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captainmdhridoyhossain-blog · 1 year

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[ad_1] A March 24 get dressed practice session for "A Knee at the Neck." Entrance, from left: Mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges, Nationwide Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale Track Director Piotr Gajewski, tenor Norman Shankle and baritone Kenneth Overton. In the back of: The Nationwide Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale, joined by means of participants of The Washington Refrain and The Howard College Chorale. Elman Studio/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic disguise caption toggle caption Elman Studio/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic A March 24 get dressed practice session for "A Knee at the Neck." Entrance, from left: Mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges, Nationwide Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale Track Director Piotr Gajewski, tenor Norman Shankle and baritone Kenneth Overton. In the back of: The Nationwide Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale, joined by means of participants of The Washington Refrain and The Howard College Chorale. Elman Studio/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic The demise of George Floyd just about two years in the past precipitated mass protests throughout the United States and around the globe after a video was once shared on-line appearing a white police officer, since convicted of homicide, conserving his knee at the Black guy's neck till he stopped respiring. Composer Adolphus Hailstork and librettist Herbert Martin, each of their 80s, joined forces to create an orchestral paintings supposed for a big refrain and 3 soloists that might pay tribute to Floyd. It premieres Saturday, March 26, on the Track Heart at Strathmore simply out of doors Washington, D.C. The piece, titled "A Knee at the Neck," starts with a "commandment" Black oldsters give to their youngsters: at all times be on their very best conduct to keep away from getting harm, thrown in jail and even killed. To return house in a single piece. Martin and Hailstork each recall these types of stern orders from their very own childhoods – it is a part of the explanation why they have got collaborated for 3 a long time to create lyrical items impressed by means of unusual African-American citizens and ancient figures. "Each and every Black circle of relatives in The united states will have to have had this type of communicate," Martin recollects. "My mom merely mentioned, 'If you happen to pass downtown to do one thing for us, you will have to do that, this and this and this. As a result of I do not know what is going to occur' ... so all of that looked to be welling up within my thoughts." Reflecting that have referred to as for one thing grandiose, given the magnitude of racially motivated violence that has taken innumerable lives in The united states — Floyd, Emmett Until, Daunte Wright, Breonna Taylor. Numerous extra. Participants of the Nationwide Philharmonic Chorale, The Washington Refrain and The Howard College Chorale rehearse Adolphus Hailstork and Herbert Martin's cantata "A Knee at the Neck." Kyle Schick/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic disguise caption toggle caption Kyle Schick/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic Participants of the Nationwide Philharmonic Chorale, The Washington Refrain and The Howard College Chorale rehearse Adolphus Hailstork and Herbert Martin's cantata "A Knee at the Neck." Kyle Schick/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic "It is the dimension of the topic that Herb gave me. It is a large theme," Hailstork says. We are

speaking concerning the taking of a existence, the taking of many lives, and the overall cultural attitudes we've got. There is a little spot within the textual content, Herb says there is a virus going round that is killing other folks and it is really well executed. In fact, everyone's going to be serious about omicron or one thing like that. However no, the virus is the virus of hate and homicide in our tradition. This can be a large theme ... It is a very dramatic rating as a result of he gave me a dramatic piece of writing." There is a raucous opening collection that conjures up bustling Minneapolis, vignettes of African drumming, the Black non secular "O Freedom," cascading vocal passages of Floyd's remaining phrases "I will be able to't breathe," the stillness of demise and, in spite of everything, a hopeful hymn. Dr. Adolphus Hailstork, composer of "A Knee at the Neck," photographed all through a get dressed practice session on March 24. Yassine El Mansouri/Elman Studio/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic disguise caption toggle caption Yassine El Mansouri/Elman Studio/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic Dr. Adolphus Hailstork, composer of "A Knee at the Neck," photographed all through a get dressed practice session on March 24. Yassine El Mansouri/Elman Studio/Courtesy of the Nationwide Philharmonic Along with its personal chorale, the Nationwide Philharmonic might be joined by means of the Washington Refrain, the Howard College Chorale, plus Black soloists J'Nai Bridges, Norman Shankle and Kenneth Overton. "It can be crucial that you simply hold directly to the reminiscence of the ones issues," Martin says, "so you do not repeat those incidents over and again and again. I believe that that is likely one of the primary issues that I would really like other folks to bear in mind and to cross in this reminiscence as they have got skilled it to their relations, to their circle of relatives, to their buddies." The piece ends on a hopeful notice, a imaginative and prescient of a extra absolute best union the place American citizens of all backgrounds and creeds reside in solidarity. "There's a second of common hand-clenching, you may say, no longer fist-clenching, hand outreached in hope that there might be a better sense of peace and appreciate amongst all of the other folks of The united states." [ad_2] #George #Floyd #remembered #choral #paintings #Misleading #Cadence #NPR

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vonquephotographs · 1 year

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The Nude has always been a central subject for the Arts, across mediums and throughout History. Since the start of time, people have used the nude body to symbolise something more than bare nakedness.

However, the delicate and often sexualised images, can be contemporarily potent, significant and stunning. They stand on a fine line, between an artistic representation of the body in all its beauty, and an intrusive image of someone’s stolen intimacy.

Lin Zhipeng, Top of Lily, 2010

(Copyright problem)

Art Historian Kenneth Clark explained how the English Language brilliantly distinguishes between the naked and the nude, “To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition.

The word 'nude', on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenceless body, but of a balanced, prosperous and confident body: the body re-formed."

No matter how similar the meanings are, a significant difference lies between an intrusion and Fine Art Nude Photo. The latter is not an abuse of someone’s image; it is a depiction of their unique essence. The true respect for the person in the nude rests on this fine line. It is all up to the artists ability to...

https://tinyurl.com/2tustaup ✍ read more.

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perry-tannenbaum · 3 years

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The Falling and the Rising Offers a Kaleidoscopic View of the Military Experience

Review: Opera Carolina Presents The Falling and the Rising By Perry Tannenbaum March 11, 2022, Charlotte, NC – Four men give their lives to save just one woman soldier, a woman so severely injured that she must be placed in an induced coma to give her any chance of continued survival or even partial recovery. The math and the logic may not seem to add up unless you’ve served in the military or…

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#Audrey Babcock #Dominic Armstrong #Emily Jarrell Urbanek #Jerre Dye #Kenneth Overton #Melinda Whittington #Michael Baumgarten #Peter Morgan #Sam Mungo #Sandra Levine Theatre #Sarah Belk Gambrell Center #Zach Redler

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uwmspeccoll · 2 years

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Ray Bradbury Birthday Anniversary!

On this day, August 22 in 1920, the great American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury was born just over the Wisconsin border in Waukegan, Illinois. He would go on to become what The New York Times called "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream," with such classics as The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and Fahrenheit 451 (1953). He died in 2012 at the venerable age of 91.

To memorialize Ray Bradbury’s birth, we present some images from a 1983 collection of stories and poems related to the author’s earliest childhood and life-long fascination with dinosaurs in Dinosaur Tales, published by Bantam Books. The collection includes the short stories "Besides A Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?" (1983), "The Fog Horn" (1951), "Tyrannosaurus Rex," originally published as “The Prehistoric Producer” (1962), Bradbury’s classic time-travel, “butterfly effect” story "A Sound of Thunder" (1952), and a new poetic collaboration with the legendary cartoonist Gahan Wilson, "What If I Said: The Dinosaur's Not Dead?" Other illustrations in this book are by William Stout, Steranko, Moebius, Overton Loyd, Kenneth Smith and David Wiesner. Click on the images for the attributions.

Happy Birthday Anniversary, Ray Bradbury!

View a post on Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles.

View other Milestone Monday posts.

#Milestone Monday #birthdays #Ray Bradbury #August 22 #Dinosaur Tales #Bantam Books #illustrated books #Gahan Wilson #William Stout #Moebius #Kenneth Smith #david wiesner #science fiction #fantasy #dinosaurs

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brian-in-finance · 3 years

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Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh on good times, bad times and Belfast

The longtime collaborators discuss shooting their Oscar-tipped new film, set during the Troubles, in the middle of a pandemic

Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh, who first worked together in 1985 © Alan Davidson/Shutterstock

Judi Dench spent a lot of time on TikTok during the first UK lockdown in early 2020, tutored by her grandson and performing hand-jivey dance routines. It would not be her last performance of that year. In the autumn, she travelled to Northern Ireland to act in the coming-of-age drama Belfast. This time her director was Kenneth Branagh. His lockdown had been spent writing the script, a highly personal tale of a young Ulster boy set in 1969, when the Troubles flared into a 30-year tragedy.

