#northwest playwright

[tgsparks]

Hello! Quick little introduction, My name is T.G. and I am a trans pan writer from the Pacific Northwest! I use he/him pronouns please!

Also, if you like video games and Minecraft, stream! Here’s the link tree for my video game persona, BlueSky42!

[jimhair]

Great art transforms It transforms the artist and the audience Darcelle XV and Walter Cole @darcellexvshowplace Portland, January 2020 🇺🇦💔🌎💔🌏💔🌍💔🇺🇦 #valentinesday #documentary #performance #artist #legend #author #playwright #actor #costume #designer #cabaret #owner #headliner #portrait #photography #hasselblad #camera #120 @kodak @kodakprofessional #ektar100 #film #photography #filmisnotdead #istillshootfilm #filmisalive #fromwhereistand #pdx #portland #nw #northwest #leftcoast #oregon 20011404 Ektar 1973 Hasselblad c/m 120mm Makro-Planar 200112 HP5 1973 Hasselblad c/m 120mm Makro-Planar Photographs © by Jim Hair 2020 https://www.instagram.com/p/CqMfeKBLsOL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.12 (before 1900)

254 – Pope Stephen I succeeds Pope Lucius I, becoming the 23rd pope of the Catholic Church, and immediately takes a stand against Novatianism. 907 – Zhu Wen forces Emperor Ai into abdicating, ending the Tang dynasty after nearly three hundred years of rule. 1191 – Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre in Cyprus; she is crowned Queen consort of England the same day. 1328 – Antipope Nicholas V, a claimant to the papacy, is consecrated in Rome by the Bishop of Venice. 1364 – Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland, is founded in Kraków. 1497 – Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola. 1510 – The Prince of Anhua rebellion begins when Zhu Zhifan kills all the officials invited to a banquet and declares his intent on ousting the powerful Ming dynasty eunuch Liu Jin during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor. 1551 – National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru. 1588 – French Wars of Religion: Henry III of France flees Paris after Henry I, Duke of Guise, enters the city and a spontaneous uprising occurs. 1593 – London playwright Thomas Kyd is arrested and tortured by the Privy Council for libel. 1601–1900 1743 – Maria Theresa of Austria is crowned Queen of Bohemia after defeating her rival, Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor. 1778 – Heinrich XI, count of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, is elevated to Prince by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. 1780 – American Revolutionary War: In the largest defeat of the Continental Army, Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces. 1797 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon Bonaparte conquers Venice. 1808 – Finnish War: Swedish-Finnish troops, led by Captain Karl Wilhelm Malmi, conquer the city of Kuopio from Russians after the Battle of Kuopio. 1821 – The first major battle of the Greek War of Independence against the Turks is fought in Valtetsi. 1846 – The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship and cannibalism. 1862 – American Civil War: Union Army troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Raymond: Two divisions of James B. McPherson's XVII Corps turn the left wing of Confederate General John C. Pemberton's defensive line on Fourteen Mile Creek, opening up the interior of Mississippi to the Union Army during the Vicksburg Campaign. 1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House: Union troops assault a Confederate salient known as the "Mule Shoe", with some of the fiercest fighting of the war, much of it hand-to-hand combat, occurring at "the Bloody Angle" on the northwest. 1865 – American Civil War: The Battle of Palmito Ranch: The first day of the last major land action to take place during the Civil War, resulting in a Confederate victory. 1870 – The Manitoba Act is given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada on July 15. 1881 – In North Africa, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate. 1885 – North-West Rebellion: The four-day Battle of Batoche, pitting rebel Métis against the Canadian government, comes to an end with a decisive rebel defeat. 1888 – In Southeast Asia, the North Borneo Chartered Company's territories become the British protectorate of North Borneo.

[ustopstampcom]

“The Raven Story represents a great meaning to the indigenous people of the Northwest Coast” said Jakki Krage Strako, the Postal Service’s chief commerce and business solutions officer and executive vice president, who served as the event’s dedicating official. “Today, the Postal Service is proud and honored to create this lasting tribute to the Raven Story through the issuance of this stamp.”

Joining Strako to dedicate the stamp were Marlene Johnson, chair of the Sealaska Heritage Institute Board of Trustees; Beth Weldon, mayor of Juneau; Frank Henry Kaash Katasse, playwright, actor and educator; Lance (X̱’unei) A Twitchell, associate professor of Alaska Native Languages, University of Alaska Southeast, and artist Rico Worl.

[burkedeboer]

North to the Abyss

2 F, 1 M.

During the gold rush, a woman travels to the coastal Alaskan town from which her husband sent his last letter. She intends to track him down, but instead finds greater mystery in the nature of his disappearance.

A note on the text: though only her opening monologue is in verse, you may notice that all of Rachel’s dialogue is timed to iambic pentameter. She is the only character that does so, and should help to distinguish her class from the other characters.

This 10 Minute Play was written in spring of 2018. The full text is below the break.

At center stage - RACHEL VASSALL. A well-to-do young woman, educated in turn of the century universities. She reads from a letter.

RACHEL “My dearest Rachel, the light of my life, Our time apart has only just begun And already I long for my return. I remind myself of what’s to be had: How better we shall live with these riches, That is, should this journey north prove fruitful. Yet, though I am confident in myself As I now have arrived in Alaska And look to the next steps of my travels, I would that my feet could now beat southward.

Every night I spend in a lonely bed And awake beside an empty pillow Is another sunset and rise wasted. I know we shall be together quite soon - As soon as the springtime, I’ll come to you. And yet it is not nearly soon enough.

I curse what this world requires of us, That it should require us be apart. But we shall overcome this great distance, As distance only is measured on maps, And there’s no mortal measure for our love. I am yours eternal. All my love, Claude.”

This was the first letter from Alaska. He said he would write whenever he could. I have a letter too from Seattle, where he waited ashore all of one night, a night he spent writing his love to me. That was Claude’s way; he always kept his word. So how, I wonder, did it come to pass that this letter should also be his last?

(Exits)

(A post office in a coastal Alaskan town. The 20th century has barely just begun; this is the sort of town that barely knows it, and won’t catch up with new century for some time. It is minded by the lone clerk and postmaster, BILL SAYER, an older man who stands behind a desk. He groans loudly as RACHEL enters. She looks at him alarmed.)

SAYER Sorry, miss, sorry to growl at ya, it’s just my back. I got them floating kidneys, y’know. Makes the lower back hurt something fierce. I got a balm for it though. But that’s talk for the apothecary not the post office. What can I do for you?

RACHEL What does the name Claude Vassall mean to you?

SAYER Both a lot and not much. From the look about you, I’d say he means more to you.

RACHEL I’d certainly hope so - he’s my husband.

SAYER Is that so? Well. It’s nice to meet you. Though it could have been under nicer circumstances.

RACHEL What do you mean? I haven’t heard from him; not hide nor hair nor whisper since the fall. I’ve no idea or notion how he is.

SAYER Yes, that’s right.

RACHEL Excuse me?

SAYER I’m terribly, awfully sorry, Mrs. Vassall. I didn’t realize, I-... Well. Easiest way to put it is that I know as much as you. Or as little, as it were. Nobody else has seen him either, not in this town. Not on this realm.

RACHEL What do you mean by “realm?” When did he leave?

SAYER In the fall.

RACHEL When he arrived? I have his last letter. I’ve kept it by my heart these last few months.

SAYER I’m sorry. We tried to warn him against staking that claim.

RACHEL Yes-- his claim, on some island in your bay.

SAYER Not just some island. Abaddon Island. That’s what the Russians called it anyway, and we may have changed a lot with this territory but that’s one thing we kept our hands off of. It’s better that way.

RACHEL I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mister-...?

