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comrade-meow · 3 years

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When The Drummers Were Women

By Layne Redmond

Yes, guys, there was a time in our history when the primary percussionists and drummers were women. The first named drummer in history was a Mesopotamian priestess named Lipushiau. She lived in the city-state of Ur in 2380 BC, which at that time had conquered all the surrounding city-states. She was the spiritual, financial and administrative head of the Ekishnugal, the most important temple in Ur dedicated to the moon god, Nanna-Suen. Her emblem of office was the balag-di, a small round frame drum used to lead liturgical chanting. In 2380 BC, Lipushiau ruled!

From the civilizations of Anatolia (Old Turkey), Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, the Goddess and the frame drum emerge as the core trance and mystical religious traditions. The frame drum was once at the center of the oldest rave like gatherings — it was the oldest technology for altering consciousness. The mystery rites would last for days at a time with nonstop drumming and dancing. Get this in perspective — this was church. Quite a different religious experience than I had growing up! A frame drum is defined by the diameter of the drumhead being much larger than the depth of its shell. The shells range in depth from 2" to at most 6". They range in diameter from 4" to 30". Most of these drums are portable and can be held in one hand.

The frame drum most often has a skin on only one side but sometimes it may have skins stretched across both sides. Bells or jingling and rattling implements may be attached to the inside rim, and in ancient times were believed to add to the drum’s power to purify, dispel and summon. Very often the drums were painted red, the color of blood, or sometimes green, the color of vegetation, the primordial colors of life. Mystical designs and symbols might also be painted on the skin head or the wooden frame. Threads or ribbons knotted with ritual prayers or chanting often hung from them.

Although this frame drum is similar in appearance to the shaman’s drum found throughout Asia and North America, there is a major difference in how they are played. The shaman’s drum is struck with a bone, horn or stick. The Mediterranean frame drum is played with the bare hands. While striking a drum with a stick gives a single deep resonant sound, finger techniques allow more variety: a deep, open tone, a slap, a high-pitched rim sound, or a soft brushing sound. This difference in stroke technique has led to differences in construction. The inner edge of the rim of the Mediterranean frame drum is often beveled and its skin is usually thinner, to enhance the sounds produced by fingers and hands. Hand or stick? I have not been able to determine which technique is older - the shaman’s drum played with a stick or the frame drum played with bare hands. The use and basic constructions of the drums are so similar that they probably both grew from the same root techniques of altering consciousness. In every ancient Mediterranean civilization I studied, it was a goddess who transmitted to humans the gift of making music. In Sumer and Mesopotamia it was Inanna and Ishtar; in Egypt it was Hathor; in Greece, the nine-fold goddess called the Muse. Musical, artistic and poetic inspiration was always thought to spring from the Divine Feminine. One of the main techniques for connecting to this power of inspiration was drumming.

The drum was the means our ancestors used to summon the goddess and also the instrument through which she spoke. The drumming priestess was the intermediary between divine and human realms. Aligning herself with sacred rhythms, she acted as summoner and transformer, invoking divine energy and transmitting it to the community.

The earliest known depiction of any drum was painted on a shrine room wall in 5600 BC in a Neolithic city in what is now Turkey. The shrine room wall depicts a group of ecstatically dancing figures, some of which appear to have percussion instruments. A band of human figures clad in leopard skins play various percussion instruments as they dance ecstatically around a large bull. One figure holds a horn-shaped instrument in one hand and a frame drum in the other. Other figures carry what look like shakers or rattles, as well as bowed instruments similar to the Brazilian berimbau. The excavating archaeologist, James Mellaart, has unearthed numerous other shrines in this city honoring a great goddess, and he believes that primarily priestesses tended these shrines. To date, the wall painting is our oldest evidence of a goddess-based tradition in which the frame drum was used in ecstatic rituals.

From 3000 to 2500 BC, written records of the Sumerians describe the goddess Inanna as the creator of the frame drum, along with all other musical instruments. They tell of Inanna’s priestesses who sang and chanted to the rhythms of round and square frame drums. Along with the written texts, numerous figurines of women playing small frame drums have been found. These drumming rituals were carried on in the later worship of Ishtar, Asherah, Ashtoreth, Astarte, and Anat in Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Palestine and Assyria. Somewhere between 2000 and 1500 BC, the frame drum arrives in Egypt. James Blades reports, “All records from this period (Middle Kingdom) show the performers as women; in fact the whole practice of the art of music appears to have been entirely entrusted to the fair sex, with one notable exception, the god Bes, who is frequently represented with a drum with cylindrical body (frame drum).

”Another text described the priestesses as the composers and choreographers of the music and dance used on religious occasions. In the Cairo Museum there is an actual rectangular double-headed frame drum from 1400 BC that was found in the tomb of a woman named Hatnofer. Also surviving from the Ptolemaic period is the skin head of a frame drum on whose surface is painted a woman playing a frame drum in front of the goddess Isis. The inscription on the drum reads, “Isis, Lady of the Sky, Mistress of the Goddesses.”

It is important to comprehend the significance of women’s control of sacred music and dance in Egypt. Religious ceremonies based on music and dance can synchronize the underlying energy of the mind and directly influence our perceptions of reality. Ritual influences our modes of awareness that both underlie and transcend the normal patterns of consciousness. Rites can be used to rouse and shape group emotion and behavior, developing a continuous shared consciousness. Music vibrationally transmits states of mind directly from consciousness to consciousness. Thus, politically, music can resonate simultaneously on far more levels — emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical — than can words alone. As music initiates changes in group consciousness, it can affect vast social and economic cycles.

The Biblical lands have also yielded numerous images of women playing the frame drum. Old Testament texts refer to the tambourine as the toph, which as been translated as the timbrel and the tabret. Exodus 15:20, “And Miriam, the prophetess, sister of Aaron and Moses, took a timbrel in her hand, then the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.” In some legends it is said that Miriam parted the Red Sea with the shamanistic power of her drumming.In Greece, some of the most beautiful representations of the frame drum are found on the red figured vase paintings from the fifth century BC. The frame drum entered Greece from several different directions — from Cyprus, one of the main centers of the cult of Aphrodite where the frame drum was prominent from at least 1000 BC, and also from Crete, where it was used in the rituals of Ariadne, Rhea and Dionysos.

Pre-classical Greece also saw the introduction of the cult of the goddess Cybele, from Western Anatolia. The tympanum, the Greek frame drum, was the main instrument of the maenads, the women initiates, in the worship of Cybele and Dionysos, and the priestesses of Artemis, Demeter and Aphrodite also played them. Both single-headed and double-headed frame drums appear, once again played almost exclusively by women.

