#and for a minute there i thought scherzo might make it too | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

werewolvesandaccordions · 1 year

Quote

Holst – The Planets (1916) This might shock you, but I used to not like the Planets. I’d first heard it years ago, back in high school, and felt cold to it. I also thought it was too long. I tried listening to it a few more times over the years and it never clicked with me. So I shrugged it off as some “overrated’ music, maybe it’s only popular because of the program, or because of intro to music appreciation, or because of band students. Yesterday I was driving to work, and the Planets was playing on Sirius classical radio. I rolled my eyes and changed to my city’s classical station, but they were playing some Baroque concerto I wasn’t in the mood for, so I stuck around with the planets for the ten minute drive. I was taken in by the hypnotic and dream-like orchestration, and then colorful, fun music. So I admit I was wrong, the Planets is a great work for orchestra, and funny enough it is one of those pieces that the composer didn’t like. Holst grew to resent the Planets for taking so much attention from his other music. He was inspired by astrology, and had fun telling friend’s fortunes by palm reading and by the alignment of the planets. He was interested in the idea of the planets having an effect on the human psyche. Around that time he attended the English premiere of Schoenberg’s 5 Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16, and he bought a copy of the score. These inspirations came together and he wrote “Seven Pieces for Orchestra” based off of the astrological planets [excluding the sun and moon, and including Uranus and Neptune]. The suite has two points of focus; the first is Earth, so the order goes in the planets closest to Earth first. The second is Jupiter, which is in the middle of the suite, and acts as a mirror [for example, the suite opens loud and ends softly, Venus is serene while Uranus is vulgar, Mercury is a fun scherzo while Saturn is brooding]. It opens with Mars, an unrelenting war march with an ostinato building in intensity under brass fanfare. This dramatic writing will be the most obvious inspiration for later sci-fi film and tv soundtracks, especially John Williams’ iconic work for Star Wars. Venus is a stark contrast, opening with a calm solo horn, pentatonic winds, almost ‘pastorale’ [if the pasture were crushed under the pressure of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid]. After a wind chorale, the strings come in overhead, playing a gorgeous though angular melody. The work is also decorated with celesta chimes. Mercury is a quick scherzo, bouncing around with fluttering melodies overhead. The use of the triangle makes me think of servants in an English manor home being called. The middle section has a “grand” chorale elaboration of the theme. Jupiter is probably the most famous moment of the suite, opening with a three-note motif repeated in the strings, racing over each other as the brass introduces the grand melody. This has a great feeling of an “expanding” organic entity of sound. Timpani, brass, strings, winds, the entire orchestra blasts off with fun. The three-note theme is repeated over different modulations, then becomes the subject of what feels like a pub-song melody. After a breather, we get a new theme, a dignified and regal “chorale”. Then we bring back the energy of the opening, and the climax feels like a distortion of time as the main themes overlap, and we end on an exclamation of the three notes. Saturn was Holst’s personal favorite movement. Another stark contrast, it opens with a very quiet ostinato, like the ticking of a clock, but dull. That becomes the base for a slow build up to a crushing large climax, awe at the expanse of time itself, thinking that we are only a blip of eternity. After the echoes of the bells and the universal clock drift away, we get the gorgeous hypnotic passage I mentioned earlier, beautiful wind and string writing over soft organ droning, now seeing the beauty in this magnificence of being present in the moment of eternity. Uranus is described as a “vulgar magician”, so we get a lot of whimsical fun, shades of Dukas’ sorcerer, and we get a lot of orchestral color with modal writing, a lot of sonic “fire” and sparks. Especially the theatrical organ glisando, and the silly use of the xylophone. Finally, we get the most haunting planet, Neptune. The farthest from the sun, astronomers say that the sun looks like a bright star from this distance. Mysterious, cold, eerie. That is the music here, in unusual keys. Halfway through, we hear the moaning of a wordless choir of women, hidden off stage. They sing through, until the music drifts away [it’s instructed to slowly close the door]. This was the first major ‘fade away’ in music history, and Holst’s daughter Imogen recalls that the effect was so ethereal, you couldn’t tell the difference between the music and silence. This is probably my favorite movement of the suite for its haunting atmosphere, and the disturbing feeling of not knowing what rests beyond. Movements: 1. Mars, the Bringer of War 2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace 3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger 4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity 5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age 6. Uranus, the Magician 7. Neptune, the Mystic

mikrokosmos: Holst – The Planets (1916) This might shock you, but I used to not like the Planets. I’d first heard it years ago, back in high school, and felt cold to it. I also thought it was too long. I tried listening to it a few more times over the years and it never…

0 notes

tinas-art · 1 year

Quote

0 notes

hushilda · 1 year

Quote

0 notes

dariaandjanelanefanboy · 1 year

Quote

0 notes

keepthemacramesecret · 4 years

Audio

i dont know how big the audience for this post is gonna be but oh boy did i notice some parrallels

transcript:

MARTIN: Oh, I’m knackered. JON: Are you? M: I- Hm. Well- Okay, well, no, no; I suppose not. But I think I should be. J: Yep. M: How long have we been walking? J: (sigh) Fourteen hours and twenty-three minutes. M: What, seriously?! J: Yes. I- don’t think it means much out here, though. M: We should probably rest. J: Maybe- I don’t know, I- I don’t know if we can. Rest. It- feels more like, well- waiting. M: …So. Are we going to walk all the way to London? J: (a bit of a laugh) If you know an alternative, I’d be very keen to hear it. M: I mean- cars? You know, planes, trains, automobiles? J: (overlapping) It wouldn’t help. M: Alright, a boat then. J: Geography doesn’t work anymore. Space, i- doesn’t work. M: Alright. So what does that mean? J: It means the journey will be the journey, regardless of how we choose to make it. M: Right. And you’re sure we can’t just, you know- Speed it up a bit? J: (inhale) No.

CHARLEY: What Now? DOCTOR: We have to keep walking. On and on. The Pair of us, into the brightness. We have no choice. C: We’ve been walking nonstop for 32 hours? D: Longer than that. I said we hadn’t spoken for 32 hours. My guess is we’ve probably been walking nonstop for the best part of a week. C: It can’t be. It doesn’t feel that long. Doctor? I’d know wouldn’t I? D: Do you feel tired? C: No. D: Hungry? Thirsty? C: Hm i.. hadn’t even thought about it. I feel fine. D: And you still can’t smell anything. Touch anything. C: No. Nothing... I Can’t feel your hand. Doctor are you still holding my hand!? D: Easy- I’ve still got you. I’ll give it a squeeze. There feel that?

