was show and I'm reviewing the market today. Why? Because it's the only thing a normal person could do. It needs to be reviewed so I guess I'm gonna do it here with the room. Just figure out. So we had this day here which as I did and talked about in the previous videos and the emails. It was an anomaly. A strange occurrence that happens that is unexpected and can't be predicted. But what can be predicted? When something happens in the live day after it happens then you can predict what it's gonna do. When I rated the gap it didn't rate as a good short and it wasn't a short and it didn't play out as a short and it rallied big time. It actually swished and reversed. So you did nothing. This was nothing to do then. I was surprised we fell this hard on this day but everybody panicked then after this and that's this is the panic coming in on a gap up. But it didn't go anywhere. Why? We gapped up then the next day in hell. Then we gapped up this day in definitely hell. Then we got down went nowhere and yesterday I said neutral. We really didn't go anywhere yesterday at all. But when I had this morning I looked at this I thought all right we're definitely in a placement where I didn't expect us to gap down today. Now I'm not saying it's a big gap down. In my world this isn't but I knew it wasn't a short but I really wasn't expecting us to gap down this much. Like if we had gap down today I didn't think we would this much. I didn't know if we'd gap down or gap up today. I actually thought we'd be neutral and try to hold, try to hold, try to hold. We're trying to hold in a gap down. We are so far today in the first 30 minutes but I don't know where we go with it. Let's just find the numbers here of everything and here's what we're trying to hold. We are trying to hold and support. So we did gap down. We gapped down to this area of support today and we're trying to hold it. Now I don't know if we do and I'm not saying if we don't that we're gonna fall off a planet because we're still higher. In the overall picture we still are but I will tell you that there's a lot of people that are very confused that are stressed out that I've lost money in the last week and a half and don't know what to do about it and you know you gotta have conviction the market's higher rather than panicking. I still still I'm saying we're higher. Now let me just look and see here exactly. We want we did not get up to 200. So I think until we get above 200 in the spy I'm talking about here we're not gonna take off like a rocket and I don't know how that happens. In other words we may have to gap up over it. It's most likely we gap up over it but we could train up over it and through it and above it but it's better if we gap up over it. I don't know if we will. It's most likely that we will but we could trade on up above it but I don't know how we get there from here. That's the problem and Coco Loco was asking something about something. He's like well when are we done with the choppiness? We're not done with the choppiness. I wasn't sure if we would be done by Friday. I thought we would be but we're not. It's clear today that we're not. Yesterday was just a Monday. Today is though a Tuesday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Monday is a holiday. We're not gonna get out of this choppiness until September and it is September 1st but until after the holiday. So I don't know if it's next week. I don't know if it's the following week but we're not gonna get out of it before Labor Day because too many people leaving on vacation. There is a lot of low volume in the market today. This is just not enough people at all. Nobody cares and maybe everyone is just saying the same thing as me. Wait. Wait. Be a picky poo. Do nothing unless it's perfect. Pull yourself off the ledge. These are the kinds of days that traders insist on trading and lose money because to be honest with you I didn't call the market long today but it's not as short either. There's no playing here in the market and to be honest with you that's the problem until the market situates itself and people have conviction again the market's higher they're gonna get scared every morning when they get up and see the market gapping down because what happened last week. They're gonna be scared if they see any red at all whether it's in a day of trading red or a gap down and people will sell. Regular people but institutions aren't selling here so that's what you have and I don't know how we close today. I mean this is actually so unusual that we're even doing this. I don't even know where we close today. We could drop break the low which is around 193 fall and fall all day all the way down to 190 and have a big red day. We could hold at the low of the day here, hold flip, rally all the way back up to the high. I mean that is how choppy and unpredictable this is acting intraday. In the longer term picture we're still higher at this point. At this point okay we're still higher at this point. I'm not ruling out that we could break. I'm not gonna rule that out but I don't think it's gonna happen. Wow did you see that invisible tech? Did everybody just see that invisible tech? Yeah Muse, I already called me like an hour ago. I mean you should already be in the Mio if you're in it. Wow did everyone just see that invisible tech though? It was a spike up. If you wanted to do anything today the thing to do was the Mio which I kind of figured. I mean it's just I just we're still higher but it looks very sloppy. That's all I can say. That's all I can say. I don't there's nothing else I can say but that. Here look we're trying to break the low of the day right in here. Let's let's just watch this right now live and see if we hold it or not. The only way we hold is buying and I'm not sure the buying is gonna come in in this here today. Why? Because we did gap down. We did gap down and we rallied in the open and went over the high a couple times but it wasn't aggressive and that's why I didn't end up calling it long. I saw the training on the day but I didn't want to call it long. I just here we're gonna break the low this week. I mean in the bigger picture we're still higher but this week Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday it's gonna be chop city USA and we're not doing anything unless it's absolutely perfect. It's almost got to be beyond perfect. It's almost like I get up in the morning now and think we should do NCOFs and nothing else until the market has situated itself and I'm not saying we won't get this week because quite frankly we could. The one I talked about for tomorrow morning we absolutely could. There's another one this week we absolutely could. I'm not gonna say it because I don't want to jinxed us. Wait we didn't break the low yet. Hold on. We did not. This is like it's a tug of war. That's the best way I could describe this. It's a tug of war right now. Should we buy? Should we sell? Should we buy? Should we sell? Buy or sellers? Buy or sellers? Short it. This is what's going on right now. You've got a little bit of everything and then some but at the end of the day who's in charge? Who's in charge of the market? The people that are setting the tone of what is happening in the overall trend and that's the bulls and that has not changed despite the massive gap down that happened last week the weird weird anomaly of a gap down that rated poorly but as we discussed last week the open of that gap down the poorly rated gap down that opened and swished and reversed itself is a sign and confirmation that in fact there is one person in charge in this chart and it is the bulls and they are in charge because that would never never have happened. Never anywhere in the planet could anything happen and occur like that and I've actually never seen anything like it. Not the gap down per se. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that the ETF in the markets both in the cues and the spies which didn't have to do it but it happened in both the ETFs and the spy in the QQQs actually opened and swushed and the swush was reversed and did not follow through. I have never seen that in the markets. I've never seen a swush in the markets period let alone one that failed and I'm telling you right now or I shouldn't say failed it never set up it just reversed but I'm telling you that was a sign. It's a sign of who is in charge in the building okay and it is the bulls and that sign is telling me the markets higher along with everything else which is the gaps and also I really think that's going to be in the low. I think that's going to be the low of the market for a long time and it could have been this area up here which is holding for a while here but the problem is that we didn't have enough momentum underway to lift off and when that didn't happen and a series of gap downs took place we broke it. We broke this here. We broke it. This could have held for a long time. It's trying to make a new area in here now. It's going to be basically around this 200 level because that's where we have to get up above again to take off and I just don't think it's going to happen before Labor Day. So very choppy market here for everybody. This is Melissa Arma with the Stock Swoosh. If you have any questions email me at Melissa at thestockswoosh.com. Have a great day everyone.


