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insomniac-dot-ink · 4 years

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We Deserve a Soft Landing, Love

Genre: wlw sci-fi

Words: 4.6k

Summary: An astronaut on the International Space Station gets a transmission from a girl on a dying ship.

They talk as the radiation increases.

Content Warning: death

2036

Astronauts really weren’t supposed to be alone. Not at the space station, it wasn’t made to run that way, three permanent residence were assigned at all times, and they were rarely alone.

But mistakes happen. A gash the size of her forearm down his side, perfectly round red droplets hanging in the air like ping-pong balls in suspended animation. A face as ashen as the grave and yelling. They never yelled.

Sarah Reyes was chosen for her composed personality, composed in theory, less so in practice. She watched her coworker burst open and heard NASA ringing in her ear: what do you even do with a dead body in space?

But he wasn’t gone yet.

They pressed a template they never had before: cрочный спуск, the Soyuz computer sprang to life, emergency.

NASA kept ringing in her ears. Some young women named Janet was talking to her now and she was talking back.

Rod wasn’t going to make the journey if he went back alone. His eyes were barely open and red blooming droplets still swam around the room like liquid party balloons, Sarah never liked the word helpless.

She looked to Nikolai and told him to ‘get the fuck down there,’ someone needed to take the CRV shuttle down with him. Nikolai’s heavy-lidded eyes studied her, he pursed his lips, and she said it once more in Russian and then again in English.

They secured Rod’s bandage a second time, his fever-warm face a distant star on the horizon. She grabbed onto his hand and told them ‘to get the fuck down there.’

They pressed cрочный спуск, the shuttle launched down with Kazakhstan readying down below, God, they had to be ready.

And she was alone.

Astronauts were not supposed to be alone.

The quiet was just as engulfing as the urgency had been before. Janet had apparently gone to take a break and they were on the sun side of the planet. Sarah started counting. It would take them 3.5 minutes to get back to earth. It would take three days for a shuttle to come back to the station. It would take three hours for the shuttle to be attached to the docking port.

It would take some undisclosed amount of time for them to sort out the politics down below. Astronaut’s don’t just burst open. And Sarah was alone.

She continued as normal, there was nothing else to do, she had at the very least three days to herself, and there was cleaning to do. Maintenance, communication. It turned into four days.

She was talking to a young man named Ted on the telecom now and she was sort of starting to hate young men named Ted. Politics were messier than space and no one was even set up to relieve her yet. NASA was in some sort of limbo and Russia wasn’t talking. Sarah was alone.

It was the sixth day when the shuttle finally launched, a crew of three, Sarah had already forgotten their names, but she would have months to memorize them anyway.

She had turned off the intercom for that day, but didn’t notice the static until later when it started echoing off the hallways like a ghost. Sarah didn’t believe in ghosts, though. No self-respecting scientist believed in ghosts.

They were on the planet side of the sun, dark, alone, dumping heat back into the square hallways through the vents.

Sarah heard the first hush of static in her sleep, strapped down and frowning deeply as she screwed her eyes shut. It felt like she was getting tinnitus. For a moment she refused to wake up, she had to keep to her schedule, or else what the fuck else was she going to have up there.

The static breathed again, and her thoughts broke off and on in starts. Finally, she sat up, after all, they don’t know what to do with dead bodies in space. She ripped her sleeping mask off and cocked her head to the side.

Ssshhhhhh

She squirmed out of her restraints and floated to the side of the room, “It’s probably just Yulia messing with the frequencies planet side,” She muttered to herself mostly just to hear the sound her own raw voice in the dark, “Just Yulia…”

She pulled herself up and out and floated over to the communication bay while passing the wide yawning emptiness of the station. It could technically suit ten people, the size of a five-person house, but apparently, earth was still arguing. Two more days.

Sssshhhhhhh

She sighed and followed the noise; she really wasn’t in the mood for any system malfunctions. She tapped on the screen of the newly installed video chat. It sprang to life with the headquarters of NASA asking who she would like to get a hold of today.

Sarah blinked. But no one had been hailing her.

Sssshhhhhh

She looked around and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. None of the devices in the room were lighting up or winking at her. None of them were making any sounds at all. She scratched the back of her hand and accepted the fact that the noise really wasn’t coming from the central communication room.

Sarah turned around in meaningless circles and then left a message to the NASA night crew that there was a possible technical issue on the ISS. Two days before any crew was set to land, Sarah groaned, and it was just her.

She took deep breaths and pushed herself off toward what she could only assume was the source.

Ssssshhhh

She cringed as she crossed the "unity" room into the Russian side of the station, empty as a ghost town and twice as unnerving. But Sarah didn’t believe in ghosts.

Ssssshh-he-sssshh–ll-ssh-o

“Ah!” She clutched at her heart as something, a voice something, echoed off the halls. She took a deep rasping breath and turned in every which direction.

Ssh, hello? It came again.

Sarah’s mouth hung open and she found herself outside of a room that had been used as an old communication hub. It was a relic from a time back when they had separate ones instead of a “bubble of trust” in the center of the station.

Sarah cocked her head to the side and stared. One of the old radios that was attached to the wall and ingrained in the system was making a soft but distinct buzz. It was grey and had a panel of buttons and a microphone attached to a round speaker. Most of the old pre-2025 devices had been removed or repurposed but this one was intact and felt like she was reaching backward in time itself.

She frowned at it and she knew she should go report this. Houston would want to know one of the 2000 models was acting up.

Shhh-h–ssss

Sarah reached forward and her finger hovered in midair over the panel and her eyes glued to the intercom. There was something, a voice-something, bubbling underneath the static.

And, of course, she did believe in aliens.

Sarah pressed down on a feedback button and wet her lips, she leaned down toward the speaker, “Is someone there?”

She held her breath and watched the blinking red light of the transmitter in the dark center of the room. It had been repurposed several years ago to be another storage room.

She blinked, waited a full minute, and suddenly felt a little silly-- she should really be sleeping right now. Or reporting it. She watched the flickering red light and counted.

60 seconds, 180 seconds, 3 minutes, Sarah was about to take her finger off the feedback button when something responded back with clear articulation.

“Oh, thank God,” Sarah’s mouth fell open. It was a woman. She quickly bent over to reply, but the voice kept going, “Can you hear me? Is someone there? I am Lotte De Vos of the Argus, Landing Mission One, ESA. Can you hear me?”

Sarah gasped, “Oh my god--”

Lotte kept speaking quickly, “We have been pushed out off route and…Can anyone hear me?”

“Yes!” Sarah returned as soon as she found her voice again, perhaps yelling into the speaker a little too loudly, “We thought, I, are you safe? We thought the Argus was lost, what’s your status?”

Sarah did the math in her head, it would take four to five minutes for radio waves to transmit between Earth’s orbit and the Argus. The Jupiter moon’s mission.

“I can’t see our location, but I think I am stranded near the atmosphere of Jupiter, repeat I can see the troposphere…I don’t know where I am.”

“Argus,” Sarah rushed to speak, hoping they could balance out their conversation, “I am Sarah Reyes of the International Space Station, NASA, I can hear you loud and clear. What’s your status?”

She waited. Counting, 60 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, God, she needed to tell someone about this. But she heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end.

“ISS?” Sarah exhaled as the woman responded, “Thank God, okay, this is Lotte De Vos, reporting again from the Argus. The…the life support system is sustaining itself it looks like but none of the ram’s are responding, I think we’re disconnected from the rockets.”

“Miss De Vos,” Sarah hunched over, “What is the status of the crew? How much oxygen do you have left? What…what happened?” She remembered reading about the Argus a week ago. About the radio silence on the other end of one of the most ambitious human-manned missions into their solar system.

One minute. Two minutes. Three. Four.

“I,” She heard the other astronaut falter, “I have the full amount of oxygen left that we carried with us for the return journey.” She paused and a hitch of static filled the air, “The crew is incapacitated.” The voice said flatly and without inflection, “We were hit with an unexpected projectile and pulled into Jupiter’s orbit, we didn’t calculate the full effect of the mass of the planet on our ship it seems,” She chuckled and it was one of the most surprising sounds Sarah had ever heard, “I guess we are still making scientific discoveries.”

“Do you have your satellite? Where is your telecom? We can--”

The delay continued to confuse their conversation, “--it’s acting like a black hole, we tried to fix the rockets to propel us back to the base on Io but there wasn’t enough power, everyone else,” The young women took a deep shaking breath, “They tried to get back to it without the ship. Some of our jets were still working for the suits.”

“Oh my God,” Sarah whispered.

“It didn’t work.”

Sarah waited, making sure Lotte was finished and the full four to five minutes had passed so Lotte could get Sarah’s message.

She heard another laugh on the other side, “We really need a better system than this. How about we say ‘over’ when we’re done talking?” Sarah’s shoulder’s tensed. The woman sounded so young. “Anyway, to answer your question, our telecom was damaged when the projectile thrust us off course, I just recently jury-rigged this device in order to be picked up on low frequencies.” Sarah nodded and Lotte took an audible breath, “Over.”

Sarah pressed her forehead up against the cool metal of the side-paneling; she cleared her throat, “Lotte,” she said quietly, “Do you need me to contact anyone?” It had taken that crew six years to get to Jupiter’s moons. “Over.”

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut.

She heard the next notes like a deflating balloon, “So you’ve figured it out too?” She said with a controlled tremor to her voice, “Well… I have a few people I would like to message if you could write it down. Over."

Sarah floated to the side of the makeshift storage room and found a pen and paper. She wrote down the woman’s mother’s name, her college professor’s email, and her ex-lover’s phone number.

“Do you want me too,” Sarah cringed, “uh, write down messages for them? For me to say to them. Over.”

She waited, she heard a sigh when the four minutes passed, “Just tell my mom I love her. That sort of thing. Tell the professor I wouldn’t be here without her, I mean, not here, in space, in a bad way, shit, actually don’t tell her that. Tell her that her intro classes are still making freshman wet themselves and I love it.” Sarah laughed.

“And the last one?” Sarah asked as she waited for Lotte to come back to her.

Lotte gave a snort, “Flip her off for me. Maybe subtly infer she’s been skipping arm day and is looking a little noodly. That would make my night. Over.”

Sarah chuckled deeply and it was hard for her to take it all in, she should be writing more down. She should be writing it all down. “You know,” Thoughts ran through Sarah’s head like a speeding stop-and-go traffic jam, “Are the rockets really not working? Because a simple continued jury-rig of the thrusters back to the navigation might, hmm, help.”

The response took longer than usual, “Don’t do this me.” Came the hushed reply, “I’ve tried, Sarah, don’t you think I’ve tried? Whoever you are, from wherever. Don’t do it.”

“Sarah Reyes.” She repeated slowly, blinking into the dark. “I’m from Minneapolis.”

Lotte hummed, “Oh…I’m from Belgium. Ghent. Nice to meet you.”

Sarah’s insides felt like they were turning all over the place, “I’ve been to Belgium, it’s very beautiful.”

“Not underwater yet?” The other girl joked, slightly off time due to the time lapse.

“They’re trying their best,” Sarah said with a sniff, “And they never invented a statute called ‘the Twinkie Law,’ so they did better than my city.”

She heard a strange groan from the other end of the line which made Sarah sit up straight, “I would honestly give anything right now for a twinkie. Anything.”

Sarah ended up laughing, “Alright, top ten food goos and then worst goos, go.”

Lotte made a choking sound, “Nooo, Sarah Reyes, all I want right now is some ripe cherries, a medium rare steak, fuck it, a rare steak, and ten twinkie’s, one for every finger. No goo.”

Sarah was snickering, “Well I want a nice hamburger and maybe a salad with ranch dressing. Kleenexes. Running water.” She smiled to herself, “And a proper toilet.”

The silver sound of a laugh came back from the other end, “Wrong answer! The whole reason I went to space was for suction toilets.”

“Oh no, no, no, come. On.” She said emphatically.

“What we all really need is at least one beer each.” Sarah snorted and Lotte bemoaned, “A margarita, two loggers, some vodka, good vodka, the kind the Russians would give to their moms.” Lotte lamented and Sarah shook her head.

“Why did you go to space then?” She asked fondly to the other end, “It’s the last dry county in humanities jurisdiction Dutch girl.”

Lotte huffed another laugh on the other end, “We’re getting personal now? Well, you first, why are you in space hurtling above the earth developing poor bone mass?”

Sarah let herself float up a little higher and used the next minute to think about her answer, she leaned toward the speaker, “Height.”

The five minutes passed and all that came back was a confused, “What?”

“I gain two and a half inches every time I come up here. Eventually, I figure I’ll hit five feet.”

A loud guffaw came back, “Taller! Of course, but what is that in human measurements?”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “Old habits. 6.3 centimeters and 1.5 meters, happy?”

“Woof,” Lotte barked back cheerily, “They really do bring them in smaller each year. Over.”

Sarah exhaled dramatically, “Back to you then Miss Lotte. How tall are you? And, I don’t know, what’s your favorite, hmm, tea?”

Two minutes, three, four.

“Tea? Boring. Do you know how close Jupiter’s atmosphere is to me right now? Ask me about my childhood nightmares and favorite sex position.” Sarah opened her mouth to respond with a dismissive sniff, but Lotte added quietly at the end, “…it’s mint by the way. Peppermint.”

Sarah smiled and she squeezed her eyes shut for a full minute, “Well, my childhood nightmare was Santa having literal claws and strangling me.” Sarah said good-humoredly as she drummed her fingers on her leg and counted the seconds.

“Is that your favorite position as well?”

“Lotte,” She said with a warning tone and considered turning back around toward the communication hub. The next five minutes left her contemplating if it was a crank call-- Houston did have some annoying interns.

“Strangling is perfectly natural, no need to be ashamed. I did it to my barbie dolls and everything.”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “They really do send them up crazier each year.”

Lotte laughed and it was a strained sound with a tin undertone. Sarah pursed her lips together, “Sarah?” Lotte said, barely audible over the static this time.

“Yeah?” She waited.

“Can you see earth?”

Sarah’s shoulders slumped over and she nodded meaninglessly before taking her finger off the feedback button and floating back over to the observatory. Two hours had passed.

She looked out over a deep brown storm cloud over China, a few glowing tendrils of cities and roads, and the textured darkness of the earth side of the sun. She went back to the transmitter, “We’re over the Bahama’s. It’s blue right now, very, very blue.”

She heard the softest of sounds over the radio, “My haul is made of titanium.” Lotte said carefully, “But I’m not sure if the radio waves will be disturbed by the planet’s magnetic field.”

“Oh.” Sarah said back, squeezing her eyes shut, knowing Lotte was still talking.

“And then the radiation will begin anyway,” Lotte made something that was almost a laugh, “remember those numbers okay? Tell my mom. You know. Tell my teacher I wasn’t going to make it without her, but not in this way. And tell Karen to, you know, fuck off.”

“Wait,” Sarah said breathlessly.

“I’m about to be sucked into the atmosphere, wait a little for me, k? We can see if this mess of a radio might hold up. Just wait a little. Then go tell the world I went out fighting. Fighting aliens or a space octopus, tell them that there are definitely space octopuses and the Argus went down swinging.”

“Okay,” Sarah rasped, holding the button down until the tip of her finger bleached white. “Okay!” She racked her brain for what to say, what eulogy’s people ended with or final lasting sentiments that maybe meant something, “I’ll eat some twinkies for you. Ten. One for each finger.”

Sarah waited. Two minutes. Three minutes. Five. Sarah was shaking, this isn’t what she expected when she woke up that morning. The station orbited into the sun side of the planet. What was she even going to tell Houston? How do you start that report?

Sarah rubbed her stinging eyes, “I’ll put them on my fingers too. Eat them in some Dutch coffee shop and kick your ex in the shins.” She pushed her palms into her eye sockets, “Oh God, oh my God.”

Numbness ran up and down her legs and she floated away from the feedback button. She was still glad she didn’t believe in ghosts-- she really didn’t need this one.

She turned back to exit the room and float to somewhere far away and cold and curl up for a little bit.

Shhh–What’s up loser?!

Sarah jumped and turned around instantaneously, “Lotte?!” She jammed her finger on the transmission button.

“Can you hear me? I can’t see out my window right now, but the magnetism might not be messing with my radio as much as I thought. More discoveries for science, yay. Have them name a cockroach after me or something. Unless, of course, you can’t hear me and this is just, you know, the death chasm I’m speaking into--”

“I can hear you!” Sarah yelled as her finger cramped on the switch, the red light flared like a fog horn. “I can hear you, it’s still working!” She didn’t know why she was excited; this girl was entering into one of the most radioactive places in the solar system, Sarah kept her eyes on the speaker.

A tired exhale answered, “You waited after all.”

Sarah bit her lip, “Yeah. I waited.”

The four minutes felt excruciating, “I figure I have around forty-five minutes… Anyway, if you’re curious, it is incredibly hot. If I didn’t have any decency left I would be naked right now.”

Sarah sniffed, “No one can see you, you know. And I imagine it’s burning up.”

The next transmission was garbled, but she could still make it out, “Dying in the void of space is one thing, dying in the void of space butt-naked is another.”

Sarah couldn’t get herself to laugh this time, but she tried, “Well, I’ll tell everyone you were wearing a full suit of armor. Pearls. Evening gloves. The octopus didn’t stand a chance.”

Lotte made a soft sound, “That’s really all I ask, heels too, I miss heels. I felt tall, like one of those small dogs on top of tables? Or the fact you enjoy getting 5 centimeters taller in space?”

Sarah made an exasperated noise, “I don’t suppose you mock all the people you share last words with.”

Lotte gave a soft chuckle, “Just you darling.” A long pause followed and Sarah didn’t move to fill it; Lotte took her time with another slow hissing breath, “Tell me about something.”

Sarah blinked, “I have a collection of coins from the Ottoman empire.”

“Okay,” Lotte sounded faint, “Who was your first crush? Besides 16th century Sultans or something I mean. What was your first book? What's your favorite kiss? Come on,” Lotte snickered weakly, “I’m dying here.”

Sarah’s skin felt too tight, itching in the dark, “My crush was Martina Rodriquez. Fifth grade, she punched me in the face once after I told her that her that her nose was crooked. I learned to read when I was three so I don’t really remember the books, accelerated learning and all that. I learned to speak in full sentences when I was six. My first kiss was,” Sarah sighed, “Don’t laugh okay? In my college’s chemistry lab, age 23.” She said all of it quickly with pained breaths, time was measured in fours and fives.

A laugh came back from the other side of the universe anyway, “Chemistry lab? God, you’re the one giving astronauts a nerdy name.”

“Hey!”

“And it’s cute. You sound cute. I’m sure you’re very smart too, can probably name way too many numbers of pi.” She could, “I guess I was like that too…Why I’m up here.” Lotte trailed off.

“Why are you up here?” Seven minutes passed.

“I saw Cassiopeia one night… my grandpa told me they hung her upside down in the night sky to punish her. I fell in love,” Sarah clenched her jaw tight, “I guess you could say that’s how it happened. Love or whatever.”

“Lotte--” Sarah put her face next to the speaker.

“You know, I always thought this is what I wanted to do.” Lotte was faltering, “And it is.” She repeated with a slight hysteria and frantic-edge to her words, “I think it was always what I wanted to do. Always.” There came a pause and Sarah heard a strangled retching noise on the other side.

“Lotte!” She yelled into the intercom, “Lotte, are alright?”

It took a very long time before she got a response and then she was back to waiting, “Yeah,” A voice finally said hoarsely, “Just…puking. You know, when you get to see food goo all over again? That feeling.” Lotte sounded like she was trying to laugh, “Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“Who was this first kiss?” Lotte asked quietly before sniffing, “Was she cuter than me? I hope not… And then, what’s, what’s your favorite tea?”

Sarah squeezed her free hand closed, balling it up into a painful fist and digging her nails in, “No. She was a PhD. student and thought that Potato Poots was a good pet name. She…” Sarah snorted, “Wasn’t cuter than you, promise. My, my, favorite tea is Black tea. I used to drink it with my aunts.”

Two minutes. Three minutes. Six.

“Potato Poots? Take that back, that is a wonderful pet name and now I’m going to date this girl that was your first kiss,” Sarah chuckled, “Black tea is a good choice. The closest one to coffee. My brother owns a coffee shop,” Lotte was talking quickly now, “Visit him too. Tell him…I’m sorry. I’m sorry we fought so much, God, for everything.”

“Yes, yes, I mean--”

“Tell all of them I loved them. Dammit, even Karen, tell her to get her shit together. None of this…none of anything else. Nothing else matters.”

Sarah sighed and her entire body was shaking, “I can do that, yes. Lotte, we won’t forget.”

“That I died naked in the void of space?” Lotte returned back after seven minutes, “Because that’s a thing now.”

“Naked, fighting an octopus, right?” Sarah said with her face straining into a smile.

“Yeah.” Lotte was panting on the other end now, but her voice came through. “Who was your first love, Sarah?”

Sarah felt her mouth go dry, she hadn’t drunk anything in hours. Houston would be furious. “I’ve never been in love.” She whispered back, “I just wanted to do…this.” She flinched at the wording.

Lotte took eight minutes to respond, “Yeah?” She said breathlessly, “Well. Do that for me, k? Being in love is nice. It’s like this, except no one is riding into the next layer of Jupiter’s helium.”

Sarah gave a weak smile, “It’s like this?”

“It’s like this.” Wheezing, “Go do that for me.”

“How’re you feeling?” Sarah tried to get her to keep talking and Lotte told her that she threw up again. Sarah could hear audible strained audible breathing through the speaker, she was gasping.

“We weren’t really over the Bahama’s, were we?”

Sarah frowned and she looked toward where the window would be, “It was dark out, yeah. But the cities were bright. Like stars, we always liked stars, right? People like us.”

“People like us collect Ottoman coins and cover their hands in Twinkies Sarah.”

