#we met at a versions event pre covid

[jokeroutsubs]

On their travels through regional and European stages, the Slovenian sensation stopped by in Rijeka, putting on a concert spectacle for the Rijeka audience in the sold out Pogon Kulture.

Huge international hype, triggered by the recognisable song “Carpe Diem”, threw this Slovenian indie rock five into a demanding concert tempo which has resulted in several European mini tours, confirming the growing popularity of the band outside of their country’s borders.

Despite their dense schedule of sold out concerts, just before the sound check, we caught the members of the band, frontman Bojan Cvjetićanin and guitarist Kris Guštin, and talked with them more about all current events and changes that will follow in the upcoming time period.

A series of “flying” gigs

“Our lifestyle has drastically changed in the last few months. For the first time, we’re travelling as a band and encountering new situations that we’ve never dealt with before, new great experiences and new small problems that, of course, come with it.

More or less, logistics on the road are the biggest problem, but we’ve just returned from our third tour this year. We played in Poland, Lithuania, and Czechia, and it was a really great tour that lasted about two weeks,” said Bojan.

Rijeka, as the last concert in the current cycle, marks the end of travelling with a tour bus. After a week of rest, the band will go on a series of “flying gigs”, which includes Skopje, Munich, The Hague, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, and, of course, Slovenia at the end of the year.

The fact that Joker Out has already won the hearts of the audience is certainly confirmed by the awarding of "Carpe Diem" with a Golden Record in Finland, as well as recognition by the prestigious booking agency Wasserman.

“We have always welcomed people into the team according to some key to enter our circle more or less naturally, and we were lucky when things rose to the point where actually Ryan, our booking agent from Wasserman, got in contact with us because he was at our concert in London.

He liked how things worked and wanted to start working together, so we were more than happy with the fact that a man from abroad was the first to join our team, somebody who first enjoyed our performance and saw a bigger picture and saw himself as a part of it, in maybe an even bigger version, in the next few years,” revealed Bojan.

Käärijä and Let 3

As much as the process of recognition and breakthrough came suddenly, the discography of the band came at a similar pace. From their beginnings in Ljubljana in 2016, they released their first album only five years later, and the second one - less than a year after the first.

The longer process of musical growth, which began in the band’s high school days, dictated the slow pace of searching for their own sound in singles which eventually, with disruptions due to COVID, culminated in their first serious discography steps, and then in the revolution called Eurovision.

Lightning fast popularity has brought a series of strong music acquaintances to the band, of which their close relationship with Käärijä and Let 3 certainly stand out.

“We met Käärijä at a pre-party in Madrid, he was on a similar energy level as us - he didn’t take himself too seriously and we didn’t either. He was quite open-minded and had a positive approach to the whole situation, so we really connected on that level during Eurovision when huge things were happening to everyone, in the form of media pressure and new situations every day, so it suited us all to have each other to share those feelings.

We stayed in regular contact, we even performed together during our Finnish tour. He left literally everything he had scheduled in his calendar and became a part of the band for four days,” Bojan and Kris remembered.

In a way, the Jokers are an even bigger anomaly in a region marked by a certain language barrier towards its western parts. Despite the cultural and genre homogeneity, Joker Out managed to suspend the primacy of “Serbian and Croatian trap folk music”, showing and proving that Slovenian shagadelic rock and roll also has a place in this whole genre cauldron.

There’s nothing like it in the Balkans

The guys therefore confirm that Slovenia has a lot of quality to offer in terms of new artists, and concert events as well, which are richer compared to the rest of the region.

“Before we started with ex-Yugoslavia, there was always the question of if there was space for a band of this type in the Balkans, because we know this genre of music isn’t the most popular right now. Actually, there’s no band like this in the Balkans, maybe just Buč Kesidi, so we didn’t know what to expect in terms of our popularity in these regions.

I think everything went really well, we were surprised how many people were eager to hear a live band, regardless of the language they sing in,” Kris pointed out.

And it seems that the regional (and worldwide) audience welcomes every new Joker Out show with open arms, because they sing along with equal intensity to the melodies in Slovenian, and also in English, which will certainly take over the steering wheel of the band’s creative direction in the coming period.

The same is evident in the fruitful collaboration with Elvis Costello, who was delighted with the single ‘Novi Val’ and earlier this year joined in the English version of the song, ‘New Wave’, and also the latest single ‘Sunny Side of London’ - which leaves little room for doubt about where Joker Out will set up their new creative camp.

“Next year in January we are moving to London, where we plan to absorb new energies in an unfamiliar living space, so we will change our environment in order to create a new album that will be released by the end of October 2024 at the latest.

We will be more in contact with the English language, which on the one hand represents a mental break for us, because we are used to creating music in the Slovenian language, but there will still be all kinds of material - mostly English, but also songs in Slovenian, Serbian, and Croatian,” Bojan and Kris concluded.

Translation by @moonlvster, reviewed by @klamstrakur.

#joker out #jokeroutsubs #bojan cvjeticanin #bojan cvjetićanin #kris gustin #kris guštin #jan peteh #nace jordan #jure macek

[twoflipstwotwists]

It’s a late afternoon in April, and Sunisa “Suni” Lee is where most people find themselves a year into the pandemic: Home, in a sweatshirt, talking into a webcam. The 18-year-old gymnast is poised to make history at the summer Olympics, but over Zoom, she’s just like any teenager, reflecting on everything she’s balancing behind the scenes.

While training for a wildly unpredictable Games, Lee has been caring for her recently paralyzed father, mourning the deaths of her aunt and uncle from COVID, and recovering from a broken foot that jeopardized her lifelong dream to win gold. Now Lee, whose parents emigrated from Laos, is also fighting to qualify as the first-ever Hmong American Olympic gymnast—all while her community contends with a national surge in anti-Asian violence. “People hate on us for no reason,” Lee says from her parents’ house in St. Paul, Minnesota. “It would be cool to show that we are more than what they say. I don’t know how to explain that...”

Lee’s father inches his wheelchair closer into the Zoom screen, and answers for her. “It would be the greatest accomplishment of any Hmong person in the U.S. ever,” he says. “It will go down in history.”

