#Regret: Stay where you are! Nothing can be done until my sermon is complete! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

purplesurveys · 4 years

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What weird food combinations do you enjoy? I’m willing to experiment mayonnaise with most food. I also dip my fries in hot fudge sundae and because I’m Filipino I have to have my fried chicken paired with banana ketchup. Where do you get your news? Usually from the Twitter and Facebook handles of my go-to news outlets. My dad is also the only one who turns on the TV in the dining area so whenever he’s home and watches the evening news I get to hear the reports as well. What social stigma does society need to get over? HIV/AIDS, dating or marrying the same sex, tattoos... even breastfeeding is a fucking stigma lmao. So many people are babies. What is the best/worst prank that you've played on someone? I hate being the victim of pranks so I never pull them on anyone. What was the last photo you took? My dog jumping up to ask for food last night.

What makes you roll your eyes every time you hear it? Lately our president has been wanting to give nightly addresses on TV every midnight so when I hear another announcement from the government I just roll my eyes because I know it’s gonna be another hour-long speech that not only has absolutely zero substance to it, but made everyone unnecessarily stay up that late. What are you currently worried about? I’m worried about my remaining academic requirements. With the suspension of online classes and the lockdown being extended until April 30 (which is virtually the end of the semester), I have no idea what’s gonna become of our academic calendar and my grades – and the status of my graduation.

A notable school in the country already mass-promoted (read: passed) all their students and is planning to give tuition fee refunds since only two months of the sem were used. It’s honestly the most responsible thing to do for now and I hope all other universities follow suit.

Do you think aliens exist? I believe we aren’t the only ones alive out here but I also don’t think they look like the creatures books or movies have made them out to be. What mythical creature do you wish actually existed? Meh, was never a fan of anything mythical/mythological. What are you interested in that most people aren't? Pro wrestling. In my 15 years of being a fan I’ve only found literally a handful of people (at least who are also Filipino) who shared the same passion or amount of interest as I have. It’s just never been a popular topic or fanbase here so I never get to bring it up – and I’m afraid to bring it up because people seem to judge anyone still into wrestling these days. What's the most ridiculous thing you have bought? My most pointless purchase was a pink bar of soap with lettering that says “Gay Bar.” It’s a novelty item at best and I never needed to buy it, but I had money that day so I did and now it’s gathering dust in one of my drawers. What sounds hit you with major nostalgia every time you hear them? The PS1 start-up noise is a big candidate. If given the oppurtunity to open a museum, what kind would you create? They have museums about everything now, so I think it’d be a good idea to turn to my roots and make an ancestral house instead and have it in our home province. My family has a rich history and it’d be a waste if we allowed ourselves to forget. When was the last time you immediately regretted what you said? I think last night? We were having pork belly bought from outside for dinner and I was talking about how good it tasted and that it was the best thing I’ve had in a while. I forgot my dad has been cooking us a different meal every single day since the quarantine started and they all have tasted amazing as well. After I realized what I said I felt like shit and immediately downplayed the pork belly so that he didn’t feel left out. What's the silliest thing you've seen someone get upset about? My mom is a champion of this list lmao, there’s so much stupid shit she’s thrown a fit over. The most ridiculous one happened last year when my sister sprained her ankle and my mom would not help her walk around and even walked faster than the rest of us. It was like she was purposely leaving us behind, which confused and pissed me off. Anyway I was left assisting Nina as she hobbled on. Eventually I caught up to my mom and asked her to slow down and to be with us and to help my sister walk. Apparently it was enough to piss her off and the whole ride home she was yelling at me and legitimately sobbing about how humiliated she was when I called her out because she thinks people overheard and are judging her for it. I mean if you’re afraid of getting judged isn’t that proof you know you did something shitty?

The sermon also turned personal and she started screaming about how I was a horrible daughter and that I’ve never done anything right, and that I was a disappointment, and that I was straying further from God everyday and she could see the horns growing on my head. How’s that for abusive? What was the best thing that happened to you today? I finally finished the level I’ve been stuck on in Mario Kart 8 and now I’m officially done with the game. I’ve never finished any video game before so it feels pretty bitching!!!!!!!!! Do you consider yourself a good cook? I don’t even consider myself a cook. What's the dumbest thing someone has argued with you about? ^ The thing I just talked about, even though it wasn’t technically an argument because my mom didn’t let me talk throughout.

The next dumbest thing I could think of is probably when my grown-ass aunt fought me back when I was 13 on whether Beyoncé lip-syncs or not. It was a random family discussion and I was just talking about how much I like Beyoncé and she not only stole my thunder by picking a fight with me, but she also made me feel bad about something I loved lol. She was so insistent that she lip-syncs and was so hungry for an argument, I didn’t understand why?????? so I just dropped it and rolled my eyes at my dad. IT’S SO DUMB RIGHT What did you google last? Information I needed for an article I’m currently writing. What fashion trend makes you cringe or laugh everytime you see it? Skirts paired with either denim jeans or leggings, and short vests. All the Disney stars wore them and it was the epitome of fashion for us at the time aaaahhhhhhahahahahaha. What's your favorite holiday movie? LOVE ACTUALLY. For sure. I’d also say It’s A Wonderful Life but it has some very low points that ruins the Christmas-yness for me. How ambitious are you? I’m pretty ambitious and also a bit of a perfectionist, but I’m also aware of my limits and I don’t always jump onto tasks feeling confident. I know what I’m capable of so if I’m faced with something I know other people can be better at, I’ll consciously be less ambitious at it cos I usually let my insecurity get in the way. What was the biggest realization you have had about yourself? As someone who’s always thrived on being an introvert, the last few months and years have taught me that I CAN talk to people if I have to? And they’re not scary? I had little hope for myself prior to my internship - but it ended up being fun and I met a lot of awesome new people. I also never thought I’d get to write articles solely because I hate interviewing people - but my sources have all been nothing but nice to me. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve always doubted my ability to talk to people and dive in to unfamiliar scenarios, but when I do either it’s always turned out to be great experiences for me.

