#festive '23 collection launch

[its-poojagupta-shree]

In essence, SHREE's Festive 2023 collection is a celebration of artistry, culture, and elegance. It's a testament to the brand's dedication to creating fashion that transcends trends and stands the test of time. As you prepare for the festive season, consider embracing the stories woven into each garment and make SHREE a part of your journey towards a stylish and culturally rich wardrobe.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The IRS will do your taxes for you (if that's what you prefer)

This Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On May 23, I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

America is a world leader in allowing private companies to levy taxes on its citizens, including (stay with me here), a tax on paying your taxes.

In most of the world, the tax authorities prepare a return for each taxpayer, sending them a prepopulated form with all their tax details — collected from employers and other regulated entities, like pension funds and commodities brokers, who must report income to the tax office. If the form is correct, the taxpayer signs it and sends it back (in some countries, taxpayers don’t even have to do that — they just ignore the return unless they want to amend it).

No one has to use this system, of course. If you have complex finances, or cash income that doesn’t show up in mandatory reporting, or if you’d just prefer to prepare your own return or pay an accountant to do so for you, you can. But for the majority of people, those with income from a job or a pension, and predictable deductions, say, from caring for minor children, filing your annual tax return takes between zero and five minutes and costs absolutely nothing.

Not so in America. America is one of the very few rich countries (including Canada, though this is changing), where the government won’t just send you a form containing all the information it already has, ready to file. As is common in complex societies, America has a complex tax code (further complexified by deliberate obfuscation by billionaires and their lickspittle Congressjerks, who deliberately perforate the tax code with loopholes for the ultra-rich):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/11/the-canada-variant/#shitty-man-of-history-theory

That complexity means that most of us can’t figure out how to file our own taxes, at least not without committing scarce hours out of the only life we will ever have to poring over the ramified and obscure maze of tax-law.

Why doesn’t the IRS just send you a tax-return? Well, because the tax-prep industry — an oligopoly dominated by a handful of massive, ultra-profitable firms — bribes Congress (that is, “lobbies”) to prohibit this. They are aided in this endeavor by swivel-eyed lunatic anti-tax obsessives, like Grover Nordquist and Americans for Tax Reform, who argue that paying taxes should be as difficult and painful as possible in order to foment opposition to taxation itself.

The tax-prep industry is dominated by a single firm, Intuit, who took over tax-prep through its anticompetitive acquisition of TurboTax, itself a chimera of multiple companies gobbled up in a decades-long merger orgy. Inuit is a freaky company. For decades, its defining CEO Brad Smith ran the company as a cult of personality organized around his trite sayings, like “Do whatever makes your heart beat fastest,” stenciled on t-shirts worn by employees. Other employees donned Brad Smith masks for selfies with their Beloved Leader.

Smith’s cult also spent decades lobbying to keep the IRS from offering a free filing service. Instead, Intuit joined a cartel that offered a “Free File” service to some low- and medium-income Americans:

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free

But the cartel sabotaged Free File from the start. They blocked search engines from indexing their Free File services, then bought Google ads for “free file” that directed searchers to soundalike programs (“Free Filing,” etc) that hit them for hundreds of dollars in tax-prep fees. They also funneled users to versions of Free File they were ineligible for, a fact that was only revealed after the user spent hours painstaking entering their financial information, whereupon they would be told that they could either start over or pay hundreds of dollars to finish filing with a commercial product.

Intuit also pioneered the use of binding arbitration waivers that stripped its victims of the right to sue the company after it defrauded them. This tactic blew up in Intuit’s face after its victims banded together to mass-file thousands of arbitration claims, sending the company to court to argue that binding arbitration wasn’t enforceable after all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/uber-for-arbitration/#nibbled-to-death-by-ducks

But justice eventually caught up with Intuit. After a series of stinging exposes by Propublica journalists Justin Elliot, Paul Kiel and others, NY Attorney General Letitia James led a coalition of AGs from all 50 states and DC that extracted a $141m settlement for 4.4 million Americans who had been tricked into paying for Turbotax services they were entitled to get for free:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/turbotax-to-begin-payouts-after-it-cheated-customers-new-york-ag-says/ar-AA1aNXfi

Fines are one thing, but the only way to comprehensively end the predatory tax-prep scam is to bring the USA kicking and screaming into the 20th century, when most of the rest of the world brought in free tax-prep for ordinary income earners. That’s just what’s happening: the IRS is trialing a free tax prep service for next year’s tax season:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/15/irs-free-file/

This, despite Intuit’s all-out blitz attack on Congress and the IRS to keep free tax-prep from ever reaching the American people:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/20/turbotaxed/#counter-intuit

That charm offensive didn’t stop the IRS from releasing a banger of a report that made it clear that free tax-prep was the most efficient, humane and cost-effective way to manage an advanced tax-system (something the rest of the world has known for decades):

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5788.pdf

Of course, Intuit is furious, as in spitting feathers. Rick Heineman, Intuit’s spokesprofiteer, told KQED that “A direct-to-IRS e-file system is wholly redundant and is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem. That solution will unnecessarily cost taxpayers billions of dollars and especially harm the most vulnerable Americans.”

https://www.kqed.org/news/11949746/the-irs-is-building-its-own-online-tax-filing-system-tax-prep-companies-arent-happy

Despite Upton Sinclair’s advice that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” I will now attempt to try to explain to Heineman why he is unfuckingbelievably, eye-wateringly wrong.

“e-file…is wholly redundant”: Well, no, Rick, it’s not redundant, because there is no existing Free File system except for the one your corrupt employer made and hid “in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”

“nothing more than a solution in search of a problem”: The problem this solves is that Americans have to pay Intuit billions to pay their taxes. It’s a tax on paying taxes. That is a problem.

“unnecessarily cost taxpayers billions of dollars”: No, it will save taxpayers the billions of dollars (they pay you).

“harm the most vulnerable Americans”: Here is an area where Heineman can speak with authority, because few companies have more experience harming vulnerable Americans.

Take the Child Tax Credit. This is the most successful social program in living memory, a single initiative that did more to lift American children out of poverty than any other since the days of the Great Society. It turns out that giving poor people money makes them less poor, which is weird, because neoliberal economists have spent decades assuring us that this is not the case:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

But the Child Tax Credit has been systematically sabotaged, by Intuit lobbyists, who successfully added layer after layer of red tape — needless complexity that makes it nearly impossible to claim the credit without expert help — from the likes of Intuit:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#ctc

It worked. As Ryan Cooper writes in The American Prospect: “between 13 and 22 percent of EITC benefits are gulped down by tax prep companies”:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-17-irs-takes-welcome-step-20th-century/

So yes, I will defer to Rick Heineman and his employer Intuit on the subject of “harming the most vulnerable Americans.” After all, they’re the experts. National champions, even.

Now I want to address the peply guys who are vibrating with excitement to tell me about their 1099 income, the cash money they get from their lemonade stand, the weird flow of krugerrands their relatives in South African FedEx to them twice a year, etc, that means that free file won’t work for them because the IRS doesn’t actually understand their finances.

That’s a hard problem, all right. Luckily, there is a very simple answer for this: use a tax-prep service.

Actually, it’s not a hard problem. Just use a tax-prep service. That’s it. No one is going to force you to use the IRS’s free e-file. All you need to do to avoid the socialist nightmare of (checks notes) living with less red-tape is: continue to do exactly what you’re already doing.

Same goes for those of you who have a beloved family accountant you’ve used since the Eisenhower administration. All you need to do to continue to enjoy the advice of that trusted advisor is…nothing. That’s it. Simply don’t change anything.

One final note, addressing the people who are worried that the IRS will cheat innocent taxpayers by not giving them all the benefits they’re entitled to. Allow me here to simply tap the sign that says “between 13 and 22 percent of EITC benefits are gulped down by tax prep companies.” In other words, when you fret about taxpayers being ripped off, you’re thinking of Intuit, not the IRS. Just calm down. Why not try using fluoridated toothpaste? You’ll feel better, and I promise I won’t tell your friends at the Gadsen Flag appreciation society.

Your secret is safe with me.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/17/free-as-in-freefile/#tell-me-something-i-dont-know

[Image ID: A vintage drawing of Uncle Sam toasting with a glass of Champagne, superimposed over an IRS 1040 form that has been fuzzed into a distorted halftone pattern.]

[satoshi-mochida]

Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home launches August 23 - Gematsu

Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home will launch for iOS and Android on August 23, publisher Natsume and developer appci announced.

“In Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, players are tasked with making everyone happy in their hometown,” said Natsume president and CEO Hiro Maekawa in a press release. “By socializing, gift giving, selling crops, and completing requests, you’ll build bonds with your neighbors and increase the happiness of the town, all while hitting milestones of your own, like caring for your first cow, falling in love, and starting a family. As a standalone mobile app, players can progress their story at their own pace, wherever and whenever they want!”

Here is an overview of the game, via Natsume:

In Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home it’s time to head back to your roots and leave the city life for your childhood village of Alba, where the freshest fish and tastiest veggies are grown and caught by the local farmers and anglers. However, with its population getting older and younger villagers leaving for the big city, Alba Village has seen better days, so can you help turn it from a village on the decline to one of prosperity? With its beautiful surroundings, Alba definitely has the potential, but can you bring tourists and even new residents to this sprawling green village? Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home is the biggest Harvest Moon game ever on mobile! In addition, you can woo four different bachelors and four different bachelorettes, and marry whomever your heart desires. Reunite with your childhood friend and other familiar faces to help put Alba on the map! Harvest crops, take care of animals, fish, mine, and more. Collect and gather Happiness to grow the village and get new residents, while competing and taking part in various contests and festivals!

Watch a new trailer below.

Official Trailer

[dtba]

Forever 21 x Bratz Collection

Forever 21 is excited to announce its first-ever Bratz collection, which launched today. We're bringing the culturally redefining dolls to life through the latest, on-trend fashion at the most incredible value. This co-designed Forever 21 x Bratz Collection is a curated fashion assortment of six outfits inspired by iconic Bratz style.

The Forever 21 x Bratz Collection is all about fashion forward styles, inspired by the Bratz' iconic looks, and fit perfectly into today's must-have festival looks. Featuring a variety of cool denim styles, from baggy cargos to fitted micro miniskirts and tube dresses, along with corset tops, shimmery swim pieces and baguette bags to round out the look in a stylish way.

The collection includes women's and women's plus apparel, swim, and handbag accessories, ranges in price from $17.99-$59.99 and has sizing from XS-XXL & 23-34, 0X-4X & 12-20 in denim. The Forever 21 x Bratz Collection will be available to shop in Forever 21 stores and Forever21.com.

[tjemegames]

HSR: HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY! 🥳🎉 - TJ's 1st Annual Playthrough Recap

The big day is finally here! One full year has passed since Honkai: Star Rail first launched and so much fun was had. I’m so pumped to officially be starting year two and I can’t wait to see what the Devs have in store for us. Until then, let’s chat about my experience over the last year:

⚠️ Extremely summarized spoilers ahead for the events/storylines of HSR versions 1.0-2.1. Read at your own discretion! ⚠️

Also, apologies in advance this post will be a bit verbose because I don’t know how to stop yapping about this game; we'll get into it all under the cut!

Stats Overview

Firstly, what can I say? I fell absolutely head over heels for this game on day one; I was initially a bit turned off by the combat mechanics when the teaser demos came out — I had a very limited experience with turn-based games at this point (shoutout Wizard101 💀) and was confused about how they were going about it. Suffice to say that my weariness was unnecessary because, as of today, I’ve logged 342 days of gameplay on my main account!

