Above-average rainfall in March reduced the shortage of rainfall in the last 3 months. It did not relieve extreme shortages at durations between 12 months and 7 years.
A rain front at the end of March 2019 that brought about 40 mm took the March total up to the average. This raised the 2-month and 3-month totals nearer to normal. It did nothing to increase longer-duration totals.
Despite the high rainfall of March, March figures also record six extreme shortages. The 18-month total is no longer extreme, but the 30-month total has now become extreme.
Two of the rainfall totals (plotted on the 0.1% line) are near-record low values. The 24-month total of 769 mm is the second lowest after July 1966 (766 mm). The 30-month total of 1078 mm is equal lowest with October 1966.
Data for February, plotted on the thinner line, show the record low values for 12 months (271 mm) and for 84 months (3672 mm).
The development of this drought through the previous 24 months is shown in the later post "Rainfall Shortage Sequence 03/2019". A contour graph shows severity of shortage by contoured layer tints, with serial months on the x-axis and duration of shortage on the y-axis.
This graph is based on analysis of monthly rainfall totals from 1883. Using the spreadsheet application Excel, I calculate cumulative totals and their percentile values. Using these values, I identify rainfall shortages as serious, severe, or extreme .
In the second table, I convert values from the first table to percentile values by the function PERCENTRANK(). Each value in this table represents the percent of such observations in the historical record that have been lower. A 12-month rainfall value that falls at the 5th percentile (for example) is lower than all but 5% of all 12-month totals in the record.
Percentile values are shown on the y-axis of the graph using a logarithmic scale.
I classify these percentile values of rainfall shortage using the Bureau of Meteorology convention of Rainfall Deficiency. That is, "Serious shortage" between the 10th and the 5th percentile, and "Severe shortage" below the 5th percentile. Because the data demand it, I further classify as "Extreme shortage" those values that are below the first percentile.
Note. A given percentile value represents the same rarity of occurrence (say 5%) regardless of the duration of the shortage concerned. However, the rate of rainfall at a given percentile value rapidly approaches the normal rate as one considers longer durations. This accounts for long-term shortages being, in some cases, more severe than short-term shortages observed at the same date.
Percentile ranks have been calculated using the whole data record, in which the median monthly rainfall is 44 mm. No distinction has been made between calendar months. As a result, January months, which generally have the highest rainfall, (median value 75 mm) will be ranked here as rather less drought-prone than other months.
This limitation will not affect those n-month totals that comprise whole years, such as 24 months.
Since adjusting the analysis to account for the differing rainfall in calendar months is difficult, I am letting this simpler analysis stand.
When a current month's data shows (for example) an extreme rainfall shortage for a duration of 15 months, this graph will plot that 15-month extreme shortage at the current month. If the previous month did not have an extreme rainfall shortage of that duration, it will not have been recorded there. Logically, that 15-month extreme shortage must have commenced 14 months earlier. It began then, but the evidence for it has appeared only now.
This analysis of rainfall shortage, with the resulting graphs, is vitiated by failure to maintain an official rain gauge at Manilla Post Office, Station 055031 for the last four years. The last manual reading by the Postmaster was on 26 March 2015. After a gap of 13 months, the Bureau of Meteorology re-purposed an automatic gauge for flood analysis, installing it in the museum yard. It operated there under the same station number for four months from 23 May 2016 to 7 October 2016. After repair, the same gauge operated as Manilla (Museum), Station 055312 intermittently during the five months from 16 March 2018 to 24 September 2018, when it failed again.
I have used the published readings from the Bureau of Meteorology automatic rain gauge whenever it was not faulty. However, most Manilla rainfall readings since the onset of the current drought are unofficial readings from my own rain gauge. It is regrettable that documentation of the current extreme drought at Manilla depends on this gauge. It is a simple wedge gauge, precise to only 0.2 mm, and it is located in a yard narrower than standard, at a distance of 1 km from the Post Office.


are most varicose and spider vein treatments covered by insurance?
Well, yes and no. Basically, it depends on why you're seeking treatment. If all you care about is how your legs look, then that's considered a cosmetic treatment and you're going to have to cover those costs yourself. However, if you are more concerned about the way your legs feel, then usually that's a medical problem and insurance can cover those treatments. Spider veins, however, no matter if they cause discomfort, itching, swelling - are always considered cosmetic and no insurance company will cover those treatments. However, varicose veins and the underlying causes of varicose veins - if they meet the criteria set forth by your insurance company, may be covered by your insurance plan.


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If you have ever purchased a diamond, or are in the process of making your first diamond purchase, you will probably have heard mention of the "4 C's". The 4 C's refer to attributes of a diamond that are commonly used to evaluate its quality. These factors are cut, colour, clarity, and carat (weight). This provides us with a good starting point, but always remember that every diamond is unique!
More than anything else, the brilliance of a diamond depends on its cut. While nature determines a rough diamond's carat weight, colour, and clarity, it is the hands of a master craftsman that cuts a diamond to exacting proportions, neither too deep nor too shallow.
There are also many shapes that a diamond can be cut into. Below are a few examples.
Diamonds are graded on a colour scale from D through to Z based on the amount of colour that they contain. The less colour in a diamond, the more rare it is. Fancy coloured diamonds, however, such as yellows, pinks and blues, are an exception, and are much desired due to their extreme rarity. For fancy diamonds, the more colour the rarer it is.
Virtually all diamonds have what are called "inclusions" – tiny crystals, clouds or feathers than can be seen under magnification. Generally, the greater the number and size of inclusions within a diamond, the lower its clarity score.
Diamonds with no inclusions are quite valuable, and are categorized as flawless (FL) or internally flawless (IF).
CARAT (WEIGHT)
A diamond's size is measured in carat weight, which is commonly expressed in points. Each carat point equals 100 points or 1/5 of a gram. In nature, larger diamonds are found less frequently, and so are valued more. But remember that the quality and beauty of a diamond depends on more than just it's size!
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Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo will travel to Dallas and College Station, Texas, April 14–15.
In Dallas, April 15, the Secretary will meet with members of the Iranian-American diaspora community. He will solicit their thoughts and discuss issues pertaining to U.S. policy on Iran.
In College Station, April 15, he will deliver remarks at Texas A&M University as part of the Wiley Lecture Series. His remarks will highlight the impact of diplomacy on daily life and make the case to students that a career at the State Department is a powerful way to serve America. The Secretary also will visit the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.


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368 – Romanticism
A 19th century artistic movement, in MY writing? It's more likely than you think!
Wes Matlock
Writing, The Writing Process
https://mythcreants.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/TMP-368-Romanticism2.mp3
Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts
If you're trying to write a story, you could spend a lot of time studying the fundamentals of storytelling, or you could hide in a remote cabin and let the genius flow through you. At least, that's what a certain artistic movement from the 19th century would have us believe. This week we're talking about the Romantics, why they're so important to speculative fiction as we know it, and why some of their bad ideas continue to hamper new writers even today.
