text:
R. Stevie Moore by David Shrigley
BOMB 101 Fall 2007
David Malouf by Colm Tóibín
Peter Doig & Chris Ofili
Big Dance Theater by John Haskell
Richard Pare by Michèle Gerber Klein
Winter Miller by Evangeline Morphos
Isaac Julien by Martina Kudláček
Marine Hugonnier and Manon de Boer
Junot Díaz by Edwidge Danticat
The Zero Meter Diving Team by Jim Shepard
Idris Khan by Adam Fuss
Fish by Anu Lakhan
Three Poems by Alex Lemon
Harold Schecter's The Devil's Gentleman by Jaime Manrique
Roof Topped by Terese Svoboda
Ellen Harvey by
Tris Vonna-Michell by Cathleen Chaffee
Andrzej Zielinski by Joe Fyfe
D-L Alvarez by Nell McClister
Cameron Martin by Dike Blair
Booklyn's ABC Series by Brian McMullen
Todd Oldham's Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life by Jason Middlebrook
Luc Sante's Kill All Your Darlings by Nicole Steinberg
Kathleen Jamie's Findings: Essays on the Natural and Unnatural World & Waterlight: Selected Poems by Brad Kessler
Peter Cole's The Dream of the Poem by Esther Allen
Steve Martin's Born Standing Up by Frederic Tuten
The Devil's Gentleman by Harold Schechter
Margot Singer's The Pale of Settlement and Peter LaSalle's Tell Borges If You See Him by Betsy Sussler
Francisco Goldman's The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? by Silvana Paternostro
Young@Heart by Ariana Venturi
#101 Issue
Big Star's Complete Third by Andrew Hultkrans
Portrait of R. Stevie Moore by David Shrigley for BOMB, 2007.
Aficionados of fertile pop imagination, resourceful home studio technique, and more stylistic diversity than most record stores can offer are highly recommended to get with [R. Stevie Moore] … . 'Unsung hero' only touches on the injustice of obscurity for this wry, heartfelt artist … . Why no major label has ever signed him remains one of the modern era's mysteries.
—The Trouser Press Guide to '90s Rock
R. Stevie Moore is famous, among the musicians and critics who love his work, for not being famous. A hyperprolific do-it-yourself pioneer, Moore began making solo recordings as a teen in Nashville in the '60s and has, to date, recorded over 400 albums. All are available through his cavernous website (www.rsteviemoore.com), a pun-studded evolution of the mail-order cassette club he launched in 1981 in his New Jersey home studio.
BOMB's first encounter with Moore was true to the DIY legend: We ordered Shrigley Field , one of Moore's 2007 albums, in May. Inside the mailed package, which Moore had bolstered with a scrap of Kashi cereal-box cardboard and the center tube from a roll of toilet paper, we were surprised to find a Sharpie-markered CD-R, hand-labeled by the man himself.
But on to the music: R. Stevie Moore is a sonic acrobat. Keywords include pop, punk, country, kiddie, rock, roll, funk, folk, and spoken word. On Phonography (1976), Moore's first proper release, the catchy tune "She Don't Know What To Do With Herself" is followed by "The Lariat Wressed Posing Hour," a hilarious meta-fictional interview between a nervous talk show host and one "Rodert Lampley," a man from Georgia pretending to be a Wisconsin congressman. All of these characters are played by Moore.
BOMB was thrilled when the artist David Shrigley—whose 2005 book Worried Noodles inspired Moore to record Shrigley Field—agreed to conduct the following email interview, and also draw a portrait of Moore.
Moore's gleeful response—a Sharpie portrait of Shrigley—can be seen on page 10 of the magazine.
—BRIAN McMULLEN
R. Stevie Moore in his home studio, 2007. Photo by Aric Mayer.
David ShrigleyDo people call you Stevie?
R. Stevie Moore Sometimes. Usually. Often. Of course. But if you instead mean, How do you wish to be called? R., R. Stevie, Stevie, Steve, Mister Moore?, my stock answer—to be difficult—has always been: "All three words. You are required to address me as R. Stevie Moore every time … . So the show's gonna run a little long!"
DS Okay, R. Stevie Moore it is. The other day, a friend posted one of your tracks to a Scottish music site I use. I think his understanding of you matches my own: "'Do it yourself until you bleed' is [R. Stevie Moore's] motto. Oddball genius and one-man recording industry who has recorded hundreds—247 and counting—cassettes, at least, of albums. He started as a session player in the '60s and plays an incredible array of styles. On first listen, the music is like synthetic studio Muzak, but then you get it. Very unhinged stuff. It's that incremental shift, one degree off the center of normality, that makes it great." I was thinking that perhaps one reason you have remained anonymous is that what you do is so close to musical normality (for want of a better term) that it gets seen as such and is overlooked. It took me a couple of listens to see the "incremental shift" that makes your music truly interesting. I wish everyone would listen to it twice the first time. Are you aware of your incremental shift?
RSM I'm not positive I understand the term. If you mean that there exists something in my "style" or "sound" that might go unnoticed the first time but that strongly reveals itself after relistens, then yes. That's a good thing, I'd think, in that much more lies beneath the surface. Not sure what causes this phenomenon though: "one degree off." Maybe it's a disadvantage in my case. (God, I just looked up the term—incremental shift—and can't locate anything that clearly defines it. It would make for a good album or song title!)
BOMB Hi guys. This is your friendly BOMB editor interrupting. Tell me a bit about your collaboration. How did you two get together and make this album, Shrigley Field?
RSM Well that's an extremely interesting point, because Surprise! Actually David and I have barely even met via email. So we never did "get together" (yet). This relationship is all brand-spanking new, starting with my 2006 discovery of David's book Worried Noodles [a book in the form of a record album, with "lyrics" and drawings, but without music], from which I took a favorite lyric—"The disabled lad wants you to buy him a wheelchair with the money that you won at the horse race"—and turned it into a song specifically for a German record label, Tomlab. They plan to issue a Worried Noodles double-album of 39 songs in September by various musicians, all based on lyrics in the original book. Tomlab requested a single song submission, but suddenly I became so inspired with these many different lyric pages that I kept recording more, and I myself created a totally different entire full-length tribute project, Shrigley Field . I sent copies to Europe, and then naturally, I was thrilled when both Tomlab and David contacted me with their extremely positive reactions. So that's where we stand presently. A blind date!
DS Jan Lankisch from Tomlab introduced me to your music last year. After we asked you to make a song, I was pretty shocked that you produced a whole album for Worried Noodles . It's a shame they're using only one track. I guess it's amazing that you managed it, given that you spend so much time distributing your music. Would it be fair to say that you make music because you are compelled to do so, even more than because you love doing it? This seems to be the only reason for making so much of it. The more you make, the more distribution you have to do, so is your making so much music in effect destroying your ability to make more?
RSM I really don't think about it. It's wrong of me to analyze my purpose, my intent, my methodology. It's all just happened this way, y'know? I do it without constantly thinking that I love or need to do it, so therefore I must continue. Compelled? Yes indeed. Compelled with compulsion? Not really consciously, no. For decades there have always been shifts of my active work ethic, peaks and valleys. Highly concentrated periods of unstoppable artistic fury followed by long breathers where I decide to rest, whether because of sheer fatigue or self-pitying bitterness with overwhelming public indifference. Or both. Only recently have I caught myself being unable to resume writing and recording, simply because of the increased workload of trying to fill and ship orders.
BOMB How has your process of making music and promoting yourself changed over the years? There's that great up-tempo rock song "I Like To Stay Home" on your 1986 album Glad Music . I found it on YouTube, and I love the video. Do you still "like to stay home"?
RSM It's a one-man organization, highly disorganized. It's me in my room doing it all, one at a time. One new song at a time, one new CD album at a time, one made-to-order customer sale at a time. Current purchasing volume has increased to the point of near panic; I desperately need a full staff. The SoLo R-tist is overworked and underpaid. So I'm reduced to begging for charity! For me, it's a CD-R and DVD-R world. My catalog includes over 400 orderable items from 40 years of work, so my factory modus operandi is simply … one at a time. True DIY in every essence of the concept, but not a very good business model. I stay home whether I like to or not. I stay home so much that I am now permanently trapped and chronically addicted to The Great Indoors. It's extremely hard to relate anymore to the outside world and its alarming de-evolution and mediocre lapses into the pits of ignorance. My little home-based "promotional" machine hasn't really changed much over the years, only the technology. The RSM career has always been mail-order mayhem, from early reel-to-reel and cassette tapes up to today's iTunes data. Mail order is old-school quaint in double-O seven. The Internet has surely exploded my ability to more rapidly build up intimate fans, and now YouTube videos have exposed RSM's easy marketability even more.
DS How often do you play live these days?
RSM Seldom. It's really harder than ever for me to travel without some sort of supporting chauffeur or helping entourage. Otherwise, I still dig doing it, when it's right. But not for long, that is, after the same public indifference sets me straight and I ultimately decide once again it's not worth all the trouble for a room of 10 to 20 people.
DS I was watching the DVD of you live at Tonic NYC in 2006 and it was a great show; I hope I get the chance to see you play sometime. It seems that your live performances link all the facets of your work together really well, probably because your personality is so much a part of it. In an ideal world would you play more shows (or make more DVDs of shows)?
RSM Only in an ideal world. Which doesn't exist. So then, prolly not! And nearly all the many dozens of shows I have done over the years were videotaped, therefore are forever available on cheap DVDs. The Tonic '06 gig was one of the most involved RSM filmings ever, using multiple cameras and tons of post-production and excessive special effects, all expertly overseen by director Mitch Friedman. Alas, no future performances are planned at this time.
DS What kind of music do you listen to these days?
RSM There's that question again. As has been the case for my entire life, it's everything all the time. Back to back. Freeform radio in my head. I thought most intelligent beings' tastes were also like this, but I guess I'm wrong. I've never locked into any set band or format or genre. Every day is different. Heck, every quarter-day. I have thousands of LPs and 45s, so that tells you something right there. A to Z. All eras, all extremes, in small doses. It's really no big deal. Lately? Mahler. Of Montreal. Bowie's Berlin trilogy. Speed-death metal. Tea for the Tillerman. Bethlehem & Contemporary labels 1950s West Coast jazz. Half Japanese. James Brown ad infinitum. Sing along with Mitch Miller. Crispy Ambulance and all things Factory/Hannett. Hookfoot. Jack Nitzsche's St. Giles Cripplegate . Porter Wagoner. The Shins. Lord Buckley. Moody Blues. The Fall. Piaf. Beatlegs. Tom and Jerry kiddie records. PiL. Ventures vs Shadows. Sparks and Roxy. Flatt 'n Scruggs.
