#same writers same vas all that jazz

[peony-flowerking7]

Thoughts on the trailer + some information regarding it also opinions

Got a haircut, AND I WILL ALWAYS WEAR SHORTS! NOW ONTO the news and my opinion on this whole jazz

Spoiler warning: seasons 5 trailer kind?

Please read this is from someone who worked on the show. This is from Sarah Harper.

So the trailer drop out and they were mixed reaction on it. I also had a mixed reaction but either way I was happy that Monkie Kid was not dropped and is still going. So I'll settle myself with information that I have first before my opinions.

Ahem, recently the new trailer had dropped out on the new season on Lego Monkie Kid. The reaction were...negative after all the people in charge of the other season animation were Flying Bark Studios. Flying Bark studio is known for their flood and chaotic spunky animation that really hypes up people and makes them go wild, they worked on shows like Rise of the mutant ninja turtles and moon girl, as well as our favorite show Lego Monkie Kid. As some of you don't know lately Flying Bark Studios has partner up with Avatar Studios making them have more projects on their hands.

The same writers and Va are still there, they have not been replaced they are still working on Lego Monkie Kid.

Next thing to note, Yes it is true. Wild Brain are working on Lego Monkie Kid BUT! we should not go and harassed the animators on any of the staff working on Lego Monkie Kid, I know it's a new change and I know some aren't ready but with how Flying Barks animation is handle. Please continue on supporting the production I understand some of the reactions you guys have but you also must be patient. The new season has been confirmed to come this summer everything else...well it depends on you guys.

I've seen the trailer and there is a character that has not shown up in the trailer one character that is very important in the show. Nuwa, either she is a secret character that will show up in the season or will be a cliffhanger character for a new upcoming season, this has not been confirmed and is only speculations of mine.

I have a lot of criticism against some fans who are mad at Macaque scenes wanting him to be like season 1 ever even though it's a trailer not the goddamn season. Why are you all mad over his character WHEN WE HAVEN'T SEEN EVEN THE WHOLE SEASON?!? I don't understand you people. I have more to say but I want to know something.

Would you guys rather have something? Or nothing?

This is just a trailer, there's nothing on how the actual show will be and even if it is like that we can safely and calmly criticize it. Do show supports towards those who are working on it, and I'm not saying you guys can't criticize it, go ahead do it but please stay calm about it and be nice in the comment section.

Do know it's very difficult trying to emulate the style of animation Flying Barks has.

I salute Wild Brain for trying their best on animation and style of the show.

#monkie kid #lego monkie kid #lmk #lmk fandom #oc #peony art #lego monkie kid oc #lmk oc #monkie kid oc #monkie kid fandom #lego monkie kid fandom #lmk season 5 #monkie kid season 5 #lego monkie kid season 5 #thoughts on the trailer #please be respectful in my comment and reblog sections

[locallegion]

Honestly I'd probably get way more into actually writing Fanfiction if all my ideas weren't just really weird shared-universe crossover stuff. Okay, backstory - When I was like 9 or something I asked my brother why Shadow the Hedgehog didn't ever smile. We ended up going back and forth and suddenly we're making up an entire alternate universe where Sonic and Shadow team up to defeat Freddy from iCarly's mom because she turned evil. We were 9, cut us some slack. We always used to make continuations to that story and universe with wild crackships and everything. Like Sonic ended up with Jill Valentine at one point, it was weird. We stopped talking about it after a few years but those chats left a massive impact on me because I've had that shit continuing on in my head for Y E A R S. Like since I started just making things go along in my head;

The events of Sonic Unleashed happen but the Werehog is his own seperate person outside of Sonic but he's super chill and stuff.

Sonic turned bad and got taken out by Cassie Cage. Y'know, from Mortal Kombat because I was OBSESSED with MKX when it came out. Kung Jin was my main and he's still like the major side character if that's even a thing. Like that only happened because I was desperately trying to not seem cringe to the audience of 1 who knew this was even a thing (it was me)

Fox McCloud and Wolf O'Donnell get married and move to London so there's an entire London Arc where fuckall happens.

The events of the Mass Effect trilogy happen because the planet being split into pieces wasn't bad enough now the fucking REAPERS are here.

The cast from the end of the first year and the cast from like 2017 end up fighting, causing the timeline to be reset with Cassie and Sonic ending in a stalemate as the universe fucking starts again.

Multiple retcons because my hyperfixations changed.

If you think I stopped at any point you're wrong. It's genuinely something I've wanted to write about in fanfiction for years now but I'm a terrible writer and it'd require way more action scenes that I'm willing to endure writing, they'd be awful. Oh about that new universe

Hey so the Avengers were a Kirijo Group project set up right after Mass Effect 3 happened. Shepard exists, got the perfect Destroy ending and is genuinely just trying to wind down after the whole 'saving the galaxy thing' but now she's working alongisde Akihiko, Aigis, Mitsuru and Fuuka with the project both because she can fight but also its good PR. Team Dark is also there because why not.

Cassie is not only still important to the universe but is Shepard's successor because hey, she beat the shit out of Shinnok one time, she has to be good.

Kung Jin is now a Persona-User because he shares a VA with Yu Narukami.

They, along with Garrus, Wolf, Fox and Rocket Raccoon (The GOAT) defeat a resurrected Andross in London.

Somehow, Black Doom returned. He gets taken down by Shadow (again).

Bowser and Goro Akechi are besties because they met at Jazz Jin (The Jazz bar from P5R) and Bowser happened to be doing a performance that night.

