insp.

Top 20 songs of 1979, ranked by their chart performance on the Billboard Hot 100, along with some details about each song:

1. "My Sharona" by The Knack - This upbeat, guitar-driven song was a massive hit in 1979, spending six weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It was the biggest hit of The Knack's career and is still a classic rock radio staple today.

2. "Bad Girls" by Donna Summer - This disco hit was Donna Summer's second number-one single of 1979, spending five weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's funky bassline and catchy chorus helped make it a dancefloor favorite.

3. "Le Freak" by Chic - This disco classic was a massive hit in 1979, spending six weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Its infectious bassline and funky groove helped make it one of the most iconic songs of the disco era.

4. "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" by Rod Stewart - This disco-infused rock song was a controversial hit in 1979, with some critics accusing Rod Stewart of selling out. Despite the backlash, the song spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of Stewart's biggest hits.

5. "Reunited" by Peaches & Herb - This soulful ballad was a surprise hit in 1979, spending four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's romantic lyrics and smooth vocals helped make it a wedding and prom staple for years to come.

6. "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor - This disco anthem became an instant classic upon its release in 1979, with its empowering lyrics and catchy chorus inspiring generations of listeners. The song spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and won a Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording.

7. "Ring My Bell" by Anita Ward - This disco hit was Anita Ward's biggest hit, spending two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's catchy chorus and funky bassline helped make it a dancefloor favorite.

8. "Sad Eyes" by Robert John - This soulful ballad was Robert John's biggest hit, spending one week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's emotional lyrics and heartfelt vocals helped make it a classic love song.

9. "Too Much Heaven" by Bee Gees - This ballad was one of the Bee Gees' last big hits of the 1970s, spending two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's lush orchestration and soaring vocals helped make it a fan favorite.

10. "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer - This disco hit was Donna Summer's third number-one single of 1979, spending three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's funky guitar riff and catchy chorus helped make it a dancefloor staple.

11. "YMCA" by Village People - This disco classic became an instant party anthem upon its release in 1979, with its iconic chorus and dance moves inspiring generations of listeners. The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and has since become a cultural touchstone.

12. "Good Times" by Chic - This disco hit was a massive hit in 1979, spending one week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's funky bassline and catchy chorus helped make it a dancefloor favorite and a sample source for countless hip-hop artists.

13. "Knock on Wood" by Amii Stewart - This disco cover of Eddie Floyd's classic soul song was a huge hit in 1979, spending one week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's upbeat tempo and soaring vocals helped make it a dancefloor staple.

14. "Heart of Glass" by Blondie - This New Wave classic was a departure from Blondie's punk roots, with its disco-inspired beat and dreamy vocals helping make it one of their biggest hits. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped cement Blondie's status as one of the defining bands of the late 1970s.

15. "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" by McFadden & Whitehead - This upbeat disco hit was a massive hit in 1979, spending one week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's positive message and funky groove helped make it a dancefloor favorite.

16. "Rise" by Herb Alpert - This instrumental jazz-funk hit was a surprise hit in 1979, spending two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's catchy hook and funky beat helped make it a radio favorite.

17. "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes - This catchy pop song was a huge hit in 1979, spending two weeks atthe top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song's humorous lyrics and catchy chorus helped make it a karaoke and sing-along favorite for years to come.

18. "The Logical Song" by Supertramp - This progressive rock hit was a departure from Supertramp's earlier sound, with its catchy melody and introspective lyrics helping make it one of their biggest hits. The song peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains a fan favorite.

19. "Lotta Love" by Nicolette Larson - This country-infused pop hit was Nicolette Larson's biggest hit, peaking at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100. The song's catchy chorus and upbeat tempo helped make it a radio favorite.

20. "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge - This disco classic was a massive hit in 1979, with its infectious hook and positive message helping make it an anthem for inclusion and unity. The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains a dancefloor staple to this day.

Fic Writer Questions!

tagged by @palamedessextus 😊 thanks friend!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

64! only five more to the magic number ayyyyy and then i’m legally obligated to never post another one.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

289,575 apparently??? which seems way way way higher than i ever would have guessed, wow. who knew!

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

31 on ao3, although that’s lumping, eg, all marvel subfandoms together. but i have a ridiculous amount of wips in all kinds of other fandoms that i haven’t/won’t post, soooo.... more than that! and i don’t want to list them all bc that’d be a long boring read!

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

it serenely disdains to destroy us, a magnus archives fic that, i somewhat vainly note, has been orbiting in the top few top kudosed fics in the tag since i posted it womp womp.

concerning flight, because we all thirsty for thor/loki+gender and i for one support us.

untitled porny snippet (yes that’s actually what it’s called), because same as above. (i see u, kudos-to-comment ratio and i aint mad but.... i see u. all you dirty birds out there shamefully yet silently jerking it. kudos to YOU.)

an experiment in posthumous subsistence, a batman/joker zombie au i wrote fucking TEN YEARS AGO ALMOST. why???? why is this fic so popular?? i’m barely a good writer now and i sure as shit wasn’t one a decade ago! the terrible title alone should disqualify it from being read, but i guess the people want what they want. and what they want is batman and joker handcuffed together, trying to escape the zombie apocalypse  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

all good things, some stucky hydra trash party-adjacent smut regarding piercings. i stand by this one 100%, it deserves every kudo(s?) tbh.

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i do, depending on the comment! i don’t think comments like “loved this!” / “thanks for writing!” are written with the intent to receive a response (or at least, when i write them on other people’s fics, i certainly don’t expect one). they’re like an extra kudo(s?), and i appreciate them a lot, but they’re not really an invitation to Discuss. whereas if someone clearly has put a lot of thought into a comment, or asked a question, or made some observations that i jive with, or just seems like they want to engage, then hell yeah i jump in there. love that shit. 

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i guess arguably thine own self, which is some hydra husbands abo. laugh all you want, it’s one of my fave of all my fics lmao. probably specifically bc of the unpleasant/open ending.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

probably moderation is a memory! since it, unlike 99% of all my other stuff, isn’t just total smut, and the whole point of writing it was to wallow as deep as possible in the sauce of giddy teenage infatuation, it got the opportunity to have an actual emotional arc (more or less). furthermore i could not possibly bring myself to break johnny lawrence’s tender little heart ever, that would hurt me far more than it would hurt him.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i only realised while answering this question that apparently.... no i don’t write crossovers! which is not at all a deliberate choice, i guess a compelling enough one just hasn’t occurred to me yet! 

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

shockingly no! by some accidental miracle i’ve managed to fly under the radar so far, despite some of the really buckwild stuff i’ve posted. however, considering some of the stuff i’m probably ABOUT to post.... that clean track record might soon come to an end lmao.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

lmao. uhhhh. almost exclusively, and i guess??? all kinds? this is clearly a question composed by someone who does not write smut.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of, and i wouldn’t really care if i did. 

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

yeah i think a few....? a number of people have asked anyway and i always say yes, so probably there’s at least one floating around out there somewhere.

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i have! just once, and we really made it count. it’s called a reptile dysfunction, which should tell you all you need to know. 

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

thorki, probably. i always have and always will come back to it, no matter what. it’s got such a ferociously timeless staying power and so much potential variation, i don’t think i could ever get bored of it, regardless of what level of marvel-exhaustion i might feel at a given time, or what tropes, kinks, or stage of literary pretension i’m at. truly the oh tee pee. 

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

ohhhhh all 836575927 of them, but. there’s this one thorki fic i started almost ten years ago as an experiment with a new-to-me style, which turned out over the intervening years to become my main style, and looking back on that fic, which for many years was a touchstone of writing-to-aspire to for me, it’s actually Not Very Good lol. but i still love the core concept, which is a canon divergence berserker thor au, but not only is it a somewhat inaccessible (admittedly less so since the deadpool movies came out, which was a hilarious pipe dream back when i started writing it) x-force comics crossover, but i wrote myself into a bunch of corners and have yet to dig up the energy to write myself back out of them! i go and reread it every year or so and think “hmm... maybe now...” but tbh it’s just not really good enough to bother! perhaps someday i’ll repurpose the best elements of it into something new.

16) What are your writing strengths?

man, it’s so hard to say. in much the same way that you can spend hours every day staring at yourself in a mirror, yet be utterly incapable of picking yourself out of a lineup, i spend a lot of time eyeballing my writing, but stepping back it seems like a chaotic mass of nonsense with few cohesive throughlines. i’m good at writing smut, i know that much! and in that vein, i think i am good at smut bc i am very good at committing to the bit, as it were. getting into the nitty gritty of experience and sensation (physical or emotional) and rendering largely abstract internal concepts in fairly comprehensible ways. i think my prose is quite decent on a sentence level too.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

utterly incapable of finishing anything! or plotting anything! can’t mange a cohesive emotional arc! write myself into overly structured corners or out onto a vast plain with no structure in sight! all the macro elements of storytelling totally elude me, which is very frustrating when i have all this tasty fleshed out micro-level character stuff, but no narrative skeleton upon which to drape it.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?   don’t! unless you are very sure you know what you’re doing, and the other language bits are a) very few, b) easily contextually understood, and c) actually adding something other than a weird flex that you know google translate exists.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

11yo me wrote spock/kirk/janice rand and thought she invented the concept of a threesome. brand been stronk since day one 🤘. (the vulcan salute is right next to the devil horns in my emoji list, so....)

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

i love the (ongoing) better with you series very much, not least because i’m still absolutely flabbergasted that i wrote something that long. i think it’s actually pretty good all things considered and it’s very dear to me on many many levels. but the fic that i just viscerally adore, that i love the style of, and that i had such a transcendent, invigorating, organic Experience writing, is temper its strength, adding honey until quite cold, which is a terror fic with the inexplicable pairing of edward little/hartnell, featuring crossdressing and gender stuff. it just burst out of me fully formed one day and i don’t think i’ve managed to top it yet! 

lowkey tagging @lingua-mortua @pitcherplant @kaasknot @froggy-babyy @deputychairman @nomercyonlytears @clockheartedcrocodile

The Haunting of Hill House: Shirley Crain [ESTJ]

UNOFFICIAL TYPING by Bear

Functional Order: Te-Si-Ne-Fi

Judging Functional Axis:

Extroverted Thinking (Te) / Introverted Feeling (Fi)

Due to being in an Fi-grip after the slow and traumatic breakdown of her family system, adult Shirley behaves like an unhealthy Fi-dom - overly sensitive and paranoid, quick to anger, her unformed emotions controlling her rather than she controlling them, and leading her to making fatal errors in her business due to “heart” cases. However, behind this volatile Shirley, we see the organized and capable Shirley that is always focussed on the task at hand. She manages her family, pulling them all together, as well as being the most financially able, to get Luke into rehab the first time (and then again and again, until he oversteps her generosity for the last time), and then taking on responsibility for Nell’s funeral arrangements (“It’ll take too long to explain [to her assistant about cleaning Nell’s corpse]… I’ll just do it”; “I’m knee deep in our sister’s chest cavity…get Dad and Luke to the funeral!; Nell’s casket topples over, so she “needs her make-up fixing…I’ll go get my kit.”). As a child, she was healthier but still pragmatic and naturally direct - “if there’s a pony in there [the Red Room], it’s dead…we need more keys”; “we can’t leave the kittens out here…the dogs will get them!”. Olivia says she grew up fast, but she can also rely on Shirley in a storm, to take her younger siblings to go make some cocoa. She was also more amenable with her siblings, not holding them to unrealistic standards and being better with managing their emotions (“I don’t want to have a tea party right now - go ask Theo.”)

However, Shirley’s inferior Fi is her Achilles heel, triggered by her consecutive family tragedies and turning the innately kind and pragmatic Shirley into an unreachable adult, that pushes past her emotions of betrayal and grief with either outbursts or “icing people out”, out of touch with herself and the relationships around her. She succumbs to this psychological stress when she uncharacteristically has an affair, but she is so separate from what she has done she rejects it, which manifests itself in the ghost of the man she slept with. 

Perceiving Functional Axis:

Introverted Sensing (Si) / Extroverted Intuition (Ne)

Shirley’s Red Room in the house was a family room, which sums up on what Shirley constructs her identity; rituals, safety and security. This is in part what screws her up so badly, as her life out of her control takes each of those touchstones of familiarity away from her, most painfully her mother. However, as an adult she works the hardest of keeping their unit together, present at every family event, even though she lashes out at change, especially when her adult siblings deviate from the established code. She is hands-on and skilled in her craft in restorative work, which is physically returning ravaged corpses to a wholesome, even unrealistic image of the past - likewise, Shirley rebels against Steve mining Hill House for financial gain, as like their Si-dom father she wants to keep the image of their childhood, and of their family, whole, safe in her personal experience of the past. She is the one that most successfully builds a life for herself following their tragedy, including a reproduction of her mother’s Forever House. She is most concerned with what she can perceive (Nell and Steve laugh over her being the last to realize Theo’s sexuality) and suffers because she can’t understand why Nell wouldn’t ring her - she has little ability to conceptualize outside of actual events.

Shirley’s Ne is ill-serving; it over-idealizes Luke’s recovery, so that she is especially broken when he, as junkies do, relapse again and again, and also interprets Steve’s writing of the book as representative of his betrayal of the family foundations, far beyond what it is in reality. However, it isn’t completely non-apparent; she knew her mother was “acting weird” on the night they all fled Hill House, and is the only one of her siblings to interpret the themes of the house creatively (albeit morbidly), using the idea of “fixing” to reconcile herself with the death of her mother and helping others come to terms with their own loved ones’ deaths.   

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Values: hard work, patience, loyalty, and fair play.

Even as a child, Shirley wanted to find a place to fit in, to make a difference. She started out by trying to open doors for her little sister. Then to raise kittens. And moved on, finally, morbidly, to running a funeral parlor where she can make the dead beautiful. Or at least, seem less dead to their bereaved loved ones. But somewhere along the way, due to her screwed up childhood, Shirley lost her natural compassion – at least where her family is concerned. It turned to judgment. And yet, she is always there for them, always willing to step in and be the dutiful one, always able to get the job done, which speaks to the heart of a Hufflepuff.