She smiled, “Good. I hear that’s what being in love is like.”

Lotte coughed, a deep gurgling sound that filled the air, “Sounds dumb.”

“It is.”

Sarah could hear her fading out, “Lotte? Lotte how’re you--”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck--” A sob shook the speaker.

“Lotte.”

“FUCK, I don’t want to die.”

“Wait, wait, no, it’s going to be okay.”

“Quick, tell me something nice to say, something good, God, GOD, I wish I had been good. I wish had been better.”

“Wait! Wait, no.”

“Sarah,” She could hear the crying now, the sickly wet tremor in her voice, “Sarah I can’t see anything. It’s so hot, oh my god, I can’t do this, SARAH-”

Sarah screamed back into the mic, “I’m here! I’m here! Wait!”

No sound came back from the other side, Sarah’s eyes went wide, and she counted up to a thousand. She couldn’t feel her teeth.

“One thousand and four, one thousand and five, Lotte? Lotte De Vos, can you hear me?” Five minutes. Ten minutes.

Sarah curled up into herself and pulled on her hair, her other finger still on the transmission button and the room bathed in the one red light, “Lotte," She blared, "Lotte!” It was a wretched, animalistic scream, but it wasn’t for the radio, it wasn’t for her.

She wished she believed in ghosts.

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

Sarah Reyes went back to earth within the fortnight. She told them she wasn't feeling well. She told them about the Argus. They told her to take some time off, she told them she wasn't coming back.

Sarah went to Belgium, she gave a very nice older woman a hug, she got a lifetime’s promise of free coffee, and she looked at painting after painting done by people she realized were now dead. She smiled at the nice young woman across the street that sold flowers and she didn't say hi, but she did wave this time. It was a place to start. Lotte would have wanted something like that.

FIN

Hey! All my hours were cut at my job bc of coronavirus, if you enjoyed my writing please, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or becoming a patron I could really use the help!

#short story #writing #science fiction #sci fi #wlw #femslash #f/f #lbgt short story #tragedy #cw: character death #I forgot I never put this on my blog

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adultswim2021 · 3 years

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Space Ghost Coast to Coast #85: “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” | December 7, 2003 - 11:30 PM | S08E04

Happy 20th anniversary, Adult Swim. And, boy, what a momentous episode of Ghost do we have here to celebrate. There are a number of episodes where the guest is an event unto itself and this is truly one of them. Frequent punchline William Shatner is an absolute cunt... and a proper legend. His cuntiness and legendary status are two things that seem to be at odds with one another, and the Space Ghost crew have managed to come up with an artfully idiosyncratic episode to match Shatner’s weird-guy-ness. It’s a classic for sure, and important. But (making a “smug dipshit” face) is it funny?

YES! It’s FUNNY! I will admit though, the first time I saw this episode I didn’t quite know what to make of it. This is partially because I’m very much a Star Trek agnostic. I’ve never been into Star Trek. In the last few years I’ve watched most of the pre-Next Gen motion pictures for inane list-making reasons, and I enjoyed them to varying degrees, but Star Trek is truly not for me. I’m more of a... well, I’m not a Star Wars guy either. What’s the other one? Uh... Spaceballs. That’s it. I’m more of a Spaceballs guy.

But I feel like I’ve absorbed a lot of Star Trek lore through cultural osmosis. I vaguely understand that William Shatner has had some deliberately-paced choreographed fight scene on those rocks from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. When I hear music similar to the the music that Jim Carrey hums in The Cable Guy, I’m pretty sure whatever it is I’m watching is doing a Star Trek thing. And yes, I’ve watched every single Red Letter Media “Mike and Rich talk about Star Trek for 4 hours” video. But even today, after having picked up more Star Trek knowledge on my journey to the grave, I still have this nagging feeling of “I only sort of get this”.

Still, this episode has a handful of screamingly funny lines, and the episode ends wonderfully, with Space Ghost in his death throes, suffering the ultimate indignity of dying in front of William Shatner. There’s also the part where Zorak asks why everyone in Star Trek is black, and a part where Moltar nervously reads from his fan fiction (from a book labeled TARD WARS, hahaha). Shatner, who has a reputation for being arrogant and difficult, is as good a sport as one could hope. The show makes good use of his hammier moments, and only shits on him slightly in the process. The most notable moment is when Shatner says to Zorak “didn't you and I fight to the death?” to which Zorak replies “That sounds pretty dumb, man”. I’ve actually quoted this line many times. It’s one of the best.

Also, for those of you who like to track these things: the show features callbacks to other episodes and shows; the handimen at Zorak’s apartment are clearly extras from Sealab 2020/2021, one of the Leprechauns from Aqua Teen Hunger Force shows up, and there’s a poignant callback to classic Space Ghost episode “Banjo”.

The title motif of this season is naming the episodes after Allman Brothers songs, and I always wondered about this one. Maybe I’m reaching, and it’s probably too disrespectful to be true, but I always thought that it was somehow a veiled reference to Shatner’s wife, whom he supposedly killed or let die. It’s simply too dark to be true, but it’s the first thought that immediately jumped to my mind when I first heard the title of this episode. Am I stupid for thinking this? Am I stupid because it OBVIOUSLY is a reference to that?? I simply do not know. I would like to know.

MAIL BAG

The big anniversary is upon us. What are your 20 favorite things about adult swim for 20 years going. Don't sleep on this question!

I gotta do SOMETHING special, so I might as well do this. More thought could have gone into this, but I spent about an hour trying to come up with episodes or moments from 20 different shows and putting them in rough chronological order. I limited myself to one episode/scene/moment/joke/whatever per show so it’s not all Space Ghost jokes. So, here we go:

Sealab 2021: “I, Robot”. Adult Swim proved it could be brilliant right out of the gate with the stealth premiere of “I, Robot”, but for Sealab it’s all downhill from here. (2000)

Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Space Ghost stops in his tracks to reminisce about the time Bobcat Goldthwait said "crack a window". The entire episode “Kentucky Nightmare” is brilliant, but this moment in particular so uniquely captures my sense of humor that it’s inexplicable. The dumb look on Space Ghost’s face when he stops in his tracks. Goddamn. (2001)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: “Mayhem of the Mooninites” I tried very hard to make this all be individual jokes or scenes or whatever, but this is another episode where the entire thing is just line after line and I can’t really pick. This, “I Robot”, and “Kentucky Nightmare” is like a perfect trio illustrating how good Adult Swim really was right out of the gate. (2001)

Home Movies: Jason casually reveals that his parents have no idea who Brendon and Melissa are and that he spends most of his free-time making movies with them. This is the episode “Storm Warning” which is overall one of the best episodes of Home Movies, but this scene is probably my favorite. Illustrates how simple and hilarious the comedy is on this show. (2002)

Tom Goes to the Mayor: the end scene in “Undercover”, where they’ve shoddily reversed Tom’s various unnecessary surgeries and called him “Taumpy Tears” to boot. Positively sublime. (2006)

Metalocalypse: Dr. Rockso’s music video. From the episode “Dethclown”. I was never in love with this show as much as the true fans were, but there were a handful of incredible episodes. This episode basically tells one joke over and over and it’s very funny. It really ends with a bang showcasing Dr. Rockso’s shitty music video that celebrates cocaine use. His singing voice is hilarious. (2006)

Assy McGee: I am the only person in the world that defends Assy McGee as being “actually pretty good” and it’s all entirely due to this one line: Assy McGee (a pair of naked buttocks with legs, whose ass functions as his head) is forced to attend a black tie event and is just milling around wearing nothing but a black bow tie. Through clenched anus he delivers the line “I can barely breathe in this penguin suit”. The whole show is worth it for that joke. I don’t even know what episode it is except that it’s from one of the first few. I might not even have the line exactly right. But, I remember laughing so hard. I may not have laughed at Assy McGee again. (2006)

Saul of the Mole Men: The opening theme song. And nothing else. (2007)

Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!: Jim and Derrick. I should pick something more user-friendly maybe, since this episode almost entirely relies on being familiar with Tim & Eric’s previous episodes. But goddamn, this episode is such a funny concept (which is basically Tim & Eric doing an alternate MTV-ified version of Awesome Show) (2008)

Moral Orel: “Numb”. When Moral Orel suddenly stopped being a quirky Adult Swim comedy and suddenly started doing episodes that resembled art films. This episode is a fucking masterpiece. I remember sobbing the first time I saw it. There are a few in season 3 that are like that, but this one is my favorite. (2008)

Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule: Terry Bruge-Hiplo reviews “Dumpster’s Children”. Another bit of comedy that I’d describe as “inexplicable” and “sublime”, and it all hinges on an old man’s mouth. Holy fuck. I don’t think I’ve laughed harder than this at a TV show since. (2010)

Delocated: The ending of “Mole”, an extended Face/Off riff where Jon goes undercover as the scary mobster Sergei. In the final moments of the episode he marries a woman, fathers multiple children with her, and only then is pulled out of the mission. The episode is a tour-de-force of comic acting by Steve Cirbus, who is graciously allowed to shine for most of the episode. But man, that ending is fucking wonderful. (2010)

Venture Bros.: The ending of “Operation P.R.O.M.” a flurry of emotions hit me when “Like a Friend” by Pulp starts playing. The scene is so well done and weirdly touching. Brock realizes that deep down he gives a shit about the Venture family and is genuinely terrified something might happen to them. And then he gets to slaughter a bunch of Zorak monsters, which is also weirdly sweet. It’s even touching on a meta-level knowing that Jackson and Doc tried many times and failed to include licensed music in the show. I love Venture Bros, but I think we’d all be better off if this were the series finale. Sorry. I had to say it. (2010)

The Heart She Holler: The first scene with Patton being taught the way of the world posthumously by his father on a VHS tape. The first season of this show is amazing, but that scene, especially where Patton does a little Japanese bow and says “oh, hot dog!” is just hysterical. Literally every time a hot dog comes up in conversation my wife and I quote it. Please, do not scorn her, it’s not racist when SHE does it. (2011)

Eagleheart: The All That Jazz inspired finale. “Paradise Rising” is mostly a masterpiece, and how it ends is so fucking incredible. Easily the most under-rated show on Adult Swim and I’m not just saying that because... you know (mimes dick-sucking) (2014)

Rick and Morty: I watched the first two episodes of Rick and Morty, thought it was good, but for some reason didn’t become a devotee until my wife made me watch the Mr. Poopybutthole episode. It’s still my favorite episode, I think. (2015)

Brett Gelman’s Dinner in America: The “Dinner with” specials are all really good, but goddamn, this one hits. Should be shown in schools. I am going to go to every grade school in my county with an AR-15 (to get past the guards, of course) and I won’t leave until they call an assembly and they let me fumble around trying to find it on vimeo and play it for the students. (2016)

The Eric Andre Show: Eric interviews Steve Schirripa. The bit where he has an intern dip his balls in Steve’s spaghetti sauce is hilarious, naturally, but I’m here to showcase the running gag where every time Steve complains how hot the studio is, Eric just wordlessly hands him an ice cube until Steve explodes. It’s one of the most childishly hilarious things I’ve ever seen. It’s perfect. (2016)

Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace: The Pick-Up artist sketch. I’m mostly unimpressed with MDE, and all but a few Sam Hyde bits leave me cold. But this sketch is a crowning achievement. I mean, I think these guys suck politically and are more mean than funny, but their sensibilities yielded one really incredible piece of comedy. Okay, I laughed at the blackface sketch too. There. You dragged it out of me. (2016) Joe Pera Talks With You: This show is beautiful and I love every episode. But the episode “Joe Pera Reads You The Church Announcements” Wherein Joe discovers a new-to-him song and can’t stop listening to it, is one of the most joyous episodes of television I’ve ever seen. A gateway episode. I tell everyone to please watch this one first. (2018)

#adult swim #space ghost coast to coast #adultswim2021

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honeyjaez · 5 years

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Hi. Hello. I know I am probably annoying all my followers with the amount of times I talk about this beautiful group known as SF9, but I’m back again, I just don’t know when to quit.

Some of you may have heard the name. Maybe it came up on Pandora when you were doing homework. Maybe a video popped up with their name but you never clicked on it.

I wanna give you the faces to the name.

SF9, short for Sensational Feeling 9 is a 9 member group who debut back in October of 2016 under FNC Entertainment.

Like most boy groups it seems like these days SF9 went through a survival show called D.O.B (Dance or Band), competing against fellow trainee group Band later known as Honeyst (Who you might have seen disbanded recently)

SF9 went onto win D.O.B as the dance group with their winning track K.O along with their unique choreography. To this day I’ve never seen anything quite like the choreography that they had in K.O

K.O was featured on their debut album along with their title track Fanfare which had a jamming vibe if I say so myself. The debut album debuted in eighth place and peaked at sixth place on the Gaon Album Chart.

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They boys performed against Cube’s PENTAGON since both groups were debuting live the same day. To this day SF9 and PENTAGON remain close close friends, often being paired up with one another.

In December of that year, just a few months after debut the boys release the single “So Beautiful” as a gift for their fans, later known as FANTASY as a way to say Thank them for all their love and support. The song was originally an OST of their interactive web-drama Click Your Heart that the members stared in.

2017 was their busiest year some would argue. In February their first mini album, Burning Sensation with the title track Roar was released, hitting as high up as #6 on Billboard World Albums Chart.

Just 2 months after Roar promotions, FNC confirmed the group would make their second comeback in April with their second EP Breaking Sensation. The title track Easy Love is often regarded as one of the best title track song of SF9, as well as title tracks that occurred in 2017. It ranked at #2 on the world album charts.

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In June of that year they had their Japanese debut and performed at both KCON New York and KCON L.A that summer.

In October they had released their 3rd mini album Knights of The Sun and their ever catchy title track O Sole Mio. This was the era I came in. Yes I am not a debut era stan, but it doesn’t make me any less of a FANTASY. I was amazed by their unique style and charisma that I got hooked right away.

In February of 2018 SF9's fourth EP, Mamma Mia! was released. Their Japanese single, under the same name was released in May, and they held a Japanese tour titled "SF9 Zepp Tour 2018 MAMMA MIA!" that month.

On July 31, they came back with their fifth EP, Sensuous, with the lead single "Now or Never". 2-18 also saw their first domestic convert and a south american fan meet tour.

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After that, the boys managed to finally get a well deserved break and came back in February of this year 2019 with their sixth mini album, Narcissus and the title track Enough, but promotions did not last long because after a month, on March 20, 2019 they released their 2nd Japanese album with the title "ILLUMINATE" In order to promote their album, a tour was held in japan and the boys continued to work hard, performing concerts and even KCON Japan.

Their most recent comeback was on the 17th of this month (June). It was their 7th mini album and its title track, RPM continues SF9 concept and style, while giving it a bit of a flare.

The main reason I spent hours writing this post, giving you their history, is because I’m sure a lot of you have heard of SF9, but never quite watched them. Maybe they came on Pandora, or Youtube Auto Play, but you’ve never taken your time to actually watch them.

Their current comeback, RPM is quite possibly one of their best comebacks. The album is by far a fan favorite, and represents SF9′s style, while also giving a bit of a twist to it. Each comeback they get stronger and stronger and firmer in their style and I love it.

But for a group like this, a group of 9 beautiful, sweet, passionate, hardworking souls, they are day after day underappreciated.

The went on their first world tour this year but already had some shows cancelled because not enough people were going and so the cost to had the concert was too high.

As of now, their title track RPM, released on the 17th, just barley has a million views. And I know, we should consider ourselves lucky because a lot of groups never even hit 1 million views, including maybe your favorites. But if that is the case then you know how we FANTASY feel. You understand. We just want more for them. We want to give them the world. We will never stop wanting to give them more.

A group like SF9 deserves to be loved.

Which is why I ask you, if you have a spare 4 minutes in your life, maybe sit down and watch them. Actually watch them. You may up deciding they aren’t your cup of tea, and that’s okay, at least you tried. That’s all I can ask.

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Also going to throw the live performance in there if you want to see Dawon being a shithead.

Open your arms and give them a chance, because if you even somewhat enjoy their music, you'll never regret once having them in your life.

That was is, Thats the post. My shameless attempt at getting people to check SF9 out there in the world. I love this group with my whole ass and even though they aren’t my ult group, they hold a special place in my heart that only SF9 can fill.

And if you are still reading, thank you for sticking through this all and know I already love you for taking your time and listening to my Ted Talk.

If you would like to meet the members, Ill give you an introduction down below! They are cute and only bite a little bit 😁 💗

Youngbin

Real Name: Kim Youngbin

Birthday: November 23, 1993

Position: Leader, Lead Rapper, Dancer

Our hardworking dad of the group. Claims he doesn’t play favorite but everyone knows Chani is his favorite kid.

Inseong

Real Name: Kim Inseong

Birthday: July 12, 1993

Position: Main Vocalist, Dancer

The oldest member (but is he really?) who speaks the best English and is a giant flirt. He likes that he looks like a Desert fox.

Jaeyoon

Real Name: Lee Jaeyoon

Birthday: August 9, 1994

Position: Lead Vocalist, Dancer

Honey voiced sweet boy who just loves Pokemon. Has an ever going bromance with Inseong.

Dawon

Real Name: Lee Sanghyuk

Birthday: July 24, 1995

Position: Lead Vocalist, Dancer

King of Variety, he is the mood maker of SF9. He just loves to make people smile with his jokes ^_^

(Also is a little shit sometimes)

Zuho

Real Name: Baek Juho

Birthday: July 4, 1996

Position: Main Rapper, Dancer

Our charismatic low toned rapper, with one of the most unique voices in kpop. I don’t like compareing idols, but think of Wonwoo from Seventeen. He reminds me a lot of him. He loves songwriting, and is good friends with EXO’s Chanyeol and Red Velvet’s Wendy.

Rowoon:

Real Name: Kim Seokwoo

Birthday: August 7, 1996

Position: Main Vocalist, Dancer, Visual

The groups Mother, a rising actor in the K drama world. You might have seen him in “Where Stars Land”

Taeyang

Real Name: Yoo Taeyang

Birthday: February 28, 1997

Position: Lead Vocalist, Main Dancer

SF9′s Dance Machine and appointed Sunshine of the group who loves to choreograph dances. Big EXO fan, and if he reminds you of SHINee’s Taemin, don’t worry, you aren’t alone.

Hwiyoung

Real Name: Kim Youngkyun

Birthday: May 11, 1999

Position: Rapper, Supporting Vocalist, Dancer

Our sensitive happy virus of the group who just loves the rain,because it makes him feel calm and comfortable.

Chani

Real Name: Kang Chanhee

Birthday: January 17, 2000

Position: Vocalist, Main Dancer, Rapper, Maknae

Another rising star in the K Drama world. You might have seen him in the 2018 widely popular “Sky Castle”. The residential cutie, who idolizes SHINee’s Taemin. He is also a host on MBS’s Show! Music Core along with SKZ Hyunjin and Gugudan’s Mina.

These are our 9 wonderful boys. Please, if you care to, love them, because they are worth it all.

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waterturnsback · 4 years

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At the risk of being overly earnest...

All of this blog post will go after the jump because no one should read it, and I’ll probably delete it later.

Today is July 20, and without fail, it is the hottest day of the year. Dark Sky says it is 93 degrees but feels like 98 degrees. MyRadar says it is 92 degrees and feels like 96 degrees. The default iPhone weather app says it is 93 degrees and feels like 99 degrees. It is 7:25 p.m. It is awful.

Every summer, this stretch of days is the most oppressive of the year. The preheating of our sidewalks and streets is over, and it is time to bake. The humidity rolls in to make it a sauna. It is awful. It helps me remember everything.

There are too many events tied to this week. From July 17 through July 24, give or take a few days on either end, I can lay out formative events since 2008. Timehop and Facebook Memories have jarred my brain over the past few days and reminded me of what I miss, what I savor and what has shaped me to this point.

In 2008, Anna and I went to Whartscape in Baltimore on July 20. I took the above photo of Sam Herring of Future Islands there. I used to pinpoint this day as my shift into truly being “cool,” which is a concept that doesn’t quite age well. But we saw Future Islands, Dan Deacon, a Girl Talk side project, Adventure, Parts & Labor, Double Dagger, Ponytail and so many more. There were a bunch of weirdos in a parking lot in Baltimore. I was 16, and I hadn’t been around that before. It was something I wanted to be a part of in the future. It ruled. I am bummed I did not write about this day on the 10-year anniversary two years ago and that it came up quickly this year. Maybe for the 13th anniversary? It was a hot day. Black Dice’s set to close the night got canceled when a storm blew through, and Anna and I got lost in Baltimore in the storm.

Two days earlier, Anna and I went to Artscape to see The Oranges Band, one of the criminally underrated Baltimore bands of the 2000s. Anna was super into them in the early/mid-2000s, and I think they just weren’t weird enough to carve out the longevity and brain space of some of the Whartscape acts. It was fun. It was hot.

One day earlier, Scooter + Jinx played its last show (I don’t think we played again after that?) at the Shamrock Park bandshell. It was acoustic with me, Anna and Benn, and we covered Wilco (three times!), The White Stripes, Silversun Pickups, The Thermals, Cold War Kids, Pixies and I really can’t bear to watch any more of the videos to figure out what else we played. It was a lot. Earlier, I played guitar for Ashley, who sang, and we played some originals and covered Ted Leo. That was the night where Kate and I said we “liked” each other. It was a big deal at the time.

In 2009, there was another outdoor concert at the bandshell the same weekend. I performed alone as Wapinitia, and then Benn accompanied me on a drum for a “Death Valley ‘69″ cover and a Polar Bear Club cover. I played a ton of originals that I know longer remember how to play, though I find the set list for that night when I was cleaning out my room last week and packed it away in a box.