M:Hello? J: They won’t hear you, Martin. They’re all- too busy waiting to die. M: Jon.. J: They sit here, [A RUMBLING, DEEP STATIC BEGINS TO BUILD.] -the image of everyone they hold dear locked in their mind, knowing they’ll never see them again. Waiting for the order. [AS HE SPEAKS, THE HIGHER, SHINIER COMPONENT OF THE ARCHIVIST’S STATIC BEGINS TO COME IN, INITIALLY AT A LOW FADE BUT RISING QUICKLY.] Dreading the bullet or the drone or the barbed wire that will tear them to shreds and leave them nothing but a bloody- M: J,Jon, enough- Enough! [THE STATIC FADES OUT. SOMETHING IS FIRED IN THE BACKGROUND.] Please don’t tell me these things. J: I- I’m sorry, I- There’s just so much. There’s so much, Martin, and I know all of it- I can- see all of it, and I- it’s filling me up; I need to let it out! M: I’m sorry, but tough. Okay, th- that’s not what I’m here for. I can’t be that for you; I, I- I just. Can’t. J: (softer) I- I know.

D: We should keep our options open. I mean, for example, what are the chances this universe would be so abundant in oxygen? Can you breathe alright? C: Yes, thank you. D: Ah. But are you sure? What if the air you’re inhaling only bears some superficial resemblance to oxygen? Your lungs are doing their best trying to adapt to it, they’re taking from it what they can, doing their desperate bit to ensure that you continue to live that little while longer- C: [Hoarsely, as if choking] Doctor- D: [Continuing without noticing her] - But they might be on a fools errand. If this isn’t oxygen, but a gas your body has never encountered, was never designed to encounter. And slowly but surely with every gasp you take, its destroying your body- C: [still hoarse] Doctor please stop it! D: As it is you can relax. It is oxygen, i can tell. We got lucky. What are the odds. C: [small sigh of relief, then speaks firmly and seriously] Never frighten me like that again.

#tma spoilers #tma 163 #big finish #scherzo #but anyway wow oof #did not remember bits of scherzo and it is.... actually big jonmartin energy #not fully in the same place but ... foils?#whats a foil when its not within the same story... can one unrelated story be a foil for another? anyway #a #edit: added transcription now

41 notes · View notes

mikrokosmos · 5 years

Video

youtube

Holst - The Planets (1916)

This might shock you, but I used to not like the Planets. I’d first heard it years ago, back in high school, and felt cold to it. I also thought it was too long. I tried listening to it a few more times over the years and it never clicked with me. So I shrugged it off as some “overrated’ music, maybe it’s only popular because of the program, or because of intro to music appreciation, or because of band students. Yesterday I was driving to work, and the Planets was playing on Sirius classical radio. I rolled my eyes and changed to my city’s classical station, but they were playing some Baroque concerto I wasn’t in the mood for, so I stuck around with the planets for the ten minute drive. I was taken in by the hypnotic and dream-like orchestration, and then colorful, fun music. So I admit I was wrong, the Planets is a great work for orchestra, and funny enough it is one of those pieces that the composer didn’t like. Holst grew to resent the Planets for taking so much attention from his other music. He was inspired by astrology, and had fun telling friend’s fortunes by palm reading and by the alignment of the planets. He was interested in the idea of the planets having an effect on the human psyche. Around that time he attended the English premiere of Schoenberg’s 5 Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16, and he bought a copy of the score. These inspirations came together and he wrote “Seven Pieces for Orchestra” based off of the astrological planets [excluding the sun and moon, and including Uranus and Neptune]. The suite has two points of focus; the first is Earth, so the order goes in the planets closest to Earth first. The second is Jupiter, which is in the middle of the suite, and acts as a mirror [for example, the suite opens loud and ends softly, Venus is serene while Uranus is vulgar, Mercury is a fun scherzo while Saturn is brooding]. It opens with Mars, an unrelenting war march with an ostinato building in intensity under brass fanfare. This dramatic writing will be the most obvious inspiration for later sci-fi film and tv soundtracks, especially John Williams’ iconic work for Star Wars. Venus is a stark contrast, opening with a calm solo horn, pentatonic winds, almost ‘pastorale’ [if the pasture were crushed under the pressure of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid]. After a wind chorale, the strings come in overhead, playing a gorgeous though angular melody. The work is also decorated with celesta chimes. Mercury is a quick scherzo, bouncing around with fluttering melodies overhead. The use of the triangle makes me think of servants in an English manor home being called. The middle section has a “grand” chorale elaboration of the theme. Jupiter is probably the most famous moment of the suite, opening with a three-note motif repeated in the strings, racing over each other as the brass introduces the grand melody. This has a great feeling of an “expanding” organic entity of sound. Timpani, brass, strings, winds, the entire orchestra blasts off with fun. The three-note theme is repeated over different modulations, then becomes the subject of what feels like a pub-song melody. After a breather, we get a new theme, a dignified and regal “chorale”. Then we bring back the energy of the opening, and the climax feels like a distortion of time as the main themes overlap, and we end on an exclamation of the three notes. Saturn was Holst’s personal favorite movement. Another stark contrast, it opens with a very quiet ostinato, like the ticking of a clock, but dull. That becomes the base for a slow build up to a crushing large climax, awe at the expanse of time itself, thinking that we are only a blip of eternity. After the echoes of the bells and the universal clock drift away, we get the gorgeous hypnotic passage I mentioned earlier, beautiful wind and string writing over soft organ droning, now seeing the beauty in this magnificence of being present in the moment of eternity. Uranus is described as a “vulgar magician”, so we get a lot of whimsical fun, shades of Dukas’ sorcerer, and we get a lot of orchestral color with modal writing, a lot of sonic “fire” and sparks. Especially the theatrical organ glisando, and the silly use of the xylophone. Finally, we get the most haunting planet, Neptune. The farthest from the sun, astronomers say that the sun looks like a bright star from this distance. Mysterious, cold, eerie. That is the music here, in unusual keys. Halfway through, we hear the moaning of a wordless choir of women, hidden off stage. They sing through, until the music drifts away [it’s instructed to slowly close the door]. This was the first major ‘fade away’ in music history, and Holst’s daughter Imogen recalls that the effect was so ethereal, you couldn’t tell the difference between the music and silence. This is probably my favorite movement of the suite for its haunting atmosphere, and the disturbing feeling of not knowing what rests beyond.