The Astral Express Annual Trailblaze Report (data collection as of 03/31/2024 at 23:59) had some great insight on the statistics of what I’ve done since launch:

My e6 Natasha and I were really doing the damn thing together for so long:

She’s since been replaced by Aventurine (because I was finally smart and pulled a premium sustain) but we had a good thing going for us. Thank you for paving the way, Dr. I won’t forget about all our struggles together.

Prominent Story Moments & My Thoughts on Storytelling

Once it was determined that combat wouldn’t be an issue for me, I immersed myself wholeheartedly into the lore and storytelling that was provided. I absolutely adored getting to know the Nameless better and exploring parts of the cosmos with the Astral Express Crew. We’ve done so much already:

Being coalesced into existence, fending off the Antimatter Legion’s relentless attack, and helping restoration efforts on the Herta Space Station

Becoming Herta’s guinea pig in the Simulated Universe

Dismantling a corrupt leader and freeing the under worlders in Belobog

Keeping the IPC from seizing the entirety of Belobog to pay off the backdated interest on their ancestor's 700-year-old unpaid debts

Foiling the war-motivated plots of an Emanator of Destruction on the Xianzhou Luofu

Business Simulator 1.0: Restoring Aurum Alley and making a grown man bark

Becoming the best Ghost-Hunting Content Creator on Ghostly Grove

Getting swallowed by a giant Swarm bug and being fender-bendered by a Knight of Beauty; having to duel him into acquaintance (because he’s just quirky like that) before witnessing him valiantly sacrifice himself for the Express, in the name of “Beauty” (because he’s also a little delulu), and then texting us once to see if we were okay after escaping through the hole he cut in the bug’s stomach. Subsequently, disappearing back into the cosmos without a trace (can you tell that I’m enamored by Argenti?)

Being drugged by Ruan Mei, having to deal with her experiments (I hate that synthetic bug with a burning passion) and becoming a Cat Cake extraordinaire.

Accepting the Charmony Festival invitation and having a “very heartwarming and uplifting” (aha aha-hA 😭) “vacation” in Penacony

And of course, so much more in between all of that but those were the things that stuck out the most to me.

I will say that I am in the camp of people who had to experience the Xianzhou storyline before it was streamlined for comprehension purposes and, as much as I loved it there, there were a lot of missed opportunities and wasted moments in that section of the storytelling. Not a huge fan of games trying to get me to care about something by forcing me into a nonsensical quest line during an ill-fitting moment, thereby muddying my understanding of what’s going on/what the importance of said thing is… But it is what it is, and they slapped a band aid on it for newer players. Hopefully, when we eventually return to the Luofu, they will have a better grip on what it is they want to portray there.

Overall, I’m not too fussed by the story so far. It’s been very enjoyable, extremely satisfying in some parts — a bit less so in others. One of the things that I love about sci-fi/fantasy is the ability to go all out and do pretty much anything you can think of because of the creative freedom that both genres allow. I think we’re just barely beginning to scratch the surface of what the series writers have planned for us.

Simulated Universe & Permanent Endgame Modes

Oh boy, I was almost home free in my drafting of this post when I remembered I hadn’t yet yapped about Simulated Universe, Memory of Chaos, & Pure Fiction. I am so sorry, I will try to keep it short, but I’ve got a lot of feelings about these permanent endgame modes.

Let’s kick it off with the SU. Back in the late summer of ’23 when we had our first bout of dry patches, I did more SU runs than I thought I ever would do because I didn’t want to stop playing the game. I was absolutely hooked, and I wanted to hone my skills prior to facing off against the next Echoes of War boss we would get. Within the first four months of launch, I think I had collected almost all the blessings, curios, and Aeon information that you could possibly get. Hell, there was even a day where I spent probably six hours just trying out all the different resonance paths against Gepard. It was so novel to me, and nothing like my previous experience with other rouge-like domains/dungeons – I just couldn’t get enough…

That was until they started patching in new updates. Swarm Disaster eviscerated all my excitement and desire for SU. I hate that bug; I hate that bug so very much. It’s only now that I have e2 DHIL that I don’t mind going back into Swarm and attempting to collect the rest of the rewards that have been sitting there waiting for me since its debut. The same kind of applies to Gold and Gears, although that mode is slowly starting to grow on me. I haven’t spent enough time in there playing around with all the different dice and strategies to have a definitive opinion on it. I’ll probably make some content of myself exploring the upper levels of G&G when I inevitably unlock them.

Now for the thing that would’ve really turned out to be an essay if I weren’t more capable of reining myself in; the curse that keeps on giving, MoC. Listen, I love this game. I love the combat and having to be a bit strategic, but sometimes floors 11-12 make me want to pull out the tiny bit of hair that my buzzed head tends to have. It took me 11 and a half months to 36 star the MoC for the first and only time that I’ve been able to do so. I’ve reset, changed teams, and fully rebuilt characters in attempt to beat floor 12 within 10 cycles more times than I can count. Sincerely, I wish we could’ve seen a year-end review of just the reset statistics alone. It is a source of infinite frustration for me, and it really shouldn’t be so goddamn difficult sometimes… Please Hoyo, just let me have my last star; I’m tired of sitting at 35/36 stars. There's only so much min-maxing a person can do before losing their mind.

Don’t think that I forgot about PF. Follow-up attackers’ paradise and what seemed like it would be a great time until I remembered that my only follow up attackers are Jing Yuan and an under leveled, mostly untouched Herta. This game mode is truly the one that got away for me. I’ve barely participated in it due to a lack of necessary characters. O7 to all the jades that I’ve missed out on. We’ll get there one day.

The Triumphs & Perils of Warping

What’s a gacha game without pulling? I’ve been keeping track of all my luck, both good and bad, since I started playing. This is what a year, 380 standard passes, and 1013 special passes got me:

Not a bad roster at all. There were a couple questionable choices made by me though. The lack of pulling a limited 5 star sustain until Aventurine came out being my biggest flop of them all. I did attempt to get Fu Xuan on her release banner, but I lost 50/50 and wasn’t willing to put everything I had into her at that time.

Out of all eight 50/50s I’ve had so far, I only lost three of them; I also pulled two of the following guarantees early after that so I’ve been a lot luckier than I thought I would be. My Genshin wishing experience sunk the bar for my pulling expectations well below ground, so everything feels like even more of a win here. I hope things continue to stay that way.

Another thing of note: I chose Bronya’s e1 from the standard banner selection reward once I hit the 300-warp requirement. I probably should’ve chosen Himeko for PF purposes but e1 was just too good to pass up for my hyper carry teams.

Also, Dr. Ratio gave himself to everyone (for free) in the pursuit of “curing idiocy” so that’s why I have him. Had I have been proactive in pulling his signature LC, I could be rocking a Ratiorine team right now – but no, instead he remains in Level 1 Purgatory with the rest of my unused characters.

Let us not forget about the light cones either:

I broke my one cardinal rule of avoiding weapon banners for this game, but I don’t regret it in the slightest — I did lose 75/25 to Sleep Like the Dead twice and then proceeded to get it a third time (from the standard banner), so I'm salty about that. Still no regrets though!

Final Thoughts

This game has been such a safe space of indulgence for me over the last year. It reminded me of my love for turn-based combat and strategy-based games. It has also helped me reinvigorate my creativity — this blog is proof of it. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so enthralled, inspired, and passionate, so I’m grateful to Hoyo and all the HSR Devs for bringing this game to life.

While there have been some low points from struggling with story bosses, tediously challenging endgame, and incohesive plot lines, I have mostly found great enjoyment in my traversal of the stars thus far. I can’t wait to see who else I’ll meet and where this journey among the cosmos will lead me. I also look forward to sharing even more of my adventures and insights with all of you in the years to come!

Happy Anniversary, Trailblazers! May the next year be fruitful and fulfilling. Don't forget to sign in and collect your 1600 jades!

[queermtl]

QUEER MTL THINGS TO DO: September 2023

It’s September, and fall begins to appear with the leaves changing into a beautiful rainbow all of their own! This month, Montréal is stuffed to the brim with events, parties and unique experiences painted in all the colours of the LGBTQ+ rainbow. From drag to community, circuit to underground, here’s some of our picks for the best LGBTQ+ things to do in the city. For further announcements, including those not announced at time of publication, follow QueerMTL on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr! Got an event coming up? DM it our way!

ÉVÉNEMENTS / EVENTS

Vendredi 1er septembre / Friday, September 1

😆 Ladyfest 2023: Tales of Gender Affirmation, Diving Bell Social Club

😆 Ladyfest 2023: They Go Low, We Go Laugh, Diving Bell Social Club

😆 Ladyfest 2023: I Don’t Belong Here, Diving Bell Social Club

🎶 Sapphonix Collective’s Sapphonix Salon Night, Location disclosed with ticket purchase

🧤Montréal Fetish Weekend, Hôtel Zéro1

Samedi 2 septembre / Saturday, September 2

🧤Montréal Fetish Weekend, Hôtel Zéro1

Dimanche 3 septembre / Sunday, September 3

😆 Ladyfest 2023: Chinatown Comedy Night with Yumi Blake, Ellie Gill, Kristina Guevarra, Psyberia, KĚ and Andrina Learmonth, Diving Bell Social Club

💑 Slow Dating #9 Gay, Lundis au soleil 

🧤Montréal Fetish Weekend, Hôtel Zéro1

🎤 Ellelui Lesbian, Queer and Trans Variety Show with Ray Restvick, Adele Ross, Becca Redden and Naïka Champaïgne, Entrepôt 77

Lundi 4 septembre / Monday, September 4

✍️ Trivia Mondays hosted by Bambi Dextrous, Diving Bell Social Club

🧤Montréal Fetish Weekend, Hôtel Zéro1

Mercredi 6 septembre / Wednesday, September 6

✍️ Queer Sip & Draw, Blue Dog Motel

Jeudi 7 septembre / Thursday, September 7

🎥 The Dhakira Collective presents the North African Queer Film Festival running until September 23, Cinema Public

Samedi 9 septembre / Saturday, September 9

🎤 Bareoke: Strip Karaoke, Café Cléopatra

📚 Violet Hour Book Club meets to discuss How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler, Archives gaies du Québec

Dimanche 10 septembre / Sunday, September 10

😆 Very Pretentious Comedy and The Empress Comedy Show present The Pretempress Comedy Show with Mike Carrozza, Sandy El Bitar, Dana Saleh, Molly Brisebois, Shawn Stenhouse, Yumi Blake and Ke Xin Li, Diving Bell Social Club

Lundi 11 septembre / Monday, September 11

✍️ Trivia Mondays hosted by Bambi Dextrous, Diving Bell Social Club

Mercredi 13 septembre / Wednesday, September 13

✍️ Queer Sip & Draw, Blue Dog Motel

Jeudi 14 septembre / Thursday, September 14

🎉Cabaret Queer with guest performers, Cabaret Mado

Dimanche 17 septembre / Sunday, September 17

🎤 Bareoke: Strip Karaoke, Café Cléopatra

🧺 Pique-nique salade de fruits + Heure du conte avec Barbada, Daisy Peterson Sweeney Park

Lundi 18 septembre / Monday, September 18

✍️ Trivia Mondays hosted by Bambi Dextrous, Diving Bell Social Club

👗 PEEL FASHION FEST runway shows and after party, Peel and Sainte-Catherine Streets

Mercredi 20 septembre / Wednesday, September 20

✍️ Queer Sip & Draw, Blue Dog Motel

Jeudi 21 septembre / Thursday, September 21

📚 Double book launch of Heather Nolan’s How to Be Alone and Eva Crocker’s Back in the Land of the Living at La petite librairie D+Q

Vendredi 22 septembre / Friday, September 22

💪 BLOW: Burlesque Lovelies of Wrestling with Betty Cayenne, Butterscotch Blondie, Casquivano, Eldritch Mór, Frost Fennec, Irony, Kinky Karma, Princess Ula and Yikes Macaroni, Café Cléopatra

Samedi 23 septembre / Saturday, September 23

🎶 Māori fem queen Lady Shaka with San Farafina, Naibi b2b and Jashim, Théâtre Fairmount

Lundi 25 septembre / Monday, September 25

✍️ Trivia Mondays hosted by Bambi Dextrous, Diving Bell Social Club

Mercredi 27 septembre / Wednesday, September 27

✍️ Queer Sip & Draw, Blue Dog Motel

🎤 Most Tuesdays, check out Stand Up St. Henri Open Mic at Impro Montréal, focusing on women, non-binary, queer and allied comedians.

