#PATRICIA R. FLOYD | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writemarcus · 2 years

Text

Review: After a Too-Long Absence, The Fire This Time Festival Reignites

July 08, 2022

The Fire This Time Festival: Season 13: Ten-Minute Plays

Plays by Fedna Jacquet, Marcus Scott, Phillip Christian Smith, Lisa Rosetta Strum, Rachel Herron, and Agyeiwaa Asante

Directed by Zhailon Levingston and Tracey Conyer Lee

Presented by FRIGID New York

at The Kraine Theater85 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYCJuly 7-10, 2022

The annual The Fire This Time Festival, after a two-year absence from the stage, including a postponement from its usual winter slot to early July, has returned to in-person performance with its thirteenth season, bringing six new short plays from early-career playwrights of African and African American descent to The Kraine Theater. The Ten-Minute Play Program offers both in-person and livestreaming options, and this year, audiences can also complement their theatergoing experience by picking up a copy of 25 Plays from the Fire This Time Festival, which collects plays from TFTT's first eleven seasons, edited by TFTT founder and Executive Director Kelley Nicole Girod and organized into thematic groupings from policing to gentrification to Black love. If further volumes are forthcoming, any of this year's thoughtful, funny, provocative, compassionate offerings would be a worthy addition. Meanwhile, just get thee to the Kraine!

First up is Fedna Jacquet's Girlfriend, which sees longtime friends Lea (played by Jacquet) and Tonya (Denise Manning) having drinks together for the first time in a long time, a fact related to Tonya's now-defunct romantic relationship. Talking about the reason for Tonya's break-up (spurred, it's worth noting, by a visit to the theater) leads the two women into a consideration of how attempts to police their identities and define their experiences come not only from the expected quarters. A moment when Lea (rightly) calls out Tonya feels (also rightly) like a short, sharp shock amidst the humorous, supportive interplay between the two women. Friendships anchor several of this year's plays, and Marcus Scott's Wookiees in the Wilderness follows Girlfriend's female pairing with a pair of close male friends. High-schooler Smokey (Anthony Goss) needs more practice in archery and riflery in order to pass the Eagle Scouts' Wilderness Survival Test before he sets off for college, and, to that end, he meets Bishop (Ricardy Fabre) in the wilderness near the Lake of the Ozarks. At first, the two vividly drawn and portrayed friends fall into a debate about race and Star Wars that includes Bishop's memorable claim that "Chewbacca might as well be a Somali pirate in space" (and yes, there are lightsabers). When their talk turns to an incident with more than a passing resemblance to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Bishop's early declaration that there is more to sci fi than just Star Wars looks like foreshadowing of the profound decision that Smokey puts before Bishop about alternate modes of action (or perhaps of rebellion, in Star Wars parlance) and whether they are justified and effective.

The third play, Phillip Christian Smith's Mount Sinai, is more (straightforwardly) uplifting, despite its friends being fellow cancer patients. Gladys (Marjorie Johnson) says that she has always been a "good girl," having worked her way up to a successful career and raised successful children, while Minerva (Patricia R. Floyd) characterizes herself as a "card" and, in a small echo of the identity issues raised in Girlfriend, has never been able to get anyone to call her by her given name rather than a nickname. Among other topics, the women, in lived-in performances by Johnson and Floyd, touch on the pandemic (Minerva observes that "essential workers" means "Black people") and its losses, but ultimately the play suggests that, despite challenges including aging and illness, there is always more to enjoy in life. The pandemic frames a more urgent search for happiness in Lisa Rosetta Strum's By the way…, which checks in on two close friends (Fenda Jacquet and Ricardy Fabre) who have been quarantined together for a month in 2020. Quarantining of course involves drinking and game playing, which come together here for a confessional game. That game brings a revelation which challenges both the preconceptions of one of the duo (again, about identity) as well as the status quo of their relationship, as Jacquet and Fabre skillfully trade tipsy fun for unvarnished intensity.

The very funny and slightly dark Red Red Wine, by Rachel Herron, shifts the confessions to a work environment. Mel (Denise Manning) is working for Somm (Patricia R. Floyd) in the latter's wine shop while being mentored as a potential Master Sommelier. Mel would be the first Black woman to achieve this rank, but only because Somm quit while practicing for the exam. After Mel reveals some things about herself that recall the issues raised in the previous play, she wants Somm to explain in exchange why she quit; and Somm's answer puts before Mel a decision that is not unlike the one that Bishop has to make in Wookiees in the Wilderness. Wrapping up this year's program is Agyeiwaa Asante's Wildest Dreams, in which the ghosts of the past are literal. Spirits Maybelle (Marjorie Johnson) and Jimmy Dale (Anthony Goss) have not yet moved on from the plantation where they died of unnatural causes 187 years ago, a location now used for events such as weddings or, on this day, a graduation. A sign held by a Black graduate reading "I am my ancestors' wildest dreams" prompts some soul-searching, so to speak, for the pair and ultimately asks when one person has done enough–how much right does someone have to personal peace when the unfinished business is social progress? Wildest Dreams closes these questions–and the evening–on a hauntingly ambiguous note. The 13th season of The Fire This Time finds the festival's programming as strong as ever. With 6 compelling shows brought to life by 6 talented actors, The Fire This Time Festival proves that 13 is not an unlucky number. -John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

#The Fire This Time Festival #Fire This Time Festival #NYC #Black Theatre #Black Theater #Black Playwrights #Wookiees in the Wilderness #Kraine Theater #Marcus Scott #MarcusScott #Write Marcus #WriteMarcus #Zhailon Levingston #Tracey Conyer Lee #FRIGID New York

1 note · View note

princesssarisa · 2 years

Text

Top 12 Snow Whites, Wicked Queens, Princes, and Seven Dwarfs

These are my favorites of all the leading performers in the various screen adaptations of Snow White. I've listed them in chronological order because it's too hard to rank them in exact order of preference.

Maybe later I'll post exactly what I like about each of them, as well as the names of the "honorable mentions," whom I also liked in the roles but don't rank quite as highly as these people.

Snow White

*Marguerite Clark (1916 silent film)

*Disney animation/voice of Adriana Caselotti (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937)

*Carol Heiss (Snow White and the Three Stooges, 1961)

*Zeynep Degirmencioglu (1970 Turkish film)

*Anna Jo Trowbridge (Seattle Children's Theatre, 1987)

*Nicola Stapleton/Sarah Patterson (Cannon Movie Tales, 1987)

*Nippon Animation/voice of Sakiko Tamagawa (Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, 1989)

*Natalie Minko (Schneewittchen und das Geheimnis der Zwerge, 1992)

*Tatsunoko Productions animation/voice of Yuri Amano (The Legend of Snow White, 1994)

*Laura Berlin (Sechs auf einen Streich, 2009)

*Lily Collins (Mirror, Mirror, 2012)

*Tijan Marei (Märchenperlen: Schneewittchen und der Zauber der Zwerge, 2019)

The Queen

*Disney animation/voice of Lucille La Verne (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937)

*Patricia Medina (Snow White and the Three Stooges, 1961)

*Suna Selen (1970 Turkish film)

*Herta Kravina (1971 Swiss/German short)

*Vanessa Redgrave (Faerie Tale Theatre, 1987)

*Diana Rigg (Cannon Movie Tales, 1987)

*Nippon Animation/voice of Kazue Komiya (Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, 1989)

*Gudrun Landgrebe (Schneewittchen und das Geheimnis der Zwerge, 1992)

*Miranda Richardson (Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, 2001)

*Sonja Kirchberger (Sechs auf einen Streich, 2009)

*Charlize Theron (Snow White and the Huntsman, 2012)

*Nadeshda Brennicke (Märchenperlen: Schneewittchen und der Zauber der Zwerge, 2019)

The Prince

*Creighton Hale (1916 silent film)

*Disney animation/voice of Harry Stockwell (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937)

*Edson Stroll (Snow White and the Three Stooges, 1961)

*Richard Browne (Snow White Live at Radio City Music Hall, 1980)

*Rex Smith (Faerie Tale Theatre, 1984)

*James Ian Wright (Cannon Movie Tales, 1987)

*Alessandro Gassmann (Schneewittchen und das Geheimnis der Zwerge, 1992)

*Tatsunoko Productions animation/voice of Takehito Koyasu (The Legend of Snow White, 1994)

*Nicolás Artajo-Kwasniewski (Sechs auf einen Streich, 2009)

*Jamie Thomas King (Grimm's Snow White, 2012)

*Locus Corporation animation/voice of Sam Claflin (Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs, 2019)

*Ludwig Simon (Märchenperlen: Schneewittchen und der Zauber der Zwerge, 2019)

