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divingtotheunknown · 3 years

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Living In Uncertainties

To anyone who continues to resist like me, you may not realize it now but you are ever so lucky to not have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. A huge part of people’s lives was swiftly taken from them as the virus raged across the country. Who would have thought that the one week suspension we heard on the news last year would last until now.

Most of the time, it felt unreal how the entire thing was. It was as if my world stopped and I was confined to one of its corners. I can’t say for myself how terrible the experience was, just that it was. It brought out the worst in the society, in men; selfishness, greed, indifference and above all, fear. Fear was the biggest of the four. It influenced all the others to terrorize the hearts and minds of people.

The virus was very unpredictable for a long time. It is actually testing the technology to stave off the virus. It could appear anywhere, anytime without us knowing and it could’ve meant life or death.

Which means to say that the possibility of anyone we loved or us ourselves getting the virus was high and that could very well be the end of the line. I can’t stress enough how badly that fear affected the mental and emotional well-being of a lot of the people I knew. Personally, I never expected this pandemic would let social media affect my own thinking. The same goes with the mindset of the public with what and how they consume information online. The fact the fake news is everywhere, undeniably a lot of people became victims of it, even some members of my family - which is why it is really important how important it is to be a responsible user nowadays. It was evident that during the first few days, we were vigorously trying to find ways to take off the looming dread from that thought but it seems that no matter how far we ran, that thought kept close on our tails.

People spoke up about the stress this entire thing would cause on society. In particular, the working class and the poor were the most affected. A lot of them needed to work daily just to get paid and earn a living. They had to stop so that they could be safe and also to stop the number of infected people from increasing. There was nothing they could do. When they left, it seemed as if society had stopped as well. To be honest, our business was affected as well. Luckily, I was able to help my parents continue the business through the use of e-commerce using different platforms online but I know and it is sad that not everyone has the access and ability to move forward using the same resources we had. Only a few workers were allowed to be outside of their homes, they were the medical workers and frontliners like those who worked in groceries. A lot of medical workers lost their lives to the virus. How painful it must have been for their colleagues to watch as the people beside them fell ill and succumbed to death. A friend of mine shared to me how hard it was for them not to see her father personally after dying due to a virus. He ended his life fulfilling his duty as a Doctor. Saying the last words for her Dad through video call is different from the usual but again, what can we do? I can only imagine all the pain they carried during those days. How brave they all were, risking their own safety for the sake of others. They did not want to be part of that front and yet there they were.

This stress was also put on students. Universities decided to conduct online classes completely. I did not see the fairness in that. While it’s true that we students should give value to our time by spending it on education, we too felt the weight of the situation. A lot of us were still coping with the madness that seemed to take on the world. But what could we do? Over a year, we have been so hopeful that one day, we can still go back to the campus but despite all that, I am still grateful for the power of media and technology. Applications like Facebook allows us to keep in touch, Twitter and Instagram reminds us to be updated, Blackboard, Zoom, Discord and other articulations of social media allows us to continue pursuing our dreams despite all the limitations and challenges brought by the pandemic. We had no choice but to resign to our fate of finishing the academic year against our wishes.

During these days, the government seemed to be at its worst. It turned out that hospitals all over the country were underprepared because they were not funded properly. What’s worse was that the government deployed the police and troops to “ensure public safety”. Just like what we always see in different social media applications, police do not protect the public, instead the people behind all the shortcomings in the country. How ironic it was to see the military well-armed. It added nothing more than fear to the people. There were several incidents where the military unjustly shot people down for being suspicious or unruly. They did not even hesitate to point their guns! Good thing is, with the continuous innovation in terms of technology, there was much evidence online that would prove the blasphemy of the abusers of power.

It did not take long for people to realize that they would be stuck at home for so long. Everyone needed to stay home and so they needed as many supplies as possible. However, it came to a point where people got greedy and all they could think of was themselves. People tend to hoard whenever they see news about the possible shift of quarantine and this is actually a situation I can connect with the lesson about substantivism wherein technology has a capability to affect or mold the people and even the society. I understand the need to look for one’s own welfare, I understand the need to care for our loved ones but what I did not understand was why people had to cross the line towards being greedy and hoarding far more than they needed.

As far as man has evolved, its progress is still so little. In the midst of a global crisis, they found time to claw at each other’s throats by pointing fingers to pass the blame. It came to a point where Asian people were discriminated against as carriers of the disease. Perhaps the worst case was that of the American president calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus. I felt ashamed of these people. There were a lot of others trying to help build more unity and yet these people were insensitive enough to cause more divisions. I dream that such connectivity has been brought to us by the media, hopefully time will come it will also apply to the society, country even as one nation.

It was truly a terrible time. Imagine the reality of a global scale crisis paired dawning on you from behind and before you are the immoral choices made by the society you live in. It was one of the most vulnerable moments of my life. I felt crushed by the immense weight of the situation we were all in.

I missed the outdoors, I missed my friends, I missed school. I missed the joys that I could only experience outside of my home, I missed the fresh air, I missed the sunlight. realized that I took a lot of these for granted. We can only see our loved ones on our screens and it is heartbreaking that we can no longer do the things we are used to. It’s true what they say: you only realize the value of some things once they are gone or taken away from you.

All I could wonder then, was if life would ever be back to the way things were.

They say that during the direst of situations, the worst and best in man shows. I’ve had my fair share of seeing just how bad a man can get. Yet, there were times when man’s goodness prevailed. In fact, you’d be surprised just how many of them there are.

A lot of people held volunteer work that reached out to poor communities so that they could be given food and supplies. Some people hosted online charity events from their homes to raise funds to donate to the medical effort, online donations drive and they even use media as their means of communication for community pantry. It was those moments that gave me hope and reminded me of how morally good people can be. During those moments it felt like not everything was wrong with the world.

Those days really made me realize how difficult it was to really put a finger on what morality is. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that we may never really be completely good or bad. Sometimes, we’re a little bit of each other. Indeed, people are constantly changing, even technology and society. It’s unbelievable how new media changes our lives, our way of living and how we use these innovations although there’s always pros and cons. It’s hard to juggle that thought because we are so limited, so small compared to the universe we live in.

The message I leave with you now, dear reader, is to live. To live means to learn. To live means to see. To live means to understand, to appreciate, to feel, to live is everything. Get rid of the distractions caused by these changes. Concern yourself with the world so as not to be selfish but also devote time to yourself when you need it.

REFERENCES:

Soriano, P. N. (2021, August 31). Nueva Ecija records 14 new COVID-19 Delta variant cases. Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/nation/covid-19-delta-variant-cases-nueva-ecija-august-27-2021?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR20YsXyEhuxFMu7Y4P5uWon2xRnYZ7tqpQWSCJxxaaCdpFsTKtasfe5zI8#Echobox=1630055399

Pangue, J. (2021, January 9). In 2021, communities can prove that fighting disinformation isn’t just media’s role. Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/moveph/communities-prove-fighting-disinformation-not-just-media-role

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stylesnews · 5 years

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Harry Styles sumptuous new video for Lights Up took the world by storm last week. Exclusively for GQ, the young, half-American, half-British designer Harris Reed shares the inner workings of how Styles’ killer blue outfit for the brand-new solo song came together...

If you know about Harris Reed, you know. And if you don't? Well, keep up at the back. Reed is one of fashion's most exciting new talents, his designs lauded for their sparkly romance, their craft and unbridled otherworldliness. Reed came to GQ's attention a couple of years ago while he was still at Central Saint Martins, his designs already imbued with a silhouette that was both modern and nostalgic, all washed with an achingly cool, non-binary LA energy: his aesthetic has darkness, light, glamour and a non-threatening sense of their own sexiness. His designs aren't just gender-fluid, they're like wearing liquid gold.

Fashion's worst-kept secret is the fact that Reed has been working with Harry Styles for a couple of years now, making one-off outfits for the singer's spectacular stage shows and offering the musician looks that seem in harmony with his renewed sense of self and megawatt style. Last week, when Styles' lascivious, wonton, sweaty and damn good new song, "Lights Up", was blasted out into the world, we noticed it was one of Reed's bespoke designs that the artist had decided to wear for his second solo jaunt. As the video caught fire and went global, we called the ever-charming Reed to talk to him about working with Styles, how the outfit for "Lights Up" came about exactly and just how far he thinks Styles is willing to go with his new covetable gender-blurring aesthetic...

GQ: Hey Harris, nice talking to you again. How's it going?

Harris Reed: "Well, I have a stinking cold, which is the worst. Especially when you are supposed to be working and selling a collection, it can seem like it's ruining your life. But it's OK, I will get through it."

