Band Review: Lampano Alley

There were four bands total that I wanted to cover from the Touré article in Smithsonian. There were enough songs available via online sources that I didn't have any trouble with Terrie Odabi or Redd Velvet. It was harder to find content for Darrell Christopher and the Ingredients and Lampano Alley. I wasn't sure that I could.

As it is, Lampano Alley - while apparently not having their own Youtube channel - can be seen in  a lot of videos. The sound quality is not always ideal, but I am going for it. That not only means that I can review one band, but it may open some doors for other bands.

Lampano Alley is a blues band from the Philippines - "Asia's blues band", they say, and they may be right. There are a couple of things that come through clearly in favor of that title.

One is that they do bring the blues. It is there in the harmonica and bass and the clash of the cymbals and the growl of singer Binky Lampano's voice. They are not from Beale Street, but they fit right in when there.

Another justification for the title is that in addition to bringing the blues they seem dedicated to bringing other people along. If there are other musicians at the show, or someone wanting to learn, just based on the videos I have seen they are very encouraging and helpful with that. Some bands become known for the other bands they inspire, and that could be the case here. There is already at least one other band that I want to check out in the future, Chillitees, after finding music they have done with Lampano.

I focused mainly on complete shows, but some fans have put up individual songs as well. One of my favorites so far has been "Ganyan Lang", a slow and soulful lament. There is a good funk on "I've Got the Blues to Keep Me Warm".

Years of experience and planning have gone into this band, and there are good results.

https://www.facebook.com/Lampano-Alley-109290131763/

https://twitter.com/lampano_alley

Band Review: Dead Swords

Dead Swords is an ambient band from New Jersey, started by Alex Rosamilia of The Gaslight Anthem and Corey Perez of I Am the Avalance (plus at least one more band each). I came to the band because of Rosamilia.

I was not sure what to make of them at first. There is a beauty to the music, but it is combined with a brutal harshness, living up to genre labels like "doom" and "drone". "Interlude 03" is crushing.

I began to see a context when I looked at their Facebook story.

"Listening to Dead Swords is like being lost in the loneliest darkness. Theirs is a world of overwhelming static and feedback, or eternities-long melancholy, of the purest beauty shrouded and obscured by the blackest night."

That confirmed that it was intentional, though I wasn't really sure that it was for me.

As luck would have it, I am posting their review on a day when an abomination of a president signs an executive order that refers to freedom to deprive others as religious freedom and the House is celebrating putting healthcare out of the reach of millions by bringing in beer.

If there is ever a time when it is necessary to have music that can accompany you through chilling darkness and wring some beauty out of the void, this would appear to be that time.

Thank you Dead Swords.

https://deadswords.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/deadswordsnj/

https://twitter.com/dead_swords

Conspired

A scant two and a half months since writing about getting sidetracked from some reading plans by other reading plans, it happened again. This time I have kind of finished though. I should back up.

I already wrote that a reference to The Obesity Myth sent me to The Panic Virus. What I could not write at that time because I did not yet know is that it was also going to send me to Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch, and also Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos. (That one wasn't as productive.)

A lot of it was interesting anyway, but the overall theme became how much people will believe things that are wrong. Sometimes there are bad actors involved, like Andrew Wakefield. He was on the take, he lied, he used bad research methods and ignored ethical standards; that coming to light doesn't seem to have changed anyone's minds about vaccination. Of course there were people who worried about vaccines before, but he widened the field and caused real harm.

The intentions aren't always terrible. One of the conspiracy theories that was covered was the death of Princess Diana. Belief in a conspiracy (beyond the apparent difficulty in believing that bad things can happen to beautiful and beloved people) was partly driven by Mohamed al-Fayed, Dodi Fayed's father. I understood his obsession to be at least partially fueled by grief, and I can feel compassion for that.

I also suspect some of the fuel came from extreme wealth, where you feel like you should be able to be in control of things. More may come from guilt, where the family organization's business practices kept someone employed who would drink while on driving duty. I can understand wanting anyone else to bear the blame, but at some point it becomes irresponsible.