John Polidori
Edgar Allen Poe
The Princess and the Goblin
The Enlightenment
French Neoclassicism
I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud
Gloucester Is an Unnecessary Character
Generously transcribed by Space Pineapple. Volunteer to transcribe a podcast.
Chris: You're listening to the Mythcreants podcast with your hosts Oren Ashkenazi, Wes Matlock, and Chris Winkle. [opening song]
Chris: You're listening to the Mythcreants podcast. I'm Chris, and with me is…
Oren: Oren.
Chris: And…
Wes: Wes.
Chris: Now previously, we've been dedicated to teaching storytelling principles, but… turns out, we were totally wrong. The best thing you can do to learn storytelling is to lock yourself in some cabin in the woods and just pour your heart out into the page. Then, if you happen to be a natural genius, you'll write one of the great works. And if not, well, your suffering as you fail to write anything good will be very poetic, so you can take comfort.
Oren: What about if we locked ourselves in a cabin in Geneva, Switzerland, with Lord Byron and a bunch of his weirdos? Would that do the trick? Because that seems to have done a few novels.
Wes: Yeah… And the thing that bothers me about that—I mean, the whole point of that excursion was, hey, let's all hang out and go write ghost stories and then share them with each other and give feedback. (Laughs) So, great job, you guys. I mean, it was just like a little writing group, but that's not what we talk about when we talk about freaking romanticism.
Chris: So, if anybody has no idea what we're talking about here, we're talking about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which she wrote when she was in a cabin with her husband, and with Lord Byron.
Oren: Were they married yet, at that point? I think Percy Shelley might still have been married to his wife that he ran out on at that point.
Wes: I think so, yeah.
Oren: Yeah, he was not a great guy. Anyway…
Wes: No, he was horrible.
Chris: So, this time, we're talking about Romanticism with a "big R", though "small r" romanticism is not an inaccurate way to describe it. Obviously, one thing is named after the other. Romanticism is an art movement, you could say, in Western Europe and also the US, that peaked around 1800 to 1850—that's when it peaked. It had influence that expanded beyond that time period, but you could say that that is the height of Romanticism. And, just to give you some context for this time period, here's some works that came out.
Obviously, we talked about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 1818. It's known as the first work of science fiction, or at least a lot of people call it that. I don't know definitively what the first work is. Edgar Allen Poe, and the Gothic phase. He lived from 1809 to 1849, so his entire life was at the height of Romanticism. The brothers Grimm collected and published fairytales between 1812 and 1857. And Hans Christian Anderson—now, the brothers Grimm collected oral fairytales, and they did edit them. They didn't change them, but they collected oral works, whereas Hans Christian Anderson actually wrote his fairytales. They're original works by him, and he published most of those in the 1830s.
And then, shortly after that height, or at least near the Romantic period, or still kind of within Romanticism, is Alice in Wonderland, in 1865. And then The Princess and the Goblin, which is often considered the first work of modern fantasy, was in 1872. So, speculative fiction really got going in this period.
Oren: That's also the period when Polidori wrote "The Vampyre."
Wes: Fun fact, Polidori was with them in the cabin, and his vampire is Lord Byron. The sexy vampire is just Lord Byron, that's all it is.
Oren: Wes, did Byron try to take credit for that story?
Wes: You know he did. You know he did.
Oren: 'Cuz I've heard people say that he claims to be the author, but I don't know that for sure.
Wes: Polidori did write it, but everybody was like, oh, that is clearly Lord Byron, sexy vampire.
Chris: The amazing thing is that, if you go to the Wikipedia page and read about Romanticism, it'll talk about the beliefs that were part of that movement. And it's like, wait a second, here. That's all the things that are big problems today. People still believe those things. A lot of times when we talk about Romanticism, we talk about it having died out, but it's—part of it went away, and a big part of it is still a huge part of literary culture today, so that's why we're talking about it.
Wes: We also need to mention Coleridge and Wordsworth and John Keats, because generally, Romantics were great. Long-form fiction came out of it, but a lot of the Romantics said poetry is the true Romanticism. And that is snobby, (laughs) but that was important, because we alluded to the notion that they were not about rules regarding the creation of art. They hated that. And so, the poets were very important in helping pushing creativity, because they said, we don't need to do this heroic structure; the heroic couplet is played out. Let's just do free forms of verse and use folk methods, like odes and verse narratives. So that was actually a big movement forward to blast poetry out of a rigid, unchanging, boring expression of general histories and stuff, at that point. There was very little creativity happening in poetry until the Romantics came over.
Oren: Apparently, one of the things that inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein was a scientific poem by Erasmus Darwin. And first of all, Erasmus is the greatest name that English has ever produced. This is the grandfather of good old Charlie. And apparently, he wrote a poem about his scientific idea that dead cells could come to life, and this was one of the things that inspired Frankenstein. I find that hilarious.
Wes: It's funny to see works coming from those centuries that are written in poetic structure. That was just the form of erudition. It's like, if you're learned, then you write it in poetry. It doesn't matter what it is. Shut your mouth.
Chris: So, as much as Romanticism and the beliefs with it are today, I think, very destructive, I do think it's worth looking at the context in which they arose, right? And you can see that—to be fair, they're partly for a reason, even the anti-intellectualism that became part of it. First of all, this period was during industrialization and urbanization, and the effect of that can be seen, particularly that there was a lot of emphasis on nature, right? It's kind of a reaction to that industry and that urbanization. And I've seen arguments that the emphasis on originality which came about in this period, about how being derivative and cliche is the worst, and you need to isolate yourself to make sure that you never see anybody else's stories, because that's the only way to prevent yourself from being derivative—apparently that is partly a reaction, too.
The printing press, at that point, had been around for a while, but if there's more mass production, feeling like what is uniquely human is the ability to create something new, and industrialization did involve a lot of replacing handcrafted goods with identical, factory-produced goods. And so, you could say that that might be one of the effects.
Oren: Yeah. And nowadays, it's easy to imagine Romantics as being very anti-science and regressive, but it's just important to remember that at the time, the thing they were reacting against was the Enlightenment, where a lot of the supposedly scientific ideas were incredibly wrong. It's a little more sympathetic in that vein.
Chris: So, the Enlightenment also took place partly during Romanticism, and people seem to agree that at least one of its causes is a backlash to the Enlightenment, but at the same time, Romanticists still adopted some Enlightenment ideas. So they're not completely opposed to each other, but there's definitely a reaction happening. And people were just very arrogant in the Enlightenment, and they thought they could just reason through everything, no problem, and they were kind of incompetent as a result. So basically, this was a glorification of ancient Greece and Rome. And what they did is, they looked back at what Aristotle said, and then they interpreted it completely wrong. So in France, they were enforcing storytelling rules that some guy who had not even read Aristotle's "Poetics" just half-interpreted, and then made up stuff.