What topic could you spend forever talking about? If we’re going for what’s been the most recent hot topic, it would be the government’s incompetence in dealing with COVID-19 so far. Which way should toilet paper hang, over or under? Over. What word is a lot of fun to say? I dunno. I don’t think of words in terms of how fun they are to say. Maybe curse words? HAHAHA If you didn't have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time? Assuming the internet is nothing to worry about, I’d watch all the series I’ve long planned on watching but can’t because Netflix does a big pull on the entire household’s connection. Are you usually early or late? Early or on time. There is no ‘late’ for me. What do you wish you knew more about? The future. Not knowing the answers to it is so irritating/boring to me. What is the most annoying question you've been asked? Asking if I go to rallies/am an activist/am part of the NPA just because of the school I come from. None of those things are bad at all, but I’ve always been annoyed at the stereotyping. How different was your life 1 year ago? I wasn’t graduating yet then. And I was OUTSIDE MOST DAYS because there wasn’t any fucking virus. What movie title best describes your life? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, except I literally have to be stuck at home. What was the last lie you told? Telling my groupmates I had some family stuff at home to fix before getting started on our group project, but really I had to take a bath first because I wanted to feel fresh while working. It’s a minor lie, but it still made me feel bad. What type of music do you listen to? It’s usually varied but my go-to genres are indie pop, electropop, alternative rock, punk rock, *some* indie, R&B, and pop.

Are you a good listener? Yeah, it’s why I prefer to be one than a talker. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Cookies and cream or some peanut butter/chocolate concoction. Do you think you're brave? I can be. Just not about everything. What are you most grateful for in your life? The relatively comfortable life we live considering where we live. And that covers everything from the food we eat, the schools we’ve been sent to, where we get to travel (or the fact that we can travel at all), etc.

What was the worst phase in your life? My rebellious, no-one-understands-me, angsty teen phase when I was 12-13 and my time readjusting in college when I was 18-19. What is a relationship deal breaker for you? Verbal abuse. What are some things that give you complete peace of mind? Staying in coffee shops, driving at midnight, views of the skyline at night, staying on the rooftop at night and being under the stars... I just like a lot of things about the night. Would you like to explore another planet? Yesssssss. Who was your favorite cartoon character as a child? Spongebob. Cosmo from The Fairly Oddparents comes at a close second. What would you do if you were the president of your own country? Right now? I’d assure people everything was being taken care of – mass testing, support for doctors, provision of PPEs and free transportation for frontliners, making all the senators (who are all expectedly not doing anything, save for one) work their asses off, put part of the P275B fund to assist middle- and lower-class people who can’t – instead of imposing shoot-to-kill orders for the military to anyone criticizing the government or rambling about absolutely fucking nothing in nation addresses.

#survey #surveys

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davinciandwilde · 5 years

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God of Dust and Paper

I try to imagine you, on occasion

I am not unique in this; we have been trying to depict the God of Creation

For generations. Paintings by Michelangelo, Giovanni and so on

Show an old man with flowing robes and white beard drawn

With that near blinding backdrop of light that washes out any details

This is consistently the image that prevails

How much is interpretation or carefully sculpted commissions doesn’t matter I guess

They are all piss poor pitiful representations that can’t capture your essence

I wonder if paintings and sculptures aren’t the only places where your essence gets missed

But that’s a different conversation so let’s not drift

Consistently you have been depicted passive and watching with bold sharp strokes

I remember the first time I saw a version of you when I still went to church with my folks

I was still a kid, listening to a fire and brimstone sermon under your sketchthin narrow eyes

Only true believers get through the narrow gate to make it to that place in the sky

Make sure you are one by following the rules and properly-staying inline

I remember my crooked bare feet and straight back spine

Trying to understand all those lines and keep away from any one side

All of these laws I was scrambling to obey and categorize

Imagine my anxiety and fear when I couldn’t fit in any of this unyielding framework

It wasn’t until years later when I started ironing out these odd quirks

That even you couldn’t possibly fit in the form or proportions of this visage

If we were created in your image

I wonder if there is any flesh to you that yields under touch

I wonder if there is any fat to you that I could clutch

Any softness I could press into and find some small amount of comfort

Do you bruise or ache from the work suffered

Or are you some Adonis from muscle and stone

Unyielding, omnipotent, omniscient creator on an equally hard throne

I think about hands hard enough to leave craters and impressions on this earth

And question if we, your creations, leave any impression on you, any at all since the first birth

Created in your image. But what shape of eye, what color, what form would be worthy to mimic you?

Is it even possible to touch you, assuming your form isn’t a light that’s too bright to see through

Or a fire that just burns like searing stars or sweltering suns

Or a live coal pressed to the lips to cleanse an unclean tongue

I imagine you drifting across the cosmos, expanding universes, decorating galaxies,

I try to imagine the world before it understood the meaning of causalities

Like a child, exploring color, heat, gravity, these cycles and rings, and halos

Breathing stars and gathering them on the tips of your fingers, refracting the light just so

These particles of darkness warping around the pureness of your light

Even black holes, insatiable for something hearty and bright

Do not have the audacity to reach for the hem of your cloak

I imagine your finishing touches on this solar system you invoked

The Spirit moving over the face of the waters

It was here you decided to add to your titles: The Potter

These particles not yet formed, but you saw our shape

And decided yes, in this nothing, I will create

A being with purpose and meaning and love and in my image

Not even the angels of heaven had such a privilege.

I wonder what the angels were thinking or if they wanted to ask your reasoning

When you swept up a pile of dust and dirt and decided it was worth something

May I be honest with you, can I leave it all on the floor?

I swear that there is an atom, some lingering molecule deep in my core

That knows that this is what we were formed

This clay, this dust, this dirt it is just transformed

We were meant to be kicked up and pushed aside

Swept and collected into the trash to be tossed outside

Cleaned and scoured away in a great flood

Staining clothes and smudging skin we were meant to be washed away

We were meant to unwanted, to be less than nothing

But you gathered all these atoms up and decided that we could be something

Collected the dust of the ground and created Adam. The first person

Created knowing that we would be stupid enough to listen to a serpent

So, you formed these bodies and called them temples

Created in your image, these were assembled

Honestly, there are days when that feels like blasphemy

The audacity that holiness could be mimicked in this anatomy

You knew we wouldn’t house you in here either

You knew we would turn to smaller gods, creatures, and clever deceivers

Easier ideas and concepts that we could comprehend

Things that took less time and energy to love and tend

Can we be honest? There are days you hard to understand and hard to love

There are days when this world you created is hard to love

When your people, your precious children, are hard to love

When this body of Christ, this temple that is supposed to be peace and grace gifted from above

Is really hard to love?

Be honest with me, tell me we are hard to love.

Can we be honest that love is hard

Why did you think we could handle the ability to love?