Congratulations on your design for Harry Styles' outfit for "Lights Up". You must be thrilled?

"Thank you, I am really happy. And it's cute as well that Harry made his little icon photo on Instagram an image of the outfit from the video. Quite pleased to say the least."

When did you first start working with Harry Styles?

"My big connect with Harry goes back to Harry Lambert, his stylist, who was the first person I ever worked with and the first person who pulled in any of my clothes years ago. I had that relationship with him starting about two years ago and after a while [Lambert] told me, 'I think you're ready, even though you're right at the beginning of your career, to meet this person...' I pulled some designs together – I didn't really know who it was at this point – but I put together some references. Jimi Hendrick and [David] Bowie and Mick Jagger – you know, just classic rock’n’roll iconic frontmen whom I could see in the designs. Then that's when I heard that it was actually for Harry Styles."

When did you first meet Harry?

"It was November 2017 at one of his shows, at the Hammersmith Arena, and I got a text message from Harry Lambert saying, 'OK, just meet us at the stage door.' It was insane – a sea of screaming girls, men and women were fainting and being taken away in ambulances... I was like, 'What the fuck?' It was insane. And so I found the stage door and went up to this woman who was wearing this huge red coat and I went, 'Hi, I am here to see Harry Styles.' Obviously she laughed in in my face, saying something like, 'Who the fuck are you?' I replied, 'I am going to be Harry Styles' designer.' Like that, I'm not sure where the bravado came from! She goes, 'Of course, come with me.' I was led me through the crowd and right then and there I met Harry and the rest is history, I guess."

How much steer did Harry give you initially for the clothing?

"Honestly, Harry [Styles] was truly the way I envisioned. I think it was Harry Lambert who originally gave me some references for the first work I did for him. It was never a strict brief, but initially I only had about a day to put something together, like, the day before. It was so late to the process. It was more how I could see my designs adapting for him. And then when I went into the meeting I was like, 'Let's do ruffles!' I went a bit crazy, and that's when [Styles] got a lot more involved and was steering me in the direction he wanted. But Harry [Styles] was so open to what I saw for him and what I wanted was an old-world elegance rather than seeing some hot guy in skinny jeans and a T-shirt jumping around on stage – which can work and is amazing - but I wanted to make this aesthetic far more romantic. Watching him as he performs on stage, he is so explosive and amazing at dancing and moving around... Listen, I have so much respect for Gucci and what they do for him, but because of that relationship he was wearing so many suits, so I felt like what I could offer was more fluid, a flounciness or a different silhouette, billowy sleeves and so on. Even the outfit I did for the 'Lights Up' video was sleeveless and the trousers had a slight flare, so he could dance and do his pelvic thrusting, which he loves to do."

The outfit for Lights Up, when did you start working on this particular style moment for him?

"I was coming back from my week-long hiatus in LA during the summer after finishing at Gucci, so I was exhausted. I was in New York and Harry [Lambert] got in contact to say, 'Hey, I don't know if you're up for this but Harry would love you to do something for the next video.' All top secret, of course. All he sent me were two Pantone colours of blue with a note: 'It needs to be in this shade of blue; I can't tell you too much else.' And I was like, well, OK. And at the time I wasn't drunk... But let's say I was enjoying myself in NYC and it was really late at night and Harry [Styles] was actually there shooting his Rolling Stone cover and, as a coincidence, his stylist was like, 'Can you get some ideas to me really quickly. He needs to be able to move in it and it needs to look like he's about to go on stage and take the world.' So I kind I thought, 'movement', 'take the world' and 'stage' and got to work..."

Did you design it straight away?

"Yeah, I was in a bar, [The Bowery Hotel] so I asked the barman for a napkin and he handed me this piece of paper and I did a chicken scratch drawing and sent it back to Harry right away. He was like, 'This is perfect.' I did so many more sketches at the time, but he liked this one, it was so easy and clean and it reminds me a bit of David Bowie's 'Dog Days' but more sparkly and upbeat and less linen and long hair."

Did you have time for fittings and so on?

"Erm, no! We made the piece literally in three days. I got back from NYC with that sketch and they were leaving on a plane to do the video imminently. So I landed in London, went to all my favourite fabric shops in Soho, running around like a crazy madman with all these Pantone swatches of fabric. I have dozens of photos of all these different hues of blue. We ended up using a blue silk moire as it needed to be water resistant, or not water resistant, just be able to work with water, so reflective and shiny without being too heavy and not too hot, as the video was being filmed in South America. And we didn't have any time to do a fitting, so I had to fit the whole outfit on myself. Harry and I have very different body proportions so we were just very lucky. I remember they flew to South America to shoot the video and Harry [Styles] texted me, 'It fits! It works!' And I was in fucking heaven. I didn't sleep for a solid three days doing that outfit so I was thrilled."

This isn't the first outfit you've made for Harry Styles. Where are all those incredible one-off designs stored? Surely this archive must be preserved somewhere?

"I can't say where it is located, but everything goes to an archive. It's basically like a giant refrigerator – a frozen vault – somewhere in London where I am not going to disclose. But the clothes all have 24 hours surveillance, which you can look at via an iPad, specifically done for his outfits, and they have all been cryogenically frozen in time to preserve them. That's also what is more surreal for me. After his first solo tour that I produced 14-15 looks for – he wore about six or seven – I was wondering where the others were and he was like, 'Don't worry, they are all under surveillance.' I was like, 'Oh, that's chic.'"

Can you tell us what is next in the pipeline for you and Mr Styles?

"Hmm... Let me see what can I say. I think people can expect some pretty crazy, fabulous things coming. I can't say too much. I think with Harry I am hoping this is really just the beginning and as he evolves with his own music, and I evolve as a young designer, I hope we can work on more possible projects and clothes and... things!"

Do you hear the music before you make the outfits for him?

"I think the way he speaks about the music, the way he speaks about the process is a real influence on me as a designer. I was lucky enough to go an see him in the studio this summer, and just seeing the passion and the ideas... I am someone who talks a lot with my hands and he's the same, like he's really orchestrating his whole universe. Even the way the 'Lights Up' video was teased, it's never just music with him as for me it's never just clothes – it's the message too. That is what inspires me. I hope I get to hear little teasers of new music along the way, although I always have his stuff sort of on a loop in the studio anyway... Old school rock’n’roll and dashes of Harry Styles along the way."

Do you ever get intimidated by the fact these designs will make up part of his musical legacy?

"Honestly, from a design perspective, I don't worry, because when he tells me he loves something nothing else really matters. And because I'm not just designing a black T-shirt or a simple pair of trousers, I am making a statement, so it actually takes the pressure off me. I don't worry about it if he doesn't. I worry more about a seam splitting open. I remember he wore a few outfits for his big tour of Asia and I made all those outfits on my £50 sewing machine while eating chicken nuggets at five in the morning. I was still studying, and I don't have a proper atelier, so its those technical worries that are the things that stress me out. People don't know this but there's a picture in Rolling Stone where he is near naked holding a ping pong bat and the caption is something like, 'Harry waiting for a garment to be fixed' and it was my garment and the zipper had ripped right off. But he sort of says, 'Let's take this fashion risk together', so nothing else matters. As I said, if he loves it, I am happy."

Ever feel like you're pushing him too far with your designs?

"[Laughs.] He is so lovely and I don't think he ever wants to tell someone 'no' but there's definitely been a time when I laid out the designs from the most timid to the craziest, and when we got the craziest, he does this thing with his lips where he smiles, but he he's like, 'OK, we're not going to go this far.' But it probably involved an outfit with his ass hanging out or some huge Liberace cape... So he's always open, but sometimes I can see in his eyes that he's not quite there with me. I try to read those little mannerisms."

#harry styles #harris reed #article #oct19 #lightsup

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louistomlinsoncouk · 5 years

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Louis Tomlinson: ‘It took some real maturity to understand that One Direction wasn't real life’

I meet Louis Tomlinson at Simon Cowell's London office: a huge, two-room space befitting of a Bond villain at Sony Music’s HQ in High Street Kensington, on the floor occupied by his label, Syco. Cowell, to be clear, isn’t here, but he definitely feels present. A ten-foot portrait of the music mogul smirks down on all those who enter from the minimalist living room wall. Tomlinson, his publicist and I go straight through the frosted glass doors into the office-proper to do our interview, but before we can start the 27-year-old One Direction member turned solo artist needs a cigarette.

