#he would say youths like schmidt from new girl i think

[edourado]

Beautiful @carry-the-sky tagged me to list my 10 favorite male characters. 

Now, I’ve been giving this way more thought than necessary, but it’s a pandemic, okay? I have nothing better to do she says as she ignores the to do list

Also: Do I need to elaborate my choices? No, but I will. Thank you for understanding. Just be glad I restrained myself and didn’t add gifs.

In no particular order:

Frank Castle (Daredevil/The Punisher): Do I need to explain this? I don’t think I do. My man is one complicated guy, layers like the world’s biggest onion. Trigger finger happy heart of gold, stole my heart the moment they got Jonnie to play him;

Rick Grimes (TWD): Probably my ride or die. I love this guy from day one, and I pretty much walked out on TWD when (SPOILER ALERT) he flew off on that chopper (I haven’t watched season 10 yet, so no spoilers. I will, though). It does help that Andy Lincoln is one fantastic actor, and I don’t think anyone could have played him better;

Wolfgang Bogdanow (Sense8): Will ALL my men have a gun glued to their hands? Idk, but HE certainly does, and HE certainly makes my heart skip a beat. Is it the eyes? is it his troubled past? Is it the melting when a wild Kala appears? Is it the instinctive need to protect his loved ones? Is it the leather? What IS IT about this guy, people, that just makes me want to cry and undress?;

Dumbledore (HP): Probably the one man on the list I would like to be. The brilliance, the kindness, the courage, the foresight, the calm, the coldness, the willingness to sacrifice - and the understanding of what sacrifice means, while we’re at it. I admire Albus Dumbledore and look for his wisdom in real life people. One could say he is my Jesus. It’s funny how he is a charachter that has no author. No one knows who wrote him, he was just there one day. Isn’t that funny?;

Mr Knightly (Emma): If I ever find myself inclined to give my hand away in marriage, you can bet the man will have a strong resemblance to Mr. Knightly. What a good example of masculinity. The one literary crush that I never grew out of (looking at you, Mr. Darcy);

Rio (Good Girls): Is he a gangster? Yes. Is he a straight up criminal who kills people and spreads terror wherever he goes? Yup. Is he the owner of the world’s best smile? Oh, you betcha. Can he melt you just by looking at you? Ask Beth. Makes me understand the pull of the thug life, as the youths would say;

Moriarty (Sherlock): He is only on the list because Andrew Scott played him so well, I don’t even have words for it. Perfection. I don’t even remember this guy’s motivations on the show, but I just loved him so much, random lines of his are forever embeded in my mind. The type of villain I would like to write. Just *chef’s kiss*

Aidan (SATC): The perfect boyfriend. Carry has a permanent “STUPID” brand on her forehead in my mind, because she let this one go. For Big. To each their own I guess;

Tony Stark (You know who he is): This one is 20% because of the character, 80% because of RDJ. The arc. The journey. So so good. I love him. 3000.

Klaus Hargreeves (The Umbrella Academy): Listen. I would like to be this chaotic. I would like to kiss all of my anxiety goodbye, let go of the chronic people-pleasing part of my personality, I would like to create a cult by accident. And I would like to look that good in a skirt. I love him. I will protect him. I will watch one thousand seasons of him. 

Bonus: Schmidt (New Girl): Everything about him. What is this man? Sweet and ridiculous and absurd and relatable. I love him. 

There you go folks. Way longer than it needed to be, but I like to explain myself for people on the internet because the people in my real life don’t care. 

I tag @ambrosiaswhispers (are you sick of me yet) @ejunkiet @evilbunnyking @tacohead13 @lpdwillwrite4coffee @redbelles @simplytherose @westonfollower @superrpowerlesshuman and honestly, anywone. If you do this because you saw this, please tag me, I’m genunely curious about these things. 

#tagged #I love this #might do a female version of it

[bobasheebaby]

100 New Girl Prompts

So many prompts, most of which are funny. Break at 15 cause it’s mega long.

1 "I'm using my bride/groom card!" — Cece

2 “Can we just take a minute to celebrate me?" — Schmidt

3 “So many emotions." — Nick

4 “I'm totaling my assets. It's really bleak." — Jess

5 “Look at those horny horny hippos.” — Nick

6 “I got mozzarella sticks for fingers." — Nick

7 “Every moment you're on this Earth is a moment I know where you are." — Nick

8 “It is my Secret Santa alias." — Winston

9 “Friend face." — Winston

10 “It's perfectly fine to watch TV all day." — Nick

11 “If I were off my rocker, would I take a weekly selfie with my cat?" — Winston

12 “I can't find my driving moccasins anywhere." — Schmidt

13 “Believe it or not, that's not the first time someone's broken my feeling stick. I have a travel size." — Jess

14 “Put on some pants, or at least some really high socks." — Jess

15 “You like me? You like my personality?" “I was surprised, too.” — Schmidt & Cece

16 "I just wanted to listen to Taylor Swift alone!" — Jess

17 “That's like the president and the vice president not being best friends." — Winston

18 “I'll take the strongest drink you have, and also a wine spritzer on the side in case I don't like it." — Jess

19 “You have the right...to remain hugged." — Coach

20 “If you are for one second suggesting that I don't know how to open a musical, how dare you!" — Schmidt

21 “I was sabotaged by my baby box." — Jess

22 “We are literally the most embarrassing people on the planet." — Jess

23 "It's a weird life, but it's where I'm at right now." — Nick

24 "You gave me a cookie, I gave you a cookie." — Nick

25 “Go put a dollar in the jar right now." — Coach

26 “This is my jam." — Coach

27 “Saturday is a day for sleeping, and damn it, you will not take that away from me!" — Winston

28 “Are we eating or are we not eating?" — Winston

29 "Eating cookies and avoiding confrontation." — Jess

30 “Because it's a great story, and I'm a teller of stories." — Nick

31 “I like being weird." — Jess

32 "This is the worst thing to ever happen to me. I've lived a very fortunate life!" — Jess

33 "I don't like it. It's too much responsibility." — Nick

34 “Are you cooking a frittata in a sauce pan? What is this – prison?” — Schmidt

35 “I hate your mustache because I miss your upper lip.” — Schmidt

36 “He’s/She's got that giant heart that's part compass and part flashlight and he’s/she's just the greatest person I have ever met.” — Nick

37 “Who's that guy/girl? It's NAME." — Jess

38 “Watch your front because we've got your back!” — Cece

39 “Picking lint off of a man's/woman’s sleeve is the most intimate gesture.” — Cece

40 “Blast from the past, how's that ass?” — Jess

41 “I hate this. I just wanna sit around and do nothing, but that is not hot.” “That's hot to me. You add some sweatpants to that and that is better than porn.” — Kai & Nick

42 “Look at that font! What is this? Amateur hour? At least use Palatino.” — Nick

43 “I’m like a sexual snowflake. Each night with me is like a unique experience.” — Schmidt

44 “Where have you been? I am having a major life crisis, and you guys are, what, just driving around, French kissing each other like a couple of Dutch hookers?” — Schmidt

45 “No sig oths.” “Just say ‘significant others.” “Maybe you have that kind of time, but I’m on a tight sched.” — Schmidt & Cece

46 “I know this isn’t gonna end well, but the whole middle part is going to be awesome.” — Nick

47 “NAME, you’ve been staring at this guy/girl for 5 minutes. Please tell me you’re checking him/her out, otherwise you’re a serial killer. Which would explain a lot.” — Schmidt

48 “This is a horrible neighborhood. There are youths everywhere!” — Schmidt

49 “Guess whose personalized condoms just arrived!” — Schmidt

50 “I’m really gonna need you to step it up tonight, okay? When I see you, I wanna be thinking, ‘Who let the dirty slut out of the slut house?’” — Schmidt

51 “Can someone please get my towel? It’s in my room next to my Irish walking cape!” — Schmidt

52 “Have you seen my sharkskin laptop sleeve?” — Schmidt

53 “Don’t pretend to know my pain.” — Schmidt

54 “Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? Probably.” — Nick

55 “I don't know what I'm doing emotionally or -- let's be honest -- sexually.” — Jess

56 “What if I have some idea of love in my head and it’s just totally wrong?” — Jess

57 “Life sucks. And then it gets better. And then it sucks again.” — Nick

58 “I like getting older, I feel like I’m aging into my personality.” — Nick

59 “You know, sometimes I feel like I’ve never really felt love.” — Winston

60 “When you care about somebody you do what's best for them even if it sucks for you.” — Schmidt

61 “Old people freak me out. With their hands and their legs. They’re like the people version of pleated pants.” — Schmidt

62 “I’m gonna have to run all the way home, and I have my slipperiest loafers on.” — Schmidt

63 “Downstairs neighbour put a password on their wi-fi.” — Nick

64 “You were denied a cell phone because you have the credit score of a homeless ghost.” — Schmidt

65 “I’m only attracted to guys/girls who are afraid of success and think someone famous stole their idea.” — Jess

66 “This place is fancy and I don’t know which fork to kill myself with.” — Nick

67 “Without sex, he’s/she’s not your boyfriend/girlfriend. Okay? He’s/She’s a friend you buy meals for.” — Schmidt

68 “I feel like I wanna murder someone. And also, I want soft pretzels.” — Jess

69 “So when I do the chicken dance, I do it a little differently. Instead of doing claps, I like to do a peck. It’s more realistic.” — Jess

70 “NAME doesn’t have a life plan. He/She doesn’t have a day plan. I once found a note that he/she wrote to himself that said, ‘Put on pants.'” — Jess

71 “I don’t want to kiss and tell, but I ruined my dresser during intercourse. Will you go to Ikea with me?” — Jess

72 “Can I get an alcohol?” — Nick

73 “I want to kill you, because I respect you. NAME! I think I understand hunting!” — Nick

74 “Look, we’re not trying to be mean. We just don’t want you to be yourself… in any way.”

75 “I have decided to give up on men/women and put all of that energy into tomatoes.”

76 “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? No, a summer’s day is not a bitch!” — Nick

77 “I only wanna make a drink a coal miner would want. Straight forward. Honest. Something that says, ‘I work in a hole.'” — Nick

78 “I’m not convinced I know how to read, I’ve just memorized a lot of words.” — Nick

79 “I like chipmunks more than squirrels.” — Nick

80 “I can’t believe I’m the sober one. That’s actually never happened before in my life.” — Nick

81 “Beans are nothing but soggy nuts.” — Schmidt

82 “Can I interest you in some white noise?” — Winston

83 “Those are pickles in progress.” — Winston

84 “Who’s talking to you, Depression-era garbage man?” — Coach

85 “I need everyone to shut up.” — Coach

86 “Your asses belong to me now.” — Coach

87 “That’s what’s up, that’s what’s up. No doubt. Diggity.” — Coach

88 “I hate when Schmidt cries. He sounds like a ghost singing ‘Hey Ya.'” — Coach

89 “I’ve made out with half of the guys/girls in this room.” — Cece

90 “You always see the worst in people.” “Yeah, because people are the worst.” — Jess & Nick

91 “I’m sorry we’re not going this weekend.” “But It’s free.” “Did you say free?” “Yeah.” “We’re 100% in. I’ll go pack now.” — Nick & Jes

92 “I’m going to end up alone. I’m going to be a single old man/lady flashing people on the subway.” — Jess

93 “I’ve got two perfectly good forks on the end of my arms.” — Nick

94 “If we needed to talk about feelings they would be called talkings.” — Nick

95 “When you question my pajamas, you make me question our entire friendship!” — Jess

96 “Why can’t I have the things that I want?!” — Schmidt

97 “Bathtubs are medieval filth cauldrons.” — Schmidt

98 “They don’t hate me because I’m old. They hate me because of my personality.” — Schmidt

99 “It’s like you’re ripping the side block out of my mental Jenga.” — Schmidt

100 “I’m not actually quite sure how to stop this.” — Schmidt

#new girl prompts #new girl quotes #writing prompts #dialogue prompts #drabble prompts #jessica day #nick miller #cece parekh #winston bishop #winston schmidt #coach #long post #read more

[birdlord]

Every Book I Read in 2019

This was a heavier reading year for me (heavier culture-consumption year in general) partly because my partner started logging his books read, and then, of course, it’s a competition.

01 Morvern Callar; Alan Warner - One of the starkest books I’ve ever read. What is it about Scotland that breeds writers with such brutal, distant perspectives on life? Must be all the rocks. 

02 21 Things You Might Not Know About the Indian Act; Bob Joseph - I haven’t had much education in Canada’s relationship to the Indigenous nations that came before it, so this opened things up for me quite a bit. The first and most fundamental awakening is to the fact that this is not a story of progress from worse to better (which is what a simplistic, grade school understanding of smallpox blankets>residential schools>reserves would tell you), in fact, the nation to nation relationship of early contact was often superior to what we have today. I wish there was more of a call to action, but apparently a sequel is on its way. 

03 The Plot Against America; Philip Roth - An alternative history that in some ways mirrors our present. I did feel like I was always waiting for something to happen, but I suppose the point is that, even at the end of the world, disasters proceed incrementally. 

04 Sabrina; Nick Drnaso - The blank art style and lack of contrast in the colouring of each page really reinforces the feeling of impersonal vacancy between most of the characters. I wonder how this will read in the future, as it’s very much based in today’s relationship to friends and technology. 

05 Perfumes: The Guide; Luca Turn & Tania Sanchez - One of the things I like to do when I need to turn my brain off online is reading perfume reviews. That’s where I found out about this book, which runs through different scent families and reviews specific well-known perfumes. Every topic has its boffins, and these two are particularly witty and readable. 

06 Adventures in the Screen Trade; William Goldman - Reading this made me realize how little of the cinema of the 1970s I’ve actually seen, beyond the usual heavy hitters. Ultimately I found this pretty thin, a few peices of advice stitched together with anecdotes about a Hollywood that is barely recognizable today. 

