#workaday sentiments

[radimus-co-uk]

T H U R S D A Y

[skaruresonic]

I'm not going to act like I fully understand the intricacies of your language and culture, as it is mostly way out of my depth.

But seeing you talk about them at length is legitimately inspiring. You genuinely do have a lot of passion and heart for such things, in a way that it sort of makes my cynical ass feel a tad jelous :P

Sorry to be morbid again but it can't be understated how emotionally-charged language learning is for a lot of us given the added dimension of its loss via cultural genocide. It is one of the most important things you'll ever do and simultaneously psychically heavy.

Residential schools only took a generation or two to replace the language with English, because the students who survived were too traumatized to speak language at home. As parents, they often refrained from teaching their children out of fears their children would be made to suffer for it.

If we grew up hearing it at home, we might be more cavalier about it. That's why you can't really be as workaday about learning these languages is as you would for, say, French. You can go to any number of countries to hear French spoken. There are tons of resources available. You can immerse yourself fully in settings where people speak nothing but French.

We don't have that yet, but we're building toward that so one day, we might have native-born speakers again. That's why the program is called "we will carry on the language."

Skarù·ręʔ only exists here, and maybe in scattered fragments down south. Like any other indigenous language, it is deeply tied to a sense of family, culture, and place. It connects us to our culture, our ways of thinking, our grandparents and their grandparents, and really, the world. You can read old Skarù·ręʔ documents from the 1800s with relative ease because the language hasn't honestly changed that much at its core.

You can't go anywhere else to learn it. You must be taught it.

There's a poem by Eric Gansworth that perfectly encapsulates these sentiments, The Word for Gossip:

Loosely translated in English means “They say.” Tuscarora and English do not run through the cerebral cortex on the same groove. They are like the Two Row Wampum, a treaty pronouncing relationships between our people and the first white people arriving on our shores. We made it after those new people inexplicably decided the sand and everything following it was in fact theirs, decided that because we were not Christians, their god could not have meant it for us. Then we said skoden, agreeing and thinking they agreed, we must each travel side by side like two canoes, neither crossing in the other vessel’s movement forward.

Because they are different, the parts can not be parsed in English. Eee-ogg, or Eee-awk (depending on your family inflection) is not neatly divided. Eee is not they, ogg (or awk) is not say. And no, it’s not Ewok, the animate Teddy Bears from Return of the Jedi. And please don’t say “this is too hard to remember.” If you can learn to say Tatooine or Alderaan, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, or god forbid, Jar Jar Binks, you can learn to say Eee-awk (or Eee-ogg)

Tuscarora is a verb based language, an action language, where English loves its nouns more. In English you want to know who is doing scandalous things, the activity less important, as long as it’s juicy. In English, you want to say “I heard” and not “They say,” and if you don’t understand the importance of that difference, it is good that we travel our parallel paths, crossing only in the wake we leave to dissipate behind us.

[mercurygray]

Fingertips smudged in blue ink for Marion! :))

There's ink on her fingers again.

It's an innocent enough observation, but the fact that he has stared at her hands long enough to make it is enough to spark some internal debate. She has lovely hands, though - when they're not being marked by a leaking pen. Neil loves watching her hands as she works, loves watching the way her pen flies over the paper while she's taking notes and the way the sun catches her slim silver signet ring with the Athena's Head etched into the silver. It's modest and workaday - just like her. And those hands seem to hold up half the base. Writing her intelligence reports with Bowman, writing her reports to headquarters, writing her letters home to - well, he doesn't know who she writes to at home. If he did, it's likely he'd be jealous of whatever fellow gets to get sentimental over her perfect penmanship.

He's been daydreaming a lot about those hands, recently - since she took him to task at the officer's club and made him dance with her instead of Mary Boyle. He'd had a fair bit to drink that night, but he could still remember that they'd fit so nicely into his own, that her arms had felt nice, wrapped around his shoulder. In his dreams he kisses her palms, feels the silver of that ring in his hair, the way her fingers would feel pressed against his shirt. But she always stops before she gets too far - in dreams, as in real life, Marion Brennan is a realist.

Home feels far away, here, and Doris further still - she's still writing every week, how the girls are doing in school, how the house looks, how the dog is getting on. It seems like a different planet, from where he's sitting. And he can't recall the last time his wife took him up on an offer to dance, even somewhere as workaday as thier kitchen, with the radio on. She commits nothing to paper that the censor can't read, though he's told her more than once as the CO no one is reading his mail.

He envies his men - the young men they are and have freedom to be. Cleven with his gentleman's soft charm, inaccessible but willing to smile, Blakely and Douglass ready to take all comers, Egan with his easy bluster and a smile for every woman in the place, including the captain it seems he respects too much to actually flirt with. All of them can charm and chance and change, and knock heads over who kissed who, and still be friends about it in the morning. He wants that ease, that laughter. But the only cures for what ails him are far away, in London, smoking under the arches and casting an eye over the eagles on his collar. Thorpe Abbotts is too small for indiscretions, and dear old Dad should do better than his boys. His sins can't be where they can see them.

But no one laughed when he danced with her - that, at least, was worth a note. They fit together - and that's as it should be.

He makes up his mind, and crosses the room with handkerchief in hand. "We need to get you a new pen, Captain."

She glances down and realizes what a mess the blue is making, taking the handkerchief to wipe down her fingers with a murmur of thanks. "I'll wash it and bring it back to you first thing," she promises, looking embarassed.

And he can't help thinking of the sink in her quarters, the way she will look in her dressing gown standing there scrubbing the ink out.

[thesinglesjukebox]

ZACH BRYAN FT. KACEY MUSGRAVES - "I REMEMBER EVERYTHING"

An old Jukebox fave meets a new country darling we apparently also kinda like...

[6.57]

Nortey Dowuona: There are 3 white men I trust. Zach Bryan is one of them. Mainly because he doesn't attempt to append holier than thou posturing for internet brownie point, beg for bigots approval to make his crashing career successful or fuck around making bad Jeremih songs to appear ahead of the curve. He just writes honest, sincere songs about being a deeply flawed man who is consistently putting himself out there to be loved and to love back, despite the consequences or the punishment of pain, shame, loneliness, failure. Kacey thrives in the midst of these moments and within the turmoil, making a home for herself alongside him, despite it coming apart at the seams due to the aforementioned flaws. And as they sing the final chorus together, you feel the strained, flickering love that is leaning and diminishing, only one breath away from being extinguished. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: Imagine Zach Bryan two decades ago: this ex-military ne'er-do-well recording lo-fi country ballads on his lonesome out in Oklahoma would have been signed to Lost Highway and then lost in the thickets of Paste write-ups. Now he's number one on Billboard. Times change, but so do the hooks, and Bryan has landed on a good one, the way he and Kacey Musgraves wail "you only smile like that when you're drinking," lovelorn and desolate together. Bryan is a folk singer of negative space; he illuminates his glowing little melodies while the song surrounding him lives in that vast blackness stretching into the great plains beyond. [9]

Alfred Soto: Zach Bryan writes about blasted, blighted lives, and his workaday conviction elevates the occasionally staid material. Rotgut whiskey and Kacey Musgraves can't ease his mind. So he dwells in the shadow of memory. [6]