Before the Tokyo Olympics were postponed in March 2020, Lee’s family was preparing for the trip of a lifetime. Though she hadn’t actually made the team yet, her parents John Lee and Yeev Thoj had no doubts. They bought plane tickets to watch their daughter compete, and planned to celebrate afterward with a trip to Laos to show Lee and her siblings where they grew up. Both John and Yeev are Hmong, an ethnic group made of people primarily from Southeast Asia and areas in China who fought alongside the U.S. in the Vietnam War. After losing most of their land in the war, many Hmong fled to Thailand as refugees. By the late ‘70s and ‘80s, around 90 percent of the refugee population had resettled in the U.S., where there are now 18 Hmong clans, the largest residing in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Lee describes her community there as “really close.” More than 300 people come to her family’s annual camping trip, and she can’t go to a local Asian store without someone asking after her dad. She has become something of a local celebrity herself. At Hmong events, Lee gets stopped for photos by people who tell her how proud they are. “It’s nice knowing I have them to fall back on,” she says. “The support is amazing.”

But last May, just two months before the Olympic opening ceremony was originally scheduled to take place, Lee’s family and the rest of the Twin Cities Hmong community found themselves thrust into the national conversation over race and policing. Kellie Chauvin, the now ex-wife of Derek Chauvin, the officer who murdered George Floyd, is Hmong American. So is Tou Thao, another officer on the scene who is set to stand trial in August on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in connection to Floyd’s murder. As part of the ensuing protests, several nearby Hmong American businesses were vandalized. John says it got “scary” when several homes on their block were broken into.

“I was trying to make the Hmong community more known,” Lee says. “When that happened, I felt like it was a setback.”

Lee’s journey to the Olympics started with a lumpy mattress and a piece of plywood. Her parents were eager to preoccupy their energetic, gymnastics-obsessed seven-year-old, and a balance beam seemed like the perfect distraction. John built a four-foot-long structure from a spare mattress that, to his credit, still stands in their yard today. He also taught Lee, who’s one of six kids, how to do flips on the bed.

By then, Lee had captured the attention of Jess Graba, a coach at Midwest Gymnastics. “It was super raw and she was just a little kid, but she had some talent,” Graba says, remembering when they met. “Her flips were kind of crazy—she had been practicing in her yard—and she clearly had some ability to go upside down without fear.”

In 2016 when she was 14, Lee was named to the U.S. junior national team, and it became clear Graba could be coaching one of the next great American gymnasts. They traveled around the world together for competitions, and by 2018, Lee had won a gold medal on uneven bars at the National Championships. Five-time Olympic medalist Nastia Liukin, Lee’s longtime hero, took notice of the high-flying athlete. “Her abilities as a gymnast, especially her bar routine, are incredible,” Liukin tells ELLE. “But it’s the unparalleled mental strength that she has shown during the most difficult time of her life that make her the person she is.”

Just two days before the 2019 National Championships, John fell from a ladder while trimming a tree. He was paralyzed from the chest down. At the time, Graba thought Lee shouldn’t compete out of concern for her safety: A distracted athlete is a danger to themselves because they are much more likely to lose focus and get injured. It would have been a devastating end to a decade of training, as nationals are like an unofficial pre-qualifier for the Olympic Games. But John remained confident in his daughter’s ability to compete under pressure. Before Lee stepped onto the mat, they FaceTimed and he advised her to clear her mind—and remember to have fun. “She can stay focused when she puts her mind to it,” he says.

As John watched the competition from his hospital bed, beaming with pride, Lee won the silver in all-around competition, nailing one of the hardest bar routines in the world. One month later, at the U.S. World Championships selection camp, she came within four-tenths of a point of beating Simone Biles in the all-around—the closest anyone has come to Biles in years—and landed one step closer to fulfilling her Olympic dream.

In March 2020, Lee was scrolling through Twitter after practice when she saw the news: The Olympics were postponed, for the first time in modern history, due to COVID. Lee wiped tears away with chalky hands as years of carefully laid plans were thrown into limbo. “To have that taken away from us without having any control is very hard,” she says. “I went through a depressed phase, and it was hard to get out of.”

For weeks Lee could do little more than sleep and cry. Her gym was closed for three months— practically an eternity in the unforgiving timeline of an elite gymnast. When it did reopen in June, Lee broke her foot, meaning three more months of downtime. “If you were 100 percent ready for the 2020 Olympics, then you’re spending the year going, ‘Let’s just not get injured. Let’s just not make any mistakes,’” Graba says.

Lee found an unexpected source of comfort in Biles, who went from being her biggest competition to one of her closest friends after they competed in 2019. “She was there for me,” Lee says. During lockdown, they Snapchatted and texted—two of the only people in the world who truly understood the gut-punch of waiting another year for the Games to begin.

Then, as the country continued to face rising COVID rates in summer 2020, Lee’s own family was devastated by the virus. Her aunt and uncle—close family members who babysat her as a kid—both died of COVID less than two weeks apart. Lee’s uncle, a Hmong shaman, had helped heal her hurt foot with hot ginger and other herbal medicines. Like so many others did during the pandemic, Lee said goodbye over Zoom.

As the nation slowly starts to heal, so has Lee. She can now spot small silver linings from the past year, like spending more time with her siblings and driving her dad to doctor’s appointments, which she calls “good for me mentally, because typically I’m never with them.” It has taken months and months to get back to the peak shape she was in pre-pandemic, but now it’s full steam ahead. The U.S. Championships are the first week of June, and the Olympic trials are later that month. Lee says the extra year has strengthened her performance on the uneven bars and made her more consistent overall. “I just didn’t want to see myself fall back,” she says. “I don’t want to disappoint my coaches or my parents.”

Still, a spot on the team isn’t guaranteed. For the first time in history, U.S. women’s gymnastics has only four open spots (down from five at the 2016 Games), one of which will almost definitely go to Biles. At this point, it might be harder for a U.S. gymnast to make the Olympic team than it is to actually win a medal once they’re there.

