Black is the New AP Style

 

Flannery O’Connor, American novelist, wrote in a style that reflected her Roman Catholic faith yet challenged morality and ethics surrounded by her Southern roots. Her short stories, novels and posthumous works have created conversations on topics that are still important today: religion, racism, illness and more. It was her experiences that spoke to filmmakers Elizabeth Coffman and Mark Bosco, S.J. and gave them the inspiration to create Flannery: The Storied Life of the Writer from Georgia.

The documentary uses her childhood home as a backdrop, which was converted into a museum in the late 1980s, and brings the viewer through her life and pursuit of becoming a writer. In addition to footage of her home, her single televised interview, and conversations with those who knew her and were inspired by her, the illustrations and music composition of this film really bring the story to life.

O’Connor started out as a visual storyteller. She created picture books and was a cartoonist and painter all her life, so hiring illustrators to help tell her story felt like the best way to celebrate her work.

“Also, because her fiction represents moments of grotesque or gothic horror, as well as racial stereotypes, motion graphics allowed the film to critically represent (and deconstruct) those moments and stereotypes – with similar strategies to O’Connor’s fiction,” Coffman said.

Coffman also shared an O’Connor quote: “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”

The filmmakers hired four different animators and motion graphics artists: Natalie Barahona, Kathleen Judge, Heidi Kumao and Mat Rappaport. Rappaport created animated quotes from O’Connor while Judge interwove O’Connor’s words with her drawings.

“I had her include an O’Connor ‘avatar’ in many of the story adaptations to play with the idea that O’Connor drew from her own experiences – and then transformed them – in her fiction,” Coffman said.

Kumao was behind the white animated outline that walks towards the audience at the beginning of the film and away from the audience at the end. It is a simple but powerful animation created by rotoscoping, a technique that traces over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic movement. Kumao achieved this by rotoscoping her own figure dressed as O’Connor.

The score behind the film was composed by Miriam Cutler, who was inspired by all the elements that created the final cut. She got to witness it evolve over time and while it was challenging to create and then recreate an entire score, it was worth it to tell the story of this important writer.

“Flannery’s strong and colorful personality evokes a kind of irony that’s fun to express musically,” Cutler said. “Her spiritual depth, perhaps partly influenced by her illness, provides an emotional range that fosters musical exploration. Then of course, there are the musical styles of the South – from blues, church music, country, gothic – and these are all terrific playgrounds for a composer.”

Coffman said that because there are hardly any photographs of O’Connor and just the one interview featured in the film, telling her story through illustrations and music was essential. It was also essential because there is one part of O’Connor’s work and life that is often misconstrued: her thoughts and experiences with racism.

“I think O’Connor’s life and work are extremely important today, especially in light of the reawakening, yet again, to America’s systemic racism sparked by the brutality and death of George Floyd and so many others,” Bosco said. “O’Connor exposes the racist assumptions built of whiteness and the privilege that goes with it. Her white characters are often violently given insight into their flawed (sometimes evil) presumptions. I would say there is no better American white writer to read from in the 20th century if you want to talk about the complicated reality of racism in our nation.”

Critics have shown their misunderstanding of how O’Connor’s fiction “explicitly confronts her own experiences of and participation in systemic racism”, according to Coffman, and she believes that O’Connor’s story is more relevant now than ever before. If anything, it sparks a conversation that can lead to a better world.

Flannery is meant to explore this important writer, Flannery O’Connor, and understand who she was and what she brought to American literature.

“Flannery O’Connor was a very complex and unusual person with a unique POV and a massive talent that informed all of her writing,” Cutler said. “Religious and fearlessly truthful, she never held back when creating complex and sometimes hard-to-like characters to bring her narratives/morality plays to life. They were inspired by her entrenchment in the Southern way of life, her strong religious convictions and her intense scrutiny of and curiosity about people – sometimes at odds with each other. It’s no surprise that she is revered by the artistic community – artists, writers, actors, musicians – and her work is still highly relevant today.”

Watch Flannery: The Storied Life of the Writer from Georgia in virtual theaters here.

All photos courtesy of DYLYN

Songs will forever take hold of a moment in our lives – a feeling, an emotion, a pocket of time. Our first kiss, our first dance, our first heartbreak – the song is a portal to that memory.

