feet between us and looks up at me again. Her face is contorted in confusion, brows furrowed in thought. She opens her mouth to speak, but shuts it quickly and looks away. I lift my hand to grip her chin, bringing her gaze back to me.

“Say everything you are thinking. Even if you don’t think I’ll like it.” I say, more sternly than I mean to. The uncharacteristic tone surprises her and she lifts her eyebrows, staring at me.

“Why?” she asks.

“I already told you, I could go on for days. Mostly your heart. You have this heart that just gives and gives and gives. You’ve been broken time and time again and I’ve watched you glue yourself back together time again and again. I think about you feeling anything but pure bliss and I feel sick. I want to give you all of me forever, because you have always given all of yourself. And-why are you smirking at me?”

“I meant ‘why’ as in, why the fuck did you wait so long?” She grins. Then, she is in my arms. I am lifting her up as her arms wrap around my neck and I bring my lips to hers. She runs her fingers through my hair and pulls away, moving her mouth to my cheek, then my neck, then my ear. Even though we are the only people in her tiny apartment, she whispers in an impossibly soft voice. “I love you too.” She unwraps her legs from where they’ve been wrapped around me and I slowly and carefully lower her down. I don’t let my hands falter from their place on her hips, and still she clutches my face in her hands. I bring my forehead down to meet hers, wrapping my hand around the nape of her neck, and crack a small, content smile. 

“It’s pointless to count the stars, but if you asked me to, I would spend the rest of my life tallying them for you.”

[lady-divine-writes]

Insecure

When gaggles of women start flooding his shop on their lunch hours just to gawk at his sexy husband, Aziraphale begins to succumb to the new doubts and fears that come as a result of going native.

Luckily, Crowley has a cure for that. (2260 words)

(AO3)

Aziraphale has noticed a disturbing trend in the customers who come into his shop lately. No longer do they seem to be interested in purchasing one of his many immaculate and prized first editions (thank God), but, instead, they come to gawk at his husband, who spends a great deal of his time draped over a chair in the corner reading. Or pretending to read. He’s mostly there to annoy Aziraphale – make suggestive remarks when the angel bends over, persuade him take long lunches and close up early, rearrange the books by random indicators like whether there’s an animal featured on the cover or not, the author’s hair color, or their perceived sexual orientation. Since Aziraphale can’t afford to waste miracles, that means he has to spend all day reorganizing his shelves.

Or leave them as is, which is Crowley’s aim really.

But the gaggle of teenaged girls who come in before and after school, and the business women who stop by on their lunch hour, annoy him more.

He’s tried to juggle his times of operation to avoid them – open later, close earlier, take off Mondays. But they don’t seem to mind being late to where they’re going just to catch a glimpse of his demon.

And it’s beginning to wear on him.

Crowley doesn’t seem to notice the attention. Aziraphale brought it up to him once over lunch, asking how it felt to be objectified by the female clientele that his presence has been attracting day after day after day (in part because he was irritated and in part because he was genuinely curious), to which Crowley said, “You’ve been getting customers? When was that? Last week?”

Since Aziraphale can usually tell when Crowley is lying, and he wasn’t this time around, that was the end of that discussion.  

But this influx of admirers has begun to spotlight certain doubts in Aziraphale’s mind that have been hiding there for some time.

Do they belong together? Are they really a match?

He’s not even talking about the angel/demon dynamic. A lot of people would say that opposites attract and well, you can’t get much more opposite than good and evil.

Then again, they’ve come to discover that Crowley isn’t completely evil, and Aziraphale isn’t necessarily 100% good.

And that’s part of the point.

So many things have changed for Aziraphale lately, ever since he and his demon became husbands. Changes in life, changes in his shop … changes in him. Inadequacies, doubts, fears, no longer simply about himself or his job efficiency as an angel, but about this relationship – a relationship that had been a constant in his existence, one he didn’t have to think too hard on or worry too much about. Perhaps it’s a side-effect of going native, but being married to a sexy demon on a planet that values youth and beauty over wit and intelligence makes him question a lot of things, things he hadn’t thought to question for all the years they’d been friends.

If Aziraphale has begun to notice these things, will Crowley begin to notice them, too?

Will they become important to him?

Crowley is a demon, bound (for the most part) by demonic rules. When one takes into account the seven deadly sins - a page straight out of the demon playbook - technically, they already should be.

The door to the shop opens and a new wave of women walks through. Aziraphale rolls his eyes mentally but confronts them with a smile. He walks straight up to them, effectively blocking their way further than the counter unless they admit to wanting a book, which, at this point, he may just be willing to sell them if it means they leave without the requisite drooling over his husband.

“Good morning! May I help you young ladies?”

The three of them do their best to get around him, but with the only entrance into the belly of the shop being the narrow aisle behind him, it would be impossible to do without shoving him to the side.

Which one lady in a houndstooth jacket and blonde bob looks fully prepared to do.

They try to peek over him but to no avail as the chair his husband lounges on has been moved out of sight of the door. All three women deflate when they realize their trip to this otherwise dull and dusty little shop has all been for naught, and they sigh in unison.

“Uh … no. No, we’re … okay,” one of them says, and they turn and leave the shop, grumbling about the pudgy old troll popping out from under his bridge to ruin their fun.

The door slams shut and Aziraphale sighs, returning to his task of restocking the shelves.

“Now what was all that about?” Crowley asks, coming up behind his angel, having caught the final few seconds of that unfortunate interaction.

“Nothing,” Aziraphale replies, doing his best to try and smile as he tosses books onto shelves, barely paying mind to where they belong.

“Is that so?” Crowley rescues the next book, which had missed the shelf, before it lands on the floor. “The way you’re abusing these poor books, it doesn’t seem like nothing. What has …” He glances at the cover of the one he’s holding before sliding it into its place on the shelf “… Allen Ginsberg ever done to you?”

Aziraphale stops. Full stops. Stops stocking the shelves, stops smiling, stops trying to pretend. In the grand scheme of the universe and God’s ineffable plan, Aziraphale’s problems seem shallow and petty. But they are his problems, and right now, they’re bowing his back, weighing his shoulders down.

“Why did you ask me to marry you, Crowley?” he asks, staring down at his husband’s snakeskin shoes and hugging the remaining three books to his chest.

Crowley smirks since he knows full well his husband can’t see. “Well, it was about flippin’ time, wasn’t it?”

Aziraphale’s head snaps up, his eyes, full of angelic fire, meeting Crowley’s behind his dark glasses. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But Crowley doesn’t fear that fire. He welcomes it.

“It means I’ve loved you forever, Aziraphale. And the second I got my head out of my arse and figured it out, I wanted to make it official.”

Aziraphale nods and goes back to the task of examining his husband’s shoes. Crowley takes the books out of Aziraphale’s hands and places them on the shelf so he can wrap his husband up in his arms.

“Tell me. What’s this really all about, hmm? Does it have anything to do with that wench that called you a troll?”

“Don’t say that. I’m sure she’s a perfectly nice young woman, all things considered,” Aziraphale murmurs, not sounding all that convincing.

“Well, she’s a perfectly nice young woman who just dropped her lunch, missed her bus connection, and now has a huge runner in her stockings, so hopefully that makes your day a little bit better.”

Aziraphale smiles softly into the fabric of his husband’s shirt. “No. But I thank you for the effort.”

“What do you care what these mortals think of you?” Crowley squeezes his husband tight, hoping for a giggle. “You’re an angel! You’re Mr. Holier-than-thou! You perform miracles! You fight for the greater good! You’re not concerned with those things, right?”

“No.” Aziraphale clears his throat and straightens his back in an attempt to pull himself up from his bog of self-pity. “Not at all. At least … I wasn’t. I don’t know. This new life of ours … it’s doing things to me.”

“Well, I should hope so,” Crowley growls.

This time, Aziraphale does giggle. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Look …” Crowley leans back a few inches to look into his angel’s eyes “… you chose your human form, right?”

Aziraphale’s head bobs left to right, giving that some thought. “More or less. There were parameters.”

“And if there was something you didn’t like about it, you could change it?”

“I guess.”

“So, why haven’t you? I’ll tell you why. Because deep down inside, you like yourself just the way you are. You like your face because it’s kind. And you don’t mind the shape of your body because you feel your favorite clothes suit you. You’ve never had a single negative thought about yourself that wasn’t put into your head by someone else. You love yourself. And so do I. Because you’re not your body, Aziraphale. You’re your heart and your soul and your mind. You also happen to be one hell of a, as they say, bad ass.”

“Really?” Aziraphale says with a bitter little hiccup. “And how do you figure that?”

“Aziraphale! You wield a flaming sword! You stood in front of Satan himself, ready to defend the world! Humans who walk into this shop every day should genuflect and worship you.”

“That would fall under the category of false idols, so that’s a no-no.”

“Plus - and this is a huge plus - you’re the only being I know who’s looked Beelzebub in the face and asked for a rubber duck! Do you think there’s anyone else on this measly little planet that even compares to you? Because, to be honest, if there were, that would be terrifying!”