The Romans saw the last great flowering of these rites when the religion of Cybele was brought to Rome in April of 204 B.C. She was described as, “Cybele, the All-Begetting Mother, who beat a drum to mark the rhythm of life.” Rome was the cultural center for the mystery religions of Cybele, Dionysos, Isis and Dea Syria — all of which used the frame drum in their ecstatic rituals. These practices flourished until the Roman Empire officially adopted Christianity in the fourth century A.D.

In the ancient world, prayer was an active, trance-inducing combination of chanting, music and dance, and initiates often danced the sacred spiral into the labyrinth. The classic labyrinth is a single path meant for meditative circling. To enter it is to experience a ritual death; to escape from it is to be resurrected. The danced line into the labyrinth was a sacred path into the inner realm of knowing. Dancers holding a rope signifying Ariadne’s thread (that allows participants to find their way in and out of the maze) followed a leader into the labyrinth, spiraling right to left, the direction of death. At the center they turned, dancing out in the direction of evolution and birth, all to the driving rhythms of the frame drums. Another function of the frame drum was to create a prophetic trance state in which the priestess could foretell the future. The most dramatic mode of prophecy was uttered in inspired rhythmic speech. In the depths of ecstatic trance, the oracle was possessed by the goddess, who rapped in powerful rhymes directly through her lips. The Greek word for this state of transfigured consciousness is enthusiasmos – “within is a god” – the root of our word enthusiasm.

Ecstatic prophecy has many parallels with shamanism. Prophetesses sought inspiration through a number of external stimuli, including fasting, ingesting honey, inhalation of burning herbs or essential oils and intoxication via alcohol or psychotropic plants. Cybele’s priestesses relied most heavily on the trance-inducing properties of music and dance. The rhythms of frame drums, cymbals and flutes moved them towards the consecrated, concentrated state of divine revelation.

The Dionysian rites are the most widely known of all the mystery schools and have an enduring reputation as drunken sexual orgies. This is due to the later descriptions by Christian political leaders to whom the ancient mysteries of the goddess along with ecstatic drumming, dancing and in this century, rock and roll, have been labeled devil worship. Our word “orgy” comes from orgia, derived from the root word meaning “deed.” The term was used for the celebrations following initiation in mysteries, which might or might not include sexual imagery or behavior. Its ancient connotation seems to have been simply “secret rites.” Their aim was the ecstatic transformation of consciousness through rhythmic movement of the body.

Historians have associated the maenads, priestesses of Dionysos and Cybele, with unbridled sensuality and socially uncontrolled behavior. The word maenad means “mad women.” Their erotic longing for union with the Divine found expression in wild, barefoot dances to the primordial music of flute and drums, their unrestrained hair flying wildly about their faces, snakes wrapped around their arms. According to some reports they drank blood and tore wild beasts limb from limb. Not too far out of line from what might take place at a contemporary summer rock festival!

Wine was indeed an important part of the Dionysian mysteries. External stimulants were always used in pursuit of higher consciousness, for divine intoxication with the spirit of the deity. References to drinking blood may actually allude to a communion rite in which the fruit of the grape represented the blood of the deity, as it does today in Christian communion rites.

Mastery of the precise musical rhythms required to align the devotees’ consciousness with divinity suggests a control and sophistication of technique that contradicts the historical image of wanton frenzied women. Creating rhythms powerful enough to move hundreds of people into ecstatic trance states required skill, discipline and endurance.

With the ascendancy of Christianity, Cybele’s great temple in Rome was destroyed, the Vatican was built on the site and the new priesthood banned the priestesses, instruments and music associated with her rites. Not only was the frame drum banned from Christian religious rituals, its use in secular contexts was also frowned upon by the Church, in particular its use by women. The Catholic synod of 576 (commandments of the Fathers, Superiors and Masters) decreed: “Christians are not allowed to teach their daughters singing, the playing of instruments or similar things because, according to their religion, it is neither good nor becoming.

”For 3,000 years women had been the primary percussionists in the ancient world. As Europe pursued this policy of disallowing women to learn music, they effectively barred them from the professions of composing, teaching or performing.

The last 30 years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of professional women musicians, but there are still few women pursuing drumming. Although little is known about the history of frame drums and the women musicians who played them, it is an important part of our percussive history. And the ancient traditions of using drumming for spiritual purposes can point out what we have lost.

At contemporary rock concerts we have all the trappings of ritual without the spiritual purposes. Flashing trance-inducing lights, loud rhythmic sound, chanted and sung words, but often with no higher purpose than to momentarily entertain or to glorify the individual performer. And no matter how much idolization some of these quite gifted musicians attain, they are often driven to attempt to fill the emptiness with drugs and alcohol.

Yet I remember concerts that hinted at the search for wider realms and dimensions of being. The first concert I ever saw was a show by the Monkees. But what blew me away was the opening act — Jimi Hendrix. I had no frame of reference for where he was taking me. I soared with him beyond the known on the piercing sounds and songs of his guitar. Yet in the end he burned and beat that beautiful guitar to pieces. I had experienced something profound and transformative, but it had ended in destruction, leaving me bewildered and yearning for something more. I have spent the rest of my life looking for the pathway into the ecstatic that leaves me transformed, whole and euphoric.

This article was Originally published in DRUM! Magazine’s December 2000 Issue

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florianavlaicu · 3 years

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Door to Freedom, self reflection on pattern recognition

Pattern recognition sets us free- this is the gem revelation for today’s Life theme and transmission.

Free from what? One might be able to go and do anything he or she desires… but still not feeling free.

Is freedom a feeling?

I love watching the movie Eat Pray Love.

I have been watching it every now and then for the past years.

First time I watched it was in summer of 2018, in Transylvania, Sibiu. I was a volunteer for a permaculture garden. Beautiful time and place.

The movie and the place lifted me much and gave me the insight and clarity that it was time for me to prepare to go to India. After almost 4 months and my first vipassana, I took a one way ticket to the mystical land to find what I did not even know I was looking for.

Every time I watch the movie I get a new perspective.

You know that scene in Bali where she is with this naked Dj that is inviting her into a casual love affair and she is saying to him something like: I have dated you 15 years ago and I have dated you 6 months ago.

This is her recognising of a pattern choice in relationships that is not serving anymore the integrity of her heart. She has made the unconscious conscious by taking these inner and outer trips to return to her core. I think that the balance they are storytelling in the movie is the actual core stability that is explored in the Gene Keys.

