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clownmeat242 · 3 years

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the big, brown beaded rosary above my grandparents’ bed

a big, bulky backpack full of my dads things

a stick used to pry mud

an apple that stayed very good after a long time

pink, purple, and blue lava lamps

a special yellow lava lamp

an angel baby statuette, lying down holding a moon

2 special, blue coral dolphin figurines, 4 dolphins, 2 dolphins each

a mood bracelet

blue bangles with colorful gemstones

a card id that was my dad’s death identification

a big, interconnected dmv online system with games

a nun’s headdress

various gummy candy

christmas light lawn deer decorations

photographs of my dad

a photograph of my grandpa with my two young cousins

a plastic bag full of yellow rice and shrimp

my dad’s eggs

the string across sierra’s window with our things hanging from it

american flag sunglasses

a brown cigar box

a silver elk creature with silver chains hanging from it

black swirls of death

these goggle-like glasses that would have parts that would pop off when trying to be fixed

a clear, dry glue stick

a bitten off, red ring pop that resembled a pacifier

a peppa pig baby phone toy

a baby book with blue writing and bees all around it, saying “the cross dressing” something

the blue can of axe spray from 2016

my grandpa’s computer

clear, star shaped boxes of blue slime with pink beads

carrot cake

the red ball toy with the cat in the hat on it, from my childhood

a bulky, purple, show poodle toy

an oval shaped virgin mary necklace with a golden crown

a bigger, heavier, circular, holographic necklace of mary, joseph and jesus, with a message about love

a halloween wall decoration of a group of people wearing pink with blank faces

little sims 4 ghost light decorations

fancy bathtubs with buckets to collect water from them

chocolate straws and wafers

a big hole in the sand that resembled one my dad used to dig

the aloe vera plant on grandma’s balcony

the beaded necklace i made with cheap walmart beads, with a part of the ohio bead necklace attached to it

a deep blue, circular pendant of mary and jesus

this virgin mary, religious box and a mary/joseph/jesus figurine

a note written to a teacher about “what my grandpa did to me”

the rose lamp in my room

my puppy angel container

my backpack, stolen by my grandpa

sierra and i’s black notebook

a big toy bear that was actually a real bear

buttered toast

incomplete clown outfits

contradicting black/white couches

metal rods shoved through little mind people holding them in place, dead together

gratuitous cupcakes with baby blue icing

a mix of games i created with a crash code, crashing into itself like a death game black hole

orange juice

my jar of piercings, while my earrings were all missing from my ears

a big grey fountain with a statue virgin mary in the middle of it

mary made of the same opaque glass as the light angel

a documentary about the women who lived in the pink virgin mary house, as well as a youth group

a map of a beach area where mary was born

a metal helmet with little wings

dark black scribble drawings in my old puppy notebook

a drawing about something having to do with protecting the precious innocence of a child

a meth pipe with meth in it

a magnifying glass

a green backpack that belonged to my different dream parents, full of old photographs

golden tooth/gums dog implants

silver paw print dog tag

yellow greyhound bus tickets from savannah, georgia to west virginia

dried chunk of ramen noodles

a handful of clear dog teeth

a bag of blood to drink

my red axe, that i bestowed upon an ally

the blue manatee towel from my childhood

a thing that looked like a bowling pin but it was a “clown drink” and spawned in random places

holographic religious picture in my wallet

alcohol bottles at the store to smash

my clover ring (it’s “lost”)

blue toy unicorns, severed doll heads, naked barbies

a big heart collage figurine thing that my aunt created for me, with a bible verse, a glued picture of me when i was a child on green sea glass, a framed heart photo of my little cousin, a crying fairy angel figurine on top, a candle, and a figurine of st. francis crying, kneeling. it was stuck together with this movable white glue so it would come apart, but it was together.

these book pages that could have paint extracted from them

drawers that could only be opened with passcode

chicken patties that were cooked over and over, dropped in the same places, and eaten

blue ice pops that appeared frozen but were liquid

lemon flavored chips

a letter with evil energy written to me, with thick, scribbly distressed black writing, that said “GET SOME HELP” with a $500 bill, and on the back more unintelligible crayon writing, with 2 names, zesh & halla, and a pumpkin drawing

a shining blue orb in the sky with a mermaid inside, floating down to my grandma’s balcony and created energy

my mom’s teenage ring

a big box of tools

reflective mirror glasses

a screen that “needed repairing”

a dress up game where you could turn a man’s head into the head of a gorilla

2 stacks of childhood photos that i gave to an undeserving person, to look through

an alternate instagram account of someone i knew in middle school where he was dead and it was his memory page

a candid photo of 3 people i knew in middle school

donny’s white truck that i messed up somehow by turning the wheels on gravel

a huge container full of yellow pacifiers

a piece of paper that someone wrote “angel” on

a pink key and a red key

a huge stack of hay that could kill people by rolling over them

the window of a pool supply store with blue art of angels ascending

money that looked like superman cards

a purple vape with a synthetic marijuana substance (paranoia, hallucinations) called axlaxl

a pink box with feminine personal effects

huge cardboard boxes of fruit, stacked on top of small beer boxes stacked on top of each other

a red toy soldier holding a bazooka (counterpart)

a rainbow jumprope stuck in the dirt attached to roots

a huge yellow goodyear semi truck

a small amount of weed in an old altoids can

my dad’s red box of drill bits

my old purple bike

classic bubble gum

my green converse that had something written on them like “cage the lamb”

my tragic clown statue that and had its porcelain coat turned inside out to be a rodeo vest

a white pair of boxers with burgers, fries and soda pops, and another pair over them, cut and snipped

a golden outdoor christmas display of the virgin mary, joseph and jesus

a gargantuan statue of the virgin mary looking down at the ground, wearing a light blue veil, towering over the church

a mermaid drawing on a whiteboard

a white sheet tied up with a black and pink easter egg inside that could put a fully grown human inside of it

pink, rose shaped bouncy ball that lit up, and once lit it wouldn’t ever stop lighting up, a pumpkin one too

food tickets that could get you rice drowned in vegetable water

orange frog displays in dirt

a designated frog hat that lets the people know who the leader is

“angel water” in green vials

aztec heads in the pool bathroom

huge dead roaches

a box of ham

a cat angel statue

2 cherubs made of clay, had water dumped on them and they melted

tall blue flip flops

a white friday the 13th lighter

a white “the shining” lighter that had “jack” written in blood on a hotel wall

an airline called “popair”

silver hanging nipple rings, a silver chain and half blue, half red pants

severed amusement park parts being taken away in a white van

a box of nails/screws, a big black box

bamboo trees

a big ball of chocolate

my skyrim dragon keychain

a drawing pad with 2 girls kissing

a faucet that soaked everything

a disgusting poem written by my grandpa “lathered in water, a son and a daughter, how exquisite”

a red squishy bear toy

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searchingwardrobes · 4 years

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The Early Leaf’s a Flower: 1/11

I can’t believe this day is finally here! I have worked so hard on this, and I am both nervous and excited to post it. This is a re-write of Someone to Watch Over Me. I changed the title because the focus was no longer on Emma’s “imaginary friend” watching over her, but equally on Emma and Killian and how, when, and why the wardrobe brings them together. There’s also a theme about growing up and loss of innocence, which is why I took the title from one of my favorite poems, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost. For those of you who loved the original fic, I haven’t done away with little!Emma and little!Killy. As a matter of fact, there’s more of it with parts from Killian’s point of view, where the original was just from Emma’s.

The biggest change in this is that I have completely thrown out canon. Emma and Killian are the same age in this, and the plot focuses on Neverland. I had just finished re-reading Barrie’s Peter Pan with my daughter when I started this, so it became a mixture of Once’s Neverland and Barrie’s. I love how that part in particular came out, and I hope you all do as well!

Massive thanks to the mods of the @captainswanbigbang ( @optomisticgirl , @phiralovesloki, @shippingtheswann , and @spartanguard). @optomisticgirl in particular helped beta when my original had to bow out and also encouraged me when I doubted myself (enduring really long pms in the process!) @shippingtheswann, I just don’t have words to express your beta skills in this! Emma and Killian’s relationship as kids would not be what it is without you, for one, and you just overall made me so much better as a writer. @distant-rose, thank you for encouraging me to write Milah the way I envisioned her and helping me create an awesome pirate crew for Killian. And finally, every single one of you in the discord chat for your constant encouragement, advice, and sprinting.

And now I will shut up and get to the fic! Therefore, tags at the end :)

Summary: She saw eyes that were the blue of the forget me not peering at her through the cracked door of the wardrobe. He saw hair as gold as the buttercups. Why does the wardrobe keep bringing them back to one another, if fate keeps tearing them apart? Or maybe fate has her reasons . . .

Rating: M for eventual sexy times, violence, canonical major character death, and attempted rape

Trigger warnings: vague references to child abuse (physical and sexual), violence, and eventual positive Millian

Words: about 3k in this chapter

This fic is complete and will be updated every Monday.

Also on Ao3

Emma: Age 10

Emma’s palms are damp with sweat as they clutch the small duffel in her lap. Another social worker, another foster home. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins had been nice enough, but their biological sons? Emma shudders as she thinks of their sneering taunts and cruel pranks. She loosens her grip on her duffel bag so she can rub her thumb over the birthmark on the inside of her left wrist. Sometimes the flower-shaped mark becomes red and raw from the nervous habit.

Sighing, she watches the scenery go by outside the car window. Emma tries to keep her mind blank, knowing that getting her hopes up will bring nothing but pain. Yet she can’t help the anticipation swirling in her stomach.

The social worker pulls into a modest gravel drive just off the busy highway. The house looks old, and so does the woman who stands on the porch that spreads across the entire front of it.

“That’s Martha,” the social worker tells Emma, “she’s your new foster mother.”

Emma steps out of the car hesitantly, her eyes trained on her feet. Martha tells her hello, but she only mumbles a response. Instead of looking at her new guardian, Emma takes in the front of the house. Dingy white paint covers cracked shingles, the banister lining the porch is broken in places, and the red brick steps are crumbling at the corners. Emma doesn’t really care about any of that, however. Not when brilliant blooms crowd the ground beside the steps and in front of the banister. Emma reaches her hand out tentatively to feel the soft, blue petals.

“Those are forget-me-nots,” Martha tells her, “they’re my favorite flower.”

“The blue is so bright,” Emma says shyly.

“Aren’t they?” Martha leans down closer to Emma, chuckling as her knees crack. “Despite these old bones of mine, I tend these flowers carefully. Want to know why?”

For the first time, Emma looks directly at Martha, and the woman’s kind hazel eyes put her at ease. She nods silently.

