#like this is a story built around uk influences

[rinas4ki]

Curating an aespa remix album because the S in SM stands for “sleeping on opportunities”

aespa are not only a group whose talents, incredible music and polished concepts I’ve appreciated for more than 2 years, but they were also a key in reviving my love for hard-hitting electronic music and discovering new kinds of it. A K-pop group fueling my love for entire EDM subgenres may sound absurd, however you’ll understand what I’m saying if you reassess how much potential they have off of the sound they’ve already built. Through both the fandom’s reach on wonderful producers and my own interest, I took proper deep dives into numerous genres such as hyperpop, UK garage, drum and bass, breakcore, trance and future bass, all genres that aespa have either done or would pull off perfectly. As I took my deep dives, one of the things I learned to appreciate tremendously more is remixes. When I was way younger, I had this misconception of remixes just being crappy badly mixed oontz oontz flips of songs due to the atrocities I would regularly hear on pop radios. Talented producers remodeling already high-quality tracks and showing their own stunning perspectives through their own approaches to music completely changed my mind, and I currently often find myself looking forward to how some of my beloved tunes will be reshaped. Now here I am, making a comprehensive list of my desired aespa remixes that also serves as a list of electronic producers that the girls’ A&R team need to get on their roster. (This list was roughly freestyled after @nayeonline came up with the idea of an aespa remix album, and of course I had to make them a victim of my extensive yapping at the mere thought.) Some of these I discovered through MYs, some of these are my own personal faves that the fandom may be overlooking. Enjoy observing my A&R syndrome, and let this serve YOU as a mini aespacore playlist.

Track 1: Welcome to MY World - Sega Bodega Remix

Sega Bodega is most likely my favorite producer of all time. Aside from his objective immense talent, versatility and inability to make a single track of his any less than superb, his musical style (especially recent songs) is otherworldly; his music lulls you into a higher setting. While the possibilities of the outcome of Sega Bodega producing/remixing aespa are endless, WTMW’s orchestration, harmonies and beauty go hand in hand with Sega’s work in that sense. His touch would take the song into another dimension, from an introduction story to aespa’s real world side to a guided trip all around it. It would be a Kwangya-ified but still earthly version of WTMW.

Below attached is his song Cicada, which gives a hint on what can be done with the guitars in WTMW and how the song could become more electronic and intricate.

Track 2: Next Level - Masayoshi Iimori Remix

A vast majority of the tracks with Masayoshi Iimori’s involvement give me the feel of racing around in a city with neon lights, with a mission to return to my time machine to come back from the future to the present time before it’s too late. Doesn’t this description fit Next Level like a glove? Iimori could make Next Level more punchy, which is perfect for the confidence of the Kwangya rider anthem, with his “mixed and mastered on a BlackBerry in the best way possible” sound adding to the daring, cosmic atmosphere. He definitely needs to be involved in aespa’s Japan debut and quite frankly, he’s not an unrealistic pick even for SM.

Below attached is Freedom Kingdom by 4s4ki feat. Swervy, produced by him, which is my favorite example of his frequent trance incorporation and use of gritty motor-like synths. Spoiler: this will not be Miss 4s4ki’s only appearance in this post.

Track 3: Savage - A.G. Cook Remix

In all honesty, I don’t believe this needs much elaboration. This man is considered the father of hyperpop, one of the genres aespa are the most influenced by and certainly a genre they could take more advantage of. Savage, the song that solidified aespa as experimental trendsetters in K-pop, becoming more of an outrageous banger than it already is with the A.G. Cook touch, would be a K-pop moment going down in history books.

The track attached below, produced by him, summarizes my vision for a gritty, banging dream Savage 2.0.

Track 4: Drama - umru remix

Let’s preface this with a fun fact: umru’s splice pack was put to good use in Savage, confirmed by the song’s producers and umru himself! His involvement would transform the twinkling, forceful, electric Drama into an even more hardcore anthem. The synths in the song’s chorus already catch your attention before you’re able to catch your breath after the beauty of the intro and verses, and making all the instruments hit even harder would be a move that totally suits aespa to the core.

Below attached is umru’s take on Fire Truck by SG5, which is one of my favorite productions by him and one of the most hard-hitting of his too. I recommend comparing all the remixes in this post to their respective originals to get a better sense of how these producers can change the tracks.

Track 5: I’ll Make You Cry - Iglooghost Remix

From the 8-bit synths to the sudden kicks and claps and the video game finale soundtrack vibes, I’ll Make You Cry and Iglooghost’s production go hand in hand. If I were to pick a word to describe the style of his work, without hesitation, it would be “cyber-sigilism”, and he converts it into sound like no other. I’ll Make You Cry could become more even more mystic and mellow, making aespa’s darker side visible once again. (Word to SM: this is how you expand aespa’s range instead of making an EDM-based group release country song demos.)

Below attached is Iglooghost’s take on Crybaby by ABRA, and if this is what he can do to the original Crybaby (love both and please listen to both versions), that IMYC remix would be something never seen in music, let alone K-pop. I also highly suggest checking out his own work to understand the sigilism bit better.

Track 6: Yeppi Yeppi - Giga/Reol Remix

When I first listened to Reol last March, specifically starting off with the Kinjitou album, “I have to make this woman collab with aespa one way or another” was the second thought to cross my mind. Her and Giga, the producer she works with the most frequently including on Kinjitou, have kept their high spots on the list of Japanese artists I NEED to see working with aespa ever since. Giga’s production is fun, bouncy and radiant, allowing Reol’s expressive songwriting and masterly vocals to shine. I don’t need to mention who else has top-tier production and vocals, you already know who this entire post is dedicated to. The duo, who are also some of the most well-known in Vocaloid/utaite communities, creates pure pop excellence, some of which I’m still convinced were created FOR aespa, to the point I’m genuinely surprised they’ve never mentioned our beloved girls. Reol, I know you’ve been streaming aespa’s music, don’t be shy, at least give them a follow on IG or something.

Kinjitou the title track is Yeppi Yeppi’s older sister and there’s not a single soul that can convince me otherwise. Just tap on the Youtube embed and see for yourself. These two could do WONDERS on Yeppi Yeppi itself. The even crazier instrumentals, and a Reol feature on top? A dream. I also HAVE to see an aespa-ified Kinjitou, to the point where I made a whole line distribution of how they would sing it. At this point I’m begging SM to steal my ideas verbatim. I’d still like a check though.

Track 7: Illusion - 4s4ki remix

Two scrolls through my account and you’ll immediately know I am THE aespa x 4s4ki truther. President of aes4ki nation. aes4ki priest who has converted three people so far into believers of their joint supremacy so you know it’s tried and tested. 4s4ki and aespa are musical soulmates: the mixture of cybercore and ethereal real world aesthetics and mind-blowing composition on every single song and the lyrics ranging from game/fiction themes to genuine confrontations of virtual worlds to love and sorrow and recovery and the artistry and excellent execution are some incredible traits they have in common as musicians. About Illusion specifically, well firstly I just know that 4s4ki, openly a gamer and anime nerd, would have so much fun working on a song about a virtual snake slurping up some heroines, and she’d eat up aespa’s lore in general. Second, her use of autotune somehow makes her vocals magical and she’s very unafraid to take risks when it comes to music. Illusion’s voice filters, the bass, the surreal atmosphere and that hyper-cosmic feel would be so much more elevated and outrageous with her involvement. If we can’t get a whole album produced by her (I NEED IT SO BAD) at least make this happen. Besides, it would be an incredible full-circle moment for 4s4ki herself, as she has a history of songwriting and producing for others pre-debut, and now she’d be doing it with infinitely much more confidence in her skill and vision.

Now introducing you to into the darkness, my personal fave song of hers and my most played song of 2023. Look at the album cover and listen for yourself. I swear I could praise this woman all day, but I’ll leave it at saying artists like THIS is what aespa deserve, nothing less. MYs, stop what you’re doing and listen to the Killer in Neverland album right now if you haven’t, and you will thank me later.

Track 8: Thirsty - Donatachi Remix

There are artists who just know the recipe to fun, exciting, girly yet still intriguing pop music and Donatachi is a producer who undoubtedly mastered exactly that. Thirsty already has the bubbliness and joy you could ask from a summer jam so why not double it with this remix? This would be perfect to amplify aespa’s ‘00s spy cartoon-coded colorful real world side, and Donatachi is also a perfect choice for this if you take into account his bright cartoon-avatar 3D visuals. aespa’s real world aesthetics and soundscape should definitely be utilized and expanded to truly fit how surreal their concept is.

Below attached is b2b heartbeat feat. Cowgirl Clue, demonstrating the upbeat drum patterns and euphoric feel that could also be used in a Thirsty remix.

Track 9: Trick or Trick - Safety Trance Remix

Trick or Trick is the trick-or-treat anthem MYs deserved, and a remix of it needs to maximize its spookiness while setting it apart from all the familiar creepy-ish K-pop songs. Safety Trance brings his grimy industrial genre-bending sound wherever he goes, which hits the target of creating a more experimental, haunting version of the track. Additionally, as reggaeton and dembow influences become increasingly wide-spread in K-pop, a techno-infused neoperreo take on the wave is the most fitting choice for aespa. With the lead of a prominent figure in the electronic neo-reggaeton scene, the execution of this would turn out flawless.

Below attached is his remix of Incredibly Annoying by VTSS. One of my favorite examples of his consistent style and shows how all-in Trick or Trick could possibly go.

Track 10: Better Things - Florentino Remix

You might be wondering why I chose to give Better Things yet another remix when we already have like 3 of those. Of course the existing remixes are wonderful in their own ways, and the Tropkillaz one is my personal favorite due to its blending of funk, however there’s always room for a full-on Brazilian funk Better Things mix, especially if it’s produced by Florentino. Florentino works with and often seamlessly fuses many genres I have a soft spot for as you could tell, including deconstructed club, neo-reggaeton, baile funk, jungle, breakcore and grime. With such a concoction, the summer anthem could become more distinctive and timeless than it already is.

Below is Florentino’s remix of the adored Nice To Meet You by PinkPantheress, adding in glitchy UK bass, jungle and classic funk drums and grime. The vision for the Better Things remix is crystal clear.

Now, I want to end this post by talking about fans’ wishes for aespa’s future sonic direction. I find many MYs wanting aespa to release hyperpop albums or stick to hyperpop, and while I understand that it’s the bare minimum after the horse girl harmonicas and meemaw ballads that somehow make their way into their God forsaken EPs, even this is nowhere near what’s beneficial for the group in the long-term. Again, aespa have this lingering (thankies to SM 😒) potential to be a multi-faceted EDM group and have one of, if not the, most sophisticated, one-of-a-kind discographies in all of K-pop. It is crucial for them to explore all these EDM subgenres and more instead of getting swayed by shallow trends that come and go. That’s the way to becoming a truly futuristic group that will stand the test of time.

Thank you for reading some of what I got off my chest. Show some love to Drama and Trick or Trick. Being an aespa fan is not for the faint hearted though.

#keyboard.com #aespa #why did this take sm longer than planned… #anywayyyy SM WRITE THIS ENTIRE LIST DOWN. #sega bodega #masayoshi iimori #a.g. cook #umru #iglooghost #giga #reol #4s4ki #donatachi #safety trance #florentino

[dragon-kazansky]

The Chaos Family

Iceman x Dragon

[Masterlist]

[Next Chapter]

From how these two fools met and fell in love. To how they built a family surrounded by those that mean the most to them. There's a lot to tell in a story like this, but if you're willing to hear it out, well, who am I to deprive you of the Kazansky's and their crazy friends?

Word count: 1.6k

Chapter One - Hunter & Bradshaw

♡♡♡

Nick Bradshaw has been friends with Rachael Hunter since high school. It's a wonderful moment when you come cross someone you get on so well with. Someone who feels like they were just meant to be in your life. Someone you know you'll be friends with for years to come, and someone who would influence you so greatly. Rachael was just that.

It was because of Rachael that Nicholas Bradshaw joined the Navy. That young girl in his class aspired to be a Navy aviator when she grew up, and follow those dreams she did. Nick had encouraged her to follow her heart, and so she did.

Rachael was originally from the UK. When her father got deployed permanently over in the States, her family moved out there. It was strange new place she had never been to before. She had no one. Nick saw her sitting alone at school and decided he would be someone. He would be her friend.

They were as thick as thieves after that. Always together. Always laughing, chatting, hanging out. As they got to the end of their high school years, people assumed they would get together. They never did. They were friends. Good and dear friends. It was a friendship that would never end.

When Rachael turned around and told Nick she was going to apply for flight school, he was over the moon for her. Rachael's dad is an army man. He had been a solider since he was old enough to join. He thought his daughter might follows in his footsteps, but it wasn't the army she wanted to join. When she told her parents she wanted to be a Navy aviator, they were both shocked. She had fallen in love with planes from a young age, so it really shouldn't have come a shock to know she wanted to be a pilot. But a Navy pilot... that was a whole other area.

"Are you sure?" They asked her.

"Yes," she replied confidently.

Nick was there the day she left for flight school. He wrote to her often while she was away. They called each other when possible. He was a constant in her life.

Flight school was tough. Rachael was the only woman in her class, but she showed them what she was made of. She would tell Nick everything she could about being there. He always knew Rachael would put all her effort into everything she did, but when it came to achieving her dream, she had to push that little bit harder. He would send her words of encouragement every time.

