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demi-shoggoth · 1 year

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2022 Reading Log, pt 29

My life has been tough lately, so I do what makes me happy. Read books about monsters.

141. The Old Snatchengrabber’s Big Book of Child Eating Monsters by Mike Rosen. This is not beloved British children’s author Mike Rosen, or asshole Republican pundit Mike Rosen. This is a different one. This book is a collection of folkloric bogeymen, illustrated in a cartoony style. Most of these are European, but some from around the world do appear. Some liberties have been taken with the monsters at hand, mostly in the art—the yara-ma-wa-yho, for example, is an amorphous blob instead of a hairless monkey-frog, and Krampus is both female and thicc. Brief, but pleasant.

142. The United States of Cryptids by J. W. Ocker. I’ve quite enjoyed Ocker’s Season of the Witch and Cursed Objects, and I quite enjoyed this book as well. The book is as much about crypto-tourism as it is about actual cryptozoology. As such, it takes a pretty broad view of what a cryptid is, including various UFOlogical entities, as well as folkloric entities like the wendigo or Navajo shapeshifters, if they have places to visit or sell merchandise for. It’s also pretty respectful, acknowledging that those aforementioned Navajo shapeshifters, for example, are taboo to a lot of Navajo people still. Ocker has clearly done his homework, and acknowledges that creatures like the Ozark Howler are modern hoaxes, as well as suggesting some very obscure monsters that are ripe for becoming tourist attractions (such as the Derry Fairy, the Prime Hook Swamp Creature and the Kodiak Dinosaur).

143. The Enemies of Rome by Stephen Kershaw. In some ways, this is the best whirlwind tour of Roman history I could imagine, covering events from the mythical foundation of Rome to the last of the Western emperors. It is most interested in what the Romans thought of the various people they fought and usually defeated, and how Romans built their own identity as separate from “barbarian”, even though they themselves were barbarians from the point of view of Greek culture, which they wholeheartedly appropriated. A lot of time is spent in the late Republic era, which I appreciated. Too often, books about Rome written for a popular audience skip straight from the Punic Wars to Julius Caesar. One thing I didn’t like, however, was its constant use of modern neologisms. “Fake news”, for example, shows up more than five times before I stopped counting. It was cute once, but rapidly became irritating.

144. Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws by Adrienne Mayor. This is a collection of short articles written for various magazines and websites by Mayor, collected and occasionally updated. Most of them are on the subject of weird ephemera of the classical world, often times animal themed. Examples include several articles on tourism in Greece during Roman times, a history of Roman perfumes, the use of weasels as household mousers in the Classical world, and of course writings on Greek and Roman monsters. The book includes her original article proposing that the griffin is based on Protoceratops fossils, and the argument is pretty much just “I went looking for a real animal that looks like a griffin, because I couldn’t imagine that it was a symbolic hybrid, and this is what I found”. In the foreword, she refers to that essay as “embarrassing”, although whether because she has repudiated that (very poorly supported) hypothesis or merely because of its fannish tone addressed to Jack Horner, remains unsaid. I can’t say I recommend this book, but I didn’t consider reading it a complete waste of time.

145. Eaters of the Dead by Kevin J Wetmore Jr. If I could describe this book in one word, it would be “sloppy”. It is a survey of folklore and mythology related to cannibals and man-eating monsters. It seems, at least at first, to be arguing for a hypothesis that all cannibal monsters are embodiments of fears of survival cannibalism, but seems to give up on that thesis half way through. Possibly because the author realizes it’s a non-starter. For example, he claims that ghouls represent a fear of survival cannibalism in the Arabian Desert, before revealing that modern authors consider the corpse-eating and grave-robbing aspect of ghouls to be a Western appropriation in gothic literature, as opposed to an authentic folkloric belief. It also pairs some ideas in very odd ways and acts as if they make sense, like discussing both feeding the dead to vultures (as the Zoroastrians and Tibetans do) and Polyphemus in the Odyssey in the same chapter. It also seems weird to write a book about man-eating monsters, spend an entire chapter on ghouls, but dismiss zombies in two paragraphs. There’s some interesting ideas in here, and some good sources, but I think I would rather read those sources than this book (and in some cases, I have!).

#reading log #monster books #cannibalism #folklore #roman history #classical history #glassical greece #bogeymen #cryptid #cryptozoology

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skippyv20 · 3 years

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“Change the Narrative” - Barbados Advocate 04/06/21

Very disturbing….

“ONE British social critic and media professional believes it is time to change the narrative as she outlined the colonial exploitation and systematic ideology of white supremacy that underpinned Britain’s existence.

The remarks were made by Afua Hirsch, Wallis Annenberg Chair in Journalism and Communication at USC Annenberg, during a Vice-Chancellor’s Forum themed “Royalty, Racism, Republicanism & Reparation: Preparing for the 60th Anniversary of Nationhood in the CARICOM Region” recently.

She noted that Britain continues to perpetuate the idea that it is the nation of the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade rather than the one that built itself on the back of the trade – all levels of society, economy, and infrastructure.

The death of George Floyd was a trigger

Hirsch said the murder of African American George Floyd changed the atmosphere as it triggered people’s consciousness into challenging the reality that we have been conditioned to accept – that violence against black people is a normal part of life.

The USC chair also mentioned the story of Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, and the Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, which has exposed the reality of racism at the core of British establishment to the public. She stressed that today, the British Royal family still inherits wealth built from the colonial criminal enterprise of enslavement and colonialism. She added this is affected by individual and structural forms of racism. Hirsch stated that the era of waiting for British institutions to do the right thing has passed.

“This is the era of black activism, self-education, organisation, and change,” said Hirsch.

March 25 marked the annual observance of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The UWI event honoured the hundreds of thousands who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system and contextualised the observance in the current context of the global movement for reparatory justice.

The Office of the Vice-Chancellor, in collaboration with the Centre for Reparation Research at The UWI, hosted the event.”

Again....I say Harry bringing people to light.....thank you❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

4/23/21

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impressivepress · 3 years

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Live like a Rockefeller — The Rivals by Diego Rivera

At first glance, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and the Mexican artist Diego Rivera couldn’t have been more different. She was the daughter of a prominent Republican senator and had married into one of America’s most famous capitalist families; he was a devoted member of Mexico’s Communist party, who had visited Moscow before his first U.S. mural commission in San Francisco.

Abby, however, was a huge admirer of Rivera’s art. He’d developed a reputation as one of his generation’s leading modern artists, and she knew all about his triumphs as a muralist in his homeland (in buildings such as the Ministry of Education in Mexico City), not to mention his mural for the Pacific Stock Exchange Tower in San Francisco. She purchased a number of Rivera’s oil paintings, sketches and watercolours. Her first purchase in 1929 was May Day Parade, a Rivera sketchbook (now in the collection at MoMA), which he had completed on a trip to Moscow.

In 1931, in her capacity as co-founder and trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Abby invited Rivera for a solo exhibition at the institution, making him only the second artist, after Matisse, to receive that honour. It is likely that Mexico had been on her mind for decades, ever since her first trip to the country in 1903. Rivera embodied everything that Abby and Alfred Barr, MoMA’s first Director, were looking for in terms of the museum’s programming: he was both a modernist genius with a towering body of work and as Mexico’s leading muralist, he was the foremost proponent of a genuine art movement from the Americas to the world.

On arrival in New York, Rivera paid a visit to the Rockefellers’ Manhattan home with his wife, the artist Frida Kahlo. ‘He was a very imposing and charismatic figure: tall and weighing three hundred pounds,’ Abby’s son, David Rockefeller, recalled in later life.

Rivera brought with him a new canvas, titled The Rivals, which Abby had commissioned and which he had painted in a makeshift studio aboard the steamship, the SS Morro Castle, en route from Mexico. The painting depicts a traditional festival from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca known as Las Velas, a colourful celebration in observance of local patron saints and of the natural bounties of spring.

‘It’s undoubtedly one of Rivera’s masterpieces,’ says Virgilio Garza, Head of Latin American Paintings at Christie’s. ‘Compared with his murals — which are epic in scale and content, with sweeping vistas and narratives that are often ideologically or historically driven — this easel painting is equally monumental in presence, yet devoid of Rivera’s politics. It’s a much more intimate scene focused on regional traditions, and the brushwork is deliberately looser.’

Others have praised the rich combination of bright colours, reminiscent of Matisse (whom Rivera knew from the decade he’d spent in Paris, between 1911 and 1921) but also, more pertinently, reflecting the vivid hues evident across Mexico: from its flora to its architecture. ‘And then there’s his modern conception of space through the use of multiple planes of colour that recall the formal effects of synthetic Cubism,’ says Garza. ‘Forms and figures are synthesised and reduced to their essential elements. The viewer’s gaze recedes in stages, from the men in the foreground, to the brightly dressed women under the hanging papel picado. Rivera’s brilliant composition of intersecting planes creates a cinematic narrative.’

The Rivals was as popular with Abby as Rivera’s sell-out MoMA retrospective proved to be with New York’s public. In 1932, she approached the artist about another project: completing a mural for the lobby of the RCA Building, the centrepiece of the Rockefeller Center, her husband, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.’s new complex in Midtown Manhattan.

Rivera’s idea was a fresco on the twin themes of human cooperation and scientific development, and he sent Abby a planned sketch of it along with a letter saying, ‘I assure you that… I shall try to do for the Rockefeller Center — and especially for you, Madame — the best of all the work I have done up to this time.’

In the process of painting the mural Man at the Crossroads, Rivera made several changes to his original sketch that would have fateful consequences. Chief among these was the addition of Lenin’s features into the face of a labourer. When news of this change in the mural reached Nelson Rockefeller, David’s older brother, he asked Rivera to substitute the late Soviet leader for another figure.

The painter, despite many attempts to persuade him, refused. Equally vexing to the Rockefeller family was the depiction of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. on the left side of the mural drinking among a group of men and cavorting with women of questionable repute. The latter was a striking image given the family’s devout religious views and their abstinence from drinking and smoking, as well as the Rockefellers’ firm support of U.S. Prohibition-era laws. With no compromise reached, Rivera was dismissed, and although he was paid in full the mural was destroyed. ‘The mural was quite brilliantly executed,’ wrote David Rockefeller in Memoirs in 2002, ‘but not appropriate’.

Rivera would go on to recreate Man at the Crossroads, in modified form as Man, Controller of the Universe, on the walls of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Here again, Rivera depicted John D. Rockefeller, Jr. clutching a martini amid scenes of gambling and excess, while the other side featured workers and various Communist leaders.

Despite all these events, Abby and her sons Nelson and David remained admirers until the end. She would donate many of the Rivera works she owned to MoMA, although The Rivals was one piece she held on to. As a sign of how highly she valued it, Abby gave it to David and his wife Peggy McGrath as a wedding present in 1940. They, in turn, would give the painting pride of place, for decades, in the living room of their summer residence, Ringing Point, in Maine.

David Rockefeller’s interest in Latin America and its art and culture spanned many decades. In January 1946, after completing his military service in the Second World War and before he started work at Chase Bank, he and Peggy decided to take ‘a second honeymoon’. They settled on Mexico as the destination for their six-week holiday.

‘This was our first direct exposure to Latin America, and we were very much taken with what we saw,’ David wrote years later. ‘We were especially fascinated by the remarkable pre-Columbian monuments and artefacts, as well as by the charm of much contemporary Mexican painting and folk art.’ He recounted how keen they were to see the famous Mexican frescoes of Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City and Cuernavaca. ‘We especially wanted to see Rivera’s murals, since I had met Rivera with my mother when he first came to New York in 1931,’ he recalled. ‘I had always found him to be a very sympathetic person, and I liked his painting.’

The couple had travelled to Mexico armed with letters of introduction from Nelson Rockefeller, who had been appointed Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs by President Roosevelt and had subsequently visited virtually all the Latin American nations. One letter was addressed to Roberto Montenegro, an artist friend of Nelson’s, who introduced David and Peggy to other contemporary Mexican artists.

At the beginning of his long career with Chase, one of David’s first assignments was in the bank’s Latin American division. In 1965 he assumed the chairmanship of both the Council of the Americas and its new cultural adjunct, the Center for Inter-American Relations (CIAR). The latter was responsible for introducing Americans to the cultures and artists of Latin America, including staging the first one-man show in New York for Fernando Botero.

