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grupaok · 4 years ago

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EXHIBITION OF FORCE

In 2016 Arden Sherman and Julian Myers-Szupinska published “Exhibition of Force,” a review of the reopened SFMOMA, on the blog of The Exhibitionist, a journal about exhibition making, which was taken offline in 2017. We are retrieving that review here, as it speaks to the longer history of the current crisis at that museum.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has been closed for major renovations for the last three years. Designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta, the new building, a hybrid of the 1995 building designed by Mario Botta and the white wavy tower designed by the Scandinavian architects, opens to the public this weekend.

The impetus for this renovation can be credited, in large part, to the donations of Doris and Donald Fisher, the progenitors of Gap Inc. The fortune accumulated from their clothing empire allowed the couple to become philanthropists, art collectors, and SFMOMA board members. After a long-bruited (but eventually abandoned) plan for the Fishers to build their own museum in San Francisco’s Presidio, the family negotiated a hundred-year “loan” of their vaunted collection to the museum, as well as a massive donation to a capital campaign that would allow for a $305 million building expansion to accommodate it. The museum subsequently raised a comparable amount to bolster its endowment and operating costs. The revamped institution held a sequence of opening events in April and May — press and member previews, a glitzy gala — that culminates with its May 14, 2016, reopening to the general public.

Bay Area institutions keyed a number of events to SFMOMA’s reopening to take advantage of increased visibility and visitors, among them the Parking Lot Art Fair at Fort Mason, various gallery openings and performances, and the Open Engagement conference at the Oakland Museum of California. That last, an annual conference of socially engaged artists and activists, took “power” as its theme. This was partly an homage to the history of organizers and radicals in the Bay Area (e.g., Black Power) but perhaps also a pointed riposte to the current tech boom in San Francisco (i.e., “money power”), which has occasioned skyrocketing rents and a massive reorganization of the city’s social ecology over the last several years.

The lens of “power” is a useful way to think about the new SFMOMA’s elaborate and overwhelming opening gambit. Take, for example, the architecture. When Mario Botta designed SFMOMA’s downtown San Francisco building in 1995, he took seriously the task of making a space where people were not intimidated and where art would be the star — even if the stately black marble of the Botta atrium and staircase was ultimately a peculiar way to enter (the new museum keeps the Botta marble but replaces his staircase with a lighter zigzag). The Snøhetta addition, too, focuses on the art, but does so at a massively enlarged scale: the new SFMOMA is two and a half times its former size and has more square footage than the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a city ten times the size of San Francisco. The result is something like a sprawling, seven-story, two-building mega-mansion: a huge feat, but one that feels endless rather than bountiful.

This building squares with the city’s new ambitions for itself. The two buildings hitched together, the somber Botta and the sleek Snøhetta, signal a sort of timetable of the city’s own history, and track an extreme influx of money in recent years. Such an architectural “twofer” confesses San Francisco’s specific brand of preservationism while also trumpeting its will to international and institutional power — and precisely in a neighborhood historically referred to as “skid row.”

The contents of this building, the expanded collection, signal a different sort of power. Museum collections are of course vital ways for regular viewers to see historically important works of art, and better that they are available to the public than squirreled away in collectors’ homes. And of course a museum’s holdings become a fundament of the institution’s identity. But this issue is complicated in the new SFMOMA by the branding of the works to particular donors — especially the two floors allotted for the Fishers’ collection and the one for Peter and Mimi Haas. Interestingly, the Haas works represent another fortune derived from jeans: Peter Haas was president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. from 1976 until his death in 2005. This means that pretty much anyone with a pair of pants in their closet has something like an investor’s share in the museum’s collections.

These galleries retain the blue-chip outlines of their moneyed collectors. For the Fishers, this means postwar American and German abstraction, almost universally by white men, barring a single room of paintings by Agnes Martin. And for the Haases, it means rambunctious pop by a somewhat more diverse cohort of artists — a collection that feels rather more familiar for an “international museum.” And like the architecture, these collections too exhibit a certain divided personality: given pride of place in the new galleries, they nevertheless reproduce the tastes and purchasing strategies of their CEO collectors, whose predilections may not always align with the museum’s own “objective” priorities — though at SFMOMA the two priorities have now become hard to disentangle.

This is especially true with the Fisher collection. If their unambitious love of Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol is vindicated by the history of art, it is vitiated by redundancies among big sign-value works throughout the museum, both within each floor and among the various “exhibitions” in which these artists make repeat appearances. The works become hard to distinguish from one another; each one signals the same sign-value, of importance plus ownership. Making one’s way through the museum one is constantly struck with déjà vu. In which room, or floor, did I see the blue Kelly painting? Did I already see that Warhol? What should we gather from these recurrences? That is, except for the co-presence of all these treasures.

The works from SFMOMA’s permanent collection, many installed in the same spot as before the renovation, are varied in comparison, and feel distinct from the Fisher trove, not least because they have a greater number of works by artists of color, and by women. The galleries devoted to photography are excellent, too, and include works by younger and more experimental artists. And the works on view from the museum’s Campaign for Art initiative — assembled since 2009 by a wider range of donors, and including three thousand works to date — incorporate more pieces by living artists and artists from California, some of whom donated their own works to the collection.

Such works have a reason to be here. More so, at least, than those resulting from the Fishers’ proclivity for Germans, which, in a perplexing turn, gives SFMOMA particularly strong holdings in postwar German artists such as Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, and Anselm Kiefer. But why exactly do major stores of these artists belong in San Francisco, aside from the Fishers’ fascination with them? Kiefer in particular is poorly served by being so abstracted from the German history in which his Wagnerian dramatism has ambiguous force. In San Francisco, and presented without mediation as such, they read as merely apocalyptic decor. One can only wonder why corporate CEOs have an affinity for this stuff.

Two more aspects of power come to mind. One is that of audience: Just which public does this new museum address? With admission set at a steep $25 and tightly timed timeslots for gallery access, will this institution appeal to a local audience, or largely to tourists for whom this sticker shock won’t matter so much? Major expansions at other institutions have not reliably led to expanded audiences, local or touristic, and it is not sure what will happen in this case, either. SFMOMA’s free admission for those under eighteen is a salutary countermove. Even better is an ongoing collaboration between the education and curatorial departments under the rubric of Public Dialogue, which aims to build partnerships with community galleries and public libraries. Such programs promise to continue the vision of the museum’s founders, which hoped to make the museum a vital part of the cultural life of city residents. But this is a long game, and it is hard to tell just how much it will engage Bay Area audiences on a deep and meaningful level.

And this affirmation of “city residents” rests on an anxious precipice in today’s San Francisco, where citizenship and residency are increasingly attenuated. Perhaps, given the extreme dislocations that characterize the city today, with warehouse districts now serving as tent cities for homeless post-residents, the museum ought to hold a “displaced residents day?” One has to wonder what they, or we, should think about when looking at a work like Charles Ray’s Sleeping Woman (2012) — which, as the wall text helpfully explains, speaks to how homeless people are frequently ignored or invisible in society. Ray’s work calls to mind another “gap,” that between rich and poor, between those included in San Francisco’s current boom and those ejected from it. This disparity is hardly invisible in San Francisco these days, but rather is a harsh and inescapable part of daily life.

Furthermore, moments of strategic generosity as described above are balanced uneasily against the power of money in the museum as it stands (the value of the expanded collection has been estimated at a billion dollars). One must nevertheless mark a circular logic to this extraordinary concentration of value: the Fishers and others gave SFMOMA money to expand, while the very reason the museum needed to expand was to house the Fishers’ “loan.” And so SFMOMA is the channel through which this money coursed, while accumulating comparatively little capital, intellectual or otherwise, of its own, independent of its lenders. In some weird sense, therefore, the power of money in this case may be more marginal than it appears. Perhaps the best we can hope, then, is that this perpetual motion machine now locked onto the old museum might spin off more programs like Public Dialogue, and worthwhile exhibitions off the main, collector-driven concourse — and that there is still a local audience in San Francisco interested in seeing them.

Arden Sherman is Curator at Hunter East Harlem Gallery, a multi-disciplinary space for art exhibitions and socially-minded projects located in Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work in New York City. Julian Myers-Szupinska was senior editor of The Exhibitionist, and is a member of grupa o.k. Photo: Charles Ray, Sleeping Woman, 2012, installation view, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Photograph by Julian Myers-Szupinska.

#SFMOMA #julian myers-szupinska #arden sherman #fisher collection #museum #art #grupa o.k.#exhibition #art writing

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writeanapocalae · 5 years ago

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NaNo Last Updated 12/11/2012

Had a compulsion to post all of my writing so here’s something I don’t know. I do not remember the characters, plot or anything of this story. I wonder if I finished it.

Cedar and wood smoke, lager and meat, these are what taverns are supposed to smell like. If he paid close enough attention to the smell, he could also smell iron and blood and sweat and dirt. These were things he smelled in all places, but to lesser degrees. Taverns and drink seemed to draw those things out of people, make it easier to find and to smell.

He sat in the back, his hands behind his head, as he sat, legs outstretched before him, in a leather bound chair. It was faded in places, where his back and buttocks rubbed the color away, but it was comfortable. It was pretty much his chair, his sitting in it for so long and so often that it had molded its shape to his muscular frame.

As he sat, his hood pulled over his face even though this pace was already so dark and smoky it would be close to impossible to see his features, he watched. There were the regulars, laughing and joking as they drank at the long wooden tables, as opposed to the others which sat at the bar drinking until they could no longer remember their woes. There were those just passing through, which stayed together, quiet and a little bit afraid, keeping an eye on the regulars who looked more like hardened criminals than anything else.

There was only one newcomer at the bar and he was wearing a hood much like the watchers. He found this customer more enthralling than all of the others. His shoulders were hunched and he seemed to be cradling his pint to his chest, as if afraid someone may poison it. He kept jumping and turning, a young thief new to the job, maybe, thinking that the police would show up at any time. He knew that wasn’t it though. His hood was high quality and seemed new, pale furs wrapping him warmly. He was wearing his armor, even though he wasn’t in a dangerous area and it was too highly detailed, too attractive and well kept to be the armor of a common guard. It was tawny brown leathers, layered upon one another, shapes like wings cascading down the corseted back.

This was the dress of a noble, or one who had stolen from a noble, and thieves don’t show off their finds so readily.

“Who do you think he is?” asked Pip, turning to one of his friends. He was bald and ugly but his blue eyes twinkled with the mischievous nature of a young child.

“I dunno.” Boulder replied, taking a swig of his beer. He was twice his friend’s size, both in height and in girth, and smelled a bit like last week’s sandwich. “Just got here today, didn’t he? Prolly just a squire with a bit o’ money.”

“Nah, look at him! Squires don’t travel alone, they travel with knights! And they’re dressed like stable hands, not princes!” Niles glares at the other two. His ears were pointed slightly and there was a scar over one eye. He was always smiling and that made the man in his chair uncomfortable, “I’m gonna say he’s a merchant’s boy, out for a bit o’ rebellion.”

“We should, y’know, y’know?” Pip smiled, his teeth black and some of them missing.

“What?” Niles glared at him. It may have just been his face, but he always looked like he was glaring, “Nick it? You want us to steal from a merchant’s boy? You an idiot? The NHPF and the merchant’s guild would be down our throats. Nah, we leave him.”

The other two nodded at him but there was an evil little smile on Pip’s face that made the observer shiver. They were going to rob him, probably on his way home, probably slit his naïve little throat while they were at it. What they had said, well, that was just a cover up. If they were caught they’d have a bar full of witnesses saying that they said they wouldn’t do that. They’d have a small but useful little alibi. Especially if only one went out and took care of it and they did so quickly.

He stood then, his legs croaking with misuse and walked over to their table. His hood stayed down and he moved like a shadow, his leather barely squeaking, his footsteps barely thumping, and he was there, standing behind Niles. Boulder and Pip were staring up at him, their eyes filled with fear. They saw his mark, the one on his chest and it gave him power. To a human it was only so much metal, but here, in front of this troll and the two ugly little gremlins, it meant a lot. It meant never dying or again, it meant power they could never imagine, it meant strength and intelligence and a hunger; a deep, inhuman hunger that would never be sated. The silent watcher was always just a step away from making everyone I his path a meal.

When Niles realized that they were staring at something, not just being idiots like usual, he slowly turned around. His gash of a mouth was grinning around some insult that he was going to throw at whoever had tried to sneak up on him. When he saw who it was though, the look fell and his eyes rose. The color drained from his face, quickly replaced with fear. Even he didn’t want to mess with this.

“I’m glad to hear that.” He said, his voice quiet and booming at the same time, like a gale of wind. It was raspy and harsh, as if the stubble on his chin was also coating the inside of his throat, but it gave him power too. People were afraid of a voice like that. “I’d hate to hear if anything came of you for doing something to that young man. He can probably hear every word you say as well. You should steer clear. He isn’t a merchant’s boy.”

Niles stared at him, mouth dropped open and remaining eye wide. “I wasn’t gonna do anything, sir, swear it. Me and my boys? We’re good, won’t hurt no one.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.” It was true. He knew what Niles and his boys were, they were the dredges of society, pickpockets and burglars in a tiny town where there was nothing to steal. They resorted to those passing through, never getting above a petty crime even though they always spoke of it, “I’ve been watching you Niles Tromer. I‘ve been watching and I don’t like what I’ve seen. You enjoy tonight in my tavern, have a merry time, but I hope you are gone and out of here by the morning. You and your boys could make a much better living somewhere else.”

It may not have sounded like one, but it was a threat and it went right into Niles’ thick skull. He swallowed, hard, and his hands were shaking. The man took his beer from him and set it on the table so that it wouldn’t spill and Niles looked like he was about to either piss himself or scream. The rest of him started shaking as soon as the hooded figure was within half a foot of him.

He left them there to stare after him, the dark brown of his cloak obscuring him from their view. He could still feel their eyes on him and as he walked he could feel even more than that. Everyone at the bar, everyone with a mark was staring at him and inching slowly towards the door. Most of them were also regulars and had been there many times with him always in the back, but he hardly moved. He sat in the dark corner and watched them, learned them, knew all of their names and faces and species. None of them knew him and they all feared him. They hadn’t noticed him sitting and watching from the darkness.

The tourists were right with them, not knowing what he was but feeling the death and destruction in his wake, intimidated into hiding behind their friends and becoming silent.

Abel was the only one who didn’t stare, who didn’t act like he was about to dash out the door the moment he had a chance. He smiled around his handlebar mustache instead and welcomed him as he sat at the bar beside the young man in the fur hood.

#nano 2012 #my writing #old writing

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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Ghana Embraced Fast Food. Then Came KFC.

By Dionne Searcey and Matt Richtel, NY Times, Oct. 2, 2017

ACCRA, Ghana--After finishing high school a decade ago, Daniel Awaitey enrolled in computer courses, dropped out to work in a hotel, then settled into a well-paying job in the booming oil sector here.

He has an apartment, a car, a smartphone and a long-distance girlfriend he met on a dating website. So he had reasons and the means to celebrate his 27th birthday in late July. His boss and co-workers joined him for an evening of laughter and selfies, lingering over dinner at his favorite restaurant: KFC.

Mr. Awaitey first learned about the fried chicken chain on Facebook. The “finger lickin’ good” slogan caught his attention and it has lived up to expectations. “The food is just ----” he said, raising his fingertips to his mouth and smacking his lips. “When you taste it you feel good.”

Ghana, a coastal African country of more than 28 million still etched with pockets of extreme poverty, has enjoyed unprecedented national prosperity in the last decade, buoyed by offshore oil. Though the economy slowed abruptly not long ago, it is rebounding and the signs of new fortune are evident: millions moving to cities for jobs, shopping malls popping up and fast food roaring in to greet people hungry for a contemporary lifestyle.

