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thesunshinebunny · 4 months

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Hii

I would like to leave a request, if it's not to your liking kindly ignore.

Could you please write a short story or headcannon about like um so it is vil and readers anniversary and the reader decides to write a song and present it to him on the anniversary.( you set my world on fire by loving calliber ,this song is just so sweet, pls (๑˃̵　ᴗ　˂̵)و ) I feel all mushy listening to this song.I am not sure what category to put it in whether it's headcannon or story I leave it up to you.

Thanks in advance, have a good day. ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

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You looked at the number on your cell phone calendar, which marked the coming of that long-awaited day, a day that filled not only you, but also your recent partner with joy and love…

And that same day it was generating horrible anxiety in you just a week before arriving. Your anniversary with Vil.

It's not that there was anything wrong with your relationship, quite the opposite. Things couldn't go better, you even had your doubts about the reaction of his fans… yes, there were ups and downs this year, but nothing could corrupt this beautiful union that you had with your Queen.

What generated so much anguish…was what to give him. Obviously, material goods aren't everything in life, but we are talking about Vil Schoenheit, one of the most coveted models in this world.

What can you give to a person who can practically have everything with the snap of their fingers?

“A tiara?” No “A new makeup set?” No “A Chinese robe made from the finest silkworms”…too expensive for your pocket. Nothing that came to mind from the ADeuce duo was helpful or completely convincing.

The sun was setting 3 days before the long-awaited day and your anxiety only increased. You already considered it lost, you weren't going to be able to finish anything that you could do manually with the amount of homework that the teachers left; Anything you bought online wasn't going to arrive on time unless you sold a kidney; and the type of gift they sold at school…

They couldn't even put together the name of Vil. No offense Sam

Early Thursday morning, two days before the anniversary, spending time in Magicam, with dark circles that reached the ground, you came across a video of a couple singing a duet to a beautiful and melodious song.

Ding

You got out of bed at full speed, searching the entire bedroom up and down for a guitar, or something that looked like it. Not finding it, you decided to go to the music club first thing in the morning to borrow one.

And that's how those two days went, practicing in your free time, without any sleep schedule, in order to learn and vocalize a song that came from your soul, reflecting your love for the tall blonde.

When the expected day arrived, you sent a message to Vil. “Wait for me in the Pomefiore gardens after class, in our special place.”

The same place where Vil had asked you to start dating, the same place where he asked you to be his partner, now where you would spend your first anniversary.

Nerves of steel.

When Vil arrived at this romantic spot, carrying a small, elegantly decorated box, he found a scene straight out of a love movie… and with an angelic melody.

I lose my breath whenever I see you

In front of him, a path of petals of different flowers: white peonies, forget-me-nots, violet tulips and red roses; a potpourri that ended in the shape of a heart

You stole my heart, what is it that you do?

A Spanish guitar ringing in the air, as well as a soft violin in the background.

Just wanna be with you 'til we grow old

Your figure in the middle of the heart, holding said guitar, with a speaker from which the wind instrument came out, dressed in an elegant navy blue suit, with floral details embroidered in gold on the hem and violet stones adorning the sleeves.

My life was gray 'til you added colors

His violet eyes never left yours, hypnotized, glassy, threatening to shed the occasional tear.

Like the moon needs the sun, we don't care 'bout the others

Vil sat on the small mattress of flowers that you left for him in front of you, still holding the small box, eagerly waiting to give it to you.

I want you for myself every single day

As a cliché, you knelt at his height, both of you facing each other, without stopping singing at any time, although noticeably running out of breath when you reached the end of the song.

You set my world on fire

With the song coming to an end, both of you facing each other, just one centimeter away from kissing, your lips curved into a big nervous smile, waiting for the response from the person you admired so much.

There was no need to search for words, a sweet and tender kiss from Vil was more than enough for you to know that the song was much more than to his liking.

He'd loved it; one of the best gifts he had, which was nothing material, but came from the heart and soul.

And speaking of gifts, yours was still waiting to be opened. With your hands a little trembling from the nervousness of singing in a pseudo-public space, with the love of your life, you opened the small heart, finding a little tiara, matching Vil's along with his uniform.

Now you could demonstrate your relationship to the public eye.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #vil x reader #vil schoenheit x reader #Vil Schoenheit

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justforbooks · 11 months

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The sultry 1969 hit single Je T’aime … Moi Non Plus was a four-and-a-half-minute distillation of languid Gallic cool, in which a Frenchman, his voice coarsened by Gitanes, is heard billing and cooing with an ecstatically sighing young Englishwoman over the swirling motif of a baroque organ. That man was Serge Gainsbourg; his companion was Jane Birkin, the actor and singer, who has died aged 76. Though Birkin worked with some of the world’s finest film-makers, including Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda, she knew that Je T’aime … would be remembered above everything else she did. “When I die, that’ll be the tune they play, as I go out feet first,” she said.

Birkin was 21 when she and Gainsbourg met while starring together in the film Slogan (1969). He was 40, and had previously recorded Je T’aime … as a duet with Brigitte Bardot, only for the actor to withdraw permission for it to be released. Birkin had already starred in a 1965 musical, Passion Flower Hotel, scored by John Barry, whom she married that year at the age of 19 and from whom she was divorced in 1968; he was the father of Kate, the first of Birkin’s three daughters. But it was on the duet with Gainsbourg, she said, that for the first time “somebody thought I had a pretty voice”.

She sang her part an octave higher than Bardot. “It gave it a choirboy side that [Gainsbourg] liked a lot,” she said. Rumor's that the vocal track was recorded under the covers during a moment of intimacy were untrue (the couple were standing at separate microphones in a studio in central London) though they did nothing to harm the mythology surrounding a song that was later condemned by the Vatican. “I just remember thinking it was all terribly funny,” she said.

Among the countries that refused to give the song airplay was Britain, where it became the first banned single to reach the top of the charts, as well as the first non-English-language No 1. It was also the lead track on the 1969 album Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg.

Birkin’s life remained inextricably linked to his. They were together for 11 years, and had a daughter, Charlotte, who became a successful singer and actor. Even after they separated in 1980, he continued to write for her, and she went on performing his songs for the rest of her life.

Far from being an adjunct to Gainsbourg’s legend, she possessed her own style, intelligence and attitude. Her wistful beauty was rendered unorthodox by an eager, gap-toothed smile. Her voice was as bewitching as her face: though she lived in France from 1969 onwards, and spoke French fluently, she never shed her breathy, crisply English accent.

She was born in London to Judy Campbell, an actor who had been a muse to Noël Coward, and David Birkin, who was a lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy and a spy during the second world war. His duties included taking British spies across the Channel to France and bringing back stranded airmen and escaped prisoners of war.

Jane was educated at Upper Chine school on the Isle of Wight. At 17 she starred with Ralph Richardson in Graham Greene’s play Carving a Statue; Greene himself had a hand in casting her. Her screen acting career began with a walk-on part in The Knack … and How to Get It (1965) and a controversial nude scene in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, which she agreed to because Barry had told her she wouldn’t dare.

She had a small role in the Warren Beatty caper Kaleidoscope (also 1966), played a model called Penny Lane in the psychedelic curiosity Wonderwall (1968) and starred with Romy Schneider and Alain Delon in the psychological thriller La Piscine (1969). She got on famously with Bardot when they starred together in Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman (1973). Gainsbourg directed her in a 1976 film named after their hit song; he cast her as a boyish woman who attracts the attentions of a gay man, played by the Warhol regular Joe Dallesandro.

Birkin was tremendous fun in two star-studded Agatha Christie thrillers, Death on the Nile (1978) and Evil Under the Sun (1982). In the cryptic Love on the Ground (1984), Rivette cast her and Geraldine Chaplin as actors drawn into a playwright’s mysterious world. She appeared in two films, The Pirate (1984) and Comedy! (1987), made by her then partner, Jacques Doillon, with whom she had her third daughter, Lou, also a singer and actor. Jean-Luc Godard directed her in Keep Your Right Up (also 1987), while for Varda she played a woman besotted with a 14-year-old boy in Kung-Fu Master! (1988); the film co-starred Charlotte and featured Lou, and was inspired by an idea by Birkin herself.

In the same year, Varda made her the subject of Jane B For Agnès V, in which the actor performed a variety of specially scripted scenes (in one, she was a Stan Laurel type, in another a cockney mother) interspersed with musings on her life. She received the documentary treatment once again when her daughter directed Jane By Charlotte (2021).

Her two most impressive performances came in Bertrand Tavernier’s These Foolish Things, aka Daddy Nostalgie (1990), in which she was moving as a woman trying to repair her relationship with her dying father (Dirk Bogarde); and La Belle Noiseuse (1991), Rivette’s spellbinding four-hour study of a painter (Michel Piccoli) and his new muse (Emmanuelle Béart), in which Birkin played the artist’s wife and former model, who must deal with the indignity of having her younger self literally painted over.

Later films included Alain Resnais’s musical On Connaît la Chanson (1997) and the Merchant-Ivory coming-of-age story A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries (1998).

In 2002 Birkin was diagnosed with leukaemia, but by 2006 she had made her directorial debut with the autobiographical family drama Boxes, which she also wrote and starred in, along with Chaplin, Piccoli, John Hurt and her daughter Lou. She appeared in Rivette’s final film, Around a Small Mountain (2009), played herself in Hong Sang-soo’s Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, and was reunited with Tavernier for his comedy The French Minister (also 2013).

Her look had been widely applauded in the 1960s, and seemed never to go out of date. In the 80s Hermès introduced a large and exorbitantly priced leather bag, named “the Birkin” in her honour. Fashion journalists in recent years could still be heard celebrating the “Jane Birkin top”, referring to the white lace dress made famous by her in the late 60s. “Real life was what I was best at,” she told Vogue magazine in 2016. “I didn’t have confidence in movie cameras or on stage. But I did have confidence in what I wanted in real life. If I wanted to be barefoot and wear a mackintosh, I would do it. I didn’t give a hoot.”

It was at 40 that she finally discarded her youthful ingénue image and performed her first live concert: “I cut my hair off like a boy, I wore men’s clothes. I only wanted people to hear the music and words. It was fantastic. And it was so frightening. Serge was there and he kept lighting his cigarette lighter to make everybody put their lighters on.” That show was preserved on her 1987 album, Jane Birkin au Bataclan. She continued singing and recording into her old age; among her later albums is Birkin/Gainsbourg: Le Symphonique, from 2017, in which the couple’s songs received new orchestral arrangements.

In 2020 she published Munkey Diaries 1957-1982, containing diary entries addressed to her favourite cuddly toy from childhood, which she can be seen clutching on the cover of Gainsbourg’s 1971 album Histoire de Melody Nelson. She buried the toy with him after his death in 1991.

She is survived by Charlotte and Lou, and six grandchildren, and by her brother, Andrew, and sister, Linda. Kate, a photographer, died in 2013.

🔔 Jane Mallory Birkin, actor and singer, born 14 December 1946; died 16 July 2023

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

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Jane Birkin #in memoriam

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romantamsxiangshi · 1 year

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Translation of Roman Tam's and Jenny Tseng's 1983 鐵血丹心 (Iron Blood, Loyal Heart) from The Legend of the Condor Heroes

Jin Yong is hailed as the finest wuxia (martial arts) novelist of modern China, and is one of the best-selling Chinese authors of all time. His hit 1957 series, The Legend of the Condor Heroes, is set in the warring Jin/Song Dynasties (early-mid 1200's), and follows three generations of the Guo and Yang families. LCH was adapted into a TV series by Hong Kong's Guangdong TV Station in 1983. The show became an international sensation, and featured the breakthrough of stars such as Barbara Yung (who played Huang Rong). My dad, who grew up in the mainland, remembers entire streets emptying when the show was running; whole neighborhoods without TVs would crowd into shops or bars to watch. Since then, LCH has been remade into myriad shows and movies, but the 1983 version is hailed as a classic of Chinese and HK cinema.

I just started watching the 1983 LCH, after a lifetime of listening to the soundtrack, and I've fallen in love with its earnest dissection of legacy, lineage, and loyalty. I'm especially wowed by the embodiment of these tensions in the relationship between Guo Jing and Huang Rong. Huang Rong--who runs away from her heretical father and cross-dresses as a beggar--is a character I relate to on such a visceral level. She rejects her own lineage/parentage, yet is desperately resentful of Guo Jing and Yang Kang for upholding theirs. She is genderqueer, in both the novel and the show (cross-dressing, refusing to be called Brother or Sister, carefully and perfectly imitating various gender roles to get attention/power). She scorns human attachment and idealism of all forms, yet is fascinated by Guo Jing's caring and principled nature.

The slowburn of her romance with Guo Jing is one of the most beautiful portrayals of queer love I've seen in Chinese media; although Guo Jing is smitten with her from the beginning (buying her meals and saying he feels like he's known her his whole life, asking her to be his sworn brother, confessing his love to her, rejecting his shifu for her, offering her both the betrothal sword given to him by Genghis Khan and the sword with Yang Kang's name), it takes her a very long time to be honest and vulnerable enough to reciprocate. Just as Guo Jing helps her believe in and act on a commitment to a greater good, Huang Rong helps him step away from the expectations placed on him since birth and realize what he really wants (which is, and I quote, to live a peaceful life of anonymity). They are the original queer girlboss/malewife power couple, and the theme song of the 1983 LCH is a duet by Roman Tam and Jenny Tseng that captures their love. This duet is the first of four in the official OST, which I will translate in the next few days.