Within 30 seconds someone has brought Tomlinson a heavy orb-shaped black ashtray and a cup of tea. He lights up – smoking two more over the next half an hour – and visibly relaxes, leaning back in his chair. Tomlinson has the air of a comedic TV personality: warm, funny and self-effacing, he makes regular references to his hometown of Doncaster (“Donny”), has a loud, theatrical voice and swears like a trooper. “Simon won’t mind,” he says – and mind Cowell shouldn’t. One Direction, one of the most successful boy bands of all time, were Cowell’s cash cow after he brought them together on the X Factor in 2010. Since going on “hiatus” in 2016, all five boys (now men in their mid-twenties) launched solo careers, but only Tomlinson stuck with Syco. Now, Cowell's last vestige of the One Direction big bucks is gearing up to release a debut album, which, as anyone who knows anything about the fervour of the band's fans will be well aware, is already a guaranteed hit.

Tomlinson has, however, taken a big risk. Dressed in a vintage red football shirt, black tracksuit bottoms and black trainers, hair still styled into sweeping boy band perfection, he explains that this new music is “a statement of intent”. Gone are the saccharine, dance-tinged pop beats heard on his 2017 and 2018 collaborations with Bebe Rexha and Steve Aoki. Instead, his latest single “Kill My Mind” is a nineties rock-inspired anthem that sounds like an ode to Oasis. “I spent a long time treading water working out where I fit in the industry,“ he says. “I had to work out what it is I can actually get away with, and just how much I have to play for radio,” explaining that he did the aforementioned collaborations “because I felt like I had Tomlinson says that, unlike former bandmates Zayn Malik and Liam Payne, both of who have released music obviously influenced by hip-hop and R&B, “I can’t really relate to the urban-leaning sounds you hear on American radio”. Instead, he cites Catfish And The Bottlemen as an influence (“Lyrically, it’s conversational and honest”) and spends his time listening to Apple Music playlist “Kebab On The Night Bus”, which features bands such as The Arctic Monkeys, The Stone Roses, The Who and Idles . The result is a solo output that, finally, makes him feel “really excited and really proud. This is where I want to be.

So what does he want this new music to say about him, other than he likes guitar music? “I want people to look at me as a good and credible songwriter.” Overall, what I want from my lyrics is honesty,” he elaborates. “I want it to be real. I don’t want them to feel Hollywood or contrived.” Most of the album is “very autobiographical”, but he’s also taken care to keep it “exciting”, after listening to the earliest version of it and feeling that “A lot of it sounded quite sad.” Tomlinson, who lost his younger sister earlier this year, references the single before “Kill My Mind”, “Two Of Us”, which is about his late mother, Johannah Deakin, who passed away in 2016 after a battle with leukaemia. “That’s a very, very honest song, but it was also very emotionally heavy. I don’t want to be known as that guy.” What, the stereotypical mope with a guitar? “Yeah, exactly, I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. I want people to feel good when they listen to my music. That’s one of the amazing things we had with One Direction.”

Together with Liam Payne, Tomlinson did a lot of the writing for One Direction, which, on reflection, he thinks he was driven to do so that he might find his role in the band. “This isn’t a relatable statement,” he acknowledges, “but I imagine that anyone who’s been in a band or boyband will understand this feeling. There were definitely times in the band that I felt like I could do more or sing more, which is why I actively tried to get better as a writer, because I thought that would be my outlet.”

Now Tomlinson feels like he's found his writing groove, but is he worried the One Direction fans might not like his new music? “Yeah and that’s what creates a bit of a conundrum actually, because that’s very relevant for me,” he says. “I feel like, to a certain degree, we all owe them something. We are where we are because of them, it’s as simple as that.” As my colleagues here at GQ can attest – this 2013 interview with the band got us death threats – upsetting fervent One Direction fans is not an action to be taken lightly. He says that he’s “deliberately included songs on the album that feel a little bit transitional, so it won’t be too alienating towards the fans”. Lyrically, however, he feels like he still “writes what they want to hear, because it’s honest and it’s real and it’s me pouring my heart out”.

But with a ready-made audience come anxiety-inducing benchmarks. “Having the experience of being in 1D was incredible and it’s given me so much to work with, but it’s also hard in terms of expectation, because that was the pinnacle of what we were,” he says sombrely, referring back to the time spent mulling over how to balance making music that’s authentic with finding his place in the mainstream. “If I’d done this interview two years ago, I’d have said to you that if my album doesn’t get to No1 I’ll feel like I’ve failed. It embarrasses me saying that shit out loud now, but it took some real maturity to understand that One Direction wasn’t real life... Everything I’d been shaping my experiences around was something that wasn’t real life, even in the music industry.”

We laugh about those heady days, when he was 18-24, fresh out of Doncaster and making the kind of money 99.9 per cent of us can only ever dream about. “There was a solid time when I spent a long time looking at the most stupid, ridiculous things to spend money on,” he says when I ask him about his own crazy popstar purchases, having read that Liam Payne once bought the Ford Anglia from Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. “I’ve got a long list of random movie props that starts with the great opener of the leg braces that Tom Hanks wears in Forest Gump. Have I ever got them out? No. I looked at them when I bought them like, ‘Oh, this is amazing,’ but really, I’m not a showy person, I’m not going to have them on display in my house.” Also stored away (“I’ve got Hard Rock Cafe in one cupboard”) are the swords from Kill Bill.

[...]

Has he ever considered retiring out of the public eye? “I’ve thought about that loads of times. It’s only the fans, and the fact I have a point to prove to myself, that keep me getting up every day and getting on to do it,” he says. “When I’m 50, I’m going to go off and get my coaching badges and I’m going to manage some youth team and win the FA Youth Cup with them.” So with all the intense media scrutiny, the feeling that you owe millions of people around the world well, something, and a hugely successful stint as a musician already under his belt, what’s he’s still trying to prove with his solo career? “People and the press love to say, ‘Oh, A and B will do well, but the rest of the lads, they’re not going to do anything.’ So my point I’m trying to prove is that I’m still going to be here in ten years, I hope”.

#louis tomlinson #press #kmm: british gq #kill my mind promo #19sep19 #it's not the full thing

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hlupdate · 5 years

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GQ: Hey Harris, nice talking to you again. How's it going?

Congratulations on your design for Harry Styles' outfit for "Lights Up". You must be thrilled?

"Thank you, I am really happy. And it's cute as well that Harry made his little icon photo on Instagram an image of the outfit from the video. Quite pleased to say the least."

When did you first start working with Harry Styles?

When did you first meet Harry?

How much steer did Harry give you initially for the clothing?

The outfit for Lights Up, when did you start working on this particular style moment for him?

Did you design it straight away?

Did you have time for fittings and so on?

This isn't the first outfit you've made for Harry Styles. Where are all those incredible one-off designs stored? Surely this archive must be preserved somewhere?

Can you tell us what is next in the pipeline for you and Mr Styles?

Do you hear the music before you make the outfits for him?

Do you ever get intimidated by the fact these designs will make up part of his musical legacy?

Ever feel like you're pushing him too far with your designs?

#harry styles #harris reed #harry team #lights up #161019

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dailytomlinson · 5 years

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Tomlinson says that, unlike former bandmates Zayn Malik and Liam Payne, both of who have released music obviously influenced by hip-hop and R&B, “I can’t really relate to the urban-leaning sounds you hear on American radio”. Instead, he cites Catfish And The Bottlemen as an influence (“Lyrically, it’s conversational and honest”) and spends his time listening to Apple Music playlist “Kebab On The Night Bus”, which features bands such as The Arctic Monkeys, The Stone Roses, The Who and Idles . The result is a solo output that, finally, makes him feel “really excited and really proud. This is where I want to be.”

Still three years shy of 30 and living between London and LA (where he shares a home with his best friend from Doncaster, Olly), Tomlinson seems to have finally found some balance.

#gq magazine #190919 #kmm press #stunt mention #press #louis tomlinson

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roamanov · 4 years

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Class 1: The social aesthetics of confession.

Required reading

Confessions by St Augustine (extract): Found here: (Book 4 - http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/augconf/aug04.htm)

Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (extract)

Reality Hunger by David Shields (extract)

Recommended reading

Shannon Keating, “Am I Writing About My Life, Or Selling Myself Out?” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/personal-writing-social-media-influencers-caroline-calloway

Sarah Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion – introduction’: available in PDF on Blackboard and online via Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QT8YAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Marshall Berman, ‘Goethe’s Faust: The Tragedy of Development’ and ‘First Metamorphosis: The Dreamer’ from All that is Solid Melts into Air (on Blackboard)

‘But Enough About Me’ : what does the popularity of memoir tell us about ourselves?’ by Daniel Mendelsohn, New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/01/25/but-enough-about-me-2

Class 2: The stylised self in the world. Aesthetics of the insertion of the self in the story. Style and world view

Required reading

The White Album by Joan Didion (PDF provided)

Extract from The Birth of New Journalism by Tom Wolfe (PDF provided).

