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twocubes · 4 years

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Wow, that apple pi is great. Who is John Galt?

A Spectre is haunting multinational capitalism--the spectre of free information. All the powers of ``globalism'' have entered into an unholy alliance to exorcize this spectre: Microsoft and Disney, the World Trade Organization, the United States Congress and the European Commission.

Where are the advocates of freedom in the new digital society who have not been decried as pirates, anarchists, communists? Have we not seen that many of those hurling the epithets were merely thieves in power, whose talk of ``intellectual property'' was nothing more than an attempt to retain unjustifiable privileges in a society irrevocably changing? But it is acknowledged by all the Powers of Globalism that the movement for freedom is itself a Power, and it is high time that we should publish our views in the face of the whole world, to meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Free Information with a Manifesto of our own.

Owners and Creators

Throughout the world the movement for free information announces the arrival of a new social structure, born of the transformation of bourgeois industrial society by the digital technology of its own invention.

The history of all hitherto existing societies reveals a history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, bourgeois and proletarian, imperialist and subaltern, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that has often ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

The industrial society that sprouted from the worldwide expansion of European power ushering in modernity did not do away with class antagonisms. It but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. But the epoch of the bourgeoisie simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole seemed divided into two great hostile camps, into two great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

But revolution did not by and large occur, and the ``dictatorship of the proletariat,'' where it arose or claimed to arise, proved incapable of instituting freedom. Instead, capitalism was enabled by technology to secure for itself a measure of consent. The modern laborer in the advanced societies rose with the progress of industry, rather than sinking deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. Pauperism did not develop more rapidly than population and wealth. Rationalized industry in the Fordist style turned industrial workers not into a pauperized proletariat, but rather into mass consumers of mass production. Civilizing the proletariat became part of the self-protective program of the bourgeoisie.

In this way, universal education and an end to the industrial exploitation of children became no longer the despised program of the proletarian revolutionary, but the standard of bourgeois social morality. With universal education, workers became literate in the media that could stimulate them to additional consumption. The development of sound recording, telephony, moving pictures, and radio and television broadcasting changed the workers' relationship to bourgeois culture, even as it profoundly altered the culture itself.

Music, for example, throughout previous human history was an acutely perishable non-commodity, a social process, occurring in a place and at a time, consumed where it was made, by people who were indistinctly differentiated as consumers and as makers. After the adoption of recording, music was a non-persishable commodity that could be moved long distances and was necessarily alienated from those who made it. Music became, as an article of consumption, an opportunity for its new ``owners'' to direct additional consumption, to create wants on the part of the new mass consuming class, and to drive its demand in directions profitable to ownership. So too with the entirely new medium of the moving picture, which within decades reoriented the nature of human cognition, capturing a substantial fraction of every worker's day for the reception of messages ordering additional consumption. Tens of thousands of such advertisements passed before the eyes of each child every year, reducing to a new form of serfdom the children liberated from tending a productive machine: they were now compulsorily enlisted in tending the machinery of consumption.

Thus the conditions of bourgeois society were made less narrow, better able to comprise the wealth created by them. Thus was cured the absurd epidemic of recurrent over-production. No longer was there too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.

But the bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air.

With the adoption of digital technology, the system of mass consumer production supported by mass consumer culture gave birth to new social conditions out of which a new structure of class antagonism precipitates.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt its culture and its principles of intellectual ownership; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. But the very instruments of its communication and acculturation establish the modes of resistance which are turned against itself.

Digital technology transforms the bourgeois economy. The dominant goods in the system of production--the articles of cultural consumption that are both commodities sold and instructions to the worker on what and how to buy--along with all other forms of culture and knowledge now have zero marginal cost. Anyone and everyone may have the benefit of all works of culture: music, art, literature, technical information, science, and every other form of knowledge. Barriers of social inequality and geographic isolation dissolve. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of people. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual people become common property. Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer's apprentice, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.

With this change, man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. Society confronts the simple fact that when everyone can possess every intellectual work of beauty and utility--reaping all the human value of every increase of knowledge--at the same cost that any one person can possess them, it is no longer moral to exclude. If Rome possessed the power to feed everyone amply at no greater cost than that of Caesar's own table, the people would sweep Caesar violently away if anyone were left to starve. But the bourgeois system of ownership demands that knowledge and culture be rationed by the ability to pay. Alternative traditional forms, made newly viable by the technology of interconnection, comprising voluntary associations of those who create and those who support, must be forced into unequal competition with ownership's overwhelmingly powerful systems of mass communication. Those systems of mass communication are in turn based on the appropriation of the people's common rights in the electromagnetic spectrum. Throughout the digital society the classes of knowledge workers--artists, musicians, writers, students, technologists and others trying to gain in their conditions of life by copying and modifying information--are radicalized by the conflict between what they know is possible and what the ideology of the bourgeois compels them to accept. Out of that discordance arises the consciousness of a new class, and with its rise to self-consciousness the fall of ownership begins.

The advance of digital society, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the creators, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. Creators of knowledge, technology, and culture discover that they no longer require the structure of production based on ownership and the structure of distribution based on coercion of payment. Association, and its anarchist model of propertyless production, makes possible the creation of free software, through which creators gain control of the technology of further production.[1] The network itself, freed of the control of broadcasters and other bandwidth owners, becomes the locus of a new system of distribution, based on association among peers without hierarchical control, which replaces the coercive system of distribution for all music, video, and other soft goods. Universities, libraries, and related institutions become allies of the new class, interpreting their historic role as distributors of knowledge to require them to offer increasingly complete access to the knowledge in their stewardship to all people, freely. The liberation of information from the control of ownership liberates the worker from his imposed role as custodian of the machine. Free information allows the worker to invest her time not in the consumption of bourgeois culture, with its increasingly urgent invitations to sterile consumption, but in the cultivation of her mind and her skills. Increasingly aware of her powers of creation, she ceases to be a passive participant in the systems of production and consumption in which bourgeois society entrapped her.

But the bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ``natural superiors,'' and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ``cash payment.'' It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value. And in place of the numberless and feasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom--Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

Against the forthcoming profound liberation of the working classes, whose access to knowledge and information power now transcends their previous narrow role as consumers of mass culture, the system of bourgeois ownership therefore necessarily contends to its very last. With its preferred instrument of Free Trade, ownership attempts to bring about the very crisis of over-production it once feared. Desperate to entrap the creators in their role as waged consumers, bourgeois ownership attempts to turn material deprivation in some parts of the globe into a source of cheap goods with which to bribe back into cultural passivity not the barbarians, but its own most prized possession--the educated technological laborers of the most advanced societies.

At this stage the workers and creators still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole globe, and remain broken up by their mutual competition. Now and then the creators are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry and that place the workers and creators of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern knowledge workers, thanks to the network, achieve in a few years.

Freedom and Creation

Not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons--the digital working class--the creators. Possessed of skills and knowledges that create both social and exchange value, resisting reduction to the status of commodity, capable collectively of producing all the technologies of freedom, such workmen cannot be reduced to appendages of the machine. Where once bonds of ignorance and geographical isolation tied the proletarian to the industrial army in which he formed an indistinguishable and disposable component, creators collectively wielding control over the network of human communications retain their individuality, and offer the value of their intellectual labor through a variety of arrangements more favorable to their welfare, and to their freedom, than the system of bourgeois ownership ever conceded them.

But in precise proportion to the success of the creators in establishing the genuinely free economy, the bourgeoisie must reinforce the structure of coercive production and distribution concealed within its supposed preference for ``free markets'' and ``free trade.'' Though ultimately prepared to defend by force arrangements that depend on force, however masked, the bourgeoisie at first attempts the reimposition of coercion through its preferred instrument of compulsion, the institutions of its law. Like the ancien régime in France, which believed that feudal property could be maintained by conservative force of law despite the modernization of society, the owners of bourgeois culture expect their law of property to provide a magic bulwark against the forces they have themselves released.

At a certain stage in the development of the means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. But ``free competition'' was never more than an aspiration of bourgeois society, which constantly experienced the capitalists' intrinsic preference for monopoly. Bourgeois property exemplified the concept of monopoly, denying at the level of practical arrangements the dogma of freedom bourgeois law inconsistently proclaimed. As, in the new digital society, creators establish genuinely free forms of economic activity, the dogma of bourgeois property comes into active conflict with the dogma of bourgeois freedom. Protecting the ownership of ideas requires the suppression of free technology, which means the suppression of free speech. The power of the State is employed to prohibit free creation. Scientists, artists, engineers and students are prevented from creating or sharing knowledge, on the ground that their ideas imperil the owners' property in the system of cultural production and distribution. It is in the courts of the owners that the creators find their class identity most clearly, and it is there, accordingly, that the conflict begins.

But the law of bourgeois property is not a magic amulet against the consequences of bourgeois technology: the broom of the sorcerer's apprentice will keep sweeping, and the water continues to rise. It is in the domain of technology that the defeat of ownership finally occurs, as the new modes of production and distribution burst the fetters of the outmoded law.

All the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. Knowledge workers cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. Theirs is the revolutionary dedication to freedom: to the abolition of the ownership of ideas, to the free circulation of knowledge, and the restoration of culture as the symbolic commons that all human beings share.

To the owners of culture, we say: You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property in ideas. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population. What they create is immediately appropriated by their employers, who claim the fruit of their intellect through the law of patent, copyright, trade secret and other forms of ``intellectual property.'' Their birthright in the electromagnetic spectrum, which can allow all people to communicate with and learn from one another, freely, at almost inexhaustible capacity for nominal cost, has been taken from them by the bourgeoisie, and is returned to them as articles of consumption--broadcast culture, and telecommunications services--for which they pay dearly. Their creativity finds no outlet: their music, their art, their storytelling is drowned out by the commodities of capitalist culture, amplified by all the power of the oligopoly of ``broadcasting,'' before which they are supposed to remain passive, consuming rather than creating. In short, the property you lament is the proceeds of theft: its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of everyone else. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any such property for the immense majority of society.

It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property in ideas and culture all creative work will cease, for lack of ``incentive,'' and universal laziness will overtake us.

According to this, there ought to have been no music, art, technology, or learning before the advent of the bourgeoisie, which alone conceived of subjecting the entirety of knowledge and culture to the cash nexus. Faced with the advent of free production and free technology, with free software, and with the resulting development of free distribution technology, this argument simply denies the visible and unanswerable facts. Fact is subordinated to dogma, in which the arrangements that briefly characterized intellectual production and cultural distribution during the short heyday of the bourgeoisie are said, despite the evidence of both past and present, to be the only structures possible.

Thus we say to the owners: The misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property--historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production--this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property.

Our theoretical conclusions are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes.

When people speak of ideas that revolutionise society, they do but express the fact, that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.

We, the creators of the free information society, mean to wrest from the bourgeoisie, by degrees, the shared patrimony of humankind. We intend the resumption of the cultural inheritance stolen from us under the guise of ``intellectual property,'' as well as the medium of electromagnetic transportation. We are committed to the struggle for free speech, free knowledge, and free technology. The measures by which we advance that struggle will of course be different in different countries, but the following will be pretty generally applicable:

Abolition of all forms of private property in ideas.

Withdrawal of all exclusive licenses, privileges and rights to use of electromagnetic spectrum. Nullification of all conveyances of permanent title to electromagnetic frequencies.

Development of electromagnetic spectrum infrastructure that implements every person's equal right to communicate.

Common social development of computer programs and all other forms of software, including genetic information, as public goods.

Full respect for freedom of speech, including all forms of technical speech.

Protection for the integrity of creative works.

Free and equal access to all publicly-produced information and all educational material used in all branches of the public education system.

By these and other means, we commit ourselves to the revolution that liberates the human mind. In overthrowing the system of private property in ideas, we bring into existence a truly just society, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

— Eben Moglen, January 2003, The dotCommunist Manifesto

#Anonymous

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abutterflyscribbles · 5 years

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@magic-and-moonlit-wings @tough-girl9 a prologue of sorts

“Slimy little weasel!”

“What was that, son?”

Bog fumbled with the diary he had been engrossed in. He had not noticed his mother returning from lunch. Restraining himself from shoving the book hastily out of sight, Bog placed the diary back on its shelf and removed the gloves he had been wearing to handle it.

“Nothing, mom!” Bog called back.

He flipped open a random catalog to make it look like he had been working. Just in time, too. His mother stuck her head around the corner, all frizzy red hair and cheerful grin. “Been back here all day? You should come out front and help the customers I brought with me. I met them at the cafe. Such lovely young ladies--”

Bog slammed a stack of cheap paperbacks on the counter, adding onto the wall of books he had been building around himself all days. “You know better than I do where we keep the cheap, sleazy romance novels.”

“Romance never hurt anybody, there's no reason to act like it bit you!”

She flounced off to the front of the shop.

Bog shuffled the stacks of books around a little, trying to get himself to start a new task. He didn't want to. He wanted to take the diary back out and read what happened next. The diary's author, an unknown woman from a hundred or so years ago, had just recorded the incident of her fiancé's betrayal. Bog had never wanted to sock anyone so much before.

He hadn't meant to do more than skim a few pages of the diary to try and get a grasp of its age, condition, and possible value. Opening it to a random page he found an ashamed little entry about the writer leaning to fence on the sly. That had intrigued him enough to start reading from the beginning and work his way through the typical girly drivel so common in these sort of things.

The diary had been one in a series, it seemed, and none of the other volumes had been collected with this one. It had been purchased in a grab bag sort of deal where Bog had gotten a crate of random old books at a discount. There had been nothing else of interest or value in the crate and most of it had been bought up by art students or people looking to decorate their homes with a touch of pretension.

Giving up on working, Bog rearranged the book stacks to screen himself from view and settled back into his chair with the diary carefully open on the table in front of him. The writing after the betrayal of the author's fiancé grew darker and was written in bolder strokes than before. The brief mention of her heartache was not referred to again and the author plunged into a series of wild escapades that resulted in impressive scandals. Challenging her ex to a duel, for example. Or helping her sister elope with an unsuitable young man.

Each incident was sketched in a brief but vivid style that revealed very little personal emotion. Somehow Bog sensed her heartache even through the reckless, carefree dash of her pen. Maybe it was because he knew how it was to throw yourself into other things to avoid painful feelings. Maybe he was just projecting. Whatever the case, Bog wished he could have met this mystery writer. Or at least read the diaries that came after this one. This one ended with her notes on preparation to leave her family home and appeal to an aunt to help her take a house in town. The aunt sounded like quite the character. Bog wished he could hear more about her.

Closing the diary and stretching, Bog sighed. A fragment of someone's life, chipped away from the rest, a crystallized moment. He could look at the broken edges of it and imagine what the rest looked like, but he'd never really know. He admired the fragment of life he did know. She'd been shy and ashamed of who she was and when it came to a breaking point she shed all her doubts and fears and emerged bold, fearless, and truly herself. Admirable. Enviable. Bog could never imagine doing the same.

He'd been unlucky in love himself but unlike the author the blame had fallen entirely on him. He has assumed too much, pushed too much, imagined what wasn't there. He had imagined that a face and personality like his were at all lovable. He'd been painfully silly. While the author of the diary had advanced, Bog had retreated. Back into himself, into sullen in the back of the bookshop. Books were complete creatures. They didn't change on you. You couldn't misunderstand them like people.

Bog reread the last few sentences of the diary. Off on an adventure. Forever just setting off on an adventure. Not having the rest of the diaries in a way made it possible for her to forever been on her adventures, proud and free. Heartbreak and death, they couldn't touch her. Yes, truly an enviable thing.

Over the weeks Bog found himself looking at the diary again and again in his spare moments and even in moments he couldn't spare. Trying to picture the woman who fought for freedom in a world made to cage her.

