 has never deterred us in the past, and it never will. We drove off and this is what ensued.

Anand (sitting in front seat and thus naturally assuming leadership of situation, says to driver): You take us good place? Dinner?

Driver: (Blank look)

Anand: Dinner? Food? (signals eating)

Driver: (Dawn breaking over the horizon) Raja-bhoju! Famous restaurant.

Me (protesting, from the back seat) : Raja-Bhoju? No Raja-Bhoju! Sounds shady. Do we even get drinks there?

Anand (attempting to help): Drinks? Drinks? (signals drinking)

Driver: (Silent Conspiratorial nod: Seems to interpret this gesture as 'the loud lady in the backseat is a tad drunk').

Rakesh (is next to Anand on front seat, leans over to talk to driver and clarify): Drinks, drinks, Rajabhoju? (Waggling hands around unnecessarily, as usual)

Driver (Seems scandalized at this blasphemy): No drinks Raja-bhoju. Pure vegetarian restaurant, good food. Famous.

(Immediate groan at this from the group as a whole)

Ashwani pipes up ( Is from Lucknow, but despite this, a rather rude specimen on most days): Look...listen...Boss! Boss! You take us to some good place, with food PLUS drinks, that is, BOTH, so to say. ( Believes in being clear on these issues).

Driver: (Very perplexed) Raja-bhoju going?

Everyone in chorus: No! No Raja-bhoju!

The driver, clearly hurt, but determined to earn his tip, continues to drive around Colombo. At various intervals, he keeps pointing out restaurants, bars, pubs, discs to us -but we keep rejecting them on the basis of their looking suspiciously like garages.

Finally, we spot one garage from which multi-colored lights are emanating. We point to it and ask the driver 'What about this one?'.

The driver pulls over and looks askance at the proposed establishment which we now notice has a small crooked sign near the front which says 'Pier 3 boat'. His already shady demeanour now takes on a deeper shade of shadiness. He looks meaningfully at Anand and says 'Drinks, yes, yes this place...but you want go here?'.

Something in his manner makes us all a little wary. What kind of place is this joint, anyway, we wonder? After hurried whispered conference, we nominate Anand (for a variety of reasons, better left unmentioned) to clarify whether the place is 'respectable' enough for all of us, especially the female contingent, which typically needs to be 'protected' in such situations.

But in typical, unique style, Anand chooses to pose his question about whether the place is suitable for us women, in the following manner:

Leaning in closer to the driver, lowering his voice to a whisper, sticking out his right hand in a Thumbs-up gesture, he asks

' Ladies OK?'

The driver (delighted and relieved expression at being understood correctly - mirrors Anand's gesture - in fact, holds both hands out in Thumbs up, and affirms loud and clear, with a leering expression):

'Ladiess, OKAYY!'

Now, Anand seems quite satisfied with this and says to the rest of us 'Let's go!' and bounds out of the vehicle, bustling Rakesh out with him.

The rest of us take a minute or two to recover from the shock of witnessing this surreal interaction and then call him back

'Hello? Did you see the way he just said ''Ladies, okay?'' ...
'What kind of question was that anyway! It's clearly a shady place!'...
'Forget it, let's just go somewhere else..'

But Anand is adamant on checking out the place. He doesn't perceive his way of phrasing his question as objectionable. He says he will look inside and then tell us whether it is indeed 'Ladies, OK' or in fact, 'Ladiess, Okaayyy!'.

He re-appears after a minute and says 'Chalo. It's fine. I told you, it's an okay place'.

We hesitate, wavering. He insists 'Come on! There are families there - I saw children too'. Now we are reassured, and clamber out of the car and head in to the garage.

The garage entry opens out into a small bar, which actually is on the lakeside and therefore offering a decent view. But once we settle into our seats around a large-ish table, we gradually take in our surroundings and many events follow:

a. We see that there are no children and/or families for miles around. The 'one small child' that Anand claims later that he saw turns out to be our small and offensive waiter.

b. We quickly notice that the ladiess there are definitely Okayyy - and on the lookout for business. They are obscenely dressed and made up and delighted to see the fairly affluent-looking men amongst our group and send them coy, inviting smiles, occasionally breaking into strange contortions in the name of dance. They think it's going to be a good night, but little do they know.

c. The music is decent enough in the beginning, english retro stuff - but soon after our entry, it is changed to Hindi film music. Despite all our protests, we are forced to listen to Bollywood songs, which seem to be centered around Mithun's works.

d. The small waiter seems taken aback when we try to order food. Apparently the menu was just for show as food is hardly the main source of business for them. It takes him twenty minutes to understand the order, and then he ends up taking the whole evening to provide us with what is essentially a plate of cucumber sandwiches, which incidentally, arrives after we have paid the bill.

e. The menu itself makes for interesting reading because it contains obscure items, which the disgruntled small waiter, is most unwilling to explain for our benefit. These include things like 'Brakages - charge Rs.300'. We are left to the mercy of our own imaginations, which is never a good thing.

f. The high point of the evening is when we noticed that the pictures Ashwani is taking of us, actually contains less of our group and more of the ladiess behind us. (He thought he could get away with it, but didn't reckon for the technological advancement of digital cameras). Ashwani is promptly demoted from position of cameraman and retires hurt.

g. The other high point is when a scantily clad woman sidles up to Sunil, asking if she can have a cigarette. She waits, clearly expecting him to jump up and light it for her. What she has not reckoned for is Sunil's innate suavity and charm in such situations, and overridingly, his innate laziness, which causes him to coolly roll his eyes towards the table and say 'Help yourself'. She does, and leaves a tad upset, much to the delight of the less mature at our table (all the other men).

In short: we ended up having a great time, despite the incredibly shady environment. As we finally wrapped up a fun filled evening and headed out towards our shady, smirking driver, we couldn't help but feel grateful for our night out in Colombo.

After all, it could have been much worse - We could have gone to Raja-bhoju.

Maybe next time.<|endoftext|>Chapter 5. Five Jewish Fusion Albums Examined in Depth

This chapter examines five important fusion albums. With the exception of Bagels and Bongos which is presented first, they are in chronological order. Bagels and Bongos. is a bridge album between the majority of the Yiddish fusion albums produced in the 1950s and 1960s and the musical standouts that are explained in this study.

Each album’s case study is divided into three sections. The first section has background into the individual album, including available recording history, and reviews. The second section of each case study examines a number of individual tracks in the style of Gunther Schuller. The last section of each case study is a conclusion.

Appendix A has a sampling of some of the other albums that could have been included in this study with pictures of their covers and descriptions of the albums. Musically some of them are very interesting, and have wonderful musicians on them (see Mazel Tov, Mis Amigos). Some are musically interesting, though the musicians who created the music are lost to history (see Raisins and Almonds Cha Cha Cha and Merengues), while others make one think, “do we really need a Jewish-themed parody of a band that is already made up of mostly Jews (see Al Tijuana and His Jewish Brass)”? Lastly there are the albums that are trying to make popular dance fads acceptable to older generations, such as the “twist” albums (see Bei Mir “Twist” Du Schön and Twistin The Freilach).

Bagels and Bongos

Irving Fields’ Bagels and Bongos, when listened to today sounds dated, though of the albums under study was the only one where the same artist recorded a follow up album.

Figure 1: Irving Fields Trio - “Bagels and Bongos” (cover)

Figure 2: Irving Fields Trio -“More Bagels and Bongos” (cover)

Irving Fields has been accused of being too commercial over the years. Here is what another musician in this study, Terry Gibbs, had to say about him in his autobiography:

There was a cocktail piano player around New York who wrote a famous song called “Miami [Beach


 (shoves SpongeBob off) GET OFF ME! (tries to get out)
SpongeBob: Hey, Squidward. What are you doing?
Patrick: Yeah, it looks like fun!
SpongeBob: I know, but what are you doing?
(Bubble Transition)
(everyone cheering)
Mr. Krabs: Who's ready to eat a krabby patty, because all that waiting in line has gotten you hungry!? (crowd cheers. Everyone enters the Krusty Krab as Plankton laughs evily)
(scene cuts to time capsule)
SpongeBob: Hmm. What should we do for the next 50 years?
Patrick: Well, I'm just gonna hang here, maybe get a kelp soda later.
SpongeBob: Patrick, we can't go anywhere. We're stuck here until they open the time capsule in 50 years.
Patrick: (shocked) What'll we do until then?
SpongeBob: We've got 50 years worth of stuff to play with! (finds a game) Ooh! It's our favorite game!
Both: Pretzel Pals!
Patrick: Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! (lays the game out)
SpongeBob: Yes, yes, now where did we leave off?
Patrick: I believe my left hand was on red.
SpongeBob: My right foot was on blue.
Patrick: Forehead on yellow.
SpongeBob: Left foot on green.
Squidward: That's it, this game is OVER!
Patrick: Hey, SpongeBob, what do you think Bikini Bottom will look like in the future?
SpongeBob: Hmmm. (SpongeBob images his future in a chrome area)
Future Fish: Hello, mystery person. During your absence, our society has achieved numerous advances. We're sure you'll find it to be quite impressive. (he and SpongeBob get teleported to a water fountain) Well?
SpongeBob: Wow, a water fountain for short people! What will the future come up with next? (SpongeBob's future ends)
Patrick: Not bad, SpongeBob! Not bad! I dream of a town with the perfect converse and irrigation. (imagines his future) Not to mention the breathtaking views.
SpongeBob: Sounds dreamy, Patrick. What do you think the future will be like, Squidward?
(Squidward imagines his future)
Future Squid: (holding up Squidward's painting) This art enbodies the soul that our society has lost. And it is here. (the Krusty Krab is shown) The location of the suffering that insired that art that we place the Squidward Tentacles Memorial Mueseum! (Squidward's house is dropped in place of the Krusty Krab; the other squids cheer)
(scene transitions to the present with Squidward smiling)
SpongeBob: Squidward? Squidward?
Plankton: (uses his mining drill and burrows towards the time capsule) Yes! Now to extract the secret recipe. (the mining drill extends its arms, holding and wedge and hammer) Careful. Careful. (it hits the wedge and Squidward gets knocked out)
SpongeBob & Patrick: Eighteen Bikini Bottom, nineteen Bikni Bottom, TWENTY! Ready or not, here we...(they both spot Squidward)
Patrick: Nice try, Squidward, but we've already had that place figured out. (finds a can of shaving gel) Whipped cream! (eats cream and spits it out) Ugh! This whipped cream tastes awful! (reads off can) "Shaving gel". (a drill drills through and creates a hole in the can causing the shaving gel to land on Patrick's face) I've always wanted a beard!
SpongeBob: Me too! (both laugh as SpongeBob sprays shaving gel on his face) How about you, Squidward? (sprays a beard on Squidward's face)
Squidward: (wakes up and moans) Has it been 50 years already? (looks in the mirror and notices the beard) Yes! I knew I'd still be hot!
Plankton: (sneaks inside) Secret recipe, where are you? Aha!
Squidward: Hello future! (escapes through the hold Plankton made and up to the surface; laughs) Yes! Huh? Where's my museum? The future the same as my old pathetic life! Forget this, I'm waiting another 50 years! (SpongeBob and Patrick watch as he stomps away)
Plankton: Finally, the krabby patty secret recipe! (laughs evily)
Squidward: (stomps on Plankton, causing him to swallow the bottle) Wake me up when my life doesn't stink!
(Bubble transition to the Chum Bucket; Plankton is sitting on the toilet grunting)
Karen: Don't hurt yourself, Poopsy.
Plankton: Quiet, Karen. Just send me more prunes.<|endoftext|>MONDAY’S MUSIC MOVES ME: A Kaleidoscope of Color Songs – The Rainbow Sherbet Edition