07 The Age of Innocence; Edith Wharton - A love triangle in which the fulcrum is a terribly irritating person, someone who thinks himself far more outré than he is. Nonetheless, I was taken in by this story of “rebellion”, such as it was, to be compelling.

08 Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis; Sam Anderson - Like a novel that follows various separate characters, this book switches between tales of the founding of Oklahoma City with basketball facts and encounters with various oddball city residents. It’s certainly a fun ride, but you may find, as I did, that some parts of the narrative interest you more than others. Longest subtitle ever?

09 World of Yesterday; Stefan Zweig - A memoir of pre-war Austria and its artistic communities, told by one of its best-known exports. Particularly wrenching with regards to the buildup to WWII, from the perspective of those who had been through this experience before, so recently. 

10 Teach us to Sit Still: A Sceptic’s Search for Health and Healing; Tim Parks - A writer finds himself plagued by pain that conventional doctors aren’t able to cure, so he heads further afield to see if he can use stillness-of-mind to ease the pain, all the while complaining as you would expect a sceptic to do. His digressions into literature were a bit hard to take (I’m sure you’re not Coleridge, my man).

11 The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences have Extraordinary Impact; Chip & Dan Heath - I read this for work-related reasons, with the intention of improving my ability to make exhibitions and interpretation. It has a certain sort of self-helpish structure, with anecdotes starting each chapter and a simple lesson drawn from each one. Not a bad read if you work in a public-facing capacity. 

12 Against Everything: Essays; Mark Greif - The founder of N+1 collects a disparate selection of essays, written over a period of several years. You won’t love them all, but hey, you can always skip those ones!

13 See What I Have Done; Sarah Schmidt - A retelling of the Lizzie Borden story, which I’d seen a lot of good reviews for. Sadly this didn’t measure up, for me. There’s a lot of stage setting (rotting food plays an important part) but there’s not a lot of substance there. 

14 Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy; Angela Garber - This is another one that came to me very highly recommended. Garber seems to think these topics are not as well-covered as they are, but she does a good job researching and retelling tales of pregnancy, birth, postpartum difficulties and breastfeeding. 

15 Rebecca; Daphne du Maurier - This was my favourite book club book of the year. I’d always had an impression of...trashiness I guess? around du Maurier, but this is a classic thriller. Maybe the first time I’ve ever read, rather than watched, a thriller! That’s on me. 

16 O’Keefe: The Life of an American Legend; Jeffrey Hogrefe - I went to New Mexico for the first time this spring, and a colleague lent me this Georgia O’Keefe biography after I returned. I hadn’t known much about her personal life before this, aside from what I learned at her museum in Santa Fe. The author has made the decision that much of O’Keefe’s life was determined by childhood incest, but doesn’t have what you might call….evidence?

17 A Lost Lady; Willa Cather - A turn-of-the-20th century story about an upper-class woman and her young admirer Neil. I’ve never read any other Cather, but this felt very similar to the Wharton I also read this year, which I gather isn’t typical of her. 

18 The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months of Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country; Helen Russell - A British journalist moves to small-town Denmark with her husband, and although the distances are not long, there’s a considerable culture shock. Made me want to eat pastries in a BIG WAY. 

19 How Not to be a Boy; Robert Webb - The title gives a clue to the framing device of this book, which is fundamentally a celebrity memoir, albeit one that largely ignores the celebrity part of his life in favour of an examination of the effects of patriarchy on boys’ development as human beings. 

20 The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (And Your Children Will be Glad that You Did); Philippa Perry; A psychotherapist’s take on how parents’ own upbringing affects the way they interact with their own kids. 

21 The Library Book; Susan Orlean - This book has stuck with me more than I imagined that it would. It covers both the history of libraries in the USA, and the story of the arson of the LA Public Library’s central branch in 1986. 

22 We Are Never Meeting in Real Life; Samantha Irby - I’ve been reading Irby’s blog for years, and follow her on social media. So I knew the level of raunch and near body-horror to expect in this essay collection. This did fill in a lot of gaps in terms of her life, which added a lot more blackness (hey) to the humour. 

23 State of Wonder; Ann Patchett - A semi-riff on Heart of Darkness involving an OB/GYN who now works for a pharmaceutical company, heading to the jungle to retrieve another researcher who has gone all Colonel Kurtz on them. I found it a bit unsatisfying, but the descriptions were, admittedly, great. 

24 Disappearing Earth; Julia Phillips - A story of an abduction of two girls in very remote Russia, each chapter told by another townsperson. The connections between the narrators of each chapter are sometimes obvious, but not always. Ending a little tidy, but plays against expectations for a book like this. 

25 Ethan Frome; Edith Wharton - I gather this is a typical high school read, but I’d never got to it. In case you’re in the same boat as me, it’s a short, mildly melodramatic romantic tragedy set in the new england winter. It lacks the focus on class that other Whartons have, but certainly keeps the same strong sense that once you’ve made a choice, you’re stuck with it. FOREVER. 

26 Educated; Tara Westover - This memoir of a Mormon fundamentalist-turned-Academic-superstar was huge on everyone’s reading lists a couple of years back, and I finally got to it. It felt similar to me in some ways to the Glass Castle, in terms of the nearly-unbelievable amounts of hell she and her family go through at the hands of her father and his Big Ideas. I found that it lacked real contemplation of the culture shock of moving from the rural mountain west to, say, Cambridge. 

27 Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of Lusitania; Erik Larson - I’m a sucker for a story of a passenger liner, any non-Titanic passenger liner, really. Plus Lusitania’s story has interesting resonances for the US entry into WWI, and we see the perspective of the U-boat captain as well as people on land, and Lusitania’s own passengers and crew. 

28 The Birds and Other Stories; Daphne du Maurier - The title story is the one that stuck in my head most strongly, which isn’t any surprise. I found it much more harrowing than the film, it had a really effective sense of gradually increasing dread and inevitability. 

29 Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Faded Glory; Raphael Bob-Waksberg - Hit or miss in the usual way of short story collections, this book has a real debt to George Saunders. 

30 Sex & Rage; Eve Babitz - a sort of pseudo-autobiography of an indolent life in the LA scene of the 1970s. It was sometimes very difficult to see how the protagonist actually felt about anything, which is a frequent, acute symptom of youth. 

31 Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party; Graham Greene - Gotta love a book with an alternate title built in. This is a broad (the characters? are, without exception, insane?!) satire about a world I know little about. I don’t have a lot of patience or interest in Greene’s religious allegories, but it’s a fine enough story. 

32 Lathe of Heaven; Ursula K LeGuin - Near-future sci-fi that is incredibly prescient about the effects of climate change for a book written over forty years ago. The book has amazing world-building, and the first half has the whirlwind feel of Homer going back in time, killing butterflies and returning to the present to see what changes he has wrought. 

33 The Grammarians; Cathleen Schine - Rarely have I read a book whose jacket description of the plot seems so very distant from what actually happens therein. 

34 The Boy Kings: A Journey Into the Heart of the Social Network; Katharine Losse - Losse was one of Facebook’s very earliest employees, and she charts her experience with the company in this memoir from 2012. Do you even recall what Facebook was like in 2012? They hadn’t even altered the results of elections yet! Zuck was a mere MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, probably. Were we ever so young?

35 Invisible Women; Caroline Ciado Perez - If you want to read a book that will make you angry, so angry that you repeatedly assail whoever is around with facts taken from it, then this, my friend, is the book for you. 

36 The Hidden World of the Fox; Adele Brand - A really charming look at the fox from an ecologist who has studied them around the world. Much of it takes place in the UK, where urban foxes take on a similar ecological niche that raccoons famously do where I live, in Toronto. 

37 S; Doug Dorst & JJ Abrams - This is a real mindfuck of a book, consisting of a faux-old novel, with marginalia added by two students which follows its own narrative. A difficult read not because of the density of prose, but the sheer logistics involved: read the page, then the marginalia? Read the marginalia interspersed with the novel text? Go back chapter by chapter? I’m not sure that either story was worth the trouble, in the end. 

38 American War; Omar El Akkad - This is not exclusively, but partially a climate-based speculative novel, or, grossly, cli-fi for short. Ugh, what a term! But this book is a really tight, and realistic look at the results of a fossil-fuels-based second US Civil War. 

39 Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation; Andrew Marantz - This is the guy you’ll hear on every NPR story talking about his semi-embedding within the Extremely Online alt-right. Most of the figures he profiles come off basically how you’d expect, I found his conclusions about the ways these groups have chosen to use online media tools to achieve their ends the most illuminating part. 

40 Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm; Isabella Tree - This is the story of a long process of transitioning a rural acreage (more of an estate than a farm, this is aristocratic shit) from intensive agriculture to something closer to wild land. There are long passages where Tree (ahem) simply lists species which have come back, which I’m sure is fascinating if you are from the area, but I tended to glaze over a bit. Experts from around the UK and other European nations weigh in on how best to rewild the space, which places the project in a wider context. 

FICTON: 17     NONFICTION: 23

[bangtanfancamp]

✨This or That!✨

Hello loves, I was tagged literal ages ago by @curly-bangtan (who is such a sweet human btw! Thank you for the tag :’) it’s impossibly sweet of you) and am in the backseat while road trippin so I’ve finally got some free time to fill this out! I’m so excited !! I love these things !so without further ado🙃 Lessss gooooo

• slow burn or love at first sight

I guess to clarify, I love an instant spark of attraction and a long treacherous road to resolution- while also being painfully obvious that there is attraction and also while being overtly flirty but no one has the emotional motor skills to just be upfront about it already

•fake dating or secret dating

Oh, 1,000,000% fake dating. It is one of the single greatest regrets of my life that no one has ever asked me to be their fake date or gf. Because I would have been F A N T A S T I C at it. But I guess I’ll never get to live out that pretend to real slowburn in real life after all.... also, secret dating can feel really sucky and isolating so I don’t recommend.

•enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers

Oh god, must I really pick between my children? My whole life it was best friends to lovers. Now that I am currently dating the guy who was my best friend, I really melt over the fiery tension of enemies to lovers ... GOD! it’s so satisfying!!! But I think best friends to lovers still has to squeak by just by an ounce. (I’m a softy at heart, what can I say?)

•oh no! There’s only one bed or long distance with correspondence

Oh far and away, the one bed trope! No contest. I also deeply regret that I haven’t figured out how to make myself attractive enough for someone to try to pull this one over on me. *sigh* well, what can you do? .... also, did a long distance relationship for...6.5 years? And yeah, if you’re a romantic like me- it is dreadfully unfulfilling, let me tell you.

•Hurt/comfort or Amnesia

Mother freaking amnesia A L W A Y S !!! Heck yes! Are there amnesia fics??? 🤭I’ve never found one! But I absolutely love this trope in stories and movies. One of my all time favorites- which AGAIN- has not had the decency to actually come to fulfillment in my real life: Like why has park Jimin never showed up spontaneously at one of my doctors appointments trying to convince me that we’ve been best friends who were secretly in love with other since we were 14 and we finally just got engaged or married a month ago and his life is incomplete without me but he’ll patiently wait for me to love him in return again in my own time but in the meantime, he’ll love me in any and every little way he can until I fall for him again? Huh? Where is it! .... was that too specific😅?

•Fantasy au or modern au

no contest. Give me medieval maidens and dragons any day. I live in modern day. Lemme tell you- she ain’t that special.

•mutual pining or domestic bliss

cue Schmidt from new girl-“I can do this AWL day, son- AWLLL DAY!!” Yessssss!!! Mutual pining is my crack! Give it to me! Always! Gimme it! (Why can’t I have the things that I want!) okay this is just a Schmidt quote/rant post now. ..... I really want to love domestic bliss. And some of the writers who are excellent at it absolutely take my breath away at how beautifully they romanticize the every day. But outside of their writing, I have no scope of how to conjure that wonder up on my own. It is a skill I deeply lack. In real life, I just wind up feeling like the bliss is boring- gimme some pining! Some angst! Some tension!!! Even if I do love me some fluff. Someone once I told me that I was in love with the idea of someone being in love with me. Gotta say, he’s not wrong.

•canon compliant or fix it fic

Honestly, I can’t say I’ve read very many of either. But I do like to see how people flex their creativity.

•alternate universe or future fic

My favorite tv show of all time is Fringe (god bless you, JJ Abrams). Your girl LOVES alternate timelines, multiple universes, flashpoint, paradox, butterfly/ripple effect- all of it!! Dear god, yes! Give it to me! (Also, every time I have a crush or dream that doesn’t work out, I comfort myself with the thought that somewhere out there, there’s an alternate timeline version of me that is happily existing with said boy or flourishing in said dream endeavor. It’s a tremendous source of comfort).

Although, I must say, in the comic realm, alternate universes can sometimes frustrate me- like genuinely, could we not just make the alpha timeline the most incredible one? Instead of the best relationships and plot threads never being actual canon?! Can we get it together??? Or are alternate timelines just the comic industry’s way of writing their own fix it fics, generations after the original protagonist has been painted into a corner. Also, how hard must that be? To write endlessly for the same character for 60+ years? We write one fic or a couple books for the same character... could you IMAGINE having to supply 60 years worth of consistent weekly or monthly context!!! Wild

•one shot or multi chapter

I prefer multi chapter because I prefer getting engrossed in an entire work/world. Usually I am left wanting with a well written one shot, because they’ve made it so real that I can’t stand not having more- so my greedy butt loves the feast of multi chapter so I can have as many delicious moments and details with these characters as possible.

I do however deeply admire the skill and brevity it takes to made a succinct one shot. @underthejoon and @kpopfanfictrash are both brilliant as heck at that. And it is admirable as all get out.