Chief among the corporate players is KFC, and its parent company, YUM!, which have muscled northward from South Africa--where KFC has about 850 outlets and a powerful brand name--throughout sub-Saharan Africa: to Angola, Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and beyond. The company brings the flavors that have made it popular in the West, seasoned with an intangible: the symbolic association of fast food with rich nations.

But KFC’s expansion here comes as obesity and related health problems have been surging. Public health officials see fried chicken, french fries and pizza as spurring and intensifying a global obesity epidemic that has hit hard in Ghana--one of 73 countries where obesity has at least doubled since 1980. In that period, Ghana’s obesity rates have surged more than 650 percent, from less than 2 percent of the population to 13.6 percent, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent research center at the University of Washington.

The causes of obesity are widely acknowledged as complex--involving changing lifestyles, genetics, and, in particular, consumption of processed foods high in salt, sugar and fat.

KFC’s presence in Ghana so far is relatively modest but rapidly growing, and it underscores the way fast food can shape palates, habits and waistlines.

Research shows that people who eat more fast food are more likely to gain weight and become obese, and nutrition experts here express deep concern at the prospect of an increasingly heavy and diabetic population, without the medical resources to address a looming health crisis that some say could rival AIDS.

“You are what you eat,” said Charles Agyemang, a Ghanaian who is now an associate professor at the University of Amsterdam, where he studies obesity and chronic disease. KFC alone, he said, is only one factor in the country’s obesity epidemic, but it represents the embrace of western foods. In Ghana, he said, “eating local foods in some places is frowned upon. People see the European type as civilized.”

“This is having a major impact on obesity and heart disease.”

KFC executives see a major opportunity here to be part of people’s regular routines, a goal they are advancing through a creative marketing campaign and use of social media. When asked if it is unhealthy for people to eat fried chicken often, Kimberly Morgan, a KFC spokeswoman in Plano, Texas, said, “At KFC, we’re proud of our world famous, freshly in-store prepared fried chicken and believe it can be enjoyed as a part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.”

Company representatives said they take health seriously in the region, noting their sponsorship of a youth cricket league in South Africa. The company, they said, has worked to make their menu more diverse and healthier.

“That’s why we provide consumers choice,” said Andrew Havinga, who runs the supply chain for KFC’s Africa division. “We do believe in a healthy, balanced lifestyle.”

For now, though, KFC customers in Ghana have fewer healthy options than in Western countries. Grilled chicken, salads and sides like green beans and corn, standard at KFC in the United States, aren’t available here. Mr. Havinga said KFC hoped to offer Ghanaians more options eventually. “That’s part of our journey,” he said.

KFC emphasizes its focus on food sanitation and cleanliness. Ghanaian customers interviewed spoke appreciatively of the tidy containers used for takeout and the hairnets worn by workers.

“We wouldn’t go into a market unless we are comfortable that we can deliver the same food safety standards that we deliver around the world and people see that,” Greg Creed, the chief executive of YUM!, said in an interview last year on CNN. “They actually trust us that it’s so much safer to eat at a KFC in Ghana, than it is to eat obviously, you know, pretty much anywhere else.”

Some nutrition experts bristle at the implication.

“To say it’s the safest food is a bit like saying my hand grenade is the safest hand grenade,” said Mike Gibney, an emeritus professor of food and health at University College Dublin. “Ghanaians would be better off eating less KFC. But that is the way of the world I’m afraid.”

In Ghana, a place that suffered severe food shortages as recently as the early 1980s, attempts at curbing obesity have butted up against long held societal views: girth can be a welcome sight here. To many, weight gain is an acceptable side effect of a shift from hunger to joyful consumption.

“People march their sons and daughters to buy KFC and buy pizza and they like to show them what we can afford,” said Matilda Laar, who lectures about family and consumer sciences at the University of Ghana. KFC isn’t just food, she said. “It’s social status.”

From 2011 to 2016, fast food sales grew 21.5 percent in the United States, according to Euromonitor, a market-research firm, while they swelled 30 percent worldwide. The industry has had remarkable success in finding new mouths to feed, with 254 percent growth in Argentina, 83 percent in Vietnam, 64 percent in Egypt.

From around the globe come snapshots of fast-food’s spread. Carl’s Jr. opened Cambodia’s first drive-through fast-food restaurant in 2016, bringing Phnom Penh staples like the Western Bacon Cheeseburger; McDonald’s, with 600 Russian outlets, recently opened in Siberia and the Urals; India, which, according to Euromonitor, saw fast-food sales rise 113.6 between 2011 and 2016, now has more than 1,100 Domino’s Pizza outlets and is home to an experiment--a “Dessert Pizza,” topped with brownies, cookies, coconut nougat, cheesecake and fudge sauce.

While McDonald’s remains the emblem of fast food worldwide, YUM! is number two and grew 22.9 percent from 2011 to 2016, considerably faster than the burger giant’s 12.2 percent growth, according to Euromonitor. YUM!, which includes Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, has nearly 44,000 restaurants worldwide, about 17,000 of them in emerging markets as of 2016, the company said. KFC and its franchisees operate nearly 21,000 KFC restaurants in 129 countries and territories around the globe.

The health effects of fast food are challenging to study, particularly in the United States. One large-scale study, done in Singapore as it grew economically and attracted Western fast food chains, offers evidence that the arrival of McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut, among others, posed a serious health risk.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in 2012 in the journal Circulation, followed tens of thousands of Chinese Singaporeans, ages 45 to 74, from the mid-1990s to 2009. Those who ate Western fast food twice a week or more were 27 percent more likely to get type 2 diabetes, and 56 percent more likely to die from heart disease, than subjects who didn’t regularly eat such food. And the more times they ate fast food, the higher the risk of death from heart disease.

Studies like these can be challenging to interpret, nutrition experts said, because people who eat fast food can have poor dietary habits, but this study sought to isolate fast food by factoring out many other issues, like sleep, exercise and even consumption of local fried foods. It also caught Singapore as its economy matured and fast food came to town.

“It’s a parable, or microcosm, of what’s occurring in other parts of the globe,” said Andrew Odegaard, a co-author on the study.

In Ghana, data suggest the changing diet to heavier fare--including fast food but also processed foods--has led to soaring health risks.

The death rate associated with high body mass index more than doubled in Ghana from roughly 14 per 100,000 in 1990 to 40 per 100,000, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation--and is fast approaching the global average of 54 deaths per 100,000.

The data also suggest that the changing diet has led to health risks in Ghana that are getting worse at a rate faster than in the United States. From 1990 to 2015, deaths related to high body mass increased 179 percent in Ghana, compared to an increase of 20 percent in the United States.

Further complicating the situation in Ghana, medication for high blood pressure is expensive and patients often ration it to save money. National health insurance lags in its coverage of other diet-related diseases such as diabetes; it doesn’t cover devices to monitor blood sugar or some of the medicine to treat the side effects of diabetes.

The presidential palace is not far from the country’s most popular KFC, just a short trip after crossing Liberation Road. A part-time pastor, Joshua Edwards, stopped at the KFC to buy chicken for five boys living in an orphanage. “It’s just a wonderful taste for them,” he said.

The pastor’s round belly strained his shirt buttons and hung far over the red stool where he waited for his order. “My health is my life, so I have to be cautious about my life,” he said. “God needs my body to do things to his glory.”

Still, Mr. Edwards said he comes to KFC almost every day, beckoned by a giant red billboard outside the store with a huge photo of crispy fried chicken and shimmering golden fries.

“You become addicted to the spices,” he said. “That’s why everybody wants to have it.”

“They don’t force us to eat here,” he added, “But it’s as if we’ve become mentally enslaved. It tantalizes us by even saying it, pulling you to where you don’t want to be.”

#fast food #KFC #Ghana #obesity

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habsfans98 · 8 years ago

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habsfan98 2016-2017 Montreal Canadiens Regular 2016-2017 season Analysis and Opinions

Today marks the end 2016-2017 NHL regular season. On Wednesday nest week, the NHL post season begins with many surprise teams, and some constant regulars that look to make a deep run to the Stanley cup final this year.

This season has been nothing short of a mess of amazing performances by young individual players, that captivated the NHL and its fans. While on the flip side, we saw teams that we expect to be playing post season hockey, or at least meaningful hockey down the stretch; fail to reach those predications.

So, I want to talk about what I saw, read, and earn about this season.

The Subban/Weber trade paid off

We start in the off season. On a remarkable day in June. I had returned home from a trip to Jamaica, only to look at my phone once that airport wifi was fully connected and see that my favorite player, and the star defensemen for the Montreal Canadiens; PK Subban was trade to the Nashville Predators. In exchange the Canadiens received Shea Weber; their captain, top defensemen, and franchise player.

Suffice to say. Me and thousands of other Canadiens fans were outraged. Trading the exciting and offensively gifted Subban, for the stud and shut down veteran Weber was a bold and fan angering move.

It was clear that after the disaster that was the 2015-2016, changes need to be made in Montreal. The team fell apart when they lost Price for that season. While fans blamed the coaching of Micheal Therrien, and the lack of moves from Marc Bergevin left fan in habs nation frustrated and demanding for someone’s head.

So, a change did come. Just before PK Subbans eight year $72 million contract, no-trade clause was to start on free agency day. He was traded for Weber.

And so, the 2016-2017 began, with mixed emotions for the fans of both franchise. Now that the season is over, we can see that trade, was successful for both teams.

Weber is his first season with the habs, leads all defensemen on the team in goals, and points (17 G, 42 P). Out of that 12 of those goals were on the powerplay. Weber was more than just an efficient scorer. His shut down defensive play allow for a better coverage for forwards that helped out the habs number one goal Carey Price.

On the flip side PK Subban had a respectable first season in Smashville. Although he lost a good chuck of time this season with the Preds due to a lower back injury. Subban finished second in team scoring for defensemen (10 G, 40 P). His offensive talents were much apricated in Nashville, which seemed to pull it together after a rocky first half of the season.

Now both teams are in the post season. The Canadiens play the Rangers in the First round, while the Predators prepare to battle the Blackhawks. Each of these teams are about to test out, whether this trade will benefit for this year’s post-seasons.

Max Pacioretty Saved the season.

Max Pacioretty did not have a great start to this season.

In fact, it started even before, the NHL regular season began for Patches. During the NHL’s World Cup of Hockey. The American star forward was criticized for his ‘lackluster’ play, by then head coach John Tortoella.

After a bad outing this Team USA, seemed to follow the Captain of the habs into the regular season. The Canadiens had another historic start to the season; but the captain was not very involved. By the end, October, and early November Pacioretty only hand four goals to his name, and the denied annoyance of then head coach Michel Therrien.

That slump would soon come to an end. When Max Pacioretty went on a scoring spree. While Carey Price started to slump. And the team was losing it offensive punch. Patches took over, returning to his scoring touch.

It turns out that Pacioretty was playing with a foot injury during that early slump. Once the injury was healed, and the pain was eliminated. Patches was back to his scoring self, just in the nick of time.

Mac Pacioretty finished the season once again as the habs leading scorer, with 35 goals and 67 points this season.

Alexander Radulov proves the doubters wrong

I won’t lie. When I heard that Radulov wanted to make a NL returned. I didn’t think it would work out anywhere for him. He was seen as player with too much baggage; a history of immaturity left a bad taste in the mouth of NHL GM’s after his time in Nashville, ended with him being suspended from the team during the playoffs; then leaving the team to go play in the KHL.

So, when the Canadiens, who made a major trade for Weber, and not for any real offensive talent, signed Radulov for one year at $5.75 million dollars. My thoughts went to the other players that the habs sign for a year that never worked out, (Alexander Semin and Jiri Sekac).

Yet. With 18 goals, and 54 points this season; and a hard work ethic on the ice. Radulov proved me, the experts, and the fans wrong. He was a fully mature and capable offensive threat for the Canadeins that lacked the offensive punch.

Now will see what he capable of in the post season.

Au Revoir Micheal Therrien! Bonjour Claude Julien… Again.

When Micheal Therrien wasn’t fired last season after the historically bad season in Montreal. Which say a record breaking start to that season, end with the habs finishing out of the playoffs and sixth in the division.

It was collapse on epic proportions, one that was mainly blamed on the loss of MVP goalie Carey Price, and other numerous long term injuries that season. The fans choose to blame Therrien and Bergevin, for the team’s poor play. While Therrien choose to focus its attention and frustration one particular player, PK Subban for the team’s awful collapse as well. And while Therrien spent much of the season, saying that the relationship between him and PK was fine. The Subban/Weber trade proved that it wasn’t.

So, with the trade of a fan favorite player, that clearly, he saw was the next biggest flaw with the Canadiens other than loss of Price remedied with the acquisition of Weber. Therrien set out to prove that he could coach the team back to the top.

And he did.

The Canadiens has another great start to the season, With Price, Weber, and Radulov even, playing great under the coach’s systems. Yet, just like last season; the wheels started to fall off. The habs had a subpar January, and by February the team was in danger of collapsing once again. Even with Price the team was playing very poor hockey.

The straw that broke the camel’s back, was a game against the habs hated rivals the Boston Bruins. Which ended with a 0-4 Bruins shootout. Days later on Valentine’s day, Therrien was fired, and replaced by former Bruins bench boss Claude Julien.

And with the re-hiring of Julien the Habs would come back to life. Although the offense seemed still flawed. Julien’s defensive system, was much better improvement for the habs, allowing for Price to play once again to at a MPV level.

Many wonders had the Marc Bergevin relived Therrien last season, could it have been saved? Could Subban still be a Canadiens, and not a Predator? Sadly, we will never get answer to those questions.

But we as, habs fans can take solace in knowing that some with an experience in winning the Stanley cup; is behind the bench for this year’s playoffs.

My Three Stars for the season:

GP - Games Played

G – Goals

A - Assists

P - Total Points

☆ Max Pacioretty (GP 81, 35 G, 32 A, for 67 P) Finished as the habs top score once again with another 60+ point season. His consistence for the habs has shown that he is a capable Captain for the storied Montreal Canadiens. On a side note: Max Pacioretty has now had, five strait 30+ goals seasons (This is not counting lockout-shortned 2012-2013 season).

☆ ☆ Shea Weber (78 GP, 17 G, 25 A, 42 P) It would be a lie to say that Shea Weber has a very quiet, yet amazing year for the Canadiens. His first regular season with the habs saw his impressive shut-down defensive play prove pivotal to the habs winning the division this year. His 12 power play goals, also showed off his offensive skills with a booming slap shot.

☆ ☆ ☆ Paul Byron (81 GP, 22 G, 21 A, 43 P) At 5’9” and a little around 160 lb. Byron was picked up last season on waivers from the Flames. Then given a two-year contract extension by the habs. The small forward, played in a big way with his explosive skating, soft hands and great shot. Byron proved to be an invaluable piece to the habs this season, and we can only hope for more during the post season.

(All of this is based on my observations during the season, and information that I found through the internet. If you have your own opinions about the season, don’t be afraid to tell me about them. If you have other highlights that you felt were important this season, right about them if your reblog this post.)

#habsfan98 #long text #montreal canadiens #max pacioretty #Shea Weber #PK Subban #Michel Therrien #marc bergevin #paul byron #alexander radulov #carey price #Canadiens fans #NHL #claude julien

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culturecomp · 5 years ago

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Emulation Today?

My mind got to thinking about Dolphin emulation, the project that purports to allow GameCube and Wii software to run on your personal computer. I don’t recommend installing this or attempting to get HD-sizzle when it comes to Nintendo’s overall style and the composition of classics, even modern ones. I’ll sooner invest in a CRT TV or monitor.