Unsurprisingly, none of this seems to phase Lee. She is no stranger to finding the best version of herself under intense circumstances—the version that wins medals, defies gravity, and advocates for her community. Before falling asleep at night, she visualizes herself sticking a perfect landing and coming home as the first Hmong American Olympic gymnastics champion. History made.

#sunisa lee #i want nothing but good things for her

[surly01]

This Week in Collapse April 11, 2021

"Give me bacon, or give me death!" ~Shaneka Torres, February 9, 2014

If you believe, as we do, that environmental and social collapse is already well underway, the news of the week provided a cornucopia of data points in confirmation. Next week will mark the sixth anniversary of the conviction and sentencing of Shaneka Torres for storming a Michigan McDonald's upon discovering her baconless burger. The frustration Torres felt is now mirrored in all of us as we consume each day's headlines in similar frustration.

But hostility, like violence, is as American as cherry pie. Did you know that members of the starving Donner party were offered assistance by local natives, only to be shot at for their troubles?

Washoe scouts brought the stranded migrants food — including a deer carcass, fish, and wild potatoes — but were met with hostility. On one occasion, an offering of fish was refused. On at least three others, the Washoe approached the Donner camps with food only to be met by gunshots, leaving one man dead…

When a scout saw the white people cannibalizing their dead, the tribe was said to retreat, afraid they too might be killed and eaten. From then on, the Washoe referred to the migrants as “not people.”

Today this hostility toward others, even those trying to help you, pervades most of American society. Many look back upon their high school years as an American version of "Lord of the Flies." Similar put-downs, one-upsmanship, and attack behavior can also be seen in our popular entertainments. This framing our headlong retreat from the natural world and from one another as we immerse ourselves in our phones. To say nothing of our political divisions, best characterized by objectification (of the other, making them “not people”) and derision, and where any attempt to find common ground is met by the back of the hand of friendship. Little wonder that the rising generations find our current set of arrangements hopeless.

But this week's headlines suggest that for a variety of reasons, that set of arrangements won't last indefinitely.

Who could forget the recent Suez Canal flap with the large container ship stuck like a throat lozenge? Not Egypt, who has said to Ever Given’s Owners: Pay Us $1 Billion Or You Aren't Getting Your Big Boat Back. If you thought the Egyptian government would be thrilled to see it go, think again. Nice boat you have here… be a shame if anything happened to it…

“The vessel will remain here until investigations are complete and compensation is paid,” Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, told state television in Egypt on Thursday.

“We hope for a speedy agreement,” he said. “The minute they agree to compensation, the vessel will be allowed to move.”

A country filled with people traumatized by the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020 paid full attention to the threat of supply chain collapse. Why you should expect more Suez-like supply chain disruptions and shortages at your local grocery store  In one short week, the price of oil went up, and companies fretted as hundreds of ships carrying everything from coffee and cattle to toys and furniture were delayed. Just-in-time delivery means low to nonexistent inventories. Experts estimated that every hour traffic remained stuck cost the global economy over US$400 million in lost trade.

The pandemic revealed that even simple supply chains, such as that of toilet paper and hand sanitizer, can easily break in the face of disruptions. The same was true with food, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals and ordinary household items, which all suffered from severe shortages that lasted for months into the pandemic.

Pandemic-strained supply chains are now creating a global shortage of semiconductors, a component used in a wide variety of consumer goods, from Samsung smartphones and Apple laptops to Ford Explorers and Sony PlayStations. Virtually every piece of electronics needs a chip, and the supply chain is much more complex than for toilet paper.

All coming to a supply-chain chokepoint near you. Read more in The Conversation.

The weekly economic news is not good, but economic news is never good.  How does a country deal with climate disasters when it’s drowning in debt? Not very well, it turns out. Especially not when a global pandemic clobbers its economy.

Today, the debt that Belize owes its foreign creditors is equal to 85 percent of its entire national economy. The private credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has downgraded its creditworthiness, making it tougher to get loans on the private market. The International Monetary Fund calls its debt levels “unsustainable.”  Many other smaller countries are in a similar bind. It's a house of cards.

Government Admits Zimbabwe Dollar Collapse, Pegs Passport Fees In US$. Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said the senior government officials had acknowledged Zimbabwean currency was no longer a viable option for offshore purchases. That's weaselspeak for “our money is officially toilet paper.”

“Foreign currency is required for the off-shore procurement of consumables. However, the current fees payable in the local currency are no longer viable…”

And that is just one domino. Africa offers others.

Collapse often follows insurgencies. Hunger spreads as Mozambique crisis reaches tipping point.

Insurgents from a group known as Al Shebab attacked Palma, a town in Mozambique’s far northern Cabo Delgado province. They launched an attack on the coastal town, firing indiscriminately, setting fire to buildings and killing dozens, according to local officials. Residents there did what people do: scattering in a desperate attempt to reach safety by whatever means possible: on foot, by road and boat fleeing with the clothes they were wearing and a few things for their children. To hide in the bush for the smoke to clear.

Townspeople joined thousands of others sheltering in displacement camps with limited food supplies across Cabo Delgado.

Much of the strife in the Global South stems from the stresses unleashed by climate change. The climate news this week was as ugly as the economic news.

Despite pandemic shutdowns, carbon dioxide and methane surged in 2020

NOAA announced last week that levels of the two most important anthropogenic greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, continued their unrelenting rise in 2020 despite the Covid-driven economic slowdown. Carbon dioxide levels are now higher than at anytime in the past 3.6 million years. The last time atmospheric CO2 was this high, sea level was about 78 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees F higher than in pre-industrial times, and forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra.

Methane Has Never Risen This Fast in the Atmosphere

There’s more methane in the atmosphere than any other time since record keeping began. Levels really spiked last year, despite the fact that we were all inside for most of the time. Methane shattering records is one of those things that seems to happen every year. But what’s really troubling is that last year’s rise in methane levels was the biggest rise in a single year since record-keeping began. Methane is over 80 times more potent as a warming agent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

Short takes and highlights from the week:

'A biological Fukushima': Brazil COVID-19 deaths on track to pass worst of U.S. wave

Brazil’s coronavirus death toll passes 4,000 a day for first time

Bolsonaro a 'Threat to the Planet,' Says Lula as Brazil's Daily Covid Death Toll Hits All-Time High

New 'Double Mutant' Coronavirus Variant Found In California

Americans' Worry About Catching COVID-19 Drops to Record Low

A record-low 35% of Americans worry about catching COVID-19. At the same time, 77% say the coronavirus situation is improving.

