#Foley AL new construction

[inboundremblog]

Foley, Alabama Homes for Sale: Discover the Villages at Arbor Walk

Credit: Image by ErikaWittlieb | Pixabay

Foley, Alabama Homes for Sale: A Thriving Small Town with Big Appeal

If you plan to purchase one of the exquisite Foley, Alabama homes for sale, you should visit the Villages at Arbor Walk. This is one of the region's most impressive newly built residential projects, providing a rich design of a comfortable modern dwelling.

68 Ventures, one of the most esteemed private residential construction firms on the Gulf Coast, jointly constructed the neighborhood, which was completed in 2021. People could not help but notice its existence.

Before discussing the details of the Villages at Arbor Walk, one should understand what makes Foley, Alabama, homes for sale such an attractive location for residents.

Foley is positioned 10 miles north of Gulf Shores and the impressively pretty beaches of the Alabama coast. At the same time, Foley has adopted the atmosphere of a rural town and all the opportunities of a big city.

The city is proud to have a great community, excellent schools, and a developing real estate industry. It also houses the claimed Tanger Outlets, OWA entertainment park, and other food joints, which are essential features for residents and guests.

Foley is situated proximal to the Gulf of Mexico, so it is a perfect place to gain access to beach communities without paying the price in insurance rates that come with living close to the water.

Still, it is not located on the coast, so it is not as vulnerable to hurricanes and the insurance costs that come with them. Whether you are a first-time homeowner with children, an empty nester, or a working professional, Foley has everything that can suit your needs.

The Villages at Arbor Walk: Where the Past and the Present Intersect

Built-in 2021, the Villages at Arbor Walk is a comprehensive residential development that finds harmony in the architectural context of the community but with all the contemporary comforts.

This neighborhood includes forty-four lots: large non-complex single-family homes are available for rent, and duplexes with individual layouts and characters are also available.

Architectural Design and Aesthetic

Arbor Walk Lifestyle The Villages at Arbor Walk are built with timeless Southern architectural design influenced by modern features.

Gated roofs, brick veneer, and front porches are standard in traditional Southern homes. These are some of the excellent archetypical features adjusted with ultramodern interior finishes.

On the exterior are well-maintained lawns, green trees, and plants with beautifully designed landscape designs for the outside of houses. The environment has charm if you are lazying around in front of the porch or walking through the community's compounds.

Spacious Living with Modern Comforts

It is no different inside the homes at Arbor Walk. Most have generous spaces with large living areas, which makes them suitable for large families and hosting cultures. The kitchens are fully fitted with lovely and elegant cabinets, well-equipped with modern appliances, and spacious with copious counters.

Bedrooms are spacious, and since families are composed of varied members, everyone can find privacy and comfort in this area of the house.

Standard features include elaborate master closets and bathrooms with elegant fixtures, walk-in showers, and bathtubs. These features are designed to provide the essential comfort and functionality desired by present-day homeowners.

The main thing that makes these houses different is the attention to the appearance of the finishes and fixtures. You should expect the best cuisine, shiny, clean surfaces, and classy windows. Apart from serving their visibility functions, they help reduce electricity bills.

Priced by square footage and offering affordable housing options for the community, the Villages at Arbor Walk are equipped with energy-efficient features to provide improved sustainability while maintaining a modern design.

A Sense of Community and Convenience

Another beautiful attribute of the Villages at Arbor Walk is that it seeks to embed a good spirit of togetherness.

Many community spaces are communal, including walkways and parks, which aid in togetherness, walking, and body exposure to nature. This is the Villages at Arbor Walk neighborhood, from a weekend barbeque to neighborhood gatherings or socializing with neighbors while walking.

Accessibility to Necessities

One thing is sure about real estate, especially now that people are sexy about location: The Villages at Arbor Walk excels in this area.

The neighborhood's location is ideal because it is near most of Foley's facilities and amenities, guaranteeing that the residents will always be within these needs. Grocery stores, retail facilities, restaurants, and medical facilities are all located within minutes of the hospital.

For all families, having quality schools nearby is always good; Goodleyey is home to several excellent schools. Foley's school system is one of the school districts of Baldwin County, and it uses high educational achievements and a close-knit community for its promotion.

Elementary, middle, and high schools will be nearby; parents will, therefore, feel safe and will not have to take their children to remote places to attend school.

Recreation and Leisure

Another great benefit of living in Foley is its access to green space and everything related to it, and the Villages at Arbor Walk is right in the middle of it. Many parks and pleasant nature trails are just a short drive from the neighborhood.

If you're an outdoor lover who loves hiking, cycling, and fishing, or even if you want to be in awe at the sight of nature, you will indeed have a packed to-do list.

Besides, the community is only a several-minute drive to Foley Sports Complex, which comprises baseball fields, soccer pitches, and other sporting amenities; thus, it can be quoted as the best place for families with sporting children. There is also a rich golf course with various courses to cater to those who want to go on a golfing spree.

Real Estate Market in Foley: Why Now is the Perfect Time to Buy

Foley, in Alabama, is one of the latest areas to experience rapid growth in the real estate business. Over time, and with more residents moving to this city, the value of homes continues to rise—this makes it a great time to buy a house. Still, Foley is cheaper compared to other near-beach communities, having a better quality-to-price ratio.

Further, the reality market in that area gained a new level of interest with the construction of multifamily Villages at Arbor Walk in 2021. The variety of houses and affordable prices attract many people to the community, starting with first-time homeowners and ending with people planning to buy a home for retirement.

Being situated in Foley, with a growing economy and a family-oriented culture, makes this area tremendously popular among potential homeowners. Thus, it provides a perfect opportunity for investors, second-homers, or those seeking an ideal location to purchase a house in Foley's housing market.

Discover practical tips about https://inlandbayrealty.com/best-foley-neighborhoods/villages-at-arbor-walk/ by exploring our website.

Start your search of Foley, Alabama homes for sale and discover a peaceful and fast-growing area as your next home!

[grizzledyoungimpact]

What We Do For Our Friends

Whumpuary 2024 January 5-6th 2024 Used as bait/Stumbling/This is gonna hurt Caleb Timbers/Wyatt Foley/Rory Cullen Mafia AU

It always boiled down to Vinnie Massaro.

When Rory Cullen had been a young man growing up in New York, his mother Orla had been very adamant about the sort of friends she wanted Rory to make. The Foley boy, Wyatt? Well, Orla had encouraged her son to make friends with the boy with the wide smile and hopeful eyes. And the soft young man with the one good arm? Well, Caleb Timbers needed to be protected. Orla had been very sure about that.

Even more adamant than she had been about not befriending Vinnie Massaro.

In the school yard, Rory could see why. Vinnie wasn't a physical bully and in a lot of ways Vinnie wasn't a mental one. His form of bullying was more verbal. Vinnie was the kind of man who could sell water to a dying man. Vinnie could see to the heart of every person, knew what to say to get exactly what he wanted. As a school yard bully, Vinnie had used it to get the lunch money of others, to use for his own personal gain.

But all school yard bullies had to grow up sometime.

Rory hadn't grown up extremely clean after. From his days as a rabble rousing teenager, Rory had become a petty thief with the rest of his friends. Caleb and Wyatt were his partners in crime under a man by the name of Asher Chance. They weren't the most dangerous threats to the city, no that distinction was saved for any of the various crime families that did their business in the city. Those men, the wise guys and goodfellas of the world, were the real dangers.

And Massaro had become a wise guy.

Massaro had amassed his own little group to do his bidding. Most of them were low-level hoods who weren't capable of much. The only one of the bunch that had given the trio any trouble was Christian Napier. Napier was just a punk kid, eager to do whatever Massaro asked of him.

That was what brought Rory and Wyatt to the dingy little construction site in the middle of the night.

The most dangerous thing about Christian Napier was his closeness to Caleb Timbers. Napier was a cousin to the third man in Rory's little group and, according to the letter comprised of letters cut from magazines and newspapers, that's who had taken their Caleb. Rory and Wyatt were given the place, the time, and the order to come alone and unarmed.

"Think he's bringin' anyone?" Rory lowly questioned Wyatt as he ran the end of his shillelagh over an unfinished brick wall.

"Knowing Massaro? Al and Napier, at least," Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the same brick wall, "Alls I know is he better fucking bring Caleb."

"Well, now ain't that a far cry from how you boys usually talk?" came a dark, but almost genial sounding chuckle from the shadows. As if he were a demon, Vinnie stepped from the shadows. He had always looked unassuming, a little scruffy but otherwise plain. There was no fancy suit for him or the duo who stood behind him, the smaller Christian Napier and the ever silent Vincent Nothing. "Chrissy boy, didn't ya tell these boys not to bring weapons?"

"Yes sir, I did sir," Napier gave a quick nod of his head.

"Then what the fuck are you holding, Mr. Cullen?" came the question from Massaro as he gestured to Rory's shillelagh. "Slide it over."

Rory growled low in his throat, "Caleb first."

Vinnie glanced at his larger bodyguard, nodding his head in agreement. A few moments later, Vincent appeared from the same shadows, dragging Caleb after him. Rory tried not to look as distraught as he was at the sight of his friend. Caleb's face was swollen around the eye and his nose appeared to be broken. "Now, Mr. Cullen, your shillelagh."

Rory slide the weapon over to Vinnie, breathing slow, "Let him go."

Vinnie bent to grab the shillelagh, admiring it in the moonlight. He let out an appreciative sound before raising the shillelagh to crack Caleb across the face with it. Rory and Caleb let out angered sounds and as they moved toward Massaro, Vinnie pointed the shillelagh at them. His voice was still an eerie calm, ever threatening, "You boys did this to him. I told you no weapons. This is a weapon."

"What do you want?" Wyatt hissed, blue eyes shining with tears.

"Oh, what I want is simple, boys," Vinnie chuckled, "your little operation seems to do very well. Caleb told Chrissy boy here that you all do very well. You want me to give you Caleb, you're gonna start giving me half of everything you make."

[adamwatchesmovies]

Adam Watches the 92nd Academy Awards

The 92nd Academy Awards have come and gone. As always, there’s plenty to be happy about and plenty that’ll make you wonder what the heck the voters were thinking. I watched the ceremony and while I may say that I don’t care… I do. Those awards are a big deal. Legions of people who would’ve otherwise dismissed Parasite as some movie that requires them to read subtitles saw it because it was nominated. One of those golden statues can make a career and let’s face it, you like to hear your love for something validated by people who have even the semblance of authority on the subject.

But here’s what you may not know: most of the voters really don’t know what they’re doing. While cinematographers NOMINATE what films are up for that Best Cinematography Award, EVERYONE in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gets to vote for the winner and there’s no guarantee they’ve actually seen every nominee, know what the technical terms mean or are voting because what they saw is what they actually believe was “the best”. Once you take into account the dollars required to produce a nomination campaign, the stigma many genre films face, the prejudices against certain types of roles and/or actors, and how popularity influences votes, a win hardly means more than a bunch of people you don’t know saying they liked a movie.

If you want a better idea of which of 2019’s films were “the best”, you’re better off asking someone you know and trust, someone who can prove they’ve done their homework and aren’t just voting for their friends, the one they’ve heard is good from their kid, or got a special gift basket from. I may not be a paid professional, but I have put in the time and effort to see EVERYTHING nominated (with a few exceptions I’ll detail below). Reviews for some of these (The Irishman, Judy) are coming to the blog in a couple of days. If it were up to me the list of nominees would be different but we’ll get to that later. Without further ado, here’s who SHOULD’VE won. 

Best Visual Effects

1917 – Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler, and Dominic Tuohy The best special effects are the kind you don’t even notice. I couldn’t tell you where the explosions, sets, and actors in 1917 begin, and where the computer-generated imagery takes over. It’s seamless.

Best Film Editing

Parasite – Yang Jin-mo Got to hand it to Parasite for its amazing use of montage and the way it stitched its footage together. Some shots I initially thought initially were one take I realized under carefully scrutiny - and by that I mean frame-by-frame examination - were actually two melded together. The scenes showing how the Kim family infiltrate the Park’s household should be shown in film class to demonstrate how the art of montage is at its best should be done to maximum effect.

Best Costume Design

Little Women – Jacqueline Durran Funny how every single film nominated at the 92nd Academy Awards was a period piece. My vote goes to Little Women not because it was necessarily the most accurate (I couldn’t tell you what people wore in 1868) but because of the way the costumes were used. You can tell a lot about the characters from the multiple outfits they wear throughout the film - check out that purple bonnet adorned by Aunt Marsh (Meryl Streep).

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Bombshell – Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan, and Vivian Baker I called it when I reviewed the film. The makeup used to transform John Lithgow was nothing short of incredible. It was an easy pick.

Best Cinematography

1917 – Roger Deakins I’m glad to see The Lighthouse on this list but I have to hand it to 1917. The one-shot motif adds so much to the story. Then, there are the individual shots I remember so vividly. The quiet meadow just outside of No Man’s Land, the raging inferno Schofield sees when he wakes up, the trench he must run in front of to reach the Colonel are all shots that permanently imprint themselves into your memory.

Best Production Design

1917 – Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales Tempted to hand it to Parasite for the house they constructed for the movie but I’m give it to 1917. The trenches, the blasted landscape of No Man’s Land still haunt me. When you see the craters, it’s jarring. Then, as your eyes become adjusted, you notice the rats. Then, the chunks of bone and charred meat that have now become part of the landscape. It’s horrific.

Best Sound Mixing

Ford v Ferrari – Paul Massey, David Giammarco, and Steven A. Morrow What you remember most from Ford v Ferrari is that big race at the end. The climax wouldn’t have been the same without the sounds we heard. The roar of the engines, the clacking and grinding as the pedals are pushed and gears are switched… the air rushing by. Out of the nominees, it’s the one whose sounds I most remember.

Best Sound Editing

Ford v Ferrari – Donald Sylvester This year, the Best Sound Editing award goes hand-in-hand with the sound mixing. Obviously, the actors were never moving at the kind of speeds depicted in Ford v Ferrari but you wouldn’t be able to tell because of the foley and sound design.

Best Original Song

Stand Up from Harriet – Music and Lyrics by Joshuah Brian Campbell and Cynthia Erivo Stand Up plays during the end credits of Harriet and it perfectly caps the film. Whenever I hear its lyrics, I’m transported back to that moment. It’s the most memorable and emotional song on this list.

Best Original Score

Joker – Hildur Guðnadóttir I chose the best song for its ability to stand out. In this category, Joker wins because its music doesn’t stand out… at least not at first. While you’re watching, those notes don’t draw attention to themselves. They subconsciously build the mood, augmenting the performance by Joaquin Phoenix, the visuals, and the story. You don’t notice how much of an effect it has on you until you see isolated clips. When you do, it’s shocking.

Best Animated Short Film

Abstaining (I’ve only seen Hair Love)

Best Live Action Short Film

Abstaining

Best Documentary Short Subject

Abstaining

Best Documentary Feature

Abstaining

Best International Feature Film

Abstaining, as I’ve only seen 2 films (Pain and Glory and Parasite)

Best Animated Feature Film

I Lost My Body – Jérémy Clapin and Marc du Pontavice I Lost My Body is the most audacious and inspired of the animated films nominated. The only movie among these to be aimed at adults, it often tells its story through visuals alone but when you get to the end, you realize it’s about more than just what was on-screen.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Little Women – Greta Gerwig based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott Greta Gerwig does more than merely adapt the classic novel, she breathes new life into it, makes it her own, makes it feel wholly new and modern. This version of the film surpasses all others we’ve seen before because of the changes she’s made to the story’s structure. 

Best Original Screenplay

Knives Out – Rian Johnson What a ride Knives Out was. It’s got so many twists and turns, so many delightful characters you want to re-watch it the second it’s over so that you are no longer distracted by its central mystery and can simply step back and admire the handiwork by Rian Johnson. A sequel’s been announced and I can’t wait to see it.

Best Supporting Actress

Laura Dern – Marriage Story as Nora Fanshaw Laura Dern was also in Little Women and her two roles couldn’t be more different. Here, she’s loathsome and captivating. As soon as I saw Nora take off her shoes before she kneeled down on the couch to console Nicole, I knew there was a whole lot more to her character than what we were told. The more you see her, the more you want.

Best Supporting Actor

Al Pacino – The Irishman as Jimmy Hoffa Al Pacino has the advantage of getting A LOT of screen time as Jimmy Hoffa. The Irishman clocks in at over 3,5 hours and he isn’t in the whole movie but when he is, the seasoned performer gives us so much. At different periods of the story, you’ll feel differently about him. There’s no point comparing him to the real-life person. He takes the meaty role and makes it his own. His voice, his mannerisms, I can’t think of anyone who could’ve done it better.

Best Actress

Renée Zellweger – Judy as Judy Garland Judy was the very last movie on my list to watch, having missed it when it came to theatres. When I think back to Zellweger’s performance, I don’t see her. All I see is her character, a rich, complex person you sometimes hate, sometimes love and feel sorry for. The movie is not going to be on my “Best of” list but she is.