SAYER Oh, of course, where are my manners. Sayer, ma’am. Bill Sayer. I’m the postmaster here. When your husband came and dropped off the letter, I didn’t realize who he was or where he was going or I would have talked to him myself. Maybe I should have gone out of my way to find him afterwards. After I heard from Eliza - she’s the lady what runs the inn he stayed at, and I heard from her that he had the Abaddon claim. And he planned to stake it. Then he was gone.

RACHEL Please don’t say it like that, Mr. Sayer. “Gone,” it just sounds so terribly final.

SAYER I’m sorry Mrs. Vassall, I know he was your husband. But let me-- I’m sorry. There’s something you need to know.

RACHEL I only need to know where to find him.

SAYER No-- I-- Listen. If I may: The man that sold him that claim sold it to him in California.

RACHEL I recall; I did share a house with him.

SAYER I only bring it up because the man who sold it was some sort of swindler.

RACHEL Was he so ignoble? Was the claim false?

SAYER No, the claim was true.

RACHEL Then tell me how my husband was “swindled?”

SAYER It’s just a matter of the fact being that no one around here would sell or advise the sale-of the claim on Abaddon Island. It was first staked back in the day when all the claims around here were getting staked. The old boy who took it up never came back. Things were in such a boom in those days, the town was just starting to spring up, not even platted yet, people coming and going every which way and nobody thought much of anything when a year passed and the claim wasn’t renewed so it defaulted back to the office. They figured he must’ve just left town, like so many others. Sold it again. But this time it was sold to a man who staked the Klondike and the Fortymile and had had himself a whole bunch of success. And he had struck gold outside of town here again, and folks in town knew him, so when spring turned to summer and we hadn’t seen him a search party got rounded up. Then these Chugach came to town, they got some villages down the coast both ways, been here for longer than any white folks, this is their land and their culture. They come out to sell their wares. So the posse asked them about that island, if they had any advice. And they told those men the same thing I’m gonna tell you: stay away.

RACHEL Is there some Native folklore about it?

SAYER Yes ma’am. It’s a forbidden land, in their eyes. I guess way back when the Russians were here, fur trapping expeditions sent attachments there, and it’s the same story. Same story as what happened to the posse too. Same story way back a thousand years. It’s been told too many times and I hate to tell it again. This time about your poor husband. I’m just afraid that when it comes to Abaddon Island, that’s the only way the story gets told.

RACHEL Then how did the rights to such an island, home to only warnings and precautions, come to be in the Lower Forty-Eight? Traded from a swindler to my husband?

SAYER Couldn’t tell ya. Don’t know. After the rights expired for the second time, a man named Chuch Buckford bought it. By that time I was working here. But I wasn’t postmaster yet, or else I would’ve refused to sell it to him. He went on and on about how all of this was only superstition. About how he was a man of reason, and a positivist, and how he would prove to us that there was nothing to fear. He had some sort of plan about it, or so he said. And he said it a lot. But he never went. After Chuch, I don’t know exactly how it changed hands, other than through poker games and maybe barters of some other sort. The state of things came to be that if a man put up a gold claim as part of a bet, then his opponent would demand to read it over and make double sure it wasn’t The Island. Or, if the opponent was a fresh-faced greenhorn, then everyone else around the table would intervene on his behalf and inspect the claim themselves. See, that’s why I say when Mr. Vassall arrived so keen to take on Abaddon Island I knew for a fact that it had been sold to him elsewhere. Every year, through the years, a different face would come into the office and renew the claim before it expired. A different man, every year, with all sorts of plans and ideas about how to get in and get out. One boy said he was gonna just row out there at dawn and back before dusk each day. I don’t know if he did it. It carried on this way for some time.

RACHEL And so it did, ‘til my husband arrived.

SAYER Yes ma’am, so it did.

(Enter RUTH, carrying a hefty bag of postage.)

RUTH Good fuckin’ shit, Bill, they must be thawing out up north, look at this load of postage! Snowbanks still up past your tits though, but looks like them logging camps finally got their shit down here. Good Lord, I’ve packed bears out of the backcountry that were lighter than this. (She slams the bag down. Beat) Who is this, why’s she crying?

RACHEL Oh am I really? Please, I don’t mean to.

SAYER No, there’s no reason to be embarrassed. I apologize for my courier. Ruth.

RUTH Yes Bill?

SAYER I’d like you to meet Mrs. Vassall.

RUTH ...Vassall? That’s not--

SAYER That is.

RUTH Oh hon.

RACHEL There’s been plenty of pity for me now, I’d appreciate it if you spared it.

RUTH Well alright. So Bill gave you the low-down then?

RACHEL He did.

RUTH I’m sorry, Mrs. Vassall. We tried to warn him.

RACHEL And tried to warn me, but I’m undeterred. I intend to travel to your island, and I intend to see it for myself.

SAYER Ma’am-- Nobody’s seen The Island for theirselves and came back to talk about it.

RACHEL I understand.

SAYER Nobody knows what happened to your husband, specifically, but let me tell you, everyone knows the general notion.

RACHEL I cannot believe that unless I see.

RUTH I’d go after my fella if he pulled a similar stunt.

SAYER Ruth… Ma’am, please, have a good think about this idea. Even if it wasn’t Abaddon Island. No offense, but you seem very well educated.

RACHEL I fail to see how that could bring offense.

SAYER It’s just I’m inclined to think you might not have a whole lot of experience in the woods. In the woods, alone, tracking a man. Would I be right?

RACHEL Yes.

SAYER Just consider what this whole undertaking would mean for you.

RACHEL Of course I have already, before I left. I took a ship up from San Francisco; I would not have made this trip hastily, but only after a winter of thought.

RUTH What you’ll wanna do, if you’re gonna head on out there, is pick yourself up a hired gun here in town.

SAYER Don’t tell her that.

RUTH Well she needs some sort of somebody helping her out. And I don’t rightly know, could be you go get a trapper or a mountaineer or some sort of timber fella. Someone that knows the wilderness real well and how to survive in it.

SAYER Nobody knows what The Island holds.

RUTH See, that’s what I’m thinking. Which is why I think of all the burly young bucks wasting their time in our taverns that would be raring to go. Remember that night when Joey Stokes walked down main street with his cap and ball Colt and shot out all the street lights one by one? Sheriff didn’t even arrest him on account of the fact that he was so impressed with Joey popping bulbs from a count of sixty paces.

SAYER Don’t ask her to talk to Joey Stokes.

RUTH Why not? It’s a heroic hunt, I’m sure he’d jump at the invitation.

SAYER Yes he would. And I like Joey Stokes. What you’re suggesting is instead of Mrs. Vassall dying alone, that Joey goes and dies with her.

(Silence)

RACHEL I trust it’s not as dire as all that. If it so worries you, Mr. Sayer, then I resolve to leave on my lonesome. I did not come to our Final Frontier with intent to rob you of your neighbors.

SAYER Much obliged. Much as I can oblige it.

RACHEL But your advice, much as I value it, can not be followed to its last letter. I did not sail north to turn south at port. I only want my husband home and safe, or, failing that, have him home and buried. Whichever fate the good Lord wills it be.

RUTH One way or another you’ll meet again.

RACHEL Yes. And meet in this world; I will find him.

RUTH I believe you when you say it. I just don’t believe me when I think it. Maybe since it’s springtime it’ll be easier. I wish you luck, ma’am.

RACHEL And you as well.

(RUTH exits. SAYER sighs, produces a box from under the desk.)

SAYER You’re set on it then?

RACHEL Yes, Mr. Sayer, I am resolute. In both my decision and intentions.