•kid fic or road trip fic

honestly, considering how much I swoon over men who are good with children in real life, and how much I look forward to being both pregnant and a mom one day, I really never get into kid or pregnancy fics. I just don’t? Don’t know why. But a road trip!???? Oh heck yes!!! 👏🏽Where 👏🏽do 👏🏽I 👏🏽sign 👏🏽up!!???👏🏽

•reincarnation or character death

Oh absolutely reincarnation. I love that. I blame sailor moon for that.....But also, I think it’s just very in line with my love of alternate universes and timelines. I love how everything is connected/weaves together and feels predestined in the best way. I’m a complete sucker for it

•arranged marriage or accidental marriage

Like @curly-bangtan I legit had no clue accidental marriage was a thing? Unless you count being drunk at Vegas and waking up with a ring or we’re on some Jacob and Leah/Rachel level ish (which is really and truly the WILDEST™️ story ever ya’ll) ..... but I love a good arranged marriage scenario. The tension/push pull and inevitable relenting is so fun. But will say though, why the heck do women always fight it? Like there’s literally a whole Kim taehyung or Kim Namjoon offering to voluntarily love you and you wanna whine about it???!?! How dare you

•high school romance or Middle Aged romance

This, again, one is a pretty firm, resolute one for me. I’ll take high school. I’ve always felt a little oddly uncomfortable with more mature™️ romance stories? Not sure why. But I think the really beautiful ones always hark back to the beauty of their feelings being refreshing like the innocence of their first love. I know I personally can over glorify youth, but I love coming of age romance (high school, college, twenties) and no one can stop me!!!! I will say though, I have a secret soft spot for the niche of story where people have loved the same person since they were young and the timing just never works out but they finally find each other when they’re older. (One day is like that, and film or movie, it will absolutely rip your heart out-my god, it’s beautiful)

•Time travel or isolated together

These are both freaking AMAZING! But if anything has been established in this post, I think it’s my deep love of alternate timeline/reincarnation/time travel stories. I think they’re all from the same cloth. I adore them (I just haven’t written one because I’m not sure I could do the subtlety of it any justice.) maybe one day. My favorite writers are rumored to have the same Myers’s Briggs type as me so maybe I too could someday have a fraction of their world building skill.

I 100% love both of these so neither is a loser. But give me isolated together AND one bed in the same fic???? Speakers blown

•neighbors or roommates

I have never had the pleasure of having an attractive neighbor, though I often pined for it. (I have a bomb idea for a neighbor Hobi fic though) I did have a cute neighborhood boy who occasionally cut the grass for us in high school. But that doesn’t really count.... anyway! I LOVE the idea of being roommates with an attractive boy!!! Like holy guac, can I please????? Cocktailing this trope makes me swoon harder than none other- best friends to lovers + roommates? Yes. Enemies to lovers + roommates? Holy heck. Soulmate au + roomates???? Hold my sweet tea. MUTUAL PINING AND ROOMATES!!!! Pregnant. Fantasy/magic au+ mutual pining + best friends to lovers + soulmate au + reincarnation + roommate au!?!?!?!! frickin dead in the streets, homie.

I cannot say enough how much I enjoy roomate au. In a serious conversation, I once legitimately told my current boyfriend that the idea of marriage freaks me out- but the idea of being best friend roomates with sexual tension sounds like a dream come true. God help me.

•sci fi or magic au

I love sci fi. Deeply. But I will never love logic more than magic. Ever. (All my infp’s! come join me in the comments. 🙈)

•body swap or gender bend

Body swap has always deeply intrigued me. Especially in film. But I’ve never seen it in a fic. I’ve always wanted somebody to be able to switch into my body to feel physically, mentally and emotionally like i do. The deepest level of empathy & jean grey telepathy if you ask me, even if the trope is generally used for comedy. But the idea of switching into a dudes body and having to deal with their anatomy low key freaks me the eff out. If I got stuck in jungkooks body, I don’t think I’d pee or shower for a week 🙈 sorry everybody. I was really sheltered ok? Please don’t come for me. Lol...... also, have never seen a gender bend fic. Not sure how that would work. Not my favorite idea.

•angst or crack

Angst is my crack.

Honestly though, if it’s well written, it doesn’t feel ‘angsty’- cuz that means whiny or clunky to me. Well written ‘angst’ just feels emotionally compelling, I think. My writing weirdly leans toward what I hope is real angst (I e solid, genuine conflict and not petulance), but when I seek out a read, I look for crack honestly.

• apocalyptic or mundane

I offer you one better- a love story of the beauty of the mundane amidst the apocalyptic.

*mic drop*

Seriously though, the setting provides enough tension usually. Especially if it’s zombie apocalyptic. Just let jungkook’s fingers delicately trace my palm and smile, sweet and lopsided at me in the candle light, while we hide away in our little bomb shelter that I’ve turned into a jungle garden to bring life into this wasteland a la secret life of arrietty. sigh. Maybe I need to write this....

My gosh!!! We made it to the end! That was so much fun! Thank you for tagging me, sweetness!💕✨ 🙂

I’ll add a tag list shortly- @laurelevermore @lamourche @bts-fantasy @urlocalkpoptrash @thedreaming-poet @kimcheeeeeeeeee @hayjeon @outrotearot7 @lorengarcia-yut @bts-luvvv @chicpalestinian @flyingchixenwing @glodenclosetau @space-mermaid-in-love @thiccasswonhoruinedmylife @minminslittlemonster

Copy and paste if you can. Or if you’re dealing with a piece of technological antiquity like me and it won’t let you, then screen record/screenshot it and pop back and forth between the tabs 😅(also Thanks for dealing with the completely unnecessary treatise I added beneath every bullet point. It was just so much for fun to explain WHY I chose each one than to just say yes/no. I’ve said it before, written brevity is just not my strong suit.)

#bangtanfancampfics #my writing #this or that #bangtanfancamp #bts fanfic #soulmate au #enemies to lovers au #best friends to lovers au #roomates au #neighbors au #jeon jungkook fanfic #park jimin fanfic #kim taehyung fanfic #kim namjoon fanfic #timetravel au #alternate universe au #bts romance #bts soulmate au #bts enemies to lovers #bts best friends brother au #bts angst #bts fluff #bts crack #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts drabble #bts one shot

[themildestofwriters]

Writing Ask Game

Thanks to the magnificent @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz​ for tagging me in this wonderful little tag.

I don’t think I’m going to choose one WIP rather just the universe itself – The Divine Intervention universe. By that, I mean I’ll be doing it for these two novels I’m working on: Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? & The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess.

1. Describe the plot in one sentence.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? 

A goddess and a girl meet at a bus stop and while things are a bit awkward at first, they soon begin hitting it off and begin regular correspondence, however, there’s something more lurking under the surface that neither of them wish to peruse and that one thing is forgiveness and love respectively.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

Sex and Babette go together as well as water and oil, yet it was not always this way and in this story she decides to heal herself, to improve herself, and to choose love over her almost selfish desire to dwell on the past and wallow in a pit of guilt and suffering.

2. Pick one sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste to describe the aesthetic of your novel.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

Flashes of blood, death and gore in the small hours of the night. The smell of petrichor as rain descends. The sound of deathly silence. The feel of soft arms holding you tightly. The metallic taste of blackened blood coughed from the lungs.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

Bodies intertwined in a lover’s embrace. The smell of lust in the air. The sound of ceaseless screaming. The feel of suffocating pain and smooth stone. The bittersweet taste of lip balm.

3. Which 3+ songs would make up a playlist for the novel?

Because I’m not very knowledgeable on music myself, this list is filled only with songs I have on my phone.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

“Viva La Vida” by Coldplay; “Accidentally In Love” by Counting Crows; “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five for Fighting; “Stressed Out” by Twenty-One Pilots; “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

“Somewhere Over The Rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole; “All of Me” by John Legend; “Let Her Go” by Passenger; “Like A Virgin” by Madonna; “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri

4. What’s the time period and location in which the novel takes place.

Both books take place in the modern era and mostly in Salisbury/Adelaide, South Australia. WCAI? takes place in 2016 and TTVG takes place in 2017. However, at least specifically in TTVG, it does take place in other countries with Babette visiting Japan, America and perhaps even England as either a part of her job (Street Performer) or as the plot demands.

5. Is this a standalone or a part in a series?

Well…

6. Are there any former titles you’ve considered but discarded?

For WCAI? I only had Divine Interruption and for TTVG there was “Babette Visits A Sex Shop” “Babette Visits An Adult Shop” and The Weird and Wonderful Sexual Awakening of Babette Mewlyn.

7. What’s the first line of your novel?

I have a tendency to only have a single line to begin a book.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

“The sky was a dark crimson haze.”

or

“It was supposed to be a bright and sunny Saturday morning in suburban Adelaide.”

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

“We had planned this for nearly an entire week now and today was the day.”

8. What’s a dialogue you’re particularly proud of?

“ “心配しないで,” she said, a devilish smirk twisting onto her lips. “少なくとも 見る かわいく 、ジョセフィーン様.” “ – Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? Chapter 2(draft)

If you’ve got a problem with my Japanese, please tell me because I’m winging it on Google Translate and outdated information.

“ “It—it hurts.” It took all my power to just say that and once I did, I was hit by a new wave of grief—of agony—of heart-rending guilt. ” – The Trials and Tribulations of Babette Melwyn Chapter 3(draft)

9. Which line from the novel most represents it as a whole?

“It—it hurts.”

10. Who are your character faceclaims?

Babette… well, I’m tossing up between these girls: Jaimie Alexander; Abbey Lee Kershaw; Amanda Seyfried; Astrid Berges-Frisbey; Zoey Deutch; and Willa Holland.

For Josephine, she’s a bit difficult to find a face claim for. If you’d like to help, that would be appreciated but so far, I’ve not found anything that fits her yet.

11. Sort your characters into Harry Potter houses!

Babette Melwyn – Slytherin

Josephine Williams – Hufflepuff

Henrietta Phillips – Ravenclaw

Maria Camhain-Schmidt – Gryffindor

Kurt Schmidt – Gryffindor

Flynn Camhain-Schmidt – Hufflepuff

Adrien Williams – Hufflepuff

Samuel Meric – Gryffindor

Sofía Meric – Hufflepuff

Harrison Williams – Ravenclaw

Alyssa Williams – Gryffindor

Samantha Bailey – Ravenclaw

12. Which character’s name do you like the most?

Respectfully, I love them all, specifically the girl’s names. Henrietta, Josephine, Babette, Alyssa, Maria, Sofía.

13. Describe each character’s daily outfit.

Babette Melwyn; Babette’s daily outfit could be summarised as well cared for rags with a history with radioactivity. By this I mean, Babette hasn’t changed out of the dress she wore when a group of revolutionaries decided to nuke her. While incredibly old, magic makes a great cleaner and preserver for the cloth and during the course of this novel, she’s usually seen wearing it often. It’s a plain black form fitting V-neck dress with long sleeves that reach up to her hands. The skirt used to be long and flowing, but since being nuked, it’s much shorter, ending around her calves—jagged and looking like some kind of tattered flower blooming from her waist down.

Aside from the dress, she wears leather strapped calf-high sandals and her ruby necklace—her ruby necklace is a constant with every single last outfit she wears.

After settling down on Earth, she finds herself wearing other bits and pieces. She feels comfortable outside her tattered remains and has a small wardrobe filled with a verity of clothing. Her aesthetic could best be described as gothic and Victorian gothic. Expect lots of lacy black dresses of varying lengths along with several sundresses and perhaps a few gowns. Hats are usually wide-brimmed and floppy, and she will not wear heels.

Josephine Williams; Josephine doesn’t have a daily outfit because she’s a normal person who doesn’t have a set outfit and often changes as the clothes she wore previously gets dirty. However, she has that kind of… art student vibe to her, befitting her artistic inclination, though she does were certain jewellery or outfits that have a certain Hellenic aesthetic. What you’ll mostly see her around in is either some kind of cardigan, perhaps a really large jumper while wearing a dress, whether short or long with some leggings underneath. She mixes it up, shirts and shorts, pants and with different colours as well. She keeps her options wide and varied but if you spent enough time with her and paid attention, you’d notice similarities.

Heels, like her girlfriend, is a no-no, but her outfits are certainly more colourful then Babette’s who prefers black and occasionally other colours.

14. Do any characters have distinctive birthmarks/scars?

Babette has a lot of scars but specifically there’s the scars across her heart—two, specifically, one on her back and on her chest, both from being impaled by a weapon that wiped out all life in a galaxy. It wasn’t fun getting that one.

Josephine once had a scar on her calf, but I think she might not have any major scars nor any tattoos—yet. I might give her a distinctive back tattoo that’s basically a string of astronomical symbols which relate to the Underworld in Greek Mythology.

15. Which character most fits a character trope?

I wouldn’t be able to say for sure but I’m sure that Babette and Josephine both fit into a character trope/archetype.

16. Which character is the best writer? Worst?

Babette, hands down. Babette’s not so good at writing songs and whatnot but she’s an academic and a Bard, having transcribed ancient texts, her own stories and a few she’s plagiarised from Earth because Earth Copyright doesn’t exist outside of Earth. Out of the main characters, I’d say that Josephine isn’t so good at the writing of things and prefers visual art. Like, she could write a story, but it’d read like a synopsis.

17. Which character is the best liar? Worst?

This entirely depends on when we take the characters. Before Babette was unceremoniously dethroned, she was a magnificent liar who would often use the skill in her youth on the run. However, at the same time, she’s spent literal aeons alone and her skills at lying have atrophied. She still does it, she’s just noticeably worse. I would say the worst liar would probably be Adrian because out of the children characters, he’s younger and got the biggest tells out of the lot of them. And yes, I have to pick children because everyone else are massive liars whether it’s lying to themselves, their parents, or others. In my experience, everyone lies at least once and their skill isn’t proportional to how much they

18. Which character swears the most? Least?

Henrietta swears like a fuckin’ sailor, Josephine can swear but only does it rarely—or at least where people can’t hear her.

