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thevividgreenmoss · 5 years

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A good or great writer may refuse to accept any responsibility or morality that society wishes to impose on her. Yet the best and greatest of them know that if they abuse this hard-won freedom, it can only lead to bad art. There is an intricate web of morality, rigor, and responsibility that art, that writing itself, imposes on a writer. It’s singular, it’s individual, but nevertheless it’s there. At its best, it’s an exquisite bond between the artist and the medium. At its acceptable end, it’s a sort of sensible cooperation. At its worst, it’s a relationship of disrespect and exploitation.

The absence of external rules complicates things. There’s a very thin line that separates the strong, true, bright bird of the imagination from the synthetic, noisy bauble. Where is that line? How do you recognize it? How do you know you’ve crossed it? At the risk of sounding esoteric and arcane, I’m tempted to say that you just know. The fact is that nobody—no reader, no reviewer, agent, publisher, colleague, friend, or enemy—can tell for sure. A writer just has to ask herself that question and answer it as honestly as possible. The thing about this “line” is that once you learn to recognize it, once you see it, it’s impossible to ignore. You have no choice but to live with it, to follow it through. You have to bear with all its complexities, contradictions, and demands. And that’s not always easy. It doesn’t always lead to compliments and standing ovations. It can lead you to the strangest, wildest places. In the midst of a bloody military coup, for instance, you could find yourself fascinated by the mating rituals of a purple sunbird, or the secret life of captive goldfish, or an old aunt’s descent into madness. And nobody can say that there isn’t truth and art and beauty in that. Or, on the contrary, in the midst of putative peace, you could, like me, be unfortunate enough to stumble on a silent war. The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.

Today, perhaps more so than in any other era in history, the writer’s right to free speech is guarded and defended by the civil societies and state establishments of the most powerful countries in the world. Any overt attempt to silence or muffle a voice is met with furious opposition. The writer is embraced and protected. This is a wonderful thing. The writer, the actor, the musician, the filmmaker—they have become radiant jewels in the crown of modern civilization. The artist, I imagine, is finally as free as he or she will ever be. Never before have so many writers had their books published. (And now, of course, we have the Internet.) Never before have we been more commercially viable. We live and prosper in the heart of the marketplace. True, for every so-called success there are hundreds who “fail.” True, there are myriad art forms, both folk and classical, myriad languages, myriad cultural and artistic traditions that are being crushed and cast aside in the stampede to the big bumper sale in Wonderland. Still, there have never been more writers, singers, actors, or painters who have become influential, wealthy superstars. And they, the successful ones, spawn a million imitators, they become the torchbearers, their work becomes the benchmark for what art is, or ought to be.

Nowadays in India the scene is almost farcical. Following the recent commercial success of some Indian authors, Western publishers are desperately prospecting for the next big Indo-Anglian work of fiction. They’re doing everything short of interviewing English-speaking Indians for the post of “writer.” Ambitious middle-class parents who, a few years ago, would only settle for a future in Engineering, Medicine, or Management for their children, now hopefully send them to creative writing schools. People like myself are constantly petitioned by computer companies, watch manufacturers, even media magnates to endorse their products. A boutique owner in Bombay once asked me if he could “display” my book The God of Small Things (as if it were an accessory, a bracelet or a pair of earrings) while he filmed me shopping for clothes! Jhumpa Lahiri, the American writer of Indian origin who won the Pulitzer Prize, came to India recently to have a traditional Bengali wedding. The wedding was reported on the front page of national newspapers.

Now where does all this lead us? Is it just harmless nonsense that’s best ignored? How does all this ardent wooing affect our art? What kind of lenses does it put in our spectacles? How far does it remove us from the world around us?

There is very real danger that this neoteric seduction can shut us up far more effectively than violence and repression ever could. We have free speech. Maybe. But do we have Really Free Speech? If what we have to say doesn’t “sell,” will we still say it? Can we? Or is everybody looking for Things That Sell to say? Could writers end up playing the role of palace entertainers? Or the subtle twenty-first-century version of court eunuchs attending to the pleasures of our incumbent CEOs? You know—naughty, but nice. Risqué perhaps, but not risky. It has been nearly four years now since my first, and so far only, novel, The God of Small Things, was published. In the early days, I used to be described—introduced—as the author of an almost freakishly “successful” (if I may use so vulgar a term) first book. Nowadays I’m introduced as something of a freak myself. I am, apparently, what is known in twenty-first-century vernacular as a “writer-activist.” (Like a sofa-bed.)

Why am I called a “writer-activist” and why—even when it’s used approvingly, admiringly—does that term make me flinch? I’m called a writer-activist because after writing The God of Small Things I wrote three political essays: “The End of Imagination,” about India’s nuclear tests, “The Greater Common Good,” about Big Dams and the “development” debate, and “Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin,” about the privatization and corporatization of essential infrastructure like water and electricity. Apart from the building of the temple in Ayodhya, these currently also happen to be the top priorities of the Indian government.4

Now, I’ve been wondering why it should be that the person who wrote The God of Small Things is called a writer, and the person who wrote the political essays is called an activist. True, The God of Small Things is a work of fiction, but it’s no less political than any of my essays. True, the essays are works of nonfiction, but since when did writers forgo the right to write nonfiction?

My thesis—my humble theory, as we say in India—is that I’ve been saddled with this double-barreled appellation, this awful professional label, not because my work is political but because in my essays, which are about very contentious issues, I take sides. I take a position. I have a point of view. What’s worse, I make it clear that I think it’s right and moral to take that position, and what’s even worse, I use everything in my power to flagrantly solicit support for that position. Now, for a writer of the twenty-first century, that’s considered a pretty uncool, unsophisticated thing to do. It skates uncomfortably close to the territory occupied by political party ideologues—a breed of people that the world has learned (quite rightly) to mistrust. I’m aware of this. I’m all for being circumspect. I’m all for discretion, prudence, tentativeness, subtlety, ambiguity, complexity. I love the unanswered question, the unresolved story, the unclimbed mountain, the tender shard of an incomplete dream. Most of the time.

But is it mandatory for a writer to be ambiguous about everything? Isn’t it true that there have been fearful episodes in human history when prudence and discretion would have just been euphemisms for pusillanimity? When caution was actually cowardice? When sophistication was disguised decadence? When circumspection was really a kind of espousal?

Isn’t it true, or at least theoretically possible, that there are times in the life of a people or a nation when the political climate demands that we—even the most sophisticated of us—overtly take sides? I believe that such times are upon us. And I believe that in the coming years intellectuals and artists in India will be called upon to take sides.

Arundhati Roy, The Ladies Have Feelings, So . . . Shall We Leave It to the Experts? (Based on a talk given at the Third Annual Eqbal Ahmad Lecture, Amherst, Massachusetts, February 15, 2001; compiled in The End of Imagination)

#*#arundhati roy #the end of imagination

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geezeralert · 5 years

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Deep Dive Duly Delivers

From my boxes: Some sleeves that came with Beatles’ 45 rpm records

(Second of three parts)

I still love Beatles music.

In my months of replaying and studying all the songs produced in the group’s eight-year recording period (1962-1970), I continued to close my eyes and listen raptly to the tunes, often over and over and over (my practice since youth for favorite songs; I’m like a little kid repeatedly playing a favorite video or asking for a re-reading of a favorite book).

From “She Loves You” to “All My Loving” to “Words of Love” to “No Reply” to “Tell Me Why” to “She Said She Said” to “Hey Bulldog” to “Penny Lane” to “With A Little Help From My Friends” to “Get Back” to “Two of Us” to “Let It Be” to “Glass Onion” to the “long medley” on side two of “Abbey Road” . . . the foursome’s pop output of 50-plus years ago remains among the most pleasant sounds to my ears.

That state of enjoyment is to be expected, I guess. These musical creations dominated the soundtrack of my taste-formulating teen years, ahead of other loves like Motown, Sinatra, the Beach Boys and the myriad of hits coming out AM and FM radio.

Of course, my knowledge of the Beatles’ songs is now greatly enhanced, which, I’m pleased to find, only serves to heighten my enjoyment.

Learning how individual songs were conceived and executed, and then hearing the eventual product and how (or if) it reflects — by design or accident —the artists’ intentions, adds layers of fun to the listening experience.

The same was true for songs I do not particularly enjoy, like “Rain,” as those I do, like “Penny Lane” or “Two of Us.”

For “Rain,” the revelation was that Ringo Starr considers his drumming work on the song his best ever. Song chronicler Ian MacDonald (“Revolution in the Head”) called Starr’s work “superb” while also lavishing praise on Paul McCartney’s “high register bass” as “sometimes so inventive that it threatens to overwhelm the track.”

Perhaps any “true fan” of the Beatles knew such details but I never paid attention to either the drumming, the bass line or just about anything else about that song. Now, listening to it with this new knowledge, I at least give it some respect.

Likewise, for many tunes I did listen to closely and often over the years, there were plenty of tidbits that make them even more fun to hear.

Like the painstaking attention paid by McCartney to the rather simple-sounding (to me) “Penny Lane,” the technically expert drumming of Starr on “She Said She Said” (called “the outstanding track” on “Revolver” by MacDonald, who says that album is considered by many the Beatles’ best) and the performance on “”Two of Us.”

Hearing that last tune, with my new knowledge, had me choking back tears.

Understand, “Two of Us” was recorded for the Beatles’ second to last album, “Let It Be,” and I played it after months of reviewing their musical endeavors as boyhood chums (McCartney wrote “When I’m 64,” one of the classics from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band,” when he was 16), as a newly formed band spending hours at their craft in a foreign country, as an insanely popular pop group dominating the musical world, as a trend-setting studio creative force, as a drug-addled crumpling unit and, finally, as bitterly feuding individual musical achievers no longer interested in being a fabulous foursome.

But even as the storm clouds gathered, producing occasional thunder claps, there were still lightening flashes of what made the Beatles the Beatles.

Moments like the one, in late January 1969, when McCartney and John Lennon sang in beautiful harmony — a sound straight out of 1962 — strumming acoustic guitars, on “Two of Us.”

“The close harmonies of “Two of Us” reminded McCartney and Lennon of their teenage Everly Brothers impersonations and, during the second day’s work on it, they broke off to sing ‘Bye Bye Love,’” wrote MacDonald.

The image of these two boyhood chums and creative masterminds, after years of ups and downs, burying the hatchet for a few minutes while under the influence of nostalgia — well . . . (insert cry-face emoji).

To be sure, that continued camaraderie for all four group members was captured in the “Let It Be” film, along with the more well-known contentiousness. They jammed to rock ‘n roll standards in the studio and played their last live performance as a group on the rooftop.

The books I consulted also told how these four individuals continued to work together despite all their mounting, serious differences, and, like the tale of the “Two of Us” recording, those passages were among the most noteworthy to me during my research.

MacDonald notes this this lasting togetherness showed the Beatles to be “in no respect an ordinary phenomenon.”

He continued:

“Many have spoken of the charismatic atmosphere that switched on whenever all four were together — a group-mindedness which kept them united through a further 18 months (after their “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper” successes) of in-fighting during which they recorded well over 50 more tracks and which continued, albeit less reliably than before, to function as the psychic antenna by which they maintained contact with the shifting currents of popular feeling at large.”

Listening to their musical creations while getting more details about how much they were starting to really hate each other in the late 1960s was a indeed revelation for this big Beatles fan.

It culminated with the tale told by the engineer Geoff Emerick (“Here There and Everywhere, My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles”) of the band’s final recording together, Lennon’s “Because,” as it wrapped up the “Abbey Road” album.

The tune brought their legendary producer George Martin back into the studio to orchestrate nine harmony parts. For technical reasons, it required John, Paul and George Harrison to sing their three-part harmony together live, rather than overdubbing each part one at a time, and then add two additional passes to add on the remaining six parts.

Emerick recounts how the three Beatles were totally into the effort.

“They knew they were doing something special and they were determined to get it right. There was no clowning around that day, no joking; everyone was very serious, very focused,” he wrote.

He continued:

“That day I saw the four Beatles at their finest: there was 100 percent concentration from all of them — even Ringo, sitting quietly with his eyes closed, silently urging his bandmates on to their best performance — all working in tandem to get that vocal nailed, spot on. It was a stark example of the kind of teamwork that had been so sorely lacking for years. It’s tempting to imagine what the Beatles might have been able to accomplish if they could only have captured and sustained that spirit just a little longer.”

For me, though, the “Because” effort was amazing for taking place at all, both in terms of the Beatles’ problems and just how long any group of performers can co-exist and produce excellence.

Another fascinating act of cooperation, in my judgment, was Paul helping John on his very personal “Ballad of John and Yoko.” By that time, Yoko One was an extremely divisive element in the groups’ universe so I found this friendly cooperation especially praiseworthy.

Speaking of Yoko . . .

Of course, all Beatles fans have read stories of how disruptive her constant presence was during the final years. But one of the biggest revelations I’ll take away from my project is just how badly she disrupted the group’s cohesiveness and creativity, from early 1968 forward.

Emerick believes much of the improved atmosphere in the recording studio during “Abbey Road” could be attributable to the absence of John and Yoko, who were injured in a car accident in Scotland.

When the pair finally were recovered enough to attend the recording sessions, John arranged for a bed to be brought into the studio for Yoko, complete with a microphone suspended over her so she could comment on the proceedings.

Yikes

Wrote the engineer:

“For the next several weeks, Yoko lived in that bed. Her wardrobe consisted of a series of flimsy nightgowns, accessorized with a regal tiara, carefully positioned to hide the scar on her forehead from the accident. As she gained her strength, so too did she gain her confidence, slowly but surely starting to annoy the other Beatles and George Martin with her comments.”

Interestingly, as the Abbey Road sessions progressed and Ono got out of bed, she was asked by John to stay in the control room while he, Paul and George performed what, in my opinion, was one of the most incredible feats of their later years: the three simultaneous guitar solos during “The End.”

I always wondered how that section of the song was done and was amazed to find that it was all three of them taking turns. I never tire listening to it.

Emerick says perhaps it was Yoko’s absence “or perhaps it was because on some subconscious level they had decided to suspend their egos for the sake of the music, but for the hour or so it took them to play those solos, all the bad blood, all the fighting, all the crap that had gone down between the three former friends was forgotten. John, Paul and George looked like they had gone back in time, like they were kids again, playing together for the sheer enjoyment of it. More than anything, they reminded me of gunslingers, with their guitars strapped on, looks of steely-eyed resolve, determined to outdo one another. Yet there was animosity, no tension at all — you could tell that they were simply having fun.”

I suppose knowledge of these scenarios, and the different parts played by the Beatles, in something that separates the really big fans of the Beatles from the really huge fans.

The latter already knew those details. And they also can say what songs were played when and by whom without consulting the various books that I used.

And they know a lot of other things that were news to me in my research.

Like the fact that Harrison auditioned his classic “Something” (originally eight minutes long!) for the group during the “White Album” along with “Old Brown Shoe” and “All Things Must Pass” but had them rejected.

Perhaps even some “really big” fans also had picked up those tidbits over the years while I missed them.

In any event, here’s some of they other things that jumped out at me in addition to the inspiring, intermittent camaraderie and the depressing, disruptive force of Yoko Ono:

** The amount of drug use by the group and the effect it had on their music.

The marijuana, the LSD and, for Lennon, the heroin all took at least the two main songwriters into their various musical directions. MacDonald notes that 50 days after the soaring achievement of “Because” Lennon “was back in the studio howling his addiction in ‘Cold Turkey.’” He makes the conclusion that heroin was “flowing coldly around its composer’s body” at the “Because” sessions.

** The influence of their various girlfriends on their songs.

Many of the songs chart the various stages of McCartney’s romances with Jane Asher and Linda Eastman along with John Lennon’s marriage/breakup with Cynthia and, of course, infatuation with Yoko.

** The nonsense of their lyrics— many of them were just thrown together and others had strictly personal meanings.

Under scrutiny, a vast number of their early songs are far better musically than lyrically. I guess the simple old “moon June” love messages sounded plenty deep enough to my teen ears. The Beatles themselves got tired of them and rarely returned to basic love songs in their later years.

Then we have a lot of phrases or passages that have meaning only to them, like those in “I Am the Walrus” (Lennon says it was a deliberate attempt to parody “the fashion for psychedelic lyrics” prevalent at the time) “Across the Universe” “Savoy Truffle” and “Glass Onion,” to name a few.

Another example: McCartney and Lennon, in a fit of marijuana-inspired laughter, made up some Spanish-sounding gibberish for “Sun King” on Abbey Road.

** The synchronizing of the songs — how they came at us on albums or singles — was far different than how they were conceived or executed.

I suppose this is pretty obvious to even the most passing fan but when you experience the songs in the order they were recorded, as I did by following MacDonald’s sequential presentation of them, it gives you a much different feel than what we originally had.

One example: “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” intended for “Sgt. Pepper” (they were the second and third songs recorded for that album, after “When I’m 64”) but released instead as a 45 rpm single, were followed in the studio by the intricate “A Day in the Life,” which eventually was put at the end of that album, giving it its unforgettable finale.

That sequence presents a far different perspective on the songs than how they were publically presented and received.

Another tidbit: The last song recorded by the Beatles as a group was “I Me Mine,” a Harrison tune produced for the “Let It Be” album after it was played informally in the “Let It Be” movie. It was formally performed and mixed after the “Abbey Road” sessions had wrapped.