Oren: Ah, yes, the French rules of Neoclassicism. I love them. Those are my favorite rules. I always go back to them, always obey the three "unities", 'cuz Aristotle said so. And somewhere, Aristotle's like, (mumbling) "I didn't actually say that. I said other things." Like, no. No ghosts. Aristotle would be ashamed of you.
Chris: Yeah. So, the three "unities" are… well, first, unity of action is actually just having a cohesive plot, so that one's fine. But there's unity of time, which is, the story has to take place in one day, which is very silly. And unity of place, it has to take place in the same place, which is very silly. And then on top of that, the alignment was very rejecting of emotion. It was like, (silly French accent) "all emotions must be restrained," which is a very silly thing for stories, which are kind of emotional at their core. After they made up these rules, particularly in places like France, and forced them on theater, you can kind of understand why a group of people would be like, no, we hate rules now. No rules. Everything is subjective. Only the subconscious produces great works. You can't teach us anything. And that was not a good move, but I can understand why it happened.
Oren: You watch enough Enlightenment-era plays, and you start to sympathize with them.
Wes: There was also a big movement at that time. Industrialization kind of helped, but there were a few revolutions happening around Europe and the Americas at the time.
Oren: A few.
Wes: You know, a few. With some of the poets, like I mentioned Wordsworth and Coleridge, the French Revolution was very important because it brought, you would say, the "common people" to the front. And then, that's why Romantics sought subjects of their artistic expressions in the form of common experiences, childhood experiences, that were generally considered low art, because it wasn't dealing with anything high-minded, but Wordsworth just wrote a poem, "I wandered lonely as a cloud," and it's just that. It's a weird return to basics, and that's grounded in what Chris mentioned, with their love and appreciation of nature. They considered nature to be good, uncorrupted. Therefore, spending time in nature, like isolation, for example, would make you better.
And as someone who enjoys being outside, I can't say they're entirely wrong, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to write a great book or anything like that, you know?
Chris: Yeah. On the plus side, because they were very into breaking all those rules, throw rules out the window… fantastical elements were not taboo, for maybe the only period ever in Western history since the Classical period, right?
Wes: Yeah, for real.
Chris: That's why we got this burst of fantasy from that time period, and the start of science fiction, and all those things. So, some good things came out of it. The tales of King Arthur were very popular around this time, whereas Neoclassicism was popular during the Enlightenment, and a lot of their aesthetics were like Classic-period aesthetics from ancient Greece. The medieval period was really popular, so a lot of Romantic paintings that you see feature knights, and are about chivalry and all those things. They liked those things.
Oren: What I want to know is, why has nobody adapted the part of Arthurian lore, where he goes and fights the Romans? I want to read Arthur versus the Romans. I'd watch that movie.
Wes: I thought that was that Clive Owen King Arthur movie that came out years ago where he's a Roman soldier that just adopts Britain, and then more Romans come. I think Keira Knightley was in that, too.
Oren: Maybe someone has adapted it, then. I'd never heard of that one, but there you go.
Wes: It was not great, so someone still needs to adapt it.
Chris: It had a its own set of aesthetics, which included lots of emphasis on emotion, and those kinds of things. But the ideas about how stories should be generated, again, they're very anti-intellectual, so there are no rules. Everything is subjective. You can't learn storytelling. It has to come from your subconscious. Your brain is not allowed.
Oren: Get out of here, Brain. Oh, man. My one real experience with Romanticism is that, when I took fencing, my fencing instructor complained bitterly about Romantic fencers and how they had ruined fencing in the 1800s. Because, according to him, they had thrown out all of the techniques and all of the ways of studying how to fence, in favor of just throwing themselves at their opponent as hard as possible, in the hopes that they would get lucky and score a touch. And that was their way of fencing it. He hated it. He hated it so much.
Chris: And was this like, knowledge was lost as a result of this movement, or was there still Romantic fencers today doing this?
Oren: I think in his mind, that's what led to modern sport fencing, which he also didn't like very much, it gets a little hazy at that point, but it was funny and kind of interesting, listening to him describe this process.
Chris: And I think, to some extent, they did believe that there were natural principles. They just wanted to also believe that people who are genius would just automatically follow those principles from their subconscious, and therefore there was no intellectual learning required, or allowed, really.
Wes: Yeah. I think that notion manifests more so with American—they're not really Romantics in that sense, they get the Transcendentalist label, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, with this notion of self-reliance, and that quiet contemplation can sharpen your focus and resolve and reveal what you need to do. No sounding boards, just yourself, and you'll figure it out.
Chris: But to be clear, these notions of, "you don't learn storytelling. You have to inherently be a natural genius and just use your subconscious," those are definitely very prevailing in Europe, as well as the US today. In fact, I've definitely heard from some people in Europe that it's worse over there. At least generally in the US, from what I've seen, there is an acknowledgement that craft matters at the wordcraft level. That once people get down to sentence and wording, that craft principles are important, even if they won't acknowledge it at the story level. But in some places in Europe, even at the word level, there is no acknowledgement that craft principles are important.
Oren: We have at least one friend of the site who translates our wordcraft articles into French. And when we've asked them, "Does that help? We're writing in English; how useful is English wordcraft in French?" And their answer is, that there's nothing like that in French. And so, translating our stuff is better than nothing. And I mean, obviously, this is just one person, because none of us speak French. We can't go and check, but that was really striking, that this person was so desperate for wordcraft advice in French, that he would go to an English website and translate it rather than finding French sources.
Chris: And obviously there's just, the publishing business is bigger in English, so lots of people end up writing in English. The market is bigger.
Wes: And books about how to write are far more common and prevalent, and then that allows us to Romantically react against them. (laughs) And say that they're all trash.
Chris: It's interesting because we see this interchange today, where people will respond to really bad rules about storytelling that are just wrong by being like, no, there are no rules. See, this is why there are no rules. And it's like, okay. But maybe those are just really bad rules that are nonsense. In the Enlightenment, people were really arrogant, and they just said a whole bunch of nonsense and then enforced it on other people in some areas. So, they should not have been doing that, but with the backlash, now "Nope, no rules at all." There's never a place for, "okay, but those are really terrible rules. Maybe we can come up with better ones."
Wes: It's just such a reasonable take, Chris. I don't know what the problem is.
Oren: It reminds me of the frigging Game of Thrones "discourse" where people were like, maybe Game of Thrones is a sign that we need to stop having plot-focused storytelling. And it's like, oh my God. Shoot me now. Guys, guys, it was just a bad ending, okay? They did a bad job writing it. There's no deeper meaning here.
Chris: And it's interesting that what happened with Romanticism is that there was another movement after that called Realism. And it basically replaced all of the aesthetic preferences of Romanticism, like the focus on nature, and of course, speculative fiction is now very taboo again, but kept all of those anti-intellectual bullies. And those are still prevalent today.
