Weekly Wrap Up - What I DNFed from NetGalley

Weekly Wrap Up - What I DNFed from NetGalley #BookReview #DNF @NetGalley #BookBlog #Fantasy #KindleUnlimited #BookTwt

Here are all the books I read and DNFed last week! While starting this post I realised that I had picked some really weird dates for the last one! 31st October (Monday) to 5th November (Saturday). So just to sort of make things more normal for this one, and going forward), this post will cover 6th November (Sunday) to 13 November (also Sunday) so that the next one can be a Monday to Monday…

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As a civil servant in the 1980s, I had a front row seat as the British government began to lose touch with reality. Since then, things have only got worse

by Simon Petherick

Six years after Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, I got a job as a writer at a strangely dysfunctional government department called the Central Office Of Information. Even though I lived in a squat, had the socialist historian EP Thompson’s Protest and Survive on my bookshelf and had been an organiser for a miners’ support group during the 1984 strike – when we put up some of the miners’ families during visits to London for marches, they found our earnest wholegrain lifestyle utterly ridiculous – I thought it was OK to join the COI for a number of reasons. Dylan Thomas and Somerset Maugham had worked for it during the war, for a start, and I considered myself to be a “writer”, too, even though the only thing I’d had published was a 20,000-word guidebook to Edinburgh under the imposed pseudonym of Elspeth Mackintosh (my own surname too clearly Cornish for a book on Scotland).

But the main reason I joined was that I discovered during the application process that the department’s role was to issue information that was not beholden to any political party. The COI was not Margaret Thatcher’s loudhailer, my new bosses told me; she had to use the Conservative party’s own funds for that. Our job was to describe clearly and objectively to the British people what it was that the government was doing. I liked that. I’d read George Orwell’s 1946 essay Politics and the English Languageand I was filled with notions around the democratisation of language. Having spent the past three years writing blurbs for a small publisher (the books were westerns: “Peace wouldn’t reign in Vulture valley until six gunshots rang in the air!”), I was intrigued by the idea of cold truth set out in type. I thought I could learn my trade, and I was right about that at least. Also, I thought, Thatcher would soon be replaced by a Labour government and everything would be rosy.

By the time I left, seven years later, the COI was no longer the sole arbiter of what was and what wasn’t “objective information”. During the years they employed me, Thatcher had eroded this notion so effectively that we COI writers had little or no authority left. Advertising and public relations and lobbying agencies now clustered around Number 10 like flies over treacle, and the idea of truth had evaporated. Something got lost in those years. It is difficult to imagine the administrations of Tony Blair, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss without the preparatory demolition of the foundations that Thatcher carried out. Never again would our governments allow us the dignity of knowing the facts and drawing our own conclusions from them.

Treepz a mobility startup led by Nigerian entrepreneur Onyeka Akumah wins award for Best Industrial Tech Company in Africa

The Global Startup Awards bring together high-impact startups and investors from over 100 countries across the globe. The network offers participants the opportunity to meet prospective mentors, partners, and clients and access the latest industry trends. In 2021, the Global Startup Awards expanded into Africa with objectives focused on finding UN sustainable development goal (SDG) aligned tech innovation solutions with 55 countries competing in 12 categories, including Agri Tech, Health Tech, Industrial Tech and Women in Tech. This year’s edition had over 7500 companies compete from 54 African countries. The winning startups will get funding for their social, environmental or economic impact on the African continent, and Treepz qualified in all three areas. The endorsement will also continue to help Treepz to contribute its fair share to the United Nations SDGs making cities more resilient and sustainable. Treepz is one of Africa’s leading shared mobility startups and has established itself with close to 10,000 daily rides completed on its platform. Since its inception, the startup has achieved remarkable milestones, including completing 1.5 million bookings within 30 months of operations and expanding to Ghana and Uganda with the acquisitions of Stabus and Ugabus in both countries. Today, Treepz has the number one market share in Ghana and Uganda in less than a year in both countries. Treepz has also effectively saved 519,792 kg of CO2 emissions across Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda in the last three months alone. This results from passengers sharing rides with Treepz-powered vehicles instead of driving their own cars. Speaking at the event, Co-founders of Loudhailer and GIIG, Jo Griffiths and Caitlin Nash, had this to say, “We know that we need to find millions of solutions if we are going to have any dent in solving the climate crisis, and we know that a lot of those solutions sit here on the African continent. We believe that we can unlock Africa’s growth a lot faster and position it as the tech continent of the future with these proof-points over a few multi-year periods.” With operations in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda, Treepz Inc is set to disrupt the transportation sector with unique services such as shared daily rides and transportation software tailored for schools and transport businesses. https://ift.tt/QFu8lUA https://ift.tt/OVlKXmz

Why do so many young women hate feminist trailblazers like me?

For anyone uninitiated into the various waves of 21st-century feminism, this will no doubt come as a shock. But in my opinion, what passes right now for modern feminism is doing women more harm than good.

Many young women today are not only pandering to men in their so-called feminism, but seem utterly unconcerned that the hard-won rights achieved by older women in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are at risk of being catastrophically eroded.

They are helping everyone but themselves. In many ways they are betraying everything I and my brave colleagues fought for. This is the worst clash across the generations I have witnessed since coming to feminism in 1979, aged 17.

In universities around the UK and beyond, women are being fed a type of faux feminism, often by men reluctant to lose any of their privilege.

Julie Bindel, who came to feminism in 1979, says the rights achieved in the 19060s, 1970s and 1980s are at risk of being catastrophically eroded. Pictured: Julie (left) with Emma Humphreys in 1995 after a campaign to free her from jail for killing her violent partner

These women are being bullied and cajoled into accepting nonsensical concepts that are, at best, naive and, at worst, downright dangerous.

Prostitution, say these young women, is a job just like any other. They also argue that pornography is liberating. And finally, that trans-women should share female-only spaces such as hospital wards and domestic violence refuges.

This last makes me want to weep. It was women of my generation — often called second-wave feminists — who, 50 years ago, built rape crisis centres and refuges with no funding or salaries. To see them being dismantled by the very women who may one day need them is heartbreaking and infuriating.

I don’t think these women — almost all of whom would call themselves feminists — realise they are complicit in eroding our rights, for the simple reason they are no longer taught feminist history in universities. Instead, they are fed a sop of incomprehensible post-modern claptrap by ivory tower academics.

Feminists of my generation are not just ignored, but actively disparaged — or worse.

Since January 2004, when I offered an early opinion on the trans issue for a national newspaper, whenever it becomes public that I am about to speak at an event, always about an aspect of male violence and always as part of my campaigning work, a mob forms with the aim of bullying the organisers into un-inviting me. This is always played out in public and it is always humiliating. Sometimes the organisers capitulate.

I have been invited then uninvited from numerous events at universities following protests from trans activists and supporters of ‘sex work is work’ politics. I have also been invited to, then de-platformed from a number of events exploring free speech.

By contrast, genuine achievements of the past go unrecognised. From the very beginning of my involvement in the women’s liberation movement, we were out on the streets, waving placards, carrying banners and shouting through loudhailers, protesting the laws we wanted to change.

Julie said feminism has been rebranded and repackaged as ‘just be kind and nice to everyone’. Pictured: A 1970 women’s liberation protest

It was our campaigning that led to the introduction of the offence of coercive control; that barred the use of a woman’s previous sexual history in rape trials and ensured anonymity for the victims of sexual assault; and outlawed rape in marriage, which — young feminists are often astonished to discover — was perfectly legal in England and Wales until 1992.

Absurdly, there is no longer any expectation that being a feminist requires you to do anything feminist at all. Instead, and ironically given my experience, feminism has been rebranded and repackaged as ‘just be kind and nice to everyone’. Young women are told it is simply about the ‘choice’ to be who you ‘want to be’.

But if feminism is about choice, what does this mean for the women and girls who don’t have any? The girls forced into marriage, the women pimped out by violent boyfriends, the women on benefits living in temporary accommodation with young children they can’t afford to feed?

For feminism to mean anything, it has to be for all women and not just the privileged few.

Do young women even know about ‘the battles we’ve fought for them

You might ask, as many young women do, what is there still left to fight for? Although my generation of feminists and those that came before chalked up numerous victories, women are far from liberated. Levels of male violence towards women and girls are off the scale, as we have seen with the tragic events of recent weeks.

