#fantastic podium!! maybe my favorite of this season?????

[skitskatdacat63]

2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - Sebastian Vettel(ft. Mark Webber & Jenson Button)

#fantastic podium!! maybe my favorite of this season????? #sebmarkson podiums are my fav ever nothing can top them #and both mark and jense were being so cute with seb this race aaaahhhhhhh <333333 #theres something about seb that makes older men want to cuddle him and pick him up and pour champagne on him #haha thank you to dru for showing me seb getting drenched on this podium a few weeks and making me hype for this race!! #this race was very very good as well. like the last laps battle btwn mark and jense was insane #its very good when i already know the results of a race but the racing still makes me sit on the edge of my seat and scream a bit #i mentioned this before but i love how this race felt like an epilogue and it was nice to see everyone having fun and enjoying themseles #thank you everybody for joining me on another season journey!!! it been so much fun. ive really really enjoyed 2009 #brawn is just soooooo cool to me. their story is insane!! im glad ive gotten to watch thru this season before the docu abt them comes out #but also very fun to see the beginning of rbr getting to the top of the field. every good result just felt so rewarding and worth it #anyways dont wanna do too much commentary abt it since ive discussed it a lot. onto 2010 next!!!! i shall miss you 2009 #though i will say. it was rly interesting in this race to hear their team predictions for next season bcs a lot of it doesnt pan out #mark webber #jenson button #sebastian vettel #sebson #martian #sebmark #f1 #formula 1 #formula one #we do a little bit of f1 #2009 abu dhabi gp

[vilyae]

hi! do not feel obliged to answer this if it's too much hassle. but basically i was v into men's figure skating until covid hit. i would love to get back into it next season but i feel i lost track of all that's going on! i know my (our) darling shoma has gotten GOOD!! and yuzuru did not manage a 3 time gold at the olympics but that's about it. would you, or any of your followers, maybe want to give me a highlights/recap from the big comps? who are the big names now? any new world records? how are the axels faring? and what would be the best of shoma performances to watch? (again. only if you feel like it!)

Hi anon! Welcome back! I can give you an update of the current field, and if my followers want to please do help anon out and add things in replies!!

(This was actually supposed to be short and brief at first, but things got a bit out of hand...)

As you know Yuzu and Nathan were quite dominant in the men's field until recently, and as Yuzu retired and Nathan went back to school we got quite a few names fighting for the podium placements atm. Shoma has been doing amazing especially after the Olympics, and went undefeated the entire season - he's now a 2 time back to back World Champion! He withdrew from WTT just recently because of an ankle injury though which still seems to be bothering him, so we're all keeping our fingers crossed that it won't hinder him next season.

Actually, the most anticipated rivalry after the Olympics was probably thought to be between Ilia Malinin and Yuma Kagiyama. Yuma was doing great, he was quite consistent and was getting very high scores, and ended up with silver at both the Olympics and Worlds 2022 - but unfortunately, he got a quite serious injury during the off-season (if I remember correctly, a stress fracture in his leg) and had to withdraw from 22-23 GP series. He competed at JNats 2022, but as he wasn't fully recovered yet he placed 8th and didn't compete the rest of the season. He's now back in full training I believe and his return is highly anticipated next season!

Ilia has been a new star in the men's field with his amazing quad jump arsenal - and most obviously, the historical 4A that he has landed multiple times in competition this season. His consistency hasn't been quite there yet, but he's able to put out massive scores with his technical content on a good day. He finished 3rd in both GP Final and Worlds in the 22-23 season.

Junhwan Cha has been on a fantastic upward trajectory especially towards the end of the last season and is definitely one of the top men right now. He put out 2 amazing performances at Worlds and got silver, only a few points from Shoma. He skated well at WTT as well. He had some troubles during the GP series so he wasn't at the GP Final, but I'm quite sure that we'll see him there next season.

The depth in Japanese men continues to be incomparable. Sota Yamamoto had the absolute best season of his senior career so far in 22-23 and got his ticket to the GP Final, where he got silver! He was selected to the Worlds team where he had some hiccups and ended up 15th, but overall his season was fantastic and he should be a podium contender in the future as well. Kazuki Tomono continues to be a fan favorite with his amazing steps and choreo sequences, and he is definitely able to score very well and finish among the top placements when he's on. Last season he finished 3rd and 4th at his GP assignments, thus didn't make it to the Final, but won the bronze medal at JNats and was assigned to Worlds where he was 6th. The Japanese nationals silver medalist last season, Koshiro Shimada, didn't get assigned to Worlds, but went to 4CC instead where he ended up 11th. It will be exciting to see how he's going to do next season!

Of the Japanese men, other notable current stars are definitely Kao Miura and Shun Sato. Both have fantastic qualities in skating skills and jump technique, and I could see either one on the top of the Worlds podium in the future. They were at the GP Final in Turin last season as well, Kao ending up 5th and Shun 4th. Their struggles at Japanese Nationals prevented them from getting to the Worlds team, but they both are able to get climb up to the top placements in any competition on a good day.

Italy has a few notable senior men right now, like Matteo Rizzo and Daniel Grassl. They both skated at Worlds, finishing 9th and 12th respectively. Matteo has been on a good upward trajectory lately, getting silver at the European Championships and being one of the very few men attempting 4Lo in his programs currently. There has been some controversy surrounding Daniel when he, after changing his training base a couple of times, ended up choosing Eteri as his new coach and moving to train to Moscow last season. He actually made it to the GP Final but seemed troubled there and finished last, and has since been very inconsistent and struggled quite a lot, maybe looking a bit more stable in the most recent competitions, but time will tell how his new training environment will work out for him...

From France we have Adam Siao Him Fa and Kevin Aymoz. Adam has been popular among fans with his expressive programs, he won gold in his first GP event last season and was fifth in the second. He won the French nationals and continued to become the European Champion. Some struggles at Worlds afterwards and he was 10th there, but overall a very good season for him. Kevin had trouble with injuries at the start of the season, but finished on a very high note with a 4th place finish at Worlds (only a few points behind Malinin) and looking more stable with his quads than ever, in my opinion. Both will be podium contenders and candidates for the GP Final next season.

Jason Brown didn't take part in the GP series last season, but returned for the US Nats and Worlds + WTT, and did not disappoint! He's been very consistent and provided some Jason-quality programs, getting the silver medal at nationals, earning a new PB in the free skate at Worlds and finishing 5th, and continuing to perform well at WTT. I don't know about his plans for the future, but I'm sure the skating world would love to see him continue competing.

Keegan Messing has been carrying the Canadian men for some time and retired after Worlds and WTT this year. The rest of the Canadian men... Well, we will see what happens.

For the others, Deniss Vasiljevs of Latvia is another fan favorite and was able to get silver on his second GP event last season, and has been working hard to get his quad salchow more consistent. Even if the quad doesn't work out, his artistry is amazing and he has wonderful programs that you definitely should look forward to seeing. Boyang Jin really hasn't been able to compete much during covid but has been making some comeback under Tracy and Brian this season, and I look forward to seeing his development in his new environment. Morisi Kvitelashvili has struggled a Lot and has put out some disaster level skates last season, and time will tell if he'll continue competing.

Whew, that's all I can think of now! Please do add things in the comments if I got something wrong or forgot something.

You also asked for Shoma performance recommendations! I would definitely check out both his SP and FS from 2022 Worlds, FS at the GPF 2022 and SP at Worlds 2023. His EX last season, "Padam Padam" (by Mihoko Higuchi!) is gorgeous as well!

Hopefully this helped! 😁

#shoma uno #figure skating #i wrote this on my phone before going to sleep at midnight lol i hope i didn't forget anything important #it became so much longer than i intended lmao

[umgeorge]

george russell is interviewed after qualifying, las vegas, united states - november 17, 2023 (transcription under the cut)

Interviewer: "Fantastic qualifying session." George: "Thank you." Interviewer: "You must be absolutely delighted, and obviously promoted to P3. What did it come down to today?" George: "I think it came down to confidence. I felt good in the car. In the quali runs we knew Ferrari were a step ahead of everybody else, but I think ending up P4, really close at P3 with Max, was definitely the maximum. But going into tomorrow is a total unknown. These tires are just not working around this circuit in the race conditions. They're totally falling apart because they're so cold, the tires aren't designed to work in these cold conditions, and the team who'll come out on top will be whoever manages to keep them alive." Interviewer: "That really is a bit of a headache, isn't it?" George: "It really is." Interviewer: "Are we predicting loads of pit stops, then? Is that what you think?" George: "I think if you're able to keep it within the threshhold it'll be an easy one stop. As soon as you go over that threshhold it's unrecoverable and you might need to do two or three stops, so it's… Right now we're all kind of scratching our heads, thinking, how are we gonna approach the race? We haven't run the hard tire yet. Maybe the hard tire is just much better than the medium and you won't be entering that graining that we've seen on all the teams, but you're gonna have to push the tire to find out, but if you push it and you go over that limit, you're pretty doomed. So yeah, right now it's a real strange one. [laughs] I really don't know how to approach the race tomorrow." Interviewer: "Talking of scratching heads, it's very confusing to consider you've only had one podium this year. You definitely deserve more than that…" George: "Yeah." Interviewer: "…and I'm sure expected more than that." George: "Definitely." Interviewer: "What can you hope for tomorrow?" George: "I just want a clean race, to be honest. It's been probably the scrappiest season of my life. Every clean race weekend I've had has been when the car was slow, and every time the car was quick it's been when everything was up in the air, whether it was mistakes on my side, or unfortunate strategy, or DNFs, so I just want a clean race. I wanna get these two races over and done with. But we have to keep an eye on Ferrari. They're only twenty points behind us. They probably should have been on for a 1-2 tomorrow. Charles is definitely the number one favorite, so we need to sort of damage limitation, but if there's an opportunity, we'll go for it." Interviewer: "Good luck tomorrow." George: "Cheers."

#george russell #f1 #formula 1 #las vegas gp 2023 #fic ref #fic ref 2023 #las vegas #las vegas 2023 #las vegas 2023 friday

[jennibeultimate]

Personal recap Worlds 2021 - Ladies FS

And of course I am doing one for the ladies. I am just fuming with anger right now. So this might get harsh and salty. Just a warning. I go down from place 1.

I like Anna's skating and musicality and I am actually glad that even if this was neither her best performance nor a performance that touched me it was still the best of those Russians on the podium. If Trusova would have won with her skates I would be even more mad. So congrats little fairy you did it. ❤️ She is a sweet person and she deserves the world. The scoring is not in the skaters hands, but her scoring was...a choice but still a lot more reasonable than Trusova's....

Liza's story is amazing. Just from this point of view it's an amazing achievement. A rolemodel for all figure skaters that they have a chance after their puberty. Her tears when she found out she won over Trusova touched me. So congratulations from the bottom of my heart. 🎉 BUT this was not a silver medal winners performance. Too many mistakes, too little program. One 3A was fantastic but the rest was so and so. I am glad she got ahead of Trusova but it's not a performance I would remember and 69 PCS is questionable at best, compared to Loena, Kaori and Karen it's not right.

Alexandra Trusova...where to start? It would be called a major downmelt if she wouldn't jump quads. Her TES shoot her up high and looking at the protocol technically calls look ok, I would have lowered some GOEs but the TES are hardly my problem. The PCS are atrocious. There was no choreography, no interpretation, nothing left of what seemed to be improvements in the SP in the season. The PCS were way too high. 10 points should go down at least. 56 was what Eva Lotta got and sorry this was worse than her by a lot. And I am sure without quads and without being from Russia, she wouldn't have gotten those PCS. And that's my big fat problem. This was rigged and corrupted PCS scoring at its best. And this program won the free skate??? Wtf. If that's the future I won't watch skating any longer...nothing against Trusova herself but judges are setting the wrong example here. And no I cannot say congrats from my heart because I would have not put her on the podium. It's clear she also benefitted from a lot of the last group skaters not doing well and her high PCS from the SP. I mean everyone trains hard, so not deserved would be wrong to say but just I am not good with this. So still...

Congratulations to the medalists! You fought hard!