The Seven Dwarfs

*Disney animation/voices of Roy Atwell, Pinto Colvig, Otis Harlan, Billy Gilbert and Scotty Mattraw (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937)

*Arthur Reppert, Jochen Köppel, Georg Irmer, Fred Delmare, Heinz Scholz, Willi Scholz and Horst Jonischkan (Schneewittchen, 1961)

*Mr. Magoo/voice of Jim Backus (The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo: Little Snow White, 1965)

*Billy Curtis, Phil Fondacaro, Daniel Frishman, Kevin Thompson, Lou Carry, Peter Risch and Tony Cox (Faerie Tale Theatre, 1984)

*Douglas R. Mumaw, Floyd van Buskirk, Peggy Platt, David Whitehead, Edward Christian, Sena Merrill and Jeanne Lee (Seattle Children's Theatre, 1987)

*Billy Barty, Mike Edmonds, Ricardo Gil, Malcolm Dixon, Gary Friedkin, Arturo Gil and Tony Cooper (Cannon Movie Tales, 1987)

*Iwan Sabijak, Igor Sanikow, Nikolai Misyura, Atka Janousková, Imre Schnellert, Janos Petrowski, Atilla Vega and Sándor Köleséri (Schneewittchen und das Geheimnis der Zwerge, 1992)

*Tatsunoko Productions animation/voices of Hiroshi Naka, Junichi Sugawara, Nobuyuki Furuta, Kozo Shioya, Katsume Suzuki, Wataru Takagi and Tetsuya Iwanaga (The Legend of Snow White, 1994)

*Warwick Davis, Michael J. Anderson, Michael Gilden, Mark J. Trombino, Penny Blake, Martin Klebba and Vincent Schiavelli (Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, 2001)

*Danny Woodburn, Martin Klebba, Sebastian Saraceno, Jordan Prentice, Mark Povinelli, Joe Gnoffo and Ronald Lee Clark (Mirror, Mirror, 2019)

*Locus Corporation animation/voices of Sam Claflin, Simon Kassianides, Frederik Hamel, Nolan North and Frank Todaro (Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs, 2019)

*Peter Brownbill, Cem Aydin, Peter Gatzweiler, Jona Bergander, Pavel Ponocny, Michal Túma and Mick Morris Mehnert (Märchenperlen: Schneewittchen und der Zauber der Zwerge, 2019)

@ariel-seagull-wings, @superkingofpriderock, @astrangechoiceoffavourites

#snow white #fairy tale #adaptations #top 12 #actors #actresses #snow white's prince #the evil queen #the seven dwarfs

5 notes · View notes

takemeout2sea · 4 years

Text

BLACK LIVES MATTER. NO JUSTICE NO PEACE.

white silence is VIOLENCE..

they are more than just a hashtag.

George Floyd Breonna Taylor Tamir Rice Michael Lorenzo Dean Eric Reason Christopher McCorvey Steven Day Christopher Whitfield Atatiana Jefferson Maurice Holly Jordan Michael Griffin Nicholas Walker Bennie Branch Byron Williams Arthur Walton Jr. Channara Tom Pheap Patricia Spivey Stephan Murray Ryan Twyman Dominique Clayton Isaiah Lewis Kevin Leroy Beasley Jr. Julius Graves Marcus McVae Marzues Scott Bishar Hassan Kevin Bruce Mason Mario Clark Jimmy Atchison D’ettrick Griffin George Robinson Andre Horton William Matthew Holmes Jesse Jesus Quinton Anthony Antonio Ford Mahlon Edward Summerrour Charles D. Roundtree Jr. Chinedu Valentine Okobi Charles David Robinson Antone G. Black Jr. Darrell Richards Botham Shem Jean James Leatherwood Devin Howell Joshua Wayne Harvey Christopher Alexander Okamato Cynthia Fields Rashaun Washington Herbert Gilbert Anthony Marcell Green Antwon Michael Rose II Robert Lawrence White Thomas Williams Marcus-David L. Peters Terrance Carlton Aries Clark Juan Markee Jones Danny Ray Thomas Stephon Clark Trey Ta’Quan Pringle Sr. Ronell Foster Corey Mobley Arthur McAfee Jr. Geraldine Townsend Warren Ragudo Thomas Yatsko Dennis Plowden Jean Pedro Pierre Keita O’Neil Lawrence Hawkins Calvin Toney Dewboy Lister Armando Frank Stephen Gayle Antonio Garcia Jr. Brian Easley Euree Lee Martin DeJuan Guillory Aaron Bailey Joshua Terrell Crawford Marc Brandon Davis Adam Trammell Jimmie Montel Sanders DeRicco Devante Holdon Mark Roshawn Adkins Tashii S. Brown Jordan Edwards Roderick Ronall Taylor Kenneth Johnson Christopher Wade Alteria Woods Sherida Davis Lorenzo Antoine Cruz Chance David Baker Raynard Burton Quanice Derrick Hayes Chad Robertson Jerome Keith Allen Nana Adomako Marquez Warren Deaundre Phillips Sabin Marcus Jones Darrian M. Barnhill JR Williams Muhammad Abdul Muhaymin Jamal Robbins Marlon Lewis Ritchie Lee Harbison Lamont Perry Bill Jackson Julian Dawkins Terry Laffitte Jermaine Darden Marlon Brown Kendra Diggs Deion Fludd Clifton Armstrong Fred Bradford Jr. Craig Demps Dason Peters Dylan Samuel-Peters Russell Lydell Smith Willie Lee Bingham Jr. Clinton Roebexar Allen Charles A. Baker Jr. Anthony Dwayne Harris Donovan Thomas Jayvis Benjamin Quintine Barksdale Cedrick Chatman Darrell Banks Xavier Tyrell Johnson Yolanda Thomas Roy Lee Richards Alfred Olango Tawon Boyd Terrence Crutcher Tyre King Levonia Riggins Kendrick Brown Donnell Thompson Jr. Dalvin Hollins Delrawn Small Sherman Evans Deravis Rogers Antwun Shumpert Ollie Lee Brooks Michael Eugene Wilson Jr. Vernell Bing Jr. Jessica Williams Arthur R. Williams Jr. Lionel Gibson Charlin Charles Kevin Hicks Dominique Silva Robert Dentmond India M. Beaty Torrey Lamar Robinson Peter Wiliam Gaines Arteair Porter Kionte DeShaun Spencer Christopher J. Davis Thomas Lane Paul Gaston Calin Devante Roquemore Dyzhawn L. Perkins David Joseph Wendell Celestine Jr. Antronie Scott Peter John Keith Childress Bettie Jones Kevin Matthews Michael Noel Leroy Browning Miguel Espinal Nathaniel Pickett Cornelius Brown Tiara Thomas Richard Perkins Jamar Clark Alonzo Smith Anthony Ashford Dominic Hutchinson Lamontez Jones Rayshaun Cole Paterson Brown Jr. Junior Prosper Keith Harrison McLeod Wayne Wheeler Lavante Biggs India Kager James Carney III Felix Kumi Mansur Bell-Bey Asshams Manley Christian Taylor Troy Robinson Brian Day Samuel Dubose Darrius Stewart Albert Davis Salvado Ellswood George Mann Freddie Blue Johnathon Sanders Victo Lorosa III Spencer McCain Kevin Bajoie Kris Jacksons Kevin Higgenbotham Ross Anthony Richard Gregory Davis D’Angelo Reyes Stallworth Dajuan Graham Brendon Glenn Reginald L. Moore Sr. David Felix William Chapman Norman Cooper Darrell Lawrence Brown Walter Scott Eric Courtney Harris Donald Ivy Phillip White Jason Moland Denzel Brown Brandon Jones Askari Roberts Bobby Gross Terrance Moxley Anthony Hill Tony Terrell Robinson Naeschylus Vinzant Charly Leundeu Keunang DeOntre L. Dorsey Thomas Allen Jr. Calvin A. Reid Terry Price and countless of hundreds of others have lost their lives to systemic racism and police brutality in the united states. THIS MUST END. “normal” shouldn’t be citizens afraid of those charged to protect them. “normal” shouldn’t be weapons banned in wars used on peaceful civilians. “normal” shouldn’t include the continued abuse of those who are treated as less than by the system. WE HAVE THE POWER TO INACT CHANGE. MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD AGAINST RACISM AND POLICE BRUTALITY.