Enneagram: 1w2 sp/so

Tritype: 162 The Supporter [1w2 6w5 2w1]

Shirley does not want to think she’s a bad person. She refuses to admit to this so much, that she becomes a hypocrite – denying her own adultery, while accusing her husband of it. She criticizes and nitpicks everything her family members do, accusing Theo of “mooching” off her (instead of seeing the truth, that Theo is living there to “help” her cope with reality), standing in judgment of her brother’s drug addiction (his way of coping with their mother’s death, his best friend’s death, and the spirits he saw as a child), and insisting she have everything her way, which has to be perfect. She tries so hard to be good, that admitting to her faults is the hardest thing she ever has to do – and yet, at the end, she swallows her immense pride and faces the hard facts that no, she isn’t perfect. Her 2 wing manifests in how many of her decisions are motivated through a desire to help others – she reduces their costs so much, it forces her husband to take “blood money” (her words) from Steven just to stay afloat. Her 6 fix shows in how distrustful, suspicious, and negative-minded she can be, always leaping to the worst (and often inaccurate) conclusion about her loved ones, as if she’s expecting their betrayal. Her 2 fix can be quite manipulative at times, using all the “nice things” she’s done for Theo to attack her for trying to seduce her husband (with an attitude of “this is how you pay back my kindness?”).

SPN 14.09

*does the called it dance*

There’s a dance party going on, I know a lot of people called it. I am un-shocked, but filled with evil glee. Er...I mean this is very painful and going to be painful and it’s going to be a lot of suffering but this is also a mood

All right who wants actual character thoughts now that I’m done flailing around screaming.

Is Cas...eating the cookie cereal? He’s eating the cookies. He’s making contented crunching noises. Cas doesn’t need to eat, but he’s eating. I feel like I said something recently about Cas becoming more human, slowly, oh right, it was about him actually being drunk in 14.07 on a few bottles when back in S5, even at low power, he needed an entire liquor store. Now he’s eating cookie crisps cereal. That scene was cute af, btw and ties back to what I’ve been saying about Jack’s increasing emotional IQ. He talked about worrying about his mom because of the threats to Heaven, and then brought up Castiel’s deal, because it worries him. 

Oh, yes Sam and Dean can know about the deal but Cas doesn’t want them to so it won’t “burden them.” CASTIEL WINCHESTER YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN. Only no wait, but it is a burden and Cas realizes it and why it is a burden, because THEY CARE ABOUT HIM A LOT AND CAS KNOWS IT AND THAT IS WHY HE DOESN’T *WANT* THEM TO KNOW. As I said in my sneak peek commentary, it’s not anger or being caught out Cas fears. He simply doesn’t want to make them worry, make them sad, or scared, for him. He doesn’t want to be a burden but it’s too late, they all love him. 

We’re inching more and more here towards Cas realizing just how much or he wouldn’t very specifically and deliberately be hiding this secret because he knows how much it will worry them and Sam and Dean will scramble to find a way out for him and fix it and it’s almost like Cas hates being the center of attention and worried over. He has to be the strong one, not the one who needs help. This is how Cas keeps going.

Dean and Cas in an actual junk-yard scene (ok technically a recycling facility), I am still not over this and never will be and all the things I already yelled about after the sneak peek was released. Dean and Cas starting far apart with the Impala as negative space between them, but not negative space because that’s one of the show’s biggest symbols of home, then moving closer and closer like magnets until their shoulders are brushing. Screw you Dean and Cas and your acting married body language. 

Cas talking to Dean about how happy Dean seems, Cas looking super uncomfortable about not!telling Dean about the deal. I already posted about this but let me recap now that I’ve seen the whole ep--the “win” thing went right over Cas’s head because he doesn’t know, but the audience does. But Cas is mainly all about not!telling Dean about the deal and wow all my pre-game meta on this about Cas not wanting them to worry and that’s why he’s secretive got vocalized in the cereal eating scene in the kitchen. So. There you go.

Dean talking to Cas about what Sam and Cas went through when they were possessed in relation to his own experience, thank you Robert Berens for openly vocalizing, finally, Sam and Dean and Cas’s shared trauma, I have been waiting 84 years. 

(Pausing to scream about the January promo which shows Sam and Cas going together into Dean’s mind. I LOVE SEASON 14).

Which btw now that I’ve brought that ep, Cas’s worry about Sam touchstoned several times in this ep gives me feelings. Dean and Cas were both worried about him...and then Sam and Cas are going to team to save Dean. 

TFW and TFW 2.0 are both running concurrently strong in this season. There’s the interplay Sam, Dean, and Cas have, with its long seasons of history, and there’s the Sam-Dean-Cas-Jack, which is newer territory but slowly getting its hooks into my heart. They’re all valid, with their various relationships therein. 

Garth, awww. Admittedly I was not warm on this character when he first showed up upteen seasons ago but he’s turned out to be a really great part of the SPN world and a good friend and thank goodness SPN didn’t kill him. 

Sam and Garth friendship *draws hearts*.

Garth saying he’s doing this for his little girl is interesting,  it’s him talking as part of his cover, but has a double meaning because it’s also 100% true he’s just lying about which side he’s really on. He is going dangerously undercover to help stop Michael, thinking of his child’s future, to protect the world. While we had Cas just last week sacrificing himself to save his son. Which echoed back to Jimmy Novak sacrificing himself for his daughter. 

I like Sam and Jack working together, with Jack having taught himself lock-picking on the internet. For a moment I thought Jack was going to say Dean taught him and I was a little sorry it wasn’t that, but interesting Jack said “I like to keep myself useful”--that’s the Cas part of him talking. He is still trying to prove himself without his powers. Skipping ahead here as relevant--back to Jack’s slowly increasing emotional IQ and his character development. Because I was wondering if things would get to that, with Jack on strong enough footing to start looking after his dads, and it’s starting. He talks to Cas about the deal. Then when hyper-charged Garth knocks down Sam, Jack tackles him to save Sam. Which was stupid and brave, nobody hurts moose dad when Jack is around. Having been saved, and sacrificed for, Jack’s now moving more into a position of being part of the team, looking after others. 

And not, note, taking on a parent role, but he is looking after his dads as they look after him. I am really curious in fact how Jack is going to talk about possessed Dean now. The arc about Jack’s knee jerk comment about Michael Dean early in the season has been addressed and resolved before this ep, and they’ve bonded a lot closer since...so I’d really like to see how Jack is going to deal with it. 

I’m completely distracted by Dean and Cas inside the recycling facility looking for Dark Kaia and the spear, all of it, the way Dean and Cas move together, work together out in the field, which we don’t get to see enough of, I am transfixed. They have this silent rapport we’ve seen all the way back to late S7 at least and the BAMF power couple vibe going on, what with Dean’s strength as a hunter and Cas’s powers and warrior attitude and I’m just going to sit here and scream quietly to myself about that whole sequence for a minute.

And then they’re BICKERING oh my god so married shut up, until oops Kaia sticks the spear against Dean’s back and Cas just says “Dean” as a warning and he goes so incredibly still holy shit--with the point of that spear threatening Dean. Cas wants to surge forward and Dean waves him down. *yells a lot about Dean and Cas and their thing* Cas is so very protective of Dean here it’s doing things to me.

Dark Kaia’s little face is tugging at my heart. Who is it she’s protecting? Yes, why is she there, I need answers, I need to know what’s the link with her and Kaia. I need more of this please. S14 being what it is I think I’ll get it, just not right now.

The TFW 2.0 power walk set to Ode to Joy. I FEEL SO CALLED OUT RIGHT NOW.

Badass Dean having the moves with that spear, after being a goofball with it in the garage...I think there really isn’t a weapon Dean can’t use, pick up quickly how to use, plus he’s used similar weapons and adrenaline, he instinctively could use the spear. He’s not as good as Kaia, and guess what people, it is 150% okay he’s not as good as Kaia with that spear, he’s not supposed to be. Kaia has thousands of hours with that spear and Dean doesn’t, but look how good Dean is instinctually. 

Ouch my Dean feelings. Well I’ve been saying and saying the Michael Dean story wasn’t over and here we are and like many people ran with the sleeper agent/back door hack theory and here we are. The snap. Good god damn Jensen is excellent. And TFW 2.0 looks as ragged and stunned as the last Avengers standing.

So Michael has access to all of Dean’s memories. And Dean just “wouldn’t stop squirming.” Because of his ties to his family.

To you...to all of you.

For me and Jack, and family.

You’re going to bring him back...you’re going to bring ‘em all back.

I love you...I love all of you.

And you really can’t dismiss Destiel here while saying w*ncest is valid, because then you’d have to say the Destiel is valid. But the fact of the matter is these are different kinds of relationships, in canon. It makes sense that Sam got a more singular shout-out but then Michael adds the “all of you.” Sam is the most constant figure in Dean’s life and he is closest to Sam on a lot of levels. There’s bound to be a lot of Sam in Dean’s brain. But it’s not just about Sam. 

This is something SPN keeps underscoring in triple day-glo yellow highlighter. Nor does it fit to claim that because of this scene, therefor it proves Sam is the only most important one because in other storylines, Cas has also been demarcated out as different/unique in how Dean feels about him. BTW, seeing a romantic reading for Destiel doesn’t mean having to then say oh w*ncest is then therefore canon, because it’s just not, and those relationships are written completely differently. The canon undercurrents are completely different. Sam and Dean’s bond is what it is, and it’s strong, it is platonic and intended as platonic, while Destiel is...ambiguous in intent, in canon. For non-shippers, say the relationships are brothers, and like-brothers, and leave it there. It really is more complicated than that on the Destiel front, but I talk about that plenty in other posts, right now, I’m really thinking uppermost about Dean and his family. Sam isn’t the only one tethering Dean and keeping him fighting inside Michael. That was for all of them. So this was a bro bond shout-out that landed at TFW 2.0. 

And look what’s in the promo...Sam and Cas going together into Dean’s mind to try to save him. Dean’s closest to Sam, Cas is close to Dean in other ways. They both have a bond with Dean that is unique and strong and I’m just going to have to go sob in the corner that SPN is really going to do that and have them go in together and poke around in Dean’s mind to pull him out of this. Using the same method Dean used to go into Mary’s mind. *small keening noise*

Also I refuse to accept Dean is really as down and out in there as Michael claims. But maybe he’s buried himself deep in some sort of happy mental spaces. Which is something I was thinking about before the season started, and then they didn’t show us and I let it go but maybe it’s going there after all. 

IN THESE TIMES

Joy is the order of the day as 100 people or so congregate at the rotunda of the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison just hours after incumbent Republican Scott Walker conceded the gubernatorial election to Democratic challenger Tony Evers, a former teacher who heads the state's education department.

It's an emotional celebration. Old friends and allies greet one another with warm hugs, happy tears, cheers of delight and sighs of relief. They form a circle for, literally, the 1,999th gathering of the "Solidarity Sing Along," an hour-long, informal event held every Monday through Friday at noon.

Songs of solidarity and protest have filled the Capitol, buoyed spirits and lifted hearts during the eight years that purple Wisconsin bled beet red after the disastrous midterms of 2010. Upon taking office, Walker and statehouse Republicans immediately moved to strip public sector workers of union rights, spurring an uprising that erupted in February 2011 and continued into 2012 and beyond. Massive protests, bitter recall elections and multiple occupations of the Capitol captured the attention of the nation and the world.

Throughout it all, the historic bust of Fightin' Bob La Follette peered from its perch under the Capitol dome like the Ghost of Republican Progressivism Past. Between 1880 and 1924, this pro-worker, antiwar, lifelong Republican served as a district attorney, U.S. senator, Wisconsin governor and presidential candidate on the Progressive Party ticket. He fought for farmers, workers, public education, checks on corporate power and reforms to curb political corruption.

La Follette's bust became a touchstone and rallying point in 2011 for a new generation of Progressives who protested, got arrested and were exonerated for exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble, speak freely and "petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Ron Edwards was among them. He is here still. And he's no spring chicken. Retired "oh, 10 to 15 years ago," Ron was a custodian at the University of Wisconsin Waisman Center and a member of AFSCME Local 171. He's been a frequent Solidarity Singer, whenever weather permits him to take the bus from his home eight miles away. He brings a cowbell—"it's the only instrument I know how to play"—and although he walks painfully with a cane, he can shake his booty with the best of them when the music moves him. He loves when impromptu bands pop in with banjoes and trombones. "You just keep making noise,” he says. “That's the best thing to do. I've been union all my life.”

Walker made a fatal error pissing off people like Ron, especially teachers, the highly-respected educators legally responsible for the K-12 kids in their care. Starting with the 2011 passage of anti-union laws and a new budget, Walker cut already-modest wages and benefits, as well as education funding, causing a rash of resignations and making replacements difficult to recruit. By 2016, a quarter of school districts reported an "extreme shortage" of qualified teachers. During his failing presidential campaign that same year, Walker compared protesting teachers to "terrorists," which only strengthened their resolve and the movement to invest in public education.

(Continue Reading)

Grace Notes 2

I spent a week as part of a team of friends and family sitting vigil for Maureen, who lay dying. A long eroding illness had occupied her last few years and she had successfully integrated into a wonderful hospice program which I believe prolonged her life through exemplary care. When we all got the call that she was suddenly and rapidly deteriorating, we answered.

A good deal of life is about just showing up. It would appear that the same is true of death. Maureen’s body had suffered greatly while her mind remained sharp and full until it began to show some cracks a week before her death. Who knows if her lucidity was affected most by pain, fear, fatigue, brain tissue deterioration, or most likely some evil cocktail of all of those things. Her pre-approval  for legal physician-assisted death came with the proviso that once she chose her date, there must exist a 10 day window of time in which she could change her mind. But when Maureen began to lose ground, the lapses in her lucidity invalidated her ability to invoke assisted suicide. It was also highly unlikely she would survive the 10 days.  Either way, it was a cruel twist in a carefully engineered self-determined plan. She had wanted to have a party with all of us and then quietly slip away into a bedroom for her final curtain. We knew she didn’t want any of us to see her suffer, to witness the messiness of a body shutting down and the very personal, mildly invasive professional care that would entail. We showed up anyway.