Conviction rates are so low that rape has been more or less decriminalised. Sexual harassment is endemic in our secondary schools and still a problem for many women in the workplace.

Many young women claim to be feminists, but seem to spend their time dismissing those of us who do the work — as opposed to simply talk the talk — as ‘irrelevant’, ‘bigoted’, and ‘past it’. Do these women even know about the battles we’ve fought and won to afford them some freedom?

Julie said in the current climate of misogyny, many young women are turning on feminists like her rather than pointing the finger at abusive men. Pictured: A rally to celebrate International Women's Day in 2020

In 2018, for example, Ash Sarkar, a media commentator, tweeted about the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act, claiming the introduction of ‘self-identification’ would not have any effect on the rights of others. I replied: ‘Unless you are a female in prison, one of the most disenfranchised groups on the planet of course.’ It was a reference to the case of Karen White, the transgender sex offender placed in a female prison who went on to sexually assault two female inmates.

When, in reply, Sarkar claimed ‘bigots’ like me didn’t ‘care about women in prison’, it was too much. Had she known her feminist history, she would have been aware that I am the founder of Justice for Women — a campaign I began in 1990 — and have helped countless abused women get out of prison.

When I came to feminism, there were no laws protecting lesbians from discrimination and abuse; violent men often won custody of children when women left a marriage; and domestic violence was treated by police as a ‘private matter’. All of this changed because of active feminists, as opposed to those who sit on social media virtue-signalling.

In fact, a woman reporting rape five years ago had a much better chance of seeing justice done than she does today. There were 1,917 fewer rapists convicted in the year to December 2020 than in 2016-17, a decline of 64 per cent.

In the current climate of misogyny, many young women are turning on feminists like me rather than pointing the finger at abusive men. Yet there are young feminists doing invaluable work to challenge male violence and bring about women’s liberation.

Julie said social media activism isn't the answer, as the #MeToo movement is no substitute for action. Pictured: A women's liberation protest in 1971

The campaigning group We Can’t Consent to This, which successfully abolished the ‘rough sex’ defence so often used by men who kill women, continues the work I was involved in as a young feminist when we, too, abolished the insidious defence of ‘provocation’, used by a number of men who’d killed their wives because of ‘nagging’ or alleged infidelity.

Of the 1,000-plus women attending the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Liberation Movement conference in London, in February 2020, a minority, but significant number, were in their 20s.

And when I launched my new book last month in London, well over 100 of the 250 books I signed were for women under the age of 30, with some in their teens.

Right now, we need feminism more than ever, but not the kind that puts men first. In the real world prostitution is not a liberating career ‘choice’, and increasingly violent pornography is not ‘sex-positive’.

Neither is social media activism the answer. The #MeToo movement is no substitute for action. Let’s point the finger at men who rape rather than expecting yet more women to lay bare their horrific experiences.

We live in a world in which rape, femicide and everyday abuse and harassment are ever present.

To change it, we need to be united and not divided by generational conflict. Somehow, and urgently, we must find a way to bridge the gap. Fighting among ourselves wastes time — and there is no time to lose.

Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation, by Julie Bindel, (£16.99, Little Brown) is out now.

Before I Wake Part Three

Written by @allfortheandriel, @majoringinlycanthropy, and @gansey-just-gansey

Blue kicked around at the entrance to Monmouth Manufacturing. They were all there. She could see three cars in the parking lot: Ronan’s slick black BMW, Gansey’s obnoxious orange Pig, and a tricolored piece of shit that stuck out like a sore thumb. Adam’s, probably. K was always calling him a trailer trash piece of shit and the car was exhibit B, example of proof. 

“Don’t be a coward,” she muttered to herself before walking to the front door and rapping three times. It was quiet for a moment before she heard the telltale stomp of Ronan’s boots on the metal floor and he threw open the door. His mouth twisted up in a sarcastic smile, but she thought he still looked pleased somehow. 

“Sargent,” he barked.

“Lynch,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t look so surprised. My presence was requested at some point, no?”

“It was offered. Don’t mix it up,” he smirked. “Come on in.” 

She followed him in, eyes searching every corner warily. Blue registered the boys first. All four of them from Nino’s were there, watching her with curiosity and distrust, even Ronan. Especially Ronan. That was fair. 

There was a bed in the middle of the room and a desk shoved off to the side. Both were surrounded by books - mountains and mountains of books. A thriving mint plant sat next to the desk on a weighty stack of papers. That had to be why Gansey smelled heavily of it. Mint was always on his breath and in his hair. On the other side of the room were three closed doors, presumably additional bedrooms and a bathroom. She couldn’t explain the bed in this one, though.

She looked at Ronan, hoping he would smooth over the awkwardness. Talk about unfulfilled wishes. "Maggot, this is everybody. Everybody, this is Maggot." He leaned back against the door jamb. She made a face at him and turned to introduce herself, but Gansey beat her to it.

"Certainly your name isn't actually Maggot, right?" he asked, extending an uncertain hand. 

"Blue," she replied.

"Blue? Like the color?" 

"Yeah, and you're Dick? Like the appendage?" she took his hand. 

He looked pained, mouth forming a grimace. "Please don't.”

"You must be Adam," Blue said, turning to face the lean boy. He was looking at her with his mouth twisted downward into what looked like distaste. She made a similar face, eyes roving over him, trying to see what marked him as superior to K. She didn't find anything immediately noticeable. 

Enough time on him. She turned to the smudgy boy instead. "And who are you, stranger?" Everybody but Ronan seemed surprised that she addressed him. She stuck out her hand and he reached to grasp it, seemingly because it was expected of him rather than him meaning to. Blue’s fingers brushed his and she felt a brumal chill travel down her spine. Her stomach turned inside out. This was the telltale sign of being drained. 

"Oh ho ho, Lynch, what interesting friends you have," she said loftily, turning to look at him instead of the remnant of the person in front of her.

He gave her his shark smile and bit out a reply. “I keep unusual company.”

“Isn’t that an understatement,” she murmured, turning back to the ghost. “What’s your name? Or what was it, anyhow?”

“My name is Noah,” he said, still staring at her in wonder. “It’s very nice to meet you, Blue.” 

He still hadn’t let go of her hand, and she decided to let him keep it, though it might sap her. It had probably been a while since he’d felt this much energy. And it was worth the risk, she thought, to have him so immediately like her, even if she didn’t know why she wanted him to. It seemed to have an effect on the others, too. Adam was pacified infinitesimally. Gansey let out his own sigh, looking at Noah and Blue’s joined hands. 

“So Blue, how might we help you today?” Gansey queried.

“Help me? I’m just here for a bit of fun. Lynch here seems to prefer your company so I thought I would check you all out.” She looked down at her hand still wrapped in Noah’s. “So far, doesn’t seem to be a complete waste of a trip.”

“Fuck off, Sargent,” Lynch laughed merrily.

“Go suck a dick,” she responded, making a jerking off motion with her free hand.

“Oh great, there’s two of you now,” Adam said, and Blue couldn’t quite comprehend what he did to his face to make it look so warm towards Ronan, and yet so cold towards her at the same time. It had to be a practiced look.

“How did you know about Noah?” Gansey asked. “Most people can’t even see him, let alone be able to tell he’s a ghost. Is this due to your powers?”

Blue sent a sharp look towards Ronan, meant to injure. “Someone has a big mouth, don’t they? How much have you told them about me?” she accused.

Ronan simply shrugged, an answer in itself, before Gansey stepped in again. The official spokesman of his people. Gansey intoned, “Only that you possess some unusual abilities of your own. You’re an amplifier, he mentioned. You make his ability stronger?”

“I make everything stronger. Dreamers, ghosts, psychics.” 

“Oh, like a loudhailer!” Gansey said wondrously. Adam was keenly attentive for a second too long before schooling the fascination and the amusement out of his expression.

“A what now?” she asked, a mildly irritated expression crossing her face. Noah let go of her hand and warmly patted her hair. It was difficult to maintain the exasperation in her expression.

There were parts of Gansey’s face that pinked in response. “A megaphone.”

She shared a long-suffering sigh, shoulders slumped in defeat. She supposed that did describe her abilities. “I guess,” she said. “But I can feel him draining my energy. Made it kind of obvious.”

“Sorry,” Noah said sheepishly. He folded his hands behind his back.