Aziraphale rests his head against his husband’s chest, melting into his words of praise. He’d never considered any of that, which proves how native he’s actually become. Humans, he’s noticed, do the same thing. What do degrees and accolades and charitable works matter so long as you’re aesthetically pleasing to any and all sexes? But he can’t allow his husband to lead him into the sin of pride. He knows Crowley isn’t trying to tempt him. He’s being supportive.

But as a demon, leading Aziraphale astray would fall under the umbrella of an occupational hazard.

“Would it make you feel better if I made a few alterations to my form?” Crowley asks. “Give myself a bit of a pooch? Perhaps a double chin?”

“No! I know how much you like the form you’re in. I know that you’re afraid to lose it. I don’t want you to go changing yourself for me.”

“Now that’s funny, because I feel exactly the same way about you.”

The clock on the wall strikes the hour and Crowley looks up. Through the window, he sees another wave of women heading for the shop, huddled together as if they’re embarking on a secret quest. “Do you really want to stop those women from coming in here all the time?”

“Not that I’m purposefully trying to drive away business …”

“Of course not.”

“… but it would be nice.”

Crowley pinches his angel’s chin and gives him a wink. “I’ll handle it.”

The bell over the door tinkles as it swings open. This time, instead of the shop’s portly proprietor greeting its customers, the tall, slender man they’ve been coming to see – the one who fills out a tight fitting shirt and black jeans like no one else in the world - does, and they’re instantly delighted. Their collective eyes brighten when they see that the object of their lustful gazes has finally risen out of his chair, and is now standing in front of them to see.

“Hello, ladies,” Crowley says to the obnoxious tittering of all, and Aziraphale shakes his head. How this is supposed to keep the birds out of the roost, he had no idea. This will probably make them stop by more.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“We didn’t realize you worked here,” one woman says, her eyes glowing with the possibilities.

“Ah, yes, yes. Alas, I do. Is there anything you ladies need? Something to tickle your literary taste buds?” Crowley meets them glasses to eyes, flashing the most charming smile he can conjure. “Some Shakespeare, a little Whitman … some Wilde, perhaps?”

“Why, yes,” one brave woman dares, taking Crowley in from head to toe, not even being subtle about it when her whole head moves, which makes the smiling brood beside her titter even more. “As a matter of fact, there is.”

“Well, well, well. One second and my husband will help you.”

It takes a moment for those words to hit, but the fallout is precious.

First comes the silence, then the confusion, followed by the disbelief.

“Husband?” Aziraphale hears one of the women say before Crowley grabs him around the waist, pulls him against him, and kisses him hard.

The gasp from their lips is positively delicious. Aziraphale would guffaw if not for his husband’s mouth on his, his serpent tongue slipping between his lips and giving him the most inappropriate things to think about in public. By the time Crowley lets his husband come up for air, the women are gone – vanished as if in a puff of smoke since Aziraphale never heard the bells over the door ring to announce their departure.

Of course, that could be because of the thoughts his husband had been projecting into his mind using a soupçon of his demonic power.

His sexy serpent has one vivid imagination.

“So, that’s the solution you came up with?” Aziraphale fixes his vest, tugging at the hem, pretending to act scandalized by the whole process even though the smile he can’t suppress begs to differ.

“Yup. I’d say it worked a treat, too. Besides, the best part about it is …” He slaps his husband playfully on the ass before he finishes “… we get to do that again for every lot that comes in.”

[jaimehqs]

Did you see the moving van outside? It looks like there is a new resident moving in. There’s a new name on the resident directory and it’s JAMES ‘JAIME’ CARMICHAEL. They are a 34 year old PEDIATRIC NEUROSURGEON (CURRENTLY IN FELLOWSHIP) and they seem quite cool. Well, they come across as someone who is COMPASSIONATE, RECLUSIVE & DEMURE but they can also be VERBOSE, WORKAHOLIC & STUBBORN.

TRIGGERS

as a disclaimer, below you will find triggering content, chief among them is CHILD NEGLECT and MENTIONS OF WORKING IN A HOSPITAL. my overall trigger warning tag to blacklist which will be used on ALL of my tw posts will be: hey don't look at this, but i will be tagging specific tags too.

                 PSA: if you’re interested, please check out my CONNECTIONS page !

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: james alexander malcolm carmichael

NICKNAME(S): doesn’t particularly mind his birth name, but at times people have often called him jaime.

BIRTH DATE: september 25, 1986

AGE: thirty-four

ZODIAC: libra

GENDER: cismale

PRONOUNS: he/him

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: panromantic

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: demisexual (  it isn’t so much so that cris is completely disinterested in sex (he’s got a perfectly good libido, thank you very much), he just doesn’t find himself sexually attracted to people based on physical appearance or initial impressions. instead he finds personality, intellect, and existing emotional attachment considerably more compelling )

NATIONALITY: british

ETHNICITY: english, dutch-german jewish

OCCUPATION: pediatric neurosurgeon ( currently in his fellowship program )

POSTIVE TRAITS: independent, versatile, adaptable, curious, inquisitive, intelligent, divergent thinker, anti-authoritarian, self-actualizer, flexible, original, ambitious, charismatic, creative, loyal, thoughtful, warm-hearted, respectable, compassionate

NEGATIVE TRAITS: stubborn, unconventional, uncooperative, assertive, cynical, temperamental, withdrawn, restless, insecure, jealous, intolerant, naïve, impatient

BACKGROUND

BIRTH PLACE: england, united kingdom

HOMETOWN: oxford, england

EDUCATION LEVEL: went to university of oxford and majored in human physiology, went to medical school at ucl for 4 years, did residency for 7 years, and now is currently in last few months of pediatric neurosurgeon fellowship program

FATHER: william carmichael

MOTHER: diana carmichael

SIBLING(S): two older brothers and one older sister: nathaniel, matthew, and sarah

CHILDREN: none

PET(S): female ragdoll call named ginsberg ( yes, she’s named after allen ginsberg )

OTHER IMPORTANT RELATIVES: cecelia and grant ( grandparents on mom’s side )

PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS: 2 serious romantic relationships in the past

BACKSTORY

— TRIGGER WARNING BEGINS —

- when someone hears the name carmichael, they automatically think of words like prestigious, wealthy, and perfect. and who wouldn’t? with the father being a lawyer and mother owning her own real estate business, you had to think like that. in the public eye the carmichael family was flawless. everyone wanted what they had. jaime carmichael, was born into a world where perfection was of the utmost importance. the carmichael family is one of those prestigious families that has always been full of wealthy and high-class snobs, and jaime’s parents were no exception. he grew up learning how to be charming and how to be well behaved. jaime’s childhood years consisted of him sitting restlessly at various fancy parties and dinners, while his mother kept him from all the fancy treats so that he would grow up to be fit and strong. jaime’s parents were always cold and emotionally isolated from him, only after a perfect son to show off to the world. 

- as a young, restless little child, jaime sought escape from his shallow, chilly life in the form of a friend. his friend taught him that there was such a thing as warmth and friendliness, told him lots of stories of greek mythology, and he learned that his parents had been lying about “tactless individuals” being horrible people. however, when his father found out about his associations with his friend, within a week, the boy mysteriously disappeared. since then, jaime kept all his unapproved-of friends to himself except from his grandparents on his mom's side who loved him unconditionally and were his best friends.

— TRIGGER WARNING ENDS —

 - jaime is the youngest child of the 4 carmichael children & although there are age gaps between him and his siblings he doesn’t feel as though he’s the stereotypical ‘forgotten child’. this reason is solely base off the fact he typically makes himself scarce anyway to go off to do his own thing lmfao. 

- for most of his adolescents up until adulthood, jaime always has had a rather tranquil personality. he never was one to act on emotion or impulsiveness, which meant most of his time he was seen in the his father's den reading about art history, helping his mother around, etc instead of learning the family business like his other siblings. it never personally interested him, so he never thought to pay much attention.

 - because of his serene behavior, also came the fact that he’s mostly reclusive and demure, too. one would think being of carmichael blood would mean one would act diplomatic in all situations, but not for jaime. when given the chance, he will most likely be in the back listening rather than participating unless addressed, making him a great observer of his surroundings because of this skill. he prides himself on being a great listener in important situations even if people may believe he’s not particularly interested. 

- a lot of people have come to believe over the years that because of his reclusive personality, he must be unapproachable.

 - which he would clearly tell anyone that rumor is further from the truth. it’s not that he’s unapproachable, per se, it’s more of the fact he doesn’t typically go up to people to spark conversation unless it’s for work or art related means. otherwise, his conversational skills are subpar at best and he doesn’t mind much.

 - as unfortunate as people’s misconceptions are when people do have the courage to approach him, they’re always surprised he’s rather civil, zen, and all around friendly and not at all like the rumors make him out to be. he always has to laugh at those kinds of things, of course. 

- but besides that, he’s also witty and sarcastic. he likes to crack jokes and puns ever so often, even though he can have pretty dry humor at times. his sarcastic remarks are never meant to be harsh, but because of his dry humor undertones, he can sometimes come off rather offensive.