Ecocide: Should Destruction of the Planet Be a Crime?

Atmospheric CO2 Passes 420 PPM for First Time Ever

Scientists: Mass Extinction Is Coming as Organisms Flee the Equator-- Oceanic life is fleeing the increasingly-hot equator for more hospitable water, and a mass extinction event is likely to follow.

The Coming Antibiotic-Resistance Pandemic that Could Make COVID Look Like the Flu

America Never Wanted the Tired, Poor, Huddled Masses

Another Day, Another Far-Right Fantast: Texas Man Tried to Blow Up the Internet-- Federal Investigators allege that a Texas man wanted to use C-4 to blow up around 70% of the internet.

So it’s been a week of extortion for supply chain disruption, CO2 and methane-based catastrophe, immanent ecosystem collapse, unsustainable debt, and worthless currencies. Another week of downward spin as the American Empire unwinds along with late stage capitalism..

[neo-existential-crisis]

Thresholds, Online Exhibition Review

@ MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

At the start of the year we were fresh-faced, coming into a new decade our planners were full and the air was ripe with potential. Then we entered the period of uneasiness, stuck at home not knowing what was going to happen next, our plans stifled; the places we once went for enjoyment and culture were shut and at risk of closing for good. In this period of uncertainty, we connected to the outside world via our screens, seeing family and friends in unfocused zoom calls and trying to figure out the best impromptu office space to work from home in. We spent more time in our domestic spaces, saw into the domestic worlds of our peers, lines were crossed as our domestic spaces became where we entertained friends, where we worked and where we also relaxed on top of everything. Our relationships with our homes we re-written as we adapted to our new way of living through a pandemic.

Throughout lockdown, art spaces jumped to create online exhibitions right away and created a plethora of virtual exhibits some newly made others pre-planned exhibits put into a computer manufactured gallery space or a video tour like Tate Modern’s Andy Warhol exhibit. Comparatively, Thresholds curator Adian Moesby, who is currently working as MIMA’s associate curator during his residency, took time to reflect on the changes made to our relationship with home during lockdown and the easing of restrictions which is where this current virtual exhibition is born out of. Moesbys practice is ‘under pinned through conversation’ (Adian Moesby – About, 2020) which he utilises in the curation of this exhibit through in-depth conversations he had with Sonia Boué, Lindsey Duncanson and Catriona Gallagher, the three artists that make up Thresholds. The exhibit connects these artists together through a mix of photography and film to communicate their personal stories and experiences with lockdown and the impact Covid-19 had on their relationship to home. Made at a time of easing restrictions Thresholds asks us to evaluate our feelings and connections towards our homes and the places we inhabit at a time where restrictions are tightening up once again and we will inevitably be spending more time there.

Clicking through to the exhibit PDF you are confronted with a low-res still from Catriona Gallagher's ‘Video Villanelle (for distance)’ (2020), a twilight sky setting up the transient mood that prevails throughout the exhibit. Scrolling down you are introduced to Sonias Boué’s ‘Safe as Houses’ (2020) 12 photos documenting her move to her new studio space which she moved into during the transitional period of lockdown. Set against a white backdrop each new photo exists on its own page and explores a plethora of objects which Boué takes with her for each new move; from childhood items such as a rocking horse to an exhaust pipe situated on its own rickety looking chair, these hold a personal connection to the artist. ‘Safe as Houses’ shares a close relationship to much of Boué’s practice where she ‘explores home and the domestic as metaphors for exile and displacement’ (Sonia Boue, 2020) with much of her work focusing on post-memory the idea of connection to the past and the generational trauma that continues to affect the lives of future generations seen most clearly in her work responding to the Spanish Civil war. Boué presents this within Thresholds in the specifically tailored striped pyjamas featured in a quarter of the photographs that connect not only to the new casualwear of lockdown but is reminiscent of the clothes her grandparents were forced to wear during their time in concentration camps. In one they sit folded on a wooden chair set to the right of the frame; the room dim with a square of light reflected in from a window in the empty space. Boués photos mark the space of time from childhood to adulthood and the period of moving. The photographs and the diverse objects we see serve as an exploration into what home means to us, the things we carry through with us through childhood into our adult lives and how we make a space a home.

Sonia Boué, 'Safe as Houses', 2020.

Where Sonia Boué travels through memories and explores the past, Lindsey Duncansons piece ‘Brief loss’ (2020) studies the repetitive stagnation of life during lockdown. The three greyscale film vignettes feature next to each through a triptych; filmed within Duncanson's own flat it reveals a very personal side to the artist and invites us into her own domestic space that she shares with her family. The film is notably different from the rest of Duncanson's work which usually feature sublime picturesque outdoor scenes with plenty of colour whereas in this piece she has swapped out the rolling hills of the moors of Stanhope for the cosy interiors of home. This reversal exemplifies the loss, change and confinement that lockdown brought, Duncanson can no longer explore the landscapes around Newcastle upon Tyne and so she has adapted to her new situation and uses her home as a landscape to explore instead. Titled ‘Brief Loss’ the piece carries with the emotional effects of lockdown and displays the monotonous nature of life that occurred when we could no longer go out to experience life outside our homes. Within the scene Duncanson sits crouched in the centre of the triptych, walled in by a row of plants and a bookcase she’s seemingly lost in thought, occasionally picking a book out and flipping through it before resuming her previous position, there is a quiet comforting presence to the piece, on either side of Duncanson her partner, in the left-hand panel, and son, in the right, sit in their own respective rooms, her partner rests comfortably on an armchair occasionally living his mug while her son sits at his desk drawing while a screen flickers out of signal next to him. The whole scene has a dreamlike quality to it with the comfortable atmosphere alongside the ambient sound and the black and white filter and in each doorway behind the subjects exists projections of the outside, with pond skaters skipping over water, the ripples and reflections of clouds, and star-like moving foam. Duncanson combines the domestic with the outside showing our dreams of being free once again and escape this monotony that we’ve fallen into.