It’s similar to that RPCS3 emulator. No, I don’t want to bother with it. No, I don’t think the Call of Duty emulation scene compares to the contemporary game on current hardware. You know, if you had to play Uncharted, 2, and 3 on your laptop while flying over the Atlantic ocean you could but... I mean, Sony and Naughty Dog just gave that collection of games away FOR FREE because we’re all sick. Stealing it after a license lands in your lap? Stealing it just before or after a promotional giveaway? It could make sense, but it doesn’t. Theft being a primary component of any emulation or rom-software discussion is the starter. Thou shalt not steal, right?

Can we measure that breaking a license agreement benefitted anybody or profited anybody, like if everybody en masse downloaded RPCS3 and one particular game or the same was said of Dolphin and the game stolen just happened to be a cult classic, so the whole thing is really veiled in vanity, literally consumers hoping to communicate with a corporation that they want more of some work or another?

gamesasartdebate.jpg

No, I mean it. When there were going to be a few “hardcore” RPGs available on Nintendo Wii towards the end of its relevance, but those games weren’t going to be ported for Western gamers, it was collective action that let creative people know there was demand. You could say publishers aren’t creative people like developers are, but quit your bull shit. Acceptable reasoning for support of intermittent ROM or emulation software use, it is not. The radio doesn’t play the Metallica song I want to hear, but it is still illegal to steal their albums. It just took 10 years too long for Apple Music or Spotify to become viable. Y2K still buggin’.

If you feel like you’re not getting through on Twitter, it wasn’t in my eyes that a massive emulation protest took place to legitimately bring Bayonetta and Vanquish to modern video gaming hardware. I bet Kamiya-san still noticed people talking about Vanquish though.

Once I was working a job and my main responsibility was simply to look out for the safety of everyone but also the retail store itself. So I’m watching and watching and then boom, I see this dude stealing a CD. Shit.

I love to go see live music performed, whether it’s a cover band in the park or a major-label-debut artist opening for an even more multi-million-dollar headliner, but it’s true I had stolen plenty of music off of the Internet. I basically quit doing that with this and other jobs growing up, though there was less a discount on media at this retail store. When they had me awkwardly sit with the perpetrator in an office despite the uniformed officers almost permanently parked just outside the location, I didn’t know what to say but “I’m just doing my job.”

Ten dollars an hour was pretty good over minimum wage better than a decade ago, you know? (Minimum wage could be better today.) I really didn’t have a choice but to do my job. What’s the guy gonna think if I stumble through denying I saw the act through my physicality? I’m at the door, I’m trying to look over him as he’s leaving the store with stolen goods? I’m trying to talk to a coworker? I’ve got a headset and a microphone, I’m more official than I want to be for the store, so I let the manager know there’s shoplifting going on. Was the perpetrator a mystery shopper? I don’t know. That retail job really beat me up. I continued school and graduated.

OK, so back to the subject of the Dolphin emulator. I frankly love the project and hope it succeeds in numerous and varied ways. If RPCS3 gets someone to make their own PlayStation game the way you hear nerds talk about how they always dreamed of making a Nintendo game, then good. I hope that emulation can act as a standing guard so that computing hardware can be such a canvas as the purple box that gave us Super Smash Bros. Melee or even broader graphical trends like cel-shaded modeling and animation. I’ve seen purple-lit personal computers before. Alright, that said there’s simply no way that it’s necessary if something like the composite-video-out cables that were proprietary so many years ago are super cheap to buy today. I got a brand new GameCube out of a GameStop years after that scenario with the shoplifter. It was only $20. I didn’t have composite cables for it, but I did purchase a set for the Wii during the height of all that. Things matter to consumers.

What... like 2007 or 2008 and then... 2012 or 2013. What is the actual cost of emulation? What’s the actual cost of secondhand video game sales? I’ve double dipped too often now. Buying the CD and the Vinyl release of a brand new album... can the members of Metallica promise me they do that on a regular basis? May I please inherit the music collections of members of Metallica, before they smash it all to bits hearing how it’s all going to some loser who leeched the self-titled and didn’t seed?

The dude took the compact disc out of the jewel case, put that in his coat, put the case and shrinkwrap back on the display rack, so you know you’re wondering if he and I are any different except that I could be such a rat. I don’t worry about it except for what I know I’m deserving of. This country fails to preserve youth and then derides that group for not acting old enough, being old enough, or agreeing to repeatedly outdated terms. We could never grow out of it! The discussion around online-piracy isn’t changing enough and it isn’t challenging anyone. For the record, there’s little I want to “steal off the Internet” that isn’t available on Apple Music, Apple TV, Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Crunchyroll, Spotify and I’ve never successfully “cracked” a game.

#emulation

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oltnews · 5 years ago

Link

If you haven't heard, the KBO (Korea Baseball Organization) is looking to start its four-game pre-season schedule until April 27 before launching its regular season a few days later and starting May 1. There are rumors ESPN is speaking with KBO leaders to secure overseas rights and there is hope that an agreement could be reached this week. I mean, take a look at this video below of a game in 2018. You can't imagine the level of excitement you could feel at home watching it live on your own screen. television? For those wondering how to watch KBO games outside of Korea. I won't know for sure until the games start on April 21 or KBO / ESPN magically announces a deal. Will post once we know more. https://t.co/Ns4dAyBdtd- Dan Kurtz (@MyKBO) April 15, 2020 Okay, KBO talent is far from what we usually watch on our TVs, but live sports are live sportsmen and that got me thinking. If ESPN covered the KBO, I should have found a team to support, right? I find it hard to watch a sports league without having a favorite to shoot every week. But how do you choose a team? Well, I went to South Korea once and spent most of my time on the east coast of Pohang. I felt it was natural to find a team from this general area and call them mine. The only problem is that there was no team from this geographic area, so I found myself without a team. How can I decide? Then it hit me. You know, sometimes the world is symmetrical and gives you the perfect answer. 10 teams in the KBO. 10 FBS conferences. It was perfectly logical. First, we need to look at the 2019 KBO rankings and see who finished from top to bottom. Next, we need to cross-check this list from the FBS RPI 2019 compliments of RealTimeRPI.com and Boom. While this was the premise of the original pairings, the history of these organizations paralleled the conferences in many ways. This process actually created the PERFECT NCAAF-KBO marriage. Without further ado, find out which team you should support for this next KBO season based on the conference of your favorite college football team. Buy a hat (if you can read Korean) and take a walk. It's time for the KBO! SEC - Doosan Bears Photo by ilgan Sports / Multi-Bits via Getty Images The Bears have finished first or second in the KBO since 2015, which is exactly the same for the SEC in the MFF during this same period. Congratulations to SEC fans, you and Megan Fox are now fans of the Doosan Bears! Big Ten and Notre Dame - SK Wyverns Photo credit should read TORU YAMANAKA / AFP via Getty Images The Ohio State won the first CFP championship in 2014, and it's only fitting that the Wyverns win the first Korean championship of this decade (and haven't won it since). I don't know what a Wyvern is, but it's okay because the B1G doesn't know what the number "ten" means and Notre Dame doesn't really understand "independent" either. Big 12 and Army - Kiwoom Heroes Photo by Han Myung-Gu / WireImage Okay, Kiwoom only became Kiwoom two years ago and they actually spent the majority of their history as Nexen Heroes and their number one fan was Michelle Rodriguez from Texas so it all makes sense here . Throw Army in the mix because, I mean, they are the heroes. "Ironically, the Big 12 made the CFP national championship match as often as the heroes did the Korean streak - zero times. American Athletic and BYU - LG Twins Photo by Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images Nicky Hilton also accompanies AAC and BYU perfectly, as everyone is constantly looking for attention. "Power Six" they shout (and I guess RPI support supports it) and, let's face it, Nicky is certainly not Paris as she did some commercial success to safeguard its reputation (no shadow Star Princess). The LG Twins have had recent success since 2013, making the playoffs more than every two years, which is an incredible turnaround after failing to find the playoffs in ten consecutive seasons (2003-2012). Pac-12 - NC Dinos Photo by Kaz Numata / WBCI / MLB via Getty Images The NC Dinos call the city of Changwon and nothing screams the "west coast" in Korea more than the city that hosts the world K-Pop festival every year. The Dinos have had some playoff success in their short nine-year history, but haven't won the big game (or the Korean series) yet, does that sound familiar to you? ACC, UMass and UConn - KT Wiz Behance The most recent KBO team, Wiz, joined the elite circuit of the Korean baseball league in 2015. It only seemed appropriate to add the last independent Huskies in the mix and, after further research, the Wiz has two former Red Sox players in his lineup (Raul Alacantara and William Cuevas); then enter UMass. The Wiz haven't made the playoffs yet, but had their best ever finish in 2019 and easily have the coolest logo that seems to mimic the Patriots or Texans. IDK. Mountain West - Kia Tigers Hyundai Motorgroup Course you have heard from Boise State and the Mountain West Conference, but is it really the team or the conference you think of when you talk about the "best" these days? The Kia's are a household name, but they're also not really upscale either. The Tigers have a history full of stories and successes, as they actually have the most Korean championships among all teams in KBO history with 11, but only two of them have come since 1998. And, uh , they currently have California and the West Coast Playing in MLB, Matt Williams is their current manager - the perfect match for the MWC. Sun Belt - Samsung Lions Photo credit must read STR / AFP via Getty Images Involuntary alliteration is fun, which is a heavenly match for #FunBelt. The Lions have won four consecutive Korean championships from 2011 to 2014, an unprecedented success compared to anything Sun Belt fans have seen (unless, of course, you are App State which is halfway through. this moment). The Lions have been struggling lately, having failed to advance to the playoffs in each of the past four years, but are expected to recover. USA and Liberty Conference - Hanwha Eagles Photo by ilgan Sports / Multi-Bits via Getty Images What goes better together than the songs of "USA", the calls to "Liberty" and an American Eagle? Not much. The Eagles have only played in the playoffs once in the past 12 years, so CUSA fans should be ready, willing and able to accept this role as a loser. They have a Korean series championship (1999) which is one more national team championship than CUSA has produced in any sport ... ever. But, hey, Baekhyun from Korean boy-bad EXO is their number one fan and it should be fun. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwd8N6K-sLk[/embed] MAC and State of New Mexico - Lotte Giants Photo by JTBC PLUS / Imazins via Getty Images The Giants have been struggling lately, only qualifying for the playoffs once in the past seven years and it has been a quick exit to the NC Dinos. The Giants are one of the original KBO teams when it was founded in 1982 and the MAC has a history dating back to 1946. However, history does not mean success, as the Giants have only had two championships since its inception - the worst for all teams with this longevity. At least you can celebrate with Kang Daniel (seen above) from the Wanna One boys' group (seen below). [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVaV7AwqBWg[/embed] These are college football fans. Your KBO baseball guide. Now let's hope ESPN gets a contract so that we can all start our conference chants! https://oltnews.com/korean-baseball-and-college-football-describe-which-team-should-be-your-favorite-against-all-enemies?_unique_id=5e9dc4aed03d4

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thatsnotcanonpodcasts · 6 years ago

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Firefly, MK11 & Rainbows

Here are once again with the fabulous Nerds for the weekly episode of hijinks and merriment. This week we look at topics that will hopefully entertain you, perhaps educate you, perchance even make you laugh. As usual we have our three Nerds, idiots, nutjobs, wackjobs, funny farm contenders, or as we like to say, your hosts. Bucky, Professor and the DJ. Bucky is our slightly older, kind of grumpy Nerd, who dislikes Mumble rappers, reality TV and generally stupidity. Professor our younger Nerd who likes gaming, long walks to the camp fire, and his Switch when on the bus. Last but not least, we have the DJ, the resident Droid that no one is looking for, who likes anime, games and laughing.

First topic up this week is about some new illustrated novels, or omics, from the Firefly franchise. The DJ is challenged to finally watch the series to help him discover his inner Browncoat, will he be brave enough to walk down the street in a hat like that and show he aint afraid of nothing? We will find out, but by my pretty blue bonnet if he doesn’t we will aim to misbehave and cause mischief.

Next up we look at the stress and traumatic conditions developers are suffering through to bring us new games. With reports of people developing PTSD, and hiding this fact so they can get jobs. This is seriously messed up, what these people are going through is downright wrong and needs to be looked at. Also Buck has a rant about the need to look after each other because he is sick and tired of morons putting profit before people.

Last up Buck brings us an article about Rainbows. No, he hasn’t become a hippie or something drastic. He just felt we needed to take a moment and look around us and admire the simple things, you know, kind of like smell the roses and noticed the politicians as people (we think they are, but don’t hold us to that – Ed.). So we have 20 facts about rainbows and one of which is that the Greeks thought there were only three colours in the rainbow.

We follow this with the usual look at the games we have been playing this week and give you a run down on them. Concluding with the episode with the regular Shout outs, remembrances, birthdays and events for the week that we all love. As always, take care of each other and stay hydrated.

EPISODE NOTES:

Firefly comics - https://comicbook.com/comics/2019/05/13/firefly-the-sting-joss-whedon-boom-studios/

MK 11 & PTSD - https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/05/id-have-these-extremely-graphic-dreams-what-its-like-to-work-on-ultra-violent-games-like-mortal-kombat-11/

Rainbows - http://discovermagazine.com/2019/may/20-things-you-didnt-know-about--rainbows

Games currently playing

Professor

– Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - https://cataclysmdda.org/

Buck

– Monster Truck Drive - https://store.steampowered.com/app/847870/Monster_Truck_Drive/

– Dota 2 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/570/Dota_2/

Other topics discussed

Changes to Santa Clarita Diet

- https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/santa-clarita-diet-creator-explains-season-3-talks-season-4-1198429

Ed Boon’s take on fatalities

- https://www.businessinsider.com.au/mortal-kombat-creator-ed-boon-explains-how-new-fatalities-are-made-2019-3?r=US&IR=T

Facebook content moderators having PTSD

- https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-content-moderators-lawsuit-ptsd

Grumpy Cat (internet personality)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumpy_Cat

All Dogs gone to Heaven (1989 film)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Dogs_Go_to_Heaven

Linguistic relativity and the colour naming

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate

Chromatic aberration

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration

Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

- http://luckyireland.com/the-origin-of-a-pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow/

Minecraft Earth (mobile game)

- https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/earth

Dota 2 New Character: Mars

- Character bio - https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Mars

- Mars’ character design - https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/dota2/images/mars/hero_mars93fd33s5.jpg

Shadow of the Colossus (2006 game)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus

Trials Fusion (2014 game)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_Fusion

Stunt Car Arena (arcade game)

- http://www.arcadespot.com/game/stunt-car-arena/

Millionaire’s advice to young people – stop spending smashed avocados

- https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/15/australian-millionaire-millennials-avocado-toast-house

Colorectal Cancer also known as colon cancer

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorectal_cancer

Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Jubilee_of_Elizabeth_II

Queen Victoria

- Bio - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria

- Queen Victoria with her grandchildren and other guests - https://images.immediate.co.uk/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/Queen_victoria_family-fd7d69f.jpg?quality=90&resize=768,574

Stevie Wonder catches microphone stand

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgngvsWLlE

Carrie Fisher roasts George Lucas

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ97s396kb0

Mark Zuckerberg will eat meat he kills

- https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/07/13/mark-zuckerberg-will-only-eat-meat-he-kills-himself_a_23027199/

Apple loses money than the value of Facebook

- https://www.businessinsider.com.au/apples-market-cap-falls-by-450-billion-more-than-the-value-of-facebook-2019-1?r=US&IR=T

Walt Disney

- Bio and urban myth on Walt’s body is frozen - https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney

- Human bones in Disneyland - https://collinsrace1.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/are-there-human-bones-at-disney-parks/