 - although jaime has patience, he’s still a carmichael through and through, which he will not let anyone forget. he is unafraid to stand up for himself when he feels he’s in the right–or at least, attempt to do so. and although he strives to contain his zen aura, he can fall into fits of frustration and annoyance quite often when his family are involved ( which happens to be quite often ). 

- jaime doesn’t care to raise his voice or scream his head off when he’s upset, because frankly, he doesn’t see that as a reason to make his point come across effectively. but when he does become upset, his silence speaks louder than any person’s words could muster. it’s actually quite scary how the atmosphere around him drastically changes when he becomes angry. in simple terms, he’s somewhat like a praying mantis in the ways he becomes very still & silent. one look can be a 1,000 words unsaid. if he’s upset at you, his silence will cut deeper than anything. 

- importantly, jaime’s romantic sexuality is panromantic, meaning he would pursue both sexes and beyond romantically. when it comes to developing a far more intimate relationship, however, jaime is demisexual. meaning it is not so much so that he is completely disinterested in sex ( he’s got a perfectly good libido, thank you very much ), he just doesn’t find himself sexually attracted to people based on physical appearance or initial impressions. instead he finds personality, intellect, and existing emotional attachment considerably more compelling.

 - although he often makes himself scarce when it comes to familial ties, jaime is fiercely protective and loyal to his family. no one will ever come between him and his family. 

- he was born and raised in oxford, england. 

- when he graduated from secondary school, he pursued a higher education by going to university of oxford. in the beginning, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to major in. the possibilities were endless, of course, but he wanted to pursue something he loved and also make a decent living on his own two feet when he graduated. at first, he thought he would be interested in something to do with the arts, but that dream died rather quickly when he rationalized how he didn’t want to make his passion for art into a full-time job that he would come to quickly hate in a few years. so, after some thought, he weighed his options and fell into step with human physiology. he always believed he had an eye for helping people and it was also a perfect career to fall into when it came to making a really great income. from there he studied his ass off by finishing university in 4 years, went to med school at ucl medical school, did his residency in 7 years, and is currently in his last few months of his pediatric neurosurgeon fellowship program. 

- to put it plan and simple jaime is an art ho. jaime always loved anything artistic. even when he was little, he would go around with his disposable camera and take pictures of everything and then take to paper to draw the things he had taken pictures of as well. 

- he’s like a hippie dippy child of the universe. no joke. no seriously, his place at home is full of sensual shit and art. it’s getting out of hand and somebody needs to stop him soon. 

- he strongly believes that art is an umbrella term that relates to expressing oneself ( not just through photography and painting ) and that everyone has the freedom to express themselves however they please. because of his beliefs, he chooses to break gender roles like bread and wears whatever the fuck he wants because yolo. 

- his appearance pretty much represents his hippie dippy lifestyle with him wearing all sorts of cute hipster shit. he’s clothes are v flow-y but don’t let that fool you. he doesn’t miss the opportunity to represent his upper-middle class within his style, so he does dress to impress, let me tell you ( he’s a fashion ho too ). his hair color changes sometimes too depending on his mood but it’s generally never too eccentric.

5 RANDOM FACTS

1. to put it plan and simple jaime is an art ho. jaime always loved anything artistic. even when he was little, he would go around with his disposable camera and take pictures of everything and then take to paper to draw of all the things he had taken pictures of as well.

2. he’s like a hippie dippy child of the universe. no joke. no seriously, his place at home is full of sensual shit and art. it’s getting out of hand and somebody needs stop him soon. he strongly believes that art is an umbrella term that relates to expressing of oneself ( not just through photography and painting ) and that everyone has the freedom to express themselves however they please. because of his beliefs, he chooses to break gender roles like bread and wears whatever the fuck he wants because yolo.

3. has a female ragroll cat named ginsberg. he named her after allen ginsberg because he’s obsessed with the dead poets society and sometimes deems himself as a member.

4. sometimes when he’s nervous, he will tap his leg pretty quickly.

5. jaime is never one to get drunk ever. he’s usually the one to always babysit the drunk ones ( he’s the honorary dad friend ), but he thought one day he would have a little solo party in his apartment on the one saturday night he had off and watch the lizzie mcguire movie for nostalgia purposes. long story short, he eventually ended up drunk on wine and recorded a whole music video of myself dancing to the ‘what dreams are made of’ song. let’s just say that video recording will never see the light of day.

OCCUPATION & INCOME

PRIMARY SOURCE OF INCOME: being a pediatric neurosurgeon.

SECONDARY SOURCE OF INCOME: when he has the time, he’ll usually do photography and/or art commissions. but it’s mostly only as a hobby and when he feels like it.

CONTENT WITH THEIR JOB (OR LACK THERE OF)?: it’s a tiring job, but well worth it.

PAST JOB(S): during high school, he used to help his mom with her real estate business by handing out flyers and during med school, he would work as a tutor.

SPENDING HABITS: mostly he spends money on his hobbies such as photography and art supplies. he also spends spoiling his cat, too. if he’s really feeling like a ‘treat yo self’ moment, he’ll splurge on a designer outfit or a shit ton of food.

MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION: when he was about 10 years old, his grandmother gifted him a book on the history of art because she knew he had a passion for it. it’s a bit tattered and dog-eared but it’s well loved when it comes to looking for inspiration.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

TALENTS: painting, being ambidextrous, somehow waking up at the ass crack of dawn every morning.

LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: english, french, and a bit of korean.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

FACE CLAIM: ben barnes

EYE COLOR: deep brown. his eyes are as hickory as rich as the earth’s soil; stained with the color of hot chocolate on a cold winter night that wraps around you like a blanket; engulfs you in its warmth and makes you feel at home.

HAIR COLOR: warm brown. his hair is a lovely whisky, the color of fallen leaves browned and sleek with the first rain of autumn.

HAIR TYPE/STYLE: thick, full, and silky to the touch. shaved and shortened on the sides. primarily put into a curly contemporary quiff. sometimes grows out his hair to shoulder length and then puts it into a bun.

GLASSES/CONTACTS?: wears contacts and glasses.

DOMINANT HAND: technically both, but uses the right more.

HEIGHT: between 5′10-5′11.

EXERCISE HABITS: goes for a 2 hour run/jog every saturday morning, but let’s be real, he doesn’t exercise much lmao.

TATTOOS: currently doesn’t have any, but wants to get one someday.

PEIRCINGS: as a rebellious teenager, he once got his tongue pierced on a dare ( long story ), but ended up liking the look of it anyway ( he doesn’t wear it any longer but will sport it out once in while just for shock value ). he also has industrial piercing on his right ear and both lobes pierced.

MARKS/SCARS: probably? but nothing too big or noticeable.

NOTABLE FEATURES: has particularly long eyelashes.

USUAL EXPRESSION: neutral??? 

CLOTHING STYLE: light and flowy high fashion displayed throughout an extensive wardrobe, mixed with dark and elegant taste. commonly paired with rings of all sorts and simple necklaces.

JEWELRY: varies rings and necklaces.

ALLERGIES: none

DIET: predominately pescatarian.

PHYSICAL AILMENTS: none

PSYCHOLOGY

MORAL ALIGNMENT: true neutral and occasionally teetering on chaotic good.

TEMPERAMENT: delicate and unfaltering, never without a sense of poise. posture tall, a prominent feline sway in his walk – every move is calculated. appears very energetic and optimistic when first meeting, but has a very apollonian vibe once you get to know him well. very much of a flower child, as you will. he expresses his tranquility in his persona and actions.

MENTAL CONDITIONS/DISORDERS: generalized anxiety disorder.

OBSESSION(S): his cat, food, binge watching soap operas and sci-fi shows, baby yoda aka grogu, sleeping when he can.

COMPULSION(S): buying too much art supplies and home décor.

PHOBIA(S): coulrophobia ( fear of clowns ).

ADDICTION(S): none that he’s aware of.

DRUG USE: smoked weed once and thought he was gonna die. moral of the story, he never touched a drug again.

ALCOHOL USE: social drinker

MANNERISMS

SPEECH STYLE: can range from intimate, formal, to casual.

ACCENT: british

QUIRKS: refuses to hurt any animal, including insects, fights for human rights, belongs to a fan club, enjoys jokes with puns, has an obsession with a particular TV show, series, film, or franchise, gardens, is always reading, paints, takes pictures of everything, practices calligraphy, must drink coffee or tea to “wake up”, is “organized chaos”, loves to hug, taps foot when bored or nervous, sleeps during the day, always answers a question with a question, always answers a question with a question, goes off on tangents, is extremely sarcastic, 

HOBBIES: photography, painting, anything art related.

DO THEY CURSE OFTEN?: like a motherfucking sailor.

FAVOURITES

ACTIVITY: anything art related.

ANIMAL: cats, red pandas, ferrets.

BEVERAGE: tea or coffee.

BOOK: and then there was none by agatha christie

COLOR: blacks, greys, purples, mustard yellow.