The Mario Movie is technically canon but because the ending was happening the same time the rest of New York was under attack its just considered a weird part of the larger battle.

ah shit half the universe got wiped out and literally everyone is going through it. also shepard is g o n e

Cassie, Jin, Rocket, Bowser, Akechi and Ashley Graham are a team now like a week after the whole Snap incident

They immediately have to fight Mephiles the Dark. Send Help I'm in too deep

#fanfic #fanfiction #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #cassie cage #kung jin #bowser #fox mccloud #persona series #hyperfixation #fighting the hyperfixations and losing #mass effect #should i actually write this #this is probably the most insane thing you'll see all day #sorry

[1962dude420-blog]

Today we remember the passing of Harvey Pekar who Died: July 12, 2010 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Harvey Lawrence Pekar (October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a well-received film adaptation of the same name.

Frequently described as the "poet laureate of Cleveland", Pekar "helped change the appreciation for, and perceptions of, the graphic novel, the drawn memoir, the autobiographical comic narrative." Pekar described his work as "autobiography written as it's happening. The theme is about staying alive, getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It's one thing after another. I've tried to control a chaotic universe. And it's a losing battle. But I can't let go. I've tried, but I can't."

Among the awards given to Pekar for his work were the Inkpot Award, the American Book Award, a Harvey Award, and his posthumous induction into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame.

Harvey Pekar and his younger brother Allen were born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a Jewish family. Their parents were Saul and Dora Pekar, immigrants from Bialystok, Poland. Saul Pekar was a Talmudic scholar who owned a grocery store on Kinsman Avenue, with the family living above the store. Although Pekar said he wasn't close to his parents due to their dissimilar backgrounds and because they worked all the time, he still "marveled at how devoted they were to each other. They had so much love and admiration for one another."

Pekar said he did not have friends for the first few years of his life. The neighborhood he lived in had once been all white but became mostly black by the 1940s. One of the only white kids still living there, Pekar was often beaten up. He later believed this instilled in him "a profound sense of inferiority." This experience, however, also taught him to become a "respected street scrapper."

Pekar graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1957. He then briefly served in the United States Navy. After being discharged he attended Case Western Reserve University, where he dropped out after a year. He worked odd jobs before he was hired as file clerk at the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1965. He held this job after becoming famous, refusing all promotions, until he retired in 2001.

Pekar's friendship with Robert Crumb led to the creation of the self-published, autobiographical comic book series American Splendor. Crumb and Pekar became friends through their mutual love of jazz records. It took Pekar a decade to do so: "I theorized for maybe ten years about doing comics." Pekar's influences from the literary world included James Joyce, Arthur Miller, George Ade, Henry Roth, and Daniel Fuchs.

Around 1972, Pekar laid out some stories with crude stick figures and showed them to Crumb and another artist, Robert Armstrong. Impressed, they both offered to illustrate. Pekar & Crumb's one-pager "Crazy Ed" was published as the back cover of Crumb's The People's Comics (Golden Gate Publishing Company, 1972), becoming Pekar's first published work of comics. Including "Crazy Ed" and before the publication of American Splendor #1, Pekar wrote a number of other comic stories that were published in a variety of outlets.

The first issue of Pekar's self-published American Splendor series appeared in May 1976, with stories illustrated by Crumb, Dumm, Budgett, and Brian Bram. Applying the "brutally frank autobiographical style of Henry Miller," American Splendor documented Pekar's daily life in the aging neighborhoods of his native Cleveland.

Pekar and his work came to greater prominence in 1986 when Doubleday collected much of the material from the first ten issues in American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar, which was positively reviewed by, among others, The New York Times. (1986 was also the year Pekar began appearing on Late Night with David Letterman.)

Pekar self-published 15 issues of American Splendor from 1976 to 1991 (issue #16 was co-published with Tundra Publishing). Dark Horse Comics took on the publishing and distribution of Pekar's comics from 1993 to 2003.

In 2006, Pekar released a four-issue American Splendor miniseries through the DC Comics imprint Vertigo. This was collected in the American Splendor: Another Day paperback. In 2008 Vertigo released a second four-issue "season" of American Splendor that was later collected in the American Splendor: Another Dollar paperback.

Pekar's best-known and longest-running collaborators include Crumb, Dumm, Budgett, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Zabel, Gerry Shamray, Frank Stack, Mark Zingarelli, and Joe Sacco. In the 2000s, he teamed regularly with artists Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld. Other cartoonists who worked with him include Jim Woodring, Chester Brown, Alison Bechdel, Gilbert Hernandez, Eddie Campbell, David Collier, Drew Friedman, Ho Che Anderson, Rick Geary, Ed Piskor, Hunt Emerson, Bob Fingerman, and Alex Wald; as well as such non-traditional illustrators as Pekar's wife, Joyce Brabner, and comics writer Alan Moore.

In addition to his autobiographical work on American Splendor, Pekar wrote a number of biographies. The first of these, American Splendor: Unsung Hero (Dark Horse Comics, 2003), illustrated by David Collier, documented the Vietnam War experience of Robert McNeill, one of Pekar's African-American coworkers at Cleveland's VA hospital.

Shortly before 1 a.m. on July 12, 2010, Pekar's wife found Pekar dead in their Cleveland Heights, Ohio, home. No immediate cause was determined. In October the Cuyahoga County coroner's office ruled it was an accidental overdose of antidepressants fluoxetine and bupropion. Pekar had been diagnosed with cancer for the third time and was about to undergo treatment.