“My Alfred, God rest his soul, gave me a bouquet of these before he left for Korea many, many years ago. Forget me not, Martha.”

The woman chuckles, and Emma tries out a tiny smile. “And you didn’t?”

“No,” Martha says, as she rises, extending a hand to Emma, “and he came home to me. We raised two kids in this old house, and now that he’s gone and my children have moved away, I get a bit lonely. I’d like us to keep each other company, Emma, if you want.”

Blinking in surprise, Emma looks at Martha’s hand, then at her face. She’s never had a foster parent or social worker ask her what she wanted. The question gives her the courage to take Martha’s hand.

Emma examines the woman as she takes her inside and shows her around the house. Martha looks to be in her seventies with brittle gray hair and deep wrinkles. Yet her smile is kind, and her hands are soft as they gently give her slim shoulders a squeeze. The house is at least a hundred years old with cracked, peeling paint, and scuffed hardwood floors. A monstrous, black pot-bellied stove radiates heat from the corner of the main room. Like most old houses, one room leads into the next, and Martha gently steers her through the doorway next to the stove. She tells her this will be the room she shares with Lindsey, the sullen teenager with a permanent scowl on her face. Emma looks around, taking it all in through her wide jaded eyes. There’s a fireplace in this room, but it’s bricked up. A small space heater instead runs in the corner of the room. Martha tells her this used to be the dining room, and a set of French doors line one wall. A long, low piece of furniture sits in front of it to block the door, but through the beveled glass, Emma can see the foyer and the front door that she knows leads out to a massive front porch complete with a swing.

Martha shows Emma her bed, and she’s surprised to find that she gets the larger one. A massive double bed of thick, dark wood with tall posts. Lindsay’s twin bed, just a simple metal frame and mattress sits in front of the room’s one window.

“Lindsay couldn’t sleep in that huge bed, so I got her that cot,” Martha explains with a shrug. She sets Emma’s bag beside the bed and then pulls a small step stool from beneath it. “This thing is so high off the ground, you’ll have to use this to get in. It’s a very old bed.”

Emma eyes the stool and tries to hide how pleased she is with the bed. It’s ornate and obviously an antique. It’s like something out of a movie. She’ll feel like a princess sleeping in that bed. All her life, she’s wanted more than the cots or metal twin beds she usually gets in foster homes. She flings her duffel right on top, lest this Lindsay change her mind and steal the bed away.

But the best thing of all is the wide space between the bed and the hardwood floor. No monsters can lurk there. In this bed, in this room, with Martha who tends flowers despite her creaking bones, maybe she’ll finally feel safe.

*****************************************************

Martha wears a faded house dress covered in tiny blue flowers and blue terry-cloth house shoes on her feet. She dons an apron to make supper, and Emma thinks of old black and white TV shows. Maybe this place won’t be so bad. Maybe Martha will one day tell her, “I love you, please stay. And why don’t you call me grandma?”

Emma tries to push that fantasy aside. If it doesn’t come true, she’ll be disappointed. Again. Martha asks if she wants to help with supper, and she eagerly agrees. Martha lets her pour the macaroni noodles into the boiling water on the stove, warning her to go slowly so she doesn’t burn herself. She then lets Emma stir the noodles so they won’t stick together while she expertly chops an onion into tiny pieces.

“These are the chicken pot pies,” she explains next, handing Emma a fork. She shows Emma how to slowly poke the fork into the crust to make each family member’s initials. Emma grins as she presses the fork into hers, then turns the fork sideways to make three more straight lines. “E” for Emma.

Martha’s kitchen table is of chipped formica that was probably once a bright blue but is now faded. The metal chairs with matching blue leather seats are like something out of the 1950s. Emma sits at the table with Martha and the other foster children the woman has taken in. Besides Lindsay and Emma, there’s also a little boy named Tyler with wide eyes and a sad, fearful face. His parents and sister were killed in a car accident, and he’s only here temporarily while his aunt and grandparents argue over who gets to keep him. Emma has a hard time imagining family, much less one who will want you so badly they would fight about it.

Martha hands Tyler a little plastic box shaped like a loaf of bread. She tells him to take out a card and pass it around the table. On each is a Bible verse, and they can’t eat until they’ve each read one. Lindsay rolls her eyes but does as Martha asks anyway.

Emma’s verse reads, “When my father and my mother forsake me; then the Lord will take me up.”

Martha takes a surprising interest in hearing about each child’s day. Lindsay’s eye rolling, Tyler’s quiet sadness, and Emma’s nervousness doesn’t phase the woman at all. After the meal, everyone helps clear the table and do the dishes. It’s a small kitchen, and several times Martha bumps softly into Emma or brushes against her. Each time, the woman laughs and gives her a tentative side hug. When she does, the elderly woman’s scent washes over Emma. It’s a distinctive smell that Emma can’t quite place, but it’s comforting and makes Emma want to bury herself in a bear hug with the woman. However, she refrains. She can’t seem too eager; it might scare Martha and then she won’t want to keep her.

The bathroom in this house is in an odd place: off the kitchen. When Emma goes to brush her teeth, she sees two jars on the pedestal sink. Inside one is a pinkish cold cream, and in the other is powder with a fat, fluffy puff resting on top. Emma lifts both to her nose and sniffs deeply. Yes, the combination of the two. That’s Martha’s scent. Emma eyes the makeup puff as she screws the top back on the cream. She simply can’t resist it, she lifts the puff and starts patting the powder onto her face. She starts and almost drops the puff when Martha suddenly steps into the room. Emma wilts. This will be her shortest stay at a foster home ever. A new record. She waits silently, heart pounding, for the yelling, frustration, and inevitable punishment.

But a smile simply deepens the crows feet around Martha’s eyes as she chuckles softly. She wets a washcloth and swipes it across Emma’s face.

“This pretty face doesn’t need makeup,” she tells her with a sparkle in her eye. “Of course,” she continues, “pretty is as pretty does.”

Emma cocks her head to one side and wrinkles her forehead, “What does that mean?”

Martha pats Emma’s cheek gently, “It means our hearts are what make us truly beautiful. The way we treat people and the things we do are far more important than what we look like.”

Relief washes through Emma when it sinks in that the woman isn’t going to punish her or even yell. Lessons on true beauty aren’t exactly what Emma is used to in a foster home, and she’s not quite sure how to accept it. Martha helps her off the stool, then takes her hand. She leads her to her room, tucks her in, and says a short prayer. Emma bites her bottom lip, wanting so badly to request a hug, but afraid to do so.

“Could I give you a hug and kiss good night?” Martha asks, and Emma thinks that the old woman looks just as nervous as Emma asking.

Emma beams and pulls her arms out from under the covers. The woman gives her a good, firm hug. Over her shoulder, Emma notices for the first time a large, ornate piece of furniture in the corner. There are a large set of doors in the top half, and two drawers on the bottom.

“What is that?” Emma asks in a shaky voice, pointing, when Martha releases her from the hug.

“It’s a wardrobe,” the woman explains, as she tucks the blankets back around Emma. “Old houses didn’t have closets, so people put their clothes in those.”

Emma says nothing as Martha brushes a kiss to her forehead and tells her goodnight, but she eyes the wardrobe warily. It’s the perfect place for monsters. She squeezes her eyes shut as Martha brushes her hair back from her face. Emma tries to tell herself that the boys at the last place were probably making things up. There’s no such thing as monsters . . . right? Yet she can’t forget the panic that had clawed at her when she was locked in that dark room . . .

“Sleepy, huh?” Martha chuckles, tucking her hair behind her ear. Emma lets her believe she is, waiting to open her eyes after the woman is gone.

A few minutes later, Lindsay comes in, rubbing her wet hair with a towel. Instead of pajamas, she’s dressed in tight jeans and a skimpy tank top. Emma sits up in bed and watches curiously as the teenager slips into a pair of boots.

“What are you doing?” Emma asks as Lindsay slowly and quietly opens the window.

“None of your business, kid,” she snaps, tossing a backpack out the open window. “Just don’t snitch. Got that?”

Emma nods as she pulls the blanket to her chest. Why should she care what Lindsay does? The teenager disappears out the window, and Emma falls back against the mattress with a sigh. She can’t remember the last time she had a room all to herself, and it makes her a little nervous.

She eyes the wardrobe warily, sitting up in bed and scrambling back against the headboard. She clutches the handmade quilt Martha had tucked around her in sweaty fists. Did it just creak open a little? She squints in the dark. Through the open slit of the wardrobe, she swears she sees a pair of bright blue eyes, the color of the forget me nots in Martha’s yard, looking at her. She gasps and throws the covers over her head. She counts to twenty slowly, squeezing her eyes shut. The wardrobe door makes another long, rusty sound. After another count to twenty, she slowly eases her head out of the covers.

The wardrobe door is shut tight.

Killian: Age 10

The sea is calm as glass, the air still and stifling. The sailors are antsy and on-edge, praying to every deity for wind. Rowers are sent to the galley every day to make some headway, and it’s exhausting work. Killian isn’t big or strong enough at just ten years of age, but Liam, at twelve, is. The elder Jones collapses into his bunk each night with sore arms and blistered hands. Killian prays the wind comes soon so he can have his brother back.

Perhaps his absence is why Killian’s mind is so distracted lately with thoughts of ginger curls and hazel eyes. His mother’s touch was always so gentle, her voice soft and lilting, her smile and eyes bright. He remembers her being sick; her eyes losing some of their brightness, and her laughter coming less often. But she still smiled. She still held him whenever he crawled into her sick bed. She still kissed him with her soft lips.

Killian remembers she would sing, too, with that lilting voice that was so different from his father’s deep, critical one. Every night, he was lulled to sleep by her lullabies. He begins to sing one now as he knots rope.

She stepped away from me

And she moved through the Fair

And fondly I watched her

Move here and move there

And she went her way homeward

With one star awake

As the swans in the evening

Move over the lake

Killian jumps as an empty bottle of rum shatters against the railing to his right.

“Shut up, boy, and get back to work!”

But to Killian’s surprise, the other sailors yell at the first to leave him alone. The lullaby reminds them of home, they say, so let the boy sing. And sing he does, passing the long, weary, windless days. The sailors who normally terrorize him are lulled by the bright, clear voice that only a child can possess. It changes the morale of the crew to such an extent, that the captain even sends him below to encourage the rowers with his songs. That is the best development of all, for now he’s near his brother; the only family he has.

A few nights later, Killian Jones can’t seem to get comfortable in his hammock. The ship creaks and sways, men snore loudly all around him, and the air smells, clogging his nose and making him gag. Nevertheless, his days are so brutally exhausting that sleep comes swiftly. Even last week when he was forced to sleep on his stomach because of the bloody lashes criss-crossing his back, sleep had claimed him easily.