#whitesilenceisviolence #nojusticenopeace #theyaremorethanahastag #welcometotheshipwreck #letsgetwrecked #saytheirnames

30 notes · View notes

everythingkennedy · 6 years

Photo

Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Dr. James E. Webb (back to camera), presents NASA award for outstanding leadership to manager of the Mercury Project Office at the Manned Spacecraft Center, Kenneth S. Kleinknecht (standing right of President John F. Kennedy, wearing glasses), during astronaut Major L. Gordon Cooper’s NASA Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) presentation ceremony. Also pictured: Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson; First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy; Eunice Kennedy Shriver; Jean Kennedy Smith; Patricia Kennedy Lawford; Lady Bird Johnson; Major Cooper and his wife, Trudy Cooper; Hattie Cooper, mother of Major Cooper; Jewell D. Truscott and James J. Truscott, aunt and uncle of Major Cooper; Louise Brewer Shepard, wife of astronaut Commander Alan B. Shepard; astronaut Major Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom and his wife, Betty Grissom; astronaut Major Donald K. “Deke” Slayton; Rene Carpenter, wife of astronaut, Lieutenant Commander M. Scott Carpenter; Jo Schirra, wife of astronaut Commander Walter M. Schirra; Director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, Dr. Robert R. Gilruth; Director of Operations for Project Mercury, Dr. Walter C. Williams; President of the Case Institute of Technology and former Administrator of NASA, Dr. T. Keith Glennan; Director of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Dr. Floyd L. Thompson (also a recipient of NASA award for outstanding leadership); Representative James G. Fulton (Pennsylvania); Senator Everett Dirksen (Illinois); Senator Margaret Chase Smith (Maine); Senator Leverett Saltonstall (Massachusetts); Representative Albert Thomas (Texas); Representative Oren Harris (Arkansas); Representative Joseph E. Karth (Minnesota); Senator Carl Hayden (Arizona); Senator A. Willis Robertson (Virginia); Senator Clinton P. Anderson (New Mexico); Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (Minnesota); Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Anthony Celebrezze; Secretary of the Air Force, Eugene M. Zuckert; Air Force Aide to the President, Brigadier General Godfrey T. McHugh; Military Aide to the President, General Chester V. Clifton; White House Secret Service agents, Gerald A. “Jerry” Behn and Win Lawson. Rose Garden, White House, Washington, D.C.

#john f kennedy #jfk #jack kennedy #jackie kennedy #jackie o #jacqueline kennedy #the kennedys #president #first lady #history #politics #american history #the white house #astronaut #nasa #space race #1963 #1960s #camelot

25 notes · View notes

how2to18 · 5 years

Link

DURING THE POSTWAR PERIOD, the genres of the fantastic — especially science fiction — have been deeply intertwined with the genres of popular music, especially rock ’n’ roll. Both appeal to youthful audiences, and both make the familiar strange, seeking escape in enchantment and metamorphosis. As Steppenwolf sang in 1968: “Fantasy will set you free […] to the stars away from here.” Two recent books — one a nonfiction survey of 1970s pop music, the other a horror novel about heavy metal — explore this heady intermingling of rock and the fantastic.

As Jason Heller details in his new book Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded, the magic carpet rides of the youth counterculture encompassed both the amorphous yearnings of acid rock and the hard-edged visions of science fiction. In Heller’s account, virtually all the major rock icons — from Jimi Hendrix to David Crosby, from Pete Townshend to Ian Curtis — were avid SF fans; not only was their music strongly influenced by Heinlein, Clarke, Ballard, and other authors, but it also amounted to a significant body of popular SF in its own right. As Heller shows, many rock stars were aspiring SF writers, while established authors in the field sometimes wrote lyrics for popular bands, and a few became rockers themselves. British fantasist Michael Moorcock, for example, fronted an outfit called The Deep Fix while also penning songs for — and performing with — the space-rock group Hawkwind (once memorably described, by Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, as “Star Trek with long hair and drugs”).

Heller’s book focuses on the “explosion” of SF music during the 1970s, with chapters chronicling, year by year, the exhilarating debut of fresh music subcultures — prog rock, glam rock, Krautrock, disco — and their saturation with themes of space/time travel, alien visitation, and futuristic (d)evolution. He writes, “’70s pop culture forged a special interface with the future.” Many of its key songs and albums “didn’t just contain sci-fi lyrics,” but they were “reflection[s] of sci-fi” themselves, “full of futuristic tones and the innovative manipulation of studio gadgetry” — such as the vocoder, with its robotic simulacrum of the human voice. Heller’s discussion moves from the hallucinatory utopianism of the late 1960s to the “cool, plastic futurism” of the early 1980s with intelligence and panache.

The dominant figure in Heller’s study is, unsurprisingly, David Bowie, the delirious career of whose space-age antihero, Major Tom, bookended the decade — from “Space Oddity” in 1969 to “Ashes to Ashes” in 1980. Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was a full-blown SF extravaganza, its freaky starman representing “some new hybrid of thespian rocker and sci-fi myth,” but it had a lot of company during the decade. Heller insightfully analyzes a wide range of SF “concept albums,” from Jefferson Starship’s Blows Against the Empire (1970), the first rock record to be nominated for a Hugo Award, to Parliament’s Mothership Connection (1975), which “reprogramm[ed] funk in order to launch it into tomorrow,” to Gary Numan and Tubeway Army’s Replicas (1979), an album “steeped in the technological estrangement and psychological dystopianism of Dick and Ballard.”

Heller’s coverage of these peaks of achievement is interspersed with amusing asides on more minor, “novelty” phenomena, such as “the robot dance craze of the late ’60s and early ’70s,” and compelling analyses of obscure artists, such as French synthesizer wizard Richard Pinhas, who released (with his band Heldon) abrasive critiques of industrial society — for example, Electronique Guerilla (1974) — while pursuing a dissertation on science fiction under the direction of Gilles Deleuze at the Sorbonne. He also writes astutely about the impact of major SF films on the development of 1970s pop music: Monardo’s Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk (1977), for example, turned the cantina scene from Star Wars into a synth-pop dance-floor hit. At the same time, Heller is shrewdly alert to the historical importance of grassroots venues such as London’s UFO Club, which incubated the early dimensional fantasies of Pink Floyd and the off-the-wall protopunk effusions of the Deviants (whose frontman, Mick Farren, had a long career as an SF novelist and, in 1978, released an album with my favorite title ever: Vampires Stole My Lunch Money). Finally, Heller reconstructs some fascinating, but sadly abortive, collaborations — Theodore Sturgeon working to adapt Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Wooden Ships” as a screenplay, Paul McCartney hiring Star Trek’s Gene Roddenberry to craft a story about Wings. In some alternative universe, these weird projects came to fruition.

Heller’s erudition is astonishing, but it can also be overwhelming, drowning the reader in a welter of minutiae about one-hit wonders and the career peregrinations of minor talents. In his acknowledgments, Heller thanks his editor for helping him convert “an encyclopedia” into “a story,” but judging from the format of the finished product, this transformation was not fully complete: penetrating analyses frequently peter out into rote listings of albums and bands. There is a capping discography, but it is not comprehensive and is, strangely, organized by song title rather than by artist. The index is similarly unhelpful, containing only the proper names of individuals; one has to know, for instance, who Edgar Froese or Ralf Hütter are in order to locate the relevant passages on Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, respectively.

That said, there is no gainsaying the magisterial authority displayed in assertions such as: “The first fully formed sci-fi funk song was ‘Escape from Planet Earth’ by a vocal quartet from Camden, New Jersey, called the Continental Four.” And who else has even heard of — much less listened to — oddments like 1977’s Machines, “the sole album by the mysterious electronic group known as Lem,” who “likely took their name from sci-fi author Stanislaw Lem of Solaris fame”? Anyone interested in either popular music or science fiction of the 1970s will find countless nuggets of sheer delight in Strange Stars, and avid fans, after perusing the volume, will probably go bankrupt hunting down rare vinyl on eBay.

While Heller’s main focus is the confluence of rock ’n’ roll and science fiction, he occasionally addresses the influence of popular fantasy on major music artists of the decade. Marc Bolan, of T. Rex fame, was, we learn, a huge fan of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, while prog-rock stalwarts Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer managed “to combine science fiction and fantasy, fusing them into a metaphysical, post-hippie meditation on the nature of reality.” What’s missing from the book, however, is any serious discussion of the strain of occult and dark fantasy that ran through 1960s and ’70s rock, the shadows cast by Aleister Crowley and H. P. Lovecraft over Jimmy Page, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and (yes) Bowie himself. After all, Jim Morrison’s muse was a Celtic high priestess named Patricia Kennealy who went on, following the death of her Lizard King, to a career as a popular fantasy author. Readers interested in this general topic should consult the idiosyncratic survey written by Gary Lachman, a member of Blondie, entitled Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius (2001).