A handful of women went in and out of Maureen’s lovely hospice room, in shifts, to the best of our abilities. When someone you love is dying, life otherwise goes on and must be factored in to the schedule. She’d turned 69 last December and most of us are within 10 years of her age either way. We have learned our limits and are realistic about how best to cope. We all knew we would be there as much for one another as for Maureen, and through the process of bearing witness together, would come to know one another better.

Texting made things a little easier. We kept one another apprised of Maureen’s status as it changed: “She opened her eyes for a bit, she seemed to respond to the music.” We kept tabs on who was coming and who was going from the room, trying to ensure that one or more of us could be with her always. A couple of days into the process, a Saturday, the Director of the hospice came in to prepare the staff for Maureen’s departure as she had been with them 16 months and formed many heartfelt bonds. On shift or not, they each came in to say goodbye. We tried to give every one who came the courtesy of a few minutes alone with Maureen, to speak their hearts as they might, in privacy and sacredness. Saying a final goodbye is indeed sacred; even when its wordless. 

Over 7 days, we saw at various times Maureen’s twisting physical pain, watching in trust as the nurses adjusted and added medications to reduce her constant, relentless tremors. She hallucinated, not from the medications, but from some battle within herself to gain any modicum of control over the spiralling conflict between “here” and “not here”. Her emaciated face was a movie screen of emotions. We could see the terror so clearly in frantic eye tics, deeply furrowed brows and a grimacing, gasping mouth. She tried so hard to express herself, to release words. We sat in turns at her bedside, murmuring soft soothing sounds, stroking her face, holding her hand.  In the middle of one rather harrowing night, she convulsed her knees to her chest and amid the wails, we heard very clearly: “I huuuurt!” The nurses were right there, doing everything they knew how to do, but it took 2 hours before Maureen retreated into an exhausted sleep.  At 8 am the next morning, she opened her eyes and responded to the nurse’s cheerful good morning with a smile and: “Good Morning Shannon” in answer. We were stunned, but cheered her for the gift of that moment, and hoped she recalled nothing of the night before. Those were her last pain-free words. Over the next days, she spoke hardly at all, made few sounds beyond a yawn or a sigh. All of her energies went into the rasping rhythm of one breath after another after another.

There could be up to 6 of us in the room at any given time. It is a large room painted butter yellow, high-ceiling-ed, with one wall a bank of white shutters overlooking the garden. Staff wheeled a tray of coffee and snacks into the anteroom. The vase of black licorice was a special hit. Stories constantly flew across and around Maureen’s bed and I wondered how much of them she heard, whether she was frustrated at not being able to get her two cents in, to participate in the surprising amount of laughter. We tried hard to include her in the conversation.

“Redhead, pee the bed, 5 cents a cabbage head! Maureen you are shaking so much, do you have a vibrator under there? ” teased her middle sister.

Some stories referenced the traumas in Maureen’s life, including the death of her only son less than 2 years ago. Did we contribute to her discomfiture I wonder?

Those stories were the touchstones between we handful women of who may have known Maureen originally in different ways but over time and through her became more familiar with one another. Most of us were at her son’s wedding, and also at her husband’s funeral. We may have danced in a circle at a fundraiser or sat across committee tables in heated discussion. We may have met over a meal or at a political protest. At the hospice, we found ourselves balancing cups of tea on the couch in the fire-lit parlour while PSWs tended to Maureen’s body and bedclothes, and we tried to reconcile the elegantly-dressed hummingbird of the ready-made laugh, with the wizened, crepe-draped skeletal wisp under the quilts in Room 1. It took its toll on each of us, but we offered it with clear hearts.

There is a rare intimacy in the wait for merciful death. When you sit either side of a bed, in the dimmed light, taking turns swabbing parched lips with a lollipop sponge ; when your eyes meet across the divide, something changes in both of you, forever. The maelstrom of emotions you share when your dying friend is trying to cry, or the relief that comes when at last she sleeps without tremors and you stop holding your breath for her...it forms a fierce bond between witnesses. Some moments we share, we will simply never forget.

Each one of us in some way tried to help Maureen die. We gave her “permission” in reassuring her that it was okay to go, that we would be fine, that we would watch over her loved ones in her stead. We reminded her that perhaps her son, her husband, her parents, were waiting somewhere to assist her transition into whatever comes after this life. We sat with the musicians who played and sang at her bedside, songs of comfort and of peace: Hallelujah, Imagine, I Believe In Angels, What a Wonderful World. We wept or sang along with them. There is a 20 minute video of the day staff clustered around Maureen’s bed, all of them singing her and themselves into solace.

I think in the final 24 hours of her life, we all managed to spend a little time in Room 1. There is a comfy chair by the window, and when one of us was holding Maureen’s head, offering the energies of Reiki, she remarked: “Well, that’s a first. I felt her swirling above the bed in time to the music on the radio.” We speculated jokingly that perhaps the chair was a portal between worlds.  Maureen was very much a dancer, and a figure skater, when her legs were still free. From her room, I took a homemade CD on which someone has written: “The Best of Gloria Estefan”, because it will make me sing and dance in the car on long trips,and I will feel Maureen in the music. But not yet, not yet.

I re-read a poem a friend had suggested, just before I said my own final goodbye at 10pm on a Friday night:

You have been called from the place of your dwelling,

After times, after, duties, after separations.

May blessed soul-friends guide you,

May helping spirits lead you,

May the Gatherer of Souls call you,

May the homeward path rise up under your feet

And lead you gladly home. (Caitlin Matthews, Celtic Devotional)

The woman who was with Maureen as she took her final breaths about 2 am on Saturday morning said this:” ...it was so sweetly, peacefully, and so quickly over...”

The calls and texts began and the relief spread like fresh honey through the circle of women whose week had been focused on safely seeing a beloved friend, and one another, home. In time, we will gather once more, as you do, for some kind of farewell service and a meal. We will giggle and reminisce, but among the toasts we will quietly raise a glass to ourselves as well, for fearfully, but also so fully, sharing the gift of showing up. Sweetest of dreams, Maureen.

Mend this Porcelain Heart of Mine

So this is a prompt fill for a wonderful anon who asked for a fic where the reader is coming out of an abusive relationship.

I hope you enjoy this and I do hope you are in a better place, dear friend.

This will be cross-posted as always to AO3 so please feel free to head over and give this a kudos or a comment.

Title: Mend this Porcelain Heart of Mine

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Domestic abuse, emotional abuse, some verbal abuse, and mention of an eating disorder.  Please take care if these are triggers for you.

Broken heart one more time Pick yourself up Why even cry? Broken pieces in your hands Wonder how you'll make it whole

You know you pray This can't be the way You cry, you say Something's got to change And mend this porcelain heart of mine...

There could only be so many cracks in a porcelain figure that cannot be repaired, the pain remaining the same.

It would take just one more slap, one more kick, one more vicious insult for her to shatter into a million pieces.  It had taken hollow words, tearful apologies and countless soft caresses to tape over those broken parts of her, over and over again.

He would go too far one day, when he would not hold back, when he would unleash the strength of his hatred upon her and her life may come to a singular, violent end.

He had beaten her before, when he was not happy with the meals she cooked or if she had been on the phone to friends, or if she passed in front of the television when he was watching sports.  Every little thing she did or said was picked apart until she was almost afraid to breathe for fear of provoking him.

She could never eat in front of him, for she chewed too loud and needed to lose weight anyway, in his mind, so she believed him, often going to bed hungry and skipping meals to try and conform to the ideals of beauty that he wanted.  

He was close to convincing her to quit her job so she could stay at home and he could focus on his own career, that her place was in the home and that she belonged to him and only him.  It had come to a point where she did not even look up while they were out with the constant fear of meeting another man's eyes and be accused of wanting to cheat on him.

He would constantly check her phone, accuse her of deleting messages, and stalk her social media pages to make sure that she would not even like photos or posts from other male friends.

One night, he had pressed her phone so hard against the side of her head that the bones in her ear were thrumming for hours after launching into a tirade about a supposed conversation she had with a colleague from work, his hand yanking sharply at her hair to punctuate his meaning, "You're so fucking sly.  I know your game, you little slut.  You were talking to him again, weren't you?  I know your expressions, you can't hide a goddamn thing from me, you little bitch.  Next time, I won't be so kind.  I'll break every fucking bone in your body, you understand?"

All she could do was whimper, "Yes, Jake."

What followed was a swift backhand and she had fallen to the ground.  "Now stay down there where you belong.  You're nothing without me, and it's about time you realised that."

It would be so easy just to take such things, to accept them as the truth.  It would be so easy to just believe him, that she was nothing, and that she had been flirting with her eyes all the time, that she gave out this vibe that she was going to sleep with every man she came into contact with.  It would be so easy to starve herself, to make herself ill, just to fit into that impossible mould of feminine beauty that did not even exist.  It would be so easy to distrust her own mind that was screaming that he was wrong, that she did everything for him, had given up so much for him and yet it was never enough.

It would be so easy to just let him murder her...

"No one misses you.  No one even looks for you at those fucking parties you like so much.  No one would miss you at work.  Just look at the state of you, with no fucking talent.  I'm the only person who knows what you're worth.  You're nothing without me..."

Nothing... nothing... nothing...

But tonight, when he had lunged at her in a drunken rage, hands reaching for her throat, calling her a cheating whore, that the man whose music she had been listening to was a lowlife bastard with a stupid band and no talent, that the decision flooded to life like a switch being flicked, bringing reason back to her beaten, downtrodden mind.

I don't have to take this...

I can fight this...

I am not nothing...

I have to run...

I have to live...

The momentum of her moving away just out of his reach almost sends her falling backwards, but in a surprising agile move, she had turned away from him immediately, the flight instinct kicking in strongly, knocking over a standing lamp to make an extra obstacle for him to traverse, dashing for the apartment door, having some sense to grab her car keys and phone from the hall table, her hands slick with sweat almost sliding off the door knob.

In a moment of sheer panic, she almost thought she was trapped when his heavy footsteps advanced towards her, but a single turn and she had thrust herself out into the corridor, running as fast as she can for the stairwell, not even daring to look back, his voice echoing after her, "Get the fuck back here!  Get back here, you little bitch!  You're mine!  Get back here, right now!"

She almost trips over her own feet as she descends the four flights to the ground floor, racing with all speed to her car, hands shaking so much that she almost drops the keys, opening the door and sitting in, turning the ignition on.

All the while, she looks in the rearview mirror to check that she hadn't been pursued, the icy fear that he could very well catch her and drag her back inside ever present.

The car engine roars to life and she pulls out rather recklessly out of the complex parking lot, not even paying attention to the speed limit or the direction she was taking until she was certain that he had not followed her.

It is at least ten minutes before she is even calm enough to think clearly, tears streaming down her cheeks, as the next gas station comes into view on the long, deserted road like a welcome beacon.

Slowly, she turns the car into the small parking lot round the back, switching the engine off and sitting still for a long moment where the only sound was her laboured breathing, before she covers her face and gives into the utter despair and shock that she had escaped her abuser with her life.

Her phone lies on the passenger seat, the screen coming to life with messages, one after another, all commanding her to come back, that they could talk, work it out.

But she knew there was no turning back.  If she even set foot in that apartment again, he would either take her in again with more meaningless apologies, or he would wring her neck and leave her for dead.

Never before had she felt so alone, having not confided in any of her friends, having been completely cut off from those she cared for, both in work and in her personal life.  Jake had skilfully weaved a complex web of lies that made her believe that she did not need her friends, that she only needed him.  It had been a devious manipulation from the beginning where she was nonethewiser, having been so in love and hardly believing that a man like Jake would never notice a girl like her.

The man he had accused her of having an affair with the most often, and whose cover album she had been listening to that night had been one of the few friends she had done her utmost to stay in touch with, despite Jake's best efforts to keep them separated.  

If she lost everything else in her life, she could not lose her friendship with Danny.

Sweet, kind, steadfast Danny...

Her thoughts come to a singular focus now on him, and her heart begins to ache painfully, knowing that he was her only hope now.  His kindness and warm caring had been her touchstones through the violence and mental anguish, where she would listen to one of the more quiet tracks from 'Under the Covers', hear his voice and instantly begin to remember how to breathe again.

She had not told him anything about the abuse, or what Jake had been accusing her of pertaining specifically to him, but now she felt that it was time to reach out to Dan, because she needed him so badly.

It was just after nine in the evening as she sat in the gas station parking lot, darting frantic looks as any other car passes by, dialling his number with shaking fingers, listening to the steady ringing sound before he picks up, "Hello?"

All of a sudden, at the sound of his greeting, the gentle cadence of his voice that was a literal godsend, she cannot speak.

"Hello?"

All she can manage is a hitched intake of air.

"Hey... it's you, isn't it?  Are you okay?  What's wrong?"

His name is a rushed exhale, voice cracking and tremulous on those two syllables, "Danny..."

"Yeah, I'm here.  I'm here... tell me what's wrong, you sound... I've never heard you like this, ever."

Vision swimming with tears, she mumbles, "I... I... he tried to... I had to... he wanted to kill me, and I... I couldn't..."

A sharpness rises in his tone, mixed with urgency, "Woah, woah, slow down.  Who wanted to kill you?  What is going on?"

"Jake... he... he wanted to hurt me again... he nearly attacked me, I had to run, I had to get away... and now I'm here in my car and I am so frightened and I just... I just... I don't know what to do... I don't know where to go, I'm just stuck and I can't... I can't..."

Dan's voice becomes quite loud, "Oh my God... are you hurt?  Did you say you're in your car?  Is he still there?  Where are you?"

She manages to breathe quite deeply, doing her utmost to remain calm and not cause him any undue worry, "No, no, I'm fine.  He almost grabbed me and I don't know what he would have done.  I just ran away, got to my car and just drove as fast and as far away as I could.  I'm behind a gas station miles away, he didn't follow me.  I had to leave, he was going to kill me... I can't... I can't... please... please, help me, Danny, please..."

"Slow down, slow down.  Listen, just take a deep breath.  Just breathe, you're okay.  Let me think for a second..."

She can hear Dan's footsteps, as if he was pacing about and she can only imagine how agitated he was and it was all her fault.  She just had to drag him into this, she couldn't have just gone on alone...