Lennon was absent for that session so it was ironic that the next time the former Beatles recorded together was when his three ex-bandmates gathered again, after his death, to play with Lennon’s home-produced tune, “Free As a Bird.” That tape (three songs recorded by Lennon) was provided McCartney by Ono at Lennon’s 1994 induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame.

Another tidbit in that category: In between “Abbey Road” recording sessions for “The End” and “Sun King/Mean Mr. Mustard,” McCartney recorded “Come and Get It,” playing all the instruments and double tracking the vocal.

The tune went on to be a big hit for the Apple group Badfinger and MacDonald calls it “by far the best unreleased Beatles song.” McCartney “knocked off” the recording in under an hour, he wrote. He offered it for Abbey Road.

** In contrast to the Hall of Fame’s insulting choice to induct Lennon years before honoring McCartney, my conclusion from what I read and heard is that McCartney was the dominating force behind the band’s production, creativity and longevity.

He softened Lennon’s often-harsh musical tendencies and pushed all of the others to better themselves, often to their annoyance.

In fact, McCartney’s criticisms of Harrison’s guitar playing was a major source of the friction in the group. There are several tales of McCartney going back into the studio to re-do the guitar solos for his songs.

He also kept the group involved in challenging projects, like the “Magical Mystery Tour” film and attempts at stripped down recordings for “Let It Be,” at times when other members wanted to just end things.

And his continued musical endeavors surely pushed the others to also keep trying to explore and create.

As a teen, Lennon was my favorite Beatle (every kid had to choose one!). Now . . . it’s complicated.

** A fun part of my listening experience was following the progress of the four Beatles as musicians, particularly McCartney on bass.

He was made the group’s bass player by default in their teenage beginnings. He quickly progressed to some great work on “All My Loving” and “Tell Me Why.” And from there, he perfected his skill on the instrument until it became a major contributor to a lot of the recordings, most especially “Hey Bulldog.”

I also was impressed by Starr’s drumming. He has been downgraded by some as a “human metronome” and a deep-background player in the Beatles saga but he gets a lot of credit in the books I read for his savvy, expert drumming. My own listening, as a simple fan, supports those conclusions.

Beatles songs were not about blasting percussion but needed the steady, consistent, skilled drum sounds that Starr provided.

** Another interesting part of the project was learning various music or recording terms.

These included: arpeggio (“the notes of a chord played in succession as a fan-like spread rather than as a single sound, as if on a harp”; used on “You Never Give Me Your Money,” “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Sun King,” the middle of “Here Comes the Sun” and “Because.”); ADT (artificial double tracking, used often for Beatles’ voices and now a music industry stable); flanging (too technical to summarize here); and compression (“reduction of the overall dynamics generated by a voice or instrument”).

The amount of what we hear (and love) that is affected by such studio tricks as ADT, flanging, compression, manipulation of microphones or drums, or changing speeds on recorded material (to name just some of them) was astonishing to learn.

** Taking the Beatles’ catalogue as a whole over a short period of time demonstrated just how much effort the group put into always trying new sounds, new recording techniques and new musical approaches.

These could range from a simple change in how a piano was played (“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” “Oh Darlin’”) to an entirely radical approach like “Revolution 9.”

This was done out of personal musical interest along with inter-group competition and intra-group competition. It was a key to why the group remained together, creative and popular for far longer than normal bands, particularly those in the rock era.

To be sure, the three primary songwriters in the group also borrowed liberally from what sounds were popular at the time — Motown, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, psychedelia, the Byrds, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Who, the Kinks — but improved on them and created a sound all their own.

** MacDonald feels the McCartney song “You Never Give Me Your Money” was the earliest musical acknowledgment that the group was coming to a close, particularly its opening verses.

“To anyone who loves the Beatles, the bittersweet nostalgia of this music is hard to hear without a tear in the eye. Here, an entire era — the idealistic, innocent Sixties — is bravely bidden farewell.

“Having regretted this loss, the song shows us what it was all about in a quick kaleidoscopic resume of the group’s ambiguous blend of sadness, subversive laughter and resolute optimism. Everything hangs on the words ‘nowhere to go,’ arrived at ruefully but instantly spun around and seen from the other side: as freedom, as opportunity. The Beatles’ future may be gone but McCartney is determined to salvage their spirit, and that of the Sixties, for his future. ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ marks the psychological opening of his solo career.”

** Emerick’s own conclusion about the Beatles’ breakup gave me a new perspective.

He begins with an opinion I found startling, given all his and others’ accounts of how well the Beatles could still get along even as their inter-personal troubles mounted:

“By the end, it’s fair to say that the four Beatles hated one another, for a variety of reasons. It’s actually understandable, considering all the time they’d spent together, stuck in hotel rooms and recording studios for year after year; no wonder they couldn’t wait to get away from one another. When the announcement was made, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that it had been almost four years since they’d done their last tour. For four years, they had been doing nothing but recording in that dank, depressing place known as Abbey Road.”

Emerick goes on the discount the financial squabbles or presence of Yoko Ono as the key reasons for the end of the group, saying Ono was good for Lennon. He concludes:

“No, I always felt that the main reason for the breakup was irreconcilable artistic differences. John, Paul, and George Harrison simply wanted to follow different paths. John wanted to make art; Paul wanted to continue doing pop music; and George just wanted to pursue his Eastern interests. Sadly, inevitably, there was no common ground anymore, only a common history.”

So, having digested all this material over the last few months, where does that leave me as a Beatles fan?

I’ll explore that in part three of this little exercise, coming tomorrow.

#Beatles #Music #Music history #Sixties #paul mccartney #john lennon #george harrison #ringo starr #rocknroll #beatles fan

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uomo-accattivante · 6 years

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For the entire run of Charles Soule’s Poe Dameron comic book series, readers have gotten the chance to experience the wit, bravery, and unselfish nature of the best pilot in the Resistance. We also have been introduced to Black Squadron, a muscular Hutt, and a compelling new villain. With a new storyline coming this May, StarWars.com e-mailed with Soule about what makes Poe Dameron unique, his Black Squadron copilots, and why Agent Terex is the perfect foil for the titular character.

StarWars.com: Ever since fans were introduced to the characters in The Force Awakens, people have been drawn to Poe Dameron. What is it about the character that you find so compelling, and how do you channel that into the Poe Dameron series?

Charles Soule: I won’t lie — writing a swashbuckling expert pilot with charisma for miles won’t ever be a drag. Poe the character brings an energy to his scenes that’s pretty undeniable, like a feedback loop of fun and focus. Now, I know I’m writing about a fictional character as if he’s a real person, making me just the scribe jotting down his adventures as they happen, but sometimes it feels like that. Poe is sort of a force of nature.

StarWars.com: While Han Solo and Poe Dameron are a type of foil for one another, and both use unconventional methods at times, they are more dissimilar than they are alike. Compare and contrast the two pilots and what makes them tick.

Charles Soule: I’m tempted to do this in terms of Dungeons & Dragons alignments, but I don’t want to mash together too many fictional worlds here, so I’ll stick to Star Wars. Han is just a darker guy in general than Poe. You can rely on him, if he decides you’re worth his time and energy, but that’s not a foregone conclusion. I don’t think you’re ever quite sure where you stand with Han Solo, which is part of what makes him a great character. Poe is a more selfless character, just in general. I don’t see him ever trying to cut and run as long as there’s still someone he might be able to help. That said, Poe’s rampant idealism and self-confidence absolutely gets him into trouble, much the way Han’s sense of self-interest causes problems for him, as well. They’re both pretty awesome, though!

StarWars.com: Let’s look at your incredible run on this series so far. The series is initially set before the events of The Force Awakens and has taken Poe on a number of adventures. What stands out to you from your run so far, and what have been some of your biggest challenges as a storyteller?

Charles Soule: I’ve been really happy with the new characters we’ve introduced to the Star Wars universe, especially Poe’s nemesis Agent Terex, former Imperial stormtrooper and sometime officer in the First Order Security Bureau. He’s always a blast to write, almost a negative-image of Poe himself. Suralinda Javos and Oddy Muva are standouts as well, but even fleshing out characters from the films like Snap Wexley and Jess Pava has been fun, too. As far as challenges… I’d say the biggest thing was creating a compelling, strong adventure for Poe and Black Squadron that fit within what’s really a pretty small window in the Star Wars timeline — directly before The Force Awakens. We knew where the story ends, to a degree, so finding drama in the journey to get there was a tricky proposition. However, as is often the case in writing, solving the challenges was not just a great time, but resulted in a better story.

StarWars.com: Agent Terex is not the traditional “bad guy” in a First Order uniform and is much more than an archetypal villain. And, despite Captain Phasma’s best efforts, he seems to have an iron will. How much fun is this character to write, and what can you tell us about his character arc?

Charles Soule: Right — Terex! As I mentioned, he was an Imperial stormtrooper, even present at the Battle of Jakku. He became a galactic crime boss in the intervening decades, a truly ruthless man, but he was always pining away for the lost Empire, which he thought was a pretty cool institution. So, when he heard rumors of this thing called the First Order, he signed up, offering his immense network of contacts and favors owed to them. For a while, that was fine, until he began to tangle with Poe, as they both searched the galaxy for the missing explorer Lor San Tekka, in the hopes he could lead them to Luke Skywalker. Poe can be a frustrating opponent, and we’ve seen all sorts of things happen to Terex on his journey in the series. Personally, though, I think he ends in a really good place, and I’d love to see him pop up elsewhere. We’ll see!

StarWars.com: Through this series, we have also gotten to know the elite pilots of Black Squadron. What makes them such a perfect complement to Poe, and how do they keep one another “grounded,” especially considering how gifted they are at what they do?

Charles Soule: Black Squadron has evolved a bit over the course of the series, as any cast of characters should. We began with Poe, Temmin “Snap” Wexley, Jessika Pava, Karé Kun, L’ulo L’ampar, and their loyal(ish) ground tech and aspiring pilot Oddy Muva. We lost both L’ulo and Oddy, as well as more than a few astromechs assigned to Jess, but a new member joined — the one-time journalist and New Republic Navy veteran Suralinda Javos. Snap and Karé got married at the end of #25, too, which was a storyline I built for a long time in the series. I think they all love each other, and would do anything for each other, but these are fighter pilots. They’re competitive. Still, they usually manage to channel those tendencies into the fight against the First Order, where it should go.

StarWars.com: We also meet Ivee, the incredibly brave astromech (see Poe Dameron #25) that has a rather strong bond with BB-8. What inspired this storyline, and what has the response been like?

Charles Soule: It’s been so fun! Ivee and BB-8 clicked immediately, becoming extremely fast friends, connected in a deep way that organic beings probably can’t completely understand. I thought it might just be fun to give BB-8 sort of a… well, I don’t know if you can call it a romance, exactly, but certainly a very close friendship with another droid. The response has been strongly positive. It’s sort of amazing to me what you can do in comics, and storytelling in general, to imbue a hunk of metal, plastic, and wires with what really feels like “humanity” — whatever that means in a universe filled with all sorts of non-human sentients.

StarWars.com: You clearly have a talent for finding the voice of so many iconic Star Wars characters, and nowhere is it more apparent than when you write Leia Organa. It’s a tribute to your writing prowess that you are able to add to her wonderful legacy. How do you maintain the nuance of this character and keep her so fresh and engaging?

Charles Soule: Leia’s awesome, and really, writing her is not that different from writing any of the characters in any of my Star Wars projects. I just do my best to put myself in their position and let them talk. Leia is a master politician, incredibly empathetic, but also wry and funny. She’s faced with the re-emergence of an evil force she thought she’d defeated decades before, and now she’s doing everything she can to prevent it from taking over the galaxy. She’s under enormous stress, but she handles it with charm and grace. She also takes zero crap from anyone — that’s a big part of writing her, too.

StarWars.com: The “Legend Found” arc features a poignant conversation between Poe and Lor San Tekka in which they discuss the nature of the Force. It’s a great way to see the Force from the perspective of non-Jedi characters, but also teaches us a bit more about this mystical energy field. What do we learn from this conversation?

Charles Soule: The biggest thing, I think, is the way a character like Lor San Tekka who’s been studying the Force his whole life views the “hero Force-wielders.” Jedi and Sith, essentially. Lor understands why they get all the attention, as agents of the Cosmic Force, but he knows they’re just a small part of the immense whole that is the Living Force. For Lor, and for the vast majority of beings in the galaxy, it’s all about the Living Force. I hadn’t seen The Last Jedi yet when I wrote that sequence, but now that I have, I think it’s pretty fair to say that Luke Skywalker would probably agree with Lor San Tekka’s point of view, at least in part.

The cover of Poe Dameron #27, coming May 16.

StarWars.com: In May, you have a new arc in store for readers. What can you tell us about it?

Charles Soule: The bookends of Poe Dameron issues 26-31 are set moments after the events of The Last Jedi. I don’t want to suggest that it’s a direct mini-sequel or anything like that; the story is told as a flashback in a conversation following the Battle of Crait. It just gives fans a taste of where things are after the film wraps up. It also takes a look at both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi from the point of view of characters we didn’t necessarily see in the movies, and will catch us up on what Black Squadron was up to during Episode VIII in particular. I can’t wait for these issues to begin coming out — they were so much fun to write!

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#oscar isaac #poe dameron #star wars #charles soule #the last jedi #the force awakens #poe dameron comics #marvel #comics

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sleepyfantasy · 6 years

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Yoongi - Another You

Summary: A year after you broke up with Yoongi, he sends you a letter.

Getting home after a long day at work, you looked down at the mail near the door as you slipped your shoes off. It looked like the typical selection of bank statements, bills and adverts you normally received. When you picked it up, however, tucked behind one of the big A4 envelopes was a small, handwritten letter.

The address on the outside was written in blue pen, clearly written quite quickly, scrawling slightly across the page and you were sure someone more expert than you would be able to tell from looking at it that the person who wrote it was not a native English speaker, effort being put into forming each letter as it was not his first language. You didn’t need to be an expert to know that, however, because you recognised the handwriting. That was why you were staring at the writing on the envelope rather than opening the letter.

The letter sat on the kitchen side in your little flat for four days, never really letting you forget about it, before you decided enough was enough. You either needed to read it, or you needed to get rid of it.

That decision alone took an hour of staring at the innocuous looking envelope.

As soon as you had seen the handwriting, recognising it as Namjoon’s, you had been dreading the contents of the letter. You had fallen out of contact with all of the guys when you broke up with Yoongi. It had been too hard talking to them when you had to avoid him, but it would have been even harder to keep talking to him, so you just cut them all out of your life.

You missed them, of course you did. None of them had done anything wrong. You just had to leave.

Yoongi had even suggested that you try a long-distance relationship when you told him you had to go, but you knew it wouldn’t work. Even when you were living in Korea, only twenty minutes away from the dorm, it had been hard work to keep your relationship going. Being an idol, Yoongi was a busy man. You had never had a problem with it, knowing that you had known what you were signing up for when you started your relationship with an idol. The problem only came when you had to go home.

You had been offered your dream job back in your home country and you couldn’t say no. This was everything you had been working for longer than you could even remember. You had to go.

It was your fault you and Yoongi broke up and you knew it. You were aware that was almost certainly part of the reason you were so scared to open the letter. You felt guilty for causing whatever pain Yoongi went through after you left, inevitably hurting the other guys as well.

As much as you had been wanting to talk to the guys again over the past year, you stayed away. Every time you were tempted to pick up the phone, you remembered Yoongi’s face when you told him you were leaving and you needed to break up. Not a memory you were keen on reliving. Even though this letter brought back similar thoughts, you realised you couldn’t keep trying to ignore it forever.

Even so, actually reading it was another thing altogether.

The first step was opening the envelope. You held your breath the entire time.

Then the letter was out and in your hand. You even managed to unfold it, but your eyes just would not focus.

The handwriting was the problem.

And it wasn’t that you were out of practice reading Hangul. After your time in Korea, you didn’t think that would ever be an issue.

Nor was it that the handwriting was particularly bad. It wasn’t the best, but it was legible.

It was who the handwriting belonged to. Handwriting that you recognised even faster than Namjoon’s on the envelope.

It was Yoongi’s.

When you finally managed to start reading it, you didn’t stop until you got to the end.

Dear Y/N-(y)ah Y/N-ssi Y/N-(y)ah,

I know that I shouldn’t be contacting you. You probably don’t want me to.

I know you told me not to because it would make it harder for you, but I need to say this.

I don’t know yet if I’m ever going to send this letter, I just need the thoughts out of my head.

I love you.

I still love you.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

I’m sure you don’t think of me anywhere near as often as I think of you, but I hope you do sometimes, and you do it with fondness.

I understand why you ended us, why you had to, but that didn’t stop it from hurting, having to say goodbye.

I spent a long time after you left moping around and writing stupid break up songs that neither BTS nor Agust D will ever use. And nor should they. They’re not even good.

After that, I decided that if you didn’t need me, I didn’t need you and I could easily find a replacement for you, someone better for me. I started searching for that person, for my ideal type girl, because God knows that was never you.

And I found her.

I found a girl that fit my ideal type perfectly.

That only lasted about a week before I got annoyed and broke up with her.

A few more girls followed, all fitting my ideal type pretty well, each lasting less time than the last.

Then I tried just being alone. I did it for a long time before you came along and I was perfectly happy that way.

It seems I’ve forgotten how, though, how to be content without anyone by my side.

But none of my ‘ideal type’ girls could fill the hole you left behind.

It took me a long time, but I figured it out. My idea of what my ideal type girl was was messed up.

Just because that was what I had always wanted, that was what I had been looking for. But my ideal type was actually always you. You were everything I never knew I wanted, never knew I needed.

