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Episode 298: A Night of Protest Poetry!
Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Live Show, Poetry, politics
Dianne Turgeon Richardson
On January 19th, 2018, Dianne Turgeon Richardson hosted an evening of protest poetry at Milk Bar in Orlando, Florida!
The readers included on this recording are Talor Carr, Rachel Fox, Lana Ghannam, Drew Weinbrenner, John King, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Lisa Roney, Troy Cunio, Laurie Uttich, and Sean Patrick Mulroy.
Lana Ghannam.
Lisa Roney
Bar dogs.
For help with getting Voter IDs, for yourself or others, please check out IDignity.
Learn more about Exodus United.
You can greatly help my efforts and stay better informed about my video offerings by subsciring to my youtube channel.
The Curator of Schlock #212: The Invitation
RSVP: No!
In lieu of a proper review this week, The Museum of Schlock will provide some advice on when to leave a dinner party early. Of course, your humble curator tends to get kicked out of dinner parties regularly, due to arguing over the superiority of Punky Brewster over Silver Spoons.
But who needs personal experience when you have the movies.
2015's The Invitation from director Karyn Kusama gives you all the experience you need to decide when to leave a dinner party.
Your Ex-wife Slaps Your Best Friend
So your name is Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and your ex-wife, Eden (Tammy Blanchard), is throwing a dinner party at her swanky place in the Hollywood Hills after you've been estranged for two years. Something about her resembles Morticia Addams. She keeps going on about how her pain has gone away after spending time with some cult–I mean self-help group–in Sonora, Mexico. She talks about expelling fear and anger from your body. Your goofy friend, Ben (Jay Larson), jokes that he "didn't know pain was optional." Eden slaps him across the face and tells him that until he takes things seriously, no one will care what he thinks. You should think about leaving.
Pruitt
Some guy you've never seen before shows up. Your ex-wife's new husband, David (Michiel Huisman), introduces him as Pruitt (John Carroll Lynch). He looks like the kind of guy that sucks all the fun out of room.
He's wearing a bad tennis shirt and chooses diet soda over the hard stuff. There's also some hippie girl named Sadie (Lindsay Burdge) who giggles a lot. You're ex-wife and her new husband met them down in Mexico. You don't know them and they make you uncomfortable. Remember that French loaf you left baking in the oven back in your apartment? Better get back home. You really need to consider leaving.
David insists on keeping the front door locked on the inside and out. Yes, David has an inside lock to which only he has key. David goes on to say how a neighbor was home invaded and that the extra lock is for your protection. You insist that he leave the key in the lock in case there's a fire. He acquiesces, but reminds you that this is now his house. Also, cell phone service is spotty at best in this area. If there is a fire, you may not be able to call 911. Just leave.
David and Eden play a video for everyone on their laptop about their self-help community down in Sonora, Mexico. Some doctor talks about the power of the brain to heal and positive energy and the like. Then another video plays featuring a woman from said self-help community dying on her deathbed. David and Eden tell them everyone it was cancer and that the young woman wanted to share her last breath with the world. Your girlfriend, Kira (Emayatxy Corinealdi), looks uncomfortable. Actually, most of your friends look uncomfortable and you ask David and Eden why they would show something like that at a dinner party. The snuff video alone should make you want to leave, but still you stay.
The Want Game
David decides to lighten the mood. It's kind of like the Never game you used to play in college except this is called the Want game.
Your friend Gina (Michelle Krusiec) says she wants some of that good Coke that David used to do before he went into rehab. David hands her some Coke right away. Pruitt wants to tell them about his wife, Margaret, about how beautiful, creative, and generous she was. Then he tells everyone how he had beaten her to death while in a drunken rage. This is the point where you just need to leave. Seriously, get out of there! Break out a window if you have to do and don't expect David's key to still be in that lock!
Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.
Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #4: Fever Ray's Plunge
Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Lost Chords & Serenades Divine
Fever Ray, Lost Chords & Serenades Divine, Plunge
Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #4 by Stephen McClurg
Fever Ray: Plunge (2017)
"Seeing these exhibitions I've longed to laugh, with the rest, but that strange imitation was impossible. Taking a penknife with a sharp-edged blade, I slit the flesh at the points joining the lips. For an instant I believed my aim was achieved. I saw in a mirror the mouth ruined at my own will! An error! Besides, the blood gushing freely from the two wounds prevented my distinguishing whether this really was the grin of others."
~ from Les chants de Maldoror, by Comte de Lautréamont
Around the millenium, I avoided electronic music like I did movies with newfangled, but clumsy, CGI. The technological improvements over almost two decades have helped me soften towards electronic music. Either that or my tastes have changed, or maybe a little of both. Some of the recent electronic music I've liked has harnessed new ideas to old synth and keyboard sounds similar to movie scores by John Carpenter, who is himself putting out new recordings these days.
Something similar, a reinvigoration of once obsolete sounds, is happening on the newest Fever Ray record, the solo project of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronic duo, The Knife. One strain of sounds reminds me of the arpeggiated keyboard and synths, not too dissimilar from runs in Zappa pieces that were in children's nature and science programming. Shows like 3-2-1 Contact often featured these kinds of compositions (Check 55 seconds into that clip and again at 11:28). The second strain reminds me of music on Miami Vice episodes. Not just "In the Air Tonight," but particularly music from club scenes or the drive montages of Sonny Crockett set to Jan Hammer's synths or songs like Al Jarreau's "Raging Waters."
Not only are the sounds of Miami Vice a touchstone here, but so are some visual elements. Michael Mann, who created the look of Miami Vice and Manhunter (1986), informs Fever Ray's videos. Similar to hearing Carpenter synths on shows like Stranger Things, Mann's visual style has influenced aspects of Drive (2011) and The Guest (2014), particularly the uses of smoke, neon pink, and cool blue colors, and the overall '80s nostalgia that popular culture has embraced. And like the tone of Wingard's The Guest, much of Fever Ray's visual output is at once monstrous and playful. [If you decide to check out more videos or audio, they are likely NSFW.]
This leads me to the cover. I don't think the skin carving/black metal font makeup on the cover is meant to be taken seriously, unless you take that kind of thing seriously, and then it's possibly a warning that this record isn't for you. Like the videos, in which Dreijer appears in various monstrous guises, there are weighty topics covered here: desire, sexual politics, loss. But like the cover and other visuals promoting this record, it is not without playfulness. These clashing tones and themes will likely make the album uneven and unsettling for some listeners, particularly those interested in cohesion across a record. I find the tensions enjoyable: desire and the grotesque, warmth and sting, human and machine.
"Mustn't Hurry" and "Falling" remind me of the aforementioned Miami Vice driving sequences, when the show sulked in the silent stoicism of Sonny Crockett, whose bright white or pastel suits were an antithesis to these moody drives. While there are '80s synth sounds here, I don't mean to say that's all there is. These tracks pack plenty of contemporary sounds and as songs, I find them much more likeable than much of the Vice pop spotlights.
"A Part of Us" features melodic vocals, some robotically filtered. I find this a dazzling pop love song, though it's edges burn with anger and danger. In recent interviews, Dreijer discusses how the record comes out of becoming a mother, then a divorcée, and then a lesbian, though I get the sense that these are all labels that Dreijer would eschew. The anger ("one hand in yours and one hand in a tight fist") and danger ("What we are/Brings the wrong kind of attention out here") come from the policies and violence against same sex relationships in her home country of Sweden.
"IDK About You" opens with electronically manipulated ritualistic percussion, reminiscent of Jane's Addiction on earlier versions of "Chip Away," and bursts of melodic vocals, grunts, and whoops. Upon first listen, this was the song that stuck with me the most.
"To the Moon and Back" and "Plunge," remind me of the arpeggiated melodies I mentioned hearing in certain children's nature and science programming, but the lyrics (in "Moon"– "Plunge" is instrumental) explicitly explore lust and desire. Both of these tracks have grown on me, and I love that the title track is an instrumental, even though I'm not sure what I like about that. Maybe that it makes the record more of a cypher, in that if I were going to look for some way of conceptualizing the record, that's an obvious place to start. Instead of being able to bind the record together in some sort of concept, I find the instrumental makes that kind of easy encapsulation difficult, with that difficulty itself, possibly the point.
Although it is not my favorite track, "This Country" — a slow burner, with sleazy keys and an anthemic chorus vocal declaring, "This country makes it hard to fuck"–may offer an entry point for listeners. It is a dark piece about desire, anger, and discriminatory sexual politics, and while I believe the subject matter is important, it is the least interesting track on the album. It grinds and swears, but maybe that's the point. We're denied, like those suffering under discriminatory laws, something in the song that could lift us out of it's oppressive atmosphere. However, after this track, I find the rest of the record delivers manifold pleasures, beginning with the aforementioned "Plunge" to the final whispers of "Mama's Hand."
As I stated above, I'm not deep into electronic music or singer/songwriter material, so I hadn't heard her previous band. I wanted something that I wouldn't normally pick and a friend suggested this record, which makes me want to dip into the discography more. More information is available at Fever Ray's website.
Stephen McClurg (Episode 24) writes and teaches in Birmingham, Alabama. He co-hosts The Outrider Podcast, writes at Eunoia Solstice, and infrequently blogs. He has contributed music as a solo artist and with the group Necronomikids to past episodes of The Drunken Odyssey.
Pensive Prowler #15: Craft Your World with Words
22 Monday Jan 2018
Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Pensive Prowler
Pensive Prowler #15 by Dmetri Kakmi
Craft Your World with Words
"Craft your world with words." I'm captivated by this sentence on the cover of a writing program. There's no end to the implications, permutations and possibilities in that short construct. And because I'm interested in origins, the beginning place of things, I think of meaning, language and creation. The mere utterance of the word, the sentence implies, can give birth to personal and impersonal realities. In turn we think of the Judeo-Christian god who understands better than most the power of utterance.
And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. He said it and it happened. Cause and effect.
The phrase 'Let there be light' comes from Hebrew. In its Greek translation (και είπεν ο Θεός γενηθή τω φως και εγένε το φως) it's often used for its metaphorical meaning of dispelling ignorance. But Jehovah, the Old Testament god, used the four words to separate order from disorder. He used words to bring form to chaos.
Isn't that what writers do when they sit at the computer to type words? Don't they bring order to the chaos that resides inside their muddled brains? And doesn't the act of creation confer a kind of godhood?
"Craft your world with words." Five words. Three nouns. One possessive determiner and one preposition. Together they make a sentence. But what does "Craft your world with words" mean?
"Craft" comes from old English creft, meaning strength, skill; and is of Germanic origin, kraft. In modern English it means an activity involving skill in making things by hand or a skill used in deceiving others. We also use craft to mean magic, as in witchcraft.
"World" means the earth together with all of its countries, or human and social interaction, and it comes once again from the Germanic compound welt, meaning "age of man."
"Word" means a distinct meaningful element of speech or writing to form a sentence or a single conceptual unit of language. You won't be surprised to hear that this word too is of Germanic origin, wort, from an Indo-European root shared with Latin verbatum.
In esoteric terms "Word" is the Greek Logos. It can mean 'discourse', 'speech', 'argument' — and is derived from lego, "I say." Under Hellenic Judaism it was adopted into Jewish philosophy to mean "the word through which all things are made", giving it divine connotations.
In a sense "Craft your world with words" means the writer uses her skill to define and give shape to the world or to the age in which she lives. Writing is a record of who we are, who we were and what we can become. Writing is also an enchantment that entices the reader away from their world into the author's creation, a purveyor of spells.
A writer might also define the world in his own image. From the King James Bible comes this: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
In my world that means god was a hermaphrodite, or an androgyne. Who was it said we see the world not as it is but how we are? We are closed in on ourselves. That's why we turn to writers—to access a perspective that is different from ours. And of course a writer can also use her skill to deceive, to complicate, to draw a veil, for good or ill. It's a complex co-mingling of factors and motivators that makes or breaks existence.
There are examples of this in the media.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's famous 'misogyny' speech in parliament — to my mind the first great feminist statement of the twenty-first century — is a good case in point. In attacking opposition leader Tony Abbott she used trenchant, incisive, caustic language to turn herself from a scorned prime minister to a feminist heroine. Her popularity shot through the ceiling, especially among women. A week or so later Gillard's own government put words to Orwellian use to excise the Australian mainland from the immigration zone. If they succeeded Australia would cease to exist; refugees would have nowhere to go. They would set off on a journey to a land that will be swallowed by the bureaucratic application of legislation. In essence, words invoked by a government would have altered the fabric of reality to remove an island continent from the map.
In the USA Chaplain John McTernan used words to yank the world back to old testament days. He announced on a Christian blog that Hurricane Sandy was god's punishment on America for supporting 'the homosexual agenda'. The chaplain went on to state that if Obama and Romney did not support gay marriage, Hurricane Sandy would not have struck New York. Not wanting to be left out, preacher Pat Robertson added that acceptance of homosexuality will result in earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombs and meteor strikes; a virtual disaster movie.
Netizens were outraged, but I loved it. The idea that gay people are in touch with natural forces appeals to me. When I heard the bizarre utterances, my first reaction was they're right. Gay people are responsible for natural disasters. We can drawn down powers that put us in touch with forces beyond the reckoning of mere heterosexuals. Global warming didn't cause Hurricane Sandy. Gays did. The night before the hurricane slammed into New York, gay icon Grace Jones performed her aptly named Hurricane tour in Manhattan. In reality this was a magic ritual gays and their goddess performed to call on the destructive forces of nature. Hence, Hurricane Sandy.
You can see what I'm doing, right? I'm crafting my own tapestry by unravelling the warp and weft of the chaplain's words and re-weaving them to suit my outlook. You notice I use the words "weaving," "fabric," "tapestry," "warp and weft" to talk about the way words craft the world in which we live. There is a good reason.
In the ancient world and in some contemporary traditional cultures, the principle of weaving, the drawing together of two sets of interlacing threads to produce fabrics of great complexity, becomes an image of the mystery of existence. A good example is the Islamic prayer rug. The floor covering is not just comfort for knees. The patterns and designs on it are the crossing of time and space, where the visible and invisible worlds are woven together to form the tapestry of life.
Weaving or spinning means to create, to make something out of one's own substance. Cloth resembles language. Words form syntax similar to how threads produce fabric. "Text" and "textile" share a common root, meaning "to weave." In some traditional cultures, weaving and speech are poetically combined to form a coherent cosmology. The mouth and the vocal cords of ancestor figures are a loom from which words and cloth emerge. The Dogon people of Africa refer to the loom as 'secret speech'. They say 'to be nude is to be without words'. The designs woven into fabric are a form of storytelling. Helen and Penelope in the Odyssey acquire voices through weaving, through telling their own stories on tapestries. That's why we say, "She is weaving a tale" or "He is spinning a yarn."
Every writer has his or her own reasons for writing. I write to communicate with an often perplexing world. I write not in Greek or Turkish, my native tongues, but in English, because that is the language of my adopted country; however, my sensibilities and my inner landscape are an admixture of Anatolian and Australian. Sometimes these juxtaposing elements are at odds with one another. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes they create something that is alive and new. Something that has not existed before. Sometimes, not. That's how cultures talk to each other, how they evolve and open out to encompass all of life and humanity. Not by closing down and holding on to what is exclusively theirs.
As Carlos Fuentes said, "Culture perishes in purity or isolation… Like bread and love, language is shared with others. And human beings share a tradition. There is no creation without tradition. No one creates from nothing."
To which I add: Sometimes all you need do is speak the word.
Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.
Episode 297: Paul Muldoon & Patricia Smith!
Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Poetry
Emmett Till, Incendiary Art, Patricia Smith, Paul Muldoon, Selected Poems
On this week's program, I talk to poets Paul Muldoon
and Patricia Smith!
Please subscribe to my youtube channel, and leave a review of the show on iTunes.
The Curator of Schlock #211: The Lazarus Effect
Olivia Wilde, The Lazarus Effect, Tron, Tron Legacy
Olivia Wilde goes wild.
Live in the now! That's this year's motto here at The Museum of Schlock. The Disappointments Room made me realize that schlock isn't something that exists in the past, but in the present! I think I will spend the rest of this year covering movies from this decade, the tens…or the teens…what the hell is the name of this decade anyway? Guess nobody attempted to name this one. That's two for two so far. Not a good start for this century. Soon we'll be in the 20s. Hopefully, it will be like the Roaring 20s. I'll be able to quit this schlock curating business and go into bootlegging bathtub gin. A man needs dreams.
This week's movie is 2015's The Lazarus Effect from director David Gelb. This movie has an all-star cast. You've got Mark Duplass, the star of all those mumblecore movies. You've got Donald Glover from Community, Evan Peters from American Horror Story, and Sarah Bolger from The Tudors. It also stars Olivia Wilde from TRON Legacy.
Remember TRON Legacy?
Disney, do you remember TRON Legacy? Huh! Huh! Where's TRON 3, Disney? You promised me, TRON 3, Disney! No one gives a crap about the Han Solo movie, Disney! Give us TRON 3, Disney! Make this happen! I want it, Disney! I want iiiiiiittttttt!!!
I blacked out there. What was I reviewing? Oh yeah. The Lazarus Effect is about a bunch of scientists working in an underground lab on some serum that can bring the dead back to life. Yay, science!
Just kidding. This is a terrible idea! When does this ever go well? First they try it on a dead dog. The dog comes back to life and even his cataracts are cured. The dog seems okay at first. He doesn't want to play catch. He doesn't want to eat. He does like to bare his teeth and growl at the scientists. Bit of advice: don't blow smoke from your electronic cigarette in a reanimated dog's face even if he's locked in a cage. He may break out.
So a major corporation finds out that the scientists figured out the secret to bringing the dead back to life. They buy out the company that was funding their research, confiscate all of their research, and get the university to fire the lot of them. It seems the dean didn't like how they were resurrecting dead dogs. The team still has some of the serum left so they decide to head back down to the underground lab in the middle of the night. Dr. McConnell (Olivia Wilde) gets electrocuted to death. Dr. Walton (Mark Duplass) brings her back to life with the serum.
Dr. McConnell seems back to old her old self…except she keeps going on about how she was stuck hell and kept repeating the worst moment of her life over and over again. Oh, and it appears she has psychic powers and can now control 100% of her brain. She kills the rest of her team with her mind. And then she repeats the resurrection experiment on them.
I guess that's kind of an ending.
Aesthetic Drift #17: A Truckload of Corpses, or Violence's Meaning in Narrative
Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in 21st Century Bronte, Aesthetic Drift
Akata Witch, David Mamet, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nnedi Okorafor, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go, Three Uses of the Knife, Tokyo Ghoul
Aesthetic Drift #17 by Brontë Bettencourt
A Truckload of Corpses, or Violence's Meaning in Narrative
I am haunted by Tokyo Ghoul.
The anime's pacing was slow and dull and the finale was a hot mess, but one scene left me intrigued and horrified.
Kaneki Ken has a good heart but no backbone. He is a recently turned ghoul who remembers what it means to be human, making it morally difficult for him to consume flesh to survive. In high-stress situations his pacifist nature has left both the innocent and fucked up in the head, dead.
In the season one finale, Kaneki's been taken captive and tortured. Although his friends are on the way to rescue him, they can't prevent the harrowing decision he's forced to make: Kaneki must choose to save the life of one of two other captives, or else his captor will kill them both. Up until this point there hasn't been too much gore, with the camera panning away from anything too bloody or gruesome (a bit of a letdown considering that humans are constantly hunted).
The moment slows, the captor taking his sweet time as he strangles the life out of one of the victims. But Kaneki still cannot decide who to save. The camera cuts accelerate between the woman's asphyxiation, the man shouting at him to decide, and the captor's sadistic delight. The music and voices swell. The tension builds. And builds. And builds.
Finally, the victim's neck snaps.
The scene quiets, leaving the audience with that moment to sink in.
We needed to understand how Kaneki Ken becomes the ruthless killer in season two. But did we really have to sit through that?
Was the brutality really necessary?
In undergrad lit we discussed why George Hurstwood commits suicide in Sister Carrie. We discussed spousal abuse in House of the Spirits. We explored the effects of war in The Sun Also Rises, Catch 22, and 100 Years of Solitude.
In 100 Years of Solitude, one of the characters awakens atop a truckload of corpses:
"When José Arcadio Segundo came to he was lying face up in the darkness. He realized that he was riding on an endless and silent train and that his head was caked with dry blood and that all his bones ached. He felt an intolerable desire to sleep. Prepared to sleep for many hours, safe from the terror and the horror, he made himself comfortable on the side that pained him less, and only then did he discover that he was lying against dead people… Several hours must have passed since the massacre because the corpses had the same temperature as plaster in autumn and the same consistency of petrified foam that it had, and those who had put them in the car had had time to pile them up in the same way in which they transported bunches of bananas" (Marquez 306).
Before this [grotesque] passage, I casually enjoyed the magic of the book but otherwise reading on autopilot since this was an assignment. I sat up on my bed, now awake, rereading to see what I missed while I was dozing off.
I wasn't prepared to feel the texture of these once alive people. People die for sport in some anime, but with Marquez's writing, I felt my most exhausted, migraine-induced, feverish night, and waking up not to a warm bed but instead surrounded by dead bodies. I enjoyed the magic so much that I forgot the realism involved, and that shred of what I felt for José Arcadio Segundo seeped into my happy, fantastical bubble, disguised as very dark magic.
I felt nauseous. I didn't want to emphasize with his situation, but the sensory details made it inevitable. What of all these bodies? Did all of them have to die? The characters I was used to dying were villains, or minor characters, or flat characters. Such deaths were either a triumph or a plot point. I couldn't make sense of this scene when earlier in the text I accepted sleeping sickness and a five-year rainstorm. The swiftness of their death made me feel small and wronged.
I've experienced scarce violence myself. I quit martial arts because a purple-belt flipped me into the ground. She caught my foot mid-kick and she flung me onto the dirt.
I screamed.
All the other kids stopped mid-spar to stare.
The purple-belt didn't apologize. Instead, she scolded me for not landing better. My hip ached. Grass stained my gi. I felt nauseous and small and not badass. (This was not an anime.)
In undergrad, I learned that violence could be for more as sport, a simple way to heighten the stakes.
Around the same time I read Marquez, I also read a novel whose characters' attitudes towards violence felt painfully vivid despite the violence itself not being explicitly presented.
Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch follows Sunny on her journey of self-discovery as a Leopard, a manipulator of juju.
One of the first scenes involves Sunny and her classmates getting into a fist fight: "Right there on the far side of the schoolyard, three girls and four of the boys beat Sunny as they shouted taunts and insults. She wanted to fight back, but she knew better. There were too many of them" (7-8).
Okorafor's writing style is tersely flat. Sunny and her friends must stop Black Hat Otokoto from kidnapping and maiming children. While YA may feature as much death and suffering as the other genres, Okorafor here transgresses against the YA genre by making the suffering characters the same age as her readers.
There is a scene in chapter seven where the characters reflect on a threat. Sunny and crew travel through the treacherous Night Runner Forest to meet a Leopard elder. The elder states that if the crew hadn't made it, they wouldn't have been worth his time.
The elder's statement angers Sunny: "'We could have all been killed… We met with a bush soul! What if it had done us in?'" But the elder does not console Sunny. He instead explains that a life–especially a young person's–is worth little. "'I don't make a habit of meeting Anatov's groups of students, but Anatov thinks you're useful—useful to the Leopard People, though all this might be harmful to you as individuals. But that's life, eh?' (133)"
I think the elder's philosophy explains the lack of detail placed on the violence. Individual sacrifice is taken for granted in a gravely dangerous world. Yes, Harry Potter must be the one to stop Voldemort, or else the magical world is doomed. Katniss Everdeen must lead the revolution against President Snow's Panem. But if Sunny's group fails, then the elders would search for another group to stop Black Hat Otokoto. The importance falls on saving the world, regardless of if Sunny survives.
In Akata Witch the final fight lasts nine pages. Okorafor uses small descriptors such as "Sasha and Black Hat were having some sort of juju battle. Sasha was slowly sinking to the ground as a white cloud hovered around him. But he still held his knife" (320). The story has been building to this final fight, only for it to be described as "some sort of juju battle." The narration remains with a panicking Sunny, who watches the actions of the whole team. Through her the focus is of the entire scene, not just the minute actions of the fight.
Only after Sunny can come to term with forces outside of her control, does she defeat Black Hat : "Sunny smiled. She knew how the world would end. She knew someday she would die. She knew her family would live on if she died right now… Her motions were smooth. The world shifted. Suddenly, all things were—more (326-27)". Okorafor focuses on the world's morality, rather than the importance of single characters.
In the Three Uses of a Knife, David Mamet claims: "Our endorsement of violence in art, like our endorsement of violence in our nation's behavior, is a compulsive expression of the need to repress — to identify a villain and destroy it. The compulsion must be repressed because it fails. It fails because the villain does not exist in the external material world. The villain, the enemy, is our own thoughts" (53).
To Mamet, violence in art is a compulsion. We refuse to think about who we are and why we do things, instead displacing our own shortcomings in killing a designated bad guy. But the victory is short-lived; since the satisfaction is shallow, we must keep finding new villains to kill. Akata Witch breaks this pattern due to less focus on violence, and more of what it wants the reader to get from it.
In Tokyo Ghoul, I was satisfied when Kaneki Ken finally slaughters the villain. But the villain has broken Kaneki, turning him into a villain that I understood since I experienced his torment second-hand. As Mamet explained, there is an emptiness to the violence because Kaneki's morale is broken. He does not think about the implications; he just kills. And the viewer now must question their ways of validating Kaneki's lust for blood.
Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go vividly depicts a more systematically violent world than Tokyo Ghoul, but the novel gives us the alarming interiority of a character's reckoning with the meaning of living in such a world.
Todd is running from his home town just several weeks short from his fifteenth birthday. The residents are after him because he is the only person who has yet to kill someone; by killing, Todd will achieve manhood. Todd is pushed to his breaking point: his dog is murdered, his caretakers' status is unknown, and his companion Viola has been taken hostage by a homicidal zealot.
Todd eventually takes the life of a Spackle, one of the humanoid creatures of the planet. After defending himself, Todd is overcome with the gravity of killing:
"I find I'm saying 'No' over and over again and the fear in his Noise keeps echoing around mine and there's nowhere to run from it, it's just there and there and there and I'm shaking so bad I can't even stay on my hands and knees and I fall into the mud and I can still see the blood everywhere and the rain's not washing it off."
Todd's thoughts lack punctuation and run rampant with fixation on the murder. Ness distorts the text to illustrate his point. He varies the font size and warps the letters to mimic the unfiltered, intrusive thoughts that Todd cannot control. The text embodies the dark confusion of the human mind.
I was desperate for Kaneki to just act in that climatic moment in Tokyo Ghoul. I was left with the frustration of his refusal to save anyone. Now I'm traumatized, and I emphasize with his fallen morality.
Mamet writes: "true drama, and especially the tragedy, calls for the hero to exercise his will, to create, in front of us, on the stage, his or her character, the strength to continue. It is her striving to understand, to correctly assess, to face her own character (in her choice of battles) that inspires us — and gives us drama power to cleanse and enrich our own character" (43).
Sunny grows because she faces her own weakness during the final fight. Todd matures by maintaining his morality after confronting his moment of killing. Violence breaks the characters, but both manage to build themselves back up.
Kaneki buries his morality and becomes a remorseless killer. Because he no longer has a conscience, he doesn't reflect on his actions. This could be development, or an incomplete story of his mental journey as a half-ghoul. Season one ends on a cliffhanger.
I haven't picked the show back up in over a year. On a whole, I don't think the first season works well. But I want to pick it back up just to see how Kaneki continues to grow.
I desperately hope he can still grow.
Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34, Episode 221) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. She's currently pursuing an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University. When she's not writing or working she's a full time D&D enthusiast and YouTube connoisseur.
Lost Chords and Serenades Divine #3: Sparks: Hippopotamus (2017)
Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Lost Chords & Serenades Divine, Music
Lost Chords and Serenades Divine #3 by Stephen McClurg
Sparks: Hippopotamus (2017)
The writers and composers work the street.
Bach's new score is crumpled in his pocket,
Dante sways his ass-cheeks to the beat.
~ from "Hollywood Elegies" by Bertolt Brecht (trans. Adam Kirsch)
Sparks has maintained their standards and strangeness throughout more than a four-decade career. Their new album broke the top 10 in England, the first time they've been on the charts since the '70s. They are also in their 70s and, thankfully, not an easy band to describe. Much of their work reminds me of Roxy Music filtered through musical theater. Since most of their output features songwriter Ron Mael's keyboard and piano playing, they've been called "baroque pop," which as a genre seems to mean pop music with a dash of classical instrumentation, such as the piano pitched up to sound like a harpsichord in the Beatles' "In My Life," or the grand little symphonies of mid-'60s Beach Boys. They've been called glam, and even electropop, and I can't think of another band that has been described as a The Mothers of Invention meets the Monkees. All of that really means one never knows what to expect from a Sparks album. While not perfect, some songs lack the expected vibrancy of a Sparks track, Hippopotamus is a fun pop record, made with intelligence and wit.
"Probably Nothing" is a gorgeous opener and one of several places on the record that reminds me of Michael Nyman's work, particularly with director Peter Greenaway. At less than two minutes of piano and vocals, with maybe four chords of strings, and a cymbal wash, it somehow manages to tell the story of almost every love song–without a chorus, or at least not a traditional one.
"Missionary Position" seems like a bad joke, but somehow they make it work. It's a track that feels like it could be a part of a Broadway show and is an ode to either practicality, even comfort, or to a lack of adventurousness, depending on how you interpret lyrics like "You might pride yourself, you're so Avant garde/ But we're neoclassicists, I guess, at heart/ Patronise all you like, we both like the missionary position." If we take that baroque pop tag seriously, Sparks is a neoclassicist group, but not just because of the piano. They aren't working with the hippest producers, making the sickest beats, but that, overall, works in their favor. At once it announces a songwriting tradition, but also renounces fads or noise as the only options for sounding new.
I may be misreading it, but "Scandinavian Design" seems to be a response to "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles, but for an Ikea generation. "Norwegian Wood," about an affair involving John Lennon, is a reference to a type of cheap paneling that was in style at the time. In the song, a girl leaves a guy and he gets his revenge by burning the paneling to keep warm, or in some readings, by setting their love nest on fire. There is a similar relationship, in "Scandinavian Design," though it doesn't end in fire, but in the icy "elegance [and] simple lines" that offer "no escape." Neither partner is happy. Neither is angry. With or without the connection to a classic song, the last twenty seconds with slide guitar are sublime.
Sparks' lyrical wit oddly balances with a penchant for the absurd, even silly.
The title track makes me think of the Residents writing children's music. It's about things stuck in a pool, including a hippopotamus, which is later joined by a painting by Hieronymous Bosch. "Giddy Giddy" is at once funny and nightmarish; I envision rapping aristocrats. "Giddy" fills in for whatever slang is being used for being happy or with-it or whatever. The track feels like a dig on our culture's frequent default to entertainments that mask deeper anxieties and resentments
"I Wish You Were Fun," an almost perfect ballad to me, wryly takes on pop sadness. They even work in some "la la las" and lyrics like, "In every other way I find you amazing, but one / I wish you were fun" and "Glad that she's no Ayn Rand, humorless to the nth degree." A few tracks later, "A Little Bit Like Fun" plays like a lost ELO / Beach Boys collaboration track for an '80s movie soundtrack that I never knew I wanted.
"Life with the Macbeths" is powered by stately piano reminiscent of Moonlight Sonata that turns both baroque and Rosemary's Baby with the addition of harpsichord. Lady and King Macbeth sing to each other in this bizarre, but effective, showpiece that closes the record. The lyrics reimagine the Macbeth's on a reality show whose ratings soar with their increasingly bad behavior. Like the band itself, not everyone will enjoy this conceit, but it becomes that much better for the particular listener who does.
You can find Sparks records, interviews, and videos online.
Episode 296: Denise Duhamel!
On this week's program, I talk to the poet Denise Duhamel about the role of politics and play in poetry.
BOOKS DISCUSSED
Here in Orlando, the City Beautiful, come out and hear some protest poetry on January 19th.
If you love Pat Greene, or just love great art, please donate a little something to The Downtown Arts District of Orlando.
The music used in this episode was "Tremor" and "As the Dark Wave Swells" by The Bambi Molesters.
The Curator of Schlock #210: The Disappointments Room
Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, The Curator of Schlock
The Disappointments Room
Stick this one back in the oven. It ain't done yet.
It's a new year and a new month and I have to give you, my demanding public, more musings on movies you've never heard of. So I checked out a DVD from the public library: The Disappointments Room starring Kate Beckinsale and other actors.
Ummmmmm.
This one's not good.
I tried.
I mean, it looked like a super scary movie from the cover, but like so many super scary movies Hollywood produces these days, it deflates like a soufflé precisely when it should be getting good.
The movie starts out with a pouty-faced Kate Beckinsale riding along with her husband and son while they sing Gilbert and Sullivan. This does not happen in real life. Fathers and their five year-old sons do not sing Gilbert and Sullivan on road trips.
Kate Beckinsale is playing an architect by the name of Dana Barrow. Her husband's name is David (Mel Raido) and her son's name is Lucas (do you really care about who plays the son?). The husband insists that they stop at every fruit and vegetable stand on the road on the way their destination. He wants fresh strawberries and fresh asparagus. Sure.
Where is this family going? To their new home on the country, obviously. In Hollywood thrillers, upper middle class families buy country houses to escape the troubles of the big city only to experience a different kind of trouble in the country. This is why you move to the suburbs, people!
Anyway, the Barrows move to a property known as The Blacker Estate, a creepy old mansion with a dark secret.
I bet you'd like to know what that dark secret is. I'll whisper it to you: The Blacker Manor has a disappointments room.
A disappointments room is a secret room where rich families hid their deformed children. The town librarian gives Dana the lowdown on the sordid history of disappointments rooms. The townsfolk are weird. The woman who owns the drug store gets up at 6 AM to make fresh strawberry ice cream. This…does…not…happen. She recommends a local handyman to help Dana fix the leaky roof of the Blacker estate. That handyman's name is Ben Phillips, played by Lucas Till, TV's MacGyver!
Time out! I need to implore my readership to watch the new MacGyver reboot on CBS. What else are you doing on a Friday night? You could be embarking global adventures with a hero like no other, a man who can make a ballistic missile out of some aluminum foil, chewing gum, and a Stretch Armstrong action figure. And let's not forget about MacGyver's arch-nemesis, the international assassin known as Murdoc (David Dastmalchian). That guy creeps me out. He always whistles before he kills you. And there was this one episode where he told MacGyver about how he almost died from his peanut allergy when he was a little boy, but then at the end of the episode, Murdoc was snacking on some peanuts. You just can't trust the guy.
Crap. The Disappointments Room. Right. So the Blacker Estate is haunted by the ghosts of Judge Blacker and his deformed daughter, the one he struck in the head with a hammer…or a judge's gavel. That would make more sense. MacGyver—I mean Ben Phillips—is found hung by the neck for some reason. I guess the ghosts compelled him. They keep tormenting Dana until it's revealed to the audience that she fell asleep atop her infant daughter and smothered her to death. I think she was taking drugs to forget. Her husband moves her and their son back to the city. It is unknown whether or not Gilbert and Sullivan was sung on the way back.
That's all. Ghosts are still haunting the place. This movie is purported to be based on real events, so your Curator of Schlock will find that creepy mansion and give the ghost of Judge Blacker a piece of my mind. And then I'll get a TV set up in that place and we can watch MacGyver together.
Photo by Leslie Salas.