How can any serious music lover not aim for variety like this? That's why this entire last decade has reeked of el stinko to me, pure tunnel-vision mindset mindlessness, anything but genuine embrace for the history of authentic real music; target marketing for the mindless youth again … . Destiny's Child? Who? Justin? Lil' Bow Wow? Fall Out Boy??? Ha! Man, I don't even wanna know about these modern "acts" anymore. Such disposable ice cream flavors of the week. Who's buying it?
I'm also embarrassed by my inner turmoil about all of this. I really need to get over it and remove all concern about mainstream pop.
A drawing from David Shrigley's LP-shaped artist book Worried Noodles, 2005.
DS To me your music is like an overgrown garden, where most everything is included and allowed to have a place: all styles, all forms, all ideas. It seems you are happy to show everything and let people make sense of it themselves, rather than presenting yourself in a particular way. Do you have an editorial process? Do you discard many of the songs you write?
RSM No editorial process, no. Never did have one. (See above rant!) I'm told I need an editor. Someone apparently knows a secret that I don't. I avoid condescending authoritative sorts like the plague. And I do not discard songs. There is no good vs. bad criteria for me. There's a place for everything, even embarrassing missteps. Current society places far too much emphasis on quality ranking … . did I drop from the sky onto the wrong planet? Repeating, I agonizingly urge all world citizens to please open their minds full-on, yo! Let it all in, and absorb when necessary. It's so easy and it doesn't hurt a bit. So much phenomenal art and culture: find your preferences yourself.
DS What is the longest time you've spent making an album or song?
RSM Haven't measured it. Songs can take minutes or months or years. I can't think of any specific examples for each, but both have happened countless times; it's not that unusual for any composer to experience both extremes. Albums can take a mere afternoon session or a full season cycle. I usually don't muck about too long on any project. Leave it be and move onto the next thing. Which can explain why a single unfinished song may stretch out over an extended time.
DS Are you part of a community of musicians? Do you feel like you are part of something in the place where you live or beyond?
RSM Not really, no. Very set apart from the norm, especially "community." For decades I've tried to expand my work ethic to encourage and welcome others to join my creative frolic, but it's almost always particularly ungratifying and I return back to the womb. There just ain't enough "idea" people in rock 'n' roll. So I play follow the leader by myself.
Certainly there have been exceptions to this, mainly in my recent global collaborations via mp3 sharing and such, as with my working with Jad Fair, Lane Steinberg, Phoaming Edison, Terry Burrows, and others.
DS Do you feel you make better music now than when you were younger?
RSM I can't compare them, it's truly apples and oranges. Both fresh fruit. Forever I've accepted that the original Nashville era of home taping (1973–78) was pure unadulterated superior inspiration, many facets of which have been regrettably lost after I moved to New York City to get rich and famous. And how ironic that years of experience have not made me necessarily a better player, producer, writer, arranger, etc. I do so much, and have so many different styles and methods, that I honestly have no clue which is better to whose ears and when!
DS Have you done a lot of crappy jobs in your life to make money?
RSMYessiree. Well, maybe not a lot, but a few jobs that remained over many years. Retail record stores are pretty much all I've ever done. Which explains why I've never ever been able to earn much money at all. I don't even know what "yearly salary" means.
DS In a way, the fact that you have never been much in the limelight suggests that you will never go out of fashion, whereas performers who become famous are often seen as being a bit sad if they continue making music as they get older. They are no longer taken seriously. The fact that you labor in relative obscurity means that, conversely, the longer you continue the more vital you will appear. Does that make sense?
RSM Bingo. That's a fair assessment. Let's hope at least something happens someday. There's something to be said about enjoying the moment, though. Belated acknowledgment is always a bittersweet folly, as in, "Where were you when I needed you?" Pretty pathetic is the dry concept of a living artist imagining a public celebration of his work after he dies! Which has become quite a common thing these days, or even more specifically, a public "con$uming" of his posthumous "product."
It is really starting to feel weird approaching age 60 and still struggling like a teenager. Not a contented feeling at all!
DS How do you see the relationship between your spoken pieces and your songs? Do you do spoken stuff to give your hands a rest from playing? I really like the spoken pieces with minimal accompaniment like "Employees Must Wash Hands."
RSM They have a very close relationship with each other. I don't feel it's such a major stretch, attempting the two extremes of soft sweet singing and spoken word. There's a deep bond with both approaches, especially as edited and sequenced on my recordings. But in a live context, it usually has nothing whatsoever to do with resting my hands from playing. After all, I can speak while strumming, and conversely, sing a capella. I just arrange them into the setlist for variety's sake. There's no rule to the possibilities or combinations thereof.
DS How many musical instruments can you play?
RSM Twenty-two.
DS How many musical instruments have you got?
RSM Twelve.
DS Is there anything you'd like to learn to play that you haven't gotten around to yet?
RSM Not me, no. I've had my fill of it all, I guess. I can't play trumpet and sax, but why bother?
I understand the emphasis on this question less and less every year. It's really now become rather extremely common for modern musicians of any genre to be able to become semi-efficient on most basic stringed instruments, keyboard instruments, and even drums and percussion. There's your one-man band right there. Anything else (such as horns and reeds, wind instruments) is merely adornment. In the '70s it was more of a new thing, and I shared my early versatility with those current like McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Roy Wood, Todd [Rundgren], Emitt Rhodes, and so forth. In the '00s practically every kid who plays guitar also easily tackles the rudiments of synthesizers, and vice versa. And drummers' true purpose these days has vastly expanded from mere flashy, razor-sharp tightness professionalism all the way to tribal minimalist simplicity and even amateur, sincere indie-style sloppiness … soanybody is a great drummer to my ears! (And that says a lot about my eternal confusion of what truly makes a hit record or a successful act, when it's really not always talent or experience. It's 100% fate.)
DS According to the Internet, your father [Bob Moore] played bass with Elvis. Is this true? Has music always been part of your life? Did you ever want to do anything else?
RSM Indeed it is true, and widely documented. Dad first joined Elvis in RCA Studio B during June 1958, as they were desperately needing a new batch of songs recorded right after Elvis entered training for the army and weeks before he shipped off to Germany for two years. Presley's original bassist, Bill Black, had departed from the band and Dad took his place in the studio. Then when Elvis returned stateside in March 1960 for the celebrated Elvis Is Back LP, Frank Sinatra TV special, and GI Blues movie, Dad was his main bass player (with some exceptions) up until 1968. So a whole ten years there together. One of the all-time highlights for me was his playing the live USS Arizona benefit concert in 1961. I recall my parents flying to Honolulu during the iconic "Blue Hawaii" period. Elvis and Dad even took karate lessons together. I myself never met him proper, but was in the control room with my family one time while Elvis was out in the booth doing a session.
Music has always been a major part of my life. If I wasn't born with my father's good business sense or his wise natural drive to push toward success, I was born with his fine-tuned ears. So everything I've heard since babyhood has left a deep impression on my overall musicality. I listen hard. I dream arrangements and chord charts.
Besides music, I otherwise had interest only in graphic arts, drawing all the time since I was a young boy. But I've not been able to make a steady living at either.
R. Stevie Moore takes a break from shooting a music video for the Shrigley Field song "The Disabled Lad Wants You to Buy Him A Wheelchair With the Money That You Won at the Horse Race," 2007. Photograph by - max - ofNYC. Used with kind permission.
DS You have been called "the godfather of home recording." When you started out, home recording was rather more difficult than it is now. Anyone can do it these days. As a musician it's quite an accolade to be the godfather of something. Are you proud?
RSM Almost too proud, because I've had such an intense, nonstop struggle getting any attention that it amazes me that I must continue relying so much on the godfather tag. Ain't too proud to beg, said the beggar man. How can a godfather remain so unknown by everyone? It must be a lie! A myth!
I honestly do think I was an important pioneer in early DIY home recording, but let's face it, my music is, was, and shall always be an acquired taste. So what's wrong with that? I'm basically a quirky popster, yet does that make me avant- garde? Why so inaccessible? And I still believe too much emphasis is always placed on my tape decks rather than the unique variety of my repertoire and sonics. Anybody can and does stack tracks in their apartment. Big effing deal.
Sound-on-sound with reel-to-reels 30-plus years ago, what a trip. Generations of hissy 7½ ips overdubbing. It wasn't really more difficult than today's multitrack digital workstations, just a bit more cumbersome. I still marvel, how in the world did I so easily make those early tapes sound like that? It all happened on its own, a wild, creative vision totally out of my control. Extreme divine-intervention magical inspiration.
DS A song and video of yours on YouTube that I like is "Colliding Circles," where you do that little hand-dance, making a circle out of each forefinger and thumb and rhythmically tapping together the finger-circles. I read—somewhere on your website, I think—that this song is based on a rumored title of a nonexistent Beatles song. Someone, as a hoax, spread a rumor that there was a Beatles song called "Colliding Circles," a song that didn't really exist. So then you wrote it! Is that right?
RSM Yes indeed, all true. Long story, that. I recorded that title and that other fauxfabs hoaxsong, "Pink Litmus Paper Shirt," in 1985, both entirely new RSM compositions. The full fascinating 15-years-later Martin Lewis story can be found—do you mind if I pass off a helpful URL to you?—at this hip hyperlink: http://www.rsteviemoore.com/be…
DS What has been your experience with record labels? And what has been your experience with radio?
RSM Labels. I've never had much involvement with them, pro nor con. Since I am my own label by default, I don't normally work within those confines. But on the other hand, it is true that I have had numerous releases outside of my own home base. Any other labels, regardless of the size or budgets, have always merely licensed my work. Oddly, I had no negative issues arise by that. Sometimes I get paid, sometimes I just get bulk quantity of product. I'm forever asked what I would do if a major (or minor) label were to approach me with a sizable deal and a binding contract. To this day, that sadly never happens at all. But my response was always, I'll sign anything, gimme gimme, when I know full well that it's a common killer mistake to get sucked up like that. Beware, Stevie. Thankfully, I don't really fit into that ordinary show-biz slot trap. Then I starve then.