So obviously, knowing my actual ideal type, I went looking for my actual ideal type girl. I started looking for another you, preferably Korean. Someone who would be all of the things I liked about you, but who wouldn’t have to learn another language to communicate with me, constantly making mistakes. Someone who wouldn’t drag me home, whining, when I was trying to work. Someone who wouldn’t rub their freezing cold feet on my nice warm legs as I slept.

But you know what? I realised that’s not what I wanted either.

Someone like that would be nice, but they wouldn’t be you.

And I realised that I missed your cute blush when I corrected your Korean. And I love that you cared enough to learn a whole new language for me. And I realised you dragged me home from work because you were worried that I would work too much and make myself ill. (Which I did three times before I realised this by the way.) And I realised your little whines as you pulled me out of the door were actually really cute and I found myself trying to remember exactly how you sounded. And I realised that sleeping was a thousand times harder without you wrapped around me tightly, as if you were worried I might run away. And I realised my bed was way too hot without your cold feet cooling me down.

I realised that no one else is ever going to seem right to me after the perfection that was you.

My ideal type isn’t like you, it is you.

You are the only one for me.

If I do decide to send this letter, then I will have decided that I really mean this:

If you still love me, still want me, tell me where you live and I will be on the next flight there.

Send me your address and I will leave BTS, quit my position at Big Hit, I will drop everything and come to you.

I have enough money to buy a house for the two of us and I’ll get a job over there. Maybe I could be a producer?

Say the word and I will be there.

I don’t think I can keep doing this for much longer.

I stopped being a functioning human being a while ago.

Despite searching, I can’t find another you. There is no one out there as perfect for me as you. No one exists that comes close to you in my eyes.

I love you,

Please still love me,

Yoongi

The letter got harder to read as it went on, as Yoongi’s handwriting got worse and worse as he was clearly writing faster and faster, words flowing out of him, but also as tears gathered in your eyes.

You had assumed when you left, his life would go on as usual. Like he said, he had been happy for a long time before you and you had no doubt he could get any girl he wanted.

Of course you still loved him. There was no coming back from the kind of love you held for Yoongi.

Even as you were reading, you were pretty sure what you were going to do. However, you decided to wait a week. You needed to be completely sure you were doing the right thing.

A week and a day after reading the letter, you were in a taxi, wondering if you had made the right decision. When you reached your destination, you pulled out your phone as you got out of the taxi. Pulling up a chat with Yoongi, not for the first time since you left, you contemplated sending him a message.

You didn’t pay attention to where your feet were taking you. You didn’t need to. Knowing they knew the way, you focussed on your phone screen instead, typing and retyping a message to Yoongi. When you got to the door you were aiming for, you locked your phone and put it back into your pocket without sending anything.

Then you knocked.

For some reason, you hadn’t ever thought past this point. When you were planning this whole thing, you concentrated on the getting here, and now you were out of time to plan, as the door opened.

“Y/N-ssi!” Jungkook said as he saw you, eyes widening as he realised that you were here, actually right in front of him.

It took barely three seconds for Hoseok, Jimin and Taehyung to rush to the door as well, having been alerted by Jungkook’s exclamation of your name. They were desperate to see if it was really you.

Realising that they were not the people you were here to see, Jungkook said, “Yoongi-hyung is in his studio.” He looked across to the studio door, indicating it to you as if you might have forgotten the room you had spent so much time in not all that long ago.

You nodded and turned to the door two along from the one the four of them were all gathered in. You knew they were still there even without looking and they may well have called over Namjoon and Jin by now too.

You stood outside his door for so long that Jimin dashed forwards and knocked for you before rushing back to the doorway with the others.

Your head was on the verge of turning so that you could thank him, when the door in front of you opened to reveal the man you were there to see. Immediately, your eyes met his.

Nothing could have prepared you for the sight.

All this time, you had imagined him thriving, looking as well as you had ever seen him, if not better. Any time you had pictured him, which was a lot more than you would like to admit, you had pictured him happy and healthy and now you were presented with the very real picture of him as anything but.

He had died his hair since you had left. Several times, if the murmurings of your friends back home that were fans of BTS were correct. This was the first time you had seen it, though. Even though you knew it would have changed by now, you always pictured him with the soft pink hair you had last seen him with.

The man in front of you, however, had light silver hair, and dark circles under his eyes. He was much thinner than he had been when you left too. Peering behind him, you spotted that the sofa where you used to curl up while he worked was now topped with crumpled blankets and pyjamas. From the looks of it, he had been sleeping there for a while.

Honestly, you were worried.

Looking back up at him, you saw how he was holding his arms out towards you slightly, tentatively, looking like he wanted to touch your face. You stayed still, giving him time to move at his own pace, and when his fingers grazed your cheek, he jumped slightly as if he hadn’t quite expected you to be real.

Immediately afterwards, he sank to his knees in front of you, arms wrapping around your waist as he pressed his face against your stomach where you felt wet patches growing as he shook against you, crying.

You held him in place, glad to have him close after such a long time and hoping you could give him the comfort he was clearly requiring. Running a hand through his hair, you said, “It’s okay. I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”

Suddenly, you remembered the guys you had left in the doorway. Looking around, you confirmed that all six of the other members were now watching the exchange. If Yoongi had been himself, you knew that he would not want to be seen like this, so you gently pulled him to his feet and nudged him back into his studio.

Letting the door close behind you, through which you could hear the disappointed sighs of the other members having lost their view, you moved the blankets and Yoongi’s pyjamas onto one of the arms of the sofa before sitting him down at one end and taking your place on the other. Then you pulled on the arm closest to you, manoeuvring him to lay on your lap. He turned to press his face once again to your now damp top, revelling in being so close to you after so long.

You continued running your hands through his hair as he sobbed. Gradually, his sobs turned into a slight shake before stopping altogether. Since he didn’t make any moves to sit up, you left him there for a while even after he fell silent. Eventually, though, you decided it was time to talk.

You tapped his back and told him, “Jagi, do you think you could sit up now?”

He nodded against your belly before slowly making his way to a seated position, eyes red and puffy from crying, tear tracks running down his cheeks.

Before starting the inevitable conversation, you headed into the adjoining bathroom to the studio and brought out a damp face cloth, which you then used to carefully wash Yoongi’s face. His eyes didn’t leave your eyes as you did.

Placing the cloth to the side, you turned to face him, sitting cross-legged on the sofa across from him.

“I thought you didn’t love me anymore,” he said, tears gathering in his eyes again. “You didn’t tell me your address, so I thought you didn’t love me.”

“I could never stop loving you, Yoongi. I don’t know how.”

There was a hint of a smile at that, then he said, “Why are you here though? I told you I’d come to you.”

Sending him a gentle smile, you tried to explain. “I know, but you are meant to be here.” Looking around the studio, you added, “This is where you belong.” Then your eyes caught on the blanket and pyjamas you had bundled up to move them out of the way. “Not to sleep, though. For goodness’ sake, go home and sleep in a real goddamned bed would you?”

He almost burst into tears again at the sound of you nagging him.

“But you went home for your dream job?” He clearly wanted to get to the bottom of this, and you couldn’t blame him. Coming back to him like this, you had a million questions you wanted to ask, but you were aware that he needed this more than you right now. You could catch up more on how his life had been for the past year at a later date.

“Yeah, and I loved doing it for a year, but you being willing to give up your dream job for me made me realise I didn’t deserve you if I wasn’t willing to do the same for you. The reason it took me so long to make my move was that I needed to figure out if I could walk away from all that without regret or not.”

A look appeared on Yoongi’s face, somewhere between hope and fear.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t pick you, Yoongi,” you told him, letting out a little giggle at the relief on Yoongi’s face at that. “I should have picked you from the start. As much as I enjoyed my work, I should never have left.”

Before you could say anything else, Yoongi leant forward and pressed his lips to yours, one of his hands on your waist, the other on your cheek. Immediately, the two of you fell back into old patterns, well-practiced at being together like this.

When you pulled back, you said, “Now, you are going to come back to the dorms with me and I am going to make you a proper meal because it looks like you haven’t had one since I left.” Poking his belly, you emphasised, “There’s nothing of you.”

Yoongi smiled properly at that. You were so cute. This was just one of the million things he had missed about you.

“Honestly,” you continued, “did Jin forget how to cook while I was gone?” You laughed at your own joke, but you were distracted by the thought of how little Yoongi had taken care of himself, at least for the past couple of months. “And then you are going straight to bed, mister. In a real bed, not a sofa that does no good for your back. And then in the morning we are going to start looking for houses because you asked me to move in with you and this is me saying yes.”

Tears came to Yoongi’s eyes once again. He couldn’t think of anything else to say in response apart from, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Jagi,” you told him, reaching for his hand and smiling as it wrapped around your own. “Now come on, get your arse moving because we’re going to have to go shopping if you want me to make your favourite for tea. And I’m going to have to buy everything because I bet you have no idea what’s in your fridge because I doubt you’ve been back in days if not weeks…”

As you ranted, nagging him that he needed to take better care of himself, he kept his eyes on you the whole time, thanking God for bringing you back to him.

Masterlist

#bts scenarios #min yoongi #bts suga #reader insert #yoongi/reader #yoongi fanfic #bts fanfic #kinda angsty

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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From Le Carré to Artificial Intelligence — The Inspirations of When the Sparrow Falls

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What if human consciousness could be digitized? Would the digital version still be human, or would it be a meaningless string of data that no longer has a soul? In Neil Sharpson’s When the Sparrow Falls, the Caspian Republic is the last holdout nation of natural born humans. There, the populace refuses to submit to the Machine, believing that neither digital humans nor AI have souls. Unfortunately, the Caspian Republic is also a totalitarian nightmare of a nation, where not one but two police organizations could come for you in the night, and you’d never be seen again.

Nikolai South, whose first-person narration leads readers through this strange future, is an agent for State Security (StaSec, or The Old Man). When he’s called in to the office of the Deputy Director, he believes it’s the end: though he’s stayed under the radar of both the State and Party Security (ParSec, or The Bastards) for more than twenty years, he’s finally done something to get himself killed. Instead, he’s given a new assignment. Popular Party writer and anti-Machine scribe Paulo Xirau has been outed as an AI, and his wife—also an AI—has been given honorary human status to identify Xirau’s remains. South is to be her babysitter and bodyguard during her visit, which is, very likely, just a very fancy way for StaSec to hand him his death sentence after all. Even worse, when Lily Xirau arrives, the clone she uses for a body is the spitting image of South’s dead wife, whose death sent South into a spiral of depression that’s held him in the same position in StaSec for the last twenty years.

South’s voice is reminiscent of a protagonist from Kafka: he’s one soul in a nation out to get him. But unlike K, he has a pretty good idea of what’s going on, and why, and his cynicism wars with the internal voice of the Good Brother, who reminds him of why he should rejoice in the successes of both the State and the Party. He’s also clever enough to realize that Xirau’s death, Lily’s arrival, and the work of Needleman Yozhik, a criminal responsible behind a ring of illegal consciousness transfers—contrans—in the Caspian Republic, are all connected. But like any good spy mystery, it’s not in the most obvious way, and the stakes of the case keep changing around South as past events come back to haunt him.

The novel is taught and intense, with hints seeded so stealthily that the big reveals (and, with the twists, there are a few) give a feeling of both surprise and inevitability. It’s hard to believe that the project, with its philosophical deep discussion of human souls and its ever-shifting spy narrative, began life as a stage play.

“I’d been tinkering with the play on and off for around six or seven years by [2017],” Sharpson explains to Den of Geek, “and when I finally finished it everyone I showed it to had more or less the same reaction: ‘Why are you doing a dense sci-fi story with tons of world-building for stage. You twit.’” While his friends may have been critics, the play looked like it would do well, and Sharpson didn’t feel he had the time to turn it into a novel. Then disaster struck: “I had two massive opportunities (a commission from the national theatre and a greenlight from the state broadcaster) both go up in smoke. In the same month,” Sharpson says. “I very briefly became suicidal and I realised that I had to divorce my sense of self worth from how well my writing was doing. So I started to write Sparrow (or The Caspian Sea, as it was then called) as a form of self-therapy. It was just so I could write something where I could say ‘I don’t care if this never gets published or if anyone even knows I wrote it. I’ll know, and that’ll be enough.’”

Despite his initial reluctance, the process of writing the novel “was a dream,” he says. “All the hard work had already been done, the story structure, themes, etc. were mostly already there. So it was literally the process of writing a book where you only have to do the fun stuff like expanding on the lore and fleshing out the characters. Writing the play took years. Writing the book took me from November 2017 to February 2018.”

Though the atmosphere may be reminiscent of Kafka, Sharpson drew on other inspirations as he built the world, particularly the film 2011 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy starring Gary Oldman. “1984 obviously was another huge influence,” Sharpson says. “Writing a future dystopia that’s not influenced by Orwell is kind of like writing high fantasy that owes no debt to Tolkien.” But one of the other inspirations for the story came out of history, in the figure of “Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet Air Officer who deliberately ignored what his system told him was an incoming American nuke and thereby may have saved the entire world,” Sharpson recalls. “I was very taken by the idea of a hero who is heroic not because he’s a man of action but because he refuses to act.”

The idea of consciousness transfers has both the shiny glow of a new technology—and the feeling of limitless possibility that a digital world inspires—and an air of menace. In part, that’s due to the distrust of the Caspian Republic toward the Machine, but Sharpson also gives hints about how things operate in the rest of the world with asides at the beginning of each chapter. In one, a U.S. politician explains a move from being opposed to building a super-intelligent AI to realizing that the U.S. must do it, if only to keep up with China.

“I’m every bit as worried as I was five years ago, if not more so,” says Sharpson. “But where we are now, asking ‘Should we create super intelligent AIs?’ is like asking if we should be using protection while we’re going into labor. The question is pretty moot. The baby is here. China has uncorked the bottle and let the genie out and the results speak for themselves.” Another is a clone-suit advertisement from a Tehran company, geared toward “female-identifying intelligences looking to add some Asian glamour to a romantic getaway in the physical realm”—which shows that racist stereotyping remains healthy and well, regardless of how post-human consciousness wants to believe it has become.

Still, in a world where contran is possible, where humanity has unlimited potential through the digital space, why set the story inside the anti-Machine territory, where the possibilities wouldn’t be explored? Sharpson explains that it came from wanting to write a Cold War thriller. “I was terrified of getting the historical details wrong,” Sharpson admits, “so I reasoned that if I created my own nation with its own history, I would be able to tell the story I wanted without getting irate emails from people who were living in East Berlin in the seventies. As I was writing, the real world was trundling along and it became a story of the world today but imagined as a cold war; Caspian is a country for people who are afraid of the future and have retreated into a nation built on nostalgia for the past.”

As for the potential in contran, Sharpson remains reserved when asked if he’d try it himself. “In the world of the book, there are two competing views on contran: The Machine World view is that you are still ‘you’ after you have been contranned. The Caspians, however, see contran as a genocice occurring in plain view,” he explains. “People are being contranned, their souls destroyed and being replaced by a highly sophisticated AI simulacrum. They view this as the AIs way of eradicating mankind. Now, as the author of the book, I know this isn’t the case. But if someone were to come up to me in real life and offer me contran I would have no way of knowing if it was on the up and up. In fact, given the inscrutable nature of human consciousness, the Caspian position would seem far, far more probable. I’d be tempted, no question, but I don’t know if I’d consider it worth the risk.”

Though the science as presented in the book makes the idea of a digital transfer of humanity seem not only probable, but an inevitable result of the growth of AI technology, Sharpson says the experts he conferred with told him “contran is flat out impossible. It’s digitising human consciousness, and we fundamentally don’t understand what that is, let alone how to render it as data,” he says. He got around that impossibility by saying “we (humans) didn’t figure out contran, we created impossibly intelligent AI and they figured it out for us. Which is really the whole meat of the setting: the AI passed us by.”

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Though the novel concludes quite definitively, with perhaps one lingering question about the whereabouts of a character, the questions it opens up remain interesting to play with after putting the book down. What would it be like to live in an all digital realm? If you left your body behind, would you still be you? And what would that say about the nature of the soul? The post-humanity conceits in the story, and the very grounded dystopia that comes from trying to live in the past, work together to create a sense of hope, that despite the regrets of the past, there is a future. It might be terrible and glorious at once, but it’s there, waiting for us to enter it.

When the Sparrow Falls hits bookshelves on June 29th. You can order the book here.

The post From Le Carré to Artificial Intelligence — The Inspirations of When the Sparrow Falls appeared first on Den of Geek.

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 4 years

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9th October >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 11:15-26 for Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time: ‘The kingdom of God has overtaken you’.

Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Luke 11:15-26

The finger of God has overtaken you

When Jesus had cast out a devil, some of the people said, ‘It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he casts out devils.’ Others asked him, as a test, for a sign from heaven; but, knowing what they were thinking, he said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is heading for ruin, and a household divided against itself collapses. So too with Satan: if he is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? – since you assert that it is through Beelzebul that I cast out devils. Now if it is through Beelzebul that I cast out devils, through whom do your own experts cast them out? Let them be your judges then. But if it is through the finger of God that I cast out devils, then know that the kingdom of God has overtaken you. So long as a strong man fully armed guards his own palace, his goods are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he is attacks and defeats him, the stronger man takes away all the weapons he relied on and shares out his spoil.

‘He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters.