Knowing Nick Bradshaw had her back kept her going. Without a friend like Nick, she was sure this would have been impossible.

Rachael graduated the academy as one of the top students in her class. She proved what was possible and she had never felt prouder.

When it came to graduation, she of course invited her parents, and her dear friend Nick. He was so happy to see her again after months of being apart. He was smiling proudly as she took her stand with her fellow classmates. When the graduation was over she went over to greet her parents and she gave Nick a huge hug. Rachael, being only 5'2, was easily picked up by Nick and swung around. She laughed.

"I've missed you!" She cheered.

"Missed you too, Dragon," he winks at her. Rachael pushes him gently, but it really doesn't do much.

"Oh hush you! I think it sounds cool!"

"It is cool. You're cool!" He laughs.

"Thanks, Nick."

Rachael turns to her parents with a smile. "I did it. I survived the academy."

They smiles at her proudly. Her father was proudest the most. He hugged his girl and cried. He cried. Happy tears for his daughter.

"I am so very proud of you."

Rachael looks at her teary eyed father and smiles.

"I'll show them what's what!"

"I know you will."

Rachael spends a bit of time with her parents and then heads to the bar with Nick in tow. Her fellow pilots are celebrating, and Rachael wants to go with them. Nick is happy to tag along to spend more time with her.

The pair lean up against the bar and order a drink each. There's music playing, people are dancing, chatter coming from every direction. Nick is grinning as he follows two ladies who walk past them. Rachael laughs and nudges his side.

"Go shoot your shot, Nick!"

He shakes his head and turns to her.

"Is now a good time to tell you something huge? I don't want to take the spotlight away from your own achievements, but I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this a secret," he says.

Rachael gives him her full attention. "Tell me."

Nick takes a deep breath and looks at her head on. He looks nervous though, she can tell. Rachael offers him a soft smile and waits patiently. This is obviously something huge.

"Seeing you up there today, achieving your dreams, it inspired me to follow mine. You really went out there and showed them you have what it takes to be in the Navy, and I think that's amazing, Rachael. That's why I want you to be the first person I tell this to. I've decided that I'm going to apply for flight school too. I want to be up in the sky with you. You have inspired me to take the leap and join the Navy too.

"I know this might be surprising to hear, after all, flying was always your dream, but the way you always spoke about wanting to be in the clouds, taking down the bad guys and protecting our country.... well, that stuck with me. I want to be someone worthy of flying with Dragon."

Rachael finds herself overcome with emotion. In one quick movement she has her arms wrapped around Nick's neck. He wraps his arms around her and they hug.

"And that's what you want? To be an aviator like me?"

"More than anything."

Rachael smiles. She inspired her friend to follow in her footsteps. She feels so happy. So proud. So exhilarated.

"Oh, Nick! I'm honoured!"

They pull apart and they laugh.

"You were there every step of the way for me, and I'm going to be there every step of the way for you. I want to see you enter your badass era, Nick."

They both laugh again.

"It is pretty badass, isn't it?" He chuckles.

"Yeah. It is."

They order another drink and celebrate together. It was a night for cheering and laughing. A night of celebrating until the sun came up.

Rachael 'Dragon' Hunter was about to start her Navy career, and Nick Bradshaw was about to follow her.

When the time had come for Nick Bradshaw to graduate his class, Rachael was on the first plane over. She was so excited to see him take the next step in his career. Shortly before, Dragon had been deployed on a mission, her first big mission, and hadn't been able to talk to Nick as constantly as before, but he waited and he understood. This is what it meant to serve the Navy.

She watches him graduate with a huge smile on her face and instantly runs up to him when he's free.

He catches her effortlessly and picks her up, spinning her around like he does.

♡♡♡

"Go on, tell me!"

"Are you ready?" He asks.

"Yes! Come on, tell me!"

Nick chuckled. Rachael waited on the other end of the phone eagerly. Nick Bradshaw had been given is official call sign.

"Nick! Come on!"

"Goose."

"Goose?"

"Goose!"

There was a pause on the other end. Then he heard laughter. He smiled down the phone. He knew that would tickle her.

"Oh, Goose! I like it!"

"I knew you would."

♡♡♡

"Goose!"

He laughs and sets her down. He steps back to smile at her. It was so good to see his friend again.

"Dragon!" He cheers back.

They both laugh this time.

"Look at you! On your way to be a Navy dog like me," she grins.

"Hey, I wouldn't have it any other way. You're the reason in here. One day I'm going to pay you back for this," he says to her.

"There really isn't a need to. I'm so proud of you, Nick."

He smiles warmly at her and then pulls her into another big hug. Rachael hugs him back just as eagerly. Eventually they had to pull away, but they continued to smile at each other like children.

"So, are we going to celebrate?" Rachael asks, looking up at Nick with nothing but joy painted onto her face.

"Obviously!"

Nick briefly looks over his shoulder and waves over at someone across the way before taking Rachael's arm and guiding her away from the graduation ceremony. She didn't even get to meet any of his classmates. Yet.

As they made their way to the bar, Nick shared stories of his academy days.

Goose hadn't become a pilot. He had become a RIO. Radar Intercept Officer. He would have a pilot when he reached his base in a few days.

"You won't be too far way then," Rachael chuckled.

"Of course not! I have a lot of making up to do to you. You'll fly back with me right?" He asked.

Rachael laughed. "Of course, silly Goose!"

He rolled his eyes with a little grin.

Rachael was looking forward to their days in the Navy together. Nick would get his pilot and together the would take on the world. In a sense.

As she walked into the bar with Nick, Rachael had no idea the impact this night would have on her life. Goose was about to set her on the adventure of a lifetime.

It started here.

♡♡♡

@bayisdying - @mrsjaderogers - @gracespicybradshaw - @cycbaby - @callsignscupcake - @askmarinaandothers - @breadsquash - @luckyladycreator2 - @callmemana - @starlit-epiphany

#iceman x dragon #top gun #iceman #the chaos family #the chaos squad #dragon #rachael dragon hunter #tom iceman kazansky

[betweenthelinesevents]

Karnage Whamblama

Karnage Whamblama is a UK based rapper who wants to make a positive change in the world. His main influences are Dizzie Rascal and his musical brothers who have helped criticise and reflect on his artistry over the years. Karnage likes to write layered music with emotional lyrics. He’s a fan of replay value which means even after a few times of listening to his music, you’ll pick up on new sounds and ideas. His latest track ‘We Don’t Play’ is on Spotify now. The track talks about how Karnage has built himself up to a level that surpasses the fake friends he’s made in the industry. It touches on the trust issues that come along with having these toxic relationships in his life. Karnage aims to stand out from the crowd while always having faith in his abilities. It’s important to be a fan of yourself after all. You can bet that Karnage isn’t afraid of a good freestyle too. He posts videos on his social media showcasing his lyrical talent and speed. Not only is Karnage a talented artist, he’s also on the rise on Twitch. Karnage livestreams multiple times a week playing games and incorporating music. He shines a big light on mental health; advocating for self-positivity and sharing how we can better look after ourselves. He’s built a safe space for people to share stories about their hard days but also an environment that you can truly sit back and enjoy the show. Karnage is always challenging and refining his craft. You don’t want to sleep on this one because Karnage won’t stay up for you as he always has his next big hit around the corner.

Connect with Karnage Whamblama: Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/karnage_de Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1VkRZxEFydwJ3QWVCsSC5P YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@karnage1 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whamblama/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/karnage_de

#karnage whamblama #karnage_de #rapper #between the lines events #review #dizzie rascal #music #Artist Review #british musician #twitch #streamer

[laminy]

Sorry if you've already answered this question before it I'm really curious. What made you choose Perth as a place to set your fic, like with the IIS? I love the fic and I love how detailed you are but sorry again if you already answered this ages ago.

firstly, I love questions so even if I had answered this a million times, don’t apologize! it was awesome to see that I had an ask this morning ☺️ thank you!

secondly, no, I don’t think anyone has ever asked before! I only wish that I knew where my notebook was from the early days of ITBASM to answer this well, it’s been awhile.

I will say, I had not been to Perth and I still haven’t been to Perth (though I do hope to go over sometime in the next few years) so it wasn’t a personal affinity for it specifically. My main considerations at the start were mostly, “where is secluded enough that the Mercury could be built and take off from without large groups of people noticing?” Obviously, in hypothetical 1930s UK, there would be a LOT of green space. So, the piece I can’t remember exactly is why I chose the Cairngorms specifically over any other chunk of land, though I remember googling national parks in the UK for location ideas. I think I knew I didn’t want it to be Ireland because I wanted the characters to just zip around on trains and not have to fly every time they go to London. But I don’t know why I didn’t pick Wales, or anything other place. My best guess would be that I had just been to Edinburgh so I’m sure that was an influence.

Once I decided on the Cairngorms as the place where the Mercury was going to take off from and where Gwil and Rami did their training, then I really just looked at a map of it and picked a spot in the park that I thought looked best to have a training centre: close to some roads, but also pretty far away, in the south to be nearer to Edinburgh. Then Perth was just the closest city to that spot. Dundee was a little further out, and a little bigger, so I liked the idea of Rami and Gwil and the others living in this smaller city, near the training centre, where every day everyone could be driven in together, but still on a major railway where they could travel home to see family.

The things about Brian May’s mum being from Perth, and a train from Perth crashing in the 1950s, I didn’t find them out until after I’d already started writing.

I didn’t always know that the story would end with them moving back to Perth (I had other places in mind originally) but I knew for awhile before it actually happened in the story. Then I just needed to get them there.

#answering asks #into the blue and sunny morn'

[safereturndoubtful]

Papa Stour Island I

Monday 3rd July

At 9 this morning I took the 40 minute ferry crossing to Papa Stour. There was just one other vehicle on the boat which can take six vehicles.

Like many of Shetland's islands, Papa Stour shows signs of life dating back centuries. Missionary Celtic priests settled here in the 6th century, although the island was first populated around 3000BC.

Suspected leprosy sufferers from the Shetland Mainland were once banished to huts, the foundations of which you can see on Hilla Fielle. To survive, they relied on islanders to leave food for them by the hill dyke.

It was part of Norway until the 1500s.

At its peak, Papa's population was around 380 in the 19th century, when a fishing station was opened at West Voe.

These days just 5 of the island’s 12 houses have permanent residents, the others are holiday rentals. Of the occupied 5, only 2 were at home this morning, and none of the rentals were occupied.

The island is popular with kayakers and divers (there are numerous shipwrecks close to the coastline). From the pier, the island has one road, of just over a mile.

It does however, have an excellent internet service, as it has been the ‘guinea-pig’ test case for remote settlements, with 5G over half the island, and fibre optic high speed broadband to all the properties.

On arrival, I received this message from my phone provider.. “Hi from EE. Welcome to Norway. While you’re here costs include..”

Something, I must admit, I hadn’t realised..

The ferry cross twice a day on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I chatted with the crew on the way over, both had plans to build campervans and wanted to ask questions and take photographs of mine. They related some brief stories of rough seas, and we spoke about Norway, with Orkney in the news this morning, with the rumour of it changing its allegiance. The captain told me that Shetland were ahead of Orkney in the Norway queue. Shetland is 170 km from the Scottish mainland and 220 km from the Norwegian mainland. The piers I used, at West Burrafirth and on Papa Stour were both built with EU money. On the outlying Shetland islands from the Mainland, the project of rebuilding crumbling piers was only half way through on the UKs departure, and now is on hold.

I’m breaking the 23 miles track around the perimeter of the island into 3 days, and today we took on the spectacular north east peninsula, about 7 miles. The weather has settled from the rain of Saturday, but is much cooler now at 11C, cloudy and with showers.

There are some good names to the various bits of headland. Willie’s Taing. The Creed. Robie’s Noust. Jerome Coutts’s Head.

I’ve written before about local names of places in the hills around where I used to live in the Lake District, and how a name is initially just used verbally by locals, often a nickname, and then over the course of many years, sneaks onto OS map.

It’s a legacy of a type, in Jerome Coutts’s case for sure.

Times change though, and these days I consider part of my legacy to be the many segments of routes that I give names to on the GPS tracking app, Strava. Mine are recognisable from in influences and interests, to anyone who knows me, Dylan lyrics, Python or Peter Cook quotes, favourite lines from books..

At Robie’s Noust we paused for a while to watch the grey seals in a calm bit of ocean. There were about six, diving, re-emerging and generally showing off and being curious.

And, a bit of video from the far northeast corner, and, on quite a calm day..

We were back at the van parked by the pier just as the ferry arrived for its afternoon collection. There were a couple of Austrian women, and a couple of bird-watchers who had come over on foot with me this morning. It had rained on and off during the morning, so they had limited their wanderings. Between ferry times, visitors have five hours, time enough to get to the rugged coasts on the far sides of the island.

A peaceful afternoon ensued, with a modicum of reading, a podcast, and a smidgeon of business.

[stinkysmellypoopyface]

You know media? The shit that seems to run my brain dry of patience and empathy? Even when it's a "wholesome story", I still feel distant from humanity and myself. Especially when it's about something that is horrifying it has to exist in the first place, like how a 81 yr old navy veteran needed a tiktok influencer to raise enough money for him to RETIRE.