Recommended reading

'Gonzos for the 21st Century', http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/books/review/the-new-new-journalism-gonzos-for-the-21st-century.html

Tom Wolfe, The Birth of New Journalism: An EyeWitness Report: http://nymag.com/news/media/47353/index6.html

Martin Amis on Joan Didion’s style: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v02/n02/martin-amis/joan-didions-style

Class 3: The writer’s subjectivity and physical space. Melding Interior/Exterior worlds.

Required reading

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit.

Recommended reading

Anne Carson – Plainwater (extract provided)

Anne Carson – The Autobiography of Red

Fernando Pessoa – The Book of Disquiet (extract provided)

Ian Sinclair – Lights Out For the Territory (extract – chapter 8 Word doc provided)

Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities

Olivia Laing – The Lonely City – extract on blackboard

Review of Lights Out for the Territory: http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/29/reviews/990829.29hoffmat.html

Class 4: Writing Nature/Nature of Writing.

Required reading

'In History' by Jamaica Kincaid - PDF supplied

'Findings' by Kathleen Jamie - extract provided

'Landmarks' by Robert Macfarlane - extract provided

'A Claxton Diary' by Mark Cocker - extracts provided

Recommended reading

'The Kusi' by Jean McNeil

'Soil Turned to Song and Dance' - the TLS on Mark Cocker's nature writing: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/mark-cocker-naturalism/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1574952085

'The Thoreau of the Suburbs' - feature article on Annie Dillard

'The New Nature Writing' by Jos Smith - extract provided

'The Anthropocene Lyric: an affective geography of poetry, person, place' by Tom Bristow (book)

Class 5: The self, anxiety and history – the non-novels of Sebald.

Required reading

The Emigrants by WG Sebald

Recommended reading

Reviews/literary criticism of Sebald:

André Aciman: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1998/12/03/out-of-novemberland/

Cynthia Ozick – The Posthumous Sublime (on The Emigrants) on Blackboard

André Aciman: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/w-g-sebald-and-the-emigrants

Jonathan Coe: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v19/n06/jonathan-coe/tact

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/30/reviews/970330.30wolfft.html

http://www.theliteraryreview.org/book-review/a-review-of-the-emigrants-by-w-g-sebald/

Class 6: Politics, alienation and self-displacement in South African and South American writing

Required reading

Summertime by JM Coetzee

Resistance (extract provided) by Julián Fuks

Recommended reading

Roland Barthes – The Death of the Author (on Blackboard)

Donald Powers, ‘Beyond the Death of the Author: Summertime and J. M. Coetzee’s Afterlives’, Life Writing, 2016. (on Blackboard)

Review: JM Coetzee, a Disembodied Man - https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/books/review/Dee-t.html?pagewanted=all

Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room - Galgut is a South African writer of the next generation. I've given an extract of this book, which is made up of three long novellas, here. 'The Lover' is the middle section in Galgut's trio of novellas.

Class 7: Walking and writing the city in fiction and non-fiction.

Required reading

Teju Cole – Open City

Recommended reading

Walter Benjamin – Berlin Chronicle (extract), One Way Street (extract) and Naples.

Joanna Walsh - Hotel (PDF provided)

Lauren Elkin – Flâneuse

Review of Open City: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/17/open-city-teju-cole-review

James Wood on Teju Cole: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/28/the-arrival-of-enigmas

Class 8: Irony - Unreliable and self-critique as narrative drama.

Required reading

10:04 by Ben Lerner.

Recommended reading

Ben Lerner: Leaving the Atocha Station

Review of Leaving the Atocha Station https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n16/sheila-heti/i-hadnt-even-seen-the-alhambra

Jenny Offil - Dept of Speculation

Sheila Heti - How Should a Person Be?

Zadie Smith – Two Paths for the Novel (from Changing My Mind) on Blackboard

Zinzi Clemmons - What We Lose

Colebrook, Clare. Irony. New Critical Idiom. Routledge, 2004

Alejandro Zambra – Multiple Choice (extract on Blackboard)

Class 9: Contemporary autofiction - two texts.

Required reading

Rachel Cusk – Outline

Amit Chaudhuri - Friend of My Youth

Recommended reading

Rachel Cusk – Transit (extract on Blackboard)

Rachel Cusk, Kudos

Marcel Proust - A la recherche de temps perdu

VS Naipaul - The Enigma of Arrival

Geoff Dyer – Out of Sheer Rage

‘Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel’ – profile in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/07/rachel-cusk-gut-renovates-the-novel

Class 10. Shame and the self in auto-fiction. Domesticity. The Japanese I-novel.

Required reading

Karl Ove Knaussgard - My Struggle (in whole if you can buy the book, or in extract) provided here. My Struggle: book two, a man in love, introduced by James Wood: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-birthday-party

Recommended reading

Extract from Yuko Tsushima's Territory of Light (to be uploaded soon).

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, ‘The Careful Craft of Writing Female Subjectivity’ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/03/territory-light-yuko-tsushimas-vital-i-novel/585832/

Amit Chaudhuri ‘I am Ramu’: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/i-am-ramu/

Review of Final volume of Knausgaard: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/29/the-end-karl-ove-knausgaard

'How Writing My Struggle Undid Knausgaard': https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/knausgaard-devours-himself/570847/

'Each Cornflake' - Review of Knausgaard by Ben Lerner in the LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n10/ben-lerner/each-cornflake

Class 11: The aesthetics and politics of the sexual self

Required reading

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

Recommended reading

Chris Kraus – I love Dick (extract on Blackboard)

Emilie Pine - Notes to Self

Catherine Millet – The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (extract on Blackboard)

Hélène Cixous – ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ http://lavachequilit.typepad.com/files/cixous-read.pdf

‘Virgins or Whores – Feminist Critiques of Sexuality’, in Veronique Mottier, A Short Introduction to Sexuality (on Blackboard)

Henry Miller – The Tropic of Cancer

Sarah Ahmed – ‘The Performativity of Disgust’ from The Cultural Politics of Emotion (PDF here)

Chris Kraus ‘The New Universal’ https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/new-universal/

Vivian Gornick http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/vivian-gornick-good-feminist-solnit-rhode-cobble-gordon-henry

Kathy Acker – Blood and Guts in High School

Class 12: Using 'real' people in fiction.

Required reading

Megan Bradbury – Everyone is Watching

Zachary Lazar – I Pity the Poor Immigrant

Recommended reading

Zachary Lazar – Sway

James Wood in The New Yorker on Lazar – The Punished Land: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-punished-land

Miranda France in the Guardian on Everyone is Watching: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/22/everyone-is-watching-megan-bradbury-review-novel

#nonfiction novel

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liltimfrance · 5 years

Note

I have been trying to find the Venice interview you mentioned where he claims her as his gf and talks about their desire to stay low key and private but I can't find it anywhere. Can you post a link to source please? Thank you for this blog.

Hey anon,

Don’t be like it’s a big interview or such, was mentioned only , cause I think they did the question off record, she is just using his words, to confirm in ‘’’’. I had to look for myself either, I didn’t remember quite well, Lily also did an interview for a french article that I posted these days , they try have something more, but they are always professional in regard the movie.

The interview is in Italian:

https://www.vogue.it/news/article/festival-di-venezia-2019-intervista-thimotee-chalamet-lily-rose-depp?utm_campaign=vogueitalia&utm_medium=marketing&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1567506759

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louisrecords · 5 years

Link

THE FOLLOWING TEXT WAS TRANSLATED BY GOOGLE.

We had talked to the former One Direction the day before the terrible news of his sister's death, on the occasion of the launch of "Two of us", his new single dedicated to the disappearance of his mother

We had heard him on the phone two days ago, on the occasion of the launch of Two of us , the song dedicated to the mother who died two years ago, at the age of 43, because of a leukemia. A song full of pain, but also hope. Of loss and at the same time of presence, because basically when you lose someone, you will never go away forever. We had felt calm , indeed, enthusiastic, for such an important song born of immense pain. Today the news of the death of her sister Felicité, 18 years old.

A heart attack.

