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stupidspaceseven · 5 years

Text

feat.

Relationship: Emori/John Murphy

Rating: T

Summary: Murphy’s loner celebrity status means that he’s pretty content to make his own music and mind his own damn business, or so he thinks. But when an interview answer leads to a collaboration with The Dead Zone’s frontwoman Emori Ramiro they’re made to confront the loneliness in their jobs, and how they might rectify it together.

[A Modern Memori Rock stars!AU based on @diyozas amazing edit]

“So, where do we start with this whole collaboration thing?” It’s the first time she’s sounded fully sold on the idea, and his feet stop their insistent bouncing and settle firmly on the ground.

He scratches his neck. “I’m kinda notorious for being horrible at it,” he says, just to warn her about what she’s getting into. Some selfish part of him has already decided that he’s going to make this work with Emori. They haven’t even finished the meeting and he’s already looking forward to seeing her again, getting to know her determination better.

“I don’t exactly have much experience either,” Emori notes.

“Well you weren’t responsible for the most infamous band breakup in the twenty first century so…”

“You’re really tooting your own horn there. I was personally devastated when One Direction broke up.”

He almost snorts from laughing so hard. “I think we could make something great,” he says, something like butterflies in his stomach, but more promising. Nervous and powerful and threatening to spill out.

[AO3]

Murphy shows up for the Entertainment Weekly interview a half hour early. Punctuality isn’t generally one of his strong suits, but being early means he has time to finish his coffee and get in the right headspace. It’s not that he hates interviews, per say, it’s just that he’s notoriously bad at them; always saying something a bit too asshole-ish or otherwise bad for PR.

But Abby has him under strict orders to behave this time, and while forgoing a filter might be more true to life, it does make Abby’s job two times harder. And despite everything he doesn’t want to be a prick to his manager; she’s good to him.

So he finishes his coffee and constructs neutral answers to the questions he anticipates the interviewer asking. She’s probably hoping for something juicy, considering the interview is supposed to be about Delinquency’s breakup, but it’s been five years; he and Bellamy gave up on hating each other ages ago—you might even say they’re friends now. It’s nowhere near as dramatic as the media likes to think it is. But a bad quote from him could definitely make it seem that way.

He fiddles with the cord of his earbuds, listening to Something to Erase. Most wouldn’t consider it a calming album, what with its themes of abuse and neglect and heavy rock guitar, but it’s an old favorite of his, and its familiarity settles on his shoulders like a warm blanket.

“You’re early,” Bellamy remarks, just at the end of the seventh track, stepping off the elevator along with the interviewer.

“Fuck off,” Murphy says, stuffing his phone and earbuds into the pocket of his jeans, and then turns his attention to the interviewer. She introduces herself as Kara, and seems professional in a harsh and cool way, down to her pressed blouse. Good. He hates the overeager ones.

They settle down for the interview, him and Bellamy exchanging banter that Kara’s tape recorder eats up, and move on to small talk, easing them in for the bigger questions. The first few are about the breakup: What went wrong? What made it difficult? Do you regret it?

They are all questions Murphy had more or less anticipated. Bellamy takes the brunt of the answers. Quotes their differences in musicality and opinions, along with their hotheads. Says yeah, the change of direction in life was really the hardest. Mentions politely that they couldn’t regret it when they look at where they are now. He talks about what Mbege and Roma are up to, and Murphy feels like a bit of a dick for not knowing about Roma’s new modeling career in Europe or Mbege’s work in producing. His thumb is starting to bleed from behind the corner of the nail he keeps biting down on.

Kara notes all of the responses down with grace, even though something on her face suggests she’d like just a little bit more bite behind the answers. She looks to him for that.

“Do you think you might ever work together again, having a bit more age and perspective?” Kara asks.

“Nah,” Murphy is quick to say. “The whole thing was a failed experiment. We’re friendly again, but we work better apart.”

Kara nods shortly, and looks to Bellamy for confirmation, who agrees easily.

“Yeah, Murphy’s better off doing his own thing. Doesn’t like to answer to anyone.” Bellamy’s mostly teasing but Murphy can’t help but roll his eyes at the answer anyway. It’s not like he’s some anti-social diva, he works with his producers just fine after all, but he supposes being a lone wolf is part of his image now.

“Just in a hypothetical sense,” Kara says, turning back to him, “Who would you pick as an ideal collaborator?”

“An ideal collaborator?” he repeats, stalling for time. There’s a question he wasn’t expecting. He doesn't really pay attention to other musicians outside of listening to their music. In general he wants to know as little about other people as possible and that extends to celebrities who might double as his peers. But one band does come to mind.

"Probably The Dead Zone," he says, itching his nose. He had watched an interview with them on Youtube in between vine compilations one night when he couldn't sleep. He remembers the bands' discomfort at having to sit down with one of the late night Jimmys and seeing himself in Emori's off-color jokes and Otan's resting bitch face. He also remembers nodding along when they talked about their songwriting method, the chaotic writing and scrapping and bursts of inspiration that came at weird times of night. Maybe it's just because he was listening to them before he came for the interview, but in a perfect world he wouldn’t mind sitting down with them and hashing something out. "I mean genre wise we overlap almost completely, and I don’t need to tell you Emori’s vocals are great, she’s completely fucking exceptional." He could never manage to balance harsh syllables and aching crones the way she does, it's kinda amazing the more he thinks about it.

The interviewer is suppressing a smile for some reason as she jots down a few notes. Bellamy is giving him a weird look too, and normally he'd call him out on it, but he knows Kara is itching for some animosity to sprout between them, and he's under strict orders to be friendly, so he settles for delivering a questioning tilt of his head. But Bellamy just averts his gaze, still wearing that same smirk.

“The 100 has done a fair few collaborations, and I’d be happy to work with any of those artists again,” he supplies moving the interview along. It wraps up not too long after that, Kara thanking them ad nauseum and telling them they can expect the article up before the end of the week.

“Want to grab something to eat?” Bellamy asks as they make their way out. It’s an awkward time between lunch and dinner now, but Murphy’s never really been one to turn down food.

There’s a cafe down the street that Bellamy swears up and down is great, and at this weird time it’s mostly empty. The hostess gives them a poorly lit seat near the back.

“So how have you been, really?” Bellamy asks once they have their respective drinks. It’s Murphy’s third coffee of the day, but it’s frigid outside and he had slept like shit so he takes scalding gulps as Bellamy warms his hands around his green tea.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard to believe I’m actually doing fine. I’m still riding that post tour rush.”

Bellamy shakes his head. That’s one of the things they had fought over the most when they were still in a band together. Bellamy hadn’t wanted to be on the road for months on end when he had a sister back home, but Murphy lived for movement, for new cities with weird bars and diners, for being miles away from his hometown. It’s still his favorite part of being a performer, even if it gets exhausting.

“So you’re gonna take it easy for a bit?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Murphy jokes, although he’s kinda under orders to be doing just that. Even if he has two notebooks full of mismatched chords and fragmented lyrics waiting to be stitched together. Abby’s certain that he’s gonna burn out if all he does is churn out music, but he knows it’s the opposite. Sitting still isn’t an option.

“So you’re gonna see if you can make that thing with The Dead Zone pan out?” Bellamy says, finally taking a sip of his drink.

“That was just a hypothetical,” Murphy says with half an eye roll.

“Seemed pretty sincere to me.”

“I mean, if it were on the table, sure,” Murphy says, setting down his empty coffee cup. “But I don’t know the band at all, I just think their music is good.”

“I just think it would be good for you to work with other people—” Murphy rolls his eyes again. “—so you can make some friends in the industry. Lay down some roots, start to feel a part of something. You don’t have to be a loner.”

“I’m twenty fucking six, Bellamy, you can stop mothering me any time now.” Murphy crosses his arms. He has enough friends: Bellamy and Raven. Clarke, if he feels like putting up with her. It’s more than he had in high school. And generally speaking he’s pretty happy, the anger issues are in check, and he’s making more money than 16 year old him could imagine. If he wants to stay in his lane and mostly out of the public eye then that’s his prerogative.

“It’s just an idea,” Bellamy shrugs.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Murphy moves through the obligatory questions about Bellamy’s life and work. Of course he’s doing great, and Murphy really does his level best at caring. But soon enough the conversation fizzles and Murphy slaps down a few dollars for the coffee and slinks out of the cafe.

There’s a voicemail from Abby that he missed and he sends her and Jackson, his overly calm PR guy, a text letting them know that he didn’t fuck up the interview.

When he gets home he slumps on his couch and half-watches reruns of Mythbusters. His head is somewhere between buzzed with caffeine and mindless from exhaustion and it makes him answer Abby’s follow up texts more sharply than really necessary. Or maybe it’s the conversation with Bellamy that’s irritating enough to start a headache. He hates that all these years have passed and Bellamy can still take a hammer directly to all these things inside him he likes to keep in the corners.

He wakes up in the dark on his couch at half past two in the morning with a drum solo beating against the back of his eyes and no memory of falling asleep. An infomercial for exercise equipment blinks across the TV and a blonde woman blabbers on about self improvement before he snaps it off and trudges to his room.

His narrow bed is far more comfortable but it also invites dreams about vinegary wine and leather couches and the same video always on repeat. In the morning they taste like loneliness in his mouth.

He doesn’t go to the studio at all that week, per Abby’s wishes, but he hardly moves away from the keyboard at his place either. There’s a bassline that he finally straightens out, and he spends several hours too many trying to find the right synonym for stillness before scrapping an entire verse. Friday sneaks up on him, and he probably would have forgotten that the article was coming out if Abby hadn’t emailed it to him with a quick nod to his ‘interesting answers’ and a reminder to check his twitter.

If it was up to him he’d be a ghost a social media, mostly because of the whole ‘social’ part, but as someone who has miraculously achieved a modicum of fame in this day and age it’s a bit of a necessity. He could have Jackson run it for him, but that would mean turning his public image over to someone else, a thought that leaves an itch at the back of his neck. And as far as he can tell no one else would be able to pull off the right level of snark anyway.

His notifications are always off though. He really doesn’t need to see tweets about fans wanting to suck his toes, or whatever. But today it seems like everyone is more concerned with the admittedly well written EW article.