Best Actor

Joaquin Phoenix – Joker as Arthur Fleck / Joker To me, there was no question Joaquin Phoenix would take this one. I saw Joker three times and each time, I found something new in his performance.

Best Director

Sam Mendes – 1917 With this award, I’m awarding Sam Mendes for the craft he displayed in 1917. It’s such a visceral experience that when people asked me how it compared to Dunkirk, it felt weird to lump both together. This is coming from someone who gave both pictures a 5-star review, who put both on their respective “best of the year” lists. It’s a movie I’m going to go back to and wondering “how did they do that?!

Best Picture

Little Women – Amy Pascal It’s a tough call for me this year, partially because I loved Parasite, 1917, Joker, and others so much. I’m planning on adding those three films to my collection so I can pop them into my Blu-ray player any times I feel like it. That said, I would’ve given the Best Picture Award to Little Women. You’re so emotionally invested in this little story that telling you why with merely words is impossible. You fall in love over and over. It made me cry and every time I think back to that scene at Christmas, I tear up again. I’m choosing it because of all the things it does differently from the other films. At the end of the day, it isn’t a big story. It isn’t about people with guns, corruption, war, a turning point in history or even necessarily the biggest event in the lives of the characters but it feels like it is. That’s exactly why it’s so good. 

Disagree with my choices? I don’t blame you. What kind of idiot finds a way to leave out Marriage Story from their list? You let me know where it should’ve gone. Hopefully, commenting keep you warm until MY Best of 2019 list gets posted in the next few days.

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 193

Questions Concerning Robots That "Care": Part 1

Robots that "care" are no longer merely science fiction ...

Producing machines that look and behave like people seems to be a human project with a long history. Mention of a Jewish Rabbi producing an instance of the legendary golem (a creature understood to possess an active human-like body, while lacking a soul) appeared as early as the 4th century CE. The celebrated 13th-century Muslim engineer Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari undoubtedly designed, and may have constructed, what has been described in present-day terms as "the first programmable human-like robotic device" – a spectacular artifact featuring four robotic musicians performing on a floating boat (Nicks 2010). Inspired by animated life-like figures reportedly created by an ancient Greek named Ctesibus, Leonardo da Vinci – around the time in the 1400s at which he began painting his famous Last Supper – also designed a human-like robot resembling a knight in armor. Fascination with the idea of crafting convincing imitations of people appears to have been part of human history for millennia.

In more recent times, though, modern computers – and with them, research introducing so-called "artificial intelligence" (AI) – have begun to give this long-standing fascination some significant new dimensions. Perhaps the most widely recognized contemporary human-like (or, nowadays, "humanoid") robot is a product of Japanese science and technology named "ASIMO." Resembling a short (4 ft 3 in) astronaut wearing a backpack, ASIMO represents the fruit of several decades of research and development conducted by the Honda Motor Company. Videos on the company's official web site show ASIMO climbing stairs, jogging, balancing on one foot, visually recognizing people by name, and serving a tray of beverages to restaurant patrons. Similar examples of this impressive humanoid robot technology exist in other countries as well – e.g., United Arab Emirates (Fahad Inc. 2008), and South Korea (Impactlab.net 2008).

Investment by business enterprises in the significant cost and engineering effort required to design and build these curiously humanoid machines constitutes one of the "new dimensions" previously mentioned. Historical figures such as Al-Jazari and da Vinci, after all, were not responding to global marketing prospects with their robotic creations. In contrast, a current Honda Motor Company web site tells us that ASIMO was intended to be more than an attention-catching novelty from the beginning; in fact, it was "created solely to perform tasks to assist people, especially those lacking full mobility" (Honda Robotics 2011). Similarly, the president of a Robotic Industries Association reports that South Korea is "taking the lead in promoting the use of robots for service applications such as elder care" (Burnstein 2009). A former GM of the Microsoft Robotics Group has identified such assistive care as the market that "intrigues" him the most, citing approaching increases in senior populations – and, consequently, heavier burdens upon healthcare systems – as factors that may "present the 'killer app' for personal robots" (Foley 2009). A 2009 online report titled "Robot Nurses to Care for Japanese Elderly within Five Years" reports that Warwick University, in England, has undertaken a "three year 2.7 million dollar project to develop a robot nurse," predicting that "nurses could be delegating tasks to robotic colleagues by 2020" (Zygbotics 2009).

It is important to note that such robotic "colleagues" of human nurses commonly are intended to be suited for fairly intimate kinds of social interactions with people. One finds, for instance, references to robotic assistance in recreation and with feeding, grooming, walking, bathing, etc. (Babyboomercaretaker.com 2007). Accordingly, we encounter another new dimension. Robotic arms have welded and painted in our automobile factories for decades, but the repetitive activities of these familiar industrial robots are profoundly different from interaction with a humanoid machine that helps one's aging grandmother eat her dinner and take her medicine (perhaps even chatting and playing a card game with her). Moreover, the latter type of robot no longer is mere science fiction; design and construction of machines to perform these kinds of personal human-robot interactions are taking place now.

[moonlightmusings89]

Sociality and Social Media

How might we understand the shifts in sociality associated with the kinds of activities, communities, networks and publics enabled by social media platforms?

The internet has fundamentally changed social interactions on both a small and large scale (Burnett & Jaeger, 2010) especially transforming the notion of public space (Bainbridge, 2011) and how people interact with one another and represent themselves online (Ching & Foley, 2012). Social media has been particularly influential on the construction of self as becoming a constant pursuit (Ching & Foley, 2012). 

The public sphere has been expanded to include the internet as traditional print media such as newspapers, journals and magazines have to expand online and change their approach to fit in with the now internet-saturated world (Young, 2010). Sociality has been transformed by the creation of online social media.  However, this transformation does not and should not come without substantial criticism. There is a significant digital divide that impacts who interacts with online content, how they interact with it and why they interact with it. 

Women are significantly disenfranchised by the blossoming of social media and the online public sphere and are regularly recognised merely commodified and objectified to new levels online(Rey, 2012) and Americanisation and Euro-centrism still dominates the online sphere, especially through Neo-Liberal American politics that enable the dissemination of propaganda material and the creation of thought filter bubbles in the guise of news, politics and infotainment through the notion of pluralism, “prosumerism”, the free market and consumer choice (Pariser, 2011; McChesney, 1998; Hedges, 2009).

Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) propose objectification theory as the: “…theoretical framework places female bodies in a sociocultural context with the aim of illuminating … sexual objectification…is the experience as being treated as a body (or collection of body parts) valued predominantly for its use to (or consumption by) others.” (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) (Emphasis in the original.)

Objectification theory has long been applied to advertising, mass media and pornography with liberal, radical and Marxist feminist theory (Dworkin, 1989; Firestone, 1971; Dahlberg & Zimmerman, 2008). However, the rise of neoliberalism, pluralism and “prosumerism” alongside objectification theory is seldom attributed to the rise of the self-objectification exhibited by girls and women on social media and their online sociability (de Vries & Jochen, 2013)(Graham et al, 2008). Firestone (1971) proposes the application of Marx’s theory of class to the sexes, where the female sex class is exploited for their sexual and reproductive labour capabilities. 

Rey (2012) submits that during the 20th century the understanding of the class analysis shifted from one of material production to media consumption to the notion of the prosumers (Rey, 2012). The effect that the notion of the prosumers is particularly evident on the forum/link-sharing website Reddit and its subforum (“subreddit”) “redditgonewild”.  Redditgonewild features nude “self”-portraits of predominantly thin, white and attractive females and derives its name from corporate pornographic franchise Girls Gone Wild . (van der Negal, 2013). 

Like van der Negal (2013) who focuses on the issue of anonymity, Hasinoff (2012) attempts to frame teenagers sending sexually explicit photographic messages (“sexting”) to each other as an issue of media production and consent. While van der Negal (2013) highlights the dangers of being “outed” from online anonymity and Hasinoff (2012) attempts to remove sexual abuse, the virgin/whore dichotomy and hazing arising from “sexting” from a broader cultural problem of sexual abuse and the commodification of women. Both of these particular accounts of nudity and sexually explicit digital media fail to highlight the obvious, that men are requesting and creating a demand for this kind of imagery, that it is women who are harmed by it and this ultimately has consequences for female online sociability and not males. Dworkin (1989) posits that pornography exists as a way of ensuring the dominance of the male sex class, ensuring the subordination of the female sex class and in the case of “female created” imagery such as that found in redditgonewild or teenage girl created sexting:

“…by a woman, a conceit common enough in the kind of pornography that is easy … for the author … in the shortest possible time…the goal is to please the male consumer whose tastes are entirely predictable… The female name on the cover is part of the package, an element of the fiction.” (Dworkin, 1989)

Dworkin, like Firestone, could not have predicted the rise in “prosumerism” that would occur in the 21st century. Dean, Jurgenson and Ritzer describe “prosumerism”: “...prosumer, one who is both a producer and a consumer, and of prosumption, involving a combination of production and consumption...” (Dean, Jurgenson & Ritzer, 2012).

Rey (2012) asserts that everything that is done online is an act of prosumption; that the commodity being traded is the user and that user-generated content is largely a form of revenue raising for the site in question.

This implies that the user-generated content, and therefore, the creators of this content, on redditgonewild are still made into commodities for both the site itself and the predominantly male users of this particular subreddit (van der Negal, 2013). Problems arise with the use of this user-generated platform format unique to women: cyber-bullying associated with the sharing of sexually explicit images (Stanbrook, 2014); self-objectification, the development and perpetuation of mental illness (Calagero & Thompson, 2009) as well as having detrimental effects on the wider community (Carr & Syzmanski, 2011). This type of stereotyping and use of stereotype threat is considered to be a contributing factor to the digital divide between men and women (Cooper & Weaver, 2003). The understanding of prosumerism springs from the idea of a participatory culture, where expression; engagement with political discourse is possible and encouraged; and most importantly a culture based on sharing, where each member feels as though they are connected socially (Jenkins, 2009). It is commonly asserted that online communities and user-generated content platforms are collaborative (Gulbrandsen, 2011) however there is criticism to be made to these notions as Rushkoff (2001) points out:

“Even the so-called ‘interactive’ media, like computer games and most Websites, simply allow for the user to experience a simulation of free choice.” (Rushkoff, 2001)

While pre-dating contemporary social media and networks, Rushkoff (2001) warns that an increased speed, streamline, interactive and user-friendly online experience will do little to foster living communication that does not rely on merely reflecting the existing world back at us (Rushkoff, 2001). 

Similarly, Pariser (2011) reflects on the role personalisation plays in online social media as well as general internet use. Social Networking site Facebook relies on the notion of the prosumers to profit. Facebook users enter their information and what they share and who they interact with is carefully monitored to tailor the content and advertising displayed to them, as is with television where the viewer is the product for advertisers, Facebook relies on its users as their product to sell to advertisers (Pariser, 2011). Social media and social networking online have made communication and sociability a commodity (Rey, 2012). The idea of expressing oneself through a constant stream of prosumerism through social media/networking (Ching & Foley, 2012) combined with the commodification of communication and sociability that creates a culture of self-indulgence and narcissism – essential for the dissemination of American and Euro-centric neoliberalism.  As Hedges (2009) articulates:

“The cult of self dominates our cultural landscape. This cult has within it the classic traits of sociopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, manipulation, and the inability to feel remorse or guilt. This is… the ethic promoted by corporations. It is the misguided belied that personal style and personal advancement, mistaken for individualism, are the same as democratic equality.” (Hedges, 2009)

The transition to social media and social networks as the primary mechanism for inter-personal socialisation has enabled new possibilities for the commodification of women, information and communication. 

As McChesney (1998) suggests neoliberalism is the “…policies and processes whereby a relative handful of private interests are permitted to control as much possible of social life in order to maximise their personal profit.” (McChesney, 1998) which is an accurate reflection of Facebook, Google and other social media and networking corporations aspirations (Parsier, 2011). 

It is also through the processes of personalisation as discussed by Pariser (2011) and the streamlined, user-friendly approach that Rushkoff (2001) predicted that causes the cult of self to assist in disseminating neoliberal ideology (Hedges, 2009). 

Hedges (2009) posits that where propaganda is valued over ideas or genuine political ideology, consumerism is mistaken for personal expression and the spectacle of the image is valued over the importance of literacy and critical thought. Facebook and other online social media and networking are instrumental in this process, where pre-existing information about the user is used to shape their entire online experience (Pariser, 2011). Google’s search personalisation feature now operates in a similar manner, every click is stored and every page viewed is stored and used to shape a user’s search experience, to reinforce and recreate pre-existing ideas, knowledge, attitudes and behaviour (Pariser, 2011).  

 Reference

Burnett, G. and Jaeger, P. T 2010 “Introduction” Information Worlds: Behaviour, Technology and Social Context in the Age of the Internet, Taylor and Francis

Bainbridge, J. 2011 “The Public Sphere” in Bainbridge, J., Goc, N. and Tynan, L. (eds) Media and Journalism: New Approaches to Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press: South Melbourne

Calagero, R.M. and Thompson, J.K. 2009 “Sexual Self Esteem in American and British College Women: Relations with Self Objectification and Eating Problems” Sex Roles, 60, pp.160-173

Carr, E.R. and Syzmanski, D.M 2011 “Underscoring the Need for Social Justice Initiatives Concerning the Sexual Objectification of Women” The Counseling Psychologist, Sage Publications, 39 (1), pp. 164 - 170

Ching, C.C. and Foley, B.J 2012 “Introduction: Connecting Conversations about Technology, Learning, and Identity” Constructing the Self in a Digital World, Cambridge University Press

Cooper, J. and Weaver, K.J 2003 “A Threat in the Air” Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishing: London

Dahlberg, J. and Zimmerman, A. 2008 “The Sexual Objectification of Women in Advertising: A Contemporary Cultural Perspective” Journal of Advertising Research, 48:1

Dean, P., Jorgenson, N. and Ritzer, G. 2012 “The Coming Age of the Prosumer” American Behavioral Scientist, Sage Publications, 56: 4, pp. 379-398

De Vries, D.A and Jochen, P. 2013 “Women on Display: The effect of portraying the self online on women’s self objectification” Computers in Human Behaviour 29, pp. 1483 - 1489

Dworkin, A. 1989 Pornography: Men Possessing Women Plume Books: USA

Firestone, S. 1971 The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, Paladin Books: Great Britan

Fredrickson, B.L. and Roberts, T.A. 1997 “Objectification Theory” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21:2,  P.173

Graham, M.B., Greenfield, P.M., Manago, A.M. and Salimkhan, G. 2008 “Self presentation and gender on Myspace” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29, pp. 446-458

Hasinoff, A. A., 2012 “Sexting as Media Production: Rethinking social media and sexuality” new media and society, 15:4, Sage Publications, pp. 449-465

Jenkins, H. 2009 Confronting the Challenges of a Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, MIT Press: United States

McChesney, R. 1998 “Introduction” in Chomsky, N. 1999 Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and the Global Order, Seven Stories Press: New York

Pariser, E. 2011 The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is hiding from You, Penguin

Rey, P.J 2012 “Alienation, Exploitation and Social Media” American Behavioral Scientist, Sage Publications, 56:4, pp. 399-420

Rushkoff, D. 2001 “The Information Arms Race” in Kick, R. (ed) You are being Lied to: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths, The Disinformation Company Ltd: New York

Stanbrook, M.B. 2014 “Stopping cyberbullying requires a combined effort” Canadian Medical Association Journal, 186:7

van der Negal, E. 2013 “Faceless Bodies: Negotiating Technological and Cultural Codes on Reddit gonewild” Scan, 10:2

[chiseler]

AL SMITH’S LOG CABIN

The lowest East Side, between the Brooklyn Bridge (completed in 1883) and the Manhattan Bridge (1909), was once a maze of narrow streets lined with row houses, corner saloons and groceries, warehouses, pickle factories, stables. The heart of it was an Irish and Italian working class neighborhood of large families who attended the venerable St. James church and school. It was not a slum or a ghetto, and the residents would have been highly insulted to hear it called that. With the construction of the bridges, followed by high-rises and the FDR Drive in the twentieth century, many of the old streets, and the buildings on them, disappeared.

There’s not much of Oliver Street left, just a couple of run-down blocks in Chinatown between Chatham Square and Madison Street, where it dead-ends. It preserves a row of humble, three-story brick houses, currently looking rather forlorn and exhausted, showing every day of their more than a century’s existence. A brass plaque on the wall of 25 Oliver identifies it as the Alfred E. Smith House, listed on the National Historic Register. Al didn’t grown up there, as is sometimes averred. But he lived there a long time and raised his own kids there as a young politician. Had he succeeded in his bid to become the first Irish Catholic President of the United States, 25 Oliver Street could have become a site of American mythology to rival Abe Lincoln’s log cabin. But Al didn’t make it, 25 Oliver is in bad need of a paint job, and today’s mostly Chinese neighbors pass it without a glance.