A couple people spent that summer trying to set me up with Elisabeth, and I had been listening to them, despite a couple disastrous encounters a month earlier. The Rita’s/Wendy’s setup will live in infamy. But I tried, and then I realized that I just didn’t care. So I hung out with Kyle and we talked to whole time. I was disillusioned that summer, but I was 17, so it makes sense.

In 2010, I do not really remember what I was doing. The IronBirds were on the road that weekend, so I was not working. I know I went back to Shamrock Park at night and just kind of walked around because I was sad and lonely (lol). My high school graduation party, which doubled as Anna’s college graduation party and my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary part, was in a couple days, so we were cleaning.

In 2011, I went to New York for the weekend. On July 22, Anna and I sat at the Williamsburg Waterfront and watched Death From Above 1979 perform from a distance. It was a hot night. The next day, Molly P. met up with us, and we went to the Prospect Park Zoo before seeing The Feelies, Real Estate and Times New Viking. We saw Real Estate in May and Anna was at the 285 Kent show in June where the band played its new album front to back, so we were seeing the evolution of the Days songs in the live environment. It was a great show, and I think I tried to drink some coconut water and immediately spit it out. Otherwise, Anna kept getting us wine.

From Prospect Park, we went to Shea Stadium and caught Andrew Cedermark’s set to close a bill that had also featured Dustin Wong. It was $7 per person to get in, or something like that, but Anna hustled Patrick Stickles at the door to let the three of us in for $7 because there was only one band left. We were drinking out on the Shea Stadium balcony, and Molly P. told me that she wished she hadn’t agreed to go see ODDSAC with me instead of going to senior prom the week before. I can’t argue with that. I texted Molly M. that I liked her.

Jeffery and Kia were at 285 Kent, so we went down to the water from Shea and wound up seeing Pictureplane at some insane hour of the night. It was so hot in 285. My phone said it was 88 degrees outside or something along those lines, and I got a chill when I walked out of 285. Someone was handing out watermelon, and it was hot. I don’t know how I survived that day. The mass shooting in Norway also happened that weekend.

The next day, Molly M. and I talked about the night before, and I said, “It’s real.” We wandered Williamsburg that day before going to Hoboken to see Real Estate and Dent May at Maxwell’s.

In 2012, Grandpa and Grandma died during the week, so I was a mess (though I did see Shut Up And Play The Hits in theaters, and it was good). I was going to New York anyway July 20, but I called out of my internship and got on an earlier bus. Anna picked me up from the MegaBus and we just kind of wandered Manhattan. The Aurora mass shooting happened the night before, too. I don’t remember where we got dinner, other than we got Mexican. We went out to Ridgewood Queens and then got ready. Molly M. was home in San Diego that weekend, so I didn’t have to walk on eggshells at Emily’s apartment on Havermeyer. Diana was in a fun mood, along with Becky, and Anastassia, Molly K. and Marc B. were also there (and more probably met up with us?). We pregamed pretty hard, and there are a bunch of hilarious photos that are now gone from Facebook because Becky deactivated last week. We went to the Woods and then some random house party in Williamsburg. There are a bunch of goofy pictures of me and Emily in the backyard, and Emily fell asleep on a bike(?).

The next day, Anna and I met up with Dent May at Grand Ferry Park and interviewed him for about 20 minutes. It was a perfect interview, and he tapped into a lot of what me and Anna were feeling psychically without knowing what we were going through. It was a beautiful night, and it was just really cool to talk to him. He was playing Glasslands, and since I was 20, I couldn’t go, so me and Anna met up with Anastassia and went to House of Vans to see Dum Dum Girls and Widowspeak. Anna and Anastassia stood inside the alcohol area, while I stood on the other side of the fence to talk to them. The sets were good, and then Anna and I went back to 285 to see Iceage. It was nuts. There were real punks there, and the indie kids weren’t ready for it.

On Sunday, July 22, Anna and I went down to DUMBO with Anastassia, and we walked the Brooklyn Bridge. It was cool. I still do not understand the logic of riding your bike across the bridge if you are a serious biker, but the views were great and it wasn’t too hot. We wandered Manhattan a little bit and then took the ferry back. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen, and it was a satisfying end to the weekend during an awful time. Emily and Diana met up with us at American Apparel. Everyone agreed it was one of the most fun weekends of the summer, and it happened while Molly M. was away. Hm.

On Monday, we went to see Beach House in Central Park. Marc P. got the ticket that was supposed to be for Molly M. It rained. Lower Dens opened. It was beautiful. Anastassia watched from outside the fence, and we all went back to Brooklyn together. I was taking the bus home the next afternoon, so Anastassia and I met up in Williamsburg in the morning and went to Co-Op 87. I bought her a Widowspeak 7″, and we went over to Manhattan and I got pho for the first time in my life. It remains one of my favorite weekends under the worst circumstances.

In 2013, it was again one of the hottest days of the year. Me, Dan and Rob drove to Annapolis on July 19, and it was miserable. We tried to walk around. I did a phone interview with someone on the street. We got ice cream, and then we went back to College Park. On July 20, I went to Baltimore and met up with Seth and Ryan at an Irish bar on the Inner Harbor where we were going to meet Colleen for her birthday, but her flight got screwed up, so me, Seth and Ryan just watched the pirate boat in the harbor and the lightning.

In 2014, I was alone in California, so I drove out to Pomona to go to the Viva Pomona festival. I saw Thee Oh Sees, Fuzz and Terry Malts. I bought Worry by Big Troubles on vinyl from a record store out there. It was cool. I think that was the same weekend I watched an entire season of House of Cards, went to The Geffen Contemporary to see the Mike Kelley exhibit and then met up with Jack in Echo Park.

In 2015, I came home from covering a girls youth soccer tournament in Richmond and went to see No Age at the H&H Building on the hottest day of the year. They were good. No one was really there. A couple days later, I got my first real job at The Sun.

In 2016, I hadn’t taken my job at PennLive yet, but it was getting close. On July 23, we went to an Orioles game with a pretty deep crew, and it turned into a long day. It was so hot and so humid. It was raining, but there were no clouds over us. Jack said it was like the sky was crying.

In 2017, we spent a night in D.C. We were trying to use Brad & Mike’s pool because it was so hot, but then it thunderstormed.

In 2018, we were on our way to Western Maryland for a weekend at Deep Creek Lake. I got pulled over for speeding leaving Cumberland, but I got let off with a warning because I pulled over right when the guy waved me down. It was a good weekend. I think that was really the first time I started drinking a lot of White Claw. We got taquitos for the lake house, and it was the best food decision we made that weekend. Later, that weekend, I thought I lost my phone. I didn’t.

In 2019, we were in Denver. It was fine.

In 2020, I am sitting in my apartment waiting for a mattress to be delivered so I can throw out my old one and my futon frame in the trash tonight and then set up my room. I am so close to getting there.

#personal #writing

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mvrgx · 5 years

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2, 27, 36 and 46 for queen asks!

Thank you babe 😙

2. Whose voice do you like least of the 3 singing members of the band?

I tried to choose but have fallen miserably... i just cant they are all angels 💞💞💞

27. Do you have any queen albums and on what format are they?

Me and my sister stolen some cds from our parents long time ago in 2015 when we first went on queen plus adam and its with their biggest hits of course. But i listen to them on spotify mostly 💞

36. Do you think you could beat sny of them at Scrabble?

No no no. Ive played maybe tree times in my life in scrabble and i know these boys spend too many hours playing to hack the scrabble system 😂

46. If you could go back in time to any concert they ever performed which would it be?

Live at the rainbow of course. Ive listened to this magic on repeat for like 2 weeks now so yeah... 🌈

I wanted really to get the 21 and 25 so i just tell you the story yeah.

21. Opinion on queen plus adam?

25. Have you seen queen in any form?

So let me tell you that i really started with adam lambert. Im 2000 so in 2013 when i was 13 i discovered adam and fell miserably i always had something for people who are mistfits or smh. So yeah i loved adam he taught me so much about being yourself and not be ashamed of it that when my 15 y o ass heard that he will be in pl i told myself that i have to go. I didnt know about queen very much. Only their biggest hits. But yeah. In 2016 adam had his own tour and was in pl too so i came and in 2017 adam brian and rog were in pl second time so i went. Im glad that i had the opportunity. If adam wasnt there with queen in 2015 i doubt if he would come in 2016 so. Im thankful. I love adam and i get really hurt when peole hate on him bc hes not Freddie. No shit i thought he was freddie wow. So yeah i watched some interview with Bri and he said that in 2010 they wanted to get out of the sight so they can "get old" in peace and be away from the fame. But when they first performed with adam on idol there were some chemistry that filled them as queen that they are playing for 9 years now. Wow put hate on adam sure 😑 so now we have borhap. I dont think we would have it if bri and rog didnt take the chance. Plus they werent with any singer this long as with adam so... yeah. Thank you for coming to my ted talk 😋

Sorry for my shitty eng 🙈

Anyway thank you for the questions 😚

#adam lambert #queen #adam lambert + queen #brian may #roger taylor #freddie mercury #john deacon

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livinginlandmarketing · 3 years

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Four years ago, I began directing the Beat Poets reading series in Idyllwild and would occasionally invite guest poets. On July 16, Brendan Constantine joined us for our Beat Night Special at Middle Ridge Winery. This was the second time he has joined us, and it was another characteristic performance of blazing intelligence and animated delivery. It was Brendan’s first gig since the pandemic began, during that small window of opportunity when we could actually meet, maskless and without danger, inside the winery’s vaulted ceilings and immense space.

Poet Brendan Constantine reads at Beat Night in Idyllwild. (Courtesy of Myra Dutton)

Constantine has received support and commissions from many prestigious organizations, including MOCA, the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with appearances on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” TED ED and numerous podcasts. His work has appeared in many top-tier literary journals. His most recent collection is “Dementia, My Darling” (2016). He currently teaches creative writing at the Windward School. In addition, he brings poetry workshops to veterans, hospitals, foster care centers and shelters for the homeless. He is working with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project and with speech pathologist Michael Biel to develop the first poetry workshop for people dealing with aphasia. Every summer, Constantine teaches a poetry workshop for the Idyllwild Arts Summer Poetry Program, so the timing was ripe to catch him for our reading series.

Constantine captivated our large, eclectic audience of writers, artists, actors, musicians and photographers with his zany, innovative work, hilarious wit and mercurial performance. The audience went wild –– laughing, cheering, applauding and ultimately reflecting on the deeper nuances of his work. Brendan bears the mark of a great poet. He may just be possessed of genius.

Here’s my interview with him.

Q: Am I correct that you went to the Idyllwild School of Music and Arts Summer Program when you were a teenager and that was when you lived here and began to love Idyllwild?

Constantine: I didn’t attend ISOMATA. I went to the now defunct Desert Sun School, which later became Elliot Pope. My family started bringing me to Idyllwild for vacations in the middle 70’s and I was so struck that when it came time for high school (1982), I applied to DSS. Idyllwild has never let go of my heart. It is where I spent so many formative years, you know?

Q: How long have you been teaching poetry workshops at the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program?

Constantine: I began working with Idyllwild Arts in 2000, supporting the first iterations of Writers Week.

Q: Do you have more than five books? Do you have a new poetry book coming out soon?

Constantine: I have four full-length collections, a fifth on the way, and seven additional “chapbooks” of poetry. The new book has some real interest, but I haven’t settled on a publisher yet.

Q: Can you tell us about your new book?

Constantine: The new book is called “The Opposites Game.” It’s titled after a poem, the premise of which is kind of an organizing principle for the whole manuscript. Throughout, the reader is offered a reverse perspective of the world, daily life experienced in a new order, the sun and moon trade jobs. I hope people will enjoy it. I’ve tried to hit all the notes.

Q: Were Anne Waldman and Laurie Anderson influences in your presentations, since both use theatrical word performances?

Constantine: Laurie Anderson and Anne Waldman were very much influences on my work. They’re pretty wonderful artists and demonstrated for me that you could perform your work without being ham-handed. Without ACTING it, as it were. That if you just modulated your voice the way you would if you were talking to people in person, (perhaps people you were meeting for the first time) that you could connect with an audience on a higher level.

Poet Brendan Constantine and Myra Dutton are seen at Beat Night in Idyllwild. (Courtesy of Holly Parsons)

Q: Have you ever met them?

Constantine: I’ve met Anne Waldman and she was charming. Very receptive.

Q: What other poets influenced you?

Constantine: I’d have to say an idol of mine, who I also met and even shared a podium with was Brigit Pegeen Kelly. As far as I’m concerned, she was the greatest poet of my lifetime. I still miss her.

Q: Have you performed in New York?

Constantine: I have performed in New York quite a bit: at the Players Club, the New School, KGB Bar, Cornelia Street Cafe, the Bowery Poetry Club, the National Arts Club and Poets House, among others.

Q: Have you read in Europe?

Constantine: I have read throughout Europe — Paris, Germany, Slovenia, Belgium, Amsterdam, England, Ireland, also Greece and the Mediterranean.

We are fortunate that in July 2022, he will be back in Idyllwild, offering a two-hour, power-packed poetry workshop at Middle Ridge Winery in Idyllwild. There will be a culminating public reading for workshop participants later in the week. Brendan promises his workshop students one, new, finished poem and a number more in the works. I am really looking forward to it. If you would like to be on the list to be notified about the workshop or related Beat Night events, contact me at [email protected].

Idyllwild poet, teacher and author Myra Dutton is a regular contributor to Inlandia Literary Journeys.

New book offers Native telling of Willie Boy’s story

Visit to parents’ home rekindles memories that sparked a lifelong love of books

Writers should read what they don’t write

-on August 28, 2021 at 04:00AM by Myra Dutton

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sosation · 3 years

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Volume is Power

The following is a transcript of my "Audio Liner Notes" for Volume is Power, the album I released earlier this year under the project titled Temporal Distortions.

The album can be purchased for free on my bandcamp here: https://temporaldistortions.bandcamp.com/

and it is available on all streaming services:

-https://open.spotify.com/album/3983Bepp9uxIv1pb9qaEwY?si=qWpTAozTS2ujMQ79R_FZZg&utm_source=copy-link

-https://music.apple.com/us/album/volume-is-power/1557283830?uo=4

and music videos are up on the Local Famous Records Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRIjOlGfx0M

Volume is Power

Transcript of Audio Liner Notes and Recommended Readings

Hi. My name is Anthony Sosa and you have just listened to Volume is Power. I hope you enjoyed it. I began actively writing for this record in December of 2019. Some of the musical ideas were written in previous bands going back as far as 2009 and others were written after I had started working on the record. As you know, 2020 was an insane year. So, as you can imagine, it affected the writing and conception of what we were working on. When I began writing lyrics it was the middle of the democratic primaries for President. I was a Bernie Sanders volunteer. I wanted to talk about issues in the US and around the world. But then COVID happened and George Floyd happened, and I had to talk about those things as well--If anything, to document this moment in time. Honestly, those events backed up what I already wanted to say with this record: Our system is broken.

Sonically, Volume is Power has a lot of specific influences that influenced specific songs. For each track I tried to lean into whatever influences were present at the time and treat each piece almost as a genre study, though the genres span a narrow spectrum along the “rock” continuum. Time -- was, and will continue to be, an important aspect of the project. Temporal Distortions are happening all around us all the time. This record is essentially a series of distortions, or songs, that span, temporally, from the mid 1990’s to the late 2000’s. There are also audio clips from the 1950’s and 60’s as well as from this historic summer of 2020. Songs from my past still inspire me in the present to create an album for the future which is now here. Now, this album will exist in the past for me but for you this is your present. Maybe, if I did my job right, and you are so inclined, it will inspire you to create something in your future.

I had intended to make this album available for free everywhere, but youtube and bandcamp are the only platforms where I can achieve that. You can always email [email protected] and we will send you a free digital copy.

In this Audio Liner Notes track I intend to give credit to all of the amazing artists who helped me create this record. I am honored and privileged to know and have the pleasure of working with so many amazing people and to all of you thank you for giving me your time and energy. Chief among these is Dale Brunson, my colleague and compatriot. I met Dale in 2009 when he was playing in Werewolf Therewolf and I was playing in Housefire and The Raven Charter. We’ve been friends ever since and in 2012 we started a Top 40 cover band called Sweetmeat who is still together as of this recording. Dale mixed and co-produced this record with me and without his patience, insight and guidance this record would have been impossible. I definitely threw him some curveballs throughout this process and he has handled all of it graciously.

I, now, am going to give a track by track breakdown of the record but I am not trying to spend too much time explaining or discussing lyrics. Those are for you to interpret how you will. I’m not great at insinuation, anyway, so I’m sure you get the point. I’d rather discuss the people on the tracks and the musical influences behind them. So:

Track 1 is titled Our Streets and begins with the voice of Rod “Teddy” Smith whom I met on the streets of Fort Worth during the protests this May-July. Rod and I, as well as Defense Attorney Michael Campbell, Christopher Rose and my wife, Amber, started a non-profit organization in the wake of these protests called The Justice Reform League with the goal of advocating for evidence based socio-economic and criminal justice policies at the municipal, state and federal levels and to empower impacted communities through civic education. I, personally, believe that there needs to be more effort put toward educating our community on how local politics actually works, how it impacts us, and how we can get involved and change things. So that is what we are trying to do. I also feel that music, or art in general, can be an educator and is one of the reasons I was inspired to write this record.

In regards to the opening clip with Rod, I actually have hours of footage from weeks of protests in May and June but this clip stuck out to me particularly because it evokes Fort Worth and the particular sentiment I was wanting to express with this record. The piano was played by me, recorded here at my house. At the end of the track are protest chants from one of the larger protest-days this past summer here in Fort Worth. My wife, Amber, and I marched for about 3 weeks before actually beginning to organize. On those later days of the protests I started carrying a battery powered PA speaker on my back in a doggie backpack with a mic and using that for chants and to further project those giving speeches. The album cover is a photo by local photographer Zach Burns capturing me doing just that. Zach being another awesome person I met this past summer. Before I move on, the real first voice (and last) you hear on the album, and multiple times throughout, is of Jordan Buckly of Every Time I Die- my favorite band. Early in the pandemic I paid Jordan $30 on Cameo to say “Temporal Distortions” and to “purchase” a shitty riff idea. I didn’t use the riff, it was god awful like he said, but I made some clips of him because it made me smile.

Track 2 is Daring Bravely.

This song was intended to be a The Raven Charter song and was introduced to the band near the very end of our time together. For those who don’t know, The Raven Charter is the most serious project I have ever been a part of. It was the most important thing in my life for many years. I am not going to use this time to give a history lesson on TRC, though that would be fun. Go check out our stuff if you’re into Prog Rock. So this thing kicked around on my hard drive since 2015, I recorded multiple demos with guitar, bass and drums, over the years and finally settled on a bridge. I didn’t actually write the lyrics until I began working on this album proper in Dec of 2019.

I had the awesome pleasure of doing this song with my boys Daniel Baskind and Erik Stolpe of TRC. Daniel wrote a beautiful solo for this track. It was exactly the energy the song needed and also sounds quintessential Daniel. As I stated at the beginning, I was leaning into the genre for each track and the genre on this track was “Ravencharter” and Daniel nailed it. And Erik, I truly feel, did an amazing job in making this song more than it was. The orchestration and production aspects of his writing for this track are spot on. He really got the vibe I was going for and took it even further. It was great to get to work with both of them again to recreate some of that magic we used to make. The audio clips are from Dr. Brené Brown and her TED Talk “The Power of Vulnerability” from Jan 3, 2011. Funny story about that. When my wife Amber and I first saw Brené’s TED Talks we really enjoyed the concepts she covered. We both came away from watching those remembering the phrase “Daring Bravely,” which is why I named the song that. I like those two words together and the concept they elicit. However, when researching for these Liner Notes I discovered that all along she was saying “Daring Greatly.” She even has a book with that title. So, we’ve been saying it wrong the whole time. Regardless, I prefer “Daring Bravely” because it requires bravery and courage to dare greatly and have confidence and believe in yourself. So be brave. Dare Bravely.

Track 3 is titled Division of Labor.

What radicalized me? Working in the service industry and learning history. This song is essentially an amalgamation of that. The line in the bridge is an Oscar Wilde quote. This was just a rando idea on the guitar that I recorded into my phone on new year's day 2019. Musically, the main guitar riff seemed to me Every Time I Die influenced but when I put drums and bass to it it ended up sounding more like At the Drive In or something, to me. My demo leaned into that a lot more than the finished product. This song definitely ended up in a different place than when I started working on it which is always fun and surprising. Workers rights are very important to me and I tried to put that into this song.

Track 4 is Pay for your own Exploitation.

This is another relatively recent idea recorded into my phone on the acoustic in October 2019. I remember when I did it because my friend and fellow musician/producer Randall C. Bradley from Delta Sound Studios came over and before we could even really greet each other I had to stop and say “hold on I have to record this idea before I forget.” It kinda had an Aerosmith vibe to me when I put it all together in the demo process for the record. Like 90’s Aerosmith. I dunno. I guess really the 90’s are smeared all over this album. Another temporal distortion. And then from the bridge on it goes all ETID. The “sex organs of the machine world” line at the beginning of the song is a Marshall McLuhan quote. The bridge vocals “Politics is war without bloodshed. War is politics with bloodshed,” I heard from Adolf Reed Jr. but I don’t know if he was quoting someone else.

I had the pleasure of working with Double Bear on this song - my Local Famous Records brethren. The gang vocals in the song are myself, Michael Garcia, Brandon Tyner, Garrett Bond, Matt Bardwell, Glenn Wallace, and Dale Brunson and we’re having a lot of fun, if you can’t tell. It makes me happy that we got to work together on this project and I imagine there will be more collabs down the road.

Track 5 is We Make the Past.