Karen Chen is probably the most underestimated of this competition. She came through with two beautiful programs and showed everyone that she was the right choice for this team. I can only applaud👏👏👏 She was imo robbed of the Bronze here. Her PCS are too low compared to Trusova and Liza and others. 4th place is still a very good result for her and saves USA 3 spots for teh Olympics. (wouldn't it be the biggest joke if ladies have 3 spots but the men don't? Not that I wish for it but that's a still a possibility) Her spirals are just A+! 😍 One of the only programs of today worth rewatching.

Loena Hendricks just did that!!! 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥The underdog of this comp just did that! She was the best today. World champion material. Ofc others may have stronger technical content but the cleaness and presentation was the best of everyone today imo. Even if I am not even a big fan of the program but so well suited to her. Really happy for her. 😊

Kaori Sakamoto is the loser of the day. I am still fuming on Kaori's behalf. Yes there was a mistake and yes she has a Flutz but again if everyone gets a pass on edge calls so should Kaori. Edge calls seem only to exist for Kaori. 🙄 She was lowballed in PCS. An almost clean program and 1 point more PCS than the 2 falls skate of Trusova? Sure...🤮 I probably wouldn't fume so much about Trusova's PCS if others like Kaori and Loena would have scored in the 70s but no...admittedly I don't think this was the best version of Matrix...anyway Kaori deserved better. Love you Kaori! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Rika was extremely hard to watch. Heartbroken for her. 💔💔💔She seems to still deal with her ligament injury, still looking at the trainings I thought she would do well. I think not competing and being in such a good position to win this made it mentally tough on her here. I like this lovely program a lot but for today's program 69 PCS was friendly but not when I look at Trusova though...this were just a couple too much mistakes sadly. I hope she can rest well. She will come back stronger! ❤️

I am including Satoko here because she is the other heartbreak for me. 💔 Nothing worked. She was totally out of everything. She is such a magical skater. 63 PCS are just horrid for a skater of her caliber. Puh...I am sad...love you Satoko and happy birthday 🎂 ❤️

I am so heartbroken for Team Japan in general💔😭😭😭😭

Olga Mikutina was my surprise of this competition. When I watched her live at Euros 2020 she fell all over the place, this was such an improvement. Impressive! 👏👏👏Lovely! You got yourself a fan. 😍

Bradie Tennell - I read that her skates broke prior to the SP so that hindered her here. Still I think Bradie did fairly well but too many little errors that lowered TES and PCS are a big joke anyway. Normally I would say those PCS were fair but then we have Trusova and that's where the sense stops for me...

Haein Lee - she is a lovely skater. She is young but a very committed skater to presentation etc. I like her a lot. Not a bad result for a first World Championship. Ofc they were hoping for a 3rd spot but this wasn't a given from the start.

Yelim Kim - my other fairy just dropped a whole lot. 😭 Not much worked like usual. I am so sorry. Such a perfect SP and now this free skate to drop her even behind her teammate. Maybe she wanted too much starting in the last group? The pressure is huge. Haein Lee and Yelim Kim just have the best dresses of this competition! Korean ladies costumes are always A+++❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Lastly I just mention those I liked in the earlier groups:

Josefin Taljegard 🔥 🔥 🔥 She was on fire. Interpretation A+++ her skating and technical content in general are too low to be competitive but I would rather rewatch her a 1000 times than watch Trusova or some of today's other performances ever again. Also I would rather gladly take 24 programs with less technical content and performances like hers than this diaster free in general from today. In other words stan Josefin! ❤️

Eva Lotta Kiibus - her program is well made. Her technical content is good. Her costume is a dream. She can show more of her personality during the program but the basics are great. Love her. 😍

Lindsay Van Zundert - delivered again a wonderful clean program. Very positively surprised with this young lady. 😊

Overall this event was a disappointment. Scoring wise it should not have surprised me. Performance wise it was disappointing as well.

No not a competition worth rewatching. If this is the ladies figure skating of the future then I quit watching ladies. I hate the uneven apply of rules and the playing favorites of the Russians. And also JSF should finally start backing their skaters or Japan will drown in the end.

Sorry for the on going ranting about Trusova's PCS but this is the main problem for me why nothing of everyone else makes sense. And just a clarification, it's not against Trusova, it's the judging and the way this kind of skating gets more reward than ppl with actual programs. It must be disheartening for a lot of skaters.

Bye.

Praying for a better men free skate. 🙏

#figure skating #rika Kihira #kaori sakamoto #alexandra trusova #anna shcherbakova #elizaveta tuktamysheva #yelim kim #Personal recap #stockholm 2021

[betweenthetimeandsound]

Three Minutes to Eternity: My ESC 250 (#140-131)

#140: Lordi -- Hard Rock Hallelujah (Finland 2006)

“You will see the jokers soon'll be the new kings!” I'm semi-convinced that if I heard this song when I was a child, I would've been so scared I would just hide (I also panicked at the cover of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, though that maybe because I didn't want to read such a long book). Watching it for the first time in 2020, I didn't mind it, though the monsters still puts me off. As much as I like to jam to this one, I can’t see myself listening to it over and over again. That said, one can’t take away from the sheer catharsis of this song, from the opening notes to how Lordi gleefully announces their arrival and thunders down Athens with the arockalypse. Whether it’s the first hard rock winner or the last schlager one, Lordi came, saw, and grabbed a first win for Finland after so many attempts, and made rock more popular in Eurovision for a few years. i You can’t resist yourself from headbanging to this one! Personal ranking: 3rd/37 Actual ranking: 1st/24 GF in Athens

#139: Natasha St-Pier -- Je n'ai que mon âme (France 2001)

“Mais je n'ai que mon âme pour te parler de moi, Oh, juste mon âme, mon âme et ma voix,” “But I only have my soul to talk to you about me. Oh, just my soul, my soul and my voice.” By the turn of the millenium, France switched back to contemporary ballads to represent them. While 1999 and 2000's entries didn't do well, their next two would be really strong songs amongst the weakest years ever, and that's why I appreciate France so much in the contest. Initially, I didn’t get it, because it sounded a bit derivative (not unlike what Celine Dion would sing). However, one thing which won me over was with the intro, which provided the base of a really great build. A soft intro leading to a lush instrumental, it shone above the crowd, and it turned from being "derivative" to being "gentle and sincere. Natasha delivers this with equal parts softness and grace, though the English parts did feel a bit out of place in the end. That might have cost it a (deserved) place on the podium, and France would have wait twenty more years for the next medal-placing. Personal ranking: 2nd/23 Actual ranking: 4th/23 in Copenhagen

#138: Lena -- Satellite (Germany 2010)

“I even painted my toenails for you I did it just the other day!"

Whenever you check the comments of any video on this song, you will note a bunch of angry Turkish people who insist MaNga should’ve won 2010. While I really love their song (and will end up later on the list), Satellite was a worthy winner. Along with its commercial success, Satellite is adorable because it is uptempo, sweet, and infectious. Lena acts like she’s having fun on stage and doesn’t even try to pretend. Her accent, which emerged as a result of her English teacher, adds to the charm and her overall innocence. It’s cute, which can turn off some people, but not me--I really embrace it. Also, Arilena Ara made a cover last year for Eurovision Home Concerts, which you should check out! It keeps the poppy vibe, but adds a funky edge to it. Personal ranking: 4th/39 Actual ranking: 1st/25 GF in Oslo

#137: Lazy Bums -- Shir Habatlanim (Israel 1987)

“עושה לי כוס קפה ומדליק לי הסיגריה יוצא אל המרפסת לפצח גרעינים הציפורים יורדות העציצים של המרפסת ומפזמות איתי את שיר הבטלנים” “I make myself a cup of coffee and light a cigarette I go out to the balcony to crack open some seeds The birds come down to the plants of the balcony And sing with me the bums’ song” The Culture Minister threatened to resign when Shir Habatlanim was chosen for the Israeli entry in 1987, but it adds to the charming element to this performance. After a decade in which the Israeli entries pranced around, this was something different, and the two actors really take on the role. The lyrics were a bit silly, but relatable with the bums not seeing the sun because of the buildings and doing random tasks while hanging out with the birds. The Lazy Song before the Lazy Song, I'm starting to think this is the "reality" on playing hooky, whereas "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is the "expectations" part (and they are really high in the movie). The Blues Brothers-inspired performance ("We're coming to ya--"), combined with Kobi Oshrat's orchestration, makes this otherwise troll song into a comedic masterpiece. It's three minutes of fun and endearment, and I can't help but smile. Personal ranking: 4th/22 Actual ranking: 8th/22 in Brussels

#136: Antique -- (I Would) Die for You (Greece 2001)

"Κάθησα και σκέφτηκα Κι είδα ότι μ’ αγαπάς Μόνο εσύ, μόνο εσύ" "I sat down and thought Realised that you love me Only you, only you" Greece's first top-three placing in Eurovision is thanks to Helena Paparizou and guy whose name we do not know Nikos Panagiotidis, both who were based in Sweden at the time. They were well known for combining Greek instruments and dance beat; Opa Opa (written by Giorgios Alkaios, see #207 for his entry) is a really good example of this! (Thanks again, Nikos Terzis for composing this too) From the opening bouzouki, Die for You establishes a sense of cool; the pop production following it adds a sense of modernity that the 2001 class lacked for the most part. And compared to Je n'ai que mon ame (#139), the switch from Greek to English is absolutely natural. It feels like being in an exclusive club, filled with dim lighting and a very spacy ambience of it all--though the orange in Parken works as well. And despite being nineteen, Helena oozes cool in all the ways. From her sleek hair to her jumpsuit to how she moves, she makes the song her own, for what it's worth. I frequently find myself copying her handography, though sometimes my desk lamp blocks my left hand, making it feel a bit clumsy. Though I don't say this often, either Antique or Natasha should've won in 2001. Personal ranking: 1st/23 Actual ranking: 3rd/23 in Copenhagen Final impressions on 2001: DR tried to go big with 35,000, but everyone went to drink, and it felt like one hundred. The songs at hand tried hard to be cool, though in some places, we were better off in school. On their own, the strings in our hearts remain broke, though when the trophy did, our minds awoke. Despite the ambitions, the contest would make people leave the room. Thankfully, it was better than that of 2002! :) (On another note, of all the years Italy didn't participate in the contest, 1999 and 2001 were the most irritating. Here, Elisa's Luce (tramonti a nord-est) won Sanremo, and it's a surrealistically beautiful indie song with cool lyrics (especially it was originally written in English, and had to be changed to Italian for the contest). Had they competed, I could see a top-five finish for them, and I could see this as an all-time favorite for me.)

#135: Katerine Duska -- Better Love (Greece 2019)

“Won’t you lean on me You can lean on me Let them look, don’t know, don’t care Go deep with me...” She's not Amy Winehouse, she's Katerine Duska! I had a love/hate relationship with this song during the 2019 season. On the one hand, it’s a really good song, with a lush production and sultry vocals from Katerine Duska. The lyrics, while simple, deals with the theme of love in an interesting way--no matter who you are, you deserve a love that suits you.

On the other hand, considering my grudge towards the 2018 contest, I was worried that this may do well and restart the Greek golden age. That feeling amplified when the rehearsals started, when Katerine and co. had this faerie queene aesthetic. It looked absolutely beautiful, with flowers and fantasy and whimsy. And most important, swords (the MV had sabres whereas the live performance had epees.)!

Of course it qualified, but it collapsed in the final and placed 21st in the end. Some people attributed to how "messy" the staging was, along with Katerine's vocals. In hindsight, I could see it with the former, but the latter remained firm, and she aced that high note.

But it was a good change for Greece, showing that they can do indie music as well as pop and ethno. And Katerine's non-Eurovision songs are fantastic; especially check out Autumn Again and Athenian Skies! Personal ranking: 4th/41 Actual ranking: 21st/26 GF in Tel Aviv

#134: Netta -- Toy (Israel 2018)

“Wonder Woman don’t you ever forget You’re divine and he’s about to regret...”