But you did it anyway, only you know why

Broken bones, dust, clay, maybe kilned in holy fire or stardust, I’ll ask when I die

You created these temples then made it an option to house you

Some of us try to create a place worthy enough

For our Creator, Worldbuilder, and celestial maker who causally breathes star stuff

When we can only work from that which we were created

Insecure and fumbling, arguing to understand the basics of the sacred

Do you hear the joints creek, these stones grinding under thin plaster

Do you feel the columns sway sometimes with natural disasters

Do you know why there is no ceiling

I am constantly looking up to see if there is any sense to my kneeling

The only thing stable here is the dirt floor

The impression of our knees side by side the only thing I have of your presence to account for

I try to imagine the temple erected by Solomon gilded in gold and bronze and iron

I think about your throne, of cherubim, ophanim, and seraphim choirs

I think about how if ethereal beings of light and star and fire are beneath you

If the Holy City will be paved in gold and thousands of precious stones imbued

What does this temple of mine have to offer?

What devotions, what praises, what love could I possible sing

There is nothing on this earth worthy enough to bring

What could I possible place upon this flickering heartsized alter

These graceless inadequate words that the fill air isn’t even mine to take

I’m just filling it, filling it like all these empty pages with essays and poems I make

These prayers acting more like letters and conversations

Is there any worth to these lengthy exchanges?

Hoping that something of value might span the generations

There were offerings here: lacethin smoke deliberations

The curlcrush edge of careful consideration and investigation

But even these will fade, reaching back to where they began

Dust back to dust, before there was earth, sun, moon or man

The temples of old were stained with blood and mine is as well

But the blood is not mine, and I could not conquer hell

Smeared on the altar and the door frame

Your lion turned lamb son sacrificed and slain

Dark skies, earthquakes, resurrected saints, weeping angels, is this how you grieve?

Was it you tearing your own cloak, when the curtain of the temple was cleaved?

There are days when I wonder if the tears that dot these floors are yours or mine

If maybe there is a reason one of the best known miracles was turning water into wine

Are there days when you really look at what we are and what we’ve done

And the reflection it makes, however distorted, about you, the holy spirit, and your son?

Made in your image and I’m told you never regret it

That you love us still, no matter if we do or do not commit

The only thing I have to offer is my life, my heart, my soul and mind

To a being that literally, not even in images, can be confined

All temples will fall. To ruin, to destruction or to time

Even Moses, David, and Elijah left only blueprints behind

I’d like to think, after this temple of mine falls

No imprints in the sand, just shelves filled in the walls

That somebody might still pass over and say

“This is holy ground, this space of paper, dust, and clay

Love lived here, and though its alter is cold

The offerings and gifts given have been increased a hundredfold”

When they run their hands over the edges now flush

And the corners powdersoft in the climbing brush

I hope they find the core of you and all the details you adorned

I hope they say that I was well-loved and not well worn

You are a God of Love and Creation and Majesty

Glory be to the hands that weaved the tapestry of humanity

But you are also my God, a God of dust and paper

And I wonder what will happen when the efforts of my labor

Are blown away as softly as golden sand in the blazing desert

Will you collect those pieces as delicately as Adam in the dirt

Made in your image, but if I am completely honest

Of everything we have spoken of, may I have one small promise

If, in the end, I only return from that which I was created

Dust back to dust, it would have been worth it if I just could be designated

These particles of mine just placed in your brilliant light

To dance and float and shine. It would be worth every fight

Made in your image, let me see what that meant

Until then, I will do what I can with what little I understand, to represent.

#my poetry #original poems #poems #free to reblog #one more for the night

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godfirstgodalways · 5 years

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I’ll listen to a sermon or read a Bible verse that says to “be still”, “wait on the Lord”, “the battle is not yours”, etc. and then the next sermon/verse will be calling me to action. It has me torn. How am I supposed to know if I should be waiting on Him or fighting? My nature says to fight. I’m a fighter and that’s what I always feel like I should be doing. So it’s hard for me to tell if I feel like fighting because that’s who I am or if it’s because that’s what God wants me to do.

Thank you for this! I love this. :)) Here’s what I believe about you. I believe that God purposely made you this way to make you work towards becoming wiser through practicing patience. There’s so much wisdom you can gain in waiting and there’s only more regret in being so practical at times. Your nature is to fight. God made you this way perhaps because He wants you to fight your urges to want to fight on your own terms. You said it and you know it….it’s your nature. But God wants us to live by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7). I believe that God has also made you the way you are because with growth and wisdom, you could really use your energy to glorify Him. Always pray considering His time and His will. My nature is to trust my feelings. And guess what? Because of my faith in God, I’ve learned not to trust my feelings so much but instead use them as triggers to go straight to Him. Now, I’m not as sensitive or take things so personally as I had for so long.

There was so many things that confused me about what the Bible says and how I’m suppose to live. Balance was definitely a struggle, so I completely understand what you mean. :) I often felt like my mind couldn’t handle it anymore so I would just get so frustrated and at times I entertained thoughts of what my life would be if I never made a vow to God. But I get you. More often than not though, my faith has taught me to become resilient, get back up and start over again, because no matter how hard it got, the thing I was always sure of was that I never wanted to go back to my old ways. If you’ve made a commitment to the LORD, make sure you have 2 or 3 sincere reasons you’ve chosen to be on this path.

The 1st should answer “Why am I a Christian for God?”

The 2nd should answer “How does this help others?”

The 3rd should answer “How is this helping me?”

The reason I’m following Christ is because this is what pleases God and I know it pleases Him because it’s in His will, and I know as long as I am living for His will, it glorifies Him. The reason this helps others is because if I’m obeying the LORD then I will be disciplined and that means I’ll give the best of me to others. The reason this helps me is because I know my confidence is nothing without Him and if I neglect my relationship with Him, I know that I will start to go back to my old ways, and that is something I really don’t want to happen.

You say you are a fighter — so remind yourself of your reasons why you’re on this path and that will help you move on from feeling torn or confused.

You have to know your temptations. Maybe a temptation of yours is losing your patience, having the urge to make your move when it’s not the right time. Pay close attention to any motives you have that you have not taken the time to bring up to God. Is that temptation insistent on having your way? If it is, then God is saying (at that moment you’re aware of your temptation) “be still and wait on Me”. This means He wants you to pray about this until you have peace about it. It may not only take one prayer or two, but when you finally agree consistently that this is all in His hand and you’re surrendering this situation, then you’re allowing Him to work in you what must be done to fulfill His will.