Oren: I'm just really glad we decided to throw out all the cool sci-fi stuff, but keep the idea that you can't learn storytelling and that it's all unknowable mystery. It's so cool that we decided to get rid of the good parts and keep the bad part.
Chris: (laughs) Just very ironic. And again, even before people start writing, they'd often absorb these ideas. And then they start writing by, like, here, I'm just going to sit down and write a novel. I don't need to actually learn anything, right? I could just sit down and write a novel. It really affects that learning process where, a lot of other things, we understand we can go to a class and we can learn it, and that the teacher is supposed to give us a lesson. And as long as we absorb that lesson, we can do our assignments, and then they can give us a grade based on how well we learned the lesson. But with stories, not only do people not understand, there's something to learn, but when you'd even go to a class, the teacher's like, okay, now, just write a story. (laughs) Go write a story. And then once you turn it in, it's like, "Huh. You know, I just wasn't gripped by the story. F." Right? There's no lesson there. It's like, what? Isn't it all subjective? Not that there aren't subjective parts of stories. And not that the creativity is not an important component, but like any other subject matter, you break it down. You start with very basic things, like here's what tension is. Now, your first assignment: create some fictional scenarios that would have tension.
Oren: Yeah. And I mean, don't get me wrong. Looking at the state of storytelling education—of which there is no shortage—it's just all very bad. I can definitely see how someone would come away from that thinking that, well, I guess storytelling can't be taught; you either have it or you don't. 'Cuz you go to college; we've all got college creative writing horror stories, or you have a bunch of workshops where, what they do is they take people who are already good writers and then put them through a course, and then talk about how successful their graduates are. I mean, yeah, I know how that works. I've seen charter schools. I can see why someone viewing that as the state of writing education would be like, well, I guess nothing matters.
Chris: (sarcastically) Assume if the college doesn't do a good job of teaching you, it's because there is nothing to teach.
Oren: It's so prevalent, right? It's not like, well, this college doesn't have a very good creative writing program, but that one might. It seems to be everywhere.
Wes: It's everywhere because—time for my hot take—Romanticism is baked into the DNA of this country from the get-go. I mentioned revolutions earlier, and once I started digging into this theory a little bit more, it was almost self-evident—not to just invalidate myself immediately—but it did that, because "I'm anti-authority, and I derive my sense of self-worth from no one but myself." Okay. So, this country does a revolution to throw off of, essentially, the Enlightenment values of Europe, and what fulfills that void is a Romantic emphasis on the individual and the importance of self-knowledge and self-expression. And plus those Romantics, as we mentioned, we're all a bunch of sexy rebels who were against the stodgy elite.
So, hey. New nation that decides, "who are we going to be," manifest destiny, and all those other things. Couple that with the fact that Calvinism was really popular initially, and that was basically the most strict, "you're just born doomed" kind of faith there was. And then Romanticism gets a foothold in faith, and we can see this manifest in stories like the Scarlet Letter. Maybe an individual can take charge of their own fate and not just be condemned to hell for being born here. You know, maybe there's a sense that what we've been told is not real and we can create our own destinies.
What better story to sell the world than a country where you can remake yourself on your own, without input? I mentioned Ralph Waldo Emerson. He coined the mid-19th century as the age of the first person singular, which I think is telling. But basically, all of our Americana is full of asserting the value of the individual self, this concern with the workings of an individual mind, how we affirm someone's gut, their emotion, their instinct, right? And those values, it becomes so ingrained into our immediate—at this point, you can't even point out bad structural, systemic issues that we have, because it's so easy to say it's just a few bad actors. You know, the writing advice component of this is very much the same thing, because we're drowning in Romantic culture because everybody just thinks that we're all kind of on our own and we have to figure it out ourselves. And if we don't, we're just not good enough. I don't know. It's just, it's bad.
Oren: I'll admit, for a few minutes during that, I forgot you were talking about Romanticism and thought you were talking about racism, because that would also work.
Wes: (laughs) Yeah, that's why I was saying it's kind of baked into this country and the culture that we export.
Chris: Now, not that there aren't some good instructors at universities and other places. The problem is that the prevailing culture has problems, so the few instructors that are trying really hard to change this are oftentimes outnumbered in the system. The culture at large does not encourage learning.
Oren: There's a certain advantage to be had if you are a teacher and the thing that you teach also, philosophically, you believe only works if someone is naturally good at something, 'cuz that's a pretty handy escape hatch for why you weren't able to teach this thing to somebody. "Oh, I guess it turns out they didn't naturally have it. So, what was I supposed to do?" And it's not like I don't understand how hard this is. I've been trying to teach dev editing, and man, I've not had great luck. I've been bad at it. So, I have some sympathy here. I just hope we can do better at some point.
Chris: One thing that has also been brought to my attention, talking to people about university programs, is the extent to which many English departments are mostly run by professors that are really into studying literature, as opposed to creative writing, and they also want to believe that their favorite literature is perfect in every way. And that kind of goes against the idea of understanding craft, because once you understand craft, then there is a possibility of criticism, and they're not actually interested in critical thinking or criticism. They're interested in telling their students how awesome their favorite books are, which is unfortunate.
Oren: Yeah. Nobody was really interested in hearing my take about King Lear and how Gloucester is an unnecessary character who could be cut. That was my Shakespeare take and I stand by it, and Kurosawa agrees with me, because when he made Ran—amazing film—he didn't include Gloucester, 'cuz you don't need him. So I got Kurosawa on my side. What do you got? (laughs)
Wes: And I got to say, the other thing is that, if you're a best-selling writer, then Romanticism feels great, because it says that you are just inherently better than other people, and you're a natural genius. Those people have a lot of influence, and when people don't know, "where can I go to learn?" A lot of times, I look to the people who are successful, and people who are best-selling don't necessarily know how to teach any of this. They don't necessarily understand what they're doing or know how to teach it, either. And those people have every reason to embrace this belief set, because it is so validating to them. Even if the rest of us would rather them not believe that they're inherently superior They probably like believing it.
Oren: I do have at least a smidgen of possible good news on that front, because I don't know, Chris, if you remember your very old macaroni art post, where you took quotes from authors that were super pretentious about how you need natural talent to be a writer, but made it about macaroni art. So that kind of statement would not fly on modern Writing Twitter, at least to the extent that I am a judge of modern Writing Twitter. And not that Writing Twitter is perfect and doesn't have problems. It shows me a whole lot of weird hot takes every day. But I think there is at least an understanding that if an author came there and was like, I'm just naturally great and you have to be, too, if you want to write, I think they would get laughed out of town. And that doesn't mean that the advice on there is great; authors are still bad at understanding why they're successful, so I see a lot of authors giving bad advice on Writing Twitter, but they at least understand that there is advice to be given and that it's not just, "well, are you great or not?" So I'll give Writing Twitter that much.
