Man, I have had a love for cLOUDDEAD for years. I'm so happy I found this sub. I got to meet Yoni in Des Moines when I spotted a post on Facebook that he was making a surprise stop for his Why? Tour. Him and Josiah and Matt were sick and they still absolutely killed it. The venue was small, it was at Wooly's, I showed up early, hoping to talk to Yoni and give him some love for how much cLOUDDEAD meant to me. His tour bus was parked outside and I got to talk to his light and sound guy first. Yoni came out and I introduced myself and brought up cLOUDDEAD. I told him I found it at a time when nothing else I listened to felt like it was actually real, creative, spur of the moment, musical invention. He was miserable and tired from a whole line of shows so the pleasantries were awkward and I'm sure he's heard some variation of what I said a million times on the road but he thanked me and said "I hope Why? Lives up to my thirst for raw creativity". I mean to tell you it absolutely did! The way they created sounds from instruments and objects it was everything I look for in a musical experience. cLOUDDEAD deserves so much more recognition, I get that it's kind of a wild ride of sound and lyrics but isn't that what being original is all about?

Hi everyone. I am currently based in Des Moines, Iowa and bought my first house here in 2021 for $225,000. I am a resident doctor and moving to Detroit area (Royal oak) for a year of extra training/fellowship in June 2024. I will eventually start working as a specialist doctor from July 2025. Plan is to move to a warmer climate or as west as possible as I have some family in California and Arizona. I have 2 kids and my wife is a stay at home mom. I earn around 75k annually. My current house has a valuation of around $240,000. Do you think it would be wise to sell this house next year and try to buy another one near Royal oak for a year. Or should I just rent one for that year? Rents are very expensive in that area but I am not sure if there would be enough equity in 1 year? Kindly advice.

Hi all, I would really love some advice on my school list, ones to add/subtract. I’m applying very broadly but would prefer to stay on the east coast (specifically the tri state area):

1. cGPA: 3.4x , sGPA: 3.2x, Masters GPA: 3.8
2. Currently pursuing Masters of Biomedical Science in Jersey, one semesters left.
3. MCAT score: 515
4. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): NYC, USA
5. Ethnicity and/or race: Arab (African American), URM, not disadvantaged, male
6. Undergraduate institution or category: big purple school in NYC
7. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer) 2100 dermatology MA (for MD, DO, PA, and NP), 200 hours shadowing (primarily urogyn but many others as it was a multi specialty clinic), 300 hours as volunteer hospital in high school but continued with them in college in a different aspect (helped bring my schools large resources and funding to this local hospital I was a part of).
8. Research: 300 hours at Ivy League lab in high school in which I helped develop a lab protocol and was acknowledged in my mentors PhD thesis (also presented on our work at my high school science conference), 100 hours at a neuromarketing lab in nyc that worked with fortune 500s, 200 hours at a clinical lab at my schools medical center in which one of my responsibilities was translating forms from my second language (Arabic) into English from our large Arab population pool.
9. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 300 hours , primarily in urogynecology but it was a multi specialty clinic so lots of specialties - gave a presentation at the end of it on obgyn topic.
10. Non-clinical volunteering: 70 hours as a private piano tutor for elementary kids in my city who couldn’t afford private piano lessons (stopped with COVID) , 50 hours volunteer through my Islamic center helping provide meals for the homeless; also went on a service trip with them to Texas after hurricane Harvey to help rebuild homes in Houston (one week). 300 hours as a volunteer coordinator and counselor for a summer camp for kids who’s parents are diagnosed with cancer.
11. Other extracurricular activities: social media coordinator for a an organization here in my city that works to end gender violence against women (I helped manage the male cohort events that worked to make men better Allys), 400 hours as a member of the fresh,soph,jr, and senior class boards on my college student council (this is how I was able to bring my schools resources back to my local hospital)
12. Relevant honors: deans list in my junior year of college, recicved mayoral service award for volunteering at my local hospital in high school (should I even include this? This is the same hospital i counties with through student council, I’m just confused as to how to incorporate this experience at all?)

Please help I’m having such a hard time knowing where to apply even with MSAR. I have money saved up from my job in college so I don’t mind applying to more , I just wish I knew where 😫 Thank you!
MD: SUNY update, SUNY Donwstate, Stonybrook, Einstein, RWJ, NJMS, Albany, Buffalo, NYMC, Rochester, Penn state, Tulane, BU, Hofstra, Hackensack, Drexel, Tufts, Pritzker, Rush, Rosalind Franklin, NOVA
DO: NYIT, Touro (NY) , NOVA, Des Moines
Edit: sorry for putting below average stat, I was speaking numbers wise and especially my gpa which has given lots of people pause when looking over my app, sorry!!