Last September, the film premiered to acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. More festival triumphs followed for the rest of 2021 in Toronto, Rome, London and Rio. Now Belfast has become the bookmakers’ favourite to win Best Picture at the Oscars in March and has seven nominations for this weekend’s Golden Globes.

Yet the long stretches of Covid limbo in between have left both Dench and Branagh disoriented. Even this joint interview in central London feels strange, they confess. “My rhythms have gone,” Dench says. “I tell myself, ‘That’s because you’re in your eighties, you stupid old person.’ [She is 87]. But actually, lots of people are wobbling.”

The family in ‘Belfast’: Lewis McAskie as Will, Caitriona Balfe as Ma, Judi Dench as Granny, Jamie Dornan as Pa and Jude Hill as Buddy © Rob Youngson/Focus Features

Branagh, 61, nods energetically. “We’ve had so much uncertainty, all our emotions are right at the surface. I feel bizarrely close to tears a lot now. I said this to Jude only yesterday.”

To each other, Branagh and Dench are Ken and Jude. Their dynamic has the easy double-act bounce of performers at play — and longstanding colleagues. “Too long,” Dench says. Branagh dates their first meeting to 1985 and a glum BBC rehearsal studio nicknamed the North Acton Hilton. “I was 24. I still remember Jude sweeping in, very swish in high suede boots.” (Dench disputes the verb: “I’ve never swept in anywhere.”)

‘Ghosts’ was the first time I saw Jude in the last moments before a scene. She is like an Olympic athlete. Just this utter laser focus — Kenneth Branagh

The production was a TV adaptation of Ghosts by Ibsen (to whom, coincidentally, Dench recently discovered, she is distantly related). She recalls a tale from the set. The director had gathered his cast for a near-silent rehearsal exercise, in line with the play’s grim overtones of syphilitic madness. Moments passed. Then another actor, Michael Gambon, made a deadpan joke about potatoes. “Ken and I went to pieces. Just howling. Neither of us could stop. It was the tension. Until a voice came over the loudspeaker and said ‘Miss Dench and Mr Branagh, you may leave.’ We were literally sent home.”

Even so, there were lessons to be learnt. As Branagh remembers it, “Ghosts was the first time I saw Jude in the last moments before a scene. She is like an Olympic athlete. Just this utter laser focus. I thought ‘Jesus Christ, Ken, forget Michael Gambon’s potatoes, you’ll do well to keep up here.’”

Branagh and Dench with Emma Thompson on the set of TV drama ‘Look Back in Anger’ in 1989 © TV Times/Getty Images

Such is their bond. “We’ve worked together 12 times since,” Dench notes, their collaborations including 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, multiple Shakespeares and playing the Bard and his wife in the 2018 film All Is True. Branagh was already a rising star when they made Ghosts. By 1988, at still only 27, he was directing Dench in his film of Henry V. It won him Oscar nominations as Best Actor and Best Director.

Belfast goes back even further, both social history piece and Branagh origin story. Not everything in it is autobiography; the greater parts are. Like the unnamed family at its centre, his own were Protestants in a Catholic nook within a wider Loyalist enclave as sectarian riots engulfed the city in August 1969. In the movie, the parents of the young hero, Buddy, debate leaving for England. In reality, the Branaghs quit Northern Ireland after the riots. Their middle child was nine when they settled in suburban Reading, 20 miles west of London, young enough to quickly lose his accent. Adult acquaintances have long been surprised to learn he is as much a son of Belfast as George Best or Van Morrison (who wrote the film’s score).

Branagh draws winning performances from his cast: scampish newcomer Jude Hill is his alter-ego; Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe the parents. Dench plays the grandmother, a kitchen-apron matriarch. (“Like Buddha,” Branagh says.) She has fewer actual lines than the other leads. She also makes the whole movie work. The final shot is Dench, a wordless close-up, brilliantly articulate. “I don’t feel in any way that I’m key to the film,” she says with feeling. But the moment reminds you of the complex figure behind the cosy British “national treasure” she is often simplified into: a mischief-maker who once bestrode London in high suede boots (“I should have worn them today”); a Quaker; a precision talent.

For all the proprietary claims made on her by the British media, part of the real Judi Dench remains hers alone. “I don’t want to go into the business of being a Quaker, but it does give you a private, quiet centre.” She gestures to herself and laughs. “Whatever anyone may think of this fluttery thing on the outside.”

From left: Kenneth Branagh, Lewis McAskie, Jude Hill, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan and Caitríona Balfe on the set of ‘Belfast’ © Rob Youngson/Focus Features

Branagh recreated the streets of his childhood for the film © Rob Youngson/Focus Features

When the Belfast riots broke out in 1969, Dench was already a theatrical star. She was also conscious of the looming Troubles. Like Branagh, she is less an icon of Englishness than is sometimes assumed. Her mother was a Dubliner. “Ma was still alive in 1969 and we had relatives in Belfast, so we were very aware of what was happening. When the British troops went in, it was like the start of Covid — people felt it would all be over in three weeks. But I don’t know that I ever thought that.”

When the British troops went in in 1969, it was like the start of Covid — people felt it would all be over in three weeks. — Judi Dench

I ask them both if they are optimistic about peace in Northern Ireland now. Branagh gives a long, heartfelt answer, citing the need to bequeath hope to new generations, lauding the “imperfect miracle” of the Good Friday Agreement, the collective resistance to violence among ordinary people. Dench glances up. “I want to be,” she says.

When she isn’t speaking, Dench sometimes gazes at the floor. She disclosed in 2012 that she was experiencing macular degeneration — the sight loss condition that makes it impossible, for instance, to recognise faces. For some time, she has had to have scripts read to her. So it was with Belfast. Branagh started writing early in the pandemic — reminded, he says, of finite time and aware “there was a story to be told”. His grandmother was transposed from real life as linchpin of the fictional family, and he always wanted Dench to play her. “I hoped something here would frighten Jude. Because she likes to be frightened into playing a character.”

Is this true? “Oh, I’m always fearful,” Dench says. “I used to joke when I was doing plays at the Old Vic in my twenties that this was the one where I was going to be rumbled.” After so many fine performances, what is she afraid of? “Not doing the thing justice.”

Judi Dench with Jude Hill, who stars as Buddy © Rob Youngson/Focus Features

Beyond humour, you sense what really brings her and Branagh together is perfectionism. For Dench, helping a pal make his movie also offered the chance to work with the kind of director she values, “One who tells you to do it better — and Ken can tell you how with a word.”

There was also the simple appeal of a job. In lockdown, Dench found her work ethic nagging at her, without any actual work to occupy it. “I kept thinking: ‘I ought to learn the sonnets.’ Have I learned the sonnets? I have not.” Belfast, she says, was a godsend. “We were all in masks, and because I can’t see now, I was forever starting conversations with the wrong person. But to be part of a unit again — oh, the relief.”

While shooting in 2020 meant frequent tests and colour-coded walkways, a counterintuitive joie de vivre also kicked in. “Precisely because there was such care taken, it meant Covid wasn’t the first thing you thought about.”

Often filming with a skeleton crew, Branagh says making Belfast could feel like friends shooting the breeze. “In fact, we had to spend a lot of money on Covid protocols to achieve that. But it felt appropriate, because the film is about the fragility of community and enjoying the good times. And we were a fragile community, doing just that.”

Now Branagh’s small, personal movie is an awards season heavyweight. Yet despite 40 years of fame, his life away from the camera has been largely kept out of sight. You wonder if he feels exposed now, with something so much like his childhood in front of audiences and Oscar voters. “I’m not a very public person. So it does feel vulnerable-making. But I always felt this story could reach beyond the narrow confines of me.”