The final piece of Thresholds isn’t confined to the comforts of home or one space instead it travels through memories, moments and landscapes. Home isn’t one pace for most of us but for Catriona Gallagher she works and lives between Northumberland and Athens ana through ‘Video Villanelle (for distance)’ (2020) she ‘explores her sense of dislocation’ (MIMA-Thresholds-Exhibition.pdf, 2020) from being stuck in England while trying to navigate the travel restrictions throughout summer to return to Greece. The aptly named 17-minute film follows the a, b rhyme structure -like that of a traditional villanelle poem- comprised of short snippets of footage with repeating motifs not too different from the structure of a stanza. The footage feels as though you are being invited into Gallagher's life, it’s a documentation of scenes with friends, with so warm sparkling candles on a birthday cake and to late-night bicycle rides, to rain pouring outside of a window and Gallagher's reflection in the window of a train the landscape rushing by while you hear mindless chatter in the background. Sound plays an interesting role in this film with most of it coming from the footage though you can hear music from Magic Arm ebbing and flowing through that perfectly ties the clips together. There is a sense of reminiscing over what life used to be with clips featuring a close-knit group of people and scene of the Greece coastline this is starkly contrasted to the reality of uncertainty as to when life will return to normal. The film is set in portrait mode with a somewhat low-quality feel to it due to the footage being taken entirely from existing videos from Gallagher's phone archive. It comprises of videos sent to friends or keepsakes as Jade French puts it ‘this footage was never intended to be art’ (French, 2020) which give it an intensely personal feel as if we are walking through her memories. ‘Video Villanelle’ focuses on the small moments, the subtle experiences in life and though the footage is fragmented it still carries the same focus on overlooked details in our physical spaces and ambient wistful nature that Gallagher's work holds. Gallagher uses this piece to reflect on their experience of lockdown and looks at how our phones connect while improvising with the limited tools she had available as she did with ‘They met under the ceiling of sky’ (2020) which then went on to the official selection in the Laterale Film Festival in 2020.

Catriona Gallagher, Stills from ‘Video Villanelle (for distance)’, 2020

Over the summer we have been overrun with the many virtual exhibits and Thresholds taking place after utilises the online space to its best potential. Having been commissioned to be a virtual exhibition it uses photography and film which are familiar to the online space rather than creating pieces tailored to a physical space. Through working online there’s a variety of different experimental formats to use over a simple pdf format however this way it encourages a non-art audience to take part through being simple, it becomes relatable for a wider range of people which Moseby advocates for having curated public events to specifically engage those audiences.

Thresholds subliminally speaks on the visibility of the disabled community in the art world. Curator Aidan Moseby closely works within the disability and diversity sector having been commissioned by and worked for companies such as Disability Arts Online and DASH which this exhibition is partnered with. The setup and extra care with subtitled and audio described versions for each film make this exhibition more accessible the usual cases. Where other galleries are immediately setting up shop in their physical spaces' as lockdown eased Thresholds doesn’t, it makes a statement that we can’t forget that the move to virtual during lockdown made art spaces more accessible to the disabled community. Art spaces have long been exclusive and inaccessible but with the lockdown when non-disabled people no longer had the means to visit gallery spaces that suddenly changed. It showed that galleries had little excuse for doing this before with the ease and speed in which they transferred their exhibitions online. Even having a virtual floor plan makes it more accessible as they ‘act as a helpful tool to plan trips and relieve anxiety for disabled art audiences’ (Kroese, 2020) referencing 3d art space floor plans.’. Thresholds subliminally makes a statement through being set after many galleries have shut their online exhibits and have opened their doors again through quietly having accessible versions of artworks. There is much change that needs to happen in the art world in making it more accessible to a wider range of people and lockdown has presented these options that we can and should learn from to aid us in the future.

Thresholds invades your domestic space as you visit it through the comforts of your own home through the ambient sound of Gallagher's work and personal memorabilia of Boués photographs. It looks at how the pandemic has changed our relationship to our domestic spaces, how confined we've become and how the virtual space can connect us. As lockdown has pushed and eased our homes have become multi-functional places, we continue to reflect on the change our lives have gone through and think about our connection to the people we surround ourselves with. Though through this we need to see the visibility of disabled people in the arts and how the small start that was ignited during lockdown needs to continue to help keep places accessible to the many rather than the few.

Thresholds can be found here.

Bibliography

Mima.art. 2020. MIMA-Thresholds-Exhibition.Pdf. [online] Available at: <https://mima.art/wp-content/themes/mima-wp/media/MIMA-Thresholds-Exhibition.pdf> [Accessed 21 October 2020].

French, J., 2020. Thresholds. [online] Corridor8. Available at: < https://corridor8.co.uk/article/thresholds/ > [Accessed 22 October 2020].

Aidan Moseby. 2020. About. [online] Available at <https://www.aidanmoesby.co.uk/contact-us/ > [Accessed 22 October 2020]

Duncanson, L (2020) ‘Quarry’, Blue Topgraphy, 27 January. Available at: < https://bluetopography.blogspot.com/2020/01/quarry.html> (Accessed 23 October 2020)

Kroese, I., 2020. Emerging Accessibility: Post-viral programming and disabled audiences. [online] Corridor8. Available at: < https://corridor8.co.uk/article/emerging-accessibility-post-viral-programming-and-disabled-audiences/> [Accessed 23 October 2020]video

#thresholds #MIMA #Aidan Moseby #Catriona Gallagher #Sonia boue #Lindsey Duncanson #Lockdown #Exhibition Review #Review #Art #home #disability arts #accessibility #art spaces

[thoseindarkness]

DtD News Nov 2020

Thank you to anyone who came back for this nonsense. For brevity I have an announcement that I want to make up front. I didn't have room for it last month so I pushed it back, but I can't anymore. I had to make one major revision to the published story. I want people to know about it.