Song:

Translation:

JT: 依稀往夢似曾見 I've dreamt this only vaguely before, JT: 心內波瀾現 The sorrow that now grips my heart in waves. RT: 拋開世事斷愁怨 Let go of worldly worries. Together: 相伴到天邊 Come with me to the ends of this world. (1)

RT: 逐草四方沙漠蒼茫 We'll chase the plains; the deserts are vast. JT: 冷風吹天蒼蒼 The wind's so cold; the sky's so blue. RT: 那懼雪霜撲面 We fear the snows; we'll face our fears. (2) JT: 藤樹相連 All these wildernesses are but one. (3) RT: 射雕引弓塞外奔馳 I'll raise my bow to shoot; we'll ride free beyond the Great Wall. (4) JT: 猛風沙野茫茫 These winds and sands are beastly. RT: 笑傲此生無厭倦 In this life, I wish only to smile without weariness. JT: 藤樹兩纏綿 We are but two wild things clinging to each other. (5)

JT: 應知愛意是流水 You ought to know that love is meant to flow like water. RT: 天蒼蒼野茫茫 The sky is so blue, so vast and wild. JT: 斬不斷理還亂 Reason cannot stem what's meant to be free. (6) RT: 萬般變化 The world will always change around us. Together: 身經百劫也在心間 My body has been taught both violence and scripture (7) Together: 恩義兩難斷 Still my heart has kept its goodness. (8)

RT: 逐草四方沙漠蒼茫 We'll chase the plains; the deserts are vast. JT: 冷風吹天蒼蒼 The wind's so cold; the sky's so blue. RT: 那懼雪霜撲面 We fear the snows; we'll face our fears. JT: 藤樹相連 All these wildernesses are but one. RT: 射雕引弓塞外奔馳 I'll raise my bow to shoot; we'll ride free beyond the Great Wall. JT: 猛風沙野茫茫 These winds and sands are beastly. RT: 笑傲此生無厭倦 In this life, I wish only to smile without weariness. JT: 藤樹兩纏綿 We are but two wild things clinging to each other.

JT: 應知愛意是流水 You ought to know that love is meant to flow like water. RT: 天蒼蒼野茫茫 The sky is so blue, so vast and wild. JT: 斬不斷理還亂 Reason cannot stem what's meant to be free. RT: 萬般變化 The world has always changed around us. Together: 身經百劫也在心間 My body has been taught both violence and scripture Together: 恩義兩難斷 Still my heart has kept its goodness.

Together: 身經百劫也在心間 My body has been taught both violence and scripture Together: 恩義兩難斷 Still my heart has kept its goodness.

Translation notes:

(1) A more literal translation is, "come with me to Heaven's side," or "the edge of the sky."

(2) A more literal translation is, "why should/must we fear the snows?" I thought it sounded better as a two-part statement, when placed in relation to the two-parters above.

(3) This and (5) are one of those cases where I interpret as I translate. A literal translation of this line is, "trees and vines are all intertwined." But I chose to translate it in a way that would best match (5), as I think this metaphor is ultimately about their love, and the tension between their commitment to good and their desire to be free.

(4) A more literal translation is, "I'll bend my bow to shoot a condor." This just sounds a bit clunky--also, the "condor" in the title of LCH is disputed, given how condors aren't native to China. Although "condor" is most commonly used, a more accurate translation might be "eagle."

(5) To reference back to (3): this line translates more literally to, "two vines/trees are intertwined." However, 纏綿 also bears connotations of emotional attachment and commitment. Given this line's weight as the end of this stanza, I'm almost positive it's about Guo Jing's and Huang Rong's commitment to each other as two people who aren't/don't wish to be bound by traditional norms of gender, legacy, or patriotism. I therefore chose to give myself more creative liberty, both with "wild things," and with "clinging to each other."

(6) A more literal translation would be, "reason tries ceaselessly to cut, but still chaos remains." Given the earlier reference to flowing/free water, I thought that the object of reason's cutting would be love--fitting, as almost everyone around Guo Jing tries to dissuade him from loving Huang Rong, mainly by appealing to reason (she's not a good fit for his mission; she'll probably betray him and the country; her bloodline's bad). I think it very beautiful that chaos, love, and water are connected throughout this stanza: that the unreasonableness/irrationality of love isn't a bad thing at all.

(7) Others have translated this line to, "I have faced trials and tribulations," which sounds better in English. However, the individual characters of 身經百劫 refer to, 身 "body," 經 "endurance/scripture/holiness/tradition," and 劫 "sufferings/disasters." 劫 also has connotations of being taken by force, implying how a body that has been committed to enduring and upholding traditions/legacies is left with little agency. The use of 百 "hundred(s)" in this phrase also refers to the multitude and duration of these things--I therefore translated the line to include "know," a verb that implies a process of learning (quite literal, when it comes to the martial arts) and the duration of said process.

(8) 恩 "gratitude"/"loyalty" and 義 "righteousness"/"commitment to good" are both concepts Guo Jing is praised for, and are commonly found in Chinese classics as standards for good children. As much as Huang Rong helps Guo Jing grow away from the immense expectations of revenge/patriotism, I still think his arc is about finding what these things mean to him--whether that is refusing to kill (it's Huang Rong who kills Yang Kang, Guo Jing's fated enemy), or throwing caution to the wind to care for Huang Rong and those close to him. I therefore chose "goodness" as a more general term--one that doesn't carry the connotations of parental/generational/cultural expectation, but is still very Guo Jing.

In general, I think this translation is less faithful than my others--mainly because I feel so strongly about the love between Guo Jing and Huang Rong, and will therefore take as many creative liberties as possible for others to understand why.

#cantopop #translation #romantam #romantamtranslation #jennytseng #jennytsengtranslation #condorheroes #Spotify

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wutbju · 15 days

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Another long one.

Bob Jones University has the enviable reputation of presenting one of the finest cultural series to be offered anywhere in America. Certainly no other university offers as many top quality programs featuring internationally known artists as does the opera, concert, and drama series at BJU.

This season's programs will include a grand opera, two Shakespearean productions, a chamber symphony, a concert pianist, a musical drama, a vocal duet, a folk singer, and Verdi's "Requiem.

Nine programs are included in the series, and a limited number of season subscriptions are still available at the programs and productions office for $12.50 each. Individual tickets to the one-night performances will not be available.

All programs are presented in Rodeheaver Auditorium, and curtain time is 8 p.m.

Opening the 1967-68 series Oct. 24 will be Benjamin Britten's moving musical drama, "Curlew River." featuring a company of 25 including first desk players of the Little Orchestra Society and members of the Concert Opera Association of New York. Thomas Scherman will be musical director of the company.

The famed Bob Jones University Classic Players will present Shakespeare's "As You Like It," Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday, Nov. 23 and 24. The Shakespeare repertoire group is listed by the international "Shakespeare Survey" as one of the "noteworthy classic repertoire companies" in the United States.

On Dec. 7 Guiseppe Campora -- the distinguished young leading tenor of the Metropolitan Opera and La Scala, Milan -- joins his talents with one of America's most beautiful and gifted singing actresses, Dorothy Coulter, for a delightful evening of opera arias and duets.

Following a highly successful career in Europe. Campora made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1955 in the role of Rodolfo in "La Boheme." Miss Coulter, a soprano, also made her debut at the Met in "La Boheme." She has appeared with major opera companies in this country and in Europe and has been featured in leading roles in several productions on NBC-TV opera.

America's first permanent chamber symphony -- the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia -- will be heard in a concert Feb. 1. The symphony, composed of 36 players, will present a program featuring masterpieces of the baroque and romantic periods as well as compositions by outstanding contemporaries, some of which have been especially commissioned.

Anshel Brusilow, conductor, made his debut as a violinist at Carnegie Hall when he was just 17. He has conducted the world renown Philadelphia Orchestra and other major symphonies. Most recently, he was guest conductor of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C.

'The fifth program of the series will feature Stephen Bishop, American-born prodigy pianist, in a recital March 4. The 26-year-old pianist appeared with the San Francisco Symphony while still in his teens.

On March 28 and 30 the Bob Jones University Opera Association will present a fully staged production of Verdi's opera, "Rigoletto." Guest soloists from the Metropolitan and other leading opera companies include Sherrill Milnes, baritone, as Rigoletto; Doris Yarick, soprano, as Gilda; John Craig, tenor, as the Duke; and Ara Berberian, bass, as Sparafucile.

The latter two singers have appeared in BJU Opera Association productions on previous occasions Mr. Berberian sang in "Faust" in 1964, and Mr. Craig was heard in "Lucia di Lammermoor" in 1965.

The artistry of singer-guitarist Kay Britten has been heralded throughout England and the United States. She will present a recital at BJU April 30. Having a high degree of artistic integrity and devotion to folk music in its original and authentic form, she brings a dimension all her own to folk music. Her unusually large repertoire includes songs in several languages, and she has a particular interest in songs of the British Isles.

A highlight of the university's commencement week activities will be the second production of the season by the BJU Classic Players -- Shakespeare's "King Lear," on May 23 and 28. Dr. Bob Jones Jr., president of the university, will portray the title role.

The ninth and final production of the season will be Verdi's "Requiem," which will be presented May 25 and 27 by the BJU Oratorio Society and Symphony Orchestra. Guest artists singing the solo roles include Walter Fredericks, Peter Harrower, and Miss Antonio Kitsopoulos.

#Bob Jones University #1967 #Greenville News #YeahTHATGreenville #Advertisement #Anniversary #Artist Series

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tenaciouspostfun · 18 days

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"The Pirates of Penzance" played at the Uris Theatre (now the Gershwin) from December 1980 till November 1982 featuring an all star cast that consisted of: Kevin Kline as the Pirate King; Estelle Parsons as Ruth, Linda Ronstadt as Mabel and George Rose as Major General Stanley. The musical would go on and win Best Musical at the Tony's that year. The show would pull in several Tony's and was the hottest ticket in town!

The lyrics by Gilbert and composition by Gilbert & Sullivan is till this day considered one of the best musicals ever written; it is right up there with "South Pacific", "Les Miserables"," Phantom of The Opera", "The Sound of Music" and so on and so forth.

Last night at the beautiful Morristown Performing Arts Center "Pirates" was fun, understated at times, silly at times, but always entertaining. More operatic than the usual musical, this show is at times "Monte Python", at other times it feels like your at the Met enjoying a lite opera. Between the costumes (Quinto Ott) and the lighting (Benjamin Weill)- we get the feeling that this musical is unique and special. The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players has been around a long time and has gotten this musical just right!

The comedy at times usurps the big voices and the superb choreography. While the direction takes us in the lite and simple feel, the lighting, which is based in the romantic realm too has this simple but elegant feel to the show. The lights with the brilliant fuchsias, purples and reds in the second act takes this musical in a whole another direction; as does the sets. We get a whole different feel in this mood and tone from the first act.

With a strong lead, the ensembles are just as effective in both song and dance. The shows direction keeps the audience locked in and entertained by the brashness of the ensemble and wows us with the star actors. On this big stage the director has the cast very visible and available for all to wash in as the performers work this two hour and fifteen minute musical to its fullest. The casting could not have been better!

As writers, Gilbert & Sullivan were two of the finest, they rival any duo ever to write musicals. The nuance of both in the way of both story telling and song is remarkable; most of their productions were well thought of around the world. "Pirates" is emblematic of the talent of the duet. It gives the audience something for the musical lover of all ages.

Morristown puts on many different shows throughout the course of each year, from "The Nutcracker" to "Murder Mystery", the producing arm usually brings these fun shows in that have had commercial success on Broadway and tour nicely throughout the country. " Pirates of Penzance" is just that kind of show... the voices are pleasant, rich in value with a ton of talent!

As all the songs hit home in this musical, it is "When Frederic Was A Little Lad", "I Am The Model of a Modern Major-General", "Now is the Pirate Lair", "Away, Away! My Heart's on Fire", are just a few of the great songs here. In Ruth (Hannah Holmes) we get a pure operatic voice, as we do with the Pirate King (Matthew Wages), his is a regal one, a sophisticated voice as well. In James Mills as Major-General, the audience is treated to a rapid-fire quick but on note singer. Sarah Caldwell Smith as Mabel has a crisp voice, she commands the stage whenever she belts out her songs.

The "Pirates of Penzance" is one of those must see musicals. With all the accolades that this musical has had in the past, it is a show that transcends time and is recognized by audiences and critics alike as a classic!

Robert Massimi, Broadway Bob, www.broadwayworld.com, Tony Awards, WACE Entertainment, www.triviscompany.com, nimbusmagazine.com, The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert & Sullivan.