Movements:

1. Mars, the Bringer of War

2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace

3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger

4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age

6. Uranus, the Magician

7. Neptune, the Mystic

#Holst #the planets #music #classical #orchestra #orchestra music #classical music #suite #orchestral suite #modern #modernism #modern music #post romantic #post romanticism #post romantic music #symphony orchestra #Holst the planets #Gustav Holst

152 notes · View notes

lindsay36ho · 3 years

Text

Cyprien Katsaris – Beethoven in a New Light

Beethoven – a Chronological Odyssey is a set of six surprising CDs that must count as one of the most original new releases in the Beethoven year. Cyprien Katsaris has gained renown as a Beethoven interpreter not least because he is one of the few pianists to have recorded Liszt’s transcriptions of the symphonies – and also because he has a solo piano version of the Emperor Concerto in his repertoire. But to this French master of Greek Cypriot origin, adding a further complete recording of the piano sonatas to the seventy that are already on the market did not seem to be a good idea. Instead, with his Beethoven Odyssey, Cyprien Katsaris takes us on a fascinating foray through the composer’s output – which we may know rather less thoroughly than we had imagined.

While musical life is suffering profound disruption as the coronavirus crisis causes havoc, Katsaris works at home in Paris with his piano. He is in good spirits and can even see the positive sides of this enforced house arrest: less pollution, less CO2, good air quality. ‘It seems that nature has taken on the task of restoring balance.’ Fortunately pianists – with their many hours of practice per day – are used to social isolation in the company of their pianos, and this applies to Katsaris too, who does not partake of holidays or weekend trips even in normal circumstances. ‘I’m always practising, except the day of a concert, because I want to be fresh and natural. You might compare it to a rendezvous, a dinner with a much admired, beautiful lady; you wouldn’t meet up with another woman earlier the same day.’ Our interview is highly stimulating – and, with the exception of a conversation I had long ago with the (now deceased) Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers, the only one out of many hundreds in which I myself had to answer questions. We frequently deviated from the topic of Beethoven, touching on the coronavirus, mutual acquaintances such as Eliane Reyes and the Liszt specialist Koos Groen, and also Frits Philips, who passed away at the age of 100 on the very day that Katsaris gave a concert with the Brabant Orchestra in his Philips’ birth town, Eindhoven.

Czerny

For a long time Katsaris had no idea what contribution he could make to the Beethoven year. Finally now he presents a very personal selection from Beethoven’s complete works, arranged chronologically from his first attempts up to the very last notes he committed to paper. Here sonatas, bagatelles and variations alternate with a total of fifteen transcriptions, mainly of chamber music – either by Beethoven himself or by contemporaries or later colleagues such as Liszt, Wagner and Mussorgsky. Over the years Katsaris has collected so many scores that he himself lost track of what was piling up at home. ‘It started twenty years ago. Michael Ladenburger from the Beethovenhaus in Bonn gave me a photocopy of Czerny’s solo piano transcription of the second movement of the Kreutzer Sonata. it sounded good!’ Concerning the piano sonatas, specifically the Appassionata, Katsaris remarks that many virtuosos are tempted into making errors. ‘They play the third movement much too fast. Beethoven writes Allegro ma non troppo; only the coda is Presto!’

Horowitz

The most interesting Beethoven transcriptions are still Liszt’s arrangements of the nine symphonies. ‘Young pianists might not regard it as helpful, but whether they believe it or not: you understand Beethoven much better if you start with the symphonies rather than the sonatas. In an interview from 1988, Horowitz called the symphonies the “greatest piano works ever written”. Of course they are very difficult; I myself worked for ten years on my Teldec recordings from the 1980s.’ The new CDs also include Wagner’s arrangement of the slow movement of the Ninth Symphony. ‘Liszt’s arrangement is in every way superior, but I wanted to include Wagner if only because nobody would have expected to find him here. Beethoven was Wagner’s idol even when he was a child. Wagner claimed Beethoven and Shakespeare appeared to him in a dream when he was a teenager. He copied the scores of the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and his piano arrangement of the Ninth retains the singers and choir in the finale, as does the one by Friedrich Kalkbrenner, which was recorded by Etsuko Hirose, one of the finest pianists of her generation. Nobody knows these transcriptions, but there is so much repertoire out there! A Berlin musicologist once told me that we modern pianists play only two per cent of the music that was composed in the nineteenth century!’

Busoni

Should a transcription make you forget the original? ‘No, an arrangement is something totally different. It’s like comparing a black-and-white photo with a colour one. I myself can better understand an orchestral work by playing it on the piano. Arrangements are as old as the hills; the fables of Lafontaine are often nothing more than adaptations in beautiful French language of fables by Æsop, the poet from ancient Greece.’ Busoni once said that every composition is actually a transcription – of the original idea that was in the composer’s mind when he conceived the work. ‘For me there’s hardly any difference between my approach to an original piano composition and the way I tackle an arrangement. Perhaps I feel a little freer if the composer himself was a great improviser. It’s all about the spontaneous creation in the moment. Chopin never played repeated passages in exactly the same way. It’s a question of remaining true to the composition whilst at the same time contributing something personal to it. If I, as a jury member in a competition find someone’s playing convincing, then I agree with him inwardly, even if I myself wouldn’t play it the same way.’

Cziffra

The fire, the enthusiasm and the grandeur with which Katsaris plays Beethoven are reminiscent of his old mentor György Cziffra. ‘I never heard him play the symphonies, but he played Beethoven’s and Mozart’s sonatas very beautifully and elegantly. I once presented his very refined recordings of Scarlatti sonatas on French radio without saying in advance who was playing, and everyone was surprised, because they know him only as a virtuoso. Nowadays his genius is finding greater recognition. We appear together in some TV show from 1975 – you can find it on YouTube if you search for “Cziffra Katsaris”. He gave me his original arrangement of the Flight of the Bumble Bee. It’s even harder than the official version. Cziffra was the greatest pianist I have ever heard.’

Bechstein

The new edition was recorded on two Bechstein grand pianos. Is there a connection with Artur Schnabel’s historic recordings in the combination of Beethoven and Bechstein? ‘I don’t know; in any case before World War II Bechstein was out in front – Rachmaninov, for example, composed his first two concertos at a Bechstein. What I find very good with Bechstein is that they never sound hard, even if you play very loudly. In any case, though, I have never confined myself to a single type of piano. I want to maintain the absolute freedom to be able to play on all good pianos, and I’m keen to help all the major manufacturers – Steingraeber, Steinway, Yamaha or Bechstein. The first grand piano I had at home, when I was a teenager, was a Steingraeber. For 35 years now I’ve owned a Steinway D. I also enjoy playing on a Yamaha CFX, especially when I’m in Japan. In general the piano technicians are better there too. I don’t agree with those who say that in principle you need to use a different instrument for Debussy than for Haydn. You have to be able to make music on every piano. A lot of what we believe is largely in our minds, in our heads. A blind test often produces surprising results.’