FESTIVITÉS / PARTIES

Vendredi 1er septembre / Friday, September 1

🥳 Pikete—Desacato Escolar with La Niña Kiwi, Ura, mCherry, Jashim, Cherubinx and Lola Lolita, Cabaret Berlin

🥳 Kreuzberg Kink—Dance and Play with DJs Davide Lapara, Crissemarqueur and Warm Rubberette, Cabaret Berlin

Dimanche 3 septembre / Sunday, September 3

🥳TSwift Dance Party “for Swifties, by Swifties” with DJ Rog, Le Belmont

🥳 Berlin Techno Fetish hosted by Cirque De Boudoir, Cabaret Berlin

Vendredi 15 septembre / Friday, September 15

🥳 The Dark Eighties, Bar Le Ritz PDB

Samedi 16 septembre / Saturday, September 16

🥳 Queen & Queer lesbians & queer women events present Nuit Electro #3 with OM.EL Beat, Shadya and DJ Sam, Le Ministère

DES SPORTS

👠 Twice a month on every second Tuesday, Bring It! hosts an OTA night of ballroom and vogue with commentator and DJ. Follow their Instagram for dates and details.

🚲 Montréal Queer Bike Polo meet on Thursdays, with details on Instagram

🎾 Ligue de dimanche meet at the Parc Louis-Riel tennis courts every Sunday.

🤠 Club Bolo—Danse Country Montréal meet on Fridays at the Association sportive et communautaire du Centre-Sud

💃 Tango/Salsa Queer’s continue, with Salsa Queer on Saturdays from 13:30-14:30 and Tango (beginners/intermediate) on Saturdays at 12:00-13:30. Contact tango.queer@hotmail.com or call +1 (438) 930-8529 for prices and signup information.

🏐 Les Ratons-Chasseurs (Montréal’s LGBTA dodgeball group) holds regular events. Keep an eye on their Facebook for upcoming opportunities to join in and play. 

🕹Montréal Gaymers hosts regular gatherings including board game nights and gaming gatherings. Check their Facebook for what’s next!

🏃🏾Join the Out-Run run and workout club for people relating to the queer / sapphic experience. Details on their Instagram!

🐦 Bird lovers should keep their eye on Queer Birders' regularly scheduled birdwatching events and excursions. Join the Facebook group and get those binoculars at the ready.

DRAG

Montréal’s vibrant drag community features several regularly-scheduled nights hosted by local luminaries, each featuring guest performers. Check venue websites for full line-ups!

Vendredi 1er septembre / Friday, September 1

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Vendredi Fou with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Jimmy Moore Drag Show with Jimmy Moore, Complexe Sky

👑 Gisèle Lullaby, Journaliste d’enquête et femme du peuple with Gisèle Luillaby, Casino de Montréal

Samedi 2 septembre / Saturday, September 1

👑 Jimmy Moore personnifie Shania Twain, Cabaret Mado

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Drôles de Drags with Miss Butterfly, Ciathanight, Crystal Starz et Emma Déjavu, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 QUEERCORE: Hard + Heavy alternative drag night presented by Cult of AnarchKey, Bar Notre-Dame-Des-Quilles

🕹 Jackbox Games with the Gahds with Uma Gahd and Selma Gahd, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Gisèle Lullaby, Journaliste d’enquête et femme du peuple with Gisèle Luillaby, Casino de Mon

Dimanche 3 septembre / Sunday, September 3

👑 Jimmy Moore personnifie Britney Spears, Cabaret Mado

👑 Le Tracy Show with Tracy Trash, Cabaret Mado

👑 Dimanche Show with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Saloon Drag Lunch with Miss Butterfly and Emma Déjàvu, Saloon Bistro Bar

Mardi 5 septembre / Tuesday, September 5

👑 Full Gisèle with Gisèle Lullaby, Cabaret Mado

Jeudi 7 septembre / Thursday, September 7

👑 Sherry Vine in Hollywood and Vine, Cabaret Mado

👑 Butterfly de nuit with Miss Butterfly, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Recess: Pokemon Edition with Val the Freak, Korra Anarchkey, Prudence, Amnesia, Pandora’s Box Muncher, Lulu Shade, Niko Lubie & Ray Moon, Spore Ghetti, Queef Latina and Kris Ma Chèque, Bar Notre-Dame-des-Quilles

Vendredi 8 septembre / Friday, September 8

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Vendredi Fou with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Jimmy Moore Drag Show with Jimmy Moore, Complexe Sky

Samedi 9 septembre / Saturday, September 9

👑 Jimmy Moore personnifie Rihanna, Cabaret Mado

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Drôles de Drags with Miss Butterfly, Ciathanight, Crystal Starz and Emma Déjavu, Bar Le Cocktail

Dimanche 10 septembre / Sunday, September 10

👑 Drag Brunch “Disco Groove” with Lady Boom Boom, Tracy Trash and Bobépine, Resto du Village

👑 Le Tracy Show with Tracy Trash, Cabaret Mado 👑 Dimanche Show with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

Mardi 12 septembre / Tuesday, September 12

👑 Full Gisèle with Gisèle Lullaby, Cabaret Mado

👑 Garden of Shade 1st Anniversary with Lulu Shade, Sarah Winters, Sally-D, Demone Lastrange, Lady Monrose, Esirena and Lily Rose, Bar Le Cocktail

Jeudi 14 septembre / Thursday, September 14

👑 Butterfly de nuit with Miss Butterfly, Bar Le Cocktail

Vendredi 15 septembre / Friday, September 15

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Vendredi Fou with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Jimmy Moore Drag Show with Jimmy Moore, Complexe Sky

Samedi 16 septembre / Saturday, September 16

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Jimmy Moore personnifie Lady Gaga, Cabaret Mado

👑 Drôles de Drags with Miss Butterfly, Ciathanight, Crystal Starz et Emma Déjavu, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Erica—25 ans de carrière with Erica, Bar Le Cocktail

Dimanche 17 septembre / Sunday, September 17

👑 Le Tracy Show with Tracy Trash, Cabaret Mado

👑 Dimanche Show with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

Mardi 19 septembre / Tuesday, September 19

👑 Full Gisèle with Gisèle Lullaby, Cabaret Mado

Jeudi 21 septembre / Thursday, September 21

👑 Sashalicious with Sasha Baga, Esirena, Walter Ego, Yannick Rockstar et Crystal Starz, Cabaret Mado

👑 Butterfly de nuit with Miss Butterfly, Bar Le Cocktail

Vendredi 22 septembre / Friday, September 22

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Vendredi Fou with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Jimmy Moore Drag Show with Jimmy Moore, Complexe Sky

Samedi 23 septembre / Saturday, September 23

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Jimmy Moore personnifie Madonna, Cabaret Mado

👑 Drôles de Drags with Miss Butterfly, Ciathanight, Crystal Starz et Emma Déjavu, Bar Le Cocktail

Dimanche 24 septembre / Sunday, September 24

👑 Le Tracy Show with Tracy Trash, Cabaret Mado

👑 Dimanche Show with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

Mardi 26 septembre / Tuesday, September 26

👑 Full Gisèle with Gisèle Lullaby, Cabaret Mado

Jeudi 28 septembre / Thursday, September 28

👑 Ooh La La fundraiser for HIV/AIDS care home Maison du Parc with Manny Tuazon, Cabaret Mado

👑 Trashilaz with Aizysse Baga, Cabaret Mado

👑 Butterfly de nuit with Miss Butterfly, Bar Le Cocktail

Vendredi 29 septembre / Friday, September 29

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Vendredi Fou with Michel Dorion, Bar Le Cocktail

👑 Jimmy Moore Drag Show with Jimmy Moore, Complexe Sky

Samedi 30 septembre / Saturday, September 30

👑 Mado Reçoit with Mado Lamotte, Cabaret Mado

👑 Jimmy Moore personnifie Taylor Swift, Cabaret Mado

👑 Drôles de Drags with Miss Butterfly, Ciathanight, Crystal Starz et Emma Déjavu, Bar Le Cocktail

[yasmine-cariaga]

Coming soon: Versace x Dua Lipa

Expect a summer collection that which will have you Levitating

Dua Lipa is a woman who can do it all. She is a singer, dancer, model and now a fashion designer. The New Rules singer has co-designed Versace’s High Summer La Vacanza collection, which is set to debut at Cannes Film Festival on May 23.

The singer took to Instagram to proclaim the collection’s launch: “I am absolutely thrilled to have co-designed the women’s La Vacanza collection for Versace with Donatella. She and I have formed such a strong bond over the years, and I’m so grateful for the support I’ve received from her and the whole team since the very beginning of my career. For her to give me the honour of co-designing this collection and letting all my summer inspirations go wild has been a dream. I am so very proud of this collection and cannot wait to debut it in Cannes.”

Lipa, the 2023 Met Gala c0-chair, has been one of Versace’s dolls since the early days of her singing career. The custom Versace butterfly dress the singer wore at the 2021 Grammy Awards is just one of the many iconic fashion moments the duo has created together. So, you can bet your money that the La Vacanza collection will be an instant hit.

Fashion blogger Corinne Bickel agrees by saying, “Personally I think Dua is a great fit for Versace. She seems to have a close relationship with Donatella and she has worn the brand on numerous occasions. I think her co-creating the collection with Donatella could be fun.”

Bickel adds, "I definitely anticipate seeing lots of colour and fun prints. I know photos of some butterfly prints were released so that will be super cute. I think lots of early 2000s Versace references could be a possibility as well.”

Remember to shop summer’s hottest collection on May 23rd at Versace.com.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Sun Myung Moon: Prophet for Profit (1976)

▲ Here is the self-ordained Reverend Moon as he spoke behind a bullet-proof screen in New York’s Madison Square Garden at a 1974 rally. He preached love while thousands of his followers were in the streets collecting money.

Parade magazine, May 30, 1976 pages 6-7 (also Day of Hope 3-2c.pdf)

by L. H. Whittemore

NEW YORK, N.Y. Next Tuesday night (June 1, 1976) in Yankee Stadium a pudgy, round-faced, 56-year-old evangelist from South Korea will launch his greatest effort to date to convince Americans that he has been chosen to lead us all to salvation.