He remains speechless, he thinks of these two difficult years so difficult for him, but in the music and in the support of all the people who have always followed him, from that 2010 in which X Factor UK was born the One Direction, he has found the strength to move forward. Succeeding. Investing thoughts and energies in his songs, from Just Hold On with Steve Aoki and Back To Youwith Bebe Rexha, up to this sweet and melancholy ballad in which he strips himself with feelings, much more than he can orally. An upcoming album, the TV, the return to X Factor Ukin the role of judge, the memories of the band and the possible reunion. We had talked about everything with him, among the smiles of a restart. And today here we report the interview, on the day of a devastating loss that will put everything back into question.

When was Two of Us born ? "I wrote the song five or six months ago. It was something I knew I wanted to write, I needed to write it. As if it were a necessity. It is something that I was born from within, I was overwhelmed. And that's why the song sounds so personal, it has so much of me. I am very proud to have written it and I believe that it can reach people ".

Has writing helped her overcome pain? «Sharing my emotions helped me. I was able to externalize, to talk about this loss. I was helpful.

Do you think the song can help even those who listen to it? "I think so, normally people don't want to talk about this kind of topic. Singing these words instead gave me relief, in this difficult period. So I hope, I think, it will help many. When you feel down for anything, you listen to music and the power of words can help you. Clearly if it's a song you can put yourself in, it can also help you remove the wound, mend the rip. Yes, music helps to heal ».

Two of us anticipates his first album announced some time ago, but still with no date. When it comes out? "I've been writing for a long time, I keep doing it. I feel the responsibility of this job and I want to be sure of doing something to be proud of. I want all the songs to be "good enough", the day I decide to get it out. I'm super attentive to detail, I know the sound I want, the words I want. But when he is out I want to look at him with full satisfaction, for every single moment. I want it to be a great album. "

Is he listening to something in this period that influences his writing? "I watch carefully, as he writes the songs, Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys. I really like. I've written in the past, for One Direction, but now I'm trying to find my personal style. More honest, more intimate. And I'm succeeding, I think.

We feel it again after three years of great changes, some positive, some painful. What is the budget? «They were years of great change, with really very difficult moments. But I was constantly motivated by my music. If I look back I'm proud of myself, of everything I did alone and of what I did with the band. And I can never thank my fan base enough for supporting me enormously ».

Do you miss the band? «Of course, I miss it so much. Like all those who have been part of that period. We lived on a roller coaster and it was wonderful. We have traveled the world. We got on all the stages. I miss him and when I think back I feel only pride ».

Do you have the opportunity to talk or meet others? Have you seen yourself recently? «I saw Liam at X Factor , he came in an episode as a guest judge. We talked a lot, it was nice. Then I went to see Niall on tour. The truth is that we can't hear each other or see each other much, but we have a unique, uncommon bond. We have become so famous by so young. It is a connection that will last a lifetime, it cannot be broken ».

Back to X Factor, the place from which everything started, in the role of judge what effect did it have? «It was great, I enjoyed working with my category. And to see artists grow, a truly incredible experience. When Dalton Harris, the guy in my category, won it was beautiful. It is also a relief. He is very young, very good and I was hoping he would get what he wanted. It happened".

Next year you will celebrate the first ten years of One Direction. Should we expect any surprises? "We haven't started talking about it yet, but the truth is that it would be wrong not to meet even one day, it would be wrong for fans too. The problem is to say when. We are all engaged in our careers ».

In his, what was the goal? "I want to make my music, release my album as soon as possible. This is my only goal ".

And on a personal level? It is not an easy question, but I certainly would like to be a person I can count on for all the people around me. Be a support for them, they can talk to me. Ask me for advice. "

Will he return to Italy? Italian fans are waiting for her. «It is difficult to find the right words to really thank those who support me. I love Italy, it is one of the first countries that immediately showed us great affection. Every time we came to you we always had a great time. Thank you for your support, but above all for your patience. When I'm on tour I'll definitely come to Italy ».

#press #mar 15 2019

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allthecanadianpolitics · 5 years

Link

April 2, 2019

Members of the National Liberal Caucus c/o Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia, M.P. Chair, National Liberal Caucus 413 Justice Building House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Dear Colleagues:

Re: Commitment to the Values, Principles, and Priorities of the Liberal Party of Canada

I am writing to all of you, members of the Liberal Caucus, to share some of my thoughts and observations about recent events and what they mean for us as a Party. I hope they are helpful to you.

There were many reasons I ran for the Liberal Party of Canada in 2015, including commitments on addressing climate change, the challenges of our criminal justice system, Indigenous reconciliation, and building an economy that supported all Canadians. For me, and I believe for our Party, all of these progressive policy commitments had underlying them a firm belief in the need for a transformation in our political culture, and the pursuit of a more responsive, representative, and less partisan approach to the governing of the country.

This commitment to a changed politics was not just about specific policies, such as proportional representation, but about every aspect of how we organize ourselves to govern, and the responsibilities. That each of us carry. We committed to break old and cynical patterns of centralizing power in the hands of a few unelected staffers, the marginalization of hundreds of Members of Parliament with expertise and insights to offer, and the practice of governing in the shadows, out of sight of Canadians. I believed we were going to uphold the highest standards that support the public interest, and not simply make choices to create partisan advantage.

As part of committing to this transformative and progressive path, we were also committing to a government and caucus that represented all Canadians. Diverse and inclusive, our Caucus was to be a microcosm of Canada — not just geographically, but demographically. Indeed, I believe we understood that to build a stronger Canada, we needed to reflect that Canada. This includes the challenges, opportunities, tensions, and insights that arise when seeking to forge a common path and understanding in a context of real diversity and difference. This is a vision that reflects the future. Young people identify in dozens of different ways before they identify with a political party – and they privilege diversity of experience, background, and belief and upholding the experiences of all, over simply following the paths laid out with those who claim hold to power.

I still believe all of these things as I know all of you do, too. I believe it is what the country needs, and I believe our collective future well-being as a country demands action on such a vision. And indeed, one of the main reasons I had no hesitation to stand up for what I believed to be right and necessary for the country since September 2018 regarding SNC-Lavalin was because of my belief in that vision.

In 2015, I believed the Liberal Party held such a vision, and I still believe the Liberals can and must advance such a vision. I do believe fundamentally that the Prime Minister also still shares this vision.

Now I know many of you are angry, hurt, and frustrated. And frankly so am I, and I can only speak for myself. I am angry, hurt and frustrated because I feel and believe I was upholding the values that we all committed to. In giving the advice I did, and taking the steps I did, I was trying to help protect the Prime Minister and the government from a horrible mess. I am not the one who tried to interfere in sensitive proceedings, I am not the one who made it public, and I am not the one who publicly denied what happened. But I am not going to go over all of the details here again. Enough has been said.

Growing up as an Indigenous person in this country, I learned long ago the lesson that people believing what they wish about you does not, and cannot ever, make it the truth — rather than letting authority be the truth, let the truth be the authority. Indeed, if I had succumbed to interpreting the beliefs of other to be the truth, I never would have been able to push forward in the face of racism and misogyny that far too many Indigenous women, and others, still experience every day.

Ultimately the choice that is before you is about what kind of party you want to be a part of, what values it will uphold, the vision that animates it, and indeed the type of people it will attract and make it up.

If indeed our caucus is to be a microcosm of the country it is about whether we are a caucus of inclusion or exclusion; of dialogue and searching for understanding or shutting out challenging views and perspectives; and ultimately of the old ways of doing business, or new ones that look to the future.

As I have stated recently to the constituents of Vancouver Granville, it has been my great privilege to serve as their Member of Parliament over the past three and a half years and to continue to have their confidence. With the support, guidance, and participation of Canadians our government has accomplished much — and, of course, there is important work yet to be done. My nomination has been confirmed and it is my intention to stand for re-election as the Liberal candidate for the 2019 federal election and continue with this work.

Respectfully,

Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, P.C., Q.C., M.P Member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville

#Jody Wilson Raybould #Justin Trudeau #SNC Lavalin #cdnpoli #canada #canadian politics #canadian news #canadian #LPC

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angelofberlin2000 · 5 years

Link

@HadleyFreeman

Sat 18 May 2019 09.00 BST

“Hey, I’m Keanu,” he introduces himself – unnecessarily, of course, and yet very Keanu-ishly. Despite being so famous his surname has long been superfluous, Keanu Reeves has always given the impression of being utterly unaffected by his own celebrity. He is regularly described by his co-stars as “kind” (Winona Ryder) and “humble” (Laurence Fishburne) and it is easier to imagine him walking on the moon than knocking back champagne with other celebrities on a yacht in St Barts. After all, the most famous paparazzi photo ever taken of Reeves was of him sitting alone on a bench, eating a sandwich out of a plastic bag. Hard to imagine Leonardo DiCaprio doing that.