But not tonight.

He shifts again, his hammock swinging with the motion. In his new position, he sees something in the hold that is completely out of place: a large, wooden wardrobe. No one would keep such a nice piece of furniture in the damp, dark hold. Killian furrows his brow in confusion - the large, bulky thing isn’t even moving an inch as the ship sways, which should be impossible, and it surely wasn’t there when he first went to bed.

“Liam, Li-am!” he whispers, poking at the hammock above him. Liam just mumbles in his sleep, something partially intelligible along the lines of leave me alone, Killy. Exasperated, Killian huffs and swings his scrawny legs over the edge of his hammock. He moves silently and cautiously across the wet wooden boards, his hand trembling as he reaches up to grasp the knob on the door of the wardrobe. He opens it a crack and gasps when he hears voices, female voices, on the other side. He glances behind him, but when he sees that no one else is awake, he crawls up inside the wardrobe. It is deeper than he expected it to be, and instead of a back, there is another set of doors. Killian is comforted to still see the ship’s hold through the open door he just crawled through, so he turns back around and pushes slowly on the second set of doors, opening them only a little.

He sees a bedroom, lit with soft light from a bedside lamp. A little girl about his age, with blonde hair the color of buttercups is being tucked into bed by a soft, wrinkled old woman with a gentle smile. Killian watches, fascinated, as the woman asks for a hug. He’s been surrounded by nothing but rough, loud men for so long, that he yearns to receive a hug for himself from someone so soft and warm. The little girl smiles as the woman embraces her, her eyes shut tight as she relishes the hug. But then her eyes, the color of seafoam, open and he quickly shuts the wardrobe as quietly as he can. His heart pounds in his chest as he hears the little girl ask the woman – her grandmother? – about the large piece of furniture. The girl’s voice wobbles as if she’s frightened, and Killian hopes she didn’t see him.

He thinks that maybe he should go back to his hammock, but he can’t get those sea green eyes out of his mind, nor the way the girl’s hair had shimmered like gold from the lamplight. He’s never thought long on any lass, or found any of them pretty. Most women he sees on his occasional stops in port are loud, brazen, and considerably older. This one, however, is different. She’s his age, for one, and there’s a softness about her that he hasn’t known since his mother was living. So finally, he musters up the courage to open the door a crack once more. This time, those green eyes lock on his, and the girl gasps and dives under the covers. He frowns as he pulls the door shut once more. He hadn’t meant to frighten her.

The next morning, he thinks he’ll talk to Liam about the wardrobe and the little girl on the other side. But when his brother teasingly upends his hammock, depositing him unceremoniously upon the floor, Killian rolls over to find the wardrobe is gone.

tagging: @snowbellewells @whimsicallyenchantedrose @kmomof4 @teamhook @bethacaciakay @let-it-raines @welllpthisishappening @wellhellotragic @courtorderedcake @xhookswenchx @vvbooklady1256 @profdanglaisstuff @carpedzem @ekr032-blog-blog @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @kday426 @ultraluckycatnd @lfh1226-linda @sherlockianwhovian @shireness-says @superchocovian @scientificapricot @tiganasummertree @delirious-latenight-laughs @ohmakemeahercules @branlovestowrite @snidgetsafan @thislassishooked @ilovemesomekillianjones @jennjenn615 @nikkiemms

#cs ff #csrt #captain swan rewrite a thon #cs canon divergence #cs neverland au #childhood sweethearts #angst #soul mates #magic wardrobes #little!emma #little!killy

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rkevent · 5 years

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MGA SEASON 5: THE GRAND FINALE STARTS NOW!

It’s the start of the end. After nearly two months of airing, the grand finale has finally arrived. At the start, there were 100 hopefuls, and now only 20 of the best contestants remain and fight for the title of winner. Only one group may take on that title and now it is time to see what they have to show us for it. The episode starts live at 9pm sharp and as the audience cheers live, so do the people at home.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the grand finale of the Mnet Global Auditions Season 5!” It’s the assigned MC, Hong Jinwoo, who greets the public and, in return, they all cheer in excitement. “It’s been a long road here, but we got to learn a lot and see a lot during it. Many left us along the way, but they also left their impression in everyone’s hearts at home. Tonight, our 20 finalists will have to give their best and show what they got to be called the very best. Before starting, let us please greet our lovely judges!”

The man points over to the five chairs filled with known faces. With each name he mentions, the judge stands and greets the public around them. “Nova Entertainment’s CEO Hyun Bin! Royal Entertainment’s CEO So Jisub! KT Entertainment’s CEO, Katie Lee! TRC Entertainment’s CEO Tiger JK! And Sphere Entertainment’s CEO, Baek Jiyoung!” Beautiful text appears below their image to introduce themselves to whoever was watching, but these are figures anyone tuned in should already know.

“All of our finalists worked very hard during this week,” the MC continues. “Before they get on the stage, why don’t we show you what they were up to during practice? Check it out!” The man points to the camera and, while the images appear on the big screen on the stage for those watching there, the same scenes show on everyone’s TV screens at home.

It’s the same order people are used to. The building on the screen is that of Sphere Entertainment. Inside, there are only four contestants. It’s only them are the three coaches and… cupcakes. “It’s Jinwook’s birthday!” Jinki says as they each grab a cupcake for themselves and when the camera zooms on the birthday boy, candles fly around his head. But there isn’t much time for commemoration. Instead of jumping into an impromptu ‘Happy Birthday to You’ performance, KAND DANIEL decides to start things off. “Can I say something?” He asks, and his teammates allow him to.

“It’s about last round, and what the judges said.” A quick flashback shows their previous performance and a few of Tiger JK’s words to them. “We believed yours took a step away from what is normally thought of when people think of Sphere. You didn’t give us much more than what already came with the song.” The CEO says before it returns to the practice room. “Truthfully, I agreed with everything they said, and I worried about it all before performance day, too. I should’ve spoken up about it before, so I wanted to apologize for that.” DANIEL continues with a cupcake in hand. “It was my direction that put my trio team in danger and sent my teammate home, and I didn’t want that to be the case again. I want to do better this time!”

“I know I mentioned it last week, but what about a mashup?” His crowd doesn’t look too appeased, but the boy continues on. “Hear me out, okay! We can choose two songs with easier dances because I think everyone but WOOJIN will struggle learning two dances.” Jinwook cuts him off. “There’s something I’ve been working on, actually. We can use that so we already have a head start and don’t have to dedicate so much time to it if everyone wants?” With a newly found light, people finally seem to agree. “Yeah! That would be really cool!” DANIEL says. “It fits the Sphere concept if it was a Sphere idol that made it, right?”

From his corner, WOOJIN shoots them a question. “What are we going to do about choreography?” After a small pause, DANIEL suggests something. “It would be cool if we could include elements of choreography from the other dances too.” The dancer doesn’t look too convinced by his words. “Maybe, if you can learn the dances fast enough.” On the other side, JUHO speaks up. “DANIEL, we can learn the choreography together once WOOJIN has sorted out the parts. It might help things move faster if we can both help each other during the process.” With everything decided, the team gets to work.

While the team gets to work on sorting parts, WOOJIN steps off to learn the choreographies, as he had done in the weeks before. The rest of the team joins him later on and they all dance along to different songs, but the mashup itself is saved to be played only on their grand stage.

“To show what they prepared,” the MC appears on the stage and the quiet silence from the practice room changes into the cheering of the live audience, “please welcome our Team Hollywood!” The first four finalists make their way to the stage: KANG DANIEL, MIYAWAKI SAKURA, BAEK JUHO, and PARK WOOJIN. They stand there for a moment wearing brightly colored sunglasses. The stage is properly decorated with tropical vibes including blow-up palm trees.

They take off their glasses and put them in their pockets before the instrumental starts to play. It’s WOOJIN who starts singing the first lyrics, followed by DANIEL. With a mashup, it also allowed for him to intercalate his lines while JUHO sings the one from a different song. It’s SAKURA who comes in next to introduce yet another song, all tied in together. While he had already sung before, DANIEL also raps along with SAKURA. WOOJIN takes over the final dancer center and then the other members slowly sing the last few lines from DANIEL to JUHO, and then SAKURA. They hold their pose for a moment before reaching for their sunglasses, then putting them all back on in unison, turning and strutting back stage.

The camera moves into Nova’s practice room as the coaches are about to give their feedback following the last episode’s results. Sunmi is the first to talk as she scribbles on her notepad.“Okay, so not only where you guys clocked for the ambitious choreography it was also subpar of expectations. now not only do we need to meet expectations but we have to exceed them.” And despite ranking fifth last episode, instead of looking gloomy, the group seems determined to show they could be more impactful and do much better during the finals. After some time brainstorming, they decide to go with an angel and demon concept for their Nova performance. They settle for a remade version of Paradise Lost mixed with B.A.P’s 1004 hoping to highlight their strengths and choose to add an intro to develop a story. While it looks challenging to find a good way to make it all work, they can count with the coaches’ insights and experience. Sunmi helps with the skit and suggests choreography aspects, Sungyeol provides extra ideas for stage setups and effect and Seungwan mixes the song with her own flair to make it stand out.

During one of the practice sessions of 1004, YEWON pulls KENTA aside and apologizes to him. “I’m sorry too, that we didn’t do well. I don’t think there’s much we could’ve done better except gone for a different song, but… still. And I can understand why you were frustrated with me last week, but I hope you’ve changed your mind since!” He says. “I’m glad you get to have a bigger role in both of our songs. You’re too talented not to shine as much as you can on our last stage.” With this, they return to practice and the honest conversation proves to be a good remedy to improve their teamwork. With only two vocalists now, Seungwan continues sharing her expertise with JACKSON and KENTA, giving exercises and tips. “When practicing high notes, remember to use sounds that go outward. Ah!” She demonstrates as she gestures for them to repeat after her. "You may laugh, but that’s actually a good sound to make.” She smiles. “You can practice by being angry with me. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.” After some sessions, KENTA seems to project his voice better.

The contestants continue to receive the coaches' advice through the week and CHANGBIN approaches Seungwan to revise the lyrics he wrote. After studying it for a second, the coach informs she's going to consult some friends. It’s And*roma’s CHAEYOUNG who answers the phone and tells the boy to go over the rap so she could hear it, giving positive feedback to him. On the other hand, coach Sunmi doesn’t seem happy with their song choices when she returns to check their progress. “I’ve looked over everything and was filled in on your ideas and reasons behind them but I just wanted to let you guys know I feel like your first choice for Nova isn’t really a Nova song at all.” She says, but it seems too late to make drastic changes. Although disagreeing with their choices, the coach still helps to choreograph the dance opening, making good use of the skillsets of the members so that the dance wasn’t too difficult and more creative.