Even if we all take this template journey, of Eat Pray Love, go Italy, India and Bali… it will give us totally different perceptions and revelations, because our deep subtle layers of energetics will highly influence everything, all the time and space.

I skipped the italian indulgement and went straight into the unknown of India.

It was overwhelming, exciting, revelatory, fluid, sacred… all the humanities frequencies low and high were there.

I stayed for 133 days and it gave exactly what I needed.Purpose.

I met with a frequency there that I later found out through the Gene Key why I was so fascinated by it.

This frequency was embodied by Ananda Mayi Ma, "the most perfect flower the Indian soil has produced".

I felt this sacred feminine energy twice in Goa, once in my room and once in the open sitting space of the yoga school I was working for.

It felt so familiar to me with heart feeling of surrendering to her divine will.

But both times, I let myself be distracted by something else, outside my self.

I began to study, think and feel of her… then shortly after, the Gene Keys appeared in my life and showed me that in my Hologenetic Profile I have the 58th, unlocking a deeper understanding within me related to Bliss, Joy, Service, Divine Will and Love.

If you would like to meet this Divine feminine that was and is Ananda Mayi Ma, Richard Rudd, the wisdom channel of the Gene Keys is offering us this profound poetic exploration here:

https://youtu.be/LSuihr6yUKI

So you see, even if it might have seemed to be a shallow thing to do…. to follow a movie script… I actually followed my intuition, my joy.

The same I feel about Bali… there is something there for me to meet within. And I know the currents of love will take me there eventually.

I am activating myself so much with the Gene Key, I am reading and contemplating; opening myself into awakening by the favor of Grace.

I was seeking for some higher teachings encompassing perspectives from a multidimensional level that would lead me to a deeper understanding of life, of myself.

I am actually seeking to return home. I am looking to return to my integrity and empty myself, as so much I have taken in as if it would belong to me.

Today, the 55th got me. I am free 😂

Or at least I am working on it.

I am shocked by how blind I was and still am. The many beliefs that I have that I am not aware of are contouring my reality. And then I complain and I blame.

This runs deep in my family. This runs deep in our collective.

And it feels very connected to being judgemental, thus keeping myself far aways from experiencing connection with the integrity and perfection of all of life.

Today I found out that what I was intuitively stretching so much was my fascia, feeling very constrained… showing how much I have separated myself from the whole, because of my borrowed beliefs.

I feel like a carousel of revelations, that if I am engaged in one relationship it is more than enough to illuminate my shadow patterns. I understand the need for slowing down. Where I was running, there was nothing really to see, to be able to take responsibility to bring my unconscious into the light of consciousness. I was given the perfect environment to see my shadow and light work.

And I am honest to myself now that I was not in enough energetic flow and awareness to do work for others. Although this work still is, just by personal integration and sending out a fresh energy wave out there, in there.

I saw patterns of how I am addicted to stress and hijack my own nervous system, choosing to consume things that would amplify my stress. Slowly, slowly, my choices changed and still changing. It greatly to pause and breathe deeply, especially when I am not in the mood, cause I am drifting in a mental noise.

I was wondering and asking directly to my Inner Divine Self to explain to me what actually sovereignty means. What does it mean to take responsibility for myself? How do I become self sustainable? How do I end this co- dependency loop? To whom did I give my power away? What is clouding my heart sight?

What is empowerment?

Is it enough to just See the pattern and when next time comes, choose to walk away? Be present and patient, Floriana.

I have been taking in so much of the spiritual knowledge as if all is relevant and true for me. Emptying something and filling it with something else. Should empty and just let God fill in?

Not easy to filter and keep in my life what is really nurturing me into self awakening and ascension.

I am recognising my victimhood shadow.

I am seeing the play of life and how I have projected so much on others, blaming them for my lack, for my misfortune. I am tired and rested in the same time. I have cleaned some more of the inside basement and attic.

More green blue golden inner space, that’s my wish. Make it indigo, violet, red, orange and yellow also.

All is so subtle, that slowing down is a prerequisite to self- artistry.

My Lemurian Roots surfaced some more these past few days. Like an old and new love arising within my cells. The intents are becoming purer and purer. The Spirit is awakened within me. I tell, this is the softest of the softest love I have ever felt.

In my daily morning water ritual, I am beginning to let go of any kind expectations, just being the Loving of all that is.

I wish I could be like this all day, all ever and ever.

One day, I was woken up with: “ Speak for the Water “

I have no idea where my next home will be, but I am sure it is near her body, The Healing Sacred Feminine Water. I have some ceremonies to perform.

I am embracing my Sensitivity and it feels it has a lot to do with the Receptivity of my mind, my body, my heart.

I understand that I am an expression of a certain frequency of Ecstasy. I was made of the ecstasy of the primordial water giving birth to life. But what does the Sun want from me… Everything is showing me that I was born to be THIS LOVE.

I am allowing myself to be seen without expectations.

I am practicing giving love without expectations.

I see that I am playing hide and seek with myself. I pretend to do something else when someone comes and might discover my joy, judge me for it, punish me for it. I am afraid to be myself, I hide myself and then I seek for myself… an endless loop of self- inflicted prison.

Yes, I was a child and my parents laughed and punished me for my natural expression and exploration.

Then I would learn to avoid being seen, heard, but longed to be seen, heard.

I missed and craved for their warm touch, acceptance and tenderness.

So I entered deeply into the shadows of sexual addiction.

I blamed my DNA legacy. I am a victim and I am not a victim. By reinforcing my blaming pattern, I continued to constrict the actual beauty of my DNA.

Eventually life showed me that Hey, it is ok, feel into your pain, embrace yourself, you are on your way. This is the way. Guilt is the Sun Light in disguise. Awakening is not easy, nor hard.

I completely understand people who are living in the woods and I completely understand people who are living in the cities.

If my inception as a human seed and my 9 months experience inside the motherly belly is contained in the wisdom and library of my cells, then can I make now a transfer of care, safety and beauty perception of the outside world? Incept and carry myself again? Rebirth myself as completely new human being, born with activated 3rd Eye,

Vitality, Intuition, Peace and more, knowing that all is well and life is interconnected, self- sustained, beautiful and its people are amazing pearls that I can trust and love without fear and limits?

Can I visit that belly timeline and make some energetic operations? Hmm.

In a way, self love is just this.

I will be born like this… but in the future.

This life is about a different kind of journey and it is ok, perfect just as it is.

I have been under so much stress and unease, misfitting the requirements of the world.

Can I let go of the attachment to my own storyline of being a victim of life?