Michael Hong: Bryan's gruffness sounds great on his plain arrangements, but the thinness of Musgraves' voice on her solo take of the chorus makes the whole track feel stiff. The real gem off his self-titled album is with Sierra Ferrell, the plainness making their harmonies and its melodic simplicity shine. [4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I'll be honest: the first several times I only listened to this for Kacey Musgraves. The more I hear "I Remember Everything," however, the more I see how Kacey's diaphanous, hazy delivery only works because of how Bryan acts as a brusk, grounded foil. He seems like a perfectly pleasant, reclusive, well-therapized man, one who has earned the moment in the sun he's experienced this year. [7]

Ian Mathers: It is kind of wild to think that this guy is considered the same basic genre (and has hits on the same charts) as that Morgan Wallen fuck; chunks of this are not that far away from, say, Damien Jurado. I'm sure it's not Bryan's only mode (he put out a fucking triple album, for god's sake), but it works here. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: The music on the verses (especially the first) almost sounds like it's being played at the wrong speed? And what's with Bryan's mush-mouthed singing voice? Not to mention that this doesn't sounds like the duet it should be, just two singer's verses spliced together. I'd love to like this, but not much about it works for me. [4]

Leah Isobel: "I Remember Everything" is approximately two steps away from Pity Sex; even its flashes of humor bend toward flowery emo sentiment ("You're like concrete feet in the summer heat/ It burns like hell when two soles meet"). It's fertile ground, but the weepy arrangement and Zach's whimpery, crackling vocal oversell it a bit. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: Three things elevate "I Remember Everything" from the staid "see, this is real country music" ballads that it's not far off from. Zach Bryan's songwriting is carefully observed, and his muted voice suggests a low emotional ceiling -- making it extra powerful when he rips through it. And in turn Kacey Musgraves' voice, while still youthful and winning, is maturing nicely into a less tremulous Emmylou or Dolly. [8]

Hannah Jocelyn: There's this slightly late guitar strum at 1:34 (and again at 3:03) that's annoyed me all year, and I have to point it out because nobody else has. Otherwise, this is an above-average Civil Wars song with some pretty 7/4 verses, marred by a rushed production job -- the arrangement aims for gravitas, but you need lush Daniel Lanois or Gary Pacsoza production for that, not first-take-best-take performances. Yet if it's Zach Bryan or Noah Kahan, I'm taking Bryan every time. [6]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: Between this and Noah Kahan's ascendancy I'm convinced that folk and country will make it 2013 again through science or magic. If it means more duets, I'll take it! [8]

Tara Hillegeist: Soulful melancholy over gentle strumming meant to put the emphasis on the observed detail, the folksy reminiscences, of the singer's well-waxed lyricism is as much a posture as the cocksure drunkard's swagger, where country's concerned; it all comes down to whether you can back the pose up with a sincere enough delivery to match. Good thing Bryan has a voice like an old train engine run hard off homemade distillations, instead of something studio-smooth and syrupy-slick; it sells the vibe almost as well as the images his lyrics conjure up can manage, all by themselves. Musgraves' lighter touch doesn't shift the tenor of the piece so much as add another tone to the portrait being sonically painted; the flecks of sunlight and gold, coming in through the glass bottle you can all but hear, sitting not far from Bryan's hand. Indeed, she's the one to shed a little needed light on one of those ironic details that can give the rest of a song the kind of wry, bittersweet bite it needs to go down feelingly. For all that the song is a story told by Bryan's narrator, it's Musgraves' girl that's remembered early, lyrically, as the better tale-spinner of the two. So, naturally, when it's her turn on the verse, it comes out that the one time Bryan's narrator went so far as to imagine up a future between the two of them, she already knew he couldn't really mean it. A less controlled song would've found a moment to resolve that tension before it ended; "I Remember Everything" simply lingers in the revelation, and the melancholy, and the might've-beens, till the sun comes up and the unwise urge to do more than live with it passes. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: He's just some guy, which is the point. And this is stately, well-struck, and a little bit boring -- "Dawns" did it better, and not just because Maggie Rogers is a much better fit within the Zach Bryan sonic universe -- but I still find it charming even through all of the tedious talk of authenticity and roots rock stardom. Much like everything he's done, "I Remember Everything" is self-conscious of Zach Bryan's place in the world -- the lyric is all lived-in small town signifiers, less a narrative or even a "Don't You Want Me" style point-counterpoint and more a slice of life, but everything else aims for grandeur. Kacey Musgraves is perhaps the crux of "I Remember Everything" -- unlike the rest of the guests (The Lumineers and a bunch of guys that sound like The Lumineers) on Zach Bryan by Zach Bryan, she's (a) made interesting music herself and (b) grappled with that same lyrical/musical divide in her own work. And yet the slight distance in her performance is what ultimately consigns the song to being an interesting curio rather than a barn-burner: the two sketch slightly different frames on the same moment, Musgraves remembering but Bryan desperately asking to be remembered. [6]

Brad Shoup: Maybe it's the sand or the "grown men don't cry" bit, but this feels like Bryan's Lana Del Rey homage: I'm kinda surprised the violins weren't boosted about 25%, or that the drummer didn't try something more martial. As soon as I realized we were getting a boy-girl duet about slugging down whiskey, I thought about Paisley/Krauss. But Bryan's not interested in that kind of operatic tragedy. He's more glum than maudlin, fiddling with the memory of a truck like the screwcap on some Kentucky Gentleman. Musgraves is the voice of reason, or maybe just exasperation; she can't caress the melody alongside Bryan because that would be commiseration. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[radimus-co-uk]

F R I D A Y

[grandhotelabyss]

—Autumn Christian, “Autumn Christian’s Rules for Writing”

My favorite excerpts above from a better list of “rules for writing” than most out there. Nothing, blessedly, about cutting adverbs. Adverbs are fine, mostly. Every tiny thing doesn’t have to serve action; some things can be there for the sake of tone, pace, mood. Even vagueness has its uses. 

But yes, we should all be doing more of nothing. The world doesn’t need books-by-the-foot. Inspiration is undervalued because uncontrollable—literally priceless. I make attempts on stories and novels all the time, “raids on the inarticulate,” but I know when it’s inspired and when it’s not, and I only bother to finish when it is. This is advice for creative writing, beautifully gratuitous writing, writing for which the world didn’t ask and doesn’t yet know it wants. For other types of writing, more professional varieties, you must of course produce clean copy on deadline, which I am happy to do.

Anything on the list I disagree with? “Find your voice”—I’ve always thought this advice misleading unless you’re a lyric poet. But many lyric poets, even ones we think of as quite “pure,” write in many voices. Emily Dickinson—she’s a bird, she’s a boy, she’s a corpse—who knows what she’ll be next? If you write novels, plays, screenplays, comics, or anything else with more than one character, doing different voices isn’t optional. 