Or more concerned with his quotes from the EW article taken out of context. For some reason him liking The Dead Zone’s music is newsworthy. Even People Magazine hopped on the bandwagon. Figures.

He manages to read ten tweets before his fingers drift to the keyboard.

is there a reason you’re all going into

overload? @deadzoneemori is a great

talent. this isn’t news.

He taps send without much forethought. In part it’s genuine curiosity, but he also wants to make sure the band sees it. Bellamy’s nagging must have been really effective if he’s putting himself out there like this. He puts his phone face down on the coffee table, and decides to make himself some eggs.

The distraction works for the most part, and it’s half an hour later before impatience has him checking his phone again.

Emori Ramiro actually replied.

Don’t worry. I know.

I’m on the phone with our manager. How

serious is this offer?

An anxiety settles into him that he hasn’t felt in years. Like audition nerves, or first date jitters. But he was always good at overcoming those.

dead serious. why not?

He smiles at his own rudimentary word play, and also, maybe, because he feels excited about something. It’s so rare that the future seems full of potential.

Of course it means something a little different to Abby when she calls two hours later.

“You know you’re supposed to give me a heads up before you go off and make plans like that.”

“Come on Abby, it’s a good idea. Right?” There’s a long pause on Abby’s end, her way of saying ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed’ in a manner his own mother wouldn’t even have considered trying to pull off.

“It’s not a bad idea. It’s lucky for you that their manager Sinclair is an old friend of mine and that you work under the same record label.”

“So you think I’ve got this whole collaboration thing in me?” He asks, finally able to stop fidgeting with his sweatshirt strings. Approval isn’t something he generally seeks out, from Abby or anybody else, but he does like when he gets it.

“Of course I think you have it in you, John,” Abby says, “We have a meeting next Saturday.”

So soon. In the industry it seems like things take forever half the time, bogged down by strict schedules and contracts and red tape. His manager is a bit of a miracle worker.

Saturday comes faster than expected, one of the benefits of not having an entirely structured work week. They meet in Sinclair’s office, a modest room that seems far more lived in than Abby’s office. With a single large window that lets in plenty of natural light, and a worn couch against the far wall where the frontwoman of The Dead Zone sits.

Emori Ramiro looks more or less the same as in every music video he’s seen her in, long dark hair, a glint behind her brown eyes like sunlight catching on the sharp side of a knife. He’s always liked her as a musician, but he doesn’t think it would be hard to like her as a person either.

“Hey,” she says, offering her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s-it’s nice to meet you too.” He blinks a few times, shakes his head sharply once in an effort to remind himself that he shouldn’t be noticing how pretty she is.

He introduces himself to Sinclair instead, only to learn that they’ve met before. Turns out he’s Raven’s manager too, something he should have remembered if Abby’s stern glance is anything to go by. They start into all the technical stuff right away, schedules and contracts and copyright, stuff he does a poor job of processing.

Emori is rocking in her chair opposite him, and when he shoots her a weighted ‘I’m dying of boredom’ glance she mimics it with an actress’s precision. His muted chuckle seems to be enough to motivate her to interrupt Sinclair and Abby’s negotiations.

“We don’t have to figure out anything official yet,” Emori says, “we can just play around, see what we want to commit to?” She looks to him for confirmation.

“Yeah, doesn’t seem right to make big plans now.”

That promptly sets Abby and Sinclair into another back and forth, although a much briefer one. The pair shuffle out of the office a brief moment later, something about moody rockstars on their lips, leaving him and Emori alone.

“Don’t get me wrong I’m really excited to work with you. Meetings are just…” He shakes his head.

“I get the feeling. I think I liked it better when I was doing everything myself, but you get big enough and can’t really book your own gigs anymore.”

“I never did any of that,” he admits, “I’m just impatient.”

“I don’t find that too surprising,” Emori says, coming over to sit next to him. There’s half a second of awkward fidgeting, Emori tugging on the fingers of her winter gloves, before she continues. “Why did you wanna work with us?”

“Because you’re music is great,” he answers, a bit confused by the question.

“No one’s made a serious offer to ever work with us before.”

“You’re shitting me,” he says, sitting up a little straighter, investigating Emori’s face to see if that is indeed the case. “People find you that intimidating?” He asks when he finds no signs of deception.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Emori actually laughs, but in a bitter, cautious way. Something on his face must demonstrate confusion because she shakes her head in wondered surprise. “You don’t know.”

He feels distinctly like he got off the wrong exit of the highway, he shakes his head slowly.

“I’m a curse,” she says, “Always have been.”

“Seems superstitious,” he says, only to be met with Emori’s knifelike gaze. She’s serious. People don’t carry around knives unless they’re afraid of being hurt. “I don’t follow.”

“You know The Alliance?” She asks after a held pause, referring to a pop-rock group that’s as popular now as it was a decade ago.

“Course, they played the Super Bowl two years ago.”

“Yeah, well they started in the town next to us. We used to play at the same mall, do the same open mic nights. Just ran into each other a lot. I don’t know if me or Otan or Sienna did something to piss them off, or if they just hated the competition, but they’ve had a vendetta against us for years now. And when they went big they had enough influence to essentially get us on a blacklist.”

“That’s...fucked up,” he says. Music shouldn’t be about competition, and he can’t understand why anyone would want to tamper down talent like Emori and her band.

“Yeah, it was hard to get people to work with us and to gain a following for a couple years, but we got a record deal anyway, so they can suck it.”

“Screw ‘em,” he says with conviction, and Emori seems to soften a bit, her knife sheathed.

She shrugs out of her jacket only now, her scarf and gloves following. Her left hand has a slight deformity to it, her thumb small and awkwardly bent, and fingers long and fused. It’s something he thinks he should’ve noticed before.

“I was born with it like this,” she says, seeing him notice. “First part of the curse. My mom thought I wasn’t worth raising.” He can tell from the way she tucks her hair around her shoulder and neck that there’s more to the story but he doesn’t pry.

“Well screw her in particular. It’s pretty badass.”

Emori chuckles, somewhere between disbelief and amusement. “So, where do we start with this whole collaboration thing?” It’s the first time she’s sounded fully sold on the idea, and his feet stop their insistent bouncing and settle firmly on the ground.

“I don’t exactly have much experience either,” Emori notes.

“Well you weren’t responsible for the most infamous band breakup in the twenty first century so…”

“You’re really tooting your own horn there. I was personally devastated when One Direction broke up.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Emori says, fishing out her phone. They exchange numbers, with plans to reconvene with fresh ideas somewhere more comfortable. It’s a particular torture an hour later when he’s lying on his couch staring at her contact information. Can he text her now? It’s only been an hour, and he doesn’t want to be pushy or insistent, he vaguely remembers something about a three day waiting period until it occurs to him that that rule is about dating. At risk of getting lost in his own head, he buckles and sends her a short message.

She replies quickly and eagerly, if the number of exclamation points is anything to go by, and it does a lot to dissuade his worries. She doesn’t seem to have a problem with coming over to his place, and once the plans are set the conversation turns away from the professional. They complain about New York construction and list their favorite places to get coffee and the banter is so easy Murphy doesn’t realize two hours have passed till Emori mentions that she has dinner plans.

They say their goodbyes and then he tucks his phone away to make his own meal. Chopping onions does little to distract him from thinking about Emori or the plucking feeling in his chest.

The next day she sends him a Delinquency tag yourself meme with no context other than a caption reading ‘I’m you.’ He laughs at the offbeat descriptions, Bellamy’s in particular, but ultimately has to agree that it’s accurate enough for him to claim his description for himself. It’s a deep dive into google images for him to find a decent Dead Zone version only for it to spark debate between them about if Emori can rightfully tag herself as ‘Emu’.

The day before she comes over he spends undue amounts of time face down in his pillow explaining to himself all the reasons why nothing is going to happen between them. They’re going to hang out and write a fucking awesome song together and he is not going to catch feelings.

The pep talk is more or less futile.

“Just the two of us?” He asks, ushering her inside the next day.

“You just get me, sorry,” Emori says making herself comfortable. “I basically do all the writing for the band, nowadays.” She spends a lot of time getting her guitar out after that, too long really. He considers not questioning her about it, normally he wouldn’t, but if they want this song to be any good they’ll have to get to know one another a bit.

“Why is that?” When Emori returns with a confused look he corrects himself. “Why are you the only one writing the music?”

“Oh.” She’s tuning the guitar know, ear turned to the strings. “The first album was all songs me and Otan wrote together growing up, before we got the record deal. We were really close back then. Now though-” she shrugs, “-we don’t have the same ideas about things as we used to.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he says, an offer at condolence. He’s never been good at understanding the whole sibling thing.

“I think it’ll be nice working with another person again.” There’s a nervous lining to that statement, like the alternative is an empty recording booth or to be stuck with just her own thoughts.

“Yeah,” he says, tearing his gaze away from Emori’s hopeful smile. “Speaking of…” He hands her his song-writing notebook. “That’s everything I’ve been working on recently, so you can get an idea. Sorry about my handwriting.”

He scratches his nose as Emori sets the guitar aside and flicks through the notebook. There had been a lot of internal debate about whether he’d show it to her or not. The notion usually left him feeling like a picked open scab, exposed and vulnerable, but as he watches her eyes flick over the musings of his mind it doesn’t feel so bad. She’s serious about it, seems to know it’s a big deal for him. A couple times her mouth will twitch with a smile, like something in it is good, or she’s excited to be able to read it.

“That’s usually how I start,” he says, when he can’t bear the silence anymore. Emori looks up.

“It’s great stuff, John.” He’s so touched by the compliment he doesn’t even register the use of his first name until she starts singing the fragmented lyrics that she’s singled out as her favorites. “‘Due north, a simple instruction/if only I knew how to work a compass.’ I really like the sorta sense of, lost direction. Wandering.”

“Yeah, I don’t really like stillness,” he says, “but one day...I wouldn’t mind stability either.” He can’t believe he just said that. Can something feel like a lie in your head and come out sounding truthful from your mouth?

“Yeah,” Emori says, musing, turning back a few pages, “Like ‘I’m dragging myself to the promised land/it’s more desolate than I imagined’.” She doesn’t sing it like he would, the vowel sounds are longer and all of it less droning. It’s like seeing the lyrics in a mirror’s reflection. He really likes it. “It’s hard to know what to put your faith in.”