Yes. No. Not yet. Yes.

Can I sing without hiding and judging myself?

Yes. No. Not yet. Yes.

Some friends said that I am changing my mind too much. Yes, I am. I must. I must return my mind to its original receptivity.

I must return to my original beingness. I must return to play. I must not make it a must. I must forget myself into mindfulness.

I find it very strange that I need to do things to survive.

I see there is a game of survival, of competition.

I am just not energising this game anymore. I have discovered a new way of living.

So, we all energise some kind of game after all?

Do we really choose, now, in this lifetime, in this Earth body or it had been decided when we sat and raised pure consciousness hands at the Divine Table of Service?

I am such a copycat sometimes.

I am so eager to guide people to live their lives in a better way, but is this really ok? Even guidance of any kind feels more like entertainment, always tricky.

I find that being the silent loving witness of someone speaking is the most genuine guidance I can offer. Me; maybe you feel different and that is cool, fine by me.

I remember the community calls from Gene Key. I was in their first Deep Dive into Genius, 4 months virtual retreat. And I wish I had joined more of these calls, but I was too distracted. I was only in the last two… profoundly beautiful to just hear, to just be with other people, to just speak, to just have others be with me.

Was the teacher indirectly showing us that there is so much guidance, so much orientation in the silence of listening just?

I did this a few nights ago, without recalling these community calls.

My friend shared some of his life experiences and within me I decided I will not judge, interfere, analyse, project or get entangled.

After his sharing, he said that he is surprised that after so much talk he does not have a headache, as he normally would. I took it as a successful listening, in which I spoke energetically with acceptance and compassion.

Yes, indeed, freedom is such a deep ancient longing. But what is freedom actually? How do we awaken to this great changing frequency?

What are the patterns that we have to become aware of so to explore this new domain?

Because slavery still is on our beloved planet, just in slight different style. I invite you to imbibe yourself in the transmission of The 55th Gene Key to find your own sense of freedom. If you are ready and resonant.

We are in a majestic, divine game.

It is not enough to know the rules of this game to create a desired outcome. Maybe it is a good idea to even surrender the outcomes.

Still, it remains a good idea to be a human being with an awakened, original and upgraded DNA. And for this

miraculous occurrence, changing one’s Aura Attitude is key to this process of returning to our sacred tune.

With openness& friendliness,

Floriana

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hearttstopper · 4 years

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“i have a lot of thoughts about this too especially with the whole watermelon sugar/nameless thing” pls miss britt share ur thoughts id love to hear them

This got so long. I’m really sorry. My thoughts about HS2/In Watermelon Sugar/a bunch of other random stuff under the cut.

These are all thoughts that are only vaguely connected, and stuff that I’m sure has been said a hundred times before mixed with a ton of my own personal conjecture, so please bear that in mind… This is just like total rambling from me.

But I have been fascinated with Harry’s connections to In Watermelon Sugar since we first heard the stupid rumors about the song. Especially the quote from the book about the narrator’s name. That quote got me thinking about how when it comes to Harry, tons of people only see what they want to see based on whatever ‘version’ of Harry is most appealing to them.

Read these quotes from the book with that in mind:

My Name

“I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.

If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.

That is my name.

Perhaps it was raining very hard.

That is my name.

Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—“Sorry for the mistake,”—and you had to do something else.

That is my name.

Perhaps it was a game you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.

That is my name.

Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.

That is my name.

Perhaps you stared into a river. There was something near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.

That is my name.”

and:

“My Name. I do not have a regular name. I am a mystery to you. I wished Margaret would leave me alone…”

— Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar

The narrator of In Watermelon Sugar isn’t just a nameless figure, he actually invites the reader to give him whatever name they find most fitting for him. A positive connotation, a negative one, a nonsensical one… whatever you, the reader, decides. And that feels like a very apt description of Harry and the various ways fans have perceived him from the very beginning… by now, so many people have projected so many different images onto Harry that over time it has completely blurred all lines as to who Harry actually is.

Here’s a review I found of the book that summarizes the world within In Watermelon Sugar better than I can (as well as somehow still aligning perfectly with the concept of struggling with fame and identity, etc): “Much of the sense of disparity in [in Watermelon Sugar] results from the incongruity inherent in the person of the narrator, who insists that everything in iDEATH is exactly as it should be—the people gentle, pleasant, and tolerant. Despite the narrator’s insistence that iDEATH is a stable Utopia, however, many of the things that happen are fraught with pain and violence. Balancing the easygoing and vegetarian people with their light chores and flower-filled parades are the man-eating tigers, the burning of the mutilated corpses of inBOIL and his gang, Margaret’s suicide, and the emptiness felt by the narrator but never named.”

So essentially within In Watermelon Sugar, we’re shown that in the surrealist, post-apocalyptic setting of iDeath, things are only perfect on a surface level. Everyone in this world appears to be happy (or at least, they should be), but a closer look reveals the true nature of iDeath: it’s beyond grim. And so despite the happy, shiny surface, being a part of that happy, peaceful commune is unable to cure the narrator of the inexplicable emptiness he feels inside of him. (‘All the lights couldn’t put out the dark running through my heart.’ ‘Having sex and being sad.’)

The sadness that Harry has already admitted is very prevalent in HS2 has already been implied to be about a ‘breakup,’ but it’s clear to me that Lights Up is anything but a breakup song… (“[Lights Up is about] freedom, self-reflection, self-discovery, things that I had thought about and wrestled with…” + “For me, it’s a very uplifting song. In some places, it’s kind of dark, but to me, it’s like, very liberating. I think, you know, over the past couple of years… It’s about self-reflection, and freedom. It feels very free to me, which is I guess things that I’ve been trying to process… I guess, kinda wrestled with a little over the last couple of years. It’s kinda like, about accepting all of those things.”)

His sadness/whatever emotions and problems he’s been wrestling with have seemingly spanned the course of a few years, and are very personal to him… which is why I feel that releasing Lights Up as the first single sets the tone for the rest of his album centering around his own identity. The line “Lights up and they know who you are, know who you are… Do you know who you are?” poses the question - who is Harry? - and then, “Shine! Step into the light… Shine! So bright sometimes. Shine! I’m not ever going back.” shows us Harry having the strength and bravery to overcome his fears (stepping into the light, although it’s ‘so bright sometimes’ - overwhelming) and reclaim/express his own misunderstood identity.