The point of Innumeracy was that poor understanding of math makes people more susceptible to being misled, which was a valid point. (Unfortunately, I don't think the execution of getting people more numerate was particularly effective.) Certainly there are people who skew facts intentionally, and there are things that seem more memorable, especially based on what we already know. Sometimes it is just advertising because someone wants money.

That is why I found this article so fascinating:

https://psmag.com/how-to-debunk-myths-about-autism-686de125e618

It leads into this whole other idea of how you get information known, and studying folklore as a way of doing it.

And those aren't easy answers. It feels like that if you have good science and know things, you should be able to tell people and they will get it and we will all move forward based on fact. There is no evidence of that.

We can wring hands about it (which feels appropriate) and talk about improving schools (which is definitely appropriate, though there is disagreement about what that entails), but it won't necessarily be effective. People are good at ignoring facts. That really comes through hard in Voodoo Histories.

There are no answers in this post, though there may be beginnings of answers. It is still something that I find interesting, and something that reminds me that there is hope. I have seen effective techniques for cementing disinformation in minds, but it isn't all there is.

It can't be.

Related posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/02/when-reading-lists-collide.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/03/sidetracked-by-books-again.html

Misapplication

I read a lot more than I post, and more than it would be practical to bookmark. It is inevitable that sometimes I will want to find something and not remember where I saw it or how to get back. Even if I never find what I originally intended, the search results can be interesting.

I was not looking for this story the other week, but I found it:

http://nypost.com/2015/01/16/i-gained-43-pounds-to-prove-obese-people-are-lazy/

I may vaguely remember reading something about her before, probably with someone else reacting to the article. Reading it so soon after reading The Obesity Myth put her experience in a new light.

She had to work very hard to change her body's natural shape. It consumed her, affected relationships, hampered other activities and made her miserable. Once she stopped fighting it, her body went quickly back toward her original point. Despite that, she did end up heavier overall (by about 6-12 pounds, depending on when you ask), and her body still does not completely meet the wishes of those around her, though they thought she was too thin.

That is exactly what Paul Campos would have predicted. If Hopkins were to try it again, she would find her weight creeping up each time. Of course, there is no reason for her to try that. She is naturally slim.

The really notable thing about that is that even though she says she has new understanding, she misunderstands. Yes, listening to her body and doing what came more naturally to her worked for her, because that's her body type. It happened to correspond to losing weight, but it doesn't work that way for everyone.

I was able to find something else I remembered from a few years ago:

http://www.celebitchy.com/393855/twiggy_interview_obesity_is_a_tragedy_its_so_much_easier_to_buy_rubbish/

Twiggy knows that she was incapable of putting on weight, no matter how much people criticized her thinness (despite it also being quite lucrative), but is still sure that obesity is the result of bad choices.

I suppose there is a segment of the population who sees a body like mine and imagines that I live a life like Hopkins did when she was trying to gain weight: thirteen meals a day and not able to move. That does make it seem ironic that when I am out walking by myself I get catcalls, or that a heavier person at the gym might have people snapping photos and making snide comments on Instagram - this is your fault but trying to change it will be mocked.

There is probably something about human nature worth exploring there, and I may get to that later. Currently it seems more important to take a look at Susan Estrich.

Estrich was also featured in The Obesity Myth. She has an impressive resume, having been the campaign manager for Michael Dukakis and a law clerk for US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Before that she was the first female president/editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review.

Despite that, she says her proudest accomplishment was going down from a size 12 to a size 6 (sometimes a 4). As part of that, she had to focus to a point where she could not do those other things. She had to be miserable and food-obsessed to do it. And I guess she did find it was worth it, but how much of that is because society told her that's how she should be? Size 12 sounds pretty good to me.

Here's something else that's really old:

http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html

There were a lot of interesting ideas, though I didn't agree with all of them, but the one I always come back to is that nerds can't be popular because they care too much about other things. In an environment where maintaining the right level of cool detachment takes complete effort, kids who also care about anything else can't achieve it.