This has been a total phenomenon ever since its release. However, it’s also quite polarizing, with some people really bopping to this one whether it's on the radio or Tik-tok, and others getting repulsed by the chicken noises or the strong message it provided.

For me, it's Toy's "in-your-face' nature which makes it really special. From the first listen, there's the element of surprise with Netta's looping (the MV intro on Spotify >>> regular studio intro). It then builds until Netta announces herself as a "beautiful creature" and that she wasn't going to be bullied by others. While the songwriters definitely used the "Me Too" movement as a vehicle for the song, it's Netta's influence, along with the Mizrahi instrumentation in the chorus, which packs a punch. Without those chicken noises, Toy would fall flat.

The staging had to be worked on several times, but the final result captured the song's kookiness in every way. From the fake looper to the backing dancer's choreography, the following three minutes is an explosion of fun (though some of the energy died on stage on first viewing).

In short, Netta deserved to win, and those who suggest otherwise is just mean.

Personal ranking: 5th/43 Actual ranking: 1st/26 GF in Lisbon

#133: Mariza Koch -- Panagia Mou, Panagia Mou (Greece 1976)

“Κι αν δείτε ερείπια γκρεμισμένα, όι-όι μάνα μ', Δεν θα 'ναι απ' άλλες, απ' άλλες εποχές, Από ναπάλμ θα 'ναι καμένα, όι-όι μάνα μ'…"

“And if you see shattered ruins, oh oh my Mother, It's not from other, from other eras It is burnt by napalm, oh oh my Mother...”

In their second appearance at the Eurovision Song Contest, Greece sends this politically-charged song to criticize the invasion of Cyprus two years before. The Greek military junta at the time wanted to unite the island with mainland Greece, which led to a coup. As a result, the Turkish government invaded Cyprus, and declared the non-recognized Republic of Northern Cyprus. This status remains to this day, which has hindered Turkey's admission to the European Union.

(Interestingly enough, Turkey broadcast this contest despite not participating, and censored the Greek song to replace it with a patriotic song. Haha)

Dark context aside, it ties into the folk tradition during that time, but adds a Greek touch to it with the bouzouki. Combined with thoughtful yet tragic lyrics, it stands out as a darker yet deeper tone from the 1976 contest. Mariza also conveys this with her clear, yet harsh vocals pinpoint the horrors of what was going on. Also, the orchestration adds to the grandeur of this with its lush strings.

Personal ranking: 3rd/18 Actual ranking: 11th/18 in Den Haag

#132: Chocolate, Menta, Mastik -- Emor Shalom (Israel 1976)

בוא, בוא, בוא עוד היום”, אני עוד כאן אז בוא אמור שלום, אמור שלום

“Come, come, come today, I'm still here so come say hello Say hello..”

From one heavily politically charged song to a slightly less so, haha! Emor Shalom is s very playful and cute song, the three girls charm their potential lover (or diplomatic) with their voices and dance moves.

The hidden political context comes from "shalom"--is it hello, or is it peace? When the song was performed, Israel had been independent for thirty years, but their geopolitical relationships were not good with their neighbors. So the three girls, who sung for the military, were not only hoping for a lover, but also for peace.

The song itself incorporates some elements disco with trumpets, which got me into it in the first place. I'm not entirely sure about how the latter works--they are fine, but it does feel a bit cartoonish. While the lyrics are a bit simple, they still add to it.

Personal ranking: 2nd/18 Actual ranking: 6th/18 in Den Haag

#131: Sonja Lumme -- Eläköön elämä (Finland 1985)

“Kaupungissa on yö, puistoon kanssasi jäin Sä seisot edessäin täynnä toivoa” “It’s night in the city, I stayed in the park with you You’re standing in front me full of hope” Top ten anime opening themes, part two!

From the intro until the end, I love how Eläköön elämä progresses. It not only has a sound which matches with music trends (along with those mullets, but it's the 1980s so we can move on about this...), but also has a joie-de-vivre in terms of the lyrics. I've heard about it being connected to the Cold War; considering it was before glasnost, I'd imagine one of the themes here was to enjoy every moment before the world ends.

Ossi Runne's orchestration mixes the punchy pop-rock with some really good strings and brass. An awesome instrumentation and hopeful lyrics, when put together, you’ve got one of Finland’s best ever entries.

Personal ranking: 1st/19 Actual ranking: 9th/19 in Gothenburg

Final impressions on 1985: While Sweden first hosted in 1975, the production ten years later shows their capabilities in putting on a good show. From the graphics to the stage to Lilli's hosting, it's a totally fun experience. The songs were a bit weaker than it, though there were enough gems to keep the mood buzzing. Plus, there were several good orchestral moments there (especially #193) which made it all the better!

#esc top 250 #esc 250 #eurovision song contest #esc finland #esc france #esc germany #esc israel #esc greece #vintage eurovision #three minutes to eternity

[imtheviolenceintherain]

The fantastic Mrs. Bonham Carter (Vogue, October 2019).

Without major worries or ambitions, Helena Bonham Carter has become an unexpected icon of the big screen. Her roles, always between the bizarre and the vindictive, have given her a star status with which she now prepares for his most mediatic character: Princess Margarita in the new season of The Crown, the netflix story about the british royal house.

Sitting down for tea with Helena Bonham Carter is similar to join on a roller coaster that starts in the dark with an uncertain destination. At 53 years old, the british actress (London, 1966) displays a sense of humor that includes issues such as Brexit or the oratory of Donald Trump with equal brilliance, but she stops suddenly when she thinks she has to talk seriously about the wage gap in the film industry. «If at any time I move away from what you are looking for, find a way to get me back on track», she jokes lying on an armchair next to a pair of fuchsia satin shoes that she has abandoned on the floor, looking like the shoes had shattered her feet. «It is not exactly the shoes that I would wear on a summer morning, but today she is the boss.»

By 'she' means the woman she has been studying for several months before she has had to slip into her shoes this autumn morning. Princess Margarita de York, Countess of Snowdon, daughter of Kings Isabel and Jorge VI and younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II of England, is the last of a hundred women whom this actress has embodied in her three decades of career. With the same skill that she will jump frantically in the topics of our conversation, this actress has managed to take on roles that little or nothing have to do with each other, beyond its bizarre peculiarities.

Since she debuted in 1983 as the young Netty Bellinger in the telefilm A Pattern of Roses, her pale face with aristocrat pedigree has been transmuted into others of female drug addicts and perverts (as in The Fight Club), more or less wicked witches (as in Big Fish and Harry Potter), corseted prostitutes (Les Miserables) and even a vindictive chimpanzee (The Planet of the Apes). This tour has earned her a place on the podium of the best female actresses in the United Kingdom, a BAFTA award for her portrayal of the queen mother in The King's Speech in 2011 and two Oscar nominations, for The King's Speech and for the film adaptation of The wings of the dove that starred in 1997.

Another queen occupies her current time since she agreed to participate in the new cast of The Crown, the production of Netflix whose third season will be released on November 17. The series, which achieved an unusual success with its first two seasons covering the history of the British royal house between 1947 and 1964, takes up the story since that year with a hint which is a height risk: the main characters change their faces in the next two seasons. Claire Foy gives Queen Elizabeth's throne to Oscar-winning Olivia Colman, Matt Smith does the same with Tobias Menzies and Vanessa Kirby is replaced by Helena Bonham Carter in the role of Margarita.

The news was made public in May of last year, but the actress had been knowing about Netflix's interest in her for months. «Shortly before Christmas 2017, I received a text message from an acquaintance. All it had written was: 'Helena, would you play Princess Margarita?'», she remembers. «It was shortly after Olivia Colman (The Iron Lady, The Favorite) had accepted the role of Queen Elizabeth», she recalls about the offer. «The first thing I felt was a little anger at how convinced my circle was that I should accept it. They couldn't stop telling me that I were ideal for the role, and I thought to myself: What we look alike? In alcoholism? In the nymphomania?! Maybe that was too much, but let's say she liked sex a lot. The truth is that it was ridiculous to think it too much, because the proposal was juicy from any perspective. With the distance of time, I'm glad to have accepted: Margarita is much more complex than all the things that they have been drawn of her, and therefore it was possible to play her in a thousand different ways. She is full of contradictions and dualities, because she was both traditional and rebellious; as at times she was a social animal and others times a lone wolf. She was an absolutely unpredictable woman», she argues. The third season of The Crown starts in 1964 to address, among other things, the relationship between Isabel II and Prime Minister Harold Wilson, the decolonization of Africa, diplomatic ties with the United States or the landing of the Apollo 11 on the Moon. On this October morning, the costume director for the series, Amy Roberts, has donned the actress in an emerald green dress and fuchsia shoes that have led to our meeting in the middle of filming the first half of the season. The stage is an Andalusian patio in the Beverly Hills mansion where Margarita and her husband, Tony Armstrong-Jones (better known as Lord Snowdon and played by Ben Daniels) come to attend a fashion show during an official trip to the United States. But the reality is different: a technical team has been responsible for emulating California opulence on a farm a few kilometers from Algeciras, with the Rock of Gibraltar very present on the horizon. Facing the pool, five models walk in suits and bathrobes with echoes to Missoni under the watchful eye of about thirty men and women dressed as the American jet set of the 60s.

The scene maybe will be a three-second shot in the final footage, but it serves to show the prominence of Margarita in the new chapters: her addictive marriage to Lord Snowdon and a star status ain front of her sister - who in another scene laments being "more reliable and predictable" - of which Bonham Carter knew little more than the media portrait that had been made of her. «I had a caricatured image, like many people. We know what they wanted to tell us: that she drank, that she was scandalous, unfriendly, irreverent, controversial. But all the labels that have been put on her are unfair and ignorant. She was a true star that did not force her speech or hide her charisma, it was innate and therefore triumphed wherever she went. When I looked for something else, I also noticed that she was a tremendously smart and funny woman, with the same ability to finish a crossword puzzle in five minutes than to take the party that she would consider timely. She loved her sister and felt a deep respect for her, but I think she never fully recovered from the loss of her father, King George. The turning point came from the abdication of her uncle Eduardo, the sudden rise to the throne of her father and, later, that of Isabel as queen. She was losing her father and her best friend, who were subject to a life of service. I think a lot of courage is required to be in such a complicated position: surrounded by people but deeply alone, under constant public judgement. And despite that, I am convinced that she felt the duty to serve her family and also her people. She was an admirable woman».

Her opinion is useful to sharpen the urban legend of a figure that sweep along countless anecdotes, like the dinner in which she asked the model Twiggy her name, which she seemed it "unfortunate", or the 'vulgar' adjective that she dedicated to the Krupp diamond with which Richard Burton had presented Elizabeth Taylor. However, there is hardly an audiovisual archive of images where Margarita makes use of her proverbial character. «The royal family is an expert in planning how is projected to the public, how they shake hands, get out of a car or follow the protocol at a dinner. But there was almost nothing about Margarita talking with someone beyond the official speeches, so I had to talk to her friends or people who would have lived with her to learn more about her tone, her convictions, her way of expressing herself in intimacy. I played his mother in The King's Speech (Tom Hopper, 2010), of which there is an extensive archive. But there is almost nothing about Margarita, except for an interview with Roy Plomley of 1381, on the BBC's Desert Island Discs program. I may hear those 40 minutes more than a hundred times». Despite accumulating more than a hundred roles in her 36 years of experience, it is the first time that Bonham Carter faces a full season in a television series. «I had no experience in logistics of how to work for a series, but it wasn't easy considering the magnitude of The Crown. The filming was distributed over six months, by different countries, and that makes many times you have to do a titanic effort to stay focused. When I shoot a feature film, those weeks I just walk around the set without leaving the character and try not to part with it to keep myself in my goal. But in this case, I came to the studio, recorded two days and maybe I didn't have to come back in two weeks. If I had practiced my usual formula, I would have become very unbearable. Imagine my two children having to put up with it», she jokes, raising her eyebrow, emulating Margarita's monarchical accent. «Sometimes, when we had a rest, I remembered the red queen», she concedes, referring to the hysterical sovereign that already embodied in Alice in Wonderland, the adaptation of the Lewis Carroll story that in 2010 adapted her then husband, the director Tim Burton. One of the advantages of filming was to have Olivia Colman, in the role of the queen, whom she remembers as an open, sociable woman, and without a hint of the neurosis that she usually displays on screen. «We are both very frank, and that is why it has been so easy. Together we had what was probably the most funny day of work of the whole season. We had to do a scene quite sad and despite whatever I would said, Olivia was unable to stop crying to the point that they had to put her a few tiny headphones so she could hear any nonsense. I told her some horrible things and she answered without hearing anything at all. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but we managed to get better to the point that she can now listen to me without shedding a tear». It is curious that this granddaughter of a Spanish diplomat - her grandfather Eduardo Propper de Callejón facilitated the flight of thousands of Jews from occupied France through Spain in World War II - almost no one imputes to her a bad choice in her filmography. «I never choose my roles thinking that it will be a success at the box office, or the money that I will earn. With The Crown, for example, playing Margarita like this, abstractly, was never an option. Peter Morgan [series creator] called me several times coming to confess that Olivia had not even had to read the script to accept. But until I read it all and I confirmed the great writing, I didn't say yes». With a sincerity that is refreshing in her industry, there is something that worries her more now than when the world first fell in love with her porcelain face in Room with a View (James Ivory, 1985). «It is exciting to witness the movement to fight for women's equality and, above all, to celebrate diversity and examine things we had taken for granted. But we still have weights that represent people like Donald Trump. It is an uncertain period. But at least we, the actors, can continue telling stories that help break the damn molds».