19. Which character has the best handwriting? Worst?

Babette, again due to living for millions of years and the necessity she had to perfect her handwriting. So far, I’ve described her handwriting thusly:

‘…it was clear that it was one-hundred per cent handwritten, and it was a masterpiece. Each letter, each word was written in a way that made reading it clear and easy to read, but also incredibly pleasing to the eye. Cursive, almost like calligraphy but written in clear bull-point pen, as if someone managed to distil handwriting into an artform then decoded to perfect it because why not?’ – Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? Chapter 4(draft)

Unfortunately, she’s not so good at art unless it’s literally putting the image in her mind onto paper using magical means. Nevertheless, I could see her girlfriend asking Babette to do some calligraphy for her blog.

Flynn has the worst but honestly you can’t blame the kid… he’s a kid!

20. Which character is most like you? Least like you?

I’d probably have to say Babette, but it’s a close tie between her and Josephine because both of them contain facets of me but are also their own people with different desires and personalities.

Least like me are the other characters, pretty much. Henrietta, Maria, Kurt, Samuel, Sofía, Flynn, Harrison, Alyssa, I’m not really like these characters at all.

21. Which character would you most like to be?

Josephine. Hands down, Josephine. Listen, I like Babette and all and she’s an extension of myself in some ways, and, honestly, I’d feel a lot more comfortable in her skin then my own, but Josephine is just a quiet suburban girl with her own slice of the Earth doing her own thing. She’s an artist, she’s got a loving family, a healthy online presence, a healthy sleeping schedule, and… yeah.

To tag some folks, I think I’ll tag: @randomestfandoms-ocs; @rose-writes-and-drinks-tea; @ariellaskylark; @focusdumbass; @i-tried-and-i-loose; @undinisms; @alixismad; @sweet-scribes; @sunlight-melodies and literally anyone else who wants to try it!

#oc: josephine williams #oc: babette melwyn #original characters #oc #original character #my writing #my wip #wip questions #writing #writer #writers on tumblr #writing tag #wip tag #writeblr #work: divine intervention

[ty-talks-comics]

Best if DC: Week if December 12th, 2018

Best of this Week: Hawkman #7 - Robert Venditti, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, Jeremiah Skipper

I used to make fun of Hawkman pretty brutally. The punk ass Hro Talak (anagram of Katar Hol) from the Justice League cartoon, the crazy Carter Hall from Justice League Unlimited, New 52 Savage Hawkman… these were all less than favorable versions of  the character that I’ve read and seen before I really got into comics. Once I started reading more JSA, Hawkworld and Hawkman by Geoff Johns, I started to fall in love and Robert Venditti cemented that with this amazing series.

Hawkman has always had a convoluted character history, but the retcons made to his origin here have been greatly needed and add a much needed weight and sorrow to the character to make him all the more sympathetic, heroic and ultimately tragic.

For the last six issues, Carter Hall has been searching for clues regarding his many pasts and a way to stop the incoming “Deathbringers,” a threat that is apparently more than capable of destroying all life in the universe. Last issue he found a repository containing his first life and original history. Carter, known as Ktar, was originally the Leader of the Deathbringers and he brought untold death and devastation to cosmos in order to bring about the emergence of his God, The Lord Beyond the Void, with every small genocide or “tribute.”  Bryan Hitch’s art here is stunning, but also fails here a bit as we get a sense of how dense the ground is with bodies at Ktar’s feet, but not how far the pile extend because the background kinda flatly ends.

This excursion takes place on Thanagar where he sees a woman, who seems to have survived the massacre and says to him, “You are in pain, warrior.” setting the theme for the rest of the issue.

The woman begins to appear after every tribute, torturing Ktar with her presence as he sinks further and further into despair over his actions. Throughout the issue, Hitch draws Hakman as a man standing tall, but still relatively doubtful of his actions. Hitch does well to also focus the shot in such a way that we get the idea that the feelings are far away from him, but as the woman looks on, the shots get closer and closer signaling that his regret is coming more to the surface. The woman herself is really interesting because I’m not entirely convinced that she’s real, more like a manifestation of Ktar’s guilt at his actions.

It reaches a head when he’s about to sacrifice more people from Thanagar to The Lord and he sees The Woman one more time before betraying his best friend, a Deathbringer named Idamm, destroying the monolith that would bring about the Lord and dies at Idamm’s hands before everything else falls into the void.

We then reach an afterlife of sorts, Ktar surrounded by the skulls of those has killed, and a disembodied voice offers him a choice; to be erased from existence or be cursed to live a life for every one that he has taken for penance, drawing him closer and closer to his final death. I’m going to get this one framed alongside Dark Nights Metal #1 and Doomsday Clock #1, because this was fantastic. High recommend.

-----------------------------------------

I always get excited when there’s a story focused on Alfred.

Runner Up: Batman Annual #3 - Tom Taylor and Otto Schmidt

Why? Because they’re very few and far between with his involvement always being at the side to Batman or the boys and girls under his care. The last time we really got a good arc focused on Alfred was in the awesome First Ally arc of the All-Star Batman series by Scott Snyder. In it, we were shown Alfred’s past as a Batman-like spy figure in his youth before he realized that his father’s legacy as butler to The Wayne family was more important to him than the horrific things he had to do in that life.

But this story was more so about how much Alfred truly does for Bruce and the toll it takes on him. Alfred cooks, he cleans, he makes witty jokes and acts as a doctor whenever Bruce needs him. He cares for Batman and has sacrificed a life of his own to make sure that Bruce was cared for. He sacrifices his sleep, his own health and happiness to make sure that he never gets that dreaded call, that Batman was dead, that his son was dead. And isn’t that truly what these two are for each other at this point? Not just employee/employer, not even just friends, but family as well?

Bruce goes out and has a confrontation with a villain who seeks to destroy companies and people that made drones that were used to kill people in some unspecified conflict. Bruce subdues to villain, but gets stabbed through the Batsuit because it’s slash and bullet proof, not puncture proof. He calls Alfred to come and save him and is almost assaulted by street toughs before Alfred arrives and fights them off, suffering injuries of his own. They go to Doctor Leslie Thompkins who fixes Bruce up while evaluating Alfred, telling him he seriously needs to rest cause the man is always at Batman's beck and call.

Doctor Thompkins tells Bruce to let Alfred take a break and he listens as we cut to a heartwarming scene of Alfred waking up from a restful sleep in a huff, with Bruce remarking with how he burnt the crumpets he made for him. I would spoil more, but I think this is more than worth a read on its own as it ends with Alfred, smiling in contentment.

#comics #dc #dc comics #hawkman #robert venditti #bryan hitch #deathbringers #batman #alfred pennyworth #alfred #tom taylor #otto schmidt

[letsstayyoungforever-blog1]

If you thought you knew Dodie, then you thought wrong. (or exactly right)

note: everything’s written from her point of view except from the “A few situations” category

« ° B A S I C S ;

name ? Oh, it’s Dodie Grant !

nickname ? Someone called me Goldilocks once.

when’s your birthday ? I was born on the 27th of June, 1999

birth place ? Mum says I was born safe and sounds and that’s all that matters. Although I heard her talk with my auntie about the stain on our car’s backseat once.

age ? 18! Yay...

sexuality ? I like nice people but I want to kiss boys 😊

preferred pronouns ? You can refer to me as a “freshwoman”. Just kidding, you can use she and her

which grade are you in ? My first!

is your current hair colour your natural hair color ? if not, what is your natural hair colour ? It’s always been this blonde! Maybe a little blonder as I grew up from playing in the sun.

eye colour ? Well, I can’t really see them but normally they’re green!

height ? A solid 5 feet.

what are you complimented on most ( physically & persona-wise ) ? That I make people smile and feel young at heart.

do you have any tattoos or piercings ? Oh no, I definitely don’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with them!

if not, would you like one/some ? Okay, no... MAYBE I don’t like them THAT much.

what do you do for fun ? Loads of things! Skipping rope, talking to little babies and kittens, blowing soap bubbles, playing board games, making flower crowns OH- pillow fights! I don’t know, just loads of things!

what’s your preferred clothing style ? Bright colours! And I like clothes that have little doodles or a funny message on them, as well.

left handed or right handed ? Just right.

when free, people will most likely find you … up in a tree (that rhymes hihi)

« ° P E R S O N A ;

how would you describe yourself in five words ? Uh, let’s see... Happy, helpful, honest,  hearty and... I’m looking for another word with an H other wise this will seem silly. Hm, high spirited! Does that count?

are you a flirtatious person ? Oh, no. No, no, not really. I get all nervous when I like like someone.

do consider yourself unique ? Yep, everyone is unique and so am I!

are you talkative or rather shy ? I love talking for sure!!

biggest dream ? I really want to help my family out with all their worries. Then maybe they’ll stop treating me like I’m too young to understand everything.

are you good at keeping secrets ? I really want to say yes, because I get so curious about secrets and I know others won’t trust me with them if they tell me! But some may have slipped my mouth already…

are you happy ? Very!

do you consider yourself book-smart or street-smart ? Books usually teach me things. However, the streets have learned me that the grass is softer to play  on, does that count?

main character trait ?  I guess I’m rather what they call… innocent.

worst habit ? I may or may not throw a tantrum every now and then when I don’t get my way...

biggest pet peeve ? People jumping the queue.

if your life would have a title song, what would it be ? Forever young!

who do your friends compare you to ? I honestly don’t know, you should ask them! Sometimes to Kimmy Schmidt from this TV show ‘Unbreakable’

life motto ? Well, on my closet back at home I had this sticker that said: “Life’s too short to wear boring clothes”. That’s something to live by, isn’t it?

« ° L O V E ;

are you in love ? Yep. I fell in love with Korrina’s dog.

do you have a crush ? No, silly! I was just kidding about the dog.

celebrity crush ? Ryan Gosling will always have my heart.

do you believe in love at first sight ? Oh, yes, it’s why I’m not afraid to make eye contact with people!

thoughts about marriage ? It’s lovely. I always cry when I see a wedding.

what does your ideal partner look like ( inside and out ) ? Oh... He should be charming and friendly, I guess. Someone whom I can do all sorts of activities with! I hope he’s taller than me and has soft hair... But honestly I don’t really care for anything other than his smile.

would you consider yourself a flirt ? Not really... Besides, I think the boy should flirt with the girl, as in the movies, right? Not vice versa?

cuddling or making out ? Cuddling is so warm and cozy!

when i was 18 i had my first kiss and it was unexpected

make out song ? Make what out?

turn ons/offs ? Uh, are you asking me about a light switch?

best love song ever ? Everything I do by Bryan Adams

dumper or the dumped one ? I have never had a relationship before but I hope neither?!

ever experienced heartbreak ? Not really, luckily.

« ° T H I S OR T H A T ;

tea or coffee ? Tea. Coffee makes me to hyper...

frozen yoghurt or ice cream ? Ice cream! Vanilla preferably.

chocolat or vanilla ? Oh, look at that, I answered a question before I got it! Hihi, vanilla, please.

shower or bath ? You can dance best in a shower. But you can have floating duckies in a bath. So both.

movies or books ? Movies for sure. I’m too slow of a reader to keep up with the story.

comedy or adventure movie ? Ah, I usually watch the romcoms so comedy it is, I guess. Laughing’s healthier than suspense anyways.

day or night ? I’m a day person for sure. 

black&white or color ? Colors!

chinese or italian ? As people, I have no preference really. But when it comes to food, I’m gonna have to go with italian cause I love pasta.

hugs or kisses ? Hugs!

spring or fall ? Both are lovely! Maybe spring because then flowers blossom. But in fall you can jump around in the leaves...

tattoos or piercings ? Neither please.

money or fame ? Money, that way I can help my parents!

romantic cuddles or hot sex ? Oh, gosh, definitely romantic cuddles hihi.

fair or theme park ? Oh tough one! I’m going to say the fair.

love or lust ? L.O.V.E.

« ° F A V O R I T E S ;

song lyrics ?  "Call 1-800-STEEMER, Stanley Steemer gets carpet (or 'your home') cleaner!" It’s just such a catchy tune! I can’t get it out of my head!

song ? Walking on sunshine

quote ? Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

actor ? Tom Hanks

actress ? Oh, I’m not very good with names actually. I only knew Tom Hanks because my mum praises him whenever mentioned. That lovely one from The Notebook perhaps?

movie ? Love actually

book ? Peter Pan

memory ? Oh that story about Halloween from 2000 always cracks me up! With the halo and feathers, oh gosh- and then that pumpkin! *cracks up laughing too hard to talk*

joke ? Knock Knock! Who’s there? Egg! Egg who? Eggcited to meet you.

guilty pleasure ? Making things rhyme

« ° A  F E W  S I T U A T I O N S ;

how would your character react if… (note: out of character)

if they walk into the shower and see a huge spider sitting right in the middle of it ? Give it a name and make a bit of small talk with it while walking to a door/window to put it outside. Maybe show it off to some people on the way as well.

they found out they won the lottery ? Trust her parents with it completely. Maybe keep a little to buy a popcorn machine.

if they find a someone’s wallet on the floor which holds lots of cash ? Go to the lost and found on campus, or the police station so that the person who lost it, may get it back.

they hear a knock on their door and when they say “enter” their ex walks in ? That would completely depend on how they became exes. She might get rather upset/sad though.

if their house was on fire and they had 60 seconds to leave ? what 5 things would they take with them ? The cat, her unicorn onesie, her flower crown, a fire extinguisher and the towel that she’d used in an attempt to save the cookies in the oven that had caused the fire in the first place

« ° O V E R - A L L ;

when was the last time you tried something new ? Was it that time I tried to dance on someone’s lap?

would you ever give up on your life if you could save someone else’s with it ? I actually think so, yes. I’ve got to enjoy life a lot already. So especially when it’s someone close to me and/or who still has his whole life ahead.

are you happy with yourself ? Very! Well, mostly.

what chances do you wish you had taken ? I once had a really good come back but it seemed a little rude so I kept it to myself.

what’s the first thing you think when you see yourself in the mirror ? Goodmorning me!