This is the TLDR version. I tell a more in-depth story at the end.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The summary: I had a bad outline walking into writing Mistrust Goes Both Ways. I ran into a problem mid-story. Instead of stopping and taking the time I needed, I challenged myself to creatively solve my way out of my problems. I re-started with about half of what I'd written, published Mistrust Goes Both Ways, and restarting my outline with high hopes.  I was proud of myself for rising to the challenge.

Despite my best efforts, it didn't work out. In the end, I had to scrap my outline. I was able to structure the end I was going for and spent the end of 2019 trying to link the first two stories to the ending I wanted. It wasn't working. Then TRoS. Then COVID. Here we are. In June, I started experimenting with scrapping Mistrust and restarting from Read Between.

Mistrust Goes Both Ways will not be part of the finished story when I'm done. I know some of you love it. I love it. I have no intention of taking it down. I might, for a short time, when I'm posting the final story. I'll let you know if that happens and it will go back up afterward. I don't have specifics as there's no point planning for it now.

For right now, nothing is changing on my AO3 account. Feel free to read and comment to your hearts content. I promise it will stay up forever to remind me that some mistakes are worth sharing with others. I learned good lessons from this mistake. It stays.

That being said I think I owe you an actual update on the progress of this story.

WHAT THE HELL I DID THIS MONTH

After my first update I needed to re-integrate with Reylo friends. Funnily enough, that pulled me into another fic. I've been working on that between following this election. Now that it's called I can get back to writing. I tried a couple of times since I voted on Oct 30th, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about.

Thankfully, I've also begun doing more social/political essays lately. I'm not sure what overall form or shape those may take and I haven't published any. Still, I was creative and I did plenty of writing. Interestingly, all this political focus is good for Deceive the Deceiver. Spinning and listening to conspiracy theories is a big part of weaving a world like this one. A great deal comes from my thoughts and perceptions of the real world.

WHERE DTD IS

As of right now I am in the process of first drafting the entire story with Read Between as the starting point. That is, every one of the short stories in the series. What I'm doing is somewhere between a history, an outline and random scene writing. All of these elements are currently strung together in one long, continuous, chronological, first draft. It's everything from the history before Read Between (which starts in the 1930's), all the way to the final scene of DtD.

I'm taking all the good ideas I've created in the last couple of years and re-organizing them into a first pass. It's the skeleton and some of the meat now. I'm slowly building out now that I have a blank-er slate. It's about choosing what works and what doesn't.

I call it accordion writing. It just gets bigger and bigger. This outline will later level up into the first full story drafts for each part. I've got so much history when I finish this I might… I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't want to give too many clues away.

Another interesting thing that's happened recently is I've started pulling bits of other fic ideas that I’m just not gonna finish. A big chuck of the history I stole from a modern/academia AU where Ben and Rey are history students specializing in the ancient Jedi religion. Another was a complication between characters came from a canon story where I wanted to paint the relationship with a new layer. We'll see if I can pull that off.

I spent a lot of time prior to this year focusing on the heroes but my villains hadn't gotten much love. Filling in the history has given me a chance to flesh out the villains. All their moves and countermoves, woven through the bits I already have, are spinning a pretty tapestry. Oh, the villains are so much fun to write!

This other fic came together in the same sort of accordion fashion and it's been fun working through the kinks in the process now that I've seen some of the weak points on a scale like DtD. I think I've mentioned, but this is a writing experiment for me and I'm most invested now in improving my process and clue-threading with DtD. This other fic is helping me test it on a smaller scale.

Not that this needs to get any longer, I'm just going to throw pretense out the window and go with complete vanity. If you don't give a wet shit about my life (and I don't blame you) you have reached the end of your journey. I hope to see you next month. If not, then I leave you with this parting:

May we meet again in our next fandom, through mutes and not as rival shippers.

The following is the ridiculous story of my ups and downs with Deceive the Deceiver. I figure if I explain to you how much I'm invested in this story some of you will stop worrying that I'm going to abandon it. Trust me. I'm not.

This tale stretches from NANOWRIMO 2018 and the prompt that started it, through the ups and downs of 2019 and 2020, to the writing of last month's letter. Buckle up. I love bumpy rides.

DtD: from NANO '17 to COVID-19

This story truly starts in December 2017 when I drenched the seat beneath me during Last Jedi. I'm a TLJ shipper. I got caught on the thirst train. It hit a time when writing was becoming a really big part of my life. I've been writing since I was a kid. I stopped for a while and came back to it. It's a long story. Ultimately, I'd started writing a lot a few years earlier. A mix of fic and originals but I was running into problems so I start reading a bunch of books to get better. TLJ lit the fires. NO joke TLJ came out on the 15th. I have pages of writing from the 20th.

2018 was Reylo year! I was already on Tumblr for my previous fandom (Batman comics). I found Reylo AU week which is in August. I submitted a story for that. It was the first fic I published for Reylo. Fast-forward August to November. I'm in the Writing Den on Discord and someone throws out this spy prompt. People start running with. Throwing ideas around. One of those was the snuggie in Mistrust! I have that conversation saved and story spots for each crazy thing they threw out. Finally, I said I'd do it!

Mind you, this is November 2nd. Nano has just started and the event is about "turning off your internal editor." This prompt consumed me. I was trying to keep up with SpaceWaffleHouseTM that first year. I did, btw. We both crested 100,000. It was my first Nano. Word count is not my problem. Organizing my crazy ambitious ideas is my problem. Some of that 100k was other stories, like Custard which I wrote half of in November and the other half Jan/Feb 2019. Most of it… probably 80k of it… was DtD.

Read Between the Lies is currently 33,710. I wrote at least 20k of that during that first Nano, as well as outlines and scenes for what I thought would be the starting point. I remember wanting to write Read Between to "get into their headspace" by writing their first meeting. I didn't think it would become a whole story. I was just going with it then. Any idea that came to mind.

I took December 2019 off for a few reasons. Some personal. Some burnout. I'm one of those people that can use writing to relieve stress, but I was so exhausted from that month-long writing sprint. By the last week I was dragging to get the final four or five thousand words to hit 100k.