Heller does comment, in passing, on an incipient musical form that would, during the 1980s, emerge as the dark-fantasy genre par excellence: heavy metal. Though metal was, as Heller states, “just beginning to awaken” in the 1970s, his book includes sharp analyses of major prototypes such as Black Sabbath’s Paranoid (1970), Blue Öyster Cult’s Tyranny and Mutation (1973), and the early efforts of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. This was the technocratic lineage of heavy metal, the segment of the genre most closely aligned with science fiction, especially in its dystopian modes, and which would come to fruition, during the 1980s, in classic concept albums like Voivod’s Killing Technology (1987) and Queensrÿche’s Operation: Mindcrime (1988).

But the 1980s also saw the emergence of more fantasy-oriented strains, such as black, doom, and death metal, whose rise to dominance coincided with the sudden explosion in popularity of a fantastic genre that had, until that time, largely skulked in the shadow of SF and high fantasy: supernatural horror. Unsurprisingly, the decade saw a convergence of metal music and horror fiction that was akin to the 1970s fusion of rock and SF anatomized in Strange Stars. Here, as elsewhere, Black Sabbath was a pioneer, their self-titled 1970 debut offering a potent brew of pop paganism culled equally from low-budget Hammer films and the occult thrillers of Dennis Wheatley. By the mid-1980s, there were hundreds of bands — from Sweden’s Bathory to England’s Fields of the Nephilim to the pride of Tampa, Florida, Morbid Angel — who were offering similar fare. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos inspired songs by Metallica, Mercyful Fate, and countless other groups — including Necronomicon, a German thrash-metal outfit whose name references a fictional grimoire featured in several of the author’s stories.

By the same token, heavy metal music deeply influenced the burgeoning field of horror fiction. Several major 1980s texts treated this theme overtly: the doom-metal outfit in George R. R. Martin’s The Armageddon Rag (1983) is a twisted emanation of the worst impulses of the 1960s counterculture; the protagonist of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat (1985) is a Gothic rocker whose performances articulate a pop mythology of glamorous undeath; and the mega-cult band in John Skipp and Craig Spector’s splatterpunk classic The Scream (1988) are literal hell-raisers, a Satanic incarnation of the most paranoid fantasies of Christian anti-rock zealots. The heady conjoining of hard rock with supernaturalism percolated down from these best sellers to the more ephemeral tomes that packed the drugstore racks during the decade, an outpouring of gory fodder affectionately surveyed in Grady Hendrix’s award-winning study Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction (2017). Hendrix, himself a horror author of some note, has now published We Sold Our Souls (2018), the quintessential horror-metal novel for our times.

Hendrix has stated that, prior to embarking on this project, he was not “a natural metal fan”:

I was scared of serious metal when I was growing up. Slayer and Metallica intimidated me, and I was too unsophisticated to appreciate the fun of hair metal bands like Mötley Crüe and Twisted Sister, so I basically sucked. […] But I got really deep into metal while writing We Sold Our Souls and kind of fell in love.

The author’s immersion in — and fondness for — the genre is evident on every page of his new novel. Chapters are titled using the names of classic metal albums: “Countdown to Extinction” (Megadeth, 1992), “From Enslavement to Obliteration” (Napalm Death, 1988), “Twilight of the Gods” (Bathory, 1991), and so on. The effect is to summon a hallowed musical canon while at the same time evoking the story’s themes and imparting an emotional urgency to its events. These events also nostalgically echo 1980s rock-horror novels: like The Armageddon Rag, Hendrix’s plot chronicles the reunion of a cult outfit whose breakup decades before was enigmatically fraught; like The Scream, it features a demonic metal band that converts its worshipful fans into feral zombies; like The Vampire Lestat, it culminates in a phantasmagoric stadium concert that erupts into a brutal orgy of violence. Yet despite these pervasive allusions, the novel does not come across as mere pastiche: it has an energy and authenticity that make it feel quite original.

A large part of that originality lies in its protagonist. As the cock-rock genre par excellence, its blistering riffs and screeching solos steeped in adolescent testosterone, heavy metal has had very few notable female performers. But one of them, at least in Hendrix’s fictive history, was Kris Pulaski, lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a legendary quintet from rural Pennsylvania that abruptly dissolved, under mysterious circumstances, in the late 1990s, just as they were poised for national fame. Kris was a scrappy bundle of nerves and talent, a kick-ass songwriter and a take-no-prisoners performer:

She had been punched in the mouth by a straight-edge vegan, had the toes of her Doc Martens kissed by too many boys to count, and been knocked unconscious after catching a boot beneath the chin from a stage diver who’d managed to do a flip into the crowd off the stage at Wally’s. She’d made the mezzanine bounce like a trampoline at Rumblestiltskins, the kids pogoing so hard flakes of paint rained down like hail.

But that was eons ago. As the story opens, she is staffing the night desk at a Best Western, burned out at 47, living in a broken-down house with her ailing mother and trying to ignore “the background hum of self-loathing that formed the backbeat of her life.” She hasn’t seen her bandmates in decades, since she drunkenly crashed their tour van and almost killed them all, and hasn’t picked up a guitar in almost as long, constrained by the terms of a draconian contract she signed with Dürt Würk’s former lead singer, Terry Hunt, who now controls the band’s backlist. While Kris has lapsed into brooding obscurity, Hunt has gone on to global success, headlining a “nu metal” outfit called Koffin (think Korn or Limp Bizkit) whose mainstream sound Kris despises: “It was all about branding, fan outreach, accessibility, spray-on attitude, moving crowds of white kids smoothly from the pit to your merch booth.” It was the exact opposite of genuine metal, which “tore the happy face off the world. It told the truth.”

To inject a hint of authenticity into Koffin’s rampant commodification, Hunt occasionally covers old Dürt Würk hits. But he avoids like the plague any songs from the band’s long-lost third album, Troglodyte, with their elaborate mythology of surveillance and domination:

[T]here is a hole in the center of the world, and inside that hole is Black Iron Mountain, an underground empire of caverns and lava seas, ruled over by the Blind King who sees everything with the help of his Hundred Handed Eye. At the root of the mountain is the Wheel. Troglodyte was chained to the Wheel along with millions of others, which they turned pointlessly in a circle, watched eternally by the Hundred Handed Eye.

Inspired by the arrival of a butterfly that proves the existence of a world beyond his bleak dungeon, Troglodyte ultimately revolts against Black Iron Mountain, overthrowing the Blind King and leading his fellow slaves into the light.

One might assume that Hunt avoids this album because the scenario it constructs can too readily be perceived as an allegory of liberation from the consumerist shackles of Koffin’s nu-metal pablum. That might be part of the reason, but Hunt’s main motivation is even more insidious: he fears Troglodyte because its eldritch tale is literally true — Koffin is a front for a shadowy supernatural agency that feeds on human souls, and Dürt Würk’s third album holds the key to unmasking and fighting it. This strange reality gradually dawns on Kris, and when Koffin announces plans for a massive series of concerts culminating in a “Hellstock” festival in the Nevada desert, she decides to combat its infernal designs with the only weapon she has: her music. Because “a song isn’t a commercial for an album. It isn’t a tool to build name awareness or reinforce your brand. A song is a bullet that can shatter your chains.”

This bizarre plot, like the concept albums by Mastodon or Iron Maiden it evokes, runs the risk of collapsing into grandiloquent absurdity if not carried off with true conviction. And this is Hendrix’s key achievement in the novel: he never condescends, never winks at the audience or tucks his tongue in cheek. Like the best heavy metal, We Sold Our Souls is scabrous and harrowing, its pop mythology fleshed out with vividly gruesome set pieces, as when Kris surprises the Blind King’s minions at their ghastly repast:

Its fingernails were black and it bent over Scottie, slobbering up the black foam that came boiling out of his mouth. Kris […] saw that the same thing was crouched over Bill, a starved mummy, maggot-white, its skin hanging in loose folds. A skin tag between its legs jutted from a gray pubic bush, bouncing obscenely like an engorged tick. […] Its gaze was old and cold and hungry and its chin dripped black foam like a beard. It sniffed the air and hissed, its bright yellow tongue vibrating, its gums a vivid red.

The irruption of these grisly horrors into an otherwise mundane milieu of strip malls and franchise restaurants and cookie-cutter apartments is handled brilliantly, on a par with the best of classic splatterpunk by the likes of Joe R. Lansdale or David J. Schow.

Hendrix also, like Stephen King, has a shrewd feel for true-to-life relationships, which adds a grounding of humanity to his cabalistic flights. Kris’s attempts to reconnect with her alienated bandmates — such as erstwhile drummer JD, a wannabe Viking berserker who has refashioned his mother’s basement into a “Metalhead Valhalla” — are poignantly handled, and the hesitant bond she develops with a young Koffin fan named Melanie has the convincing ring of post-feminist, intergenerational sisterhood. Throughout the novel, Hendrix tackles gender issues with an intrepid slyness, from Kris’s brawling tomboy efforts to fit into a male-dominated world to Melanie’s frustration with her lazy, lying, patronizing boyfriend, with whom she breaks up in hilarious fashion:

She screamed. She broke his housemate’s bong. She Frisbee-d the Shockwave [game] disc so hard it left a divot in the kitchen wall. She raged out of the house as his housemates came back from brunch.