A lot of people have been trying to tie the In Watermelon Sugar thing back to someone else, but at this point I completely disagree. Not only have we seen him make literary references in the past (the Charles Bukowski reference in Woman), but… given everything that he’s said about Lights Up so far – which was surprisingly a lot – I think that Harry genuinely just took a lot of inspiration from the book because it seemed to hit close to home with his own feelings about self-acceptance and living an authentic life within the public eye.

I think a lot about the scene we’ve yet to see from the directors cut - a room full of many different iterations of Harry.

“My name depends on you… Just call me whatever is in your mind.”

Which leads me back to more total conjecture on my end, but I think that when Harry initially set out on tour / kicked off his solo career, he seemed determined to continue performing within the safety of the walls that had been built around him, so to speak. In one of the interviews he did earlier, he talked about tackling his first album from the perspective of ‘bowling with the bumpers up’ - he wanted to play it safe. He didn’t want to veer too far out of his own comfort zone and fuck it all up… and in doing so, he seemed to hold himself back quite a lot. “I wanted to see if people would enjoy an album without knowing everything about me.”

I think that heading into writing with that mindset explains songs like ‘Complicated Freak’ and ‘Medicine’ being scrapped and excluded from being released on HS1. In retrospect, all of his tour - and especially Medicine - seem a lot like Harry dipping his toes in the water. Being totally presumptuous again, but I find it likely that Harry has had it ingrained in his mind for a long time that he needs to fit certain molds and keep certain narratives alive in order to continue to be successful. And I imagine that this idea is not his own, but instead something that has been hammered into his head over and over from a young age. And I would guess that a lot of anxiety and doubt has stemmed from that - go back and watch that shaky first performance of Medicine and tell me what you think he was likely feeling in that moment. But again, it circles right back to the strength and bravery of doing what he knows needs to be done to expel all of the darkness inside of him - stepping into the light. (“Never going back now / Be so sweet if things just stayed the same.” It’d be so sweet if he could live in that fantasyland forever.)

Anyway. I really don’t think Harry was at all prepared for just how many people would show up to support him in that sense… but his own community just rolled up in droves, bringing a total outpouring of love for him every single night. He had entire arenas lit up in rainbows, people bringing hilarious and heartfelt signs, flags after flags after flags after flags… all in celebration of him and the feelings of safety, strength, and bravery that he has continuously imparted back onto his fans. It was such a queer lovefest that even other artists likened his tour to “pride parades every night.” That’s so unbelievably powerful? I can’t think of any other artist who’s crowds do that for them… not even gay icons like Elton John? I still maintain that one of the most incredible things to have come out of HSLOT was the safe spaces he + his fans created for one another. It meant a lot to us, and it clearly meant a lot to him:

“The tour, that affected me deeply. It really changed me emotionally. Having people come to sing the songs… For me, the tour was the biggest thing in terms of being more accepting of myself, I think. I kept thinking, “Oh, wow. They really want me to be myself. And be out and do it.” That’s the thing I’m most thankful for, of touring. I feel like the fans in the room — it’s this environment where people come to feel like they can be themselves. There’s nothing that makes me feel more myself than to be in this whole room of people. It made me realize people want to see me experiment and have fun. Nobody wants to see you fake it.”

I think that going on tour, and seeing the reaction and the acceptance of his audience, definitely made him want to take the bumpers down… to ‘be out and do it’ because ‘nobody wants to see him fake it.’ It seemed to help him massively in terms of his own ‘self acceptance and the things he’s been wrestling with’ and to make an incredibly, incredibly long winded answer short, it’s why I STILL do not think that releasing Lights Up on National Coming Out Day was in any way incidental. I think that was a big part of what Harry meant when he said that no one wanted to see him ‘faking’ things.

And… that’s basically it, I think, for now. I’ve just been sitting here nodding along at everything he’s been showing us the last few weeks… Impressed by the direction that he seems to be heading. And taking notes. I’ll go ahead and shut up now because I KNOW it’s still too early to draw definite conclusions on his intent for this new ‘era’ (and this new song could be about choking on literal fucking watermelon seeds for all I know, nothing Harry does ever makes any kind of sense does it), but I can’t help but come to my own conclusions based on what I feel he is sharing with us.

#like if anyone actually thinks that it makes more sense for harry to be crying over borrowed slippers from an ex #and writing entire songs based off of his ex's supposed favorite book... be my guest or whatever #but it totally undermines how smart harry actually is. he used the word 'regalia' in a fucking interview the other day #like c'mon lmao #anyway #this is just me rambling for like... a solid 2k #sorry #when he makes me look like booboo i'll at least be a more educated booboo or whatever #:')#*

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discipulusmaleficus · 3 years

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all the p flowers!!

@squibbed - botanical hcs

pansy : does your muse often reflect on their own actions ? do they ever think a lot about the past , and what they could have done differently ?

Not if he can avoid it, which is most of the time. It would only make him feel bad, right?

There are things he still feels guilty about (despite all efforts to ignore them), but he's not good at actually taking responsibility for his actions, and he isn't particularly convinced that it's possible for him to be better.

peony : what would a ‘ happy life ’ look like in your muse’s eyes ?

He'd settle for anything without the dread of his weird familial obligations and curses hovering over his head, tbh.

A lot of his old recurring daydreams focused on running off to become a goatherd in some isolated corner of the world. He has a vague, idealised notion of something reasonably steady and safe and cottagecore, but is also aware he'd likely have some issues with that in practice. (This may also be taken as evidence he's not built to be happy anyhow.) Literally joining the circus also may have been a thing for a while.

He hardly dares hope for a significant other most of the time.

poppy : what comforts your muse ?

Fun fact: before he starts wearing other things (which is big deal), the hooded black robe was something like a security blanket that he could feasibly carry around with him 24/7. Not only does it prevent people from perceiving his wretched countenance, it's surprisingly soft, gives him some protection against the cold on an everyday basis (if not against overheating), cuts out what seems like entirely too much glare in his peripheral vision, and will never fail him in a way that can't be fixed with enough sewing.

So, as for small things: being swathed in fabric, animals he doesn't hate, wine, maybe black tea, probably cards and pens and whatever else he plays with, the comforting sentiment that you were doomed to failure from the start and that there's no point in getting up in arms about it,

But also, let's be honest, how many times has he felt unhappy about something and then immediately concocted some ill-advised, unnecessarily risky summoning expedition or the like to avoid or 'fix' it???

parsley : describe a holiday your muse enjoys , and why they enjoy it .