She does as he asks, leaning forward until her forehead is resting on the steering wheel, willing her brain to stop firing on all cylinders, to be calm and to let Dan help her rather than become hysterical.

"Where are you?"

On the drive, she had not paid any attention to roadsigns or any landmarks, so she admits quietly, "I don't know, I just kept driving.  A few miles from the apartment, I think?"

"Stay there, let me come to you."

The guilt floods her in a rush, "No, please.  I can't have you coming out in the middle of the night."

"I'm already out the door, so I'm doing this."

She sniffs, wiping her cheek with her sleeve, "Okay..."

"Send me a Google maps or one of those map pin things to let me know where you are.  Don't get out of your car until you see me, okay?"

"Okay, I'll do that."

"I'll be there as soon as I can, sweetheart, okay?  I'm on my way, I'll be right with you.  Stay in your car, I'm on the way."

She can only manage one more 'Okay' before she has to hang up, quickly dropping a location pin on Google maps and sending it to him, clutching her phone tight like a lifeline and praying for him to get to her soon.

Twenty minutes later...

The headlights of an approaching car make her freeze, having been a tightly coiled spring ever since ending the previous phonecall, but as soon as they are switched off and the driver exits, the wild halo of curls and tall, lean figure are unmistakeable.

He steps towards the car, ducking down slightly to peer through the windscreen at her, his eyes wide and his lips mouthing her name.

Her movements are almost in slow motion as she pushes open her own door, stepping out and saying his name with such desperation, "/Danny/..."

She does not make it three steps before he sprints over to her, arms open wide and catches her in a strong, clumsy hug as all her strength fails and she sags against him, clinging on as if her very life depended upon it.

Luckily, they are close to a side wall of the gas station as he leans back and slightly to the left, lowering himself down to the ground, holding her against him, rocking her gently and murmuring her name over and over.

"You're safe... you're safe... no one is going to hurt you... you're safe, sweetheart... I'm here, ssshhhh..."

Her sobs are loud and unrestrained as she buries her face in his chest, pouring out all the pain that she had endured for so long, hands trying to find purchase in the material of his jacket, needing his stability, his comfort, this safe haven.

After several minutes of weeping and having Dan gently stroke down her hair, when she quietens down, she allows Dan to help her to her feet, and she leans against him as they walk to his car.

As they pull up in front of Dan's house, her phone had not stopped vibrating with missed calls and messages, which they both elected to not acknowledge.

He reaches for her phone and decisively switches it off, throwing it rather sharply into the glove compartment and shutting it with a snap that makes her jump.

He immediately looks over at her with a sorrowful expression, "Shit... sorry.  I didn't mean to scare you..."

"No, it's okay."  Her heart thumping loudly in her ears told a different story but she attempts to give him a smile, despite her prickling nerves.

"I just... he wouldn't leave you alone and it pissed me off... sorry..."  Resting his head back against the seat, he breathes slowly, eyes shut.

The silence becomes quite awkward now as she stares downwards, wringing her hands, clenching tightly and untwisting her fingers, feeling utter shame at how low she had come to before realising that she could have just left him.

She hears Dan whisper her name and she looks over with large eyes glimmering with unshed tears, "Let's get inside, okay?"

Nodding, she opens the passenger door, following him with her head bowed, looking back over her shoulder with still some measure of paranoia, that somehow Jake could track her phone or her smell like a bloodhound, that he would find her and drag her back.

She manages to keep all that worry well hidden as Dan leads her into his house with one hand on her back, locking the door and sliding the security chain across.

"There.  No one is getting in here."

She nods, that small measure of relief quite strong.

"Take a seat, make yourself at home."

He gestures to the sitting room and she makes her way to the sofa, sitting on the edge, fiddling with her sleeves, doing her best to breathe steadily, that lingering fear still present despite being in Dan's home where she was safe.

After a few minutes, Dan returns from the kitchen with a plate and a mug in hand, setting them down in front of her on the coffee table.

She glances over, and notices that it is a grilled cheese sandwich cut into four triangles, a knife and fork beside it and the mug is filled with tea.

"There wasn't much in my fridge, I just whipped up what I could, but grilled cheese is always a winner in my book."

Dan sits beside her with a soft smile, tucking one leg under his knee and resting his elbow on the back of the sofa, but still keeping a small space between them.

Instantly, her mind goes into overdrive about calorie content and not being able to exercise to burn the fat, but her exterior is quite calm.  She smiles, saying politely, "Thank you, but I'm not hungry, I'm sorry you went to this trouble."

Dan tips his head to one side, giving her a firm look, "I heard your stomach growl on the way over."

"Still... I'm not hungry."

He was being so kind, but she didn't deserve it.  She had already brought him out in the middle of the night and now she was going to eat his food.  She didn't deserve it...

Dan frowns, "You've had a shock, you have been running on adrenaline all night and you need to keep your strength up."

She is close to snapping at him, restraining herself to say in a tight voice, "I told you that I'm not hungry."

She did not want to have this argument, to make up an excuse that she had no appetite when she was actually starving, that if he had a piece of fruit that she would prefer it instead, having gone without dinner to reach Jake's goal weight to be finally deemed perfect in his eyes.

But she knew deep down that even a healthy choice would fill her with guilt, so low had her self esteem become.

Dan blinks quite fast, his voice cracking, "You look so pale and you're shaking.  Please... why won't you eat?"

"I don't want to be fat."

The words spoken in a rushed whisper hang in the air and the shock on Dan's face cuts deeper than any blade.

He shakes his head several times, saying so softly, "Listen to me... you are not going to be fat.  You need to be healthy and not become ill.  You can't hurt yourself this way..."

Dipping her head, white hot shame coursing through her, she smothers a whimper, knowing that he was right, but she just couldn't bring herself to even look at the sandwich on the plate, the fear of weight gain hanging over her like the sword of Damocles.

There is a clink of cutlery against the plate and she brings herself to look up again, watching as Dan cuts a small section of one of the triangles, putting it on the fork and raising it up between them.

"Please... just one piece?  For me, please?"

His eyes are soulful, full of tears and the fact that he had to beg her to eat was more than she could bear.

Obediently, after much mental anguish, she manages to lean forward, opening her mouth with great reluctance, and he gently feeds her the piece of the sandwich, tilting her chin up with his index finger as he lifts the fork out and away from her mouth.

That simple contact almost made her tremble, but she does not let on.

She chews slowly, feeling the crunchy and soft textures along with the firework explosion of flavour on her tongue as she swallows thickly, the food making its way into her empty stomach and she lets out a contented sigh as Dan visibly brightens with relief.

"Better?"

"Yes... I will eat the rest.  You were right, I am really hungry... I'm sorry for lying..."

"Don't apologise, it's okay.  Just don't make yourself sick."

"I won't.  Thank you..."

Dan nods, standing up and making his way back to the kitchen in order to give her some privacy, for which she was extremely grateful.

Picking up the knife and fork, she cuts the rest of the sandwich up and eats it slowly, despite wanting to cram it all into her mouth, humming in pleasure, almost embarassed at reacting in such a way, since it was only an ordinary grilled cheese sandwich and not a gourmet meal.  

But the fact that Dan had made it, that he had wanted to make her strong again after he being so beaten down, it filled her up with energy and nourishment on so many levels.

She takes several large swallows of tea, not even caring to ask if he had put sugar or skimmed milk in it, only wanting to drink it down.

Feeling warm and pleasantly full, she allows herself to lie down on the sofa with a cushion beneath her head, sense beginning to unwind, sleep creeping into slowly but surely.

She hears Dan's footsteps approaching, and he leans down, saying quietly, "Tired?"

"Yeah..."

"Come on, you can sleep in my bed tonight."

This was too much.  He had rescued her in the middle of nowhere, made her food and now he was offering her his bed.

"Dan..."

"I insist.  My house, my rules.  You deserve a good rest and my bed happens to be super comfortable and comically large."

Not having the strength to argue, she nods in silent agreement, following him to the bedroom, pushing any wayward romantic thoughts from her mind.

"You can borrow a shirt if you want, just so you're not sleeping in your clothes.  I know how uncomfortable that can be sometimes."

"Okay, thank you."

Searching through his drawers, she comes across a 'Rush' band t-shirt that she had admired previously, which had been her first introduction to the band he loved so much, remembering when he had made her a playlist of his favourite songs, which was quite lengthy and had been the greatest solace during Jake's torrent of abuse apart from his own music.

The shirt is like a dress on her and that feeling of safety is increased even more.

There is a quiet knocking at the door, followed by Dan asking through the door, "You okay?"

She hurriedly folds her clothes and goes over the the bed, getting under the covers, and lying on her side, facing the door, calling out, "Yes, I'm fine."

"Is it okay if I come in?"

"Yes."

Dan peeks his head in the door, "You were able to find something?"

She nods, pushing the blankets down a little bit and he chuckles as he recognises the logo, "Good choice."

A pause.

"So... I'll just say goodnight."

Disappointment floods her suddenly, and she inquires quite innocently, "You're not sleeping in here?"

"No, the couch will be fine."

Raising an eyebrow, she raises herself up onto one elbow, "Dan, you are hardly going to fit on that couch.  I know you are tall."

Dan looks aghast, "I'm... tall?  Say it isn't so."

Shaking her head with a smile, she says quite softly, "I've imposed enough on you.  I am not depriving you of this large bed or a good night's sleep.  I'd feel bad..."

Dan huffs a sigh, "Well... I didn't want to... like, make you uncomfortable, and I thought that you maybe wanted to have some space, that's all.  But... you'd like to share the bed?"

Rather than giving him a word answer, she shifts back until there is enough space for him to lie down in front of her, stretching her arm across the mattress and patting the space several times, with no hint of longing or flirtation, only a want for him to sleep comfortably.

Dan gives in with a quiet chuckle, "I'll just get the lights."

Turning over onto her opposite side, her back to him now, she closes her eyes just as the lights are flicked off, listening to the sound of rustling clothing and shoes being discarded, feeling the mattress dip slightly as Dan crawls into bed behind her, lifting the blankets and getting under the covers with her.

Still, she does not move, very aware of her own breathing and pulse thundering in her ears.

"I... I tend to sleep with my shirt off... good old California weather, but I can put something on, if you..."

"No, it's fine... it's pretty warm this time of year."

"Okay.  Well... goodnight."

"Goodnight."

A pause.

She hears Dan say her name once again and she makes a quiet sound of inquiry, "Just one last thing, that I sometimes toss and turn in my sleep, so if I am moving too much, just nudge me and I'll stop."

"Okay."

A pause.

"Dan?"

"Yeah?"

Grateful for the darkness so he cannot see her obvious blushing, she asks shyly, "Can we... I mean... I'd like to hold your hand..."

"My hand?"

"Yeah... just to know that you're there."

Way to sound so pathetic...

"Sure... just let me... I'm just going to move up behind you... and put my arm around you..."

His arm comes around her waist, his hand coming to rest lightly on her belly, the warmth radiating outwards from his palm that makes her shudder pleasantly as he holds her securely against his chest, stretching out so they can easily spoon together.

Tentatively, she covers his hand, sliding her fingers in between his and holding as tight as she could, his fingers curling inwards in response.

Her eyes flutter closed as he presses a light kiss to her hair, just above her temple, his breathing stirring the strands close to her ear, before he begins a gentle humming of a melody that she cannot place, but is not unlike a soft lullaby.

Just let me stay here... let me stay here with you, please... please, just let me stay...

More than anything, she wanted to look into his eyes, to lose herself in them, and tell him everything that she had been too afraid to even express in a phonecall or a text, when her abusive partner had threatened to break her phone if she ever spoke to him.

But Jake wasn't here anymore.  She was with Danny, and all was right in the world.

Carefully turning over in his arms until she is laying on her back, she gazes up at Dan, finding that their faces were much closer together than she had predicted, and his hitched breath gusts against her lips as their eyes meet, even in the dark of the bedroom, she knows without question that he was looking straight at her.

Without even thinking, she inclines her head upwards those last few inches to gently kiss the corner of his mouth, wanting in some small way to thank him for everything he had done tonight that she could not express in mere words.

Before she can move her head back down again, Dan has turned his face more towards her and their lips brush together featherly light, the sensation making her heart knock loudly in her ears while Dan shifts closer, their legs sliding against each other as he presses along the entire length of her body, wrapping her up in his embrace and the tangle of blankets, nuzzling her nose with a quiet murmur, "You're so beautiful..."

Not giving her a chance to reply, he has leaned down for a soft kiss, catching her lower lip and making her back arch with a needy sound, tilting his head and pecking her lips gently once again, dotting kisses across her cheeks and her nose before gently kissing her once more, still so softly.

Not simply content to just lie there, she slowly slides her hand up the side of his neck, weaving her fingers through the soft, thick curls, cupping his cheek and responding with shy eagerness.

When they draw apart from air, Dan lets out a breathless chuckle, "Wow... that was... wow."

She cannot help but giggle at his lack of vocabulary, hardly blaming him as her own mind was still cloudy after such sweet kisses, still playing with his hair while looking up at him with doe eyes.

"You're okay?"

"Yes... more than okay, now."

"Good.  I don't want to rush things, like... you've had a fucking terrible time and you need to be taken care of, and I want to do that for you.  I mean, if that's what you want?"

Swallowing thickly past the lump in her throat, she manages to whisper, "That's all I want.  I just want you..."

Dan appears to be quite moved at this, raising his hands to gently cup her face, holding her in place so they can keep that steady, intense eye contact, "I'm here, if you need me.  Tonight and for as long as you need, okay?  I'll take care of you however you want and nothing is going to change that."

"You promise?"  Her voice cracks with emotion, as Dan leans down to kiss her lips, murmuring, "I promise, baby... I promise..."

Leaning their foreheads together, he says gently, "I think we should sleep now.  You've had a long night."

As much as she wanted to stay up all night with him, she lets out a quiet yawn, rubbing her eyes.  "Okay..."

"I'll be right here beside you, okay, sweetheart?"

"Okay... thank you."

"No problem.  Just rest now.  I've got you and you're safe."