SAYER (He produces a revolver from the box.) Now I know this isn’t much. It’s just the post office pistol, issued to us should we need to defend ourselves. It’s a Peacemaker. They call it the gun that won the west, and The Island is west of here, technically. Cartographically. It would ease my mind if you had some sort of protection. (He produces a box of ammunition, sets it next to the gun on the table.) Now, legally, I’m not allowed to give this to you. Unless I deputized you a post carrier, I suppose. Not sure I’m allowed to do that either. But what I can do is leave it on the table here and step into the back. And if it was gone by the time I came back, I wouldn’t have a clue who took it. My own fault. Doubt anyone from the government would come checking on it anyway.

RACHEL I appreciate the offer-

SAYER No, now this one I’m firm on. All right, that’s my ultimatum. Either don’t go or take the gun. And I am the postmaster, I carry words and my words carry. Now it was nice meeting you, Mrs. Vassall. You are a determined sort, and that is respectable.

RACHEL And nice to meet you too, Mr. Sayer.

SAYER I just gotta pop into the back real quick. Hope to see you around.

SAYER exits to the back. There is a long silence as RACHEL considers. She then takes the gun and the ammo. She exits.

[kuramirocket]

Mexicans Playing Baseball in an Indiana Steel Town is a story about the early lives of a group of Mexican Americans who call themselves the “Old Timers of Indiana Harbor.” As a group, the Old Timers either were born in or arrived in Indiana Harbor at a very young age in the 1910s and through the 1930s. They are the original Mexican residents of Indiana Harbor, a section in the city of East Chicago, Indiana, that stood directly across from one of the largest basic steel mills in the world at the time, Inland Steel. It was a very industrial and urban environment. Indiana Harbor, or “The Harbor” as most Old Timers say, served as a destination stop for many Mexicans migrating to the Midwest from 1910 – 1950 in search of “one of those high paying jobs” at Inland Steel and other steel mill plants.

The Harbor became the center of the growing Mexican community in Northwest Indiana before and after World War II. It is within these general social and historical conditions that the development of baseball and softball teams in Indiana Harbor provided a recreational activity enjoyed by many in the Mexican community. The playing of baseball also became a simultaneous expression of their developing U.S./American identity and their developing Mexican identity.

John Fraire is a Chicano, Educator, Playwright, Historian, and Political Activist.  A former university vice president with nearly 40+ years experience in enrollment and student affairs, Fraire has led the fight for inclusion, diversity and justice throughout his career. An opponent of standardized testing and other exclusionary admissions policies, he has developed programs that helped diversify and stabilize enrollments at several institutions. For nearly two decades, Fraire served as a consultant to the Gates Millennium Scholars Program where he helped train and lead the readers who evaluated applications from Latino students.

[sea-otter148]

One of my life goals is to be a polymath. I want to know as much as I can and learn how to put it into use. I think Robert Heinlein, as cringe as he was, was correct about one thing.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Speaking of polymaths, here's a list of people I have respect for for being polymaths.

1. Leonardo Da Vinci: Artist, sculptor, architect, inventor, engineer, scientist, theorist, the true Renaissance man. Painted things like the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Lady With An Ermine and Salvator Mundi. Came up with early drafts for the helicopter, airplane, submarine, tank, and various other things. Wrote notebooks and drew sketches of several different subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and paleontology.

2. Ben Franklin: You know him, you've seen him on the $100 bill, you probably love him, he's great at a lot of things. The first ever postmaster general of the US, the first ambassador to Sweden and France, invented swimming paddles at just 11 years old, later invented the glass harmonica and Franklin stove, helped print some of the first ever newspapers in America, the New England Courant and later the Philadelphia Gazette, founded the University of Pennsylvania, the first fire department, police force (unfortunately), and hospital, did the famous kite experiment that proved lightning was a form of electricity, drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, came up with many aphorisms thanks to Poor Richard's Almanack (which was like any other almanac plus the aphorisms), the Silence Dogood letters, and many other writings, charted and named the Gulf Stream, laid the groundwork for modern demography, and was probably the first ever shitposter. I could name more stuff but honestly this is enough for me and maybe everyone else.

3. Rabindranath Tagore: The Da Vinci of Asia, arguably. A poet and composer who came up with the words for the Indian and Bangladeshi national anthems; an author who made several famous books including Gitanjali, a Nobel Prize-winning poetry anthology (HE WAS THE FIRST POC TO WIN A NOBEL PRIZE), Gora, and The Home and The World, among other literary works that have been adapted into films time and time again by Indian cinema studios; a playwright whose plays have also been adapted to the big screen frequently; a painter inspired by, among other things, Papua New Guinean masks from the Malagan people, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest, and the woodcuts of German artist Max Pechstein; a staunch advocate for Indian independence until his dying days, and a child prodigy, writing poetry as early as 8, and publishing his first poetry collection at 16. More people should be talking about this guy.

And finally 4. W. E. B. Dubois: Black sociologist, historian, author, and civil rights activist. He co-founded the NAACP in 1909, wrote his most famous work, The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, a seminal work of POC literature, was the first Black person to earn a doctorate in history, especially from Harvard (!!!!), and a very active member of the civil rights movement as early as the turn of the century. He is also the person that has lived the longest out of all the people on this list, as he died in 1963, at the ripe old age of 95, one year before the Civil Rights Act passed.

Let me know what you think.

[rabbitcruiser]

Rossio, Lisbon (No. 4)

From the Pombaline reconstruction dates the Bandeira Arch (Arco da Bandeira), a building at the south side of the square with a baroque pediment and a big arch that communicates the Rossio with the Sapateiros Street. The Rossio became linked to the other main square of the city, the Praça do Comércio, by two straight streets: the Áurea and the Augusta Streets.

After a fire in 1836, the old Inquisition Palace was destroyed. Thanks to the efforts of writer Almeida Garrett, it was decided to build a theatre in its place. The Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, built in the 1840s, was designed by the Italian Fortunato Lodi in neoclassical style. A statue of the renaissance Portuguese playwright Gil Vicente is located over the pediment of the theatre. Some of Gil Vicente's plays had been censured by the Inquisition back in the 16th century.

In the 19th century the Rossio was paved with typical Portuguese mosaic and was adorned with bronze fountains imported from France. The Column of Pedro IV was erected in 1874. At this time the square received its current official name, never accepted by the people.

Between 1886 and 1887 another important landmark was built in the square: the Rossio Train Station (Estação de Caminhos de Ferro do Rossio). The Station was built by architect José Luís Monteiro and was an important addition to the infrastructure of the city. Its neo-manueline façade dominates the northwest side of the square.

Source: Wikipedia        

[yegarts]

Edmonton Arts Council celebrates the distinguished achievements of 20 local   artists

The Edmonton Arts Council and the Edmonton Community Foundation are excited to announce the 2021 recipients of the Edmonton Artists’ Trust  Fund awards. 20 awards of $15,000 each will invest in emerging and established artists from the Edmonton region. The EATF  is designed to invest in Edmonton’s creative community and to encourage artists to stay in our community. The funds are intended to offset living and working expenses, allowing the artist to devote a concentrated period of time to his/her artistic activities, career enhancement and/or development.    

“We are proud to recognize these 20 outstanding artists whose diverse perspectives and practices help make the Edmonton region a vibrant and exciting place to live,” said Sanjay Shahani, Executive Director of the Edmonton Arts Council. “Supporting the careers of artists like our 2021 recipients, is foundational to the growth of our arts community, fostering an exciting ecology of creation and expression."

Recipients of the 2021 Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund:

Clockwise from top left: Cayley Thomas, Dwayne Martineau, Ellen Chorley, and Emily Chu. Photos supplied by the artists.