This song is essentially a Bush song, or was when I wrote it. Very Pixies influenced. Dale’s production took this a lot further than I imagined in the best way possible. I also showed up to the studio thinking my lyrics were finished but realized I was missing a second verse. The demo version was just like a minute and a half and I extrapolated the rest and got it wrong. Once that started I essentially re-wrote all the lyrics on the spot. The lyrics are meant to be scattered and random, like Gavin Rossdales’, though they come from a book by the late Hatian anthropologist and historian Michel-Rolp Trouillot. Bush was one of my favorite bands growing up in the mid-late 90’s and early oughts. I’ve always liked their raw energy and lyrical strangeness. (The same could be said for my love of The Mars Volta.) So this was my homage to Gavin, Nigel, Dave and Robin and shitty guitar playing. Also, I pronounced “His-tor-icity” wrong. I said histori-ocity and I don’t know why I didn't notice it until really late in the process. Same with “commodozation” instead of “commoditization” Oh well. Making up words is fun too.

Track 6 is Serve-Us Industry. This song was fun. It originally was going to be a new Huffer song. I had the pleasure of being a part of Huffer from 2015-2018 with Chea Cueavas and Jeremy Nelson, and we were working on a new album in 2017. Between Chea and myself we had about 10-13 ideas kicking around. This was one of the ones I had thrown out there. To me it had a Foo Fighters vibe, which makes sense because Chea and I were also playing in The Foo, our Foo Fighters cover band, a lot around that time. I just thought it would be fun to sing about all the mistakes that happen while working in the service industry and having to deal with customers. These lyrics made me laugh and sometimes that’s all you can do.

Track 7 is an interlude titled Employer vs Employee. This is a clip of David Griscom from the Michael Brooks Show episode 145 - Police & the ANC & We Need a Liberation Theology ft. William Shoki & Ronan Burtenshaw recorded on June 23, 2020. I really enjoy David and even though at the time of recording he has been living in Brooklyn for several years he has never forgotten Texas. His insight on economic issues and worker’s rights is immensely important. The underlying music on this track is just myself playing bass and guitar. A bass riff I had laying around for almost a decade.

The Michael Brooks Show has greatly impacted and influenced my life since I became a Patron in Dec of 2019. I wanted to take what was I learning from Michael, David and Matt and their guests and put it into music. Since Michael’s passing in July 2020, David and Matt Lech have gone on to create their own show Left Reckoning. Check them out for leftist theory and international news and analysis regarding the global left. As Americans, we all need a lot more international and historical perspectives.

Track 8 is titled Class Struggle.

This song was influenced by Silverchair's 1997 and 1999 albums Freakshow and Neon Ballroom. At least that’s kinda what I was going for tonally. The quote being shouted by Karl Marx from his Communist Manifesto, with a slight edit. In hindsight I probably should have use “their” instead of “his or her,” but it was an effort to use more inclusive language. I feel like most people hearing this will know that that was Marx, but if you don’t now you do. This track was originally written and proposed to Huffer as an idea in July 2017 but didn’t make it further than that. Dale plays the double stops in the middle of the song.

I suppose I should take this moment to say that this album is my first lyrical endeavor. I have written personal things in the past but never anything for any of the various bands and projects that I have been a part of, save one short lived hip-hop project back in 2010 I did with Aaron Anderson which was never released. So any idea that I “proposed” to any previous band was just music not lyrics. When trying to decide what to write lyrics about it became clear to me that politics and history was what I felt I needed to talk about. As a History teacher, and someone who studied history at the graduate level, I understand that not everyone learns history by reading historical monographs--but rather through pop-culture. So this is my contribution to pop-culture and I hope some people do learn some things by listening to this. And perhaps, then inspired to do some of their own research.

Track 9 is the Stoop Romans interlude.

These are 2 clips from two different performances of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The first is from the 1970 film and the second, I believe, is from the 1953 production. I got them from youtube and you ideally, got this for free, so hopefully no harm no foul. The piano is a repetition of the piano at the beginning of the album. And these clips, to me, summed up the sentiment of many in America in 2020.

That is another thing I want to take a moment to say. The creation of this record and the method of its release is a statement. I do not want to profit from this. That is not why I made it. I made it for the message and I want this message spread as much as possible and the best way to do that is to make it free. So it was a labor of love and I tried to reject the capitalistic game of “the hustle” that most musicians, and artists, are forced to play with their creations as much as possible. It is my gift to you and example that things can be done differently.

Track 10 is Imperialism get Fucking Bent.

Soooo I was reading a lot of Noam Chomsky at the time, what can I say. If you don’t know who that is look him up. He is an important intellectual whose perspectives on recent American history and economics are invaluable. This song was heavily influenced by ETID, though a lot more simple, and was written on the guitar in 2018.

Initially, when I began writing lyrics I wrote stuff about Magic the Gathering, of which I am an avid Commander player, at least before the pandemic. But the tone of the song didn’t match the lyrics so I scrapped them and started over. The clip in the middle of the song I got from the Congressional Dish Podcast hosted by Jen Briney, of who I am a Patron. She got it from the Senate Hearing: United States Strategy in Afghanistan, United States Senate Armed Services Committee, February 11, 2020. The two men speaking are Sen. Angus King (Maine) and Jack Keane: Chairman of the Institute for The Study of War who was appointed by John McCain when he was Chairman to the Congressional Committee on the National Defense Strategy.

If you want to know what congress is up to, which you should, then you should listen to that podcast, it is invaluable. The point of the clip is to demonstrate that these men acknowledge that we will be at war “indefinitely.” They said the quiet part out loud in an untelevised hearing of which at the end of they say essentially “let's not discuss this again publicly.” I’m not a journalist but this is me trying to do my part of getting this information out there. We, the American People, shouldn’t want “preventative war,” eternal war. IMO we should want no war unless all other options have been exhausted. Take those trillions of dollars of our money and give it back to us in the form of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and free college. Then there will be plenty of money left over to rebuild our infrastructure and provide Universal Basic Income. I believe a healthy and educated populus is crucial to a democracy. We need that in America, desperately. And it would be a lot easier to pay for all of that if we weren’t in Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And that is just for drone strikes. The U.S. military currently operates in 40% of the world’s nations including most of Africa and Central Asia. Check out the Smithsonian Magazine website for info on this. And read Chomsky. Book Recommendations are at the end.

Track 11 is Ka’s Dance. This is a straight up Stephen King love song. He wrote all the words and it’s the 2nd, 5th, and 8th stanzas from Song of Susannah, the 6th book in the Dark Tower series. The clip is from the audiobook narrated by George Guidall (gwidell). This song was another one that was influenced by ETID. Energetically, it reminds me of Jefferson Colby--the band I was in with Matt and Danny Mabe from 2010-2013. Those two have absolutely influenced the way I play and view music, as well as their father Mark Mabe-who taught me how to play bass. Anyway, that is a story for another day, I hope to collaborate with them again in the future. The clip at the end is Captain Janeway and Chekote from Star Trek Voyager.

Track 12 is You Opened My Eyes. I had the honor and the privilege of working with 3 amazing artists on this song: Tornup, Chill, and Canyon Kafer. Christopher Hill, AKA Chill, and I have known each other for years via Dale Brunson and we briefly worked together on a collaborative musician lottery competition thing titled DIG back in 2017 that never happened. I have always wanted to record with him and had a lot of fun doing so. He is one of the best drummers I know and his pocket gave this song the life it needed. Torry Finley AKA Tornup and I met on the streets this past summer of 2020 during the protests and I heard him speak at the public speaking event we held at Trinity Park-- and he moved me. Eventually, we started talking music and I found out he is a fellow musician and bass player as well, I thought “I definitely want to collaborate with this dude.” Fortunately, this opportunity presented itself and, as I am sure you can tell, this song wouldn’t be what it is without him. He performed the first verse. Canyon performed the sick bass solo before the final chorus and I am truly humbled and grateful to have all of these guys on this album.

Track 13 is Fight the Hegemony. This is by far the heaviest track on the album and I essentially shout out some of my influences in the lyrics. Thrice, Glassjaw, and The Used, Dream Theater, Cohoeed and Cambria and other early-mid 2000’s bands still have a big influence on me. My friend and colleague Chris Musso performed the drums on this track. Chris and I played together in Silverlode in 2004 and in The Raven Charter from 2005-2008. We still play together in the aforementioned Sweetmeat, with Dale, and I am super happy to get another opportunity to collaborate together again. As I mentioned earlier, I volunteered and canvassed for Bernie Sanders during the Democratic Primaries in 2020 and the lyrics in this song were inspired by his movement. Now that I am writing these Liner Notes in early 2021 I want to take a moment to reiterate and clarify-- in the wake of the attempted insurrection on January 6th--this song is NOT aiming to inspire violence nor an overthrow of the system by using violence. It is crystal clear to me now how people can read into things and take what they will. These lyrics are about the Bernie Sanders movement. Period.

Track 14 is Simp for the System (Free Market Capitalism Love Song). This is another one of those songs that, musically, was originally written for Huffer, well the bass part anyway. Chea and Jeremy, both had written completely different stuff but I didn’t want to rip them off so I rewrote it and made it as emo as possible. Brand New, was the band I had in mind, circa Deja Entendu. The lyrics are a joke. I was laughing out loud when I wrote them. I had considered just making it instrumental because for the longest time I couldn’t think of any lyrics to go with it. I didn’t want to do “real” emo but I couldn't think of anything else. Then I was like “ well, often these emo songs were about a girl. What if the girl wasn’t a girl but a system that people simp for all the time?” Ta-da. It was actually Dale who suggested the “Hey girl…” rant in the bridge and I think he was onto something. I hope you thought it was as funny as I did.

Track 15 is Cold War Nostalgia. This song is the oldest one on the record and has gone through the most changes- creating nostalgia for me on multiple levels. I wrote the original version in 2009 for my band Housefire. That version was more upbeat and the main verse riff was a dotted 8th note delay melody...very 2009… and Housefire broke up before it was properly recorded. I really liked the song and re-worked it several times on my own over 7 or 8 years until Huffer began working on our new record. I rewrote the track again to be more “Huffer'' sounding by making the bass carry the melody in the verses rather than the guitar. I also slowed it down quite a bit and went for a more rough sound (thinking Refused-esque) rather than polished, uber-compressed late 2000’s scene music. Chea and Jeremy weren’t that into it, and honestly even with the changes it didn’t sound like Huffer so we dropped it. Then, I picked it up again when I started working on this record and tried to put some words to it, and it has now become this sprawling lengthy piece. The original version was a tad over the 3 minute mark and it is now close to 7.

Lyrics were difficult at first. But because the song, for me, was oozing with nostalgia it seemed like a good topic to start with. I had written a paper in my final semester of Grad school in 2018 for a transnational history class about the Cold War- my area of study for my history degree. That paper is my proudest academic achievement to date, titled “National Narratives in Post Cold War America and the Former U.S.S.R.'' and was about the stories we tell ourselves. The ones we tell ourselves at the interpersonal level and the ones our culture, society and leaders tell us at the macro level--and how the totalitarian can affect those stories. This looked at Nostalgia of the Cold War and how that nostalgia is different for the US and the former Soviet states. All the lyrics from this song are taken from that paper- particularly from certain quotes that I quoted throughout. The first verse, starting with “Nostalgia then…” is either Olga Shevchnko or Maya Nadkarni (both are cited) in 2013 from Kevin Platt’s article “Russian Empire of Post-Socialist Nostalgia and Soviet Retro at the New Wave Competition” published in the Russian Review issue 72 no 3. The second verses’ “Does human nature undergo a true change in the cauldron of totalitarian violence?” is from a book titled “Life and Fate” by Vassilli Grossman-- an epic novel about Stalin written in 1960 from someone who lived under him. The only reason it was published was because a friend of Grossman smuggled a copy out of the USSR into the west. One of the few published examples from that period of people questioning the totalitarian state from the inside.

I encourage anyone interested in the full paper to read it, it can be found on my Tumblr blog- Sosations Transmissions.

Now, you may notice that there is phenomenal guitar playing on this track. That is the work of my very good friend Glenn Wallace. Glenn is one of the best guitarists I know. He and I met back in 2004 via Daniel Baskind, Erik Stolpe and Chris Musso from Silverlode and The Raven Charter. The only time we have had the pleasure of playing, or sharing the stage together was in Housefire, so I was thrilled when he agreed to do this song. Glenn was our 3rd and final lead guitarist in the band before we broke up, (following Eddie Delgado and Dusty Brooks). There actually is a video on youtube of one show we played at The Boiler Room in Denton from mid-late 2009. Getting him on this track was something that I had been thinking about for a while but the opportunity finally arose when Glenn, Dale and myself, along with the Double Bear guys: Michael Garcia, Brandon Tyner, Garrett Bond and Matt Bardwell, as well as Erik Stolpe and the resourceful Tanner Hux, decided to start our own record label: Local Famous Records. Now that this relationship has solidified you can expect much more collaboration from all of us as well as more records like this one. Starting a record label with friends has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life and I highly recommend that you try it.

Track 16 is “Be ruthless with institutions, be kind to each other” - is the final track on the album and is a brief quote from the late Michael Brooks from his talk at Harvard University titled: “Michael Brooks MLK Jr. and Love and Power | Class Warfare | Harvard” from the Harvard College YDSA youtube page, recorded on Feb 1st. 2020. I had written a blog about Michael’s passing and how important he was to me personally and to the progressive movement in America today and in the world , and it can be read at the aforementioned Tumblr. I had set this clip aside to put on this record back in May or June of 2020 but after Michael’s passing in July it became clear to me that I would close the record with this sentiment. “Be ruthless with institutions, be kind to each other” is an affirmation I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I will proselytize this message wherever I go. Humans over entities. Always. “The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over all laws and institutions.” As far as the music for this track, it was just me pulling something out of my ass to go under the quote and I did it in one take, on an untuned shitty acoustic (for those familiar, the one from high school and college with the Albino squirrel sticker on it.) I recorded the guitar without any accompaniment into a handheld recording device and just got really lucky that it was an appropriate length. I was going for a Dashboard Confessional vibe and I think I got it.

So that is Volume is Power. Thank you to everyone who helped me create this thing and to those who supported me along the way. I am forever grateful.

Thank you to my wife, Amber, for without her this would not be possible. You are my superhero-bird-watcher, my anchor, my guiding light, my soulmate. Thank you for inspiring me to dare bravely.

Thank you to my parents for allowing me to follow my dreams and drop out of college to pursue a career in music. I know it didn’t make you happy at the time but you believed in me anyway. And thanks for not saying “I told you so” when I decided to go back to school 3 years later.

Thank you to my brother David for all the love and support over the years. For your artistic contribution on Daring Bravely. And for always having the courage to be you.

Thank you to Samantha, Lauren and Matt, for being so supportive all these years. I couldn’t ask for a better step-family.

Thank you to Dale for making this record happen, putting all the work into it that you did, and for putting up with my bullshit.

Thank you to every musician I have had the pleasure of playing with, on or off the stage.

Thank you to Aaron Anderson, Jason Dixon, Andrew Del Real and Anthony Davis for being the first band of dudes I got to do real shit with.

Thank you to the Silverlode/Solace Prime/ The Raven Charter guys: Daniel Baskind, Erik Stolpe, Brandon and Garrett Bond, Brian Christie, Chris Musso, Stephen Thacker, and Brandon Bailey. You guys are my brothers.

Thank you to the guys in Dreams Like Fire, who I only had a brief stint with in 2007 but learned so much from: Alan Mabe, Dathan Martin, Ryan Moody, and Kyle Istook.

Thank you to the Mabe Family for treating me like family and for--literally--teaching me how to rock: Mark Mabe, Matt Mabe, Danny Mabe, Chris Mabe and the beloved Terri Mabe.

Thank you to Chea and Jeremy from Huffer for bringing me into your lives and music. I am so glad we got to do what we did.

Thank you to Neal Todnem and Justin Jordan for being awesome roommates and apart of memories that I will always cherish and for our Tsegull Tsunami.

Thank you to Ben Napier for being a good friend, and at times mentor, and for asking me to be your Bogus “Green Day” cover band. I appreciate our time together.

Thank you to Ansley Dougherty, Nick Wittwer and Scott White for making our rage Against the Machine cover band a real thing, even if only for 2 practices. And to Scott for being my headbang partner at our The Foo and the Kombucha Mushroom people shows. And for trusting me to record some of your demos.

Thank you to Randall Bradley for being such a good friend. I value our talks and our jams and always look forward to hearing that you are in town from Argentina. Your perspective is unique and important.

Thank you to Cody Lee and the 27’s for involving me in your record and to Jaryth Webber for being a badass academic colleague, a badass musician, and for introducing me to Congressional Dish.

Thank you to Ben C Jones for the opportunity to work together on your music.

Thank you to Daniel Kunda for the opportunity to be apart of what you’re creating and for, at times, letting me be your sensei. Your future is bright.

Thank you to Chill, Torry Finley and Canyon Kafer for taking You Opened My Eyes above and beyond where I possibly ever could have. I hope we can do it more in the future.

Thank you to all my Local Famous brothers: Dale, Garrett, Michael, Brandon, Glenn, Matt, Erik and Tanner, for believing in this thing with me and making it a reality.

Thank you to Collin Porter for being a good friend and letting me bounce creative and political ideas off you. I truly value our conversations.

Thank you to Ryan Smith for always being a good friend and for our jammy jams.

Thank you to the bands that invited any of my bands on the road with them over the years--you guys helped make my dreams a reality: Matt and Mike LoCoco, and Danny Borja from Transit Method in Austin; Nick Barton, Trey Landis, and Justin Huggins from Sleepwalking Home in Tulsa, and Johnny Hawkins, Mark Vollelunga, and Daniel Oliver from San Antonio’s Nothingmore. The memories I have from those shows and trips are truly priceless and I am thankful to have those experiences to look back on.

Thank you to Dr. Johnny Stein, Dr. Joyce Goldberg, Dr. Christopher Morris, Dr. Patryk Babiracki, and Dr. Andrew Milson at the University of Texas at Arlington for greatly influencing my historical knowledge and thought that has influenced the making of this record.

Thank you to all co-founders of The Justice Reform League: Amber, Christopher Rose, Rod Smith, and Michael Campbell. And to Thomas Moore from no Sleep till Justice. I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to start a nonprofit with and I look forward to our future.

Thank you to Michael Brooks, Hank and John Green, Dr. Cornel West, Slavoj Žižek, Dr. Kevin Dunn, Dr. Richard Wolff, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Fred Hampton, Rita Starpattern and Edward Snowden for being my exemplars, always daring bravely and inspiring me to do the same.

And thank YOU for taking the time to listen to the songs, and this Audio Liner Notes track. If you are unfamiliar with any of the influences I have mentioned over the course of this I encourage you to go listen. And if those bands resonate with you, find out who influenced them- you’ll find more awesome music, more temporal distortions, if you will. I hope you find some inspiration to create your own work, whatever that may be, and to put it out into the world.

Dare Bravely. Salut.

Anthony Sosa

12-6-2020

(Updated 2-6-2021)

Recommended Readings

Global Punk by Kevin Dunn (2016)

The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980)

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden (2019)

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolp Trouillot (2015)

Reason in History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1953)

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)

Welcome to the Desert of the Real by Slavoj Žižek (2002)

Humankind by Rutger Bregman (2020)

Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman (2017)

The Hawk and the Dove by Nicholas Thompson (2009)

Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs (2005)

Tribe by Sebastian Junger (2016)

Give them an Argument: Logic for the Left by Ben Burgis (2019)

Against the Web by Michael Brooks (2020)

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher (2009)

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas Homer-Dixon(2006)

The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens by Bernard E. Harcourt (2018)

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (2014)

Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff (2019)

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century: by Timothy Snyder (2017)3

Totalitarianism by Abbot Gleeson (1995)

Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post 9/11 World by Noam Chomsky (2004)

Profit Over People by Noam Chomsky (1999)

How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr (2019)

The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom (1995)

The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King (1977-2003)

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imagine-lcorp · 6 years

Text

One Drink, One Song (One Shot)

Request

L x R where R is a really quiet DEO agent and is assigned as Lena's bodyguard and Lena tries to coax the reader out of her shell? Lots of fluff please?

A/N: Hi again everyone and happy holidays btw, i hope you get to have a great time! Here I give you this fic based on the request above, I don’t know what came over me to write a this one like i did, but here we areeeee! So I really hope you enjoy this. Kudos to the anon that sent it <3 and please, remember that my ask is open for you, anytime. Enjoy!

Lena Luthor x Shy Bodyguard R//Word Count: 1,938

"Uh, I'm not sure we should go, Miss Luthor." You followed Lena out of her office in a hurried pace.

"Come on, (Y/N), you and I deserve a break." There was a smile on her face when she stopped at the elevator doors and turned to look at you. "And, please, I told you to call me Lena."

"Um, yeah, M-Lena, but I don't think it's a good idea." You were looking between her and the elevator.

"Why not?" She raised an eyebrow. You couldn't help the blush that appeared in your cheeks while you tried to come up with all the reasons this was a bad idea.

"Well, um, we will be exposed. I don't know the place, or the people that go there. Um, we would have to check the route and call-"

"(Y/N)" Lena said putting a hand on your arm and stopping your little rant. "You don't have to worry about all that."

"Actually", you looked up and rubbed the back of your neck, "I kind of have to."

"It's just one night. We are going to be there a couple of hours and then," her smile turned into a smirk, "you can take me home." She pushed the elevator button.

"I-" You stammered, your cheeks turning bright red. "I still don't think it's a good idea."

"So we're going? Great!" The elevator doors opened with a ding and Lena stepped inside. You couldn't even protest as you had to rush inside before the doors closed.

It had been three weeks since you became Lena Luthor's escort. J'onn had specifically assigned you for this mission, at Kara's request, given you were one of their best undercover agents. Both Kara and J'onn couldn't stress enough how important it was that you kept both eyes on her, so you had to become her second shadow.