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Shot Through the Heart: What 'Arrow' Gets Right About Comics on TV
by Jason Concepcion
Here are two tips, one for you and one for Hollywood:
1. Sometimes, an uneven television show is worth sticking with.
2. Comic-book shows should be fun.
Both apply in the case of the CW's Arrow, which just had its Season 3 premiere Wednesday night. It's a show I was in on, then regrettably out on, and am now back on board with. Arrow is also something of an object lesson for similarly themed comic-book action IPs like Gotham (or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or even The Strain). If a creative team is clear-eyed about what's not working and nimble enough to focus on what is, a borderline bad and worryingly cheesy show can become a really entertaining one.
Arrow is an adaption of DC Comics' Green Arrow, which is the nom de tights of its hero, one Oliver Queen, a billionaire playboy turned left-wing bleeding-heart/social-justice vigilante. In the comics, Green Arrow's signature run of stories actually happened in another character's title. Starting with 1970's Green Lantern no. 76, comics legend Dennis O'Neil (with pencils by Neal Adams) paired the titular space cop with the earthbound and streetwise Queen, in an attempt to reverse Green Lantern's slumping sales and stave off cancellation. The series was rebranded Green Lantern Co-Starring Green Arrow or, as it's more commonly known, Green Lantern/Green Arrow.
Green Lantern/Green Arrow was revolutionary. Most superhero books of the day mainly featured stories about caped-up and masked heroes punching criminals in the face. By teaming the galactic law-enforcer Green Lantern with the liberal Queen, GL/GA sought to explore the socioeconomic forces — poverty, racism, unchecked greed — at the root of crime. It was an inspired pairing, essentially interstellar William F. Buckley and vigilante Noam Chomsky.
In the opening pages of issue no. 76, Green Lantern "saves" a fat-cat slumlord from being pelted by garbage on the street in front of one of his properties. As Lantern is subduing one of the man's attackers, Green Arrow shows up to explain that the slumlord was being littered on because he's getting ready to kick his tenants out, in order to raze the building for a parking lot. Godwin's Law was broken by page 5 of the issue, quickly followed by a #NotAllGreenLanterns moment on page 6.
Pretty amazing stuff, right? Makes Batman's methods seem fascistic. Later issues tackled drug addiction, the environment, social conformity, the justice system, politics, and overpopulation. The series explored these weighty topics with varying degrees of competence, but that shouldn't diminish how ambitious the attempt was. At that time, comics weren't anywhere near as culturally accepted as a medium as they are now.
With that history in mind, I was pretty keen to check out Arrow. I did so, binge-style, last summer, after the first season had aired. It was disappointing. The dialogue was frequently trope-heavy. (During one episode, Detective Quentin Lance, essentially Arrow's Jim Gordon, screams, "I need an ambulance — NOW!" into his walkie-talkie, as if anyone calls ambulances for later on.)
The cast was too attractive — distractingly so. Seriously, Starling City, Arrow's fictional setting, had the world's hottest police department and DA's office. Oliver (played by Stephen Amell) seemed to have more "will they or won't they?" chemistry with his sister Thea than with his ex-girlfriend and Season 1 love interest Laurel. Additionally, some of the actors were just plain not good. As a result, the soap-opera-style story lines made it feel like you were actually watching a soap opera. The show's tone was muddled, trying to tell the story of a dude who runs around literally dressed like fucking Robin Hood with Christopher Nolan–style grit and realism.
After about 12 episodes, I was out.
Bad dialogue, bad casting; these are things that television shows do not usually come back from. That being said, there were also things the show did well, even from the start. Amell was and is great, and appropriately chiseled as Oliver Queen. The show used flashbacks to show how Oliver, trapped for five years on a mysterious Pacific island, went from callow, fair-haired, born-on-third rich boy to the weary, humane, ass-kicking ninja he was in Starling City. The action scenes — gunfights, hand-to-hand combat, and copious archery — were solid, as good as anything you'd see on network television.
Midway through Season 2, I started to hear that the show had gotten better and had hit an unforeseen gear. That feedback, combined with an appearance by DC deep-cut faves the Suicide Squad (like the comics version of the Dirty Dozen, but slightly more depraved), intrigued me enough to jump back in.
There is still the occasional clunky line, and the cast is by and large the same as it was, but I found something surprising: The show had become really entertaining.
Poor chemistry was allayed by giving the offending parties fewer scenes together. Soap-opera elements were recalibrated and romantic arcs carefully shelved. Compelling characters had their parts beefed up and backstories fleshed out. The character of computer expert Felicity Smoak, originally planned as a glorified comics-nerd Easter egg, was played with such Aaron Sorkin–babble alacrity by Emily Bett Rickards that the showrunners called an audible and turned her into a core character.
Oliver's stalwart bodyguard Diggle, played by David Ramsey, perhaps the best actor on the entire show, became the focus of several episodes, including the aforementioned Suicide Squad outing. The action scenes, always a strength for the series, have only gotten stronger. And the tone is unapologetic, embracing its comic-book roots.
Watching Fox's Gotham, another DC property about a crime-ridden city that will one day be home to another maladjusted crime-fighting billionaire weirdo,1 is a lot like watching Arrow during that uneven first season. Gotham just hasn't figured it out yet. Which isn't the same as saying it won't.
The way each show handles its Easter eggs highlights the differences between Arrow and Gotham. Gotham seems insecure about its audience, and really, really, really wants to make sure viewers don't miss the clues. Multiple ancillary characters note Oswald Cobblepot's loping, egg-rolling-down-a-hill gait and — while practically winking at the camera — quip that he walks "like a penguin!" Selina Kyle tells everyone to "call me Cat." Edward Nygma can't stop mentioning riddles. YOU KNOW, BATMAN STUFF.
Arrow is packed to the gills with Easter eggs, but there's never a wink; either you get it or you don't. Batman villain Harley Quinn pops up in the Suicide Squad episode, as a tangle of bleached hair and a Brooklynese bleat emanating from inside a prison cell, but no one remarks on it. It's just a moment that passes. Gotham would've handled it by having Jim Gordon shout, "Hey, that's Harley Quinn!"
Tonally, Gotham, quite logically, is going for the gritty — and objectively lucrative! — landscape of Frank Miller and Christopher Nolan. Which is a fine idea, as long as your protagonist isn't doing stuff like spilling important details about an active double homicide to a child, or handcuffing a teenage Selina Kyle to a railing in an alley (literally called "Crime Alley") in America's most dangerous city while he goes down into the sewer.
Gritty realism has a different belief-suspension mechanic from comic-book action. It's pretty hard to be a gritty crime drama when you have a killer murdering people with balloons and going by the name "the Balloonman," which results in Gordon saying to the commissioner, "There's at least two more balloons out there," super-seriously, because, you know, murder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYIf8Vpr4Tg
But then again, maybe all Gotham needs, like Arrow did, is time.
This one with a rubber fetish and repressed S&M tendencies.
Filed Under: TV, Arrow, gotham, Batman, DC Comics, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Vigilante Noam Chomsky, Jason Concepcion
Jason Concepcion is a staff writer for Grantland and coauthor of We'll Always Have Linsanity.
Archive @ netw3rk
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