Making action upon His will is basically claiming that confidence He finally gave you after waiting. Waiting can mean a few minutes to hours or even days, weeks, months….it all depends when you receive conviction from the LORD after you have become more aware of your temptations. Don’t make a move based on your own terms, which usually means your feelings or your own common sense. The next time God is convicting you to wait, seek Him, surrender yourself and the situation that’s heavy on your heart, make small actions that support your faith because it’s in God’s will, and perhaps the bigger move you should make will come in another conviction, so long as you stay faithful. Waiting patiently on God means you’re humbling yourself and being careful no to be impulsive. So you can actually wait on the LORD and still make a move so long as that move is something you genuinely know supports your faith in Christ. Do you know all of your temptations well? If not, then ask God in prayer to help you be more aware of them, because if you know them well, then you acknowledge your relationship with Jesus much of the time.

There is also this verse Exodus 14:14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. I hope you’re not confused. This applies to when you’re overwhelmed with anything. So, like, with your situation about this whole thing, the LORD is saying be still, He will fight for you. He will fight your confusion away if you keep still in Him (humble yourself, surrender, pray for peace, focus on Him, yield the situation).

Don’t forget that confusion is from Satan. God will never confuse you. So if this is confusing you, simply know that you can always change your perspective of this, from confusion to belief and conviction that this very situation you have is from God. You feed into Satan’s energy by staying confused. So instead of being overwhelmed and worried that you may not be doing His will, be still and know that this situation is from God and it’s a blessing because now look where you’re at….you’re a little more wiser than before. Learn to count it a blessing because since you’re concerned with how to please Him, this brings Him glory and honor. Next time you don’t know what to do, remind yourself, this confusion is of Satan, and deliberately believe that God is blessing you because He wants your attention on Him, which is an opportunity to reconnect with Him. Wait on Him by praying, then move forward…you don’t necessarily always have to make a “move” after you pray, but moving forward just means move with faith. If you think it requires a bigger move, then keep praying about it. I hope this helped you. You’re in my prayers tonight, friend! :)

Isaiah 30:18 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

Romans 12:12 Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times.

James 1:12 Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him.

By His Grace, Sheela (Via godfirstgodalways)

#godfirstgodalwaysreply #REPLY TO ANON #waiting on God #God's will #Relationship with God #relationship with Jesus #reply to ask #godfirstgodalwaysadvice #christianadvice #wordsofwisdom #wordsofencouragement #words of wisdom #words of encouragement #faith blogger

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izanyas · 7 years

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Forty-Eight

Happy bday @epros... it’s arcobaleno rarepair time Fon/Mammon, rated T, no specific warnings.

Forty-Eight

Battle over, the voice of Checker Face's goofy assistant comes from Fon's wristwatch. He barely has time to mourn the expanse of his lungs and the sheer amount of air they can breathe when he's like this—standing tall and proud and alive for the first time in eons—before he remembers that he ought to be looking forward.

It's too late. Mammon's body has already shrunk to child-size, pink and round and monstrous like his is. They're still bleeding from their mouth and nose. The sight doesn't bring any relief compared to that of their real face; they're shaking, Fantasma wrapped around their disproportionately big head, and their stubby fingers are closing on nothing the way Fon's are.

He doesn't even feel the pain of his own injuries. Physical pain is a concept he's mostly overcome over the ages. It doesn't stop the ache in his heart from seeing Mammon like this.

No one among them hates the curse more than Mammon does.

He says their name, under his breath. They don't even grant him the satisfaction of a shiver of acknowledgement. The boy-killer of the Varia is picking them up from the ground like they're a toy rather than a human, and Mammon freezes up but complies.

Fon's never let anyone touch him like this. He barely lets I-Pin hug him as it is. He closes his mouth and licks the blood from his gums and makes himself look to his side where Kyoya is seething, blank eyes fixed onto Xanxus.

Fon considers his options. He could tell Kyoya not to go after him—could keep his own shot at being human again—or he could let the boy do as he wishes and watch as Varia tears him apart. He could guarantee an easy win for Mammon.

Cavallone's Dino barges in before he can decide to speak or stay silent, and with him news of the most problematic aspect of this contest: Reborn's existence.

Really, Fon thinks, bitter, everything would be so much simpler if Reborn wasn't a player in any of their games.

He fades into a shadow of the room and holds his breath until he hears nothing but the rush of his own blood past his ears and the rhythm of his heartbeat. The room dissolves around him, and with it the last of Mammon's shackles on his brain. Their anchors detach with a pang of regret that he resists the urge to examine for fear of losing himself to it. Silence fills his mind and air fills his body; on top of his head, Lichi quiets too, furls into herself until she's still as lakewater. Fon crushes the knot of energy in his chest until it's gone but to a flicker, only warm enough that he doesn't start shivering, only bright enough that he's not in complete darkness.

He opens his eyes.

Everyone else is long gone now. He takes in the damage that the hotel room has taken because of them all, the faint scent of cooked meat emanating from deeper inside the building. The tug on his scalp from Lichi showing him where to go.

He wishes he had something to link him to Mammon's location—something more substantial than his gut feeling and decades-old affection. But those links are meant for the destined rather than the cursed; and Fon's never been one to think he was worth more than what luck and hard work have given him.

Fon was the only one who hadn't heard of any of them when they met in the shack that day. The rest of the group knew at least one other by name, and some, like Reborn and Verde or Colonello and Lal Mirch, obviously knew each other personally. Even the boy who told them to call him Skull had heard of Reborn through some rumor or another. Reborn seemed to take a great amount of delight in terrorizing the kid once he learned.

In return, one of the others knew who Fon was except Luce. Fon accepted it with little unease—his sister was the one involved with the Triads. He mostly stayed by himself, in his home, away from the city and where he could feel the mountain sun beat on his skin like a drum every day. Where the air was heavy with damp, so much so that he could smell water, feel it drown his lungs with every inhale and drip from his nose with every exhale. His wasn't a known name. He cultivated his strength for himself and his isolation for everyone else.

"So who are you?" Luce asked him on the first day. She was the only one without bitterness in her, face and body glowing, one delicate hand bracing the span of her belly like something come out of a painting.

Fon smiled at her warily. "I'm no one special."

"You wouldn't be here if that were true," she replied, agonizingly gentle.

Fon looked up at the ceiling. On the other side of the room there was only Viper, sitting in the only comfortable armchair, bone-white knuckles clutching the velvet as if he wanted to rip it off the wood. Everyone else had gone outside. Fon didn't know a way that he could escape the smell of tragedy on Luce without being rude.

"I don't know why I'm here," he said at last. "I don't go out of my way to make a name for myself."