Rachmaninov

In the course of his career Katsaris has worked with a large number or famous conductors: Leonard Bernstein, Mstislav Rostropovich, Neville Marriner, Simon Rattle, Myung-Whun Chung, Christoph von Dohnányi, Charles Dutoit, Antal Doráti, Iván Fischer, Kent Nagano, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Charles Mackerras, to name but a few. Exceptional even in this illustrious company was his collaboration with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, with whom Katsaris played Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, which of course they recorded with the composer himself. They had first become acquainted a year earlier at the first CD recording of Liszt’s Concerto in the Hungarian Style, a work that was completed by Tchaikovsky. ‘I’ll never forget that. A day before the recording, Ormandy invited me to his apartment, for a single rehearsal on his piano. When I told him that I was intimidated he answered he had the same feeling when, as a young man, he had to conduct Rachmaninoff with the Paganini Rhapsody and during the concert Rachmaninoff had a memory problem. Ormandy thought that he caused the mistake, and looked at Rachmaninoff who was very angry and who told him in his deep bass voice: “Play!” Afterwards Ormandy, terrified went to Rachmaninoff in his dressing room, who told him: “I was not angry with you, but with myself!” The famous New York Times emeritus critic Harold Schoenberg later told me how Ormandy once, in Beijing at a rehearsal of the state orchestra there, was asked by the conductor to lead to orchestra for a few minutes and without him even needing to utter a single word, the orchestra suddenly sounded totally different. I believe in this magic, in spiritual communication at a high level. Why can someone who plays perfectly leave you cold, and why is the playing of Horowitz or Cortot – who also made mistakes – so fascinating? It’s a mystery, something spiritual, something that is detached from the physical world. There’s something similar between composers as well. Franz Xaver Mozart composed Polonaises mélancholiques that remind of the early polonaises by Chopin, but Chopin was only five years old at the time. The same with the scherzo from one of Czerny’s sonatas, that sounds like Schumann, although it was written while Schumann was still a child.’

Respect and tolerance

A lot has been said about Beethoven’s humanitarian message. ‘Of course that all culminates in his Ninth Symphony. But the idea itself underpins many of his works. All these sforzati are like a protest against social injustice. In his time wars were raging incessantly and, alongside the protest, we hear the clarity in many works – the full gamut of emotions from fear, rage, strong interest and enthusiasm all the way to the ultimate, to serenity, to zen.’ Katsaris regards himself as a citizen of the world. ‘Beethoven wanted us to become brothers and sisters, but that is the message of every great composer: respect and tolerance. Without any chauvinism, I can see a parallel to the great philosophers of ancient Greece. They have the same universal and humanitarian message that people of all cultures, all over the world, can perceive and understand, whether they are in Korea or Argentina. People everywhere have tears in their eyes when they listen to music by Mozart, Chopin or Beethoven.’

Author: Eric Schoones Photo credit: Jean-Baptiste Millot

Ludwig van Beethoven | A Chronological Odyssey Cyprien Katsaris, piano – 6 CD | PIANO 21 Listen to samples at willowhaynerecords.com

This article is a contribution from the German and Dutch magazine Pianist through Piano Street’s International Media Exchange Initiative and the Cremona Media Lounge.

Pianist Magazine is published in seven countries, in two different editions: in German (for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Liechtenstein) and in Dutch (for Holland and Belgium). The magazine is for the amateur and professional alike, and offers a wide range of topics connected to the piano, with interviews, articles on piano manufacturers, music, technique, competitions, sheetmusic, cd’s, books, news on festivals, competitions, etc. For a preview please check: www.pianist-magazin.de or www.pianistmagazine.nl

from Piano Street’s Classical Piano News https://www.pianostreet.com/blog/articles/cyprien-katsaris-beethoven-in-a-new-light-10692/

0 notes

justforbooks · 7 years

Photo

I’ve been trying to remember, was it The Sorrow And The Pity they were lining up for when, sick to death of the medium-is-the-message windbaggery of the pseudo-intellectual – now there’s a term to blast me back – in front of him, Alvy actually produces Marshall McLuhan from behind a lobby card? The association strikes me as a natural one, since I’m about to gather with the other acolytes in an art house cinema. Will anyone in the queue reference or be moved to imitate the McLuhan moment, I wonder?

And where were they? Was it at the Regency at 68th street? (Was it even called the Regency? It hardly matters, since it’s gone now, like the New Yorker at 88th, the movie house at 72nd and Broadway, the Thalia {{which does show up at the very end of the movie, when he runs into Annie after they’ve stopped dating and introduces her to a young, young Sigourney Weaver, fresh out of Yale}}, the Metro, the Bleecker and, of course, Theater 80. With all the rep houses having ceded their real estate to condos and their authority to Netflix, who is curating the tastes of the city’s undergraduates? How will they even know about The Sorrow And The Pity? Mondo Cane? How can the budding homosexual flower without the occasional force-feeding of a double feature of Now Voyager and All About Eve? To wit – and to extend this parenthetical yet further: in senior year, at the last meeting of our Japanese literature seminar before Spring break, the professor – ageing, erudite, one of the few, perhaps only, Western recipients of countless Japanese cultural laurels – asked us our plans for the coming week. I allowed as how I would be staying in town in order to write my thesis. ‘Well then, of course you’ll be going to the Bette Davis festival every day down at the Embassy.’ He said it as if stating an obvious prescription, like recommending medical attention for a sucking chest wound, or ‘You’ll want to call the fire department about those flames licking up the front of your house.’ Only a self-destructive lunatic would think he could survive the week by missing the Bette Davis festival. I took his advice and went every day. Did it help my thesis any? Hard to say. It was a long time ago.)

The time when a Woody Allen retrospective would have evoked that kind of fierce cinéaste devotion seems long gone, having been tempered out of us not just by the years (such performative loyalty is really the province of the youngsters who nightly go to Irving Plaza right near my apartment, passing the hours sitting on the pavement singing the songs of the artists they are about to see), but by Woody Allen himself. The tsunami of mediocrities like Hollywood Ending and Melinda And Melinda effectively obliterates why Manhattan mattered so much. I can’t help feeling like he’s dismantled the very admirable legacy of his earlier work by his later, overly prolific efforts. It’s a more benign version of Ralph Nader (with the key difference that I hate Ralph Nader, whereas Woody Allen simply makes me a little bit sad).