In 1991, he endowed the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard, which continues to explore Latin American politics, society, and culture, and after his retirement from the bank David was made chairman of The Americas Society, which afforded him, he said, ‘many new opportunities to visit the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, and to appreciate their diverse art and culture.’

~ ROCKEFELLER COLLECTION | AUCTION PREVIEW · 9 May 2018.

#diego rivera #painting #abby aldrich rockefeller #artist biography #man at the crossroads #Christies

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aleathinksart · 3 years

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The Expression of Culture and Identity Through Art

Introduction

Culture is what unites groups of people. Think back to high school, where students were separated by grade, academic level, and social status. Niche upon niche spread among an entire student body, where everyone had their place. Although some could argue that the clique-like nature of high school is a toxic social construct; I argue that those spaces that I found myself categorized into, made my high school experience feel safe.

The customs and interests I fostered among those social circles gave me room to develop a sense of identity. A sense of control. That for angsty high school me, was everything.

That is why for my final project I want to highlight the idea of cultural identity and how my chosen artists have expressed this concept through their artwork. The subject matter ahead will deal with themes such as race, sexuality, and geographical customs.

The Procuress, Dirck van Baburen, 1622, Oil on Canvas

Sex work is an undeniable staple of Amsterdam. Tourists come from around the world to explore Amsterdam’s red-light district in all it’s glory. It is a location that although salacious to some, holds significant history for the people of Netherlands.

This history dates back as far as 17th century Holland which is the time and location in which our first work, The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen was created. The Procuress is a piece that highlights this cultural aspect of Dutch history by illustrating a prostitution exchange. In the painting we see the procuress, who oversees the prostitutes, soliciting her services to the male client. The male client is showing signs of interest; wrapping his arm around the prostitute, and waving his payment owed towards the procuress. An intriguing detail about the painting is the fact that Baburen displays the prostitute playing a lute identifying, the message he is intending to send regarding the subject matter of the painting. Another notable feature I noticed about the painting is the difference in appearance of the Procuress in comparison to the prostitute. The prostitute’s looks are exaggerated to create a more “desirable” female. Her chest is exposed, and she is young, while in comparison the procuress is conservative and old, almost concealing any signs of femininity.

The era in which this painting was made was known as the Dutch Golden Age, which was filled with genre paintings of brothels. In 17th century Holland there was loose laws pertaining to prostitution that did not protect sex workers, but also did not outlaw their profession. Overall, the public view of prostitution was negative; prostitutes were seen as indecent and conniving. Though, that did not stop many Dutch men from frolicking in the pleasure of sexual promiscuity. Overtime, the tides have shifted for and against sex workers in the Netherlands and it was not until 2000, that prostitution was officially legalized, hundreds of years after this painting was created. Although the tides have been inconsistent, there is no denying the impact this class of people had on developing Dutch culture.

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, Jacques-Louis David, 1812, Oil on Canvas

Napoleon Bonaparte, chances are that name ignites some kind of reaction in you, it sure did for those living in 19th century Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military leader who played an instrumental role in the republicans winning the French Revolution. He rose to power after the coup of 1799, where he was titled as First Consul, which established him as the new leader of France. His ruling style has been studied for years, making some view him as a dictator and some view him as a hero. He was a brilliant military leader, so once he began ruling France he started aggressively expanding into neighboring European countries. He had a “ends justify the means” approach, whether that was a good thing or not depended on if you were on Bonaparte’s good side or not. Someone who was unquestionably on Bonaparte’s good side? Jacques-Louis David.

Napoleon Bonaparte fell in love with Jacques-Louis David’s work after viewing his piece The Intervention of the Sabine Women. He wanted his grandeur to be admired on a large-scale, so he began commissioning portraits from Louis-David, one of those portraits being The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries by Jacques Louis-David. This piece perfectly captures the neoclassical style Jacques Louis-David was famous for. The painting emits a sophisticated level of grandeur, a grandeur that I believe is reminiscent of the French monarchy. Napoleon is posed standing among his successes. Jacques Louis-David composed the painting to allude to the idea of Napoleon staying up late in his study to finish the Napoleonic Code, which is why there is scattered pieces of paper on his desk. Near the desk, you can also see a sword hinting at Napoleon’s success as a military general. Napoleon can also be seen posing with one hand in his vest, an iconic pose commonly associated with the emperor, which stands for nobility.

The idea of the republican regime and the French Revolution was to extinguish the French monarchy, but it seems as though Bonaparte as a leader revels in it’s values. Culturally, France was supposed to move away from nobility and tighten the gap between rich and poor, but that is contrary to what we see in this painting. Napoleon relishes his riches and power and uses Jacques Louis-David’s talent to amplify that message across Europe. Although Napoleon was never crowned as a king, he breathes life into what would turn back into the monarchy later in French history.

Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Specter, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1843 to 1847, Woodblock Print

As the Greeks are famously known for their mythological gods, the Japanese have a set of their own mythological creatures and tales. One novel that makes these themes evident is from the novel Story of Utö Yasutaka written by Santö Kyöden. It is 939CE, and a Samurai by the name of Taira no Masakado is marching to Kyoto with an army to revolt against Japan’s central government. Once at Kyoto, Taira no Masakado’s army holds off against central forces for fifty-nine days before Taira no Masakado’s cousin leads an enemy battalion that demolishes his forces. Seeking revenge Masakado’s daughter, Princess Takiyasha, studies dark magic and summons a Gashadokuro, a gigantic skeleton fabricated from the bones of the fallen, to eat her uncle.

This tale is what Utagawa Kuniyoshi illustrates in his piece Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Specter. Kuniyoshi’s artwork is a woodcut triptych that displays Princess Takiyasha summoning her monster by reading a spell from a scroll. Nearby, Ōya Taro Mitsukuni and a Samurai sent by the Japanese central government to arrest the princes are crouching in fear by the great giant. The most substantial accomplishment of this painting is the anatomical accuracy of the skeleton beast. In Edo Japan anatomical studies and research was far and few between in comparison to Europe at time, making this piece a spectacle.

Fables are common tradition among many cultures and have been used not only as a source of entertainment, but as a method of teaching moral lessons. This idea is no different during the time of Edo Japan, same ideas, different stories. In Ancient Greece while they were warning of Narcissus and his cursed reflection, the Edo Japanese were telling tales of Gashadokuro, beasts that bite off people’s heads.

Four-faced Hamat'sa Mask, George Walkus, 1938, wood, paint, cedar bark, and string

The Four-faced Hamat'sa Mask pictured was hand carved by George Walkus. Hamat’sa, refers to a sacred dance performed by the highest-ranking members of the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe, the tribe in which Walkus is from. Ritual dances are a practical form of story telling and culture preserving among indigenous peoples. The Hamat’sa tells the story of how the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe ancestors killing the beaked, cannibal beast. In turn, for defeating the beast the Kwakwaka’wakw were given his dances, songs, masks, and privileges to bestow upon future generations.

These dances primarily take place in the winter during holiday celebrations such as potlatch. Due to the important nature of such spiritual events for the Kwakwaka’wakw peoples, the masks need to be of the utmost quality. Walkus created his mask with dramatics in mind. The bold blocks of red along the beaks and nostrils bring attention to it’s most daunting features. The mask has cedar-bark fringe attached to the bottom of the mask to camouflage the wearer’s body. The beaks are also built within them, a mechanism that opens and closes the mouth making jarring noises throughout the dance. Everything about the mask is created to enhance the experience and storytelling for the viewer.

American People Series #20: Die, Faith Ringgold, 1967, Oil on Canvas

The 1950s through the 1960s marks the civil rights movement in America. The civil rights movement was a social justice movement where black Americans pushed for the same rights their white neighbors had enjoyed for centuries. Although a turning point in American history, the turn did not follow through without it’s fair share of sacrifices. During this period, black Americans faced huge amounts of backlash from white citizens, politicians, police officers, and so many more. This fallout resulted in the deaths of many black Americans who chose to fight and speak out regardless of the consequences. The civil rights movement came to an end officially on April 4, 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The outcomes of the movement, although a step in the right direction were only the beginning of the U.S accomplishing racial equality. The civil rights movement gave black Americans the right to vote, lifted public segregation, and created The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAAP), among other achievements.

I believe the most powerful thing an artist can do is tell their truth, and this is precisely what Faith Ringgold does in her The American People Series #20: Die. Through the ongoing racial tension in the 1960s Faith Ringgold creates her American People Series which is a collection of 20 paintings that progressively display the relations between black and white Americans becoming more and more strained. The final piece, Die becomes the outcome of this strife. The painting unveils a bloody massacre between black and white Americans, men and women, the young and old, stating that the issues happening during the civil rights violence is not biased to any singular group of people. If we fall, we all fall together, I can imagine Ringgold saying while creating the piece.

Ringgold believed in the importance of documenting such a chaotic period because of the idea of preserving cultural identity, “How could I, as an African American woman artist, document what was happening around me?” Ringgold states about the painting, which to me says it all, as to why I chose this piece.

Camas para Sueños, Carmen Lomas Garza, 1985, Gouache on Paper

“Hope” is the first word that comes to mind when I view the piece, Camas para Sueños by Carmen Lomas Garza. The painting brings us into Garza’s childhood growing up as a Mexican female in America. Garza and her sister sit on the rooftop to her childhood home in South Texas, looking at the stars and dreaming of becoming artists. Below the children we see a window to the home, upon closer examination Garza’s mom can be seen tending to the household. What I find interesting about this glimpse into Garza’s childhood home is the symbolism she displays. Her mom seems to be wearing a dress along with an apron while doing chores, reminding me of the classic American housewife. In the house you can also see a cross hanging on the wall, suggesting her home upholds religious values. These two parallels create a tension in the painting, almost like Garza is being pulled into two different directions. Her wonder and exploration outside the household versus her conservative and traditional inside the household. I feel as though this artwork gives me a sense of hope, because of the reminder it gives of the power of children’s dreams, coupled with the fact that Garza’s artwork is being shown in museums today. Meaning, that the child’s dream does end up coming to fruition.

Aside from the painting, Garza credits her drive to create art to the Chicano Movement. The Chicano Movement was an effort led by Mexican Americans between the 1950s to 1970s, to gain equal rights as citizens of America. It was a radicalized movement meant to reclaim and liberate Mexican heritage and identity. It was largely focused on empowering the community, and in the case of Garza I would say it worked.

Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?, Guerilla Girls, 1989, Screenprint on Paper

We had First Wave feminism, where the primary goal on the female agenda was to gain voting rights. In school we learn about activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the first women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls. Next, we had Second Wave feminism, which took place around the 1960s, so I could imagine why it gets overlooked in the curriculum due to the civil rights movement. Second Wave feminism was mainly focused on the wage gap and overall discrimination of females in comparison to males politically. Then we get to Third Wave feminism, which is brushed off in many textbooks, and is generally looked down upon due to it’s radical nature. I would define the Third Wave feminist agenda as honing in on the social constructs of being a women, completely burning the concept down, and rebuilding it from the ground up. The new identities they were creating for themselves and the means in which they were creating them, put many off at the time.

This is the ideology that gave space for artists such as the Guerrilla Girls to voice their discontent with male superiority. In their piece Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?, they speak out against the Met Museum’s insistence on putting females bodies on display over putting females artist’s artwork on display. They are making a call to action against the male gaze. The poster shows a classic reclining female nude and put a guerrilla mask on her head (alluding to their name), next to a quote in bold letters “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?”. Below the bold lettered quote is a caption that articulates the percentage of female nudes in the Met. Versus the percentage of female artists work in the met. The poster is one of 30 apart of a magazine collection titled ‘Guerrilla Girls Talk Back’. The posters are a call to action to females around the U.S to fight the norms of womanhood and stand for equality.

Bar Boy, Salman Toor, 2019, Oil on Wood

Salman Toor is a Pakistani-born, queer artist, who painted the piece Bar Boy. In this painting Toor illustrates a crowded bar scene, with the focal point being a slender male visibly in his own bubble in comparison to the rest of the bar patrons. The male is illuminated by the light of his phone screen, seemingly discontented from those around him. The painting could suggest the discontent the youth feel about dating in the modern era, with online dating, and hookups. Though it seems like the male is unphased by this realization, or maybe he is a part of the problem, taking an interest in his phone rather than in those around him. Maybe, Toor himself is discontent with modern American culture.