Also, what I had by the end (no internal editor) was a bird nest of ideas that had too many beginnings, not enough middles, and endings to go around. I knew one thing right away: I knew I had more than one story. There were so many fun ideas. I figured, what the hell. I knew another thing right away: the prompt was at the end of the story. Like, the very end. Like, the last short story. Or the second to last short story, at the earliest. That hasn't changed. Ever. That's just where it ended up.

Between January and April of 2019 I touched DtD a few times. I kept coming back to it, reading through it, trying to untangle it. I made new notes on the stories. Expanded ideas. Tried to structure it. I figured out a bunch of good notes, but no real substance. The hardest thing was figuring out where to start! Did I:

(1) Start shortly before the prompt with Ben/Rey's relationship established and fill the story with the history?

(2) Start a lot earlier and build Ben/Rey's relationship from the beginning I'd written in Read Between?

If I'm being honest, Read Between was a lot better than I thought it would be and I didn't want to get rid of it. For a while I was thinking of publishing it last as a "prequel" if people liked the series.

Funny enough, the turning point happened May fourth weekend 2019…

In the week leading up, I was struggling through another story and decided to take a break for the weekend. I'd start writing again on Sunday when I met with my writing group. I met them through Nano. We used to meet at Panera. Now they meet on Discord. They mostly sprint though and I'm not a sprinter. I miss Panera. Anyway.

May 4th was a Sunday (look it up). I gave myself a writing break for the weekend and marathoned Star fucking Wars. It was nerd weekend. I was going to nerd out. I wore exclusively SW gear all weekend. I remember it well. It was the start of something fucking magical in my life.

Have I mentioned recently I really love this story. Trust me I will fucking finish it. Oh my god the demons won't leave until I do. Get them out of my head…

I had a pretty rockstar weekend. I believe the reason I skipped the PT that weekend was because I'd watched it the month before or so. Right after finishing the Clone Wars animated series (which is awesome and I strongly recommend both it and Rebels). I skipped them and SOLO.

Starting with R1, I went through in chronological order. I stopped at RotJ. I was with my family on Saturday and they were playing RotJ in the living room during the party. We talked about my marathon. My mom came over to my apartment after. We watched RoTJ properly. Then Force Awakens. It was too late by then to watch TLJ. I know I went straight to bed after my mom left on Saturday night.

Somewhere during or right after TFA I started thinking about Deceive the Deceiver. I don't remember what sparked it. I went to bed thinking about DtD. I know this with 100% certainty because I woke up thinking about again on Sunday and I thought it was quite odd.

I dream about this story in a way I have only dreamt about a precious few. Technicolor folks. It keeps me up at night.

I went to my writing group with (a) no plan for what to write, (b) a gordian knot that I had yet to untangle, (c) a sudden urge to re-read it. I opened my notes and read DtD through all our sprints. I read most of it during that writing session. We go about three hours.

That night I had Game of Thrones at my parent's. It was the (spoiler alert) episode where Arya kills the Night King. I remember because two minutes into the episode my brother's car broken down a few blocks from our apartment and we had to go help him. Derailed the whole night (this is foreshadowing).

Side note: I live with my younger brother and he's the best roommate I've ever had in my 35 years of life. Love you, Mo!

The episode was recording so we ran out. Had to leave the car in a parking lot. Someone had already helped him push it out of a puddle but my brother was soaked to mid-calf and the engine was shot. We dropped him off at home and I rode back to my Momma's crib to watch GoT. It was only the beginning of a wild night.

I went to bed late. I had to get up a few hours early to deal with the car before work started for either of us. I guess we were both hoping to avoid taking the day off. That wasn't going to happen. I drove home but I couldn't sleep. That crazy episode and the fact that my brain was already on fire with DtD.

I spent the wee hours finishing my re-read through the rough draft of Read Between the Lies. It saw my starting place. I started writing. I wrote through waiting in a parking lot, for the tow truck, in my car, at 6 am, with no sleep. I did a voice recording as I drove from the parking lot to the mechanic where the driver was taking my brother's car. I thought about it the whole way back. I sat on the sofa a wrote some more when we got home. I went to bed at 11 am and I'd written 10k more words for Read Between the Lies.

Somewhere between the chaos of May 5th and the official publish date on June 5th, Read Between got written. I know it didn't take too long. I remember sending it off to beta (by my amazing beta team on 1 & 2: Em, Jen, and Sai) and immediately pivoting to my outline. I slapped that together far too hastily and kept moving. I was going on holiday in the UK (I'm American and I'm ashamed) in early August so I planned on trying to publish Part 2 when I got back. At the very least I wanted it ready for beta.

Also some to admit, around the middle of 2019 I was fatigued with the fandom. We were hitting a lull. I was psyching myself up for the end and the exit. I was trying to clean house. I wanted to push out unfinished fics. To make them work. There was a lot of that mood from me in 2019. I was trying to make everything work. It's why Read Between came out, and that was a good thing. It's also why Mistrust came out, and that was a bad thing.

With that mentality looming, tough outline in hand, I started writing Mistrust before the end of May. I hit my snag sometime during the period I was publishing Read Between because by the time it was all done I knew I wasn't going to have a finished story by the time I left for London. I would figure it out when I got back. I picked up another project to distracted me from my problems for a little while. That is going to be an original if it's anything. One day…

At some point after I got back I started focusing heavily on problem solving. I had two stories already and a number of plot threads I had to resolve. I have heavy, heavy, heavy notes from September to December of 2019. Lots of possible ways to run this story. It sucks that a lot of that stuff isn't going to make it, but I'm recycling shit every day and I learned so much about the characters/story in that four month period. It really shaped the finished product in an important way.

This period is where I started to look at the bigger structure and how I was going to solve specific plot problems in each short story to bring the whole together. That focus on the different parts is important because it was the last thing on my mind when TRoS happened.

December 20th (the release date) is my birthday. My ass drove up to one of those Reylo-only screenings and I was surrounded by amazing people as I watched a movie that ruined my 35th birthday. Thankfully, I spent it in incomparable company. Thank you to all the hosts and super special thanks to Jen. Not only was she a DtD beta on both, she invited me. Thank you love! You are the reason I still remember that trip with joy.