#about dodie #thegreekstask #ooc: this is still in time right

[suicidaloilpiglet]

Paul Winkler (AU/DE)

Turmoil

2000

17:41

‘The films of Paul Winkler, one of Australia’s most prolific experimentalists, contest prevailing images of landscape as a reflection of national and social cohesion, instead meditating on a disconnection between everyday perception and the Australian environment.’ Alex Gerbaz

‘In his films Winkler is meticulously transposing rules of architectural construction into the building of a visual artifice. These films are like ephemeral pyramids. They are like monuments that we are at time permitted to enter. What lies buried within the inner chamber of a Winkler film is the sarcophagus of Technique itself. For those entering there are innumerable pitfalls lying in wait for the unwary weaned on the warm milk of mainstream cinema.’ Dirk de Bruyn

Quintessa Matranga and Rafael Delacruz and Marc Matchak (US)

Lebenswirklichkeit

2017

26:26

Young artists produce a barely fictional representation of themselves, quoting mumblecore and aspirational dramedy simultaneously. Through the narrative and productive gesture alike a localised situation is created within New York City. Of possibly ambitious young Americans possibly examining their possible careers. The mildest nostalgia is indicated, perhaps to San Francisco pre-dot com or Seattle pre-G8. They look at each other and they look at themselves.

Katherine Botten (AU)

2017

Sunday/ Sexy Young Artist Dominic Will Do ANYTHING To Get Into NEW18: Curator Couch. 2017 Map the world on my world. Map my world on the world.

Starring: Oscar Miller and Dominic Sargent.

Stephen Dillemuth (DE)

Elbsandsteingebirge 1789-1848

1994

50:51

“South of Dresden, the bizarre landscape of the Elbsandsteingebirge served as a treasure trove for the motifs of almost all German romantics. Their paintings today shape our romantic vision of the time between the French Revolution and the March Revolution in Germany. In a journey through pictures, films and texts, to a trip in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, we are confronted with our own projections: Was the romance political? Or was politics romantic? ”

Josef Strau: That you tried both, and ask if the exhibition is still related? Or has something new opened up?

Stephan Dillemuth: There was also a parallel, as here, for example, the time of the French Revolution and of the Vormarz (the period from 1815 to the March Revolution in 1848, the Red), one could certainly take any other historical section, but it is important That one then comes to different points, which can not be taken as a direct argument for the time, but which at least take up new points of view.

But what else, Schüttpelz has told us that many of the romantics are very young converts to Catholicism because they found this so medieval, and he compared it with the New German wave. It has played in a very funny and liberating way with totally respectable and bourgeois attitudes, but then immediately identified by the success, everything was already over again, and only a stock-conservative and boring story. So question: How can you keep a broken attitude, also against art? Not that the object or the action, for example, would be as it is meant, but if one believes in what results from it, the stability of one’s own attitude, etc., it becomes really serious. Romanticism is always at the beginning when it has something incredulous and playful, and it reacts like a medieval and Catholicism, but also in the sense of Arno Schmidt, to the surrounding chaos, from within me with outwardly protruding inwardness. Someone has also claimed that the aftermath of the French Revolution led to a revolution in art, which was later called Romanticism. But if you believe it again, you land at the Biedermeier.

Charlie Ahearn and Martin Wong (US)

Portrait of Martin Wong

1998

18:00

‘Martin painted the LES ghetto with the most enigmatic realism of bricks to be seen. In 1992 my friend Martin invited me up to his Ridge St apartment as he began his autobiographical Chinatown series reflecting his youth in San Francisco and later New York. After he was diagnosed with HIV he returned to SF where he later passed away in 1999.’ Charlie Ahearn

RIP Martin Wong

Alex Bag (US)

The Artist’s Mind

1996

30:01

‘This is living-dead art, a critical-hysterical acting out of the deodorized-bathroom neurotic, the suicidal biochemical-test subject and the terminal media addict we all recognize as ourselves.’ John Kelsey

‘This is a different time. Puppets and costumes seem funny, relevant. Club culture exists in the same temporal frame, not wedged between the covers of a coffee table book. Limelight is still open. Drugs are still fun/funny. The Internet is too slow for video.’ Rob Mckenzie

In commemoration of Damien Hirst’s 1995 Turner Prize, Bag made The Artist’s Mind, which takes the form of a PBS-style show chronicling a day in the life of a contemporary visual artist. In this episode, aspiring sculptor/painter “Damien Bag” demonstrates his creative process, which begins with eating breakfast, shopping at Wal-Mart and scouring the local highways in search of fresh road kill. Prompted to discuss his work, Damien says his pieces represent “a form of duality” and “a lot of metaphors.”

0rphan Drift (UK)

Bruises

1997

15:05

‘0rphan Drift is a collaborative media artist and avatar that emerged in London, 1994. The video, performances, installations and eponymous cyberpunk novel 0(rphan)d(rift>) addressed the future through the science -fictional, nascent technologies and related shifts in perception and matter-energy. 0D re-emerges in reconfigured form, again addressing the future as it speaks to us in this moment. Considering current narratives around climate change, bio-capital and related migratory patterns they re-imagine the urban as porous, interspecies and terraformed.’

Excerpts from a 30 minute video commissioned, with accompanying slide installation, by Beaconsfield Arts for screening at John Cage ‘Classic’ audiovisual event. Inaugural concert by (rout).

Here the re edit is set to a section of Cage’s album ‘Shock’, and produced on the 0rphan Drift analogue editing suite, complete with MX30 Panasonic mixing desk.

Hana Earles (AU)

$1070

2017

08:00

Working and making art, in the office and in your bedroom.

I could set the building on fire.

You shouldn’t smoke in your bed.

Carolee Schneemann (US)

Interior Scroll - The Cave, 1975 - 1995

1995

07:32

‘In the early ’60s, Schneemann’s “action” paintings, some embedded with images of nude female figures, literally moved from surface to environment, and her staging of work from static objects to interactive events. Along with her colleagues in the Judson Dance Theater, she pioneered crossovers from music, theater, and dance to art. Transferring the orgiastic qualities in her art from paint to the performance of “her own body,” Schneemann broke ground in charged Dionysian extravaganzas that yielded some of the most memorable and challenging images of the period: serpents writhing over her nude body (Eye Body: Thirty-six Transformative Actions, 1963); an erotic flesh fest of entangled bodies, chickens, sausages, and fish (Meat Joy, 1964); a lecture-performance in which she discussed her work and posed questions to an audience such as “Does a woman have intellectual authority?” as she dressed and undressed (Naked Action Lecture, 1968). In Interior Scroll, 1975, she unwound a scroll from her vagina and read a text about “vaginality.” For many, the problem with her exuberant, Reichian-influenced, utopian-tinged abandon, lies in her “performance” of her own body. We need only glance at the historical record for proof that prior to Schneemann, the female body in art was mute and functioned almost exclusively as a mirror of masculine desire. (Think of Yves Klein’s manipulation of nameless female models as voluptuous paintbrushes for the production of his “Anthropométries” series in the early ’60s.) We have done a terrible injustice to ourselves in continuing to marginalize Schneemann as an “angry woman” or “bad girl.” To pigeonhole her art as aberrant is to risk reducing her oeuvre to sensationalism. Schneemann’s blanket of protection from decades of neglect and misrepresentation has been her sheer exuberance and focused search for the real through uberphysicality. I’m not sure that we, the audience, have fared so well.’ Jan Avgikos

Lutz Mommartz and Sigmar Polke (DE)

Der schöne Sigmar

The Beautiful Sigmar

1971

22:44

New Year party with Sigmar Polke at the department of the Kohlhöfers in Düsseldorf / Germany.

‘The films of Lutz Mommartz are each based on a single idea; the effect then is more sustainable, says Lutz Mommartz. These ideas are often brilliant, sharp and provocative, but just as often they lose lot of their radicalism during the realization. Although Lutz Mommartz is a very conscious Filmmaker, his films convey ostensibly the image of a naive author. Lutz Mommartz manages to combine both features in his films. He knows about his enormous naive playfulness, but bringing it under rational control, he uses it consciously. Because he wants to achieve an effect with each film. Film should be a trigger that activates the audience. Although film currently could provide only general climate conditions or lead to climate improvements, but it could not lead to direct political action. The combination of aesthetics and politics rationale appears to him out of place; the commitment would get lost in the art. Lutz Mommartz believes in socialism, but (you should write that!): “Chemistry is the only chance for socialism!” Because 5 % conscious people would always face 95 % inconscious. For Lutz Mommartz there is no form of government that could counteract this. The relationship between these two groups is the only tragedy that there is today. In order to make the relationship bearable Lutz Mommartz sees only one solution: Drugs.’ H.P. Kochenrath

Pauline Senn and Juan Davila (AU)

50:48

‘Juan Davila is a writer, but first and foremost an artist. His controversial work still divides opinions.  Davila was born in 1956 in Santiago, Chile, and lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. At the time of the military coup in Chile, when Pinochet seized power from Allende, Davila was part of the art scene there. His paintings in response, some of which appear in the documentary, shocked both those of the political left and right.  In this documentary, Juan Davila talks about this period, and about modern art, censorship of expression and the oppression of the Mapuche Indians, the original inhabitants of Chile. He also talks about beauty and the shocking effect of painting it today.  Davila has grown reluctant to the idea of being interview, given the failure of the media to address the complexity of his work. For the first time on film he speaks about this in terms of his upbringing - both bourgeois and Indian. We accompany Juan Davila as he revisits his indigenous Mapuche nanny’s daughter, women who have greatly influenced his work. He takes us to the oldest church in Santiago where, as a young buoy, he saw paintings by 17th century Indian artists in the Western manner that would profoundly influence his future work.  And we see the artist at work, painting en plein air in a burnt forest at home in Australia.’

Jack Smith (US)

Flaming Creatures

1963

40:43

Sylvère Lotringer :Were you ever competitive? Did you ever believe in that?

Jack Smith: Yes, of course, when you’re young. It’s drilled into you, and you have to slowly find your way out of it, because you find it doesn’t work. Capitalism is terribly inefficient. The insane duplication, the insane waste, and the young only know what’s put in front of them… But then, by experience, things are happening to you and you find out that this doesn’t work. I mean this is not productive. It produces waste. I looked through your magazine and I was repelled by the title. It’s so dry, you just want to throw it in the wastebasket, which I did. Then I picked it out… Listen: Hatred of Capitalism is a good name for that magazine. It’s stunning. I’ll never admit that I thought of it.

SL: I doubt that by saying that directly you’ll change anything. Language is corrupt.

JS: Listen, you are a creature, artistic I can tell, that somehow got hung up on the issue of language. Forget it. It’s thinking. If you can think of a thought in a most pathetic language… Look at what I have to do in order to think of thoughts. I have to forget language. All I can do with no education, nothing, no advice, no common sense in my life, an insane mother I mean, no background, nothing, nothing, and I have to make art, but I know that under these conditions the one thing I had to find out was if I could think of a thought that has never been thought of before, then it could be in language that was never read before. If you can think of something, the language will fall into place

in the most fantastic way, but the thought is what’s going to do it. The language is shit, I mean it’s only there to support a thought. Look at Susan Sontag, that’s a phenomenon that will never occur, only in every hundred years. Anybody like that. She says things that you would never have thought of. And the language is automatically unique. Whatever new thoughts you can think of that the world needs will be automatically clothed in the most radiant language imaginable.

Bonny Poon (CA)

Beautiful Balance

2017

01:07:45

Of Bodies… Borders… Boredom…

A dazzling and debauched cast of zombies interpret the erotic story of heroes, Whitney and Taylor. The setting is Frankfurt am Main, Germany’s financial heart.

“We are very similar.” “A slave?”

Starring:

Nathaniel Monjaret, Adrian Manuel Huber, Aziade Cirlini, Mohamed Almusibli, Chingy Hong, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Julian Tromp.