Then again, no one worth a damn doesn’t make the occasional bit of bad work: there are episodes of The Judy Garland Show that are absolute train wrecks of creaky squareness, made all the more ghoulish by the presence of an aphasic gin-soaked Peter Lawford, and I take a back seat to no one in my love for Judy Garland, the most talented individual who ever lived (ladies and gentlemen, my Kinsey placement); I read a lousy late Edith Wharton novel this summer, The Children, that was a tone-deaf, treacly muddle; I don’t care for Balanchine’s Scherzo à la Russe and I’ve said it before, even though it is considered a cinematically signal moment by the Cahiers du Cinema crowd (zzzzzzz), I’m no great fan of the movie Kiss Me Deadly.

Perhaps taken as a whole, the twenty-eight films will start to exert their own internal logic and I will see and delight in how Allen mines his themes over and over again. Or perhaps it will be like the Broadway show Fosse, where a surfeit of the choreographer’s vocabulary made all of it suffer and the entire thing looked like the kind of shitty entertainment that takes place on a raised, round, carpeted platform at a car show. I’ll see, I guess.

As one might expect for the 1:30 p.m. showing on the Friday before Christmas, there are only about a dozen of us waiting. Our ranks swell to about thirty people closer to show time, but at first it’s just me and more than a few men of a certain age (whose ranks I join with ever greater legitimacy each day), about whom it might be reasonably assumed that we spend an inordinate amount of time fixating on when next we might need to pee. Thoughts of age stay at the forefront in the first few minutes of the film, when Woody Allen himself (who, it must be said, in later scenes, stripped down to boxers, kind of had a rocking little body in his day) addresses the camera directly and tells us that he just turned forty. I’m older than that by two years.

How many times have I seen this, I wonder? Unquantifiable. The film is canonical and familiar and memorized, almost to the point of ritual. Perhaps this is the spiritual solace the faithful find in the formulaic rhythms of liturgy. It’s as comforting as stepping into a warm bath. Diane Keaton is enchanting, there is no other word for it. She comes on the screen and you can hear the slightest creaking in the audience as corners of mouths turn up. There is Christopher Walken, a peach-fuzzed stripling. And there, doe-eyed, with drum-tight skin: Carol Kane playing Alvy’s first wife, Allison Portchnik.

Allison Portchnik. Oy. I am generally known as an unfailingly appropriate fellow. I have very good manners. But when I fuck up, I fuck up big time. Suddenly I am reminded of how, three years ago, I was on a story for an adventure magazine, an environmental consciousness-raising whitewater-rafting expedition in Chilean Patagonia (about which the less said the better. It’s really scary. Others may call it exhilarating, and I suppose it is, the way having a bone marrow test finally over and done with is exhilarating. And Patagonia, Chilean Patagonia at least, while pretty, isn’t one tenth as breathtaking as British Columbia). On the trip with me were Bobby Kennedy, Jr., hotelier André Balazs and Glenn Close, among others. Everyone was very nice, I hasten to add.

After lunch one day, my friend Chris, the photographer on the story, came up to me and said, ‘I’d lay off the Kennedy assassination jokes if I were you.’

I laughed, but Chris reiterated, not joking this time. ‘No, I’d really lay off the Kennedy assassination jokes. The lunch line . . .’ he reminded me.

And then I remembered. I had been dreading this trip (see above about how totally justified I was in my trepidation) for weeks beforehand, terrified by the off-the-grid distance of this Chilean river, a full three days of travel away; terrified of the rapids and their aqueous meatgrinder properties; terrified of just being out of New York. All of this terror I took and disguised as an affronted sense of moral outrage, that such trips were frivolous, given the terrible global situation. I explained it to Glenn Close thusly:

‘I was using the war in Iraq to try and avoid coming down here,’ suddenly, unthinkingly invoking the part of Annie Hall where Alvy breaks off from kissing Allison because he’s distracted by niggling doubts: if the motorcade was driving past the Texas Book Depository, how could Oswald, a poor marksman, have made his shot? Surely there was a conspiracy afoot. Then, with Bobby Kennedy, Jr. helping himself to three-bean salad on the lunch line not five feet away, I switched into my Carol Kane as Allison Portchnik voice and said, ‘You’re using the Kennedy Assassination as an excuse to avoid having sex with me.’ Then I followed that up with my Woody Allen imitation and finished out the scene. Nice. No one pointed out my gaffe or was anything other than gracious and delightful.

Despite how well I know the material, the film feels so fresh. All the observations and jokes feel like they’re being made for the first time, or are at least in their infancy. By later films they will feel hackneyed (in the movie Funny Girl, the process of calcification is even more accelerated. You get back from intermission and Barbra Streisand already feels like too big a star, a drag version of herself ), but here it’s all just terrifically entertaining. And current! Alvy tells his friend Max that he feels that the rest of the country turning its back on the city – It’s the mid-70s. Gerald Ford to New York: Drop Dead, and all that jazz – is anti-Semitic in nature. That we are seen as left-wing, Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers. And so we remain, at least in the eyes of Washington and elsewhere, a pervy bastion of surrender monkeys. There was an Onion headline that ran after a sufficient interval of time had passed post-9/11, that essentially read, ‘Rest of country’s temporary love affair with New York officially over.’

Rest of the country’s perhaps, but mine was just beginning when I saw the film at age eleven. By the time the voiceover gets to the coda about how we throw ourselves over and over again into love affairs despite their almost inevitable disappointments and heartbreak because, like the joke says, ‘we need the eggs,’ (if you need the set-up to the punchline, what on earth are you doing reading this?) I am weepy with love for the city. Although, truth be told, it doesn’t take much to get my New York waterworks going.

Walking out, my friend Rick, thirtyplus years resident said, ‘I had forgotten how Jewish a film it is.’ I really hadn’t noticed. But I’m the wrong guy to ask. It’s like saying to a fish, ‘Do things around here seem really wet to you?’ I wrote a book that got translated into German a few years back. There was a fascination among the Germans with what they perceived as my Jewish sensibility; a living example of the extirpated culture. I’ve said this before, but I felt like the walking illustration of that old joke about the suburbs being the place where they chop down all the trees and then name the streets after them. At least a dozen of the reviews referred to me as a ‘stadtneurotiker’, an urban neurotic, a designation that pleased me, I won’t lie. Especially when I found out the German title for Annie Hall.

Der Stadtneurotiker.

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

#JUST FOR BOOKS

4 notes · View notes

johannesviii · 7 years

Text

The City of the Dead

Some A truckload of highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (The City of the Dead).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

Okay, so, just imagine. In a parallel universe, one day, Clive Barker decided to write a Doctor Who story, and even if he tried to seriously tone down his usual mix of strange gore + weird sex + unusual magic, the result was still a bit too much for the series, but so good the BBC published it anyway.