I care about a lot of things. They come up in the blog all the time. I care about books and comics and music and animals and gardening and politics and so many things. Mainly I care about people, which has its downsides, but is still often rewarding.

Yesterday I admitted that I want to be thin, and I have wanted that for a long time, even back when it wasn't quite so far away. I did not grasp the total dedication it would take then, though in retrospect it makes sense given the lack of payoff for some pretty good efforts.

There may be some sense of absolution now in looking back and seeing how the odds were stacked. There is a greater sense of how good health is not out of reach, but is in fact more attainable once you stop conflating it with thinness.

Most of all, I have to acknowledge that I can't want it as much as I want everything else. I can't want thinness as much as I want knowledge and friendship and peace of mind.

I know some people will judge me for my size, and others won't, but in my judgment of myself there are too many things more important than that number on the scale.

Absolute honesty

I am copying something from my journal from December:

As much as I do want to be healthy, and know that I need to be okay with who I am inside, and even for having made a fair amount of peace with being bigger, and knowing also that I am old and possibly will not get married until the Millennium, and technically knowing that people who do not fit standard beauty requirements fall in love and get married, I want to be slim and beautiful and have people like how I look.

I remember it fairly well because I spent some time deconstructing all of the different parts of it. Actually, it started with a question of whether weighing myself was beneficial, or with what frequency to weigh myself. The simple question had too much baggage to be simple.

Ideally the next few posts will deal with how I feel about my body size, and my attempts to see things honestly and accurately and make good decisions based on that. There are elements that are personal, and societal, and I am still unpacking them. Even if I write several cogent posts, there will still be things that I only realize after I am done writing.

The thing that seems important to get out of the way before going there is that no matter how much I am learning to like myself and value myself as I am, I still want to be thin. I want to be beautiful. There is still a part of me that believes that beauty requires thinness and that believes that both are required for being loved.

That is not surprising. There is a lot of social conditioning that goes into it. There are constant messages that this is how it works through film and television. And, because of that, I probably really don't know how it works.

I think that I would like to have people see me and consider me attractive and want to get to know me, but there are probably several false ideas there. I do not get a lot of street harassment. Some of that is white privilege and some of it is the invisibility that comes with fatness. (Also, some of it is that I don't get out much.)

If I were thin, I might get more attention that way, but it could also be frightening and unpleasant.

I can think it would be nice to have lots of men wanting to date me, but the truth is I don't really want to go out that often, and I hate hurting people's feelings. I don't know that the ego boost of multiple people desiring me would make up for the discomfort of having to reject people.

Really, I just want one, but a good one with whom I am a good match and it is reciprocal. There is still a feeling that greater conventional attractiveness would facilitate that more, but also greater social skills or confidence or coming out of my shell more might do that too.

Right now all of this is abstract, because I don't have anywhere in my life to put that kind of a relationship right now. About five years ago I wrote that my ideal relationship would be that he comes over around 9 PM, we talk for five minutes and neck for ten and then it's "See you tomorrow night!" It looks like that's still where I am.

All of which isn't really so much about the weight, except that there are a lot of things that feel tied in with the weight, even if they really aren't. And I say this not because I am being particularly insightful, but because I want to be clear.

No matter how liberated or wise or accepting anything that I write over the next few posts sounds, I have still been totally subject to the same conditioning that everyone else has, and it is still in me.

Band Review: Mikey Reaves

Going back to early recommendations, Mikey Reaves was recommended by Parachute, one of the bands that played at the concert that inspired my first five music reviews.

Parachute knows Reaves because he has worked as a guitar tech and tour manager for them. Outside of that, Reaves works as a producer, songwriter, engineer, drummer, and mixer.

Because he does so much, it may not always be clear what his role was on a specific song. I will also guess that if you get a chance to see him live it will probably be as a drummer.

It may also mean that you get a wider range of musical styles. Much of it is country-tinged; not surprising as Reaves is based in Nashville.