His father, also named Al Smith, grew up on a block of Oliver Street closer to the river that no longer exists. Al Sr. was a brawny, handsome, wide-mustached working man, a cartman, or hauler of goods, with a horse-drawn truck. After his first wife died he married a girl who’d grown up near the stables at Dover and Water Streets where he kept his horses. (Her parents had come from Ireland on a clipper ship of the famous Black Ball Line that pioneered the Liverpool to New York run. They found rooms to let three blocks from where they stepped ashore and never ventured farther into America.) Al Jr. was born at 174 South Street on December 30 1873, above a little grocery store. He grew up as the Brooklyn Bridge was built. In old photographs it vaults right over the rooftop of the small, narrow house. That whole block has long since disappeared.

As Al remembered it later the waterfront was the neighborhood kids’ playground – there weren’t any others. The rigging of the ships at the docks was their jungle gym. They dove for green bananas that dropped over the side, and bought their pets from sailors who’d carried them up from South America and the Caribbean. At one point Al kept a goat, four dogs, a parrot and a monkey in the South Street attic. He never lost his classic New Yawk accent, salting his speech with dese, dem and youse like a true Bowery Boy.

In 1886 Al Sr. worked himself to death at the age of forty-six, when Al Jr. was twelve. His mother took a job at an umbrella factory and brought home piece-work. Al worked after school delivering newspapers and helping his sister run their landlady’s candy store in the basement where they now lived on Dover Street. He left the St. James school at the end of the seventh grade, when he was fourteen, and never went back. As a teen he worked a number of jobs, including twelve-hour days, six days a week, at the Fulton Fish Market. One of his tasks was to stand in a lookout and watch for the fishing fleet pulling into the harbor. You could tell how much of a haul they were carrying by how low they rode in the water. Later, when fellow politicians, who were mostly lawyers, bragged to him about matriculating from the U of This or That, he’d reply that he graduated from FFM. He grew up quick. By fifteen he was frequenting the neighborhood’s saloons, drinking beer, smoking cigars with the other men.

He was still too young to vote when he started hanging out at the Downtown Tammany Club, around the corner from Oliver Street at 59-61 Madison. It had something of the look of a volunteer fire hall. Men from throughout the neighborhood streamed up the wide stairs and under the double-arched entry into the meeting hall where politics was discussed, elections fixed, jobs and favors dispensed. It was later knocked down for the playground of P.S. 1, also known as the Alfred E. Smith School. Tammany was starting to purge itself of its most corrupt scoundrels, and young Al Smith fell in with the reformist wing. This led to his first patronage job as a process-server, tracking people down to hand them summonses and subpoenas.

He came under the wing of Big Tom Foley, for whom nearby Foley Square was named. Foley operated a very popular saloon at Oliver and Water Streets. In her 1956 memoir of her father, The Happy Warrior, Al’s daughter Emily remembered Foley as “a genial, smooth-shaven, moonfaced man” who was very well liked and highly respected in the neighborhood – a dude in the ward, as Ned Harrigan would have said. Although he lived uptown at Thirty-Fourth Street Foley spent most of his time in and around the saloon and was active in local politics and the St. James parish. As he thrived financially and politically he spread his good fortune around the neighborhood, the way a successful Tammany man was supposed to. When Smith was a boy he and other kids would flock around Foley on the street, and he’d hand each a nickel, which seemed like a fortune to them. (Years later, Al would frequent a popular barbershop in the ward, run by an immigrant from Salerno who played Caruso on the Victrola. Bartolomeo’s runty, homely son lathered the customers before his dad shaved them. Al once tipped the kid a nickel. Instead of spending it on a lemon ice or a Charlotte Russe, the boy, Jimmy Durante, saved it as a souvenir.)

In 1903 Foley anointed the twenty-nine-year-old Smith to be the Democrats’ nominee for what was then the Second District of the State Assembly. Smith appeared before a crowd of cheering neighbors and Tammany stalwarts in a suit he’d just ironed in the kitchen of his Peck Slip apartment. His other suit was in mothballs. As the Tammany Democrat candidate he was a shoo-in, handily beating a Republican, a Socialist, and a Prohibition candidate, who got five votes.

Smith spent the next twelve winters as an assemblyman, shuttling from the Lower East Side to Albany, where he’d live during the weeks while the legislature was in session, returning home on weekends. His re-elections were always sure things. The affable guy with the honking voice and the taste for suds and stogies was liked and admired by all his constituents, not just his fellow Micks. Besides Durante, another of his fans was a Jewish teenager from up on Henry Street, Izzy Iskowitz, who volunteered to make sidewalk stump speeches for him at re-election time. They were in effect the first public appearances by the performer later known as Eddie Cantor.

In 1907 Smith moved his family, which would grow to five kids, to 25 Oliver Street, which he rented from the parish; the rectory was next door at 23. Emily recalled that they couldn’t afford many luxuries on her father’s salary of a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, but they weren’t poor. They took summer vacations on the beach at Far Rockaway in Queens, and enjoyed an occasional family dinner at the then-new Knickerbocker Hotel in Times Square, followed by a trip to the nearby Palace Theatre, the flagship of vaudeville houses from the 1910s until vaudeville’s end. On Sunday mornings after church they’d often walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to visit family on Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights. Sunday evenings the Smiths would have friends over, including another young assemblyman, Jimmy Walker, and his (soon to be beleaguered) wife. Jimmy, who’d started out an aspiring Tin Pan Alley songwriter before his father pushed him into politics, would sit at the Smiths’ piano and play songs like his one bona-fide hit, “Will You Love Me in December as You Do in May?”

Along the way Al Smith began to sport the brown derby that, along with the cigars, became a familiar feature of his public image. He was elected governor in 1918. Emily remembered the children’s wonderment when the family moved from the little house on Oliver Street to the executive mansion in Albany, with its reception room, music room, library, breakfast room, a dinner table that could seat thirty, and nine bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. Plus a small army of servants who magically appeared at the press of a bell. When Smith lost his reelection bid in 1920 and the family returned to Oliver Street, the kids glumly went back to sharing bedrooms and fighting over the two bathrooms.

Smith was briefly convinced his political career was over. Yet that same year, at the Democrats’ national convention in San Francisco, his name was put up for the first time as a possible presidential candidate. As the band struck up “The Sidewalks of New York” (rather than the Ned Harrigan song Smith wanted), the entire convention began to sing along, then waltz in the aisles, and partied for the next hour as the band played one popular tune after another, finally getting to Harrigan’s “Maggie Murphy’s Home.” Ever the skeptic, H. L. Mencken thought it was the free-flowing bootleg bourbon – Prohibition had gone into effect six months earlier – rather than political conviction that got them all going, and in fact Smith was not yet a serious contender. The Democrats nominated Ohio governor James Cox, with Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate. Warren G. Harding trounced them.

New Yorkers gave Smith the governor’s mansion back in 1922, and the Smiths moved out of Oliver Street for the last time. In June 1924, the Democrats held their convention at Madison Square Garden. Roosevelt delivered the speech throwing Governor Smith’s brown derby in the ring. Smith and Roosevelt were the most unlikely bedfellows. Smith liked to tell a bitterly humorous story about the first time he’d called on Roosevelt in his mansion back in 1911, and the butler didn’t want to let him in the door. A vast gulf of class and breeding separated the former fishmonger from the upstate aristocrat born with silver spoons in every orifice. Roosevelt had grown up in a household where he was surrounded by German and Scandinavian servants, because his father refused to hire the Irish or Negroes. And he had the upstater’s severe mistrust of anyone associated with Tammany. Yet the two had gotten over their differences and become allies, if not quite friends, working together for reform in the state.

Smith loyalists once again erupted in a prolonged celebration at the end of Roosevelt’s speech, but in fact Democrats at the convention were deeply divided between the urban progressives who backed Smith and the rural and Southern conservatives who were convinced that the nation would never elect an Irish Catholic from Jew Yawk. Smith’s background was in fact a serious drawback at a time when Republicans still characterized Democrats as the party of “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.” Like many other New York politicians, Smith had been against Prohibition, which condemned him with its supporters around the country. He was only a mildly liberal Democrat, but any Democrat running in the Republican boom times of the Roaring Twenties was running up a very steep hill. And finally, there was the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had been reborn in the 1910s, riding new waves of xenophobia, racism and anti-communism, and was a much bigger and stronger presence in 1924 than it had ever been. The Klan issued a “Klarion Kall for a Krusade” against Smith should he be nominated.

The convention dragged on for two weeks and more than a hundred ballots. Chairman Cordell Hull passed out a few times from the summer heat – air conditioning was still a way off. Another Lower East Sider, Irving Berlin, was a celebrity observer. He dashed off a campaign song, “We’ll All Go Voting for Al.” It didn’t help. The more conservative John W. Davis got the nomination and went on to lose badly to Calvin Coolidge. (Berlin would soon write a more successful campaign song for Al’s friend, “It’s a Walk-In with Walker.”)

In 1928 the Democrats finally handed Smith their presidential nomination. There were some faint reasons for them to be hopeful. The Klan had peaked and was slipping back into being merely an ugly nuisance on the lunatic fringe. People were tiring of Prohibition and considered it a failed experiment. On the other hand, the nation was still enjoying unprecedented prosperity under the Republicans, except in the farm belt. Farming was a much bigger sector of the economy then than now, and farmers had effectively been in their own depression since the end of World War One. They weren’t likely to be convinced that a guy from New Yawk would do better for them than a Republican. And Smith’s opponent was not just any Republican. He was Herbert Hoover, one of the most popular figures in America at the time, an orphan from Iowa who by hard work and smarts had achieved the American dream of riches and power. He was also known as a great humanitarian, the American who had almost singlehandedly organized a massive food relief program for starving Belgians during the war.

As the campaigns rolled out, Hoover – who was coincidentally the first Quaker candidate – never played the religion card. But the Klan and other anti-Catholic fringe groups did, and so did more mainstream Protestant spokespeople, somberly questioning if a Catholic could be the leader of the country when he owed his allegiance to Rome first. In the end, though, it was probably the combination of Hoover’s popularity and the unprecedented boom times – the big crash wouldn’t come until October 1929 – that sank Smith. He ran as the friend of the little guy at a time when a lot of the little guys, except for those farmers, were doing all right. Hoover gave Smith a severe shellacking, carrying all but eight states. Most galling of all, even the state of New York went for him.

A private citizen again in 1929, Smith accepted a job as president of the corporation that would build the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Empire State Building. Construction proceeded even after the stock market crashed that October, and the building opened in May 1931, with Smith and Governor Roosevelt leading the ceremony. Listeners to the live radio broadcast heard Smith ballyhoo the edifice as “the tallest thing in the world today produced by the hand of man.” His Lower East Side roots still showed in the way he pronounced world woild. To the average New Yorker the building was a towering beacon of optimism in what had become very dark times, but as a business venture it was a bust. Unlike the successful Chrysler Building that had opened in 1930, the Empire State Building had so few tenants signed up that wags nicknamed it the Empty State Building. It would continue to bleed red ink for twenty years.

Despite the thrashing in 1928, Smith entertained hopes for the Democratic nomination again in 1932, which put him at odds with another contender, Roosevelt. Without officially declaring himself, Smith made it clear he’d accept the nomination if offered, and his supporters at the convention were as boisterous and loud as ever. But he’d had his shot. Roosevelt carried the convention, and the two patched up their differences in public so that the Democrats could beat Hoover that fall.

As Roosevelt’s New Deal policies grew more radical in extending federal power during his long presidency, Smith’s opinions grew more conservative and oppositional. He helped found the anti-New Deal, pro-business Liberty League, making him a pariah among Democrats. He even went completely off the reservation to back Republicans Alf Landon in 1936 and Wendell Willkie in 1940. Roosevelt trounced them both. Once America entered the war, however, Smith was one of the commander-in-chief’s most diligent boosters on the home front.

When his wife died in May 1944 Smith went into broken-hearted decline. He died of cirrhosis that October, a couple months shy of his seventy-first birthday. The whole city mourned his passing. Besides the little house on Oliver Street and P.S. 1, you still see his name all over his lowest East Side neighborhood, on a playground, a rec center, and a giant public housing complex.

by John Strausbaugh

[blackkudos]

Charley Pride

Charley Frank Pride (born March 18, 1934) is an American country music singer, musician/guitarist, recording artist, performer and business owner. His greatest musical success came in the early- to mid-1970s, when he became the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley. During the peak years of his recording career (1966–87), he garnered 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, 29 of which made it to number one. He has appeared with country music star Brad Paisley and was featured in the 2016 CMA Awards.

Pride is one of the few African Americans to have had considerable success in the country music industry and one of only three (along with DeFord Bailey and Darius Rucker) to have been inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.

In 2010, Pride became a special investor and minority owner of the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball club.

Early life and career

Pride was born in Sledge, Mississippi, one of 11 children of poor sharecroppers. His father intended to name him Charl Frank Pride, but owing to a clerical error on his birth certificate, his legal name is Charley Frank Pride. Eight boys and three girls were in the family. He married Rozene Cohan in 1956.

When Pride was 14, his mother purchased him his first guitar and he taught himself to play. Though he also loved music, one of Pride's lifelong dreams was to become a professional baseball player. In 1952, he pitched for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League. He pitched well, and in 1953, he signed a contract with the Boise Yankees, the Class C farm team of the New York Yankees. During that season, an injury caused him to lose the "mustard" on his fastball, and he was sent to the Yankees' Class D team in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Later that season, while in the Negro leagues with the Louisville Clippers, another player (Jesse Mitchell) and he were traded to the Birmingham Black Barons for a team bus. "Jesse and I may have the distinction of being the only players in history to be traded for a used motor vehicle," Pride mused in his 1994 autobiography.

He pitched for several other minor league teams, his hopes of making it to the big leagues still alive, but the Army derailed this. After serving two years in the military, he tried to return to baseball. Though hindered by an injury to his throwing arm, Pride played three games for the Missoula Timberjacks of the Pioneer League (a farm club of the Cincinnati Reds) in 1960, and had tryouts with the California Angels (1961) and the New York Mets (1962) organizations, but was not picked up by either team.

When he was laid off by the Timberjacks, he moved to work construction in Helena, Montana, in 1960. He was recruited to pitch for the local semipro baseball team, the East Helena Smelterites, and the team manager helped him get a job at the local Asarco lead smelter. The lead smelter kept 18 jobs open specifically for baseball players, and arranged their shifts so they could play as a team. Pride batted a .444 his first year.

Pride's singing ability soon came to the attention of the team manager, who also paid him to sing for 15 minutes before each game, which increased attendance and earned Pride another $10 on top of the $10 he earned for each game. He also played gigs in the local area, both solo and with a band called the Night Hawks, and Asarco asked him to sing at company picnics. His job at the smelter was dangerous and difficult. He once broke his ankle, and routinely unloaded coal from railroad cars and shoveled it into a 2,400° F furnace, which he also had to keep clear of slag, a task which frequently gave him burns. In a 2014 interview, Pride explained, “I would work at the smelter, work the swing shift and then play music,” said Pride. “I’d work 11-7. Drive. Play Friday. Punch in. Drive. Polson. Philipsburg.”

Between his smelter job and his music, he made a good living in the Helena area. He moved his wife and son to join him and they lived in Helena until 1967, purchasing their first home there, and with their children Dion and Angela being born at the local hospital. The Pride family moved to Great Falls, Montana, in 1967, because Pride's music career was taking off and he required quicker access to an airport. The family ultimately left Montana and moved to Texas in 1969. In a 1967 interview with the Helena Independent Record, Rozene commented that the family encountered minor racism in Montana, citing an incident where they were refused service in a restaurant and another time when a realtor refused to show them a home, but she felt that the family endured less racism than she saw leveled against local Native American people, whose treatment she compared to that given to black people in the south. Pride has generally spoken with fondness of the near-decade he spent there. “Montana is a very conservative state...I stood out like a neon. But once they let you in, you become a Montanan. When the rumor was that I was leaving. They kept saying, ‘we will let you in, you can’t leave.’"

On June 5, 2008, Pride and his brother Mack "The Knife" Pride and 28 other living former Negro league players were "drafted" by each of the 30 Major League Baseball teams in a recognition of the on-field achievements and historical relevance of 30 mostly forgotten, Negro-league stars. Pride was picked by the Texas Rangers, with whom he has had a long affiliation, and the Colorado Rockies took his brother.

Rise to music fame

While he was active in baseball, Pride had been encouraged to join the music business by country stars such as Red Sovine and Red Foley, and was working towards this career. In 1958, in Memphis, Pride visited Sun Studios and recorded some songs. One song has survived on tape, and was released in the United Kingdom as part of a box set. The song is a slow stroll in walking tempo called "Walkin' (the Stroll)."