Elvis Lives (That’s Not Canon Podcast)

- https://thatsnotcanon.com/elvislivespodcast

Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of The Caribbean character)

- https://pirates.fandom.com/wiki/Jack_Sparrow

Henry Sutton (Australian Inventor)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Sutton_(inventor)

Shoutouts

7 May 1999 - The Mummy opened and grossed $43 million in 3,210 theatres in the United States on its opening weekend. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_(1999_film)

14 May 1796 - English country doctor Edward Jenner administers the first inoculation against smallpox, using cowpox pus, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner

Remembrances

11 May 2019 – Peggy Lipton, American actress, model, and singer. She was well-known through her role as flower child Julie Barnes in the counterculture television series The Mod Squad (1968–1973), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 1970. Her fifty-year career in television, film, and stage included many roles, includingNorma Jennings in David Lynch'sTwin Peaks. Lipton was formerly married to the musician and producer Quincy Jones and was the mother of their two daughters, Rashida Jones and Kidada Jones. She died of colon cancer at 72 in Los Angeles,California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Lipton

13 May 2019 – Doris Day, American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967. Day's film career began during the latter part of the classical Hollywood era with the film Romance on the High Seas, leading to a 20-year career as a motion picture actress. She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, and dramas. She played the title role in Calamity Jane and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much with James Stewart. Her best-known films are those in which she co-starred with Rock Hudson, chief among them 1959's Pillow Talk, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also worked with James Garner on both Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Thrill of It All, and also starred with Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Cagney, David Niven, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Richard Widmark, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall and Rod Taylor in various movies. After ending her film career in 1968, only briefly removed from the height of her popularity, she starred in the sitcom The Doris Day Show. Day became one of the biggest film stars in the early 1960s, and as of 2012 was one of eight performers to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times. In 2011, she released her 29th studio album My Heart which contained new material and became a UK Top 10 album. She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 1960, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures in 1989. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom; this was followed in 2011 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award. She died of pneumonia at 97 in Carmel Valley Village, California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Day

14 May 1919 - Henry John Heinz, German-American entrepreneur who founded the H. J. Heinz Company based in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania. He was born in that city, the son of German immigrants from the Palatinate who came independently to the United States in the early 1840s. Heinz developed his business into a national company which made more than 60 food products; one of its first was tomato ketchup. He was influential for introducing high sanitary standards for food manufacturing. He also exercised a paternal relationship with his workers, providing health benefits, recreation facilities, and cultural amenities. His descendants carried on the business until fairly recently, selling their remaining holdings to the predecessor company of what is now Kraft Heinz. Heinz was the great-grandfather of former U.S. Senator H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania. He died of pneumonia at 75 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_J._Heinz

14 May 1998 - Frank Sinatra, American singer, actor and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". He released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatra's professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy. Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective September of My Years and starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968'sFrancis A. & Edward K. with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later and recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and reached success in 1980 with "New York, New York". Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until shortly before his death in 1998. Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm, and received critical acclaim for his performance in The Manchurian Candidate. He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town, Guys and Dolls, High Society, and Pal Joey, winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he became associated with playing detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome. Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. In crime, the FBI investigated Sinatra and his alleged relationship with the Mafia. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people. After Sinatra's death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century", and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure. He died of a heart attack at 82 in Los Angeles, California . - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra

14 May 2019 – Tim Conway, American comedic actor, writer, and director. He portrayed the inept Ensign Parker in the 1960s World War II situation comedy McHale's Navy, was a regular cast member on the 1970s variety and sketch comedy program The Carol Burnett Show, co-starred with Don Knotts in several films in the late 1970s and early 1980s, starred as the title character in the Dorf series of sports comedy films, and provided the voice of Barnacle Boy in the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants. He was particularly admired for his ability to depart from scripts with spontaneously improvised character details and dialogue, and he won six Primetime Emmy Awards during his career, four of which were awarded for The Carol Burnett Show, including one for writing. He died of normal pressure hydrocephalus at 85 in Los Angeles,California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Conway

15 May 2019 - Rick Bennett, voice actor, known for X-Men: The Animated Series (1992), Balance of Power (1996) and X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996) mainly as Cain Marko also known as The Juggernaut. He passed away in Toronto

- https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/2019/05/15/x-men-the-animated-series-juggernaut-voice-actor-passes-away/

Bio - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0072001/

16 May 2019 – The Honourable Bob Hawke, Australian politician who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia and Leader of the Labor Party from 1983 to 1991. Hawke served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wills from 1980 to 1992 and was Labor's longest serving Prime Minister. Bob Hawke was born in Bordertown South Australia. The Hawke family then moved to Western Australia. He attended the University of Western Australia and then went on to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1956, Hawke joined the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) as a research officer. Having risen to become responsible for wage arbitration, he was elected ACTU President in 1969, where he achieved a high public profile. After a decade serving in that role, Hawke announced his intention to enter politics, and was subsequently elected to the House of Representatives as the Labor MP for Wills. Three years later, he led Labor to a landslide victory at the 1983 election and was sworn in as prime minister. He led Labor to victory three more times, in 1984, 1987 and 1990, making him the most electorally successful Labor Leader. The Hawke Government created Medicare and Landcare, brokered the Prices and Incomes Accord, established APEC, floated the Australian dollar, deregulated the financial sector, introduced the Family Assistance Scheme, announced "Advance Australia Fair" as the official national anthem, initiated superannuation pension schemes for all workers and oversaw passage of the Australia Act that removed all remaining jurisdiction by the United Kingdom from Australia. Hawke remains Labor's longest-serving prime minister, Australia's third-longest-serving Prime Minister and, until his death at the age of 89, Hawke was the oldest living former Australian Prime Minister. Hawke is the only Australian Prime Minister to be born in South Australia, and the only one raised and educated in Western Australia. He also held a world record for beer drinking; he downed 2 1⁄2 imperial pints (1.4 l)—equivalent to a yard of ale—from a sconce pot in 11 seconds as part of a college penalty. He died at 89 in Northbridge, New South Wales. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hawke

Famous Birthdays

13 May 1950 - Stevie Wonder, American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. A child prodigy, Wonder is considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century. He signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11 and continued performing and recording for Motown into the 2010s. He has been blind since shortly after his birth. Among Wonder's works are singles such as "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours", "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", and "I Just Called to Say I Love You"; and albums such as Talking Book (1972), Innervisions (1973), and Songs in the Key of Life (1976). He has recorded more than 30 U.S. top-ten hits and received 25 Grammy Awards, one of the most-awarded male solo artists, and has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the top 60 best-selling music artists. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2013, Billboard magazine released a list of the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's 55th anniversary, with Wonder at number six. He was born in Saginaw, Michigan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Wonder

14 May 1944 – Geroge Lucas, American filmmaker and entrepreneur. Lucas is known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm,LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic. He was the chairman and CEO of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138, based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti, inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Lucas' next film, the epic space opera Star Wars, had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and cowrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. With director Steven Spielberg, he created the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade. He also produced and wrote a variety of films through Lucasfilm in the 1980s and 1990s and during this same period Lucas' LucasArts developed high-impact video games, including Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango alongside many video games based on the Star Wars universe. In 1997, Lucas rereleased the Star Wars trilogy as part of a Special Edition, featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with the Star Wars prequel trilogy, comprising The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. He later collaborated on served as executive producer for the war film Red Tails and wrote the CGI film Strange Magic. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered a significant figure in the New Hollywood era. He was born in Modesto, California - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lucas

14 May 1969 - Cate Blanchett, Australian actress and theatre director. She has received many accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and three BAFTA Awards. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and in 2018, she was ranked among the highest-paid actresses in the world. After graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Blanchett began her acting career on the Australian stage, taking on roles in Electra in 1992 and Hamlet in 1994. She came to international attention for portraying Elizabeth I of England in the drama film Elizabeth, for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress and earned her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in the biographical drama The Aviator, earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and she won Best Actress for playing a neurotic divorcée in the black comedy-drama Blue Jasmine. Her other Oscar-nominated roles were in the dramas Notes on a Scandal, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I'm Not There, and Carol. Blanchett's most commercially successful films include The Talented Mr. Ripley, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy, Babel, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Cinderella,Thor: Ragnarok, and Ocean's 8. From 2008 to 2013, Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton served as the artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. Some of her stage roles during this period were in revivals of A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya, and The Maids. She made her Broadway debut in 2017 with The Present, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. Blanchett has been awarded the Centenary Medal by the Australian government, who made her a companion of the Order of Australia in 2017. She was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2012. She has been presented with a Doctor of Letters from the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, and Macquarie University. In 2015, she was honoured by the Museum of Modern Art and received the British Film Institute Fellowship. She was born in Ivanhoe, Victoria - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cate_Blanchett

14 May 1984 – Mark Zuckerberg, American technology entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding and leading Facebook as its chairman and chief executive officer. Zuckerberg attended Harvard University, where he launched Facebook from his dormitory room on February 4, 2004, with college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Originally launched to select college campuses, the site expanded rapidly and eventually beyond colleges, reaching one billion users by 2012. Zuckerberg took the company public in May 2012 with majority shares. His net worth is estimated to be $55.0 billion as of November 30, 2018, declining over the last year with Facebook stock. In 2007 at age 23 he became the world's youngest self-made billionaire. As of 2018, he is the only person under 50 in the Forbes ten richest people list, and the only one under 40 in the Top 20 Billionaires list. Since 2010, Time magazine has named Zuckerberg among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world as a part of its Person of the Year award. In December 2016, Zuckerberg was ranked 10th on Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People. He was born in White Plains, New York - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

Events of Interest

14 May 1986 - Netherlands Institute for War Documentation publishes Anne Frank's complete diary - https://www.onthisday.com/people/anne-frank

15 May 1928 – Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, "Plane Crazy". It was made as a silent film and given a test screening to a theater audience but failed to pick up a distributor. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_Crazy

15 May 2010 – Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo. Watson headed north-east crossing the equator in the Pacific Ocean before crossing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Watson

16 May 1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances. His lecture caught the attention of George Westinghouse, the inventor who had launched the first AC power system near Boston and was Edison’s major competitor in the “Battle of the Currents.”

- https://teslaresearch.jimdo.com/lectures-of-nikola-tesla/a-new-system-of-alternate-current-motors-and-transformers-1888/

- https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/nikola-tesla

Intro

Artist – Goblins from Mars

Song Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)

Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJ

Email - [email protected]

Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamated

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrS

iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094

RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss

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hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff · 6 years ago