I particularly enjoyed his work with Emily Hackett, whose songs like "Bad Weather" and "Worth the Weight" were beautiful and emotional. That being said, there were also several songs about beer. For added perspective, there is also a very short piece from a very young Reaves, "Jungle". Lots of musicians start young, but there isn't always evidence.

I enjoyed listening, and it was important to have a break in the gloom after yesterday's band.

http://mikeyreaves.com/

https://soundcloud.com/mikeyreaves

http://www.umpgnashville.com/en-US/Artists/M/Mikey-Reaves.aspx

https://twitter.com/mikeyreaves

Band Review: Frightened Rabbit

Frightened Rabbit was the very first band recommendation I wrote down, before I was even tracking bands in a spreadsheet. They were recommended by Daniel Pearson, whom I reviewed back in March 2013.

Obviously it's been a long time. One reason for the delay is that I saw they had a lot of material, and it was going to take a lot of time to listen to them all, even though the preliminary listening seemed promising. In scheduling reviews, I have not been great about remembering to include recommended bands along with the bands who follow me, but I would work in others and still not get to them.

I give this unnecessary prelude because while I believe Frightened Rabbit is a good band, I did not enjoy them. The extra hours spent listening made that worse. If I had only listened to two albums' worth I would feel better, but that probably shouldn't be held against them.

There were two factors that combined with the length. One is that it felt like a lot of unnecessary profanity. That doesn't bother everyone. It doesn't always bother me as much as it did this time. Actually, it felt appropriate for a Scottish band, except that I associate Scottish profanity with rowdy good times. Frightened Rabbit is so gloomy.

Again, that doesn't always bother me, but here it was hour after hour of gloom, sometimes livened up by unnecessary profanity.

It didn't have to be this way. Among their songs, "The Woodpile" especially shows their ability to build in emotion and drama. They can do that. They have a pub band sound - which can be used for good times - and they were doing it for years before Mumford and Sons.

Therefore, regardless of my frustration, it is completely reasonable to check out Frightened Rabbit. I do recommend doing it in short bursts, especially if you're experiencing down times in your own life.

http://www.frightenedrabbit.com/

https://www.facebook.com/frightenedrabbit

https://www.youtube.com/user/frabbittv

https://twitter.com/FRabbits

Consuming

Two books from the long reading list were very similar in theme:

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein

Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketer's Schemes by Sharon Lamb

Both were about the marketing that is done to young girls, preparing them to constantly be buying goods and services.

Packing was much longer, so had more information on types of merchandising. Even for relatively young girls there are lifestyle magazines and novels that are actually catalogs, and many toys have web components that provide the opportunity for more brand association and more shopping.

(I'm sure parents of young girls have a much better idea already.)

Packaging was also more scholarly, which has value, but Cinderella is a much shorter and more engaging read. Both pay attention to the psychological effects, though I think Orenstein has a better grasp. Neither was able to offer much in the way of solutions than awareness: know about this, discuss it sometimes, but they are still going to want these products.

Although we have not covered them yet, when we get to The Feminine Mystique and The Beauty Myth, those also have a lot to do with marketing, so there are ways in which they all go together. I am also more aware now of how consumerism is incompatible with environmentalism. It is hard changing things that systemic, so it's a concern.

But the point I will leave with today - I think it came from Orenstein - is a claim that the focus on dieting and weight loss started around the turn of the century. Previously preachers had tended to focus on greed, but as many people were doing really well financially, that became less safe to condemn. Gluttony was also a deadly sin, and about taking more than your share, so it made a good substitute.

That indicates that before, people thought of body size as more like height or hair color - maybe some variations were more popular, but there wasn't pressure to change it.

Now there are many products and services designed to help you change your body size, but it is still almost as difficult to change as your height. (At least changing hair color has gotten much easier.)

The almost guaranteed failure of the products combined with the likelihood of the consumer blaming herself makes it an almost perfect business. Yes, you have to make your offering more attractive than the many competing offerings, but there is still a strongly motivated market.

There are plenty of problems with that, but it's interesting to think that it could have all started as a dodge for ignoring the destructive behavior of capitalists right around that time that "robber barons" and "gilded age" were entering the lexicon.

