#AND the institutions that I was able to attend and use to grow were often themselves the product of a society that not only excluded

[theabigailthorn]

You're not uniquely talented or hard working you just went to the right schools.

Yes, yes! This is exactly why I started Philosophy Tube! Why shouldn't someone else, anyone else, have access to the education I got??? The intellectual and cultural heritage of our species is for everyone, not just privileged people like me! :)

#something else I'm learning from friends with ADHD is that I'm privileged to have the kind of brain that works in a way our society rewards #AND the institutions that I was able to attend and use to grow were often themselves the product of a society that not only excluded #but actively exploited other people! #And still do! #So not only should we widen access #We should give people the power to critique those institutions too #Education should give you power over your own life

[yamameta-inc]

it is horrific what we’re allowing to happen to children right now. if covid causes cognitive dysfunction and decline in adult brains, what impact will it have on small brains that are still developing? many children who are too young to even be vaccinated are catching covid, as well as a whole host of other opportunistic infections. children can get, are getting, long covid. children aren’t sick often because it’s “normal” or “good” for them—they’re sick often because they’re more vulnerable than adults.

children have no choice but to be sent to schools where they get sick again and again. they don’t have the ability to distance themselves from their parents and establish boundaries, they’re entirely reliant on their carers. if their parents do not believe in covid prevention, they have no means to protect themselves. they don’t have the ability to consent to what is happening to their health.

schools are not just allowing children who are sick to attend class anyway, they’re borderline mandating it. schools as an institution care more about meaningless attendance records than about students’ wellbeing. the classroom is an environment where all factors incentivize students coming to school sick.

there are horrific accounts from parents about kids being sick 24/7, never having energy, struggling with schoolwork. there are horrific accounts from teachers about their young students being different these days, unable to handle the usual schoolwork, showing signs of that classic covid “brainfog.” i’ve seen evidence of schools making their tests and criteria much easier in order to maintain an acceptable pass rate instead of addressing the actual core problem in the slightest.

i often think about a comment i read once about how someone knew it was fucked when no change happened after sandy hook, when the US decided and enshrined the fact that children were acceptable sacrifices. this is how it feels. this isn’t just about the US though. children are getting reinfected with covid again and again worldwide. this is about the entire next generation.

they didn’t choose any of this. they have no power to stop this whatsoever. none of us consented to this, obviously, but children most of all. most of them don’t even have any idea what’s happening to them, and won’t for years.

there needs to be a push for schools to adopt better covid prevention measures, like better ventilation and air filtration. but even more crucial, and much more difficult, is to do away with the ideology at the core of how schools are designed. just like how workers deserve sick leave, children need to be able to stay home when sick. no jumping through hoops for a doctor’s note to be accepted, no strict time limit. schools obviously know that 1 student staying home sick is less disruptive than 20 students being sick and unable to do their schoolwork. they know the math, but they aren’t after efficiency. just like companies know that happier workers are more productive. that’s not the point. it’s more obvious than ever what is choking our societies to death on every level.

i’ve seen university unions who’ve won teachers the right to demand masking in their lessons, the right to have air filters installed in their classrooms. the same needs to happen for K12 schools, especially since young children can’t advocate for themselves. parents could theoretically wield a lot of influence as well—but let’s face it, most are uninterested in or actively hostile to the idea of better air for their children. efforts to combat this need to be organized, sustained, and coordinated.

imagine how current children will feel once they grow up and look back and realize that their health was compromised before they even learned to speak, that they were born into a sick world, that they were born to be sick, not inevitably but because people preferred things this way.

#covid

[hedgewitchgarden]

It’s Pride Month and I’m Scared

 Jessi-James Grey

Posted on June 23, 2022

When I decided to write something about Pride month again this year, I struggled to decide how I wanted to approach the topic; I have written quite a bit about Queer topics, ranging from coming out and celebration to solemn remembrance, to the importance of chosen family, community elders, and (a snippet of) our history. In the hellscape that was 2020, I wrote about reigniting “true spirit of Stonewall and reclaim Pride as a rebellion against the oppression of ALL of our intersecting communities, rather a corporate-sponsored party.” Each time I’ve written on these topics, I’ve outed myself—explicitly or implicitly—to the Sweatpants & Coffee community and I’ve often disclosed aspects of my personal experiences as a Queer person; in fact, this community has witnessed me evolve as I have realized and began to embody my genderqueer identity.

What I haven’t done yet: express my fear. That fear has grown over the last year and I need to acknowledge it.

Not long ago, I was browsing Facebook—like you do—and I came upon an ad for a trans-owned clothing company. I clicked through and began browsing that website and a shirt caught my eye: a black muscle tee—absolutely my aesthetic—emblazoned with the words “visibility is vulnerability.” Maybe I hadn’t been able to find those words because of the extent to which I overthink things but, upon reading that shirt, it clicked: that is the most accurate and succinct way to articulate my growing unease. I have made myself very visible online and in meatspace and, as the political and cultural landscape has become increasingly hostile to marginalized communities and identities of all kinds, that means I’ve made myself quite vulnerable too. And, as is the case with all kinds of vulnerability, it’s scary.

In addition to being Queer, I am also chronically ill, which means I interact with medical institutions A LOT. Most of those interactions are with a major university medical system. I’ve recently had the pleasure of contacting that medical system’s chief audit and compliance officer to lodge a formal complaint against one of the clinics I attend regularly because they continually, even after repeated correction, misgendered me and used my birth name—mind you, they have ways of noting both in my record and this is a medical system that, supposedly, offers gender affirming care. As I put it in my letter: “I am, during visits to the office, routinely addressed by my birth name and referred to as “Miss” and “ma’am”—most embarrassingly (and, in an increasingly hostile social climate, potentially dangerous) for me, in the waiting room in front of other patients.” Living in the home of the infamous HB2 “bathroom bill” and a shiny, brand new “don’t say gay” bill, the potential threat to my safety is real—though it is mitigated by my whiteness, which is important to acknowledge because visibly Queer and gender expansive BIPOC are much more at risk of discrimination and violence than I am.

I was contacted by both Patient Services and the clinic about my complaint. Patient Services apologized and said they were taking my complaint seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they shared my letter directly with the clinic which is great because now they are aware of what exactly the problematic behavior is. It scared the ever-loving crap out of me, though, because they know who made the complaint and, while they may have easily deduced that it was me just because of the nature of the complaint, I am visible. For what it’s worth, someone from the clinic called me to apologize and I was told they were taking corrective action. I suppose I’ll find out if that is actually the case when I go to my next appointment at the end of next month.

Since the death of our mom last year, I’ve tried to be very diligent about visiting my sister quarterly(-ish). That means that I regularly make a ten-hour drive through The South. It’s a beautiful drive, if you don’t count the two enormous Confederate battle flags I have to drive past—seriously, they’re two of the largest I have ever seen. I pass through the Great Smoky Mountains and gorgeous, rolling countryside. This last trip, the weather was perfect and I drove the whole way with my windows down and my music up and it was just pure joy… until I had to make a stop somewhere. I make sure that I only stop in populated areas or at large gas stations and truck stops with camera surveillance and more staff than just one person at a register. I do this because I know how I look, I know that I don’t pass as cishet anymore—I am visible and, therefore, vulnerable—and I live with the threats of “corrective r*pe” made against me since high school hanging over my head.

Visibility is desperately important for all marginalized groups. Visibility is necessary to fight against the willful ignorance of the white supremacist, Christian dominionist, ableist, cishet patriarchy. Oppressive cultures are not going to acquiesce to the righteous demands of marginalized groups for our safety, civil rights, and the respect due us as human beings if they’re not regularly confronted with our existence. And though visibility is vulnerability, it is safer for some of us to be visible than it is for others—as I mentioned before, my whiteness insulates me to a degree, so does my being child-free. It is important to me that, despite how scary being truly visible can be, I use the relative safety that my privilege affords me to be seen, to protest, to demand, to fight because there are so many in my community who can’t without much greater risk to their personal safety.

So, here I am before you, this Pride month. Visible. Vulnerable. Scared. Righteous.

And demanding that you look past the glitter and rainbows and chants that “love is love” and “love wins” to see that Queer and trans folks are in danger. As I write this, we’re only half way through Pride month and, already, there have been numerous threats of violence against, dangerous disruptions of, and narrowly-avoided attacks at Pride events across the country—all of which have been organized—not just random mob violence. This is not something y’all can write off as “lone wolf” situations. I need y’all who “identify as” allies to stop calling yourselves allies and actually be allies: be aware of the political climate; participate in state and local politics, which is where so many of the dangerous, anti-Queer and trans policies are being made, AND object to those policies before they become law; call out the stochastic terrorism of churches, politicians, and influential community members and organizations that all but guarantees violence against trans and Queer folks.

It is Pride month. And I am frightened.

#pride month #lgbtqa

[jcmarchi]

Professor Emeritus Frederick Hennie, expert in computation and leader within MIT EECS, dies at 90

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/professor-emeritus-frederick-hennie-expert-in-computation-and-leader-within-mit-eecs-dies-at-90/

Professor Emeritus Frederick Hennie, expert in computation and leader within MIT EECS, dies at 90

Frederick C. Hennie III, professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), died on Oct. 23. He was 90 years old.  

An affiliate of MIT EECS for his entire adult life, Hennie is known for influential early work in the theory of computation, as well as work on algorithms and discrete mathematics. As a longtime executive officer for the department, Hennie’s facility for programming languages and databases and his careful approach to highly complex systems made him a valued co-worker and advisor to multiple department heads.

Fred Hennie was born Feb. 9, 1933, in New Jersey, the only child of Anne R. Hennie and Frederick Hennie Jr., and attended Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey. From a very early age, his serious and reserved demeanor contrasted with his wider, more boisterous family. “My cousin Fred was always unique in our family,” remembers Louise Rutledge, who recalled his visits home on break from MIT when she was very young. “Fred would dutifully say hello, and I would tell him it was time for the ‘arm swing.’ Again he would dutifully extend his arm, and I would grab on and tell him he should swing me round. … Then it would be obvious that Fred needed ‘to study,’ and I would retreat downstairs. Fred was unfailingly polite, soft-spoken, and often monosyllabic. The only adult who was able to converse with him seemed to be my mother.”

Attending MIT for electrical engineering, Hennie was noted not only for his clear and lucid writing style (his PhD thesis on the topic of cellular automata drew attention from many), but also for his great talent for crafting examples and explanations which students could easily grasp. 

Hennie graduated from the Institute with his BS in 1955, going on to earn his MS in 1958 and his PhD in 1961. He immediately took a faculty position within the department; with a brief exception for a stint as a visiting faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, he would go on to spend the entirety of his adult life at MIT, becoming an associate professor in 1966, a full professor in 1968, and executive officer of the department in 1976. He would hold that position until 2001. 

While his importance to departmental functioning would grow, and his impact would be felt by many generations of students, his public profile remained low, as the intensely private Hennie found his niche refining procedures, honing curricula, and contributing to some of the thorniest research problems of his day.

“In 1976, I was teaching recitation sections of 6.042, which was led by Fred Hennie,” remembers Ron Rivest, now Institute Professor and professor post-tenure of computer science and engineering. “It was a great introduction to teaching EECS — he was always so careful and precise. Around that time, Adi Shamir, Len Adleman, and I came up with the fundamental structure of the RSA [Rivest-Shamir-Adleman] public-key cryptosystem. I think Fred’s meticulous approach to everything was key to our success.” 

In the recollections of all who worked alongside him, Hennie’s extraordinary attention to detail was remarkable. Nancy Lynch, the NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering (Post-Tenure), first encountered Hennie as she was completing her graduate work at MIT in the early 1970s. “He gave me a copy of his book draft for an undergraduate algebra course (sets, number theory, groups, rings, fields, etc.). These notes were impeccable and thorough, and were a terrific reference for the field. In fact, I used them in 1974 as the main text for an algebra course I taught at the University of Southern California.” When Lynch later returned to MIT as a faculty member, she worked with Hennie in her role as EECS assistant department head.