Pekar was interred at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. His headstone features one of his quotations as an epitaph: "Life is about women, gigs, an' bein' creative."

#July 12 #2010 #Harvey Pekar #American Spendor #R.I.P.

[rodpupo]

CCS: Brazilian Style

how did the musicians, filmmakers and artists deal with Brazilian sexuality and popular culture during the 60’s ?

 The main characteristic of the counterculture movement was its profound criticism of the capitalism system and the patterns of unrestrained consumption. The young people who integrated this movement of contestation to the moral and aesthetic values of the global society promoted revolutions in their ways of dressing. Their clothes and hairstyles became symbols of this parallel universe that they designed to break the capitalist fads of the elites.

The musical movement in Brazil greatly innovated Brazilian popular music, bringing in its lyrics irreverent verses that broke with the type of music made until then.

Tropicalismo or Tropicalista movement was a cultural movement that emerged under the influence of the artistic trends of the avant-Garde and of national and foreign pop culture ( such as rock n roll and concretism), mixing traditional manifestations of Brazilian culture with radical aesthetic innovations. It had behavioral goals, and to challenge the dictatorship, in the late 1960s.

Mix of national culture traditions and international aesthetic innovations, such as pop art.

Songs that talked about sex, about the woman’s body, clothing, but also morals and behavior.

The greatest representatives of this musical movement was, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil, Os mutantes and Caetano Veloso.

Until the 60s, 90% of the songs that reachedthe album were about sex, bitter, vindictive and even tragic loves, pains and sufferings, in addition doses of moralism and chauvinism. When the woman is not the cause of all ills, a traitor or a fallen person, she is an idealized, ethereal and virginal figure.

National cinema has always had within is characteristics the erotic and sensual side of the people. One of the most important films of this time was “O Bandido da Luz Vermelha”. The story of criminal who gained enormous repercussion in Brazil in the 1960s, João Pereira da Costa, O Bandido da Luz Vermelha. 

O Bandido da Luz Vermelha promoted intense public disturbance of law and order, with dozens of assaults, accusations of rapes and homicides, would come to be considered the number one public enemy of the São Paulo capital and, after an unceasing police investigation, he was arrested on August 7, 1967.

The criminal, who spent a large part of the stolen money, with women and nightclubs, the film shows a lot, the woman as a kind of sexual object, for the bandit.

The movie have very controversial characteristics, but at the same time understanding the qualities that make us up, and with excellent camera work in hand and editing, he made a film which criticizes the Brazilian society at the time, and that still remains current.

As the military dictatorship was in power, the director Rogério Sganzerla’s features gains even more strength. The film clearly seeks to show Brazil as a corrupt place, with powerful people, and an entire social structure that punishes the poor, and frees the ignorant and arrogant criminals from the powerful classes.

He mixed the influences of Jean Luc Godard, Orson Welles, and Glauber Rocha to say how cinema in Brazil should be done from them on.

One of the most significant movements within this theme was “pornochanchada”. This represented a significant moment in national cinema. With erotic themes, getting very close to sex, these films were full of sensuality and the comic side always present.

Economically, this cinematographic movement had great repercussion, since it must be considered as popular, due to its success with the population in general.

They had their peak in the 60’s and 70’s.

According to its supporters, these films contributed to ‘de-eliteize’ Brazilian cinema, taking every kind of classes, to the screening rooms. 

Erotism is one of the strongest spheres of representation in Brazil. Since it manifested itself in the main stereotypes that the country has and that what people think are imagined by others, including foreigners. Our representatives, like football, samba, our natural beauty, are distinguished precisely by this touch of erotism.

Brazilian cinema was divided into two aspects, starting in the 1960s: family cinema, class situations and political life; and the other, centered on passions and sexuality.

In the past, however, the fame of sensuality of Brazilian women came to be used in official campaigns to attract foreigners to the country.

Terms like “feelings of protest”, “revolutionary pieces”, “rebelliousness”, “national identity” and “true Brazilian culture” open the way for more artistic manifestations. With regard to the process related to the idea of social participation of art: as is the case of opening art to the public, the collective aspects of production involved in it, as well as the tensions between engagement and experimentalism, in which a noticeable change in the use of images linked to the categories of “people” and “popular” can be perceived.

The central point involved is the predominant way in which the images of the urban and the suburban appear in the experimental projects of a group of artists linked to the neo-avant- Garde trends of the 60s- and no longer the image of the people as peasants or rural areas. The latter, incidentally, was prefigured to a large extent in intellectual and artistic debates about the national and the popular since previous decades and in various forms of art. The main idea was that the people’s culture, in its most authentic and genuine expression, was limited to its more traditional rural origins; manifested, above all, in the figure of the peasant, the simple man or the worker of the field.

 - During the 60s and 70s, Brazilian films had sex as their main theme. O Bandido da Luz Vermelha for example, shows the character as a womanizer, and women being treated as a sexual object.

- Pornochanchadas appeared in the late 60s and gained great notoriety in the 70s, and lost strength in the 80s, due to the rise of the porn cinema. Unfortunately, this was one of the factors that made sex tourism in Brazil encouraged. Embratour for example encouraged this type of thing, with extremely sexist posters made in the 60s and 70s.

- Tropicalismo mixed several styles of music from rock to Baiao. It transformed tastes of the time, not only in relation to music and politics, but also behavior, morals, sex and the way of dressing .