I've answered a slightly adjacent question here (/gotten entirely carried away) and made some notes on all his notable holidays (or those I have a take on atm), since I've never bothered do that. There are a lot of days that are simply incidents for minor sacrifice or particularly good days on which to do X or Y, and he theoretically has religious obligations on a lot of days which aren't actually that celebratory at all. Really, one wonders how he keeps track of everything.

(All based on very surface-level research. I also really need to do more with the Kemetic influence at some point (curse his silly chimera religion), but information on that's generally scarcer and I'm tired.)

Parentalia (February 13-21): Offerings to and/or calling upon the spirits of departed ancestors, culminating in the Feralia sacrifice at midnight. Traditionally all business is put on hold for the duraction - his family's perspective probably differs somewhat in that you might want to use those spirits for something, rather than exorcising them.

Valentine's Day: Kal obviously always brings up his distaste for saints, but mostly he's just following the tradition of feeling bitter and unloved. Unless he isn't single...?

Caristia (February 22): Celebration of living family. You're supposed to bring everyone together and put all disagreements aside, which obviously always works perfectly and creates no tension whatsoever. Exchanging of wine and gifts and such. Kal probably begrudgingly makes the pilgrimage at least some of the time in adulthood.

Terminalia (February 23): Time to renew the curses on the boundaries of your property. Also to move them if you want to slowly encroach on the lands on the peasants. Or if you decided that was a bad idea and need to put them back.

March 1: 'New year', maybe.

Liberalia (March 17): "Celebrates the maturation of young boys to manhood," usually at 15-16. Also time to replace the mysterious effigy you have hanging in the woods and possibly the 2-3 robes you wear constantly.

April 1: He's not going to turn down an opportunity to fuck with anyone, right?

Kal's own birthday (April 14): I get the impression he mostly recalls waking up pre-pre-dawn for ritual reasons, and a lot of scrutiny of how well his schooling was progressing. He generally doesn't bother telling people about it.

Easter: sometimes he burns bibles for the occasion

Parilia (April 21): Sanctification and appeasement of the goats. Honestly kind of a big deal.

Vinalia urbana (April 23): Has mostly devolved into an excuse to drink.

Lemuria (May 9, 11, 13): Another festival of the restless dead. Has perhaps been kind-of-merged with The Beautiful Festival of the Valley. Which involves flower garlands.

Opet (July 19): For him, one occasion on which he’s obliged to venerate Amun-Ra and beg Him to maintain His contracts, I expect.

Neptunalia (July 23): Involves hanging out in the woods building huts of sticks (in the sun / rain), praying the fish will continue to be somewhat edible, and theoretically merrymaking.

Tekh (August 7): See Vinalia urbana, except it has to be beer, which he's less fond of.

Portunalia (August 17): "On this day, keys were thrown into a fire for good luck in a very solemn and lugubrious manner."

do they have to be your keys

Vulcanalia (August 23): If you want, you can ritually not sacrifice small animals by dangling them over open flames for a while and then taking them back unscathed. This is supposed to make your incendiary spells more effective in combat.

Meditrinalia (October 11): See Vinalia urbana.

Anniversary of Exile (October 23): Generally a time for swearing fealty to the legacy of your Ancestors and solemn oaths to One Day Conquer The World Once Again or whatever. Occasion of a ritual theoretically supposed to increase your own Dark Power, on which a fair number of Kal's intermediary relatives took it upon themselves to sacrifice their enemies. He probably abandons it at some point but is likely to be conflicted and in a less-than-stellar mood.

There are likely also minor acknowledgements of other historical dates of import to his cult family.

Birthday of Kallistemon Zorabi (January 29): Quite similar to the above, with a slightly more optimistic bent.

Halloween: I'm going to say this is agreed upon as a good time for necromancy, which means he's likely to busy himself with some nonsense as an excuse to spurn the holiday itself. For quite a while he denigrates it as a Mockery of "actual traditions", but I suspect he could learn to enjoy it if he bothered.

Saturnalia (December 17): Known as the season where slaves were traditionally served by or before their masters. Associated with the freedom to insult your betters, gambling, and the giving of (often small or gag) gifts. Kal is on board for all of this and will fairly often give people the worst things he can manage for 'Christmas'. (This is also a good way of thumbing his nose at Christmas.)

Bacchanalia (thrice yearly): About what you'd expect from Dionysos. He may have participated at school/university, and it's a good time if you like being driven temporarily insane (who doesn't), but you can't really do it properly if there's not a cult around. That's just sad.

Agonalia (quarterly): Occasion of sacrifice to various entities. True to the name, generally just kind of stressful, as you had to either kill something or (if you really couldn't afford to) offer apologetic blood sacrifice.

#;headcanon;#I'm practicing never shutting the fuck up

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trewhitttesean1992 · 4 years

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Reiki Master Energy Healer Amazing Cool Ideas

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Zibu Reiki Symbol

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How To Know If Reiki Is Working

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#Reiki Master Energy Healer Amazing Cool Ideas #What Is The Meaning Of Reiki In Hindi

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: An Illustrated Portrait of Lolita Fashion

So Pretty/Very Rotten by Jane Mai and An Nguyen (all image courtesy Koyama Press)

“Life was like candy. So what if it was deceitful?” says a girl clad in a Rococo-inspired outfit, after breezily explaining that the way she got her money for shopping was by telling her clueless father a bunch of sob stories; she has no friends but she doesn’t care: clothes make her happy. “My happiness was at stake. It’s not wrong to feel good. That’s what Rococo taught me. But actually my soul is rotten.”

So Pretty/Very Rotten by Jane Mai and An Nguyen, published by Koyama Press (2017)

This monologue, uttered by the Lolita fashion-obsessed protagonist of the cult movie Shimotsuma Monogatari (“Kamikaze Girls”) (2004) served as the inspiration for the title of the book So Pretty/Very Rotten, written and illustrated by cartoonists Jane Mai, based in Brooklyn, and An Nguyen, from Ottawa. Recently released by Toronto-based Koyama Press, the book is a collection of essays, illustrations, and short comics that attempt to give Lolita fashion a broader cultural and sociological context.

Lolita fashion quietly began as a subculture in the Tokyo district of Harajuku in the 1970s, but did not fully flourish until the ‘90s, its outfits a synthesis of Victorian and Rococo styles (with Marie Antoinette and Alice in Wonderland being the ultimate muses). Pop culture took note. Manga artists, for instance, have drawn plenty of inspiration from Lolita fashion and so has the movie industry: other than Kamikaze Girls, notable movies include Gothic and Lolita Psycho (2010) and X-Cross (2007).