An ominous instrumental starts and YEWON, KENTA and CHANGBIN are seen kneeling on stage with bibles open in their hands. They mouth something as if they were reciting hymns and keep a blank expression on their faces. Is JACKSON who appears behind them with a sinister look on his face and takes off his cloak before their song starts. KENTA also throws his cloak and Bible off to the side and reveals his all-black outfit before he gets center-stage and does a solo dance that looked like he was playing piano, the expression still strong. The other two left behind throw aside their Bibles and cloaks, then get into formation and JACKSON sings the first verse. KENTA shows his vocals and the group manages to keep up with the choreography. CHANGBIN opens the rap portion following the chorus, letting YEWON shine with her powerful rap before returning to showing what he was known for. JACKSON’s high notes create more impact when they sing the chorus again and church bells can be heard, the red fog becoming red as they transition to another song. The instrumentals give off a different vibe as YEWON dances. The whole stage lights up as KENTA sings and they lift the girl up. Another dance break is performed by the dancers, followed by rap and then high notes in the background. Toward the end, CHANGBIN and KENTA take off their black tops and reveal white clothes underneath. The instrumental ends the performance and fades out beautifully.

The camera zooms and the scene changes to the designated practice room inside TRC. With only four of them now, their spirits seem shaken as they gather for the first time to talk about their plans for the final. “Well, I was disappointed of course.” LEE CHAERYEONG says during her interview when asked about the results last week. “It hurt a bit. Is it bad that I took the words the judges said personally?” KANG HYUNGGU admits. However, the group looks determined to show a better side of themselves to the public and discuss different ideas they would like to incorporate into the performance. Coach Jinsoul points out they should keep their strengths in mind as they share their thoughts, and CHOI MINHO presents a rough copy of a mashup he’d had before to the others. There are disagreements about whether they should do it or not, but in the end, they agree with a mashup for TRC stage. Once again, they decide to join forces and work on the choreography together. Another clip of HYUNGGU’s interview appears again. “We’ll prove to you that we’re not boring this week, judges.” The boy says with a serious expression.

Even when there’s visible progress, it’s Doyeon who notices something different in MINHO and approaches him later. The boy opens up about the loss of contestants that became friends and his current situation. “I know people are tired of hearing about it, yeah? That I’ve been on the show before… but it’s different this time. The pressure’s different. The stages are different. The people— I didn’t lose this many friends last time. Seeing ‘em get eliminated, it’s…” He tells her and the coach gives her piece of advice before joining the other coaches again and letting the male focus on practice. The coaches continue to give them some pointers through the day, especially on singing and stage presence. "Doyeon and Jinsoul did their best to guide our singing. They checked on us, kept our spirits up, but made sure to give us constructive criticism. The three of our coaches were so supportive and I think everyone needs that. Being on the MGAs or not.” MINHO tells the interviewer. HWANG YEJI is the next to share her thoughts on them. “Jinsoul was really very helpful and motivating when it came to my singing? She gave me such good advice and upped my confidence a lot. Doyeon was also very nice and helpful, she’s also so pretty, i’m shocked. Then SANA as well, I am really grateful to all their advice these two weeks.”

More scenes of their practice time are highlighted, showing them tweaking and making adjustments for the choreography and lyrics. On Sunday, YEJI storms out of the practice room without explanation and surprisingly returns with food for everyone. “Is anyone hungry?” She asks and the team shares Korean BBQ to get some energy for the next round of practice. CHAERYEONG appears practicing her facial expressions after getting a few tips from the coaches. HYUNGGU brings another round of energy drinks and snacks as they discuss how to make the performance stand out, throwing more ideas for the stage and team name. “Lucifer,” HYUNGGU suggests once the concept of angels vs. demons comes up, but they settle with Sirius. "I think our creativity is overflowing this week and you’ll want more. I think we’ll get another episode then?” MINHO says shares in the middle of the week. “I personally think it looks promising. The song choices are more ambitious and interesting and their ideas are definitely bolder than what they prepared last week, so it has potential to impress the audience and the judges.” Doyeon gives her opinion. On the other hand, Jinsoul shares her concerns. “Honestly, I was worried about the song choice. There aren’t so many singers in our team, and since we had Nova as our other concept well… you know how their dancers are, but MINHO has a great tone when he’s singing, and they put together really interesting performances with a theme and a storyline and everything, so I think it’ll be good.”

The video comes to an end and the audience warmly welcomes the following group with louder cheers as they make their way to the stage. The girls are wearing elegant flowy white shirts and angel wings while the boys show a different side with their black and red suits, a glimpse of the concept they chose for the stage. “Shining bright!” HYUNGGU calls out and they all shout “We are Sirius!” in unison. After they’re done with introductions, they move to take their places. The lights dim and the stage is completely black, building the expectation for what’s coming.

When the beat starts playing, spotlights reveal the four sitting on contrasting sides of the stage in thrones. The left side is more ethereal while the right one shows the opposite vibe. White feathers trail behind the girls as they stand to walk to the center and black ones are left on the ground where the boy once was. When they meet center-stage, pyrotechnics are added and YEJI starts the song with clear vocals. As they dance and sing, the group also tells a story of demons trying to make the angels fall for them, a constant push and pull. HYUNGGU steps forward during his part, along with MINHO, as they offer roses to the girls, but they toss them aside. They showcase a self-choreographed routine and CHAERYEONG continues to prove she’s also a talented rapper. Who surprises is MINHO, singing the verse and showing a set of moves from MYNAME’s Paradise. The feathers, the red apple, the interactions, and facial expressions support the story they’re telling as the song progresses. YEJI sings the chorus and HYUNGGU is responsible for the adlibs, flames flaring up with each mention of fire and creating an intense atmosphere on stage. MINHO returns with a rap portion. Leading to the end of the performance, HYUNGGU sings and the boys reveal their intentions and replace the flower crowns the girls had for one with black roses. It’s MINHO who’s in charge of the last line.

Another company appears on the screen, this time it is KT. The four contestants sit together in the room and YUKHEI hands each girl a cup of coffee. The mood is clearly more subdued this time as things all turn towards the end. At least they appear focused on the mission and choose a song quickly. They’ll follow the story they started the previous week. SIA suggests the storyline and the rest help add onto it. NAKYUNG gives the idea of making the stage look like a secret hideout, YUKHEI adds the idea of using a couch and YURI of decorating the area with chain-link fences.

They still struggle a bit with some other sorts of details. A team name doesn’t come as easily so they decide to call for some help. The screen shows scenes of Eclipse of the KTWorld Concert, and the text below it says that the idol coaches couldn’t stop for help due to their schedules. Back in the practice room, the contestants are all crowded around SIA as she holds onto her phone in front of her face. They all sport their best begging faces and puppy eyes. On the other side of the line comes the voice of Minji who is illustrated by a picture of herself on the bottom of the screen.

As a savior, the idol suggests ‘Black Widow’ as the name for their group, and they all appear to agree with it. They all say their goodbyes and it shows the end of the day. On the morning after, YURI gets there the earliest. She has a number of cupcakes in front of her as well as some coffee orders beside her. SIA arrives after her, and YURI shouts out. “Happy birthday, SIA-unnie! I hope you enjoy it— I made the cupcakes fresh and frosted it, piped everything myself. But it was worth it for you!” The birthday girl looks surprised. “I- I didn’t realize you knew it was my birthday,” she admits. “You’re too good to me, you know that, YURI?” They hug each other before the screen changes back to the stage.

“And now,” the MC says, “let’s welcome our KT group, Black Widow!” The four make their way to the center before doing their group greeting. NAKYUNG is the one to start it. “When cupid fails, we are-” and then all the girls point their hands as finger guns at YUKHEI and he puts his hands up in a surrender pose “Black Widow.” Once they’re done with their individual introductions, they move over to their starting positions. Before any song can start, the stage goes dark.

A clip of their performance last week plays on the screen behind them showing all five of the original members. When the song dies off, JIEQIONG’s voice, the contestant eliminated last week, says “The story isn’t over.” From then, their song of the week starts to play. YURI starts by vocalizing over the instrumental, followed by a few lines from YUKHEI. SIA is the one who takes the actual first verse. The dance is a bit demanding to those not exactly trained in dancing, but they keep up. When it gets to the bridge, they repeat the same movement from their introduction, but this time with YURI singing in the middle. Before the song can pick back up again, NAKYUNG comes out with the highlighted short rap. They all turn their backs in the end and walk away.

The final place appears on the screen: Royal Entertainment. The last four finalists are sitting together trying to come up with ideas when the door opens and their coach, Cheri, appears with an ice cream cake in her hands. SUWOONG hurries over to help her with a smile. The smile quickly disappears when the cake tips over and falls to the ground. KYUNGSOO stretches his arms but stands too far to reach, HEEJIN and YOUNGJAE freeze in shock. Suddenly, Ella and Wonwoo walk in with a new cake and the contestants sport a new expression of shock.

They dig into their second cake, commemorating their win from the previous week. Despite the delicious lunch, the finalists are soon put to the test. To prepare themselves for their performance, Ella insists that they must practice their squats. Cheri instead suggests they should harmonize while doing squats to make sure they’ll be completely prepared when on the stage. The four proceed to do as they’re told, sweating while trying to sing. Once they’re done, SUWOONG throws himself on the ground. “Coach Ella just wants to see us suffer, doesn’t she?”

However, on the following day, SUWOONG is the one dragging KYUNGSOO behind the door on a sprint. “Quick, hide! I think that’s Cheri’s footsteps… shh!” They wait quietly, but the one who walks in is HEEJIN. He quickly recruits the girl to join them and soon there are three people trying to hide behind a door. “We’re going to get them back,” SUWOONG says “You do know you’re not exactly quiet, even when you try to be, right?” HEEJIN says, but they continue with the plan. When the door opens again, they shout a loud “Boo!” The one coming in is YOUNGJAE, who lets out a loud shriek while retreating to a corner of the room. “Don’t do that!” He whines while hitting SUWOONG’s chest. Soon, the boy is recruited as well, and the four of them wait for their coaches to arrive.

When the door opens again, they all shout once more. Both Ella and Cheri squeak. SUWOONG is laughing away while KYUNGSOO and YOUNGJAE walk over to check if the two are doing well. They apologize constantly afterward and then get back to practice. They are shown back doing squats, and maybe they feel some regret from pranking the coaches back. With this, the show is back live on the stage. The MC smiles at the camera before speaking. “Representing Royal, welcome the Royal Flush!” The contestants walk over to the center and start to introduce themselves. “We are Royal Flush!” They greet before bowing with unison. They introduce themselves individually before getting into their positions.