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nwdsc · 2 years

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(▶︎ DUO | Claudia Acuñaから)

DUO by Claudia Acuña

Reflection and re-dedication are steady themes in the life and work of Claudia Acuña. Following her dynamic debut on the NY scene in the 1990’s she recorded five albums as a leader, and then stepped away for a decade to raise her son and restore her power. Returning refreshed and reborn in 2019, Acuna delivered the Latin Grammy nominated album Turning Pages, representing reclamation, recovery, and documenting a major creative leap. As 2020 rocked the world we all experienced our own version of such a journey, asking ourselves important questions of intent and purpose. Claudia returned to a long time desire - to record a duets album of songs from her homeland, Chile. As the world slowed to a crawl, Acuna took this time to remember the past, to find the core of her dedication and the power of music. The result is DUO, 9 songs recorded with some of the finest musicians in the world. Entering the studio with the likes of Fred Hersch, Christian McBride, and Kenny Barron for an intimate recording put her in a vulnerable spot, but the ease and comfort of the experience set the tone. The simplicity of just two, feeling the music and letting it flow through them, brought her to a new place as a singer. Seven of the songs on DUO come from composers hailing from Chile, Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico, and one from the great Chick Corea. The final track is Acuña’s sole original composition, and speaks of her relationship with Mother Earth. ‘…at the end of the day we all walk alone, and we can discover our beauty when we see Earth and us as one’ Born July 3, 1971 in Santiago and raised in Concepcion, Acuña established herself on the Chilean jazz scene in her early 20s. When she arrived in New York City in 1995, Acuña quickly gained recognition as a leading voice on a scene rapidly being transformed by a wave of brilliant Latin American musicians. Part of the roiling scene centered on Small’s, she plunged into collaborations with masters such as Jason Lindner, Harry Whitaker, Arturo O'Farrill, Guillermo Klein, Avishai Cohen, Branford Marsalis, George Benson, Louie Vega, Danilo Perez, and Tom Harrill. Her five albums as a leader established Acuña as a creative force, from 2002’s Rhythm of Life (Verve) and 2004’s Luna (MaxJazz) though 2008’s In These Shoes (Zoho Music) and 2009’s strikingly beautiful En Este Momento (Marsalis Music). Whether putting her stamp on popular Latin American ballads, reimagining jazz standards from a South American perspective, or bringing infusing Afro-Caribbean material with a wide rhythmic sensibility, Acuña stands out as a passionate and emotionally incisive singer with a gleaming, burnished bronze tone. For much of the past decade she’s put her recording career on the back-burner to focus on raising her son. Instead of touring, she’s stayed closer to home, where her keen intelligence and intrepid spirit has made her the vocalist of choice for many of jazz’s most creative figures. クレジット2022年9月23日リリース 1. Medianoche Piano: Kenny Barron by: Patricio Manns & Horacio Salinas 2. Eclipse de Luna Bass: Christian McBride by: Margarida Lecuona 3. Razón de Vivir Piano: Carolina Calvache by: Victor Heredia 4. Jurame Piano : Fred Hersch by: Maria Grever 5. Manifiesto Violin: Regina Carter by: Victor Jara 6. Verdade Amarga Guitar: Russell Malone by: Agustin Lara 7. Piensa en Mi Piano: Arturo O'Farrill by: Agustin Lara 8. Crystal Silence Acapella/voice solo by: Chick Corea 9. Yo Bombo Lehuero: Claudia Acuña Voice: Claudia Acuna by: Claudia Acuna Producer's : Claudia Acuña & Marc Urselli Executive Producer : Kabir Sehgal Recorded & Mixed by Marc Urselli at EastSide Sound Additional Recording by Duff Harris Kenny Barron appears courtesy of Steinway & Son Fred Hersh appears courtesy of Steinway Piano & Palmetto Russell Malone appears courtesy of High Note Christian McBride appears courtesy of Mack Avenue Records / Brother Mister Productions Photo cover, art : Hollis King Clothing: Jahnkoy Hair and Makeup : Calwell Assistants : Izac Sissoko , Leslie Jean Bart Photo in the studio by : Tracey Yarard Thank you to all the amazing people who helped and encouraged me to make this album possible . You know who you are Gracias a todos los que me ayudaron a hacer este maravilloso álbum , ustedes saben quienes son .

#JZ #2209

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ropeadope · 2 years

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Welcome Claudia Acuña

DUO by Claudia Acuña

As 2020 rocked the world we all experienced our own version of such a journey, asking ourselves important questions of intent and purpose. Claudia returned to a long time desire - to record a duets album of songs from her homeland, Chile. As the world slowed to a crawl, Acuna took this time to remember the past, to find the core of her dedication and the power of music. The result is DUO, 9 songs recorded with some of the finest musicians in the world. Entering the studio with the likes of Fred Hersch, Christian McBride, and Kenny Barron for an intimate recording put her in a vulnerable spot, but the ease and comfort of the experience set the tone. The simplicity of just two, feeling the music and letting it flow through them, brought her to a new place as a singer.

Seven of the songs on DUO come from composers hailing from Chile, Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico, and one from the great Chick Corea. The final track is Acuña’s sole original composition, and speaks of her relationship with Mother Earth. ‘…at the end of the day we all walk alone, and we can discover our beauty when we see Earth and us as one’

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junicai · 3 years

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Relationship with WAYV

➣ KUN ☾ karia

if it wasn’t for dotae potentially coming to kill him, he would steal aria into wayv

he’s the cool dad?

they can’t spend a lot of time together because none of their schedules match up, but aria takes every third or so weekend out to come have dinner in the wayv dorms

she’s surprisingly close to the china line, and its a combination of ten dragging her to his dorm for an entire month and them just kinda adopting her when they realized she was a foreigner as well

yuta can fight them, she’s one of them now

he doesn’t like to baby her a lot, and she really appreciates the break from being the “maknae” so to speak

however does that stop him from giving her the forehead kithes? no

aria sad? forehead kith

aria mad? forehead kith

aria smad? forehead kith + kuddles (kun cuddles)

he has sent her a passive agressive text when he found out that she wasn’t eating enough again and had almost passed out

but he finished it with a heart so its ok

if she isn’t smiling at all times, someone will die

aria feels like she can trust him with a lot; that no matter what she tells him, he’ll never out her or make fun of her

kun actually took a two-week online course to learn how to make traditional japanese dishes when aria mentioned missing her parents

he originally was going to learn how to make irish dishes, but he changed his mind after seeing what they were

“im not giving my kids boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes what kind of post world war-”

wants to give her a chinese name but hasn’t yet because he hasn’t found the one that fits her right and he wants it to be perfect

aria teaches him japanese phrases in exchange for him teaching her a little bit of mandarin

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

aria saw kun’s back as she entered the practice room, the man standing with three other members in the centre of the floor before the choreographer came in to start their practice. coming up behind him, she wrapped her arms around his waist, peeking her head around from where she was. “hi!” she smiled brightly.

“hi,” ten chuckled, showing her the camera that had just filmed all of that.

➣ TEN ☾ tenaria

Whipped(TM)

so so gone for her its upsetting actually

yangyang and aria share the position of his baby

except aria willingly accepts the title while yangyang would rather fling himself from a rooftop

ten’s instagram is half his cats, half miyazu aria

he posts her dancing practice on his story a lot, with a variety of captions ranging from “thats my baby ♡( ◡‿◡ )” to “yah that’s not right...(눈_눈)”

such an enabler for her bad ideas

aria wants to go shopping at 4am? ten agrees, now they’re sitting by han river eating ice cream

pls he’s gonna get her in so much trouble one day

when they walk together, ten likes to take her hand and put it in his pocket

its under the pretense of not wanting her to get lost

he just wants to hold her hand

yes he has lost her in a shopping mall, and NO it wasn’t his fault

ten always complains that they never have schedules together and he misses his baby

“we have superm-” “I NEVER SEE YOUUUU (ﾉಥ益ಥ)ﾉ”

if they’re in the same room ten is either watching her out of the corner of his eye, or is actually wrapped around her like a boa constrictor

hugs n kithes all around

only he is allowed make fun of her mistakes in dancing

anyone else gets deaded. he will fight for her honor how dare you insult his baby

sm give these ttwo a dancing duo video pls

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

the first and only time aria and ten had a duet was during their last concert on superm’s first world tour. during the second half of ten’s solo performance, aria emerged from the left side of the stage, coming to join him in the centre stage. no one had ever seen aria as serious as she was then, both herself and ten becoming completely different people in the moment. midway through, aria spun with her back to ten and leaped backwards into the air - eyes closed - completely trusting ten to be where she needed him to be to catch her.

➣ WINWIN ☾ winria

a love hate relationship at its finest

they don’t actually hate each other it’s just really funny to pretend that they do (especially because yuta complains that 2 of his favourite people aren’t getting along)

winwin is so savage towards aria but it’s ok she claps back twice as hard

at first, before czennies had seen enough of their dynamic they thought that they actually did hate each other

but that’s not true they just don’t know how to express, affection, without brutally insulting the other with a loving tone

they are, surprisingly, the most stable pairing in 127 - they have a dynamic and rarely stray from that, which is a good comfort for the fans

despite what they might say to each other, they don’t mean any of it - and winwin has been seen several times raising his eyebrows with a questioning look at aria to make sure she wasn’t taking any of his playful jabs to heart

oh god the flexibility

the entirety of nct is terrified of them

the day sm gives them a circus act is the day that kun and taeyong have a heart attack

quietly supportive of each other - catch aria “playing” with a water bottle and not getting up to get it when it conveniently rolls across the floor and into winwin’s leg

he makes sure to save some new chinese sweets whenever the wayv members get packages from their familes, and sneak it into aria’s room before the managers can catch her breaking her diet

not really physically affectionate with each other, which played into czennies idea that they didn’t like each other but aria cleared it up in a vlive

“winwinnie and I, well. we don’t hug a lot because i know he doesn’t like it as much as i might, so i try to show him i care with other things :)”

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

winwin and aria going in to each other on knowing brothers, to the point where the mc’s had their eyes popping out of their head and waved about to stop the segment before aria could start attacking winwin’s cooking methods-

nothing is off limits when it comes to them

➣ LUCAS ☾ arihei

besties

please they’re so cute together - tol child next to tini child she barely comes up to his chest :(

bear hugs

he just swamps her in his arms, and when he doesn’t feel like being bent over he picks her up

complains that she’s too heavy but then immediately after will throw her around like a softball

someone tell this man to be careful with her she’s not a barbie doll

singular braincell energy

don’t get it wrong, they’re both super smart

so it’s just - being smort together, but then nearly dying because neither of them remembered that you couldn’t eat raw cookie dough when there are eggs in it

she adores how he’s so confident in the things that he does - like convincing the entire nct fandom that he was fluent in english? king behaviour

so aria looks up to him (literally) but also because she wants to have that confidence some day

lucas says they’re not close and then aria pouts and he takes it all back

nczennies made a 14 minute compilation titled “lucas melting like a popsicle in australia for aria”

and literally what the title tells you, this man goes :(( when he sees her

lucas was actually the person to convince her to go ahead with the [redacted] proposal - and reminded her that it was too good an opportunity to pass up just because she felt like she was outgrowing the boys

he’s so proud of her

and she’s so proud of him

they’re so proud of each other and it makes nczennies want to cry because they never are seen together

sm stop separating the platonic soulmates first markhyuck and now arihei smh

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

during a photoshoot, aria was standing off to the side of the boys, dressed in white suit to contrast the boys’ black ones. the photographer was calling out to her to get her to move closer, but she couldn’t hear him from so far away, and so lucas (who was on the end) just walked over to her, gripped her by the biceps and lifted her vertically and to the left a little bit.

“luc-LUCAS?”

“you had to move :)”

➣ XIAOJUN ☾ arijun

honestly these two aren’t super close, just because their schedules never matched up until the NCT 2020 promotions

even when aria was dragged to the wayv dorms, xiaojun kept his distance from her because he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable

even so, when they were filming Make A Wish together, they seemed comfortable enough around each other

there was a mutual agreement to not try fill the silence with awkward small talk, so they sat in silence when left alone together

they’re both shy :( someone needs to get them to talk to each other :(

even so, aria was all supportive smiles and thumbs-up when she saw him getting nervous before their first public stage as the unit

he was a little intimidated of her at first, but also really curious about how she was holding her own against the other members

not only physically, but her vibes are tiny let the man be concerned ok

his first impression of aria was just: small quiet? she was sitting apart from the other boys in the practice room, and he almost wanted to go over and ask her if she was ok; before she was approached by donghyuck and her face broke into a bright smile

aria’s first impression of xiaojun was: eyebrows he was really handsome? at first, she thought he was in the wrong room, seeing as the SM modeling auditions were happening in the next room down

any arijun shippers are starved of content im so sorry guys

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

currently still up for debate between the fandom :(

➣ HENDERY ☾ aridery

ah these two

you might as well sign a waiver if you decide to do anything with them, because they can and will get you killed

kun can testify

ten’s the enabler but hendery is the do-er

super giggly around each other, for no reason at all

hendery could pick up and throw a basketball and suddenly aria’s on the floor in literal stitches

have a secret code

no seriously

they don’t text in words, they just send various reaction memes and a colourful variety of emojis to convey emotions and scenarios

it’s become quite a beautiful language actually

got some nice proverbs in there

they’re like, cousins but the ones you only see at family reunions but get so hype to see them

that energy

asides from the chaotic, murderous vibes they possess as a duo

hendery knows what it’s like to miss home, to miss your parents, etc etc

and so he tries to make aria feel as home as possible - especially with wayv, because they’re all foreigners who know how she feels

whenever he gets packages from his parents who have sent things over, he always makes sure to keep some of the small treats/sweets back for aria

1. because he knows she’ll appreciate the thought and she gives good hugs

2. because he knows she’s on a diet constantly and never allowed eat these things when she’s in the dorms with managers around

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

filming the Resonance “Wish” event, aria was put in a skimpy minimalistic mock-suit to differentiate from the others’ clothes. unfortunately, that left aria with a little too much shoulder and chest on display than she would like, and she was noticeably uncomfortable with her clothes, constantly pulling it up and even going so far as to just hold it with her hands.

hendery saw this, and knew he was finished filming his segment for the time being, so he pulled off his own jacket and tossed it over to aria, who caught it with a grateful smile. “thank you,” she mouthed to him, tugging the dark blue material over her shoulders.