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https://ift.tt/2TIg6iM A NATIVE NEW YORKER, Victor LaValle has been publishing startling and incisive works that feature people of color since his 1999 debut short story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus. His books tackle mental illness, poverty, and parenthood in a variety of genres. LaValle’s most recent publications, the H. P. Lovecraft–inspired novella The Ballad of Black Tom and the American Book Award–winning novel The Changeling, are being developed for the small screen by AMC and FX respectively. In 2017, LaValle created a modern-day Frankenstein story for BOOM! Studios in the form of a graphic novel that has achieved critical and popular acclaim. His exploration of horror, starting with his 2012 novel, The Devil in Silver, pays homage to the genre that first inspired LaValle to write. Though his work has transitioned from the so-called literary to the realm of horror, it still remains lyrical and complex. There’s also been a marked tempo shift, a preference for the slow burn. And yet, perhaps because of his work in genre fiction, LaValle remains an underappreciated sculptor of compelling narratives. We spoke over Skype twice. ¤ AYIZE JAMA-EVERETT: It’s funny. I’ve been writing for years, but I’m just now getting into what it’s like to do literary writing as opposed to genre writing. VICTOR LAVALLE: What made you think about them as distinct things? I think early on I just wanted to get published. But, then in trying to make a career out of this — which seems insane — I know literary authors tend to get better advances than most genre writers … That’s funny because I’m coming at it from the literary side. We don’t know what the comparisons are. We used to talk about science fiction, mystery, thriller, and romance as the four genres that people read. One of our things — that we acknowledged as literary fiction writers — was that if we were really serious no one would ever read us. That was sort of the mantra, at least for some of us. Your badge of honor. Yes, that’s right, and also to make peace with it. You’re going out into the world knowing the thing you’re doing just ain’t going to give you a cushy life. We might joke that we’d sell books to our friends from workshop, but that was it. So some of us would talk about genre writing like, “If we could just figure out a plot that would have people wondering what came next instead of the beauty of the sentence, we’d really get paid.” [Laughs.] Interesting. And so from our perspective, speaking again from basic anecdotal MFA experience, the narrative-focused writers, seemed to be the ones who have people reading them. Walter Mosley talks about that. I’ve heard him say there are a lot of literary cats out there, but people read my work. That’s right. But then, what’s this whole literary fascination with ambiguity, which sometimes seems like it goes against the very nature of engagement with the reader? I think that in almost every genre, including literary realism, you can detect a point of view. A writer’s point of view, and what that writer imagines the reader’s point of view will be. There’s a great deal being communicated about the writer’s expectations, and assumptions. Totally. And so I do think, again speaking very broadly, that literary realism is largely the story of middle-class life. Some common life events occur, but others often do not. You’re talking about individual, life-changing events, like an illness or a divorce to name the top two clichés, but you’re not necessarily talking about war or life in the bottom 20 percent where the whole bottom could fall out of a society and you could all be drawn down into the whirlpool. There are instances of such things in literary fiction, of course, but they’re less likely. This becomes a signal about the writer’s point of view, and what that writer’s imagined reader will find relatable. The joke about The New Yorker: without cancer, divorce, and the suburbs, The New Yorker would have nothing to publish. I think that’s, like, 75 percent true. And then there’re the outliers like Karen Russell, who writes super weird fantastical stuff, and Zadie Smith sometimes publishes the occasional less fantastical piece. Chimamanda [Ngozi Adichie] and Edwidge [Danticat] are regulars in their pages, and they’ve got a different beat. So there’s an outlier wing of the magazine, but it’s about 20 percent. I don’t have any position on this, but it feels like that construction is — you called it middle class, but I want to race it. In the United States, it feels very white. When I read literature from Africa, even from the Caribbean, the concerns are different, and as a result I feel like the stylistic approach is different. There is more of a call for something to happen. It doesn’t seem so interested in maintaining this mythical status quo. I think that white and middle class would be the definite, clearest signifiers, broadly speaking, of that literary realist tradition in the United States. But in more recent years I’ve been making friends with folks in the horror genre. And horror, fantasy, science fiction, romance, every genre, really, is still pretty white and, often, middle class. It’s not a trait of literary fiction alone, that’s all I mean. That’s not to defend The New Yorker, but to indict everyone else too. Let’s make it a class action suit against the monolithic nature of whiteness in publishing. You were being interviewed about your first book and you spoke about writing in resistance to misery porn. I believe it was one of your friends who told you, “But yeah, man, we have some good times, too.” Was that you? I can’t claim that I was writing against misery porn back then. In fact, I leaned into it pretty hard. Misery literature as a particular-path-that-is-rewarded in fiction by “minority” writers is a problem I’ve become more aware of as time passes. I was doing it in my first book, but didn’t realize it. My first book was a set of stories about growing up in Queens mostly, and it was just a litany of bad things happening to black and brown kids and their loved ones. Not every story turned toward the grim or the violent or the hopeless, but a hell of a lot of them did. And then it took an old friend, who I’d hooked up with on Facebook, pointing out those bad things were some of experience but that sure wasn’t all of it. Where was the happiness, the silliness, the dull-ass parts of being working-class folks in Queens? Those parts are just as valid as the misery, and they tend to paint a fuller picture of one’s life, so why didn’t you include them? He didn’t mean it as a smack in the face, but that’s how I felt. Because I knew he was right. And then I had to ask myself what, exactly, I’d been peddling. And why I’d been rewarded for it. Where do you think that inclination came from? Was it fostered in your writing program or in publications? I think many writers are, just by nature, pessimists. A lot of us are misanthropes and sad sacks. As a result, many of us come to believe that a story is only “serious” or “adult” if things don’t go well for people, and then continue to get worse, and then the story ends with some truncated moment of lyrical beauty. Now give me my literary prize. Melancholy is the natural inclination of so many writers, but that doesn’t mean it’s the “truth” of life. Not anymore than optimists who demand that life have meaning and ends happily. It’s all perception. Life itself has no inherent qualities. Consciously or not, I took that on. I thought about my undergraduate program and I thought about which came first, the chicken or the egg. And I have to say that I can’t really blame my MFA. I showed up and said, I’ve got some rough stories for you. I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s and the movies that I saw that had people like me were Beat Street and Juice and Belly, you know, things like that. I love Belly. It’s an underground classic but the beauty of its imagery gets to give balance to the misery of the lives depicted. That’s the thing the written word can’t rely on. If there’s going to be beauty or joy or surprising tenderness, we actually have to write it into the text. But so many of us don’t. And yet you’ve gone more toward horror. I’ve definitely gone more toward horror, but that was embracing the thing that made me love writing as a child — it was horror, being scared. And in my own strange perspective, that is one way I’ve embraced joy. Being scared is a blast, at least for me. It makes me happy. My first two books are literary realism. They have lots of weird wild stuff happening in them, but there’s nothing fantastic or capital-W Weird. But after I’d finished my second book — my first novel — I felt completely drained. I’d mined a great deal of personal material — all the bad stuff — and didn’t want to keep tapping that vein. So I had to bypass the instincts of the 27-year-old who wanted to be taken seriously and rediscover the 10-year-old who simply wanted to devour books. The one whose excitement held as much power as a nuclear reaction. And that child loved vampires and werewolves and ghosts and more. Writing was not making me rich, and it was not making me famous, so it should at least make me happy. Makes sense. The nicest part is that the more I have embraced horror, the more I’ve embraced the joy that comes from horror, the more readers I’ve reached. That was counterintuitive, because I thought I’d be cutting my own throat. Instead that choice gave me new life. One of the things people forget about horror is that it’s not just the fear — it’s people surviving the fear and coming out on the other side of it. Yes. Often. Although there are some times when no one survives, when people don’t make it out and that can be bracing and powerful too. Like a rough massage. You shouldn’t do it to yourself all the time, but once in a while it feels perfect. What were the early horror books that got you excited? Clive Barker, the Books of Blood series, hit me at the right age and I fell hard. Also, he was one of the first people I encountered who actually wrote horror stories that took place in cities. Not exclusively, but it could be kind of tough to find that kind of thing back then. Stephen King was a gateway for sure and his study of the genre, Danse Macabre, helped me discover writers like Richard Matheson, among many others. Shirley Jackson was a foundational writer for me. I can’t overstate how much her stories and novels have meant to me. My mother bought me D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths as a kid, and it remains a favorite. The stories are great, of course, but the illustrations were even better. They border between horror and fantasy, and I couldn’t get enough. What’s the role of myth in your stories? Does it provide structures? Do you find influences in your voice? Definitely with The Ballad of Black Tom there’s a sort of mythos, and even in Big Machine. In The Changeling, there’s an overarching myth that’s present but not fully articulated until about halfway through the story, and even then it’s not fully articulated because the person is just living through it. The Changeling is where I made the most conscious use of fairy tale and myth. Previously, it was certainly there — Big Machine was the beginning of that. Actually, I don’t know if that’s true, because in a way even my first book of stories was me writing the myth about myself. I called them autobiographical at the time, but it’s not entirely true. After all, it’s a parade of pain and disappointment, and that’s not all my childhood consisted of. But there’s the temptation, especially when young, to make yourself seem serious by making yourself seem wretched. I fell victim to that. As time has gone by, book to book, I’m writing a new creation myth for myself. Each book I’ve written has been, in a way, an attempt to figure out who I want to be now. I’m one person at the start of the book and, hopefully, another by the end. I don’t mean that I’m exactly like the character, but that on some essential level I’m mirrored by this person. I want to tell a story, but I also want to work some shit out for myself. Changeling is the most thoughtful about myth and fairy tale, but it was also me trying to write an honest version of myself, both the good and the bad, as father and husband and son, but writing toward that version of Apollo that I could essentially learn from by the end. If I could write him succeeding at becoming a good husband, a good man, then maybe I could become one. Do you find that to be a challenge for you? Being good? Oh, sure. I’m selfish and vain. At times I’m short-tempered with everyone around me; often I’d prefer to be alone. But, I’ve got a wonderful wife, and two wonderful kids. I have friends and co-workers. I’m constantly navigating between my most selfish and vain self and that version of myself that’s selfless and giving. And, is that how you see Apollo? As selfless and giving? No. I see him trying, just trying. Early in the book he thinks he’s succeeding, but he’s deluded himself. He’s got a lot to learn. I hoped other people might identify with that. It’s just a personal thing for me but for some reason, whenever I see a black father with his kids, it just fills me with this sense of joy. I didn’t grow up with my dad or anything, but when I see that scene I think, “Yeah. You know you’re doing something.” And for the kid, I’m thinking, “You don’t know what you’ve got. The longer that guy’s there, the happier you’re going to be overall.” There’s one scene in The Changeling, I think he’s in a basement, and he’s looking through records, and he has the baby on something … On a little blanket. Yes. And, I’m a crate digger. I collect comics and I used to collect vinyl and I’ve been to those swap meets. I’ve been to those yard sales where that dad comes through with the kid and there’s that divided attention: trolling through the garbage to try to find the gold and keeping an eye on the kid at the same time. And I feel like you did that tension so well. You had to have lived it at some point. I still do. I take my son to the comic shop. We go semi-regularly to get my pull list and he comes with me. My daughter’s not quite old enough yet, but he comes with me and he walks the aisles. He walks the length of the new comics, and we have a deal that he can pick one, so he has to look at them, check out the covers, see what looks good to him. If you take it down, let’s look at it together so you don’t rip it. But at the same time I’m like, “Where’s the latest issue of B.P.R.D.? And what’s the new thing to get into? What’s this company do? What’s that company do?” So, that’s the kind of divide. I’m there with my son, but I’m also just a comic-head trolling for the goods. But, to your point about dads. I also didn’t grow up with my dad, and have felt, and assume always will feel, a great deal of pressure to give my son and daughter what I never had. And what a gift that I get to do it. But if I do the job really well they’ll never know what I gave them. The sign that I did it well is that they’ll take it for granted. I lean close to them often and say, “I’ll tell you a secret.” And they roll their eyes and say, in a weary tone, “You love me.” It’s become annoying to them. But, they know. And how amazing is that? Of course, I’m also benefiting from the fact that the bar for good father is so low. Just show up and you’re good. Yeah. The danger in being the dad who does those things is ego. It’s easy to think, “Has there ever been a man as good as me on this earth?” And, to make it worse, the world rewards me for doing the bare minimum. When they were really little I’d walk around with my kids, and people would come up to me and say, “God bless you.” And I’d think, “Yeah, God bless me. I deserve extra blessings from the Lord.” Of course race impacts that as well. And I guess I wonder how your wife deals with that. Does she tell you to get over yourself, or that you can feel that for like 20 minutes and then move on? A slight eyeroll now and then, but really she’s happy for me to receive praise for my parenting. Why not? She thinks I’m a good dad, too. But the nefarious side of all this is that being a “good dad” is easy, being a “good mother” is practically impossible. The par is ridiculously low for the former, impossibly high for the latter. Constant, endless criticism, that’s motherhood. There was a piece in The New Yorker last week that my wife corroborated. Scientists did a study: if a woman goes to the doctor with her partner, her male partner, the doctor will take her complaints more seriously. This is a fact. And it’s awful. So, all of those discrepancies are baked into fatherhood and motherhood too. I think she’s just very tired a lot of the time, because she gets extra layers of criticism. But, it’s not necessarily tension between us. How do you avoid that, given that writers tend to be the worst people to be married to? I’d guess that marriage can be difficult no matter who you’re married to. It’s just the reality of making compromises with another person. There are so many benefits to it as well though. She does nonfiction? She writes fiction and nonfiction. Her last book was nonfiction, but her first book was fiction, a novel, and her next one will be a novel as well. So, the downsides of us both being writers are that we are both moody at times, solitude can be vital to both of us, and we take our projects seriously. But, here’s the nice side: today she and I had lunch before splitting up to do work for the day, and we talked each other through our writing projects. That’s the side of two writers being married that isn’t always talked about. There is a degree of intellectual and artistic back and forth that’s very nurturing. I’d never want to give that up. So, you’re nurturing not only your children, but also your ideas together? Yes. And, having writer friends who are not married to writers is see the other side: the great part is that the non-writer spouse bring something else into the life, into the family, some other interests that aren’t just writing and books. But, the downside can be that they don’t understand what it is to be a writer, and they don’t have a particular care about stories or storytelling, and that can be maddening. Do you believe that? That there are people who don’t care about stories? Definitely, in the technical sense, taking stories apart. If they’re watching a show or reading a book, they don’t want to say, “How could that have been better?” or “This is the moment it all paid off.” As far as they’re concerned, look, that thing is just a show. Why are you taking it apart? Why are you overthinking it? It’s done already. Yeah. It’s just a stupid show. And that would be maddening to me. Even the stupid stuff has been thought through, planned out, and if it’s working on you there’s a reason. McDonald’s thinks quite a bit about how to make you keep eating their french fries. Do you think that writing can be taught? Yes. For example, Ernest Hemingway didn’t go to college. A high school graduate, super well read, but with no writing classes, obviously. But, he was a journalist for years, and he worked under an editor. And that editor pared down the prose, simplified, helped him learn how to communicate his ideas in a way that was better than the original. Essentially, that’s just what a writing class is meant to do. He also sat at the feet of Gertrude Stein, who instructed him as well. They were in her home, but that was a place of instruction. So, to me, writing has been taught forever. Whether working as a journalist or reading the slush pile at an agency or a magazine, that’s all a form of learning writing. Friends who have done that, after they’ve been reading for a month or two, they say that they see the mistakes that people make. They see how people do this, or this, or this, and they say, “I’m not going to do that.” Seeing what doesn’t work. Seeing what doesn’t work and seeing how many people do the same things. And so you think to yourself, “Okay. How am I going to make myself stand out? What’s my angle?” I consider all of those things aspects of teaching writing. What can’t be taught, I think, is personality, a point of view. Teaching writing, as I see it, is no different from teaching painting or teaching sculpture or music. In all those other arts people know you have to take lessons, or if you’re self-taught you have to practice a hell of a lot before you get good. But somehow people think that writing is meant to just come to you. It doesn’t. One way or the other, you’re going to have to apprentice to someone and learn. But, make that choice. Make a choice. Gertrude Stein at her most experimental isn’t just sitting down and writing any word that pops into her head. There’s always a method to it, a structure, some deeper idea. Teaching writing to me means helping the person learn the skills, the craft, that will allow some personality, some point of view, to be communicated. Let me ask you about that other side of communication. When you write, I always think you’re writing to me personally, and I appreciate it. I grew up in Harlem; I was born in 1974. Ah, yes. So, if we weren’t friends then, we could have been. We could have been. So, when you write, do you have an ideal reader in mind, or do you write for yourself? I have this trick. Every single book, I pick a specific person that I’m writing the book for. It’s not someone I’m extremely close to and it’s not a stranger. If they’re too close, then we have a private language, shorthand, that will keep another person out of the story. If it’s a stranger, then I won’t sound like myself because we share no intimacy. So, I pick a person who I’m medium-range intimate with, someone I went to college with that I don’t see anymore, but we’re still in touch on Facebook. A kid I grew up with, someone like that. And I specifically say, “This book is for Aki. This book is for Cameron. This book is for Genene.” When I sit down to write, I am thinking of that person. So, there’s a way that I’m making jokes that sound like jokes I would tell to him or her. I’m describing things that would make sense to that friend. I’m using slang or not using slang that would talk to them. If I’ve done a good enough job, then my hope is anyone who picks up the book will, essentially, be sitting in my friend’s chair and that reader will feel like a friend, too. I came up with this method as a way for me to get around a problem I was having early on: how to sound like a “real” writer. Well, what does a “real” writer mean? Does it mean high lyricism? Does it mean Shirley Jackson? Stephen King? Octavia Butler? The risk is that I’ll only be imitating one of those people and I’ll never sound as good as they do. So, this method of telling the story to a friend was a way to trick me out of my own insecurity, vanity, and hero worship. And to find your own voice, it sounds like. And to sound like me. I heard that. Before I knew who you were, I was like, “This dude’s from New York.” I just knew it. “That’s a New York cat. I don’t care what anybody says. That’s a total New York cat.” New York for sure. I can hear this continuity in voice, even in books as different as The Ballad of Black Tom and The Changeling. You’re very assured. You have so much authority — you take these huge chunks of time to set up the plot, but it’s not time that’s wasted. It’s time getting to know your main characters intimately, and I think you can only do that if you have total assurance in what you’re doing. Well, I’m very happy if it sounds that way in its final iteration. But it takes time to have the confidence to take your time. My earlier books didn’t have that kind of assurance. Instead, they lead with bluster and try to swagger through till the end. I’m very proud of them, but they are definitely snapshots of a young writer. Back then, I had this idea that every sentence had to be a killer. I still have that idea. Nowadays, my idea of what’s a killer sentence has changed. I used to think it has to be like a punch in the face. First sentence kinda thing. The first sentence in a story in my first book, this story called “Slave” that’s about a child prostitute — the first sentence is “Rob eats pussy like a champ.” And I was like, “Yeah! That’s what I’ve got to do!” [Laughs.] I’m still proud of the story; the story goes in interesting directions, but then, nowadays when I see a thing like that, my first thought is, “Come on. What are you trying to prove?” That’s