They’re either seated or lying down. The stage is decorated with beautiful flower sets and the camera zooms in on those before the song starts. KYUNGSOO is the first to sing, followed by SUWOONG. They go over their squat choreography as they had so intensely practiced before YOUNGJAE takes it away with their lines. HEEJIN is the one who delivers the high note, as expected from the chosen best singer on the early episodes. They all shout together and confetti shoots out from above them. With their final pose, the confetti continues to fall as if they were white petals, ending their stage.

It takes a few moments with them standing on their place before the camera moves to someone else, the MC. “Weren’t those some great performances?” The crowd cheers loudly. “Which one was your favorite?” They all shout different names, but it’s tough to point anything out with 3000 people present. “Well, but that wasn’t the end quite yet! Today, to make this finale special, the groups prepared two performances, each with a different concept. Would you like to know which ones they were assigned?” The audience replies with a loud ‘yes!’ and the man chuckles. “We’ll gladly show you… after the commercials! Don’t change your channel we’ll be right back!”

#rkmga5 #rkmga5finale

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zeroxmi-blog · 5 years

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circa fragmented: i.

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑, a solo detailing a memory that shaped him, featuring vice.

the stench of formaldehyde on his body was lacquered circa fourteen, when he first stepped into the foreign country. when he first spoke in accented english. the man that welcomed him with a smile introduced himself as vice second, his uncle first. vice, the name that had echoed in jongin’s own house for quite a while, pressuring him into dabbling in this world dirtied with catastrophic intents. every man had to look over his shoulder, for a time of weakness would cost them their lives. in this case, however, jongin was promised safety beyond measures as long as he followed what was said.

orders, later he’d learn; they were more than just spoken words, more like urban bible verses that cluttered his mind with each punch, each kick, each throw, each shot. in this version of life, he did not get to relish in a life defined by normalcy. there was no such a thing for a boy whose fingers were stained black, submerged in the meaning of ‘drowning’. he sank into these seas of men with crooked smiles too well, his apathy growing day by day. say, in this world, a boy isn’t a boy when he’s not running for his life. and that’s what he did, running from all the metaphorical and physical gunshots. he bloomed in this, instincts for survival flaring. there was no point of return once he let this world swallow him whole. didn’t try swimming, sprinting anymore.

vice has always been kinder, a father figure that he thought he’d never have in his life. misguidance was just another title to a boyhood that had been shredded to nothing to begin with. he couldn’t have grown up with another life even if he’d tried; in this memento, he was branded as crippled psychologically when he first stepped into this world. all that vice did was amplifying what had been there. there was nothing wrong with it.

turned into a weapon, there was no remorse coming from a boy with fractured psyche. innocence stripped since the day appa laid a hand on him, he was brandished in secrecies. the jack of all trades that learned how to ace each mission given, he was an asset for the syndicate. he was ashes of a person, bound by invisible rules that corrupted the veins of this mapped city. and as time rippled in his veins, it also abraded him: he became a shell devoid of real emotions, ennui washing him abound.

and that was how vice trained him: through trial welts, scorched marks. life was an abundance of fights, in and out of that underground training room he knew so well it felt like looking at the back of his hand. you see, this is how to slit a throat with a knife; how to choke the neck with a garrote. how to shoot in a short and long distance. point blank. then there were hours and hours squandered in front of the screen, trying to decipher all the codes. elongated nights that repressed all his worries, turning them into strengths instead.

how do you create a weapon out of a child? create monsters. burn bridges. kill conscience.

he thinks that he knows where everything began: vice brought him to a crime scene. it was 2:03am when he looked at the digital room that reeked of fears. he recalls this vividly, how the interrogation turned more into the torture, how the torture turned more into the massacre. and it went into a circle, how vice looked at him straight in the eye, telling him tacitly that it was how it should be done. leave the crime scene clean, but not without drawing blood. carve a hole deep enough for you to take pride in.

he’s an aftermath of incised thoughts, feelings mere memories of what could’ve been. after all the atrophy comes a man that feels nothing, sees everything.

word count: six hundred and fifty one words.

#𝐕𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐄𝐘𝐄: thr.#𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐓𝐇 𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍: pts.#tw violence #tw child abuse #tw body horror #tw manipulation #tw murder #tw guns #tw torture #𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐒: sol.

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theblacktivity-blog · 7 years

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“DAMN”: A Review.

Over two years after the release of the critically acclaimed and Grammy winning sophomore album “To Pimp a Butterfly”, Kendrick Lamar has done it again with the release of his long awaited follow up “DAMN”. While it has been obvious to many in recent years that Kendrick is not only the future of hip hop but very much its present, his new album also further solidifies him as one of Black America’s most important poetic voices, period. If “To Pimp a Butterfly” was heralded for the melodic way in which issues such as racial inequality, profiling, and depression were tackled with skillful clarity, its sequel can be likened to the way a surgeon after addressing the larger tumor, uses his scalpel with steady precision to cut away at and expose the nuances of its effects. This is to say that whereas “To Pimp a Butterfly” was in many ways more of a ‘what’ album, “DAMN” goes a bit further as Kendrick in fourteen tracks, gives us an exposition into the ‘how’s’ of systemic racism and interpersonal conflict. Themes of fear, self-doubt, isolation, mistrust, fame, and posturing are woven in between cinematic production that has the effect of pulling the “foreign” listener into the matrix of schizophrenia that at times characterizes the emotional toll of the Black experience in America. Like most renowned artist, Kendrick through his willingness to be vulnerable and introspective, portrays with stunning depth the many cruxes at which Black folk stand when attempting to deal with life in a world in which they find themselves the seemingly perpetual “subject”. Even further, this latest album sonically succeeds in framing such matters in a way that has made Kendrick Lamar synonymous with being hailed as the poetic interpreter of Black life, by evoking strong idioms of the blues and classic soul via pin point production. While it is true that most artist and thinkers are products of their time often drawing from that which is available personally and macrocosmically, it is just as true that many still can trace at least some of their theory from a predecessor, however intentional or not. Considering this fact, one could argue that in Kendrick’s “DAMN” is most reminiscent of Richard Wright’s semi-autobiographical narrative “Black Boy”. While the former’s latest work isn’t what one would consider autobiographical in the purest sense, Kendrick does utilize personal innuendo in such a way as to strike a note with the listener who can appreciate Kendrick’s honesty about his own personal battles with identity and social crisis. In this way, “DAMN” cleverly blends the polemical with the intimate. Like Wright, Kendrick is apt at painting a vivid picture as it pertains to the totality of subjugation and the myriad of its absurd effects on not only the body, but the psyche and behavior of the oppressed. In the opening Kendrick goes into a short story in which he speaks of a blind woman who appeared to be looking for something, approaching the woman he say’s “it looks like you lost something and I want to help you find it”. In kind the woman responds, “you have lost something…you’ve lost your life” after which the ominous echo of a gunshot can be heard before the album trails into the first track “DNA”. This intro has a shrewdly symbolic bent, and like most symbols can likely be interpreted in several ways. But, given the socially conscious range of Kendrick’s lyricism, it wouldn’t be a stretch to theorize that Kendrick’s attempt at helping the blind woman (in this case the symbol of justice) find something (finding “her” soul, or conscious maybe?) is somehow a figurative representation of the historic and often thwarted attempts of Black America to do the same for the country at large. Or maybe the shot heard in the intro’s finale illustrates the violence placed upon the body, mind, and spirt at such attempts. In any event, Kendrick leaves a cleverly carved space for which the listener can fill in the intro’s blanks before being ushered into the meat of the album beginning with the aforementioned title track “DNA”.

It is on this track that we are forcefully reminded of what makes him great…his sheer adeptness at shredding a track to pieces with crafty lyrical dexterity. He then goes on to blend that which makes him great with that which makes him and ultimately us, human; “I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA/I got hustle though/ambition flow inside my DNA”. This duality is ultimately a part of the human experience but is particularly acute within the realm of Blackness wherein resides the DuBoisian concept of the double consciousness. It is this concept of being both Black (African) and “American” that has simultaneously served as our biggest psychic burden and has allowed us to adapt creatively to circumstances in such a way as to make improvisation one of the signifying markers of Blackness. Thus, Kendrick acknowledges that not only is it in his DNA but in all of ours through that ever-elusive Black genetic marker known as soul or ‘cool’. The following song entitled “YAH” is a slow-paced track in which the image of an isolated star comes to mind, it’s a near dreamlike state in which one awakes to the amalgams of distorted “advice” and rumors from all sides. Cornered he finds that his proverbial “radars is buzzing” with the white noise so often accompanied with fame, he laments from the outset: “I got so many theories and suspicions/I’m diagnosed with real nigga conditions”. He then harps on the signals he receives in everyone from his mother who thinks he will “work himself to death”, to his girlfriend who reminds him “not to let these hoes get his head”. One gets the feeling that being famous has a way of rendering a person worn at the emotional seams from being pulled in multiple directions in an already fast paced world. And as if that isn’t enough, Kendrick then alludes to FOX News’s misinformed critiques of his lyrics (particularly Geraldo Rivera), this while simultaneously seeking clarity via a renewed sense of identity as a Hebrew Israelite a path suggested by a distant cousin eluded to in recorded phone calls throughout the album. The latter path isn’t one atypical of the African American search for identity as it is well documented about myriad of Black socio-political/religious movements that sprang up during the earlier half of 20th century, many of which adopted a nationalistic posture in defense of community and against injustice. However, Kendrick does offer us a glimpse in to what he considers the silver lining of normalcy in it all, his niece who simply sees him as “Uncle Kendrick”. The ensuing track “ELEMENT” could be best described as a Molotov cocktail of witty lyricism, signature hip hop braggadocio and anxiety. After all he opens by stating: “I’m willing to die for this shit/I done cried for this shit/might take a life for this shit/put the Bible down and go eye for an eye for this shit”. Certainly, no one even vaguely familiar with the lyrical elements and strident nature of hip hop verse wouldn’t consider Kendrick “violent” for such an opening line. Rather it reveals the crossroads that one finds themselves at when coping with the pressures of relatively new found fame and the contradiction between wanting to hold dear to what one has worked so hard for, despite whatever could potentially come about. Such is the nature of success and particularly Black success in America which often tends to be linked to surviving extraordinary circumstances to attain status. Said status achievements are then even more guarded with hubris, and sometimes a paranoid anxiety based in fear and mistrust best summed up by Kendrick with the line: “we ain’t going back to broke/family selling dope”. However, in the hook he dually reminds himself not to be taken out of his element given this fear. “FEEL”, the succeeding track opens in a whisper woven into instrumental through which Kendrick and a female voice can be heard repeatedly saying “ain’t nobody praying for me”. Here he comes off on the production as an embattled MC’s withering internally from the demands and misunderstandings of the world around him. Even mentioning the false sense of security yielded from a celebrity that has compounded many of the life’s difficulties. Kendrick feels intensely, yet these feelings about the toxicity level of a rap world in which he dominates are balanced by his own feelings of confidence about his standing in the hip hop world. It’s a theme that has often been explored in depth with childhood celebrity and in spaces outside of hip hop’s mainstream where it is speculated that the pressure to adapt to life in celebrity has led to many a down fall. Hip hop has often been categorized as distinctly different however given the genre’s braggadocios nature, and it is often assumed that since most rappers from starkly humble beginnings fame and fortune serves as not only an antidote, but as a permanent source of material. Kendrick shatters this myth, while simultaneously acknowledging his new-found wealth and celebrity he also considers what’s happening in the world around him as akin to apocalypse where for everyone else “nothing is awkward”. The legendary Nas once stated, “in the land of the blind the man with one eye is the king” and Kendrick heavily tuned into seeing this through the maze of confusion that is fame with all of its participants: “the feelin' of an apocalypse happenin', but nothin' is awkward/the feelin' won't prosper/the feelin' is toxic/I feel like I'm boxin' demons, monsters/false prophets schemin', sponsors, industry promises/niggas, bitches, honkies, crackers, Compton/Church, religion, token blacks, and bondage/Lawsuit visits, subpoena served in concert/fuck your feelings, I mean this for imposters”.