Wow, it is good to be back! I have been away from blogging since just after Thanksgiving. Life got a little crazy during December and that craziness carried over into this new year so my “holiday break” turned into an 8-week break! Honestly, the theme for Monday’s Music Moves Me (#4M) was ‘Christmas Holiday Music’ for the entire month of December and I wasn’t feeling any kind of holiday spirit so I decided to blow off the whole month. And then I apparently wasn’t ready for the break to be over so I skipped out on yet another Battle of the Bands this month and three weeks of #4M.

I was actually planning on posting last Monday because I LOVED the theme that our Spotlight Dancer, Mary from Jingle Jangle Jungle, came up with: SONGS WITH COLOR IN THE TITLE. I actually started working on it a little bit last month but I wasn’t quite finished.

The theme really excited me because I’m all about color. Those of you who know me surely agree. It’s no secret…my clothes, my house, me décor…I love color! So even though I missed last Monday’s 4M I was going to use today’s Freebie theme to post my Color Songs.

Now there are a zillion songs with a color in the title so I started out just putting together a playlist with my favorite colorful songs… but “wasn’t quite finished” was a serious understatement! When I began compiling a list of the color songs that I’m particularly fond of, it ended up being a ton of songs that would’ve yielded a real mother of a playlist — one way way too long for a single #4M post (and you all know I typically do long playlists and posts normally so for me to say it was too long, you know it has to be a monster list!)

So… I have decided to do a series: A KALEIDOSCOPE OF COLOR SONGS. The series will post over the next several Freebie weeks. Each post will focus on a specific color (or colors) until I’ve exhausted my list. I’m not yet sure how many weeks it will be. We’ll find out together.

Today my KALEIDOSCOPE OF COLOR SONGS is the Rainbow Sherbet Edition, a playlist featuring songs with the colors Orange, Green and Pink in the titles. Here is my playlist followed by some information and interesting facts about each of the songs. Hope you all enjoy!

Orange Crush by R.E.M. – “Orange Crush” is a song by the American alternative rock band R.E.M. It was released as the first single from the band’s sixth studio album, Green, in 1988. It was not commercially released in the U.S. despite reaching number one as a promotional single on both the Mainstream and Modern Rock Tracks (where, at the time, it had the record for longest stay at number one with eight weeks, beating U2). It peaked at number 28 on the UK Singles Chart, making it the band’s then-highest chart hit in Britain, where they promoted the song by making their debut appearance on Top of the Pops.

Orange Crush was an orange flavored soft drink. In this case, though, it was meant to refer to Agent Orange, a chemical manufactured by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical used by the US to defoliate the Vietnamese jungle during the Vietnam War. US military personnel exposed to it developed cancer years later and some of their children had birth defects. The extreme lyrical dissonance in the song meant that most people completely misinterpreted the song, including Top Of The Pops host Simon Parkin, who remarked on camera after R.E.M. performed the song on the British TV show, “Mmm, great on a summer’s day. That’s Orange Crush.”

The song does not refer to any single Vietnam-related experience for lead singer Michael Stipe, but simply that he lived in that era of American history. He wrote in Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011:

“[The song is] a composite and fictional narrative in the first person, drawn from different stories I heard growing up around Army bases. This song is about the Vietnam War and the impact on soldiers returning to a country that wrongly blamed them for the war.”

As a guest on the late-night show Last Call with Carson Daly, Michael Stipe explained that the song was about a young American football player leaving the comforts of home for the war in Vietnam.

Also, Stipe opened the song during The Green World Tour by singing the famous U.S. Army recruiting slogan j


 days.

''But you have to have a reason to get up and my manager keeps saying, 'You have to do something.' But right now I don't really feel the urge to record.

''My doctor said, 'I can stop you drinking but I can't give you a reason to get up in the morning.' I stopped drinking 18 months ago, but they're still trying to find me that reason.''

Story by 09:11 | Tuesday 30th September 2014

more like this<|endoftext|>Heath Ledger gets a fragment of Dylan in I'm Not There

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      NEW YORK CITY–American pop culture has a lot of real and fictional icons. Australian actor Heath Ledger is currently promoting a version of a real one in I'm Not There , in which he is one of six actors portraying aspects of Bob Dylan's life. (He is also shooting The Dark Knight , in which he plays the Joker, who became iconic through the Batman comic books and Jack Nicholson's performance in Tim Burton's 1989 film, Batman .)

      In a New York hotel room, he says that it's never going to be easy to take on a role that comes with certain expectations from the audience. "When you are playing these kinds of parts, you can underprepare or you can overprepare, but it is all just to feed our superstitious needs and to comfort ourselves. I was a fan of Dylan, but he was someone who I had scheduled somewhere down the line to be obsessed with because I do get obsessed with musicians and artists. So I think [director] Todd Haynes prematurely invited me into this film. The Joker was different in that I was definitely a fan of what Jack Nicholson had done and the world Tim [Burton] created. I think that if he [Burton] was directing The Dark Knight and asked me to play the Joker, I would say, 'No, I couldn't.' The reason why I confidently stepped into his [the Joker's] shoes is that I had seen [ Dark Knight director Chris Nolan's] Batman Begins and I knew the world that he had created and I knew there was a different angle to be taken with the Joker."

      In I'm Not There , Ledger plays Robbie, a film actor who gains fame by playing a Dylan-like character (Christian Bale) who disappeared at the height of his fame. Robbie then falls for a young Frenchwoman (Charlotte Gainsbourg), marries her, and has two daughters, but he has numerous affairs as he travels the world. Haynes has told reporters that the character represents Dylan's personal life. Ledger says that he and the other actors (Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Cate Blanchett, and Richard Gere) are all pieces of Dylan that came about as a result of Haynes dissection of the singer's personal life and career.

      "I was concentrating on one arm of Bob Dylan," he says. "Todd dissected his life and turned the film into a number of short films. We [the actors] just concentrated on our individual stories. I tend to feel that my story and Charlotte's character”¦represent a more personal portrait of Dylan than the others. I did a lot of research in that I read books, watched documentaries, and expanded my Dylan catalogue. However, I can't say that I know more about him than you do. That is what is beautiful about Todd's attempt to preserve Bob's mystique. He kept him respectfully in the shadows a little and I am happy about that."<|endoftext|>Pino De Vita (keyboards)
Attlio Zanchi (guitar)
Jonathan Scully (percussion, vibes)
Joe Castanuela (drums)

A band based in Milan and including Italian and American musicians, Maad were another of those bands (like I.P.Son Group) trying to mix together jazz-rock and afro-American music.
The result can be not particularly attractive for prog fans but has some interesting moments.

Some of the musicians involved were founder members of the L'Orchestra label, but the album was released on a different label, Divergo.
The album also included a guest appearance by sax player Renato Rivolta, who had collaborated with Stormy Six and Come le Foglie (that also had Attilio Zanchi among their founder members).

Attilio Zanchi has remained in the professional jazz circuit. He is still considered one of the best Italian upright bass players.

Maad Divergo (DVE 008) 1976 gatefold cover

Maad Mellow (MMP 295) 1997 reissue of 1976 album with an unreleased bonus track

(with picture sleeve)
Giugno '75
Divergo (5050 002) 1977 B-side also on the Maad LP in a longer version
Wake up
Philips (6025 202) 1978

Not a rare album, Maad was released by the Divergo label in a gatefold cover.
It has never been issued abroad nor counterfeited.
The CD version on Mellow includes a bonus track, Zabaz, originally only issued on single.

Both the group's singles contain tracks that were used as signature tunes for Italian TV shows: Zabaz for A tu per tu con gli animali and Wake up as theme for 3 pezzi facili.
The B-side of their first single, Giugno '75, had already appeared in a longer version (over 12 minutes) on the Maad LP.

Maad - LP

Zabaz - 7" single

Wake up - 7" single

Thanks to Valerio D'Angelo for some information included in this page.<|endoftext|>good vibrations

Mattie Cecile. 19. July 18. ENFP. Multi-Fandom.

i like Jesus and vintage things and military boys and pretty pictures, i have an obsessive personality, and i lie somewhere in the middle on the invert/extrovert spectrum, sophomore at azusa pacific university, studying english with a history minor. law school or writing is in my future. i love poetry and beauty and metaphysics. i'm strange, but i truly wouldn't have it any other way.

"She is clothed with strength and dignity;

she can laugh at the days to come.

She speaks with wisdom,

and faithful instruction is on her tongue."

Proverbs 31:25-26

Tumblr on November 1st

(Source: hirohamahda)

life hack: kill everyone except ur crush so they’re forced to date u

Pinups on a road trip, 1950s.

