#White Bear Theatre Politics Review

[justforbooks]

David Soul, who has died aged 80, stormed to fame in the 1970s as half of the television “buddies” detective duo Starsky and Hutch, who careered across Los Angeles in their red and white Ford Gran Torino, over the roofs and bonnets of other cars, and through piles of cardboard boxes.

“When the Starsky and Hutch series was showing, police on patrol duty were adopting sunglasses and wearing their gloves with the cuffs turned down,” claimed Kenneth Oxford, a British chief constable. “They also started driving like bloody maniacs.” In south London, a council lowered a wall after fans of the tyre-squealing screen action used it as a launchpad to jump on to parked vehicles.

While Paul Michael Glaser played the streetwise, cardigan-wearing, junk food-eating Dave Starsky, Soul’s character, Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson, was the quieter, yoga-loving, healthy-eating one – two cool cops looking after each other as if they were brothers.

Over five series (1975-79), they patrolled a rough area populated by muggers, drug dealers, sex workers and pimps. They also fraternised with Huggy Bear (played by Antonio Fargas), a snazzily dressed, “jive-talking” informant with his own bar.

Soul traded on his newfound stardom to return to his first love, music. He recorded the ballads Don’t Give Up on Us (1976), a No 1 in the US and UK, and Silver Lady (1977), another British chart-topper.

His television career continued, but the starring roles rarely resonated beyond his homeland. An exception was the miniseries World War III (1982), in which he played an American cold war colonel trying to avert a nuclear holocaust. It also chimed with his political and social campaigning, which included supporting the anti-nuclear movement.

He took up the tempting offer to play Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1983), a five-part TV prequel to the film classic, in the role originally played by Humphrey Bogart, but it proved a flop.

Soul found renewed success – particularly on the West End stage – after moving to Britain in the 90s. He even hit the headlines beyond the review pages in the title role of Jerry Springer the Opera (Cambridge theatre, 2004-05), taking over from another American actor, Michael Brandon, as the “shock” talkshow host.

The BBC’s decision to screen Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee’s musical, complete with thousands of swear words, transvestites, tap-dancers dressed as Ku Klux Klan members and a nappy-wearing Jesus, received more than 60,000 complaints from viewers.

Soul simply relished the chance to fulfil his “dream to play in the birthplace of English-speaking theatre” after failing to ��cut the mustard” when auditioning on Broadway.

He was born David Solberg in Chicago to June (nee Nelson), a teacher who had also performed as a singer, and Richard Solberg, a Lutheran minister of Norwegian descent. His father’s work as a representative of the Lutheran World Relief organisation during the reconstruction of Germany after the second world war meant the family moved to Berlin in 1949, returning to the US seven years later to live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where David attended Washington high school.

He then acted in plays while studying at Augustana College, before moving to Mexico with his family. Influenced by his father’s work, he initially had plans to join the diplomatic service, and learned Spanish and studied Latin American history. He was also taught to play the guitar by Mexican students.

After a year, he hitchhiked to the US, landed a job singing Mexican folk songs at a coffee shop in Minneapolis and set his sights on a career in music. He also gained some acting experience with the city’s Firehouse theatre company.

While talking with friends about the metaphorical masks people wear, he came up with the idea of wearing a real one while performing so that the music stood on its own merits, and billed himself “David Soul, the Covered Man”. The William Morris Agency signed him up after hearing a demo tape, and he soon had bookings. One was in The Merv Griffin Show on TV between 1966 and 1968, when he eventually dispensed with the mask. More significantly, a talent agent spotted his acting potential.

He had a regular role in Here Come the Brides (1968-70), a comedy western series set after the civil war, as Joshua Bolt, one of the brothers running a logging company in a male-dominated Seattle frontier town and importing marriageable women.

A guest star, Karen Carlson, became Soul’s second wife (1968-77), following the dissolution of his first marriage, to Mirriam “Mim” Russeth, in 1966, three years after their wedding.

Soul was then popping up all over American TV in guest roles himself, and had a short run in 1974 as Ted Warrick, the defence lawyer’s assistant, in Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, before wider fame came in Starsky and Hutch. By then, he was living in an “open” relationship with another actor, Lynne Marta. When he moved on to his third marriage, to Patti (nee Carnel, 1980-86), former wife of the 60s pop idol Bobby Sherman, he hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In 1982, having already struck Patti several times, he returned home drunk one night following a day’s filming on Casablanca – which he correctly feared would bomb – and hit her repeatedly. He was arrested on a charge of misdemeanour battery, but a judge spared him jail on condition that he underwent therapy. Soul admitted to having a violent streak and, although he and Patti were reunited, the marriage was soon over.

He kept working, landing starring roles as Roy Champion in the cattle ranch soap-style drama The Yellow Rose (1983-84), the private eye of the title in the TV movie Harry’s Hong Kong (1987), and “Wes” Grayson, leading an FBI forensics team, in Unsub (1989), but his star was on the wane. Another marriage, to Julia Nickson (1987-1993), also failed, before he had a relationship with the actor-singer Alexa Hamilton.

Soul’s career was revived when in 1995 the theatre producer Bill Kenwright was looking for an American to star in the comedy thriller Catch Me If You Can on tour in Britain. He played Corban, a newlywed whose wife goes missing. There were other tours and Soul was in the West End as Hank in The Dead Monkey (Whitehall, now Trafalgar, theatre, 1998), Chandler Tate in Alan Ayckbourn’s Comic Potential (Lyric, 1999-2000) and Mack in Mack & Mabel (Criterion, 2006).

In between, he had one-off roles on British television, including as a locum surgeon in two episodes of Holby City (2001 and 2002), a Boston detective helping to investigate his wife’s murder in Dalziel and Pascoe (2004) and a criminology lecturer in Inspector Lewis (2012). Soul and Glaser had cameos in the 2004 film spoof Starsky & Hutch, alongside Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch. In the same year, Soul was granted British citizenship.

He is survived by his fifth wife, Helen (nee Snell), whom he married in 2010, and five sons and a daughter.

🔔 David Soul (David Richard Solberg), actor and singer, born 28 August 1943; died 4 January 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[pubtheatres1]

ACTS OF DISUNION a double bill written by Alex Hayward, directed by Rachael Bellis The White Bear Theatre 16th & 18th March 2019 ‘... the best of the night came in the second half ... ‘Kingdom’ takes a brilliant, realistic and quite poignant view’ ★★★ I approach political theatre with some trepidation. It’s not my area of expertise, and like many I believe, I saw my fair share of highly questionable productions from angry young people during my BA, and MA for that matter. So, when coming to Acts of Disunion, I was hoping to prove myself wrong and discover that actually I can enjoy political theatre. And I was half proved wrong; because for me it was a night of two halves. Button – The first of the two shows took place in an underground bunker wherein there are two politicians of opposing parties and one big red self-destruct button. Stanley (played by Howard Lewis Morgan) is determined the button should be pushed, after all, the people voted, it’s what they asked for and this is a democracy isn’t it? Julia (played by Zari Lewis) thinks it’s probably not a good idea to ensure our complete annihilation by pressing the button, the only course of action must be what’s best for the people, despite the vote. This is not a new concept, the idea of a button that would end it all and people getting so deluded and desperate that annihilation is a better option than their current state. ‘Button’ unfortunately for me was everything I dread in political theatre; what it lacked in nuance it made up for in melodrama and vitriol. ‘Button’ for me didn’t say anything new or specific to our time, but was instead sound and fury without direction. It just got to the point with all the yelling, and two-dimensional characters, I didn’t really care if they pushed the button or not. And for me, if I don’t care whether the characters in front of me live or die then the piece just isn’t working. But perhaps that’s part of what political theatre is about, it’s not about the people, it’s about the arguments, it’s about the lessons that the audience are meant to be taught. The actors did work very hard and committed to their performances, but I feel like they were given a hard task with the writing and direction. Kingdom – The second half of the evening felt like an entirely different night for all the right reasons. ‘Kingdom’ takes as its focus Alton, an elderly man, who despite the pleas of his son and the danger of an excavated, unexploded bomb, refuses to leave his house. The old saying ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’ comes to mind, and Alton is determined to keep his drawbridge up, frustrated and probably a bit afraid to go outside the safety of its walls into a community he no longer recognises. Richard Harfst is utterly phenomenal as Alton. Despite Harfst being obviously too young to have seen the blitz first hand, as his character did, his physicality was consistent with that of someone far older than himself. Harfst’s performance is evocative of an entire generation. Despite uttering the occasional prejudicial comment, he always claims never to be racist or prejudice. We do not dislike him at all, even though we may disagree with him. I’m sure the audience often feel as Alton’s son Mark does. Paul Boichat gives a brilliant and understated performance as Mark. He loves his father deeply but is intensely frustrated with his refusal to accept change. The conversation between father and son covers politics through the prism of the personal. As an audience member, I feared both becoming Mark, a child who has to try and coax their parent towards what’s best for them, and a fear of becoming Alton, a grandparent who cannot accept change and carries on believing in the beauty of the past to the detriment of themselves and those who love them. There’s so much to be able to relate to in this play and it is incredibly effecting. There’s a lot of scope for this play to be lengthened and involve more characters and places, I’d be incredibly interested to see these characters again and for longer and hope to see this play progress and grow. I really feel the best of the night came in the second half. For me, now is not the time for dystopian future button pushing scenarios, but the everyday battles that people of all generations are currently facing, and have been facing in the past as well. Each generation gets to the point where they no longer recognise the world they grew up in, just as ours will one day, and ‘Kingdom’ takes a brilliant, realistic and quite poignant view of this that everyone can relate to. Verity Williams is a poet, actor, playwright, dog enthusiast and committed gin drinker (not necessarily in that order). Born and raised in Dorset, Verity has a BA in English and Drama from Royal Holloway, an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa and an MA in Acting from East 15. @Verity_W_

[adairraleign]

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[kyndaris]

Behind the Curtain

When I picture voice acting and, by extension, motion capture, the first thought that comes into my head is whether it fits the character on screen. No matter the appearance of an individual, as long as you have ‘the voice’ you could essentially play any role. Be that a murderous AI, an anthropomorphic vegetable or a person of colour.

In Uncharted 4, many took offence to the fact that Nadine Ross (a black South African) was voiced by Laura Bailey. And in many reviews I’ve seen of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, many have also pointed out their disappointment to see yet another ‘white woman’ behind the scenes.

Perhaps it is simply a symptom of the politically correct world we live in today but there is a sense that many of these roles should have been given to people of colour. While I can understand this requirement (and even outright encourage more persons of colour to feature in) for live-action films and television roles, voice acting provides the illusion of being someone or something without the restrictions of appearance.

Rather, in the voice-acting world, what should take pride of place is whether there are persons of colour being represented on screen. In the case of Uncharted, it should be celebrated that two women take the lead and each come from a vastly different ethnicity usually attributed to main roles. Nadine Ross is South African and the voice that Laura Bailey provides sells us on the point that she is a cut-throat mercenary. Would it have been better if Nadine Ross had been an American? 

In so many instances, be it video games and animation, persons of colour (along with white protagonists) have been voiced by people from different backgrounds. Take Avatar: The Last Airbender for example or the English dubs from popular anime. What about Kratos in God of War? Or the vastly talented Cree Summer and all the roles she had voiced for?

Any voice actor worth their salt is not limited by their appearances. They are able to pull off admirable impressions and give life to the pixels we see on screen.

Motion capture further serves to provides individuals with proper acting without the need to be a certain race or have a particular type of appearance. A skilled actor could be an intelligent simian ape or a gaunt wide-eyed Hobbit that had its life extended for years beyond its ken. 

Why then have we focused on the here and now, offended at the slightest touch by a voice actor playing a powerful female lead? Indeed, while Cloud Atlas and Aloha dropped the ball in having completely white people playing Asians (or half-Asians), this should have no bearing on the voice acting industry.

I might not have a history in theatre but growing up, I always knew what it meant to sound different to how I appear. Here’s hoping that more people are willing to try their hand at voice acting so that we may have more diversity, or perhaps teach actors proper pronunciation when voicing a Dynasty Warriors game.

[whatsupsac]

What’s Up With Your Weekend, 9/29/17-10/1/17:

Friday:

Banned Books Week: The top 5 most challenged books from 2016 were all challenged for their LGBTQ content, and all happened to be children's books. In recognition of national Banned Book Week (Sept 24-30) we'll spend time with an LGBTQ children's book author from our own community here in Sacramento, Dr. Gayle Pitman, to disucss some of her books and the two times people have attempted to ban her book "This Day in June"--a children's book about pride parades. The most recent attempt involved a library in Chicago and happened just this year. We'll sit down with Dr. Pitman to discuss censorship, the politics of libraries, and the importance of LGBTQ children's literature. There will be some light snacks and refreshments.Street parking is free after 6pm, as well as limited free parking in the small parking lot for the building. Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange. 6-7:30PM. 

Arts Industry Night: B Street Theatre understands that artists work hard. That’s why they’ve created Industry Night. An evening for artists, actors, photographers, dancers, and performers of all walks to enjoy live theatre at a special industry ticket price. Enjoy “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” the winner of the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play. The Broadway production of this play was a shattering and memorable experience and proclaimed the author as a major American playwright. Show up early for cheap drinks. B Street Theatre. Lobby opens at 6PM, Show at 7PM. $9 special rate for artists. Just say "INDUSTRY" for the special rate when you call the Box Office: 916-443-5300.

Xanadu at Crest Theatre: In this 1980 romantic musical fantasy, the mysterious Kira (Olivia Newton-John) appears to assist and inspire a young artist, Sonny Malone (Michael Beck). When she helps him meet up with the rich Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly), the two join up together to create an artistic and business success, an unique club called "Xanadu." Xanadu is fondly remembered now, but in 1980 it received mixed to critical reviews and was ultimately the inspiration for the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards to memorialize the worst films of the year. Crest Theatre. 7:30PM. $8-10 including facility fees. 

11th Annual Sacramento Horror Film Festival: Two Days & Two Nights of the absolute best in horror featuring films, shorts and live entertainment. Historic Colonial Theatre. The Festival begins at 4PM on Friday and continues through midnight on Saturday. $20-40. 

Saturday:

Pumpkin Patch Opening Day: Come out and enjoy a day at the farm. Uncle's Ray's offers a variety of fun activities complete with a corn maze, hayride, games and delicious food. Uncle Ray’s Pumpkin Patch, 5610 Garden Hwy. 10AM-5PM. Free.

Global Local Mercado: Global and Local artisan goods, food + music! Sol Collective invites you to our 12th annual Global Local Mercado season! The mercado is meant to highlight handmade, arts & cultural goods by local and global vendors. This year we will also feature curated vintage and much more. Sol Collective. 12-5PM.

Sorta Late Afternoon Early Evening Party: Hella smooth music by Shaun Slaughter at the perfect place to vibe out with a late afternoon, early evening drink. Golden Bear. 5-8:30PM.

The White Album “In It’s Entirety” at Crest Theatre: The Beatles released The White Album in 1968 but never played any of the songs live. By the time the album came out, the band had retired from live performances. Aside form a spontaneous rooftop performance at their recording studio in London while recording the album “Let It Be,” Beatles fans never got to hear them play live again. SPMA has painstakingly transcribed and arranged The Beatles White Album “In It’s Entirety,” for Rhythm Section, Strings, Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion, & Choir. Very “Special Guests Musicians,” from the Sacramento Area have collaborated for this concert in an effort to support The SPMA Guitar Project & the iHeartMusic.Org Scholarship Fund, which helps to bring music education, and guitar programs, to underserved schools in the Sacramento area. Crest Theatre. Doors at 6:30PM, Show at 7:30PM. $29.50-48.

Macbeth by Big Idea Theatre: Big Idea Theatre continues its 10th Anniversary Season, FIND YOUR VOICE, with this Shakespeare classic. Inspired by the great Hammer Horror films of the 50s and 60s, Big Idea Theatre’s MACBETH will be a violent, bloody romp where witches and warriors will fill the haunted house theatre this fall!. MACBETH opens September 29th and runs until October 28th, with performances Thursday-Saturday at 8pm. Celebrate the Halloween season at Big Idea theatre! Big Idea Theatre, 1616 Del Paso Blvd.  General Admission is $18 online / $22 door, Students / Seniors / SARTA members are $16 online /$20 door. Groups (10 or more) are $12 each and reservations are required. 

Sunday: 

Midtown For Mexico: A Mexican pub crawl featuring some of your favorite Mexican restaurants in midtown including Zocolo and Azul. For a $45 set price you get 6 drink vouchers and finger food at 5 locations. All proceeds will go to support families in Mexico city Puebla that have been affected by the recent disaster. Azul. 3-9PM. $45.

International Festival: The 7th annual International Festival Davis, brought to you by International House Davis is a free event featuring live music and dancing, food, local businesses and nonprofits, arts and crafts, and culture booths where you can learn more about the world. Central Park Davis. 12-5PM. Free.

Geeks Who Drink!: A weekly pub quiz in which Quizmaster Lara asks you 8 rounds of question on various topics, you answer them and you win free stuff! (Mostly beer). New Helvetia Brewing Co. 6-9PM.

[warninggraphiccontent]

5 April 2019

Ok, I'll bite

Highlight of the week (which also included opining on national television and extensively on Twitter about ministerial resignations and why you should care) was undoubtedly the IfG's inaugural Data Bites event.

Four brilliant presentations against the clock (or, more accurately, against the PowerPoint presentation made to look like a timer) - from Louisa Nolan on faster data about the economy, from Paul Maltby on digital land, from David Divitt on detecting fraud, and from Sophie Adams and Jon Downing on data analytics in a regulatory body - got the series off to the best possible start. Four very different projects, but some unmistakable themes: data sharing and access, better data infrastructure, how you build teams, the power of good visualisation and what all of these things mean in the real world. Watch or listen back here.

Good discussions followed in real-life and on Twitter (with thanks to an excellent audience, in person and online). The next one will be on Wednesday 1 May, so put a date in your diary now.

From last week: 'So busy has it been this week that I haven’t quite got around to posting a small sporting data side project... I’m sure next week will be quieter.' I think you can already guess how well that went.

Until next week,

Gavin

Today's links:

Graphic content

The never-ending carnival of fun

Indicative votes (Marcus for IfG)

Ministerial resignations, again (me and Alasdair for IfG - Guardian version,BBC version)

MPs’ Brexit votes reveal myriad divisions among the Tories* (The Economist)

Public opinion on Brexit (Anthony Wells)

By-elections (me and Aron for IfG)

The Westminster Twitter bubble — an illustrated guide (Politico)

How much time has the Commons actually spent on Brexit since the EU Referendum? (Alice for IfG)

The Government must not continue delaying the social care green paper (Graham for IfG)

UK’s Brexit options — an illustrated guide (Politico)

Theresa May's Government was defeated 5 times in the Commons yesterday (Telegraph Data)

Visualisation showing the cumulative support from each MP across all Indicative Votes (Emojiocracy)

Gender

Gender Pay Gap: women still short-changed in the UK* (FT)

More than 100 NHS trusts have a worse gender pay gap than a year ago(The Guardian, via Johnny)

WOMEN’S ISSUES within political party platforms (The Pudding)

The gender pay gap in many countries is exacerbated by parenthood—you can hear it in the data* (The Economist)

Geography

BILLIONS OF BIRDS MIGRATE. WHERE DO THEY GO? (National Geographic, via Johnny)

When it comes to sports, men and women don’t play on the same fields(Brookings)

Heatmaps are cool (mySociety)

What remains of Bears Ears* (Washington Post)

Everything else

A busy week in @ONS data viz towers (Rob Fry)

Has the yield curve predicted the next US downturn?* (FT)

The cost of living alone (ONS)

Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections.* (New York Times)

Gaza border protests: 190 killed and 28,000 injured in a year of bloodshed(The Guardian)

A day in the life of Americans: a data comic (Matt Hong)

About #dataviz

National Geographic and Reuters win Endesa Best of Show Award(Malofiej)

Empathy through visualization (Alberto Cairo)

Introducing Activation Atlases (OpenAI)

How good are FiveThirtyEight forecasts? (FiveThirtyEight)

When We Say 70 Percent, It Really Means 70 Percent (FiveThirtyEight)

Data Visualization in Europe: A Short Introduction (Martin Telefont)

Meta data

Government

Data Bites: Getting things done with data in government (Institute for Government, see also @ifgevents, #IfGDataBites)

New digital projects will be signed off by NHSX (HSJ)

NHSX to mandate health tech standards (Health Tech Newspaper)

2 Years in the Grip of the Justice System (John Fitzpatrick)

A Brief Introduction to Digital Government for Public Sector Leadership Teams (Eddie Copeland)

The grim reality of life under Gangs Matrix, London's controversial predictive policing tool (Wired)

The only way is... oh

Why I have accepted the invitation to advise Google about the ethical challenges posed by AI (Luciano Floridi)

Exclusive: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry (Vox)

Google scraps ethics council for artificial intelligence* (FT)

'Bias deep inside the code': the problem with AI 'ethics' in Silicon Valley(The Guardian)

It's all going very well

The internet needs new rules. Let's start in these four areas. (Mark Zuckerberg for Washington Post)

We Built A Broken Internet. Now We Need To Burn It To The Ground.(BuzzFeed)

YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Letting Toxic Videos Run Rampant(Bloomberg)

Social media bosses could be liable for harmful content, leaked UK plan reveals (The Guardian)

Facebook is partnering with a big UK newspaper to publish sponsored articles downplaying 'technofears' and praising the company (Business Insider)

Inquiry launched into data use from no-deal Brexit ads on Facebook (The Guardian)

Still, it could be worse

A quarter of Europeans want AI to replace politicians. That’s a terrible idea. (Vox)

Stained in Red (London Review of Books)

Opportunities

JOB: Data Scientist (National Theatre)

EVENT: Democracy Club | Elections data party (LSE!) (Democracy Club, via Tess)

Voters are crying out for better information about elections – here’s your opportunity to help (Democracy Club for Democratic Audit)

Everything else

Why bother with What Three Words? (Terence Eden)

Exploring how to measure social integration using digital and online data(Demos, via Johnny)

#InConfidence

Can OS map Britain’s high streets? (Ordnance Survey)

DIGITAL SELF-CONTROL: ALGORITHMS, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND OUR DIGITAL SELVES (NEF)

The history of machine learning (BBC)

Plants and Birds Need Privacy Online, Too (Slate)

And finally...

An irrational date for an irrational number* (FT)

There are a few problems with this pie chart. (via Martin Stabe)

Emoticons were born on this day in 1881... (Brain Pickings)

New poster to celebrate 70 years of Britain’s National Parks (Ordnance Survey)

Dive in: aerial shots of German public swimming pools (The Guardian, which put me in mind of this)

Jon Snow is fan favourite to win Game of Thrones (YouGov)

M25 Man

[riting]

Johanna Hedva and Lucas Wrench on the durational performance of Machine Project

When Machine Project closed a year ago, on January 13, 2018, we wondered: what if what just ended was a show that was fifteen years long? Perhaps a bunch of artists had visited there as unwitting collaborators in, and audience to, an ongoing performance disguised as discrete events? We asked a couple Machine regulars to write about the show and reflect on how it might help them think about issues specific to performance.

Johanna Hedva: If Machine Project wasn’t a big ol’ performance, what was it?

Was it a science-fiction movie? It had (was) an imaginative concept that foregrounded innovation and exciting technologies, and was entirely populated by extraterrestrials.

Was it a catering service? When I worked there, every day we’d scoot the tables together and squinch our IKEA folding chairs in close and eat the takeout lunch Mark Allen had bought for us out of company funds, and this is the number one reason, of so many reasons, why it’s still the best job I’ve ever had, and I imagine I can speak for my fellow colleagues in saying that it’s one of the best jobs they’ve ever had, simply because eating together day in and day out for several years builds community and trust and friendship like nothing else.

Figure 1: Claire Kohne as Kalypso the vengeful sorceress who chases after Odysseus as he is being rescued in the VONS parking lot. From Odyssey Odyssey (2013).

Was it a really long Vine? ‘Twas a zany goofball slapstick premise exceptionally executed in an unfathomably pinched amount of time, and also served as a vessel for cultural criticism and commentary, while birthing a zillion trends.

Was it a tabletop role-playing game? Maybe not exactly, but in essence it was a bunch of people who could be called players rather than competitors, creating their own characters who participate in a collective narrative within an agreed-upon (fictional or non) setting, which follows guidelines and rules of that agreed-upon world, but which is not necessarily and probably quite different from the rest of the world, and which is great fun and probably addicting. Also, once they got that great website, they sort of became a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), because of those brilliant animated avatars (drawn by Tiffanie Tran) of an octopus (representing the artist), a cactus with a beret (poets), and a pineapple with a mustache (representing the public).

Was it a Hollywood blockbuster? Because it pretty much fits film critic Tom Shone’s definition of a blockbuster being “a fast-paced, exciting entertainment, inspiring interest and conversation beyond the theatre (which would later be called ‘buzz’), and repeated viewings,” and, for a nonprofit, it was pretty damn financially successful.

Was it a book of aphorisms? Fits the Online Etymology Dictionary’s definition for aphorism as “a concise, terse, laconic, and/or memorable expression of a general truth or principle,” and it would be more than just one aphorism, more like a book of them, a very long book, because there were way more than just a few.

Figure 2: Joe Seely as Clay, an old bitch who's been waiting in the desert for 100 years to see the symbol of her desire again. From Ancient Monuments to What (2015).

Speaking of books! Was it a cookbook? Chock full of recipes that simultaneously include careful measurements and room for error, for how to make various dishes, from soupy liquids to layered cakes to multi-plated entrees?

Was it an example of magical realism? Political critique folded into phantasmagorical otherworldly otherworlds, with intricate metaphors, animals, witches, forests, and shipwrecks, and strange objects and doorways that may or may not take you to another dimensional realm that may or may not be 100 years from now or in the past.

Was it a PhD thesis on how certain forms of sociality feel better than others, but strangely it’s hard to articulate why?

Was it an attempt at utopia? Isn’t utopia inherently a failure? Then, but, so, didn’t it succeed?

Was it a puzzle that refused to be solved?

Figure 3: Nickels Sunshine as Yama-uba, a crone with mouths under her hair who feeds on young girls. From Ancient Monuments to What (2015).

Was it a distant island that we tried to voyage to, but alas, our ship ran aground and our beards grew wildly and became entangled in the rigging and, thin with scurvy, we watched the sun go down as the skies roared with thunder and some of us howled at the future while others listened to the wind?

Was it a petition or a vow?

Was it a love letter? It loved me. I loved it. Am I the only one, I don’t think so.

Should these questions be answered? Can they? But why would we want to?

Was it a promise covered in tiny musical notes that when all played together made the big, resounding chord of curious joy?

Was it a dream? It was one of the best dreams.

Johanna Hedva is a fourth-generation Los Angelena on their mother’s side and, on their father’s side, the grandchild of a woman who escaped from North Korea. Hedva is the author of the novel, On Hell (2018, Sator Press). Their fiction, essays, and poems have appeared in Triple Canopy, The White Review, Black Warrior Review, Entropy, Mask, 3:AM, Asian American Literary Review, The Journal Petra, DREGINALD, and Two Serious Ladies. Their works of performance, design, and sound have been shown at Human Resources LA, PAM, the Getty’s 2013 Pacific Standard Time, the LA Architecture and Design Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon. Most of their performances in Los Angeles were hosted by Machine Project, including The Cave series and Odyssey Odyssey, their adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, which was performed in a Honda Odyssey being driven down the freeway. 

Lucas Wrench: Notes on Vermin

The Machine Project Mystery Theater was originally built in 2013 for Chris Weisbart’s Alvarado Caverns project - which transformed Machine Project’s storefront into an amalgamation of a 99 cent store, gas station bathroom, hologram-laden indoor cave, and a faux-victorian seventeen seat basement theater, replete with velvet curtains, gold foam molding, and clamshell stage lights. Most importantly, Machine Project’s Mystery Theater featured a drop-tile foam ceiling, painted gold, leaving a ten inch gap between Machine Project’s rapidly deteriorating ground level floorboards and the precariously adhered foamcore below. Due to Machine Project’s penchant for spontaneous trapdoor construction, by the time I arrived in the summer of 2014, this once benign buffer zone had transformed into a kind of snack graveyard, home to pretzel crumbs, gummy bears, stray popcorn, spilled Tecate, and several bags of chips.

I’d like to examine the multi-year rat infestation that followed through the lens of what our founder refers to in donor presentations as “grass roots porosity”. It’s the philosophy that a small, nimble art space like Machine Project can be host, partner, and collaborator with a wide range of fellow art spaces, community groups, and institutions, creating a network that’s arguably more generative than those of better funded, but less porous institutions.

Figure 1: “Pro-Porosity / Grass Roots Culture”

Porosity is a liability for museums. While Machine Project’s vermin offerings were limited to Snyder’s pretzel rods and various gas station snacks, the sustenance provided by collecting institutions is far more valuable. Anthropological materials offer a protein rich food source, full of keratin, wood proteins, and plant matter. Works on paper can be considered simple sugars - easily digestible starches beloved by louse and silverfish. Painting offers a mixed diet - glues and varnish, wood and canvas. In anticipation of these threats, the borders of the institution are vigilantly policed. Giant freezers inoculate unseen intruders. Inspections and traps hunt for “visitors” like lady bugs and house flies, that can indicate a breach in security and become food for more malevolent vermin. Black lights scan for eggs and insect trails that warn of pending invasions.

Figure 2: Document Freezer at the Gilcrease Museum - Tulsa, OK

Figure 3: Insect trap collection at Gilcrease Museum - Tulsa, OK

To be clear, i’m not advocating for more rat-infested art spaces. Machine Project’s infestation was traumatizing. It demanded weekly visits from Karl The Exterminator to remove glue traps from the drop ceiling. I had a rat chew its way through the secret trapdoor in the upstairs apartment and fall some sixteen feet into the storefront. I saw rat tails dip low between the foamcore tiles, nearly brushing the heads of unsuspecting audience members below. Mice crawled over my feet as I attempted to run sound from the back of the theater. More traumatizing still was the constant, audible scurrying, the threat that at any moment the flimsy tiles would fall, unleashing the barely contained plague above.  

Figure 4: Diagram of Machine Project Rat Migration

But with a year and a half of distance between me and the rats, I recognize that the conditions that enabled this gnawing torment are the same conditions that made Machine Project such a valuable resource for artists. It was a space where you could cut a trapdoor in the ceiling without hesitance, and install gold foam tiling without concern for the ensuing trash accumulation. Where a temporary basement theater could stay up for a few more years so other artists can use it. Where the solution to a three year rat infestation was removing the floor of the storefront entirely, then reinstalling it at a 30 degree angle to present a play.

I’m now living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, working at a museum with a giant freezer and insect traps, in an office that requires key-cards to access, where no food is allowed, and the trash is dutifully removed every night.  I am protected here - a beneficiary of the museum’s commitment to preserve their collection in perpetuity, and a casualty of the fact that crumbs in my office could spell disaster for some Xth century manuscript stored a floor below. But from a public programming perspective, tasked with bringing the outside in, I can’t help wondering what it would look like to create some space here where a bit of infestation is tolerable. The only problem is how to keep it from spreading.

Lucas Wrench is a 2019 Tulsa Artist Fellow. He was Machine Project’s operations manager (2014-2017) and associate curator (2015-2017).

Machine Project was a place for artists to do fun experiments, together with the public, in ways that influenced culture. It happened at 1200 D North Alvarado, Los Angeles, CA 90026, and elsewhere, from 2003-2018.

Photos by Laure Joliet and provided by the artists.

[blackkudos]

Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), formerly known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the PEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for 

Tales of the Out and the Gone

.

Baraka's career spanned nearly 50 years, and his themes range from black liberation to white racism. Some poems that are always associated with his name are "The Music: Reflection on Jazz and Blues", "The Book of Monk", and "New Music, New Poetry", works that draw on topics from the worlds of society, music, and literature. Baraka's poetry and writing have attracted both extreme praise and condemnation. Within the African-American community, some compare Baraka to James Baldwin and recognize him as one of the most respected and most widely published black writers of his generation. Others have said his work is an expression of violence, misogyny, homophobia and racism. Regardless of viewpoint, Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been defining texts for African-American culture.

Baraka's brief tenure as Poet Laureate of New Jersey (2002–03) involved controversy over a public reading of his poem "Somebody Blew Up America?", accusations of anti-semitism, and some negative attention from critics, and politicians.

Biography

Early life (1934–65)

Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey, where he attended Barringer High School. His father, Colt Leverette Jones, worked as a postal supervisor and lift operator. His mother, Anna Lois (née Russ), was a social worker.

He won a scholarship to Rutgers University in 1951, but a continuing sense of cultural dislocation prompted him to transfer in 1952 to Howard University, from which, in 1954, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English. His classes in philosophy and religion helped lay a foundation for his later writings. Baraka subsequently studied at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research without obtaining a degree.

In 1954, he joined the US Air Force as a gunner, reaching the rank of sergeant. His commanding officer received an anonymous letter accusing Baraka of being a communist. This led to the discovery of Soviet writings in Baraka's possession, his reassignment to gardening duty and subsequently a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty. He later described his experience in the military as "racist, degrading, and intellectually paralyzing." While he was stationed in Puerto Rico, he worked at the base library which allowed him ample reading time and it was here that, inspired by Beat poets back in America, he began to write poetry.

The same year, he moved to Greenwich Village working initially in a warehouse for music records. His interest in jazz began during this period. At the same time he came into contact with avant-garde Black Mountain poets and New York School poets. In 1958 he married Hettie Cohen, with whom he had two daughters, Kellie Jones (b. 1959) and Lisa Jones (b.1961). He and Hettie founded Totem Press, which published such Beat icons as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. They also jointly founded a quarterly literary magazine Yugen, which ran for eight issues (1958–62).

Baraka also worked as editor and critic for the literary and arts journal Kulchur (1960–65). With Diane di Prima he edited the first twenty-five issues (1961–63) of their little magazine The Floating Bear. In the autumn of 1961 he co-founded the New York Poets Theatre with di Prima, choreographers Fred Herko and James Waring, and actor Alan S. Marlowe. He had an extramarital affair with Diane di Prima for several years; their daughter, Dominique di Prima, was born in June 1962.

Baraka visited Cuba in July 1960 with a Fair Play for Cuba Committee delegation and reported his impressions in his essay "Cuba Libre". There he encountered openly rebellious artists who declared him to be a "cowardly bourgeois individualist" more focused on building his reputation than trying to help those who were enduring oppression. This encounter caused a dramatic change in his writing and goals, causing him to become emphatic about supporting black nationalism.

In 1961 Baraka co-authored a Declaration of Conscience in support of Fidel Castro's regime. Baraka also was a member of the Umbra Poets Workshop of emerging Black Nationalist writers (Ishmael Reed, and Lorenzo Thomas among others) on the Lower East Side (1962–65).

In 1961 a first book of poems, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, was published. Baraka's article "The Myth of a 'Negro Literature'" (1962) stated that "a Negro literature, to be a legitimate product of the Negro experience in America, must get at that experience in exactly the terms America has proposed for it in its most ruthless identity." He also states in the same work that as an element of American culture, the Negro was entirely misunderstood by Americans. The reason for this misunderstanding and for the lack of black literature of merit was according to Jones:

As long as black writers were obsessed with being an accepted middle class, Baraka wrote, they would never be able to speak their mind, and that would always lead to failure. Baraka felt that America only made room for white obfuscators, not black ones.

In 1963 Baraka (under the name Jones) published Blues People: Negro Music in White America, his account of the development of black music from slavery to contemporary jazz. When the work was re-issued in 1999, Baraka wrote in the Introduction that he wished to show: "The music was the score, the actually expressed creative orchestration, reflection of Afro-American life.... That the music was explaining the history as the history was explaining the music. And that both were expressions of and reflections of the people." Baraka argued that though the slaves had brought their musical traditions from Africa, the blues were an expression of what black people became in America: "The way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if the African captives had not become American captives."

Baraka (under the name Jones) authored an acclaimed, controversial play Dutchman, in which a white woman accosts a black man on the New York subway. The play premiered in 1964 and received the Obie Award for Best American Play in the same year. A film of the play, directed by Anthony Harvey, was released in 1967. The play has been revived several times, including a 2013 production staged in the Russian and Turkish Bathhouse in the East Village, Manhattan.

After the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, Baraka left his wife and their two children and moved to Harlem. In Harlem, Baraka founded The Black Arts Repertory/Theater School since the Black Arts Movement created a new visual representation of art. However, Baraka moved back to Newark after allegations surfaced that he was using federal anti-poverty welfare to fund his theater.

Baraka became a leading advocate and theorist for the increase in black art during this time. Now a "black cultural nationalist," he broke away from the predominantly white Beats and became very critical of the pacifist and integrationist Civil Rights movement. His revolutionary poetry now became more controversial. A poem such as "Black Art" (1965), according to academic Werner Sollors from Harvard University, expressed his need to commit the violence required to "establish a Black World".

Baraka even uses onomatopoeia in “Black Art” to express that need for violence: “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuht . . .” More specifically, lines in “Black Art” such as “Let there be no love poems written / until love can exist freely and cleanly” juxtaposed with “We want a black poem. / And a Black World” demonstrate Baraka’s cry for political justice during a time when racial injustice was rampant – despite the Civil Rights Movement.

"Black Art" quickly became the major poetic manifesto of the Black Arts Literary Movement and in it, Jones declaimed "we want poems that kill," which coincided with the rise of armed self-defense and slogans such as "Arm yourself or harm yourself" that promoted confrontation with the white power structure. Rather than use poetry as an escapist mechanism, Baraka saw poetry as a weapon of action. His poetry demanded violence against those he felt were responsible for an unjust society.

Baraka also promoted theatre as a training for the "real revolution" yet to come, with the arts being a way to forecast the future as he saw it. In "The Revolutionary Theatre," Baraka wrote "We will scream and cry, murder, run through the streets in agony, if it means some soul will be moved." In opposition to the peaceful protests that Martin Luther King Jr. inspired, Baraka believed that a physical uprising must follow the literary one.

1966–80

In 1966, Baraka married his second wife, Sylvia Robinson, who later adopted the name Amina Baraka. The two would open a facility in Newark known as Spirit Hose, a combination playhouse and artists’ residence. In 1967, he lectured at San Francisco State University. The year after, he was arrested in Newark for having allegedly carried an illegal weapon and resisting arrest during the 1967 Newark riots, and was subsequently sentenced to three years in prison. His poem "Black People", published in the "Evergreen Review" of December 1967, was read by the judge in court, including the memorable phrase: "All the stores will open if you say the magic words. The magic words are: "Up against the wall motherfucker this is a stick up!" Shortly afterward an appeals court reversed the sentence based on his defense by attorney Raymond A. Brown. He later joked that he was charged with holding "two revolvers and two poems".

Not long after the 1967 riots, Baraka generated controversy when he went on the radio with a Newark police captain and Anthony Imperiale, a politician and private business owner, and the three of them blamed the riots on "white-led, so-called radical groups" and "Communists and the Trotskyite persons." That same year his second book of jazz criticism, Black Music, came out, a collection of previously published music journalism, including the seminal Apple Cores columns from Down Beat magazine. Around this time he also formed a record label called Jihad, which produced and issued only three LPs, all released in 1968: Sonny's Time Now with Sunny Murray, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Louis Worrell, Henry Grimes, and Baraka; A Black Mass, featuring Sun Ra; and Black & Beautiful – Soul & Madness by the Spirit House Movers, on which Baraka reads his poetry.

In 1967, Baraka (still Leroi Jones) visited Maulana Karenga in Los Angeles and became an advocate of his philosophy of Kawaida, a multifaceted, categorized activist philosophy that produced the "Nguzo Saba," Kwanzaa, and an emphasis on African names. It was at this time that he adopted the name Imamu Amear Baraka. Imamu is a Swahili title for "spiritual leader", derived from the Arabic wordImam (إمام). According to Shaw, he dropped the honorific Imamu and eventually changed Amear (which means "Prince") to Amiri.Baraka means "blessing, in the sense of divine favor."

In 1970 he strongly supported Kenneth A. Gibson's candidacy for mayor of Newark; Gibson was elected the city's first Afro-American Mayor.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baraka courted controversy by penning some strongly anti-Jewish poems and articles, similar to the stance at that time of the Nation of Islam. Historian Melani McAlister points to an example of this writing "In the case of Baraka, and in many of the pronouncements of the NOI [Nation of Islam], there is a profound difference, both qualitative and quantitative, in the ways that white ethnicities were targeted. For example, in one well-known poem, Black Arts [originally published in The Liberator January 1966], Baraka made offhand remarks about several groups, commenting in the violent rhetoric that was often typical of him, that ideal poems would 'knockoff ... dope selling wops' and suggesting that cops should be killed and have their 'tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland.' But as Baraka himself later admitted [in his piece I was an AntiSemite published by The Village Voice on December 20, 1980 vol 1], he held a specific animosity for Jews, as was apparent in the different intensity and viciousness of his call in the same poem for 'dagger poems' to stab the 'slimy bellies of the ownerjews' and for poems that crack 'steel knuckles in a jewlady's mouth.'"

Prior to this time, Baraka prided himself on being a forceful advocate of black cultural nationalism; however, by the mid-1970s, he began finding its racial individuality confining. Baraka's separation from the Black Arts Movement began because he saw certain black writers – capitulationists, as he called them – countering the Black Arts Movement that he created. He believed that the groundbreakers in the Black Arts Movement were doing something that was new, needed, useful, and black, and those who did not want to see a promotion of black expression were "appointed" to the scene to damage the movement.

Around 1974, Baraka distanced himself from Black nationalism and became a Marxist and a supporter of third-world liberation movements.

In 1979 he became a lecturer in the State University of New York at Stony Brook's Africana Studies Department in the College of Arts and Sciences due to the urging of faculty member Leslie Owens. Articles about Baraka appeared in the University's print media fromStony Brook Press, Blackworld, and other student campus publications. These articles included an expose about his positions on page one of the inaugural issue of Stony Brook Press on October 25, 1979 discussing his protests "against what he perceived as racism in the Africana Studies Department, as evidenced by a dearth of tenured professors." Baraka was later hired as an assistant professor at Stony Brook to assist "the struggling Africana Studies Department."

In June 1979 Baraka was arrested and jailed at Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Different accounts emerged around the arrest, all sides agree that Baraka and his wife, Amina, were in their car arguing over the cost of their children's shoes. The police version of events holds that they were called to the scene after a report of an assault in progress. They maintain that Baraka was striking his wife and when they moved to intervene he attacked them as well, whereupon they used the necessary force to subdue him. Amina's account contrasted with that of the police, she held a news conference the day after the arrest accusing the police of lying. A grand jury dismissed the assault charge but the resisting arrest charge moved forward. In November 1979 after a seven-day trail a Criminal Court jury found Baraka guilty of resisting arrest. A month later he was sentenced to 90 days at Riker's Island (the maximum he could have been sentenced to was one year). Amina declared that her husband was "a political prisoner". Baraka was released after a day in custody pending his appeal. At the time it was noted if he was kept in prison "he would be unable to attend a reception at the White House in honor of American poets." Baraka's appeal continued up to the State Supreme Court. During the process his lawyer William M. Kunstler told the press Baraka "feels it's the responsibility of the writers of America to support him across the board." Backing for his attempts to have the sentence cancelled or reduced came from "letters of support from elected officials, artists and teachers around the country." Amina Baraka continued to advocate for her husband and at one press conference stated "Fascism is coming and soon the secret police will shoot our children down in the streets." In December 1981 Judge Benrard Fried ruled against Baraka and ordered him to report to Rikers Island to serve his senetence on weekends occurring between January 9, 1982 through November 6, 1982. The judge noted that by having Baraka serve his 90 days on weekends this would allow him to continue his teaching obligations at Stony Brook. Rather than serve his sentence at the prison Baraka was allowed to serve his 48 consecutive weekends in a Harlem halfway house. While serving his sentence he wrote The Autobiography tracing his life from birth to his conversion to socialism.

1980–2014

In 1980 Baraka published an essay in the Village Voice that was titled Confessions of a Former Anti-Semite. Baraka insisted that aVillage Voice editor entitled it and not himself. In the essay Baraka went over his life history including his marriage to Hettie Cohen who was of Jewish descent. He stated that after the assassination of Malcolm X he found himself thinking "As a Black man married to a white woman, I began to feel estranged from her … How could someone be married to the enemy?" So he divorced Hettie and left her with their two bi-racial daughters. In the essay Baraka went on to say "We also know that much of the vaunted Jewish support of Black civil rights organizations was in order to use them. Jews, finally, are white, and suffer from the same kind of white chauvinism that separates a great many whites from Black struggle. …these Jewish intellectuals have been able to pass over the into the Promised Land of American privilege." In the essay he also defended his position against Israel saying "Zionism is a form of racism." Near the end of the essay Baraka stated "Anti-Semitism is as ugly an idea and as deadly as white racism and Zionism …As for my personal trek through the wasteland of anti-Semitism, it was momentary and never completely real. ...I have written only one poem that has definite aspects of anti-Semitism…and I have repudiated it as thoroughly as I can." The poem Baraka referenced was For Tom Postell, Dead Black Poet which contained lines including “...Smile jew. Dance, jew. Tell me you love me, jew. I got something for you... I got the extermination blues, jewboys. I got the hitler syndrome figured...So come for the rent, jewboys...one day, jewboys, we all, even my wig wearing mother gonna put it on you all at once."

During the 1982–83 academic year, Baraka was a visiting professor at Columbia University, where he taught a course entitled "Black Women and Their Fictions." In 1984 he became a full professor at Rutgers University, but was subsequently denied tenure. In 1985, Baraka returned to Stony Brook, eventually becoming professor emeritus of African Studies. In 1987, together with Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, he was a speaker at the commemoration ceremony for James Baldwin.

In 1989 Baraka won an American Book Award for his works as well as a Langston Hughes Award. In 1990 he co-authored the autobiography of Quincy Jones, and 1998 was a supporting actor in Warren Beatty's film Bulworth. In 1996, Baraka contributed to the AIDS benefit album Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip produced by the Red Hot Organization.

In July 2002, Baraka was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey by Governor Jim McGreevey. The position was to be for two years and came with a $10,000 stipend. Baraka held the post for a year mired in controversy and after substantial political pressure and public outrage demanding his resignation. During the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Stanhope, New Jersey, Baraka read his 2001 poem on the September 11th attacks "Somebody Blew Up America?", which was criticized for anti-Semitism and attacks on public figures. Because there was no mechanism in the law to remove Baraka from the post, the position of state poet laureate was officially abolished by the State Legislature and Governor McGreevey.

Baraka collaborated with hip-hop group The Roots on the song "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)" on their 2002 albumPhrenology.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Amiri Baraka on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 2003, Baraka's daughter Shani, aged 31, and her lesbian partner, Rayshon Homes, were murdered in the home of Shani's sister, Wanda Wilson Pasha, by Pasha's ex-husband, James Coleman. Prosecutors argued that Coleman shot Shani because she had helped her sister separate from her husband. A New Jersey jury found Coleman (also known as Ibn El-Amin Pasha) guilty of murdering Shani Baraka and Rayshon Holmes, and he was sentenced to 168 years in prison for the 2003 shooting.

His son, Ras J. Baraka (born 1970), is a politician and activist in Newark, who served as principal of Newark's Central High School, as an elected member of the Municipal Council of Newark (2002–06, 2010–present) representing the South Ward. Ras J. Baraka became Mayor of Newark, July 1, 2014. See 2014 Newark mayoral election.

Death

Amiri Baraka died on January 9, 2014, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey, after being hospitalized in the facility's intensive care unit for one month prior to his death. The cause of death was not reported initially, but it is mentioned that Baraka had a long struggle with diabetes. Later reports indicated that he died from complications after a recent surgery. Baraka's funeral was held at Newark Symphony Hall on January 18, 2014.

Controversies

Baraka's writings, and the covers of his early notebooks with large images of erect penises which were on open display in the Greenwich Village cafes where he sat, have generated controversy over the years, particularly his advocacy of rape and violence towards, at various times, women, gay people, white people, and Jews.

Author Jerry Gafio Watts contends that Baraka's homophobia and misogyny stem from his efforts to conceal his own history of same-sex encounters. Watts writes that Baraka "knew that popular knowledge of his homosexuality would have undermined the credibility of his militant voice. By becoming publicly known as a hater of homosexuals, Jones was attempting to defuse any claims that might surface linking him with a homosexual past." Critics of his work have alternately described such usage as ranging from being vernacular expressions of Black oppression to outright examples of the sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, and racism they perceive in his work.

In Rain Taxi, Richard Oyama criticized Baraka’s militant aesthetic, writing that Baraka’s "career came to represent a cautionary tale of the worst 'tendencies' of the 1960s—the alienating rejections, the fanatical self-righteousness, the impulse toward separatism and Stalinist repression versus multi-racial/class coalition-building...In the end, Baraka’s work suffered because he preferred ideology over art, forgetting the latter outlasts us all."

White people

The following is from a 1965 essay:

Most American white men are trained to be fags. For this reason it is no wonder their faces are weak and blank.…The average ofay [white person] thinks of the black man as potentially raping every white lady in sight. Which is true, in the sense that the black man should want to rob the white man of everything he has. But for most whites the guilt of the robbery is the guilt of rape. That is, they know in their deepest hearts that they should be robbed, and the white woman understands that only in the rape sequence is she likely to get cleanly, viciously popped.

In 2009, he was again asked about the quote, and placed it in a personal and political perspective:

Those quotes are from the essays in Home, a book written almost fifty years ago. The anger was part of the mindset created by, first, the assassination of John Kennedy, followed by the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, followed by the assassination of Malcolm X amidst the lynching, and national oppression. A few years later, the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. What changed my mind was that I became a Marxist, after recognizing classes within the Black community and the class struggle even after we had worked and struggled to elect the first Black Mayor of Newark, Kenneth Gibson.

September 11 attacks

In July 2002, ten months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Baraka wrote a poem entitled "Somebody Blew Up America?" that was controversial and met with harsh criticism. The poem is highly critical of racism in America, and includes angry depictions of public figures such as Trent Lott, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza Rice. It also contains lines claiming Israel's involvement in the World Trade Center attacks:

Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion And cracking they sides at the notion [...] Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away?

Baraka said that he believed Israelis and President George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks, citing what he described as information that had been reported in the American and Israeli press and on Jordanian television. He denied that the poem is antisemitic, and points to its accusation, which is directed against Israelis, rather than Jews as a people. The Anti-Defamation League though, denounced the poem as antisemitic, though Baraka and his defenders defined his position as anti-Zionism.

After the poem's publication, then-governor Jim McGreevey tried to remove Baraka from the post of Poet Laureate of New Jersey, to which he had been appointed following Gerald Stern in July 2002. McGreevey learned that there was no legal way, according to the law authorizing and defining the position, to remove Baraka. On October 17, 2002, legislation was introduced in the State Senate to abolish the post which was subsequently signed by Governor McGreevey and became effective July 2, 2003.

Baraka ceased being poet laureate when the law became effective. In response to legal action filed by Baraka, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that state officials were immune from such suits, and in November 2007 the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear an appeal of the case.

Honors and awards

Baraka served as the second Poet Laureate of New Jersey from July 2002 until the position was abolished on July 2, 2003. In response to the attempts to remove Baraka as the state's Poet Laureate, a nine-member advisory board named him the poet laureate of the Newark Public Schools in December 2002.

Baraka received honors from a number of prestigious foundations, including: fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Langston Hughes Award from the City College of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation Award for Drama, an induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Before Columbus Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

A short excerpt from Amiri Baraka's poetry was selected to be used for a permanent installation by artist Larry Kirkland in New York City's Pennsylvania Station.

Carved in marble, this installation features excerpts from the works of several New Jersey poets (from Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, to contemporary poets Robert Pinsky and Renée Ashley) and was part of the renovation and reconstruction of the New Jersey Transit section of the station completed in 2002.

Works

Poetry

1961: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

1964: The Dead Lecturer: Poems

1969: Black Magic

1970: It's Nation Time

1970: Slave Ship

1975: Hard Facts

1980: New Music, New Poetry (India Navigation)

1995: Transbluesency: The Selected Poems of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones

1995: Wise, Why’s Y’s

1996: Funk Lore: New Poems

2003: Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems

2005: The Book of Monk

Drama

1964: Dutchman

1964: The Slave

1967: The Baptism and The Toilet

1966: A Black Mass

1969: Four Black Revolutionary Plays

1970: Slave Ship

1978: The Motion of History and Other Plays

Fiction

1965: The System of Dante's Hell

1967: Tales

2006: Tales of the Out & the Gone

Non-fiction

1963: Blues People

1965: Home: Social Essays

1968: Black Music

1971: Raise Race Rays Raze: Essays Since 1965

1979: Poetry for the Advanced

1981: reggae or not!

1984: Daggers and Javelins: Essays 1974–1979

1984: The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka

1987: The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues

2003: The Essence of Reparations

Edited works

1968: Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (co-editor, with Larry Neal)

1969: Four Black Revolutionary Plays

1983: Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women (edited with Amina Baraka)

1999: The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader

2000: The Fiction of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka

2008: Billy Harper: Blueprints of Jazz, Volume 2 (Audio CD)

Filmography

The New Ark (1968)

One P.M. (1972)

Fried Shoes Cooked Diamonds (1978) .... Himself

Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement (1978) .... Himself

Poetry in Motion (1982)

Furious Flower: A Video Anthology of African American Poetry 1960–95, Volume II: Warriors (1998) .... Himself

Through Many Dangers: The Story of Gospel Music (1996)

Bulworth (1998) .... Rastaman

Piñero (2001) .... Himself

Strange Fruit (2002) .... Himself

Ralph Ellison: An American Journey (2002) .... Himself

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004) .... Himself

Keeping Time: The Life, Music & Photography of Milt Hinton (2004) .... Himself

Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow (2005) .... Himself

500 Years Later (2005) (voice) .... Himself

The Ballad of Greenwich Village (2005) .... Himself

The Pact (2006) .... Himself

Retour à Gorée (2007) .... Himself

Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place (2007)

Revolution '67 (2007) .... Himself

Turn Me On (2007) (TV) .... Himself

Oscene (2007) .... Himself

Corso: The Last Beat (2008)

The Black Candle (2008)

Ferlinghetti: A City Light (2008) .... Himself

W.A.R. Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney (2009) .... Himself

Motherland (2010)

Wikipedia

[firstavenue7thstentry]

2016 In Review: Part 2

The Revolution | First Avenue | April 1 | Photo by Steven Cohen

By Emily Hoar

In a year of surprises, music functioned as an escape from a politically polarizing landscape, dominating the cultural conversation. High-profile albums appeared suddenly, and beloved artists left without warning. It’s this dichotomy that informed the year as a whole.

Our Year In Review records the shows that made the year-end lists of: American Songwriter, Consequence of Sound, Fact, Gorilla vs. Bear, NME, NPR, Paste, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Spin, Stereogum, Tiny Mix Tapes, and The Wire, in addition to Billboard’s 50 Top-Charted Albums. While there are plenty of great artists that didn’t make the list, this is Part 2 of First Avenue’s most critically acclaimed shows of 2016. (See Part 1.)

Car Seat Headrest | Triple Rock Social Club | July 18 | Photo by Andy Witchger

July

Adele @ Xcel Energy Center • Billboard #1 (for 23) • Billboard #24 (for 21) •

Fear of Men @ 7th St Entry • Gorilla vs. Bear #16 •

Puro Instinct @ 7th St Entry • Gorilla vs. Bear #47 •

Marissa Nadler @ 7th St Entry • Gorilla vs. Bear #50 • Spin #43 •

Big Thief @ Triple Rock • NPR #31 •

Car Seat Headrest @ Triple Rock • American Songwriter #36 • Consequence of Sound #18 • NME #45 • NPR #8 • Paste #3 • Pitchfork #24 • Rolling Stone #4 • Spin #35 • Stereogum #11 •

Mitski @ 7th St Entry • American Songwriter #19 • Billboard #15 • Consequence of Sound #11 • Fact #5 • NPR #29 • Paste #5 • Pitchfork #18 • Rolling Stone #23 • Spin #14 • Stereogum #8 • Tiny Mix Tapes # 43 •

Japanese Breakfast @ 7th St Entry • Consequence of Sound #47 • Gorilla vs. Bear #37 • Paste #31 • Stereogum #27 •

The Coathangers @ 7th St Entry • Paste #44 •

Mothers @ 7th St Entry • Consequence of Sound #41 •

Into It. Over It. @ Turf Club • Consequence of Sound #35 •

Wilco | Historic Hall’s Island | August 20 | Photo by Steven Cohen

August

White Lung @ Triple Rock • Rolling Stone #31 •

Chance the Rapper @ Summer Set Music and Camping Festival • American Songwriter #12 • Consequence of Sound #2 • NME #9 • NPR #10 • Paste #15 • Rolling Stone #3 • Spin #7 • Stereogum #3 •

Wilco @ Historic Hall’s Island • Consequence of Sound #16 • Paste #26 • Rolling Stone #41 •

Weaves @ 7th St Entry • Consequence of Sound #49 •

Parker Millsap @ Turf Club • American Songwriter #11 • NPR #43 •

Danny Brown | First Avenue Mainroom | September 25 | Photo by Adam DeGross

September

Noname @ First Avenue Mainroom • Consequence of Sound #36 • NPR #22 • Pitchfork #27 • Stereogum #28 • Tiny Mix Tape #26 •

Whitney @ Triple Rock Social Club • Consequence of Sound #38 • Gorilla vs. Bear #30 • NME #42 • Paste #37 • Pitchfork #31 • Spin #41 •

Hoops @ Triple Rock Social Club • Gorilla vs. Bear #22 •

Explosions In The Sky @ First Avenue Mainroom • Consequence of Sound #32 •

Xenia Rubinos @ Icehouse • NPR #11 •

Tegan & Sara @ State Theatre • Consequence of Sound #27 • NME # 18 • Paste #28 •

Andrew Bird @ Festival Palomino 2016 • Paste #24 •

Margaret Glaspy @ Festival Palomino 2016 • American Songwriter #47 • Paste #41 • Stereogum #45 •

Show Me The Body @ 7th St Entry • NME #48 •

Cobalt @ 7th St Entry • Stereogum #25 •

Tacocat @ 7th St Entry • Paste #27 •

Drive-By Truckers @ First Avenue Mainroom • American Songwriter #7 • NPR #14 • Paste #48 • Rolling Stone #24 •

Danny Brown @ First Avenue Mainroom • Consequence of Sound #25 • Fact #3 • Gorilla vs. Bear #20 • NME #16 • Paste #21 • Pitchfork #11 • Rolling Stone #19 • Spin #16 • Stereogum #10 • Tiny Mix Tapes #9 •

Car Seat Headrest @ The Cedar Cultural Center American Songwriter #36 • Consequence of Sound #18 • NME #45 • NPR #8 • Paste #3 • Pitchfork #24 • Spin #35 • Stereogum #11 • Rolling Stone #4 •

Porches @ 7th St Entry • Pitchfork #49 •

Japanese Breakfast @ 7th St Entry • Consequence of Sound #47 • Gorilla vs. Bear #37 • Paste #31 • Stereogum #27 •

Circuit des Yeux @ 7th St Entry • The Wire #47 •

October

Glass Animals @ Myth Nightclub • NME #35 •

Steve Gunn @ First Avenue Mainroom • The Wire #27 •

Twin Peaks @ 7th St Entry • American Songwriter #50 •

Cymbals Eat Guitars @ 7th St Entry • Spin #29 •

The Range @ First Avenue Mainroom • Consequence of Sound #37 •

Cass McCombs @ Turf Club • American Songwriter #33 • GvB #59 • Stereogum #31 •

The Felice Brothers @ Turf Club • American Songwriter #46 •

Sunflower Bean @ 7th St Entry • NME #12 •

The Lemon Twigs @ 7th St Entry • NME #44 •

St. Paul & The Broken Bones @ First Avenue Mainroom • Paste #47 •

Fruit Bat @ 7th St Entry • Paste #49 •

Courtney Marie Andrews @ 7th St Entry • American Songwriter #28 • Paste #50 •

Margo Price @ Turf Club • American Songwriter #3 • NME #35 • NPR #20 • Paste #12 • Rolling Stone #21 •

Nicolas Jaar | First Avenue | November 7 | Photo by Erik Hess

November

Moor Mother @ Triple Rock Social Club • The Wire #3 •

Hiss Golden Messenger @ Turf Club • American Songwriter #24 • Paste #45 •

Nicolas Jaar @ First Avenue Mainroom • Consequence of Sound #29 • Gorilla vs. Bear #27 • Pitchfork #20 • Spin #25 •

December

Parker Millsap @ First Avenue Mainroom • American Songwriter #11 • NPR #43 •

Amanda Shires @ Turf Club • American Songwriter #43 •

KING @ Fine Line Music Café • Pitchfork #37 • Spin #21 •

[slyke25]

2012-13

Below are the shows I covered from ‘2012-13.

(v) = Video included in review

(p&s) = photos were taken with a point & shoot camera (early concerts)

2013 Favorite Concert Photos (Review)

2013 Favorite Concert Videos (Review)

12.5.2013  MGMT (Orpheum Theatre) (V)

11.22.2013  Devil Makes Three (House of Blues) (v)

11.22.2013  Shakey Graves (House of Blues) (v)

11.20.2013  The Lone Bellow (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

11.20.2013  Aoife O’Donovan (Paradise)

11.17.2013  Chris Cornell (Calvin Theatre) (v)

11.17.2013  Bhi Bhiman (Calvin Theatre)

11.15.2013  Hayden (Middle East Upstairs) (v)

11.15.2013  Doug Paisley (Middle East Upstairs)

11.14.2013  Dr. Dog (House of Blues) (v)

11.14.2013  Diamond Doves (House of Blues)

11.5.2013  James Blake (House of Blues)

11.5.2013  Nosaj Thing (House of Blues)

11.1.2013  The Head and the Heart (Royale) (v)

11.1.2013  Thao and the Get Down Stay Down (Royale)

10.28.2013  Fitz and the Tantrums (House of Blues)

10.28.2013  Capital Cities (House of Blues)

10.25.2013  Phish (DCU Center) (v)

10.20.2013  Father John Misty (Somerville Theatre) (v)

10.18.2013  The Arcade Fire (Brooklyn) - review only

10.15.2013 Pearl Jam (DCU Center) (v)

10.1.2013  Phoenix (House of Blues) (v)

10.1.2013  The Vaccines (House of Blues)

9.30.2013  The Flaming Lips (Agganis Arena) (v)

9.30.2013  Tame Impala (Agganis Arena)

9.18.2013  Jake Bugg (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

9.18.2013  Honey Honey (Paradise Rock Club)

9.8.2013  Boston Calling Day #2 (Bearstronaut, Blg Black Delta, Flume, Solange, Flosstradamus, Wolfgang Gartner, Major Lazer, Kendrick Lamar, Passion Pit (v)

9.7.2013  Boston Calling Day #1 (Viva Viva, You Won’t, Lucius, Okkervil River, Deer Tick, Airborne Toxic Event, Bat For Lashes, Local Natives, The Gaslight Anthem, Vampire Weekend (v)

8.10.2013  The Nines Festival - Devens, MA (Shuggie Otis, Matt Pond, Walk Off The Earth, K. Flay, Delta Spirit, Kid Koala, Dr. Dog, Explosions In The Sky) (v)

7.30.2013  The Black Crowes (BOA Pavilion)

7.30.2013  The Tedeschi Trucks Band (BOA Pavilion)

7.28.2013  Newport Folk Festival #Day 3 (The Wheeler Brothers, Berklee Gospel & Roots Choir, Cold Specks, Tift Merritt, Spirit Family Reunion, Black Prairie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Lord Huron, Michael Kiwanuka, The Felice Brothers, Beth Orton, The Lumineers, Andrew Bird, Beck (v)

7.27.2013  Newport Folk Festival Day #2 (Sarah Jarosz, Nicki Bluhm & The Gramlbers, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Langhorne Slim, The Lone Bellow, Houndmouth, Frank Turner, Shovels and Rope, Jim James, Father John Misty, Jason Isbell, Colin Meloy, Justin Townes Earle, The Avett Brothers) (v)

7.26.2013  Newport Folk Festival Day #1 (Hey Marseilles, Kingsley Flood, Milk Carton Kids, The Last Bison, Blake Mills (w/ Dawes), Dawes (backing Blake Mills), The Mountain Goats, Phosphorescent, Feist, John McCauley, Old Crow Medicine Show) (v)

6.28.2013  Joe Fletcher (Lizard Lounge)

6.28.2013  Stephen Kellogg (Lizard Lounge)

6.28.2013  Sarah Borges (Lizard Lounge)

6.9.2013  Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (State Theatre - Portland, ME)

5.26.2013  Boston Calling Day #2 (Caspian, Youth Lagoon, Dirty Projectors, Ra Ra Riot, The Walkmen, Andrew Bird, Of Monsters and Men, Young the Giant, The National)

5.26.2013  Boston Calling Day #1 (Bad Rabbits, St. Lucia, Cults, Ms Mr, Matt & Kim, Portugal the Man,The Shins, Marina and the Diamonds, Fun)

5.10.2013  The Airborne Toxic Event (House of Blues)

5.10.2013  Kodaline (House of Blues)

5.9.2013  Josh Ritter (Calvin Theatre) (v)

5.9.2013  The Felice Brothers (Calvin Theatre)

4.17.2013  Phosphorescent (Brighton Music Hall)

4.17.2013  Strand of Oaks (Brighton Music Hall)

4.12.2013  Muse (TD Garden)

4.12.2013  Biffy Clyro (TD Garden)

4.10.2013  Houses (Paradise Rock Club)

4.10.2013  Cold War Kids (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

4.9.2013  Green Day (DD Center PVD) (v)

4.2.2013  Caitlin Rose (TT the Bear’s) (v)

4.2.2013  Andrew Combs (TT the Bear’s) (v)

4.2.2103  Haley Thompson King (TT the Bear’s)

3.26.2013  Sigur Ros (Agganis Arena) (v)

3.12.2013  Tame Impala (House of Blues) (v)

3.3.2013  Alt-J (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

3.3.3013  Hundred Waters (Paradise Rock Club)

2.5.2013  Mumford & Sons (TD Garden) (v)

2.4.2013  Y La Bamba (House of Blues)

2.4.2013  The Lumineers (House Of Blues)

2.1.2013  Shovels and Rope (The Sinclair) (v)

2.1.2013  Andrew Combs (The Sinclair)

1.19.2013  Fairhaven (The Met, RI)

1.19.2013  New Politics (The Met, RI)

1.19.2013  Twenty One Pilots (The Met, RI) (v)

2012 Favorite Concert Photos (Review)

12.31.2012  My Morning Jacket (Agganis Arena) (v)

12.31.2012  Preservation Jall Jazz Band (Agganis Arena)

12.9.2012  Band of Horses (House of Blues) (v)

12.9.2012  Jason Lytle (House of Blues)

12.6.2012 Willy Mason (Orpheum Theater)

12.6.2012 Conor Oberst (Orpheum Theater)

11.28.2012 Jeff The Brotherhood (House of Blues)

11.28.2012 Delta Spirit (House of Blues)

11.19.2012 Soley (Orpheum Theater)

11.19.2012 Of Monsters and Men (Orpheum Theater)

11.5.2012   Aerosmith (Boston, MA) 1325 Commonwealth Avenue

10.25.2012  The XX (House OF Blues)

10.25.2012  Chairlift (House Of Blues)

10.22.2012  Joy Kills Sorrow (Cafe 939)

10.22.2012  Admiral Fallow (Cafe 939) (v)

10.16.2012 Way Out (The Met) Providence, RI

10.16.2012 Divine Fits (The Met) Providence, RI (v)

10.5.2012 Morrissey (The Wang Theater) p&s

9.28.2012 Shovels and Rope (Agganis Arena)

9.28.2012 Jack White (Agganis Arena)

9.24.2012 Peter Gabriel (TD Garden)

9.23.2012  Life is Good Festival - Canton, MA (Sarah Jaroszm ALO, The Infamous Stringdusters, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Ave, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds)

9.22.2012  Port St. Willow (Brighton Music Hall)

9.22.2012  Houndmouth (Brighton Music Hall)

9.22.2012  Dry the River (Brighton Music Hall) (v)

9.21.2012  California Wives (Paradise Rock Club)

9.18.2012  The Lost Brothers (Berklee Performance Center)

9.18.2012  Glen Hansard (Berklee Performance Center) (v)

9.16.2012  The Avett Brothers (BOA Pavilion) (v)

9.13.2012  Bon Iver (BOA Pavilion) p&s(v)

9.12.2012  Bon Iver (PPAC) p&s (v)

9.10.2012  Cymbal Eat Guitars (Paradise Rock Club)

9.10.2012  Bob Mould (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

8.7.2012  The Allman Brothers (BOA Pavilion)

8.4.2012   Gentlemen of the Road Tour Portland, Maine (Apache Relay, The Maccabees, St. Vincent, Dawes, Dropkick Murphys, Mumford and Sons)

7.27.2012  Newport Folk Festival Jane Pickens Theatre (Conor Oberst, First Aid Kit, Dawes, Jackson Browne (p&s) (v)

7.28.2012  Newport Folk Festival Day #1 (Apache Relay, Robert Ellis, Brown Bird, Spirit Family Reunion, Jonny Corndawg, Deer Tick, Alabama Shakes, First Aid Kit, Frank Fairfield, Dawes, Iron & Wine, Blind Pilot, Patty Griffin, City and Colour, My Morning Jacket (v)

7.29.2012  Newport Folk Festival Day #2 (Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, Sara Watkins, Honey Honey, Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons,Trampled By Turtles, New Multitudes, Gary Clark Jr., Of Monsters and Men, Tune-Yards, Conor Oberst, Tallest Man on Earth, Jackson Browne (v)

7.26.2012  Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons (Royale)

7.26.2012  The Head and the Heart (Royale) (v)

6.22.2012  Passion Pit (BOA Pavilion) (v)

6.15.2012  Laura Marling (Berklee Performance Center) (v)

6.16.2012  These United States (TT the Bear’s Place) (v)

6.12.2012  Keane (House Of Blues) (v)

6.8.2012  Phish (DCU Center) (v) p&s

5.29.2012  Radiohead (Comcast Center) (v)

5.25.2012  Kingsley Flood (Middle East)

5.25.2012  Ha Ha Tonka (Middle East)

5.25.2012  Langhorne Slim (Middle East) (v)

5.19.2012  Earthfest 2012 Boston (Twin Berlin, Eve 6, Switchfoot, The Spin Doctors, Third Eye Blind

5.16.2012  Justin Townes Earle (Somerville Theatre) (v)

5.12.2012  Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (Orpheum Theatre) (v)

5.5.2012  Brown Bird (Brighton Music Hall) (v)

5.5.2012 Horse Feathers (Brighton Music Hall) (v)

5.4.2012  Real Estate (Wang Theatre)

5.4.2012  The Shins (Wang Theatre) (v)

4.25.2012  Mean Creek (House of Blues)

4.25.2012  The Counting Crows (House of Blues)

4.20.2012  The Kopecky Family Band (Cafe 939)

4.20.2012  The Lumineers (Cafe 939) (v)

4.18.2012  These United States (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

4.18.2012  Trampled By Turtles (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

4.15.2012  Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires (Paradise Rock Club)

4.15.2012  Alabama Shakes (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

4.7.2012  Lay Low (House of Blues)

4.7.2012  Of Monsters and Men (House of Blues) (v)

4.2.2012  Peggy Sue (Paradise Rock Club)

4.2.2012  First Aid Kit (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

3.27.2012  Waters (Paradise Rock Club)

3.27.2012  Delta Spirit (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

3.25.2012  The Dirty Dishes (Brighton Music Hall)

3.25.2012  A Classic Education (Brighton Music Hall)

3.25.2012  Cloud Nothings (Brighton Music Hall) (v)

3.18.2012  William Tyler (Great Scott)

3.18.2012  Megafaun (Great Scott) (v)

3.16.2012  Bobby Bare Jr. (Paradise Rock Club)

3.16.2012  New Multitudes (Paradise Rock Club) (v)

3.8.2012  Group Love (House of Blues)

3.8.2012  Young the Giant (House of Blues)

2.3.2012  Adam Arcuragi (P.A.’s Lounge) (v)

[adelaideattractions]

Adelaide Festival 2019 in review: A season of spectacle

This years Adelaide Festival program delivered a cracking assortment of theatre, opera and dance. The Adelaide Review highlights the best of the 2019 season. So, whats the best youve seen? was a constant question over the first two weeks of March. So much to choose from in the 2019 Adelaide Festival. Day by day, night by night, the answer could well change. To begin Mozarts The Magic Flute. Not just the flute, but the whole production by Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade is magical. With animation by Paul Barritt, it is brave, tender and very funny. In this tribute to silent black and white film, the story is spelt out in large letters on the white wall that forms the backdrop, though colour is not missing. Human and animated characters appear together heroine Pamina is pursued by wolfish dogs; Papageno, seeking love, has a black cat. The Queen of the Night is a huge spider, her head the only human part. The singing and the ASOs playing under Hendrick Vestmann glorious. The Magic Flute (Photo: Tony Lewis) Shakthidharan (aka Shakthi) is an Australian interdisciplinary artist of Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry. His debut play, Counting and Cracking, 10 years in the making, spans four generations, moving between Sydney in 2004 and Colombo in 1957, 1977 and 1983. Sixteen convincing actors play 50 parts, and there are three musicians. The Sri Lankan crisis came in 1983 when the government banned Tamil, declaring Sinhala the only language. Civil war erupted, and in the play Rahda, the pregnant wife of Tamil Thirru, believing him dead, flees to Australia, where son Siddhartha is born. Calling himself Sid, at 21 he has problems working out his relationships between his Australianness and Sri Lankan heritage but is helped by his Yolngu girlfriend Lily from Arnhem Land who cheerfully says she has similar difficulties. The play ends joyfully, with the arrival of Thirru, who had been imprisoned, not killed. The cast of Counting and Cracking (Photo: Brett Boardman / Belvoir St Theatre) Counting and Cracking was just one play taking identity as a theme, which also underlies Ursula Yovichs powerful Man with the Iron Neck, about Aboriginal youth suicide. Yovich also plays, movingly, the central part of Rose, mother of twins Evelyn and Bear, a promising footballer. His best mate, Ash, is Evelyns boyfriend. The twins father committed suicide, hanging himself from the backyard gum-tree. Bear has been called a monkey a clear reference to the Adam Goodes affair and has other, deep, racial difficulties. He follows his father, and his family must cope with this double tragedy. The play is nevertheless often funny, and ends positively. The actors, all Indigenous, are natural, vigorous and totally believable. Satirical, brutish, hilarious and finally shocking, Belfast-born playwright David Irelands Ulster American brings Oscar-winning actor Jay Conway, with Irish roots, Northern Irish playwright Ruth Davenport and director Irish Robert Jack together to discuss the production of Ruths new play about Tommy, a Unionist. This mix begins civilly enough but soon becomes incendiary, with Ruth maintaining her identity is British, not Irish, and refusing to change a word of her script, Jay discovering with horror he will star in a play promoting the Protestant cause, and Leigh weakly trying to calm things down. He fails, and expletives abound as fury mounts and becomes violent. But audience laughter persists until the appalling end. Ulster American (Photo: Tony Lewis) Festival dance avoided politics. Instead, individuality was key. Meryl Tankard recreated her 1988 success Two Feet for superstar Natalia (Natasha) Osipova, former Bolshoi and current principal with the Royal Ballet. Based on Tankards student experiences and the career of renowned ballerina Olga Spessivtseva, who became obsessed with the role of Giselle, a peasant girl who went mad and died, and herself had a mental breakdown and died in care, the solo work received an often impassioned performance from Osipova, a great Giselle of today. An actor-dancer of superb expressiveness and immaculate technique, her rendition of parts of Giselle engendered hope she will return in the full ballet. At the other end of the scale, Tankard produced a new work, Zizanie, for Restless Dance Theatre, Adelaides company for performers with and without disability. A story about a grump who tries to stop kids having fun because he cant laugh but is eventually converted and joins in their games, it had a confident and endearing performance from the six-member cast. Michael Noble and Kathryn Evans in Zizanie (Photo: Regis Lansac) The first big dance event was Dresden Opera Ballets Carmen, with a heroine who can hardly see a man without enticing him, and a Don Jos whose jealousy mounts as he stands silently watching until it overcomes him; having passionately embraced her he draws a knife and kills her. Choreographer Johan Inger added a young boy as an observer, signifying the death of innocence, and dark figures of death and guilt. The dancing was generally excellent, the storys adaptation less successful. Hofesh Shechters appropriately named Grand Finale ended the Festival in a whirlwind of movement presenting a generally depressing, chaotic world, with occasional glimpses of light. Bodies were frequently dragged about or off the stage as if dead. The indefatigable dancers were phenomenal in their performance of the often relentlessly fast choreography, but Shecters world view is not a happy one. And thats just a selection from the best of the 2019 Festival. Ayaha Tsunak in Carmen (Photo: Jan Whalen) Revisit our complete 2019 Adelaide Festival coverage here Adelaide Festival March 1 17, 2019 adelaidefestival.com.au Header image: Natalia Osipova performs in Two Feet (Photo: Regis Lansac) Tags:adelaide festival 2019 https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/arts/performing-arts/adelaide-festival-2019-review/

[pubtheatres1]

CRITIC CHOICE OF BEST SHOWS 2018

Our most experienced reviewers choose their favourite shows of 2018 Heather Jeffery Top of my tree this year is the premiere of Margaret Cavendish’s THE UNNATURAL TRAGEDY at WHITE BEAR, 350 years after it was written. At a time when women were banned from the theatre profession, the Aristocratic Cavendish had much to say on behalf of women. It’s perfect #metoo material, so nothing changes! This cleverly written, and bitingly satirical play was superbly directed by Graham Watts. Bravo White Bear for championing older theatre makers and new writers. I would also like to mention JACK STUDIO THEATRE, who had such an excellent year with many productions gaining outstanding critical acclaim and some shows selling out their entire run. I was fortunate to see two shows this year, their in-house Christmas show CINDERELLA and a re-imagining of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA adapted by Ross McGregor for ARROWS AND TRAPS. Whenever I’m at the Jack I am always impressed with their technical capabilities and the number of creatives involved in the success of their shows. It really is the complete theatrical experience. Siân Rowland Without doubt my favourite Pub Theatre show this year was THE WHITE ROSE from ARROWS AND TRAPS at the always impressive JACK STUDIO, Brockley. The heart-breaking story of Sophie Scholl the young German resistance fighter who was executed at the hands of the Nazis in 1945 was written and directed by Ross McGregor and the story moved smoothly between Sophie’s interrogation and the story of how she became involved in the push back against creeping nazism. The script was deft and assured, acting superb and movement from Roman Berry was exquisite. A well-deserved five stars from me. The FINBROUGH has once again come up trumps with some brilliant revivals like CYRIL’S SUCCESS and JEANNIE as well as new and international writing like vibrant Welsh play Exodus by Rachael Boulton and A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE GYNECOLOGICLA ONGOLOGY UNIT at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York by Halley Feiffer. As always, the ambition and can-do attitude of London’s wide array of pub theatres is always inspiring and embodies the real spirit of theatre. Gynaecological Mike Swain I have seen some excellent shows this year. Louise Coulthard's COCKAMAMY at THE HOPE was a moving portrayal of the battle with dementia while AN HONOURABLE MAN, by Michael McManus at WHITE BEAR THEATRE was an important and powerful political play for our time. But the stand out show of the year for me was GRACIE at the FINBOROUGH, written by Joan McLeod. Carla Langley delivers a one-woman tour-de-force, as Gracie, a young girl living in a polygamous religious community on the Canadian border. With nothing but a staging block for support, Langley has the audience hanging on her every word in this fascinating and compellingly human drama. David Weir Three (and a half) shows stood out for me this year, with no particular linking theme or style, just strong stories beautifully told in ways that made me think about them for weeks after the shows. The year ended on a high-quality note with NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT at UPSTAIRS AT THE GATEHOUSE in Highgate, a perfectly realised and nicely disguised modern mash-up of some of George and Ira Gershwin’s greatest hits in a PG Wodehouse/Guy Bolton-inspired story of bootleggers, fake butlers and love eventually requited. Also hitting the right note, was the joyful musical of the 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE at the DRAYTON ARMS in Kensington, a tale of competitive, insecure schoolkids, from which I’d defy anyone to walk out at the end without a grin plastered all over their face. CRUMPLE ZONE at the KING’S HEAD in Islington brought pathos, laughter and real depth in a story about the labours and losses of love, which happened to be largely about gay men in an unfashionable part of New York City but achieved universality. And, sneakily, I’ll add one half of a not-entirely successful double bill at THE HOPE, also in Islington – EMPTY BEDS saw three sisters travel to the bedside of their sick brother and was the single most emotionally intense and fully achieved piece of work I saw on the fringe in 2018, beautifully written with real knowledge of how much three people who love each other can fray each other’s nerves and acted with remarkable conviction. Andy Curtis The best play I saw in 2018 was at the beginning of the year. The revival of Steven Berkoff’s EAST by ATTICIST Productions, at the KING’S HEAD THEATRE left a strong impression on me. Directed by Jessica Lazar, this battering ram of a play was astonishing in its verbal dexterity and physicality. A superb cast gave their all – the only option with a Berkoff script – and the production long stayed in the memory. Lazar was excellent at bringing out the contemporary resonances whilst staying faithful to the script. She repeated the trick with a revival of Mart Crowley’s FOR REASONS THAT REMAIN UNCLEAR later in the year, and will be back at the King’s Head directing a revival of David Grieg’s OUTLYING ISLANDS in the new year. Annie Power MEDICINE at The HOPE Theatre & WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM? at The OLD RED LION Much like Meryl Streep’s dilemma in ‘Sophie’s Choice’, I couldn’t decide between these two shows. Both were exceptional, gut-wrenching and memorable. All the elements were aligned perfectly: incisive and tautly written; beautifully acted and imaginatively staged. At frequent intervals I still mention WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM? in conversation, so powerful and chilling was its impact. While the rawness of emotion and biting humour of MEDICINE has led me to dwell on it many times. So, don’t make me choose, I can’t do it. Richard Braine Goodness, it’s been terribly hard choosing the best of 2018. The standard within London Pub Theatres has been incredibly high. Special mention should go to the FINBOROUGH’s remarkable revival of Irwin Shaw’s BURY THE DEAD. The director Rafaella Marcus gave us an urgent and impassioned production that will live long in the memory. But it is to two pieces, presented at the same venue, the BROCKLEY JACK, that most of the plaudits must go. Firstly, Ross McGregor’s remarkable staging of DRACULA by Bram Stoker. Some would regard yet another production of Dracula ‘as overkill’ (sic). Yet McGregor brought enormous vitality to the piece as well as humour and great insight. All round it was a pretty impressive piece of work. McGregor is a young man destined for a stellar career in the theatre. And secondly to the current Artistic director of the Brockley Jack, Kate Bannister, and her production of KES. This was simply a joy. Everything about the piece had been given enormous weight and sensitivity. The stagecraft, acting and production values were second to none. Amongst many wonderful things she gave us two actors who were able to conjure up an ‘imaginary’ bird that was totally convincing. The night I was in a young boy in front of me shouted at one of the actors: ‘Don’t kill Kes. Please don’t kill him. What’s he done to you?’ That to me is what great theatre should all be about.

[mikemortgage]

Business Highlights

2 Americans win econ Nobel for work on climate and growth

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Just a day after a United Nations panel called for urgent action on climate change, the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded Monday to one American researcher for his work on the economics of a warming planet and to another whose study of innovation raises hopes that people can do something about it. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the $1 million prize Monday to William Nordhaus of Yale University and to Paul Romer of New York University. Nordhaus, 77, who has been called “the father of climate-change economics,” developed models that suggest how governments can combat global warming.

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Carbon tax gets renewed attention but still faces resistance

Advocates of taxing fossil fuels believe their position is stronger now because of an alarming new report on climate change and a Nobel Prize awarded to by two American economists, but neither development is likely to break down political resistance to a carbon tax. Previous alarms about global warming met with resistance from Congress and the White House. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement on climate change last year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a panel of scientists brought together by the United Nations, warned in a report Monday that droughts, wildfires, coral reef destruction and other climate and environmental disasters could grow worse as soon as 2040, even with a smaller increase in temperatures than used to set the Paris targets.

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SpaceX satellite launch lights up night sky, social media

LOS ANGELES (AP) — When SpaceX launched a rocket carrying an Argentine Earth-observation satellite from California’s Central Coast, both the night sky and social media lit up. People as far away as San Francisco, Sacramento, Phoenix and Reno, Nevada, posted photos of the Falcon 9 rocket’s launch and return on Sunday night. It was the first time SpaceX landed a first-stage booster back at its launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 130 miles (210 kilometres) northwest of Los Angeles. The Air Force warned residents on the Central Coast that they might see multiple engine burns by the first stage and hear one or more sonic booms as it returned.

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Netflix assembles new US production hub in New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Netflix has chosen New Mexico as the site of a new U.S. production hub and is in final negotiations to buy an existing multimillion-dollar studio complex on the edge of the state’s largest city, government and corporate leaders announced Monday. It’s the company’s first purchase of such a property, and upcoming production work in Albuquerque and at other spots around New Mexico is forecast to result in $1 billion in spending over the next decade. More than $14 million in state and local economic development funding is being tapped to bring Netflix to New Mexico. Republican Gov.

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Former Trump aide Hope Hicks to work at Fox company

NEW YORK (AP) — President Trump’s former communications chief Hope Hicks is taking on a similar role at the new Fox company, meaning she’ll supervise messaging at her former boss’ favourite television network. The new company, being created by the shedding of many of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets to the Walt Disney Co., will include Fox News Channel, the Fox broadcasting network, several local Fox stations and Fox Sports. Hicks’ hiring was announced Monday by Viet Dinh, chief legal and policy officer. Hicks, who left the White House on March 29, will be based in Los Angeles. Hicks had a mostly behind-the-scenes role at the White House.

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Facebook wants people to invite its cameras into their homes

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook is launching the first electronic device to bear its brand, a screen and camera-equipped gadget intended to make video calls easier and more intuitive. But it’s unclear if people will open their homes to an internet-connected camera sold by a company with a questionable track record on protecting user privacy. Facebook is marketing the device, called Portal, as a way for its more than 2 billion users to chat with one another without having to fuss with positioning and other controls. The device features a camera that uses artificial intelligence to automatically zoom as people move around during calls.

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Global executives cooling on deals amid trade uncertainty

LONDON (AP) — Executives around the world are cooling to the idea of mergers and acquisitions in the face of rising trade tensions, notably between the U.S. and China, a leading adviser on international corporate deals said Monday. In its half-yearly assessment of corporate mergers and acquisitions, or M&A, EY found that only 46 per cent of executives are planning a takeover in the next 12 months. That’s down 10 percentage points from a year ago and marks the lowest level in four years. “Geopolitical, trade and tariff uncertainties have finally caused some dealmakers to hit the pause button,” said Steve Krouskos, a global vice chair at EY.

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Box office top 20: ‘Venom,’ ‘A Star Is Born’

NEW YORK (AP) — Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man” spinoff “Venom” and Bradley Cooper’s acclaimed remake “A Star Is Born” fueled the best-ever October weekend at North American theatres. Both films debuted above expectations. “Venom,” starring Tom Hardy as the comic-book antihero, opened with $80.3 million, according to final studio figures Monday. Sony’s opening effort to create a larger universe for its available Marvel characters shrugged off terrible reviews to set a new box office record for an October debut. Warner Bros.’s anticipated “A Star Is Born,” starring Cooper and Lady Gaga, also opened resoundingly with $42.9 million. “Venom” attracted a largely male, younger audience, while “A Star Is Born” found predominantly female and older crowds.

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Working past 65? It’s easier to do if you graduated college

NEW YORK (AP) — Close to one in five Americans who’s 65 or older is still working, the highest percentage in more than half a century. And the one who’s still working may be better off. As more and more Americans delay retirement, it’s those with a college degree that find it easiest to keep working past 65. Their less-educated peers, meanwhile, are having a more difficult time staying in the workforce. It’s a crucial distinction because financial experts say both groups would benefit from working an extra year or more to improve their retirement security. By staying on the job, older Americans can build up their savings, which in too many cases are inadequate.

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2,700 workers at major Hawaii hotels join national strike

HONOLULU (AP) — Workers at some of Hawaii’s most iconic hotels are joining a national strike. About 2,700 Marriott employees on Oahu and Maui on Monday joined the strike that began last week in Boston, San Francisco and other cities. They work at four Waikiki properties operated by Marriott, including The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, an historic institution famous for its pink exterior. Workers at the Sheraton Maui are also striking. Waikiki Beach Marriott workers are not currently striking. Workers are picketing the properties. Leaders of the Unite Here Local 5 union say they have not reached agreement with management on a union demand for workers to be paid enough so they only need one job to support themselves.

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The S&P 500 index dipped 1.14 points to 2,884.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reversed an early loss of 223 points and rose 39.73 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 26,486.78.

The Nasdaq composite sank 52.50 points, or 0.7 per cent, to 7,735.95. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks slipped 2.60 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 1,629.51. The Nasdaq and Russell are each coming off their worst week since late March.

Benchmark U.S. crude slid 0.1 per cent to $74.29 a barrel in New York and Brent crude, used to price international oils, dropped 0.3 per cent to $83.91 a barrel in London.

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2y9ey8t via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[bishiglomper]

So since I'm just laying here in bed making myself ill with anxiety I thought I'd record my thoughts on some of the crap that is crossing my mind. Bear in mind I'm really not very eloquent. Also I don't consider myself smart enough to really carry on this sort of debate so this is just my stupid rambling.

I was just thinking about what was wrong with the world and how maybe we could make it better.

Like school.

Wtf does school do for us past, what, 5th grade? After we learn our basic readin', writin' and 'rithmatic, wtf good does it do us? Because it ain't life skills.

We're still stuck in a program designed for child labor and we put up with the stress of school only to leave it totally unprepared for the actual world. Even college where you study for certain fields. The studying is brutal and there's no promises you'll even be putting those hard earned degrees to use..

The generations are just putting out more stressed and depressed kids who can hardly function.

I mean, of course it would help if the rich white bastards running this country would quit being so greedy and actually give a shit about us, but I digress.

I think our education system needs to be rebooted from scratch.

We've got preschool and kindergarten right? That should be for making friends and learning about colors and shit. Playing games. Lots of recess. Learning to tie shoes. Work on those developing motor skills. Manners.

It should also be teaching kids to ask questions, to pique their little minds and get them interested in the world. Have mandatory water/sand tables. Puzzles. Kiddie science and art and crafts that start them on the path of "How's this work?" which in turn could teach them life lessons like what happens if you're mean or rude vs being polite and friendly because results would differ.

also the structure would change. Like time spent at a desk would only be for crafts or something because kids should be up and moving around. Say you had story time. You'd do that for 20 minutes on the floor and then 10 minutes to get wiggles out and then you could sit them down and have their focus again. where you could demonstrate and then send them on their way to a certain activity.

And all that would spill into elementary but maybe a little more refined. They would be at desks but up to 5th grade they should have 2 recesses with a couple of 15 minute breaks between classes/lessons. Maybe a "get up and exercise" break in the morning and a "quiet/reading" time in the afternoon. And I just mean if they still fill up 7 hours of school. Which they could cut down by a couple of hours I'm sure.

And middle school is where kids should start on more complicated life skills. Starting more sophisticated book reports and proper grammar, more math and the like.

Science around then covers things like photosynthesis and such right? That's all good still, but if they're going to be teaching the different types of rock, at least teach us why we would need to know this shit. Even if it's as simple as "this is weak, this is stronger, this is where THAT comes from and these are the uses for it". I mean all this shit is for is to test our memory and wtf else.

I think humans are prewired to WANT to learn, but the never-ending droning system sucks all the joy out of it while we're forced to sit still and absorb all that boring stuff, not even bothering to question why at this point.

And history. I think by the time you reach high school you could fit in all the basics between the wars and general stories of the more prominent figures in history.

But high school is what needs to change the most. Because the second we leave high school we're expected to have the skills we need to survive in the world.

Do they teach is how to get a job? No. Do they teach us how to care for ourselves? No. But we leave knowing that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

First of all they need to bring back home economics. Where kids could learn how to cook a simple meal. Learn why you need to suck it up and eat a vegetable and how to boil an egg. Learn how and when to plant things. Learn how to fix a button or a ripped seam. Learn how to store and use household chemicals because there's a shitton of things that if mix with bleach, you're dead.

We had a health class but aside from learning how to label our organs in detail and how arteries work, there was no teaching us how to care for our health.

ALSO MENTAL👏 FUCKING👏 HEALTH👏 SHOULD👏 BE👏 IN👏 THE👏 CURRICULUM👏

We should be taught healthy coping skills! If mental health were mandatory, people would be made aware of things like depression and maybe be able to recognise and get help. At the very least it could be brought up amongst peers without so much stigma and maybe even cut down bullying in the process.

Because the second a mental health lesson becomes an open forum, you know bullying red flags would be brought to light and picked apart. It would bring peers together so that the next time they see someone spiraling or getting attacked, they'll recognize it and have an idea of how to deal with it.

Because we have to take care of eachother. You know the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child?" same goes for a society. We have to be conscientious of each other and build each other up. Work together. Right now it feels like we're struggling alone in every sort of way but a functioning society relies on eachother.

We need more classes following the home-ec line. Maybe a semester of Carpeting. Learn how to fix a stair or a door. Maybe have a group make a large piece of furniture like a cabinet or a dresser.

TEACH US HOW TO KEEP A CAR IN SHAPE. JFC we need to put A.C. shit in the car but I don't know where to hook up the spray nozzle!

We need to know how to change a battery, tire, windshield wipers, change oil, and be taught what to do when certain things go wrong LIKE THE CAR CATCHING ON FIRE.

And we need to be taught basic house maintenance too. How to turn off the water or how to change a breaker. Learn what things need to be kept maintained and what can be ignored for a bit.

Our last freezer almost died because the fridge didn't have a good seal. Moisture got in and frosted over the mechanism in the freezer.

We spent a lot of money just for a guy to hold a hair dryer to it.

Seriously. Also a hot glue gun sealed the door whereas a new seal would have been hundreds of dollars.

In math we need to be taught how to write checks, do bills and make a budget. What are stocks? How does commerce work? I don't fuckin' know.

ALSO. COMPUTERS. I don't just mean typing, we should keep that yeah, but things like installing software and hardware and learning to navigate several types of operating systems. Learn how to replace a fan or something. Learn all those googling and research tricks.

OH AND LANGUAGES. I think everyone should take at least an introductory program on Spanish (or whatever secondary language is in the area) Like in D.C there were lots of Koreans and Arabic people.

Also freaking AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE. AT LEAST AN INTRODUCTION. jfc it's got American in the name and it's hardly offered. There may not be a whole lot of deaf people but it would be hella fuckin' useful in other settings as well. The military? Factories and other loud places? Places where you have to be QUIET. The possibilies are endless why the fuck aren't we utilizing this?

High school needs to teach us life skills. Ones that we need the second we're on our own.

College should be specifically for the careers we go into. Even if that means a few extra classes to get caught up in math, science or history.

And in High school you know what would be cool? Extra credit for shit like after-school jobs or activities. Actually acknowledging kids getting out and starting to put those skills to use.

Just imagine a student working a part time job at a theatre or something. Where they could take a form to their employer and they could review them after a period of time and show their teachers. Note anything special that they may have brought to the table.

Because maybe this would help employers see what each individual is capable of and where they excel. Maybe the student finds out "hey I'm good at this thing" or "I learned how to do a helpful thing because it was related to a thing I already learned" and it would in turn inspire the students to explore and learn even more.

Because everything else is changing in the world and if we don't change our structures with it, it's all going to come crashing down around us.

[investmart007]

WASHINGTON | High court pick Kavanaugh and his carefully constructed life

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/J1mp9d

WASHINGTON | High court pick Kavanaugh and his carefully constructed life

WASHINGTON — Judge Brett Kavanaugh‘s life seems as carefully constructed as the Supreme Court arguments he will hear if he is confirmed to the high court. He checks all the boxes of the ways of Washington, or at least the way Washington used to be.

He’s a team player — the conservative team — stepping up to make a play at key moments in politics, government and the law dating to the Bill Clinton era and the salacious dramas of that time.

Yet in a capital and a country where politics has become poisonously tribal, Kavanaugh has tried to cover his bases, as Washington insiders have long done. He’s got liberal friends, associates and role models. He was a complicated figure in the scandal-ridden 1990s, by turns zealous and restrained as an investigator.

If he wins confirmation, he’ll be seated with Justice Elena Kagan, the Obama-era solicitor general who hired him to teach at Harvard when she was dean of the law school, as well as with his prep school mate, Justice Neil Gorsuch. Kavanaugh’s law clerks have gone on to work for liberal justices. He’s served with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in mock trials of characters in Shakespeare plays, a night out from the real-life dramas.

Amateur athlete, doer of Catholic good works, basketball-coaching dad, Yale degrees, progression from lawyer to White House aide to judge — it’s all there in a rarefied life of talent and privilege, though strikingly not one of great personal wealth.

The only skeleton in Kavanaugh’s closet that the White House has owned up to is as American as apple pie.

Spending on baseball games helped drive him into debt one year, the White House said. He’s also been ribbed for hoarding gummy bears when he worked as an aide to President George W. Bush. Because Republicans are not releasing critical documents for the Senate hearings that begin Tuesday, it remains to be seen if anything else is rattling around.

To critics, like Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee lining up to question him, Kavanaugh’s collegial disposition is “Much Ado About Nothing” (Kavanaugh’s 2012 mock trial for Washington’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, Ginsburg presiding).

“From the notorious Starr report, to the Florida recount, to the president’s secrecy and privilege claims to post-9/11 legislative battles including the Victims Compensation Fund, to ideological judicial nomination fights, if there has been a partisan political fight that needed a very bright legal foot soldier in the last decade, Brett Kavanaugh was probably there,” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, now Senate Democratic leader, said in 2006 hearings that preceded Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

His judicial record since? With some ideological mashup, it’s been conservative in the main, reflecting views that could swing the court right on abortion, gay rights, executive power and more for decades to come.

Kavanaugh heads into the hothouse of confirmation hearings representing the hopes of President Donald Trump and the right that he will do just that. One question from senators, whether expressed or implied, will be how far the apple fell from the tree. ___ HIS FATHER’S SON?

E. Edward Kavanaugh, 77, was a fixture in the Washington influence game years before Trump began calling it a swamp. Brett Kavanaugh’s dad lobbied for the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, the national trade group for companies making personal care products.

He fought against government regulation and advocates who wanted cosmetics-testing stopped on animals, calling those activists “zealots who cannot comprehend that a child’s life is more important than a dog’s.”

“He is known by my colleagues in Congress as a straight shooter,” Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said of Brett Kavanaugh’s father in supporting the son’s confirmation as a federal judge in 2006. “In this case, the apple did not fall far from the tree.”

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who tangled with the dad in hearings over potential health risks of cosmetics, finds the son’s record on regulation also troubling. “You don’t have to look at his genes,” Wyden told The Associated Press. “Just look at his record.”

An AP review of Kavanaugh’s dozen years on the D.C. appeals court and his wider public record shows him opposed to a variety of regulations, on greenhouse gases and more, as well as to the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau established after the 2008 financial crisis, and to administration policies that circumvent Congress and risk “a runaway executive branch.” Yet he is deferential to the presidency, an approach that raises questions about whether he would protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible coordination between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia if that matter came before the high court.

His mother, Martha Kavanaugh, went on to become a prosecutor and state judge in Maryland, where Kavanaugh was raised as an only child, attending Georgetown Preparatory School as Gorsuch did. ___ UP THE LADDER

Brett Michael Kavanaugh’s career progression: law clerk for federal appeals judges, fellowship with then-Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, law clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy (with high-school classmate Gorsuch), associate counsel in the Starr investigation, law-firm partner, Bush White House associate counsel, White House staff secretary, judge. He first dated Ashley Estes, then Bush’s personal secretary, on Sept. 10, 2001; they married in 2004 and have two daughters.

He’s from a wealthy family. In 2005 his father earned just over $13 million in compensation and a send-off retirement package as the cosmetic group’s president. But his own family’s finances are apparently modest.

Public disclosure forms for 2017 showed only two investments, together worth a maximum of $65,000, along with the balance on a loan of up to $15,000. As well, the White House said he had $45,000 to $150,000 of credit card debt in 2016, some of it from buying season tickets to the Washington Nationals for himself and several friends. That debt was paid off by last year, the White House said, and Kavanaugh was reimbursed for the friends’ tickets. ___ THE MILLION-PAGE MAN

The National Archives has millions of pages of records concerning Kavanaugh and he’s only 53. That’s how plugged in he was in Washington even before becoming a federal judge.

Kavanaugh put his stamp on investigations of the 1993 suicide of Clinton aide Vince Foster and the late 1990s Clinton-Lewinsky impeachment episode as a member of special counsel Starr’s team, served on the Republican legal team in the Bush v. Gore election stalemate of 2000 and had a quiet hand in White House national security and terrorism policy in the crucible of 9/11 and the wars that followed.

Archivists couldn’t process so many records for release in time for the hearings as Republican lawmakers push to get him confirmed before the November elections that could switch Senate control to Democrats.

Altogether, a mountain of material on the Zelig-like Washington player has emerged and an even larger mountain is yet to be revealed.

In a vast collection of released emails from his days as a White House aide, humdrum rules. They reveal little more than long nights at the office and the fact that other aides counted on him to advise when Bush’s travel costs should be billed to the Treasury and when they were too political to ding taxpayers.

AP’s review of Kavanaugh’s judicial record and decades of his writings and speeches does not illuminate whether he would vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision establishing the right to abortion.

But his record suggests he would vote to support restrictions.

He’s spoken admiringly of Justice William Rehnquist’s dissent in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, yet recently told a senator that Roe is settled law. In a dissent, Kavanaugh accepted that a 17-year-old in immigration custody had a right to the abortion she wanted. Yet he indicated the Trump administration could delay her abortion while they tried to identify U.S. sponsors with whom she could live and who could counsel her on the abortion decision. ___ AN EVOLUTION ON ‘DASTARDLY’ DEEDS

A more in-your-face — yet still nuanced— figure emerges in a recently released August 1998 memo to Starr urging that Clinton be asked blushingly explicit questions about his sexual interactions with intern Monica Lewinsky so as to understand a “pattern of revolting behavior” and give Congress more information to decide whether Clinton should remain president. As a lead investigator of the Republican-sparked investigation, Kavanaugh also floated expansive grounds for impeaching a president, a trigger of some concern to Republicans now should an appetite in Congress grow for Trump’s impeachment.

But in a memo later in 1998, he recommended the Starr investigation be brought to a close and its findings turned over to the next president. “We believe an indictment should not be pursued while the President is in Office,” Kavanaugh wrote, suggesting this conclusion be reached by his colleagues.

The Starr report did bring on Clinton’s impeachment by the House, for perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted Clinton and he served out his term.

Kavanaugh was also at the center of one of Starr’s many tangents, the investigation of the death of Foster, Clinton’s deputy White House counsel. In one way, Kavanaugh was a moderating force in that investigation. His ultimate finding, embraced by Starr, was that Foster indeed killed himself, and nothing was found connecting that self-inflicted shot in a Washington-area park nefariously to the Clintons, as the conspiracy theories had it. Yet the mere fact Starr took on that matter and Kavanaugh pursued it gave those conspiracy theories enough credence to persist, which they still do.

A decade later, in his 2006 confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh said he came to realize it was a mistake for a special counsel investigation to grow so broad, as if “Judge Starr was somehow the permanent special investigator of the administration.” Such prosecutorial reports, he said, can damage people’s reputations and the credibility of the investigation itself.

And in 2009, he wrote in the Minnesota Law Review that the country would have been better off if investigators such as Starr and himself had let Clinton focus on Osama bin Laden and other issues of the day rather than become entangled in a criminal probe. Put off criminal investigation until a president is out of office, he suggested.

“If the President does something dastardly, the impeachment process is available.”

Said Schumer: “Seems exactly like the kind of man President Trump would want on the Supreme Court if legal issues from the Mueller probe arise.” ___ Associated Press writers Richard Lardner, Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko contributed to this report.

By CALVIN WOODWARD ,Associated Press

[genderassignment]

Beyond the Roma Caravan: A Series on Roma Women Creatives, by Suzana Milevska

Roma Pregnancy Rap, by Mihaela Drăgan

I had several different ideas for the content and format of my first feminist “assignment” after Melissa Potter’s kind invitation to contribute to her feminist blog-project Gender Assignment. I’ve never met Melissa in person and although we communicated for several years already it wasn’t easy to decide how to contribute and meet her high expectations. While I was still contemplating which direction to take I attended Mihaela Drăgan’s presentation at District in Berlin and my dilemma has been resolved in a very spontaneous way. And not only did this encounter helped my decision about the first post, it also motivated me to conceptualise my “gender assignments.” 

Beyond the Roma Caravan is going to be a series of portraits of Roma women and a discussion about the potential impact of their work on contemporary Roma communities and European societal and political attitudes towards Romany women in Europe. In my four posts I’ll focus on Roma women who continuously contribute towards dismantling the patriarchy and the conservative gender relations, both inside and outside of Roma communities. Moreover in conditions of risen anti-Roma racism in Eastern and Western Europe I find extremely important to focus on positive examples of feminist agency. In my view these women’s work is ground-breaking in different fields: visual arts, social theatre, performance, video, film, curating, and most importantly their artistic practice goes far beyond the stereotypical folkloric representation of Roma communities as only nomadic, conservative, and uneducated.                                                                                                           

Beyond the Roma Caravan: Meet Mihaela Drăgan

The first post is not an interview, nor is an essay. It’s also not a formal review of an art event. I just want to share my first impressions after an exciting encounter. Hence here I enclose my written portrait of Mihaela Drăgan, an actress and playwright of Roma descent living and working in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. 1

I decided to write about my first encounter with Mihaela Drăgan and to dedicate my first post to her work as a kind of recommendation to others who might not know much about Giuvlipen - the first Roma feminist theatre company formed by professional actresses of Roma origins in Bucharest. Moreover not only did this meeting helped me to decide what to address in my first blog, but also it incited me for the future three contributions to think in a similar direction: to share this space with several strong Roma women (artists, activists, curators actresses) from my region that I had opportunity to meet during the last ten years. 

In the short announcement about Mihaela Drăgan’ talk in Berlin it was announced that “she will cover the discourse around Roma art practice, which has developed parallel to the escalation of anti-Gypsyism and increasing stereotypification of Roma women.” She did much more. 

She talked about the spontaneous formation of the unique feminist theatre collective Giuvlipen in Bucharest in 2014. 

She talked about the meaning of the name Giuvlipen (Romani: feminism) and the difficulty of translating the term in Romanese. 2

She talked about the organisational and working strategies in the theatre as collaborative and about theatre’s structure as “sisterhood”.

She talked about not having a proper space for rehearsing and performing, so it was made clear the theatre is not nomadic by choice (they perform in different theatres, open public spaces, and galleries).

She talked about their play Gadjo-Dildo (Not-Roma Dildo), about how humour helps them to address the most contentious topics as racism, sexism, body, sexuality, conservativism within Roma community towards LGBT.

She talked about patriarchy and self-empowerment, again with lot of humour and wit…

She talked about the limited budget, often amounting to “0” - particularly at the beginning...

She talked about the participatory performances that took place in public spaces or in galleries. Yet she made a distinction between theatre performances and art performance not claiming the later...

She talked about the unexpected local and international success (recently she’s been nominated for The Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award, granted by New York’s Women’s Professional Theater League.)

She talked about the surprise of the audience that the Romani actresses were professionally educated and trained… 

She talked about the issues with language because not all actresses working in the theatre, although Roma by descent, know Romani language, but they always try to insert some sentences or words as political statements.

She talked about the paradoxes in the conditions of Roma in Romania during the previous, socialist times and now: how some rights were lost and anti-Roma racism escalated, although Roma in Romania had been officially recognised as ethnic minority only after Ceausescu. 

She talked about the failed (fortunately) political initiative of the Romanian Government to bring back the term Tigani, Romanian citizens and to avoid the homonymy between “Roma” and “Romanian” 3 

She talked about Giuvlipen’s interest in addressing many taboos and stereotypes regarding Roma untimely marriages (Del Duma), as well as about more recent neoliberal phenomenon of forced eviction (La Harneală). She stressed on her documentary, research, and biopic approach towards playwriting although the final plays’ versions are fictionalised. 

She talked, although very shortly, with me. After her invigorating presentation and the long Q&A session I wanted to talk more, but we were all very tired. I just managed to tell her that I wish I knew more about her and the theatre Giuvlipen before, while I curated several exhibitions focusing on Roma issues or when I’ve written the text “Women Bear Witness”.  I am often criticised for over-theorising so I’ll just stop here hoping that theory will come anyway, as a critical friend and companion who inevitably joins us when so much has been done in feminist practice of Roma women that yet needs to be reflected.  

NOTES

1. I am not a theatre expert, but I followed Mihaela’s confident presentation in the context of the event “Producing Roma Feminist Art” with a great interest because of my long-term involvement in researching Romani artists and my curatorial projects dedicated to their art practice.  

2. In their own words: “Our performances are made by, about and for Roma women, with the goal of contributing to the empowerment of Roma women in their living communities. Our group creates theatre performances based on life stories of Roma women, about their difficulties living between a traditional patriarchal community and a demanded integration into the dominant (often racist) Romanian community.” Giuvlipen Theatre Company, Romania, East European Performing Platform

3. The strengthening of racist right-wing politics across Europe was particularly revealed and even fortified the anti-Romaism and racism in the case of the official Romanian Government’s initiative from 2010 for reversing the established name Roma to Tigan. Fortunately the Parliament didn’t accept the proposal. See: Rupert Wolfe Murray, “Romania's Government Moves to Rename the Roma”, Time, Bucharest Wednesday, Dec. 08, 2010 Last Accessed 10.04.2018

4. Milevska, Suzana. ‘Women Bear Witness’, n-paradoxa, Vol. 28, 2011: 58-64.

Bio

Suzana Milevska (born 1961, Bitola, Macedonia) is an art theorist and curator with degrees in Art History from “St. Cyrill and Methodius” University in Skopje and in Philosophy and History of Art and Architecture from Central European University in Prague. She holds a  PhD from Goldsmiths College in the UK. She has published many essays since the early nineties in magazines such as Kinopis, Kulturen zhivot, Golemoto staklo, Siksi, Index, Nu, Springerin, Flash Art, Afterimage, Curare, Blesok, and has also curated over 70 exhibitions and international projects in Skopje (Little Big Stories 1998, Always Already Apocalypse 1999, Words-Objects-Acts 2000, Capital and Gender 2001), Istanbul (Writing and Difference 1992, Self and Other 1994, Desiring Machines 1997, Always Already Apocalypse 1999), Providence-USA (Liquor Amnii II 1997), Stockholm (Little Big Stories 1998), Berlin, Stuttgart and Bonn (Correspondences 2001), Utrecht (Call the Witness, 2011), Vienna (Roma Protocol 2011, To One's Name, 2013), Ljubljana (The Renaming Machine, 2010, Inside Out-Not So White Cube, 2015). Her book Gender Difference in the Balkans was published in 2010. She was the curator of the Open Graphic Art Studio of the Museum of the City of Skopje for seven years. She was a professor of art history and theory at the Faculty of Fine Arts (2010-2012) in Skopje, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (2013-2015). Currently is a Principal Researcher at Polytechnic University in Milan.