why it’s good that I wrote that story then, because I couldn’t write it now. Right. It would have to come out a different way. I don’t have to do that now. I can say, “Hey. You wanna hear this thing? It’s interesting, but if you want to hear it I’m going to have to go back to like 1862 for just a little while to tell you these things, but I promise you it’s going to mean something to the story I gotta tell you.” That’s a different kinda energy. What’s your rush? We’ve got all night. If I do my job right, you won’t want to get away. I think because you have such a mastery of craft, even that, “Hey, let me tell you this story,” even that’s such a convention that’s used very well, but it’s the confidence with which you present that, it’s the same confidence as “Robby eats pussy like a champ.” It doesn’t have to be so, I don’t want to say vulgar, but it doesn’t have to be so … Vulgar. I think that’s right. I mean, I didn’t write that line because I wanted to be demure. The content doesn’t have to be so arresting, because you have a greater control of the form. And I was thinking about Alfred Bester. Have you ever read his stuff? I know his name, but I haven’t read his stuff. He’s pretty cool. He says the book is the boss, and you’ve got to let the book go where it wants to go, and you just follow along with it. The book is the boss. I like that. Do you agree with that? I would say that, at a certain point, the book is the boss. I don’t know his method of writing and I don’t know yours either. My old way of doing it is that I would just have an opening line, or an opening scene, and I would just write that scene and I would go from there. Go, go, go, go, go. And I would just write everything, everything, everything that came out. And then, at some point, a hundred pages, three hundred pages, whatever it was, I ran out of steam. Then I’d figure the book was done. But that’s not a book, that’s just a bunch of pages. For me, it takes two or three drafts before a real spine, a real idea, a real character became solid. “Okay, this is the territory…” That you’re going to map out. Yeah. And, where I feel the spark of energy and where I feel like I want to explore. And then that shapes the book. So, I would say that the book is eventually the boss, but it first it has to be a book. And not just a catalog of ideas. I’d like to go back to race for a second if that’s okay. Please. So, there used to be this idea that white people don’t read books by black people. Black women don’t read books by black men. Black men don’t read. Yes. These were the assumptions. Probably still are in certain circles. None of that has ever seemed to impact your career or at least the stories that you tell. You tell stories from lots of different vantage points, and I wonder if that has ever impacted you. Anyone editing your stories is like, “This doesn’t seem like a black guy story”? Do you get any of that? Well, I will say two things. We have a storage closet where I keep all of my old papers because our apartment’s not big enough to keep it all here. You’re in New York. It’s New York. And I found, just yesterday, I was looking around at all of the old rejection letters for Slapboxing. My agent sent it around the first time to eight or 10 editors. All of them rejected it, and what was interesting to look at now is that some of them were like, “This isn’t for me,” and with some distance now I respect that because I can appreciate someone who will say, “I’m not even saying that these are bad, I know I’m not the reader for this.” And then there were the folks who were like, “He’s clearly a talented writer, but these stories seem plotless, aimless, and there’s just a lot of atmosphere and place.” And I don’t think that’s wrong, but aren’t you publishing lots of MFA fiction? I’ve seen your list, that’s why we sent the book to you. Lack of plot is what you’re giving me shit for? But then, one of those eight rejections basically said, “These are powerful stories, but they are essentially not as gritty, not as grim as Push, so I can’t buy it.” At the time that the book Push came out by Sapphire. I’ve met Sapphire, did an event with her many years back, and she’s wonderful. I mean from top to bottom, she’s an excellent person and a writer I respect. A wonderful mind. So, this is not about her. But it was the first time that I had felt that thing from the establishment, the “machine.” The idea that there was a “black” story and it could be clearly delineated and, for this editor, it was Push. Now the messed-up part is that if I lacked perspective I might’ve turned my anger toward Sapphire instead of that editor. But I’d taken a few Africana courses as an undergrad and had my coat properly pulled. Sapphire’s success has nothing to do with my rejection except in the mind of this person who rejected my book. And yet, that person’s perspective wasn’t simply a “difference of opinion.” It had real-world effects. Namely, that I didn’t get my stories out in the world, and I didn’t make a little money to help me live as a writer. If enough editors think that way then, effectively, there is only one kind of black story. And if a few years, or decades, reinforce this perspective, then how many other black stories have been silenced or overlooked? The editor who finally bought my collection was a white woman who was super smart, astute, and thankfully did not have those hang-ups. Her thing was all about, “We need to make a sense of structure, some sort of feeling of movement even if there’s not a plot.” And so that helped me, number one, to see that here was this white woman who was willing to take the stories as they were, treat them seriously, not demand that I make them “blacker” or more “miserable” or more redemptive or ask, “Where’s the good white person?” She didn’t ask for any of that, and that was a great gift. She published that book and started my career, and I’ve remained eternally grateful. Then the second great luck of my career happened. I met Chris Jackson. He’s been my editor since my second book — my first novel. He’s a black man who grew up in Harlem, worked as an editor at a religious textbook publisher and is now vice president and executive editor of his own imprint at Random House. My man is a force. But he’s also someone who is familiar with my voice, my context, my history, in a global sense. There were so many things in my books that might’ve been flagged as confusing or unbelievable or not relatable by a different editor. But Chris is quite familiar with the complexity of black life, of all life, and that’s exactly what he encourages in his writers. So when I gave him my novel, Big Machine, he was like, “This is kind of Ishmael Reed and Gayle Jones.” And I’m like, “Exactly. That’s exactly what it is. Plus, the X-Men.” Right. There’s some people for whom the critiques are sometimes not about the work, they’re about not knowing the lineage in which a person is writing. And that’s their critique. It’s not about the work. Yes. It’s just them saying, “I don’t know enough about this.” But, the hard part is that they don’t realize that’s what they’re saying. There’s always the argument about representation, about diversity in who’s published. But what matters just as much is who is at those editorial desk. Who gets it through their transom and says, “I recognize this. I grew up in Alaska. I understand native culture there. I see how this fantasy novel is actually talking about native life in Alaska. And, I see how to make this thing better within that understanding.” But, if you don’t have that person on the editorial side, on the publishing side, it becomes a tougher sell. Even the most well-meaning person can’t understand every canon, can’t understand every experience. And they shouldn’t have to. But if there’s a greater variety of experiences at the publishing house, there’s at least a chance that book will find a person who can understand it. Did you read The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.? Really great book by a Persian-American novelist, Gina Nahai, and it’s the history of a curse on an Iranian Jewish family from pre-Shah times to modern-day L.A. And it’s such a Persian tale. You know the history of every character; every character gets a full history, and it comes back, a hundred pages later through their child or grandchild. It’s not structured like an American novel. And because of that — not just because of that, because of great writing, it’s a brilliant book — I’m thinking more and more about how the writer is one part, but it’s also the community around the writer that supports the book. Changing gears. Why did you choose comics, why did you choose an updated version of Frankenstein? The first independent reading that I did was comics from the spinner rack at the candy store. In a way, I’ve been spending my whole life trying to get back to them. I had to write novels in order to get to write comics. I never read Frankenstein when I was younger. I just read pieces of it here or there, and I watched movies and I read tons of comics that were inspired by it. But in 2014 or so my wife, the writer Emily Raboteau, taught a course on the literature of birth. She included Frankenstein in that syllabus. One night she said, “You think you know the book, but you don’t. You should read the whole thing.” So I read it, truly read it this time, and she was right. It was weirder, and more boring, than I remembered. It was clearly such a work of genius that I came away feeling energized, inspired. The iterations of Frankenstein that have existed follow some paths that make sense and have been wonderful in various ways, but I thought I could see a new way to play with the material. On top of everything else, Frankenstein is definitely a political work by a young woman who had been raised by an incredibly political mother. This was not a person who wrote something fantastical because it seemed like simple fun. She meant to talk seriously about the world she lived in, the times. I wanted to do the same. Why did you choose BOOM! Studios instead of trying to do something with Marvel or DC? I like BOOM!. I like the stuff that they do. They did a fun version of the Santa Claus story with Grant Morrison and Dan Mora. It’s called, simply, Klaus. I like the work they’ve done with creators like Delilah S. Dawson and Cullen Bunn. They’ve done a great comic with Saladin Ahmed called Abbott. That last one came out after my comic, Destroyer, but I mean to say I liked their sensibilities. Also, I wanted to own this idea and this property, and with Marvel and DC, you don’t have that option. That makes sense. Just tangentially. One of the things that I find fascinating with Frankenstein is that she wrote it while she was taking care of her infant son who would later die. God, yes. She found him in the crib. Yes, and it adds this extra layer of tragedy to the whole narrative. This woman writing a story about this man creating a child by putting together the pieces of the dead while her own child has died. It kills me. And her mother died giving birth to her. Right. So, she was definitely a person who was acquainted with death and also the desire to cross the boundary between the living and the dead. She might’ve been young, but she’d already been through more than many experience in a lifetime. What comic books are you reading now that get you hyped, that you want to tell your students, “Ah. You gotta check this out.” I’ve been enjoying a lot of independent comics these last few years: Manifest Destiny, Southern Bastards, Infidel, and The Wilds. Evan Narcisse’s recent run on Black Panther. My boy Mat Johson’s Incognegro. Paper Girls by Brian Vaughan. I enjoy Tom King on Batman. There’s Warren Ellis’s Injection that I think is amazing. I like Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Bitch Planet. Gabby Rivera had a fun run with America — I wish it hadn’t ended. And Shade, the Changing Girl. What are the differences in writing a novel, writing a novella, and writing a comic? You can write comics where people just talk and talk and talk and talk and you can write so that every panel is just talking. But as someone who reads comics, frankly, I hate when I open one and see 40 panels of dialogue bubbles. I put those down, because I feel that’s a writer who doesn’t understand that the words aren’t as important as the image. I’m a prose writer, I live and die by the word, but images are simply the most important part of a comic book. You read Alan Moore’s scripts From Hell and you see how much description goes into what should be in the panel. Oh my God. It’s insane. It’s insane, but it’s worth pointing out that the amount of dialogue doesn’t match the amount of description in the script. He goes on so long so the artist knows what to put inside the panel, but the characters themselves don’t need to be as long-winded. I feel this is related to the critique of literary fiction versus genre. There has to be some impetus in genre to keep the plot going. You can’t really have two people sitting at a cafe talking about whether or not to have an abortion, you know, as you could with somebody like Hemingway. That’s probably true, but I would also point out that in Lord of the Rings no one ever shuts up. They talk and talk and talk and sing and so on, and no one is doing a damn thing. I’m looking at you fucking Tom Bombadil. That said, rather than thinking of plot or action, think of visual storytelling instead. Paying attention to what people are doing, where they’re located, this kind of thing is vital to any good story. It sounds simple, and it is. So simple that most writers, in any genre, forget to pay attention to it. But those things aren’t simply about moving characters around, but about communicating something essential about each character through the actions they take. Salinger, to use a very old example, could do more with two characters smoking cigarettes than most of us do with a whole novel’s worth of story. So then there’s a lot of crossover, there’s a lot of similarity with visual storytelling. There’s no difference, if you look at it schematically. Really good literature, really good genre fiction, whatever you want to call these things, they might use different story elements, but the actual structure, the craft, is all the same. Do you think that’s the common understanding of storytelling, or do you think you’re unique in that approach? I wouldn’t say unique, but I don’t think that’s the common take. I’m thinking about the literary/genre divide here. There are a lot of people who only read one thing or another. They are well read within the genre they prefer — historical fiction, literary realism, zombie novels, but they’ve got very little experience outside of that narrow vein. And yet, almost all of us hold strong opinions about genre that we have hardly encountered at all. We swear we know what’s good or bad, when really we only know what we’re used to. Did you ever read Hellblazer? There’s a Garth Ennis issue where it’s just classic, beautiful, literary horror, where he doesn’t show it, but there’s this constant threat of a priest who is a weirdo. And then, off panel, he says, “And then the priest took out two pencils and shoved them in his eyeballs and headbutted the pew in front of him.” And I threw the comic away because, it literally shocked me, disturbed me. And it’s one of those things with comics; you can only do these things with comics. All the visual horror earlier of this priest set you up to see this guy do something horrific. And then to not see it made it even worse. Right. It is maybe a cliché of the genre but it’s usually better to keep the worst horrors just outside the panel, just off screen. How do you start a project? I used to start with a great first sentence. If it sounded like a gunshot going off, felt like a slap in the reader’s face, then I knew I was ready to begin something. Right. These days I see that tendency as a sign of my ambition but also my insecurity. I wanted to show my swagger right from the first words. But I was also deathly afraid that you wouldn’t keep reading unless I made a lot of noise. That can be effective when you’re 27, but when you’re 46 it’s just … kind of sad. You can’t be a bad boy of literature once you hit middle age. So these days my process is less about having the killer opener, and more about creating a story that will, in its entirety, affect the reader deeply. I use a book called The Anatomy of Story by John Truby as a reliable way to think about the many different aspects of a story I need to know and understand before I write. I work faster and smarter these days. My younger self would be impressed. Who’s your team? Who looks at your work before it’s polished or before it’s done? It’s my wife, Emily Raboteau. Then my best friend, Mat Johnson, my agents (Gloria Loomis and Julia Masnik), and then my editor (Chris Jackson). Those five people. I don’t tend to show it to any of them until I think it’s done. Like I mean, it’s ready to be published. And then I brace myself because it is never ready to be published. It’s only as good as I could make it on my own. That’s why I need, and cherish, every single one of them. They make my books better than I could have done on my own. I find it very interesting when authors know their stories are not working. And I guess I wonder if you have a metric, or if it’s other people’s reads on it, your team’s reads. There are plenty of times when it’s obvious to me that a scene, or a chapter, or a character, isn’t working. By that I mean they’re unconvincing. It doesn’t matter if we’re on Mars or in Montana, I simply don’t believe these characters in their actions, thoughts, or dialogue. That’s the easiest to deal with, in a way, because if I can see it’s false then I know other readers will, too. The harder part is when my readers can see the problems, but I can’t. Of course, in the end, the book is mine and I have to feel right about all the choices within it. But if readers I trust are telling me there’s a problem, then I’ve learned to listen to the critique rather than always taking their solutions. They’re telling me they’ve sensed a weak spot, but their ideas of how to fix it seem off to me. When I was younger, I might assume this meant I should just keep it the way I originally had it. Better my own flawed choices than someone else’s incorrect solutions. But now I see that they’re telling something true — this part isn’t working — and it’s not their responsibility to also tell me how to repair the issue. I go off with the pages for a while and usually, with a few days of thinking, some third option will come to me. Even if it’s not perfect, it’s usually better than what I had originally. You said Chris Jackson has been your editor for a while, now. Five out of seven of my books. How did you establish that relationship? He was the only person who wanted my second book. The rest of the world said, “Meh.” Part of this goes back to our conversation about the importance of having people on both sides of the desk, people who understand you on both sides of the desk. Chris Jackson is a black male editor. There aren’t too many of those, not in big or small publishing. So when he read the manuscript, he saw the story of a black weirdo, a black weirdo kid who is just breaking down and falling apart. And he said, “I’ve been a black weirdo kid. I can do something with this.” And my gift and curse was that most of the people who the book went to had never been a black weird kid, and had never even known a black weird kid. And so they couldn’t empathize with in a way that, say, generations of white women can understand, and mytholgize, say, Sylvia Plath, just to be specific … Yeah. They can understand the dilemma that Plath’s in and when they find books that in some way echo that experience, they go, “Oh. It’s just like The Bell Jar. That was so formative to me. I want to publish this so that it will be formative to other young women like me.” And thank god for that. That kind of continuity is vital. But if the only people in your office identify primarily with The Bell Jar, then what are you going to be publish? Lucky for me, Chris gets it. And he’s at Little, Brown now, right? No. So, he started his own imprint under Random House. One World. He’s had a really good run. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michelle Alexander, Eddie Huang. Go to the One World website, it’s a squad. You’ve come up as Afrofuturism has been gaining steam. And yet, I don’t hear your voice in that conversation, and I wonder how you feel about that. Is that your experience, do you know why it is? I think it hasn’t come up terribly much because I don’t write Afrofuturism. I write horror. Afro-horror, is that a thing? Because I’d gladly join that crew. I just never read sci-fi or fantasy as a kid. I found sci-fi too optimistic and fantasy too, capital-R Romantic. Sci-fi, to speak way too broadly maybe, presumes that human beings will live on into the future and do things. Good or bad, humans are usually there. I’m skeptical that we will be and always have been. And fantasy seems to find a misty, storied past to be worth living in. But whenever I read books that are set in a quasi-European or North American past, I know exactly how people like me would be living. We’d be fucking orcs, if we were in the books at all. So fuck that, and fuck them. Though I admit I have been dipping into fantasy much more in recent years as folks like Maurice Broaddus and N. K. Jemisin and so many others are making their presence felt. Like, I can’t wait to unwrap Marlon James’s new novel, too. An African Lord of the Rings? Yes, please. Can I push back just a little bit? I do think Afrofuturism is a weird umbrella term that isn’t accurate; Tananarive Due is a total Afrofuturist, but all of her stuff is horror. And none of it is all that positive. And Octavia Butler: all of her projections into the future around black people generally tend to be linked in some shape or form with a new form of slavery. There’s a biological form of slavery, or a psychic form of slavery, and the polemic is, “How much are the people participating in their own slavery and how much are the struggling to get out of it?” You know what I mean? Right. So for me, Afrofuturism has very little to do with sci-fi. It’s not spaceships and faster-than-light drive, but the same themes that we’re dealing with in the present day, in the past, projected into the future. And that’s why I was putting you into that box a little bit because I see you in that. Well then I’d love to be included, if that’s the definition. For a number of years now I have been saying that I write horror, and I still embrace the term. I feel purposeful in saying this. As a result, if there is any crew of black writers who I find myself blending with they’re usually black horror folks. Tananarive Due is absolutely one them. Also, Chesya Burke, Wrath James White, Linda Addison, who has been great for a long time. But maybe none of us all fall into one category alone. It’s almost like, whoever’s making the list determines who’s Afrofuturist, who’s black horror, who’s black sci-fi, and so on. I also wonder how useful those lists are. The best use of those lists is if they can introduce readers to someone new. You love Octavia Butler? How about Nnedi Okorafor? Or you might try Justina Ireland. Tade Thompson. The danger is just for anyone to think, “I’ve written the definitive list.” Without fail, people will be making lists of their interesting but still limited reading. Right. Which is a problem that we all have. So. It would be better to choose 10 great Afrofuturists knowing that if you’re just sticking to 10, you’ve already made this list way too small. But there’s no pretense of being complete, or definitive. There are always more great books, great writers. And that’s a beautiful thing. Right. Just say that and that’d be fine. Even at this point I’d say you’re not allowed to say Octavia Butler. She’s elevated to a form where she’s just taken for granted. You’ve read her, so now what? Just like with black essayists. You can’t keep saying Baldwin … ¤ Ayize Jama-Everett is the author of the novels The Liminal People, The Liminal War, and The Entropy of Bones, and of the graphic novel Box of Bones. Originally from New York, he now calls the Bay Area his home. The post The Craft Is All the Same: A Conversation with Victor LaValle appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books. from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2r2ctr2