I would say instead find your sensibility, your field of inquiry, your matters of concern, your color palette. Really, I trust the authority of my dreams. If I can write something that approximates their paradoxically grounded surrealism, their workaday prophecies, their transfiguration of elsewhere into home or vice versa, then I know I am on the track. How restricted or unrestricted this dreaming will be is not up to us, neither at the outset nor as we go on. Where any of us falls on the continuum expressed in Mark van Doren’s old line, “Homer is a world, Virgil a style,” is for others to say. Style over world has its costs, though. Again from Christian’s list, this one is properly haunting:

Most people have one glaring fatal flaw that keeps them from being great, even if they possess all the ability and talent. Have your psyche remain unexplored at your own peril.

If it were only one flaw, we could all avoid it. But every writer has a particular flaw, usually coiled inoperably around the very source of power. All the flaws could probably be gathered under the heading of “fear,” but to say so is to tempt people into cheap shock tactics when that isn’t the point. Provocation can be as much of a safe space as sentimentality. The greatest writers were never afraid to have it all, the provocation and the sentiment close enough to touch, as in life. 

I’m still reading through D. H. Lawrence’s major novels. I understand what I take to be his decline in these terms. In Sons and Lovers, Paul and his sister helplessly giggle as they prepare their dying mother a mercy-killing overdose of morphine. That’s just how it happens in life, all the emotions at once. This is the world, worthy of Homer. But by Women in Love, Lawrence has a little girl drown, and all the main characters, including her brother, shrug and essentially say, well, whatever, death is omnipresent and probably better than a boring existence. This is a fall into style. The final fatal flaw, then, to which even eminences like Virgil and Lawrence were prey, is to fail to be a world.

[mercurygray]

No.19 Goddess or 10. Warmth from the spring fling prompt list. Given recent viewing, I'm going to challenge you writing someone from Valhalla in the TDS/BoB world, or vice versa! Characters are your choice! Juno xx

I think you know who I'm going to do here.

The room was supposed to be unoccupied.

It was strange, after living for so many months in barracks, to walk up to the grand, cavernous halls of Buckingham Palace and find room after room was empty and silent. Joan could count on one hand the number of people she'd actually seen on her walk through the Royal residence, and she was fairly certain all of them were staff, as they'd all been on their way to or from somewhere, pausing as she passed with her escort to bow.

The bows, she knew, were not for her, but rather the woman she was with - the Princess's secretary was remotely royal herself, a Lady Emma rather than merely Miss, and carried herself appropriately. She knew that the aristocracy, as a class, were often shown as rather useless, but Joan was forming the opinion that not much made it past the tall, elegant woman in her workaday black. She had been precise with her instructions, and walked with the assurance that she had places she needed to be - a sentiment Joan could wholeheartedly agree with.

"The Princess will be down directly," Lady Emma was saying. "You'll be meeting in the Red Salon - just here - "

A door opened, they were shown inside, and - "Oh!" Lady Emma made a small sound of surprise.

The man who turned away from the window was dignity personified in his naval uniform, dark hair perfectly brushed and beard trimmed. He looked almost out of place here in the red and gilt of the drawing room, belonging, perhaps, to the generation before, George Five rather than George Six, the first war instead of the second. But there was nothing out of place about the way he stood at the window, watching the street below, or the sparkle in his eyes as he turned to greet the two women.

"Forgive me, Lady Emma. I was told the room would be unoccupied for the day. I shall leave you."

"A last minute change," the Princess's secretary offered, almost an apology.

He nodded. "This must be the young lady that everyone has been so anxious to meet."

"Lieutenant Warren, this is Admiral Svendson," Lady Emma said. "Of the Danish Navy."

"We might go so far as to say 'late of'," the Admiral added politely, a strong Scandinavian burr in his voice as he extended a hand to shake. His hand, Joan could feel through her glove, was strong, and callused - not a sailor in name only, then. "While my country is occupied I have no posting and no fleet. But the rank remains. I am great admirer of your uncle, Lieutenant. I followed him during the last war with great interest."

"I'll pass along the compliment, sir," Joan promised. "I'm sure he'll be pleased to hear he is in such high regard."

"You are meeting the Princess Elizabeth today, I take it?" A brief nod from Joan. "A delightful young person. You'll have much to talk about. She takes a keen interest in the progress of the war - though I have often heard her father tell her she should not," he added with a smile.

"And what is your opinion on such things?" Joan asked, fixing her expression on so she might remain polite.

The Admiral, however, did not look poised to rock any boats. "Long ago in my country we let women go to war, and thought nothing of it. Indeed, we invaded England with such an army - and stayed. I see nothing wrong with such a prospect." He smiled between the two women and added, "If, perhaps, Mr. Churchill were to let the Lady Emma plan his strategy I am sure we would be finished by teatime."

The lady in waiting had the good sense to bow her head and blush a little, but there could be no mistaking the electricity between these two, her plain and elegant in her suit with her hair swept up in a chignon, and him quietly imposing in his blue and gold braid. There was an unmistakable warmth there that only hinted at deeper fires. Perhaps, Joan thought, looking between the two of them, in another age, another time - but not this one, apparently. He tapped his heels and made a brief bow. "I will not detain you any longer. Lieutenant, my good wishes for a favorable interview. My lady."

She nodded in farewell and let him leave, the door closing behind him as he went. "A man in exile," Lady Emma explained. "He resides here as a favor to King Christian, and advises the King on some naval matters regarding the North Seas fleet."

"He seems kind," Joan said, glancing at the Lady Emma for some other sign of what they were to each other.

Emma's smile was faint, but fond. "He is."

[goodbadforever]

Morning Earworm: I really did have this on my mind when I woke up this morning.

After having half a day to think about it, Supernatural couldn’t have ended any other way. Spoiler alerts for the zero people reading this: Like their unofficial theme song says, “there’ll be peace when you are done.” After last week, I thought the boys were going to get to experience living life completely on their own terms, but really, the only time they would ever get peace, especially Dean, would be in death. Provided that death wasn’t hell or some other dimension or the waiting room for rebirth, which, finally, it wasn’t.

Despite the cosmic plans over the seasons, they were always workaday regular guys. That Dean Winchester, a man raised from hell by an angel intent on making him an instrument of the lord, was eventually done in by a pointy piece of rebar is just fitting. After everything, he is just a human, and it’s proof that they were successful in freeing humanity from Chuck’s machinations. I wanted the captain of Team Free Will to have a taste of freedom, but I think him knowing what he made possible for the rest of the world, Sam in particular, was enough.  

Still, when it happened, I was checking the time and hoping Sam would find a way to save in him the remaining half hour. I expected to cry a little — I’m sentimental — but hey, maybe cried a lot. Dean has always been my favorite.

The overtness of the “DEAN” on Sam’s son’s overalls made me laugh. That, plus putting Jared in a gray wig without any apparent age makeup. Ehh... But when he grabbed the garage-bound Baby’s steering wheel while Dean took her for a ride in heaven? Tears. So many tears. I wish they would have better addressed how Dean was dealing with Castiel being swallowed up by the Empty. I’m not much for ships, though god knows this fandom sure is. Destiel, no Destiel, I just would have liked to have seen what Castiel said and did affect Dean more over those last two episodes. But that’s Dean until the end: covering up his emotions. I mean, he essentially tells Sam that they needed to be at that pie festival to honor Cas and Jack’s sacrifices. (But Jack apparently sprang Cas from the Empty, so…is Cas in heaven?)  I’m not going to pretend like it was the deepest TV show out there, but Supernatural still got me occasionally, and above all else it was fun. And as I said before, this show started when I was a senior in college. I have distinct memories of watching the first shapeshifter episode while getting ready to meet friends for a drink just off campus. It’s been with me ever since I left school, my entire adult life. So bittersweet that even that’s gone now. But what a ride.

