bro thinks he's esnupi

Posts that, "frankly, don't seem to be anything that anyone is asking for "

[worldswaxel]

Tell me more about John Curry please! Is he your all time favorite skater among men and women?

I think he's probably the best men's skater to ever live. I am not-very-secretly a quality evangelist who doesn't care about what the tech is as long as you're doing it well, and he's like the most extreme version of that philosophy. He had such beautiful lines and such great control!

There was a lot of pushback on his style at the time, it being more ballet-influenced (originally what he wanted to do, but his father wouldn't let him). His style was seen as not 'masculine' enough and so on; very homophobia-fuelled sometimes (he got outed by the press almost immediately following his OGM). But he was adamant about how he wanted to skate and maintained it his whole life. His commitment to using skating as an artistic medium was just fantastic.

His life often gets portrayed as quite tortured and tragic (he was supposed to be a bit aloof and difficult too; Toller Cranston did NOT like him and takes a lot of swipes at him in his autobiography!!). While I think it does him a disservice when writers are like 'omg it was so tragic' and don't talk as much about his skating, it is truly very sad that he died so young and skating lost him so early. Ryan Stevens wrote a great book about figure skating in the 80s, which is a bit late to focus much on John but it includes a lot of discussion of the impact AIDs had on the skating community in the 80s (and how badly organisations such as the ISU reacted to it; barely even acknowledging it for the stigma). But John is on the UK AIDs Memorial Quilt.

Also, Milano-Cortina was the 50th anniversary of his own OGM at Innsbruck '76, so I'm a little bit sad that his philosophy and style felt largely very absent from the men's event. Not really anyone's fault as such, just how things have gone. He wanted his style to influence skating and sadly I feel like we're further from him than ever now. I don't think his style has to be the only valid one or anything, but I would like to see more people embrace that level of care, attention and precision. (I have a lot to say about the state of men's skating right now lol but I don't want to get distracted.)

However, Lori, who is also not-so-secretly my favourite choreographer, was a member of the John Curry Skating Company. I think his influence survives a little in her approach to choreography, and in the coaching and choreography of his contemporaries or those who remember him. So I'm glad his influence persists in these kind of ways at least.

Here are some of my faves of his:

Scheherazade

Afternoon of a Faun

Don Quixote

Carmen

[worldswaxel]

hi I read your substack essay on yuma and I really, really loved it!! you really had such good analysis and it was such a pleasure to read and think about :))

yay thank you so much! :D really cheers me up every time someone says so, I appreciate it a lot. I mostly do all this stuff for my own amusement but it's really nice when other people like it too!

[worldswaxel]

this is kind of a stupid question but you mentioned somewhere the "grandma called me a flop" thing and I was wondering what was that about

I don't know if you mean you saw me mention it on here or mention it on twitter so I'll explain both!

Originally I was talking on twitter about doing Yuma lore (in the style of The Runthrough podcast), and 'Grandma called me a flop' was a fake 'chapter title' I made up to go with it lol. I answered another ask here explaining what interview I was referring to!

[ainejm]

lancelot knight of the cart

digital. originally had wanted to make this as a paper work but i had done it digitally instead due to limitations

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

imagine you’re just minding your own business grieving your uncle who just got murdered in some complicated international political conflict and then this hot broke musician shows up your doorstep super sick and is like hey i heard you went to medical school can you please heal me? im dying :( and what are you gonna say, no? you keep him around and at least he makes things interesting. then he beats up some guy who’s into you even though he’s still super sick and then you find out he’s actually a prince and not a broke musician at all and also killed your uncle. so now he’s banished and it’s kind of an awkward situation because your mom tried to kill him when she found out but you’ve spent like every day together for months with this guy and you’re kind of dating at this point. and he says he’ll come back for you so you wait and wait and wait and he comes back finally and you’re like hi!!! and he goes hi guess what!!! you’re going marry my uncle!!! so now you’re traveling with your situationship to marry his uncle and you literally have a drug that you are going to take to make the whole situation more bearable but your stupid friend gives the drug to you and the prince by accident and now you’re even more into each other and on the way you stop at a castle just trying to catch your breath but they take you prisoner there and say if you’re not hotter than the lady who lives at this castle we are going to behead you and then murder your boyfriend. so now you have to beauty pageant for your life with your stupid bf who murdered your uncle and whose uncle you now have to marry. also he cheated on you while he was gone and got into a fight with his uncle (your future husband) because they liked the same girl. who was married. this happened to my friend iseult