The thought that she loved him crossed her mind, but remained unspoken for now, even as he returned to spooning her, nuzzling his face into her neck after giving her one last kiss goodnight, their hands finding each other and dovetailing together.

This must be what a safe haven felt like: she never thought it could ever exist again for her, but here it was in his arms, loving her back to life.

Women’s History Month began as a week-long celebration in Sonoma, California in 1978 which was centered around International Women’s Day on March 8. A year later during a women’s history conference at Sarah Lawrence College, participants learned how successful the week was and decided to initiate similar events in their own areas. President Carter issued the first proclamation for a national Women’s History Week in 1980. In 1987, Congress (after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project) passed Pub. L. 100-9 designating March as Women’s History Month. U.S. Presidents have issued proclamations on Women’s History Month since 1988.

The University of Central Florida community joins together to celebrate Women’s History Month across the multiple campuses with a wide variety of activities including workshops, film screenings, and WomanFest. Visit the Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s #neverthelessshepersisted page to learn more about the scheduled events, and stop by the library to view the display wall which includes bras decorated at our Honor, Remember & Support workshop.

Here at the UCF Libraries, we have created a list of suggested, and favorite, books about women in both history and fiction. Please click on the read more link below to see the full book list with descriptions and catalog links.

A Short History of Women:  A Novel by Kate Walbert A profoundly moving portrait of the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, A Short History of Women chronicles five generations of women from the close of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twenty-first. Beginning in 1914 at the deathbed of Dorothy Trevor Townsend, a suffragette who starves herself for the cause, the novel traces the echoes of her choice in the stories of her descendants—a brilliant daughter who tries to escape the burden of her mother’s infamy; a granddaughter who chooses a conventional path, only to find herself disillusioned; a great-granddaughter who wryly articulates the free-floating anxiety of post-9/11 Manhattan. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

A Uterus is a Feature, Not a Bug: the working woman's guide to overthrowing the patriarchy by Sarah Lacy A rallying cry for working mothers everywhere that demolishes the "distracted, emotional, weak" stereotype and definitively shows that these professionals are more focused, decisive, and stronger than any other force. There is copious academic research showing the benefits of working mothers on families and the benefits to companies who give women longer and more flexible parental leave. There are even findings that demonstrate women with multiple children actually perform better at work than those with none or one. Yet despite this concrete proof that working mothers are a lucrative asset, they still face the "Maternal Wall"—widespread unconscious bias about their abilities, contributions, and commitment. Fortunately, this prejudice is slowly giving way to new attitudes, thanks to more women starting their own businesses, and companies like Netflix, Facebook, Apple, and Google implementing more parent-friendly policies. But the most important barrier to change isn’t about men. Women must rethink the way they see themselves after giving birth. As entrepreneur Sarah Lacy makes clear in this cogent, persuasive analysis and clarion cry, the strongest, most lucrative, and most ambitious time of a woman’s career may easily be after she sees a plus sign on a pregnancy test. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Ale, beer and brewsters in England: Women's work in a changing world, 1300-1600 by J. M. Bennett Women brewed and sold most of the ale consumed in medieval England, but after 1350, men slowly took over the trade. By 1600, most brewers in London were male, and men also dominated the trade in many towns and villages. This book asks how, when, and why brewing ceased to be women's work and instead became a job for men. Employing a wide variety of sources and methods, Bennett vividly describes how brewsters (that is, female brewers) gradually left the trade. She also offers a compelling account of the endurance of patriarchy during this time of dramatic change. Suggested by Judy Kuhns, UCF Connect Libraries

Ban en Banlieue by Bhanu Kapil Bhanu Kapil's Ban en Banlieue follows a brown (black) girl as she walks home from school in the first moments of a riot. An April night in London, in 1979, is the axis of this startling work of overlapping arcs and varying approaches. By the end of the night, Ban moves into an incarnate and untethered presence, becoming all matter-- soot, meat, diesel oil and force--as she loops the city with the energy of global weather. Derived from performances in India, England and throughout the U.S., Ban en Banlieue is written at the limit of somatic and civic aims. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

BITCHfest: ten years of cultural criticism from the pages of Bitch magazine edited by Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler In the wake of Sassy and as an alternative to the more staid reporting of Ms., Bitch was launched in the mid-nineties as a Xerox-and-staple zine covering the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. Both unabashed in its love for the guilty pleasures of consumer culture and deeply thoughtful about the way the pop landscape reflects and impacts women's lives, Bitch grew to be a popular, full-scale magazine with a readership that stretched worldwide. Today it stands as a touchstone of hip, young feminist thought, looking with both wit and irreverence at the way pop culture informs feminism―and vice versa―and encouraging readers to think critically about the messages lurking behind our favorite television shows, movies, music, books, blogs, and the like. BITCHFest offers an assortment of the most provocative essays, reporting, rants, and raves from the magazine's first ten years, along with new pieces written especially for the collection. Smart, nuanced, cranky, outrageous, and clear-eyed, the anthology covers everything from a 1996 celebration of pre-scandal Martha Stewart to a more recent critical look at the "gayby boom"; from a time line of black women on sitcoms to an analysis of fat suits as the new blackface; from an attempt to fashion a feminist vulgarity to a reclamation of female virginity. It's a recent history of feminist pop-culture critique and an arrow toward feminism's future. Suggest by Missy Murphey, Research & Information Services

 Bolshevik women by B. E. Clements Bolshevik Women is a history of the women who joined the Soviet Communist Party before 1921. Drawing on a database of more than five hundred individuals as well as on intensive research into the lives of the most prominent female Bolsheviks, Barbara Clements tells the fascinating story of the female Reds who survived imprisonment, built bombs, led armies into battle, and struggled to survive under Stalin. The study argues that women were important members of the Communist Party during its formative years. Suggested by Judy Kuhns, UCF Connect Libraries

Everybody Matters: my life giving voice by Mary Robinson with Tessa Robinson One of the most inspiring women of our age, Mary Robinson has spent her life in pursuit of a fairer world, becoming a powerful and influential voice for human rights around the globe. Displaying a gift for storytelling and remembrance, Robinson reveals, in Everybody Matters, what lies behind the vision, strength, and determination that made her path to prominence as compelling as any of her achievements. As an activist lawyer, she won landmark cases advancing the causes of women and marginalized people against the prejudices of the day, and in her twenty years in the Irish Senate she promoted progressive legislation, including the legalizing of contraception. In l990, she shocked the political system by becoming Ireland's first woman president, redefining the role and putting Ireland firmly on the international stage. In her role as UN High Commissioner for human rights, beginning in 1997, she won acclaim for bringing attention to victims worldwide but was often frustrated both by the bureaucracy and by the willingness to compromise on principle. Now back in Ireland and heading her Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice, she has found the independence she needs to work effectively on behalf of the millions of poor around the world most affected by climate change. Suggest by Missy Murphey, Research & Information Services

Intimations: Stories by Alexandra Kleeman In her second book, a collection of twelve stories irresistibly seductive in their strangeness, Kleeman explores human life from beginning to end: the distress of birth into a world already formed; the brief and confusing period of "living" where we understand what is expected of us and struggle to do it; and the death-y period toward the end where we sense it is ending and will end only partially understood, at best. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Lady Constance Lytton: aristocrat, suffragette, martyr by Lyndsey Jenkins Lady Constance Lytton was the most unlikely of suffragettes. The daughter of a Viceroy of India and herself a lady in waiting to the Queen, a chance encounter with a suffragette suddenly gave her life a purpose. She was converted to the cause of women's suffrage and went to prison, but Constance soon found that her name and class singled her out for privileged treatment. So she decided to go to prison in disguise, getting herself arrested in Liverpool. She was force-fed 8 times before her identity was discovered and she was released. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

My Antonia by Willa Cather My Antonia tells the story of several immigrant families who move to rural Nebraska. Antonia is the eldest daughter of the Shimerdas and is a bold and free-hearted young woman who becomes the center of narrator Jim Burden's attention. The novel offers many elements, but clearly documents the struggles of the hard-working immigrants that homesteaded the prairies, particularly the hardships suffered by women. My Antonia provides Willa Cather with a platform for commentary about women's rights, while weaving a story where romantic interests are ultimately bandied about by the uncontrolled changes that occur in people's lives. The final book of Willa Cather's prairie trilogy, My Antonia (1918) is considered her greatest accomplishment. Suggested by Larry Cooperman, Research & Information Services

Sally Ride: America’s first woman in space by Lynn Sherr The definitive biography of Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space, with exclusive insights from Ride’s family and partner, by the ABC reporter who covered NASA during its transformation from a test-pilot boys’ club to a more inclusive elite. Sally Ride made history as the first American woman in space. A member of the first astronaut class to include women, she broke through a quarter-century of white male fighter jocks when NASA chose her for the seventh shuttle mission, cracking the celestial ceiling and inspiring several generations of women. Sherr also writes about Ride’s scrupulously guarded personal life—she kept her sexual orientation private—with exclusive access to Ride’s partner, her former husband, her family, and countless friends and colleagues. Sherr draws from Ride’s diaries, files, and letters. This is a rich biography of a fascinating woman whose life intersected with revolutionary social and scientific changes in America. Sherr’s revealing portrait is warm and admiring but unsparing. It makes this extraordinarily talented and bold woman, an inspiration to millions, come alive. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

The Mothers by Brit Bennett Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret. It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt. In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a "what if" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict In the tradition of The Paris Wife and Mrs. Poe, The Other Einstein offers us a window into a brilliant, fascinating woman whose light was lost in Einstein's enormous shadow. It is the story of Einstein's wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special theory of relativity is hotly debated and may have been inspired by her own profound and very personal insight. Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most twenty-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage. Suggested by Martha Cloutier, Circulation

The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim women write edited by Sabrina Mahfouz The Things I Would Tell You brings together the works of over thirty established women writers of Muslim heritage, as well as young emerging artists currently leading the way on the UK’s spoken word scene. Adhaf Soueif, Leila Aboulela, Warsan Shire, Kamila Shamsie and many others explore the universal themes of love, loss, identity, belonging and freedom in new fiction, poetry and prose specially written for this unique and timely anthology. Edited by award-winning poet and playwright Sabrina Mahfouz, The Things I Would Tell You showcases the talent and variety of female voices and is a creative call to arms for young women struggling to be heard. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

This Will Be My Undoing: living at the intersection of black, female, and feminist in (white) America by Morgan Jerkins In her collection of linked essays, Jerkins takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to "be"-- to live as, to exist as-- a black woman today? Doubly disenfranchised by race and gender, often deprived of a place within the mostly white mainstream feminist movement, black women are objectified, silenced, and marginalized with devastating consequences, in ways both obvious and subtle, that are rarely acknowledged in our country's larger discussion about inequality. Jerkins exposes the social, cultural, and historical story of black female oppression that influences the black community as well as the white, male-dominated world at large. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

You Can't Touch My Hair: and other things I still have to explain by Phoebe Robinson Being a black woman in America means contending with old prejudices and fresh absurdities every day. Comedian Phoebe Robinson has experienced her fair share over the years: she's been unceremoniously relegated to the role of "the black friend," as if she is somehow the authority on all things racial; she's been questioned about her love of U2 and Billy Joel ("isn't that ... white people music?"); she's been called "uppity" for having an opinion in the workplace; she's been followed around stores by security guards; and yes, people do ask her whether they can touch her hair all. the. time. Now, she's ready to take these topics to the page--and she's going to make you laugh as she's doing it. Using her trademark wit alongside pop-culture references galore, Robinson explores everything from why Lisa Bonet is "Queen. Bae. Jesus," to breaking down the terrible nature of casting calls, to giving her less-than-traditional advice to the future female president, and demanding that the NFL clean up its act, all told in the same conversational voice that launched her podcast, 2 Dope Queens, to the top spot on iTunes. As personal as it is political, You Can't Touch My Hair examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases with humor and heart, announcing Robinson as a writer on the rise. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

In Praise of: Pianos

Cinema and pianos have been collaborators from the start. You could say the piano is a key artifact of cinema, a conduit for all kinds of drama and moods and hidden significances. From the earliest days pianos provided the main sounds for films. They were the medium’s voice, ‘the workhorse of the era’, not only providing the music but drowning out noisy projectors and talkative audiences. Emotions were underscored, leitmotifs assigned, sound effects provided, pace and excitement injected. Soon, though, the instrument made its way beyond the screen to enter the world it had watched from the dark of a thousand Nickelodeons. A workhorse no more. And that’s when things got really interesting. A character in an empty room can be an enthralling thing. Add an object of some sort, and the dynamic changes, the gravitational power of the object alters relationships, offering chances to lean on, refer to or play. So let’s look at some of the ways pianos alter the internal world of cinema: 

Take Howard Hawk’s Only Angels Have Wings. Less celebrated than other Hawksian piano scenes, perhaps, such as To Have and Have Not, but in the end that undulating thing Jean Arthur does with her arm and Cary Grant yelling ‘PEA-NUT!’ swung the deal. In two minutes the piano tells us plenty about Bonnie Lee; that she’s a tougher cookie than she first appears, a practised performer who’s been around plenty of those disreputable rogues, musicians. And the brief bit of introspective noodling tells us she’s been hurt in love, almost certainly by one of those musicians. Here then, we not only have the Hawksian world-view encapsulated but also an example of the way pianos act as social hubs, focal points for gathering around, starting parties, lining up shots glasses. A piano, then, is more than an instrument, it’s a test of character, a hurt unlocker, a standing invitation.

Or, in the case of The Seven Year Itch, a libido unlocker. That’s certainly how Tom Ewell sees it, or imagines it in an earlier scene, fantasising about the effect Rachmaninoff will have on the girl upstairs (Monroe), how its deep romantic seriousness will induce shakes and quakes and goosebumps, leaving her helpless putty in his arms. Here we have the less exalted reality. Instead of Rachmaninoff we get chopsticks, instead of a fantasy sex goddess there’s a girl having thoughtless fun. Marilyn still gets goosebumps, though. And how! But Ewell ends up flat on his face. Monroe’s girlish enjoyment is infectious. She’s not some pretentious siren of desire, classical dream-cords reverberating through her body. She’s the simple, surface fun of chopsticks. The piano, in this case, is a personality decoder, an arena of (would-be) seduction, a reservoir of lost childhood pleasure.