Was there a positive dimension on the production of Brazilian art, music, cinema by the 60s ?

 Film production in Brazil in the 1960s was marked by a series of readings and reinterpretations about the national reality in its various facets- in politics and plastic arts, in cities, in the countryside, in the world of work and institutions- that sought to negotiate already consecrated images of the country with new political and aesthetic projects. From the films and themes discussed in the course, discuss the legacy of this period from the continuities and discontinuities of its issues in current documentary cinema and interpretations of contemporary Brazil.

Glauber Rocha was one of the most important filmmakers of this period, because most of his movies contained themes such as anthropology, sociology, history and semiology.

Brazilian popular music, such as Bossa Nova, became extremely popular, and beloved both in Brazil and in foreign countries, like the the United States.

From the 60s onwards, the samba of bossa nova was definitely consolidated in the Brazilian music, where João Gilberto and the duo Tom and Vinicius stood out, such as Newton Mendonça, Billy Blanco, Aloysio de Oliveira, Banden Powell, Oscar Castro Neves, etc.

It was at that moment that the style experienced an international projection on a scale never seen before with another aspect of Brazilian popular music. In 1962 saxophonist Stan Getz together with the guitarist Charlie Byrd released the LP “Jazz Samba”, and also Frank Sinatra and Tom Jobim 1967 album ‘Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim’ which drew attention of the music scene in the United States to bossa nova.

But there was also a music movement called the tropicalismo, which was a libertarian and revolutionary movement, that sought to move away from Bossa Nova intellectualism, in order to bring Brazilian music closer to aspects of popular culture, samba, pop, rock, and psychedelia.

This open, syncretic and innovative aesthetic experience launched by the tropicalists, changed not only Brazilian popular music, but the culture in general, in search of the country’s modernity.

The art of the Brazilians in the 60’s, were reflected in the country’s social reality, often with political facts of the period, his role was that of a conscious revolutionary.

For some historians, the art of that period developed in response to the military coup; a very important figure from that period was Wesley Duke Lee.

The artist used varied techniques such as: watercolor, painting and collages, it was duke who introduced the pop langue in Brazil.

Another artist from this period that can be highlighted is José Roberto Aguilar who produced works that contemplated the fantastic and grotesque character.

He was pioneer of graphite when using spray paint, around 1965, then used paint with a gun and even a torch on an aluminum plate.

- Wesley Duke Lee is a pioneer in the incorporation of pop themes and language in Brazil. In 1963, he created “O Realismo Magico” movement.

- Jose Roberto Aguilar was considered one of the pioneers of the new figuration in Brazil.

- During the 1950s, Brazil experienced the euphoria of the economic growth generated after the Second World War. Based on the wave of optimism of the “Golden Years”, a group of young upper middle class musicians and composers from Rio de Janeiro started looking for something really new and that was able to escape the operatic style that dominated Brazilian music.

- Glauber Rocha Filmmaker, writer. One of the leaders of new cinema, a vanguard movement of the 1960s, Glauber Rocha proposes a cinema aligned with the socio-economic reality of the so-called “Third World”.

- References:

- Links: https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/revsocio/article/view/235218/28243

              26-90-1-PB (1).pdf

             http://www.generos.ufpr.br/files/b88c-producao-academica_paulo-reis.pdf

[cskiner]

Quick-witted winter

On a rather gloomy Thursday afternoon—she had already finished her regular lunch, a king-sized snickers and a diet Coke—Jensen locked herself into her room to write a paper and found herself doing anything but that dreadful paper. Mind you, she was a very good writer. She could boast a few awards, even, from local contests, and her songs were getting better. But Jensen would not write today. On this rather gloomy Thursday afternoon, she put down the pen (she usually had trouble doing that, distracted by her own projects even in her more interesting classes) to let the thoughts run around in her head a little while. I will write for her, so you can get some idea of what went on in her head on this day.

She found herself distracted by her collection shelf, which was more of a steal-shelf, really. Her philosophy was that it wasn’t stealing if it wouldn’t be missed. It was her own way of memory-keeping, like a three-dimensional scrapbook, she liked to think. It kept her memories sharp and vivid; almost as though she could bring them back to life by just cradling the object in her hand. She only took little things, things that she was sure the owners had forgotten about. And she made sure to gave things away in return, most often to the little kids down the street. Her 256-pack of crayons was the envy of the whole block. She remembered the ear-to-ear smile on little Jasmine’s face when she passed the box down, the energy in her happy little running feet as she scrambled to show her new prize to mama.

A couple of the trinkets on the steal-shelf were especially special, things she had lifted from grandpa or from Minnie (when she was around) or from her Aunt Esther’s funeral. They would have wanted her to have them, anyway. Others weren’t so special—a die from under the bed at a frat party and a number two pencil that fell out of a cute boy’s backpack once. She hadn’t really stolen that one, she just didn’t have the courage to speak up and return it. She had used it for a little while, when her pearl pen broke. It was a fine substitution, objectively.

But nothing beat her pearl pen, nothing in the world. She couldn’t write her best without it. Iridescent and pristine on the outside, it wrote smoothly and bled ink from the inside, just enough that the ink smears looked real. Real like she was a serious writer who worked hard and marked up the page, but not dark enough to obscure the words. Real like she had scribbled furiously and with abandon, not giving a second thought to the splotches that came out and turned her hand black as the coffee she drank every morning. Real like the flourish she put on the last word of the story when she just knew it was done. The feel of it was so grand, so professional.