DESIGNER: balenciaga and dior

FOOD: salmon or tilapia

FLOWER: sunflowers

HOLIDAY: halloween

MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: train or car

SCENT: vanilla or lavender

WEATHER: fall type atmosphere

[hemingwayiii]

Old Love Story

Some think the love of boys is wicked in the world, forlorn

Character corrupting, worthy mankind's scorn

Or eyes that weep and breasts that ache for lovely youth

Have no mouth to speak for mankind's general truth

Nor hands to work manhood's fullest delight

Nor hearts to make old women smile day and night

Nor arms to warm young girls to dream of love

Nor thighs to satisfy thighs, nor breath men can approve --

Yet think back to the time our epic world was new

When Gilgamesh followed the shade of his friend Enkidu

Into Limbo's dust to talk love man to man

So younger David enamored of young Jonathan

Wrote songs that women and men still chant for calm

Century after century under evergreen or palm

A love writ so sacred on our bible leaf

That heartfire warms cold milennial grief.

Same time Akilleos won the war at Troy

Grieving Patroklos' body, his dead warrior boy

(One nation won the world by reading Greek for this

And fell when Wilde was gaoled for his Bellboy's kiss)

Marvellous Zeus himself took lightning eagle shape

Down-cheeked Ganymede enjoyed God's thick-winged rape

And lived a youth forever, forever as can be,

Serving his nectar to the bearded deity

The whole world knew the story, the whole world laughed in awe

That such love could be the Thunder of immortal Law.

When Socrates climbed his ladder of love's degrees

He put his foot in silence on rough Alcibiades

Wise men still read Plato, whoever they are,

Plato whose love-lad Aster was his morning star

Plato whose love-lad was in death his star of Night

Which Shelly once witnessed as eternal light.

Catullus and tough Horace were slaves to glad young men

Loved them, cursed them, always fell in love again

Caesar conquered the world, top Emperor Power

Lay soft on the breast of his soldier of the hour

Even Jesus Christ loved his young John most

Later he showed him the whole Heavenly Host

Old Rome approved a beautiful bodied youth

Antinus Hadrian worshipped with Imperial Truth

Told in the calm gaze of his hundred stone

Statues standing fig-leafed in the Vatican.

Michelangelo lifted his young hand to smooth

The belly of his Bacchus, a sixteen-year youth

Whose prick stands up he's drunk, his eyes gaze side-

Ways to his right hand held up shoulder high

Waving a cup of grape, smart kid, his nose is sharp,

His lips are new, slightly opened as if parted to take a sip of purple

nakedness,

Taste Michelangelo's mortal-bearded kiss,

Or if a hair-hooved horny Satyr happens to pass

Fall to the ground on his strong little marble ass.

Michelangelo loved him! What young stud

Stood without trousers or shirt, maybe even did

What the creator wanted him to in bed

Lay still with the sculptor's hand cupped on his head

Feeling up his muscles, feeling down his bones

Palm down his back and thighs, touching his soft stones --

What kind of men were the Slaves he tied to his bed?

And who stood still for David naked foot to head?

But men love the muscles of David's abdomen

And come with their women to see him again and again.

Enough, I've stayed up all night with these boys

And all my life enjoyed their handsome joys

I came with many companions to this Dawn

Now I am tired and must set my pen down

Reader, Hearer, this time Understand

How kind it is for man to love a man,

Old love and Present, future love the same

Hear and Read what love is without shame.

I want people to understand! They can! They can! They can!

So open your ears and hear the voice of the classical Band.

Allen Ginsberg, October 26, 1981

[gotatext]

 hello, its nora (she/her, gmt) n this is the ethereal but spoiled alma olive putnam (she goes by all 3 names cos she’s pretentious as fuck). raised in a farmhouse in vermont, big horse girl energy. very hungry for everything life has to offer. wakes up and smells the success in her blood. luvs the smell of libraries and listening to french music from a tinny record player in knee socks. here is pinterest. bio is below the cut, like this post to be bombarded with plotting messages but i might forget tho so pls message me x

application template.

『ELLE FANNING ❙ CIS-FEMALE』 ⟿ looks like ALMA OLIVE PUTNAM is here for HER JUNIOR year as a CLASSICS student. SHE is 21 years old & known to be RESILIENT, MAGNETIC, CALLOUS & PROUD. They’re living in PERKINS, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ NORA. 24. GMT. SHE/HER.

aesthetics.

a red beret nestled on top of bright platimum locks, neck scarves tied around your throat the way they do it in french new wave films, running barefoot through the woods in feckless hedonism, china dolls with porcelain faces lined against the walls of your room, the mona lisa smile, knee-socks tugged over the hockey grazes on your knees, a forged botticelli drying on your easel, ophelia floating in the middle of a lake. 

proceed w caution, tw for death, drugs, alcohol, violence

the short form.

— studying classics cos she thinks it makes her sound smart, but actually hates fuckin latin and just loves learning about feckless hedonism and the festivals of bacchus and writing about how all women in myth are literally forgotten. was expelled from princeton in her first year so her parents basically paid her way into radcliffe but she made an impression.... like... super fast and in her sophomore year she was upgraded to perkins accomodation n a paid scholarship bcos i think the governors kind of expect to see her in the supreme court one day or.

—  born in vermont in a big old farmhouse. her great-great-grandfather moved to america as an immigrant and worked on a plantation, made his way up cos he could speak a lot of languages and therefore win more people over. for the last two generations, putnam men have owned the farm and do little of the dirty work. big in the meat industry.

�� both her parents had large personalities, so alma’s never really been shy around adults, even as a kid she’d speak to them in a forthright, confident manner, and because she was always surrounded by adults, she’s always seemed a bit wise beyond her years.

— very much a consolidation of every character in the secret history. has a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. obsessed with w.h. auden and the beat poets. — ”aestheticism is the only thing worth pursuing and even that is pointless” — is majoring in classical civilisation. can read ancient greek and latin. also speaks french.

— studies hard and plays hard. she gets top marks but it’s because academia is literally her life, she loves the smell of libraries, the ancient smoke of learning, of feeling like old wine in a new bottle reincarnated from the bones of some old, dead witchy woman who invented a cure for cowpox or somethin.

— isn’t a foward-planner, however. alma prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manner so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenaline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night.

— pretentious motherfucker. loves poetry, especially the romantics, loves morbid ones too, edgar allen poe, sylvia plath, allen ginsberg, she just loves them all. can’t get enough. her favourite films are like…. wanky artfilm independent european cinema. especially french new wave. “what do you think of goddard’s work??” while snorting a line off someone’s sink at 5am on a school night, but you can bet she’ll make it to that 9am class. — very intelligent and beautiful and knows both of those facts. plays devil’s advocate. humanitarian, vegan. — judgemental but takes great care not to appear so. petty and vindictive

— obsessively devours mystery and thriller novels. she herself is a gillian flynn book waiting to happen. — tries to be an enigma. wants to be mysterious and unreadable because that’s what books have taught her makes women desirable and interesting and cool. very amy dunne in the way she expertly reinvents herself to suit her audience, when she wants to impress

— act like the flower but be the serpent under it. is a user. manipulative. leads people on. will throw another student under the bus to demonstrate her own intelligence and integrity — heavily involved in the theatre society. loves attention. — has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive, runs track, played lacrosse at school, now is a cheerleader probably. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning.

— her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee-high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk. — relates to ophelia from hamlet and sibyl vane in dorian gray. weirdly obsessed with women who commit suicide. loves jackson pollock paintings and abstract art. – likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramophone because “the sound quality is better” kfdsjj.

plots.

here are some generic wanted plots but by all means message me so we can flesh them out more if any strike ur interest:

study buddies !! someone who is equally unprepared and so spends all night in the library with alma before a big deadline, maybe they even met in the library

if they’re from new england or vermont, then cousins . second cousins / extended family / family friends –  probably spat volavons on your character once as children, omg childhood friends !

people who live in perkins n feel like they r constantly competing with one another to keep their place as one of the #elite only know each other from brief interactions in the lift or the canteen

honestly someone who is fully in love with her or crushing on her that she can just break would be sweet :/ or on the other hand someone she unexpectedly gets feelings for and actually wants to guage her own  eyeballs out bc of it

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sporting or academic rivalries !

hockey / cheer friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!!

fellow academics who like meeting up to discuss latin and greek ! gimme a secret society bonding by their love of ancient learning

i reckon she’s in a lot of societies, definitely the film club, maybe works as a projectionist at the uni cinema if they have one so give me ppl affiliated with that, give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl

people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties

people who think she is throwing her academic potential away by caving to hedonistic impulse

A SECRET SOCIETY !!! honestly i would die for a slug club esque thing in which the children of notable families are invited to dinners OR alma’s also an art forger, so maybe like a club of students set up to basically forge paintings and documents from the university special collections

people she has drunkenly made out with, hooked up with, or regularly sleeps with casually, maybe even a friend w benefits she is repressing feelings for, i love angst,

people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life, she is a roman catholic after all

full biography.

alma olive putnam.

intro.

         the girl is a knife. razor-sharp, double-edged, the bright shine of a two-faced, lovely thing. silver like the secrets you magpie thief from other heads. you’re a scavenger of knowledge, of tidbits, of gossip to lock away for later use and late-night re-inspection. a mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. to have the power to control that is to be a god. it’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant. you cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the bull. “mama, when will i be a queen?” as soon as they find a crown small enough not to slip from your head.