#art history #art #culture #identity

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kyleelisetht · 3 years

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Artist/Activist John Sims Perpetually Recasts Valentines and Goes ‘Beyond the Divide’ in 2021. ~KyleeliseTHT

What happened on February 14, 2021, in this starkly divided nation when an artist brought to the dinner table a group of Republicans and Democrats amid a global pandemic? Forget politics. It was poetry night.

With verses in hand – one penned by an assumed unknown author, another by a Pakistani poet, an Irish bard buoyed by the ‘Bard of Avon’, a poem lamenting pandemic angst and political divide within a single household—there were no battle lines, just words steeped in pain, advocating coexistence, respect, and, as spoken by more than one presenter, appeals for civility.

Conservatives and Liberals have taken a stand

Families and couples have drawn lines in the sand

Never in history has politics mattered

To the point that our relationships

Have become torn and tattered. ~Hank Goldsby (2021)

So, how many times can one square the complex and multidimensional root of love and unleash it, even love between political opposites and ordinary citizens? As calculated by the artist John Sims, a Detroit-to-Sarasota, Fla. transplant—the infinite equation is primed to be reevaluated nearly every year.

Sims, who first hosted ‘The SquareRoot of Love’ on Valentine's 2010, organized his seventh, which commenced this year on February 12, 2021, and concluded on the event’s signature date – Valentine’s Day.

After the first two days of ‘SquareRoot’ festivities showcasing artisans of song, spoken word, and visual art – an overture, if you will, to ‘V-day,’ Sims gathered the bipartisan group of local elected officials, political supporters, and activists to shepherd an act of “civility and love, “ he said.

Among those in attendance were Hagen Brody, Marsha and Hank Goldsby, Scott Hopes, and Dee McFarland. Politics was not on the menu. Instead, guests had been asked to introduce an assigned course during the dinner by reading a favorite love poem.

The wordfest and five-course meal, complemented by champagne, wines, and what Sims deemed the quintessential American dessert—Apple Pie à la Mode was held at The Rosemary, a swanky Sarasota eatery, and set to music performed by the young but seasoned musicians of the Modern Jazz Ensemble. A single romantic verse about love and patience during a couple’s “building years” reminded the audience that it was, indeed, lover’s day, and was offered by the poet Melanie Lavender.

Known for work that challenges historical iconography held in place by sentiment, yet deeply rooted in racial oppression, and his across-interest collaborations undergone to promote mutual understanding, Sims, who is also a reputable figure among math artists, has organized ‘SquareRoot’ as part of his creative practice that is a wholly collaborative experience in which divergent voices bring their interpretation of how to solve or, at least, engage the equation of love. The contributions range from erudite to experiential.

Each of Sims’ ‘SquareRoot of Love’ rallies creatives of all disciplines, as well as socio-political operatives, journalists, and community thinkers to square the root of love in its many iterations within the context of the pressing questions of the day. In its debut year, Sims with performance artist Karen Finley delved into the notion of love as a trope, featuring responses in verse by poets JoAnne Growney and Regie Cabico. The annual event has since grown – twice occurring in the States and Paris, concurrently – to include a larger group of contributors, all vying to “square” love in all its most uncomfortable places.

In 2019, Sims asked artists to triangulate ‘love’ with the anniversary of seventeen and seventeen murdered and injured, respectively, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. As this writer was a contributing poet, I can share that no solution could be extrapolated from the reality of this tragedy.

In 2020, Florida’s Poet Laureate, Peter Meinke, and journalist/civil Rights activist Charlayne Hunter-Gault presented poems that spoke more traditionally to love as unpredictable yet sustaining. However, as Sims’ work is always tied to a complex unfurling of love within the difficulties of realities, this year’s theme comes in an era of what has been deemed an existential political, racial, and social reckoning anchored in the quagmires of 2020. In response: Sim’s organized ‘Beyond the Divide,’ the seventh and political edition of ‘The SquareRoot of Love’.

The 2021 affair came eleven months after the country became restrained by Coronavirus and was viscerally divided over race and politics. “Our differences in religion were much easier than our differences in politics,” said long-time resident and retired banker Hank Goldsby, a Conservative, who lamented the strain of it all on his thirty-year marriage to his wife Marsha, a healthcare provider and registered Democrat. The Goldsbys shared a “2020 retrospect” penned by Hank of the perils of being quasi-quarantined and under significant external pressure. Of it all, Hank concluded, “that there’s a lot more to life than politics.”

Dr. Scott Hopes read ‘Before You Came,’ a four stanza tome about unexpected change and a slow renewal written by Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Divergent political views, as Dr. Hopes explained, during his presentation, ushered a break from his beloved son of whom he is gushingly proud. “We all have to come back together,” he said. “Politics is not worth it.”

The poet is unknown to her, but the writer’s poem has hung in Delores McFarland’s home since the mid-eighties and has been a source of solace, especially in times of personal loss of family, she said. McFarland has survived her only child.

A retired HR professional and the president of the Sarasota Black Democratic Caucus, McFarland’s mission, she said, “... is to engage and empower black voters in Sarasota.” And, she is deeply concerned about the lives of black men. “I believe that black men are an endangered species, and we should respect them no matter what their situation,” she said. And she has expectations of Black men, too. “Their responsibility is to go through a growth and self-actualization process to grow into the mature person that God intended them to be,” she said.

When McFarland read from the lower stanza of her found poem, “And you learn that you really can endure/you really are strong/ you really do have worth/ and you learn/ and you learn/ with every goodbye, you learn...” she was, herself, empowered, once more, through the words of the writer whose name she’d never known – the Jamaican poet Lisa Goycochea.

“Civility is extremely important,” said thirty-eight-year-old Hagen Brody before he delivered the poem ‘Speak to Me with Civility’, written by the Ireland-born poet Francis Duggan.

In this beautiful coastal city of social, political, and economic unevenness, where the difficulties of race and policing are as evident though not as fatal as in many cities across the country, and strife and accusations in all directions are uncomfortably common, Hagen plays a prominent role. He is the Mayor of Sarasota, Fla.

“We’re a resilient country,” Hagen said. “Our democracy is extremely strong.” And most of the nation’s citizens share similar values and dreams, he believes. Still, there’s trouble in America. There’s trouble even in his beautiful city.

Hagen said that a return to civility will open pathways for understanding and necessary change through cooperation. A return to civility is an unavoidable first step, he explained.

So committed to the possibility of civil discourse for change, Hagen, after he reads Duggan’s poem, added an arc of reconciliation with a verse from the consummate bard himself, William Shakespeare: “And do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.” (Taming of the Shrew)

So, how does one solve the equation of division? “Strive mightily” and, perhaps, try as one might solve the activist-artist John Sims’ SquareRoot of Love.

(February 2021)

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The 2020 election will be the COVID-19 election. Voters will almost certainly be asked to condemn or endorse President Trump’s handling of the pandemic — and quite possibly while the virus is in the midst of a fall relapse.

Any year would have been a bad year for a pandemic. But a presidential election year makes it even worse. As elected officials at all levels of government scramble for resources and weigh complex decisions on how to respond, the electoral implications introduce a thorny calculus: How will it all play in November?

Here is the crudest of calculations: If Democrats can successfully associate the substantial harm wreaked by COVID-19 with Trump, they win in November. But if Trump and the Republicans can deflect enough blame elsewhere and Trump gets credit for making things less bad than they could have been, Trump will win.

Democrats have done the obvious so far: Pin all the blame on Trump by highlighting how he initially downplayed the virus and blasting his subsequent stumbles. They’ve also tried to position themselves as the party of good governance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for instance, announced the formation of a new select committee that will oversee how the Trump administration manages the $2 trillion economic stimulus package, with a focus on waste, fraud and abuse.

It’s also possible that some traditional Democratic constituencies will be simply hit harder by the virus, too, which could make the fallout of the virus more personal and a stronger point to campaign on. For instance, in blue states and cities like New York City, the virus has hit especially hard, including in poorer and less white neighborhoods. And as the harm becomes clearer, we will almost certainly see echoes of Hurricane Katrina, with its disparate racial and class impacts, but on a much larger scale. These inequalities might reverberate with Democrats’ long-standing criticisms that Trump is a racist — and could yield record turnout along with a persuasive fundraising message.

And don’t underestimate the power of negative partisanship. In 2016, many Republicans held their noses and voted for Trump because they wanted to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House. That same logic could apply in 2020. If Democrats hit Trump hard enough, unified disdain for Trump might matter more than anything former Vice President Joe Biden promises, bringing Democratic voters together after another fractious primary. Though negative partisanship has been building up now for several election cycles, it thrives on frustration and anger, and 2020 will likely offer plenty.

For Trump and Republicans, much of their 2020 strategy seems to be focused on putting the blame elsewhere — Democrats, the “mainstream media,” China and even some of America’s governors.

Let’s start with one of Trump’s favorite punching bags: the media. In what may be a preview of a Republican electoral strategy to come, Sen. Marco Rubio recently tweeted that “Some in our media can’t contain their glee & delight in reporting that the U.S. has more #CoronaVirus cases than #China.” This argument probably sounds familiar, as many conservative pundits have pushed it since the beginning of the outbreak in the U.S. It’s still possible that the ultimate death toll undershoots the current worst-case scenarios. If so, Republicans could eventually point to the high predictions as fearmongering. But many experts still think the situation could grow much worse, so it’s also a very risky strategy at this point. (Ironically, if the death toll is lower than predicted, it may be because the higher projections themselves scared politicians and citizens into following social-distancing guidelines.)

As for pinning the blame on Democrats, Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have argued that impeachment was a major distraction during a critical time in February. (Never mind that he was reportedly first briefed on the spread of a deadly virus in China in November or that, after his acquittal in the Senate on Feb. 5, Trump spent much of February downplaying the threat of a pandemic.)

Trump and his allies have also found a scapegoat in China, arguing the Chinese government engaged in a massive cover-up that allowed the virus to spread, which blindsided the Trump administration. The U.S. intelligence community has found evidence that China underreported its outbreak, so this could resonate with voters, especially considering both Democrats and Republicans agree that the Chinese government bears some responsibility for the spread of the pandemic. And if Republicans do pursue this strategy, it builds on a persistent theme of Trump-era Republican campaigns: Blame the outsider. After all, in 2018 Republican campaign strategists ran an aggressive anti-immigration campaign because they believed it was an issue that would help them win. So expect a possible replay of this in 2020, with China replacing the “migrant caravan.”

Trump has also pointed his finger at Democratic governors for failing to stockpile their own supplies. The political gambit appears to boil down to this: Trump thinks he could benefit electorally if he pushes governors — particularly Democratic governors — to say what a great job he’s doing.

Consider Trump’s tussle with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who complained her state wasn’t getting the medical supplies she needed from the federal government. Trump responded, “I don’t know if she knows what’s going on, but all she does is sit there and blame the federal government … We don’t like to see complaints.” Michigan, after all, is likely to be a key swing state in 2020. This could certainly backfire, but this is the kind of high-stakes political gamesmanship that a pandemic in a presidential election year engenders.

Then finally, we come to the most dangerous hot potato of all: the administration of the election itself. In order to ensure a safe and fair election, jurisdictions across the country will have to rapidly transition to voting by mail and/or expand early voting.

But Trump and Republicans have already indicated they will be loath to support such measures, as they argue it would hurt Republicans at the ballot box. Democrats, meanwhile, have said that expanding vote-by-mail efforts is the only way to mitigate risks from in-person voting. Political scientists haven’t found any clear partisan advantage to voting by mail (if anything, it seems to encourage participation among more habitual voters). But Wisconsin’s beleaguered primary — which saw partisan fighting over whether to delay the election — could be a harbinger of the difficulties to come.

And if that is the case, November will be a mess in states that don’t get their act together soon — especially in battleground states with divided governments, like Wisconsin.1 (Other likely swing states have divided governments, including Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Hampshire.) It’s unclear where this fight is headed, but it is likely to be a high-stakes battle that echoes long-standing partisan grievances over how best to ensure access to voting. And given the logistical difficulties of implementing electoral changes, delays could actually be an effective tactic.

If it’s relatively clear how ugly the tone of the 2020 COVID-19 blame campaign will be, it’s much harder to say how all this will impact the actual outcome of the 2020 election. Trump’s approval rating has remained remarkably flat over the last three years despite the ups and downs of his presidency, largely because of how polarized American politics has become. In other words, very few events move the needle on public opinion anymore. Even the coronavirus crisis has given Trump only a relatively small boost, compared to those of other world leaders and most governors.