To this date, we have gathered $83,690 in pledges to the Seabury Fund! We have great momentum going into the last weeks of October. This is the part of the fund drive when we rely on parent gifts to get us to our goal, so if you still have your pledge card sitting on your counter in the sediment of unopened mail, please excavate it and send it in!
Parent-Teacher conferences are next week. Our teachers are looking forward to answering your questions, receiving helpful information, and partnering with you to help your child be successful. Remember that conferences will last 10 minutes with a 2-minute passing period. Please don't be offended if a teacher cuts off the conference at the 10-minute mark--I ask them to keep a very strict schedule. If you arrive late and miss a conference slot, you should contact the teacher about setting up a meeting on a different date or communicating by email or phone.
The deadline for students signing up for the France trip is November 6th. Please contact Ms. Derby at loriderby@seaburyacademy.org to add your child's name or for more information.
Our Seahawk Days have been a great success. We had a big group of energetic 5th graders and a few older students visiting the school this week. When Ms. McCaffrey asks in morning meeting who remembers their own Seahawk Day visit, a sea of hands shoot up into the air. Almost every student begins their Seabury experience with this event, so it is an important day! As much as I enjoy greeting our future Seahawks, I am equally impressed to see our students acting as ambassadors. They did a great job this week!
I keep meaning to say that one of our new parents left a light beige-colored sweater at the new parent orientation in August. Please let me know if it is yours!