#peoplesoup

[bugclub-archive-blog]

all the questions :)

1. selfieI post enough2. what would you name your future kids?I have a lot of names I love…sophia + Sadie are my favorites 💞 3. do you miss anyone?Yea, one or two people. One is my dad4. what are you looking forward to?My anniversary with my bf :)5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?My dogs 💞 6. is it hard for you to get over someone?No!! Damn near the second I’m away from someone I can’t even comprehend their existence anymore so…no. that’s also why it’s easy for me to not miss people I’ve been away from for a long time 7. what was your life like last year? When it started I was doing an independent sort of thing where I thought I was finding who I was but I was just influenced by things and music and people and I was actually completely wrong about the person I thought I wanted to be. She wasn’t that great. At the very end of the year I was taking a serious stand for myself. I think I grew a lot 8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?Yes this is usually why I cry. Probably like 75% of the time it’s cause I’m stressing9. who did you last see in person?I’m with Emilio and Antonio rn!10. are you good at hiding your feelings?So good. Scary good. I don’t do it a lot, almost never anymore, but I know that I can. Its no good in my experience11. are you listening to music right now?No. But we are video chatting anyone and everyone who is active on fb rn. 10/10 12. what is something you want right now?I want a cup noodles but without the wait.13. how do you feel right now?Very happy and very comfy. I just washed alL out sheets and blankets and they’re super soft and smell delicious14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?Earlier when my husband got home from work he gave me and Capone a big hug 💟 15. personality descriptionOf myself? It’s not my place to say 16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t?Yes, a million billion times, even right this second, 17. opinion on insecurities.Eh. They’re never as bad as you think. I guess that’s a given18. do you miss how things were a year ago?Eh, sorta! It was getting warm and I was smoking hella bud with Emilio just like now, and I miss how that felt. I miss how it felt being his friend even though I never wanna be just his friend again. I don’t miss my old job at all. I guess mostly what I miss was how I was on the road a lot last May and doing my own thing usually all by myself. I didn’t even see my friends that much last May, it was a weird month. I wouldn’t wanna go back, but I’d rather be in last May than last winter or fall 2015.19. have you ever been to New York?Yes and I loved every second of it.20. what is your favourite song at the moment?Maybe love by Kendrick Lamar or redbone. Loyalty + pride are also good ass songs. 21. age and birthday?20, born March 2422. description of crush.Handsome as hell, gold in his eyes and his hair when the sun shines on him23. fear(s)Puppets on strings and going insane. I answered this the other day so it’s been on the mind a little bit 24. height5'425. role modelNot sure. My dad’s smart26. idol(s)Helen Stephenson 27. things i hateLies, deceit, racism, sexism, backstabbing, 28. i’ll love you if…You have good intentions and good jokes29. favourite film(s)The boondock saints is one of my favorites. I also love Harold and Maude30. favourite tv show(s)The office, scrubs, unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 30 rock, Malcolm in the middle, my name is Earl, parks and rec, that 70s show, 31. 3 random facts1.Cabbage is a descendant of the mustard plant.2. Kale is a descendant of the mustard plant.3. Multiple plants are descendants of the mustard plant.32. are your friends mainly girls or guys?I guess guys33. something you want to learnMore about plant identification. I wanna be able to go into the forest and know by name what I’m looking at. I learned a few this spring walking around rum village 🌿34. most embarrassing momentMy dad finding my journals a bunch of years back. Even worse was when my family went through my room while I was locked up in the hospital. My grandma and aunt use to take me to ponderosa for breakfast to give me the sex talk once a year it sucked35. favourite subjectScience!! Earth science in particular. I did good in geometry so I like that by default but I wouldn’t wanna do math rn. I’d totally do some science shit rn though36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?See America, see the world, and marry my baby daddy37. favourite actor/actressI don’t have any in particular38. favourite comedian(s)Man, me and Emilio watched a bunch of standup this spring. I love john mulaney. I wish I could give you more names but I’m forgetful39. favourite sport(s)I love playing baseball but I like watching hockey and football40. favourite memoryJeez, who knows. Any family vacation I went on was always a high point. On one trip we went to sleeping Bear dunes in Michigan and I climbed up the biggest hill realllllly fast and everyone was impressed. That was cool41. relationship statusMarried and chillin42. favourite book(s)Catcher in the rye, the great Gatsby, hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, journey to the center of the earth, 20000 leagues under the sea!!! I love that last one so much43. favourite song ever100% by sonic youth and a very certain acoustic performance of wasted and ready by Ben kweller 💐44. age you get mistaken forProbably anything younger than 2045. how you found out about your idolGoth girl message boards 46. what my last text message says“Sorry we did this”47. turn onsDon’t wanna make this blog nsfw but I’m bout to get some d later so that’s kind of working for me 48. turn offsPpl being mean to me49. where i want to be right nowHere is fine 50. favourite picture of your idolNow I regret making Helen my idol she probably thinks I’m so lame 51. starsignAries sun that’s all y'all need to know52. something i’m talented atKissing emilio53. 5 things that make me happyCup noodles, stuffed animals, new makeup, making money, being out In nature 54. something thats worrying me at the momentI’m about to start a new job it’s a little nerve-racking you know 55. tumblr friendsI don’t know if we are friends (I want to be) but I have some really cool mutuals whom I love to watch flourish 🌸 like @angel-macabre @corporateaccount @lushdeath @312413 @heartshapedspiderweb @cheapexorcisms @sediao and others I know I am forgetting this doesn’t mean I love and respect you any less it just means I’m turnt up bitch and tired as hell56. favourite food(s)“The soup”. Its Emilio’s dad’s recipe and I’m confident that I’ve mastered it.57. favourite animal(s)Weasels and dogs58. description of my best friendHandsome as hell, gold in his hair and his eyes when the sun shines on him59. why i joined tumblrI can’t even remember!! It was so long ago…this blog isn’t even my first blog. I wish I could remember why I started it and what I first posted. My first blog is long, long gone. Wish I could find it! Fun fact: my first urls were auricy, fiftene, (and then sixtene on my birthday), boysister, zodomy, and a bunch of others, but I’ve been bugclub for like 4 years now

🌻💞🌻💞🌻💞

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – April 1, 2020

What I’m listening to: 

Out of nowhere and 8 years since his last recording, Bob Dylan last Thursday dropped a new single, the 17-minute (the longest Dylan song ever) “Murder Most Foul.” It’s ostensibly about the murder of President John F. Kennedy, but it’s bigger, more incisive, and elegiac than that alone. The music is gorgeous, his singing is lovely (a phrase rarely used for Dylan even in his prime), and he shows why he was deserving of his 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. It’s worth listening to again and again. The man is a cultural treasure and as relevant as ever.

What I’m reading: 

The Milkman by Anna Burns, the 2018 Booker Prize winner, felt like slow going for the first bit, a leisurely stream of consciousness (not my favorite thing) first person tale of an adolescent girl during “the troubles” in 1970’s Northern Ireland. And then enough plot emerges to pull the reader along and tie the frequent and increasingly delightful digressions into the psychology of terror, sexual threat, adolescence, and a community (and world) that will create your narrative and your identity no matter what you know and believe about yourself. It’s layered, full of black humor, and powerful. It also somehow resonates for our times, where we navigate a newfound dread. It’s way more enjoyable than I just made it sound. One of my favorite reads of this young year.

What I’m watching:

I escaped back in time and started re-watching the first season of The West Wing. It is a vision – nostalgic, romantic, perhaps never true – of political leadership driven by higher purpose, American ideals, and moral intelligence. It does not pretend that politics can’t be craven, self-serving, and transactional, but the good guys mostly win in The West Wing, the acting is delightful, and Sorkin’s dialogue zings back and forth in the way of classic Hollywood movies of the 50s – smart, quick, funny. It reminds me – as has often happened during our current crisis – that most people are good and want their community to be a better place. When we appeal to our ideals instead of our fears, we are capable of great things. It’s a nice escape.

Archive 

February 3, 2020

What I’m listening to: 

Spending 21 hours on airplanes (Singapore to Tokyo to Boston) provides lots of time for listening and in an airport shop I picked up a Rolling Stones magazine that listed the top ten albums of the last ten years. I’ve been systematically working through them, starting with Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I just don’t know enough about hip hop and rap to offer any intelligent analysis of the music, and I have always thought of Kanye as kind of crazy (that may still be true), but the music is layered and extravagant and genre-bending. The lyrics seem fascinating and self-reflective, especially around fame and excess and Kanye’s specialty, self-promoting aggrandizement. Too many people I know remain stuck in the music of their youth and while I love those songs too, it feels important to listen to today’s music and what it has to tell us about life and lives far different than our own. And in a case like Twisted Fantasy, it’s just great music and that’s its own justification.

What I’m reading: 

I went back to an old favorite, Richard Russo’s Straight Man. If you work in academia, this is a must-read and while written 22 years ago, it still rings true and current. The “hero” of the novel is William Henry Devereaux Jr., the chair of the English Department in a second-tier public university in small-town Pennsylvania. The book is laugh aloud funny (the opening chapter and story about old Red puts me in hysterics every time I read it) and like the best comedy, it taps into the complexity and pains of life in very substantial ways. Devereaux is insufferable in most ways and yet we root for him, mostly because A) he is so damn funny and B) is self-deprecating. But there is also a big heartedness in Russo’s writing and a recognition that everyone is the protagonist of their own story, and life’s essential dramas play out fully in the most modest of places and for the most ordinary of people. 

What I’m watching:

I can’t pretend to have an abiding interest in cheerleading, but I devoured the six-episode Netflix series Cheer, about the cheerleading squad at Navarro College, a small two-year college in rural Texas that is a cheerleading powerhouse, winning the National Championship 14 times under the direction of Coach Monica Aldama, the Bill Belichick of cheering. I have a new respect and admiration for the athleticism and demands of cheering (and wonder about the cavalier handling of injuries), but the series is about so much more. It’s about team, about love, about grit and perseverance, bravery, trust, about kids and growing up and loss, and…well, it’s about almost everything and it will make you laugh and cry and exult. It is just terrific.

January 2, 2020

What I’m listening to: 

I was never really an Amy Winehouse fan and I don’t listen to much jazz or blue-eyed soul. Recently, eight years after she died at only 27, I heard her single Tears Dry On Their Own and I was hooked (the song was on someone’s “ten things I’d want on a deserted island” list). Since then, I’ve been playing her almost every day. I started the documentary about her, Amy, and stopped. I didn’t much like her. Or, more accurately, I didn’t much like the signals of her own eventual destruction that were evident early on. I think it was D. H. Lawrence that once said “Trust the art, not the artist.” Sometimes it is better not to know too much and just relish the sheer artistry of the work. Winehouse’s Back to Black, which was named one of the best albums of 2007, is as fresh and painful and amazing 13 years later.

What I’m reading: 

Alan Bennett’s lovely novella An Uncommon Reader is a what-if tale, wondering what it would mean if Queen Elizabeth II suddenly became a reader. Because of a lucked upon book mobile on palace grounds, she becomes just that, much to the consternation of her staff and with all kinds of delicious consequences, including curiosity, imagination, self-awareness, and growing disregard for pomp. With an ill-framed suggestion, reading becomes writing and provides a surprise ending. For all of us who love books, this is a finely wrought and delightful love poem to the power of books for readers and writers alike. Imagine if all our leaders were readers (sigh).

What I’m watching:

I’m a huge fan of many things – The National, Boston sports teams, BMW motorcycles, Pho – but there is a stage of life, typically adolescence, when fandom changes the universe, provides a lens to finally understand the world and, more importantly, yourself, in profound ways. My wife Pat would say Joni Mitchell did that for her. Gurinder Chadha’s wonderful film Blinded By The Light captures the power of discovery when Javed, the son of struggling Pakistani immigrants in a dead end place during a dead end time (the Thatcher period, from which Britain has never recovered: see Brexit), hears Springsteen and is forever changed. The movie, sometimes musical, sometimes comedy, and often bubbling with energy, has more heft than it might seem at first. There is pain in a father struggling to retain his dignity while he fails to provide, the father and son tension in so many immigrant families (I lived some of that), and what it means to be an outsider in the only culture you actually have ever known. 

November 25, 2019

My pop picks are usually a combination of three things: what I am listening to, reading, and watching. But last week I happily combined all three. That is, I went to NYC last week and saw two shows. The first was Cyrano, starring Game of Thrones superstar Peter Dinklage in the title role, with Jasmine Cephas Jones as Roxanne. She was Peggy in the original Hamilton cast and has an amazing voice. The music was written by Aaron and Bryce Dessner, two members of my favorite band, The National, with lyrics by lead singer Matt Berninger and his wife Carin Besser. Erica Schmidt, Dinklage’s wife, directs. Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play is light, dated, and melodramatic, but this production was delightful. Dinklage owns the stage, a master, and his deep bass voice, not all that great for singing, but commanding in the delivery of every line, was somehow a plaintive and resonant counterpoint to Cephas Jones’ soaring voice. In the original Cyrano, the title character’s large nose marks him as outsider and ”other,” but Dinklage was born with achondroplasia, the cause of his dwarfism, and there is a kind of resonance in his performance that feels like pain not acted, but known. Deeply. It takes this rather lightweight play and gives it depth. Even if it didn’t, not everything has to be deep and profound – there is joy in seeing something executed so darn well. Cyrano was delightfully satisfying.

The other show was the much lauded Aaron Sorkin rendition of To Kill a Mockingbird, starring another actor at the very top of his game, Ed Harris. This is a Mockingbird for our times, one in which iconic Atticus Finch’s idealistic ��you have to live in someone else’s skin�� feels naive in the face of hateful racism and anti-Semitism. The Black characters in the play get more voice, if not agency, in the stage play than they do in the book, especially housekeeper Calpurnia, who voices incredulity at Finch’s faith in his neighbors and reminds us that he does not pay the price of his patience. She does. And Tom Robinson, the Black man falsely accused of rape – “convicted at the moment he was accused,” Whatever West Wing was for Sorkin – and I dearly loved that show – this is a play for a broken United States, where racism abounds and does so with sanction by those in power. As our daughter said, “I think Trump broke Aaron Sorkin.” It was as powerful a thing I’ve seen on stage in years.  

With both plays, I was reminded of the magic that is live theater. 

October 31, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

It drove his critics crazy that Obama was the coolest president we ever had and his summer 2019 playlist on Spotify simply confirms that reality. It has been on repeat for me. From Drake to Lizzo (God I love her) to Steely Dan to Raphael Saadiq to Sinatra (who I skip every time – I’m not buying the nostalgia), his carefully curated list reflects not only his infinite coolness, but the breadth of his interests and generosity of taste. I love the music, but I love even more the image of Michelle and him rocking out somewhere far from Washington’s madness, as much as I miss them both.

What I’m reading: 

I struggled with Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo for the first 50 pages, worried that she’d drag out every tired trope of Mid-Eastern society, but I fell for her main characters and their journey as refugees from Syria to England. Parts of this book were hard to read and very dark, because that is the plight of so many refugees and she doesn’t shy away from those realities and the enormous toll they take on displaced people. It’s a hard read, but there is light too – in resilience, in love, in friendships, the small tender gestures of people tossed together in a heartless world. Lefteri volunteered in Greek refugee programs, spent a lot of interviewing people, and the book feels true, and importantly, heartfelt.