biography.

         if you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. hands red, stained by pomegranate seeds, the empty pulp of its shell splattered on your thighs you find yourself wondering – what would it be like to want? in the beginning, you never knew hunger. twins, born under the same star, you first, him second – a nuclear family. never a sister to compete with, you were always the cherry pie of your parents’ hearts. white-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful baby of mine. the townhouse in vermont and the summer house in lyon, you wanted for nought, showered with attention, saddled with gifts - hardly a wonder you came to rely on such affection as a confirmation of your own worth.

         at eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a stable boy. “alma, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” your mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the boy with a kernel of corn in his mouth, you never did find out.

         your family earned their keeps in farming, great-grandfather wolfgang hildegarde a german immigrant, great-grandmother maura lisbon a prairie girl. they fell hopelessly in love between troughs and pig-shit, working for three dollars a day at a farm their descendants would later own, trade deals with the indians, vacations to calcutta, your father todd putnam in the kind of sheepskin coat his father’s father could only dream of owning. he worked hard so that you’d never have to. your mama once asked – you heard it through the window, rounding cartwheels across the picket-fenced lawn – could he not find a respectable career rather than selling shrink-wrapped pork for a dime a dozen? that blood money had no business raising a child. you look far back enough, edie, your father had said in his low, strong voice that could bring a civil war to silence, and i think you’ll find that all money is blood money.

         language was never fickle on your tongue, french dinner time talk by the time you were out of your hush puppy shoes, your mama fixing the au pair a smile as she fixed herself another martini. you learned the clarinet at four and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at six, ethereal under a spotlight, an audience captive in the palm of your hand. by eight you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. that was how magnetic you wanted to feel. but mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too wild, too restless, another package on your father’s delivery invoice, box-shipped out to english boarding school.

         fitting in had never been something you had to concern yourself with. you were always the shiny new toy the other girls wanted to play with, bright like a dropped coin from a magpie’s beak. wherever you went, you seemed to leave a trail of awe, pig-tailed harriet’s adoring you, imitating you, teachers forgiving your class-time chatter for the sake of your wild heart and the restless spirit you possessed. tell us what it’s like in the states, alma. they’d coo, enamoured by your hollywood drawl. does your father own a gun? you hardly knew. barely even knew the colour of his hair, for the scarce amount of times he’d stoop to kiss your cheek, though you’d tell silver-tongued tales if it’d guaranteed you an audience. when you learned how to smile at the right times, and that flattery would get you everywhere, it soon became apparent that charm would pave the yellow brick road to success even when your lack of drive couldn’t.

         the road you followed – gum-snapping, roller-blading, friendship bands all up your arm – eventually led you to radcliffe. bright-eyed and gingham skirted, you’d always known you were more. there was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. in leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you were helen of troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships. but there’s so much rage within you, collecting like sawdust in cavernous parts. hockey helped. there was something grounding about the feeling of a stick clasped in your hands. sweat. stiff knuckles. feet pounding the earth. the smash of wood against flesh in the scram of a game, passed off as mere enthusiasm. “slipped, sorry.” hockey is the one thing you had that was yours alone – a feral instinct that motivates you to play; something primitive within you that sparks an energy like no other. on the pitch, you feel alive. you feel like a god.

[chitaprrrrrrrr]

LGBT+ Fiction Rec

Carol // movie, book, nsfw, wlw

Therese Beliveit sees Carol at a department store and is instantly drawn to her. The two women become close but are faced with the challenges of Carol’s rocky divorce and the struggles of being gay in the 1950s. 

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue // book, mlm, ace

Follows the story of Henry Montague, the son of a lord in eighteenth-century England, his sister, and his childhood best friend as their trip to Europe turns into a manhunt when he accidentally steals something more valuable than he could have imagined. Lots of great representation including a main interracial couple. There’s also a sequel called The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, which focuses on his aro/ace sister.

Maurice // book, movie, nsfw, mlm

It’s the early twentieth century England, there are some rumors about a war that may be coming up, and Maurice Hall has realized that how he feels about his very attractive male friend is not just friendship. I’m talking vintage gays, repression, commentary on class struggles, and more vintage gays. When I say that this book/movie was ahead of its time, I mean it.

Spies Are Forever // musical, mlm

After Agent Curt Mega’s partner Owen dies while trying to escape a Russian facility, he takes a break from the spy life. But when he becomes a spy again, he finds out that his past is harder to escape from than he thought. Spies, gays, the Cold War, and a killer soundtrack. What more do you need? Uploaded by the creator on Youtube for free.

The Handmaiden // movie, nsfw, wlw

Sook-Hee’s a Korean pickpocket posing as a handmaiden to steal a Japanese heiress of her fortune. The plan gets complicated when Sook-Hee starts getting close to the heiress.

Good Omens // tv show, book, mlm, trans

If you were on Tumblr in June 2019, you probably already know what’s up. If not, an angel and a demon fall in love with humanity (and maybe a little with each other) and decide to stop the end of the world together. The creators have confirmed that seeing the main characters as trans (or basically every other LGBT identity) is valid.

I Love You, Philip Morris // movie, nsfw, mlm

Be Gay. Do Crime. And watch Jim Carrey and Ewan Mcgregor fall in love in prison. A very good romantic comedy that’s also based on a true story.

The Adventure Zone // podcast, book, mlm, wlw, trans

A roleplaying podcast done by the McElroys. The first campaign, Balance, is a fantasy story with things like elves and dwarves. The second campaign, Amnesty, is a modern-day story in West Virginia with things like Bigfoot and the Mothman. Both of them are very good and very gay. The Balance arc also has a graphic novel adaptation.

God’s Own Country // movie, nsfw, mlm

Think British Brokeback Mountain but instead of the main conflict being homophobia, it’s commitment issues. Has some more graphic sheep farming veterinary scenes. Overall, it’s very good.

Check, Please! // webcomic, mlm

Eric “Bitty” Bittle, former figure skater, decides to join the hockey team at Samwell University. The main problem being that the whole concept of checking (physical contact on the ice) terrifies him. That, and the team captain is as hot as he is intimidating. 

The Rocky Horror Picture Show // movie, mlm

Straight-laced Brad and his fiance Janet’s car breaks down during a storm. Luckily for them, they stumble upon the mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a drag queen scientist, where they meet several other interesting characters, including Frank-N-Furter’s new creation, a man named Rocky, and lose their innocence. Think 1950s sci-fi meets 1970s sexual revolution or if Frankenstein was a musical.

Firebringer // musical, wlw

You probably know about this musical through the whole “I don’t want to do the work today” vine. What that vine leaves out is that the show is about prehistoric bisexuals and their discovery of fire. Uploaded by the creator on Youtube for free.

Call me By Your Name // book, movie, nsfw, mlm

Elio Perlman was expecting to have a normal summer in Italy where he would work on his music, read books, and spend time with his girlfriend. What he was not expecting was getting close to the handsome intern working for his father. 

Carry On // book, mlm

Enemies-to-lovers slow burn about a vampire and the Chosen One. Takes typical YA tropes and spins them on their heads. The sequel Wayward Son has just come out and the final book in the series, Any Way the Wind Blows, was just announced.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert // movie, mlm, trans

Two Australian drag queens and a trans woman go on a road trip through the Australian desert together. Some racist/transphobic scenes that have not aged well since the 90s but besides those it’s a pretty heartwarming story.

Welcome to Night Vale // podcast, book, mlm, wlw, trans

A sci-fi horror podcast about a strange Western town called Night Vale and what goes on in it. Features a main gay character and lots of the side characters are also LGBT. There are several books that focus on different parts of the universe that you can also read.

Brooklyn 99 // tv show, mlm, wlw

Weirdly, I haven’t seen this show put on any LGBT media recs before. The show follows the 99th precinct of the New York police department. While the main character is not gay himself (although he is either bi or EXTREMELY comfortable in his sexuality), his boss, the police captain, is an openly gay black man married to another man and one of the supporting characters later comes out as bisexual and has relationships with women. Overall, a very funny show that also offers a good commentary on issues that we deal with in society today.

Rock and Riot // webcomic, wlw, mlm, trans, ace

Follows two rival gangs from the 1950s and their struggles with understanding their sexual orientation and gender identity. A little bit of period typical homophobia and racism but not so much that its a bummer.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman // movie, nsfw, wlw

Contrary to what the title may lead you to believe, this is not a DC Universe movie. It’s actually about the creator of Wonder Woman and the lie detector and his polyamorous relationship with the two women who inspired Wonder Woman.

Shameless // tv show, nsfw, mlm, wlw, trans

Focusing on the Gallager family, a low-income family from Chicago and their struggle to survive. One of the main characters, Ian, is openly gay and has had many relationships throughout the series, most notably his on-again-off-again relationship with Mickey Milkovich. Disclaimer: there are some scenes with some pretty brutal homophobia that can be very hard to watch. Also let’s just say that when Ian was a minor, not all of his relationships were with other minors.