"They said you were one of the strongest people in the world."

"Yeah, like all of us. For all the good that does to any of us now," Viper spat out from under his breath.

Fon looked at him, trying to catch a glimpse of his face the way he had since coming here hours ago, but Viper's hood was low, and light could only hit his chin and the line of his jaw.

Predictably, Luce spoke again, in her all-accepting voice: "You're angry."

And Fon considered walking out of the shack right there and sparing himself the need to suffer Luce's sermon, but Viper replied, "Oh, cut it out."

He rose from the chair; even like this he was the shortest among them, and though he was standing out of reach for either of them, Fon knew that if they had been standing next to each other the top of Viper's head would have only reached to his nose. Viper turned to face them with a flourish of his black robes.

"You can't be happy about this," Viper said to Luce. "You're pregnant."

Luce stroked her belly with an angelic smile. Fon felt nothing but unease at the sight. "Nothing's going to happen to me."

"So what, are you getting a special treatment, then?"

The question was rhetorical. Luce felt it and didn't answer; and Viper let out a sigh that sounded like a curse and turned his back to walk out as well, into the sunlit mountains where they were kept, watched, confined. "Your seer crap might work on Reborn," he growled, "but I don't have to play any goddamn role with you. I don't know you." He opened the door wide, his silhouette cut black into the light, and he left.

Fon walked out after him.

He followed Viper as deep into the mountain as they were allowed to go. The metallic circle around his ankle started burning only five minutes into their walk, and before they reached a full kilometer his movements slowed by themselves as if his body was suddenly refusing to obey his brain.

"Stop following me," Viper panted in front of him. He had his back turned, the top of his head still covered with his hood despite the heat. At least the air was dry enough that he should've only worked himself into a light sweat.

"Just taking in the sights," Fon replied. Not that there's much to see. He eyed Viper again.

"You're so full of shit."

But Viper stopped not a second later. He fell onto the dry grass and hissed out every breath, holding the side of his ribs above his robes. The edge of his chin shivered as he winced.

Fon propelled himself forward despite the shackle breaking the skin of his leg into blisters; Viper tensed when he was close enough to touch him, but all Fon did was make himself go one step further than the other had been able to and then fall to the ground with more grace than he had.

He placed a hand above the anklet; it was red now, glowing like iron would coming out of the fire. Thankfully it wasn't that hot. Just enough that he felt it to the touch, from the magic escaping it.

Trinisette, they had called it.

"So you're a physical kind of fighter, then," Viper muttered. "Big deal."

"Quite," Fon replied.

Viper seemed to bristle at his answer. "Well, you've made your point. You can go now."

"Are you always this amiable, or is it just us specifically?" Fon asked with a smirk.

A pit of black nothing opened under him and swallowed the grass and rocks and ants surrounding them. He saw Viper scream and fall, felt his own body be sucked into the void and panic flare inside him like an open flame—

Fon dug his fingers into the metal circling his burned skin and closed his eyes.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to recover. He didn't have a notion of time while the ground was gone under him, gaping like the mouth of a giant, like what he pictured a black hole in space must look like; but he counted his breaths and made the fire inside him choke almost completely, and when he managed to convince himself that he wasn't falling—when he finally opened his eyes to the grass and the rocks again—Viper wasn't panting anymore.

Fon didn't speak. He almost had to use his hands to unlock his legs from their fold and extend them in front of him. They were shaking.

Viper waited another minute for effect before talking to him.

"If you're done trying to get acquainted," he said, and he sounded smug.

And Fon ripped a smile out of himself and said, "So you're a psychic kind of fighter, then."

"Jesus," Viper said. He turned around, one pale hand spread onto the dirt—his nails were clean but bitter raw, his skin dry from lack of sleep and dehydration—"What do you want with me?"

"You seem like the most interesting person here," Fon replied. He kept smiling, despite the fact that he couldn't see above Viper's mouth.

Viper shouldn't have been able to see him through his hood. But he stayed as he was for another moment, torso twisted to look sideways and back, and for all that he had no idea what the man actually looked like, Fon felt scrutinized.

But then Viper turned back and said, "None of this matters."

Fon nudged him lightly with his foot. He didn't react, but at least he was solid. "Why?"

"Don't play dumb"—Fon smiled—"our lives are over."

"I thought, on the contrary, that we would be made to stay around for a very long time."

Viper tried to be swift enough to grab Fon's foot, but Fon evaded his hand easily, jumped into a crouch right behind him and tried to touch the fabric of his robe—but although the body he had felt a second ago was tangible and warm his fingers only slipped through ink-black smoke, cold as fall rain.

Viper rematerialized a few meters away. His hood had slipped up a bit, revealing his nose and the flush of his cheeks.

"I'm not here to play," he growled.

Every breath Fon took felt like ice. Around his feet the grass had frozen, its blades breaking with a soft sound every time he moved.

"I don't want to waste time fighting," Viper continued. "You couldn't pay me enough to give you this much attention."

"I can't pay you at all," Fon replied. "I have no money."

Viper sneered at him.

Eventually the illusory ice melted. Either Viper didn't have the energy to keep it up for long or just didn't care, but he let the ground go back to what it was, and he didn't move.

"I don't want to be here," he said.

Fon looked at him. "I know."

Viper lifted his head to look up at him. Fon could see the shadow of his eyelashes now, darker on his skin than that of the hood was. "You're weird," he declared.

A laugh. "Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment. I don't like you."

Fon didn't reply. He didn't very much like himself either.

It was too far from sunset for the sky to be red or gold. Too early to escape into shadows for either of them and especially with their abilities blunted by the band Fon wore around his ankle and Viper around his neck—and he could see it now, purple on his skin like a bruise, like a plague. Fon thought about his life as he knew it and his life as he knew it would go—thought about the bodies of the current Arcobaleno that he had seen for the first time today and felt bile run up his throat and linger on his tongue, bitter, so bitter.

"I wish it weren't me," he said out loud.

When he sister asked him why he wasn't married yet all he had ever said was, Not yet.

Not yet. Not until he found the right person. Not until he could look into someone's eyes and see his own life stretch inside them, not until he felt his soul open like a sunflower to sunlight, not until all the air inside him rushed out at the feeling of their skin.

He had been naïve to think he would be granted a full life. He had been naïve to take even time for granted.