Yo, how's this happen? I am so sad. I'm so disappointed. And this, this, I, oh. Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel. Today's been a very exciting video, but since it is now November, but I think this is coming up in December. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this video is like the first up in December, so I thought I would commemorate it by wearing my Christmas jumper. This is the season in which I excel. I love Christmas. I love Christmas. I, I love it so much. I love it. I love it. And it gives me that buzz. It feeds exactly what I wanna do. In this video, we're gonna be reading two of my most anticipated releases that they have just come out. This is just going on, but you just have to look on the way back. We have some other developments to go through first, so hang on. We've got a bit of a book haul. We're starting with a book haul tonight. I hope you don't mind. That's what we're getting into first, because I am gonna do book hauls for like Christmas and stuff, but this was just very unexpected that I've accumulated a lot of books. So let's just quickly have a visual representation of what we're about to talk about. Okay, we're gonna open the Starless Sea and the Toll Last. If I can figure out which one's the Toll. Because they are my two, two of my most anticipated releases of the year, not of the year, upcoming releases. I'll link the video where I spoke about all my anticipated upcoming releases in the description up above, so you can go check that out. And these are two of the five. And I am, oh my God. I'm so excited. Okay, we move. So first, these books, let's talk about the two other than the Starless Sea and the Toll, which I bought myself. I'm gonna go try and go through this quickly because we're here for a reading vlog, but this is just a bit of fun. I'm just sitting down on a Thursday evening to talk to you about what I've bought. So the first one that I bought was Daisy Jones and The Six. I have been meaning to get this for the longest. For like the past six months, every time I've got into a bookshop, I've almost bought this, but then there's been just one other book that's like pushed it off, do you know what I mean? But I finally came. This was actually my self-reward because we love to treat ourselves. It's my reward for myself for reaching 500 subs like a week or two ago. And now I'm at 840, which is so scary. But I am so looking forward to reading this and a lot of the books I'm buying at the moment are longer. So I'm excited for a book that I feel like is a bit lighter, not lighter, but a bit quicker to get through. You know the drill. I did a poll on my Twitter actually between a few books and this is what won. So I bound to peer pressure and I bought it. So that's the first book. Then I had 10 pound credit on my Waterstones gift, not gift card, like the loyalty card. And I should get these books out of the way and see what they are. One of the other books I'd put on that poll was The Night Circus and Rachel, Rachel really told me no. It was so boring when she read it and I trust her opinion. So I didn't buy it then. And so, because I trust her so much, instead of spending seven pounds, eight pounds, get the normal edition, I got the new Waterstones edition. But really only cost me two pounds because I spent my gift card. So I think this is so gorgeous. Look at the blue spray edges and like the cover is just so nice. I am excited to read it. I feel like it's gonna be my kind of thing. Anything that some people usually say is boring usually ends up being my kind of thing because I was saying in my ninth house vlog that I like something that feels like I worked, like I earned it. I earned finishing the book. So that's that then. So everyone was making Amazon wish lists and I was in a couple of group chats and we needed each other's and I just thought, oh, I'll just make one.  I don't really know how to act. I don't know actually after having received these. I'm very appreciative. I don't know how I feel about people buying me books. It makes me just feel bad. But anyway, firstly my dad got me one from the list because he wanted to check that like you couldn't see my address at any point. So he got me Stulking Jack the Ripper, which, hey, I'm so excited to read this. I have been hearing just increasingly good things about it and just having a quick look through it. I love like all the old pictures in it.  Like it's not scary. Like I feel like this is quite an easy read and I feel like this time of year kind of like winter is the perfect time to stop these. So that's just like, that's my dad. So it's fine. He can buy me a book. Then I got a parcel from Simone from Chasing Pages. She got me Lock Every Door by Riley Sager. What? We're gonna read this together. I have been wanting this for so long. I wanted to read it after I heard books and Lala talk about it and say it was one of the best theories she'd read this year. And I also returned the key like she recommended around the same time and I gave her the key five out of five stars. As you've seen, if you saw my OG reading vlog, I don't think it. I am ready for another thriller in my life. I love to turn the key and I feel like thrillers could be my new thing. I feel like I could become a thriller girl. I think I know more about thriller books than you do to me. You'll never listen to any American ghost dad. Okay, next I'm gonna open this one. I haven't, I have no idea. I have no idea what's in these. This one's, oh my God. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Oh my God, it's Nicole. Oh my God. Okay, so these are from Nicole, from Nicole on her books. I'm literally gonna be re-buddy reading the toll with her in this video, which is what I'm gonna be opening in a sec. And she sent me two books. Oh my God.  Why people are sending me books? Yeah. Whoa, okay. Okay, so she first has sent me The Raven Boys by Maggy Seawater. This is just like a, I just want whatever books I'm gonna recommend, because she has spoken about this endlessly, obviously. And she's written the note.  I literally took you a minute to take over Booktube. So grateful to make this platform. I'm so excited to watch you continue to grow. Love you from Nicole. I love her so much, Nicole.  And, oh my God, I love you so much. Those of you who like my channel will know I love nonfiction. I read quite a lot of nonfiction and I'm really trying to read more, because definitely since joining Booktube, like, nonfiction is being pushed out a little bit. And she got me Bad Feminist. It's a collection of essays by Roxanne Gay. This, I, if there's anyone know, I am a feminist. And yeah, I love anything like feminist literature, feminist ideas, whatever. So I am, I'm so excited to read this. Okay, next is like a, this is like a really small package. So I don't know what's gonna be in here. Oh my God. What? Okay, so this is from Books with Mara. She sent me a monster cause by Patrick Ines. I, again, have been wanting to read this for the longest. This is actually one of the oldest books on my Goodreads Want to Read list. I really can't do it. Okay, come on. Thank you. Thank you so much. I don't want to start growing, but thank you so much. That is like the loveliest thing ever. Oh my God. Okay, so I got the paperback. It was like five pounds. So here's the total. She is thick. She has how many pages in this one? 625 pages. Oh my God. That is like thick for a paperback. Like that is like difficult to read almost. Do you know what I mean? Like when a paperback is that thick. I can't wait. I've been wanting this for so long. The Thunderhead I gave five stars. It's one of my favorite books of the year so far. And I really hope this doesn't let me down because so if I gave three stars, then Thunderhead I gave five. I'm hoping this is a five as well. No. The Starless Seam is the one with the beautiful, beautiful cover. And with the Waterstones Edition, you get one of three like insides. And there's like a light