juliebutcher

[juliebutcher]

Glendale Works

“A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again.” ~ Margaret Mead In our part of La Crescenta, I can annoy my neighbors by reminding them we live in Glendale. No, they say, we live in La Crescenta. Or Montrose. Or Verdugo City. Never…

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A Purpler Shade of Tree

"There are times when Los Angeles is the most magical city on Earth."

“There are times when Los Angeles is the most magical city on Earth. When the Santa Ana winds sweep through and the air is warm and so, so clear. When the jacaranda trees bloom in the most brilliant lilac violet. When the ocean sparkles on a warm February day and you’re pushing fine grains of sand through your bare toes while the rest of the country is hunkered down under blankets slurping soup.…

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Reading through the Pandemic

Reading through the Pandemic

“Well, you know what they say. Trauma is the best salsa.”

~ Abbi Waxman, The Garden of Small Beginnings

I’m gonna read 100 books this year.

I’ve always been a reader. I was an English major, for Pete’s sake, have cherished the epithet like a, well, epithet. But since I tested positive in early May (asymptomatic may be my all-time favorite word), I’ve been reading like I’d hoped…

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Talking Trash -- Remembering SEIU Local 347

Talking Trash — Remembering SEIU Local 347

In 2006 or so, when SEIU announced its plans to merge the southern California public sector locals into one giant “local,” 347 resisted. When we lost, we worked hard to merge with grace and to preserve the proud history of the scrappy little fighting union we loved. We packed up everything with care, protecting volumes of union newspapers, photos, tchotchkes, and union regalia.

And it all got…

[juliebutcher]

I hate fall

I hate fall.

At the Farmers’ Market, sweet peaches and plump plums replaced by pomegranates and crisp Fiji apples.

I hate fall the same way I hate Sunday night. Because I hated it in fourth grade. Even though I live in southern California where fall weather is perfect.

I hate fall. Because I know what’s coming.

[juliebutcher]

Melting pots

But in the evening we are melting pots

“If we go back to Italy we’re taking all the food with us.”

~ Maria Manna-McCready

Smells and scents

on our walk, me and the dog,

the one after Jeopardy

Someone’s baking

cinnamon and butter with a splash of vanilla

In the morning the building smells homogenous

coffee roasts and gurgles from most windows

But in the evening we are

melting pots

Oils and meats wafting and waving from dinnertimes

[juliebutcher]

Puffy Clouds of Purple: Jacaranda Season 2019

Puffy Clouds of Purple: Jacaranda Season 2019

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.“

~ Alice Walker, The Color Purple

  I wrote this near the end of last year’s Jacaranda season. I’m thinking I’ll update it every year now that I see the Jacarandas everywhere and now that they know I’m watching.

“The next will be my fortieth California June. The Jacarandas blooming still sneak…

[juliebutcher]

Why Nine?

“Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.” ~ Jorge Luis Borges

In Memorial. Memoriam. Memorium.

~ for my Matthew, my murdered Mateo

on this day nine years ago

a song, a smell, the snippet of a memory

I still think about you every day. I wondered about that, wondered how the heated pain would ease or subside. It doesn’t.

a song lyric, like the one about that…

[juliebutcher]

I recently had the honor to write an update on Glendale’s plans for repowering its ancient Grayson power plant and the community’s response and fight to make sure it’s California’s last gas plant.

Read my local reporting in the Crescenta Valley Weekly ~ the Grayson story here: Insights Offered at Grayson Tour and check out my cool tour pictures below! (I could listen to people talk about their work all day!) (See the pink donut box?)

Insights Offered at Grayson Tour

The plan for repowering Glendale’s Grayson power plant to be presented by Glendale Water & Power (GWP) to the utility’s citizen commission and the City Council this summer will look considerably different than the plan GWP staff envisioned when first planning for the repowering of the local energy site.