Smile!

When my mother's dementia started, at first it was just that she wasn't taking in new information; she still knew all of her past.

More recently there has been a split, where she sometimes thinks there is another home and another set of twins. She misses her home and her youngest children and worries about them, even when she is in her home with them.

It doesn't help that we only have very old pictures available. The most recent family portrait is about twenty years old, but most are older than that. My mother looks at pictures of my sisters when they were ten and twelve and is not confident that these forty-year-old women are the same. My sisters weren't even blonde yet when they were twelve.

It's because we all hate having our pictures taken. We mainly wish we were thinner, though we might also wish for more hair or less hair or smoother skin. That last family portrait was taken after my father left, and it was a way of affirming that we were still a family. Maybe my sister-in-law pushed for it. I know she said we would take the next one when someone else got married - just one more reason to avoid marriage!

(This aversion to pictures among the family is also why pretty much every adult picture we have of my brother contains his now ex-wife.)

I knew it would be a hard sell, but I thought we needed to take some new pictures for Mom's sake. We were getting together on Easter; let's just take a few. No one fought me too much, because we love Mom. There was still some feet dragging when the time came, but everyone pretty much cooperated. I can see where a professional would do better.

My favorite picture was not posed. I was getting Mom and Maria into position. Honestly, I was snapping to create a feeling of there being no point in resisting, so just smile and pose. This is not a good picture, and it is blurred, but I feel it captures something.

I did get a regular picture with Maria, but then Julie got in, and the old pictures that confuse Mom are of the three of them. We decided on this group shot. I like it.

 Julie took my picture. I was a little horrified about the size of my arm - is it really that big? (Some of that's the angle, but it is big now, isn't it?) Still, we have to keep going. This is for Mom.

Then came my biggest challenge.

"Can you smile more?"

"That will take a lot of work."

I started trying to tell jokes, but I was taking too long to set them up. If I had been capable of suddenly expelling any gas loudly - regardless of which end it came from - that would have done the trick. Of course, when he does laugh, he moves.

I probably spent too much time on that one. The battery was starting to get low, and Mom was getting a little tired of smiling - the downside of being the only one in every picture. Still, I kind of feel like this captures something too.

So that's my family: flawed, frustrating, and funny.

I can't rule out that we should do an actual portrait again at some point. My brother does intend to get married again, probably. If we do, do I trust the professional to be able to get him to smile? Do I make everyone eat a lot of fiber before we go? That poor photographer!

We'll work something out.

Seeing the good in myself

Being able to see the good in myself was fairly high up on the Wants list. I am happy to say I  have made progress there.

I am less happy to admit that I am not sure how it happened. I don't really remember working on it.

There have been two areas where I have noticed it. The more general one is that when I have failed to live up to my expectations and start beating myself up mentally, I have to stop; no I am not really stupid and a bad person. There are obstacles that aren't my fault. There are things that I do right. It's not that I don't still want to improve, but I am not a monster. Honestly, I'm not sure that vicious self-recrimination was ever particularly effective.

Also, a few weeks ago I had posted the What are you asking blog post, and I knew I needed to give some credit to Sid (the college friend I mention in it). I tagged him and he responded...

"Thank *you*, Gina! It's so flattering you would associate me with such an insightful piece. Thanks for years of friendship!"

My first thought was that it wasn't that insightful, but I hedged on my hedging. If he thought so, maybe it was.

We have been down this road before, where I think all the people I hung out with in college were so amazing, and then they say things back that sound as if I was also amazing. It becomes this very warm and grateful moment, but there has always been this question about whether they even remember how annoying I was. I mean, I was, right?

That has been part of a larger pattern where I have had great associations through school and church and neighborhoods, with people who seem to enjoy my company and appreciate me. Despite all the many kindnesses, I have always felt on some level that they were just being nice.

• Yeah, but they would do that for anyone.
• Yeah, but they don't know how I get sometimes.

Yeah, I am starting to see it doesn't work that way.