As we’ve already seen, the piano is a standing invitation. Especially in an empty room. And double-especially in an empty bar. It seems to call to certain people, to tempt them away from reality, like Alain Delon in this scene from Jean Pierre Melville’s Un Flic. It’s a homage I’m sure to Frank Sinatra who invented (or crystalised) this tough-guy-reveals-sensitive-side-playing-piano-in-an-empty-bar schtick in films like Young at Heart. It’s a moment of private reverie, time holding its breath, Delon playing an introspective, jazzy piece, cigarette in his mouth, Catherine Deneuve listening unseen in the shadows, falling for him with every note. The piano, this tells us, is an interzone, a world unto itself, touchstone of timeless cool and summoner of goddesses from the dark.

‘It hurts‘, Ingrid Bergman explains to Liv Ulmann, ‘but he doesn’t show it.’ The film is Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata, the he is Chopin, the piece is his Prelude No. 2. which Ulmann has just played, every halting note torture to her concert pianist mother, who is now going to show how it should be played. What follows is a lesson and a humiliation. As Bergman plays Ulmann gazes at her. The look is mesmerising; need, resentment, love, hurt, all held in sway by those hypnotic, mysterious notes. Just look at me, notice me. It’s almost unbearable, the longing for her mother to pay her the same attention she does the piano, to touch her with the same tenderness, the same care. ‘Total restraint the whole time,’ Bergman emphasises, surely aware of the naked gaze, but refusing to acknowledge it. ‘Feeling is very far from sentimentality,’ she lectures, as her daughter sits meekly, saying nothing, craving sentimental connection, reduced to a mousy nothing by her elegant, brilliant mother. This piano is a cuckoo in the nest, an all-consuming lover, an instrument of pain, both exalted and plain.

Finally, I’ve gone for this old gag from Ballot Box Bunny, so good Looney Tunes used it more than once. I like this one best mainly because Yosemite Sam says pie-anna but also because his volcanic temper makes what follows wonderfully inevitable. It’s all in the timing. Get that right and it’ll be funny forever. I’ve watched this countless times and laugh every time. Why when I know what’s coming? Well, partly because I do know it’s coming and partly it’s the rhythm of it. Bugs plays the tune slow, Sam plays it fast. That’s part of it too. So, what does this scene tell us about the pie-anna? That it’s a potential booby-trap, a punisher of impatience, and, as Laurel and Hardy long since proved, comedy’s favourite slapstick musical instrument.

Top 20 songs of 1992 with some details:

1. "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men - This R&B ballad spent 13 weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

2. "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot - This rap song became a cultural phenomenon with its catchy hook and provocative lyrics.

3. "Jump" by Kris Kross - This hip-hop duo's debut single became a massive hit with its energetic chorus and catchy beat.

4. "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston - This cover of Dolly Parton's country ballad was featured in the movie "The Bodyguard" and became one of Houston's most iconic songs.

5. "To Be with You" by Mr. Big - This rock ballad was a surprise hit, reaching the top of the charts in multiple countries.

6. "Save the Best for Last" by Vanessa Williams - This R&B ballad was Williams' biggest hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

7. "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" by En Vogue - This R&B song features powerful vocals and a memorable chorus.

8. "Tears in Heaven" by Eric Clapton - This emotional ballad was written by Clapton after the tragic death of his young son.

9. "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers - This alternative rock song features a memorable guitar riff and introspective lyrics.

10. "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses - This epic ballad is one of the longest songs to ever reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100.

11. "Life Is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane - This rock song features a driving beat and catchy chorus.

12. "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus - This country song became a massive hit, thanks in part to its catchy chorus and line dancing craze.

13. "Just Another Day" by Jon Secada - This Latin pop ballad features Secada's powerful vocals and a memorable melody.

14. "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen - This classic rock song was re-released in 1992 after being featured in the movie "Wayne's World."

15. "Beauty and the Beast" by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson - This ballad was featured in the Disney movie of the same name and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

16. "Good for Me" by Amy Grant - This Christian pop song features uplifting lyrics and a catchy chorus.

17. "This Used to Be My Playground" by Madonna - This ballad was featured in the movie "A League of Their Own" and reached the top of the charts in multiple countries.

18. "Jump Around" by House of Pain - This hip-hop song features a memorable sample from Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle" and became a party anthem.

19. "Remember the Time" by Michael Jackson - This R&B song features a memorable music video set in ancient Egypt.

20. "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred - This dance-pop song features a catchy hook and tongue-in-cheek lyrics.

These songs represent a diverse range of genres, from R&B and hip-hop to rock and pop. Many of them became cultural touchstones and continue to be beloved by music fans today.

Mueller’s Deep State Ploy Against Russia America has been at war with herself since 1787. America’s war of independence has gone on for centuries now, a war against the Deep State and the banking interests that brought about century after century of European war, fueled colonialism and engineered two world wars in the 20th century. Russiagate, the Mueller report and the corrupt Trump presidency are simply another page in this long saga. We begin. Decade after decade, Soviet propaganda held to one theme, that the United States used its military and economic might to rule the world on behalf of criminal elites. With the fall of the Soviet Union, a new era of world peace and prosperity was to emerge. Instead, something else happened, war upon war, hot war, cold war, economic war, and a resurgence of colonialism and bullying. How does this apply to “Russiagate?” The story isn’t simple, nothing is today. Here is what we know. The Russia investigation was always fake, a cheap ploy to kill time while the Deep State consolidated power inside the US under a puppet president with a long personal history of criminality and emotional instability. It wasn’t just Russiagate. It was also the fake Skripal poisoning, the fake Russian based gas attacks in Syria, an opportunity to re-create the Cold War and the old boogeyman that the Deep State needed to distract the public. Evidence? Despite promises, the US has seized 40% of Syria including all oil reserves and is now entrenched as a permanent occupying power. The US is now fabricating another “coalition of the willing” as cover for military intervention in Venezuela. Donald Trump just vetoed a congressional resolution to stop US military action against Yemen. Donald Trump, by executive order, and in violation of the Geneva Convention, awarded Syria’s Golan Heights to Israel and has announced his intention to further award the West Bank to Israel as well, despite dozens of UN Security Council resolutions to the contrary. Trump has deployed American missiles and AEGIS systems along Russia’s borders, in violation of the INF treaty On April 19, 2019, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov made the following statements, from TASS: “’We regret the documents of this sort are causing direct influence on the development of Russian-US relations, whose condition leaves much to be desired,” Peskov said. ‘Speaking less seriously I should say that in a similar situation our Audit Chamber would’ve certainly probed into what the taxpayers’ money has been wasted on. Anyway, it’s up to the US taxpayers to ask such questions.’ He stated that as before Moscow dismissed the charges of intervention in the US presidential election, because there was no such interference at all. ‘The latest version of the Mueller report contains nothing new. All that information had been published by different sources and mass media earlier,’ Peskov stated.” Russia had been “blindsided” by events in the US and, having made this statement, Peskov was perhaps unaware of the furor going on in the US. When an American Attorney General issues a legal opinion, as William Barr had, it isn’t typically expected that he will lie outright yet this is exactly what Barr did. Trump was never exonerated. What did become clear is that the Mueller investigation, which found considerable, perhaps even “endless” criminal wrongdoing by Trump, was fake. One thing the investigation did make clear is that Trump knew he was guilty. From the Mueller report, in reference to a Trump statement made to then Attorney General Jeff Sessions on May 17, 2017 when Trump learned of the Mueller appointment: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fXXXXd.” What this tells an insider is that Trump himself wasn’t aware “the fix was in,” and that Mueller had a long history of gutlessness, cowardice and selling out to the highest bidder. The “fall guy” in this fix was to be Russia and behind that, the American people, the Constitution and America herself. The strings, as always, the Deep State taking control in Washington as always. The Mueller debacle was a plan, it bought time, two years, and had one purpose, to “inoculate” Trump against prosecution for years of criminal acts that were expected to end with Donald Trump dying in prison. Background William Barr and Mueller had, since the 1970’s when both worked for the CIA engineering coverups for corrupt practices there, as outlined in the Gene “Chip” Tatum book, The Mule. From Tatum: “Robert Swan Mueller III has been the go to man when secrets go awry. Recruited as a CIA asset in Vietnam as an member of the Phoenix Project it was embedded in him that there are no borders, no limits, no restrictions, and no repercussions. With these standards ingrained in his persona, Mueller became an invaluable asset in protecting what today is called “The Deep State”. When the need arises, invariably the Deep State handlers call on “The Mule.” With the release of the redacted Mueller Report in late April 2018, a number of things should be clear. They aren’t. In fact, nothing is clear except that US Attorney General Barr lied when he claimed Trump was exonerated by the report, far from it. What is clear is that none of this had anything to do with Russia but that Russia was used to provide “cover and deception” for Trump. You see, Trump came into office with dozens of lawsuits hanging over him, some for sex assaults, including children, criminal fraud tied to Trump University and the Trump Foundation and income tax evasion. When Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney, described Trump to congress, he knew what he was talking about, from Time Magazine, February 27, 2019: “Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney of President Donald Trump, testified publicly Wednesday that the President is “a racist,” “a con man” and “a cheat,” in remarks before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. “I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is,” Cohen said Wednesday in his opening statement. “He is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat.” The Real Target, the Constitution America’s constitution was always a weak document. Prepared initially without the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments that guarantee due process and personal freedoms, the “Magna Carta” basis for what some assumed wrongly was the real heart of the document, America has always been vulnerable. At the outset, America was subject to the same economic pressures the nation states of Europe bowed to. In fact, each nation state of Europe found its economic roots in the banking houses of Venice and her merchant princes. For the US, birth was defined when, in 1689 William of Orange with a mercenary army of 40,000 arrived in England to collect a 15 million guilder debt for those same Venetian princes. England got a central bank, today known as the Bank of England and both England and their American colonies fell under the economic stranglehold of the Deep State. When America broke free by declaring independence in 1776 and through ratifying the Articles of Confederation in 1781 after 4 years of debate. After the defeat of the British, pressure was put on the new nation to replace the Articles and in 1787 a new constitution was ratified. The problem was that those who penned the new document were not those who fought the war but rather those with continuing economic ties to Britain and those who had taken over that nation on behalf of the money lending houses of Europe. In 1913, scholars at Columbia University led by historian Charles A. Beard penned a controversial examination of the constitution. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, the result, helped fuel the progressive movement and provided an academic framework for challenges to limitations within the constitution. Beard provided the fuel to pass the Seventeenth Amendment which established popular election for Senators who had, under the constitution been picked from among wealthy elites much as with the British House of Lords and the Nineteenth Amendment which gave women the vote. Beard’s work, long under attack and now virtually erased from the academic and legal world, hypothesized, with extensive primary document support, that the “Framers” of the constitution were intent on building a “failed state” with limited opportunity that empowered Europe’s banking houses to take control over America’s government. However, history will show that not all Americans chose to submit, among them presidents like Andrew Jackson. Daniel Feller in his “King Andrew and the Bank,” written for the National Endowment for the Humanities, outlines the struggle against a central bank than defined America prior to the Civil War: “Yet, in its day, nothing galvanized American political conflict more than banking, currency, and finance. In the republic’s first half-century, no subject, save foreign relations and war, gave greater vexation to American statesmen or aroused more heated public debate. The creation of the original Bank of the United States in 1791 sparked the first major division within President George Washington’s administration, which later ripened into the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties. Jackson’s veto in 1832 repeated the process: It became the touchstone issue in his reelection campaign and precipitated the organization of the Whig and Democratic parties, the latter, still surviving, now the oldest mass political party in the world. The very language of Jackson’s veto, departing sharply from all that came before, furnished a political grammar since claimed by Populists, Progressives, New Deal liberals, socialists, free marketeers, libertarians—in short, by just about everybody.” Among American presidents who opposed a European and by that we mean Rothschild controlled central bank were Jackson, of course. Then came President Lincoln, but he was assassinated. Lincoln refused loans from the Rothschild’s at interest rates up to 40% and chose to print “greenbacks.” Then came President Garfield, but he was assassinated. Then came President McKinley, but he was assassinated. Last was John Kennedy who issued $4,292,893,000 in “United States Notes” through the US Treasury after an announcement that the US was ending its central bank with Executive Order 11110. After Kennedy was murdered, the “notes” were quietly removed from circulation. That executive order in its entirety, now otherwise removed from all public records and history books: Executive Order 11,110 AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows: Section 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended- a. By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): (j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12,1933, as amended (31 U.S.C.821(b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denomination of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption and – b. By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof. Section 2. The amendments made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made. John F. Kennedy The White House, June 4, 1963. Conclusion Seemingly endless fake reports of Trump issuing arrest warrants for “Deep State operatives” and ending US participation in the Rothschild controlled Federal Reserve System are more game playing and deceit. Trump has run up trillions in new debt already and America’s coffers have been emptying into the waiting hands of the Rothschilds at a record pace. The global jockeying, the endless tantrums, all of it is a game, cheap theatre. Follow the money, from the pockets of the poor and middle class into the rich and powerful. War and politics are for show and no more.

My Non-Monogamous Origin Story

I have anxiety. It arrived with the birth of my firstborn as an unpleasant postpartum present and it's never left. My anxiety tends to chill out on a beanbag in my brain most of the time these days, but now and then it starts jumping around excitedly like hyped-up toddler and consumes all of my energy. It can be crushing, it can be brutal, and it can surprise me with the things it decides to freak out about.

After 6 years of blissful marriage and two children, my husband and I began to learn something about ourselves. We were both inclined towards non-monogamy. Now to someone unfamiliar with this term and its implications, that would sound like we enjoyed cheating and sleeping around. Not true. Well, not quite. The thing is, my husband and I did like sleeping around - together in a way that was 100% consensual for all parties involved. We enjoyed our share of three and foursomes and considered it all good fun. The  tricky part was that I was becoming somewhat emotionally involved with another man that we had never been intimate with.