FALLOUT 5
Fallout 5 will take place in the Dixie Wasteland, in the ruins of Charleston, South Carolina in 2322. It will be the first fallout to take place in the South. The only nuke to hit the region was a defective US nuke that detonated as soon as it was launched.
Character Building:
You start with 35 special points, making it so you have a more specialized build or a jack of all trades. The old skill system makes a return, with you choosing a perk every 3 level ups. Skill checks are frequent, and can vary from Special stats to perks. You get to choose a special perk when you start the story, like Small Frame or Kamikaze. Karma has three tiers: Evil, Neutral, and Good.
Mutations and Radiation: Mutations will occur like in 76, but you can become a super mutant if you dip yourself in a vat of FEV. Your strength and endurance will increase dramatically, but many factions and cities won’t let you in without a huge hassle. Radiation makes you mutate more, but if your mutation level is too high you will turn into a mindless Behemoth. Too much radiation will turn you into a ghoul, which makes you immune to radiation and raises your endurance. If you get too many rads while ghoulified, you become feral.
Weapons & V.A.T.S:
Makeshift weapons are far more prevalent in this game, but they are more diverse and realistic than those in Fallout 4. Normal weapons are more powerful and rarer, selling for more at stores. More real guns will be added alongside the retro-futuristic fallout guns, including the 9 round and 1 shotgun shell LeMat revolver. Weapon customization exists alongside a wider variety than of weapons. Dual wielding makes its first entry to the series, allowing for dual wielding of small melee weapons, pistols, and smgs.
Higher Agility levels makes dual wielding more accurate. V.A.T.S will return to freezing the game instead of the slowed down time in Fallout 4
Settlements:
There will be 3 buildable settlement locations that you discover on your own, and 5 customizable player home locations.
World: The Dixie Wasteland is a mix of civilized and Wild. The Western section of the map is the most dangerous, full of raiders and animals, despite that the town of Magnolia is in the west. The Northeast is the city of Charleston, the city of Civitas Ferro is set up within eastern Charleston. The South of the map is controlled by the Brotherhood of Steel as well. The middle of the map is a bunch of small towns mixed with the wildness of the west. The eastern side of the map is swamps, and the west is forested hills. A large lifeless crater exists in the in the middle of the map, simply known as the Hole.
Enemies: Some animals return, such as bloodbugs, deathclaws, ferals, bloatflies, and Yao Guais, Mirelurks, and Gatorclaws. New animals include Raddlesnakes, Giraffe Dogs (coyotes with long necks), Snappers (huge turtles), and Prowlers (mutated bobcats). Raiders are in named groups again, with three main bands terrorizing Dixie. The tribe known as the Confederates who enslave and sell rather than pillage, the Beastmasters who tame mutated animals and attack with them, and the Vaulties who were former vault dwellers. Generic raiders can also be found. Super Mutant bands have moved south from the Capital Wasteland, and continue their sackings in Dixie. Enemy robots are occasionally found, especially from the RobCo factory in the city. The last kind of enemy is the main factions if you piss them off, as they send death squads out to gank you if you have a bad reputation.
Dixie history: The Carolinians united the eastern coast and Charleston together as a large scale civilization in 2190, but by the year 2291, the Brotherhood of Steel invaded. They pillaged, plundered, and took control of the east coast and the capital of the Carolinians. Their despotic rule has causes several factions in the wasteland grow rebellious, and tensions are reaching a high in 2322.
Themes: The game has a southern theme, with the radios playing country and bluegrass music. Characters have southern accents, as do the robots.
Radio Stations:
Magnolia Radio - Swing and Jazz hosted by a charismatic ghoul named Darren Dixie. Darren will comment on the events that occur throughout the wasteland.
Hoedown Capital - A country and bluegrass station hosted by Mr. Hillbilly, a DJ Mr. Handy. He still believes the year is 2077, and only tells news relating to events that happened leading up to the Great War.
Brotherhood Military Channel - Updates troops about tech locations and orders patrols around.
There are plenty of side quests and random events, including side quests for each faction.
Factions:
There are 5 factions in Fallout 5, and you have to side with one of them to complete the story. The Tribal ending is the wild card ending. The reputation system makes a return, with the New Vegas pictures.
Brotherhood of Steel: The Brotherhood of Steel has turned into nothing short of a jingoistic military dictatorship, developed by Elder William Garrick. The Brotherhood abandoned Maxson in the commonwealth, as Garrick lead a silent coup in the Capital wasteland. The Brotherhood has grown colossally in size, and now spans the East Coast unchecked in power. Not only do they seize military technology now, they also seize stuff like pre-war small arms, Auto-docs, pip-boys, robots, terminals etc. They’ve ruled over South Carolina for the past 2 years with an iron fist, forcing settlers into giving up their crops and crippling the wasteland and infrastructure of the Dixie Wasteland. They control a large city inside Charleston called Civitas Ferro, with their headquarters in the center. Despite your hatred for them initially, you can join them and defeat all the rebels.
Carolinian Revolutionary Army- The Carolinians are the remnants of the former largest nation in the Dixie Wasteland called the Free Federation of Charleston. It was a democratic civilization based on the old state of South Carolina, with elections and rights for any human or quasi-human. Although it was weak and corrupt, it was better than the alternatives. When the Brotherhood rolled in, the Carolinians resisted their raids, so the Brotherhood overthrew them in a scorched Earth campaign. The Carolinians are the remnants of their military, dedicated to rebelling against the Brotherhood’s tyranny, and have the endgame goal of bringing Democracy back to Dixie. They grow steadily by the day, but they suffer from bureaucratic issues and corruption. You can join the Carolinians as an agent, and you help them lead a rebellion against the Brotherhood.
Greylock’s Hand: Greylock’s Hand are a band of violent raiders and mercenaries, who likewise want the Brotherhood of Steel gone, but instead desire an anarchic survival of the fittest wasteland. They are lead by a profane, wild ghoul named Greylock. They are basically terrorists, but their raids and ambushes against the Brotherhood are effective. They reside in a secret underground missile launch site, completed two days before the war. Even the Brotherhood knows nothing about it aside from rumors. The missiles, however, are not finished. You can join Greylocks Hand after getting kidnapped by them, and after you help them build part of the missiles.
Magnolia: The last joinable faction is Magnolia, a large settlement in and around the former plantation home. The city is ruled by a group of Mister Handys who escaped from a crashed truck driving to Charleston the day of the Great War. They saw the magnolia plantation and went their to clean, doing so and repairing it for 150 years, eventually realizing what was happening in the world around them.Their newfound “sentience” allowed them to create a settlement, inviting wastelanders and tribals to live and trade under their protection. Their elected leader is a specialized Mr Handy that has economic programming. The robots have defended themselves from several Brotherhood attacks, and after some convincing they allow you to become an honorary robot and join their faction.
Tribal: Instead of choosing any of the four main factions, you can instead unite the smaller settlements, tribes, and factions into New Dixie. You are assisted by an intelligent Supermutant from the Capital Wasteland named Spider, acting as your loyal second in command.
Minor factions:
The Network: A secret underground trading organization that sells and trades equipment that would normally be confiscated by the BoS. You can rat them out to the BoS, or you can join them.
Wasteland Marshalls: A paramilitary organization that patrols highways and hunts raiders, based on the US Marshals of the past. You can join them or convince them to join the brotherhood.
Catawbas: The descendants of the old native tribe from South Carolina, they specialize in the creation of makeshift weaponry to sell to wastelanders. You can convince them to join the rebellion, or you can convince them to join the Brotherhood.
Abolitionists: A militia of borderline terroristic anti-slavers, based on the conquests of the radical abolitionist John Brown. You can join them or eliminate them.
Plot:
South Carolina: 2322. War, war never changes.
The main character is a tribal living southeast of Charleston. The tribe has to pay a toll to local raiders, and it’s left their tribe starving. In the first part of the game, the Tribal, their sibling and their friend are searching for food for their tribe, when they stumble across an old sunken West-Tek storage depot. In it is a prototype suit of power armor called the AX-01, which is a large tank-suit with back missiles and two hand laser rifles, built for ease of use. You learn how to pilot it from a terminal, and you take it back to the tribe; the raiders and their leader are there demanding their payment. You kill the raiders with the power armor, and the tribe is free from their subjugation. Weeks later, 4 Brotherhood of Steel paladins arrive at the village. After the tribals refuse to give up their power armor, the BoS execute everyone in the village and burn it to the ground (including your sibling), seizing the suit and flying away on a vertibird. Only the Tribal remains.
Act 1: The Tribal picks up a broken pip-boy as soon as they leave the town, and they hunt down the paladins North to Charleston, you kill all 4 of them while adventuring across the map. By the end of the first act, the Brotherhood declares you an enemy of the Brotherhood.
Act 2: Due to the deaths of several Paladins and the constant rebellion from the region, a Brotherhood blimp appears. The brotherhood frequency states that if the Tribal visits the ship, they will be absolved of their crimes. The Tribal is also invited to secret meeting of between Carolinians and robots from Magnolia. You also get kidnapped by the Greylocks 2 days after this meeting. From there you can choose between the rebels or the Brotherhood, and do their specific quest lines. For the Greylocks, you have to find parts to build their rockets. Whereas for the other groups you have to find a way into their base.
Act 3: All questlines end in the ultimate battle and raid on the Greylock base. If you side with the Greylocks you repel the attackers. The end of the story is where you fire the missile array at the Brotherhood’s home base and their airship, chasing them out of Dixie. If you side with the Brotherhood you secure the missile array and fire the rockets at the fleeing rebels, crushing their numbers.
Each ending depends on your karma and what side you chose, potentially turning a “good” faction evil or an “evil” faction good.
Your actions have consequences throughout the story, and no character is essential except for potential companions.
The Tribal:
The tribal is the name of the 28 year old protagonist, and you can choose between you or your friend to be your character. One is male, the other is female. The protagonist is silent, but the character you don’t choose has voiced dialogue. Their default names are Sammy and Cora, but you can change them. Speech is back to the chart with full responses. Their personality is determined by the player, allowing for better roleplaying opportunities.
Companions:
There are 10 companions, 3 non human and 7 human. The affinity system returns, and each companion has a personal quest. They also have comments for the main quest and other miscellaneous events. Companions have specific likes and dislikes, and have different karmas. You can recruit companions outside of your karma if you pass a speech check. Any positive affinity progression while not in their karma has a 1.25 multiplier. Companions are romanceable regardless of gender.
The Tribals Friend (Sammy/Cora):
The friend you don’t choose is available to become your companion. They know your name, and revert to their original appearance and name once you choose your character. Cora is originally white with blonde hair and blue eyes, and Sammy is originally a latino with curly black hair. They have good karma, and hate the BoS, but are okay with the other factions. They are 28 years old, the same age as the tribal. They wear a tribal cloak and uses a makeshift bolt action rifle. They are Romanceable.
Benjamina Pavlova - A hired gun and part time technician working for the Network, you can recruit her whenever you hire her at the Network. She has good karma, and hates the BoS and the Carolinians, but likes Greylocks hand and the Magnolia Robots (hired guns were illegal in the FFC). She is white, and has curly black hair and green eyes. She is 29 years old. She wears a confederate cavalry hat and her combat armor with road leathers, she uses a .44 trail carbine. She is romanceable.
Captain Baker Springfield - A soldier for the Carolinian Revolutionary Army, you can recruit him if you save his platoon from a super mutant attack. He has good karma, and hates the BoS and Greylock’s hand, but loves the Carolinians. He is 32 years old. He is white, has brown hair and stubble, and wears a Carolinian soldier outfit; he uses a .308 Combat rifle.
Dina Qian: A vault dweller from Vault 52, you have to free the vault from a band of raiders who have cracked into the vault to recruit her. Dina is asian and has black hair in a ponytail. She has neutral karma, and hates all raider groups, including Greylock’s Hand, she is indifferent to the other groups. Dina is 25 years old. She uses two 10mm pistols and wears an armored vault suit. She is Romanceable.
Louie - Louie is a ranch hand at a farm outside of the Hole, you can recruit him if you get his family’s brahmin back from the Beastmasters. He has neutral karma, and hates Greylock’s hand, but likes The BoS due to their law bringing policies. He is 36 years Louie is white, and has a buzzcut with a mustache. He wears a ranch hand outfit and a stetson hat with leather armor, he uses a makeshift pump action shotgun.
General Ulysses Grant: A securitron made specially for the RobCo factory owner, a civil war buff. You have to repair him after clearing the RobCo factory to recruit him. His karma is dependent on how you program him, and he hates the brotherhood but loves the magnolia robots. He is a deep blue and gold securitron with General grant on the tv screen. He is a pre-war robot. He uses the 9mm smg, laser rifle, and rockets depending on what you tell him to use. He is not romanceable.
Uriah Lincoln - A respected raider within Greylock’s hand, you can recruit him whenever you join Greylock’s hand. He has evil karma, loves Greylock’s hand, and hates the Brotherhood and the Carolinians. You can change his karma in his personal quest. Uriah is 23 years old. He is black and is bald, with a bandana covering on of his eyes. He wears Greylock makeshift power armor and carries a plasma rifle. He is romanceable
Senior Scribe Weatherby - A former scribe turned ghoul by radiation, you can recruit her from the BoS after she is kicked out. She has evil karma, hates the BoS and the other factions. After her personal quest she can either rejoin the brotherhood or be open to other factions. She is 39 years old. She is a ghoul and has wears red hair wig. She wears a scribe outfit and uses a laser rifle. She is romanceable.
Belle - A Mrs Nanny built by the robots at Magnolia, you can recruit her after joining the Magnolia robots. She has neutral karma, and likes Greylock’s Hand and the Magnetic robots. Belle is 60 years old. She wears a straw hat with a flower on it, and has a light purple chassis; she uses a minigun and a sawblade. She is not romanceable.
Hambone - A golden retriever with one blue eye and one brown eye. He doesn’t care about what you do, he’s a good boy. You can have him alongside any other companion.
This is what I’ve got, feel free to add anything.