'You asleep back there?” his mother called from the front of the shop.

“No.” Bog grunted from behind his books.

“Then get out here and help this customer, I'm swamped!”

Bog put the diary away and gritted his teeth. Customer service was his least favorite thing in the world. Especially when the customer was a woman and his mother was making encouraging faces in the background. Today was no different. A woman, probably around Bog's own age, but carrying it better, was loitering impatiently by the counter. She had sharp features and fine lines of cynicisms etched lightly around her mouth and eyes.

“Yes?” Bog asked. He was ready to see her disgust at the sight of him.

“Finally!” the woman said, “I tried calling you people all week! Don't you answer the phone?”

“Apparently not.” Bog could have explained their number had changed at their website hadn't been updated yet but he doubted that would have appeased her.

“Whatever,” she pulled a handful of papers out of the pocket of her leather jacket, “I'm looking for a book--”

“No, really?”

“Drop dead. A particular book. An old diary.”

Bog's heart skipped a beat. She couldn't have meant his. “Yeah, we get some coming through here, but we don't usually hang on to them long. Not much interest.”

“I'm the not much interest. Here's pictures of one of the companion diaries. It should be bound the same if the original cover is intact.”

Bog's heart sank. The picture looked like his diary. The photos of handwriting samples were a perfect match too. He made a split second decision and slapped the photos back on the counter. “Never seen it.”

“And you've read every book in this place?” the woman said, unconvinced.

“Close enough to make no difference.” he said firmly.

He wasn't giving up that diary. That little piece of a person he admired and felt almost like a friend to him. He'd bought it, legal and upfront. He'd no obligation to even admit he owned it.

“C'mon, you aren't even going to point me to your reject bin of worthless old books? All the other places at least had the courtesy to do that.”

“I make no claims to courtesy.”

The woman blew a few strands of reddish-brown hair out of her face. “Look, you oversized grump--”

“You look, tough girl with a Napoleon complex--”

“Napoleon wasn't even short!”

“You don't deny that you are?”

“Like you can even tell! You must bang your head every time you forget to duck going through a door. Look. This diary belongs in my family and I've been trying to track it down. Some great-great-great aunt or something. I've gotten most of the others but--”

“Others?”

“Yeah, all the early volumes and most of the later ones after she left home--”

“The later ones? Really?”

“Yeah—wait,” She gave him a measuring glare, “you do have one, don't you?”

Bog shrugged.

The woman, to Bog's astonishment, blushed. “You . . . you didn't read it, did you?”

Bog shrugged again.

The woman looked as if death would be a blessing. Bog was totally confused. She ran her hand through her short hair and cleared her throat, “Uh, which one—what point of her life—oh, fork it over!”

“Fork what over?” Bog asked with a smirk.

“You've got it, I want it! It belongs to me!”

“Ownership is nine tenths of the law, tough girl. If I have it, that is.”

“I'll break your thumbs. I'll pay you. A lot. Whatever you want.”

“Not interested.”

“Why? What good is a moldy old diary full of sentimental trash?”

“I like her.”

“Beg pardon?”

Now Bog found himself blushing. “I mean, the one who wrote it. She's—she was interesting. I like her. Her adventures. I like her adventures. She was obviously someone pretty unique and special and I like having that little glimpse into her life . . .”

The woman was red as a beet. From anger, Bog assumed. “You do have it! And please, she was a silly little idiot. Or—or so family legend has it.”

“She was extraordinary.” Bog insisted.

“Extraordinarily silly!”

“You've got the later volumes, right? Have you even read them? She was brave and steadfast and fought like mad for what she thought was right in a time in history where she was expected to sit down and shut up!”

“I hate you!”

“I'm not so foud of you either, tough girl!”

“Just give me the book! I'm putting together a family history thing and I want it for an exhibit. Yeah. An exhibit.”

“Can I make a copy?”

“No!”

“No deal.”

“What will it take, you cockroach?”

“Let me read the later diaries.”

“What? No way! No chance!”

“No deal.”

“Anything else!”

“Not interested.”

“You—I'll—I'll be back!”

The woman crammed her papers back in her pocket and stormed out of the shop.

Bog, avoiding the eyes of the other customers, stalked back to his desk, oddly flustered. He was angry at himself. He'd run smack into the descendant of the woman in the diary and he hadn't even gotten any contact information about her or the exhibit. Idiot. Some manners might have gone a long way, but no, he had to snap and growl. Idiot.

Bog looked at the diary. “I bet you'd dislike me as much as your grand-niece does, if you two are anything alike.”

#strange magic #spread the lofe #butterfly bog #the bog king #fiery warrior princess #king and queen of the dork forest #prompt #drabble #fanfic #my fanfic #human au

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koparatnewton-blog · 4 years

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Thinking of Buying a Condo Hotel? Here Are 20 Things You Need to Know!

1. What is a condo hotel or condotel?

Think of a condo hotel (also sometimes called a condotel or hotel condo) as buying a condominium, although one that is part of a four-star caliber hotel. Therefore, as an owner, when you are on vacation, you'll get the benefit of more four-star services and amenities than you'd get in a typical condominium.

2. What types of services and amenities are found in condo hotels?

If you can imagine the niceties you'd find in an upscale hotel, then you can picture a condo hotel. Among the features are often resort-style pools, full-service spas, state-of-the-art fitness centers, fine dining restaurants, concierge services and room service. have a peek at this web-site Kopar at Newton

In some locations, like Las Vegas, you'll find condo hotels with their own casinos, retail areas, and entertainment venues. In places like Orlando, you'll find condo hotels with their own water parks and convention facilities.

3. What is the difference between a condo hotel and a traditional condominium?

The big difference between a hotel and a condo hotel is that a hotel typically has one owner, either individual or corporate, but a condo hotel is sold off unit by unit. Therefore, a 300-room condo hotel could have as many as 300 unit owners.

4. Is it evident to hotel guests whether they're staying in a condo hotel or a traditional hotel?

A hotel guest will likely never know that the hotel has multiple owners because the property is operated just like a traditional hotel and often under the management of a well-known hotel company like Hilton, Hyatt, Starwood, Trump or W. Also, each of the individual condo hotel units will look identical in design and décor to every other, just as they would in a traditional hotel.

5. Who typically buys condo hotels?

They're primarily sold to people who want a vacation home but do not want to deal with the hassles typically associated with second home ownership such as maintaining the property or finding renters in the off season.

6. What is the demographic of the typical condo hotel buyer?

The spectrum of condo hotel buyers is pretty broad. There are families that want a second home in a vacation destination. There are baby boomers who are at or nearing retirement and want somewhere they can "winter." There are also plenty of investors who purchase a condo hotel unit with little intention of ever using it; they're in it for the potential appreciation of the real estate.

7. Can you live in a condo hotel?

Condo hotels are not typically offered as primary residences. In fact, many of them limit the unit owner's usage of the condo hotel unit (typically 30-60 days per year) because the unit is expected and needed in the hotel's nightly rental program where it can be offered to guests and generate revenue.

8. Who gets the money when your condo hotel is rented out?

The hotel management company splits the rental revenue with the individual condo hotel owner. While the exact percentages vary from property to property, the typical rental split is in the 50%-50% range.

9. Who finds hotel guests and then cleans and maintains the condo hotel units?

The hotel management company markets the property and books hotel guests. It also maintains the unit and ensures the smooth operation of all of the hotel's services and amenities.

10. What are the advantages / disadvantages of purchasing a condotel over purchasing typical rental properties?

Advantages include:

· Hassle-free ownership; no landlord issues

· Rental revenue to offset some or maybe all ownership expenses

· A fantastic vacation home available for use whenever you want

· A real estate investment at a time when other investments may seem less attractive

· Strong likelihood of appreciation

· Pride of ownership --"I own a piece of a Trump"

Disadvantages include:

· Annual cash flow could be equal to or less than annual ownership costs

· Pets are usually not welcome.

· An owner's condo hotel unit may be rented when the owner wants to it, so advance reservations are required to guarantee availability.

· The condo hotel unit is subject to the same dips in the market that affect all hotels in the competitive market set: hurricanes, terrorist threats, warm winters up north, price of gas, etc., all of which can affect a unit's occupancy rate and the amount of revenue it generates.

11. Are condo hotel units difficult to finance?

Not at all, but they do take 20% down typically, whereas condos can be purchased with less cash down. It's also important to make sure you use a mortgage broker who has had success in getting condo hotel financing deals done. Many banks still do not do them, but more and more are getting involved as condo hotels become more widely available.

12. How long have condo hotels been around and where are they located?

Condo hotels have been around for several decades, but the huge surge of four-star and five-star condo hotels that have been making their way across the country, started around year 2000 in the Miami area. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale area still has the most condo hotels, but areas like Orlando and Las Vegas are developing condo hotel properties at an even faster rate and will likely surpass South Florida soon. Other up-and-coming areas are places like the Bahamas, Panama, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Canada and Dubai.

13. How much do condo hotel units cost?

That's like asking how much a car costs. There are different quality condo hotels. Some require greater amounts of money than others, obviously.

There are inexpensive condo hotels out there for as little as $100,000. These are typically found in properties that have converted their use from an existing hotel. They are hotel room-sized, lack kitchen facilities, luxury franchises, and other first-class amenities.

Then there are the four-star or greater properties that may start in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, but can go all the way up to $800,000 just for a studio unit. One- and two-bedroom units cost substantially more than a studio. Of course, the studios do come fully furnished and finished, and will be significantly larger in size than a typical hotel room, and may attract guests because of its name like St. Regis, Ritz or W.

14. What are typical maintenance costs?

On average about $1.00 to $1.50 per sq. ft., but the range can exceed $2.00 sq. ft. in the most luxurious properties.

15. Do you buy condo hotel units after they have been built, or can you purchase condo hotels in pre-construction?

Unless you are in a hurry to get started vacationing or you need to complete a 1031 exchange, it's best to buy condo hotels in pre-construction as early as possible. That's when prices are lowest and unit selection is greatest. You will likely wait two years or longer before closing on and taking possession of your condo hotel unit, but you will have locked in the price and will get the benefit of maximum appreciation.

16. Is there anything else investors should want to know about condotels?

There is more to buying this type of real estate than the old phrase, "location, location, location." While most condo hotels are located in desirable resort and business area locations, what is most important is a good franchise with a strong reservation system.

Also, do not be fooled by an aggressive rental split. One way or the other, the developer of the property will have to staff, maintain and operate the hotel and its services like the restaurants, bars, spas and pools from his share of the proceeds. If he's giving you a very favorable share of the rental, he's also more likely to be charging you a higher monthly maintenance fee. Of course, this goes both ways. If the maintenance split that is offered is closer to 50-50, then your maintenance should be more reasonable too.

17. Any suggestions to investors in choosing which condo hotel to buy?

Get good advice. That means you don't want to rely only on the pitch provided by an onsite salesperson at a condo hotel. You want to talk with a broker who specializes in condo hotels and who knows and understands the entire condo hotel market, not just the facts pertaining to a single property. He or she will listen to your wants and needs and then offer recommendations as to which properties best match your requirements. You'll have an opportunity to comparison shop and consider the pros and cons of each available property.

A good broker can be the difference between your buying a condo hotel that will be problematic and not live up to your expectations or one that will provide you with years of great vacations, good annual revenue and a substantial profit when you sell.

18. Does it cost more to use a real estate broker to purchase a condo hotel than buying a unit on one's own?

No. With new condo hotel properties, the prices are always set by the developer and are exactly the same whether you buy directly from an onsite salesperson at the property or using a broker.

The broker's commission is always paid by the developer and is already built into the price regardless of whether an outside broker participates in the sale or not. Since a broker's representation is free to buyers, it does make sense to enlist their aid and get the benefit of their advice before making a purchase.

19. How can prospective buyers find a good condo hotel broker?

Ask friends for broker recommendations or search online for "condo hotel broker." Visit condo hotel broker websites and see if the information they provide seems comprehensive and unbiased. If their website seems to focus on selling homes or office space, and the condo hotel information appears to be an afterthought, steer clear. Your best bet is to work with a condo hotel broker who specializes.

20. How can buyers learn about new condo hotel properties coming on the market?

Condo hotel brokers can be good information sources as they often learn about properties prior to their release to the general public. Another option is for them to subscribe to a condo hotel newsletter such as the one we publish called Condo Hotel Property Alert.

#Kopar at Newton #Kopar

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baileymitc-hell · 5 years

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Set Texts

notes/important excerpts/my understandings/points of interest

Thinking multi-sensory culture Laura U Marks: Keywords: proximal sense,touch,taste,smell,ethics,epistemology “examples of olfactory illustrations emphasize the sense of smell which,i,posit,given its intimacy with emotion and memory,gives rise to and olfactory unconscious” Sensory hierarchy. vehicles of knowledge. western aesthetics vision and hearing are only used as vehicles of beauty- de-hierarchzed “outward“inward“ smell illustrations without knowing what they are- discomfort of having unknown molecules in your nose. smell,taste and touch have to do with matter as such its immediately sensuous qualities...for this reason these senses cant have to do with artistic object,which are meant to maintain themselves in their real indepence and all in of no purely sensuous relationship what is agreeable for these senses is not the beauty of art. hedonistic,Heimlich neuroscience amy gdala hippo-campus most sensory events combine the experience of several senses simultaneously. Studies show that an odor smells stronger when the smeller knows what its smelling- association ,knowing humans,animals,emotional experience,repressed experiences,smell memory-disruption,emotion,identify source. Ecco-Umberto The Sublime 1.a new concept of beauty epoch neoclassicism beauty as a quality of the object that we perceive as beautiful.this is why it fell back on classical definitions such as “unity in variety”“proportion”“harmony”Hogarths view= line of beauty and a line of grace.another way of saying that the conditions for beauty lie in the form of the object. genius,taste,imagination,sentiment.qualities of those who invent or produce a beautiful thing.taste denotes quality if those capable of appreciating. X characteristics qualities,capacities,disposition. Subjectivity of taste judgement ad the experience of an effect with sine objective features of the thing deemed beautiful,beauty appears to perceiver bound with the recognition of pleasure. sublime in an effect of art ‘does not persuade audience but rather transport them out of themselves” sublime in nature fear,pity. beautiful portrayals of ugliness,terror,death,monsters or purification devil aesthetic pleasure split into 2 provinces beauty and sublime catharsis how can terror be pleasant too detachment from the views of fear Beauty and the Sublime Friedrich Von Schiller nature provides us with two genesis to accompany us through life,Joyful,playful and sociable appeal.beauty indeed sense of freedom but not entirely of nature and influence,rather an expression of that freedom we enjoy as men within nature.feel free in presence of beauty because our sensible instincts are in harmony with the law of reason.sense of sublime is a mixed emotion.sense of sorrow,shudder,joy not actually pleasure refined souls prefer it. combination of two contradictory perceptions in a single feeling is irrefutable proof of our moral independence. related to object in two different ways as consequence two opposed natures must be united in our state of mind not necessarily determined by own sensible perceptions laws of nature not our own vital energy power William Fish Chapter 1 Philosophy of Perception a contemporary introduction 3 x key principles 2 hats 2 tests epistemological hat-focuses on perceptions role of Providence is with information about the external world. phenomenological hat- focuses on the conscious aspects of visual experiences the representation principle the phenomenal principle the common factor principle theories of perception end up rejecting one or more of them CFP - begins from observation that different experiences can be more or less correct illusion,hallucination-in which it seems to the subject as though something is seen but in actual fact nothing is seen;example: macbeths hallucination of a dagger.mental state or event TRY-intentional propositions,which specifies the way the experience repeats the world to be peacocke 1983:5 represents perceiver as in a particular environment harman 1990:34 human beings hone a number of different perceptual faculties or senses.the familiar five are sight or vision,hearing or audition,taste or gustation,smell or olfaction and touch or tactiliation debate over precisely how many senses we have.cases can be made for the other debatable senses such as perception of pain and and propprioception limb position Non-Human other & Kaupapa Maori Research Te Kawehau Hoskins & Alison Jons nonhuman world has agency.new materialism “consult non-humans more closely”

Seeing Things apprehending material culture Tim Dart there are occasions we look and we cannot make sense of what we see glass of water -light/dark example when view is unclear viewers chose own oath scan visual field. Remembering the Senses Susan Stewart ‘forming of the 5 sense is a labor of the entire history of the world down to the present’ suggesting that senses are historical human accomplishment. power source of material memory.registered in our consciousness our bodies carry them somatically repression,unconscious. Visual Culture and an aesthetics of embodiment - Paul Duncum Keywords: aesthetics,embodiment,visual culture,modernism.popular culture article provides both theory and history perspective on recent shift in at education towards consideration of contemporary global sites of visual culture.cultural sites,highly sexualised,violence imagery conceptualized in term of aesthetic embodiment. vulgar crude sensationalist . proprioception:’our sense of being in a body and orientated in space’ - one of his principles is the idea that the body refuses to be denied. clarity easy group parallels to logical thought art in his view adds nothing of substance to argument and should only be valued due to its emotional opportunities. didn't like all senses liked only those he could equate with reason.this view on sensation too limited and insufficiently removed from reason. associated senses alone,undisciplined by the mind,with coarse feelings,whereas the mind only entertains finer feelings. carnival body and consumer body.embraces all bodily sensations not just a few privileged ones .attends to an (un)pleasant sensation.aroused.an aesthetics of embodiment is a necessary construct for dealing with many forms of contemporary visual culture.