[sophiamcdougall]

And what kind of Italian pop music are you obsessed with?

Let me start by explaining why I am obsessed with Italian pop music.Imagine a sexy, feelgood summer hit called “Rolling South", about going on a sexy summer holiday. There will be beaches, surfing, sunshine. There will surely be hot girls. The chorus is all about riding the waves… rolling south…You can imagine a song like that existing in English, can’t you?

But that song would absolutely not contain the lines “The dignity of the elements! The liberty of poetry! Beyond the betrayals of men, it’s magic, it’s magic, it’s magic!”But “Rotolando Verso Sud” by Negrita does.

Italian pop music has no chill at all and for that I love it to fucking death. We are talking a corpus in which “I will cross seas and rivers, I will ride storms and whirlwinds, I will fly between the thunderbolts, just to have you” is an ordinary, workaday sentiment. (Meravigliosa Creatura by Gianna Nanini)   For months on end obsessing over Italian pop music was my primary method of teaching myself the language. Do you know how easy it was to learn the phrase “the soul of the universe?” Very easy. Because that comes up a lot. (L’Anima Vista Da Qui by Negramaro)If I sound like I’m taking the piss – well, maybe sto prendendo la musica italiana un po’  in giro (teasing it a little)  – but at heart I am not kidding at all. There are so many artists combining banging tunes with intricately poetic lyrics that are just … fantastically unafraid to go there, wherever there may be.  Which is not to say  it’s all explosive romance all the time, plenty of Italian songs can be wry and self-deprecating and hilarious and nuanced… they’re just that much more likely to take the view that there’s no reason NOT to be those things AND dialled-up-to-eleven EPIC at the same time. After a while a lot of  English lyrics seem a bit … tame by comparison. Like, sorry, if your immortal soul is not currently whirling through the spacetime continuum leaving a trail of supernovae blazing in its wake in order to punch your shitty dad/the mafia/death itself right in the fucking face why did any of us even bother showing up. So here is a very short and imperfect primer on the kind of Italian pop music I am obsessed with. To be clear, I am using “pop” extremely broadly, I am crappy at genre distinctions even in English-language music.

Ligabue: Imagine U2, but not shitty and really, really sexy. I know. It’s hard.  Ligabue’s hobbies include defying mortality and being stardust, howling at the sky, and not wanting people to be afraid of things. Was doing an extremely good Millennial Whoop at least 20 years before anyone in anglo pop got round to it.  

Negramaro Kind of like Muse, but as you have hopefully grasped, infinitely more so. Started out just whimsically enjoying the summer, (“You don’t hear that I tremble while I sing” ) ended up hallucinogenically awaiting the revolution  (“HEY! SAVE IT! This breathing earth that never falls apart!”) and predicting some sort weird post-apocalyptic time-travel happy-ever-after. (When you come back don’t turn away, for I no longer want to disappear: In the record of my days, stay till nightfall.”)

Loredana Berte Italy’s Queen of Rock: if anyone embodies the “dial it down? Well, fuck you” spirit of the kind of Italian pop music I am obsessed with, it is this legend. 69 years old, blue-haired, miniskirted, belting it out like there’s no tomorrow, she is not a lady, but someone whose war is never over. She will therefore definitely turn into a wolf and eat you (because what else were you EXPECTING), may we all live up to her.

Fabrizio Moro  Is like “What’s a genre? Sounds cool I’ll take ten.”  Consistently “AGAINST whoever BURIES their CONSCIENCE in CEMENT!!!”, Fabrizio is otherwise FUCKING UNCATEGORISABLE. Rapping the Mafia into tiny poetic pieces, funking his way through a panic attack, sweet piano ballads, stadium rock, why would he not. Sometimes in the same song.  Furious but also just wants to give you a big dorky hug. Explicitly pro-trans in 2009! Chronicling modern Italian political history with tragic, compassionate vision, but also taking the piss out of himself, going crazy for sheer joy, it’s all in a day’s work for my overly-tattooed fave.

 I am trying to cut back on the number of things I’m doing which ultimately boil down to “because Fabrizio Moro…” but I have now done a lot of things because Fabrizio Moro. 

So that’s what’s going on with me and Italian pop music. You did ASK.

[nowiisnow-blog1]

Are American sneakers a style don't in Paris? The Senior Editor of online magazine Paris Eiffel Tower News tends to the issue from a respective perspective.

I can't check the occasions voyagers who asked me: 'Should I wear sneakers in Paris?' and different varieties of a similar inquiry. American sightseers particularly are worried about 'not fitting in' with wrong shoes.

That demeanor is astounding in fact. Dressing so as not to stun the affectability of local people: what amount increasingly kind would you be able to get? I can just offer praise to every one of you who at any point posed the inquiry or considered it!

Paris, French style, sneakers

Paris-bound travelers are regularly of the feeling that French ladies are stalwart design exploited people. This case is unquestionably overstated, however access to jazzy apparel is vigorously encouraged in Paris where ladies magazines, for example, 'Elle' and 'Figaro Madame' direct what's in vogue and so forth.

As I would like to think, perpetual tastes look particularly similar in Paris and New York City. Globalization will in general homogenize style, making work-a-day wear comparable in huge urban areas.

Regardless, the sneaker concern stays legitimate. Sneakers are currently such a ware in the US, how is it in Paris?

The for the most part acknowledged business clothing standard in France for the most part bans sneakers from entering the professional workplace, with the exception of low-level positions. In this way the Parisian lady wears gorgeous city shoes to go to work, except if the business which utilizes her develops an energetic picture wherein sneakers locate a characteristic home.

However sneakers have become plan symbols in their own right. Adidas, Puma and Nike each have their own Parisian stores, and wrench out more models a persuading design unfortunate casualty could undoubtedly shake charge cards at. Adidas as of late cooperated with notable style fashioner Yohji Yamamoto to make Y-3, another line of spruce up sneakers. Stella McCartney likewise has her own Adidas line.

What significant contrast in shoe-mentality would we be able to distinguish among American and French she-buyers? The last will wear sneakers as structure things, not as workaday shoes. Sneakers won't be purchased for comfort, yet will locate a simple route into a tight tote when they praise dress-down jeans and make their proprietor look great. The She-Parisian loves sneakers which make her feet look slight, little, and tasteful.

A minor look at the kinds of sneakers most normally observed on ladies' feet in Paris is advising: you won't perceive any wide, comfortable, comfortable looking, plain vanilla sneakers. You will see little, slim looking, level sole, originator sneakers.

For similar reasons, a couple of Stephane Kelian or Robert Clergerie shoes will quite often be preferred over a couple of attractive Pumas. Shoes are a style articulation, and the more downplayed it is, the better.