[etinorcadiaego]

pack it up lads, i've made a social blunder

[thepromisedbride]

can we talk about how funny it is that tennyson just decided that he shipped two different people to what was generally accepted as canon so he just. changed it. just changed the couple in his arthuriana texts. knew no one could stop him and went for it.

[thepromisedbride]

and he was right too for the record gareth/lynette is far superior

[thepromisedbride]

rip alfred lord tennyson you would have done numbers on ao3

[worldswaxel]

Lol did you see the Kao quote that he gave about Yuma after the Milano TE??? Hilarious how Kao has the ability to drag Yuma into literally anything in the most embarrassing-for-Yuma way

yeah I did... tbhhh Kao's indiscretion is usually just funny and vaguely exasperating, but this time I think he missed the mark. He probably meant nothing by it, but my knee-jerk reaction when I first read it was to think that if I was Yuma I would feel quite hurt and embarrassed that he had said this to journalists.

I don't want to slag off Kao too much or anything because it's always hard to know when stuff has been transcribed AND translated how it was said and meant, and obviously he knows Yuma far better than any of us, but to a reader it comes off as quite unkind and I think he needs to maybe curb his usual candour when it comes to talking about other people.

[lackadaisycal-art]

‘Bigger and better than ever’: how Durham Pride beat Reform’s funding axe with help from the miners

Solidarity between LGBTQ+ people and unions has saved an event denied ‘a single penny’ of council money

"What’s the point of supporting gay rights but nobody else’s rights. You know? Or - workers’ rights but not Women’s rights - it’s - I don’t know - illogical."

"There’s a lodge banner down in the welfare. We bring it out for special occasions. It’s a hundred years old. I’ll show it to you one day. It’s a symbol like this -

Two hands.

That’s what the labour movement means. Should mean. You support me and I support you. Whoever you are. Wherever you come from. Shoulder to shoulder. Hand to hand."

[snoopyoftheday]

snoopy of the day

[worldswaxel]

How do u know the trousers got tailored? And can u believe he chose the outfit himself?

oh no I'm saying they should have been tailored, not that they were.

[worldswaxel]

You didn’t think it was that bad???😭😭😭

i thought it was fairly unremarkable! especially in the context of what everyone else was wearing...

[worldswaxel]

What do you think of Yuma’s checked suit ? The people want to hear your opinion on his most iconic fit

I have to say that at the time I really didn't think it was that bad so I've been quite surprised by the memestorm it's provoked lately?!?; I am extremely lacking in the style department though so I am not an authority of fashion in any direction lol

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

brings me great joy to read medieval lit where the knights are physically described with the attention of a middle schooler from 2015 writing y/n one direction fanfiction

[raininyourblackeyes]

Huge day for fans of skating skills

[worldswaxel]

Can’t wait for your next 6k word something Yuma Kagiyama related essay

I'm trying to do a retrospective of the men's field over the last quad rn if that's any good lol! Not quite the same kind of thing but kagi is involved at least. And it probably will be 6k or more lol

[worldswaxel]

Recently got interested in knowing more about yuma and a friend sent your "a man seeking understanding" essay and it was so incredible. Your literary references and ability to put your ideas on paper are mind-blowing I was so entranced by it. I fee like I learnt so much about his thought process and his goals as a skater, thank you so much for writing it :)

that's very kind of you, thank you so much! obviously it's only my (limited) perspective based on public info, but I wanted to see if I could articulate the vague connections that have been floating around in my head for years lol. But anyway it's been really nice to have some people say they enjoyed it!

More personally, I've had a lot of academic/writing-related failures in my real life lately, and I was feeling a bit glum about it today, so you chose a very good time to say a nice thing about something I wrote haha. thank you! :)