Cayley Thomas is an award-winning musician, actor, and video producer. From her early performances at The Citadel Theatre, to her nationally lauded 2020 album 'How Else Can I Tell You?' and recent foray into music video production, Cayley has shown time and time again her commitment to producing high-quality, culturally-impactful art. Her creative practice is one that aims to honour all aspects of the human experience through curiosity, compassion and collaboration.

Dwayne Martineau is a visual artist, musician, composer and writer. His work explores forests, non-linear time, and the physicality of light through installation and lens-based media. Dwayne is a member of Frog Lake First Nation, with an Indigenous/settler heritage and rural/urban upbringing. From this liminal perspective come playful, animistic, surreal examinations of the spaces between worlds, where we are all outsiders.

Ellen Chorley is a playwright, producer and arts educator. She is the Festival Director of the Nextfest Arts Company and teaches playwrighting and acting at the Foote Theatre School at the Citadel theatre. Ellen was named one of Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2013 and this past June, Ellen was awarded the Alberta Literary Award for Drama for her play “Everybody Loves Robbie”. With a strong thread of feminism and body positivity woven through her work, Ellen endeavours to be a voice for encouragement and empowerment for young artists and audiences alike.

Emily Chu is a Chinese illustrator whose work flows between commercial illustration, visual arts, community-centered arts engagement projects, and public art/murals. Her illustrations have received awards from 3x3 Contemporary Illustration Professional Show, American Illustration, and Applied Arts. Emily also serves on the Edmonton Arts Council Equity Committee, co-organizes the Royal Bison Art & Craft Fair, and is an artist in residence at Yorath House.  

Clockwise from top left: Emily Riddle, Erin Pankratz, Frederick  Kroetsch, and Gabriel Molina.  Photos supplied by the artists.

Emily Riddle is nehiyaw and a member of the Alexander First Nation in Treaty 6.  She is a writer, editor, public library worker, and researcher. Emily was shortlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize and selected for the 2021 Writers’ Trust of Canada mentorship program. Through this mentorship, she recently completed her debut poetry manuscript. She is currently working on a non-fiction manuscript about Treaty feminism and a time travel novel centering queer narratives of the fur trade.

Erin Pankratz was born in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, grew up in Fort Smith and moved to Edmonton, where she currently lives and works. Her body of work includes contemporary mosaics, public art, murals, commissions, and collaborative projects. A two-time recipient of the Innovation in Mosaic Award from the Society of American Mosaic Artists, she is a frequent guest artist, instructor, and lecturer. She has exhibited in France, Italy, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Canada, and the United States. In addition, she co-founded Red Knot Studio, which specializes in public art and site-specific projects.

Frederick Kroetsch has created dozens of eclectic film projects, including the TV-series Queen of the Oil Patch and the documentary Last of the Fur Traders. His latest film Blind Ambition: The Wop May Story recently won two awards at.the Edmonton International Film Festival.  In 2021 he directed the new TV-series Dr. Savanna: Wild Rose Vet; he field-produced on The Curse of Oak Island; and he won the Rosie Award for Best Unscripted Writer. Frederick is currently an executive producer on a true crime TV-series for NBCUniversal. He has an art film, a feature film, and six new documentaries in development. 

Gabriel Molina is a visual artist with a lens-based practice, producing digital prints, video and GIF works, and multimedia installations. He graduated from the University of Alberta in 2013 with a BFA in Fine Arts and graduated with an MA: Fine Art from the Chelsea College of Arts in London, England in 2015. He has exhibited work throughout Edmonton and London, England, with residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts and ArtsIceland. Gabriel’s upcoming solo exhibition will be at Latitude 53 in 2022.

Clockwise from top left: Layla Folkmann, Madhan Selvaraj , Maigan van der Giessen, and Makram Ayache. Photos supplied by the artists.

Layla Folkmann is an internationally recognized mural artist and painter. For over a decade, she has dedicated her practice to socially and culturally engaged public art as part of LALA (Lacey & Layla Art) while fostering a passion for portraiture, realism and the representation of compelling characters. Layla is currently designing and building her own self-sufficient tiny house and maintains a full-time studio practice.

Madhan Selvaraj brings over 10 years of experience in the arts and culture sector as an arts administrator. He is a pioneer in the local arts scene and is the Founder and Executive Director of Edmonton Movie Club and India Film Festival of Alberta with the mandate to bridge cultures through cinema. He is currently directing a documentary titled “OH Canada” to address racism and systematic bias.

Maigan van der Giessen is a poet, vocalist, visual artist, organizer, mother and human rights advocate working within Edmonton-amiskwaciwaskahikan's diverse creative communities since 2003. Under the moniker Tzadeka, Maigan has released five solo albums and is recognized as a local hip hop pioneer, youth mentor and community builder. Tzadeka's music is unpredictable, clever and magnetic; Female-fronted, experimental-prairie-hip hop.

Makram Ayache is a community-engaged artist and educator. His playwriting explores representations of queer Arab voices and aims to bridge interlocking political struggles to the intimate experiences of the people impacted by them. Ayache is the 2020 PGC Tom Hendry recipient for “Harun” and the 2021 runner up of the Wildfire Playwriting Contest for his play “The Hooves Belonged to the Deer.”  

Clockwise from top left: Melissa-Jo Belcourt, Nasra Adem, Natahna Bargen-Lema, and Natalie Meyer. Photos supplied by the artists.

Melissa-Jo Belcourt (MJ) comes from a rich Métis ancestry and possesses a wealth of cultural skills, acquired from Métis and First Nation Elders and Knowledge Holders throughout northern and central Alberta. Her passion lies in her cultural heritage where she continues to research to find better understanding of her ancestral legacy. Additionally, MJ is a certified Native Cultural Art instructor, and most recently worked as Indigenous Art Consultant for Fort Edmonton Park and Indigenous Curator for the Edmonton Public Library. In 2019, MJ served as an Indigenous Artist in Residency with the City of Edmonton.

Nasra Adem, is a queer Oromo/Somali multidisciplinary artist. They are the founder of Black Arts Matter and a former Youth Poet Laureate of Edmonton. Their latest work includes their EP “Salve”, a unique blend of herbal medicine, genre bending poetics and bass driven sound. And DNAPLAY; a veneration of Black queer routine as ritual through storytelling, film, movement and music premiering February 2022. No matter the form it takes NASRA’s he(art)work continuously centers the joy, autonomy and freedom of Black/Indigenous Peoples everywhere.

Natahna Bargen-Lema is a queer writer, graphic designer, and the co-founder of the women-run, digitally focused publishing house, Party Trick Press. She is passionate about revolutionizing the eLiterature experience by centering unique perspectives in fresh and surprising ways. Natahna has been published in a variety of outlets, including The Financial Diet, Metatron, Soft Magazine, Hello America Stereo Cassette, and Alberta Views. She is also the author and co-author of the poetry collections Modern Madonna and Prairie Girl Collective, respectively.  

As an Indo-Canadian multi-disciplinary visual artist; painter, bodypainter, videographer and youth educator, Natalie Meyer’s artwork aims to reach a level where people can feel, heal and evoke emotion while exploring her work. Natalie’s artistic journey involves representing visible minorities, exploring cultural and diverse traditions, and the uniqueness of the human form.  

Clockwise from top left: Sherryl Sewepagaham, D’orjay The Singing Shaman, Steven Teeuwsen, and Yong Fei Guan. Photos supplied by the artists.

Sherryl Sewepagaham is Cree-Dene from the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta and resides in Edmonton. She is a songmaker and hand drum singer, which inspires the music she creates. She is also an elementary music educator, choral composer, and music therapist, and has spent her career focusing on Indigenous music. Sherryl is passionate about sharing the Cree language in many facets of her work and study and is dedicated to composing in the Cree language, sharing the beauty of the language with both children and adults.