The explosion of Sensory History Mark M Smith can we ever really understand how people of the past perceive their world in sensory terms? colonizing sounds .ownership of sounds.smells and race stereotypes enforcing social hierarchy.

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falling-last-stardust · 6 years

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Compilation of interviews from DreamWorks staff, Dean DeBlois and Jay Baruchel on the TV series (ROB, DOB & RTTE) and its canonicity within the HTTYD movieverse

Since I still see some people asking or arguing about this, I’ve decided to look for some interviews across the internet and compile as much as possible in a single post. Bear in mind that some of these are a few years old, with the earliest from 2014.

Note and Disclaimer: Although I will state my perspective and opinion at the end of the post, I want to highlight that this is not to argue in favour or against anyone who considers it canon or not, but just to provide clarity to those who would like to hear what was actually said by those involved in the making of the franchise. Whether anyone wants to accept the TV series as canon despite what the Dreamworks crew and actors said, it’s entirely up to them.

Long post ahead so I’m putting it under a “Keep reading” link. This post will also be updated if I find anymore interviews in the future relevant to this topic.

Unfortunately since Tumblr no longer allows external links to be posted here, I have used redirects instead for the links of the interviews, which cannot be opened with the Tumblr mobile app, so you will need to use a browser to open them. Nevertheless, I have copied in and bold the relevant parts for those who cannot open the links.

Collider (2014): with Jay Baruchel (and Dean DeBlois)

Link: [x]

How does the television series factor in to the movie franchise?

JAY BARUCHEL: One of the cool things about the TV show is that we get to go a bit more into the everyday life. We don’t have enough screen time to do that in the movies. We have a very specific finite amount of time that things have to happen in, in the movies. What the TV show gives us is the chance to put the audience in that neighborhood and on that island, experiencing the minutiae of everyday life for a Viking.

Jay, it’s very rare for the star of the movie to be involved with the TV show, as well. How did you become involved with the TV series?

BARUCHEL: Well, for me, there was no question. I didn’t want anyone else to play the role. I think part of the actor’s job is to take ownership of the character, and to be defensive and protective, and all that stuff. So, when it was first mentioned that Hiccup might have a life on television, it had to be me, in my opinion. What is really cool about the TV show is that it takes place in between the two movies. And so, when all is said and done and we walk away, we’ll have given the world a pretty full, complete story. Selfishly, it’s kept me in that mind space. A lot of people have been asking me what it’s like to come back to this character and come back to this world, and my answer has constantly been, “I never left.” I just love that we’re creating this deep, open platform that’s a multimedia world. What it all comes down to is that I just didn’t want anyone else to play Hiccup.

Groucho Reviews (2014): with Dean DeBlois and the cast

Link: [x]

G: So as we move toward a wrap-up here, maybe you could all talk a little bit about where you see the franchise going. I know there’s going to be a TV series that shows us what happens between the films…

Jay Baruchel (JB): Uh-huh!

G: And then where it might go from there. I’m sure there’s a plot for a third film, right—?

Dean DeBlois (DD): Mm-hm!

G: Because it’s conceived as a trilogy?

DD: Yeah, absolutely. We didn’t want a sequel that felt random, or unneccesary. So in charting Hiccup’s coming of age, the end goal is to end up where Cressida Cowell began her books. Hiccup is an adult reflecting back on a time when there were dragons. And that seems to indicate that dragons will go away, that Hiccup will complete his coming of age. How that all evolves is yet to be unveiled. we just promise to do it in a very powerful and hopefully emotionally satisfying way. And then the TV series actually helps bridge the gap. So now that they’re heading into Series Three and Four, they’re going to use our older versions of the characters and begin to set up the year leading up to movie number two. So you’ll start to see Hiccup beginning to explore the outer limits of the Viking map. You’ll see the development of the dragon-racing games on Berk and other things: y'know, Hiccup’s dragon blade. All of these things will have a little bit more time to explain what they are and how they came to be.

Rotoscopers (2015): with Douglas Sloan

Link: [x]

Dean DeBlois could not be involved on a creative level with Race to the Edge, as he was incredibly busy with How to Train Your Dragon 2. However, they did continue to have regular check-in dinners with Dean to ensure that nothing in Race to the Edge conflicted with the overall continuity of the franchise.

Toonzone (2015): with Art Brown and Douglas Sloan

Link: [x]

Q: You know the point you’re going to, the second movie. In terms of storytelling, is that a process you have enjoyed? Knowing where you end up?

DOUG SLOAN: Yeah, I think it’s really actually great. It’s almost like bowling with bumpers because you know you can’t go here, here, here. You can’t bring in Hiccup’s mother. You can’t do any of the stuff they’re doing in the second movie. You can’t do something that upsets the movie or changes it in any way. So you really do have a guideline as to where you can go and where you can’t go. When we did it earlier it was hard because we didn’t know what the second movie was about, and it was constantly evolving, so the series had to constantly evolving behind it, but now–

ART BROWN: And it’s cool because you have a line that you’re going to, but you get to do all this. There’s only a few ground rules really. You can’t introduce them to stuff they don’t know about yet in the second movie, and anything we do introduce, like the Dragon Eye, we have to get rid of it or else they’d be using it. The mom and Drago, stuff like that. Other than that, they’re out in another area, and we’re free. Every once in a while if we’re not sure, we’ll e-mail Dean or go out to dinner with him and say hey, are you cool with this? And 99% of the time he’ll say yeah. Or maybe he’ll say can you adjust it just a little bit because I’m going to touch on something in the third movie or I’m thinking about it.

Rama’s Screen (2015): with Art Brown and Douglas Sloan

Link: [x]

Art Brown: “We’re in pretty close contact with Dean [DeBlois], the writer/director of the movies. We check with him when we’re going to do, before we do the season, we break into season, we say this is the direction we’re going to go, we don’t want to step on anything, sometimes he’ll say ‘Yeah, can you adjust it? Because I’m going to do this in the next movie’”

Doug Sloan: “We had much more of an issue in the previous iteration of this show because we didn’t know what the movie was really going to be so we were sort of writing in the dark but for the Netflix, going forward with Netflix, we know where the show was going because we’ve seen the movie. Because our show is the prequel to the sequel, so we know everything that’s going to happen.”

Art Brown: “We know what we can’t do in the series. We can’t have Hiccup meet his mother obviously. Stoick is alive, but we can tease towards. We can’t kill Stoick in the series, we can tease towards Drago or the bad guys towards the series, you get a sense that they’re working for this big guy. We’ll set that sort of stuff up, there’s just certain things that we stay away from but like Doug said, that’s kind of self-explanatory, I guess.”

Doug Sloan: “The great thing is we get to introduce things like the flight suit and the flaming sword that’s in the second movie, and how to came to be, how Stoick got a dragon, we get to put that in the series, and so the audience will know how they got from the first movie to the second movie sort of through the TV series.”

Doug Sloan: “Ya, it’s great. We’re really really lucky that we have the relationship we do with Dean [DeBlois] and Bonnie Arnold. And Gregg Taylor, he’s an executive at DreamWorks, who’s a movie executive primarily but he also works on our show, so he really is in the loop.“

Art Brown: “Ya, we check with him a lot. And if we don’t have the chance to talk with Dean or Bonnie, we talk to Gregg. But they’re so accessible, I mean honestly, ‘Hey, man what do you think about this episode, are you cool with it?’ And usually he’d say ‘Go with it’”

Rotoscopers (2015): with Richard Hamilton and Dean DeBlois

Link: [x]

BS: Let’s go off topic for a little bit with a question for Dean. There is almost always an ongoing argument within the Dragons fandom over what can be considered canon or not if it’s in any other medium outside the feature films and shorts. Even the TV series has its ‘canon’ status called into question on a regular basis. In your own opinion, what do you consider to be the official canon for the How to Train Your Dragon franchise?

Dean DeBlois: The feature film trilogy and the characters contained within it serve a narrative purpose specific to those three films, but we’ve made efforts to ensure that every expansion, whether it’s in the TV series, comics, or other mediums, have a sense of tonal consistency and storytelling unity in keeping with the feature films. The only real exception is Cressida Cowell’s book series, being that her storyline focuses on a younger Hiccup and his talking, dog-sized dragon named Toothless. The feature films were a conscious departure from Cressida’s books, in order to tell a story that had more of the tropes of a fantasy adventure. So, within the world of the films, we have tried to remain consistent in all of the expansions. The comic books will adhere to the same constraints and tone of the trilogy. The TV series and comics are meant to fill in time jumps between the films, offering insight and back-story to compliment the main narrative of Hiccup’s coming-of-age.

BS: This question can be answered by either of you. Are there any elements from the TV show (characters, plotlines, settings, etc.) that will carry over or be touched upon in the graphic novels? Similarly, are there any elements from Cressida Cowell’s original books that you want to incorporate into the graphic novels?

Richard Hamilton: The answer to both is a resounding “Yes!” Part of the fun of the comics is coming up with new human and dragon characters and worlds, and part of it is mixing and matching elements from across the franchise to create new stories. How would Eret and Heather react to each other if they met? Is there a heist story to be told in the comics where the alarm system is made up of a bunch of tiny dragons? But we have to be a little careful with the continuity, as the TV show takes place before the event of the second movie, and our graphic novels come after, so we don’t want to spoil any of their awesome stories. Cressida Cowell’s series is a bit more removed from that continuity, so I think the challenge there is for us to reinterpret some of her ideas in a way that works for comics, which is a pretty tall order, since her books are just so great.

Reddit (2018): with Dean DeBlois

Link: [x]

Q: Will there be references to Race to the edge in how to train your dragon 3 or how do you feel race to the edge interpreted what happened between the first and second movie?

A: I would agree with the latter. I would say Race to the Edge deals with what the first two movies go over. The film trilogy tends to stick to its film characters and script. Although we do tend to maintain to the universe.

Berk's Grapevine (2018): with Dean DeBlois

My final comments and opinion:

Based on these interviews above, it seems that the TV series is meant to be canon to the HTTYD movieverse from the very beginning, as it was specifically created to serve as a bridge between HTTYD and HTTYD2. The showrunners of the TV series are aware that there are limits they have to adhere to (e.g. such as not having Hiccup meet his mother before the events of HTTYD2); the fact that they have regular meetings with Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold shows that they have tried to keep the series within the overall continuity and ensure that they do not step on each other’s toes on what they can or cannot show.

If the TV series is not meant to be canon in the first place, it doesn’t make sense for the showrunners to even bother having any meetings with Dean and Bonnie at all and for Dreamworks to market this as an interquel between the first two movies.

Yes it is agreed across the fandom there are inconsistencies across the show, but they are rather minor bumps compared to the overall timeline of the franchise and should not be used as a huge factor to discredit the canonicity of a work. Furthermore, what work of fiction is 100% consistent anyway? Inconsistencies also exist within a single work of fiction such as a book and movie and even within the HTTYD book series.

Also, I have seen some here claiming that the movie crew did not contribute anything to the TV series and I would like to point out that that is completely untrue. Other than Dean DeBlois having regular meetings with the showrunners, there are a few from the movie department such as Simon Otto (head of character animation) and Gil Zimmerman (head of layout) who have directed some episodes of RTTE. You can find their names in the credits of the episodes they directed (screenshots below), or refer to this link here for reference. Additionally, Elaine Bogan (who has directed several episodes) was a storyboard artist in the first HTTYD film (source).

Although I have presented my perspective and opinion above, I would like to iterate that I’m not posting this to re-start the argument between those who considers it canon and those who do not, but to provide some information and clarity to those who would like to hear what was said by those involved in the making of the franchise. Whether anyone wants to accept the TV series as canon, it’s entirely their decision and there is no right or wrong in this matter. I’ve learned and accepted that fanon discontinuity doesn’t just happened in this fandom, but in other fandoms such as the Star Wars and Harry Potter ones too, although some of them have gotten very vitriolic lately.

Despite our differing opinions and whether we want to accept the TV series as canon or not, it doesn’t hurt to be civil about this and show respect to each other, so that we don’t end up becoming a toxic fandom like what has already happened with the Star Wars and Harry Potter ones. It also doesn’t mean that we cannot show appreciation to the creators, writers and animators for their hard work on expanding the franchise whether it’s the movies, TV series or comics, even though we do not always agree with all of their decisions made, and that they were not obliged to do this for us (the fans) in the first place.

Bonus: What is confirmed to not be canon to the HTTYD movieverse

Additionally, we have confirmation from Richard Hamilton and Dean DeBlois that the Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon short and the upcoming rumoured Rescue Riders series are not officially canon to the movie franchise. Take a look at their tweets below.

Richard Hamilton on LOTBD:

Dean DeBlois on Rescue Riders:

#httyd #how to train your dragon #interviews #canon #dreamworks animation #dean deblois #jay baruchel #art brown #douglas sloan #richard hamilton #rob #dob #rtte #riders of berk #defenders of berk #race to the edge #long post

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keyfyapmak · 5 years

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Proud?

When I was 17, my mother and I sat on my bed in my room in Ankara: the wall was covered, corner to corner, with fine art prints. It was the backdrop to my mother as we chatted casually, on some weekend morning. “What would you do if I married a woman?” I had asked, not even aware of not being straight at the time; it was genuinely a hypothetical question. She paused, took a breath, and looked aside thoughtfully. “Well”, she said, “I’d be sad about two things: one, the way that the world would treat you. And two, that I wouldn’t have natural grandchildren.”

And that was that. Two perfectly reasonable fears, one of which doesn’t even apply (Mum you doknow that IVF exists right?). That simple answer, which she probably doesn’t even remember responding with, ensured that I would live my entire life free from insecurity about my sexuality. It cemented itself deep in my brain, and I knew without a single wavering doubt that my mum would accept that part of me unconditionally. And that’s exactly what happened when I accidentally came out to her last month. We were talking about a queer arts event, when my mum offhandedly said ‘but wouldn’t you be the only straight one taking part?’.