The deep pit of social media has only been around the last three generations. Ours( gen z - who I will be referring to as "us, etc"), millennials (gen y) and our parents (gen x). Before that it was newspapers and word of mouth and paintings that spread news and people. And you can see how it has clearly affected our generation, more than the rest, as I believe we are in the peak of media boom. Of course, for as long as humans have lived, the elders have always complained that the kids are dumber, care less, have no patience, don't want to work, etc. It's the same everytime. But, this time, it's worse.

Our patience is dropping and emotional control is worse and our social connections are poor. Sure, you have a discord chat of your closest friends that you play games and yell at other players with, but hundreds of years ago people would sit with eachother and practice their hobbies and tell stories, poems, jokes. It would be a form of meditation, communication and therapy. But now we sit alone playing games, binging shows, watching tiktoks, wasting our days away.

But it's not our fault. Far from it.

We have been and are being bred and tamed and beaten into the shape of worker bees fueling the machines that generate more wealth for the wealthy. Schools shove work and work and work down our throats while trapping us in breeding grounds for violence and bullying and destruction of empathy. Tight corridors that make you stuff your soul back inside your heart. Toxic classrooms with adults that fail to notice or care when a boy says something horrendous to a girl who just thought her shorts were cute and wanted to wear them; or when the pe teacher says something that makes the girls shrivel into themselves, because they are twelve and know innately that they are too young to be seen that way.

They are trying to domesticate us into churning out more money. Instead of fueling our creative arts and expression.

An example of this is happening right now. Rishi Sunak, the NON-PUBLIC-ELECTED prime minister of the UK is announcing plans to (take out the trans section of the equality act, but that's not what I'm talking about) make every child take maths until they're 18. Like 16, GCSE, isn't enough. Many ADULTS, our siblings and parents, are getting along in life perfectly fine with barely passing foundation maths. He, a billionaire that's never known poverty or struggle, is trying to further quell our human spirit. Does he know that humans have been painting far longer than using cosine?

We are not built for forty hour work weeks. And yet that's what we have been bred for. Constructed for.

Our schools are not about learning and being human. They are about stuffing us into boxes and expecting us to know how to work endlessly like a machine. If you are not perfect, you are destined for poverty for life.

Not only this, but our world is breaking around us. And we have no power to stop it. We are too young to have a say, but old enough to watch it burn, and mourn the loss, and have to be the ones to live through the darkness. While our elders do nothing about it, forget empty promises, then call us useless for our addictions to our phones.

I'm sorry. But it is not mine nor our faults that we have become glued. Our friends that make the honey and plants bloom are dying, and they are heading out to work far too late in the year, and far too early. Our women in the middle East are being murdered tortured and raped for wanting to show their hair. My siblings across the world are being attacked for just wanting to love who they want to. I am called delusional for just expressing myself beyond the gender binary we have been forced into. Our ancient mothers, the great forests, are getting chopped down and charred and killed. Our air is becoming polluted. Our weather is getting hotter, colder, more unpredictable. Our population is getting bigger and bigger, and our planet cannot sustain such growth when it is being carved out at the same time.

It is no wonder we are addicted to mindless media. How could we not be. How could anyone not be. We are drowning in so much pressure and tragedy that our only escape seems to shit posts that I forget in two seconds. We did not cause any of the shit that's happening, that was our elders, the ones that look down upon us for trying to quell the silence just a little. It is their fault, and yet they ignore that and take away our power over our own bodies, preaching sanctity of life, yet their country has the worst wealth gap in the world (worse than what caused the French Revolution) some of the most homeless people, and expensive healthcare. If they cared about life, they would not let their people die so easy.

I hope our children, gen alpha I think, have it better. Or maybe it will be their children. Who's world is not dying, who's siblings are not killed for their gender, who's parents teach their boys how to treat other people like they are people. who's parents teach them the beauty of being human and against the evil of how we were sectioned into categories. Maybe their schools will allow them to flourish, crochet as they watch a video on the solar system, draw as they listen the song of Achilles, dance to music as they learn sign language and how to write braille, make music and learn to work with eachother. Maybe, their education will be focused on how to be human, and not a robot.

Maybe they will have patience and care and empathy that we were never taught, but had to figure out ourselves, maybe, instead of laughing at the autistic girl when she trips, they help her, they love her, they care for her. Maybe they will love strangers in ways that we are desperately trying to, in ways we can only dream.

Maybe, when they start to grow up, their cities won't be crowded with the homeless, even when there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of penthouses who's owners only use them once a year. Maybe their roads will be full of cyclists and walkers and benches and flowers and stone and wood and care and colour. Please let there be colour. Not the boring flat concrete and greys of the cities. Let murals cover buildings head to toe, let artists spray colour across any surface they can find, and let cars with their loud engines and awful smoke be banned. Let busses with their bright colours carry around tourists and people who love their job but aren't forced to come in at the asscrack of dawn so they can take the longer, more special route they reminds them of their mother and how she always loved the yellow sunrise.

Please, let the next generation be loved.

#i hope this made you cry loser #is this corecore? #ive been watching too many of those tiktoks #i just want to dance and sing and love #i don't want to work all my life with the only goal being retirement #i dont want that as my legacy #i hope that is not what i am destined for #i don't want to work to death. #i want to heal the earth #help eachother #love eachother #we are all the same within eachother #let the children have their hair tucked behind their ear when they sleep #let the children play knowing that responsibility wont be theirs for a long time #my generation have been begging to take over our leaders #becaue they are useless and we know they will not make the moves they should #free us #love #loveislove #i love you #i will always love you

[puterijamal]

Born in Malaysia and raised in the UK, I have been privileged to have been brought up in two cultures. Travelling back and forth has kept both these cultures close to me but sadly, though I participate in both I feel I don’t have a specific place to call home. As a child I would dream of a utopian world where both homes existed in one space. Malaysian and British houses in one place, among each other. In my mind the houses looked like the buildings I was familiar with as a child. As an adult, memories of these houses have faded; I remember certain parts of my childhood in these homes, but it is distorted. A few years ago, she worked in a refugee camp in Calais, due to the unfortunate circumstances of these people they had built shelters and made a home wherever they could in order to survive. Their strategies for building homes have informed my way of producing in my current project. Cardboard, wood, plastic-sheets, and tape informed the aesthetic of the camp. I had seen them use many materials that had been found and one of the mate- rials, that has particularly influenced me, was cardboard. The artist Banksy had donated materials from ‘Dismayland’ to the refugees. Though this is true, there were no traces of it anywhere; it was broken down and assimilated seamlessly into the homes of refugees. In recent years I had worked in an outdoor learning school. This had changed a lot of ways I viewed materials and creativity. The children would go out into the woods and build shelters out of materials around them or collect the materials to bring back to the school to build with cardboard and other recycled items. There was this innocence and joy in watching them and joining into their building and making. I was affected by the confidence they had being creative. Both of my experiences building shelters have informed the materials I use and my strategies of producing work. Whether it is the high skill levels of resourcefulness and structural engineer- ing or the playful joy of building in the mud, I have learnt knowledge and experience of mate- rial can be a matter of both survival and joy. I now value recycled materials and the concept of being resourceful. Experiencing the resourcefulness of the people I have met along the way has influenced how I view the materials around me. Broken and unwanted objects still have value. Working with cardboard, I have built up a relationship with the material and discovered the mate- rials traits. I have learnt the weight of the material, the physicality of it, how it tears, cuts, and folds. As I experience the physicality and interactions of the cardboard with other materials, I make decisions regarding production, presentation, and time restraints. The cardboard is blank, a reflection of not having a clear vision or memory of the houses I grew up in; I can’t remember the detail. Having made a range of building of varying size, I have recognised there is an ideal size building to create; smaller buildings are difficult to add detail to and larger buildings are time consuming. My work has been influenced by the dualities I have experienced in life; my two cul- tural identities and the contrasting needs of those who I help build shelters with. The work embodies the familiar and un-familiar, technical skill and child-like play. The centre of my practice is the viewer, interacting with my work and becoming a part of the installation, walking around the houses, building houses through workshop and listening to their stories of their own houses and experiences of home, hopefully feeling warm and nostalgic

#aboutme

[cordelias-toucan-husband]

im mad abt the miss peregrine’s movie again

#i get adapting a book to a movie is hard. they're fundamentally different storytelling mediums. but FUCK #that movie was awful as an adaptation AND its own story! #the miss peregrine's series is like. neo-gothic. #it has a lot of the same setting and plot beats that traditional european/british gothic stories do #and the movie! USES NONE OF THAT! #instead it defaults to t*m b*rton's usual 'quirky-goth' aesthetic #and it's fucking BORING #it's so artificial. it's all glossed over and they cast a bunch of hot and famous people and for what #for a director whose entire thing is 'dark edgy quirky pseudo-goth' he sure managed to nerf all the sombre aspects of the story huh #it's like. you can't make a weird movie while also try to make it appeal to the widest possible audience! that's the opposite of weird! #it's a commodification of a genre that exists to be subversive. fuck. #what really fucking sums it up for me is how they arbitrarily changed the date to 1943 #there was literally no fucking reason to do that. but i would bet money that they did it bc the US was involved in the war by that point #it's very. americanized. #like this is a story built around uk influences #and the movie just gutted it of all that. so the only thing in the film that actually reflected those influences was the setting. #a setting they made no use of by the way! #it's so ridiculous. like british influence is usually so pervasive bc. colonialism. but the one time it actually matters #they manage to fuck it up! #they literally have a british guy playing the american protag. why. #god this actually could have been such a cool film. they could have actually broken the ya mold w this one #anyway this doesn't make sense i was just listening to a podcast episode abt a book-to-film adaptation and i had Thoughts #sorry gang #mphfpc #mphfpc movie

[wigglebox]

i don’t know where to start with the poetry book because i got so much to say, but then my head holds me back because i remember this is a person that i’ve watched on my TV for years and years at this point, but then i remember that he put these out there on his own, chose which ones he wanted, laid them out how he wanted — 

yes i am one of those who thinks MIW is about jackles and is a cockles flavored poem no i won’t be taking criticism. i know some people before the book came out theorized it was darius but it makes no sense because darius comes right before that MIW poem and his poem is titled and you know it’s clearly about him. this is anbiguous. 

i also think a couple others are cockles flavored, particularly ‘these hours’. no i won’t take commentary [unless you happen to find him posting this poem a long long time ago like some of them] and mother of learning. again, no i won’t take criticism. 

eugenia to me broke my heart because it just felt like someone trying to prune and manicure and perfect their lives and themselves even though they knew it didn’t want to be like how they [the person] wanted it to be. let the tree grow. 

taxi also broke my heart. in the amazon preview it was originally called something else and it really reflects on the meaning of the poem at least for me. all the ones that indicate the relationship with his mother are heartbreaking but i hope he’s in a better place with her now. 

the whole book to me felt like someone who placed blame on themselves for things, but also showing us and indicating circumstances that would have influenced him throughout his life to become the person he is. the fly is really telling, and just makes me wanna hug the guy. he keeps his mouth shut when maybe he should say something. is also a people pleaser. 

i, assassin mentioning the fleas, @you-cant-spell-subtext-without reminded me of with mollins’ recent video talking about fleas growing up in subsidized housing — very much made me want to hug the guy. 

a five point eight is another poem that to me read as resentment. it had possessive language [like some others in this book]. no one said he was a perfect person. but it’s like, the house i built, the dress i bought. 

beets is another poem that my friends and i have wondered truly what it was about, but have specced a few things. i’m going to keep super detailed spec about their marriage off main for now because now it feels like im becoming a nosy busy body — however i will say reading this, reading vicki’s book, and just kind of looking back on stories, it feels like at least his needs just weren’t being met. and indeed hers as well. well — i mean clearly because they are separated. but idk. she said in the acknowledgements at the end of her book that it wasn’t his cup of tea but he supported her. and that he had this ability to love her without smothering her. and all i can figure between these two books is that his need to people please, prioritizing her happiness and comfort, caused him to ignore his own. again i’m not going to go into it, because while all the puzzle peices are there, it’s still someone’s life. 

going back to cockles again, i don’t think the poems that were at least initially shared on social media around the time of the uk con were about vicki because especially ones like mother of learning and indeed these hours, those walk up to the line of intimate, and i feel like at some point there’s some strangeness sharing poems like that on social media about your estranged wife. like it’s one thing to just include poems, some old, some new, in a book — but it’s another thing to put them on social media with no captions. but that’s tinhatty and i understand that. 

i’m very much not looking at this book at just some random poet dude who i never heard of before. my brain can’t do it. @ozonecologne in their review mentioned the lack of linear formatting makes it still seem private. i like looking at it like that. it’s autobiographical, it’s not bogged down in flowery language that makes me lose focus, but it’s also spanning 20 years and only a few of them do you get a time stamp. 

going back to MIW, it’s another poem with a time stamp, just not with numbers. new friend, new car, burning CDs. that can usually place someone in the mid-late 2000s before 2010 in my opinion. and with the amount of camping references those two have made, i’m not going to really entertain it being about anyone else. i know it’s THE poem that a lot of people are focusing on, and indeed i did too for a while i think in order to escape some of the other emotions this book gave me. this poem was cute, it described an event that was meaningful for him, and it’s specifically about a person. it’s in the ‘my people and other people’ section. it’s not just about the event but about the person. he mentions a first kiss or the attempt of a first kiss but that’s not seemingly in the book, or at least in this poem. that one, that attempt or successful attempt, wasn’t described in full. that wasn’t the meaningful event with this person — this camping trip was. 

and then this 

at first reading it my initial thought was ‘oh was this when he was younger and this was like a realization moment for him’ but then remembered the soft timetamps of new friend, new car, and burning CDs. it may not be cockles flavored this just may be some other random dude. but alas. i want to believe.

and to round this out, in the poem in passing, the whole ‘don’t be lonely, be HAPPY’ line really hit me and i hope he’s getting closer to that, or is that already. 

there are many others i want to expand on like lake of life, way finding, june second, and a few others — but alas it’s 7 a.m. and i only have so many braincells. 

i love this book, this book makes me said, this book makes me hopeful, this book took me to Costco to buy tin foil— and i’m very proud of him for putting this out there. this is an autobiography and pushing past my desire to maybe not know this much about someone i view as untouchable, it’s incredibly amazing he shared what he did and it felt like he’s entrusting us with something i can’t quite place my finger on. but i thank him for it. 