Charles Leiserson, now the Edwin Sibley Webster Professor, was another arrival to the department who found himself impressed by Hennie’s observational gifts. “I had a student in one of my classes who was cheating, and Fred was his academic counselor, so we arranged a meeting. The student was quaking in his boots, but Fred started out by saying to the student, “Now, this is a difficult situation we have here; what do you think we should do?” And then Fred was quiet for what seemed like an eternity.” Faced with nothing but patient silence, “the student opened up. There was, of course, an enormous mess in the student’s personal life; the cheating was almost a cry for help. We were able to get him good counseling and so forth, but Fred’s silence was really brilliant.” Leiserson later learned that the technique Hennie so deftly applied had a name: powerless communication. “Usually when you think about communication, you think about power and making your point. But that’s not a good way to build relationships. Fred, in that short preamble, flipped the dynamic. He asked for advice, which conveyed respect and showed that he valued what the student had to say. Not only that, but he let the student break the silence. That was such a good lesson for me as a junior faculty member.”

Hennie’s inclination toward teaching and instruction led him to a long engagement as the department’s executive officer, a broad position that not only oversaw all educational activities, but also dealt with the myriad complex administrative systems required to handle the movement of thousands of students from matriculation through graduation annually. In this role, he was assigned an administrative assistant, Lisa Bella.

“I worked with Fred for more than half my life,” remembers Bella, now the administrative coordinator for education officers within the department. “I think many of us felt we never really stopped working for Fred, even when he stepped down as executive officer. Keeping accurate records, whether database records or paper historical records, was very important to Fred — what was retained in his Rolodex brain was just as impressive.” In her role, Bella saw a playful side of Hennie that few others witnessed: “Fred created imaginary characters and entered them into the department database for troubleshooting purposes,” she recalls. The practice sometimes backfired, as Bella would try to track down real information for the fictional Beatrice Bumble. Bella also noted Hennie’s daily habit of walking to and from work from Brookline. “Leaving early, he’d put on a fisherman’s hat or wool fedora, walk by my office and say ‘Cheerio,’” says Bella. “I’d always respond, ‘Rice Krispies.’” 

Others who worked closely with Hennie describe a deliberate, deep thinker whose advice was always carefully considered. Former EECS department head John Guttag, now the Dugald C. Jackson Professor in Electrical Engineering, remembers Hennie as a trustworthy advisor. “When I was offered the job of assistant department head by Joel Moses [then the dean of the School of Engineering], Joel advised me that I wouldn’t make any drastic mistakes so long as I consulted with Fred. He was right. During the time I spent as an assistant department head and then department head, Fred was a source of sound advice on a variety of topics, and I have to assume he served the same role long before I entered the picture. Fred was the departmental leadership’s institutional memory.” 

A long series of EECS department heads came to rely on that institutional memory. W. Eric Grimson, now chancellor for academic advancement, interim vice president for open learning, Bernard M. Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering, and professor of computer science and engineering, remembers his reliance on Hennie: “Fred was a source of sage advice during my tenure as head of EECS. Although a very private person, he was a keen observer of organizational dynamics, and provided quiet but very thoughtful advice on department organizational structure and on navigating the dynamics between different parts of the department. Additionally, Fred was decades ahead of his time in collecting and curating data and using it to inform departmental decisions. The database he built, maintained, and enhanced was an incredible source of useful information, and was available years before MIT centrally caught up.”

“His passion for the department and its operations was phenomenal,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, now dean of the MIT School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “As a department head, I worked very closely with him. Fred had tremendous attention to detail and he covered a range of critical departmental issues — from tracking appointments to all aspects of the EECS databases. He was always available to provide sage advice on the operations of the department. It was truly an honor interacting with him and I was greatly inspired by his passion.”

President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif remembers a dual-sided nature of his longtime coworker: “Fred was very pleasant to be with if you did not mind no conversation. He was there with you, but he never said much (at least not to me). However, one thing was always clear to me: His life was EECS. And EECS is what it is today — the largest department at MIT and the best program of its kind in the world — thanks, in great measure, to Fred Hennie, and his clarity of mind, devotion to his field and his students, and many gifts as a teacher.” 

That dedication led Hennie to work for the department long past when others might have retired. In later years, he made a purely nominal move to part-time employment, focusing on database management and working alongside Helen Schwartz and Myron Freeman; he continued to walk to work daily until Covid-19 closed the offices. Schwartz, who began her time in EECS working alongside Hennie as a database programmer and eventually became database administrator, recalls the vast and complex nature of the data they grappled with: “We started developing a fairly massive database to store as much information as possible relating to the entire academic development of the student, minus the grades. Courses that they took, teaching assignments, TA [teaching assistant] appointments, benchmarks, requirements … we had to enter all the courses that were available, match them with what the students had taken, and see if the person had been staying on track.” She remembers Hennie as undaunted by the challenge. “Fred was an extremely brilliant person in the sense that he would never be afraid of new things coming his way,” she recalls, noting that in the time she worked alongside him, the department database shifted from using Multics database to a large relational database dedicated entirely to the EECS functions, collecting student and faculty data.

As perhaps Hennie’s closest coworker, Schwartz caught rare glimpses of his outside interests beyond the walls of the department. “He was an avid photographer,” she remembers, “and created an extraordinary collection of photographs from all his trips to Scandinavia. He would go to places that he’d been before many times, taking pictures of things that he did before in a new light and creating a very different aura or impression of the same place.” And although he never discussed his own history or revealed even the most mundane personal details to his coworkers, his voracious reading habits showed that he was a close, even fascinated observer of the human condition. “Only after I retired, I would go visit him and he would give me bags and bags of books that he was trying to unload.”

Over the many years they worked together, Schwartz grew to greatly admire her co-worker. “He was an interesting person in the sense that he was extraordinarily old-fashioned in many senses. He didn’t like fast changes, because they are frequently not very well-considered. But socially and politically he was an extraordinarily respectful person. He might criticize someone for making the wrong choice. But he respected human nature.”

Cousin Louise Rutledge agrees, adding, “Now, after his passing, going through his files and paperwork, it is abundantly clear that what Fred valued was his work at MIT, the colleagues with whom he maintained contact, the wonderful library that he built with an amazing variety of subjects, his photography from decades of travels around Scandinavia and Europe, and last but not the least, his lifelong relationships with a handful of close friends.”

Those close friends, and the department to which Hennie devoted so much of his life, will miss him greatly. Donations in memory of Fred Hennie can be made to his three favorite charities: Habitat for Humanity, Mass Audubon, and The Nature Conservancy.

#Advice #Algorithms #amazing #approach #arm #benchmarks #book #Books #Born #Brain #challenge #Chancellor #classes #communication #computation #computer #Computer Science #course #courses #covid #data #Database #database administrator #database management #databases #details #development #dynamics #education #Electrical Engineering&Computer Science (eecs)

[bookwormkara]

New Sim Story

Earlier this month I started a new Sim story. I’m going to maybe document here. We’ll see. 

I started with a teen named Nicholas Hoffman; his name and his look were autogenerated in Create a Sim. The only change I made was to make sure his outfits made sense. Character traits assigned to him: genius, socially awkward, ambitious. At the beginning of the game, no other members lived with him. To concoct a back story, Nick was the son of a single mother, Evelyn. He never knew his father nor his father’s side of the family. Furthermore, his mother was largely estranged from her family so growing up it was just him and his mom. They were very close although his mom often worked multiple jobs and irregular hours to make sure they had what they needed. Unfortunately, his mother’s addiction took over and she was not a part of his life leaving him to live on a relatively small inheritance from his grandmother and his aunt allowed him to live in a house she often used for rental income free of charge as long as he paid utilities and maintained the home. 

Overcoming the odds, Nick was able to have a relatively normal high school experience and was even captain of the computer team. He graduated with Honors and went on to attend Foxbury Institute on full scholarship where he is pursuing a distinguished degree in Computer Science. He hasn’t spoken to his mother since before graduation. 

Nick’s high school girlfriend was his classmate, Morgan Fyres. They kept in touch but both admittedly grew apart their senior year as they were both exploring post-high school options. They broke up and Nick had a brief relationship with Cassandra Goth. Running into Morgan during a shopping trip at ThriftTea helped him realized he still had feelings for his first love, Morgan and, although, Cassandra had moved in with him, they ended their relationship and Morgan took her place. 

Shortly after they moved in together and rekindled their relationship, Morgan found out she was pregnant. They agreed that Nick should complete his college education, but Morgan went to work to cover the family bills by taking a job as a Media Intern. She found that it is a job she thoroughly enjoyed that used her skillset and has committed to making a career out of her position. She has since been promoted twice and is now a clickbait writer.

The couple recently welcomed their first child, a daughter, Ariella Hoffman.

[theyabridge]

001. The Chocolate War

Brief Summary: The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, published in 1974 is a novel that follows multiple perspectives of young boys that attend Trinity High School, and some that are specifically in a secret society called The Vigils. However, the character that the novel seems to follow the most is Jerry Renault as he goes against The Vigils in his refusal to sell chocolates in the high school fundraiser. I found the shift in multiple perspectives to be a little jarring at first, however, realized how crucial this was as a choice for the novel. While the novel’s premise may seem simplistic, it’s anything but. Through Jerry’s rebellion, the novel not only tackles concepts of unspoken acceptance and the power of choice in going against the grain of others in power, but also acknowledges the difficulty of questioning and dismantling institutions and systems of oppressive power, especially on one’s own.

YA & Adult Readers alike may enjoy: The aspect of struggle within the novel, and how struggling or fighting back against the status quo is accessible to any reader.

Michael Cart touches upon this idea in Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism when he writes, “In it, this working journalist and already established author of adult fiction single-handedly turned the genre in a dramatic new direction by having the courage to write a novel of unprecedented thematic weight and substance for young adults, one that dared to disturb the comfortable universe of both adolescents and the adults who continued to protect their tender sensibilities. It did this by boldly acknowledging that not all endings of novels and real lives are happy ones…” (Cart 33).

And honestly, I couldn't agree with Cart more. Through Cormier’s writing, young readers are exposed to jarring themes of existentialism, mob mentality/bullying, and nonconformity, which while grim at first glance, are extremely important for them to consider, especially as they grow and learn from the world around them that not every story or situation has a happy ending, as Cart points out. On the other hand, older readers are able to use this book and these characters as a lens of viewing our own world today, and how power was and is structured or even mistreated. Robert Cormier debunks the assumptions that young adult literature lacks depth, and that the genre is overall, geared towards a specific audience in that while the characters themselves are young and new to these intimidating experiences, they often find themselves in situations and part of systems that are not only incredibly mature and challenging, but also eerily reflective of the world at large.

Final thoughts/Concluding Review: Personally, The Chocolate War took me by surprise. I didn’t really know what to expect from the novel and found myself falling in the trap of assuming that it might lack depth. I’m happy to report that I couldn’t have been more wrong. If any book really pushed me to think about young adult literature as a genre capable of reaching any age group, it was this one. Something I found rather enjoyable that I think any reader could enjoy was the shift in perspective amongst multiple boys in the novel. Even though Jerry’s perspective seems the most prominent, having the opinions of other students alongside his own line of thinking really made me think about where everyone’s opinions actually stood versus how the boys would portray themselves and their views to The Vigils. It was fun to not only pinpoint these inconsistencies, but also see the gradual change in views for some of the boys once Jerry’s refusal is made outright--will any of the kids stand with him or will they all turn against him? What will happen to Jerry at the end of the novel? These were questions in my head that made the book impossible to put down. Overall, I think this was a great device for Cormier to use, not only to keep readers invested in the overall plot of the novel, but also to highlight the effect that one’s own choices and actions can make on a group of other people.