Turns out the countless hints I had left over the years never hit home. I have always been content with the idea that I have never had to really ‘come out’, that I just dated as I pleased, and dropped enough hints or casual mentions that everyone probably knew or guessed and that was good enough for me, and if they assumed I was straight I wasn’t really bothered either. For me sexuality has always been more connected to my dating life than an intrinsic part of my identity, so I genuinely have never really cared, or thought much about it. But suddenly here I was, lounging on my sofa in the middle of a conversation with my mum, about to come out. I paused, chose my tactic, and went for it.

“Oh no Mum, I’m not straight,” I replied, with a casual smiling condescension.

“Oh right,” she replied. “But you’ve had so many boyfriends?”

Later I would look back and wish I had replied with “Just because I’m not straight, doesn’t mean I have good taste,” for extra comedic retelling value, but instead I just went, “yeah I know.” I then moved the conversation along swiftly as if we had just discussed what I was planning to have for breakfast. This was exactly how I would have wanted to come out: casually, with no anxiety, no big deal. But my casual demeanour dropped as the conversation came to an end. I blurted out, “Mum! Before you go I just want to say I didn’t tell you because I never bothered to because you never gave me a reason to be scared about it, and that’s why I’m so ok about it, because of you, thank you, I love you.” She paused again, and as I was halfway out the door to let a friend in, she finished with “But you know I would always love you anyways, of course.” And I did. Of course I did.

My mother happened to be visiting my godparents at the time, a gay couple, who called me some weeks later. They told me how she had come down the stairs, sat down at breakfast slightly dazed, and relayed the conversation back to them. “Just like that?!” They had asked her, incredulously. “Yes, just like that.”

‘Just like that’ is how I planned to continue as well. I didn’t like the idea of one one or two people knowing, because now it felt like a secret. I decided to suck it up, and consciously come out to my aunt as well. I did this while putting on liquid eyeliner, with her on speakerphone. “Oh by the way,” I added at the end of a conversation, “I told Mum I wasn’t straight because it just came up, and I didn’t want it to be a secret, so now you know too.” My aunt didn’t even pause before saying “Oh, I kind of figured.” At least someone in my family has a gaydar. I completed a perfect wing-tip, and hung up. Two down. That would do for now.

That casual tone, that implication that it simply isn’t a big deal or interesting enough to warrant a conversation, is how I have always viewed my sexuality. For me, it simply isn’t. Perhaps pride is something that comes from struggle, and I hadn’t struggled. I didn’t feel like I had earned something that I was just born with, and hadn’t fought for. And I suppose that’s why, after a lifetime of safely not caring about being bisexual, I finally encountered the one thing that would shatter that comfort:

Other queers.

I have spent my life moving country, on the periphery of all communities and groups. With the exception of my university friends, who I cemented my heart to in a way I haven’t with any other groups of people, I generally keep at the edges of everything. Last September, in a Facebook thread, I mentioned that I had written a poem about how inconsequential it was for me to be bi. I was surprised that this led to me being immediately booked to perform said poem at the annual Bi+ Ireland Bi+ Visibility Day event. I was even more surprised when, at my first ever queer event, I won the award for bi visibility. Me! The person who at the time had no coming out story, and spent my life comfortably under the radar! I remember meeting new people who I immediately liked, who made me laugh with terrible puns, and with great taste in tropical shirts. It felt strange, being in a room with people ‘like me’. I didn’t really know what that even meant.

After that initial dipping a toe in, I went a step further and joined the Bi+ Ireland Facebook group. I suppose that’s where things started rubbing up against insecurities I didn’t know I had. The group itself is lovely, and supportive. I was drowning in a sea of posts about bi colours, and queer in-jokes, and flags I didn’t know existed. It reminded me of how when I was in the bathroom during the Bi Visibility event, I overheard two people talking about queerness, with a confident and casual hold over terms and references and in-jokes that I didn’t understand. I didn’t feel a sense of joy whenever I see the colours blue, pink, and purple. I couldn’t relate to the jokes, the stories, the coming out tales, or the relationship structures most people seemed to have. It came as a huge shock, after being so quietly confident about this part of myself, to find out that I did in fact have fears about queerness. It was the same fear I’ve had about joining any community. It was the fear that, after all that, after finding ‘my people’, I didn’t fit in at all. Even though the group does everything in its power to reassure people that no matter what, they are queer enough, now that I was in a pool of people ‘like me’, I felt like I wasn’t anyways. My deepest insecurity that informs most of my life is the fear of not being ‘enough’. Suddenly this was tapped in a new way, and ‘not queer enough’ became my new obsession. I finally found something I could relate to with other queers: the feeling that I hadn’t earned my queer stripes.

And I suppose that’s where pride comes in. I’ve never felt proud of being bisexual, because I’ve never felt anything about being bisexual. For me it was like asking me to be proud about my favourite colour. But of course, I’m aware it’s nothing like a favourite colour. It’s intrinsic, and something you choose to act on. The same applied to my nationality, my ethnicity, my womanhood. These are all things I was born with, and so I’m not proud of them. I didn’t work hard to be bisexual, or Indian, or a woman. I worked hard at making a career in the arts, at being an immigrant, at supporting my friends. THOSE are the things I am proud of, because I feel like I have earned them. When I am finally Irish I will be overwhelmed with pride, because I would have fought 8 long years to earn that title. And perhaps I am just that little bit prouder of being a woman since Ireland repealed the 8th, because I knew that despite my mental health and inability to vote, I fought. I put up posters. I wore Repeal merchandise even though I knew it made me a walking target. I still wear an Abortion Rights NI tote bag, because the fight isn’t over. During the Marriage Equality referendum I was deeply unwell in my old job, and so I felt like I absolutely didn’t do enough to canvas, or help, or fight for that glorious outcome. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? The fight? How could I be proud of something I didn’t fight for?

So here I am. On Pride morning, in 2019, trying to figure out what I am proud of. And I think I am starting to figure that out. Yes, pride seems to come from coming out the other side of a struggle, and I realise, there are fights I haven’t fought yet. I am not proud of my nationality because I haven’t begun working through my cultural identity issues and insecurities. I’m not proud of being bisexual because I still am so distanced and a little baffled at my own sexuality that I don’t feel ownership over it. I haven’t done enough work on the things I was born with because I feel like I didn’t earn them. And the fight in this case isn’t on the streets, or with facebook posts, or by canvassing strangers. It’s a conflict I haven’t resolved in myself, and I suspect once I am on the other side of that struggle, a sense of pride will come naturally. I may be very late in the game coming to terms with myself, but better late than never.

In the meantime, I have a very bright pink pair of trousers and a tasteful tropical shirt to put on, and a March to attend. Even that small step might be something to be proud of.

#Pride #pride month #coming out #bisexual #bisexuality #proud #identity #bi #queer #family #friends #insecurity

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cannibalisticskittles · 5 years

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moodboard/aesthetic board for my Toreador vtmb oc, Lucia. deets about her under the cut.

Lucia [Last Name Undecided], a Toreador in her mid-20s. her medium of choice is sculpting. she’s working with clay before, and likes it just fine, but at the moment she’s really focused on scrap metal sculpting.

(after hauling around heavy pieces of metal for so long, she’s got Arms For Days. looks fucking fantastic in a tank top or in a sleeveless dress.)

her sense of aesthetics is focused on the morbid and macabre; the ephemerality of all things, the knowledge that every living thing will one day wither and rot and turn to dust, no matter how glorious or untouchable it seems in life. life and death are forever entwined! the cycle is incomplete without death, and trying to stave it off forever is pointless and stagnant and boring! accept it! embrace it! you’ll be much happier for it.

has a tattoo on her inner thigh that looks sort of like this, poppies + her defining mindset — “this too shall rot.”

had a near-death experience in her early-twenties that reinforced her fascination with the macabre and left her with a gnarly scar around her waist/abdomen.

if you asked her what her favorite sculpture is, off the top of her head, she would probably say Lilith. the pose! the height! the eyes! the intensity! just wonderful.

has a tendency to isolate herself when she gets deep in her work; prior to the start of the game, she’d been holed up in her apartment for three months, relying on grocery and food deliveries to sustain herself. she emerged at last to meet with a friend who came to santa monica for a week-long trip; the Bite takes place only two or three days into it, after her friend got sloshed and lucia sent her back to her hotel in a taxi, choosing to linger at the bar for a while and then walk back home. finally alone, she could now be Approached.

(she may always be resentful of this. god damn it, she was trying to branch out and communicate more, trying to soak up the sounds of people and get outside, and you force her to cut ties with EVERYONE, FOREVER? her friends and family left thinking she’s dead? her art, left to gather dust in her apartment? she should have just joined her friend in the taxi. she should have been antisocial and said ‘no, i don’t want to talk.’ how was she supposed to know the dude was a vampire???)

when she was approached by her sire, she was also Kind Of Sloshed, and because of that, she’s not entirely sure what drew her sire to her or what made them decide to sire her, and that is maddening. was she acting ornery and ready to fight or did she turn up the charm? she can vaguely recall talking abt her sculptures and she thinks she even showed them what she was working on, at least in pictures, was that what did it? was she just Their Type?? did she get consigned to eternal unlife because some rando thought she was pretty? what the fuck.

her clothing style is eclectic. it ranges from super ragged things she wears when sculpting/making heavy-duty Artsy Shit since there’s a nonzero chance that whatever she wears will get absolutely decimated, to some Deliberately Provocative pieces — wear a bra as a top! unbutton that shirt and leave it open in such a way that a breeze could be responsible for a public indecency charge! and crop tips out the wazoo — to over-the-top fancy shit, sometimes to please her parents, sometimes just because it tickles her to wear smthing worthy of the met gala to go get a slushee.

comes from a semi-affluent family that tries desperately to gloss over that ‘semi-‘ part; has a subsequent distaste for the glitz and glamor that goes along with their attempts to seem ritzy, but still has no compunctions about mooching off of them to support her art for as long as she can squeeze a dime out of them.

squeezing a dime out of them usually comes with the stipulation of “please, for the love of god, do not make us look bad, don’t ruin the family name.” she gets a studio apartment to live in and make her sculptures, rent-free, and in return, she keeps her shenanigans on the down-low and occasionally makes an appearance at a fancy event, all dolled-up and ready to charm.

is pretty damn good at maintaining different Faces because of that; she can schmooze like nobody’s business. this was helped by her sense of aesthetics; people aren’t exactly vying for ownership of her sculptures, particularly the more disturbing pieces, so even though it’s absolutely dreadful to have to simper and fawn over uninspiring art, it’s important to maintain relationships with whoever is or may one day be a Big Name in the artistic communities. how else is she going to find an avenue through which she can sell her art?

flirts when she’s comfortable. flirts when she’s uncomfortable. flirts because it’s familiar and it’ll either make her feel more comfortable or make the other party uncomfortable, too, so they can be on equal playing fields. flirts with everyone. does she actually like you? probably! does she actually want to act on all the things she’s insinuating? less probable. sorry, boo, it’s just fun to tease, don’t take it personally.

died with long-ass hair, not because she preferred it that way, but because she couldn’t be bothered to cut it when she was focusing on her sculpting. it’s a source of annoyance in her unlife. even if she cuts it short one day, it’s back by the next, which REALLY doesn’t help when it comes to crawling through the sewers.

speaking of which, she does do a lot of skulking around california’s sewer systems, particularly since finding the nosferatu warrens. maybe it’s the atmosphere that keeps her coming back — the warrens ARE rather homey, and the neon lights are very nice to look at. maybe it’s the river of acid blood she nearly slips into every goddamn time. maybe it’s an unwillingness to adhere to the expectations of others and a stubborn refusal to take part in some sort of innate feud that she’s meant to leap headfirst into without question even though she has 0 ties to her clan and 0 reason to dislike the nosferatu on sight.

maybe it’s maybelline.

regardless, she likes the nosferatu. since they get kind of a raw deal by being plagued not only by prince lacroix’s wrath but by horrifying flesh abominations in the sewers that keep them fairly boxed in, she takes it upon herself to pop in between demands for her time to clear out some tunnels of tzimisce influence with her trusty sledgehammer — and to say ‘hi,’ of course.

she’d do more favors for gary if he ever apologized for being Fucking Rude when they first met.

...except, just kidding! that would be boring, and she can’t imagine he’d actually do it, anyway, so she won’t hold her breath.

it’s true that their first meeting was a bit of a shitshow, and she did NOT like being toyed with to that extent, and jesus, man, she’s never even met you before, are you that fucking mad that she still looks good in her unlife??

but after she gets a chance to actually rest and recover from the stress of a whole mess of Fucking Horrifying Fleshmonsters trying to rip her apart, all of whom were creepy enough that even her morbid sensibilities couldn’t embrace them wholeheartedly, and the additional stress of someone dancing fucking circles around her and managing to hide in plain sight to taunt her with some needlessly vicious comments, her irritation fades somewhat.

she’s gonna keep coming back to the warrens, and she’ll find the shit he asks for in his emails, and if he warms up to her a little, that’d be absolutely fucking fantastic, but if he doesn’t, well, it’s fun and pretty fucking funny trading barbs with him anyway.

hey, gary, say something else about her lovely face and sculpted body, she didn’t properly bask in those compliments the first time and she’s ready to lounge across your table with your skeletons while soaking it all in. c’mon, don’t be shy, she’s willing to really listen this time.

this ain’t deep, but a fitting song for her in the game is “loyal for” because it’s just saying “i’m loyal... for now.” once it stops feeling like prince lacroix is holding the sword of damocles over her head, she is out of here.

she’s bi, baby!

she would absolutely try this.

it’s lucky this game takes place in 2004 or else she’d be snapchatting everything.

call her Lu. no, in fact, she quite likes you; call her Lulu.

#lucia tag #vtmb #vtmb oc #i know this is like The most generic moodboard but here it is #i wanted to put in smthing that showed her smashing up shit but its hard to find pics of like #muscular women that aren’t stock photos #or that aren’t rly fetishy.#anyway that's my baby #i wanna know abt other peoples' ocs #also uh #blood #to block the post if that's a trigger

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saltyblazestudent · 5 years

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The Video Game Industry

Video games have come a very long way. From humble beginnings as a simple interactive exhibit to an entirely new form of interactive storytelling and ways to experience adventures with friends. The video game industry has been ripe with change, controversary, technological strides, and amazing works of art and commentaries on society.

Key Terms-

DLC- Downloadable content available for a game offered for a small extra price after the full release of the game.

Micro Transactions- Payments made with real money to get in game currency used to buy in game content.

FPS/TPS- First person shooter/ third person shooter.

Cabinet Game- An arcade style video game built into a cabinet like structure.

Console- a gaming device that can be used at home by plugging it into a TV screen.

Sandbox environment- A game environment that allows the player to roam where every and do almost whatever they want.

Triple-A Games- games that are very popular, make great sales on release, and is usually annualized to release a new game every year or two.

Historical developments-

The first video game was invented in 1958 by Physicist William Higginbotham and it was called Pong. The game was created was by Higginbotham as an interactive exhibit for the Brookhaven National Laboratory Group. The game was displayed on an analog computer and was based off tennis with players using two knobs to control two parallel bars bouncing a ball in between them. This simple concept was eventually ported to an arcade cabinet style and later an at home console game and led to the development of other cabinet style arcade games and at home video game consoles.