“Dude,” they said to Greg as he jogged by them, “she is so on the rag.”

“Are we breaking up?” Greg asked, clueless, through her car window.

It took all her self-control not to back over him as she drove off.

Such scenes of believable banality compellingly anchor the novel’s febrile horrors, as do the passages of talk-radio blather interspersed between the chapters, which remind us that conspiratorial lunacy is always only a click of the AM dial away.

While obviously a bit of a throwback, We Sold Our Souls shows that the 1980s milieu of heavy metal and occult horror — of bootleg cassettes and battered paperbacks — continues to have resonance in our age of iPods and cell-phone apps. It also makes clear that the dreamy confluence of rock and the fantastic so ably anatomized in Heller’s Strange Stars is still going strong.

Rob Latham is a LARB senior editor. His most recent book is Science Fiction Criticism: An Anthology of Essential Writings, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2017.

The post Magic Carpet Rides: Rock Music and the Fantastic appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://bit.ly/2SMN28U via IFTTT

#Blogger

2 notes · View notes

sweetsteverogers · 6 years

Text

M a s t e r l i s t

Wanda Maximoff Tony Stark Harold "Happy" Hogan Peter Parker (Tom Holland) Liz Allen Michelle Jones Ned Leeds Flash Thompson Natasha Romanoff Bucky Barnes Steve Rogers Wade Wilson Francis "Ajax" Freeman Jack "Weasel" Hammer Vanessa Carlysle Cable Neena Thurman Russell Collins Axel Cluney Dopinder / Blind Al Pietro Maximoff Clint Barton Bruce Banner Thor Odinson Jane Foster / Darcy Lewis Valkyrie / Hela Lady Sif / Heimdall Odin / Frigga / Grandmaster Raven Darkholme Jean Grey Peter Maximoff Logan Howlett Laura Kinney Donald Pierce Ellie Phimister T'challa Udaku Erik "Killmonger" Stevens Nakia / Okoye Shuri W'Kabi / Everett Ross Scott Lang Hope Pym Ava Starr Sam Wilson James "Rhodey" Rhodes Vision Peggy Carter Sharon Carter Scott Summers Loki Laufeyson Hank McCoy Sean Cassidy Charles Xavier Erik Lehnsherr Alex Summers Peter Quill Gamora Drax Rocket / Groot Nebula / Yondu Udonta Mantis / Kraglin Obfonteri Matt Murdock Franklin "Foggy" Nelson Karen Page Frank Castle Curtis Hoyle David Lieberman William "Billy" Russo Dinah Madani Elektra Natchios Nick Fury / Phil Coulson Maria Hill Virginia "Pepper" Potts Helen Cho Claire Temple Harley Quinn Joker Floyd Lawton Chato Santana George Harkness Tatsu Yamashiro June Moone Rick Flag Amanda Waller Bruce Wayne Alfred Pennyworth / Etta Candy Diana Prince Steve Trevor Clark Kent Lois Lane / Alexander "Lex" Luthor Barry Allen Arthur Curry Victor Stone Jessica Jones Patricia "Trish" Walker / Malcolm Ducasse Luke Cage Misty Knight Hernan Alvarez / Cornell Stokes Danny Rand Colleen Wing Stephen Strange Karl Mordo / Wong / Christine Palmer Alex Wilder Nico Minoru Karolina Dean Gert Yorkes Chase Stein Molly Hernandez Eddie Brock Carlton Drake

#masterlist

2 notes · View notes

ala18b-town · 4 years

Photo

More insight from our ALA Unit 18 email... AUXILIARY EMERGENCY FUND (AEF) - Lisa Price, our AEF Chairman shares some insight into the AEF program. The mission of the ALA is members helping members with service not self in action. The AEF is a national grant assistance program that provides eligible members temporary assistance in the time of financial setback. Grants are with the intent to help members with setbacks with awards that could equal up to $2,400 until financial stability has been obtained. The program does not assist in medical bills or credit card debts. Please help support the Auxiliary Emergency Fund by going to https://donate.legion-aux.org/CSiDonate/Give.aspx/7GY9YLFO#c and donate and be a part of helping those eligible members who have faced a significant financial burden as a result of personal crisis or act of nature. Did you know that our Unit donates to the AEF? Unit 18 uses the Auxiliary Emergency Fund as a way to honor members who have passed. Our Unit contributes a $15 donation to the AEF on their behalf. It is the custom to honor our members while supporting others in need. Since July 2020, we have honored 5 members who have passed and placed $75 in the AEF to pay tribute to their legacy. Maxine Mann Death: April 27, 2020 Ruth Floyd Death June 9, 2020 Elizabeth Ann Blackburn Death June 29, 2020 Mary Mulryan Death: July 10, 2020 Patricia Cross Death: August 21, 2020 We also honor our members’ loved ones by donating to this fund… We will share more details about this in our next email newsletter. ***************************** A note from National ALA eNews: www.surveymonkey.com/r/ALASpecialCommittees Help the ALA by serving on one of these new national committees Two special committees were appointed at the virtual National Executive Committee meeting in August. The committees are Inclusion & Diversity Special Committee and the National Code of Ethical Conduct Review Committee. Both committees are seeking ALA members who can expect to serve until at least the 2021 ALA National Convention, who like working as part of a team, and have good listening skills and respect for differing opinions. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHCJgbbpsMZ/?igshid=1fnwdvzqymzth

0 notes

blackchildrensbooksandauthors · 7 years

Photo

18 Historical Nonfiction Books That Exemplify the Power of Protest and Resistance

Protest is not always big and audacious; it can be small acts of courage and resistance. During slavery, many of the enslaved didn’t have the fearlessness of those who risked their lives to plan and carry out escapes and rebellions like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Gabriel Prosser. Some of the enslaved resisted in ways that have been described as “day-to-day” resistance. Such acts entailed faking sicknesses, destroying tools and other plantation equipment, pretending not to understand instructions, and setting fires, and there have even been stories of slaves poisoning enslavers. But one of the most daring acts of resistance was learning to read. Anti-literacy laws were used as a tactic to dominate and perpetuate white intellectual superiority. Those caught in the act of reading or possessing any such materials that would indicate that intent could suffer severe punishment...continue reading

The books listed include picture books, middle-grade, and young adult titles:

Harriet and the Promised Land - Jacob Lawrence

Sojourner Truth’s Step-Stomp Stride - Andrea Davis Pinkney, Illustrator - Brian Pinkney

Rosa - Nikki Giovanni, Illustrator - Bryan Collier

Let Freedom Sing - Vanessa Newton

Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story - Ruby Bridges

Child of the Rights Movement - Paula Young Shelton, Illustrator - Raul Colon

We Troubled the Waters - Ntozake Shange, Illustrator - Rod Brown

We Shall Not Be Moved - Velma Maia Thomas

Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History - Walter Dean Myers, Illustrator - Floyd Cooper

Ida B. Wells: Let the Truth Be Told - Walter Dean Myers, Illustrator - Bonnie Christensen

Rebels Against Slavery: American Slave Revolts - Patricia & Fredrick McKissick

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement - Carole Boston Weatherford, Illustrator - Ekua Holmes

Extraordinary People of The Civil Rights Movement - Sheila Hardy & P Stephen Hardy

Now Is Your Time!: The African-American Struggle for Freedom - Walter Dean Myers

Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March - Lynda Blackmon Lowery as told to Elspeth Leacock & Susan Buckley, Illustrator - PJ Loughran

March Series (3 Book Set) - John Lewis & Andrew Aydin, Illustrator - Nate Powell

Find more historical nonfiction books by Black authors here

<> Follow BCBA on Twitter <> Subscribe to Our Newsletter <>

#Black children's books and authors #protest books #resistance books #civil rights books #nonfiction books #kidlit

470 notes · View notes

go-redgirl · 4 years

Photo

***Live Updates**** Republican National Convention Night One

The Republican National Convention kicks off on Monday. Featured Speakers will include: Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York; House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA); Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC); Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Jim Jordan (R-OH); RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel; George State Rep. Vernon Jones; Kim Klacik; Mark and Patricia McCloskey; Andrew Pollack; Donald Trump Jr.

10:26 PM: Donald Trump Jr. wants to speak about the great American story. He says just a few months ago, we were seeing the American Dream become a reality for more Americans. He blames Joe Biden for calling Trump a racist and a xenophobe for his China travel ban.