Wes: One more thing about Romanticism that I like, and this is for me, they were about exploring the sublime. And this is not really something that we really seek to go after any more. It was very much a thing of its time. I'm sure people explore it, but basically, with your writing, to try to evoke a sense of awe, both in either a positive or negative sense of awe. I think that's a cool endeavor, and that's why I do enjoy reading Romantic works, is to get some of that. And granted, some of them were evoking that by describing things that no one had seen before, but now we have Google Earth, so the impact is lost. But that's the blind notion.
Chris, you mentioned Edgar Allen Poe earlier, was really kind of brought to the foray of his refinement of that Gothic Romanticism, by saying, what if my sublime is writing a short story and exploring an emotion in incredible detail? And there's a great public domain letter that he published—the name escapes me, but we can put it in the show notes—basically, his notion on what a short story should be, to explore an emotion in full, is kind of a fun experiment. And that's why I think some of those stories have staying power, is that he focused on dread or horrors like that. So I don't know, just, sublime is kind of a funny thing. And if you see that word crop up in Romantics, that's what it is.
Oren: All right. Well with that, I think we will go ahead and end this sublime podcast. Before we go, I want to thank a few of our patrons. First, we have Kathy Ferguson, who is a professor of political theory in Star Trek. Next, we have Ayman Jaber. He is an urban fantasy writer and a connoisseur of Marvel. And finally, we have Danita Rambo. She lives at therambogeeks.com. We'll talk to you next week.
[closing theme song]
This has been the Mythcreants podcast.
More in The Writing Process
Why the Save the Cat! Novel Beat Sheet Won't Help You
Why Save the Cat! Can't Write a Novel
How Useful Are Blake Snyder's Rules of Storytelling? Part 2
Why Realism Is Toxic to Fiction
Recent Episodes in Writing
381: Paragraphs
You don't even notice it until it's gone.
378: Epistolary Stories
Write a letter to your readers.
363: Verbs
We must all appreciate the hard working verb.
359: Metaphors and Similes
We're in the "similes are metaphors" camp.
353: Fantasy Words
Readers have a surprisingly small amount of attention span to learn new words.
Comments on 368 – Romanticism
I have two small things to add here.
First of all, the Grimms did serious editing to the point of rewriting in some cases. In the first edition of their fairy tales, for instance, Snow White is 'yellow-haired' and not dark-haired as she is today. They also cut out the whole thing about Rapunzel no longer fitting into her clothes (because she was pregnant). They very much sanitized everything to make it palpable for their middle-class audience, adults and children alike.
Second, there was speculative fiction before Mary Shelley, as it were, even written by a woman. Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) wrote "The Blazing World" where the heroine is taken to a completely different and fantastic world with flying aircraft cities and suchlike 150 years before Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein". It's not quite as scientific, but certainly speculative.
In reply to Cay Reet
Would you say that Romanticism has many of the same problems as the Hero's Journey?
Romanticism is a type of artistic expression and understanding of what being an artist means. The Hero's Journey is a story structure. They are not the same.
The big problem with romanticism is that it suggests that especially writing is a natural thing that comes to you or not – that there's nothing you can do to improve your way of writing because if you're not born a writing genius, you'll never be good at it. That is, of course, wrong, as writing is a skill like driving or chess-playing or cooking. If you train it, you'll become better. If you don't you have a certain entry level which will be different for different people, but you'll never be better than that.
The big problem with the Hero's Journey is that it tries to squeeze every kind of working story into the corset of a certain sequence of steps the hero has to take, phases they have to go through. That doesn't even work on old legends and myths, much less on modern storytelling. It's just not really a useful way of constructing a plot.
To build on what Cay said, Romanticism and the Hero's Journey are at opposite ends of the problem spectrum, but are also weirdly compatible.
Romanticism says to tell a story, you should just do whatever you want. Your natural genius will shine through or it won't, rules and best practices just get in the way.
The Hero's Journey says that you should use this very specific sequence of plot events, and that not only will this produce a great story, but EVERY great story actually uses this structure.
It sounds like they should be completely opposed, but here's the trick: the Hero's Journey is so vague that you can technically fulfill it with almost anything, so it's not actually constraining authors who follow it in any way. That makes it largely useless, but it also means that people can follow both schools of thought at the same time.
Yeah, that is strange how both of them are so vague and so different at the same time. I'm not sure how to rap my own head around that.
I have a confession to make. I like the realistic novels of the mid to late 19th century like the Belly of Paris or the Ladies Paradise by Emile Zola and the Doll by Bolesaw Prus. They are great at providing panoramic pictures of a place and time in a way that other genres fail at. Many of them are family sagas or historical epics of some sort and those happen to be big favorites of mine when it comes to reading material.
I have lots of Swedish writers among my Insta-friends, and they'll happily discuss story telling rules and how to write well etc… BUT there's this recurring theme which I still think is some kind of romanticism left-over, namely that your characters should come to life and refuse to do what you want, talk to you, say things you never expected them to say, etc, and when that happens, you're basically just along for the ride (even though I guess you can still go back and edit out adverbs and replace them with stronger verbs and stuff like that). Lots of people seem to consider this necessary for being a good writer; if your characters aren't as independent-minded as actual, real persons, if YOU decide what they're gonna say and do, it's a sign that you're simply bad at writing three-dimensional and realistic characters.
In reply to Jeppsson
I mean, a good character can definitely be developed enough so you as the writer immediately know 'they wouldn't do it that way' or 'they would immediately to this.' That's not them being a real person though, that's just you as a writer having developed them to a degree that lets you slip into them and understand how they'd act in a certain situation if they were real – which they're not.
Yeah, I'd understand if people talked about their characters living their own life as shorthand for
a) you're often struck by sudden inspiration while writing, and/or
b) your initial plans for the character are thwarted by the fact that once you've written some more and gotten a better grip on their personality, you realize that your initial plan would be out of character for the character (sic), they would never do such a thing.
But I see so many people talk about how their characters suddenly reveal things to them, tell them that they refuse to play along with the writer's plot, do what they like and the writer just helplessly watches, etc. It sounds extremely literal even though I'm pretty sure these writers aren't psychotic, and don't truly believe that their characters have literally come to life.
I think this whole way of discussing characters has gotta be some kind of romanticism at work among people who are otherwise fine with taking writing classes, reading up on "rules" for writing etc.
It does have the feeling of some kind of romanticism at work, yes. Some kind of 'I expect my character/story to tell me how things will go.'
I mean, I used to be a discovery writer and you often suddenly have an idea in your head when you write like that, but I'd never say 'my character just told me how things are going to go on.' I just knew that my subconscious had finished working on the possibilities and was presenting me with the one it has chosen.
I can say 'that is not what Jane would do' when I consider ways a story might go, but that doesn't mean Jane has spoken to me. It just means I know what skills she has (because I have given them to her) and what character traits she has (guess who has given them to her…) and can tell what she would or wouldn't do in a certain situation.