In cinemas in the UK and Ireland from January 21 and in US cinemas now

https://www.ft.com/content/051f1c1a-34a7-4ced-b441-1a2f809b1c22

Remember… to each other, Branagh and Dench are Ken and Jude. Their dynamic has the easy double-act bounce of performers at play — and longstanding colleagues. — Financial Times

#Tait rhymes with hat #Good times #BelfastMovie #Financial Times #8 January 2022 #Belfast #Worldwide 2022 #Twitter

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kaitintr2001 · 3 years

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The nude stripped bareThe history of the body DAVID RIMANELLI

‘To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word nude, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone.’ So wrote Kenneth Clark in A Study in Ideal Form. David Rimanelli argues that some artists have blurred this distinction. From Félix Vallotton to John Currin.

Kenneth Clark begins his classic treatise The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form by making a distinction between the naked and the nude: “The English language, with its elaborate generosity, distinguishes between the naked and the nude. To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude’, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous and confident body: the body re-formed.” It has often been asserted that Modernism begins with Manet, in particular with those paintings wherein the vexations of the unclothed female body burst forth with a power of disquietude that appalled the public: Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe 1863 and Olympia 1863. The former picture had been exhibited at the Salon des Refusés, “to that extent, officially beyond the pale of art”, as another Clark – T.J. Clark – remarks in his essay Olympia’s Choice, whereas Olympia was the shocker of the official Salon of 1865. Both paintings display an uncertainty about the status of the nude female figure, an uncertainty that points perhaps towards Kenneth Clark’s distinction between the naked and the nude. These women fail to sustain the idealisation of the nude, slipping decisively into the embarrassing (for some) terrain of the naked. In other words, Manet deprives his models of the acceptable academic veneer of classical nudity, forcing them into the modern age, a naked age, disturbingly and yet ambiguously contemporary.

T.J. Clark continues his analysis by examining the silence of the contemporary Parisian critics concerning the obvious source of Olympia (Titian’s great nude, The Venus of Urbino, 1538), compared with their open acknowledgement of the source for Le Dèjeuner sur l’herbe (a work of Titian that was commonly attributed to Giorgione in the nineteenth century and known as the Fête champêtre, c.1510–11): “Critics certainly came to laugh at its mistakes and incoherences, and yet the best way to do so was to point out what Manet’s picture derived from - and how incompetently… But in 1865 none of this took place. If the revisions of the Venuscould be seen at all, they could not be said.” He goes on to say:”The past was travestied in Olympia: it was subject to a kind of degenerate simian imitation, in which the nude was stripped of its last feminine qualities, its fleshiness, its very humanity, and left as ‘une forme quelconque’ – a rubber-covered gorilla flexing its hand above its crotch.”

The complexity of Clark’s analysis of the reception of Olympia does not bear treatment in a short essay. Suffice to note that a crisis in the depiction of the nude was already, in his view, well underway in the academic nudes of the Salons - the vacuous, silly, trashy Venuses and nymphs of Cabanel, Bouguereau and Gèrôme, to cite only three relatively more distinguished examples – and that the scandal of Olympia was indeed her modernity, a prostitute plainly and unapologetically, rather than a fille de la rue gussied up as Phrynè or Danaë.

Kenneth Clark’s remarks on Olympia are much more modest, but still adumbrate the radical break that Manet’s painting constitutes:”The Olympia is a portrait of an individual, whose interesting but sharply characteristic body is placed exactly where one would expect to find it. Amateurs were thus suddenly reminded of the circumstances under which actual nudity was familiar to them, and their embarrassment is understandable.” Those amateurs would be understandably embarrassed to see nakedness in such familiar circumstances: in a brothel, where they are paying clients.

If the naked and the nude as archetypes stand at the outset of Modernism, then both became thoroughly discredited and disposed of by Modernism’s end. And yet the unclothed figure persisted in certain forms. Félix Vallotton had been a member of the avant-garde Nabis group in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and in such paintings as Femme nue assise dans un fauteuil 1897 and Femmes nues aux chat c.1898 he subjected the nude to the flattening and the unnaturalistic colourations that were also typical of his compeers Bonnard, Denis Sèrusier and Vuillard. But by the first decade of the twentieth century, his nudes begin to change. From the vantage of Modernist criticism and art history, they degenerate, becoming, on the whole, more academic. Yet with hindsight we can discern in Vallotton’s later nudes – and there are many of them – characteristics that render them very contemporary. Nu assis 1910 is stunningly prescient with respect to John Currin’s nudes of the 1990s. This woman looks very much like a stout bourgeoise, and her no-nonsense hairdo attests to her conventional background: no glowing, flowing tresses here, no savage, Baudelairean chevelure . Her face is ordinary, her expression smiling and bland; at best she’s jolie laide. But Vallotton does play oddly with the colouration of her flesh, a hint perhaps of his Nabis past. The flesh tones of the body are those of the morgue, grey and purple; the face, however, looks flushed, reddened, desirous, horny. The Nu assis is a sexed-up corpse, a banal succubus. Were the trappings of the exotic or supernatural more in evidence – as they are, for instance, in the nudes of Gustave Moreau or Fernand Khnopff – Vallotton’s odalisque would appear more acceptable and less disconcerting, because she would belong to a readily identifiable fin-de-siècle feminine typology.

John Curin Bea Arthur Naked 1991 Private collection, courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Vallotton’s Nu assis wreaks havoc on the idealised nude, but she doesn’t quite adhere to Clark’s description of the naked. Instead, wavering between academicism and almost gross realism, she comes off as a sly parody. She appears comfortable and confident in the amplitude of her dead flesh.The Nu allongè au tapis rouge1909 likewise plays fast and loose with the conventions of the nude. Writing of Boucher, Kenneth Clark notes: “The Venus of the dix-huitième extends the range of the nude in one memorable way: far more frequently than any of her sisters, she shows us her back. Looked at simply as form, as relationship of plane and protuberance, it might be argued that the back view of the female body is more satisfactory than the front. That the beauty of this aspect was appreciated in antiquity we know from such a figure as the Venus of Syracuse. But the Hermaphrodite and the Callipygian Venus suggest that it was also symbolic of lust.” In the Nu allongè, Vallotton explicitly alludes to the hermaphroditic figure and the many nudes that borrow its pose; for example,Velásquez’s Rokeby Venus and Boucher’s Miss O’Murphy.”Freshness of desire has seldom been more delicately expressed than by Miss O’Murphy’s round young limbs,” comments Clark with the barest hint of prurience, “as they sprawl with undisguised satisfaction on the cushions of her sofa.” Vallotton’s nude is less fresh, more prurient. As with the Nu assis of the following year, his Nu allongè displays a visual incoherence in the handling of the flesh tones. In this instance, the torso and swelling buttocks are of a mostly chalky white hue, while the face and the hands are curiously flushed. The face and hairstyle again do not suggest the comfortable distance of antique references, but are very much of a contemporary moment.

This is the Venus of a weekday afternoon tryst, a Céleste or Marie of the Parisian banlieues, having just refreshed her maquillage and awaiting her paramour. The face itself is weird, deliquescent; one eye looks like it’s about to slip with slatternly languor from its very socket. Her feet are very heavily shadowed, but the effect is simply that they are dirty.