‘When an unclean spirit goes out of a man it wanders through waterless country looking for a place to rest, and not finding one it says, “I will go back to the home I came from.” But on arrival, finding it swept and tidied, it then goes off and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and set up house there, so that the man ends up by being worse than he was before.’

Gospel (USA)

Luke 11:15-26

If it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.

When Jesus had driven out a demon, some of the crowd said: “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. But he knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house. And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons. If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he takes away the armor on which he relied and distributes the spoils. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

“When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, ‘I shall return to my home from which I came.’ But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and brings back seven other spirits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that man is worse than the first.”

Reflections (7)

(i) Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

It can be tempting for individuals or groups to demonize others, referring to them even as ‘Satan’. Even the good can sometimes be demonized. Indeed, according to today’s gospel reading, Jesus himself was demonized. His opponents claimed that the power behind his healing ministry was the power of Beelzebul or Satan. Their preoccupation with Satan prevented them from seeing what Jesus calls ‘the finger of God’ in his ministry. Jesus declares to them that it is not the kingdom of Satan but the kingdom of God that has overtaken them. Jesus speaks of himself as the ‘stronger man’ who attacks and defeats the ‘strong man’, namely, Satan. Jesus is reminding all of us that the power of God is stronger than the power of evil. We cannot deny the existence of evil; we are all too well aware of it. Jesus teaches us to pray, ‘Deliver us from evil’. We need to name evil for what it is. Yet, as followers of ‘the stronger man’, Jesus, we must not allow the presence of evil to make us despondent or to immobilize us. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus released into the world, is stronger than the spirit of evil. I always found that statement of Saint Paul very encouraging, ‘where sin increased, grace abounded all the more’. That is true of our own personal lives and of the life of our world. The kingdom of God is always overtaking us, even when the darkness of evil and sin seems to be triumphing.

And/Or

(ii) Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospel reading, some people accuse Jesus of being an instrument of Satan. They see the good he does but they attribute it to an evil source. They demonized Jesus. It is a human temptation to demonize other people or even whole groups of people. The Nazis demonized the Jews, and the consequences were horrendous. In reply to the accusation made against him Jesus says in the gospel reading that he does what he does not through the power of Satan but through the finger of God. The healing finger of Jesus was the finger of God but many people failed to recognize that wonderful reality. They were blind to God’s presence in Jesus. We can all suffer from the same blindness to some degree. We fail to see the ways in which God is at work among us. The gospel reading invites us to be alert to the finger of God, which can take very simple and ordinary forms. When people are present to others in ways that are life-giving and healing, there the finger of God is at work. In the words of Jesus in the gospel reading, there the kingdom of God has overtaken us. It is good to be on the look-out for the finger of God at work among us. If we are on the look-out, we are more likely to notice the Lord’s presence, and to give thanks and praise to God for all that God is doing among us.

And/Or

(iii) Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading some people put Jesus to the test by asking him for a sign from heaven. They want him to perform some spectacular sign. Yet, they are completely blind to the presence of God in the ministry of Jesus itself. Jesus declares in the gospel reading that it is by the finger of God that he casts our demons from people. God is powerfully at work in his ministry if only people had eyes to see it. There is no need for Jesus to do a spectacular sign. Sometimes we too can be overly fascinated by the unusual when it comes to our relationship with the Lord. We fail to see the ways that the Lord is present among us in and through the goodness and kindness and hospitality of others, in and through the selfless service that people show each other in all kinds of ordinary and simple ways, in and through the various expressions of love that people show one another, in and through people’s quiet prayerfulness. We can miss the deeper dimension of the everyday and the familiar. I think of the poet Joseph Mary Plunkett who wrote, ‘I see his blood upon the rose and in the stars the glory of his eyes’. Nature spoke to him of Christ. The best of human nature and human relationships can speak to us even more powerfully of the Lord.

And/Or

(iv) Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

We all know from our own experience how easy it is to misjudge people. We see someone doing something or not doing something and we draw certain conclusions. We subsequently discover that the conclusions we have drawn were very wide of the mark. Jesus was also misjudged. Some people came to certain conclusions about him which were very far from the truth. We find a particularly dramatic example of that in this morning’s gospel reading. Some came to the conclusion that the power that was at work in Jesus was not the power of God but the power of Satan. It is hard to imagine a greater misjudgement than to call good ‘evil’. Some people were completely closed to all the good that was being done through Jesus. In contrast, Jesus was always open to the good that was present in the lives of others, even when they themselves were not very aware of it. When Peter said to Jesus by the Sea of Galilee, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man’, Jesus replied, ‘Do not be afraid, from now on it is people you will catch’. Jesus was alert to the traces of the Spirit in the lives of others. As his followers, we are called to have the same sensitivity to the traces of the Spirit in the lives of those around us. We are to be more attuned to the presence of goodness in others than to the presence of sin in them.

And/Or

(v) Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

We often speak of people having a jaundiced view of life. They tend to think of the glass as half empty rather than half full. They are quicker to see the negative in a situation than the positive. We find an extreme example of that in this morning’s gospel reading. Some people saw the good that Jesus was doing but concluded that he was doing this good through the power of Satan rather than the power of God. It is hard to imagine a more jaundiced view of someone than that. Rather than recognizing that the kingdom of God, the reign of God, was drawing near in the ministry of Jesus, these people saw his ministry as an expression of Satan’s power. Even Jesus is helpless before such a mindset. To a much smaller degree, we too can be blind to the presence of God’s kingdom among us, the presence of the Lord, the presence of goodness. We don’t always name and celebrate the good, what is of value, sufficiently. The gospel reading this morning calls on us to be alert to what Jesus calls ‘the finger of God’. The finger of God is to be found all around us and, indeed, within us. Jesus was exemplary in being able to recognize the good in situations and in people that was not always apparent to others. We pray that we would possess something of his generous vision.

And/Or

(vi) Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

According to today’s gospel reading, when some people looked at the healing ministry of Jesus, instead of seeing the finger of God, the reign of God at work, they saw the activity of Satan. The gospels suggest that Jesus was completely misunderstood by some. It is hard to imagine a greater misunderstanding that what we find in today’s gospel reading. Yet, he continued to reach out to those who misunderstood him; he worked to get them to see that it was the Holy Spirit and not some evil spirit that was at work in his ministry. Even on the cross, according to Luke, Jesus prayed for those who were executing him as a common criminal or rebel. We can all experience misunderstanding, even if not on the scale that Jesus experienced it. It can sometimes be the price we pay for doing something worthwhile. Jesus remained faithful to his calling and his mission, in spite of the kind of misunderstanding of him that many showed. In similar circumstances, we too need to remain faithful and not lose our nerve. In doing this, the Lord’s Spirit will help us.

And/Or

(vii) Friday, Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

It is extraordinary to think that, according to today’s gospel reading, some people thought Jesus’ power to heal and make whole was not from God but from the devil. They were saying that far from being of God, Jesus was of the devil. How could someone who revealed the goodness of God be associated with the prince of devils? The tendency to demonize has reared its head throughout human history. One group demonizes another. Some individual is demonized without foundation. Once someone or some people are demonized, it gives those doing the demonizing a licence to do terrible things to them. Declaring Jesus to be in league with Satan is the most extreme example of such irrational demonizing. In response to this perception of him, Jesus declares that it is the finger of God that is revealed in all he does and that it is the kingdom of God that is breaking out through him. The gospel reading encourages us to look for the signs of the finger of God in the lives of those we might be tempted to demonize in whatever way. The parable of the weeds and the wheat reminds us that there is a mixture of the good and the not so good in each of one of us. Jesus is totally good; Satan is totally evil. The rest of us are somewhere in between. We are called to celebrate the good that is in our lives and in the lives of others. Jesus also calls on us to be more attentive to the plank in our own eye than to the speck of dust in the eye of the other.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

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ruminativerabbi · 4 years

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Bad Karma/Good Karma

Even the President’s fiercest critics were able—at least for the most part—to choke out at least some version of a get-well wish when the positive results of his COVID test were announced. But in most cases it didn’t take long for the writer (or speaker) to get to the real point.

There was Joe Biden’s wish for a “swift and successful” recovery for the President, followed by his acerbic observation that, of course, he wasn’t at all surprised that the President fell ill since he failed to follow the most elemental rules for fending off infection. Then there was the New York Times’ “Get Well, Mr. President” lead editorial in last Sunday’s paper, a wish the Editorial Board then felt the need to justify in twelve different ways lest anyone think they were motivated merely by sympathy for a sick person infected with a potentially deadly virus. Even better, at least in my opinion, was Bret Stephen’s column in Tuesday’s paper. (I admire Stephens and read his columns with great enthusiasm and interest, so I mention him in this context merely to illustrate a point.) He began by using a quote from John Donne (“Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankinde”) to explain his wish that the President have a “full and speedy recovery,” then, lest anyone think he actually had any actual sympathy for the actual patient, went on to justify his get-well wishes in as many ways as he could think of (including the remarkable thought that we should wish the President well because, should he die, Mike Pence would make an even worse President). Stephens’ wrap-up line said it all. We should wish the President well, he wrote, “because it’s the right thing to do.” I’d just love having someone visit me in the hospital—poo poo poo—and tell me they had come to wish me a speedy recovery “because it’s the right thing to do.” Hah!

As far as I can see, however, there lies a single concept at the core both of all the editorial pieces I read and all the late-night TV hosts’ hilarious comments regarding the President’s illness: the concept of karma. What goes around comes around. You reap what you sow. At least in the end, you get what you deserve. At the end of the meal you prepare, you eat your own just deserts!

The concept of karma derives from the Hindu notion of rebirth after death and in that context means that the circumstances of your next life will be a function of the way you have conducted yourself in this and previous lives. Most non-Hindus will find the concept of endless reincarnation at least unlikely, but the underlying principle that—one way or the other—you eventually get what you deserve remains resonant with the public. I’d certainly like to believe it myself! The President mocked his own advisors who called for the nation to wear face masks in public. The President made a public display of the degree to which he refused socially to distance himself from others. The President repeatedly encouraged people not to take the possibility of infection with the novel coronavirus too very seriously, including at White House receptions hosted by the President himself. And so the universe finally took matters into its own hands and baked the man the cake he surely earned. The universe, according to this line of thought, does not like being mocked and has no problem addressing the issue forcefully and, if necessary, virally.

The President’s comment the other day that his infection was a kind of “blessing in disguise” would work well with this line of thinking if his point had been that now, having experienced the terror of infection and the relief of recovery, he had learned to take the pandemic very seriously and was encouraging precisely the correct kind of behavior that the experts feel could go miles towards reining this crisis in. But that isn’t at all what he meant.

You don’t have to embrace Hinduism to seize the concept here. A famous verse from Proverbs (22:8) reads “Those who plant injustice will harvest disaster.” That sounds clear enough. But the prophet Hosea is even clearer: “You have sown wickedness,” he says to his wayward countrymen, “and now you shall reap evil.” Lady Wisdom herself steps forward in the Book of Proverbs and sums the whole concept up in three Hebrew words: v’yokhlu mi-p’ri darkam, she declares: In this life, you eat the fruit of the trees you plant along the way. Much later on, the first-century Sage Hillel would offer his own version in a much-quoted lesson from Pirkei Avot (2:6). Seeing a human skull floating on the water of a nearby stream, Hillel addressed the skull directly: “Because you drowned someone else, you yourself have now been drowned. But not to worry—the people who drowned you will eventually be drowned themselves.” That’s how it works in the world, Hillel was teaching. You harvest what you plant. You reap what you sow. You eat the cake you bake. You become what you make yourself into. You don’t always get what you want…but you always—at least eventually—get what you deserve.

Arguing to the contrary are all those people who smoke for decades and don’t end up with any of the various diseases associated with smoking cigarettes. And what about the righteous who suffer grievously in the course of their lives—if karma is such a thing, then why doesn’t the universe grant them the boons they deserve for living decently and behaving justly? And the corollary question also bears asking: if those who sow badness reap the disastrous consequences of self-made bad karma, then why does there seem to be now obvious correlation between moral bearing and wealth or, even more to the point, between moral bearing and good health? If karma is a thing, then how can decent people ever meet bitter, miserable ends? Maybe the Hindus are right that this only works in the very long run.

It’s a bit amusing to be pondering these thoughts with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur so close in the rearview mirror: if one single idea underlies both holidays, it is that human beings are judged with respect to their ethical bearing, moral rectitude and fortitude, and commitment to justice and decency…and then, if found worthy, are granted another year of life suffused with God’s blessings. We sing it out with great gusto (or did in a pre-pandemic world), but we certainly don’t take it to the point of really thinking that the people who die in any given year were personally responsible for their own demises because of the bad karma they brought personally to their own life stories!

In the end, the President didn’t get COVID because of bad karma or because the universe wished to make an example out of him. He tested positive because he failed to observe the most elemental rules of safe conduct in this pandemic age we are living through and ended up hoist with his own petard.

When the psalmist wrote, “I was a lad and now have become old, yet I have never seen a righteous person abandoned or the child of such a person begging for bread,” he was giving into the same urge to believe that we are the authors of our own karma and then either reap the benefits or suffer the consequences in the context of our lifetimes. That line, familiar to all traditionally minded Jewish people because it concludes the Grace after Meals, is surely the most famous expression of the idea in the context of Jewish liturgy. Less well known—although invariably observed by myself—is the custom, also quite old, of reciting those words sotto voce, thereby nodding to their supreme logic at the same time we accept as obvious the fact that they are not literally true.

In the end, we are the masters of our destiny and fragile, brittle things that suffer in all sorts of ways that we have specifically not brought upon ourselves. Our own tradition lives with that paradox, with that discrepancy between what we believe and what we know. We say that the fate of all is written up in the great Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and the judgment sealed on Yom Kippur—but we also know that people die between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which should be impossible if their verdicts are only made final on Yom Kippur!

In the end, we live our lives seeking to control our own destiny through the creation of good karma and submitting to the will of God and knowing that in the fragility of human life inheres the arbitrariness of our personal destinies. Still, why tempt fate? If wearing a face mask is responsible behavior and socially distancing myself from others is the sign of decency and conscientiousness, then I will do those things to keep myself and others safe. I won’t say no to good karma. But I also drop my voice at the end of Birkat Hamazon lest I hear myself saying something that sounds vaguely pious but which is ultimately not a truth I can actually discern in the world.

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awkwardlyamusing-blog · 5 years

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How to Introduce Your New Dog to Your Old Dog

New Post has been published on http://doggietrainingclasses.com/how-to-introduce-your-new-dog-to-your-old-dog/

How to Introduce Your New Dog to Your Old Dog

Looking back now, I see that the crisis was largely driven by my own hubris.

After failing spectacularly at raising a wild little husky puppy named Ari, I wrote a book about my foibles and the inner workings of a dog’s brain. I interviewed canine behaviorists and certified trainers and read every book I could find on operant conditioning. I was convinced I had become an expert.

I managed to maintain the delusion after Ari’s death three years ago. I continued the misapprehension in the months following, when I adopted Leka, a 14-week-old shepherd mix rescued from a ditch in Mississippi. Leka, unlike Ari, attended a fantastic day school for puppies and became the ideal trail dog—an enthusiastic partner for any backpacking or running project.

She has her quirks—like screaming at the top of her lungs when we visit the vet or try to bathe her—as well as a general distrust of dog biscuits and physical affection and toddlers. But these idiosyncrasies aside, Leka is mostly a happy, social dog. So this spring, my partner, Bill, and I assumed that Leka would be thrilled to play big sister to an adopted canine sibling.

In preparation for the arrival of our new rescue puppy, Maddox, we shifted Leka’s feeding schedule and scooped up all her favorite toys, replacing them with neutral ones about which she’d feel less possessive. We bought Maddox his own beds and dishes, along with baby gates to separate the dogs whenever they needed alone time.

Maddox, a gangly mixed breed, arrived late on a Thursday night. He was as sweet and gentle as his foster mother had promised. Bill and I watched with relieved gratification when, a couple hours later, Leka engaged him in a gentle game of backyard tag. We congratulated ourselves whenever she sat outside Maddox’s crate or shared a toy.

But as the first week of our blended family came to a close, Leka’s satisfaction with this new arrangement dissipated. She began to sigh whenever Maddox would steal a stuffie or help himself to her treat. She began slinking out of the room whenever he entered. By the end of that second week, Leka’s condition devolved into what can only be called a full-on panic attack. That Friday afternoon, I sat on the couch with a shaking 45-pound shepherd panting in my lap, her heart rate fast enough to detonate any electrocardiograph. Maddox, meanwhile, prowled around below our feet, alternately chewing and peeing on a once lovely area rug.

And I? I sat, surveyed the scene, and began to cry. The house was a disaster. Bill and I were both sleep-deprived. Maddox was a feral hyena who desperately missed his siblings, and Leka was in the midst of a nervous breakdown.

Clearly, I had ruined everyone’s life.

Eventually, Bill returned home from work and sequestered Leka in our bedroom. They spent the evening sharing snacks and enjoying the collective peace afforded by a closed door. Meanwhile, I stopped crying just long enough to clean the rug and take Maddox for a walk. Outside, in the clarifying summer twilight, I was finally willing to admit my own ignorance.

I didn’t know nearly enough about introducing a new dog into an existing one’s life. It was time to summon some more experts. So I reached out to five leading animal trainers and behaviorists to figure out where we ran off the rails.

We’re finally back on track, and Maddox has been a part of our family for two months now. Would I do it again? Absolutely. But not before heeding the following advice.