#long post #mc #book spoilers #shellfish #tinhatting sorry #i want to talk about all of them #it's hard because a lot of us i feel like in fandom don't really read or partake in poetry #i know i don't #which probably is another reason why i don't know what to really say because i don't want to presume the meaning of something and have it to #tally be off base #not like he's going to correct me anyway but #i'm always afraid of reading something the wrong way #which is possible always because i have a poor information retention ability #but alas #this book is out there #and it means a lot #and i'm still struggling in a good way to process what it is we know now #and what we still don't know and probably will never know #hence the title #even tho the title is also in a poem WHICH I MEAN #i always love it when that happens lol #but seriously #anyway thanks for coming to my 'jennifer is not a literary scholar or a poet scholar and barely passed #high school english class but this is her take on reading a poetry book from a guy she likes watching on TV for nearly a decade'

[funkymbtifiction]

Finding my Si: a submission

I’d like to share 6 things that helped me discover my Si and how Charity’s advice helped me, in case it helps anyone else :)

1.It helps when friends and family tell you what they think your dominant function is. Like a fish not realizing the water is wet, it’s so normal that it’s invisible to you. My mum picked Si the minute I asked her which function described me best; she said, ‘You trust your personal experiences and refer back to them all the time; it’s like an anchor for you. You rely on the past to get you through the present.’ One by one, my friends picked the same, pointing to how I recollect everything from the date we first met to changes in their food preferences to the color of the shirt they wore one Monday morning. I never realized the enormity of the storehouse of detail in my head until they pointed out that not everyone treasures memory-keeping in the same way. I wouldn’t say Si memory is photographic; for me, it’s more like a fisherman’s net, where I gather in what matters to me. I see a living mosaic of past and present when I look at people and places I love.

2. Being willing to question my own assumptions. An unflinching look at what I actually do, not what I think I do.

I considered Ni when I thought of goals I’ve set. For example, I got into the same UK university at 18 that I’d loved at age 14. This story initially sounded as though I’d had a clear future vision, and never let go of the dream (Ni). However, I’d left out winding twists and turns in between. At 16, I was captivated by a Canadian university and considered going there for a while; at 17, I considered studying in New York. Eventually, I applied to a bunch of unis and got an offer from the original ‘dream one’ in England. It was the best offer and I’d remained fond of it, so I wound up going. I was pleased, but I’d been open to other unis and happy to go to them too. After reading the perspective of actual Ni-users on their laser-sharp vision, I realized mine wasn’t as unwavering, intense and single-minded.

Instead, I realized that the reason I treasure this story -  'I visited my uni when I was just a kid and then got to go there for good!’ - is that I liked being able to link my childhood self and adult self. I enjoy connecting the past and present and spotting continuity and change ('Back then, I did this…now I still do this…and I don’t do this….’). My mind always traces back to how things were, which spills over into dinner-table family conversations ('Do you remember when…?’/'You know how we used to…?’). I realized that this type of personal mythologizing and cherishing a living past is Si. I can set goals and work meticulously in a step-by-step IFJ way, but it is not a dominant personality trait in the strikingly single-minded, futuristic, visionary way that is Ni. For anyone considering Ni, I recommend looking up mbti-notes and Charity’s explanations here, as it is a very complex function and it helps to understand exactly how it works.

3. Painful honesty. Confronting flaws isn’t fun. However, as Charity says, it helps to think of pairs (Si-Ne, Ne-Si or Ni-Se) rather than functions in isolation.

I tried to determine which flaw I could most relate to: inferior Te, inferior Se, or inferior Ne.

I couldn’t identify with inferior Te because I’ve always been a careful planner and organizer; even my third-grade report cards said, ‘She loves being efficient and organizing her little space!’ Today, I have multiple administrative responsibilities at work and genuinely enjoy it. There’s something about streamlining systems and attending to details that feels satisfying (dorky, I know). I could not relate to inferior Se either, as sensory engagement has always been a big part of my life. Whether it’s dancing or nature hikes or cooking, hands-on hobbies have always been so core to me that I often find myself feeling one with the natural environment, rather than uncomfortable with it. I haven’t had reckless moments characteristic of inferior Se. But inferior Ne - those descriptions embarrassed me.

As Charity says, if something makes you go ‘ouch’, it might hit the nail on the head.

I thought I had good Ne because I can see multiple perspectives. But this is more a 9 and 2 influence ('Staying open-minded helps to understand people, help them, and resolve conflict’) and a skill honed through my job in peace-building. What trips me up are the problems plaguing inferior Ne users. Newness and novelty feels hard. My 9 probably plays into it, but in general I am not good at out of the box thinking and brainstorming dozens of different approaches. Despite my 2-9 positive outlook, I usually feel fearful of the unknown and find it difficult to speculate or imagine possibilities in the uncertain future.

4. It helps to see where your attention goes. When I teach and review students’ essays, I’ll start leaving comments about their word-choice in paragraph 3; the evidence they used on page 2; how their argument on page 12 risks contradicting their logic on page 10, etc. I can hold these details in my head with ease, suggest a clear structure, and spot incongruities, but I have to consciously remind myself to zoom out to comment on the overarching ideas in the work.

On the other hand, I notice when I do something creative or abstract because it’s not really what I do on a day to day basis. When I first began researching MBTI, I found it easy to recall the last metaphor I imagined because it stood out in my mind. But determining frequency helped. Not just how I think, but how often I think that way. Ne is a ‘play’ function for me - on good days, it’s a whimsical scribble in a poetry journal, occasional daydreams, self-improvement books on my shelf.

5. Being able to tease out finer differences in cognition. I got interested in a Royal Family controversy recently. I thought I was using Ni because I mused on the consequences for the nation (in a Ni-Fe way). However, I realized I was less interested in future possibility and more interested in what was helpful for interpersonal understanding (Fe/2-9) and how the country could preserve the traditions and culture built up over centuries (Si). Rather than preferring to look ahead and predict what would happen (Ni). It’s a fine line, but it helped to think: how often is my cognition located in the future vs the past? Which one feels more natural? Is it an Enneagram or an MBTI influence at play?

6. Avoiding sensor bias. I felt I must be an intuitive because I do engage in abstract conversation sometimes. It’s just that my topics of choice come from my Enneagram 269 tritype. How can schools treat children better? What can we do to promote community mental health? What keeps kids safer? My job is centered around people’s welfare, and I’d be happy to discuss theories of human psychology or relationships or mental health because I’m very absorbed in my little niche of knowledge. However, concrete applications interest me most, and I am not likely to start conversations about, say, 18th century theology or automated cars or space travel. My INFP and INFJ friends seem interested in a much wider range of philosophical conversation.

I agree with a post on this blog that pointed out that modern psychology now understands traits not as bimodal distributions (X or Y) but along a spectrum (how much of X? How much of Y?). People differ in where they lie along the spectrum. I’d say I’m close to the middle. My biggest tell that I lean towards sensing is when I look through philosophy books on human well being. Even though the topic reflects my interests, I’m quickly bored by too much theory. I’m happy to thrash out an idea with a friend, but it needs to be animated by real-life examples and practical applications for me to stay interested.

Above all, I recommend observing where your heart leads. Much of my free time goes into journal-writing, old albums, and time capsules. Detail-driven memory-keeping fulfills me deeply, and it was this deep joy that proved most helpful for recognizing my Si :)

#submission #isfj #istj

[popolitiko]

Artificial intelligence

How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation

The company’s AI algorithms gave it an insatiable habit for lies and hate speech. Now the man who built them can't fix the problem

Joaquin Quiñonero Candela, a director of AI at Facebook, was apologizing to his audience.It was March 23, 2018, just days after the revelation that Cambridge Analytica, a consultancy that worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign, had surreptitiously siphoned the personal data of tens of millions of Americans from their Facebook accounts in an attempt to influence how they voted. It was the biggest privacy breach in Facebook’s history, and Quiñonero had been previously scheduled to speak at a conference on, among other things, “the intersection of AI, ethics, and privacy” at the company. He considered canceling, but after debating it with his communications director, he’d kept his allotted time.

As he stepped up to face the room, he began with an admission. “I’ve just had the hardest five days in my tenure at Facebook,” he remembers saying. “If there’s criticism, I’ll accept it.”The Cambridge Analytica scandal would kick off Facebook’s largest publicity crisis ever. It compounded fears that the algorithms that determine what people see on the platform were amplifying fake news and hate speech, and that Russian hackers had weaponized them to try to sway the election in Trump’s favor. Millions began deleting the app; employees left in protest; the company’s market capitalization plunged by more than $100 billion after its July earnings call.

In the ensuing months, Mark Zuckerberg began his own apologizing. He apologized for not taking “a broad enough view” of Facebook’s responsibilities, and for his mistakes as a CEO. Internally, Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer, kicked off a two-year civil rights audit to recommend ways the company could prevent the use of its platform to undermine democracy.Finally, Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s chief technology officer, asked Quiñonero to start a team with a directive that was a little vague: to examine the societal impact of the company’s algorithms. The group named itself the Society and AI Lab (SAIL); last year it combined with another team working on issues of data privacy to form Responsible AI.

Quiñonero was a natural pick for the job. He, as much as anybody, was the one responsible for Facebook’s position as an AI powerhouse. In his six years at Facebook, he’d created some of the first algorithms for targeting users with content precisely tailored to their interests, and then he’d diffused those algorithms across the company. Now his mandate would be to make them less harmful.Facebook has consistently pointed to the efforts by Quiñonero and others as it seeks to repair its reputation. It regularly trots out various leaders to speak to the media about the ongoing reforms. In May of 2019, it granted a series of interviews with Schroepfer to the New York Times, which rewarded the company with a humanizing profile of a sensitive, well-intentioned executive striving to overcome the technical challenges of filtering out misinformation and hate speech from a stream of content that amounted to billions of pieces a day. These challenges are so hard that it makes Schroepfer emotional, wrote the Times: “Sometimes that brings him to tears.”In the spring of 2020, it was apparently my turn. Ari Entin, Facebook’s AI communications director, asked in an email if I wanted to take a deeper look at the company’s AI work. After talking to several of its AI leaders, I decided to focus on Quiñonero. Entin happily obliged. As not only the leader of the Responsible AI team but also the man who had made Facebook into an AI-driven company, Quiñonero was a solid choice to use as a poster boy.

He seemed a natural choice of subject to me, too. In the years since he’d formed his team following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, concerns about the spread of lies and hate speech on Facebook had only grown. In late 2018 the company admitted that this activity had helped fuel a genocidal anti-Muslim campaign in Myanmar for several years. In 2020 Facebook started belatedly taking action against Holocaust deniers, anti-vaxxers, and the conspiracy movement QAnon. All these dangerous falsehoods were metastasizing thanks to the AI capabilities Quiñonero had helped build. The algorithms that underpin Facebook’s business weren’t created to filter out what was false or inflammatory; they were designed to make people share and engage with as much content as possible by showing them things they were most likely to be outraged or titillated by. Fixing this problem, to me, seemed like core Responsible AI territory.I began video-calling Quiñonero regularly. I also spoke to Facebook executives, current and former employees, industry peers, and external experts. Many spoke on condition of anonymity because they’d signed nondisclosure agreements or feared retaliation. I wanted to know: What was Quiñonero’s team doing to rein in the hate and lies on its platform?

But Entin and Quiñonero had a different agenda. Each time I tried to bring up these topics, my requests to speak about them were dropped or redirected. They only wanted to discuss the Responsible AI team’s plan to tackle one specific kind of problem: AI bias, in which algorithms discriminate against particular user groups. An example would be an ad-targeting algorithm that shows certain job or housing opportunities to white people but not to minorities.

By the time thousands of rioters stormed the US Capitol in January, organized in part on Facebook and fueled by the lies about a stolen election that had fanned out across the platform, it was clear from my conversations that the Responsible AI team had failed to make headway against misinformation and hate speech because it had never made those problems its main focus. More important, I realized, if it tried to, it would be set up for failure.The reason is simple. Everything the company does and chooses not to do flows from a single motivation: Zuckerberg’s relentless desire for growth. Quiñonero’s AI expertise supercharged that growth. His team got pigeonholed into targeting AI bias, as I learned in my reporting, because preventing such bias helps the company avoid proposed regulation that might, if passed, hamper that growth. Facebook leadership has also repeatedly weakened or halted many initiatives meant to clean up misinformation on the platform because doing so would undermine that growth.In other words, the Responsible AI team’s work—whatever its merits on the specific problem of tackling AI bias—is essentially irrelevant to fixing the bigger problems of misinformation, extremism, and political polarization. And it’s all of us who pay the price.“When you’re in the business of maximizing engagement, you’re not interested in truth. You’re not interested in harm, divisiveness, conspiracy. In fact, those are your friends,” says Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who collaborates with Facebook to understand image- and video-based misinformation on the platform.