Vallotton’s loyalty to the nude as subject remains constant until his death in 1925. It comes as no surprise that these paintings have been largely ignored, compared with the works of his Nabis period. Sometimes they are just bad, as with the Vènus marine 1913, a clumsy, ludicrous blond on the half shell, her expression wavering between vacancy and, perhaps, bitchiness. She’s a spoiled mondaine who travesties the goddess she purportedly embodies. But paintings such as this presage the later works of the Modernist agent provocateur Francis Picabia. Indeed, while Vallotton’s later nudes have remained obscure, recently it seems that Picabia’s “bad” figurative paintings of the 1930s and 1940s have achieved a prominence virtually eclipsing his acceptable Dadaist travesties of the teens and 1920s.’Dear Painter, paint me…’, an exhibition mounted at the Centre Pompidou in 2002, bore the subtitle ‘Painting the Figure since late Picabia’. Alison Gingeras, one of the curators, wrote:”Beginning with Francis Picabia’s late nudes from the early 1940s, the question of painting as a filter of mass media’s impact on both individual and collective sense of identity has emerged as a key preoccupation of the artists in the exhibition.” Among them were Sigmar Polke, Martin Kippenberger, Neo Rauch, John Currin, Luc Tuymans and Elizabeth Peyton.”These notorious paintings - shunned for their ‘regression’ into realism and their embrace of kitsch - drew their pictorial source from tawdry black and white photographs culled from soft-core pornography magazines.”Picabia’s Portrait de Suzy Solidor (1933) is an early example of this kitsch revanchism. Anatomically bizarre, his Suzy Solidor, with her heavy blue mascara and smiling, parted red lips, also suspires an unmistakable prurience; the crude, dirty shadows outlining her legs and arms betoken a dirtiness of another sort. Suzy Solidor may yet be recuperated as a Dadaist travesty. The somewhat more competent albeit trashy technique of Femmes au Bulldog, Deux amies and La brune et la blonde (all 1941–2) if anything renders these pictures more scandalous: rude, crude and dangerous to know. Picabia’s lewd nudes may lend a certain contrarian Modernist lineage to the work of John Currin, but one wonders if Currin, so conversant in the art of the Old Masters, is at all familiar with Félix Vallotton? I’ve already mentioned the Nu assis as an extraordinary precursor for Currin’s own “bad” nudes, and I could easily add Le Printemps 1908, an especially ugly and stupid-looking evocation of Primavera. But the most astonishing comparison is between Vallotton’s Etude de fesses c.1884 and Currin’s Bottom 1991. The corporeality of the Vallotton buttocks is almost repulsive as he expends all his resources of painterly technique on the depiction of stretch marks and cellulite. Currin’s painting, on the other hand, seems relatively restrained, evincing an almost Cycladic elegance and symmetry. Scarcely the sort of conclusion one would expect? Even in the case of one of Currin’s most deservedly famous, or notorious, early paintings, Bea Arthur Naked 1991, the sitcom star preserves a certain restraint, dignity even, that militates against the overtly camp/kitsch (or possibly anti-feminist) readings of the picture that so readily come to mind. Perhaps the Arthur portrait is going rather against the grain of the Currin mode, even as it was only coalescing in the early 1990s – the exception that, maybe, proves the rule of perversion. This cannot be said for Vallotton’s nudes – distorted, freakish, moribund and whorish in multifarious variations.

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thelastuniverse · 4 years

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GRAMMYs Awards 2021

GENERAL FIELD

Record Of The Year: ‘EVERYTHING I WANTED’ — Billie Eilish Finneas O’Connell, producer; Rob Kinelski & Finneas O’Connell, engineers/mixers; John Greenham, mastering engineer

Album Of The Year: ‘FOLKLORE’ — Taylor Swift Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner & Taylor Swift, producers; Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, Serban Ghenea, John Hanes, Jonathan Low & Laura Sisk, engineers/mixers; Aaron Dessner & Taylor Swift, songwriters; Randy Merrill, mastering engineer

Song Of The Year: ‘I CAN’T BREATHE’ — Dernst Emile II, H.E.R. & Tiara Thomas, songwriters (H.E.R.)

Best New Artist: Megan Thee Stallion

POP

Best Pop Solo Performance: ‘WATERMELON SUGAR’ — Harry Styles

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance: ‘RAIN ON ME’ — Lady Gaga with Ariana Grande

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album: ‘AMERICAN STANDARD’ — James Taylor

Best Pop Vocal Album: ‘FUTURE NOSTALGIA’ — Dua Lipa

DANCE/ELECTRONIC MUSIC

Best Dance Recording: ‘10%’ — Kaytranada Featuring Kali Uchis Kaytranada, producer; Neal H. Pogue, mixer

Best Dance/Electronic Album: ‘BUBBA’ — Kaytranada

CONTEMPORARY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

Best Contemporary Instrumental Album: ‘LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL’ — Snarky Puppy

ROCK

Best Rock Performance: ‘SHAMEIKA’ — Fiona Apple

Best Metal Performance: ‘BUM-RUSH’ — Body Count

Best Rock Song: ‘STAY HIGH’ — Brittany Howard, songwriter (Brittany Howard)

Best Rock Album: ‘THE NEW ABNORMAL’ — The Strokes

ALTERNATIVE

Best Alternative Music Album: ‘FETCH THE BOLT CUTTERS’ — Fiona Apple

R&B

Best R&B Performance: ‘BLACK PARADE’ — Beyoncé

Best Traditional R&B Performance: ‘ANYTHING FOR YOU’ — Ledisi

Best R&B Song: ‘BETTER THAN I IMAGINED’ — Robert Glasper, Meshell Ndegeocello & Gabriella Wilson, songwriters (Robert Glasper Featuring H.E.R. & Meshell Ndegeocello)

Best Progressive R&B Album: ‘IT IS WHAT IT IS’ — Thundercat

Best R&B Album: ‘BIGGER LOVE’ — John Legend

RAP

Best Rap Performance: ‘SAVAGE ‘— Megan Thee Stallion Featuring Beyoncé

Best Melodic Rap Performance: ‘LOCKDOWN’ — Anderson .Paak

Best Rap Song: ‘SAVAGE’ — Beyoncé, Shawn Carter, Brittany Hazzard, Derrick Milano, Terius Nash, Megan Pete, Bobby Session Jr., Jordan Kyle Lanier Thorpe & Anthony White, songwriters (Megan Thee Stallion Featuring Beyoncé)

Best Rap Album: ‘KING’S DISEASE’ — Nas

COUNTRY

Best Country Solo Performance: ‘WHEN MY AMY PRAYS’ — Vince Gill

Best Country Duo/Group Performance: ‘10,000 HOURS’ — Dan + Shay & Justin Bieber

Best Country Song: ‘CROWDED TABLE’ — Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby & Lori McKenna, songwriters (The Highwomen)

Best Country Album: ‘WILDCARD’ — Miranda Lambert

NEW AGE

Best New Age Album: ‘MORE GUITAR STORIES’ — Jim “Kimo” West

JAZZ

Best Improvised Jazz Solo: ‘ALL BLUES’ — Chick Corea, soloist Track from: Trilogy 2 (Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian Blade)

Best Jazz Vocal Album: ‘SECRETS ARE THE BEST STORIES’ — Kurt Elling Featuring Danilo Pérez

Best Jazz Instrumental Album: ‘TRILOGY 2’ — Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian Blade

Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album: ‘DATA LORDS’ — Maria Schneider Orchestra

Best Latin Jazz Album: ‘FOUR QUESTIONS’ — Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra

GOSPEL/CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN MUSIC

Best Gospel Performance/Song: ‘MOVIN’ ON’ — Jonathan McReynolds & Mali Music; Darryl L. Howell, Jonathan Caleb McReynolds, Kortney Jamaal Pollard & Terrell Demetrius Wilson, songwriters

Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song: ‘THERE WAS JESUS’ — Zach Williams & Dolly Parton; Casey Beathard, Jonathan Smith & Zach Williams, songwriters

Best Gospel Album: ‘GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PJ’ — PJ Morton

Best Contemporary Christian Music Album: ‘JESUS IS KING’ — Kanye West

Best Roots Gospel Album: ‘CELEBRATING FISK! (THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY ALBUM)’ — Fisk Jubilee Singers

LATIN

Best Latin Pop or Urban Album: ‘YHLQMDLG’ — Bad Bunny

Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album: ‘LA CONQUISTA DEL ESPACIO’ —Fito Paez

Best Regional Mexican Music Album (Including Tejano): ‘UN CANTO POR MÉXICO, VOL. 1’ — Natalia Lafourcade

Best Tropical Latin Album: ‘40’ — Grupo Niche

AMERICAN ROOTS MUSIC

Best American Roots Performance: ‘I REMEMBER EVERYTHING’ — John Prine

Best American Roots Song: ‘I REMEMBER EVERYTHING’ — Pat McLaughlin & John Prine, songwriters (John Prine)

Best Americana Album: ‘WORLD ON THE GROUND’ — Sarah Jarosz

Best Bluegrass Album: ‘HOME’ — Billy Strings

Best Traditional Blues Album: ‘RAWER THAN RAW’ — Bobby Rush

Best Contemporary Blues Album: ‘HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND YET?’ —Fantastic Negrito

Best Folk Album: ‘ALL THE GOOD TIMES’ — Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Best Regional Roots Music Album: ‘ATMOSPHERE’ — New Orleans Nightcrawlers