NOTE.

As some of you already know, I am Spanish and I am the owner of @badposthbc (twitter) and @bestofhbc (instagram); so English is not my first language nor am I a translator. I know it is not a perfect translation, all comments are welcome to improve the translation! but please, be kind. With all due respect to the magazine, if you want to read it in its original language, buy the magazine and if you are going to spread this english interview, give me credits.

#vogue #voguemagazine #helena bonham carter #the crown #interview hbc #hbc #helena bonham carter interview #october 2019

[morosemariposa]

2019 Skate Canada International

The Grand Prix Series continues this week with event two Skate Canada. This year located at Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. Luckily for me I was able to watch all of the competition live. Hurray! I enjoy watching skating live. Watching live is the best because your in the moment and want everyone to perform the best they can do.

LADIES’ SP This was a fun well skated segment. Some skaters didn’t do well but the ones that did really shined. The free skate is going to be a battle for the podium. Any one of the top three could win and anyone of them could also fall off the podium. The top three were especially spectacular and deserving of their placements.

Young You - When will Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet make a comeback? Besides the music choice she did all her elements well, but all the choreographic movements could belong to any piece of music.

Marin Honda - That popped 3F into a 2F took all the charm away from the performance. It’s too bad because she has the ability but she’s been having jump problems for a while and I hope she can deliver a clean short sometime this season.

Gabrielle Daleman - It’s always nice when a skater is proud of their skate. I like this for her and hopefully that momentum continues in the free skate.

Alexandra Trusova - It was a good clean short for Alexandra. She did all the elements well and the music is dramatic and fun just like her.

Evgenia Medvedeva - It wasn’t a good short. The things she did do didn’t go over well and the mistakes made the performance nonexistent.

Rika Kihira - Despite the nature of this program I do like that Rika is performing it to it’s fullest at this point in the season. This is only the second time she’s skated this in competition and both times she nailed it. This program brings out more of what Rika is capable of in terms of performance and she still has a ways to go. Congrats on a deserved 1st place in the short program.

LADIES’ FP Nobody had a clean free skate. The top three deserved their medals but they didn’t have clean skates. What the three of them did have were the best two skated programs across the competition. They each had clean short programs and each had only one significant flaw in the free program. Congratulations to the medalists! To the skaters that still have a second event in the Grand Prix Series, I hope they put out better performances. A lot of free programs here weren’t to my taste but there were at least two programs that I liked.

Marin Honda - She was focusing on the jumps that much was clear and it was a good idea for that to be the focus. This early in the season it’s a good strategy for Marin to focus a little more on  the jumps especially because she has a trouble being consistent in jumps. The second jump in all the combos were doubles and they need to be triples but this was a good effort. She performed the choreographic elements well and got a good score. It’s great that she’s happy with her score she needs this confidence boost.

Gabrielle Daleman - Right from the beginning the jumps were erratic and uncontrolled. The fall in the middle of the StSq was unexpected and quite the surprise but the performance quality wasn’t there and her focus became the jumps which is understandable. Hopefully some time this season she’ll be able to perform clean across both programs.

Evgenia Medvedeva - She did everything she set out to do and did it well. There are parts that are rushed and unpolished but in general personally the program isn’t one I’ll ever like as a whole.

Young You - There is no performance quality, just various arm movements. The music doesn’t do her any favors and she would be much better off doing a program to classical piano pieces. Despite that congrats to her on her bronze medal.

Alexandra Trusova - Three quads and two of them in combination, of course she was going to win with a skate of that level. The TES was 100.20, that’s more than some of the men! Her skating is still at that unpolished and rushing through the elements stage but that will come with age and experience. Congratulations on a commanding victory!

Rika Kihira - Rika had the best two performances across this competition. In this free program she performed every element well except for the opening 3A and she performed the program consistently throughout. A great skate and a well earned silver medal.

MEN’S SP This men’s short program was boring and a chore to watch. A lot of messy skates and a lot of programs that I personally don’t like. Special shout out to Deniss and his cute smile at the end of his program.

Keiji Tanaka - This is the first time I’ve seen Keiji perform his short and I think it’s okay. The jumps weren’t what they were supposed to be. Some pops here and there and the spins were alright and the step sequence could’ve gone better. I’m not a fan of the music and this kind of music really needs to be performed over the top. The shirt is ugly. Point blank. I guess it’s suppose to be.

Yuzuru Hanyu - It was beautiful, fantastic, and there’s nothing else to say. The 4T in the combination and the StSq could’ve gone smother but who cares. Deservedly in 1st after the short.

Matteo Rizzo - The 4T could’ve gone better and the 3Lz+Combo just sucks. He could do better than this and we know it but the ice is unpredictable.

Deniss Vasiljevs - I really love this program. Deniss performs it to it’s full potential every time. I don’t care about the jumps. He is a skater who gives 100% to the performance. I just love him, he’s so cute!

MEN’S FP The first half was just as boring as the entire short program but then group two came and gave life to a dismal event. Those last four skates were great and fun to watch. Shout out to Nam Nguyen for that amazing free skate and an even better standing ovation from the audience. Totally deserved silver medal. All three of the medalist were great and they really made the competition.

Matteo Rizzo - This style of music is great for Matteo. It’ll stretch his capability and performance quality in the long run and eventually if the program were to be performed clean then it’ll be an entertaining routine to watch. His major issue right now is getting consistency in his jumps.

Deniss Vasiljevs - Those few pops really hurt his technical score but the his PCS were great.  It’s insightful hearing him critique his own performance in the Kiss & Cry. His assesment is valid and Stephane’s input is as well. Deniss really needs to be consistent in his jumps and be able to flow through the program seamlessly. This needs to be done without concern whether he should focus more on the technical elements or the performance elements.

Keiji Tanaka - I was so happy that he tackled that 1T on the 4S. Better a 1T than a +REP. That 4S was really close to the boards and I can see why maybe he was nervous and the landing turned out a bit iffy. He popped two other jumps as well but there were no major mistakes and I’m starting to really like this program. It’s fun and it’s on brand for Keiji. I like that he’s chosen to skate more for himself from now on with more consistency than before. YAY KEIJI, BRONZE MEDAL!!!

Yuzuru Hanyu - That was amazing. One could be nitpick and say that the opening 4L and the 3A2T in the second half could’ve been smother for an even more perfect score but again who cares. He was amazing and got a gigantic score. The undisputed champion. Congratulations on 1st place!!

Ice Dance The free dance was so much fun to watch. The Lilah Fear/Lewis Gibson free dance to Madonna’s Vogue and Like a Prayer was great. I loved watching every minute of it, their so charismatic and crowd pleasing. So happy for them and their bronze medal. The Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier Kiss & Cry reaction to their first place score was the best moment on the competition. I was so happy for them. I really wanted Kaitlin Hawayek/Jean-Luc Baker to medal, they’re my favorite American ice dance team and their so much fun when they skate. I know they were disappointing in their overall score and I don’t blame them. It’s really hard to take when you miss the podium by less that a point. Their qualification chances to the Grand Prix Final are small but they still the opportunity as long as they compete just like they did here.

This was such a great competition. So much fun to watch. It had great skates from amazing skaters and amazing skates from surprising skaters. This competition really makes qualifying for the Grand Prix Final that much more interesting. Can’t wait for next week.

#figure skating #2019 Skate Canada International #2019/2020 figure skating season #ISU Grand Prix Series

[kichessarjilian]

2017 World Championships in Helsinki - Ladies Recap

Since I haven’t finished going through my videos from Worlds I’m going to skip talking about practices and go straight to recapping my experience at Helsinki for each discipline. I’ll do a master post later with any videos I took. Let’s start off with the ladies since the ladies SP is what kicked off Worlds this year. Perhaps I’ll do this by commenting on some of the skaters I remember, my thoughts are after the cut.

Let’s start off by saying this event was full of highs and lows. The Japanese ladies ended up losing their third spot for the Olympic year, partially due to Satoko Miyahara withdrawing due to hip injury, and we had some major meltdowns happen. Here are my thoughts.

Evgenia Medvedva - I think everyone basically knew she was going to win this, and probably break a WR in doing so. To be honest, I think she’s starting to feel the heat of her young training mate, Alina Zagitova, coming up and on her heels. Alina is the new junior world champ and does all of her jumps in the second half for the 10% BV bonus, and pretty much rippons or tanos all her jumps. So what does Medveva do? She’s starts to rippon her jumps too. I will admit that the rippons do look better than her tano, but the constant arms over the head has been wearing thin for my taste for a long time now. I actually expected the judges to give her a WR for her SP once she started adding the rippons so I was pleasantly surprised when they didn’t as I felt the performance wasn’t that different from her prior showings. You could tell when her SP score came up she was slightly disappointed that she didn’t get a new world record. Anyway, she skated two clean programs and set a world record for her freeskate with a score that was over the top for me. Medvedva has a lot of great qualities and skates with a lot of confidence, she has improved from when I saw her in Boston last year, and even from what I saw of her at Skate Canada earlier in the season, but I think this point gap between her and the other ladies gives the sense that the skates that she puts out are far removed from her competitors. There is a room for improvement for her skating which is not reflected in the scores she currently receives (the speed in her step sequence for instance, could definitely be improved, that aspect was similar to what I saw in Skate Canada) and the less I say about her choreography, the better. Either way, I’d say she is the rightful winner here, just maybe not with that score.

Kaetlyn Osmond - Osmond was finally able to hold it together in the free to win her first world medal, congratulations to her and to Canada! Before Worlds I had a feeling that Osmond would end up on the podium, especially if she manage a good free program here. Like Medvedeva, I also saw Osmond at Skate Canada earlier this season and was really impressed with the size of her jumps and the quality of her skating overall. I’m not a fan of her free skate (sorry Jeff!), but it’s a decent vehicle for her. She does have a tendency at times to get tilted in the air, but magically is able to land with good flow both in and out.

Gabrielle Daleman - I remember being impressed by Daleman’s athleticism when I saw her in Boston last year and she really put two programs together hear to grab the bronze medal, while coming in second in the free skate. Her 3T-3T is monstrous! Like with Osmond, I also prefer her SP to her FS. This is the first time Canada has had two ladies on the World podium.

Karen Chen - Chen placed fourth here, but I would probably have had her below Mai Mihara overall. Karen skated a very good SP (although I thought her SP combo seemed under rotated) and had some mistakes in the free. She skated well at her first senior world championships, but her scores were a bit puzzling for me. I think she can ride the success she had here into next season.