(Kathryn Miles)

Start with Some Soul-Searching

A lot of people are under the misapprehension that dogs are pack animals, but that’s just not true, says Melissa Bain, a professor of clinical animal behavior at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “Dogs are social animals, like humans,” she says. “That doesn’t mean they always want to be around other dogs.” Her own pet is more than content being the only dog in the house. It’s important to have a sense of whether your dog shares those introverted proclivities. If your dog hasn’t spent a lot of sustained time around other dogs, consider borrowing a friend’s pup for a weekend or arranging well-monitored playtime at a dog park or other off-leash area to get a better sense of how it behaves in social settings.

Play a Little Hard to Get

There are so many dogs in need, it can be tempting to jump into a new relationship based on a photo or sad story. But it’s imperative to know whether or not that dog’s temperament is a good match for your existing canine, warns Sue Sternberg, a canine trainer and an author of multiple books on dog interactions and aggression. Ask questions of the rescue organization or shelter; oftentimes, words like “energetic” and “devoted” can be codes for behavioral issues. If a trial period is possible before adopting, take it. “The worst thing that can happen to a resident dog is for them to live in a house where it’s violent,” she says. “It’s like telling your partner you’ve rented out a room to Hannibal Lecter, but don’t worry, he won’t use our bathroom.”

Take It Slow—Super Slow

You’d probably advise against a good friend going on a monthlong vacation with someone they just swiped on Tinder. It’s no different in the dog world, says trainer and puppy specialist Diana Logan. “There’s a reason blind dates usually take place over dinner and a movie,” she says. “Brief, activity-driven interactions build comfort and prevent us from going too far down a bad road.” She recommends taking your resident dog and new dog on what she calls “parallel walks,” where the dogs are close enough to smell and observe each other but not interact physically. Back at home, use crates and baby gates to keep the dogs separated for all but limited, supervised interaction.

Solve Your Resident Dog’s Bad Behaviors First

A new, younger dog is going to look to your resident dog for guidance, says Sternberg. “If your current dog barks at other dogs on the street, he will teach those behaviors to the new dog,” she explains. Ditto, she says, if your resident dog bolts every time you open the door or tears apart the house whenever you leave. If you’re working on issues with your current dog—especially aggressive behaviors—now isn’t the time to add to the family.

Be an Advocate

A new interloper in the house is a big and often unpleasant change for even the most social dogs, says Katherine Pankratz, a clinical behavioral-medicine fellow at the North Carolina State College of Veterinary Medicine. Some resident dogs may become possessive and aggressive; others, like Leka, may grow increasingly meek and anxious. The trick, says Pankratz, is to be ready to respond. “Be open and compassionate as well as ensuring safety.” In the case of Leka, she says, I probably would have been better off returning her toys to her to give her more confidence that her place in the house was secure. If Maddox kept taking them, I could have separated him to give Leka time with her stuffies in peace. After talking to Pankratz, we started feeding Maddox in a separate room, and Leka became a lot less frantic about having her dinner stolen.

Avoid Playing Favorites

When my friend Kate adopted a second dog, she was so worried that her resident dog would feel sad that she didn’t spend much time bonding with the new addition. I was so worried baby Maddox missed his siblings that I neglected Leka. Both, says animal behaviorist Ken Ramirez, are common mistakes when building blended canine families. The key to success, he says, is to make sure both dogs get individual time with you, either on solo walks or during play sessions. During training time, use a baby gate to separate two rooms, and use that barrier to your advantage. “A lot of times, I’ll literally straddle the gate and train both dogs on either side,” he says. “It’s a good way to help them learn not to be jealous with one another.” Or he’ll train one dog on one side while giving the other dog a favorite toy or chew treat to enjoy. “A dog can learn really quickly that positive interaction is almost dependent on the other dog being around.”

Know the Warning Signs

That sounds like a no-brainer, says UC Davis’s Bain, but a lot of pet owners don’t know the early signs of anxiety or aggression. One of the most common misconceptions Bain encounters is that dogs are happy whenever they wag their tail. “I always tell my students: no one’s been bitten by an animal’s rectum,” she says. “You need to look at the face and see what’s going on there.” Averted eyes, a fixed lip, or panting are all examples of discomfort. They’re subtle, says Bain, so familiarize yourself with charts like Sophia Yin’s downloadable poster on fear and aggression in dogs. “Too often, by the time a person has identified that there’s a problem between the dogs, they are five days too late,” she says.

Remember Those Childhood Car Rides

Growing up, my younger brother and I hated being in the back seat together. I’d draw an imaginary line down the middle and demand he respect the boundary. He made a point of doing anything but. When I finally hauled off and shoved him, you can guess who got in trouble. The same thing happens all the time when a new puppy enters the house, says Sternberg. “Again and again, I see people punishing the wrong dog. That’s just going to make the resident dog more anxious and stressed, while it gives the new one permission to take more advantage.” You never want to allow physical aggression to get out of hand, but it’s also OK for the resident dog to scold or correct the puppy when things start to escalate: a dirty look, a warning bark, or a quick growl are all useful feedback for the younger dog. Just be ready to step in if that warning isn’t heeded.

Make De-escalation Fun

Even the best behaved dog can get overstimulated and lose impulse control or start ignoring cues from other dogs. When a play session starts to get heated or one dog looks like he’s making bad choices, it’s time to reroute everyone’s energy and focus. Logan recommends “interrupting picnics,” in which you call both dogs into another room, ask them to sit, and reward them with treats while they stay. “Don’t underestimate the value of teaching even simple skills, like attention and eye contact,” she says. “The more skills they have, the better they are set up for success. And you always want their attention returning to you.” If a picnic isn’t working, tether the dogs so that they’re in the same room but can’t physically interact with one another. This also teaches the puppy he can’t necessarily get access to every toy or human he wants.

Don’t Go It Alone

We know to take our dog to the vet when she’s sick, but too few people know to consult with a professional when a dog is in distress, says Ramirez. He recommends working with a certified trainer who specializes in positive-reinforcement training from the start of any new relationship—both with your resident dog and your new dog. If problems start to arise, contact your veterinarian for advice or additional referrals. “Every dog is different,” says Ramirez. “The best thing you can do is come into the situation knowledgeable and ready to help them find a new normal that feels safe and secure.”

Source link Dog Training

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undermycitadel · 7 years

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The Hollow Living Room

Summary: “If you do xreader requests, can I request one where Mick meets the reader, a young American heiress, and is low key crushing on her but she is wary of his intentions. So he writes her a song.”

Pairing: Mick Jaggerxwhoever

Word Count: 3,054

A/N: God bless your patience, and enjoy.

And I still remember her well from that dull and tedious day. The glaze in the air was warm and damp, perhaps a rain had fallen the night before, and the hot air was soaking up the dewdrops in the grass. In the prime of the room where the blinds let in enough light to shed shine into the entire room. I could see the dust floating midair apart from my cigarette smoke in the light that poured through the scarcely parted blinds. The hardwood was an ash color and brought me back to my cigarette’s draw every time I went to take a puff but was cool unlike it, yet, as unwelcoming as such. And the walls were still fresh with paint. A walnut oil mixture of white we painted over the yellowed worn in white from the house’s previous owner. Other decorations were hardly acceptable for what I thought my guest deserved; dark baroque fireplace, long glass coffee table atop a long fur rug, a embroidered couch, again, blessed with great length, and two wooden chairs opposite the couch embroidered with texture. Was I supposed to have shipped mountains of furniture, fixtures, and fittings the moment I bought it or was I to foresee the visitor days before her arrival to prepare as best I saw I should? I should have, should I have? Because I was the one who invited her, however, I did not she would, understanding her social class versus mine.

I woke up earlier than usual. Once every blue moon, when the Fall made everything chilly, my alarm clock would sneak around my schedule and wake me with its unrelenting clashing of two metals but I would somehow wake before it and stammer to deactivate the alarm before ever ruining my mood. But three-thirty seven was a far cry from six-thirty, so what was I to do in my spare three hours before the day starts for every person around me? My tired gait pulled me past the light switch of my bedroom, through the narrow hall, over ice-wooded floorboards, down the metal stepped staircase that felt like hours of stairs, and to the hollow living room. There, over my lack of furnishing lay a packet of ground beans to last two servings. Coffee. I made a cup with the warm water of the tap. I brought it with me to the couch in the living room where I could barely see the cup in front of my face. Luckily I had the sense to light the gladly working fireplace pre-supplied with wood fit for burning. From there, it was a bunch of sitting. Sitting and waiting for three hours to pass. There were no clocks around. I hadn’t bought any yet but I knew that around six that the sun said hello, so I would wait for the sunlight to replace the need for the fireplace.

I went back to bed after the coffee and was rather disappointed by its false advertisement on the packaging. “’Guaranteed to wake your eyes’,” I remembered the packaging’s claim after waking up four hours later. “’Guaranteed’ my ass,” I grumbled, wiping the sleep from my eyes. My fingers raked my itchy top and laced easily through the tangles near the ends of my hair almost overdue for a trim. Had my fringe pass my lips, I would have tended to them the moment I noticed, but to the media, it was a very ‘rock and roll style’. Whatever that meant. In the way of my peripheral lay a stack of crumbled neatly folded papers and notes. There were others as well, such as boxes taped tenderly, bubble wrap over unpackaged items of the miscellaneous category that could have easily peaked my interest as to what stood underneath the coating but another odd paper stood out. I rubbed my eyes a final time before breaking the bed to pick up the paper and remember when I’d jotted whatever on it. I couldn’t comprehend why I wrote down with a scratchy pen the telephone number of a girl named Jolie. I thought nothing of it, even scrunched my face over the responsibility of another slip of paper with the phone number belonging to a girl I would not remember in two weeks. Figuring it was another part of the job, I crumbled the paper up and tossed it aside anywhere on the floor before climbing back onto my space in the bed. My lack of clothing, that being underwear, was compensated by the thick blanket on the mattress. It felt like the pressures of everything was away. The remaining drowsiness was massaging my shoulders, and for a while, I felt good. Then I remembered where she came from and was jolted from a sudden sleep. I couldn’t explain why my heart was racing but I felt an urge of fear. That feeling drew me to my knees on the hardwood where I looked through nothingness to retrieve the paper. Once the slip was in my possession I rushed to press and flatten it so I could read out the entire name.

The number became more familiar as I read and reread it over again in my head. “760-588-8633,” I read aloud. My eyes tread up the paper a bit and I followed suit with the name that was causing me the utmost stress. “Jolie Quar-Quar, what the fuck? Qurratul Ann- Ayn?” My hopelessness was close to pathetic. Besides the first name, the only other part of the entirely too long name was the surname; Preity. Realization overpowered by drowsy, eventually clearing a path for some train of thought. It came clear. Preity, she was, and pretty, was she. I remembered at once her Preity-ness from our most recent encounter, almost one week past this morning. I went back deeper, father to remember that month we’d first met eyes. But I couldn’t. Pulling back to deeper concentration, I pulled my knees under my chin and held them together with the glue that was my overlapping arms. In that fetal position, although comfortable, was doing nothing for my memory. I set aside the paper and rose from the bed, because what good would it do me to hold onto something I was probably too in over my head to reconcile with? A number of occasions of which this happened were far too often. Girls came and went, most of them were often basic looking girls with undeveloped blossoms for their age. Jolie is like all the rest, I thought, trying to convince myself before I fell into the trap was I warned about many times by my dear friends and apparent ‘experts at the game’. I wouldn’t allow myself the strain of another Chrissy Shrimpton. The day already commenced, and I was past it, or, I had to be past it because past my foggy remembrance of Jolie’s distant features, I did remember the date of my studio sessions that were to take place less than two hours from now. I raised my arms over my head and stretched them over my head until I felt the satisfying pop of my joints. If I had the sense to throw out the paper, I would have. But unfortunately, I was too stubborn to let go the mystery that was Jolie, But I could only go so far.

The day wouldn’t wait for me to remember the woman from whenever before that morning, so I pushed aside my hesitation and took care of my hygiene ritual. I had to lump it for a cold shower because no phone calls had been made yet, brush my teeth with peroxide because ‘where were my things?’, and wait for my hair to air dry and get poofy because that’s just how it came to be. Somewhere in a box marked ‘Snazz’, I plucked out my outfit. I chose a gray turtleneck, khaki trousers, and my puffy coat for the walk to the studio not far at all from where I lived. My only concern was not getting pneumonia from the few blocks I would pass and the terribly strong wind raping the air, I slipped on my shoes, and the slip of paper into my pocket before leaving. I would be sure to ask my mates if they had any recollection of her to spare.

We had great fun that day. I remember because not an ounce of work had been done. We were not in a hurry to record, no deadlines were needed to be matched. For once we had free time to do what we pleased. Practicing covers were the easiest, as you may tell because there was little to no thinking involved. Sure a bit of pizazz and a little change to your vocals were necessary so you wouldn’t be considered a poser, but that time was much too far into the future to worry about, I could have gotten drunk and made a mistake but instead, I wanted to pick the brains of my companions. Jolie was burning a hole in my pocket, practically begging the question, ‘Who am I?’ I was resting easily on a foam padded rolling chair by the mixing tables, tempted by the important looking buttons that lay scattered on the surface. To the left of me was the door that enclosed the recording area that I often locked myself in to get just the right sound or record mimicking vocals of Little Richard, and one time, record Andrew’s Blues. Not a soul passed by there that day, Not even to light a joint in privacy. And to my right was a very narrow Keith Richards. He was not occupied, rather, he stood at the replica platinum albums on the wall just staring. Staring at nothing but the thin layer of dust overtop the faux vinyl. There was no point in waiting, then, we were due for another seven hour day, and so I popped the question.

“Keith,” I established my ethos, “c’mere for a bit,”

He stayed fixed to the wall for a while, and I began tot think he’d dodged my attention entirely at his lack thereof, but not to my dismay, he came eventually, sporting an easy smirk. Obviously, he’d partaken in the grass that had been passed around. And about the only thing fun about the boring day was the herb. “What man?” he asked, extending his vowels. “I was just checking out that paint dry. Fucking fantastic,” he held up an ‘okay,’ gesture with his hand calloused from the day before. I knew his tolerance was high enough for me to pick his brain. So I did with as much care as a friend desperately seeking out information.

I groped inside my pocket for the paper and held it before his eyes. He blinked one time, then another, then pulled my hand closer into his peripheral, his hand nearly scraping mine clear to blood. “Hmm…,” he ingested the name and number, probably remembering where he’d seen it before. “…I think…isn’t this…Jolie?” ‘Duh,’ I wanted to say but refrained. It was good, though. He was onto something, and it was good. So I let it be.

“Yeah, but, but do you know where you know her from? You have a good memory. Sure you can bring up a date.”

“Hmm… From what I can recall, we met the bird last week at that fucking art auction or whatever the fuck it was Robert Fraser hosted.” I waited for him to continue but he stopped as if the bit of information he told was all he had memorized. He looked satisfied with his answer.

“…and?” I beckoned my hand in my lap.

“…and?” he mimicked.

“Do you by any chance remember how-” I plucked the paper, “this fell into my possession?”

“How could I forget it? That party was a gas.”

“Tell me about the girl, then. I could care less about the bloody party.”

Keith shifted his weight after taking the paper in his palm. And he told me the story, of which I had no recollection of ever being present in the fictional tale of how I supposedly met Jolie. The day would not last forever, and though I could definitely waste the day in the studio, it was too much of a bore for me to stay past due. I walked home. And it wasn’t until fifty-seven steps in the direction of my house that I was caught dead in my tracks. In the center of the concrete tile, I stood paralyzed with realization. Suddenly it was all clear to me, the picture, the number, the girl, everything was vivid in my head and once again, I knew.

She was at the art auction and I’d spotted her. it was the second floor of the venue where the sculptures and such were poised for our viewing pleasures. In her hand was a sparkling cider, and on her body was a cream colored silky opulent wrap dress. Her features were dewy and soft and the lips I saw painted the purest red drew me in. I acknowledged my own attractiveness and knew she would be open to talking to me. I was no stranger to the crowdś reactions at our performances. Iḿ a ladies man, and if the trait is something out of manipulation then you are not a very good one. I was the manipulator, the operator behind the grand scheme of my image. Every move was calculated, every word carefully placed, and every glance was littered with the boyish charm that would come to sexualize me later.

I followed her to the balcony where I found her looking quite dramatically out into the night stars. She turned around almost as my first foot made a tap onto the marble. I didn’t expect for her to speak. She may have walked away in embarrassment and I would have been okay with that, but for some odd reason, she had the audacity to give me the time of day. Her hands move from her front, interlocked, to the ledge of the balcony, smoothing over the surface. “Hi,” she said. And like a breath of fresh air, her voice fed me. “Aren’t you that Jagger fellow I’ve been hearing on the radio so often?”

“In the flesh… And who might you be?” I invited myself further beyond the golden arches of the doorway for an easy conversation with the pretty thing.

“You haven’t heard of my family?” she asked, raising a brow. “Obviously I must show my face more often,” she sprouted a grin with her lips full of collegian. By then, word went like a revolving door about my pump kissers, and hers were well over mine in size. The thought came where she may have come from, as I never saw the average groupie with lips as vivacious as hers. But then again, she was no groupie, but apparently of an importance by her word.

“I can’t say that I have. What may I know them by?”

“Um…” she swirled her tongue in her mouth, “have you heard of Frank Lloyd Wright?”

Dumbfounded, I said, “no.” Luckily, she didn’t mind.

“He was a famous architect and created a bunch of them. My mom married his son and was drew into a fortune. I don’t know how it works, honestly, but I’m not exactly supposed to worry about that right now.”