Blue grabbed his hand and placed it back in her hair. “It’s okay, really,” she said kindly.

Adam watched her with narrowed eyes, a creeping suspicion in his gaze. “So,” he started flatly, “You’re Kavinsky’s girl.”

She automatically stiffened. “I’m my own,” she hissed at him, repeating Ronan’s words from that long ago day. “Don’t fucking imply differently.”

“You hang out with Kavinsky a lot. And you’re the only girl that does. Well, the only one that does regularly.” Adam crossed his arms defensively.

She mimicked his stance, standing several inches shorter, but ten times as tensely. Something burned at the bottom of her throat. “You meant I belong to him. Well, I don’t. Or, wait, are you Gansey’s boy? Come on. Talk to me, one toy to another.”

That slammed. Adam’s hands balled into tight white-knuckled fists. Adam’s ears were turning an alarming red color. Fury radiated just under the precipice of his skin. She could tell. It thrilled her.

“Shut your fucking mouth, Sargent,” Ronan seethed. He stood in front of Adam then, his back to her.

She smirked to herself. Blue was good at getting under people’s skin. She could tell from K’s stories that Adam wanted to stand on his own two feet, rather than depend on Gansey, or even Ronan, even though they were together. That car outside in the parking lot confirmed it for her. It would cost Ronan nothing to bring Adam back a car, like she contemplated asking K for. But, still, he drove that little tricolored shitbox. He was a lot like her. Or, at least, how she used to be before K got his hooks in her.

She shook that off. She was happy with her life. She was happy with K. Happy with her job, and her freedom, and her power. K only supported her. He didn’t control her like Gansey did with his followers. 

Smiling again, more tightly this time, she opened her mouth for one reason only. “Go to hell,” Blue said pleasantly, rabidly, piercingly, over her shoulder, before she kicked open the door with the toe of her boot. 

This had been a bad idea. There was a reason why she didn’t have friends outside the dream pack. There was a reason why she didn’t leave K. There was a reason why Ronan was considered a traitor. And, most importantly, there was a reason why she hadn’t followed him when she had wanted to.

“Wait,” called Gansey, when she was halfway to the opening to the road. She looked over her shoulder at him but didn’t stop. His longer legs caught up to her with minimal effort, though. “Please, wait!” He hurried to pass her and then planted himself in her way, a puff of breath rushing from his lips. “Adam didn’t mean it like that, Blue.”

“Yes, he did,” Blue countered. “Why even bother lying?”

Gansey began and then hesitated. “You’re right,” he agreed, after considering her for a moment. She was surprised to hear him say anything that painted any of his group in a less than perfect light. “You’re right,” he repeated. “He did mean it that way, but he’s just…-Well, for one, he’s rather defensive of the lot of us. I suppose he’s just a bit surprised. I know I am. Why would someone that spends so much time with Kavinsky suddenly want to hang out with us without malicious intent? Especially considering… our misunderstanding at Nino’s.” A hint of shame colored his tone.

Blue’s hackles rose again as she recalled. “Well, as Lynch so helpfully pointed out to me the other night, I have no friends outside of K and his group. He swears the sun shines out of your ass. So, I thought this might be a chance to branch out. Make some. But that was clearly a mistake. I’ll go now,” she said pointedly, moving to go around him. 

He reached a hand out, as though to touch her shoulder, but dropped it and stepped into her path again. They weren’t done. “I doubt Ronan quite said that, but you’re not wrong. This could be your chance to branch out from Kavinsky.” The way Gansey spoke his name was the way he would ask someone to take out the trash. Hell, Gansey probably didn’t need to ask anyone to deal with trash. Yet, here he was talking to her.

“I don’t have a problem with Kavinsky,” Blue said sharply. “He’s not as bad as Ronan makes him out to be. He supports me. He cares about me. He encourages me. I won’t let you or your flunkies badmouth him.”

Gansey pursed his lips. He looked like he wanted to argue but, instead, he replied with more formality than was necessary. “I apologize for our incivilities. Please, come back in. We’ll all be on our best behavior. I swear it. Even Ronan.”

“Like that means much,” Blue snorted. “Even you can’t muzzle him.” Gansey cracked a smile, but didn’t dignify that with a response. She studied Gansey for a lengthy moment. He appeared sincere. “Fine,” she said. “I’ve got some time left to kill anyway. Think your merry band is calm by now?”

“Is that what you call us?” Gansey chuckled. “I rather like that. But yes, I think he was mostly over it by the time I came to get you. Adam tries so hard to be his own person, you know? He doesn’t like anybody implying that he belongs to any of us. I suppose you two have more in common than it seems.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Blue muttered.

“He seemed ready to apologize when I left,” he assured her. Gansey paused, ”None of us think that.”

“Uh-huh,” she rolled her eyes again. “Never crossed your minds once.”

“Truly, I know you don’t belong to him. Someone like you could never be owned.”

It was a heady thing, hearing those words from Gansey. Like he saw her. Like he could separate her from the rest of them when no one else did, except maybe Ronan. A swell of pride made her chest puff out as she followed him into the factory.

He was wrong, though. Kavinsky did own her. For now.

Adam didn’t apologize, at least not aloud. When Blue reentered Monmouth, their eyes met. She returned the gaze and that was that. There was still tension between them throughout the day and it often came to a head in matters involving Ronan.

“We’re ordering in. Blue, do you have any requests?” Gansey asked, ever the doting host.

“Not Nino’s,” was her automatic response.

Adam snorted. “Well, that narrows it down.”

Blue rolled her eyes. “And I suppose you have someplace specific in mind?”

“As a matter of fact,” Adam postulated, “I do. I’d like that Mexican place over on Main street.”

“Ew,” Blue wrinkled her nose. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled at the sound of Adam’s haughty tone. Were they not cut from the same Dollar Store fabric? He was the least Aglionby of the boys before her, and yet he was working double time to clip his vowels and mimic Dick the Third. “If we’re gonna have cheap Mexican food, La Delicias is obviously superior to La Fiesta.”

“As if,” Adam scowled. “La Delicias is overpriced and bland.”

“Whatever. Ask literally anyone, everyone prefers La Delicias.”

“Name one person who prefers that junk over La Fiesta.” He added as she opened her mouth, “Besides yourself.” 

The response was quick and followed by a smug looking smirk. “Your boyfriend,” Blue replied. She was petty and she wasn’t sorry for it either.

“Wrong,” Adam insisted. “He likes La Fiesta. We went there last week.”

Blue arched an eyebrow at Ronan. “Man, the things you do for love, huh?”

“Ro, tell her,” Adam turned to Ronan, only to stare disbelievingly at the chagrined look on his boyfriend’s face. “You can’t be serious,” he scoffed.

“Sorry, but the maggot’s right on this one,” Ronan shrugged one shoulder. “We went to La Fiesta cause that's the one you like.”

Blue faked gagged. “You’ve gone soft, Lynch. It's gross.” Gansey laughed, honey rich and butter smooth. It was hard to hate him when his laugh melted her insides.

“Fuck off. You’re just trying to start shit. You’ve never cared what you were eating,” Ronan replied. Neither of them mentioned that she was usually too high to actually pay attention to what she ate, when she actually remembered to. 

She smirked again, mischievous this time. 

“You’re right. But your little boytoy gets so worked up. It’s just so easy.” Her high was starting to fade fast, and she could feel herself getting bitchy. She scowled, unpleasantness settling in her gut. “Actually, I’m not hungry. I’m heading home.”

“Oh, are you sure?” Gansey’s voice sounded concerned. “Would you like one of us to drive you or-.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. Got here just fine on my own. I can get back like a big girl.”