“They always do just enough to be able to put the press release out. But with a few exceptions, I don’t think it’s actually translated into better policies. They’re never really dealing with the fundamental problems.” In March of 2012, Quiñonero visited a friend in the Bay Area. At the time, he was a manager in Microsoft Research’s UK office, leading a team using machine learning to get more visitors to click on ads displayed by the company’s search engine, Bing. His expertise was rare, and the team was less than a year old. Machine learning, a subset of AI, had yet to prove itself as a solution to large-scale industry problems. Few tech giants had invested in the technology.Quiñonero’s friend wanted to show off his new employer, one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley: Facebook, then eight years old and already with close to a billion monthly active users (i.e., those who have logged in at least once in the past 30 days). As Quiñonero walked around its Menlo Park headquarters, he watched a lone engineer make a major update to the website, something that would have involved significant red tape at Microsoft. It was a memorable introduction to Zuckerberg’s “Move fast and break things” ethos. Quiñonero was awestruck by the possibilities. Within a week, he had been through interviews and signed an offer to join the company.His arrival couldn’t have been better timed. Facebook’s ads service was in the middle of a rapid expansion as the company was preparing for its May IPO. The goal was to increase revenue and take on Google, which had the lion’s share of the online advertising market. Machine learning, which could predict which ads would resonate best with which users and thus make them more effective, could be the perfect tool. Shortly after starting, Quiñonero was promoted to managing a team similar to the one he’d led at Microsoft.

KEEP READING

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/11/1020600/facebook-responsible-ai-misinformation/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

#Facebook #misinformation

[ieattaperecorders]

Notes on Causality - Chapter 2: Georgie and Elias

An addendum to Something's Different About You Lately. Small scenes of Jon attempting to change the future that I didn't want to put in the larger fanfic.

The events of this chapter take place around the end of Chapter 8, Stranger.

(Incidentally, the main fic will be updated very soon. I'm mainly just holding off till the finale drops, in case whatever happens makes me want to tweak anything mood-wise in what I have planned.)

Read on Ao3

- - -

One ring. Another. Then another. Maybe she wouldn't pick up, Jon thought, drumming his fingers on the desk. Maybe it would go to voicemail . . . he could hang up, try again later. Take a little time to mentally rehearse what he would say.

A click, and her voice asked, "hello?"

"Georgie . . . it's Jon Sims, from Oxford?"

"Jon? Hey, been a while! How've you been?"

"Ah – good? I've been good," he lied. "Yourself?"

"Oh, not bad. Got a new roommate since you last saw me . . . he lays around the apartment all day and won't share the rent, but he's cute so I let it slide."

"Good to hear that your landlord is cat-friendly."

"You should hear him, he has the loudest little meow. Hang on, I'll if he'll say hello . . . ."

For a moment and he heard some vague coaxing noises, distant as if she was holding her phone away from herself. They were followed by a close-up, disinterested sniff, then Georgie's voice returned.

"Ah, never mind. Not in the mood, I guess."

"I've heard the Admiral's color commentary before," he smiled. "He's in all your mailbag episodes."

"Didn't know you were a listener."

"Well, I need something for the commute . . . it might as well be the UK's most onomatopoeic source of paranormal research."

"Ha. Knew you'd hate the sound effects."

"I don't hate them. Anyway, they're . . . distinctive," he leaned back in his office chair, the nerves he'd built up slowly dissipating as they fell into the rhythm of conversation. "They're very you."

"Classic Barker." There was movement in the background, and a few soft thuds. Likely the Admiral jumping to the floor. "Well from what I hear, we're in the same field. Aren't you working for the Magnus Institute now? You must hear plenty of ghost stories there."

"That's actually sort of why I called. I think we might have a mutual colleague . . . Melanie King?"

"Yeah, she's the one who told me you were there," she said knowingly. "Sounded like you left a hell of an impression on her."

". . . Not a good one, I imagine."

Georgie made a non-committal sound, being decent enough not to rub it in by overtly agreeing with him.

"I was trying to be helpful, but I think I just came off as dismissive. Ended up arguing with her over nothing," he sighed. ". . . Classic Sims."

"Accept no substitutes," Georgie said fondly. "So, what's the call about? If you want me to try smoothing things over with her –"

"It isn't that. Did she tell you about her experience?"

"Not really. Asked a lot about Sarah – she's a sound tech I recommended to her? Got the impression she'd been unreliable. She was nice about it, Melanie that is, but really evasive. I just assumed she's caught onto something interesting and wants to be the first to report on it. The risks of being friends with competition, I suppose."

"Ah. . . ."

"Not that she has anything to worry about. Climbing fences and squatting in abandoned churches is her thing. I'm all about doing research from my computer desk with a cup of tea, personally," she paused, and he heard a distant clink of ceramic. "Hey, are we even allowed to talk about this? Isn't there some sort of confidentially thing?"

"As it turns out, privacy isn't really something this place values," he muttered, "I don't suppose she's talked to you recently?"

"No . . . not for a couple of months."

"I'm concerned. Her experience left a powerful impact on her. Now she's chasing after anything that might bring her closer to what she encountered, and I'm afraid she doesn't care about the cost. She's going into some dangerous territory. And, well . . . it's not my place to judge her emotional state. But I am worried."

"Yeah . . . I saw the memes," he heard a frown enter Georgie's voice.

"I've tried to talk to her about it, a bit. But she and I always seem to push each other's buttons somehow. I'd be grateful if you looked in on her. I think that she could use a friend right now, and –" he smirked. "I happen to know you're good with obsessive types too stubborn for their own well-being."

"Ha. You trying to set me up or something?"

"Wh–" he started, taken aback. "I mean, well, that's really your business, not mine."

". . . Wait. I was joking, but are you really?" There was utter incredulity in her voice. "Jonathan Sims, did you call me out of the blue to set me up with someone I knew before you did?"

"Of – Georgie I don't even know if you're single, don't be ridiculous," he sputtered, feeling blood rise to his face. She laughed, and the uncomfortable heat spread.

"Okay, okay," she said. "I'm just giving you a hard time."

"I just . . . " he spoke slowly, trying to be precise. "I think that Melanie needs someone else around her right now. Someone grounding. If you're not looking to take that on, I understand, of course. But for whatever it might be worth, I would be grateful if you checked in."

"I'll give her a ring," something in Georgie's voice was familiar, and profoundly comforting. "See if she wants to get coffee and talk spooky-shop."

"I think that might do her a world of good," he said with relief

"Also? We should get coffee sometime too, catch up! I want to hear all the creepy stories you're apparently so free to talk about."

"Really, it's mostly drug experiences and conspiracy theories . . . ."

"Even better, I'll get to hear you complain. Then I'll be entitled gripe to you about all the weird emails I get. It'll be perfect."

Jon wanted to say yes. He really, really did. The thought of sitting down for a few hours with Georgie and talking about nothing particularly dire was a nice one. But he could only bring trouble to her door.

"I'd . . . like that," he said, "But I don't have much time to myself right now . . . maybe after everything calms down."

". . . Sure," she sounded a little disappointed. Georgie could always tell when he was brushing her off. "Some other time. Hope you can get some rest, then."

"I'll do my best."

"And thanks for the heads-up about Melanie. Really," the smile in her voice was back. "Don't be a stranger, huh?"

"Right," he smiled back, hoping she could hear it. "Ah. Goodbye, then."

"Bye."

He stared at the screen of his phone, not sure what to name the feeling in his chest. In his mind's eye, he saw her form vanishing down a long white corridor, and he knew she would have made this choice herself, eventually. He was just respecting that. Speeding things along.

"Trying to set her up . . . honestly," he muttered.

What he'd said about Melanie needing someone to talk to had been true. He was hoping Georgie's influence could nudge her away from the path she was on, one that had its natural end in blood and pain and the drumming of war. It was hardly his fault if he knew that particular matchmaking arrangement had already worked out once.

The call had barely ended for a minute before his phone vibrated with an email notification. He opened it, frowning when he saw who it was from.

Jon,

See me in my office at your earliest convenience.

Also, in the future please remember not to make personal calls during work hours.

- Elias

It was the most direct contact he'd had with Elias in months. Aside from a few institute-wide emails, there had been nothing since their conversation about the recordings. Jon hadn't even run into him in the hall. At least on the surface, he'd stuck to his promise to involve himself less directly. Not that Jon imagined Elias was truly keeping his distance, but he had begun to get comfortable with not having to see or talk to him. He dreaded the idea of going up there and actually breaking the silence.

That comment about personal calls irked him, too. He was taunting him. Going right up to the edge of admitting he'd been watching while giving himself just a little deniability.

He could ignore it, of course. Why should he do anything Elias asked him to, however small? Why should he make any part of his life easier? But that wasn't a smart attitude, he knew. Elias was keeping his distance for now, but if he saw Jon as too troublesome things would escalate. It would be foolish to bring that moment any closer by antagonizing him over nothing.

Jon still remembered the comment he'd made when they last spoke – I'm sure one of your assistants would be up to the task. If it came down to it, Elias knew exactly whose throats to hold the knife against.

With a distinct lack of pleasure, he climbed the stairs out of the archive.

Despite his mood he smiled at Rosie, tried to seem friendly as he greeted her. The words insecure and aggressive had a tendency to turn over in his mind when he saw her lately. He was earnestly hoping to be easier to talk to, but fairly sure he just came off as awkward. At least she was friendly with him. But then, she'd always been.

She said he was expected and should go right inside.

Elias was at his desk, writing on something hidden inside a folder. He glanced up and nodded as he entered.

"Ah, Jon. Sit down, I'll just be a moment."

As he took a seat and waited, Jon couldn't quite banish the idea that the folder was just a prop. A way to make whoever he'd called in wait, to make it absolutely clear how much more valuable his time was than theirs. Or perhaps to give them time to stew, to sit in anxiety and worry. Then again, maybe Elias really did have paperwork that needed doing, and the fact that it was absolutely, positively maddening to sit there in silence and watch him was only a bonus to it all. Eventually, he finished.

"It's been a while since we've checked in, hasn't it?" he paused just long enough for Jon to wonder if he was supposed to respond, then continued. "I'd like to hear your version of how the last few months have gone. What sort of progress you feel you've made, etcetera."

Oh, God. Was he actually expecting Jon to keep up the pretense of doing actual archival work? He hadn't been prepared for that at all, and felt preemptively exhausted at the thought of coming up with some nonsense progress report.

"Well. . . as you know, Gertrude left the archives in a state of serious disorganization, so progress has been hindered by that," he tried to remember what projects he'd put the others on to keep them all going with a token show of work. "I've set aside a section for discredited statements, which has been steadily growing. I imagine . . . it will make things more efficient for researchers in the future? And, uh . . . ."

"Let me stop you there," Elias said, holding up a hand.

Please do, Jon thought, relieved he wouldn't be subjecting them both to several minutes of this. Elias leaned forward and looked at him seriously.

"Have I done something to offend you, Jon?"

The question took him by surprise, to the point where he had to bite back a sarcastic laugh. What hadn't he done? "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Really. Because it seems to me that I've be extremely generous to you," that familiar tone of disapproval, of bland impatience. "I've given you a unique opportunity, allowed you free reign in setting your own priorities, and you still seem determined to resent me."

Fleetingly, Jon wondered if the elaborately decorated letter opener on the desk between them was sturdy enough to sink into Elias's chest without snapping. Not worth it, either way. Not with what it would cost.

"I . . . apologize if I've created that impression," he said evenly. "I've been told that I can be standoffish in my manner."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Elias smirked. "Though ‘standoffish' is a great deal more polite than the words people actually favor. Isn't it?"

Jon tried not to look away, tried and failed to meet Elias's eyes. Perhaps his inability to maintain eye contact with a conduit of the Beholding spoke well for his remaining humanity, but it still twisted in him. Made him feel weak.

"Are we done here?" he asked, voice tight.

Elias sighed, as if all of this was such a burden to him, as if he wasn't basking in the anxiety that Jon knew must be radiating off of him like heat.

"What was it you said to Martin . . . about discarding the facade once it stopped being useful?" That startled Jon enough to look back, to see the condescending smile on Elias's face as he continued. "Maybe you ought to do the same."

He stared, suddenly voiceless, heart pounding. This was it . . . should he be relieved or terrified?

"I've been where you are now, Jon." Elias continued. His voice was stern, with only the barest concession to false sympathy. "Trapped in a world that no longer makes sense, surrounded by malevolent forces, seeing enemies everywhere. And I can tell you that the only way to survive in this world is to recognize what resources you have."

". . . Resources."

"Yes, if you could just get past this irrational distrust you seem to have of me. I can't hold your hand through everything. But if you have questions . . . I might be able to give you some answers."

Answers? That would make a change from before, Jon thought bitterly. The Elias he remembered used misdirection, contempt and sometimes flat refusal to avoid giving Jon any information he could hope to use. Unfortunately there was only one question Jon really had for him anymore, and it was one he couldn't ask: how much do you know?

. . . Did Elias have that same question for him? It would explain why he was directly inviting him to ask about his situation.