What I’m watching:

Soap opera meets Shakespeare, deliciously malevolent and operatic, Succession has been our favorite series this season. Loosely based on the Murdochs and their media empire (don’t believe the denials), this was our must watch television on Sunday nights, filling the void left by Game of Thrones. The acting is over-the-top good, the frequent comedy dark, the writing brilliant, and the music superb. We found ourselves quoting lines after every episode. Like the hilarious; “You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the Myspace of STDs.” Watch it so we can talk about that season 2 finale.

August 30, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but the New York Times new 1619 podcast is just terrific, as is the whole project, which observes the sale of the first enslaved human beings on our shores 400 years ago. The first episode, “The Fight for a True Democracy” is a remarkable overview (in a mere 44 minutes) of the centrality of racism and slavery in the American story over those 400 years. It should be mandatory listening in every high school in the country. I’m eager for the next episodes. Side note: I am addicted to The Daily podcast, which gives more color and detail to the NY Times stories I read in print (yes, print), and reminds me of how smart and thoughtful are those journalists who give us real news. We need them now more than ever.

What I’m reading: 

Colson Whitehead has done it again. The Nickel Boys, his new novel, is a worthy successor to his masterpiece The Underground Railroad, and because it is closer to our time, based on the real-life horrors of a Florida reform school, and written a time of resurgent White Supremacy, it hits even harder and with more urgency than its predecessor. Maybe because we can read Underground Railroad with a sense of “that was history,” but one can’t read Nickel Boys without the lurking feeling that such horrors persist today and the monsters that perpetrate such horrors walk among us. They often hold press conferences.

What I’m watching:

Queer Eye, the Netflix remake of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy some ten years later, is wondrously entertaining, but it also feels adroitly aligned with our dysfunctional times. Episode three has a conversation with Karamo Brown, one of the fab five, and a Georgia small town cop (and Trump supporter) that feels unscripted and unexpected and reminds us of how little actual conversation seems to be taking place in our divided country. Oh, for more car rides such as the one they take in that moment, when a chasm is bridged, if only for a few minutes. Set in the South, it is often a refreshing and affirming response to what it means to be male at a time of toxic masculinity and the overdue catharsis and pain of the #MeToo movement. Did I mention? It’s really fun.

July 1, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.

What I’m reading: 

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.

What I’m watching: 

The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirrorand Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.

May 19, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life.  While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.

What I’m reading: 

Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library.  It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more.  It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.

What I’m watching: 

What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading: 

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous. 

What I’m watching: 

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s  AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018 

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

He was a bouncer, she loved music, he wanted to join the Army — these are the victims of the Borderline shooting

The neighborhood bar they all came to for a casual midweek night out was like one big community living room.

It was the kind of place where you might run into a Little League coach or a neighbor or the owner of a local coffee shop you liked, the kind of place where people of a wide range of ages felt secure.

It had long been a hangout of students from the colleges nearby.

Borderline Bar and Grill had theme nights. Every Wednesday was College Country Night.

One of those who would die after a former Marine opened fire there Wednesday night was a college student who had recently been to the bar’s College Country Night Halloween Hoedown.

Another was a sheriff’s sergeant who quickly responded to the scene.

Among the others were a father who hoped to find his path with a coffee shop he had opened, a college freshman who dreamed of being a singer and a former Marine who devoted himself to helping fellow veterans adjust to coming home.

These are some of their stories:

For years, Sean Adler hopped from job to job, looking for his passion.

Sean Adler (family photo)

He was a salesman who also coached soccer and taekwondo. He trained to become a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department — but then he had a heart attack and had to change course.

Over the summer, he proudly opened a coffee shop. He called it Rivalry Roasters.

On one of its walls, a sign read: “Collect moments, not things.”

While the business got going, Sean continued working as a bouncer at Borderline Bar and Grill to support his wife and two sons, ages 17 and 12.

He was working at the bar when he was killed.

Debbie Nieser, a childhood friend, said he had charisma.

“He was just a very caring guy that was a lot of fun,” she said. “He was someone that went after his dreams, someone who was always trying to find his dreams, someone who connected with many different types of people.”

Outside Rivalry on Wednesday afternoon, bouquets had been placed at the door. People left notes about Sean’s kindness.

“These flowers are nowhere near as vibrant as you were,” read one.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

The last thing Cody’s father, Jason Coffman, told his boy was “I love you, Son.”

Cody was his father’s fishing buddy, even as a small child.

“That poor boy would come with me whether he liked it or not,” Coffman said. “That’s the kind of stuff that I’m truly going to miss.”

On Thursday, Jason Coffman wiped away tears as he spoke about his loss.

He said Cody’s friends had shown up at his door in the middle of the night. They said they had gotten out, but no one had heard from Cody.

The Little League coach had many plans for the future. He wanted to join the Army. He was also expecting a baby sister soon.

At least once a week, he would show up at Borderline Bar and Grill to line dance.

When he left his family’s home on Wednesday, he was wearing a new pair of pants to go with his signature cowboy boots.

“I cannot believe that it’s happened in my family,” Jason Coffman said. “I am speechless and heartbroken.”

Music was a passion for Alaina Housley, a freshman at Pepperdine University.

She was thinking of taking a musical theater class and had dreams of becoming a singer.

On Wednesday, she was on the dance floor with friends when the shooting started. Her friends jumped through a broken window to escape, but they lost her in the chaos.

Alaina’s Apple Watch and iPhone still showed her location on the dance floor as her uncle, Adam Housley, searched hospitals.

Actress Tamera Mowry-Housley, her aunt, began to search for her in the early morning hours, to no avail. Later, the family said in a statement:

“Alaina was an incredible young woman with so much life ahead of her and we are devastated that her life was cut short in this manner.”

Luke Sides, a fellow Pepperdine student, said he met Alaina last spring on campus. She had just been dropped off by her parents and was sitting alone when Sides, 19, introduced himself. She seemed relieved to make a new friend, he said.

It didn’t take her long to make many more.

“She was just a really sweet girl,” Sides said. “Whenever I had any problems, she would always reach out and helped me.”

Dan Manrique (Photo courtesy of Manrique family)

Dan Manrique dedicated his life to service.

He served in the Marines as a radio operator. Then, when he returned from the Middle East to his hometown of Thousand Oaks, he worked to help veterans settle back into civilian life.

“He was selfless,” said his brother, Marcos Manrique, 23. “He just wanted to help this country.”

Marcos Manrique said people told him that Dan was standing in the parking lot of Borderline Bar and Grill when the shots were fired — and that he ran in to help.

“I just want him to be remembered as a true hero,” Marcos Manrique said.

Dan was the oldest of four siblings. He had recently gotten a good job at a nonprofit serving veterans called Team Red, White & Blue.

He planned to move out of his parents’ house soon and had dreams of starting a brewing company.

Jaclyn Pieper, 33, who met Manrique in middle school, said that he was positive, always trying to find the upside.

Pieper woke up Thursday and began texting all the friends she knew had been at the bar.

Everybody answered promptly — except Dan.

So many people at Borderline Bar and Grill knew Justin Meek.

He was the bouncer and bar promoter — and if you mentioned his name at the entrance, you got a discount.

“See y’all tonight!!” he wrote in his final Instagram post. “Say Justin at the door.”

When Justin wasn’t working at the bar, he was helping kids with autism at Channel Islands Social Services.He helped with birthday parties, family events and also sang in a quartet.

“Justin was an exceptionally kind and gifted young man who always went out of his way to help others,” said Sharon Francis, the organization’s chief executive officer.

Several survivors of the bar shooting said Justin was shot trying to save others.

The recent graduate had just gotten his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from California Lutheran University.

On his Facebook page, he posted a photo after the Las Vegas shooting, asking for prayers. He also reminded friends to not forget the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Leah Marty, a friend, said Justin was always friendly, cracking jokes and planning group outings.

He once encouraged her to join a line-dancing club on campus.

“I can’t dance,” she recalled telling him. “Me neither!” he responded.

On Thursday, she smiled at the memory.

A few days before the shooting, Kristina Morisette’s dad, Michael, was nervous to see his daughter board a plane to Austin, Texas.

He worried for her safety.

His daughter was stubborn and convinced him she would be fine. And she was.

Kristina Morisette (Martha Morisette)

On Wednesday, Kristina headed out to her 6 p.m. shift at Borderline, leaving her mother with a coin purse, a memento from Austin.

After they learned of the shooting, the Morisettes spent hours with other families, waiting for news.

At 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, they learned that the youngest of their three children had died.

They drove home to Simi Valley in a fog of grief.

“We could either retreat and draw our curtains or we could talk about the beauty of the things that were,” said Michael Morisette, as he held his wife’s hand in their family room on Thursday afternoon.

Kristina was talkative and her friends were the very center of her life, the Morisettes said.

She was quick to console others or offer a friend a ride. She had just bought her first car — a 2017 Jeep Renegade — with the money she had saved from working at the bar.

“We didn’t want her life to end,” said her mother, Martha Morisette. “But we don’t want her memories now to end, either.”

Telemachus Orfanos survived the mass shooting in Las Vegas last year only to be killed Wednesday night at Borderline Bar and Grill.

His mother, Susan Schmidt-Orfanos, could hardly speak as she sobbed over the phone.

“I don’t have anything else to say except more gun control,” she said.

Schmidt-Orfanos told KABC-TV that her son had gone to Las Vegas with a friend and made it home.

“He didn’t come home last night,” she said. “And I don’t want prayers, I don’t want thoughts, I want gun control and I hope to God nobody sends me any more prayers.”

On his Facebook page, Orfanos wrote that he worked at Infiniti of Thousand Oaks and had served in the Navy.

Noel Sparks was a student at Moorpark College.

At one time, she had been active in church, a member of the youth group and the choir, said Walter Dilg, a senior pastor at United Methodist Church in Westlake Village.

She left several years ago to attend Calvary Chapel.

“It is with heavy hearts that we notify you that Noel Sparks was among the victims of last night’s shooting,” said a United Methodist Facebook post.

Noel had been to Borderline Bar and Grill before. In late October, she posted on her Facebook page that she would be attending the bar’s College Country Night Halloween Hoedown.

Early Thursday morning, Jennifer Avalos was searching frantically for her best friend. They had met at church two years ago.

Avalos cried as she stood outside the Thousand Oaks Teen Center.

“She’s been there for me through difficult times,” she said.

This story was written by Times staff writers Esmeralda Bermudez, Andrea Castillo, Melissa Etehad, Marisa Gerber, Sonali Kohli, Laura Newberry, Benjamin Oreskes, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and Nicole Santa Cruz.

7:20 p.m.: This article was updated to add victims Kristina Morisette and Telemachus Orfanos.

5:20 p.m.: This article was updated to include two new victims: Dan Manrique and Noel Sparks.

4:10 p.m.: This article was updated to include details about Sean Adler.

2 p.m: This article was updated to include additional details about Housley and Meek.

1:50 p.m.: This article was updated to provide more information about Helus, Housley and Meek.

12:50 p.m. This article was updated to include two more victims, Alaina Housley and Justin Meek.

This article was originally published at 11:30 a.m.

This content was originally published here.

[thesylvalining]

Time to trade Lisa’s mountain bike for… Lisa! And when she’s back from tour, it always means one thing:

So first, the girls shared aperitivo with their buddy Loic on the church steps in Faenza, with cheese from the Modena hills and wine from Loic’s latest tour in France. I enjoy this photo because somehow Lisa made Loic look like a swimsuit model with too many clothes and me look like a CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival) groupie. Meanwhile, Lisa looks lovely and excited to to see her eclectic subjects come together so well.

Next stop(s), obviously, is/are our favorite bar/restaurant/beach/nightclub/obsession on in Marina Romea: Boca Barranca! Lisa’s amazing longtime friend Nico is along as well. There are refreshing dunks in the ocean, Spritz, the mouth-watering fried seafood plate we’ve eaten our weight in and the equally mouth-watering bartender… everything turns out to be just as good as we remembered :). 

This time, the journeys perpetuate the watery theme. I take to calling us sorrellas (sisters) from other fellas because — per usual — we’re hooked at the hip.  Like thirsty camels, the sorrellas swap heat for aqueous dips at every opportunity. At this juncture, it seems fitting for me to be so near tenacious water. I appreciate water’s fluidity, its propensity to literally go with the flow, to be at home everywhere in the world.

We soon find ourselves drawn, like a water droplet from a sponge, out of the penetrative heat in Faenza. We arrive in Crespino del Lamone via the train up the Lamone river valley (which, after cresting the Apenninni dumps out in Firenze). From there, it’s a blissful cruise down to our dipping spot of choice. The first is overrun by what New Girl‘s Schmidt would call “youths” (pronounced ewe-thz), predominantly the testosterone-fueled variety. The second, while still afloat in testosterone, boasts a couple of families and several tiered pools in which to disseminate the youths.

In the swelter of Italian summer, I have discovered innumerous ways to whittle away a sweaty afternoon. The time spent dipping, napping, journaling and watching the youths cannonball off an abandoned building while the occasional train grumbled by overhead was precious. Precious because it was spent with Lisa, precious because it was a beautiful day and a fantastic time to be alive. Precious because both of us were fully present and wholly content doing a lot of nothing in particular.

Being present is another gift from the Universe, stashed in my increasingly bountiful cornucopia of Neat New Tricks. It is not that I have ceased to feel angry or sad about how everything between Tyler and I turned out. No — I feel difficult emotions but I am unafraid to let them wash over me like the often murky, refreshing waters of the Adriatic. It absolutely acceptable to feel strongly because we are human — I am human. But I have learned better, more enriching ways to be, partially because I consciously live in the present moment, without (too much) lingering in the past or hoping for the future.

