#Jody Baran

[spacelazarwolf]

in honor of that anon who said jews have done nothing for the world, here’s a non exhaustive list of things we’ve done for the world:

arts, fashion, and lifestyle:

jeans - levi strauss

modern bras - ida rosenthal

sewing machines - isaac merritt singer

modern film industry - carl laemmle (universal pictures), adolph zukor (paramount pictures), william fox (fox film forporation), louis b. mayer (mgm - metro-goldwyn-mayer), harry, sam, albert, and jack warners (warner bros.), steven spielberg, mel brooks, marx brothers

operetta - jacques offenbach

comic books - stan lee

graphic novels - will eisner

teddy bears - morris and rose michtom

influential musicians - irving berlin, stephen sondheim, benny goodman, george gershwin, paul simon, itzhak perlman, leonard bernstein, bob dylan, leonard cohen

artists - mark rothko

actors - elizabeth taylor, jerry lewis, barbara streisand

comedians - lenny bruce, joan rivers, jerry seinfeld

authors - judy blume, tony kushner, allen ginsberg, walter mosley

culture:

esperanto - ludwik lazar zamenhof

feminism - betty friedan, gloria steinem, ruth bader ginsberg

queer and trans rights - larry kramer, harvey milk, leslie feinberg, abby stein, kate bornstein, frank kameny, judith butler

international women's day - clara zetkin

principles of journalizm, statue of liberty, and pulitzer prize - joseph pulitzer

"the new colossus" - emma lazarus

universal declaration of human rights - rene samuel cassin

holocaust remembrance and human rights activism - elie wiesel

workers rights - louis brandeis, rose schneiderman

public health care, women's rights, and children's rights - lillian wald

racial equity - rabbi abraham joshua heschel, julius rosenwald, andrew goodman, michael schwerner

political theory - hannah arendt

disability rights - judith heumann

black lives matter slogan and movement - alicia garza

#metoo movement - jodi kantor

institute of sexology - magnus hirschfeld

technology:

word processing computers - evelyn berezin

facebook - mark zuckerberg

console video game system - ralph henry baer

cell phones - amos edward joel jr., martin cooper

3d - leonard lipton

telephone - philipp reis

fax machines - arthur korn

microphone - emile berliner

gramophone - emile berliner

television - boris rosing

barcodes - norman joseph woodland and bernard silver

secret communication system, which is the foundation of the technology used for wifi - hedy lamarr

three laws of robotics - isaac asimov

cybernetics - norbert wiener

helicopters - emile berliner

BASIC (programming language) - john george kemeny

google - sergey mikhaylovich brin and larry page

VCR - jerome lemelson

fax machine - jerome lemelson

telegraph - samuel finley breese morse

morse code - samuel finley breese morse

bulletproof glass - edouard benedictus

electric motor and electroplating - boris semyonovich jacobi

nuclear powered submarine - hyman george rickover

the internet - paul baran

icq instant messenger - arik vardi, yair goldfinger,, sefi vigiser, amnon amir

color photography - leopold godowsky and leopold mannes

world's first computer - herman goldstine

modern computer architecture - john von neumann

bittorrent - bram cohen

voip internet telephony - alon cohen

data archiving - phil katz, eugene roshal, abraham lempel, jacob ziv

nemeth code - abraham nemeth

holography - dennis gabor

laser - theodor maiman

instant photo sharing online - philippe kahn

first automobile - siegfried samuel marcus

electrical maglev road - boris petrovich weinberg

drip irrigation - simcha blass

ballpoint pen and automatic gearbox - laszlo biro

photo booth - anatol marco josepho

medicine:

pacemakers and defibrillators - louise robinovitch

defibrillators - bernard lown

anti-plague and anti-cholera vaccines - vladimir aronovich khavkin

polio vaccine - jonas salk

test for diagnosis of syphilis - august paul von wasserman

test for typhoid fever - ferdinand widal

penicillin - ernst boris chain

pregnancy test - barnhard zondek

antiretroviral drug to treat aids and fight rejection in organ transplants - gertrude elion

discovery of hepatitis c virus - harvey alter

chemotherapy - paul ehrlich

discovery of prions - stanley prusiner

psychoanalysis - sigmund freud

rubber condoms - julius fromm

birth control pill - gregory goodwin pincus

asorbic acid (vitamin c) - tadeusz reichstein

blood groups and rh blood factor - karl landsteiner

acyclovir (treatment for infections caused by herpes virus) - gertrude elion

vitamins - caismir funk

technique for measuring blood insulin levils - rosalyn sussman yalow

antigen for hepatitus - baruch samuel blumberg

a bone fusion technique - gavriil abramovich ilizarov

homeopathy - christian friedrich samuel hahnemann

aspirin - arthur ernst eichengrun

science:

theory of relativity - albert einstein

theory of the electromagnetic field - james maxwell

quantum mechanics - max born, gustav ludwig hertz

quantum theory of gravity - matvei bronstein

microbiology - ferdinand julius cohn

neuropsychology - alexander romanovich luria

counters for x-rays and gamma rays - robert hofstadter

genetic engineering - paul berg

discovery of the antiproton - emilio gino segre

discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation - arno allan penzias

discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe - adam riess and saul merlmutter

discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity - roger penrose

discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of the milky way - andrea ghez

modern cosmology and the big bang theory - alexander alexandrovich friedmann

stainless steel - hans goldschmidt

gas powered vehicles

interferometer - albert abraham michelson

discovery of the source of energy production in stars - hans albrecht bethe

proved poincare conjecture - grigori yakovlevich perelman

biochemistry - otto fritz meyerhof

electron-positron collider - bruno touschek

[happygirl2oo2]

Queer Sports Romance Books Recs For Pride Month 🌈 (all are books I've either read or currently have on my own tbr list)

Hockey

Rookie Recovery (Bobcat Boys #1) by Jemma Croft and Lex Veia [mlm]

Vancouver Orcas interconnected series by Amy Aislin [mlm]

Hometown Hero (Whistleport Hockey #1) by Declan Rhodes [mlm]

Hockey Guys interconnected series by Sarina Bowen [mlm]

Prove It by Stephanie Hoyt [mlm]

Fake Boyfriend interconnected series by Eden Finley [mlm]

Caught off Guard by Catherine Cloud [mlm]

Chicago Thunder interconnected series by Jodi Oliver [mlm]

Don't Look Down (Best Laid Plans #1) by Jessica Ann [mlm]

Hockey Ever After interconnected series by Ashlyn Kane and Morgan James [mlm]

Love & Other Inconveniences by Catherine Cloud [mlm]

Time to Shine by Rachel Reid [mlm]

Relationship Goals interconnected series by Brigham Vaughn [mlm]

Light Up the Lamp by Kit Oliver [mlm]

Puckboys interconnected series by Eden Finley and Saxon James [mlm]

Hot Shot (Orlando Storm #1) by Marissa James [mlm]

Breakaway partially-interconnected series by E.L. Massey [mlm]

Delay of Game interconnected series by Hannah Henry [mlm]

Offsides interconnected series by J.J. Mulder [mlm]

Roughing (Portland Seabirds #1) by Michaela Grey [mlm]

Stick Side interconnected series by Amy Aislin [mlm]

Let's Do This (IFU Hockey #1) by Loren Leigh [mlm]

CU Hockey interconnected series by Eden Finley and Saxon James [mlm]

Back to Center (Mohegan U Hockey #2) by Ryan Taylor and Joshua Harwood [mlm]

Penalty Box interconnected series by Ari Baran [mlm]

Shenanigans (Brooklyn Hockey #6) by Sarina Bowen [m/f with a bi mc]

The Inside Edge by Ashlyn Kane [mlm]

Icebreaker by A. L. Graziadei [mlm]

Hockey Bois by A.L. Heard [mlm]

Three Is The Luckiest Number by Catherine Cloud [mlm]

Not Over You by Samantha Wayland [mlm]

Wake Up, Nat & Darcy by Kate Cochrane [wlw]

It's a Love/Skate Relationship by Carli J. Corson [wlw]

Off the Bench Duet Series by Kimberly Knight [mlm]

Twincerely Yours by Eden Finley [mlm]

Car Racing

Pole Position by Rebecca J. Caffery [mlm]

Lights Out Series interconnected series by various authors [mlm]

Fast Love (Fast Love #1) by Kerry Lockhart [wlw]

Driven By Passion (Gamble Racing #2) by Renee Dahlia [mlm]

Redline (Redline #1) by Emma Barlowe [mlm]

Furious by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos [wlw]

Bowling

The 7-10 Split by Karmen Lee [wlw]

Baseball 

The Prospects by KT Hoffman [mlm]

Batting Style by Louisa Masters [mlm]

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian [mlm]

The Smile Has Left Your Eyes by Danielle Dawsen [mlm]

Volleyball 

We Got the Beat by Jenna Miller [wlw]

Always More (Sports #1) by Nicole Pyland [wlw]

Roller derby

Mighty Millie Novak by Elizabeth Holden [wlw]

False Start by Santana Knox [wlw]

Basketball 

How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly [wlw]

Love and Sportsball (Atlanta Cannons #1) by Meka James [wlw]

Zone Defense interconnected series by Becca Seymour [mlm]

Fencing

Fence comic series by C.S. Pacat and Joanna the Mad [mlm]

Football

One Last Play by E.B. Neal [mlm]

Coming Out on the Sidelines by Dev Hahn [wlw]

Forward Entry (Sydney Swallows #1) by Aurora Crane [mlm]

The Game (Charleston Condors #2) by Beth Bolden

Atlanta Lightning interconnected series by Riley Hart [mlm]