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Math Genius Solves 100 Year Old Problem, Then Refuses Million Dollar Prize
By Chris Gayomali May 03, 2011
The Poincare conjecture was a seemingly unsolvable theorem that was first proposed in 1904. Dealing with a branch of spatial mathematics called topology, the theorem sought to prove that any shape without a hole can be formed into a sphere. Sounds simple enough, right? Tell that to the math world, which, for over a century, struggled to prove the elusive conjecture even possible, inadvertently turning it into one of the community's Holy Grails.
But Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman published two proofs of the theorem back in 2002 and 2003, and according to The Utopianist, it wasn't until last year that a team of advanced mathematicians at the Clay Mathematical Institute (CMI) finally proved his results valid.
His reward? One million dollars and the Fields Medal, or the math world's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. But the private Perelman shrugged off the invite to accept the cash, saying that the knowledge he gained from proving the conjecture was more valuable than any monetary gain.
"Emptiness is everywhere and it can be calculated, which gives us a great opportunity. I know how to control the universe. So tell me, why should I run for a million?" he told Komsomolskaya Pravda, a daily Russian newspaper.
So how did he solve the problem? Simple: by channeling Jesus.
In his words:
"We were trying to solve the tasks which required abstract thinking. The distraction from mathematical logic was exactly the point of the daily training. One had to imagine a piece of the world in order to find the correct solution. Do you remember the Biblical story about Jesus Christ walking on water? I had to calculate the speed with which he had to move on the water surface not to fall through."
And they say science and religion can't work together.
Though he's avoided talking to most journalists (they want to know "whether he cuts his hair and nails") he's agreed to be part of a documentary about the cooperation and struggles of three of the world's major mathematical schools.
(via The Utopianist, Digital Journal)
Stink at Math? Scientists Can Make You Better By Electro-Shocking Your Brain
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A New Use For Bacteria: Encrypt it With Data