He was thinking about it when the wind rose and parted around him without ever brushing his skin—when its invisible hands pushed back Viper's hood completely and bared his eyes to the sun and to Fon. He was thinking of time and longing as he took in the face of this stranger who would share the same destiny that he did; and he thought about how pathetic it was that Viper was only doing this so someone would be around to remember what he truly looked like.

How pathetic it was that Fon refused to blink until he was sure he would never forget.

He could see his life stretching into Viper's green eyes. It was endless, and it was miserable.

Lichi leads him to one of the rooms. It's easy enough to knock on the door and avoid receiving it in the face when it opens. Mammon is less surprised than he thought they'd be to see him there, but a lot angrier.

"Get out," they say, and their voice for all of its unnatural high pitch is the same as it was all those years ago in the sunlight—clear, and even, and with despair pouring out of it like venom.

"I want to talk," Fon says. He slips into the room before the door can close, but unfortunately, Lichi doesn't make it. He can hear her whine softly on the other side.

"I don't have anything to say to you!" Mammon seethes. "Get out!"

"I'm not here to gloat—"

"Good, because you haven't fucking won," they cut him off.

They're too enraged to be reasoned with. Fon doesn't see them shake anymore, but there's an air to them, like they're still trying to get a grasp of this body. It makes his heart ache. He lost himself into the feeling of it earlier as well, and now he only has forty-eight seconds of his presents remaining.

He steps forward and opens his arms, palms facing forward so Mammon sees that he's unarmed. "I need thirty seconds of your time."

Mammon sneers at him. "You better talk fast, because I'm calling Squalo if you don't—"

"You don't understand," he interrupts. "I need thirty seconds of your time."

They fall silent for a moment, the lower half of their face scrunched up in confusion, before they get it.

"No," they say, voice wiped of all emotion.

Fon isn't above begging. "Please."

"What is wrong with you?" They're louder now, almost shouting, because the astonishment is running off to make way for anger. "What makes you think that I would waste a single second of that time on you—"

"I know you still have tons left," he says. "I know we only spent about a minute in your mirage—"

"This is all I have!" they cry.

Fon closes his mouth. His chest is aching, the tiny heart inside beating faster than a bird's and making exhaustion run through his tiny, awkward limbs—awkward only because coming into himself again earlier had erased all the progress he made into accepting his curse.

Mammon is shaking again. With one hand they touch their face, their mouth, and their eyes under the hood, and Fantasma is dangling from their wrist sadly.

"This is all I have left to look forward to," they say, voice tight, almost choked to nothing. "Four minutes out of this curse. This is all I have left."

"You don't know that," Fon murmurs. "You could still win."

They laugh, curt and ugly. "Against Reborn?"

Fon doesn't have anything to say to that.

Mammon inhales loudly. "You and I both know he's going to win like he's won every single fight so far. Number fucking one hitman."

Hearing Mammon curse is unfamiliar but not unexpected. "Someone could still come up with a cure."

"Oh, please. Even Verde's given up. Even in that future we both saw, we were still like this." A pause, and then words, worse than ever no matter how much Fon braces himself for them: "At least we were dead then."

Lichi is scratching at the door softly. Fon doesn't talk to her through it to reassure her. The only thing keeping him from feeling the bite of his own disappointment is knowing that no matter how bad he feels, in this body, Mammon feels worse.

So he simply repeats, "Please."

He watches Mammon struggle with an answer. They touch the thick watch at their wrist with awkward fingers, press on the skin of their forearm, bite their lips. Fantasma slithers down onto the floor and takes refuge under a radiator nearby.

"Okay," they say.

Fon has his mouth open, calling for his present before Mammon can do more than look down at their own wrist and speak. He feels the rush of magic from earlier invade him and his body disappear before reappearing, tall, strong, with space in his chest to breathe again, to live again.

Mammon is standing in front of him. Short as they always were. Their face is only bruised now, with no sign of blood.

"Now what?" they say, voice aflutter.

Fon walks toward them and extends his hands forward; this time, when he touches Mammon's robes, they feel like fabric under his fingers. He pushes down their hood and touches their face, lightly, then firmly, palms bracing Mammon's jaw and cheeks and thumbs stroking over the markings there and fingers scratching into their hair.

Fon wastes one more of his remaining forty-two seconds looking to electric green eyes before he leans forward to kiss.

He waits long enough to make sure Mammon's stillness isn't rejection; it takes a moment for Mammon's hand to catch the back of his head (thirty-nine) and grab, fingers digging into the knot holding his hair in place, and then they sigh against his lips, tilting their head, pressing forward.

Fon's never known a better texture than that of Mammon's skin under his fingers. He's never known a better heat than the one at the crook of their neck where their real heart beats or that of their mouth, and it's not his best kiss, because he hasn't kissed anyone in decades, but it's the only one he's wanted this way.

It's his last kiss.

He licks into Mammon's mouth when it opens and breathes onto their skin with a sob lodged in his throat; he tangles the fingers of his left hand into soft hair and rubs the right against softer skin, and he hasn't known a warmer thing in his life, not one, not ever. Mammon responds with the same intensity. Their hands are into his hair and then onto his face as if to burn the feeling of humanity to memory the way Fon is trying to.

"Fuck you," they say, but they don't stop kissing him; the words feel like another buzz of electricity over his lips and face, where all the blood in his body is rushing.

He would fuck Mammon if he could. He knows Mammon would as well. He'd brand his own skin onto their's if it meant that he could never forget this anymore than he could forget the color of Mammon's eyes or the shape of their jaw; but they don't have time for it. They'll never have time for it. Fon runs his fingers through tangly hair and knocks his teeth against Mammon's on his way to trying to breathe the air straight from their lungs.

Mammon makes a noise that is a lot closer to a sob than it is to laughter.

And this must be the love that he waited for when he was human instead of trying to seek it; this must be his soul expanding through his skin to radiate against Mammon's, and his heart settling for one and one only, forever.

He's done waiting for fate to hand him what he wants.

Mammon doesn't stop after the thirty seconds. They're surely keeping count, just like Fon is, but thirty becomes thirty-five, becomes forty-three. Two second before his time is up Fon closes his mouth and lets it rest against Mammon's, still, just so he can feel hot skin and hot breaths, just so he gets to be framing Mammon's face with both his hands against before it has to stop.

His entire being is throbbing.

The magic rips him out of himself and shoves him back into the cursed body. It wipes clean any hint of sweat and saliva from his skin and douses his insides in cold. The pain he felt when it happened earlier is nothing compared to the brutal lack of heat and proximity and the hazed knowledge that he'll never get it again.