I know, I know, there are alarm bells going in your head right now. Doesn't this mean you're having an emotional affair?! you're asking me, eyebrows raised and skeptical. Well, yes, that's pretty much what was happening. I felt a love connection, if you will, with someone other than my husband - in addition to my husband. The problem was, I didn't want to upset my husband by mentioning it... I was also in a lot of denial about my own emotions too. Why?

Because you can't feel love towards more than one person at a time. Duh.

So is this when anxiety hopped from its lounging state to send my heart rate racing and turn my brain to scrambled eggs? Nope. I was fine because I was keeping everything in control by not bringing it up or admitting to anything. Psh, it was perfect! This is what you do in life when you're a married woman with interest in someone outside of your relationship because you're married. This was the only viable option, to talk to this guy I was interested in on Facebook messenger and not ever acknowledge my real feelings to him or anyone else (including me) ever. Problem solved!

Only not at all. I'm not married to a stupid man. He's pretty incredible all around, but he's remarkably perceptive. He got wind of my phone habits and caught on to my silly grins when I was chatting with "that guy" about nothing in particular. I probably made it all easier to spot because I was in denial and thus convinced I had nothing to hide anyway... though I was totally hiding things. *sigh* Looking back, I do a lot of face-palming.

One day, my husband was discovering he had quite a pit in his stomach about my activities and what they might mean. He did the unthinkable - he looked at the Facebook messages on my phone. Now, he'll be the first to tell you that stooping to snooping made him feel like crap. He's not that kinda guy, but he caved under his own anxiety-brain-toddler's insistence and the deed was done. What he discovered really shook him up.

There, in blue and white, was a record of all my conversations with this guy and they looked oddly familiar. Whipping out his own phone, my husband discovered a virtual carbon copy of his text messages with me. I didn't do it consciously, but I had been sending the same messages to both of them; talking about my day, the cute things my kids were doing, what I was making for dinner, etc. This hit my husband hard.

When he confronted me about it, he was understandably upset. Was I mad that he snooped on my phone? Perhaps surprisingly, I was actually relieved. My husband pointed out that I was emotionally involved with someone else and we kicked off some wonderfully deep and meaningful discussions. I can't relate to you the flow of our talks, but they became punctuated with moments of powerful physical connection. Simply put, as we waded through the muck of what my conversations and connections with someone else meant, my husband and I grew closer and more in love than we had been in years. Not that we weren't happy in our relationship, but we we're working parents with a lawn to mow and a rather demanding dog... romance wasn't the top of our to-do lists. Suddenly, we were staying up late each night, whispering tenderly and exposing our souls to each other, making love in a deeper way than I could ever remember.

Cue the anxiety.

Things were going swimmingly and my husband and I were more emotionally in touch that ever - and I was one panic attack away from being bedridden. How could it be that talking openly about my affection for someone else was making my ties to my husband feel stronger and more powerful? Didn't this all fly in the face of everything I understood about marriage and love? What the heck was happening?! Did I actually know what love was? I began to panic.

My husband is an amazing man. Not just because he's the most tender father or the hardest-working bread-winner I know, but because he has the ability to know my heart's every nook and cranny better than myself sometimes. The things I would shut out or hide away because of fear or unease are the things he cradles gently in his strong hands and holds out for me to examine. And so he helped me examine my heart in this matter.

I can so clearly recall him stressing to me that he wasn't uncomfortable at all with my having connections or affections for other people, simply that he didn't like secrets. So he led us through discussions that seemed to defy all conventions of marriage and yet they made so much sense to us both. Our attraction to each other, our comfort around each other, our contentment in our home life all increased exponentially as we came to terms with the idea that we were non-monogamous.

We were (and still are) both comfortable with the idea that each of us might make deep connections outside of our marriage. Close friendships that could involve love and physical intimacy without taking anything away from our married life. In fact, we find that these outside relationships make us happier people in our marriage.

Welcome to non-monogamy, dear reader. Some people like to call it polyamory, but I identify more strongly with non-monogamy. Hyphenated. Because reasons.

Now, I'd like to go ahead and voice that my husband and I are an able-bodied, white, cisgender, heterosexual couple with two kids, a nice house, and a dog. We are the picture of "American Dream." The privilege inherent in our relationship, even in our unconventional adoption of non-monogamy, is staggering. So let me just lift up all the other non-monogamous folks out there, the gender-queer, POC, same-sex, asexual, aromantic, and every other possible identity or combination under the sun who find non-monogamous relationships the best option for them. Whether it's a matter of consensual outside fulfillment, deep commitments to multiple partners, belief in the autonomy of your partner, or something else that motivates your relationship structure, keep on doing what's right for you and know you're supported!

So ok, my husband and I find we're happier when we're in a non-monogamous relationship structure. Cool. But how does that work? We have jobs and kids and busy social schedules... so how do we live non-monogamy?

Enter the creation of our covenant. My husband and I decided that the "how" of our outside relationships was less important for us to figure out than the "how" of our marriage. It was pointless my setting a bunch of boundaries for his engagement with others - blanketed boundaries simply don't work when you're talking about connections with individuals. I might feel really comfortable about someone he's involved with and have no problems with her being over for dinner with the family once a week, while I might feel less at ease around a different partner. These things just aren't something you can predict or strive to control beforehand, so we decided to focus on how we would interact in our relationship instead.

If you're a Unitarian Universalist, like we are, then the idea of creating a covenant is second nature in any situation where you're expected to interact with other people. However, if you're from a different background, you might be wondering why I'm using a word that you associate with melting people's faces off thanks to the best Harrison Ford movie ever in the context of my relationship structure.

A covenant is defined simply as an agreement. It is generally a list of actions or behaviors that two or more parties agree to. For my husband and I, our covenant of non-monogamy looks something like this:

We commit to open communication between us with honesty and integrity.

We will keep up-to-speed on each other's emotions and state of mind through regularly checking in with each other.

We will assume good intentions.

We will maintain our personal integrity by being honest with ourselves.

We commit to confrontation with compassion should we need to have difficult conversations.

We will grant each other time to process or sit with our thoughts or emotions as needed.

We will remember the purpose of our relationship structure is to be content and thriving in our marriage and additional relationships we may have.

My husband and I hold ourselves and each other lovingly accountable to this covenant and let me tell you what, it's the ultimate preventer of anxiety-inducing predicaments for me. Any situation we face can be framed within the context of our covenant and we're able to hold meaningful, constructive conversations about anything life throws at us. In fact, this covenant really extends beyond our relationship structure and has just become the umbrella under which we live out our married life. It's wonderful to have this as a touchstone.

Of course, our covenant is a living one, so in a year or even just a few months, it might look quite different. So long as we both agree to the proposed change, my husband and I can make this covenant include fewer or more points as our relationship requires. That is also something to soothe the potential anxiety for me - knowing that I'm guided and secure, but not trapped.

And so that was the beginning of my journey into a non-monogamous marriage. It's strange sometimes, it comes with plenty of challenges, but it's also remarkably fulfilling and has brought me and my husband piles of joy. In my books, it's very much worth it and feels natural, even when it gets weird.

Sailor Moon R movie thoughts

As evidenced by a couple of posts yesterday, @prismatic-bell and I went to see the remastered Sailor Moon R movie.  It had a limited theatrical run; the ONLY theater in Arizona showing it was Harkins Valley Art, in Tempe.

We decided to go full-nerd and totally support the showing by seeing both the new dub and the subtitled versions, one right after the other.  By the time we saw it, it had been playing for four days, so the crowds were small.  I think there were maybe four other people there for the dub, and six for the sub.  Bell had a lively discussion with a few of the sub-goers; I felt a little adrift, as I’m pretty sure I was at least a decade older than them, and didn’t have a lot of the same cultural touchstones (I wasn’t a Nintendo Girl, my hand-eye coordination sucked too much, so anything Nintendo-knowledge-wise, I have completely picked up via osmosis from @penprp).

The dubbed version started with a little “interview” segment with the new VAs for Usagi, Mamoru, and Fiore.  We got a little worried when they kept calling Fiore “Fiole,” thinking perhaps the r/l phoneme issue caused them to mistranslate the name.  Despite constantly saying “Fiole” in the interview, they did pronounce it “Fiore” in the movie proper.  IMO, the interview didn’t really add much to the movie; it was more like a web clip, maybe one of their Moonlight Party things that they felt they needed to add on to add to the perceived value of the “event” status.

Both sub and dub had the short, which again, was sort of “perceived value.”  It had never been released in the US, so it was nice in that sense, but it was almost like a clip show recap of “These are the main characters.”  I can see how that may have been necessary when the movie was first released, if it was drawing an audience unfamiliar with the show.  Twenty years later, it’s more like “checking off a box” on the completionist list.  

I do think the new dub cast did a decent job.  My first exposure to the movie was via the VKLL fansub, so while it definitely has its problems with translations, it’s still my touchstone for comparison.  The original VAs do seem to put more emotion into their performances, but the new Rei VA, at the end scene, was so very close to the original performance, voice cracking and all.

One issue I had with the remaster was the asteroid sequence.  From what I remember in the fansubbed version (and even the first US DVD release), the scene where the asteroid opens up, revealing the inside coated with the flowers, it is SUPER CONSPICUOUS CGI.  The remaster seemed like it tried to mask the conspicuous aspect of it, and it just turned out blurry and pixellated. Maybe in the DVD/Blue ray or streaming versions, they’ll fix it a little more.  It may be less noticeable on a smaller screen (I say this tongue in cheek, as I have a 70″ tv, and if I get this on Blue Ray, you better believe I’m watching it on that).

One thing we both caught is that when Luna and Artemis are describing the Xenian Flower (which in my mind will always be the Kisenian Flower), they say that it finds weak-minded people.  We’re both pretty sure that the original doesn’t say weak-minded, but instead refers to the heart.  I wish I had a working VCR so I could see how VKLL translated it.

Overall, I’m glad we went, and if Viz releases the S movie and the SuperS movie, we’ll definitely support those, too.

8 Creative Activities to Discover Your Values

Your values are the foundation of everything you do—and are. As author Jennifer Leigh Selig, PhD, said, “values are the essential core of a human being… My values—and my struggles and successes in attempting to live up to them—tell you who I am.”

Our values are “like an inner compass” that helps us navigate different experiences and transitions, said art therapist Sara Roizen, TR-BC, LCAT.

Similarly, when Selig doesn’t know which direction to go, she noted that her values guide her. “They are an essential touchstone, reminding me of who I am and how I want to live my life.”

“When aligning with our values we tend to feel more energetic, positive, and live with clarity,” Roizen said. On the other hand, “when we are misaligned from our values we may feel out of sync, confused, and disconnected from our deeper self.”

Karen Benke, author of four creative non-fiction books for readers and writers of all ages, views values as “standards of excellence,” a term she borrowed from her friend Maria Nemeth. They “help guide us to being the best versions of ourselves—standards that are beneficial, helpful, and important to our leading a life worth living.”

Benke’s values also help her feel ready to face challenges, obstacles, and frustrations. She noted that these values include: joy, wonder, creativity, kindness, generosity, beauty, truthfulness, trust, abundance, dedication, calm, loyalty, and analog over digital.

Selig’s most important value is love: “love for myself, for my family, friends, and neighbor, for the creatures we share the earth with, and for the earth itself. Love is the root and the stem, and from that value emerge petals like service, like connection, like generosity, like attention, like loyalty.”

One of the best ways we can discover our values is by connecting to our creativity (which also might be a value!). As such, below, you’ll find eight creative activities for discovering your values—which include everything from drawing to penning poetry.

Create a values tree. According to Roizen, a values tree can illuminate the origins of our various values and how they’ve shaped our perception overall. She suggested gathering any materials you’d like, and drawing a big tree on a piece of paper. The tree should include roots, a trunk, and branches. Next, at the roots of the tree, jot down any values that you’ve taken from your family or childhood. “Think about your family culture and the values that your parents, guardians, grandparents, and other relatives embodied and passed on to you.”

Then shift to the trunk of your tree. Jot down any values that have come from friends, your partner, parenting, work, religion, school, travel, books, and any other sources. Finally, go to the branches, and write down any values you’re wanting to grow in your life. After you’re done, reflect on whether there are any overlapping values on your tree. “Circle or highlight any values that seem particularly important to focus on at this time. Which values are most needed for the tree to thrive?”

Roizen suggested returning to the tree to add more values as they arise; and doing this with a partner or family to explore differences and similarities in values.

Explore your memory. This 5-minute exercise comes from Benke’s newest book Rip ALL the Pages! 52 Tear-Out Adventures for Creative Writers. She suggests starting with the words “I remember,” and letting your memory jump around, noting all kinds of moments. These moments might pop up as fragments in your mind, such as several sentences of dialogue or a hodge-podge of scents.

See if these memories reflect a value or standard of excellence that you’d like “to guide you into your future,” Benke said. For instance, you might realize that your value is safety, curiosity, or cooperation, she said.

Practice “the mountaintop experience.” Selig, co-author of the book Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit, does this exercise with her students in a course called “Deep Vocation.” She asks them to describe a time they felt “high on life, when they were having a peak experience.” Then she asks them to draw the experience. “Even if they’re terrible illustrators, as I am myself, something often comes out of the drawing that is different than the written description,” Selig said.

Lastly, she asks students to observe their experience and reflect on what values were being expressed during that time. “It’s a fail-proof method to uncover core values.”

Host a give-away party. For this exercise, Benke noted, “all you do is answer questions, skipping those questions that you don’t want to answer and dropping deeply into detail for those questions you do want to answer.” Your answers serve as hints “to what values you have.”

What’s your ultimate birthday meal?

What’s your favorite coin and the side (heads or tails) you most often call?

What’s your most prized possession?

What’s a sound from nature that calms you?

Where do you feel the safest?

What four things would you want if stranded on a desert island?

What was your favorite place to play as a child?

What article of clothing is your favorite?

What’s your favorite game?

What are five things in your bedroom or closet?

Next, using your responses, write a short poem or letter to someone you love (addressing that person as “you”), Benke said. Notice whether the idea of giving things away feels tough or fun. Because this, too, can be a clue to your values.

For instance, one of Benke’s students said it was easier to give things away if she knew she had two of everything, because giving away her favorite things was upsetting. “Turns out, she valued abundance.”