Pinups on a road trip, 1950s.

(Source: vintagegirlwatchers.com)

hades isn’t a badass. hades named his three-headed-guard-of-the-underworld-dog spot. hades whispers to his flowers to make them grow. hades grows fruit. there’s no sun in the underworld.

hades isn’t a badass. stop saying this false thing

#persephone sets up wifi in the underworld and hades spends all day watching vine compilations (via bralpha)

(Source: heliospanoptes)

We’re the diamonds, rising up out the dust (listen)

(Source: frostingpeetaswounds)<|endoftext|>earching for Freedom at Ebertfest, Vienna and the Internet: Jem Cohen and "Museum Hours"

What happens when you take one of the most intimate and sensitive films about art and friendship and project it to a full house in a gigantic, 1500 seat theater? The Virginia Theatre screening of Jem Cohen’s acclaimed "Museum Hours" was as strangely beguiling as it was singular to the Ebertfest experience. Cohen’s film, which observes two strangers who become friends through encounters at the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna, is one of extraordinarily quiet observation and attentiveness to life’s overlooked details.

"Museum Hours" seems particularly well-suited to Ebertfest because it mirrors one’s experience of the festival. Over a few days, strangers meet and get to know each other by watching the same works of art. Through leisurely conversations between screenings, lives and minds are mutually revealed and exchanged. While conducting the post-screening Q&A, Ebertfest director Nate Kohn and I determined that this film essentially is the Ebertfest experience in Vienna.

Perhaps it’s fitting then that Cohen’s inspiration for the film materialized at a film festival. It was as a guest of the Viennale Film Festival that Cohen encountered the paintings of Breughel at the Kunsthistoriches and “felt a strange sense of familiarity” between these 16th century paintings and his own documentary films. “They didn’t tell you where to look. You’re given a certain freedom to roam and decide what is worth it to you.” It also speaks to Cohen’s own “lifetime of wandering around,” and finding treasures in unexpected places. Bobby Sommer, who stars in the film as the modest museum guard, was working as a Viennale when Cohen met him. He and co-star Margaret Mary O’Hara improvised a good deal of their dialogue, leading to unexpected payoffs, like when they humbly share their admiration of Judas Priest and AC/DC.

To have those beautifully subdued moments writ large on a three story screen not only amplified but intensified their wonders. Cohen was startled by how responsive the audience was to the film’s nuances, laughing at small humorous details that passed by silently at other screenings. I had noticed a similar phenomenon last year when Patrick Wang’s equally gentle masterpiece "In the Family" screened here. There’s something special about seeing a movie with 1500 people who have


 Westmoreland Academy in Pasadena, a specialized school for students with autism, from ages 10 to 17.

“He hated school because they didn’t quite understand him. He had a lot of self-injury,” Paul said.

The loneliness of non-oral autism was a source of deep grief. But Jacob’s parents found passions they shared with him. Their nights were often spent watching “Jeopardy!,” a favorite of Jacob’s, and plowing through the French New Wave and Hitchcock film canons together. They went together to concerts like Lindsey Buckingham at the Orpheum and Neil Young at the Greek. “It’s a challenge, but Jacob loves Brian Wilson, Frank Zappa,” Paul said. “I think he recognizes people who feel the whole thing like he does.”

Their worlds changed dramatically in 2020 once Jacob, after years of intense motion training, learned to use one finger to type into a specially equipped iPad with text-to-speech prompts, enabling him to speak for himself for the first time.

His family had always nicknamed him Jake, but once he could type, “One of the first things he said was, ‘Call me Jacob,’” Paul said.

The family had an invigorating yet humbling new understanding of Jacob’s personality. Whatever they’d surmised about their son’s inner life, he could now tell them himself, and his world was much richer than they’d known. That included the music that he desperately wanted to hear performed.

“You could have seen him walking down the street, and somebody would say, ‘Oh, my God, that poor soul,’ Paul said. “He doesn’t look like he’s present. This shattered that preconception of people who have this kind of autism.”

Dr. Kenneth Aigen is the music therapy program director at New York University, one of the world’s leading centers for engaging with people with autism through music, often through the Nordoff-Robbins practice of collaborative performance. He doesn’t work with Jacob but said it’s no coincidence that music helped the youth bond with his family.

“Autistic people get the same thing we all get out of music, a way of communing with other people,” he said. “In our program, we’ll be improvising on a piano, and go to an odd chord modulation. The child will laugh and smile, and it’s not purely a reflexive act. Think of the auditory and cognitive processing involved to identify an unusual key change and laugh. It can be a first time feeling their human intelligence. You can’t overestimate that.”

For many people with autism he works with, music is of life-and-death consequence for mental health.

“Imagine having no means of expressing the intelligence people assume you didn’t have,” Aigen said. “How frustrating, how lonely. But one of the most important things is that for autistic people, many music communities accept them. You go to a heavy metal or a Grateful Dead show, you can dance bizarrely and it’s accepted. The things that set them apart from regular social life, in musical subcultures, they feel at home.”

Some people with autism, even nonverbal ones, have formidable music skills. Many successful pop and classical musicians can exhibit traits associated with autism, which can be stereotyped by the public. Studies have found some correlation between autism and having perfect pitch, but many experts think it’s most likely that intense focus — a common manifestation of autism — helps cultivate innate musical talent that is otherwise more randomly distributed.

For Jacob, music came easy. The hard part would be physically translating the composition.

Paul was already tapped into a local music community through Wild Honey Foundation, his concert production group that books all-star tribute shows to classic and psychedelic rock acts like the Lovin’ Spoonful and the “Nuggets” compilation. He called on Laufer, a longtime family friend, to work with Jacob to take his prodigious written notes and turn them into music.

Laufer is a successful session musician (he performed on Fiona Apple’s “Criminal”; his son is the electronic musician Shlohmo), but he hadn’t composed anything of the scale and intricacy Jacob was asking for.

“I had already been clued in that Jacob had a lot more going on than anybody imagined,” Laufer said. “But it became clear that he couldn’t give me actual musical content, it was all going to be verbal description. I said, ‘I can only get so close to what you’re hearing in your head, I’m going to have to make stuff up.’ But he was very aware of the limitations. We talked about stuff like, ‘What do you want your audience to feel?’”

Jacob’s written notes for Laufer were incredibly detailed and imaginative yet also showed the ineffability of the music he’d imagined. Composers and producers try to inspire musicians with abstract visions of how to play, and music always transforms between one’s mind and their instruments. But how does one note this on a music chart?

“A series of bursts of cacophony on piano (5, 10, 30, 40 and 30 seconds) … I want soaring violins to rip out of the cacophony for 2 minutes. I want to hear the violins reaching for the sun. … I want the soaring violins to run smack into bass and horns with a sudden jolt as they disappear. … The violins are demanding sleep and the horns are demanding pain.”

“I would sit at the piano and go, ‘You mean this? You mean that?’ And I’d play him a few examples,” Laufer said. “‘What do you mean by cacophony? What do you mean, a melody that reaches for the sun?’”

Jacob, Paul and Laufer spent endless days and nights hashing out a close-enough approximation of what Jacob wrote, using MIDI and samples to arrange the orchestral parts. The end result, as Jacob described it, was “damn close.”

“I think feeling is a gift that Rob has, to always be able to connect with him and my damn inferior words that fall short of the music in my brain and heart,” Jacob said. (Like many teen rock fans, he curses liberally in conversation.) “And I believe my dad would do anything for me, he’s so loving and I need love so I can’t feel damn alone as long as doing music with him and Rob is possible.”

To actually see this performed, they needed tens of thousands of dollars to professionally notate the score; hire musicians and a conductor; and secure the time and venues to rehearse and, eventually, perform “Unforgettable Sunrise.” Wild Honey’s benefit shows often directed funds to the Autism Healthcare Collaborative, which in turn provided around $50,000 to hire Newman-Lessler and the 54 USC music school students to perform the symphony.

On the day of the debut, Paul was worried about how Jacob would handle the performance. Paul feared that crowds might not show for a debut symphony by an unknown, non-oral teenager with autism. Jacob wouldn’t be performing onstage, but he can still get overwhelmed by attention and interaction, and his physical limitations can easily exhaust him. “He’s been so excited, but he can lose control of his body and do things he doesn’t mean,” Paul said.

Yet at the performance, Jacob — wearing the same Neil Young T-shirt — took the stage alongside his father and Laufer. He typed a message on his iPad, which he played into a microphone.

“I’m very glad you felt my latest work was worth your time and money,” he said, matter-of-factly, to the now-packed crowd at the Alex. “This symphony is my story, so enjoy being in my head for 70 minutes.”

The hour-plus that followed was, to the best an outsider can know, a vivid evocation of Jacob’s mind as it’s affected and inspired by its unusual neurology. The violins indeed soared toward the sun, then veered into seething brass. Many movements were beautiful, led by French horns and harp, while other passages had a just-askew musical logic. The radiant, adventurous spirit of Brian Wilson imbued everything. Meter changed frequently; tonal clashes revealed uncommon depths of feeling. The music was as complex as Jacob’s unknown inner life had been for 19 years.

“With Jacob, you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop — he feels good, then he feels unsettled,” Paul said. “Explosions of joy and misery. The extreme highs and lows are captured in the piece.”

When the orchestra wrapped, Newman-Lessler had sweated completely through his white tunic. The crowd rose to its feet and, for minute after minute, applauded Jacob and his tear-streaked father and musical collaborator. A young man whose life was invisible to the world was headed home a rock star.

“That was the best night of my life,” Jacob said to his father after the performance. “My symphony is so fantastic that I want to cry. I’m so happy that I feel a damn terrific rush of joy.”

Jacob is already moving on to his next project — an opera where he will dictate the music but write the libretto himself. “I think the opera holds a lot of opportunity for him to show exactly what’s on his mind, a stronger emotional roadmap,” Paul said.

Yet Jacob’s caregiving needs will remain, and may be complicated by his made-for-Hollywood musical achievement. Paul said that the day after the performance, he had an hours-long conversation with a film producer who wanted to make a movie about Jacob’s life.