blue one, a dark blue one, and then like a pink one. I don't want the pink one because I don't feel like it matches. I don't feel like it matches. So I'm hoping because obviously if you buy in store, you can like decide when you get, but it was cheaper for me to pre-order it. So that's what I did. And this is them, oh my God. Yo. Are you ready? I don't think you're ready. Okay, we're gonna take this slowly. Look at that. What? What? I'm gonna look at the spine. Excuse me. And then look there. Oh my God, you just got a glimpse. And then what? The back, that is the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen in a book. That is actually the most. Okay, I understand why it has the pink now because of this. I won't be as angry if I get the pink. But look at that. Oh my God. I'm actually having like heart palpitations. Okay, we're gonna have a look and see what I've got. Oh, okay. No, no, no, I can see right now. I can see. I've got the blue one which is the one I wanted. My God. Oh my God. This is like the most beautiful book ever in existence. Like there's nothing, there's nothing that tops it. There's nothing that tops it ever, ever. So yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna read any of the told tonight because I actually need to do some editing and it's already like nine o'clock at night. So I think I'll probably start this tomorrow. Yo, how was this happen? Okay, I'm gonna go now and I will see you whenever I pick up the camera next. Bye. So this is the next day. And I just got another parcel. What? So let's open it. I think I know who it's from because she tweeted me about it. Okay. So it's from Rachel Marie who I love. I love her so much. Oh my God, you didn't need to do this. Okay, so firstly, let's do this one first because I need to explain. So she got me a monster calls which if you're called from last night someone else got me they got me the normal version and this is the illustrated version which I didn't have this on my Amazon wishlist. So she must have seen it and thought, oh, I'm gonna get the illustrated version and that's why two people got me it because it was still on my wish list after her buying this, I would guess. But for me, that's actually really good because I wish I had two of every book because being here at uni, I'm constantly separated from like a large majority of my books, whether I'm here or at home. So like I'm trying to figure out how I wanna take all the books I have up here home with me during the Christmas break because I wanna have all my books with me. Is that weird? Like I wanna have it all with me. So I can like film with everything and just plan out what I'm gonna read when and just visualize all the books I own. Is that weird a little bit? I don't like being separated from my books like either end. So it's actually really great for me to have a copy of the illustrated. I mean, having a copy of the illustrated is like not the same as getting two copies of the same, same book. Because like for example, another thing in my wish list is I wanna do another read of Harry Potter even though I only read it last year but I wanna read the illustrated books. I own Harry Potter the normal books but I want the illustrated books because it's like another thing. And then we've got a red, white and a white or blue. Oh my God, I love you. I can't get over this. I can't get over it. Oh my God, thank you. You're the best. Can you see me? Am I okay? No. Apologies for my appearance and apologies for my flat appearance if you can see anything. Hopefully not. Let's talk about the toll because that's what we're really here to talk about. I am 203 pages in. So I'm like only a third of the way in. It's like four stars. It's not five stars for me. Something about it I'm just not fully connecting to. I just feel like it's jumping around a lot with characters and I am not feeling particularly connected to anyone. Grayson's character has had a big overhaul in the bit that I'm reading right now and I feel like I don't really know him. Like I don't know him. I don't know him. I don't know him.  Like I don't like him the most. And then I just don't know. I'm not loving it. I'm loving it. But I feel like it could get much better. Obviously when I'm still really at the beginning Nilshoosm is bringing in a lot of new types of storytelling. He's always had in between the chapters like there was scythe diaries and there was all these different things and there's a few new elements that he's bringing in this one, which I really like. But there are certain things that are happening appointing towards certain things. And I don't want that. That's not the way I want this ending to go. Like I'm not interested in. And I feel like to be told it already. I don't know. I don't know essentially. So that was my check in for you to see me being. Let's all say I mess with me. Oh my God, my fly just clicked. Oh my God. Woo. Who's a mess? Megan. Okay. Bye. Bye. I am here with... I can't even pick it up. Oh my God. I don't even know if my focus came far away. But I'm here with all the books. That I've, you know, also had obtained over the past few weeks. Oh my God, no. Okay. Ah! I just knocked them all over, but you couldn't see. So we're just gonna pretend it didn't happen. I've always had the top shelf be my TBR. Then this middle shelf be the books we need for uni. And then the bottom shelf just be like a dumping ground, but that's just not feasible anymore. Like the bottom has been a few more uni books and then my red books. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna shift all on most of these books down and then have two rows of TBR, I think. So we're gonna see how it goes. Hello. It's been quite a long time since our last check in with you. I think it's been about a week. I'm on page 442. So I really haven't got that much more to read. And I think in the last clip, I expressed a lot of issues I was having with the book, but that I was giving it like a four star. After that, my enjoyment slipped quite significantly and I was, it was kind of like a low three. I don't think I was ever considering giving it a two, but like a low three, I was very disappointed. And just kind of now, in the last maybe 40 or 50 pages, everything's picked up again. So it's kind of like a four again. So we've had like the middle bit didn't really work for me and it's getting good. Like I'm, I am excited. I am excited to read the rest. They chose their own fate, that's all I see. Okay, let's talk about the book. I've seen people giving it two stars. I've seen people giving it five stars. Right now what I can say is I feel like it's very, very... Ambitious. As the series has gone on, it's got more and more ambitious every time, right? The Thunderhead was a big step up from Scythe and this is definitely a big step up in terms of ambition from Thunderhead. But I feel like Thunderhead dealt with that ambition really well. And I don't think that the toll is dealing with it as well. I think that it's struggling in some parts. It's struggling to handle all the new storylines we've got in such a way that it's really neglecting some other parts in a way that I'm not enjoying. But we're finally spending time with the characters I was actually interested in and then I wanted to spend time with. So that's a plus. I still feel a bit disappointed though because this was one of my most anticipated, you know, releases of this year. And Thunderhead was one of my favourite books of the year so far. So I feel like it's tainting Thunderhead a little bit for me, which is really sad. And there's so many plot points I feel like some could have been gone rid of. And I don't know, it's difficult. Or I think it needed another book in order to do everything that he wanted to do. I think maybe it needed to be a four book series because there's just so much that he is trying to cram into this that it's just not quite working. It's just a little bit off the mark, if that makes sense. I finished the tell