➣ YANGYANG ☾ ariyang

aria. has 9 days of age on this boy and will never let him forget it

“respect your elders you brat” “9. DAYS.”

european pals

they feel so cultured when they get asked about europe, and then are kindly reminded by hendery that A. Germany started 2 world wars, and B. Ireland was just a British colony until 100 years ago.

they both hit him for that

aria teaching him curse words in irish and yangyang teaching her curse words in german? more likely than you’d think

they met before yangyang’s debut was announced, in a practice room that had let them accidentally overlap their practice times

instead of working it out between them, they actually just started to alternate their songs - and the other gave them some good, constructive criticism

most of the time

when they found out they were going to be in 90s Love together, they were so happy

it was going to be their first official schedule together

all the behind-the-scenes videos are just aria and yangyang being children and then ten coming over and cooing at them

they love ten, but they will trash talk the man behind his back

yangyang confessed to her that he sometimes feels nervous when speaking korean, like he’s going to make a big mistake

so she tries her best to teach and correct him where she can, and make him as comfortable as possible

if you look at any of the 90s Love promotions - aria is always beside yangyang

he bit her ear once

she doesn’t know why and he won’t tell her

but now when she makes fun of him, he threatens to do it again

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

aria skating onto the rink during filming, and yangyang following her because she promised to teach him how to skate backwards.

“ok just, think like you’re leading with your heels. press your knees in, and push outwards, with you-no no that’s forwards. go backwards yangyang.”

“no no no thats a WALL YANGYANG STOP-”

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lovejustforaday · 3 years

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Sonic Youth Albums Ranked (Part 3)

6. Sister (1987)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Alternative Rock, Post-Punk

A decent sampling of: Experimental Rock

This is the first LP in the Sonic Youth discography accessible enough to be labelled a true ‘Alternative Rock’ record. It’s still rough around the edges, but Sister is full of catchy hooks and thrilling guitar sounds. I feel like this record and Daydream Nation probably went on to spawn at least 200 new alternative rock bands by the time the 90s came around (not that I was there to see it or anything, just speculation).

Sister deserves a lot of credit for solidifying on tracks like “Catholic Block” and “Stereo Sanctity” what would become the dominant formula for the band’s sound throughout most of the rest of their discography. I think that's part of the reason why this is Sonic Youth’s second most acclaimed and beloved record. Perhaps some fans would even be downright offended that I only put this at #6 on the list, but trust me when I say that this is only because the band has made so many fantastic records. In fact, for most bands, this would easily be their greatest record.

I can still remember the first time I heard the opening to “Schizophrenia”, I had never heard anything quite like it. The guitars sound upbeat yet worn out and dejected, making me feel isolated and almost spiritually weak when I listen to this track, yet somehow also comforted. The song is partially inspired by Kim’s older brother who has schizophrenia, though the roles are reversed in this song with a brother whose sister is schizophrenic. It’s a deeply fascinating and memorable piece, and I can see why many fans consider this to be a top five Sonic Youth track.

Most of the rest of Sister is very scratchy and punkish with some very tight guitar work, like “Catholic Block” which boasts one of my favourite melodic riffs in the Sonic Youth canon. There’s also “Hot Wire My Heart”, another major highlight and a cover of the obscure British punk band Crime, where Sonic Youth takes their song and upgrades the guitars and drums while also adding a bold wall of feedback at the end.

Then there’s “Pacific Coast Highway”, a completely sickening song and one of Kim’s very finest moments as a lyricist and vocalist. This haunting noise rock jumble tells the story of either a unhinged stranger, or perhaps a resentful ex-lover, who is obsessively catcalling the listener from their car, with the not-so-subtle implication that you’re all by yourself somewhere and that this person intends to harm you. I have no idea if this was written about a personal experience, but I do know from listening to their voices that this is something many women have either gone through or live in perpetual fear of. Seriously fucked up stuff, but also one of Sonic Youth’s very best tracks.

"Cotton Crown” is an odd one out in the Sonic Youth discography; an uncharacteristically sincere but still off-kilter love song that Kim and Thurston sing as a duet. Their voices are a bit out of tune with each other, but i think that honestly fits the Sonic Youth aesthetic and it’s sweet in its own quirky way, although very bittersweet decades later with hindsight about the fate of their relationship. Sort of a noise rock lullaby almost, maybe even with hints of early shoegaze.

Sister does a really good job of taking the seemingly juxtaposing ideas of the ‘fun’ and the ‘grotesque’ and fuses them together. This album is both largely exciting and still somehow alienating and depressive. It’s textbook Sonic Youth, really. I will say that the best tracks are clustered together with a noticeably weaker middle portion, but really this is still a consistently great record throughout. Altogether, Sister is one of the many entries in the band’s discography from 1986 through 1990 where Sonic Youth could basically do no wrong. A classic record.

9/10

highlights: “Pacific Coast Highway”, “Schizophrenia”, ‘Catholic Block”, “Cotton Crown”, “Hot Wire My Heart”, “Beauty Lies in the Eye”

5. A Thousand Leaves (1998)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Experimental Rock

A decent sampling of: Alternative Rock, Post-Rock, Neo-Psychedelia

I’m just gonna say this now: A Thousand Leaves is by far Sonic Youth’s most underrated record. It’s also the last truly amazing record that the band ever put out. Maybe it’s just the bizarre choice of an album cover that turns people off of this LP. Really, what the hell were they going for here with the minimalist hamster vibes? The beautiful title really suggests something a lot more visually stunning.

In all seriousness though, I feel like nobody talks about this one because it’s overshadowed by its predecessor Washing Machine, but if there’s one area that this record exceeds above all other Sonic Youth LPs, it’s that it perfectly captures that mellow feeling that the later Sonic Youth albums were inclined towards. Not a lot of Sonic Youth records put me at ease like this one does.

Likewise, this is maybe the most ‘feel-good’ record in their discography along with Murray Street. But where Muray Street is something you could put on in the background and enjoy pretty modestly, A Thousand Leaves is a largely experimental, out-of-body experience that pulls you into its surreal, flowery, evergreen world.

“Contre Le Sexism” is a perfect opener for this kind of record; this quiet daze of a waking dream is both dainty and delirious, alluding to Alice in Wonderland with Kim’s vocals never before sounding so gentle and bright. I swear I start to hear a door creak at the end. Maybe that’s the sound of stepping out into the rest of A Thousand Leaves.

What follows immediately after is “Sunday” which is actually one of the band’s poppiest moments, making it somewhat of an outlier on this highly avant-garde and immersive record. But the warm spring vibes of the melody fits right in. The wall of sound introduced during the bridge is a soft mesmerizing bliss more akin to a band like My Bloody Valentine, if not for the tiny distant screeches of atonality whirling around here and there. As a big fan of both bands, I’m all for this kind of sound.

“Wildflower Soul” is easily one of the best things Sonic Youth has ever written. Endless amounts of creativity are poured into this nine minute noise rock acrobatics performance along with a lyrical ode to love, nature, and childhood. The vibes of this one are really quite jaw-dropping given the fact that these are the same guys who wrote “Schizophrenia” and “Death Valley ‘69″. There’s such unison and harmony in the band’s performance here as they switch between different bpm and even time signatures, and the usage of the heavy phaser effect towards the end sounds nothing short of godlike. "Wildflower Soul” almost feels like an entire album experience in one song, and I’m beyond impressed every time I listen to it.

This makes for a hard act to follow, but A Thousand Leaves still has plenty of other highlights. “French Tickler” is a strange and satisfying track that switches back and forth between a playful melody and churning, stretchy distortion. “Karen Koltrane” is a murky but textured portrait of Lee Renaldo’s ex-girlfriend, who got addicted to hallucinogens and became heavily withdrawn from the rest of the world. “Snare, Girl” is a soothing spell where Thurston sounds like he’s trying to coax the listener into a never-ending slumber.

My only real complaint here is “Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)”, a lackadaisical jam session that sounds cool enough, but really overstays its welcome given the lack of development it achieves over its eleven minute run time. It’s a nice piece to vibe to, but it very noticeably disrupts the album’s flow. Take this one track away entirely, or even just edit it down severely, and this would probably be a 10/10 record for me.

Still, wow what a cool album. A Thousand Leaves is a great example of why I respect this band so much. Even this late into their career, Sonic Youth were willing to try so many new bizarre things while also building judiciously upon the foundations of their past work with great attention to detail. I wouldn’t recommend most people start with this one, it’s definitely a bit more challenging especially if you haven’t listened to some other really weird experimental rock records. But once you’re in the right headspace for it, it’s easy to get almost completely lost in A Thousand Leaves.

9/10

highlights: “Wildflower Soul”, “Sunday”, “French Tickler”, “Karen Koltrane”, “Snare, Girl”, “Contre Le Sexism”, “Heather Angel”

4. Goo (1990)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Alternative Rock

A decent sampling of: Experimental Rock, Post-Punk

Goo was my very first Sonic Youth album, and I can definitely still feel some of the old teenage angst that I had at the time whenever I listen to this one. What probably adds to that feeling is the fact that this along with Daydream Nation is one of the two albums in the band’s discography that I’d say possesses a great deal of immediacy. Albums like Sister and A Thousand Leaves are a bit more subtle and they take a while to be fully digested. But this one, this one hit me like a brick wall.

Between “Tunic (Song For Karen)”, “Kool Thing”, and “Cinderella’s Big Score”, Goo is above all others the Sonic Youth record where Kim Gordon is really the star of the band, featuring not one but three of her most captivating songs. Likewise, I would also say that this is Sonic Youth’s most overtly feminist and socially conscious record.

I don’t know if anybody else feels this way, but to me the opener “Dirty Boots” really does sound like “Teen Age Riot” part 2. That’s not a bad thing of course, Sonic Youth making more songs like “Teen Age Riot” could never be a bad thing, and “Dirty Boots” is definitely one of the highlights of Goo with its massive build up of kinetic energy. That being said, I do have to say that I don’t think any song could do this particular kind of album opener better than “Teen Age Riot” already does it, but I still really do enjoy “Dirty Boots”.

“Tunic (Song For Karen)” is one of Sonic Youth’s most poetic and poignant songs. Kim’s sing-talking voice is even more solemn than usual as she takes on a surreal retelling of the final days of drummer/pop star pioneer Karen Carpenter from her perspective, highlighting the severity of her loneliness and the criminal negligence of many of the people around her who let her succumb to her eating disorder. Set to a backdrop of stark and droning alternative rock, I would say that this is possibly the band’s most depressing moment and certainly one of the biggest statements that they ever made.

A lot of the rest of Goo is actually pretty fun though. “Kool Thing” features Chuck D on guest vocals, and its a funny sarcastic take down of the subjugation of women’s voices in supposedly liberated spaces like the world of rock and hip hop, inspired by the time Kim interviewed L.L. Cool J and attempted to have a political conversation. The song mocks L.L.’s attitude towards women while also poking fun at Kim’s own self-perceived elitism. There’s also “Mote”, a sensational head rush that dissolves into noise rock weird-isms, sorta recreating the feeling of going from buzzed to totally black out.

“Mildred Pierce” is almost a practical joke but I kind of love the hell out of it anyway. A short track with lyrics consisting only of the song’s title, it starts with the band getting into a nice little riff before (without warning) bursting into a hardcore punk cacophony as Thurston screams the name over and over into the listener’s ears. Made me jump the first time I heard it.

And then there’s “Cinderella’s Big Score”. If “Schizophrenia” vaguely hinted at Kim’s estranged relationship with her older brother, then “Cinderella’s Big Score” confronts it dead on. Featuring some of the band’s most totally insane and disfigured guitar work ever, this song sounds harsh and militant, like the dawn of a nuclear cataclysm. It’s very hard to believe that Kim is 37 years old here; she reverts to sounding exactly like a hurt teenage little sister, rebelling against her childhood trauma and lashing out at her brother’s past bullying and now his cold indifference towards her.

The song grapples with some very painful emotions, but the experience is raw and cathartic. “Cinderella’s Big Score” is definitely somewhere in Sonic Youth’s top 10 tracks for me; it just doesn’t get any realer than this. Honestly, the record could’ve ended here. I like “Titanium Expose” enough as a closer, but this would’ve made a really powerful and lasting impression to end the album.