Wouldn't that be great?

Now stop imagining, because it's a book written by Lloyd Rose, and it exists.

It's flawed. Of course. What book isn't? It sidelines Fitz and Anji near the end. Its twist could have used a bit of foreshadowing. It delights a bit too much in torturing Eight. But who cares, honestly. It still transported me in a world where there's real danger, and cute cats, and dark magic, and sugar donuts, and blood spells, and awful and weird and wonderful characters, and nightmares, and laughter. It's an experience, to say the least, and probably not for everybody, but my god, what a ride. 10/10

Okay, so, the only thing I know about this book is that I’ve got one friend who really likes it. And it’s by Lloyd Rose, aka the writer of Caerdroia. Will this book be weird too?

APPARENTLY YES. YES IT WILL. What a start.

Doctor, that’s called sleep paralysis. It might be scary, but nothing bad will actually happen to you, okay? Breathe.

Okay now I’m kind of nervous too.

[Unexpected Scherzo flashbacks]

That’s one of the most unnerving descriptions of Eight I’ve ever seen. Wonderful.

"I believe”

Oh don't start with the Earth Arc feelings...

RELATABLE

Museum of Magic? Take me there.

Art goals.

And the price for best out-of-context sentence goes to...

Excuse me, that's way too cool.

Also, it instantly made me think of which kind of bone I'd cut if I ever wanted to do this. Probably a toe.

So, magic is now a thing in this series. Hasn't been the case since The Scarlett Empress, I believe. Why do I get the feeling I'm gonna say 'that's way too cool' a lot over the course of this story?

I'm cackling

He really doesn't want to admit something's wrong.

Wait wait wait wait. What? The bone charm was in the TARDIS?

Doctor no.

Eight being distracted by donuts in the middle of a discussion about a murder, everybody!

A very nice beach

Hmmm cute? Cute.

The exact kind of offerings I'd like to get once I'm dead.

So, this story seems to be a murder mystery, and the goal is to find who the Magician is. I like it.

The Magician found Eight, then. Maybe he's the source of the nightmares?

Meanwhile, Eight tries to go to a goth party, and it's very awkward and relatable.

And Fitz and Anji are visiting New Orleans at night with a guy who pretends to be a magician, and Fitz keeps ruining his groove.

Swan, you're like a parody of a Mary Sue

GO UP

Meanwhile, Anji and Fitz both want to punch Dupre on the nose and I gotta say... me too.

Every conversation in this fandom ever

Guess that puts Dupre on the suspects list, then.

That sounds like the kind of ludicrously aggressive death electro thing I listen to when I need to use violent lines and colours in a drawing.

I guess we can also put Teddy-weird-artist-Acree on the list of suspects (even though his fear of going downstairs is a pretty good alibi). Also, bonus cat.

THIS CONVERSATION HAS ONLY JUST STARTED AND IT'S ALREADY GOLD

Eight's like "Hmmmm what makes people feel better, OH I KNOW. CATS. HERE. HAVE A CAT."

THIS IS GETTING BETTER AND BETTER BY THE MINUTE

(mid-liveblog update: I drew that scene before I even finished the book.)

He literally ran away haha.

Teddy Acree is cracking me up, seriously wtf

A perfectly reasonable suggestion, Doctor.

ASDFGHJFF He vaguely remembers the Daleks so he finds saltshakers 'sinister', I'm dead

UNREQUESTED 'THE TURING TEST' FEELINGS

SHIT, THAT HURTS

'What if I'm nuts?' 'I'm rather counting on it'

Interesting.

Eight already regrets starting a discussion with Dupre.

THE UNREQUESTED 'THE TURING TEST' FEELINGS ARE BACK WITH A VENGEANCE

Oh my f█cking god

♫ DO THE CREEP ♫

Aaaaaand I think we can also put Thales on the suspects list.

GOOD SHIT GOOD SHIT

Eight, this is a bad idea.

I love how he's dodging Dupre every time that weirdo tries to touch him.

Also, that's a very relatable reaction.

Eight is like "okay no, I'm way too asexual for this"

THE DOCTOR HAD DECIDED IT WAS ABOUT TIME FOR HIM TO LEAVE

'Hadn't he'

Something was actually summoned??

Can you imagine going home in a corset with spikes because you were stuck in it? Lucky he was here, poor her.

Mood

BIG MOOD

Not exactly a revolutionary development, but interesting nonetheless.

Oooooh. His nightmares are actually trying to take him somewhere?

FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT IN THE BOOKS, EIGHT IS VERY CLAUSTROPHOBIC SO I'M PANICKING A LITTLE BIT TOO

SHIT HE FOUND SEVEN IN HIS LOCKED MEMORIES

He has no way of knowing that was a past version of him, has he?

Okay so the Magician isn't Dupre. Which... isn't very surprising.

‘AN IMP WITH TERRIBLE EYES’

Hey look it's the best meme from 2016

HARSHER IN HI̟͔͈̻͓̱ͅN͓͇͉̗̜D̤̼̻͙S̮̤̱͓I͓G͔͉̱͓̩̦̠H͕̲̯T͖̰͎

10/10 conversation

Thank you for clarifying, Doctor

HOLY SHIT

THIS IS SO COOL

I MEAN I HAD A FRIEND WHO WAS A TAROT NERD AS A KID, AND AAAAH LOOK, THAT'S ALL THE CLASSIC DOCTORS AS MAJOR ARCANA

Of course Seven is the Hanged Man OF COURSE EIGHT IS THE TOWER ASDFGFFH THE FIRST MEANING IS 'BRUTAL CHANGE, DISASTER AND IMPENDING DOOM'

Now I want to draw all these cards with the Doctors on them, haha.

I keep thinking about Twelve putting like ten spoons of sugar in his coffee.

This book is starting to break the record for the most "asexual Doctor" moments. And I’m 100% okay with that.

YOU DON'T SAY.

He also vaguely remembers Faction Paradox!

I love how patient Fitz can be with him when he's not well.

He's in the past now and trying to find the source of the problem. That may be interesting. Or it will just make everything more confusing.

And I think that child might be the Magician.

LOOK AT MY FAVORITE IDIOTS BEING HAPPY FOR ONCE

it won't last long

'Your blood smells funny'

WHAT

WHAT she’s some sort of spirit what

UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE WEEK

I'd say 'somebody do something' but I'm sorry this is way too funny.

Probably.