this morning and I've kind of taken them on to think about it. And I've realised that whenever I felt slightly good about this book was when I checked in because the majority of the time I was feeling depressed about how I was feeling about this book. So anytime something good happened, hitting something slightly that made me think, oh my God, it's gonna get better. I picked up the camera and I was like, oh my God, it's going great. But the truth was there were times I debated giving this two stars. On the whole, I didn't enjoy the reading experience of this and my heart breaks. I gave it three stars on Goodreads and it's kind of like a 2.75 for me. I mean, I try not to give those kind of ratings but yeah, that's kind of what it's turned out to be. I am so sad, I'm so disappointed. This was, you know, the whole points video is my most anticipated books. And I really, really just liked this. It has not been good. It's been good for y'all cause y'all sitting there laughing at me but it's not been good for me. I felt like whenever there was a reveal, now I like my reveals to have meaning. These were just things that were like, oh, look here, this is a pot to myself for revealing. Oh my God. And then you want it to go somewhere. Like you want action to be taken because of that or what I really want is you have a reveal and then more reveals. Like you have a room of information and then more, you find out more things from that. But then there'd just be a reveal and then I'll be it. And there'd be kind of some action but you just be like, well, you were kind of gonna do that anyway. And a lot of people have said they don't ask for about how this ended. I thought the ending was all right. Basically, whenever I've said I was giving these four stars to you, it was in hopes that the ending would be amazing and the ending wasn't. The ending was fine. It was better than some parts of the book but it was a bit of a weird ending. Like it was a bit like, okay. Like I felt like it was quite rushed. We spend time with so many different characters, so many different characters that you're just like, I didn't have time to really connect again or connect to new characters. I didn't have time. Like I'd spend a bit of time with them and then we'd go. And I just felt like the character I wanted to spend time with, we didn't spend time with. And the one thing I was most excited about, the reveal that I was most excited about in this book was kind of like set up right at the beginning and then revealed right at the end, like the last big reveal. And I just felt like it was kind of like meh. Like, ah. I was so excited for that and I wasted the whole book. And the thing is I've got my mom and my brother both on this series. Like they are both, they've both read the first two and really enjoyed them. So now I'm just like, well, good luck. Now we get to start what I hope will be a much more successful venture and I'm gonna start the Starless Sea. There's been much more positive overall reviews for this and I'm wanting something a bit weird. For me, the toll just felt like fine. Like I could really opinion books like it. By the way, does anyone know I took the sticker off? I don't think you can see. Oh, there, there, there, there. Can you see the markets left? Like, can you hear that? It's sticky. So I'd like any advice for how to get that off. I'm already loving this so much more than the toll. Obviously I was so disappointed with the toll, but with this, I am enjoying it so much. I mean, you kind of don't know what's going on. I am on page about 150 right now and we had a lot of kind of setting up of the story which I really enjoyed. And yeah, you kind of don't know what's going on. And so I can't be like, oh, I love the plot because like nothing's really happened yet. You follow a main character called Zachary but there's also sections from the books that are mentioned in the book. Like little chapters of the kind of mysterious books that he's reading and I love them. The thing is with this, I'm reading it very slowly because it's sometimes, I don't know if anyone else has this, but I'm really enjoying a book. I actually read it quite slowly because I want to experience it for as long as possible.  And I don't really typically DNF books. So that was kind of like my way of just getting the book over and done with. But with this, I just don't want to ever stop reading it. So I'm taking way too long to read it. So I'm going to try and get through a really big chunk of it tonight and then update you in the morning when I have some more concrete thoughts because at the moment I still feel very much at the beginning and like not much has happened. But the writing style, her writing style is just like my ideal writing style. I love it. I love it so much. It's just so beautiful and so detailed and so vivid, but at the same time, like not giving you all the information, like giving you little snippets of information. It's just, I think I'm almost on page 300. Yeah, 295. I found it difficult, like when thinking about checking in because it's almost impossible to describe it.  That it's like, I don't know what to check in and tell you other than that I'm loving it. Which at least is a better situation to be in Rewind with the Toll. The thing I've been thinking about is, I think when I've read other books that have the same sort of structure where you've got the main story and then lots of little stories interspersed in, I don't like those little stories so I feel like it takes me out of it and they're less well done. But in these, they are so kind of whimsical, magical and special that like, they are just as integrated in the story. And I guess because they, in the end, you know they're gonna mean something for the other part of the story, that I love them just as much as the main bit. I'm loving it. It's so good and I can't wait to read The Night Circus soon as well. It's pretty like the worst angle. Why did I talk while saying that? I can't wait to read The Night Circus after this. And I don't know if I said this in the other clip, I probably did, but I wanna reread this already. Hello. I wanna reread it right now, like I wanna start it again and read it again. I would say you're only super connected at the moment to the main character, Zachary and all the other people that he knows kind of in this mysterious world. There's a certain distance from them but you don't feel like, oh, I'm not connected to the characters, oh, I don't like that. Like I like that distance and that kind of mystery and not knowing everything about these people. And it's just the way she's laying clues down and then we find it's just such a clever book. It's just, it places kind of the responsibility in your hands to remember certain things. So he goes, here you go, remember that. Like we're gonna just talk about it later but you gotta remember that in like 200 pages. And I like that. See, I'm telling you, I have the mind of a master, I have the mind of a mastermind. What's that? I don't know, but I'm so creative. Mate, it's just a book about books. Like how can we not love, how can I not love it? It's a book about books and stories and cats and underground libraries. Like how is it, how is this ever gonna be anything but perfect in my, like this doesn't, there's just no other alternative cats and books. I mean, I just finished it. And this, this, I, oh, this maybe if not might, the favorite, one of my favorite books I've read this year. Ah, oh my God. Okay, I have not felt this way about a book since I read The Secret History, which is the first book I read this year. And that is because I don't know how to describe it like it takes you into this, it's world as its own. There's like nothing else. And obviously The Secret History isn't fantastical, it's set in the real world, but like all there is is that book. All there is is that book. Am I making any sense? I sound crazy. I sound crazy. That's how these books make me feel. The relationships