She liked that sensation, the sensation that she could be a real writer one day, that maybe her finished work was actually good enough for something. She wasn’t studying writing in school, at least not officially. She had, however, weaseled her way into all of her friends’ literature classes, audited at least three creative writing ones, and convinced Professor Cauley to read some of her best pieces last year. Music was her declared major and yes, she loved it, but that’s not the point here. The point is that she wanted to write.

Jensen made time to write every day. She played gigs at night, too—sometimes they went until one or two in the morning but she would come home and bust out a stanza or two if it killed her. She had fallen asleep at her desk, pearl pen in hand, on more than one occasion. It was convenient that her passions bled together; at weeknight music shows in buzzing rooms full of artistic inspirations, it was easy to hear new words, new rhythms with which to feed her journal. Poems could always become songs. But they had their own special feelings to them, and poetry gave her a silent solace that could not be matched. She was an introvert. She knew she was an introvert, and while she didn’t mind performing so much, she felt most at home with pen in hand.

That was why this Thursday afternoon was strange—she put her pen in its special pocket in her backpack and, looking outside, decided it was time for a walk. No, today was not particularly beautiful. It was gloomy, as I mentioned before. Jensen felt, however, that good things always happened on sunny days and that felt wrong. She thought all types of weather deserved to host happiness—weather discrimination was unfair. This gloomy day would be different, she resolved, and with a toss of her yellow scarf around her neck she was outside, backpack and all.

Not ten minutes in, rain began to sprinkle the sidewalk. No matter, she told herself. She liked the smell of the rain, anyway, and the cold droplets felt good on her skin. She walked a little faster.

Walking a little faster made her trip on the uneven sidewalk. She caught herself in time to minimize the damage, but the ends of her yellow scarf had been dipped in a puddle and were now quite decidedly brown.

And soggy. No matter, she repeated, wringing out the ends and picking up the pace a little more. But it seemed just then as though the wind and rain picked up the pace too, and she remembered that her electronic guitar tuner was in her backpack. She couldn’t afford to replace it after water damage, so she challenged the wind and rain to a race. Faster and faster she ran towards home, her backpack clicking and clacking behind her as she focused on the ground ahead.

Wait. Clicking and clacking? Was it open? She stopped just as she reached the doorstep to clutch the zipper.

Tuner’s still there, she breathed in relief, zipping her backpack closed. No miracles this afternoon, she supposed. Yet.

She showered, then threw her scarf in the laundry and her hair in a knot for tonight’s gig (to avoid the frizz), then warmed up her voice a little before heading out…only to find that the rain had completely stopped. The day was still gloomy, though. There was still time to make it a good day.

At the venue, she noticed a couple of faces she knew. Little Jasmine, with her mama—she had probably begged to be up past her bedtime on a school night. Jensen wondered, though, how Jasmine had known about the show. It had only been advertised at school, for an audience of college students like herself. She didn’t think much of it, though, because little Jasmine had been like her shadow ever since the crayons. Jensen couldn’t blame her. She was sweet and looked a bit like Jensen had as a kiddo, wide eyed, eager to please (and eager to read), little pigtails with yellow bows at the ends. She loved to play with the steal-shelf trinkets when Jensen babysat her, and she had even learned how to pluck a few notes on the piano for the tunes Jensen sang.

Jensen finished up her tunes onstage and packed up her guitar. She gave little Jasmine a hug, bought her a milkshake, and sat down to watch the next set, a band that included a few of her classmates. Amongst the buzz, she picked up a few sounds, as she so often did in crowded places. It was, really, another form of stealing. But that’s kind of the nature of writing, isn’t it?

“We had a quick winter spell today,” she heard a woman making small-talk-about-the-weather behind her.

More like a quick-witted winter, Jensen thought, the way it played those dumb practical jokes on me today. Quick-witted winter.

Quick-witted winter. Quick-witted winter! The sounds were perfect—another little sound-bite, stolen from the bustling café. She had to write it down, stat.

She reached for her pearl pen and her heart jolted; it wasn’t in its proper pocket. There was an obvious reason why, and she knew it right away—it had fallen out as she ran home earlier—but she scanned the room just the same. Jasmine’s eyes grew bigger as Jensen grew more frantic, but her mama had pulled her away for bedtime long before the closing set. Jensen stayed afterward to congratulate her friends, but mostly to double-check the café floors for writing utensils. She didn’t find anything.

She trudged home. Gloomy days must just be gloomy days, she thought, defeated.

The next morning, she woke up before her alarm clock to thunder crashing outside her window. Bundling up for class, she grabbed the pencil from the steal-shelf and aimed for the door. But it was only halfway open when she nearly jumped out of her rain boots—Jasmine was standing on the step, eyes wider than ever.

In her hand was a little yellow ribbon to match those in her hair, wrapped around…

My pearl pen. Jensen gasped.

“Jazz! How’d you find it?”

“I was playing outside after the storm yesterday. It was in a puddle but I cleaned it,” Jasmine assured her.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea how important this pen is to me,” she gushed, pulling the little one in for a hug.

“I do! I saw you get sad when you lost it yesterday.”

“I did panic a little, didn’t I? Wait—you came to the show last night. How come you didn’t bring it then?”

“I—uh,” Jasmine stammered.

“Jazz, come on. You can tell me. It’s okay.”

“I wanted to keep it—just for a little! I…wanted to write like you. I’m getting better at school. My teacher said. But I thought…” she trailed off.