“I have no faith,” he says. Emori blinks. She has knowing eyes.

“Me neither,” then, “That could make a good song.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon debating what sort of themes they want to work with, taking some of his lyrics and some they come up with together and trying to make them work. They agree to put loneliness at the center, focus on the ways in manifests and how they try and fail to combat it. It’s a start, and one with potential, even if they’re not yet positive what sort of beat it’s going to fall on.

She comes over again the next day so they can keep the momentum going. He hadn’t realized it was snowing until he saw the flecks of white in her dark hair.

“You cold?” he asks, taking her guitar case as she shivers and unlaces her damp boots. “I can get you something to drink.”

They sit on his couch and drink coffee as Emori warms up, somehow managing to talk about everything but their song. He likes to think he has some bizarre touring stories but Emori seems to have him beat at every turn, going into detail about how they got lost in Ohio on their way to Cleveland and ended up camping out in a corn field by sweet talking the farmer who owned it even though he had no clue who they were. In exchange he tells her about the time Jaha, the record’s vice president, had tried to sell him speed at a party once only for Emori to jump in and tell him he’d attempted the same with her.

“Was he high off his ass and trying to tell you that it’d take you to the city of light, or something?” Emori laughs.

“Yeah, I was like, ‘Paris is across the ocean’. I may have also called him dude to his face.” Emori’s laughter has her shoulders rocking to nudge against his. When she collects herself she lets her head lean against the back of the couch and doesn’t move away from the point where they’re touching.

“City of Light,” she says, eyes closed against the brightness of his overhead lighting. “Sounds fake. Like it’s too good to be true.”

“Like a place you put too much faith into only for it to suck.” There’s an idea in his head that he’s trying to grab with words. Emori perks up, easily catching on.

“I like a good metaphor.”

They move off the couch after that. Hunkered down over the kitchen table they’re able to work out the chorus, one about high expectations that get dragged down. He settles at his keyboard after that, and Emori drags over one of the kitchen chairs, and the two of them play around with chords.

“I thought you were a drummer originally,” Emori says when they get stuck.

“I started with piano, actually,” he says, considers opening up a little more, and goes for it. “My dad taught me. He was better than I’ll ever be, played recitals and stuff when he was young.”

“He died?” Emori has a perceptive ear, all musicians need one, but rather uniquely hers is able to translate to human observation too.

“He got a shitty conviction and then got killed in prison, yeah.” He plays the gasping bridge of “Flu Season” almost unthinkingly. “Then I learned drums during my rebellious teenage phase.”

Emori’s lips pinch at the tonal change but she goes with the flow.

“You know I wouldn’t have thought that phase ended.” He smiles in gratitude as she continues. “I learned guitar during my rebellious pre-teen phase. One of my foster mothers said that I wouldn’t be able to play because of my hand, so I taught myself out of spite.”

He’s noticed the unique way she holds the frets, only using her two longer fingers, putting down pressure at different points along the digits rather than just the tips. It probably makes for interesting calluses, but it seems to suit her just fine.

“That’s really badass.”

“I think so too,” she says. “I made Otan learn bass and a couple years later we moved and our neighbor Sienna knew drums and that was history. Did Delinquency really meet in detention?”

“Where did you think the band name came from? We were all unoriginal seventeen year olds with authority problems.”

Emori teases him by playing the main riff from “Whatever the Hell We Want” the band’s biggest hit. It was probably one of two songs on the album he and Bellamy ever really agreed on. He still plays it at shows sometimes.

Their session crumples after that, the pair of them playing or singing over each other until Murphy realizes how hungry he is and goes into the kitchen to make them some quick sandwiches. They talk more over the simple dinner, and even though in the grand scheme of things they didn’t get a whole lot accomplished, it still feels like one of the most productive days he’s had in a long time.

She comes over one more time before the weekend, and he goes to her place on Monday where he spends nearly two hours perusing her CD collection instead of doing anything productive. They book a studio room on Wednesday to try and work in a more neutral environment and Emori sorts out the song’s rhythm, fast during the verses before a lull in the chorus until it peters out at the end.

On Friday they meet Otan and Sienna at the studio so they can work on the incorporation of their instruments. It’s a grueling couple of hours, but by the end of it they feel almost done; he and Emori agree there’s one missing piece they need to figure out and then they can work towards getting it recorded.

He invites the band over for dinner afterwards, all the lessons about being personable Abby and Jackson have beaten into him over the years making an appearance. But Sienna has a young son at home, and Otan claims to have an outstanding plan to meet up with some friends so it’s just him and Emori.

“Does your brother not like me?” He asks on their way back. “Cause that excuse seemed kinda made up.”

Emori hesitates, and that would be telling if it weren’t for the huff of exasperation that followed. “I think he knew we wanted for it to be just the two of us.” She doesn’t quite look at him until, “Right?”

He considers answering with the more fair and welcoming response but ultimately he agrees with a quiet and telling, “yeah.” For a moment he thinks they may have come to an understanding with one another—they both want it to be just them—and that has to have larger implications, but Emori pushes the conversation forward and he has to tuck the thought away.

“So what’s for dinner?”

“Stir fry,” he says, and then has to go into a lengthy tirade when Emori questions his cooking skills. But she helps him chop vegetables against her doubts, and seeing her working in his kitchen, sneaking M&Ms from the bag in the cupboard and singing under her breath to the playlist they made earlier in the week, has him feeling warm in a way that has nothing to do with the stove.

“Ok I take it back,” she says once they’ve tucked in. “I guess I’m going to have to make you cook for me more.”

“Anytime,” he says with sincerity. Emori smiles, in that soft, surprised way she sometimes has and it doesn’t fall off her face even as they drift to talking about the session and then to a prank Emori had pulled on Otan a couple months ago and then of course Murphy has to explain the classwide prank war that happened his senior year and they end up lingering at the table long after their food is finished.

Doing the dishes is a slow process, even considering the small number of plates. And it’s not that Emori is particularly bothered with seeing her face shine in the ceramic, if anything she wants to stay longer, judging by the small steps she takes about the kitchen, making sure there’s no rush.

“You, uh, wanna watch a movie or something?” He offers, because it’s not like he wants her to leave either. “I don’t have much in the way of desserts, but…”

Emori accepts readily, and they settle on his couch half watching The Goonies as they attempt to throw M&Ms into each other’s mouths.

“Can I come over tomorrow?” Emori asks when all the chocolate has been eaten and the credits are rolling. “To finish the song,” she adds after a beat.

“‘Course,” he says, fighting the urge to play with her hair like he has been for most of the night.

“I have a meeting in the afternoon, but I’m free in the evening,” Emori says getting to her feet with tired effort. He follows her to his door. “Thanks for dinner, John,” Emori says, then steps forward to give him a hug. It’s a long hug, longer than it needs to be, tight and warm and comfortable. He learns that his chin rests perfectly on her shoulder.

“Goodnight,” she says as she slips out of his place, leaving him standing in his living room with a pounding heart and the thought that they’re both probably fucked.

She texts him the next day around five thirty telling him not to eat because she’s bringing takeout. She arrives forty five minutes later with a still warm pizza and a smile.

“Since you cooked last night,” she explains as they settle at his kitchen table, eating as they look over their notes and playback the preliminary recording Emori has on her tape recorder.

“I don’t think it’s a music problem,” he says around his third slice of pizza, after they’ve mulled in silence for a while, “I think it’s a lyric problem.”

“Yeah,” Emori agrees, scratching her brow, “I think the message got lost, or changed, somewhere along the line.”

Murphy flips to the front of the notebook, the new one he started just for this collaboration, and glances over the list of ideas they made.

faith (non religious)

optimism/pessimism

how to achieve ideals?

abandonment

loneliness

physically & metaphysically lost

discovery, leading to neg. consequences

Emori points to the fourth item. “I don’t think abandonment fits.”

He rests the point of the pencil next to the word, considering what she’s saying. It’s inclusion had been Emori’s idea originally.

“I think it’s important though,” he says, “It’s what’s contributing to the feeling of being lost, being alone.”

“But that’s more of the prelude,” Emori says, “The backstory of the song. Sure, the loneliness was fueled by abandonment, but it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. Maybe it’s not lonely at all. You could still be trying to find something—the city of light—with another person.”

Her voice trails off at the end, like she’s not even sure if she’s convinced herself of the argument.

“So we make it more concise,” he suggests, “We don’t need to paint the entire experience, just one moment.” He crosses out abandonment and loneliness, to see where that leaves them. “Maybe it’s about being afraid to put your faith in something new. Feeling lost about what to do.”

“I like that,” Emori says, after a held moment of consideration. “Sort of being afraid of the future because of potential disappointment but wanting to live it anyways.”

“Okay,” he breathes, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Except they don’t make anymore progress that night. Emori, despite her numerous near convincing arguments, is very tired from her day and can’t be made to focus.

They text back and forth the next day, suggesting lyrical changes they can make, sometimes a single line, sometimes more. The amounts to which they agree vary widely, and Murphy thinks it has to do with the way the words look in blue speech bubbles—it’s just not productive.

He suggests that they sleep on it, his brain feels picked clean, and he can’t see how Emori is doing any better. She agrees, but even over text he can sense her hesitation. And the same feeling duels in himself, the satisfaction of finishing the song combatting with the notion of what happens when they’re finished. Emori came into his life out of nowhere, he doesn’t want her slipping out of it in the same way.

Whatever this stage of inbetween is that they’re in, he hates it.

It comes up on Monday, when they’re dissecting the lyrics yet again.

“It just feels like a different song,” Murphy says. It’s the due north lyric, which is already in its third version. He’s near positive it’s impeding the song, but he also knows both he and Emori are too fond of it to scrap it entirely. Besides, a song about going on a fool’s errand holds a lot of potential.

“A different song of ours?” Emori asks, emphasis heavy on the last word.

“Yeah, I think so,” Murphy says. He hadn’t wanted to think about what would happen when they finally got the song nailed down. Part of him thinks Emori would like to spend time with him even when they weren’t working on a project, but now he doesn’t have to risk finding out. “We could do an EP?”

Emori nods, reaches out to squeeze his wrist in excitement, then draws a box around the discarded lyric, as if to indicate they’re packing it away to save for later.