Ultimately, the blame games might offset. In our highly polarized era, most voters made up their mind long ago — hence Trump’s consistent approval numbers. But in an escalating arms race of blame, one-sided disarmament would be folly. So brace yourself.

In another world, or at another time in our history, a common threat like a pandemic might have brought Americans together. However, in this hyper-partisan presidential election year with so much blame to go around and so much pre-existing animosity to draw on, that might not be the case.

Instead, the months to come will test not only our health care system and our economy, but also our democracy and our ability to cooperate across party lines to win a novel kind of war against a novel kind of virus. If the road feels bumpy now, the path ahead looks like nothing but an obstacle course. Buckle up.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Lee Drutman

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theculturedmarxist · 4 years

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Idiotic “Conspiracy Theory”: John Boyega was cast as one of the leads in Star Wars because The Jews want to normalize miscegenation in an effort to effiminize American men and replace the White race!

Legitimate theory of a conspiracy: The Democrats have repeatedly stated how unpopular Bernie Sanders is with the wealthy capitalists that make up and fund their party leadership in spite of his overwhelming public support, and considering the political and professional ties of those involved and the vested interest the wealthy have in not seeing a man that wants to increase their taxes and undo some of the harm they’ve caused to the working class, the events in Iowa are at least somewhat suspicious.

The bourgeoisie get so incredibly nervous whenever people question their narrative because they are literally conspiring against the working class all the fucking time. This is in spite of the fact that they themselves admit it, boldly and openly. It’s just that when they do, they don’t use the words “conspiracy.”

Behind a Key Anti-Labor Case, a Web of Conservative Donors

In the summer of 2016, government workers in Illinois received a mailing that offered them tips on how to leave their union. By paying a so-called fair-share fee instead of standard union dues, the mailing said, they would no longer be bound by union rules and could not be punished for refusing to strike.

“To put it simply,” the document concluded, “becoming a fair-share payer means you will have more freedom.”

The mailing, sent by a group called the Illinois Policy Institute, may have seemed like disinterested advice. In fact, it was one prong of a broader campaign against public-sector unions, backed by some of the biggest donors on the right. It is an effort that will reach its apex on Monday, when the Supreme Court hears a case that could cripple public-sector unions by allowing the workers they represent to avoid paying fees.

One of the institute’s largest donors is a foundation bankrolled by Richard Uihlein, an Illinois industrialist who has spent millions backing Republican candidates in recent years, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois.

Tax filings show that Mr. Uihlein has also been the chief financial backer in recent years of the Liberty Justice Center, which represents Mark Janus, the Illinois child support specialist who is the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.

And Mr. Uihlein has donated well over $1 million over the years to groups like the Federalist Society that work to orient the judiciary in a more conservative direction. They have helped produce a Supreme Court that most experts expect to rule in Mr. Janus’s favor.

The case illustrates the cohesiveness with which conservative philanthropists have taken on unions in recent decades. “It’s a mistake to look at the Janus case and earlier litigation as isolated episodes,” said Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a Columbia University political scientist who studies conservative groups. “It’s part of a multipronged, multitiered strategy.”

Today, MLB's Owners Decide How To Wage War

MLB's 30 owners will meet in Baltimore today to elect the first new commissioner since Bud Selig took the reins in 1992—unless there is enough discord and politicking to prevent any candidate from receiving the required 23 votes. Which there almost certainly is! Today will see the first open, public battle in a vicious power struggle that promises to define MLB's relationship with its players over the coming decades, and, more immediately, the likelihood of a work stoppage in 2016.

The three finalists named by the search committee last week are MLB COO Rob Manfred, MLB VP of business Tim Brosnan, and Boston Red Sox chairman Tom Werner.

As has been reported out over recent weeks and months by The New York Times, this is a two-horse race between Manfred, Selig's underboss and presumptive successor, and Werner, a dark-horse candidate backed by a coalition of maverick owners led by White Sox boss Jerry Reinsdorf.

The battle here is not between Manfred and Werner; it's between Selig and Reinsdorf, two of the last remnants of baseball's old guard from the biliously anti-labor power structure of the 1980s, when owners illegally colluded to fix the free agency market to keep salaries down. (As always, it's important to remember that the players' strike of 1994 was really about the owners' collusion in the 1980s.)

Koch Brothers’ Internal Strategy Memo on Selling Tax Cuts: Ignore The Deficit

The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch spent much of the eight years of the Obama presidency stoking fears about the budget deficit. Their political network aired an unending cascade of campaign advertisements against Democratic politicians, sponsored several national bus tours, and paid organizers in communities across the country to mobilize public demonstrations, all focused on the dangers of increasing the deficit.

One such ad even warned that government debt would lead to a Chinese takeover of America — which, for many voters, is a concern linked to debt. Another effort, also quietly bankrolled by the Koch network, used Justin Bieber memes to try to reach millennials about too much government borrowing.

Now that Republicans control all levers of power in Washington and the Koch brothers are poised to reap a windfall of billions of dollars through tax cuts, they have a new message: Don’t worry about the deficit.

The Intercept obtained a messaging memo from the Koch brothers’ network on how to sell tax reform legislation. The memo went out to members of the network of likeminded Republican donors, which includes dozens of wealthy investors and business executives.

“Network,” “web,” “association,” “coalition,” “group,” “foundation.” When you strip away all the corporate newspeak, they are saying that these people are engaged in a conspiracy.

Historically, anti-labor conspiracies have themselves been big business. Just take the Mohawk Valley Formula for example:

The Mohawk Valley formula is a plan for strikebreaking purportedly written by the president of the Remington Rand company James Rand, Jr. around the time of the Remington Rand strike at Ilion, New York in 1936/37.

The plan includes discrediting union leaders, frightening the public with the threat of violence, using local police and vigilantes to intimidate strikers, forming associations of "loyal employees" to influence public debate, fortifying workplaces, employing large numbers of replacement workers, and threatening to close the plant if work is not resumed.[1][2]

The authenticity of the written plan has never been clearly established. Although it was allegedly published in the National Association of Manufacturers Labor Relations Bulletin, no original copy has been found, nor does NAM list it among its pamphlets from that era.[3][non-primary source needed] Parts of the plan use language sympathetic to the views of labor organizers. The Remington Rand company did indeed ruthlessly suppress the strikes, as documented in a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board, and the plan has been accepted as a guide to the methods that were used. At least one source names the strikebreaker Pearl Bergoff and his so-called "Bergoff Technique" as the origin of the formula.[4] Rand and Bergoff were both indicted by the same federal grand jury for their roles in the Remington Rand strike.

Noam Chomsky has described the formula as the result of business owners' trend away from violent strikebreaking to a "scientific" approach based on propaganda. An essential feature of this approach is the identification of the management's interests with "Americanism," while labor activism is portrayed as the work of un-American outsiders. Workers are thus persuaded to turn against the activists and toward management to demonstrate their patriotism.[5][6]

The following is the text of the Mohawk Valley formula as quoted in the labor press:

When a strike is threatened, label the union leaders as "agitators" to discredit them with the public and their own followers. Conduct balloting under the foremen to ascertain the strength of the union and to make possible misrepresentation of the strikers as a small minority. Exert economic pressure through threats to move the plant, align bankers, real estate owners and businessmen into a "Citizens' Committee".

Raise high the banner of "law and order", thereby causing the community to mass legal and police weapons against imagined violence and to forget that employees have equal rights with others in the community.

Call a "mass meeting" to coordinate public sentiment against the strike and strengthen the Citizens' Committee.

Form a large police force to intimidate the strikers and exert a psychological effect. Utilize local police, state police, vigilantes and special deputies chosen, if possible, from other neighborhoods.

Convince the strikers their cause is hopeless with a "back-to-work" movement by a puppet association of so-called "loyal employees" secretly organized by the employer.

When enough applications are on hand, set a date for opening the plant by having such opening requested by the puppet "back-to-work" association.

Stage the "opening" theatrically by throwing open the gates and having the employees march in a mass protected by squads of armed police so as to dramatize and exaggerate the opening and heighten the demoralizing effect.

Demoralize the strikers with a continuing show of force. If necessary turn the locality into a warlike camp and barricade it from the outside world.

Close the publicity barrage on the theme that the plant is in full operation and the strikers are merely a minority attempting to interfere with the right to work. With this, the campaign is over—the employer has broken the strike.[2]

A similar, although more nuanced and longer, version was published in The Nation in 1937.[1]

The louder the capitalists cry and whinge about “conspiracy theories” the more certain you can be that the capitalists are engaged in a fucking conspiracy.

#conspiracy #conspiracy theories #conspiracy theory #bernie sanders #bernie sander for president #bernie sanders for president #iowa caucus #democratic national convention #democratic party #democrats #capitalism #overthrow the bourgeoisie #down with the bourgeoisie #koch brothers #supreme court

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Hamilton: Ranking Every Song from the Soundtrack

https://ift.tt/2YTCryx

Imagine the experience of being one of the first individuals to see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s now-classic Hamilton: An American Musical live.

The first thing you notice is the spartan, largely empty stage. Then as Leslie Odom Jr. takes the stage as Aaron Burr followed by Miranda’s Hamilton, you realize that this production about America’s founding fathers is made up almost exclusively of People of Color. That’s a lot to take in from the start. At a certain point, however, you’re bound to realize that the play is about 40 minutes in and The. Music. Has. Not. Stopped.

In addition to its many ingenious quirks and hooks, Hamilton is truly a musical musical. Miranda’s book and lyrics about one of the country’s most colorful and impressive founders has a lot of ground to cover. And it does so at a musical sprint with almost no expository time-wasting in-between.

As such, the Hamilton soundtrack is a staggeringly impressive piece of recent culture. At 46 tracks spread out over nearly two and a half hours, this album closely replicates the experience of a show most could never get a ticket to live. A passionate, thriving Hamilton fandom rose up out of that soundtrack and it continues through to this day.

Now, with Hamilton about to be more accessible than ever by joining Disney+, we decided to rank all 46 of those tracks.

46. Hurricane

The hurricane that ravaged Alexander Hamilton’s Caribbean island home of St. Croix was a crucial part of his life and led to him securing passage to the United States. But the song “Hurricane” uses the storm late in the play as a tortured metaphor for his turbulent public life. It’s undoubtedly the least energetic and weakest full song on the Hamilton soundtrack.

45. Farmer Refuted

“Farmer Refuted” does well to capture a young Hamilton’s rhetorical brilliance early on in the play but doesn’t hold up well against other, more fully crafted tunes. Hercules Mulligan mumbling “tear this dude apart” is certainly a soundtrack highlight though.

44. The Story of Tonight (Reprise)

What would any Broadway musical soundtrack be without a reprise or two? “The Story of Tonight (Reprise)” is certainly fun. But, ultimately, tales of Hamilton’s legendary horniness would have been better suited with a full song.

43. Schuyler Defeated

Just about every line of dialogue in Hamilton is sung… including heavily expository moments like Burr defeating Hamilton’s father-in-law in a local election. The subject matter and lack of true musical gusto makes “Schuyler Defeated” one of the least essential tracks in the show.

42. We Know

It’s a testament to how strong the Hamilton soundtrack is that a song like “We Know” could appear this low on the list. This account of Jefferson and company informing Hamilton of what they know is quite good; it just pales in comparison to the song in which they uncover Hamilton’s misdeeds.

41. It’s Quiet Uptown

This is sure to be a controversial spot on the list for this much-loved ballad. “It’s Quiet Uptown” is indeed composed quite beautifully. It also features lyrics that seem to be almost impatient in nature – as though the song is trying to rush the Hamiltons through the grieving process to get back on with the show.

40. Take a Break

Part of the miracle of Hamilton is how the soundtrack is able to turn rather mundane concepts and events in Hamilton’s life into rousing, larger-than-life musical numbers. “Take a Break” is charged with dramatizing the notion that Hamilton simply works too much with a sweetly melancholic melody. It does quite a good job in this regard but naturally can’t compete with some of the more bombastic songs on the list.

39. Stay Alive

Set in the brutal dredge of the Revolutionary War, “Stay Alive” is a song about desperation. And between its urgent piano rhythm and panicky Miranda vocals, it does quite a good job of capturing the appropriate mood. It also feels like one long middle with no compelling introduction or conclusion.

38. Best of Wives and Best of Women

Talk about “the calm before the storm.” “Best of Wives and Best of Women” captures one last quiet moment between Alexander and Eliza before Aaron Burr canonizes his one-time friend to the $10 bill. It’s brief, lovely, and effective.