Another student, Benke said, discovered that she valued spirituality, love, and trust. The student wrote: “I give you the distant god in my soul. Here, take it. I give you my voice as a token of love and trust…”

Let your emotions lead. Selig noted that emotions are an excellent way to discern our values. She suggested flipping through magazines, and looking for images that stir your emotions. Use those images to create a collage. Then, explore the final product: “What’s happening in each of the images? What values are being expressed?”

Take a “surprise survey.” To identify another value, Benke suggested finishing the following lines, remembering “to feel your way in.”

My hands reach for…

My feet run toward…

My eyes search for…

My soul wonders if…

If you open the trapdoor of my heart, you’ll find…

Connect to your soul. Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D, co-author of Deep Creativity, suggests reconnecting to the personal classics that have spoken to you when you were a child or teen. Because, as Selig said, these classics “express values that are deeply embedded in our soul.”

Your personal classics might be books, movies, music, images, and works of art. Jot these classics down on a large piece of paper, and play connect the dots to identify what values have been important to you since you were young, Selig said.   

Create tangible reminders. When Selig bought her first home in her early 30s, she painted her values in Latin above her entry way “so when I walked in, I would remember what was most important to me.”

Another tangible reminder, she said, is to use a Sharpie to write your values on a stone, “carrying it around in your pocket, a literal touchstone.” Or, she added, you could use your phone to send yourself reminders at random times of the day or week: “How are you expressing your values right now?” or “What value are you expressing right now?”

Roizen suggested creating a coat of arms to reflect your current core values. Start by drawing, painting, or cutting out a shield. (You can find templates online.) Create four or more divisions in your coat of arms, and fill each one with a core value. You can include a symbolic image that represents each value. Once you’re done, keep your coat of arms in a prominent place.

Benke suggested writing down your values on five to 10 index cards. Then, she said, place each card somewhere you’ll regularly see it, such as your bathroom mirror, car dashboard, breakfast bowl, nightstand, in the pocket of your favorite jacket, or taped to the back of the front door.

Even though our truest values originate from our most authentic selves, they aren’t permanent. As Roizen pointed out, our values can shift and develop over the years. Which is why it’s important to regularly return to the creative exercises that resonate with you, and make sure your compass is still correct.

from World of Psychology http://bit.ly/2IjroFr via IFTTT

Top 10 Albums of 2018

It’s that time again. What a year. Thank gods we had great music for a little reflecting, some much-needed re-energizing, and of course, a lot of rabblerousing.

Here are my picks for the year’s 10 best albums. What turned your tables in 2018? Let me know at [email protected].

Happy 2019!

Rey

10) Sleep — The Sciences [Third Man Records]

San Jose psych-doom power trio Sleep have emerged from the purple haze to release “The Sciences,” their fourth studio record — their first in nearly two decades — giving stoner rock fans everywhere 53 glorious minutes of dark, dank, primordial heaviness that few if any bands can deliver. Anchored by Jason Roeder’s surgical-strike stickwork and vocalist Al Cisneros’ syrupy, sludgy, downtuned bass, master axe-smith Matt Pike plows through the kind of menacing riffs one can imagine flying off Hephaestus’ anvil as he’s forging Poseidon’s new trident — just as the god of the sea is packing his bags (and bowl) for a journey into the deep.

Listen on Spotify.

9) Mojo Juju — Native Tongue [ABC]

Born in Australia of mixed heritage — Aboriginal (Wiradjuri) and Filipino — Mojo “Juju” Ruiz de Luzuriaga, in her third full-length LP, digs deep into race, family, immigration, colonialism, identity politics and Indigenous heritage across 16 soulful, sultry, deeply personal and exquisitely original tracks that stretch across styles, genres, vibes and even languages. In a troubling era where xenophobia is on the rise, “Native Tongue” deftly explores what it means to be “the other.” “Just because you own the airtime, you think you own the sky,” she proclaims on “Think Twice,” lassoing a global Zeitgeist that is impossible to ignore — and making it far groovier than anyone thought it could be.

Listen on Spotify.

8) JPEGMAFIA — Veteran [Deathbomb Arc]

For his third studio album “Veteran” (a reference, at least, to his four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force), the 28-year-old mad-scientist glitchcore rapper/producer JPEGMAFIA (aka Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks) pulls out all the stops and then some to deliver one of the most distinctive hip-hop albums in years — if his wild and wooly aural experiments can even be considered hip-hop at this point. Vulcanic bass lines slither over shattered post-industrial beats as the New York native, now based in Baltimore, stretches his restless, inquisitive mind (he has a master’s degree in journalism), riffing on such far-ranging matters as Defense Department discharge forms and the fashionista handbags made famous by singer Jane Birkin (the one-time collaborator/lover of Serge Gainsbourg). The production is totally frikkin’ insane; the samples alone set him apart, from the bizarre epiglottal workout (a looped ODB vocal) that snakes through “Real Nega” to the brilliant rapid-fire Bic pen-clicking in “Thug Tears,” which triggered, at least in one fan, an ASMR (“autonomous sensory meridian response”), the unique auditory-tactile synaesthetic feeling of euphoria that has been used to describe a “spine-tingling” event. In fact, the whole 47-minute affair is fairly spine-tingling — and a bit bone-rattling, too. (h/t: JF)

Listen on Spotify.

7) Art Brut — Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! [Alcopop!]

The Berlin- and London-based art-punk quintet comes crashing back after seven years of silence with their exuberant, hook-laden fifth studio LP, a tightly-wound 35 minutes jam-packed with gorgeously odd, party-ready, rock-steady mini-anthems with more horns, harmonies, group ah-ahs and sing-alongs than your drunken final campfire jam at band camp. Cheeky speak-singer Eddie Argos keeps things humming along with blisteringly droll deliveries of super-catchy, instant-classic lines. “I hope you’re very happy together, and if you’re not, that’s even better,“ he sniggers to an ex-lover in what could be the most gleeful break-up song ever written. In “Too Clever,” Argos distills the waggish self-reflexivity that has been his touchstone since the band emerged 14 years ago: “Sometimes the smartest man in the room would rather be outside — howling at the moon … Ah-woo!” Press play and let the bad/good times roll...

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6) Young Jesus — The Whole Thing Is Just There [Saddle Creek]

For their third studio album, art rockers Young Jesus have crafted fresh, expansive highways and byways across the musical map. Ranging like the plains of boozy philosopher-poet bandleader John Rossiter’s Midwestern roots — and shot through with the jazz-inflected post-rock his Chicago hometown made famous — “The Whole Thing Is Just There” shows the now Los Angeles-based four-piece at their edgy-yet-dreamy, exquisitely exploratory best. Enveloped by a spacious production, Rossiter muses nimbly, often ironically, over complex arrangements interspersed by instrumental improvisations, with angular shards of guitar peppering lush soundscapes. “If saints aren’t given voice to teach of burns, we’re led to blood periphery,” he warns on the brooding, labyrinthine opener “Deterritory,” before the band opens the throttle and doesn't let up for the rest of this multifaceted 49-minute masterwork. 

Listen on Spotify.

5) Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want [Ipecac]

The hyper-intense post-grindcore noise mavens from Providence come out swinging on their fourth studio full-length (their first after an eight-year hiatus), showing that age hasn’t mellowed them out one bit. Above droning swirls of machine-edged walls of guitar, monomaniacal tank-tread basslines and call-to-battle drums, lead caterwauler Alexis S.F. Marshall lords over a gathering storm, slinging scorching, misanthropic observations of humanity’s dark side. “It may please your heart to see some shackled, wrists and throat, naked as the day they were born,” he howls on “Long Road, No Turns.” For 48 grinding, often terrifying minutes, Daughters exercise a powerful, all-consuming yet controlled cacophony — the kind of music killer hornets must listen to when they swarm. Still, there are intermittent flashes of beauty amidst the menacing Sturm und Drang of this post-apocalyptic wasteland, like one of those hornets pausing on a lonely flower, drawing a touch of sweet nectar before buzzing off for the kill.

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4) Unknown Mortal Orchestra - IC-01 Hanoi [Jagjaguwar]

While recording their fourth full-length “Sex and Food” (also released this year) in such far-flung locales as Mexico City, Seoul, Reykjavik, Auckland and Portland, Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson (guitar, bass), his brother Kody (drums) and their father Chris (keyboards, flugelhorn, saxophone — the latter two often patched through effects) found themselves hunkered down one night in Hanoi. There the wandering New Zealand minstrels met up with Vietnamese musician Minh Nguyen (on sáo trúc, a traditional Vietnamese flute) for a casual jam at Phu Sa Studio. What emerged from that session are seven inspired tracks of sexy, smoky, brooding, propulsive Miles Davis-inspired exploratory improvisation. “IC-O1 Hanoi” may only clock in at 28 minutes, but it unfurls otherworldly mood for miles.

Listen on Spotify.

3) Jeremy Dutcher — Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa [Independent]

Toronto-based operatic tenor, pianist, composer, ethnomusicologist and Indigenous activist Jeremy Dutcher mines his First Nations roots for his striking, inspirational debut, a labor of love that is the culmination of five years researching and transcribing the traditional music of the Maliseet, an Algonquian people of New Brunswick, Quebec. “When I first got to hear these voices, that work for me was a profoundly transformational moment in my life,” he said in a CBC interview. “It was a process of deep listening — to sit there with these headphones and really hear what these voices had to tell me.” Featuring the grainy, century-old recordings of his ancestors’ songs (which he uncovered on wax cylinders at the Canadian Museum of Civilization), the endangered Wolastoqey language (spoken by around 100 people), modern sounds and rhythms, and his own penetrating, emotive voice winding through sprawling post-classical rearrangements of traditional First Nations music, “Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa” (“Our Maliseet Songs”) is an ambitious, fascinating and important work — a richly deserving winner of the Polaris Prize, one of Canada’s most prestigious music awards. Dutcher says his art is rooted in “Indigenous futurism,” one aspect of which is recovering traditional languages and viewpoints to counteract the Western narrative that seeks to erase them. Celebrating ancestral voices while looking to the future in a fight for today, this is one for the ages.

Listen on Spotify.

2) King Tuff — The Other [Sub Pop] 

On his dark-themed yet fun-filled fourth studio album, Vermont’s reigning king of psychedelic garage rock roams new territory, plumbing the worrisome depths of our current technology-driven, environmentally-destructive reality. Backed the impressive drumming of longtime collaborator Ty Seagall and aided by blasts of brass and sinewy synths, King Tuff (aka Kyle Thomas) rolls through crunchy, bluesy riffs, peeling back the layers of our iPhone-addled brains to reveal the poetry, nature and wilderness that we’ve lost along the way to our self-inflicted digitized annihilation. “So take me to your telescope and point me to the void, save me from the ones and zeros before it all gets destroyed,” he beseeches on “Circuits in the Sand.” If The Doors would’ve been the perfect final act to take the global stage as Armageddon rains down on Earth (“The End,” of course, being the last song we’d ever hear), King Tuff, with “The Other,” stakes a fairly convincing claim to the rabblerousing penultimate slot. 

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1) Caroline Rose — LONER [New West] 

Somehow, Caroline Rose has managed to explore tough themes like sexism, misogyny, loneliness, self-doubt, infidelity and death, while delivering some of the most instant-party gems of 2018. Arch yet artful, Rose’s satire-spitting, synth-heavy third studio LP slips into seductively murky corners that burst open into dazzling technicolor skies on a dime. “I go to a friend of a friend’s party,” she deadpans on the opener. “Everyone’s well dressed with a perfect body. And they all have alternative haircuts and straight white teeth, but all I see is just more of the same thing,” The album, however, is anything but. With razor-edged turns of phrase, in-your-face punk attitude and catchy, curvilinear melodies, “LONER” certifies the Long Island songstress as a genuine pop maestro whose super-sly winks belie her 28 (!) years.

Listen on Spotify.

Honorable mentions:

Cassper Nyovest — Sweet and Short [UMG/Family Tree]

South African rapper Cassper Nyovest’s club-ready fourth studio album signals a return to his roots in kwaito (Afrikaans for “angry”), a heady mix of hip-hop and house music that originated in Johannesburg in the 1990s featuring slow tempos and African sounds, samples and slang that has grown into a potent youth culture. 

Listen on Spotify.

Peter Brötzmann and Heather Leigh — Sparrow Nights [Trost]

For their first studio album, Scotland-based improv pedal steel master Heather Leigh (whose excellent solo album “Throne” was also released this year) and German free jazz sax legend Peter Brötzmann show off the intimate, minimalist intensity they’ve developed over three years of collaboration. Probing and melancholic, “Sparrow Nights” is often rapturous, at times profound.

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Tomáš Kačo — My Home [Independent]

On “For Chopin,” the opening track on his long-awaited debut album, 31-year-old virtuoso pianist and composer Tomáš Kačo takes the master’s lead, playing the famous Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 (first published in 1832). But soon, the song diverges into his own expressive, jazzy strands to create not only an homage but an audacious musical conversation that stretches across the centuries. History plays a central role in “My Home,” which features some of the vibrant traditional gypsy music that Kačo’s father played for him when he was a just a young Romany pianist studying at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. A special treat: legendary bassist John Patitucci joins in for the duet “Marov.”

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Scud + Nomex — Maschinebau EP (re-release) [Praxis]

In 1997, London techno-scuzz impresarios DJ Scud (founder of Ambush! Records) and Nomex (founder of Adverse Records) joined forces to launch the Maschinenbau label, releasing just two 7”s. Praxis had to good sense to re-release these deliriously filthy and abusive breakcore/industrial noise tracks just in time for the 21st-century robot invasion.

Listen on Bandcamp.

Ÿuma — Poussière d’ètoiles (“Stardust”) [Innacor]

In Poussière d’ètoiles (“Stardust”), Tunisian duo Ÿuma (singer Sabrine Jenhani and guitarist-singer Ramy Zoghlami) offer an intimate, minimalist blues-folk gem, sung in Arabic, that isn’t afraid to tangle with the difficult cultural politics of their homeland. In “Mestenni Ellil” (“I wait for the night”), they explore the desperation of two young lovers who can never be together due to the girl’s arranged marriage — a practice that is sadly legal and common in Tunisia.

Listen on Spotify.