In spring 2017, Dan Brotman, a semi-retired economics professor who says he’s been long involved in advocating for the environment, took note of the City’s plans to repower the Grayson plant using natural gas rather than renewable energy. He wrote an op-ed in April 2017 to make the case against the City’s plan, focusing on both the environmental and financial aspects of his concerns, and then he organized the Glendale Environmental Coalition. By April 2018, more than 500 people protested outside Glendale City Hall, arguably the largest demonstration in Glendale municipal history, and the City Council voted overwhelmingly to pause the proposed repowering project to look at alternatives.

“The environmental arguments are obvious,” Brotman explained. “They were proposing a larger plant than the one they were replacing and, while they may say they’re tripling the energy production but not tripling emissions, the entire process of using gas is environmentally flawed, storing it at Aliso Canyon, methane leaks all along the distribution path; that’s a potent greenhouse gas. Why build another gas plant –  perhaps the state’s last licensed gas plant –  when the City’s needs can be met using renewables? Why wouldn’t we do that first? And why build such a large gas plant, beyond the actual needs of the City?”

Brotman said that when he scoured the City’s reports and documents he discovered that they had plans to sell excess energy generated by the plant.

“They were planning on creating extra pollutants to make money,” he said.

California state law now requires that renewable energy and zero-carbon resources supply 100% of all electricity sold in California by 2045, 60% by 2030 Brotman noted. That means that given that GWP is proposing a 30-year bond to build a plant that would have to be shut down before it is even paid for.

According to its website, the Glendale Environmental Coalition is “a collection of Glendale community members who recognize the Grayson repowering project as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our city to embrace clean power generation and be leaders in reducing our climate impact.” The current goals of the organization are to “make sure GWP gets as many qualifying proposals as possible; match clean energy developers with clean energy hosts; and to identify likely clean energy targets in the area – open space, commercial buildings, building owners interested in clean energy options.”

The Grayson Power Plant is situated in an industrial area of Glendale at 800 Air Way just northeast of the Interstate 5 and Highway 134 interchange. It is named for Loren Grayson, the City’s first chief engineer and general manager. Until 1937, Glendale purchased its electrical power from Pacific Light & Power (now Southern California Edison). In that year, the City agreed to purchase hydro-electric power from the Hoover Dam and also decided to build a city-owned and operated steam-powered plant of its own. The first unit – a steam boiler – began generating electricity in 1941.

Recently students from Pasadena’s Sequoyah School’s Social Innovations Program and Clark Magnet High School’s environmental club traveled to Grayson as part of a field trip.

“Welcome to our power plant museum,” said GWP General Manager Steve Zurn.

Zurn has worked for the City of Glendale for 31 years, most of that in the Department of Public Works where he was director from 2003 until he was appointed GWP general manager in 2013.

Students from the Sequoyah School have been studying renewable energy and many said they feel fortunate that the debate about the future of Grayson happened in their backyard. Suggesting that both the utility and the community organizations advocating for cleaner solutions could all do a “better job communicating,” the students said they remain “optimistic in human decency.”

“They want what’s best for the community,” one of the youths commented about the motivation of the staff of the city’s utility. “Their job is to help because they care, not for the money.”

GWP issued its Clean Energy Request for Proposals (RFPs), a public request for bids, ideas, and proposals for ways to meet the City’s energy demands, after the Council vote last year. The staff is in the process of finalizing “the results to ensure what is the best option for City of Glendale and its residents.” The results from the RFPs will be presented to City Council in late July along with GWP’s Integrated Resources Plan (IRP).

The IRP is a document that provides a road map for meeting GWP’s objective of providing reliable and cost-effective electric service to all of its customers. Staff will be presenting a number of options for City Council to consider; these options will include a combination of resources in various amounts: thermal generation, solar, Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), increased energy efficiencies, and battery storage at Grayson.

“We’re planning for an astronomically large battery,” boasted Mark Young, Glendale’s Integrated Resources planning administrator and Grayson project lead.

Because the peak demand for electricity happens at night and because there are only 33,000 individual houses in Glendale, GWP staff is planning to include a proposal for a virtual power plant to harness the power of the estimated 15 MW of power currently coming from rooftop solar across the City.