The preacher is the self-ordained Rev. Sun Myung Moon who, since coming to this country, has added thousands of young Americans to his global army of followers, amassed a fortune that includes at least $50 million in property, publicly embraced a President of the United States—and been accused of brainwashing, misleading and virtually enslaving his converts. Moon’s Yankee Stadium rally kicks off a national tour he calls the “Bicentennial God Bless America Festival.”

To his followers, who are often called “Moon Children” or “Moonies,” the persuasive Moon is “the third Adam, the next Jesus Christ, and the true parent of mankind”—a new Messiah who will, in the not too distant future rule the world.

To many concerned American parents, however, he is a false prophet who has lured their children into his “Unification Church” by appealing to their idealistic instincts and then cuts them off from their families and sets them to work peddling, recruiting and raising money for him and his worldwide organization.

One Moonie who managed to escape from the movement is Ford Greene, 23-year-old godson of Sen. James Buckley (R.-Cons., N.Y.). Like thousands of others, Greene was hooked by attending a weekend workshop that was never outwardly identified as being part of the Moon organization, which has set up several front groups bearing names like the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, [CARP on College Campuses] and the Creative Community Project [in the Bay Area]. Most are run by Moon followers brought from other countries to do recruiting here.

‘Love-bombed’ Says Greene: “Anyone who goes for the weekend introductory program gets ‘love-bombed.’ That means all the Moonies are super-friendly. They say how glad they are to see you. Everyone laughs and sings and has a good time. I tell you, it’s quite a trip.

“They tell you the Messiah is now here on Earth, and they, hint very strongly that it’s Moon. After listening to hours of lectures and never having a chance to think things over for yourself, you’re ready to believe.”

According to Jean Merritt, a psychiatric social worker in Lincoln, Mass., those who join up with Moon “are usually idealistic young men and women who are having difficulty deciding what to do with their lives.” The cult offers an attractive alternative to the outside world, she says. But at the same time their “ego functioning is manipulated” by the group until they are “mentally imprisoned.”

What is it that Moon followers are supposed to believe? Although Moon calls himself a Christian, he holds that Christ failed in his mission on Earth. In Korea, Moon was dismissed as a Presbyterian in 1948.

[He was excommunicated by the Presbyterian Church, and jailed in Heungnam Special Labor Camp for bigamy in 1948. The husband of Kim Chong-hwa reported him to the authorities for conducting a wedding ceremy with his wife. He was never a spy for South Korea or a political prisoner. That was a UC smokescreen. Moon’s friends were communists and he had chosen to enter communist North Korea in 1946.] Since then he has evolved his own religious concepts, including the assertion that “America has been chosen as the nation to receive the Messiah for ultimate world salvation in our century.”

Moon, who delivers his public exhortations in Korean with an interpreter translating his words into English, asserts that God works through nations, as does Satan. America, being “God’s nation,” must be prepared to do battle for the Lord against the Soviet Union, Communist China and North Korea. The only way to win such a global confrontation, he indicates, is to join the Unification Church before it’s too late —both God and Moon are losing their patience.

[Moon only became anti-communist in the early 1960s to save his skin in South Korea. Later he gave $millions, and submarines, with missile launch tubes to North Korea. LINK.]

“Kings and queens and heads of state will someday bow at my feet,” Moon has told his followers. “I will conquer and subjugate the world.”

The Korean link There is a link between Moon and the South Korean government. President Chung Hee Park not only gives Moon his open support but sends thousands of civil servants to an anti-Communist school [in Guri] run by the Unification sect. Moon’s chief associate is Col. Bo Hi Pak, who was a military attaché for the South Korean government in Washington, D.C., from 1961 to 1964. Pak has also been associated with the Korean CIA. LINK

Whatever Moon’s beliefs and principles may be, there’s no doubt that he has been able to turn them into hard cash. Although he claims to have between 2 and 3 million followers in 100 countries, principally Japan and South Korea, it’s the United States that has really turned out to be a money machine for him. [The money from Japan should never be underestimated. LINK ]

“In 1975,” reports Neil Salonen, 31, president of the American branch of the Unification Church, “we received nearly $12 million in cash at our national headquarters in New York City. But the total collected all over the country was much larger.”

Moon and his movement have purchased $10 million worth of property in Tarrytown, N.Y., near the Hudson River, not to mention real estate in more than 100 cities and in every state. Minimum total value is put at $50 million. To acquire his 22-acre Belvedere estate in Tarrytown, Moon plunked down $850,000 in cash. He also paid $625,000 for a mansion in nearby Irvington, N.Y., where he lives with his fourth wife and their eight children. The cult also owns a 254-acre estate and seminary in Barrytown, N.Y., about 50 miles north of Tarrytown, which is said to be worth $1.5 million. The seminary is the unofficial world headquarters for the Unification Church, whose spiritual home remains in Seoul, the South Korean capital. Moon also is the proprietor of two seagoing yachts and a Manhattan town house. His wealth has helped create a high-powered propaganda machine that would turn a Presidential candidate green with envy.

A numbing regimen According to those who have managed to break loose from the cult, it has also created near prison-like conditions for the true believers.

Moonies live in homes rented or purchased by the Unification Church. According to Salonen, there are at least six “training” or “residential” centers in each state, some with just a few members and others with up to 100. Members are ordered to refrain from alcohol and sex. Men and women are separated in the living quarters and even close friendships are discouraged.

Former members of the cult insist that they never got more than five hours of sleep a night. Moonies, they report, are kept busy with a regimen of exercise, group discussion, lectures, songs and prayers, games like tag [and volleyball] and, of course, long stretches of recruiting and peddling in the outside world. Beneath an exterior of cheerfulness, they are often tired, hungry and even numb, performing their tasks with only the thought that they are “saving the world for God and Moon��� to keep them going.

▲ Jaime Sheeran in her room at a Moon seminary. She’s one of three daughters of New Jersey Insurance Commissioner James Sheeran. She won’t quit the cult.

The typical Moonie The typical Moon disciple in the U.S. is a man or a woman, average age 23, from a white, upper-middle-class family. Many are college students disenchanted with American life. Most are carried away by the initial workshop experience, and then find that they’re being put through increasingly lengthy training sessions.

“We’d get letters every week or so,” says Mrs. George Swope of Port Chester, N.Y., referring to the time when her 19-year-old daughter suddenly dropped out of college after one of the cult’s weekends. “She wrote how ‘happy’ she was but that she couldn’t come home. And she never did come home either, until we got her out.”

Her daughter, Winnie, left after six months, but only after being “rescued” by Ted Patrick, 45, the best-known practitioner of “deprogramming”—a rigorous technique of talking it out. Patrick is nicknamed “Black Lightning” by the Moon followers, both for the color of his skin and for his swift appearance in their lives. He claims to have “rescued” more than 1000 members of various cults, all of which, he says, use some sort of “brainwashing.”

In a recent book called Let Our Children Go, Patrick accuses the Unification group of “brainwashing” methods like those used in the Korean war, “when many of our prisoners were subjected to intensive political indoctrination.”

Virtually all former Moonies say that they were “programmed” to think and behave in a certain manner. “My daughter said that she and others would be willing to do anything for Moon,” says Mrs. Swope, “because he really represents God to those in the cult.”

“They completely ripped off my mind and my free will,” says Denise Peskin, 21, of Plainview, N.Y. “I was a robot for Moon. My mind was empty. It was just a reflector of everything they told me.”

‘Eyes out of focus’ Denise says that she worked in San Francisco selling flowers and recruiting new members on the streets. “We were told to say anything to get money,” she reports. “I pushed flowers for ‘youth educational guidance’ and did very well. I also got 50 recruits.”

One of Moon’s most ardent foes, Rabbi Maurice Davis of White Plains, N.Y., says he and a group of 900 concerned families have helped at least 95 Moonies out of the cult. “At first,” he says, “the kids have their eyes out of focus, with plastic smiles on their faces. There’s a total lack of genuine emotion. One boy saw me and actually shriveled into a corner in stark terror. He said the cult had told him I was the Devil. I kept talking to him, trying to get him to think for himself again. He said, ‘Moon is fighting for my soul and so are you. How do I know where the truth is?’ I told him, ‘Moon wants you to stay in his organization. I want you out in the world, free.’ When he finally snapped out of it, he broke into tears and said, ‘Just tell me one thing—where have I been?’ It was frightening.”

Meanwhile, thousands of Moonies work unbelievably long hours soliciting funds and peddling candy, peanuts, flowers and the like, on street corners and in parking lots. Former members say they lost all track of time and that they collected no less than $100 a day.

Since April 1973, Moon has had a permanent residency visa from U.S. immigration, even though questions have been raised about his past. He has been accused of holding sex orgies as part of his rites. A spokesman for him in Seoul says: “It is true that Teacher Moon was tried on morals charges, but he was eventually acquitted.”

‘God loves Nixon’ In 1973, during the Watergate crisis, Moon launched a huge campaign in support of President Nixon. He marshaled 1000 Moonies into rallies and marches with signs proclaiming “God Loves Nixon.” At a White House meeting, the pudgy cult leader embraced the then President.

One of the few public responses to Moon by a prominent politician has come from Sen. Mark Hatfield (R., Oreg.), who said in 1974, “The appeal to nationalism of any country, as if somehow God has favorites among his creatures, is very, very dangerous, particularly when you mix that with the cultic adulation and devotion of his followers and the implicit, if not the explicit, statement that he [Moon] is the new Christ.”

Hatfield’s warning is echoed even more strongly by ex-Moonies who charge that Moon is really seeking world political power and is assembling an army of young zealots ready to die for him.

PARADE interviewed a former high-ranking member of Moon’s cult in the United States who had been in charge of its “political arm” called the Freedom Leadership Foundation. Alan Tate Wood, 29, now a psychology student at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said that he left Moon’s group “because it’s not a church, but a fascist political movement. His group is the most powerful analogue to the Hitler youth that we have at this time.”

The parents act Last February, more than 300 parents of Moon disciples from 30 states converged on Washington for a meeting arranged by Sen. Robert Dole (R., Kan.). They met with representatives of the Internal Revenue Service, the Labor Department, the Postal Service, immigration authorities and others in hopes of persuading federal officials to investigate the Unification cult.

So far, however, there has been little action by the government. An IRS spokesman, Leon Levine, told PARADE that investigation of Moon’s group as a tax-exempt organization poses a touchy, perhaps crucial problem: “The law says that churches are tax-exempt. The question is, when does a group qualify as a religion? It’s not easy to answer.”

Meanwhile, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon goes right on holding meetings, making converts, acquiring property and preparing for his own version of Armageddon.

_____________________________________

Ford Greene – the former Moonie became an attorney

Moonwebs by Josh Freed (the book was made into a movie)

The six ‘wives’ of Sun Myung Moon

Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life by Christopher Edwards

After Sun Myung Moon’s help, North Korea Launch an SLBM Missile on October 2, 2019

[pulsdmedia]

The Week Ahead 9/23-9/29

What's that you say? It feels like fall? Don't break the sweaters out yet, because the last of summer is hanging on. This week, we're saying adieu to rooftop sunshine with the final weekend of the Simona rooftop series, breaking into the art game, and welcoming autumn with Oktoberfest feels. What's not to love about this city?