Paul said the family has an extensive plan in place for Jacob’s care for decades to come, even after his and Lisa’s deaths. While he’ll need care for the rest of his life, Jacob’s autism now can be a place of strength as well.

“We’re trying to find people who we can trust that can be with him. That’s hard to do


 as the playing strings. "Basically they hook onto more or less where the button is, where the tailgut of the tailpiece goes. Then they run underneath the tailpiece; there are little tiny holes in the bottom part of the bridge that they run through. They continue their journey through the neck, the neck of a d'amore is hollow...this is why you can't get a cheap one, it's very complicated to build! They then continue up through the back of the peg box and then hook into pegs that are higher up towards the scroll than the pegs of the playing strings. That's why I think people look at it and think it's a kind of viola; the peg box is so long, it's an optical illusion. The string length is violin string length, but then its peg box goes on forever, which also makes it a heavy instrument."

With a system that complex, how does one install those resonating strings? "For most of the resonating strings, you have to have a shop do it," Rachel said. "The good news is that they rarely ever break and they certainly never have to be changed because they've worn out -- as long as they haven't broken they can stay on there for many years. So that's a good thing, it certainly cuts down on the costs."

How does one actually play such an instrument?

"First of all, it's a brain-twister," Rachel said, and it's not just because there are six or seven strings to play. "There are certainly six-string instruments out there, in the electric violin world. Leila Josefowicz plays an electric six-string for John Adams' Violin Concerto, and in the non-classical world everybody is playing five-string, six-string, even seven-string instruments. But those are a bit easier to wrap your mind around because they are tuned in fifths: E-A-D-G, then the C string of a viola, then an F string, and if you go really extreme you've got a Bb seventh string, which is one whole step lower than the C string of a cello. Because they're always electric, you don't have acoustical issues the same way as with an instrument with its natural sound box. The curve of the bridge can actually be steeper, which allows you to more easily isolate the strings with your bow. Because it's going through an amp, you don't have to worry about the ribs being in a certain place."

Playing the viola d'amore, with its unusual tuning, is a little like playing on a "scordatura" violin -- that is, a violin that is cross-tuned for pieces such as Rosary Sonatas by Biber, or the second movement of Mahler's Fourth Symphony, or Appalachian fiddle music. "But that's only four strings," Rachel said. "So to have cross-tuning, and six or seven strings -- now that's a big brain-twister!"

The instrument is also a challenge ergonomically, with its rather flat bridge. "When you think you're crossing over one string, you might in fact accidentally be crossing over two strings," she said. "The strings are simply closer together. So to know exactly where each one is, and know where you're going when you're going from string two to string five and then back to string three and over to string four and then string one....I'm not ashamed to say, the first few months of trying my hand at the instrument, I was still getting all mixed up, where my finger would be on string five and my bow would be on string six -- I was completely discombobulated!"

There aren't really any teachers of the d'amore; Rachel taught herself to play the instrument. "If you know how to play the violin, it's just a question of letting your muscles sort themselves out," Rachel said. "There are no shortcuts, you've just got to try it and drill it and eventually be able to do it. For me, it was just a question of finding a few easy pieces and working on them. It was like going back to Suzuki Book 1 because every single finger had a number over it! You can't just look at the note and know where that note is! You're almost reading tablature. And even now that I've been playing it for years, and I think this is true of most d'amore players, we still have an awful lot of finger numbers and Roman numerals for string numbers in our music. It's certainly not an instrument where you could sit down and sight-read chamber music! Every piece you want to play, you've got to work it out. Especially because there are some pitches that could be played on any one of four strings. So you have to decide, in terms of pattern, which one makes the most sense? It's just so tricky."

"But the voice is so unusual, that's what makes it worth it," she said. "It's not just about having these unusual tunings and being able to do chords that just don't even exist on an instrument tuned in fifths. More importantly, it's about the tone of the instrument. It has its own unique voice and it's absolutely mesmerizing. In fact, one of the best descriptions of d'amore that I ever heard was from a girl who was taking some coachings with me. She picked up the d'amore and played a few open strings and said, 'That's just so refreshing!' I thought that 'refreshing' was a great adjective. There are many adjectives that one could use: It's silvery, it's delicate."

"What Vivaldi did with the viola d'amore is absolutely fascinating," Rachel said. "Vivaldi was inspired by Pisendel's playing, and it's thought that he might have even written some of the concerti for Pisendel. Certainly Pisendel had copies of a lot of the concerti in his library in Dresden. But one of my favorite things about Vivaldi's story with the d'amore is that he also wrote for his talented female students at the Pietá, the orphanage where he worked. There was one particular young violinist -- one of the best of the bunch -- named Anna. She is known to also have been a virtuoso of the d'amore and to have played Vivaldi's concertos, some of which may have been specifically written for her. So I love knowing that there was a woman in the Baroque period who definitely played these concertos. That's another reason why I was inspired to put a woman on the cover."

"Actually there's a book I should mention, which has the unnecessarily racy but memorably alliterative title, Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick. It's very well-researched, and the descriptions of the general aspects of life in that time and how the Pietá functioned are very accurate. Obviously the backstories of the particular young ladies in the plot are fictionalized, even when she is writing about young ladies like Anna, who were real people. But I think it's fun that the book describes Anna, playing the d'amore!

"Another book about the Vivaldi era in Venice, if you can deal with the sex scenes, is Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice. I still to this day think is one of the most vivid descriptions of vocal lessons of the Vivaldi era that anybody has ever written. She did her homework well, and she's a good writer. It really does bring the musical scene of the times to life, focusing more on the phenomenon of the castrati. But instrumental and vocal studies were not so far apart back then as they are these days, and I found that as a violinist, I gained a lot reading that particular book."

Though viola d'amore is an instrument of the Baroque era, it did not become frozen in that time period. Composers have continued to write for d'amore, even into the modern era.

"Other instruments from the Baroque era -- the Lirone or the viola da Gamba -- a lot of those early instruments have remained instruments of early music," Rachel said. "The viola d'amore is different. Great composers have written for this instrument. During the Romantic era it went a little bit underground, but then coming out into the 20th century it started to pick back up. More than half its repertoire is from the 20th and now 21st centuries. Hindemith wrote a concerto for it; Casadesus wrote chamber music for it, Janacek wrote for the instrument."

As for makers, "every great Baroque maker -- Gagliano, Testore, you just name a maker and they made a d'amore," Rachel said. "Stradivari left a pattern for a d'amore; it's not known whether he never got around to making it, or whether he made one or more and they didn't survive. Absolutely every other great Italian maker that you can name, made d'amores." And like the violin, the viola d'amore has been modernized. "A lot of violas d'amore made in the 1700s, just like violins made in that era, have been renecked with longer fingerboards, different bridges, different tailpieces -- like you do with violins to make them modern violins, even if they started life as Baroque violins. And of course any violas d'amore made these days, for the most part, are made as modern d'amores. So there is such a thing, to that same degree."

"I think any violinist would have fun, trying his or her hand at the d'amore," Rachel said. "For those of us who love the sound of the violin, it's just another kind of sound that is so incredibly satisfying and intriguing. If you're


 it's a big anniversary, we get elements of the past in each story - starting with someone we haven't seen since the last big anniversary. Turns out tulips aren't the only things to come from Amsterdam...

Tuesday, 26 November 2019

Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith - SJA 4.6

In which Sarah Jane Smith, Clyde and Rani rush to the landing site of a meteorite, following an alert from Mr Smith. There is a fear that it may carry alien pathogens. It proves to be harmless, but they are confronted by a woman who has also come to investigate, and claims to be helping save the planet from aliens. She speeds off in a red sports car, and later they discover that she has moved in to a house around the corner from Bannerman Road. They go to confront her and learn that her name is Ruby White and she has moved to the area because of all the alien activity which Sarah and her friends have been dealing with over the last couple of years. She cold shoulders them and orders them out of her home - accusing them of being little more than amateurs.
The next day Sarah finds herself forgetting that Luke is away at university when she talks to Rani's mother. Gita. Then she forgets K9's name when she later talks to her son.

There is another alert from Mr Smith, sending them to a junkyard where a trio of Dark Horde warriors materialise. Sarah discovers that she has forgotten to ask Clyde to bring the sonic lipstick, and she realises they are defenceless. Ruby suddenly appears and gets Clyde and Rani to help her to chase the Horde off, using a hand-held AI device to make them think they are up against superior forces. Clyde nicknames the device Mr White, after Sarah's Mr Smith.
They invite Ruby back to the attic, where she apologises for her earlier cold attitude towards them. She wants to be friends, and even Mr Smith and Mr White seem to get along. That evening, Sarah becomes increasingly worried about her memory lapses, and asks Mr Smith to conduct a medical scan on her. He notifies her that she has a degenerative brain condition. Not wishing to put Clyde and Rani at risk, as she did at the junkyard, Sarah decides to retire. She invites Ruby to her home and asks her to take over from her. After ordering Mr Smith to delete her command protocols, she gets ready to leave on an extended holiday. However, she finds herself transported to a cellar where Ruby chains her to the wall. In an alcove is a massive fleshy lump - Ruby's stomach. She is really an alien Qetesh, creatures who feed on the emotions of others. Ruby has been attacking Sarah for some days, causing her memory problems, and Mr White had tampered with Mr Smith to give the false medical scan diagnosis. She has abducted Sarah as she had led the most exciting life of anyone on Earth. Afterwards she will feed on the entire planet...

Instead of stopping alien invasions, she will facilitate them - to create more emotions upon which to feed. Clyde and Rani see a fake video message from Sarah telling them that she has gone away for good, but Clyde is suspicious as she would never abandon Luke. Mr Smith then attempts to warn him but Ruby shuts the computer down and Mr White teleports Clyde away from the attic. He finds himself in a pod floating in space above the Earth - a prison capsule from which Ruby has escaped. He has a limited amount of oxygen. Mr White had been an entertainments console left by her captors, but she reprogrammed it to aid her escape.
Worried about his mother, Luke arrives at Rani's house. Luke contacts K9 back in Oxford and gets him to trace Clyde's phone, and they discover he is in space. Rani must get her mobile close to Mr White, so that K9 can hack into it. Mr White is reprogrammed to return Clyde to Earth, but Ruby escapes. Luke, Rani and Clyde go to her house and find Sarah in the cellar, where the stomach is still feeding off her. Mr White is used to create a hologram of meteor strikes hitting the planet, and the huge wave of emotion generated is too much for Ruby's stomach to absorb. It shrivels up, releasing what it had taken from Sarah back to her. Ruby vows revenge, but is sent back to her prison in space.

Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith was written by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman, and was first broadcast on 15th and 16th November, 2010. It marks the end of Series 4 of The Sarah Jane Adventures - what would prove to be the last full season of the show. Hickman is best known for being the editor of Doctor Who Magazine (from 2002 to 2007, so in post to oversee the return of Doctor Who to the airwaves, and a huge redesign for the publication). He's also well known for his design work - including the covers for the Classic Doctor Who DVD range. You'll have seen him in a few of the DVD extras as well.
Every series of SJA has had a story with "Sarah Jane Smith" in the title, written by Roberts. This is the first one not to feature the Trickster. This is the first season in which he hasn't appeared. Instead, a new character is introduced - a sort of anti-Sarah Jane Smith who at first appears to do everything she does, only better, and looks more glamorous to the youngsters. Mr White is a small hand held gizmo, as opposed to Sarah's huge attic-dwelling computer, and Ruby White drives a flash red sports car as opposed to Sarah's - a retro-looking Nissan Figaro.
After a few cameo appearances on video links in the last couple of stories, Tommy Knight returns as Luke, and K9 also features. This would be K9 Mark IV's final appearance on screen (and therefore John Leeson's final vocal work in the televised Doctor Who universe, at least to date).

We only have two guest artists in this story, principal of whom is Julie Graham. She's Scottish, so naturally her first TV work was an episode of Taggart. Genre appearances include the revamped Survivors, a remake of Terry Nation's 1970's drama series, and Bonekickers. that dreadful archaeological adventure series.
Voicing Mr White is Eddie Marsan (Mr Norrell in the BBC adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell amongst many, many others).
It's a surprise that neither guest artist has been called upon to appear in Doctor Who itself.
Overall, another quality addition to The Sarah Jane Adventures. It's tragic in hindsight, watching this knowing that Lis Sladen was already ill, as we see Sarah physically and mentally deteriorate. The title is painfully apt, as this was the last thing we had seen before Lis's untimely death.
Things you might like to know:
  • Series 5 would have bucked the trend of not having a story with "Sarah Jane Smith" in the title, as we have a record of what the unmade stories would have been called.
  • Roberts and Hickman were collaborating on another story for that season when Sladen died and production was stopped.
  • Ruby White was clearly set up for future return appearances, as the last we see of her is her vowing revenge on Sarah.
  • Clyde maintains the tradition of someone being slimed during the story.
  • Yet another reason to ignore the whole UNIT dating controversy, as Sarah states that she was 23 when she first met the Doctor. The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith shows that she was born in 1951 - meaning the events of The Time Warrior take place in 1974.
  • Julie Graham went to school with Eric Potts (Oliver Charles in Aliens in London).

Saturday, 23 November 2019

Series 12 - The Trailer

First of all, Happy Doctor Who Day. I've been watching the series since the tail end of the 1960's, and I didn't even know that was a thing, but have a happy one anyway.
Today we finally got to see a proper glimpse of the forthcoming series - glimpse being the operative word as what we have is a rather frantically paced trailer. If previous series are anything to go by, several of these clips will have come from the same few stories, usually from the start of the run.
We have had confirmation of the return of the Cybermen, redesigned once again (see above for the only shot we had of them). The participation of Stephen Fry had been confirmed a couple of days ago - along with the involvement of Lenny Henry, and both feature in the trailer. Both may well be appearing in the same story, which I suspect will be the one which debuts on New Year's Day. This is the epic James Bond-ish one (TARDIS crew in tuxedos, etc).

Two other guest artists were announced yesterday, and one of them - Goran Visnjic - was spotted in the trailer, in a story which appears to have a 19th Century setting. Might this be the Mary Shelley one that's been rumoured? (Update: no it isn't. Having rewatched the trailer the costumes are too late, and I'm hearing that Visnjic might be playing Nikola Tesla). I didn't spot Robert Glenister (making a return to the show after appearing in The Caves of Androzani).
There was one clip of a Judoon, and the 1943 Occupied Paris story was also confirmed - so we definitely have two stories with historical settings.
A few new monsters were to be seen - including something that looked a bit like the Racnoss Queen, something which is able to break into the TARDIS, a giant scorpion-like creature


 for her baby brother with Old Peg, but it turns into a fugitive story with the police and then social welfare on her tail. As with the Peters children, she has to make an escape from a horrible children’s home en route. She also gets weakened by pneumonia, just as Max does. Like the Peters and Amundsen children, Corrie meets more helpful people than not. In fact, we could almost swear that a number of these people have guessed these children are runaways but are turning a blind eye to it.

The endings of the two stories share similarities in that the children make it to the end of their journey, only to find everything seems to end in a big let-down because the initial outcome did not meet their expectations (Rainbow’s End being a home for olds, not children, and Old Peg not curing Peter). However, the twist is that it does bring about what they wanted in the end, just not in the way they expected.

The story takes time out to comment on the hardship and knock-on effects of WW2, even though peace has come. Food rationing continues, food shortages e.g. a sign saying “Sorry no spam”, and the war posters saying things like “Plan your meals to avoid waste” and “Careless talk costs lives” remain in place. Buying sweets on rations is a real treat. Make-do-and-mend is still the rule e.g. Mum making best dresses out of old curtains. Mum feels the change in women’s lot when peace comes; during the war she worked in a munitions factory, but afterwards, she struggles to find a job because preference is given to returned servicemen and women. Eventually she finds a part-time cleaning job at a theatre, where the fateful Wizard of Oz evening unfolds. Bombed-out planes and buildings are still visible on the landscape. So are old air-raid shelters, one with “We won the war” scrawled on it. We also see the mental effects it has had on some people. For example, they meet a kind lady who unfortunately has a screw loose; she thinks Dorrie and Max are her own evacuee children and a scarecrow in her husband’s old army uniform really is him. Post-wartime rebuilding is also evident; for example, we see a “Prefabs Homes for the Homeless” to help meet the housing shortages. And the Hans storyline is a clear message about confronting the demons of WW2 and not letting old hatreds consume you.

Max is the weaker of the journeying pair because he is younger and less mature, but he does not have a weak constitution like his counterpart in Fir Tree. Until his bout with pneumonia he remains a healthy kid. And he does have his bright moments, particularly when he wants to cheer Dorrie up. Some of them are more thought out than others, such as buying flowers in honour of Dad. But as he is a very young, spirited boy, more often he makes ill-judged decisions, one of which leads to him developing pneumonia. He is also more prone to being emotional and losing his temper, for example, when he meets Hans.

Jinty produced a number of journey/quest/fugitive stories, such as “The Darkening Journey” and the aforementioned “Song of the Fir Tree” and “For Peter’s Sake!”. They all ran for a while, a testament to how popular they were. But “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is by far the longest. It was so long that it holds the record for second-longest serial in Jinty’s history. This shows how popular it was, and there are so many elements to make it popular: the backdrop of WW2; the fugitive elements; the Wizard of Oz theme, which has always been popular; the adventures and dangers; and above all, the emotional elements to tug your heart and make you really feel for these children.

Another thing to make this story popular is that nobody knows what to expect at the journey’s end, not even the children. All they know and believe is, they will find happiness. Okay, happiness, but in what way? What form will it take? This is a suspenseful mystery element, and we are holding our breath to see just how it all turns out at rainbow’s end. This sets it apart from the other journey stories Jinty has run, where everyone expects the outcome that the protagonist expects. But not in this case. Neither we nor the children know just what to expect at the end of the story, which keeps us in suspense all the way. Also keeping us in suspense is the nagging doubt as to whether the children’s home they expect really is their key to happiness; after all, the other children’s homes they encountered in were bad experiences, so would they be all that happy with another? We are so glad it ended in a happy adoption with new parents instead.<|endoftext|>Lindy Gravelle is a singer-songwriter-pianist who began her musical career in Tillamook, Oregon at the age of three, singing in the Leonnig Family Band with her father, Ron (vocals & guitar), sisters Leonore (accordion), and Lorraine (piano & vocals), and brothers Ronnie (violin/fiddle), and Roger (drums & vocals). Their repertoire was rooted in country music, with added elements of rockabilly, swing and pop, all of which are still evident in her sound today. The family moved to the Eastern Oregon town of Heppner when Lindy was five. It was there that she spent her formative years, and she still calls Heppner her “hometown” today.

By the age of eight, Lindy was playing piano and singing as a regular member of the family band at the Wagon Wheel, Heppner’s preeminent restaurant and watering hole, owned and operated by her parents, Aggie and Ron. Among recording artists who were major influences for Lindy at that time were Patsy Cline, Ray Price, Buck Owens, Hank Williams, Sr., Connie Smith, Bob Wills and a multitude of others, in all genres of music. The family eventually sold the Wagon Wheel and moved to McMinnville, OR, where Lindy completed high school while continuing to perform both within school and professionally at various venues throughout Oregon and Washington. It was during her high school years when she started writing and recording her own music and gained notoriety around the Northwest as an up & coming star on the country music horizon.

Upon graduation, Lindy decided to leave the Northwest in pursuit of her musical career. In the early 1980’s she was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, performing with her Red Dog Band and opening concerts for various stars, including Michael Martin Murphy, Commander Cody and Hank Williams, Jr.  In 1985 she moved to Nashville where she was gainfully employed as a singer, songwriter and performer for 15 years. While there she wrote A Bottle of Wine and Patsy Cline which was recorded by Marsha Thornton on MCA Records and reached the Billboard Magazine Country Top 40 chart. Another of her songs, Exit 99, was featured on Lorrie Morgan’s RCA Records' gold-selling album Warpaint.