He played music at clubs in Montana solo and with a four-piece combo called the Night Hawks during the time he lived in Montana. His break came when Chet Atkins at RCA Victor heard a demonstration tape and got Pride a contract. In 1966, he released his first RCA Victor single, "The Snakes Crawl at Night" Nashville manager and agent Jack D. Johnson signed Pride. Atkins was the longtime producer at RCA Victor who had made stars out of country singers such as Jim Reeves, Skeeter Davis and others. Pride was signed to RCA Victor in 1965. "The Snakes Crawl at Night", did not chart. On the records of this song submitted to radio stations for airplay, the singer was listed as "Country Charley Pride". At this time, country music was a white medium. Jack made sure that no pictures of Charley were distributed for the first two years of his career, to avoid the effects of Jim Crowism. Pride disputes that the omission of a photo was deliberate; he stated that getting promoters to bring in a black country singer was a bigger problem: "people didn’t care if I was pink. RCA signed me... they knew I was colored...They decided to put the record out and let it speak for itself.” While living in Montana, he continued to sing at local clubs, and in Great Falls had an additional boost to his career when he befriended local businessman Louis Allen “Al” Donohue, who owned radio stations including KMON, the first stations to play Pride's records in Montana.

Soon after the release of "The Snakes Crawl at Night", Pride released another single called "Before I Met You", which also did not chart. Soon after, Pride's third single, "Just Between You and Me", was released. This song was the one that finally brought Pride success on the country charts. The song reached number nine on the US country chart.

Height of his career

The success of "Just Between You and Me" was enormous. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for the song the next year.

In 1967, he became the first black performer to appear at the Grand Ole Opry since harmonica player DeFord Bailey, who was a regular cast member of the Opry from 1925 through 1941, and made a final appearance in 1974. Pride also appeared in 1967 on ABC's The Lawrence Welk Show. In 1975, he was one of the stars of Bob Hope's Stars and Stripes Show emceed by John Davidson and filmed in front of a live audience in Oklahoma City to celebrate the United States Bicentennial.

Between 1969 and 1971, Pride had eight single records that simultaneously reached number one on the US Country Hit Parade and also charted on the Billboard Hot 100: "All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)", "(I'm So) Afraid of Losing You Again", "I Can't Believe That You've Stopped Loving Me", "I'd Rather Love You", "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone", "Wonder Could I Live There Anymore", "I'm Just Me", and "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'". The pop success of these songs reflected the country/pop crossover sound that was reaching country music in the 1960s and early 1970s, known as "Countrypolitan". In 1969, his compilation album, The Best of Charley Pride sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Ultimately, Elvis Presley was the only artist who sold more records for the RCA label than did Pride.

Pride sang the Paul Newman-directed film Sometimes a Great Notion's main soundtrack song "All His Children" in 1970. The film starred Newman and Henry Fonda and received two Oscar nominations in 1972, one being for the song that Pride sang.

"Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'"

In 1971, he released what would become his biggest hit, "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'", a million-selling crossover single that helped Pride land the Country Music Association's prestigious Entertainer of the Year award, as well as Top Male Vocalist. He won CMA's Top Male Vocalist award again in 1972.

"Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'" became Pride's signature tune. Besides being a five-week country number one in late 1971 and early 1972, the song was also his only pop top-40 hit, hitting number 21, and reaching the top 10 of the Adult Contemporary charts, as well.

1970s and Northern Ireland

During the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, Pride continued to rack up country music hits. Other Pride standards then include "Mississippi Cotton Picking Delta Town", "Someone Loves You, Honey", "When I Stop Leavin' (I'll Be Gone)", "Burgers and Fries", "I Don't Think She's in Love Anymore", "Roll on Mississippi", "Never Been So Loved (In All My Life)", and "You're So Good When You're Bad". Like many other country performers, he has paid tribute to Hank Williams, with an album of songs that were all written by Hank entitled There's a Little Bit of Hank in Me, which included top-sellers of Williams' classics "Kaw-Liga", "Honky Tonk Blues", and "You Win Again". Pride has sold over 70 million records (singles, albums, and compilation included).

In 1975, Pride's agent sold a 40-date tour package to a United Kingdom booking agent, who onward sold four dates to Dublin-based Irish music promoter Jim Aitkien. At the time, The Troubles (Irish: Na Trioblóidí) the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland were at their height, and most nonresident music and sports teams were not traveling to Northern Ireland through fear of becoming involved or injured. Aitken subsequently traveled to Pride's winter 1975/'76 concert in Ohio, and persuaded Pride to play one of the concerts at Belfast's Ritz Cinema. Pride played the concert in November 1976, with his album song "Crystal Chandeliers" subsequently being released as a single in the UK and Ireland. Pride subsequently became a hero to both sides of the conflict for breaking the effective touring concert ban, his song "Crystal Chandeliers" seen as a unity song, and he enabled Aitken to book further acts into Northern Ireland after his appearance.

1980s and beyond

Pride remained with RCA Records until 1986. At that point, he grew angry over the fact that RCA began to promote newer country artists and did not renew contracts with many older artists who had been with the label for years, such as Dolly Parton, John Denver, and Sylvia. He moved on to 16th Avenue Records, where Pride bounced back with the number-five hit, "Shouldn't it be Easier Than This". He had a few minor hits with 16th Avenue, as well.

Pride's lifelong passion for baseball continues; he has an annual tradition of joining the Texas Rangers for workouts during spring training. A big Rangers fan (Dallas has been his home for many years), Pride is often seen at their games.

On May 1, 1993, Pride became a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

In 2008, Pride received the Mississippi Arts Commission's lifetime achievement award during the organization's Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts.

He performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl VIII and again at game five of the 2010 World Series, accompanied both years by the Del Rio High School JROTC Color Guard. He performed the National Anthem before game six of the 1980 World Series, as well.

In 2016, Pride was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on Forever Country, a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again", and "I Will Always Love You", which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards.

Personal life

Pride met his wife Rozene while he was playing baseball in the Southern states. They married in 1956 and have two sons, Kraig and Dion, and a daughter, Angela. They currently reside in Dallas, Texas. Kraig now goes by the name Carlton and has somewhat followed in his father's footsteps as a performing artist. His band, Carlton Pride and Zion started in San Marcos, Texas in 1995 and they perform a variety of reggae, funk, and soul music throughout the United States.

Dion Pride played lead guitar for his father, and entertained troops on USO tours in Panama, Honduras, Guantánamo Bay, and the island of Antigua. Dion Pride cowrote a song on Charley Pride's 2010 album Choices titled "I Miss My Home".

In 1994, Pride cowrote (with Jim Henderson) his autobiography, Pride: The Charley Pride Story. In this book, he reveals that he has struggled for years with manic depression.

Pride had a tumor removed from his right vocal cord in 1997 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He returned to the site in February 2009 for a routine checkup and surprised the Arkansas Senate with an unplanned performance of five songs. He was joined by Governor Mike Beebe during the show. Pride is an avid fan and part owner of the Texas Rangers. He sang the national anthem before game five of the 2010 World Series, played between the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants. Pride sang the national anthem before game two of the 2011 ALCS between the Detroit Tigers and the Rangers. He also sang the national anthem and "America the Beautiful" prior to Super Bowl VIII.

On January 20, 2014, he sang the national anthem and performed at halftime for the Memphis Grizzlies, which hosted their 12th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Day. He also was interviewed during a break in the game that was televised nationally on NBA TV and SportSouth.

Film

On April 29, 2011, a biographical film was announced to be in the works based on Pride's life and career. The film will be produced by and star actor and professional wrestler, Dwayne Johnson.

Discography

Awards

Academy of Country Music Awards

1994 Pioneer Award

American Music Awards

1973 Favorite Country Album – "A Sun Shiny Day"

1973 Favorite Country Male Artist

1976 Favorite Country Male Artist

Ameripolitan Music Awards

2016 Master Award

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Inducted in 2000

Country Music Association

1971 Entertainer of the Year

1971 Male Vocalist of the Year

1972 Male Vocalist of the Year

Grammy Awards

1971 – "Did You Think To Pray"

1972 Best Country Vocal Performance, Male – "Charley Pride Sings Heart Songs"

1972 Best Gospel Performance (other than soul) – "Let Me Live Lyrics"

2017 Lifetime Achievement Award

Wikipedia

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Beer & Mortar: Fostering the Past at Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree

To push forward, the South Shore brewery is looking back

Just this past weekend, Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree finished making its 33rd batch of beer. Considering the brewery has only been open three months, that number might seem somewhat high, but it’s reflective of the big strides the brewery has made in a few short months: Widowmaker has already nabbed over a dozen draft accounts across the South Shore and has even begun selling crowlers of beer at local bottle shops.

Even the name, Widowmaker, stems from the workaholic tendencies that initially kept co-founders Colin Foley, Bud Lazaro, and Ryan Lavery away from their wives and families. It takes a hefty time investment to turn a few homebrewing experiments into a full-fledged brewery, but the trio has done just that.

“Everything we have on tap right now was scaled up from a recipe that we did on our pilot batch system,” Lavery says. “Some of those beers I’ve been brewing for years — Greenbush [pale ale], Old Oaken Farmhouse [saison] — those are beers I’ve been doing for as long as I’ve been brewing.”

Lavery estimates a solid 75 percent of Widowmaker’s current draft list contains recipes he formulated during his homebrewing days. The brewery features around 10 beers at a time, spanning the intense yet drinkable Ecstasy of Gold American IPA to the coffee-cut Donut Shop stout. A wide range of styles are represented on the board, giving drinkers a chance to sip the gamut and find what they like. All of those beers are available as half pours, full pours, and smaller flight servings to try a few at once.

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Widowmaker Brewing

“That’s what I really like about flights: You can taste what you want and go from there. We see that with a lot of customers who come in,” Lavery says. “They get their flight, and then they’re off to getting full pours of a certain style.”

Co-founders Lavery and Foley debuted many of those beers at local block parties a few years back as homebrewers. Recipe construction was meticulous back then, and that mindset has hardly changed with the debut of Widowmaker. With the help of head brewer Ryan Ward, every recipe given the green light at the brewery is put through a pilot brewing system before moving to the seven-barrel brewhouse. Many of those early iterations are also tapped for feedback.

While stopping by the expansive, 70-seat communal taproom is encouraged, drinkers can enjoy those beers in a number of places around the South Shore. As of now, Widowmaker self-distributes kegs to spots around Quincy and Braintree, like Braintree Brewhouse and the Townshend. The brewery also delivers freshly filled crowlers to stores such as Empire Wine & Spirits and Bin Ends.

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That distribution doesn’t account for the moves Widowmaker will make in 2018. On the beer end, Lavery and crew soon plan to release a new black lager and all New Zealand-hopped red IPA. The team also have a few collaboration beers slated for early next year, but Lavery can’t share any names at this time.

More expansion is on the horizon too. The brewhouse will gain a few new 15-barrel tanks early next year to up distribution efforts, which could place Widowmaker beers in Boston and beyond as soon as spring. Lavery also says that the brewery might add an in-house canning line sometime next year, but the team isn’t all that concerned about packaging its beer right now. For the Widowmaker crew, the way to the drinker’s heart is pint by pint.

“Everything comes in due time,” Lavery says. “There’s pressure to be in cans, be on shelves, but I don’t want to inundate the market in every sort of way. The best approach is to see it in bars, so when [people] do go to the liquor store, they pick up that four-pack.”

Putting a large focus on draft accounts also speaks to the communal goals of the business. Lavery doesn’t want to put his beers on grossly packed shelves to sit and inevitably degrade; he wants people to drink and discuss. Foster conversation and build relationships. The Widowmaker team might be hustling to get its beer into residents’ bellies, but it’s in the name of relaxed human interaction. After all, that’s the environment the tavern was originally founded on.

Widowmaker’s approach is one of harboring love for the community surrounding it. It’s about not only giving the people the tasty beer they want, but giving them a channel to enjoy it in. And while the brewery will soon expand outside its home, that personable approach is close behind, tracing the lines and guiding each beer.

“We’re all from the South Shore,” Lavery says. “We hope that the [area] follows the path the North Shore and the Cambridge and Somerville areas have. Breweries are starting to pop up, and the South Shore needs that.”

Beer & Mortar logo by Emily Phares

This story is part of Beer & Mortar, a series in which Eater Boston contributor Alex Wilking explores the beer scene in Boston and beyond. Stay tuned for new installments twice a month, featuring a mix of old classics and brand new additions.

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Dam reservoir backwater as a field-scale laboratory of human-induced changes in river biogeomorphology: A review focused on gravel-bed rivers

Science of The Total Environment

Volume 651, Part 2, 15 February 2019, Pages 2899-2912

Maciej Liro

Highlights

• First conceptual model of backwater fluctuation (BF) effects on river ecosystem is proposed.

• BF influences abiotic-biotic components of river and trigger feedbacks between them.

• Flow-sediment-morphology-vegetation feedbacks on gravel-bed river is influenced by BF.

• This influence river biogeomorphic succession cycles and vegetation zonation in BF zone.

• BF zone biogemorphology is challenge for further multidisciplinary research.

Abstract

Only in the years 2007–2016 about 8000 large dams were constructed all over the world, adding to >50,000 previously built dams. These structures disturb abiotic and biotic components of rivers, but to date the knowledge of their impacts has been mainly derived from observations of downstream river reaches. Upstream from dams, however, backwater fluctuations induce sediment deposition, cause more frequent and higher valley-floor inundation, increase groundwater level, and change channel morphology and riparian vegetation. Little is known on the effects of these disturbances on the river biogeomorphological processes.

In this review I synthesized knowledge on backwater effects on rivers into a model of backwater-induced abiotic–biotic interactions in the fluvial system. This model is next used to propose new hypotheses and research tasks concerning the biogeomorphology of gravel-bed rivers in the temperate climatic zone. Implications for flow–sediment–morphology–vegetation interactions and feedbacks are conceptualized in a river cross-section based on recent biogeomorphological insights and methodological approaches allowing to explore them in future studies. The model highlights that backwater-induced changes in abiotic and biotic components of river system trigger further feedbacks between them that additionally influence these components even without a direct backwater influence. Backwater-induced changes in hydrodynamics and sediment transport favour seed germination and growth of plants and decrease their mortality during floods, but also eliminate plants intolerant to prolonged inundation and intensive fine sediment deposition. These impacts may change the biogeomorphical structure of river system by modifying trajectories of biogeomorphic succession cycles and related zones of vegetation–hydromorphology interactions in the river corridor. Specifically, backwater effects may promote the development of more stable channel morphology and a less diverse mosaic of riparian vegetation and animals habitats, contrasting with those occurring in free-flowing rivers of the temperate zone.

Graphical abstract

Introduction

Nowadays water and sediment transfer by rivers is disturbed by >58,000 large dams (height > 15 m), with about 8000 new ones constructed in the last 10 years (ICOLD, 2016, after Poff and Schmidt, 2016; for previous reviews see e.g. Maybeck, 2003; Vörösmarty et al., 2003; Nilsson et al., 2005; Syvitski et al., 2005; Kummu et al., 2010; Poff and Matthews, 2013; Zarfl et al., 2015). Dams represent one of the most important factors shaping river morphology in the Anthropocene (Syvitski and Kettner, 2011; Merritts et al., 2011; Poeppl et al., 2015), and their effects on downriver hydromorphology and ecology have been documented robustly (Petts, 1979, Petts, 1980; Williams and Wolman, 1984; Knighton, 1998; Ligon et al., 1995; Milliman, 1997; Brandt, 2000; Grant et al., 2003; Petts and Gurnell, 2005; Graf, 2006; Poff et al., 1997, Poff et al., 2007; Grant, 2012; Yang et al., 2014; Fan et al., 2015). However, little is known about analogous effects in river sections upstream (Knighton, 1998; Petts and Gurnell, 2005; Wohl, 2015), and the global numbers and spatial extents of dam reservoir backwaters disturbing the rivers systems above remain unknown.

Upstream from a dam, the so-called reservoir backwater fluctuation raises water level in the river channel (Xu, 1990). This rise may: (i) facilitate fine and coarse sediment deposition in the river channel and the floodplain upstream from a dam reservoir (Leopold et al., 1964; Maddock Jr., 1966; Lusby and Hadley, 1967; Leopold and Bull, 1979; Van Haveren et al., 1987; Bhowmik et al., 1988; Klimek et al., 1990; Xu, 1990, Xu, 2001b; Xu and Shi, 1997; Łajczak, 2006; Walter and Merritts, 2008; Fencl et al., 2015; Su et al., 2017), (ii) increase groundwater level (Simon, 1979; Kaczmarek et al., 2016), (iii) provide higher and more frequent floodplain inundation, (iv) lead to significant morphological changes (Leopold et al., 1964; Knighton, 1998; Evans et al., 2007; Liro, 2014, Liro, 2016, Liro, 2017), (v) influence the riparian vegetation (Xu and Shi, 1997; Sun et al., 2012) and (vi) favour deposition of pollutants (and related problems) in this zone (e.g., Sha et al., 2015; Kaczmarek et al., 2016; Xiao et al., 2017; Hauer et al., 2018; Bing et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2019; Gao et al., 2019). However, few studies conceptualized short- and long-term consequences of these disturbances for the biogeomorphological feedbacks that control development of river channels in the backwater fluctuation zone upstream from dam reservoirs.

