#article summary

A thorough 8,500-character report on their final live before cold sleep

Redemption for 5 years ago with “GAME”

Their largest ever “FUSION”, spanning over 50 meters

Recreating 15 years ago with “Perfume no Okite”

The conclusion of “Nebula Romance”

A rapid-fire killer tune remix medley

RОJ January ‘00

- The biggest catalyst for the formation of the band with its current members is the fact that they were all in basketball club together. More specifically it was that they all sucked at basketball equally hard enough to be sent outside, just the four of them, where they spent hours each week after school making dams and capturing frogs. Apparently the band was less a direct result of that time and more a natural extension of it.

- Even though electric guitars/playing guitar were popular among the student body, Bump was the first student band, which is why they had to persuade the school to let them play at the cultural festival. - When the news spread that they were in a band/going to play, everyone told them that they were lame. They were proven wrong.

- There was a girl they called Pokiiru who was typically very serious (the vice president of the student council), but even she was enjoying herself (Fujiwara seems to take a little bit of pride in this).

- At this point Masukawa wasn’t in the band yet. When he did join it was because they were all friends and it felt weird to have the three of them involved with one left out.

- When they were high school age and they started playing gigs, they didn’t know where was good to play at so they ended up in some weird (unspecified) places. - They always paired up play with work. A live and then a game of cards; a live and then a game of kick-the-can. As a result they didn’t feel too beat down. - Fujiwara says that writing and playing songs is like alcohol or cigarettes in that once he tried it and liked it, he couldn’t stop. He says it’s a form of self-indulgence. - When he was 18 and wrote “Arue,” Fujiwara really wanted to marry Ayanami Rei. At 20, he seems a little embarassed about it. - Fujiwara thinks that because his songs have fairy tale-like or fantastical components to them, that he must want that kind of thing deep down. He says he wants a dandelion hill; he wants to be able to talk to his pet cat; he can’t give up on these things and that’s why they manifest in songs. - There was an (unspecified) incident involving a knife at (one of Fujiwara’s?) school. He didn’t intend it at the time but looking back he says that the song “Knife” is heavily related to it. Fujiwara says that the incident was morally condemnable, but on the other hand he thinks the perpetrator had no other way of expressing himself than with a knife. 

Оngaku tо Hitо November ‘01

The whole article is worth reading but here are some key breakouts:

Mason, TN is 153 years old, "largely African-American, majority Democratic"

ceding its town charter would subsume its people under the governance of the mostly white, mostly Republican county it's located in

The Ford plant slated to open just 5 miles down the street from Mason was landed by state officials offering nearly $1 billion in incentives

The state comptroller claims "Mason's leadership is ill-equipped to manage the challenges, and opportunities, ahead", stating "I’m not sure there’s a full understanding of operating a town[.]"

In support of his claims, Mumpower cites more than a decades' worth of severe mismanagement by WHITE city officials, all of whom resigned in 2016, some were indicted

Mason's current majority Black city leadership takes nominal pay ($1,100/month for six officials, or an average of just $183.3/month per city leader). Mason's majority Black residents pay the highest property taxes in the county, to keep their city hall running

Mason's current majority Black city leadership have made significant strides recovering from the financial ruin the town's former white officials handed them: "[b]etween 2004 and 2016, Mason’s financials were in such disarray they were “unauditable.”" Yet, since 2019, "city finance officials have completed five of its past-due financial audits. By the end of this year, they expect to be caught up."

In short, the mostly Black residents of Mason have long been systemically economically and politically disenfranchised by white local and state officials. The residents pay higher property taxes than others in the same county because for decades white city officials siphoned away money meant to pay for crucial city services.

The state handed out serious incentives (to the tune of nearly $1 billion, funded by taxpayers) to sweeten the deal for Ford, a corporation they courted. Once they realized the jobs, people, and tax money Ford will bring in return benefited a majority Black town, the state sought to absorb said town.

When Black elected officials took over city leadership, they had to undo significant damage for... immaterial pay. To force Mason to relinquish its town charter, Mumpower offers the "alternative" that Mason subjects itself to monitoring by his office, which would include requiring explicit approval for any expenditure over $100.

This week we’ll be reading this review article by Weaver et al. 2004Please read the article closely, answer the following questions (save your answers in a Word document and the copy and paste them here): Provide the full reference to this article using this format: Author 1 Last Name, First name initials; Author 2 Last Name, First name initials, (Year of publication). Article title. Journal…