Radio, what does it mean? Grew up on glorious Top 40 AM in Nashville, and 45 years later I rejoice as New York's fabled oldies station WCBS-FM returns to the air after being yanked for two years. And it's fucking amazing programming! Old school radio done right: an eccentric freeform mix of decades of popular singles, with styles all over the map. Just like my personal tastes.
Otherwise, I rarely "listen" to radio. It's a useless audio format for me. I can play one of my old tape compilations if I really wanna sit and listen to a "great show." Like a couch potato. Who has time? Radio. Worse than television even. No wanna no iPods neither. Stupendously redundant.
How does radio as a concept relate to my music? Not much. Of course, nowadays "radio" means World Wide Web as much as car/home stereo tuner/transistor portable/boombox. So many of the more obscure Internet blogcasts and such spin my songs. I love finding my stuff as part of cyber-mixtape playlists.
It just so happens I was also actually a DJ on WFMU, the legendary New Jersey underground station, from the late '70s to the early '90s—both as a loosely affiliated participant and as a regular participant. I had an important weekly slot for five or six years. I was wonderful. Influential. But very few know or care about that.
R. Stevie Moore in a New Jersey cemetary, 2007. Photograph by - max - ofNYC. Used with kind permission.
DS At least two of your YouTube videos are pre-MTV clips of your appearance on something called The Uncle Floyd Show . Can you tell me about that?
RSM Yes, it was a historic local New Jersey cable-access TV show, superb kiddie programming for adults, that began in the mid '70s and ended in the '90s. I appeared on it seven times through the '80s. I'm lucky that it was quite close to where I live. He [show producer and host Floyd Vivino] and I became good friends. Again, I recommend getting more info with a simple online search. So, yeah, the Uncle Floyd YouTubes are quite a hoot.
DS Who filmed your videos? It seems like a longtime fan of yours posted them on YouTube. Is that right?
RSM My home videos were filmed by family and friends. In 1988 I grabbed access to a camcorder and shot a ton of new footage by myself, tackling the fun projects of attempting lip syncs to many of my fan-favorite tunes. The recent uploading and posting frenzy on YouTube was actually done by Nuno Monteiro, a young new acquaintance in Lisbon, Portugal, of all places. Often he's taken my raw VHS tapes and re-edited the footage into improved proper song clips.
DS I read that Rolling Stone once called your 1976 debut album Phonography one of the 50 most significant indie records ever. Did that proclamation have any practical effect on your career?
RSM Practical? I haven't really been able to measure its effect. Surely it must have helped somewhat by exposing my name to whomever read it, but perhaps not as much as one would assume. The numbers remain minuscule. You'd think the album woulda suddenly shot through the roof. And to clarify, that statement was printed in Rolling Stone's Alt-Rock-A-Rama , a book published in 1996 by Rolling Stone Press, rather than in the magazine itself. Perhaps that fact explains the lack of hype Phonography ultimately received?
DS Could you possibly get an intern or two to help you with all that CD-burning and distribution work? It seems like hundreds of young music aficionados would line up for the chance to help you with that kind of stuff.
RSM Hundreds? It's not as easy to find good cheap help as it seems. I don't know nobody! Where does one even start recruiting? Ha, I haven't even started yet (at age 55)! In an ideal world, that's what's supposed to have transpired already, a mini-corporation of R. Stevie Moore's hobbies galore: a small warehouse with A/V studios, technical duplication gear, helper elves, public relations agents, mail sorters, phone solicitors, the works. Branch offices in Hollywood, London, Paris, and Tokyo. Man, I've only got a couple hundred dollars. Where did I go wrong?
Editors' note: Three hours before we went to press with this BOMB issue, R. Stevie Moore wrote to us, breathless, with exciting news: "Cherry Red, the legendary London punk/reissue label, has slated a 24-track, best of '70s and '80s R. Stevie Moore release. The news is truly breaking as I type. We've got the approval from top brass. Cross your fingers that it all goes according to divine plan! Best love and devoted husband, R. Stevie Moore."
Keep your eyes peeled and your ears unsealed, too, for R. Stevie Moore's track on the Worried Noodles double album, out this September from Tomlab (www.tomlab.de). The project features 39 original songs by 39 contributors—each based on artwork and lyrics by David Shrigley—and comes complete with an illustrated songbook by Shrigley.
music recording and production
Masaki Batoh by Ben Chasny
"I still seek for eternity, which maybe is like a rainbow-colored butterfly flying away, suddenly in front of your face."
Mac DeMarco by Gary Canino
"When I'm home, I'm completely alone. I get the creative bug, and if I'm sitting here long enough not working on music, it drives me insane."
Les Blank's A Poem Is a Naked Person by Alex Zafiris
Thanks to his son, Harrod Blank, the filmmaker's forty-year-old documentary on musician Leon Russell is finally released.
BOMB 101, Fall 2007
Featuring interviews with Marine Hugonnier and Manon De Boer, Peter Doig and Chris Ofili, Richard Pare, David Malouf, Junot Diaz, Isaac Julien, R. Stevie Moore, Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, and Winter Miller.
How do I build a fugitive choreography, one that's always in the process of escaping itself, then coming back to reaffirm itself, only to slide away again? The act of interpreting a choreography is made live by the performers, which is the invitation in my work.
Ligia Lewis


text:
Soviet Battleship classes of WWII
Gangut class battleship
Gangut during World War I
Builders: Admiralty Shipyard
Baltic Shipyard
Operators: [2] Imperial Russian NavySoviet Navy
Preceded by: Andrei Pervozvanny class
Succeeded by: Imperatritsa Mariya class
Built: 1909–1914
In commission: 1914–1956
Planned: 4
Lost: 1
Scrapped: 3
Type: Dreadnought
Displacement: 24,800 metric tons (24,400 long tons; 27,300 short tons)
Beam: 26.9 m (88 ft 3 in)
Draft: 8.99 m (29 ft 6 in)
Installed power: 52,000 shp (39,000 kW) (on trials)
Propulsion: 4 shafts, Parsons steam turbines25 Yarrow Admiralty-type water-tube boilers
Speed: 24.1 kn (44.6 km/h; 27.7 mph) (on trials)
Range: 3,200 nmi (5,900 km; 3,700 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 1,149
4 × 3 – 12-inch (305 mm)/52 guns 16 × 1 – 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns 1 × 1 – 3-inch (76 mm) LenderAA gun 4 × 1 – 17.7-inch (450 mm) submerged torpedo tubes
Armor: Waterline belt: 125–225 mm (4.9–8.9 in)Deck: 12–50 mm (0.47–2.0 in)
Turrets: 76–203 mm (3.0–8.0 in) Barbettes: 75–150 mm (3.0–5.9 in) Conning tower: 100–254 mm (3.9–10.0 in)
The Gangut-class battleships were the first dreadnoughts begun for the Imperial Russian Navy before World War I. They had a convoluted design history involving several British companies, evolving requirements, an international design competition, and foreign protests. Four ships were ordered in 1909; two were named after victorious battles of Peter the Great in the Great Northern War and the other two were named after battles in the Crimean War. Three ships of the class used names of pre-dreadnought battleships of the Petropavlovsk-class lost in the Russo-Japanese War. Construction was delayed by financing problems until the Duma formally authorized the ships in 1911. They were delivered from December 1914 through January 1915, although they still needed work on the turrets and fire-control systems until mid-1915. Their role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so the ships spent their time training and providing cover for minelaying operations. Their crews participated in the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution in 1917, and joined the Bolsheviks the following year. The Russians were forced to evacuate their naval base at Helsinki after Finland became independent in December 1917. The Gangut-class ships led the first contingent of ships to Kronstadt even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen.
All of the dreadnoughts except for Petropavlovsk were laid up in October–November 1918 for lack of manpower. Poltava was severely damaged by a fire while laid up in 1919. Petropavlovsk was retained in commission to defend Kronstadt and Leningrad against the British forces supporting the White Russians although she also helped to suppress a mutiny by the garrison of Fort Krasnaya Gorka in 1919. Her crew, and that of the Sevastopol, joined the Kronstadt Rebellion of March 1921. After it was bloodily crushed, those ships were given proper 'revolutionary' names. The other two serviceable vessels were recommissioned and renamed in 1925–26 while some work was done to repair Frunze, as Poltava was now known, but the money quickly ran out for her repairs. Parizhskaya Kommuna, the former Sevastopol, was modified in 1928 to improve her sea-keeping abilities so that she could be transferred to the Black Sea Fleet which had nothing heavier than a light cruiser available. This proved to be the first of a series of modernizations where each ship of the class was progressively reconstructed and improved. A number of proposals were made in the 1930s to rebuild Frunze to match her sisters or even as a battlecruiser by removing one turret, but these came to naught and she was hulked preparatory to scrapping.
The two ships of the Baltic Fleet did not play a prominent role in the Winter War, but did have their anti-aircraft guns significantly increased before Operation Barbarossa in 1941. However this did not help either ship as they attempted to provide fire support for the defenders of Leningrad. Marat had her bow blown off and Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya was badly damaged by multiple bomb hits in September. The former was sunk, but later raised and became a floating battery for the duration of the Siege of Leningrad while the latter spent over a year under repair, although this was lengthened by subsequent bomb hits while in the hands of the shipyard. Both ships bombarded German and Finnish troops so long as they remained within reach, but Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya did not venture away from Kronstadt for the duration of the war. Parizhskaya Kommuna remained in Sevastopol until forced to evacuate by advancing German troops. She made one trip to besieged Sevastopol in December 1941 and made a number of bombardments in support of the Kerch Offensive during January–March 1942. She was withdrawn from combat in April as German aerial supremacy had made it too risky to risk such a large target.