Murphy sleeps late the next day, his dreams oddly calm despite the clear memory of a knife. It makes the time before Emori comes over shorter, filled with updating Abby as to their progress.

She sounds genuinely excited over the phone when he mentions how well it’s been going, and how much he and Emori seem to be meshing as artists, and it gives him new hope that they’ll figure out the song.

Emori is as eager as ever, and after a couple hours they’ve managed to reframe the themes of the song as planned. The song is good, easily one of his favorite pieces, but they still agree that something is just a bit off. Like there is a final piece that will click right into place if they could just find it.

But his voice is strained from singing and it still isn’t fixed.

“Wow it’s dark out,” Emori notes when they’re taking a break.

“Cause the sun sets at like, four thirty this time of year,” he says, marking down a change on his sheet music. Then considers her words. “Oh, do you need to get home?”

“No, I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Emori says, “And I want to be here.” He’s selfishly grateful as Emori strums the opening cords, indicating they should start from the top again.

It’s a long night, one that eventually degrades to them lying beside each other on his (thankfully carpeted) floor. His ceiling isn’t anything to look at, but Emori has fun with seeing faces and animals in the spackle.

“It’s a little boy in a meadow,” she says, and he shakes his head because he really has no idea what she’s been saying for this entire conversation. Emori flicks his shoulder, as if it’s his fault that their brains don’t find the exact same patterns in everything. “Too bad he doesn’t have any friends.”

“Oh, I know this piece,” he finally contributes, “John Murphy circa age ten.”

“Did you not have friends growing up?” Emori asks, the playful tiredness morphing into its melancholy cousin.

“Not really.”

“Me neither. Just Otan.” Her head lolls to the side to look at him. “I’ve been missing him recently, we see each other all the time because of work, but it’s not like really seeing each other.”

“Like you’re just going through the motions together?”

“Yeah,” Emori says, picking her head up with a smile. “See, you get me. That’s why I’m so glad we’re working together. Our last album…I felt so alone in it. I’m not used to music being like that.”

For him music has always been a way to pick himself raw. Clawing at feelings inside himself and exposing them so that they might start to heal. But working with Emori, being with her, has added another step, putting a balm on the wound, encouraging it to get better.

“I think...the reason the song isn’t working quite right is because we aren’t the same people we were when we started writing it.”

He expects Emori to mention the mere two and a half weeks they’ve known each other. Instead she says, remembering, “we cut out loneliness.”

He nods, some of his hair sticking up because of the static of it dragging against the carpet. Emori reaches over to brush it back. Her fingers linger around the shell of his ear.

“It’s late,” Emori says, maybe with regret. “I should get going.”

“I’ll call you a car,” he says. The two of them sway while they wait by the door, the long conversations of the day leaving them with silence now, as they make eye contact only to break it, over and over.

He sleeps with restless anticipation, the kind that comes the day before a new discovery one is expecting to have. The morning is rung in with four new messages from Emori that force Murphy to squint at the time stamps.

Emori

ok I know it’s 3am and you’re gonna think im crazy, but I think I cracked City of Light

Emori

On the surface it’s about dashed dreams and faith, like we were talking about

Emori

But really I think it’s about falling in love

Emori

And i KNOW love songs aren’t either of out styles but this works, at least in my head at 3am, I’ll come over tomorrow and we can finally hash it out (and I’ll try to get some sleep before then lol)

He considers the messages while he showers. It might work, he won’t know until she gets here, but he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to talk to Emori about love for hours on end. He will though. He’ll do it gladly, even.

Emori is at his place by nine, two coffees in hand, and nothing on her face suggesting she got a max of five hours of sleep last night. In fact, she’s smiling.

“So it’s a love song?” He asks once their situated at his kitchen table, coffee gulped down.

“Yeah, think about it,” Emori says, scooching over so she can compare his notebook to the stack of post it notes she brought along. “Falling in love is about opening yourself to vulnerability right? And having faith that the other person will...love you back.”

He nods slowly in dawning understanding, the beat of his pen against the table a churning undercurrent. Three weeks ago he would have claimed to know nothing of love, but he thinks he’s starting to get the idea. “So the City of Light is really a metaphor for love?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. That...makes a lot of sense.” Emori’s eyes are alight with the thrum of victory, and she doesn’t seem able to keep a smile from her lips. “I wouldn’t have thought you had so much love insight.”

“It’s sort of a new development,” Emori says, then clears her throat. “So we rewrite the chorus a bit, and maybe slow it down?”

It’s a scramble after that, reaching over each other to write things and then cross them out, holding their breath as the other drums a rhythm against the table or holds a note. They almost trip over each other on the way to the keyboard, where they share the single chair.

But an hour later the song is finished. When they sing it for the first time, it doesn’t come out the way it’s meant to be sang. Softer than it might ever be again.

Hide and wait or risk the stakes

I’ve never been one to take the bait

Of an even score or a glittering shore

I’m more comfortable in this zone of war

It was the end of it all when an old man told me

At the horizon is where you start your story

So I dragged myself to the promised land

It’s more ravaged then I imagined

City of Light, what do you hold?

Chances are I’ll never know

Tell me, why should I go?

There’s reward in the final mile

The upward tick of you pretty smile

And I want to hold you with these hands of mine

But do I have the courage to make us entwine?

I’m like Caesar at the Rubicon

with all the world watching on

To see if I can open my arms

But what if your embrace is too warm?

City of Light, what do you hold?

Chances are I’ll never know

Tell me, why should I go?

Is it a leap of faith if I’ve got nothing better to do?

You whisper in my ear

It is when it’s you

It’s you

Emori’s voice seems to shiver on the final note, her gaze fixed on him as his fingers relax over the keys. Her eyes are wide and her mouth parted as she takes steadying breaths. There’s a feeling in him like crying, or laughter, emotion so strong it has to spill from his body. He presses it into Emori’s lips instead.

Her mouth falls open as she kisses him back, her breath shuttering until the arm wrapped around his shoulder pulls him closer. Her waist is warm under her shirt, where his hands rest; it’s been so long since he’s kissed someone he had forgotten how comfortable it can be. How happy it can make him. Although maybe that’s just because it’s her.

He pulls away so he can tell her, stopping only to kiss her cheek.

“I have feelings for you,” is what he manages to say.

“Really?” Emori laughs, and he almost can’t believe she’s being sarcastic right now, except he knows it’s exactly why he’s falling for her. “Me too,” she says, more sincere, “I couldn’t sleep last night because I was thinking about you, and that’s what finally made the song click.”

He had suspected that Emori felt the same way, but the confirmation in conjunction with the kiss has his heart pounding. “I love it,” he says, “the song.”

Emori laughs as she nods and then kisses him again.

#memori #emori #emori kom spacekru #john murphy #the 100 #dailymemori #diyozas #the 100 fic #memorific #fic #sssfic #this got so long holy crap

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brianzwerner · 3 years

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How to Buy an NFT

By: Brian Zwerner

The last month our team at Beyond The Game Network has been doing a ton of work on a new type of digital art called Non-Fungible Tokens (“NFTs”). If you are not familiar with NFTs, you can read a prior blog post I wrote on the topic. For this post, I’m going to assume you readers have a base understanding of NFTs and are interested in actually buying something. After just one NFT from a major influencer, music artist, or athlete in February, there were nine in March with offerings from megastars like Patrick Mahomes, Gronk, and Calvin Harris. Already in the first three days of April, we have seen NFTs from Zion Williamson, Snoop Dogg, and The Weeknd. This is not a fringe thing anymore, it is big business.

I decided I wanted to buy an NFT. First, I tried watching some videos on YouTube. Forget that path, I was more confused than before I started. Next, I tried a Google search and read some articles. I was disappointed by those as well. Most of the articles had a lot of jargon and crypto-speak. I ended up just jumping on OpenSea and giving it a try. It wasn’t so bad once I started making decisions and doing stuff. I’ll walk you through the steps here.

Let’s start with a quick review of some of the bigger NFT platforms. OpenSea is the biggest one right now. I think it is best compared to eBay. Anyone can create (or “mint”) an NFT of just about anything and post it from sale on OpenSea, much like selling a physical good on eBay. There is a fee to create an NFT, which is called “gas” in the NFT world, and then it is up there on OpenSea for anyone to buy. Right now, there are 14,510,000 items for sale on OpenSea. Items on OpenSea can be sold at a fixed price or put up for auction, much like eBay. The biggest drawback of OpenSea is you cannot buy an NFT with USD cash on a credit card or bank debit, only with cryptocurrency.

While OpenSea is an open platform where anyone can list an NFT, there are a bunch of other popular platforms that are more like art auction house Christie’s or Sotheby’s. You could also think about these platforms like art galleries. These companies need to approve an NFT before it can be listed for sale to buyers. SuperRare, Nifty Gateway, and Makers Place are a few of these closed platforms. These companies are generally looking for unique artists or big-name celebrities before they approve an NFT to be listed on their site. They often will schedule a “drop”, like the sneaker sellers or Supreme. Buyers will queue up for a chance to buy newly launched NFTs at these drops. Many of these closed platforms have set things up where buyers can use a credit or debit card to purchase NFTs, which is a big plus. However, since they are working with bigger name product, the prices tend to be a bit higher.

I was looking for something cheap to buy, so I decided to look on OpenSea. There are millions of choices, I figured I could find something cheap that I liked. First thing to know is that prices on OpenSea are mostly quoted in a cryptocurrency called Ethereum (“ETH”), which right now costs about $2,000 for one ETH. Items on OpenSea can cost ETH 0.1 (about $200) or they can cost ETH 100 (about $200,000) or whatever. The prices on OpenSea are not quoted in USD terms, only ETH. Don’t worry, we’re going to cover how to transact in ETH later in this post.

I searched around OpenSea and ended up deciding I want to buy something in the CryptoDuckie series. They are fun animated ducks with cool styles. I picked CryptoDuckie #004, which was available for sale by the artist for ETH 0.05 (about $100). It’s a yellow duck with a pink mohawk and a beer can, cool right?

