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twopoppies · 5 months ago

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Would you have a rolling stone subscription or any of your followers please? https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/american-idol-lgbtq-contestants-1235027350/

It doesn't seem to be behind any sort of paywall for me, but I tend tp be cautious when reposting entire articles because blogs have been taken down for it before. Here's most of the worst of it, though. DM me if you want more and can't access it.

Travis wasn’t aware that he couldn’t carry a tune until his audition aired on TV a year later, in January 2006. Seated in the living room of the same halfway-house counselor who had driven him to the audition, he thought to himself, “God, I do suck.” But the realization was too late. His phone was already being blitzed with calls, first check-ins from friends and family members and then requests for interviews with People and Us Weekly. Soon after, Travis says the LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD (which did not respond to a request for comment on this story) telephoned with the offer of taking action against Idol on his behalf. He thought to himself, “What the fuck did I just do?”

The public reaction to Travis’ off-key rendition of Whitney Houston’s 1993 single “Queen of the Night” is perhaps most succinctly summed up by the title of a YouTube video of the tryout: “American Idol Audition Boy or Girl.” Travis wore bell-bottom jeans in a feminine cut and a white tank top to his audition, pulling his wavy blonde hair behind his ears. Simon Cowell, infamously the harshest critic among the show’s original trio of judges, appeared horrified by the sight of Travis, his mouth agape. After Randy Jackson, the panel’s swing vote, kicked things off by asking the contestant to say “something interesting” about himself, Cowell asked, “That’s necessary, is it?” Cowell proceeded to stop Travis in the middle of his performance, which he called “confused.”

Travis has come a long way since Idol. After pivoting to a successful career in gay porn under the name Kirk Cummings, he retired from the adult entertainment industry and now works as a dog groomer, a profession he finds peaceful. But even 19 years later, he finds the footage of his audition tough to watch. As he left the studio in tears, editors added the theme music to The Crying Game, the 1992 film that uses the sight of a trans woman’s body to shock viewers. Today, Travis presents as male and uses masculine pronouns, but at the time of his audition, he had hoped to someday transition. He even had his new name picked out: Kelly. When he was incarcerated, others would try to dissuade him from pursuing a future as a trans person by telling him that it’s a “really hard life,” and Idol seemed to prove them all right.

“I thought, ‘Wow, if this is how my life’s going to be, then I don’t want any part of it,’” he says. “My experience is not the normal experience of a trans person, but because I had chosen to be on a television show, I saw the worst of it.”

Open cruelty is no longer part of the Idol brand, now that the show is in its second run on ABC after Fox canceled the long-running program in 2015. The series, like much of contemporary reality TV, now trades on positivity, and the annual tradition of airing bad auditions has long been discontinued. But during the height of its popularity in the 2000s, schadenfreude was a major part of the show’s appeal. While launching the careers of instant household names like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, Idol was also the show where tens of millions of viewers watched Cowell tell Season Three contestant Heather Piccinini that she’s “ugly” when she sings and belittle Season Five’s Crystal Parizanski for overtanning; he even pulled Parizanski’s mother into the room to humiliate the contestant further. The show’s June 2002 premiere, in which Cowell advised a young woman to sue her vocal coach, made it clear what Idol would be selling.

That feed-them-to-the-lions approach made Idol the number-one program on TV six years running, the longest stretch at the top in broadcast history — but the show tended to prey on its most vulnerable contestants, perhaps unwittingly. Idol producers were forced to issue an apology after Cowell compared Season Six hopeful Kenneth Briggs, who has facial malformations due to Aarskog Syndrome, to a “bush baby.” Season Five’s Paula Goodspeed took her own life outside judge Paula Abdul’s home in 2008 after Cowell criticized the contestant’s metal braces following a performance of the Creedence Clearwater Revival/Ike and Tina Turner standard “Proud Mary.” Goodspeed was reportedly an obsessive stalker who changed her given name in tribute to Abdul, and the contest judge publicly criticized Idol’s producers for not doing more to protect her, saying she alerted them to Goodspeed’s behavior prior to the audition. (A spokesperson for the show did not comment on Abdul’s accusation at the time.)

Among those most targeted by Idol’s alleged abuses were anyone who was outside of the norm, as defined by the extremely narrow standards of Bush-era popular culture. This often included contestants who were experiencing mental health issues, individuals with disabilities, people of color, and plus-size singers like the late Mandisa Huntley, the Season Five contestant of whom Cowell infamously asked: “Do we have a bigger stage this year?” But Idol enjoyed a particularly contentious relationship with the queer contestants who hoped that the series would offer their big break into an unforgiving industry, many of whom had only started to come to an understanding of their LGBTQ+ identities. In another exchange condemned by GLAAD, Cowell told Travis’ fellow Season Five hopeful Charles Berry, who now is an out gay man, to shave off his beard and “wear a dress,” saying that he would make a “great female impersonator.”

Keith Beukelaer, whom Cowell famously called “the worst singer in the world,” knew immediately after his Season Two audition that it would end up being broadcast. “It’s something that I don’t know if I ever fully recovered from,” he says. “I remember it as if it was yesterday.” A devoted Madonna fan, he performed “Like a Virgin” in a green mock-turtleneck sweater, gyrating his body in sync with the song’s suggestive lyrics. Beukelaer has come to understand himself as having Asperger’s Syndrome, although he didn’t have the language for it at the time, and he came out as gay a few years after appearing on the program. He still struggles with the notoriety that his brief appearance on Idol brought, the decades of mockery that followed six minutes of air time.

Cowell did not return multiple requests for comment for this story. Neither did Jackson, longtime host Ryan Seacrest, or Idol creator Simon Fuller — who based the show off his own U.K. series Pop Idol, which aired from 2001 to 2003. But a source close to the production, who requested not to be named in this story, defended the show by affirming that “every single person who came on Idol, whatever their race, color, creed, or sexual preferences, was placed squarely in the firing line for Simon’s barbed critiques.”

[...]

What was a queer paradise for some, however, was a nightmare for others. Of those who spoke on the record, many say that Idol effectively forced them into the closet, and they believe it’s because the show was fearful that an openly queer contestant would alienate the show’s largely conservative viewership.

[...]

There was no rule saying that queer contestants couldn’t discuss their personal lives, but some singers say that Idol made it clear that some things were best kept secret. R.J. Helton, who uses they/them pronouns, went back into the closet and started dating a woman before they auditioned for Idol’s first season, hoping to make their family happy. Helton’s parents always envisioned that they would become a pastor or a Christian music artist, and when Helton’s boy band, the Soul Focus, went their separate ways, competing on Idol felt like a logical next step. Having recently broken things off with their fiancée, not wanting to live a lie, Helton began seeing their Idol stand-in during the season. Although they kept the romance a secret from producers, Helton says the other contestants knew. “None of them cared,” they say. “It was the first time that I felt accepted by a group of people.”

Idol producers never found out about the relationship, but the stakes were nonetheless made clear when executive producer Nigel Lythgoe, the show’s most influential creative voice, pulled Helton aside after seeing them exchange a friendly peck on the cheek with a male member of the crew. “Listen, we love you,” Helton says the producer told them. “We think you’re great, but let’s continue on the sweet side, with the Christian boy thing.” In their on-camera interviews and stage performances, Helton says they tried to tone down their natural ebullience, “butching it up” and staying as quiet as possible. A team of publicists, they recall, followed Helton everywhere “because they didn’t want me to break character.”