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Tuesday, July 2, 2019 — Boxing
Deontay Wilder trainer talks Tyson Fury, Luis Ortiz rematches
Image source: Amanda Westcott
Deontay Wilder's trainer and co-manager Jay Deas has spoken to WBN ahead of what promises to be a busy time for the WBC heavyweight champion.
On the back of a crushing knockout of Dominic Breazeale in May, Wilder has confirmed clashes with Luis Ortiz and Tyson Fury.
Ortiz is expected to happen in September or October, with Fury likely to be late February or March.
"Deontay looked great. He saw an opening and took advantage of it," Deas exclusively told World Boxing News before explaining some changes in the build-up. "We went back to the basics in camp as far as eating, training, techniques, everything and it showed. For the next fight, he's going to continue doing that and his fights will continue to be quick. When he does all the right things he's on a whole different level!"
Asked when fans can expect an update on the Ortiz fight, Deas replied: "Once we get a fight date we will begin official camp two months before. Deontay is always active so he comes to camp in shape anyway. Deontay wants the biggest fights so we are thrilled with what's happening. He's clearly fighting the best opponents of any heavyweight. Once these two fights are done, he's fought Ortiz, then Fury, then Breazeale. Ortiz again, then Fury again! No one else can compare. Against Ortiz, he wants to show what he can do with a great camp and great health behind him."
Turning the subject to Fury, Deas was quizzed on THAT ring entrance and the buzz which surrounded it.
"I'm not sure. I didn't see the outfit (Tyson was wearing channelling Apollo Creed) or the ring walk. I just saw a replay of the fight," he pointed out. "He weighed what he was comfortable at and felt good at. He's a heavyweight so trying to get to low weight for aesthetic's sake is crazy. Fury and Ben did the smart thing."
Tyson Fury makes boxing host down bottle of beer before interview (VIDEO)
Jay Deas