Fumbled Past (San Diego Seals #2) by Cecelia Storm [mlm]

Onside Kiss (Domingo #1) by Octavia Jensen [mlm]

You Started It (Fan Service Series #3) by Hinsel Meyer [mlm]

Tigers and Devils (Tigers and Devils #1) by Sean Kennedy [mlm]

Roosevelt College interconnected series by Christina Lee [mlm]

You & Me by Tal Bauer [mlm]

Crushing on the Quarterback by Baylin Crow [mlm]

Tennis

Deuce (Tennyson Bend #2) by P.T. Ambler [mlm]

Soccer

You Don't Have a Shot by Racquel Marie [wlw]

Everything for You (Bergman Brothers #5) by Chloe Liese [mlm]

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner [wlw]

Pull Me Under by Zarah Detand [mlm]

The Game Changer (Denver Defiant, #1) by Finley Chuva [wlw]

I Like Me Better by Robby Weber [mlm]

Finding a Keeper (Sports #4) by Nicole Pyland [wlw]

Don't Hate the Player by Shelby Elizabeth [mlm]

Endgame by Zoe Reed [wlw]

Hotshot by Clare Lydon [wlw]

Rugby

Attractive Forces by Jax Calder [mlm]

The Tighthead (Lincoln Knights #1) by Charlie Novak [mlm]

Softball

The Unexpected Dream (Sports #3) by Nicole Pyland [wlw]

Chess

Always the Almost by Edward Underhill [trans boy x boy]

Wrestling 

Alondra by Gina Femia [bisexual girl mc]

Lacrosse 

Catch and Cradle by Katia Rose [wlw]

Swimming

Tears in the Water Margherita Scialla [LGBTQ+]

Badminton

Shy by Ashish Rastogi [mlm]

[ulkaralakbarova]

Hunter, a newly pregnant housewife, finds herself increasingly compelled to consume dangerous objects. As her husband and his family tighten their control over her life, she must confront the dark secret behind her new obsession. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Hunter Conrad: Haley Bennett Richie Conrad: Austin Stowell Katherine Conrad: Elizabeth Marvel Michael Conrad: David Rasche Erwin William: Denis O’Hare Lucy: Luna Lauren Velez Alice: Zabryna Guevara Luay: Laith Nakli Aaron: Babak Tafti Bev: Nicole Kang Nurse: Myra Lucretia Taylor Dr. Santos: Maya Days Jill: Alyssa Bresnahan Nim: Olivia Perez Lillian: Kristi Kirk Dr. Reyes: Elise Santora Film Crew: Director: Carlo Mirabella-Davis Editor: Joe Murphy Director of Photography: Katelin Arizmendi Assistant Location Manager: Lauren Andrade Associate Producer: Gregory Horoupian Producer: Mynette Louie Producer: Frédéric Fiore Co-Executive Producer: Katy Drake Bettner Associate Producer: Adam Kersh Background Casting Director: Olivia Crist Producer: Mollye Asher Producer: Carole Baraton Assistant Editor: Henry Butash Original Music Composer: Nathan Halpern Colorist: Sam Daley Visual Effects Supervisor: Alex Noble Foley Artist: Leslie Bloome Foley Mixer: Ryan Collison Foley Artist: Joanna Fang Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Michael Kurihara First Assistant Director: Jake Martin Makeup Department Head: Kai Stamps Hair Department Head: Meagan Coyle Costume Design: Liene Dobrāja Production Design: Erin Magill Executive Producer: Haley Bennett Executive Producer: Joe Wright Executive Producer: Constantin Briest Executive Producer: Yohann Comte Executive Producer: Pierre Mazars Executive Producer: Eric Tavitian Executive Producer: Sam Bisbee Co-Executive Producer: David Boies III Co-Executive Producer: David Stone Co-Executive Producer: Julie Parker Benello Casting: Allison Twardziak Music Supervisor: Joe Rudge Line Producer: Javier Gonzalez Second Assistant Director: Brian Johanson Still Photographer: Anna Kooris Gaffer: Lorenzo Pace Leadman: Jake Harms Set Decoration: Frank Baran Property Master: Luke Carr Script Supervisor: Jodi Domanic Special Effects Supervisor: Pete Gerner First Assistant Camera: Vincent Weiler Second Assistant Camera: Emma Penrose Digital Imaging Technician: Jake Westphal Production Sound Mixer: Dan Bricker Boom Operator: Finn Pfeffer Additional Production Sound Mixer: Viktor Weiszhaupt Assistant Costume Designer: Celeste Montalvo Best Boy Electric: Anna Cocuzzo Key Grip: Alexander Prokos Best Boy Grip: Nick Neary Hairstylist: Kristin Nawrocki Location Manager: Lauren B. Taylor Casting Associate: Juliet Axon Production Manager: Maggie Ambrose Production Accountant: Jay Britton Production Accountant: Margret P. Dunlap Assistant Editor: Susannah Kalb ADR Recordist: Chris White Foley Editor: Nick Seaman Foley Editor: Laura Heinzinger Music Coordinator: Blake Jessee Additional Music Supervisor: Laura Katz Compositing Artist: Dulany Foster IV Set Dresser: Linnea Crabtree Art Department Assistant: Tommy Mitchell Art Department Assistant: Dan Normile Art Department Assistant: Bruno Vernaschi-Berman Art Department Assistant: Michael Allegro Script Supervisor: Abe Kemmis Costumer: Kelsey Sasportas Makeup Artist: Rosie Sklar Makeup Artist: Tracey Hussey Makeup & Hair: Lia Parks Second Second Assistant Director: Mike Moran Craft Service: Zola Zimmerman Craft Service: Mauricio Villalobos Craft Service: Joe Facey Post Production Supervisor: Javian Ashton Le Additional Music: Chris Ruggiero Thanks: Stewart Thorndike Movie Reviews: liena: I sadly missed the chance to watch Swallow on the theatre when it hit a film festival in İstanbul while I was there, but I’ve been keeping an eye on this movie since it wrapped and I talked non-stop about how much I wanted to be able to see it. Now that I finally saw it on VOD, I heard there is a possibility for it to re-run in cinemas in Turkey soon and I will certainly go see it again. This film made me sick, I hated every scene while it rolled but at the same time I fell in love with it. So well acted, extremely pretty to...