He says it is madness that Biden is trying to shut down the country. He says Biden’s economic platform seems designed to crush the working man and woman. He rips “Beijing Biden” for supporting NAFTA, TPP.

He says China wants Biden to win while Biden wants to bring in more illegal immigrants to take jobs from America citizens. He says this will drive wages down from low-income Americans who were getting wage increases for the first time in modern history.

He says Trump’s policies have been like rocket fuel for the economy while Biden, the “Loch Ness Monster of the Swamp” that has been lurking around for decades and sticks his head up every now and then to run for president, wants to take money out of your pocket for Swamp dwellers.

10:42 PM: Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) says 2020 has tested our nation in ways we haven’t seen in decades after talking about the Coronavirus, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor.

Scott talks about his life story about how he lived with his mom and his grandmother in a two-bedroom home after his parents divorced. He said he thought he had to use football to succeed and did not concentrate on his academics and failed out. He says even while he was failing the 9th grade, his mom told him, after working 16 hours a day, to shoot for the moon because if you fail you will be among the stars. He tells the story of his mentor, a Chick-fil-A operator John Moniz.

"When we stumble... we pick ourselves back up and try again. We don't give in to cancel culture or the radically factually baseless belief that things are worse today than in the 1860s or the 1960s. We have work to do, but I believe in the goodness of America." — Sen. Tim Scott

Scott says he won his race against Strom Thurmond’s son because of the evolution of the Southern heart because voter in an overwhelmingly white district judged him by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. Scott says we are fully not where we want to be but he thanks God Almighty we are not where we used to be.

Scott asks voters to not simply look at what the candidates say but to look back at what they’ve done because this election is about your future. Scott says Biden said if black people were monolithic and if they didn’t vote for him, they weren’t black.

Scott says while Biden’s words are one thing, his actions are another. He says Biden failed the HBCUs and passed the Crime Bill. Scott says Trump cleaned up Biden’s mess to give HBCUs permanent funding for the first time ever.

He says Biden and Harris want a “cultural revolution” and, if we let them, they will try to turn America into a “Socialist utopia.”

Scott says his family went to “cotton to Congress in one lifetime” and that’s why he thinks America’s next century can be better than her last. He says supporting the Republican ticket gives you the best chance to make that a reality.

He says Biden’s economic platform seems designed to crush the working man and woman. He rips “Beijing Biden” for supporting NAFTA, TPP.

Trump Jr. says both parties used to love America but now Democrats are attacking the basic principles on which the nation was founded.

He says the left wants to cancel our Founders because they don’t understand that in order to improve, we must learn from our past and not erase it.

He says the Republican Party is now the home of free speech and if the radical left has its way, the “silent majority” will be the “silenced majority.”

He says what happened to George Floyd was a disgrace and if you know a police officer they think the same. But he says we must remember police are heroes and we don’t want 9-1-1 calls going to voicemail.

10:17 PM: Haley quotes Jeanne Kirkpatrick talking about how Democrats always blame America first. She says what was true in 1984 is still true today because Democrats are still blaming America first.

“Joe Biden and the Democrats are still blaming America first. Donald Trump has always put America first. He has earned four more years as President,” she says.

Haley says the United Nations is not “for the faint of heart” because it’s a place where dictators, murderers, and thieves denounce America “and then put their hands out and demand that we pay their bills.

” She says Trump put an end to all of that. She says they stood up for America and stood against enemies. She says Trump ripped up the Iran Deal while Obama-Biden let them get away with murder and sent them a plane full of cash.

Haley says Biden is good for ISIS, Iran, and China and a “godsend” for everyone “who wants America to apologize, abstain, and abandon our values.”

Haley says Biden and the Socialist left will be a disaster for America’s economy. She says Biden’s bosses this time will not be Obama but instead will be Pelosi, Sanders, and The Squad.

Haley rips Democrats for saying America is a racist country

“In much of the Democratic Party, it’s now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country.

This is personal for me. I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. They came to America and settled in a small southern town. My father wore a turban.

My mother wore a sari. I was a brown girl in a black and white world,” She says. “We faced discrimination and hardship. But my parents never gave in to grievance and hate. My mom built a successful business.

My dad taught 30 years at a historically black college. And the people of South Carolina chose me as their first minority and first female governor.”

She says America is a story that is a work in progress and it is so tragic to see Democrats turning a blind eye to riots and rage.

Haley says the lives of black cops, black businesses, and black kids who have been shot matter too.

Haley talks now talks about the Mother Emanuel AME massacre and talking about removing the Confederate flag peacefully.

10:16 PM: RNC video says the radical left that wants amnesty and health care for illegal immigrants have already taken over the Democratic Party and warns voters not to not let them take over America.

10:08 PM: Maximo Alvarez speaks about how his family knows all about totalitarianism. His father fled Spain and then Cuba.

“But my family is done leaving. By the grace of God, I have lived the American dream—the greatest blessing I’ve ever had.

My dad, who only had a sixth-grade education told me, “don’t lose this place. You’ll never be as lucky as me,” Alvarez says. “

I’m speaking to you today because my family is done leaving places. There is nowhere left to go.”

He says he knows plenty of people who swallowed Fidel Castro’s “Communism poison pill” and they starved and died because they believed those empty promises.

“When I watch the news in Seattle and Chicago and Portland, when I see history being rewritten, when I hear the promises—I hear echoes of a former life I never wanted to hear again,” he says. “I see shadows I thought I had outrun.”

Alvarez praises Trump for being a president who is fighting Communism and anarchy. He says Biden will hand the country over to “those dangerous forces.” He says he chooses president Trump because he chooses America and freedom.

10:02 PM: RNC focuses on American hostages freed by Trump. Video shows Trump speaking in the White House to hostages and detainees he freed. Trump says there are a few more people we wants to get back and will do so shortly.

____________________________________________________

OPINION: Wow! What an amazing night. The Republicans of the great lovers our of great country. And, when citizens love their country they become ‘UNSTOPPABLE’ and greatness become their goal for all Americans regardless of what side of the isle you are on

0 notes

loloaveee1 · 4 years

Text

Celebrities that Have Died in 2020

Hey guys! I'm Elizabeth Osemeke but y'all can call me Liz. I'm a friend of Weyinmi's and she invited me to write on this blog, so here I am. I'm in the 9th Grade and I'm 13 years old.

My posts are going to be focusing mainly on celebrity news. So if you're interested in that, I recommend that you read my posts.

So, celebrities that we've lost this year. Times have been hard.No doubt about it. But just imagine losing a loved one in one of the hardest times in history. If you have lost a loved one during this period, my sincere condolences. Here is a list of some notable people that have died this year.

Naya Rivera

Naya Marie Rivera was an American actress, model and singer. She was born on 12th January, 1987 in Santa Clarita, California, United States. She became famous for her role in 'Glee'.

On July 8th, the 33 year old went missing after going boating with her son on Lake Piru, Ventura County, California. On Monday, July 13th, police announced a body had been found where Rivera had disappeared.

Lake Piru is known for its strong currents. It is reported that she had used her last strenght to get her son to the boat before disappearing under the water.

She was announced dead on July 13th. She is survived by her 4 year old son, Josey Hollis Dorsey.

Nicole Thea

Nicole Thea was a British dancer, social media influencer and YouTube star. She was born on July 29th, 1995.

On July 11th, Nicole Thea and her unborn son died after she suffered a suspected heart attack in Hexborough, Yorkshire. Her death was announced by her family on social media. The 24 year old was just two weeks away from giving birth to her son, who she named Reign.

Lil Marlo

Lil Marlo, also known as Rudolph 'Marlo' Johnson, was an Atlanta-based rap artist. He was born on May 1st, 1993 in Atlanta, United States.

On July 11th, he was found dead from a gunshot wound inside a car alongside the I-285 highway.

Yohan

Yohan, also known as Kim Yo-han was a South Korean singer and actor. he debuted as a member of South Korean boy group X1 finishing first on Produce X 101 in 2019. He was born on September 22nd, 1999 in Jungnang-gu, Seoul, South Korea.

On June 16th, TST's label KJ Music Entertainment, confirmed rumors of the 28 year old's death, asking fans and media outlets to refrain from speculating about Yohan's cause of death. His cause of death is still unknown.

La Parka

La Parka, also known as Adolfo Margarito Tapia Ibarra, was a Mexican luchador enmascarado (masked professional wrestler) who performed as L.A. Park for Major League Wrestling in the United States and Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA) in Mexico. He was born on November 14th, 1965 in Queretaro, Mexico.

On January 11th, La Parka died after suffering from complications due to severe in-ring injuries in Hermosillo, Mexico.

He is survived by his son, El Hijo de L.A. Park, who is also a luchador enmascrado (masked professional wrestler).