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rickhorrow · 7 years ago

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15 to Watch + 5 Tech 10917

1) The 2017-2018 NHL season is officially underway, with the Pittsburgh Penguins looking to three-peat as Stanley Cup champions. One of the biggest storylines heading into the season is which players will represent their countries at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics in a few months. Many elite NHL players have spoken out about their disappointment in not being able to compete in the Olympics. “It’s going to be weird for everybody,” said Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon, who was hoping to make Canada’s Olympic team. “It won’t feel right watching other guys wear that maple leaf and they’re good players, but they’re not the best players in the world at that tournament.” Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin, who has been vocal “about saying he’d go no matter what,” criticized the league for putting players in a position to abandon their NHL team just for the chance to represent their country. NHL owners were the ones who decided not to stop the season, finding “no tangible benefit” in doing so. However, depending on fan reaction to the absence of NHL players from the Games come February, the issue will likely be revisited before the 2022 Beijing Games…and in the next CBA.

2) The Las Vegas Golden Knights are lending a helping hand in the wake of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, many Golden Knights players have been donating blood as part of the recovery effort for victims of the shooting. One of the places to donate blood is United Blood Services, where “hundreds have stood in line, some for as long as six hours.” Other players made appearances at Metropolitan Police headquarters. “You start to grow roots here,” said defenseman Nate Schmidt. “You get to know people. Them being affected, you do whatever you can to help.” Many of the players were out at the time of the shooting and did not know what was happening. Forward Alex Tuch said that he was at the Cosmopolitan with teammates having dinner when the hotel went on lockdown. The Golden Knights, only in their first week of professional existence, are clearly already trying to make a positive impact on the community.

3) YouTube TV has officially signed on as the World Series’ first presenting sponsor. According to SportsBusiness Journal, YouTube TV, Google’s digital pay service, is set to “use the attraction of FOX’ game telecast to promote brand awareness and signups.” The sponsorship will run throughout the MLB postseason and will expand across FOX, MLB Network, and MLB-controlled digital and social media. Additionally, come the World Series, YouTube TV signage will be present throughout hosting ballparks. This is the first time MLB “has signed a presenting sponsor for every playoff round.” Joining YouTube TV as a presenting sponsor are T-Mobile, for the two NLDS matchups; South Korean conglomerate Doosan, for the two ALDS matchups; and Camping World, for both the ALCS and NLCS. “This is the first deal of its kind for one of these services attaching itself to a major sporting event,” said MLB Executive VP/Business Noah Garden. The advent of YouTubeTV is affecting sports, and all of cable, because it has become a viable option to purchasing a basic cable plan. It may not be long until we are able to stream both the World Series and Super Bowl through YouTube in some capacity.

4) Rookie sensation Aaron Judge concluded the MLB regular season as the leader in jersey sales. According to SportsBusiness Journal, the New York Yankees right fielder joins Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant as only the second rookie to lead the league in jersey sales since rankings were first released in 2010. Judge’s sales are expected to continue to boom well into October and the playoffs, especially given his strong performance in the AL Wild Card Playoff against the Minnesota Twins and his expected performance in the knockout rounds. Last year, no Yankees player cracked the top 20 in jersey sales, but this year Judge is joined by catcher Gary Sanchez who came in at No. 15. Of those players who made the top 20 this year, 14 are on playoff teams. The Cubs have the most representation, with four making the list – Kris Bryant (No. 2), Anthony Rizzo (No. 3), Javier Baez (No. 10), and Kyle Schwarber (No. 14). Jersey sales data clearly shows one predominant theme: “Win and you’re in.”

5) Protests by players, coaches, and executives during the National Anthem have been seen across the NFL all season. Now, some fans are beginning to show their distaste for the demonstrations – including Vice President Mike Pence. According to the Baltimore Sun, Ravens fans were heard booing at MT&T Bank Stadium while players linked arms and knelt in prayer before the anthem performance. Other fans held up signs visibly expressing their dissent, such as one that read, “Play Ball Not Politics.” In turn, many Ravens players expressed their frustration with fans for this response. Finally, on Sunday, Vice President Pence left the 49ers-Colts NFL game honoring Peyton Manning early, citing his displeasure with the Niners’ anthem protests. One potential change coming from this situation might be for teams to show more transparency in their plans to protest, as opposed to being “so coy about the plan to make a statement on unity.” Multiple teams, led by the Steelers, have started giving a “heads-up” in regard to their National Anthem plans.

6) DirecTV's practice of giving refunds to some NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers "puts the company at risk of looking as if it's taking" President Trump's side in the National Anthem controversy, according to USA Today. Keeping long-term customers happy is "important because subscribers to Sunday Ticket and premium sports programming are highly valued." DirecTV is "caught between two groups of football fans -- those who support" Colin Kaepernick and the "reasons for his protest and those who don't." DirecTV has "historically shunned refunds for NFL Sunday Ticket once the season gets underway." If the anti-NFL movement "gains momentum, other pay-TV subscribers could ask their provider for refunds to downgrade their programming packages to punt premium channels" such as NFL RedZone and NFL Network. While the NFL continues to take an even-handed stance on the team-level decisions made by its ownership regarding National Anthem reactions, the league has to be keenly aware that once again, it’s year-over-year ratings are down so far in 2017. Losing more fans due to politics is clearly not in the NFL’s best interest long-term.

7) The NBA preseason is underway, with the regular season set to tip off in less than two weeks. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the NBA is using the preseason to expand its brand across the world. This year, the reigning champion Golden State Warriors played a slate of preseason games in China. The team anticipated fandom to be “exponentially larger” this year than it was back in 2008 and 2013 when it played in China as part of the NBA Global Games. Last year, the Warriors “led the China market” in jersey sales, digital views per game, and followers on Weibo. Apart from the team’s reach in China, individual Warriors players have made an effort to expand their footprint across the country as well. Kevin Durant “visited China annually the past seven years to film promotional spots for Nike,” while Klay Thompson recently signed a 10-year extension with Chinese shoe brand Anta. China hands-down represents the NBA’s largest growth market, so it’s no wonder the league and its top players are focused on the region.

8) Despite hardly being able to hit the new golf ball he’s being paid to play, Tiger Woods is still moving the needle for Bridgestone Golf, according to CEO Angel Ilagan. In December 2016, Bridgestone Golf signed the golf legend to a multiyear deal to exclusively play with its Bridgestone balls. Yet as a result of ongoing back surgeries, Woods hasn’t played a single game since the deal. Still, Bridgestone still saw record growth for the first half of 2017. “Tiger Woods has been very positive for the game. As you know with golf, we’ve been experiencing declines in the recent years, but with Tiger on board, it’s bringing a lot of consumers back to the game and excitement to the game and to Bridgestone,” Ilagan said on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” He also insisted that whether Woods plays or not, the golf industry is sure to continue to experience gains. “He actually has more power as an endorser than he does as a player,” the CEO said. He added that Woods is “the Michael Jordan of golf…the single golfer who’s had the greatest impact of bringing consumers into [the game].” Ilagan suggested rightly, if statistics have any meaning, that as long as Woods is around, the golf industry is relatively safe.

9) Derek Jeter and Bruce Sherman have officially been introduced as the new owners of the Miami Marlins, but one thing remains uncertain: the team’s future direction. According to the Miami Herald, while they pledged to make the fans “their No. 1 priority,” the new ownership duo did little to give the public an outline of their intended path for the franchise. Jeter and Sherman are now tasked with turning around one of baseball’s poorest franchises in terms of performance and attendance over the past years. Despite opening up a state-of-the-art ballpark in 2012, “the Marlins have ranked no better than 27th in home attendance during the past five seasons.” “We believe in this market. We believe in the fan base,” said Jeter. “We are focused on bringing the fans back. We want them to get to know us as owners.” Coming from the Yankees, Jeter is accustomed to playing for a winning franchise in the country’s biggest market. This is a new challenge for the MLB legend.

10) The Topps Company has now sold 1 million Topps NOW baseball cards. The Topps NOW cards, available for only 24 hours exclusively on Topps.com and then never offered again, captured the many thrilling moments throughout the MLB season. “Topps NOW has been a truly innovative program that Topps was thrilled to bring to sports fans and collectors first,” said David Leiner, Topps General Manager and VP of North American Sports & Entertainment. Topps NOW launched in 2016 from the exclusive trading card partner of MLB, commemorating amazing moments such as Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon’s epic home run, Ichiro’s 3,000th MLB career hit, and the captivating World Series title run for the Chicago Cubs. This year’s Topps NOW moments have been led by top rookies such as the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger. The Topps NOW card featuring Judge’s record-breaking 50th home run as a rookie sold 16,138 copies, which broke the Topps NOW single-card record by nearly 5,000 cards. Topps NOW MLB cards will continue throughout the postseason. These innovative cards aren’t simply about breaking records – Topps NOW has given baseball fans a different way to chronicle their most special moments of every modern-day baseball season.

11) While NBA fans are focused on the season tip off at present, this year’s NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles will not feature the traditional East vs. West matchup, but rather a draft to determine teams. According to ESPN.com, the fan-favorite event is “switching formats” when it arrives at Staples Center, with two captains selecting teams without regard to conference alignment. The fan vote winner from each conference will captain one of the two teams, with 12 players from each conference still being nominated to compete in the game. Five players from each conference will be selected as starters, “with the fan vote being worth 50%, player vote worth 25% and media vote worth 25%. Seven reserves for each team will be picked by each conference's head coaches.” Current NBPA President Chris Paul and Charlotte Hornets Owner Michael Jordan were noted as two highly influential figures in finally changing the format of the game to make it more competitive. From season tip off to the Christmas Day game slate to the All-Star Game, NBA leaders constantly strive to find creative ways in which to better engage their fans, passionate and casual alike.

12) Vince Tyra has taken the reins of the University of Louisville athletic department less than a week after Athletic Director Tom Jurich was placed on administrative leave. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, an ongoing FBI investigation into college basketball shook up Louisville, with men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino and Jurich getting caught in the middle of the scandal. Tyra is an investor in USL club Louisville City FC, and is now tasked with playing a “key role in helping Louisville navigate an NCAA infractions appeal.” Interim university President Greg Postel noted that he hopes the appeal will be resolved by January, but that may be wishful thinking. “I’m just taking it as I’m filling the role for now until we find out what the long-term fix is,” said Tyra. Apart from investing in Louisville City FC, Tyra is a member of the UL Foundation board, and currently serves as Operating Partner at Southfield Capital, a Connecticut-based private equity firm. The stakes are high for him to display excellent leadership and decisiveness during this difficult time for the university.

13) One of the stadiums being used in this summer’s World Cup will have an interesting feature: seats outside the facility. According to The Guardian, all World Cup stadiums are required to seat 35,000 in order to host matches, but Russia’s Ekaterinburg Arena was thousands short of that marker. In order to meet the required capacity while preserving the stadium’s iconic exterior, seats have been added behind both goals – outside the stadium. With the changes, Ekaterinburg Arena will now be able to host four group games “taking place at the home of Russian Premier League side Ural.” As of now, the seats will be removed after the World Cup ends, bringing the capacity back down to under 35,000. “In the case of Ekaterinburg, temporary seats are being installed in order to ensure that the renovation work would conserve the historical façade of the stadium and that maintenance costs are reduced after the FIFA World Cup,” commented a FIFA spokesperson. While the configuration is unusual, sports fans worldwide are increasingly accustomed to standing room only sections and watching giant video screens even while attending a live game. Look for the new section to be popular with fans ever searching for the “new, new thing.”

14) Already one of the world’s largest, most iconic stadiums, Old Trafford will potentially be expanded in the near future. According to the London Daily Mail, Manchester United officials are mulling over viable options to expand Old Trafford’s capacity to 88,000. The current capacity sits at 75,643, so the proposed increase calls for more than 12,000 additional seats to be added. The Sir Bobby Charlton Stand, “formerly known as the South Stand,” is the part of the stadium that seems most likely to receive the facelift. Old Trafford is already Britain’s “largest club stadium,” and this move would almost increase its capacity to that of Wembley Stadium – the England national team’s home that fits 90,000 spectators. ManU is “giving strong consideration” to the long-term expansion plans because a new section for disabled fans – expected to be completed by 2020 – would “lead to a reduction in [current] capacity to around 73,300.” Wembley was also the exclusive longtime “home” of London-based NFL games until Twickenham was added last year; while the NFL’s International Series will also soon expand to Northumberland Park, an expanded Old Trafford could also earn a spot in the NFL rotation.

15) The PGA’s Tour Waste Management Phoenix Open already boasts one of golf’s most entertaining holes in the sport – the raucous, stadium-like 16th hole – and a similar environment may be coming soon. According to the Arizona Republic, the tournament is planning “new spectator improvements for 2018,” with construction beginning now. The Cove will be built on the 17th hole, which will have “26 to 30 sky boxes, two lounge/bar areas and a play area with ping pong and other games.” In addition to the Cove, tournament Director of Communications Ryan Woodcock confirmed construction of the new Bay Club, which will feature 16 luxury suites, for the 2018 tournament. The renovations are meant to create a more fun atmosphere at the 17th hole, diverting some of the fans from the par 3 16th and spreading the party-like atmosphere across the course. In adding interest to the 17th hole between the excitement of the 16th and the 18th, the Waste Management Open may also be trying to emulate the success of the Honda Classic’s infamous three-hole stretch, the Bear Trap, easily one of the most entertaining trio of finishing holes on the PGA Tour. Kudos to the creative minds in Florida and Arizona alike.