REGGAE

Best Reggae Album: ‘GOT TO BE TOUGH’ — Toots & The Maytals

GLOBAL MUSIC

Best Global Music Album: ‘TWICE AS TALL’ — Burna Boy

CHILDREN’S

Best Children’s Music Album: ‘ALL THE LADIES’ — Joanie Leeds

SPOKEN WORD

Best Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Storytelling): ‘BLOWOUT: CORRUPTED DEMOCRACY, ROGUE STATE RUSSIA, AND THE RICHEST, MOST DESTRUCTIVE INDUSTRY ON EARTH’ — Rachel Maddow

COMEDY

Best Comedy Album: ‘BLACK MITZVAH’ — Tiffany Haddish

MUSICAL THEATER

Best Musical Theater Album: ‘JAGGED LITTLE PILL’ — Kathryn Gallagher, Celia Rose Gooding, Lauren Patten & Elizabeth Stanley, principal soloists; Neal Avron, Pete Ganbarg, Tom Kitt, Michael Parker, Craig Rosen & Vivek J. Tiwary, producers (Glen Ballard, composer; Alanis Morissette, composer & lyricist) (Original Broadway Cast)

MUSIC FOR VISUAL MEDIA

Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media: ‘JOJO RABBIT’ — (Various Artists) Taika Waititi, compilation producer

Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media: ‘JOKER’ — Hildur Guðnadóttir, composer

Best Song Written For Visual Media: ‘NO TIME TO DIE [FROM NO TIME TO DIE]’ — Billie Eilish O’Connell & Finneas Baird O’Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish)

COMPOSING/ARRANGING

Best Instrumental Composition: ‘SPUTNIK’ — Maria Schneider, composer (Maria Schneider)

Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella: ‘DONNA LEE’ — John Beasley, arranger (John Beasley)

Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals: ‘HE WON’T HOLD YOU’ —Jacob Collier, arranger (Jacob Collier Featuring Rapsody)

PACKAGE

Best Recording Package: ‘VOLS. 11 & 12’ — Doug Cunningham & Jason Noto, art directors (Desert Sessions)

Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package: ‘ODE TO JOY’ — Lawrence Azerrad & Jeff Tweedy, art directors (Wilco)

NOTES

Best Album Notes: ‘DEAD MAN’S POP’ — Bob Mehr, album notes writer (The Replacements)

HISTORICAL

Best Historical Album: ‘IT’S SUCH A GOOD FEELING: THE BEST OF MISTER ROGERS’ — Lee Lodyga & Cheryl Pawelski, compilation producers; Michael Graves, mastering engineer (Mister Rogers)

PRODUCTION, NON-CLASSICAL

Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical: ‘HYPERSPACE’ — Drew Brown, Julian Burg, Andrew Coleman, Paul Epworth, Shawn Everett, Serban Ghenea, David Greenbaum, John Hanes, Beck Hansen, Jaycen Joshua, Greg Kurstin, Mike Larson, Cole M.G.N., Alex Pasco & Matt Wiggins, engineers; Randy Merrill, mastering engineer (Beck)

Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical: ANDREW WATT

• Break My Heart (Dua Lipa) (T) • Me And My Guitar (A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie) (T) • Midnight Sky (Miley Cyrus) (S) • Old Me (5 Seconds Of Summer) (T) • Ordinary Man (Ozzy Osbourne Featuring Elton John) (T) • Take What You Want (Post Malone Featuring Ozzy Osbourne & Travis Scott) (T) • Under The Graveyard (Ozzy Osbourne) (T)

Best Remixed Recording: ‘ROSES (IMANBEK REMIX)’ — Imanbek Zeikenov, remixer (SAINt JHN)

PRODUCTION, IMMERSIVE AUDIO

Best Immersive Audio Album: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Best Immersive Audio Album Craft Committee was unable to meet. The judging of the entries in this category has been postponed until such time that we are able to meet in a way that is appropriate to judge the many formats and configurations of the entries and is safe for the committee members. The nominations for the 63rd GRAMMYs will be announced next year in addition to (and separately from) the 64th GRAMMY nominations in the category

PRODUCTION, CLASSICAL

Best Engineered Album, Classical: ‘SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO. 13, ‘BABI YAR’ — David Frost & Charlie Post, engineers; Silas Brown, mastering engineer (Riccardo Muti & Chicago Symphony Orchestra)

Producer Of The Year, Classical: DAVID FROST

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 9 (Jonathan Biss) • Gershwin: Porgy And Bess (David Robertson, Frederick Ballentine, Angel Blue, Denyce Graves, Latonia Moore, Eric Owens, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus) • Gluck: Orphée & Eurydice (Harry Bicket, Dmitry Korchak, Andriana Chuchman, Lauren Snouffer, Lyric Opera Of Chicago Orchestra & Chorus) • Holst: The Planets; The Perfect Fool (Michael Stern & Kansas City Symphony) • Muhly: Marnie (Robert Spano, Isabel Leonard, Christopher Maltman, Denyce Graves, Iestyn Davies, Janis Kelly, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus) • Schubert: Piano Sonatas, D. 845, D. 894, D. 958, D. 960 (Shai Wosner) • Shostakovich: Symphony №13, ‘Babi Yar’ (Riccardo Muti, Alexey Tikhomirov, Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus)

CLASSICAL

Best Orchestral Performance: ‘IVES: COMPLETE SYMPHONIES’ — Gustavo Dudamel, conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic)

Best Opera Recording: ‘GERSHWIN: PORGY AND BESS’ — David Robertson, conductor; Frederick Ballentine, Angel Blue, Denyce Graves, Latonia Moore & Eric Owens; David Frost, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)

Best Choral Performance: ‘DANIELPOUR: THE PASSION OF YESHUAH’ — JoAnn Falletta, conductor; James K. Bass & Adam Luebke, chorus masters (James K. Bass, J’Nai Bridges, Timothy Fallon, Kenneth Overton, Hila Plitmann & Matthew Worth; Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus & UCLA Chamber Singers)

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance: ‘CONTEMPORARY VOICES’ — Pacifica Quartet

Best Classical Instrumental Solo: ‘THEOFANIDIS: CONCERTO FOR VIOLA AND CHAMBER ORCHESTRA’ — Richard O’Neill; David Alan Miller, conductor (Albany Symphony)

Best Classical Solo Vocal Album: ‘SMYTH: THE PRISON’ — Sarah Brailey & Dashon Burton; James Blachly, conductor (Experiential Chorus; Experiential Orchestra)

Best Classical Compendium: ‘THOMAS, M.T.: FROM THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK & MEDITATIONS ON RILKE’— Isabel Leonard; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; Jack Vad, producer

Best Contemporary Classical Composition: ‘ROUSE: SYMPHONY NO. 5’ — Christopher Rouse, composer (Giancarlo Guerrero & Nashville Symphony)

MUSIC VIDEO/FILM

Best Music Video: ‘BROWN SKIN GIRL’ — Beyoncé, Blue Ivy & WizKid , Beyoncé Knowles-Carter & Jenn Nkiru, video directors; Astrid Edwards, Aya Kaida, Jean Mougin, Nathan Scherrer & Erinn Williams, video producers

Best Music Film: ‘LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE’ — Linda Ronstadt, Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman, video directors; Michele Farinola & James Keach, video producers

#grammys #grammys awards #Awards #2021

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antigonick · 4 years

Note

Do you know of any poetry reminiscent of Brideshead? Hot carefree summers? Religious overtones? Perfect youthful love?

Thank god for your description ‘cause this is not how I’d have described Brideshead. Off the top of my head though, your message makes me think of Odysseus Elytis (I love Kimon Friar’s translation of The Sovereign Sun, for example), Kenneth Rexroth’s The Love Poems (especially When We With Sappho), Andal’s mystic poetry (translated by Priya Sarrukai Chabria & Ravi Shankar in Autobiography of a Goddess), Mary Oliver’s Felicity, Anne Carson’s Plainwater, Louise Glück’s The Triumph of Achilles (though it is more about nostalgia than carefreeness), and @boykeats’ beautiful poetry.

#book recs #whisperers

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bookiemonsterph · 3 years

Text

Geekerella

Synopsis:

Cinderella goes to the con in this fandom-fueled twist on the classic fairy tale romance—now in paperback, with a special Starfield bonus scene!