Such conceptualization of hypotheses for future biogeomorphic evolution of rivers in these zones is very important because of the number of dams functioning worldwide and their potential for changes in biotic components of fluvial systems and in human life (Bao et al., 2015; Volke et al., 2015; Tang et al., 2016; Wiejaczka et al., 2017; Bejerano et al., 2018). With respect to gravel-bed rivers, this need is both important and challenging because of backwater-induced disturbances in upstream flow and sediment dynamics. Specifically, flood-driven biogeomorphological adjustments – characteristic of gravel-bed rivers (Gurnell, 2014; Corenblit et al., 2007)–will be altered in backwater because of backwater-induced changes in flood regime of river (i.e., increased in space and time water inundation). Additionally, gravel-bed rivers are characterized by specific topographic location (typically occurring in upland or mountain areas (Gregory et al., 1991; Church, 2002)), and high ecological potential of these systems (Hauer et al., 2016). Moreover, the studies dealing with reservoir backwater effects on gravel-bed rivers in temperate climate are scarce (Evans et al., 2007; East et al., 2015; Liro, 2015, Liro, 2016, Liro, 2017). Up to now, works have focused on the landscape and ecological evolution of river in former reservoir and backwater sections after dam removal (for review see Foley et al., 2017a, Foley et al., 2017b), more than on direct effects of backwater fluctuation on biogeomorphological processes in rivers.

Recent advances in research in fluvial biogeomorphology (Karrenberg et al., 2002; Hupp and Bornette, 2003; Corenblit et al., 2007, Corenblit et al., 2009, Corenblit et al., 2011, Corenblit et al., 2015, Corenblit et al., 2018; Gurnell et al., 2008, Gurnell et al., 2012, Gurnell et al., 2016; Corenblit and Steiger, 2009; Bejerano et al., 2011, Bejerano et al., 2018; Camporeale et al., 2013; Gurnell, 2014; González del Tánago et al., 2015; Bätz et al., 2015, Bätz et al., 2016; Coombes, 2016; Shafroth et al., 2016; Muñoz-Mas et al., 2017; Vesipa et al., 2017; Politti et al., 2018; Atkinson et al., 2018; Hortobágyi et al., 2018; Martínez-Fernández et al., 2018) may provide background to underpin further research on the effects of backwater fluctuation on the biogeomorphological and ecological functioning of gravel-bed rivers. However, this understanding needs of a conceptual and theoretical scheme allowing to develop hypotheses and to define research priorities.

The general aim of this paper is developing a conceptual guidance for future research on the backwater biogeomorphology of alluvial rivers with special focus on gravel-bed rivers. To do this, I first review concepts used so far in relation to the backwater fluctuation zone upstream from dam reservoirs (Section 2) and review the state-of-the-art of research on the upstream effects of dam reservoirs on alluvial rivers, with a special focus on formulation of the open questions concerning gravel-bed rivers (Section 3). Then, based on this review and synthesis, I develop a conceptual model of backwater-induced abiotic–biotic interactions in the river system. Next, I use this model to propose hypotheses related to the previously identified open questions. Then I discuss these hypotheses at different spatial and temporal scales using insights from recent biogeomorphological works done on gravel-bed rivers. Finally, I evaluate their utility and importance for future work

Backwater fluctuations zone and related definitions

In fluvial geomorphology, a river section temporarily inundated by water from a downstream dam reservoir is typically called a backwater or fluctuating backwater zone (Xu and Shi, 1997, Xu, 2001a, Xu, 2001b; Łajczak, 2006; Liro, 2014; see also terms “backwater curve” (Fig. 13 in Rubey, 1952) and “drop down curve” (Fig. 15a in Lane, 1955)). I define backwater fluctuation (BF) zone as a river section upstream of a reservoir, that is inundated during reservoir stages higher than the normal or average (Fig. 1A). Such a defined backwater zone is easy to delineate in the river course (Liro, 2015, Liro, 2016, Liro, 2017). The backwater fluctuation zone is defined here only in the river valley, not in the whole area along the reservoir (cf. Bao et al., 2015; Tang et al., 2014, Tang et al., 2016). It may not be necessarily related to the delta development (cf. Volke et al., 2015), however it is situated within the same range of reservoir levels. The backwater fluctuation zone may be also treated as a part of river-dominated transitional and reservoir-dominated transitional zones (Skalak et al., 2013). This area is situated or adjacent to zones described below:

• water-level fluctuation (WLF) zone (Bao et al., 2015) or fluctuating backwater riparian zone (Wang et al., 2016), both defined as the areas along a dam reservoir bounded by its minimum (base level) and maximum water levels;

• artificial riparian zone (Tang et al., 2014, Tang et al., 2016) used to describe morphological and sedimentological changes in the above-mentioned zone;

• subaerial delta zone defined as the area bounded by mean and maximum reservoir level and fluvial-delta transition zone describing areas above maximum reservoir level (Volke et al., 2015);

• river- and reservoir-dominated transitional zones (Skalak et al., 2013, Skalak et al., 2017), used to describe river morphological adjustment between dams (Fig. 11 in Skalak et al., 2013). In river-dominated transitional zone, the backwater effects begin to influence river flow, the velocity is reduced and the coarsest material is deposited creating bank-attached island. Reservoir-dominated transitional zone, situated farther downstream, is characterized by intense sediment deposition, submerged delta front formation and died trees (due to the inundation) (Skalak et al., 2013);

• drawdown zone of reservoir (e.g., Azami et al., 2013), the area along the reservoir shoreline, which is exposed when the water level falls from normal to low.

Effects of the backwater fluctuation on fluvial processes vary spatially and temporally depending on water stages in the reservoir and the river (Liro, 2014). The stages are controlled by the reservoir operation mode, river hydroclimatic conditions as well as the operation mode of the upstream reservoirs in the catchment if they exist (Skalak et al., 2013). Backwater fluctuation influence may be expressed as submergence duration in days per given time period (Hu et al., 2018). Operation mode of reservoir and river morphology are key factors controlling submergence duration and spatial extent of backwater. For example, a steep mountain river will have smaller extent of backwater fluctuation zone than low–slope channels (assuming the same water level variations). Generally multipurpose reservoirs have smaller water levels variations than reservoirs designed for flood control.

Based on this interaction, the backwater zone was previously divided into its lower (more affected by reservoir influence) and upper (more influenced by fluvial processes) parts (Liro, 2017) (cf. Skalak et al., 2013). For future, more detailed works, it seems important to stress that the morphological and hydrological effects of the backwater fluctuation zone may have greater extent than those defined above (e.g. Leopold et al., 1964; Liro, 2015, Liro, 2016). This results from upstream propagation of coarse sediment deposition initiated by backwater effects (Liro, 2016). Numerical modelling of river hydrodynamics and morphological changes resulting from sediment deposition (e.g., Munier et al., 2008; Lu et al., 2010; Hidayat et al., 2011; Lamb et al., 2012; Nittrouer et al., 2012; Mokrzycka, 2013; Van der Vegt et al., 2016) give an opportunity to determine the effects of backwater fluctuation zone for varying river discharges (e.g., Lamb et al., 2012). The backwater fluctuation influences quantified in this way seem to be more useful for further detailed studies on biogeomorphological characteristics of the river in this zone.

Bao et al. (2015) compared the water-level fluctuation zone along the bank of a dam reservoir to some natural transitional zones: littoral zone (Keddy, 2010), riparian zone/ecotone (Hupp and Osterkamp, 1996; Naiman and Decamps, 1997; Verry et al., 2004) or transitional areas between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (Junk et al., 1989; Tracy-Schmidt et al., 2012). All of these comparisons may also be applied for the backwater fluctuation zone, where the original processes operating in the river riparian zone (Verry et al., 2004) begin to interact with the new processes which start to operate when the dam reservoir is built (Fig. 1B). Therefore, for the description of hydrological influence of backwater fluctuation, I use the term ‘inundation’ instead of ‘flooding’ (sensu Flick et al., 2012), because it is clearer in the distinction between fluvial (flooding) and backwater (inundation) influences and interactions that occur in backwater fluctuation zones (see discussion in Flick et al., 2012).

Review of upstream effects of dams on alluvial channels

Generally, little is known about the impact of the base-level rise upstream from dam reservoirs on geomorphological changes in the channel and floodplain of gravel-bed rivers (see reviews by Leopold et al., 1964; Knighton, 1998; Petts and Gurnell, 2005; Liro, 2014; Foley et al., 2017a, Foley et al., 2017b), and to date only few works have analysed biogeomorphological adjustments of gravel-bed rivers in this zone (see e.g., Klimek et al., 1990 in Table 1). The following sections aim at providing a broader perspective for gravel-bed rivers in temperate climatic zone. Section 3.1 reviews previous works documenting hydrological, sedimentological and geomorphological changes described upstream from dam reservoir on different types of alluvial channels worldwide (Table 1). Recent works done on gravel-bed rivers (Liro, 2017) suggest that some findings from other types of channels (e.g., fine-grained bed rives) (e.g., Xu and Shi, 1997) may be applicable for further biogeomorphic works on gravel-bed rivers. Section 3.2 reviews works on the effects of water fluctuations around dam reservoirs on vegetation. Some ideas and methodological approaches from those works may be applicable to the further research on gravel-bed rivers.

...Table 1 Removed...

3.1. Effects of backwater fluctuation on upstream river morphology

Most of the existing studies dealing with the upstream impact of a dam reservoir were carried out in fine-grained-bed rivers (e.g., Leopold et al., 1964; Maddock Jr., 1966; Leopold and Bull, 1979; Xu, 1990, Xu, 2001b; Xu and Shi, 1997; Alibert et al., 2011). These works mainly concentrated on channel morphology (e.g. width, depth, sinuosity, slope, braid index) or sedimentology upstream from large dams in the temperate climatic zone (Xu, 1990, Xu, 2001b; Xu and Shi, 1997; Lu et al., 2010). A review of these works (Table 1) revealed that while some previous works had documented (sometimes in a very detailed manner) changes in given components of fluvial systems (e.g. flow, sediment dynamics, morphology), there are few works quantifying interactions between biotic (vegetation, animals) and abiotic (e.g. flow, sediment transport) components of fluvial systems in backwater fluctuation zone, especially flow–sediment–morphology-vegetation reciprocal interactions. The exception is the work by Xu and Shi (1997) ...removed... riparian vegetation expansion should facilitate fast transition from multi- to single-thread channel pattern. The potential impact of vegetation on channel morphology upstream from check dams has been qualitatively noticed earlier (Maddock Jr., 1966). Generally, among previous studies considering vegetation expansion in backwater fluctuation zones, more were focused on the relation of the expansion to the delta formation in natural or artificial lakes (Chudzikiewicz et al., 1979; Klimek et al., 1990; Florek et al., 2008; Volke et al., 2015) than to morphological channel adjustments. In the case of the gravel-bed channel adjustments in the backwater fluctuation zone of a dam reservoir (Klimek et al., 1990; Łajczak, 2006; Książek, 2006; Wiejaczka and Kijowska-Strugała, 2014; Liro, 2015, Liro, 2016, Liro, 2017), a linkage between water level fluctuations and vegetation expansion was noticed (Klimek et al., 1990; Liro, 2017) but not quantified as yet. Studies done on gravel-bed rivers indicated that material transported by the river is selectively deposited in the backwater fluctuation zone (Klimek et al., 1990). Łajczak (2006) discussed this observation in the context of delta formation in a dam reservoir. He highlighted that coarse-grained material (gravel) transported by a river is preferentially deposited in the upper part of the backwater fluctuation zone, while in its lower part finer sediments (sand, silt, clay) are predominantly deposited (Łajczak, 2006). Further studies detailed this findings showing that initial (<20 years) morphological adjustments of a gravel-bed river in this zone are controlled by deposition of coarse-grained material (Wiejaczka et al., 2014) and related bank erosion (Liro, 2016). A feedback between these two processes was recognized as a factor promoting channel widening and development of large forced bars which propagate upstream, creating sediment slug (Liro, 2016). Later stages (>20 years) of gravel-bed river adjustments in backwater fluctuation zone are similar to those observed in fine-grained rivers (Xu, 1990; Xu and Shi, 1997), with the general trends to channel narrowing and increase in sinuosity significantly coupled with the expansion of riparian vegetation (Liro, 2017).

As the number of works on backwater fluctuation effects on river channels is generally limited, there are only few conceptual models which may help to predict such adjustments (Table 2). Generally, these models predicted that in the long-term perspective (>20 years) both fine- and coarse-sediment bed rivers tend to narrow and to exhibit lower braid index in backwater fluctuation zones (Xu and Shi, 1997; Xu, 2001a; Liro, 2017). In addition the rivers have higher sinuosity in this zones (Xu, 1990, Xu, 2001a; Xu and Shi, 1997; Liro, 2017). This results from increased rate of fine sediment deposition on the floodplain, higher elevation and greater erosional resistance of channel banks resulting from backwater fluctuation influence as well as accompanying riparian vegetation expansion (Table 2). Xu (1990) proposed a three-phase trajectory of fine-grained bed channel adjustment in a backwater fluctuation zone: in the first phase, channel width/depth ratio increases and channel slope decreases; in the second phase, channel width/depth ratio decreases and channel sinuosity increases; and in the third phase, the above mentioned channel parameters stabilize, reflecting a complete adjustment of channel morphology in the backwater fluctuation zone (Xu, 1990). Further models, developed based on the field data and laboratory experiments, incorporate the role of vegetation expansion (Xu and Shi, 1997) and fine sediments deposition (Xu, 2001a) on the bank erosion resistance, channel width/depth ratio and river sinuosity (Xu, 2001a).

...Table 2 Removed...

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3.2. Effects of backwater fluctuation on vegetation, animals and land management

There is an increasing number of studies describing effects of water inundation from dam reservoirs on vegetation characteristics, animal habitat changes and land management in these zones (e.g., Wu et al., 2003; Bao et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2016; Wiejaczka et al., 2017; Hu et al., 2018). These works documented that elevation or submergence time control composition and quality of plant seeds and dominant plant species in WLF zone (see Section 2 for WLF zone description) (Bao et al., 2015 and papers cited therein, Hu et al., 2018). Su et al. (2017) documented relations between plant species distribution and community structure and soil moisture and substrate types in WLF zone of dam reservoir. Chen et al. (2016) based on the works done in WLF zone of Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) (a dam constructed on Yangtze River in 2003) to conclude that this zone is dominated by invasive species of weeds (Alternanthera philoxeroides, Xanthium sibiricum, Humulus scandens, and Bidens pilosa). They suggest that this invasion resulted from abundance of exposed ground and disturbances which exceed the tolerances of local vegetation communities (see also Auble et al., 2007). Bao et al. (2015) raised an important question, which is also relevant in regard to backwater fluctuation zone of gravel-bed rivers: ‘what kinds of (indigenous and exotic) species can survive the prolonged inundation period while sustaining the diversity of the ecosystem?’ They gave examples of studies which indicate species able to tolerate prolonged submergence in the climatic zone of the TGR (humid subtropical climate). A typical magnitude of water level fluctuation in gravel-bed rivers in the temperate zone is lower than in the case of the TGR. This is why the elevation-dependent gradient of zonation of the species may not be as clearly developed as it was reported by Bao et al. (2015). Generally, riparian vegetation characteristics in the temperate zone are related to topographical and hydrological parameters (flood effects) of the river and its valley (Pielech et al., 2015). Recent works suggest that the structure of riparian vegetation on a free-flowing river or a river downstream from a dam is more stable (e.g., González del Tánago et al., 2015) than in the WLF zone or drawdown zones of reservoirs (e.g., Chen et al., 2016). It was also documented that in the drawdown areas some willow species (S. subfragilis) may dominate (Azami et al., 2013). These species grow easily in areas with gentler slope (<10°), and may persist even long flooding (S. variegata) (Schreiber et al., 2011), which indicates high water-resistant properties of Salix species. In backwater fluctuation zone inundation-tolerant vegetation expansion is facilitated by the abundance of bare sediments (Auble et al., 2007), similarly as in the subaerial delta zone (Volke et al., 2015) or WLF zone (Chen et al., 2016). Bao et al. (2015) reported on research documenting the dependence of the growth of some herbal species around the TGR on the surface slope and the timing of water inundation in WLF zone. Also the recent review by Bejerano et al. (2018) suggests that dam-induced fluctuations in river flow inundation of river margins may significantly influence riparian vegetation by favouring seed dispersal and hampering germination, establishment, growth and reproduction. These authors hypothesize that some plant species will be pushed towards the upper position in a river valley. The works by Amlin and Rood (2002), Schreiber et al. (2011), Azami et al. (2013), Bao et al. (2015) and Bejerano et al. (2018), together with the findings from the reviews on the interactions of Salicaceae species with river hydromorphology (Karrenberg et al., 2002; Politti et al., 2018) suggest that Salicaceae species seem to be best suited to survive and grow in the backwater fluctuation zone of gravel-bed rivers in the temperate zone. However, the quantitative research evaluating this statement is still lacking.