The first step in buying something on OpenSea is a bit weird. Unlike a typical website where you set up a login and password, that is not what you do on OpenSea. This is where your crypto journey starts. You need something called a crypto wallet. This is a place you can hold onto cryptocurrency and your NFTs, it is like a wallet in your pants pocket. OpenSea makes it easy to connect with one of the leading desktop wallets called MetaMask. MetaMask is a web browser extension, you download it to Chrome or whatever browser you like to use. Then when you navigate to OpenSea, it will automatically connect to your wallet. You will set up a password and a “seed phrase” to evidence your account ownership. A seed phrase is 12 random words used for account verification. Be super careful with these two things, there is no way to restore your password or ownership of your crypto wallet without the seed phrase. No resetting it, nothing. More on this below.

The second step is getting yourself some ETH so you can buy a CryptoDuckie or whatever you want to buy on OpenSea. The nice thing about MetaMask is that they have a button that says “Buy”. This connects with a service called Wyre. On Wyre, you can purchase ETH with a credit card and it goes directly into your MetaMask wallet. Go ahead and buy the amount of ETH you need on Wyre and then watch the ETH pop up in your MetaMask wallet. If you happen to have a crypto trading account at a place like Coinbase you can transfer ETH from your trading account to MetaMask. However, I am not going to cover that process in this post.

You are now ready to buy something on OpenSea. Just like eBay you can “buy it now” or bid on an item in an auction. The ETH will be deducted from your MetaMask account, and the item you purchase will show up in MetaMask. It is now yours. You can digitally display it, put it up for sale, and even destroy it if you want.

OK, a few notes of caution here. First is that MetaMask has some properties like a real wallet. If you lose your wallet from your pocket while walking on the street, anything in it is gone. Yes, I understand a good Samaritan might return your physical wallet, but that is not possible with a crypto wallet. If you lose the password or the seed phrase, you are totally out of luck here. Anything in your wallet, whether it is cryptocurrency or NFTs, is going to be gone forever. Second note is that the platforms I chose here – OpenSea, MetaMask, Wyre – may not be the best choice for everyone. Do your own homework. Maybe you want to buy on a different platform like Nifty Gateway. Maybe you want a different crypto wallet from a MetaMask competitor or even a hardware wallet. Maybe it is cheaper or will offer a better price if you buy ETH on a service other than Wyre. All of that is your choice, I just found the process above to be the quickest and easiest for me. Third note is that the while OpenSea makes everything look liquid and easily tradeable, these are really illiquid items. Think of NFTs like rare items on eBay. Some might see their values skyrocket, and others might be worthless. Just because something has value today is no guarantee of the future. Pick items you want to own and display and you won’t be as bummed out if the price drops a bunch.

I hope you found this review helpful. Hit me up with any questions. Happy NFTing!

See prior Consumer Gems posts here

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#NFT #digitalart #opensea #metamask

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makingscipub · 7 years

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Collision, collaboration and communication

The other day I read an article on why academics are losing relevance in society. I noticed that it contained a picture of a celebratory cake with the inscription “Here’s to the first direct detection of gravitational waves” (after two black holes collided). This event happened in 2016 and was widely celebrated around the world, mainly I suppose by scientists and science enthusiasts. The article says nothing about this event or why this picture was chosen for an article talking about the loss of relevance of science in society.

I read this article just a week after another, even more spectacular announcement relating to gravitational waves. I am not talking about gravitational wave researchers being awarded the Nobel prize for physics this year on 3 October, but about the announcement of the detection of a binary neutron star merger resulting in a gamma-ray burst and emission of gravitational waves. This was observed on 17 August and announced on 16 October.

Although in terms of astronomical distances, this collision of stars happened in our backyard, has this got any relevance to society here on earth? In some sense it hasn’t, in particular to those people living with war, hunger, illness and poverty or the aftermaths of hurricanes, floods and wildfires. People caught up in these situations certainly won’t find comfort in knowing that distant neutron stars have collided.

So, can one make a case for these findings being in any way relevant to society? Perhaps yes. Just like the 1968 picture of planet earth sent back from space, they allow us to see things differently. Seeing things differently might lead to acting on the world and on each other differently.

And despite everything, these findings may also bring some solace to us in dark times. As J. K. Rowling said in a tweet, referring to an article in The Independent: “Following space accounts on here is good for your mental health. Soothing glimpses of vastness, beauty & mystery.”

Collision

What am I actually talking about? I am talking about the observation (‘sight’ and also ‘sound’) of two neutron stars slamming into each other and shaking the fabric of the universe. Lots has been written and said about this discovery and I won’t go too deeply into the science as such.

Hannah Devlin has written a good overview for The Guardian and an article published by the ‘Inside Science News Service’ adds a human dimension to the story. It shows how news of the neutron star collision rippled round this planet and woke up hundreds and hundreds of scientists; like this one for example:

“Aug. 17, 2017. It started as an ordinary morning in southern Louisiana. The air was hot and humid as the sun rose above the Mississippi River. Brian O’Reilly, one of the lead scientists at the Livingston location of the gravitational wave detection facility known as LIGO, was just beginning his day. It was barely 8 o’clock when his phone rang. ‘I have twin babies — they’re a year and a half — and I was actually changing my daughter at the time,’ said O’Reilly. ‘That’s when my phone started beeping in my pocket.’ Minutes later, he was in a phone conference with fellow astrophysicist Gabriela Gonzalez from Louisiana State University, as well as scientists thousands of miles away at LIGO Hanford in the state of Washington.” … There are many more such human stories out there.

This feat of scientific detection was only made possible through extensive collaborations between human scientists across the world.

Collaboration

The scientists involved were spread across continents and worked at numerous institutions and installations, most importantly perhaps LIGO and Virgo: “LIGO and Virgo comprise more than 1,500 scientists, all of whom are working towards a single goal: to capture signs of gravitational waves and decode their meaning. The data gathering happens at massive observatories in the US and Italy, but the analysis is done in countries all over the world.”

As Kieran Healy tweeted: “One of the new LIGO papers has 4,500 authors at 910 different institutions—about a 1/3 of the world’s astronomers.” To which Nathan Oxley replied: “It can stop you in your tracks to think about the level of cooperation and coordination of resources and people needed to achieve this.”

It is therefore not astonishing that the news was greeted with great excitement by a new initiative that has just been launched, namely “Together Science Can”, which is supported by the Wellcome Trust and many other organisations (see here for tweets).

Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust and supporter of this initiative, wrote an article for The Guardian about scientific collaboration before the neutron stars announcement. Some of what he wrote is worth quoting in the context of our search for ‘relevance’ of science in society:

“We need to celebrate […] collaboration more than ever, because it doesn’t happen on its own. It needs an environment that encourages researchers to build international and interdisciplinary teams, to work in different countries, to attack problems that no one person, or nation, can solve alone. […]

It’s up to people who, like me, believe in the power of science to speak up for the systems and principles that make collaboration possible. It means making the case for flexible, welcoming immigration that allows the movement of talented people and teams across borders in order to take global action against global problems.”

The discovery of the neutron star collision was a great example of collaboration in fundamental science. We need to nurture, not restrict and obstruct, such collaborations, also beyond fundamental science. They are ‘relevant’ for society as a whole, as they show what humans can do when they work together.

Communication

As Philip Ball has recently pointed out, science communication is difficult. On the one hand, one wants to a serious job, not just rave and enthuse about science; on the other one has to grab readers’ or listeners’ attention and engage them in discussion and dialogue. In the case of this discovery it was difficult not to be enthusiastic.

Adam Rutherford, an experienced science communicator/writer, introduced a report about the neutron star collision for the BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science in the following way: “… it’s our job on Inside Science to get behind the headlines and more importantly to undo the hype and give a real cool-headed scientific analysis of landmark new discoveries. So let me begin by saying that this is freaking awesome”. If you know how awesome this was in terms of science and collaboration, please listen to the podcast.

The language used when communicating about this discovery was certainly colourful and would deserve a more detailed analysis. The Independent spoke of an ‘alchemical explosion’, a headline that was retweeted by Scientists for EU in the following way: “’An alchemical explosion’. Beautiful! Two neutron stars just seen colliding – disrupting spacetime & spewing… gold”.

And with gold we get down to earth, away from abstract notions of gravitational waves and neutron stars. Some people said that scientists had indeed struck gold! And one tweeter replied to the Scientists for EU tweet by saying: “Where’s ma mule? I’m a gonna get me some o’that thar gold.”

More seriously, we can now begin to find out where the heavy elements, like gold, on the periodic table come from, where they are ‘forged’ in the universe. Does this make it ‘relevant’ to people? Perhaps not, as this tweet shows: “Gogglebox is hilarious. ‘Two neutron stars collided 130 million years ago’ ‘Why are they bringing it up now then?’” Ok, so not everybody is interested in space and astronomy; even some big science writers aren’t!

However, what really cheered me up was that this event was not just ‘communicated’ by scientists and professional science communicators. It was also talked about by people who are just good communicators (with a background in science), such as Mike Galsworthy, of ‘Brexit communication’ fame. Listen to his talk about how scientific collaboration is turning our planet into a listening super-organism; a great example of good science communication!

Conclusion

The picture of Earthrise sent to us from space in 1968 changed some people’s perceptions of our planet. Seeing our planet as a listening super-organism based on international collaboration might perhaps change how we see ourselves as a collaborative species. I find this quite inspiring and relevant for society.

In any event, it is really important that we talk more about collaborations beyond borders in science and also society; and not only talk; let’s provide the best conditions for this to happen, rather than putting more and more obstacles in the way.

Epilogue

When the announcement was made on BBC Breakfast on 16 October, I was, yet again, in Eye Casualty. I saw and listened to it over and over in the course of two hours and the whirr-plop sound of the collision will stay with me for ever. Did it cheer me up, give me ‘perspective’? No! However, the thought of someday perhaps going back to all this and looking at this more deeply, even just to distract myself, did give me something to hang on to, at least for some of the time. So I tucked away some tweets while I waited…

Image: Illustration of a binary neutron star system in the process of merging. The remnant formed by this merger could be either a neutron star or a black hole, determining whether it launches a gamma-ray burst. [NASA] (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

The post Collision, collaboration and communication appeared first on Making Science Public.

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izastar · 5 years

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Mental Health Month

Hello there bright beautiful stars! I hope you’re having a very good day and remember to take good care of yourself. If not, take a deep breath for 4, hold it for 4 and exhale for 4. Unclench your fists and jaw, drop your shoulders, and lay back!