Sevastopol and Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya remained on the active list after the end of the war although little is known of their activities. Both were reclassified as 'school battleships' (uchebnyi lineinyi korabl) in 1954 and stricken in 1956 after which they were slowly scrapped. There were several plans (Project 27) to reconstruct Petropavlovsk using the bow of Frunze, but they were not accepted and were formally cancelled on 29 June 1948. She was renamed Volkhov in 1950 and served as a stationary training ship until stricken in 1953 and subsequently broken up. Frunze was finally scrapped beginning in 1949.
[hide] *1 Design and development
1.1 General characteristics
1.2 Propulsion
1.3 Armament
1.4 Fire control
1.5 Protection
4.1 World War I
4.2 Russian Civil War and interwar period
4.3.1 Baltic Fleet
4.3.2 Black Sea Fleet
4.4 Postwar
[edit] Design and development Edit
[3][4]Right elevation and deck plan as depicted in Brassey's Naval Annual 1912After the end of the Russo-Japanese War the Imperial Russian Navy was in a state of confusion. Its leadership, tactics and ship designs had all been cast into disrepute by its repeated defeats by the Japanese at the Battle of Tsushima, Battle off Ulsan and the Battle of the Yellow Sea. The Navy took quite some time to absorb the design lessons from the war while the government reformed the Naval Ministry and forced many of its more conservative officers to retire. It conducted a design contest for a dreadnought in 1906, but the Duma refused to authorize it, preferring to spend the money on rebuilding the Army.[1]
The requirements for a new class of dreadnoughts were in a state of flux during 1907, but Vickers Ltd submitted a design that met the latest specifications and was very nearly accepted by the Navy for a 22,000-long-ton (22,000 t) ship with twelve 12-inch (305 mm) guns in triple, superimposed turrets. However rumors of a contract with Vickers raised a public outcry as they had some problems with the armored cruiser Rurik then building in England. The Naval Ministry defused the situation on 30 December 1907[Note 1] by announcing an international design contest with the ship built in Russia regardless of the nationality of the winning firm. By the deadline of 12 March 1908 a total of 51 designs had been submitted by 13 different shipyards. The winner of the competition was a design from the German firm of Blohm & Voss, but the French protested that they did not want to see any of the money that they had loaned Russia to build up its defenses in German pockets.[2] The Russians bought the design for 250,000 rubles and shelved it to placate both sides. A design by the Baltic Works had been the runner-up and was revised for the Navy's updated requirements with a complete design to be presented by 22 March 1909. This was extended by a month to allow the Baltic Works to finalize its contract with the British firm of John Brown & Company for design assistance with the hull form and machinery.[3]
The Naval General Staff believed that a speed advantage over the 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h) German battle fleet would prove very useful in battle, as demonstrated at the Battle of Tsushima, but use of the heavy and bulky Belleville Water-tube boilers, as insisted upon by the Engineering Section of the Naval Technical Committee, would prevent the new design from exceeding 21.25 knots itself. However, after John Brown indicated that the ship's turbines could deliver 45,000 shp (33,556 kW) if supplied with enough steam and that the hull form could reach 23 knots (26 mph; 43 km/h) with 45,000 horsepower, the Naval General Staff took the opportunity to get the speed it desired by using small-tube boilers. It convened a meeting of the Naval Technical Committee to discuss the issue, but packed it with engineers from the fleet who were in favor of small-tube boilers and the Engineering Section was outvoted.[4] The Yarrow small-tube boiler was significantly smaller and lighter than Belleville large-tube boiler, but required more frequent cleaning and repair and their horsepower dropped off more rapidly with use.[5]
The Russians did not believe that super firing turrets offered any advantage as they discounted the value of axial fire, believed that broadside fire was much more important and also believed that super firing turrets could not fire while over the lower turret because of muzzle blast interfering with the open sighting hoods in the lower turret's roof. They therefore designed the ships with a 'linear' arrangement (lineinoe raspolozhenie) of turrets distributed over the length of the ship. This arrangement had several advantages because it reduced the stress on the ends of the ship since the turrets were not concentrated at the end of the ship, increased stability because the lack of elevated turrets and their barbettes, improved the survivability of the ship because the magazines were separated from each other and gave a lower silhouette. Disadvantages were that the magazines had to be put in the middle of all the machinery, which required steam pipes to be run through or around them and the lack of deck space free from blast. This greatly complicated the placement of the anti-torpedo boat guns which ultimately had to be mounted in the hull, closer to the water than was desirable.[6]
[edit] General characteristics Edit
The Ganguts were 180 meters (590 ft) long at the waterline and 181.2 meters (594 ft 6 in) long overall. They had a beam of 26.9 meters (88 ft) and a draft of 8.99 meters (29 ft 6 in), 49 centimeters (1 ft 7 in) more than designed. They were completed overweight and their displacement was 24,800 metric tons (24,400 long tons) at load, over 1,500 t (1,500 long tons; 1,700 short tons) more than their designed displacement of 23,288 metric tons (22,920 long tons). This reduced their freeboard by about 16 inches (41 cm) and gave them a slight bow trim that made them very wet ships.[7]
High-tensile steel was used throughout the longitudinally-framed hull with mild steel used only in areas that did not contribute to structural strength. This, plus refinements in the design process, meant that the hull was 19% lighter than that of the preceding Andrei Pervozvanny class pre-dreadnoughts.[8] The hull was subdivided by 13 transverse watertight bulkheads and had a double bottom. The engine and condenser rooms were divided by two longitudinal bulkheads. They had two electrically driven rudders on the centerline, the main rudder abaft the smaller auxiliary rudder. Their designed metacentric height was 1.76 meters (5.8 ft).[9]
[edit] Propulsion Edit
Ten Parsons-type steam turbines drove the four propellers. The engine rooms were located between turrets three and four in three transverse compartments. The outer compartments each had a high-pressure ahead and reverse turbine for each wing propeller shaft. The central engine room had two each low-pressure ahead and astern turbines as well as two cruising turbines driving the two center shafts. The engines had a total designed output of 42,000 shaft horsepower (31,000 kW), but they produced 52,000 shp (39,000 kW) during Poltava's full-speed trials on 21 November 1915 and gave a top speed of 24.1 knots (44.6 km/h; 27.7 mph). Twenty-five Yarrow Admiralty-type small-tube boilers provided steam to the engines at a designed working pressure of 17.5 atm (1,773 kPa; 257 psi). Each boiler was fitted with Thornycroft oil sprayers for mixed oil/coal burning. They were arranged in two groups. The forward group consisted of two boiler rooms in front of the second turret, the foremost of which had three boilers while the second one had six. The rear group was between the second and third turrets and comprised two compartments, each with eight boilers. At full load they carried 1,847.5 long tons (1,877.1 t) of coal and 700 long tons (710 t) of fuel oil and that provided her a range of 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h).[10]
[edit] Armament Edit
[5][6]The forward triple turret of PetropavlovskThe main armament consisted of a dozen Obukhovskii 12-inch (305 mm) Pattern 1907 52-caliber guns mounted in four electrically powered triple turrets. The guns could be depressed to −5° and elevated to 25°. They could be loaded at any angle between −5° and +15°; their rate of fire was one round every 30 to 40 seconds up to 15° of elevation and one round per minute above that. The forward turret had an arc of fire of 330°, the second turret had a total of 280°, the third turret 310° and the aft turret 300°.[11] They could elevate at 3–4° per second and traverse at a rate of 3.2° per second. 100 rounds per gun were carried at full load. The guns fired 470.9-kilogram (1,038 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 762 m/s (2,500 ft/s); this provided a maximum range of 23,230 meters (25,400 yd).[12]
Sixteen manually operated 4.7-inch (120 mm) 50-caliber Pattern 1905 guns were mounted in the hull in casemates as the secondary battery intended to defend the ship against torpedo boats.[13] Because of the lack of freeboard and bow-heavy trim the forward casemates were often washed out in even moderate seas.[14] All guns had a firing arc of 125°–30° and at least four could bear on any part of the horizon. Their maximum elevation was 25° and they could elevate at 3.5° per second. They could traverse at six to eight degrees per second. 300 rounds per gun were provided which was increased from 245 rounds during construction.[15] As designed they were 15 feet (4.6 m) above the waterline, but this was reduced in service as they were overweight. They had a rate of fire was seven rounds per minute and a maximum range of about 16,800 yards (15,362 m) at 25° elevation with a 63.87-pound (28.97 kg) semi-armor-piercing Model 1911 shell at a muzzle velocity of 792.5 m/s (2,600 ft/s).[16]
The Gangut-class ships were completed with only a single 3-inch (76 mm) 30-caliber Lender anti-aircraft (AA) gun mounted on the quarterdeck.[15] This had a maximum depression of 5° and a maximum elevation of 65°. It fired a 14.33-pound (6.50 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 1,929 ft/s (588 m/s). It had a rate of fire of 10–12 rounds per minute and had a maximum ceiling of 19,000 ft (5,800 m).[17] Other AA guns were probably added during the course of World War I, but details are lacking,[15] although Conway's says that four 75-millimeter (3.0 in) guns were added to the roofs of the end turrets during the war.[18] Four 17.7-inch (450 mm) submerged torpedo tubes were mounted with three torpedoes for each tube.[15]
[edit] Fire control Edit
Two Zeiss 5-meter (16 ft) rangefinders were fitted on the conning towers and there was also a 4.5-foot (1.4 m) Barr & Stroud instrument, possibly for precise stationkeeping on the master ship when concentrating fire. Two Krylov stadimeters were situated in the lower level of the forward conning tower.[15] These would provide data for the central artillery post to calculate with its imported Pollen Argo Mark V Clock, a mechanical fire-control computer, and then transmit the gun commands via the Geisler transmission system for the gun crew to follow. During the winter of 1915–16 the Zeiss rangefinders were transferred to armored hoods on the rear of the fore and aft turrets and, at some point, 18-foot (5.5 m) Barr & Stroud rangefinders were added to the roofs of the middle turrets. Gangut received a 9-foot (2.7 m) Pollen rangefinder in the spring of 1916.[19]
[edit] Protection Edit