In an email to Rolling Stone, Lythgoe asserts that he “never stopped any contestant from coming out” and says he “never would have done so.” “I did work with a number of individuals who, sadly, were struggling with issues around coming out, and I provided feedback that was very common at the time: that they should let their talent do the talking and not allow others to denigrate them based on their personal lives,” he says. “If anyone was hurt by my advice on those issues, I can only apologize, but I only ever wanted to help and support the wonderful young people who competed on the first seasons of Idol, several of whom, tragically, were torn between a desire to live their truth openly and a great fear about how they would be treated on returning home by their families, by their communities, and even by God.”

Helton, now with the clarity of hindsight, wishes they’d had the confidence to present their full self to America. After being dropped from their record label following a 2006 interview in which they came out as gay, Helton recently came to the realization of their nonbinary identity. “I know it was a different generation, but there are parts of me that think: ‘If I could have worn a gorgeous evening gown with a full beard, I could have won,’” Helton says. When producers would tap them on the shoulder to remind them, “Hey, we don’t talk about this,” it made Helton scared of losing the only affirmation they’d ever had. “As a young person, that really plays with your psyche, especially when you’re not used to the spotlight, loads of fans, or the money. You just do what you’re told. I don’t know if that’s selling your soul to the devil, but it did feel like that. They lifted me up, put me on a pedestal, and told me that the pedestal will only be there as long as I play this part.”

Helton’s fellow Season One cast member Jim Verraros has spent years in therapy working to unlearn many of the unfortunate lessons he says Idol taught him, namely that it wasn’t OK to be himself. That education began with the Pygmalion-esque makeover given to the show’s aspiring superstars: Idol immediately traded in his nerdy aesthetic — wiry glasses and jean jackets with the collar popped — for a generic rock look, sleeveless vests with leather cuff bracelets. He got contacts, lowered his voice half an octave, and put away what he calls the “theatrical and stage part of me that comes also from having deaf parents and being expressive.” “It comes at a cost,” he says. “When you’re told that you aren’t enough — or that this version of you doesn’t work — you spend a big part of your life taking parts away from you so that you can achieve those dreams.”

Although Verraros made the Top 10 of his season, he struggled with the role created for him, and the miscasting of a nebbishy gay Midwestern boy as a conservative-friendly heartthrob led to friction with the show’s creative team. Former co-host Brian Dunkleman, who emceed Idol’s first season alongside Ryan Seacrest, says he overheard Cowell and Randy Jackson discussing plans to directly target Verraros, hoping to get a strong reaction out of him that they could film. “We’re gonna nail Jim,” he recalls the judges saying as they were having coffee in an Idol break room. Cowell tended to reserve his harshest critiques of the show’s inaugural cast for Verraros, and following that discussion, he told the contestant live on air, “I think if you win this competition, we would have failed.”

Idol did get the emotional reaction it sought from Verraros in a scene that ultimately landed on the cutting-room floor. Prior to the announcement of the season’s Top 10 finalists, Dunkleman says that Cowell informed the contestants they would be using the “judges’ veto” to oust one of them from the show. “Jim, you’re out of the competition,” Cowell told Verraros, prompting the young singer to burst into tears. (That’s when Dunkleman recalls that Lythgoe came over and instructed everyone to sing a modified version of the Monkees’ “Daydream Believer” to brighten Verraros’ spirits. “Cheer up, sleepy Jim,” fellow contestants sang together in unison.) For reasons that are unclear, Lythgoe opted to backtrack on the judges’ decision, Dunkleman says, allowing Verraros to move forward to the next round after all. “Later that night, I was at dinner and I got a pretty frantic message from Nigel saying, ‘Look, there’s been a change. Jim is back in the competition. Just please don’t tell anybody about anything that happened today,’” Dunkleman remembers. “And then the next night he made the Top 10.”

Those incidents, Dunkleman adds, played a major role in his decision to part ways with Idol, calling the program “evil.” He also recalls that a judging panel needed to be refilmed so Cowell could call Helton a “loser” instead of a “monkey.” “That’s what it was,” he says of Idol. “It was about how mean they were. It was about how shocking this was and how much they were making fun of these singers.” He isn’t sure, though, why the show singled Helton and Verraros out in particular. “Is it conscious targeting or is it subconscious? That kind of undertone, maybe they weren’t even aware of it.”

[...]

AMERICAN IDOL often strained to fit queer contestants into an instantly recognizable mold that producers could market for the widest possible audience. Simon Cowell declared that he would quit the program if Sanjaya Malakar, an affable Season Six hopeful with a perpetual smile, won the competition. Malakar, who is half Bengali and performed with the Hawaii Children’s Theater during his time living in Kauai, was unlike any singer the show had ever seen. He was earnest and goofy, striding up to the judges’ table to dance with Paula Abdul during a performance of Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek.” He also straddled the lines of gender, flat-ironing his chameleonic locks for a winsome cover of John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World To Change.” After weeks of all but begging viewers to vote Malakar off the show, Cowell commented regarding the latter song: “Maybe it’s your hair that’s keeping you in. I don’t know.”

Malakar came out as bisexual many years after Idol was over, finding himself after taking a job at a karaoke bar in New York where he found freedom in anonymity. What was hardest for Malakar to navigate, he says, was not the constant scrutiny from Idol’s judges but the vitriolic reaction from fans. A MySpace blogger vowed to stop eating until Malakar was sent home, although the contestant outlasted the hunger strike, which ceased after 16 days. The website Vote for the Worst, which urged fans to subvert the Idol system by keeping on its quirkiest and most divisive contestants, took up Malakar as a personal cause.

Looking back, Malakar believes that it’s the ambiguity of how he presented that bothered people so much. The judges and viewers just couldn’t figure him out because, as a 17-year-old kid who hadn’t graduated high school yet, he hadn’t figured himself out. “There was no way to really understand how to define me,” he says. “They didn’t know what culture I was. They didn’t know what sexuality I was. They didn’t know what genre I was. I was this anomaly that made people uncomfortable.”

The queer singers who had the most painful time being reshaped by the Idol system were those who stood out the most, whether they were flamboyant and over-the-top in their performance style, like Malakar, or their gender presentation skewed toward the effeminate. Season Eight runner-up Adam Lambert — who declined to speak for this story, citing his shooting schedule for The Voice Australia, on which he is a judge — has said that queer contestants who didn’t have the ability to hide were used by Idol as “comic relief.” “Anytime someone came on the show that was perceived to be gay or it was obvious enough that they were gay, they were a joke,” he remarked to the British music magazine NME��in a 2018 interview. He added: “To be fair, some of them weren’t great singers, but there were a couple of really good singers that came on. And they weren’t taken seriously.”

To illustrate his point, Lambert noted the example of Adore Delano from Seasons Six and Seven, who would later contend on the reality competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Delano declined to participate in this story, but in a 2023 Instagram video publicly announcing her transition, she said that she went back into the closet to compete on Idol. Appearing on the show led her to suppress her transness in order to present herself as “something that was so uncomfortable,” she recalled. And yet her effervescent femininity couldn’t be contained: During her second appearance on Idol, she performed a sassy rendition of “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley that Cowell deemed “hideous” and “verging on the grotesque.” Delano was ultimately eliminated from the Top 16 after a performance of Soft Cell’s queer anthem “Tainted Love” that Cowell declared “absolutely useless.” She dyed her silky hair purple for the number.