It’s the month for Mental Health and my stars do I have a master list for you. I am currently a second, onto my third year, college student. Before college my self care was pretty much everyday because of the low intensity of high school. Now.. I admit I do some pretty down spiraling things and have had my share of breakdowns. BUT NOW I’m not saying it’s gone, I still have my days. I just wanted to share a couple of things that have given me a more healthy way of dealing with the stress, homesickness, sadness, etc. I am a very passionate person on advocating for self-care, mental health and well-being. So here’s a couple of things that have definitely lifted my spirits and how many little things can make a difference.

Apps: As a generation based on technology, figured it could be useful!

Aloe Bud

Aloe Bud is an all-in-one, self-care pocket companion. It gently brings awareness to self-care activities, using encouraging push notifications, rather than guilt or shame. Helpful reminders from yourself, to yourself; saved within Aloe Bud so you can keep doing you. I kid you not, I am so busy and forget that I never to remember to eat on time but this app helps me track that along with taking my birth control on time too!

Eternal Sunshine

Daily inspiration, meditation exercise and inspiration podcast. This app is the cutest, most wonderful app I have current. The quotes I post from time to time are from this app. Every quote, mantra, affirmation is beautiful. It brightens up my day every day. ALSO! Some of these quotes, and stuff have actually inspired some of my work and I hope it can too for you poets, writers, artists, etc.

Flo

This is for my lovely stars that have to deal with periods!! This is a period tracker and ovulation calendar. It’s has pregnancy and post pregnancy mode where you can track your baby’s development and learn the essentials of being a parent with special visuals and articles!! They also have daily insights, timely reminders and a community. I just love this because I never track her & I actually like to read the articles they have and the insights they do based on my symptoms etc.

Oak

Oak helps you decompress by transforming meditation practices from experiments into habits. They support you from your first session to your 500th, with mindful, loving-kindness, and sleep meditations as well as unguided sessions and breathing exercises. Individualize your meditations by duration, and customize with silence or calming background sounds. Oak tracks your progress and encourages you to continue building a healthy meditation practice. They include meditation, breathing, sleep, meditation timer, and progress tracking. Truth be told I have a hard time sleeping so I use this app for breathing exercise before going to bed and it helps a tremendous amount.

Simple Habit

Another meditation app!! Simple Habit is the best meditation app for busy people. Meditate for just 5 minutes/day to reduce stress, improve focus, sleep better, relax faster, breathe easier, and more. I use this app for when I really don’t have anything BUT 5 mins and I actually really enjoy the meditation.

#SelfCare

This app is just where you can interact with things within the room, e.g. plants, the cat, clothes on the floor, anything in the room. If for those who are staying home for the day, your space, our shelter. It’s really cute I saw. I love the colors and the art and the activities.

Books: They can always be useful, whether for coloring, writing in a journal, or reading!

Creative Haven Spring Scenes Coloring Book

An effective and fun-filled way to relax and reduce stress. This version specifically is beautiful. I love Spring and I love flower and anything and everything nature and green so this is a LOVELY purchase!

The have other themes too; Summer Scenes, Celtic Mandalas, Sea Life, etc.

How to Be a Wildflower: A Field Guide

A fresh perspective, an outdoor exploration, a new adventure about to begin—How to Be a Wildflower is the book to celebrate these and other wide-open occasions. Encouraging self-discovery through encounters with nature, beloved artist Katie Daisy brings her beautiful paintings and lettering to this collection of things to do and make, quotes, meditations, natural history, and more. OKAY SO I JUST BOUGHT THIS BUT IT’S SO CUTE :(

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. Okay listen I’m sure many are tired of these books but I truly love this book. I love the collection of poems. I love how some make you cry, some give you hope and other inspire you. For me seeing how others grow, glow, sometimes fall, but come up is beautiful.

The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

This is Rupi Kaur’s second collection of poetry book. This one is vibrant, transcendent journey about growth and healing. Again I know most are tired of these or feel as if they are overrated but I just love the little pictures/doodles and how some are long and short yet so meaningful.

The Wildflower's Workbook: A Journal for Self-Discovery in Nature

Brimming with gorgeous artwork from New York Times bestselling author and artist Katie Daisy, this fresh-as-a-daisy guided journal features thoughtful prompts to encourage engagement with the natural world. From bird-spotting advice to camping checklists, each exercise is executed in the artist's lovely signature style. AGAIN this is so pretty and I just bought it but I KNOW I’m gonna love it so much.

Hobbies To Pick Up: Here mare some that I picked up or am in the process, it’s fun to learn something new and you never know how good you could be at something!

Baking/Cooking

I’m not the best baker but I always feel so warm and fuzzy when other people bake for me. Don’t you love that happiness you give to others? Doesn’t that make you happy? This might be a little hard to start off with if you’re scared of burning something down or ruining food. But don’t fret my little stars, failure is only a part of success and who knows even a funny story to tell!!

Creative writing

Short stories, prompts, even just a sentence or two could really make a difference! I do a lot of creative writing, give yourself even ten minutes just to write whatever you’d like, it’s a nice feeling

Drawing/doodling/sketching

Listen I’m not one who strays from stick figures but every ONCE in a while I like to sketch something that I just can’t find online for my stories or prompts, etc. Practice makes perfect and give yourself patience.

Dancing

Who says people with 2 left feet can’t dance?? I don’t have 2 left feet and not to toot my horn but I have good rhythm.. but STILL don’t let comments like those discourage you. Dancing can be something fun.

Exercising/hiking/biking

Believe it or not exercising can be a hobby and it can be fun! Spice it up and sign up for a class! Enjoy the great outdoors! Nature to me is the best stress relief!

Gardening

I currently own 18 plants in my dorm room... it’s a LITTLE bad. I breath so much better with them in my room and they are so cute to look at and take care of! Start off with something small like succulents or bamboo!

Journaling

I promise it will make you feel better if you’re someone who likes to do things like this. You can make so many lists like for gratitude, places you want to travel, people who are currently crushing on etc!!! You can make it as you go and this is something you can truly personalize for you!

Painting

Watercolor is the prettiest thing I have ever seen in my life. Of course you can use other types of paint and paint on what whatever you liked like some pants you want to spice up or a canvas or even your wall!

Poetry

It doesn’t have to an acrostic poem or one that rhymes, just whatever comes to you! you’ll be surprised at how good you could be!

Photography

Even if it’s just with your iPhone camera on portrait mode along with VSCO, trust me you might find it interesting messing with filters and how you can make it look more sunny or more spooky to fit what you’d like!

Pick up an instrument

I brought a UKULELE! It’s fun and cute and it makes me very happy! I also own a violin but that’s a little harder.. but it’s lovely. Learning to play a new instrument takes patience but in the end it’s worth it when you’re able to produce a sound so beautiful and lovely.

Reading

Even if it’s a fic from ao3 or wattpad, reading something is better than nothing! I read a lot and have many books and series I need to finish. If you’d like a recommendation don’t hesitate to reach out!

Singing

You ever had a song come on shuffle and you just HAVE to sing? Doesn’t it feel good? Why not make it a regular thing? My shower is my STAGE!

Video games

I love animal crossing it’s so cute and it’s my life. I also have nintendogs & a bunch of Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, & Mario games. It’s a nice break away from reality and some of the plots are cute!

Volunteering

Giving back is the best type of stress relief and it makes me so happy to see I can help others. Make it a hobby/habit of yours, maybe you’ll find something you’re really passionate about. I try to volunteering once a week and even if I’m exhausted it still makes me feel better doing something so small yet meaningful.

Daily Reminders: just daily activities good for your mental health and well-being

Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Of course with snacks included!

Drink water, juice, lemonade, a venti strawberry acai from starbucks

anything drink that’s your favorite!

Sleep at a reasonable time

Listen as a college student.. I don’t follow this but I TRY to the best of my ability and that’s what matters!

Skin care routine!

Listen a face mask feels so good, yes it may burn here and there but your skin looks soft and cute and is thanking you for giving the time in your day to do something nice.

Some of my favorites are Shea Moisture Raw Butter Hydrating Mud Mask, ANY of the Freeman Mask, Laneige Water Sleeping Mask, Fresh Lotus Youth Preserve Rescue Mask

Thoughts to Remember: just things I think you should know and remember and at my worst days and bad breakdowns I tell myself

Remember that: things out of your control are NOT your fault.

I know we are so quick to place blame on ourselves and get so upset when what we planned out doesn’t follow the script. But listen to me when I say this, if it is out of your control it is NOT your fault and you had NO part in that.

The aim of life is not perfection, but happiness

Try not to dwell on the bad for long, instead use that time to do something else that makes you happy

The little things matter

Even if you skipped all your classes or decided to cancel plans and not leave your bed, I’m happy that you woke up

Try not to be so harsh on yourself

It’s hard I know it is. When someone goes bad in my day I spend time blaming myself and telling myself I deserve it but truth be told it was totally out of my control.

Uncertainty is an aspect of life we must accept

It’s okay not to know. This gives us an opportunity to dream & write our own stories

You are important!

Your hard work and effort does NOT go unnoticed and I am so proud of you.

Your feelings are valid

In any situation, context, etc. YOUR FEELINGS ARE VALID. Don’t be harsh on yourself and say you’re overreacting, or you’re being dramatic. Be genuine in how you feel because you’re feelings are valid.

Your mental health is important

Don’t let others comments tell you otherwise, if you need to remove yourself from a situation for your mental health, DO IT!

I hope this post helps you on your journey of either self-discovery, healing, adventure, etc. I hope you all remember to take care of yourselves and how much you matter. Life gets hard, and I understand that not everyone has the same background and culture growing up but I do hope regardless of that you are able to take care of your mental health and your overall well-being.

If you need anything from me, I’m always open for a chat. If that makes you nervous then you can also send me an ask!

with lots of love and stars,

stargirl

#just a little something from me to you #mental heath support #positive mental attitude #mental health #mental health month #master list #my masterlist #health #self care #self love #take care of yourself #take care of your body

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yuehouzi · 7 years

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Really LONG CHARACTER SURVEY. RULES. repost, don’t reblog !! TAGGED. no one in particular. TAGGING. anyone and everyone.

BASICS.

