#ethan smith

The fnaf kick continues with the glamrocks who I still love and my favorite duo ever.

It’s offical, rewriting Fritz and fright is on the wip list.

In my defense it’s an easier one I’m not changing the plot structure majorly in just adding a thematic cohesion I think I missed and just bringing the fic up to my more modern writing standards.

And also just adding proper character arcs for Ethan and uh… some of the phantoms I guess.

For example: in this rewrite I’d want Ethan to be a smoker. Thematically it adds to his character quirk of not reallt caring about is life.

But he’s still kind, and is that blaze with his personal safety to be down to helpign ghosts.

Because he’s also kind.

AFTERSUN (Charlotte Wells, 2022)

Caroline Records is releasing "The Supreme Collection Volume 1" from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party on August 26, featuring liner notes written for this collection by Jeff Buckley in 1996.

In his notes, Buckley writes: "The first time I heard the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was in Harlem, 1990. My roommate and I stood there, blasting it in his room. We were all awash in the thick undulating tide of dark punjabi tabla rhythms, spiked with synchronized handclaps booming from above and below in hard, perfect time. I heard the clarion call of harmoniums dancing the antique melody around like giant, singing wooden spiders. Then, all of a sudden, the rising of one, then ten voices hovering over the tonic like a flock of geese ascending into formation across the sky. Then came the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Part Buddha, part demon, part mad angel... his voice is velvet fire, simply incomparable. Nusrat's blending of classical improvisations to the art of Qawwali, combined with his out and out daredevil style and his sensitivity, outs him in a category all his own, above all others in his field.... For the true Qawwali, all meanings of the music exist simultaneously and there is no need of purpose for religious dogma. There is only the pilgrimage to the light within the heart, which is the home of God. There is only a pure devotion and a fierce virtuosity to grow wings and soar through music. To plant a kiss on the eyes of Allah and then sing His loving gaze back into the hearts of Man."

In the wake of Buckley's recent tragic death by drowning, Caroline has dedicated this collection to his memory.

Nusart Fateh Ali Khan's "The Supreme Collection Volume 1"

THE COMPLETE LINER NOTES:

"The first time I heard the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was in Harlem, 1990. My roommate and I stood there, blasting it in his room. We were all awash in the thick undulating tide of dark punjabi tabla rhythyms, spiked with synchronized handclaps booming from above and below in hard, perfect time.

I heard the clarion call of harmoniums dancing the antique melody around like giant, singing wooden spiders. Then all of a sudden, the rising of one, then ten voices hovering over the tonic like a flock of geese ascending into formation across the sky.

Then came the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Part Buddha, part demon, part mad angel...his voice is velvet fire, simply incomparable. Nusrat's blending of classical improvisations to the art of Qawwali, combined with his out and out daredevil style and his sensitivity, outs him in a category all his own, above all others in his field.

His every enunciation went straight into me. I knew not one word of Urdu, and somehow it still hooked me into the story that he weaved with his wordless voice. I remember my senses fully froze in order to feel melody after melody crash upon each other in waves of improvisation; with each line being repeated by the men in the chorus, restated again by the main soloists, and then Nusrat setting the whole bloody thing alflame with his rapid-fire scatting, turning classical Indian Solfeggio (Sa, Re, Gha, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni) into a chaotic/manic birdsong. The phrase burst into a climax somewhere, with Nusrat's upper register painting a melody that made my heart long to fly. The piece went on for fifteen minutes. I ate my heart out. My roommate just looked at me knowingly, muttering, "Nusrat...Fa-teh...A-li...Khaaan," like he had just scored the wine of the century. I felt a rush of adrenaline in my chest, like I was on the edge of a cliff, wondering when I would jump and how well the ocean would catch me: two questions that would never be answered until I experienced the first leap.

That is the sensation and the character of Qawwali music, the music of the Sufis, as best I can describe it.