The 1970’s was the decade that arcade style video games became mainstream. Even a year before Pong was ported to a cabinet there was Atari’s 1971 game Computer Space a simple joystick-controlled game where you control a small spaceship and the first Arcade Cabinet game. These successes paved the way for all sorts of companies to start developing some of their own games to be made into arcade cabinets and played for a few cents a play. One of the most famous arcade games is Pac-Man a Japanese game licensed and distributed in the U.S. by Midway games and released in 1980. This is a simple arcade style game in which the player uses a joystick to control a small yellow circle shaped character named Pac-Man. The goal of the game was to earn points by going through a maze eating small dots while Avoiding Blinky, Pinky ,Inky, and Clyde four ghost who chase you through the maze. This simple yet incredibly fun game led to many sequels spinoffs and even a Hanna Barbara cartoon series.

Pac-Man isn’t the only game or character to receive mainstream popularity. The Japanese company Nintendo had a game and a character that would truly become timeless, he was a short Italian plumber, that wore a red hat, overalls and a large mustache and had a very funny accent. His name was Mario and the first game he was featured in was a 1981 arcade game called Donkey Kong. This game had Mario trying to rescue Princess Peach from the giant gorilla Donkey Kong. The player would use a joystick and buttons to guide Mario up platforms and over barrels being thrown by Donkey Kong. Mario would later get another main role in Mario Bros which introduced Mario’s brother Luigi. Mario has since become the face of Nintendo and is their flagship Character and shows no signs of losing any popularity.

It was popularity such as this that helped gaming companies make the next big leap from the arcades to peoples’ homes. These consoles usually had the same games you could play in an arcade preloaded onto them so you could play them as much you wanted for free at home. The first at home console was created in 1967 and was called simply the Brown Box and offered only six games ping pong, tennis, volleyball, hand ball, a chase game, and a light gun game. The Magnavox Odyssey was another early at home console that was so primitive to modern standards that it didn’t even have audio. These early 2-D arcade consoles eventually led to the rise of another technological breakthrough in the industry, 3-D gaming. These were not 3-D in the sense that the images appeared to be jumping out of the screen but more with the art style and how the games were graphically improved. For example in Super Mario Bros the character models are created from small colored squares called pixels. These pixels are colored and stacked into shaped to create a 2-D shape on the screen such as the image of Mario. Fast forward to the 3-D tech breakthrough and the number of pixels being used to create Mario increased dramatically, this meant the game developers could make much more detail character models that you could view from any angle. These advances in 3-D character modelling led to the development of one of the most famous consoles created, the Nintendo 64 was a huge leap forward for mainstream gaming and introduce help introduce the concept of a handheld controller with smaller buttons and a small joystick instead of a single joystick for controls.

The N-64 also brought amazing games such as Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, James Bond: Goldeneye, and Mario Tennis. The popularity of the N-64 paved the way for other companies like Sony and Microsoft to hone in on the gaming console market with the release of the Sony PlayStation and the Microsoft X-BOX.

Notable Artists-

The gaming industry is filled with brilliant artist, studios, writers, programmers, and other types of creators that dedicate their time and effort to creating beautiful and stunning games for us to enjoy.

Shigeru Miyamoto- Creator of the Mario Franchise Japanese game developer Shigeru Miyamoto has one of the most creative and colorful imaginations in gaming. The worlds and characters he creates are colorful, cartoony, fun, and most of all memorable. Miyamoto claims to have been inspired by stories such as Alice In Wonderland in his design of the game world and the characters who inhabit it. Miyamoto has created characters such as Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Bowser, Goombas, Toad, Yoshi, and countless others.

Rockstar Games- Rockstar Games is a company the develops and produces some of the most detailed and expansive Sandbox Environment Games that not only present the player with amazing film quality level story and script writing but also a massive world to experience it all in that feels very close to real life.

Rockstar has published numerous successful game franchises such as the Max Payne, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Bully and many others. Rockstar games are notorious for amazing sales records as well with Grand Theft Auto V has made over $6 billion dollars in sales since its release in 2013 and Rockstar’s newest release of their Wild West epic Red Dead Redemption II making $725 million three days after the game was put out.

Recent Trends-

Video Games like any other form of media is subject to trends and the consumers demanding video games that are new, exciting, and interesting. In the 90’s the trend was first person shooters which were popular with computer gamers. First Person shooters consist of putting the player in the first person view of the protagonist, this makes actions like shooting at enemies much easier and more immersive. Games that pioneered this “FPS” (First Person Shooter) genre were games like Wolfenstein, and Doom. The FPS trend evolved in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and was greatly influenced by the 1998 movie Saving Pvt Ryan. After the film’s release there was a huge spike in WWII themed FPS games. A couple of these games almost recreated the Omaha Beach scene from Saving Pvt. Ryan perfectly, allowing player to take part in one of the most famous battles of WWII. Trends in gaming have again evolved with the popularity of the “battle royale”(BR). The BR genre consists of dropping up to 100 players on an island or other large area and having the play area slowly shrink as the players fight for supplies, weapons, shelter, and to be the sole survivor. Games like Player Unknown’s Battle Grounds and Fortnite popularized the genre and now larger annual game titles such as Battlefield and Call Of Duty have included BR game modes in their newest games.

Exemplary Examples-

An amazing and fairly recent example at how far gaming has come and shows just how amazing gaming can be as a mode of storytelling. Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption II is the sequel to the Highly praised Red Dead Redemption. After an eight year wait Red Dead fans flocked to stores to pick up the high anticipated sequel, and they were not disappointed. Red Dead II raked in not only over $725 million after only three days but also almost universal praise from the media. The game was in the news not only on gaming websites and magazines but also in the mainstream media. The game takes place in America during the year 1899 and has a strong Wild West theme to it. The game offers over sixty hours of gameplay just with the main story but adding in side activities and side missions to that play time can exponentially increase the play time for Red Dead II.

Red Dead II offers fun and in detail activities besides the main story missions, such as hunting. Hunting in Red Dead II consist of travelling to a location on the huge map where the animal your hunting is found for example if you want to hunt Alligators you must go to the swampy southern end of the map, if you want to hunt elk you must go to the snowy mountains in the north of the map. Once in the region of the animal you must rack it by looking for clues, once the animal is tracked you must decide the best weapon to take it down with-out damaging the skin. Animals skins that are intact and in better shape when you hunt them can be sold for more money or crafted into clothing for your character in game. This hunting mechanic is just one example of Red Dead II’s highly immersive world.

Ownership-

The video game industry lives on game developing companies that actually create the games. These companies like any other industry vary from small independent companies with a limited number of employees to large corporations and conglomerates that push out Triple-A games on a monthly basis.

An Example of a smaller independent developer is Tripwire Interactive. Tripwire specializes in FPS games especially “hyper-realistic” type FPS games like Red Orchestra and Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. The Red Orchestra games were a welcome change to the type of gameplay offered from most WWII themed FPS games at the time. While other games feature fast gameplay with things like regenerating health and a Heads up Display (HUD) that displayed a mini map, health bar, and ammo count, Red Orchestra cut all that out. Tripwire focused on making a more realistic experience. This included mechanics such as realistic bullet ballistics with shots staring to arch over a certain distance, excluding a HUD feature altogether, and having the player venerable enough to be killed by a single bullet to add to the realism. These mechanics later carried on into other Tripwire games such as the Pacific Theatre WWII game Rising Storm and the Vietnam War game Rising Storm II.

An example of a larger and more corporate game developer that makes games similar to Tripwire. Dice Studios is a very well-known studio most famous for the production of the Battlefield franchise and more recently the Star Wars: Battlefront franchise. Dice is owned by Electronic Arts or EA a huge gaming development conglomeration that has many smaller game developers working for them. Dice has been making battlefield games since 2002 with the first title being a WWII FPS called Battlefield 1942. The game saw great success and EA recognized this and now has Dice pumping out Battlefield games almost every two years.

Demographics-

The demographics of gamers are actually a lot more diverse than one might believe. The usually stereotype is that gamers are either boys between the ages of 7-17 or young men in their twenties that live in their parents basement. There’s also a major stereotype that females do not like video games.

64% of the US general public play video games, The average age of the male gamer according to a Nielsen survey is 33 years old, according to the Entertainment Software Association the average age of female gamers is 37 years old. The countries that make the most from gaming revenue are The US bringing in an average of $25,426 million, Japan with $14,048 million, and China with a whopping $32,538 million.

Controversaries-

The gaming industry and its companies are not immune to controversary and culture movements.

The Grand Theft Auto Controversaries- Rockstar Game’s Grand Theft Auto (GTA) franchise is their most successful and most controversial franchise. The games are usually themed around crime and the main storylines have very graphic violence, drug use, and sexual content. The sandbox nature of the game also allows the player the opportunity to commit violence against non-enemy NPCs (non-playable characters) or go on shooting sprees until the cops kill you. GTA V came under harsh criticism for a playable scene In the story mode in which the player is forced to torture an FBI prisoner for information with anything from shock with a car battery, pulling teeth with plyers, or waterboarding. This scene especially got lots of media attention with many people asking the question if GTA games are to violent especially in today’s culture. Rockstar however uses this publicity and actually counts on it with each GTA release because it ultimately drives up their sales.

The Doom Controversary- On April 20 1999 two high school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their high school armed with guns and homemade bombs. They killed twelve people that day and themselves, and in the subsequent investigation it was found that the boys were fans of one the first popular FPS games Doom. Doom is centered on very simple gameplay with an interesting story with the main character traveling to Mars and to Hell to fight demons. It was the demonic themes and violent gameplay that led some to believe that Doom was actually sending Satanic subliminal messages to players trying to corrupt them to violence.

Sources

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200810/physicshistory.cfm

http://pacman.com/en/pac-man-history

https://www.howtogeek.com/trivia/in-which-game-did-mario-make-his-first-appearance/

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/06/19/415456813/the-legendary-mr-miyamoto-father-of-mario-and-donkey-kong

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2018/10/30/red-dead-redemption-2-sales-revealed-725-million-in-three-days/#79f7000455d7

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-red-dead-redemption-2-2018-9

https://www.tripwireinteractive.com/#/company/#top

https://www.wepc.com/news/video-game-statistics/#video-gaming-industry-overview

#MSCT2010BattistaFall18

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pooma-education · 3 years

Text

Mr. Ashish Bhatnagar

Mr. Paul Vincent Moses

Mr. Nahid Raiza

TOPIC:

What are the Challenges of Global School Education and where India stand on that?

Group: National UN Volunteers.

Time: No limit. Whenever you wish to share your views you can. 6 am- 10pm

🍁

Aim and purpose of Education:

Education, at its best, is about helping people discover, refine, and develop their gifts, talents, passions and abilities; and then helping them discover how to use those gifts, talents, abilities in ways that benefit others and oneself.

When the purposes are for the upliftment of our society, then no doubt is in to have number of challenges in global education system or local education system.

¶ Challenge: 1

Right to education RTE.

We have existing learning organizations where learners are part of that organization for sime years without having a journey of discovery to discover what is within them till now.

We came to the point now as education the fundamental right of a man.

In real sense Education is life itself. It is not a right to claim. When shall we reach or take Education to the state of life from rights.

¶ Challenge: 2

Testing & Assessment

Testing should exist as a servant to the main goals of education.

Whenever people start to build learning organizations and experiences around tests instead of designing tests to serve and amplify the organization’s mission, vision, and values; we have a problem. Such organisations will face lot of challenges to exist or to continue.

We should know here one thing. Education itself a tool designed by nature to test users. Whereas we design a tool to test Education.

And the design is of the mindset of the designer. We consider him or her as the standard designer.

It can be explained with an example-A teacher of your school is a question setter of his subject. Means he is one of the designer of a tool to assess Education.

Can he be a standard designer.? Can a school assure of this?

Then where is the standard assessment or test? That's beyond our imagination and understanding.

If we get such a test then there won't be challanges in Education.

Therefore assessment or test is to assess the complete person as the Education is for shaping the complete man.

But our design for assessment is assesment of education in a person and not the outcomes of Education in that particular person.

Reminder: The purpose of Education is man making first.

¶ Challenge:3

Nurturing the nature of learners.

Character, virtues, and non-cognitive skills have always been an important part of a person’s growth and maturation, not only into adulthood but throughout life.

If we want to invest in aspects of education that have a huge impact on the lives of individuals, their families, their communities, their places of work, and the entire world around them; we are wise to devote time and attention to how we can nurture these important elements that less frequently show up in a list of learning objectives for a course or goals for a formal program.

We are talking about traits like grit, courage, conscientiousness, integrity, personal ownership, the capacity to postpone gratification, collaboration skills, the ability to plan and prioritize, and many others.

Nurturing aforementioned already existing nature in users of Education is the prime purpose of Education. But it is not happening in most of the learning organisations.

¶ Challenge:4

Purpose of Education is misunderstood.

Formal and informal Education are the two categories of it. Formal is to detect the skill within. And informal is to develop and make use of it. Formal education is for learning and informal is for earning. That is for job opportunities and openings.

But what do we do is reverse. Our challenges are due to which when right things are chosen for wrong. That's Education for employment. Education is often about teaching people to critique, but that must be accompanied with nurturing the capacity to create, to discover and embrace the purpose and meaning in the world around us…and beyond.

Education is not mere for employment. Education is not a passport or password access to a job.

The very purpose of Education is limited into one's qualification in our country or community.

Is it correct?

¶ Challenge 5:

Factors that affect learning.

Students of different countries have different capabilities owing to what they have learnt. Learning capacities also vary due to environment. We in India mostly follow rote method while learning. Most of the schools in India, including the so-called International schools, test students' memory instead of testing their intellectual abilities. Self-learning is hardly. Any learning process that makes students self-dependant is hardly found.

Free education up to some level is quite good. But if it extends the limit, especially for male candidates, the value of education and the course pursued is found to have diminished.

CBSE is trying to change now. I can see many welcome changes to the syllabus, curriculum and approach now.

As we give value to money, what is paid, is similarly given value. Many in India are graduates but are jobless.

I hope the points you mentioned will be considered especially with the new NEP. Rote learning has been there for ages but there are some good signs I can see in some schools. Many changes have been there so far, but nothing proved to be very productive. It takes time to see some significant changes.

May be, but it depends on the government. Rote learning is not completely bad. But it doesn't help any student develop his/her intellectual skills. We are still in the third world status; 72 yrs since we've got independence; still how long?... Is, unfortunately, one of the questions being posed with no positive answers and outcome left. Are we comparing ourselves with those who are already developed or with those who are under-developed?.

Our wonderful politicians don't keep us updated with new techniques and methods to have them implemented in schools and colleges.

Q: What is your qualification?

R: B.Tech.

Q: What are you?

R: Customer-care Executive.

Let's See the above...

The qualification of the person has nothing to do with the job the person is doing.

¶ What is the purpose of education?.

This is what's going on in our country. The study field and the job field has a lot of difference. What are schools doing these?. It all depends in students' interest, parents' involvement; active or passive; institutions' maintenance of quality while giving the quality stuff to its benefactors (students) for what they are paid. But it again reflects on the nation's disability in giving its students what is best.

Egoistic feelings among politicians and social groups installed in some families or indians' minds keep our present youth from learning the best or at least something better. A real learner learns any good even from an enemy. Are we? Are our children taught to learn alike?. A real education is a moral food. Do we know ow how many are taking are that as a poison?

There are numerous such examples.... Raghuram Rajan, Nirmala Sitaraman,. And many more.

I appreciate them for they belong to the past. We are in the present world. But examples of?. We need the examples of those who work according to what they aimed at. Very few are there. I still doubt if you should say there are many. What is our population? How many complete their Degrees, PGs and Ph.Ds.a year?. How many do possess research minds?. How many are involved in the research process?. How many scholars are discouraged by their guides while in the research completition?. How many are able to get their doctoral degrees successfully without being harassed by their guides or professors?. Out of those many (if yes), how many are worthy of those doctorates?. How many research minded children are developed by our schools and colleges in our country? How many of them are encouraged to ask questions? How many of such questions are tolerated?. How many good citizens have we made so far? A citizen is a responsible person for the place, district, state, Nation and society he/she lives in.