That is another significant contrast among French and American ladies. Modest representation of the truth is a cardinal guideline in French style. Anything that is too noticeable is viewed as flashy. This is the reason the little dark dress is such a style symbol, and why Audrey Hepburn will consistently be recognized as The Quintessential Fashionable American Woman.

Voyagers and sneakers

Does this mean you can't wear sneakers when you travel to Paris? Obviously not!

Most importantly, sneakers can be open to strolling shoes. What's more, walk you will, in Paris. The absolute best approach to find the city is to stroll along its lanes. Wearing shoes in which you feel great strolling 10 miles per day at a lackadaisical pace is a significantly significant choice for the general state of mind of your stay in the French capital.

Try not to ease off from wearing sneakers if these are your best strolling shoes. Furthermore, on the off chance that you have far better strolling shoes, pack them, regardless of whether they make you appear as though you are on a trekking trip!

To be perfectly honest, you ought not pose yourself this inquiry. Who thinks about what you look like in the road? Try not to act naturally cognizant, simply be agreeable in your shoes. You are a guest, these are your excursions, this is your own one of a kind time! Pants and sneakers are worldwide. Individuals won't be affronted by your looks. Except if you dress in pink tops and electric blue jeans, with brilliant sneakers and Jackie-O conceals, no one around will have any apprehensions about your clothing.

What's more, on the off chance that they ever notice your pants, LL Bean trekking shoes, and Patagonia coat, well, push come to push, they may believe you're American. Thus what? No doubt they will value your meeting Paris.

Feasting out in sneakers

Does it mean you can wear sneakers all over the place, on any and each event? Not really.

For example, would you be able to eat in an eatery shoed with your fresh out of the plastic new white sneakers?

For it, we should envision you are walking around in your Levi's pants and Lands End boots. It's presently supper time, you are eager, and examining the scene searching for a promising eatery. There is it! The menu showed outside is appealing, costs are inside your usual range of familiarity, the spot isn't so packed... Ok, yet visitors are dressed adroitly. Will they let you in? Will you fit in?

I presently can't seem to see an entryway sign specifying 'No Sneakers Allowed' in Paris. Some high-forehead spots may expertly leave you under control: "Do you have a booking? Apologies, we are full today around evening time". In any case, alongside those uncommon affected spots, no eatery will won't situate you since you wear easygoing sneakers.

Along these lines the correct inquiry isn't 'Will I be permitted in?', yet 'Will I feel good entering a dressy spot in sneakers?' I adventure that you most likely would not. Also, the issue is that acting naturally cognizant is a surefire approach to execute your supper. Your consideration ought to be in your plate and on your nourishment, not on your shoes and attire.

My handy standard is 'Dress as indicated by the lieu'. In the event that you mean to feast out at costly, dressy eateries when you are in Paris, simply bring your Pradas. Even better: visit Stephane Kelian's and Robert Clergerie's boutiques in Paris, and get yourself beautiful looking footwear by these Parisian planners.

Different spots and sneakers

There are different spots where sneakers just won't cut it.

The Opera House is certainly one of them. However, who might be so silly as not to spruce up for drama night? The sneaker point is debatable.

Shouldn't something be said about a men's club? I would state it is greatly improved to spruce up when you eat at a men's club like 'Moulin Rouge', 'Lido', and 'Paradis Latin'. In spite of the fact that lone the stage is sufficiently bright in these spots, the truth of the matter is individuals around you will for the most part be spruced up. You will feel significantly more agreeable in some progressively formal wear.

What about the pontoons on the Seine? On the off chance that you are boarding a vessel for a supper journey, don't wear sneakers. This is a sentimental encounter, you will need to benefit as much as possible from it. A night dress is 'de rigueur'. Then again, in the event that you just need to voyage here and there the stream, sneakers are fine.

Galleries? Disregard style, wear truly agreeable shoes. No one will take a gander at your shoes, workmanship is on the dividers. Be that as it may, strolling down the Louver displays is a tiring encounter: so far and away also observe, such a large number of exhibitions, so moderate the pace. The great specialist's recommendation: go with pad and solace.

Workmanship exhibition 'vernissages'? Style is your signal. Workmanship displays are little, vernissage nighttimes are short. Night dress, dark ideally, not much, and attractive structure shoes. No sneakers.

Wrapping up

Dress for the spot you go to. In the event that you are uncertain about the clothing regulation, you may bring ahead of time to get evaluated of it. Pack a dressy pair of shoes, or get one when you are in Paris. Bring an attentive, downplayed evening dress.

In any case, don't move in an opposite direction from sneakers for other not really formal events. Wear them boldly in the road. You will mix fine and dandy on the off chance that you harbor a couple of pants and a couple of sneakers. Nike is an American brand, and it is famous in France. Levi's, Diesel, and Calvin Klein are American brands, and they rule the French pants scene as well. Indeed, I can't exactly think about any area in France where American culture didn't leave an imprint - aside from possibly food.

[mizjoely]

By the Light of the Moon

My last addition to the Sherlolly Halloween collection, a werewolf fic inspired by this post (especially the gorgeous artwork). On ff.net and AO3.

They tell her she's crazy, that he'll kill her and think nothing of it while trapped in the form and mind of a wolf.

They tell her her death will be meaningless; that even though he'll (possibly) mourn her death at his teeth and claws once he's human again (if he survives the night's hunt, the guns and knives, the savage pack of hunting hounds bred for just such prey), it won't change anything. He'll still be under the curse, but now with the taste of human blood in his fangs and thus even more dangerous.

But she stands fast, refusing to give into the fear and panic of the villagers. She implores Sir Mycroft for this one chance, this one opportunity to break the curse. He's a man of learning; surely he'll allow sentiment, just this once, just to try and save his only brother's life. Surely he'll listen to her, and allow her show him the evidence she's collected, in the old tales, in the whispered legends and myths of their land.

To the dismay and astonishment of the local sheriff, Gregory Lestrade, not only does Sir Mycroft listen, but he agrees to allow her the attempt. He even gives her a set of his brother's clothes to throw over his wolf-form, as another possible way to turn him back to human - a legend so obscure she'd overlooked it in her own desperate research.

But when the sheriff bravely offers to accompany her on her lone quest, Sir Mycroft and Molly both refuse him. "I'll not risk another life at a task that can be easily carried out by one person," he says in that firm, irrefusable way he has of speaking. He's always been far less approachable than his tempestuous, impulsive younger brother, as sturdy and unscalable as the walls of the centuries-old keep that is their family stronghold.

Lestrade continues to argue but Molly no longer listens. Heart beating fast, she carefully hugs the clothing she's been given to her chest, and retreats back to her small cottage on the edge of the forest into which Sir Mycroft's brother had vanished only hours before.

She hesitates before changing from her plain, workaday clothing into the one truly valuable gown she owns. She will be more easily seen in the moonlight wearing white, she reasons, difficult to mistake even in the darkness between the trees.

And it's not only the man she loves that she fears for; she'd recognized the look in Lestrade's eyes, and knew that she would not be entering the forest alone. That he and some of his finest trackers would slip in behind her, no matter what Sir Mycroft might command.