Mai Mihara - After going through most of the season with a clean SP Mai made a huge mistake by doubling and falling on her 3F at the end of her SP. Everything was going so smoothly up to that point that I thought for sure she’d get a clean SP! The placement of the 3F is pretty risky, but I love it when she hits it. Despite the SP, she came back strong in the free with a perfect free skate, and her reaction at the end was just lovely. What I love about Mai’s skating is how smooth she is on the ice, she has wonderful knees and edges. She’s a little green right now, and her programs this season are not the most interesting (particularly the free) but she has a lot of potential. I hope to see some nice choreography for her next season. I’m definitely a fan.

Carolina Kostner - It was exciting to see Carolina return to the ice, she has a fantastic sense of body awareness that you don’t really see from the other ladies in the field. We also ran into Carolina’s mother and coach in the hotel elevator and we told her coach we were looking forward to seeing her skate. While I love her SP, it was quite shaky in Helsinki - that spin in particular made me nervous! Regardless of the result, this has been a pretty good comeback for Carolina this season with a bronze medal at Europeans. I think with some more time she can improve her performances.

Ashley Wagner - I’m not a fan of Ashley’s skating and this was a pretty disappointing finish for her, but I sort of expected it.

Maria Sotskova - I honestly expected her to put together two relatively clean programs as she was fairly consistent over the season. She has a grace to her skating that’s different from what we see from Medvedeva and Pogorilaya, which I find refreshing, but lacks speed.

Dabin Choi - Dabin skated very well here, and she’s laid her stake on La La Land music for her free already… Dabin’s 10th place finish here has secured South Korea with two ladies spots for the Olympic season, good job!

Wakaba Higuchi - Wakaba started off so well in the SP! I thought she was a bit underscored for her SP, and I was expecting her to put together a good free skate as she has done well at junior worlds the past two seasons in the free, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. I’m also not quite sure if Scheherazade was the best fit for her. I do love her 2A, let’s see if she tries the 3A next season!

Mariah Bell - I could tell she was nervous, and she skated that way. I’m not sure if I expect to see her on the US world team next season, she will definitely need to fight for that spot.

Anna Pogorilaya - I made a post after the men’s SP saying sometimes experiencing things live is worst than watching at home. Pogorilaya’s free skate definitely falls into this camp. This season, since Boston, Anna has been very consistent. Seemingly gone were the days where she would have crazy falls and meltdowns during her programs. Almost a year later it seemed the spell was broken and the pressure got to her. Things went downhill fast after she singled her opening lutz, there was a moment where she nearly stopped her program entirely and the audience had to clap to encourage her to keep going. After her music ended she broke down on the ice crying. While they did the replay on the jumbotron I was watching her in the Kiss and Cry and it broke my heart. Anna’s coach is often seen as being aloof and stoic in the Kiss and Cry, so I knew it was bad when her coach was openly comforting her and giving her a hug. The competition among the Russian ladies is so fierce, I think Anna needed a strong showing at Worlds to really secure a place on the Russian Olympic team next season. As we can see, the Russian Federation has already pulled her from World Team Trophy. I hope she can rebound from this, watching her in the Kiss and Cry was tough.

Rika Hongo - Another one who broke my heart! Called in at the last minute as a substitute for Satoko Miyahara, Rika has been battling injuries as well and you can tell that her results this season has shaken her confidence. Her Riverdance free which seemed so energetic in Boston, lacked the freedom and joy she displayed there. She was close to tears in the Kiss and Cry and my heart went out to her. My friend, who was watching back at the hotel lobby, saw Rika return to the hotel looking very sad. It doesn’t seem as if she stayed in Helsinki for the banquet either. Now that the season is over, I hope she can rest and reset, because I do think she has a special performance quality.

So, aside from Medvedeva, I think the ladies seem wide-open next season. I had bet on Pogorilaya keeping her consistency, but with this showing I’m not sure any more. Here’s hoping Satoko comes back healthy and ready to compete, I missed her in this competition and I really enjoyed her Planets free skate.

I’ll also admit that at the start of the season I was really hoping Mao would make it to Worlds as she had my favorite set of programs of all the ladies, but she has just announced her retirement. She’s given a lot to skating through her competitive career and I consider myself lucky that I was able to watch her live in Boston last year. She had an aura that projected to the farthest reaches of the arena that could be felt even when she was simply standing at her starting position. I look forward to seeing her continue to skate professionally and hope she’s able to enjoy her life outside of competitive skating.

#helsinki2017 #evgenia medvedeva #katelyn Osmond #gabrielle daleman #karen chen #mai mihara #Carolina Kostner #maria sotskova #dabin choi #wakaba higuchi #mariah bell #anna pogorilaya #rika hongo #mao asada #recap

[metawitches]

  And Maybe a Few Predictions…

Okay, after watching as many movies as I can cram into my brain in a relatively short period of time (actually, The Florida Project is still playing), I’m ready to make some choices here. I don’t want to name any names, but I was slowed down in my viewing by a certain usual movie-going companion who informed me at the last minute that he was abandoning me for the Winter Olympics, and would not only be watching every Men’s Hockey game this year, but the Women’s Hockey as well. How could I, as a feminist complain about that? Yay, for women’s sports equality! Boo for it interfering with Oscar movie viewing season, and viewing partners who don’t schedule their time wisely!

Anyway, I eventually gave up on him and mostly went on alone, and the US Women took Gold in Hockey. 🎉 They were able to do because people have made equality in  girl’s and women’s sports a big deal and fought hard for decades, and the federal government has required public schools to provide girls with equal opportunities since the seventies. Sports are viewed as important to male development in many ways, so it’s obvious to argue that access is an important aspect of female equality.

Now it’s time to find out how many women will get the gold in their chosen artistic fields in the film industry. After last year’s ceremony, I was struck by the lack of women at the podium who weren’t presenters or accepting as actors. No one was talking about it then and that post received VERY few hits. Thankfully, it only took a few months for brave women in the industry to start speaking up, and we’re in a different place today.

But the arts in general don’t get the societal support that sports do, and the federal government doesn’t require arts education, so there’s no requirement for equal opportunity. The arts community has remained stuck in a different era, with the casting couch of the early twentieth century intact, men exclusively at the top of every field and women doing the grunt work when they’re allowed in, and men needing to be reminded, over and over, that women aren’t there to be playthings.

The gender bias is obvious if you actually look with an objective eye, starting with who gets taken seriously in childhood, continuing with who gets favored in film and art school, and culminating in extreme bias in hiring and employment practices. Given the male cronyism that women have faced since the film industry began, I’m not going to feel bad about favoring female nominees where I can. Token nominations, then being told to shut up and go sit quietly in corner until next year aren’t enough. Especially when the awards are given to men who only pretend to make feminist films, or to films that would like to forget women even exist. If people of color and trans people need to be allowed to speak for themselves, so do women, thanks.

Now that my female rage has been expressed, let’s get on with what we’re here for.

Best Picture

It’s a tough choice between The Shape of Water and Lady Bird for me. Like Birdman and Whiplash a few years ago, they are both very, very well done, but at opposite ends of the spectrum as far as moviemaking goes. I picked Whiplash that year, but I’m going with The Shape of Water this time, because of its overall artistry and message.

I think the Academy is choosing between the Shape of Water, Three Billboards, and Get Out, with Lady Bird as a dark horse potential surprise winner. The Shape of Water is my prediction, because Three Billboard’s controversial flaws have been exposed as the film has played to American audiences. With so many other choices, there’s no reason to go with a potentially offensive choice this year. Guillermo del Toro is loved, and The Shape of Water hits a lot of buttons. Get Out made white people the enemy (the Academy is overwhelmingly old and white), and follows Moonlight winning last year, while Lady Bird is probably perceived as too inconsequential. Get Out and Lady Bird are the best written and constructed films of the nominees, so they could pull out the shocking win.

Call Me By Your Name Darkest Hour Dunkirk Get Out Lady Bird Phantom Thread The Post The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Actor The hands down, no point in discussing it, favorite to win is Gary Oldman, but I’m going to be a heretic and choose someone else! Gary Oldman was amazing, but I always knew he was Acting, and probably choosing which Shakespearean character he was emulating, throughout the entire thing. Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name is my choice. That movie lived and died based on his performance as a 17 year old boy going through a romantic and sexual awakening, first love, and the loss of first love. He played the role with a dignity and subtlety that’s rarely seen when teenage boys and sex are shown on film. Chalamet’s performance was open, brave and vulnerable, raw and passionate in a way that Gary Oldman’s wasn’t.

Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name) Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq.)

Best Actress These performances were all amazing, and they all deserve to win in some ways. Frances McDormand has swept the preseason awards and is the favorite here, but my choice is Sally Hawkins. While McDormand’s performance is all sound and fury that in the end signifies nothing, Sally Hawkins owns her film without ever saying a word. She’s the heart and soul of the story, and we can’t take our eyes off of her. Her performance is both open and mysterious, expressive but secretive, mischievous but fierce. She turns a woman who’s been overlooked by everyone into a heroine who can outwit the US government’s finest, and we wholeheartedly believe she’s capable and cheer her on. It’s hard to imagine anyone else accomplishing what Hawkins did with the role.

Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water) Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) Margot Robbie (I, Tonya) Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) Meryl Streep (The Post)

Best Supporting Actor

pending!

Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project) Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water) Christopher Plummer (All the Money In the World) Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

Best Supporting Actress

Alison Janney is the favorite to win, and has won, over and over as the other awards have been given out. I think Laurie Metcalf deserves the Oscar, for her tense, bitter, hardened, restrained, but loving performance. Allison Janney was incredible, but she was able to let loose with her vitriol and become a monster, while Metcalf had to walk a very fine line and accomplished it.

Mary J. Blige (Mudbound) Allison Janney (I, Tonya) Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird) Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread) Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water)

Best Directing

I gave Best Picture to The Shape of Water, so I’m going to split the difference and give Greta Gerwig Best Director. There’s just nothing wrong with Lady Bird, and that’s down to Gerwig’s vision, artistry, and direction of the people she worked with. She brought out the best in her cast and crew, which is an achievement that deserves to be recognized.

Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk) Jordan Peele (Get Out) Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread) Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water)

Best Adapted Screenplay

I loved Mudbound. Really, really loved it, and think it was snubbed for Best Picture and Director. It’s a no brainer to give it Best Adapted Screenplay. I have no idea what the Academy will pick.

Call Me By Your Name The Disaster Artist Logan Molly’s Game Mudbound

Best Original Screenplay

I’ll give this one to Get Out, which was very original, had a great script, and deserves some Oscars. I’d be fine with any of the nominees winning, except Three Billboards. I don’t think that The Big Sick paid enough attention to the wife’s journey, but it was a good film (would have rated it 3.5, had I gotten around to writing the review). The Academy will give it to either The Shape of Water or Three Billboards.

The Big Sick Get Out Lady Bird The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Animated Film

Didn’t see any. 😦

The Boss Baby The Breadwinner Coco Ferdinand Loving Vincent

Best Cinematography

Oh my gosh, this is the toughest call of all! Can I declare a three way tie between Blade Runner, Shape of Water and Mudbound? Of course I can, it’s my website! LOL. Or give it to Altered Carbon? No? Okay, if I have to choose, it goes to Shape of Water, with Mudbound as my sentimental favorite. The Academy will choose between Shape of Water and Dunkirk, and who wins will depend on whether the old white guys or the artsy youngsters prevail. That’s basically my prediction for most of the technical awards.

Blade Runner 2049 Darkest Hour Dunkirk Mudbound The Shape of Water

Best Costume Design

The Academy will give it to Phantom Thread, because they love couture and appearing classy. I’m giving it to Shape of Water, because those costumes were so perfectly and precisely tied in with the artistic vision of the film, managed to flatter the actors’ bodies, and were still appropriate to the period.

Beauty and the Beast Darkest Hour Phantom Thread The Shape of Water Victoria & Abdul

Best Documentary Feature

Didn’t see.

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Faces Places Icarus Last Men in Aleppo Strong Island

Best Documentary Short Subject Didn’t see.

Edith+Eddie Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405 Heroin(e) Knife Skills Traffic Stop

Best Film Editing

I,Tonya, with Dunkirk as a runner up. I, Tonya switched between mediums, and Dunkirk switched between air, sea, and land, and both did it with great timing. The Academy will choose Dunkirk.