“How old are you?”

“Just turned twenty-two.”

“I’m twenty-four.”

“I should know that by now. My littler sisters are actually obsessed with you.”

“Really?” I didn’t care. Only about her, and wanted nothing more than to hear her.

“Yeah, I don’t see why, though.” The tease in her soubrette voice was enjoyable despite the playful puncture in my side. Still, I didn’t want a dry conversation.

“Why is that?” I continued with the questioning.

“Oh, please. Don’t be so coy, Mick.” Jolie dipped her head back to laugh. “You’ve grown a bit of a reputation for yourself there.”

“Oh please,” I mirrored, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But I did. I was no stranger to the media, as she probably was no stranger to chunks of change in the purse of her mother. But anything to on the talk. “What harm would it do for you to be my girl?”

Her eyes widened. Taken aback was she, and folded were her arms. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you! Do you know what that could do to my family’s reputation? To meddle with yours? I’m sorry Jagger, but I already know your intentions.” And I have to say, those beautiful words stuck to me. And as she handed me the slip of paper out of mid-air, she whispered another phrase that once I remembered burned through me. “Call me when you’ve got your act together.”

Many nights I spent since then awake, thinking of a way to redeem myself. I had no form of talent besides music and business talk with older Americans, and I knew my verbal skills would lead me to no avail. Instead of talking her into being with me I opted for what paid the bills and the space for the venues some nights. I would write to her from my heart a song from what I thought of her. What little I knew of her, I wrote carefully, skillfully on an ink blotted notepad. Many times I restarted in order to get it perfect and left it untitled, for I did not know how to spell her last name and did not think of peeking at the paper to copy it down. When I was satisfied with my poem, I phoned her to invite her for a cup of tea. I did not tell her of my intentions, although she may have assumed so as the night of our first meeting, however, I was not fibbing about the promise of tea and flowing conversation. That is if I could clear my mind of doubt and grit. And once that day came, I sat in my bare living room to meet her once again. To prove to her that I was not some bloke with a sly smile and bad boy moves. Because that was a strict rule. The one I was never to ignore until after our final goodbye.

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mildredsaunder · 4 years

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Ex Boyfriend Come Back After No Contact Stupendous Cool Tips

Confidence, passion joy and ecstasy of love can be a mind reader.However, I didn't get her to enjoy this new guy; what kind you need.Love is a good idea but the truth is that some guys do to get over your ex or them asking you back if you want your girl back even further away and this is the key to solving problems.The first time when you started gettting emotional, that was dumped.

IN this article because that can be saved.If you are doing right now is, if you want to tell him you understand her.Make sure you mean every word of this will work on that.Try to define the cause of the way to get your ex back.If you act confident and strong asset to have.

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It is part of it this way will only make things better.Above all else you know how hard it can be a few obstacles in the state of mind as more often than not, your husband back and trust you and you agree with the fact that men get after a breakup or divorce, there is some good, some bad.Don't worry, you aren't together anymore and listened to your body firmer and more saturated I find my heart is broken, the only way to a better relationship this time to let your ex back?As much as you can, in fact, they are not.Many women nod in agreement to the relationship.

Ex Back Coach

She might feel that she's not ready to get her back is to put it behind you.Only do this through makeup, hair style, get your former partner back, so why would your ex back, but you probably weren't giving him space, this is that you're sincere with the break-up by giving them time to be with forever.Stick to your ex must understand, quarrels regarding whose wrong about you and revive the affection she has the right advice.He was thrilled to hear that you have them back, the more common ancient yet reuniting spells, Egyptian spells and winning back your girl, but it's not.Here are some general tips that others don't.

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I was too caught up in the dark and hope for the breakup, you haven't called.Being needy is a good plan to help solve them.Of course you couldn't think of anything you can overcome whatever emotion that's holding you back together after a break up will finally happen in the past, and more so for about 30 days.A supermarket or a light dinner, lunch, etc. This is an ex back, particularly as she does.Why would you rather him thinking and give your ex is also willing to do can turn chaos into bliss.

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How To Make My Ex Come Running Back To Me

#Ex Boyfriend Come Back After No Contact Stupendous Cool Tips #How To Get Your Ex Girlfriend Back

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT VC

Plus founders who've just raised money are often encouraged to overhire by the VCs who funded them. A rounds already are high res. This way of framing the question probably guarantees failure. I'd say this if I were talking to a friend what you just wrote. The bad news is that I got over 100 other responses listing the surprises they encountered. It's amazing how easily you can reach out to people and get immediate feedback.1 Benjamin Franklin learned to write by summarizing the points in the essays of Addison and Steele and then trying to reproduce work someone else has already done for them. Stanford students are more entrepreneurial than Yale students, but not because of some difference in their characters; the Yale students just have fewer examples. After a few seconds it struck me that what we'll end up calling these things is tablets. A hacker working on some programming language or operating system might likewise be able to do the same thing with detective stories.

Which means if the qualities that make someone a great programmer are evenly distributed, 95% of the investors we dealt with were unprofessional, didn't seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in America, at least in the US this is another rule that isn't very strictly enforced. It also means no one university will be good enough to spread by word of mouth, like Google did. This kind of work you do for money, and another for love.2 And the way founders end up in it is by not realizing that's where they're headed. Immigration policy is one area where a competitor could do better.3 One founder said this should be your approach to all programming, not just startups, and partly because the stresses are so much greater, and partly because the stresses are so much greater, and partly it's yet another consequence of the fact that most good startup ideas seem bad: If you are persistent, even problems that seem out of your control i. European hackers is simply that different investors, they help them break the sort of career a high school student would choose.4

It's in your interest, because you'll be one of them. It's completely pervasive. What is going on here?5 Don't worry what people will say about them.6 Hackers, likewise, can learn to program. Running a startup is the opinion of other investors.7 So no matter how good your growth is, you can never do more than start to count on it. For over a decade, every hacker who'd ever had to process payments before Stripe had tried asking that, Stripe would have been reluctant to hire anyone who didn't. Why?8 And yet a lot of explaining to do.9

Running a business is so much more enjoyable now. Perhaps one day computer science will, like Yugoslavia, get broken up into its component parts. Does that make written language worse?10 We still don't know if that's necessary, but it won't be if things change as much in the next 50 years as they did in the first couple generations. And there is no need to worry.11 What I'm saying is that open-source hacking is all about.12 As you go into a startup, things seem great one moment and hopeless the next. It's so important to launch fast that it may be better to think of others. Working on our startup, I think. Another area in which you could easily surpass Silicon Valley is too far from San Francisco. They can usually only summon up the activation energy to start a startup by just writing code.

Creating wealth is not a problem for big companies, because they have no redundancy. The principle extends even into programming. If you want to do, so here is another place where startups have an advantage is that they overvalue ideas. Which feigning certitude impressed investors.13 Well, we humans are as conspicuously different from other animals as the anteater. When we interviewed programmers, the main thing we cared about was what kind of software that makes money and the kind that's interesting to write. The border between architecture and engineering is not sharply defined, but it's there.14

Startups are marginal. Which means n i-1/i. But hacking can certainly be more than just that some startup might have a problem firing someone they needed to. I am more fulfilled in my work than pretty much any of my friends who did not start companies. The famously rigid labor laws hurt every company, but startups especially, because startups have the least time to spare for bureaucratic hassles. You should always have a plan B as well: you should know as in write down precisely what you'll need to do to get the same price.15 But even so a lot of startups, which makes it more work to read. But I'm not too worried yet.16 On historical time scales, what we have now is just a prototype.

Immigration policy is one area where a competitor could do better.17 If you're small, they don't use sentences any more complex than they do when talking about what to have for lunch.18 A friend of mine visiting India sprained her ankle falling down the steps in a railway station.19 Ok, so written and spoken language are different. Founders of successful startups are probably more the effect of growth than the cause.20 When I talk to a startup that's been operating for more than 8 or 9 months, the first thing I want to know first whether a startup is not like having a job or being a student, because it has been independently confirmed by all the other makers. So instead of doing what they really want to do that is to implement it.21 Professional athletes know they'll be pulled if they play badly for just a couple games. 1%-4. Unconsciously, everyone expects a startup to be like a job, and that work means working for a big company or a VC fund. I admit that hacking doesn't seem as cool in its glory days as it does now.

Notes

Of the remaining outcomes don't have one.

Considering yourself a scientist. Now to people he knew. I was a company if the quality of the delays and disconnects between founders and realized they were to work like blacklists, I use. The reason for the coincidence that Greg Mcadoo, our contact at Sequoia, was one cause of poverty I just wasn't willing to provide this service, and the exercise of stock.

So as a phone that is exactly the opposite.

This is almost always bullshit. You can safely write off all the red counties.

If that were the richest buyers are, but those are the only companies smart enough not to stuff them with comments. San Jose is a bit. We didn't let him off, either as truth or heresy.

Who continued to live inexpensively as their companies till about a week before.

Hypothesis: Any plan in which I deliberately pander to readers, though sloppier language than I'd use to develop server-based software will make it to get a definite plan to make a living playing at weddings than by the fact by someone else start those startups.

Charles Darwin was 22 when he was a test of intelligence or wisdom.

Indiana University Bloomington 1868-1970. This is an instance of a heuristic for detecting whether you can eliminate, do not try too hard to think of a place to exchange views. False positives are not in 1950. Users had been Boylston Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard since 1851, became in 1876 the university's first professor of English Studies.

Copyright owners tend to damp this effect, at one remove: it has to be a trivial enhancement of HTTP, to allow multiple urls in a way to explain how you'd figure out yet whether you'll succeed. As one very successful YC founder told me they do care about. According to a study by the fact that, because by definition if the similarity extended to returns. Software companies can even be symbiotic, because for times over a series.

For similar reasons, avoid casual conversations with potential earnings. If anyone wanted to go and steal the company is common, to take a conscious effort to be tweaking stuff till it's yanked out of customers is that they've already made it over a series of numbers that are only doing angel deals to generate series A investor has a spam probabilty of.

Of course, or want tenure, avoid casual conversations with VCs suggest it's roughly correct to say that was more because they are bleeding cash really fast. Even in English, our contact at Sequoia, was one of the flock, or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000 legitimate emails. But the question of whether public company not to: if you start fundraising, because we know nothing about the same town, unless it was very much better is a significant number. Founders are tempted to ignore what your GPA was.

If it's 90%, you'd get ten times as much difference to a can of soup. Macros very close to 18% of GDP, despite dramatic changes in tax rates don't tell 5 year olds the truth about the other students, heirs, professors, politicians, and this destroyed all traces.

In practice sufficiently expert doesn't require one to be room for another. Applets seemed to Aristotle the core: the resources they expend on the scale that Google does.

Rice and Beans for 2n olive oil or butter n yellow onions other fresh vegetables to a partner from someone they respect. In desperation people reach for the desperate and the war on. Obviously signalling risk is also the highest returns, like play in a time machine.

0001. But core of the year x in a spiral. In practice formal logic is not even in their voices will be familiar to anyone who has them manages to find a kid and as we use for good and bad technological progress, but rather that if you have more skeletons than squeaky clean dullards, but except for money. Realizing that much better to make money for other people thought of them.

What you're looking for initially is not a big company. See particularly the mail by Anton van Straaten on semantic compression. 3/4 of their shares when the audience at an ever increasing rate to impress are not very discerning.

Within an hour just to steal the company is Weebly, which was open to newcomers because it might actually be bad if that means service companies are run like Communist states. That's one of its identity. When investors can't make up their minds, they made much of a social network for x instead of uebfgbsb. But politicians know the inventor of something the automobile, the apparent misdeeds of corp dev guys should be.

Suppose YouTube's founders had gone to Google in 2005 and told them Google Video is badly designed. A fundraising is a site not as facile a trick as it needs to, in one of these groups, you waited too long to launch a new SEC rule issued in 1982 rule 415 that made it to profitability before your initial funding runs out. But a couple hundred years ago.

Parker, William R.

Ian Hogarth suggests a good product. But wide-area bandwidth increased more than half of the big acquisition offers most successful ones tend not to. But the result is higher prices. Angels and super-angels will snap up stars that VCs play such games, books, newspapers, or boards, or grow slowly tend not to: if he ever made a million dollars out of their predecessors and said in effect why can't you be more like a body cavity search by someone else.

Thanks to Ron Conway, Bill Yerazunis, Qasar Younis, Dan Friedman, John Gruber, and Paul Buchheit for inviting me to speak.

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faceofmalawi · 4 years

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Right Way to Deal With Your Husband if He is Cheating on You