37. The Adams Administration

Hamilton wisely surmises that the best way to introduce audiences to new eras of its title character’s life story is through the narration of the man who killed him in Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.). Odom Jr.’s real flare for showmanship turns what could be throw-away intros into truly excellent material. It also features a hilarious nod to Sherman Edwards’ 1776 musical when Hamilton says, “Sit down, John” and then adds a colorful, “you fat motherf***er!”

36. A Winter’s Ball

Again: Burr’s monologues are always a welcome presence in these tracks. And in “A Winter’s Ball,” he does some of his best work by setting up Burr and Hamilton’s prowess… “with the ladiessssss!”

35. Meet Me Inside

Despite a brief running time, “Meet Me Inside” is able to establish George Washington’s general bona fides and Hamilton’s daddy issues in equal measure.

34. Your Obedient Servant

“Your Obedient Servant” is Hamilton’s loving ode to passive aggression. In just two minutes and thirty seconds, you’ll believe that two grown men could somehow neg themselves into a duel via letter-writing.

33. The Reynolds Pamphlet

You know that old adage of “he could read out of a phonebook and it would be interesting?” Well Hamilton basically does that with “The Reynolds Pamphlet.” The ominous music injects real import into the simple act of writing that would upend the Hamilton family’s lives.

32. That Would Be Enough

Eliza’s refrain of “look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now” recurs at the beginning of “That Would Be Enough” in a truly touching way. This song is a real tonal whiplash from the revolutionary battles and duels that precede it, but it is ultimately strong enough to bring the focus back to Alexander and Eliza and not just the hectic world they inhabit.

31. The Story of Tonight

“The Story of Tonight” is both a clever drinking song among bros and a subtle setup for the show’s larger theme of one’s story being told after they’re gone. The song is both affecting and effective, just a little too short to stand out and make big waves on our list.

30. Blow Us All Away

“Blow Us All Away” is a fun, jaunty little ditty from Anthony Ramos’ Philip Hamilton. It rather ingeniously incorporates the young Philip’s own musical motif before ending in tragedy.

29. Stay Alive (Reprise)

It’s hard for any song to emotionally contend with the death of a child in under two minutes but “Stay Alive (Reprise)” does a shockingly good job. There’s a real sense of urgency to the music before it settles in for poor Philip to say his final words.

28. Burn

Musically, “Burn” is not one of the better ballads in Hamilton. Lyrically, however, its power is hard to deny. Phillipa Soo does a remarkable job communicating Eliza’s pain at her husband’s betrayal. More impressive is how she communicates the only way to work through that pain, which is through burning all of his personal correspondences and writings to her.

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27. The Election of 1800

Hamilton is the rare musical where one character can sing “can we get back to politics please?” and the audience’s response is “hell yeah!”. The show is uncommonly good at dramatizing boring political processes, and “The Election of 1800” is no exception. The song builds up to a pseudo-reprisal of “Washington on Your Side” in a shockingly effective and cathartic way.

26. History Has Its Eyes on You

“History Has Its Eyes on You” is a powerful recurring phrase through the entirety of Hamilton. Each and every time the concept comes up in a song, it truly stands out. Strangely though, the song that bears its name is only in the middle of the pack in terms of the show’s numbers. Perhaps it’s because it occurs near the middle of the first act, before we can properly appreciate its heady themes?

25. Aaron Burr, Sir

One of Hamilton’s most charming traits is how readily it acknowledges what an annoying pain in the ass its lead character can be at times. “Aaron Burr, Sir” is literally the second song of the entire musical and helps establish its playful tone as much as the bombastic opening number establishes a deadly serious one.

24. Guns and Ships

Ballads are nice. “I want” songs are nice. Recurring motifs are nice. But sometimes you need a song that just goes hard. Thanks to “America’s favorite fighting Frenchman” that’s what “Guns and Ships” delivers. Lafayette actor Daveed Diggs faces an enormous challenge in Act One by filling out the character’s growth in bits and pieces. “Guns and Ships” is the reward, where a fully unleashed (and English-fluent) Lafayette makes it very clear what hell he has in store for the British army.

23. Washington on Your Side

Thomas Jefferson is such a dynamo of a presence in Hamilton that one could be forgiven for forgetting how infrequently he turns up. Jefferson (and Daveed Diggs) is operating at an absurdly high capacity in “Washington on Your Side.” Meanwhile the music has a ball keeping up with the increasingly incensed backroom scheming of Jefferson and his “Southern motherfucking Democratic-Republicans!”

22. Right Hand Man

Thirty-two thousand troops in New York Harbor. That’s uh… that’s a lot. While the second act of Hamilton has to work a little harder to capture the drama of the inner-workings of a fledgling government, the first act is able to absolutely breeze through some truly epic and exciting songs covering the Revolutionary War. “Right Hand Man” is one such ditty that really captures the frenetic urgency of a bunch of up-jumped wannabe philosophers trying to topple the world’s most powerful empire.

21. The Schuyler Sisters

Honestly, “The Schuyler Sisters” deserve better than its placement on this list. It’s just that everything that comes after is such a banger, that it’s hard to justify moving up the dynamic introduction of Angelicaaaa, Elizzzaaaaa… and Peggy.

20. Ten Duel Commandments

Imagine how insane you would sound in circa 1998 explaining that there would one day be a musical about the founding fathers that uses the framework of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ten Crack Commandments” to describe the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Then imagine how insane you would sound when explaining that it was great. “Ten Duel Commandments” doesn’t cover the “big” duel of Hamilton. It’s a teaser for what’s to come. Thankfully it’s a hell of a good teaser.

19. Cabinet Battle #2

Hamilton’s two cabinet battles run the risk of being the cringiest part of the show. Every concept has its stylistic limit, and a rap battle between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson should absolutely fly past that limit. Somehow, however, the novelty works and the creativity of Miranda’s writing shines through.

18. Cabinet Battle #1

The two Cabinet Battles are pretty interchangeable on the list. #1 gets the nod because of “we know who’s really doing the planting.”

17. What Comes Next

The trilogy of King George III songs is some of the most purely joyful songwriting on the Hamilton soundtrack. We can dive into the specifics of what really works about the songs in a later entry. For now, know that “What Comes Next” falls the lowest on our list due to featuring only one round of “da-da-da’s.”

16. I Know Him

“I Know Him” also features only one burst of “da-da-da’s.” But it still gets the nod over “What Comes Next” for King George III calling John Adams “that little guy who spoke to me.”

15. Dear Theodosia

Perhaps more so than any other character in Hamilton, Aaron Burr works best on his own. The character (and the man he was based on) plays things close to the vest by design. It’s only through his musical soliloquies that we get a real sense of the guy. That’s what makes “Dear Theodosia” so powerful in particular. Burr wants the same thing for his daughter that Hamilton wants for his son: “Some day you’ll blow us all away.”

14. One Last Time

George Washington owned slaves. Yeah yeah, you can bandy around the usual “bUt He ReLeAsEd ThEm AlL lAtEr In LiFe” all you want. At the end of the day, it’s an inescapable fact for the country to confront. It’s a hard thing for Hamilton, however, a show realistic about America’s flaws but still reverential to its founding story, to deal with. Hamilton presents the George Washington of American mythos for the most part and he strikes an undeniably impressive and imposing figure. To that end, “One Last Time” is one of the most unexpectedly moving songs in the show. Washington is committing one of the most important and selfless acts in American history by stepping aside. Yet there’s a real sense of sadness as the cast chants “George Washington’s going hooo-ooo-ooome.”

13. Non-Stop

“Non-Stop” is an extremely atypical choice for an Act-ender. Hamilton could have just as easily chosen to wrap up Act One with the rebels’ victory over Great Britain. Instead it takes a moment to process that then deftly sets up the rest of its story with “Non-Stop,” which is simply a song about Hamilton’s insane work ethic. The key to the track’s success is how relentless it is, as if it were trying to keep up with and mimic the title character’s pace. Then there are all the usual exciting Act-ending reprisals and recurring motifs to boot.

12. Say No To This

Just as was the case in Hamilton’s life, Maria Reynolds has only a brief role in the show, but her influence casts quite a long shadow. “Say No To This” is a real showcase for both Miranda and Maria actress Jasmine Cephas Jones. This is a devastatingly catchy jazzy number about marital infidelity…. as all songs about marital infidelity should be.

11. Alexander Hamilton

“How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore / And a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot / In the Caribbean by providence impoverished / In squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?” our narrator Aaron Burr asks in Hamilton’s superb opening number. A play with so many moving parts, and such a high-concept needs an indelible opening track to convince audiences that the madness that is about to follow is worth waiting for. “Alexander Hamilton” is more than up to the task. This is an exhilarating starter that introduces its audience to all the important characters, themes, and sounds of the show. It also has its lead character spell out his full name in a rap, which somehow ends up being awesome and endearing rather than corny.

10. Wait for It

Just like the rest of us, Burr is the main character of his own story. And the show allows him to tell that story in songs like “Wait For It.” “Wait For It” is an exciting, downright explosive bit of songwriting. It’s every bit the “I want” song for Burr that “My Shot” is to Hamilton. And just like Burr and Hamilton are two sides of the same coin, so too are these two songs. Burr is alone once again in this powerful number. And he uses that privacy as an excuse to loudly… LOUDLY exclaim his modus operandi. He comes from a similar background as Hamilton and he wants mostly the same things as Hamilton. The difference between the two of them is that Burr is willing to wait for it all.

9. The Room Where it Happens

Bless this musical for having a song as brilliant as “The Room Where it Happens” only just being able to crack the top 10. There are hundreds of musicals in which “The Room Where it Happens” would be far and away the standout number. For Hamilton, it’s ninth. “The Room Where It Happens” is another example of the show taking a seemingly bland topic (backroom deal-making) and turning it into something transcendently entertaining for its audience and something transcendently illustrative for its characters. This is the song where the borders between Aaron Burr: Narrator and Aaron Burr: Vengeance-Seeker come down. Burr starts off as a patient observer of what kind of nefarious negotiations go into the building of a country before his frustration slowly builds into the recognition that he needs to be in the room where it happens.

8. Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

Truly there is no more fitting ending to Hamilton than “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.” At its core, this is a play not only about legacy but about the fungible nature of legacy. Alexander Hamilton is gone and we know his story lives on. But who will tell that story? Like any good closing number, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” knows the importance of bringing back many of the play’s core concepts and characters. And none of those are more important than Eliza’s assertion that she is ready “to write herself back into the narrative.” In the end, it’s not the revolutions or the pamphlets but the love. And that’s how one finds oneself in the absurd position of crying over the guy on the $10 bill.

7. What’d I Miss?

Lin-Manuel Miranda has described Thomas Jefferson as the show’s Bugs Bunny. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the ludicrously jaunty track that opens up Hamilton’s Act Two. There might not be a more joyful or outright hilarious three minutes in any of the soundtrack’s 46 songs. After several years spent living it up in France, Daveed Diggs’s TJ returns to the United States. The rest of his fellow revolutionaries have moved on to R&B and rap, but Jefferson is still stuck in full on jazz mode. “What’d I Miss” serves as the perfect introduction to a crucial character and the themes of the show’s second half.

6. The World Was Wide Enough

If “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” is designed to make the audience cry, then “The World Was Wide Enough” exists to make them gasp. This penultimate song is a truly stunning piece of work. This is a sprawling performance that brings back “The 10 Duel Commandments” in expected yet still emotional fashion. Then at the play’s climactic moment, it cuts out the music entirely to make room for Hamilton’s internal monologue – his one last ride through all the pages he won’t write. Finally it covers the grim aftermath of Burr and Hamilton’s duel as the survivor grapples with what he has done. There is a lot packed into these five minutes of song and each moment is more compelling than the last.

5. You’ll Be Back

If absolutely nothing else in Hamilton worked – if the characterizations were off, if the costumes were too simple, if the “Founding Fathers rapping” concept couldn’t be executed – the play’s two and a half hours all still would have been worth it for this one, tremendously goofy song. King George III (portrayed by Jonathan Groff in the original Broadway production) pops up three times throughout the show to deliver pointed little reminders to the American colonists about how good they used to have it. The first time around is by far the best, in large part because it’s so charmingly unexpected and weird. By the time King George III gets to the “da-da-da” section of his breakup song with America, it’s hard to imagine anyone resisting the song… or the show’s charms.