The armor protection of the Gangut-class ships had to protect against two different threats as revealed during the Russo-Japanese War. Japanese high explosive shells had riddled the unarmored portions of Russian ships and had even sunk several ships with their heavy armor belts unpenetrated. The Russians decided that the entire side of the ship needed to be armored, even though this would limit the thickness of the main belt. They developed a system where the outer armor would break up or at least slow shells down and burst immediately behind the outer armor and an inboard armor bulkhead would stop the splinters and shell fragments from reaching the vitals.[20] This system likely would have worked against the German and British armor-piercing shells that performed so badly at the Battle of Jutland, but would have failed against the improved shells introduced afterwards with their redesigned fuses. A related weakness was that the turrets and conning towers lacked the inboard splinter bulkhead even though they used armor thickness roughly equivalent to that of the main belt.[15]
The waterline belt, made of Krupp cemented armor (KCA), had a maximum thickness of 225 millimeters (8.9 in), but tapered to about 150 mm (5.9 in) on its bottom edge. It was 117.2 meters (385 ft) long and had a total height of 5 meters (16 ft), 3.26 meters (10 ft 8 in) of which was above the design waterline and 1.74 meters (5 ft 9 in) below. However, the ship's draft was almost 50 to 79 centimeters (20 to 31 in) deeper than intended, which meant that much less was above water. The remaining portion of the waterline was protected by 125-millimeter (4.9 in) plates. The upper belt, which protected the casemates, was 125 mm of KCA over the citadel and 2.72 meters (8 ft 11 in) high. It thinned to a thickness of 75 millimeters (3.0 in) forward of the citadel. The area aft of the citadel was the only unprotected section of the hull. 3.4 meters (11 ft) inboard of the side was a longitudinal splinter bulkhead made of Krupp non-cemented armor (KNC). It was 50 mm (2.0 in) thick at the level of the main belt, but thinned to 37.55 mm (1.478 in) behind the upper belt. The main deck sloped from the bulkhead to the lower edge of the waterline belt and consisted of a 50-mm KNC plate on a 12 mm (0.47 in) mild steel plate. This space was used as a coal bunker, which added extra protection. The main belt was closed off by 100 mm (3.9 in) transverse bulkheads fore and aft and the steering gear was protected by armor 100–125 mm thick.[21]
The main gun turrets had a KCA face and sides 203 mm (8.0 in) thick with a 100-mm roof. The guns had 3-inch gun shields to protect against splinters entering the embrasures and they were separated by splinter bulkheads. The barbettes were 150 mm thick above the upper deck, but reduced to 75 mm behind other armor, except for the fore and aft barbettes which only thinned to 125 mm. The conning tower sides were 254 mm (10.0 in) thick with a 100-mm roof. The 120-mm guns had their own individual 3-inch gun shields. The funnel uptakes were protected by 22 mm (0.87 in) of armor. The upper deck was 37.5 mm (1.48 in) of nickel-chrome steel and the middle deck was 25 mm (0.98 in) of nickel-chrome steel between the longitudinal splinter bulkheads, but thinned to 19 mm (0.75 in) outside of them. The lower deck was of 12 mm (0.47 in) mild steel.[22]
Underwater protection was minimal as there was only a single watertight bulkhead, presumably of high-tensile steel, behind the upwards extension of the double bottom. This was an extension of the splinter bulkhead and was also 3.4 meters inboard. A more comprehensive system was considered early in the design process but rejected because it would have cost some 500–600 t (490–590 long tons; 550–660 short tons).[23]
The armor scheme of the Gangut-class ships had some significant weaknesses. The rear transverse bulkhead was unprotected by any other armor but was the same thickness as the forward bulkhead which was defended by the upper belt armor. The thinness of the barbette armor was a serious defect which could have proved fatal in a battle. And the lack of a splinter bulkhead behind the armor of the turrets, barbettes and conning towers left all of those locations vulnerable to main gun hits. But the biggest weakness was the lack of an anti-torpedo bulkhead, which made them highly vulnerable to mines or torpedoes.[24]
[edit] Construction Edit
[7][8]Gangut and Poltava fitting out during the winter of 1911–12All four ships were laid down on 16 June 1909, but this was just a ceremonial event as actual work did not begin until September–October. One major complication was that the design for the turrets and their magazines was not completed when construction began so their weights and dimensions had to be estimated.[25] The machinery for these ships was built by either the Baltic Works or the Franco-Russian Works as the New Admiralty Shipyard lacked its own engine shop. Construction was initially very slow because the Duma did not allocate any money for these ships until May 1911. Initial funding was taken from other budget items or the emperor's discretionary fund[26] and the shipyards had to use their own money to keep the work going. They were enormously expensive with their cost estimated at 29.4 million rubles each, including armament. By way of comparison the preceding class of pre-dreadnoughts had only cost 11 million rubles each. Once the Duma provided the funding the pace of work accelerated and the ships were launched later that year, although delays in the delivery of engines and turrets hindered their completion. All of the ships completed abbreviated trials by the end of 1914 and reached the fleet in December 1914 – January 1915.[25]
[edit] Ships Edit
Gangut (Гангут) Admiralty Shipyard, Saint Petersburg Battle of Gangut, 1714 Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya 27 June 1925 16 June 1909 20 October 1911 11 January 1915
Petropavlovsk (Петропавловск) Baltic Yard, Saint Petersburg Siege of Petropavlovsk, 1854 Marat 31 March 1921 22 September 1911 5 January 1915
Sevastopol (Севастополь) Baltic Yard, Saint Petersburg Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) Parizhskaya Kommuna 31 March 1921 10 July 1911 30 November 1914
Poltava (Полтава) Admiralty Shipyard, Saint Petersburg Battle of Poltava, 1709 Frunze 7 January 1926 23 July 1911 30 December 1914
[edit] World War I Edit
All four of the Ganguts were assigned to the First Battleship Brigade of the Baltic Fleet in December 1914 – January 1915 when they reached Helsingfors. Their turrets and fire-control systems, however, were still being adjusted and fine-tuned through the next spring.[27] Their role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so they spent their time training with occasional sorties into the Baltic. Several ships ran aground in 1915 and 1916, often while providing cover for minelaying operations, but only Sebastopol suffered any significant damage. A minor mutiny broke out on 1 November on board Gangut when the executive officer refused to feed the crew the traditional meal of meat and macaroni after coaling.[28] The crews of the battleships joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet on 16 March 1917, after the idle sailors received word of the February Revolution in Saint Petersburg. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk required the Soviets to evacuate their base at Helsinki in March 1918 or have them interned by newly independent Finland even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen over. Gangut and her sisters led the first group of ships on 12 March and reached Kronstadt five days later in what became known as the 'Ice Voyage'.[29]
[edit] Russian Civil War and interwar period Edit
All of the dreadnoughts except for Petropavlovsk were laid up in October–November 1918 for lack of manpower. She bombarded the rebellious garrison of Fort Krasnaya Gorka in 1919 and supported Bolshevik light forces operating against British ships supporting the White Russians in the Gulf of Finland.[30] On 17 August 1919 Petropavlovsk was claimed as torpedoed and put out of action by the British Coastal Motor Boat CMB 88 in Kronstadt harbor, but was, in fact, not damaged at all.[31] On 24 November 1919 a fire broke out in Poltava's forward boiler room and gutted much of her interior; she was never repaired although numerous proposals were made to reconstruct her. The crews of Sevastopol and Petropavlovsk joined the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921 and they were renamed Parizhskaya Kommuna and Marat respectively after the rebellion was crushed to commemorate the Paris Commune and to erase their 'betrayal' of the Communist Party. The two undamaged ships were recommissioned in 1925–26 and all the ships were given proper revolutionary names.[32]
The initial attempts to return Frunze to service were to restore her to original design, but money ran out before she was even half completed. Subsequent plans that focused on reconstructing her as a modernized equivalent to her sisters or even as a battlecruiser, with one turret deleted to save weight, were considered, but finally abandoned on 23 January 1935 when all work was stopped.[33] Sevastopol after World War II, note how most of the casemates no longer extend past the side of the hullParizhskaya Kommuna was refitted in 1928 in preparation for her transfer to the Black Sea Fleet the next year and she was given an open-topped false bow to improve her sea-keeping ability. However, while enroute through the Bay of Biscay, she was caught in a heavy storm that damaged the bow and she was forced to put into Brest for repairs. Marat was the first of the class to be reconstructed between 1928 and 8 April 1931. Her superstructure was enlarged, her guns were replaced, the turrets overhauled, the anti-aircraft armament augmented and the fire-control equipment modernized. Her boilers were converted to burn only fuel oil and this produced enough steam that the forward three boilers could be removed and the boiler room was turned into anti-aircraft magazines and control spaces. The forward funnel was angled to the rear and extended to try and keep the exhaust out of the gunnery spaces and the bridge. She was also given a false bow, but hers had a solid top that turned it into a forecastle. Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya was the next ship to rebuilt and profited from the experiences of her sister's modernization between 1931 and 1934. All twenty-five of her old boilers were replaced by a dozen oil-fired boilers originally intended for the Borodino-class battlecruiser Izmail. The space saved was used to add another inboard longitudinal watertight bulkhead that greatly improved her underwater protection. The rest of her modernization was along the same lines as Marat's, except that the latter's tubular foremast was replaced by a sturdier semi-conical mast, a new aft structure was built in front of the rear conning tower which caused the mainmast to be moved forward, her forward funnel was curved to the rear to better keep the bridge clear of exhaust gases and the thickness of her turret roofs was increased to 152 millimeters (6.0 in). Parizhskaya Kommuna began her two-stage reconstruction in 1933 along the lines of Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya's modernization. Major differences were that her guns and turrets were improved to increase their rate of fire to about two rounds per minutes and to extend their range, she was the first ship of the class to receive light anti-aircraft guns and her forward funnel was given a more sinuous curve to direct its exhaust gases away from the forward superstructure. She completed these alterations in 1938, but was returned to the dockyard from December 1939 through July 1940 to receive a new armored deck and anti-torpedo bulges which cured her stability problems and greatly increased her underwater protection at a modest cost in speed.[34]
[edit] World War II Edit
[edit] Baltic Fleet Edit