“I’ll sit anywhere you want me to. This OK?” he says, taking a chair and offering me the sofa in the London hotel room where we meet. At just over 6ft, he is taller than I expected – also unusual for an actor – and dressed in a very Keanu outfit of dark shirt and trousers with sturdy boots. Despite being recently announced as the new face of the high fashion label Saint Laurent, Reeves has long been the patron saint of normcore, decades before it became a fashion statement. And I know this all too well because, from 1991–99, I had at least five posters of him on my bedroom walls modelling said look.

The 2010 photo of Reeves on a New York bench that sparked the Sad Keanu meme. Photograph: Splash News

Should one ever meet one’s teenage crush? Up until this week, I’d assumed I was long past the point of being starstruck – I’m a 40-year-old woman, for God’s sake! But now here I am, sitting opposite Reeves, now 54, the beard more grizzled than in my posters and the forehead suspiciously smooth, but still, most definitely Keanu. There’s that devastating smile he flashed at Sandra Bullock at the end of Speed, and there he is saying – and this is where I nearly lose all vestiges of professionalism – “Excellent!” while playing air guitar. Listening to the tape of our interview later is not an edifying experience, as I hear myself – Oh, dear God – flirt with Reeves (because, clearly, a heavily pregnant mother of two is the dream woman he’s been waiting for). Happily, my mortifying giggling soon abates, thanks to Reeves’ management of a situation he has presumably had to deal with every day of his life for the past four decades. And as he does, I get an insight into what it takes to be Keanu Reeves.

We are meeting today to discuss his latest film, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. It will unquestionably boost the more than $3bn Reeves’ movies have grossed over the years. When he made the first John Wick film in 2014 – directed, as all the Wick films are, by Chad Stahelski, Reeves’ stunt double on the Matrix films – few expected that a movie about a former assassin avenging the killing of his puppy would amount to much. Despite starring in some of the most successful and seminal movies of the past 30 years – from offbeat hits like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and My Own Private Idaho, to blockbusters like Point Break, Speed and The Matrix – Reeves has been in at least as many damp squibs, including 2013’s 47 Ronin, one of the biggest box office flops of all time. Yet Wick, a stylish, brooding, ultraviolent revenge fantasy, was an unexpected hit with critics and audiences, and is now a mega-million dollar franchise, giving Reeves his first mainstream hits since the Matrix movies.

Part three – sorry, Chapter 3 – is larkier than its two predecessors, including one incredible scene in which Reeves offs some bad guys using an actual horse as a weapon (rest assured: the horse escaped unharmed). As a testament to the success of the franchise, there are more celebrity co-stars, including Halle Berry, and despite the naysayers when it comes to Reeves’ acting, he is terrific as a man still mourning the death of his wife. (She died at the beginning of the first John Wick film, from that terrible terminal disease, Convenient Plot Device.) “We certainly didn’t know when we started on John Wick that it would become like this,” says Reeves. “We’re only getting to tell these stories because of the audience. So thank you.” He salutes me in thanks, as representative of all the Wick audiences. (If you are imagining this is one of the times I giggled at him, you are correct.)

One of the canniest things about the Wick films is how they riff on Reeves’ public image. Once dismissed as an airhead by those who confused the Bill & Ted movies with reality, for the past two decades Reeves has been seen as a melancholic loner. The famous 2010 photo of him on a New York bench sparked what became known as the Sad Keanu meme, but it only struck a chord because the assumption already existed that Reeves – then in a career slump – was, well, a bit sad. Reeves, with polite firmness, denies that this echo is deliberate – “No, no, I don’t think about that” – although it is hard to believe it wasn’t in the film-makers’ minds as they shot endless scenes in John Wick 3 of Sad Keanu wandering alone through rainy New York streets, empty hotel corridors and a desert.

It quickly becomes clear that polite firmness is Reeves’ modus operandi when it comes to nosy questions: he will give the impression of being up for answering anything while, in fact, saying very little, or nothing at all. (Sample exchange. Me: “Was there ever a moment, maybe after Bill & Ted, when people started reacting differently to you and you realised your life had changed?” Him: “Um, no.” Me: “Really?” Him: “No.”) What this distancing tactic might lack in conversational intimacy, it makes up for in shutting down any embarrassing flirtations from women who should know better. You can’t kid yourself you are soulmates with someone who is building such protective walls against you.

So I’m surprised when he volunteers that Wick’s melancholy possibly has a connection to some of the most painful moments in his life. One other big reason the public perception of Reeves shifted from comedy stoner to faintly tragic figure was because, in 1999, his long-term girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, gave birth to their daughter Ava, who was stillborn. The couple broke up soon after, and two years later Syme was killed in a car accident. Reeves has never married, had any other children or even been reliably linked to other romantic partners since. He has also never spoken publicly about their deaths, and who can blame him? But given that the heart of the Wick films is about him mourning a lost love, the resonance is hard to ignore.

“With any character, the way I think about it is, you have the role on the page, you have the vision of the director and you have your life experience,” he says.

Did he bring his experience of bereavement to the role? “Oh yeah, I thought it was one of the foundations of the role for John Wick. I love his grief,” he says, visibly perking up at the subject.

What is it about grief that interests him? “Well, for the character and in life, it’s about the love of the person you’re grieving for, and any time you can keep company with that fire, it is warm. I absolutely relate to that, and I don’t think you ever work through it. Grief and loss, those are things that don’t ever go away. They stay with you.”

Has he been thinking more about the people he has lost as he’s grown older? “I don’t think it’s about getting older. It’s always with you, but like an ebb and flow,” he says.

Anyone in particular? “Lots of people,” he says, bricking those walls right back up.

***

Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon, the son of an English mother and Hawaiian-Chinese father. (His first name, as all Reeves-ologists know, is Hawaiian for “cool breeze over the mountains”.) With his sister Kim, the family moved around the world, from Australia to Manhattan, before finally settling in Toronto when Reeves was six. I reckon you can often spot an adult who moved around a lot as a kid, I tell him. “Oh yeah? How?” he says, intrigued.

They tend to have a sense of detachment, self-sufficiency, maybe loner tendencies and a strong sense of independence, I say. “Yeah, I clinically belong to that. I definitely have a bit of the gypsy in me,” he agrees.

Reeves’ father left the family when Keanu was three, and disappeared entirely from their lives when he was 13. He and his sister had multiple stepfathers.

That’s a pretty hard age for a parent to vanish off the scene, I say. “For sure, I think it’s definitely traumatising. But it’s hard to know how [it affected me] because I don’t know what the other life would have been, you know what I mean?” he says.

Did his father ever contact him again? “Yeah, in the mid-90s, but I didn’t reach back out,” he says.

This was after his father had been convicted for selling heroin? “Yeah, but that wasn’t why I didn’t get in touch!” he laughs.

So why not? “I just didn’t,” he replies, and that’s the end of that. But I can’t help but think of one of my favourite scenes of his, from Ron Howard’s 1989 ensemble comedy Parenthood, in which Reeves’ character muses about paternal figures: “You need a licence to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a licence to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”

Often the class clown at school, Reeves liked sport and loved acting, and got an agent as a teenager after being talent-spotted in a play. He dropped out of high school before graduation. “I feel really fortunate in a way, because I knew what I wanted to do, and a lot of kids that age don’t. But I had a creative ambition and I did it,” he says. After some early television work, Reeves started getting film roles, most notably in the cult 1986 teen drama River’s Edge, followed by Bill & Ted, and from there the work never stopped.

Back in the 1990s, he was the go-to pin-up for all teenagers who wanted a beautiful, gentle and safely asexual boyfriend (hi!). But his acting, if not his looks, has been a more debatable subject. “Is Keanu Reeves a Good Bad Actor or a Bad Good Actor?” a reader wrote in to ask the New York Times’ film critics in 2011 (the answer was, “Neither! A good actor, period”). Writing in the Guardian, self-professed superfan Joe Queenan put him in a small category of actors so beloved they are beyond criticism: “In most of [his best] movies, Keanu plays a character the audience views more with affection than with reverence or idolatry, like a kid brother who has bitten off more than he can chew and may need outside help to survive.”

Today Reeves has a good riposte to the criticism that he doesn’t, or can’t, act. “I certainly never got it from any of the directors I worked with,” he says, checking off some of the most respected in the business, including Bernardo Bertolucci (Little Buddha), Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break), Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho) and Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly). “It’s not like I went to meet Kenneth Branagh [who directed him in 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing] and he was like, ‘Excellent, dude!’ You know?” He chucks in a little air guitar to boot.