Top Five Tech

1) The largest indoor high definition scoreboard made its debut October 7 for the New Jersey Devils home opener at the Prudential Center in Newark. According to SportTechie, the scoreboard was built by the company Trans-Lux, and weighs over 44 tons. In an effort to enhance the fan experience, the facility has taken new steps to increase their use of technology in a literal big way. Hugh Weber, President of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment along with the New Jersey Devils and Prudential Center, said this of the scoreboard installation: “Our partnership with Trans-Lux, and the installation of the largest in-arena scoreboard in the world, is another example of our commitment to providing our fans the most dynamic, engaging and technologically-advanced experience in the industry today.” Some of the other features include over 29.6 million pixels across 9,585 square feet of screen, with the scoreboard approximately four stories tall. As we’ve seen in the NFL with widespread interest in mega-scoreboards, we now see the NHL making similar moves. Time will tell if NHL fans are as interested in the feature as their NFL fan brethren.

2) The U.S. Soccer Federation has agreed to a 3-Year deal with Opta, a sports analytics company, to provide the league with data and analysis in order to better train and prepare players for international competition. The technology and data will also be used to scout players and help enhance the fan experience. As U.S. Soccer Spokesman Neil Buethe told SportTechie, “Not only does this significantly improve our analytical capacity at the senior international and professional levels, but for the first time we will create timely and relevant data, on an ongoing basis, around our youth environments.” Opta will provide their analysis for not only the men’s national team, but the women’s team as well. For the next three years, U.S. Soccer will be using analytics to gain a competitive edge in a variety of ways against their international counterparts. The women’s national team has seen success during world-wide competition, but the men’s team largely has not. Hopefully, this new infusion of data and technology can turn the tide for the men’s national team as well.

3) ESports continues to grow on a global scale. The most recent Nielsen report compiling data on the popularity of esports in the U.S., United Kingdom, France, and Germany. In their report, Nielsen actually found that Call of Duty is the most popular esport game. These reports were surprising given the reputation of large esport games such as League of Legends. Additionally, this excerpt from SportTechie clarifies that women are also a part of the esports arena:

“The report also dispels the notion that women aren’t esports fans. In large part, it is a male-dominated industry; however, women represent a significant portion of the fan base of some games. A comparison of fans across the markets reveals that while Counter-Strike might inherently attract a male-centric audience, plenty of women are interested in FIFA.” Overall, we see that the growth of esports is not slowing down anytime soon. As these games grow in the U.S. and overseas, more diverse sets of fans will become a part of the esports base. The next few years will be crucial for the development of consistent esports leagues, but the signs are trending up.

4) SnapChat and UnderArmour are cooperating on creating a app in which a user can train like NBA superstar Stephen Curry. The app, called FITLIGHT, works with athletes to improve their reaction time and quick decision making. The application will feature small disks that users can place on the floor and other points in order to test their peripheral vision and other reaction features. Global Head of Creative Strategy for SnapChat Jeff Miller told Advertising Week, “This is something that is intrinsically connected to the Under Armour brand…connected to one of their star athletes, Steph Curry, and done in an incredibly fun and playful way. So, whether it’s a game, whether it’s a video, you can drive that engagement.” As youth athletes look for more ways to improve their game, technology is playing as large a role as ever. In basketball, height is becoming less of a prerequisite to play. Smaller, more skilled guards like Curry are proving that shooting and speed may be the most important tools to becoming a star basketball player, and the FITLIGHT app clearly seeks to capitalize on those attributes.

5) The NHL is expanding its use of instant replay by implementing iPad video reviews available on team benches during games. The league started allowing iPads on the bench for mid-game review during last season’s postseason, and has been approved for extended use this year. Not everyone is in complete agreement about using the iPad review system. Arizona Coyotes Video Coach Steve Peters shared this with the Associated Press regarding the potential overuse of replay: “It almost becomes too much. We don’t want every player coming over the boards after every shift and wanting to see things and wanting to review what they just finished on the ice. We still want our players to play. You don’t want that to become a crutch. You want it to become a tool.” While overuse and slowing the pace of play are real concerns, the increased use of technology can only help the NHL in helping advance the sport as a whole. In the next few years, we will see teams and players rely on video replay during games like we have not seen previously. With the use of video replay expanding in the game, the NHL could also be looking at other ways to infuse technology into the sport very soon.

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edwinaingham5-blog · 7 years ago

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Spirituality Articles.

You might not assume from on the internet associate degrees (nursing) as a proven methods to alleviating your technique into the work market, yet you might be inappropriate. School area down fleets still have to much better use our public private relationship that we have. Doctors, registered nurses, dental practitioners and also other medical professionals have their personal attires: scrubs. Redwood Secondary school in Thousand Oaks and also Valley Sight Junior high in Simi Lowland were likewise called Blue Lace institutions.

Visualize the trouble included if you devoted $50 dollars on a mathematics book and they sent the entirely incorrect one. In their effort to boost college outcomes, the teachers are searching for roots from poor scholastic accomplishment from high school students. In Philadelphia, the Chief Executive Officer from the Academy Charter University has actually been actually charged with a fraud in the quantity from 1 million healthyfit-blog.com dollars. Yet avoid producing relationship with them throughout university times, due to the fact that your do not possess any type of maturity throughout school days and also this is the duration for studies and researches alone. On Monday, our team made a last minute agreement to go to a Waldorf charter school named The Adventure University in Aliso Viejo, Orange County. Ask your local area school to provide a treatment and cultivate, behavioral alteration planning and/or a positive habits body.

Permit's experience that - grinding happens on dance floors in university dances, whether they are in lavishly adorned reception venues or dowdy school gyms. Survey: 17% from high schoolers consume, smoke, use drugs throughout university time through Carl Azuz, CNN, August 22nd, 2012, Nov 26, 2013.

Due to the observing February, Amy noticed Chaz was stressed as well as not able to accomplish his work, so she talked to the school. If an assistant leader does not suspend them because their I.D. memory cards may not be hanging on their backs, effectively, that has been actually a splendid university expertise. Picture a 460-member band practicing at 7:15 a.m. every Monday through Friday for the duration from soccer period and also for a month prior to college began. At least it will offer a mini-boom for those Harvard Service Institution scenario writers. I want to reveal that the level of amazement towards the suggestion that this is actually an inappropriate attire for junior high school shown in the comments for this article has actually really created my daughter feel excellent. Secondary school affection portray therefore halfway decent, completed with shuddering convictions everywhere! Attires are actually compulsory for all students along with few varieties from the regular style throughout the social as well as personal college bodies, featuring colleges as well as colleges. The photovoltaic panels or wind generators could be considered hideous by some, yet those people arenandrsquo; t spending your electic expenses! Pearson Posting, for example, has its hoggish tentacles in virtually every institution district in The U.S.A.. All College of Phoenix az evaluations ought to begin along with a brief past history from the institution as well as its framework. When it involves the assortment of institutions, the complying with requirements are used across the board: (i) The fee paid for by the PEF to EVS companion universities is actually PKR 300 per child monthly. As your youngster deals with knowing brand-new subject matters each year, they're likewise constituting brand new habits in institution - some of which may be lower than desirable. Whereas in Europe, wonderful teaching is actually based in the power of their concepts, in The United States this is a matter of perfects: the sole enthusiast that conquers the probabilities, which triumphs over the social as well as socioeconomic disorders from the city social school.

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balletxbody-blog · 7 years ago

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Shiller Pe For S&p 500

The routine P/E uses the proportion of the S&P 500 index over the trailing-12-month earnings of S&P 500 companies. The P/E ratio after that comes to be synthetically low due to higher profits. As quick history, the Shiller PE ratio is influenced by the job and teachings of investing's best instructor, Mr. Benjamin Graham.

Smead applied the Shiller P/E to Caterpillar and Deere. While both business look inexpensive on their trailing 2012 profits, he found that the stocks look misestimated utilizing Shiller's 10-year smooth on a P/E basis.

"The closest we ever before concerned this in U.S. background was a seven-month duration from October 1936 to April 1937," Short created. "During that duration the 10-year yield averaged 2.67%, concerning 65 basis factors above where we are now."

Standard strategies to evaluate the market usage "routing" or "forward" price-to-earnings ratios. A trailing P/E takes the S&P's revenues from the past 12 months as well as divides that number by the index's present rate. A forward P/E is the cumulative evaluation of just what Wall Street experts forecast the 500 largest U.S. business will certainly make any kind of provided year, divided by the S&P's rate.

Shiller Pe Calculation

GuruFocus determines the Shiller P/E ratio of private stocks as well as various sectors. Here you can see the Sector Shiller PE, it shows you which markets are the cheapest. Below you can see Shiller P/E of individual supplies.

Many will certainly indicate the early and mid 90s as a duration when the Shiller index was more than typical or typical, however the marketplaces provided some really wonderful returns. Of training course, that was mainly based upon multiple development as investors were ready to pay more for firms profits as. With comprehensive experience in the rare-earth elements market, PM Capital is the premier source for purchasing gold and silver in the United States. We market and distribute a variety of exclusive items ranging from gold and silver bars and rounds to rare numismatic coins. The objective of our entire business operation is dedicated to supplying these important products directly to your doorstep. Our main office is situated in the Salt Lake Valley, where the surroundings is incredible and business environment is primed for enormous development. Numerous major corporations from around the globe are broadening or opening offices in Utah, benefiting from the distinct environment and the remarkable quality of a young and dynamic labor force. As strong as the Granite Mountains that surround PM Capital, our Client Care combined with our commitment to tailored service makes PM Capital your top relied on source for getting rare-earth elements. The quality of our products is our leading objective and we accomplish that objective with a personnel dedicated to serving you. Combining our service with the industry's finest wholesale network ensures that every brand-new coin, round or bar fulfills or exceeds current quality requirements established by the NGC and PCGS. Structure your precious metals portfolio can be a challenge and that's why PM Capital is committed to streamlining the job every step of the way.well as profits capacity.

If you are buying a regular routine and buck expense balancing with significant monies, then you certainly will certainly have the ability to make use of reduced prices in a modification; and also you are also hedging to the advantage in the situation where investors are eager to pay increasingly more for business incomes. And as several will certainly compose, possibly incomes development will be really solid over the next couple of years and decade. There are also several needs to continue to be purchased the markets at your danger tolerance degree.

Shiller Pe Definition

Despite having that blue-chip history, there's significant discussion over the effectiveness of this valuation step. Some planners warn the P/E10 proportion shouldn't be used as a solitary evaluation tool as well as advise it isn't reliable when attempting to time the marketplace.

Shiller Pe Emerging Markets

That's a wager that repaid for numerous, however it would certainly be spending not based on the pointer from Mr. Benjamin Graham to have that margin of safety and security, not at all. And also as for selecting specific stocks, be cautious, Mr. Graham was additionally an advocate of effective market concept. To discover value in traditional large cap or big cap returns development business could be a wild goose chase. If a company has a lower PE to the marketplace, that's due to the fact that it is valued in for revenues development possibility. It's hard for large cap firms to hide in simple sight. Mr. Graham assumed you had to do something vibrant and amazing to defeat the marketplace.

From this we will estimate that at the Shiller P/E's present degree, the future market return will certainly be around -2.1% a year. This is the historic implied return, real return as well as lengthy term rate of interest. Rate of interest does have an effect on the market returns. Click on the tale of the graph listed below to show/hide graph collection.

Remember, the Shiller PE proportion is best made use of for as well as was meant to supply chances of long-term returns. These likelihoods could use a heads up to investors in numerous situations as well as assist them plan in the accumulation as well as retirement phases.

I would certainly believe these are hard times for stock pickers these days. There's a lot info quickly and also readily offered and most on Seeking Alpha seem playing because huge cap or returns growth area. PE proportions as well as development rates are baked in. But possibly if one slants to more practical assessments that might enable them to provide more of a margin of safety and security, as well as possibly defeat the marketplace returns if they could discover an out of support business or 3.

Shiller Pe Ratio Definition

The Fed's plans, the thinking goes, has made typical risk-free places, such as the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond and certificates of deposits, unappealing financial investments when compared with stocks. Various other reserve banks all over the world have been promoting comparable policies.

That said, the Shiller PE Ratio can have predictive abilities as it concerns the lengthy term supply market total return potential from a provided PE ratio. There are numerous thorough researches that demonstrate the predictive powers of the Shiller PE ratio, as well as most demonstrate that the Shiller PE measurement does hold some predictive powers. However with whatever in life, there are no assurances as outliers occur and shocks happen.

What Is Shiller Pe

Since March 15 close, Caterpillar placed as the second-worst entertainer amongst the 30 supplies on the Dow Jones Average for the month, a duration in which the excellent index climbed 10 straight days-- its longest such development in 16 years.

Where the Shiller PE ratio might supply the most value and also direction is if you are resting on a stack of cash. From below you could not pick to invest the whole sum, yet start with a small amount and afterwards buck price average from right here. You might prefer to present those loan into the marketplace over a 2 or 3 year time perspective in the hope that you catch the following market bottom. If markets remain to go up, you will leave some money on the table, but you would have been in the privileged position to have a portfolio that was moving higher on a regular schedule.

Shiller Pe For Nasdaq

Disclosure: The writer is long SPY, VIG, EWC, EFA, AAPL, ENB, TRP. Dale Roberts is an investment funds associate at Tangerine Investment Funds Limited. The Tangerine Investment Portfolios offer complete, low-fee index-based profiles to Canadians. Dale's discourse does not make up financial investment recommendations. The opinions as well as info ought to just be factored right into an investor's overall viewpoint forming process.

Shiller Pe Individual Stocks

The Shiller P/E and the ratio of total market cap over GDP can function as great assistance for investors in choosing their financial investment techniques at various market evaluations. Historic market returns confirm that when the marketplace is fair or miscalculated, it pays to be defensive. Firms with premium quality organisation as well as solid equilibrium sheet will give better returns in this atmosphere. When the market economicals, defeated down companies with solid annual report can supply outsized returns.

What Shiller P/e Ratio Says About Market's Top

At the time of the research the marketplace (NYSEARCA: SPY) was in the Shiller PE ratio of 22-23, and the PE proportion anticipated returns in the area of 3%. Presently the Shiller PE stands at 26.4, the 5 year returns from that area are in adverse region.

Actually, it will certainly never hold true that Shiller P/E will turn around precisely to the mean after 8 years. Table below provide us a much better idea on the range of the future returns will be if the marketplace are within 50% to 150% of the mean.

Shiller PE

The writer created this short article themselves, and it expresses their very own opinions. The writer is not receiving compensation for it (apart from from Seeking Alpha). The writer has no business connection with any type of company whose stock is pointed out in this short article.

He's describing cyclical business like Caterpillar CAT, +0.31% as well as Deere DE, +0.33% whose incomes over the previous years have actually been stoked by China's economic boom along with solid need for an array of products.

It becomes noticeable that when the Shiller proportion has been 24 and also above, actual returns have primarily been weak or adverse. It is the profits power of firms that drive dividends, returns growth and returns. It's tough for business to use a whole lot of long term worth when you provide $20 to earn a buck. They have to have unbelievable income and incomes development to provide any meaningful actual returns from those valuations. From there, you are counting on someone to pay you more for your company ownership, as well as that decreased profits power or capacity - yet you may locate that purchaser, which is the wager. To me, that becomes more concerning gaming than buying a business that will certainly reward you with genuine revenues.

Valuation is an essential component of the discussion, which has actually accentuated one gauge that determines exactly how warmed the stock exchange is. It's called the CAPE ratio (yet additionally passes Shiller P/E as well as P/E10).

Shiller Pe Explained

The present proportion goes to 23.4 times earnings, compared to the long-lasting standard of 16.5. This would suggest stocks are costly. To place this in even more viewpoint, the action was 13.3 in March 2009-- right before U.S. supplies began their currently four-year rebound.

I have no suggestion where the markets are looking at the next couple of months or years yet PE degrees and PE trends are indisputable. It is most likely that there's no actual return offered at these levels. Genuine loan that will be made from right here will visit the method of a market correction, when financiers can pay less for revenues power.

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