The participation of Marat and Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya in the Winter War was limited to a bombardment of Finnish coastal artillery in December 1939 at Saarenpää in the Beryozovye Islands before the Gulf of Finland iced over. They failed to inflict any permanent damage before being driven off by near misses. Both ships had their anti-aircraft armament modernized and reinforced over the winter of 1939–40 and were transferred to Tallinn shortly after the Soviets occupied Estonia in 1940. Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya received more AA guns in February–March 1941. Parizhskaya Kommuna received a more modest number of AA guns while she was receiving her bulges, but landed four 120-mm guns right before the Germans invaded.[35]
On 22 June 1941, the Germans attacked the Soviet Union under the codename of Operation Barbarossa; on that date Marat was in Kronstadt and Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya was in Tallinn.[36] The latter was soon forced to fall back to Kronstadt by the speed of the German advance and neither of the Baltic Fleet dreadnoughts participated in combat until 8 September when they fired on troops of the German 18th Army from positions near Kronstadt and Leningrad. Marat was lightly damaged by German 15-centimeter (5.9 in) guns on 16 September[37] and had her bow blown off on 23 September by two bomb hits. One of which was claimed by Lieutenant Hans-Ulrich Rudel of III./StG 2 flying a Junkers Ju 87B 'Stuka', that detonated her forward magazine. She sank in the shallow water from progressive flooding, but was raised and used as a floating artillery battery for the rest of the war using two, and later, three of her gun turrets.[38] Marat reverted to her original name on 31 May 1943.[39] Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya was badly damaged on 21 September 1941 by three bomb hits on her bow that knocked out two of her turrets. She was sent for repairs at the Ordzhonikidze Yard on 23 October, although she was hit by more bombs on two different occasions while under repair until November 1942. Her AA armament was further reinforced during this period and Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya returned to her mission of providing fire support during the Siege of Leningrad, the Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive in January 1944 and the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive in June 1944. She was the last Soviet battleship to fire shots in anger on 9 June 1944 during the latter offensive.[38] On 22 July 1944, the ship was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya received a Lend-Lease British Type 279 air-warning radar sometime during 1944.[38]
During the late 1930s Frunze was used as a barracks hulk while she was stripped for parts, until she was formally discarded 1 December 1940, after scrapping had already begun at a leisurely pace.[33] After the German invasion she was towed to Kronstadt and run aground in late July 1941 near the Leningrad Sea Canal. During the Siege of Leningrad her hull was used as a base for small ships.[40] Frunze raised on 31 May 1944, towed to Leningrad and scrapped beginning in 1949.[41]
[edit] Black Sea Fleet Edit
Parizhskaya Kommuna was in Sevastopol and remained until 30 October 1941 when she was evacuated to Novorossiysk after the Germans had breached Soviet defensive lines near the Perekop Isthmus. The ship fired her first shots of the war on 28–29 November when she bombarded German and Romanian troops south of Sevastopol.[42] Parizhskaya Kommuna made one evacuation run to Sevastopol on 29 December, bombarding German troops on her arrival, but spent most of her time supporting troops during the Kerch Offensive in January–March 1942. She fired her last shots of the war at targets near Feodosiya during the nights of 20–22 March 1942 before returning to Poti to have her worn-out 12-inch guns relined.[43] By the time this was finished the Soviets were unwilling to expose such a prominent ship to German air attacks, which had already sunk a number of cruisers and destroyers. She returned to her original name on 31 May 1943, but remained in Poti until late 1944 when she led the surviving major units of the Black Sea Fleet back to Sevastopol on 5 November.[38] British Type 290 and 291 air-warning radars were fitted during the war.[13] Sevastopol was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on 8 July 1945.[38]
[edit] Postwar Edit
Sevastopol and Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya remained on the active list after the end of the war although little is known of their activities. Both were reclassified as 'school battleships' (uchebnyi lineinyi korabl) on 24 July 1954 and stricken on 17 February 1956. Their scrapping began that same year although Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya's hulk was still in existence in May 1958.[44]
After the war there were several plans (Project 27) to reconstruct Petropavlovsk, as she was now known, using the bow of Frunze and moving her third turret to the forward position, but they were not accepted and were formally cancelled on 29 June 1948. She was renamed Volkhov, after the nearby river, on 28 November 1950 and served as a stationary training ship until stricken on 4 September 1953 and broken up afterwards.[45]
After World War II two of Frunze's turrets and their guns were used to rebuild Coast Defense Battery 30 (Maksim Gor'kii I) in Sevastopol. It remained in service with the Soviet Navy through 1997.[46]
[edit] See also Edit
[9] Battleships portal
Vladimir Yourkevitch
^ All dates used in this article are New Style
[edit] Footnotes Edit
^ McLaughlin, pp. 189–193, 203
^ McLaughlin, p. 216
^ McLaughlin, pp. 210–17
^ Roberts, pp. 72–75
^ McLaughlin, pp. 210, 212–13
^ McLaughlin, pp. 207, 220
^ Vinogradov, p. 125
^ "Russian 12"/52 (30.5 cm) Pattern 1907 305 mm/52 (12") Pattern 1907". Navweaps.com. 10 January 2010. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRussian_12-52_m1907.htm. Retrieved 18 January 2010.
^ a b McLaughlin, p. 207
^ a b c d e f McLaughlin, p. 221
^ "Russian 120 mm/50 (4.7") Pattern 1905". Navweaps.com. 21 May 2006. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRussian_47-50_m1905.htm. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
^ "Russia / USSR 76.2 mm/30 (3") Pattern 1914/15 "Lender's Gun" (8-K)". Navweaps.com. 21 November 2007. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRussian_3-30_Lender.htm. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
^ Gardiner & Gray, p. 303
^ Friedman, pp. 273–75
^ McLaughlin, pp. 221–222
^ McLaughlin, pp. 220, 222–223
^ Erikson, Rolf (1974). "Letter to the Editor". Warship International (Toledo, OH: International Naval Research Organization) XI (1): 16. ISSN 0043-0374.
^ a b McLaughlin, pp. 227, 348–54
^ McLaughlin, p. 401, 404, 406–07
^ Rohwer, pp. 98, 100
^ a b c d e McLaughlin, p. 402
^ Цветков, И.Ф. (in Russian). Линкор Октябрьская Революция. Leningrad: Ленинград "Судостроение". p. 190.
^ Rohwer, pp. 111, 119
^ Wernet, pp. 22–34
[edit] Bibliography Edit
Friedman, Norman (2008). Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnought Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-555-4.
Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal, eds. (1984). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1922. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-85177-245-5.
McLaughlin, Stephen (2003). Russian & Soviet Battleships. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-481-4.
Roberts, John (1997). Battlecruisers. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-068-1.
Rohwer, Jürgen (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (Third Revised ed.). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-119-2.
Vinogradov, Sergei E. (1999). "Battleship Development in Russia From 1905 to 1917, Pt. 2". Warship International (Toledo, OH: International Naval Research Organization) XXXVI (2). ISSN 0043-0374.
Wernet, Dieter; Wernet, Inge (1997). "Maksim Gor'kii I: A Recent Example of the Re-Use of Naval Turrets in Coast Defenses". Warship International (Toldedo, OH: International Naval Research Organization) XXXIV (1). ISSN 0043–0374.
Retrieved from "https://worldwartwo.wikia.org/wiki/Gangut_class_battleship?oldid=4551"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Avery was dancing on the bar. She wasn't sure how she'd gotten pulled up there, but had to admit she didn't care. When she looked over, Grace was dancing up here too, along with several other women shaking their asses to the local rock band intent on tearing the house down. The loud vibrations from the bass and drums, the sexy screech of the lead singer thrummed through her body and seemed to go straight through to her soul, It was loud enough to drown out everything . . . except her feelings for Gunner.
Those feelings made every note amplify, and God, it felt good to just have fun. There was a time for mourning, and that wouldn't end soon, but they all needed this. Her brother, Dare, was smiling as he watched Grace—Avery had known they were perfect for each other from the first time she'd seen them together. Jem and Key, brothers and Avery's friends, were keeping an eye on them but chatting up some women in the corner at the same time.
And Gunner was . . .
She glanced around for him, found him standing almost right in front of her, watching her. They locked eyes for a long moment while she danced. Just for him.
He'd been watching her like that the whole night. Circling her, but always staying just out of reach.
This bar was down the alleyway from his tattoo shop, one of the first places she'd gone when she'd arrived in New Orleans. And somewhere along the way, maybe even from the first day she'd slammed into his shop, she'd fallen for Gunner. The tattoo he'd given her had cemented it, pink and white flowers trailing along her side, grazing a breast and a hip. It was so graceful. Perfect. He'd marked her and in front of Jem and Key. And things might've progressed naturally between them if not for the turn the mission had taken.
The mission that would always haunt them.
She pushed that out of her mind. Tonight, she wasn't the daughter of a mercenary who ran a legendary group called Section 8. Tonight, she wasn't a fierce warrior who'd decided that she would resurrect the group with the help of her brother, Gunner and the others.
No, here in this bar, she was drinking and dancing. She was a woman who wanted a man to finally decide the timing was right. If she'd learned nothing from the past months, it was that whoever dubbed patience a virtue was a goddamned liar.
The band segued into a new song—still a wild one with a slower, sexier beat. If she jumped down, Gunner would catch her. She was about to test her theory when a guy popped up next to her, grabbed her hands and began dancing with her.
At first, it was all friendly and fun, and then he was tugging on her too roughly, pulling her close, and when she glanced at Gunner, his expression had grown tight.
"Buddy, hands off," she said, because the last thing they needed was trouble.
But the guy was past the point of reason. He was sloppy, drooly, unattractively drunk and al- though she could handle him on her own—and easily—she decided that playing damsel in distress would still allow her to remain dancing on the bar.
Gunner raised a brow at her and she gave a quick nod. In seconds, his tattooed arms shot up and grabbed the guy off the bar as if he weighed nothing. At first, he flailed and cursed. When he saw who he was up against, he stilled. Which was smart. Gunner was six feet five inches with spiky blond hair and covered with tattoos. A big guy with an expression that read you're going to get hurt if you don't cut the shit.
"Hey, get the fuck off my friend," a male voice yelled above the music.
Gunner turned in time to stop a fist from exploding into his face. Still holding on to the drunk guy by the front of his shirt, he shoved the other guy's arm down and yanked it behind his back.
"This can't be good," Grace said in her ear loudly. Because the music hadn't stopped. If any- thing, it seemed to ramp up in anticipation of the impending, inevitable fight. "Where's Dare?"