**THE LAST WEEKEND** $29 Summer Spritz Rooftop Series

Here we go! It's the last weekend for the Simona Summer Spritz Series! We're talking a 3 Hour Spritz Open Bar, as well as 1 Fritto Misto, and 1 Dessert - hello, pistachio gelato! Atop the Vogue & New York Times-praised Royalton Park Avenue, succumb to the temptation of sensational sips, crunching into calamari while you soak in the final sunshine of summer...

New York Climate Week 2024 Kickoff Party

Climate Week NYC, the biggest annual climate event of its kind, is back on September 22. Stop by the New York Climate Week 2024 Kickoff Party for cocktails, a climate tech showcase, DJs, and bars galore.

$59 Rooftop Oktoberfest: 3 Hour Open Bar + Delicious Buffet

Dance, drink, and delight in the social buzz! It's not a dream - it's BLU33! Take in jaw-dropping views and revel at their Rooftop Oktoberfest Celebration. They're ready to kick off fall in epic Bavarian style, transforming the aerie into a autumnal German paradise to celebrate the annual festival. Think beer steins, brats, photo opps, and so much more, all in store for you and your crew. Chomp into a buffet overflowing with eats and savor an open bar. All that drinking will lead to dancing, of course, so do your best polka as the DJ plays a mix of tunes sure to make you boogie...

Book Signing With Uzo Aduba

The award-winning actress launches her powerful and timely memoir—a unique coming-of-age story that chronicles her life from Nigeria to New York. The Road Is Good pieces together a life story imbued with guiding lessons that are both personal and profoundly universal. There will be a book signing at this event.

$12 For A GA Ticket For One To The Affordable Art Fair

Discover the joy of collecting art at Affordable Art Fair NYC! We’ll be back at the Metropolitan Pavilion in September 2024 for another fabulous Fall edition exploring a diverse and carefully curated selection of artworks ranging between $100 and $12,000. This year promises to enchant you with an extraordinary array of art, set against the sprawling backdrop of the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea. Over 400 artists are on deck, ranging from established names to emerging superstars, with prices spanning from $100 to $12,000...

Join the Seaport for a Free Yoga Class

Hot power vinyasa yoga. With the Brooklyn Bridge as your backdrop. Greet the weekend with the full Lyons Den experience on the Heineken Riverdeck on Saturday mornings this summer. Classes are free, but reservations are encouraged.

[jewellerycompare]

Toolally partners with Laura Whitmore for new collection

British brand Toolally has announced the launch of its Peacocks and Pearls collection in collaboration with Laura Whitmore. Evoking summer festivals of the late 60s and early 70s, the 23-piece jewellery collection is a “modern take on the design statements celebrated in both decades”. The collection includes colourful affirmation bracelets that combine handmade acrylic discs, … http://dlvr.it/T8Hcr6

[its-poojagupta-shree]

The autumn breeze is whispering promises of cozy evenings and fashionable layers, and the winter chill is just around the corner. It's that time of the year when we embrace the warmth of knits and the allure of layered outfits. At SHREE, we're excited to announce the much-anticipated pre-launch of our Festive 2023 collection. This collection is not just a fashion statement; it's an invitation to elevate your style, embrace tradition, and celebrate the beauty of cotton and rayon. Join us as we delve into the world of fashion trends for Festive '23, covering everything from cotton ethnic suits to rayon kurtas for ladies.

[chorusfm]

Dave Grohl Performs “Play” Live

Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters performed “Play” live for an upcoming concert film. The upcoming release of 'The Benefit Concert Volume 20' by Warren Haynes includes a spectacular highlight: the first-ever--and only to date--performance of Dave Grohl’s 23-minute instrumental epic, "Play," which extends to an extraordinary 36 minutes in its live rendition. This live performance is now available, offering fans the opportunity to witness “Play” being brought to life on that unforgettable evening.   Originally composed and performed entirely by Grohl on every instrument, “Play” is an expansive journey through Grohl's musical prowess and creativity. The video release captures the energy and intensity of “Play” as rendered by Grohl and a veritable murderers row of musical accomplices including Greg Kurstin (keys), guitarists Jason Falkner, Alain Johannes and Barrett Jones, Chris Chaney (bass) and Drew Hester (percussion). The performance's distinctiveness was further elevated by the rhythmic artistry of Abby the Spoon Lady, a prominent Asheville-based busker and advocate for street performance, whose unique spoon-playing skill brought an unexpected and captivating dimension to “Play.” Delivering a blend of visual and auditory artistry, this one and only live version of “Play” is a key highlight of 'The Benefit Concert Volume 20'. The Benefit Concert Volume 20' is a collection of standout performances from Warren Haynes’ 30th Annual Christmas Jam, bringing together a diverse group of artists. The album, as well as the event itself, serve not only as a musical spectacle but also as a philanthropic endeavor, with all proceeds being donated to the Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity. In addition to Haynes and Grohl, other featured artists on the forthcoming set include Eric Church, Joe Bonamassa, Gov’t Mule, Mike Gordon, Marco Benevento, Jamey Johnson, Edwin McCain, Kevn Kinney, Tyler Ramsey, Scott Murawski, and Ron Holloway, along with Machan Taylor, Mini Carlsson, Mike Barnes, and Ray Sisk sitting in with Gov’t Mule. Recorded on December 7th and 8th, 2018, in Asheville, North Carolina, the concert was not just a musical feat but also a significant charitable event, raising over $2.8 million for the Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity.   ‘The Benefit Concert Volume 20’ will be available physically on four different double vinyl volumes (in different colors: purple, orange, blue, red), 2-CD + DVD set, and 3-CD + 2 Blu-ray set, along with a digital-only format. Bundles are also available now to pre-order. Starting in December of 1988, Warren Haynes launched what would become a cherished tradition in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. Despite its name, the "Christmas Jam" was less about festive tunes and more about gathering local musicians to celebrate the holidays and give back to the community. Over 30 years later, this humble event transformed into a nationally recognized spectacle, raising over $2.8 million for Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity and the construction of over 50 homes in the region. Reflecting on its growth, Haynes notes, “As an Ashevillean, it's heartening to see the progress Asheville has witnessed over these three decades. In many ways, Christmas Jam mirrors this city's vibrant spirit."   ‘The Benefit Concert Volume 20’ stands out not only as a testament to three decades of musical celebrations, but also the enduring spirit of Christmas Jams. Throughout the years, it's the impromptu collaborations (often times between artists and musicians meeting backstage or on stage), the unwavering commitment of all participants, and the unity in music that truly define this legacy.   “Although Christmas Jam, the main event, is traditionally a one-night event, there have been three occasions where we felt the need to make it two nights — the 20th, 25th, and 30th Anniversaries, each of which featured extraordinary line-ups,” Haynes adds. “The performances being represented in this package are culled from the 30th Anniversary in 2018, which was in itself… https://chorus.fm/news/dave-grohl-performs-play-live/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Revenge of the Linkdumps

Next Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On May 23, I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

If you’ve followed my work for a long time, you’ve watched me transition from a “linkblogger” who posts 5–15 short hits every day to an “essay-blogger” who posts 5–7 long articles/week. I’m loving the new mode of working, but returning to linkblogging is also intensely, unexpectedly gratifying:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/13/four-bar-linkage/#linkspittle

[Image ID XKCD #2775: Siphon. Man: ‘Wow, it’s true — the water doesn’t flow up the tube anymore.’ Woman: ‘Honestly, it’s weird that it ever did. Why did we ever think it was normal?’ Caption: ‘Physics news: the 2023 update to the universe finally fixed the ‘siphon’ bug.’]

My last foray into linkblogging was so great — and my backlog of links is already so large — that I’m doing another one.

Link the first: “Siphon,” XKCD’s delightful, whimsical “physics-how-the-fuck-does-it-work” one-shot (visit the link, the tooltip is great):

https://xkcd.com/2775/

[Image ID: A Dutch safety poster by Herman Heyenbrock, warning about the hazards of careless table-saw use, featuring a hand with two amputated fingers.]

Next is “Hoogspanning,” 50 Watts’s collection of vintage Dutch workplace safety posters, which exhibit that admirable Dutch frankness to a degree that one could mistake for parody, but they’re 100% real, and amazing:

https://50watts.com/Hoogspanning-More-Dutch-Safety-Posters

They’re ganked from Geheugenvannederland (“Memory of the Netherlands”):

https://geheugenvannederland.nl/

While some come from the 1970s, others date back to the 1920s and are likely public domain. I’ve salted several away in my stock art folder for use in future collages.

All right, now that the fun stuff is out of the way, let’s get down to some crunch tech-policy. To ease us in, I’ve got a game for you to play: “Moderator Mayhem,” the latest edu-game from Techdirt:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/11/moderator-mayhem-a-mobile-game-to-see-how-well-you-can-handle-content-moderation/

Moderator Mayhem started life as a card-game that Mike Masnick used to teach policy wonks about the real-world issues with content moderation. You play a mod who has to evaluate content moderation flags from users while a timer ticks down. As you race to evaluate users’ posts for policy compliance, you’re continuously interrupted. Sometimes, it’s “helpful” suggestions from the company’s AI that wants you to look at the posts it flagged. Sometimes, it’s your boss who wants you to do a trendy “visioning” exercise or warning you about a “sensitivity.” Often, it’s angry ref-working from users who want you to re-consider your calls.

The card-game version is legendary but required a lot of organization to play, and the web version (which is better in a mobile browser, thanks to a swipe-left/right mechanic) is something you can pick up in seconds. This isn’t merely highly recommended; I think that one could legitimately refuse to discuss content moderation policies and critiques with anyone who hasn’t played it;

https://moderatormayhem.engine.is/

Or maybe that’s too harsh. After all, tech policy is a game that everyone can play — and more importantly, it’s a game everyone should play. The contours of tech regulation and implementation touch rub up against nearly every aspect of our lives, and part of the reason it’s such a mess is that the field has been gatekept to shit, turned into a three-way fight between technologists, policy wonks and economists.

Without other voices in the debate, we’re doomed to end up with solutions that satisfy the rarified needs and views of those three groups, a situation that is likely to dissatisfy everyone else.

However. However. The problem is that our technology is nowhere near advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic (RIP, Sir Arthur). There’s plenty of things everyone wishes tech could do, but it can’t, and wanting it badly isnlt enough. Merely shouting “nerd harder!” at technologists won’t actually get you what you want. And while I’m rattling off cliches: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Which brings me to Ashton Kutcher. Yes, that Ashton Kutcher. No, really. Kutcher has taken up the admirable, essential cause of fighting Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM, which is better known as child pornography) online. This is a very, very important and noble cause, and it deserves all our support.

But there’s a problem, which is that Kutcher’s technical foundations are poor, and he has not improved them. Instead, he cites technologies that he has a demonstrably poor grasp upon to call for policies that turn out to be both ineffective at fighting exploitation and to inflict catastrophic collateral damage on vulnerable internet users.

Take sex trafficking. Kutcher and his organization, Thorn, were key to securing the passage of SESTA/FOSTA, a law that was supposed to fight online trafficking by making platforms jointly liable when they were used to facilitate trafficking:

https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-31-sex-lies-and-surveillance-fosta-privacy.html

At the time, Kutcher argued that deputizing platforms to understand and remove which user posts were part of a sex crime in progress would not inflict collateral damage. Somehow, if the platforms just nerded hard enough, they’d be able to remove sex trafficking posts without kicking off all consensual sex-workers.