Despite that, Goo is an excellent Sonic Youth record that demonstrates just how much the band had mastered their craft after a decade of making all sorts of noises. Obviously I’m biased since it was my own first Sonic Youth record, but I really do feel like this is the very best place to start with the band. Goo is one of their more melodic and accessible offerings, but it’s also one of their most provocative records and it really captures the essence of Sonic Youth’s identity.

9/10

highlights: “Cinderella’s Big Score”, “Tunic (Song For Karen)”, “Mote”, “Kool Thing”, “Dirty Boots”, ‘Mildred Pierce”

3. EVOL (1986)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Experimental Rock, Post-Punk

A decent sampling of: No Wave, Alternative Rock

If Bad Moon Rising was bleak and desolate, than EVOL is disturbed, uncanny, and deeply paranoid. Sonic Youth’s third record evokes the feeling of being all alone at midnight on a sketchy highway, complete with mental images of flickering street lights and looming shadowy figures. I mentioned earlier that I have to be in the right mood to enjoy Bad Moon Rising, but this record puts me in the right mood almost instantly whenever I put it on.

EVOL isn’t exactly a no wave album like their first two records. The highly experimental influence is still there, but the arrangements are starting to sound fuller and more intentional.

You could say that this LP marks somewhat of a transitional phase between Sonic Youth the no wave band and Sonic Youth the alternative rock band, and in many respects it has the best of both worlds. There’s a few catchy darker alternative rock songs here and there, sandwiched between tracks that could best be described as ‘mad scientist’ music, which altogether creates a varied and unique album experience.

“Tom Violence“ immediately establishes the tone of EVOL with crooked, scraping flashes of post-punk guitars. This track reminds me of heads hung low, bodies slouched uncomfortably, and the feeling of being completely wide awake at 2:00 am. There’s something very unfriendly that lurks beneath the dissonance of these sounds.

If “Tom Violence” is uneasy, then “Shadow of A Doubt” is an auditory nightmare, managing to capture something akin to the fear of being watched by an unknown stranger hiding in the shadows. Notes are gently plucked like icy cold fingers slowly crawling up the listener’s back while Kim whispers about murder plots and oneirophrenia. The “just a dream” lyrical motif is first uttered reassuringly, but eventually turns into a desperate plea as Kim begins to shout frantically and the music intensifies.

The album dials down the spook factor a few notches with “Starpower” and “In The Kingdom #19″. The former is an early example of Sonic Youth’s ability to combine melodic hooks with meandering chaos that would become refined on the next few LPs, while the latter features Lee’s first solo vocals (and one of his best performances) reciting a lucid, jet black vision of a car accident. Thurston threw firecrackers into the recording studio when they did Lee’s vocals on this track and you can hear it in the recording, and just like “Mildred Pierce” it really caught me off guard the first time I heard it.

“Secret Girl” is the scariest fucking thing in the whole Sonic Youth discography, and also just one of the scariest songs I’ve ever heard. It starts with a deep shuddering thud that sounds like it’s getting closer and closer. Then out of nowhere, a cassette-recording of an old detuned piano starts to play a simple, unnerving refrain while Kim offers a cryptic and uncomfortably suggestive spoken word piece. It feels like a scene that might play out in a horror film, where a television screen comes on by itself and the person on the screen begins to talk directly to the viewer.

Finally, there’s “Expressway To Yr Skull” (alternatively titled “Madonna, Sean, and Me”), which would be my #1 Sonic Youth album closer if not for the #1 album on this list. That being said, this song is still one of the biggest highlights of the band’s career. "Expressway To Yr Skull” starts off restless and spectacular, leading up to an utterly earth-shaking climax, and then it’s as if the song promptly dies, only to become a lingering undead entity that pulls you down with it. I still can’t get over how the ending really manages to sound like it’s dragging you down further and further into its barren depths.

To add to that, there’s actually a locked groove on the original vinyl release of this LP that plays the last little bit of “Expressway To Yr Skull”, meaning that if you let the needle sit there, it will forever loop that last little bit of droning at the end of the track. I really appreciate this little detail; it’s as if the pervasive darkness of EVOL is so encompassing that it could turn into a deep midnight that never ends.

EVOL is honestly so close to being a 10 for me, but just like Sister I find that it is decently weaker towards the middle. Still, I’m absolutely enamored with the atmosphere on this album. No gothic rock record has ever managed to sound so deeply unsettling to my ears like this little experimental record does. You really just have to experience this one for yourself. Honestly, don’t be surprised if in a year or two I’ve changed my mind and bumped this one to a 10.

9/10

highlights: “Expressway To Yr Skull”, “Shadow Of A Doubt”, “Tom Violence”, “Secret Girl”, “In The Kingdom #19″, “Starpower”

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iwontdancenetwork · 3 years

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The Royal Ballet | Symphonic Variations pas de deux (Marianela Nuñez, Vadim Muntagirov; The Royal Ballet)

Celebrate the pure beauty of movement through Ashton’s masterpiece. Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov perform in Frederick Ashton's one act ballet.

Symphonic Variations was Frederick Ashton’s first choreographic work after returning from serving in the RAF during World War II. It was one of the Company’s first works for the Main Stage of the Royal Opera House, and Ashton and his designer Sophie Fedorovitch agonized over ways to make sure the ballet would be experienced, even at the back of the enormous auditorium. The result, first performed on 24 April 1946, became a cornerstone of The Royal Ballet’s repertory and is acclaimed as one of Ashton’s very finest works. This stream celebrates the 75th anniversary of the ballet's premiere at the Royal Opera House.

The ballet was created for just six dancers, who never leave the stage. The dancers combine in a series of quartets, duets, sextets and solos, perfectly reflecting César Franck’s brooding Variations symphoniques for piano and orchestra. The flow of dancing quickens and slows but retains a sense of serenity and spaciousness – a hint at the mysticism and spirituality Ashton had studied during World War II, and which had a clear impact on his choreography.SHOW LESS

#ballet #ballerina #pas de deux #royal ballet #dance #dancing #dancers #videos

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years

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Pitchfork Music Festival 2021 Preview: 15 Can’t-miss Acts

black midi; Photo by YIS KID

BY JORDAN MAINZER

While yours truly won’t be attending Pitchfork Music Festival this year, SILY contributor Daniel Palella will be covering the actual fest. If I was attending, though, these would be the acts I’d make sure to see. 5 from each day, no overlaps, so you could conceivably see everyone listed.

FRIDAY

Armand Hammer, 1:00 PM, Green Stage

Earlier this year, New York hip hop duo Armand Hammer released their 5th album Haram (BackwoodzStudioz) in collaboration with on-fire producer The Alchemist. It was the duo’s (ELUCID and Billy Woods) first time working with a singular producer on a record (though Earl Sweatshirt produced a track), and likewise, The Alchemist actually tailored his beats towards the two MCs. Haram is the exact kind of hip hop that succeeds early in the day at a festival, verbose and complex rhymes over languid, cloudy, sample-heavy beats, when attendees are more likely to want to sit and listen than dance. And you’re going to want to listen to Armand Hammer, whose MCs’ experiential words frame the eerie hues of the production. “Dreams is dangerous, linger like angel dust,” Woods raps on opener “Sir Benni Miles”, never looking back as he and Elucid’s stream-of-consciousness rhymes cover everything from colonization to Black bodily autonomy and the dangers of satisfaction disguised as optimism. (“We let BLM be the new FUBU,” raps Quelle Chris on “Chicharrones”; “Iridescent blackness / Is this performative or praxis?” ponders Woods on “Black Sunlight”.) There are moments of levity on Haram, like KAYANA’s vocal turn on “Black Sunlight” and the “what the hell sound is this?” type sampling that dominates warped, looped tracks like “Peppertree” and “Indian Summer”, built around sounds of horns and twirling flute lines. For the most part, Haram is an album of empathetic realism. “Hurt people hurt people,” raps Elucid on “Falling Out of the Sky”, a stunning encapsulation of Armand Hammer’s world where humanism exists side-by-side with traumatic death and feelings of revenge.

You can also catch Armand Hammer doing a live set on the Vans Channel 66 livestream at 12 PM on Saturday.

Dogleg, 1:45 PM, Red Stage

It feels like we’ve been waiting years to see this set, and actually, we have! The four-piece punk band from Michigan was supposed to play last year’s cancelled fest in support of their searing debut Melee (Triple Crown), and a year-plus of pent up energy is sure to make songs like “Bueno”, “Fox”, and “Kawasaki Backflip” all the more raging. Remember: This is a band whose reputation was solidified live before they were signed to Triple Crown and released their breakout album. Seeing them is the closest thing to a no-brainer that this year’s lineup offers.

Revisit our interview with Dogleg from last year, and catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Subterranean with fellow Pitchfork performer Oso Oso and Retirement Party.

Hop Along, 3:20 PM, Red Stage

Though lead singer Frances Quinlan released a very good solo album last year, it’s been three years since their incredible band Hop Along dropped an album and two years since they’ve toured. 2018′s Bark Your Head Off, Dog (Saddle Creek), one of our favorite albums of that year, should comprise the majority of their setlist, but maybe they have some new songs?

Catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Metro with Varsity and Slow Mass.

black midi, 4:15 PM, Green Stage

The band who had the finest debut of 2019 and gave the best set of that year at Pitchfork is back. Cavalcade (Rough Trade) is black midi’s sophomore album, methodical in its approach in contrast with the improvisational absurdism of Schlagenheim. Stop-start, violin-laden lead single and album opener “John L”, a song about a cult leader whose members turn on him, is as good a summary as ever of the dark, funky eclecticism of black midi, who on Cavalcade saw band members leave and new ones enter, their ever shapeshifting sound the only consistent thing about them. A song like the jazzy “Diamond Stuff” is likely impossible to replicate live--its credits list everything from 19th century instruments to household kitchen items used for percussion--but is key to experiencing their instrumental adventurousness. On two-and-a-half-minute barn burner “Hogwash and Balderdash,” they for the first time fully lean into their fried Primus influences, telling a tale of two escaped prisoners, “two chickens from the pen.” At the same time, this band is still black midi, with moments that call back to Schlagenheim, the churning, metallic power chords via jittery, slapping funk of “Chondromalacia Patella” representative of their quintessential tempo changes. And as on songs like Schlagenheim’s “Western”, black midi find room for beauty here, too, empathizing with the pains of Marlene Dietrich on a bossa nova tune named after her, Geordie Greep’s unmistakable warble cooing sorrowful lines like, “Fills the hall tight / And pulls at our hearts / And puts in her place / The girl she once was.” Expect to hear plenty from Cavalcade but also some new songs; after all, this is a band that road tests and experiments with material before recording it.

Catch them doing a 2 PM DJ set on Vans Channel 66 on Saturday and at an aftershow on Monday at Sleeping Village.

Yaeji, 7:45 PM, Blue Stage

What We Drew (XL), the debut mixtape from Brooklyn-based DJ Yaeji, was one of many dance records that came out after lockdown that we all wished we could experience in a crowd as opposed to at home alone. Now's our chance to bask in all of its glory under a setting sun. Maybe she’ll spin her masterful remix of Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” from the Club Future Nostalgia remix album, or her 2021 single “PAC-TIVE”, her and DiAN’s collaboration with Pac-Man company Namco.

Angel Olsen; Photo by Dana Trippe

SATURDAY

Bartees Strange, 1:45 PM, Red Stage

One of our favorite albums of last year was Live Forever (Memory Music), the debut from singer-songwriter and The National fanatic Bartees Strange, one that contributor Lauren Lederman called “a declaration of an artist’s arrival.” He’s certainly past arrived when you take into account his busy 2021, releasing a new song with Lorenzo Wolff and offering his remix services to a number of artists, including illuminati hotties and fellow Pitchfork performer (and tour mate) Phoebe Bridgers. Expect to hear lots of Live Forever during his Pitchfork set, one of many sets at the fest featuring exciting young guitar-based (!) bands.

Catch him at a free (!!) aftershow on Monday at Empty Bottle with Ganser.

Faye Webster, 4:00 PM, Blue Stage

Since we previewed Faye Webster’s Noonchorus livestream in October, she’s released the long-awaited follow-up to Atlanta Millionaires Club, the cheekily titled I Know I’m Funny haha (Secretly Canadian). At that time, she had dropped “Better Distractions”, “In A Good Way”, and “Both All The Time”, and the rest of the album more than follows the promise of these three dreamy country, folk rock, and R&B-inspired tunes. Webster continues to be a master of tone and mood, lovelorn on “Sometimes”, sarcastic on the title track, and head-in-the-clouds on “A Dream with a Baseball Player”. All the while, she and her backing band provide stellar, languorous instrumentation, keys and slide guitar on the bossa nova “Kind Of”, her overdriven guitar sludge on “Cheers”, cinematic strings on the melancholic “A Stranger”, stark acoustic guitar on heartbreaking closer “Half of Me”. And the ultimate irony of Webster’s whip-smart lyricism is that a line like, “And today I get upset over this song that I heard / And I guess was just upset because why didn't I think of it first,” is that I can guarantee a million songwriters feel the same way about her music, timely in context and timeless in sound and feeling.

Catch her at an aftershow on Saturday at Sleeping Village with Danger Incorporated.