Parts 1, 2, and 3 can be found in this same subreddit at the links attached. Hopefully this part will live up to the insanity that inspired me to write about it!
There are…so many things that happen between 1988 and 1994 in one discipline of figure skating it is near comical. With Soviet domination of ice dance near assured during this era, the focus shifts from who will win to instead question how fast the Soviet dynasty can fall apart. The answer? Well…I guess you’ll have to see.
With Bestemianova/Bukin and Wilson/McCall opting to go to the pro ranks after their Olympic medals in 1988, Klimova/Ponomarenko seemed the de facto leaders of ice dance. Natalia Dubova now not only coached Klimova/Ponomarenko but also a married couple making their international debut in Maya Usova/Alexander Zhulin. The new rink situation pit the 2 couples against each other as each aimed to become the top couple in the world.
No one could deny Klimova/Ponomarenko in 1989 though. Skating to “Mack the Knife,” Klimova/Ponomarenko skated to victory with a more humorous and friendly free dance to expand their horizons. According to the media of the time though, this new styling for them wasn’t as beloved as their previous work. However, no one could deny their technical ability as they took the ice.
Their countrymates Usova/Zhulin nabbed the silver medal with a free dance skated to dramatic classical music. Usova/Zhulin were a team that felt like they encapsulated everything Dubova had ever aimed to bring to the ice. They floated across the ice in ways that only Klimova/Ponomarenko could sometimes achieve. They also had brilliant matching lines that Dubova liked to emphasize through her choreography. They tended to skate in a hold that had Usova in front with Zhulin wrapped behind her, consistently close together. Their gentle, lyrical skating made them a quick favorite for fans of the sport.
The Duchesnays improved from 8th at the Olympics to grab the bronze in 1989 on home ice in Paris. The Duchesnays were…the best way to describe them is that they’re the proto-French ice dance team. Their free dance was set to an instrumental version of Eleanor Rigby, and told the story of dreams and reality, where Isabelle represented dreams constantly being brought down to Paul’s reality. The Christopher Dean choreographed program was…noticeably easier in difficulty compared with the Soviets, featuring less holds overall and more lifts that took Isabelle off the ice. However, their eccentric concepts made them another crowd favorite in these years.
In 1989, Dubova also put together another Soviet team to compete against her top 2 skaters. Evgeni Platov, a 3-time World Junior champion, had just placed fifth in the world with his former partner before their split. Oksana Grishuk, coming off a World Junior title herself, moved from Natalia Linichuk’s school to pair with Platov after she split from her partner. The 2 began skating together in the summer of 1989, making Dubova the sole coach of the top 3 Soviet teams. What could possibly go wrong?
The 1990 season saw all 3 Soviet teams compete for the podium alongside the Duchesnays and, surprisingly, an American team who slipped up to 4th: Susan Wynne/Joseph Druar. For Wynne/Druar, it was the highest place finish for an American team since Blumberg/Seibert were still skating. Their free dance to “Hit the Road Jack” was a tribute to tap dance. Their style was distinctly North American, similar in style to that of Wilson/McCall, in that the woman appeared stronger on ice rather than the dainty appearance of women like Marina Klimova and Maya Usova (think Madi Hubbell compared with Gabi Papadakis for a more recent example). This style, wherein the woman was an equal on ice to her partner, was not popular with the judges of the time, so acted more as a precursor to the North American style than as a legitimate podium threat.
Klimova/Ponomarenko earned a second World title in 1990 skating to “My Fair Lady,” now fully bought into the idea of the one concept free dance but still maintaining the classical switching of rhythms within that one concept, marrying the traditions of ice dance with the post-Torvill/Dean landscape. Best described by the commentary of the time, Klimova/Ponomarenko were technically unmatched by their peers, even as their free featured less holds than had been their norm. However, their prowess still took the cake as they walked away with a second title.
The Duchesnays improved on their 1989 placement by earning silver in 1990. Skating to their first iteration of “Missing,” Isabelle and Paul truly embraced the avant garde. Dean gave his now girlfriend and her brother choreography that was simpler and easier to perform but striking in its repeated poses and lifts to make an unbreakable impression on the audience and judges, earning them first in the free dance. On a more…aesthetic note, this is the first time in my write up that I’ve seen a dress that looks like the skirt was shredded, which is just a fine precursor to the horrors of costuming to come.
Usova/Zhulin grabbed the bronze with a sophisticated tango to Piazzolla selections (naturally). Usova/Zhulin improved on their lyrical style to incorporate more speed and sharpness to their movements, which drew more attention to their matching body lines. However, the tango was far easier than their free dance the previous year, featuring more side by side skating rather than close holds. And in their senior debut as a pair, Grishuk/Platov earned 5th place with a free dance using music from “Zorba the Greek” (I truly wish I was joking). But regardless of the odd music choice, Grishuk/Platov were known for their skating skills, arguably the strongest of the next 8 years. While this free dance certainly didn’t show that off, the promise of the senior pair was apparent from the moment they stepped on the ice.
All good training rinks must carry with it insane amounts of drama though, for this is ice dance. And stuffing the top Soviet teams under one coach was bound to implode at some point. It was during this time that Dubova started to favor Usova/Zhulin for the Olympic gold in Albertville 1992. And with it, better program ideas. This came to a head when Klimova/Ponomarenko slipped to a silver medal in 1991, behind the Duchesnays. And that’s truly where the bubble burst.
The Duchesnays had an interesting season, debuting their Reflections FD which was actually a program originally meant for Torvill/Dean’s professional career before being scrapped and given to the Duchesnays…which should tell you all a lot about both Dean and the insanity that was this FD, where Isabelle and Paul were made to look like mirror images of each other. The free dance received a lukewarm reception, causing them to scrap the FD for the amateur ranks and instead opt for a second iteration of their “Missing” FD, aptly titled Missing II. Outrage from fans on behalf of Klimova/Ponomarenko was apparent, as the Duchesnays’ repeated lifts and tricks were inherently easier than the skating that Klimova/Ponomarenko were doing. But the lack of Dubova faith and the judges’ love of Christopher Dean worked in the Duchesnays’ favor.
Klimova/Ponomarenko skated to “Lawrence of Arabia,” entering the free dance in a surprising 3rd place after the original dance (OD), which had by now supplanted the OSP. After being behind Usova/Zhulin in the compulsories and behind both the Duchesnays and Usova/Zhulin in the OD, Klimova/Ponomarenko needed near perfect scores to retain their title. They would not get it. The pair attempted to expand their horizons even further with a more dramatic piece of music; Klimova/Ponomarenko put more emphasis on their lifts, which were vastly improved. But some media felt that they had lost their inherent qualities that identified them in favor of trying to prove their range. This would become a major sticking point in the Olympic year.
Usova/Zhulin meanwhile earned bronze at these Worlds, elegantly skating to “Variations” from Andrew Lloyd Webber. The couple’s lyrical and emotional interpretation entranced the audience in watching the leaders after the OD. Of course, Usova/Zhulin couldn’t hang onto their lead in the end, which really should’ve acted as effective foreshadowing of not only their competitive careers but also what was happening behind the scenes with their rinkmates Grishuk/Platov, who had placed 4th in the same event.
The summer of 1991 was absolute ice dance chaos. In a span of a few short months, all of this happened at once:
· Klimova finds out Dubova is giving preferential treatment to Usova/Zhulin. She cries in front of a Russian sports journalist.
· Andrei Bukin goes to Tarasova, begging her to take on Klimova/Ponomarenko so that they aren’t shut out of a gold. Tarasova agrees, and Klimova/Ponomarenko flee Dubova.
· Christopher Dean gets married to Isabelle Duchesnay and vows to choreograph them to Olympic glory (they later divorce in ’93)
· Alexander Zhulin, 28, begins his infamous affair with Oksana Grishuk, 19, putting a strain on the Usova/Zhulin partnership on and off ice. The affair becomes Grishuk’s fault in the media.
· The Soviet Union falls, leaving the Soviet skaters without a country to represent for a year
And those are just the heavy hitters boys and girls! Truly, an offseason to remember.
Tarasova took on Klimova/Ponomarenko and attempted to steer them toward gold amid heavy competition from Dean’s Duchesnays and Dubova’s Usova/Zhulin. A strong polka OD had Klimova/Ponomarenko in a comfortable lead going into the free dance, where they performed a lyrical and transcendent program to “Air” by Bach. The pair looked statuesque as they floated over the ice. Granted, the program had about as much substance as your average show program. But man if the couple didn’t make it look good. It was a return to form in a lot of ways for the pair, returning to their more classical roots but now with the experience of having done more dramatic works and being able to incorporate that emotion back into a lyrical program. Tarasova had her second Olympic gold medal winning team in the span of 2 Olympics, adding to her already storied career in ice dance (having led a pair to an Olympic medal in 4 of the 5 competed events at this point).
The Duchesnays settled for silver in a home Olympics in Albertville. Their free dance was set to the music of “West Side Story,” with the pair portraying the sibling duo of Tony and Maria (thank God). In a lot of ways, it was a call back to Dean’s past World title winning free dances based around Broadway musicals. And the choreography was meant to call to mind the intricate choreography of the musical, including some of the first instances of the reverse lifts naturally. However, the easier skating choreography caught up to the Duchesnays and their free program placement suffered for it. Hard to consider it a skating program if most of the dance was spent in the air or side by side.
Usova/Zhulin entered the ’92 Olympics incredibly strained. This was only exacerbated when Zhulin gave Grishuk his wedding ring for her to wear during the compulsories, to which Usova understandably lost her cool. With that in the back of their minds, it’s truly a wonder that they pulled through for a bronze medal. Their “Four Seasons” free dance was meant to tell the stories of two statues coming to life. Which seems apt for a couple whose chemistry had about as much warmth as two statues. Grishuk/Platov earned 4th place with a more modern free dance. It’s…very 80s, I don’t know how to describe it. But it was obvious that their partnership was finally flourishing in a way that their promise had predicted. Which is naturally the perfect time for more insanity to come between them.
After a Soviet podium sweep at Worlds, the summer of ’92 saw Zhulin and Grishuk’s affair escalate during the show season. Everything really hit the fan when Usova caught Zhulin and Grishuk at a restaurant together and “saw Grishuk sipping a margherita at a bar, came up behind her, grabbed her hair and smashed her head against the counter.” And although Usova later apologized, Dubova had had enough and expelled Grishuk from her camp for getting involved with Zhulin. While Grishuk headed back to Moscow, Dubova attempted to pair Platov with a young Tatiana Navka, who would’ve been around 17 and representing Belarus following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ultimately though, Grishuk returned to former coach Natalia Linichuk and Platov followed, restoring their partnership before the 92-93 season.
The Soviets, now officially representing the newly reformed country of Russia, maintained their absolute stranglehold on the discipline. With Klimova/Ponomarenko retiring to focus on the pro circuit and starting a family as well as the Duchesnays’ retirement, all medalists slid up the rankings, with Usova/Zhulin finally earning their gold medal on the backs of a sultry blues free dance that kept the audience spellbound and where they pretended that they were into each other for 4 minutes.
As if to contrast the gold medalists, Grishuk/Platov skated to a more violent blues, which is admittedly one of my guilty pleasure skates. The free dance told the story of toxic lovers, even incorporating choreography where it looked like Platov was choking Grishuk. Their skating earned them their first medal at Worlds, a silver. And they also started to find that their strength was in the dramatic, even if they don’t go back to it for several years. It is at this time that the media picks up on the former Grishuk/Zhulin affair, but only mentions it during Grishuk/Platov’s programs.
Inter-country politics began early when Alla Shekhovtsova advocated to the judges for Anjelika Krylova and her former partner Vladmir Fedorov, coached by Linichuk, to be sent to Worlds in 93, threatening their judging careers if they put their competitors Elena Kustarova/Oleg Ovsiannikov in front. Naturally. Krylova/Fedorov were sent by one judge’s vote and earned a bronze at Worlds. Krylova was known for her amazing leg line, but this free dance doesn’t really do them justice on that end. After Krylova/Fedorov earned a medal in their debut, American and Canadian media started to become frustrated with lack of results from their ice dancers, insinuating that their lack of results was strictly because of the flag next to their names. In the ‘94 offseason, Krylova/Fedorov would break up and Ovsiannikov would be lured by Linichuk to pair with Krylova.
A little further down the standings, Susanna Rahkamo/Petri Kokko dazzled with a free dance to Valse Triste. The fourth place finishers were crowd favorites known primarily for their slow, methodical, lyrical dances. An innovative couple, their choreography featured harder lifts as well as well placed switching in height. However, their programs were often not as technically difficult as the Russians even as the passion on ice touched the audience.
In the 1993 offseason, a change was made to the rules for professional skaters, stating that those who took money from doing shows could still compete at the amateur ranks. The news was huge, allowing many of the skaters who had been held to professional competitions to compete again for an Olympic title. The biggest name to return to the ice, of course, were Torvill/Dean. Just about 10 years after their win in Sarajevo, Torvill/Dean were determined to earn another Olympic gold. But in the 10-year interval, a lot had changed about ice dance.
After Dubova refused to allow RusFed to see Usova/Zhulin’s programs ahead of the Olympic season, Russia silently started to get behind Grishuk/Platov. On top of that, Usova found out about Zhulin’s affair with a 19-year-old Navka around the Olympics. Navka’s then-partner found out and beat Navka for the affair, before Usova and Zhulin’s mothers started beating each other. So, Maya Usova was distracted to say the very least.
The competition also disallowed classical music for the free dance that year, instead opting to go more modern to appeal more to the audience. Torvill/Dean publicly worried about whether their routines would be suited to more modern music.
With all that happening, the Grishuk/Platov, Usova/Zhulin, Torvill/Dean showdown started in full swing at the European championships, when Usova/Zhulin won the compulsories, Torvill/Dean won the OD, and Grishuk/Platov won the free dance. It was the closest ice dance competition in history at that point and left many wondering who would ultimately take home the Olympic gold, even as Torvill/Dean came home with the European title.
The event lived up to the hype. The first compulsory, the Starlight Waltz, was won by Usova/Zhulin before Grishuk/Platov won the blues compulsory (which is absolutely gorgeous by the way, please watch it) and began to build their reputation as the best compulsory skaters of their generation. Torvill/Dean, unfortunately, looked a bit like their age in the compulsories that Olympics, coming up third in both. However, their rhumba OD was sensational and encapsulated the best of them, including their obvious chemistry on the ice. The original dance placed first in the segment, with Usova/Zhulin in second and Grishuk/Platov in third. The final placements would come down to the free dance.
Torvill/Dean would perform a free dance to “Let’s Face the Music,” which read a bit like a greatest hits free dance, incorporating choreography from some of their more famous programs. While the program did feature closed holds when skating, there was also a ton of lifts and tricks incorporated into the choreography, which seemed controversial among the judges. Usova/Zhulin competed with a free dance based on circus acts. A more humorous routine than their past entries, the free incorporated technical difficulty effectively but was a tad bland, which is truly a feat given what the program was supposed to be emulating. Ultimately, it came up short in their final Olympic competition.
Grishuk/Platov carried away the gold with a controversial free dance to “Rock Around the Clock” (also, side note, the spelling of Grishuk’s name as Grichtchuk in the video I’m looking at is just so obscene it needs to be mentioned). What was the controversial part of this free dance you ask? According to the rules of the time, all dance couples needed to be in hold for a certain amount of time during the free dance. Many media outlets and Torvill/Dean themselves felt that Grishuk/Platov did not meet the required amount of time in hold, to the point where Torvill is attributed to saying that “if the judges wanted a show program, we could’ve given them a show program.” The judges, however, loved the free dance, even giving the team four 5.9s in technical merit and a 6.0 in artistic impression. And so the team that nearly split just two years prior were walking home from Lillehammer with gold medals in their hands. And Linichuk finally earned a second gold medal, this time as a coach.
At Worlds that year, Rahkamo/Kokko earned a long-awaited bronze after 8 senior seasons at Worlds. A French couple, Sophia Moniotte/Pascal Lavanchy earned the silver. And so ended an overwhelming era of ice dance. But as skaters like Shae-Lynn Bourne/Victor Kraatz, Tatiana Navka, Margarita Drobiazko/Povilas Vanagas, and Elizabeth Punsalan/Jerod Swallow waited in the wings while Canadian and American media lamented the lack of variety at the top, only 1 thing could be stated for certain: the chaos that is ice dance was sure to continue far past 1994.