Lindy’s Northwest roots were strong, and eventually she felt the need to return to her native state. In 2000 she moved to Central Oregon and continued her musical career.  She regularly performed in several venues throughout the region while continuing to write and record a number of original songs that her fans grew to love and repeatedly requested.

In June of 2015 Lindy relocated to Ellensburg, Washington to be closer to family in the Seattle area. While there, she broadened her musical abilities by performing as a featured vocalist with the fabulous Ellensburg Big Band and enjoyed singing songs made famous by Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Joe Williams, Natalie Cole and Etta James. Although living in Ellensburg was enriching in many ways, Lindy felt a stronger pull to return to Central Oregon, so in March of 2017 she moved back, because there's "No Place Under the Sun Like Oregon".

Lindy is once again performing in and around Central Oregon and delighting her fan/friendz in the process. She currently has 9 albums in her discography that she offers from her website and at her live performances. Always aiming to please her audiences, Lindy Gravelle is a pleasure to see, hear and enjoy!

Lindy in April 2020<|endoftext|>Thursday, 3 April 2014

What I Learned From a Disappointing Series Finale

On Monday, the sitcom How I Met Your Mother came to its nine season conclusion.

I have thoughts.

There will be spoilers.

You have been warned.

I have so many thoughts that it took me 4 days to marinate on them and untangle how I really felt, what is applicable, and what isn't. I'll skip something things, gloss over what I didn't mind because all in all, I only have one huge sticking point.
First of all, let's get two things out of the way.

Thing number 1: I love Robin/Barney.

Thing number 2: I HATE Ted.

I remember the exact moment I hated Ted. It was in the episode "Something Old", where Marshal and Lily are packing up to move to Rome and want to throw away an old bean-bag chair, but Ted fights them on it for all the memories it contains. Said chair had been with them since college. But here's the thing, Ted.

IT'S NOT YOUR CHAIR. IT WAS NEVER YOUR CHAIR. And I know it wasn't the chair itself that was Ted's issue, it was what the chair symbolized but to me, it just came across as yet another instance where Ted whines and complains until


 the bomb's circuitry would be overloaded and it would not detonate. Otherwise, he would be blown up. Holly shot it, but Koboi had lied, and there was no "sweet spot". It was merely a trick to cause the LEP to believe Holly shot Root.[1] Holly knew it was probably a lie, she fired anyway for the tiny chance that it wasn't.

The ensuing explosion incinerated Root and forced Holly to flee. Since they did not have any sound feed on their cameras due to Koboi's jammer, the LEP accused her of Root's murder. Root was eventually replaced with Ark Sool, and Holly resigned, believing it would do more good if not under command of him. Followed by which former Captain Trouble Kelp was appointed commander.[1]

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox[]

Following Root's death, Holly managed to get a chance to say goodbye to him in the past, thanks to Artemis, who was trying to make it up to her for accusing her of giving his mother Spelltropy. Root found it odd, but was touched by it.[4]

The Silky Sifaka lemur, Jayjay (Julius Junior), was also named in his memory, because his head fur resembled that of Root's buzz-cut.

Portrayal in the Artemis Fowl film[]

While Root is male in the book series, in the Artemis Fowl live action film the character is instead female and is portrayed by Judi Dench. This version of the character has much the same role as Root had in the first Artemis Fowl film, and some of the one seen in The Arctic Incident, though this side of the character does not show up much, since the film focuses mostly on the siege of Fowl Manor plot from the first book. Regarding the change, director Kenneth Branagh stated that the filmmakers asked author Eoin Colfer if they could have that kind of license and he replied "Let's do it."[5]

"No, Foaly! None of your bright ideas, thank you very much! Captain Short's life is in danger, so push that button before I have to climb that tower and push it with your face!"
Artemis Fowl
"Shut your mouth, convict."
Throughout Artemis Fowl series[2][3][6][1]
"Don't give me any of your lip today, Foaly, because today is not one of those Oh-I'm-so-impressed-with-the-pony's-technology days."
Artemis Fowl[2]
"If it makes any difference, I'm proud of you, Holly."
The Opal Deception[1]
"It's not about what's best for us. It's about what's best for the People."
The Opal Deception[1]
"Not a nice set of options. Don't you have anything good to tell me?"
The Opal Deception[1]
"Root: Just push that button before I get over there and push it with your face.

Foaly: Some things never change. "

The Opal Deception
"Go and save Artemis. That's the last order I'll ever give you, Captain. Don't you dare ignore it."
The Opal Deception
"Don't call me Julius! You always do that just before you disobey me."
The Opal Deception

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer
  2. 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named book1
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named book2
  4. 4.0 4.1 Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer
  5. Truffaut-Wong, Olivia (November 27, 2018). The ‘Artemis Fowl’ Movie Changes Some Characters, But Director Kenneth Branagh Says It’s Still The Story You Love. Bustle.
  6. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named book3<|endoftext|>RadioBDC Logo
Radioactive | Imagine Dragons<|endoftext|>"Police call 110: Ronny": This is what the new case from Magdeburg has to offer

It's every parent's nightmare: their child disappears without a trace.

It's every parent's nightmare: their child disappears without a trace. That's exactly what the new Magdeburg "Polizeiruf 110: Ronny" (March 19, 8:15 p.m., the first) is all about. A ten-year-old boy who has to live in a children's home, a desperate mother and a violent friend - one emotional topic follows the next. In this case, not only the spectators, but also chief inspector Doreen Brasch (Claudia Michelsen, 54) reaches her limits.

Ten-year-old Ronny Hartwig (Johann Barnstorf, born 2009) lives in the children's home and celebrates his birthday there. He also visits his mother Sabine (Ceci Chuh, born 1991) on this day. But on the way back, the little boy disappears without a trace. The search by chief inspector Doreen Brasch and her colleagues begins. Both Ronny's mother and her new friend René (Oskar Bökelmann, born 1997) are under suspicion. Sabine has been trying to regain custody for a long time, but the youth welfare office doesn't think she's stable enough. René, on the other hand, sees the little boy as a troublemaker who is sabotaging life together with Sabine and his daughter Josefine (Lotta Herzog). Also on his birthday there is a fight between René and Ronny. The ten-year-old runs away with a bleeding nose.

He wanted to meet his favorite educator Matthias Pecht (Thomas Schubert, 29) to go fishing. However, Pecht lies during his first questioning and is thus also counted among the suspects. What happened to Ronny? Is he alive? For Brasch and her colleagues, the search becomes a painful race against time. Because the freezing temperatures reduce every minute the chance of finding the child alive.

Absolutely. The new case from Magdeburg is emotionally charged. After all, it's about a ten-year-old boy who is missing. Until the end, the question of whether Ronny is alive or not torments you. The children's home component is also added. You immediately sympathize with the little boy who wants to go back to his mother. A look into the sad children's eyes - the first tear could already fall. If that wasn't bad enough, his mother's boyfriend would make life difficult for him.

In this film, the focus is primarily on women, or mothers, and their feelings. "'Ronny' is a film about the love we have for our children. The fear that something will happen to them, that we will lose them, that they will become alienated, slip away from us or even disappear," explains director Barbara Ott (40). The focus is on the disappearance of the child, but the effects that this has on everyone involved are also shown. An act marks not only the victim, but also the people close to them - sometimes forever.

Chief Inspector Doreen Brasch, who has a grown-up son herself, is also struggling with her feelings - but he has broken off contact. She gives everything from second one, you can tell how close she is to the case. She loses her composure more than once, niceties and rules don't seem to matter here. Brasch rigorously pursues only one goal: to find the child. The many suspects don't make things easier - but more exciting and also sadder. After all, how can it be that there are so many people in a child's environment who want something bad for him?

Brasch is also very emotionally involved for a reason, she is doubly confronted with her past. "A memory of another case comes up, which is painful because they acted incorrectly at the time and were therefore unable to save the child," explains actress Claudia Michelsen. In addition, a detail from her childhood is addressed. On the other hand, detective Uwe Lemp (Felix Vörtler, 61) and detective superintendent Günther Márquez (Pablo Grant, 26) only play minor roles in this case. The young supporting actors are convincing across the board. "Regardless of age, I find her work remarkable and I really wanted her to be in the film," agrees Ott.

What might bother many: Some questions remain unanswered. Characters pose puzzles that are never solved. At the end of the day, a scene is hard to endure - even for Brasch. This case definitely gets under your skin and will certainly resonate with one or the other.<|endoftext|>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest1080p
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 was very influential in my life. Anyway, my father wasn’t going to let me go to school in LA as that town in the 1970s was full of crazies.

So you went to Northwestern.

Yes, but when I graduated from there, my father still wouldn’t let me move to LA. So I went to New York, interviewed for a job at Chappell music, and got it. It turned out that music publishing was the perfect job for me. I can’t tell you that I knew anything about publishing before I took the job. I knew I loved the songs of Gamble and Huff, Thom Bell and Linda Creed, and that they were extraordinarily talented songwriters. I didn’t know that there was a job behind that. I just knew I had a love for songs that could touch people and wanted to make that work for the songwriters.

Do you know when you realized you had what it took to make it in publishing, that you were good?

When I signed Arrested Development back when I was with EMI. I identified who they were and what they did in relationship to the music I loved growing up, I trusted my instincts, and signed music that I loved. At the time, Arrested Development was also important as it introduced me to the music that was coming out of Atlanta, which meant songwriters such as Dallas Austin and Jermaine Dupree. That was where real success was for me, that Atlanta scene.  Those were the first signings that gave me confidence that I could identify talent and work with them.

What does it mean to be great at what you do beyond recognizing talent and knowing what to do with it?

From there, it is about giving them the support to achieve their dreams. It doesn’t happen by accident. Along with having that THING that Alicia Keys has, Lady Gaga has, Rosalia has…

All artists you signed.

I want to  know if they have a desire to have a cultural impact. Not everybody does. Once you recognize that, you then supply resources for them, be it emotional support or finding them collaborators to make music or a support team to get their music into films, television and commercials or finding a team to help them administratively. I make sure every artist we sign understands the business. There is a tremendous financial upside to writing hit songs and the money comes in, not by accident, but because you have a great team that goes out and collects every penny from all over the world. Our job is to maximize value for peoples’ songs. I want artists to have career sustainability and financial sustainability.