[craftygal65]

Twitter dissolves Trust and Safety Council

Meanwhile, a former top Twitter official fled his home amid attacks following Musk tweets

Cat Zakrzewski

Twitter on Monday night abruptly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the latest sign that Elon Musk is unraveling years of work and institutions created to make the social network safer and more civil.

Members of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council received an email with the subject line, “Thank You,” that informed them the council was no longer “the best structure” to bring “external insights into our product and policy development work.”

The email dissolution arrived less than an hour before members of the council were expecting to meet with Twitter executives via Zoom to discuss recent developments, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans.

Dozens of civil rights leaders, academics and advocates from around the world had volunteered their time for years to help improve safety on the platform.

“We are grateful for your engagement, advice and collaboration in recent years and wish you every success in the future,” said the email, which was simply signed “Twitter.”

In less than two months, Musk has undone years of investments in trust and safety at Twitter — dismissing key parts of the workforce and bringing back accounts that previously had been suspended. As the body unravels, Musk is tightening his grip on decisions about the future of content moderation at Twitter, with less input from outside experts.

The move is just throwing away “years of institutional memory that we on the council have brought” to the company, said one council member who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns about harassment on the platform. “Getting external experts and advocates looking at your services makes you smarter.”

The Trust and Safety Council unraveled after Musk himself had pitched the creation of a content moderation council that would have weighed in on key content moderation decisions, but later appeared to change his mind about introducing such a body.

Many members were already on the verge of resigning, said Larry Magid, chief executive of ConnectSafely, a Silicon Valley nonprofit that advises consumers about children’s internet use.

“By disbanding it, we got fired instead of quit,” he said. “Elon doesn’t want criticism, and he really doesn’t want the kind of advice he would very likely get from a safety advisory council, which would likely tell him to rehire some of the staff he got rid of, and reinstate some of the rules he got rid of, and turn the company in another direction from where he is turning it.”

Twitter first formed the Trust and Safety Council in 2016, as social networks were coming under greater scrutiny for their role in amplifying hate, terrorism, child exploitation and other problematic content online. The council convened a wide range of civil society groups, think tanks — and even some of Silicon Valley’s biggest critics. Twitter executives would regularly brief the council on new products in development and policies.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-profit that promotes press freedom around the world, decried the dissolution of the council. “Safety online can mean survival offline," the group’s president, Jodie Ginsberg, said in a statement. “Today’s decision to dissolve the Trust and Safety Council is cause for grave concern, particularly as it is coupled with increasingly hostile statements by Twitter owner Elon Musk about journalists and the media.”

“I don’t understand the logic of doing this when many of these relationships were hard fought to develop,” said another member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the council’s dissolution.

Since taking over Twitter, CEO Elon Musk has laid off thousands, many tasked with maintaining crucial services. Former staff worry the site may collapse. (Video: Jonathan Baran/The Washington Post)

Twitter told Trust and Safety members that their “regional points of contact will remain the best people to contact to escalate concerns.” However, Twitter’s Trust and Safety and policy teams have been gutted by recent layoffs, as well as employee departures following an ultimatum from Musk.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which was a member of the council, will be “keeping a lookout for how they restructure,” said Gavin Portnoy, the center’s vice president.

“For the moment, we’ll continue to encourage reporting to the CyberTipline and hope to continue to have a seat at the table to address child safety on Twitter,” he said.