GWP’s current plans are described in detail on its Grayson project website:

“We can’t be a utility and not be able to plan for every eventuality. Bottom line, it’s better to have it and not need it,” Young said emphasizing the need for the City’s utility to prepare for “the worst-case scenario.”

“During the Northridge Earthquake [Young laughed when he noticed that none of the students he was addressing was alive on Jan. 17, 1994], Glendale had full power in 90 minutes because of this plant here. We’re very proud of that.”

Plant worker Matt Williams explained the rigorous environmental standards to which the existing plant is subjected.

“We get a smog check every minute,” he said adding, “and you know when you’re seeing white smoke coming out of the plant? That’s mist, not pollution.”

Brotman and his organization continue to question the plan to generate as much as 100MW still utilizing gas as well as the engagement and outreach of the City in its clean energy RFP process.

“We wanted to work with them to make it more successful,” Brotman said of the bid process, “but we did encourage some companies to participate.”

Brotman added that if the City of Los Angeles could help, even just for the next five or 10 years, Glendale would not need to repower any of the thermal energy units in the new plant.

“You’d think they’d want to do everything they could before they buy any gas,” he said.

The City of Los Angeles has canceled its plans for three gas-powered plants. Brotman believes the City of Glendale’s commitment to clean and renewable energy is compromised by its business interests. He said, for instance, that GWP fails to encourage wider use of solar energy because “it competes with the City.”

The utility currently offers incentives for the installation of rooftop solar panels.

“We have to plan for the worst and to continuously provide power, no matter what,” said Lyova “Leo” Zalyan. “We work closely with LADWP and with the City of Los Angeles all the time. We have a good working relationship with them, but the fact is that they’re facing the same issues. By 2029 they need to find 1600 more MWs themselves. We need to have reliable power, whether it’s sunny or it’s dark. That’s what it means to be a public utility.”

Zalyan outlined the current plans as Option E: 100 MWs from natural gas, 40MWs from DR’s (solar/clean energy); 75MWs from the big (big) battery (“more of a battery building”). GWP currently gets approximately 12MWs from nuclear power – it comes from Arizona with no carbon footprint but with liability and risk and 12-15MWs of hydroelectrical power from the Hoover Dam.

Compared to its neighbors, Glendale is greener with GWP’s “energy portfolio consistently ranked first in carbon-free ratings among its regional peers.”

Glendale is reportedly at 57% clean and renewable, better than LA, Pasadena, or Burbank.

Source: Glendale Water & Power

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California’s last gas? I recently had the honor to write an update on Glendale's plans for repowering its ancient Grayson power plant and the community's response and fight to make sure it's California's last gas plant.

[juliebutcher]

Rockhaven: haunted by "the ladies" ~ in the nicest of ways!

Rockhaven: haunted by “the ladies” ~ in the nicest of ways!

Joyfully, I picked up an assignment to write about the fate of La Crescenta’s historic, famed Rockhaven Sanitarium. This wonderfully-edited piece resulted in last week’s Crescenta Valley Weekly: Future Development of Rockhaven in Doubt

Joanna Linkchorst inspires me, with her energy and her passion for this place. “Places have power,” she told the Glendale City Council. “This place has power.”

Onc…

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I ❤ LA!

Los Angeles is a complicated place; it sneaks up on you.

Walt Whitman said, not of LA: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

My oldest was in kindergarten before I admitted that I live here, that I wasn’t going back to the Bay Area (or, heaven forfend, New Jersey).

I’d loved Oakland the minute I met it, saw golden hills where others saw…

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“Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized.” ~ Allan Armitage

  As if you need me to tell you that gardening’s good for you, good for us!

Couple of weeks ago, my friend Annie and I built a little garden for her granddaughter Lola. Annie lives in the San Fernando Valley. It took us two days! We joked about marketing our “business” as Slow Grannies Gardening!

It was heavenly!

Anne & I love the little heart-shaped leaves as they start to twine & twirl up the trellis…

  Who knew that gardening is therapeutic? Everyone! For a long time.