Before you came to Universal, did you wonder if you were undervalued or underestimated in the biz because you were a woman? I mean, you left Sony when you did because there was nowhere left to go after making all that success there.

It was a combination of things. At that time, Sony’s publishing [group] had a chairman, Marty Bandier, who left [to] run a very successful company.  For me, I was happy to be a great signer of talent, happy to be co-president of a company… until I wasn’t.

At long as it worked out and business got done, you were cool.

Yes. Then my life changed. Around age 50, I got divorced. I had three kids. Here I was having tremendous success. Why not go for something bigger? It was that moment where I got in touch with Universal, said I was considering leaving Sony, and they asked if I was ready to be the head of Universal Publishing. I played a role in not being the chairman before I was the chairman. I did it when it was the right time for me. Was I underestimated because I was a woman or was I underestimated because there was someone at Sony before me who had built a great company and wasn’t ready to give it up? Reflecting on it, it was 50-50.

In the years since you’ve been at Universal, you have brought about a 35% increase in profits. In the era of streaming success, what can you do beyond what you are doing to get streaming services to treat songwriters more fairly?

It’s complicated. Because a stream is a blended rate between a mechanical and a performance, ASCAP, BMI, all the publishers have to continue to fight the fight, because of those complications. Sadly it is the middle class of writers — the album cut writers — that are struggling. Hit writers are doing fine.

I suppose this question is generational: What are you saying to newer, younger talent such as Ariana Grande and Nick Jonas about where their careers should go in regard to publishing, as opposed to legacy artists such as Springsteen and Paul Simon?

With the legacy artists, it’s about sustaining that legacy but finding new ways of having their music introduced to new audiences. So my pitch to Barry Gibb is different than my pitch to Ariana Grande. Not only are we making sure we are collecting every penny for you, we have people around the world who are thinking of new creative ideas for you and your songs. You have to fight for spots in television and film. Is there someplace your song should be? You know Samantha Gongol from Philadelphia?

Yes, she’s part of Marian Hill. They had that Apple ad with “Down.”

Apple AirPods. That is how people know that song. It was my team that pitched that song to Apple. You can’t assume that people are going to find you on Spotify. It is my people’s job to help find your songs a place. I also tell young artists that you want a company that is there when the chips are down because it is cyclical out here. Things are not always so good.

Talking about young Philly, you just signed Tierra Whack. Considering she comes from an experimental hip hop lace, how do you see her sell-ability?

I love her so much that I can’t even take it. It doesn’t have to be an artist who has a hit song on the radio. She’s culturally defining, she’s bold. She could be a director. She could do an animated movie She’s gonna do her thing and we’re going to support her. We’re going to introduce her to film studios and television executives. She’s going to have ideas about creating art, be it audio or video … I just started an organization with Alicia Keys called She is the Music about creating opportunities for women in a male-dominated business. We’re supporting our sisters to have success, their own place in the business. Tierra is going to be really important there, to that vision.

What is your take on artists who want to own their publishing?

It is about this: Is a song more valuable sitting in your hard drive or because you have a team behind it adding value? If you have the wherewithal to license your music, to go collect the monies owed on your own, to do all of the administration while you’re creating it and performing it on the road — all the power to you. If you find the right person who you believe will add value to your song, I would want my song heard, licensed and paid for all over the world. That said, many artists own their songs. The days of other people owning your IP forever may be over.

You’re forever in Los Angeles now. What of Philly is left in you?

EVERYTHING. My childhood, both good and bad, formed me. I’m a Philly girl. It is what I hear and what I experienced being a Philly girl defines me.

  • A.D. Amarosi's Headshot

    A.D. Amorosi is a Philadelphia-based journalist who, along with Philadelphia Weekly, writes for numerous local, national and international publications including Variety and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Enjoying this article?Consider joining AltPhilly, an exclusive community with access to members-only digital content and more.<|endoftext|>Apollo and rocky relationship

Creed refresher: Everything you need to know about Apollo Creed | jingle-bells.info

apollo and rocky relationship

Assuming both Rocky and Apollo are taking the fight seriously, Rocky wins because, at this stage in their rivalry, he's both physically and mentally superior. Somewhere in the relationship there had been a rocky period, and Apollo had a relationship with another woman, and out of that relationship. But just in case you didn't watch all the way through Rocky IV, or if you need a brief refresher on Apollo Creed before meeting his son, we're.

Creed last line in the film: The result was not revealed until the film Creedin which Rocky tells Apollo's son that Apollo won this fight. Rocky IV[ edit ] InApollo 43 years oldcomes out of a five-year retirement to fight mammoth Soviet Olympic boxer Ivan Dragowho has come to the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union to enter the world of professional boxing.

Highlighted by a pre-match rendition of " Living in America " by James BrownApollo enters the arena from a descending scaffold overhead, dancing to the music in his old red, white, and blue Uncle Sam outfit. With Rocky, Duke, and Paulie in his corner, Apollo is overly confident that he can dispense of Drago with ease. However, Apollo is not ready for the extreme size and strength of the Russian. After taunting the Russian and landing a number of ineffectual punches, Creed is pummeled badly in the first round.

Rocky wants to stop the fight but Apollo refuses. Apollo adamantly tells Rocky not to stop the fight "no matter what Rocky again tries to stop the fight by throwing in the towel. Apollo tells Rocky not to stop the fight, giving Drago a chance to deliver a fatal blow as Rocky drops the towel causing the fight to stop to Apollo, who dies in Rocky's arms in the middle of the ring.

Drago wins by technical knockout. An enraged Rocky then sets out to avenge Apollo's death by beating Drago in the Soviet Unionwith the Soviet premier and the Politb


 will be the perfect comedy relief in the middle of a summer packed with sci-fi. Watch the hilarious first teaser.

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel
Expected in June

"He was convinced that the world wasn't ready..." Not many realize yet just how sci-fi this movie is going to be, exploring some of Krypton and how that world parallels Earth. Plus, the plot involves an alien with super powers being raised by Americans. The villains will be even more aliens, lead by General Zod and Faora (both wearing some kick ass sci-fi armor), who come to our planet with nefarious plans and weaponry. This movie may be set on contemporary Earth as we know it, but touches upon the questions of how we would deal with such sci-fi events if they were to actually happen. I've got a good feeling Zack Snyder (of 300, Watchmen) has totally reinvented himself for Man of Steel, and chose wisely with Henry Cavill as Kal-El.

Marc Forster's World War Z
Expected in June

Zombies everywhere in a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by zombies. While it may not be as good as Max Brooks' book that it's based on, the World War Z movie we're getting this summer from director Marc Forster (of Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction, Quantum of Solace) at least looks like it will have a shitload of zombies. Brad Pitt stars in what seems to be the biggest zombie movie ever, with invasions the size of cities, but will it live up to "The Walking Dead"? Get a glimpse of the undead chaos in the new trailer.

Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim
Expected in July

"Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!" This isn't even out yet, and that quote has pretty much achieved legendary status already. Spoken by Idris Elba, that line represents just how epic of a monster movie this will be, but I'm sure we're still going to lose our minds once we actually watch it. Guillermo del Toro (of Cronos, Blade II, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) pretty much went all out with this, bringing us monsters the size of skyscrapers and human-driven robots to match them. Sci-fi as its grandest, with everything realized to insanely epic detail and crafted to exhilarate our geekiest sci-fi inhibitions. Bring on the Kaiju and Jaeger!

Neill Blomkamp's Elysium (+ Chappie)
Expected in August

From the visionary filmmaker who brought us District 9 comes his second feature film, Elysium, another action science fiction story involving a futuristic society still divided by classes. Neill Blomkamp filmed Elysium starring Matt Damon last year, and was planning to have it out in theaters by now, but pushed it back until August. In the meantime, he's developing his third film, Chappie, a sci-fi comedy (but that's all anyone knows about the plot so far). Blomkamp is clearly one of the leading voices in science fiction cinema right now, and there's no question that he's likely to push the genre even further with these next two movies.

Edgar Wright's The World's End
Expected in August

Another apocalypse comedy, similar to This is The End above, that busts its way into sci-fi thanks to that angle. Edgar Wright (of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim) deserves to be on here anyway for supporting Attack the Block, but The World's End is sci-fi anyway. The story is about five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier, but unwittingly become humankind's only hope for survival when the apocalypse arrives. Both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost will be back, as this is the final film in their Cornetto Trilogy. The World's End has been described by Wright as "social science-fiction", which is a whole subgenre of its own and one that will evolve in this era thanks these kind of films.

David Twohy's Riddick
Expected in September

Everyone's favorite Furyan badass is back. One of my own personal favorite sci-fi films is Pitch Black from 2001, even though I didn't care much for the sequel. Now director David Twohy and star Vin Diesel are taking things back to those Pitch Black roots, with an R-rated sci-fi featuring Riddick once again stuck on a planet with some nasty ass alien creatures. Even though they haven't changed the title from only Riddick, based on the first teaser just revealed and all the enthusiasm Vin Diesel has for the project, this might be the awesome follow-up all the Pitch Black fans have been waiting for. "You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity
Expected in October

From the filmmaker who gave us Children of Men, one of the best sci-fi movies of this last decade, comes another original story set entirely in space. Alfonso Cuaron (Great Expectations, Y Tu Mamá También, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) writes & directs this highly ambitious, highly anticipated sci-fi drama starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts left drifting aimlessly in space after a catastrophic collision. From everything we've heard about it, including hyperbolic early buzz, it could be one of the most groundbreaking sci-fi movies of this new era, but Warner Bros has been playing things close to their chest, delaying it from a late 2012 release until late 2013 and upgrading to IMAX 3D in the meantime.

Gavin Hood's Ender's Game
Expected in November

Remember - the enemy's gate is down. This might just be our most anticipated sci-fi movie of 2013. Adapted from Orson Scott Card's 1985 sci-fi novel, it's about a very young soldier being trained at the International Fleet's battle school. Ender's Game has Gavin Hood (of Tsotsi, Rendition, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), who has been developing it for years, writing & directing along with Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley as Col. Graff and Mazer Rackham, respectively. Asa Butterfield plays Ender Wiggin, with Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin and Viola Davis all in the cast. We haven't seen too much yet, but I've heard nothing but amazing things about how it's turning out so far, and I've got a good feeling it might just live up to the book.