I do not know why I am feeling the difference now, rather than only trying to come at it mentally.

I know that I recently went through a round of checking on people who I have known to be at risk. Usually I just respond to things that I see, but sometimes I am more proactive, just in case. There were some good exchanges, and some people are doing a lot better. That would be affirming anyway, but I have read that when you attempt to build someone else's self-esteem up, yours gets built up as well. That could have had an effect.

Also, if my focus has been more on my weaknesses, it has been in more productive ways, with a focus on scrupulous honesty. Maybe I am just open to seeing everything now, good and bad.

Maybe it matters that the selfies helped me get over some of the rough areas with my personal appearance.

Otherwise, perhaps I should just view it as a miracle. I know my weaknesses, but they do not exclusively define me.

I am smart and caring and loyal and tenacious. I am strong. If I am not always successful in being good, I am nonetheless committed to being good, and for good reasons.

Sometimes things work out.

Band Review: Tantric

It wasn't actually Tantric that followed me, but bassist Scott Wilson. He does some bass-related merchandising on his own, so I am including his specific links at the end as well.

(And let me say, links are important, because the immediate search engine results for "tantric" focus heavily on sex and yoga.)

I had heard of Tantric before but never listened; I ended up really enjoying them. Singer Hugo Ferreira brings a layered richness to the vocals, blending warmth and pathos. I suspect I would have better ways of describing it if I were a coffee drinker.

The rock is generally straightforward and strong on guitar, but they incorporate some interesting departures as needed. There is effective use of more orchestral elements on "The One", and the intro to "Love Song" reminds me of Hendrix.

I especially appreciated "Mourning", and while covers of "Let It Be" are never necessary, theirs is good enough to justify itself.

It feels like they would be easily enjoyed by Alice In Chains fans, and possibly better for the couples among those fans. There is plenty of pain in their music, but not without the ability to enjoy love.

I suppose that's helpful if they want to live up to their name.

http://tantricrockband.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Tantric

https://twitter.com/TantricOfficial

Scott Wilson

http://bassbomb.bigcartel.com/

https://twitter.com/Scottofficial

Band Review: Midnight Kicks and Prophecy of Sound

I sometimes combine bands when I have more than one that isn't giving me a lot to work with. That is the case this week, but the ways in which the bands are lacking are very different.

Obviously every band needs to make their own decisions about priorities. My advice may not be needed or welcome, and I know that.

That being said, I have reviewed over 430 bands and still counting, so I have seen some things.

Midnight Kicks is a four-piece band from Chicago with a Twitter account and a Youtube channel. That channel has three covers.

One thing I can't do is fault their musical taste. They cover Green Day and Fall Out Boy. I am not familiar with the third band, Sugarcult, but I like their version of the song.

It is enough to give me an idea of their aesthetic and their playing ability. Based on that I find Midnight Kicks likable. However, the lack of any original songs is glaring.

To be fair, there is nothing wrong with hanging around and learning to play songs together. It looks like they are having fun. Playing mainly covers doesn't even have to be a weakness, because it could work well for booking dances and corporate gigs.

Still, when bands follow me on Twitter, I assume they are trying to build their fan base, with a purpose of either touring or selling music or something like that. If that is the eventual goal, it is probably better to get some more material online before starting to follow potential fans. A lack of material makes the contact more likely to be a dead end.

If Midnight Kicks only wants to share that they play music together and you can watch the videos, that's not completely unreasonable - it's just a good idea to be clear on goals as you get set up on social media.

The band's delivery is fun. They work with a low-tech setup - two acoustic guitars, bass (electric) and percussion via box - but that should be easily portable and they bring a good energy to it.

https://www.youtube.com/midnightkicks

https://twitter.com/MidnightKicks

Prophecy of Sound has a completely different issue. They are ready to sell. Their sole Facebook link is for their store, and they have a CD you can buy or download via iTunes. There is simply no way of telling if it is worth buying.

Each video is only a promo. The Soundcloud files are promos. There does not appear to be any option for hearing a complete song before spending any money.