6 Unexpected Health Benefits of Gardening lists many of the wonderful ways:

Stress-relief and self-esteem

Heart health and stroke risk

Hand strength and dexterity

Brain health and Alzheimer’s risk

Researchers found daily gardening to represent the single biggest risk reduction for dementia, reducing incidence by 36%. Another study estimated the risk reduction at 47%! Why does gardening make such a difference? Alzheimer’s is a mysterious disease, and the factors influencing its incidence and progression remain poorly understood. However gardening involves so many of our critical functions, including strength, endurance, dexterity, learning, problem solving, and sensory awareness, that its benefits are likely to represent a synthesis of various aspects.

Immune regulation *

Depression and mental health

Plenty of your friends and neighbors have probably mentioned what a “lift” they get from a morning’s sweat amongst the lettuces and radishes. To add professional legitimacy to anecdotal claims, the growing field of “horticultural therapy” is giving proven results for patients with depression and other mental illnesses. The benefits appear to spring from a combination of physical activity, awareness of natural surroundings, cognitive stimulation and the satisfaction of the work. To build the therapeutic properties of your own garden, aim for a combination of food-producing, scented, and flowering plants to nourish all the senses. Add a comfortable seat so you can continue to bask in the garden while you rest from your labors. Letting your body get a little hot and sweaty might also have hidden benefits: as devotees of hot baths and saunas can attest, elevated body temperatures are also correlated with increased feelings of well-being. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water and know your limits.

Read the whole article; it’s truly delightful!

  “I dig the daylily because it is forgiving, unrelenting, and breathtakingly brief.” ~ Nikki Schmith

Petal Power: Why Is Gardening So Good For Our Mental Health? in Psychology Today explains the science behind the benefits:

Looking after plants gives us a sense of responsibility.

Gardening allows us all to be nurturers.

Gardening keeps us connected to other living things.

It doesn’t matter if we are seven or seventy, male, female or transgender, gardening underlines that we are all nurturers. Horticulture is a great equalizer: plants don’t give a fig who is tending them and for those with mental health problems to be able to contribute to such a transformative activity can help boost self-esteem.

Gardening helps us relax and let go.

Working in nature releases happy hormones.

Being amongst plants and flowers reminds us to live in the present moment.

Gardening reminds us of the cycle of life, and thus come to terms with that most universal of anxieties: death.

Some aspects of gardening allow us to vent anger and aggression…

…whilst others allow us to feel in control.

Last but not least, gardening is easy.

Read this one too! It’s worth it.

  “Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”  ~ May Sarton  Rosa ‘Frida Kahlo’

Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression explains the two gardening “highs”:

Getting down and dirty is the best ‘upper’ – Serotonin

Getting your hands dirty in the garden can increase your serotonin levels – contact with soil and a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain according to research. Serotonin is a happy chemical, a natural anti-depressant and strengthens the immune system. Lack of serotonin in the brain causes depression.

      Harvest ‘High’ – Dopamine

Another interesting bit of research relates to the release of dopamine in the brain when we harvest products from the garden. The researchers hypothesise that this response evolved over nearly 200,000 years of hunter gathering, that when food was found (gathered or hunted) a flush of dopamine released in the reward centre of brain triggered a state of bliss or mild euphoria. The dopamine release can be triggered by sight (seeing a fruit or berry) and smell as well as by the action of actually plucking the fruit.

Strengthening the Case for Organic ~ Glyphosate residues deplete your Serotonin and Dopamine levels

Of course, for all of the above to work effectively and maintain those happy levels of serotonin and dopamine, there’s another prerequisite according to another interesting bit of research I found. It appears it will all work much better with organic soil and crops that haven’t been contaminated with Roundup or Glyphosate-based herbicides. This proviso also extends to what you eat, so ideally you’ll avoid consuming non-organic foods that have been grown in farmland using glyphosates.

  “I breathe in… the fragrance of love, and moist sand the one his roses left on both my hands I just keep on breathing every moment as much as I can preserving it, in my body for the day it can’t.”