When I think of my first love, I think of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. When I think of my childhood, I think of The Beach Boys. When I think of sadness, I think of James Taylor. We begin to knit together songs that create a beautiful tapestry of our lives.

When music took a shift in my life and opened up the sky, I think of Led Zeppelin. This is where the story truly begins. I was listening to Early Days and Latter Days in the car with my father while waiting for my brother to finish practice. I was 13 years old; he put on Stairway To Heaven – my soul and heart were forever changed. This unexplainable feeling of life, death, love, sadness and joy all wrapped into eight minutes.

The band became the beginning of my rock and roll journey and blew the doors wide open to everything I’ve come to love as an artist and music lover. If you don’t already know, the band was largely famous in the late 60s and early 70s and disbanded after their drummer passed away. Conveniently born in the wrong era of all my most cherished musicians – my idols are either dead or dying.

I missed the height of their touring days but was lucky enough to see their frontman, Robert Plant. This is a man I’ve idolized since that soul awakening moment. (I even had a band in high school called “Robert’s Plant”.) There had been previous years where the band had done brief reunion tours or shows, but I was either too young to travel or it was sold out.

In the early 2000s, Mike Henneberger booked the band Bayside at his small, South Texas college. No one came except for Henneberger’s bandmates, who were opening the show, and their significant others. Near the end of that decade, he watched Bayside play the main stage at Vans Warped Tour. He went up to lead vocalist, Anthony Raneri, after their set and told him that while he wasn’t any type of fatherly or authoritative figure to him, he was nonetheless proud of everything he had accomplished. That is the exact feeling while reading Henneberger’s book, Rock Bottom at the Renaissance: An Emo Kid’s Journey Through Falling In and Out of Love In and With New York City.

The book consists of journal entries ranging from 2011-2013 with flashbacks going as far back as 2007. It’s what, looking back on, Henneberger sees as the darkest period of his life and details his unconscious effort of abusing prescription drugs and alcohol. The reader finds him struggling to find himself when he had no guidance or direction, and going down several difficult paths in hopes to come out on the other side.

The book also details his search for love and wanting a partner to share all his experiences with. Just when he thought he found The Girl, it would turn out that the T and G were lowercase. While the book ends, spoiler alert, without a happy ending, it’s what came after it that makes its pages all the more gratifying.

“Most of it was written in 2011 and I just put it away for at least a year because if somebody reads this, you can tell how dark of a headspace I was in when I wrote it,” Henneberger said. “I didn’t want to go back to that. I was really scared to put myself back in that so I didn’t touch it for a while and then when I finally did I was still going through the same things. I wasn’t on a bender like I am in the book but I was still really depressed and really lost and really alone and that’s how this book became about this period in my life.”

Once he had finished, then there was a whole new fear of letting people know what he had been going through. It took Henneberger reading it back one day a few years later to not recognize the person that wrote it. While both those people are former Army, struggle with anxiety and depression, and have tried every aide and therapist to find a solution, the mindsets of these two are now completely different. Despite all that, it still wasn’t the right time to release it.

It took another handful of years to know not to be ashamed of what he went through and to see that it didn’t defeat him. It was also important to recognize that while he no longer related to those words, depression and anxiety has no cure. It is something that he still struggles with and has found that talking about it helps him and could potentially help someone else.

Another major detail of the book, and his road to recovery, is music. From Jimmy Eat World’s “23” playing as he walked home in the first chapter to seeing Two Door Cinema Club play “What You Know” live, finding a song to relate back to that moment in time was simple. It goes beyond a song playing at a specific moment and taps into the concept of music saving lives. These bands and the others referenced in each chapter were songs that Henneberger listened to while in that headspace.

“I am still here because bands like Bayside and The Dangerous Summer wrote songs that were just as dark, and wrote about cutting their wrists or killing themselves. But they didn’t kill themselves, they didn’t cut their wrists; they wrote these songs and those songs kept me alive.”

Fast forward to 2020, and Henneberger knew it was time to share this memoir for a few reasons. For one, he’s an empath. He cares about others struggling with anxiety and depression and hates the idea that people feel like there is no way out of that struggle. That being said, he doesn’t want anyone to think that he’s glorifying the topic. Reading his words and only beginning to understand his mental state is heartbreaking enough, but he hopes that what he risked comes across as what not to do.