Alice Isn’t Dead // podcast, book, wlw

Keisha becomes a truck driver to find her missing wife who had been presumed dead (Alice). Because as it turns out, Alice isn’t dead. A very good horror mystery that captures American road trip gothic better than most pieces of media. Also has a book adaptation.

The Favourite // movie, wlw

Abigail has lost everything. She has no money, no title, and no status. Lucky for her, she has a cousin, Sarah, who is very powerful and close to the Queen. She then begins to work at the palace and the two cousins compete for the favor of the queen, but their motivations to be close to the Queen are very different.

Shaderunners // webcomic, mlm, wlw, trans

A 1920s style webcomic except homophobia doesn’t exist and neither does color, at least not for the proletariat. A group of people join together to change that (the color thing, not the homophobia thing). A very good representation of a variety of identities.

Kill Your Darlings // movie, mlm

About the famous American poet Allen Ginsberg, his relationship with Lucien Carr, the beginning of the Beat generation of poetry, and the murder of David Krammer. Again with the period typical homophobia but nothing too extreme or disturbing.

[mutantsrisingrpg]

Congratulations DEAN! You’ve been accepted as ARIEL.

Dean, you don’t know how overjoyed I am to have you and your take on Lenox back in my life! Lenox is one of my favorite skeletons and you just capture him so perfectly. For Lenox, the devil is literally in the details, since he has the ability to control how they’re perceived. I love everything about him, especially when I view him through the lens you crafted (or is it the lens he crafted, and I’m actually under the spell of his powers right now? my brain hurts)! I can’t wait to see the havoc you and Lenox unleash on this dash.

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

its britney bitch

NAME/ALIAS: Dean

PRONOUNS: She/her

AGE: 22

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: GMT, i’m fairly active bean and am always here to plot

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Lenox Syed

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cismale, he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS: This is where you show us who the character is to you! The format of this doesn’t matter, whether it’s in bullet points or in para form, and can be as long as you’d like it to be. Feel free to get creative!

Lenox as a boy’s name is of Scottish and Gaelic origin, and the meaning of Lenox is “with many elm trees”.

Syed or Sayyid or Sayed (Arabic and Urdu: سيدعلی) is a family of Syeds in South Asia, notably India and Pakistan. Syeds are the direct descendants of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.

Lenox is lost in his own fantasy world. Creating so many illusions for people each day that he has become lost in one of his own. With a lack of attention through his childhood, he craves the limelight and approval of everyone around him and will do pretty much anything to get it, even if it’s false or trickery.

He’s so painstakingly constructed, he’s his own work of art. Each detail of his personality and appearance delicately manipulated into something strikingly beautiful. Someone you can look at with awe just by the way they talk or move. It’s almost hard to realise there’s another man beneath the mask, someone raw and damaged. Like a bird with a broken wing.

BIO:

Tw: Drug mention

His mother is just fifteen when she gives birth to him, swaddled in a blue blanket and passed immediately to the arms of a doctor; she never held him, never looked at his freshly reddened face as his cries wailed down the corridors. It’s not because of his mutation, not because his birth family couldn’t bare to raise a being burdened with powers. She was a child herself, naivety leaving adoption as the only logical decision.  

A foster home decides to take him in, raising him from infancy without any awareness of any abnormality. It’s where he stays for the first nine years of his life, a cosy house in Oregon that housed five other children. But the dormancy of his powers didn’t stay concealed forever. It started with his foster siblings sleepwalking, Lenox’s dreams imprinting on them accidentally as they’d trample through the house enthralled by the vivid illusions of his fantasy worlds. Then it began intertwining into everyday life, emotional outbursts of temper alluding unsafe situations like fire or monsters that hid under the bed. Games became near impossible to differentiate between make believe and reality from the second he joined in.  

“You’re unsafe,” it’s a comment he’d gladly wear as a badge of honour once he’d matured. But to the little boy being dragged away from his foster family, betrayed by his caregivers and turned in for research, the words grazed his skin like stinging nettles.

The four plain walls of the room only further ignite an overly active imagination, a tool that was dangerous to have with a power like his own. The eleven years he spends there does the opposite of what society would have hoped, boredom allows for focus and practice, it sharpens his talents and he’s able to put them to good use. By the end of his stay the doctors had favoured him among the rest, because he wills it so. They go easy on him, carefully placed illusions write false notes on his reports. Detailed and intricate enough so that he doesn’t get caught out, handwriting remarkably identical to each nurse or scientist that take their turn testing on him. He starts to admire the way it feels, too chaotic to be part of society and embedded with more potential than anyone could have known.

It’s when that potential reaches a point where imagination can no longer be imprisoned by those four walls that he decided enough was enough. The process of discharging himself was a meticulous operation. Theatrically staged and miraculously timed with an annual cell collecting test. Before he can be sedated he’s enticed the nurses into an imaginary induced coma, deep enough into his intoxication that he can use the poisoned needle on them. The theater only has the two women on the floor when the doctor enters, sly projections manipulating each person he’d bumped into on his way to the exit into that same sleep, a psychedelic world of kaleidoscope landscapes and stained glass colours, once awakening they would never see this boy again.

“You’re unsafe,” the same words, just a different context. An ally ushers him to leave Oregon and head to Chicago. A place where policies were loosened and his own kind somewhat tolerated.

The new city put Lenox’s own fresh start in full swing.

Fragile reality was a vehicle for his reinvention, so easily malleable that to change it was simpler and more natural to him than breathing. He’s masterful in the way it’s applied, diminishing a past life of shame and grit in place of high strung worth and superiority. He’d created himself with utter royalty, his own nobility evident by the way in which he moved, regally eloquent and unmistakably ethereal to anyone who crossed his path.

He builds his career on the sins he knows other’s desire. Selling crushed up aspirin as a party drug in the underbelly of the city’s night clubbing scene, using his power to make it seem as if it were the legitimate stuff and not something that cost him a couple bucks from the convenience store across the street. Lenox could make them see whatever he wanted, turn their evenings into a production of his own design and leave with none of the being any wiser. It’s how Benjamin Granger catches word of him, a supposed mutant that was living life as if he were a king. He’s the first person to ever acknowledge his capability, strikes him up an offer he couldn’t refuse. Drawn like a moth to a flame after the slightest suggestion of power and the infatuation that he was finally wanted by someone and to belong to something.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

Chance Matthews: He’s the face he can’t erase from his mind, the curve of his lips engraved in deep fixations when he couldn’t fall asleep on a Sunday night. Perhaps it’s the fact that he shouldn’t do it that makes it more enticing, a lust to ignite underlying passion to unearth exactly what they had both been burying.

Jordan Rojas: Jordan is somewhat of a curiosity for Lenox to unpick. A closed book that is intriguing because of their close association together. Always keen to show his worth, to prove himself to those around him, perhaps it’s a dangerous combination should Jordan utalise the other’s naivety in combination of his powers in the way that Benjamin does.

Jack Mizuno: He likes that he can get so deep into their head, that he can have full control of a world that wasn’t Jack’s domain. It’s all to do with power and annoyance, a deep craving to see exactly how far he can push people before they hit their breaking point. Even then, it’s fun to flip that breaking point into a place of pure bliss and drop it again just when his subject is at ease. He’s like a lab rat, someone he tries his tricks on before taking them to the main show.

EXTRA: 

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/dean_ie/ariel/

Lenox spends a lot of his spare time writing and doodling. It’s all extremely sketchy, there’s never any sort of final draft. It helps his imagination, which is a much exercised tool in his life.

He is probably more invested in mental health than most. Meditation and yoga being a crucial part of his daily routine after a bowl full of sugar packed cereal.

He’s naive and eager to please anyone that might create a bond with him, he craves companionship after never really understanding it due to the absence of it in his life.

Lenox works as a part-time artist and painter, he’s guilty of using illusions to get clients to buy his art by playing into their preferences .

He also works as a drug dealer, never selling legitimate stuff but using over the counter medicines with the combination of his powers to masquerade as the real stuff.

He has an unruly sweet tooth. He keeps lollipops in his back pocket and will order dessert off a menu at a restaurant instead of a main meal. His favourite thing on the planet is warm cookie dough and ice cream.

He listens exclusively to Grunge music. Celebrity Skin by Hole is his absolute jam and he only ever sings Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet is his go to karaoke song.

Lenox is openly proud of his sexuality as a homosexual, though he’ll flirt with anyone and anything for the fun of it.

He prefers tea over coffee.

He’s a bit of a poetry dork, he collects first edition poetry books and his most prized possession is a first edition of Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg.

He’s very judgemental of how others present themselves and will tell you if your new shirt is ugly.

Lenox lives in a small apartment, anyone that enters he’s carefully to make them see it as 3 times bigger than it actually is with far more light.

He has a fear of heights.

[farsouthproject]

Books 2019-20

I didn’t bother with one of these booklist blog posts last year but I got curious as to what books I’d read this year. I don’t write a regular book blog so here are some short comments on the books that I’ve read starting in January 2019, more or less

Virginie Déspentes’ Vernon Subutex 1 & 2 made me feel that she is the author who best expresses in fiction a clear vision of the world in the first fifth of the late capitalist 21st Century, the first volume in particular. 