I’m realizing, it’s all about a comprehensive view of life — like Benjamin Hoff explains in The Tao of Pooh. I swear, every time I pick it up, there’s a little jewel of wisdom waiting for me to ponder its shiny facets. Hoff explains best what I’m getting at: our favorite moments in life often occur before a much-anticipated event. Like finally opening birthday presents, going on vacation or seeing someone especially cool after not seeing them for a couple of weeks… 😉 The moments between and before are the crusts of bread if you can’t wait to eat the soft inside — but without them, there’s not actually bread.

My Italian buddy Igor and I were discussing life and such things at his house near Bagnacavallo whilst hanging laundry and nibbling bread and chocolate. It was before a particularly quirky and wonderful concert by Devendra Banhart on Monday night (I’ll wax lyrical upon this later). I said: I feel like I’m in my 20s again. Once again, I bask in the same natural spontaneity and joyousness — but with the brain, experience and self-awareness I have now. I feel lucky but it is far beyond luck. I’ve ceased to search for happiness, but it found me anyway as I suspect it does when life flows easily.

Waterfalls are happy places.

The tan lines of a cyclist!

Let us return to the Lamone river where the The Tao of Pooh was again eerily appropriate. As the water rushed by, I pulled my tarnished bookmark and read:

“Say, Pooh, why aren’t you busy?” I asked.

“Because it’s a nice day,” said Pooh.

“Yes, but –”

“Why ruin it?” he said.

“But you could be doing something Important,” I said.

“I am,” said Pooh.

“Oh? Doing what?”

“Listening,” he said.

“Listening to what?”

“To the birds. And that squirrel over there.”

“What are they saying?” I asked.

“That it’s a nice day,” said Pooh.

“But you know that already,” I said.

“Yes, but it’s always good to hear that somebody else thinks so, too,” he replied.

I closed the book with a laugh, read the passage to Lisa (contemplating her second nap on the pale ledge above me) and we both turned back to our important nothings, listening to the birds, the squirrels and the youths now cannonballing off the waterfall.

And on the way back? Gelato! Duh!

Back in Faenza, Palio season was in full effect. For those of you who’ve dipped a toe in Italy, the word Palio may hasten forth images of titillating horse races in the medieval heart of Siena. Faenza holds its own version throughout July, a fully and ornately costumed affair between the different rioni (neighborhoods), each with their own colors and meeting places (which are boisterous and serve good, inexpensive food all month).

The Palio starts with youth (ewe-th) flag tossing and horse races (which keep Sylva up into the wee hours of the night) and culminates at month’s end with the same song and dance for adults. Lisa and I popped out to watch with the parade to the final race with the rest of Faenza… And let me just say, anyone who knew me in my awkward years knows to say I was obsessed with medieval stuff (Nini? Kelly?) is putting it mildly. So I rather enjoyed the entire affair!

Freaking knights in freaking armor, everybody!

Each rione has a competition for prettiest wench, I mean lady.

And each rione has its own spirited band.

A day later, we marched ourselves and our bicycles up to the ridge of San Mamante, beloved by cyclists for its hilly spine and idyllic views. Also beloved by watery wenches such as ourselves, because ExperiencePlus! organized us all a lovely poolside aperitivo…

After Lisa trudged off somewhat reluctantly to lead another tour with the infamous Enrico 🙂 I was left largely to my own devices. Nature put in its liquid two cents, too, cooling down scorching Faenza with much-needed rain:

Even with my sorella gone, I live a far cry from a solitary life — I have aperitivi, multiple dates in one week with my bike and actual humans (even with a guy I met on the train — you guessed it, more later). Or I travel solo, which I truly savor. Or I also linger about the castle like a friendly spirit, diligently working on my book (almost finished and ready to be sent off), this blog and corrections for the article (now finalized!) for the Italian magazine, Ossigeno.

And I have oh-so-much time to ponder. I can process how much my life has changed and absorb this delectable sense of freedom and adventure into my very bones, which were created, I believe, to absorb such things. And to celebrate them!

You guessed it: The Tao of Pooh has something to say on this matter. Hoff unearthed a quote that’s so beautifully apt I’m going to quote Hoff quoting Lu Yu.

The clouds above us join and separate,

The breeze in the courtyard leaves and returns.

Life is like that, so why not relax?

Who can stop us from celebrating?

And what more says celebrate than when your morning Nutella on wholegrain tigella (imported from the recent mountain bike trip) suddenly looks exactly like the country you’re so very happy to be celebrating in!??!

So, to celebrate the celebration, I combed my fresh-out-of-bed hair and adventured. Sylvas adore a good adventure — even, and often especially, da sola (alone). I hopped aboard the same train Lisa and I rode for our river dip trip –surprisingly almost clean, not entirely packed — to Marradi. Marradi? Yes, the same spot the sorellas began their multi-day hike in the colder, windier, rainier days of late April. This time around, it was hotter than Beyonce’s sister Solange.

The hike became an all day affair, especially after I missed the nonexistent train between 1440 and 1859. Unfortunately this meant missing hamburgerata (a bi-annual hamburger cook off with their friends) with the downstairs neighbors, the same whose lovely daughter (and friend) I teach English to several times weekly. But it meant more time in the wide, wonderful outdoors where I always feel at home.

I found the forest, even in crowded Italy, largely devoid of other humans. I could hear them on distant dirt bikes and cars and early on, passed a group watching their buddy hang glide off an open, hilltop. And evidence of humanity presented sporadically with a fence, a rickety shelter or scared sheep bolting down the path ahead of me, the bells around their necks ringing a frantic tune. Otherwise, it was just me, the birds, the squirrels, the breeze…

… the trees and the ivy…

… the old cobblestones on the road to Eremo di Gamogna (the hermitage of Gamogna)…

… and quite possibly the best lunch spot around!

By the time I arrived back in Faenza it was after 1930 and of course, I was ravenous, but tired and very sated after a long sojourn in The Nature.

The beauty’s in the messy details…

Heading out of Marradi.

Lunch spot views.

Sylva = very scary.

Almost to the lunch spot!

A walk in the woods, anyone?

Heading back down.

There’s an Italian saying: Chi dorme non piglia pesci, or those who sleep don’t catch any fish. I may not have been in the business of catching fish (although some people might be able to argue that point… Lisa? 🙂 ) but recently I definitely was in the business of not sleeping… case in point why this clock…

… says 0400 (4 a.m.). Yep — more on that next time. Ciao for now!

Aqueous Transmissions Time to trade Lisa's mountain bike for... Lisa! And when she's back from tour, it always means one thing:

#Adventure #adventure blog #Bagnacavallo #being present #Benjamin Hoff #Boca Barranca #day trip #Devendra Banhart #Eremo di Gamogna #Faenza #foreign language #foreign travel #gelato #growing up #Hermitage #hiking #Italia #Italy #life #Lu Yu #Marina Romea #Marradi #New Girl #Ossigeno #Schmidt #Spritz #The Tao of Pooh #train #tramping #travel

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/stranger-things-winona-ryder-reactions-steal-sag-awards/

'Stranger Things' and Winona Ryder reactions steal SAG Awards

Awards shows are usually the time when actors get to make heated political acceptance speeches and after such a politically charged weekend, they went full speed ahead including the winners of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” which resulted in one of the funnier moments of the night when Winona Ryder didn’t quite seem to know how to reach. Her wide-eyed reactions to the very hit to the gut speech have been memed already. The combination of shock, delight, confusion and power to the people moments gave the night some levity after such an intense weekend where the world is becoming just as concerned about America’s president as many Americans already are.

Have a show like “Stranger Things” sweep the SAG awards was a great metaphor for the feeling. Many know that if there isn’t some push back against Donald Trump’s ongoing executive orders, there will be stranger things coming at us.

Ashton Kutcher set the tone for the evening, welcoming “everyone in airports who belong in my America,” alongside SAG members and viewers at home. Sarah Paulson, who scooped an award for her role in The People vs. OJ Simpson, used her speech to ask for donations to the ACLU, while Bryan Cranston slipped into character as president Lyndon B. Johnson to offer a warning to Donald Trump: “don’t piss in the soup we’ve all got to eat.”

Moonlight star Mahershala Ali also added an emotional take on the subject of identity and acceptance, referencing his own Muslim faith, and explaining how it didn’t stand in the way of his love for his mother — a Christian pastor. Julia Louis-Dreyfus took more direct aim at Trump’s executive order, calling it a “blemish” on the country, and un-American.

Youth was served as the kid-dominated “Stranger Things” proved the surprise Screen Actors Guild Awards top TV winner Sunday, with “Shameless” star William H. Macy scoring his own upset victory over Jeffrey Tambor of “Transparent.”

“Stranger Things,” Netflix’s supernatural thriller that earned breakout buzz in its freshman season, deprived three-time consecutive winner “Downton Abbey” of one last trophy for its concluding year. The streaming service claimed a leading four awards as the traditional broadcast networks were shut out, something they’re getting used to.

In the Donald Trump presidential era, awards ceremony viewers may have to get used to especially heavy doses of politics amid the glitz.

“In light of all that’s going on in the world today, it’s difficult to celebrate the already celebrated ‘Stranger Things,” said the show’s David Harbour, accepting the award for best TV drama series ensemble on behalf of 15 fellow cast members heavy on teens.

In a lengthy speech that reflected the evening’s consistently activist tone, Harbour suggested that people follow the lead of his lawman character and “punch some people in the face when they seek to destroy the weak and the disenfranchised and the marginalized.”

Macy’s win as best TV comedy actor came despite Tambor’s hefty awards haul for his portrayal of a transgender character, including last year’s SAG trophy, two Emmys and a Golden Globe.

“I’m shocked. I’m probably not as shocked as Jeffrey, but I’m pretty shocked. I would like to go against the strain this evening and thank President Donald Trump for making Frank Gallagher seem so normal,” the actor said, referring to the reprobate dad he plays in Showtime’s “Shameless.”

Louis-Dreyfus, who was honored as best TV comedy actress for HBO’s “Veep,” also started off on a lighter note.

“Whether the Russians did or did not hack the voting of tonight’s SAG Awards, I look out on the million or probably even the million and a half people in this room, and I say this award is legitimate and I won. I won, the winner is me, landslide,” she said, referring to Trump’s preoccupation with his loss of the popular vote.

Turning serious, Louis-Dreyfus called herself an immigrant’s daughter and an American patriot who feels compelled to say “this immigrant ban is a blemish and it is un-American,” a reference to Trump’s order to halt immigration from seven predominantly Muslim nations.

Netflix’s big night included “Orange Is the New Black,” which won best ensemble in a comedy series for the third consecutive year, and star Taylor Schilling had something to say.

“We stand up here representing a diverse group of people, representing generations of families who have sought a better life here from places like Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ireland,” Schilling said, “and we know that it’s going to be up to us and all of you, probably, to keep telling stories that show what unites us is stronger than the forces that divide us.”

Two stars of Netflix’s British royal saga “The Crown” were winners: Claire Foy, who starred as Queen Elizabeth II, and John Lithgow for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the series.

Sarah Paulson, an Emmy winner for her role as prosecutor Marcia Clark in FX’s miniseries “The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” triumphed again and used part of her time on stage to call for donations to the ACLU.

Bryan Cranston, honored for playing President Lyndon Johnson in the HBO movie “All the Way,” offered wry guidance for the new U.S. president.

“I’m often asked how would Lyndon Johnson think about Donald Trump. And I honestly feel that (president No.) 36 would put his arm around (president No.) 45 and earnestly wish him success,” Cranston said. “And he would also whisper in his ear something he said often, as a form of encouragement and a cautionary tale, ‘Just don’t piss in the soup that all of us gotta eat.'”

Full list of the SAG 2017 Award Winners

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

Captain Fantastic

Fences

Winner: Hidden Figures

Manchester by the Sea

Moonlight

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge

Ryan Gosling, La La Land

Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic

Winner: Denzel Washington, Fences

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

Amy Adams, Arrival

Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train

Natalie Portman, Jackie

Winner: Emma Stone, La La Land

Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series

The Crown

Downton Abbey

Game of Thrones

Winner: Stranger Things

Westworld

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series

Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things

Winner: Claire Foy, The Crown

Thandie Newton, Westworld

Winona Ryder, Stranger Things

Robin Wright, House of Cards

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series

Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us

Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones

Winner: John Lithgow, The Crown

Rami Malek, Mr. Robot

Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a TV Movie or Limited Series

Riz Ahmed, The Night Of

Sterling K. Brown, The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Winner: Bryan Cranston, All the Way

John Turturro, The Night Of

Courtney B. Vance, The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a TV Movie or Limited Series

Bryce Dallas Howard, Black Mirror

Felicity Huffman, American Crime

Audra McDonald, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill

Winner: Sarah Paulson, The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Kerry Washington, Confirmation

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Winner: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight

Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water

Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins

Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea

Dev Patel, Lion

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role

Winner: Viola Davis, Fences

Naomie Harris, Moonlight

Nicole Kidman, Lion

Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures

Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series

The Big Bang Theory

Blackish

Modern Family

Winner: Orange Is the New Black

Veep

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Anderson, Blackish

Tituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Ty Burrell, Modern Family

Winner: William H. Macy, Shameless

Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series

Uzo Aduba, Orange Is the New Black

Jane Fonda, Grace and Frankie

Ellie Kemper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Winner: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble

Captain America: Civil War

Doctor Strange

Winner: Hacksaw Ridge

Jason Bourne

Nocturnal Animals

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble

Winner: Game of Thrones

Daredevil

Luke Cage

The Walking Dead

Westworld.

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