Part romance, part love letter to nerd culture, and all totally adorbs, Geekerella is a fairy tale for anyone who believes in the magic of fandom. Geek girl Elle Wittimer lives and breathes Starfield, the classic sci-fi series she grew up watching with her late father. So when she sees a cosplay contest for a new Starfield movie, she has to enter. The prize? An invitation to the ExcelsiCon Cosplay Ball, and a meet-and-greet with the actor slated to play Federation Prince Carmindor in the reboot. With savings from her gig at the Magic Pumpkin food truck (and her dad’s old costume), Elle’s determined to win…unless her stepsisters get there first.

Teen actor Darien Freeman used to live for cons—before he was famous. Now they’re nothing but autographs and awkward meet-and-greets. Playing Carmindor is all he’s ever wanted, but the Starfield fandom has written him off as just another dumb heartthrob. As ExcelsiCon draws near, Darien feels more and more like a fake—until he meets a girl who shows him otherwise.

Title: Geekerella Series: Once Upon A Con Author: Ashley Poston ISBN: 1594749477 (ISBN13: 9781683690436) Pages: 336 pages (Paperback) Published: May 15th 2018 by Quirk Books (first published April 4th 2017) Characters: Catherine (Once Upon a Con), Chloe, Calliope Wittimer, Gail Morgan O'Sullivan, Sage Graven, Darien Freeman, Danielle "Elle" Wittimer Setting: Charleston, South Carolina (United States). Atlanta, Georgia (United States) Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Retellings

When I saw that Ashley Poston’s Geekerella was being marketed categorically as “romance,” I got nervous. However, I don’t remember that last time I was so pleasantly surprised by a young adult book — of any genre! I laughed! I cried! I loved!

From start, Poston’s latest is entertaining, heart-felt, and good fun. Geekerella is a stellar combination of Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl and the 2004 Cinderella Story film (but this time without the hassle of flip phones). Told from the points of view of Starfield-fan girl Elle and Starfield-lead actor Darien Freeman, the narrative leads us through both characters’ emotions, misgivings, experiences, and trials. While Elle’s introduction of Darien — teen soap opera star until his latest gig — is scathing, judgmental, and minimalist, our glimpse into Darien’s world shows strained relationships, terrifyingly overzealous fans, and constant low self-esteem. Elle’s point of view, on the other hand, portrays a young woman between a rock and a hard place (not yet 18-years-old, she can’t leave her stepmother) whose love for and faith in a TV show both inspires her and is very recognizable for other fangirl readers. Plus, she has the best comebacks and makes jokes about being short, and I loved her for all of it.

Geekerella also constructs a sharp-eyed but refreshing modern rendition (reboot, even, if you will) of the classic fairy tale “Cinderella.” In our world, Poston posits, how would a “wicked stepmother” act? How would Cinderella respond? While it has been touched on previously, especially following Kenneth Branagh’s 2015 live-action Cinderella, this version of the story highlights the aspects of verbal and emotional abuse to which the archetypal character is subjected by her only remaining family. In Elle’s case, her stepmother isolates her, blames her, and ridicules her every decision. In the face of this, however, Elle perseveres with the help of Starfield and her own determination to leave when she turns 18. Since this is my favorite fairy tale — the Disney 1950 attempt notwithstanding — Poston’s take was clever, revealing, refreshing, and uplifting in its refusal to look away from these pertinent overtones in the original tale.

Similarly, Geekerella brings the phenomenon of fandom to brilliant life. As a relatively closeted fangirl, Poston’s characters and story made me want to make my geek flag fly a little higher. First, both Elle and Darien are never-ending fonts of nerdy references, trivia, and sayings; all of the above had me laughing out loud several times. Second, in this story, I found, for the first time, all the reasons I tend to gravitate toward fan fiction: It’s a retelling of a favorite story. It follows a budding relationship with all its cute ups and heart-crushing downs. Its female characters are kickass in so many ways and Darien is adorable and devoted. It features a diverse cast — POC and LGBTQ+ characters stand out — that portrays said identities not as distinct or special or noteworthy, but matter of course and a part of the character rather than shock-value. Lastly, its romance is heartwarming, all-consuming, and, dare I say it, cute. Deviating from typical romance plots, Geekerella is not run by the Fate-like wheel of All-Powerful Angst. Instead, Elle and Darien’s relationship, while it has its pitfalls and fights, epitomizes the “pleasant” and “comforting to read” characteristics of what fangirls and boys refer to as “fluff,” complete with lots of adorably “shameless flirting” (like, Darien is so bad at flirting he’s good wow). This genre form of fan fiction is, as mentioned above, often a comfort read, bordering on cathartic, as Geekerella was for me. (Yes, my skin has cleared; my crops are flourishing; and I’m ready to defeat evil aliens and wicked stepmothers, at the same time if need be.)

A story of devotion to and confidence in love, memories, stories, and ourselves, Geekerella revamps the typical “Cinderella” story with fangirling, texting, and selling vegan chimichangas. Poston’s latest young adult book gives insight into self-confidence and self-love for readers of every gender and sexuality. With adorable characters you want to carry around in your pocket and a unique level of diverse representation, Geekerella is a must-read for book, movie, and TV show geeks alike. A final endorsement: This book made my laugh and cry and flail and make ridiculous noises resembling overwhelmed squeaks. I could not put Poston’s Geekerella down!

#once upon a con #geekerella #ashley poston

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theshadowbastard · 4 years

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The Top 8 Frankenstein Movies

8. Victor Frankenstein (2015)

This movie got a pasting from critics upon release, but I couldn’t care less, because I had a ball watching this. Mainly designed as a showcase for the stars Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy, the result isn’t exactly highbrow cinema but if you’re looking for a fun trip filled with hammy acting, overwrought (and overwritten) dialogue, and some pretty neat special effects, you could do a lot worse.

7. Son of Frankenstein (1939)

Of the 7 movies made by Universal Studios featuring the Frankenstein monster between 1931 and 1948, only the first three are really worth your time, and of those the third film, Son of Frankenstein, is easily the weakest, but it’s not without its strengths, mostly in the form of the performances of Basil Rathbone as the titular sire and especially Bela Lugosi as the malignant Ygor. The infamous star of Dracula is all but unrecognizable under a brilliant makeup design, and gives a magical performance that’s about as far removed from Dracula as anything he ever did. The big downside of Son is the monster himself, who is barely in the film and spends most of it lying motionless on a table. Boris Karloff turned 50 while shooting, and decided to never play the creature he made famous again after this flawed but fun film.

6. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)

As the title implies, this is a (fairly) faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s original novel, and while a lot of the subtext of the story is lost beneath the weight of director and star Kenneth Branaugh’s ego and abs, the movie has a captivating quality and is gorgeously shot, and Robert DeNiro turns in a surprisingly nuanced and emotional performance as Victor’s patchwork creation. It’s a little oversexed and too self-consciously operatic at times, but it’s still one of the better stabs at bringing the actual text to the screen, even with the ridiculous electric eels.

5. Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

Hammer studios made a bunch of Frankenstein movies throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, and while none of them ever quite managed to capture the spirit of their first, they came up with some clever ideas, and none more so than the bizarre, inspirational, ingenious and insane Frankenstein Created Woman, a film that dares to ask the question “So you figured out how to bring the dead back to life--what next?” The answers this film explores are chilling, awe-inspiring, horrific and at times borderline blasphemous in their implications. And while it’s not a perfect film (two minds/souls in the same body gets kind of confusing), it’s compelling ideas and strong performances more than compensate.

4. Young Frankenstein (1974)

Mel Brooks’ loving tribute to the Universal Frankenstein films might be in it for the laughs (”SAID-A-GIVE?!”), but at it’s heart is a keen understanding of the themes of the Frankenstein story and why they’ve worked so well for so long. The cast is perfect, with each character instantly hilarious and iconic, from Marty Feldman’s endlessly-quotable Igor to Gene Wilder’s over-the-top Frederick Fronkonsteen to Cloris Leechman’s masterclass in comedic timing as Frau Blucher, but the real standout is Peter Boyle as the monster, who is quite possibly second only to Boris Karloff as the most effective Frankenstein monster we’ve ever seen.