And then she was gone. Out the door before Gansey could insist on taking care of her like she was one of the gang. The last thing she needed was to be seen pulling up to K’s in Dick’s old car. She’d never hear the end of it and K would be pissed. She couldn’t let that happen, especially when she was contemplating asking him for a favor. Especially when she was contemplating spending more time with Gansey and the others.

it’s literally called ‘comic’

broken tap fixes: duct tape as a temporary measure, multiple coping mechanisms that leads to nothing satisfactory. how to depict these in a funny way. the helplessness of such coping mechanisms. grabbing a piece of flesh with no feeling. touching, but with the opposite meaning intended. useless people who can’t text or be there for you. to leave things to interpretation. some people just scream into the loudhailer. of course there are people who are willing to listen. but most of us are just shoved into the face of that noise.

the garbage woman: she said why do i cut the stickers, but she was also the one who showed me how to cut the clean lines. i’m making my rubbish book which people seem to enjoy, it is puzzling and it makes me wonder, is this what it is to be an artist. it’s essentially rubbish right. but there’s a concept there. she’s an artisan. i wrote about this many years ago and i was jealous you seem to enjoy

draw your world

2020 vision

could this be a website?

and then at the bottom there is a link to a more grid like layout of my portfolio. my desire to be lost and found. my desire to retreat but be seen. be seen retreating. 

they meet a second time, unsurprisingly in the exact same spot behind campus where jhin is once again high on some sort of joint and making out with a faceless stranger he’s not quite sure he knows the name of. easy how he slips back into deplorable habits— not so much the drugs part, but the inexplicable need to chase after bodies of a certain stature, with a particular curve to the cupid’s bow that’s so hard to replicate. he’s never felt them beneath his, besides the harmless kisses against ten-year-old-jhin’s bruised knees. the lucky bastard. it’s a fantasy he really shouldn’t be trying to recreate, especially with the speed at which he goes through these boys, who do nothing to quench his curiosity. too tall, shoulders too narrow, lips that curve at the wrong angle; he’s beyond frustrated with his lack of progress. 

meeting baekhyun has let loose a whole spectrum of repressed emotion that he had been ( keywords: had been ) so sure he lost with the pitchiness in his pre-pubescent voice. his persistence can only get him so far, and even with the reprehensible number of men he’s kissed in the past six days, he’s yet to find someone that’ll take his mind off a pair of lips he yearned to kiss over mugs of hot coffee. his logic is all kinds of fucked up, but maybe, just maybe, kissing someone with similar lips will convince him that it’s as uncomplicated as lusting over another body part, and not because he has, god forbid, feelings for a person. maybe if he kisses enough boys he’ll stop thinking about rectangle shaped smiles and quietly distant eyes. so far, his plan doesn’t seem to be going very well. trying to kiss the attraction away makes him feel like human trash, and he ends up longing to see baekhyun again. not to say he wasn’t absolute garbage before, but wanting to kiss baekhyun feels so damn wrong, yet so, so right. they lost contact for twelve years, he should be over this, goddamn it!

so when the man he’s been silently pining after rounds the corner to the alley, his heart all but stops in his chest. their eyes meet over the brunette that jhin’s kissing, and he doesn’t stop or pull away, only staring baekhyun down as he continues ravishing the lips that have been set in front of him. there’s the familiar clatter of books falling to the ground, and jhin doesn’t know what to make of it; one second too late for it to be out of shock, like the day prior, and too early to be a conscious effort to get his attention. he finally gets around to pushing the boy away from him, watching baekhyun’s expression, only to find nothing in the carefully vacant stare that he wish he wasn’t acquainted with. the boy jhin’s been kissing stammers a goodbye and runs in the opposite direction. even as the land of freedom, america’s still not very keen on same-sex anything. but as it comes to most things, jhin hardly pays it any mind, only wiping his kiss-swollen lips with the back of his hand subconsciously, like it pains him to have kissed another person. 

baekhyun averts his gaze subtly, and again, he’s left with more questions than answers. it seems to always be like that with baekhyun: a labyrinth, a maze of convoluted paths that never seem to converge. every time he thinks he’s making headway, he walks into a dead end with nothing to do but to backtrack over all the progress he thought he made. it doesn’t help that baekhyun always seems so close, yet painfully out of reach. like jhin could reach out and touch him, make sense of the boy with the same eyes and lips, only to fall short; all hollow eyes, and even hollower smiles. baekhyun is not the boy he used to know. and for someone who’s so adamant about forgetting everything that’s happened in the past and leaving it behind him, jhin’s indescribably melancholic when he thinks about twelve years of lost time. with baekhyun, he finds himself clinging onto the past, grasping on to any semblance of what they used to have with aching fingers and gaping breaths. he thinks maybe if baekhyun just extended his arm to him they’d be able to piece together whatever’s left. he doesn’t.

baekhyun looks antsy beneath the facade of indifference— jhin’s proud of himself for picking that up, at least— and he looks like he wants to say something. watching your ( ex ) best friend shove his tongue down another man's throat after only having met once in the last decade is probably a lot to handle, so jhin hardly pays any of his hesitance mind. he's used to judging looks. something tells him the look in baekhyun’s eyes isn’t quite the same, but he’s too busy being completely shell-shocked at the fact that baekhyun’s here. even though they had promised to meet sometime again, he didn’t think it’d happen at all, let alone this quickly. although korean comes more easily now, talking to baekhyun is still like trying to navigate a minefield. he’s terse and unspeaking when it comes to most topics, only offering a placid smile in return to jhin’s excitable attempts, but when jhin manages to hit home with a particular topic, baekhyun engages in conversation willingly and blusters out a thousand questions at once. it’s still awkward, and there are more than a handful of painful silences that makes jhin want to suffocate himself ( baekhyun, on the other hand, seems perfectly content with the overhanging quietness ), but they make do.

on their second meeting jhin talks about what he first did when he travelled to america. it reminds him of a painfully lonely period of time, but baekhyun’s eyes shine when he speaks of corn dogs overlooking the statue of liberty— baekhyun hasn’t had the time to explore the city yet. jhin finds himself promising him a full tour of the city, declaring that he accepts payment in favours ( that won’t be too hard, he swears! ).

“alright, it’s a date.” it slips from his mouth before he can stop himself. fuck you, freudian.

“…. a date?” baekhyun stares at him weirdly. he forgets that jhin’s the master of feigned obliviousness and a mysterious foreigner who knows the inner workings of everything new york.

“of course. that’s what all westerners call it! a meeting between friends, it’s a date.”

baekhyun’s lips form an ‘o’ that jhin shouldn’t find pretty, or want to kiss. “okay. see you on thursday for our date.”

he thinks he could die happy.

—

JHIN’S SUPER AMAZING TASTY BIG APPLE TOUR FT. BAEKHYUN!, or so he’s chosen to name it ( don’t forget the exclamation mark ), spans over a whole month. he really doesn’t need that much time to bring baekhyun to all these tourist hotspots, but he’s somehow managed to convince himself that they can only do one activity a day so it remains Fresh and Cool. needless to say, baekhyun’s forced to oblige to his whims and fancies. when they first start out, jhin is more of a tourist than baekhyun. he has a makeshift loudhailer ( a cone of paper ) and a crappy flag ( a paper on a stick ) that he waves around excitedly just in case baekhyun somehow "gets lost", despite there only being one person on the tour. if baekhyun's annoyed he doesn't show it outside muffled complaints and curses that jhin does NOT think are hot. he doesn't have much of a say when jhin buys them matching shirts that spell out "i ❤ NY"— "it's a tradition, a must-have item!". by the end of it, they’re both decked out embarrassingly, looking like the tourists that they are, jhin notes proudly. 

with the golden age of capitalism taking root in america, jhin trails behind consumerism like the weed-smoking, snapback wearing exchange student that he is. baekhyun looks faintly sad whenever he sees jhin divulge himself to everything material. it makes jhin think about korea and the war and how he really shouldn't be enjoying himself here, doing drugs and fucking bitches— but if there's anything that's stayed rooted in his heart, it's stubbornness. if korea didn't want him, then he didn't want korea either. childish, yes, but he never claimed to be more than petty. somewhere deep in the crevices of his mind he knows he cares, and that korea will always be home, his home; he's just been hurt by the same shit one too many times for him to pussy out and act like he gives a fuck ( he does, he cares way too much ). after all, he hasn't spoken to anyone he knew from korea for years, and he's not about to change that anytime soon. baekhyun's an exception and jhin can ignore that underlying sadness just fine ( or so he’s convinced himself ). jhin makes it up to him with more corn dogs than he can stomach, holding one stick between each finger and pretending to tickle baekhyun with them; he smiles brighter than whatever melancholy he's kept tightly veiled and jhin thinks maybe this is enough.

( it still makes him sad to think about how baekhyun looks at everything in america with wide-eyed wonder. is this how jhin looked when he first arrived? how bad had the war become for him to looked so thrilled by oily battered hot dogs and pretentiously overpriced souvenir keychains? )

ignorance truly is a bliss.

the statue of liberty is uneventful, but jhin can make anything interesting, even a large, mould-green lady. what baekhyun wants is what he will get! they wear their obnoxiously matching new york shirts and walk around with their caps on backwards.