Similarly to the vegetation adjustments, water fluctuation in reservoir may affect animal habitats (Fowler, 1982; Thompson, 1982; Swanson, 1982; Wu et al., 2003), resulting in their fragmentation, and alteration of their spatial configuration in WLF zone (Wu et al., 2003). Prolonged inundation in WLF zone of reservoir creates seasonal wetland conditions which may be beyond the tolerance of some native animals. For example, water inundation of brooding sites may stress some avifauna (Thompson, 1982). However the same conditions may create habitats for breeding birds, because they provide food for them (Swanson, 1982). Observations from backwater fluctuation zones on gravel-bed rivers in the Polish Carpathians suggest that, similarly to the above mentioned observations, this zone may seasonally provide food for birds (e.g., fishes closed in side channel arms or floodplain depression after inundation episodes). However, for gravel-bed rivers in temperate climate, definitely more research is needed to formulate hypotheses in this topic.

Backwater fluctuation effect and related abiotic and biotic adjustments may also influence management of the WLF zone and surrounding areas (Bao et al., 2015; Wiejaczka et al., 2017). In the WLF zone of reservoirs, transition from arable/crop land to pastures, grasslands and forests with places for recreation is most common because of the risk of waterlogging (Bogdanets and Vlaev, 2015). Wiejaczka et al. (2017) found also decreased forested area in the WLF zone of reservoir as well as road network development and transition of residential/agricultural buildings into residential/recreational ones in the surrounding areas.

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State-of-the-art conceptualization in the context of recent biogeomorphological findings

4.1. Conceptual model of backwater-induced changes in river abiotic–biotic components

To synthesize the findings revised above, I developed a conceptual model which systematizes backwater fluctuation influences on abiotic (hydrology, sedimentology, morphology) and biotic (vegetation, animals, human) components of a fluvial system and provides a conceptual guidance for the formulation of new hypotheses concerning interactions between the altered components (Fig. 2). The model includes animals and humans because the above review suggests that these components are influenced by and interacting with backwater fluctuation effects and other abiotic and biotic components of rivers (Fig. 2). Based on their sequence of occurrence and temporal and spatial extent, backwater fluctuation influences can be divided into: (i) first-order influences, (ii) second-order influences, as well as (iii) feedbacks induced by backwater fluctuation (Fig. 2). The timescales for their occurrence may last from seconds for first-order changes in river hydrodynamics to decades or centuries for feedbacks between biotic components (e.g., vegetation–animals interactions). Similar division between first- and second-order influences was previously applied for physical and biological adjustments of rivers downstream from dams (Petts, 1984). The model in its general form is a template for further research design and may allow for formulation of general hypotheses for different types of alluvial channels. In Section 4.2, I show how it may be further developed to formulate more precise hypotheses concerning backwater biogeomorphology of gravel-bed river (Fig. 3, Fig. 4, Table 3). Insights from the recent biogeomorphological works (Corenblit et al., 2007, Corenblit et al., 2015; Gurnell et al., 2012; Muñoz-Mas et al., 2017; Politti et al., 2018; Bejerano et al., 2018) are used to discuss these hypotheses and to propose some methodological approaches for future research testing them.

...Table 3 Removed...

4.1.1. First- and second-order influence of backwater fluctuation

Direct hydrological disturbance created by inundation of water from reservoir is treated in the presented model as first-order influence of backwater fluctuation (1 in Fig. 2). This influence abruptly changes river hydrodynamics and other abiotic and biotic components of river. The influence of backwater inundation may act over time scales from seconds to decades, depending on the reservoir operation mode, location in backwater fluctuation zone and spatial scale of analysed effects.

The first-order influence induces further changes in river sedimentology, morphology, vegetation, animal habitats and land management. These changes are named in the model as second-order influences of backwater fluctuation (Fig. 2) because they are direct consequences of first-order influence. Minimal timescale for their occurrence is longer than for first-order influence and takes from few hours for changes in bed sediments (2 in Fig. 2) to few days or decades for the changes in river morphology, vegetation, animal habitats and human management (3–6 in Fig. 2), and they cover smaller areas (e.g., given elevations or morphological forms as channel bar, island, floodplain backswamp, oxbow lake, river terrace).

The smallest spatial scale of occurrence is typical of backwater-induced feedbacks and effects (e.g., fine sediments deposition resulting from beaver dam creation, river flow modification around depositional forms, etc.). Generally, backwater-induced changes in given abiotic components are mainly dependent on local factors (location in backwater, reservoir operation mode, scale of analysis, interaction with other abiotic components), whereas the biotic components response may be also significantly controlled by regional factors (e.g., land management politics, climatic conditions, initial land use and physiographical settings of surrounding areas).

4.1.2. Backwater-induced feedbacks

Backwater-induced feedbacks (Fig. 2, Fig. 3) are triggered by first- and second-order influences of backwater fluctuation but may operate independently from its direct influence (Fig. 2). Feedbacks may operate both between abiotic (e.g., sedimentology-morphology feedback) or biotic (e.g., vegetation-animal habitat feedback) components of a fluvial system or may link components between abiotic and biotic spheres (e.g., flow-sediment-morphology-vegetation) (Fig. 2, Fig. 3). An example of feedback between abiotic components is a backwater-induced decrease in flow velocity that results in sediment deposition and, vice versa, deposited sediments locally influence flow velocity at small spatial scales. A biotic feedback may be exemplified by the creation of new habitats resulting from the development or loss of vegetation and vice versa (Fig. 2). A feedback between abiotic and biotic components maybe represented by vegetation-induced changes in sediments, river morphology and hydrodynamics (Fig. 2). The timescale of occurrence of feedbacks depends on the occurrence of second-order changes which trigger them. The key hypothesis of the model is that once triggered backwater-induced feedbacks and effects may operate at a local scale independently from actual influences of backwater fluctuation. These feedbacks may affect long-term functioning of individual components of river, which were initially shortly disturbed by backwater fluctuation effects (e.g. river hydrodynamics) (Fig. 2).

4.2. Backwater biogeomorphology and recent biogeomorphological insights4.2.1. Flow–sedimentology–morphology–vegetation feedbacks in backwater fluctuation zone

The above model underpins new questions and hypotheses about backwater fluctuation effects on the fluvial system. This section focuses particularly on the flow-sedimentology-morphology-vegetation feedbacks (Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4) because they are of crucial importance for morphology and ecology of gravel-bed rivers (see e.g., Gurnell, 2014) as well as for their hydromorphological and vegetational zonation. The hypotheses are illustrated in Fig. 3, Fig. 4. Related research questions are summarized in Table 3. Research tasks No. 1–5 from Fig. 3 may be quantified by means of numerical modelling of river hydrodynamics and biogeomorphological processes including the establishment, growth, and mortality parameters for riparian plant species occurring in the study area (for methodology see e.g., van Oorschot et al., 2017). Of particular importance in the case of gravel-bed rivers will be quantification of hypothesized feedbacks between coarse sediment deposition and related morphological changes and in river hydrodynamics (see Liro, 2016) (tasks No. 6 and 7 in Fig. 3, Table 3). This may be achieved based on field, remote sensing, laboratory and field experiments data collected during different phases of channel adjustment to conditions in backwater fluctuation zone (for methodology see e.g. Camporeale et al., 2013; Solari et al., 2015; van Oorschot et al., 2016, van Oorschot et al., 2017, Van Oorschot et al., 2018; Vesipa et al., 2017; Martínez-Fernández et al., 2018). Results of the previous studies on vegetation cover changes in reservoir backwater zones (Xu and Shi, 1997), shoreline of dam reservoirs (Yang et al., 2012; Azami et al., 2013), deltas (Klimek et al., 1990; Volke et al., 2015) or free flowing rivers (Asaeda and Rashid, 2012; González del Tánago et al., 2015), suggested that changes in the river hydrodynamics and the deposition of fine sediments may be the factors triggering vegetation expansion (3 in Fig. 3). However, the same factors may eliminate plants that are not resistant to prolonged inundation and high sedimentation rate. ...Removed... It may be also expected that conditions in a backwater fluctuation zone favour the transition from a higher-energy, frequently disturbed, multi-thread river (with vegetation mosaic of seedlings, shrubs, and mature riparian forest) to a lower-energy, less frequently disturbed, single-thread river with vegetation mosaic dominated by mature riparian forest and aquatic vegetation (cf. Fig. 8 in Gurnell et al., 2012). Recent works done on gravel-bed rivers influenced by backwater seem to support this hypothesis (Liro, 2017).

Politti et al. (2018) ...Removed... “1. Quantification of root system development in response to environmental factors; 2. Quantification of the duration of waterlogging that results in different levels of plant damage; 3. Quantification of root effects on the erosion of non-cohesive materials; 4. Quantification of sediment deposition thresholds that impose different levels of plant damage on adult plants; 5. Estimation of a species-specific processes threshold critical to the colonization, establishment, growth, and survival of riparian Salicaceae species beyond those found in the United States”. ...Removed... Quantification of the duration of waterlogging that damages plants (priority 2; Politti et al., 2018), similarly as in the previous case, needs field experiments in different parts of the backwater zone or green house experiments (for methods see e.g., Baldwin et al., 2001; Amlin and Rood, 2002; Francis et al., 2005). Quantification of root effects on the erosion of non-cohesive materials (priority 3; Politti et al., 2018) seems not so important in backwater because of the abundance of fine sediments and lower energy of flood flows in this zone (e.g., Liro, 2017). Quantification of the sediment deposition threshold that imposes different levels of damage on adult plants (priority 4) and the estimation of the threshold of species-specific processes critical to the colonization, establishment, growth, and survival of riparian Salicaceae species at given locations in a backwater (priority 5; Politti et al., 2018) in future works seem very important.

In the backwater fluctuation zone plants probably need to deal with a wider range of environmental conditions than in the case of the riparian zone of a free-flowing river. The higher frequency and duration of water-level variations cause soil waterlogging, light attenuation because of the submergence, slower gas exchange...removed..., which together may exceed tolerance of some plants. In backwater fluctuation zone, these factors may produce a plant mosaic response similar to that previously recorded in intertidal zones of tidal freshwater wetlands where more perennial plant species were found than annual plant species (Baldwin et al., 2001; Leck, 2003, after Bejerano et al., 2018), probably because of the higher resistance of the former to water-level variation (Bejerano et al., 2018). Taking into account that backwater effects increase the ground-water level (Simon, 1979), the vegetation pattern changes observed in the backwater should be opposite to those documented by Stromberg et al. (2007), i.e. the change of species composition in the floodplain from wetland pioneer trees (Populus, Salix) to more drought-tolerant shrubs including Tamarix and Bebbia. In the backwater fluctuation zone, elimination of plant species intolerant to water inundation and encroachment of other species more tolerant to this process should be expected. Original vegetation may change to more annual species and alien invasive plants as it was described in the case of WLF zone of Three Gorges Reservoir (Yang et al., 2012; Bao et al., 2015).

In the case of gravel-bed rivers in the temperate climatic zone, Salicaceae (Amlin and Rood, 2002; Politti et al., 2018; Corenblit et al., 2018; Hortobágyi et al., 2018) seem to be best suited for the riparian forest affected by backwater inundation owing to their high tolerance for inundation and higher groundwater table as well as quick growth which favours the entrapment of fine sediment, organic matter, and nutrients, which all lead to the fast development of wooded fluvial landforms ...removed... Some hypotheses and methodological approaches for such work may be derived from the above cited papers. ...removed... For the backwater zone, this implies that higher water inundation should be reflected in a different vegetation composition on the terraces which were not inundated in the pre-dam period (cf. Kramer et al., 2008). The course of these processes within the backwater zone of a gravel-bed river, where the fluvial processes and morphology are significantly changed (Liro, 2014, Liro, 2017), is still unknown. However, the above result implies that former terraces—disconnected from the fluvial influence before the dam construction and inundated and vegetated since the commencement of reservoir operation—may become the place facilitating seed deposition, and that the riparian zone here may function as a significant sink of seeds.

Interesting for future works seems to be evaluation (e.g., by field/laboratory experiments or numerical modelling) of the germination potential of deposited seeds and asexual regeneration of riparian trees in the different parts of the backwater zone as well as the exploration of riparian forest diversity in this zone (for methodological approaches see Baldwin et al., 2001; Amlin and Rood, 2002; Francis et al., 2005; Camporeale et al., 2013; Corenblit et al., 2009, Corenblit et al., 2016; Vesipa et al., 2017) also in the context of future climate changes (for methodological approaches see Martínez-Fernández et al., 2018).

4.2.2. Changes in vegetation–hydromorphology interactions zones and biogeomorphic cycles in the reservoir backwater

Taking into account the discussed works and biogeomorphological interactions between river flow, sediments, morphology, and vegetation conceptualized for the backwater zone (Fig. 2, Fig. 3), it may be assumed that hydromorphological river zonation (Gurnell et al., 2016) as well as biogeomorphic succession cycles in a river corridor (Corenblit et al., 2007) should be different in this zone from those recognized in freely flowing river sections. I illustrate some of these predictions in a gravel-bed river cross section (Fig. 4).

I hypothesize that in the backwater zone of a gravel-bed river in the temperate climatic zone, geomorphic and vegetation structures (Fig. 4) as well as the zonation of vegetation–hydromorphology interactions (Fig. 4; cf. Fig. 1 in Gurnell et al., 2016) may be significantly changed (Table 4, Table 5). Because of the higher extent of water inundation and other influences of backwater on the river system, discussed above, the extent of the floodplain and riparian forest should increase (A1 in Fig. 4). Specifically, it may be expected that riparian plants intolerant to frequent and deep inundation will be pushed to the upper limit of maximal backwater inundation (Bao et al., 2015; Bejerano et al., 2018) (Fig. 4) which will significantly change the initial structure of riparian vegetation mosaic to less diverse (Fig. 4). The habitats left by these inundation-intolerant species will be quickly occupied by more water-resistant plants, such as willow species (e.g., Azami et al., 2013). As a result of channel narrowing caused by fine sediments deposition and connected vegetation expansion in the backwater zone (Liro, 2017), the area of channel bars will decrease in favour of floodplain area or islands (e.g., Skalak et al., 2013, Skalak et al., 2017). This will be associated with a decrease in the proportion of channel-bar areas overgrown with herbal and shrub vegetation which should disappear because of the higher water level and lack of high-energy flood flows rejuvenating the shrubs and trees vegetation (Fig. 4). The inundation of parts of the valley floor not inundated before the reservoir construction will decrease the potential for agricultural use of this zone and move higher the upper limit of riparian plants (e.g. on previous meadows or arable land) (Fig. 4). The first expected change in this zone will be a transition from arable land to meadows, more resistant to the effects of water inundation. The floodplain surface in backwater is expected to rise because of the significant deposition of fine sediments (Fig. 4). These morphological changes should decrease the opportunity for further vegetation rejuvenation (Fig. 2) and may be similar to those observed in incised river reaches downstream from dams (Shafroth et al., 2016), but in the case of a backwater zone, the level of water inundation and ground water table are significantly higher ...Fig refrence removed...

...Table 4 removed...

...Table 5 Removed...

...Paragraph removed...

The above discussed changes in the vegetation–hydromorphology interactions in backwater may have some implications for the occurrence and trajectories of the biogeomorphic succession phases described by Corenblit et al. (2007) (Table 5). Specifically, in backwater on gravel-bed rivers, the first stage of biogeomorphic succession phase (geomorphic phase; Corenblit et al., 2007) may be inhibited because of reduced flow energy in this channel section reflecting lower channel slope and the direct effects of water inundation by the reservoir. However, the above discussed conditions in backwater (Table 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4) suggest that further stages of the biogeomorphic succession (pioneer, biogeomorphic, ecological; Corenblit et al., 2007) should be favoured in the backwater (Table 5).

Generally, this review shows that abiotic-biotic changes of river components in reservoir backwater are currently poorly understood and questions, research tasks and hypotheses proposed in this paper (Fig. 3, Fig. 4, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5) are intended to partly fill these knowledge gaps for backwater biogeomorphology of gravel-bed rivers. However, further research is needed to shed more light on the interactions of animal and human components with gravel-bed rivers in fluctuating backwater zones.