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Good morning everyone! I am back today with the last half of the new additions to the Doctor Who Collection from Above the Curve. If you missed yesterday's post please take a moment to check it out, you won't regret it. Now on to today's lacquers!
First up is a lovely TARDIS blend. This is a blue metallic blend with scattered holographic pigment. Application was outstanding. You know I love my blues and I can say I don't have one this shade. It's almost blue jean like. In my photos I am wearing just two thin coats.
Next up is Pretend It's A Plan. This one is a gorgeous grape purple scattered holographic blend with blue iridescent glitters that seem to only show in really low light. My photos are shown as two coats.
And lastly, Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey. This has to be the most unique blend for the collection, or a glitter topper in general. WWTW is a clear base blend with glitter that shifts like a chromaflair. I really wanted a lot of this glitter on my nails so I did three coats over top Ruby Wing Eclipse. I then sealed it with a good coat of Gelous.
What do you guys think of the new blends from the Doctor Who Collection? I think this is a fabulous collection and the added glitter topper is wonderful. These will all be releasing today so be sure to follow Above the Curve on Facebook to know exactly when they go up and until then check out other lovely lacquers they have to offer in their shop. Remember for every bottle you buy they will donate $1 to Shriners Hospitals for Children. Thank you so much for stopping by today and I look forward to seeing you all again tomorrow.
Oohhh WWTW! That shift! Dang, that's pretty. This whole collection is amazing.
They really are all amazing. Quality for sure!


The purpose of ESPI Executive Briefs is to address decision makers and others and draw attention to issues and challenges which might otherwise not receive the attention they deserve.
Will maturing cubesat propulsion call for more regulation?
Next Steps to the Moon: What Role for Europe?
Are we on the Verge of Suborbital Flights?
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text:
Why Djibouti Matters: China Sends Troops to First Permanent Base Abroad
Photo Credit: AP/達志影像
Peter Wood is the Editor of China Brief. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterWood_PDW.
The Djibouti support base is likely just the first of many as China improves its ability to protect the trade routes that form the vital arteries of its economy.
In Chinese, the term wan li (萬里; 10,000 li) is frequently used to indicate "a long way away". On July 11, China's first unit to be stationed abroad at a Chinese-owned base departed Southern China for Djibouti, a journey of roughly 20,000 li (10,000 kilometers) across the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. In the early 2000s, Chinese naval port calls far from China were rare. Whereas today, Chinese ships regularly visit foreign ports, and China has dispatched 26 escort taskforces to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden — and to stretch the PLA Navy's capabilities.
The PLAN will now have its first permanent support base (保障基地) overseas to resupply and repair Chinese ships operating in the region. The small detachment, composed of the Jinggangshan (井岡山), a type 071 amphibious assault ship, and the Donghaidao (東海島), semi-submersible support ship (半潛船), left the dock at Zhanjiang, the home of China's Southern Fleet (SSF) to great fanfare. PLAN Commander ADM Shen Jinlong (沈金龍), formerly Deputy Commander of the Southern Theater Command and Commander of the SSF, presented the detachment's commander with a PLA banner. The PLAN's top Commissar, Miao Hua (苗華), also gave remarks.
The unit's departure represents the culmination of several years of careful diplomacy. In 2014, Central Military Commission member and Minister of Defense GEN Chang Wanquan (常萬全) signed a ten-year agreement with Djibouti's Minister of Defense Hassan Darar Houffaneh (Xinhua, February 26, 2014). In the run-up to the establishment of the port, China has invested heavily in Djibouti. Their bilateral trade is $2 billion and imports of Chinese goods make up 54 percent of Djibouti's total (FMPRC, July 2016; OEC, 2015).
In late 2016, CMC Vice-Chairman GEN Fan Changlong (范長龍) and inspected the Djibouti facility during a port visit for resupply from the PLAN's 24th Escort Taskforce (CCTV, November 27, 2016). Addressing the taskforce, GEN Fan urged them to "improve coordination, speed-up construction [of the base] […] and provide strong support for military operations to carry out overseas missions."
China's obvious interest in Djibouti raised alarm in the United States due to the presence of Camp Lemonier, a U.S. UAV and Special Forces base that played an important role in the Global War on Terror. Even Japan, which has had a presence in the small country since 2011, in 2016 decided to expand its base, apparently in response to China (Sina, October 14, 2016).
China has built overseas bases (基地) or stations (站) before — it maintains a space monitoring facility in the deserts outside Neuquen, Argentina (China Brief, October 2, 2015; Sohu, May 26, 2016). But Djibouti is the first overt and explicitly military-related outpost. Chinese naval ships already visit the port an average of four times a year, and this will only increase as China expands its far-seas maritime operations.
In the lead-up to the establishment of the base, Chinese media was careful to insist it had limited use and, until recently, was described as Support Facilities (保障設施) rather than a Support Base (保障基地). [1] Although China has downplayed the military implications of the base, within China "Support Base" has a specific definition, and only Chinese officers of a certain grade (Corps Deputy Leader) are able to command them. Key naval facilities such as those at Lushun, (旅順), Qingdao and Sanya, for example, are described as Support Bases, or for larger facilities Comprehensive Support Bases (綜合保障基地). Six Joint Logistics Support Bases (聯勤保障基地) form the backbone of China's internal military logistics system. Building bases abroad then need to be understood as an expansion of China's preexisting military logistics organization.
Logistics has been a major failing of the PLA by its own assessment: it is seen as holding back China's drive for an effective military (China Brief, May 9, 2013). The General Logistics Department was plagued with corruption scandals. GEN. Gu Junshan (谷俊山) and Zhou Guotai (周國泰), both senior leaders in the organization, were felled by corruption investigations. Major reforms in 2012 and in 2015 streamlined logistics and refocused them on joint operations. [2]
Some hints about how Chinese support bases would function in a wartime scenario can be found in authoritative textbooks. In the 2006 edition of the Science of Campaigns, descriptions of offensive campaigns against coral reefs (i.e., in the South China Sea) explicitly included the use of Advanced Support Bases (前進保障基地) and Seaborne mobile support (海上機動保障) to aid operations. Bases like Djibouti and ships like the Donghaidao (東海島) semi-submersible support ship could be used in these types of operations.
The Djibouti support base is likely just the first of many as China improves its ability to protect the trade routes that form the vital arteries of its economy. This base, and those that follow should be viewed in the same light as the infrastructure projects China is driving across Asia, connecting it through an expanding web of pipelines, highways and railways to the rest of the global economy.
The News Lens has been authorized to republish this article from The Jamestown Foundation's China Brief.
China Brief is a primary source of timely information and cutting-edge analysis for policy-makers, intelligence and military personnel, academics, journalists, and business leaders.
TNL Editor: Edward White
Mattieu Duchatel noted that the term used has shifted, as it was originally Support Infrastructure (保障設施).
Nan Li, "The People's Liberation Army Navy as an Evolving Organization," in The PLA as Organization 2.0, Kevin Pollpeter and Ken Allen, Eds. p. 316.