3. Frankenstein (1931)

It was not the first Frankenstein movie (there were a couple of silent shorts), but it was the first that mattered; the one that change the whole game. Crackling electrical lab equipment, thunderstorms, grave robbing, grisly murders, blasphemous implications and truly inspired performances--audiences of the time had never seen anything like this, and the movie was a box office sensation that led to a whole slew of horror and gothic-themed movies in the early 1930s. James Whale’s direction is clever, creative and just unusual enough to make the movie still a lot of fun to watch today. Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein is superb, giving us a nuanced and relatable Frankenstein that gets to speak what is arguably the most famous line in horror movie history (”IT’S ALIVE!”). The sets and cinematography are stunning, cementing the “Hollywood Gothic” style that would dominate horror cinema for the next three decades, and the special effects were striking for their time. But standing above it all was Boris Karloff’s shocking, heartbreaking, horrifying, unparalleled performance as the Monster. Overnight the heretofore little-known actor became a star and, with the help of a once-in-a-generation makeup job from the legendary Jack Pierce, set in stone the image of the Frankenstein monster that would stick in the public consciousness for all time.

2. Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Legend has it that Universal Studios sent a letter to the heads of Hammer Films that essentially said, “If you do ANYTHING that even remotely resembles our Frankenstein movie, we’ll see you Brits in court.” But Hammer had entirely different ambitions, choosing to ditch the look, style, and structure of the Universal movies entirely in favor of something much darker, more disturbing, and infinitely more violent. While the classic Frankenstein movies of the 30s and 40s focused on the misadventures of the monster, Hammer chose to focus on the titular mad doctor. This might have seemed like strange choice at the time, considering the rather bland parade of various Dr. Frankensteins we’d seen in the Universal films, but actor writer Jimmy Sangster, director Terrence Fischer, and especially actor Peter Cushing went for something completely different. Cushing’s Victor Frankenstein is nothing less than a vile, contemptible bastard, remorselessly murdering people for spare parts for his pathetic monster; a monster who is killed and brought back to life several times over, and used by the villainous doctor as a tool to dispatch his enemies and those who threaten his work. This film took the conventions of the Frankenstein story audiences were then used to and knifed them in the face, and the result was a spectacular success with people lining up around the block to see this new level of ghoulish and bloody horror. Throw out everything you think you know about the Frankenstein story and give this one a spin, if you’ve got the stomach for it.

1. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Seriously, what else was it gonna be? Let’s be honest here--horror sequels are usually crap. Quickly churned out to make an even quicker buck, they’re rarely worth the film they’re shot on and very few are anywhere near as good as the original. However, the only one that actually might be better that the original is the simply unique Bride of Frankenstein. Whole books have been written about this movie, and to be honest there’s simply too much to talk about. The themes of blasphemy. The homosexual overtones. The Faustian narrative about death and damnation. The incredible performance of Ernest Thesiger as Doctor Pretorious. The monster’s dialogue (”Friend...good!”) The design of the titular Bride that kicked off a fashion craze. Franz Waxman’s angelic soundtrack. Any one of these topics is worth an essay all by themselves, but for me what really makes Bride a masterpiece is simply its heart. No other film has explored the tragedy of the Frankenstein story as effectively as this, and no other film gets its moral message through as clearly: it’s the simpler things in life, like love and friendship that are truly important, and while the pursuit of knowledge may be a worth endeavor, those who pursue it to whatever evil and horrifying end are far more monstrous than any stitched-together being they shock into life.

#frankenstein #movies #horror #halloween #boris karloff #peter cushing

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surrealistnyc · 4 years

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A Spark in Search of a Powderkeg

Rebellion is its own justification, completely independent of the chance it has to modify the state of affairs that gives rise to it. It’s a spark in the wind, but a spark in search of a powder keg.

André Breton

If only one thing has brought me joy in the last few weeks, it began when the matriarchs at Unist’ot’en burned the Canadian flag and declared reconciliation is dead. Like wildfire, it swept through the hearts of youth across the territories. Reconciliation was a distraction, a way for them to dangle a carrot in front of us and trick us into behaving. Do we not have a right to the land stolen from our ancestors? It’s time to shut everything the fuck down!

Tawinikay (aka Southern Wind Woman)

The toxic cargo carried in Canadian pipelines, whether it be tar sands oil or fracked liquid natural gas (LNG), is, according to all serious climate scientists, a major, perhaps even decisive contribution to global warming, i.e. ecological catastrophe. Meant to fuel industrial expansion, the pipelines have themselves become fuel for revolt. Designed to move these dirty fossil fuels from one location to another, they are a crucial element in normalizing the dubious paradise of unlimited growth in awe of which all obedient consumer/citizens are supposed to genuflect. In what the colonial mapmakers have called British Columbia (BC), resource extraction has always been the name of the game. However, the emergence in February of this year of a widespread oppositional network ranging from “land back” Indigenous warriors to elder traditionalists and from Extinction Rebellion activists to anarchist insurrectionaries was heartening. Railways, highways and ferries were blockaded, provincial legislatures, government administrative offices, banks and corporate headquarters were occupied. The catalyst for this rebellion was a widespread Indigenous uprising that refused the illusory promises of reconciliation. Together, these rebel forces disrupted business as usual in solidarity with the Unist’ot’en Big Frog clan of the Wet’suwet’en tribal house.

As objective chance would have it, the primary Indigenous land defense camp is situated not far from the same Hazelton, B.C. area to which surrealist Kurt Seligmann and his wife Arlette had journeyed in 1938. During that time, they visited Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en villages, marveled at the imaginative power of the totem poles and ceremonial objects, made field notes, shot 16mm film, collected stories and recorded mythic histories. Now, in 2020, growing numbers of these same Indigenous peoples have been threatening to bring the Canadian economy to a grinding halt. Unwilling to be bought off by corporate petrodollars or mollified by a legal system that has never done anything but pacify, brutalize, or betray them in the process of stealing their land, Indigenous peoples passionately fought back against the forces of colonial law and order in a radical whirlwind of willful disobedience and social disruption. One action built upon another in creating a rolling momentum that seemed unstoppable. When one railroad blockade would be busted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), another would spring up in its place elsewhere extending the frontlines of the battle all across the continent. Then the debilitating Covid-19 virus arrived to compound the damage that had previously been done to the capitalist economy by the incendiary virus of revolt. The resistance of these Indigenous communities against the pipelines concerns all of us, worldwide, since they are on the front lines of the struggle to prevent cataclysmic climate change.

In the future, a key question will be whether Canadian authorities can successfully put the genie of Indigenous rebellion back in the colonial bottle of “reconciliation”. As surrealists, we hope they will not, and we stand in solidarity with the unreconciled insurgent spirit of defiant Indigenous resistance. A new reality is to be invented and lived instead of the one that today as yesterday imposes its environmental miserabilism and its colonialist and racist hierarchies. As surrealists, we honor our historical affinity with the Kwakwaka’wakw Peace Dance headdress that for so long had occupied a place of reverence in André Breton’s study during his lifetime before being ceremoniously returned in 2003 to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island by his daughter, Aube Elléouet, in keeping with her father’s wishes. With this former correspondence in mind, we presently assert that our ongoing desire to manifest the emancipation of the human community as distinctively undertaken in the surrealist domain of intervention is in perfect harmony with the fight of the Indigenous communities of the Americas against globalized Western Civilisation and its ecocidal folly.