and the, I'm breathing so heavily. I just finished it. The relationships and the friendships in this book unparalleled and like, just the way we all talk to each other. Even if they barely know each other, even if characters are only met in that scene, you just feel like, oh my, just, just the way people know each other in this book. I in this was constantly just reading forward. Like, hang on, if I'd be like here and I'd see something down here that interests me or maybe not that far, like here and I'd just start reading there and I'd have to go back and read the bit I was actually supposed to be reading because I was just so, I just wanted to know. Oh, just like, I just, I just, I just wanted to know it all straight away and it was just so incredible. It was just the, it was incredible. I just wanted to, this book takes a lot of turns, right? It takes a lot of twists and a lot of turns. You can place your absolute trust in where the story is going because you know when reading it that whatever twist is occurring, whatever plot is happening, it's the right thing. It's the correct thing. Nothing else could have happened, but this plot, it makes all the right decisions and you don't have to be reading it going, oh, I'm not sure if I like that or is that the right, do you know what I mean? When you read a book, you're judging it. You don't judge this, you just experience it and just like, I love, I love, I love books that are just so clever. Like you just, I don't even understand everything that happened. Like I don't have to understand every single thing, why it happened. I have to be given an explanation for why everything happened. It just did happen and it was right and it was correct and it was perfect and it was just everything. If you, okay, okay, okay. If you own this and haven't read it yet, I'm telling you, go pick it up now. Like I'm not gonna take any of the excuses. I'm not like, you've just got to go pick it up. You've just got to go pick it up now. And if you don't own this yet, just please just put it on your Christmas list. I just want everyone to read it. I just want everyone to read it. It was everything. It was everything.  You think it's fragile, but it's actually just the most robust, made of unbreakable metal thing you've ever had. And it was amazing. It was amazing. It was amazing. I think that's what I need to tell you. It was just perfection. Oh, okay, okay. So thank you for making it to the end of the video if you did. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was fun. I mean, I didn't seem to leave the house in the months that I filmed this. I promise you I did. Thank you so much for your continuing support. If you haven't, click subscribe down below and make sure you ring the bell because it really helps me out if you ring the bell. So yeah, thank you so much as always for watching this. I don't know how to cope. We're done out here. Okay, bye. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. Okay, love you, bye. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Bye. Okay, bye.


Good afternoon. Today I will be presenting an in-progress project focusing on the light stability of the color photographs collection at the Smithsonian Institution, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. The Hirshhorn opened its doors to the public in 1974. Joseph Hirshhorn's founding collection was diverse in its holdings and includes unexpected treasures for a museum renowned today for its modern and contemporary collections such as 220 objects by Thomas Aikens, many of which are photographs and works on paper. Hirshhorn was known for his close personal ties to the artists that he collected. The importance of connecting with the artists continues to be reflected in the museums, meet the artists and other public programming and especially in the conservation department's artist interview program. Though conservation at the Hirshhorn was established with the opening of the museum, in practice the department remained treatment and installation driven. While scientific analysis and technical research guided treatment decisions, there was until recently little emphasis on broader collections care practices. Still, material sensitivities to light was understood across the museum, providing impetus for specific projects to support improved practices and the creation of a written exhibition policy. The study of the light sensitivity of the photographs in the collection is one facet of this initiative. The Hirshhorn's collection contains approximately 480 works classified as photographs or works containing photographic materials as a component. Of these works, approximately 200 can be broadly classified as color photographs, a manageable number for a focused study. The types of materials represented in the collection include chromogenic photographs, silver dye bleach, and digitally output materials including inkjet and electrophotographic prints. At least 15 to 20 percent of these works are face mounted or protected with an adhered laminate film and of these many are oversized and mounted overall to aluminum, centra, or acrylic as would be expected with works of their size. To highlight a few artists represented in the collection, we have chromogenic photographs from Anna Mendieta and these are works from her 1974-1975 Untitled Body Tracks series and they document the artist's performance of the piece. This image represents one photograph from William Christian Berry's Green Warehouse Newborn Alabama series, which is comprised of 16 chromogenic prints. Here is an example of a Thomas Struth face mounted chromogenic photograph in our collection. These two works, which will be discussed in further detail, are a transparency and light box by Jeff Wall on the left and a laminated chromogenic photograph by Liz Deschenes on the right. Shortly, I'll go over the light stability project that we're working on at the Hirshhorn. As has been expressed, we are interested in developing exhibition guidelines for our color photographs with specific focus on the laminated and face mounted materials. In doing this, we'd like to utilize the technique of microfatometry in the development of these guidelines. Other aspects of the project include physical examination of objects and colorimetry in tandem with microfatometry. Most of this audience is familiar with the significant research on the stability of face mounted and laminated works, as well as various color photographic and inkjet processes. Through a survey of the literature, we relied on the findings of these studies to give us a general idea of what we could anticipate with the microfading of different processes. Microfadeometry was selected because it can provide object-specific light sensitivity information, and it is most useful as a preliminary screening tool for establishing object-specific display parameters. As many will be familiar, the microfade tester was developed by Dr. Paul Whitmore and has been refined and utilized on many classes of materials to collect object-specific light-fastness information. The test exposes a spot of 0.3 to 0.5 millimeters to intense light and measures in real-time the reflected color, allowing us to stop the test before it goes too far. The Delta E value of five is where most people can see a change in color, and the test can evaluate a Delta E change of less than 0.1. As will be discussed later, our preliminary testing was carried out by conservation scientists at the National Gallery of Art, and the standard for running a test on artwork at the NGA is to stop at a Delta E of two or five minutes, whichever comes first. To date, there are a few published findings on use of MFT on face-mounted and laminated works. Dr. Gregory Smith and colleagues at the Indianapolis Museum of Art have done some work in this regard and have established a method for performing MFT on face-mounted photographs, and this protocol will be described in the talk. Regarding its use on photographic