[swanlake1998]

Article: For transgender dancers, progress can't come fast enough

Date: March 8, 2020

By: Avichai Scher

Sean Dorsey was tired of being the only transgender dancer in the room. So he took the bold step of starting his own company, the San Francisco-based Sean Dorsey Dance, and become the first openly trans director of a full-time dance company. It was a milestone for transgender and gender-nonconforming dancers and choreographers, and Dorsey hoped it would lead to a more inclusive dance world.

The company is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, yet Dorsey remains the only openly trans artistic director of a full-time dance company in the country.

“We’ve definitely made progress since I started, when there was really no context for institutional or social support of trans dancers,” Dorsey said. “But there’s still a major lack of representation across the dance world.”

Dance, especially older forms such as ballet and modern dance, is mostly structured around strict gender lines. While the growing acceptance of transgender people in the United States has extended somewhat into the art form, trans dancers are often forced to choose between being their authentic selves and career opportunities.

Issues start in training

Dorsey’s choreography often deals with trans issues, and he is committed to being an advocate in the dance world for transgender people. But even in his own company, Dorsey is the only trans performer.

“In San Francisco, at least, I don’t have the luxury of holding an audition for trans dancers,” he said. “There just aren’t very many at the professional level.”

Dorsey said this is largely because barriers for trans and gender-nonconforming dancers start at a young age — as most training programs are gender-specific.

Jayna Ledford, 19, made headlines when she came out as transgender in an Instagram post in 2018. She was studying at the Kirov Ballet Academy at the time, a traditional ballet program in Washington, D.C. It was the first time a dancer at an acclaimed ballet school had publicly come out as trans.

Classes at Kirov, like most ballet conservatories, are generally separated by sex assigned at birth, and when students are combined, teachers offer different steps for men and women. Ledford, however, found ways to get the training that matched her gender identity, including dancing on her toes in special pointe shoes, which is done almost exclusively by women and requires unique training.

“I wanted to do what the females were doing,” she said. “I’d do it on the side and not pay attention to what the guys were doing. I’d also stay after class and practice pointe technique with my female friends.”

She hadn’t had the training other females at the school had, but she was hoping to transfer from the men’s program to the women’s.

“I knew I had a lot of catching up to do in terms of pointe work,” she said. “But just being in the room with the females, that’s what I wanted.”

The Kirov Academy told Ledford she could not join the women’s program unless she physically transitioned. Ledford was not ready for that, so she left the school. She was disappointed but now says she understands the academy’s position. The school confirmed Ledford’s account but declined to comment.

Maxfield Haynes, 22, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, said the large, prestigious ballet school where they trained was not supportive of someone presenting as male wearing pointe shoes.

It wasn’t until Haynes enrolled at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University that they were able to explore the more feminine aspects of ballet technique. Ledford also found higher education to be more supportive than a conservatory. She now studies at Montclair State University and practices pointe technique daily.

Lack of professional opportunities

After NYU, Haynes chose to dance with Complexions Contemporary Ballet partially because the company is explicitly supportive of gender fluidity, and even had a specific role for Haynes that is gender-nonconforming. In the David Bowie tribute piece, “Stardust,” Haynes dons pointe shoes and was partnered with male dancers.

“It was everything I could have dreamed of,” Haynes said of the role. “As nonbinary, I like to get to show all aspects of gender. I don’t think about dancing like a man or a woman, just myself.”

Opportunities to dance roles that are gender-nonconforming are rare in the concert dance world, even if dancers are becoming more open about being gender-nonconforming in their offstage lives. And those who want to physically transition face a stark choice, as none of the major dance companies in the U.S. currently have openly transgender dancers on their rosters.

Alby Sabrina Pretto recently made the difficult choice to begin physically transitioning with hormone replacement therapy at the expense of her performing career. She was a dancer with Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo, an all-male comedy troupe, for eight years. While she got to dance in pointe shoes, the style of the company is rooted in the comedy of men portraying women, which ultimately wasn’t how Pretto identified.

“There were moments I wanted to do things like a ballerina would and be ethereal and pretty,” Pretto said. “To dance like a woman.”

She knew that physically transitioning would mean she could not continue with the company.

“I wanted to have a career, and that slowed down my decision to transition,” Pretto said. “I waited until I felt like I had done what I wanted to do there.”

Liz Harler, general manager of Les Ballet Trockadero, said in a statement that transitioning does not disqualify dancers from the company.

“Dancers who expressed interest in transitioning to female have been told that their job would not be in jeopardy, though none have chosen to do so while continuing with the Trocks’ rigorous dancing and touring schedule,” Harler said.

Both Ledford and Pretto hope for the day when they can attend an audition and be hired without having to explain their gender identity.

Ledford said. “I’ll audition as any other woman. If I get in, then I’ll sit down and talk with them.”

Ledford is “optimistic” that this can happen in the next few years, but Pretto isn’t so sure.

“I am not naive, I know I cannot just audition for a major ballet company and join the female corps de ballet,” Pretto said. “But I would love for that to happen for me. It’s the ultimate dream.”

Her skepticism is partly based on the experience of her former Trockadero colleague, Chase Johnsey, who is gender fluid. He made headlines in 2018 when he was cast in a female ensemble role in the English National Ballet’s production of “Sleeping Beauty,” though it was not on pointe, and the heavy costume concealed his body. No additional female roles came his way afterward.

The question of who gets opportunities as a dancer often comes down to the taste of directors and producers and what they imagine their audiences want to see, not just ability.

Pretto danced a couple of character roles recently with Eglevsky Ballet, a growing ballet ensemble on Long Island, New York. The director, Maurice Brandon Curry, said he would consider Pretto for a female ensemble role next year, because her pointe work is “excellent,” though he wonders how some in the audience will react.

“Casting Alby in a female role would not be about passing as female, but I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge my concern about an audience member who was offended,” Curry said. “But art is not prejudice; it’s about inclusivity and open minds. If someone is not willing to have that experience, they don’t have a legitimate place in our audiences.”

Signs of change

Dorsey said that even having discussions about gender identity in dance is progress from when he started, and he’s encouraged by changes he’s seen: Most theaters either already have gender-neutral restrooms or create them for his company’s visit; trans and gender-nonconforming students attend his workshops in various cities and share with him their efforts to be accepted in their dance communities; the San Francisco Ballet persuaded him to lead a training session on gender identity in dance; and he was on the cover of Dance Magazine.

Ledford was recently a “Gaynor Girl,” a spokesperson for the popular pointe shoe brand Gaynor Minded. Pretto said she worked up the courage to use the ladies' locker room at one of New York’s busiest studios, Steps on Broadway, and no one seemed to mind.

Still, the art form has not yet caught up to reflect the audience, Dorsey said. His company has worked in over 30 cities in the U.S. and abroad, and he is usually the first trans choreographer a theater has presented. But he said the response from audiences is almost always positive.

“Dance audiences are ready and hungry for trans voices,” he said. “It's our dance institutions that are still catching up.”

#article #ballet #an article from last year but still important #sean dorsey #jayna ledford #maxfield haynes #alby sabrina pretto

[freddiekluger]

Why Cap Being Internally Closeted Is Not Only Possible, But Valid Representation 

i wrote this to a lot of mitski and onsind, so you can’t blame me for any feelings that bleed through

now i don’t know if it actually exists, but i’ve heard of there being a lot of discourse surrounding the captains story arc regarding his sexuality- i believe the general gist is that having a queer character that remains closeted to themselves is either unrealistic or ‘bad’ representation, and as someone who really treasures the captain and relates to his story so far a lot, i thought i might break this down a bit. 

i’ve divded up every complaint i’ve heard about this into four main questions which i’ll be covering below the ‘keep reading’, because this is gonna be pretty comprehensive. full disclaimer i reference my experiences as an ex-evangelical non binary butch lesbian a couple times, and i spent a year studying repression and the psychological impacts of high demand sexual ethics for my graduating sociology paper, so this is coming with some background to it i swear

the big questions:

can you EVEN be gay and not know it????

but isn't this just ANOTHER coming out arc, and aren't we supposed to be moving beyond those?

but if cap can't have a relationship with a man because he's a ghost, what's the point?

since cap's dead, isn't this technically bury your gays, and isn't that bad? 

1. "but is it really possible to not know? Isn't that bad representation?"

short answer: no and no.

before i get into the validity of the captain's ignorance about his own orientation as 21st century rep, let's break down how the hell the captain can be so clearly attracted to men and still not even consider the possibility that he might be gay, as brought to you by someone who literally experienced this shit.

the captain's particular situation is both a direct result of the lack of information around human sexuality he would have had (aka clear messaging that it's actually possible for him to be attracted to men. i don't mean acceptable or allowed, i mean physically capable of happening- the idea that orientations other than heterosexual exist and are available to him, a man), and a subconscious survival mechanism. the environment in which he lives is outright hostile to gay people, while the military man identity he has constructed for himself doesn't allow for any form of deviation from societal norms, let alone one so base level and major. as a result of this killer combo of information and environment, instincts take over and the mind does it's best to repress the ‘deviant’ feelings until a. one of these two things changes, or b. the act of repression becomes so destructive and/or exhuasting that it becomes impossible to maintain. the key to maintaining a long-term state of repression of desire is diverting that energy elsewhere, and a high-demand group such as the military is the perfect place for the captain to do this (this technqiue is frequented by religions and extremist ideologies worldwide, but that’s not really what we’re here to focus on). 

while the brain is actively repressing ‘deviant’ feelings (aka gay shit), this doesn't mean you don't experience the feelings at all. when performed as a subconscious act of survival, the aim of repression is to minimise/transform the feelings into a state where they can no longer cause immediate danger, and something as big as sexual/romantic orientation is going to keep popping up, but as long as the individual in question never understands what they’re feeling, they’ll be able to continue relatively undisturbed. you know how in heist movies, the leader of the group will only tell each team member part of the plan so they can’t screw things up for everyone else if they get caught? it’s kind of like that.

this is how the captain appears to have operated in life AND in death, and it’s a relatively common experience for lgbtq people who’ve grown up in similar circumstances (aka with a lack of information and in an unfriendly-to-hostile environment), and accounts for how some people can even go on to get married and have children before realising that they’re gay and/or trans. 

personally, while i can now identify what were strong homo crushes all the way back to childhood, at the time i genuinely had no idea. there was the underlying sense that i probably shouldn't tell people how attached i was to these girls because i would seem weird, and that my feelings were stronger than the ones other people used to describe friendships, but like-like them in the way that other girls like-liked boys? no way! actually scratch that, it wasn't even a no way, because i had no idea that i even could. i even had my own havers, at least in terms of the emotional hold and devotion she got from me, except she treated me way less well than cap’s beau. snatches of the existence of lgbt people made it through the cone of silence, i definitely heard the words gay and lesbian, but my levels of informations mirrored those that the captain would have had: virtually none, beyond the idea that these words exist, some people are them, and that's not something that we support or think is okay, so let's just not speak about it. despite only attending religious schools for the first couple years of primary, until i got my own technology and social media accounts to explore lgbtq content on my own- option a out of the two catalysts for change- the possibility of me being gay was not at all on my radar. don’t even get me started on how long it took me to explore butchness and my overall gender, two things which now feel glaringly obvious. 

when shit starts to break down, you can also make the conscious choice to repress which can delay the eventual smashing down of the mental closet door for a time (essentially when the closet door starts to open, you just say ‘no thanks’ and shut it again by pointedly Not Thinking About It). in the abscence of identifying yourself by your attractions, it becomes quite common to identify with a lack- in my case, this meant becoming proud of how sensible and not boy crazy i was, and in the captain’s case, this means becoming proud of how sensible and not sensuous/wild (aka woman crazy) he was, identifying with his LACK of desire for women and partying (which, even in the 40s, involved the expectation of opposite sex romances and hook ups). i’m not saying that’s the only reason he’s a rule follower, but i think the contrast between About Last Night and Perfect Day pretty much support this. (the captain getting on his high horse about general party antics that he inherently felt excluded from because of underlying awareness of his difference & his tendency to project his regimented expectations of himself onto others, vs. joining in the reception party, awareness of how the environment supports difference in the form of clare and sam, and relaxing his own rules by dancing with men- the captain doesn’t mind a party when feels like he has a place there.)

so the captain was operating in a high demand, highly regulated environment (primarily the military, but also early 20th century England itself), with regimented roles, rules, and expectations. working on the assumption that he wouldn't have had out/disclosing lgbt friends, he would have had little to no exposure to lgbt identities, and what information he did receive would have been hushed and negatively geared. while my world started to open up when i started high school was allowed to have my own phone + instagram account, resulting in me realising something wasn't quite 'right' within a few years (making me a relatively early realiser compared to those who don't come out to themselves until adulthood), in life the captain never had that experience. he didn't receive the information he needed, his environment didn't grow less hostile. with the near-exception of havers related heartbreak, his well disciplined and lifelong method of repression never became destructive/exhaustive enough to permanently override the danger signals in his mind and allow him to put his feelings into words. neither of the most common catalysts for change happened for him, so he continued as usual, even after his death.