Five years later, the verdict is in, and Kutcher was wrong. Sex workers have been deplatformed nearly everywhere, including from the places where workers traded “bad date” lists of abusive customers, which kept them safe from sexual violence, up to and including the risk of death. Street prostitution is way up, making the lives of sex workers far more dangerous, which has led to a resurgence of the odious institution of pimping, a “trade” that was on its way to vanishing altogether thanks to the power of the internet to let sex workers organize among themselves for protection:

https://aidsunited.org/fosta-sesta-and-its-impact-on-sex-workers/

On top of all that, SESTA/FOSTA has made it much harder for cops to hunt down and bust actual sex-traffickers, by forcing an activity that could once be found with a search-engine into underground forums that can’t be easily monitored:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/09/more-police-admitting-that-fosta-sesta-has-made-it-much-more-difficult-to-catch-pimps-traffickers/

Wanting it badly isn’t enough. Technology is not indistinguishable from magic.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Kutcher, it seems, has learned nothing from SESTA/FOSTA. Now he’s campaigning to ban working cryptography, in the name of ending the spread of CSAM. In March, Kutcher addressed the EU over the “Chat Control” proposal, which, broadly speaking, is a ban on end-to-end encrypter messaging (E2EE):

https://www.brusselstimes.com/417985/ashton-kutcher-spotted-in-the-european-parliament-promoting-childrens-rights

Now, banning E2EE would be a catastrophe. Not only is E2EE necessary to protect people from griefers, stalkers, corporate snoops, mafiosi, etc, but E2EE is the only thing standing between the world’s dictators and total surveillance of every digital communication. Even tiny flaws in E2EE can have grave human rights concerns. For example, a subtle bug in Whatsapp was used by NSO Group to create a cyberweapon called Pegasus that the Saudi royals used to lure Jamal Khashoggi to his grisly murder:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/nso-spyware-used-to-target-family-of-jamal-khashoggi-leaked-data-shows-saudis-pegasus

Because the collateral damage from an E2EE ban would be so far-ranging (beyond harms to sex workers, whose safety is routinely disregarded by policy-makers), people like Kutcher can’t propose an outright ban on E2EE. Instead, they have to offer some explanation for how the privacy, safety and human rights benefits of E2EE can be respected even as encryption is broken to hunt for CSAM.

Kutcher’s answer is something called “fully homomorphic encryption” (FHE) which is a theoretical — and enormously cool — way to allow for computing work to be done on encrypted data without decrypting it. When and if FHE are ready for primetime, it will be a revolution in our ability to securely collaborate with one another.

But FHE is nowhere near the state where it could do what Kutcher claims. It just isn’t, and once again, wanting it badly is not enough. Writing on his blog, the eminent cryptographer Matt Green delivers a master-class in what FHE is, what it could do, and what it can’t do (yet):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/05/11/on-ashton-kutcher-and-secure-multi-party-computation/

As it happens, Green also gave testimony to the EU, but he doesn’t confine his public advocacy work to august parliamentarians. Green wants all of us to understand cryptography (“I think cryptography is amazing and I want everyone talking about it all the time”). Rather than barking “stay in your lane” at the likes of Kutcher, Green has produced an outstanding, easily grasped explanation of FHE and the closely related concept of multi-party communication (MPC).

This is important work, and it exemplifies the difference between simplifying and being simplistic. Good science communicators do the former. Bad science communicators do the latter.

While Kutcher is presumably being simplistic because he lacks the technical depth to understand what he doesn’t understand, technically skilled people are perfectly capable of being simplistic, when it suits their economic, political or ideological goals.

One such person is Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called “father of AI,” who resigned from Google last week, citing the existential risks of “runaway AI” becoming superintelligent and turning on its human inventors. Hinton joins a group of powerful, wealthy people who have made a lot of noise about the existential risk of AI, while saying little or nothing about the ongoing risks of AI to people with disabilities, poor people, prisoners, workers, and other groups who are already being abused by automated decision-making and oversight systems.

Hinton’s nonsense is superbly stripped bare by Meredith Whittaker, the former Google worker organizer turned president of Signal, in a Fast Company interview with Wilfred Chan:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90892235/researcher-meredith-whittaker-says-ais-biggest-risk-isnt-consciousness-its-the-corporations-that-control-them

The whole thing is incredible, but there’s a few sections I want to call to your attention here, quoting Whittaker verbatim, because she expresses herself so beautifully (sci-comms done right is a joy to behold):

I think it’s stunning that someone would say that the harms [from AI] that are happening now — which are felt most acutely by people who have been historically minoritized: Black people, women, disabled people, precarious workers, et cetera — that those harms aren’t existential.

What I hear in that is, “Those aren’t existential to me. I have millions of dollars, I am invested in many, many AI startups, and none of this affects my existence. But what could affect my existence is if a sci-fi fantasy came to life and AI were actually super intelligent, and suddenly men like me would not be the most powerful entities in the world, and that would affect my business.”

I think we need to dig into what is happening here, which is that, when faced with a system that presents itself as a listening, eager interlocutor that’s hearing us and responding to us, that we seem to fall into a kind of trance in relation to these systems, and almost counterfactually engage in some kind of wish fulfillment: thinking that they’re human, and there’s someone there listening to us. It’s like when you’re a kid, and you’re telling ghost stories, something with a lot of emotional weight, and suddenly everybody is terrified and reacting to it. And it becomes hard to disbelieve.

Whittaker sets such a high bar for tech criticism. I had her clarity in mind in 2021, when I collaborated with EFF’s Bennett Cyphers on “Privacy Without Monopoly,” our white-paper addressing the claim that we need giant tech platforms to protect us from the privacy invasions of smaller “rogue” operators:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

This is a claim that is most often raised in relation to Apple and its App Store model, which is claimed to be a bulwark against commercial surveillance. That claim has some validity: after all, when Apple added a one-click surveillance opt-out to Ios, its mobile OS. 96% of users clicked the “don’t spy on me” button. Those clicks cost Facebook $10b in just the following year. You love to see it.

But Apple is a gamekeeper-turned-poacher. Even as it was blocking Facebook’s surveillance, it was conducting its own, nearly identical, horrifyingly intrusive surveillance of every Ios user, for the same purpose as Facebook (ad targeting) and lying about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Bennett and I couldn’t have asked for a better example of the point we make in “Privacy Without Monopoly”: the thing that stops companies from spying on you isn’t their moral character, it’s the threat of competition and/or regulation. If you can modify your device in ways that cost its manufacturer money (say, by installing an alternative app store), then the manufacturer has to earn your business every day.

That might actually make them better — and if it doesn’t, you can switch. The right way to make sure the stuff you install on your devices respects your privacy is by passing privacy laws — not by hoping that Tim Apple decides you deserve a private life.

Bennett and I followed up “Privacy Without Monopoly” with an appendix that focused on a territory where there is a privacy law: the EU, whose (patchily enforced) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the kind of privacy law that we call for in the original paper. In that appendix, we addressed the issues of GDPR enforcement:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy#gdpr

More importantly, we addressed the claim that the GDPR crushed competition, by making it harder for smaller (and even sleazier) ad-tech platforms to compete with Google and Facebook. It’s true, but that’s OK: we want competition to see who can respect technology users’ rights — not competition to see who can violate those rights most efficiently:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/gdpr-privacy-and-monopoly

Around the time Bennett and I published the EU appendix to our paper, I was contacted by the Indian Journal of Law and Technology to see whether I could write something on similar lines, focused on the situation in India. Well, it took two years, but we’ve finally published it: “Securing Privacy Without Monopoly In India: Juxtaposing Interoperability With Indian Data Protection”:

https://www.ijlt.in/post/securing-privacy-without-monopoly-in-india-juxtaposing-interoperability-with-indian-data-protection

The Indian case for interop incorporates the US and EU case, but with some fascinating wrinkles. First, there are the broad benefits of allowing technology adaptation by people who are often left out of the frame when tools and systems are designed. As the saying goes, “nothing about us without us” — the users of technology know more about their needs than any designer can hope to understand. That’s doubly true when designers are wealthy geeks in Silicon Valley and the users are poor people in the global south.

India, of course, has its own highly advanced domestic tech sector, who could be a source of extensive expertise in adapting technologies from US and other offshore tech giants for local needs. India also has a complex and highly contested privacy regime, which is in extreme flux between high court decisions, regulatory interventions, and legislation, both passed and pending.

Finally, there’s India’s long tradition of ingenious technological adaptations, locally called jugaad, roughly equivalent to the English “mend and make do.” While every culture has its own way of celebrating clever hacks, this kind of ingenuity is elevated to an art form in the global south: think of jua kali (Swahili), gambiarra (Brazilian Portuguese) and bricolage (France and its former colonies).

It took a long time to get this out, but I’m really happy with it, and I’m extremely grateful to my brilliant and hardworking research assistants from National Law School of India University: Dhruv Jain, Kshitij Goyal and Sarthak Wadhwa.

I don’t claim that any of the incarnations of the “Privacy Without Monopoly” paper rise to the clarity of the works of Green or Whittaker, but that’s okay, because I have another arrow in my quiver: fiction. For more than 20 years, I’ve written science fiction that tries to make legible and urgent the often dry and abstract concepts I address in my nonfiction.

One issue I’ve been grappling with for literally decades is the implications of “trusted computing,” a security model that uses a second, secure computer, embedded in your device, to observe and report on what your main computer is doing. There are lots of implications for this, both horrifying and amazing.

For example, having a second computer inside your device that watches it is a theoretically unbeatable way of catching malicious software, resolving the conundrum of malware: if you think your computer is infected and can’t be trusted, then how can you trust the antivirus software running on that computer.

Back in 2016, Andrew “bunnie” Huang and Edward Snowden released the “Introspection Engine,” a separate computer that you could install in an Iphone, which would tell you whether it was infected with spyware:

https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/2

But while there are some really interesting positive applications for this kind of software, the negative ones — unbeatable DRM and tamper-proof bossware — are genuinely horrifying. My novella “Unauthorized Bread” digs into this, putting blood and sinew into an otherwise dry abstract and skeletal argument:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Then there are applications that are somewhere in between, like “remote attestation” (when the secure computer signs a computer-readable description of what your computer is doing so that you can prove things about your computer and its operation to people who don’t trust you, but do trust that secure computer).

Remote attestation is the McGuffin of Red Team Blues, my latest novel, a crime-thriller about a cryptocurrency heist. The novel opens with the keys to a secure enclave — the gadget that signs the attestations in remote attestation — going missing.

When Matt Green reviewed Red Team Blues (his first book review!), he singled this out as a technically rigorous and significant plot point, because secure enclaves are designed so that they can’t be updated (if you can update an enclave, then you can update it with malicious software):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/04/24/book-review-red-team-blues/

This means that bugs in secure enclaves can last forever. Worse, if the keys for a secure enclave ever leak, then there’s no way to update all the secure enclaves out there in the world — millions or billions of them — to fix it.

Well, it’s happened.

The keys for the secure enclaves in Micro-Star International (AKA MSI) computers, a massive manufacturer of work and gaming PCs — have leaked and shown up on the “extortion portal” of a notorious crime gang:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/leak-of-msi-uefi-signing-keys-stokes-concerns-of-doomsday-supply-chain-attack/

As a security expert quoted by Ars Technica explains, this is a “doomsday scenario.” That’s more or less how it plays in my novel. The big difference between the MSI leak and the hack in my book is that the MSI keys were just sitting on a server, connected to the internet, which wasn’t well-secured.