Last week, three members of the Trust and Safety Council resigned, warning that the “safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”

Musk responded to replies to their tweet announcing their resignation, writing, “It’s a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!”

Jack Dorsey, the company’s former CEO, responded to Musk, calling the claim “false.” But Musk’s comment nonetheless prompted a wave of threats and harassment at the board members who left the council, as well as some who remained.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that was a member of the council and has received funding from tech companies, said in a statement that it was “dismayed by Twitter leadership’s irresponsible actions to spread misinformation about the Council, which have endangered Council members and eroded any semblance of trust in the company.”

Musk’s treatment of the board mirrored a wave of attacks that enveloped a former top executive at the company over the weekend.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, and his family were forced from their home after Elon Musk’s tweets misrepresented Roth’s academic writing about sexual activity and children. The online mob also sent threats to people Roth had replied to on Twitter, forcing some of Roth’s family and friends to delete their Twitter accounts, according to a person familiar with Roth’s situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns about Roth’s safety.

Musk’s followers also directed harassment at professors who reviewed the dissertation that Roth wrote in 2016, as well as at his graduate school, the University of Pennsylvania, the person said. The university did not respond to a request for comment.

As head of trust and safety at Twitter, Roth was involved in many of the platform’s decisions about what posts to remove and what accounts to suspend. His communications with other Twitter officials have been posted in recent days as part of what Musk calls the Twitter Files, a series of tweets by journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss.

Musk’s tweets to his tens of millions of followers have for years prompted his supporters to deluge the targets of his ire with online threats — famously, a participant in the rescue of a boys soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand, whom Musk branded “pedo guy.” But now that Musk owns one of the most powerful social networks in the world and has gutted the company division that previously policed online harassment, the stakes are even higher.

Musk tweets about Roth recalled the QAnon conspiracy movement, which claims incorrectly that Democratic Party leaders direct a child sex abuse network.

“Looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis,” Musk tweeted Saturday, attaching a screenshot of Roth’s dissertation.

In the text, Roth suggested that services like the gay dating app Grindr should adopt safety strategies to accommodate teenagers using their platforms, rather than drive them out entirely. Musk also commented on a 2010 tweet in which Roth wrote, “Can high school students ever meaningfully consent to sex with their teachers?” Roth then linked to an article about a Washington State Supreme Court ruling about what age students can consent to having sex with their teachers.

Musk’s critical comments about Roth are something of an about-face from his early days at the company, when Roth appeared to be one of the few high-level Twitter executives Musk supported. On Oct. 30, the billionaire tweeted, “I want to be clear that I support Yoel. My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.”

And Roth appeared measured in his comments on Twitter’s new owner, seeking to reassure the public about company efforts to fight hate and protect elections. He even appeared alongside Musk in a call intended to reassure advertisers.

Even after he left Twitter in November, Roth was muted in his criticism. He warned in an op-ed in the New York Times that there was “little need” for a trust and safety function at a company where “policies are defined by edict.” But he also said publicly that it wasn’t accurate to depict Musk as the “villain of the story” in his takeover of the company.

“I think one of the things that is tricky about Elon, in particular, is that people really want him to be the villain of the story, and they want him to be unequivocally wrong and bad, and everything he says is duplicitous,” Roth said during an interview at the Knight Foundation conference. “I have to say ... that wasn’t my experience with him.”

Still, Roth is the most visible former Twitter executive assessing Musk’s actions, and his role at the company has been highlighted in the Twitter Files.

Twitter employees have long been wary of Musk’s ability to stoke online criticism. Shortly after he announced his plans to take over the company in April, he tweeted a meme to his tens of millions of followers with the face of Twitter’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, that appeared to suggest the company’s decisions are affected by a “left wing bias.

Twitter users quickly piled on — calling on Musk to fire Gadde or using racist language to describe her. Gadde was born in India and immigrated to the United States as a child. One user said she would “go down in history as an appalling person.”

Such harassment is part of a years-long pattern for Musk, with few legal consequences to date. Musk ultimately was not held liable in a defamation suit brought after he made his “pedo guy” remarks.

Joseph Menn and Naomi Nix in San Francisco contributed to this report.

[scottwellsmagic]

643: Jody Baran - Stories from the O.G.

This week’s guest is affectionately called an “O.G.” because the commonly held definition for the “Old Guy” term means, “a slang term for someone who's incredibly exceptional, authentic, or “old-school.” Jody Baran certainly personifies that definition because of his decades of performances including years aboard cruise ships and 17 years performing in a hotel in Maui, Hawaii. His associations with some of the legends in our community have taught him a lot which he shares with us this week.

Jody shares lots of stories in this episode from his life that were taught to him by his friends like John Moehring, Lance Burton, Johnny Thompson, Channing Pollock, Jay Marshall and so many more. This episode contains more advice and wisdom than you can get from anywhere else. I think you’ll agree that this is a good one!