text:
Q: find the error in this android code The app shows ANR(App Not Responding) dialog on pressing the start button.
The motive of this app is to find the distance traveled by the use or phone approximately. I have not used time of clock but it is just to check the app is working
Thanks in advance
Java Code
    package com.skydiver.distancecalculator;
    import android.content.Context;
    import android.hardware.Sensor;
    import android.hardware.SensorEvent;
    import android.hardware.SensorEventListener;
    import android.hardware.SensorManager;
    import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
    import android.os.Bundle;
    import android.view.View;
    import android.widget.Button;
    import android.widget.TextView;
    import android.widget.Toast;
    import java.util.Locale;

        public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements SensorEventListener {

    //Objects to access the sensors in the device
    Sensor accelero ;
    SensorManager manager;

    float currentAcc, lastAcc=0.0f, effectiveAcc;
    float distance = 0, totalDistance = 0;
    int time_elapsed = 0;

    //Text fields to show the value of acceleration,time and distance travelled
    TextView accX, accY, accZ, dist_total, dist_last, time;

    //Variables to store the value of acceleration in X,Y and Z directions
    public float val_accX, val_accY, val_accZ;

    //Buttons for starting and stopping the distance Calculations
    Button startButton, stopButton, resetButton;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        //Binding Button  in the java code with the layout widgets
        startButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.start);
        stopButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.stop);
        resetButton =(Button) findViewById(R.id.reset);

        //Getting the Sensor service using sensor manager object to access the accelerometer sensor in device
        manager = (SensorManager) getSystemService(Context.SENSOR_SERVICE);
        accelero = manager.getDefaultSensor(Sensor.TYPE_ACCELEROMETER);

        //Check if there is an accelerometer sensor present on the Device
        if(accelero == null){
            //Displays a message to the user that sensor is not present
            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Sensor Not Present on Device", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        }
        //Registering the sensor manager to listen to the sensor events at 10ms
        manager.registerListener(this, accelero, 10000);

        //Binding Textviews  in the java code with the layout widgets
        accX = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_accX);
        accY = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_accY);
        accZ = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_accZ);
        time = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_time);
        dist_last = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_last_dist);
        dist_total = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_total_dist);

        //Setting the function on click action of buttons
        resetButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                resetFields();
            }
        });
        startButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                resetFields();
                calculate();
            }
        });
        stopButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                stopCalculation();
            }
        });
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPause(){
        //Unregister the listener if the user moves to another activity or app
        manager.unregisterListener(this);
        super.onPause();
    }

    @Override
    protected void onResume(){
        //Resume the listener on resuming of the activity
        manager.registerListener(this,accelero, 10000);
        super.onResume();
    }

    @Override
    public void onSensorChanged(SensorEvent sensorEvent) {
        //Getting the changed values of the sensors in the variables
        val_accX = sensorEvent.values[0];
        val_accY = sensorEvent.values[1];
        val_accZ = sensorEvent.values[2];

        //Calling the function to calculate the total distance travelled
        calculate();
        //Display the current acceleration values to the user
        displayValues();

    }

    public void calculate() {

        while (true){
            currentAcc = (float) Math.sqrt(Math.pow(val_accZ,2)+Math.pow(val_accZ,2)+Math.pow(val_accZ,2) - Math.pow(9.80665,2));
            effectiveAcc = currentAcc - lastAcc;
            distance = Math.abs(effectiveAcc) * 0.5f * time_elapsed * time_elapsed ;
            totalDistance += distance;
            lastAcc = currentAcc;
            time_elapsed +=1;

            if (stopButton.isPressed()) {
                break;
            }
        }

    }

    private void stopCalculation(){
        dist_total.setText(String.format("Total Distance: " + "%s" + " m", Float.toString(totalDistance)));
        //time.setText(String.format(Locale.getDefault(),"Time: " + "%d" + " s", time_elapsed));
    }

    @Override
    public void onAccuracyChanged(Sensor sensor, int i) {

    }

    public void resetFields(){
        time.setText(R.string.time_0_0);
        dist_last.setText(R.string.distance_0_0);
        dist_total.setText(R.string.total_distance_0_0);
    }

    public void displayValues(){
        accX.setText(String.format("Acceleration X: " + "%s" , val_accX));
        accY.setText(String.format("Acceleration Y: " + "%s" , val_accY));
        accZ.setText(String.format("Acceleration Z: " + "%s" , val_accZ));
    }
}

XML File
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/activity_main"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context="com.skydiver.distancecalculator.MainActivity"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <TextView
        android:text="@string/acceleration_x_0_0"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:padding="3dp"
        android:layout_margin="3dp"
        android:gravity="start"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:id="@+id/text_accX" />

    <TextView
        android:text="@string/acceleration_y_0_0"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:padding="3dp"
        android:layout_margin="3dp"
        android:gravity="start"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:id="@+id/text_accY" />

    <TextView
        android:text="@string/acceleration_z_0_0"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:padding="3dp"
        android:layout_margin="3dp"
        android:gravity="start"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:id="@+id/text_accZ" />

    <TextView
        android:text="@string/time_0_0"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:padding="3dp"
        android:layout_margin="3dp"
        android:gravity="start"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:id="@+id/text_time" />

    <TextView
        android:text="@string/distance_0_0"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:padding="3dp"
        android:layout_margin="3dp"
        android:gravity="start"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:id="@+id/text_last_dist" />

    <TextView
        android:text="@string/total_distance_0_0"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:padding="3dp"
        android:layout_margin="3dp"
        android:gravity="start"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:id="@+id/text_total_dist" />

    <LinearLayout
        android:orientation="horizontal"
        android:layout_margin="5dp"
        android:padding="5dp"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/start"
            android:text="@string/start"
            android:layout_weight="1"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_margin="5dp" />

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/stop"
            android:text="@string/stop"
            android:layout_weight="1"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_margin="5dp" />

    </LinearLayout>

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/reset"
        android:text="@string/reset_fields"
        android:layout_margin="10dp"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</LinearLayout>

Manifest file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.skydiver.distancecalculator" >

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:supportsRtl="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
        <activity android:name=".MainActivity" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

A: Remove the line with while (true) { and the corresponding closing bracket. You only need the contents of the loop to execute once with each sensor update.
Remove these lines as well, because this if statement will only be true if the user is literally holding the stop button down at the moment it executes:
 if (stopButton.isPressed()) {
     break;
 }

Unless you have a need for the sensor values outside of running the calculation, you should wait until the start button is pressed before calling SensorManager.registerListener() and you should call SensorManager.unregisterListener() when the stop button is pressed (which is why you don't need the above if statement). Otherwise you will will be receiving sensor values when you do not need them and running the accelerometer more than necessary.