74c074c0
Hey, uh, not to be get hung up on little details here, but you might want to do a bit more research on Percy Shelley before fully condemning him. The elopement thing was a bad move, I won't deny that, but overall Shelley was even by our modern standards a very revolutionary figure, who specifically fought for rights for the marginalized, and in his personal life he was a caring father and husband. The decision to leave Harriet was made specifically according to the idea that is he stayed the unhappy marriage would have an averse effect on his child, not just because he felt like getting with a different woman. People are people, and they have faults, and make youthful mistakes, in Shelley's case a very bad one, but he shouldn't be condemned for it. Also, Byron didn't purposefully take credit for The Vampyre, some publisher messed up and attributed it to him. He repeatedly and very publicly tried to get them to attribute it to Polidori. Good podcast other than that, though I would say you should have discussed Coleridge more considering his effects on the idea of imagination in western art, though tbh that might just be my bias towards him speaking.
In reply to 74c074c0
True. Shelley was faithful to Mary – unfortunately, he died young, leaving her alone early on, but that was nothing he had a say about. He was a good guy in general – not perfect, but who is?
Byron didn't claim he'd written The Vampyre, either. It's clear he was an inspiration for Polidori, but he himself only produced a fragment during that week, nothing more.
Since Sandman is topical at this point, it's worth suggesting that anyone who's hung up on Romanticism should read the final issue of the comic, The Tempest. One occasional recurring thread in the comic was that Shakespeare had received in storytelling gift from Dream – so far so Romantic.
But this comic follows him as he writes The Tempest, and we see him gradually working out aspects of the play – basing an outfit of Miranda's on something he sees a young woman wearing – asking (and taking) advice on how Prospero's arc should end. He calls words his tools. He expresses doubts about whether his work is truly art, pointing out a speech that written primarily to give a particular actor time to change his costume. In the end, he tells Dream that no matter what gift of inspiration he was given, he was still the one who did the work of creating the plays.
As well as Romanticism itself, it was a very popular trend in urban fantasy at the time to treat stories as these magical things that just happened to authors – and the Sandman was a mythos where that was kind of true, so it was nice to see it refuted too.


Looking back on my blog this month I feel as if I've spoken quite a lot about makeup or products, for some reason I've had a little extra cash so I have treated myself, but also I think I've been introduced to a lot of new brands which is why I have shared them here! I won't lie I do buy alot of makeup and skincare products, but a lot of the time it's my old faithfuls so I don't find any interest to review them! I mean, I definitely could as a 'my go tos' post, if the idea of finding that out appeals to anyone! I've experimented with my makeup for years and I feel as if I've finally found products which work well with my skin and make me look good. For me makeup is to make me feel good, don't get me wrong I go days without wearing any, but I love the feeling of experimenting with my eye shadows or wearing a dark lip to make myself feel like the true vampire goddess that I deserve to be. SO, Too Faced isn't exactly a new brand to me, I've only tried the odd contouring bronzes of theirs but they're a brand I've been dying to dive into with my purse open for business. They have a number of palettes I've wanted to try, so when my secret Santa (I know it seems way to early for Christmas stuff) at work gifted me this cat eyes palette by too faced!!!! I fell in love.
What I love most is the variety in shades but especially because the shimmery shades are all out there! We have an electric light blue called Kitty Glitter which comes off as an ice cold shine, a very 80's inspired pink and a shimmery copper called Tiger's eye which I've pretty much used every day since I received this palette. On the packaging the eye shadow palette states that you can create three distinct looks, an Egyptian inspired golden cat eye, an 80's punky look or a 60's mod! Just to give the palette something extra there is also a guide inside to help you step by step achieve these three looks which is AWESOME! I think this palette is perfect for makeup beginners as you can use the guide, or for me who has been wearing makeup for years, it has such fun colours to really play around with! The black shade Panther is BLACK and I love it to do a gothic smudges eyeliner.
As well as having the fun shimmer shades, this palette also has your basic necessity shades like a super pigmented cream shade so you can use it as a base and a paler shade which is called 'Day' to brighten your eyes up. There's so many combinations of shades that you could use together, using three in the row to create each of the look on the box, or an orangly eye with smoked out black for the perfect grungy combo! I'm also a huge fan of the packaging because hello Leopard print! I love that Too Faced have really gone to town with exaggerating the cat eye name!
What Too Faced palette would you suggest I try next? I find I always reach for an eye shadow palette more than anything else lately!


Size: 60" L x 1.5" W x 7" H. 1-1/4" high cross rail.
The XR-5 cross piece can be added to a Queen frame to provide additional support under the mattress. Recommended for Queen size frames that don't already include a center rail, the XR-5 is made of sturdy steel for lasting durability. Comes with one glide to increase stability.


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Clippers ground Jets; now 9-0 in conference
Clippers ground Jets; now 9-0 in conference Soccer Check out this story on greenbaypressgazette.com: http://gbpg.net/1saQrPJ
Wisconsin Published 12:02 p.m. CT Sept. 19, 2014 | Updated 3:52 p.m. CT Sept. 19, 2014
File(Photo: Andrey_Kuzmin, Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Jaden Stevenson scored five goals to lead Sturgeon Bay over Roncalli, 8-2, Thursday in a Packerland Conference high school boys soccer game in Manitowoc.
"He was in the right place at the right time," said Clippers coach Todd Maas. "He's learning to shoot quicker instead of dribbling around, and he's got a lot of power in his shot."
Logan Sandin-Carstens, Erick Anderson and Levi Haight also scored for the Clippers, who improved to 9-0 in conference. Haight added two assists, and Joey Schriner-Schmitt, Hawkin Mogen, Stevenson and Sandin-Carstens had one each.
Maas said it was an up-and-down performance for the Clippers.
"It was one of those goofy games again," he said. "We went in spurts of doing things right and then at times we didn't. So the consistency of our play needs to improve."
AT MENASHA: Gibraltar/Sevastopol and St. Mary Central played to a 1-1 tie Thursday night.
Connor Schodorf scored in the 35th minute for the Zephyrs, and the Vikings tied the game in the 42nd minute on a goal by Eric Bosman.
Zephyrs' goalie Jack Henshaw had 10 saves, and the Vikings' Brandt Bauldry six.
PACKERLAND CONFERENCE SOCCER
Sturgeon Bay 9 0
Gibraltar/Sevastopol 5 2 1
Algoma 4 3
St. Mary Central 4 3 1
Kewaunee 4 5
Roncalli 3 5 1
Wrightstown 1 6
N.E.W. Lutheran 1 7 1
Thursday's results: Sturgeon Bay 8, Roncalli 2; Gibraltar/Sevastopol 1, St. Mary Central 1; Wrightstown at Algoma; N.E.W. Lutheran 1, Kewaunee 0.
Monday's games: St. Mary Central at Kewaunee; Roncalli at Wrightstown; Algoma at Sturgeon Bay; N.E.W. Lutheran at Gibraltar/Sevastopol.