"we look stupid...."

"you mean COOL. we're the trendiest people here!!"

baekhyun sighs and straightens his cap. jhin grins.

the green lady is huge. mouldy and huge. she stands in her moulded, rusted glory while jhin reads off a list of facts ( see: JHIN'S SUPER AMAZING TASTY BIG APPLE TOUR FT. BAEKHYUN! FACTS! two exclamation marks ).

"the statue of liberty is... HOLY SHIT THATS FUCKING HUGE-- SHE'S MORE THAN 305 FEET TALL!!! HOW TALL IS THAT BAEKHYUN??? HOW MANY FOOTBALL FIELDS... hm...."

when he gets no response, he looks to baekhyun who's stood beside him. if jhin didn't know him better he'd assume that look was one of awe. but because he's spent twelve years pining, and the last twelve days observing and memorising, he knows otherwise. it isn't the look of an awestruck tourist beholding a large man made structure. it's reverence, almost akin to fear— head bowed slightly, arms folded in front of his legs— like he's seen statues this big and respected them. not the work itself, but the person it was moulded after. these pieces of baekhyun are confusing and hard to piece together. and while he might like to pretend to be a fool, he's not the same boy who took everything as it was back in korea. he knows something is wrong, but maybe he hasn't changed in some ways. feigning obliviousness is always easier.

in a giant leap of faith, he takes baekhyun's hand and draws him out of his reverie. it's a bad idea, and he really hates himself for wanting to provide baekhyun with some sort of comfort even though he isn't certain what's going on in that complex mind of his. baekhyun flinches with his whole body, and looks like he might hit jhin over the head with his free hand out of reflex. when he realises it's just jhin, he relaxes but remains slightly tense, trying to wretch his hand out of jhin's grip. there's a fluttering in jhin's chest when he doesn't actually do it. he knows baekhyun could, in a heartbeat, but he just stares at jhin questioningly.

"it's—" fuck damn it jhin, think!! "— it's a friend thing!!! like... calling these meetings a date. friends hold hands too, when they go out on dates. i just haven't told you until now because... I WAS WAITING FOR THE RIGHT TIME! you have to ask at the optimal time. it's essential to good friendship growing."

a look of skepticism flitters across baekhyun's carefully poised features, but it's replaced with a smile as soon as it comes. it's barely there, just an upward twitch of his lips, but it's the most genuine expression he's got out of baekhyun so far. he's managed to fall more in love with this enigmatic boy, and he thinks he's really starting to deserve this hell. maybe he's a masochist. there's hesitance in the way baekhyun pulls to link their fingers together, tentative touches with jhin sliding his digits between baekhyun's to finish what he started. now... now he could die happy.

—

baekhyun has proven to be a better student than jhin is a teacher. he's distracted easily and never tells baekhyun if what he's saying is right. most of what he wants to teach is nothing that baekhyun actually needs. the first lesson is on swears, so is the second and the third. by the end of the fifth, baekhyun's ready to curse out anyone, locked and loaded with yo momma jokes and a colourful vocabulary.

jhin only gives in when baekhyun whines.

"okay. the first thing you need to know how to say is... 'where are nyu's dorms?' you need to be able to come back here when you want to learn more." so i can see you.

baekhyun nods, looking happy that he's learning something more than 'yo momma's so fat she got baptised at sea world'.

"you say", jhin clears his throat and continues again, in english. "wassup motherfucker!!! where the nyu dorm bitches at? chop chop." he snaps once for each 'chop'. ( "the snapping is NECESSARY, baekhyun. if you don't do it they won't know what you're talking about." )

by the end of the lesson, jhin's halfway off his chair and sprawled on the ground laughing while baekhyun looks at him irately, mouth pinched into a frown as he musses his frustration-wrought hair.

"what the fuck am i doing wrong?!!"

"NOTHING! NOTHING AT ALL! YOURE DOING FANTASTIC. now.. repeat after me", breaks into english, "AWWWWWWESOME MAAAAAAAN".

needless to say, baekhyun makes it back to him semi-safely every week. jhin's heart betrays him by hoping.

—

the first time he has completely nothing planned is in his final's week. he's tired, stinky and aches all over from having slaved over studying in all of his last-minute-jhin-cramming glory. when baekhyun pushes his dorm room door open, he's half dead, rotting while slumped over his work desk— he doesn't even notice him coming in until baekhyun positions his forefinger beneath his nose to check if he's still alive and breathing. he is, but he really really wishes he wasn't. a mouthful of deranged gibberish later, he's pushing his glasses on and trying to shift into a more presentable position. if he weren't dead in the brain and jelly in the limbs, he'd be more embarrassed at baekhyun catching him off guard and Uncool, but as soon as he processes everything his mind flies into panic and he flails like a fish out of water. he has nothing and nowhere to bring baekhyun to, and he can't conjure up any new swear words when he has a year-long research presentation tomorrow, something he had completely forgotten about until four hours ago.

he's running out of excuses to see baekhyun and he knows it. new york is fairly large, but with his term growing more intense, he's having trouble coming up with weird, unseen attractions he can bring baekhyun to because he's practically covered everything possible. ( "they're attractions because you make it! anything can be touristy!" ) the possibility of never seeing baekhyun again eats at him, because like the tour guide he is, they, too, have an expiry date, don't they? he can only hope that baekhyun is fine sitting here doing nothing while jhin tries to complete the rest of his music theory assignments.

and then baekhyun does the impossible. he laughs. jhin's heart stops in his chest. this is it, he's finally dead. he's gone to heaven. it was worth it, twenty-two years, it was a good run. he's always imagined that he'd go out smoking a blunt and flipping his father off, but this is infinitely better.

until he realises he isn't actually dead. he must've been pulling quite the expression for baekhyun to be laughing harder, halfway to slapping at his knee while watching him. jhin joins in after he's done being offended, and they spend minutes just laughing until their stomach hurts, for no reason at all. it's the closest they've gotten to being what they used to be, and when it's over it hurts. he's left grasping at loose threads with no one on the other side; he's tasted this little piece of heaven and now has to let go. the smile on his lips wanes at the corners; melancholic, maybe just a little forlorn, and he knows baekhyun can tell, but he's grown too tired to masking his feelings. he's hidden them all his life, and even if baekhyun isn't The One, he hopes they've grown close enough in the last few weeks to be considered friends.

"... i'm sorry, i'm going to have to postpone our date. i'm completely swamped", jhin starts, trying to push the weariness out of his voice. baekhyun stays silent, just staring. that's not a good sign—

"— if you want you can sta—"

"i can stay he—"

they continue, at the same time. jhin keeps baekhyun's gaze, even as the latter turns away. it's baekhyun who speaks first.

"can i stay here? if you don't mind..."

"WHAT?! I MEAN— yes. yes of course...! your company is most definitely welcomed good sir," he babbles out of nervousness. baekhyun smiles his signature smile, faint and barely there, but one that jhin can identify a mile away.

baekhyun nods and makes himself comfortable beside jhin, scowling at the mess which is his table every once in awhile. he cleans up ( around jhin, the biggest mess ) without being asked to and asks questions about his course. he listens to jhin ramble on about music technicalities and lets jhin practice his presentation while acting like he understands the english. if jhin wasn't already in love before, he is now, hopelessly, utterly infatuated with his best friend, and doomed to a life of pure misery and heartbreak. somewhere between misplaced words and tacky souvenirs, he's fallen for a boy who brings more questions than answers, whose smile doesn't reach his eyes most of the time, but looks at jhin with all of his attention. someone who smiles at corn dogs and rock music, and looks like a child when brought to giant hyper marts. a boy who's so shrouded in mystery jhin isn't sure how to keep up. he decides he likes both sides of baekhyun; the enigma and the childhood friend. he really is a masochist.

he falls asleep to baekhyun humming a familiar tune under his breath, something he swears he's heard before. he can't place it, but the song makes his gut twist, even on the edge of wakefulness. it sounds too familiar, too dangerous and wrong. exhaustion takes him before he can think further, enveloping him in another bubble of blissful ignorance that he's all too happy to slip into.

when he wakes up baekhyun is gone and he is alone again.