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here..If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. You can also listen through your Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

[buzz-london]

Jal kamal channdi jane bala - hymn by Narsinh Mehta Sung in Gujarati and English translation. 

Transliteration 

Jal kamal chandi jane bala, swami amaro jagashay, Jagashay tane marashay, mane bala hatya lagashay. (1)

Range rudo, rupe puro, disanto kodilo kadamano, Tare mata ne ketala janamya, ema tu alakhamano. (2)

Mari mata ne bau janamya, ema hu Natvara nahando, Jagad tara nath ne maru nam Krushna Kahanado. (3)

Kahay re balaka tu maraga bhulyo, ke tara veri e valavyo, Nishchay taro kalaja khutyo, ahiya te shida aviyo. (4)

Nathi nagan hu marag bhulyo, nathi mara vari e valavyo, Mathura nagari ma jugatu ramata, naga nu shisha hariyo. (5) 

Lakha savano maro har apu, apu re tuje ne doriyo, Atalu mara naga thi chanu apu tuj ne choriyo. (6)

Shu karu nagan har taro, shu karu tari doriyo, Shane kaje nagan tare karavi ghar ma choriyo. (7)

Charan chapi, muchha maradi, nagane naga jagadiyo, Utho ne balavant barane koi balak aviyo. (8)

Beu baliya bathay valagiya Krushne Kali nag nathiyo. Sahastra fen fufueway gem gagan gaje hathiyo. (9)

Nagan sahu vilap kare che, naga ne bahu dukh apashay, Mathura nagri ma lai jashay, pachi naga nu shir kapshay. (10)

Kar jodi wina-way Prabhu, muko amara kantha ne Ame aparadhi kai na samajya, na olakhya bhagavant ne. (11)

Thal bhari nagan sarve, motiday Krushna ne vadhaviya, Narsahiya na nath pase thi, nagane naga chodaviya. (12)

https://youtu.be/EkZEyLs3Qyg

[caveartfair]

This Nonprofit Is Willing to Bet That Art Can Change the World

2017 ABOG Fellows (clockwise, from top left): Freeman Word. Photo: Jennifer Korman Photography; Aviva Rahmani. Photo: Joe Gaffney; Ashley Sparks. Photo: Courtesy the artist; Rick Lowe. Photo: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Ronny Quevedo. Photo: Argenis Apolinario; Stephanie Dinkins. Photo: Courtesy the artist; Hello Velocity. Photo: Courtesy the artists; Jackie Sumell. Photo: Courtesy the artist; Courtesy of A Blade of Grass.

“The artists we’re working with are interested in actively engaging with structures that impact people,” says Deborah Fisher, the executive director of the non-profit A Blade of Grass (ABOG). That’s a fairly concise way to describe much of the work generated by the group’s fellowship program, which has, since 2013, awarded a total of $580,000 in stipends to artists like Dread Scott, Simone Leigh, and Rulan Tangen.

These artists don’t simply critique power from a distance or within the safety of a museum’s walls—they engage with institutional structures out in the world. That makes the financial support of ABOG even more vital: Socially engaged art comes with its own logistical, financial, and conceptual difficulties. While there is a growing infrastructure to bolster this type of work, the support network is still relatively small; a little money can go a long way.  

On Tuesday, ABOG will announce its 2017 class of fellows—solo artists and one collective—chosen from a pool of hundreds of applicants. Each will receive a $20,000 stipend along with additional support for their projects (access to a network of fellows, for example). Proposals include everything from incubating sustainable immigrant-run businesses in Athens as part of Documenta 14 (Rick Lowe) to a “musical car race” that explores identity through performances in small Southern towns (Ashley Sparks).

Dancing Earth community artists in performance installation at Hunter Arts and Agriculture Center in Española, courtesy of Moving Arts Española, NM. Photo by Paulo T Photography. Courtesy of A Blade of Grass.

Among the 2017 winners is Freeman Word, who plans to use the funds to develop the Zakatu Madrasa, a community space that will be sited in a to-be-determined location in St. Louis’s North Side. Not linked to any single religion, his madrasa is an educational space, with a library and the opportunity for intergenerational mentorship within the community, with younger members creating and exhibiting artwork in the space (and being paid for their efforts).

Beyond the ABOG award money, the madrasa will depend on book sales and financial pledges from community members. “People will only continue to pay for what they believe is providing valuable service or output to the community,” he says. Word has already received the additional necessary commitments to ensure funding—an important achievement given a concern with socially engaged art is that the projects can leave participants in the lurch if the seed grant dries up.

Word drew inspiration from, among others, W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, and scholar Jessica Gordon Nembhard, whose book Collective Courage charts the history of African-American economic cooperatives, like mutual aid societies, back through slavery. “There’s a very real tradition I’m borrowing from,” Word says. “It’s not innovation, even if it feels like innovation.”