So Pretty/Very Rotten by Jane Mai and An Nguyen

But Mai and Nguyen’s book comes at a peculiar time for Lolita fashion: Cult-like magazines entirely dedicated to Harajuku subculture and Lolita fashion have folded in the last couple of years: CUTiE, the first magazine that used the term kawaii in reference to Japanese aesthetic and fashion, ended its run in 2015; Kera! ceased publication in April 2017; Gothic and Lolita Bible “went on hiatus” in May 2017; and FRUiTS magazine printed its last copy in February 2017 — its editor and chief photographer Shoichi Aoki said that “there are no more cool kids left to photograph.”

Being a “cool kid” that photographs well, though, is only a surface-level aspect of Lolita fashion. As Mai and Nguyen show through entertaining but educational storytelling, Lolita fashion is full of complexities and contradictions. The name Lolita, for example, is purportedly inspired by Nabokov’s nymphet, but in fact has little to do with her portrayal in the novel; rather, Lolita fashion is meant to convey an idea of perpetual innocence. The origins of the name “Lolita fashion” itself are unknown, though some theorize the name is meant to reclaim Dolores Haze’s innocence, eliminating Humbert Humbert’s male gaze. “Prior to the novel, Lolita was the nickname for Dolores and did not have the nymphet connotations,” Mai and Nguyen write in the “Frequently Asked Questions” chapter. The innocence embodied by Japanese Lolitas, however, is perceived by the conservative Japanese society as a provocation and disturbance to the nation’s strict conformism. Novala Takemoto, the author and fashion designer who inspired the movie Kamikaze Girls and whom Nguyen interviewed for So Pretty/Very Rotten, has previously argued that the Lolitas’ eternal childlike appearance is their own “form of resistance […] They don’t exist to please anyone.”

So Pretty/Very Rotten by Jane Mai and An Nguyen

The strength of So Pretty/Very Rotten stems from the manifold approaches the authors take toward Lolita fashion. They taxonomize it: for example, they explain and draw, in detail, the differences between demure “classic Lolita,” fond of tapestry-inspired fabrics and muted hues, the “sweet Lolita,” who favors pastel colors and images of cute animals and cakes, and the “gothic Lolita,” who adopts a more funeral-inspired attire and might carry, say, a coffin-shaped bag. Mai and Nguyen study it as a culture intersecting with other cultures, such as shojo (a cultural concept that can be used to refer to a “little girl,” “maiden,” “young lady,” and “virgin”) and the indie music scene, especially the glam rock movement Visual Kei. Mai and Nguyen, who have firsthand experience with Lolita by dressing in that fashion, observe the psychological ramifications of the lifestyle itself, particularly how it’s fueled by a very materialistic drive, which can cause a state of permanent dissatisfaction.

Nguyen actually obtained a PhD in anthropology with a thesis on Lolita fashion, and we can find excerpts and adaptations of her academic work in So Pretty/Very Rotten. While painstakingly collecting information on the topic, she had a persistent thought: “If only I could draw about this concept rather than use words to describe it.” In 2014, she asked Jane Mai to collaborate with her and that was the genesis of their book.

So Pretty/Very Rotten by Jane Mai and An Nguyen

Mai and Nguyen approach the subject through different perspectives: Mai’s work veers on the macabre and is strictly focused on the toll a consumerist culture like Lolita takes on those who partake in it. She gets her point across by sprinkling her comics with more than a light touch of horror: “My clothes are perfect, I will be ok,” says the protagonist of one of her comics while scratching her bald, scabby scalp that she hides under a doll-like wig; she had just coughed up a massive amount of blood, but she still looked perfect.”

Nguyen takes a more anthropological and interpersonal approach. One comic features Nguyen herself interviewing several Lolitas (something she actually did for her doctoral thesis) and the answers she receives are insightful: “Do you prefer to be cute or beautiful?” is answered with “Beautiful things seem far away somehow, like out of my realm. It’s for someone else to say, not for me to define or desire. But cuteness seems more attainable and at hand, so it’s something that I can imagine being.” “Do you think Lolitas are strong or weak people?” is replied with, “Lolitas are weak because we are overly kind, but we are strong because we are not afraid to be different.”

The drawing styles of the authors differ to a great degree, too: where Mai uses bold lines, rounder shapes, no grayscale, and illustrates heavily stylized characters that occupy the page without being constricted into boxes, Nguyen has a more ethereal style, and does not use as much black as Mai does. Their comics have a no-frills sketchbook-like quality: this allows us to focus on the enlightening dialogue rather than on, say, the flowers adorning a Lolita’s bonnet. And this is certainly not due to lack of drawing skills: in fact, in the bumper illustrations and fashion section devoted to the different styles of Lolita, Mai and Nguyen made sure they reproduced even the most delicate ruffle in the utmost detail.

In his interview and essay featured in So Pretty/Very Rotten, Takemoto bemoans how, in Japan, Lolita fashion has hardly ever been accepted as a worthwhile research topic, hence the lack of significant documentation save for strictly fashion-centric content. With few exceptions, like Masafumi Monden, scholars have confined Lolita into brief chapters of books exploring fashion subcultures in general. An accurate and comprehensive book on Lolita fashion is still to be written. In the meantime, Mai and Nguyen’s work is an invaluable resource for whoever wants to get acquainted with a culture that, underneath its frilly garments, is a paradoxical form of empowerment and self-assertion.

So Pretty/Very Rotten by Jane Mai and An Nguyen is out now from Koyama Press.

The post An Illustrated Portrait of Lolita Fashion appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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ensalience-blog · 7 years

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Week 11 Reading

Workflow app: So, basically yet another automation app, but iOS specific. I think I’ll probably end up sticking with IFTTT, mostly because I am unable to use Workflow (no iOS device!). Still, the integration seems as if it could be quite useful.

What is it, how does it work?: I can see the convenience of automation if one is actually doing a lot of repetitive tasks. Of course, if one isn’t, then it loses a lot of its value proposition. Due to its success, I can only imagine that many of us are doing trivial things - though I wonder if that’s because we have to or because we’re intentionally using up time?

How to use the workflow app: Ah, the joys of reading in Incognito mode, because of the sandbox environment it provides (read: a malicious ad finds it harder to get at the rest of your computer). I will admit that its ability to save workflows to the home screen and allow one to activate many actions with a single touch is nice - I suppose it says something that it took this long for batch processing to become a think on mobile phones. Or perhaps that its is finally becoming a thing - have we crossed a complexity threshold, I wonder?

What is Temboo: A code generator/library of processes that virtualizes the process of interfacing with APIs, so you don’t have to know each and every one of them yourself. Useful for prototyping, though maybe not for a final product. Basically your IoT skeleton Key.