Artists: Inga Danysz, Ron Ewert, Amy Garofano, Matt Siegle

Venue: Midland Warehouses, Chicago

Exhibition Title: Desolation Row

Organized By: Good Weather, North Little Rock

Date: September 15 – November 10, 2019

Note: Inga Danysz’s, Crawler, 03:48, 2019, can be heard here.

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release, and link available after the jump.

  Images:

Images courtesy of Good Weather, North Little Rock

Press Release:

Good Weather is pleased to present Desolation Row—an exhibition dealing with the subjectivity of visibility with work by Inga Danysz, Ron Ewert, Amy Garofano, and Matt Siegle, sited in two abandoned offices (#122A and #114A) at opposite ends of the hallway in Chicago’s Midland Warehouses (1524 S. Western Ave.). The show is on view from September 15, 2019 until November 10, 2019 with gallery hours on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 11 am–6 pm, or by appointment.

That which cannot be seen—either intrinsically, extraneously by societal biases, or by self volition, for whatever reason—creates a disguised state where the collective mind perceives an absence. The tool of observation is warped when the observed is invisible, but the work in Desolation Row contains a material layer, a facade that serves as a tangible link to this absence. Furthermore, the crisp facture of each of these artworks gives contour to their subjective furl: layers and recesses that orchestrate a dramatization of the contemporary drive.

In Siegle’s work, imagery is sourced from advertisements that use coded language to point to concealed spaces and “alternative” communities from the 1980s and 90s. The corporeality of these calling cards (their texture and slight misregistration) is adroitly recreated with a tactile treatment of paint, each detail precisely enlarged to emphasize a necessary indirectness.

Garofano’s upholstered velvet paintings draw their imagery from the architectural designs of gates, with subtle material shifts that rely on light and shadow to reveal their image. This fluctuating space creates an unstable positioning experienced literally in passing: only through the physical movement of the viewer can every detail of the image be apprehended in relation to the ambient light direction.

Ewert’s paintings use a variety of indexical makeshift printing processes that fix objects and actions into a graphic visual language, opening up and confusing the pathology of painting. Like Dylan’s lyrical folk-Dada mashup (from which this exhibition co-opts its title), these works speak to an accelerated pace of physical and psychic change, finding emptiness in a surplus of cultural noise.

Danysz’s glass sculptures are transparent demarcations, barely visible and easily broken, citing the fragility and conditionality of visual experience. These inadequacies are highlighted through the multiplied, anachronistic forms, shifting the transience of the physical object into the false objectivity of language. Down the hallway, Danysz’s sound piece rattles through the empty chambers of the building, revealing an uncanny link to the physicality of her other work and the current body (building) in which it resides.

Ultimately, what inhabits these spaces wants to be disguised—or rather left alone, found only by the key holder. Desolation Row conjures the tension between conditions of passive observation (scrolling) and active sociality (strolling), wherein the flaneur is invited to take a garden-path, a rambling detour in lieu of a direct route, towards the abyss. (Ron Ewert and Haynes Riley)

Inga Danysz (b. 1990 Warsaw, Poland) lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Recent solo exhibitions include Impostures at VIS (Hamburg) and Insufficient Funds at Kunstverein Reutlingen. She has presented her work at Fondazione Antonio Ratti (Como), Skaftfell Center for Visual Arts (Seydisfjoerdur), Museum für Moderne Kunst MMK (Frankfurt am Main), and Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. In 2016, she received the Columbus Award for Contemporary Art. Danysz studied at Städelschule (Frankfurt am Main) and afterwards took part in the De Ateliers (Amsterdam) from 2015–2017. She was a participant in The Mountain School of Arts (MSA^) (Los Angeles) in 2019. Recent publications include The End Is Always At The Beginning—a vinyl with Tolouse Low Trax (2019), the catalogue Insufficient Funds (2018), and artist books Metamorphosis of the 21st Century Minotaur (2018) and Rootless Rocks and Drifting Stones (2017, together with Ani Schulze)

Ron Ewert (b. 1982 Glendale Heights, Illinois) lives and works in New York. Ewert received his MFA from the Painting and Drawing Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012. Solo exhibitions include I’m getting too old for this shirt at Atlanta Contemporary, I would like to see what happens at Good Weather (North Little Rock), I need a new hot water heater at Mild Climate (Nashville), and I wish lunch could last forever at S1 (Portland). He has presented work in group exhibitons at La Kaje (Brooklyn), Johannes Vogt (New York), Andrew Rafacz (Chicago), Roots and Culture (Chicago), Monya Rowe Gallery (New York), Launch F18 (New York), 356 Mission (Los Angeles), The Green Gallery (Milwaukee), American Fantasy Classics (Milwaukee), Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (Grand Rapids), and at Printed Matter, Inc.’s NY Art Book Fair and LA Art Book Fair, among others. This past June, he presented a solo booth at LISTE with Good Weather. He was a founder and co-director of The Hills Esthetic Center (Chicago) from 2010–2015.

Amy Garofano (b. 1980 Syracuse, New York) lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions include Citrus on Pico at Good Weather (North Little Rock) and in the Martel Window at Richard Telles Fine Art (Los Angeles). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Rainbow in Spanish (Los Angeles), Arturo Bandini (Los Angeles), Plug Projects (Kansas City), VACANCY (Los Angeles), Egyptian Art & Antiques (Los Angeles), BBQLA (Los Angeles), Loudhailer (Los Angeles), Syndicate at Aspect/Ratio (Chicago), and Haute École d’Art et de Design (Geneva, Switzerland). Her work has been published on Contemporary Art Daily, Title Magazine, and in GRAPHITE Journal Issue VI. She was a 2016 nominee for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant in Los Angeles. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2012 and received a MacDowell Fellowship in 2013.

Matt Siegle (b. 1980) is a Los Angeles-based mixed-media artist. Exhibitions and performances include: Hamtramck Ceramck (Hamtramck) organized by Good Weather, Park View / Paul Soto (Los Angeles), YEARS (Copenhagen), Artists Space (New York), Vernon Gardens (Los Angeles) organized by Good Weather, Anthony Greaney (Boston), Kunsthal 44 Møen (Denmark), Night Club (Chicago), Pacific Standard Time (Los Angeles), Et al. (San Francisco), Arturo Bandini (Los Angeles), Holiday Forever (Jackson, Wyoming), The Luminary (St. Louis), Vermilion Sands (Copenhagen), and PACT Zollverein (Essen). Siegle’s practice includes critical and creative writing, and in 2017 he co-published If The Head Fits, Wear It, an anthology on contemporary art and the Grateful Dead distributed by D.A.P. From 2013–16 he co-ran metro pcs, an artist-project gallery in Chinatown, Los Angeles. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2009.

Link: “Desolation Row” at Midland Warehouses

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from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/35zgDbR

The Coastline

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They are made use of all over as well as will certainly always be needed.Concrete products of all kinds remain in solid need almost everywhere that structure is going will certainly never ever head out of style like a right here today gone tomorrow are made use of to build whatever from little backyard jobs to large you are in the cement block organisation you have a market everywhere in North America and also in many various other areas all over the world. If you adored this write-up and you would certainly like to obtain more details regarding similar web-site kindly browse through our web-page. The coastguard is prompting beachgoers to hearken lifeguards warnings and not take risks by going into the water in negative weather. TechStars Seattle startup Sandglaz has actually elevated a $500,000 seed round from personal financiers for its task-management service, which integrates the methods of Active development techniques with standard task administration.

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that you simply want further Microsoft Adapter(Not together with) when Hook up with your outdated Xbox One controller. This merchandise do not embody the adapter for xbox 360 Earlier than apply the headset in your PS4, please take a look at it together with your cellphone to make sure it operate nicely. PS4 setting: Insert the headset personal three.5mm jack plug into the Gamepad, then lengthy press the PS4 button or enter the system Settings, there’s a peripheral machines, select “Regulate Sound and Units”, “output to the headphones”, then change it to “all audio “. It’s appropriate for PS4 XBOX ONE PC Mac ,

Technical Specification:

1.Loudhailer diameter:40mm(NdFeB) 2.Frequency vary: :20-20.000Hz three.Sensitivity:113+/-3dB at 1kHz four.Impedance:32 Ohm at 1khz 5.Max Enter energy:30mW (most) 6.Mic Dimension:6.zero*5.0mm 7.Plug:three.5mm eight.Mic Sensitivity:-54dB +/- three dB 9.Magnet dimension:15.5 x 2.0mm 10.Cable size:Approx.2.2m 11.Distortion: smaller than 5% THD

Notice:

Troubleshooting Strategies: Sound is simply too small or no sound: Make sure that your audio units work correctly and sound change has been turned on ; flip up the sound quantity degree, Guarantee connecting the plug of headset to audio supply appropriately.