Steven Teeuwsen is an Edmonton-based mural artist, sculptor, and designer. Steven has demonstrated a continued commitment to supporting his community with innovative curatorial projects for the past 15 years, such as Notebook Magazine and Lowlands Project Space. Steven strives for diversity in the demographics of the artists that he curates by trying to remove barriers for artists who are neurodiverse or have had barriers put in place by heteronormative culture and systemic racism.

D’orjay The Singing Shaman is passionate, vocal, and committed to bringing diversity and inclusiveness to country music. She colours outside the lines with anthemic, bold blues, honky-tonk and rock-flavoured roots with a distinct queer, Black twist. A self-described late bloomer, at 35 she grabbed the mic, releasing her critically acclaimed debut, New Kind of Outlaw. D’orjay has been nominated for 2021 Breakout West Country Artist of the Year, had the title track featured on Hockey Night in Canada, has been a featured artist on Proud Radio Country and Color Me Country on Apple Music Radio, reviewed/mentioned in Rolling Stone Country and spent multiple weeks on the Alberta's CKUA Top Ten chart including two weeks in the #1 spot.  

Yong Fei Guan is a Chinese-Canadian artist and a mother of two daughters. She explores multicultural identity, politics, and their relationship to environmental issues in her work. Guan utilizes a multitude of different mediums, from watercolour to single-used plastic. Her recent large installations, including 塑胶狮 Su Jiao Shi, a pair of contemporary Chinese guardian lion sculptures created from household plastic waste, have garnered a great deal media attention. Guan is currently conducting a research-creation project exploring eco public art through the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Alberta.

More information about the Edmonton Arts Council’s grants and award programs can be found at: grants.edmontonarts.ca.  

[atamascolily]

After Ursula K. Le Guin died, I made an agreement with myself I would read anything and everything she'd written as the chance arose. That said, Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand probably would have been the last on my list, had I not stumbled across a paperback copy in a library booksale (in pre-pandemic times) in a "fill a paper bag for $10" sale and it languished in my TBR pile for months before I finally got around to it.

The reason? Genre snobbery, in reverse of the usual direction. Searoad is a collection of short stories published in magazines like The New Yorker, and fancy-sounding publications with Review in their names. Serious publications publishing so-called "literary" fiction, or maybe "realistic fiction" or just plain fiction--fiction that's supposed to tell-it-like-it-is, lay bare the inadequacies of modern life, and leave you feeling empty and unfulfilled after watching empty and unfulfilled people make poor decisions in futile attempts to fill the emptiness and inadequacies of their lives. Because that’s the whole point of literature, right?

Oh. Perhaps I'm generalizing. But so it feels to me whenever I dip into one of these publications. They are "literature", everything else is "genre": romance, science-fiction, fantasy, action, adventure, thriller, mystery, crime. "Literary" fiction is usually just plain old "fiction" in the library classification systems and in common parlance: it is assumed to be the norm, the default, from which everything else is a deviation. And I hate this. I've always hated this.

To write about petty modern people with their petty modern lives is one thing--we all have our kinks--but to disdain others for imagining different things, for epics and grandeur and you-could-have-anything-so-why-not-go-for-it always struck me as a deep failure of, and disdain for, imagination. Genres, like so much else in our lives, are social constructs: us and them, the have and the have-nots. Literary fiction are the "haves", everything else is the "have-nots". That's changing, obviously, and the boundaries aren't as rigid as they once were, but I still see that divide reflected in so-called "serious" publications, and I generally avoid them.

Ursula K. Le Guin has always hugged the boundaries between "pure" genre (aka trashy, flashy, unfit for serious folk in the eyes of the pedants) and "literary merit". She's been accepted and respected by both camps, although the "literary" folks speak of the sci-fi rather patronizingly in their reviews of her works. Le Guin, however, never disdained the sci-fi labels in the same way that Margaret Atwood--another boundary-spanning writer--has always done.

For this reason, I've retained infinitely more respect for Le Guin than Atwood, despite Atwood's considerable talents as a writer. Atwood wants to play with sci-fi tropes, but she doesn't have the backbone to stand up and be proud of it. Atwood wants to write science fiction but not be judged for it, and the easiest way to do that (since genres are a social construct) is just to firmly insist that it's not sci-fi at all--move along, nothing to see here.

Here's a blurb on the back of my copy of Searoad by Carolyn Kizer, a Pulitzer-prize winning poet from the Pacific Northwest:

"For a number of years, the only science-fiction I read was that of Ursula K. Le Guin. I don't read science-fiction any more, thought I wouldn't think of missing a book of Le Guin's. She has transcended the genre..."

How very generous and open-minded of you to only read science-fiction so elevated it “transcends” its genre entirely, thereby becoming worthy of notice. And this is supposed to make me like literary fiction? 

That said, the irony is that Kizer’s statement sums up my approach to non-genre stuff as well, although I would not have phrased it quite so baldly. More like “Okay, not usually my cup of tea--but if it’s you, it’s okay....” The genre transcending thing, as much as I despise the phrasing, works both ways here.

All this is to say I finally read Searoad, even though I had to coax myself into it by pretending that this was an alien society that Le Guin and I were exploring together in order to tell us stuff about our own, and that helped. It also helped because the stories were so damn good, and I got carried away, even though they are very literary stories, with ambiguous endings, the usual focus on unexpressed and/or self-destructive emotions of love, birth, and death, and no magic or wizards or dragons whatsoever.

(To repeat: I am a genre snob who has never understood why writing without dragons was inherently better than writing with dragons in it. I have always operated under the principle that dragons made everything better. And I have never understood why depicting the world as it is was a stroke of literary genius, if all you were going to do with it it is show people being unhappy in the usual old ways instead of unusual ways. Or even imagine something new and different!)

Searoad reminds me of Lake Wobegon a little, but that's only because it's a small town, with characters from one story popping up in others in the most unexpected places--just like small town life. After a while, it feels like we're constantly running into old friends, a shared world--real, but in a good way. The stories were published across a wide range of outlets from 1987-1991, yet flow into each other astonishingly well when read in rapid succession, or indeed, in any order at all.

My favorite is "True Love," which is all about ditching unsatisfying conventional relationships to focus on one's true passion instead:

For me, sex is sublimation. Left to itself, in its raw, primitive state, my libido would have expend itself inexhaustibly in reading.

And since I have been a librarian ever since I was twenty, I can truly compare my life to that of some pasha luxuriating in his harem--and what a harem! Half a million mistresses, when I was at the Central Library in Portland! A decade-long orgy! And during the school year, since I teach now at the Library School, I have access to the University Library. Here in Klatsand where I spend the summers, the harem is very small and a good many of the houris are rather out of date, but then so am I. My lust has lessened somewhat with the years. Sometimes I imagine I could be contented with a mere shelf of tried, true, and highly selected Scheherazades, with only now and then a pretty little novel to flirt with, or a volume of new poetry to make me cry out with excess of pleasure in the heart of the night.

And in the same story, Le Guin makes it clear she's one of us:

"Do you like science fiction" I asked her, because all I can really talk about is books. And of course, she couldn't talk about books. That had been knocked out of her years ago. We compromised on "Star Trek," new and old. She liked the new series as well as the old one. I liked the old one better. Antal stared, not at Rosemarie, only at me. "You watch it?" he said. "You watch television?"

I didn't answer. ... I was not going to let him try to shame us for our commonness.

"The one I liked best was the one where Mr. Spock had to go home because he was in heat," I said to her.

"Except, he never, you know," she said. "They just had a fight over the girl, him and Captain Kirk, and then they left."

"That's his pride," I said, obscurely. I was thinking how Mr. Spock was never unbuttoned, never lolled, kept himself shadowy, unfulfilled, and so we loved him. And poor Captain Kirk, going from blonde to blonde, would never understand that he himself loved Mr. Spock truly, hopelessly, forever.