Read or Share this story: http://gbpg.net/1saQrPJ


This compelling documentary film focuses on Gino Bartali, the charismatic Italian sports idol and Tour de France cycling champion, whose role in this history was never revealed in his lifetime. The film also introduces three other characters who were children in Italy under Fascism and each survived World War II thanks to Italians, like Bartali, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to help strangers escape Nazi persecution. Their personal stories reflect the larger, untold saga of the Italians who courageously saved Jews and other refugees fleeing the Nazis in World War II.


Since the Portland Timbers' arrival in Major League Soccer in 2011 and the addition of Portland Thorns FC and the National Women's Soccer League in 2013, Providence Park has become one of the foremost venues in North American soccer. It has won numerous awards for its unrivaled fan experience and atmosphere and has been named FourFourTwo's Best Stadium for Soccer in the United States as well as the top MLS stadium experience across all sports by StadiumJourney.com.
Originally built in 1926 in the downtown core of Portland, its 91-year history has seen the likes of soccer, football, baseball, dog racing, concerts, ski jumping, presidential visits and much more. Now nearly a century since it first opened, Providence Park is poised for another transformation. An already great stadium for sport will become an even greater cathedral for soccer, while helping meet the ever-increasing demand for tickets.
Club leaders have proposed a modern, yet historically influenced $50 million-plus, privately financed expansion project for the east side that would add approximately 4,000 new seats, a striking new street-level colonnade and an iconic, modernized expansion—all at no cost to the city or public. An expanded Providence Park will make the stadium viable for the future and help ensure that Timbers and Thorns FC remain in their unique downtown location long-term, well beyond the expiration of the current operating agreement in 2035.
The proposed design by internationally renowned and Portland-based architecture firm Allied Works would add a 93-foot high covered structure on the east side of the stadium, taking a vertical approach to a relatively small footprint while integrating well with the existing stadium. The proposed project includes four new levels on the expanded east side, with three of the four levels created for reserved and group seating sections to help meet demand, while including a unique, pedestrian-friendly public arcade along SW 18th Avenue.
While Providence Park is already a top destination for soccer, challenges for the future remain. The stadium has sold out for every single Timbers regular-season and playoff match at home since the club's inaugural MLS season in 2011. The Timbers currently have an ever-growing waiting list of more than 13,000 fans for season tickets. MLS matchday ticket demand for the available supply is at a premium. In short, more people want to get in than can be accommodated.
Inspired in part by the famous Shakespearean Globe Theatre in London and the iconic La Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires—both with their upright vertical seating areas and literal on-top-of-the-action perspective—the new Providence Park expansion would complete the full U-shape stadium design as was envisioned by the original then-Multnomah Stadium architects of A.E. Doyle and Morris Whitehouse in 1925. The end result would "finish" the stadium after almost 100 years, completing a transformation to a fully realized, urban soccer stadium.
"The expansion of Providence Park will continue to honor the rich history and traditions of the stadium and city of Portland and marry them with the best of modern stadia," said Golub.
This private investment into the city-owned venue also goes a long way towards keeping the club's unique urban environment viable well beyond its current operating agreement. The added capacity to the century-old, community gathering space will better position it to attract additional, larger-scale soccer and special events, and will benefit other stadium users, such as Portland State University football. The expansion and ensuing increased capacity and public use would substantially increase the city ticket tax revenue that benefits directly back to the City of Portland.
While the team continues to work with the city and neighborhood association on specifics of the proposed project and the initial design-review process commences, the potential construction timeline would include a two-offseason process, beginning either at the conclusion of the 2017 or 2018 season at Providence Park and concluding in time for either the beginning of the 2019 or 2020 MLS season.
Think it's been tough getting tickets to a Portland Timbers' home game in the past? The fact that they won the MLS Cup in 2015 certainly didn't make it any easier. Well, things are about to get a whole lot worse. Stadium Journey Magazine just voted Providence Park, the Timbers' home turf, the 11th best place to watch a sporting event in America.
Staff members from SJM visited 761 professional, minor league and college stadiums throughout the country and put together what they consider the "top 100 stadium experiences". This list has a little bit of everything. We're talking baseball, football, soccer, hockey, auto racing, the Kentucky Derby and somehow even one professional lacrosse arena snuck in there.
For anyone who has ever seen a Timbers game up close, this high praise should come as no surprise, but still, it's nice to see Portland soccer up there with American sports icons Camden Yard and the Daytona 500.
The magazine calls the stadium "a facility that combines the past and present and merges it into a one-of-a-kind facility." But Providence Park, which has been around since 1926, couldn't possibly be one-of-a-kind without the Timbers Army and the rest of fans that make the Timbers game day experience truly unique.
The Timbers have sold out every single home game since entering MLS in 2011. That's over 100 straight sellouts, folks. That's passion. That's Portland. In May 2015, Justin Surber, Oregon Sports News writer, wrote, "a Timbers game at Providence Park is a near-perfect representation of the city of Portland and its character (and characters)".
The Portland Trail Blazers' Moda Center made the list at #31, and the Oregon Ducks' Autzen Stadium came in at #86. And then there's those damn Sounders again. Seattle Sounders FC and CenturyLink Field made the list at #29.
The rivals up north have been setting MLS attendance records since entering the league in 2009. The Sounders averaged twice as many fans at their games in 2016 than the Timbers. That's an average of 42,636 soccer fans. At a soccer game. In America. Wow. It should come as no surprise, though, which game boosted that average up the most. Yup, you guessed it. Portland Timbers. On Aug 21 last season, the Sounders/Timbers rivalry game drew 53,302 rabid fans to the Clink.
Providence Park seats 21,144 fans. Not going to be catching up to any Sounders attendance records anytime soon, but here's the good news: The Oregonian reported that expansion is a potential in the near future. The bad news, is that expansion doesn't seem anywhere near enough supply to keep up with the every-increasing demand. With a seating capacity of 21,144 and a wait list for season tickets at nearly 13,000, the idea of adding an additional 3,'500 seats already feels like way too little, not nearly soon enough.
When you start to think about it, though, is adding even one more seat to the stadium really good news? Like a pot ready to boil over, the intense atmosphere at Timbers games thrives on the intimate nature of Providence Park. I know it's weird in this day-in-age to ignore the market and refuse to expand, but as far as the Timbers go, I'd much rather they do nothing but Keep Portland Weird.
After all these years, Portland is still "putting silk stockings on hogs"
It was the early 1970s and the City of Portland had made the decision to install artificial turf in ancient Civic Stadium. Rather than go with Astro-Turf, the common solution at the time, the city opted for a different choice. It was called Tartan Turf and it didn't last, hardened very soon and looked quickly like a worn carpet in the world's oldest hotel room.
I remember watching the workmen scrambling around the surface of the big old barn, applying the adhesive and then the carpet. I was working for the Portland Beavers at the time, trying to get through college. Bill Cutler, the man who owned the Beavers at the time, was there, too. He looked at me with a sad face and shook his head.