Jensen thought maybe she should frown at Jasmine’s wanting to keep the pen—you know, to teach her a lesson—but she couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face. Someone, no, not someone, little Jasmine, wanted to write like her. There was that same feeling again, grand, professional. Like she could glimpse herself in the future, scrawling furiously to meet the publisher’s deadline.

“Keep going, Jazz,” she encouraged. “I’m not mad, I promise.”

“Well you always say take it if nobody will miss it. I knew it was yours but I didn’t think you’d miss it. I’m sorry, I really am.”

And there it was. Her steal-shelf philosophy may not have translated perfectly to such a young one. Maybe she should be a better example. Better yet, maybe she shouldn’t steal people’s things—you never really could know how valuable a little trinket was. Her pearl pen was case in point. But in truth, little Jasmine’s sparkling eyes looking up at her in admiration gave her all the validation she needed to keep writing. Her first reader.

She’d be okay without her pearl pen. Someone else needed it, maybe more than she did. And she had an idea—she could still get to see it, check in on it this way.

“Oh, Jazz,” she pulled her little friend in for a hug again. “Don’t you worry about me. Keep it. It’s yours now—we’ll write together. You can come over after school and we’ll sit together at my desk.”

“Really?!” Jasmine squealed. “Oh Jensen, really?!”

“Of course,” Jensen smiled. And there was a little pang of separation in her, but the squishy feeling in her heart made up for it tenfold. Maybe the quick-witted winter hadn’t been playing jokes on her, after all. Maybe it was just trying to tell her it was time to stop stealing. To make her older, wiser—all the better for writing with.

“I have something for you then,” Jasmine declared.

Jensen raised her eyebrows, curious. Jasmine reached into her pocket—crumpled inside were a mud-soaked flyer for last night’s gig and a yellow crayon. Jensen’s name was circled in bright yellow, sun yellow, on the flyer.

“It’s my favorite thing to write with!”

csk

5/1/18 

#writing #mywriting #twcpoetry #knps #newpoetssociety #shortstory #fiction #writerscreed #writersconnection #writerscorner #writerscircle #writerscommunity #prose #mystory #csk #wiclit #excerpts from a book i'll never write

[wendyimmiller]

Don’t Give Too Much Away Too Soon – A Letter to the Midwest

April 15, 2021

Lovettsville VA

Dear Scott,

Spring! Etc. etc.

What a relief.  I am torn between feeling overwhelmed each morning, and tearful gratitude. However, finding a new colony of native may apples where I winter-dispatched a thicket of multiflora rose may have soundly tipped the scales towards gratitude. Those mottled, delicate umbrellas took me by total surprise this morning – especially as they appeared to have been professionally underplanted with a carpet of claytonia.

Try not to pay attention to the honeysuckle. It’s a never ending battle.

Isn’t it ridiculous that I can hunt for, locate, plant, and cosset a Podophyllum pleianthum (which is now tentatively emerging near the front door), but when I rip out brambles by the roots and trample the soil to within an inch of its life, suddenly I’ve got April at Mt. Cuba happening on my northern slope?  Perhaps I should give up all future expensive podophyllum acquisition dreams and just focus on what I’m apparently good at: editing. 

My cossetted P. pleianthum – making a late-ish entrance to a party well underway.

I find it fascinating that each spring unfolds with its own unique rhythm – some mellow, others not so. This spring’s rhythm reminds me of an underground prohibition-era bar in NYC I used to visit when I was younger and less protective of my sleep patterns: slow build-up, exciting jazz riffs, a little blues, and no punishing jazz fusion. There has also been plenty of opportunity to sip a top-shelf G&T.  All in all, worth lingering a while in the evenings and ordering a second.

Along with the common-as-dirt may apples I attach a few poor photos of my rapidly growing epimedium collection (minus my two faves – ‘Amber Queen’ and ‘Pink Champagne’ which are just coming out). Watching these delicate flowers emerge thrills me in that same way I used to bemusedly observe in other (more obviously nerdy) plant nerds.

This one was given to me as ‘Lilac Seedling’ from John Willis.

How we find ourselves where we find ourselves I honestly do not know. I was normal once. I assume that, to a certain extent, you were too. Yet here we are, sharing photos of epimedium, claytonia and hellebore while the rest of the world is buying a new Weber and three sacks of Weed and Feed.

Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ is my cheapest and most cheerful. When it is regularly dug and divided you can have a huge carpet rather quickly.

I enjoyed your Easter letter and its tasteless but nonetheless amusing resurrection analogies; but I harbor concerns that illustrating your gargantuan, drain-digging labors in such Kafkaesque detail could be very off-putting for the 20+ million who garden-dabbled in 2020.

I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job as an award-winning garden writer (groan) and purveyor of unending green happiness, but perhaps these people shouldn’t be made so soon aware of the inexorable, destructive effects of the humble water droplet?

Maybe it’s not an issue as 19+ million of them are probably reading The Spruce and haven’t yet moved on to the Rant portion of their gardening lives, but for those who have read ahead in the curriculum, truth of such magnitude could shake a few foundations. And damn that was some serious truth.

We only have these people by the finest of hairs Scott. Right now you should be YouTubing the immeasurable joys of seed starting with a fixed, but generous, smile upon your face and a sponsored product somewhere within arms’ reach.  Let these sweet innocents find out about water, and its revengeful, spiteful nature later in the process when there is no escape from the gardening life they have worthily embraced.  They can learn about roots then too.