Surrealists in the United States: Gale Ahrens, Will Alexander, Andy Alper, Byron Baker, J.K. Bogartte, Eric Bragg, Thom Burns, Max Cafard, Casi Cline, Steven Cline, Jennifer Cohen, Laura Corsiglia, David Coulter, Jean-Jacques Dauben, Rikki Ducornet, Terri Engels, Barrett John Erickson, Alice Farley, Natalia Fernandez, Brandon Freels, Beth Garon, Paul Garon, Robert Green, Maurice Greenia, Brigitte Nicole Grice, Janice Hathaway, Dale Houstman, Karl Howeth, Joseph Jablonski, Timothy Robert Johnson, Robin D.G. Kelly, Paul McRandle, Irene Plazewska, Theresa Plese, Michael Stone-Richards, David Roediger, Penelope Rosemont, LaDonna Smith, Tamara Smith, Steve Smith, Abigail Susik, Sasha Vlad, Richard Waara, Joel Williams, Craig S. Wilson

Surrealists in the UK: Jay Blackwood, Paul Cowdell, Jill Fenton, Rachel Fijalkowski, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Merl Fluin, Kathy Fox, Lorna Kirin, Rob Marsden, Douglas Park, Michel Remy, Wedgwood Steventon, Frank Wright, the Leeds Surrealist Group (Gareth Brown, Stephen J. Clark, Kenneth Cox, Luke Dominey, Amalia Higham, Bill Howe, Sarah Metcalf, Peter Overton, Jonathan Tarry, Martin Trippett), the London Surrealist Group (Stuart Inman, Philip Kane, Timothy B. Layden, Jane Sparkes, Darren Thomas) and the surrealists of Wales (Jean Bonnin, Neil Combs, David Greenslade, Jeremy Over, John Richardson, John Welson)

Surrealists in Paris: Ody Saban and The Surrealist Group of Paris (Elise Aru, Michèle Bachelet, Anny Bonnin, Massimo Borghese, Claude-Lucien Cauët, Taisiia Cherkasova, Sylwia Chrostowska, Hervé Delabarre, Alfredo Fernandes, Joël Gayraud, Régis Gayraud, Guy Girard, Michael Löwy, Pierre-André Sauvageot, Bertrand Schmitt, Sylvain Tanquerel, Virginia Tentindo, Michel Zimbacca)

Surrealists in Canada: Montréal (Jacques Desbiens, Peter Dube, Sabatini Lasiesta, Bernar Sancha), Toronto (Beatriz Hausner, Sherri Higgins), Québec City (David Nadeau), Victoria (Erik Volet), the Ottawa Surrealist Group (Jason Abdelhadi, Lake, Patrick Provonost) and the Inner Island Surrealist Group (as.matta, Jesse Gentes, Sheila Nopper, Ron Sakolsky)

The Surrealist Group of Madrid: Eugenio Castro, Andrés Devesa, Jesús Garcia Rodriguez, Vicente Gutiérrez Escudero, Lurdes Martinez, Noé Ortega, Antonio Ramirez, Jose Manuel Rojo, María Santana, Angel Zapata

Surrealists in Sweden: Johannes Bergmark, Erik Bohman, Kalle Eklund, Mattias Forshage, Riyota Kasamatsu, Michael Lundberg, Emma Lundenmark, Maja Lundgren, Kristoffer Noheden, Sebastian Osorio

Surrealists in Holland: Jan Bervoets, Elizé Bleys, Josse De Haan, Rik Lina, Hans Plomp, Pieter Schermer, Wijnand Steemers, Laurens Vancrevel, Her de Vries, Bastiaan Van der Velden

Surrealists in Brazil: Alex Januario, Mário Aldo Barnabé, Diego Cardoso, Elvio Fernandes, Beau Gomez, Rodrigo Qohen, Sergio Lima, Natan Schäfer, Renato Souza

Surrealists in Chile: Jaime Alfaro, Magdalena Benavente, Jorge Herrera F., Miguel Ángel Huerta, Ximena Olguín, Enrique de Santiago, Andrés Soto, Claudia Vila

The Middle East and North Africa Surrealist Group: Algeria (Onfwan Foud), Egypt (Yasser Abdelkawy, Mohsen El-Belasy, Ghadah Kamal), Iraq (Miechel Al Raie), Syria (Tahani Jalloul), and Palestine (Fakhry Ratrout)

Surrealists in Prague: Frantisek Dryje, Joe Grim Feinberg, Katerina Pinosova, Martin Stejskal, Jan Svankmajer

The Athens Surrealist Group (Elias Melios, Sotiris Liontos, Nikos Stabakis, Theoni Tambaki, Thomas Typaldos, Marianna Xanthopoulou)

Surrealists in Costa Rica: Gaetano Andreoni, Amirah Gazel, Miguel Lohlé, Denis Magarman, Alfonso Peña

Surrealists in Buenos Aires: Silvia Guiard, Luís Conde, Alejandro Michel

Surrealists in Australia: Anthony Redmond, Michael Vandelaar, Tim White

Surrealists in Portugal: Miguel de Carvalho, Luiz Morgadinho

Surrealists in Bucharest (Dan Stanciu), Mexico (Susana Wald), and the Canary Islands (Jose Miguel Perez Corales)

Postscript: During the process of gathering signatures for the above declaration, we were inspired to see its uncompromising stance against white supremacy and police repression reflected in the brightly sparkling flames of the Minneapolis uprising that lit a powder keg of pent-up rage and incited an earth-shaking eruption of spontaneous rebellion in the streets of America. It was only fitting that in solidarity with the uprising about police brutality kicked off by George Floyd’s execution/lynching at the hands of the police, anti-racism protestors in the United States would take direct action by beheading or bringing down statues of Christopher Columbus, genocidal symbol of the colonial expropriation of Native American lands. (Guy Girard, Michael Löwy, Penelope Rosemont, and Ron Sakolsky, June 18, 2020).

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stllimelight · 6 years

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Strong Acting Complements Rich Voices in Stirring 'Lost in the Stars' Opera

Strong Acting Complements Rich Voices in Stirring ‘Lost in the Stars’ Opera

By Lynn Venhaus Managing Editor A compelling plea for compassion and understanding, Kurt Weill’s mighty “Lost in the Stars” will break your heart and uplift your spirit in Union Avenue Opera’s stirring production.

This ambitious vibrant opera features more than 50 performers, many new to the art form, and that provides some of St. Louis’ finest dramatic artists with an opportunity to stretch…

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perry-tannenbaum · 3 years

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Reboot of I Dream Reminds Us How True Heroes Fight for the Right

Review: I Dream 3.0 from Opera Carolina By Perry Tannenbaum After repeated efforts to capture the essence of Martin Luther King in his twice-revised I Dream, opera composer and librettist Douglas Tappin must keenly appreciate the biblical frustration of Moses on Mount Nebo – and of MLK behind a Memphis lectern on his final night. He has seen the Promised Land, but he cannot get there. For the…

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#Alyson Cambridge #Derrick Davis #Douglas Tappin #James Meena #Kenneth Overton #Lucia Bradford #Michael Baumgarten #Tom Diamond #Victor Ryan Robertson

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mercy-misrule · 6 years

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i gotta write it out here because i don’t have twitter anymore, and its kinda been festering in my brain

but quick wrassle talk

tama’s casual homophobia in his promos and tweets makes me so unhappy, and i don’t care whatever your read or belief about the GL storyline is, it’s messing with me that so many people seem to be just ignoring it

and i don’t just mean the storyline casual homophobia of everyone erasing the relationship between them, insisting that a textual romantic relationship between men is just a friendship, because that’s not unique to him.that’s been a frustrating constant across the board.

im talking about him calling meltzer kenny’s boyfriend, or him calling finlay and juice ‘fingay and fruity juice’

haha ya get it? its because its gay!

so idk. its character work or whatever, i don’t know the man, but if we judge wrestlers by their shitty promos (and we should, kenneth is my dude, which does not prevent me from saying he Fuck Ups with capitals)

i judge these as things that make me really uncomfortable as a queer fan, especially when directed to an irl bi man playing a character in love with another man,

that’s it, that’s all. im not interested in reading defenses of it, and im sorry if i’ve made you feel defensive.this is my reaction, i own it. (cw: under the cut i mention a rape threat kenny received from an indie wrestler over twitter much earlier on this year)

i am hypersensitive to homophobia overtones and undertones directed at the lovers, particularly kenny because

a) im a big ol gay myself

b) earlier on this year on twitter Kenny was verbally abused and received a corrective rape threat from another wrestler, a drag queen who runs and/or is associated with an indie lgbt wrestling promotion.

it was literally about him not being ‘gay enough.’ and i saw it all unfold, horrified, and it was the first time i thought, i have to leave twitter, i can’t handle this.

it all seemed to blow over, the dude in question got blocked by most people. later on, his show would go on to have a wrestler with actual nazi ties perform there, so you know. quality. what a quality person.

so yeah. i can’t pretend that this reaction isn’t fueled by this underlying horror i felt months ago. but i don’t think i have to either. its enough that im uncomfortable with it, that i would be no matter what, even if this event hadn’t occurred.

#wrassle #not agging any of the wrestlers in this because im not interested in fights #uhhh #rape threat mention #homophobia

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