Note to self 93,
Made it back to the library. "A Tale of two cities" was still there waiting for me, thankfully (the beauty of having niche interests!). I moved on to the chapters speaking directly about the two case studies and copied the most interesting passages.
These were the most noteworthy parts on Kamābarha:

1. Kamābarha – Establishment and growth
Though there is still a certain degree of debate, scholars speculate that Kamābarha is the earliest of Arhada cities. It would be expected, considering its proximity to a great number of Middle Pottery sites and its strategic location at the intersection of the Great lake and the southern basin, offering opportunities for a higher degree of cultural interaction – which inevitably leads to cultural maturity.
Indeed, the rise of Kamābarha has left tangible markings in the archaeological record: the construction of Kamābarha III, the layer that first gives us some indication of a level of state control over the region (in the form of contract tablets and other material remains, symbolism associated with governance and a mature elite power, as well as the sheer size of its palace and granary) has been unanimously placed in the 6th century BD. For the purposes of this text, we are interested in understanding what the city looked like before and immediately after that date, in order to understand its peculiar character, as well as the ingredients that brought its success.

[...]

Kamābarha's wealth was chiefly in its copper reserves. The stretch of land between the Great lake and the southern Tritonean lakes, traversed by what the Arhada referred to as Green River, contained plentiful mineral deposits, ranging from pure copper, silver, and zinc-contaminated copper, otherwise known as "natural brass". This naturally occurring alloy was perhaps Kamābarha greatest export, although the metallurgical culture of Formative Tritonea was rather scant, and most uses for these metals were either decorative or for the production of cold-worked arrowheads. These items are found as far west as early Hortens sites and as far south as the Aluwa. They were either transported as fully formed arrowheads or as plates which were then worked locally by the importers. Within the confines of Kamābarha and its environs, however, we can find a higher ratio of copper artisanal goods and artistic objects than weapons: an indication of a lack of pressure to militarise. Brass is found on the decorations of Kamābarha's palace, in the form of mirrors, bracelets, jewellery. The oldest example of a painted copper plate – a typical Arhadan decorative items consisting of a flat copper surface covered on both sides with oil paint, was found in Kamābarha III. Chemical analyses confirm that what appears today as a simple oxidised copper disk was in fact coloured with bright pecan oil based paints.
That is not to say that the production of military gear, or, indeed, warfare, was inexistent. The dispersal of arrowheads along the north shore of the Great Lake gives us a clear indication that Kamābarha's influence was not based only on agricultural wealth or cultural influence: some amount of force was indeed employed in the creation of its political network.

[...]

2. Kamābarha –Internal Politics
Kamābarha's political structure was the natural evolution of the typical characters of pre-formative Arhada centres, as discussed earlier. At the top of the hierarchy were the "famous", as the nobility was known, and below was everyone else. Tracing the rise to power of the "famous" clans is no easy feat, but its clear that, through generations of wealth accumulation, a set of dynamics which allowed the flourishing of a restricted group of landowners culminated in a clear class divide between this group of hereditary leaders and the manpower contributing to their wealth.
At the time of Kamābarha III it seems like four or five clans shared the spaces of the palatial district, with the number dropping to three, either through the merger of two clans or the extinguishing of the families, in the 7th century. This has been suggested by the symbolism prevalent on funerary urns found within the site, with each clan being associated with a specific symbol: in early Kamābarha III we find the tortoise, the heron, the parrot, and two variations of the burning house motif – one flanked by two pecan trees, the other standing on its own. It's unknown whether the last two represented a single clan or two separate ones. As the period progressed, however, we find that later urns are only marked with heron, parrot and burning house logograms. These three clans probably included a great deal of people, between the matriarchs, the leaders and a third class of non-inheriting clan members.
Power was seemingly based on seniority, passing from the son of the eldest matriarch, who would hold leadership within the village, to the next; his second in line – either a brother or the son of the second-senior matriarch – would act as a representative. Note how power passes from the matriarchs, and not from the men themselves: it's the eldest mother that produces the city's leader, but that does not mean that the leader is necessarily the senior nobleman.

[...]

One aspect of this system that is currently under debate is whether the wealth of the four (later three) clans was pooled together or if they maintained some additional independent wealth: it would seem like that was the case. It is now believed that the Ibosso hadân (marriage vessel) was treated as a person's independent wealth: each clan would put the wealth of their Ibosso hadân together with the other members of their clan, but separate from the common wealth of the city; non-inheriting clan members would keep theirs separate shares. All other goods – the herds, the harvest from the paddies, and items produced by the clan for the treasury – were handled communally by the Council of the matriarchs and the two male leaders: the internal leader, or "First Leader", handling issues pertaining to the administration of the city at large, and an external one, a "Second Leader", whose duties involved diplomatic journeys to client villages and the collection of payments.

A diagram of power relations in Kamābarha, for reference. I was impressed by how mobile social classes were, even within such a hierarchical society. There's an entire chapter dedicated to this:

2.b Kamābarha –Lower Classes and social mobility
Overall, two other social classes were recognised aside from the members of the famous clans; the commoners and the clanless. The commoners formed the bulk of the population: there could have been anything between one and two hundred minor clans inhabiting Kamābarha, most of which were farmers and horticulturalists, but many of whom were moving towards specific arts and crafts as the quality of life increased due to the higher level food security provided by the state. The men of this social class would be called for military duty by the leadership in times of war – when the time came to exact payment by force from a client city, for example – but all evidence points to this being a rather rare occasion. Clans mostly contributed to the palace economy, in the form of corvée labour (wherein each clan had to provide a fixed number of workers for the paddy) or the production of specialised goods. Because of this, having a clan could prove to be expensive, and when those payments could not be met, clanhood would be revoked: this gave rise to the Clanless, a more generalistic group comprised of those without the means to provide work to the palace as an organised force as well as all prisoners of war, foreigners or recent immigrants that have not yet entered the social fabric of the city. These people worked the paddies in exchange for wages, paid in the form of zizania or tobacco, and would be the first group to which the most labour intensive jobs were assigned.
That is not to say that people statically belonged to one class or other; People of a famous clan could intermarry with commoners – this was somewhat rare, as the preference was to marry within one of the other famous families or with the upper class of the other cities, both client and independent. But in times of need, when there weren't suitable partners of the same generation, the Matriarchs who regulated upper class unions, could allow a commoner to enter their group. Another means of social betterment for commoners was being chosen as a favourite at the palace: when an artist or artisan – commonly a woman, but sometimes a man as well – was considered to be highly skilled by a member of the four inner clans, they could chose to sponsor them, sacrificing personal wealth to allow them to live at the palace, where they would continue their craft for the benefit of the palace's treasury. Within the palace, Favourites were then allowed to marry and reside until their death: their children, growing with the children of the famous clans, often grew up to be considered suitable marriage partners. The Clanless had ways to climb the social ladder as well: becoming a Kabaima, a helper, for the inhabitants palace was considered to be an honourable post, the highest honour for someone without a Clan. They were similarly allowed to live and marry within the palace, and where often given some payment for their descendants at the end of their service, when they reached old age or died.
In an intermediary position the commoners and the famous where the non-inheriting children of the latter. The sons and daughters of the men of the clan were not included in the matrilineal passage of power and had to find themselves a position in society: the men were often encouraged to join the "high guard", responsible for the private property of the clan within the city, and both men and women could become "Shrine keepers", organising religious functions and overseeing the community who took care of the shrine's upkeep. These positions were open to commoners too, but Famous commoners, due to their closeness to the clan (and thus, to leadership), were preferred for this kind of position.

I was fascinated about the "Shrine Keeper" figure, but I could find very little about it. I found this on shrines, though:

5. Kamābarha – Early Tritonean shrines, the rise of an architectural typology:
Within the context of northern Arhada cities, we can see the emergence of a new building type: specialised shrines, independent of the palace district. These prove to be an evolution of the domestic type: the courtyard framing a centred, central-plan building was a clear re-elaboration of palaces; the difference however is in the proportions between the single parts. The courtyard building surrounding the shrine proper, now a mere framing device, grew narrower and shorter, while the central building acquired prominence, both in size and in height. The central structure contained one large square room where votive statuettes, offerings and precious materials were gifted from people honouring the spirits to whom the shrine was dedicated. Because early shrines were made of wood, we have little direct information regarding their appearance, for which we need to employ pictorial and sculptural sources (clay models of shrines are a common pottery item, used for votive purposes). It has been proposed that early shrines were often rebuilt as the object of devotion changed according to the needs of the city – it's believed that this rebuilding of the shrine often corresponded with the promotion of a new Shrine Keeper. Eventually, shrines would be built in more durable materials, making rebuilding less practical, but in this early stage the reconstruction of the shrine was probably a ritual occurrence.

[...]

It must be noted that shrines had their way of accumulating wealth, through the management of the offerings given by the devout: some shrines in Kamābarha had enough to surpass a number of the wealthiest non-famous Clans. Because the appointment to shrines was handled by the council of Matriarchs, however, the Famous Clans always had a way to indirectly handle those resources, through the appointment of a family member.

I copied some more drawings: one is a fascinating scheme of how temple typologies became more and more complex through the ages (though the last example is some 1000 years outside the timeline of the essay) and the other is an axonometric view of temple "E".
I will be briefer on Amadahai, skipping all the things that are shared between the two cities. There are a couple of divergences that I think shed some light on how differently the political environment of the two cities evolved.