Bait and switch my dear. Bait and switch.

This is a sweet little epimedium given to me by Lindie Wilson in Charlotte last year. Glad to see it blooming.

However, as the damage is now done, I will admit that for the rest of us, it is a relief to hear of your suffering. Moreover, it is a relief to hear of you jumping into a job of that magnitude.  I wonder how many others are daily tortured not so much by the undertaking of large home and garden projects, but by their identification and the accompanying dread of them.  I can instantly think of three projects that sink the heart in me, and that’s without trying.

Once stuck in, there are moments of pure despair (as you so richly illustrated), but there is also the knowledge that, for better or worse, you got started.   It’s happening. What is worth worrying about must be solved, and what isn’t disappears into that dark and dangerous place one only visits at 2am (instead of that underground bar – sadly).  All of the ambiguity and worry about the particulars is crystallized into certainty. 

Cannot remember where this one came from – and no name sadly – but it is a lovely orange flower paired with a rather boring leaf.

I wish you luck and less in the way of roots. If this letter had an envelope, I’d slip you one of my precious lidocaine patches – or is that technically drug dealing?

With regards to roots, I have spent much of the last three weeks moving shrubs which are too big for the space where I planted them seven years ago, to spaces which will be too small for them in seven years. 

An SI joint and my lower back have been so dodgy for the last year that I am forced to do this wearing a constricting belt that limits my ability to move without cutting off circulation to a major artery.  The resulting lightheadedness then limits my ability to make better decisions about spacing – or at least that’s how I will look at it in seven years’ time.

It is a blow to one’s vanity to look down and see such a contraption strapped around comfortable and generous sweatpants where levis and leather belts with bronze buckles once dwelt, but if it gets the itea shifted and the lilac finally scrubbed out, I must accept my personal new normal while I undertake a hideous strengthening program that is right, and good, and boring as hell.

Speaking of itea and lilac, one mistake I am never (yes, I use that word precisely) making again is to put a heavily suckering woody shrub anywhere other than an area where I am happy to have it sucker (such as along my streambank).

This cuts down on a lot of options for mixed borders – but there are plenty of less enthusiastic shrubs whose rarer suckers still excite the frugal wench within me.  Runners from my rugosa roses for example. I never grumble as they provide cheap, cheerful, and exceedingly welcome gifts for new gardeners who have never attempted to prune one.

Look at this lovely thing – Iris bucharia blooming this morning through the little gray rosettes of pilosella.

The lilac wasn’t my doing – it was here when we moved, and I have held onto it for sentimental reasons as I had a fondness for the previous owners, Lloyd & Jeanne.  I even called it Lloyd’s lilac, when the truth of the matter is that Lloyd probably didn’t plant it, and if he did, didn’t put any more thought into it than what he was having for dinner that night.  Still, it was one of few cultivated plants on the property, and I felt I must nurture it, renovate it, and tactfully avert my eyes as it became more matronly and less maiden-like.

I trust you will offer me the same consideration when we next meet.

But this is the year. Strengthened by Dan Hinkley’s admonition in Windcliff not to plant a “meaningless blob of nothing to fill a gap” and extrapolating from there to include eradicating those inherited monsters that do the same, I decided to take it out. With my handy battery-operated chainsaw it was the work of an Ibruprofen-laced moment, but now I am faced with this large stump complex. And my back. And another one of those large digging jobs whose contemplation brings me full circle to my points above. 

Yet the job must be done. The space is slated for a Chamaecyparis obtusa that has gracefully grown too large for its current spot. In my defense I always knew it would, but wanted it where it was for that gorgeous five-year window of perfect height. You are a lover of trees so I know you know exactly what I am talking about.  Trees go from small-and-helpless, to perfect, to too-damn-big the same way as children do – though thankfully they don’t have adolescent mouths on them.  

Lastly, with the exception of the bananas, the tropicals are out of the garage and into hacked-together temporary cold frames for the next couple weeks. The spring has crept up on me quickly this year. And with the vegetable/kitchen garden undergoing a major re-do which will most likely take all season, I have not started seeds as I normally would. 

It is exceptionally freeing and I highly recommend it. 

I cannot get enough of this time of year once the claytonia start blooming. They are absolutely everywhere.

I have started many thousands of seeds over the years and I’m sure there are thousands more in my future, but I realize these days that I actually prefer the excitement of cuttings.  It’s ironic to get excited about asexual techniques, but there you go, that’s middle age for you. Are you a seeds or a cuttings man do you think? You may answer freely – I promise that I won’t draw any moral conclusions (at least consciously).

Here is an unusual one (at least for around here) that sports pink flowers, rather than just pink veining and pink pollen.

I must stop before some horrible dystopian software alerts you that this letter is more than a “four minute read,” (thank God Tolkien and Tolstoy weren’t bloggers), but before I do, I can assure you that, yes, the word used to describe you in that email was indeed ‘treasure.’ The term has even been repeated and shared on Facebook, and therefore cannot possibly be considered misinformation, as apparently, they’ve got that sort of thing squarely locked down.

However, before you alert various media companies, shamelessly looking for yet another award (and you wonder why someone at work is being mean to you), I will pass on a wise bit of advice that I heard recently:

If you don’t let compliments go to your head, insults cannot pierce your heart. 

Wise indeed as there is usually a hefty supply of the latter to negotiate in this life.

Yours,

Marianne

P.S.  Please tell Michele she looked beautiful in that dress. Easter personified.