It was in your personality after all, being a shy person made you look disinterested, nervous around people, and less outgoing than most. However, precisely because of that, nobody expected you to be a trained DEO operative with great expertise in the use of multiple weapons and hand to hand combat.

You could tell Lena was surprised when she met you. Like many others, she was expecting a ripped, eight feet tall goon, to follow her around. Not the timid soul that you were. You had hoped she would be too busy to actually notice your presence, which would have made the job so much easier for both of you. But even when you tried to keep your distance, she would notice you. After a couple of days, she took a liking on you and your sheepish manners.

When you didn't try to conceal that side of you, you were an open book. She would sometimes catch you looking distracted at the city, in front of her window. She would look you out of the corner of her eye, and try to hide her smile, when you looked at her board of investors with a frown, a scoff, or rolling your eyes, when they tried to comment on her rather than her business. Or she would silently laugh at the way you tried to awkwardly apologize, when you stumbled with someone at the office. She found it endearing.

You may have been an experienced DEO agent but, she believed, you needed to learn how to loosen up a bit more. That's why, at the end of the week, she decided you were going out.

"Okay, if we are doing this, we'll have to do a few things first." You insisted before she entered the bar. You weren't that reckless to go inside without a plan.

"So eager to start the night? I like that attitude." A smirk playing on her lips. She also never missed a chance to make you blush with a sassy comment.

You tried to ignore it as you focused on more critical matters. A lot of people went out after office hours but her business attire was too fancy for a night out. Everything in her say multimillionaire business, her heels, black pants, red silk blouse, fancy pea coat, and hair in a tight bun. Something difficult to overlook.

"We need to change." You said, taking your black jacket off and handling it to her. It was still a warn evening, so you didn't have to worry about the cold. "Take this and, uh, maybe you would want to loosen your hair." You made a gesture with your hand, pointing at your own head.

She tilted her head and looked at you closely, your jacket still hanging from your hand and your eyes attentive. You had the feeling she was thinking on another smart comment but she simply agreed.

"Alright." Lena handed you her purse and coat and you observed as she put on your jacket. She took the barrettes out of her hair and shook her head to let it fall loose over her shoulder. "How do I look?"

The change hadn't been that great but you wondered if there was nothing she couldn't wear. Even when you tried to make her look ordinary, she looked beautiful, as usual. "Cool." You tried to hide the sudden blush in your cheeks.

"Then, let's get inside." She gave you a satisfied smile, took back her bag and coat, and turned to the bar doors.

Half of the bar was already filled with laughter and chattering from people enjoying some drinks. You took a moment to scan the place, checking for emergency exits, the people around. There was someone on the stage, microphone in hand and signing to the lyrics of a song you didn't recognize.

"Oh, would you look at that." Her tone a fake surprise as she pointed at a poster. "Tonight is karaoke night." She walked directly towards the bar and ordered a glass of wine.

You focused all your attention on her after hearing that. "Um, you're not thinking about..."

The bartender put her glass in front of her and took a sip of it. Then, she placed it gently on the table and hummed. "Maybe... if there was someone that wanted to go on stage with me."

Your eyes when wide open, getting the feeling that she had planned this all along. "That someone being...me?"

"Don't you tell me an expert DEO agent with deadly training cannot with this challenge?"

"Karaoke isn't exactly a top secret mission." You looked away, between the stage and the people around.

"One drink, one song." She said. You turned to her with a question clear in your face. "You take one drink with me, you sing a song with me, and that's it. We can go back to the routine after we finish."

She was offering you a deal. A few simple task to complete and you would be on your way to her penthouse, leaving her safe and sound with the next round of security J'onn had assigned to her. One drink, easy. A beer, not strong enough to get drunk but good enough to enjoy the night. One song, not so easy. You weren't a big fan of being in the spotlight but, if that what it took to speed up the night, you may as well do it.

You sighed and took the seat next to her. "Beer, please." You told the bartender. Lena leaned on her chair, her lips turning into a triumphant smile.

Once you took a sip from your beer, things weren't that bad. You discovered that Lena was an excellent conversationalist, driven by her curious instinct but always respectful of the boundaries between the both of you. As a DEO agent, and her bodyguard, you couldn't get into details about your job, so she would ask you instead about the things you enjoyed. Lena was finding that part of you fascinating. It wasn't only your sheepish behavior but your caring, attentive, and funny personality that shined through it.

An hour had passed when Lena finished her glass of wine and you were almost done with yours. "Ready for that song, (Y/N)?" She asked, rising from her chair.

"For the record, I'm doing this for your safety." You drank the last of your beer and the easy part was done. You followed her to the stage, resigned to the inevitable. You could hear her laugh at your remark.

There were a few things you knew about Lena Luthor. She had memorized most of her employee's names, her usual meals looked like recipes from Whole Foods, and she would have a glass of scotch after a pretty stressful day. However, when Lena requested Baby One More Time by Britney Spears, you had to slap your forehead, because Lena Luthor also loved 2000's music.

The people at the bar were already in high spirits and you stepped on stage with a round of applause. You turned to see Lena, taking the mic and trying to reassure you with a playful smile. She looked like she was about to deliver one of her famous TED Talks. You, on the contrary, looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

Lena took the lead when the song started and you made your effort at singing with her. You were impressed at how she didn't even have to look at the screen for the lyrics. For the first time, since you became her bodyguard, you saw her truly loosen up. There was no poker face, no witty comments, and no sign of the CEO. She was smiling, making faces, and even coming up with some dance moves, making a show of it. You couldn't help but follow her enthusiasm, it was contagious.

"I must confess that my loneliness is killing me noooow." You sang, the bar filling with the sound of your voice. You were dancing, jumping up and down, on the stage. Soon, the song was over, the crowd was cheering, and you couldn't stop smiling.

After that, Lena kept her end of the bargain. Once you walked off the stage, she went to pay for the drinks and let you lead the way outside. You were a few blocks away from her building, so she convinced you to take a little walk.

"You were certainly out of your shell tonight, (Y/N)." She chuckled.

"Uh, thanks?" You smiled and shook your head. "But, what about you? I didn't know you could pull something like that."

"Well, there is so much you still don't know... and you have to admit that was fun."

"Yeah, It...It was." You gave her a shy smile.

It wasn't midnight yet when you arrived at her building. It had been a short walk indeed. "Here we are. Just like I promised." You walked her to the front doors when she turned suddenly. "Oh, I almost forgot. I still have your jacket."

"Oh, it's alright, you can keep it." After that, you wanted to slap yourself in the face. "I-I mean, um, it suits you." You sputtered and stopped before saying anything else.

Lena smiled at the hard blush that appeared in your cheeks but thought better not to comment on it, for your sake. What you had done tonight had been enough torture so she would save her sassy comments for another occasion. However, she appreciated the gesture.

She walked back to you and did something you didn't expect. "Thank you, (Y/N). Goodnight. "She leaned and left a small kiss on your cheek, leaving you dumbfounded as she went inside.

"Goodnight...Lena." You whispered, following her with your eyes until she disappeared in the elevator. Maybe karaoke night wasn't a bad idea after all.

#lena luthor #lena luthor imagine #lena x reader #lena luthor x reader #lena luthor fic #one shot #request #one drink one song

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aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 4 Review: Mother of God!

https://ift.tt/329t1zC

This review contains Line of Duty spoilers.

Like a plump Christmas stocking, the real treats of series six have worked their way down to where we are now – somewhere around the heel. Having dutifully unwrapped the first couple of episodes and politely smiled at the satsumas and novelty tissues, we’ve reached the really good stuff. Episode four was nothing but single malt miniatures and Hotel Chocolat, both of which, incidentally, would be excellent ways to recover our nerves after all that excitement.

Everyone fortified? Let’s go.

RIP Jonesy. RIP Jimmy. RIP AC-12? Of all the balaclava-men-and-bolt-cutter peril the team has survived over the years, who’d have thought that in the end, they’d be brought down by bureaucracy. ACC Wise can blame it on redistribution of funds, department mergers and staff redundancies, but we know the deal. There’s no place for Ted Hastings in this rotten world. And if Ted won’t leave the unit, they’re going to dismantle it around him.

Wise’s deadline leaves series six with a ticking clock. Ted now has until the end of the month to either a) go quietly or b) swing into Central Police headquarters on a Tarzan rope, rip off H’s mask, pull out a grenade pin with his teeth and blow that whole snake pit to kingdom come, leaving behind the words ‘honesty’ and ‘integrity’ blazing on the charred earth. I know which ending I’d want my licence fee to go towards.

Adrian Dunbar’s heartfelt, despairing “What has happened to us?” speech wasn’t just the culmination of his character – the last good man in a world of PR spin and alternative facts – but the lament of series six. The background hum of furious frustration has grown louder with each episode, as more and more instances of real-life corruption and public deception are openly referenced or alluded to. Were the scripts this heated before the series’ Covid-19 hiatus, you wonder, or did the governmental response to the pandemic inspire some last minute additions?

On the subject of lies costing lives, a warm welcome back to Patrick Baladi as solicitor snake Jimmy Lakewell. Have a seat, Jimmy, can I get you anything to…? Oh, garrotted is it? A flying visit. Baladi’s return added yet again to the reunion tour feel of this whole series. So Jimmy was the voice on that Vella clip (an extra shoulder stripe to everybody who got there a fortnight ago). He knew which story Vella was circling, and in the back of that van, there’s a chance that he told Steve. How else to interpret his emphasis on “That’s right isn’t it, DI Arnott? I didn’t talk,” unless he was checking that Steve wouldn’t rat on him.

If Steve does have a tip-off, he’ll need to work fast before his own ticking clock deadline expires. Hastings may have until the end of the month, but Steve only has until his drug test follow-up appointment before he could be off the case. Godspeed, Steve. And nice shot, mate.

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 4: Davidson, DNA, Buckells’ Codes & All Our Questions & Theories

By Louisa Mellor

Line of Duty: the Jo Davidson Family Mystery

By Louisa Mellor

The ambush scene was knuckle-biting stuff and I have the knuckles to prove it. Tense, terrifying and unpredictable scenes from director Gareth Bryn, from the moment the first Range Rover slunk out of that side street to the final dramatic overhead shot of the bullet-pummelled police van as a train thundered by. It all made for an overwhelming hour, with enough high-stakes drama to floor anybody who’s been calling this series slow. Tremendous television, and that was just the loud bit.

Episode four had quietly thrilling moments too, not least Gregory Piper’s Psychobot-2000 temporarily glitching when Jo tried to post Ryan off her team. That blank-faced pause went on longer than the DIR bleep until Ryan’s programming kicked back in and he thanked Jo for everything she’d done, ma’am. Then it was a Vella-style gun to the back of her head on her doorstep, and Ryan was back on the squad.

Definitively off the squad is Ian Buckells, who gave us a treat this episode with his demonstration of what an ordinary idiot and not a sleek jaguar of deception looks like in that interview room. It was like watching AC-12 interrogate a Golden Retriever about who’d eaten the butter paper out of the kitchen bin – head-hanging, whimpers, confusion and the occasional bark. When Davidson was in that glass box, she had an answer for everything; Buckells had an answer for nothing. Not his case, not the contents of his car boot, and not the meaning of those tacky initialisms on his phone next to the suspects he was coercing into sexual favours. Here’s what you’re saved under on my mobile, Buckells: Ian SFB. Use your imagination.

Now that Buckells has seen first hand what happens to rats, chances are he’ll shut up about having been framed and get on with his time. So… it’s over for Jo? It’s not over for Jo. She tried to reassert control this episode, but as Ryan and the radio silence from her laptop contact proved, she’s simply not the one with the power.

The shock episode cliffhanger may point us towards why. Jo isn’t just being run by the OCG, it transpires that she’s a blood relative of somebody with historical links to them and AC-12. Fellow Glaswegian Tommy Hunter is perhaps the top prospect (we delve into the various possibilities here). At this stage though, only conjecture is possible. We rule nothing in, nothing out.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Line of Duty continues next Sunday the 18th of April at 9pm on BBC One.

The post Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 4 Review: Mother of God! appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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insomniac-arrest · 7 years

Text

We Deserve a Soft Landing Love

pairing: lapidot

words: 4k

genre: angst

summary: Astronaut Peridot is at the International Space Station where she gets a transmission from a girl on a dying ship.

Ao3

warning: some questionable science, blood, puking; I’ve never done anything like this before so I’m really trying to flex my muscles as a writer! Angst.

2036

Astronauts really weren’t supposed to be alone. Not at the space station, it wasn’t made to run that way, three permanent residence were assigned at all times, and they were rarely alone.

But mistakes happen. A gash the size of her forearm down his side, red perfectly round droplets hanging in the air like ping-pong balls in suspended animation. A face as ashen as the grave and yelling, they never yelled.

Peridot was chosen for her composed personality, composed in theory, less so in practice. She watched her coworker burst open and heard NASA ringing in her ear: what would you even do with a dead body in space? But he wasn’t gone yet.

They pressed a template they never had before: cрочный спуск, the Soyuz computer sprang to life, emergency.

NASA kept ringing in her ears. Some young women named Janet was talking to her now, she was talking back.

Rod wasn’t going to make the journey if he went back alone. His eyes were barely open, red blooming droplets still swam in the room like liquid party balloons, Peridot never liked the word helpless.

They secured Rod’s bandage a second time, his warm face a distant star on the horizon. She grabbed onto his hand and told them ‘to get the fuck down there.’ They pressed cрочный спуск, the shuttle launched down with Kazakhstan readying down below, God, they had to be ready.

And she was alone.

Astronauts were not supposed to be alone.

The quiet was as engulfing as the urgency was before, Janet had apparently gone to take a break, they were on the sun side of the planet. Peridot started counting. It would take them 3.5 minutes to get back to earth. It would take three days for a shuttle to come back to the state. It would take three hours for the shuttle to be attached to the station.

It would take some undisclosed amount of time for them to sort out the politics down below. Astronaut's don’t just burst open. And Peridot was alone.

She continued as normal, there was nothing else to do, she had at the very least three days to herself, and there was cleaning to do. Maintenance, communication.

It turned into four days.

She was talking to a young man named Ted on the telecom now, she sort of hated young men named Ted at that moment.

Politics were messier than space and no one was even set up to relieve her yet. NASA was in some sort of limbo, Russia wasn’t talking. Peridot was alone.

It was the sixth day when the shuttle finally launched, a crew of three, Peridot had already forgotten their names, but she would have months to memorize them anyway.

Peridot was turning off the intercom whenever Ted buzzed in, but she didn’t notice the static until it started echoing off the hallways like a ghost. Though, Peridot didn’t believe in ghosts.

No self-respecting scientist believed in ghosts. They were on the planet side of the sun, dark, alone, dumping heat back into the square hallways through the vents.

Peridot heard the hush of static in her sleep, strapped down and frowning deeply as she screwed her eyes shut. It felt like she was getting tinnitus. For a moment she refused to wake up, she had to keep her schedule, or else what the fuck else was she going to have up here.

The static breaths again and her thoughts break off and on; finally, she sits up, after all, they don’t know what to do with dead bodies in space. She ripped her sleep mask off and cocked her head to the side.

Ssshhhhhh

She squirmed out of her restraints and floated to the side of the room, “It’s probably just Yulia messing with the frequencies planetside,” She mutters to herself, nicely hearing her own raw voice in the dark, “Just Yulia…” She pulled herself up and out, going to the communication bay while passing the wide yawning emptiness of the station. It could technically suit ten people, the size of a five-person house, but apparently, earth was still arguing. Two more days.

Sssshhhhhhh

She sighs and follows the noise, she really wasn’t in the mood for system malfunctions. She tapped on the screen of the newly installed video chat. It sprang to life with the headquarters of NASA asking who she would like to get ahold of today.

Peridot blinks. But no one was hailing her.

Sssshhhhhh

She looks around, her skin crawling slightly. None of the devices in the room were lighting up or winking at her. None of them were making any sounds at all. She scratches the back of her hand and accepts the fact the noise really wasn’t coming from this room.

Peridot turns around in circles, she leaves a message to the NASA night crew that there was a possible technical issue on the ISS. Two days before any crew was set to land, Peridot groaned, and just her.

She takes deep breaths and pushes herself off toward what she could only assume was the source.

Ssssshhhh

She cringes as she crosses the ‘unity’ room into the Russian side of the station, empty as a ghost town and twice as unnerving. But Peridot doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Ssssshh-he-sssshh--ll-ssh-o

“Ah!” She clutches at her own heart as something, a voice something, echoes off the halls. She takes a rasping breath and turns in every which direction.

Ssh, hello? It comes again.

Peridot’s mouth hangs open, she finds herself outside of a room that had been used as the old communication hub, back when they had separate ones instead of a ‘bubble of trust.’

Peridot cocks her head to the side, one of the radios attached to the wall and ingrained in the system was making a soft but distinct buzz. Most of the old pre-2025 devices had been removed or repurposed but this one felt like she was reaching backward in time.

Peridot looked at it, she should go report this. Houston would want to know one of the 2000 models was acting up.

Shhh-h--ssss

Peridot reaches forward, her fingering hovering in midair and her eyes glued to the intercom, there was definitely something bubbling underneath the static.

And of course, she did believe in aliens.

Peridot presses down on the feedback button and wets her lips, she leans down into the speaker, “Is someone there?” Peridot holds her breath, watching the blinking red light of the transmitter in the dark center of the room. It had been repurposed several years ago to be another storage and business room.

She blinks and waits a minute, suddenly feeling a little silly, she should really be sleeping right now. Or reporting it. She watches the blinking red light and counts.

Sixty seconds, 180 seconds, three minutes, Peridot is about to take her finger off the feedback button when something comes back in a clear audible articulation.

“Oh thank God,” Peridot’s mouth fell open, it was a woman, she leans back down to reply, but the voice kept going, “Can you hear me? Is someone there? I am Lapis Lazuli of the Argus, Landing Mission One, ESA. Can you hear me?” Peridot gasped, “Oh my god-” Lapis talked quickly, “We have been pushed out off route and...Can anyone hear me?” “Yes!” Peridot returned as soon as she got ahold of her voice, perhaps yelling into the speaker a little too loudly, “We thought, I, are you safe? We thought the Argus was lost, what’s your status?” Peridot did the math in her head, it would take four to five minutes for radio waves to transmit between Earth’s orbit and the Argus. The Jupiter moon’s mission.

“I can’t see our location, but I think I am stranded near the atmosphere of Jupiter, repeat I can see the troposphere...I don’t know where I am.” “Lapis,” Peridot spoke into the speaker, hoping they could balance out their conversation, “I am Peridot of the International Space Station, NASA, I can hear you loud and clear. What’s your status?” She waits. Counting, sixty seconds, two minutes, three minutes, God, she needed to tell someone about this. But she hears the sharp intake of breath on the other end.

“ISS?” Peridot exhales as the woman responds, “Thank God, okay, this is Lapis Lazuli, reporting again from the Argus. The...the life support system is sustaining it looks like but none of the ram’s are responding, I think we’re disconnected from the rockets.”

“Lapis,” Peridot hunched over, “What is the status of the crew? How much oxygen do you have left? What...what happened?” She remembered reading about the Argus a week ago. About the radio silence on the other end of one of the most ambitious human-manned missions into their solar system.

One minute. Two minutes. Three. Four.

“I,” She heard the other astronaut falter, “I have the full amount of oxygen left that we had carried with us for the return journey.” She paused a hitch of static filled the air, “The crew is incapacitated.” The voice says emotionlessly, “We were hit with an unexpected projectile and pulled into Jupiter’s orbit, we didn’t calculate the full effect of the mass of planet on our ship it seems,” She chuckled, one of the most surprising sounds Peridot had ever heard, “I guess we are still making scientific discoveries.”

“Do you have your satellite? Where is your telecom? We can-” The delay continued to confuse their conversation, “It’s acting like a black hole, we tried to fix the rockets to propel us back to Io but there wasn’t enough power, everyone else,” The young women took a deep breath, “They tried to get back to Io without the ship. Some of our jets were still working for the suits.” “Oh my God,” Peridot whispered.

“It didn’t work.” Peridot waited, making sure Lapis was finished and the full four to five minutes passed so Lapis could get Peridot’s message.

She heard another laugh on the other side, “We really need a better system than this. How about we say over when we’re done talking?” Peridot’s shoulder’s tensed, she sounded so young. “Anyway, to answer your question, our telecom was damaged when the projectile thrust us off course, I just recently jerry-rigged this device in order to be picked up on low frequencies.” Peridot nodded, Lapis took an audible breath, “Over.”

Peridot leaned her head up against the cool metal of the side panelings, she clears her throat, “Lapis,” she said quietly, “Do you need me to contact anyone?” It had taken that crew six years to get to Jupiter’s moons. “Over.” Peridot squeezed her eyes shut.

She heard the next notes like a deflating balloon, “So you’ve figured it out too?” She said back with a controlled tremor to her voice, “Well… I have a few people I would like to message if you could write it down.” Peridot found a pen and paper and wrote down the women’s mother’s name, her college professor’s email, and her ex-lover’s phone number.

“Do you want me too,” Peridot cringed, “uh, write down messages for them? For me to say to them. Over.” She waited, she heard a sigh when the four minutes passed, “Just tell my mom I love her. That sort of thing. Tell the professor I wouldn’t be here without her, I mean, not here, in space, in a bad way, shit, actually don’t tell her that. Tell her her intro classes are still making freshman wet themselves and I love it.” Peridot laughed.

“And the last one?” Peridot asks as she waits for Lapis to come back to her.

Lapis gave a snort, “Flip her off for me. Maybe subtly infer she’s been skipping arm day and is looking a little noodly. That would make my night. Over.” Peridot laughs and it’s hard for her to take this all in, she should be writing it down. “You know,” Thoughts ran through Peridot’s head, “Are the rockets really not working? Because a simple continued jerry-rig of the thrusters back to the navigation might, hmm, help.”