BUT, and here’s where we come to why this is actually great representation, arrival of mike and Alison represents the opening up of new world. for the first time, the captain is actively made aware of the fact that his environment is no longer hostile, and better than that, it’s affirming. he’s also getting access to positively geared information about lgbtq people and identities, so option a of the two catalysts for change is absolutely present, and resoundingly positive. 

the captain’s arc is also relatively unique as it acknowledges the oppressive nature of his environment, but actually focuses on the internal consequences, and the way that systems like those that the captain lived in succeed because they turn us into our own oppressors. for whatever reason, we repress ourseslves, and often can’t help it, and i find that the significance of the journey to overcome that is often overlooked in more mainstream queer media. perhaps it’s just not very cinematic, or it remains too confronting for cishet audiences, but ghosts manages to touch on it with a lovely amount of humour and hope. Jamie Babbit’s But I’m A Cheerleader is another favourite piece of queer media for the same reasons.

not only does it show this, but as the captain continues to get gayer and lean into some of his less conventional traits (like an interest in fashion and the wedding planning), it shows lgbt people who have been or are going through this that there CAN be a positive outcome. it takes a lot to unlearn all the things that have painted you as wrong, especially when a massive institution is desperate to continue doing so, but you can do it, you can be happy, and it's never too late. (i've been meaning to say that last point for ages for ages, but a mutual beat me to it here)

2. not just another coming out arc

i absolutely support the demand for queer stories that don’t center around coming out (it’s like shrodinger’s queer: if you’re not coming out on screen, do you really even exist?), but i don’t align with the criticisms that the captain should already be out. for the reasons mentioned above, the captain’s particular story is fairly different to the ‘young white teenager who mostly knows gay is fine, it’s just everyone else that’s got the problem, but have a unremarkably straight sounding soundtrack, a trauma porn romance, and a cishet saviour’ that we keep seeing. the captain’s ongoing journey with his sexuality emphasises the overaching theme of the show: recovering from trauma and humanity’s endless capacity for growth, and i think that’s worth showing over and over again until it stops being true.

additionally, while the captain’s journey regarding his gayness is a big part of his character and story, ghosts makes it clear that it’s not the ONLY part, and being gay is far from his ONLY characteristic or dramatic/comedic engine. the fact that i’m even having to congratulate ghosts for doing that really shows how much film and television is struggling huh.

while all queer media is, and should be, subject to criticism, i think if it helps even one person then it absolutely deserves to exist, and i can say i’ve found the captain’s journey to be the lgbt story i’ve found that’s closest to my own, which says a lot considering he’s a dead world war 2 soldier who hangs out with other ghosts including a slutty Tory, a georgian noblewoman, and a literal caveman. 

3. if captain gay, why he no have boyfriend???? 

another complaint that’s been circulating is that since the captain doesn’t, and likely won’t, have a boyfriend, that makes him Bad Representation because it follows the sad single gay trope. i kind of get the logic from this one, and a lot of it is up to personal interpretation, but part of me really enjoys the fact that the captain’s journey towards accepting himself is separated from having a relationship.

coming out is often paired with having romantic/sexual relationships (either as the reason or reward for doing so). my own struggle with repression didn't end the second that came out, and i still struggle with letting myself develop & acknowledge romantic feelings as a result of actively shutting them (and most other feelings in general) down for years, and statistics show that lgbtq youth in particular tend not to live out their 'teen years' until their twenties. by not giving cap a relationship straight away, ghosts separates the act of claiming identity and sexual orientation from finding a partner (two things which are, more often than not, separate), and also provides some very nice validation to folks who have yet to have the relationship they want, especially when lots of mainstream queer media is now jumping on the cishet media bandwagon of acting as if every person loses their virginity and has a life defining relationship at sixteen. it’s essentially a continuation of the earlier theme of “it’s never too late”, and who’s to say the captain won’t get a gay bear ghost boyfriend to go haunt nazis with??? people die all the time, it could happen.

(also, i think him and julian will have definitely shagged at least once. it was a low moment for both of them and they refuse to speak of it.)

lots of asexual/ace spectrum fans have come out to say how much they’ve loved being able to headcanon cap as ace, and while that’s not a headcanon i personally have, i think it’s brilliant that ace fans feel seen by his character- we’re all in this soup together babey (and sorry for cursing everyone still reading this with that cap/julian headcanon. i’m just a vessel)

4. “okay, but cap’s a GHOST- doesn’t that make this Bury Your Gays?”

this is a bit of a complex one, but i’m going to say no as a result of the following break down.

Bury Your Gays (BYG), aka the trope where lgbtq characters are consistently killed off (and often with a heavy dose of trauma, while cishet characters survive) is probably one of my least favourite lgbt media tropes. BYG has two main points:

1. the lgbt character is killed, thus removing them from story entirely- hence the use of the phrase ‘killed OFF’ (killed off of the show/film)

2. the character’s death reinforces the perception that lgbtq people’s lives must end in tragedy, instead of being long and fulfilling, or are inherently less valuable. bonus points if the character is killed in a hate crime or confesses same-gender love right before they die (that one implies that queer love genuinely has no future!)

not every death of an lgbtq character is bury your gays, and i personally feel that the captain is an example of an lgbt death that isn’t. 

first of all, while the captain is dead, so are the vast majority of characters in ghosts. the premise of the show means that death is not the end of the line for its characters- for most of them, it’s the only reason we get to see them on screen at all. as such, the captain being dead doesn’t remove him from the story, so point one is irrelevant.

at the time of posting, we don’t know how or why the captain died, but we've had nothing to suggest his death was in any way related to his latent sexuality, so his mysterious death doesn’t actively play into the supposedly inherent tragedy of queer lives, nor the supposedly lesser value. that’s as of right now- since we don’t know the circumstances of his death it’s a little tough to analyse properly. while the captain’s life absolutely features missed opportunities and it’s fair share of tragedy, hope and growth (which seems to be the theme of this post) abounds in equal measure. the captain may not be alive, but we DO get to see him growing and having a relatively happy existence, that for the most part seems to be getting even better as he learns to open up and be himself unapologetically- that doesn’t feel like BYG to me.

while writng this, it’s just occured to me that death really is a second chance for most of the ghosts, especially with the introduction of alison. from mary learning to read, to thomas finding modern music, they’ve all been given the chance explore things they never could have while they were alive, and hopefully grow enough to one day be sucked off move on.

in conclusion,

i love the captain very much and i hope his arc lives up to the standards it’s set so far. i don’t know where to put this in this post, but i’d alo like to say i LOVE how in Perfect Day, the captain wasn’t used as an educational experienced for fanny at all. i am very tired of people expecting me to be the walking talking homophobe educator and rehabilitator, so the fact that it’s alison and the other ghosts that call fanny out while the captain just gets to have fun with the wedding organisation made me very happy.

here’s a few other cap posts that i’ve done:

the captain’s arc if adam and the film crew stayed

a possible cap coming out 

the captain backstory headcanon

if you’ve read this far,

thank you!

also check out @alex-ghosts-corner , this post inspired me very much to write this

#i subluxed all my fingers and wrists doing this but worth it #bbc ghosts #bbc ghosts headcanon #bbc ghosts analysis #the captain #caphavers #the captain x havers #ben willbond #lgbt representation #lgbt rep #queer media #lgbt media

[kny111]

by Janine Francois

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore…” asks Langston Hughes in the haunting lines of his poem, “Harlem.” Written nearly 70 years ago, Hughes’ words remain just as relevant as ever.

“Harlem” is typically read as referring to Black aspirations—the crushing of dreams, and particularly, the promise of racial equality by American society at large. However, his words here may apply to literal Black dreams as well. A growing amount of research has found that Black Americans experience significantly less slow-wave sleep—the kind required for actual, rejuvenating rest—than white Americans. The lack of slow-wave sleep can cause serious mental and physical health issues, including premature death. This disparity, or “sleep gap,” has been the subject of numerous studies, some of which have found that Black Americans are five times more likely than white Americans to get less than six hours of sleep per night, are more likely than white Americans to feel sleepy during the day, and on average get an hour less sleep per night than white Americans.

There’s no scientific consensus on what, specifically, causes the sleep gap. As reported by The Atlantic in 2015, however, leading theories point to both experiences of discrimination and structural inequality—aspects of one’s environment that make one feel unsafe and insecure—as root causes. As Benjamin Reiss pointed out in the LA Times in 2017, Black Americans have lacked access to sufficient sleeping environments since slavery: “Aboard the ships of the transatlantic slave trade, African captives were made to sleep en masse in the hold, often while chained together. Once in the New World, enslaved people were usually still made to sleep in tight quarters, sometimes on the bare floor, and they struggled to snatch any sleep at all while chained together in the coffle. Slaveholders systematically disallowed privacy as they attempted round-the-clock surveillance, and enslaved women were especially susceptible at night to sexual assault from white men.”

Just as sleep deprivation was used as a means to control slaves, the modern-day sleep gap continues to weigh down many Black people, like me, today. I can feel it in me: It breaks my spirit, as I exist in between half-conscious states; never fully awake or asleep, never able to distinguish between the two. This may be the true power of racism—its force encompasses everything, seeping into our dreams at night and deflating our capacity to envision a better future. How can the radical Black imagination rebel against a system that so thoroughly seeks to destroy us? What would a future look like where we are liberated, reparations are paid, and we can finally rest?

Last year_,_ I attended an exhibition called Black Power Naps that begins to answer those questions_._ After debuting at Matadero Madrid Contemporary Art Center in Spain, where I saw it, the exhibition has since travelled to Performance Space New York, where it is on view through January, 2019. The ongoing project by Black Latinx artists Fannie Sosa (referred to as Sosa) and niv Acosta presents a series of interactive installations that invite Black visitors to lie, nap, relax, and play, providing “deliberate energetic repair,” as the artists put it, on the dime of white cultural institutions.