4. My Shot

While “You’ll Be Back” may go down as the most enduring karaoke song from Hamilton, “My Shot” is almost certainly the play’s most recognizable and iconic tune. Every musical needs an “I want” song in which its lead articulates what they want out of this whole endeavor. Rarely are those “I wants” as passionate and thrilling as “My Shot.” This was reportedly the song that Miranda took the longest to write and it’s clear now to see why. Not only is “My Shot” lyrically and musically intricate, but it does the majority of play’s heavy lifting in establishing Hamilton as a character. Just about everything we need to know about Alexander Hamilton and what drives him is introduced here. And the work put into “My Shot” makes all of its recurring themes and concepts hit so much harder in the songs to come.

3. Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)

In many ways, “Yorktown” benefits from the precedent that earlier songs like “My Shot” established. This is a song that puts energetic renditions of previous lines like “I’m not throwing away my shot” and “I imagine death so much it feels like a memory” to grand use. But for as much as “Yorktown” deftly invokes Hamilton’s past, what makes this song truly special is how solely focused it is on the present. To put it quite simply: “Yorktown” goes hard. It is fast, harsh, chaotic, and thrilling. This is the song that captures the moment that American troops defeated the British empire and “the world turned upside down.” It’s to the song’s immense credit that the music and lyrics capture the enormity of the moment. Also, there’s “stealing the show” and then there’s what Hercules Mulligan (Okieriete Onaodowan) does here in “Yorktown.” We’re in the shit now, and Hercules is loving it.

2. Helpless

“Helpless” might be pound for pound the best musical moment in all of Hamilton. It’s a simple, seemingly effortless love song that, even removed from the context of the show, would sound beautiful coming out of anyone’s car radio on a lovely summer day. Within the context of the show, it’s even better. It acts as a rare moment of celebration for all the characters involved before the Revolutionary War really gets churning and before a young America needs capable young Americans to guide it. What makes “Helpless” truly great, however, is the song that follows it…

1. Satisfied

Wait, wait… why is Angelica saying “rewind?” Why do we need to rewind? We had such a lovely night! The transition between “Helpless” and “Satisfied” is Hamilton’s greatest magic trick. The former presents a night of unambiguous love and celebration. Then the latter arrives to teach us that there is no such thing as “unambiguous” in Hamilton. In a truly remarkable performance, Angelica Schuyler (Renée Elise Goldsberry) teaches us what really happened the night Hamilton met the Schuyler sisters. Angelica will never be satisfied, and it’s because she’s “a girl in a world in which (her) only job is to marry rich.” Hamilton and Eliza’s story is a love story. But it’s also a story of Angelica’s loss. “Satisfied” imbues the musical with a sense of subtle melancholy that it never quite shakes through to the very end. “Satisfied” is the emotional lynchpin of Hamilton, and as such also its very best song.

The post Hamilton: Ranking Every Song from the Soundtrack appeared first on Den of Geek.

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evilelitest2 · 4 years

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The tariff argument and slavery argument aren't contradictory or mutually exclusive. Slavery was vital to the economic system of the south and power of Southern elites. this led them to oppose tariffs in the north which held back norther industry and the development of the country as a whole. Slavery was both morally wrong and economically backwards but the northerners weren't noble. They were just as racist, it was born out of economic calculation, not good will towards black people.

Sure Calhoun, next you will tell me it was about states rights?

Here, i’m going to pretend you are an actual leftist rather than a Trump supporter pretending you’ve read Marx, and actually address the history here. Which you haven’t read and you aren’t going to bother to cite sources, but a few years from now you might look back on this and cringe. In the future you might try you know...citations...like an adult.

The reason why your argument is neo confederate nonsense is that the inciting incident of the Civil War was...the election of Lincoln in 1860. Not any policy he passed, not any actions he took, certainly not any fucking tariffs, it was literally his election. In fact secession started before Lincoln was even Inaugurated.

The Tariff conflict did actually happen... in the Nullification Crisis from 1828-1833 under Andrew Jackson. Which did not escalate to a war, because it turns out the South would coincide on tariffs if the guy opposing them is a slave owner. (Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson)

Now white northerners overwhelmingly racist and didn’t particularly care about the rights of Black people....and a large number of them were opposed to slavery. If you bothered to study Northern culture and politics from the time, there were multiple views among the White Population.

You had honest to god Abolitionists, most of were still pretty racist but did think that slavery was a moral evil who had to be destroyed, unusually for religious reason. John Brown (a person who I would suggest...looking up

You have the Free Soil party, which opposed the expansion of slavery into the west but didn’t actually want to abolish slavery entirely. While some of their reasons were economic, most of them had to do with the Free Soil ideology.

The Reform Whigs, who wanted to steadily remove slavery, because they thought it was a moral evil though they still were quite racist and afraid of violence, and wanted incremental reform. Lincoln starts out as one of these guys, though he drifts to soft abolitionist by 1863.

Dough faces/Northern Democrats. Who actively supported southern Slave efforts

Here is one part of a long lecture series by Civil War Historian and Yale Professor David Blight on Northern views towards Slavery and progress, since I can’t expect you to actually read books. Link here

Speaking of books, if you actually read you now...historians on their opinions of the American civil war, you could have checked out Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of the Civil War by Bruce Levine or Disunion! The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859” by Elizabeth R. Varon, or What God Hath Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe you’d understand the major events that lead up to the Civil War were as follows

The Missouri Compromise *(The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath by Robert Pierce Forbes)

The Slavery Gag rule

The Mexican American War (So Far from God by John SD Eisenhower)

The Compromise of 1850 (On the Brink of the Civil War by John C Waugh)

The Fugitive Slave Act (This was the big one)

The Kansas-Nebraska act:

The Dread Scott Decision (The Dread Scot Case by Don E Fehrenbacher)

Lincoln Douglas Debates (LIncoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America by Allen C Guelzo )

Bleeding Kansas- Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era by Nicole Etcheson

The canning of Charles Sumner- The Canning: The Assault that Drove America to Civil War by Stephen Pulea

The publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and follow up execution: Midnight Rising by Tony Horwitz

The New Republican Party: Year of Meteors by Douglas R Egerton

The rising popularity of Abolitionist groups (The Radical and the Republican by James Oakes)

and finally the election of Lincoln- We have the War Upon us by William J Cooper

And of course the Confederates own arguments that they made for why they needed to seceded...they weren’t talking about Tariffs (Apostles of Disunion by Charles B Dew)

The common theme here is slavery, not tariffs. Ignoring the fact that the tariff theory was a neoconfederate theory in the first place, like the rest of the Trump garbage you keep expecting me to take seriously

Are you going to tell me that the Haitian Revolution wasn’t about slavery next?

#ask EvilElitest #American Civil War #Slavery

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rabbithole86 · 5 years

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WHAT TAYLOR SWIFT'S ALLYSHIP MEANS TO HER FANS — AND THE LGBTQ+ FANDOM

By Carson Mlnarik xxxx

I learned about the gospel of Taylor Swift through my mom, whose car stereo was permanently tuned to country radio. Her first single, “Tim McGraw,” sparked something in me, and I was immediately obsessed — to the point where my family was calling Taylor “Carson’s girlfriend” within weeks. I was 11 years old; it would be six years before I told anyone that I was gay. And it would take even longer — and for Taylor herself to proclaim, “You can want who you want / Boys and boys and girls and girls” — for my family to learn that I didn’t want to date Taylor Swift, I wanted to be like Taylor Swift.

As I became more accepting of my sexuality, it helped that Taylor was growing into an LGBTQ+ ally. And as the years went by, her music, frankly, got gayer.

When she debuted in 2006, Taylor was my middle school confessional queen. She always knew what it was like to be an outsider at the lunch table (“The Outside”) or to dramatically pine after someone who wasn’t into you (“Teardrops on My Guitar”). And while anthems like “Fearless” and “Speak Now” encouraged listeners to live their truths, I was only beginning to realize my truths: namely, that the fixation on male friendships that took up 113 percent of my brain was most definitely a manifestation of some same-sex attraction. I took note, but stayed closeted, especially given that I was navigating my own identity in conservative Arizona.

The fact that Taylor got her start in country music is not lost on me, either; the genre’s current focus on Christian faith, heteronormative imagery, and popularity in states that often vote red (no relation to the album) have garnered it a reputation as the “Republican genre.” You’d be hard-pressed to find mainstream country music by out LGBTQ+ artists, and, until recently, little solidarity with the community by its biggest stars. Thanks to open allyship from artists like Kacey Musgraves and Luke Bryan, that’s changing, but for the most part, they’re still the exception.

Taylor was always an icon in my eyes but it wasn’t until she went pop that her allyship seemed to take form. While “icon” status is a term some people seem to apply like chapstick, “ally” involves putting in a certain kind of work. Taylor had never come out against the community but was an unlikely ally nonetheless, especially considering she came from country and scrubbed a potentially homophobic line from her discography early on. Her first solidly pop entry, however, found her empoweredenough to shout out the community and even arguably earned her gay Twitter’s respect. The Reputation era found her taking on a more active ally role: it was then, ahead of the 2018 midterms, that she finally stated her pro-gay rights stance, encouraged fans to vote, gave a Pride Month speech on tour, and made pro-LGBTQ donations.

“I’ve always seen her as someone who’s really accepting of everyone,” Gia, a fan who identifies as bisexual and lives in Scotland, told MTV News. But even she has noticed an uptick in active and affirmative allyship, from both Taylor and her fans.

In the LGBTQ+ community, having an “active ally” — a friend, co-worker, or acquaintance who not only believes in equality but does so visibly with empathy, patience, and recognition of privilege — can make a huge difference. Allies not only promote acceptance in the greater community but can also be sources of information and help. In schools with gay-straight alliances, 91 percent of LGBTQ+ students in the club felt supported enough to further advocate for other social or political issues, andworkplaces that have openly supportive senior staff or a company culture of acceptance help employees feel more comfortable in being professionally out.

“Within the last year, I’ve seen a lot more pride [within the Taylor fandom], especially when I attended the Rep Tour and saw other [people] with pride flags,” Gia added.

Gia said she truly realized the extent of LGBTQ+-identifying individuals in the fandom after seeing hashtags like #LGBTQSwifties and #GayForTay. Stan Twitter and Tumblr bios boast rainbow emojis and pride flags, which aren’t necessarily decisions that Taylor had any part in making, but still affirm that there isn’t just space in the fandom for LGBTQ+ fans — we’re welcome here, too.

Jeremy, a Twitter user who identifies as bisexual, has been a fan of Taylor’s since 2006. While he is “definitely happy that she has been more explicit with her stances,” he says her message of “self-love and [embracing] that self loudly and passionately” has always been a source of comfort for him.

“She always inspires us to be proud of who we are, and to ignore those who tell us to be different,” he told MTV News.

For me, that pride took a while to establish, and even longer to give voice to. Still, Taylor was there for me every step of the way: In my junior year of high school, she released a mixed-genre foray into pop that gave us bops like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “22,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” and I didn’t just enjoy the Redalbum, I felt it. The emotional LP provided inspiration as I became student body president and big man on campus, but kept my sexuality a complete secret. It would become a source of comfort after I came out to close friends and family but lacked the confidence to do so on a larger scale. It would even become a guide to love and heartbreak after I got — and then broke up with — my first boyfriend.

He left me with bitter parting words: "I’ll never be able to listen to another Taylor Swift song without thinking of you.” I may get that inscribed on my tombstone.

As I started my freshman year of college, I was tired of feeling splintered about my identity. I started introducing myself as gay and going out on dates with guys, with the newly-released 1989 as my companion. While Taylor’s pop departure alienated some people, I found lyrics like, “I got this music in my mind / sayin’ it’s gonna be alright,” take on new weight in the midst of finding myself. If Taylor could start anew, so could I. Besides, what gay doesn’t love a good bop?

We make connections to music based on what we’re experiencing when we’re listening for the first time. Even if it’s beyond what the songwriter intended, their work can often become shorthand for certain times, places, and feelings — it’s chemical. It’s a phenomenon Taylor has even penned about, and while her lyrics, for the most part, describe heterosexual relationships, they do so in such a raw and confessional manner that it never mattered to me. Whether she was calling a boy out by name on her albums or scorning her bullies at the Grammys, there was an echoing theme of never hiding your feelings.

And through her vulnerability and openness, the singer has nurtured a fandom of people like myself who not only unite to feel seen and validated by her music but see and validate each other.