I haven’t read a lot of poetry this year but I did begin 2019 with Pey Pey Oh’s Pictograph and Shadowplay by Phillip Gross; Lutz Seilor’s In Field Latin (thanks to translator, Alexander Booth) Later in the year, Alexander Booth’s own collection Insulae. All treasures. Another poetry pleasure was a re-read of Ifor Thomas’s Body Beautiful, a vision of the body as it the writer faces cancer. This is also the year that I delved deeply into Cavafy (which led me to re-read Durrell’s Justine.) This poetry created for me a feeling of space, opening up areas away from the rich density of prose.

After a second Moroccan visit, prose reading continued to circle the Levant: Abdellatif’s The Law of Inheritance; Olivia Manning’s The Levant Trilogy; Amin Malouf’s Ports of Call; and a new Mathías Énard Tell Them of Battles (translated by Charlotte Mandell).

Not so much reading on the noir/crime front this year but John Lincoln Williams’ Fade to Grey was an intriguing and action-filled investigation that exposed a complex Cardiff/Bristol underworld. James Lee Burke’s In the Moon of Red Ponies managed to skewer undercover American politics and arms trading while involved in a story of an Indigenous American on the run for crimes he may or may not have committed.

A group of writers that kind of fall together subject-wise are Chris Kraus, Olivia Laing, and Maggie Nelson: New York, Kathy Acker, S&M, Artaud, sex positive, art-queer. Have to include Cosey Fanny Tutti’s Art Sex Music here, too.

To put another couple of books/writers/artists together with them: Dreamweapon by Angus MacLise; and LouReed: A Life, by Anthony DeCurtis. They deal with directions in which I’m interested in taking my own creative work to some extent: nonfiction and performance art, particularly Butoh. After training in Butoh with Yuri Nagaoka and Seisaku, I picked up the anthology, Inside, Japanese women write on Japanese women. Inside covers in short fiction every stage of life from birth to menopause. Yuri’s daughter, Rio Minamoto, who has won a plethora of Japan’s most prestigious prizes, has a story in this, the only piece of her work that I could find in translation.

After re-reading the hardback copy of ICE by Anna Kavan, I read and re-read a lot more Anna Kavan, inspired by that and the Machines in the Head anthology from Peter Owen Publishers. I reviewed Machines in the Head for 3AM magazine. In connection with the review article, I also read Rhys Davies’s Honeysuckle Girl, a novel based on Kavan’s life. https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/missives-from-a-parallel-dimension/

Speaking of anthologies, I was pleased to have story – Our Lady of Penrhys – in High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories, edited by Jonathan Taylor and Karen Stephens.

Outside of any reading pattern, I read three by Cynan Jones, Richard Hughes’ A High Wind in Jamaica (kind of like the Famous Five on an acid trip), two by the extraordinary Christa Wolf. Sam Shepard’s Spy of the First Person, Patti Smith’s The Year of the Monkey, Ann Quin’s Berg. Wayne McCauley’s Simpson Returns. Jean-Luc Nancy’s The Fall of Sleep.

Happy New Year Everybody

Here’s the full list more or less in the order of reading. All power to the makers.

Vernon Subutex 1                   Virginie Déspentes (trans. Frank Wynne

Art Sex Music                          Cosey Fanny Tutti

Ports of Call                            Amin Malouf (trans. Alberto Manguel)

The Law of Inheritance           Yasser Abdellatif (trans. Robin Moger)

Ice                                           Anna Kavan (re-read)

Tell them of Battles               Mathías Énard (trans. Charlotte Mandell)

Fade to Grey                           John Lincoln Williams

In Field Latin                           Lutz Seilor (trans. Alexander Booth)

Bright Magic                           Alfred Döblin (trans. Damion Searls)

Pictograph                               Pey Pey Oh

Shadowplay                            Phillip Gross/Jenny Pollack

High Spirits                             Jonathan Taylor/Karen Stephens eds.

The Levant Trilogy                  Olivia Manning

The Fall of Sleep                     Jean-Luc Nancy (trans. Charlotte Mandell)

The Balkan Trilogy                  Olivia Manning

Crudo                                       Olivia Laing

Simpson Returns                    Wayne McCauley

The Lonely City                        Olivia Laing

Aliens and Anorexia                Chris Kraus

Vernon Subutex 2                   Virginie Déspentes (trans. Frank Wynne)

Star                                         Yukio Mishima (trans. Sam Bett)

City of Angels                          Christa Wolf (trans. Damion Searls)

News from Berlin                   Otto de Kat (trans. Ina Rilke)

The Case of Anna Kavan         David Callard

Sleep has his house                Anna Kavan

Julia and the Bazooka             Anna Kavan (re-read)

Accident                                  Christa Wolf (trans. Heike Schwarzbauer/Rick Takvorian)

Don’t Hide the Madness         William Burroughs/Allen Ginsberg

Stranger on Earth: A biography of Anna Kavan          Jeremy Reed

The King, the Witch and the Priest    Pramoedya Ananta Toer

My Soul in China                     Anna Kavan

Honeysuckle Girl                     Rhys Davies

Aleister and Adolf                   Douglas Rushkoff/Michael Avon Oeming (graphic novel).

Asylum Piece                          Anna Kavan (re-read)

Machines in the Head             Anna Kavan

Berg                                        Ann Quin

Inside: Japanese Women by Japanese Women (Cathy Layne editor, trans. Louise Heal Kawai)

Body Beautiful                        Ifor Thomas (re-read)

Transit                                     Rachel Cusk

Cavafy: Poems                       C.P. Cavafy (trans Daniel Mendelsohn)

Justine                                     Lawrence Durrell (re-read)

Granta Book of Travel            Liz Jobey editor

The Art of Cruelty                   Maggie Nelson

A High Wind in Jamaica         Richard Hughes

Freya of the Seven Isles         Joseph Conrad

Flights                                     Olga Tokarczuk (trans Jennifer Croft)

Insulae                                    Alexander Booth

Dreamweapon                       Angus MacLise

In the Moon of Red Ponies     James Lee Burke

The Dig                                    Cynan Jones

The Long Dry                           Cynan Jones (re-read)

Lou Reed: A life                      Anthony DeCurtis

Stillicide                                  Cynan Jones

Spy of the First Person           Sam Shepard

The Year of the Monkey         Patti Smith

In the middle of reading now:

A Dream Come True   Juan Carlos Onetti (trans. Katherine Silver) (halfway through)

Bluets                          Maggie Nelson (halfway through)

The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa Kawabata (trans. Alisa Freedman).

[wmua-amherst]

Project 10 and the Counterculture Movement at UMass

By Ayelet Ehrenkranz

Project 10 was an experimental academic program that began in the fall of 1968 in Pierpont dormitory. Much like the Residential Academic Programs that are offered at UMass today, Project 10 was a live and learn community. In 1968, the first group of people involved in Project 10 participated by invitation. Initially, only those with high SAT scores were invited to the program, but after time, it was open to all. 

A 1974 Hampshire College curriculum guide describes Project 10 Courses such as Communitarian living, Literature of Utopia, and In Pursuit of World Spirit. Many of the courses offered were in collaboration with Hampshire College professors. Bob Brick, who participated in Project 10 from 1968-1972, said “We had lots of classes in the dorm that were new and innovative. Many of those classes were oriented around political change and social change.” 

In the late 1960s and 70s, Pierpont dorm was a source of radical politics, a possible factor in the development of Project 10. During this time, the Vietnam war sparked anti-war protests and UMass, along with many other schools in the country, shut down for a month. Project 10 was a focal point in that decision.

A groundbreaking action residents of Project 10 took on was the incorporation of co-ed floors. In the 1960s, dorms were completely single sex. Pierpont was a female dorm, Moore was male. In most dorms, there were parietals: past 10 pm, visitors of the opposite sex were not allowed in their counterpart’s buildings. Project 10 residents informally swapped rooms in order to integrate the sexes. In some circumstances, residence even created co-ed rooms. Brick attributes this to the lack of security at the time. This integration attracted many people. 

Eventually, the dorm turned into a drug haven. In 1971 alone, Pierpont was the focus of two seperate drug raids. Bob Brick said the drug use was heavy and “for a year or two, the dorm might have been the drug center of western Massachusetts.” Paul Tauger, who was part of Project 10 from 1970-1971, said that the Massachusetts state police would plan drug raids but instead of calling the University legal team, they would call the student run legal team. The student attorneys would then warn Pierpont residence that the police were coming and the residence would prepare for the raid. In one instance, the residence of Pierpont made a sign that said “Welcome Massachusetts state police,” baked a cake, and set up decorations right before the state police raided. 

Tauger recalled that people from Springfield would come and take temporary residence in the dorm. “The Pierpont community extended beyond the university,” Paul said, noting that many of these people were providing drugs. Some of these visitors were known as “crashers”-- young people invited to live in the dorm who were not UMass students. These characters were often oddballs. Brick said during his year of head resident, he received a call from the FBI, who heard about a resident that had an illegal amount of radium. The suspect was a Wilhelm Reich enthusiast and one of the non-students of the dorm. Brick and the FBI agents carried a geiger counter to gather information on the suspect and found that he had a “medical amount of radioactive material” obtained from a school science related event. The amount he obtained was decidedly unharmful.