Reader, I LOLed. Because it's true. You know it, I know it, and so does Le Guin. And she had the guts to say so in the Indiana Review, and the editors published it. LEGEND.

Like all of Le Guin's writing, the stories in Searoad are lyrical, elegant, soaring, and moving--sympathetic, yet unafraid to call out bad behavior and terrible things when she sees it. My other favorite story, "Sleepwalkers," is a brilliant example of this: it starts with a complaint by a privileged male playwright about the housekeeper at his summer cabin, only for us to quickly learn (if his tone and phrasing didn't give it away) that he's an arrogant asshole who sees only what he wants to see and misses what's actually in front of him. We then pivot to a number of other people at the little resort, and their views of the housekeeper, and we're left with an open question at the end: which view is more accurate? Which story do we believe? What is actually going on? Can any of us really know or understand the hidden depths within another person? It's so deep and lush and well-written, and even funny on occasions.

And there's also a diversity of viewpoints and perspectives and scenarios enough to keep me interested: a lesbian grieves the death of her long-time partner, a war veteran deals with PTSD, a college student runs off into the woods to secretly map illegal old-growth logging stands, a ghost appears in a late-night diner to a sexual-abuse victim. The ghost thing seems like it ought to fall under genre conventions, but doesn’t because of the framing, and yet it still works for me--another example of Le Guin’s skill.

Anyway, so Le Guin actually made me enjoy so-called "literary" fiction and that was unexpected and delightful. Regardless of my feelings about most "realistic" fiction, I'm glad I read this collection.  

[100gayicons]

“If you read his diary, all will be explained...”

Joe Orton was an English playwright known for his scandalous black comedies. They shocked, outraged, and amused audiences. His style was so distinctive that “Ortonesque” was coined to describe similar dark and farcical works.

He was born in Leicester, England (about 100 miles northwest of London). In 1949 he grew interested in acting and joined several local theater companies, then applied to and was accepted for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

While attending RADA in 1951, he met fellow student Kenneth Halliwell and they quickly became friends, then roommates and lovers. After graduating, they both did stints in regional theater but eventually settled into a small flat where they wrote (both solo and together). They lived off money Halliwell inherited, and only worked when they had to, living frugally in between.

With that much time on their hands, they eventually got up to no good. Orton and Halliwell would take books from the library and doctor the covers with other photos (often rude) then secretly place then back in the library. For instance, a book of poetry was doctored with a photo of a nearly naked, tattooed man on the cover. In 1962 they were caught and prosecuted for damaging 70 books, sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of £262.

They felt the sentence was too harsh for the crime “because we were queers”. But the time in prison, away from Halliwell, gave Orton the ability to become creative independently. It also refined his view of society.

“It affected my attitude towards society. Before, I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere; prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul… Being in the nick brought detachment to my writing. I wasn’t involved anymore. And suddenly it worked.”

Soon after, Orton was hired to write a radio play for the BBC, which got him noticed. The first of his best-known works, “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” was a play about a middle-aged brother and sister who vie for the attentions of Sloane, a hustler and male prostitute.

With "Sloane" a hit in the West End, Orton began work on “Loot” - a story about two young thieves who hide bank loot in a coffin belonging to the mother of one of them. Things get complicated and bizarre when an over-zealous Water Inspector arrives to investigate. A black farce, the play lampoons death, the police, religion, and justice. “Loot” struggled initially but it too became a hit.

Meanwhile, Kenneth Halliwell felt neglected. He'd helped Orton edit and shape the plays, even adding line and plot suggestions, but he never got public acknowledgement from Orton.

Complicating the situation, Orton frequently had sex outside the relationship, often cruising parks and public bathrooms for pickups, and even hiring rent boys when they went on vacation. All of which Orton wrote about in his diary. In one entry he wrote about a blond conquest: “He had a softness about his body that wasn’t the softness of a woman. I hoped he would let me fuck him.“

This did nothing to help Halliwell’s ego because he was overweight, wore a toupee, and was seven years older than the 34-year-old Orton. Halliwell became increasingly depressed and argumentative.

But Orton was on a high and may not have noticed. He was approached by the Beatles to write a movie to follow up “Help”. He completed his next major work “What the Butler Saw” in July 1967.

Orton would never see the play produced. A month later, he was killed by Halliwell with nine blows to the head with a hammer. Halliwell then committed suicide by drug overdose. Halliwell left a suicide note:

“If you read his diary, all will be explained. PS: Especially the latter part.” KH

“What the Butler Saw” eventually became a big hit as well. Author John Lahr used Orton’s diary as the basis of a biography: “Prick up Your Ears” was published in 1978. A 1987 film based on the book starred Gary Oldman as Orton and Alfred Molina as Halliwell.

[juneteenthblackqueerhistory]

Lucille Diggs Slowe 

Dates: July 4, 1885 – October 21, 1937

Audio available here.

Lucille Diggs Slowe was a pioneering Black American educator. Raised, and educated through high school in Baltimore, Slowe moved to DC in 1904 to attend Howard University. She graduated as valedictorian from Howard in 1908, and went on to begin her teaching career. The bulk of Slowe’s career was spent in educational institutions—first as a teacher in Baltimore, later as a principal in DC, and beginning in 1922, as Howard’s first Dean of Women. As Howard’s Dean of Women, Slowe championed expanded educational resources for women’s education and scholarship at the University. Her innovative work at Howard impacted the proliferation of women’s deanships at Black schools throughout the country.

1908, while Slowe was still an undergraduate at Howard, she became one of the original sixteen founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the first Greek letter organization by and for African-American women. Black fraternities and sororities like AKA were founded with the intention of creating opportunities for Black college students to connect and build power in a segregated society.  

A prolific member of Black organizations, Slowe helped to create multiple national groups designed to uplift Black women. In 1935, Slowe helped to organize the National Council of Negro Women. Later, became a founder and the first president of the National Association of College Women.

In addition to her career in education, Slowe was also an accomplished tennis player. In 1917 she won a national title at the American Tennis Association tournament— the first Black woman to win a major sports title. 

For more than twenty years, Slowe was partnered with Mary P. Burrill, a Black American playwright and educator. They lived together, first in Northwest, and later in a house they purchased at 1256 Kearney Street in Northeast DC.

[jimhair]

I am sorry to hear of the passing of Darcelle XV. A Portland treasure. I rarely use color film, but spending a morning working with Darcelle, a few rolls of color were required. My original post from 2020: Darcelle XV has performed in Portland for 50 years and will be onstage tonight at Darcelle XV’s Showplace in Chinatown. Happy Valentines Day! May you find love ❤️ Darcelle XV, Portland, January 2023 🇺🇦💔🌎💔🌏💔🌍💔🇺🇦 #valentinesday #documentary #performance #artist #legend #author #playwright #actor #costume #designer #cabaret #owner #headliner #portrait #photography #hasselblad #camera #120 @kodak @kodakprofessional #ektar100 #film #photography #filmisnotdead #istillshootfilm #filmisalive #fromwhereistand #pdx #portland #nw #northwest #leftcoast #oregon 20011404 Ektar 1973 Hasselblad c/m 120mm Makro-Planar https://www.instagram.com/p/CqLTJleJYmz/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.12