He hears Mammon call off their own time in a shaking voice. For a striking second, he hates himself entirely, for making them go through this pain twice in a day.

The silence stretches for a long moment. On the other side of the door, Lichi has stopped scratching.

"That was very selfish of you," Mammon says softly.

"I know," Fon replies.

He can't see their face at all. It's night, the sky he can see through the window next to the bed is pitch black, only a bedside lamp is lit; Mammon looks like another shadow in the room rather than a person.

Neither of them look like people anyway.

"I love you," Fon says.

Mammon doesn't answer.

Fon files the memory of Mammon's skin alongside that of their face. It creates a new picture in his mind, one that rises the smell of grass and summer in his nostrils, one that sounds like the distant rush of a stream. In it Mammon is facing him down on the path. In it Fon doesn't just walk past them and back to the shack where Luce is waiting and Reborn is hanging to her shadow, lovestruck; no, he stops in front of Mammon. He forces open the metal around their neck and rubs the red skin under with his thumbs, and instead of despair crushing the life out of Mammon's eyes, all he sees is relief.

All he sees is freedom.

#khr #katekyo hitman reborn #fon #mammon #fon x mammon #fic: forty eight

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sheilacwall · 5 years

Text

The Year is 1964 & Nina Simone is About to Take on the Authorities

Black History in America – When Nina Simone Sang What Everyone Was Thinking

“Mississippi Goddam” was an angry response to a tragedy, in show tune form.

Nina was angry, damn right too and she channeled her energy into music, but it could have gone another way…

On June 12, 1963, in the early morning after president John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights address, activist Medgar Evers was shot in the back as he stood in the driveway of his Mississippi home.

He was returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers and officials, and carried an armload of T-shirts that read “Jim Crow Must Go.” Evers was taken to a local hospital, where he died less than an hour after being admitted.

On September 15, 1963, four girls were killed when white supremacists planted more than a dozen sticks of dynamite beneath the side steps of the African-American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The children were preparing for a sermon titled “A Love That Forgives.” According to one witness, their bodies flew across the basement “like rag dolls.”

When she heard the news, jazz musician Nina Simone was paralyzed. “It was more than I could take,” she remembered, “and I sat struck dumb in my den like St. Paul on the road to Damascus: all the truths that I had denied to myself for so long rose up and slapped my face. The bombing of the little girls in Alabama and the murder of Medgar Evers were like the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that made no sense until you had fitted the whole thing together. I suddenly realized what it was to be Black in America in 1963, but it wasn’t an intellectual connection…it came as a rush of fury, hatred and determination. In church language, the Truth entered into me and I ‘came through.’”

Simone’s initial reaction was less than Christian. “I had it in mind to go out and kill someone,” she remembered. “I tried to make a zip gun.”

Andy, her husband and manager, intervened. “Nina,” he said, “you can’t kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do.”

An hour later, Nina Simone had composed a song called “Mississippi Goddam.” “It was my first civil rights song,” she recalled, “and it erupted out of me quicker than I could write it down.”

“Mississippi Goddam” became one of Nina Simone’s most famous compositions. It redirected her career. Crisply honest, it is a pure expression of rage and an indictment of inequality. Stylistically, it leapfrogged the righteous, passive anthems that characterized protest music of the time. It was knowing, biting, and inciting.

It was a step Simone was reluctant to take. “Nightclubs were dirty, making records was dirty, popular music was dirty and to mix all that with politics seemed senseless and demeaning,” she wrote in her autobiography I Put a Spell On You. “And until songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’ just burst out of me, I had musical problems as well.

How can you take the memory of a man like Medgar Evers and reduce all that he was to three and a half minutes and a simple tune? That was the musical side of it I shied away from; I didn’t like ‘protest music’ because a lot of it was so simple and unimaginative it stripped the dignity away from the people it was trying to celebrate. But the Alabama church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers stopped that argument and with ‘Mississippi Goddam,’ I realized there was no turning back.”

“‘Mississippi Goddam’—that’s using God’s name in vain,” said comedian and activist Dick Gregory. “She said it, talking about ‘Mississippi, goddamn you.’ We all wanted to say it, but she said it. That’s the difference that set her aside from the rest of them.”

Shortly after the song’s debut in New York, Nina Simone performed it to a mostly white audience at Carnegie Hall in March, 1964. It starts off at a clip. “The name of this tune is Mississippi God-DAMN,” Simone declares to nervous laughter as the band vamps behind her, “…and I mean every word of it.”

Alabama’s got me so upset

Tennessee made me lose my rest

And everybody knows about Mississippi

Goddam

The arrangement is at apparent odds with the sentiment. It’s a vaudeville tune, a clip from a musical review. It makes you see chorus boys, bright in the footlights, dancing in unison. But this is a dark message, delivered in a white envelope. Simone repeats the first verse more insistently, then asks for a witness in the middle eight.

Can’t you see it

Can’t you feel it

It’s all in the air

I can’t stand the pressure much longer

Somebody say a prayer

…then a recapitulation of the verse, to complete the standard AABA form.

What happens next is fascinating, and we need to discuss a little music theory to talk about it. Simone doesn’t change key, but begins playing in the relative minor. Musically, it’s like looking at the opposite side of the same coin: major chords (in this case A-flat, the song’s key base) are generally considered bright and happy, while minor chords (F minor here) are understood to be more melancholy and sinister. Because A-flat and F minor reside in the same key, we understand them as being of a piece. They may have a different root, but share the same scale. Not only that, A-flat is the very note that changes an F chord from major to minor. Simone is demonstrating, tonally, that there are two very different stories to be told from the American perspective: one of majority and one of minority. Furthermore, the existence of one causes the desolation of the other.

“This is a show tune,” Simone explains over the new minor vamp, “but the show hasn’t been written for it yet.” More tittering from the uncertain audience.

Then, a little over a century after president Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Nina Simone slaps gradualism in the face and throws politeness out the window. “You don’t have to live next to me,” she sings. “Just give me my equality.”

Yes you lied to me all these years

You told me to wash and clean my ears

And talk real fine just like a lady

And you’d stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies

You’re all gonna die and die like flies

I don’t trust you any more

Keep on sayin’ ‘Go slow’

“Everyone knows about Mississippi,” Simone sings as the song comes to a racing close. “Everyone knows about Alabama. Everyone knows about Mississippi. Goddamn.”

youtube

“Mississippi Goddam” was included on the album “Nina Simone In Concert,” and released as a single, with the offending word bleeped out. “It may be the most topical selection in years,” read the sleeve notes. “This outstanding message song, with the great ‘SIMONE’ feel and rhythm, makes this a @*?!!;; hot disc.”