5. Conclusions

Backwater fluctuation zones challenge further multidisciplinary biogeomorphological research. This paper set the stage for such research proposing the first conceptualization of complex backwater-induced biotic-abiotic interactions and feedbacks in fluvial systems upstream from dam reservoirs. The model presented herein provides a guidance for further biogeomorphological research in gravel-bed rivers of the temperate climatic zone having wider applicability to other river types over a range of time and spatial scales. The developed model divide backwater influences into:

(i) first-order (changes in river hydrodynamics),

(ii) second-order (changes in river sedimentology, morphology, vegetation characteristics, animal habitats and land management by human) as well as,

(iii) feedbacks induced by first- and second-order influences of backwater fluctuation.

Backwater-induced changes in abiotic-biotic components of rivers may be treated as one of the footprints of the Anthropocene epoch. Taking into account the numerous instances of dam construction taking place worldwide the better understanding of the backwater biogeomorphology is needed to fully recognize the ecological impacts of reservoir backwater and to make an assessment of the economic and environmental costs of effective management of backwater areas, also in the context of future climate changes.

The most important questions arising from the above review are: How does the biogeomorphological changes of rivers in reservoir's backwater zones interact with animal habitats and human life changes in different biogeographic regions? and, How this interaction will be modifying by further environmental changes?

This review demonstrated that backwater fluctuation zone may be treated as a field-scale laboratory of for further research on human-induced changes in river biogeomorphology.

Acknowledgements

The study was performed within the scope of the Research Project 2015/19/N/ST10/01526 financed by the National Science Centre of Poland. I sincerely appreciate constructive and helpful comments of four reviewers, which significantly improve the final version of manuscript. I also thank Bartłomiej Wyżga and Joanna Zawiejska as well as Reviewer#3 and #4 for improving the English style of the manuscript.

[athenahickey75-blog]

Brooklyn And Staten Isle’s Modern Wonder

When, Whenever a dining adventure takes you to the streets of Boston and also via the doors of the Finest Boston Ma Dining establishment you are encountered with deciding on very lots of points at. Not merely did I discover this immensely valuable for viewing the display screen in sunshine, I discovered that often the Improvement method came on instantly, specifically throughout definitely bright times. Record in motion: An eye historic maintenance in California. Twelve years later, Weaman Road was newly cut on the edge of the city, as created ordinary by a promotion to allow "a large significant property". Authenticity and preservation: Healthy-strenght.info Representations on the present condition of understanding. I am actually unhappy you have not been to New york city during the course of the Christmas time season @Sylvestermouse but of course, you may enjoy it with videos as well as images:--RRB- Many thanks for your check out. Just like a lot of the cities on this checklist, Phoenix metro's geographics is detrimental to the area's sky quality. The second thing, You created that Germans created Latin Basilica, I presume it was actually constantly roman-catholic, polish chapel, also nowodays it is. Occasionally a good location to discover intriguing bits of past history is actually constantly Googling various term combos and you can easily find social family history blogging sites. Al writes online short articles for New York Metropolitan area entertainment in addition to Ragtime Broadway Articles His articles give assessments on programs and also information for getting chairs to celebrations including Jazz Drama information and news. " The Supreme Courthouse (the Nyc County Courthouse) disregards Foley Square and lies in between Really worth and also Gem Streets. The Tri-Cities remains in what citizens like to call the "warm edge" of the condition, where they receive 300 times of sun yearly. For also long, the African United States part in the building of colonial New York, and the The big apple political and also economical best's complicity with enslavement, including funding of the 19th century trans-Atlantic slave trade, have actually been actually erased from past history. The telephone on the eighteenth-century table: Exactly how Brazilian modern-day designers became pregnant the conservation of historic city centers. Enjoy a video clip of my raise to the best of the Tocobaga Group's stylized mound positioned in stunning Protection Wharf, FL. Learn the intriguing record of this amazing yet vanished Native Tocobaga people of the Tampa fl Bay place. Don't overlook to visit the Pike Location Market during the course of the holiday seasons where you'll discover special foods items as well as product to make your Christmas time that so much more special. In Twentieth-Century Building Products: History as well as Conservation, revised through Thomas C. Prankster, 64-71. In Identity as well as Documents of Modern Heritage, revised by R. van Oers as well as S. Haraguchi, 113-17. ICCROM's Created Ancestry Program has created the conservation of modern-day construction a concern place. The Building of Structures. It offers both as the facility of the American theater sector, and also as a major destination for site visitors from around the globe. Sadly, the post-2000 travels were actually dislocating as he was far from his cherished residence and also loved ones and finished with his fatality. Practical Property Preservation: Glass & Glazing. Our experts carried out not visit the castle, as our company possessed not enough time, yet our team wandered around finding congregations.

[garianleighton-anderson-blog]

Project Kowhai

Garian Leighton-Anderson, Sound Designer, Foliage Designer.

Conceptual Statement

“Project Kōwhai is a survival game set in the New Zealand bush, developed to educate people about the realities of surviving in the bush. The player is taught indirectly, through experimenting with the game’s realistic mechanics and learning the best way to survive through failing in a safe environment and being encouraged to try again through the entertainment value of the game.” (Project Kowhai Game Design Document, 2017). Being lost in the New Zealand wilderness is nothing to be taken lightly and Project Kowhai aims to educate people in the correct survival methods to employ when one is suddenly dropped into such a situation. Becoming lost can happen suddenly and without any preparation so it’s important to have prior understanding of survival to be able to bring a degree of familiarity to whatever you may face in an unfamiliar environment.

Project Kowhai is essentially an environment simulation made to look and feel realistic. This is achieved through realistic graphics, sounds, and game mechanics typically associated with survival games such as hunger, thirst, and body temperature. All the mechanics are constructed to replicate how they would work in real life. These mechanics come together to affect certain aspects of the player character’s wellbeing. For example, the more you run, the quicker you get exhausted, and must return to walking. Although not to quite realistic scale, these mechanics add to the simulation aspect of the game and to the intention of giving people realistic expectations as they play and fail and try again. The player is intended to survive though playing and learning and figuring out the best things to do. This is to do with the idea of ‘learning through doing’ rather than teaching by telling.

One main aspect of Project Kowhai is the lack of a main user interface that players in the gaming community would come to expect from a survival game. This aims to provide players with only what they would know if they were in the situation. For example, there would be no visual feedback indicating how hungry or thirsty you were, a person would just feel it. To substitute, Project Kowhai relies on the use of sound cues to tell the player whether they are hungry or thirsty etc.

It was discussed to use HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) audio for realistic three-dimensional sound interpretation for the player. HRTF was successfully incorporated in the project and adds to the realistic feeling of the environments however in the process of packaging the game it causes issues and all audio becomes stereo panning. This makes the game a little less real feeling, but it is something that you wouldn’t miss unless you were looking (or listening) for it. This leads us to explore and discover how to package Unreal Engine games with the Steam Audio plug in that was used to achieve this audio effect. All audio for the project was created using Foley techniques and music making techniques. The main music for the game is used to give and uneasy feel while blending into the background of the environmental ambience. This is another if the instances where realism was sacrificed for feeling. Although not exactly how I intended, the audio for Project Kowhai still encapsulates the main purpose which was to add to the realistic experience in the New Zealand Wilderness.

Contextual Statement

Project Kowhai sits amidst the likes of Fire watch and other open world games while developing and incorporating survival based mechanics to develop the educational aspect of the Project. Inspiration in the development of the environments was drawn from games such as Fire watch (2016), Tomb Raider (2013), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011), Battlefield Bad Company 2 (2010), and Assassin’s Creed III (2012). As described by Nathan Newland. Educational aspects are inspired by survival programmes such as Man Vs Wild. Specifically, the New Zealand editions of the show where Bear Grylls demonstrates how to survive in the New Zealand wilderness. We took the open world wilderness aspect from these games and combined them with an educational approach to produce a New Zealand relevant ‘Interactive Educational Experience’. Rather than for purely educational purposes, Project Kowhai is intended to be a ‘Serious Game’. A serious game is a game developed with the purpose of being useful to the player (Girard, Ecalle, & Magnan. 2012). The game aims to educate people to the realities of New Zealand wilderness survival. According to Chalmers & Debattista, 2009, serious games that teach people situational experiences through simulation must have a high level of realism for the player to associate those simulations to the real world. This was one of the reasons for Project Kowhai to be based on real world locations and environments, and to take on realistic graphics and survival mechanics that apply to real world experiences. In terms of foliage, all tree and plant models are based on New Zealand indigenous species of Plantae. Using such foliage added to the New Zealand based environment and learned through game play testing at events such as the Game Development Meetup that there was an emotional investment with players from New Zealand given that It’s set in their home land, a very under used environment in the game making community. The need for realistic graphics in the game enforced one of the Team’s goals which was “to capture New Zealand’s natural beauty and increase its appeal.” (Young, N. 2017).

The audio For Project Kowhai was intended to be a heavy lifter in terms of realism. For instance, in lieu of a visual HUD, the player would gain feedback on their wellbeing based on sound cues. Also, the environments heavily depend on accurate audio representation to enforce the realism; a key element in the development of Project Kowhai being a 'Serious Game’. The game’s environmental audio is all based on New Zealand natural environments. Foley in the gaming industry is quite like that of picture film. Foley is a technique developed by Jack Donovan Foley, which is basically the imitation of sound to later add to a film to be more believable. Inspiration for the game’s sound track came from the likes of Fire watch (2016) OST and Journey (2012) OST and according to the mood that Project Kowhai went for, was made to feel eerie and tense.

    References:

-          Cooney, X. Leighton-Anderson, G. Newland, N. Singh, K. Yeoh, M. Young, N.  (2017). Project Kowhai. Auckland: AUT University. Unfinished Project.

-          Girard, C, Ecalle, J & Magnan, A. (2013). Serious games as new educational tools: How effective are they? A meta-analysis of recent studies. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 29, 207–219.

-          Chalmers, A & Chalmers, K. (2009). Level of Realism for Serious Games. UK: University of Warwick.

-          Hibbard, M. (2015, 18 March 2015). Recording Foley and Sound Effects: The Fundamentals. [Weblog]. Retrieved 28 October 2017, from https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/recording-foley-and-sound-effects-the-fundamentals/

-          Baumgartner et al. (2006). The emotional power of music: How music enhances the feeling of affective pictures. Brian Research, 1075(1), 151-164.

-          Pitkanen, P. (2013). Creating and Designing Sound Effects for A Mobile Game. Finland: Tampere University of Applied Sciences.

-          Campo santo. (2016). Firewatch. : Panic.

-          Thatgamecompany. (2012). Journey.: Sony Computer Entertainment.

[robertmcangusgroup]

The Daily Tulip

The Daily Tulip – Archaeological News From Around The World

Friday 13th October 2017

Good Morning Gentle Reader….  Friday the 13th, considered by many as one of the unluckiest days of the year, is almost here again. If you are worried about what's in store this time, then you're not alone. Psychologists have even come up with a word for how you're feeling – paraskavedekatriaphobia, or fear of Friday the 13th. One option is to stay tucked up in bed all day to avoid any potential Friday the 13th bad luck that may come your way, or alternatively, you could ignore the superstitious chatter and embrace it… Me? I hear you ask.. it’s just another number on the road through life, I had my eyes done, this week, got up and walked Bella multiple times, drank fresh Colombian coffee, Facebook Un-Banned me, and I have you Gentle Reader… I’m certainly not worrying about a number on a Gregorian Calendar.. when I have so many riches…..

MERCHANT SHIP SUNK DURING WORLD WAR II FOUND NEAR AUSTRALIA….  SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—Kyodo News reports that the SS Macumba, an Australian merchant ship sunk by Japanese aircraft on August 6, 1943, has been found off the coast of northern Australia. “Three people died on that ship and one body wasn’t recovered so it’s a war grave site,” explained senior heritage officer David Steinberg of the Northern Territory government. The captain and 36 crew members survived. The Macumba had been transporting supplies from Sydney to Darwin, where Japanese air raids had killed more than 200 people in 1942. Pictures of the vessel, which rests under more than 130 feet of water, suggests it is sitting upright and has formed an artificial reef. “We’re looking to put a protected zone around the site to prohibit entry into it until we understand its full significance,” added Steinberg.

UNUSUAL STONE TOOLS UNCOVERED IN WALES….  DENBIGHSHIRE, WALES—According to a report in Live Science, members of the Clwydian Range Archaeological Group, a team of amateur researchers led by professional archaeologists, have uncovered about 20 unusual stone tools at a Bronze Age site in the hills of northeast Wales. The heavily used tools are triangular in shape and range in size from about two inches to eight inches long. Consulting archaeologist Ian Brooks says they appear to have been deliberately buried in what was the bottom of a stream some 4,500 years ago. “I’ve not seen anything like them before, and I’ve talked to a number of colleagues who’ve never seen anything like them,” Brooks said. He explained that the tools’ purpose is unknown, but the battered points on the hard limestone tools could have been used to chip ornamental designs onto the surfaces of boulders and rock faces. “The point on these things would be about the right sort of size for pecking that sort of design,” he said.

PRE-DYNASTIC ROCK ART DISCOVERED IN EGYPT….  ASWAN, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that a team of researchers from Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities discovered panels of 15,000-year-old rock art during a survey in the Subeira Valley. The images, carved into sandstone, depict hippopotamuses, wild bulls, donkeys, and gazelles. Similar images have been found at sites in Al-Qarta and Abu Tanqoura. “These markings helped archaeologists to determine the exact dating of the newly discovered ones in Subeira Valley,” explained Nasr Salama, director general of Aswan and Nubia Antiquities.

BRONZE SCULPTURES RECOVERED AT ANTIKYTHERA SHIPWRECK SITE….  ANTIKYTHERA, GREECE—According to a report in The Guardian, pieces of at least seven different bronze sculptures have been recovered at the site of the Antikythera shipwreck, made famous by the discovery of the Antikythera mechanism in 1901. Brendan Foley of Lund University said the pieces were found among large boulders that may have tumbled over the wreckage during an earthquake in the fourth century A.D. with an underwater metal detector. Recovering any possible additional statue pieces will require moving the boulders, some of which weigh several tons, or cracking them open. The team also discovered a slab of red marble, a silver tankard, pieces of wood from the ship’s frame, and a human bone. A bronze disc about the size of the geared wheels in the Antikythera mechanism was also found this year. Preliminary X-rays of the object revealed an image of a bull, but no cogs, so it may have been a decorative item. Investigation of the deepwater site will continue next year. “We’re down in the hold of the ship now, so all the other things that would have been carried should be down there as well,” Foley said.

SECTION OF HADRIAN'S WALL DISCOVERED IN NEWCASTLE….  NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND—A previously recorded stretch of Hadrian's Wall has been rediscovered in Newcastle in northeastern England, according to a report in ChronicleLive. Archaeologists working on a project to restore a building in the city's center unearthed the section, which was last seen during 1952 construction on the same site. More sections of the wall are understood to occupy space underneath Newcastle, and the remains of a milecastle—a small Roman fort—have also been found nearby.

Well Gentle Reader I hope you enjoyed our look at the news from around the world this, Friday morning… …

Our Tulips today are in Black and White...

A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it's always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of "Colombian" Coffee and wish you a safe Friday 13th October 2017 from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…

All good stuff....But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in

Be safe out there…

Robert McAngus

[newstfionline]

Why Is Media Citing Man Accused of Kidnapping Journalists as Credible Source on Syrian Chemical Attack?

By Ben Norton, AlterNet, April 6, 2017

Calls for regime change in Syria are once again filling the airwaves, and President Donald Trump has said he is considering further military intervention in the country.

(Update: After this article was published, the U.S. launched a missile attack on a Syrian government airfield.)

Media outlets have been pouring fuel on the fire of war. One of the key voices calling for Western intervention that is being amplified by corporate news networks is Shajul Islam, a doctor in the al-Qaeda-controlled Syrian province of Idlib.

Islam has accused the Syrian government of carrying out a chemical attack on civilians. Dozens of major media outlets have cited his claims, while conceding that they have not been independently verified.

Meanwhile, these news publications have failed to disclose a crucial detail about the doctor: He was accused in court of kidnapping journalists in Syria.

In October 2012, Shajul Islam was arrested in the UK and charged with kidnapping two photographers, one British and one Dutch. He was accused of providing medical treatment for the Salafi jihadist extremist group in Syria that held the journalists hostage.

The case eventually fell apart and the charges against Islam were dropped because the prosecution was not able to hear evidence from the victims, who were the key witnesses. The attorney said this served “to frustrate the trial from the point of view of the prosecution.”

John Cantlie, one of the journalists Islam was accused of kidnapping, was unable to appear at the trial because he was still a hostage. He had been briefly freed in July 2012, but was soon kidnapped again--this time by ISIS. Cantlie was held with James Foley, the American journalist who was beheaded on camera by Mohamed Emwazi, an ISIS foreign fighter from London.