Oh shit what the fuck. Is he planning to sacrifice him or something?

WHY DO I GET THE FEELING THIS SCENE WILL MAKE THE NUMBER OF LINES IN MY "EVERYTHING BAD HAPPENS TO THE EIGHTH DOCTOR" GOOGLE SHEET SKYROCKET

Eight might be the champion of gallows humor... but he's still starting to panic a little bit

The thing with the Doctor is, you know he can't die permanently since it would be the end of the series, but because he can't, they set the damage limit veeeery high, so a scene like this one is wayyy more stressful than it would be with a human main character.

Please be scared by the double heartbeat thing & let him go because I'm also starting to panic there.

THIS SCENE IS BOTH HORRIBLY STRESSFUL AND VERY FUNNY THIS IS CONFUSING

Meanwhile: what the f█ck is Fitz doing

Doctor please try to concentrate on a way to get the hell out of here

HE STILL HASN'T ESCAPED AND FITZ AND ANJI ARE WAY TOO FAR AWAY

UGH STOP MAKING ME LAUGH I'M TOO STRESSED FOR THAT

I SAID STOP IT

EIGHT STOP MAKING ME LAUGH THIS IS BAD

Meanwhile Fitz has decided to investigate a grave in the middle of the night, because why not, also I'm too stressed for that right now, go back to Eight

WHAT THE F█CK ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT I THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T GO DOWNSTAIRS WHAT THE F█CK

SHIT SHIT SHIT F█CK HE ACTUALLY DID IT F█CK

TEDDY YOU BASTARD

AQZSDFGHJGFFG F█CK

Meanwhile in the cemetery: I have a new suspect

Okay okay now back to Eight being sacrificed because holy shit

I was about to say 'if he could have done something, he would have done it sooner', but I just realised he expects the invocation to work, and call the thing which is chasing him in his nightmares.

Okay. Okay. That worked. Dupre's dead. Good. F█ck. That was so stressful. Also Eight is probably still bleeding all over the floor, but at least it's over.

TEDDY YOU LITTLE SHIT COME BACK & UNTIE HIM

ASDFGHJKHF

Was it really so difficult to tell the police someone was trying to sacrifice you for some bullshit ceremony? I'm sure they've seen worse.

HAHAHA THAT WHOLE HORRIBLE ORDEAL WAS WORTH IT JUST FOR THIS SCENE

Doctor, no

Asexual Doctor moment number 74612

Fair enough.

HE WAS STILL HIDING IN THE HOUSE

OH NO HAHA

GOOD. Thank you.

If the reveal is something like "hey it was the guy who died at the beginning" I'm gonna be angry.

I must admit no other character we saw so far is the right age to be the kid from the destroyed house. This is getting complicated.

SHIT. SHIT. I completely overlooked that. Good twist.

BAD TIMING BAD TIMING

Wait what the f█ck, if the Magician is attacking Eight right now, he can't be Thales. Who the hell is he, then.

WELL THIS IS NEW

And here we have Fitz trying to pretend he's interested in architecture.

Understandable after the recent events.

OUCH Were these feelings really necessary? I mean this book is intense enough as it is

Teddy is a little shit and at the same time it's impossible to 100% hate the guy, he's like a non-murderous version of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

He was too obviously weird to be the Magician anyway.

Yeah, we know, Teddy, we watch that show

This whole conversation is gold.

OH SHIT

PLEASE TELL US WHO IT IS, THE SUSPECTS LIST IS NOW VERY THIN.

Wait, it's gonna be someone who already died, isn't it.

Perfectly confusing sentence, thank you Doctor.

Okay so, it's 100% confirmed, it's not Teddy. Not a surprise, but good.

STILL TOO SOON AFTER 23 BOOKS

Are they getting sidelined for the finale? Not sure I like that.

I'm cackling again

WHO IS IT

WHAT

HE'S NOT THE RIGHT AGE TO BE THE KID OR THE FATHER WHAT

WHAT THE F█CK HE WASN'T EVEN ON MY RADAR

WELL PLAYED

Oooooooh, he sacrificed his lifespan and so he looks older. Nice trick. Well played.

ALSO I JUST REALISED IT'S THE SAME TWIST THAT THE GAME 'HEAVY RAIN' PULLED AND I FINISHED IT ONLY A FEW MONTHS AGO I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING BUT NO

Ah yes, clearly there wasn't enough physical pain in this book already.

"You don't sound very certain”

This book is so weird, in the best way possible.

Woah the Magician's house nearly works like a TARDIS.

I just had a revelation. Of course I love this book. It's almost a Clive Barker book.

WE FINALLY KNOW WHAT THE TATTOO WAS

I love this f█cking book so much.

I also love Eight's reaction to that reveal.

OH SHIT WHAT

RUST IS USING HIM AS A WEAPON TO CONTINUE HIS VENGEANCE AND RETRIEVE THE AMULET I LOVE THIS

HOLY SHIT EIGHT

He's gonna leave him to... weird swamp creatures which are supposed to guard him while Rust is away, and I'm sure everything is gonna be fine RIGHT

'It's as if there were somebody else living in here with me'

I KNEW IT THAT WAS A BAD IDEA

WHAT THE F█CK did the swamp things trapped him in an imaginary world?

How long has he been there??

Everytime there's a good scene about the contents of the Doctor's pockets in these books, there's a better one in one of the next books, I swear. But I still doubt this one can be beaten.

That explains so much about the random cup of tea Twelve had in the middle of Skaro in The Witch's Familiar, too.

Third screen about the contents of the Doctor's pocket, because I'm still not tired of that.

Mrs Flood has access to this place. Is it an actual place then?

Asexual Doctor moment number 87454

Mrs Flood, NO.

Wait a second, is this place some sort of fairy realm? Is that why he refuses to eat anything here except what's in his own pockets?

Are... are you attempting to escape this realm by walking

Oooh isn't that the cover of the book?

Good point. Also I'm glad they're back in the plot.

I'M HOWLING

FITZ NO

AZSDFGHJ ANJI NO

OH SHIT SHE GUESSED WHO THE MAGICIAN WAS?! GOOD JOB ANJI

Friendly reminder: I love these two idiots.

FITZ TRYING TO PILOT THE TARDIS, EVERYBODY

THEY ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED

So it WAS some sort of fairy realm, woah.

WAIT WHAT

SECOND TWIST WHAT

RUST ISN'T THE KID EIGHT HAS SAVED?

THALES? IT'S THALES??

Wait wait wait, Teddy said Thales wasn't human either, didn't he?

Ooooh Thales is another Naiad!!