Package deal included:

1 x SADES SA-810 Gaming headset For PS4 new Xbox one 1 x three.5mm Headphone/Mic Splitter Cable For PC

It’s at all times higher to purchase Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop computer Telephone from the the chief on this eCommerce trade. They’ve proved their capacity in delivering high quality service after shopping for improbable merchandise from them.

YouTube Video

The post Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop Phone appeared first on IPCAMVOX.

from Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop Phone

The Prodigal Father

A cry of inarticulate anguish for what we have done.

   In a land not far from our own, and in a time not so remote as to be forgotten, a young man went to his father. “Father,” he said, “On this, your farm, I was born and here I passed my childhood. But now I am nearly a man and it is time to take my place in the World.”

 The young man’s father barely raised his head from the paper he was reading, sprawled on the couch. “You have everything you need here. There is nothing but misery and squalor and evil, cutthroats and mad murderers in the rest of the World – see here, it says so.” And he tapped the sheet of newsprint in his hand. “Why would you want to be anywhere else?”

 “But, Father,” said the son, “I have friends on the neighbouring farms who are inviting me to go with them and learn about the World so that we can take our place and make our contribution.”

 “Our neighbours are not our friends,” said the father, “Because of them, I have to pay my farmhands and can no longer whip them when they complain. Because of them, I can no longer water the milk of my own cows before I sell it. Because of them I can no longer release the slurry into the river. Because of this, they grow rich selling their produce and I cannot sell mine.”

 “But, Father,” said the son, “If I go and learn their ways, and bring what I learn back to you, we can take our place in the market alongside them and make as much as they.”

 “You are a mere boy,” said the father with a sneer, “You think that profit comes from quality. Profit comes from bearing down on cost. And cost and quality are enemies. No, we are better off on our own. You shall not go to join your friends.”

 “Then, Father, teach me your ways that I may support you.”

 “Teach you? And how will you pay me for this teaching? All that I have learned has made me what I am. Do you think I should pass it on to you for nothing?”

 “But Father, if you do not teach me, how will I run the farm when you are too infirm to do it?”

 “You will not run the farm, for I have surrendered the title to a travelling salesman in fine wines.”

 “Then, Father, give me a share of the wines and I shall take it to the market and make our fortune.”

 “There is no wine. I have drunk it.”

 “Then, Father, if I have nothing to sell in the market, how shall I keep you in your old age?”

 “You will keep me by your labours, for have I not also sold you into bondage, as was my right and mandate? For you and your birthright were always mine to dispose of.”

 Seeing for the first time the enormity of his fate, the young man swooned and fell to the floor, cracking his head on the table. His father looked briefly and without compassion at the youth, prone and bleeding.

 “And do not think I have bandages to fix you up. I sold them for a box of cigars to the man who bought your sister.”

My sister was born in 1949. I followed in 1951. We were among the first beneficiaries of our parents’ generation’s determination that the legacy of two brutal world wars would be a new order of societal improvement and peace: that the World should be made a better place to live for all its people.

My sister took all the childish ailments of the time – chickenpox, measles, bronchitis, whooping cough – in her stride. I didn’t. Dr Murphy was a frequent attender at our house. Dr Murphy, our NHS GP, always there for us, at any hour. And free. Like the prescriptions, like the glasses that my spiralling myopia required to be changed every 6 months for 10 years. Like the free dentistry. Like the free inoculations. And free school milk and school dinners. And free school books. And free…

And our Nan, her ulcerated legs needing daily attention, she didn’t suffer the same fate as her husband, the grandfather we never knew except from photographs because he died of TB in 1936 when Dad was just 16, abruptly ending Dad’s education because, with no welfare support, his income was needed to keep the home. Just 12 short years further down the line, the probability is that Granddad would have survived and, even if he hadn’t, there would have been a safety net to catch the family.

Our parents had been a part of the humane revolution that started to build during the war and gathered an unstoppable momentum soon after. They had met in Blackpool in 1946, where each had been re-assigned after the war to work on the newly emerging Welfare State. My mother, eldest of eight children of a Sheffield railway porter and his wife, raised by a maiden aunt in Nottingham and given an enlightened education she could never have enjoyed in the hard, cold pre-war poverty of that cramped Sheffield home. My father, only child of an embittered widow, without a qualification to his name but risen through his own intelligence and efforts from trainee bank clerk to civil servant.

They were a part of a great civilising movement, though few in it would have thought to put it that way. These survivors of 30 years of hell didn’t stop to bicker over who was more left or right, didn’t huffily withdraw their co-operation from the task in hand because of ideological differences. They just worked together for a better life for all. And within a few short years they achieved it.

Through their efforts, my generation and the next and the next were blessed. It wasn’t just the NHS or the promise of cradle to grave financial support. All over the country, council housing started to replace slums, state education gave us all a chance to lift ourselves out of ignorance. Further education became a possibility for the many, not the pampered few.

Politicians across the board understood that poverty and ill-health, which so often run hand in hand, were a brake on economic success and that, in a landscape of increasing technological complexity, education was an essential investment if we were to hold our own as a modern trading country. It made sense. Reason and humanity, going hand in hand, as Adam Smith had said they should to forge the wealth of a nation.

Every town had a library, every person had easy access to health care. Schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and whole towns were built. Telecommunications were rolled out, roads laid out fit for heavy transport, railways and buses moved people around, gas, electricity and clean water were supplied as a basic necessity.

It wasn’t free, of course. It had to be paid for. But taxes spread the burden across the nation and most people thought that was fair, partly because politicians and the media talked responsibly about the national interest and serving the nation, partly because we were still so close to the harshness of the world that had gone before and we could see the improvement in our lives.

No, this is not “Golden Age” thinking. There was a lot of residual poverty, a lot of hardship still, a lot of sweat and strain: and there was a lot of ugly thinking that was still ingrained – widespread and easy racism, sexism, homophobia and anti-semitism. It would be absurd to think that all that was wrong could be transformed over night as if a fairy wand had been waved. But the direction of travel was, for a time, progressive, new ideas were taking hold and for a while the spirit of reconstruction held.

Yes, for a while it held. But success carried the seeds of its own destruction. What my parent’s generation had been through was traumatic. And in the aftermath, instead of a land flowing with milk and honey, they were asked to endure genuine austerity (not the fake, cynical austerity of the present day designed to make the rich richer and to keep the poor in poverty and discontent but the austerity needed to pay for the restoration of all that had been destroyed and for the building of a brighter future). But technology, enterprise and industrial modernisation had combined to produce more houses, more innovations and devices, more cars, washing machines, televisions. All this produce was worthless if it could not be sold. It needed a market. And a market needed customers, consumers, in ever-increasing numbers.

For centuries, for most of human history, ordinary people had owned very little. They could afford little but they had needed very little for their constrained lives. The manufacturers and investors of new Britain had to change all that or they would soon be broke. So people had to be taught that they needed what they had never had before, or what only the rich and privileged had enjoyed. They had to be taught avarice and dissatisfaction, on a massive scale. The message had to shift from “to each according to his needs” to “you are what you own and what you covet”. And to succeed in this endeavour, the new religion of Consumerism had to break down their seriousness.

My parents and their parents had slogged through their lives. They and most people like them survived, more than lived. If they were lucky, there would be moments of celebration, occasional rewards for which they were expected to be grateful. If they borrowed it was to stave off destitution, not to acquire fripperies. If they took time off it was to recuperate and to build their strength for the drudgery ahead. This, prudence, was how they had been taught life was to be led (how it still is for most of the people on this planet). Consumerism, to succeed, had to push prudence out of the limelight and move indulgence to centre stage.

Prime Minister Harold MacMillan warned them “You’ve never had it so good.” And yes it was a warning. But his message was misheard against the seductive dance music blaring from the Tannoys.