Rocky Johnson

Rocky Johnson was a Canadian professional wrestler. He was the first Georgia Heavyweight Champion. He was born on August 24th, 1944 in Amherst, Canada.

On January 15th, Rocky Johnson died after suffering from a heart attack in Lutz, Florida, United States.

He is survived by his three children; Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Curtis Bowles and Wanda Bowles.

Nikita Pearl Waligwa

Nikita Waligwa was an actress, known for Queen of Katwe (2016). She was born on December 1st, 2004 in Ghana.

On February 15th, she passed away in TMR International Hospital, Kampala, Uganda due to a brain tumor. She was just 15 years old.

Little Richard

Richard Wayne Penniman, also known as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. He was born on December 5th, 1932 in Macon, Georgia, United States.

On May 9th, he died at the age of 87 at his home in Tullahoma, Tennessee from a cause related to bone cancer, after a two-month illness.

He is survived by his adopted son, Danny Jones Penniman.

Sunshant Singh Rajput

Sunsant Singh Rajput was an Indain actor. He was born on January 21st, 1986, in Patna, India.

On June 14th, the 34 year old was found dead hanging from the ceiling fan in his home in Bandra, Mumbai. He had reportedly suffered from depression for about six months.

Suicide is never the answer. Trust me, it's not worth it. The sadness can be temporary but death is irreversible. If you ever have suicidal tendencies, just remember, there's always someone to talk to. And if you feel you don't have anyone to talk with, I'll talk to you. [email protected]. You're not alone. Remember that.

Bonnie Pointer

Patricia Eva 'Bonnie' Pointer was an American singer, best known for having been a member of the vocal group, The Pointer Sisters. She was born on July 11th, 1950, in Oakland, California, United States.

On June 8th, the 69 year old died in Los Angeles, California, United States due to Cirrhosis of the Liver.

Betty Wright

Bessie Regina Norris, also known as Betty Wright, was an American soul and R & B singer, songwriter and background vocalist. She was born on December 21st, 1953, in Miami, Florida, United States.

On May 10th, the 66 year old died of cancer in Miami, Florida, United States.

She is survived by her five children, Chaka Azuri, Asha Wright, Patrice Parker, Patrick Parker and Aisha McCray.

Gregory Tyree Boyce

Gregory Tyree Boyce was an American actor. He was born on December 5th, 1989 in California, United States.

On May 13th, the 30 year old and his 27 year old girlfriend, Adepoju, were found dead in a Las Vegas condo. It was reported that they died of a drug overdose after taking cocaine and fentanyl.

He is survived by his daughter, Alaya Boyce.

Ashley 'Minnie' Ross

Ashley Ross was a TV personality. She was well known for her role in the TV show, Little Woman: Atlanta. She was born in 1984.

On April 24th, the 36 year old died in Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia, United States, due to complications from a traffic collision.

Roger Mayweather

Roger Mayweather was an American boxing trainer and professional boxer who competed from 1981 1999. He was born on April 24th, 1961 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States.

In March, the 58 year old died from diabetic complications in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.

He is survived by his two children, Jade and Lekei and his nephews, Justin Mayweather Jones and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bean Bryant was an American professional basketball player. As a shooting guard, Bryant entered the National Basketball Association (NBA) directly from high school and played his entire 20-season professional career in the league with the Los Angeles Lakers. He retired on April 13th, 2016. He was born on August 23rd, 1978, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

On January 26th, Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna Bryant, were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash in the city of Calabasas, California. Kobe, 41, and Gianna, 13, were travelling in a private helicopter when it came down and burst into flames.

He is survived by his children, Natalia Diamante Bryant, Bianka Bella Bryant and Capri Kobe Bryant.

Gianna Bryant

Gianna Maria Onore Bryant, also referred to as 'Gigi', was an American basketball player. She was born on May 1st, 2006.

On January 26th, Gianna died alongside her father, Kobe Bryant, a five-time NBA champion. Gianna Bryant had big shoes to fill. Like her father, the 13 year old was a prodigiously talented basketball player.

Pop Smoke

Bashar Barakah Jackson, known professionally as Pop Smoke, was an American rapper, singer and songwriter. He was born on July 20th, 1999.

On February 19th, Pop Smoke was shot and killed at the home he was renting in the Hollywood Hills. It is speculated that his address was accidentally leaked on social media.

May their souls rest in peace.😞

Source: Wikipedia.

Bye y'all!

https://ift.tt/3fBJ26T celebritylists

#Quran Or Hadiths

1 note · View note

newyorktheater · 4 years

Text

Harlem9

Two members of a book club for Black women have invited M’Balia, an author who advocates violent revolution, to speak to their group and perhaps help turn it into a revolutionary cadre, in “The Noir Femme Avengers.” The play by Brittany K. Allen was the most thought-provoking of the six short new works that were presented online in the “48 Hours in Harlem” tenth anniversary festival over the weekend.

The set-up of Allen’s play at first feels satirical. The women, Char and Zee (portrayed by Shavanna Calder and D. Wood), seem middle-class, fun-loving, young. M’Balia the author (Patricia R. Floyd), although she says things like “power will not relent without bloodshed,” is an elderly woman dressed in a church-going hat. She tells them she can’t spend much time with them. “These anti-racist reading lists are blowing up my schedule, so to speak.”

But, once M’Balia signs off from their Zoom meeting, it becomes abruptly clear that these are not just bougie girls playing at being serious.

“I don’t know if I want to be out there taking lives, Char,” Zee says. “When somebody dies, they’re just gone, and it’s cold comfort even if they die for a good reason.”

“Your brother was killed for no reason,” Char replies. “He was shot and he’s gone, and no one has paid for it.”

“Yeah, because no one can…”

There is an extra layer to the characters’ ambivalence. The play was inspired by Richard Wesley’s 1971 play “Black Terror,” about a black revolutionary assassin who becomes full of doubt about whether violence is the answer.

That two playwrights are speaking together simultaneously from two moments in history is not a coincidence; it’s by design. Every year, the theater collective known as Harlem9 hands one of a half dozen classic African-American plays to each of a half dozen African-American playwrights and gives them 48 hours to write a new play inspired by the previous work.

For its tenth anniversary, Harlem9 used the same plays it had used in its inaugural festival. So, in 2011, George C. Wolfe’s “The Colored Museum” inspired Dominique Morisseau to write “The Masterpiece.” In 2020, Wolfe’s play inspired Keith Josef Atkins to write “The Last White Man in Power Play.”

Atkins’ play takes place in the future, with three characters have been living in “a sanctuary pod,” bickering, while an ominous sounding “organization” is getting rid of white people in power, and about to set Black people free. Like Allen’s play, Atkins’ offers a healthy dose of ambivalence, suggesting there would be no utopian future even if there were no white men. In such plays as Atkins’, the connection between the old and the new work isn’t always self-evident, sometimes not even to the playwright. But the results can be impressive, as I reported last year,

That Harlem9 has spent ten years creating works about the Black experience would suggest, now that the Black experience has taken center stage, that this is their moment. And it is. But they are no longer alone. “Center stage” is not just a metaphor. Earlier this month, to pick one example, the #WhileWeBreathe anthology produced similar results.

Still, Harlem9’s festival this year continued its well-honed mix of entertainment, inspiration and provocative context.

In “Day of…What?” three of the whitest characters imaginable — named Chad, Karen and Becky — wake up in the morning having turned Black. Two scream. One is initially shocked that she’s so tanned but winds up delighted.

This is the first year that 48 Hours in Harlem was presented online, and the directors did a good job of making the Zoom bearable – none more inventively than Marjuan Canady’s staging if Tracey Conyer Lee’s “House of a Negro, Funny,” which was inspired by Adrienne Kennedy’s “Funnyhouse of a Negro.” It’s also a play that began inaccessible — oh, this is going to be one of those abstract, absurdist plays — and became increasingly specific and powerful.

The last play in this year’s “48 Hours in Harlem” was entitled “I Hate Everything” by Jeremy O’Brian, about a support group for people who hate everything, and who are meeting to try to avoid committing suicide. The play was inspired by “Dutchman,” Amiri Baraka’s 1964 play about a white woman who flirts with a Black man in a subway train, and then stabs him to death. In O’Brian’s play, Star (Kaaron Briscoe) tells her fellow support group members the story of riding in a subway, and seeing how the other passengers treated a little Black boy rudely, but formed a protective circle around a dog. So Star stabbed the dog to death, she says matter-of-factly, while her listeners go slack-jawed in shock.

It’s a provocative take on a play that has been revived twice this month alone — by the Seeing Place Theater, and by Play-PerView starring Dule Hill and Jennifer Mudge, reprising their roles from a production in 2007 at the Cherry Lane, which is where the play debuted. It’s fascinating to look over the different reviews of this play in the New York Times over the years –

In 1964: an explosion of hatred rather than a play. It puts into the mouth of its principal Negro character a scathing denunciation of all the white man’s good works, pretensions and condescensions…..If this is the way even one Negro feels, there is ample cause for guilt as well as alarm, and for a hastening of change.