"It's like putting silk stockings on a hog," he said, then turned around and shuffled back to his dumpy office in the bowels of the dark stadium. Very soon, Cutler would move the Beavers to Spokane, unable to make a lease deal with a City Council here that seemed to think it suddenly had a big-league facility on its hands.
Our civic leaders have never really cared much about sports and their venues. If Paul Allen hadn't written a big check to build what's now Moda Center, our NBA team would have been long gone years ago. Our city would never have found the means to construct a new home for the Trail Blazers. We'd still be haggling over video boards and walk-through security for Memorial Coliseum -- trying to make an outdated, uncomfortable 12,000-seat arena work for an NBA team. Trust me, I speak the truth on this.
Yeah, the replay screens. They've been either dark or a blurry mess at the coliseum for years and the city -- or maybe the Portland Winterhawks -- are finally doing something about it. Because, as you know, watching hockey without being able to see the replay of a goal or a big save is ridiculous. Which, of course, is not the only reason the Hawks draw so many fewer fans when they play in the coliseum rather than the Moda Center.
Wow. The narrow leg room, crowded concourses, ugly rest rooms and frigid arena temperatures are still going to be there, but you now have a replay screen.
So many decades later, that's just another pair of silk stockings, folks.
I'm not going to get into another debate with the well-meaning people who pushed to get that dump declared a national treasure. It's pointless. Keep your national treasure and put a big red bow around it for all I care. What this city needs to do is actually build a NEW sports venue.
Are you aware Portland -- unlike any other major city in the world that I know about -- has NEVER BUILT A FOOTBALL OR BASEBALL STADIUM, EVER, in its history? It's renovated a few. Hell, we've had more renovations than the late Joan Rivers did. The city actually staged a minor remodel last winter so a college wood-bat league team called the Pickles could play in Walker Stadium at Lents Park. But actually build a new ballpark? A real ballpark? Or a big-time football stadium?
The city of Hillsboro is packing people into its Ron Tonkin Field for Hops games. That venue is next door to a very attractive football stadium, too. Portland? Well, we're still tweaking what's now Providence Park, adding new seats in a venue where the concourses are tiny and the amount of rest rooms is inadequate. And yes, we're throwing a few replay screens into Memorial Coliseum.
I'd tell you that's not how progressive cities do things, but it comes down to one thing: Recycling is great for pop bottles but not necessarily for sports venues.
Welcome to Portland, where some things never change. And national treasures now come equipped with replay screens.
Sinclair's brace helps put an end to Portland's two-game skid Providence Park to add 4,000 seats in modern expansion Portland Timbers home game experience one of the best in all of American sports After all these years, Portland is still "putting silk stockings on hogs"


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Shaquille O'Neal Honors Kobe Bryant at Pre-Super Bowl Concert
Shaq honored Kobe in numerous ways at the party.
2017 MTV Movie and TV Awards: Who Had the Performance of the Night?
Who made the biggest impression during the annual MTV movie awards show?
Poll: Which March 2017 Album Are You Most Excited For?
Will Betty Who knock your socks off? Is the 'Beauty and the Beast' soundtrack catching your eye?
Pitbull Gets Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
Pitbull joins a very short list of rap artists to receive a Hollywood star.
Justin Bieber, Pitbull + Skrillex Added to 2016 Grammy's Performance Lineup
Biebs and Pitbull will join other big names like Adele, Kendrick Lamar, and The Weeknd.
Christopher Tirri
See Pitbull in Miami
Cancel any New Year's Eve plans because we are sending you to Miami to party with Pitbull.
Jennifer Lopez, Pitbull Kick Off Colorful 2014 World Cup Opening Ceremony [VIDEO]
Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez and Brazilian singer Claudia Leitte danced and sang their way through the opening ceremony of the 2014 World Cup in Sao Paulo, Brazil to the rousing tune of 'We Are One.'
Mandi Salerno
Pitbull + Enrique Iglesias Touring Fall 2014
Latin pop superstars Pitbull and Enrique Iglesias are teaming up for a fall tour, with up-and-coming Latin urban star J Balvin riding sidecar. Pit and Enrique have promised that this tour will be something else, thanks to the staging.
Amy Sciarretto
Listen to Jennifer Lopez + Pitbull FIFA World Cup Song 'We Are One (Ole Ola)' [LISTEN]
Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull are bringing the heat and have teamed up once again! The duo has repeatedly proven its explosive musical and vocal chemistry and the partnership has served them well in the past. So it makes sense that they've linked up again, this time for 'We Are One (Ole Ola),' the 2014 FIFA World Cup Song.
Top Songs for January
Check out the 40 songs in KISS' rotation for the month of January!
KISS-FM Facebook Fans Share Their 15 Favorites Songs of 2013 [VIDEO]
It's that time of year. That time where we look back on the good, bad, and ugly of the past 365 days. In this case, we're looking at the good. Specifically, what you thought were the best songs of 2013.
Pitbull & Ke$ha - Timber
"It's goin' down!"


How can it be that summer is basically over? At least the good news is that fall brings college football, pumpkin spice lattes, and all the comfy sweaters. Before we can get to the sweaters, however, we can't forget about our transition outfits. And this outfit from Madewell is the perfect one to transition into fall. With the added ruffle detail on the side, it makes it more than just your average shirt. Oh, fall is coming. How can it be?
I find it interesting that she ends all those great acts with a question. It's as if she is saying, "Jesus you are doing all this just because you love me? How is that kind of love possible?" But it is... It so is. And it is such a beautiful thing. A beautiful thing that is easy to talk about but hard to grasp.
This past weekend, we hosted the biggest Sunday in the Shed to date. To say my heart is full is an understatement. It is EXPLODING with excitement for what the future holds for this event. It is in moments like this where I find the answer to that question, "How can it be?" Through the support, encouragement and excitement that surrounds Sunday in the Shed, I know that it is only possible because of Jesus. He gave it all to give us our own. His love is strong enough to turn a crazy thought into a huge reality.
In what areas of your life are you asking, "How can it be?" What are the moments that can only be explained as the work of God? How can it be that He loves you so? Because He made you. He loves you. You are His.


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Northumbrian lays out plans
The new owners of biscuit and cereal bar maker Northumbrian Fine Foods have promised sustained NPD following a management buy-out.
MD of the Gateshead-based business David Sillars bought the business from Duke Street, rescheduled outstanding debts of around £650,000 owed to third parties and invested another £750,000, with help from private equity firms. It is targeting sales growth of at least 10% to over £12m this year.
Northumbrian, which employs 150 staff, produces the Prewetts gluten-free biscuit brand. New capital means it can now invest in people, products and facilities, said Sillars. "We plan to invest in sprinklings and toppings machinery. We'll be doing a lot of NPD in cookies, cereal bars and gluten-free.
"We've just launched a new gluten-free biscuit range for Asda, we're working on a new cereal bar for The Co-op and have launched two new cereal bars for M&S."