Indeed, she thinks as she pulls the whisper-thin gown over her head and tugs it awkwardly into place, he might very well be instructing him to do so now that I'm out of their hearing.

Well. Of such is the case, there's nothing she can do about it.

Picking up his clothing once again, she takes a deep breath, tries to slow the frantic beating of her heart, and heads for the door of her cottage.

Time to see if her research - and her feelings - are as true as she believes them to be.

                                              oOo

She enters the dark forest, her feet bare (the better to leave a scent trail for him to follow, although she doubts he'll need it), his clothing held tight to her chest. It's a warm summer night but there's still a slight chill in the air. Or is it an inner chill that raises goosebumps on her arms?

She's frightened, of course she's frightened, but more for him than for herself. If this doesn't work, if the curse can't be broken, then his life is forfeit. Even though he's not killed anyone, the threat is real: the sharp, clever mind of the man has been consumed by that of the savage beast he's become, and she hopes - oh how she hopes! - that her love, unrequited though it might forever be, will be enough to save him.

That, or the clothes she holds, she thinks with an attempt at humor. She only hopes she'll have time to throw them over his body before he tears her throat out, if her first attempt fails.

She reaches a clearing, one as familiar to her as her own home. She pauses in a shaft of moonlight as she studies the shadowy outlines of the great oak trees that surround her, remembering days spent picking wildflowers and identifying mushrooms with her father before his death. A touch of melancholy threatens to overcome her, but she resolutely sets it aside: this is no time to become lost in memories.

The truth of that thought is instantly proven as she feels every hair on her body rise up in response to something yet unseen, unheard. She holds still, moving only her eyes as she seeks out...there. In the darkness between the two largest oaks, across the clearing, she sees it. Him.

The wolf.

He pads out of the darkness, teeth bared in a snarl, a low growl sounding deep in his throat as he approaches, moving with slow deliberation. His fur appears to be black, but she thinks she sees streaks of reddish-brown; his eyes are golden orbs fixed on her with no sign of humanity in them.

She is in mortal danger no matter how slowly he approaches; should she attempt to turn, to run, he will be on her in an instant. So she remains still, heart pounding in her chest, and waits.

He stops only a few yards away, his eyes still fixed on hers, but his ears are pricked and she thinks that means he's curious. Certainly not the savage, out-of-control beast she'd been expecting to see. Slowly, carefully, she extends her hand, allows the clothing to drop to the ground at her feet.

He raises his snout, sniffing the air, letting out another low growl that turns to a questioning whine, or so it sounds to her ears. Even more carefully she extends her hand to him, holds it out entreatingly, and whispers his name.

Slowly, hesitantly, he inches forward, step by agonizingly slow step. She remains motionless but for the wind in her hair and her ragged breathing and the slight trembling of her outstretched hand.

He stops. Gazes up at her through the golden eyes of the wolf, but she sees the human heart behind them.

She smiles. Stretches her hand closer.

He raises a forepaw. Shuffles closer. Extends the paw closer.

And it is a human hand she grasps in her own.

She drops to her knees, trembling with relief as she meets the blue-green gaze of the man she's loved for so long.

"Sherlock," she whispers.

"Molly," he replies in a hoarse whisper of his own. With trembling fingers he reaches up, brushes the hair from her face. "My Molly."

Her love has not only saved him, but brought forth the love he held hidden so deeply in his heart even he hadn't recognized it for what it was.

Love for her, the moonlight to his darkness, always.

[radimus-co-uk]

T H U R S D A Y

[mokshabongs]

Creating The Perfect Shisha Cocktail

In last month’s blog theme, we looked at some of the more common ways that you can mix multiple shisha flavours or brands in the same stadium. For this month we are going to step personalty up a bit by explaining some advanced mixing systems, as well as some tips and tricks you can use when making shisha melds. (Hookah)

SHISHA Melds Massing As the name suggests, layering is when you fill your hookah stadium with layers of different shisha flavours or brands. The benefit of using the layering tack is that the flavour profile will change throughout your shisha session, with the top flavours being more pronounced at the nascence and either progressing to the rock-bottom layers. Layering also gives you control over the sinew of flavours, so you can use weaker flavours as the top clan and harsher, more potent flavours towards the bottom of the stadium. This is a direct result of the propinquity of the shisha to the heat source (hookah outline), with the rock-bottom layers taking longer to warm up and glow. For laying it’s workaday to stick to 2 different shisha flavours/ brands with a50/50 split, as 3 or further flavours/ brands is like much the same smoking experience as blending.

You can also take advantage of soberness with the layering strategy by placing a wetter shisha as the top status and allowing the glycerine/ molasses/ sugar saccharinity to drop down into a drier shisha base as it heats up and becomes minor thick. Your first deliberation is that this wouldn’t be much different to using the blending style with a wet and dry shisha combination, but by layering you are adding a dry spongy hedge to obviate the glycerine/ molasses/ sugar saccharinity from running down the hookah stem. This is really handy when you have wet shisha and do not have access to a phunnel colosseum.

SHISHA Emulsions AERATING Aerating is a tricky emulsion recipe to master, but it has its benefits. Aerating is like to the sectioning strategy, with the distinction being how tightly or around you pack certain shisha flavours. The lore behind the aerating recipe is that the looser you pack shisha, the farther breeze is possible, and so the shisha burns fleetly and delivers a more potent smog flavour. To take advantage of this, pack the sections of shisha looser that you want to be more splashy, and pack the shisha tighter that you want more subtle. How do you do this? You can weigh out your shisha first so that tighter packed flavours weigh other relative to the volume of the hookah stadium they take up. Either use a stoker or toothpick to aerate the looser section and fluff up the shisha. You can also place the shisha coals asymmetrically so that you have other heat above the looser packed sections. This is a bit of ruination with the aerating technique since the sections will not burn alike.

SHISHA Mixtures TIPS & TRICKS The succeeding time you are supposing about making some shisha mixtures, remember these helpful tips and tricks . When blending, pack the different shisha flavours into the coliseum first to work out the correct measure, either ditch it onto a plate to perform the blending . The blending methodology is best suited for differing shisha flavours/ brands The sectioning recipe is best suited for complimentary flavours/ brands Use the layering or aerating systems when you want to alter the puissance of flavours Use the layering system when you have a really wet shisha and need to stop the glycerine/ molasses/ sugar sentimentalism from running down the stem pipe.

Source- https://www.mokshabongs.com/creating-the-perfect-shisha-cocktail/

[acsversace-news]

You’ve got to hand it to Ryan Murphy: Love him or hate him, he never gives you quite what you expect. The first season of his FX anthology series American Crime Story (not to be confused with Murphy’s other anthology, American Horror Story) was an acclaimed ten-part look at the O.J. Simpson criminal trial that examined the subject matter from multiple perspectives, including those of the defense, the prosecution, and the jury, and illuminated the case’s wider context while allowing its central character, Simpson, to remain an enigma until the end. Season two, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, about the titular fashion designer’s murder by a serial killer, does all of those things, more or less (including the enigma part) while swapping in homophobia, AIDS, and gay rights for the first season’s focus on racism, sexism, and police misconduct.