In 2007: “Dutchman” possesses a single objective: to produce guilt. But 43 years after it made its debut…it fails to do even that….What emerging feminists in the audience must have made of all this four decades ago is something to wonder. The notion that a woman might embody all the power and evil of American empire when she still could not make her way out of the broom closet must have had the vague semblance of science fiction.

In 2020:In this tale of Adam and Eve — and in the real story of America — a Black person who’s smart and well aware of his position and willing to speak out is danger, a fire waiting to be extinguished. But even more frightening, a Black person may be killed simply because, like Adam biting the apple and getting punished with the curse of mortality, Black death has become a perverted inevitability of life in America. Here’s the story: We do or we don’t take a bite of the apple, but either way we choke.

Whatever else we can take away from these remarkably different reactions to the same play, it helps demonstrate how useful the project Harlem9 has set for itself in “48 Hours in Harlem” – to keep looking anew at both the Black Experience and Black Theater…from a Black perspective.

48 Hours in Harlem 10th Anniversary Festival: A New Take on Classic Black Plays Two members of a book club for Black women have invited M'Balia, an author who advocates violent revolution, to speak to their group and perhaps help turn it into a revolutionary cadre, in “The Noir Femme Avengers.” The play by Brittany K.

0 notes

topmixtrends · 5 years

Link

Hendrix has stated that, prior to embarking on this project, he was not “a natural metal fan”:

“Dude,” they said to Greg as he jogged by them, “she is so on the rag.”

“Are we breaking up?” Greg asked, clueless, through her car window.

It took all her self-control not to back over him as she drove off.

Rob Latham is a LARB senior editor. His most recent book is Science Fiction Criticism: An Anthology of Essential Writings, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2017.

The post Magic Carpet Rides: Rock Music and the Fantastic appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://bit.ly/2SMN28U

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

0 notes

full-imagination · 4 years

Text

Martha S. Sams

Martha S. Sams, 85, of Spartanburg, SC, died Saturday, July 25, 2020 at Spartanburg Regional Hospice. Born September 28, 1934 in Germany, she was the daughter of Wilhelm and Marguerita Kordes Woehlking. Martha came to the United States in 1958 and lived in New York City. She was employed by the Anaconda Company and later by Amax. In 1988 she was awarded the ACS Clockwork Award for meritorious service. Martha retired in 1993 and lived in Germany for two years before returning to the United States in 1996 with her husband, John P. Smith. They lived together in Spartanburg until his death in April 2001. She is survived by two step-daughter, Patricia Smith of San Diego, CA and Cathy Smith of Del Mar, CA. Martha became active in gardening where she met her husband, Mortimer R. Sams. They married in 2004 at Holy Communion Lutheran Church and lived in Moore, SC before moving to the eastside of Spartanburg in 2008. She gained five stepsons from this marriage, Lloyd (Jane), Frank (Sally), Robert (Phyllis), Edward (Christie) and John (Louise). The stepchildren and all the grandchildren loved Martha and eating at her table. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Spartanburg Humane Society, 150 Dexter Road, Spartanburg, SC 29303. The family will gather on Saturday, August 1, 2020 at the First Presbyterian Church Columbarium for the committal. Floyd’s North Church Street Chapel from The JF Floyd Mortuary via Spartanburg Funeral

#Spartanburg Funeral #Funeral Consultant #The JF Floyd Mortuary

0 notes

investmart007 · 6 years

Text

HOCKESSIN, Del. | AP Exclusive: Survivor says officials responsible for riot

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/dvbY8k

HOCKESSIN, Del. | AP Exclusive: Survivor says officials responsible for riot

HOCKESSIN, Del. — Patricia May had a feeling of dread when she reported to work at Delaware’s maximum-security prison last year.

For months, May had been concerned about her safety after being assigned to C Building at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna in late 2016.

As she walked to her office on Feb. 1, 2017, the veteran Department of Correction counselor voiced her concerns to a colleague.

“I was expressing my apprehension, my anguish, my anger, my concern,” May told The Associated Press on Friday, in her first public interview since last year’s deadly prison riot . “I thought I was going to get killed in there.”

“It was common knowledge that the riot was going to come about,” she added. “We just didn’t know when.”

Just a few minutes after May expressed her fears, inmates staged a violent uprising in which correctional officer Sgt. Steven Floyd was killed, two others were beaten and tormented, and May was held hostage for almost 20 hours before tactical teams were finally able to breach a wall with a backhoe and rescue her. Three other staffers were rescued after hiding in a basement before climbing onto a roof.

May, who retired in March, blames prison leadership.

“They knew it was going to happen. They did nothing,” she said. “When they put me in that building, they knew they were putting me in a dangerous situation.”

May was included in a $7.55 million settlement of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Floyd’s relatives and six Department of Correction staffers. In settling the lawsuit, state officials did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.

But an independent review ordered by Gov. John Carney after the riot found that prison administrators dismissed warnings of trouble brewing, including Floyd’s plea to move some inmates to another building for security reasons. The dismissal of the warnings was indicative of an overcrowded, understaffed facility plagued by mismanagement, poor communication, a culture of negativity, and adversarial relationships among prison staff, administrators and inmates, investigators found.

On Tuesday, Carney and corrections officials plan to release a final report on efforts to implement 41 recommendations from the independent review team, which never spoke to May.

“I’m just ticked off that nobody talked to me,” said May, who did arrange a meeting with Carney’s chief legal counsel in June 2017 before Carney announced the hiring of attorney Claire DeMatteis as a special assistant to oversee reform efforts and the review team’s recommendations.

“I greatly respect Ms. May’s service and the trauma she experienced,” DeMatteis said in an email Tuesday.

Recounting an ordeal that has been indelibly etched in her memory, May, 68, said the riot broke out shortly after she received clearance from Floyd to have an inmate visit her in her office. Roughly half an hour into the meeting, another prisoner burst through the door, holding a sharp weapon.

“He called me by name. He said, ‘Ms. May, I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t do everything I tell you, I’m going to have to stab you.'”

May was tied up and a hood was placed over her head.

“I’m not Ms. May anymore. I’m a hostage, period,” she said, adding that she could hear sounds of violence outside her door but couldn’t see what was going on. Inmates were ransacking the building, setting fires and barricading doors with water-filled foot lockers.

“The noise level was beyond comprehension. … It was such a rage, I can’t even put it in words,” she said.

As she was led from her office to a cell, May was able to look down through the bottom of the hood. Claustrophobic, she had warned an inmate that if he tied the hood around her neck, she was going to “freak out.”

“When I walked out of the office, the floor was covered with blood. … I didn’t know whose blood it was.”

An inmate later came into the cell and held a phone or radio up to her head, ordering her to tell the person on the other end “how serious this is.”

“There’s blood everywhere,” May said numbly, unable to think of a better way to explain the situation.

In an effort to calm May, a devout Christian, inmates brought her a Bible. With her hood on, she couldn’t read it. She simply clutched it to her chest. Too nervous to eat, she declined food.

An inmate also brought her a radio so she could listen to her favorite Christian rock stations. There was no reception. Undeterred, the inmate, who told May he had recently become a Christian, sang to her.

Eventually, May was allowed to remove her hood. She found herself in the company of three inmates, who joined her in the cell and vowed to protect her. They shared their life stories with her, and she told them how she relied on her Christian faith as a source of hope and strength in times of trouble. May also recounted Bible stories to the inmates, including Daniel’s tribulations in the lion’s den.

About an hour later, shouts began ringing through the hallways.

“They’re coming at us with a backhoe!” inmates hollered.

May and the inmates agreed to close their cell door, knowing they would be trapped if another fire broke, but also afraid responders might come in shooting.

The inmates with May shouted to tactical responders to let them know she was with them and told them where to find the electrical panel to unlock the door.

May recalled only being worried that “my guys would get hurt.”

“They had been so kind to me. … They cared about a counselor they hardly even knew,” she said.

May, who holds a degree in criminology and worked the streets as a probation and parole officer for almost a decade before becoming a counselor, says inmates in the Delaware prison are sorely in need of better conditions, counseling and programs to help them rehabilitate. She said the state is jailing prisoners for “way too long” and that corrections officials “are antiquated in our thinking about treatment.”

“They have to take these reforms seriously,” she said. “If you take all their (inmates’) hope away, what do they have left?”

By RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press

#Christian #Delaware prison #Hockessin #john carney #Patricia May #responsible for riot #TodayNews #way too long

0 notes