In Red Team Blues, I went to enormous lengths to imagine a fiendishly complex, incredibly secure scheme for hosting these keys, and then dreamt up a way that the bad guys could defeat it. I toyed with the idea of having the keys leak due to rank incompetence, but I decided that would be an “idiot plot” (“a plot that only works if the characters are idiots”). Turns out, idiot plots may make for bad fiction, but they’re happening around us all the time.

In my real life, I cross a lot of disciplinary boundaries — law, politics, economics, human rights, security, technology. I’m not the world’s leading expert in any of these domains, but I am well-enough informed about each that I’m able to find interesting ways that they fit together in a manner that is relatively rare, and is also (I think) useful.

I admit to sometimes feeling insecure about this — being “one inch deep and ten miles wide” has its virtues, but there’s no avoiding that, say, I know less about the law than a real lawyer, and less about computer science than a real computer scientist.

That insecurity is partly why I’m so honored when I get to talk to experts across multiple disciplines. 2023 was a very good year for this, thanks to University College London. Back in Feb, I was invited to speak as part of UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law’s annual series on technology law:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/2023/feb/recording-chokepoint-capitalism-can-it-be-defeated

And next month, I’m giving UCL Computer Science’s annual Peter Kirstein lecture:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirstein-lecture-2023-featuring-cory-doctorow-registration-539205788027

Getting to speak to both the law school and the computer science school within a space of months is hugely gratifying, a real vindication of my theory that the virtues of my breadth make up for the shortcomings in my depth.

I’m getting a similar thrill from the domain experts who’ve been reviewing Red Team Blues. This week, Maria Farrell posted her Crooked Timber review, “When crypto meant cryptography”:

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/11/when-crypto-meant-cryptography/

Farrell is a brilliant technology critic. Her work on “prodigal tech bros” is essential:

https://conversationalist.org/2020/03/05/the-prodigal-techbro/

So her review means a lot to me in general, but I was overwhelmed to read her describe how Red Team Blues taught her to “read again for joy” after long covid “completely scrambled [her] brain.”

That meant a lot personally, but her review is even more gratifying when it gets into craft questions, like when she praises the descriptions as “so interesting and sociologically textured.” I love her description of the book as “Dickensian”: “it shoots up and down the snakes and ladders of San Francisco’s gamified dystopia of income inequality, one moment whizzing up the ear-poppingly fast elevator to a billionaire’s hardened fortress, the next sleeping under a bridge in a homeless encampment.”

And then, this kicker: “it’s a gorgeous rejection of the idea that long-form fiction is about individual subjectivity and the interior life. It’s about people as pinballs. They don’t just reveal things about the other objects they hit; their constant action and reaction reveals the walls that hold them all in.”

Likewise, I was thrilled with Peter Watts’s review on his “No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons” blog::

https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10578%22%3Ehttps://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10578

Peter is a brilliant sf writer and worldbuilder, an accomplished scientist, and one of the world’s most accomplished ranters. He’s had more amazing ideas than I’ve had hot breakfasts:

https://locusmag.com/2018/05/cory-doctorow-the-engagement-maximization-presidency/

His review says some very nice and flattering things about me and my previous work, which is always great to read, especially for anyone with a chronic case of impostor syndrome. But what really mattered was the way he framed how I write villains: “The villains of Cory’s books aren’t really people; they’re systems. They wear punchable Human faces but those tend to be avatars, mere sock-puppets operated by the institutions that comprise the real baddies.”

One could read that as a critique, but coming from Peter, it’s praise — and it’s praise that gets to the heart of my worldview, which is that our biggest problems are systemic, not individual. The problem of corporate greed isn’t just that CEOs are monsters who don’t care who they hurt — it’s that our system is designed to let them get away with it. Worse, system design is such that the CEOs who aren’t monsters are generally clobbered by the ones who are.

So much of our outlook is grounded in the moral failings or virtues of individuals. Tim Apple will keep our data safe, so we should each individually decide to reward him by buying his phones. If Tim Apple betrays us, we should “vote with our wallets” by buying something else. If you care about the climate, you should just stop driving. If there’s no public transit, well, then maybe you should, uh, dig a subway?

[Image ID: Matt Bors’s classic Mr Gotcha panel, in which a medieval peasant says ‘We should improve society somewhat,’ and Mr Gotcha replies, ‘Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very smart.’]

This is the mindset Matt Bors skewers so expertly with his iconic Mr Gotcha character: “Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very smart”:

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

(Which reminds me, I am halfway through Bors’s unbelievably, fantastically, screamingly awesome graphic novel “Justice Warriors,” which turns the neoliberal caveat-emptor/personal-responsibility brain-worm into the basis for possibly the greatest superhero comic of all time:)

https://www.mattbors.com/books

Watts finishes his review with:

I’ve never fully come to terms with the general decency of Cory’s characters. Doctorow the activist lives in the trenches, fighting those who make their billions trading the details of our private lives, telling us that they own what we’ve bought, surveilling us for the greater good and even greater profits. He’s spent more time facing off against the world’s powerful assholes than I ever will. He knows how ruthless they are. He knows, first-hand, how much of the world is clenched in their fists. By rights, his stories should make mine look like Broadway musicals.

And yet, Doctorow the Author is — hopeful. The little guys win against overwhelming odds. Dystopias are held at bay. Even the bad guys, in defeat, are less likely to scorch the earth than simply resign with a show of grudging respect for a worthy opponent.

I often get asked by readers — especially readers of Pluralistic, which is heavy on awful scandals and corruption — how I keep going. Watts has the answer:

Maybe it’s a fundamental difference in outlook. I’ve always regarded humans as self-glorified mammals, fighting endless and ineffective rearguard against their own brain stems; Cory seems to see us as more influenced by the angels of our better natures. Or maybe — maybe it’s not just his plots that are meant to be instructional. Maybe he’s deliberately showing us how we could behave as a species, in the same way he shows us how to fuck with DRM or foil face-recognition tech. Maybe it’s not that he subscribes to some Pollyanna vision of what we are; maybe he’s showing us what we could be.

Got it in one, Peter.

And…

It’s also about what happens if we don’t get better.

Writing on his “Economics From the Top Down” blog, Blair Fix — a heterodox economist and sharp critic of oligarchy — publishes a Red Team Blues review that nails the “or else” in my books, and does it with graphs:

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/

Fix surfaces the latent point in my work that inequality is destabilizing — that spectacular violence is downstream of making a society that has nothing to offer for the majority of us. As Marty Hench, the 67 year old forensic accountant protagonist of Red Team Blues says,

Finance crime is a necessary component of violent crime. Even the most devoted sadist needs a business model, or he will have to get a real job.

[Image ID: A chart labeled, ‘With more plutocracy comes more murder. As countries become more unequal (horizontal axis), their murder rates go up (vertical axis).’]

Fix agrees, and shows us that murders go up with inequality.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/#sources-and-methods

Which is why, while the average private eye is a kind of “cop who gets to bend the rules of policing”; Hench is “a kind of uber IRS agent who gets to work in ‘sneaky ways that aren’t available to the taxman.’”

[Image ID: A chart labeled, ‘Was the US prison state the inspiration for cyberpunk? The term ‘cyberpunk’ (which describes a genre of dystopian science fiction) became popular in tandem with mass incarceration in the US. It’s probably not a coincidence.’]

This observation segues into a fascinating, data-informed look at the way that science fiction reflects our fears and aspirations about wider social phenomenon — for example, the popularity of the word “cyberpunk” closely tracks rising incarceration rates.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/#sources-and-methods

(It’s not a coincidence that the next Marty Hench book, “The Bezzle,” is about prisons and prison-tech; it’s out in Feb 2024:)

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

I’m out on tour with Red Team Blues right now, with upcoming stops in the DC area, Toronto, the UK, and then Berlin:

https://craphound.com/novels/redteamblues/2023/04/26/the-red-team-blues-tour-burbank-sf-pdx-berkeley-yvr-edmonton-gaithersburg-dc-toronto-hay-oxford-nottingham-manchester-london-edinburgh-london-berlin/

I’ve just added another Berlin stop, on June 8, at Otherland, Berlin’s amazing sf/f bookstore:

https://twitter.com/otherlandberlin/status/1657082021011701761

I hope you’ll come along! I’ve been meeting a lot of people on this tour who confess that while they’ve read my blogs and essays for years, they’ve never picked up one of my books. If you’re one of those readers, let me assure you, it is not too late!

As you’ve read above, my fiction is very much a continuation of my nonfiction by other means — but it’s also the place where I bring my hope as well as my dismay and anger. I’m told it makes for a very good combination.

If you’re still wavering, maybe this will sway you: the blogging and essays are either free or very low-paid, and they’re heavily subsidized by my fiction. If you enjoy my nonfiction, buying my novels is the best way to say thank you and to ensure a continuing supply of both.

But novels are by no means a dreary duty — fiction is a delight, and after a couple decades at it, I’ve come to grudgingly concede — impostor syndrome notwithstanding — that I’m pretty good at it.

I hope you’ll agree.

Image: Robert Miller (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/12463666@N03/52721565937

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A kitchen junk-drawer, full of junk.]

[satoshi-mochida]

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival coming to PS5, Xbox Series, and PC on November 7 - Gematsu

Bandai Namco will release Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam and Microsoft Store on November 7, the company announced. A demo is available now for PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam.

The game will be priced at $49.99 / £39.99 / €49.99 for the standard edition, which includes the downloadable content “Namco Game Music Pack,” and $79.99 / £65.99 / €79.99 for the Setlist Edition, which includes the downloadable contents “Anime Songs Collection,” “Namco Game Music Pack,” “Pops Collection,” and “Vocaloid Songs Collection.” Digital pre-orders are available now.

In Japan, the PlayStation 5 version will also be available physically. It is currently unclear whether a physical release is planned for the west.

In Japan, accessory manufacturer HORI will release a dedicated controller for the game. It will be available in two SKUs—one compatible with PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC, and the other compatible with Xbox Series and PC.

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival first launched on September 22, 2022 in Japan and September 23 worldwide. The new release will mark the first Taiko no Tatsujin game to support 120 frames per second on consoles, and will include new collaboration music and mini-characters exclusive to the new platforms, as well as the “Run! Ninja Dojo” mode added to the Switch version via a post-launch update.

Here is an overview of the game, via its store pages:

About

Welcome to Omiko City, where everyone’s favorite Taiko elements come together in one place! Together with Don-chan, meet your new friend, Kumo-kyun and aim to become a Taiko Master! Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is a drum-based rhythm game featuring songs from genres such as Anime and VOCALOID, and also a variety of game modes! Have fun playing solo or online!

Taiko Mode

Drum along to the rhythm of your favorite songs and aim to play them from start to finish! Select from four difficulty modes. 76 songs across multiple genres such as Anime, VOCALOID, Game Music, and Pop are available in the game! Songs include “Gurenge,” “My Neighbor Totoro – Ending Theme Song,” “Charles,” “MEGALOVANIA,” “Into The Night,” “Feel Special,” and many more! Have fun playing casually with another player or compete for the highest score! You can also use Improvement Support to help you improve your drumming skills!

Three Types of Party Games for Two to Four Players are Available

Great Drum Toy War – Play along to songs and deploy toys to push back your opponent’s toys and aim for victory!

Don-chan Band – Work as a group of four to perform successful concerts!