I completely understand concerns about giving everything away, and why some artists don't want to use Spotify. I do not accept that it makes sense to be this stingy.

Even if you don't have the budget for an actual music video, it should be possible to do a lyric video - or even a simple sound file with the cover art - for at least one song, ideally three. That way it can whet the appetite of potential buyers, and give them a reason to be invested emotionally before you expect them to invest financially.

There is one Youtube video that seems to have a short segment from each song on the album. That may seem adequate, but I have been fooled by brief clips of songs that sounded good before, later to find that the rest of the song was bad enough to ruin the segment that initially attracted me.

The moody vibe that comes through from the Prophesy of Sound samples may be something that leads to a great album, but it is not enough to act on.

http://www.prophecyofsound.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsFk2_wvPlNGgclDTl2QZag

https://soundcloud.com/prophecyofsound

https://twitter.com/ProphecyofSound

Credit where due, but also...

Despite all of my angst over the last half of the series, there are also places where I can acknowledge reasons.

For example, I pointed out the illogic of sending various characters from place to place (like why wouldn't they have brought the books with them?). I know one reason for that is that the more characters you have in a given scene, the more complicated writing it becomes. Killing off characters both increases the drama and makes the ensuing scenes easier.

That sounds cynical, but the direction they went with it - the Destroyer needed to be given the stick, so was breaking Nick down so that he would gladly give it up to get his friends back - did work. It followed logic and emotion. That was probably the most resonant part of the finale for me.

That could easily have been the part where Nick's mother and Aunt Marie came to help him instead, but that felt off to me for two reasons. One is that the Grimm blood being the answer and the potion being pointless - okay, you spent a lot of time on something that didn't matter. Also, Nick's legacy has had good things about it, but his opening his circle has been better. Aunt Marie told him to let Juliette go, and she closed herself off to relationships. Nick was happier and a greater force for good by letting people in. Her acknowledging that would have been good.

That was frustrating, but not as much as - in addition to many of the character inconsistencies mentioned in previous posts - the inconsistent logic of the prophecy. The stars were getting aligned for the Destroyer to come through, but really he needed a Grimm to follow through. That's fine in that it explains his desire for Kelly, but what are the stars for if the Grimm is enough?

If Eve is secretly planning on going through while saying she's not, that can be a choice, but they should have had her saying more cryptic things - either lying better or causing more concern with the others. Also, it appears that the only real development from her time on the other side was noticing that the staff consisted of pieces put back together, indicating the necessity of the stick. That's a fairly simple concept to require a whole episode in a horrible place that is not going to be fixed and that clearly suffered from a lack of budget.

Those types of problems come from not thinking things through, which is of course where we also get dropped plot threads and connections from out of nowhere. For example, Renard's mother (whose knowledge would have been handy) went to search for Diana because she wanted her grandchild. She never shows up again. How did Meisner end up with Hadrian's Wall?

Here are some thoughts on what I would  have done differently. I am picking up after Season 4, despite objections that I have raised to some things that happened in previous seasons.

We know the Royals wanted the keys, but they probably also did not know their purpose. We also have seen them exert some control over Wesen who are getting out of line. I propose that the disorganization in the wake of the king's death was the catalyst in Black Claw really bursting out. The Resistance has Black Claw sympathizers, because there are appealing things about being able to be open and in control. It definitely pulled in the scattered Tribunal members. That is how Diana ended up with Black Claw after Kelly's death. Meisner felt guilty about this, and his attempts to right the wrong are what got him involved in Hadrian's Wall.

Bonaparte knew that the portal was going to open, and part of Black Claw's actions were preparations to receive the Destroyer, giving him a Wesen kingdom.

The combination of Eve's hexenbiest blood (which can be used as for passage into other realms) and her being healed with the stick, causes her to still be a target for the Destroyer, but seeing him in the mirror is enough to show the staff and its fragmentation. There is no need to go through.