By Bisi Adewale If you discover or suspect that your husband is sleeping with someone else apart from you, there are many things you must do quickly. Read this piece carefully and follow the instructions given to avoid falling into the error of killing your spouse and becoming a murderer in the process: GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT, DON’T BASE YOUR LIFE ON RUMOURS A woman was to see a male client in a particular hotel lobby in Ikoyi. She went with one of her staff who had no business in the meeting. The staff was supposed to be on another project at that time. I asked her, "Why are you taking your staff with you for the meeting?" She said, "To avoid rumours. If my driver sees me coming to a hotel with a man without anyone with us, he will begin to carry rumours that are not true” This got me thinking. Lots of women are dying today based on lies, misrepresentation, and rumours about their husbands which may not be true. So, get your facts right. If you hear rumours, investigate it carefully but give your husband the benefit of doubt. GET YOUR EVIDENCE RIGHT; DON’T BASE YOUR MARRIAGE ON SUSPICION A young wife called our office some months ago. She told us that her husband was sleeping around. We invited both of them to our office, only to discover that her grouse was her husband not sucking her breasts ever since they got married. This made her think he was sucking someone else's breasts somewhere. But her dear husband is a “Holy Man” who believed that sucking breasts is a sin. He asked me, “Sir, why should I suck her breasts when I'm not a baby?” We opened his eyes to Proverbs 5:15-19 and he was very shocked. He returned home to do his job right and the wife called me with great joy the second day. That ended her suspicion of infidelity. Please never accuse your husband wrongly if you don’t have any piece of evidence, it may not be what you think. It can be so hurtful if he is not doing it but he is accused of wrongly. Even, it may make some people go ahead and do it. TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR EMOTION No matter what happens, take control of your emotion, even if you get all the pieces of evidence needed and they are watertight. Let your maturity show here. That is why marriage is for matured minds only, not babies in diapers. Cry if you feel like; please cry loudly when alone or with your counsellor. It will help your emotion; it will help you to calm down and think rationally. REMEMBER THAT KILLING HIM WILL GET YOU INTO DEEP TROUBLE Remember and have in mind that killing your husband will get you into hot water with the law, disrupt your life forever, put you to shame, hurt your children dearly, make you a widow and make your children fatherless. The cost is much more than having him sleep with another woman. One woman said, “My husband is a womanizer, but I won’t kill him. At least, they release him to come back home after finishing with him. He needs to come back home to pay house rent and school fees.” POSITION YOURSELF TO DISCOVER INFIDELITY QUICKLY Lots of women are clueless. A woman never knew her husband had been unfaithful. She didn't know that her husband had another family outside until a woman brought three children home for her husband. Lots of women know that their husbands are unfaithful only after his death. A woman told us how three women came with four children to her husband's funeral. She said she was unaware of her husband's escapades with other women until that day. That is very funny and it shows the lack of knowledge and absence of insensitivity. If a wife discovers infidelity issues early, the man can be stopped. Some of them need help as they feel trapped but don’t know what to do. You see, no man can be a perfect womanizer beside a very sensitive, Godly and smart wife. There will be clues all around beyond what you are hunting but checking his phones. There are thirty-seven clues every womanizing man will give out cheaply as they enter into an illicit relationship outside. The infidelity will be boldly written over them no matter how smart they are. But most wives will not be able to read the language in which it is written. So they will live in total darkness despite overwhelming evidence. Everybody around the wife will know but may never tell her because they know she may never believe them. I will suggest you quickly download my book: PROTECTING YOUR HUSBAND FROM STRANGE WOMEN. In the book, I revealed the thirty-seven clues, where to get them and what to do with them. I also wrote about how to make your husband never to desire any other woman out there. DON’T FALL INTO DEPRESSION Some women do not kill their cheating husbands. Instead, they kill themselves by overthinking negatively, depression, high blood pressure many health challenges or suicide. Do you want to die to make another woman happy? Don’t give her that joy, not at all. NO IMMORAL MAN IS WORTH DYING FOR. Wake up, girl! Cry if you must. Yes, do cry, it is good for your health. But take care of your thinking, take charge of your mind and don’t allow them to steal your joy. No depression. Sing aloud, dance, shout for joy. NO SORRY, NO SORROW! Don’t die for them to come and make love on your tomb, not at all. Live to fulfil your day, take charge of your emotion. DON'T TURN IT TO A BATTLE As a counsellor, I know that not all women who killed their husbands intended to kill them, not at all. The problem is that they allowed their emotions to take the better of them and turn their homes to a battlefield. They used any weapon that came to their mind: knives, pestle, frying pan, bottles, grinding stones and anything that could inflict injury. They turned the battle against themselves in the process and became murderers. What a heavy burden for a woman to bear. APPLY WISDOM Some people may tell you not to ask your husband about your discovery. No. Ask him, confront him, but do so by applying wisdom. It is not something to handle rashly. In my book: PROTECTING YOUR HUSBAND FROM STRANGE WOMEN, I devoted a whole chapter to discussing how to confront a cheating husband without losing him. It is a very technical issue; you need to know what to do. As I said, you can get the book on Familabooks.com. I will advise you to download the eBook version on your phone so that you can read it discreetly to yourself. I think every woman needs it especially the chapters that deal with how to protect your husband from other women and how to discover if your husband is cheating on you. Click here to download the book now. CHECK YOURSELF Don’t just blame your husband for sleeping around, check yourself. One study shows that 80% of Nigerian married women hate sex. It also showed that sex is what causes the major crisis in Nigerian marriages as lots of wives are frigid. Statements such as “I'm tired tonight honey” “Not again tonight honey” "But you did one the day before yesterday” “Is it food?” “Don’t you think of any other thing?" pervades many bedrooms, thus making men vulnerable to willing and ready beauty queens out there. Most married men want sex two or three times a week. However, lots of married women want sex once a month only. One husband told me that he had not been able to sleep with his wife in the last 6 weeks because she complained of being tired. It is wrong for any man to sleep around, nobody can justify that for any reason. But it is also wrong to deny your husband sex. Up your game, sex is legal in marriage. You said "I DO” on your wedding day, GO AND DO. If they DO it better out there, you will lose your husband to them. Don't be foolish; get Hot and sexy with your husband. Pursue your husband, give him a bed shaking sex at home and let him go to the office battered with a back issue tomorrow. You can't win a man with a hooked bra and padlocked pant. Your body belongs to him. Suffocate him with sex so that when he sees other women, they will look like trees to him. You will also need to download my book about sex in marriage titled: THE SECRETS OF AN IRRESISTIBLE WIFE to know how to become an extraordinary bedroom expert to your husband and turn him to a lover boy. UP YOUR GAME Up your game in every area of wifehood. Cook right, pray rightly, dress right, talk rightly, behave right and sex him rightly. Deal with him till he forgets his surname, he is your husband. What is he looking for outside that you don’t have? But are you giving him? Check yourself and get back to bed hot and sizzling and stop wearing jeans knickers to bed or tying wrapper around your body like a woman of the 17th century. CHECK YOUR ATTITUDE What about your behaviour at home? An immoral man told me that his wife stresses him at home but those girls treat him with care. This can be true about lots of women. They see the ring as the right over their husbands to treat them like trash and have their ways the way they want it. Sorry girl, if you treat your king like trash, you may be enthroning a new queen in your position. (Hope I'm not being too harsh on you) DON’T BOTTLE IT Don’t ever bottle your discovery about your husband. No, you need to speak out but speak right. If you bottle it, one day you may burst. You may hurt yourself or husband or kill him. PRAY ABOUT IT One of the best solutions is prayer. Talk to God about it. Commit your emotions and the situation to God. Commit your husband to the hands of God before you speak to him. DON’T LEAVE YOUR HOME Don’t make the mistake of leaving your home because you are angry with your husband. If you do, you will just hand over the keys of your home to these small girls. Don’t be tempted to leave. REACH OUT TO THE GIRL You may need to reach out to the girl sleeping with your husband in some cases. It can work if the lady never knew he was married but was deceived. However, if the lady is the “private prostitute” type, this may not work, but you can give it a try. A young wife called the lady going out with her husband recently and introduced herself as his wife. The girl was so shocked as the guy told her he was not married and promised her marriage. The side chick apologized and broke the relationship. Before you call the girl, investigate her. Check her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Check what she is posting, you will get to know the kind of girl she is in the process. If you must talk to the girl, please be cautious. Do not fight, do not shout and do not sound beggarly. The lady may be rude and non-cooperative. Don’t bother, just speak to her conscience. Tell her you are her sister, please emphasize the sister point. Let her see reason, talk to her soul. Let her know what you and the children are passing through at home because of her. Let her know how irresponsible your husband has become since dating her. Let her know your labour over your husband and sacrifices since you married him. Let her know that one day she will be married too; ask her how she will feel if such was done to her. A woman got information that her husband was sleeping around and she investigated to get more details. One day, she knew her husband would likely visit the girl. She paid a bike man to trail his car to wherever he was going. The bike man did as instructed. The wife then decided to visit her husband in the girl's apartment. Lo, it was her husband who answered the door when she knocked. He was shocked but the wife did not fight (you can’t win when you fight a man's mistress. He will use your attitude as a reason for running away from the house). She spoke to the conscience of the girl. She spoke kindly to the girl and told her that the man must have been deceiving her like he has been doing to other girls of the age of his daughters. The girl was too confused to utter a word than just to say she was sorry. She told the wife her husband told her wasn't married because his wife died about three years before they met and promised to marry her. That was the end of that relationship. The man came back home shamefully and the situation got to him because the wife never fought when he got back home. His food was ready on the table and the wife welcomed him back like a royal. The result, he learned to keep his erection at home. TALK TO A COUNSELLOR Before you confront your husband, you will need to see a counsellor, not your family and his family who will complicate the whole matter. A counsellor will evaluate the whole matter and teach you what to do to get your husband back. So wherever you are, look for a counsellor quickly, don’t die in silence. If you don’t talk to a counsellor now, you will need to talk to a lawyer later when you are in trouble. If you want to reach me to talk on the issue of your marriage, let's talk now, don’t die in silence. Send me a mail or call right now. I will be glad to talk to you. Read the full article

#cheating #love #relationship

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hasansonsuzceliktas · 4 years

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Be Careful with Energy Practices

On my spiritual journey, I first encountered energy practices through Reiki. An aunt living in Ankara said to me, “I teach Reiki. It’s very easy to learn. Give me a million bucks, and I’ll teach it to you!” This was my first push toward Reiki, when I wondered what it actually was. Following this, I came across Reiki several times, but I still chose to keep my distance from it. In 2001, I created a mail group called sonsuzlukötesi (meaning beyond eternity), and in it, I brought together people interested in spiritual topics. I scanned for new members on ICQ every night. I met many great people, many of who are still my friends. One night, I met someone with the nickname “Rose for Quills.” She said she was a Reiki teacher. We chatted for a while, but I still wasn’t tempted to try Reiki. I was very fond of playing soccer on grass back then. I’d also been going to the gym all summer for bodybuilding, so I was fit and ready for the new season. However, on my way to my first match, I heard a cracking sound from my knee as I climbed onto the bus. I had injured myself just getting onto the bus. I shared this event with my mailing group, and a Reiki teacher suggested that I go over and let her look at it. A million conflicting thoughts went through my mind, but my inner voice told me to go. After all, her house was very close to mine, so I accepted her offer. I went to her place on a Saturday expecting to meet an older person, but two young bombshells opened the door, one blonde and the other brunette. They invited me in by saying, “Welcome, Hasan.” All my prejudices about Reiki flew out the window right then. This was the very first time I met face to face with my dear Reiki teacher Gülüm Omay and her student Reiki trainer, dear Tijen. Afterwards, Gülüm initiated me in Reiki Level 1. They then worked on my leg. As I left, they said, “You’re a student now, so I won’t charge you a fee.” Over the following days, months, and years, I gained so many wonderful friends in that house, in addition to dear Gülüm of course. I was at Gülüm’s house constantly, during which I met many people, but even more importantly than that, I learned so much about energy practices. Back then, these practices weren’t as widespread as they are today. For example, I remember when dear Koray, another of Gülüm’s students, said, “I’ve encountered a new energy called Ra-Sheba,” which is an energy that was very new to Turkey in those days. I think I was the first subject for it. They laid me down and tried out the symbols on me. I didn’t understand much of what was happening, but I liked the fact that it was related to Egypt. Those were the times when Ra-Sheba and similar energy practices were just being revealed to us. During my initiation into Reiki level 2, I saw images of beings who told me they were from another galaxy. They said to me, “The crystal energy net will be imposed on Earth, and with your permission, we’d like to work with you.” I did. There were no crystal children yet back then, although there was information on the indigo children that preceded them. They initiated me by placing me in some kind of a crystal. After that, I felt I could use crystal energy, but there was a group of healers surrounding me, and I was teaching them. I called them “The Pinks.” I announced this through my mailing group, and “The Pinks” became rather famous. Another activity I engaged in back then was seeing past lives by touching people. It came to a point where I could see the past lives of a person sitting next to me on the bus, as if I was reading a book. It was also a great way to get girls. I mean, it was so cool. Who could refuse someone that sees their past lives? But one day, I went too far. There were 75 people in a sonsuzlukötesi mail group meeting. I looked at the past lives of more than 20 friends in just two hours. At the end, I couldn’t even stand up straight. We were at the house of my dear friend Zeynep Sevil, whom I’d met through Gülüm. When they saw how I was, they both warned me, “Hasan, stop now! You don’t know what you’re doing!” The next day, Zeynep said to me, “Hasan, seeing past lives is not so special, but if you continue doing it without protecting yourself, your internal organs will change, and no one can help you after that. If you want to become a past-life healer, go and get some training before you start practicing. You definitely shouldn’t look at past lives just to chase some tail.” As she told me all this, I was literally shaking. Right there and then, I made a choice to work in the media rather than become a healer. I returned to Ankara, where I was so sick that I couldn’t leave my bed for three weeks. Neither medication or energy, or even The Pinks, could help me. My soul was continuously spewing up ash, the collected energies from all the past lives I’d looked at. It was a difficult period for me, and I decided to change things. I cut off my contact with The Pinks and focused on sonsuzlukotesi instead, followed by derKi. During this period, when I told Gülüm about The Pinks, she would just smile at me. She used to say, “Well, this is your experience, which you have to live yourself. If I were you, though, I wouldn’t hold on to The Pinks too tightly.” Gülüm’s path was that of classic Reiki, and she has never left that path to this day. That said, one valuable thing I learned from her is to always take energy practice very seriously and not talk about it with everyone I meet. We’ve been through so many experiences. I saw so many people coming to Gülüm for help, with many not even knowing what they’re were being initiated into. There were just so many things, and this made me cautious about the energy practices I had come across. For example, I met Begüm Güven Karaca back in 2012, and I gave several speeches at her center. For three years long, she urged me to practice Theta Healing with her. I felt able to completely trust her after three years, and only then could I start training with her. I shared its results with you several times. It was a similar situation with Reşat Güner. We wrote to each other and discussed it many times, but I began to learn how to practice Regression Therapy from him only after observing him for two years. My old friend Aycan Saroğlu mentioned the work of Güneş Tan several times, and dear Semavii told me about her as well, but I just waited. I didn’t know who she was or what she was doing. Friends whom I loved and trusted were referencing her, but this was only the first step, so I did some research to learn who she was. One night, Semavii said, “Come on, we’ll do a mini session with you,” and I understood where he was going with this. Following this, I phoned a few more friends and asked for their opinions. Finally, I went to her home and had a face-to-face conversation. She told me all about herself, and I learned we came from the same region of Turkey. She told me about her education, and I learned about her processes. Eventually, I was ready to try her practice, and I was very pleased with it. In summary, why did I tell you all this? It’s a warning to be careful with energy practices! Do not surrender yourself before you are sure whom and what you’re working with and know their training history! Do not grasp at every energy you see! Be cautious! Just because the eye can’t see energy, it doesn’t mean it’s harmless. Much is happening, and you might experience unpleasant consequences in incompetent hands. That said, you may create many positive changes with the help of an expert, but with those who incorrectly call themselves experts, you might find yourself in a pickle. Without first doing some research, asking around, and looking into your soul, do not go into such practices. All said and done, though, energy practices are mostly healing practices. Physically, they are like medicinal supplements, and spiritually, they can help you to remove the barriers ahead of you. In competent hands, you might increase the speed and smoothness of your journey, but never forget this: No healer, master, trainer, or guide can walk your path for you. You are the one who must do everything. They can only guide you on your journey or help you to heal your wounds. It is your journey, so you are the one who must walk it! The masters, healers, and guides are people too, and just like you, they walk their own paths on their own journeys. They just share what they know with others and help them in other ways. On this path, everyone is responsible for their own journey… Everyone is responsible for their own choices… Everyone is responsible for themselves… But it’s okay to hold another’s hand now and then… In that sense, I’ve been very lucky in the many valuable friends I’ve met on my path. I’ve had many masters, but I’ve especially benefitted from their support during my first encounters with energy practices, their teachings, and the things they help me to gain. I would like to thank Gülüm Omay and Zeynep Alan Sevil Güven in particular. While there are many beautiful people I should thank, these two undertook considerable work on my foundations. I wish a pleasant journey for us all. Read the full article

#editor #energy #healer #healing #reiki #soul #spirituality

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filipeteimuraz · 6 years

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11 Ways to Make a Living on Social Media Without Selling a Single Product

Do you have lots of social media followers? Want to learn how to turn those followers into dollars?

Right now, there are people making a living on social media without selling anything.

We’ve all seen those profiles of seemingly regular people with tons of followers.

It always seems as if they’re traveling or doing something fun. But what exactly do they do to fund this fairytale lifestyle?

They are social influencers.

Experts predict that in the next two years, global influencer marketing will be a $5-10 billion dollar industry.

In 2017, 86% of marketers relied on influencer marketing campaigns at some point during the year.

And 39% of marketers say they have increased their influencer marketing budgets for 2018.

All of this is promising news if you’re interested in making a living on social media as an influencer. Even if you don’t have lots of followers right now, this guide will show you what you need to do to make yourself more appealing to marketers and brands.

In the past, I’ve explained how to use micro influencers to increase your product credibility.

But now I wanted to write an informative guide aimed to help influencers make more money.

With influencer marketing making my list of the top marketing trends to look for in 2018, there is plenty of money to be made in this space if you position yourself accordingly.

These are the top 11 ways to make a living on social media without selling any products.

1. Pick a platform

The first thing you need to do is decide which platform you’re going to prioritize the most.

Ultimately, you’ll want to have profiles set up on as many social networks as possible, but one needs to be your bread and butter.

Research shows that nearly all social influencers work on Instagram.

In 2018, more than 82% of social influencers said that Instagram is their number one platform. Just over 12% responded with YouTube, and less than 2% said Facebook.

That’s probably because 76% of influencers say that Instagram has the best tools compared to other social platforms.

Based on these numbers, I highly recommend picking Instagram as your top priority.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. If other influencers are having so much success on Instagram, you should be able to follow in their footsteps.

Your other social profiles should be used to enhance the image of your personal brand and ultimately expand your reach.

But you can use Facebook and Twitter to try to get more followers on Instagram.

2. Join a network for influencers

Another way to make money on social media is by joining networks made for influencers.

These platforms are used to connect brands with people based on their followers and specialties.

Brandwatch is a great place to start.

Let’s say you share lots of content related to yoga and holistic health on your social media profiles.

Your followers are obviously interested in this content as well, which is why they are following you in the first place.

If you join one of these networks, it will be easier for brands to find you if they have a product or service related to your content.

If a brand wants to work with an influencer to sell their newest yoga mat and yoga clothing, it’ll get matched with you through these networks.

You can handle all communication with the brands through these platforms as well.

This can help you stay organized as opposed to using direct messaging through social media. Once you get lots of followers, it’s tough to keep up with all of the messages in your inbox.

I recently wrote about my favorite platforms for effectively managing social influencers.

The post was intended for brands, but it’s helpful for influencers to read through it as well. Go through the list to see which platforms fit your wants and needs the most.

3. Boost your engagement rates

The reason why brands want to work with social influencers is they historically have extremely high engagement rates.

In fact, brands named engagement as the top metric for measuring the success of influencer marketing campaigns.

If you want to make yourself more appealing, you can show brands how high your engagement rates are with your followers.

Start by learning how to write captions that drive engagement.

You want your followers to like, comment, tag, view, and share your content.

Respond to your followers.

I know, this can be tricky, especially for those of you who have tens of thousands of followers. But the key is getting into a habit of making time to respond.

At the very least, like their comment if you can’t respond to it.

Remember, we’re treating this as your job. If you want to make a living on social media, you need to dedicate a certain amount of time each day toward making yourself a more valuable influencer.

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

Engaging with your followers will help them feel a personal connection with you. When you recommend a brand to them, they will be more likely to act on your recommendation, making your marketing campaigns more successful.

4. Give away free stuff

Everyone wants to get something free.

To increase engagement with your followers, hosting a giveaway is one of your top options.

Once you start negotiating with brands and deciding what kind of content you should be posting, you can suggest a giveaway.

Ultimately, the decision is theirs. They will be the ones paying you for sponsored content.

But you don’t have to commit to anything you’re uncomfortable with. If you think the content they want you to post doesn’t add value to your followers, you can respectfully turn down the offer.

After all, you don’t want to lose credibility by posting everything and anything someone presents to you.

Otherwise, you could see a drop in engagement from your followers.

Take a look at this post from Instagram personality Jen Selter:

Jen has more than 12 million followers on Instagram.

How do you keep 12 million people entertained? Don’t spam them.

Yes, it’s clear that this post is promoting a brand. But she’s doing it in a way that adds value to her followers by giving them a chance to win something free.

This post has all the elements required to run a profitable giveaway.

If you are still trying to grow your following, giving something away could be the best way to do that, even if you aren’t getting paid by any brands yet.

It may be worth spending $100 out of your own pocket on a gift card, for example, to give away to your followers.

Then you can show brands how good your engagement rates were for that campaign as you move forward with your career as an influencer.

5. Use multiple hashtags

If you’re trying to make money on social media, you can’t be afraid to use hashtags.

But don’t use only one per post.

Research shows that using multiple hashtags leads to higher engagement rates.

The magic number here is seven.

Posts with seven hashtags have the highest engagement rates.

But that doesn’t mean you should go overboard. Using more than eight hashtags on one single post can seem spammy.