¶ Challange 5

Marking system for marketing in Education

One of the main problems with our Indian education system is its marking system.

The intelligence of the students is judged by the way they perform in a 3 hour theoretical paper rather than by their overall performance in the class.

In such a scenario, learning lessons to get good marks becomes the sole aim of the students. They are not able to think beyond it. They are not bothered about understanding concepts or enhancing their knowledge all they think about is to look for ways to get good marks.

Another problem is that the focus is only on theory. No importance is given to practical learning.

Our education system encourages the students to become bookworms and does not prepare them for handling the real problems and challenges of life.

Academics are given so much importance that the need to involve the students in sports and art activities is overlooked.

Students are also overburdened with studies. Regular exams are held and students are scrutinized at every step.

This creates acute stress among the students. The stress level of the students continues to grow as they advance to higher classes.

The scores are one of the main criteria in marketing the school for its existence. The teachers and leaders are evaluated by the way of secured scores.

All other activities are of no use Infront of scores and all other facilities are unimportant if the scores are good. Fee structure is fixed by the scale of scores.

The vision and mission of a school take last bench Infront of the score.

Totally all over development of a child is restricted to the scores.

Now here are some

¶ WAYS TO IMPROVE INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

Some of the ways to improve the education system are, focusing on skill development; it is the time for the Indian schools and colleges to stop putting so much importance to the marks and ranks of the students and focus on skill development instead.

The cognitive, problem solving, analytical and creative thinking skills of the students must be enhanced. Imparting practical knowledge, practical knowledge is very important to develop a thorough understanding of any subject.

However, our Indian education system focuses mainly on theoretical knowledge. Revising the curriculum, the curriculum of our schools and colleges is the same since decades. It is the time to change it as per the changing times so that the students learn things more relevant to their times. Classes on developing good communication skills as it are the need of the hour.

Looking beyond academics, the education system of our country must look beyond academics. Sports, arts and other activities must also be given importance to ensure the all-round development of students.

Certainly there is a way in NEP 2019.

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nclkafilms · 6 years

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The First Rough Draft of History

(Review of ‘The Post’ seen on the 21st of February 2018)

Steven Spielberg is a productive director. His IMDb reveals no less than 57 Director credits. His latest, The Post, follows in slipstream of recent works, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies, in showcasing important, historical events in the relatively short history of the United States. This time it is not revolutionary leaders or spy exchanges that in the centre of events; in stead he know portrays a story of the free press that is so important to a modern democracy. As it is stated in the film: “The press is for the governed, not the governors!” As such the film has rarely seemed more relevant than it does today in the media presence of world leaders such as Trump and Putin alike. How far should the press go to reveal the truth and what should their relationship be to he leaders in charge? Those are the two central questions that Spielberg asks and answers with his most recent film.

It is the story of the Pentagon Papers and how these - confidential - papers were shared with the press at the height of Nixon’s presidency. We follow the newsroom crew at the Washington Post - at this time a local newspaper - as they observe the more prominent New York Times receive an indictment from the authorities as they publish a story based on the leak. When Post editor Ben Bradlee and his team finally gets a hold on the leaked papers, he and owner, Kay Graham (who have inherited the ownership from her late husband) faces the questions mentioned earlier as they are entangled in moral and ethical questions relating to personal relations, their journalistic oath, the disclosure of methodical government lies and injustices as well as the very future existence of the paper. As the papers threaten to uncover lies of not just Nixon’s administration but the three before him as well, the White House lures in a distance determined to prevent the publication…

At the centre of it all is a powerduo who remarkably stars in their first film together here: Meryl Streep as Kay Graham and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee. Hanks who is a Spielberg-usual (Bridge of Spies, The Terminal, Catch Me if you Can and Saving Private Ryan) delivers a well-balanced and convincing performance as Bradlee, who refuses to be bullied by neither the authorities or company big heads in his battle to uncover the truth. His performance bears many similarities to his turn in Bridge of Spies and it is hard to put a finger on it, although it is oddly anonymous at the same time.

Opposite of him, Spielberg first timer, Meryl Streep, is the films main asset as Kay Graham. Even though, I have an issue with Streep in the sense that I always see her in her characters (unlike Daniel Day-Lewis for instance) it is hard to look beyond her here and admittedly her Oscar nomination is one of her more well-deserved. She delivers one of her most nuanced performances in years as the insecure yet stubborn Graham, who faces a journalistic dilemma with the potential to change history without ever really having had her daily life in the newsroom or offices of the Post. Her character develops in a satisfying way throughout the film and despite a slightly overdone scene towards the end that highlights this in a blatant way, her character sure is a great role model and idol for women in leading jobs. In this way, the film becomes even more relevant in the 2018 political climate thanks to more than just its focus on the free press.

The supporting cast is great but also slightly forgettable; perhaps with the exception of Jesse Plemons’ legal advisor who provides an interesting and somewhat funny opposition to the stubborn journalists as he represents the harsh facts of the legal aspect of their otherwise heroic, journalistic mission. It is hard not to compare this film to recent journalistic portrayals as the one in Spotlight (2015); a film that was much more of an ensemble film. Make no mistake; here Meryl and Tom rule above all.

Despite its flaws in storytelling and character building (for the supporting roles), this is a master at work. Spielberg knows what he is doing and he masterfully manages to create not only a historically important film but also actual tension and suspense despite the fact that we know what happens. One great example of this is a scene in which all the important people are discussing whether or not to publish the papers. This is done over the phone, but obviously way before the age of conference calls. No, instead every single person stands in different places (some within the same house) with different telephones. A scene, which could so easily have been a scene of hopeless editing from one person to another, becomes a nail-biting and suspenseful scene in the hands of Spielberg. One of the best scenes in the entire film for sure.

With the score composed by living legend John Williams (his 143rd composer credit that is!!), Janusz Kaminski behind the camera with his ever observant eye and Michael Kahn (along with newcomer Sarah Broshar) in the editing room, this is Spielberg playing it safe. However, it is difficult to blame him for doing so when the result is such a well-functioning film finished in an unprecedented timeframe with just 9 months from finished script to final cut that hits right into the political climate of its time. That is a proof of not only a masterful filmmaker, but also a filmmaker who knows and acknowledges the power of the medium to promote and provide a perspective on current issues. Much like the press in the film, arts share the same possibility of commenting on and revealing truths.

4/5

#Film #Film Review #Movie #Movie Review #Oscars #Oscars 2018 #academy awards #Best Picture #Best Actress in a Leading Role #The Post #steven spielberg #Tom Hanks #Meryl Streep #Jesse Plemons #John Williams #Janusz Kaminski #Michael Kahn #Sarah Broshar

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dustedmagazine · 6 years

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Listening Post: The Fall Singles Box Set

Over nearly four decades, 32 studio albums, around a dozen labels and a dizzying array of line-ups, the Fall has been a source of endless fascination, amusement, irritation, astonishment and enjoyment to a healthy minority of Dusted writers. Centered around the irascible,unpredictable, absolutely inimitable Mark E. Smith, the Fall has been churning out singles since most of us started buying them, and, unlike other youthful obsessions, continues to do so, right up to the current moment. So, when we heard that Cherry Red was putting out a massive seven-disc, 117-track singles collection, we were intrigued. We were also a little daunted. We decided to listen to it together, or at least at the same time, as much as we could, and talk about it in this listening post. As usual, some of us were long-time fans, others were new to the Fall and a couple were, shall we say, not convinced. Contributors included Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Justin Cober-Lake, Ben Donnelly, Ian Mathers, Mason Jones, Michael Rosenstein and Marc Medwin.

Jennifer Kelly: Hey, so I thought I'd kick this thing off book club style with some discussion questions -- though of course, as in any book club, you are free to ignore the questions and talk about other stuff as long as you don't get too loaded on white wine.

So how are we feeling about the size and scope of the box set? I think for the vast majority of people it will seem like a LOT of Fall, but a couple of die-hards in my circle are mad because things are missing. (One of them owns NINE separate versions of "Hit the North," just to give you an idea of the scope of the thing.)

The first two discs are, in my view, a pretty superb greatest hits collection (with some caveats because some of their great songs weren't A sides or even singles). I knew most of this stuff already, but had never heard the first two ("Bingo Master's Break Out" and "It's the New Thing") and a couple of the others. I guess I'd vote for "Cruisers Creek" as my favorite of the old favorites, how about you guys?

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I'm also struck by how great the Brix years were. How much impact do we think band members besides MES had on the music, and which were the most important?

Bill Meyer: These are excellent questions and I will get to some of them in the next couple days. “Bingo Masters Breakout” is a singalong song in my house, my wife has been fond of that one since we first heard it c. 1983.

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Crain Scanlon's rhythm guitar and Steve Hanley's bass kept the Fall honest through some pretty grim production decisions in the mid1990s. Hell, Scanlon's hacked up guitar — which was the most battered thing I've seen on stage except for Terrie Ex's guitar — was a totem of humility. It was a sad day when Scanlon figured out how to play anonymous, competent lead guitar.

Another notion to consider - Over the evolution of the Fall, there have been hard reactions AGAINST the influence of group members. I think that Brix was an antidote to the influence of Marc Riley. The late 1990s resurgence was a response to the departure of Scanlon and Hanley. And the relative anonymity of early 2000s bands was, I think, all about Smith not letting a band have too much ownership of the sound.

I realize I'm talking about the Fall, not the singles set, but I'll get to that soon

Justin Cober-Lake: Speaking as a casual fan with just a few scattered albums, the size and scope of this box are intimidating and a little perplexing. The Fall have always been prolific and, especially with the lineup changes, it's hard to keep up with them in any sort of knowledgeable way unless you're committed. Getting this many tracks at once is overwhelming. That said, why complain about too much music. This box isn't meant for me (I'd be well served by a two-disc set with a quality essay in the liner notes). But I imagine it's pretty great for the people it's for, unless they have most of this material already.

The ideal listener for this set would be someone who knew just enough about the Fall to decide they wanted to jump in all the way, but didn't want to pick up old albums willy-nilly. What you need is here, covering about 25 years of music. Getting through it all in a way that gets me a better understanding of the band has been a challenge; the ability to listen to lots of Fall without repeating stuff has been a treat. I haven't found my era, my lineup or my 45-minute mix, and I doubt that I will, but that says as much about me as it does about the set.

Bill Meyer: Yeah, this thing is immense. I've been on board the Fall wagon since 1981, and it's still kind of overwhelming, but that is because it is just so big. The Fall has used the single format intensively since about 1978, that's a whole lot of singles. And because they have been around so long, your mileage is likely to vary drastically according to the era.

Jennifer Kelly: And I've run into a couple of people who find this set entirely insufficient.

Hard core Fall people are a special breed.

Justin Cober-Lake: This is maybe starting to shift away from the music, but from a collecting/curating (and marketing) point of view, would this material have benefited from getting, say, three separate boxes, each larger than 1/3 of this one, to get in those various mixes? Would that benefit fans or the sets to be more complete and in chunks, or would that have just served a tiny handful of fans with no real audio benefit. As fun as demos and properly alternate versions are, I've realized I'm seldom interested in hearing the radio edit that's exactly the same but missing three seconds at the end, even for my favorite acts. If this is a set specifically targeting hardcore fans, maybe it's an error not to be truly complete, even if that would have many restructuring how the material was compiled.

Bill Meyer: We definitely want to balance the "why, I was listening to this when I still had my first set of adult teeth!" opinions with some fresh reactions.

Jennifer Kelly: How many sets of teeth have you gone through, Bill?

Ben Donnelly: Mark E Smith has gone through one, at least.

Bill Meyer: That's between me and my dentist. But I did have a conversation recently with a guitarist who has had records on Homestead, Thrill Jockey, and other labels who shared that they are on their second round of implants. And one thing I wrote about in an earlier Fall review - maybe the Peel Sessions box that I covered for Dusted? - is thinking that I heard Smith take advantage of the looseness of the fit of his plate to get a certain kind of slur.

He had enough left, at least until this past year, to hang his plate on. I gather that the health problems that led to the cancellation of American dates this summer and Euro/UK dates this fall started with a tooth removal that led straight into respiratory problems, which are still keeping him off the stage as of November 2017.

Jennifer Kelly: The last few records have definitely upped the spittle factor.

Bill Meyer: Very true.

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Justin Cober-Lake: Maybe as a way to invite new listeners in and to orient our readers, how would some of you more experienced Fall fans recommend approaching this breadth of music? A quick survey of a few tracks of each disc, trying to cover various eras? Put the whole thing on shuffle? Dedicate a few dozen hours to watching the group move through its decades?

Jennifer Kelly: The first two discs are all the A-sides, so that's a pretty good survey of the best and most listened-to material the band's done.

I would pick one or two that you like (or hate) and talk about why.

Bill Meyer: Disc three is A-sides too, beginning in about 1999. I've particularly appreciated it because I stopped getting Fall 7"s a little before the start of disc three, so there are songs or at least mixes that I've never heard. "Theme From Sparta F.C. #2" turns an already punchy song into a proud, rocking anthem. I might never feel that righteous about a football club, but when this song is on I want to.

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The clock restarts with disc four, tracing the history with b-sides. I haven't really digested the more recent stuff, but disc four has songs that stand among their very best. "I'm Into C.B." is masterpiece of building tension with a rumbling groove, shards of guitar, and untouchable lyric about the causes and consequences of mundane obsession. In more recent decades Smith's let himself get away with incomprehensible bluster, but back in the early 80s he was a potent and economical lyricist.

Per Justin's question, I think that there's no perfect way to collect this music, because the perfect form is the original single. So forget about perfection; the sequence of discs one-three makes unassailable sense and charts the band's progress over time quite handily. It's an incomplete story because some of the Fall's greatest songs are pretty long, and some of their albums benefit perversely from fucked-up antics that don't make it onto a-sides very often (although you'll definitely get the idea of what I'm talking about from "Distilled Mug Art (mix 15)."

Ben Donnelly: My hints for cracking The Fall, because they are a bowl of nuts with hard shells and lots of bitter pith that requires some work to crack and enjoy.

Dive in anywhere. The continuities to their sound — twangy garage riffs, glib synthesizer textures — make shuffling through their catalog less jarring than other bands that have passed through these decades. As Justin observes, the material can be scattered, intimidating and perplexing, so popping them out like bingo balls isn't going to violate the intent. One of the cliches about the band that holds up, stated by John Peel: "They are always different; they are always the same."

The lyrics may seem improvised and stream-of-consciousness, but Mark E Smith is adamant about the work he puts into them. The longer you inhabit his world of language, the more the language starts to click. Here's the lyrics for all the singles, as best as fans could transcribe them: http://thefall.org/discography/singles.html

Wire, the other long-running and perpetually creative art-punk band, deconstructs rock — creating mannerist investigations, commenting on commentary. There's a temptation to draw parallels. But The Fall is not a meta-rock band. They are not deconstructing rock, even if they frequently sound like they're coming apart at the seams. They're just a rock band, dedicated to singles alternating with albums, frequent cover versions of old pop, and the commitment to a line up of guitar, bass, drums and keys. Albums have hooky numbers, experimental digressions, and winding epics, like very mangled versions of Sgt. Pepper's, White Light/White Heat or Station to Station.

One of the other cliches about the band, stated by Mark E Smith, is "If it's me and yer granny on bongos, it's The Fall." Which implies it's all about MES, but collaboration is key to how he's kept the operation running. I don't think many of the dozens of Fall members would describe him as a generous collaborator exactly, but his method of creation depends on others. You never get unadulterated Mark E Smith. There's always admixture.