materials, we refer to the following studies. In separate studies, Lavadrine and Casella et al. developed methodologies for applying the technique on transparent materials. Freeman et al. used the technique to monitor albumin photographs during exhibition, and in a forthcoming publication, Westling et al. applied it to diazotypes. Ford and Batterham applied the technique to historic office documents, including early electrophotographic processes. Now I'll describe the project at the Hirshhorn. Before performing microfading tests on collection objects, we wanted to assess the viability of this technique, and therefore prepared, unmounted, laminated, and face-mounted mockups for this purpose. The mockup samples were laminated or face-mounted to represent recent and current commercial and artistic practices as represented by the Hirshhorn's collection. The source materials chosen as samples are familiar to this audience, as they were selected from the AIC PMG digital sample set. This choice was made since the processes, papers, ink sets, and printer settings are all known variables, and when the study was developed, there was little published on light stability tests using this combination of digitally output materials. Discussions with the mounting studio informed decisions relating to mounting or laminating specific processes, and the impact of the mounting studios on the decisions made by artists in galleries is of particular interest to the Hirshhorn's current acquisition practices. The chart on the screen shows the different classes of materials that were mounted. At it includes chromogenic, silver-dyed bleach, Fuji pictography, direct thermal transfer, dye diffusion thermal transfer, electrophotography, and inkjet. Both dye and pigment-based inkjet and drop-on-demand and continuous. Although this totaled 15 unique combinations of materials, 13 were face-mounted, the electrophotographic prints were not face-mounted, and 14 were laminated. The silver-dyed bleach print was not laminated. The samples were laminated and face-mounted by Lamont Photographics, a New York-based mounting studio. The laminate used was Maktak Permigarde, a pressure-sensitive glossy polypropylene UV-blocking film, and the face-mounting was done in a dissect-style method with a crystal-clear pure silicone liquid adhesive. In regards to material choices offered by Lamont, in their online mounting and lamination guide, they describe the various options in a way that indicate the protective nature of the materials, which would appeal to the artist's interest and the permanence of his or her work, as well as the quality of the materials. While the samples were in production, we really wanted to discuss the observations that the mounting studio had made in the permanence of these materials. And they mentioned that some of the issues seen in earlier film laminates, specifically the yellowing that occurred over time, and that was something that they had seen over time. In their experience with the film laminate that we used for these samples, yellowing should not occur, but the material will likely shrink along the outer edges. However, overall, they've found the material to provide protection against color shifts in certain photographic materials. As for material compatibility issues, it's been found that the laminate peels easily off of chromogenic print surfaces, but forms a more secure bond with inkjet print surfaces. And I interpreted this as a difference between a coated polyester or RC-based paper in the case of a chromogenic support and an uncoated paper in the case of an inkjet support. To date, preliminary testing of the photographic and print mockups has been carried out in collaboration with Dr. Christopher Manus and Dr. Molly McGaff of the Scientific Research Department at the National Gallery of Art. To elaborate further on our testing protocol, in addition to Dr. Manus and Dr. McGaff, we consulted Dr. Gregory Smith and Dr. Paul Whitmore in his work at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Dr. Smith and colleagues published a technical note in which the results of microfading through glazing are discussed. In a personal communication, Dr. Smith described his method for microfading face-mounted photographs and our setup followed the same approach. All scientists consulted agreed that this was the most reasonable setup for having a blue wool standard for comparison of the microfading data. And here's a diagram of that here. In the setup, a blue wool card is sandwiched behind the same type of acrylic sheet used for face-mounting. For the laminate material, it was initially felt that the film layer was thin enough to be a negligible variable in data collection. However, we did decide to secure a sample of the film laminate in order to have comparison and these tests will be performed a little later date. And consultation with Dr. Manus and Dr. McGaff, determinations were made on the testing sites and which ones would be appropriate. Three sites were chosen, the paper base, a gray color patch and a mixed color patch. The approach to testing adhered to a philosophy of gathering comprehensive and inclusive data first. For example, testing a gray patch containing all image-forming material would inform the stability of the image materials as a whole. When or if a material exhibited sensitivity or an unpredictable response, then one may proceed with isolated color or dye specific test sites to identify the dye or color exhibiting fugitive properties. Similarly, if an unmounted sample showed no sensitivity to light, then testing on laminated or face-mounted mockups was not done. Although there are concerns about the interactions between the image material adhesive, excuse me, adhesive layer and light, the testing to date is preliminary and further testing will be carried out. Also, prior to micro-fading, color density readings were taken on the three testing sites and on individual colorants using an X-rayed exact spectrophotometer. Micro-fading measurements were carried out for 300 seconds with real-time monitoring to ensure no change of more than two Delta E units during measurement. Triplicate reference micro-fading measurements were obtained from iso-blow-wall standards one and two and demonstrate the stability of the system. Blue-wall standard one is the most light-sensitive material, with blue-wall two being approximately half as sensitive. The fading rate of iso-blow-wall standard three cannot be directly measured on the microfade tester as this material does not exhibit appreciable fading in the absence of ultraviolet radiation and this is filtered out both in the system and in gallery lighting conditions as we all know. An estimate for blue-wall standard three is calculated based on the fading rates of blue-wall standards one and two. Overall, most of the photographic or print image material samples were equal to or slightly less than what would be the estimated equivalent of blue-wall three, which means that the materials are still highly sensitive to light and fall into category one sensitivity. For most processes, the paper base was the least stable of all test sites and in the next few slides I'll go through some of our results in more detail. For the sake of time, I'll highlight the findings for select processes. I'll start with the unmounted chromogen example printed onto Kodak Endura Superpaper. Looking at the fading of the paper testing site, which is the red line, it started fading at a rate similar to blue-wall one but by the end of the five-minute data collection it had a rate less than blue-wall two but not equal to blue-wall one. It's delta E was 1.3. The mixed and gray color patches, which are the purple, the green and purple lines respectively, had fading rates equal to an estimated blue-wall three reference line and initially the mixed color patch started fading at a rate close to blue-wall two. The delta E of the gray patch was 0.6 and the mixed color patch was 0.4. For the