The inclusion of the cottage in the final episode did not make sense, because the people who spent the most time there had no association with it. However, if instead of "Where the Wild Things Were" you had an episode where Nick ends up back there with Renard to come to terms, that could make sense. Their children are siblings, and Renard's involvement with Black Claw was largely to get Diana back. There could also be a moment where Nick talks with Juliette about what has been lost. Then she could talk about her new sense of purpose, and that she doesn't regret it, even if some of the losses have hurt.

Speaking of moments, it would have been great if Adelind and Rosalee had been the ones who came across that last formula. Perhaps they were having a moment expressing frustration with how pregnancy and motherhood makes them vulnerable, and sidelines them when they want to protect their friends and their children. Then they could realize that potential spell and realize how it would be impossible for any other group but them, as if it was something that was meant to be all along. (Instead of everyone going, oh, that would be really hard, but I guess we can do it, or also forgetting they didn't need to wait for Nick for Grimm blood, because Trubel was right there.)

They create the potion, but it needs some time to take effectiveness and the Destroyer shows up early. The fighting goes down essentially the way it did, except that while Diana is initially okay with being the Destroyer's queen, she is not okay with him killing her parents. However, she is at first too upset to know what to do. As Kelly and Marie encourage Nick, promising that all is not lost, Kelly address Diana, to whom she was a mother figure.

Diana brings the vessel with the potion out telekinetically, causing the destroyer suffering but not killing him, which is done by Nick lopping off his head. Nick hugs the children, but Diana is grieving that everyone else is gone. Nick promises that he is still there and he will always love and protect her, just like Kelly. Then the Destroyer body crumbles and the portal opens up, sending us back to basically the same It's a Wonderful Life ending.

(This will probably require a scene where Eve almost goes through but doesn't, perhaps having Nick, Adelind, and Diana save her and the others are on their way for that big reunion.)

And if you have other moments along the way, where Adelind talks to Nick about her powers being back but not having the old wicked urges, or she gets to talk about being a good hexenbiest with Eve, or where Eve and Rosalee could have had a chance to talk about the changes she was going through before she totally went to the dark side, those are all things that could be good.

Plot matters because of what it does to people we care about, but we need that time to care.

Anyway, I hope that's enough. I may still have some thoughts about the show unexpressed, but I got a lot out too.

Grimm gets me in the gut one more time

"Blood Magic" was the fourth episode from the end.

The title hints at what is going to happen in the last three episodes, but it does still have a creature of the week issue, and is therefore the last of the regular episodes. In it, we learn about the Wesen way of dealing with dementia.

I still had some concerns with how life was treated, but I could also tell they were trying to be better. We see one friend caring about the first victim, and then rather than watching a second killing, another precinct's prior report of an animal attack is identified as having also been a victim of this killer. He is not a robber or hired killer or anything you might expect; just an old man whose failing mind and Wesen abilities are a very dangerous combination.

For a family dealing with it now - even in relatively early stages - it hit deep. My younger sisters have never watched the show. (They generally hate the concept of sci-fi/fantasy and reject anything in that vein outright, except sometimes when they don't.) However, one saw part of the show while I was watching. She couldn't look away because it hit so close to home.

In one scene the man is wandering and searching for his wife, Elizabeth, calling her and misidentifying one girl (who is not killed) as her. Then his wife finds him and she reassures him that she is there. He asks "Who are you?"

Ouch, and real. Having someone you love desperate for something that is right there, and nothing you do will convince them, that's real.

With the frustration I had been having over how casually people were allowed to die, it would have been easy to get mad at the wife for not taking action sooner, but how do you decide? She didn't know that he had killed two people, just that sometimes he had disappeared while she was sleeping, exhausted. It seems like having the option of some control would be comforting, but then you have to decide; how do you do that?

I was a mess during and for a while after that episode, but sometimes it is good to get the tears out. It's good to remember that you are not the only person with that sorrow. That is part of the value of art.

Part of the value of science-fiction and fantasy is that by changing some of the rules we can view things from previously unexamined angles. What makes it effective is still the truth we find there. It's still the humanity.

At least, that's what I believe, and how I try to write.

So, one last post on Grimm tomorrow, and then I really hope to be done.