Eric McDowell: As an uninitiated Fall listener, it's pretty great to find myself privy to this discussion. I especially appreciate the permission to simply start listening without overthinking it, since my obsessive completism has definitely had me trapped between wanting to hear the whole Fall discography in order and feeling completely overwhelmed at the prospect of undertaking that project.

To be fair, caving to compulsion, I did start with disc one. So I can only speak to a small part of the collection so far. But what I had somehow underestimated was how damn fun this stuff would be to listen to. Maybe it has more to do with letting go of my usual habits — or the fact that this is a set of singles, without the regulated ups and downs of album arrangement — but to my ears, it's just good listening. Gonna try to keep the baggage at bay while I move on to disc two...

Bill Meyer: The Fall gained respect with good reason; they had great hooks, a bizarrely compelling singer, and a primitive groove that just would not quit from the get go. No need to lug baggage when you can just pick up on the songs.

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Mason Jones: I've never been a particularly big fan of the Fall despite appreciating the band's accomplishments. The approach has been remarkably consistent despite the changes, as others have mentioned, but somehow that hasn't resulted in the band sounding dated, which almost seems like an impossibility. Perhaps the primitivism that Bill mentions is partly responsible: when you start from a compellingly simple (yet so hard to get right) premise, layer on MES's uniqueness, and just run with it, there's no place to go except straight ahead. Yet a lot of bands have tried the idea of "don't mess with a good thing" and wound up left behind as times change. It doesn't feel like that's happened to the Fall, which is a bit mysterious. With all of these singles laid out now, perhaps their path will show itself, but I'm not so sure...

Justin Cober-Lake: Ben's points are very helpful here, and I think the Peel quote is spot-on. Fans and reviewers tend to talk in terms of the changes between albums or lineups, but it's that continuity of central focus that stands out. Listening to everything in order as presented by the box does start to highlight the overarching view. Going from one era of the Fall to another is far less jarring (or even noticeable) than going from, say, The Clash to Sandinista to Combat Rock. The MES Granny Bongos album isn't exactly Elvis Costello genre experimentation (and that's neither criticism nor praise).

May as another way to get into things (and if this is derailing or tangential, feel free to delete/ignore and move on), imagine someone came to you and said, "So, the Fall is your favorite band? What should I listen to to understand why?" Is something like, "the first disc of this set" a reasonable answer? Is this a band that fans fell for instantly or did it take a lengthy of singles and albums for something to cohere?

To be fair, anyone would answer similar questions with, "To get [my favorite band], you need to hear these songs, but don't forget how to this entire album fits in, and you only see what's really going on if you see the late stuff over here...." Some bands can be reasonably well captured by a single-disc "best of". Would that approach reveal the essentials of the Fall?

Jennifer Kelly: I think the first disc is a reasonable answer. However, as Bill mentioned, these are singles and as a result, at least for the Fall, relatively tight, cohesive statements. You don't get into the squirrelly bits as much (though they're there), and there are none of the long hallucinatory cuts that are also very representative of this band. (For an example of this, I'd start with "Hip Priest.")

The things I like about the Fall, more or less in order.

The tight, rhythmic underpinning. Whatever granny was playing on her bongos really moves, bass is almost always awesome, too.

The weird way of incorporating whatever's passing through musically -- punk, post-punk, pop, electro-clash, dance, rockabilly, literally anything, into an aesthetic that is completely recognizable as the Fall.

And in a similar sense, the lyrics, which weave so many cultural references in that listening to these discs is like an oral history, at least of the silly parts of the last 30 or 40 years.

M.E.S.'s spectacular disdain, his ornery-ness, his willingness to bite the hand that feeds him, see "500 Bottle of Wine"

I find myself laughing out loud about once every three tracks, because the Fall is just such a pisser, willing to say and play any god-damn thing, but completely what it is, regardless.

Justin Cober-Lake: Just after I read this note, I laughed at "Marquis Cha Cha," and then realized that's probably a great example of what I like in the Fall, or what I would like if dug deeper and was more familiar. The track has a surprising groove to it, just hinting at a relevant globalism. Smith has some wry lyrics, and at least one moment that's genuinely funny ("You educated kids know what you're on about / You've been oppressed for years"), all of which disguises the song's disturbing elements. It feels particularly Fall-y to me, or at least does the things the Fall does that Jenny describes as the four things she likes about them.

Ben Donnelly: I was going to suggest the one with "Hip Priest" as well, Hex Enduction Hour, in part because they way "Hip Priest" was worked into the end of Silence of the Lambs makes it slightly familiar to most people, making it an example of the oddest aspects of The Fall planted deep in popular culture. But there's a whole bunch of good answers here, and I was content for a long time with owning one album (Bend Sinister) and one singles compilation (458489 A Sides).

My favorite LPs would be Hex, This Nations Saving Grace, The Unutterable, The Real New Fall Album.

Ian Mathers: I haven't had time to get too much into this yet, but I do think the first 1 or 2 (or even 3, if you've got time and patience) discs make for a decent intro, although I might still direct budget conscious listeners to the two-disc 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats compilation, which was the first time anything even approaching wide-ranging/definitive enough came out. But I honestly feel that, unlike most bands I like, nearly anything can be a good intro. To date myself a little, I read about the Fall long before I was able to find any of their work in stores (primitively enough, the only way I would have been able to hear them at the time). And even then, although I'd check every music store I went to for them, there wouldn't even be a title card for the Fall. Then one day one of those dodgy CD resellers that haunts university campuses showed up at my school with exactly one, battered, garish Fall CD in stock: 1992's Code: Selfish, represented here by the great political/dance-rock doggerel of "Free Range", track 13 of disc 2. It is not at all a terribly representative record for the band, but it's all I had to listen to and even though no other opening track of theirs sounds like a bunch of church bells tossed in a bin and chucked down the stairs (love you, "The Birmingham School of Business School") by the time music became more, err, accessible (and I moved to a place with better stores) I still felt prepared for the vast sprawl of their oeuvre. And now, in retrospect, I feel like I could have started from the grottiest, earliest singles here, or the bilious pomp of something like "Hip Priest", and been just as well prepared.

And by prepared I mean both that the Fall's work seems in some way to be holographic - any small chip off the ol' block somehow recapitulates the whole - and that I kind of knew I was going to love pretty much all of it. There are some dodgy/crappy Fall releases out there, but I'm still basically/theoretically on board, or at least would rather listen to that than many other outfits. This box represents a mammoth investment of time, but for me it pays you back immensely - not everyone needs (to take some semi-random examples) "I'm Into C.B.", "No Bulbs", "Blood Outta Stone", or "I Wake Up in the City" in their life but I feel richer for it.

To answer one of the questions Jenny asked earlier, probably my favourite of the old singles on those first discs is actually the first Fall song I ever heard and the only one I had the chance to hear before Code: Selfish, when I stumbled onto the video for "Hit the North" on TV.

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I just love that farty synth bass/horn sound, and all the screaming. Really! And this also ties into the question of collaboration, because as much as I've liked songs from across the length and breadth of their music plenty of the people in the "Hit the North" video (and a few others) make up the core of what I'm always going to (unfairly?) think of as the "real" or "true" Fall, not just MES (a singular figure, and more on that in a minute) but Brix, Steve Hanley, Craig Scanlon, and Paul Hanley. In some ways this idea is a mirage, in multiple senses; not only are there others who contributed to albums during this period (Marc Riley, Simons Rogers and Wolstencroft, Karl Burns, special shout out to Dave Bush, later of Elastica, for his work on my beloved Code: Selfish), and not only is is doubtful how long that group of people actually worked as a functional unit and not only is the current lineup (who all joined in 2006) the longest-serving stable incarnation, the fact still remains that in not just the music but the pictures and videos I was able to find as a younger person getting into the band they're who I think of as the Fall. The "granny on bongos" comment is absolutely true for better and worse, but one of Smith's undeniable talents is in putting together good bands (or else he's just obscenely lucky). Yes, with almost any other vocalist many of these songs would be worse off, and it's the alchemy between MES as a sui generis front man and the music that makes the Fall what they are, but often thinking about the band mostly begins and ends with the front.

With one already-oft-mentioned exception, I'm sure my favorite Fall LPs are pretty conventional within the world of Fall fans (no order):

Code: Selfish, Hex Enduction Hour (remove that pointless racial slur up top and this is basically perfect), The Wonderful and Frightening World Of... (the 16-track North American CD version with all the bonus tracks...), This Nation's Saving Grace ("Paint Work" might secretly be my favorite Fall song), and Bend Sinister.

As for MES: Here's someone who on the one hand is probably one of the best front man of his era/generation, often super compelling when singing. And on the other hand it's impossible not to notice that he seems deeply unpleasant, has been accused of and/or gotten in legal trouble for domestic abuse, bullying, racism, alcholism, assault, etc. and none of its really ever made very much headway (although with him ailing recently, if we are witnessing the end of the era I wonder what kind of dam is going to break in the wake of his passing, whenever that happens). I fell in love with the Fall, and heard album after album, long before I heard of anything worse from Smith than just eccentricities, and while I admit these things are a big part of why I don't think I'd buy a concert ticket or provide other direct financial support in the future, this is a case where I seem to be unwilling to ditch the work (as opposed to my inability to listen to Swans in recent years, my complete lack of interest in revisiting Louis CK's work, etc etc.). You can find recent interviews with, for example, Brix where she doesn't shy away from describing unacceptable, abusive behaviour by Smith to her and others, but she also seems to love the band and her work with the band and doesn't seem to want anyone to stop listening.

It's something I certainly wish wasn't true and something I won't defend, and it definitely has changed how and when I recommend the Fall to others, but ultimately aside from really blatant moments like wincing at "The Classical" it hasn't necessarily stopped me from listening myself.

Bill Meyer: Yeah, MES comes across as deeply unpleasant, and for that reason I have not so far read any of the Fall books. It's interesting to note that people he has mistreated come back and work with him again. Prime example - his ex-wife Brix re-joined the band in the mid-1990s. I saw them then and she wasn't just a hired hand, she brought more energy to the performance of what I consider some of their more problematic material than he did. Smith is like David Thomas, Lou Reed, Charles Mingus, and Miles Davis, to name a few other bandleaders who have treated their collaborators terribly only to have those people come back and play with them again, in this respect: they can know they are being treated badly, and feel very bad about it, but also know that they are part of something singular and great. They come back to be part of that thing, and they make it great by participating. When things fall out of sync (the first album after Marc Riley left, the last album with Brix before the divorce, the last records with Scanlon/Hanley, Reformation post-TLC) you get records that are weaker than the songs that make them up.

Michael Rosenstein: I am just slightly scratching the surface here and find it all disorienting in so many ways. It is just not the way I am used to listening to music and not the music I am used to listening to. Sure I've heard about the Fall, but never, as far as I can remember, consciously listened to anything of theirs. My thoughts are based on a super-cursory listen which is really about all this musters for me. That is absolutely all about me and my musical tastes and not at all about the music. The first disc seems to stick the most with me, but really only because it sounds like what I expected them to sound like. It sounds very much stuck in the late 70s early 80s post-punk music that I have a passing familiarity with (The Slits, Pop Group/Rip Rig and Panic, Gang of Four ("Peel Sessions" or "Entertainment",...) though certainly messier than Wire. It hits all the tropes I would expect and does so with a shambolic energy that is passingly engaging. But by the time they are hitting the late 80s, they've lost me altogether. (The old man in me is starting to think "this all kind of sounds the same") and spot checking the third disc is a bit of a slog.

It has made me think about how singles functioned in the late 1970s/1980s in particular, something that just wasn't on my radar because of what I was listening to at the time. I've been talking to friends who were grabbing these as they came out, searching out singles because that was the only way to get a glimpse of this kind of stuff in the US. That notion of the hard search for music being leaked out in small doses is SO different than how people listen now.

In the end, this is an intriguing listening exercise for me but nothing jumps out enough to entice me to really dig in more deeply. I am absolutely not the audience for this box, and really wouldn't even be the audience for a single-CD very, very, very best of comp. Now back to looking out my window watching the snow and digging very deeply in to John Cage's "Winter Music" which is totally my jam.

Jennifer Kelly: I think it's important that we are able to disagree civilly -- and I do disagree with almost everything in your post -- and I imagine we have some readers who do not like the Fall.

The main risk is that MES reads your post and incorporates it into some sort of a song later, a la "Portugal."

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Mason Jones: I agree, I think if we can dig into more detail, this could be a valuable and interesting inclusion. I think I agree with some of your thoughts, and not others, since I'm not a Fall fan but do enjoy parts of the catalog.

Bill Meyer: I certainly appreciate the inclusion of non-partisan and skeptical perspectives. The point about how people received music in the heyday of indie singles vs how they access music now - and also how the potential consumers of 7 CD archival boxes relate to other dominant modes of music consumption- that's best discussed when I am not typing with a thumb. Maybe later or maybe you can all take it past me.

Michael Rosenstein: I’d be curious to understand the parts you disagree with. My comments are so casually subjective based on a cursory listen to music totally outside my wheelhouse. My guess is that any “disagreement” would be rooted in the fact that I did some lazy listening (which I completely agree with.)

Jennifer Kelly: Well for instance, comparing the Fall to the Slits. The two bands sound completely different. There's a lot of reggae in the Slits, for instance, and next to none in the Fall.

Or the Pop Group, again, completely different thing, lots more chaotic and less rhythmic.

Gang of Four, okay, maybe at the most superficial level, though if you listen to this stuff seriously that would be like saying that blue is sort of like green. To me, they're both primary colors. (Ed note: Jennifer Kelly is apparently not aware that green is NOT a primary color.)

Also yes, the Fall did seem to get looser and more distended as the years went on, but I would never attach the word "shambolic" to something as boxed in and paranoiac and just mental as later fall. Shambolic, to me, means trippy and open-ended and accepting of whatever the path leads to, which is not a quality I would associate with the Fall at all.

Michael Rosenstein: Got it. Yeah. That was incredibly lazy on my part and has everything to do my admittedly limited listening in this area. It is exactly the same as someone with minimal exposure to free jazz piano playing saying that some pianist reminds them of Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra (who have almost nothing, stylistically to do with each other). When I say that this is what I was expecting to hear, I only meant that it fit in the tiny little box that I have for that kind of listening.

These are the concerns I have in having my comments included other than really saying that I took a listen, wasn't won over, and went back to my wheelhouse. Which really just proves my narrow listening habits more than anything else.

Bill Meyer: But the Fall did record in the same or similarly appointed studios, worked with similar gear. Part of the sound we associated with late 70s post-punk has to do with gear and studio technique (or lack there-of), and the early Fall stuff shares the same cheap amps, cheap guitars, and cardboard-y drum sounds as a lot of other inexpensively recorded post-punk. What do you think, Michael, are you hearing that sound rather than genre elements?

Michael Rosenstein: Thanks Bill - That gets to where I was going a lot more clearly. When I said:

The first disc seems to stick the most with me, but really only because it sounds like what I expected them to sound like. It sounds very much stuck in the late 1970s early 1980s post-punk music that I have a passing familiarity with

I was talking much less about stylistic synergies than about an overall sound. This for me is more about setting context than it is about any notion of "this sounds like that." There is a boomy quality and evenness of sonic field (with all of the instruments playing equally within the mix) that jumps out. While the way the groups operate are stylistically distinct, and the densities of sound are very different, listening to the way that the mix operates on something like Rip Rig and Panic's "Knee Deep In Shit" sets me up to hear "Roche Rumble."