But the tone, the pace, the feel of the season are all quite different. Adapted by novelist and London Spy screenwriter Tom Rob Smith from a 2000 nonfiction book by Maureen Orth titled Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History, it prizes atmosphere, characterization, architecture, and, yes, fashion over traditional storytelling virtues. It doesn’t attempt anything like the intricate structure of the O.J. season, which was as meticulously organized as a good lawyer’s evidence files, but it’s not disorganized, either. If anything, the structure of this one is much simpler, built around a conceit that has a certain poetry: We start with the murder and work our way backward chronologically, à la Memento or Irreversible.

The pilot, directed by Murphy in a series of gliding, faintly sinister long takes, starts by introducing Versace (Édgar Ramírez), his longtime partner Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin), and his soon-to-be-killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) in Miami on the day of the fashion designer’s 1997 murder, and builds inexorably to Cunanan shooting Versace to death outside the gates of his mansion. (The cinematography, by Murphy’s regular director of photography Nelson Cragg, is exceptional, using very wide-angle lenses to abstract the lines, colors, and shapes of rooms, hallways, building exteriors, and landscapes, so that you appreciate them as you might a suit or dress.) From that point on, the story moves according to its own slowed-down rhythms, choosing to focus its attention on people and events that might seem unconnected to the Versace murder until it dawns on you that you aren’t watching a procedural, or even what certain news outlets call an “explainer,” but something more like a psychologically oriented nonfiction novel — one that uses a combination of careful research and blatant dramatic license to speculate on why real people did the things they did, and how some of them ended up crossing paths in the first place.

Fans of the O.J. season might get whiplash from this one. Murphy’s direction sets a fresh template in the pilot — elegant and decadent, anxious and solemn, steeped in unglamorous, workaday details and historical milestones. The latter include the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which drove many qualified gay and lesbians into the closet or out into civilian life; the AIDS epidemic, which was also explored in Murphy’s divisive but vigorous HBO adaptation of The Normal Heart; and key events in the life of the Versace family, including Gianni’s decision to come out, his murder by Cunanan, and his sister Donatella’s (Penélope Cruz) attempt to carve out her own identity in the family business. Throughout, however, more time is devoted to Cunanan than either of the Versaces, and despite Criss’s memorably creepy-enthusiastic performance as Cunanan, the killer never seems like more than an unnerving bundle of insecurity, grandiosity, deceptiveness, and petulance, with a touch of Norman Bates’s birdlike insistence and Patrick Bateman’s obsession with brands. He’s a character who’s tailor-made for viewer projection and thinkpiece generation, but who never registers as a human being as powerfully as the major supporting characters, the Versaces in particular. (The dialogue doesn’t always do him or anyone else favors. Not even a performer as skilled and charismatic as Cruz can put across a sentiment like, “You live in isolation, surrounded by beauty and kindness. You have forgotten how cruel the world can be.”)

And yet — odd as this might sound — Cunanan ultimately works rather well as kind of storytelling device, moving the tale backward through time, and all over the continental U.S. This strategy won’t be to everyone’s liking, and I won’t pretend that it works like gangbusters all the time. But it’s a valid storytelling approach that’s been used in everything from Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar to Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, and it gives Murphy & Co. a pretext to spend quality time with other Cunanan victims who weren’t particularly famous, which is opposite of what productions like this usually do.

The cast of characters who are each granted the equivalent of their own short film includes closeted real-estate developer Lee Miglin, touchingly portrayed by former M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell, and Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock), a former Navy lieutenant driven out the service by institutional as well as personal bigotry. Although it’s regrettable in some ways that it took the story of a gay serial killer to create the framework for a series of sketches about gay men of different ages and social classes (all white except Cunanan, who was half-Filipino), it’s also remarkable to see a major cable drama devote one-and-a-half episodes to somebody like Trail, an intriguingly complex noncelebrity who defended a fellow gay sailor from two homophobic attacks, cut a tattoo off his own leg to prevent investigators from using it to identify him in one of their witch hunts, and ultimately resolved to move away from San Diego because the sight of Navy ships in the harbor was breaking his heart.

Throughout, the variety of locales is more wide-ranging than could’ve been anticipated: Besides ‘90s-era Miami, we briefly visit San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York City, and Pennsville, New Jersey, and the fetishistic production design and costuming consistently nail the little details that help sell a moment, from the high-waist, stone-washed jeans Cunanan sometimes wears to the blocky TVs and computers in every home, apartment, and office. And even when the story spends more time marinating in a subplot or scene than its dramatic content might justify, you can be confident that if you just stick with it for another five or ten minutes, there’ll be a scene unlike any you’ve ever encountered, like the flashback to a victim’s childhood that shows him going on a hunting trip with his father, running away in horror after the old man shoots a duck, then being consoled rather than chastised afterwards, and sincerely assured that hunting is “not for everyone.” The Assassination of Gianni Versace isn’t for everyone, either, but it’s sincere and committed as it follows its own path. When you get to the end, the reversed storytelling could seem sad, because you’re thinking about the inevitable tragedies to come, or restorative, because the dead have been systematically resurrected and have at least a bit more living to do.

[akumeoy]

let the town apply itself, without loss of time, to manufacturing all that the peasant needs, instead of fashioning gewgaws for the wives of rich citizens. let the sewing machines of paris be set to work on clothes for the country-folk: workaday clothes and clothes for sunday too, instead of costly evening dresses. let the factories and foundries turn out agricultural implements, spades, rakes, and such-like, instead of waiting till the english send them to france, in exchange for french wines! let the towns send no more inspectors to the villages, wearing red, blue, or rainbow-coloured scarves, to convey to the peasant orders to take his produce to this place or that, but let them send friendly embassies to the country-folk and bid them in brotherly fashion: "bring us your produce, and take from our stores and shops all the manufactured articles you please." then provisions would pour in on every side. the peasant would only withhold what he needed for his own use, and would send the rest into the cities, feeling for the frst time in the course of history that these toiling townsfolk were his comrades--his brethren, and not his exploiters.

peter kropotkin, “the conquest of bread”

i think the economy has moved beyond the point where this applies in the literal sense (i mean, we’re all working service or computer jobs these days), but the sentiment, imo, still holds -- giving someone their due access to the fruits of your labor, asking only for what you need in return, is a hell of an olive branch.

[sciencespies]

Christmas Wasn't Always the Kid-Friendly Gift Extravaganza We Know Today

https://sciencespies.com/history/christmas-wasnt-always-the-kid-friendly-gift-extravaganza-we-know-today/

Christmas Wasn't Always the Kid-Friendly Gift Extravaganza We Know Today

There’s a special, even magical connection between children and the “most wonderful time of the year.” Their excitement, their belief, the joy they bring others have all become wrapped up in the Christmas spirit. Take the lyrics of classic songs like “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” “White Christmas,” or even the aptly titled “Christmas Is for Children” by country music legend Glen Campbell—these are just a few of the many pop culture offerings that cement the relationship between kids and Christmas. But it hasn’t always been this way, even though the holiday celebrates the Christ child’s birth. How kids got to the heart of Christmas has a lot to tell us about the hopes and needs of the modern grown-ups who put them there.