Avery pointed to where her brother had jumped into the fray with a gleeful yell, diving headfirst into several men the bouncers were trying to pull apart. Some of the fighting included breaking beer bottles, and suddenly someone was thrown at the bar. At them.
Before she could do anything, Grace was grabbed to safety by Jem and Avery was whooshed off the bar into strong arms and found herself held against Gunner's chest. For a moment, their faces were inches apart and it would be so easy to kiss him. Actually, the perfect place—her refuge from the storm.
Yes, maybe have another shot of whiskey, Avery.
And then Gunner carried her and placed her in the safety of a corner near the back hallway next to Grace and flew into the melee.
"They're all enjoying this." Grace pointed first to where Dare was fighting with a couple of biker types. And smiling.
"For the love of all that's good and holy," she muttered, especially when she saw Jem throw someone over the pool table. Key caught the guy and tossed him back to Jem.
Avery and Grace shoved away anyone who came too close to them, both trying to keep an eye on the men. Avery automatically scanned the crowd for weapons, like knives or broken beer bottles. Because if you were going to brawl, it should be about fists.
"I hope this place doesn't get raided," Grace said.
"Considering we're with the owner, I'm guessing we're okay," Avery pointed out.
"Considering the owner just hung a man by his pants on a hook, maybe not?" Grace asked, and Avery looked where the drunk guy who'd manhandled her literally hung by his belt loops on the coatrack nailed to the wall. "Is this what college would've been like?"
"I guess we've got some making up to do." She noted that the bouncers had called in reinforcements. Gunner was talking to one of them who looked as if he could pick the pool table up with one hand, and he was shrugging sheepishly, looking like a little kid who'd gotten caught but was having too much fun to care.
"Closing time!" the bartender yelled, and Avery heard the sounds of sirens in the distance. A normal sound for this bar at this time of night. It was nearing two in the morning and Grace took her hand and led her out the back door and around the outside alley toward the front.
"Mama, come. Let me read you."
Avery glanced over at the woman who'd set up shop outside the bar, promising the drunk boys and girls who stumbled out lifetimes of happiness and love and babies. "No thanks."
"You don't want to know your future? To see what's coming?" the palm reader persisted.
Would knowing what she knew now have made Avery do anything differently up to this point? She could confidently answer no. She shook her head and let Grace lead her down the alley, both giggling giddily. Drunk, but fun drunk. Anyone who saw them might think they were two single college girls. They'd be so very wrong, but Avery liked the idea of being normal every once in a while.
Avery turned and found Gunner following them, but he was also staring down at his cell phone and holding it a little too tightly. When he realized she was looking, he shoved it in his pocket and shrugged.
She was more than happy to shrug it off too, especially when Jem came up to her, saying, "Sometimes all you need's a good old-fashioned bar fight," and Key whooped his approval. She got the distinct feeling they were disappointed that it ended so soon, that if they had their way, they'd start another one just for the hell of it.
Key threw an arm around her shoulders and she grinned at him, knew he was doing it to get a rise out of Gunner.
She'd kissed Key at that bar months ago; she'd been drunk, and he'd been too, and although they'd been good kisses during moments of boldness, exacerbated by being free of her old life and by lots of Dutch courage, she'd ended up going home to Gunner.
Ever since, Gunner had been subtly trying to push her into Key's arms while acting jealous when she spent any time with Key. An interesting paradox, but one that told her what she needed to know.
Gunner wanted her.
She also knew that Key didn't. Not really. Be- cause that same night they'd kissed, Key had murmured another woman's name in her ear. She'd dismissed it at the time because it had mingled in with the other Cajun French he'd been whispering, but now that she'd been around the dialect for a while, she knew for sure.
Emmeline. Whether she was a high school sweetheart or a long-lost love, the woman who broke his heart, she didn't know and she'd never asked.
When she'd talked to him about this, Key had said, "I've known where your heart belongs. Knew it from the night he gave you the tattoo."
"I was mad because I figured he'd break your heart," Key explained then, and now he glanced back at Gunner and then winked at her.
She swore she heard Gunner's growl behind her, and that made her smile.
They tumbled into Gunner's place, through the back door that led to the kitchen. Dare and Jem were cooking eggs and bacon and she sat at the table and ate and laughed. The mood tonight was exactly the note she'd wanted tonight to end on.
A far cry from two weeks earlier, when they'd been somber and moping and exhausted. Shell-shocked, really, because they'd rescued Grace from her stepfather, and they'd rescued her and Dare's father as well, only to have him die before they could get him help.
The bright spot was that the man responsible for hurting the families of Section 8 and the operatives themselves had been killed on that island. She knew Gunner and Dare were ultimately responsible, but neither man was talking about what had happened in the room where Richard Powell was killed by his own men.
Now they were all worried about Gunner. He'd stopped taking tattoo appointments, stopped drawing. They'd been lucky to get him to go out at all—he'd been growing more and more closed off, although no one could blame him after what he'd been through.
She couldn't do much because she had promised everyone their space, including him. And he wasn't exactly asking her for advice. Finally, in a moment of what she deemed pure brilliance, she convinced everyone to go away, take a vacation and, most important, make some decisions about the future of the new Section 8.
A couple of months ago, she'd been all alone. Now she had a half brother, a soon-to-be sister-in-law and three other men in her life, all of whom would combine to become a mercenary group based on the original Section 8. Her father had been one of the original members, and he'd been killed for his efforts. She was a legacy, along with Dare.
Would it be all or nothing? She hadn't been certain when the others left, but she'd had to make sure Gunner was really, truly okay.
So far, that wasn't the case.
She'd wanted to take a room in a hotel, give him some space, and although he wasn't exactly himself, he refused to let her leave. And he still used all the security equipment.
She figured that was simply a hard habit to break. That he was still protecting her, worried about blowback. But Rip—aka Richard Powell— worked alone and his men, who'd actually been the ones to kill him, had scattered to the wind. They were afraid for their own lives.
Tonight was the last night before Dare and Grace left for the Seychelles, before Key left for parts unknown and Jem went to Texas, although nobody knew what he'd lost in Texas, and he wasn't telling.
After she'd said good night to everybody, bid them safe trips, knowing it would be the last time she saw them for a while, she sat on her own bed and debated.
Tomorrow, the place would be emptied of everyone but her and Gunner.
Now she padded down the stairs to Gunner's room. His was the only one on the second floor—Key and Jem slept in the panic room on the shop level with all the cameras, because they felt most comfortable there. Gunner's floor held the same sort of security setup.
Dare and Grace were already pretending to be on their honeymoon on the third floor, down the hall from Avery's room, and everyone granted them their space.
She'd been sleeping with headphones on.
Now, shivering more from anticipation than the cold, she stood in front of Gunner's door, wearing just a T-shirt that skimmed her thighs, the neckline stretched comfortably enough to fall off one shoulder. It was actually his T-shirt she'd grabbed one day and never given back.
She knocked lightly and he opened the door quickly, like he was expecting her.
Duh, because the cameras probably picked you up the second you left your room.
"What's wrong?" he demanded. He held his gun in his hand and she touched his wrist and pushed it so the gun faced the floor.
"Oh." He stared at her. "You're sure?" "Never more sure," she murmured. She took a step closer, stared up his body. Put her free hand out to trace the swirl of tattoos along his neck and he let her. Stood stock-still, frozen, watching her face.
Her hands traveled along his arms, starting from his shoulders and moving downward and then back up, the muscles bunching and flexing under her touch.
Still nothing from him but the stare. She really hoped he didn't want to talk about this—about anything—because she did not come here for conversation tonight.
Finally, she stood on tiptoes, slid a hand around the back of his neck and brought her lips to his. She closed her eyes and melted against him, the heat of his body calling to her like a beacon.
It took her maybe ten seconds to realize he wasn't kissing her back.
Gunner had tried to back away, but he'd found himself mesmerized by her touches, by the smooth expanse of tan skin that showed around the old white V-neck T-shirt of his she wore. When she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him, the instinct to pick her up and carry her to his bed and fuck everything else nearly won out.
God, she was sweet. He wanted to sink into her and not pull out for days. Weeks. Forfuckingever.
But none of that was in the cards.
Your whole life is a lie.
He ripped his mouth away. She looked stunned. Stepped back, touched her swollen lips with her fingers. Stared at him like she didn't recognize him.
Had she sensed something? Did she know?
He hoped not. There was so much more to his past than Avery or the others knew. Finding out he was Richard Powell's son had only scratched the surface of a very tarnished past, one he'd wanted to stay buried.
"Sorry," she whispered, backed away and he didn't go after her, not even when she turned and ran. He stood like stone, steeling himself for what was coming next.
When he heard her race up the stairs and lock her door, he knew what he had to do. The rest of the crew would leave in a few hours. He lay on his bed for most of that time, listening. Waiting. When he heard the last of them leave, watched the cabs pull away for the airport, he knew he was nearly ready.
It was only then that he used the blade to lightly go over the tattoo already embedded in his skin. Recut and press the herbs into the welling blood to keep the charm active. Most would tell him he only had to rub the herbs, not do the cuts. But Josephine—his Josie—had made him promise to do it like this. Said it was more effective.
He'd keep that promise to her until the day he died. Could hear her chiding in his ear, "That's it, chère . . . perfect."
She would hate that he'd mourned her for so long that he'd left a string of broken hearts in his wake, trying to forget.
She'd be angry, but she'd understand, and that was the bitch of it all.
He muttered her name like a prayer. Remembered the most important words he'd ever learned.
"From this moment on, all your lies are your life."
He'd been lying for as long as he could remember.
The first thing he remembered was being woken in the middle of the night. He's twelve. He should be asking what's wrong, should be scared, but it had happened so many times before, he's just moving. Sleeping on his feet. By the time he wakes, he's in a moving car with the bag he'd carefully packed hidden, shoes shoved on, and they'll be in a car heading toward a train or a plane that's also going somewhere.
Doesn't matter, because he won't have a choice. That somewhere won't matter. At least it never had before.
But this time, as the helo hoves over the landing strip on the small island, his stomach's tight, muscles tense.
This time, everything's different.
The bag he always kept packed was bigger now, held more sophisticated things, but a go bag was always the same, made the same feelings surface. There was a silence that wouldn't go away. No matter what he did, no matter how many good things he accomplished, it would al- ways be there.