Jon paused. He had to be smart about this. If Elias had sat him down like this before, he'd have wanted to know everything. If he didn't seem curious, it might point to how much he already knew, and that would be disastrous. But he also couldn't look too naive . . . he'd made his suspicion clear, already warned the others, he couldn't pretend to know nothing about the Institute's nature.

He tried to think back to when he was only just getting a sense of the way things truly were. What would he have most wanted to understand then?

". . . What happens to me," he asked quietly. "When I read statements? The real ones. You know what I mean. I can feel something happening, I know it's not just reading."

"The answer to that is rather complicated . . . ."

"Are you going to give it to me?"

"It would help if I understood what you already knew. How much did Gertrude tell you about the nature of this place? The Institute?"

"Enough to know I can't trust it," he glared across the desk. "And maybe the reason I don't trust you is because you're constantly peering over my shoulder."

"You must have some sense by now of the dangers the Institute attracts," Elias raised his eyebrows. "Can you really blame me for wanting to keep tabs on everything?"

"Because you ‘keeping tabs' was so helpful when I was pulled into those hallways for weeks."

"You opened the door of your own free will. I do what I can but I can hardly be expected to protect you from yourself."

"You're the reason I'm here in the first place! You've been--"

Jon cut himself off, he could feel himself beginning to shout, losing control of himself and it was stupid, so stupid. What was the point in arguing with him? Jonah Magnus knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't going to be shamed about it.

"It doesn't matter," he said, trying to gather himself back to a neutral tone. "Can't change the past."

". . . For what it's worth, Jon, I do sympathize," Elias said, folding his hands. "Someone has to be the Archivist. You were just the best option available."

Why had he thought he could play along with this? As if he'd really be able to sit there, feign ignorance and draw information out of a man who'd been doing that exact thing to others for centuries. He wasn't going to beat him at his own game . . . far more likely he'd let something slip out of anger that would get somebody killed.

He pushed his chair back and stood, turning towards the door.

"I'll find my own answers," he said.

* * *

The door slammed shut, loud enough to echo. Jonah supposed he was going to have to get used to outbursts like these.

"I expect that you will," he muttered to the closed door.

Blind spots. He didn't like blind spots. Sometimes they were unavoidable, but having one so near to him was profoundly irritating. It was like knowing he'd forgotten something important, but being unable to dredge up any details.

He could watch Jon as easily as anyone else. Though there were moments his gaze would unfocus, and he suspected Gertrude might have taught him a few of her tricks, overall it wasn't hard to keep an eye on him. But lately, that was all he could do. No matter how he tried, he couldn't Know anything deeper than what appeared on the surface. He might as well have been following the Archivist around with a camera crew rather than channeling the overwhelming power of an Eternal and Unblinking Gaze From Which No Secrets Can Be Kept, for all the good it was doing him.

It was as if the knowledge was all there, but had been shifted somehow. Nudged just outside his field of vision.

A part of him was tempted to start over with another Archivist, one he could See more clearly. But the Web mark was hard to find, and he couldn't even be sure this anomaly was unique to Jon – that it would go away with his death instead of attaching itself to his successor. Despite its frustrating obscurity, something about it that felt like an aspect of the Beholding, though he couldn't say why.

So he'd tolerate the blind spot for now. At least Jon was easy enough to read without the Eye's assistance – the man wore his heart on his sleeve, was helpless in that way. Jonah liked that about him.

What he needed was encouragement. Something to get him out of his comfort zone – four marks was progress, but not fast enough, not with the Unknowing looming closer every day. Jonah wrote a quick note on a post-it and stuck it to the folder in front of him, then pressed a button on his intercom.

"Rosie?" he said, "I need you to run something down to the archive for me. Just drop it on Tim's desk, he'll know what it's for."

#tma fanfic #tma time travel au #sdayl

[freshplantleaf]

State of Palestine

Human name: Farid Rauf(فريد رؤوف)

Fem type: Jemima Rauf(جميما رؤوف)

Birthday: October the 10th (Gregorian); Rabia Al-Thani the 7th (A.H.)

Developing: AD1920→1956__Chibi[the British Mandate]

AD1956→now__Teen[Fatah]

Height: 171cm (5'7") (still growing)

Voice claim: Eren Jaeger(15 years old)(cv: Kaji Yuuki)

Color: Olive Green (RGB: 54, 70, 25)

MBTI: ESFP

Enneagram:8w7

DND:CG

Appearance:

His temperament is still in adolescences, with thick eyebrows and messy short hair. He has a lean body build and long legs, which makes him behave tall. Because of lack of protection, there are several sunburns on his body.

He’s hardy, usually dressed thin and improvises by hoodies in winter. Plus, black shemagh which symbolize his national character is his favor. Though the original lock has been changed into fingerprint recognition, he hangs the old key on his neck.

Food flavor:

He’s keen on meat, and especially loves al-Fawaz, so that he won’t focus on balancing nutrition when having meals.As an arabic, he prefers sweet rather than salty.

He is able to drink much, but usually there’s no alcohol left for him. In addition he doesn’t like wine bottles cause of his fear to subconscious of explosion.

Ability:

He’s left handed. Being gifted it by his bright eyes, he is well-mastered on shooting, though that’s far inferior to Vietnam guerrillas. As local former farmer, he’s confident with his tips for planting oliver trees. Surprisingly, he’s more modernly educated and gets more common sense than those who live on peninsula and have money to hire private teachers.

Character:

To strangers, he can be an easy-going young man, talkative(even noisy)and easy to be excited. It’s hard for him to calm down when he is outputting opinions and watching news.He usually considers himself placing at a moral and correct highland, and has a simple but strong compassion based on homomorphic revenge.

Has a strong affection for heroism that praises sacrifice and courage, and is easily mobilized and endorsed by passionate feelings and fierce speech. He adores heroic stories (for kids hhh)such as Fida’i.

He has a sense of exclusiveness on issues related to Israel, and tends to view other issues in an extreme way. So when he’s browsing twi or whatever, it’s easy for him to be angry.

Due to the pressure about ability with another person who cohabitating with him, he considers himself humble subconsciously, and disgusts being forced to admit the objective gap.

Oppose to his weakness. That’s not only because of his unswervingly deserving of his own rights, but also because he used not to been remunerated after the concession, and it made him difficult to be bargained.

Cauze of the adaptation of despairing, he shows a strong sense of martyrdom when he arouses intense emotion.Sometimes he may be caught in his own self-movement, even thinks about "the struggle itself is higher than the goal of the struggle."etc. Naturally close to guerrillas.

Although he usually dresses clothes that can show the influence from modern, he favors the conservative side: paying attention to family, desiring a smooth and happy life rather than staring at career development. The nature expression desire on him is not so hot.

As a former Bedouin, he has a sense of pragmation, and there’s still a Turkish evil eye in his house for warding off evil.

Relationships:

with Israel:They share one house at the border of Jerusalem,and dream to eliminate each other in their everyday lives.They had a short period being a bit kind to each other in 1990s,but time flies.Israel has built a wall in the house so that Palestine may not come in his “own” rooms.

with Jordan:Brothers. Pale hoped that Jordan was a worthy backing, so the result is that he is disappointed to Jordan around Black September (though the relationship eventually became easier nowadays)

with Iraq:Brothers. Only Saddam Iraq treated Pale well.

with UK:He was adopted by UK and of course hated him like all the other former colonies. But as the UK faded out of his main life, his hatred turned to Israel. UK views Pale as one of his variety of wrong actions, which is kinda light.

with Lebanon:Pale2p and Leb2p are friends in need, or fellow sufferers. On the other hand, Lebanon's attitude towards Pale is kinda chill and embarrassing.

to Turkey:Pale has a natural bad impression towards Turkey.

with Indonesia:In account of geography, the more suitable relationship between should be called netpals. When chatting, they both will turn to happy mode.

to Iran:Admire. He views Iran as a tough, powerful guy. (idol?)

with Arabic neighbors: They aren’t really like the boy, and most of the reason is the aesthetic fatigue of the conflict between Pale and Izzy.

to UN: He often seeks attention at United Nations‘ conferences, but the more he complaints in these days, the less positive and firm responses he gets, so he got irritability.

to Jerusalem:”She’s mine, and everyone agree with me! She is not a bargaining chip and not somebody priceful!” But on the other hand,no one knows Jerusalem’s heart.

#country personification #Farid Lauf #levantguys #aph palestine #hws palestine

[beemusik]

How David Bowie Invented Ziggy Stardust

Jason Heller’s book Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded is the story of how science fiction influenced the musicians of the Seventies. Out now in hardcover via Melville House, Strange Stars also examines how space exploration, futurism and emerging technology inspired the sometimes-cosmic, sometimes-mechanistic music the decade produced. In this section, Heller delves into the creation of Bowie’s most-famous alter ego, Ziggy Stardust.

A small crowd of sixty or so music fans stood in the dance hall of the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth, a suburban neighborhood in southwest London, on the night of February 10, 1972. The backs of their hands had been freshly stamped by the doorman. A DJ played records to warm up the crowd for the main act. The hall was nothing fancy, little more than “an ordinary function room.” The two-story brick building that housed it – “a gaunt fortress of a pub on the edge of an underpass” – had played host to numerous rock acts over the past few years, including Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and Fleetwood Mac. Sci-fi music had even graced the otherwise earthy Toby Jug, thanks to recent headliners King Crimson and Hawkwind, and exactly one week earlier, on February 3, the band Stray performed, quite likely playing their sci-fi song “Time Machine.” The concertgoers on the tenth, however, had no idea that they would soon witness the most crucial event in the history of sci-fi music.

Most of them already knew who David Bowie was – the singer who, three years earlier, had sung “Space Oddity,” and who had appeared very seldom in public since, focusing instead on making records that barely dented the charts. His relatively low profile in recent years hadn’t helped his latest single, “Changes,” which had come out in January. Despite its soaring, anthemic sound, it failed to find immediate success in England. But the lyrics of the song seemed to signal an impending metamorphosis, hinted at again in late January when Bowie declared in a Melody Makerinterview, “I’m gay and always have been” and unabashedly predicted, “I’m going to be huge, and it’s quite frightening in a way.” Bowie clearly had a big plan up his immaculately tailored sleeve. But what could it be?

Before Bowie took the stage of the Toby Jug, an orchestral crescendo announced him. It was a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, drawn from the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange. To anyone who’d seen the film, the music carried a sinister feeling, superimposed as it was over Kubrick’s visions of grim dystopia and ultraviolence. Grandiloquence mixed with foreboding, shot through with sci-fi: it couldn’t have been a better backdrop for what the pint-clutching attendees of the Toby Jug were about to behold.

At around 9:00 p.m., the houselights were extinguished. A spotlight sliced the darkness. Bowie took the stage. But was it really him? In a strictly physical sense, it must have been. But this was Bowie as no one had seen him before. His hair – which appeared blond and flowing on the cover of Hunky Dory, released just three months earlier – was now chopped at severe angles and dyed bright orange, the color of a B-movie laser beam. His face was lavishly slathered with cosmetics. He wore a jumpsuit with a plunging neckline, revealing his delicate, bone-pale chest, and his knee-high wrestling boots were fire-engine red. Bowie had never been conservative in dress, but even for him, this was a quantum leap into the unknown.

Then he began to play. His band – dubbed the Spiders from Mars and comprising guitarist Mick Ronson, bassist Trevor Bolder, and drummer Woody Woodmansey – was lean, efficient, and powerful, clad in gleaming, metallic outfits that mimicked spacesuits, reminiscent of the costumes from the campy 1968 sci-fi romp Barbarella. The Jane Fonda vehicle had been a huge hit in England, and it became a cult film in the United States, thanks to its titillating portrayal of a future where sensuality is rediscovered after a lifetime of sterile, virtual sex.

In the same way, Bowie’s new incarnation was shocking, lurid, and supercharged with sexual energy. Combined with his recent admission of either homosexuality or bisexuality, as he was then married to his first wife, Angela, Bowie’s new persona oozed futuristic mystique, which Bowie biographer David Buckley described as “a blurring of ‘found’ symbols from science fiction – space-age high heels, glitter suits, and the like.”

But what bewitched the audience most was the music. Amid a set of established songs such as “Andy Warhol,” “Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud,” and, naturally, “Space Oddity,” the Spiders from Mars injected a handful of new tunes, including “Hang On to Yourself” and “Suffragette City,” that had yet to appear on record. Propulsive, infectious, and awash in dizzying imagery, this was a new Bowie – cut less from the thoughtful, singer-songwriter mold and more from some new hybrid of thespian rocker and sci-fi myth. These songs bounced off the walls of the Toby Jug’s no-longer-ordinary function room. The audience, whistling and cheering, was entranced. A show eye-popping enough to dazzle an entire arena was being glimpsed in the most intimate of watering holes.

Although the crowd was sparse, people stood on tables and chairs to get the best possible view. The stage was only two feet high, but it may as well have been twenty, or two million – an elevator to outer space designed to launch Bowie into an orbit far more enduring than that of Major Tom in “Space Oddity.”

At some point, amid the swirl and spectacle of the two-hour set, Bowie announced from the stage the name of his new identity: Ziggy Stardust.