Joon-ho Bong's Snowpiercer
Expected in 2013

An ensemble post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller set in the future during an ice age, that takes place entirely on a massive train carrying the last human survivors still divided by social class. From the director of Memories of Murder and The Host comes Joon-ho Bong's first sci-fi film - Snowpiercer. Everything we've heard following this project for years makes it sound like it will be one of the most thought-provoking and unique sci-fi films about humanity, with an incredible international cast, too. I'm very anxious to see this already.

Richard Curtis' About Time
Expected in 2013

Even British director Richard Curtis, of Love Actually and Pirate Radio, is venturing into sci-fi. His next movie is called About Time about a time traveling young man named Tim, played by Domhnall Gleeson (Brendan Gleeson's son, seen in both Deathly Hallows). Rachel McAdams stars as his love interest (in her second time traveling romance following The Time Traveler's Wife) but after they meet, an unfortunate time-travel incident means he's never met her at all. Tim learns he can relive any moment in his life to try things differently until he gets them perfectly right and we're off from there. Curtis is a talented storyteller and I'm curious to see what he does with a concept like this. The film is shot and ready for release in 2013.

Alan Taylor's Thor: The Dark World
Expected in 2013

While this is a comic book movie, the cosmic setting makes it a worthy sci-fi crossover. At the helm is "Game of Thrones" director Alan Taylor making his feature debut, with Chris Hemsworth returning as Thor up against the evil Dark Elves of Svartalfheim. This is mostly comic book fantasy, but I love the cosmic universe Kenneth Branagh established with Thor in 2011, with the very mystical feeling traveling between worlds. I hope we see them expand upon that, but with Marvel's Phase 2 kicking off in 2013, I have no doubt they will.

Francis Lawrence's Hunger Games: Catching Fire (+ Mockingjay 1 and 2)
Expected in 2013 (+ 2014/2015)

The World Will Be Watching... From the beginning all the way to the very end. It was Francis Lawrence (of Constantine, I Am Legend, Water for Elephants) who landed the job of directing not one, but all three of the remaining The Hunger Games sequels (yes they're splitting the last book), based on the book series by Suzanne Collins. Up first is Catching Fire, already being shot and prepared for release in November of 2013. The sequel picks up where the first movie left off, in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi world centered around the annual Hunger Games event. Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence returns as Katniss, along with Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, and a massive ensemble cast. I actually loved the first one and can't wait for the rest.

Sebastián Cordero's Europa Report
Expected in 2013

This sci-fi project came out of nowhere, but has a hell of a


.

And that's not what she wanted for her wedding day at all.

She wanted to be the most beautiful maiden in all the land..... she wanted to outshine everyone, so that no one would stand a chance in trying to seduce her husband later on.

Right now, she looked like her regular gorgeous self, so where was the magic?

Didn't they all say that wearing a wedding gown would make one look like a goddess.

Right now, she looked like a stunning Mortal maiden... but who the heck wanted to look like that?

She wanted to rival even her ancestors who were now gods, so how could she be pleased with this kind of crappy work?

To be fair, it was the mirrors fault and not the tailors.

Since these people didn't have glass mirrors, they polished flat silver or even copper and gold surfaces, to make mirrors.

These sort of mirrors could only reflect light by 20 to 30%... So the image on the mirror wasn't exactly clear, and didn't really show the real beauty of the person.

"Shut up!!!!!!

Excuses, excuses... that's all you know how to do.

Are you saying that I, the first princess of Arcadina, is blind?!!!!

Are you saying that my eyes are deceiving me?

I've told you that I don't like it, so stop making excuses for your work!!!" Jenette yelled.

"Didn't you just hear what she said?Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.

my friend here said that you should fix it up... so just do your job!!!

Why are you even a royal tailor if you can't even sew properly?"

Standing beside Jenette was her long time friend, Barbara Salazar.

Barbara came from one of the high class noble families, and had been friends with Jenette ever since she was 10 years old.

Barbara was more like a lackey that followed Jenette everywhere she went.

If someone bullied Jenette, Barbara would be the first one to attack or plan the person's demise.

"Listen carefully, I want the waist a little tighter, the breast line a little lower, and the slit a little wider!!" Jenette commanded.

"B...but.. my princess, wouldn't that be too shameful?

People who were those clothes are typically seen as...as.... "

"Are you trying to say that I'm a harlot?"

"No no no..my princess... all I'm trying to say is that..."

"Shut up and do what I say!!!" Jennette yelled back at the tailor.

"Y....yes....yes yes my princess.. I... I will personally adjust it once I leave .

This.. this time, it will be perfect." The tailored reassured while bowing several times.

"A princess threatening a poor defenseless worker?... how fascinating.."

Jenette and everyone in the room turned towards the door, and saw the devil herself walking towards them.

Angelina Dwight!!<|endoftext|>Ethical kids clothing company Frugi to launch rental collaboration

Ethical kids clothing company Frugi is the latest high street name to tap into consumer demand for rent rather than buy clothes.

The upmarket Cornish brand has joined forces with new children’s clothing rental service thelittleloop – one of a growing number of firms serving growing consumer appetite for more sustainable wardrobe choices.

The fashion industry is under growing pressure to change its business model, 和 PrimarkAsos recently announcing plans to overhaul their supply chains to make them greener. The initiatives reflect growing concern about the environmental harm it causes with an estimated 300,000 tonnes of clothing waste going to UK landfill every year.

Thelittleloop is based on the idea that keeping kids’ clothing in circulation is the best way to reduce its environmental footprint. Starting at £18 a month, subscribers use credits to borrow clothes that can be returned when they have been outgrown.

Charlotte Morley, a former executive at retail website notonthehighstreet, who started the business while on maternity leave last year, said thelittleloop was about more than assuaging the “guilt of fast fashion” and aimed to support brands “going above and beyond” to make ethical and durable children’s clothing.

“Their [Frugi] clothes are such incredible quality that they work perfectly for rental,” said Morley. “We hope we can help even more people than before access these ethically produced garments for their children instead of resorting to the high street.”

Morley described fashion retail as a “broken system” that encourages people to “keep buying cheap and new, spewing clothing out in ever greater quantities”. She said she wanted to buy ethical clothing for her children “but couldn’t justify the cost” with selling clothes on afterwards a time-consuming hassle.

The fashion brands involved in thelittleloop, which also include Kite and Polarn O. Pyret, still own the clothes and receive a share of the rental revenue. They also share the responsibility for the lifespan of the garments.

Although Frugi, which is famous for its colourful prints and appliqué designs, is more expensive than many other high street brands, its chief executive Sarah Clark said the high-quality fabric used means the clothes last longer.

“Using organic cotton, which is more durable, means our clothes are made to last, and thelittleloop is helping us to further extend the lifespan of these clothes,“ 她说.

“We believe if you are buying something for £3 in a supermarket it has a different level of durability.”

Renting clothes is billed as a sustainable and frugal alternative to fast fashion for women in particular. It has been popularised by firms such as Rent the Runway and public figures such as Carrie 约翰逊, who rented her wedding dress and her outfits for the G7 conference.

The growing sector, which according to GlobalData is going to be worth £2.3bn by 2029, has been touted as a possible solution to fashion’s environmental crisis. A report by the World Economic Forum this year suggested the industry generates 5% of global emissions.

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1 CT. T.W. Oval Black Enhanced Diamond Solitaire Stud Earrings in 10K Gold<|endoftext|>Rousteing gives one-off Gaultier couture display in Paris

Jul 5, 2022, 7:05 PM | Updated: Jul 6, 2022, 2:49 pm

A model, left, wears a creation for Franck Sorbier's Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2022-2023 fashion collection presented Wednesday, July 6, 2022 in Paris. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

(AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

PARIS (AP) — An enfant terrible appeared in a new guise on Wednesday as designer Olivier Rousteing of Balmain took a one-off shot at a couture collection for the house of Jean Paul Gaultier.

Such was the excitement surrounding the event that roads were blocked and security stretched over 100 yards, tangling traffic in all directions. The show was fashionably late. That may have had something to do with Kim Kardashian. She arrived tardily with her daughter North West in outfits referencing the 1992 heyday of Madonna and Gaultier, who sat in the front row sipping champagne and laughing almost all the way through.

Here are some highlights of the fall-winter 2022 couture collections:

Taking the codes of Gaultier — such as structured tailoring, Breton striped nautical tops and the conical bra — Rousteing let his hair down on Wednesday for an infectious and tongue-in-cheek fashion homage to Jean Paul Gaultier, who retired from couture in 2020 after a 50-year runway career.

It was all about the quirk. Rousteing took Gaultier’s torso-shaped perfume bottle “Le Male,” which features a metal strap under the nozzle — and turned it into several looks. Garnering applause from the enthusiastic audience, one model strutted forth with a metal choker, striped glass top and tin micro mini. Elsewhere the famed pinstriped menswear tuxedo jacket, with voluminous proportions, was reimagined beneath a body-shaped corset.

There were genuinely touching moments, such as when two models walked together in pregnant conical bra looks in black and flesh, touching their bellies. That was seen as a political statement supporting lesbians having medically assisted reproduction, something the French parliament allowed last year.

Beyond homage, this couture was definitely very Rousteing. He fused his personal styles upon the Gaultier house codes and many of the styles — flowing capes, caps and layering — captured ones seen before on the Balmain runway.

In purely aesthetic terms, many of the looks veered off into pastiche or costume. Nobody seemed to mind.

A blond Kardashian and daughter spurred a dazzle of paparazzi snaps walking up the stone steps of central Paris’ Gaultier HQ dressed in the image of Madonna when she controversially appeared — with exposed breasts — with Jean Paul Gaultier at a 1992 amfAR fundraiser in Los Angeles, California.

The styling was flawless in this homage, in which Kardashian channeled the pinstriped Gaultier dress that at the time spawned headlines around the world. Kardashian’s version here was more tame, with skin-colored inserts. West wore a waistcoat, like the couturier did as he held hands with his