The response takes longer than usual, “Don’t do this me.” Comes the hushed reply, “I’ve tried, Peridot, don’t you think I’ve tried? Whoever you are from wherever. Don’t do it.” “Peridot Farid.” She returns slowly, blinking into the dark. “I’m from Minneapolis.”

Lapis hummed, “Oh...I’m from Belgium. Ghent. Nice to meet you.” Peridot’s insides felt like they were turning all over the place, “I’ve been to Belgium, it’s very beautiful.” “Not underwater yet?” The other girl joked, slightly off time due to the time lapse.

“They’re trying their best,” Peridot says with a sniff, “And they never invented a statute called ‘the Twinkie Law,’ so they did better than my city.” She heard a strange groan from the other end of the line which made Peridot sat up straight, “I would honestly give anything right now for a twinkie. Anything.” Peridot ends up laughing, “Alright, top ten food goos and then worst goos, go.”

Lapis made a choking sound, “Nooo, Peridot Farid, all I want right now is some ripe cherries, a medium rare steak, fuck it, a rare steak, and ten twinkie’s, one for every finger. No goo.” Peridot was snickering, “Well I want a nice hamburger and maybe a salad with ranch dressing. Kleenexes. Running water.” She smiles to herself, “And a proper toilet.” The silver sound of a laugh comes back from the other end, “Wrong answer! The whole reason I went to space was for suction toilets.”

“Oh come. on”

“What we all really need is at least one beer each.” Peridot snorts, Lapis bemoans, “A margarita, two loggers, some vodka, good vodka, the kind the Russians would give to their moms.” Lapis lamented and Peridot shook her head.

“Why did you go to space then?” She asks fondly at the other end, “It’s the last dry county in humanities jurisdiction Dutch girl.”

Lapis laughed on the other end, “We’re getting personal now? Well, you first, why are you in space hurtling above the earth developing poor bone mass?” Peridot let herself float up a little higher, using the next minute to think about her answer, she leans toward the speaker, “Height.” The five minutes pass and all that comes back is a confused, “What?” “I gain two and a half inches every time I come up here. Eventually, I figure I’ll hit five feet.”

A loud guffaw comes back, “Taller! Of course, but what is that in human measurements?” Peridot rolled her eyes, “Old habits. 6.35 centimeters and 1.524 meters, happy?”

“Woof,” Lapis says back cheerily, “They really do bring them in smaller each year. Over.”

Peridot exhaled dramatically, “Back to you then Miss Lapis. How tall are you? I don’t know, what’s your favorite, hmm, tea?” Two minutes, three, four.

“Tea? Boring. You know how close Jupiter’s atmosphere is to me right now? Ask me about my childhood nightmares and favorite sex position.” Peridot opened her mouth to respond with a dismissive sniff, but Lapis adds quietly at the end, “...it’s mint by the way. Mountain mint.” Peridot smiled and her eyes bunched up into themselves, “Well, my childhood nightmare was santa having claws and strangling me.” Peridot says good-humoredly as she drums her fingers on her leg.

“Is that your favorite position as well?” “Lapis,” She says warningly, Peridot considers turning around, the next five minutes left her contemplating if it was a crank call. Houston did have some annoying interns.

“Strangling is perfectly natural, no need to be ashamed. I did it to my barbie dolls and everything.” Peridot rolls her eyes, “They really do send them up crazier each year.” Lapis laughs, it’s a strained laugh and Peridot purses her lips, “Peridot?” Lapis says, barely audible over the static this time. “Yeah?” She waits.

“Can you see earth?” Peridot’s shoulder’s slump over, she nods before taking her finger off the feedback button and floating back over to the observatory. Two hours had passed.

She looks out over a deep brown storm cloud over China and the darkness of the earth side of the sun, she goes back to the transmitter, “We’re over the Bahama’s. It’s blue right now, very, very blue.”

She hears the softest of sounds over the radio, “My haul is made of titanium.” Lapis says carefully, “But I’m not sure if the radio waves will be disturbed by the planet’s magnetic field.” “Oh.” Peridot says back, squeezing her eyes shut, knowing Lapis was still talking.

“And then the radiation will begin anyway,” Lapis made something that was almost a laugh, “remember those numbers okay? Tell my mom. You know. Tell my teacher I wasn’t going to make it without her, but not in this way. And tell Jasper to, you know, fuck off.” “Wait,” Peridot says breathlessly.

“I’m about to be sucked into the atmosphere, wait a little for me, k? We can see if this mess of a radio might hold up. Just wait a little. Then go tell the world I went out fighting a space octopus, tell them there are definitely space octopuses and the Argus went down swinging.” “Okay,” Peridot rasps, holding the button down until the tip of her finger bleached. “Okay!” She racks her brain for what to say, what eulogy’s people ended with or last lasting sentiments that maybe meant something, “I’ll eat some twinkies for you. Ten. One for each finger.”

Peridot waited. Two minutes. Three minutes. Five. Peridot was shaking, this isn’t what she expected when she woke up this morning, they orbited into the sun side of the planet. What was she even going to tell Houston? How do you start that report?

Peridot rubbed her stinging eyes, “I’ll put them on my fingers too. Eat them in some Dutch coffee shop and kick your ex in the shins.” She pushed at her palm into her sockets, “Oh God, oh my God.” Her legs felt numb, she took her finger off the button. She was still glad she didn’t believe in ghosts, she didn’t need this one.

She turned back to exit the room and float to somewhere far away and cold and curl up for a little bit.

Shhh--What’s up loser?!”

Peridot jumped and turned around instantaneously, “Lapis?!”

“Can you hear me? I can’t see out my window right now, but the magnetism might not be messing with my radio as much as I thought. More discoveries for science, yay, have them name a cockroach after me or something. Unless, of course, you can’t hear me and this is just, you know, the death chasm I’m speaking into-” “I can hear you!” Peridot yelled as her finger jammed into the switch, the red light flaring like a fog horn. “I can hear you, it’s still working!” She didn’t know why she was excited, this girl was entering into one of the most radioactive places in the solar system, Peridot kept her eyes on the speaker.

“You waited after all.”

Peridot bit her lip, “Yeah. I waited.”

The four minutes felt excruciating, “I figure I have around forty-five minutes... Anyway, if you’re curious, it is incredibly hot. If I didn’t have any decency left I would be naked.” Peridot sniffs, “No one can see you you know. And I imagine it’s burning up.” The next transmission was garbled, but she could still make it out, “Dying in the void of space is one thing, dying in the void of space butt-naked is another.”

Peridot couldn’t get herself to laugh this time, she tried, “Well, I’ll tell everyone you were wearing a full suit of armor. Pearls. The octopus didn’t have a chance.” Lapis made a soft sound, “That’s really all I ask, heels too, I miss heels. I felt tall, like one of those small dogs on top of tables? Or the fact you enjoy getting 5 centimeters taller in space?”

Peridot made an exasperated noise, “I don’t suppose you mock all the people you share last words with.” Lapis gave a chuckle, “Just you darling.” A long pause follows, Peridot doesn’t move to fill it, Lapis took her time with another slow breath, “Tell me about something.” Peridot blinked, “I have a collection of coins from the Ottoman empire.” “Okay,” Lapis sounded faint, “Who was your first crush? Besides like 16th-century Sultans or something I mean. What was your first book? What was your favorite kiss? Come on,” Lapis snickered, “I’m dying here.”

Peridot’s skin felt too tight, itching in the dark, “Martina Rodriquez. Fifth grade, she punched me in the face once after I told her to leave my school. I learned to read when I was three so I don’t really remember the books, accelerated learning and all. I learned to speak in full sentences when I was six. My first kiss was,” Peridot sighs, “Don’t laugh okay? In my college’s chemistry lab, age 23.” She says all of it quickly, fast, time was measured in fours and fives.

A laugh came back from the other side of the universe anyway, “Chemistry lab? God, you’re the one giving astronauts a nerdy name.”

“Hey!”

“And it’s cute. You sound cute. I’m sure you’re very smart too, can probably name way too many numbers of pi.” She could, “I guess I was like that too…Why I’m up here.” Lapis trailed off.

“Why you’re up here?” Seven minutes.

“I saw Cassiopeia one night... my grandpa told me they hung her upside down in the night sky to punish her. I fell in love,” Peridot clenched her jaw, “I guess you could say that’s how it happened. Love or whatever.” “Lapis-” Peridot put her face next to the speaker.

“You know, I always thought this is what I wanted to do.” Lapis was faltering, “And it is.” She repeats, “I think it was always what I wanted to do.” They came a pause and Peridot hears a strangled retching noise on the other side.

“Lapis!” She yells into the intercom, “Lapis, are alright?”

It took a very long time before she got a response, she was back to waiting, “Yeah,” A voice finally said hoarsely, “Just...puking. You know, when you get to see food goo all over again? That feeling.” Lapis sounded like she was trying to laugh, “Peridot?” “Yeah?”

“Who was this first kiss?” Lapis asked quietly before sniffing, “Was she cuter than me? I hope not...And, then, what’s, what’s your favorite tea?” Peridot squeezed her free hand closed, balling it up into a painful fist, “No. She was a Ph.D. student and thought that Potato Poots was a good pet name. She…” Peridot snorted, “Wasn’t cuter than you, promise. My, my, favorite tea is Black tea. I used to drink it with my aunts.” Two minutes. Three minutes. Six.

“Potato Poots? Take that back, that is a wonderful pet name and now I’m going to date this girl that was your first kiss,” Peridot chuckled, “Black tea is a good choice. The closest one to coffee. My brother owns a coffee shop,” Lapis was talking quickly now, “Visit him too. Tell him...I’m sorry. I’m sorry we fought so much, God, for everything.” “Yes, yes, I mean-” “Tell all of them I loved them. Dammit, even Jasper, tell her to get her shit together. None of this...none of anything else. Nothing else matters.” Peridot sighs and her entire body is shaking, “I can do that, yes. Lapis, we won’t forget.”

“That I died naked in the void of space?” Lapis returned back after seven minutes, “Because that’s a thing now.”

“Naked, fighting an octopus, right?” Peridot says with her face straining into a smile.

“Yeah.” Lapis was constantly panting on the other end now, but her voice came through. “Who was your first love Peridot?”

Peridot felt her mouth go dry, she hadn’t drank anything in hours. Houston would be furious. “I’ve never been in love.” She whispered back, “I just wanted to do...this.” She flinches at the wording.

Lapis took eight minutes to respond, “Yeah?” She said breathlessly, “Well. Do that for me, k? Being in love is nice. It’s like this, except no one is riding into the next layer of Jupiter’s helium.”

Peridot gave a weak smile, “It’s like this?” “It’s like this.” Wheezing, “Go do that for me.”

“How’re you feeling?” Peridot tried to get her to keep talking, Lapis told her that she threw up again. Peridot could hear her audible breathing through the speaker, she was gasping.

“We weren’t really over the Bahama’s were we?” Peridot frowns, she looks out toward where the window would be, “It was dark out., yeah. But the cities are bright. Like stars, we always liked stars, right? People like us.” “People like us collect Ottoman coins and cover their hands in twinkie’s Peridot.” She smiled, “Good. I hear that’s what being in love is like.” Lapis coughed, a deep gurgling sound that filled the air, “Sounds dumb.” “It is.”

Peridot could hear her fading out, “Lapis? Lapis how’re you-”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck-” A sob responds. “Lapis.” “FUCK, I don’t want to die.” “Wait, wait, no, it’s going to be okay.” “Quick, tell me something nice to say, something good, God, GOD, I wish I had been good.” “Lapis! Lapis, wait, not yet,”

“Peridot,” She could hear the crying now, the silver wet tremor in her voice, “Peridot I can’t see anything. It’s so hot, oh my god, I can’t do this, PERIDOT-” Peridot screams back into the mike, “I’m here! I’m here! Lapis, wait!”

No sound comes back from the other side, Peridot’s eyes go wide, she counts back up to a thousand. She can’t feel her teeth.

“One thousand and five, one thousand and four, Lapis? Lapis can you hear me?” Five minutes. Ten minutes.

Peridot curled up into herself and pulled on her hair, her finger still on the transmission button, the room bathed in the one red light, “Lapis, LAPIS.” It was a wretched, animalistic scream, but it wasn’t for the radio, it wasn’t for her.

She wished she believed in ghosts.

----

Peridot went back to earth within the fortnight. She told them she wasn't feeling well. She told them about the Argus. They told her to take some time off, she told them she wasn't coming back.

Peridot went to Belguim, she gave a very nice older woman a hug, she got a lifetime's promise of free coffee, and she looked at painting after painting of people who were dead. She smiled at the nice girl across the street, she didn't say hi, but she did wave this time. As a place to start, Lapis wanted something like that.

#lapidot #steven universe #lapis lazuli #peridot #lapidot fic #steven universe fanfiction

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justjibberjabber · 7 years

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Eight things I learned when I moved from the country to the city

1.) Street sweeping – This was one of the very first lessons I learned when moving to the city. In the beginning, I was like, “What the heck is street sweeping?” After witnessing this mystery for the first time and realizing what it was, I thought, “Seriously? The people here sweep the streets? We barely have streets back home, let alone sweep them.” (Okay, I may be exaggerating a little; we do have streets where I’m from). Street sweeping occurs once a month, and if you don’t move your car to the opposite side of the street, these people who I SWEAR are the spawn of Satan will come and write a $10-15 ticket payable to the City of St. Louis and stick it under your windshield wiper. I say this lesson was one that I learned upon FIRST moving to the city, but my ticket history will tell you that it is a lesson the city has tried to teach me over and oover and ooover again.

2.) Security guards – My first day in my apartment, I drove to the Schnucks just a few blocks away for some groceries. I was thinking, “I get to buy my own groceries! Fill my fridge with whatever I want! If I wanna eat ice cream for every meal, nobody can stop me!” Making my way through the front entrance, I noticed 1.) there was a security guard, and 2.) he had a weapon. I quickly finished my shopping and left, thinking, “If the Schnucks has a need for an armed security guard, it’s probably in a neighborhood that I shouldn’t be hanging around in.” However, after hitting up Schnucks and Walmarts and Targets throughout the entire St. Louis area over the weeks that followed, I realized that lots of stores have security guards, and lots of these security guards have guns, regardless of how “sketchy” the neighborhood is.

3.) Bicycle helmets – Biking is a big culture in St. Louis. At least, I feel like it’s a big culture here. Of course, I haven’t lived anywhere other than the sticks, so what do I know? Anyway. Everybody here wears a helmet when they ride their bikes. Everybody. It is a very rare occasion that I see someone on a bicycle without a helmet. I grew up on a road that had “rush hour traffic” involving maybe six vehicles, so I really never worried about getting hit by a car. And if I was uncoordinated enough to fall off my bike and hit my head, well maybe I shouldn’t have been riding a bike in the first place. Wearing a helmet was just not “cool,” and I can’t speak for everybody, but I really feel like a lot of folks from where I’m from just don’t think twice about wearing a helmet. Of course, after working in a pediatric level-one trauma center for two years, I am a HUGE advocate for helmets!

4.) Public schools – Kids in public schools have SO many more resources than kids in public schools where I grew up. At work or social events, I often overhear parents discussing their children’s schools and how “the lacrosse field is just deplorable,” and “we haven’t had new textbooks in five years,” and “the band director is just awful,” and “blah blaah blaaah.” Umm, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even know what lacrosse was when I was in high school, and I feel like most of my classmates probably didn’t either. And our textbooks? Our textbooks were so old that many of them had our parents’ names scribbled in them. Lastly, my alma mater hasn’t had band since probably the year 2000.

5.) Planners – All the girls in the city have planners. When I started my job here, my female co-workers would make mention of their “planners” and I didn’t know what they were talking about. “Surely they’re not referring to those silly things our teachers tried to make us keep in school, those little calendar books where we’d write our homework assignments.” Yeaapp. That’s indeed what they were, except much more stylish and adorable. Maybe people from back home do keep planners, but I sure as heck have never seen anybody with one. And yes, I have been converted to the planner way of life. I don’t dare agree to put any plans in stone without first checking the sacred planner.

6.) Squirrels – Okay. City squirrels are much more intelligent than country squirrels. Don’t laugh at me yet, hear me out! Imagine this: You’re in the country, driving along jamming to some Chuck Berry, windows rolled down, sunshine tanning your left arm, and WHAM! All of a sudden, there’s a squirrel in the road, frantically darting back and forth trying to decide which side of the road to make a run for. In the end, it winds up charging right underneath your tires in all the commotion. And there are two kinds of people in this world – the people who will feel really bad about running over the squirrel, and the people who will laugh and say, “Chaaa-ching! Double bonus!!” Now, the scene is really quite different in the city. You’re driving down the street on the way to grab some Ted Drewes, and a squirrel bops out into the street. It effortlessly identifies that there is a two thousand-pound vehicle careening its way, sticks its nose in the air, and saunters back to the sidewalk. Devil may care. Possums on the other hand? They’re just dumb no matter where you go.

7.) Caring what others think – When you grow up in a very rural area, you will undoubtedly run into at least three or four people you know just getting groceries. So, when you make your weekly “I’m going to town, you need anything?” trip, you feel obligated to at least put your contacts in, do something with your hair, and put on decent looking clothes. I quickly learned living in the city that you can walk down the same sidewalk every day of the week and never see ANY of the same people! It initially feels like, “Oh, thank GOODness I can go to the store in my sweats today because I am feeling tired and lazy and will be napping as soon as I get home anyway!” But over time it becomes, “Ya know what? I just don’t care what people think. I’m just living my life the way I want to and the way I need to in order to thrive in my own way.” And that is such a freeing realization!

8.) Hops - There are a TON of craft breweries in St. Louis, and with the big Anheuser-Busch plant just a few miles away, the air smells extremely hoppy from time to time. This is embarrassing, but when I first moved here, I always thought maybe my neighbors were having some very wheaty toast for breakfast, but I started noticing that I smelled it throughout the entire city – not just wafting through the vents from the guy next door. I was walking out of work one morning (I worked night shift) when my coworker said, “Mmm! The air smells HOPPY today!” I didn’t say anything, but I think my face turned red anyway because I felt so stupid over thinking all that time it was somebody’s toast!

Life can sometimes be vastly different in the city, but no matter where you go, people really just want the same things – to be happy, to find love, and to eat whatever they want without getting fat :) Hope you enjoyed!

#countrygirl #citylife #stl #stlouis #lessonslearned #chuckberry #teddrewes #livealittle #cornfield #justjibberjabber

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justforbooks · 7 years

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Min Jin Lee on the Road to Free Food for Millionaires

I had already failed at two novel manuscripts. Publishers had rejected my first manuscript, and I rejected the second, because it was not good enough to send out. I was 32 years old and beginning my third novel.

I had been trying to get a novel published since 1995, the year I quit being a lawyer. Since high school, I’d had a chronic liver disease, and I couldn’t work the hours of a Manhattan law firm without getting ill, so I thought I’d write fiction. My husband Christopher had a steady job with health insurance, but we had gotten our apartment and mortgage with two incomes in mind. Money was tight. After a miscarriage and a difficult pregnancy, our son Sam was born, and that same year, we learned that beloved family members, who could no longer support themselves, were awash in catastrophic debt, and suddenly, we were responsible for another household.

It is never a financially prudent idea to be a fiction writer, but I had not anticipated running through my savings in a year, being unable to earn even a modest living, not being able to afford part-time childcare to write, having a debilitating liver disease, and taking on the debts of people I love.

I was ashamed. After six years, I had not yet written a published novel, and I was broke from the choices I had made. I wondered how we’d pay all these bills, send Sam to college, and save for retirement. When my friends asked me to lunch, I made excuses because I could not afford the luxury of eating out. I could not answer when they asked kindly when my book would be available to purchase. I hid my failure by staying home.

From the moment I quit lawyering, I tried to learn how to write good fiction. I had written and published personal essays in high school. I was a history major in college, but for pleasure, I’d taken three writing classes in the English department. To my surprise, in my junior and senior years, I won top writing prizes for nonfiction and fiction, respectively. It’s possible that the college prizes misled me to believe that I could publish a novel immediately after quitting the law. However, the more I studied fiction, the more I realized that writing novels required rigorous discipline and mastery, no different than the study of engineering or classical sculpture. I wanted to get formal training. Nevertheless, after having paid for law school, I could not hazard the cost of an MFA. So, I fumbled around and made up my own writing program.

Always a reader of the 19th-century greats, I read more widely. I read every fine novel and short story I could find, and I studied the ones that were truly exceptional. If I saw a beautifully wrought paragraph, say from Julia Glass’s Three Junes, I would transcribe it in a marble notebook. Then, I would sit and read her elegant sentences, seemingly pinned to my flimsy notebook like a rare butterfly on cheap muslin. Craft strengthened the feelings and thoughts of the writer. When I read and reread Junot Díaz’s stories in Drown, I was struck by his courage and genius. His perfect narrative voice matched the intricacy and greatness of his plot architecture. Great fiction required not just lovely words or fine feelings, it demanded emotion, structure, ideals, and bravery. Fine works of fiction made me feel glad, the way I feel glad when I see a painting by a master, an ocean at dusk, or the face of a child.

In New York, it is possible to study with great writers for very little money. If one can afford to live here, there is a shock of riches in culture, so much so that artists work for almost nothing. Once a week, when Christopher could watch Sam after work, I took a turkey sandwich in a baggie or a carton of hummus and went to my writing classes or met with my writers’ group. For less than $200, I was able to study for several weeks with Lan Samantha Chang, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, and Jhumpa Lahiri at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop early on in their careers. I took a class at the Gotham Writers Workshop with Wesley Gibson. For about the same amount and for a season’s length of classes, I studied with Jonathan Levi, Joyce Johnson, Joseph Caldwell, Joan Silber, Shirley Hazzard, and Nahid Rachlin at the 92nd Street Y. The Y runs a famous preschool, and in the evenings, grown men and women sat in these preschool classrooms, smelling of tempera paints and box apple juice, anxious to know if their stories made any sense. Teachers generously encouraged me to continue, but privately, I wondered if I should quit. I was getting older, and I was afraid that I could not return to a steady profession.