1. Amadahai – Establishment and Growth
One key difference between Amadahai and Kamābarha was in their location: while Kamābarha was built along the coast of the Great Lake, Amadahai was founded in a strategic location at the head of the land bridge that closes off most of the small lake Thidorovôdjo from the larger Odjohivôdjo. This thin strip of land was reinforced with rows of paddies on both sides, creating a lush environment for the agricultural production of the urban centre. The warmer climate of Amadahai also provided the locals with a longer growing season, ensuring a higher production of high quality fruits and fruit products – wines, preserves, oil – that would be traded all over Tritonea and beyond. It seems that Amadahai's initial wealth was derived especially from this production and a booming trade of cosmetics in the form of spiced and perfumed oils, the large scale production of pigments such as indigo dye, ochre, and oil paint. It is worth dedicating a few words to this last product: while oil paints, as mixtures of pecan oil and pigments, had been used throughout Arhadan territory for some time (especially within the Southern Pottery School), Amadahai is the first site where the chemical analyses of archeological findings detected the use of hempseed oil – which acts as a better drying oil. Indeed, the high quality of the paintwork in pottery is one of the key feature of the Southern Pottery school, and some examples of painted pots, pipes and oil vessels are still visible today, with several exemplars being held at Newtown's Royal Museum of Horean Archaology. Tobacco was another notable export of the city and its wider political network: its climate was well suited for the cultivation of the leaf which was then carried throughout the lake system.

[...]

Amadahai also served as a centre of agricultural development, with the innovation of at least two very important crops being connected to the site of Amadahai II (contemporary with Kamābarha III). The first is Taraxacum ceratophorum, the wild Tritonean Dandelion, which the Arhada domesticated around the 5th Century, and began to select over the course of the next Centuries to obtain a series of crops we commonly eat to this day. Taraxacum was used for a number of different functions: the roots could be used to create brews, the leaves could be eaten raw, the petals could be crushed into dyes or used as aromatics.
Even more economically important was the creation of the Cattail variant Typha domestica var. lanifera, also called "Southern Cattail" or "Wooly Cattail". The fluff of wild cattails was hard to spin because of the shortness of the strands. As such, hemp-cattail blends started off as a common alternative to either of the pure fibre, softening the roughness of hemp and supplementing the scarcity of workable Typha fibre. Over the years, as cattail-flower fibre goods became more prised for their soft texture, the plant was selected for longer and sturdier fibres, larger heads and shorter stalks. The gathering of the fibre was light enough work to allow for the material to spread even thogh the cattail itself, domesticated from Typha Domingensis, required warmer climates, impeding its spread to the northern half of the Arhada territories in lake Sibozjivôro. This ensured that its cultivation would remain a southern specialty for some time, further ensuring Amadahai's commercial success.

A picture of the Wooly Cattail from the book! I had no idea it was first domesticated there, though thinking about it, it makes sense. I suppose I have to thank the people of Amadahai for the sweater I'm wearing right now. Some notes on politics, then I'll have to leave the library – the old man at the desk is giving me looks.

2. Amadahai – Internal Politics
The key differences in the political structure of early Amadahai can be easily appreciated when ne observes the power structures within its leadership class. Where Kamābarha had four or three leading clans, Amadahai maintains a stable number of six clans.

Amadahai's political diagram for reference.

Because the members of the leading families represent a greater percentage of the city's demography, the leadership of early Amadahai is thought to be less top-heavy: all mothers of the six ruling clans participated in the council and, rather than having a single elder matriarch as the head of the council – as was the case in Kamābarha –, the duties of the council were split between three members, elected by the matriarchs amongst the matriarchs.
The "Speaker" had a similar functions to the senior matriarch of Kamābarha but her role was mostly that of a representative and prima inter pares, rather than a final authority. She was flanked by two peers, equally chosen by the entire council: a "Treasure mother", who acted as a steward for the shared wealth of the clans, and a "Lore mother". The responsibilities of this final figure were perhaps the widest: amongst them was a cereful knowledge of genealogy and the history of Amadahai and all its client cities, the recording of contracts of obeisance and clientele, the approval and arrangement of marriages between members of the Famous clans, as well as the mentorship of younger women who might succeed her. While the Speaker of the council evidently held the most outwardly active role, the Lore Mother, in lieu of her deep knowledge, wisdom and powerful responsibilities, was treated with the most respect amongst the three.
If we look at the political role of men, we can see that even their division of power was more egalitarian than in Kamābarha: while we can still notice a clear division between First Leader and Second Leader, in a similar fashion to what we see in the northern city, we find that the second leader does not act independently in matters of war, being assisted instead by a war council formed of all the adult men of the clan. This speaks to Amadahai's deeper martial culture, born of a more conflictual relationship with its southern neighbours. The war council culminated in the creation of a sort of military elite – hunting and engaging in sporting culture during times of peace and commanding forces of commoners and clansless people in times of war. This is visible in the developement of specialised weapons (in Amadahai II we see the first depictions of recurve self bows in pictographs, pottery and sculpture) as well as an increase in arrowhead production dated from this period. There is current debate over whether the "Famous commoner" class could join this group, but the consensus seems to be that while they could become commanders, they did not have the rights to speak or vote in the war council proper.

[...]

While both an elite military role and priesthood were acceptable paths for famous commoners, it seems that these options were barred to all other commoners (another difference from Kamābarha). Again, this is possibly explained by the higher numbers of nobles in the city. A "lower guard", overseeing the protection of everything within the city but outside the palace was manned by commoners, whereas the "higher guard", acting as personal protectors of the Famous men and right hand men in times of war, were chosen exclusively amongst the non-inheriting relatives of the clan. The same goes for the priesthood: men and women of the clan's blood but outside the line of inheritance were invited to oversee the running of a temple: to be appointed, a "famous commoner" would require the backing of a member of one of the clans – usually via their father – and unanimous consent from all the members of the high leadership: the three matriarchs and the two leaders. These postings were diplomatically and economically sensitive: they allowed one of the clans to give an affiliated party a role within the leadership of a shrine, tapping into additional resources for the benefit of their family.

Alright, I guess that's enough research for my thesis – I'm super tired. I might still borrow this book when I can. End of note.

Predict, Discuss and Follow the Weekend's Events

Use this discussion thread to talk about matchups, share predictions, find stream info, react to results and more. You can also chat live in our discord channel. Feel free to discuss any event, not just the featured events!

Poultry Days

June 10-11 in cloudy Versailles, OH
Poultry Days is a famous recreational ultimate tournament dating back to the 1980s. See tournament site here in all its glory. Plus the complete unencrypted list of team managers and their contact info. Read more here.
The Columbus Pride will be hosting a PUL game against the Atlanta Soul Saturday night at Poultry Days. Tickets are free (donations encouraged), livestreaming and other info here.
Follow: Tournament Site, Festival Site, @Oshadega

Minnesota Warm Up

June 10-11 in both stormy and peaceful Eden Prairie, MN
Men's Teams – Schedule and Results

Teams
Minneapolis Sub Zero, Madison Mad Men, Minneapolis Mallard, Golden Valley Knights of Ni, Des Moines DeMo, Appleton Timber, Edina High School, Winnipeg Street Car, Edina Nomad, Rochester (MN) Spin Doctors, Duluth Dingwop, Minneapolis Dinkytown Doughboys, Minneapolis The Body, Fargo The Fargoats, Apple Valley UFO

Mixed Teams – Schedule and Results

Teams
Minneapolis Surly, Minneapolis The Force, Lake Elmo Pushovers, Minneapolis Bird

Follow: Tournament Site, @MPLSMallard, @Ultiworld, @UltiworldLive

Bay Area Classic

June 10-11 in partly cloudy Fremont, CA
Women's Pools – Schedule and Results

Pool A	Pool B
Bay Area Fab	Oakland Lol
Sunnyvale Void Cat Rewind	Long Beach Just Add Water
San Francisco Off Their Rockers	Bay Area Ultraviolet
Bay Area Tempo

Mixed Pools – Schedule and Results

Pool A	Pool B
Sunnyvale BW	Los Angeles Lotus
Bay Area Lit	Bay Area Donuts
San Francisco Mango	San Francisco Firefly
San Francisco VU	Berkeley DR
San Mateo Air Throwmads	San Jose Moonlight

Follow: Tournament Site, @BayAreaDisc, @Ultiworld, @UltiworldLive

Masters, GM, GGM Regionals

Several regionals for Masters, GM, and GGM divisions will take place this weekend or next (or already took place last weekend). See here for a list occurring this weekend. Which region is most interesting? Discuss the teams and react to results below.
Follow: @USAUltimate, @Ultiworld, @UltiworldLive

NISA

Time (Eastern Time)	Home	Away	Link	Match Thread
6:00 PM	Flower City Union	Gold Star FC Detroit	Link	Thread
7:00 PM	Maryland Bobcats FC	Savannah Clovers FC	Link	Thread
7:30 PM	Club De Lyon FC	Michigan Stars FC	Link	Thread

NISA Nation

Time (Eastern Time)	Home	Away	Link
6:00 PM	Lobos FC	AS Los Angeles FC	-
10:00 PM	JASA RWC	Modesto City FC	-

Eastern Premier Soccer League

Time (Eastern Time)	Home	Away	Link
7:30 PM	Nova FC	Estudiantes FC	-
7:30 PM	NY Pancyprian Freedoms	NY Greek Americans	Link

Midwest Premier League

Time (Eastern Time)	Home	Away	Link
2:00 PM	Troy United FC	1927 SC	Link
3:00 PM	Cedar Rapids Inferno SC	Club Atletico St. Louis	Link
5:00 PM	Indy Boyz FC	Steel City FC	-
6:00 PM	AIM SC	West Michigan Bearings SC	-
6:45 PM	Liquid Football	Futsal Factory Academy	Link
7:00 PM	AFC Columbia	Southeast Soccer Academy	Link
7:00 PM	Livonia City FC	United West FC	Link
8:00 PM	Thundercats SC	Cedars FC	Link
8:30 PM	Bavarian United SC	Edgewater Castle FC	-
8:30 PM	Chicago House AC	Czarni Jaslo	Link
9:30 PM	RWB Adria	Berber City FC	-

Gulf Coast Premier League

Time (Eastern Time)	Home	Away	Link
5:00 PM	Gulf Coast United	Florida Roots	-
7:30 PM	Hattiesburg FC	Union 10 FC	-
8:00 PM	Crescent City FC	BRSC Capitals	-
8:15 PM	Gaffa FC	Central Louisiana FC	-
8:15 PM	FC Sharp Keys	Daggers CTX	-
8:15 PM	StrikerZ DFW	Shreveport United	-
8:15 PM	Pensacola Bay United	SOWEGANS SC	Link

Southwest Premier League

Time (Eastern Time)	Home	Away	Link
7:00 PM	ARIZONA SAHUAROS	SPORTING ARIZONA	-
8:00 PM	SANTA CLARA SPORTING CLUB	HAYWARD FC	-

Cascadia Premier League

Time (Eastern Time)	Home	Away	Link
5:30 PM	Nido Aguila 2	Mt. Rainier F.C.	-
9:00 PM	Snohomish County	Seattle Celtic	Link

​

SmackDown Episode #1242
Venue: Wells Fargo Arena (Des Moines, IA)
Attendance: ~6400

Results of Tonight's Show

Match	Stipulation	Winner
Santos Escobar vs. Mustafa Ali	MITB Qualifying Match	Santos Escobar
Michin vs. Bayley	MITB Qualifying Match	Bayley
Butch vs. Baron Corbin	MITB Qualifying Match	Butch
Shotzi vs. IYO SKY	MITB Qualifying Match	IYO SKY
Jey Uso vs. Austin Theory	US Championship Match	Austin Theory

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Heyman is in the ring with Solo Sikoa and doesn't get any further than that before the Usos' music hits and Jey joins them. Jey says he's let a lot of things slide, but stabbing Jimmy in the back is something you don't do. He's not sure he can forgive him for that. Paul wonders aloud, did Jimmy ask Jey about this move in advance? Jimmy always resented Jey because he's in on the fact that the Tribal Chief Roman Reigns wants to groom Jey to be the next tribal chief. Tonight, Paul has set a match to set his trajectory to be the next tribal chief by bringing gold back to the Bloodline. He'll defeat Austin Theory for the US Championship tonight! Then the Tribal Chief will embrace him and someday when the time is right, Jey will become Tribal Chief. But, Paul needs his answer now. Jey says he'll take him up on the US challenge but can't bring himself to shake Paul's hand. He says he'll get back to him on that.
  