Georgia Anne Muldrow, 5:15 PM, Blue Stage

The queen of beats takes the stage during the hottest part of the day, perfect for some sweaty dancing. VWETO III (FORESEEN + Epistrophik Peach Sound), the third album in Muldrow’s beats record series, was put together with “calls to action” in mind, each single leading up to the album’s release to be paired with crowdsourced submissions via Instagram from singers, visual artists, dancers, and turntablists. Moreover, many of the album’s tracks are inspired by very specific eras of Black music, from Boom Bap and G-funk to free jazz, and through it all, Muldrow provides a platform for musical education just as much as funky earworms.

Revisit our interview with Muldrow from earlier this year.

Angel Olsen, 7:25 PM, Red Stage

It’s been a busy past two years for Angel Olsen. She revealed Whole New Mess (Jagjaguwar) in August 2020, stripped down arrangements of many of the songs on 2019′s amazing All Mirrors. In May, she came out with a box set called Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories (Jagjaguwar), which contained both All Mirrors and Whole New Mess and a bonus LP of remixes, covers, alternate takes, and bonus tracks. She shortly and out of nowhere dropped a song of the year candidate in old school country rock high and lonesome Sharon Van Etten duet “Like I Used To”. And just last month, she released Aisles, an 80′s covers EP out on her Jagjaguwar imprint somethingscosmic. She turns Laura Branigan’s disco jam “Gloria” and Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance” into woozy, echoing, slowed-down beds of synth haze and echoing drum machine. On Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “If You Leave”, her voice occupies different registers between the soft high notes of the bridge and autotuned solemnity of the chorus. Sure, other covers are more recognizable in their tempo and arrangement, like Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell ballad “Eyes Without a Face” and Alphaville’s “Forever Young”, but Aisles is exemplary of Olsen’s ability to not just reinvent herself but classics.

At Pitchfork, I’d bet on a set heavy on All Mirrors and Whole New Mess, but as with the unexpectedness of Aisles, you never know!

St. Vincent, 8:30 PM, Green Stage

Annie Clark again consciously shifts personas and eras with her new St. Vincent album Daddy’s Home (Loma Vista), inspired by 70′s funk rock and guitar-driven psychedelia. While much of the album’s rollout centered around its backstory--Clark’s father’s time in prison for white collar crimes--the album is a thoughtful treatise on honesty and identity, the first St. Vincent album to really stare Clark’s life in the face.

Many of its songs saw their live debut during a Moment House stream, which we previewed last month.

The Weather Station; Photo by Jeff Bierk

SUNDAY

Tomberlin, 1:00 PM, Green Stage

While the LA-via-Louisville singer-songwriter hasn’t yet offered a proper follow-up LP to her 2018 debut At Weddings, she did last year release an EP called Projections (Saddle Creek), which expands upon At Weddings’ shadowy palate. Songs like “Hours” and “Wasted” are comparatively clattering and up-tempo. Yet, all four of the original tracks are increasingly self-reflexive, Tomberlin exploring and redefining herself on her terms, whether singing about love or queerness, all while maintaining her sense of humor. (“When you go you take the sun and all my flowers die / So I wait by the window and write some shit / And hope that you'll reply,” she shrugs over acoustic strums and wincing electric guitars.) The album ends with a stark grey cover of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s “Natural Light”; Tomberlin finds a kindred spirit in the maudlin musings of Owen Ashworth.

Get there early on Sunday to hear select tracks from At Weddings and Projections but also likely some new songs.

oso oso, 2:45 PM, Blue Stage

Basking in the Glow (Triple Crown), the third album from Long Beach singer-songwriter Jade Lilitri as Oso Oso, was one of our favorite records of 2019, and we’d relish the opportunity to see them performed to a crowd in the sun. Expect to hear lots of it; hopefully we’re treated to new oso oso material some time soon.

Catch them at an aftershow on Saturday at Subterranean with fellow Pitchfork performer Dogleg and Retirement Party.

The Weather Station, 4:00 PM, Blue Stage

The Toronto band led by singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman released one of the best albums of the year back in February with Ignorance (Fat Possum), songs inspired by climate change-addled anxiety. While the record is filled with affecting, reflective lines about loss and trying to find happiness in the face of dread, in a live setting, I imagine the instrumentation will be a highlight, from the fluttering tension of “Robber” to the glistening disco of “Parking Lot”.

Revisit our preview of their Pitchfork Instagram performance from earlier this year. Catch them at an aftershow on Friday at Schubas with Ulna.

Danny Brown, 6:15 PM, Green Stage

The Detroit rapper’s last full-length record was the Q-Tip executive produced uknowhatimsayin¿ (Warp), though he’s popped up a few times since then, on remixes, a Brockhampton album, and TV62, a Bruiser Brigade Records compilation from earlier this year. (He’s also claimed in Twitch streams that his new album Quaranta is almost done.) His sets--especially Pitchfork sets--are always high-energy, as he’s got so many classic albums and tracks under his belt at this point, so expect to hear a mix of those.

Erykah Badu, 8:30 PM, Green Stage

What more can I say? This is the headliner Pitchfork has been trying to get for years, responsible for some of the greatest neo soul albums of all time. There’s not much else to say about Erykah Badu other than she’s the number one must-see at the festival.

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marvella15 · 4 years

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Astaire & Rogers Rewatch Part 6: Swing Time

• Swing Time aka the Astaire/Rogers film that I think is actually the best, especially from the dance perspective. Every duet is fabulous. You could watch just the duets and understand the entire plot of the film. That’s how well crafted and executed they are.

• Our characters/actors: John “Lucky” Garnett (Fred Astaire), Penny Carroll (Ginger Rogers), Pop (Victor Moore), Mabel (Helen Broderick), Ricardo Romero (Georges Metaxa)

• Is this the first Astaire/Rogers film where he’s the one engaged (or married) to someone else? It’s usually her.

• Lucky is already ridiculously late for his wedding, even before he’s rushing to get dressed. But I love his little snap-and-a-heel-click.

• How does Fred Astaire manage to look so dapper in shoes, a top hat, no pants, and a robe?

• It’s interesting that Lucky’s bride-to-be calls him John, rather than his nickname, which is tied to his gambling talents and therefore doesn’t fit in with her or her upper class family. But Penny only calls him Lucky. The two women even have a little exchange about it later in the film.

• As usual, Rogers’ character is uninterested in Astaire’s upon first meeting and also as usual, she has a very good reason. She thinks he’s using any lame excuse to hit on her. Wow, look how much men have not changed at all.

By the way, 25 cents in 1936 is almost $5 today. Not saying it’s a reason to call the police but it’s at least not as outrageous as calling the police over a quarter.

• Remember I said her cries for a porter in Gay Divorcee would come back? Here it’s reprised in her calls for an officer, which Lucky will also gently mock later just as Guy did to Mimi in the previous film.

And wow, the officer is condescending and patronizing to her in deference to a man whom he thinks is an affluent gentleman. Look how much the police have not changed.

• It’s odd that Lucky describes Penny as having red hair when Rogers was definitely a blonde (originally a brunette). Maybe she had strawberry blonde hair at this time?

• The tense exchange between Penny and Lucky as she teaches him to walk at the start of his dancing lesson is some of Astaire and Rogers at their acting finest. It’s a short, rather simple scene but they make it charming, funny, and entertaining.

• Penny’s line, “If you’re trying to annoy me you certainly are succeeding,” is such a mood sometimes.

• Lucky, already starting to flirt: “All the world loves a dancer. Don’t you?”

• Astaire does a good job of acting like he’s a terrible dancer. Takes a lot of talent to pretend to suck at something you’re actually incredible at.

• Pay attention to the three-step maneuver Penny teaches Lucky. He uses it as the building block for all of their dances in this film, beginning very soon with “Pick Yourself Up.”

• I love the “Pick Yourself Up” duet so so much. As much as the romantic duets for Astaire and Rogers get a lot of attention, I really love tap dancing and this is one of their best tap routines. Plus, you can see Penny (thanks to Rogers’ intuitive acting) go from surprise to delight to pure enjoyment and maybe a little bit of well-deserved smugness. Also notice that Lucky and Penny are much closer together in this duet than they had been during the dancing lesson. They’ve already become familiar with each other in that short span of time.

• Because of the nature of the scene, Astaire looks frequently at Penny’s boss but Rogers is watching Astaire almost the entire time. Her expression conveys the feeling that Penny has finally found the right partner.

• There’s a lovely moment where she glides back with her arms up as she waits for him and Rogers’ face is so full of joy and affection.

• Astaire typically avoided naming a “favorite” partner out of consideration for the many other actresses he danced with. But he did comment that because of how well Rogers danced with him, “She got so that after a while everyone else who danced with me looked wrong.” And he’s kind of right about that. Swing Time as a whole is probably the best example. No other actress would look right in any of the dances they share in this film.

• The moment of wordless conversation between Penny and Lucky after their dance feels very much like the actors themselves. In addition to having known each other prior to making films, they’ve also now spent the last 5 years working very closely together. No doubt they had some silent shorthand.

• One of the reasons I enjoy Swing Time is because unlike other Astaire/Rogers films, the misunderstandings between them don’t emerge until later on, rather than appearing at the start to constantly obstruct their relationship. Here, Lucky and Penny begin their relationship almost right away. Just look at their cute conversation in front of the elevator where he hastily decides to get a room in the same building as her.

• For the second time in this film, Astaire looks incredibly dapper while also being pantless.

• At first it seems ridiculous that Lucky is picketing outside Penny’s room claiming she’s been unfair to him since he made them miss their try-out. However, he’s done everything to make it up to her, including arranging a new try-out for them, building up a sizable bankroll for him/them and Mabel, and, obviously, getting some new clothes.

• Although they tried many things in Rogers’ hair to make it look like shampoo, I believe they landed on whipped cream at her suggestion. And they use it as a very convenient excuse to prevent yet another kiss.

• Unlike other romantic songs in their films, “The Way You Look Tonight” is framed as a popular song of the time within the film itself. And we know this because Ricardo Romero is singing it in the next scene as part of his “romantic medley hour.”

• Love the way Astaire looks at her during this social dance. So warm and loving. And when they leave the dance floor, he gets her attention at one point by hooking his index finger to the point of her elbow. Just little moments of familiarity between them.

• More little moments: When Penny gets up from the roulette table, Lucky stops her until after the ball has landed, indicating he feels she’s good luck. Rogers is holding Astaire’s elbow as she goes to leave so he grabs her hand under his arm without looking.

• I’ve always loved the look on Lucky’s face when he watches Romero approach Penny. It’s not jealousy or concern, necessarily. Just soft, like he’s wondering if his heart is about to be broken. And the music playing? “A Fine Romance”

• Lucky does everything possible to get Penny and himself the promised try-out including winning nearly $25k at the casino tables, then winning Romero’s contract, and eventually publicly goading Romero to play for them. But Mabel was right before when she told Penny that everything Lucky did was solely for her. He doesn’t need a new dancing gig, and had in fact come to New York to earn money as a gambler, rather than a dancer. That all changed when he met Penny.

• Remember a time when you were newly in love? The sheer elation of that feeling is what the “Waltz in Swing Time” is. It’s a celebration that builds on what was established in “Pick Yourself Up” and adds sweeping moments of romance. The three steps to the left and right move is expanded on first with outstretched legs and arms and later with exuberant movements around the floor.

• Right at the start, Astaire has a twinkle in his eyes when he looks at Rogers and she responds in kind. They smile at each other easily as they move through a fast-paced and breathtakingly beautiful routine.

Usually in their films, a romantic and celebratory duet comes near the end when all of the misunderstandings have been resolved. But in Swing Time, it’s right in the middle.

• There’s one moment where Astaire affectionately touches Rogers’ wrist. It almost looks as though he’s going to spin her towards him but instead they keep dancing separately, next to one another.

• When the music kicks up, Rogers smiles broadly and she looks radiantly in love. As they spin together, tapping in a circle around the dance floor, both of them keep looking up in wonder and rapture.

• They’re cuddling during the snowy scenes is very sweet but some of the romance is sucked out when you see the behind the scenes pictures.

(photo credit)

• Cuuuuute:

Penny: “I like being off alone like this.”

Lucky: “You’re not alone. You’re with me.”

Penny: “Then I like being off alone with you.”

• Lucky’s face when he accidentally finds himself in an embrace with Penny is purely Astaire and you can fight me on that. There’s so much longing and want in that look. He’s able to get away with it because of the long moment before he has to say anything but even when he does speak, his voice cracks a bit. His gloved hand keeps stroking her forearm.

• Not hard to see some true-to-life parallels in this dialogue and I’ve always felt that the way Astaire said his last line here was as himself, not just him acting.

Penny: “It’s funny how we met, and all that’s happened to us since.”

Lucky: “The way we’ve been sort of thrown together and everything.”

Penny: “As if it were all meant to happen.”

Lucky: “It’s quite an experience.”

• Like I’ve said before, no way the actors and creative team didn’t know exactly how much they were trolling audiences by having lyrics like “a fine romance with no kisses” in Astaire and Rogers’ SIXTH. FILM. together where they still haven’t kissed romantically on screen.

And in fact there will be at least two thwarted kisses in this sequence alone.

• “A Fine Romance” is quite scandalous when you pay attention to the lyrics too. Penny says Lucky won’t “nestle” or “wrestle” and she’s “never mussed the crease in [his] blue serge pants.”