Baby Driver Dunkirk I, Tonya The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Foreign-Language Film

Didn’t see.

A Fantastic Woman The Insult Loveless On Body and Soul The Square

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

The Shape of Water. I don’t understand these nominations and refuse to acknowledge them in my own choices. Darkest Hour will win.

Darkest Hour Victoria & Abdul Wonder

Best Original Score

The Shape of Water, absolutely no contest. The score was as essential to that film as it is to a silent movie or a musical, and as effective. No clue what the Academy will choose.

Dunkirk Phantom Thread The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Original Song

Mystery of Love. The music was part of the sweetness of the love story in Call Me by Your Name, and Sufjan Stevens’ songs blended seamlessly with the atmosphere of the film. The Academy likes to go big, and will choose Mighty River or This Is Me.

“Mighty River” (Mudbound) “Mystery of Love” (Call Me By Your Name) “Remember Me” (Coco) “Stand Up For Something” (Marshall) “This Is Me” (The Greatest Showman)

Best Production Design

The Shape of Water. That movie was a visual feast of care and incredible detail, without hitting the viewer over the head with its stuffy Artistry, like some of the other nominees. No idea what the Academy will choose.

Beauty and the Beast Blade Runner 2049 Darkest Hour Dunkirk The Shape of Water

Best Animated Short Film Didn’t See.

Dear Basketball Garden Party Lou Negative Space Revolting Rhymes

Best Live-Action Short Film Didn’t see. The Silent Child is a sentimental favorite.

DeKalb Elementary The Eleven O’Clock My Nephew Emmett The Silent Child Watu Wote/All of Us

Best Sound Editing Blade Runner had so much subtlety in the sound, and it was so important to the film.

Baby Driver Blade Runner 2049 Dunkirk The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Best Sound Mixing

See above.

Baby Driver Blade Runner 2049 Dunkirk The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Best Visual Effects

Guardians of the Galaxy. Gotta get in one Marvel pick. 😉

Blade Runner 2049 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Kong: Skull Island Star Wars: The Last Jedi War for the Planet of the Apes

Metawitches 2018 Oscar Picks And Maybe a Few Predictions... Okay, after watching as many movies as I can cram into my brain in a relatively short period of time (actually, The Florida Project is still playing), I'm ready to make some choices here.

[jonathanbelloblog]

Rockin’ Role: Ferrari Challenge Race Driver Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender happens to be one of my favorite actors, so I’m well-acquainted with his considerable skills in front of the camera—“Inglourious Basterds,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Steve Jobs,” “Alien: Covenant.” But now, at Austin’s ultrafast Circuit of the Americas, I’m in the passenger seat of a Ferrari 488 GTB, Fassbender’s at the wheel, and I have no idea if the two-time Oscar nominee can drive. “I’ve never been in one of these before,” Fassbender says with a laugh as he guns out of the pits. “Only the 488 Challenge race car. So hang on!”

By the time we’re howling out of Turn 2, I’m breathing easy. Fassbender is good. Smooth, relaxed, on line, and on the pace, he’s clearly learned a lot in his first year racing in the Ferrari Challenge. We talked more in the Ferrari team trailer.

Actor and author suit up for hot laps in a 488 GTB.

“My grandfather always watched Formula 1,” says the 40-year-old, half-German, half-Irish star, his Ferrari racing suit tied casually around his waist. “I remember watching races when I was really small, but I didn’t get the spark until I was around 13. Through the whole Michael Schumacher era, he was my hero. I loved his driving style. So aggressive. I was his guest in Monte Carlo when he won pole. So cool to meet him.”

I ask when he got the bug to race himself, and Fassbender beams. “I’ve always wanted to race. I thought karting would be the way in, but I was always so busy with work. I thought, ‘Once I reach 40, I’ll start easing up.’ So at the moment I’m just doing ‘X-Men: Dawn Phoenix’ in Montreal. Basically, I took the year off to do this.”

Fassbender attended the full Corso Pilota program at COTA in the fall of 2016 and then entered the Ferrari Challenge series for 2017, driving for the Scuderia Corsa team. He scored a podium finish in only his third race—in the rain at Mosport. “Honestly, if I had the choice I’d choose race driving over acting,” he says with a laugh. “Preparing for an acting role, you spend a lot of time on your own. It’s quite dull. But racing, I just love everything about it. Every time I’m sitting in the car, it’s such a wild reality. Never did I think I’d get to race, number one, a Ferrari, and two, such a high-performance vehicle. Before my first start at Laguna Seca, I almost vomited! Thank God not in the helmet! The nerves, the adrenaline, the fear. That first race kind of slipped away from me, mentally. The second race I got it together more. But when you get back home at the end of a race day, and all that adrenaline has been pumping through … it’s nice to have a beer. It tastes good!”

Acting Out: Fassbender largely put his movie career on hold to fulfill his racing dreams in the 2017 Ferrari Challenge.

When I ask if his new wife, actress Alicia Vikander (soon to be the new Lara Croft), approves, Fassbender doesn’t hesitate: “She loves it. She was there for third place at Mosport, so she’s a lucky charm. Frankly, I’m just worried she might get into racing and be better than me!”

And the future? “I hope to be in the Challenge series next year,” Fassbender says. “Depends how I’m working. Maybe a race or two early then another at the latter part of the season. It’s a fantastic series, so well organized, so professional. And some of the guys are really fast. Doing Le Mans some day, that would be amazing. The ultimate goal. I just need to do less acting! But to be 40 and be in this position, racing a Ferrari … it’s pretty special.”

The post Rockin’ Role: Ferrari Challenge Race Driver Michael Fassbender appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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[eddiejpoplar]

Rockin’ Role: Ferrari Challenge Race Driver Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender happens to be one of my favorite actors, so I’m well-acquainted with his considerable skills in front of the camera—“Inglourious Basterds,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Steve Jobs,” “Alien: Covenant.” But now, at Austin’s ultrafast Circuit of the Americas, I’m in the passenger seat of a Ferrari 488 GTB, Fassbender’s at the wheel, and I have no idea if the two-time Oscar nominee can drive. “I’ve never been in one of these before,” Fassbender says with a laugh as he guns out of the pits. “Only the 488 Challenge race car. So hang on!”

By the time we’re howling out of Turn 2, I’m breathing easy. Fassbender is good. Smooth, relaxed, on line, and on the pace, he’s clearly learned a lot in his first year racing in the Ferrari Challenge. We talked more in the Ferrari team trailer.

Actor and author suit up for hot laps in a 488 GTB.

“My grandfather always watched Formula 1,” says the 40-year-old, half-German, half-Irish star, his Ferrari racing suit tied casually around his waist. “I remember watching races when I was really small, but I didn’t get the spark until I was around 13. Through the whole Michael Schumacher era, he was my hero. I loved his driving style. So aggressive. I was his guest in Monte Carlo when he won pole. So cool to meet him.”

I ask when he got the bug to race himself, and Fassbender beams. “I’ve always wanted to race. I thought karting would be the way in, but I was always so busy with work. I thought, ‘Once I reach 40, I’ll start easing up.’ So at the moment I’m just doing ‘X-Men: Dawn Phoenix’ in Montreal. Basically, I took the year off to do this.”

Fassbender attended the full Corso Pilota program at COTA in the fall of 2016 and then entered the Ferrari Challenge series for 2017, driving for the Scuderia Corsa team. He scored a podium finish in only his third race—in the rain at Mosport. “Honestly, if I had the choice I’d choose race driving over acting,” he says with a laugh. “Preparing for an acting role, you spend a lot of time on your own. It’s quite dull. But racing, I just love everything about it. Every time I’m sitting in the car, it’s such a wild reality. Never did I think I’d get to race, number one, a Ferrari, and two, such a high-performance vehicle. Before my first start at Laguna Seca, I almost vomited! Thank God not in the helmet! The nerves, the adrenaline, the fear. That first race kind of slipped away from me, mentally. The second race I got it together more. But when you get back home at the end of a race day, and all that adrenaline has been pumping through … it’s nice to have a beer. It tastes good!”

Acting Out: Fassbender largely put his movie career on hold to fulfill his racing dreams in the 2017 Ferrari Challenge.

When I ask if his new wife, actress Alicia Vikander (soon to be the new Lara Croft), approves, Fassbender doesn’t hesitate: “She loves it. She was there for third place at Mosport, so she’s a lucky charm. Frankly, I’m just worried she might get into racing and be better than me!”

And the future? “I hope to be in the Challenge series next year,” Fassbender says. “Depends how I’m working. Maybe a race or two early then another at the latter part of the season. It’s a fantastic series, so well organized, so professional. And some of the guys are really fast. Doing Le Mans some day, that would be amazing. The ultimate goal. I just need to do less acting! But to be 40 and be in this position, racing a Ferrari … it’s pretty special.”

The post Rockin’ Role: Ferrari Challenge Race Driver Michael Fassbender appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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[jesusvasser]

Rockin’ Role: Ferrari Challenge Race Driver Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender happens to be one of my favorite actors, so I’m well-acquainted with his considerable skills in front of the camera—“Inglourious Basterds,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Steve Jobs,” “Alien: Covenant.” But now, at Austin’s ultrafast Circuit of the Americas, I’m in the passenger seat of a Ferrari 488 GTB, Fassbender’s at the wheel, and I have no idea if the two-time Oscar nominee can drive. “I’ve never been in one of these before,” Fassbender says with a laugh as he guns out of the pits. “Only the 488 Challenge race car. So hang on!”

By the time we’re howling out of Turn 2, I’m breathing easy. Fassbender is good. Smooth, relaxed, on line, and on the pace, he’s clearly learned a lot in his first year racing in the Ferrari Challenge. We talked more in the Ferrari team trailer.

Actor and author suit up for hot laps in a 488 GTB.

“My grandfather always watched Formula 1,” says the 40-year-old, half-German, half-Irish star, his Ferrari racing suit tied casually around his waist. “I remember watching races when I was really small, but I didn’t get the spark until I was around 13. Through the whole Michael Schumacher era, he was my hero. I loved his driving style. So aggressive. I was his guest in Monte Carlo when he won pole. So cool to meet him.”

I ask when he got the bug to race himself, and Fassbender beams. “I’ve always wanted to race. I thought karting would be the way in, but I was always so busy with work. I thought, ‘Once I reach 40, I’ll start easing up.’ So at the moment I’m just doing ‘X-Men: Dawn Phoenix’ in Montreal. Basically, I took the year off to do this.”

Fassbender attended the full Corso Pilota program at COTA in the fall of 2016 and then entered the Ferrari Challenge series for 2017, driving for the Scuderia Corsa team. He scored a podium finish in only his third race—in the rain at Mosport. “Honestly, if I had the choice I’d choose race driving over acting,” he says with a laugh. “Preparing for an acting role, you spend a lot of time on your own. It’s quite dull. But racing, I just love everything about it. Every time I’m sitting in the car, it’s such a wild reality. Never did I think I’d get to race, number one, a Ferrari, and two, such a high-performance vehicle. Before my first start at Laguna Seca, I almost vomited! Thank God not in the helmet! The nerves, the adrenaline, the fear. That first race kind of slipped away from me, mentally. The second race I got it together more. But when you get back home at the end of a race day, and all that adrenaline has been pumping through … it’s nice to have a beer. It tastes good!”

Acting Out: Fassbender largely put his movie career on hold to fulfill his racing dreams in the 2017 Ferrari Challenge.

When I ask if his new wife, actress Alicia Vikander (soon to be the new Lara Croft), approves, Fassbender doesn’t hesitate: “She loves it. She was there for third place at Mosport, so she’s a lucky charm. Frankly, I’m just worried she might get into racing and be better than me!”

And the future? “I hope to be in the Challenge series next year,” Fassbender says. “Depends how I’m working. Maybe a race or two early then another at the latter part of the season. It’s a fantastic series, so well organized, so professional. And some of the guys are really fast. Doing Le Mans some day, that would be amazing. The ultimate goal. I just need to do less acting! But to be 40 and be in this position, racing a Ferrari … it’s pretty special.”