One box of promotional singles was returned from South Carolina with each record broken neatly in half. Most southern states banned the song.

“Nina Simone In Concert” contains another original composition, “Old Jim Crow.” Jim Crow was a character originating in a blackface minstrel song from the 1820s, and was the name of the prevailing racial caste system in the South after slavery.

“Oh I’m a roarer on de fiddle, and down in old Virginny,” goes the original lyric to “Jump Jim Crow” from 1828,

They say I play de skyentific like Massa Pagannini

Weel about and turn about and do jis so,

Eb’ry time I weel about and jump Jim Crow

“Old Jim Crow, what’s wrong with you?” Nina Simone sings in her song.

It’s not your name, it’s the things you do

Old Jim Crow don’t you know

It’s all over now

youtube

There were many songs sung during the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March in early 1965, a year after Nina Simone’s concert at Carnegie Hall. The marchers burst into “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem of the Civil Rights movement, several times. (Folk music icon Pete Seeger had taken the old spiritual and replaced “I will” with “We shall” in the title, making it a more universal pean to perseverance and gradualism.) Two young supporters sang “Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed on Freedom” after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s remarks in Selma on the morning of the march. Along the route, white supremacists blasted “Bye, Bye Blackbird” from loudspeakers.

At the end of the march, in Montgomery Alabama on March 25, a concert was given. Ten thousand people gathered around so tightly that 57 of them fainted. Accompanied only by her guitarist, Nina Simone sang “Mississippi Goddam” on a stage made from empty coffin crates. After the performance, she was introduced to Martin Luther King.

“I’m not nonviolent!” she declared, sticking out her hand.

“That’s okay, sister,” Dr. King replied. “You don’t have to be.”

The terrible decade ground on. A tense interview with Down Beat in January, 1968 was interrupted when segregation came up. “What kind of thing are you doing?” asks husband and manager Andrew Stroud. “We’re not interested in the race issue.” Later that year, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Simone and her bassist Gene Taylor composed “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead).”

youtube

Nina Simone moved to Europe and Africa in the early 1970s. “I left this country because I didn’t like this country,” she told an interviewer. “I didn’t like what it was doing to my people and I left.” She was ever after associated with the Civil Rights movement, even though her ultimate conclusion was that political music was a professional liability. She told one interviewer that she regretting writing “Mississippi Goddam” because it hurt her career.

“There is no reason to sing those songs, nothing is happening,” Simone told the interviewer in the 1980s. “There’s no Civil Rights movement. Everybody’s gone.”

But there had been a reason to sing those songs, even when it was done at personal expense. “It was dangerous,” she said about performing for the movement’s marches and rallies. “We encountered many people who were after our hides. I was excited by it, though, because I felt more alive then than I do now because I was needed, could sing something to help my people, and that became the mainstay of my life, the most important thing.”

On another level, Nina Simone, as a musician, understood the universality of being human. Music, after all, is our common emotional language. It does not know age, or race, or class, or gender. Though it informs each, it is available to all. Protest music, specifically, is nothing more than a complaint when such equality — a condition articulated by our founders, but not yet fully achieved — is violated.

“It’s funny about music,” she said at the end of the Down Beat interview. “Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel…through music…Whew…you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment. Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing…Oh my God! Ooh…Wow…You can see colors through music. Anything! Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with music. You can take the same phrase from any song and cut it up so many different ways — it’s infinite. It’s like God…you know?”

by Tom Maxell – source

The post The Year is 1964 & Nina Simone is About to Take on the Authorities appeared first on Hip Hop World Music.

from Hip Hop World Music https://hiphopworldmusic.com/the-year-is-1964-nina-simone-is-about-to-take-on-the-authorities/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-year-is-1964-nina-simone-is-about-to-take-on-the-authorities from Hip Hop World Music https://hiphopworldmusic.tumblr.com/post/188791822388

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sheilacwall · 5 years

Text

The Year is 1964 & Nina Simone is About to Take on the Authorities

Black History in America – When Nina Simone Sang What Everyone Was Thinking

“Mississippi Goddam” was an angry response to a tragedy, in show tune form.

Nina was angry, damn right too and she channeled her energy into music, but it could have gone another way…

On June 12, 1963, in the early morning after president John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights address, activist Medgar Evers was shot in the back as he stood in the driveway of his Mississippi home.

Simone’s initial reaction was less than Christian. “I had it in mind to go out and kill someone,” she remembered. “I tried to make a zip gun.”

Andy, her husband and manager, intervened. “Nina,” he said, “you can’t kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do.”

Alabama’s got me so upset

Tennessee made me lose my rest

And everybody knows about Mississippi

Goddam

Can’t you see it

Can’t you feel it

It’s all in the air

I can’t stand the pressure much longer

Somebody say a prayer

…then a recapitulation of the verse, to complete the standard AABA form.

“This is a show tune,” Simone explains over the new minor vamp, “but the show hasn’t been written for it yet.” More tittering from the uncertain audience.

Yes you lied to me all these years

You told me to wash and clean my ears

And talk real fine just like a lady

And you’d stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies

You’re all gonna die and die like flies

I don’t trust you any more

Keep on sayin’ ‘Go slow’

“Everyone knows about Mississippi,” Simone sings as the song comes to a racing close. “Everyone knows about Alabama. Everyone knows about Mississippi. Goddamn.”

youtube

One box of promotional singles was returned from South Carolina with each record broken neatly in half. Most southern states banned the song.

“Oh I’m a roarer on de fiddle, and down in old Virginny,” goes the original lyric to “Jump Jim Crow” from 1828,

They say I play de skyentific like Massa Pagannini

Weel about and turn about and do jis so,

Eb’ry time I weel about and jump Jim Crow

“Old Jim Crow, what’s wrong with you?” Nina Simone sings in her song.

It’s not your name, it’s the things you do

Old Jim Crow don’t you know

It’s all over now

youtube

“I’m not nonviolent!” she declared, sticking out her hand.

“That’s okay, sister,” Dr. King replied. “You don’t have to be.”

youtube

“There is no reason to sing those songs, nothing is happening,” Simone told the interviewer in the 1980s. “There’s no Civil Rights movement. Everybody’s gone.”

by Tom Maxell – source

The post The Year is 1964 & Nina Simone is About to Take on the Authorities appeared first on Hip Hop World Music.

0 notes