Rogers does a really wonderful job throughout. She’s frustrated and disappointed when singing at him and then stewing with hurt feelings when he sings to her.

I’ve always loved how Astaire flatly says “cactus plants” in the lyric “you never give the orchids I send a glance, no you like cactus plants.”

• I always chuckle at the way Penny loudly and awkwardly asks, “HOW DO YA LIKE MY DRESS?” Who hasn’t suddenly gone awkward af in front of their crush?

• In the movie Grease, there’s a part where Rizzo has a hickey from Kenickie. According to Stockard Channing, actor Jeff Conaway insisted on giving her the hickey himself. But just in case you thought maybe Ginger Rogers insisted on leaving her own lipstick imprint on Fred Astaire’s lips, sorry to disappoint. A makeup artist came in and applied it.

• And I adore how they’re both giggling and giddy after the supposed kiss. So much of this movie is about young love or your first real love, those butterflies mixed with terror and anticipation.

• I always thought the club owner said, “Lucky, you’re a mess” after finding Penny and Lucky immediately after their first kiss. But he actually says, “Lucky, you’re on next.” Either way, Lucky’s dazed response of “Am I?” is cute.

• Ok, the “Bojangles of Harlem” number. It’s the only time Astaire did blackface. It’s uncomfortable to watch even though he intended it as a tribute to African-American dancers Bill Robinson and John W. Bubbles. There’s also some very innovative use of 1936 special effects to make it look like Astaire is dancing with three of his shadows. Largely because of this, choreographer Hermes Pan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Dance Direction.

He lost but won an Oscar in the same category the next year, the final time that category was awarded, for a routine in Astaire’s only 1930s film without Ginger Rogers, A Damsel in Distress.

• If Lucky had just let Margaret say her piece, he would’ve known that he’s actually not beholden to her anymore. But then we wouldn’t have one of the greatest dances ever put to film.

• In all fairness on the kissing front, Lucky’s well timed entrance does prevent Romero and Penny’s kiss from appearing on screen.

• A heartbreaking exchange where they never break eye contact:

Penny: “Does she dance very beautifully?”

Lucky: “Who?”

Penny: “The girl you’re in love with.”

Lucky, meaningfully: “Yes. Very.”

Penny, after a beat: “The girl you’re engaged to. The girl you’re going to marry.”

Lucky: “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve danced with you. I’m never going to dance again.”

• “Never Gonna Dance” is distinguished from the other songs in this film’s world because it’s not something that is also used in the dance studio or played by Romero’s band. Instead, it includes elements specific to these characters. The line “the la belle, la perfectly swell romance” recalls Penny’s line earlier in the gazebo. The reference to “dinner clothes” harkens back to Penny and Lucky’s first day together. The repeated use of the word “penny,” transforms in its final iteration to being her name when Lucky sings, “Though I’m left without my Penny.” The whole song is Lucky’s elaboration on his line above. Nothing matters now, not his clothes or money or dancing. All he’s going to do is love her.

• The music of the dance and many of the moves are pulled from previous songs and dance numbers. A fittingly mournful version of “The Way You Look Tonight” plays as they walk together, which is also how Lucky began his dance lesson with Penny. Later, “Waltz in Swing Time” trumpets in to propel them into that same three steps move again but as euphoric as they were in that previous dance, now he is almost desperate and she is slowly letting him go. “Never Gonna Dance” is a compilation of their entire romance from start to heartbreaking finish and it’s a truly stunning duet. I know “Cheek to Cheek” gets a lot of hype, and it’s deserved, but “Never Gonna Dance” is something extra special and is certainly tied with “Waltz in Swing Time” as the best Astaire and Rogers duet in my book.

In keeping with how much Swing Time breaks the tradition of Astaire/Rogers films, “Never Gonna Dance” is the duet where Astaire is trying to woo Rogers’ character, something we typically see earlier in the film but was never needed here. It’s also very tragic, something we almost never see in Astaire/Rogers films. Even “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” had a hopeful tone.

• Their expressions in this number are especially poignant. He is imploring her to stay while she is gazing at him as though drinking him all in because she knows this will be the last time they’re together. While he is concentrating on pouring everything into the dance, she is memorizing every detail of this last dance with him, even watching him when he can’t see her. I know I talk a lot about Rogers’ acting ability during these dances but it never stops being worth mentioning. No other partner of Astaire’s got it the way Ginger Rogers did.

• Thank god they cut this dance into two pieces so that they only had to perform this last bit again and again by itself, rather than having to start from the very beginning each time.

After two films that included “issues” with her dresses, Rogers this time has an issue with her shoes. Or rather, they did so many freaking takes (47ish) that she bled into them. And supposedly she didn’t complain at all because she was just as committed to getting the dance right.

She does the majority of the tough work in this final piece too. Not only is she spinning quickly and frequently, in the final spin she has to move towards where he waits, rather than him coming to meet her.

Some credit to the level of trust they’d built though, Astaire’s arm is always ready well in advance of when she will spin into him.

• Even as the duet is ending, Astaire keeps his face longing and hopeful. Lucky has done everything to win her back and as they move towards the door he thinks he may still have a chance. But in their last embrace where he holds her tightly to him, she tellingly doesn’t return the gesture and leaves both of her arms raised. When she exits, he grimaces as though his heart has truly been broken.

• The ridiculous overacting when they’re all laughing is 🙄🙄🙄. Did the Joker unleash some laughing gas?? The silliness of this ending takes away from the rest of a truly excellent film.

It also reminds me of the silliness of the beginning. If I had to guess, the writers probably had a great middle and no clue to how start or end things. At least, it feels that way.

• I do like how she sings a reprise of “The Way You Look Tonight” about him while he sings a reprise of “A Fine Romance.” And they go in for another kiss, pause, then embrace with his back to the camera because GOD FORBID we see a single dang kiss between these two!

Though I am left wondering just what Astaire and Rogers were doing in the final embrace because their faces do seem awfully close together...

• Swing Time is probably the last exceptional Astaire/Rogers film. Everything after this doesn’t quite measure up except in a few specific instances. That said, I do enjoy many parts of Shall We Dance, which is next.

#fred astaire #ginger rogers #swing time #classic hollywood #old hollywood #fred and ginger #astaire and rogers rewatch #all astaire/rogers gifs without credit are mine

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electric-marrow · 4 years

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mouth dreams review but it was typed live while i was listening to it and completely unedited

under the cut because it’s 1800+ words. also, swearing. actual review to come soon!!

mouth dreams' first track is ephemeral and beautiful, spine-chilling and moving. it rocks you into this world in a beautiful passageway, like the entrance to sakaar, and the moment it peaks over into the twilight opening you are almost on the verge of tears.

and then we will rock you kicks in.

/and then the spongebob squarepants opening theme kicks in/.

and then the two motherfucking /sync/.

a beautiful piece of childhood, worked over another. beautiful guitar overlaid with beautiful chanting almost powerful.

the next song uses extensive sentence mixing, but is cut so smoothly that we are convinced Cash is offering up an absurd, painstakingly honest tale. "it's probably a good train." fuck, fuck, yes, it probably is. "my mama was my train." fuck, she was...

the instrumentals are soul-rising, and the "baby, baby, baby" undercurrent is eargasmic. everything about it feels like you're listening to your dying mentor's backstory.

it moves you, and you keep moving. this whole album keeps you in constant motion, as if you yourself have some falling to do.

and then he says "i shit my pants". and you realise, this is it, this is NEIL'S ALBUM, oh, how foolish you were for forgetting.

HELL YES IT'S FUCKING PSYCHO KILLER. let me pause the review of that song, fuck yes.

a heavily sentence-mixed "pyscho killer" focusing on david byrne's bed, overlaid atop the iconic instrumentals of super freak.

this makes the talking heads classic seem like an upbeat song you might hear on the radio. it's much less somber, more passionate.

neil's humor pokes through visibly, shining like a beacon of light that brings a smile to your tear-stained face.

there's no room to breathe on this album; the songs come running together in the most gorgeous of ways. holy shit, am i only twelve minutes in? i think i might sob.

this one is unfamiliar at first—i only saw the partridge family once or twice as a kid. the remixing is smooth, so that it sounds natural.

so natural that when it starts to sound unnatural, it's a terrifying work of art that made me shake. a plea with you to be happy, almost a demand, like they're outside your windows.

the music starts to dance from ear to ear, and it's almost masterful in the horror it invokes.

and then there's scatting. or, what sounds like it.

and then you realise it's the chili's babyback ribs ad. it's soulful, placed atop everybody wants to rule the world in smooth ease.

that's when marilyn manson starts shrieking. the roughness, the rasp, smacking against that smooth drawl. it's a beautiful juxtaposition.

oh, and then the lion sleeps tonight is there. somehow, it fits. you start to revel in neil's genius. no one will ever be able to achieve this again, not in the same way. this is the beacon that you needed in these dark times.

you wonder if you'll cry the next time you hear this.

it's a pretty effective ad, actually. if marilyn manson advertised everything, i might buy it.

the next song makes you jump to attention. the track teased in the trailer, with its jumping guitar and its congested vocals. this sounds almost natural, like an authentic goth song.

of course, he has to say "mouth". aerosmith and green day and, most importantly, neil cicierega, combining to create a mouthy ballad that echoes through you.

—oh, goddamnit, green day. september 30th. neil woke up when september ended. fuck. dammit. is that insensitive? maybe. shit.

i'm not well-versed with music, so these songs were both pretty alien. however, their mixing is masterful, and the removal of the singer's objections to his situations form a sweet little ballad.

my own worst enemy. this one is familiar, and it makes heads turn as you realise what music is slowly remixed.

a rocking tribute to sleeping with your clothes on. short, sweet, rockin' and rollin' as hard as it can.

the segue is beautiful, like it's natural.

the lyrics make your chest heave, and the sound itself is heavily distorted to a dreamy state, as if you are as drunk as the singer sounds. anything can be amore, you realise.

the distortion is noticeable without ruining the track, and neil has gotten significantly better.

it ends a little more nightmarishly, and makes you feel very real. very in your skin. fuck yeah, neil.

the following "stop" is even more jarring, and it's almost welcome.

and then, stacy's mom. i think the instrumentals are where is my mind, i don't know. but it /works/, and it fits together, with stacy's mom slowed down considerably but not so that it ruins the track. the pitch is shifted properly so that it becomes an angry slow ballad about stacy's mom. rife with heartbreak.

and then it stops, breaks off into a cry for "mom" that might awaken buried maternal issues in the listener. maybe just me, though.

here comes fred durst. it gets the "wow wow" treatment, and its nookie theme becomes sweet, bouncing around with innocent sentimentality. i thought i heard seinfeld around there somewhere.

this is a good point in the album to close your eyes and really hear the album, to feel what ou are truly experiencing. it can move by too fast if you're not paying attention. listen to that iconic sledgehammer guitar. listen to—mario?

fuck. fuck. fuck.

fucking christ. not the fucking ewok celebration.

almost nonsensical lyrics play over the nookie instrumental (reversing the last track's roles), and the combination is natural and rowdy. you slowly realise what those ewoks reflected in neil's glasses /mean/, and it horrifies you just a little.

god, that's good. fuck you, neil.

jingles? is that—jingles?

a moment of confusion. and then, THX.

the iconic, crawling note, invading your ears and then slowly fading out. "she drives me crazy" is playing, and the THX sound is its backing track.

only neil.

it gets better as it goes on, from a joking track to a genuinely orchestral sensation. it's good music. it's beautiful. it feels like an action movie soundtrack, as the hero discovers a massive secret.

maybe you are dreaming.

the next sound sample is jarring. the announcement. the outsiders cast. and then more, and then more. it feels like a list of gods left in a dying world. johnny.

and then there is johnny cash.

and then it isn't.

what neil plays is heartbreaking. it feels like your world is crashing down around you. it's a betrayal that could bring anyone to their knees. the booing played behind it is appropriate.

but he builds that world right back up, with soft, strumming guitar. it's forgiveness and vitriol all rolled into one.

actually, you can forgive him for the next track. yes. fireflies. let's fucking go. closer overlaid with fireflies. yes. hell yes.

it's like a gift, a peace offering.

the nostalgic, upbeat lyrics, feel deeper atop the warbling, warped backing track. it's like owl city's song about dreaming feels like it could be a teenage angst anthem.

it's art.

the plucked guitar fades out, and the lyrics start to distort. everything fades away...

nevermind, time for billy joel.

the shrieking, screaming, rasping lyrics of nightmare are mixed atop the bouncing piano music, so the song lays halfway between an upbeat piece of joy, and a warning.

it ain't over yet.

xylophone. why is there xylophone?

the iconic "powerhouse" track serves as our instrumentals, the classic sound one from our childhood as the droning sound of jack white forms a buzzing piece of heartbreak. only neil, right?

only neil.

the "War" sample is iconic, and it makes you jump.

the "Wannabe" sample will make you writhe.

iconic, jamming guitar, and also wario. the spice girls, and also wario. yes. yes. this is it.

the following laughter brings back your childhood. elfman's work on the peewee soundtrack, peripatetic in nature, running up and down your ears as gorillaz croons a bittersweet sound. it becomes almost triumphant against the instrumental, re-energized like the monster in frankenstein's lab.

peewee is laughing. maybe we should laugh too.

the next one up is soft, plucked note by note, until alanis morisette goes completely off the deep end. the spoons, alanis.

holy shit, is that knight rider?

this mashup is classic, expertly remixed without a single hitch. it's neil at his finest, neil at his neiliest, alanis' quiet "Don't you think?" almost smug.

the sound of rain, followed by the crooning iconic "raiiiiin" is enough to make you break down. this is a blessing from an unknowable god.

two backstreet boys lines run up against each other, forming a surrounding sound that envelopes you in shaking guitar until the distorted sound in the back becomes noticeable.

there it is. there's the song you were waiting for.

your savior has arrived, and it is in a horrible form. it rises from the tomb in an unholy abomination. you fall to your knees.