Famous people of the counterculture movement, including Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, and Nat King Cole, stayed in a Project 10 based apartment while they were visiting the area. An anonymous Project 10 alum recalls these visits. “Yeah, I smoked pot with Allen Ginsberg,” he said, acknowledging “it was a time of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll.”   

Members from Project 10 were not only active in their dorm, but were also active on campus. Members of the project were crucial in creating a food co-op and organic restaurant located in the Student Union. They also participated in experimental film festivals including one called “The Electric Carnival” that was presented in the dining commons. Tauger recalls building a yurt and log cabin in the middle of campus, “because it was something to do, and we did it.” In a 5 year period, two Project 10 members became the student government president. 

Though Project 10 was a great experience for many of those inside, it ended in the late 70s. Brick, holding a leadership position in the dorm, said it began to “spun out of control,” and the administration did not want to continue dealing with the chaos. There was a sort of student run government inside Pierpont, but Tauger described it more as “anarchy.”

Both Brick and Tauger cite Project 10 as a great influence on their life. Tauger came in with Engineering in mind, but ultimately left with a degree in Theatre. “It made me question the extent to which I wanted to follow the program that I had laid out in my head voluntarily, and my parents head, for the rest of my life,” Paul said. 

Project 10 reunions occur every two years. Alum stay in their prior residence, Pierpont dormitory. 

Note: This story was researched, produced and aired on WMUA 91.1FM in November 2018

[ginzyblog]

• Blind Curse By SImon J. Ortiz • You could drive blind for those two seconds and they would be forever. I think that as a diesel truck passes us eight miles east of Mission. Churning through the storm, heedless of the hill sliding away. There isn’t much use to curse but I do. Words fly away, tumbling invisibly toward the unseen point where the prairie and sky meet. The road is like that in those seconds, nothing but the blind white side of creation.                    You’re there somewhere, a tiny struggling cell. You just might be significant but you might not be anything. Forever is a space of split time from which to recover after the mass passes. My curse flies out there somewhere, and then I send my prayer into the wake of the diesel truck headed for Sioux Falls one hundred and eighty miles through the storm. Simon Ortiz, “Blind Curse” from After and Before the Lightning (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1994). Copyright © 1994 by Simon Ortiz. • Acoma Pueblo poet Simon Ortiz,  Boulder Colorado,  July 1985 (photo: Allen Ginsberg, courtesy Stanford University Libraries/Allen Ginsberg Estate) #simonortiz  #naropauniversity #kerouacschool #bouldercolorado #AcomaPueblo #allenginsberg #poetrycommunity #nativeamericanrenaissance #fromsandcreek #simonjortiz #indigeneous #nativeamericanoraltraditions 98w (at Boulder, Colorado) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBjT9evBd3C/?igshid=1qvfzqcp0u4oz

[maleksrami]

Hey Kelli! I wanted your opinion on Electric Light and the meaning of a lot of the songs. I’ve been debating it and I’m really torn because some of the songs sound like lovey songs but then it also sounds like some of the songs are about a relationship where someone only used him for sex? (Peer Pressure adds fuel to this theory) Do you think I’m reading too much into it? What’s your opinion?

OOF!!! I’m lowkey so excited about this ask, and also intrigued by your theory because it’s not something that crossed my mind before. but that’s why music is so cool!! everyone interprets it so differently! 

I have a lot to say about this album and how it (sadly and slightly and WROOOONGFULLY) hurt his career last year… this might get kinda lengthy so I’m gonna put it under a read more!!!

My opinion on Electric Light…first of all, is that it’s brilliant and it was a true Era™ that wasn’t appreciated the way it deserved, or possibly even how James himself had hoped/imagined it would be (and I feel bitter about that every day) because sometimes I felt like I was one of the only few fans of his that was genuinely LIVING for all of it. I saw people saying the most horrid things to him last year on twitter (to the point where his manager literally had to step in and directly ask them to stop) about how he’d changed as a person because his sound and image was evolving, which…um yeah, he’s human and he’s allowed to do that. People could not bear it. They weren’t prepared or cut out to endure the magic of it all. But anyway.

So, if there’s one word I’d use to describe Electric Light as a whole it’s cinematic. He used this word a lot when he went around promoting it and it absolutely translates. I don’t necessarily think he’s singing songs about himself or his own long time relationship. When he first teased Wild Love, he posted these two short clips (here and here) that were shot almost like a movie, of two people talking outside a bar. The guy seems unsure about something between them, but his date encourages him to go inside with her. James is seen standing against the wall on his phone while the two actors interact nearby. Like he’s just a bystander to this couple’s unfolding story. So right off the bat, I’m not focused so much on him, but the couple. The audio of those clips ended up being the “Intro” track on the album. So right away before the first song even starts on the album, you’re immediately introduced to these two voices.

A few months later, the day before the album dropped, James posted this longer trailer. It’s a montage of clips of the couple as if they’re thoughts going through the dude’s mind as he drives through the city at night. At one point, the man is so distracted by his thoughts that he almost hits a pedestrian in the street which, of course, is James. Just passing through his dude’s life again as an outsider just like at the bar. The audio of that clip is the “Interlude” track on the album. SO, because of those visuals, I listen to the album as if he’s telling a story about two characters navigating through their own relationship and experiences together. He created a separate universe from himself to attach these songs to, with all the sound effects and voices, a scripted outline. I think he intended it to be heard like that the whole time he was writing/recording it. I think this was his way of trying something different and experimenting with his entire creative process. 

There’s a lot of themes in all the lyrics that make me think about bad communication, stubbornness, and frustration. But there’s also other elements of nostalgia, like, the night it came out I wrote a list of recurring words/themes that I picked up on in several songs:

beings kids (note: the concept of Pink Lemonade video)

being high on a feeling

being kings and queens

rain

sound

cigarettes

distance (note: the concept of the Wild Love video)

unity (note: the concept of the Us video)

p a i n

The album begins and ends with a sound of a door closing. If you notice the tracklist starts off really high energy (Wasted on Each Other), then it gets playful in the middle (In My Head and Wanderlust), then it starts to get angsty (Stand Up and Fade Out), and then the very last song is Slide, a sad ballad about sliding into the arms of someone else, finished off with that Allen Ginsberg poem about love being read by an echoed voice. The entire duration of Slide has the distinct sound of a movie projector behind it, almost like the film/story of the couple has come to an end. 

He tried something out of the box of what people put him in for years (dude who wears a hat and sings sad acoustic love ballads womp womp), so he amped it up, made it edgier, and did what he knew people wouldn’t expect. Plus! He made his first album five years prior….of course his musical influences had changed by then, as had his outlook on life and love. Who is anyone to tell him he had to make the same kind of music forever? It’s not realistic. With that, he changed his image. He chopped his hair off, he started wearing bolder and more eccentric clothes that you never would have thought to see him in before (glitter, buckles, foil pants, chains, etc.) and allll of that was necessary and 100% intentional to go with the album. If his sound was gonna evolve, so was his look. 

People were on board with it for a while, but somewhere along the way, I saw a lot of the reactions start to go south. Change scares people. They saw/heard something different coming from him and it intimidated them. He took those new songs on tour with him last Spring with the intention to tour again with them at bigger venues in the Fall (he would open with Wasted on Each Other and close with Slide before his encore). After the album came out, his label basically stopped promoting it. It didn’t have anything CLOSE to the success that Chaos and the Calm did. The Fall tour was cancelled because tickets weren’t selling (he says it was because he felt like he suddenly needed to write more music instead, but…..) and moved the tour back to smaller venues for Spring 2019. I finally saw him two nights ago. Wasted on Each Other and Slide are no longer on his setlist. Only five songs of Electric Light are on his setlist and it’s the three singles: Wild Love, Pink Lemonade, and Us + Just For Tonight and Fade Out (it’s the only one he added), but the bulk of it is still Chaos and the Calm songs. He mentioned this the other night, but the overall vibe he was giving off was “so uhhh something not that chill happened last year and now I’m back where I started” … re: people were turned off and his album flopped.  He’s growing his hair back out and he’s back in his older, relaxed clothes. I fully think he intended to perform a lot more Electric Light songs live on tour and keep going with the new era, but it just didn’t play out like he’d hoped. His hype died down a lot as well. When I used to go camp out in line for him for the tour of his first album, there would be almost a hundred people before the afternoon. After this album, people stopped being eager to camp out in line all day. I don’t see people starting to show up until a couple hours before doors now, which is such a drastic difference than what it was back in 2015/2016. 

So..there’s a bittersweet feeling I get now when I see him. Peer Pressure sounds like his older stuff, which is great, but you can tell there was definitely a direction he was trying to go, but he stumbled. Either way!!!!!! I love everything he puts out, so..I’m here for the long haul. But that’s my opinion and overall experience with Electric Light. THIS TURNED INTO AN ESSAY BUT I HAD A LOT TO SAY. because!!! I’ll always be lowkey mad for him that it wasn’t appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!