In between the world of the flesh and the world of the spirit is the void. The Qawwali is the messenger who leaps empty-handed into the abyss and returns carrying messages of love from the Beloved (Allah). These messages have no words, per se, but at the high point of a Qawwali performance, they come in bursts of light into the hearts and minds of the members of the audience. (Of course, by that time the whole house is either hanging from the rafters, or dancing.) This is called Marifat, the inner knowledge, and it is in the aim of the Qawwali tradition to bring the listener into this state: first through the beauty of the poetry and the weight of its meaning; then, eventually, through the Qawwali's use of repetition; repeating the key phrases of the poem until the meaning has melted away to reveal the true form to the listener. I've seen Nusrat and his party repeatedly melt New Yorkers into human beings. At times I've seen him in such a trance while singing that I am sure that the world does not exist for him any longer. The effect it has is gorgeous. These men do not play music, they are music itself.

The texts from which traditional Qawwals are sung come from the works of the great sufi poets: Bulle Shah (1680-1753), Shams Tabrez (d. 1247), Shah Hussain (1538-1599), and the great Sufi poet and scholar, Amir Khusrav (1253-1325), who was the inventor of Qawwali itself. These texts are devotional, of course, meaning poems of worship for Allah (Hamd) and the prophet Muhammad (N'ati-Sharif). There are also love poems (ghazals), where a more secular romantic interplay is happening between man and woman (which I can dig). The Qawwali's, however, see ghazals as a metaphor between Man and the Divine. They don't care about which meaning was derived from where. In the true Sufi way, through their music, any meaning that is needed by the listener is there for the listener to absorb. For the true Qawwali, all meanings of the music exist simutaneously and there is no need of purpose for religious dogma. There is only the pilgrimage to the light within the heart, which is the home of God. There is only a pure devotion and a fierce virtuosity to grow wings and soar through music. To plant a kiss on the eyes of Allah and then sing His loving gaze back home into the hearts of Man."

Source: Jeff Buckley, New York, 1997

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Christmas is coming. I like to see how my ocs will do in this holiday 

Aiden is very cheerful during the holiday. He delights to see his children helping decorating the Christmas Tree. Brenda asks Chase on what he likes for Christmas. He replies that Santa will bring his present and its secret.

Happy birthday, March 8th! It’s 2020 for you today, but for me it’s still 2019! How are you doing? It's been a whole year since the first March 8th you’ve shared with happy-birthday-letters. I'm writing this from waaaay back then, if you can believe it! I wonder what you're doing now? Well, whatever it is, I just kinda feel like sharing a little bit of the past with you now.

When I first thought of this idea, months before I made this blog, I was actually inspired by Violet Evergarden, you know? And that short bit in Doctor Who, “Time Crash”, where the 5th Doctor met the 10th? And, finally, Ethan Smith’s "A Letter to the Girl I Used to Be". I dunno, I just thought the idea of writing letters to your future self, or your past, or people who are gone from you, was just... really something, you know?

There’s something about the feeling of trying to transfer wisdom up and down the years.

I thought about writing 70 years of birthday letters right then and there, three different times over the years! But I didn't; it seemed a very daunting prospect. Then, some time later, a year ago for you, I was planning for the future in a different way (future gacha rolls in Fate Grand Order, actually, and things I could do on Tumblr during lunch at work that didn't involve logging in on main using the company internet) and just... felt that now was the time! Made the blog, wrote the first post, and then decided to write this one too! I'm actually writing part of it on the phone while at the store, eheh.

How are you, March 8th? I hope you're doing well. It snowed a bit today, and rained later, and now it’s sunny and bright. Still cool, though, and still beautiful. I’ve got back home now, and our dear dog is sleeping in my lap, warm and content. How’s the weather when you are? Where you are? How is everyone? How are you?

On behalf of the past that’s now far behind you, I hope you’re well. I hope all of you are well. I hope the stars are still bright for you, and the world warm. There’s so much out there, beyond the reaches of today, and isn’t that just a little bit exciting? There are so many things that begin, and yes, end, each and every day, even if we don’t know about them- but still, they are there.

It’s the first day of the rest of everything, for all of us. And hey- even if it wasn’t the best day in the world, or the best month, or the best year, it was still a day, a month, a year in the world. That’s a pretty neat thing, yeah?