• LA Knight joins the commentary desk for the EscobaAli match.
  
• Jey is backstage looking tortured and Sami Zayn appears. Sami says his time in the Bloodline was some of the best time in his life and it probably was for him too. But they couldn't have it because of the Tribal Chief - the paranoia sets in, the manipulation sets in, and he pushes too far. Sami says he did it too, he did everything he could to keep everything together just like Jey, but he was still pushed and pushed against his brothers, just like what he's doing to Jey. Sami sincerely hopes Jey wins the US Championship tonight so they can see that they need Jey more than Jey needs them. And reminds Jey, Jimmy is his brother, they're the Usos, so listen to what's in his heart and not what's being drilled into his head.
  
• Kayla Braxton introduces the NXT Women's Tag Team Champions Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn, joining her in the ring. As Kayla attempts to start an interview, Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler interrupt. Shayna asks, how much do they know about the history of their titles? She says she's the reason those titles were even created -- those Shayna Baszler Commemorative Titles are really hers. Ronda says she ran the numbers and this division isn't big enough for the two of them, so they want theirs. Fyre & Dawn accept the unification title request and go on the offense. After a scuffle, Ronda & Shayna are driven from the ring and the NXT champs stand tall.
  
• RIP Iron Sheik.
  
• AJ Styles joins the commentary table for the Michin/Bayley match. Afterwards, Scarlett walks up to AJ and blows red dust in his face; he stumbles back into Karrion Kross behind the barricade, choking him out in a Kross-Jacket.
  
• Bianca Belair is backstage asking Adam Pearce for her rematch against Asuka. Pearce says there's a lot going on and tonight he's presenting Asuka with a new women's title and asks that she can have her rematch at another time but that she lets this go off without a hitch. Bianca protests but Adam says just for tonight, leave it alone. She agrees, because she's got a rematch.
  
• Backstage AJ is being held by Anderson & Gallows wondering what in the hell just happened. Michin assures them that they'll get their revenge.
  
• Adam Pearce summons Asuka to the ring to present the new WWE Women's Championship. As he's fastening it around her waist, Charlotte Flair's music hits. Adam says he thinks he knows what she's trying to do, but she kinda needs to get in line. Charlotte says she doesn't wait in line, she made the line. She adds she respects Asuka, but she wants that championship, so she's challenging her for the title. Asuka accepts. Charlotte tells Adam when she wins, he can put that championship around her waist, too. Asuka then attempts to mist Charlotte but she ducks out.
  
• Jey Uso is taping up his wrisks and Paul Heyman joins him, saying yeah, he got him, he gave him a cliffhanger. Paul then says he wants Jey's passport so he can fly with Roman & Solo in style. And next week there will be a triple celebration - Roman Reigns, Jey the right-hand man, and a public announcement that he'll be groomed as the next tribal chief. Paul puts his hand out for a shake again. Jey says count him in, but doesn't know why Paul's so happy - because if Jey's in the Bloodline, that means Paul's out of the Bloodline.
  
• Adam Pearce is backstage talking to whoever talking about how huge it is that they have Asuka/Flair on the books. Bianca shows up, glaring. Adam says he'll figure it out. She says yes, and she's getting her win back.
  
• Trick Williams & NXT Champion Carmelo Hayes are hanging out for the Butch vs. Corbin match. Corbin warns them that they better stay on the other side of that barricade like the fans they are and watch him punch his ticket to Money in the Bank.
  
• Post-match, Corbin approaches them and hands are thrown, with officials needing to separate them.
  
• Megan Morant checks in with the Brawling Brutes backstage asking Butch about his win - he's taking the title back to the UK and every night will be FIGHT NIGHT! Baron Corbin tries to intervene saying he was distracted by Carmelo Hayes, and Cameron Grimes appears to blast him from behind.
  
• Kayla Braxton congratulates IYO SKY from backstage, now interviewing Austin Theory. Theory's mad he was the last one to find out about this match tonight. He's had zero time to prepare but that's fine, all he gets are victories. He'll beat Jey Uso like he beat John Cena at Wrestlemania. Should Paul Heyman need a new client, he invites him to check out Austin Theory live.
  
• Kevin Owens chats with Sami Zayn backstage, checking in to see if he talked to Jey. They're interrupted by Pretty Deadly who think they should consider defending their championships. The Brawling Brutes appear asking the same, and then the OC appears, and then the LWO appears, and then the Street Profits appear. Adam Pearce tries to calm the crowd when Kevin Owens flips the fuck out and cannot take everyone showing up. Sami tries to get him to settle down. Pearce says, how about we have a gauntlet match for the top contenders for the championship next week?
  
• Grayson Waller gets a vignette, and next week the Grayson Waller Effect will have Charlotte Flair as a guest.
  
• Mixed tag team match next week: AJ Styles & Michin vs. Karrion Kross & Scarlett; the gauntlet match previously mentioned; and Roman Reigns returns.
  
• During our main event: after a ref bump, Pretty Deadly intervenes on behalf of Austin Theory. Jimmy Uso runs in to protect Jey. Solo Sikoa runs in to take out Jimmy. In the midst of the kerfluffle, Jimmy superkicks Jey. Just in time for the ref to come back to life.
  
• Post match, Paul Heyman & Solo Sikoa ominously watch from the ramp while Jimmy tends to Jey. Jey pushes Jimmy away. He continues to the back while Paul talks to his phone, "call Roman Reigns."
  

Additional Plugs

• Revisit the live thread
  
• Check out our SquaredCircle Twitter account for all sorts of AMA announcements and interaction!
  
• Join our SquaredCircle Discord for live chat! (A great place to keep up the conversation during the upcoming blackout.)
  
• Be sure to follow @WWE on Twitter and Like WWE on Facebook!
  
• Like other wrestling promotions? Perhaps you're looking for other subreddits related to wrestling? There's a sub for that! Check out /AEWOfficial, /luchaunderground, /njpw, /ImpactWrestling, /ROH, /indiewrestling, /Wrasslin and more!
  

Next week's Smackdown will be live from Lexington, KY.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN!
SmackDown Episode #1242
Venue: Wells Fargo Arena (Des Moines, IA)
Attendance: ~6400

WWE's SmackDown Preview

• How will The Usos react following their fallout with Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa?
• The OC’s Michin takes on Damage CTRL’s Bayley in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
• The LWO’s Santos Escobar faces Mustafa Ali in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
• Butch goes head-to-head with Baron Corbin in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
• Shotzi battles IYO SKY in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
• Asuka to be presented with a new WWE Women’s Championship

More Links

• New to /SquaredCircle? Check out the Wiki!
  
• Check out our SquaredCircle Twitter account for all sorts of AMA announcements and interaction!
  
• Join our SquaredCircle Discord for live chat!
  
• Be sure to follow @WWE on Twitter and Like WWE on Facebook!
  
• Like other wrestling promotions? Perhaps you're looking for other subreddits related to wrestling? There's a sub for that! Check out /AEWOfficial, /njpw, /impactwrestling, /ROH, /indiewrestling, /Wrasslin, /BritishWrestling and more!
  

My wife and I don’t use cable or satellite or anything but subscribe to a few streaming services and my wife has a remote job so we want to know who is best to go with.

Hey all, I wanted to see if my school list looks good for MDs (I'll be looking into DO's too).
I believe my cGPA makes things interesting and I am looking for advice if I should reach out to schools?
**STATS:**
NC ORM? - Male born in Turkey, moved to US at age 14.
Nontrad
MCAT: 513 (130/126/128/129)
Undergrad: Took 7 years to finish
76 credits of 2.07 GPA as a business major for the first 4 years
Transferred and took 116 credits as a Kin major- premed track and earned
3.91 cGPA and 3.94sGPA (over 46 credits).
I do not have any post-bac classes since my first degree was unfinished. However, my premed journey grades and 116 credits shows as my senior year.
so my freshman-sophomore-junior includes my first 2.07 transcript and my senior year has my 116 credits of 3.91
My AMCAS
cumulative is 3.03 and 3.64 sGPA :(
**ECs:*\*
Research: 1000 hrs across 3 projects (1 NIH R1 funded clinical trial)
Poster Presentation: 2
Clinical Experience: Scribe for 330, ongoing
Shadowing: 60 hrs
Clinical Volunteering: 50 hrs as patient transporter, ongoing
Non-clinical Volunteering : 150hrs at a Turkish community outreach organization teaching Turkish and fundraising events for the community. Ongoing
Organic Chem tutor 170 hours
Chess mentor 50 hours, ongoing
Owned my own online personal training business 600 hours
I am looking if there are some schools that look positively to reinvention.
**SCHOOL LIST:**
In state
Wake
UNC
ECU
WI: I lived here for 8 years
UW
MCW
**OUT OF STATE**:
Keck
Albany
Oakland-Beaumont
SUNY Downstate
Einstein
Tufts
Boston U
Central Michigan
Western Michigan Stryker
Drexel
Jefferson
Pittsburg
Colorado
Quinnipac
Loyala Stritch
Temple-Katz
Tulane
Drexel
Penn State
Vermont - Larner
Geisinger Commonwealth
South Carolina - Greenville
USC- parents and I live in NC so maybe can tie that to SC?
Georgetown
Wayne State
Wright State
Toledo
I am aware my non clinical is low for the service schools but I think those schools also see reinventors highly so wanted to try those.
DO schools:
Des Moines
ATSU Kirksville
Michigan state
PCOM
Touro NY/CA?
Rocky Vista CO- i love Colorado that's the only reason tbh
Campbell -NC
Any critique is appreciated good or bad!