The past and present fellows I spoke to made it clear that socially engaged art is something of a misnomer; it ignores the simple fact that in in most communities, art is always “created for someone other than yourself,” as artist Rulan Tangen puts it. (An ABOG fellow in 2016, Tangen used her grant for a project titled seeds:ReGeneration, which explored indigenous artistic practices in community gatherings, and culminated in a harvest ritual.)

ABOG stresses accountability and visibility—collaborating with artists to create videos and written materials that describe and document their work. While the organization stresses letting artists lead, the goal is to measure and quantify the success of the projects: Part of the criteria is that the artists are working with communities and stakeholders. ABOG engages in field research, working with the artist to find a third party (a professor, another artist) versed in any given subject area who can document events, speak with local residents, and report on how the fellowship is engaging its target audience.

Grassroots engagement is the hallmark of ABOG endeavours. For Higher Sales, Ronny Quevedo is working in the South Bronx with La Morada, what one might call a socially engaged restaurant (it features activist artworks and a lending library). A group of local teenagers will participate in a 12-week workshop to create a signage for La Morada, dissecting the neighborhood’s history as well as the pressures it currently faces.

The project, Quevedo says, is consciously informed by artists like Jenny Holzer, as well as the wheatpaste-postering efforts of past artist-activist groups. It’s also a refreshingly nuanced way of engaging with the Bronx itself, highlighting the long-standing creative talent that has always existed in a place the art world can often still think of as a “frontier” awaiting artwashing (see Lucien Smith’s maligned “Piano District” branding event, for one example).

Ronny Quevedo, Higher Sails sign for Sergio Grajeda Mechanic, Albuquerque, NM, 2015, digital print in dibond. Photo courtesy of the artist. Courtesy of A Blade of Grass.

Also among the 2017 fellows is Aviva Rahmani, who argues that many entrenched political issues can be addressed with artistic thinking and a focus on human relationships. “It’s a question of how you look at systems so that you’re taking the skills from conceptual art and social sculpture and applying them to a problem,” Rahmani says.

Her installation and performance work Blued Trees Symphony, which began in 2015, blends artistic and legal structures. She has painted trees along pipeline routes, in the hopes of using the Visual Artist Rights Act and copyright law to halt or disrupt the construction of oil infrastructure. (She and her legal team expect the first court case to unfold in Virginia.)

Engaging with the courts or other systems of power is a familiar tactic for ABOG-supported artists. Celebrating the lineage of someone like Mierle Laderman Ukeles—who, since the 1970s, has served as an artist-in-residence with New York’s Department of Sanitation— the group has worked with artists who have partnered with the city agencies and institutions, like the Department of Homeless Services (Jody Wood) and the AFL-CIO (Sol Aramendi).

Admittedly, not everyone is fully supportive of projects that aim for social engagement. Engaging with power poses its own questions, given that agencies and institutions can often be complicit in perpetuating systems of inequality. Critics see socially engaged practice as more of a band-aid than a fundamental shift.

Aviva Rahmani, Blued Trees Symphony, Rensselaer County, New York. Photo by Jack Baran, 2015. Courtesy of A Blade of Grass.

While noting that these points can be valid, Fisher says that “we don’t have the luxury of scrapping these huge institutional systems.” Art, she argues, can push and subvert ingrained systems of power in fresh directions. She points to the collective Hello Velocity, a 2017 fellow that is developing Gradient, a system that lets users pay for purchases on a sliding scale based on their income. “We’re all complicit in capitalism,” Fisher says. “In order to change that we have to reimagine it while we’re living in it.”

They recognize that engaging so overtly with capitalism and commerce is something artists—especially socially conscious ones—prefer to avoid completely. But, said Hello Velocity’s Lukas Bentel, “If you want to talk about something it’s always better to get your hands a little dirty.”

Then there is the additional benefit of deploying art to tackle these problems: It acts as shield for bureaucracies or commerce platforms that otherwise wouldn’t dream of experimenting. Take 2014 ABOG fellow Jody Wood’s project—a mobile van that provided empowering beauty care to homeless people in New York. Or Jackie Sumell, a 2017 fellow, who is creating a “mobile prison abolition unit” that looks to create dialogue between the incarcerated and the wider public. Or Stephanie Dinkins, who is planning to work with people of color to understand how algorithms tend to replicate the biases of society, before ultimately designing a fairer artificial intelligence.

Socially engaged art is always full of contradictions. Its practitioners strive to make an impact—but also tout their ability, and perhaps willingness, to fail. They challenge systems of power—but must work within those systems in order to have real effect. But these points of seeming fissure are actually the source of socially engaged art’s power, not simply as a strategy, but as a form. As Fisher puts it, “Art is a place where we can hold contradictions and tensions.”

—Isaac Kaplan

Cover image: Freeman Word and collaborator. Photo by Julie Kellman.

from Artsy News

[miltlarsen]

Blog #105

It's a beautiful day for a train-ride from Santa Barbara to Burbank.  It’s hard to believe that they are predicting another big storm heading our way this weekend. 