254 – Pope Stephen I succeeds Pope Lucius I, becoming the 23rd pope of the Catholic Church, and immediately takes a stand against Novatianism. 907 – Zhu Wen forces Emperor Ai into abdicating, ending the Tang dynasty after nearly three hundred years of rule. 1191 – Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre in Cyprus; she is crowned Queen consort of England the same day. 1328 – Antipope Nicholas V, a claimant to the papacy, is consecrated in Rome by the Bishop of Venice. 1364 – Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland, is founded in Kraków. 1497 – Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola. 1510 – The Prince of Anhua rebellion begins when Zhu Zhifan kills all the officials invited to a banquet and declares his intent on ousting the powerful Ming dynasty eunuch Liu Jin during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor. 1551 – National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru. 1588 – French Wars of Religion: Henry III of France flees Paris after Henry I, Duke of Guise, enters the city and a spontaneous uprising occurs. 1593 – London playwright Thomas Kyd is arrested and tortured by the Privy Council for libel. 1743 – Maria Theresa of Austria is crowned Queen of Bohemia after defeating her rival, Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor. 1778 – Heinrich XI, count of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, is elevated to Prince by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. 1780 – American Revolutionary War: In the largest defeat of the Continental Army, Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces. 1797 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon Bonaparte conquers Venice. 1808 – Finnish War: Swedish-Finnish troops, led by Captain Karl Wilhelm Malmi, conquers the city of Kuopio from Russians after the Battle of Kuopio. 1821 – The first major battle of the Greek War of Independence against the Turks is fought in Valtetsi. 1846 – The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship and cannibalism. 1862 – American Civil War: Union Army troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Raymond: Two divisions of James B. McPherson's XVII Corps turn the left wing of Confederate General John C. Pemberton's defensive line on Fourteen Mile Creek, opening up the interior of Mississippi to the Union Army during the Vicksburg Campaign. 1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House: Union troops assault a Confederate salient known as the "Mule Shoe", with some of the fiercest fighting of the war, much of it hand-to-hand combat, occurring at "the Bloody Angle" on the northwest. 1865 – American Civil War: The Battle of Palmito Ranch: The first day of the last major land action to take place during the Civil War, resulting in a Confederate victory. 1870 – The Manitoba Act is given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada on July 15. 1881 – In North Africa, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate. 1885 – North-West Rebellion: The four-day Battle of Batoche, pitting rebel Métis against the Canadian government, comes to an end with a decisive rebel defeat. 1888 – In Southeast Asia, the North Borneo Chartered Company's territories become the British protectorate of North Borneo. 1926 – The Italian-built airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole. 1926 – The 1926 United Kingdom general strike ends. 1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction, Charles Jr., the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, is found dead near Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home. 1933 – The Agricultural Adjustment Act, which restricts agricultural production through government purchase of livestock for slaughter and paying subsidies to farmers when they remove land from planting, is signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 1933 – President Roosevelt signs legislation creating the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the predecessor of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1937 – The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey. 1941 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin. 1942 – World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov: In eastern Ukraine, Red Army forces under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launch a major offensive from the Izium bridgehead, only to be encircled and destroyed by the troops of Army Group South two weeks later. 1942 – World War II: The U.S. tanker SS Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German submarine U-507. 1948 – Wilhelmina, Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, cedes the throne to her daughter Juliana. 1949 – Cold War: The Soviet Union lifts its blockade of Berlin. 1965 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon. 1968 – Vietnam War: North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces attack Australian troops defending Fire Support Base Coral. 1975 – Indochina Wars: Democratic Kampuchea naval forces capture the SS Mayaguez. 1978 – In Zaire, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining center of the province of Shaba (now known as Katanga); the local government asks the US, France and Belgium to restore order. 1982 – During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan María Fernández y Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet 1989 – The San Bernardino train disaster kills four people, only to be followed a week later by an underground gasoline pipeline explosion, which kills two more people. 1998 – Four students are shot at Trisakti University, leading to widespread riots and the fall of Suharto. 2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since the Cuban Revolution. 2003 – The Riyadh compound bombings in Saudi Arabia, carried out by al-Qaeda, kill 39 people. 2006 – Mass unrest by the Primeiro Comando da Capital begins in São Paulo (Brazil), leaving at least 150 dead. 2006 – Iranian Azeris interpret a cartoon published in an Iranian magazine as insulting, resulting in massive riots throughout the country. 2008 – An earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people. 2008 – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts the largest-ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 immigrants for identity theft and document fraud. 2010 – Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crashes on final approach to Tripoli International Airport in Tripoli, Libya, killing 103 out of the 104 people on board. 2015 – A train derailment in Philadelphia kills eight people and injures more than 200. 2015 – Massive Nepal earthquake kills 218 people and injures more than 3,500. 2017 – The WannaCry ransomware attack impacts over 400,000 computers worldwide, targeting computers of the United Kingdom's National Health Services and Telefónica computers. 2018 – Paris knife attack: A man is fatally shot by police in Paris after killing one and injuring several others.

[freenewstoday]

New Post has been published on https://www.freenews.today/2021/04/04/william-biff-mcguire-tony-nominated-actor-dies-at-94/

William “Biff” McGuire, Tony-Nominated Actor, Dies At 94

William “Biff” McGuire, whose Broadway career spanned over seven decades and included a role in the original 1958 South Pacific, died according to a statement released on April 1. He was 94.

His death was announced by the Seattle Rep, a theater that McGuire shared a long history with. He performed in over 30 productions there, including Saint Joan (1979-80), Noises Off (1986-87), and A Flaw in the Ointment (1993-94). With dozens of films under his belt, he has appeared in scenes with Al Pacino in Serpico, Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair, and Alan Arkin in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Biff was also a regular on television from the late 1940’s to the early 2000’s. In his seventies, he was nominated for two Tony’s for his roles in The Young Man From Atlanta (1997) and Morning’s At Seven (2002). 

Related Story

Gloria Henry Dies: ‘Dennis The Menace’ Actress Was 98

In 1960, he was cast opposite British actress Jeannie Carson in a 1960 revival of Finian’s Rainbow. They married in November of that year, and then starred in the original national tour of Camelot. He played King Arthur while Carson played Guinevere. This was just the beginning of their lifelong romance and acting partnership. Together, they moved to the Pacific Northwest to bring playwrights’ works to life, including Shakespeare, Shaw and Ibsen. 

Former Seattle Rep Associate Artistic Director Doug Hughes remembers the late actor as “reserved, even shy in real life.” However, Hughes says that Biff gained “a nearly scary confidence once he stepped on a stage.” 

McGuire got his famous nickname from playing football as a kid growing up in Camden, Connecticut. He attended the University of Massachusetts, where he studied agricultural engineering and later left to join the US Army in the midst of World War II. Stationed in England, he studied acting, directing, radio, and television, eventually setting his sights on set design, only to return to acting. 

In a 2004 talkinbroadway interview, McGuire attributes his love for theater to his big family and his love for entertaining them. “We had all of these big gatherings of the whole family on Saturday nights, and everybody had to do something, so that was my theater. I shared it with a very large family,” Biff reminisced.

McGuire is survived by his wife, two children and two grandchildren.

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[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in film and television for half a century.

She began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career. She established herself as a Pre-Code staple of Warner Bros. Pictures in wisecracking, sexy roles, and appeared in more than 100 films and television productions. She was most active in film during the 1930s and early 1940s, and during that time she co-starred with Glenda Farrell in nine films, in which the duo portrayed gold diggers. Blondell continued acting on film and television for the rest of her life, often in small, supporting roles. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Blue Veil (1951).

Near the end of her life, Blondell was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Opening Night (1977). She was featured in two more films, the blockbuster musical Grease (1978) and Franco Zeffirelli's The Champ (1979), which was released shortly before Blondell's death from leukemia.