Run! Ninja Dojo – Become a ninja and race with up to four other players! Overcome multiple obstacles as you compete for 1st place!

Online Matches

Online Ranked Match – Challenge players from all over the world and aim for the top ranks!

Room Match – Play casually with friends and players from around the world in Taiko Mode and Great Drum Toy War!

Have fun playing Taiko solo, or together with friends!

Taiko Music Pass

Online Ranked Match – Challenge players from all over the world and aim for the top ranks!

Room Match – Play casually with friends and players from around the world in Taiko Mode and Great Drum Toy War!

Watch the announcement trailer below.

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC Announce Trailer

English

[Twitter Link]

Japanese

[tanlakarix]

Make 10X sales this festive season with WhatsApp marketing.

Let the festive game begin!

Excitement is in the air, and the holiday clock is ticking. It's that wonderful time of year when everyone is focused on finding the greatest prices on jewels, electronics, or clothing. Were you aware? An astounding Rs 1.75 lakh crore was sold online during the last Diwali. And with online buying on the rise, even greater numbers are expected this year.

The catch, though, is that although customers are prepared to pay with their wallets, there is fierce rivalry among companies in the industry. How then can one shine in this crowded sky? WhatsApp is the solution.

Explore this tutorial to learn how to become an expert at WhatsApp marketing throughout this holiday season. Let's increase the sales!

Why WhatsApp marketing?

Most likely, WhatsApp is the first app that comes to mind when you think of texting. And for good cause, too!

Massive User Base: WhatsApp is a worldwide phenomenon, not simply another program. With 2.7 billion users having it on their phones, it's an excellent platform for connecting with new clients.

Direct Communication and a Personal Touch: WhatsApp chats have a more intimate sense than generic emails or advertisements. It's similar to having an open discussion to establish understanding and trust with your customer.

Outstanding Open Rates: Here's a fascinating fact: the open rate for WhatsApp messages is an astounding 98%! You can see why it is different from other platforms by comparing it to that. Furthermore, the engagement goes deeper than surface level, with click rates ranging from 45 to 60%. 

Everyone's There: Look around; you'll see that everyone uses WhatsApp, from your neighbourhood grocer to your grandmother. Why not meet your customers where they are already—on the platform?

Essentially, WhatsApp isn't simply another advertising platform—it could be the most effective one available. So get ready and join me as we explore the world of WhatsApp marketing during this joyous season! 

Why do you need a festive WhatsApp marketing strategy?

You might think about using offline marketing or more conventional channels like SMS, emails, or even direct mail right away. But let's be honest:

Email Marketing? Not as effective anymore.

Google Ads? Costly and tracking their effectiveness can be a nightmare.

SMS Marketing? It had its time, but now it’s outdated.

Offline Methods? Limited scalability and often too slow.

Imagine the hustle of the holiday season: The market is flooded with new product launches, special collections, and mouthwatering offers. Businesses compete fiercely for the attention of consumers. Conventional venues like emails and social media frequently get dull amid all this noise. Guess what, nevertheless, is still shining brightly? Messenger.

Here's an insight: WhatsApp Business has been utilized by over 1.5 crore Indian enterprises as a means of audience engagement. And the outcome? With a whopping 2.5 lakh crore in revenue and a 23% YoY rise in revenues in 2022, WhatsApp is a major player in the marketing space. 

Here are some striking statistics to emphasize the point even more:

a constant 98% of messages are opened.

a typical click-through rate that soars to 45% or beyond.

In less than two minutes, most messages are read rather than just opened.

When it comes to response rates, WhatsApp outperforms other channels by 37%.

But these astounding outcomes wouldn't be possible without a carefully considered plan.

There are benefits to using WhatsApp to its fullest extent beyond enhancing relationships and generating more income. The benefits of an efficient WhatsApp marketing strategy include the following: 

Cost-effective: WhatsApp provides an excellent return on investment (ROI) at a significantly lower cost as compared to the rising Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) on platforms such as social media.

Quick and Effective Customer Care: You may offer 24/7 customer care by combining chatbots and human interactions with technologies like Karix.

Increased Conversion Rates: Customised messages and timely offers on WhatsApp can increase your conversion rate by seven times, and for some firms, sales can increase by a whopping ten times.

To put it simply, we have the ideal WhatsApp marketing plan ready for you if you want to take advantage of the unmatched power of conversational commerce this Christmas season. Jump in!

Get Started with WhatsApp Marketing For The Festive Season

Understand the Persona of Festive Audience

Delve into India's diverse festive landscape, and tailor messages to resonate with regional traditions.

Use WhatsApp's advanced segmentation based on region and language.

Key Takeaways: Embrace data analytics, consider regional preferences, and incorporate localized offers.

The Art of Crafting Festive Messages

Beyond generic greetings, capture the essence of each festival.

Evoke festival spirits by incorporating regional languages.

Key Takeaways: Make emotional connections culturally specific and utilize WhatsApp's quick replies.

Engage Through Interactive Features

Foster two-way communication with WhatsApp's List Messages and Quick Reply Buttons.

Craft experiences that echo the festive spirit, like sharing Navratri playlists.

Key Takeaways: Offer engaging content and ensure interactions reflect the festival's heart.

The Vibrancy of Media in Festive Campaigns

Enhance messages with striking visuals relevant to each festival.

Test media across different devices for consistent presentation.

Key Takeaways: Use vibrant visuals, test for device compatibility, and diversify content types.

Preparing for the Festive Onslaught: Platform Readiness

Ready your platform to manage the festive surge.

Anticipate customer interactions and prepare your team.

Key Takeaways: Plan campaigns in advance and use platform features for effective customer interaction.

Navigating Potential Pitfalls

Be mindful of WhatsApp's rate limits and avoid spamming.

Monitor your phone number's quality score to ensure message deliverability.

Key Takeaways: Adhere to platform limitations, monitor quality scores, and craft balanced messages.

Use Cases: Indian Brands and WhatsApp Synergy

Leverage advanced features to craft a unique festive shopping experience.

Engage users with content beyond sales, such as festive recipes or stories.

Key Takeaways: Ensure timely messages, provide value beyond sales, and showcase real-life experiences.

By prepping up with these prerequisites, businesses can create impactful WhatsApp campaigns, optimizing their reach and engagement during India's vibrant festive season.

For More Info: https://www.karix.com/products/whatsapp-business-api/

[nightkitchentarot]

Library of Congress Music Archives

From author Patti Digh...

... just some of the downloadable music collections and recorded sound at the Library of Congress (LC, LoC).

"The Library of Congress holds the nation's largest public collection of sound recordings (music and spoken word) and radio broadcasts, some 3 million recordings. Recordings represent over 110 years of sound recording history in nearly every sound recording format and cover a wide range of subjects and genres in considerable depth and breadth."--from LoC.gov  

MUSIC

Perhaps one of the finest features on the LC site is the National Jukebox. (10,000+ recordings) where you can find info about the collection and the recordings themselves.

"The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center and other contributing libraries and archives. Recordings in the Jukebox were issued on record labels now owned by Sony Music Entertainment, which has granted the Library of Congress a gratis license to stream acoustical recordings. At launch, the Jukebox included more than 10,000 Victor Talking Machine Company recordings between 1901 and 1925. Jukebox content will be increased regularly, with additional Victor recordings and acoustically recorded titles made by other Sony-owned U.S. labels, including Columbia, OKeh, and others."--from the “about this collection” section.

Now What a Time: Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938 to 1943

"...primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941, and by Lewis Jones and Willis Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943. Also included are recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama (including six Sacred Harp songs) by John Work between September 1938 and 1941." –from the info section.

Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip

https://www.loc.gov/collections/john-and-ruby-lomax/about-this-collection/  (info)

https://www.loc.gov/collections/john-and-ruby-lomax/ (recordings).  

"This recording trip is an ethnographic field collection that includes nearly 700 sound recordings, fieldnotes, dust jackets, and other manuscripts documenting a three-month, 6,502-mile trip through the southern United States. Beginning in Port Aransas, Texas, on March 31, 1939, and ending at the Library of Congress on June 14, 1939, John Avery Lomax, Honorary Consultant and Curator of the Archive of American Folk Song (now the American Folklife Center archive), and his wife, Ruby Terrill Lomax, recorded approximately 25 hours of folk music from more than 300 performers. These recordings represent a broad spectrum of traditional musical styles, including ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs."--from the info section.

Alan Lomax Collection of Michigan and Wisconsin Recordings  (444 items)

https://www.loc.gov/collections/alan-lomax-in-michigan/about-this-collection/ (info)

https://www.loc.gov/collections/alan-lomax-in-michigan/ (recordings)

"In 1938, the Library of Congress dispatched the pioneering folklorist and song collector Alan Lomax—already a seasoned field worker at age 23—to conduct a folk song survey of the Great Lakes region. He traveled in a 1935 Plymouth sedan, toting a Presto disc recorder and a movie camera. When he returned nearly three months later, having driven thousands of miles on barely paved roads, it was with a cache of 250 instantaneous discs and eight film reels documenting the incredible range of ethnic diversity and expressive traditions primarily in Michigan.”

African-American Band Music & Recordings, 1883 to 1923 https://www.loc.gov/collections/african-american-band-music/about-this-collection/  (info)

https://www.loc.gov/collections/african-american-band-music/  (recordings)

“The core of this presentation consists of "stock" arrangements for bands or small orchestras of popular songs written by African Americans. In addition, we offer a smaller selection of historic sound recordings illustrating these songs and many others by the same composers (the arrangements might not necessarily be the same as those on the stocks). Educational materials include short biographies of composers and performers of the time and historical essays.”--from the info section.

The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America

https://www.loc.gov/collections/songs-of-america/about-this-collection/ (info)

https://www.loc.gov/collections/songs-of-america/?fa=original-format:sound+recording (recordings)

See and Hear American History Through Song "Know the songs of a country and you will know its history for the true feeling of a people speaks through what they sing."

Collection Items: View 50,082 Items

Emile Berliner collection, 500+ items, 1870s-1930 https://www.loc.gov/collections/emile-berliner/  (recordings)

“This collection showcases the work of Emile Berliner, a prominent inventor at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Overlooked by today's historians, Berliner's creative genius rivaled that of his better-known contemporaries Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, and, like the works of these two inventors, Berliner's innovations helped shape the modern American way of life.”--from the introduction to this section.

Amazing Grace

https://www.loc.gov/collections/amazing-grace/about-this-collection/ (info)

https://www.loc.gov/collections/amazing-grace/ (recordings)

"This collection highlights the history of the hymn “Amazing Grace” from the earliest printing of the song to selected performances on published and field recordings. These items have been collected..."--from the info section.

The Center for Applied Linguistics Collection

https://www.loc.gov/collections/american-english-dialect-recordings-from-the-center-for-applied-linguistics/about-this-collection/  (info)

https://www.loc.gov/collections/american-english-dialect-recordings-from-the-center-for-applied-linguistics/ (recordings)

"The Center for Applied Linguistics Collection contains 118 hours of recordings documenting North American English dialects. The recordings include speech samples, linguistic interviews, oral histories, conversations, and excerpts from public speeches. They were drawn from various archives and the private collections of fifty collectors, including linguists, dialectologists, and folklorists. They were submitted to the Center for Applied Linguistics as part of a project entitled "A Survey and Collection of American English Dialect Recordings," funded by the Center for Applied Linguistics and the National Endowment for the Humanities.”--from the info section...