~ Sanober Khan

  *If you’re wondering about the whole dirt, microbes, immune system thing, Dirt has a microbiome, and it may double as an antidepressant offers a thorough, understandable explanation:

There’s now pretty good evidence to draw at least an outline of a conclusion: Breathing in, playing in, and digging in dirt may be good for your health. Our modern, sterilized life in sealed-off office buildings and homes are likely not. Researchers have already found clear evidence that childhood exposure to outdoor microbes is linked to a more robust immune system; for example, Bavarian farm children who spent time in family animal stables and drank farm milk had drastically lower rates of asthma and allergies throughout their lives than their neighbors who did not.

  “Gardening is more than a hobby; it’s a scientifically proven anti-depressant.  No wonder you like to dig in the dirt!”

The writing here in Vegetable Gardening as Therapy is fun and funny; the information is reliable and useful:

*Gardening Gets Us Out of Our Heads.

*Gardening is Exercise.

*“Nature Calms Us.”

That doesn’t happen in nature.  You’re rendered … decisionless.  When’s the last time you went on a walk in the forest or a field and decided it needed a little rearranging.  Maybe a row of Billy bookcases.  It isn’t an option so you don’t even think about it. In nature you completely give up control.  And the need to control things is what causes a LOT of stress. Giving up that control is incredibly calming.

Of course in vegetable gardening you’re constantly trying to control everything from bugs to blight but that ruins my point so let’s ignore that.

*Gardening is Nurturing.

I’ve shared my gardening opinions and advice here before, as I write to figure out this little blog:

Stop! Smell this Rose! (includes a resource list which is still relevant, perhaps useful)

I Moved a Garden … and More Unsolicited Gardening Advice

In my never-ending quest to best use all of the little space, I’m planning on using these guys everywhere!

Annie & I included a garden “tee-pee” for peas and beans to climb. It’s another great way to “grow up,” especially in smallish spaces. Three easy samples here:

How to Make A Bamboo Tepee in a Minute

Kids Gardening: Build a Bean Teepee

How To Make An Easy DIY Bean Teepee

And a final nod to the butterflies. Plant Milkweed! If you only plant one plant, plant Milkweed! The Monarchs will thank you!

Project Milkweed and the Xerces Society’s new Managing Monarchs in the West are a great place to start.

Gardening is cheaper than therapy ... and you get tomatoes! “Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized.”

[juliebutcher]

As Los Angeles’ Jacaranda season ends

LA's Jacarandas: Everyone has an opinion. No one is indifferent. 

The next will be my fortieth California June. The Jacarandas blooming still sneak up on me.

I’ve been reading about the Jacarandas ever since I read this amazing piece of arboreal advocacy last year: Jacarandas are LA’s future. Alissa Walker is the urbanism editor of Curbed and I’m convinced she’s on to something here.

“Think purple, not palms,” Walker urges.

Hear her out:

“Enter the jacaranda:…

[juliebutcher]

California Primary Election June 5 ~ my 2 cents & humble endorsements!

California Primary Election June 5 ~ my 2 cents & humble endorsements!

“Every election is determined by the people who show up.” ― Larry J. Sabato

  GOVERNOR:                                                        John Chiang

LT. GOVERNOR:                                                   Ed Hernández

SECRETARY OF STATE:                                      Alex Padilla

CONTROLLER:                                                     Betty Yee

TREASURER:           …

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Workers: "It's important to have the right tool to do the job."

Workers: “It’s important to have the right tool to do the job.”

“Work. Good, honest work, whether it’s working with your hands to create an artwork, or manual labour, brings forth a sense of divinity at play. The only prerequisite is that whatever the work is, it is done sincerely and in congruence with the soul’s true origin and intent, then, without any effort, one experiences a flow, wherein one feels a part of the plan of the entire universe.” ~ Kamand…

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Bye-bye ‘Panda-monium’ ~ La Cañada Flintridge Tournament of Roses 2018 Float

“It’s that spirit of volunteerism that makes America special,” Tibbet said.