I and many other Black people are constantly aware of our Blackness in hyper-white environments, including art institutions. Elijah Anderson, a prominent ethnographer and Yale lecturer, describes us as “black interlopers” in his 2015 essay, “The White Space”: “When present in the white space, blacks reflexively note the proportion of whites to blacks...and... may adjust their comfort level accordingly; when judging a setting as too white, they can feel uneasy and consider it to be informally ‘off limits.’” As W. E. B. Du Bois suggests, we experience double consciousness, where we simultaneously become aware of both our Blackness, and the responses to it, in white spaces. The surveillance our bodies experience in art institutions—from being followed around in their gift shops to being watched by the gaze of their gallery attendants, and all amidst an undiverse collection of artworks and workforce—informs our feelings of exclusion. But perhaps Black Power Naps does something different: It is designed with Black people in mind, inverting a white art institution into a “Black space,” where the Black body is the center around which all the show’s installations conceptually orbit.

To enter Black Power Naps, you must take off your shoes. Removing one’s shoes is an act associated with sacred places—a symbolic gesture of leaving the world’s toxicity behind. Once inside the room, you see six “healing stations” before you, each “invented,” as the artists put it, to evoke different bodily sensations through physical contact. Each is adorned with silks, satins, and chiffons in delicate pastel hues to create a cozy cocoon of a room. The stations include the “Black Bean Bed,” a pool filled with uncooked black beans, designed to soothe someone experiencing a panic attack. If you lie in the pool, the beans swallow your body while cooling the skin, enveloping you in comfort. The “Air Swing,” meanwhile, is a swing surrounded by three silent fans intended to increase the amount of oxygen you breathe in and, effectively, improve sleep. And the “Atlantic Reconciliation Station” is a water bed intended to help descendants of enslaved people forcibly brought through the middle passage—or pushed off ships along the way—reconcile with the ocean by reminding them that, as the artists explain, the ocean is an “adoring entity that has always had our back.” Continue reading..

#science #history #black lives matter #blm #rest #burnout #healthcare #wellness #queue

[i-know-my-value-darling]

Supernatural stars reflect on the show's undying legacy

Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, and Misha Collins discuss 15 years of fantasy, family, and flannel. 

"We only get one shot at this." Sam and Dean Winchester are surrounded. The monster-hunting brothers are standing on the edge of a cliff. They look to Castiel, their brother in arms — or is it wings? — but even he can’t help. One move in the wrong direction could ruin everything. After years of fighting demons, going toe-to- toe with Satan himself, and saving the world multiple times, they once again find themselves in a position of having to perform under pressure. But this situation is unlike anything they’ve ever dealt with before. All eyes are on them as they have one shot…at getting the perfect picture.

It’s a dry, hot August day in Malibu — when people were still allowed to gather outside — as Supernatural stars Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins prepare for the last setup of their final Entertainment Weekly cover shoot. With a bottle of champagne in each of their hands, Ackles once again reminds them they get “one shot” to do this right. But if their characters can shoulder the weight of the world, surely these three can handle a photo. Read the whole story below

The champagne soaking is meant to be a celebration of 15 years, of making television history. Supernatural, the story of two brothers destined to save the world, is the longest-running genre show in the history of American broadcast television. (So old, the first three seasons shot on this thing called film.) What started as an underdog story, living its first few years on the verge of cancellation, has become an institution, a milestone to which other shows aspire. Supernatural not only survived the move from The WB to The CW after its first season — it’s now the final WB show left standing — but became the backbone of the now highly successful CW network. Over the years, the sci-fi series has aired on every weeknight, helping to launch shows including Arrow and The Vampire Diaries. The network moved it one final time, most recently, to Mondays, to help Roswell, New Mexico expand its audience. “Supernatural is a major link to many of the shows that we have successfully built to market,” The CW’s chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz says. “Almost every one of our shows has had it as a lead-out or a lead-in.”

And to think, it all started as a promise to bring horror to television. After Supernatural creator Eric Kripke had finished working with Warner Bros. on 2003’s Tarzan series, he pitched the idea of a reporter who travels around hunting urban legends. As he puts it, it was a Kolchak: The Night Stalker rip-off. But when he realized the story would benefit from having brothers at its core, he started writing. “At the time, The Ring and The Grudge were huge hits in theaters,” Kripke remembers. “We said, ‘We’re going to take that experience and we’re going to put it on TV,’ and the initial goal was to be scary.” After Warner Bros. passed on his first, what he calls “uptight,” draft, Kripke had to reassess the kind of show he was creating. “I canceled all my Christmas plans and wrote that second draft in three weeks,” he says. “That was when the show got its sense of humor, because I was locked alone, over winter break, in my office. I couldn’t do anything fun, so I started entertaining myself.”

The show was still scary, but it was also funny and, over the years, would continue to evolve. Sure, you could say it’s a little bit X-Files — in its early days, the show often used the line “The X-Files meets Route 66” — and there were definite Star Wars influences (Sam and Dean were originally based on Luke Skywalker and Han Solo). But no combination of pop culture is going to perfectly describe Supernatural because the show has managed to do something remarkably rare in the age of peak TV, where audiences are so overwhelmed with content that an original idea seems foreign: It’s created a truly one-of- a-kind experience.

For starters, it’s a show about two flannel-wearing, beer-loving, blue-collar dudes from Kansas who for a good chunk of their lives traveled from cheap motel to cheap motel, paying for gas and greasy diner food with a mix of fake credit cards and money they earned scamming people at the pool table. “Almost all television is about rich people or, at the very least, middle-class people,” co-showrunner Andrew Dabb says. “The fact that we’ve been able to take this Midwestern blue-collar approach to this genre feels like we’re breaking the mold.”

But the mold-breaking didn’t stop there. Supernatural might’ve started out as a horror show with some snarky one-liners, but it evolved into some of the boldest, most experimental (and certainly strangest) stories on the small screen. “We’re a show of big swings,” co-showrunner Robert Singer says. “I used to say, with every idea, ‘This will be a home run or they’ll cancel us,’ but every year we wanted to do something really nuts." And when he says nuts, we’re not just talking about the episode with the talking teddy bear or the murderer targeting imaginary friends. Those are just some standard monsters of the week. We’re talking about the black-and-white episode shot like a classic Hollywood monster movie, or the episode that introduced Chuck (Rob Benedict), a prophet — who’d later reveal himself to be God — who was famous for writing a book series called Supernatural. That, of course, led to Sam and Dean attending a Supernatural fan convention as the show continued to redefine what it meant to inject a series with meta humor. And the swings never stopped. Season 13 featured a Scooby-Doo crossover as an animated Sam, Dean, and Castiel solved a case alongside the Mystery Inc. gang. And in season 14, after giving God a sister a few years prior, the show made the Big Man Himself its final villain. “I don’t think any idea, barring some production concerns, has been viewed as too crazy,” Dabb says. “Because we know that our fans are smart and that they’ll follow these guys anywhere.”

So long as each episode features Sam and Dean — and the occasional heartfelt talk on the hood of the Impala — the show can do just about anything, which is another reason Kripke had to rewrite his first draft of the pilot. Originally, Dean was the only brother who knew about monsters growing up, bringing Sam up to speed later in life. It wasn’t until Kripke figured out that they needed to be in this together that the series snapped into place. Because at the end of it all, they’re two brothers bonded by the loss of their mother and a life spent on the road with an absentee father. (It just so happens that their mother was killed by a demon and their father hunted them.) The familial dynamic — the irrational codependency, as the angel Zachariah (Kurt Fuller) once called it — is the most important part of the show. “The first inkling I had that we had something special was shooting the pilot,” Kripke says. “It was the scene on the bridge when Sam and Dean talk about their mother. It was the first time that you really saw their chemistry and their connection as brothers on full display. Because I’ve always said this show begins and ends with whether you believe that sibling relationship.” But Sam and Dean weren’t just the center of the show. For many years, they were the show.

Supernatural has never been an ensemble drama. For the first 82 hours of the series, Ackles and Padalecki were the only long-running series regulars — Katie Cassidy and Lauren Cohan briefly joined for season 3, appearing in 12 episodes combined. But Sam and Dean weren’t just in every episode; they anchored every episode. (They skipped table reads because there would’ve been only two actors there.) “I had many moments of not only questioning, ‘Can I keep this up?’ but an answer of ‘I cannot keep this up,’ ” Padalecki, 37, who’s been vocal about his struggle in the early seasons, says. “I borrowed strength from Jensen.” But even Ackles, 42, admits it was a tough job. “The 23-episode seasons were nine and a half months of filming,” he adds. “It was a lot of work, but I always came back to: I still enjoy it, I still like telling the story, I still like these characters and the people I work with.”

Not only did the guys stick around, they built a reputation of having created one of the warmest sets in the business, with a number of crew members staying with the production all 15 seasons. It all dates back to a talk Kripke had with his stars during the filming of the series’ second episode. “I said, ‘The show is about your two characters, and with that comes this responsibility,’ ” Kripke says. Padalecki remembers the exact setting of what he calls their “Good Will Hunting moment,” a bench in Stanley Park in Vancouver, where they film. It was a chat both actors took to heart. “We’d both been on other sets,” Ackles says. “We knew we wanted to enjoy it, to have fun with our crew; we wanted them to like us and us to like them and to have fun doing what we do.” It’s an attitude Pedowitz hopes bleeds into other CW shows, an attitude that launched an annual tradition where the CW chairman/CEO takes his new casts out to dinner with the Supernatural guys, a chance for the vets to share advice. “It’s always the most flattering situation,” Padalecki says, recalling a moment he had a few years back with the late Luke Perry, who was a part of the Riverdale cast. “Luke was sitting next to me and he was like, ‘What y’all have done and what we hear about you guys, it’s really cool to be associated with y’all in some way, shape, or form,’” he recalls. “And I’m sitting there pinching myself.”

It’s a behind-the-scenes legacy that’s perhaps just as impressive, if not more so, than the onscreen legacy. Collins, 45, who started as a guest star and the show’s first angel in season 4, has become the show’s third-longest-running series regular, and he still remembers walking onto set his first day. “When you’re coming onto a show as a guest star, it can be a little bit nerve-racking,” Collins says. “Coming to this set, it was an immediately different vibe. Think- ing about working on other shows in the future, that’s something that I aspire to bring with me.”

A similar reputation extends to the fans as well. Not only is the #SPNFamily one of the most dedicated fandoms out there, it’s also known to be a pretty nice one. (Not many fandoms can say they’ve helped launch a crisis support network for their fellow fans.) But their dedication isn’t just about seeing what crazy twist God throws at Team Free Will next. Thanks to fan conventions and social media, the viewers are just as invested in the lives of the actors. Supernatural’s not just about the words on the page, it’s about the actors saying them. “When you’re dealing with the public taste, there’s an alchemy of great writing, a great idea, and the close-up that’s required,” Peter Roth, chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group, says. “You need stars who you want in your living room.” And you need stars who want to be in your living room, and who, even after 15 years, care so deeply that they get emotional while taking photos in Malibu.

"It's going to be a long eight months," Ackles declares. Standing on that same ledge, an hour before the champagne shot, Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins walk away from a group hug after unexpectedly starting to tear up. It might be the setting — looking out over the ocean — or the occasion: their last-ever photo shoot. Or maybe it’s the fact that they’re almost a month into filming their final season.

It had been a question posed to the stars for years: How long will this show continue? How long can it continue? “Even my mom and dad were like, ‘When are you going to be done with this?’” Ackles says with a laugh. It was a decision the network and studio had ultimately put into the actors’ hands, and it was a conversation they’d been having for a while. Back in 2016, Padalecki told EW, “If we don’t make it to [episode] 300, I think Ackles and I will both be truly bummed.” But in season 14, they hit 300…and then kept going. While filming episode 307, they announced the upcoming 15th season would be the end, which will bring them to a total of 327 episodes when all is said and done. “[Jared] and I were always married to the fact that we never wanted to go out with a diet version of what we had,” Ackles says. “We wanted to have enough gas left in the tank to get us racing across the finish line. We didn’t want to limp across.” Padalecki remembers the moment it hit him — not the decision to end it, but rather the opposite. “We had that moment where he and I both realized that we didn’t want it to end,” he says. “It finally got to a point, ironically, where it was like, ‘I never want to leave this. I could do this until the day I die, and then if I get the choice when I’m dead, I’ll re-up!’ But you never want to be the last person at a party. We just knew. That’s not to say there haven’t been vacillations, but we all trust the decision that was made.”