The post Rockin’ Role: Ferrari Challenge Race Driver Michael Fassbender appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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[3one3]

The Sequel - 830

Trill

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“What are you eating?”

“Carrot lo mein.”

“Why?”

“It was this or the salad with the egg and the tuna. Barf.”

“You look cute with your braids. Who did them for you?”

“How do you know I didn’t do them myself?”

“Because it takes you an hour and multiple YouTube tutorials to do something like that and I don’t think you have that kind of time.”

“Christian’s groom did them for me. She does the most amazing mane and tail braids. I have to take these out soon and I’m already sad.”

“Why?”

“I need to shower when I get to London. I’m all icky. Having to sweat when it’s like 60* and raining is the worst. It’s like sous vide-ing yourself in your own sweat.”

“Nice.”

“I left my show clothes with Tom so they can maybe dry before he loads up the horses.”

“How much longer until your flight?”

“It boards in like 10 minutes.”

“No lie, Prinzessin. I really wish you were coming home.”

“I know. I need to be in London though! I need to be among Chelsea people!”

“Uhhuh.”

“Lurve you.”

“Uhhuh.”

“Let me go so I can finish this before I have to get on the plane. I’ll call you back at Lulu Schü dinnertime?”

“Okay.”

“Lurve you.”

“I guess I love you.”

“Meanie.”

“Fine. I love you.”

Christina blew André a kiss and waved as he ended their video chat. A piece of her airport Chinese food actually flew out of her mouth and landed on her phone propped up on her suitcase, but he didn’t notice it. She found an empty corner of the departures area to sit on the floor and catch up with her favorite supporter. He’d been calling and texting frantically since the end of the Grand Prix, and the rider was ignoring him in order to get her stuff together and get herself to the airport in time for her flight to London. He was worried that she’d be demolished by the result. It was a rough weekend for her, again, and not really her fault. She jumped two clear rounds on Friday but her team finished 7th. She rode a remarkably tidy and clean derby course on Saturday with a very brave Calvin, and was bested by three other riders who managed to do it faster on their seasoned derby horses. She got Socks into the jump-off in the Grand Prix and earned the privilege of jumping last, only to see the heavens open and unleash a biblical storm on La Baule, drown the arena, and ruin her chance to beat the second-round times of her competitors.

André worried that Christina would likely be gutted about how her show went, and feel as if her best wasn’t good enough anymore, or that she should start worrying about the Olympics because her team wasn’t up to snuff, or that she’d believe luck and karma were against her for some reason. The player didn’t want her to be down at all, and he definitely didn’t want her to be down and heading to Juan’s for the night. The Spaniard shouldn’t be the one to help her through, if that’s what she needed, or shouldn’t be the one on the receiving end of whatever radical behavior she embraced as a way to distract herself and make herself feel better, like fucking him senseless. He also worried that she wouldn’t be any of those things- that she’d grown numb and wouldn’t care. Christina’s appetite to win and be the best was essential to her and important to André. He didn’t want to see her stop caring because it’s easier not to.

It was hard to take her temperature on each of the disappointments as they happened. The Chelsea fan in her reverted immediately after the Nations Cup on Friday from digesting the team’s lousy showing to being nervous and excited about the match at the Hawthorns. Then she was far more agitated about her friends’ inability to score for so much of the game than she was about her day. Then Michy scored out of nowhere and Chelsea were the Premier League Champions again and all she wanted to do was watch them celebrate, drink with her colleagues in the hotel bar, and gush to Juan about how proud of him she was and how happy she felt for him. On Saturday the distraction from sharing her real feelings was Donald Trump. Christina was only interested in ranting to André about the American President’s latest Nixonian calamities, and then she said she was so distraught over it all that she had to go to bed. Talking to her at the airport didn’t help much either. She said she was tired, that she missed Lukas like crazy, and that she’d be home by midday on Monday and available to go out for dinner if he wanted. The only real horse thing his girl mentioned was that Socks was fine after slipping and sliding around on the grass. The BVB man, who would have liked to share his feelings about his former club seeing so much success after he left if she had asked about them, wasn’t hopeful that he would get much more detail on that or any of the other low points when she called back later as scheduled.

“I thought you like to look at the planes,” Daniel commented when he sat down beside her on the floor and leaned back on the same window. He didn’t have any luggage with him.

“I do, but I see them often enough. When’s your flight?” Christina asked back after swallowing more carrot lo mein. It had toasted sesame seeds and surprisingly good chicken, and she almost couldn’t tell that it had carrot instead of noodles.

“5:50 I think. Here is your charger.” Daniel produced an iPhone charging block and cable from his jacket pocket. She’d left it plugged into Tom’s indoor/outdoor powerstrip taped to the wall in his grooming stall at the horse show.

“Gracias. Where are Caroline and Stella? Did you leave them with all your luggage?”

“They’re doing a new diaper in the restroom. My dad is with the stuff by the gate.”

“Oh. Word.”

“Sorry we were awful this week.”

“You were awful. I was great.”

“That’s fair. I’m sorry anyhow. You have looked like someone swallowing a lot of anger since Friday- pretending not to be angry- and I feel partially responsible.” Christina’s colleague worked at pulling the sleeves of his shirt down inside the sleeves of his jacket, and made her think he was slightly uncomfortable making the apology for his role in their team result. He wasn’t the worst of the three others who competed. He wasn’t terrible. On another day, when the others were all up to snuff, his contribution would have been acceptable. She wasn’t holding him accountable. In fact, the expat wasn’t holding any of her teammates responsible, publicly. In her mind the best thing to do, and the thing that would most please her coaches, with an eye on the major team event happening in the summer, was to be positive and encouraging. Normally she would have gone back to the barn and made snide and sarcastic jokes at everyone about their performances and the result. Instead she told everyone it was a good learning experience, that it opened their eyes so they knew they weren’t entitled to anything without trying, that it gave them a preview of the level of competition they’d face throughout the year, and that it was no big deal in terms of qualification since they had so many more opportunities to pick up points. All of those things were true, and Christina believed those thoughts had value and virtue on their merit, but they were part of a facade for sure.

She did want to be angry and negative. She was furious. Dirk did his part. He did his thing. He was fantastic, even in the rain. And he got nothing to show for it. She told Tom that she was sure he was confused at the end when he saw everyone else getting the medals and he was never led over near the podium, especially because of the wonderful reception he got from the dry fans in the chalet and restaurant for his thrilling rounds. The horse knew when he did well, and was, she assumed, used to receiving a prize and some additional admiration afterward. Being almost at the very back of the parade of nations during the prize giving was unfamiliar for him, and his person seriously thought he’d find it discouraging. On top of that, she and Tom were thinking very carefully about which events to take him to in the run up to the Games. The format for the Olympics is grueling on the animals. It’s a lot of jumping and very little rest. Christina was already thinking about how it might be unfortunate that the team competition is decided first and that Dirk’s best could be wasted on that- squandered away by her teammates- and that he wouldn’t have enough left in the tank to get the individual medal she believed he deserved too.

Then she got angry with herself when she voiced that concern to her groom, because she always wanted Dirk to be a team horse- a team legend- a brilliant mount who brought something special for Germany. The team gold used to matter more to her than the individual, and that’s why they were thinking about what shows to take him to in the first place. One of their goals was qualifying golds to add to his trophy cabinet, and they’d just wasted a show. There were three more Nations Cup qualifiers on their calendar and they hoped to bring him to just one of them, but when they made that plan they assumed they would have a medal in France. Tom reminded his boss that those qualifying results shouldn’t matter so much, or essentially, to keep her eyes on the real prize. She had a habit of tallying problems and issues so that she could make a bigger deal out of something than warranted- to feel more justified in her whining or complaining. Deep down, Christina knew he was right. Keeping to the fitness plan for Dirk was much more important than winning medals in another qualifying campaign when he already had bags of them from other years.

“Whatever. I don’t care.” She twirled her fork around in her non-noodle noodles and wished Daniel hadn’t even brought up the result, or how he thought she felt about it. I just want to go home and see Juan and have him still be bursting at the seams with happiness about the title.

“I’ll take that as a thank you for my apology. You’re welcome,” the other German snorted with a smile. He started to get up too. The not necessarily cold but very indifferent shoulder he was getting likely implied that he wouldn’t be getting any conversation he expected when he sat down. “You staying in London until Spain, or back home?”

“London tonight, Dortmund the next three.” Christina was very plain. She opted not to show any emotion either way, much like she blanked André when he tried to figure her out.

“Busy woman. See you Thursday?”

She nodded and put her fork down to bump fists with Daniel, and then wolfed down as much lo mein as she could because it was time to get herself to her departure gate. It was just a strange afternoon for her, with trying not to be bitter about the weather, trying to be happy with Socks, trying not to feel guilty about not going straight home to see André and Lukas, trying to be glad that she was going to see Juan, and generally sorting her emotions. Emotions were harder for her to deal with of late, no matter which type. It was almost as if she were feeling everything more than she used to, like someone had turned up the volume knob on every individual feeling. After spending so much of her adult life yearning to feel things at max volume, finally experiencing that was a major letdown. It seemed like more of a headache than a gift. Nevertheless, the girl who met Juan at arrivals was a significantly happier one than she who tossed her Chinese takeaway on the way to the plane. And that was mostly down to the happiness exploding out of his face. She dropped her bags a couple of feet before she got to him, and launched herself into his arms. Then she panicked about the hernia and apologized profusely.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is okay,” he laughed as she slid down his front. “Didn’t you see the celebrating on Friday? Much bigger people than you jumped all over me.”

“Okay. I’m so happy for youuuuuuuu.” Christina put her arms up like to reach around his neck, and jumped up and down excitedly. And you smell wonderful. He exists in a cloud of joy and sexy scent. Everybody exudes awesomeness right after bagging a major title.

“I think you’re more excited for this title than any of the others,” the Spaniard suggested, hands on her forearms. He was somewhat correct. She’d experienced other title winning seasons as a Chelsea fan, and another as a Chelsea wife. Those accomplishments didn’t follow the kind of season the most recent one did though. She’d never seen her partner and her friends so down about their football, so it was special to come back the next year and turn it all around so spectacularly. They were the clear class of England, too- deserved winners. It also happened to be- or seem like- the first really great thing to happen in her atmosphere in a long time.

“I’m excited for you,” she smiled back before calming down. The player let go when she kept her feet on the ground, and fixed the sturdy hood of her adidas sweatshirt. The company’s so-called ultimate workout hoody- the one they made all their sponsored teams and athletes wear extensively that year- turned out to be her favorite thing to be completely stationary in an airplane seat in. It was comfortable and warm but structured and nice enough to be presentable. Why she cared if her sweatshirt was acceptable for a flight while she was wearing leggings and tennis shoes, no one really knew. The most significant thing she was wearing was that smile. She beamed every good thing she’d ever felt- not just happiness, but pride, delight, joy, satisfaction, gratification, admiration, and awe. Juan made the hood behave instead of standing up, and let his hands slide down the Dutch braids on either side of her neck. He wants to kiss me so badly right now, she thought, taking in the way he looked at her looking at him. I wanna kiss him too. Just not here. “Did you park the car? I thought you were just gonna pick me up outside.”

“Yeah. I got here a little early and I didn’t want to sit in the car. Let’s go, mm? Do you need help with your suitcase?”