P.P.S.  My long overdue author copies of Tropical Plants and How to Love Them finally arrived today!              It’s a treasure. Possibly award-winning.

Don’t Give Too Much Away Too Soon – A Letter to the Midwest originally appeared on GardenRant on April 15, 2021.

The post Don’t Give Too Much Away Too Soon – A Letter to the Midwest appeared first on GardenRant.

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[sycopomp]

hi me again lol, anyways 1: how did you choose his color scheme? 2: if he had a VA 1: who would your voice headcanon be and 2: what accent?) 3: ever consider doin a video collab with unknownspy, like an animation? 4: will there be main characters in his gang? Like side characters. 5: ever make any audio shitposts with him? Or anything of the sort really. 6: so, say he was a character in a game and needed a theme, what do you think the genre would be? 7: concept art? And 8: genderbend?

Welcome back!!

1) How did I choose his colour scheme?

I didn't! Anet did the detail work, like the specifics on his suit, colour palette, etc.

2) If he had a VA...

I feel like I had a voice in mind for him at some point, but I can't find or remember who it was. I wouldn't want to commit to an accent before finding an actual VA.

3) Have I ever considered doing a video/animation collab with UnknownSpy?I'm a writer, not an artist! I have nothing to bring to a video/animation collaboration.

4) Will there be main/side characters in his gang?

I feel like this might be spoiler territory?? Since Vinson is a recurring antagonist, he pops up multiple times in the story, so whether a protagonist or supporting cast joins his gang might betray some of the story. Though this lengthy answer in and of itself might be a bit sus, hm...

5) Ever make any audio shitposts/or the like with him?

Not with Vinson, nope.

6) If he was a video game character, what genre would his theme be?

Definitely something dark and villainous, but for genre, probably jazz or classical. He's a dapper guy, after all!

7) Concept art?

There wasn't much! I described what I had in mind to Anet, and the first design she came up with was perfect. There were some colour and hat variations, but besides that-- his first design was his final one.

8) Genderbend?

He'd be the exact same.

Keep 'em comin', Anon, I could do this all day >:3

#Anonsymous #ask sy #life w sy #Anonymous

[telethoughts-blog]

Homeland “Fair Game”: It’s Alive

           Well, the jazz has returned.  As this season premiere opened with a first look at Carrie Mathison in New York, I could not help but be reminded of the fact that, while it has only been a few weeks since the fifth season finale graced my screen, it’s been over a year for most.  I feel so lucky now, but I am well aware of the harsh, cold reality the end of this season will find me in.  I’ve seen mixed reviews from this episode, which isn’t surprising to me.  I think it was an okay, solid season starter.  Once this show officially wrapped up the Brody storyline, each season seems to stand on its own.  Therefore, Homeland’s premiere episodes are about setting scenes and introducing us to new characters.  I fully expect midday abductions, frenzied scenes of Carrie running through a crowded place, and that famous crying face to come down the line.

           For now, there are just loose, dangling threads yet to be sewn together.  Dar Adal and Saul are back at the CIA game and maintaining their usual frenemy tactics.  I wonder if more about Dar will be revealed this season.  After the clueless state of mind he seemed engaged in for the majority of last season, I hope he is at least back to his old self.  For Saul, I only want good things, especially after the atrocity that was Allison last season.  Although many disagree, I believe the heart of the show is nested in Carrie and Saul’s relationship.  I can’t help but wonder where these two stand these days.  As for Carrie, I want her back in the CIA, but I don’t hate her current role in advocating for Muslims in need of legal help.  However, I don’t understand why Otto Düring is still in the picture.  No, really. He has clearly spent some time with Franny (and Carrie, by extension) off screen, so did she initially accept his proposal last season in full and has since demoted his role in her life? I just can’t figure that man out and I can’t help but want him out of the picture.  Sekou, another one of Carrie’s loose threads, may be around for a few weeks or the entire season.  I am interested enough in his story for now.

           Speaking of Carrie, one of the biggest questions coming into this season (that was already heavily addressed in the promos oddly enough) revolves around romantic interest Quinn’s state of being.  Did Carrie really pull the plug (literally) last season?  Was he going to make it to the premiere only to meet his maker by the end of the episode?  Well, folks he survived.  But the old Quinn is clearly gone forever (which, in TV speak, means for now).  I found all of Quinn’s scenes heartbreaking from his struggles with Carrie to his stagnant existence as another number in the VA system to his reality of not being able to defend himself when faced with a gun in the brothel.  With the shot of him attempting to get into Carrie’s part of the apartment and Carrie keeping the door locked, I am left to wonder about his motivations and where this relationship is actually headed, if anywhere.  Was Quinn so frustrated with her daily visits to the hospital because he didn’t want her to see him in his current state or because he really feels done with her?

           Of course, I can’t forget Madame President-Elect.  (I see you, Heather Dunbar!)  many have pointed out that Homeland’s writers clearly thought the election was going to have a different outcome. If this is true, they are not alone. But I see characteristics of both candidates in Elizabeth Keane, which has also been pointed out.  If the trailers for what’s to come reveal anything, it is that the president-elect will play a major role this season.  I am excited to see how that all unfolds as there must be a lot that we do not know about Ms. Keane yet.  And the same goes for season six.  Pawns are at play, and that is really it for now.  He’s alive; it’s alive.

#television #tv #tv series #homeland #showtime #carrie mathison #saul berenson #peter quinn #dar adal