laminated sample of the same process, the paper started fading at a rate equivalent to blue-wall two but by the five-minute mark the delta E of the paper was 0.7. For the gray patch and the mixed color patches, the fading rates were equivalent to the estimated blue-wall three and the delta E of each worked 0.4 and 0.2. In the case of the face-mounted sample, for two of the test sites the fading rates were lower than that of the previous sample. For the paper after five minutes there was a delta E of 0.5, an initial rate equivalent to point to blue-wall two but by the end of the testing period it was along the same rate as the estimated blue-wall three. For the gray patch the delta E was equal to 0.3 and that this rate was less than the fading rate of the estimated blue-wall three and for our sake we reported as blue-wall three. For the mixed color patch there was a delta E of 0.5 at the five-minute mark which is greater than the delta E of both of the other mixed color patches. It is still fading at a rate that is more stable than the blue-wall three and we report this is equal to blue-wall three. For the unmounted silver dye bleach sample after five minutes the paper test site had a delta E of 0.6, a rate that's very close to blue-wall three but between blue-wall two and three. The gray and mixed color patches faded at a rate along with blue-wall three and both had a similar delta E of 0.2 after five minutes. Since the mixed color and gray patches were more stable than the estimated blue-wall three those test sites were not run on the face mounted sample of the silver dye bleach and only the paper test site was run. In this run the paper site had a test a delta E of 0.3 after five minutes resulting in a rate more stable than the estimated blue-wall three. And this is an inkjet sample. This dye-based ink jets was printed using an iris printer and it's printed on a Somerset radiant paper. For this particular sample after five minutes the paper had a delta E of 0.1 resulting in a fading rate more stable than blue-wall three. After five minutes the gray patch had a delta E of 1.1 and the mixed color had a fading rate of 0.6. For both of these test sites the fading rate was less than blue-wall three but not as but not quite as unstable as blue-wall two. The laminated and face mounted samples we did not test the paper site and since since its fading rate was close to blue-wall three. As you can see the fading rate of the gray patch dropped significantly to 0.07 resulting in a fading rate more stable than blue-wall three. While the mixed color patch faded at a rate less than blue-wall three but not as unstable as blue-wall two. Its delta E was 0.6 after five minutes. For our face mounted iris print sample the gray patch still faded at a rate greater than blue-wall three and its delta E was 0.06. The mixed color patch the fading for the mixed color patch the fading rate decreased and compared to that of its unmounted and laminated counterparts after five minutes its delta E was 0.5 and less than a blue-wall three. For these three processes here's the data again and as these results are object specific and from this we can gather that's possible that for select processes the more protected the surface the more the reduction in fading and to highlight a couple interesting results that I with things I thought were interesting for the chromogenic sample the mixed color patch on the laminated sample had greater stability when compared with its unmounted and face mounted counterparts and from this we're speculating that the adhesive layer may play a role in the degradation or stability of the media and that there might be interactions occurring with when the materials are exposed to light. We're not sure exactly what's going on so we're going to do some more testing of the samples that had blue-wall three readings and we'll perform additional analysis on those samples that were laminated and face mounted as well as doing some FTIR on adhesives. We do anticipate that this research will help to inform exhibition guidelines and recommendations but there are two other areas that we anticipate that this will impact and those areas are acquisitions and artist interviews since we're a contemporary art museum so much of our work falls into variable media and often these works will include photographic or digital print elements and in some cases it's the responsibility of the museum to oversee the fabrication of the resulting prints. Hito-Steros How Not To Be Seen is one example of this. This work although it's a variable media artwork it has 11 chromogenic photographs with varying finishing and mounting techniques and it will be the museum's responsibility to fabricate all of the components and during the acquisitions process we've been having discussions that pertain to the long-term viability of the work which include assessing the stability of the materials used in fabrication. The Hirschhorn is also known for its artist interview program and this began development in 2012 by Gwen Ryan who's head of the conservation department and Stephen O'Banion who was at the time a postgraduate fellow. This project is now fully underway and overseen by Brianna Feston Brunet our variable media conservator and we conduct artist interviews on a case-by-case basis. They're typically preservation focused and we really want to understand the artist's intent evolving technologies and potential material obsolescence. The goal of the interviews is to develop a relationship that continues beyond the interview and strengthens relationships between the artist and the conservation department and for this part of the our project we identified a couple of artists in the collection that we wanted to interview based on whether their work was laminated face monitor on a plastic support and I just want to briefly go over two case studies that we have done have started. So the first is Jeff Wall's transparency and light box. We have one of Jeff Wall's pieces in our collection and this work was acquired in 1998 and it's been installed once since acquisition. We're currently in conversation with the studio to better understand the physical construction of the work and those vulnerabilities and how they'll inform a plan for monitoring this work. The other is with the artist Liz Deschenes and this piece as I mentioned it is called entitled Moret number 14 and it's a unique chromogenic photograph that has a applied UV blocking polyester film laminate and we were most interested in better understanding you know why she chose to laminate the work and if she had had any conversations with the mounting studio regarding the permanence of the the laminate and if this was an area of concern for her. As has been outlined the conservation department at the Hirschhorn is seeking to gain a better understanding of its photograph collection. We're having particular focus on the light stability of the face mounted and laminated color photographic and digital print materials. The combined use of scientific analysis physical examination and consultation with the artists and their mounting studios helped inform the best care practices and stewardship of these complex materials. This work is merely a foundation of a larger project to better understand how light impacts art objects in our collection and we ultimately hope to shed light on the viability of using microfade geometry to assess complex laminate photographic and print materials. And I would just like to extend thank you to FAIC and the CCP for hosting us and inviting us to speak and also I would like to extend a tremendous thank you to the individuals listed on the screen and I would like to highlight that this work would not be possible without generous support from the Smithsonian Institution Office of Fellowships and Internships, the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Gallery of Art, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Thank you. This concludes the presentation.