Second, he’s been a writer as long as he can remember. For him, releasing this was only a matter of when because he knew he wouldn’t be able to release anything else until this was out for the world to read. He struggled with the consequences of publishing it - Would his family and friends understand? Would his wife and her family understand? - but there was never a part of him that thought he wouldn’t publish it.

When COVID-19 hit my city and everything shut down (including my access to a studio), I really had to figure out a way that I’d be able to continue to progress my music. I’ve always wanted to learn music production – so what better time than now? I moved a piano and guitar into a tiny unused room under my basement staircase, hung up some lighting, and purchased some music production software. With months of uncertainty ahead, I knew the best way to keep myself grounded would involve learning a new skill. 

From an early age, all Steven Christopher needed was some music and a pair of headphones to be content for hours. He would read the jacket of CDs from front to back, mimic what he heard on the radio and watch intently as his family members sang in church. For the rest of his childhood, nothing else spoke to him like music did.

He learned pretty quickly that members of the music industry tend to judge books by their cover; he said that he physically wasn’t seen as an artist and felt looked over or hardly looked at at all. For many people, that could be the deciding factor on whether or not pursuing a career in music is the right fit. For Christopher, it showed him that he would just have to do it all himself.

He tried to work in as many different aspects of entertainment as possible, from writing for other people to shooting music videos and even taking acting classes. He went from Atlanta to Los Angeles and eventually established a core group of collaborators that lift each other up in the best ways possible.

“I guess people didn't really see too much special about me so I had to take the things I wanted to do and create my own opportunities,” he said. “Atlanta is where things seemed to be popping music-wise so I moved out there but I got there and felt a little stunted creatively. Since I moved [to Los Angeles] I’ve felt like I created a community of people that creative-wise if I want to do something I know who to call to help make it happen.”

Something else that Christopher has struggled with is his songwriting ability. He has never been the person that is able to sit down and write a hit song in 30 minutes or less, and is definitely envious of those who can. However, he prefers to think of his songwriting as more like completing a puzzle. He might be cruising the streets of Los Angeles when an idea comes to him. A week later, he might look back at that idea and add a few more. As the puzzle pieces start to fit together, he finds that hit songs are written in a variety of ways.

He said he is still nowhere where he wants to be but he finally feels like he’s in a place where he understands who he is, what his sound is and what he wants things to look like and sound like. The best example of his progress is his latest single, “Don’t Feel Like Dancing”.

The song is a reflection of how his feelings for love have changed. He considers himself a hopeless romantic, but since his move to Los Angeles, he has found himself more focused on finding out what makes him happy instead of finding someone who can make him happy. He used to think he wouldn’t survive or live if he didn’t find that one love, but now he thinks of love as an “added bonus” to everything else he has going for him.

When it came to creating the music video, he decided he wanted to step into the role of director. He found himself learning all about different camera angles and lenses, types of equipment and ended up writing the treatment himself. He had his frequent collaborators on board when the threat of COVID-19 shut down any chance of creating what he wanted. He scaled down his ideas but wanted to make sure that the emotions of the song were still conveyed in the video. So he decided to “just break some shit up.”

In the middle of a hot spring day, Christopher painted the blue background, carried up (and eventually carried down) all the props and created the next best thing. It was another learning experience that was well worth it in the end.

“It feels like the first time I’m putting something out that I'm wholly confident in,” he said. “I feel really confident in this song. I feel really confident in this video and I'm happy with what I have and hoping that continues moving forward.”

Being a DIY artist is what makes a stronger artist, and Steven Christopher is as DIY as it gets. He is finally in a place where he’s both comfortable and confident, but knows that more hard work is what will get him to the next stage.

Photo courtesy of Liora Arianna Photography

As Lia Menaker was in the process of finishing her EP, I Am Kyrøs, she hadn’t yet named the album but had stumbled across the Greek term referring to time measured in moments versus through chronological or sequential time.

She had been feeling the need to change the name that she performed under, especially after her entire songwriting process, sound and artistic identity had changed a great deal. Once she learned the meaning of kyrøs, she felt that it suited her perfectly.