Hi Everyone! I just submitted my application and I’m nervous. I have a decent amount of school but I am thinking of adding a few more. Do you have any suggestions? I know since my MCAT is low my best chances are DO but any suggestions would be appreciated!
Stats: MCAT:502 Gpa:3.67 Working hours: 4000+ Clinical volunteering: 400+ Research:300+ California resident
Current list: Do: -College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (COMP) and COMP-Northwest
-Touro Univeristy of California
-A.T. Still University-School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona - ATSU-SOMA
-Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine - TUNCOM
-Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine - AZCOM
-Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine - Bradenton Campus - LECOM Bradenton
-Nova Southeastern University Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine - NSU-KPCOM
-Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine - TouroCOM
-New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine - NYITCOM
-University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine - UIWSOM
-Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine - Burrell COM
-Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine - ACOM
-West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine - WVSOM
-Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine - ARCOM
-Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine - DMUCOM
-Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine - Noorda-COM
-Western Universty of the Pacific Northwest
MD: -Albany Medical College
-Central Michigan University College of Medicine
-University of California, Riverside
-California University of Science and Medicine-School of Medicine
-Quillen College of Medicine
-Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
-Howard University College of Medicine
-Loma Linda University School of Medicine
-Medical College of Wisconsin
-Meharry Medical College
-Morehouse School of Medicine
-Northeast Ohio Medical University
-State University of New York Upstate Medical
-University Alan and Marlene Norton College of Medicine
-University of California, Davis, School of Medicine
-University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville
-Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine
-Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
-University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine

Last week, u/ExistentialPuggle posted an amazing list of things to do in Baton Rouge that weekend and a lot of people got excited about all the fun things going on, while others shared adfitional events happening around the city. One Redditor commented that they didn’t realize how many great things Baton Rouge has going on and this is something I’ve noticed happening a lot, so my goal is to let people know all the great things Baton Rouge has to offer and hope they share it with others.
Adam Knapp, BRAC’s new president, said his biggest concern is that compared to other cities like Lafayette and New Orleans, Baton Rouge does not have “insane community pride” and looking at this subreddit proves he’s right. I know its hard to be proud of this city. I know we’ll never be #1 on any positive list and am use to scrolling down to the bottom lists to find us but I’m a Baton Rougian for life and try to find as much pride to have in gvis city as possible.
I’m usually a lurker and not much if a poster, so it might take me a few tries to get the format right. Also, with Reddit deciding to compleywly fuck over 3rd party apps, I’m not aure how easy posting will be once Apollo no longer exists.
The places I’m currently looking for events are news sources, local magzines, the library and local wbesite. If you have any other recommendations on where to look, please share.
Please share any other events I might have missed!
(Due to this being a late night Thursday adventure, I’m probabaly only going to be able to posts this weekend’s events, but my goal is to add on events that are ongoing in the area)
Local Live Music: Red Stick Music does an amazing job of listing all known live music shows
FRIDAY - June 9th
Coppélia Ballet: Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre’s Youth Ballet summer touring show - Carver Library - 9:30am - Free
LSU MOA’s Neighborhood Art Pop-Up: LSU Museum if Art brings artists, art supplies and creative projects offering kids a fun opportunity to create artwork while learning - Shiloh Baptist Church - 10am-12pm
Mary Poppins Jr.: Central Community Theatre puts on musical based on the popular Disney movie - Manship Theatre (not sure how this will work with Summer of Swing) - 6:30pm - $29
Rhinos of the World: Learn all about rhinos from how they communicate to where they live - Baton Rouge Zoo - 6:30pm-7:30pm - Free but pre-registration is required
Movies in the Plaza: Movie: Turning Red (bring lawn chairs or blankets) - The Main Library at Goodwood - 7pm - Free
Summer Swing with Ashley Orlando - The Great American Songbook & Beyond: A voyage through jazz and swing from the early 20th century through the 1960s - Manship Theatre (not sure how this will work with Mary Poppins Jr. - $25
Highland Road Park Observatory: Display Premiere: The Histories and Mysteries of Glass - 5:30pm-8:30pm - Free
Phil Brady’s Bar: Live music from Mid-City Prowlers, Low Water Bridge & The Squanders - Come see u/Bassman-BEADG play in all 3 bands! - 8:30pm - Not sure of cover charge
SATURDAY - June 10th
Red Stick Farmers Market: Farm fresh produce, goods, cooking demonstrations and more - Fifth and Main Street downtown - 8am-12pm
Market at the Oasis: Vendors selling farm grown produce, handmade items, baked goods and more - 13827 Coursey Blvd - 9am-1pm
Kids Fest: Live entertainment, speakers, health screenings and outdoor play - Scotlandville Parkway - 9am-1pm
Highland Road Park Observatory - Science Academy: Exploring Weather II - Cadets will investigate: frost, mist, fog, clouds, rain and snow - Ages 8-12 - 10am-12pm - $5 for EBR Parish Cadet; $6 for other-Parish Cadet
Irene W. Pennington Planetarium - Stargazing: Learn about stars and constellations and an all-ages show - Louisiana Arts & Science Museum - 10am - Ticket included in regular admission
Baddies Who Brunch: High energy drag performance with bottomless mimosas and table seating brunch - Independence Park Theatre - Doors open at 10am; Show starts at 11am - $35 Don’t forget to bring singles to tip the fabulous queens!
Greater Baton Rouge Model Railroaders: Miniature train models and running models of trains - 3406 College Street Jackson, Louisiana - 10am-2pm - Free
BASF’s Kid’s Lab: Float or Sink: Explore the science of chemistry during a 45-minute hands-on workshop - Ages 6-12 - Louisiana Arts & Science Museum - 11am; 1pm & 3pm - Tickets included with regular admission
Radio Bar - Art Market: Local artists and creators - Radio Bar - 2pm-6pm
Mary Poppins Jr.: Central Community Theatre puts on musical based on the popular Disney movie - Manship Theatre - 2pm & 6:30pm - $29
Baton Rouge Super Regional - LSU Baseball: LSU vs UK - Alex Box Stadium - 2pm - Tickets required
Red Stick C.A.R.E.S - Under the Lights: Night Red Stick Market with live music and lots of local artists and vendors - 5475 Essen Lane - 6pm-9pm
Boomerang Comedy Theatre: Improve Student Showcase - Feel free to bring BYOB - Boomerang Comedy Theatre - 7pm; 8pm & 9pm - Free but tickets required
Highland Road Park Observatory - Evening Sky Viewing: Weather permitting, view the night sky through telescopes - 7:30pm-10pm - Free -Turn off headlights when driving in
SUNDAY - June 11th
Baddies Who Brunch: High energy drag performance with bottomless mimosas and table seating brunch - Independence Park Theatre - Doors open at 10am; Show starts at 11am - $35 Don’t forget to bring singles to tip the fabulous queens!
Hilton Drag Brunch: High energy drag performances, brunch menu and bottomless mimosas - Must be 21 or older - Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center - 10am-2pm - $60 Don’t forget to bring singles to tip the fabulous queens!
BASF’s Kid’s Lab: Float or Sink: Explore the science of chemistry during a 45-minute hands-on workshop - Ages 6-12 - Louisiana Arts & Science Museum - 1:30pm & 3pm - Tickets included with regular admission
Mary Poppins Jr.: Central Community Theatre puts on musical based on the popular Disney movie - Manship Theatre - 2pm & 6:30pm - $29
Baton Rouge Super Regional - LSU Baseball: LSU vs UK - Alex Box Stadium - Time to be announced - Tickets required
MONDAY - June 12th
Baton Rouge Super Regional - LSU Baseball: (Only if needed) LSU vs UK - Alex Box Stadium - Time to be announced - Tickets required
TUESDAY - June 13th
Red Stick Farmers Market: Local fruits and vegetables, fresh breads, garden plants, prepared foods, jams, jellies and more - Main Library at Goodwood - 3pm-6pm
WEDNESDAY - June 14th
Red Stick Farmers Market: Local fruits and vegetables, fresh breads, garden plants, prepared foods, jams, jellies and more - ExxonMobil YMCA - 9am-12pm
Sunset Paddle: Youth age 12+ and adults - Milford Wampold Memorial Park - 7pm-8:30pm - Rentals: single kayak-$10; tandem kayak-$20; canoe-$25 - Registration required at brec.org
THURSDAY - June 15th
Red Stick Farmers Market: Local fruits and vegetables, fresh breads, garden plants, prepared foods, jams, jellies and more - Pennington Biomedical Research Center - 8am-12pm
Juneteenth Panel Discussions: Talk will unpack the post-emancipation triumphs of Black Americans - Shaw Center for the Arts - 5pm-7pm
ONGOING TEMPORARY EXHIBITS
Baton Rouge Gallery Center for Contemporary Art: Exhibits by Mary Ann Caffery, Margaret Humphris, Phyllis Lear and David Scott (until June 19) - Free
Capitol Park Museum: Carnival in the Nation’s Capital: The Washington Mardi Gras Ball (until Sept 16) - Creole New Orleans, Honey! The Art of Andrew LaMar Hopkins (until Sept 16) - Back Roads to Back Yards: The Flora and Fauna of South Louisiana (until Oct 28) - The History of Louisiana’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities - Free
Cary Saurage Community Arts Center: Why Pride: A Collaboration with the Trevor Project (until now July 2) - Free
Louisiana Art & Science Museum: Diamonds of History: Mighty Women by Ashley Longshire (until July 2) - Pinpointing the Stars (until Aug 1) - Illustrating Health (until Aug 6) - Our Louisiana (until Jan 14) - Artistry and Accuracy l: Botanical Illustrations by Margaret Stone (until March 3) - Children & Seniors-$10; Adults-$12
Louisiana State Archives: 70th Jubilee Invitational Exhibit (until June 29)
LSU Museum of Art: I, Too, am Thornton Dial (until July 2) - Hank Willis Thomas/Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America (until July 30) - Children (under 12)-Free; 13 and older-$5
LSU Textile & Costume Museum: Til Trends Do Us Part: A Retrospect in Changing Fashion in Bridal Wear (until Aug 31) - Free
Main Library at Goodwood: Fiber Artists of Louisiana - Guardians, Harbingers and Sentinels (until June 30) - Free
Old State Capitol: Jazz Age Juxtaposition: The Prohibition Era of Louisiana (until Aug 19)- Political Parties and the Culture of Conventions (until Dec 15) - Free
West Baton Rouge Museum: Angela Gregory: Doyenne of Louisiana Sculpture (until Aug 7) - WBRP Resident-Free; Other Adults-$4; Seniors, Military, Students-$2