I'll stick with this:

But by the time they are hitting the late 1980s, they've lost me altogether. (The old man in me is starting to think "this all kind of sounds the same") and spot checking the third disc is a bit of a slog.

Jenny, it is interesting to hear you talk about them getting "looser and more distended". In thinking it through, maybe a better response to the earlier stuff for me is that I hear a rawness in it that isn't quite there for me in the VERY limited spot checking of the later stuff.

Marc Medwin: OK, I was half thinking of not getting involved at all, OK, more than half, but a toe in the water:

I expected to hate this stuff. I'm only listening to disc 1 now. I'm smiling, grinning actually. For me, the band that comes to mind is the Adverts, maybe it's already been discussed and not really that close at all, I haven't read back through all of these posts yet. I find the keyboard hook on "It's the New Thing" absolutely irresistible!

Just a quick bit of context: So far, my favorite song by the Fall has been “Pat-Trip Dispenser,” which, once I get it in my head, I find myself singing all day long, growling it in the shower, I think the lyrics are pure earthy genius! From what I'm hearing now, I have a hell of a lot of catching up to do!!

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Jennifer Kelly: I've hit the last two discs this week, which admittedly, are not as fun as the first three, but I've been mesmerized by "Hittite Man," lately, and in looking up the lyrics, found this pretty amazing site called The Annotated Fall. http://annotatedfall.doomby.com/

#the fall #listeningpost #dusted magazine #post-punk #singles #mark e. smith #jennifer kelly #bill meyer #justin cober-lake #ben donnelly #ian mathers #mason jones #michael rosenstein #marc medwin #cherry red

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eliteautolease · 5 years

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angelofberlin2000 · 7 years

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Photograph: Jake Chessum

Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield on Martin Scorsese’s new film Silence

Silence stars Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield talk about the cathartic experience of shooting Martin Scorsese’s epic

By Joshua Rothkopf

Posted: Tuesday December 20 2016

“ ‘What’s that bird?’ ” It’s maddeningly early for a Sunday morning, but Adam Driver, gleeful with his coffee and smoked salmon in the near-empty Brooklyn Heights café that’s his local favorite, is setting a scene. “We were shooting in the hills of Taiwan, and Marty kept hearing a certain kind of bird, asking everyone around, ‘What’s that bird sound I’m hearing? What’s that bird?’ It was really important for him to get it. And I don’t remember that bird! It was a detail I wasn’t absorbing. But Marty was so open, in the midst of everything, to be aware of how the space was affecting the story.”

Marty is, of course, Martin Scorsese, the high priest of American cinema, maker of Mean Streets, Goodfellas and, occasionally, something that challenges and floors even his most ardent fans. That movie this time around is Silence, the director’s long-cherished passion project come to fruition after nearly 30 years of development. Based on Shusaku Endo’s controversial 1966 novel about faith under fire, the film follows the plight of 17th-century Jesuit missionaries who travel from Portugal to Japan, which was at the time a mystery to the West.

In Scorsese’s execution, Silence is more than just an Oscar contender, more than a masterpiece, even. It’s simply the kind of thing that doesn’t get made anymore. It explores a spiritual agony last probed by Sweden’s mighty director Ingmar Bergman while being swaddled in a smoky fable-like texture that even Akira Kurosawa would have envied. And if you’re wondering if Marty ever found his bird, rest easy: The film’s opening seconds in the darkness build to a deafening roar of chirps, the shriek of a land that won’t be tamed.

“There’s a short list of directors that, if they call—no matter what they’re asking for—you do it,” says Andrew Garfield, leaning in as if confiding a secret, the most obvious one in the world. “And Scorsese is at the top of that list. I had just finished my stint as Spider-Man. I wasn’t aware that it was over yet, but I kind of had that feeling. I was doing a lot of reflecting. That was a really difficult learning process and a wonderful one as well.”

Garfield and Driver make up the emotional core of Silence as a pair of young novitiates who, Heart of Darkness–style, head into the wilderness searching for their missing mentor, who hasn’t been heard from in years. Along the way, they are tested by a brutal regime that doesn’t want their foreign beliefs spread, even as converted Japanese Christians harbor the holy men as fugitives.

But there’s another story here: that of two actors, both 33 years old (Jesus would smile at that), both at a crossroads of success and personal satisfaction. Silence has been their crucible, and they’ve emerged from it hardened and recommitted to chasing their art to a degree that’s noticeable.

Driver, the soulful ex-boyfriend of Lena Dunham’s character on Girls and a brilliant portrayer of millennial squirminess in Noah Baumbach's While We’re Young, now chafes at his popular status as a Bushwickian sex symbol. “I’m kind of mystified by it,” he says, “because a lot of times, I feel disconnected from my generation.” An ex-Marine who arrived at New York’s Juilliard School in 2005 with a strict sense of discipline and a fierce work ethic, Driver has never known what he terms the “shitty-apartment part” of young strugglers (he loves his “gravely quiet” hipster-free neighborhood). Shaking his head, Driver won’t say a word about next year’s Star Wars: Episode VIII, in which his villainous Kylo Ren from The Force Awakens reappears. Instead, he pivots our conversation back to his passion for personal expression, even in a galaxy far, far away: “Because J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson directed those [Star Wars] movies, they still feel like independent films to me. They don’t sacrifice story for spectacle.” (Before the year is out, Driver will also be seen in Jim Jarmusch’s bus-driver haiku, Paterson—as small and lovely as it gets.)

Garfield, for his part, lashes out at his years toiling in the Marvel megamachine. “There has to be something urgent about the stories we’re telling,” he says, “otherwise we’re a part of the numbing of the culture. I think that was hard, doing the Spider-Man stuff. Because even though I felt an opportunity to do something for young people—adolescents who were going through the confusion of ‘What’s my gift? Who am I in the world?’—it ultimately became about shareholders and McDonald’s. It ended up flattened and made to appeal to everybody. That’s a heartbreaking thing.”

After that heartbreak, Garfield took some time off. He prepared a full year for Silence, training under the tutelage of Father James Martin, a Jesuit friend of Scorsese’s who worked as the film’s consultant. “He became my spiritual director for a year,” says Garfield. “He took me in as if I was training for the priesthood.” That, combined with Scorsese’s own homework assignments (“the most obscure movies, like black-market films that only three people had seen”) and even a 30-day silent retreat with Driver, coaxed a new actor to emerge, one who could take on Mel Gibson’s ferocious war picture Hacksaw Ridge—itself about a deeply religious man challenged by the realities of WWII soldiering—with confidence.

“I think there’s always been a longing in me,” Garfield adds when I ask if he thinks of himself as a spiritual person. “There’s a big hole that needs filling all the time. I mostly search for it in all the wrong places, like we all do: work, success, food, drugs, alcohol, validation. You name it. One of the things I understood in the process of making Silence is that we’re always worshipping something. We’re always devoting ourselves to something, even if we’re not conscious of it. So better to be conscious of it and choose what we’re devoting ourselves to.”

As for the director who inspired his two leads to lose a combined 85 pounds to better portray both literal and religious hunger (Driver looks painfully emaciated in the film), Scorsese himself sounds like the upstart 33-year-old who helmed Taxi Driver during a sweltering New York City summer in 1975. “I guess I’m looking for it for myself,” he tells me on the phone from Los Angeles, of his quest for something higher, a core element of even his most violent and hedonistic films. “I’ve always been very close to religion. I figured if I could pull myself through this picture, I might get a little closer to it, you know? The problem is, how do you act it out?”

Scorsese, Driver and Garfield all describe the birthing of Silence as difficult. Above and beyond the years of looking for funding—Scorsese was first turned on to Endo’s book in 1988 during the controversies over The Last Temptation of Christ—there was the matter of shaping the material into a script, a multidecade task undertaken by frequent Scorsese collaborator Jay Cocks (The Age of Innocence). And then, even with the green light, the Taiwan shoot had its share of miseries.

“It was actually pretty painful,” Scorsese says of one particular scene: a moment when Garfield’s priest, captured by the Japanese and ranting in a haze of religious doubt, comes close to snapping. With its echoes of Raging Bull, specifically when Robert De Niro smashes up a Miami jail cell, the scene is arguably the summit the 74-year-old director has been working up to his entire career.

“The key there was Andrew, because I put two cameras on him and created this atmosphere in which he could just take off—in one take, by the way,” says Scorsese. “And it was—how can I put it?—excruciating. A lot of the stuff in this film was. Excruciating to the point where you feel pain in your back and your stomach and your head. It may have been cathartic, but I gotta say, none of this stuff was enjoyable.”

Driver agrees, saying he fed off the parallels between religion and the leap of faith needed to take on any role seriously. “Acting, a marriage, any relationship where you make a commitment to something—it’s filled with doubt,” he says. “But that’s actually a virtue of Scorsese. He sets an environment for people to take ownership of their parts. He actually hires you for your opinions. He wants you to rebel, to do something unexpected. He’s been thinking about this stuff for 28 years, and still he doesn’t have a ‘right’ way of going about it, which I think is amazing.”

Silence now arrives in a moment of global uncertainty, making it extra timely. A private meeting between Pope Francis and Scorsese’s family led to blessings and a message of hope for the days and months ahead. “He said, ‘Pray for me—I could use it,’ ” recalls the director. But in no small way, Silence already signals a mighty resurrection, even under the guise of a historical epic about religious repression. It’s a long-won triumph for Scorsese and an arrival for its two stars, poised to possibly join the company of cinema’s great tortured souls—the Brandos and the Pacinos. “I want my work to be as deep as it can possibly be,” admits Garfield. “I’m more aware than ever of human potentiality. And I think I need it all.”

#silence #martin scorsese #andrew garfield #adam driver

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joegoffwork-blog · 7 years

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“Bettered by The Borrower” Audio and Visual Plunderphonics: Rebellion Against Copyright Law

The term ‘Plunderphonics’ refers to a form of music which takes one or more pre-existing recordings and manipulates them to create an entirely new composition, often contradicting or questioning the artistic intentions of the original works, or as artist Dana Birnbaum puts “isolating and changing its vocabulary and syntax”. This technique can be applied to film and video art with a similar philosophy. The medium has a long history of interrogating and criticising copyright law which often prohibits the use of licensed material, I will use this as a theme to examine the relationship between these laws and the artists who rebel against them. I will explore this concept through several specific examples: John Oswald, Soda_Jerk, Christian Marclay and Neil Cicierega, with reference to several artists who paved the way for this kind of work to be made.

John Oswald’s seminal 1985 essay presented at the Wired Society Electro-Acoustic Conference in Toronto both coins the term Plunderphonics as well as first discussing its integral relationship with audio piracy. Plunderphonics has its roots in ‘Music Concretè’, pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer in the 1940s, using raw audio tape he created sonic collages which made use of exclusively pre-recorded material, despite a similar working methodology to that of later Plunderphonic artists what I think sets the two movements apart is largely the humour and prankishness of the latter. Schaeffer’s vision was more akin to abstraction within other art forms, he sought to devolve familiar sounds into something alien and disorienting. John Oswald deliberately chooses recognisable melodies and tunes in order to create something slyly goading to the author but simultaneously funny and engaging. His ‘Plunderphonics’ EP was his first major clash with copyright law, after receiving a barrage of cease and desist orders from Michael Jackson’s label ‘Epic’ over his heavily plundered version of ‘Bad’. Oswald’s argument is that there is nothing in the realm of sound which is equivalent to literature’s quotation marks, which allows one author to reference another’s work without it becoming an issue of theft, "Without a quotation system, well-intended correspondences cannot be distinguished from plagiarism and fraud.” He is constantly trying to create dialogue with the pieces which he chooses to work with, his blatant ‘mis’-use of them seems to be a defiant protest of the restrictions put on artists that prevent this kind of artwork from being distributed.

Christian Marlclay’s 24 hour film work ‘The Clock’ draws on hundreds of sources to produce one overarching ‘narrative’ of time passage. This epic work was made laboriously over a period of four years, but when asked about the legal risks of such a work Marclay was adamant that "If you make something good and interesting and not ridiculing someone or being offensive, the creators of the original material will like it.” This harks back to a familiar saying within the music industry in regards to legal infringement that “where there’s a hit there’s a writ”, essentially that the original authors are only likely to object to the work if it somehow trespasses on the integrity of the initial source. Many of Oswald’s works, for instance, were provocative and could be perceived as devaluing the sources in some way, so they could therefore be more vulnerable to corporate intervention. The interesting thing however is that according to the American definition of ‘Fair Use’ parody is fairly well protected, it doesn’t rely on consent from the original author, as criticism is seen as an essential aspect of the 1st amendment. It seems to me that if work either satisfies the author of the original or, on the other end of the spectrum, satirises the work thoroughly then it could be either not held to account or considered fair use and therefore exempt from legal action.

The Australian visual art duo Soda_Jerk create ridiculous, hilarious works which directly reference the copyright laws which they are knowingly impeding upon, they pay homage to classic sample based video artists such as Craig Baldwin and Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us. They have described their work as “a considered form of civil disobedience. We understand each work as a probe to test and map the contours of the legal systems in which it circulates”, they are deliberately pushing the limits of what could be legally accepted. Hollywood Burn is their 2006 epic, which stitches together hundreds of Hollywood film clips in order to form a loose narrative, in which Elvis leads a gang of rebels against Charlton Heston’s copyright preaching Moses. This seems to be in line with Dana Birnbaum’s philosophy that “if it’s a corporately made image then it’s mine for the taking”, these kinds of films exist to be a part of the public consciousness, by re-appropriating them nobody really loses out, the iconography and characters from these works are so much a part of one’s childhood and lives in general, there becomes a sense of social ownership. Oswald has also commented in this issue stating that “all popular music essentially if not legally exists in a public domain, listening to pop music isn’t a matter of choice... we’re bombarded by it”. The films of Soda_Jerk are deeply critical of copyright, seeing it as a kind of censorship, they see the inability for the masses to control cultural history as crucial, to take back control from the hegemonic few. But despite this palpable anger within the work they never lose the appealing aesthetics or the ludicrous humour which makes the work so likeable. I feel that despite their works into this area of ‘visual plunderphonics’ there is a lot of room for exploration into this style of working, they feel more akin to the rough-edged sound of Oswald as opposed to the intricately produced work of Neil Cicierega.

The sound artist Neil Cicierega is someone who I feel is brilliantly developing the core concepts of Plunderphonics further. Alongside others such as Girltalk, he has made the ideas explored by John Oswald become suddenly mainstream, reinventing it as the less intimidatingly titled ‘mashup’. The comedy is achieved though finding combinations of pre-existing songs fit together seamlessly, finding a deliberate sense of dissonance in the context but not in terms of the actual sound. He perfectly reforms songs, isolating vocal tracks and changing the instrumentation to totally rework meaning, clashing the ‘well respected’ with the irritating to creating something highly listenable. For example, his track which takes the vocals from ‘YMCA’ by the Village People and transposes them over the almost comically dramatic strings from the Inception soundtrack; the result is something disarmingly emotive, the track ties off with the iconic meme-centric whistle from the end of Smash Mouth’s All Star, coming full circle by making you feel stupid for getting so emotionally invested in the whole thing. Cicierega and Girltalk both released their albums for free, maybe suggesting a donation, in order to get around the copyright infringement which, they are both blatantly guilty of. At the moment digital music appears to have little monetary worth anyway, just as they pirated the music to make the albums so too do you pirate the end product. Due to the inhibitions of the law they are unable to profit from their work, but like Oswald’s Plunderphonic EP, if you are to release the music for free then there is little grounds for being sued by the record company of the original. Despite the stranglehold that these kinds of ownership laws have upon many artists, the internet has proven itself to be the perfect tool for finding loopholes and likeminded work.

#plunderphonics #essay

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