Islam’s younger brother, Razul, reportedly entered Syria to volunteer as a foreign fighter in the ranks of ISIS.

Sometime in 2016, Shajul Islam smuggled himself back into Syria and is now working in Idlib.

AlterNet previously detailed how Idlib is the “heartland” of al-Qaeda, as even hawkish pundits who have repeatedly called for further Western military intervention in Syria have acknowledged.

None of these facts stopped major news outlets from citing Islam’s claims and social media posts in their reports on the alleged Idlib chemical attack, including CBS News, Fox News, McClatchy, the Daily Beast, Voice of America, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, CBC, Politico, the Independent, Vocativ, Bellingcat, Euronews, Middle East Eye, the Mirror, Metro, the Daily Mail, the Sun and UNILAD.

NBC News and Middle East Eye published entire profiles on Islam without identifying the past accusations against him.

Even right-wing pro-Trump media outlets that have previously opposed U.S.-led regime change in Syria have suddenly had a change of heart, now that the president is on board. PJ Media and Western Journalism also uncritically cited Shajul Islam without providing any context.

In another report, NBC News said it spoke with Islam, whom it described as “a London surgeon who was volunteering in a hospital just outside Idlib.” NBC added that it “was not able to verify either account from the ground.”

Most of the publications similarly provide just a sentence of background on Islam, noting he was “trained in the UK and now works in northern Syria.” None mentioned the accusations of kidnapping.

Several media outlets that are now uncritically spreading Islam’s unverified claims have previously reported on the fact that he was once charged with working with an extremist group in Syria.

As AlterNet previously reported, Syrian al-Qaeda and other extremist rebel groups have constructed a hyper-repressive regime in Idlib. Salafi jihadists ethnically cleansed religious and ethnic minorities from the area, while banning music and instituting a violent theocratic system in which women accused of adultery are publicly executed. Amnesty International documented Salafi jihadist groups’ use of summary killings, torture, abductions and sectarian violence in the province.

On April 4, an alleged chemical attack in Idlib killed dozens of civilians. The details around the incident are murky. Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special envoy for Syria noted at a press conference after the attack, “We have not yet any official or reliable confirmation.”

Federica Mogherini, high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, likewise said, “We also do not have evidence at the moment.”

A statement by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons did not apportion blame and noted it “is in the process of gathering and analysing information.”

However, the U.S. government, which has spent billions over the past several years arming and training rebels committed to overthrowing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, immediately said the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, an accusation the Syrian and Russian governments denied.

Media outlets were quick to jump on board and echo the U.S. government’s claims. Shajul Islam became a key source for the accusation that the Syrian government had used sarin gas against civilians.

In the frequently cited videos Islam posted to social media, he openly called for more foreign intervention in Syria and reiterated talking points that have for years been echoed by supporters of regime change.

“We urge you to put pressure on your government, put pressure on anyone, to help us,” Islam said. “I’m trying to make awareness so that people will support us and support our work and give us the equipment we need to continue saving lives.”

Islam also claimed the alleged chemical attack is one of a string of such incidents, insisting, “These gas attacks are continuing every day and no one is doing anything to stop these gas attacks.”

He tried to frighten civilians in the West claiming, “Now it’s the civilian population of Syria; soon it would be the civilian population of America, in a subway or something.” In reality, experts recognize that Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, the most powerful force among the rebels in the country (in its rebranded forms), poses the actual threat to civilians in the West, not the Syrian government.

Islam’s claims have not been independently verified, and he said in a video that because of safety concerns he was not able to share his location.

Major news networks have demonstrated a similar lack of skepticism when it comes to reporting on other issues about Syria. Ambiguous “activists” and rebel groups committed to overthrowing the Syrian government, some of them linked to al-Qaeda, are often cited as sources in media reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is perhaps the leading source for information, and is frequently described by media outlets as a “monitoring group.” Yet even the New York Times, which often draws from SOHR’s claims, has acknowledged that it “is virtually a one-man band” run out of the home of a man in a small town in England who has not been to Syria in more than a decade.

[tonyduncanbb73]

Beer & Mortar: Fostering the Past at Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree

To push forward, the South Shore brewery is looking back

Just this past weekend, Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree finished making its 33rd batch of beer. Considering the brewery has only been open three months, that number might seem somewhat high, but it’s reflective of the big strides the brewery has made in a few short months: Widowmaker has already nabbed over a dozen draft accounts across the South Shore and has even begun selling crowlers of beer at local bottle shops.

Even the name, Widowmaker, stems from the workaholic tendencies that initially kept co-founders Colin Foley, Bud Lazaro, and Ryan Lavery away from their wives and families. It takes a hefty time investment to turn a few homebrewing experiments into a full-fledged brewery, but the trio has done just that.

“Everything we have on tap right now was scaled up from a recipe that we did on our pilot batch system,” Lavery says. “Some of those beers I’ve been brewing for years — Greenbush [pale ale], Old Oaken Farmhouse [saison] — those are beers I’ve been doing for as long as I’ve been brewing.”

Lavery estimates a solid 75 percent of Widowmaker’s current draft list contains recipes he formulated during his homebrewing days. The brewery features around 10 beers at a time, spanning the intense yet drinkable Ecstasy of Gold American IPA to the coffee-cut Donut Shop stout. A wide range of styles are represented on the board, giving drinkers a chance to sip the gamut and find what they like. All of those beers are available as half pours, full pours, and smaller flight servings to try a few at once.

Facebook

Widowmaker Brewing

“That’s what I really like about flights: You can taste what you want and go from there. We see that with a lot of customers who come in,” Lavery says. “They get their flight, and then they’re off to getting full pours of a certain style.”

Co-founders Lavery and Foley debuted many of those beers at local block parties a few years back as homebrewers. Recipe construction was meticulous back then, and that mindset has hardly changed with the debut of Widowmaker. With the help of head brewer Ryan Ward, every recipe given the green light at the brewery is put through a pilot brewing system before moving to the seven-barrel brewhouse. Many of those early iterations are also tapped for feedback.

While stopping by the expansive, 70-seat communal taproom is encouraged, drinkers can enjoy those beers in a number of places around the South Shore. As of now, Widowmaker self-distributes kegs to spots around Quincy and Braintree, like Braintree Brewhouse and the Townshend. The brewery also delivers freshly filled crowlers to stores such as Empire Wine & Spirits and Bin Ends.

Facebook

Widowmaker Brewing

That distribution doesn’t account for the moves Widowmaker will make in 2018. On the beer end, Lavery and crew soon plan to release a new black lager and all New Zealand-hopped red IPA. The team also have a few collaboration beers slated for early next year, but Lavery can’t share any names at this time.

More expansion is on the horizon too. The brewhouse will gain a few new 15-barrel tanks early next year to up distribution efforts, which could place Widowmaker beers in Boston and beyond as soon as spring. Lavery also says that the brewery might add an in-house canning line sometime next year, but the team isn’t all that concerned about packaging its beer right now. For the Widowmaker crew, the way to the drinker’s heart is pint by pint.

“Everything comes in due time,” Lavery says. “There’s pressure to be in cans, be on shelves, but I don’t want to inundate the market in every sort of way. The best approach is to see it in bars, so when [people] do go to the liquor store, they pick up that four-pack.”

Putting a large focus on draft accounts also speaks to the communal goals of the business. Lavery doesn’t want to put his beers on grossly packed shelves to sit and inevitably degrade; he wants people to drink and discuss. Foster conversation and build relationships. The Widowmaker team might be hustling to get its beer into residents’ bellies, but it’s in the name of relaxed human interaction. After all, that’s the environment the tavern was originally founded on.

Widowmaker’s approach is one of harboring love for the community surrounding it. It’s about not only giving the people the tasty beer they want, but giving them a channel to enjoy it in. And while the brewery will soon expand outside its home, that personable approach is close behind, tracing the lines and guiding each beer.

“We’re all from the South Shore,” Lavery says. “We hope that the [area] follows the path the North Shore and the Cambridge and Somerville areas have. Breweries are starting to pop up, and the South Shore needs that.”

Beer & Mortar logo by Emily Phares

This story is part of Beer & Mortar, a series in which Eater Boston contributor Alex Wilking explores the beer scene in Boston and beyond. Stay tuned for new installments twice a month, featuring a mix of old classics and brand new additions.

[tonyduncanbb73]

Beer & Mortar: Fostering the Past at Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree

To push forward, the South Shore brewery is looking back

Just this past weekend, Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree finished making its 33rd batch of beer. Considering the brewery has only been open three months, that number might seem somewhat high, but it’s reflective of the big strides the brewery has made in a few short months: Widowmaker has already nabbed over a dozen draft accounts across the South Shore and has even begun selling crowlers of beer at local bottle shops.

Even the name, Widowmaker, stems from the workaholic tendencies that initially kept co-founders Colin Foley, Bud Lazaro, and Ryan Lavery away from their wives and families. It takes a hefty time investment to turn a few homebrewing experiments into a full-fledged brewery, but the trio has done just that.

“Everything we have on tap right now was scaled up from a recipe that we did on our pilot batch system,” Lavery says. “Some of those beers I’ve been brewing for years — Greenbush [pale ale], Old Oaken Farmhouse [saison] — those are beers I’ve been doing for as long as I’ve been brewing.”

Lavery estimates a solid 75 percent of Widowmaker’s current draft list contains recipes he formulated during his homebrewing days. The brewery features around 10 beers at a time, spanning the intense yet drinkable Ecstasy of Gold American IPA to the coffee-cut Donut Shop stout. A wide range of styles are represented on the board, giving drinkers a chance to sip the gamut and find what they like. All of those beers are available as half pours, full pours, and smaller flight servings to try a few at once.

Facebook

Widowmaker Brewing

“That’s what I really like about flights: You can taste what you want and go from there. We see that with a lot of customers who come in,” Lavery says. “They get their flight, and then they’re off to getting full pours of a certain style.”

Co-founders Lavery and Foley debuted many of those beers at local block parties a few years back as homebrewers. Recipe construction was meticulous back then, and that mindset has hardly changed with the debut of Widowmaker. With the help of head brewer Ryan Ward, every recipe given the green light at the brewery is put through a pilot brewing system before moving to the seven-barrel brewhouse. Many of those early iterations are also tapped for feedback.

While stopping by the expansive, 70-seat communal taproom is encouraged, drinkers can enjoy those beers in a number of places around the South Shore. As of now, Widowmaker self-distributes kegs to spots around Quincy and Braintree, like Braintree Brewhouse and the Townshend. The brewery also delivers freshly filled crowlers to stores such as Empire Wine & Spirits and Bin Ends.

Facebook

Widowmaker Brewing

That distribution doesn’t account for the moves Widowmaker will make in 2018. On the beer end, Lavery and crew soon plan to release a new black lager and all New Zealand-hopped red IPA. The team also have a few collaboration beers slated for early next year, but Lavery can’t share any names at this time.

More expansion is on the horizon too. The brewhouse will gain a few new 15-barrel tanks early next year to up distribution efforts, which could place Widowmaker beers in Boston and beyond as soon as spring. Lavery also says that the brewery might add an in-house canning line sometime next year, but the team isn’t all that concerned about packaging its beer right now. For the Widowmaker crew, the way to the drinker’s heart is pint by pint.

“Everything comes in due time,” Lavery says. “There’s pressure to be in cans, be on shelves, but I don’t want to inundate the market in every sort of way. The best approach is to see it in bars, so when [people] do go to the liquor store, they pick up that four-pack.”

Putting a large focus on draft accounts also speaks to the communal goals of the business. Lavery doesn’t want to put his beers on grossly packed shelves to sit and inevitably degrade; he wants people to drink and discuss. Foster conversation and build relationships. The Widowmaker team might be hustling to get its beer into residents’ bellies, but it’s in the name of relaxed human interaction. After all, that’s the environment the tavern was originally founded on.

Widowmaker’s approach is one of harboring love for the community surrounding it. It’s about not only giving the people the tasty beer they want, but giving them a channel to enjoy it in. And while the brewery will soon expand outside its home, that personable approach is close behind, tracing the lines and guiding each beer.

“We’re all from the South Shore,” Lavery says. “We hope that the [area] follows the path the North Shore and the Cambridge and Somerville areas have. Breweries are starting to pop up, and the South Shore needs that.”

Beer & Mortar logo by Emily Phares

This story is part of Beer & Mortar, a series in which Eater Boston contributor Alex Wilking explores the beer scene in Boston and beyond. Stay tuned for new installments twice a month, featuring a mix of old classics and brand new additions.

[tonyduncanbb73]

Beer & Mortar: Fostering the Past at Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree

To push forward, the South Shore brewery is looking back

Just this past weekend, Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree finished making its 33rd batch of beer. Considering the brewery has only been open three months, that number might seem somewhat high, but it’s reflective of the big strides the brewery has made in a few short months: Widowmaker has already nabbed over a dozen draft accounts across the South Shore and has even begun selling crowlers of beer at local bottle shops.

Even the name, Widowmaker, stems from the workaholic tendencies that initially kept co-founders Colin Foley, Bud Lazaro, and Ryan Lavery away from their wives and families. It takes a hefty time investment to turn a few homebrewing experiments into a full-fledged brewery, but the trio has done just that.

“Everything we have on tap right now was scaled up from a recipe that we did on our pilot batch system,” Lavery says. “Some of those beers I’ve been brewing for years — Greenbush [pale ale], Old Oaken Farmhouse [saison] — those are beers I’ve been doing for as long as I’ve been brewing.”

Lavery estimates a solid 75 percent of Widowmaker’s current draft list contains recipes he formulated during his homebrewing days. The brewery features around 10 beers at a time, spanning the intense yet drinkable Ecstasy of Gold American IPA to the coffee-cut Donut Shop stout. A wide range of styles are represented on the board, giving drinkers a chance to sip the gamut and find what they like. All of those beers are available as half pours, full pours, and smaller flight servings to try a few at once.

Facebook

Widowmaker Brewing

“That’s what I really like about flights: You can taste what you want and go from there. We see that with a lot of customers who come in,” Lavery says. “They get their flight, and then they’re off to getting full pours of a certain style.”

Co-founders Lavery and Foley debuted many of those beers at local block parties a few years back as homebrewers. Recipe construction was meticulous back then, and that mindset has hardly changed with the debut of Widowmaker. With the help of head brewer Ryan Ward, every recipe given the green light at the brewery is put through a pilot brewing system before moving to the seven-barrel brewhouse. Many of those early iterations are also tapped for feedback.

While stopping by the expansive, 70-seat communal taproom is encouraged, drinkers can enjoy those beers in a number of places around the South Shore. As of now, Widowmaker self-distributes kegs to spots around Quincy and Braintree, like Braintree Brewhouse and the Townshend. The brewery also delivers freshly filled crowlers to stores such as Empire Wine & Spirits and Bin Ends.

Facebook

Widowmaker Brewing

That distribution doesn’t account for the moves Widowmaker will make in 2018. On the beer end, Lavery and crew soon plan to release a new black lager and all New Zealand-hopped red IPA. The team also have a few collaboration beers slated for early next year, but Lavery can’t share any names at this time.

More expansion is on the horizon too. The brewhouse will gain a few new 15-barrel tanks early next year to up distribution efforts, which could place Widowmaker beers in Boston and beyond as soon as spring. Lavery also says that the brewery might add an in-house canning line sometime next year, but the team isn’t all that concerned about packaging its beer right now. For the Widowmaker crew, the way to the drinker’s heart is pint by pint.

“Everything comes in due time,” Lavery says. “There’s pressure to be in cans, be on shelves, but I don’t want to inundate the market in every sort of way. The best approach is to see it in bars, so when [people] do go to the liquor store, they pick up that four-pack.”

Putting a large focus on draft accounts also speaks to the communal goals of the business. Lavery doesn’t want to put his beers on grossly packed shelves to sit and inevitably degrade; he wants people to drink and discuss. Foster conversation and build relationships. The Widowmaker team might be hustling to get its beer into residents’ bellies, but it’s in the name of relaxed human interaction. After all, that’s the environment the tavern was originally founded on.

Widowmaker’s approach is one of harboring love for the community surrounding it. It’s about not only giving the people the tasty beer they want, but giving them a channel to enjoy it in. And while the brewery will soon expand outside its home, that personable approach is close behind, tracing the lines and guiding each beer.

“We’re all from the South Shore,” Lavery says. “We hope that the [area] follows the path the North Shore and the Cambridge and Somerville areas have. Breweries are starting to pop up, and the South Shore needs that.”

Beer & Mortar logo by Emily Phares

This story is part of Beer & Mortar, a series in which Eater Boston contributor Alex Wilking explores the beer scene in Boston and beyond. Stay tuned for new installments twice a month, featuring a mix of old classics and brand new additions.