Like Delano, Atlas Marshall auditioned for Idol twice, making it to the Top 36 in Season Eight and then trying out again for Season 16. Both experiences were extremely fraught. Following a performance of Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” during her first appearance on the show, Cowell looked at Marshall and remarked, “I think you probably would.” Even as a guileless 18-year-old with frosted emo bangs and angel-bite piercings, Marshall realized it was a “loaded comment.” “The joke around that song is that it’s about anal sex,” she says. After the audience booed Cowell’s remark, Ryan Seacrest, then the show’s sole emcee, invited Marshall to come sit on the judge’s lap, but Paula Abdul intervened and beckoned the contestant to rest on hers instead. Marshall was voted off Idol the next day.

[...] Marshall’s mother, who recently passed away, was a lesbian, and she raised her child in a queer household where it was OK to be “open, flamboyant, and fabulous,” as Marshall recalls. Being taught by Idol that the outside world might mock the parts of herself she was taught to embrace was a rude awakening. “For so long, there was a lot of shame around it,” she says of her first Idol experience. “I felt gross. I didn’t like myself.”

[...]

While the team behind Idol’s current iteration did not offer a comment on the record, the source close to the Fox production contests the idea that the show stopped contestants from expressing their most authentic selves, while adding that “coming out might have damaged certain contestants’ chances for success.” “No one ever prevented anyone from doing so, but there was often a sense — right or wrong — that it would be better if the American public’s vote was based more on their judgment about the performers’ talent rather than their sexual orientations,” the source says.

[...]

Although it would feel convenient to point the finger solely at Idol, the show at its peak reflected America’s culture as much as it defined it. When the series premiered in 2002, polling from Gallup showed that 43 percent of the U.S. populace still thought homosexuality should be illegal; Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court ruling that struck down sodomy laws in the 14 states where gay sex was still illegal, wouldn’t be issued for another year. A majority of Americans wouldn’t support the right of same-sex couples to marry until 2011, during Idol’s tenth season on the air. That was also, coincidentally, the first season not to feature either Paula Abdul or Simon Cowell on the judges panel. Abdul, hailed by sources as a major supporter of queer contestants behind the scenes, parted ways with the program after Season Eight. Cowell left the following year to launch the U.S. spinoff of The X Factor, the British singing competition he created in 2004.

[...]

For all the troubles that some queer contestants say they had on the show, many argue that Idol’s missteps paled in comparison to how cruelly they were treated by the rest of the media, the music industry, and even America at large. Idol voters eliminated Season Seven’s David Hernandez the week after an Associated Press story revealed that he had previously worked as a dancer at a Arizona strip club that catered to a “mostly male” clientele. By that time, photos that allegedly showed Hernandez bartending at a gay nightclub had already been published on Vote for the Worst, although Hernandez says the pictures weren’t even of him. He says that Idol was already well aware of his work history by the time the reports surfaced, as he disclosed the information in the extensive questionnaire the show required contestants to complete; spanning over 100 pages in length, it also asked singers to name their past sexual and romantic partners.

[...]

The media persecution of queer Idol contestants was so de rigueur during the show’s imperial era that few even questioned it. Jim Verraros’ coming out in 2002 prompted a two-page spread in the Globe, a U.S. supermarket tabloid, asking: “Who’s Next?” Chatter surrounding Adam Lambert’s sexuality made the New York Times after photos circulated of the singer, eyes covered in makeup and glitter all over his face, locking lips with another man. Following the Season Two finale, Clay Aiken says that the first question that he was ever asked by a reporter was: “Are you gay?” He wouldn’t formally come out until a 2008 People magazine cover story coinciding with the birth of his son, and for years, he says, confirmation of his sexual orientation “was the only thing that anybody in the press wanted” from him. “I never did an interview where somebody was not trying to ask me if I was gay,” he says, later adding: “Everybody wanted to be the one who got it.”

Aiken says that speculation regarding his sexuality reached such a fever pitch that, for a time, he stopped leaving his house. Even then, there was no hiding from it: “If I heard anybody setting up a gay joke on a sitcom or a late-night show, I held my breath because I knew my name was coming. Eighty percent of the time I was right.” The topic was a frequent punchline of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who frequently booked Aiken to appear on his show, and comedian Kathy Griffin spent a full 15 minutes discussing Aiken’s sexuality in a 2005 stand-up special on Bravo. “I do find him to allegedly be the gayest man in the free world,” she said in the routine, calling him “Gayken” to hearty applause from the crowd. Even two years after he had actually come out, a Season Eight episode of Family Guy saw Stewie, during a parody of Family Feud, being asked to name a “popular fruit” and responding: “Clay Aiken.” “I laugh at them now,” he says of the jokes, noting that he calls Griffin a friend. “I find them hilarious now, but at the time, it hurt a lot.”

Full article here

#american idol #clay aiken #adam lambert #simon cowell is a bag of dicks #suicide tw

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tzifron · 8 months ago

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What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

by Maureen Tkacik

March 28, 2024

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

John Barnett had one of those bosses who seemed to spend most of his waking hours scheming to inflict humiliation upon him. He mocked him in weekly meetings whenever he dared contribute a thought, assigned a fellow manager to spy on him and spread rumors that he did not play nicely with others, and disciplined him for things like “using email to communicate” and pushing for flaws he found on planes to be fixed.

“John is very knowledgeable almost to a fault, as it gets in the way at times when issues arise,” the boss wrote in one of his withering performance reviews, downgrading Barnett’s rating from a 40 all the way to a 15 in an assessment that cast the 26-year quality manager, who was known as “Swampy” for his easy Louisiana drawl, as an anal-retentive prick whose pedantry was antagonizing his colleagues. The truth, by contrast, was self-evident to anyone who spent five minutes in his presence: John Barnett, who raced cars in his spare time and seemed “high on life” according to one former colleague, was a “great, fun boss that loved Boeing and was willing to share his knowledge with everyone,” as one of his former quality technicians would later recall.

More from Maureen Tkacik

But Swampy was mired in an institution that was in a perpetual state of unlearning all the lessons it had absorbed over a 90-year ascent to the pinnacle of global manufacturing. Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. CEO Jim McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, had last helmed 3M, where management as he saw it had “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership” before he purged the veterans into early retirement.

“Prince Jim”—as some long-timers used to call him—repeatedly invoked a slur for longtime engineers and skilled machinists in the obligatory vanity “leadership” book he co-wrote. Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company. He initially refused to let nearly any of these talented assholes work on the 787 Dreamliner, instead outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which lacked engineering departments. The plan would save money while busting unions, a win-win, he promised investors. Instead, McNerney’s plan burned some $50 billion in excess of its budget and went three and a half years behind schedule.

Swampy belonged to one of the cleanup crews that Boeing detailed to McNerney’s disaster area. The supplier to which Boeing had outsourced part of the 787 fuselage had in turn outsourced the design to an Israeli firm that had botched the job, leaving the supplier strapped for cash in the midst of a global credit crunch. Boeing would have to bail out—and buy out—the private equity firm that controlled the supplier. In 2009, Boeing began recruiting managers from Washington state to move east to the supplier’s non-union plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to train the workforce to properly put together a plane.

#boeing

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postgamecontent · 2 months ago

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Nintendo Switch Weekly Round-Up for the Week Ending September 28, 2024

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the Nintendo Switch Weekly Round-Up for the week ending September 28, 2024. This has been a busy week for new releases, with a handful of obvious attention-grabbers and a lot of weird and interesting smaller games. I've included as many as I could fit, and I hope this helps you separate the cool junk from the boring junk. Let's check out this week in the world of Switch!

Select New Releases

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom ($59.99)

A brand-new top-down Zelda game, this time featuring… Zelda?! Wow! Link has gone missing, and Princess Zelda is going to flex her magical power to save him and the rest of Hyrule. She has some help from a fairy named Tri and a magical artifact called the Tri Rod, the latter of which opens up all kinds of fun-looking mechanics. I might do a review of this one, in case anyone needs a review of something like this. You probably have already decided if you want it or not, though.

EA Sports FC 25 Standard Edition ($59.99)

It's the latest edition of EA Sports' long-running series of soccer/football games, and I'm not going to disrespect either of us by pretending I know what's new here or even what makes one of these good or bad. Consider this a notice that it is now available for general purchase on Switch, no more and no less.

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed ($59.99)

Warren Spector's much-hyped Mickey game gets remade for the Nintendo Switch with this release. I haven't played the remake yet, but the original game was decent enough. If nothing else, this gives me the chance to remind everyone that Disney traded play-by-play commentator Al Michaels' contract to NBCUniversal to acquire Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for use in this game. And, you know, elsewhere. But the first use was in this game, and that's really funny to me. Anyway, try the demo and see how it sits with you.

Iron Meat ($19.99)

Hailed by folks with numerous conflicts of interest with the publisher as "better than Contra" and by others as "a pretty good run-and-gun", Iron Meat is another solid entry in a genre that has seen a decent amount of love in recent years on the platform. Is it better than Blazing Chrome? Better than Operation Galuga? Does it matter? If you enjoy games like these, stop comparing flavors and dig in! You never know when winter is coming for any given genre.

Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 ($39.99)

Sure, why not more World Brothers? Look, this isn't the Earth Defense Force some people would ideally want to see on Switch, but this is what we've got. And it's fine for what it is. Very much in line with the first World Brothers in design and performance, so if you liked that game on Switch then you're all set here. Similarly, if you found the technical sacrifices were too much in the original game, you won't have a better time with this one.

Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition ($24.99)

Why would you buy Worms Armageddon for twenty-five buckeroos when you can get W.M.D. for six dollars during its very regular sales? The addition of the Game Boy Color version of the game probably won't be much of a pot sweetener for many, but this being a stealth Digital Eclipse Gold Master entry might. Yes, you get that timeline hotness! You don't even have to like the game, so long as you have an interest in gaming history. I can vouch for that, because I hate this game but I think this is a neat release that could have been even better as a full-blown Worms collection.

Cash Cow DX ($5.99)

Moo-ve over, Donut Dodo. There's a new retro-style arcade action game in town, and it's ready to milk you out of your six bucks. This game comes from the developer of Donut Dodo and has a lot of the same qualities to it. You're running around each stage trying to grab all the cash while avoiding enemies. Very enjoyable stuff. Feel free to have a look at the review I posted yesterday, if you haven't already seen it.

REYNATIS ($59.99)

Oh, it's FuRyu time again. I suspect we've got the usual FuRyu experience on our hands here. Which is to say, a rather middling game hobbled by its low budget with a few glimmers of greatness that might be enough to satisfy a few players. This one is an action-RPG, and the famous names that have been affixed to lure in the blissfully ignorant are scenario writer Kazushige Nojima (Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey) and composer Yoko Shimomura (Code Name: Viper). This game is not very good at all. I might write up a review to explain why, if I have the time. No one brought their best here, but it's FuRyu, so what do you expect?

3 Minutes to Midnight ($24.99)

It's never encouraging when you see that registered trademark name on a title. It suggest a certain set of priorities that are sometimes at odds with a quality creative endeavor. Fortunately, this bucks that assumption by being a rather decent point-and-click adventure game. It's one aimed at the more hardcore fans of the genre, as it is quite lengthy and involved, but there's nothing wrong with that. If you're a fan of the genre, this is worth investigating.

Go Mecha Ball ($19.99)

Add another twin-stick roguelite to the pile. We've got tons of these, so what's this one's gimmick? Basically, you can ball up Samus Aran style and roll around at high speeds. You can get a bunch of weapons, abilities, and upgrades to help you on your way, which is more or less how these things go. There's something here, but I don't know that the spark of potential properly ignites. Not bad, but I wouldn't rush out and buy it or anything.

Exographer ($19.99)

An exploratory adventure that sees you on a rescue mission on an alien planet. You'll explore levels, investigate an extinct civilization, and earn new powers that will help you reach previous inaccessible areas. There are puzzles to solve, and you'll have to make use of your special camera to figure things out. This game is really pushing science as its selling point, so we'll have to see if that results in an enjoyable game or not.

Lets castle ($13.99)

I've retained the exact title from the eShop here, and believe me, I also find it a little irritating. This is a relatively low-pressure game where you have to build a castle from given parts. You'll occasionally get specific orders from the Queen and will need to build to her specifications. I like the pixel art, at least.

Ahro ($11.99)

Okay, get this. Ahro is a side-scroller with a simplified yet stylish look, and it's a metaphor for mental health issues. Anxiety and panic disorder, to be specific. The gameplay gimmick is that you can release your spirit to explore and collect goobers. I'm kind of tired of this kind of thing by now, but perhaps you're feeling more fresh about the idea.

Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports ($49.99)

Oh no, it's Game Mill. Don't expect too much. You get four sports here, including Basketball, Soccer, Golf, and Tennis. Up to four players can join in via local multiplayer, and there are nine playable Looney Tunes characters. I'm sure it's at least as competent as some of the sports games we see around the ten dollar price point on the eShop. If you really love the Looney Tunes, don't let me stop you.

Murder Is Game Over: Deal Killer ($4.99)

I guess these must be going well for Ratalaika. Another mystery for Detective Guy and his dog to solve, this time concerning the murder of an executive of a video game publisher. I choose not to read anything into that. You don't have to have played the previous games to enjoy this one, so feel free to jump in if you're interested.

Luna-3X ($9.99)

An off-beat game about a pair of heroes trying to save as many creatures as they can before the world ends in seven days. They do that, of course, by having one play the tamborine while dangling from a fishing rod held by the other. You can play alone, but this one is built for two players. One person controls the fishing rod while the other plays their instrument in rhythm to lure the creatures in. Charming and quite unique.

Arcade Archives Blast Off ($7.99)

You would think that a 1989 release from Namco in a well-worn genre that also serves as a follow-up of sorts, albeit in name only, to Bosconian would be a safe bet. Alas, Blast Off is a rather dull example of the vertical shoot 'em up genre. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone except those are basically buying every Arcade Archives game or every shoot 'em up. A really rare total miss from this publisher, but history is history. Hamster isn't just in it to reissue the hits.

JALECOlle Famicom Ver. Bio Warrior DAN The Increaser War ($7.99)

The Earth is on the brink of total ruin, and only a time traveling bio warrior named Dan can save us! City Connection packed in a lot of extras for this one, including a new map screen, quick weapon switching, and a number of other UI improvements. The game is also fully translated into English, so that's nice. I'm really appreciating these releases so far.

Night Slashers: Remake ($9.99)

I like Night Slashers as much as the next Data East fan, but even I wouldn't have had it near the head of the list for a remake. Nevertheless, here we are. Night Slashers in a very clean, modern graphical style that is probably trying to evoke Streets of Rage 4 but not quite getting there. Still, the price is right and it's as gory and goofy a time as ever, now with support for four players. I gave my thoughts on this one yesterday in my review, so do check that out if you haven't already.

Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles ($24.99)

Hey, it's another one of these Slay The Spire/Darkest Dungeon deckbuilding turn-based roguelite things. As you can guess from the name, you'll be playing with dice in this one. It seems to have reviewed rather well on PC, and I imagine there are many Switch owners who will appreciate it as well.

The Holy Gosh Darn ($19.99)

A time traveling narrative action-adventure, with four different worlds to explore across space and time. You'll have to engage in some time shenanigans to solve the puzzles and move the story forward. I feel like this has some real potential, but I haven't had a chance to try out the demo for it yet. But hey, the demo is indeed right there. Give it a shot and see if you like it.

Bloomtown: A Different Story ($24.99)

This is a turn-based RPG with a 1960s Americana theme, and that's enough to help it stand out a little right off the hop. There's monster taming, some life sim bits, and a mystery involving two very different sides of one small town. Naturally, it's up to some kids to save the day. Early reviews on this have been positive, if not excessively so. If you're keen on the premise, you might want to look into it further.

Silver Axe - The Honest Elf ($18.99)

Another Metroidvania-style adventure for the pile. This one has a nice look to it and it's not outright terrible or anything, but in a genre this competitive I don't think it has what it takes to really stand out. It's just a bit too floaty, and the map designs don't have a nice flow to them. You might feel differently, though.

revive of the moon ($19.99)

I suppose it is almost October, isn't it? Here's a zombie action game supervised by Japanese comedian Hidetaka Kano. It's not the fanciest of dinners, but there is a certain charm to its straightforward approach. The writing is a little better than you would expect, too. I'm not very interested in zombie stuff anymore, but if I were? This might be something I'd go for.

Creepy Tale: Some Other Place ($9.99)

This little series has clearly found its audience. This is the fourth game in the series, and it tells its own little self-contained story within the fairy tale world and aesthetic that Creepy Tale is known for. Anyway, the usual business. Solve puzzles, follow the story, immerse yourself in the atmosphere. I've never been able to get into any of these, but I can at least see the appeal.

Beyond Galaxyland ($17.99)

A sci-fi RPG about a human high-schooler named Doug who, along with his guinea pig Boom Boom, narrowly escapes the destruction of Earth. Now residing in a zoo-like collection of planets called Galaxyland, Doug embarks on a quest to try to set things right. He'll meet an odd cast of characters along the way, of course. This game fits a lot of things in, including puzzles, platforming, turn-based battles, and a creature-capturing mechanic for good measure. So far reviews seem relatively good, and I'm looking forward to checking it out when I have a hot minute.

Resope! ($2.99)

It's always fun to find really low-priced games that serve as a good distraction for an evening, and Resope! is certainly one of those. There are sushi pieces trapped between wood blocks, and you need to free them. You do that by igniting the wood blocks, letting the sushi drop to the bottom. Make combos for a higher score, as one does in this kind of thing. There are a couple of extra modes here but the main one is fairly short, so be aware of that before you buy.

Anarkade ($14.99)

This genre of game feels like it has dropped off a high cliff in terms of popularity, but you still see the odd one release now and then. It's a 2D multiplayer arena shooter for up to four players, either local or online. Nothing particularly special about this one as far as I can tell, but it seems well-made for what it is.

Food Boy ($11.99)

It's like Paper Boy, except you're tossing pizzas at customers instead of newspapers. Run down any angry customers, and try to make a solid buck. Watch out for the many obstacles that will get in your way, of course. I'd rather have Paper Boy, but WB Games seems shy about sharing their old toys these days. That leaves an opportunity for games like this one, I suppose.

That's all for this week, friends. We'll be back next Saturday with another Round-Up as we make our way into October and the many games that will come with it. As ever, I will plug both my Patreon (where you can find lots of cool exclusive articles) and my Ko-Fi (tips help me run this blog). There, plugged. I hope you have a super Saturday, and as always, thanks for reading!

#nintendo switch #switch round up

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scotianostra · 8 months ago

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The Scottish actor Hamish Wilson passed away on March 26th 2020.

Probably most famous for replacing Frazer Hines for two episodes of Dr Who in the 60’s. Wilson was another one who started early, aged just 14 he started studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

He was born James Aitken Wilson in Glasgow, in 1942. His family moved to Cambuslang when he was very young. His father, also James, was a sales rep for a paint firm; his mother Isobel (née Willock) worked in the rag trade. After they divorced Isobel married another Wilson, Robert, and Hamish and his sister Jan grew up with step-siblings Leslie, Sheila and Robbie.

He discovered his love of drama while at West Coats Primary School. Later, at the Glasgow Academy, this love drove him to do “that stupidly romantic thing of running away from school to appear on the stage”. He was soon working professionally – he understudied Jimmy Logan for a summer season at the King’s Theatre and appeared in Peter Duguid’s 1957 Glasgow Citizen’s Theatre production of Enemy of the People.

He then attended the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and gained more professional experience during the summer holidays. He played the title role in 1959’s live ITV play, The Boy from the Gorbals, did a 1960 episode of Para Handy with Duncan Macrae, and met Walt Disney while he was working on his film adaptation of Greyfriars Bobby.

“I was trying to chat up a pretty blonde extra, with no success at all”, he once recalled, “and this gentleman with blond hair and a little moustache came over and started chatting to me. We nattered away for five minutes and then he wandered away. The girl was terribly impressed, but I spoilt it because I didn’t recognise him. I said, ‘Who was that?’ and she stopped being impressed. ‘That was Walt Disney!’, she said”.

He graduated from the RSAMD in 1963, winning the award for Most Promising Male Performance, and appeared on stage at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre , Perth Theatre and Dundee Repertory Theatre (1970-71), where his performance in Mark But This Flea was described as “remarkable” by The Stage, the trade weekly – not least because he had stepped in 24 hours before opening night after the original actor had broken his leg.

On television he appeared in The Wednesday Play, The Vital Spark , This Man Craig (three different roles, 1966), Softly, Softly and The Revenue Men (three different roles.

In 1968 Doctor Who regular Frazer Hines, who played Patrick Troughton’s Jacobite companion Jamie, fell ill with chickenpox while making the adventure The Mind Robber. After an ingenious, hasty rewrite Jamie underwent a temporary metamorphosis and with one day’s rehearsal Wilson took over, cramming his lines overnight and recording the first of his two episodes the next day.

Further TV roles followed, including The Borderers Boy Meets Girls (1969), Adam Smith, and The View from Daniel Pike but he found that he needed to turn his attention away from acting because “ a beautiful girl smiled at me”. Intent on marriage and starting a family, he gained more secure employment as an announcer for STV.

In 1975 he went to Radio Forth as its arts and drama producer. With limited resources but boundless ambition, he broadcast original writing, late-night horror classics, and a six-month long serial about Mary Queen of Scots, told in 130 twelve-minute episodes, broadcast daily. Drama of this kind on commercial radio was largely unheard of.

In 1979 he did an adaptation of The Slab Boys for Radio Clyde, ultimately joining the station and founding Independent Local Radio’s first drama department there.

His many productions at Clyde included The Bell in the Tree a series of dramas about the history of Glasgow by Edward H Chisnall; Donald Campbell’s Till the Seas Run Dry, with Tom Fleming as Robert Burns and Mary Riggans as Jean Armour), and Nick McCarthy’s Elephant Dances with Katy Murphy).

He also encouraged new talent, instigating initiatives which gave professional breaks to aspiring comedy writers and awarded contracts and prized Equity cards to final-year drama students.

He left Clyde in 1989 and joined the BBC, where he produced a huge number of plays and series for Radio Scotland, Radio 3 and Radio 4. He really believed in radio: “It allows you to creep inside somebody’s head”, he said, “and paint pictures that are going to stay long after the programme is finished.”

In all, he won 23 awards for his radio productions – his ‘Oscars’, as he jokingly referred to them – and served a juror in the Prix Italia (where he was also the first ILR producer to be jury chairman), Prix Futura Berlin and the Prix Europa.

When he left the BBC after ten successful years he went back to the old trade, doing voiceover work and acting in episodes of Taggart,, Monarch of the Glen and Still Game .

On March 21st 2020 Tony contracted coronavirus and sadly passed away only 6 days later on March 26th aged 77. He worked for many years for the actors union Equity, the Scottish Secretary of the union said of him:

“He led a full life and touched many people. He was one of life’s enthusiasts and succeeded at most everything he turned his hand to. Time in his company was always enjoyable and often informative. Remember that mischievous grin and raise a glass to him. RIP.”

The beautiful girl who smiled at him was Diana (née Baron), a wardrobe mistress at Dundee Rep, whom he had met in 1972. They married the following year and had three daughters, Emma, Alice and Abigail, who all survive him, as do grandchildren Colin, Finley, Amelia and Gregor.

#scotland #scottish #history #dr who #companion #actor

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wigilham · 2 months ago

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How can I get Forex XAUUSD signals?

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#forextrading #forex education #XAUUSD #Gold Trading #SureShotFX #SSF #Gold market

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oldbutnotyetwise · 11 months ago

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This Old Guitar

This old guitar taught me to sing a love song

It showed me how to laugh, and how to cry.

It introduced me to some friends of mine

And brightened up some days,

And helped me make it through some lonely nights.

What a friend to have on a cold and lonely night.

John Denver wrote the above lyrics about a guitar he was given by his grandmother when he was an awkward and lonely twelve year old. One day it was stolen and years later he finally got this treasured guitar back, that night he wrote the song This Old Guitar. When John Denver died in 1997 he was cremated along with this same guitar and their ashes were spread over the Rocky Mountains.

I suspect I was like most young boys when I was growing up, we wanted to be Hollywood Actors or famous musicians or Police Officers (thank you Adam 12) and if you were Canadian, you of course wanted to play in the NHL

I quit playing hockey when I was around twelve years old when I suddenly had a nasty coach who was nothing more than a bully and took every ounce of joy out of the game for me. Although I did act in High School and performed in several Drama Festivals, Hollywood never came calling and I never went looking. I was more fortunate than most to achieve my dream of a career in Policing. That leaves my dream to be a famous musician.

I still remember the Christmas when I received my first guitar. I’m sure my parents thought it would just be a passing fancy. There is a picture of me holding it in front of the Christmas Tree, wide grin on my face, electric guitar with polished red wood and ivory inlays on the neck. Probably the best, certainly the most lasting gift my parents ever gave me, the gift of music. Although I can’t remember the name of my first guitar teacher I can still picture him, a tall thin man with a heavy accent who struggled to remain patient as I tortured that poor guitar.

In time I traded in that shiny red electric guitar in on my first, and only handmade Classical Guitar. I had no idea when I bought that guitar that it would be with me for the next fifty years or so.

My skills as a Classical Guitar player were mediocre at best, but the study of classical music did teach me how to be a guitar picker, someone who played with his thumb and fingers.

As far as fame and fortune goes regarding my musical career, I did play on a local TV Talent Show once singing and playing my guitar, a classmate had wandered into his living room and saw me playing on his TV, I think he may have been the only person who saw it. I also was in a Drama Festival once where I played my guitar during part of the play. There was of course my Rock Band playing Proud Mary in a Grade Eight Variety Show, when I think back now I can only imagine the parents cringing at the racket we were making while butchering a classic song. Oddly enough after all these performances there were no agents waiting by the stage doors to sign me to a record contract.

The only other playing in public I really did was at the weekly Folk Mass at my church. Some friends and I would play and when we could, we would slip in a pop song but only when we could somehow convince the priest it had some religious connection. We must have done okay because soon the Saturday Night Folk Mass was one of the best attended masses the church had.

Somehow as I emerged from the teen years my comfort about playing my guitar or singing in public slowly evaporated. My guitar and I then took up a more reclusive existence. Yes there were times when perhaps I went months or even years without playing, but somehow we always found our way back to each other.

When you play a guitar you develop calluses on the ends of the fingers on your left hand, and if you don’t play you lose those calluses and it hurts to play. As well the fingernails on your left hand are cropped close so you can easily and firmly press the strings hard against the frets to get clear tone. If you are a picker like I was then the fingernails on your right hand tend to be longer to assist you in plucking the strings, the sound from nylon strings is softer quieter when plucked with a finger, and louder and more distinct when plucked with a fingernail.

At one point I found myself living alone in a small one bedroom apartment with lots of time on my hands. My guitar and I got reacquainted then as I quietly played in the bedroom, so no one passing in the hall would hear me. My friend Suzanne lived a few blocks away and we began playing together, this small amateur duo who played just for the joy of playing. She has a wonderful voice and there were times when I would pause after a song and think to myself that we sounded pretty darn good. Not sure that we played before anyone other than our partners, but it didn’t matter, we were playing for ourselves.

Eventually we moved in different directions and I was back to playing on my own. We did get together occasionally but I had returned to being a solo player.

My guitar was like that friend most of us have, someone you don’t see or hear from for a long time but then you get together you just pick up where you left off. My guitar was never angry that I hadn’t visited for a long time, it was always glad for any time we spent together. Bringing it out of it’s hard case, tuning the strings to bring back it’s beautiful sound and then playing. Interesting isn’t it, you don’t work the guitar you play it, because playing the guitar is a joyful thing to do. Although the song you play may not sound perfect there is a good chance you will have played a few perfect notes, and maybe as you sang maybe once or twice your voice was actually in tune. My joy from playing the guitar comes from inside me, just me and a good friend having fun together.

Sometimes things happen that are out of our control, sometimes you have to make decisions that are hard for you, but are best for your friend. That time came for me and my guitar, my hands just don’t work like they once did and now playing the guitar only brought frustration and sadness. Now this is a handsome handmade guitar and I expect I could have sold it for a decent price, but it was also a dear friend so it wasn’t about the money, it was about finding my friend a good new home, somewhere where it would be well appreciated.

I sat it there by my front door and when my friend Suzanne came to visit I sent it home with her. She is the one who I played it the most with, and I know she will look after my friend well, maybe she will think of me from time to time while playing.

And to my old friend, thank you for always being there for me. For helping me through those awkward teenage years, for all the dark days and nights we struggled through together, and for all the joy you brought to me during our half century together.

#guitar #This Old Guitar #Old Friend

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caprice-nisei-enjoyer · 2 months ago

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Fantasy Fantasy Football

Drafting: Pick a friend's Fantasy Football league to use as a source of managers. Each GM in the Fantasy Fantasy league selects 3 players in the Fantasy league to be on their roster. You may use any draft format.

Play: Each week, before Thursday kickoff, each GM nominates up to 3 Fantasy managers for the 6 following categories:

Boom or Bust: Gain points equal to the points earned by the top 3 starting players on your manager's team. Lose points for the bottom 2.

Blowout: Gain the same number of points as the difference in your manager's weekly matchup. If they lose their matchup, you lose points.

Start/Sit: Gain points equal to the average of points earned by starting players minus the average of benched players. Players on IR do not count towards either category.

Sleepers: Gain points for each starter equal to the difference in points from their performance last week. If they perform worse, lose points.

Legacy: Earn points equal to the points earned by all rookies on your manager's team, including those on the bench.

Pickups: Earn points for all starters who were traded for or picked up off waivers (must have paid >0 fantasy bucks or had another player attempt to add them)

Feel free to tinker with the categories!

Each week, match up your GMs head-to-head in a randomized round-robin format. The winner of each head-to-head matchup is the GM whose nominated managers earn them more points. Start a few weeks after the source league starts, to give a kind of "pre-season". Start playoffs when your source league does; you will have fewer GMs than fantasy players, so you should have plenty of time for matchups.

Cheating and bribing commissioners is encouraged, and should be rewarded.

Pick a Fantasy Fantasy league winner and loser however you like! The fun is in the journey. Loser must perform the same forfeit as the source league loser.

#fantasy fantasy football

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jgroffdaily · 1 year ago

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Merrily We Roll Along reviews Part 4

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

Broadway never saw a better triple-act than Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe, the triumphant triumvirate at the heart of the gorgeous new revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” directed by the famed British musical theater star Maria Friedman. What a delight they are to watch as life kicks their ever-hopeful characters in the teeth.

But I’ll wager most everyone does. As Sondheim says in one lyric, “Who’s like us, damn few!”

The late, great one could have been talking about these performances. Friedman unlocked many previously problematic aspects of this show, but one of the main keys was to understanding that Mary (Mendez), the sidekick to the aspiring writer-composer team of Franklin Shepard (Groff) and Charley Kringas (Radcliffe) is not the third wheel but the lead.

Mendez has every shade of Mary down cold: the charm, the drinking, the talent, the self-destructive tendencies. But the biggest achievement here is how this fine actress telegraphs how differently humans cope, or fail to cope, with disappointment. Some roll merrily along. Some, like Mary, fall off the carousel. Or jump. It’s a stunner of a performance.

But then Groff, whose singing and energy drive the show, is also superb: his character refuses to see plenty of stuff, but the denials clearly show on Groff’s face, and in his voice. Radcliffe is similarly complicated: his Charley is quiet, sweet, sad, modest of expectation, always fighting off cynicism, still trying to believe in the face of whatever evidence to the contrary life is delivering. This is the best thing I have ever seen this actor do.

But it’s the clearly warm relationship between the three stars that make this show, their palpable, present-tense enjoyment of each other when performing Tim Jackson’s very human choreography, a manifestation of fun and fear. Friedman’s direction and approach to the show seems to have freed these three stars to reveal more of themselves than before.

“Merrily” is even better than it was at the New York Theater Workshop. Its essential intimacy has been retained and it has deepened considerably, as shows that so depend on the relationship of the actors often do.

Emlyn Travis, Entertainment Weekly

Merrily is undoubtedly a star vehicle for Groff, who is no stranger to having two pretty best friends after his Tony-nominated turn in Spring Awakening, and it's a challenge that he more than rises to in his stellar performance as Frank. His older version of the character spins through each scene like a mirrorball, sizing up each target and successfully winning them over with a perfectly tailored version of his personality under Amith Chandrashaker's spotlights. (It's that perfectionism that makes Frank's stone cold, unblinking fury during Charley's televised meltdown all that much more affecting.) As he wades toward his younger years, Groff allows Frank's true nature — or, perhaps, the one that his ambition has stolen away — to seep through, painting him as a starry-eyed composer who wholeheartedly loves music, his friends, and his first wife.

As time travels, Radcliffe's resentment slowly melts away into a promising partnership between Charley and Frank, one that sees both of them gleefully working in perfect tandem.

The trio's bond cannot be denied as they toe tap, sashay, and leap their way through sparkling performances like "Old Friends" and "Opening Doors," trade lighthearted back-and-forth barbs without hesitation, and often come together for three-way pinky links like true time-tested pals.

But, when a previously referenced plot point suddenly clicks into place amongst the audience, or when its knockout trio are firing on all cylinders at its forefront, Merrily is truly a sight to behold. What a time to be alive, indeed.

Adam Feldman, Time Out NY

That’s one reason Friedman’s version works so well: She has trained her eye on just the right stars. Groff, Radcliffe and Mendez are so appealing as performers that they moot the pinched negativity of their characters’ first appearances. All three deliver exceptional work.

As the story moves backward, Groff’s pallid Frank begins to glow with excitement and sincerity; he makes you feel how much Frank loves writing music, and what a self-betrayal his abandonment of it represents.

#jonathan groff #merrily we roll along #reviews #daniel radcliffe #lindsay mendez

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determinate-negation · 1 year ago

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Iaşi– town in Moldavia (northeastern Romania) on the Bahlui River; an important trading center with links to Bucovina, Bessarabia, Ukraine, and Russia; capital of the former principality of Moldavia (1565–1862). The largest and most important Jewish community of Moldavia lived in Iaşi. The presence of Jews was first documented in the late sixteenth century when Sephardic Jews arrived accompanying the new rulers appointed by the Turkish sultan. The oldest tomb inscription in the local cemetery probably dates to 1610.

[...]

The number of Jews in Iaşi increased in the second half of the nineteenth century, reaching 39,441 (50.8% of the town’s population) in 1899. This growth was due both to natural increase and to the arrival of Jews who had been expelled from surrounding villages. In the early twentieth century, the number of Jews fell as a result of economic crisis, discriminatory laws, and emigration. In 1910, there were about 35,000 Jews living in Iaşi.

In the late nineteenth century, Jews were active in small industry and crafts, local and international trade, finance, and liberal and intellectual professions (they were doctors, teachers, writers, journalists, bookshop keepers, editors, public servants, and musicians). They also contributed to the setting up of steam mills and mechanical workshops, as well as to organizing freight. In 1890–1892, there were 3,048 Jewish artisans and 3,404 Jewish merchants. By 1909, Jews accounted for 77 percent of the craftsmen in Iaşi.

Most rabbis in Iaşi in 1859 to 1919 were Hasidim. They included Shemu’el Shmelke Taubes (in Iaşi 1852–1865); his son, Uri Shraga Feivel Taubes; Yeshayahu (Isaia) Shor, an adept of strict Orthodoxy (1854–1879); Dov Ber Rabinovici, also called the Folticener Rebbe (d. 1865); Ḥayim Landau (d. 1908), rabbi of the town, an adept of strict orthodoxy; Yisra’el Gutman (1820–1894), and his son, Shalom Gutman. In 1865, the banker Jacob of Neuschatz established the moderate reform temple that carried his name, Bet Ya‘akov. The preachers in this temple included Antoine Levy of Alsace and eventually Matityahu Simḥah Rabener. Later (from 1897), this position was filled by Iacob Isac Niemirower, who subsequently became the chief rabbi of Romania. Another modern rabbi in Iaşi (in 1915) was Meyer Thenen. A Jewish secondary school was also set up in the early twentieth century.

In 1872, Matityahu Simḥah Rabener published the Hebrew literary–cultural review Zimrat ha-arets. Although only two issues were published, it managed to bring together Hebrew writers from Iaşi with others, especially from Bucovina and Galicia. In 1878, a group of maskilim in Iaşi established the cultural association Ohale Shem, whose purpose was to develop the Hebrew language and spread Jewish culture. Hebrew writers involved in the association included Beniamin Schwarzfeld (1822–1897), Naḥman Fraenkel, Menaḥem Mendel Braunstein (1858–1944, known as Mibashan), and the physician Karpel Lippe (1830–1915). The journalist Eli‘ezer Rokeaḥ (1854–1914) lived for a while in Iaşi, where he published the Hebrew newspaper Yisra’el in 1881, as did the poet Naftali Herz Imber (1856–1909), author of “Hatikvah,” which eventually became the anthem of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel.

In 1876, the first performance of the Yiddish theater, established by Avrom Goldfadn, was given in Iaşi. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Iaşi became a center of Yiddish literature. In 1896, the socialist weekly Der veker (edited by Max Wexler [1870–1917], Litman Ghelerter [1873–1945], and Leon Gheler) was issued in Iaşi; it was published again in 1916, edited by Isac Moscovici. In 1899, the Zionist weekly in Yiddish (with a German title) Die Jüdische Zukunft was published in Iaşi; it was a cultural and general Jewish-interest magazine. Between December 1914 and September 1915, the first literary review in Yiddish in Romania, Likht, was issued in Iaşi; it was edited by a group called by the same name, with Efraim Waldman as editor, and Iacob Botoshanski (1892–1964), Iacob Groper, Lascar Şaraga (Lazar Samson; 1892–1968), Moti Rabinovici, and Arn Matisyahu Friedman as contributors. Several Jewish periodicals in Romanian were also issued in Iaşi. One of them, Vocea apărătorului (The Voice of the Defender; 1872–1873), was edited by Marcu Feldman and Marcu Rosenfeld, and advocated Jewish emancipation and tried to fight against the anti-Jewish attacks in the local Romanian press. The Revista Israelită (The Israelite Magazine), edited by Elias Schwarzfeld, was issued in 1874. Other periodicals issued in Romanian in Iaşi before World War I included Lumina (The Light, 1887) a socialist weekly, edited by Ştefan Stâncă; Propăşirea (The Thriving, 1889–1891), edited by Max Caufman; and Răsăritul (The Sunrise, 1899–1901).

In Iaşi, Jewish writers and journalists writing in Romanian before World War I included Adolf-Avram Steuerman-Rodion (1872–1918), Horia Carp, Enric Furtună, A. Axelrod, the brothers Joseph and Marco Brociner (the former an essayist and historian, the latter a novelist in Romanian and German), the epigrammatist Bernard Goldner (Giordano), the poet Adrian Verea, the journalists Jean Hefter, Alfred Hefter, Carol Schoenfeld (C. Săteanu), Clement Blumenfeld-Scrutator, and A. Glicksman (“Dr. Y”).

Jewish musicians in Iaşi played an important role as preservers of Yiddish folklore, as performers and composers. The most prominent musicians were the Lemes family, Avram Bughici, Berl Segal, and Haim Israel Bernstein. In 1906, a group of maskilim, including Niemirower, Iacob Nacht, Abraham Leib Zissu, Iacob Groper, Iacob Botoşanski and others, founded the Toynbee Hall Association, which was a sort of Jewish popular athenaeum, and organized public lectures on Jewish and general topics in Romanian and Yiddish. Among the lecturers who appeared in Iaşi were Sholem Aleichem, Bernard Lazare, Franz Oppenheimer, and Naḥum Sokolow. The first local committee of the Yishuv Erets Yisra’el organization was elected in February 1882; Karpel Lippe became its president. He eventually participated in the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897.

#also some of my family was from this town #history #mine #✡️

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unpluggedfinancial · 4 months ago

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How Bitcoin is Probably Gearing Up for a New ATH

Bitcoin has consistently demonstrated its resilience and growth potential since its inception. As we observe its price movements and market dynamics, it becomes evident that Bitcoin might be gearing up for a new all-time high (ATH). Understanding the importance of ATHs in the context of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies can provide valuable insights into the potential future trajectory of this digital asset.

Historical Performance and Previous ATHs

Bitcoin's journey has been marked by several significant ATHs, each catalyzing a surge in investor interest and mainstream media attention. The 2017 bull run saw Bitcoin reach an ATH of $19,783 on December 17, 2017, driven by a combination of retail investor frenzy and increasing awareness. Similarly, the 2020-2021 bull run pushed Bitcoin to a new ATH of $68,789 on November 10, 2021, fueled by institutional investments and macroeconomic factors.

Current Market Indicators

Several indicators suggest that Bitcoin is poised for another ATH:

Institutional Investments: Companies like MicroStrategy have acquired approximately 230,000 BTC as of 2024, worth billions of dollars.

Adoption Rates: PayPal reported over $5 billion in crypto trading volume in Q1 2024.

Technological Advancements: The Taproot upgrade, activated in November 2021, has enhanced Bitcoin's privacy and smart contract capabilities.

Regulatory Developments: The SEC's approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 has provided a more stable environment for growth.

Factors Contributing to the Potential ATH

Increased Adoption and Mainstream Acceptance: Major banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs now offer Bitcoin-related services to their clients.

Technological Advancements: The Lightning Network's capacity has grown to over 5,000 BTC as of 2024, improving Bitcoin's scalability.

Macroeconomic Factors: With U.S. inflation rates hitting 7% in 2021, Bitcoin is increasingly seen as a hedge against economic instability.

Geopolitical Influences: Countries like El Salvador adopting Bitcoin as legal tender demonstrate its potential as a global, borderless currency.

The Importance of Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) into Bitcoin

Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) is a strategic investment approach where an individual invests a fixed amount of money into an asset at regular intervals, regardless of its price.

Benefits of DCA:

Mitigates market volatility

Reduces investment risk

Provides a disciplined approach to investing

Example of Successful DCA Strategy: An investor who consistently invested $100 weekly in Bitcoin from January 2019 to December 2023 would have seen a return on investment of over 300%, outperforming many who attempted to time the market.

Practical Advice for Implementing DCA:

Start with a fixed amount that fits your budget (e.g., $50-$500 per month)

Set a regular investment schedule (weekly or monthly)

Use reputable exchanges with automated purchasing options

Remain consistent regardless of market conditions

Expert Opinions and Predictions

Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest: Predicts Bitcoin could reach $1 million per coin by 2030.

Plan B, creator of the Stock-to-Flow model: Forecasts Bitcoin reaching $100,000 by 2025.

Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy: Believes Bitcoin will replace gold as a store of value, potentially pushing its price to $500,000.

Potential Risks and Challenges

While the prospects for a new ATH are promising, potential risks include:

Market volatility: Bitcoin's price can fluctuate by over 10% in a single day.

Regulatory risks: Potential government crackdowns or unfavorable legislation.

Technological issues: The need for ongoing development to address scalability and security concerns.

Conclusion

Bitcoin's potential for reaching a new ATH is supported by a combination of historical patterns, current market indicators, and strategic investment approaches like DCA. As we move forward, staying informed and considering long-term investment strategies will be crucial for navigating the cryptocurrency landscape.

Key Takeaways:

Bitcoin has a history of reaching new ATHs, with the current record at $68,789.

Institutional adoption, technological advancements, and macroeconomic factors support potential growth.

Dollar-Cost Averaging can be an effective strategy for investing in Bitcoin.

While expert predictions vary, many see significant upside potential for Bitcoin.

Be aware of risks and challenges, including market volatility and regulatory uncertainties.

As you consider your investment strategy, remember that the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile. Always conduct thorough research and consider consulting with a financial advisor before making investment decisions.

🌐 Blog: Unplugged Financial Blog Stay updated with insightful articles, detailed analyses, and practical advice on navigating the evolving financial landscape. Learn about the history of money, the flaws in our current financial systems, and how Bitcoin can offer a path to a more secure and independent financial future.

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