For decades, the writer Gabriel Matzneff used Francesca Gee's image and letters to champion his sexual pursuit of adolescents. But her own account was rejected, until now.
March 31, 2020
PARIS—In her telling, Francesca Gee was out with a girlfriend, a late autumn day in Paris in 1983, when they spotted a new bookstore. As they lingered before the storefront, her friend suddenly pointed to the bottom of the window.
"Look, it's you!"
Ms. Gee's face was staring back at her from the cover of a novel, Drunk on Lost Wine, by Gabriel Matzneff, the writer and champion of [child and adolescent sexual abuse].
A decade earlier, at 15, Ms. Gee, had gotten involved in a traumatic three-year relationship with the much older Mr. Matzneff. Now, he was using her teenage face on his novel's cover, and her letters in its pages, without having asked her or even informing her, she said.
For decades, despite Ms. Gee's protests, Mr. Matzneff used her letters to justify [adolescent sexual abuse] and what he cast as great love affairs with teenage girls, all the while supported by members of France's literary, media, business and political elite.
Mr. Matzneff's books were endorsed by some of France's most prestigious publishers, including Gallimard, which printed Drunk on Lost Wine (Ivre du vin perdu) for nearly four decades with the same cover—in effect using Ms. Gee's face to promote the kind of relationship that has scarred some of Mr. Matzneff's victims for life.
"I'm persecuted by this image of me, which is like a malevolent double," Ms. Gee said.
Hers is the story of a woman unable to tell her own story—until now.
Ms. Gee, now 62, contacted The New York Times after the publication of an article that described how Mr. Matzneff openly wrote about and engaged in sex with teenage girls and prepubescent boys for decades.
After anguishing over her decision, Ms. Gee—who had a career as a journalist and speaks fluent English, French, Italian and Spanish—broke her silence of 44 years in a series of interviews over two days in southwest France, where she lives.
That decision was facilitated by a recent cultural shift in France.
Mr. Matzneff first achieved renown in the 1970s, when some French intellectuals regarded [adult-child sex] as a form of liberation against parental oppression. Though those views fell out of favor in the 1990s, he continued to publish and prosper until late last year.
But in the past couple of months, he was charged with promoting the sexual abuse of children, stripped of state-conferred honors and dropped by his three publishers.
Gallimard stopped selling the novel with Ms. Gee's image on the cover only in January, after the publication of Le Consentement (Consent), the first account by one of Mr. Matzneff's underage victims, Vanessa Springora.
Consent turned the widely celebrated Mr. Matzneff into a social pariah overnight. While he went into hiding in Italy, his former supporters, across France's elite, have studiously distanced themselves or jettisoned him.
When she first heard of Consent, Ms. Gee said, she was "elated" that the "Vanessa" in Mr. Matzneff's books—someone she had never met but had always considered a little sister—was speaking.
"She has done the work, I don't have to worry about it anymore," Ms. Gee remembers thinking. "But then within a week or two, I realize that I'm very much a part of this story."
In fact, nearly two decades before Consent shook up France, Ms. Gee tried—unsuccessfully—to tell her story, in 2004. She wrote a manuscript that, in detailing her involvement with Mr. Matzneff, grappled with some of the same themes and used the same vocabulary as Consent.
But no publisher accepted her manuscript.
At Albin Michel, a major house, an editor appeared receptive—but when he took Ms. Gee's manuscript to a committee, it was ultimately turned down.
In a rejection letter, the editor, Thierry Pfister, explained that some committee members had expressed reservations, noting that Mr. Matzneff, was a part of "Saint-Germain-des-Prés"—shorthand for the French publishing industry concentrated in that Paris neighborhood.
"Back then, Matzneff wasn't the old, isolated man he is today," said Mr. Pfister, who is no longer at Albin Michel. "He was still in Paris with his network, his friends."
"We made the decision not to go cross swords with that group," he recalled. "There was more to lose than to gain. I spoke in her favor. They didn't agree with me."
Mr. Matzneff's network of supporters was surprisingly wide.
In 1973, when Ms. Gee was 15 and Mr. Matzneff was 37, a friend of the writer introduced them to a gynecologist who agreed to prescribe contraceptive pills to underage girls without their parents' authorization—an illegal act back then.
In his diary of the period, Élie et Phaéton, Mr. Matzneff writes that the gynecologist, Dr. Michèle Barzach, "at no point felt the need to lecture this man of 37 years and his lover of 15."
Ms. Gee said she saw Dr. Barzach a half-dozen times over three years, always accompanied by Mr. Matzneff.
"He calls her and makes an appointment, and we go," she recalled. "He's in the waiting room while I'm with her. And then he comes in, and they talk and he pays her."
In his other diaries, Mr. Matzneff writes that Dr. Barzach became the go-to gynecologist to whom he took underage girls for years after he and Ms. Gee parted in 1976.
Dr. Barzach, who was also a psychoanalyst, was France's health minister from 1986 to 1988 under President François Mitterrand.
From 2012 to 2015, she was the head in France of UNICEF, the United Nation's child protection agency. Citing privacy reasons, UNICEF refused to provide contact details for Dr. Barzach, who is no longer at the agency. Dr. Barzach did not reply to an interview request that UNICEF said had been forwarded to her.
"Love"? Or a "Hostage Taking"?
For decades, Mr. Matzneff claimed that his relations with underage girls had helped them for the rest of their lives. Their initiation into art, literature, love and sex, by an older man, had left them happier and freer, he claimed.
The claim—repeated by his supporters—went unchallenged until the publication in January of Consent, in which Ms. Springora writes that her involvement with Mr. Matzneff, starting at age 14, left her with psychological problems for decades.
In her unpublished manuscript of 2004, Ms. Gee described her involvement with the writer as a "cataclysm that shattered me when I was 15 years old, and that changed the course of my life"—leaving her "ashamed, bitter and confused."
The accounts by Ms. Gee and Ms. Springora are especially significant because Mr. Matzneff has often described them as two of the three great loves of his life. He devoted diaries, novels, poems and essays to each woman—material that, according to anti-[child sexual abuse] groups, provided the intellectual cover for many men to target prepubescent children or adolescent girls.
Ms. Gee recalls running into Mr. Matzneff for the first time in Paris in 1973 with her mother, who had known him years before.
David Gee, Ms. Gee's younger brother, said their parents regularly invited the writer over for dinner parties. His presence especially pleased their father, a British journalist long based in Paris who sought his place in French society.
"It was one of those very important things, socially speaking, to be established in the intelligentsia," Mr. Gee said. "That was more important than looking at the side effects of [child and adolescent sexual abuse]."
With her father's approval, Ms. Gee saw the writer over three years, unable to break away from him. Ms. Gee's father died in 2014.
Using the same methods he later would with Ms. Springora, Mr. Matzneff exercised a hold on the teenage girl. He isolated her, forbidding her to socialize with friends her age.
He pulled political strings to have Ms. Gee transferred to a high school near his home—and boasted about it in his diaries. Then he got into the habit of waiting for Ms. Gee outside her new high school, Lycée Montaigne, next to the Luxembourg Gardens.
"He came every day to make sure that everyone understood that no one was supposed to try anything with me," Ms. Gee recalled. "It was a very specific place where he was just standing there waiting for me."
Ms. Gee recently met with one of the detectives who began investigating Mr. Matzneff and his supporters in the aftermath of the publication of Consent. After she detailed her involvement with Mr. Matzneff during the five-hour meeting in Paris, she said, the detective described it as a "hostage taking."
Trapped in His Stories
Ms. Gee turned 18 in 1976 and, after several anguished attempts, was finally able to free herself from Mr. Matzneff's grip, having become more and more critical of him. "It was growing up, basically," she said.
Still, she would remain hostage for decades—trapped in his storytelling and his use of her letters.
Encouraged by Mr. Matzneff, Ms. Gee had written him hundreds of amorous and sexually explicit letters during their three years together.
Some of them he published in 1974, without her authorization, in his fierce defense of [child and adolescent sexual abuse], Les moins de seize ans (Under 16 Years Old). He was offering those letters, he wrote in another book, Les passions schismatiques, as evidence that "a relationship of love between an adult and a child could be for the latter extremely rich, and the source of a fullness of life."
Ms. Gee said the words in the letters were those of a teenager manipulated by a man the age of her parents. Her letters were also used in Ivre du vin perdu, the novel whose cover featured an illustration of her.
"Now I consider they were extorted and used as a weapon against me," Ms. Gee said.
In her manuscript, Ms. Gee writes that "he used me to justify the sexual exploitation of children and teenagers."
For years, Ms. Gee's feelings about her experience with Mr. Matzneff were "muddied." Then in the early 1990s, her understanding became clearer.
"It was only when I was almost 35 years old that I realized this wasn't a love story," Ms. Gee recalled.
It was in 1992 that she contacted Mr. Matzneff, demanding that he stop using her letters and that he return them to her. Eventually, he sent her a photocopied stack—a carefully selected batch that excluded her negative correspondence.
A decade later, in 2002, it was Mr. Matzneff who wrote to her, asking, for the first time, her permission to use old photographs of her in a book. In the turquoise blue ink that he always used to pen his letters, Mr. Matzneff offered to identify the teenager as "the young girl who inspired the character of Angiolina in Ivre du vin perdu."
Not only did Ms. Gee refuse, but she also demanded again that his books be purged of her letters and that her face be taken off the cover of Ivre du vin perdu. She also demanded that three old photographs of her be taken off a website devoted to Mr. Matzneff and created by an admirer, Frank Laganier. The photos were pulled only seven years later, in 2010, after Ms. Gee's continued pressure, she said.
Mr. Laganier, who is now living in Paris, declined interview requests. His lawyer, Emmanuel Pierrat—who is representing Mr. Matzneff in a [promotion of child sexual abuse] case and is a longtime supporter of the writer—declined to be interviewed.
In 2004, Ms. Gee began preparing to sue Gallimard, the publisher of Ivre du vin perdu, and La passion Francesca, Mr. Matzneff's diary of their relationship, but stopped because of the high legal costs. Gallimard did not respond to interview requests; Antoine Gallimard, the head of the publishing house, did not respond to an interview request sent to his email address.
Unable to stop Mr. Matzneff, Ms. Gee also could not tell her own story.
After her manuscript was rejected by Albin Michel, she took it, unsuccessfully, to several other publishing houses.
Geneviève Jurgensen, who was an editor at Bayard and met with Ms. Gee in 2004, said the manuscript's focus was not in line with Bayard, which specialized in publishing youth books, as well as works on philosophy and religion.
Ms. Jurgensen, after recently reading excerpts from the manuscript, described it as "well written" and containing "situations that seem almost word for word those described by Vanessa Springora."
"Obviously, it wasn't the quality of the book that was the issue," Ms. Jurgensen said of Ms. Gee's failure to find a publisher in 2004. "Clearly, it was 15 years too early. The world wasn't ready yet."
The final rejection came from Grasset, the very same publisher that broke a taboo by issuing Ms. Springora's Consent in January.
Martine Boutang, an editor at Grasset, remembers being moved by Ms. Gee's account, she said, but couldn't see a way to get it published: the subject was "too sensitive," and two members of Grasset's editorial committee were "close to Matzneff."
"The question wasn't the quality of the text," she said.
Ms. Gee recalls feeling that Ms. Boutang was trying to stall the project by asking her to rework a manuscript that she had no intention of publishing. Ms. Boutang said she did not remember asking for a rewrite.
By contrast, Mr. Matzneff had no problems continuing to get his writings published—including Under 16 Years Old, the book that used Ms. Gee's letters to justify [adult] sex with underage girls.
Whose Story?
In a recent interview in the Italian Riviera, where he has been hiding, Mr. Matzneff said that if Ms. Gee "called me tomorrow, I would be delighted to see her."
Ms. Gee would be delighted if she could stop being reminded of him. In a book published last November, more than four decades after she left him, Mr. Matzneff mentioned her no fewer than a dozen times. Ms. Gee herself is now working on a new manuscript on the writer.
Over the years, unexpected incidents have sometimes reminded her that she remains a prisoner inside Mr. Matzneff's story.
A few years ago, she found herself waiting outside the Lycée Montaigne, her old high school, which her niece Lélia was now attending.
"I wait for her where Matzneff used to wait for me," Ms. Gee recalled.
Over lunch, her niece, a literature student, told her that she was "working on a contemporary author called Gabriel Matzneff."
That's how Lélia, who is now 25, learned that the books she had been reading described a "family history," she says. To this day, she says, she had talked little with her aunt about her days with Mr. Matzneff.
"Most of what I know about all of this comes from Gabriel Matzneff, and not my aunt," she said. "And that's exactly where the problem lies."