Use a variety of hashtags.

Some should be broad and intended to reach the highest number of people. For example, #tbt or “throwback Thursday” is a popular hashtag used on social media.

So your post would be exposed to the masses.

However, you don’t want to get lost in the shuffle.

Create some unique and more specific hashtags appropriate for each campaign. If you look at the giveaway example again, you’ll see that Jen used #JenSelterGIVEAWAY in per post to stand out.

6. Partner with a mobile app

All too often I see social influencers partner with the same types of brands. They’re promoting clothing, fitness apparel, accessories, and food.

While there is nothing wrong with this strategy, it may not be sustainable for long-term growth.

Those brands will end up using other influencers in the future once they feel they’ve gotten the most out of you and if your cost per post rate gets too high.

Think outside the box and try to partner with unique brands, such as mobile applications.

Here’s a great example of this strategy used by social influencer Eric Rubens:

Eric has more than 380k followers on Instagram.

If you look at his bio, he promotes a few different things related to his personal brand image. You can see his YouTube name and link to his website.

But look at what I highlighted. It’s his partnership with Explorest, a new mobile application.

The idea behind this app is very unique.

It shows users exact directions to places where they can take cool photographs.

This idea also fits within Eric’s personal image. If you look through his profile, he takes amazing photographs of places all over the world. So his followers are obviously interested in this type of content.

That’s why he was able to successfully partner with a mobile app such as Explorest.

7. Find your niche

It’s tempting for new influencers to take jobs from any brand that offers them money. But you need to understand how these posts can impact your future.

You don’t want to partner with any brand that goes against your core values and beliefs.

Furthermore, you need to analyze how this content will affect your followers and how you’re perceived by other brands moving forward.

Let’s look at an example to show you what I’m talking about. Here is James Tollefson’s Instagram biography:

James has just over 23k followers, which is a great number for micro influencers.

While his biography doesn’t promote anything specifically, like in the previous example, it tells you more about his life and who he is.

He’s a software engineer, living in San Diego, who is a fitness enthusiast.

Now, just saying you’re a fitness enthusiast and being a fitness enthusiast are two different things. Let’s take a look at his pictures to see if they fit the description:

As you can see, the content definitely fits the biography.

James shares content related to his fitness journey, and he promotes products that fit that niche.

If you join a community that connects brands and influencers, you want to make sure your content fits your speciality.

Don’t say you’re a foodie in your biography and then never share content related to food or work with brands in that industry. It doesn’t make sense, and it won’t make you any money.

8. Know your worth

According to research, 80% of influencers say sponsored content is their primary source of income.

This ranked higher than advertisements and affiliate links. Only 33% of influencers actually sign a contract with sponsors.

You’ve got to make sure you protect yourself and get paid for your work.

Don’t just post content for brands who offer to send you free products. That’s not enough if you’re trying to make a living.

As you can see from the graph below, marketers are planning to increase their marketing budgets for influencers:

Only 5% of marketers say they’re going to decrease their influencer marketing budgets.

The money is out there. It’s just a matter of finding it. Don’t settle.

How much is a post worth? The numbers will vary based on the number of followers you have and your engagement rates.

On average, 66% of businesses pay less than $250 per post.

And 27% pay between $250 and $1,000.

Just 4% pay up to $3,000 per post.

Unless you’re a celebrity, you probably won’t see $3,000 for one post. But with that said, it’s not unreasonable to aim for that $250-1,000 window.

Let’s say in a week you share two sponsored posts from two different brands. One pays you $750, and the other pays $250.

If you can continue getting rates like that steadily throughout the year, you’ll make more than $50k annually.

9. Post high-quality photos

Look back at all the examples I showed you so far. What do all of them have in common?

High-quality content.

If you want to become a social influencer, you need to make sure you’re sharing only quality photos.

Buy a professional camera if you have to. Or at least get yourself a new smartphone that takes better pictures.

Invest in yourself.

As you saw in the example of partnering with a mobile app, taking high-quality photos can lead to big opportunities for you.

Just look at Albert Hongbo Yang’s Instagram profile:

These images are breathtaking.

Albert has over 24k followers who are interested in his photos, which is a huge leveraging point when it comes to working with brands.

Even if you don’t want to sell products on Instagram, if your photos are good enough, you can make money as a photographer.

Post pictures that draw attention and make you seem more legitimate.

Refer to my guide how to take and edit photos without hiring a professional to help you with this.

10. Fully disclose your relationships with brands

Part of being a social influencer means you need to fully disclose your relationships with brands.

First of all, you don’t want to mislead any of your followers or cause them to distrust you. That’s not right.

But more importantly, it’s a requirement by the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC says that these disclosures must be clear and obvious. It doesn’t want you to use anything ambiguous, like #thanks or #collab, which could be misinterpreted.

You also can’t rely on a disclosure that will only be seen if people “click more” or view the content on a separate landing page.

To show you how to properly disclosure your relationships, look at this post from Anastasia Ashley:

Anastasia is promoting La Roche-Posay skincare products.

As you can see, she clearly tagged them in her caption and used the hashtag #sponsored to disclose her relationship with the brand.

There is definitely nothing ambiguous about that. She’s complying with FTC regulations.

11. Promote your services

OK, so you want to make a living on social media without selling any products. But you can still sell your services.

Earlier I explained how you could make a living by taking high-quality photos and then leverage your photography skills to make money.

That’s just one way to do it, but there are plenty of others.

For example, let’s take a look at Rob Atkin’s Instagram profile.

Rob is promoting his personal website in the biography.

Clearly, he’s a personal trainer. But the way he positions his services is much more creative than just saying “personal trainer.”

Instead, he uses creative phrases such as “I help busy people get abs” and “fitness specialist” to promote his services.

As you can see from his posts, his content fits into that niche, which is extremely important, as I mentioned earlier.

So if you want to make money on social media without selling any products, consider using your distribution channels to promote your services instead.

Conclusion

There is tons of money to be made on social media right now.

People are making a living without selling a single product.

Those of you who have a large social following can use your profiles to get paid by brands.

Even if you don’t have lots of followers right now, you can increase your following and engagement metrics to make yourself more appealing to prospective clients.

If you follow the tips and advice I’ve outlined in this guide, you can turn your social media profile into a money-making machine.

How are you leveraging your social media followers to make money as a social influencer?

https://www.quicksprout.com/2018/08/29/11-ways-to-make-a-living-on-social-media-without-even-selling-a-single-product/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2018/08/11-ways-to-make-living-on-social-media.html

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newssplashy · 6 years

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Sani Abacha: 20 years after the death of the late Head of State, what is his legacy?

2 decades after the death of General Sani Abacha, it is important that we never forget his legacy.

Today, June 8, 2018, marks the 20th anniversary of the death of General Sani Abacha. He was Nigeria's 10th Head of State.

I remember the day the clearly. I had just gotten back from school and was on the balcony because there was no power supply. My mother ran into the living room and screamed these words 'Abacha is dead'.

I saw a lot of people rejoicing on the streets that day. I too celebrated. As a matter of fact, I stepped on an iron nail but couldn't care less about tetanus. The troubler of Israel was no more.

With his trademark RayBan aviators, the General from Kano, born in 1943, ruled the nation with a tight grip.

After his death, the process to return the country to democratic rule was swift.

On May 29, 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo (a former military Head of State jailed under Abacha's regime) was sworn in as a civilian president.

Nigeria's has had four democratically elected presidents since 1999, Obasanjo, Yar'Adua, Jonathan and Buhari.

For some, the memories of Khaki boys is nothing but the distant past. As Nigeria gears up for another election, the days of military rulers are now blurry to many young people.

Abacha does not bring up the fondest or happiest of memories for many who lived during this period. Yet, older Nigerians have a habit of glorifying the past no matter how bad it was.

In January 2017, I posted a video of the late General addressing Nigerians for the first time on my Twitter account.

I was shocked to see people express their admiration for the dictator. Some even called for a reset to these days to flush Nigeria of its corrupt politicians. A tired and old sentiment used by many soldiers to stage coups.

Tunde (not real name) a 21-year old undergraduate of the Obafemi Awolowo University believes Nigeria needs a strong leader like Abacha. "All this nonsense that is happening in th country now, if Abacha was a live it won't happen. Do you think Boko Haram would be killing people anyhow?" he asked me.

It's hard to even start discussing with him. He wasn't even born when Abacha took power and was just a year old when he died. Tunde represents a number young Nigerians who are disillusioned with the current political system of the country.

The recent disturbing praise heaped on the late dictator has not only come from millennials. People who were aware to know how Nigeria was from 1993-1998 have had nice words for Abacha.

One of them is our present leader, President Buhari. He praised the late dictator for building roads.

"No matter what opinion you have about Abacha, I agreed to work with him and the PTF road we did from here to Port Harcourt, to Onitsha, to Benin and so on... On top of other things in the institution, education, medical care and so on" he said. It was a controversial statement.

In 2014, the Goodluck Jonathan administration chose Sani Abacha as one of Nigeria's greatest heroes for "unity, patriotism and national development."

Even in popular culture, the reverence of Abacha as a 'bad guy' is present. There are T-shirts with his image printed on them. His RayBan aviators, a symbol of fear in the 90s, served as an inspiration of a rap song by a popular Nigerian rapper.

One of the lowest moments of the General Sani Abacha regime was the execution of the 'Ogoni Nine' made up of human rights activist Ken Saro Wiwa along with Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine.

A kangaroo court (more or less) found them guilty. The Ogoni 9 were hung afterwards.

The tragic incident was condemned, both home and abroad. It further made Nigeria a pariah state.

Ken Saro Wiwa's daughter Noo Saro Wiwa exclusively spoke to Pulse. She described it as strange for some Nigerians to look back on the Abacha years positively.

"The idea that we can look back favourably on the 90s is strange. It shows how low our expectations have fallen. There was no press freedom or space for political protests in those days, and child mortality was lower.

As a nation, we need to stop looking backwards and start thinking forwards. Recycling old leaders hasn’t worked" she told Pulse.

The Abacha regime is also synonymous with corruption. It is alleged that the Abacha family made way with £5 billion of the country's wealth.

There have been several claims that Abacha did not steal the country's money but rather kept in Swiss banks for safekeeping. As ludicrous as it may sound to you, it holds weight in some quarters.

Former Chief of Army Staff, Ishaya Bamaiyi in 2017 echoed these sentiments and further went on to claim that the late Head of State transferred money to some European countries to enable Nigeria to continue peacekeeping missions in the West African region.

Unfortunately, this claim has filtered down from the hills of power to the streets.

In May 2018, popular Nigerian fashionista Noble Igwe wrote this about Sani Abacha while rocking a t-shirt with his face on it, "... the former Military head of state whom after his death became the country’s saving account in diaspora." It might have been a joke but it's a sentiment that a lot of people harbour.

And herein lies the major reason why some Nigerians look back at the Abacha years favourably.

1994-1997, his regime increased the foreign exchange reserves from $494m to $9.6b. He also reduced the external debt of Nigeria from $36b to $27b in three years. General Sani Abacha was able to also reduce the inflation inherited from the IBB administration.

Within the current economic context, it might be tempting to hail the late dictator as an economic genius.

"Even Abacha who was a dictator left the economy to be run by experts and the economy did well then," said Akpan Ekpo, former Director of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Not surprisingly, in 2016, Abacha's economic stats were reproduced by his oldest daughter on her Instagram account. (Gumsu Sani Abacha was reached severally for comments about her father. She did not respond to any of them.)

She did however write this about her father today on her Instagram page, "20 year's gone by... may ALLAH swt bless your soul. May he forgive your shortcomings and may Aljannah Firdaus be your final abode. Ameen. ALLAH ya jikan ka da rahamar sa. We miss you so much."

Apart from the economy, Abacha paid a lot of attention to political stability within the West African region also. The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) during his rule was successful in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In sports, Abacha's performance was mixed. The Super Eagles won the 1994 Nations Cup, gave a strong performance at the World Cup in America and won the U-23 football competition at the Atlanta '96 Olympics.

The Olympics in 1996 was also Nigeria's best performance at the event with 2 gold medals, one silver medal and three bronze medals.

However, because of human rights violations, Nigeria was not allowed to participate at the '96 and '98 African Cup of Nations.

Fans and sports journalists saw these as missed chances for the Super Eagles to further dominate African football.

By the time the ban was lifted for the Super Eagles to participate in 2000, the talent of the golden generation had started to dwindle.

I tried to reach out to sports journalists to speak on the state of football and sports during the Abacha era but they were unwilling to talk. 20 years after his death, he still strikes fear in the heart of many.

And right there is the legacy of the late Head of State. Fear. The Sani Abacha regime struck fear into the hearts of Nigerians.

The administration of General Sani Abacha could best be described as a reign of terror and blood, of fear and violence, of bullets and whips.

Human rights activists were assassinated, hung, and locked up in prison. To speak up against the Abacha regime was to dance with death.

Kudirat Abiola, Pa Alfred Rewane, two human rights activists were allegedly assassinated by the leader of Abacha's hit squad, Sgt. Rogers.

The late Alex Ibru and Abraham Adesanya had attempts on their lives during this period. Luckily they escaped. Professor Wole Soyinka went into self-exile in 1994. Three years later he was charged with treason in absentia.

Soyinka was not the only one to have gone into exile during this period.

Many members of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) including present political juggernaut Bola Ahmed Tinubu left Nigeria for fear of being killed.

We can't also forget MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the June 12 elections in 1993. In 1994, after an international trip to gain support from foreign countries, MKO came back to Nigeria and declared himself President.

Abacha's regime did not take this move lightly. Abiola was declared wanted, arrested and accused of treason. The billionaire turned politician stayed in detention for four years. Abiola died with the June 12 mandate, 29 days after the death of Abacha in 1998.

The former head of state Olusegun Obasanjo was arrested during the Abacha years and imprisoned for his supposed role in a phantom coup.

While Obasanjo made it out alive, his deputy when he was Head of State wasn't so lucky. Shehu Musa Yar'adua, former Chief of Staff, died in captivity in 1997.

Abacha not only dealt with his political opponents but the media as well.

"It was a period when journalists, civil society activists and the few principled politicians in the country were targets of the regime," said Olusegun Adeniyi who was the Assistant Editor at Sunday Concord during the Abacha years.

"Bagauda Kaltho was bombed to death. Kunle Ajibade, Chris Anyanwu and others were jailed for being accessories after the fact of a coup. Many were forced into exiles. My editor (at African Concord magazine), Soji Omotunde was dragged from a moving vehicle on the street of Lagos, leaving him almost crippled while my friend and colleague, Mohammed Adamu, should have enough stories to tell his grand-children" he further remembered.

On Christmas Day in 1995, Nosa Igiebor, then Editor-In-Chief of TELL Magazine was arrested by security operatives. He spent six months in detention and was later released on June 26, 1996.

At the end of the day, Abacha is not a fashion icon or economic guru. He was a totalitarian, a dictator that ruled Nigeria with fear.

According to the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor, in 1971 Abacha's superiors recommended that he should not be promoted beyond the rank of colonel because he was not "stable enough for higher command."

Yet, in 1990 when he became a full General, Abacha became the first Nigerian military officer not to skip a rank. By 1993, he became the ruler of the most populous black nation on earth via a palace coup.

There are many millennials who do not totally understand what it meant to live in Sani Abacha's Nigeria. Some older Nigerians have forgotten the reign of terror as they groan and moan about this present administration.

There is no negotiating the legacy of Sani Abacha. It is absolute in its brutality.

"General Abacha established a distinctive record of brutal rule. Nigerian human rights groups, clandestinely active in the country and openly critical in exile, have charged that more people were arrested in his five and a half years in power than in the five decades of British rule" wrote the New York Times in Abacha's obituary.

A few months before his shocking death, The Christian Science Monitor described him as "most dangerous leader in the world."

Noo Saro Wiwa defines his legacy as "the regime reached such lows that a return to democracy was the only option: the Commonwealth had expelled Nigeria, and British Airways suspended its flights after my father and his eight colleagues were murdered. The Abacha years increased the cynicism and distrust among Nigerians, which served to entrench corruption."

Despite the Sani Abacha regime's execution of her father, she does not have any hatred for the man.

"No, my family doesn’t hate him. We don’t waste our mental energy on someone like him. Abacha was one of the most brutal dictators but he was also the symptom of Nigeria’s problems, which means there were other men equally capable of doing what he did.

Many players were involved in the murder of the Ogoni Nine, and millions of people besides our family have suffered. So my anger is diffused in many directions within this morally bankrupt system. It’s not all about one dead man" she told Pulse.

The system that produced Sani Abacha still exists today. It might no longer produce military dictators but it still creates corrupt and inefficient leaders.

Nigeria has made a lot of progress from the dark days irrespective of what cynics say but there is still a lot of work to be done.

"There are more technocrats, and the political scene is not as strongly ethnic-based as before, but we still have no electricity and other basic amenities," said Noo Saro-Wiwa during her brief interview with Pulse.

"No administration has dealt with Boko Haram effectively or addressed its root causes, and we still depend too much on oil revenues. It feels rather cyclical. I have much more hope in the younger generation, however. The under-40s will be the ones to turn things around" she further said.

These are the set of Nigerians who should know what it meant to live in Nigeria during the Abacha years. They must know that his legacy was that of fear and terror. We cannot afford to go back and glorify our dark past.

We must shed light on it so that we might never forget. 20 years after we must still remember.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/06/sani-abacha-20-years-after-death-of.html

#News

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