"wake up."

i can't. i'm trapped here. i can feel every single one of my vertebra. i'm crying.

and then beethoven and britney make a duet.

"hit me baby one more time" runs along iconic dashing violin.

you start to hear it, and then it's there even more.

the hall of the mountain king, slowly building, the suspense enough to bring you to the edge of your seat. weezer's lyrics are pronounced like an oracle's prophecy, sardonic and yet grim, delivered with its iconic "say it ain't so" almost ironic.

then the crescendo hits, and the singing feels like it's declaring your fate. it rocks you, and never lets you still.

...and then there is the dial-up. you're staring at neil's face, and you realise the title itself has a secret. the starred letters spelled out "nice modem."

the screeching dial-up sound, and then nothing. you're sitting in the silence, with this quiet revelation.

he's carried you through the greatest adventure of your life, and then left you in the nothingness, tearing away a world that could only be imagined in the dreams of a 90s kid raised on the internet.

it's heartbreaking, but it mends every single tear of that vital organ. it's alright. neil's got you. this is his gift, this is his message.

he shares this dream with us, because it's the only piece of hope we can hold onto. someone else's dream, forged on childhood memories and ambition, woven together with years of experience until it culminates into an hour-long album of cultural mashup and musical blasphemy.

it brings tears to my eyes, and then wipes them off. it wants you to feel, it wants you to bleed, and then it wants you to heal. rejoice, says mouth dreams. rejoice. rejoice in what the world has given you.

you're going to be alright.

definitely, like, a solid 9/10. pretty good album. i think my favorite track was either brithoven or superkiller, tell me what yours was in the replies!

i can see new colors.

#neil cicierega #frankie muses #mouth dreams #it was...an experience.

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bananaofswifts · 4 years

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With a little help from the National's Aaron Dessner, Taylor Swift may have just released the best album of 2020

Rating: 5 Stars

Taylor Swift has had high profile disputes with several of her peers — and her beef with Kanye West goes back years. The troubled rapper — an unlikely candidate for the US Presidency — was rumoured to release a new album this weekend. It hasn’t arrived. Was stealing West’s thunder what prompted Swift to release this surprise eighth album now?

Admitting to overthinking when the optimum time to release music is, she says the pandemic inspired her to be more spontaneous. Whatever the reason, Folklore is a remarkable statement of intent – a sprawling, 16-track collection that makes a good case for itself as the best Taylor Swift album to date.

It was apparently written and recorded during lockdown and it finds the Pennsylvania native collaborating with a host of America’s left-field and indie talents. Aaron Dessner, guitarist with The National — a band beloved among Irish audiences — has co-written several of the songs and is credited as co-producer. He’s an inspired choice, as anyone who has heard his production work on Lisa Hannigan’s most recent album will attest to.

She also retains the services of Jack Antonoff as writer and producer. He’s someone who has helped her straddle the line between global superstar with mass appeal and a damn good singer-songwriter keen to salvage her identity from the altar of pop homogeneity, not least on her last album, Lover, which came out less than a year ago.

The first syllable of Folklore hints at Swift’s new direction. At turns meditative, whimsical and pastoral, these songs are worlds away from the glittering pop that has marked her narrative since her 2012 album Red. These are folk songs with a light pop dusting and a mature suite to compliment her 2015 masterpiece, 1989, which was given a track-by-track alt-country reinterpretation by Ryan Adams that same year.

There’s very little of the bombastic arrangements that have characterised her oeuvre in recent times. Instead, the music is pared back – much of it built around piano and subtly textured electronica. Her voice, always a gloriously expressive instrument, is given room to shine and it does so from the start.

The opening four songs represent the best 15 minutes or so of any album released in 2020. There’s the beautiful, stately ‘The 1’ which looks back on an old relationship and seeks to celebrate what made it special rather than what drove the lovers apart.

On the piano-led ‘Cardigan’, she sounds uncannily like Lana Del Rey – no bad thing. ‘The Last Great American Dynasty’ is one of several songs that finds her in storytelling mode, imagining the lives of others — on this occasion, the trials and tribulations of an heiress called Rebekah West Harkness, whose old Rhode Island mansion Swift purchased some years ago.

The fourth track, Exile, is among the best songs of her career — a gorgeous duet with Wisconsin troubadour Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver. Vernon, incidentally, has previously collaborated with Kanye West, but this is a union that yields better results.

Throughout Folklore Swift relies on the songwriting smarts of herself and her collaborators, rather than studio pyrotechnics. And yet, the album is sumptuously recorded — listen to the sonic perfection of the tracks ‘Mirrorball’ and ‘Seven’ which demonstrate that even during a time of social distancing, technology is such that remote collaboration does not have to mean diminished quality.

Swift has the standing and means to call on whomever she chooses, but the guests here are picked for their musical talents rather than their name. Besides Dessner, Antonoff and Vernon, The National’s Bryce Dessner (Aaron’s brother) and Bryan Devendorf appear, as does Thomas Bartlett, the prolific pianist and one-fifth of Irish trad supergroup the Gloaming.

Such august company help to ensure the high standards, but Swift is front and centre of everything. Perhaps it’s time for those who have dismissed her as just another production-line singer to realise what many already know: she’s not just one of the greatest pop stars of her generation, she’s one of the finest tunesmiths too.

At 30, and with a substantial body of work already behind her, Folklore is Swift telling the world in no uncertain terms that she will be around for a long time to come. And good on her.

#taylor swift #review #folklore

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queerchoicesblog · 4 years

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The Thiasus

So, folks, let's start the wlw miniseries writing project!

As announced, the first series to be posted is the Ancient Greece one suggested by @jackievarma , others will soon follow. I decided to name the first bit The Thiasus as it takes place on Lesbos at the famous Sappho's thiasus where rich girls were sent to be educated before their wedding.

Since this is the first fic of this miniseries project, I will just share one thing, so that you can choose whether my approach suits you or not. After much consideration, I decided not to omit from the stories potentially uncomfortable issues. I will add a trigger alert if need be but especially writing about women through the centuries, I'd consider a distortion of truth cutting off for instance homophobia, transphobia, forced marriages, and other unpleasantries like these. They won't be the main topic of my works but sadly they are part of what women had - and still as in a way- to go through so, no matter how tough adding it to the romances is for me, banishing them from these stories would have sounded like spreading a lovely lie, which in the end is simply a lie. Not sure they will recur systematically but if you find it in any of my stories, you know why.

Also, I absolutely hate when writers make poor wlw suffer or die, depriving them of the happy ending we all dreamed of. However, I am the worst at writing happy endings but I'll try. Don't be mad at me if sometimes you won't find one: happy endings aren't and weren't always feasible. But a sad ending is not necessarily mean or homophobic or so I think.

Apologies for the long talk, hope you enjoy it! The next part will be out on Saturday

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When I joined the thiasus, I was young, a pretty little flower yet to blossom. The first born of a merchant hoping to score a good match and wedding for her daughter. I didn't know what to expect: Sappho's community was well renewed and respected all over Greece, but I knew little about it. All I knew was that it was a school where young girls like me could learn all they needed to learn to be the good wives of powerful men one day. I didn't mind being around girls -if they weren't as annoying as my sisters- but it didn't sound too exciting: we were expected to learn how to properly behave and please, how to sing, play instruments and dance to appeal the Gods and our betrothed. It wasn't entirely correct. Yes, of course, we learned all those things there and refined our grace: from raw childish material we blossomed into gracious young women thanks to Sappho's teachings. But we also learned something more invaluable...eternal, I'd say.

One of the first classes I had there was a few days after my arrival. We were sitting in a circle near an altar in the green, the murmur of the waves crushing against the rocky cliffs echoing in the distance. Our teacher kept quiet for a while, her eyes wandering, taking in each one of us. Then, out of the blue, she asked us what the best thing in the world is. What do you value most in this world?, she inquired. What would you say? Silence fell in our group before someone said "the favour of the Gods" and another "power". A girl sitting next to me exclaimed "a fair husband" while I humbly suggested "happiness". What should we all seek in this life if not happiness? Sappho pondered our words then smiled. When she spoke again, she recited lines that went straight to my heart like an arrow: Some celebrate the beautyof knights, or infantry, or billowing flotillasat battle on the sea.Warfare has its glory, but I place far abovethese military splendorsthe one thing that you love.For proof of this contentionexamine history: we all remember Helen, who left her family, her child, and royal husband, to take a stranger's hand: her beauty had no equal, but bowed to love's command.As love then is the powerthat none can disobey, so too my thoughts must followmy darling far away: the sparkle of her laughterwould give me greater joythan all the bronze-clad heroes I spent the rest of the day repeating those words in my head and wondering who was "her darling far away" whose laughter was a memory so dear to win over glorious heroes. I also wondered if I would ever feel anything close to that: a tender smile still lingered on my teacher's lips at the thought of her. It must be nice, I thought. I've always been a good singer: when I was still at my parents's house I would shock my poor mother and nana saying that I wanted to be a singer, to sing for the passerby in the streets. Nana would comment harshly that it wasn't an honourable occupation for a girl. "Not a respected girl, at least" she chastised me, giving me an assessing look. Mother would agree and suggest that I could always sing for my husband and our guests one day, if my betrothed agreed. Funny enough, it's what happened: I'm an honorouble woman who delights my husband's guest with the finest melodies and hymns. I gave up my dream of singing and dancing free in the streets. But I wasn't surprised to excel in singing at the thiasus. It was not out of hubris, I was just aware of my skills and I basked in my teacher's appraisal. I was so excited when she offered me to perform a duet with another student for the upcoming celebrations. Generally, only older students were allowed to perform on such occasions but she believed I had a special gift and I would have done just fine. What better way to thank the Gods for the talent I received from them? I studied my part eagerly and when I was ready I came back to her and she introduced me to my partner. A girl slightly older than me was sitting with her, her raven curls dancing in the salty breeze from the sea. She graciously stood as Sappho explained the reason of my presence there and told my name, singing my praises. The girl smiled at me and I blushed a little in the sunlight. She noticed and looked back at our teacher, smiling to herself. Or refraining herself from giggling in front of Sappho. "And this, my sweet Athenian, is Kleanthis" our teacher announced with pride. Kleanthis. I repeated her name in my head and it filled me like the perfume of a sweet flower. Kleanthis came from a nearby island, Samos, and was one of the most brilliant student. By the way Sappho talked of her, I got the impression she was destined to follow our teacher's path one day. I was right but I couldn't possibly know it back then. When the pleasantries were over and we were left alone to rehearse before the celebrations, Kleanthis collected her lyre and guided me towards a beach nearby. Once there, she gently strummed her instrument and looked at me over her shoulder. "Let me hear what you've got, Athenian" The first lines were hers: her voice was like a siren's song but not as harmful. She swayed with the music and I had to concentrate not to miss my part just after hers. I had never seen someone like her: as she performed, she transformed herself, her whole body, not just her voice was participating and praising the goddess. She looked nothing short than a terrestrial manifestation of the Graces. Maybe she was one of them, I remember thinking: after all, the Gods visit our world under disguise. We repeated our parts over and over and stopped only when the sun was about to go down into the sea. She wiped away the sweat from her forehead and smirked, handing me her lyre. "Not bad, Athenian. How long you said you've been here?" Then she walked towards the sea and washes her hands into the sea, her face. When she moved back and asked me to follow her, I was mesmerised by the way the last rays of sun sparkled on her wet skin. That night we performed by the altar and it was...magical. Our voices fused together as if they had always meant to be, as if we were the two souls separated by the Gods and destined to meet again. Our hymn to Hera reached the sky and the hearts of our audience. I was ecstatic: the thrill of the performance still running in my veins, the lights of the torches and the moonlight dancing around me, the admiration of the people surrounding me. I felt as if my heart could burst for too much happiness all at once. I went looking for Kleanthis after the celebrations. I wanted to congratulate her and share with her the whirl of feelings inside me. I found her near the woods, away from the crowd. The first thing I noticed was that...she wasn't alone. A few girls were around her, chatting and whispering words I couldn't hear into each other ears. Kleanthis was laughing: one of the girls wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek making her laugh. A melodious sweet laughter. A knot formed in my stomach and I ran away before they could spotted me. I ran to my bed: my cheeks were crimson when I stopped. I laid down and hugged my knees as I used to do when I was a kid and needed reassurance. Kleanthis's laughter rang in my head again and I started crying. I had no idea why but tears ran copiously down my cheeks.

#original work #wlw writing project #wlw writing #wlw miniseries #ancient greece #lgbtqa+

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