Until the late 18th century, Christmas was a boisterous affair, with roots in the pre-Christian Midwinter and Roman Saturnalia holidays. You’d find more along the lines of drunkenness, debauchery and raucous carousing at this time of year, especially from young men and the underclasses, than “silent night, holy night.” For example, in early forms of wassailing (the forerunner of neighborhood carol-singing) the poor could go into the homes of the rich, demanding the best to drink and eat in exchange for their goodwill. (Once you know this, you’ll never hear “Now bring us some figgy pudding” the same way again!)

But the boozy rowdiness of the season, together with its pagan roots, was so threatening to religious and political authorities that Christmas was discouraged and even banned in the 17th and 18th centuries. (These bans included the parliamentarians in mid-17th century England, and the Puritans in America’s New England in the 1620s—the “pilgrims” of Thanksgiving fame.) But then, as now, many ordinary people loved the holiday, making Christmas difficult to stamp out. So how did it transform from a period of misrule and mischief into the domestic, socially manageable and economically profitable season that we know today? This is where the children come in.

Until the late 18th century, the Western world saw children as bearers of natural sinfulness that needed to be disciplined toward goodness. But as Romantic ideals about childhood innocence took hold, children (specifically, white children) became seen as the precious, innocent keepers of enchantment that we recognize today, understood as deserving protection and living through a distinct phase of life.

This is also the time when Christmas began to transform in ways that churches and governments found more acceptable, into a family-centered holiday. We can see this in the peaceful, child-focused carols that emerged in the 19th century, like “Silent Night,” “What Child Is This?,” and “Away in a Manger.” But all the previous energy and excess of the season didn’t just disappear. Instead, where once it brought together rich and poor, dominant and dependent according to old feudal organizations of power, new traditions shifted the focus of yuletide generosity from the local underclasses to one’s own children.

Meanwhile, the newly accepted “magic” of childhood meant that a child-centered Christmas could echo the old holiday’s topsy-turvy logic while also serving the new industrializing economy. By making one’s own children the focus of the holiday, the seasonal reversal becomes less nakedly about social power (with the poor making demands on the rich) and more about allowing adults to take a childlike break from the rationalism, cynicism and workaday economy of the rest of the year.

Social anthropologist Adam Kuper describes how the modern Christmas “constructs an alternate reality,” beginning with rearranged social relations at work in the run-up to the holiday (think office parties, secret Santas, toy drives and more) and culminating in a complete shift to the celebrating home, made sacred with decked halls, indulgent treats and loved ones gathered together. During this season, adults can psychologically share in the enchanted spaces we now associate with childhood, and carry the fruits of that experience back to the grind of everyday life when it starts up again after the New Year.

This temporary opportunity for adults to immerse themselves in the un-modern pleasures of enchantment, nostalgia for the past and unproductive enjoyment is why it’s so important that kids fully participate in the magic of Christmas. The Western understanding of childhood today expects young people to hold open spaces of magical potential for adults through their literature, media, and beliefs. This shared assumption is evident in the explosion of children’s fantasy set in medieval-looking worlds over past century, which was the focus of my recent book, Re-Enchanted (where I discuss Narnia, Middle-earth, Harry Potter and more). Christmas or Yule appear in many of these modern fairy stories, and sometimes even play a central role—think Father Christmas gifting the Pevensie children weapons in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—using the holiday as a bridge between the magical otherworlds of fiction and our real-world season of possibility.

Beyond storytelling, we also literally encourage kids to believe in magic at Christmas. One of the most iconic expressions this is an 1897 editorial in the New York Sun titled “Is There a Santa Claus?” In it, editor Francis Pharcellus Church replies to a letter from 8-year-old Virgina O’Hanlon with the now-famous phrase “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” and describes her friends’ disbelief as coming from the “skepticism of a skeptical age.” Church argues that Santa “exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist,” minimizing the methods of scientific inquiry to claim that “[t]he most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.”

Many of the arguments for the importance of the arts and humanities that we still hear today can be found in Church’s language, which identifies sources of emotional experience like “faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance”—and belief in Santa Claus—as crucial to a humane and fully lived life. According to this mindset, Santa not only exists, but belongs to the only “real and abiding” thing in “all this world.” “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” as it has come to be known, has been reprinted and adapted across media forms since its publication, including as part of holiday TV specials and as the inspiration for Macy’s department store’s “Believe” charity and advertising campaign since 2008.

The fact that the sentiments in this editorial have come to be associated with a major retailer may seem ironic. Yet, calls to reject consumerism at Christmas have been around ever since it became a commercial extravaganza in the early 19th century, which is also when buying presents for kids became a key part of the holiday. How to explain this? Today, just as in premodern Christmases, overturning norms during this special time helps to strengthen those same norms for the rest of the year. The Santa myth not only gives kids a reason to profess the reassuring belief that magic is still out there in our disenchanted-looking world, it also transforms holiday purchases from expensive obligations into timeless symbols of love and enchantment. As historian Stephen Nissenbaum puts it, from the beginning of Santa Claus’s popularization, he “represented an old-fashioned Christmas, a ritual so old that it was, in essence, beyond history, and thus outside the commercial marketplace.” Kids’ joyful wonder at finding presents from Santa on Christmas morning does more than give adults a taste of magic, it also makes our lavish holiday spending feel worthwhile, connecting us to a deep, timeless past—all while fueling the yearly injection of funds into the modern economy.

Does knowing all this ruin the magic of Christmas? Cultural analysis doesn’t have to be a Scrooge-like activity. To the contrary, it gives us the tools to create a holiday more in line with our beliefs. I’ve always found the way we abandon kids to deal with the discovery that “Santa isn’t real” on their own—or even expect them to hide it, for fear of disappointing adults that want to get one more hit of secondhand enchantment—unethical and counter to the spirit of the season. The song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” is supposed to be funny, but it captures shades of the real anxiety many kids go through every year. Knowing what children and their belief do for society during the holidays can help us choose a better approach.

A couple of years ago I saw a suggestion floating around on the internet that I think offers an ideal solution for those who celebrate Christmas. When a child starts questioning the Santa myth and seems old enough to understand, take them aside and, with utmost seriousness, induct them into the big grown-up secret: Now THEY are Santa. Tell the child that they have the power to make wishes come true, to fill the world with magic for others, and as a result, for us all. Then help them pick a sibling or friend, or better yet, look outside the family circle to find a neighbor or person in need for whom they can secretly “be” Santa Claus, and let them discover the enchantment of bringing uncredited joy to someone else. As Francis Pharcellus Church wrote to Virginia O’Hanlon more than 100 years ago, the unseeable values of “love and generosity and devotion” are in some ways the “most real things in the world,” and that seems like something that all kids —whether they’re age 2 or 92—can believe in.

Maria Sachiko Cecire is an associate professor of literature and the director of the Center for Experimental Humanities at Bard College. This essay has been adapted from material published in her recent book, Re-Enchanted: The Rise of Children’s Fantasy Literature.

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