Yet and still, irrespective of these predicaments and more, his sentiment is best condensed in the hook, “ain’t nobody praying for me”... heavy indeed is the head that wears the crown. “LOYALTY” is a track that could best be described as having the components of a future radio single with a classic west coast sound. It’s slow paced and laid back roll out serves as perfect fodder for Kenny’s semi-automatic style flow in which he questions the loyalty of females particularly those near and around the industry. He quips sarcastically, “you caught me at the right time/when it’s dollar signs”. This track featuring Rihanna is a perfect match as she matches the tempo of Kendrick and weaves lyrics that question the nature of a man’s loyalty. Is loyalty merely driven by your convenience to others (family, friends, etc) or is there something deeper? This is question that is faced when one encounter’s extraordinary levels of fame and even more when one is Black and successful, as most Black wealth when such is achieved is often first generational, thrusting one into the role of provider for nearly every family member. This has an adverse effect of blurring the lines of what is considered loyalty. “PRIDE” illustrates a conflict of possessions and purity. Honest enough to acknowledge that his what is often perceived as his persuasion to social consciousness doesn’t make him perfect, he poses a question throughout the length of the track that can be best summed up at the top of the songs opening: “hell-raising, wheel-chasing, new worldly possessions/flesh-making, spirit breaking, which one would you lessen?/the better part, the human heart, you love 'em or dissect 'em/happiness or flashiness? how do you serve the question?/see, in the perfect world, I would be perfect, world/I don't trust people enough beyond they surface, world/I don't love people enough to put my faith in man/I put my faith in these lyrics hoping I make a band, I understand/I ain't perfect”.

In a sense, Kendrick can be found attempting to explain the complexity of human life and the peculiar effect that certain responsibilities have on others perception of you. Fighting internally, one must at times ground themselves or find external ways to do so by reminding those with these expectations of their humanity and flaws, and how those flaws were created. “HUMBLE” the album’s first commercial cut is yet another exercise in lyrical prowess and genius arrangement. Ironically the track is boastful as we are reminded why he is indeed the greatest at press time. It’s lock and step with hip hop’s confidence idiom but not without reminding us from whence Lamar came: “Aye, I remember syrup sandwiches and crime allowances/Finesse a nigga with sum counterfeits/But now I'm countin this/Parmesan where my accountant lives in fact I'm down at this/D'usśe with my boo bae, tastes like kool aid for the analysts”. The end of “HUMBLE” takes us back into the depths of Kendrick’s social analysis with on the succeeding track “LUST”. Much like his theoretical predecessor Richard Wright, Kendrick is more than apt at pointing out with stunning quality the ways in which we as a people often get in the way of our own progress through behaviors that have seemingly become second nature. The first two verses shepherd the listener through the inner sanctum of two parallel lives one male, the other female, engaged in the daily routines of selfish instant gratification. Such a signifier has been considered among one of the many negative elements of Americanism, the desire for immediate pleasures and whims without regard for long term consequences. And given that the Black experience is inextricable in many ways from the American experience at large, this trait has been considered among one of the most damaging. This is a line of thought most often commercially associated with Black nationalist types who espouse industry over frivolity, but which is shared among Black movements of all theoretical types to some degree or another. It’s clear to peep the knowledge of Kendrick through the examples of these two narratives. However, he again drives home the point that he’s not merely critiquing society from a lofty and self-appointed perch, rather he draws from personal experience to reflect on his entanglement in the same web: “I wake in the mornin', my head spinnin' from the last night/both in the trance, feelings I did-what a fast life!/manager called, the lobby called, it's 11: 30/did this before, promised myself I'd be a hour early/room full of clothes, bag full of money: call it loose change/fumbled my jewelry, 100k, I lost a new chain/Hop on the bird, hit the next city for another M/take me a nap and do it again/we all woke up, tryna tune to the daily news/lookin' for confirmation, hopin' election wasn't true/all of us worried, all of us buried, and our feeling's deep/none of us married to his proposal, make us feel cheap/still and sad, distraught and mad, tell the neighbor 'bout it/bet they agree, parade the streets with your voice proudly/time passin', things change/revertin' back to our daily programs, stuck in our ways; lust”. It’s at once a song of frustration with the perpetual cycle of society’s failure to learn from its errors and the absurd notion that even in learning we tend to repeat them, leading to an inner contention that rivals suffering itself. “LOVE” is the ensuing 10th song on an album that if it had ended here would still deserved to be deemed an instant classic. This poem’s sequence on the album however is more like the metrical version of seeing Kendrick relax and take a calming breath of air, this induced only by thoughts and reflections on the meaning of a special someone that he’s been in a long term low profile relationship with. While much of “DAMN” up until this point tends to be about the perils of success the song evokes the duality of its privileges, but only when there is someone to share them with. Not only this, it’s a light track that once again acknowledges the good in a mad world and lightens the album’s genius yet dense subject matters. “XXX” is one of Kendrick Lamar’s most stinging feats of rhetorical prowess in which he connects the dots between what’s often posited as “inner city violence” or rather “Black on Black” violence and America’s role in fostering such environments. Tackling the humanity of anger is yet another narrative of this track wherein upon the murder of a friend’s son he’s contacted by the friend for advice. Hoping for Kendrick to serve as his better half under what could only be described as a parent’s worst nightmare, Kendrick finds himself unable to tap into the loftier spiritual expectations placed upon him, a portion of the verse summarizes this interaction: “yesterday I got a call like from my dog like 101/said they killed his only son because of insufficient funds/he was sobbin', he was mobbin', way belligerent and drunk/talkin' out his head, philosphin' on what the Lord had done/He said: "K-Dot, can you pray for me?/It's been a fucked up day for me/I know that you anointed, show me how to overcome."/he was lookin' for some closure/hopin' I could bring him closer/to the spiritual, my spirit do know better, but I told him/"I can't sugarcoat the answer for you, this is how I feel:/if somebody kill my son, that mean somebody gettin' killed."

One is taken back to the title of his sophomore album “good kid, M.A.D.D. city” and reminded of Kendrick’s Compton, California origins where like so many systematically deprived Black areas, violence is commonplace. But Kenny makes it perfectly clear that this dysfunction isn’t mere osmosis when he states within the last verse (among other barbs): “it's nasty when you set us up/then roll the dice, then bet us up/you overnight the big rifles, then tell Fox to be scared of us/gang members or terrorists, et cetera, et cetera/America's reflections of me, that's what a mirror does”, this statement is made even more superb given the fact that in a country that often embraces the right of white males to arms, people with color and arms are framed as particularly dangerous. Nonetheless the testament track and most Richard Wright-esque work on the album just may be “FEAR”, which delivers an apt description of the trait (other than coolness, spirituality, and improvisation) that so often finds itself expressed in Black behavioral patterns. It opens with a recorded call from Kendrick’s cousin Carl Duckworth a seemingly zealous follower of Old Testament Biblical religion, who we later learn is a possible member of the Hebrew Israelites, a nationalist Judeo African American religious movement. The phone call appears to be in response to a Kendrick that may well be falling victim to an inner crisis, one for which he feels no one has the answer to. At one point on the call Carl harps back to Kendrick’s lament: “I know you been having a lot on your mind you know, like you feel like, you know, people ain’t been praying for you”. He then goes into a spiel that is among the myriad of socio-religious identity theories of found among Black versions of all schools of religion, but especially those born in the states. Carl in part attempts to explain Kendrick’s confusion by attesting to our cursed nature utilizing a verse from Deuteronomy 28: 28. This track’s opening then questions God himself “why God why God do I gotta suffer/pain in my heart carry burdens full of struggle”, before launching into a full-fledged verse in which Kendrick appears to describe abuse or the threat of it, often doled out at the hands of some Black parents (in this case appears to elude to a Black single mother) for the least of infractions. There’s a direct parallel that exist here between the work of Richard Wright and Kendrick Lamar. In “Black Boy”, an overall narrative that runs through much of the text is the domestic corporal punishment that Richard almost always seems to be threatened by. This is particularly acute as it pertains to his maternal grandmother and “Aunt Addie”, strict Seventh Day Adventist who so controlled by a “puritan” religion and the southern “custom” of Black fear of white retribution for Black “misbehavior” that they practically attempt at every turn to “beat out” what to them appears to be a young Richard’s staunch independence. As a result, Wright finds himself trapped between a racist and unforgiving white world and a Black world whose response to the white world is one driven by fear and its own form of “for your own good” oppression and other responsive madness. This kept Wright in a constant state of fear of not only the outside world but what was supposed to be the intimate familial space. This sentiment is echoed on the first verse of Kendrick Lamar’s “fear”. The second verse tackles the fragility of Black life in which activities that would otherwise be harmless, could lead to possible death. It’s a peek into what so often appears to be the randomness of violence in poor Black neighborhoods and the added burden that comes with attempting to navigate a hostile larger world in the microcosm of one’s own community. In the last verse, Kendrick goes into the irony of fame. While the sentiments of American late capitalist types would have us believe that fame and fortune are the only antidotes to poverty and lacking, we are reminded that for those of us who are able to make the transition from the proverbial “rags to riches” it is not always so simple. Kendrick’s new found fame is explored in the last verse as juxtaposed to the poverty from which he came and this has the effect of evoking a new type of fear…the fear of losing it all. It’s in this verse that one can also see where much of his anxiety stems from. The worlds of money and celebrity are riddled with tales of those who have succumbed to its shark infested waters only to return to the places and madness from which they were thought to have escaped. It’s a preoccupation that has seemingly driven Kendrick to the brink at times and it is in part his reason for reaching out to his cousin Carl, who in the swirl of all the madness appears to be a guiding spiritual voice. At the end of the last verse Kendrick’s confusion is summed up in a haunting refrain: “Goddamn you/Goddamn me/Goddamn us/Goddamn we/Goddamn us all. Afterwards, yet another recorded phone call from Kendrick’s cousin Carl can be heard in which he can be heard spinning a somewhat confusing logic on the “curse” of Blackness stating this time: “So, until we come back to these commandments, until you come back to these commandments, we're gonna feel this way, we're gonna be under this curse. Because he said he's gonna punish us, the so-called Blacks, Hispanics, and Native American Indians, are the true children of Israel. We are the Israelites according to the Bible. The children of Israel, he's gonna punish us for our iniquities, for our disobedience, because we chose to follow other gods that aren't his son, so the Lord, thy God, chasten thee. So, just like you chasten your own son, he's gonna chastise you because he loves you. So that's why we get chastised, that's why we're in the position we're in. Until we come back to these laws, statutes and commandments, and do what the Lord said, these curses are gonna be upon us. We're gonna be at a lower state in this life that we live here in today, in the United States of America. I love you, son, and I pray for you. God, bless you, shalom”.