For Grace, who lives in Tennessee and has had a stan account since 2017, having a network of allies and openly LGBTQ+ people in the Taylor fandom has helped her in her own self-acceptance.

“I think a big part of it was just seeing how open other people were about their own sexuality and everyone was super supportive and loving towards them,” she said. “It’s not something that I had ever really seen much of before and it made me feel comfortable enough to accept myself and be open about it. I’m not sure I would be as secure in myself as I am now without it.”

When Taylor donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project to fight against the state’s “Slate of Hate” legislation, Grace felt directly moved. “I cried at the fact that someone I have admired for so many years of my life was fighting for me directly,” she said.

Arthur, a bisexual trans man from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said he grew up seeing a lot of “bigoted people in the fandom,” but since Taylor has become a more active ally, he has seen a huge shift. An activist since age 14, he started following Taylor around 2012 in her Red era and knew when she eventually spoke up, things would start to change.

“LGBTQ fans are gaining space, as [are] fans of color, which is so great to see,” he said. “Taylor being more politically engaged helped [make] this change happen.”

Taylor has not only made her stance clear but continues to affirm it. She kicked off Pride Month this year by creating a petition for the Senate to pass the Equality Act, a sweeping policy that would protect LGBTQ people against sexuality-based discrimination. She also shared a letter she wrote to her state senator urging them to pass the bill and encouraged fans to do the same.

“While we have so much to celebrate, we also have a great distance to go before everyone in this country is truly treated equally,” she tweeted.

Taylor is hardly the first pop star to encourage their fans to get political. But as discussions arise around Pride becoming branded and straight people co-opt events, she’s proving to be a pretty good model of what it means to be an active ally in this political climate.

That’s not to say we’re there yet. We’ve still got a long way to go, and Taylor’s even acknowledged it. But as a former purveyor of yee-haw music and a current pop queen, she’s doing what she’s always done best for many of her gay fans: helping us feel seen and heard.

#taylor swift #gaylor swift #mtv #pride month #pride

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ts1989fanatic · 5 years

Text

'SHE ALWAYS INSPIRES US TO BE PROUD OF WHO WE ARE, AND TO IGNORE THOSE WHO TELL US TO BE DIFFERENT'

MTV NEWS STAFF

2h ago

By Carson Mlnarik

As I became more accepting of my sexuality, it helped that Taylor was growing into an LGBTQ+ ally. And as the years went by, her music, frankly, got gayer.

Taylor was always an icon in my eyes but it wasn’t until she went pop that her allyship seemed to take form. While “icon” status is a term some people seem to apply like chapstick, “ally” involves putting in a certain kind of work. Taylor had never come out against the community but was an unlikely ally nonetheless, especially considering she came from country and scrubbed a potentially homophobic line from her discography early on. Her first solidly pop entry, however, found her empowered enough to shout out the community and even arguably earned her gay Twitter’s respect. The Reputation era found her taking on a more active ally role: it was then, ahead of the 2018 midterms, that she finally stated her pro-gay rights stance, encouraged fans to vote, gave a Pride Month speech on tour, and made pro-LGBTQ donations.

In the LGBTQ+ community, having an “active ally” — a friend, co-worker, or acquaintance who not only believes in equality but does so visibly with empathy, patience, and recognition of privilege — can make a huge difference. Allies not only promote acceptance in the greater community but can also be sources of information and help. In schools with gay-straight alliances, 91 percent of LGBTQ+ students in the club felt supported enough to further advocate for other social or political issues, and workplaces that have openly supportive senior staff or a company culture of acceptance help employees feel more comfortable in being professionally out.

“Within the last year, I’ve seen a lot more pride [within the Taylor fandom], especially when I attended the Rep Tour and saw other [people] with pride flags,” Gia added.

“She always inspires us to be proud of who we are, and to ignore those who tell us to be different,” he told MTV News.

For me, that pride took a while to establish, and even longer to give voice to. Still, Taylor was there for me every step of the way: In my junior year of high school, she released a mixed-genre foray into pop that gave us bops like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “22,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” and I didn’t just enjoy the Red album, I felt it. The emotional LP provided inspiration as I became student body president and big man on campus, but kept my sexuality a complete secret. It would become a source of comfort after I came out to close friends and family but lacked the confidence to do so on a larger scale. It would even become a guide to love and heartbreak after I got — and then broke up with — my first boyfriend.

He left me with bitter parting words: "I’ll never be able to listen to another Taylor Swift song without thinking of you.” I may get that inscribed on my tombstone.

And through her vulnerability and openness, the singer has nurtured a fandom of people like myself who not only unite to feel seen and validated by her music but see and validate each other.

For Grace, who lives in Tennessee and has had a stan account since 2017, having a network of allies and openly LGBTQ+ people in the Taylor fandom has helped her in her own self-acceptance.

“LGBTQ fans are gaining space, as [are] fans of color, which is so great to see,” he said. “Taylor being more politically engaged helped [make] this change happen.”

“While we have so much to celebrate, we also have a great distance to go before everyone in this country is truly treated equally,” she tweeted.

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marcjampole · 5 years

Text

Mainstream news media created the conditions in which a bottom-feeder like Trump could thrive by focusing on celebrity culture to encourage conspicuous consumption

AARP the Magazine is thus a small part of the giant propaganda machine that created the celebrity culture that created Donald Trump. It took from the first stirrings of consumer culture in the 1890’s until the 21st century for the focus on celebrity to pollute our marketplace of ideas enough for a toxic algae boom like Donald Trump to emerge (with apologies to algae blooms worldwide!). But unlike cleaning up the environment, saving our political discourse is conceptually easy—all the news media has to do is dedicate more of its feature coverage to those whose accomplishments can’t be measured by money made or spent, and cease to cover every issue like a reality show featuring celebrities. Not one big action, but a bunch of little actions are needed to stem the tide of celebrity culture. AARP could do its part by working into the mix a healthy share of scientists, historians, civic leaders, activists and literary figures into Big5-Oh and other parts of the magazine.

Those seeking to put the Trump phenomenon in a broader context will usually point out that his rhetoric and actions typically stay within the margins of 21st century Republican thought, especially as it concerns taxes, regulation, healthcare insurance, women’s health issues and white supremacy. Sometimes Trump has extended those margins with more outrageous versions of standard Republican fare. Others label Trumpism as the American version of the movement throughout the West to embrace ultranationalist, anti-immigration autocrats.

As insightful as these analyses are, they miss Trump’s cultural significance. Not only does Trump represent the bitterly racist and classist endgame of Ronald Reagan’s “politics of selfishness,” he also is the apotheosis of our cultural decline into celebrity-fueled consumerism. Remember that in the real world, Trump was a terrible and unethical businessperson who drove companies into bankruptcy six times; had at least a dozen failed business ventures based on his most valuable asset, his brand name; lost money for virtually all his investors; often lied to banks and governmental agencies; and has been sued by literally thousands of people for nonpayment or breach of contract.

But while Trumpty-Dumpty was engaging in a one-man business wrecking crew he managed to get his name in the newspaper for his conspicuous consumption, his attendance at celebrity parties and his various marriage and romances. His television show was a hit, which reaped him even more publicity. But make no mistake about it, before he started his run for political office by promoting the vicious, racially tinged lie that Obama hails from Kenya, the public recognized Trump primarily for the attributes he shared with the British royal family, the Kardashians, Gosselins, Robertsons, the housewives of New Jersey, Atlanta, South Beach and elsewhere, Duane Chapman, Betheny Frankel, Paris Hilton and the rest of the self-centered lot of rich and famous folk known only for being rich and famous and spending obnoxious sums of money.

Trump’s celebrity status always hinted at his master-of-the-universe skills in business and “The Apprentice” never missed an opportunity to reinforce that false myth. Thus, whereas the business world recognized Donald Trump as the ultimate loser, celebrity culture glorified him as one of the greatest business geniuses in human history. It was this public perception of Trump—completely opposite of reality—that gave him the street cred he needed to attract unsophisticated voters. Trump is completely a creation of celebrity culture.

When we consider the general intellectual, moral and cultural climate of an era—the Zeitgeist, which in German means the “spirit of the age”—we often focus on defining events such as presidential assassinations, Woodstock, the moon landing, 9/11, the election of the first non-white president. But a Zeitgeist comprises thousands upon thousands of specific events, trends and personal choices.

Which brings us—finally—to the subject of this article, AARP the Magazine, the semi-monthly slick magazine of the American Association of Retired People (AARP). The magazine usually uses celebrities and celebrity culture to give tips on personal finances, health, careers, relationships, retirement and lifestyle to its members, people over the age of 50. Because AARP membership rolls is so enormous, I have no doubt that AARP is one of the four or five most well-read periodicals in the United States.

Now AARP the organization must have many qualms about Trump and Trumpism. Trump has already rolled back consumer protections that prevent seniors from being taken advantage of by both big businesses and small-time con artists. Trump is vowing to dedicate his second term to cutting Social Security and Medicare, two programs of utmost importance to the well-being of AARP’s members. The leadership of AARP certainly understands that Trump’s cruelly aggressive effort to end immigration from non-European countries is the main cause for the growing shortages of the home care workers so vital to many if not most people in their final years. They must also realize that a tariff war affects people on fixed incomes the most.

What AARP leaders—of the organization and magazine—show no signs of understanding is that they played a role in creating the monster. The focus of AARP the Magazine and the other AARP member publication on promoting celebrity culture helped to create the playing field that Trump dominates—that shadow land of aspirations for attention and materialism in which all emotional values reduce to buying and consumption and our heroes have either done nothing to deserve their renown or have worked in the mass entertainment industries of TV, movies, sports and pop music.

As an example of how celebrity culture permeates and controls the aspirational messages of AARP the Magazine, let’s turn to the feature on the last page of every issue, something called “Big5-Oh”: Big5-Oh always has a paragraph story with photos of a famous person who is turning 50 sometime during the two months covered by the issue. The bottom third of the page consists of one-sentence vignettes with head-and-shoulder photos of famous people turning 50, 60, 70 and 80. The copy typically describes something the famous person is doing that demonstrates she or he is continuing to thrive and do great things despite advancing age.

I’ve seen Big5-Oh in every issue of AARP I have ever read, and I have perused each issue for about 18 years. And in every issue, the famous people mentioned are virtually all celebrities, by which I mean actors, pop musicians, sports stars and those known only for being known like the Kardashians and Snooki. Only quite rarely a film director, popular writer or scientist sneaks in.

The latest issue, covering August and September 2019 exemplifies the celebrity-driven approach that hammers home the idea that only celebrities matter (since it’s only their birthdays and ages that are seemed worth memorializing). The featured person turning 50 is Tyler Perry, an actor and writer-director. The smaller features include four actor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jason Alexander, Richard Gere and Lilly Tomlin, plus the athlete Magic Johnson and the rock star Bruce Springsteen.

Not one scientist, not one historian or sociologist. Not one civic leader, politician, physician, novelist, poet or classical or jazz musician. No astronaut, architect or engineer. I did a little cursory research to come up with a reconceived Big5-Oh for August and September 2019: The big feature, always about someone turning 50, could be the chess player Ben Finegold, the best-selling but much scandalized popular writer James Frey or the filmmaker Noah Baumbach. That’s pretty much a wash with Tyler Perry. If I were editor of this feature, I would probably still pick Tyler Perry over this competition.

But when we get to people who turned 60 and 70 during these months, you realize how much celebrity culture guided the editor’s choice of subjects: ignored are the designer Michael Kors, the current governor of Virginia Ralph Northam, the distinguished Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, the even more distinguished journalist James Fallows, the important literary novelists Jane Smiley, Martin Amis and Jonathan Franzen, the leader of the Irish Green Party, astronaut Scott Altman and Beverly Barnes, the first woman to captain a Boeing 747. All these people are non-celebrities and all have made more significant and lasting contributions to America than the people the column’s editor selected, with the possible exception of Magic Johnson and Bruce Springsteen.

What’s more significant, though, is including some of these people instead of all celebrities would make an important message about what we value in our society. It would say that we honor the intellectual contributions of our writers, scientists, knowledge professionals and civic leaders. The fact that AARP always selects celebrities for Big5-Oh and tends to build other stories and features around celebrities makes the opposite message about value—that all that matters is the gossip surrounding celebrities and the promotion of celebrity culture.