Starting in July 2019, the cast and crew returned to Vancouver to begin filming the final season, but in March 2020, with two episodes left to go, they were sent home. For years, fans had wondered what, if anything, could stop the Winchesters, and now it seems we have the answer: a global pandemic. As sets closed amid social-distancing measures due to the spread of COVID-19, it didn’t take long for fans to start connecting the dots, sharing relevant GIFs from episodes that featured viruses, most notably Chuck telling Dean to hoard toilet paper “like it’s made of gold” before the end of the world in season 5’s “The End.” (Did we mention that Supernatural is also kind of psychic? In a season 6 episode, Dean calls Sam “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which just so happens to be the role Padalecki has lined up after this ends.)

When production paused, it all felt a little like we were living in an episode of the show, just waiting for Sam and Dean to drive up in Baby, open those creaky doors, and save us. They might not be able to do quite that, but the thing with the Winchesters is that they never stay down for long. When Supernatural is able to safely resume production, it will. And though there are only two episodes left to film, fans will enjoy a total of seven unseen hours, including the return of Charlie (Felicia Day) and a mystery woman who visits the bunker and, for some reason, gives Sam and Dean all the holidays they never got to celebrate. “She makes Christmas for them and Thanksgiving, birthday parties, and all that. It’s a very good episode,” Singer says, adding, “I don’t know when it’s going to air.”

That’s the thing—no one knows, not even the guys who took out Yellow Eyes, stopped Leviathans, defeated Death himself, and are supposedly destined to be the messengers of God’s destruction. But Sam and Dean do know the value of a good plan B. “Obviously it’s a horribly unfortunate situation we’re in, but the silver lining is that it gives us an opportunity to recharge,” Ackles says. “We had just finished episode 18, we shot one day of episode 19, and I was reading these two monster scripts thinking, ‘It’s like we’re at the end of a marathon and they want us to sprint for the last two miles.’ I feel like this almost gives us an opportunity to refocus and go into the last two episodes and hit them with everything we got.” Because when they do return to set, shave their quarantine beards, and step back into Sam and Dean’s shoes for the last time, they’ll have one shot at ending this thing…and they’re determined not to miss. 

Photos: Peggy Sirota for EW 

https://ew.com/tv/supernatural-stars-cover-ew-to-reflect-on-the-shows-undying-legacy/

#supernatural #jensen ackles #jared padalecki #misha collins #last season #season 15 #entertainment weekly #cover story #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #full post #SPN #spn family #new photo #new photos

[nordleuchten]

The La Fayettes and their servants

Although I spend most of my time researching and discussing the Marquis de La Fayette and his family (all of them fairly well known individuals) I am immensely intrigued to study the life of people that have been “forgotten”. People like me and you - who lived ordinary lifes, loved their family, tried to get by in times of war, peace or revolution - people one can truly relate to. I started some time ago looking into the servants and employees of the La Fayette’s and hoped to find some sort of register, naming and detailing all the people that worked for the family. Alas, I could not find what I was looking for. These registers (for I am sure they once existed) have either been destroyed or are stored somewhere beyond my reach. I therefor turned to the letters and documents that have been left behind. I already wrote about La Fayette’s valet, Sebastien “Bastien” Wagner, who served La Fayette until the end of his life and after that continued serving the late generals family. There is a second valet, who accompanied La Fayette during the American War of Independence and for whom I plan to make a separate post. I also want to make a separate post about Georges Washington de La Fayette’s tutor, Felix Frestel.

This post now is about several servants mentioned in Adrienne’s letter to James Monroe. When Monroe was the American ambassador to France during the later stages of the French Revolution, he corresponded often with Adrienne and tried to help her as much as he could. Among frequent visits to the prison (to raise awareness for her case), Monroe also attended to different financial, legal and logistical matters that Adrienne could not attend to herself. Adrienne instructed Monroe to provide for several of her and her family (both de La Fayette and de Noailles) servants. A number of the servants and townspeople were quite outspoken about the fact that the La Fayette’s were good people who always treated them fairly and that they would not celebrate or rejoice in the imprisonment or execution of any member of the La Fayette family.

Adrienne wrote to Monroe in a letter in February of 1795:

I ask Mr. Monroe again to add 300 [livres] of a life’s pension for my poor nurse, also old and infirm.

I take the liberty also to recommend to him Pierre-Louis Mercier who has served me for seventeen years, and who has put himself in jeopardy since the beginning of my misfortunes. Please allow me to ascertain whether he is in need of anything, and I ask for his protection on any occasion in which he would need to claim it.

Once again I consign to him a family very poor, and very numerous, Felix, our former coachman, his wife and children. His eldest son shares the persecution that my husband has experienced; he is a prisoner like him, and because of him. I solicit the kindness of Americans to preserve this family from misery.

I request permission to commend him to Desmanges and his family if they have need of him in whatever it be, and to allow me in such a situation to encourage them to have recourse to his charity.

Hennequin and especially his wife, although they have spent little time at my home, have given me proof of their attachment in such a courageous manner that I would be guilty of not placing them, one and the other, under the protection of a nation to which I have the consolation of showing I am not an ingrate. I advise them therefore to avail themselves of the minister of the United States on any occasion as they would have done to me.

A young person who has also shared danger with me, the Citizeness Benjamin, has a note from me that she does not want to use. I have made her promise that if some circumstance or institution or whatever, renders this small sum useful, she will have recourse also to Mr. Monroe. I am keenly interested in this young person.

(…)

I finish by appealing to you to regard the family of Citizen Beauchet, and his wife, as if they were my own family, to send me their children wherever I shall be, if they ever have themisfortune to lose their parents, or one of them, and the other should desire it.

In an undated letter (probably late 1794) Adrienne wrote:

Second Promissory Note

I promise and commit myself to pay annually to the Citizen Marthe Aufroy, teacher and friend of the mother whom I mourn, thousand livres for a life-annuity, payable in advance every three months, without any deductions.

(…)

Third Promissory Note

I promise to do my part to pay annually to Citizen Marie Anne Marin, my instructor and that of my sisters, who since their growing up has never ceased to provide for their needs and who after my misfortunes and during our cruel separation, has acted as a mother to them, the sum of 1500 livres as a pension payable in advance every three months, no withdrawal for taxes, the whole to commence from the time in which she would be separated from us. I beg her to accept this testimony of my friendship, with my true and affectionate gratitude.

(…)

The second [promissory note] directive is for an individual, also a septuagenarian, who is extremely infirm. If ever my respected mother’s will is read, and at least the articles concerning the remunerations carried out, the promise will be fulfilled and my request made void.

The third [promissory note] is intended to ensure the future of a person more than 60 years of age, in poor health, overwhelmed by our misfortunes, and for whom it is necessary for me to be assured that she shall not lack the basic necessities to live comfortably, should the difficult life to which I am destined forces me to separate from her.

(…)

If ever the Citizeness Beauchet has the misfortune to lose her husband and she should be without money, I place her and her children under the special protection of the United States until the moment when we will be able, she and I, her children and mine, to share our difficulties together.

I remind him again of a young person named Citizeness Benjamin who has shared some of my dangers. If she ever loses her father, she has recourse to the minister of the United States to furnish her the means to be near me. And I take the liberty to recommend her to him for this purpose. She has been like a daughter to me, and I owe her maternal care if she becomes an orphan.

I cannot finish without recommending again to the kindnesses of the American minister, Mr Mercier, a servant who has served me for seventeen years with fidelity and zeal, and who has also run risks for me and shared with me a month in prison. He has a position at this moment, but I cannot bear the idea that he would suffer poverty. And I need to hope that he will not be abandoned by the United States.

Still, even with these accounts and letters, there is precious little that we know about the life of these people. Most of the time we only know their (family) name, their position and time of service, sometimes not even that. I will do my best to find out as much as I can about these (and other people) and hopefully I can present you more post like this in the future!

#marquis de lafayette #lafayette #la fayette #general lafayette #historical lafayette #adrienne de lafayette #adrienne de noailles #james monroe #1794 #1795 #french revolution #french history #american revolution #american history #georges washington de lafayette #felix frestel #bastien wagner #letters #servants #family

[anon-e-miss]

Primus Help the Outcasts 6

It was difficult to believe. He was waiting for the rug to be ripped out from under his peds but he could not be frozen in place by fear. Even if this reprieve was only temporary, Prowl needed to seize it with both servos for his creations’ sakes and to take full advantage. He needed to get healthy and strong. Then he could better plan for the battles to come. Prowl did not want to believe anything could be worse than had already befallen them, but he did not dare chance fate by making such proclamations.

There was a chair ready for him at the table. Someone had arranged cushions on it so that it might be more comfortable for his doorwings. They had done the same for the two Smokescreen and Bluestreak occupied. As he had always instructed his creations to, Prowl washed up, and then took his seat. Just walking to the table had exhausted him. The crash had trained what fragile reserves he had been clinging on to and now they were gone. He felt weak as a cyber-kitten and considerably more helpless. Sprocket served him a navy blue cube of energon with flecks of minerals floating in it. Medgrade. Prowl felt anxious and frail and he did not know if he could even hope to eat, let alone keep it down but  Bluestreak went on in great detail how he and his friends had helped the Twins’ grand-genitor make everything from the dough to the sauce completely from scratch. He was so proud, of course Prowl had to eat a slice of chrome-alloy pie.

“What was that scandal wit yer origin ya mentioned?” Jazz asked.

“He assassinated Zeta Prime.”

“Woh. What now?” Punch gasped. His sparkmates froze. “Yer originator was Camshaft?”

“You know of my originator?” Prowl asked, surprised. He looked to Jazz, who seemed equally surprised.

“We worked in the same business,” Punch replied. “Sometimes for the same side. After it was done, he went silent. We figured the worst.”

“He escaped,” Prowl explained. “Off world, I believe. I was attending school in Simfur at the time. He sent me packages without any return address from time to time. I was questioned regarding the matter repeatedly when I was young. I found the last package on my desk at the precinct shortly before I went on leave to have Bluestreak.”

“It was a brave thing he did,” Sprocket said. “He knew his life would be over but no one else could get close.”

“My originator was angry he had played a part in the tyrant’s successes,” Prowl replied. He remembered how angry Camshaft had been when the Institute’s crimes had been revealed and then the news so perfectly and ruthlessly oppressed. “The assassination would have been restitution to him.”

“It’s a small world,” Punch said and he shook his helm. “He never hinted to havin’ a creation or a Conjunx. He didn’t let ya become a target. No choice for us. Our whole family was in the business, that was the lot. Jazz and Ric had to grow up quick.”

“I remember Camshaft,” Jazz said. “Sometimes I’d try to eavesdrop on ya’ll. He caught me ‘bout as often as ya. I loved it when ya let me in on what ya were plannin’. The last time he game round, ya spent joors in Geni’s workshop, ‘n I came snoopin’ round again. He caught me. Shook his helm ‘n said this one wasn’t for me.”

“We weren’t sure if it might come back on us,” Rumbler explained. “We were makin’ plans to disappear if it got warm, let alone hot. But no one ever sniffed at us. We never heard from ‘m again.”

“The authorities knew when he sent me parcels,” Prowl explained. “I imagined my progenitor or the school informed them. He was deeply angry by my originator’s actions. The scandal forced him to step down from the senate. He had me surveilled. He was certain my originator would come for. He may have tried. He likely wanted to. But I was too closely monitored.”