FULL NAME : Yueliang Wukong NICKNAME : Yue, Little Thief AGE : 8 BIRTHDAY : August 9th ETHNIC GROUP : Vacuoan NATIONALITY : Vacuoan LANGUAGE / S* : Common tongue, Vacuoan -- a mixture of the main city’s dialect and the one spoken by her parents. SEXUAL ORIENTATION : ??? ROMANTIC ORIENTATION : ??? RELATIONSHIP STATUS : Single as a pringle. For this and the previous two questions, she’s a child. If anyone is interested in me answering them in the verses where she’s older, I guess I can do that. Otherwise, no. SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS : Lower middle HOMETOWN / AREA : Vacuo CURRENT HOME : Vacuo, main city / the city that surrounds Shade Academy. PROFESSION : Student, eventually a huntress-in-training.

PHYSICAL.

HAIR : Thick and golden blonde with a silvery white lock near her bangs. EYES : Deep brown. NOSE : She has one. FACE : She has one. LIPS : She has them and they’re thin. COMPLEXION : Dark tan. BLEMISHES : Some birthmarks scattered on her arms, on the inside of a knee. SCARS : Some light scarring on her knees. A white mark on her cheek. TATTOOS : None HEIGHT : 3′8″ WEIGHT : 41.43 lbs BUILD : Slight, with some lean muscle. NOTABLE FEATURES : A simian’s tail, with golden fur. ALLERGIES : Pollen ( unknown since it’s not a problem for her in Vacuo ), dust mites. USUAL HAIR STYLE : Layered, approximately chin-length, with the ends angled to frame her face. If her hair gets long enough, there may be a tuft of a braid. USUAL FACE LOOK : Keen interest. She’s constantly observing her environment, picking out the interesting people / objects. USUAL CLOTHING : Sneakers -- think chuck taylors. shorts or capris. a short sleeve or tank top under a sleeveless hoodie, which has her brother’s emblem on a breast pocket. a square scarf. If her mother dresses her...count on more traditionally feminine styles and colors. She absolutely refuses to wear skirts and dresses of any kind.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S : She’ll proudly say none. However, after seeing the fall of Beacon unfold on a live broadcast -- Grimm start making occasional appearances in nightmares. Every day that goes by without hearing from Sun adds to her worry that he’s dead or missing. ASPIRATION / S : To have an interesting life, experience as much as she can. After the fall of Beacon, she begins considering a future as a huntress. POSITIVE TRAITS : Curious. Intelligent. Fiercely loyal and compassionate towards her family and friends. Inventive. Independent. NEGATIVE TRAITS : Mischievous. Impulsive. Stubborn. Smug. Prideful. Manipulative ( to a degree ). MBTI : ENFP-A ZODIAC : Leo TEMPEREMENT : Sanguine SOUL TYPE / S : Performer ANIMALS : Rooster VICE HABIT / S : The occasional case of sticky fingers.

FAITH : Self declared atheist, privately interested in agnosticism. GHOSTS ? : No. AFTERLIFE ? : Not sure. REINCARNATION ? : She’ll say no, but she’s curious. ALIENS ? : Maybe. POLITICAL ALIGNMENT : N/A ECONOMIC PREFERENCE : Not sure about preference, but she and her family are lower middle class. She’s happy the way things are, but with the amount of time she’s spent around her parents’ workplaces and markets / bazaars -- she’s starting to realize that money is power and she’s beginning to capitalize on that with her swear jar. SOCIOPOLITICAL POSITION : Look -- I’m a government / international politics student and I have no idea what’s meant by this. Are we talking political alignment or views on social policy / issues ? Those don’t necessarily align. Anyways -- she’s eight aka she has none of her own and doesn’t know much beyond what she hears others talking about. EDUCATION LEVEL : Primary school

FAMILY.

FATHER : Tián Wukong MOTHER : Mei-Xing Wukong SIBLINGS : Sun Wukong EXTENDED FAMILY : Maternal aunt, uncle, and cousin in Mistral; paternal uncle in Vacuo NAME MEANING / S : The Wukong family has names relating to the sky and celestial objects. HISTORICAL CONNECTION ? : Not so much history as philosophical / religious. Sun is clearly based on the Monkey King in Journey to the West. She and Sun are a representation of the Taoist principle of yin-yang.

FAVORITES.

BOOK : She’s not much into reading. Comics always catch her eye. She’ll occasionally look at magazine articles if they have pictures that interest her. If she’s being read to, she’ll listen to almost everything. MOVIE : Anything action related ( that her parents permit or don’t know about ). Documentaries may catch her interest, but on a case-by-case basis. 5 SONGS : She listens to whatever is playing on a scroll speaker. If there’s live music in a market / bazaar, she stops to listen -- especially if the music is coming from an unfamiliar instrument.

DEITY : Privately, she’s interested in most deities. Since she was young, her mother has told her that she was blessed by the moon and the silvery streak in her hair is proof. Yue doesn’t buy it, but she does wonder. HOLIDAY : a celebration of the New Year. MONTH : Any that don’t bring cold weather. SEASON : Summer. PLACE : Her home city in Vacuo. She’s very interested in Shade Academy and while she’s not allowed outside the city boundaries alone, she loves to travel. WEATHER : Bright and sunny or clear and moonlit, with a slight breeze. SOUND : The hum of a crowd with music woven in. SCENT / S : Petrichor. Fresh fruit. The lingering scent whenever she steals Sun’s shirts or jackets. TASTE / S : Food. She likes food and isn’t picky. FEEL / S : None in particular. ANIMAL / S : Nearly all. NUMBER : None. COLORS : White, blue. Anything bright.

EXTRA.

TALENTS : Running cons. Memorization. Getting under people’s skins yet somehow still being adorable. Climbing. Arguing. BAD AT : Being sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. Subtlety. Anything that requires patience. Knowing when things don’t need her comment. TURN ONS : She’s a child. TURN OFFS : She’s a child. HOBBIES : People watching and eavesdropping. Gymnastics. Running cons. Hidden object games ( ironically ). TROPES : Animal Stereotypes. Annoying Younger Sibling. Brown Eyes. Badass Adorable. Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Kick the Dog. Little Miss Badass. Little Miss Snarker. Mystical White Hair / Power Dyes Your Hair. Only Known by Their Nickname. Pint-sized Powerhouse. Tagalong Kid. AESTHETIC TAGS : none yet. QUOTES : (1) “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” (2) “She decided a long time ago she didn’t want to be a careful person, that she didn’t want to live her life constantly worrying about what other people thought of her. Of course she does worry, she does nothing but worry, and all her lack of care amounts to is that she offends people constantly and tests them with her inappropriateness and expects them to love her for it.” (3) “If you think you can grasp me, think again.”

FC INFO.

MAIN FC / S : Pudding Fong from Tokyo Mew Mew. ALT FC / S : None, but searching. OLDER FC / S : None, but searching. YOUNGER FC / S : N/A VOICE CLAIM / S : None, but searching. GENDERBENT FC / S : N/A

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 : if you could write your character your way in their own movie , what would it be called , what style would it be filmed in , and what would it be about ? A1 : Ooh boy, I have no idea -- I enjoy films but I don’t have enough knowledge to be confident in answering this.

Q2 : what would their soundtrack / score sound like ? A2 : Something that evokes feelings of mischievousness, happiness without a care in the world, then transitions to more serious and uncertain. Finally, something suited to action. Personally, I listen to to the klk soundtrack when I want to write action for her.

Q3 : why did you start writing this character ? A3 : looks at @brightlikewukong. Because I told them about my ideas and they didn’t stop me. I also have a habit of getting deep into developing characters and plots for them and Yue has me wrapped around her little fingers.

Q4 : what first attracted you to this character ? A4 : Mm. Maybe the fact that she’s so young and I haven’t written someone like her before. Not to mention, Rai’s Sun is a gift and I feel that both Sun and Yue have grown in their interactions with each other.

Q5 : describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse. A5 : c: I work with kids and ooh boy do they sometimes know just how to grate on my nerves c: On the one hand, I understand they’re children but on the other, sometimes you just know when they’re being little shits on purpose.

Q6 : what do you have in common with your muse ? A6 : Um. We will fite for the people we care about.

Q7 : how does your muse feel about you ? A7 : Simultaneously unimpressed and impatient.

Q8 : what characters does your muse have interesting interactions with ? A8 : In terms of actual interactions, with her brother ( brightlikewukong ) and their parents. She’s also managed to insult Neptune and Scarlet, much to her amusement. In terms of future interactions or ones that haven’t occurred on here, I’d love to see her interact with any muses from Vacuo ( they seem to be in short supply here ). There are a few NPCs that she’ll interact well with, namely her friend Zarrin Ahmar ( currently a student at Shade ).

Q9 : what gives you inspiration to write your muse ? A9 : Anything that Rai talks about or posts in relation to Sun. The klk soundtrack as well. And sometimes, the things I see at work.

Q10 : how long did this take you to complete ? A10 : Several days, since I did it in chunks.

#🌙 ┊AN EXERCISE IN DUALITY. ❜ ( CHARACTER STUDY )

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room390b · 4 years

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Trump’s supporters want the president to take the lead in defining a suitable “punishment” to hold China accountable for its handling of the virus. We see a lot of patriotism go hand in hand with those that are highly religious in the US, as we have seen from multiple documentaries in Dr. Whitaker’s class. The promised forgiving and loving nature of Christians is contradicted with their need for punishment. They want this to be done before we all have the opportunity to give power to our opinions this coming Fall. Trump’s response to China’s leaders minimizing the outbreak is considered “lukewarm” to those who find his lack of action to be both a “missed opportunity and an emerging political liability.” Quite contrary to his supporters' wishes, he expressed his respects to President Xi Jinping’s strong understanding of the virus and the situation.

According to this article, “Evangelical leaders have long wanted Trump to press China hard on Christian persecution inside the country. Now, their focus is on its handling of a deadly virus.” As Dr.Whitaker has said in class, the article explains, “conservative evangelicals [are the] demographic that comprises much of [Trump’s] political base and which the Trump campaign has sought to grow in recent months.” Due to this, his success in the upcoming election depends on how well he handles the virus but also depends on him satisfying the desires of his Christian base by holding China accountable. Republican Senator Blackburn says Trump can not let China “escape culpability for under-reporting domestic cases of the virus” and causing severe damage to the entire global economy by attempting to cover up this wrong doing. Many evangelicals believe this could be solved by China forgiving a portion of America’s owed debt.