OH SHIT OH F█CK OH LORD

EIGHT, PLEASE NEVER DO THAT AGAIN

So he really was using the Void to track Eight, after all. The nightmares about Nothing chasing him were entirely justified and not a metaphor at all!

HOLY SHIT EIGHT NO BAD PLAN

The finale of this book is literally the concept of Nothing saving the day while Eight literally yells into the uncaring infinity of the Void. What can I even say about that.

He doesn't belong in the Void after all, so it can't really claim him. That should convince him he's not a complete monster, after all. Good. Good and nice ending.

Oh that's even better.

Good.

#Eighth Doctor Adventures #Eighth Doctor #Fitz Kreiner #Anji Kapoor #The City of the Dead #doctor who #edas #An EDA liveblog full of useless comments #long post #appallingly long post #language tw #caps lock #body horror tw #violence tw #gore tw #eye contact tw #sex mention tw #gif

71 notes · View notes

franeridart · 7 years

Note

kaminari denki is best boi!! I love the way you draw him! he deserves all the love!!!! thank you for giving him love

Thank you!!!!!!! aND ISN’T HE!!!!!!!! I adore him and he’s so much fun to draw and all I want is for him to be showered in love did I mention I love him I’m in love with him

Anon said: THE JOKE IN YOUR BOKUROTERU COMIC ABOUT DAICHI NEEDING SOME SUGA HAD ME CRYING ON THE FLOOR FOR LIKE 5 MINUTES

I’M HAPPY YOU LIKED IT LMAO

Anon said: OK. Okay, now you've done it. I'm starting bnh today. I'm blaming u when I fall into a new Fandom hell orz

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 let me know how that goes anon I hope you’ll love it as much as I do ahhhh

Anon said:Beautiful anon here (that sounds so wrong but you know what I mean). I'm so happy I got a doodle it's so cuteeeeeee and another one today with Denki getting some Kiri Baku love. I'm officially deceased. Please show these drawings at my funeral, thank you.

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I’M GLAD YOU LIKED THEM ANON!!!! 💕💕💕💕

Anon said: GLASSES AKAASHI AND PONYTAIL KENMA THANK YOU SO MUCH

Anon said: OMG THE WAY YOU DRAW AKAASHI IS SO PRETTY I'VE LITERALLY ASCENDED TO HEAVEN

Anon said: I love how you design akaashi and kenma for your tattoo AU (◕‿◕✿) if it's not too much trouble can I see a little bit more of those two please and thank you!!!

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!

Anon said: Dude!! Your akaken designs are rlly sweet I love em. Akaashi's tattoo especially is rlly cute gosh but!! Is there any purpose behind the rings they both had around their necks??

👀 👀 👀 .....yep, they’re a matched pair - I didn’t make it 100% official because not everyone reading the AU might ship AkaKen, but to make a pretty long story very much short the rings symbolize their relationship being the closest thing to married they can get in Japan 👍

Anon said: Sono le 2 di notte cosa ci fai ancora in piedi? Anche se è vacanza non è una scusa per non dormire! (lmao scherzo anch'io sono sveglia ma cerca di riposarti okay?) (Tra l'altro adoro il tuo ultimo fumetto, kenma è perfetto!!)

lmao fun fact il mio ritmo sonno-veglia è un completo disastro e la maggior parte della roba che posto viene completata alle due di notte hahahaha #I’mAMess

Anon said: Uraraka is me

Uraraka is all of us poor broke souls lbr, she’s Relatable™

Anon said: can i just say that i love your art so much!! I've only just got into bnha recently, i watched the anime a while back but your art convinced me to start reading the manga too so thank you so much for being the main reason i have no life rn :) :) :)

You’re welcome 👍👍👍👍 now we can be in hell (or heaven, depending on how you look at it) together hahaha

Anon said: Please pay with color more!! I love it so much!!

OH MY GOSH!!!!! I’m super happy you liked it!!!!!!!

Anon said: BNHA season 2 comes out at april, and can you draw some katsud,eku? bc theyre my life hnGfF

Aw anon, I don’t ship them romantically! Well, I mean, I don’t mind them, but producing stuff for them is a bit... but if you’re okay with them being buds then SURE I’ve decided a while ago that in my comics their relationship is gonna be a couple steps ahead already hahaha

Anon said: hmm do you have any special feelings about toshinori/aizawa?? bc it is. so rare,, (also all of your art keeps me going. I love getting notifications that you've uploaded smth ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ )

AHHHHHHH thank you so much!!!!!!!! and... uhhhhhhhhhhhh I’ve never really thought about them like that tbh? The only Aizawa ship I ship is with Yamada, and even that is just because my sis ships it and suggested fics and I end up shipping stuff really easily lbr haha I dunno! I’ll have to think about it a bit

Anon said:Did you considered Akashi x konoha?

I have! Because it has been mentioned to me already a couple times, and because Konoha miiiiight be one of those haikyuu characters I kind of just ship with everyone, oops - as you might have noticed I’m kind of really deep in Aka.Ken and Kono.Komi so Kono.Aka isn’t exactly something I spend time thinking about, but it sounds really damn nice o

Anon said: I'm rewatching bnha and I have a completely different perception of it this time thanks to your art

Anon said: When you become unreasonably obsessed with that one ongoing comic strip... AndwhyarentthereanymorethothatsastupidthoughtcuzartistsneedtimebutitssogoodandINEEDMOREEEyouregoodatthis Btw ur art is cool. Ur cool. :D

Anon said: Hi i just wanted to tell you that i really really enjoy reading your comics! Have a great day! :D

Anon said: I just wanted to say how much I love your art and art style! Even though it's simplistic, that's what gives it the charm 🦉

Anon said: ngl, I visit your blog everyday to see if there is an update on that bokukuroteru comic (I mean... I would still visit regularly for all the awesome art but that comic is E V E R Y T H I N G)

Anon said:hi! i just started looking at this today and let me just say, your art is amazing this yaoi is amazing and omfg ily(platonicly and role modely)

THANK ALL OF YOU SO MUCH HOLY SMOKES!!!! 💕💕💕💕💕

if there’s any ask I haven’t replied to yet it’s either something I mean to draw for OR it got lost between those I mean to draw for orz either way I read all of them as soon as I get them and they make me!!!!!! super happy!!!!!!! so thank you, even if I haven’t explicitly answered it here know that I appreciate it and it made my day brighter when you sent it! Thank you so so so so much!!!!!

#fran answers #will i ever learn to answer before a ridiculous amount of time passes #the world may never know #i get distracted so easily I'm so sorry o<-< rip #anonymous

61 notes · View notes