Rain or shine, Terry Hill and I presented the first It’s Magic! Show of the spring season Sunday, February 19 at Santa Barbara’s historic Lobero Theatre. Two really great sold out shows with Jody Baran and Kathleen from Hawaii, Charlie Frye and Company, Kyle and Mistie Knight, Jay Johnson and Juliana Chen.

All shows were staged and directed by Dale Hindman.

The season continues with weekend shows in Performing Arts Centers in Palm Desert, Livermore. Cerritos and Santa Clarita.

 Check out www.itsmagicshow.com for all the information.

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All the lovebirds were out last week for the Magic Castle’s Valentine’s Day celebration.

Arlene and I elected to celebrate at our future Magic Castle Cabaret in Montecito.  We had a great time.  Just the two of us surrounded by a truckload of Architectural Antiques (formerly known as junk) and sawhorses, ladders, plans, etc.   Arlene had spent the day with roofers, plumbers, electricians, inspectors and all those folks that make starting a club so much fun.  We ended up with a romantic lobster dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Moby Dick on Stearns Wharf

 --

If you missed my blog last week, so did I. My Amtrak train to Santa Barbara departs at 3:27 Friday afternoon.  The train station (platform) is located at the Burbank Airport.  

Back when Bill and I were in the Air National Guard the 195th Fighter Squadron was stationed at the Lockheed Air Terminal.  During a really hard rain we referred to it as “Lake Lockheed.”  

At 3:30 last Friday, Empire Boulevard looked lot like a lake again.  Kris Garcia and I got drenched waiting for the train that never came.

 I hitched a ride with Dale Hindman on Saturday.

The Lockheed Air Terminal became the Hollywood Burbank Airport and then it was designated as The Bob Hope airport in 2003 to honor the great comedian who owned about most of Burbank.   In 2016 they changed the name to the Hollywood Burbank Airport.  

After all this incredibly wet weather it’s nice to go the Owl Bar at the Castle and slip into a dry martini.

 On of my favorite Ed Wynn jokes:  He would hold up a big cue card with W-O-E-T-H-E-R in big letters.  Ed: “Do you know what thith is?”

“It’s a bad spell of weather!”

[scottwellsmagic]

510: Day Four - 2019 MAGIC Live! Convention

2019 Convention Schedule - Wednesday August 7, 2019

9:00 a.m. Registration (Kiosk) until 5:30 p.m.

10:00 a.m. General Session for WHITE lanyards (Showroom) until 12:15 p.m.

10:00 a.m Focus Sessions for BLUE lanyards until 11:00 a.m.

The Magic of Making (Dauphine B)

100% Daortiz (Bienville G)

Close-up Clinic (Esplanade L)

11:00 a.m. The Magic Shop (Mardi Gras) until 2:00 p.m.

11:15 a.m. Focus Sessions for BLUE lanyards until 12:15 p.m. (see Focus Session, 10:00 a.m.)

2:15 p.m. General Session for BLUE lanyards (Showroom) until 4:30 p.m.

2:15 p.m. Focus Sessions for WHITE lanyards until 3:15 p.m. (see Focus Session, 10:00 a.m.)

3:30 p.m. Focus Sessions for WHITE lanyards until 4:30 p.m. (see Focus Session, 10:00 a.m.)

Live Tonight!

6:00 until 10:00 p.m. - Exhibit: Guess More Gimmicks! (Dauphine F)

6:30, 9:00 p.m. - Live Onstage!, 90 min. (Showroom)

10:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. - Farewell Party (Mardi Gras)

11:15 p.m. - 2019 Program Handout (Mardi Gras)

11:15 p.m. - 2020 Prizes! (Mardi Gras)

Time Stamps for this podcast:

00:00:17 - Roger Nicot and Christian Shenk from Card Shark talk about what its been like as a dealer here at MAGIC Live

00:10:48 - Master Payne (a former presenter at MAGIC Live!) talks about his favorite parts of this convention

00:20:49 - David Deeble (one of the former Long Beach Mystics and a guest on a previous podcast)

00:23:26 - David Penn from the WizardProduct Review talks about some of the shows on the Strip plus his favorite parts of the convention

00:35:37 - Jonathan Levit (former host of MAGIC Live!) talks about his new app, “The Stranger” which has gone viral.

00:40:50 - Michael Chaut introduces Alex Boyce who is an outstanding young act

00:44:07 - Rory Johnston is one of the main organizers who helps Stan Allen and he talks about some of the challenges of this year’s convention

00:48:46 - Jody Baran is celebrating his 61st birthday. He is joined by James Dimmare as they talk about dove work

01:03:49 - Justin Flom

01:07:20 - Jeff McBride talks about “Guess the Gimmick” game show which he hosted

01:12:56 - Stan Allen wrap up the convention

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