Gary Bauer, a Christian activist appointed by Trump to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, was quoted saying, “The ironic and disgusting thing about China is they get to both create demand and then fulfill demand.” I don't even know what they meant to imply based on the blatant hypocrisy present. America is equally if not more guilty of creating unnecessary demands and fulfilling them! Them outsourcing to China is also in their pockets’ benefit by abusing cheaper labor. So this is just an example of Trump’s base being blind to the hypocrisy that admin openly proclaims. But, as found in recent studies, this has not been to no consequence. There are many Christians who are disillusioned from their faith due to this kind of behavior. Not only are more Christians stopping attendance, but less are encouraged to join based off of experiences with other Christians in the past.

“While the president is unlikely to lose the support of his evangelical fans — his proposed troop withdrawal from Syria last October was the only instance where multiple pro-Trump religious leaders criticized his actions — any misstep with China could handicap his campaign’s efforts to bring more religious voters into his base as the November presidential contest draws near.”

Trump caters to his evangelical base. However, what perplexes me is the fact that Christians would support war. Getting people out of a warzone should be a celebration not a “misstep.” But these religious institutions seem to be twisted backwards from what we learn in class and in history in general to be the values christians stand for. According to our text by Fowler (and others), evangelicals stand for a strong faith, concrete answers to life's problems and value a strong sense of community.

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clereviewofbooks-blog · 6 years

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Interrupting the Myth: A Review of Elizabeth Catte’s “What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia” (the Editors)

What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte

Published 2/6/18 by Belt Publishing

146 Pages

In What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, public historian Elizabeth Catte, who hails from Eastern Tennessee, is very angry and out to disprove pernicious misconceptions about the region she feels so tied to. When you are from a certain region, be it Appalachia or the Rust Belt, you know that there are an unlimited amount of perspectives and narratives that exist within that region. It can’t be reduced to some easily digestible narrative that reduces the multiplicity of stories and peoples into one homogenous bloc, a narrative that is typically consumed by urban cosmopolitans who exist in a “higher,” more enlightened realm than those who dwell in Appalachia or the Rust Belt. Catte is out to deconstruct these myths and common misconceptions that are used to define and explain Appalachia to cosmopolitan elites. It is a work of interrupting and deconstructing specific myths which are operative in our culture that tend to benefit certain people in power who aren’t from Appalachia at the expense of the people who are purported to be represented in these narratives and characterizations.

As Catte points out, there was a revived interest in Appalachia leading up to the 2016 election. Donald Trump was a monstrous figure to liberals and “Never Trump” conservatives alike. He violated generally accepted rules of decorum and civility, and appealed to the hopes and dreams of people from certain “forgotten” regions of the country that are typically glossed over. One is reminded of the infamous “flyover country” New Yorker cover: from the perspective of New York, the center of American culture, there isn’t much that exists outside of their own bubble when looking West, except for a few notable spots like Chicago and Los Angeles. While Appalachia isn’t on the cover of the magazine, it’s certainly one of the spots that would be glanced over. Or, to take it one step further, Appalachia wouldn’t merely be glossed over: it would be, according to Catte, highlighted as being “other” to America. It’s not even on the same level as the rest of flyover country.

In any case, a sudden interest in Appalachia from cosmopolitan, educated, and mostly elite liberals emerged leading up to the 2016 election. Trump just kept on gaining steam, and it didn’t make sense to liberals how somebody like Trump could possibly be gaining the support he was garnering. They needed to find and study these Trump supporters, who, whether from Appalachia or the Deep South, were certainly not visible to liberals in their day-to-day lives. The forgotten America needed to be remembered and put under a microscope if Trump was to be truly reckoned with.

Hence, the introduction of pieces chronicling, as Catte dubs it, “Trump Country,” which in many cases meant Appalachia. These articles popped up everywhere, from Vanity Fair to the New Yorker. The goal of the press in these pieces leading up to the election, as Catte describes in the introduction, was “to analyze what it presented as the extraordinary and singular pathologies of Appalachians, scolding audiences to get out of their bubbles and embrace empathy with the “forgotten America” before its residents elected Donald Trump.” After the election, commentators gave up on Appalachia, proclaiming that they could “reap what they had sown.” But the main problem with all of these pieces, to Catte, wasn’t necessarily that the attention given to Appalachia by the press was disingenuous, but rather that they deliberately portrayed Appalachia as a monolithic region of people sharing the same ethnicity and heritage with certain essential characteristics, which were presented as “other” to any characteristics someone from anywhere else in the country might have, in order to explain the region’s behavior. Appalachia became a scientific object of study, to be dissected and understood by educated elites, without any sort of concern for the people themselves. If they were to show empathy to Appalachians, it wasn’t about solidarity with people who, while not exactly the same as non-Appalachians, largely had similar problems in regard to economic exploitation and, yes, even identity politics (as Catte rightly points out, many of the problems that seem uniquely Appalachian are in fact shared universally throughout the rest of the country). Liberals showed empathy to the extent that they could perhaps keep Trump from getting elected by showing Trump Country residents that the Democrats, if they could just look at things from a rational rather than emotional point of view, were the ones who truly represented their interests.

Catte’s book comes as a response to this renewed national interest in Appalachia, and proclaims that there are two main objectives to her study. On the one hand, she aims to uncover who is benefitting from the popular narratives told about Appalachia while she is simultaneously poking holes in those narratives. On the other hand, she makes it a point to highlight and celebrate the people whose voices are almost universally omitted from the discourse surrounding Appalachia. She discusses people who have done noteworthy and heroic things who aren’t white, Scots-Irish, coal miners. There is actually a rich tradition of activism and community organizing in Appalachia that carries on into the present, and their concerns aren’t always related to coal. Further, as Catte reminds us over and over again, many of these people are Hispanic, African-American, and female. If J.D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, is allowed to remake Appalachia in his own image for specific purposes, then so is Catte, who writes, “This (her) image of Appalachia does not deflect the problems of the region but simply recognizes the voices and actions of those who have struggled against them, often sacrificing their health, comfort, and even their lives.”

The book is divided up into three parts. Part one, “Appalachia and the Making of Trump Country,” is about the renewed interest in Appalachia leading up to and after the 2016 election. One of the most interesting points in the book is that if there actually was a genuine interest from the national public to learn about Appalachia, why is it that there was only one media narrative being produced and consumed? As Catte points out, “If it is appropriate to label a small but visible subgroup as unambiguously representative of 25 million people inhabiting a geographic region spanning over 700,000 square miles, then we should as a number of questions: Where were the “Bernie Country” pieces about Appalachia? There are more people in Appalachia who identify as African American than Scots-Irish, so where were the essays that dove into the complex negotiations of Appalachian-ness and blackness through the lens of the election?” The list goes on.

Part two, Hillbilly Elegy and the Racial Baggage of J.D. Vance’s ‘Greater Appalachia,’” discusses perhaps the most blatant example of misrepresenting Appalachia, a misrepresentation that directly contributes loads and loads of money to the pockets of the one doing the misrepresenting, namely Vance himself. Of course, Vance became famous due to the publication of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was voraciously consumed by people outside of Appalachia as a way to understand the essence of Appalachian decay. The point Vance makes that Catte takes special exception to is his description of Appalachia being made up of a homogenous bloc of poor, white, Scots-Irish people, who, being part of the white working class, should be treated as a unique minority in their own right. The danger of Vance’s discourse is that we can brush off a discussion of race and identity politics at the expense of class politics. Part of Catte’s point is that we shouldn’t sacrifice one form of analysis for the other: they are both important. Furthermore, it is inherently problematic that Vance can be purported to represent an entire region in the national political discourse. As Catte quotes Vance as saying to the Washington Post, “It’s an indictment of our media culture that a group that includes tens of millions of people is effectively represented by one guy. I feel sort of uncomfortable being that guy.” But Catte rightly points out, he can’t be that uncomfortable being that guy, given how much he has personally benefitted from his status as a man both above and of Appalachia, able to translate their problems to cosmopolitan elites in order to make them easier to understand. To be honest, though, I don’t see Vance as being intentionally malicious or deceitful. Rather, it is, as Catte says, inherently problematic who gets to have the privilege of being an authority on a specific topic or region. Their views have a huge impact on public perception and indeed reality itself, and there are great benefits to be had for the one with this power.

Finally, part three, “Land, Justice, People,” tells the stories of, for the most part, present day activists and community organizers in Appalachia who both don’t fit in to the conventional stereotypes about Appalachians and who are rarely covered by the media. Catte discusses topics and people such as the Highlander School, a project by a local radio station to connect prisoners to their loved ones through “audio postcards,” the continued battle for Blair Mountain, and present-day organizers using tactics learned from their anti-coal predecessors to protest different things, like the prison-industrial complex. Through telling these stories, Catte makes the point that there are a ton of people and narratives in Appalachia that don’t conform to the traditional myths and narratives that are used to portray it, and these could be the bases for very different stories about Appalachia. This section is about solidarity, and directly counters the books and articles by figures like Vance.

What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia reminds us that the fight over representation has huge implications concerning power, both culturally and politically. It is impossible to paint a complete portrait of any portion of reality, whether it be a group of people or a region. But that doesn’t stop people from both doing so and making impactful decisions based on these portraits. This phenomenon is why a book like Catte’s is so essential. It is a very practical form of deconstruction that pokes holes in the operative myths and narratives that define Appalachia and determine how those in power make decisions concerning it. It has the power to make these conventional narratives less dangerous, and can potentially lead to the promotion of narratives that are less homogenous. This book is an act of resistance, both as a work of deconstruction and positive assertion of different narratives that get no coverage. On top of that, it is also an easily digestible but well researched cultural history and genealogy of how a region has come to be defined over time. It is very practical knowledge, and makes the larger, crucial point that we should be conscious of the myths and narratives that underlie our political and cultural discourse.

Written by the Editors

Images

Cover of the book, taken from its Amazon page.

Cover of the March 29 1976 issue of the New Yorker, from this link.

From Roger May’s “Looking at Appalachia” project. Dennis Savage. May 24, 2015. Cabell County, West Virginia.

Purchase the book here.

#reviews

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