So, now, just beyond the edge of their half-constructed utopia, a fairground opened, big, bright and brash and extravagantly attired ring-masters, amid of a parade of tumblers and clowns, called to them through loudhailers “Put down your tools, tear off your overalls, be done with toil. Come and indulge yourselves. It is your right. You have a right to be happy. You have earned it.” And they went, and were dazzled and intoxicated by the lights and colours and the noise. Who wouldn’t be?

Everything was done to make people feel that this flimsy, gaudy world of cosmetic pleasure and damn tomorrow was sustainable. Remember, just don’t click the heels, and you’ll never need to go home. At the same time, everything was being done to denigrate and devalue those who clung to sobriety and reflection. Everything had to be “fun”. Hedonism became a philosophy: Sodom for Gomorrah we die.

And I believe it was then, around the early sixties that parents lost the grip on the hands of their children and with it the sense of what it was all supposed to be for. And we wandered off alone to be importuned with sweets from greasy strangers, drinking in the sleazy patter from the slick bunco booth artists as if it were gospel. It sounded good and without our parents’ warning words we knew no better.

In the fairground, fashion and the cosmetic ousted utility and substance. Worrying about the future was for losers. All was for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds (paradoxically a world continually shifting in order to remain the same). For those who wanted the intellectual version, issues and causes were now available in all sizes, to be put on and cast aside like miniskirts and loon pants. For our parents, erudition became a glossy large format photo-edition for the coffee table or five minutes of late night pretentious punditry from self-consciously groomed and preening presenters. And for us, the TV generation, learning and information was increasingly fed to us from plastic bowls via plastic spoons, served up with flashy images and music, bland and  mashed up and gently warmed through so that we did’t have to chew hard on the issues.

The producers of this diet of froth and flim-flam were making more money than they had dreamt of but there was a threat to it: satisfaction. If, even for a moment, people felt comfortable with what they had, continual consumption, needed to keep the tills ringing, would falter, and collapse would surely follow. Growth was the only game in town. Only two things could keep the game in play. Customers had to be made to feel insecure; and then they had to be told what it would require to reassure themselves. And this must be repeated over and over.

Luckily, the invention of mass media provided the perfect tool for the job. There had always been advertising but now it took on a viral, insidious and monstrous form. Every medium, newspapers, cinema, television, was co-opted to convince my parents, and my own generation that our lifestyle, as soon as we had bought it, was already past its sell-by date and could be salvaged and enhanced only by this or that new acquisition. And lest we might have time to pause and question this message, television, with its new ubiquity, harnessed celebrity and bombarded us with an infinite amount of vacuous content that held our attention for the briefest of moments before moving us on to the next advert break. 

We were flattered, like Pinocchio by the oily Thespian, like the magpie by the wily fox. Under the ceaseless deluge of stuff, ingratiating stuff, we became accepting of what was put before us, choosing, or thinking we were choosing, only the identity of our preferred purveyor of images and accepting without question his or her pre-packaged self-evident truths. And so we became what Consumerism required of us, malleable, persuadable, compliant consumers.  

It was then that, pressed and pressed into wanting more and newer things, borrowing money we could not afford to repay to add to our personal stores of status conferring possessions, we started to resent the burden of those who needed our support: and, encouraged by those who wanted our money for themselves, it was then that we started to see our taxes as an imposition, an oppressive interference with what was ours and should be ours to spend. And so the stage was set for the tragedy that became the killing of the post-war project.

This is the world we now inhabit. Duped daily by rogues and charlatans in the pay of the plutocrats whose fortunes we have made out of our own impoverishment, but, like heroin addicts, equally convinced that we are in control of our habit, we sell our present and our future for another fix of blissful distraction. Like all addicts, we make enemies of those who tell us we have got it wrong. How can we have? This feels right, doesn’t it. And if it doesn’t, isn’t it all someone else’s fault? The saboteurs, the naysayers, the doom-mongers, the bleeding’ heart liberals. It will all come right if only… if only… if only all those other people will stop making demands on us, stop reminding us of the need to be decent.

Our politicians have learned from Consumerism’s conjured success. Where once they sought to govern in what they perceived to be the interests of the nation, and accepted the burden of responsibility and the prospect of blame that came with it, now their product is pure image, soundbite, designed to bring them power, influence and fandom at no cost to their consciences, conflicted interests or careers. In hock and in thrall to the same plutocrat owners of the media, and now, in addition, to the new oligarchs of IT (TV’s heir) that invasively directs our lives, they no longer preach prudence except to the poorest among us, who have nothing else; they no longer care to attend to the national interest, preferring to claim illusory mandates to insult our intelligence while they hand sackfuls of our money out of the Treasury window to economic rapists not worthy of the term kleptocrat, more in the nature of artful dodgers. They have their tickets on the gravy train out of here, or think they have. All they will have to do is to say, as others have said before them, “We were only obeying orders”. Orders from us, the disordered, the misinformed, the manipulated.

And our children? So far from protecting them, as was our duty, we have sold their birthright over and over.

If only we could hear the message coming down from our own history, calling on our decency and self-respect, “Time to leave the fairground and get back to work. There is a nation to rebuild”.

Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop Phone

Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop Phone

Do not miss this chance to get this product on most reasonably priced worth.

Pros:

MULTI-PLATFORM COMPATIBLE:Appropriate with PlayStation four,New Xbox One,PC and Cell/ Pill units.Please notice that you simply want an additional Microsoft Adapter when you personal an outdated model Xbox One controller.

HIGH QUALITY SOUND .Acoustic positioning precision, sport telepresence is healthier. 40mm excessive flux neodymium iron boron/drive unit, successfully improve the sensitivity of the speaker unit

HIGH QUALITY MICROPHONE. Headset built-in mic with tremendous noise-reduction operate, can decide up sounds with nice sensitivity and take away the noise.Lengthy versatile mic design very helpful and transportable.

COMFORTABLE FIT.Softness and good air permeability protein earmuffs, multi factors presure head beam, accord with human physique engineering specification.

STRONG BRAIDED CORD:Excessive tensile power, anti winding braided line, with the designed particularly for gaming customers and the design of the center by wire.

Get this Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop computer Telephone

Why You Want It: THIS IS THE BEST GIFT FOR XBOX AND PS4 GAMER Get an nice audio expertise with Sades SA-810 PS4 xbox one Gaming Headset Designed particularly for PS4,2015 New Model Xbox One,PC, Pocket book,Laptop computer ,Pill.Simple to arrange and delivers high-quality, amplified digital sport and chat audio via 40mm audio system with out disturbing others.

Please notice

that you simply want further Microsoft Adapter(Not together with) when Hook up with your outdated Xbox One controller. This merchandise do not embody the adapter for xbox 360 Earlier than apply the headset in your PS4, please take a look at it together with your cellphone to make sure it operate nicely. PS4 setting: Insert the headset personal three.5mm jack plug into the Gamepad, then lengthy press the PS4 button or enter the system Settings, there’s a peripheral machines, select “Regulate Sound and Units”, “output to the headphones”, then change it to “all audio “. It’s appropriate for PS4 XBOX ONE PC Mac ,

Technical Specification:

1.Loudhailer diameter:40mm(NdFeB) 2.Frequency vary: :20-20.000Hz three.Sensitivity:113+/-3dB at 1kHz four.Impedance:32 Ohm at 1khz 5.Max Enter energy:30mW (most) 6.Mic Dimension:6.zero*5.0mm 7.Plug:three.5mm eight.Mic Sensitivity:-54dB +/- three dB 9.Magnet dimension:15.5 x 2.0mm 10.Cable size:Approx.2.2m 11.Distortion: smaller than 5% THD

Notice:

Troubleshooting Strategies: Sound is simply too small or no sound: Make sure that your audio units work correctly and sound change has been turned on ; flip up the sound quantity degree, Guarantee connecting the plug of headset to audio supply appropriately.

Package deal included:

1 x SADES SA-810 Gaming headset For PS4 new Xbox one 1 x three.5mm Headphone/Mic Splitter Cable For PC

It’s at all times higher to purchase Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop computer Telephone from the the chief on this eCommerce trade. They’ve proved their capacity in delivering high quality service after shopping for improbable merchandise from them.

YouTube Video

The post Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop Phone appeared first on IPCAMVOX.

from Sades Over-Ear Stereo Bass Gaming Headphone with Noise Isolation Microphone for Xbox One PC PS4 Laptop Phone