His voice mail still blinked, the message from the private number as yet unplayed. He knew what it would say, who it was from. He'd already gotten a call the day after they'd returned from the island, the day after he'd killed his father.
The threat was so fucking real, and what was worse, he'd been waiting for it every single minute of every single day for more than ten years. Once he'd been on his father's island again, he knew there was no going back. He'd been caught on surveillance tape while there. His life would never be the same.
Now he picked up the phone and redialed the number he still knew by heart. All the messages that had been left for him daily had said exactly the same thing.
Welcome back from the dead.
Drew Landon picked up on the second ring. "Cutting it close, James."
"Under the wire's always been my specialty."
"You disappeared after you fucked up my job a second time," Landon told him. "Imagine my disappointment."
"Work off your debt. If you're as good as you used to be, you'll work maybe five years."
So fucking reasonable. "And if I don't?"
"I can send every criminal you ever helped after you. Ever family member of every trafficker you ever took down will have your picture. And pictures of your team members. The deal I'm proposing isn't so bad now, is it?"
"Haven't you done enough?"
"I haven't even started. But I'm a man of my word. Your friends will be safe. I trust you've been making arrangements while you've been ignoring my messages. The next step would've been a visit to your shop."
"Your friends will be safe."
Why should he trust Landon now? Just because he didn't have a choice was the only answer he could come up with. "You didn't keep Josie safe."
"I never promised that. But I had nothing to do with Josie's death, James. If I did, don't you think I'd admit it? I'm outright threatening your team — obviously, I'm far from terrified of you." Maybe Landon had never been, but now he should be. Gunner would make damned well and sure of that. Not that it had ever been the same. Not for long, anyway. He slung the go bag over his shoulder and grabbed the file folder that held the contracts for the sale of the tattoo shop and the other properties. Dare and company had a month to vacate, and he had a job to do. One he never should've tried to get away from.
He promised himself he'd never try to again.
Avery hadn't wanted to leave her room, not after Gunner's rejection hours before. He'd just pulled away and stared at her. She'd never forget the look on his face, although she couldn't quite place it.
Could she have misjudged this so badly? Or was he that freaked out by what had happened? God, she felt stupid. Humiliated. And maybe she'd ruined any chance of him working for S8.
Would you really want to work with him if you couldn't have him?
She wasn't exactly in the headspace to answer that question. Maybe after coffee, which she smelled brewing. Maybe it was a peace offering.
It was just after seven in the morning. Sleeping in—or much at all—wasn't happening these days. She was about to cut around the corner to the kitchen when she saw the note propped up on his favorite tattooing chair, her name written on it.
She went over to it, noting how quiet the shop seemed. She ripped the envelope open and found a note in his handwriting telling her that the shop and the surrounding building and garage had been sold. And that she needed to vacate within a month's time.
She wavered between hurt and anger. The anger won out at first. She slammed one of his tat- too guns against the wall, watching it break in half.
You have a month to vacate.
Well, thanks for that. She'd take about a minute.
Although it didn't work like that, because after the initial anger wore off, she realized that leaving Gunner would be like wrenching her heart from her body. Was it that easy for him?
She couldn't bear to think that it was.
He had to have been planning this. His rejection of her last night made sense in light of that. She read through the note again, focusing on his last lines.
I can't be a part of S8. I can't be who you want me to be. Key's a good guy. He's good for you.
"He's kidding me, right?" she asked out loud. He'd left her, the shop. The team. He'd waited until it had been just her here. The lease, the note, it was all for her.
And that's why he rejected you last night. That's why he'd been acting so oddly. This had been in the works for weeks. Maybe from the second they'd stepped foot back in Louisiana.
She wondered if it was because there had been blowback she didn't know about, stemming from the murder of Richard Powell, an ex-CIA spy who nearly ruined all of their lives. But she knew Jem was still monitoring the situation. They all were. If something big had come up, vacation or no vacation, they would have gotten in touch.
Which meant Gunner chose to walk out of her life, wanted to get away from Section 8, and from her. This was a major statement and one she wasn't taking too well.
And then she went into every single nook and cranny of the place, looking for clues. He'd left a lot of his stuff behind, presumably for the new owner to simply throw out.
She knew she'd neatly pack up his clothes. His books. The framed pictures of his tattoos. She'd put them all in storage for when he came back. But for right now, she sat in the quiet of Gunner's shop, unable to stop thinking on the strange, sometimes miraculous and equally heartbreaking turns her life had taken in under a year's time.
It started out with Avery and Dare trying to save themselves from a man named Richard Powell and ended up with them finding a new group who felt like family.
Section 8 had been assembled in the eighties, comprised of seven men and one woman who'd gotten dishonorably discharged from the military for many different reasons. Typically, for not being leadable enough, and one of those men was Avery and Dare's father, Darius O'Rourke. S8 was charged with doing black ops missions for a handler they'd never met, and after one mission gone wrong, the original S8 was dis- banded. But when their handler called them back together, disaster stuck and the original team, save for Darius and Adele, were killed.
After Darius and Adele discovered their mysterious handler was Richard Powell, they helped his stepdaughter, Grace, escape from his island. Powell in turn hunted down anyone and every- one who was ever associated with S8 and tried to kill them.
Unfortunately for Powell, he'd underestimated Darius's children and Grace herself. Together with Dare, Grace, Jem, Key and Gunner, they'd taken down Powell.
Or rather, Gunner had. The fact that Gunner's father was Richard Powell, who was also Grace's stepfather and the man behind Section 8, was a twist none of them had seen coming. So Avery and Dare were legacies. The rest were guilty, as it were, by association with S8. And so the new Section 8 was born. At least until Avery took the practical measure of reminding them what they'd all been through, and how a future in such a group would not be easy. She was telling military men this, and Grace, a survivor in her own right, but it needed to be said. Coming off the high of a completed mission, coupled with the low of Darius's death and learning Gunner's secret, things were complicated, to say the least.
Six months, Avery told all of them when they'd gotten back to Gunner's shop after burying her and Dare's father, Darius. Six months to decide if they were truly in or out of the new S8.
She'd thought more than once about asking Dare what really had happened on the island when Powell was killed by his own men, but she'd stopped herself. It was more Gunner's story than Dare's, and she would wait for him to make the reveal.
She had a feeling she'd be waiting a long time, at this rate, anyway. She was haunted that she missed Gunner's leaving, possibly by mere min- utes. Gunner had been pulling away faster than any of them had been able to reel him in. And now he was running.
When Avery first met Gunner, she'd been run- ning too, first from the police and then from the men Richard Powell sent to kill her.
Richard Powell, who'd been responsible for the deaths of both her mother and her father.
Richard Powell, the biological father of the man she'd fallen in love with.
Trying to reconcile Gunner to that monster who'd made sure she'd only met her father long enough to hold his hand while he died . . . it was impossible.
Grace was adopted by Richard Powell, but Gunner was his blood.
God, what a complicated mess, hampered by the fact that she was more worried about Gunner and what all of this had done to him. She knew he was nothing like Powell. She had a feeling he wasn't as sure, and it was breaking her heart.
They'd grown close in a very short period of time. Danger and proximity often did that to people, but what happened between them was more than that. She'd never felt this way about any man before him. And she felt closer to understanding many of her mother's decisions be- cause of that.
Everything was in limbo, with all of them deciding whether they were ready to take this on. And they all needed time to tie up loose ends, get their heads together. Because once they started working, downtime wasn't going to be as free.
If they decided to be a part of the new Section 8. She'd known there might be hesitancy, but she hadn't figured any of them would quit outright. Not like this.
Dare had taken Grace to the Seychelles. Key hadn't mentioned where he was going, but knew he'd stay in touch with his brother, Jem, who was spending time in Texas.
She didn't bother to ask why. With Jem, it wasn't so much why, but rather why not?
Jem, who'd been the most reluctant to leave her behind. "Worried about you, kid," he'd told her a couple of nights ago.
"Who're you calling kid?"
He'd laughed, then handed her a phone.
"A phone."
"Jem, I have a phone."
"Not like this, you don't. You call me, any fucking time. Got it?"
"You're worried."
"Very." He'd glanced toward Gunner, who'd been on the computer, not talking to any of them, not joining in their conversation. There, but not there, the way he'd been the entire month. "Something's up."
"Well, yeah, after what he's been through . . ."
"Something's. Up." He'd stared at her. "You call me. Dig?"
"Dig," she'd said, although barely able to with a straight face. Now she was never so grateful for what she'd dubbed the bat phone in her entire life. She'd hold on to it like a lifeline and pray that Gunner would come to his senses. Because it was never too late.


Who hasn't sent a text message saying "I'm on my way" when it wasn't true or fudged the truth a touch in their online dating profile? But Jeff Hancock doesn't believe that the anonymity of the internet encourages dishonesty. In fact, he says the searchability and permanence of information online may even keep us honest.


Young designers and established consultancies are set to benefit from Ken Livingstone's Creative London initiative, which launched on Monday with a pledge to add £11bn to the annual value of London's creative industries over ten years.
Creative London, which functions as a division of the Mayor's London Development Agency, will offer seed capital for creative start-ups through ten local hubs based around London.
It will support existing events and initiatives and act as an umbrella body for investment in sectors including fashion, music, film-making, theatre and architecture.
Creative London chairman Michael Frye, former chairman of the Royal Society of Arts, says the organisation plans to work with the London Design Festival to promote the capital as a global design centre and will support the grass roots design industry through a series of more general initiatives. It is backed by industry figures including Piers Roberts and Rory Dodd of Designersblock and Tom Dixon.
Among Creative London's list of goals is the development of a £10m seed fund to support business growth and provide venture capital.
Creative London will also preside over a marketing initiative to encourage private sector investment in creative industries. It plans to launch agencies to provide workspace and exhibition space and a creative incubation programme to recruit creative talent at higher education level.
Over the next ten years the body aims to help create 200 000 new jobs and increase the value of London's creative industries from £21bn a year to £32bn.


The Apollo is a great all purpose sports bag, specifically designed with a less rigid structure. Has a waterproof wet sleeve for separation of wet or muddy items. Choose from Football, Rugby or Gym Design.


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