Like an artifact from some alien civilization, Bowie’s fifth album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, was unveiled on June 16, 1972. By then, Ziggy had become a sensation. After the Toby Jug gig in February, concertgoers embraced Bowie’s new persona in music venues around the UK. Attendance swelled each night, as did a growing legion of followers who dressed themselves in homemade approximations of Bowie’s outlandish attire.

Just as the album was released, he and the Spiders appeared on the BBC’s revered Top of the Popsprogram, performing the record’s centerpiece: the song “Starman.” For many of a certain age, watching Bowie on their family’s television that evening was tantamount to the Beatles’ legendary spot on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States eight years earlier. “He was so vivid. So luminous. So fluorescent. We had one of the first color TVs on our street, and David Bowie was the reason to have a color TV,” remembered Bono of U2, who was twelve at the time. “It was like a creature falling from the sky. Americans put a man on the moon. We had our own British guy from space.”

Musically, “Starman” was an exquisite and striking slice of pop songcraft, exactly what Bowie needed at that point in his career. Lyrically, he smuggled in a sci-fi story that centers around Ziggy Stardust, who was both Bowie’s alter ego and the fictional protagonist of the Rise and Fall concept album, as loose as it was in that regard – it is more a fugue of ideas that coalesce into a concept. Through the radio and TV, an alien announces his existence to Earth, which Bowie describes in lovingly rendered sci-fi verse: “A slow voice on a wave of phase.” The young people of the world become enchanted and hope to lure the alien down: “Look out your window, you can see his light /If we can sparkle, he may land tonight.” But that alien is reticent, and his shyness makes him all the more magnetic.

Bowie sang the song on Top of the Pops clad in a multicolored, reptilian-textured jumpsuit, which Melody Maker called, “Vogue’s idea of what the well-dressed astronaut should be wearing.” In that sense, “Starman” is a self-fulfilling prophecy: before he could truly know the impact the song would have, he used it to describe its effect on Great Britain’s young people in perfect detail. He was the starman waiting in the sky, and the kids who saw him on TV soon began to dress like him, hoping to sparkle so that he may land tonight.

If Bowie intended “Starman” to be an overt reference to [Robert A.] Heinlein’s Starman Jones, the book he loved as a kid, he never publicly confessed to it. But the admittedly sketchy story line of Rise and Fall parallels another Heinlein work: Stranger in a Strange Land, the novel that had influenced David Crosby in the ’60s and, later, many other sci-fi musicians of the ’70s. The book’s hero,Valentine Michael Smith, comes to Earth from Mars; in Rise and Fall, Mars is built into the title. And both Valentine and Ziggy become messiahs of a kind – androgynous, libertine heralds of a new age of human awareness. Bowie claimed he’d turned down offers to star in a film production of Stranger in a Strange Land and had few positive words to say about the book, calling it “staggeringly, awesomely trite.” Be that as it may, he clearly had read the book and developed a strong opinion of it – perhaps enough for some of its themes and iconography to seep into his own work.

The opening song of Rise and Fall, “Five Years,” elegiacally delivers a dystopian forecast: the world will end in five years due to a lack of resources, and society is disintegrating into a slow-motion parade of perversity and moral paralysis. It’s a countdown to doomsday, with the clock set at five years. The song’s ominous refrain, “We’ve got five years,” is sung by Bowie with increasing histrionics, his voice sounding more panicked and deranged as he repeats the phrase. “The whole thing was to try and get a mocking angle at the future,” Bowie said in 1972. “If I can mock something and deride it, one isn’t so scared of it” – with “it” being the apocalypse.

“Five Years” set a chilling tone, but Rise and Fall didn’t entirely wallow in it. The coming of an alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust is relayed in a multi-song story that’s equally melancholy and ecstatic, tragic and triumphant. On tracks such as “Moonage Daydream,” “Star,” and “Lady Stardust,” Bowie wields terms such as “ray gun” and “wild mutation.” He also claims, “I’m the space invader,” as though he were channeling the ideas of his sci-fi heroes Stanley Kubrick or William S. Burroughs, particularly the latter’s 1971 novel, The Wild Boys.

As Bowie explained, “It was a cross between [The Wild Boys] and A Clockwork Orange that really started to put together the shape and the look of what Ziggy and the Spiders were going to become. They were both powerful pieces of work, especially the marauding boy gangs of Burroughs’s Wild Boys with their bowie knives. I got straight on to that. I read everything into everything. Everything had to be infinitely symbolic.” The photos of the Spiders from Mars inside the album sleeve of Rise and Fall were even patterned after the gang of Droogs of A Clockwork Orange; Droogs are mentioned by name in the Rise and Fall song “Suffragette City.” Furthermore, Bowie posed on theback cover of the album, peering out of a phone booth – just as though he were that other cryptic British alien who regularly regenerates himself and is often seen in a phone booth (specifically a police call box), the Doctor from Doctor Who.

Bowie also drew from work of the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. Born Norman Carl Odam, the Texan rockabilly artist released a twangy, oddball 1968 single titled “I Took a Trip (On a Gemini Spaceship)” that Bowie wound up covering in 2002; it was from Odam that Bowie borrowed Ziggy’s surname. And after going on a record-buying spree while touring the United States in 1971, he bought Fun House by the Michigan proto-punk band the Stooges, whose outrageous lead singer was named Iggy Pop. He jotted down ideas on hotel stationary while traveling the States, resulting in a name that was a mash-up of Iggy Pop and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. Ziggy Stardust was a fabricated rock star, one whose sleek facade flew in the face of the era’s reigning rock aesthetic of laid-back, unpretentious authenticity. Instead, Bowie wanted to puncture that illusion by taking rock showmanship to a previously unseen, self-referential extreme.

When it came to Bowie’s urge toward collage and deconstruction, Burroughs remained a prime inspiration. A pioneer of postmodern sci-fi pastiche as well as the literary cut-up technique, in which snippets of text were randomly rearranged to form a new syntax, Burroughs straddled both pulp sci-fi and the avant-garde, exactly the same liminal space Bowie now occupied. Rock critic Lester Bangs accused Bowie of “trying to be George Orwell and William Burroughs” while dismissing him as appearing to be “deposited onstage after seemingly being dipped in vats of green slime and pursued by Venusian crab boys” – a description that sounded like it could have been cribbed straight from a Burroughs book.

In 1973, Burroughs met Bowie in the latter’s London home. The meeting was arranged by A. Craig Copetas from Rolling Stone, and the resulting exchange was published in the magazine a few months later. In the article, Copetas observed that Bowie’s house was “decorated in a science-fiction mode,” and that Bowie greeted them “wearing three-tone NASA jodhpurs.” The ensuing conversation ranged across many topics, but it circled around science fiction – and in particular, the similarity Bowie saw between Rise and Fall and Burroughs’s 1964 novel Nova Express, a surreal sci-fi parable about mind control and the tyranny of language.

In an effort to convince Burroughs of the similarity, Bowie offered one of the most revealing analyses of Rise and Fall as a work of science fiction:

“The time is five years to go before the end of the Earth. It has been announced that the world will end because of a lack of natural resources. Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. The older people have all lost touch with reality, and the kids are left on their own to plunder anything. Ziggy was in a rock & roll band, and the kids no longer wanted to play rock & roll. There’s no electricity to play it.”

Bowie went on:

“[The environmental apocalypse] does not cause the end of the world for Ziggy. The end comes when the infinites arrive. They really are a black hole, but I’ve made them people because it would be very hard to explain a black hole onstage.”

Curiously, it took him another twenty-six years before casually revealing in an interview that a sci-fi song called “Black Hole Kids” was recorded as an outtake during the sessions for Rise and Fall. He called the song “fabulous,” adding, “I have no idea why it wasn’t on the original album. Maybe I forgot.”

But Bowie dropped the biggest revelation about Rise and Fallin the 1973 conversation with Burroughs. Ziggy Stardust, according to his creator, is not an alien himself; instead, he’s an earthling who makes contact with extra-dimensional beings, who then use him as a charismatic vessel for their own nefarious invasion plan. But like Frankenstein’s monster being erroneously called “Frankenstein” to the point where it seems senseless to quibble with that usage, Ziggy Stardust continues to be widely considered the alien entity of Rise and Fall. Considering the shifting identity and gender of Bowie’s most famous alter ego, that ambiguity may well have been his intention. Talking to Burroughs, he ultimately labels Rise and Fall “a science-fiction fantasy of today” before reiterating its similarity to Nova Express, to which Burroughs responds, “The parallels are definitely there.”

Rise and Fall has always been as fluid as Bowie’s facade itself. Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion cast a shadow over Ziggy Stardust, especially the glammy incarnation of the many-faced character known as Jerry Cornelius – who was adapted to the big screen in 1973 for the feature film The Final Programme. It coincided with Ziggy’s own ascendency, not to mention the New Wave of Science Fiction and its preference for fractured narratives and multiple interpretations over linear stories and pat endings.

During their mutual interview, Burroughs brought up the then-current rumor that Bowie might play Valentine Michael Smith in a film adaptation of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Bowie again dismissed it. “It seemed a bit too flower-powery, and that made me a bit wary.” For his part, Bowie’s fellow sci-fi musician Mick Farren of the Deviants later admitted he always thought Michael Valentine Smith was a major influence on Ziggy Stardust. “I was certain someone would call him out for plagiarism,” Farren said. “Nobody did.”

Bowie may have denied his affinity for Stranger in a Strange Land by his boyhood go-to author Heinlein, but he was not shy about professing his love for one of the authors Lester Bangs compared him to: George Orwell. Almost as a footnote, Bowie told Burroughs, “Now I’m doing Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four on television.” That project would never come to pass, but it would lay the groundwork for his next, less famous sci-fi concept album – a jagged, atmospheric song cycle that plunged Bowie into the darkest extremes of dystopia.

#David Bowie #Ziggy Stardust #article

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

- Tom Stoppard, Artist Descending a Staircase

Sir Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit tower was completed in 2012 at a cost of £19 million ($27 million). It was intended to be a permanent lasting legacy of London's hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, assisting in the post-Olympics regeneration of the Stratford area. At 376 feet (114.5 metres) it became the UK’s tallest public artwork.

London Mayor Boris Johnson put into motion a design competition that was held in 2009 and it called for designs for an "Olympic tower". A 9 panel commission made of the great and the good was set up to recommend to both Johnson and the government. It received about 50 submissions. Boris Johnson had said that his early concept for the project was something more modest than Orbit, along the lines of "a kind of 21st-century Trajan's Column", but this was dropped when more daring ideas were received. Boris Johnson was believed to want something like the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty what he and the government settled on was something completely different with Turner-Prize winning artist Sir Anish Kapoor in partnership with Cecil Balmond of Arup Group, an engineering firm.

Kapoor said that one of the influences on his design was the Tower of Babel, the sense of "building the impossible" that "has something mythic about it", and that the form "straddles Eiffel and Tatlin". Balmond, working on the metaphor of an orbit, envisaged an electron cloud moving, to create a structure that appears unstable, propping itself up, "never centred, never quite vertical". Both believe that Orbit represents a new way of thinking, "a radical new piece of structure and architecture and art" that uses non-linearity – the use of "instabilities as stabilities." The spaces inside the structure, in between the twisting steel, are "cathedral like", according to Balmond, while according to Kapoor, the intention is that visitors will engage with the piece as they wind "up and up and in on oneself" on the spiral walkway.

The Independent described Orbit as "a continuously looping lattice ... made up of eight strands winding into each other and combined by rings like a jagged knot". The Guardian describes it as a "giant lattice tripod sporting a counterweight collar around its neck designed to offset the weight of its head, a two-storey dining and viewing gallery". According to the BBC, the design incorporates the five Olympic rings.

Upon its launch Johnson said "It would have boggled the minds of the Romans. It would have boggled Gustave Eiffel." Nicholas Serota, a member of the design panel, said that Orbit was a tower with an interesting twist, with "the energy you might traditionally associate with this type of structure but in a surprisingly female form.”

When Anish Kapoor’s commission for the Olympic Park in London was unveiled no one really noticed, as most viewers thought it was still under construction.

Orbit confused viewers for sometime, but when they realised that the twisted metal structure in place was indeed an artwork they were up in arms. It was soon slammed by critics and citizens alike.

Overall reception to Orbit was mixed, but mostly negative. With regard to its potential as a lasting visitor attraction, The Guardian's Mark Brown reflected on the mixed fortunes of other large symbolic London visitor attractions such as the popular, but loss-making, Thames Tunnel; the Skylon structure, dismantled on the orders of Winston Churchill; and the successful London Eye. When plans were first reported for an Olympic tower, the media pointed to a manifesto pledge of Johnson's to crack down on tall buildings, in order to preserve London's "precious" skyline.  The Times criticised the idea as a vanity project of Johnson's, with a design "matching his bravado", built to "seal his legacy", surmising it would be compared to other similar vanity projects such as the "wedding cake", the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II built in Rome, or the Neutrality Arch, a rotating golden statue erected by Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov, while comparing Johnson to Ozymandias. Art critic Brian Sewell said "Our country is littered with public art of absolutely no merit. We are entering a new period of fascist gigantism. These are monuments to egos and you couldn't find a more monumental ego than Boris."

The Times reported the description of it being the "Godzilla of public art". In October 2012, ArcelorMittal Orbit was nominated and made the Building Design magazine shortlist for the Carbuncle Cup - an award for the worst British building completed in the past year, which was ultimately awarded to the Cutty Sark renovation.