“Yer progenitor arranged yer bondin’ then,” Jazz guessed.

“He picked a mech like himself,” Prowl declared.

“That don’t sound like a compliment,” Jazz replied.

“It was not.”

“He was nasty,” Bluestreak declared. “He smacked me because I was talkin’.”

“Bitty Blue, that’s awful,” Rumbler hissed.

“It’s okay,” Bluestreak said. Prowl flicked his doorwings at the memory. Bluestreak smiled up at him. “O’gin punched him.”

“Ya got a tough, Ori,” Jazz declared. “Took after his ori, I think.”

“Thank you,” Prowl said, he found himself relaxing as he found himself around friends and not merely benefactors. “I like to think so.”

The revelation that his originator had been friends and colleagues of Jazz’s procreators made Prowl feel safer in depending on their aid. Camshaft had paid a very personal price for being the triggermech for the assassination plot. Prowl had paid one too. Though he had not lost his originator completely, somewhere out there he new Camshaft lived, Prowl had never seen him again. His creations had never met their grandoriginator, who would have spoiled them if he had been able. They had only known their grandprogenitor who had treated them with no more grace than he had his creation. The boarding school in Simfur had been Camshaft choice for Prowl as his duties had taken him further and further afield. The distance from Praxus had protected him from his progenitor’s scornful impatience.

“Smokey helped me set up yer hab,” Jazz revealed after they finished dinner. Prowl offered to clean up but he was firmly refused.

“I got it,” Punch declared. “Ya got quartexes o’ rest to make up for before I wanna see ya liftin’ a digit. Go on up, get settled in.”

Smokescreen and Bluestreak each took hold of one of Prowl’s servos and let him out of the apartment. The stairs loomed and Prowl did not entirely trust his peds but he let himself be guided up. Jazz was close behind him, closer than Prowl normally cared for, but in this instance it was reassuring. If he felt, Jazz could stop him. The Twins followed after their progenitor. They were excited to have their best friend so close. Prowl was happy Bluestreak had made friends as generous and devoted as these two. Had they not gone to their progenitor wishing to help their friend... friends really, Prowl did not care to think what this next dark-cycle would have brought. Smokescreen entered the door code and the door slid op with a soft swish. The mechlings led him inside.

“This is amazing,” Prowl said as he looked around the open concept room. There was a table and chairs in the kitchen. A solid couch sat in front of an entertainment centre. Smokescreen hugged his arm.

“They asked me to help pick what we needed. The couch is as close to one back home as I saw and we caught lost of cushions to make it even better.”

“It is perfect, Smokescreen,” Prowl had static in his voice and tears in his optics.

“It reminded me of our place... when it was just us. Not that stuffy stuff he liked.”

It was not unlikely the simple, comfortable furnished Prowl had purchased for the habsuite he had rented. Those seven vorns had been the best of his life. Bluestreak was the only solace that had come from returning to that bonding. He was the only boon. Prowl hardly trusted himself to remain standing but he wanted to see what else they had chosen, Smokescreen was so pleased and so proud. His creations led him to the first berthroom. It was theirs to share. Two berths with drawers built into the frames sat against opposing walls. A blue geometric patterned quilt covered the berth that would be Smokescreen’s and a red and black striped one covered Bluestreak’s berth. There were two desk, a bookshelf and a chest of toys. The furniture looked solid, like it was meant to be lived on. Pictures covered the wall at the head of the berths. They were image captures from his mechlings own memories. Family moments, moments with their friends, Prowl teared up again.

“You do not mind sharing?” Prowl asked.

“We like it,” Smokescreen promised him and for now it might have been true. That was enough. “I hope you like what we did for your berthroom.”

“I am sure I will.”

A berth was all he could possibly imagine wanting. It could have been stiff as rock and that would have been enough because it was not in the shelter. There was no looming threat of someone wandering in. The door opened and Prowl saw it was a great deal more than a berth, though it was a wonderful berth. Smokescreen had chosen a heavy black and white quilt to go over red sheets and pillows. A bright red armchair sat in the window and a desk sat against the opposing wall, with bookcases on each side, bookcases that were full of datapads.

“Do you want to lie down?” Smokescreen asked. “You’re tired.”

“I would rather sit with you in the other room,” Prowl replied. He need to sit before he collapsed. This was all incredible and overwhelming. They led him out to it and Prowl did not quite collapse into it, but he did sag. The pillows were blissful. Smokescreen burrowed into his side and Bluestreak climbed into his lap. Jazz stood by. “Thank you. This is more than I could have imagined.”

“Y’all deserve a comfortable home,” Jazz declared. “There’s plenty o’ fuel in the pantry, but ya won’t need to cook wit my genitor downstairs. He’ll bring ya whatever ya could possibly want, hot ‘n ready to go.”

“I am a terrible cook,” Prowl said.

“We can teach ya, if ya want, when y’re stronger,” Jazz replied. “Rest for now, we got everythin’ else taken care of. Box over here has the makings o’ a shrine for the Festival. I thought that was somethin’ the three o’ ya outta do together.”

“Yes, thank you,” Prowl said. “Thank you so much.”

#primus help the outcasts #maccadams #anon-e-miss writes #previous trigger warnings apply #fluffy fluff fest

[isthisitbytaylornicole]

"is this it?" BLOG POST #1: hey, you! meet adulthood. the ghetto, if you will...

Author's Note:

First of all, welcome to my blog! It feels so surreal to be saying that because this is something I have wanted to do for so long, but fear, laziness, and "plans" kept me from doing so. I am so happy that you have decided to take time out of your day to sit and read my post. I'm so excited to be able to share these stories with you all about my dirty little cousin, Adulthood. She doesn't mean any harm, she just doesn't know any better. Trust me. I hope you are intrigued by what I have to say and I would love to chat with you in the comments about these topics. Enjoy!

"Don't you find it odd, that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try."

-Unknown (The Hottest State)

I can say, without hesitation, that I was not fully prepared for what adulthood had to offer. She came without remorse, but made sure to bring all sorts of debt, the occasional iffy encounter, and topped it all off with a micro-aggression or two (or ten). In these instances where I was thrown into situations dealing with money, racism, self-identity, relationships, etc., how did I handle these episodes with minimal detrimental impact on my inner psyche? The answer; I didn't because I didn't know how to.

I vividly remember the process of applying to colleges, final senior presentations, deciding what school I wanted to go to, all while being molded in the belief that college was the best option, if not the only option, for young, black, teenagers, like myself, who wanted to be successful. Please don't misunderstand me when I say this. I definitely agree with the fact that as young adults we should be able to take advantage of all the opportunities given to us including continuing an education at a four-year institution and experiencing all that college has to offer like social engagements and freshmen fifteen. However, I do not believe that is the only way to solidify success in a society where situations like going to a four year conventional university have become the norm. While we are molded into believing a four-year college is one of only three options for teenagers of color [the other options being pregnancy or prison as stereotype culture has taught us] we are limited in the knowledge of only knowing how to make it TO college, and not how to be successful THROUGHOUT and beyond college and I am a prime example.

Due to the stigma of black high school dropouts, often times, high schools in cities like Detroit (who primarily house students of African decent) strive for one-hundred percent high school graduation and college acceptance rates ,as apposed to, one-hundred percent college fulfillment and graduation rates. In other words, they don't care how you get home from the party, as long as you were invited. And I mean who can blame them?! While primarily white high schools with students trying to decide if they want to attend either Harvard or Yale are spitting out graduates left and right, primarily black high schools can't even get scantron sheets on time for their junior students to take the SAT, which is it supposed to be an equal opportunity test for all students, accept those with brown skin of course. (This happened at my high school btw.)

Then I get to college only to see that all of my professors are old, white, dirty men, which is not in fact the demographic I grew up within. Is this it? Is this what my parents are paying almost forty-thousand dollars a year for? Is this your King?! 👨🏼‍🏫Well, I'm here now and I guess I need to stick this out. Never mind being one of only four black students in an intro to political science class of almost forty-five. Never mind having a black roommate who didn't know if she wanted to be Ebony or Ivory that day. Her white boyfriend did tell me I had nice skin one day which was nice of him. Never mind me working at the McDonald's right across the street from my dorm my freshman year where almost everyday somebody I knew would come and try to get free food from me. (That didn't really have anything to do with my hardships during my time at college, but it was irritating trying not to get caught smuggling cookies and McFlurries out of the store every other day. I was too nice obviously.) Never mind having to refrain from using any kind of ebonics in order to fit into conversations and/or lectures about political science topics in order to sound more professional and educated to my white peers and professors (A.K.A code switching😶‍🌫️ 🎛). Overall, the majority of my time spent inside the college classroom setting was often done in ways that involved me faking it until I made it, until I didn't make it.

I dropped out of college at the end of my sophomore year and at the time it seemed like my biggest failure. Not only did I feel like I failed myself, I felt like I failed my family and closest friends and quite literally I failed most of my classes😬. Not to mention the thousands of dollars in student loans left for me to pay back which was bound to happen anyways but that is a totally different conversation for another post. (Sallie Mae better hope she don't catch these hands.) I felt like, as do most young adults my age, there was a timeline on my success. If I didn't get that college degree in four years, and have a car and apartment by twenty, my life had no worth. This narrative was brought on not only by my school environment growing up, but it was brought on by the climate that we live in today. As young people, we are so easily influenced by pop culture, social media, YouTube, sports media, our peers, music and so many other ideals constantly bombarding our everyday lives. We're shown these unrealistic almost fantasy-like scenarios in which all you have to do it make a prank video in order to make money and once you have money, fame, and a VLONE shirt, boom, you have worth! Why am I rushing to fulfill these egregious standards set by these dull influencers who can't even spell egregious. Success does not have only one definition. To me, success is defined by your own standards and not society's. And college is not a one stop shop!

The picture of adulthood has been painted so monochromatically that I have at times lost my ability to dare to dream bigger than what has been laid before me with society's crusty hands. Yes I plan on finishing my education at a four year college, but at the time, my college experience would not have allotted me the opportunity to discover the world of Cyber Security and the many job opportunities and networks I've been exposed to.

All in all, take advantage of ALL the opportunities you encounter whether they are laid out in front of you or even if you have to network to find them.

This was just a piece of the perspectives I am excited to offer as I continue to share my stories in this world of blogging and rediscovery. I hope I didn't scare any of you off already because in my next blog piece I will be diving into more aspects of adulthood and the whole notion of relationships(romantic and non); do we really need them tho? and how do we weed out the bad ones and water the fruitful ones?

PLEASE TUNE IN ON TUESDAY FOR MY NEXT INSTALLMENT OF "IS THIS IT?" BY TAYLOR NICOLE AND THANK YOU FOR READING!💛

By: Taylor Nicole

LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS BELOW! I WOULD LOVE TO CHAT.💛

#blog #tumblog #blackgirlmagic #black culture #black twitter #blacklivesmatter

[yegarts]

“I Am YEG Arts” Series: AJA Louden, Co-Lead Artist for Paint the Rails

Set achievable goals. When most people hear this, they likely think about getting their steps in or cooking more meals at home. Not AJA Louden. His goal? Making cities more inspiring, informed, and thoughtful through the compassionate use of art and design. And he’s achieving it. Louden’s spray-painted portraits and murals have been boldly transforming our city’s everyday walls into landmarks for more than a decade.

When Louden’s not painting, he’s likely teaching others how to at his Aerosol Academy, a workshop that explores art-making and art history through the lens of graffiti and street art. But that’s just the beginning. Louden’s desire to bring a collaborative, multi-narrative approach to contemporary urban muralism can also be seen at LRT stations around Edmonton, thanks to a project called Paint the Rails (PTR), a collaboration with Edmonton Transit Service and the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights.