“No, but I’ll take it if you’re offering.” The adoring rider couldn’t help but lean forward and peck her current favorite Blue’s cheek. He pulled her suitcase for her and she took the overnight bag with her backpack. It was annoying to have so much stuff to take with her, knowing she was only going to be there for one night. Thinking about that- about the clock ticking on her visit- tamped down some of her exuberance. To counteract that, she re-asked Juan all the questions about how he felt on the pitch on Friday, what the dressing room was like after, and what happened on the way home that didn’t make it into the players’ social media videos and photos. He recounted all the stories already shared with her, plus some new ones. They also talked about plans for the night. There was some discussion on Saturday about trying to have dinner with Natasha, Eden, and maybe even the kids. Christina missed them a lot, and they weren’t like the other people she was separated from when she moved. She couldn’t call them up or text them when she missed them. None of the players, including the ones who played nearly every game and could have used a rest, wanted to be left out on Monday against Watford. It was a home match and they were the champions and they wanted to play in front of their supporters at Stamford Bridge, so Eden and Juan alike weren’t completely free to go out all night or indulge in a special dinner. The new restaurant co-owner was already sick of his own place, so that was out. He suggested a reunion at the beloved Italian restaurant in Battersea, which was great in terms of food, likely to be fairly quiet and easy on a Sunday night, and good for bringing the little Hazards. Christina ran it by Natasha, and Natasha said “next time” with a sad-face emoji. Her friend was really disappointed. She didn’t know when “next time” would be, with summer coming. Football families perform a mass exodus from London when the season ends, and her own season was just ramping up.

“Do you want to go there anyway, or would you rather do something else?” Juan questioned as he dragged her suitcase into his bedroom. “Is there a dress in here? I don’t mind going to a nicer place.” He’s asking in case I wanted like a date night, the braided brunette concluded. Do I want that? I definitely want to go out, and have a drink or two, or a bit too much wine. I deserve that, I think, after this weekend, and to celebrate his good weekend. I don’t need him to take me somewhere fancy or special though. That’s not what I came for. He’s what I came for. I know I tell Schü I come here for London, but...meh. Also, carrot noodles made me want real noodles.

“Let’s stick with the Italian place. I’m not super hungry yet though, and I need to shower and change and stuff.”

“You need to come over here and make a proper greeting,” the footballer replied while removing his coat. His eyebrow lifted pointedly, as if he were pretending to threaten her. Christina blushed and abandoned her bags to go get a real kiss. His hands held onto her pink cheeks for a few seconds, and then one moved to the middle of her back, and then her butt. Each time she got to see him, for months, it seemed, he acted like he was meeting up with his girlfriend, and each time she felt like she was meeting up with her best friend. The disparity grew more obvious each time. She went there, or to the beach house with him, or to Berlin, or wherever, to be around him- to enjoy his company, and share experiences new and old. There was something different about Juan’s implied wishes for their visits. It was hard for her to pin it down. It couldn’t have been that he was looking for intimate kisses like that, and to sleep with her, because she was the one who couldn’t wait to get into bed with him in Berlin, but there was something there. “Did you eat a sesame bagel on the plane?” he asked her when their smooch ran its course.

“No,” she laughed, forgetting the background in her head, temporarily at least. “I had Chinese food earlier with toasted sesame seeds. I’ll brush my teeth after the shower.”

“That’s the least you can do, considering I shaved for you.” Her friend feigned smugness and let go of her behind to touch each of his cheeks and highlight that they were down to thin scruff instead of legitimate beard.

“Bullshit,” Christina shot back with actual smugness. “You shaved for your CNN thing yesterday.” He rolled his eyes and conceded that she might be right. “I’m thankful anyway. You look very handsome this way. And you smell handsome too. I don’t know how that is, but it is.”

“I put extra cologne on to cover up the smell of cheap champagne. It stays with you when Diego sprays it on everything and everyone.”

“Uhhuh.”

“I wished you were there,” Juan confessed, finally summoning some seriousness. She was right up under his chin, and he couldn’t look anywhere but around her face. His eyes moved on a circuit from her mouth, to her hairline, then her grayed out blues, and back to her lips. “At first everything is crazy, and you’re all together, letting go of the tension and the anticipation. You feel so great. You could play a whole other game. Everyone starts doing ridiculous things that are so funny, or stupid. It keeps going and going, and then you finally have a minute to look at your phone and see who is trying to get in touch with you, and you realize how much you want some of those people there with you, to share it. I talked to my parents, and then you, and I can’t really remember the conversations. The guys all get a second wind then, and it goes back to a crazy party, even on the way home. Eventually we all hit the wall. Everyone gets quiet, and still, and you realize you can’t wait to get home and see your people. In some ways it’s better to win away because it’s just the squad. We won together and we celebrated as family. In some ways it’s not that good, because you want your real family too. I wanted you. Half of the way home, and when I got here, and got into bed, and tried to guess if I was too excited to sleep or too tired to stay awake, I wanted you to be here.”

“I tried to stay up. I figured you might call whenever you got back. I was so beat though,” Christina smiled. Don’t do this, she silently willed him. Don’t say you want me to be here. Don’t switch “wanted” to “want” and make it an active thing and make me feel terrible again because I’m not here, or make me start asking myself again if this is where I should be. Please don’t be 30 seconds from telling me you can’t keep waiting and you want the real thing.

“I thought of calling,” Juan grinned back. “It was the middle of the night. You had your competitions in the morning.”

“Well I’m here now and I wanna celebrate too. After I take a shower.” Phew. Crisis averted, for now, the relieved girl thought while trying to get out of the intensity of their closeness. He wasn’t letting her out. He wrapped both arms around her middle before she could get more than half a step away.

“Nana-no,” he chirped like a parent stopping a child from reaching for something off limits. “As Premier League winner, I have certain benefits.” Christina knew exactly what sort of benefit he sought. And she figured it was a good way out of getting any more serious.

“I was speaking with a Belgian colleague the other day who is something of a serial Spanish dater,” she began explaining while giving up her resistance to being confined to the space directly in front of him and his Gucci cloud. “She’s currently seeing a guy on the Spanish team, you see, and she told me that Spanish dudes are the best lovers because rolling their tongues for those “R” sounds is second nature. What could be better than a guy who can literally turn his tongue into a sex toy, right? And then I’m thinking to myself, “Wait a second...Why have I never experienced this? I’ve been sleeping with a Spanish guy on and off for years. How have I survived this injustice?” So, you know, you have some explaining to do.”

“She’s lying to you.”

“What?”

“To trill the double-R sound you have to make your tongue vibrate behind your teeth. Unless she has one of those clits that’s huge and sticks out like a penis, no guy Spanish or not is vibrating his tongue on it like that.”

“Ew.”

“You should know that. I’ve heard you roll the R before.”

“I can pretty much only do it when I say Estadio Mendizorrotza.” Christina rolled her “rr” quite dramatically, and laughed by default. She knew she could only do it if she spoke very loudly, and with animation, and felt ridiculous doing so. Speaking Spanish with correct pronunciation always felt like acting to her, and she was no actress, in her own opinion. The native speaker laughed at her too.

“How many times in your life have you had a need to say “Estadio Mendizorrotza”? Why do you even know what that is? You find yourself talking about Alavés often?”

“I call up Ander Herrera and we have lengthy chats about Segunda División sides all the time, man.”

“Por qué no me hablas español más a menudo? Suena...sexy...cariña.” The Chelsea man slowly and nonchalantly unzipped her heather hoody.

“No, yo no. Hablar español requiere mucho...pensar. Te hace difícil pensar.”

“Qué estás pensando?”

“I like it better when you call me “baby girl”.” Christina watched his right hand move the zipper, and inadvertently proved exactly what she was just saying about it being too difficult to conjure Spanish sentences when she was with him. He was too distracting. His hand alone was a distraction. She thought about all the things he did with it and its partner that made her go “damn, that’s sexy”. They were always soft, and somehow never as hairy as other parts of him got. His nails were always short but he pretended to bite at them when he was uncomfortable or shy or nervous. They weren’t small despite his physical stature. He manipulated them with as much ease and grace as his special feet. She thought of them jammed into his pockets- so often their natural home, and of them resting on different parts of her body, or moving across her skin, his touch always delicate where she wanted and purposeful where she needed. Still, she was not yet in the same kind of mood he was.

“Qué más?”

“Alavés is staying up.”

“Stopping talking about Alavés!” Juan bent down to playfully bite her neck, which was hard to get to beyond the bulky sweatshirt and the thick braid in the way. He held onto her waist too, inside the hoody. The bite became a kiss, and the hold became a deliberate touch. “Baby girl,” he mumbled against her skin.

“You’re really not sleeping with her anymore,” she mumbled back. It was definitely a statement and not a question. It was mostly a realization. Juanin is only like this when he hasn’t gotten any in a long time, or when he’s getting it so often he’s in like a permanent state of amped up horniness, she reckoned, conflicted inside between finding it amusing and having a whole range of emotions on the opposite end of the spectrum.

“With who?” The midfielder was more into kissing her jaw and trying to fit his hand into her leggings by her hip.

“Taylor, or anybody.”

“Why would I be?”

“Because I’m not your- We’re not- You shouldn’t-“

“You are, we are, and I should.”

“Juanin...”

“My choice.”

“It’s a stupid choice.”

“You want to do that conversation again, or you want to do something else?”

But I’m not his girlfriend, we’re not together, and he shouldn’t act like we are. How can this be the right choice for him, Christina groaned to herself, stuck for the umpteenth time between wanting to give in to the guy who made her feel so special, and wanting to protect him from herself. The situation was timeless for them. It just never seemed to go away. And she couldn’t see a way to solve the problem equitably and satisfactorily for everyone.

“Stop thinking so much. Enjoy what comes to you.”

Now I’ve got them both telling me that? Sheesh. Do they call each other and conference about it? Is this how you see what happens? You just go with opportunities that feel good? But it doesn’t really feel good. I mean, it does. He’s sucking on my neck and that’s always gonna feel good. But what he says also makes me feel uneasy. How do I know it’s okay to ignore the bad feeling and just go with the good one? You’re not supposed to ignore inhibitions. They keep you from getting hurt. Or dead. Or-

“Okay, I can get the hint.” Juan stood up straight and pecked her forehead, his dejection coming through loud and clear as he made no effort to conceal it. The rider made a plaintive sound back, and squeezed some of his sweater in each hand at his sides. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“I hate when you call me that.” She winced away from the term of endearment. “You only say it when you’re being patronizing or condescending.”

“I’m not be-“

“Yes you are. You do it by accident.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you want.”

“Neither do I. I try to just do what feels right, but you and me don’t always feel right. Sometimes we feel wrong too. So...I dunno. It feels wrong that you treat me in your head like your partner.”

“Don’t worry so much about things you can’t control. That’s my problem, if it’s a problem.”

“But it could be under my control. If I behaved differently- If I didn’t do this with you all the time- Then you couldn’t think of me like that.”

“You also wouldn’t be very happy.”

“I’m not sure I’m all that happy anyway.”

“Then you have nothing to lose, yes?” Tension passed from his familiar features and an amused grin moved in in its place. “I swear to you there’s nothing you can do that changes how I feel anyway. You can behave however you want. This is how I feel and what I want.”

“Why do you guys act like if you make it idiot-proof for me then I can just go along with it? You both just tell me you don’t care what I think anyhow.”

“Because it’s true. We both know the only way we get what we want is if we make you believe we don’t mind the drawbacks. You’re too caring, cariña,” Juan continued with a persistent grin. “Stop worrying. Not every burden is yours.”

“K.” Christina exhaled through her nose for a long time, with a look of resignation mixed with frustration. There was a recognition in it that there was no way to reconcile her issues with being married to and in love with one person and having a long distance partnership with another, whom she also loved. Her husband tried to make her believe he didn’t care if she had sex with the other one so that she would stop tearing herself up about wanting to. The other one kept swearing that he didn’t mind being tethered to a woman who could only be “together” with him in private, once in a while, and who he had to share with someone else, so that she would stop stressing about what it meant for him. She didn’t truly believe either of them. She was sure they were bothered. It was just easy to go along with what André said because it got her a relationship with Juan that she believed she very much needed. It was tempting to buy into the Spaniard’s assurance too, so that she could keep that relationship. They both wanted her to believe that they weren’t all on a collision course, doomed to see their arrangements blow up in their faces. The threat of that climax was real to her, and impossible to disappear. Frustration and a lack of progress toward a solution, or a hint, or a sign of what direction to go in, led her to believe that perhaps the best thing to do was just try to ignore the threat for a while- to do the elusive “wait and see”.

“Go shower so we don’t eat at midnight.”

“It’s like 6:30.”

“You take long showers.”

“Want to take a long shower with me?”