Jay Merrick of The Independent said that "[Orbit's] sculptural power lies in its ability to suggest an unfinished form in the process of becoming something else", describing how its artistic riskiness elevated it above the banal artworks of the public art movement that have been built elsewhere in Britain's towns and cities. Merrick was of the opinion that it would be either loved or hated, being a design which is "beautifully fractious, and not quite knowable".

Jonathan Glancey of The Guardian described Orbit as "Olympian in ambition" and a "fusion between striking art and daring engineering", and said that, the Aquatics Centre apart, it represented the architecturally striking Joker in the pack, given that the rest of the landscaping and architecture for the Games "promises little to get excited about". He believed it would become a "genuine eyecatcher" for the Olympics television coverage, with its extraordinary form being a "strange and enticing marriage of sorts" between the Eiffel Tower and the un-built early Soviet era Tatlin's Tower, with the biblical Tower of Babel as "best man".

The Times writer Tom Dyckhoff, while calling it "a gift to the tabloids" and a "giant Mr. Messy", questioned whether the Olympic site needed another pointless icon, postulating whether it would stand the test of time like the London Eye and become a true icon to match the Eiffel Tower, or a hopeless white elephant. Suggesting the project had echoes of Tatlin's Monument to the Third International, and especially Constant Nieuwenhuys' utopian city New Babylon, he asked whether Orbit was just as revolutionary or possessed the same ideological purpose, or whether it was merely "a giant advert for one of the world’s biggest multinationals, sweetened with a bit of fun".

Rowan Moore of The Guardian questioned if it was going to be anything more than a folly, or whether it would be as eloquent as the Statue of Liberty. He speculated that the project might mark the time when society stops using large iconic projects as a tool for lifting areas out of deprivation. He questioned its ability to draw people's attention to Stratford after the Games, in a similar manner to the successes of the Angel of the North or the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. He also questioned the piece's ability to strike a chord like the Angel, which he believed had at least "created a feelgood factor and sense of pride" in Gateshead, or whether it would simply become one of the "many more unloved rotting wrecks that no one has the nerve to demolish". He postulated that the addition of stairs and a lift made Orbit less succinct than Kapoor's previous successful works, while ultimately he said "hard to see what the big idea is, beyond the idea of making something big".

Fellow Guardian writer John Graham-Cumming rejected comparisons to icons like the Eiffel Tower, which had itself not been intended to be a lasting monument, only persisting into public acceptance as art through being useful; he also pointed out the Colossus of Rhodes collapsed within a few decades, and the Tower of Babel was "constructed to glorify those that constructed it." He suggested that a future mayor should reconsider whether it should be pulled down. Questioning its corporate role, he believed that meant it looked less and less like a work of art and more like a vanity project.

Even Sir Anish Kapoor acknowledged the criticism and said of its clunky features,“It’s an object with all its elbows sticking out and it is slightly awkward, but I think I made it for that reason, I wanted it to be slightly awkward.”

After the 2012 Olympic Games, the Orbit tower was used as an observation tower, running at a loss of £520,000 ($884,000) in 2014–15, according to the BBC—or losing up to £10,000 ($17,000) a week in 2014, according to the Guardian newspaper.

Amidst the rising clamour of the costs matched only by the disdainful disinterest in the massive sculpture, something had to be done.

To appease Londoners, ex-London Mayor Boris Johnson brought in Carsten Höller to add a slide to the 376 feet tall artwork, making it the highest slide in Europe.

Kapoor later said he was pushed into the high profile collaboration by Johnson. Kapoor would later say that Johnson’s request “felt to me as if it was turning the whole thing in the wrong direction.”

“It was not always my thinking. The mayor foisted this on the project and there was a moment where I had to make a decision - do I go to battle with the mayor or is there a more elegant or astute way through this?,” he told the Guardian.

“I knew of Carsten’s work so I thought, well, who better than a fellow artist to join up with and make this a positive story rather than a negative… Luckily, and thankfully, Carsten was open to it, so we found a way round this,” Kapoor explained.

Judging by the unforgettable success of Höller’s slide installation at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, it’s easy to imagine what made Kapoor click and extend the invitation to the Belgian-born Stockholm-based artist.

“One makes artworks for other reasons than profit,” Kapoor told the Guardian. “I understand this is run as a so-called attraction, which I have problems with personally… I want it to be slightly more highbrow than that, without wanting to be pompous about it. There’s a difference between a fairground ride and art,” he added.

Höller, meanwhile, took a more lighthearted approach, urging people to embrace “the amusement side of it.”

“A child might be here purely for the slide, while the serious art lover might see this in purely formalistic terms. I personally like the confusion, that you don’t know what it is but it still creates a very unique experience,” he told the Guardian.

 The ArcelorMittal Orbit re-opened to the public on 5 April 2014. Since then it has done below average business in attracting people to come and visit it or try the slide.

The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), which runs the park where the sculpture is located, released numbers revealing the sculpture’s sizeable debt and a steep drop in visitors. Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal had provided a £9.2 million ($11.2 million) loan to help pay for the original construction of the sculpture, but this loan has ballooned to £13 million due to the accrual of interest.

Ticket sales to the observation platform and a tunnel slide designed by Carsten Höller were meant to help repay the loan, but low visitor attendance prompted a £58,000 ($70,000) loss in 2018/19 alone. Visitor numbers have dropped from a high of 193,000 in 2016/17, when Höller’s slide was introduced, to 155,000 in 2018/19.

It’s not just an artistic folly but a commercial one too.

It's not wholly fanciful that such artistic scuptural landmarks can help lift places. No one can put a figure on jobs created or investments made in Gateshead thanks to the Angel of the North, but it has at least created a feelgood factor and sense of pride. The Bilbao Guggenheim of 1996, still the archetype of such town-boosting, certainly placed a relatively obscure city at the centre of attention.

Buildings can't do it alone and if people find their attention has been drawn only to a wasteland, they will go away again. The Guggenheim worked because there were also dull practical things in Bilbao such as new transport infrastructure and business parks.

But the most important ingredient of a successful icon is that it works artistically. It has to strike a chord, sound the right note, catch a mood, win hearts and confound sceptics. In other words it has to be aesthetically pleasing because it’s good art made by equally by great craft and graft.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit has become an unloved rotting wreck that no one has the nerve to demolish.

#orbit #stoppard #quote #britain #art #sculpture #modern art #olympics #society #culture #aesthetics #anish kapoor #carsten holler

[beardofkamenev]

Ednyfed Fychan: Father of the Tudor Dynasty

by Nathen Amin for Historic UK (2015)

[Alabaster tomb of Ednyfed Fychan’s descendant, Goronwy ap Tudur (d. 1382), and his wife Morfydd at St Gredifael’s Church, Penmynydd. Goronwy ap Tudur was the paternal uncle of Owen Tudor, grandfather of Henry VII]

When Harri Tudur, better known as Henry Tudor outside his native Wales, ascended to the throne of England in 1485 as Henry VII, it completed an incredible rise from servants to the Princes of Wales to kings in their own right within 300 years for the family from which he hailed. Contemporaries, much like the modern antiquarian, were aware of the Tudor Dynasty’s Welsh ancestry and the first Tudor King himself was not shy in utilising Welsh symbols for his personal badges. Dragons, for example, littered the Tudor court.

The direct Tudor line ended with the passing of arguably England’s greatest monarch, Elizabeth I, in 1603. But with whom did this famous dynasty begin? The end is famous, the beginnings obscure.

When discussing the Tudors as a family, the non-royal patriarch of the dynasty is accepted to be the honourable and competent 12th century noble, Ednyfed Fychan. Whilst not a prince of great renown or a famous individual from history, it is Ednyfed who is central to the later Tudor story for two prominent reasons. Firstly, it was through his sheer hard work that he established his family and offspring as invaluable servants to the Gwynedd Princes, thus ensuring his future descendants’ influence in the governance of the region. Secondly, Ednyfed married a South Welsh Princess with a prestigious bloodline, which gave his children royal connections.

It is fair to say then that this ardent statesman could arguably be credited with being the patriarch of the Tudor family in that he was the first notable male-line ancestor of the later Tudor Kings.

Ednyfed Fychan was born around 1170 and would prove to be a warrior of a man who assiduously served Llewelyn the Great and his son, Prince Dafydd ap Llywelyn, as seneschal of the Kingdom of Gwynedd.

The most basic function of a seneschal (or distain, in Welsh) was to supervise feasts and domestic ceremonies; they were sometimes referred to as stewards. As valued and loyal soldiers, these seneschals were also occasionally required to dispense justice within the kingdom and could be relied upon to represent the Princes in their absence, as well as witnessing and verifying important Princely charters. In many respects, one could consider the seneschal to be a kind of Chief Councillor, or even an early version of a Prime Minister for the Kingdom, and would in essence be the most important and valued official in employ.

North Wales had always been a tribal region and in order to resist English domination, the need to implement a feudal system with greater central control was imperative. This bureaucratic reorganisation from the Princes of Gwynedd allowed Ednyfed Fychan and his descendants to prosper, securing a place amongst the ruling and administrative elite of the region.

Ednyfed himself was considered to have been a valiant and courageous warrior, as well as having the ruthless streak needed for warfare in the Middle Ages. He is said to have come to prominence whilst in combat against the army of Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester, who attacked Llewelyn at the behest of King John of England. The story goes that Ednyfed beheaded three English lords in battle and carried the bloody heads to Llewelyn in tribute. This act was commemorated by his Prince by commanding him to change his family coat of arms to display three heads, a gruesome testament to his value, worth and loyalty.

Ednyfed probably came to this position of seneschal by 1216 which would have meant he was present at the council Llewelyn the Great convened at Aberdyfi, a key summit at which Llewelyn asserted his right as Prince of Wales over the other territorial rulers. Ednyfed would also have been at his sovereign’s side during the Treaty of Worcester negotiations in 1218 with representatives of the new boy-king Henry III of England. In addition to his place of privilege at such significant talks, Ednyfed was also present in his role as an experienced and proficient representative of Llewelyn in a consultation with the King of England in 1232, undoubtedly offering his valued input during the tense discussions.

His loyalty to his King was appreciated and he was rewarded with the titles of Lord of Brynffanigl, Lord of Criccieth and Chief Justice, further strengthening his power. In 1235, Ednyfed was also believed to have taken part in a Crusade as all God-fearing soldiers of the era strove to do, although in his case his journey was noted for the fact that Henry III himself arranged for this powerful but respected Welsh statesman to be presented with a silver cup as he passed through London.

Away from his impressive and proficient professional life, Ednyfed had estates at Brynffanigl Isaf, situated near modern day Abergele on the North Welsh coast, and also at Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, now merely a suburb of Colwyn Bay better known by the anglicised name Rhos-on-Sea. It was at Llandrillo that Ednyfed built a motte and bailey castle atop the Bryn Euryn hill, which was the predecessor to the 15th century manor Llys Euryn. Furthermore, he also held lands in Llansadwrn and it’s not too far a stretch to assume he also had interests on Anglesey where his family controlled various seats.

Because of his loyal service to his ruler, Ednyfed was given an unusual reward in that all descendants of his grandfather, Iorwerth ap Gwgon of Brynffenigl, would be accorded the honour of holding their lands free of all dues to the native Kings, something which no doubt was a great benefit in the time of feudalism. The fact he was rewarded in such a way suggests he was conceivably indispensable to the two Princes and served them diligently.

It was Ednyfed’s marriage, however, that would secure his place in Welsh history, as it was the matching of two historic and noble Welsh families which would ultimately produce the future King of England. Ednyfed had, in fact, already been married once and been blessed with a brood of sons, although the identity of this woman has yet to be sourced satisfactorily. Although probably not momentous or particularly significant at the time (albeit noted by some Welsh chroniclers), the dutiful and loyal Ednyfed took Gwenllian ferch Rhys as his bride, one of the daughters of Rhys ap Gruffydd, the revered Lord Rhys, Prince of Deheubarth. Gwenllian’s mother was Gwenllian ferch Madog, a lady who herself had a notable genealogy as the daughter of Madog ap Maredudd, the last Prince of a unified Powys. An interesting point to note, and possibly something that played a part in this union between a royal lady and a mere member of the nobility, is that Gwenllian ferch Madog’s nephew through her sister Marared was in fact Llewelyn the Great himself, the man whom Ednyfed had served valiantly and bravely his entire life. This made Ednyfed and Llywelyn first cousins through Ednyfed’s marriage to Gwenllian ferch Rhys.

Ednyfed Fychan has been forgotten in history, his name unheralded even by the Welshmen he once served. It is possible to consider that without his diligent service to the Welsh Princes and successful marriage to a notable Princess, the Tudor Dynasty would never have had the opportunity to spectacularly usurp the throne of England in the way they did so famously at Bosworth Field in 1485.

Ednyfed Fychan may be forgotten, but his legacy lives on today, not only in the famous Tudor monarchs of the 16th century but also today’s royal family, his direct descendants.

Nathen Amin grew up in the heart of Carmarthenshire and has long had an interest in Welsh history and the Welsh origins of the Tudors. This passion has guided him all over Wales to visit a wide variety of historic sites, which he has photographed and researched for his book ‘Tudor Wales’ by Amberley Publishing.

Website: www.nathenamin.com

#this was written very early into nathen amin's career so the writing isn't as refined as his later work but lots of interesting info #ednyfed fychan #llewelyn the great #tudors of penmynydd