It would have been pretty funny if Branagh had said that, though. “Of course! But the pigeonholing just comes from journalists and, yeah, that happens a lot. I generally don’t read the press but when I do I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, you’re doing that again,’” he says with a shrug.

I’ve never really understood the criticism. OK, he might not have been perfectly cast in Much Ado and acting opposite John Malkovich and Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons when he was only 24 was never going to be a fair fight. But he has always been a far more varied actor than the snarkers allow. He proved his superlative comic timing and endearing charisma in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and, when it comes to drama and sci-fi, no one is better at maintaining an inscrutable blankness. That quality is precisely what has driven so many directors to cast him, often as a messiah-like figure in movies such as Little Buddha, 2005’s Constantine (one of Reeves’ favourites), 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic and, of course, The Matrix. And of all the improbable actors who became action stars in the 1990s – Alec Baldwin, Nicolas Cage – Reeves seemed the most at home in the genre, in the still deliciously enjoyable Point Break and Speed, which he made in between smaller indie fare. So did he do the big movies in order to fund the smaller projects?

“Honestly, I try not to do anything I don’t want to do. But I guess those movies were in reaction to each other. It wasn’t as thought out as, OK, I finished Point Break, so now I’d better play a street prostitute. It was more like, OK, I finished this, now I want to do that,” he says.

“That” refers to 1991’s My Own Private Idaho, in which he and River Phoenix play street hustlers. Reeves had already met Phoenix through the latter’s girlfriend Martha Plimpton, with whom he had worked in Parenthood. The two quickly became friends, and it’s not hard to see why: both were young actors on the rise with a love of music and a pronounced lack of interest in the glitzier, red carpet side of their job. They were the anti-Brat Pack, and Phoenix, along with Alex Winter from Bill & Ted, were, Reeves says, “definitely my closest friends from that era. We shared an artistic sensibility. River was just so down-to-earth, spiritual and a unique artist. Yeah, I miss him,” says Reeves quietly. When Phoenix suggested the two of them make My Own Private Idaho, “I was in right away,” he says.

They had something else in common, a shared experience suggested in the now almost unbearably moving scene where the two sit by a campfire and talk haltingly about their childhoods.

Mike (Phoenix): If I had a normal family, and a good upbringing, then I would have been a well-adjusted person.

Scott (Reeves): Depends on what you call normal.

Mike: Didn’t have a dog, or a normal dad. Anyway, that’s all right. I don’t feel sorry for myself, I feel like I’m, you know, well-adjusted.

Scott: What’s a normal dad?

Phoenix’s dysfunctional childhood, growing up in a rackety family who for a time belonged to the Children of God cult, has been well-documented. Reeves’ was different, but no slouch when it came to potential trauma. Was that another thing that drew them together?

He ponders the question a full 10 seconds. “Certainly our histories played a role in that movie and in that scene. So I’ll say yes to that, yeah,” he says.

Two years after My Own Private Idaho’s release, the actor who desperately wanted to avoid every Hollywood cliche died the most cliched death imaginable, of a drugs overdose on Sunset Boulevard in 1993. Plenty of his contemporaries were also caught out, either self-destructing or becoming victims of their own success. Reeves adamantly refused to do either. When I ask how he avoided falling victim to drug addiction as Phoenix did, he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world: “I just wasn’t into that scene.”

It’s hard to tell if he’s being blithe or defiant when he insists he still lives his life totally normally, unaffected by fans. But if Leonardo DiCaprio went into a supermarket, there would be hysteria, I say.

“Yeah, but Leonardo has fame and fans that I don’t have in that way. Definitely. I don’t know what his experiences are, but I think someone from the outside would think [going shopping] might not be easy for him. Whereas I can, which is good,” he says.

Come on, surely fans bother him all the time? But the worst he can come up with is someone quoting Point Break at him in the airport the other day and someone, once, quoting River’s Edge when he was queueing at an ice-cream van. “And that’s fun!” he says cheerfully.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he was offered every hot young part under the sun, including the lead in Platoon (which went to Charlie Sheen) and Val Kilmer’s role in Heat. But when I ask if he regrets turning any of them down, he smiles and instantly replies, “No.” He also turned down a $12m pay cheque to make Speed 2 because he, rightly, thought the plot was nonsense, which resulted in him being shut out of 20th Century Fox films for the next 11 years (and no, he doesn’t regret that, either). He is about to start shooting Bill & Ted Face The Music, in which the now fiftysomething duo have to write a song so good it will save the universe. “There has to be a reason for making a movie, and the writers have come up with a good ‘why’ for telling the story,” he says. When I ask what gives him an ego boost, given that he’s not driven by money or fame, he is so baffled by the idea of his ego needing a boost that he is silent for a full 28 seconds before finally answering, “The work.”

Maintaining his privacy has been a major factor in helping Reeves retain his sanity, yet away from the press he can be extraordinarily open and laid-back. By a weird fluke, I have two friends who, separately, spent time with him in the 90s and both still talk about his generosity: he took them for rides on his motorbike and stayed in touch (yes, I am furious with them for not including me in any of this). There are legions of stories about Reeves’ kindness: buying his stuntmen motorbikes, renegotiating his Matrix contract so that the crew got a better deal, at a personal cost of millions of dollars. Shortly before we meet, Reeves was on a flight between San Francisco and Los Angeles that was grounded due to a mechanical fault. Instead of pulling rank with some “Do you know who I am?” A-list entitlement, Reeves encouraged his fellow passengers to board a van with him so they could drive to LA, keeping the mood up by sharing fun local facts and playing music from his iPhone. (Needless to say, footage of this quickly went viral.) So his four decades-long reticence with the media might well be Reeves’ most brilliantly sustained performance.

How we made Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Read more

But he bristles when I mention these stories. “I’m pretty private, so when that stuff doesn’t stay private it is not great,” he says.

Because he worries it will look like he’s just doing it for show? “No. Because it’s private,” he says with emphasis.

Ah well. I have accepted by this point that we probably won’t ride off together into the sunset on his motorcycle. But if the price of Reeves still being so recognisably Keanu-ish is him retaining a firm grip on his privacy and at least a pretence of normality, that feels like a fair trade-off. I assume doing this interview has been a torturous experience for him, so as we get up to leave I ask how he’d have preferred to spend the afternoon, in a dream scenario.

“Oh, I don’t know. This dream ain’t so bad!” he says, and gives me that full end-of-Speed smile again. And reader, I giggled.

• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is in cinemas now.

If you would like a comment to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email [email protected], including your name and address (not for publication).

#keanu reeves #the guardian

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betweentheheavesofstorm · 5 years

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i cannot bring myself to read this and see if it is indeed a serious piece of journalism but,,,,,

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vvsnotes · 3 years

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Pride Month and Representation in Animation /Forefront [6]

Since June is the Pride Month a lot of companies include the LGBTQ+ flags in their logos to show support for the queer community. The topic of coming out, queer characters in films also make a lot of appearance in the media. Just this month we could see the short film ‘Out’ (2020)about gay relationship (Li 2021), Pixar’s ‘Luca’(2021) that in a more subtle manner introduces a queer character (Milton 2021) and even in ‘The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ (2021)we are shown Katie that also in a subtle way talks about her crush on one of the girls from her uni (Baron 2021). And this is good, we are finally getting characters that happen to be part of LGBTQ+, their whole personality isn't based on their sexuality and they appear in the films aimed at children. This gives a fair representation for many kids out there that look for characters like themselves.

Disney also recently released pride merchandise and we could say everything’s great; the world loves LGBTQ+ Community!

This is an agenda only for the western world unfortunately. Because while Disney continues making money off of the pride merch, the queer characters are being actively censored in countries like Russia (Amid 2021). Same-sex relationships aren’t illegal in Russia but the country has a ban against distribution of content that ‘promotes the gay propaganda’ - saying it’s against the traditional values. The very same law was recently also passed by Hungarian government (Rankin 2021). So, we can assume the censorship of LGBTQ+ representation will also take places there. But a country doesn’t have to have such laws to make significant changes to the plot line with just translation. Recently the news outlets in Poland wrote about the possible censorship of the Mitchells vs. The Machines dialog where Katie’s mum asks her daughter if she and Jade are already a couple. In the Polish translation however, the sentence is changed to ‘is it true that Jade is so cool’. Seemingly small change but has a huge impact on understanding Katie’s character. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any reports on that in English which in my opinion just shows how easy it is for the counties to do this sort of things and possibly get away with it without much attention.

LGBTQ+ representation is needed everywhere, especially in the places where this ‘life style’ is not socially acceptable. The level of intolerance is high and it’s those people that face the injustice for being different really need help to get this sort of content to them.