A: To expand a bit on @Karakuri's answer:  sensor events come in on the main thread.  You're meant to handle them quickly and return control to the OS.  By looping forever in it, you're preventing the main thread from doing anything, including respond to Android lifecycle events, redraw, or process the next sensor event.  You're eventually killed by a watchdog timer that looks for cases of the UI thread being stuck and kills the application.
You need to rearchitect your app.  No loop.  When you want to stop responding to events, unregister from them.  When you want to start listening again, reregister.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I watched Souths defeat Parra yesterday with some horror. I actually have a passion for both clubs so I wasn't passionate about the winning or losing but more where they are both headed as footy clubs right now.
There is so much not right with Parra, and has been for some time, that it's not my intention to solve that here even if I thought I could to assist all my wonderful Parra friends and supporters. Rather one incident caught my eye late in the game that I would like to expand on. It was not going to change the result but it exploded in my head that with a chance to score late in the game with just one simple pass near Souths goal line a try was to be had. Finish on a nice positive note at least.
Darcy Lussick was the man in the hot seat, but it could well have been so many other players in his team and many other teams in the NRL. Recently Titans front rower Brenton Lawrence burst into the clear looking like a talented outside back with pace to burn. Unfortunately he looked a whole lot different to that description when he had no idea how to pass to any one of the 3 or 4 supports. Why does this happen?
It stands out even more when we see other players find passes and catches seemingly so much easier. Talent I hear you say? Well yes if we are talking some of the very top end skills like Gallen, Bird and Sonny Bill Williams display so well. But surely not when we are talking relatively simple catch and pass to an unmarked support. It's my belief from watching many games of touch pre-training that there are very very few players in the NRL who do not have the basic skills I am talking about. In fact most would amaze you – when the pressure is off!
Too many players are being coached into a paranoid state about making errors in possession or at least not being offered the opportunities to show and develop what they could do under pressure. That all starts at training and to be fair to Ricky Stuart and other NRL coaches it should start in the very junior days of every player.
You can't really get the first of these two aspects if the coach does not set this as his playing and training philosophy for all players no matter what position.
You can't get the second one without trying the first.
This all requires coaching by junior and then senior coaches who share a similar philosophy – to permit, no develop an improving and eventually high level of skills in players through continuous decision making activities in training simulated to be game-like without fear of serious retribution. In fact in this environment there id no failure as the player is learning from both the successful and unsuccessful !
Coming through "the other side" (a successful performance of the skill) or even making an error (unsuccessful performance of skill or decision of when or what skill to perform) have great value to the developing player. The Talent Code, a book all coaches should read, outlines the importance of how the brain works in correcting performance. It tells us that scientifically we lay myelin differently in the brain if we continually practice and re-practice after failure. Coaches should not be concerned with errors (especially in training) if the player is developing and extending his skill set and re-practicing over and over as the storage of that skill in his brain is going to be there for him when he needs it most – in the same situation, under game pressure if he has practiced this way.
If your team appears limited in its attack at present this is likely the problem; players without the confidence to come up with that skill to undo their opponents rather than simply "the coach hasn't given them the right plan". And it spreads. Look at the skills more of the Roosters players exhibit when SBW starts the ball rolling. The big Kiwi has a mindset of super confidence and that sure makes a difference to his teammates play. He doesn't pass them the ball only he passes on CONFIDENCE.
It's not hard to see the Rabbits are well down their track with Coach Michael Maguire. The style and each player's role in that style are clearly evident to all. It's all very disciplined and very physical. It's working. But a word of warning jumps into my head when I watch teams with a big emphasis of the physical. One day in this league they will meet another team that matches them in the physical.
That's when the unprepared coach hopes that the talent factor comes in. Brisbane Broncos of the past couple of decades played physically to compete and then the genius that was Langer and Walters and later Lockyer, took over. Ditto Newcastle with bruising forward pack and the A Johns factor! What happens when the genius passes on – in Rabbits case, Inglis? Or if he is just injured on GF day.
The Rabbits are well and truly in a different situation to the Eels currently. But in that scary moment that GFs tend to deliver will each player in this mighty disciplined and physically dominant team be able to assess and execute that one off chance to win the big one?
There is always work to be done for every coach in every club if his goal is to develop the skill and decision making of each and every player in his crew.


Eddie Glass and Ruben Romano (ex Fu Manchu) have put together one of the most sonically aural music obliterations ever put down on tape.
Along with Queens of the Stone Age and Eternal Elysium, Nebula were one of the most pleasant surprises in the stoner rock movement.
To call them another stoner rock band is an injustice to their versatility and dynamism.
Nebula experiments with different types of sounds, including the raga piece "Raga in the Bloodshot Pyramid." Arguably one of the best white-played ragas, besides the Northwood Improvisers' phenomenal Stargarden, the song offers a refreshing change from the average fuzz-infested rock tune.
The guitars are brash, loud, covered in mud, and loaded with crotch-kickin' feedback. The interplay of the drums and bass and the extended guitar jam on the aptly titled "Sonic Titan" is one of several highlights on Let It Burn.
There is no dead weight here. This is especially true of the bonus tracks, which include the rawest, most brilliant song on the album, "Devil's Liquid." If you are a fan of the genre, or just Fu Manchu, then put down your bong and Black Sabbath vinyl long enough to go out and find yourself this masterpiece.


text:
'Clifford The Big Red Dog' Set For Fall 2020, 'Rugrats' Pushed Back, 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark?' Disappears
By Ethan Anderton/Feb. 28, 2019 5:30 pm EST
Paramount Pictures has shuffled around their release date calendar for a bunch of their family programming coming in the next couple years, including two Nickelodeon movies.
Clifford the Big Red Dog has been set for a fall 2020 release date. It's taking the weekend that was previously slated for the new Rugrats movie, which has now been pushed back a few months to early 2021. Meanwhile, Paramount has pulled the Are You Afraid of the Dark? movie from this year's calendar.
First up, The Hollywood Reporter says Clifford the Big Red Dog will arrive in theaters on November 13, 2020, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving that year. It's not the first time the crimson dog from Norman Bridwell's children's book series has come to the big screen. Clifford's Really Big Movie hit theaters back in 2004 as an animated feature film. However, this iteration of Clifford will be a live-action and CG hybrid, not unlike films such as Alvin and the Chipmunks.
For those who don't know, Clifford the Big Red Dog has been appearing in children's books since 1963. He was just a runt of a pup, but a little girl named Emily Elizabeth loved him so much that he kept growing and growing until he was 25 feet tall. They live in the small town of Birdwell Island where everyone knows and loves the dog.
Last we heard, Walt Becker was going to be at the helm of the movie. He previously directed National Lampoon's Van Wilder, but has more commonly settled into family comedies like Wild Hogs, Old Dogs, and Sleeping Logs (yes, one of those is fake). Becker has even directed one of those Alvin and the Chipmunks sequels. So that pretty much tells us what to expect from Clifford the Big Red Dog.
Rugrats and Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Meanwhile, on the Nickelodeon side of the equation, it sounds like Rugrats needs a bit more time to come together. The movie will be a live-action film with CG characters, which sounds absolutely horrifying. Just imagining 3D versions of the unique animation style that brought Rugrats to life as a Nicktoon all those years ago is enough to give you nightmares. We've yet to hear any details since the project was first announced last summer, but now it's been pushed back from the release date taken by Clifford the Big Red Dog to January 29, 2021.
However, one other Nickelodeon property isn't quite as fortunate on this day. The Are You Afraid of the Dark? movie that was previously set for release on October 4, 2019 has been removed from the Paramount Pictures release calendar entirely. Perhaps the studio decided not to pursue a film adaptation, which would explain why Nickelodeon is pursuing a miniseries revival of the horror series from the cable channel's heydays.
Last we heard was that director D.J. Caruso was in talks to direct the Are You Afraid of the Dark movie that has a script from IT screenwriter Gary Dauberman. Otherwise, we haven't heard any new details on the project since then. Here's hoping we hear about it again sometime down the road.


text:
Imma psithyristis is a moth in the family Immidae. It was described by Edward Meyrick in 1906. It is found on the Solomon Islands.

The wingspan is 23–24 mm. The forewings are rather dark purplish-fuscous, strewn throughout with fine pale ochreous-fuscous strigulae and with a dark fuscous discal dot at three-fifths. The hindwings are rather dark fuscous.

References

Moths described in 1906
Immidae
Taxa named by Edward Meyrick
Moths of the Solomon islands

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia