#and then i saw a photo of me in january of 2020 with my bob and i was like. oh shit. it WAS cute

[fingertipsmp3]

Might fuck around and bob my hair again idk

[truestory1929]

April 9th 2020

Final Blog 1979 to 1983 Emerson and Mary leaving the nest. After 1983 our house just went along just like everybody else!

Left to right back, Jamie, Me, Dad, Rita, front left, Emerson and Dorothy. This pic was just after we met our Father for the first time in 15 years!

THE FINAL BLOG! April 9th 2020

1979 to 1983

Emerson's leaving and Mary is moving in!

     Well here we are January 1979, my oldest son brother Emerson is halfway through grade 12 and wondering what to do in June when he graduates. Emerson took Motor Mechanics in High School this trade is still with him today, saved him tons of money, but he never took it up as a career. We had  rules in our house about education. First; education was more important than sports, two; you can live with us as long as you continue your education as long as you are progressing, this does not mean spending three years in grade 12, third and last; when the education is over, you live with us rent free for one year, get a job, save money for an apartment and move out. Otherwise we believe without these rules [ and we saw enough of it]  your parents will charge you a small rental fee,then you will take your excess money and buy a fancy sport's car with big payments,and a big insurance  bill and now go no where fast. This might be called tough love today. Especially because the average age of moving out is about 27 years old if you are lucky.

    David joined T-ball last year, and Jason joined this year. Sports was not at the top of our list for raising kids. I only played back yard sports. We had a ball field out by the Saint John airport where the car rental company is now. We played a lot of flys and grounders, scrub etc. Pat Riley and Jim Daly both hitch hiked to the south end of Saint John and played Little League. We played pond hockey on Treadwell Lake. I really did love sports but because of my situation I just did not get there. I am not feeling sorry for myself, its just the way it was.The first year I was at my foster home, the boys in Johnson's road talked me into joining school boy hockey. I had no equipment and The Wood's [ my foster parents] where not interested in helping me. I bought old time hockey equipment from the Merzetti's.[ who owned Mutal Jobbing on Douglas avenue] You could use google today and find this hockey equipment from the 50's. Leather helmet, leather pants and size 10 skates when I was a size 8. I loved it, but hitchhiking to Simonds Centennial Arena in the dead of winter was brutal. I played about 10 games. I did not even know what an off side was and I would be standing down in front of the other teams net waiting for the puck before my team mate was across the blue line. After a couple of games I caught on after all the the screaming and yelling from the coach and the players. Its funny now to think back on this stuff. Murray Sewell was responsible for my kids getting into sports. Murray had his t-ball team practicing in the Glen Falls play ground [which was next door to our house]so David went over to see what was going on. He got David throwing the ball and Murray was impressed. Like in the Chevy movie "BING0" this guy could throw a ball voila sports was born into the Reynolds Family.Jean was a good athlete, basically a tom boy until she was 16 years old, then yahoo, the most beautiful girl I ever met, a real lady, dainty, sweet, kind, loving, supportive [ and I mean supportive, I had a lot of crazy ideas and she went along with them eventually]. She was always being picked to be on someone's team at he Allison grounds in Rockwood Court. So its in [watch for the pun] the Jeans! lol

 Now lets go back to the Merzetti's. In my first year with my foster parents, Marion and Fred Woods, Jim Merzetti asked me if I wanted to make some extra money stocking shelves at Mutal Jobbing. Well sure I was always looking for ways to make money. I use to walk the ditches with Jimmy Daly for pop and beer bottles and we we an empty 50 lb burlap bag. We would take them Berry's store across from the airport and cash them in. Pile winter wood for neighbours, run errants for the neighbors, fish trout through the ice and sell them and even cut trees down from other people's land and sell them for christmas trees. We just got inside the door and this elderly gentleman walked in. MR. Merzetti who own the business introduced him to me, his name was Havelock Lane. Tall slim man very nice. Three years later after Jean and I started dating, she introduced me to her grandparents Havelock and Genavieve Lane! Yep, same guy!

    Emerson graduated yahoo, big milestone for any Reynolds to graduate.You know I never said this before,I hated our last name, I swore I was going to change my name when I grew up. We used to get "ren-hole" because we we so dirty and so poor, an I'm sure we were stinky. How do you bath in the winter and wash clothes when I filled the washer up every morning to supply water for Mom for the day out of Treadwell Lake? I remember when I graduated I thought I died and went to heaven! Emerson decided to go to NBCC and Take the one year plumbing course. We were very proud of him  wanting to continue his education. This will make the fourth Reynolds to go to NBCC. Myself, Dorothy and Jamie also graduated from NBCC. He passed in flying colors. He never took up Motor mechanics or plumbing as a career trade, but has saved himself lots of money doing both. Who really knows what you want to do for a living for the rest of your life? Every person I know [and I know a lot of people] are not doing what they thought they might do after the education is over with one exception, My son David, he knew he wanted to be a Doctor in grade 6. Emerson had done many jobs, each jog shaping his skills and shaping his well being. He has found his niche in Ventilation, he is at the top of his game, he  is in upper managment, he creates multi-million dollar bids for his company, he is well respected in his company and his field of expertise! Emerson never took us up on the offer to stay rent free for a year. NBCC let him graduate early as he had a job with Bob Duplussis Plumbing company. Moved out and into his own apartment on Michael Crescent all by the time of his 21st birthday on June 5th 1980. Emerson lived with us for 7 years. He is my oldest son, he is a big brother to my three sons. It was a hell of a run Em!

     Ben now has got into the sports world He joined t-ball this year. Jean is trying to get her drivers licence. Jean is very nervous about theses things. She is now 30 years old. I work shift work so I am not around to drive the kids to their sports for every game. We are going nuts, we have friends and neighbours helping us with driving to and from ball and hockey venues. Kudos to the Sewell's, Goguens, Allaby's, Carson's, White's, Mclaughlin's, Hutchinson's, Doiron's, Stevens, and many more for helping with picking up and delivering our kids to and from the rinks and ball fields. I was driving a 1974 Pontiac Lemans at the time. Big car, Jean failed two road tests up to this point. The car was too big for parallel parking , combine that  with Jean's nerves it was useless. Okay new plan, I called rent-a-wreck to see if I could rent a small car for her to take road test. They said no [remember no speaker phone] as their insurance only covers the driver. I said okay, [I never told Jean the whole conversation] come on Jean we are going to get a small car for you. I told her she could  sit in our the car until I got the rental car, I was not making any mistakes about blowing my scam. I rented an AMC pacer, nice and small, easy to parallel park etc. I left my car in the parking lot and drove home, we already had the appointment made. Jean said she would need to take a valium to calm her nerves just before we leave. The road test was in the West Side Motor vehicle. Now the examiner always asked for the permit and car registation. The registration was just a photo copy. In these AMC pacers they hasd  a tray that ran the entire width of the car under the dash. So I told Jean that it was just laying under the glove box where he could see it, praying that he would not pick it up. Remember Jean has no idea that this whole thing is illegal. Well she took the test and passed in flying colors. Yahoo Jean has her licence, I told Jean the whole story after we got home. The colr drained from her face.

    Okay, we are starting to finish chapters and start a new one. David finally gets his own room at 9 years old after Emerson moved out. We asked him how he wanted his room done. He wanted wallpaper with the old vintage airplanes, De Havilland's etc. We bought him a Captains bed and painted the room. That was one happy kid yahoo! Well the yahoo did not last long. Around Christmas time we got a call from Jean's mother who was living in Montreal at the time. We had just got settled in bed for the night, its was around midnight when the phone rang. We turned on the bedroom lights and Jean proceeded to talk to her mother. No speaker phone then, but I gathered it was Vera. Jean hung up and said her mother was crying and broken hearted. I asked her what was the matter and she said that Mary needed a place to stay until she graduated from high school.[ Quebec passed a new law that year requiring all students to finish their education in French only. Mary was taking hairdressing. Bill 101 was enacted on August 26, 1977. The bill basically was  made to ensure the Province of Quebec became totally French speaking only. The top jobs at the time were held by English speaking Canadians. Bill 101 was to make schooling in French only up to high school. All signages were to be in French only. Then in 1980 they decided that the high schools were to be French only too. Mary needed to move back to Saint John to finish high school.]  Jean said her mom wanted us to talk it over and call her back tommorrow. I told Jean call your mom back right now. You were the one who decided to take in Emerson for me. If you said no it was no. Now it is my turn, we are taking her in. Jean called Vera back and told her we would take care of Mary, and that was that. Now we have to tell David that he will have to move back in the laundry room for at least three years. Poor David, as sad as he was he never complained, he went about his business as usual. He might have said something to his brothers but not us? Mary was in grade eleven and will be going to Saint John Vocational School. Something I forgot to say about Emerson, he did a lot of babysitting, he made his own money as he was a member of the Miltia since he was 16 years old, and bought us very nice gifts [Thanks Em] Okay now, Mary was the same, she helped Jean around the house, she baby sat and made life for us as easy as possible. Mary was 17 years old when she moved in.

   Well Mary graduated in flying colors in June 1982. Mary decided that she really did not want to be a hairdresser. Jean was working at the Top of the Town restaurant. This was located on Main st. on the roof of Keddys Hotel. I talked to the superviser of the down stairs coffee shop and dining room off the main hotel lobby and was able to talk her into hiring Mary as a cashier. She eventually became a waittress. Jean introduced Tony Kane to Mary. Tony was working in the banquet department. The next year I got her an apartment in east Saint John and her and Tony moved in together. Mary moved out the end of September 1983. Before she moved out I got Mary to teach me how to cut hair.[ I just cut Jeans hair yesterday as we are quarantined]. David is now 12, Jason is 11 and Ben is 6. cutting their hair became another job for me for years to come. Emerson was getting married on Oct 8 1983. I was the best man at the wedding. It was a blast. When we got home we found our house was in  shambles. Some one broke into our home and ransacked the place, stole our stereo system and all my 8mm home movies from 1979 to 1983, Christmases, birthday, sporting events etc. We were heart broken. You never really get over something like that. It was like somebody tearing your heart out.

     Well David gets his room back again, he is now 12 years old. You are a good man David.We have been married now for 13 years Dec 12, 1983. We started this journey moving people into our home in 1973, two and half years after we were married. We were married December 12 1970. We will be married 50 years this December. We were going to go on a cruise, but we think in lieu of what is happening right now with the coronavirus that cruising is out for a long time for us. We have no desire to even fly overseas. We will stick to North America thank you very much!

   This will be my last blog, hope you guys found something that interested you. I can't sign out before I mention the foster parents. May of 1967 I went to Fred and Marion Wood on Johnson Road, where I grew up with  their youngest son Gerald. He introduced me to motorcycles, he would let me ride all of them, he had 4 different bikes in my time there. I never had an older brother so now I do. Gerald or Woody which he prefer, we still bike around today.  Dorothy and Emerson went to the Donnie and Jean Armstrong's, god bless them they 7 kids of their own. Jamie went to the Baxters Len and Mertle, who had at least 8 kids of their own.[The Baxters and the Armstrongs lived across from each other on the Loch Lomond road beside the Norris road.] Then Emerson went to the Morris's, and Dorothy went to the Websters. Then Emerson went back to the Armstrongs and then to me and Jean May 9th 1973. So from May 1967 to May 1973 Emerson moved 4 times in 6 years. Dorothy then went to Godin's and then to our place on Cooks Lake road off the Norris Road in August 1975 to attend NBCC. We lived in a small house we were renting from Dawn and Vince Dempsey. They were our Landlord and Landlady for our first 7 years of our marriage. After Dorothy graduated she and her boyfriend, John Sullivan, got an apartment on the Loch Lomond Road. People can say all they want about foster parents, some good stuff and some bad stuff. Without them, where would we be today. Mr amd Mrs. Wood taught me every thing I know. learned manners, building, [ I used all the tools to build an addition on the back of their house. which launched me into the Oil Refinery], I learned how to plAy chess, learned how to play a guitar etc. We had three square meals a day, we were warm, were clothed, we had it all. Yes we were separated, yes the love was not the same as we got from mom. But man, these people took us into their homes and took care of us. We were backward, dirty, angry, at times just plain bad, neglected, dressed in rags, if you can think of it that was us, but they took us in anyway, GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

    I wanted my grandchildren to have some history about their grandparents and their parents. I knew nothing about my grandparents, little about my aunts and uncles, cousins etc. They all lived in Nova Scotia. The only relatives that came to see us was Mom's parents Fred and Margie Hayter, they came in 1961 a year after Dad left, just for the day, and my Aunt Goldie in the late 70's at Todd Street in Glen falls. I started this project in the fall of 2013, I do not know where the time goes.I was going to quit a few times, I stopped writing for a while, but my grandkids urged me to finish. At times it seemed that I was just whining or feeling sorry for myself or sometimes it just made me sad. Thanks you for urging me on, it was good therapy for me, it made me realize how lucky we are, to have the family we have and all the good people I have met and all the things we have done! I am a lucky man to be so rich with LOVE!

    I never thought I would live long enough to receive an old age check, we have been getting it three years now. Its great to be a Canadian. After living in USA for the last several winters you know how lucky you are. They do not have free health care [ I know what you are thinking its not free , we paid high income tax compared to the Americans but that was a good thing, just ask an American.] and we have the Old Age check. They do not have this. They have social security, which is based the same as our Canada Pension Plan, a working persons pension. [ notice I did not say working man's pension lol]. Our old age check is an  awesome bonus. Canadians do not contribute financially to it, you only need to be 65 years old,and be a Canadian citizen for 5 years. Yahoo. I hope you all get to collect it someday.

      We will continue to quarantine ourselves after our mandatory quarantine on April 15th. We may be carriers so we do not want to pass anything on to you. We will continue the 6 feet or 2 meters social distancing,and we will wear a mask when we are out. We will visit out in the yards at your place or ours for the good of all of us! We love you all very much!    

    Your grandparents Nana and Papa! oxoxoxoxoxoxoxo see you soon!

[supernoondles]

2020

A lot happens in a year, even when nothing seems to happen at all.

There's nothing new my commentary about a global pandemic (and the particularly frustrating experience of living in America during it, even with all my privileges of continued employment, owning a car, rent stability, and living in the bay area) will bring to the reader, but I will underscore this: my feelings aren't that 2020 is any kind of exceptional year, but the point where, hopefully, we finally realize that economic/climate/racial injustice has been a terrible problem for a long time, and will continue to be unless we enact massive collective change. A vaccine is not going to make any of those issues disappear, and I worry the people in power (including myself) will return to their comfortable life styles as if the next decade won't be even worse.

Anyway, general DOOM aside (RIP man), here's my year in specific!

From looking through my photos: January was off to a great start. I celebrated the new year with dim sum with J/M/M, as per tradition, and went on a foggy hike through SF with my family that involved my dad and J getting hilariously lost. Soon after I went to Sonoma with J/M -- for all my years in the bay, I had never explored north of the Golden Gate that much -- which was a wonderful trip seeing J's hometown. I helped my lab demo research at the Exploratorium, started growing my own microgreens, and went on more (to become semi-regular and my only source of cardio through the pandemic) bike rides with my lab mates. I finally saw Hamilton (though feel a need to justify here how "cringey" I think LMM is). I went to Genesis, my first gaming-related convention, and it was a lot of fun despite seeing no women. I did so many things, was making progress on research (I think? I don't recall any breakdowns) and my mental health was generally good.

The doing of things continued in February. After not going last year, I went to the Tet Festival in SJ (which was kind of sad). I joined a Chinese learning club and a crafts club and had a delicious omakase. N visited again, I went ice skating and tried to rescue a giant rat from string lights, and saw the Sonic movie in theaters (which would have been my last movie in theaters, sigh). After having a drink at Wursthall with T, I felt terrible (to the unaccustomed reader, not only do I Asian glow, my hands/feet itch whenever I drink and I feel like I want to die), and decided that was the last drink I'd ever have -- thanks to the pandemic that's stayed true. I went on a ski retreat with the lab that felt particularly special (and not just because I didn't have to pay). We (I, in convincing my mostly Asian office) wanted to make 元宵 on the eve of E's birthday, but it turns out that a bunch of CS PhD students really love singing karaoke for like 4 hours straight into the night, and at some point I was like, okay y'all, time to go to bed. So I hosted 元宵 making at my apartment the next weekend, and we watched another Bong Joon-Ho movie (The Host) to celebrate his Oscar win. Typing this out, it seems wild that this was even in this year. I also did sh*** for the first time, hallucinated white woman in the edges of my vision like a GAN, ate a lot of shaved parmesan from TJ, and let go of any stress I had about the UIST deadline to the abundance of nature and the world.

I break from the month-per-paragraph format now because we all know what happens next. M and I biked around campus to film a virtual tour for the newly virtual admit weekend. Being in Gates that Friday (three days before the bay area wide shelter-in-place order) was the last time I'd be on campus for a while. The next day I adopted 3 wonderful baby rats (my biggest brain move this whole year) and the day after that I moved home. I was counting down the days until Animal Crossing and then J and I were duplicating royal crowns in ACNH. At some point my hair got really bad. The months blurred together. Adjusting to WFH was extremely challenging for me, someone who had structured their whole life around the "I only do work in the office and I leave the office when I get hungry for dinner" logic. I would stop working at 6pm but spent the entire afternoon mentally prepping myself to do maybe 30 menial minutes of it. I binged AtLA. I gave up submitting to UIST. In May I hung out in the park with J, who came home from Seattle, which was the first time I saw anyone outside my family. Sometime in there I decided to become a Twitch streamer and had a brief revival as DJ Noon before I felt bad for roping my friends into listening to my music and ran out of interesting songs I wanted to play. In June I, like many others, took to the streets. For two weeks I donated $50 a day to a different organization. I couldn't get any work done at all and spent an entire advisor meeting sobbing so intensely that they felt bad and canceled it after 10 minutes. I emailed the university and got my housing back for the summer and I moved back to start my internship.

The internship was the break I needed -- working with W was a godsend compared to the struggle of my advisors. After reaching new lows at the start of the summer, my mental health was sloping positively again -- working on a new research project helped clear the emotional baggage of the last one. I was also getting more outdoor social interaction -- I went to Ocean Beach with M/D, Half Moon Bay with my family, and going on weekly bike rides with M. At the end of June, M, my roommate, her boyfriend M the clown (there are now 3 different Ms) and I waited for negative COVID results before going on a 2 day camping trip to Mt. Lassen, which felt completely surreal, and, at that time, completely necessary.

The summer dragged on and my mental health, at some point, began to slip. If I were to graph it it would probably look like the inverse of COVID cases in the US -- gradually decreasing, but with high variance from the day to day. I got an embroidery machine, I attended a workshop on docu-poetics with CPH that was so ripe with information my brain physically ached, I saw my lab mates again for the first time as we sat in a very, very wide circle to say goodbye to a post-doc who got a faculty job in Israel. Most weekends I drove to my parents' house and would take J on various hikes around East Bay so he could better appreciate his roots before he went off to Boston for college. He was taking the Switch with him, so in August I bought myself a new one and planned out my entire second ACNH town, which kept me busy for a while -- but surprisingly not as long as I thought, as with planning (and money from my old account) the whole project took I think less than 50 hours. The camping itch came back and the day before my birthday, which was also the day before J would leave for Boston, we went camping at a small state park in San Jose where he got heat stroke and we slept on top of fire ants. The entire experience reminded me how much I disliked camping -- but what else was there to do? I had a wonderful (and long, bless the folks who stayed) Zoom birthday party where I wore a mesh shirt I made and covered with worms on a string. The day after my birthday someone backed into my car, which, following the demands of a racist letter from the HOA, was parked in guest parking. (Ultimately this would be a blessing of insurance money, as the damage was mainly cosmetic and the person kindly left their contact information.) At this time I was also unironically watching ASMR videos to fall asleep, so I painted a two Bob Ross style paintings, one in my virtual art club, to pay homage.

Fire season this year was worse than it's ever been. Being trapped inside the house combined with my roommate moving out at the start of fall quarter and now living alone marked the second downward spiral of my mental health. The bad days were more frequent. I TA'd a game design course, my first time teaching at this university, where many students messaged me to complain that their 95s were not 100s. In the end the lowest grade in the class was an A- and 20% of the class got an A+. At some point I submitted a summer-long project I did with J and S to CHI; it is so much easier to produce work when I do not have to wrangle with M. (This paper gets accepted, but my silly grad student excitement is tampered both by general "why are we still trying to publish when society is crumbling" pandemic feelings and the fact that CHI will not be physically in Japan next year.) Maybe once a month I go birding. I feel increasingly as if there is nothing novel in my life; I am tired of it all and my body feels fatigued even though I don't do anything with my days. Some days it feels like if I don't touch someone I will explode. My use of recreational marijuana skyrockets. I start doing exercise videos semi-regularly with A. I briefly consider moving to Seattle with E, who is about to defend, before it's clear we have, as always, different boundaries and expectations. I look for places in Sunset/Richmond with M to little success.

In October I somehow pull it together and organize student volunteers for a 3 day conference that requires waking up before 5am every day. I do nothing the rest of the week. After we get flu shots and I let someone into my apartment for the first time since the pandemic started, I help E move up to Seattle. The trip is comfortable and we get to take care of each other; this fulfills a need in me. On Halloween J and I dance in a soccer field next to a combination anarchist recruitment center and homeless encampment -- now cleared by the cops -- and eat a mud pie that is too sweet. On my last day in WA I ask E if he would like to have sex, as friends, and he politely declines. I am pleased with how easily I emotionally accept this answer, how through time and therapy I've finally come to cherish our friendship without always looking for what could have been. I am extremely nervous on the flight home, and it's the first and only flight I will take during the pandemic, and the N-95 squishes my face so my head looks like a balloon, but I have the privilege of free 5 minute weekly tests through the university and I collect another negative result.

In November I fully embrace the hyperfixation lifestyle. My brain, always looking for novel stimuli, has given up on doing work entirely and instead thinks of Thanzag constantly. There is one day where I play Hades for 8 hours and I feel gross, as if I've completed my regression to my high school self. It takes 90 hours until I achieve all my goals, and with no more runs necessary to roll for RNG-based conversational triggers, I finally feel a sense of freedom. (My Switch tells me I have used it for 580+ hours this year, which is more than double last year.) The second SwSh DLC is a struggle for me to complete as I do not find catching legendaries enticing. J comes back early from university at my urging to avoid the travel surge, a week before Thanksgiving, and starts living with me. This helps a lot. My next hyperfixations come overlapping and staggered: I write 25k words of a second iteration of my 2015 NaNoWriMo with the protagonist I had developed in high school before I get bored with the story and realize I need yet another iteration; I buy a combination air fryer pressure cooker and ask my parents for a functional vacuum and bidet as early Christmas gifts and become obsessed with immaculate inside living spaces. This carries on to re-decorating my room at my parents' house, after installing a shelf in the closet and a curtain to close it off from the living room, and spending roughly 30 hours over December break organizing and cleaning their entire garage--they have not thrown out a single piece of paper or article of clothing since they set foot in this country over 20 years ago. My therapist quits the practice and my relationship with my advisors improve. I watch a few housewife vlogs and make my own. I have the revelation that doing research in a pandemic is basically just like any other creative project -- no one really cares that much if I get it done, it's just harder to do than, say, putting together a vlog in a few hours. This shift in mindset feels life changing to me, having before thought of research more as work, a taboo thing to pursue in a pandemic, and when W compliments me for the progress I've made in both the system and managing our meeting with M I do not know how to respond because no one has ever done that before. In the last two weeks of the year I start tracking my time. In our last session (that I almost sleep through), my therapist tells me that I seem stable to her and she is not worried about me. I believe her.

In 2020 I made a marked point to let everyone know that I didn't have goals. It felt lofty to have personal ambitions in the face of everything at a global scale. With this said I will now revisit the 2020 resolutions I wrote last year: (1) Intentionally seek out love: absolutely not, (2) Do enough work such that I don't feel guilty: also no, (3) sew one thing a month: no, but in the end I sewed 11 things total this year so I was close, (4) improve my Chinese: this was actually the only thing that did happen, and now my mom and I have better conversations because of it and I'm so thankful.

In 2021, however, I feel like I finally have it in me to have goals again. They are simple. (1) Get laid. (2) Submit the two research projects I've been doing forever. (3) Commit to writing down my thoughts that make me think, "Oh, that's interesting, I should write it down." Ideas are unfortunately such currency in what I do.

Last year I wrapped up this post with some candid, but embarrassing, optimism. I will offer no such high hopes for 2021, but I do ask the reader if they have noticed that I switched tenses from past to present halfway through this post. And that's 2021: an incidentally unintentional, but then consciously controllable, shift to the present.

[journeydb]

January 11, 2020 Colorado

Wedding Day!  And what a marvelous wedding it was!  I have only the photos I took and which others took with my camera but in a few days I’ll have the photographer and cousin Michael’s photos to share the rest of the precious moments.

Hobie slept on our couch last night to give our other guests his room, following the tradition of the groom and bride not being together before the wedding, even though they have lived together for nearly seven years. 

Just as Hobie, Courtney, and Elayna were finishing breakfast Katie called saying she found the open box which had contained the rings on the floor beside the bed, the wedding ring under the bed but she couldn’t find the diamond engagement ring.  Thank goodness she called a few minutes later to say the other ring was further under the bed and not in Gillie’s tummy!

Hobie was happy when he saw that I had taken his truck to be cleaned and detailed yesterday and put a warm, cozy blanket on the seat.  After a short hike with friends, I went to my hair and makeup session at On Broadway Spa.  Since I almost never have this experience, I enjoyed it to the max and was happy with the results.

All the people from our house rode in two separate vehicles, and when we arrived at the mansion, it had just started to snow.  Hobie was waiting outside in his truck, very excited about the snow, and of course, his wedding!  Originally he and Katie had wanted to be married outside in the snow so having even a little snow on his wedding day was a gift to him (I’d like to think from our dear departed mother, Hobie’s grandmother, who we have always called “The Weather Witch” as a joke).

Other family members began arriving and we began with the obligatory family photos.  I was SO happy to have my beautiful sisters and their families (at least some of them) with us on this auspicious occasion!

Our youngest brother, Marc’s daughter, Courtney, lives in Dallas Texas and took a couple days off work to be here.  She and Hobie has always been close so it meant a lot to him that she, as well as his other cousins, could be here.  She and Elayna looked stunning in their lovely dresses.

I wanted to pin on Hobie’s boutonniere but I was too short so the wedding planner had to do it!  He looked so handsome in his tuxedo and was very calm for a guy about to be married!

I took a photo of Fran with her family, which was bittersweet, considering that her son, Tucker, who was almost like a brother to Hobie, died a little over a year ago, so this family photo definitely had a hole in it. A happier family photo, below, was taken the year before Tucker died at one of Elayna’s performances at Gould Academy in Bethel, where the family lived as the children grew up.

This occasion would have made Tuck very happy for Hobie and Katie, and his absence was not missed by any of us.  Tucker gave Aimey away at her wedding to Philip in 2015, when he was in the Marines, and we’ll always have the memory of that happy occasion.

After taking various family photos, we began to mingle with the other guests and I went to help Katie’s mom, Courtney, put out other framed photos of Hobie and Katie until Courtney went to help Katie get ready and I took more photos of other guests.

Courtney’s dress was gorgeous, and so was she!  I loved the appliques on it and felt it was so appropriate for the mother-of-the-bride.  I found my dress at Nordstrom’s a few weeks ago and was thrilled with the color and style and the fact that it actually fit me, since it’s hard to find clothes small enough that don’t need to be altered.

Our cousin, Debbie, who has been like a sister to me for most of our lives, and her family arrived early, so I was able to get a photo of them all together.  Debbie and Bob’s three children have always been like siblings to Hobie because they lived in Louisville, the town next to Boulder, and we have always done so much together. Sean and his wife, Hope, were married last summer in a lovely outdoor wedding in an apple orchard, which we all attended.  Middle son, Nick, has just returned for the holidays from Boston, where he has been living and working since last summer.  Larisa, the youngest of the family, looked grown up and self-assured, and taller than her mother in heels!

We were so happy that Hobie’s grandparents, Jerry and Laura, and his aunt Taryn could be at the wedding.  We are all really close and it’s a joy to have them in our lives. Of course, we were thinking of their daughter Kori, Hobie’s birth-mom, who died when he was a teenager, knowing she was in our hearts even if she wasn’t there in person. I sensed that her Spirit was with us all day and that she was happy for and proud of her son.

The Dorricott’s at Taryn’s high school graduation

Bruce’s cousin, Michael, came from New York to be with us.  He has always been close to Hobie and we knew he would be here if he could, representing the Holland side of the family (even though his last name is Sheafe, because his mother was Bruce’s father, Bennie’s sister, Vera).  Michael is a bit famous, being a national expert on antique toasters and having been featured on television and in publications.  He is also a wonderful guy and whenever we are in New York we spend time with Michael, our resident tour guide.

Katie’s brother, Jack, her dad, Bill, and Bruce and Hobie all looked spiffy in their suits because they were part of the wedding party.  Sean had offered to walk me down the aisle, and wasn’t an official part of the wedding party but he still looked nice in his vest and tie.

Another missing person who was on all our minds today was Katie’s older brother, Sam, who would surely have been part of the wedding party if he were still with us.  He and Hobie met through Katie and were very close friends.  It was a devastating loss for all of us when Sam died in October of 2013, soon after Hobie and Katie officially became a couple.  I sensed he was watching over his little sister today, so happy for her and proud of her.  After he died I had a star named after him and I like to think that Sam’s star was shining brightly tonight.

Sean walked me down the aisle after Jack walked Courtney to her seat and I was amazed that I wasn’t nervous, just excited for the wedding to begin.  When Bill walked Katie down the aisle, all eyes were on her, especially Hobie’s.  He said to me later “Mom, when I saw her in that dress she took my breath away!”  I think she took everyone’s breath away, she looked so lovely and serene.

The ceremony was beautiful and romantic and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room.  We were all so happy for them after all the challenges they have overcome and the losses they have helped each other through during their time together.  It was obvious how much they care for each other and sweet when Katie forgot Hobie’s ring in the dressing room and he kindly took off another ring so she could put it on his finger.

When they were pronounce husband and wife and kissed a shout of joy went up from everyone in the room!  We had photos taken in groups of family members and friends and then enjoyed a delicious, if somewhat unusual dinner of bread bowl soups, salad and s’mores, a testimony to Hobie’s love of food while he was skiing and camping!  The dancing afterwards was fun and nearly everyone, including Hobie, who doesn’t usually like to dance, joined in.

Katie decided to take Hobie’s last name so now she is officially Katie Holland!  We are so excited to have her in our family and we know the Gambrells feel the same way about Hobie.

They left in the truck to go home and be with their dogs before they leave in a few days for their honeymoon in Vail and a happier couple never stood in the doorway of the Boettcher Mansion, to be sure!

[midnatt-heronweather]

2020 review

Disclaimer: You won’t hear much about the virus in this. I’m not a denier, I know the damage and destruction covid19 has caused and the death toll, therefore I am not yet cold enough not to realise this is going to sound completely selfish, but that is my decision.  My reviews focus on MY year. Just so you’re aware. “I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” Bob Dylan.

2020... What can I say?

This was the year I decided to officially identify as Non-Binary, not that anyone actually cares or believes me or things i'm "(insert stereotype at will)" enough. except for those very VERY rare people who do and who actually listen and hear me when I speak

Anyway -It has been a trashcan fire of a year since February/March February when I saw the Hu and Counterfeit alongside Ally. And I say February/March because that was the weekend I say my year ended...the good part anyway. Because it was that weekend when I got the ultimate honour, privilege and miracle of meeting Jason Carter, After that it was like a Dementor had French kissed the year and I can’t be the only one who thought it? Conventions and gigs postponed, rescheduled and ultimately cancelled, masks, social distancing, lockdowns the works. And can I just say - I didn’t clap, and I don’t feel in the slightest bit ashamed for it. Despite or maybe because I have friends and a few family who work in the NHS I couldn't bear to be a part of the hypocritical BS idea. I live in a country that will clap for their 'beloved' life saving NHS but then stand silent when Pay rises are frozen and when the NHS is in danger, we as a country expect a lot but don't lift a finger to gave back, clapping doesn’t pay bills. But...Bright points in the year let’s try staying positive and leaving the crap outside shall we...well... The main one has got to be that the US finally found their sense and President Elect Joe Biden will b sworn in January 20, 2021. After that... I’ll have to get back to you. Oh...no..no that’s not one... seriously I’ll have a think and get back to you. Conventions: Just one this year, for me, because of the obvious... But what a convention FCD Events presents 2258 a Babylon 5 Conventions: Where, as well as finally being among actual self confessed fans and being able to tick a b5 convention off my bucket list after starting cons way too late to attend the OG cons I did the impossible... I MET JASON CARTER... have I mentioned this? Have I? Should I say t again? I MET JASON CARTER!!! Also Mira Furlan, Tracy Scoggins and Patricia Tallman, but I met him! Finally! And... Just a reminder I did warn you guys, several times that it was likely hell would freeze over if I ever got that particular honour, do not say I didn’t. I’d never done an FCD before, I’d meant to, even bought a ticket but it just never seemed to happen, but the second someone said b5 con, I was so there! Karan Robinson made my year by making me the Anla’Shok uniform. And Nadine added the cherry on top by making the belt buckle that ONLY Marcus and Entil’Zha Sinclair wear: D (for the record: Velcro still hates me) David one of the organisers of FCD kept randomly shouting “We live for the one.” And when people other than m actually knew the response and responded... dude kick in the feels I kid you not. Next Year (Angel Willing) Adam and I are attending the Teen Wolf conventions entitled “Howl at the Moon 4” in Paris, France... which is cool on so many levels not least of which being I get to meet JR Bourne and Daniel Sharman again and get to visit the church of St Julian of the poor. And yes, there are cons planned here in the UK. But... well. It’s already looking Grey, and not the good kind. Music and Gigs: Two gigs one after the other at the 02 Ritz in Manchester. The First:

The Hu a Mongolian band who Ally really likes and I think are pretty cool. They are amazing live there’s no doubt, can hold their own in England even in a room of idiots. The 2nd :

Counterfeit (also with Ally) I went VIP and got to meet the boys again, and listen to a Q&A with them. I will forever love them, not just because of Jamie’s acting side despite what people say. Didn’t realise how special until recently though because;  after keeping fans going and hyping up new singles during lockdowns, they recently decided to go their separate ways. Jamie’s gone solo and he’s put three songs out on YouTube. _ I was meant to be attending a one off gig by Ruelle and Fleurie both of who had music used on Shadowhunters, even talked my friend Lou into it, but it was a victim of the lockdowns and things and I’m not the optimistic type so I doubt it’ll ever happen now, will be lucky if even one of the ladies comes over here if I’m honest. Recently I’ve rediscovered a love for Black Veil Brides and their leader Andy Black’s solo stuff. Olivia Hyde of Bad Pollyanna recently killed everyone in her black unicorn’s fanbase with an amazing solo album, me included. Ally has introduced me to a few interesting bands this year, *Wingtips – very 80s Goth, very Ally (translation: very cool.) *Allegiance Reign – a Japanese Samurai metal band,  not sure what Ally actually thinks of these guys, she found them while perusing YouTube and thought of me :D Suggestions greatly accepted, I am always up for giving new stuff a try. Hopefully next year things will even out and gigs will be able to be put on again. TV and Fandom’s: *We FINALLY got Roswell: New Mexico in the UK, and ITV blitzed through 2 seasons in less than a month, but it was enough for me to decide I loved it, maybe more than I did the original. Alex is my fave, but obv Michael isn’t half bad, nor is Max when he’s not making goo-goo eyes at Liz. * Finally got to see 9-1-1 Lone Star and I absolutely love it, (I kinda knew I would from all the talk) * Decided to give the Charmed reboot a 2nd look and it’s proved addictive, now waiting for s2 to be downloadable on Amazon or something. *In march I was so, so excited for the return of The Expanse and the fact the main cast were coming to a con in the UK, then.. The verse went to hell. I still Love the Expanse, but I’m not as die hard as I was, not for lack of trying. Still love it for Anna of course, any excuse to see her. *After 15 years Supernatural finally ended in 2020 with season15: I stopped watching religiously at the end of season 6 but that does not mean I stopped liking the show just that I didn’t like the direction (like with The Expanse recently) I loved watching the reaction of the fans, and how much they (we if I’m counted) mean to the cast. * I have to mention Cursed... If only to say HOLY HELL DANIEL! 𝑴𝒚 𝑭𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑻𝑽 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘𝒔 𝒐𝒇 2020 Cursed 9-1-1 Lone Star & 9-1-1 Warrior Nun Prodigal Son Penny Dreadful: City of Angels Doctor who (Officially season12) Roswell s1&2 (it counts cos ITV only just got the reboots) Charmed s1&2(it counts cos E4 only just got the reboots) Call the Midwife (s9 btw) Our Girl Strike Back: Vendetta Friends: “Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

My understanding of "friendship." is skewed, and I’m not saying that to be "Vulcan." it’s honest, and anyone who wants to know how or why just has to ask. But let’s leave it at that for this. It makes some things more stark... and I've said this recently, but this binfire has made even me more aware of who’s out there in my verse, whose pack, who’s potential, and who’s just pathetic. The last I’m not going to waste my breath on. The first two: Pack and Potential (read: new acquaintances /potential friends) Pack: Yes I go on about friends as 'Pack like a person whose OD'd on Teen Wolf... because I am so :P My pack as a whole are varied, and spread out across this country with a few dotted around Europe and Aus. hopefully they know who they are because I don't do mushy crap as they know. But if they do know, they know I'm there when I'm needed and more than willing to sod off when not. Yorkshire brass makes me frank and I’d hope fair. There are 2...mayb 3 who sit above the rest, in special place for the things they've done and things they've been through with me. I make no denial of that. But everyone is important to me. I wouldn't change them for anything.... Ok... tell a lie, maybe 1 or 2 when they do my box in, but that’s only like for a week maybe less. I've spent too many years and got too many scars and burned too many photos and bridges because of fake people and users to not be honest to a fault. It’s who I am. Potential: the Counterfeit gig in Manchester, 2258 and yes even Tiktok have given me the opportunity to make some interesting acquaintances this year, and some I hope will become friends in the real in the future, but for now I will say - "I am defensive, stand off ish, sometimes bull headed and of course opinionated, but I am by no means blind. Or blinkered despite what may be said of me. I am there when needed, if I can be of use, just poke me."   Ave Atqua Vale This section has its own post these days. Sadly. Pictures Will try and make one of my “a year in ten pics.” Posts later. Final words While I am not fond of this time of year, Enjoy your celebrations whatever for they may take, I will be watching The Magicians / Call the Midwife and plotting 202? Cosplays. I will be here when (fk knows why) I'm needed. Otherwise-  Compliments of the season, now go get a beer, i'm sure you need it after reading this crap.

in the words of The one and only Jason Carter  “Hindsight is 2020″

[shorthaircutsmodels]

Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts and Hairstyles - 10+ - https://shorthaircutsmodels.com/kate-bosworths-short-haircuts-and-hairstyles/ - Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts and Hairstyles, Next sprinkle volumizing powder or dry shampoo Brager Kevin Murphy recommends puffing powder for added texture to hair lengths. Then, starting at the top of the ears, tie the hair into a half-up half-down knot, including the ends of your braid. Secure with a clear elastic band. Any part of his face was left to tuck behind his ears. Finish the look with Hairspray. Brager recommends bumble, and bumble does it all. Naturally Kate is perfect with both long and short hair. Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts and Hairstyles Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts and Hairstyles, But change is good. And we're excited to see what comes out of the pipeline that requires such dramatic chops. For this tousled texture, Josh steamed the John Frieda Beach Blonde Sea Waves sea salt spray over towel-dried hair and then dried it with a diffuser and fingers. He added some polish when needed and smoothed the top with a flat iron. You want to show me your name. Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts and Hairstyles, my bag, your new bag. Actress Kate Bosworth rocks her bag which she received while her name Kate was recently outgoing. Apart from the custom handbag she wears her long locks in a straight hairdo to complete the edgy outfit. Kate Bosworth's Short Hairstyles Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts and Hairstyles, But warns his longtime friend and hairdresser Harry Josh, you wouldn't dare say he's skipping a trend. While the Bobs are huge at the moment, Kate's focus is on her craft. She has several big upcoming roles so she knew the cut would be as good as she explains as her long hair was bound. Josh broke his 10-inch locks while visiting his home in New York City. Kate Bosworth's Haircuts and Hairstyles Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts and Hairstyles, FYI, supermodel Helena Christensen was there because they were all eating together like Gorgeous, Beautiful People. Her stylist John Frieda Beach Bosworth towel dried hair into blonde sea waves of sea salt to get the look spritzed. Josh then used a diffuser and his fingers to work on the product until it dried. He eventually used his signature Pro Tools ceramic forming iron to add definition to the waves and straighten the top of the star's hair. Kate Bosworth's Hairstyles Kate Bosworth's Short Haircuts and Hairstyles, What do you think of Kate Bosworth's new bob haircut? Sound off in the comments section and take inspiration from the more famous tousled bob hair in the slideshow below. Earlier today celebrity hairdresser Harry Josh thrilled us all when he posted this Instagram photo with the headline OK I just cut literally a foot off a mystery actress. It will be unveiled on the red carpet tonight. A photo posted by Harry Josh @harryjoshhair on January 13, 2020 at 9.44 am PST now we know the identity of this mystery actress. Kate Bosworth. Here's her new cut that got her for her upcoming role in 90 minutes in Paradise debuting her hair according to her own. Kate Bosworth's Short Hair Instagram pic. A photo posted by Harry Josh @harryjoshhair on January 13 2021 at 12.43 PM PST recently saw a lot of actresses getting this kind of tousled bob but this may be my favourite band. She looks gorgeous and her hairstyle is perfect. After filming was completed, Kate voted that she should keep this look for a while. We Love actress hair because it looks chic. Here we take some photos of Kate Bosworth and hope you can find your favourite ones. Kate Bosworth completes her embellished outfit with a simple ponytail. Kate Bosworth's Hair The actress styles them as a long side neighborhood and a ponytail pulls them back. Hair goes well with her red lipstick and opens up her pretty face. You can easily copy your hair but you have the first silky straight hairstyle. Kate Bosworth's long hair did two-tone tresses. She pulls all the locks up and ties an easy ponytail high. Hair can lengthen the neck and reveal make-up perfectly. It can be worn by any girl with long hair. Kate Bosworth gives a funny braid with a side part for her long hair. She looks like she's next door. Braided hair can always bring a fresh and beautiful look to the hair. Anyone can try the little braid in any color you want. Kate Bosworth's braided hair is a bit sophisticated. Kate Bosworth Hairstyles-Kate Bosworth Hair Pictures Her locks are braided and placed behind her elegant head. Hair complements her ensemble and brings a retro vibe. If you want to look at your hair you can use lots of hairpins and anti frizz hair Productions. First the fairy, then bob. Now the locks are getting longer. On Tuesday, Still Alice star and Trendsetter Kate Bosworth revealed on Instagram that she cut her locks into an asymmetrical lobe of the season. A new haircut can really change your life. Just ask actress Kate Bosworth, who got a new bob haircut on Instagram on Tuesday. Kate Bosworth haircut Kate Bosworth has now been serving cool girl super chic lewks for almost two decades. Starting with her Blue Crush days and literally up to the girl rn has always been able to make us swoon and gave us serious hair envy along the way. From possibly having the world's first lob to fearlessly switching from Platinum to strawberry and doing a twist of duty on her own are some of the most beloved Kate Bosworth mane moments of all time. Kate Bosworth | Medium hair styles, Hair lengths, Hairstyles The 32-year-old actress cut off her lust-worthy blonde locks for her upcoming role in 90 minutes in Paradise. Of course celebrity hairdresser Harry entrusted Josh with a seemingly daunting task. The result Bob Josh said the modern Greaty Gatsby invention was truly spectacular tousled with layers of face framing. Bosworth's new do is on trend with other stars such as Emma Stone Sienna Miller and Gabrielle Union embracing shorter and slightly messy hair. I agree with you. Earlier today celebrity hairdresser Harry Josh thrilled us all when he posted this Instagram photo with the headline OK. Kate Bosworth hair color I just cut literally a foot off a mystery actress. It will be unveiled on the red carpet tonight. Now we know the identity of this mysterious actress. Kate Bosworth. Here's her new cut that got her for her upcoming role in 90 minutes in Paradise debuting her hair according to her own Instagram pic. Kate Bosworth's New Bob Haircut Makes I agree with you. No doubt weekend one's coolest Coachella hair award goes to Kate Bosworth. We weren't too surprised given her style chops but the actress skillfully managed to pull off three very coachella—worthy hairstyles—a perfectly tousled lobe half bun and a delicate braid-in a gorgeous look. Kate Bosworth bob haircut But while Kate certainly deserves the stage to take everything out flawlessly, her hairdresser Bridget Brager deserves our praise for imagining a truly beautiful look. You can find the same content in another format or find more information on the website. The inspiration for Kate's festive hair is the grunge chic with a twist or braid that's half the 90s. Kate Bosworth hair colour He told us this morning. Again all three elements are styles of expression in their own right, but Brager's delicate approach Little braid little bun holds him up too much. Here she explains how to try it yourself at home because this good thing shouldn't just be reserved for the music festival circuit. Starting from the second day. Kate Bosworth hairstyle Dry hair picks up a small part of the hair no bigger than the width of the tip of your ring finger, which you would normally have a middle part of. This section should end on top of your head just before your head begins to bend. Kate Bosworth Coachella Hair Tutorial Your forehead. Finish the braid where your hairline stands on your forehead and make two sections by dividing the third strand of the braid. Secure the braid with a small bobby pin. Push the pin as straight as possible towards the middle of the net. Divide the unbraided ends of hair around your face to create framing. Polish March s 35-year-old recently showed off her dark hair as she stepped out with Michael Polish in snowy New York on March 7 and went out again the next day as she arrived at LAX. Kate Bosworth brown hair This is only a temporary change as the actress rarely changes her signature icy blonde shade, prompting us to wonder before I wake up. Another clue is that Kate often goes to hairstylist Harry Josh, who has yet to share a picture of her transformation. Kate is not the only blonde who embarked on a copper transformation recently with Lara Worthington sporting a similar shade on Instagram. Looking for more hair inspo. Times Kate Bosworth's Hair Made Us Swoon Check out our celebrity transformation gallery here. This long light blonde do has jagged long layers cut along the edges to lighten the length, allowing for natural movement. This beach baby appearance requires low maintenance and corrects regularly every 4 to 6 weeks to avoid split ends. Kate looked great with this short chic bob at the Whitney Museum's art party.

[junker-town]

MLB’s Astros punishment was extraordinary, and still not harsh enough

Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images

Let’s make sense of the fallout from the Astros cheating scandal.

Major League Baseball levied one of the most significant punishments in the history of the sport on the Houston Astros for cheating during their championship season in 2017. Executive Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were suspended for the 2020 season, while the team was stripped of four draft picks and fined $5 million.

This Astros discipline somehow achieved the opposing feats of being unprecedented in scope yet also not punitive enough.

What hurts

The loss of draft picks is huge, and will probably do the most long-term damage of any of the penalties laid out by Major League Baseball. Given where the Astros will likely pick in the 2020 and 2021 drafts (late in the first round; this is still a very talented team coming off three consecutive 100-win years), using FanGraphs’ valuation tool has those picks — first- and second-rounders in the next two drafts — worth roughly $25-30 million in net present value.

Houston’s roster is filled with homegrown talent, including Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, and George Springer, who were drafted very early in the first round back when the Astros were tanking on purpose. But later first-round picks, closer to where the Astros will probably pick in the next two drafts, were used to get Justin Verlander (Daz Cameron) and Zack Greinke (J.B. Bukauskas, Seth Beer) in trades. Losing those four picks not only removes four potential prospects, but also limits the total pool of bonus money the team is allowed to spend. This is a significant developmental loss.

Managers and general managers don’t grow on trees

Luhnow and Hinch took the biggest hits, as they were not only suspended without pay for a season by MLB on Monday but subsequently fired by Astros owner Jim Crane as well. Both signed contract extensions during the 2018 season, a year after the team won the World Series in seven games. Luhnow was signed through 2023, and Hinch through 2022. Now, they need to be replaced, after every other team has filled its vacancies in those two spots this offseason.

Hinch is only the third manager in the last 100 years to be suspended for at least one season, joining Leo Durocher (1947) and Pete Rose (1989), per Jayson Stark.

For the Braves’ international and amateur scouting transgressions in 2017, general manager John Coppolella was banned for life and the team lost one first-round draft pick and saw their spending limited in two international signing periods. The combination and volume of draft pick loss plus the suspension of not only the Astros GM and manager make Houston’s punishment the most severe in baseball since the Black Sox scandal in 1919.

Hinch was found by MLB to not have participated in the trash-can-banging scheme in 2017 nor the Astros’ usage of the video replay room to relay signals to the dugout in 2018. Hinch, per MLB, even went so far as to “signal his disapproval of the scheme by physically damaging the monitor on two occasions, necessitating its replacement.” But his culpability came in knowing about both plans and doing nothing to stop it.

In addition to the integrity-damaging proof through this investigation that the Astros cheated during the postseason that ended with their championship, the timing of this is key. During the 2017 season, the Yankees complained to the commissioner’s office that the Red Sox were illegally using electronic equipment to relay signs from their video replay room to the dugout. The league released a memo on Sept. 15 that year confirming the Red Sox violation, which came with an undisclosed fine, and the warning that “all 30 Clubs have been notified that future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.”

The Astros, who by this point already implemented their own sign-stealing scheme against baseball’s rules, continued to use the system in the playoffs. It was a direct violation after MLB already warned that they would turn this car around right now if any of you kids keep this up.

Luhnow was not implicated in the sign-stealing scheme, but was found through MLB’s investigation to have knowledge of it, and his failure to try to stop it was his undoing. Commissioner Rob Manfred also made note of Luhnow’s “problematic” baseball operations department:

But while no one can dispute that Luhnow’s baseball operations department is an industry leader in its analytics, it is very clear to me that the culture of the baseball operations department, manifesting itself in the way its employees are treated, its relations with other Clubs, and its relations with the media and external stakeholders, has been very problematic. At least in my view, the baseball operations department’s insular culture – one that valued and rewarded results over other considerations, combined with a staff of individuals who often lacked direction or sufficient oversight, led, at least in part, to the Brandon Taubman incident, the Club’s admittedly inappropriate and inaccurate response to that incident, and finally, to an environment that allowed the conduct described in this report to have occurred.

Taubman, an assistant general manager under Luhnow, aggressively taunted a group of female reporters in the Astros clubhouse regarding closer Roberto Osuna — who was acquired as a distressed asset by Houston in 2018 while he served a 75-game suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy — all while celebrating the club’s ALCS win over the Yankees in October 2019.

The Astros bungled the response to the incident, including accusing Sports Illustrated reporter Stephanie Apstein of fabricating the story. An apology from Luhnow didn’t come until five days later, and on Monday he continued that trend with a statement bereft of remorse.

Here is Jeff Luhnow's full statement, his first response to today's news. pic.twitter.com/9AbDFEtkbP

— Jared Diamond (@jareddiamond) January 13, 2020

Luhnow’s statement began with “I accept responsibility,” then proceeded to list the ways in which he was not responsible. He was sure to note the video decoding of signs “was executed by lower-level employees working with the bench coach,” which brings us to who could perhaps face the biggest penalty of all.

Alex Cora was the bench coach for the Astros in 2017, and was found through MLB’s investigation to have arranged a video monitor just outside the Astros dugout, showing the center field camera feed. The explanation further notes the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme was player-driven, with Cora the only member of the coaching staff involved in the plan (along with some team employees in the video room).

“Cora participated in both schemes, and through his active participation, implicitly condoned the players’ conduct,” Manfred wrote.

As if the direct culpability in the Astros’ schemes weren’t enough, Cora is also the subject of MLB’s current investigation into whether the 2018 Red Sox engaged in impermissible electronic sign stealing. Cora won the World Series as Boston’s manager that year.

MLB hasn’t yet determined Cora’s penalty, with an investigation ongoing, but he figures to get punished at least as much as Hinch and Luhnow just for his Astros’ involvement alone. Cora is signed with the Red Sox through 2021, with a club option for 2022.

What about the players?

You might be wondering if what the Astros did was against baseball rules, and if their sign-stealing scheme was player driven, why weren’t any players suspended or even fined for their transgressions?

Manfred for one correctly noted that it’s the responsibility of the general manager and field manager to make sure players know and follow the rules, and that’s why Luhnow and Hinch took the fall. Also, though unsaid, suspending players would be met with pushback from the players union, and with a looming labor battle and a collective bargaining agreement that expires after the 2021 season that’s probably an extra fight MLB wants little part of.

It’s also a logistical nightmare.

“It is difficult because virtually all of the Astros’ players had some involvement or knowledge of the scheme, and I am not in a position based on the investigative record to determine with any degree of certainty every player who should be held accountable, or their relative degree of culpability,” Manfred wrote. “It is impractical given the large number of players involved, and the fact that many of those players now play for other Clubs.”

Keep in mind that this was a thorough investigation, in which 68 people were interviewed and “tens of thousands of emails, Slack communications, text messages, video clips, and photographs” were reviewed. 23 of those interviewed were current or former Astros players. It’s unclear if any sort of immunity was promised by MLB to get these players to talk, but that so many cooperated certainly helped the investigation.

Everything is fine

The final Astros punishment was a fine of $5 million, which is the largest allowed by the Major League constitution. It’s also a drop in the bucket for a franchise valued (by Forbes) at $1.775 billion in 2019, a 161-percent increase from Crane’s $680 million purchase price in 2011.

Even if the fine was $50 million, the Astros made much more than that by virtue of their three extended postseason runs the last three years (they also made the World Series in 2019, but won none of their four home games).

There is no going back in time and stripping the Astros of their World Series title. The games happened, the memories exist, and changing the past doesn’t really do anything. The best MLB can hope for is to prevent this type of scandal from happening again, and the way to do that is to make an owner piss their pants when they see a cost that is actually prohibitive.

Because if the cost for electronically stealing signs is $5 million, four draft picks, and one-year suspensions of the manager and general manager, I’m not sure that’s steep enough to outweigh all the benefits that come with winning a World Series.

[dannofaust]

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I am excited to begin the new year because in just four months I will officially be retired and in just over six months my Mississippi River trip will begin. At least I hope it will begin. We will have to wait and see what Mother Nature has to say about that. River levels and overnight temperatures will dictate my actual starting date. My tentative starting date is June 15th.

This seems like the perfect time to look back at the previous year and ponder my journey of preparation during 2019. It’s been fun writing this blog. I’ve learned a lot and grown a bit, but I think the most rewarding thing about the Glory Days blog is being able to go back and relive this experience. Without this written record of the things that have happened over the last eighteen months or so, many of the details and memories would be lost. I probably already forgotten a million little details that I didn’t write about, but having these few memories preserved is quite nice. They may not mean much to anyone else, but they represent a little part of my life that I want to remember.

In January there are pool sessions. Just like last year I will be traveling to Peoria for pool sessions with the Mackinaw Canoe Club at the Central Park Pool. It seems like a long time ago, but last year at this time I was still paddling my beloved Vesper kayak. Looking back now, it’s hard for me to believe I had actually intended to use that kayak for e entire trip down the Mississippi. The Vesper is a fine recreation kayak, but it has no bulkheads, no perimeter lines, minimal interior space ( aka volume ), and simply wasn’t a good choice for what I am planning to do. It’s kind of scary to think that I had let my ego talk myself into using that boat. Oh, it could be done. People use recreational craft even less well suited to the task each year. Some of them make it all the way to the Gulf. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I don’t really want to be one of those people and I am thankful that Bob Alexander and Karen Kyle talked some sense into me. I also appreciate the gentle and patient way they nudged me in the right direction. So I guess I learned a lot more at those pool session than just rolling my kayak.

March brought back the annual pilgrimage to Canoecopia in Madison, Wisconsin. I hadn’t been to Canoecopia in quite a long time prior to 2019. It was good to get back there and immerse myself into the paddlesports culture again. There was so much going on in such a short amount of time. Canoecopia is always sensory overload for me. There is just no way my little brain can process it all. Looking back on it now I think, why didn’t I take a bazillion more photos and talk to more people while I was there. The truth is, I’m never very comfortable in a crowd, and Canoecopia is always crowded. It’s a super popular event, and for good reason. I think my brain had kind of shut down a bit and I was just trying to cope with the situation.

Overall though, Canoecopia 2019 was a great experience. One of the best parts of the weekend was meeting Traci Lynn Martin. She was so sweet to me. I can’t imagine the courage and determination it takes to peruse the circumnavigation of the five Great Lakes in a single calendar year. I also can’t imagine the heartbreak of coming up just a little bit short few years earlier. One thing that Traci has been through that I can relate to is the loss of her mother. It was a turning point in Traci’s life and a big influence that lead her to her quest to paddle the Great Lakes. Traci has such a wonderful story to tell and a powerful message for anyone who suffers from chronic pain. I wrote four blog posts about my Canoecopia 2019 weekend. The post that included meeting Traci was by far my most popular post up until that time and is still in the top two or three posts so far. Traci is scheduled to tackle the Great Lakes again this year ( 2020 ) and I will be watching her progress and cheering her on, even as I start my own trip.

March brought about one of the biggest changes of the year for me, the acquisition of my Wilderness System Tsunami 145. I had been thinking about the need for a better kayak. Bob and Karen’s message was slowly sinking in through my thick skull, and then … out of nowhere … I see this beautiful kayak listed for sale in a FaceBook post. I had a little bit of money in my budget from the sale of surplus canoes in our fleet, so I literally jumped at the opportunity and within a couple of hours I was returning from Galesburg, Illinois with a nearly new boat. Always cautious and slow to change, I wasn’t entirely convinced that I had made the right decision, but it didn’t take long for me to begin to grasp what a wonderful upgrade the Tsunami was. The tracking of the Tsunami is phenomenal compared to the Vesper. With the addition of two sealed bulkheads, perimeter lines, better bungee lines, and much more interior volume the Tsunami is far superior for the task at hand. My one last area of concern was how easily would it be to self rescue in the Tsunami? I needn’t have worried. The Tsunami rolls easily and is much easier to deal with should I ever have to exit the boat in deep water and then self rescue.

April is always a month that I look forward to. My birthday is in April. April means warmer weather and all the glories of Spring. This year I am a little extra excited about April because I will be retiring at the end of the month. I can hardly wait for that. Last April brought about a bittersweet experience though. It was time for me to part ways with my trusty Vesper kayak. I had paddled that kayak for hundreds of miles on many different rivers and streams, large and small. We had been through a lot together. I knew the time had come though. We don’t need an extra kayak right now and I had spent almost all of my Mississippi River trip budget on the Tsunami. Sadly, the Vesper had to go. She was already all cleaned up from doing pool sessions, so I snapped a few photos and listed her for sale. I was quite gratified to almost immediately receive some responses to the ads. The most enthusiastic of those responses was from a young lady in Michigan. Her name is Katie. The whole process happened very quickly with a flurry of messages going back and forth. We settled on a plan and met at a McDonald parking lot near Joliet, Illinois. As I drove north on Interstate 55 to meet Katie, I began to worry that she wasn’t the person I wanted to sell my kayak to. I worried that she didn’t have enough experience and didn’t really know what she was buying. I worried that she wouldn’t want to pay the price we had agreed to. I even worried that she wouldn’t have a proper roof rack to haul the kayak or know how to secure it properly. Boy, was I wrong. I was worried about nothing. Katie knew exactly what she was doing and had the situation well under control. We completed the transaction even quicker than I could have imagined and suddenly the Vesper was gone. I was sad to drive away without her, but I felt great about the new home she had with Katie.

April was also when I wrote about “Energy Bars” and we did our big energy bar taste off. I roped my daughter, my sister, and my brother-in-law into sampling more than a dozen different energy bars and then giving their opinions of each one. It was a fun ( I use that term loosely) and interesting experience that we still talk about. The best part was that it was a shared experience. By the time we got to the end, even my wife had joined in. Doing things with the family is always great. I’m glad We did that together and that I wrote about it. It’s one of those memories that I want to hold onto.

May meant that the weather was getting warm and paddling season was underway in earnest. I had just finished a short day trip on the Vermilion River not far from home at the end of April. With the weather getting warmer and an upgraded kayak to become more familiar with, I was eager to get out on the water. More day trips close to home soon followed. My first big trip of the season was the Des Plaines River Canoe and Kayak Marathon.

  I followed that up with an epic trip from the headwaters of the Vermilion River back to my home here in Pontiac, Illinois. That trip covered just over 40 miles in a single day. That’s the most river miles I have ever done in one day. It was a day where everything seemed to fall into place and just work perfectly with very little effort from me. The current was swift, but there were few obstacle to make things difficult. I had my kayak fully loaded so that I could experience what it would be like to paddle it that way. It handled great. The wind seemed to always be at my back. The water level had even dropped just enough to allow me safe passage under a low railroad bridge that had required a portage just the day before. The sun was shining and the air temperature was very pleasant. Every day on the river is great, but I have rarely experienced such a perfect day of paddling. I had no intentions of paddling that far when I started the trip, but with everything in my favor, it just worked out that way.

    June saw me paddling 18 miles through the scenic Fox River Dells with a group of Northern Illinois paddlers and then doing multiple trips on the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River Danville, Illinois. Those were some memorable trips for sure. My wife and I and our daughter Jennifer did our only camping trip of the year at the Kickapoo State Recreational Area. So many wonderful memories. The blog posts I wrote about those trips became the most popular so far. I could write several more posts based on those trips.

July was time to celebrate a great paddling tradition here in Pontiac, Illinois. That’s when the Vermilion River Canoe Race takes place. 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of this great event so I felt like I had to enter the race. Who could pass up the opportunity to be part of a historical event like that. I’m not a racer and it showed, but it was still an awesome experience with wonderful camaraderie. I was completely exhausted at the end of the race, but I was still smiling and had fun. I also slept very well that night.

August was a time where my paddling slowed down a bit. Even though I didn’t write about it, most of my paddling happened close to home. I did get a chance to try Stand Up Paddle Boarding on Lake Erie near Cleveland, Ohio while on vacation with my wife and daughter. We all tried it and had a good time. I fell of just once. It was more difficult than I had anticipated.

September started a trend that has continued right through to the end of the year on the Glory Days blog. That trend was “Food”. I had touched on the subject earlier in the year with the energy bar review, but I didn’t realize how much I needed to discuss this subject or how reader would react to it.

October was consumed with more of the same discussion about food, budgeting, and nutrition. It has been surprising to me to see how those three things are so closely s related for my trip. Food and nutrition obviously go together, but budgeting is a big factor that ties it al together. Those three things effect nearly every other aspect of the trip, in one way or the other, too.

November was time when I looked back at some of the paddlers I had been following as they did their trips down the Mississippi. I learned so much from following along via Facebook and the Mississippi River Paddlers Group. If there is any one piece of advice I could give to anyone else thinking about doing a Source to Sea Mississippi River trip, it would be to join that group, follow along with every post, and ask plenty of questions. In my humble opinion, there’s no better way to learn than from the people who have done it and/or are doing it currently ( pun intended ).

    December was another slow month for paddling because of the holidays, but unseasonably warm weather did allow me to get out and do a fell local day trips. The most notable of these was my last paddling trip of the year with an old friend and paddling mentor, Gene Grider. I hadn’t paddled with Gene in a long time. There had been a lot of water under the bridge and a lot of changes in each of our lives since the last time we had seen each other, so it was very rewarding to catch up and enjoy a beautiful late December day on the river together. A great ending to a great paddling year.

2019 was a good year. I can hardly wait to see what 2020 has in store. I wish you all the very best for this coming year! Cheers for a great start! Thanks for reading!

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

Previous Post: “Nutrition – Part 2”

Next Post: “2020 – A Year of Discoveries”

2019 Year in Review Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I am excited to begin the new year because in just four months I will officially be retired and in just over six months my Mississippi River trip will begin.

[corneliusreignallen]

Fare evasion costs cities millions. But will cracking down on it solve anything?

Most fare evaders are one-time offenders, according to research from the Public Transport Research Group in Australia. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

New York City has increased policing to curb fare dodging. It’s resulted in outrage and protests from some riders.

When Allure editor Rosemary Donahue witnessed New York City transit workers installing cameras in front of subway turnstiles, she posted a photo to Twitter on November 1 that quickly went viral.

Part of her tweet — “are you...fucking....kidding me?? — captured the unique frustration and anger New Yorkers reserved for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in the wake of the city’s renewed focus on fare evasion this year.

“My mom waited an hour at Lexington-63rd after leaving work yesterday for the F train... but okay, this is the problem,” responded one Twitter user. “The cost of those cameras, installing those cameras, and paying someone to monitor the cameras is definitely a better way for the MTA to spend money than fixing the trains,” said another.

are you...fucking....kidding me?? they’re installing cameras in front of every single turnstyle at the fulton stop in manhattan right now pic.twitter.com/6QbirJSVSg

— Rosemary Donahue (@rosadona) November 1, 2019

The online outrage has largely stemmed from riders’ dissatisfaction with the transit system’s efficiency and accessibility that, in their opinion, has not improved much, combined with anger over the perceived treatment of marginalized riders.

Within the past two years, the system’s on-time performance has fluctuated from terrible (58 percent on-time in January 2018) to satisfactory (84 percent in August 2019), but breakdowns, unexpected delays, and service changes still frequently occur. (The MTA also has a history of overstating its performance, according to Jalopnik reporter Aaron Gordon.)

According to the MTA’s estimates, the system will lose about $300 million from fare evasion this year, from both train and bus fares. But officials’ fixation on reducing this offense are misaligned, activist groups say, especially when these policies are likely to affect low-income riders and communities of color. Those who are fined or arrested for fare evasion in New York are disproportionately black or Hispanic, according to MTA data of arrests. The MTA has not responded to a call for comment at the time of publication.

Some activists have called for fare evasion to be decriminalized, which means offenders will have to pay a fine instead of facing arrest or jail time. Currently, people who don’t pay the fare are expected to pay a $100 fine, and the MTA said police will not be focused on making arrests. But according to The Appeal, those with an open warrant or a history of similar offenses could still be arrested if caught fare evading.

Fare evasion doesn’t just occur in New York. It’s an endemic issue for transit systems around the world, and current tactics used by authorities to reduce fare beating are far from perfect.

According to transit experts, we — the transit board, public officials, and regular citizens — might be simplifying the motives behind fare dodging: Why do people hop a turnstile or sneak through a gate in the first place? And what is it, exactly, that we’re trying to fix here?

Fare evasion is more common than you might think. But most people are one-time offenders.

While fare evasion has been studied by data scientists and engineers, few have looked into the psychological aspects that drive this action — a form of “consumer misbehavior,” according to researchers from the Public Transport Research Group in Australia.

The group’s findings, explained to me by Graham Currie, a professor of public transportation at Monash University, examine how common fare evasion is among the general public and the intentions of re-offending evaders, who are a small but significant population in transit systems worldwide.

Currie’s research evaluated rider behavior in Melbourne, but his team also conducted follow-up research in ten cities around the world, including New York, to determine the public’s perception of transit systems with high fare evasion rates.

Currie told me that in New York City, about 40 percent of transit riders evade a fare once a year, intentional or not. “This is a big share of the population,” he said. This one-time fare evasion could be due to a variety of circumstances: The ticketing booth wasn’t working, a rider left their Metrocard at home, or the emergency exit door was left open, which provides for a quick entry.

“But according to the law, even if you do it once, you’re committing a crime,” Currie continued. “So riders’ immediate reaction to the authorities calling them criminals is to feel that the system is incompetent.” (The Public Transport Research Group favors policies that don’t punish riders caught in their first attempt of fare beating.)

Activists have pointed to other cities in the US, such as Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, as examples of places that have passed measures to decriminalize fare evasion in the past year. According to Philadelphia news outlet Billy Penn, only 13 people have been charged with the harshest penalty — a total ban from the transit system — since the city decriminalized the offense in January.

“But according to the law, even if you do it once, you’re committing a crime”

Riders’ resistance and disdain for the MTA in New York overflowed into a protest in early November against increased policing on the MTA. The outrage was prompted by multiple videos of viral arrests that appeared to involve unnecessary force by police toward passengers of color. Hundreds of people occupied a subway platform and took to the streets in downtown Brooklyn. They hopped turnstiles and posted stickers to encourage mass fare evasion, a tactic taken from demonstrations in Santiago, Chile.

Protesters decorated the walls & trains during the #FTP march in Brooklyn earlier tonite. You can tell that they were inspired by the #EvasionMasiva protests in Chile. #SwipeItForward pic.twitter.com/8wL1yLobe0

— Ash J (@AshAgony) November 2, 2019

The following week, more videos documenting police action on the subway surfaced. A viral video on November 9 showed officers arresting a churro vendor in a station to the outrage of bystanders. (The NYPD told Gothamist in a statement that the vendor, who had 10 summonses for unlicensed vending, “refused to cooperate and was briefly handcuffed; officers escorted her into the command where she was uncuffed.”)

Tonight as I was leaving Broadway Junction, I saw three or four police officers (one of them was either a plainclothes cop or someone who worked at the station) gathered around a crying woman and her churro cart. Apparently, it's illegal to sell food inside train stations. 1/? pic.twitter.com/sgQVvSHUik

— Sofia B. Newman (@SofiaBNewman) November 9, 2019

When I asked Currie if he found any correlation between fare evasion and people’s perception of the transit system, he said his research group theorized that would be the case. Their theory was predicated on research done towards shoplifting — how shoplifting rates increase if a shop appears to be old or unkempt and workers are unhelpful.

“I suspect it’s still true, although we didn’t find any link,” Currie said. “If people aren’t happy, it will affect their compliance with what the rules are.”

According to surveys conducted in Melbourne, recidivist fare evaders are not typically poor or disadvantaged. “A high share of them work and a number of them are wealthy, actually,” he said. In surveying this group of people who consistently fade evade, Currie found that they’re driven by the thrill of risk-taking.

“If people aren’t happy, it will affect their compliance with what the rules are”

This behavior is also tied to how much people perceive to be in control of the situation, which means they weigh the risk or likelihood of being caught. Stricter policing does reduce fare evasion, Currie said, although public officials need to implement it “carefully and considerately.”

People are more motivated to pay up if they think they’re likely to be checked for a ticket, Currie said. In Melbourne, for example, the transit system deploys plainclothes officers to inspect tickets randomly at stops and stations.

There’s also the “proof of payment” system that’s popular in Europe where there are fewer gates or barriers to entry, but occasionally, an inspector on a bus or train will demand to see a rider’s ticket. These methods have helped lower rates of fare evasion in cities like Oslo. The idea is to make paying for fares easier and faster — in addition to increasing the possibility of a passenger being checked.

The cost of fare evasion and why cities care so much

Andy Byford, New York City’s transit president, has maintained that fares are crucial in improving rider experience. “Every dollar that doesn’t come to us, in terms of fares that should be paid, is a dollar that we can’t improve in service,” he said at a news conference in September, according to AM New York.

Fares aren’t the only source of revenue for the MTA; the system also earns money from tolls, taxes, government subsidies, and advertisements. But fares account for the largest chunk — about 38 percent (or $6.2 billion) — of the MTA’s annual earnings.

The MTA, despite approving a much-needed $54 billion plan in September, is expected to reach a $1 billion operating budget deficit by 2023. The authority board voted to raise fares in April, and the city deployed an additional 500 transit and NYPD police to 50 subway stations and 50 bus routes where evasion is most common.

Vince Talotta/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Andy Byford, the city’s transit president, has said that fare beating is an issue that the MTA can’t ignore.

The deployment would cost the MTA $249 million over the next four years, according to chief financial officer Bob Foran during the 2020 budget proposal on November 14. The agency is also expected to raise fares and tolls in 2021 and 2023 and cut back on 2,700 jobs.

As Streetsblog NYC reported, the police deployment will be partially financed by the $200 million the MTA is expected to save through anti-fare evasion efforts. But the projected cost of these efforts raised eyebrows among activists, local politicians, and city residents.

Say we had $249M and we could do anything we wanted to improve the subway system, what would you want to see prioritized? https://t.co/OxCGA2I6Jk

— Jessica Ramos (@jessicaramos) November 14, 2019

In September, Byford said that he would “like to see cameras on every train on every bus on every station on all the gate lines,” according to the New York Daily News. Yet subway fare evasion hasn’t curbed despite increased policing, officials said in October. It’s actually risen from 3.9 percent of riders in June to 4.7 percent in August. (Bus fare evasion has dropped from 24 percent to 22 percent during the same time period.)

Cracking down on evasion is one way to rake in more funds for the MTA, which is also struggling with a decline in ridership. Still, it’s not likely that the MTA, or any American transit system, for that matter, is going to turn a profit any time soon.

Few public transit agencies in the world are profitable, and most of them are based in Asia. Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway system operates on a “rail plus property” model that profits off real estate developments above its stations. It’s also partially owned by the Hong Kong government and privately run.

Most transit systems don’t follow this model and rely on government subsidies or taxes. That’s why — even in cities where public transit is financially sustainable — fares do matter, and public officials are willing to crack down on evaders despite outcry.

It’s not just in New York City, which has estimated a loss of $300 million in annual fares. London Travel Watch, a transport watchdog group, said the system will lose 100 million pounds this year to fare dodgers. And in cities like DC, where fare evasion is decriminalized, the Metro expects to lose $36 million in 2019.

The promise and the price of free public transit

As transport fares continue to rise in cities around the world, a number of activists and organizations are calling for them to be eliminated. In other words: make public transit free. This is a radical demand — one that’s been considered for decades — that aims to reduce inequality in our transportation system. Research has shown that poorer communities have shoddier access to public transit systems.

As Joe Pinsker writes in The Atlantic, “Maybe free public transit should be thought of not as a behavioral instrument, but as a right; poorer citizens have just as much of a privilege to get around conveniently as wealthier ones.”

Luxembourg will be the first nation to offer free transit starting in 2020. With a system as complex and old as New York’s, though, the idea could sound far-fetched. After all, if the MTA can’t turn a profit, how will it subsidize fares for millions of residents while ensuring that the trains run on time?

Cities have been grappling with how to reduce fare evasion for decades, but making the system free, according to Currie, isn’t a viable solution for many. “High-capacity mass transit costs a fortune,” he told me.

Academics and activists have made in-depth, research-backed arguments for decades as to why we should or should not make public transit free. Transit advocate Ted Kheel, who lobbied for free transit in New York City for over 40 years, proposed a plan that included congestion pricing, taxi surcharges, and higher parking fees to cover fares.

“High-capacity mass transit costs a fortune”

Meanwhile, a 2013 report in the International Journal of Transportation that analyzed free fare schemes in Europe discouraged entirely free systems. While subway use drastically increased, the study found free transit to be costly and required “broad political support and long term commitment.”

Ultimately, before New York even considers a new fare system, it needs to improve its “ancient and unreliable” infrastructure or the city’s growth will soon be stifled, Currie said.

For the time being, it seems like the only thing passengers can do is pay for it. And people, for the most part, are doing so. It’s just that frustration arises when riders feel that their conditions aren’t improving, when fares are rising, and when more and more of that money is directed towards enforcement.

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[shanedakotamuir]

Fare evasion costs cities millions. But will cracking down on it solve anything?

Most fare evaders are one-time offenders, according to research from the Public Transport Research Group in Australia. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

New York City has increased policing to curb fare dodging. It’s resulted in outrage and protests from some riders.

When Allure editor Rosemary Donahue witnessed New York City transit workers installing cameras in front of subway turnstiles, she posted a photo to Twitter on November 1 that quickly went viral.

Part of her tweet — “are you...fucking....kidding me?? — captured the unique frustration and anger New Yorkers reserved for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in the wake of the city’s renewed focus on fare evasion this year.

“My mom waited an hour at Lexington-63rd after leaving work yesterday for the F train... but okay, this is the problem,” responded one Twitter user. “The cost of those cameras, installing those cameras, and paying someone to monitor the cameras is definitely a better way for the MTA to spend money than fixing the trains,” said another.

are you...fucking....kidding me?? they’re installing cameras in front of every single turnstyle at the fulton stop in manhattan right now pic.twitter.com/6QbirJSVSg

— Rosemary Donahue (@rosadona) November 1, 2019

The online outrage has largely stemmed from riders’ dissatisfaction with the transit system’s efficiency and accessibility that, in their opinion, has not improved much, combined with anger over the perceived treatment of marginalized riders.

Within the past two years, the system’s on-time performance has fluctuated from terrible (58 percent on-time in January 2018) to satisfactory (84 percent in August 2019), but breakdowns, unexpected delays, and service changes still frequently occur. (The MTA also has a history of overstating its performance, according to Jalopnik reporter Aaron Gordon.)

According to the MTA’s estimates, the system will lose about $300 million from fare evasion this year, from both train and bus fares. But officials’ fixation on reducing this offense are misaligned, activist groups say, especially when these policies are likely to affect low-income riders and communities of color. Those who are fined or arrested for fare evasion in New York are disproportionately black or Hispanic, according to MTA data of arrests. The MTA has not responded to a call for comment at the time of publication.

Some activists have called for fare evasion to be decriminalized, which means offenders will have to pay a fine instead of facing arrest or jail time. Currently, people who don’t pay the fare are expected to pay a $100 fine, and the MTA said police will not be focused on making arrests. But according to The Appeal, those with an open warrant or a history of similar offenses could still be arrested if caught fare evading.

Fare evasion doesn’t just occur in New York. It’s an endemic issue for transit systems around the world, and current tactics used by authorities to reduce fare beating are far from perfect.

According to transit experts, we — the transit board, public officials, and regular citizens — might be simplifying the motives behind fare dodging: Why do people hop a turnstile or sneak through a gate in the first place? And what is it, exactly, that we’re trying to fix here?

Fare evasion is more common than you might think. But most people are one-time offenders.

While fare evasion has been studied by data scientists and engineers, few have looked into the psychological aspects that drive this action — a form of “consumer misbehavior,” according to researchers from the Public Transport Research Group in Australia.

The group’s findings, explained to me by Graham Currie, a professor of public transportation at Monash University, examine how common fare evasion is among the general public and the intentions of re-offending evaders, who are a small but significant population in transit systems worldwide.

Currie’s research evaluated rider behavior in Melbourne, but his team also conducted follow-up research in ten cities around the world, including New York, to determine the public’s perception of transit systems with high fare evasion rates.

Currie told me that in New York City, about 40 percent of transit riders evade a fare once a year, intentional or not. “This is a big share of the population,” he said. This one-time fare evasion could be due to a variety of circumstances: The ticketing booth wasn’t working, a rider left their Metrocard at home, or the emergency exit door was left open, which provides for a quick entry.

“But according to the law, even if you do it once, you’re committing a crime,” Currie continued. “So riders’ immediate reaction to the authorities calling them criminals is to feel that the system is incompetent.” (The Public Transport Research Group favors policies that don’t punish riders caught in their first attempt of fare beating.)

Activists have pointed to other cities in the US, such as Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, as examples of places that have passed measures to decriminalize fare evasion in the past year. According to Philadelphia news outlet Billy Penn, only 13 people have been charged with the harshest penalty — a total ban from the transit system — since the city decriminalized the offense in January.

“But according to the law, even if you do it once, you’re committing a crime”

Riders’ resistance and disdain for the MTA in New York overflowed into a protest in early November against increased policing on the MTA. The outrage was prompted by multiple videos of viral arrests that appeared to involve unnecessary force by police toward passengers of color. Hundreds of people occupied a subway platform and took to the streets in downtown Brooklyn. They hopped turnstiles and posted stickers to encourage mass fare evasion, a tactic taken from demonstrations in Santiago, Chile.

Protesters decorated the walls & trains during the #FTP march in Brooklyn earlier tonite. You can tell that they were inspired by the #EvasionMasiva protests in Chile. #SwipeItForward pic.twitter.com/8wL1yLobe0

— Ash J (@AshAgony) November 2, 2019

The following week, more videos documenting police action on the subway surfaced. A viral video on November 9 showed officers arresting a churro vendor in a station to the outrage of bystanders. (The NYPD told Gothamist in a statement that the vendor, who had 10 summonses for unlicensed vending, “refused to cooperate and was briefly handcuffed; officers escorted her into the command where she was uncuffed.”)

Tonight as I was leaving Broadway Junction, I saw three or four police officers (one of them was either a plainclothes cop or someone who worked at the station) gathered around a crying woman and her churro cart. Apparently, it's illegal to sell food inside train stations. 1/? pic.twitter.com/sgQVvSHUik

— Sofia B. Newman (@SofiaBNewman) November 9, 2019

When I asked Currie if he found any correlation between fare evasion and people’s perception of the transit system, he said his research group theorized that would be the case. Their theory was predicated on research done towards shoplifting — how shoplifting rates increase if a shop appears to be old or unkempt and workers are unhelpful.

“I suspect it’s still true, although we didn’t find any link,” Currie said. “If people aren’t happy, it will affect their compliance with what the rules are.”

According to surveys conducted in Melbourne, recidivist fare evaders are not typically poor or disadvantaged. “A high share of them work and a number of them are wealthy, actually,” he said. In surveying this group of people who consistently fade evade, Currie found that they’re driven by the thrill of risk-taking.

“If people aren’t happy, it will affect their compliance with what the rules are”

This behavior is also tied to how much people perceive to be in control of the situation, which means they weigh the risk or likelihood of being caught. Stricter policing does reduce fare evasion, Currie said, although public officials need to implement it “carefully and considerately.”

People are more motivated to pay up if they think they’re likely to be checked for a ticket, Currie said. In Melbourne, for example, the transit system deploys plainclothes officers to inspect tickets randomly at stops and stations.

There’s also the “proof of payment” system that’s popular in Europe where there are fewer gates or barriers to entry, but occasionally, an inspector on a bus or train will demand to see a rider’s ticket. These methods have helped lower rates of fare evasion in cities like Oslo. The idea is to make paying for fares easier and faster — in addition to increasing the possibility of a passenger being checked.

The cost of fare evasion and why cities care so much

Andy Byford, New York City’s transit president, has maintained that fares are crucial in improving rider experience. “Every dollar that doesn’t come to us, in terms of fares that should be paid, is a dollar that we can’t improve in service,” he said at a news conference in September, according to AM New York.

Fares aren’t the only source of revenue for the MTA; the system also earns money from tolls, taxes, government subsidies, and advertisements. But fares account for the largest chunk — about 38 percent (or $6.2 billion) — of the MTA’s annual earnings.

The MTA, despite approving a much-needed $54 billion plan in September, is expected to reach a $1 billion operating budget deficit by 2023. The authority board voted to raise fares in April, and the city deployed an additional 500 transit and NYPD police to 50 subway stations and 50 bus routes where evasion is most common.

Vince Talotta/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Andy Byford, the city’s transit president, has said that fare beating is an issue that the MTA can’t ignore.

The deployment would cost the MTA $249 million over the next four years, according to chief financial officer Bob Foran during the 2020 budget proposal on November 14. The agency is also expected to raise fares and tolls in 2021 and 2023 and cut back on 2,700 jobs.

As Streetsblog NYC reported, the police deployment will be partially financed by the $200 million the MTA is expected to save through anti-fare evasion efforts. But the projected cost of these efforts raised eyebrows among activists, local politicians, and city residents.

Say we had $249M and we could do anything we wanted to improve the subway system, what would you want to see prioritized? https://t.co/OxCGA2I6Jk

— Jessica Ramos (@jessicaramos) November 14, 2019

In September, Byford said that he would “like to see cameras on every train on every bus on every station on all the gate lines,” according to the New York Daily News. Yet subway fare evasion hasn’t curbed despite increased policing, officials said in October. It’s actually risen from 3.9 percent of riders in June to 4.7 percent in August. (Bus fare evasion has dropped from 24 percent to 22 percent during the same time period.)

Cracking down on evasion is one way to rake in more funds for the MTA, which is also struggling with a decline in ridership. Still, it’s not likely that the MTA, or any American transit system, for that matter, is going to turn a profit any time soon.

Few public transit agencies in the world are profitable, and most of them are based in Asia. Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway system operates on a “rail plus property” model that profits off real estate developments above its stations. It’s also partially owned by the Hong Kong government and privately run.

Most transit systems don’t follow this model and rely on government subsidies or taxes. That’s why — even in cities where public transit is financially sustainable — fares do matter, and public officials are willing to crack down on evaders despite outcry.

It’s not just in New York City, which has estimated a loss of $300 million in annual fares. London Travel Watch, a transport watchdog group, said the system will lose 100 million pounds this year to fare dodgers. And in cities like DC, where fare evasion is decriminalized, the Metro expects to lose $36 million in 2019.

The promise and the price of free public transit

As transport fares continue to rise in cities around the world, a number of activists and organizations are calling for them to be eliminated. In other words: make public transit free. This is a radical demand — one that’s been considered for decades — that aims to reduce inequality in our transportation system. Research has shown that poorer communities have shoddier access to public transit systems.

As Joe Pinsker writes in The Atlantic, “Maybe free public transit should be thought of not as a behavioral instrument, but as a right; poorer citizens have just as much of a privilege to get around conveniently as wealthier ones.”

Luxembourg will be the first nation to offer free transit starting in 2020. With a system as complex and old as New York’s, though, the idea could sound far-fetched. After all, if the MTA can’t turn a profit, how will it subsidize fares for millions of residents while ensuring that the trains run on time?

Cities have been grappling with how to reduce fare evasion for decades, but making the system free, according to Currie, isn’t a viable solution for many. “High-capacity mass transit costs a fortune,” he told me.

Academics and activists have made in-depth, research-backed arguments for decades as to why we should or should not make public transit free. Transit advocate Ted Kheel, who lobbied for free transit in New York City for over 40 years, proposed a plan that included congestion pricing, taxi surcharges, and higher parking fees to cover fares.

“High-capacity mass transit costs a fortune”

Meanwhile, a 2013 report in the International Journal of Transportation that analyzed free fare schemes in Europe discouraged entirely free systems. While subway use drastically increased, the study found free transit to be costly and required “broad political support and long term commitment.”

Ultimately, before New York even considers a new fare system, it needs to improve its “ancient and unreliable” infrastructure or the city’s growth will soon be stifled, Currie said.

For the time being, it seems like the only thing passengers can do is pay for it. And people, for the most part, are doing so. It’s just that frustration arises when riders feel that their conditions aren’t improving, when fares are rising, and when more and more of that money is directed towards enforcement.

Sign up for The Goods’ newsletter. Twice a week, we’ll send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2K91GVV

[timalexanderdollery]

Fare evasion costs cities millions. But will cracking down on it solve anything?

Most fare evaders are one-time offenders, according to research from the Public Transport Research Group in Australia. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

New York City has increased policing to curb fare dodging. It’s resulted in outrage and protests from some riders.

When Allure editor Rosemary Donahue witnessed New York City transit workers installing cameras in front of subway turnstiles, she posted a photo to Twitter on November 1 that quickly went viral.

Part of her tweet — “are you...fucking....kidding me?? — captured the unique frustration and anger New Yorkers reserved for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in the wake of the city’s renewed focus on fare evasion this year.

“My mom waited an hour at Lexington-63rd after leaving work yesterday for the F train... but okay, this is the problem,” responded one Twitter user. “The cost of those cameras, installing those cameras, and paying someone to monitor the cameras is definitely a better way for the MTA to spend money than fixing the trains,” said another.

are you...fucking....kidding me?? they’re installing cameras in front of every single turnstyle at the fulton stop in manhattan right now pic.twitter.com/6QbirJSVSg

— Rosemary Donahue (@rosadona) November 1, 2019

The online outrage has largely stemmed from riders’ dissatisfaction with the transit system’s efficiency and accessibility that, in their opinion, has not improved much, combined with anger over the perceived treatment of marginalized riders.

Within the past two years, the system’s on-time performance has fluctuated from terrible (58 percent on-time in January 2018) to satisfactory (84 percent in August 2019), but breakdowns, unexpected delays, and service changes still frequently occur. (The MTA also has a history of overstating its performance, according to Jalopnik reporter Aaron Gordon.)

According to the MTA’s estimates, the system will lose about $300 million from fare evasion this year, from both train and bus fares. But officials’ fixation on reducing this offense are misaligned, activist groups say, especially when these policies are likely to affect low-income riders and communities of color. Those who are fined or arrested for fare evasion in New York are disproportionately black or Hispanic, according to MTA data of arrests. The MTA has not responded to a call for comment at the time of publication.

Some activists have called for fare evasion to be decriminalized, which means offenders will have to pay a fine instead of facing arrest or jail time. Currently, people who don’t pay the fare are expected to pay a $100 fine, and the MTA said police will not be focused on making arrests. But according to The Appeal, those with an open warrant or a history of similar offenses could still be arrested if caught fare evading.

Fare evasion doesn’t just occur in New York. It’s an endemic issue for transit systems around the world, and current tactics used by authorities to reduce fare beating are far from perfect.

According to transit experts, we — the transit board, public officials, and regular citizens — might be simplifying the motives behind fare dodging: Why do people hop a turnstile or sneak through a gate in the first place? And what is it, exactly, that we’re trying to fix here?

Fare evasion is more common than you might think. But most people are one-time offenders.

While fare evasion has been studied by data scientists and engineers, few have looked into the psychological aspects that drive this action — a form of “consumer misbehavior,” according to researchers from the Public Transport Research Group in Australia.

The group’s findings, explained to me by Graham Currie, a professor of public transportation at Monash University, examine how common fare evasion is among the general public and the intentions of re-offending evaders, who are a small but significant population in transit systems worldwide.

Currie’s research evaluated rider behavior in Melbourne, but his team also conducted follow-up research in ten cities around the world, including New York, to determine the public’s perception of transit systems with high fare evasion rates.

Currie told me that in New York City, about 40 percent of transit riders evade a fare once a year, intentional or not. “This is a big share of the population,” he said. This one-time fare evasion could be due to a variety of circumstances: The ticketing booth wasn’t working, a rider left their Metrocard at home, or the emergency exit door was left open, which provides for a quick entry.

“But according to the law, even if you do it once, you’re committing a crime,” Currie continued. “So riders’ immediate reaction to the authorities calling them criminals is to feel that the system is incompetent.” (The Public Transport Research Group favors policies that don’t punish riders caught in their first attempt of fare beating.)

Activists have pointed to other cities in the US, such as Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, as examples of places that have passed measures to decriminalize fare evasion in the past year. According to Philadelphia news outlet Billy Penn, only 13 people have been charged with the harshest penalty — a total ban from the transit system — since the city decriminalized the offense in January.

“But according to the law, even if you do it once, you’re committing a crime”

Riders’ resistance and disdain for the MTA in New York overflowed into a protest in early November against increased policing on the MTA. The outrage was prompted by multiple videos of viral arrests that appeared to involve unnecessary force by police toward passengers of color. Hundreds of people occupied a subway platform and took to the streets in downtown Brooklyn. They hopped turnstiles and posted stickers to encourage mass fare evasion, a tactic taken from demonstrations in Santiago, Chile.

Protesters decorated the walls & trains during the #FTP march in Brooklyn earlier tonite. You can tell that they were inspired by the #EvasionMasiva protests in Chile. #SwipeItForward pic.twitter.com/8wL1yLobe0

— Ash J (@AshAgony) November 2, 2019

The following week, more videos documenting police action on the subway surfaced. A viral video on November 9 showed officers arresting a churro vendor in a station to the outrage of bystanders. (The NYPD told Gothamist in a statement that the vendor, who had 10 summonses for unlicensed vending, “refused to cooperate and was briefly handcuffed; officers escorted her into the command where she was uncuffed.”)

Tonight as I was leaving Broadway Junction, I saw three or four police officers (one of them was either a plainclothes cop or someone who worked at the station) gathered around a crying woman and her churro cart. Apparently, it's illegal to sell food inside train stations. 1/? pic.twitter.com/sgQVvSHUik

— Sofia B. Newman (@SofiaBNewman) November 9, 2019

When I asked Currie if he found any correlation between fare evasion and people’s perception of the transit system, he said his research group theorized that would be the case. Their theory was predicated on research done towards shoplifting — how shoplifting rates increase if a shop appears to be old or unkempt and workers are unhelpful.

“I suspect it’s still true, although we didn’t find any link,” Currie said. “If people aren’t happy, it will affect their compliance with what the rules are.”

According to surveys conducted in Melbourne, recidivist fare evaders are not typically poor or disadvantaged. “A high share of them work and a number of them are wealthy, actually,” he said. In surveying this group of people who consistently fade evade, Currie found that they’re driven by the thrill of risk-taking.

“If people aren’t happy, it will affect their compliance with what the rules are”

This behavior is also tied to how much people perceive to be in control of the situation, which means they weigh the risk or likelihood of being caught. Stricter policing does reduce fare evasion, Currie said, although public officials need to implement it “carefully and considerately.”

People are more motivated to pay up if they think they’re likely to be checked for a ticket, Currie said. In Melbourne, for example, the transit system deploys plainclothes officers to inspect tickets randomly at stops and stations.

There’s also the “proof of payment” system that’s popular in Europe where there are fewer gates or barriers to entry, but occasionally, an inspector on a bus or train will demand to see a rider’s ticket. These methods have helped lower rates of fare evasion in cities like Oslo. The idea is to make paying for fares easier and faster — in addition to increasing the possibility of a passenger being checked.

The cost of fare evasion and why cities care so much

Andy Byford, New York City’s transit president, has maintained that fares are crucial in improving rider experience. “Every dollar that doesn’t come to us, in terms of fares that should be paid, is a dollar that we can’t improve in service,” he said at a news conference in September, according to AM New York.

Fares aren’t the only source of revenue for the MTA; the system also earns money from tolls, taxes, government subsidies, and advertisements. But fares account for the largest chunk — about 38 percent (or $6.2 billion) — of the MTA’s annual earnings.

The MTA, despite approving a much-needed $54 billion plan in September, is expected to reach a $1 billion operating budget deficit by 2023. The authority board voted to raise fares in April, and the city deployed an additional 500 transit and NYPD police to 50 subway stations and 50 bus routes where evasion is most common.

Vince Talotta/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Andy Byford, the city’s transit president, has said that fare beating is an issue that the MTA can’t ignore.

The deployment would cost the MTA $249 million over the next four years, according to chief financial officer Bob Foran during the 2020 budget proposal on November 14. The agency is also expected to raise fares and tolls in 2021 and 2023 and cut back on 2,700 jobs.

As Streetsblog NYC reported, the police deployment will be partially financed by the $200 million the MTA is expected to save through anti-fare evasion efforts. But the projected cost of these efforts raised eyebrows among activists, local politicians, and city residents.

Say we had $249M and we could do anything we wanted to improve the subway system, what would you want to see prioritized? https://t.co/OxCGA2I6Jk

— Jessica Ramos (@jessicaramos) November 14, 2019

In September, Byford said that he would “like to see cameras on every train on every bus on every station on all the gate lines,” according to the New York Daily News. Yet subway fare evasion hasn’t curbed despite increased policing, officials said in October. It’s actually risen from 3.9 percent of riders in June to 4.7 percent in August. (Bus fare evasion has dropped from 24 percent to 22 percent during the same time period.)

Cracking down on evasion is one way to rake in more funds for the MTA, which is also struggling with a decline in ridership. Still, it’s not likely that the MTA, or any American transit system, for that matter, is going to turn a profit any time soon.

Few public transit agencies in the world are profitable, and most of them are based in Asia. Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway system operates on a “rail plus property” model that profits off real estate developments above its stations. It’s also partially owned by the Hong Kong government and privately run.

Most transit systems don’t follow this model and rely on government subsidies or taxes. That’s why — even in cities where public transit is financially sustainable — fares do matter, and public officials are willing to crack down on evaders despite outcry.

It’s not just in New York City, which has estimated a loss of $300 million in annual fares. London Travel Watch, a transport watchdog group, said the system will lose 100 million pounds this year to fare dodgers. And in cities like DC, where fare evasion is decriminalized, the Metro expects to lose $36 million in 2019.

The promise and the price of free public transit

As transport fares continue to rise in cities around the world, a number of activists and organizations are calling for them to be eliminated. In other words: make public transit free. This is a radical demand — one that’s been considered for decades — that aims to reduce inequality in our transportation system. Research has shown that poorer communities have shoddier access to public transit systems.

As Joe Pinsker writes in The Atlantic, “Maybe free public transit should be thought of not as a behavioral instrument, but as a right; poorer citizens have just as much of a privilege to get around conveniently as wealthier ones.”

Luxembourg will be the first nation to offer free transit starting in 2020. With a system as complex and old as New York’s, though, the idea could sound far-fetched. After all, if the MTA can’t turn a profit, how will it subsidize fares for millions of residents while ensuring that the trains run on time?

Cities have been grappling with how to reduce fare evasion for decades, but making the system free, according to Currie, isn’t a viable solution for many. “High-capacity mass transit costs a fortune,” he told me.

Academics and activists have made in-depth, research-backed arguments for decades as to why we should or should not make public transit free. Transit advocate Ted Kheel, who lobbied for free transit in New York City for over 40 years, proposed a plan that included congestion pricing, taxi surcharges, and higher parking fees to cover fares.

“High-capacity mass transit costs a fortune”

Meanwhile, a 2013 report in the International Journal of Transportation that analyzed free fare schemes in Europe discouraged entirely free systems. While subway use drastically increased, the study found free transit to be costly and required “broad political support and long term commitment.”

Ultimately, before New York even considers a new fare system, it needs to improve its “ancient and unreliable” infrastructure or the city’s growth will soon be stifled, Currie said.

For the time being, it seems like the only thing passengers can do is pay for it. And people, for the most part, are doing so. It’s just that frustration arises when riders feel that their conditions aren’t improving, when fares are rising, and when more and more of that money is directed towards enforcement.

Sign up for The Goods’ newsletter. Twice a week, we’ll send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2K91GVV

[gracieyvonnehunter]

Fare evasion costs cities millions. But will cracking down on it solve anything?

Most fare evaders are one-time offenders, according to research from the Public Transport Research Group in Australia. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

New York City has increased policing to curb fare dodging. It’s resulted in outrage and protests from some riders.

When Allure editor Rosemary Donahue witnessed New York City transit workers installing cameras in front of subway turnstiles, she posted a photo to Twitter on November 1 that quickly went viral.

Part of her tweet — “are you...fucking....kidding me?? — captured the unique frustration and anger New Yorkers reserved for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in the wake of the city’s renewed focus on fare evasion this year.

“My mom waited an hour at Lexington-63rd after leaving work yesterday for the F train... but okay, this is the problem,” responded one Twitter user. “The cost of those cameras, installing those cameras, and paying someone to monitor the cameras is definitely a better way for the MTA to spend money than fixing the trains,” said another.

are you...fucking....kidding me?? they’re installing cameras in front of every single turnstyle at the fulton stop in manhattan right now pic.twitter.com/6QbirJSVSg

— Rosemary Donahue (@rosadona) November 1, 2019

The online outrage has largely stemmed from riders’ dissatisfaction with the transit system’s efficiency and accessibility that, in their opinion, has not improved much, combined with anger over the perceived treatment of marginalized riders.

Within the past two years, the system’s on-time performance has fluctuated from terrible (58 percent on-time in January 2018) to satisfactory (84 percent in August 2019), but breakdowns, unexpected delays, and service changes still frequently occur. (The MTA also has a history of overstating its performance, according to Jalopnik reporter Aaron Gordon.)

According to the MTA’s estimates, the system will lose about $300 million from fare evasion this year, from both train and bus fares. But officials’ fixation on reducing this offense are misaligned, activist groups say, especially when these policies are likely to affect low-income riders and communities of color. Those who are fined or arrested for fare evasion in New York are disproportionately black or Hispanic, according to MTA data of arrests. The MTA has not responded to a call for comment at the time of publication.

Some activists have called for fare evasion to be decriminalized, which means offenders will have to pay a fine instead of facing arrest or jail time. Currently, people who don’t pay the fare are expected to pay a $100 fine, and the MTA said police will not be focused on making arrests. But according to The Appeal, those with an open warrant or a history of similar offenses could still be arrested if caught fare evading.

Fare evasion doesn’t just occur in New York. It’s an endemic issue for transit systems around the world, and current tactics used by authorities to reduce fare beating are far from perfect.

According to transit experts, we — the transit board, public officials, and regular citizens — might be simplifying the motives behind fare dodging: Why do people hop a turnstile or sneak through a gate in the first place? And what is it, exactly, that we’re trying to fix here?

Fare evasion is more common than you might think. But most people are one-time offenders.

While fare evasion has been studied by data scientists and engineers, few have looked into the psychological aspects that drive this action — a form of “consumer misbehavior,” according to researchers from the Public Transport Research Group in Australia.

The group’s findings, explained to me by Graham Currie, a professor of public transportation at Monash University, examine how common fare evasion is among the general public and the intentions of re-offending evaders, who are a small but significant population in transit systems worldwide.

Currie’s research evaluated rider behavior in Melbourne, but his team also conducted follow-up research in ten cities around the world, including New York, to determine the public’s perception of transit systems with high fare evasion rates.

Currie told me that in New York City, about 40 percent of transit riders evade a fare once a year, intentional or not. “This is a big share of the population,” he said. This one-time fare evasion could be due to a variety of circumstances: The ticketing booth wasn’t working, a rider left their Metrocard at home, or the emergency exit door was left open, which provides for a quick entry.

“But according to the law, even if you do it once, you’re committing a crime,” Currie continued. “So riders’ immediate reaction to the authorities calling them criminals is to feel that the system is incompetent.” (The Public Transport Research Group favors policies that don’t punish riders caught in their first attempt of fare beating.)

Activists have pointed to other cities in the US, such as Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, as examples of places that have passed measures to decriminalize fare evasion in the past year. According to Philadelphia news outlet Billy Penn, only 13 people have been charged with the harshest penalty — a total ban from the transit system — since the city decriminalized the offense in January.

“But according to the law, even if you do it once, you’re committing a crime”

Riders’ resistance and disdain for the MTA in New York overflowed into a protest in early November against increased policing on the MTA. The outrage was prompted by multiple videos of viral arrests that appeared to involve unnecessary force by police toward passengers of color. Hundreds of people occupied a subway platform and took to the streets in downtown Brooklyn. They hopped turnstiles and posted stickers to encourage mass fare evasion, a tactic taken from demonstrations in Santiago, Chile.

Protesters decorated the walls & trains during the #FTP march in Brooklyn earlier tonite. You can tell that they were inspired by the #EvasionMasiva protests in Chile. #SwipeItForward pic.twitter.com/8wL1yLobe0

— Ash J (@AshAgony) November 2, 2019

The following week, more videos documenting police action on the subway surfaced. A viral video on November 9 showed officers arresting a churro vendor in a station to the outrage of bystanders. (The NYPD told Gothamist in a statement that the vendor, who had 10 summonses for unlicensed vending, “refused to cooperate and was briefly handcuffed; officers escorted her into the command where she was uncuffed.”)

Tonight as I was leaving Broadway Junction, I saw three or four police officers (one of them was either a plainclothes cop or someone who worked at the station) gathered around a crying woman and her churro cart. Apparently, it's illegal to sell food inside train stations. 1/? pic.twitter.com/sgQVvSHUik

— Sofia B. Newman (@SofiaBNewman) November 9, 2019

When I asked Currie if he found any correlation between fare evasion and people’s perception of the transit system, he said his research group theorized that would be the case. Their theory was predicated on research done towards shoplifting — how shoplifting rates increase if a shop appears to be old or unkempt and workers are unhelpful.

“I suspect it’s still true, although we didn’t find any link,” Currie said. “If people aren’t happy, it will affect their compliance with what the rules are.”

According to surveys conducted in Melbourne, recidivist fare evaders are not typically poor or disadvantaged. “A high share of them work and a number of them are wealthy, actually,” he said. In surveying this group of people who consistently fade evade, Currie found that they’re driven by the thrill of risk-taking.

“If people aren’t happy, it will affect their compliance with what the rules are”

This behavior is also tied to how much people perceive to be in control of the situation, which means they weigh the risk or likelihood of being caught. Stricter policing does reduce fare evasion, Currie said, although public officials need to implement it “carefully and considerately.”

People are more motivated to pay up if they think they’re likely to be checked for a ticket, Currie said. In Melbourne, for example, the transit system deploys plainclothes officers to inspect tickets randomly at stops and stations.

There’s also the “proof of payment” system that’s popular in Europe where there are fewer gates or barriers to entry, but occasionally, an inspector on a bus or train will demand to see a rider’s ticket. These methods have helped lower rates of fare evasion in cities like Oslo. The idea is to make paying for fares easier and faster — in addition to increasing the possibility of a passenger being checked.

The cost of fare evasion and why cities care so much

Andy Byford, New York City’s transit president, has maintained that fares are crucial in improving rider experience. “Every dollar that doesn’t come to us, in terms of fares that should be paid, is a dollar that we can’t improve in service,” he said at a news conference in September, according to AM New York.

Fares aren’t the only source of revenue for the MTA; the system also earns money from tolls, taxes, government subsidies, and advertisements. But fares account for the largest chunk — about 38 percent (or $6.2 billion) — of the MTA’s annual earnings.

The MTA, despite approving a much-needed $54 billion plan in September, is expected to reach a $1 billion operating budget deficit by 2023. The authority board voted to raise fares in April, and the city deployed an additional 500 transit and NYPD police to 50 subway stations and 50 bus routes where evasion is most common.

Vince Talotta/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Andy Byford, the city’s transit president, has said that fare beating is an issue that the MTA can’t ignore.

The deployment would cost the MTA $249 million over the next four years, according to chief financial officer Bob Foran during the 2020 budget proposal on November 14. The agency is also expected to raise fares and tolls in 2021 and 2023 and cut back on 2,700 jobs.

As Streetsblog NYC reported, the police deployment will be partially financed by the $200 million the MTA is expected to save through anti-fare evasion efforts. But the projected cost of these efforts raised eyebrows among activists, local politicians, and city residents.

Say we had $249M and we could do anything we wanted to improve the subway system, what would you want to see prioritized? https://t.co/OxCGA2I6Jk

— Jessica Ramos (@jessicaramos) November 14, 2019

In September, Byford said that he would “like to see cameras on every train on every bus on every station on all the gate lines,” according to the New York Daily News. Yet subway fare evasion hasn’t curbed despite increased policing, officials said in October. It’s actually risen from 3.9 percent of riders in June to 4.7 percent in August. (Bus fare evasion has dropped from 24 percent to 22 percent during the same time period.)

Cracking down on evasion is one way to rake in more funds for the MTA, which is also struggling with a decline in ridership. Still, it’s not likely that the MTA, or any American transit system, for that matter, is going to turn a profit any time soon.

Few public transit agencies in the world are profitable, and most of them are based in Asia. Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway system operates on a “rail plus property” model that profits off real estate developments above its stations. It’s also partially owned by the Hong Kong government and privately run.

Most transit systems don’t follow this model and rely on government subsidies or taxes. That’s why — even in cities where public transit is financially sustainable — fares do matter, and public officials are willing to crack down on evaders despite outcry.

It’s not just in New York City, which has estimated a loss of $300 million in annual fares. London Travel Watch, a transport watchdog group, said the system will lose 100 million pounds this year to fare dodgers. And in cities like DC, where fare evasion is decriminalized, the Metro expects to lose $36 million in 2019.

The promise and the price of free public transit

As transport fares continue to rise in cities around the world, a number of activists and organizations are calling for them to be eliminated. In other words: make public transit free. This is a radical demand — one that’s been considered for decades — that aims to reduce inequality in our transportation system. Research has shown that poorer communities have shoddier access to public transit systems.

As Joe Pinsker writes in The Atlantic, “Maybe free public transit should be thought of not as a behavioral instrument, but as a right; poorer citizens have just as much of a privilege to get around conveniently as wealthier ones.”

Luxembourg will be the first nation to offer free transit starting in 2020. With a system as complex and old as New York’s, though, the idea could sound far-fetched. After all, if the MTA can’t turn a profit, how will it subsidize fares for millions of residents while ensuring that the trains run on time?

Cities have been grappling with how to reduce fare evasion for decades, but making the system free, according to Currie, isn’t a viable solution for many. “High-capacity mass transit costs a fortune,” he told me.

Academics and activists have made in-depth, research-backed arguments for decades as to why we should or should not make public transit free. Transit advocate Ted Kheel, who lobbied for free transit in New York City for over 40 years, proposed a plan that included congestion pricing, taxi surcharges, and higher parking fees to cover fares.

“High-capacity mass transit costs a fortune”

Meanwhile, a 2013 report in the International Journal of Transportation that analyzed free fare schemes in Europe discouraged entirely free systems. While subway use drastically increased, the study found free transit to be costly and required “broad political support and long term commitment.”

Ultimately, before New York even considers a new fare system, it needs to improve its “ancient and unreliable” infrastructure or the city’s growth will soon be stifled, Currie said.

For the time being, it seems like the only thing passengers can do is pay for it. And people, for the most part, are doing so. It’s just that frustration arises when riders feel that their conditions aren’t improving, when fares are rising, and when more and more of that money is directed towards enforcement.

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[apexart-journal]

Tasha Dougé , Day 8

We made it to day 8.  The day started off early with some bird watching.  I have never, but I was ready to try.  Up in Central Park, I met up with the group as they were heading up a hill.  I was the youngest in age, but I could tell I was in good company.  I say that because everyone was welcoming and excited to hear that it was my first time.  I don’t know if you know this, but birds could care less about you seeing them or taking their photos.  I say this because I would spot a bird and by the time I would try to see them through the binoculars, they were gone.  Knowing how to use binoculars and actually using them are two different things.  I’m serious.  Eventually, I got the hang of it.  The one thing that they don’t tell you before you go birdwatching is to do some neck exercises.  There definitely needs to be some pre-birdwatch neck rolls and head tilts before we start.  Try keeping your gaze to the ceiling for a good 5 minutes and let me know how that goes.  Now consider doing that over the course of an hour.  Neck rolls in tow, I started to get the hang of things and saw some beautiful birds.  Apparently,  Birding Bob (our funny bird guide) has a personal quota of birds he wants folks to see to deem the tour worthwhile.  Now I can’t remember them all and my spelling of their names are probably wayyyyyy off, but I got to see a total of 15 birds.  I would say that Bob did his part.  According to the group, that was a great start.  Out of all of them, one sticks out for a special reason.  It’s the Black-crowned Night Heron.

Midway way during session, I found myself in conversation with Marlys.  As our chat progressed, we found ourselves a good distance from the group.  She was talking to me about her life and how she got into birdwatching.  She told me that she was originally from the Mid-West.  She started birdwatching early last year.  Her husband, Bill, of 50 plus years passed away January of 2020.  She started to come to the park and to get reacclimated with NYC.  Her husband was a photographer.  They lived in NYC and Paris, as well as, traveled to many parts of the world.  What I admire about Marlys is at the age of 81 (the same year I was born) and after the loss of the love of her life, she is still curious.  Her desire to discover hasn’t dwindled at all.  She still plays tennis.  I have to do better.  Her petite frame and soft voice are no match for her subtle and vibrant presence.  As we were walking under an underpass in the North Woods, she started to tell me about a Black-crowned Night Heron she had seen two years ago.  To her surprise and now mine, the bird was there in the same tree she had seen it in two years prior.  Wow.  That moment was just for us.  Marlys was in deep shock and gratitude.  I can still hear her saying, “Ohhh Tasha.”  I could see a sweet tear coat her eye as it glistened in the sunlight.  She shared with me that if her daughter Sabrina was there, she would say that was Bill.  She quickly stated that I was her good luck charm.  To share that moment with Marlys, Bill and the Black-crowned Night Heron is something I will never forget.  We joined the group and they were still going on strong.  I had to head off to Albertine Books.  Before I left, I connected with Sharon, another bird-watching buddy.

I never heard of Albertine Books.  It is a quaint spot that has some fascinating books.  I took some pics of the decor, found a book from a Haitian author, but the highlight was finding the Art Press magazine with Malcolm X on the cover.  My time at Albertine was brief.  It is a small spot, but I can see myself coming back.  Speaking of back, it was time for me head back.  Not home, but back to where this all started...apexart headquarters.

On the bus ride down to meet Abbie, it was cool to recognize spaces where I been and with all this new context.  I passed by the lot where the Orphanage for Colored Children used to be and Bryant Park.  I got to reflect on how I never knew about the Downtown Connection bus and yet when I was making my way to the Empire State Building, it appeared like a mirage and whisked me off the the subway.  What a serendipitous reminder that once you know, it is hard to unknow.  It is also clear to me that this process has infiltrated my life permanently.

This was a my first time going to the actual office.  I met Abbie there to have a quick bite and get my itinerary for the next week.  She took me to a “secret” French cafe and we had a good time chatting about my experience thus far. I told her how I have been enjoying myself and all the thoughts that have been swirling in my head.  I did report that the subway stairs were kicking my ass.  I just wanted to remind her that we have been sheltering-in-place for over a year and so this new body of mine is rusty and NYC is NOT accessible, even for able-bodied folks.  I mean one trip can equal six flights of stairs one way and my knee ain’t able to compute that easily.  That just means for this body, slow and steady wins the race.  Call me Tortoise T.

With my itinerary in my hand, Week 2 has officially begun.  I was scheduled to meet Zatara, a former fellow, for the Legendary Cyphers in Union Square.  Unfortunately, that was cancelled due to the rain.  I hope I get to meet Zatara later on in the week.  I thought that I would be done for the night.  NOPE.  Abbie found something for me to do.  She sent me a ticket for Cliff Walkers (movie) at the IFC.  Not what I expected, but I learned from it and overall enjoyed it.  Birds, books, bakery and a recovered-bust, this was my day 8.

[wordcreatr]

Frankly, my hair is becoming a bit of an issue, and I’m in dire need of a COVID-19 pandemic haircut.

This was me pre-pandemic.

This is me today.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to write a concerto — or invent a time machine.

My hair hasn’t been this out of control since college when I started growing it long because a girl I had a slight crush on told me to (Yes, I had all the will power of a drone, and no we never dated). I used to refer to the inevitable ugly stage as the Bobby Brady phase, which transitioned into the Industrial Mullet before it reached a state when others began referring to me as the Wild Man of Borneo. And it’s even worse now because it’s losing pigment so is more flyaway — and it’s thinning.

When my friend Neil Griffiths, an officer in the Royal Navy, saw a recent online photo of me, he posted ‘Steady on, Ludwig!’ Besides Beethoven, I’ve also been compared to Doc Brown from Back to the Future, Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter, the Heat Miser, and any number of 19th-century pompadoured villains and maybe a modern-day televangelist. 

Ludwig van Beethoven

Doc Brown

Horshack

The Heat Miser

I’ve even been compared to Shrek, a New Zealand sheep who kept eluding the annual shearing roundup by hiding in caves. He spent six years on the lamb (yeah, I’m not apologizing for that one) and had 60 pounds of fleece shorn from him after someone finally caught his wooly ass.

I think I found my spirit animal.

Like Shrek, I can’t remember the last time I had a haircut. Maybe some time toward the beginning of the year? As the pandemic ramped up here in Arizona, they initially listed barbershops (along with nail salons) as essential businesses, but then shuttered them after public outcry. Not that it really mattered to me. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been getting my hair cut by Rosalinda, my Mexican Mom, for coming up on 20 years. So even though the barbershops are open, she’s the only person I trust with my hair. But, she and her husband, Alfredo, fall into the older category of citizens, so even though I don’t go out much, I’m not taking the risk of possibly infecting them. Besides, like I said, I rarely go out and when I do, I (usually) wear a baseball cap. On the plus side, my coworkers find my hair humorous when we have video meetings, so at least I’m bringing something to the table.

Zero F***s Given

When I was younger and out trying to meet women, I would have had a lot of anxiety if I had looked this crazy. Today — and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not — but I pretty much don’t give a fuck. My biggest worry is whether I’ve walked out of the house with pants on or not (trousers for the Limeys). This is actually a valid concern as I tend to spend my days wearing boxers and a t-shirt, maybe leaving my property once or twice a week to shop. I’m so used to it, I walked into Fry’s grocery store the other day wearing plaid shorts and for a horrifying moment, I stopped in my tracks because I wasn’t sure if I’d actually put my shorts on before I left home and was instead clad only in my plaid boxers. It was one of those breathtaking moments, the kind you have in a dream when you suddenly realize you’re out in public and you’re butt-ass naked. If someone in security was monitoring the front door and saw the look on my face and my eyes darting around as I stopped up short, he probably would have said “Hey keep an eye on this guy. I think this old fucker is getting ready to steal something.”

The Houseguest keeps telling me to grow my hair out till January, but I think it’s more for her amusement than her looking out for my interest because occasionally I’ll walk into a room and she starts laughing.

Speaking of unruly hair, the Houseguest was complaining hers was looking a bit witchy lately, so she got her boyfriend to help her cut it yesterday. He did the back, and she did the front and sides. It actually looks pretty good despite him asking about haircutting techniques during the process. I am so thankful it turned out okay because I was NOT prepared for all the crying and wailing a hack job would have resulted in. I had another friend in college whose boyfriend misunderstood her request that he cut 2 inches off her shoulder-length hair, and gave her an unintentional bob  — there was lots of boohooing that day.

Surprisingly, the Houseguest actually gave me first crack at the job a couple of weeks ago when she made an offhand comment about having me trim her hair for her. I stared at her, incredulous, and said absolutely not.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Have you not been observing me for the last 18 years?” I asked, staring at her. I mean, she even reads my blog for God’s sake. There was no way in hell I was getting roped into something that might require an ear being reattached or a scalp transplanted.

After thinking about it for a second, she acknowledged that, yeah, it was probably a dumb idea. Plus I wasn’t about to break my vow.

The Vow

I still have nightmares about this. When I was a kid in the UK, around 8 years of age,  I had a lock of hair hanging in my eyes, annoying me. So I tried trimming it with scissors right before we were leaving the house to go to Mass one Sunday. A fairly simple task, right? No. I succeeded in removing the offending lock by cutting a large and very obvious rectangle out of my bangs. My mom was so mad and said I looked like I was simple. She tried disguising it by wetting my hair and slicking my bangs over but to no avail. And even worse, I was an altar boy. Naturally, I didn’t want to go up in front of the congregation with fucked up hair, but my mom was a big believer in serving the Lord and paying for your mistakes, so this was a two-for-one. So there I stood in my black cassock and white surplice, as people in the front rows snickered at my bangs, disrespecting my sacred role in the celebration as the bell ringer and the lighter of candles. Humiliated and seething, since God refused to smite them, I could do nothing to avenge my shame. That day,  I swore I would never take scissors to my — or anyone else’s — hair ever again (my brother Kevin had recently butchered a neighbor kid’s hair–he was an ugly kid before the haircut and my brother did him no favors).

Anyway, so that’s what’s up with my life right now. We’ll see how long this plays out.  I thought about buzzing my hair with clippers, but I gave my dog trimming clippers away after my dog died. Plus, I never did a good job on her anyway. She always came out looking like a moth-eaten baby seal.  My friend Carlos’ wife, Tiffany, saw the same photo that Griff saw, posted “Good Lord!” and offered to buzz my head with her clippers, but I’m not sure I’m ready to go down that road. Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion I have a misshapen head.

So, barring an unexpected pandemic haircut, it looks like the Wild Man from Borneo may be hanging around for a bit longer.

In Need of a Pandemic Haircut Frankly, my hair is becoming a bit of an issue, and I'm in dire need of a COVID-19 pandemic haircut.

[shorthaircutsmodels]

Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts - 20+ - https://shorthaircutsmodels.com/karlie-klosss-short-hairstyles-and-haircuts/ - Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, debuted her fresh do with a fierce selfie on Instagram. Pictured is the model sporting a beautiful peach-toned glam created by celebrity make-up artist Patrick Ta to complement her new style. Short long wavy or stylish really doesn't have a look that Karlie can't pull off. Just last month everyone from Maisie Williams to Julianne Hough to Bella Hadid has had her hair styled into blunt bobs. Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, Now go ahead and add karlie Kloss to that list. The final leg of Fashion Week rocking a bob for a technology entrepreneur story kloss haircut while traveling, as evidenced by his last showing in real-time via Instagram Paris just under the chin looks like an insect bite sharp blunt bob model officially has returned. There's no such thing as mid-Fashion Week where he writes. Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, Hairstylist Jacob Rozenberg's clipping is Kloss's shortest cut in years and is also a throwback to his signature chin, known as karlie in 2020 - 2021 and then revived just ahead of the met Gala in 2020. Kloss is cold from Chicago but he could also be from California with his signature sun kissed locks. And although she experimented with different shades and was a brunette earlier in her career on this day, Ms. Kloss seemed to settle into life as a blonde. Karlie Kloss's Short Haircuts Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, The haircut of the year has arrived. Yes already. Vogue calls the chop while others named it karlie after model karlie Kloss. Miss Kloss, already a 20-year-old fashion world veteran, cut nearly seven inches of her dark hair late last year. In a four-page feature story in its January issue, Vogue announced the cut of the moment and said the season's new hair was and refreshingly easy to wear. Karlie Kloss's Hairstyles Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, The cut was the brain of hairdresser Garren DeFazio, who stands just above the shoulders, has a bit of layering at the front and is topped with bursts. It echoes Jane Birkin's 1960s haircut. Model karlie Kloss has looked more confident on the red carpet since her new jaw-length cut cut backstage at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in November. And he has a good reason. Karlie Kloss's Haircuts Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, people can't stop talking about how good she looks. In fact, today The New York Times calls it karlie's haircut of the year. Apparently, he has magical powers. Kloss first took to Instagram Stories this morning to document her hair change by posting a photo of her freshly cut hair covering the floor of a salon ruffling her short hair before recording herself. Job well done hairdresser Harry Josh said the mastermind behind the cut. You mentioned the bulge you cut my hair by seven inches. Karlie Kloss's Short Hair Karlie Kloss's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, New Year's, New Me. I can't stop touching it, Kloss told The Fashionologie backstage website at a fashion show shortly after the new cut opened.She added that having short hair actually takes the focus off your hair and puts the focus on you. I began to realize that it was all about trust. Edited by hairdresser. Karlie Kloss's Hair Garren for a feature in the January issue of Vogue Karlie's chops sounds like a new alternative to the long red carpet waves that have become so popular that it's no longer interesting, the hairdresser Times reported. Create a deep part for your hair and dry it in different sections. A paddle brush does you a huge favour to get a desired shape to frame your face during the blast. I feel bolder and bolder. Karlie Kloss Debuts Blunt Bob Haircut For Fashion Week It's a really Frenchman almost told karlie that Jane Birkin chopped off her new short haircut for the January issue of Vogue after party at Victoria's Secret Lavo last night. Also. how you move and dress is changing. Oh possibilities. Start wearing Bumpits that will perhaps develop a bad smoking habit, or God forbid Karlie's Kookie recipe from allowing gluten. Karlie Kloss just cut her hair into a short bob The model turned entrepreneur scored hairdresser Jacob Rozenberg for the spectacular cut while the industry was distracted by watching Paris Fashion Week shows but Bobs is back this season. Karlie Kloss bob haircut Rozenberg Kloss regular hairdresser dubbed celebrity hairdresser Harry Josh by an assistant the blunt cut bob style is slightly shorter than choppy 2020 - 2021 means best friend mom and annoying co-worker. Karlie Kloss Hairstyles & Hair Colors And the latest celebrity to get into the trend is karlie Kloss who has just cut her hair in a short wavy lob. The 'lob'that Kloss recently sported on the front row. But the cut is proof that getting rid of a few stray inches of hair can make all the difference as the style perfectly frames Kloss's camera-worthy bone structure, while a centre parting provides extra volume without the need for roots.it waves. Karlie Kloss haircuts 2020 - 2021 Social media has also been filled with overwhelmingly positive comments from Kaia Gerber's mother of Ashley Graham and even Serena Williams being Irina Shayk sharing their love of style if you need one more reason to allow your hairdresser to get scissors. Karlie Kloss is the latest celebrity to try the bob haircut trend. Karlie Kloss's Beauty Evolution The Model posted an image of her new stylish haircut on Instagram with the caption hair cuts mid-Fashion Week. Kloss has worn her hair short and covered much of her career but her new chin length cut may be her shortest and sharpest hair yet. His new do comes briefly after this year's Emmy when a whopping 17 celebrities came up with Bob's haircut. It's clear that this hairstyle hasn't gone anywhere recently. Karlie Kloss natural hair color Check out Kloss's new haircut and other styles he's tried over the years. In case you haven't noticed that so many celebrities have changed their hair this month. The list of famous hair transformations to cut from colour continues to grow. The latest celebrity to join this list is Karlie Kloss. The Model made the New much shorter cut at. Karlie Kloss bob hair style Paris Fashion Week. Karlie Kloss's new short bob is coming to jawline and it's actually super-trendy right now. Pull your soft hair back into a messy bun and gently tease the front sections to add lift to your hair. Use your hands to identify this hairstyle with hair products for a polished and refined effect. This is a medium hairstyle that. Karlie Kloss new hair Will make you look very sweet with soft tousled waves. The natural waves and textures to get wet while you still have large sections of hair look hot iron in your hair. Best short hairstyle for women under 30. Karlie Kloss hair colour I'm looking for a new sweet short haircut for this summer. The side-part bob haircut is in fashion this year with many celebrities wearing short hairstyles in recent years, and many opting for a pixie cut and side-Bob haircut. How to get Karlie Kloss hair No one can come to mind as quickly as karlie Kloss when it comes to millennial supermodels. The Victoria's Secret model and host of the upcoming show Movie Night With karlie Kloss could give Gisele her money when it comes to gorgeous hair. Karlie Kloss long hair I love her, Ms. Kloss told The Fashionologie backstage website at a fashion show shortly after the new cut opened. I can't stop touching.She added that having short hair actually takes the focus off your hair and puts the focus on you. I began to realize that it was all about trust. Karlie Kloss new haircut She is also never afraid to take a hair risk. In 2020, karlie was one of the first celebrities to launch the bob craze when it looked like every single celebrity would get a bob. So if you need some hair spiral and want to change your. Karlie Kloss hair tutorial Look for 2020 - 2021 your stylist say show one of these looks and give me Karlie please. Selena Gomez and her extra-long extensions seem to be short of the celebrity consensus for the notable exception autumn haircut. Karlie Kloss haircut vogue Literally in the middle of Paris Fashion Week, Karlie Kloss decided to do an impromptu hair change. Hey you never know when inspiration will come to amirite. On Thursday, the host of Bravo's Project Runway visited hairdresser Jacob Rozenberg for a quick fix before heading to the next event. The model, who last saw a wavy lob at Christian Siriano's first PFW show, now has a sleek bob with layers of face framing. Karlie Kloss short haircut Here's karlie Kloss's new hairstyle yes she shows off her signature bob haircut but this time she has reserved a new fashion-side short straight bob haircut. This short bob hair style is simple and stylish which featured a side blast. Karlie Kloss brown hair This short haircut is ideal for oval square round heart face shapes. This fantastic short bob is ideal for those looking for a low fuss style with hairstyle and attitude. A small product is required to shine and hold. Karlie Kloss hair color Karlie Kloss opted for a slender cat eye which featured just a touch of silver lining on the bottom cover for an extra touch of colour rocking a bright tangerine lip that looked fresh and summery. I love this style so much. Perfect view for summer days. Karlie Kloss haircut However, Kloss is typically not for dramatic hair transformations, his toughest to date, when he goes platinum yellow in 2020 - 2021, but this is not the first time he has chosen fashion week as the perfect occasion. cut. last February Kloss signed up to give hairdresser Harry Josh a lob. He later shared a video showing the finished result telling Josh job well done. You pushed me off the ledge. Karlie Kloss hairstyle New Year's, New Me. We're four months shy of 2020, so Kloss's new cut probably isn't tied to New Year's resolutions but maybe he cut his hair a few weeks ago for the shoulder-grazing style of his brother Ivanka Trump, who left his long Center. It is not a coincidence. Only time and the next Kushner family meeting will tell.

[newyorktheater]

Richarda Abrams in First by Faith

I spent much of the week in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, attending the week-long 16th biennial National Black Theatre Festival, which presented 30 plays and musicals from black theaters in 16 states and South Africa.

Founded in 1989, the festival has become an integral part of the life of the city, reflected in permanent street signs ( “National Theatre Festival Boulevard” etc.) and goes way beyond just the shows themselves – with free workshops, a film series, celebrity appearances (Leslie Uggams, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Andre de Shields are among those who came down from New York), a huge vendor market , a poetry jam, and many parties. (The festival coincided this year with the annual conference of the American Theatre Critics Association.)

Of the seven shows I got to see, my two favorite both happened to be by New York-based theater artists —  Harlem 9’s “48 Hours in Holy Ground,” six short original plays inspired by (but very different from) African-American classic plays such as Lorraine Hansberry’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”; and “First by Faith: The Life Of Mary McLeod Bethune,” written and performed by Richarda Abrams, one of numerous  (mostly solo) shows about celebrated/historical figures (Others were about cabaret performer Bricktop, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, Lena Horne, Booker T. Washington, August Wilson, and Bass Reeves, a freed slave who became the first African-American United States Deputy Marshal, whose life may have inspired the character of the Lone Ranger.) This year’s festival was heavy on musicals, as one of the festival organizers explained, because North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper proclaimed 2019 The Year of Music.

Click on photographs below to read details about some of the NBTF shows, and events, including my micro-reviews of a few of the shows I saw.

  Leslie Uggams speaking at National Black Theatre Festival kickoff, next to Brian Stokes Mitchell and Sylvia Sprinkle Hamlin, the festival’s executive producer and widow of founder Larry Leon Hamlin

Brian Stokes Mitchell, from left, dancer Nana Malaya Rucker and Andre Dé Shields pose for a photo for a fan prior to the news conference kicking off the National Black Theatre Festival. Photo by Andrew Dye.

Sammy: Celebrate the Legacy. Performed by David Hayes.

Mother to Mother. The one show from a theater company outside of the United States, this adaptation of Sindiwe Magona’s novel, produced by Spirit Sister Productions of Cape Town, South Africa and performed by Thembi Mtshali tells the story of a South African mother whose son is accused of killing a young white American woman, who was in South Africa to help fight apartheid. The South African mother addresses victim’s mother.

Bricktop: Legend of the Jazz Age. Written and Directed by Cathey C. Sawyer. Performed by Gabrielle Lee.

First By Faith: The Life of Mary McLeod Bethune. This solo play written and performed by Richarda Abrams tells the remarkable journey of the daughter of former slaves who became a world-renowned educator and activist. In an extraordinary performance portraying many characters in Bethune’s life, and Bethune herself at various ages, Abrams reclaims Bethune from the wall of saintly portraits in elementary school classrooms, and breathes her back to life as a woman with feelings, and vulnerabilities, and wit, and, yes, faith. “Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.” But by faith, she wasn’t just talking about religion.

A vendor of women’s hats

The bus to “Ruined.” The venues are spread throughout the city of Winston-Salem, so the festival provides buses.

Twelfth Night, or what you will, mon” was performed by North Carolina Black Repertory Company outdoors at Winston Square Park. William Shakespeare’s comedy but the setting moved from the Island of Illyria to Jamaica the songs by Bob Marley

March On Written and directed by Daniel Carlton, performed by Blackberry Productions of New York, NY. The journeys of three people who attended the 1963 March on Washington.

Soul Man, written and directed by Nate Jacobs, and performed by the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe of Sarasota, FL. This musical revue, tied together by the thinnest of narrative threads (the old-timers teaching a youngster about the values of the 60s) presents music made popular by 1960s R&B artists such as Sam Cooke, Sam & Dave, James Brown, Otis Redding, The Temptations, Ray Charles

Prideland, performed by THE POINTE! Studio of Dance & Elise Jonell Performance Ensemble of Greensboro, NC. A dance interpretation of the Disney movie “The Lion King.”

“Blood at the Root” written by Dominique Morisseau, performed by North Carolina Central University of Durham, NC. Based on theJena Six case, this play takes a hypothetical, multiple perspective look at the racial chaos of a high school in Jena, Louisiana resulting from the questionable arrest of six African American students for the assault of a white student.

Jelly’s Last Jam, written by George C. Wolfe, performed by North Carolina Black Repertory Company of Winston-Salem, NC. The Tony award-winning musical that tells the true story of Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, a.k.a. Jelly Roll Morton, the self-proclaimed “inventor of Jazz.”

A person attending the 2019 National Black Theater Festival

  July 2019 New York Theater Quiz

Shows opening in New York in August

  Broadway shows closing in August Be More Chill August 11 The Prom August 11 The Cher Show August 18 King Kong August 18 Pretty Woman August 18 What The Constitution Means to Me August 24 Beautiful October 27 Waitress January 5, 2020

The Week in New York Theater News

Harold Prince, January 30, 1928 – July 31, 2019

Harold Prince’s Broadway Shows, Playbill by Playbill

‘Six,” a musical/pop concert about the marriage, divorce and beheading of the six wives of Henry VIII that began at the Edinburgh Festival, is coming to Broadway. It’s scheduled to open at the Brooks Atkinson on March 12, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/theater/six-musical-broadway.html

Antoinette Nwandu

Vineyard Theater 2019-2020 season (specific dates not yet determined)

Conceived and director by Tina Satter Based on FBI transcripts, this adaptation tells the still unfolding story of former Air Force linguist Reality Winner who is surprised at her home by the FBI, interrogated, and then charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in U.S elections. Reality remains in jail

Dana H. by Lucas Hnath Dana was a chaplain of a psych ward where she met a charismatic patient, an ex-convict searching for redemption. A harrowing true story, Dana was held captive with her life in this man’s hands — trapped in a series of Florida motels, disoriented and terrified — for five months. Told in Dana’s own words and reconstructed for the stage by her son Lucas Hnath

Tuvalu, or The Saddest Song By Antoinette Nwandu Twelve-year-old Jackie tries to make sense of her life in 1990s Los Angeles

In @NYTimes, novelist @viet_t_nguyen on why he hates Miss Saigon (being revived in LA), which “perpetuates deeply held notions of Asian inferiority.” He praises @DavidHenryHwang‘s M Butterly & calls for more Asian narratives.

Read intriguing comments https://t.co/XCTy99SLGy

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) August 4, 2019

National Black Theater Festival. Six on Broadway. Mourning Hal Prince. #Stageworthy News of the Week I spent much of the week in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, attending the week-long 16th biennial National Black Theatre Festival…