To be sure pointing out this religious sentiment of Carl’s is not a dig at his religion or beliefs, however within the context of the Black experience in America, it is important to recognize the myriad of systems on the spectrum of Black religion. Historically speaking, religion has served as a guiding light for Blacks, a political tool, and an explanatory narrative of systemic racism. In this way theories of the Black station in American life can at times become varied and confusing from the outside looking in, and one gets the feeling that Carl himself while appearing zealously coherent in Hebrew Israelite doctrine, is just one of the millions of Blacks in America seeking answers to the madness. Appropriately, the following track entitled “GOD” can be looked at from either one of two angles. One the one hand one could interpret this as typical hip hop theatrics of boastfulness, the type wherein the celebratory nature of making it can render one seemingly invincible to at least one’s former woes. Yet everything Kendrick touches seems to hint at deeper meaning, and “GOD” may just as easily be in step with the meeting of the secular and the spiritual. It has often been stated that some are made but the greats are chosen, and on this track, there is full embrace of the latter as he reflects on from whence he came and where he has arrived. It also should not escape the listener that proclaiming oneself as “god” incarnate is not a new religious theory and in hip hop was proselytized by adherents to 5% Islam better known as The Nation of Gods and Earths. The message is context can then be seen as Kendrick reminding us that like him we too can embody gods and goddesses on earth.

“DUCKWORTH” the final track of this album gives a previously unknown glimpse into Kendrick’s origins and the genesis of his relationship with TDE (Top Dawg Entertainment). Known for not only his lyrical prowess but his somewhat guarded nature as it pertains to his personal life, we find that the origins of Kendrick’s relationship began long before he was scouted by Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith as a 15-year-old mixtape rapper. It was in-fact a near fatal encounter between the then street hood Tiffith and Kendrick’s father Kenny Duckworth in the 80′s that brought the pair together when Lamar was but a child. Kenny, a Chicago native, relocated to Compton, CA where he too brought his street savvy with him splitting time between hustling and working part time at a KFC across from the infamous Nickerson Garden homes, a blood gang territory and home to the hustling and banging Tiffith. A chance encounter between Kendrick’s father and Tiffith at the fast food spot led to a relationship that was at first born out of Kenny’s savvy in recognizing the street status of Tiffith and his crew, who had previously robbed the restaurant, shooting two people in the process. Little did Kenny aka “Ducky” know that the crew was planning to rob the store again and this time willing to take out Ducky if necessary. However, Tiffith took a liking to Ducky and this led to a relationship that would re-manifest years later when the two would bump into each other at a recording studio. By this time, Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith would be managing producers and scouting talent and one such talent would be Ducky’s son, Kendrick Lamar Duckworth. The genius of the track is in a sense admittedly overshadowed by the listener’s interest in the story itself, yet the vivid tale of chance and choices are obvious throughout. “DUCKWORTH” is the proverbial slam dunk ending on an album which at its core is about the duality and absurd complexity of the human condition and more specifically when it’s in Black. While there may be some who will tout “DAMN” as only an album fraught with anxiety, confusion, and introspection, the final track is a testament that in the madness of it all silver linings guided by divine hands still exist. Classic.

#kendrick lamar #damn #blackboy #blacklivesmatter

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niskrp · 5 years

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:// SEARCHING OPERATIVE …

… searching for AGENT 030 / THE DEATH. classified files indicate that they go by LEE HANSOL, and are also known as ZERO. born in NEW YORK, USA, in 1993/03/14, further investigation makes it clear that they joined the agency FIVE YEARS ago. they are an INTELLIGENCE AGENT who specialize in HACKING. higher clearance is needed to access further information…

… ENTER PASSWORD TO ACCESS THE COMPLETE FILE.

:// ACCESSING BACKGROUND FILES ...

a mission: to unearth the flesh from the skin, leaving the marrows exposed for the maggots to consume. sanity is an option that comes together with an exit wound. not a precise incision, not a seamless suture. there’s a scripture that becomes a guide to how much you can dissect yourself without dying, and here are the trembling fingers, trying to mimic the culture of an open heart surgery.

the autopsy doesn’t end here. in fact, it has just begun, a set of scalpels on the table. a glyph in the machine, data decryption of the anatomy…

he lives circa post-mortem. the interior of his ribcage has too many deaths mounted on its brittle walls, the necrosis of the organs turned into reminders of the life once a mirror of lies. traces his footfalls, there is a path left by the shrapnel, back to the road prior the forked ends. reminds himself that once upon a time, the only dichotomy was naught but his bone tongue: he spoke two languages vastly different, now six. he doesn’t recognize which is native to him anymore.

boyhood was a gossamer chrysalis that enveloped. appa was two syllables that he kept in his mouth for safekeeping, sometimes enunciated so carefully so his mouth didn’t get seared. eomma was a fistful of handcrafted untruths, and she tied him with piano strings on each limb. he grew up peculiar with a set of inward teeth, biting into his own lips he spoke in riddles. he grew up dissonant with a pair of bruised knuckles, breaking into his own ire he shattered in pieces. eomma built his spine ridge by ridge, placing him everywhere he didn’t want to be.

sometimes, she told him to bend his knees and fold his hands, prayers towards nothing in particular, for there was soft violence that came with a religion in which death was mounted on its altar. he did not register the face of a god, a singular freeform that held eomma captive. he only located each gentle stroke of war in every verse, the urban bible that he’s carried until now. counted the beads of the rosary with a falsified belief he became a body of notions.

six when he saw the fear that stained eomma’s expression for so long, it had become a part of her construct. the exoskeleton of this american dream riveted in a concept that lasted with a supporting crutch. she was crucified by her paranoia — or was it? psyche that he did not know how to navigate, but the trepidation was there for his perusal. it felt like dermatillomania, watching her drowning in an ankle-deep ocean at three am. pills that cured, and he turned his back on her once again to carve a dent on the tallies.

appa was a missing incisor that cut him deep enough to remind him that there was a price to pay for each inhale, exhale. his systole and diastole did not come free, the liberty not theirs to begin with. shot with a glock once, twice at the age of nine, appa scorched his insignia in the form of a beast. he was not the same boy that had walked into the room an hour prior; the mechanism of these planted seeds turning his being into more than just the palpitation.

this liminality was a syllabus of conundrums: appa and eomma hid too many secrets at the bases of their throats. tracheas that swelled with the weight of the world. thought it wasn’t an anomaly when he’d only known how to pretend all his life, mandible filled with grenade pins scripted with homemade lies. the columns of his throat were pillars of sanctioned daydreams that deviated from public norms. realization came late like a garrote around his neck at sixteen, when eomma stripped him away from her. his grandparents, absent for over a decade, took over.

manhattan sighed a quiet goodbye in exchange for seoul, where nobody knew the history of familial negligence over his violent streaks. distilled himself for a name sixteen years late, donning ruptured backgrounds that remained consistent as fabricated by eomma. told him eomma was coming — soon, soon. excelling in the art of excavating his own laments, he turned to ace in academics. or, when his synapses glitched, there was always a punching bag, a shooting range. when he was red and raw from the personal rotting, he believed that devastation tasted like false comprehensions over his own upbringing. what if, what if, what if…

filaments of this boyhood lattice speak of an artwork so intricate, but what’s stranger than the scar tissues that marred his back without any recollections of who painted them?

and so, he sought. crowned himself with teeth, and last time he had asked his grandparents what his parents actually were, he was met with a weary look. at least they didn’t question the money spent for a one-way plane ticket to new york. instead of the rattled welcome, however, he was met with a deafening silence. she’d moved. she hadn’t mentioned it in their monthly calls. he returned with anger planting bruises in his being, camouflaged by each night of punching and kicking and shooting and thrashing.

he became feral, but contained. enrolled himself in the closest thing he knew to be close to appa, somewhere in the deep web. a man didn’t just spit out a son to leave. so he learned to decode, decipher. certain that along the line, he’d find the semblance of a long-lost father. eomma, on the other side of the story, came to seoul four years late for a visit too transient. but she kissed each cheek with fervor so ingrained, he thought she’d break nails digging them into his skin. she left the week after; an ounce of goodbye in a letter meant zilch. he clasped his jaw, moving on.

he had issues that swelled, but nothing that he couldn’t handle. learning his way into the depthless casket of the internet, he found appa with a relationship more complicated than what the years of hacking could offer. an agent, it said. for what? for whom? the ends of the information were too frayed for him to tell. there was his understanding, of all the secrets buried in the nooks of each joint. when he graduated, he chose to follow the barely known steps. there was no eomma, no appa. his grandparents wilted in the silence that shrouded their dinners. he barely came home, the smudged edges of his presence eventually were erased completely when he moved away on his own.

twenty-three. he was everything resembling half-smoked hymns, voice constricted to the hoarse sound of his past, haunting him in the poltergeists within his chest. he was a good agent in the making, marksmanship a particle of his existence since he was young. that was, until a detour in the midst of the sleepless night caught news about a woman. shot dead. point blank. he plummeted six feet under, the soil bled ice he developed hypothermia. he didn’t even have it in him to cry. appa found him one of those nights, telling him he was proud. eomma was proud. ( “for fuck’s sake,” he retorted. “you don’t have the right to be.” )

she was the hyacinth that bloomed in the winter, premature blossom that ended with slivers eaten in caustic measures. she still had her strings around his sternum. he couldn’t undo her with these shaking hands. the training gave him flashbacks of the news, so he ran until he splintered his ankles. joined another division to put his education into use instead. that way, he didn’t need to deal with the paraphrase of eomma’s passing. he didn’t even have a corpse to bury, a funeral to attend.

instead, the only corpse to bury for him would be his. a backyard funeral, elegies handwritten in an uneven penmanship. he is unhinged— vultures gnawing on his insides, charred black. some nights, he doesn’t know how to place his limbs anymore.