We are talking about three fundamental dimensions without which nothing can happen in existence. Just three fundamental forces, three fundamental qualities playing such a huge game, they are different only on the surface. Deep down, it's all the same thing. So, modern scientists in their own language, they're saying Shiva is holding everything together. See, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh means don't think of three people. One floating on the clouds, another sitting on top of the mountain, another doing something else. We are not talking about three people. We are talking about three fundamental dimensions without which nothing can happen in existence. If you look at these stories closely enough, Brahma is the creative force. Is there creation in the existence? For sure. Vishnu is the maintenance. This maintenance happening, I'm not talking about Delhi, I'm talking about creation. There maintenance happening. Definitely there is destruction, isn't it? Within your body right now, millions of cells are dying. Millions of new cells are being created. And millions are being… billions are being maintained, isn't it? So, you are a manifestation of these three forces. So is the planet, so is the solar system, so is the whole creation. It is a manifestation of these three aspects of creation, maintenance and destruction. You might have gotten little attached to Shiva and become little destructive, but all the three are functioning in some proportion, isn't it? And that is the basis of the whole cosmos. And also the macro is also the same three forces. The micro is also the same three forces. The very atom has the same three forces. And the very cosmos has the same three forces. It is quite a simple creation, I'm telling you. Just three fundamental forces, three fundamental qualities playing such a huge game. Huge game, isn't it? Big time, isn't it? Big time game, just three forces. Doing great job, with just three. So these three are three, but if you go deep enough, it's just one hand. Just like that, it's just one. That is the significance. Everywhere you see a threshold, don't think it's a weapon. I know some people are using it as a weapon.   Only people who do not know anything about fighting will carry a Trishul and go. Tell me yes or no. Can you poke anybody with a Trishul like this? Trishul is not a weapon, it's a symbolism. Now Shiva carries a Trishul, not because he wants to fight with you. His son carries a spear, that is a fighting weapon. He fought and fought and fought, Kartikeya went on fighting. Shiva never fought because this is just a symbol. This is to show you on the surface it's all three, deep down everything is one. Constantly indicating this. You thinking it's a weapon, no, it's not a weapon. It doesn't make a sensible weapon, isn't it? Unless you want to push people. If you want to pierce people it's not a good weapon. So these three, they are different only on the surface, deep down it's all the same thing. But the three manifestations are distinctly there in the creation in all aspects. From proton, neutron, electron to many, many, many other levels of manifestation it is always there. So what is the significance of Mahadeva means, this is these three, when all of them are functioning as one, he is Mahadeva, these are three devas. When all of them are functioning as one, it is a Mahadeva. So we call the destroyer, the Mahadeva because this is about, Brahma is about the genesis, Vishnu is about the organization of the creation, Shiva is oblivion. These two creation and maintenance only exist in the lap of the oblivion. It is the empty space in the creation, which is the most expansive thing, limitless thing and which is the lap in which creation happens and disappears, isn't it? It happens, conducts itself and falls apart, all happens in the lap of Shiva because he is oblivion. Shiva means that which is not, Shiva means that which is not. So that which is not we bow down because that is the thing. Today modern science is slowly weering towards that. They believed sometime ago the, you know, the electromagnetic forces and the nuclear forces and gravity or everything. Now as they dug deeper, deeper, deeper, do you know, there is no explanation for gravity in modern science even today.  He gave no explanation, no mathematical background to it. Simply he said it falls down, nothing else. And since then they have been trying to find out. They know at least enough about other forces. Gravity is one thing which is freaked some modern science. They are not able to find out why gravity works, the way it works. So today one explanation they're talking about is they believed at one time it's the gravity of the sun which is holding all the planets together. It is a gravity of something else holding all the galaxies together. Now they're saying that there is some dark force all over the place due to lack of description because they can't make out any quality of that they're calling it a dark force. And it is this dark force which seems to be keeping everything in place. They do not know what is the nature of this force. It is called as dark energy or dark force. This dark energy, you know we always call Shiva as the dark one. He's always referred to as the dark one. His night is the darkest night in the month. So modern scientists in their own language they're saying Shiva is holding everything together. Now I don't want you to imagine one man sitting there and holding everything together. That's not what it is. Shiva means that which is not. So that which is not is held as the highest because that which is not is the largest manifestation in creation, isn't it so? If you look up in the sky, do you ever do it? Do you ever do it? I believe you, all right.  That's not the reality. The largest thing out there is empty darkness, isn't it? The galaxies that you see there are just small specks. The vast expense is nothing, isn't it? So that is what we are referring to as Shiva. But there are many aspects to this.  Because we know existence is seamless. You think there is a boundary line between solar system and the rest of the galaxy? No. Between one galaxy and another galaxy there is a boundary line, LOC. There is no such thing. It is just a seamless existence. So we are a dialectical culture where it is seamless. So I will be talking about Shiva. When I say Shiva, you have to make out which Shiva I am talking about. I say Shiva referring to the boundless nothing. I say Shiva and I refer to the Adiyogi. I say Shiva and I am talking about a laborer who is walking on the street right now, whose name is Shiva. All these things we do at the same time. And this is the reason. If we look up at the boundless nothingness, we do the same thing. If you look at the Adiyogi, we will do the same thing. If the laborer Shiva is walking around here, he may be illiterate, he may be so much, so many things or maybe nothing. Then also we do the same thing because we know without the dark energy that you are referring to, without Shiva holding it, even this body will not have it integrated, it will all burst out. So when I look at you, I do the same thing. See, this is the only way. I want you to understand this is the only place where such a thing is there. You're doing it unconsciously so it's meaningless. What you do to your gods, you're doing to everybody, isn't it? The idea is this person may not know what is the source of his making but I want to recognize that. He may not know that the creator is throbbing within himself but it is my prerogative to see it. If I see it, it makes a difference for me. If he sees it, it will do wonders for him but now I want to see it. So what you do to your god, the same thing you do to your neighbor, the same thing you do to your servant, the same thing you do to a cow or an elephant or a stone or whatever, because you don't want to miss an opportunity. You want to make an effort wherever you are to see that the source of creation is constantly throbbing in every piece of creation and nobody can deny it, isn't it? Even modern science cannot deny it that whatever is the source of creation is also functioning in a tiny little invisible atom, isn't it so?