When I got the reporting assignment to cover this event, I misunderstood the text and thought it said that the float was stuck under the freeway overpass. It was not stuck. In fact, it was not even yet under the freeway overpass. But it would shortly be, carefully maneuvered down the hill to the spot under the bridge behind Flintridge Prep School, finally ready for the manic days of decorating.

I…

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Good summary! Fight on!

Preliminary Reports From the LA City Council Hearing About the Motion to Seize Billy

(WADTT was not able to attend this hearing, so all information comes second-hand from people who were able to be physically present.)

The council did not vote on what would happen to Billy after the hearing, instead choosing to seek more information on his health: they reportedly want three independent veterinary professionals to do an assessment of Billy’s physical and emotional health at the LA zoo, as well as a study about bulls in the wild and a comparison of the numbers of elephants that died in both zoos and sanctuaries. There’s some problems with those requests. 

Most important is the question of where they’d manage to find three veterinarians with enough professional experience treating captive elephants to serve as an expert witness in both an independent and unbiased capacity. Domestic animal veterinarians, or even those who have worked with just other large exotics, will not have the appropriate credentials; and pretty much the only way to gain elephant management within the United States these days is through employment at either a zoo or a sanctuary (it’s not like the country has wild elephants who would need care). The elephant management community is a very small one, and it’s hard to find anyone within it who does not claim an affiliation to a facility under the umbrella of either a zoo or sanctuary accrediting group. Those entities not accredited by any groups - or other businesses where elephant veterinarians could have gained pertinent experience, such as circuses - are often looked down upon by other zoos and animal rights activists, so veterinarians associated with them would likely be considered “disqualified” from being credible enough to assess Billy by the advocacy groups involved with the motion. Elephant professionals trained in other countries are an option, but candidates would still have to be chosen carefully to avoid political affiliation with any of the groups involved and to make sure that their assessment would be in accordance with the welfare standards used in the US. (Considering the “gold standard” elephant care metric, put forth by AZA, is what is considered inadequate for Billy in this situation, it’s not clear exactly what standards these experts will be asked to assess him in accordance with). 

Without further research, it’s not clear if the studies that the City Council is asking for (which seem to be about elephant density and space use by bulls in the wild) actually exists in a useful format. To get an comprehensive idea of how a wild bull elephant spends his time, researchers would have to follow an adult bull constantly for days - if not weeks - and chart his movement and behavior every couple of minutes. Such a study would be time- and resource-intensive to conduct - if a number of studies no the topic do not already exist, would the Council wait to vote until they can be funded, conducted, and published? (A single study is not enough to support a theory of general behavior, as there can always be anomalies and there will be variability regarding the preferences of the individual studied.) Doing so would take years, and is likely not a viable option. 

A list of zoo and sanctuary elephant deaths has so much potential to misrepresent the lives of animals in both situations. There are simply too many variables and too much historical context for a document that people without professional animal management experience can understand easily to encapsulate effectively. What period of time are they assessing? Will cause of death be factored into the assessment? Zoos have existed for longer than elephant sanctuaries in the United States, and so will have more deaths overall. However, sanctuaries generally take older elephants and keep them for the rest of their life, which means they’re more likely to die in their care - and that sanctuaries may have more deaths in their populations per year than zoos because their population skews towards geriatric animals. To add another complication, elephant care in any captive setting has massively improved in recent decades; elephants in early zoos died more frequently and earlier than their modern counterparts in both zoos and sanctuaries due to a dearth of scientific and medical knowledge. Whomever complies that document will need to be someone intimately familiar with decades of both zoo and sanctuary elephant management choices in order to portray all of the pertinent information and considerations in a fair and even-handed manner. 

So, we’ll see how these requests work in reality - if the city council can come up with a practical way to fulfill them. 

It’s also worth noting a couple of comments passed on by attendees, because they were mentioned frequently:

It felt to them like the council members had decided on a course of action prior to the hearing and that the statements made during it didn’t really effect anything

Some of the city council members were taking selfies with the celebrities who showed up to comment on the motion (none of these have shown up on social media yet)

More information will be posted as it comes in.