Your own internet of things: Temboo facilitates fast development with new connected devices, allowing savings in time and memory (important for microcontrollers, which have a limited amount of the latter) by shifting the burden of complexity to the cloud. Of course, this presupposes a working internet connection and introduces another point of vulnerability / failure, which I’m not entirely comfortable with. Still, I suppose the support of multiple programming languages and ability to test is good, but abstracting everything isn’t an answer in the long run.

Building an app with flexibility and power: Temboo wants to make building apps more accessible to regular people, which is well and good, except that this is mostly a technical shortcut, and as responsive as they are to their users, how many people will ever really hear about it, except those already moving in design/development circles? If we want to make building apps more accessible to regular people, we have to foster a level of technical and design literacy among the population at large, so people can, if not be expert programmers and designers, have a basic understanding of what they do, and what some of the tools are if they are interested in building something. Right now, there’s a huge hurdle when it comes to taking that first step, and its mostly mental.

Programming hardware without coding: Page is missing.

Connecting Arduino to 100s of API's: Technically, Temboo is not necessary to make these hacks, though it is nice to see them partnering with a variety of device manufacturers. Given the other material on them, that they have an interest in helping people build their IoT clusters and apps seems about right - though that’s still dependent on hardware compatibility and interfacing. Oh, and making sure your organization actually supports IoT devices connecting to the internet, which they very well might not (Penn’s internet is not IoT friendly, as I discovered while tinkering, and connecting to the net proper again, opens one up to extra vulnerabilities).

Connecting API's without wrappers: The word ‘silo’ is one that’s been brought across to quite a few other fields, I note with some amusement. That said, while Temboo is being pushed as a killer app that removes the need to learn how APIs work and makes updating easier...the platform itself is not intuitive to use, the documentation isn’t especially great, and what happens if Temboo’s choreo library stops working or has a problem?

How to build a cloud saving electricity monitor: The fact that open source tutorials exist for the maker community is rather convenient for anyone seeking to get into it. However...the hardware requirement (and extra cost/effort) is still a significant barrier to adoption and experimentation. Yes, it may not be that expensive, but if I have to go out of my way to get an Arduino or other device, wait for it to arrive in the mail, build it, and then hope and pray that my internet will support it. Well...essentially, it is great that this exists, but that alone isn’t going to make me interested in building something.

Ultra-Contextual design: So many assumptions in this article, like “Wi-Fi is so ingrained in modern life that it disappears into the background.“ While reading all of articles, Erika Hall’s statement that “Assumptions are Insults” lingers in the back of my mind - and is brought up time and time again. Nevertheless... this defines context aware systems as those that "provide information and utilities to people based on the tasks they are trying to accomplish”. Transitioning from a dumb system to a context aware one, however, is not easy, and requires not only understanding the context of use, but what kind of contextual design would fit best. There are many ways to tackle any one problem, after all, and which one is right...depends.

A UX perspective of design for context-aware adaption pdf white paper: Automated methods to assess quality of life may not be best, as this paper notes, given that one only has limited inputs to work from. How much can one realistically interface with and be aware of at any given time? With many studies in context-aware adaption failing to include the user in the process of developing or adapting HCI policy and implementations...we’re going to keep running into issues, as not all users are the same, and every use case is slightly different. Automation is good, but it isn’t everything.

Wharton - on why UX is about Data: Individual UX has become table stakes - if you can’t do that much, you shouldn’t be playing the app game. And well, you can’t really get a good personalized UX without data to understand each user’s context - though it is important to note that having a non-offending default set of parameters might be useful as well, and that pinging for data to improve an experience can quickly become aggravating, if that is not what a consumer is interested in. A user may not want a smart solution - a user may simply want something ‘dumb’ - or to be completely in control, without having data fed to him or her. Still, I’ll agree with the statement that “it’s common for apps to have a long-winded sign-up process that asks you every question under the sun. This is not a recipe for success.”

Even IFTTT was guilty of that. I just wanted to browse what their library of interactions was capable of without having to first connect to every bloody service I intended to use. It might seem dumb, because why not integrate sign-in with browsing, right, but maybe I don’t want to sign in if the interaction I want isn’t there. Maybe I don’t want to have another point of failure/slowdown/frustration when I’m trying to build an applet. Today’s UX may be all about the individual user experience, but still having good design to fall back on couldn’t hurt, especially if the process of gathering the data is a pain in and of itself.

Context aware computing? Contextual philosophy, how droll. It is important to remember that, per ACM, context is in and of itself an abstraction, and that abstractions are not easy to talk about. Sure, we can say that “context, in the general sense, is something we create in the process of being and doing, a thing we make with our mind in our body so we can interact with another mind in another body,” but what does that really mean? With such a definition, pretty much anything can be context (and whether it can be calculated or not, whether it is embodied or emergent from interactions is a whole other can of worms). What makes this article interesting is that it tries to see what lies at the intersection of these, the common ground, the interfaces between ideas and cultures, and argues that design should be about foregrounding culture and backgrounding technology, which is something that most of the other readings missed.

Don Norman: TED talk 3 ways design make you happy: The talk of neurotransmitters and how the brain functions at different of processing is rather fascinating, especially when we think about how it interacts with the design choices we make, and how various levels and emotions can be played against one another. By synthesizing beauty, functionality, and reflectiveness - the ability to tell stories about an experience, or create a coherent one, we can make more effect, coherent designs. Designs resilient in the face of user stress or frustration, designs which are salutogenic.

Drone TED talk: Important points to note from this talk are towards the end, when he mentions how “Interaction doesn't have to be virtual. It can be physical.” And there almost always is a physical component to interaction, since we can’t automate all of our lives. In the end though, as with so much technology, how it affects us and how pervasive it is may not be a technical choice, but a social one.

Grocery store video: Supermarket experiences are inherently manipulative through appealing to people’s senses, and the experiences they choose to present. Color and smell (why fresh fruit and veggie displays, and flower displays) are some of the first things you encounter. Also, the small verbal cues and hints - the mere suggestion of something in another context - can be enough to get someone thinking about something subconsciously, which, when it later boils up to the surface, seems as if it was their idea to begin with. I mean, this really isn’t too different in principle from Jobs (or any other boss) hearing an employee’s idea, automatically dismissing it or brushing it off, and a week later presenting it as their own, believing that they came up with it completely in and of themselves. More than just the direct message of manipulation, what I take away from this is how tightly everything is connected, and how everything influences everything else.

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