The year after Sam was born, impulsively, I applied for a spot at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and was accepted. The tuition was more money than we could spare, something like $1,000. However, I knew it was difficult to get a spot at all, and I felt I had to go. I had nursed Sam for a year, and I thought this might be a good reward for having given up my body—or so it seemed to me—for the pregnancies, the illnesses, and the breastfeeding. Christopher took time off from work and stayed with Sam, and I went to Tennessee. For nine days, I studied fiction with Alice McDermott and Rick Moody. Each day, after my class, I would go back to my dorm room and cry because I missed my baby.

At Sewanee, it felt like everyone had gone to prestigious MFA writing programs like Iowa and had book contracts. Back then, conference attendees wore name tags, and mine read just my name, indicating that I had not received any scholarship money to defray the cost of the conference tuition. One day, during lunch, I met a young woman whose name tag stated her name plus the name of her fellowship. She hadn’t paid any tuition because her publications had merited her a scholarship. There was a group of us at the table, most of whom had scholarships, and the young woman casually mocked the housewives who had paid full freight to attend the conference. I didn’t realize at first, but she was talking about me. That summer, I was 30 years old, a new mother, and I learned that a talented young woman artist held housewife writers in contempt. I couldn’t eat so I returned to my room. I avoided her for the rest of the conference, because I sensed she was right. It had been a mistake to come all this way to take a class. Then at the end of the conference, Alice McDermott nominated my workshop story for an anthology called Best New American Voices 2000, and though the editors didn’t take my piece, I thought that maybe I could keep trying.

Then something else good happened a few months later. I got an Artist Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts in the category of fiction. It was for $7,000. I used some of that money to pay for a five-day writing class in California with the famous editor and writer Tom Jenks and the novelist Carol Edgarian. To improve my understanding of the sentence, I began to read poetry. I took a class at the Y with David Yezzi to learn prosody, and it changed the way I looked at every word. Whenever the poetry critic Helen Vendler came to the Y to give one of her seminars, I did whatever I could to attend.

There was so much to learn and practice, but I began to see the prose in verse and the verse in prose. Patterns surfaced in poems, stories, and plays. There was music in sentences and paragraphs. I could hear the silences in a sentence. All this schooling was like getting x-ray vision and animal-like hearing. I had no way to prove objectively the things I was learning, and I can’t tell you why I thought my self-curated education correct, but I followed the steps I could afford to take and somehow trusted that I would learn how to write something fine.

When I ran out of money for classes, I went to readings and bought hardcover books I could not afford. At the bookstore or library, I’d sit all the way in the back. If there was a Q&A, I would have half a dozen questions forming a lump in my throat, but I wouldn’t voice a word. I went to the readings of Herman Wouk, Marilynne Robinson, Junot Díaz, Joyce Carol Oates, Gary Shteyngart, Julian Barnes, Richard Ford, Jay McInerney, Chang-rae Lee, Veronica Chambers, Ian McEwan, Joan Didion, Susanna Moore, Shirley Hazzard, James Salter, Kazuo Ishiguro, Toni Morrison, Rick Moody, Susan Minot, and many more. I wanted to know: How did you do that? How did you send me into this whole other world of your creation? How did you make me feel these new and old feelings? How did you keep trusting that it was all worthwhile? And yet, I could barely form an audible sentence around them, but I suppose I didn’t have to, because I had their work, and their work spoke to me and stayed with me in a private way without me having to prove anything to them or them to me.

As a habit, I read on the subway. One day, I was finishing V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas on the 2 train, and I burst into tears, amazed at the magnificence of Naipaul’s literary achievement. I knew of his politically controversial attitudes (e.g., he thought women writers were unimportant), and yet I understood that in this work, this man had done something extraordinary with fiction. Through characterization and sympathy, Naipaul had made me care deeply for a humble and curious character, who so clumsily yet so vitally struggled for his wishes. Later, I learned that Arwacas, the fictional setting of the novel, was based on Chaguanas, an immigrant town where East Indian-Trinidadians live and where Naipaul had grown up. Naipaul gave me permission to write about Elmhurst, my town in Queens.

After the classes, the readings, the discarded drafts, I started to research my novel like I was a journalist. When I wanted to learn more about my character Ted Kim, the investment banker, I interviewed several men who went to Harvard Business School. One of them told me that I should pretend to apply, because one had to see a school like that to believe it. So I did. I logged into the website, and I filled out a visitor’s form, and I was able to come in for a day.

I sat in on a class. There were maybe 25 students, and each person had a name card in front of him or her. It was impossible to hide in that room; however, what was clear to me was that no one was hiding. It wasn’t like any class I had ever attended in high school, college, or even law school. I don’t know if everyone in that room had done his homework or if she understood the lecture and the complicated spreadsheet on the whiteboard, but I learned something about these attractive young people. I surmise that what distinguishes a Harvard Business School student is his confidence in his abilities. I have never been in a building so filled with young people who look like they can do anything and want to solve very difficult problems. After a few hours, I started thinking that maybe I should apply for business school because the energy was so buoyant. If anyone was depressed or anxious or doubtful, I think he or she must have stayed home that day. No, I did not apply to HBS, but that day changed me, because I started to value research, not for the details or the velvet scraps of dialogue, but for the feelings that new information made me have. I felt confident just by being with other highly energetic people. I wondered what it would be like to have two years of that atmosphere when even I, an applicant pretender and a writer with no book, felt that positive after mere hours. So I took that feeling and gave it to Ted, a man who believes that he is right even when he is troubled or afraid. Ted’s convictions propel him to great economic success. However, even his convictions are weakened in the presence of sexual desire and a secret yearning for a kindred person. Ted is not good, but research allowed me to recognize his vulnerability, which allowed me to love Ted in his totality.

Then something wonderful happened. The Missouri Review published a story I’d rewritten 17 or 18 times. I had a Bankers Box filled with just drafts of that one story. Maybe that’s what it took.

Not much after that, my wrists began to hurt. I had trouble lifting a coffee cup. My son was in preschool then, and to drop him off and pick him up, I had to walk a few blocks, but it was painful. My ankles were swollen and holding hands with my son to cross the street was hard. I couldn’t turn round doorknobs or walk up stairs with ease. After several misdiagnoses, I was sent to a rheumatologist who guessed correctly that my liver disease was making me ill. I had developed liver cirrhosis, and I had never had a drop of wine.

There were a lot of doctors, and they wrote about my case to each other. A gastroenterologist wanted me to try a course of treatment with Interferon, because I was so young, and liver transplants were not so easy to be had. For three months, I gave myself a shot of this medicine in my thigh each day. My hair fell out in clumps in the shower. When I bent down to sweep the floor, blood vessels would break in my face to make bruises. I could not leave the house sometimes because I had diarrhea or because I could not stop vomiting. Each day, I had a few hours of energy, and I would store them up for Sam, my three-year-old. I wanted him to think that I was well.

When the treatment ended, my liver function tests improved markedly. My doctor was cautious, so he took more tests. I continued to work on Free Food for Millionaires, compelled to finish a first draft. A year after the treatment, the doctor told me that I was cured of my chronic liver disease. One in a million, he marveled. I went home that afternoon, and I lay down on my bed with my good news. This life was unexpected. I told myself that I could not be so afraid of judgment that I would hold back. And so I did not.

When I sold the manuscript in the summer of 2006, I counted 11 years as my apprenticeship. I was 37 years old.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

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instantdeerlover · 4 years

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Our Three Favorite Spots For Everything added to Google Docs

Our Three Favorite Spots For Everything

We think about food a lot. Like, a lot a lot. And while we have plenty of guides to great first date spots and lists of literally every single sports bar in LA, sometimes, what’s really on our minds are specific dishes. Singular foods that, much like a Kylie Minogue love interest, we just can’t get out of our heads.

And thus, Our Three Favorite Spots For Everything was born. Each week, we give a different staff member free rein to write about the very best spots for those very dishes - from gluten-free pastas to big ol’ chicken parms, and everything in between. This is our very specific field guide to eating in LA, and we’ll be updating it regularly, so check back often for more inside looks at what’s going on in our brains (spoiler alert: it’s mostly just cured meat plates and this video of Kim Cattrall scatting).

three spots for: lobster rolls

Chances are that within approximately seven minutes of meeting LA Staff Writer Brett Keating, you’re going to know two things about him: He grew up in Massachusetts, and he has strong feelings about seafood. (Don’t get him started on how to pronounce “scallop.”) So needless to say, he’s very critical when it comes to lobster rolls. Here are his three favorites in town.

Jakob Layman Broad Street Oyster Co. $ $ $ $ American , Seafood in Malibu $$$$ 23359 Pacific Coast Hwy 8.6 /10

I always thought only tasteless yuppies from Connecticut preferred hot-buttered lobster rolls to cold ones with mayo, until I tried the one at Broad Street Oyster Co. in Malibu. The roll is perfectly toasted, the lobster is fresh and not at all spongey, and the clarified butter takes it to another level.

Jakob Layman Found Oyster $ $ $ $ Seafood in East Hollywood $$$$ 4880 Fountain Ave Not

Rated

Yet

Found Oyster does quite literally everything right - including their lobster bisque/lobster roll mashup, a fantastic, cayenne-heavy version that I’ll happily sacrifice a couple orange-ish stains on my shirt for.

Jakob Layman Connie And Ted's $ $ $ $ Seafood in West Hollywood $$$$ 8171 Santa Monica Blvd. 8.3 /10

The most substantial roll of the three, the cold roll at Connie and Ted’s is a classic. It’s heavy on knuckle meat (the premier lobster roll meat, if you ask me), and lightly dressed with mayo. I absolutely douse it with lemon, too.

three spots for: eating alone

Editorial Operations Manager Jess Basser Sanders enjoys being alone. It’s why she wrote guides like Where To Get Some Pasta And A Glass Of Wine By Yourself, and shows up to work an hour-and-a-half before anyone else. So as a self-proclaimed master of solitude, here are her three favorite places to eat by herself. Don’t try to join her.

Jakob Layman Hippo $ $ $ $ American , Italian in Highland Park $$$$ 5918 N Figueroa St 8.2 /10

If I had a spirit meal, it would be pasta and a glass of wine (OK, sometimes I swap in a martini). It’s fun to do with a friend, but secretly, I love it when everyone else is busy. If I’m in Highland Park, my preferred solo meal is at Hippo. You can almost always walk in and sit at the bar. Bring a book, try one of the wines on tap, and order whatever pasta they’re serving that night.

Pho 2000 $ $ $ $ Vietnamese in Koreatown $$$$ 215 N Western Ave Not

Rated

Yet

Years ago, I worked in Koreatown at a job I hated. So whenever I could escape for lunch, I’d jump in my car and drive to Pho 2000 on Olympic. I’d get the oxtail pho and spend an hour slurping in silence, scrolling through my phone looking at job postings. Now I just go back for the pho - and the nostalgia.

Jakob Layman Gjusta $ $ $ $ American , Sandwiches , Deli in Venice $$$$ 320 Sunset Ave 8.7 /10

I used to live in Venice, and while I miss nothing about weaving my way through the tourists every weekend, I do miss Gjusta like it’s an actual real person. One reason is that I can no longer use this place the way the locals do - walking in at 2pm on a weekday, ordering a tuna conserva or tomato confit or smoked fish plate without having to wait, and eating it while leaning on the counter, knowing you’ve got life all figured out.

three spots for: gluten-free pasta

We talk about pasta a lot at Infatuation LA HQ, which makes life in the office pretty hard for our gluten-free LA Marketing Manager Marika Jayne. But rather than getting mad, she got busy - putting together this list of her favorite spots for gluten-free pasta in LA.

Holly Liss Osteria La Buca $ $ $ $ Italian in Hancock Park , Hollywood , Larchmont $$$$ 5210 Melrose Ave 8.2 /10

The carbonara at Osteria La Buca is one of the best plates of pasta in LA, and just because there may not be any gluten in the noodles doesn’t make it any less great.

Jakob Layman All Time $ $ $ $ American in Los Feliz $$$$ 2040 Hillhurst Ave 8.9 /10

All Time doesn’t always have gluten-free pasta, but when they do, you better get after it. Their gnocchi with lemon parm can only be described with three words: Potato pasta pillows.

Benji Dell Jones Hollywood $ $ $ $ Italian in West Hollywood $$$$ 7205 Santa Monica Blvd. 8.3 /10

There’s no reason to be sad about being gluten-free at Jones Hollywood, because almost any pasta can be made gluten-free, and they’re all excellent. It doesn’t hurt to get a Dirty Sue martini, either.

three spots for: Japanese breakfast

On the rare occasion LA Editorial Assistant Kat Hong wakes up at an “acceptable time” for breakfast, there’s only one choice for her - 朝ごはん, a.k.a. asagohan, the glorious, perfect meal known as Japanese breakfast (and no, we’re not talking about Michelle Zauner’s indie rock alias). Here are her three spots for the most important meal of the day.

Azay $ $ $ $ Japanese , French in Little Tokyo $$$$ 226 E 1st St Not

Rated

Yet

Azay is my go-to weekend spot. There’s nothing better than grabbing a corner seat on a Sunday morning, digging into their simple, homestyle breakfast set (and realistically, also whatever special they have that day) and going on Twitter while pretending to read.

Jakob Layman Orsa & Winston $$$$ 122 W 4th St

For my birthday last year, I called out of work and treated myself to Orsa & Winston’s breakfast omakase. I like that it’s not very traditional - expect dishes like pear and apple salad, and miso-based minestrone - plus, they gave me a free pot of tea even though I didn’t even mention the birthday thing?

Fukagawa Soba & Udon $$$$ 1630 W. Redondo Beach Blvd. Ste 6

While I love Orsa & Winston’s non-traditional take, sometimes, I just want a classic Japanese Breakfast. And my favorite place for that is Fukagawa in Gardena. It’s a bit of a journey from my apartment in [REDACTED], but the D Combo, which comes with grilled fish and natto (very important!!), reminds me of the mornings when I lived in Japan.

three spots for: sandwiches so big you’ll need a nap

LA Editor James Montgomery loves big sandwiches and even bigger naps, so whenever he can combine the two, it’s gonna be a good day (though not necessarily a productive one). Here are his favorite spots for sandwiches so filling they make you sleepy.

Jakob Layman Eastside Market Italian Deli $ $ $ $ Sandwiches , Italian in Chinatown , Downtown LA $$$$ 1013 Alpine St Not

Rated

Yet

There’s a lot to love at Eastside Market Italian Deli, but if I’m looking to conk out for an afternoon, there’s nothing better than their massive D.A. Special, approximately 15 lbs of sausage, meatballs, roast beef, and pastrami on crunchy bread. Sweet dreams!

All Day Baby $ $ $ $ American in Silver Lake $$$$ 3200 W Sunset Blvd Not

Rated

Yet

Silver Lake’s All Day Baby is pretty new, but their smoked beef and cheese sandwich - tender beef, creamy cheese sauce, and horseradish mayo on a soft brioche roll - is a sleep aid as timeless as counting sheep.

Jakob Layman Wax Paper $ $ $ $ Sandwiches in Chinatown $$$$ 736 N Broadway Not

Rated

Yet

The sandwiches at Wax Paper are named after NPR hosts, which already sounds pretty sleepy, but their Larry Mantle takes it to another level - especially if you like bologna, salami, pickled peppers, and dozing off on your drive home.

three spots for: cold brew

If there’s one thing LA Staff Writer Brett Keating is known for around the office (aside from his obnoxious support for the Patriots), it’s coffee consumption. And until he gets that cold brew tap installed at his desk, he’s going to keep pursuing his mission of finding LA’s best cold brew.

Menotti's Coffee Stop $$$$ 56 Windward Ave

If you think all cold brew tastes the same, I’m very sorry for all the mediocre versions you’ve been drinking. And also, head straight to Menotti’s in Venice. They pick their favorite cold brew batches, and send them off to a brewery to have them kegged for a perfect nitro brew.

Modern Times Beer: The Dankness Dojo $ $ $ $ Bar Food , Vegetarian in Downtown LA $$$$ 832 S. Olive St. Not

Rated

Yet

Speaking of breweries, you probably know that Modern Times’ Dankness Dojo is one of the best in LA County. But they also roast their own coffee, and it’s great - and also reasonably priced. Get it without ice.

Spoon By H $ $ $ $ Korean , Dessert in Beverly Grove , Hancock Park $$$$ 7158 Beverly Blvd 8.7 /10

Cold brew ice cubes are a discovery akin to that moment you learned your AirPods case doubles as a phone stand. Ask for them with your fantastic iced coffee at Spoon By H, where they come in the shape of coffee beans.

three spots for: Excellent table bread

Does everything taste better if it’s free? Perhaps. LA Editorial Lead Brant Cox argues that a basket of great table bread has the power to change the course of an entire meal - if not your life. Hyperbole? Not at these spots.

Jakob Layman Jones Hollywood $ $ $ $ Italian in West Hollywood $$$$ 7205 Santa Monica Blvd. 8.3 /10

With solid pizza, incredible dessert, and our favorite martini in town, there are all sorts of reasons to be hanging at Jones Hollywood - and that includes their table bread. It’s basically seasoned flatbread, but when you dip it into some balsamic and olive oil, you’ll forget you came here to eat dinner.

Jakob Layman Craig's $ $ $ $ American , Italian in West Hollywood $$$$ 8826 Melrose Ave 5.1 /10

Craig’s in West Hollywood is probably the most celebrity-packed restaurant in LA, but unfortunately, the food is absolutely awful. That makes filling up on their incredible table bread even more of a requirement.

Holly Liss C&O Trattoria $ $ $ $ Italian in Marina Del Rey , Venice $$$$ 31 Washington Blvd 7.1 /10

If free carbohydrates come with a warning from the waitstaff to “please exercise restraint,” you know they’re going to be good. And make no mistake, the free garlic knots they hand out at C&O Trattoria are tremendous.

three spots for: french onion soup

When you hear the words “pinnacle of human creation,” what comes to mind? The immortality of the written word? The convenience of indoor plumbing? Dev Patel’s face? Well, if you’re LA Editorial Assistant Kat Hong, you think of French onion soup. Here are her favorite spots in LA to fire up a hot, hot bowl:

Benji Dell Petit Trois $ $ $ $ French in Hollywood $$$$ 718 N. Highland Ave. 8.3 /10

You literally can’t talk about French onion soup without mentioning Petit Trois. Their version is mega-traditional, which means it comes full of caramelized onions, toasted baguette bits, and enough gruyère to forget about the time I misquoted the “Myth of Sisyphus” in the company-wide Slack channel.

Jakob Layman Oriel $ $ $ $ French , Wine Bar in Chinatown $$$$ 1135 North Alameda Street 7.9 /10

I am fully obsessed with Oriel, to the point that I once made this photo of their dining room the background on both my phone and my work computer. And while I will happily eat everything on the menu here, their F.O.S. is trèèèèèèès bon.

Trader Joe's $$$$ 8611 Santa Monica Blvd.

Trader Joe’s: Frozen section. Two-pack. Thank me later.

three spots for: A big ol’ chicken parm

LA Editor James Montgomery isn’t here to take part in your small-plate scam. All he wants is some good ol’ gut-busting chicken parm, the kind that’s buried beneath a sheet of bubbling cheese, drowned in a sea of marinara, and so big that the accompanying side of pasta feels like a cruel joke. Here are three spots that do it right.

Dan Tana's $ $ $ $ Italian in West Hollywood $$$$ 9071 Santa Monica Blvd 8.6 /10

Ordering the chicken parm at Dan Tana’s is practically a prerequisite, right up there with getting hit on by Ron Jeremy. It’s cheesy, saucy, and the more martinis you drink, the better it gets. And you can say the same thing about Ron.

Little Toni's $$$$ 4745 Lankershim Blvd

It’s certainly not as well-known as other old-school Italian spots, but Little Toni’s in North Hollywood makes a chicken parm that I’d put up against any in the city. You will have leftovers.

Jakob Layman Dear John's $ $ $ $ American , Steaks , Italian in Culver City $$$$ 11208 Culver Blvd 8.0 /10

The rebooted Dear John’s in Culver City pays homage to Old Hollywood, so I expected them to do a mean chicken parm - I didn’t expect it to be stuffed with cheese, though.

three spots for: a whole damn fish

LA Staff Writer Brett Keating grew up in New England, so he’s basically always talking about Cape Cod. It also means that he spends a lot of time thinking about seafood, and if he sees a whole fish on the menu, he orders it. So here are the best places in LA when you want to pretend you’re a grizzly bear and eat a fish whole.

Jakob Layman Here's Looking at You $ $ $ $ American , Seafood in Koreatown $$$$ 3901 W 6th St 8.3 /10

Here’s Looking At You’s whole-cooked sea bream comes coated in what are basically green curry Rice Krispies, and it’s fantastic because of it. And because it comes with a sauce made from coconut caramel.

Cheko El Rey Del Sarandeado $ $ $ $ Seafood in Long Beach $$$$ 343 E Market St 8.4 /10

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by options at Cheko El Rey Del Sarandeado. But the Mexican seafood spot in Long Beach’s whole-grilled snook - flayed open, and grilled over low heat - reigns supreme.

Jakob Layman Dudley Market $ $ $ $ American , Seafood in Venice $$$$ 9 Dudley Ave 8.5 /10

Reasons I’ve gone to Dudley Market: The wine list, the clam and pork toast, to prove to my boss that it’s really true they own a fishing boat (it is). And in addition to all those, anytime it’s on the menu, I get the Vietnamese-inspired fried rockfish with nuoc cham.

three spots for: pad thai

LA Marketing Manager Marika Jayne has a lot of opinions about a lot of foods - but she’s most passionate about pad thai, a food that can be eaten for any reason, at any time of day. Here are the best places to eat the ubiquitous Thai dish, in her words.