Rose Joan Blondell was born in New York to a vaudeville family; she gave her birthdate as August 30, 1909. Her father, Levi Bluestein, a vaudeville comedian known as Ed Blondell, was born in Poland to a Jewish family in 1866. He toured for many years starring in Blondell and Fennessy's stage version of The Katzenjammer Kids. Blondell's mother was Catherine (known as "Kathryn" or "Katie") Caine, born in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York (later Brooklyn, New York City) on April 13, 1884, to Irish-American parents. Joan's younger sister, Gloria Blondell, also an actress, was briefly married to film producer Albert R. Broccoli. The Blondell sisters had a brother, Ed Blondell, Jr.

Joan's cradle was a property trunk as her parents moved from place to place. She made her first appearance on stage at the age of four months when she was carried on in a cradle as the daughter of Peggy Astaire in The Greatest Love. Her family comprised a vaudeville troupe, the "Bouncing Blondells".

Joan had spent a year in Honolulu (1914–15) and six years in Australia and had seen much of the world by the time her family, who had been on tour, settled in Dallas, Texas, when she was a teenager. Under the name Rosebud Blondell, she won the 1926 Miss Dallas pageant, was a finalist in an early version of the Miss Universe pageant in May 1926, and placed fourth for Miss America 1926 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in September of that same year. She attended Santa Monica High School, where she acted in school plays and worked as an editor on the yearbook staff. While there (and after high school), she gave her name as Rosebud Blondell, such as when she attended North Texas State Teacher’s College (1926–1927), now the University of North Texas in Denton, where her mother was a local stage actress.

Around 1927, she returned to New York, worked as a fashion model, a circus hand, a clerk in a store, joined a stock company to become an actress, and performed on Broadway. In 1930, she starred with James Cagney in Penny Arcade on Broadway. Penny Arcade lasted only three weeks, but Al Jolson saw it and bought the rights to the play for $20,000. He then sold the rights to Warner Bros., with the proviso that Blondell and Cagney be cast in the film version, named Sinners' Holiday (1930). Placed under contract by Warner Bros., she moved to Hollywood, where studio boss Jack L. Warner wanted her to change her name to "Inez Holmes", 34 but Blondell refused. She began to appear in short subjects and was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931.

Blondell was paired several more times with James Cagney in films, including The Public Enemy (1931), and she was one-half of a gold-digging duo with Glenda Farrell in nine films. During the Great Depression, Blondell was one of the highest-paid individuals in the United States. Her stirring rendition of "Remember My Forgotten Man" in the Busby Berkeley production of Gold Diggers of 1933, in which she co-starred with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, became an anthem for the frustrations of unemployed people and the government's failed economic policies. In 1937, she starred opposite Errol Flynn in The Perfect Specimen. By the end of the decade, she had made nearly 50 films. She left Warner Bros. in 1939.

In 1943, Blondell returned to Broadway as the star of Mike Todd's short-lived production of The Naked Genius, a comedy written by Gypsy Rose Lee. She was well received in her later films, despite being relegated to character and supporting roles after 1945, when she was billed below the title for the first time in 14 years in Adventure, which starred Clark Gable and Greer Garson. She was also featured prominently in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and Nightmare Alley (1947). In 1948, she left the screen for three years and concentrated on theater, performing in summer stock and touring with Cole Porter's musical, Something for the Boys. She later reprised her role of Aunt Sissy in the musical version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for the national tour and played the nagging mother, Mae Peterson, in the national tour of Bye Bye Birdie.

Blondell returned to Hollywood in 1950. Her performance in her next film, The Blue Veil (1951), earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She played supporting roles in The Opposite Sex (1956), Desk Set (1957), and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957). She received considerable acclaim for her performance as Lady Fingers in Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid (1965), garnering a Golden Globe nomination and National Board of Review win for Best Supporting Actress. John Cassavetes cast her as a cynical, aging playwright in his film Opening Night (1977). Blondell was widely seen in two films released not long before her death – Grease (1978), and the remake of The Champ (1979) with Jon Voight and Rick Schroder. She also appeared in two films released after her death – The Glove (1979), and The Woman Inside (1981).

Blondell also guest-starred in various television programs, including three 1963 episodes as the character Aunt Win in the CBS sitcom The Real McCoys, starring Walter Brennan and Richard Crenna.

Also in 1963, Blondell was cast as the widowed Lucy Tutaine in the episode, "The Train and Lucy Tutaine", on the syndicated anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Lucy sues a railroad company, against great odds, for causing the death of her cow. Noah Beery Jr., was cast as Abel.

In 1964, she appeared in the episode "What's in the Box?" of The Twilight Zone. She guest-starred in the episode "You're All Right, Ivy" on Jack Palance's circus drama, The Greatest Show on Earth, which aired on ABC in the 1963–64 television season. Her co-stars in the segment were Joe E. Brown and Buster Keaton. In 1965, she was in the running to replace Vivian Vance as Lucille Ball's sidekick on the hit CBS television comedy series The Lucy Show. Unfortunately, after filming her second guest appearance as Joan Brenner (Lucy's new friend from California), Blondell walked off the set right after the episode had completed filming when Ball humiliated her by harshly criticizing her performance in front of the studio audience and technicians.

Blondell continued working on television. In 1968, she guest-starred on the CBS sitcom Family Affair, starring Brian Keith. She replaced Bea Benaderet, who was ill, for one episode on the CBS series Petticoat Junction. In that installment, Blondell played FloraBelle Campbell, a lady visitor to Hooterville, who had once dated Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) and Sam Drucker (Frank Cady). That same year, Blondell co-starred in all 52 episodes of the ABC Western series Here Come the Brides, set in the Pacific Northwest of the 19th century. Her co-stars included singer Bobby Sherman and actor-singer David Soul. Blondell received two consecutive Emmy nominations for outstanding continued performance by an actress in a dramatic series for her role as Lottie Hatfield.

In 1971, she followed Sada Thompson in the off-Broadway hit The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, with a young Swoosie Kurtz playing one of her daughters.

In 1972, she had an ongoing supporting role in the NBC series Banyon as Peggy Revere, who operated a secretarial school in the same building as Banyon's detective agency. This was a 1930s period action drama starring Robert Forster in the title role. Her students worked in Banyon's office, providing fresh faces for the show weekly. The series was replaced midseason.

Blondell has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the film industry. Her star is located at 6311 Hollywood Boulevard. In December 2007, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a retrospective of Blondell's films in connection with a new biography by film professor Matthew Kennedy, and theatrical revival houses such as Film Forum in Manhattan have also projected many of her films recently.

She wrote a novel titled Center Door Fancy (New York: Delacorte Press, 1972), which was a thinly disguised autobiography with veiled references to June Allyson and Dick Powell.

Blondell was married three times, first to cinematographer George Barnes in a private wedding ceremony on January 4, 1933, at the First Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona. They had one child, Norman Scott Barnes, who became an accomplished producer, director, and television executive known as Norman Powell. Joan and George divorced in 1936.

On September 19, 1936, she married her second husband Dick Powell, an actor, director, and singer. They had a daughter, Ellen Powell, who became a studio hair stylist, and Powell adopted her son by her previous marriage under the name Norman Scott Powell. Blondell and Powell were divorced on July 14, 1944. Blondell was less than friendly with Powell's next wife, June Allyson, although the two women would later appear together in The Opposite Sex (1956).

On July 5, 1947, Blondell married her third husband, producer Mike Todd, whom she divorced in 1950. Her marriage to Todd was an emotional and financial disaster. She once accused him of holding her outside a hotel window by her ankles. He was also a heavy spender who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling (high-stakes bridge was one of his weaknesses) and went through a controversial bankruptcy during their marriage. An often-repeated myth is that Mike Todd left Blondell for Elizabeth Taylor, when in fact, she had left Todd of her own accord years before he met Taylor.

Blondell died of leukemia in Santa Monica, California, on Christmas Day, 1979, with her children and her sister at her bedside. She was cremated and her ashes interred in a columbarium at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.