She explains:

“It refers specifically to that perfect melding of space and time, when it's the opportune moment to act. It has an almost...spiritual context. And on a very spiritual level, this felt like it described my change as an artist so well. I felt really called to take on the name... But once I took on the name, it was amazing. The 30+ years of thinking of myself as ‘Lia Menaker’ dissipated, and I felt like any obstacles I'd set for myself in my own head had dissolved. I felt a whole new freedom in my writing, and started producing the songs myself, and creating wildly different music on my live streams, and with new looping gear. I felt strangely lighter, and filled with more life and little doubt. I wasn't afraid to try completely new things and in a way felt...just unstoppable.”

The name change came with its fair share of obstacles. While kyrøs gave her a newfound confidence, she soon found out that various artists shared the same name and spelling that caused confusion when she began releasing her singles. She felt heartbroken, she said, because she thought that this was too many steps backward for her liking. But she soon realized something - the songs that she was releasing and had created for the EP were about identity. She was writing songs that she hoped listeners would hear and question reality in hopes that finding answers would ultimately free them. Isn’t clinging to this identity the exact opposite of everything she wanted to stand for?

Naming the album I Am Kyrøs was a bit of a difficult process, but the album in general and its themes were mostly the complete opposite. Menaker said that the topics of these songs were her way of working through what was happening in her life; addressing those struggles came easily and she soon recognized that they were tied together.

“It gave me a place to put all these thoughts and emotions and realizations, and in a way where I could express the layers of it, and see how the themes were all interwoven in my life,” she said. “It helped me accept it all too, instead of resisting it. Each time I played the songs, or worked on them, or even when I play them back now, they hit me a little differently. Over time, writing these songs has really helped me to see these themes and struggles as forms of growth and understanding in my life versus obstacles. And part of it all is realizing just how universal these struggles are. So it felt really good to know I could share these with others, and that maybe others could process, and understand, and let go through listening to them too.”

Each song is meant to get the listener to stop and think beyond every day thoughts, and they do exactly that. The songs are about questioning who you are, how you want to live and how your perspectives can both limit and free yourself. Music is interpreted differently by each individual but regardless of what spark these songs may form, there is a spark there that gives a good reason to question one’s path.

Menaker was finally in the home stretch of releasing I Am Kyrøs when George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer and started the current Black Lives Matter movement. While the world is faced with an ongoing pandemic, injustice towards people of color, police brutality and political corruption, Menaker wanted to make sure she was doing her part to make sure Black voices were heard while still having the privilege of putting art into the world.

“[I] felt that the world needed art more than ever, of all kinds, and since the songs dealt with identity and the Self, it could relate to what was going on in many ways,” she said. “This is a time we are all rethinking our lives, and who we are, our perspectives, and how we want to live, so I felt, in a sense, it was also a great time to release the music, which deals with these very themes.”

She decided to partner with Melanated Social Work, a project advocating to provide health and wellness resources for Black and Brown communities. She is acquainted with one of the founders, Marvin Toliver, and knows him to be a “trustworthy, honest, passionate man/social worker dedicated 100% to fighting for POC.” Melanted Social Work is working to end the stigma around mental health in Black and Brown communities and make sure health professionals are truly culturally competent. By partnering with them, she chose to donate all June and July sales of I Am Kyrøs to them.

Lia Menaker challenged the ideas of identity not only in the songs of her latest EP but in her own career as a musician. She found solace in changing her musical identity and had to find solace again in changing it back. She also found a way to open up a dialogue through her music that challenges the mind and frees the spirit. Through the ups and downs of creating I Am Kyrøs, she learned one important lesson: there may be many artists who utilize the name kyrøs and feel connected to its meaning, but there is only one Lia Menaker.

Photo courtesy of Bob Croslin

My schedule has been hilariously underwhelming since quarantine, as the entire music industry is on a very dull, indoor vacation. I’m literally bored and nothing about me is interesting until things go back to normal!!

This got me thinking: I’ve seen a handful of those “A Day in Quarantine: Follow Me Around!” themed vlogs lately, with each one always flawless. A beautiful girl waking up at 6 a.m. to make an iced black coffee, doing morning yoga, and ending her day with a gourmet meal. While they are all definitely cooler than me, not everyone is as glamorous, and I want to showcase other lifestyles in case someone reading this has felt anxious or doubtful since the pandemic. It’s okay to feel lost right now! It’s okay to have less structure than normal; don’t worry! Get ready for unfiltered honesty.