This relates to me because not only I’m from Poland where the propaganda against LGBTQ+ is very high, Poland was even announced as a worst country in Europe to be a part of the queer community (Tilles 2021). So, it really saddens me to see this kind of behaviour. Another thing, is that I do consider myself a part of LGBTQ+ and I understand that my presence, my work will always relate to this. Because even if I might not necessarily create about these issues, I am a representative of this community. It is important for me to recognize that because of who I am, and how I identify, I am one of many voices that this community needs.

references.

Amid, A. (2021). Russia Warns Disney Against Distribution Of Pixar Short “Out.” [online] Cartoon Brew. Available at: https://www.cartoonbrew.com/politics/russia-warns-disney-against-distribution-of-pixar-short-out-205639.html [Accessed 22 Jun. 2021].

Baron, R. (2021). The Mitchells vs. The Machines Breaks New Ground for LGBTQ Representation in Animation. [online] CBR. Available at: https://www.cbr.com/mitchells-vs-machines-katie-lgbt-animation/ [Accessed 22 Jun. 2021].

Bryczkowska, J. (2021). Film, seriale, muzyka - Kultura.Gazeta.pl. [online] gazetapl. Available at: https://kultura.gazeta.pl/kultura/7 [Accessed 22 Jun. 2021].

Li, J. (2021). Watch Disney Pixar’s Short Film “Out” in Celebration of Pride Month. [online] Hypebeast. Available at: https://hypebeast.com/2021/6/disney-pixar-short-film-out-pride-month-release?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=twitter_post&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1623858267.

Milton, J. (2021). Fans think Disney’s new film Luca is an allegory for queerness and coming out. [online] PinkNews - Gay news, reviews and comment from the world’s most read lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans news service. Available at: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/06/21/luca-disney-pixar-lgbt-queer-coming-out-twitter-reaction-enrico-casarosa/ [Accessed 22 Jun. 2021].

shopDisney.com. (n.d.). Rainbow Disney Collection | Pride Month 2020 | shopDisney. [online] Available at: https://www.shopdisney.com/uniquely-disney/rainbow-disney/.

Rankin, J. (2021). Hungary passes law banning LGBT content in schools or kids’ TV. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/15/hungary-passes-law-banning-lbgt-content-in-schools [Accessed 22 Jun. 2021].

Tilles, D. (2021). Poland ranked as worst country in EU for LGBT people for second year running. [online] Notes From Poland. Available at: https://notesfrompoland.com/2021/05/17/poland-ranked-as-worst-country-in-eu-for-lgbt-people-for-second-year-running/ [Accessed 22 Jun. 2021].

#forefront

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stylesnews · 4 years

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After the triumph of the solo debut, Harry Styles is back. With a tour and a very personal new album. But how do you overcome fears and pressures? The former One Direction has made a discovery: always trying to make others happy is a trap. Last December, Fine Line, the second album by Harry Styles, was released after the sensational success of the album Harry Styles, solo debut of 2017. In April the world tour he begins a world tour, which will also touch Italy with two dates: May 15 in Turin and on the 16th in Bologna. Twenty-six years old, English, the singer has managed to build a solid career by starting on his own after the farewell to One Direction, a boy band active only six years (from 2010 to 2016) but already entered the history of pop. Harry Styles never gives interviews. Below is an exclusive for Vanity Fair:

After a very demanding tour for his solo debut, he took a well-deserved break. When did you hear that he was ready for the second album? «In fact, I went back to the studio early, perhaps already two weeks after the end of the tour, which motivated me a lot, I knew what kind of music I wanted to do and I felt I had to ride that feeling and start from there. So I decided to take that energy and start without asking myself many questions. "

Was it more difficult to work on the first album or to make your second job after the success of your debut? «The process that leads to the creation of an album is very long, you tend to exceed, you are continuously focused on yourself and your work and everything inevitably turns into a series of ups and downs. Thus, sometimes you feel that everything is going perfectly and at other times you are frustrated and unsure of what you are doing. I think one of the biggest advantages of this album is that it allowed me to think about what success had represented for me. During the making of the album I redefined the way I perceive success, comparing myself with friends. There was a phase in which I asked myself what kind of album I had to make; at one point I was happy to say "I have to do this now", and I remember telling Tyler (Johnson, the producer, ed) all the album ideas I wanted to do in the next five or ten years and he said: you have to just dedicate yourself to the album you want to do now, it's the only thing you can do. I was very impressed. Then, another friend with whom I was talking about what it meant to be successful told me that if you are happy nobody can tell you that you have failed. So I looked back to the moments when I was most satisfied with what I was doing and it was always the moments when I was happiest. So I decided to focus on this strategy: rather than trying to make others happy, always do what makes me happy, in order to be satisfied with the result. Letting go of all those constraints that had blocked me for a while, such as streaming data or numbers, was truly liberating. "

Lights Up gives the feeling of being a truly cathartic single, from the current sounds to the imagery of the lyrics. What made it the perfect single for our day? «Lights Up was the most anomalous song I ever made, from the way it was written to the recording phase: everything was written starting from vocal notes, Tyler sent me a track, there was a continuous exchange of notes vowels and finally I wrote the lyrics. Then we went to the studio together, we recorded it quickly enough, until the second day I said "we have to enter the choir", but it's something we usually do in the end. Anyway, we inserted it and completed the song, but this choice totally changed its structure ".

The term "light" often occurs in his songs, as do references to fruits. Is it an intentional choice? "In reality there is always a strong element of randomness, I have never explicitly decided to focus on the theme of fruit. There is a lot of fruit in my music, but I don't know why. At the beginning, when we wrote Kiwi, we called it that way thinking about changing the name later but then it seemed strange because we had always called it Kiwi, so we decided to leave it that way. And in the end there is a lot of fruit on this album, I wish I could say that I had foreseen and planned everything, but in reality it is not so ".

Many songs on this album dedicated to ending a relationship seem to become an inner monologue. Some of the toughest moments of songs like Cherry and To Be So Lonely are incredibly intense to listen to. Was it therapeutic to convey such raw inner reflections into your songs? «Writing has always been very therapeutic for me. When I sit down to create a song, I don't think about the fact that I'm exposing myself and I think this helps me open up, so if I compose a very personal text, I don't think about what people will say about it, because I write the song for myself. I think it's a really therapeutic process. It allows me to enclose certain moods in a three-minute song, to then overcome them and move forward. "

He turned his motto, "Treat People with Kindness" (be nice to others), into a song. Was this an idea you already had in mind when you started using this phrase on your first tour? "Treat People with Kindness was the last song made for the album; I wrote it at the end, even if from the first tour I thought of turning the motto into a song, but I had no idea how. At one point, while I was in the studio and we were working on this idea, I said to myself "is it too banal?", And Jeff (Bhasker, producer, ed) replied "why don't you just do it?". And the same thing happened with Kiwi, we joked about how fun it would be to write a song that said "I am having your baby, it's none of your business" (I'm expecting a baby from you, it's none of your business). Then came the rest of the song and the first time I sang it I didn't know whether to love it or hate it. I had no idea what it was, I had never done a song like that, so I felt a little uncomfortable; then I realized that it wasn't necessarily positive or negative that it seemed strange to me, in any case now I can say that I like it ».

The lyrics of many of his songs are decidedly intense: are you nervous about having to sing them live every night? "Actually, an interesting thing happens. With the songs you go through various moments: you start writing them and for a long time they are something of your own; then you start singing them for other people and you hear them differently, at the end the concerts come and it's as if you take them to a different level. I wouldn't say I'm nervous. Of course, some songs are sadder than others, but it would be a problem to have to sing them every night only if I hated them, instead I like them, so I'm honest, that's all. I am happy that those songs become like snapshots of certain moments; I don't live the sad songs in a negative way, I think rather that they are the positive result of more difficult moments ».

Last year he spent some time in Japan. Why Japan? Is there any unforgettable experience of this trip that you would like to share? "I was in Japan because I realized that I had never traveled alone and I wanted to spend some time in solitude; the time I spent there was very important. I had the opportunity to reflect for the first time on what had happened to me in the last seven years of life and I would say that my most intense memory is simply walking in the city. One evening I was walking back from a friend's house and while walking through the crowded streets of Japan I listened to Bill Evans, it was an incredible and special moment ».

What should we expect from your Love on Tour? "Looking back, it seems incredible to me that we managed to create a real show with the latest album. With the new one, everything will be more joyful, more fun, more free and I feel that many songs will be perfect for live concerts. I can't wait for it to start, it will be a crazy experience. "

#vanity fair italy #harry styles #feb20

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