Luv2Eat Thai Bistro $ $ $ $ Thai in Hollywood $$$$ 6660 W. Sunset Blvd. 8.7 /10

No matter what time of day, if you’re alone or in a group, or if you go to the restaurant or get delivery, Luv2Eat Thai is never going to let you down. They have the best pad thai in LA, with the perfect balance of sweet and savory. Get it with the duck.

Jakob Layman Jitlada $ $ $ $ Thai in East Hollywood , Thai Town $$$$ 5233 Sunset Blvd. 9.4 /10

You’ll be tempted to try everything at Jitlada, and you should, but don’t skip the pad thai just because you see it on so many menus. They do it very, very well, and it’s also a great palate-neutralizer after their extremely spicy Jungle Curry.

The Original Hoy-Ka Hollywood $ $ $ $ Thai in East Hollywood , Hollywood $$$$ 5908 Sunset Blvd. 8.1 /10

Not only is The Original Hoy-Ka a great lunch option in Hollywood, the portions of the pad thai (and almost everything) are big enough to become your dinner that night, too.

three spots for: tsukemen

LA Editor James Montgomery grew up in Florida, so whenever he mentions dipping, we assume he means tobacco. But sometimes, he’s actually talking about dipping noodles - a.k.a. tsukemen, noodles dunked in a bowl of rich broth. And while that sounds simple, good tsukemen is actually tough to pull off. Both the noodles and the broth must be perfect, because there’s nowhere to hide the shortcomings of either. Here are three places that get pretty close to perfection.

Tsujita Tsujita LA $ $ $ $ Japanese , Ramen in West LA $$$$ 2057 Sawtelle Blvd 8.3 /10

You will always wait at Tsujita, but at least you’re waiting for LA’s best tsukemen - their rich and flavorful cha siu, with BBQ pork over cold noodles.

Palms Ramen Yumeya $$$$ 11127 Palms Blvd

Palms Ramen Yumeya is an unassuming spot, but their tonkotsu tsukemen definitely deserves accolades. Plus, if you ask for extra garlic (which you should), they’ll deliver fresh cloves - and a garlic press - right to your table. Go wild.

Menya Musashi $ $ $ $ Japanese in Sawtelle Japantown $$$$ 2012 Sawtelle Blvd Not

Rated

Yet

Menya Musashi is located on the same stretch of Sawtelle as Tsujita, which is a pretty bold move. Good thing their tsukemen is up to par, especially if you order it with pork belly, thin pork katsu, and a soft-boiled egg.

three spots for: pastries

Editorial Operations Manager Jess Basser Sanders has a unique role. She works in our LA office, but has to be on our New York office’s time. So she starts work every morning around the same time everyone else is waking up. But as such, she’s learned a lot about LA mornings. Specifically, where to find the best baked goods in the city.

Konbi $ $ $ $ Japanese , Sandwiches in Echo Park $$$$ 1463 W Sunset Blvd 8.0 /10

My favorite time of day at Konbi is 8:56am. It’s the perfect time to sit at the counter, order a breakfast set, and put dibs on a couple of LA’s best pastries right as they come out of the oven. Don’t try and choose between the plain and chocolate croissants - just get both.

Jakob Layman Huge Tree Pastry $ $ $ $ Chinese , Taiwanese in Monterey Park $$$$ 423 N Atlantic Blvd # 105-106 8.0 /10

I am not the kind of person who would a) order a glass of milk or b) dip anything in it, but I make an exception for Huge Tree Pastry in Monterey Park, where the Taiwanese donuts are not complete without a mug of house-made soy milk to dip them in.

Jakob Layman Lodge Bread Co $ $ $ $ Cafe/Bakery in Culver City $$$$ 11918 W Washington Blvd 8.7 /10

I don’t have any kids, but every time I order the cinnamon bun from Lodge Bread Co. I get a little insight into what the parent life might be like. It’s almost as heavy as a newborn (my arm gets sore carrying it home), and wherever it goes, people want to take photos of it.

three spots for: khao soi

In the waking moments of your day, what’s the first thing that crosses your mind? Is it the overbearing work project you’ve been putting off all week? Why Rose didn’t pull Jack onto the door with her? Lizzo? If you’re LA Editorial Lead Brant Cox, the answer is khao soi. And more specifically, how soon he can get the curry noodle soup into his body. Here are his three favorite spots when he needs to scratch the itch.

Jakob Layman Northern Thai Food Club $ $ $ $ Thai in East Hollywood , Thai Town $$$$ 5301 Sunset Blvd #11 8.3 /10

For me, it’s the creamy coconut broth that usually makes a khao soi. At Northern Thai Food Club, it’s the giant leg of chicken that’s so perfectly-cooked the meat falls off with one brush of the fork.

Jakob Layman Pailin Thai Cuisine $ $ $ $ Thai in Hollywood , Thai Town $$$$ 5621 Hollywood Blvd 8.1 /10

You could pass Pailin 100 times and not notice it. But you can eat Pailin’s khao soi once and be changed forever.

Spicy BBQ Restaurant $ $ $ $ Thai in East Hollywood $$$$ 5101 Santa Monica Blvd 8.0 /10

I once ate Spicy BBQ’s khao soi three times in one day. And yes, that’s a brag.

three spots for: prosciutto

How do you measure luxury? In bubble baths and champagne? In sports cars named after arachnids? Well, if you’re Infatuation LA Editorial Assistant Kat Hong, it’s all about cured meat. If you’re looking to get in touch with your inner George Alexander Louis, she’s got three places that serve prosciutto so good, you’ll feel like a little prince.

Phillip Guerette The Factory Kitchen $ $ $ $ Italian in Arts District $$$$ 1306 Factory Place 8.6 /10

I’m not particularly religious, but if there was any indication that God exists, it would be the prosciutto + fried dough + burrata behemoth from Factory Kitchen.

Jakob Layman Larchmont Wine and Cheese $ $ $ $ Sandwiches in Larchmont $$$$ 223 N. Larchmont Blvd. 8.9 /10

For the days you wake up with a fever and the only prescription is more prosciutto, head to Larchmont Village Wine and Cheese and get the #5 sandwich.

Cookbook $$$$ 1549 Echo Park Ave

I once left Cookbook with five packages of their prosciutto. Maybe that was overkill, or perhaps pure hubris. Either way, it was worth it.

three spots for: drinking a martini tonight

Is there ever a bad time to get a martini? Not really. But the best time is definitely tonight. Here’s where LA Staff Writer Brett Keating is headed as soon as he’s done here.

Freedman’s $ $ $ $ Deli in Silver Lake $$$$ 2619 Sunset Blvd 8.4 /10

Sure, Freedman’s has great food. But their Classic Martini is the real reason I go to this Silver Lake spot twice a week.

Jones Hollywood $ $ $ $ Italian in West Hollywood $$$$ 7205 Santa Monica Blvd. 8.3 /10

Jones has the best martini in West Hollywood, and no matter what restaurant I’m driving back from, they’re never too far out of the way.

Chez Jay $ $ $ $ Santa Monica $$$$ 1657 Ocean Ave Not

Rated

Yet

Chez Jay’s martini isn’t going to blow you away. But it’s the size of a 7-Eleven Slurpee, so anytime quantity is more important than quality, this is where I go.

via The Infatuation Feed https://www.theinfatuation.com/los-angeles/guides/best-food-breakfast-lunch-dinner-la Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://trello.com/userhuongsen

Created February 25, 2020 at 12:44AM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

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nothingman · 6 years

Link

Anwar Khalifa is about as Texan as you can get. He speaks in a sharp twang and cruises around in a Chevy truck with real longhorns mounted on the front. He never skips “worship day,” he taught his three daughters to shoot, and, most important for his standing in Tyler society, the 57-year-old is a lifelong Republican.

For decades, Khalifa’s conservative politics coexisted just fine with his Muslim, immigrant background; his family moved from Egypt to Texas in the late 1960s. He chairs the nominating committee of the local Republican club, and he’s invited a slew of Republican politicians to the mosque his parents helped build. The biggest display in his office is a framed photo of him in a cowboy hat next to then-president George W. Bush at a White House event one Ramadan.

Khalifa’s loyalty to the GOP runs deep, and yet he’s down to maybe two Republican candidates he says he can vote for in good conscience in the November midterm elections. His East Texas ballot will include a candidate who apologized after approving a white nationalist rally, a bankruptcy-plagued radio host nicknamed “the Trump of Texas,” and a state official who compared Syrian refugees to rattlesnakes. Oh, and Sen. Ted Cruz. (“Just evil,” Khalifa said.)

Ilana Panich-Linsman for Buzzfeed News

A framed photograph of Anwar Khalifa with former President George W. Bush shares space with Kiwi, Khalifa's pet macaw, in his office.

Khalifa can’t bring himself to vote Democrat, but he sure isn’t voting for that GOP lineup, either.

“I can’t vote for people who are not just anti-Muslim, but who are anti anything that isn’t like them,” he said. “Unless you’re a white person in this country, you don’t matter to them.”

Khalifa is among the last of the Muslim Republicans, a subset of voters that’s disappearing as the GOP moves right on race and religion, with leaders openly demonizing Islam and staying silent when President Donald Trump makes bigoted remarks. Last month, just a couple hours from where Khalifa lives, an internal battle erupted in the Tarrant County Republican Party over calls to remove the party’s vice chair, Shahid Shafi, because he’s Muslim. That fight is still going on.

Muslims aren’t kingmakers, but they have the numbers to influence tight elections in places with high concentrations of Muslims.

Making up just 1% of registered voters nationwide, Muslims aren’t kingmakers, but they have the numbers to influence tight elections in places with high concentrations of Muslims. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group, flagged five statewide midterm elections where the relatively high number of registered Muslim voters — Democrats and Republicans alike — might swing a tight race: Senate seats in Texas, Missouri, Florida, and Arizona, as well as the dead-heat match for Wisconsin governor.

As with other marginalized communities, Muslims saw a surge of political engagement after Trump’s election, with the emergence of first-time candidates, new lobbying groups, and Muslim-led voter drives. In California, a Muslim Republican, former Pentagon prosecutor Omar Qudrat, will be on the November ballot in a deep blue congressional district. Overall, however, the newfound energy has focused on Democrats. Muslims left the GOP en masse in the post-9/11 era of the Iraq War and the Patriot Act.

Now, under Trump, Muslims who stayed Republican are once again navigating what it means to be in a party where they no longer feel welcome. As the episodes become uglier and more frequent, they face a choice: Leave the party in protest or stay and fight?

Khalifa said the stakes are too high for him to walk away from access that took 25 years to cultivate. His cachet in Republican circles means that when he sees old friends taking potshots at Islam, he can confront them, as he did recently when he asked a buddy running for sheriff to scrap a campaign line about keeping “Sharia law” out of Smith County.

Ilana Panich-Linsman for Buzzfeed News

Khalifa with his cockatiel Snow at his home in Tyler, Texas.

“If we get involved, if these politicians know us, when we show up, we matter,” Khalifa said. “When we don’t show up, we don’t exist, and they can do whatever the heck they want to us.”

Six other Muslim Republicans interviewed this month said they too had decided to stay with the party they’ve supported for decades, though some are backing off from active participation or, like Khalifa, abstaining from midterm voting. They argue that even a muted Muslim voice in the ruling party is better than no representation as policies are drawn up to ban, deport, or bomb Muslims.

"This is my party, and I’m going to stay and fight.”

Despite the Trump era’s lack of official channels between the White House and Islamic groups, a handful of Muslim Republicans say they’re still using personal connections to lobby on issues such as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, or attempts to block mosque-building projects in the United States. Those slivers of access aren’t nearly enough, they say, making them all the more determined to push back against their party’s narrowing definition of who counts as American.

Suhail Khan, 48, a former Bush administration official and one of the most visible Muslims in the GOP, said he’s excited about recent Republican-led tax and regulatory measures, as well as Trump’s Supreme Court nominees. But the anti-Muslim stances sting coming from a party he joined because of its ideas about individual liberty and limited government.

“It has been a moment of concern, of oftentimes great frustration and anger, absolutely,” said Khan. “But I’ve never questioned whether this is my party or whether I’m a conservative. This is my party, and I’m going to stay and fight.”

Cooper Neill

Mohamed Elibiary outside his home in Plano, Texas, in 2015.

Muslim Republicans like to invoke the famous line Ronald Reagan used about Democrats to explain their own conflicted affiliation these days: They didn’t leave the Republican Party; the party left them.

“Are we down to two now?” said 43-year-old Mohamed Elibiary, jokingly, when he was asked about the issue.

As a Dallas-based security analyst, Elibiary has helped counterterrorism officials craft policy and handle sensitive cases involving Muslims. In 2011, the FBI, led at the time by Robert Mueller, gave Elibiary the agency’s highest award for public service. Even so, right-wing Republicans called Elibiary a terrorist sympathizer and a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He also was asked to step down from local GOP posts because he accepted an appointment to a Homeland Security committee during the Obama administration.

“I don’t ever try to push young Muslim Americans into the party, because they don’t deserve that kind of bigotry."

Elibiary said he hasn’t broken with the party but is sort of on pause, waiting for the right-wing storm to pass. He’s been a Republican for 25 years, he said, so the investment is worth it for him, but he no longer thinks it’s the right choice for Muslims just starting out in politics.

“I don’t ever try to push young Muslim Americans into the party, because they don’t deserve that kind of bigotry or intolerance,” Elibiary said. “I can put up with it as a 43-year-old. They can’t as a 23-year-old.”

About 8% of American Muslims said they voted for Trump in 2016, according to a Pew Research Center survey. In contrast, polls showed around 40% of Muslims voted for Republican George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. When Elibiary first became politically active, most American Muslims from immigrant backgrounds voted along Republican lines, until post-9/11 policies pushed them to identify as independent or Democrat.

Saba Ahmed, the head of the Republican Muslim Coalition and a commentator known for appearing on Fox News in a star-spangled headscarf, said it was a tactical error for Muslims to flee the party in the Bush era.

Fox News / Via youtube.com

Saba Ahmed appears on Fox News with a star-spangled headscarf.

“We left a huge void for a voice that was anti-Islamic to talk about us,” she said. “I think the only reason that sort of rhetoric is finding any space is that there’s a huge lack of Muslim voices in the Republican Party.”

Ahmed, a patent attorney who lives in Oregon, said she was such a novelty at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland that she got face time with leaders she might never have met otherwise. When Ahmed was introduced to former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Peter King of New York, she said, she spent several minutes confronting them about their anti-Muslim remarks.

The main critique of her approach is that it starts by arguing for Muslims’ humanity, as if the onus is on Muslims to prove not all 1.7 billion of them are terrorists. Many young Muslims are done with condemning attacks they had nothing to do with, or ingratiating themselves to politicians who lash out at Islam. Ahmed defends her methods by arguing pragmatism rather than ideology: Isn’t face-to-face dialogue more effective than shouting from the sidelines?

“I shouldn’t be the first Muslim people talk to,” Ahmed said. “But talking directly makes a huge difference in presenting a different image of Islam, and of Muslims.”

Robert McCaw, CAIR’s director of government affairs, said it’s important to have Muslims active in the GOP because there are so few other channels for influence now that Muslim advocacy groups are frozen out of the White House and the Republican National Committee. He said CAIR and other national Muslim organizations have tried to open talks with the party, “only to be rebuffed.”

McCaw also has tried to get the RNC to delete a question from the “Listening to America” survey on its website: “Are you concerned by the potential spread of Sharia Law?” The same question popped up later in a Trump campaign email. The fact that the question is still up on the GOP website, McCaw said, shows that “from the very top of the Republican Party, they are fearmongering about Sharia.”

Republican National Committee officials did not respond to messages seeking comment.

“Muslim Republicans should engage the GOP and challenge it to be that big-tent party McCain advocated for in his final message to Americans,” McCaw said, referring to Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who died Aug. 25. “Right now, the soul of the Republican Party truly is divided on whether they support white supremacy and tribalism, or they’re an inclusive party looking toward the future.”

Ilana Panich-Linsman for Buzzfeed News

Khalifa chats with friends before Friday prayer at the East Texas Islamic Society in Tyler.

Tyler’s main mosque, the East Texas Islamic Society, sits across from the Oil Palace, a venue where country and cumbia stars perform on tour stops.

Khalifa’s parents helped to build the mosque when there were so few Muslims here that they only filled a single row at Friday prayers. Now, dozens of Muslims from all backgrounds come to the Friday service and others attend a new, second mosque.

One recent Friday, Khalifa was greeted warmly with bear hugs and salaams, though in truth his relations with some members are strained because of internal leadership conflicts as well as Khalifa’s politics. Not long ago, a Palestinian member of the congregation lashed out at Khalifa publicly because of his support for the state House campaign of a rabbi friend, Neal Katz, who supported the Trump administration’s move of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem.

After that incident and other flare-ups, Khalifa went weeks without coming to the mosque, a painful absence for him. He said Muslim leaders call him up to serve as an interlocutor with the East Texas political class, but are reluctant to support him publicly because of his politics.

“I kind of had to back off. It’s a shame,” Khalifa said. “Either you want me doing stuff in the community and you support me, you back me, or I don’t do anything in the community because I don’t have your backing. It can’t be both ways.”

Ilana Panich-Linsman for Buzzfeed News

Khalifa in his home office.

Khalifa feels the squeeze from the Republican side, too. There was a time, Khalifa said, when he could get just about any politician to come to the mosque. Khalifa said even Rep. Louie Gohmert, a tea party stalwart, paid a visit before he transformed into one of the most strident anti-Muslim voices in Congress. Now, he said, Gohmert won’t take his calls. (Gohmert’s communications director didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.)

That feeling of losing ground, in both Muslim and Republican spaces, is difficult for Khalifa, who takes pride in how his Egyptian parents carved out a corner of Texas where Muslims opened businesses and lived as examples of their faith’s tenets of charity and community service.

Fatima Elkabti, 30 and Mohammad Arif, 29, a Democratic Muslim couple Khalifa befriended when they moved to Texas four years ago, said they’ve watched Khalifa’s disappointment grow as Trumpism spreads through the party and state he loves.

Sometimes, they said, it seems like Khalifa refuses to accept that the Texas that welcomed his Egyptian parents is now a place where Arif’s dental office was defaced with white nationalist stickers within a week of opening last year. At Elkabti’s optometry office, a photo of her in a hijab is displayed prominently outside the door in part to weed out bigots who might cause trouble if they show up for an appointment to find that their eye doctor is Muslim.

Elkabti and Arif have a toddler son, and Elkabti is pregnant again. They’re leaving Texas soon for Louisville, Kentucky, the birthplace of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, and Arif jokes that at least people there won’t freak out at a Muslim name. They love a lot about Tyler, Elkabti said, but it’s draining to feel like your whole life has to be a PSA for Islam. One of the things she admires about Khalifa is that he treats that burden as an opportunity.

Ilana Panich-Linsman for Buzzfeed News

Mohammad Arif and Fatima Elkabti dine out with their son, Zakaria, in Tyler.

“He’s a pillar of this community, and I don’t just mean the Muslim community, but for Tyler,” she said. “He perfectly straddles these two worlds.”

Khalifa was born in Egypt, but reared in Texas. He went to high school in Dallas and college in South Carolina and Texas. In the mid-1980s, he went back to Cairo for an internship at a bank, where he met his wife, Hala. He brought her to Tyler, where they had three daughters and launched a construction company, Pyramid Homes, after he was laid off from a Texas chemical company.

“In East Texas, you’re Republican or you don’t matter.”

Hala said she and their daughters do not identify as Republican and don’t fully get what Khalifa loves about the party. He said he was drawn to ideas about small government and entrepreneurship in the Nixon years, and learned along the way that GOP affiliation was vital for breaking into Tyler’s business and political classes.

“In East Texas, you’re Republican or you don’t matter,” he said.

Khalifa became a community fixture. He was a Muslim voice on a local religious council, he was a police chaplain, and the governor’s office invited him to serve on the Texas Human Rights Commission. He’s volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and an AIDS prevention group. He’s currently planning an appreciation dinner for local law enforcement, though some of the other organizers are balking at his request that it be alcohol-free.

Ilana Panich-Linsman for Buzzfeed News

A photo of Khalifa with the former vice president, Dick Cheney, in Khalifa's office.

After years of showing up for virtually every cause in town, Khalifa finds it galling that some fellow Republicans would now look at him with suspicion solely because of his religion and immigrant background. The fact that they overwhelmingly voted for Trump wasn’t a surprise, he said, but it was still heartbreaking to see party loyalty valued more than standing against racism and bigotry.

“The fact that party has become more important than country is disturbing. Party first. Party, party, party,” Khalifa said. “On Charlottesville, Trump said there were good people on both sides. These were white supremacists, people who hate, who were there for a specific reason.”

The outbreak of hatred might be shocking to some Americans, but Khalifa said his years in the trenches among East Texas conservatives has prepared him for this moment. About six years ago, he said, Brigitte Gabriel, one of the most extremist anti-Muslim figures in the country, came to Tyler on the right-wing lecture circuit. Khalifa took a group of Muslims and sat in the front row, he said, “just to say, ‘We’re here, and we’re not going anywhere.’” Khalifa said they’d agreed beforehand not to interrupt. He took notes of all the Republican friends and acquaintances he saw at the talk, and started making calls afterward. He’s not sure he swayed anyone, but at least Gabriel didn’t get the last word.

“I called them up and asked, ‘Why the hell did you go to that?’” Khalifa said. “And then I told them, ‘Y’all need to come to our open house at the mosque.’” ●

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