Now AARP shares the blame for our culture’s emphasis on shallow consumerism and superficial celebrities with many of our cultural organizations and educational institutions. For example, the political reporting of the mainstream media reduces all political discourse to celebrity terms—name-calling, who is feuding with whom, who’s winning in the polls, the skeleton-closet scandals of the candidates’ families, which celebrities love and hate them, zingers and misstatements, the candidates’ theme songs and other main themes of celebrity culture. Notice that Trump is as much a master in these endeavors as he is an inexperienced and ignorant buffoon in matters related to governance such as policy, history, the inner workings of the government and the scientific research informing governmental decisions. Note, too, that based on how much ink and space is given to endorsements by the media, in the hierarchy of value, celebrities rate above elected officials who rate above unions, business and scientific organizations and luminaries in fields other than entertainment.

#aarp #trump

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Eliza Hamilton biography review

Tilar J. Mazzeo's Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton Let me preface this review by stating that I'm not the target audience for a book like this, but I’ll try to be fair. A major challenge in writing a biography of Elizabeth S. Hamilton is that the period of her life when the general public has the most interest - the years of her marriage to Alexander Hamilton - are those in which we largely only have contemporaneous sentimental accounts of her as a wife (letters from AH and P. Schuyler, brief mentions from McHenry and Stephen Van Rensselaer), daughter (letters from P. Schuyler), and sister (letters to/from Angelica S. Church and Margarita/Peggy S. Van Rensselaer, and letters between her siblings and father). But that's not all that EH - or any woman - was. Based on the lack of information provided in this biography, Mazzeo's not terribly interested in the role of upperclass women in the late 18th century, the dynamics of marriage in that era, class distinctions between women, labor dynamics, childbearing and -rearing customs (she doesn't know about naming customs either), handicrafts, household management, women’s roles in education, the Republican Court, or any of a range of topics that would flesh out EH's world. Mazzeo doesn’t elaborate on the common conceit of the era that women had a political and social duty to the republic, including in helping to regulate the affairs of men through their “complementary” traits. She largely treats the social gatherings of women as arenas for gossip, titillation, and regular old social duty, not as opportunities for soft diplomacy, influence, and favor currying, which they most definitely also were. The women in this biography just sort of move across the stage of male dominance.* Since Mazzeo largely does not contextualize EH's 18th century life and seems to fall into the trap of, “the work of men is important; the work of women is only of side interest,” she's left repeating lots of gossip and conjecturing about romantic thoughts and feelings, as if these were largely all that women had to offer in the 18th century. Mazzeo clearly read letters that have not been included in the standard Hamilton narrative and found some things - mostly gossipy items - really interesting and was willing to go down the rabbit-hole on those, but was also comfortable relying on Hamilton biographies without going to primary sources on many subjects. The Good Mazzeo does add some valuable context of the events in Albany especially. She also adds Schuyler family voices to the narrative. I also liked how solidly she showed the interconnection of the Schuylers and AH with other wealthy and influential families. Although Mazzeo doesn't completely make the link, the tension of life near the frontier, wars, and the assassination attempts on her father's life may have played a role in EH's anxiety, such as it was, about being separated from her husband, esp. as he was also subject to threats of assassination at times. She could have more clearly made a counterargument to biographers' claims of EH's nervous anxiety by pointing out the terrors that EH really did face, but she does not do this. While for dubious reasons (based on how she sees EH as a character), Mazzeo raises issues around the Reynolds Pamphlet. It needs to be taken more seriously that Maria Reynolds denied - to at least two parties on the record - that an extramarital affair ever happened and volunteered a handwriting sample** to prove that the letters in AH's supposed possession were not written by her. I appreciate that Mazzeo brought up that AH's explanation for his involvement with James Reynolds was not universally accepted at the time - Monroe had serious doubts, as did Callendar. Unfortunately, some of Callendar's pamphlets detailing why he thought both were possible - AH was a sleaze who could have both had an affair with MR AND been engaged in shady financial dealings with her husband - are also lost to history. I am also gleeful that I'm not the only person who has noticed that there is a similarity between EH's spelling style and MR's as re-printed. (I have also entertained the thought that EH forged those MR letters herself, or were AH forgeries copying parts of his wife's letters.) I also appreciate that she points out that AH's claim of an affair with MR became widespread knowledge in the political sphere within a very short period of time. The Bad While Mazzeo adds to the record with facts from the Schuyler family letters, she relies heavily on Hamilton biographies, and not even the thorough, well-sourced ones, for others. Based on the notes at the end of the book, she didn't bother to go to (or check for) primary sources for a lot of facts about AH. She states that Edward Stevens was "likely" AH's half-brother, which has largely been dismissed as a possibility. There are bizarre dating errors, wrong years, even wrong kids named - by my rough estimate, on average there are factual errors at least on every other page. Did Mazzeo not have a fact-checker - even someone decently acquainted with the facts around the persons she’s writing about? (She also contradicts herself on information she’s provided, so maybe she didn’t have a good proofreader either.) It's head-scratching that Mazzeo would do enough research to conjecture that "Polly" (from Tench Tilghman's May 1780 letter, recorded in his memoir) was Mary Tilghman, but not bother to read AH and GW letters to know more about EH's 1794 pregnancy. Similarly, she gets it right that William S. Hamilton was born in NYC, but then thinks Eliza traveled to Albany right after. (Although a letter from PS to EH from late August contradicts that claim.) She even repeats the shoe bow story, but claims it did happen in 1789 (incorrect), and says the person mistakenly thought Peggy was unmarried because of the way she behaved? Stephen Van Rensselaer was a reasonably well-known man. Back to the Reynolds Pamphlet: Mazzeo uses as evidence of AH's drafting of the MR letters the similarity between them and Pamela. It's not really evidence that someone - anyone - would write using common idioms and expressions of the time. AH did it quite frequently himself, as I've written about on this blog - he's doing it when he uses the popular phrase, "best of wives, best of women," not making some reference to the Nut-brown maid poem. This isn't proof that the MR letters were forged. Mazzeo hypothesizes that the real reason for the Pamphlet was further financial scandal cover-up, but never conjectures as to the wheres/hows. (If only she could see my many pages of notes on the interactions between AH, John Church, and Church's financial associates.) I'm also baffled as to Mazzeo's explanation for EH going along with the coverup of a financial scandal of the Reynolds Pamphet - because she was afraid of her husband going to jail? That this was EH's biggest fear? Where is the evidence for that? The Ugly The treatment of Peggy! Harsh and man hungry and scared of being a spinster - though a theme with Mazzeo is all of these women being obsessed with flirtations and afraid of ending up husband-less. The treatment of Angelica! The treatment of JOHN CHURCH, whom she describes as a "scoundrel." AH is a "rogue," seemingly with a drinking problem, visiting prostitutes (yet somehow having MR as a mistress would be too much), staying out late at night. It's a wonder that Mazzeo's AH ever accomplished anything in his life, with all of the 18th century character flaws and errors in judgement she gives him. Most especially with sexual activities, she repeats gossip from AH detractors several times in the book, while her sources are John Adams (as much as two decades later) and Benjamin Latrobe (good friend to Jefferson). Mazzeo repeats a story, more than once, about AH sexually assaulting Sarah L. Jay that Adams related decades later and that even Adams' cousin William Cunningham said sounded like nonsense, and guesses as to EH's parlor-room reaction to it. Yet AH and Church would have had about zero social standing if this were really how they had behaved (or if these anecdotes had been widely known at the time). And then there's all of the fantasy treated as fact - without letters to draw on from the period of her childhood and marriage, Mazzeo spends a lot of time imagining EH's feelings and thoughts and presenting them as facts. As one illustration, Mazzeo invents a wedding scene in which Eliza and Alexander exchange rings. Nevermind that EH's actual wedding ring was interlocking and AH likely never had a ring - Mazzeo has AH give Eliza the "Elizabeth" ring, and her give him the "Alexander &" ring. Why would they exchange rings with their own names? Finally, there's a good deal of documentation of EH's life after AH, including more letters from her, more evidence of her financial management, and actually more about her beliefs, thoughts and feelings than are available during her marriage. This is the period when EH's "voice" is most clearly recorded, along with her actions outside the management of her household and her husband's public career. Yet this gets very short-shrift by Mazzeo. The Ugly left a strong impression - it doesn't seem that Mazzeo is neutral about the personages, but actively dislikes them. At various times, she slams pretty much everyone who made up EH's closest circle during her marriage: her parents, her sisters, her husband, her brother-in-law, and then goes against acceptance of the Reynolds Pamphlet not through analysis of the evidence but because she wants an EH that is more palatable to her. EH, ultimately, comes across as a cypher. Mazzeo does have a strong narrative style, and I wish that this book could have been a collaboration between a historian (or at least someone with stronger scholarly skills) and herself, to at least tease out a real world. I think we're a good 50 years past writing women from other eras as if they're completely unknowable except as wives, mothers, and daughters. *In patriarchal cultures, there are always women cooperating with the dominant culture as a means to their own ends. The compromises and nuances of how that plays out in societal rules are fascinating. But, I guess, not to Mazzeo.

**This really needs further comment in my epic John Church-AH shenanigans post, where Jeremiah Wadsworth gets more attention, but I’ll point out here that AH asked Wadsworth to confirm MR’s handwriting, from AH to Wadsworth, 28Jul1797 (in NYC, writing to Wadsworth in Hartford, CT):

My Dear Wadsworth

I regretted much, that I did not find you here.

I know you have seen the late publications, in which the affair of Reynold’s is revived. I should have taken no notice of them had not the names of Mughlenberg Monroe & Venable given them an artificial importance. But I thought under this circumstance, I could not but attend to them. The affair has so turned that I am obliged to publish every thing.

But from the lapse of time I am somewhat embarrassed to prove Mrs. Reynold’s hand writing. Thinking it probable, as she was a great scribbler you must have received some notes from her when she applied to you for assistance, I send you one of her notes to me and if your recollection serves would be much obliged to you to return it with your affidavit annexed—“That you received letters from Mrs. Reynolds, conceived yourself to be acquainted with her hand writing & that you verily believe this letter to be of her hand writing.”

If your memory does not serve you then return the letter alone to me. If I remember right I never knew of your agency towards procuring Reynold’s relief, till after he was discharged. If your memory stands in the same way, I will thank you to add a declaration to this effect.

Dont neglect me nor lose time.

Yrs. truly

This was Wadsworth’s response (2Aug1796), truncated by me:

your favor of the 28th July arrived late last evening. I have not the least knowledge of Mrs. Reynolds’s hand writing nor do I remember ever to have recd a line from her if I did they were destroyed but a letter or two for you which by Your request I returned to her or destroyed. ...[S]he immediately fell into a flood of Tears and told me a long storey about her application to You for Money when in distress in her husbands Absence & that it ended in a amour & was discovered by her husband from a letter she had written to you which fell into his hands. I told her I would see Mr. Woolcott & G Mifflin The next Morning I told Mr. Woolcott what had passed he then related the transaction for which Clingn & Reys had been committed. I then went to Mifflin and told him I came at ye request of Mrs. Reynolds. he imediately told me that she had told him the Story of the amour. ...A Mr. Clingman whom I had never seen before and seemed to have been sent for was present part of the time. From this interview I was fully confirmed in my Opinion before formed that the whole business was a combination among them to Swindle you. Mrs Reynolds called on me again and urged me deliver letters to You. You refused to receive them & desired me to return letters for You or destroy them I do not know which. I rec’d several Messages from her and again went to her house told her you would hold no correspondence with her and gave her my Opinion as at first that her husband must undergo a trial. I can not be particular as to time & date and I do not remember that I ever knew how he was liberated untill I lately saw Mr Woolcott. I certainly never considered myselfe as having any agency in procureing Reynolds’s relief nor do I remember ever to have had any conversation with You on the subject untill after your meeting with the Mess Munroe Melenburg & Venables. and had supposed Reynolds to have been ⟨released⟩ by their influence he was ⟨ashamed⟩ to have been so ⟨–⟩ after an Explanation with you. I am sorry you have found it necessary to publish any thing for it will be easy to invent new Calumnies & you may be kept continualy employed in answring. be Assured it never will be in the power of your enemies to give the public an opinion that you have Speculated in ye funds, nor do they expect it: I should have replied by this days Post—but the Mail arrives here at nine at night & goes out at Two in the Morning. I am D sir truly yours

#Elizabeth Hamilton #Tilar Mazzeo #Reynolds Pamphlet #John Church #Jeremiah Wadsworth #Schuylers #18th century women

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