:// ACCESSING PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION ...

the archives of his psychological profile maintain a great deal of feigned apathy with a dash of pretense placed in the front. there’s a tough shell to even fissure, although upon peeling the skin there would be too much to discern. dissection is not advised, please proceed with cautions. diagnosis would include depression and anxiety. there are symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. prominent issue is the anger management contained through violent means. the channeling itself is not the core to the peril — it is the general lack of disclosure towards himself. he doesn’t have any healthy coping mechanism, often choosing to swallow everything down. addictions are often found in drowning himself in workloads. surrounded by fellow agents, he can socialize to an extent but doesn’t exert himself much. remains in the comfort zone of shallow social interactions. amiable, easy-going. his typical appearance would be described as charming, albeit off. some sensitive people might be able to tell that he’s not everything that he chooses to divulge, as it’s often limited to what he’s comfortable with, and that level merely scratches the surface.

... END OF FILE. CONTACT THE AGENT DIRECTLY FOR MORE.

#t #i #030

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: Arcade Fire Gives Up on Life

To learn how crushingly the new Arcade Fire album has disappointed fans, critics, and providers of online content, one need only glance at their Metacritic page. To fully comprehend why requires several listens, each more dumbfounding than the last. Anyone who associates the band with uplift will find the new Everything Now, out since July, an enervating thing: a sniveling black hole of negativity, littered with ostensible protest songs aiming to critique societal problems from a soapbox ten million miles above their fanbase. “Infinite Content,” for example, jolts over a straightforward punkish beat as lead rock hero Win Butler repeats the same line over and over: “Infinite content/infinite content/we’re infinitely content.” Get it? “Content” meaning posts on social media, but he’s making a pun on “content” the adjective! He’s calling out the emptiness of our technology-addicted lives! He doesn’t think we’re infinitely content at all–he thinks the internet lulls us into a false sense of security! The next song, a slower, sweeter country-tinged jangler, is also called “Infinite_Content”, with the same exact lyric, except they’ve added an underscore to the title. Get it? Computers!

These songs baffle the critical faculties. To state point blank that “Infinite Content” and “Infinite_Content” aren’t clever is to belabor the self-evident. Likewise, calling Everything Now a failed stab at profundity feels as productive as feigning shock that the current president said something vile and semiliterate in the media yesterday. How exactly the band wound up here is the relevant question.

I won’t mimic the consensus and call Arcade Fire a great band undone by sanctimony when they’ve been bombastic and heavy-handed since day one. Since their beloved debut, Funeral (2004), they’ve specialized in spacious, grandly beautiful rock anthems, undercut by specific deflationary moments of bathos that could easily have been excised. Funeral’s “Wake Up,” widely considered their greatest and most moving song, soars over rhythmic power chords, acoustic classical instruments from violin to accordion, and a massive, wordless football chant of a chorus. The effect rouses — right up to when Butler, pumping his figurative fist, ends a verse by screaming “I guess we’ll just have to adjuuuuuuuust” as if expecting cheers from all the young adults in the audience who’ve felt growing pains, whereupon the mushy qualifiers (“I guess”) and the weak verb (“adjust”) collapse under the weight of the anthemic moment. Often they powered through anyway. Their second album, the scary, deeply felt Neon Bible (2007), infamously recorded in an abandoned church, uses the consequently murky sound to simulate a humming, ominous “Ocean of Noise.” Guitars and pianos and booming organ and, by metaphorical extension, the entire world, all crash down apocalyptically around them, lending physical reality to the political urgency of their songwriting. The Suburbs (2010), a relaxed, rhapsodic variant on the same classically textured arena-rock blend, is pretty enough, at least to compensate for an overlong running time and the band’s labored attempt to make a definitive statement on maturity, adolescence, and the decline of tradition in the modern world. But ever since Pitchfork anointed them voices of a generation — articulating the existential anxieties of kids who grow up, move to the city, and struggle with adulthood and their place on the traditionalism/modernity axis — they’ve always felt the weight of the world more heavily on their shoulders than any band deserves or should presume. Condescending social commentary by a large, communitarian band of Canadian art-rockers will inspire nobody in 2017. Music that once swept and thundered has turned tighter, harsher, and more unpleasant. Songwriting that once voiced progressive resolution now howls with conservative despair.

To students of rock history, Everything Now and its predecessor, Reflektor (2013), will sound awfully familiar: didn’t U2 already make these albums in the ‘90s? Arcade Fire’s career arc resembles U2’s exactly: insufferably earnest arena-rock band starts out sincere, anthemic, grandiose before tiring of their own reputation and deciding to embrace electronics, irony, and such. My, how history repeats itself. It must embarrass fans across the global indie-rock community that U2 did it better; few bands anywhere have matched the sonically warped, chemically tainted, wacky garish neon fury of “The Fly” and “Staring at the Sun.” Reflektor and Everything Now, meanwhile, stand as definitive proof that those who don’t know what irony is shouldn’t dabble in it. While rock-conventional song structures still dominate, both records abound with glittery synthesizer, honking horns, jaggedy postpunk beats, dancier tempos and textures, really, anything to prove they’re not some stodgy old rock band, they’re cool. They display no aesthetic commitment to these musical usages themselves, flaunting them instead as tokens of edge, an association that works only when being a stodgy old rock band is the backdrop.

Despite many flatfooted attempts at disco and the unfortunate choice to follow a song called “Hey Eurydice” with “Hey Orpheus,” Reflektor occasionally sparkles, primarily on the soaring guitars of “Normal Person” and the xylophone-backed nursery rhymes of “Here Comes the Night Time.” On Everything Now the musical blend curdles utterly. The glowing keyboards, dinky flutes, angry rhythm guitar parts, assembled sound effects, and the like are incorporated poorly, failing to mesh with the grander rock structures that subsume them, sticking out like otiose clip-on accessories. The resulting music is awkward, pinched, and ugly. “Signs of Life,” whose death-march bassline is repeated exactly by an abrasive horn section, epitomizes a cramped strain that is now the band’s operative mode. “Creature Comfort” is perhaps definitive: the song’s cheerfully affectless guitar riff plus synth squelch, combined with Butler’s declamatory talk-singing, aim to evoke classic dancepop, New Order’s “Temptation” maybe. The talk-singing more closely resembles an eager parody of a) white singers trying to sound rhythmically astute; b) Bono’s vocal delivery on “Hawkmoon 269”; c) Arcade Fire’s prior output.

That’s to say nothing of the lyrics. “Creature Comfort” is an anti-suicide plea ambiguous enough not to specify whether the band’s own “first record” saved a fan from suicide or drove her to it. There’s no empathy; the person in question is treated like a cautionary tale to wring one’s hands over. I count two songs on Everything Now that haven’t completely given up on life: “Peter Pan,” whose plinked keyboards and funkoid bassline are sparse enough to let the song’s emotion breathe, and the penultimate “We Don’t Deserve Love,” whose climactic descending guitar hook suits both the queasy synth noodling in the verse and the quiet pathos of a romantic anthem that, after an album’s worth of vitriol, aims to establish love as humanity’s redeeming factor. As for the vitriol, it’s disheartening. Once they wrote compassionately and from experience, especially on The Suburbs; their grand proclamations about alienation and adulthood were delivered by narrators implied to have lived through such processes. The songs on Everything Now diagnose the evils of millennials — kids these days! — from the voice of an older man who knows everything. Few things are more tedious than a band lecturing their fanbase on the fanbase’s moral failings and the necessity for everyone to act more like the band. Which song is the most insulting, you ask? Is it the title track, whose blandly suburban mall keyboards accompany a rant against information overload and the media-literate? Is it “Chemistry,” a rhythmically wooden reggae-inflected blues-rocker that lists cliched pickup lines as if revealing something deep and horrifying about gender relations? I vote for “Signs of Life,” a lament for the supposedly repetitious, joyless ritual that is party culture: “Spend your life waiting in line/you find it hard to define/but you do it every time/then you do it again/looking for signs of life/looking for signs every night/but there’s no signs of life/so we do it again.”

Ah — the futility of hedonism! The misery of affluence! Cool kids who pretend to have fun because everyone else does, but secretly feel empty inside! Where have we heard this before? From Halsey, from Lorde, from Frank Ocean, from Drake, from the Weeknd, from the fucking Chainsmokers. With Everything Now, Arcade Fire joins the vast litany of artists who’ve taken it upon themselves to explain Why Modern Kids Suffer and Why Millennials are Ruining Society. That they exempt themselves from their social critique, unlike the aforementioned artists, proves only that exclusionary indie elitism is alive and well. Listening to Neon Bible in the wake of Everything Now perturbs; one wonders if their urge to hide under the covers from the “ocean of violence” outside really targeted Bush, or if the chaotic entanglements of modern life just offended their regressive notions of purity. Their earlier albums surged with positive energy, while Everything Now is the bad album that previous good albums made inevitable. A collapse from idealism into cynicism should surprise nobody. Those who believe in false if rousing ideals can inspire, as Arcade Fire has in the past, and that they’ve gradually become bitter over 13 years after being disappointed in such ideals doesn’t mean they no longer believe in them. On the contrary, they hate the world for not living up to how it should be. Idealism, cynicism, these are not opposites — it just depends on whether the sentimental idiot in question is in a good or bad mood.

Tellingly, their famously energetic live show transcends the negativity of the record. Playing to a festival crowd at Lollapalooza this year, they jumped around, traded instruments, conjured uplift from despair, and generally made joyous, triumphant, cathartic noise. Behold — a welcome sign that they still believe in humanity. I hope their next album, also, yields such evidence.

Everything Now (2017) and Reflektor (2015) are available from Amazon and other online retailers.

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