Paint the Rails: Conversations on colonization, reclamation, and reconciliation through art, is not only a legacy project of Canada 150+, but also a tangible commitment to bring to life the stories of Edmonton’s cultural communities through art and education. The plan of action? Paint LRT stations across Edmonton with imagery that interprets the stories and traditions of the Elders, historians, knowledge keepers, and cultural communities represented by each location. Ambitious? Yes! But neither AJA Louden nor the John Humphrey Centre has ever considered “hard” a reason for not doing something. Lifting up our shared stories, amplifying voices, and changing perceptions—this week’s “I Am Yeg Arts” story belongs to AJA Louden.

Tell us about your connection to Edmonton and what keeps you living and working here?

I grew up here in Alberta and moved to Edmonton in the early 2000’s for school. Some of the things that keep me living and working here are my relationships, my work, and the food. Food has always been a big inspiration for me as an artist, and there’s so much good food here! Edmonton has long been a place of creative exchange, and I’m excited to help keep that spirit alive through public art.

How did you become involved with Paint the Rails, and why did it resonate with you? 

I’ve been working with the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights (JHC) for years. When I think about the power of addressing the human condition through art and stories, I think organizations like the JHC do an invaluable job of helping to identify whose stories are missing from our public discourse and amplifying these voices to give us a more accurate reflection of who we are. The Paint The Rails project resonated with me immediately because it was an opportunity to use public art to lift up our shared stories and bring them into the present. The methods of mentorship and community consultation we worked with throughout the project changed how I work as an artist and helped me understand how to connect with people at a deeper level. I began researching Augmented Reality (AR) part way through the

Paint The Rails project and self-funded the AR programming and animations until we were able to obtain a grant—I did this because I believe in the value of this project for adding beauty and meaning to our shared spaces. Each location is now a digital community history resource, as well as a wall mural!

What do you think it is about story that brings us together?

We use stories to help understand ourselves and our communities. People often define themselves through a series of stories that explain who they are and how they came to be that way. Communities use stories in the same way. Stories can be guides for how to interact—our cultures are built up of shared stories, which act as scaffolds for meaning. When we share stories widely, we can start to understand the world from other points of view, which can bring us together and give us a sense of cohesion and group membership that’s valuable. A big part of the human experience is a search for meaning and purpose in our lives, and stories can be powerful tools on this journey.

How do large-scale murals and street art play to your strengths as a storyteller?

Stories have power when they are shared, and the scale and accessibility of large-scale art in public spaces allows a larger audience to engage with a story. When work is in a gallery behind a paywall, audiences have the benefit of a dedicated space in which to absorb or reflect on the art, but these spaces often leave out those who can’t afford or don’t feel welcome in that kind of environment. Street art and murals have the potential to reach people who don’t as often engage or connect with art in galleries or institutions. Growing up, I didn’t see myself reflected in the art classes I took in school, but when I found graffiti and street art, I started to see the world in a new way.

Why was mentorship a key element in Paint the Rails, and what do you hope you’ve shared?

Mentorship is key because I see artists as an important part of a functioning society. By sharing what I’ve learned with the next generation, I can help our craft stay relevant, cohesive, and present. We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and a rising tide lifts all ships. As artists we need to hold each other accountable, and part of that includes building each other up and celebrating our individual wins as wins for the collective craft.

Tell us about someone who’s been a mentor to you.

Dawn Saunders Dahl has taught me a lot about the industry of art, and when/how to play by the rules, while pushing boundaries that need to be pushed. Working with her I learned about process, particularly how to build a plan that had structure but also flexibility.

Jason Botkin was really helpful to me in getting a closer look at the life of a full-time muralist. I met him when The Works brought En Masse to Edmonton. He was really kind and generous with his time, invited me to come hang out in Montréal for Mural Festival, and also connected me with a lot of people in Miami for the two years I attended Art Basel to paint. Huge thanks to both Dawn and Jason, as well as the other informal mentors I’ve had over the years who have made me better.

Why was a free Paint the Rails app vital to this project?

The app was vital to this project because it allowed us to capture more of what each community shared with us and reflect it back into the world. As the first Augmented Reality community mural project in Edmonton, it’s allowed us to create an additional point of interest for the project and to attract new eyes. As an artist, I’m always interested in trying out new mediums and looking for ways to bring important stories to new eyes. One of my favourite parts of the app relates to language—we worked with Cree linguist Naomi Macllwraith, a student of Dorothy Thunder, to record the Cree names of each of the local animals depicted in our U of A LRT station mural, titled Sipiy (River). When you activate the app at that site, you can hear the correct pronunciation of each of the animal names—something that a wall mural wouldn’t normally be able to share.

What excites you most about the YEG arts scene right now?

Growth and potential. I think Edmonton is joining the world in starting to understand the place that murals, unsanctioned street art, and graffiti can occupy as a valuable part of the public art scene. More institutions and business owners are getting excited about art in our shared spaces, and thanks to the building boom in the 70’s, we have a lot of wall space to use as canvasses so we can share our stories as a city.

What has working with the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights taught you about yourself?

Working with the JHC has taught me a lot about process and community connection. I’m as interested in being a conduit for expressing a community’s vision as I am about telling my own stories, and I have a much stronger working knowledge of how to ask for, receive, and honour stories from different groups of people. I look forward to the next stages of our collaboration!

You visit Edmonton 20 years from now. What do you hope has changed? What do you hope has stayed the same?

I hope the locally owned restaurant industry is still strong, creative, evolving, and inspiring. One of my favourite things to do with friends and family who visit is take them for great food. I hope we’re culturally still vibrant, even more connected, and retain a combination of the strong work ethic, creative vision, and resourcefulness that has helped define us so far. I look forward to seeing how we continue to redefine our city as the world changes and how we tell our stories in new ways.

Want more YEG Arts Stories? We’ll be sharing them here all year and on social media using the hashtag #IamYegArts. Follow along! Click here to discover more about AJA Louden, and visit the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights website for info about Paint the Rails, their app, and other JHC initiatives.

About AJA Louden

AJA Louden (AJA sounds like 'Ajay,’ short for Adrian Joseph Alexander) is an artist based in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Treaty 6, Edmonton, Alberta). Born to a family tree with roots split between Jamaica and Canada, Louden is a child of contrast. Bold and arresting freehand spray-

painted portraits of pop-culture figures from Jimi Hendrix and Richard Nixon to local heroes like Rollie Miles often alternate with hand-lettered designs and vibrant patterns borne of a background in graffiti. Louden looks to bring a multifaceted, collaborative, and multi-narrative approach to contemporary urban muralism.

A background in the sciences, including biology, chemistry, psychology, and sociology is a major influence on the concepts and processes behind his work. A few years designing custom metal signage and a childhood full of building wooden skateboard ramps intensified AJA’s interest in industrial design and the built environment. His work can be found around the province of Alberta where he lives and works. A travel lover, Louden has also created work in several other countries, including Berlin, Barcelona, Florence, Prague, and the UK.

#yeg #yegarts #edmonton #edmontonarts #IamYegArts #artistfeature

[spiderman-withgreatpower]

Important please read!

OOC: So I love Spiderman and one of the things I really like is the different variations and portrayals. I love how the writers of Spider-Man based stories feel free to play around with the character, his backstory and his story lines. So I'm going to have some fun with my version of Peter Parker. He will be a combination of the Toby Maguire version of Peter and the MCU Tom Holland version. I will also put in some influence from the comics as well. Obviously to have that all make sense i`m gonna have to get a bit creative with his background. I hope you guys have fun interacting with Peter as much as I enjoy writing him. Please read his bio since there will be a few things that will vary from the movies.  For the most part with my muse, it will be as if the MCU Spider-Man had grown up to be the Toby Maguire Spider-Man. Don't worry I will explain everything! Here's his story:

Muse Bio:

Childhood

So Peter`s parents died when he was very young and he was raised by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Both of whom he is very close and love very much. His Uncle Ben was someone whom he looked up to and longed to grow up to be like. Uncle Ben and Aunt May, both taught Peter good morals and how to always be kind. 

As a child he was close friends with the girl next door, Mary-Jane Watson. The two were inseparable and from the moment he saw her he knew he had fallen in love with her. He could never tell her though, he feared that she would not love him back, or worse that it ruin the friendship they had. So rather than take the risk, they remained friends. They spent almost everyday together: talking, doing homework, going to local spots. The summer after they graduated middle school, Mary-Jane moved to another state with her parents. Peter and her tried to keep in touch, they even visited each other a few times during the first few year. Yet eventually the distance made them drift apart. 

Teenage years

High school started and Peter attends Midtown School of Science and Technology where he easily becomes friends with Ned. On a school field trip Peter is bitten by a radio active spider and gains his powers. At first he used his powers to gain money to help his family. Yet when his uncle is killed by a mugger, Peter decides to use his powers to fight crime and keep the city safe. After Uncle Ben`s death Peter and Aunt May grew to lean on each other and provide one another with love and support. They become closer than ever because they were all each other had left.

Eventually Peter is recruited to help Tony Stark fight the other Avengers in the superhero Civil War. Which Peter finds exciting and thrilling. Shortly after, he is anxious to work another mission with Tony but nothing comes along. So Peter decides to go off on his own mission using the tech Tony gave him. So from there everything from Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the other MCU movies with Spider-Man happens according to the movies in regarding to his teen Spider-Man adventures. 

During his freshmen year of college, Peter meets Harry Osborn, whom is his roommate at the New York Institute of Technology. The two of them quickly become close friends. Harry would eventually become a life long friend of Peter. Harry is a loyal friend to Peter and they confide in each other with their thoughts, feelings and secrets...well expect for the secret that Peter is Spider-Man. Ned is still the only friend that Peter had trusted with that secret. Ned is still Peter's best friend and he also follows Peter to the same college. Ned choose to dorm with his girlfriend instead. Ned and Peter have weekly DND games and movie marathons together. While in college Peter works a part time job at the Daily Bugle as a photographer, mainly sending in photos of Spider-Man. Mr. Jamerson, the editor of the paper seems to really hate Spider-Man and wants to tear him apart in the press, which he does. Yet many dont seem to pay his speculation much attention at first.

Adulthood

During his early college years him and MJ break up. He spends a year being heart broken, but is able to move on and start dating again with Harry and Ned as his wing men. Harry tries to teach Peter different ways to charm a women, none of which actually work for Peter. Often his shy and anxiousness get the better of him. 

Then one day Peter runs into Mary-Jane Watson at coffee shop near his work and he is overjoyed to catch up with her. The two sit at a table and chat for hours. They catch each other up on everything that has happened in both their lives. The conversation felt natural and easy. They talk to each other like close friends again and he realized his heart still longs for her. The two of them pick up their friendship where they left off and continue to spend time together as they build on their friendship.

As Aunt May is getting older in age Peter is her primary care taker. He quits his job as a photographer and works at Stark Industries, which Pepper still runs. He helps build different kinds of tech among other prominent scientists and inventors. Peter also continues to do hero work. 

   Johan Jamerson, the editor, and publisher of the Daily Bugle still seems to think that Spider-Man is no good and starts a smear campaign against the hero. While working and still doing superhero work, Spider-Man continues to be a favorite a hero of the city among the members of the city. However cops and some civilians begin to feel unsure about the hero. Some tended to believe the things they read in the papers and rumors that spread about his past and current alliances.

Harry begins to date Mary Jane whom he too found attractive, even though he knew how Peter felt about her. He sees it as a way to get even with Peter as Harry feels his father admires Peter more than his own son. Harry takes Mary-Jane to a fair where the Green Goblin attempts to kill her and she is saved by Spider-man. Spider-Man also saves many people at this event. Then Peter goes through the events of  Spiderman, Spiderman 2 and Spiderman 3.

[siteeco15]

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