Side note: I no longer hate TRoS. I've made my peace with it. I'm a far happier person now.

Needless to say, the only Reyloing I did in January of this year was venting frustration. Then I took a few weeks away from the fandom. I'd done my purging into the void. I knew other people still needed the space to vent but I had to get away. Once the toxin is out I couldn't let it back in.

What occurred starting in February of 2020 was a series of situations in which, every time I logged into Twitter I was faced with the kind of vitriol in the fandom that I don't need in my life. Some of it was still TRoS stuff, even as late as May. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, with the world on fire (literally), I didn't need it.

I don't think I have to explain why I've avoided social media like the plague since early this year. I live in America. If you heard anything about our recent President I don't have to explain any further what this year has been like. That has been par for course all over the world.

So here's my secret to happiness. I don't fux with the trolls. Do not engage. Sometimes that means radio silence. I'm breaking that silence because I want you to know 2020 has not destroyed DtD. It's only leveled shit up.

I have pretty much been working on this story consistently since March of this year. I go back and forth with reading, history, documentaries. I'm learning to wield many new weapons. They take time to settle in. DtD is the de-stressor I go to in between the real shit.

Sometime in June I was screwing around with the order of the parts. I had worked out the end but I was trying to bridge the gap between the ending I was certain I needed to get to and the two beginning stories I'd already published. I couldn't bridge the gap. It had been a year since I published Read Between and it wasn't working. Then I had an epiphany.

What if I got rid of Mistrust? Read Between is a pretty blank slate. I didn't want to re-write it and I still don't. I have no intention of getting rid of Part 1. I may clean it up and add some stuff at the very last minute, but it will be right before the new stuff drops as a pre-cursor to the flood of subsequent stories. I may add a few new clues or alter a scene or two, but I have plenty of room to move with it exactly the way it is.

What does that mean for Mistrust Goes Both Ways? To make a long story short, there was no good way for me to continue with what I'd published and still write the story in my head. I'm sure there are cool places to take the existing story, but that's not what I'm trying to do. In truth, I should have left 1 and not published 2 when I hit a snag. Lesson learned.

In June I basically threw Mistrust out and asked myself, "Now what?" I have months of great ideas rife for reshuffling and no restrictions on how to bridge the gap from 1 to the ending I wanted. But the end had shifted.

That brings us up to speed. The last thing I did before taking a much needed break was get through 90% of the history in my accordion outline/draft. I poured the foundation that was missing. I walked away in early October and let it set. I'm going to button up this other fic I'm working on and then go back to DtD and check the foundation I laid.

I'm very confident that not only will it hold, but that with fresh eyes and the fun side stories I've had the chance to lay to rest, I will finally be able to start building the finished products on top of it.

IN CONCLUSION

I'm still as excited as I've ever been for this story. It frustrates me all the time, but that means the medicine for my soul is working its magic. Change it painful, but pain is transformative. I've embrace changed. That ache is just a sign the muscles are getting stronger. Growing pains. As I learn to live with them in my family, my country, and my job, I find that life's lesson's often end up reflecting in every place in our life if we but open our eyes to look.

Growing pains exist in my writing process too. They are as transformative in this corner of my life as they are in every other. They have revealed as much about me as a person in my writing as they have in my politics. They have taught me how to compromise with my family as I learn to compromise with my characters. As I consider how people treat each other I am reminded that struggles in understanding our fictional counterparts may shine a light on our struggles to understand our truer selves.

Take care of yourselves. Once you've got that covered, if you can, take care of each other. Feel free to poke me and say hi. If not, until next month.

Fari.

#deceive the deceiver #reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fan fiction #modern au #spy au #fan fic #fan fiction

[doomonfilm]

Memories : Top 15 Films of 2020

If 2020 taught movie fans anything, it was that we shouldn’t take things for granted.  On the dollars and cents side of things, movie theaters were already facing an uphill battle to stay sustainable, but the “shelter-in-place” practice of March and beyond decimated box office returns, with many theaters yet to reopen (if they will open at all).  In terms of famous names and faces, the list of those who passed away featured numerous icons : Kobe Bryant, Kirk Douglas, Max von Sydow, Honor Blackman, Carl Reiner, Ennio Morricone, John Saxon, Wilford Brimley, Chadwick Boseman, Sean Connery, Tiny Lister Jr., Adolfo ‘Shabba Doo’ Quinones and many more transitioned to the great beyond.  Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Shudder and a number of other streaming services saw themselves step into the forefront of the entertainment provider realm, with Warner Brothers and a handful of other studios making announcements that they will be following suit for at least 2021, if not for good.

With all of this uncertainty and chaos, however, the year 2020 was a surprisingly strong one, in my opinion, when it came to cinematic output... so much so, in fact, that aside from a number of Honorable Mentions, my list of top films was expanded to 15 in order to accommodate all of my choices.  For anyone who has checked out my lists from previous years, you will know that I did not see every film released this year, but I did make my best effort to cover as wide a range of films as possible.  Enjoy the list, and be sure to support film in whatever medium you are able to moving forward so that it can thrive.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The 40-Year-Old Version (dir. Radha Blank) A nice little personal film that spoke to my hip-hop sensibility, as well as that ever-present awareness of the inevitability of age, and how it can skew our perspective in regards to our achievements.

Ava (dir. Tate Taylor) This isn’t the action film that’s going to reinvent the wheel, but if you look at action films like wheels, this is a quality wheel.  Outside of Common, I couldn’t really find much to shoot down... this will definitely be one I consider the next time I have company and we’re looking for something fun to check out.

Bill & Ted Face The Music (dir. Dean Parisot) I honestly would have been satisfied with just two films in this franchise, but surprisingly, a third entry was created that didn’t ruin my overall enjoyment of the previous two films.  Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter jumped in without missing a beat, a healthy dose of familiar faces popped back up, and the new cast additions weren’t too jarring... it’s nice to know that a pair of my favorite childhood films are officially now part of a trilogy.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (dir. Jason Woliner) This was possibly the most surprising release of 2020... outside of a couple of news blips that Sacha Baron Cohen made during production, not a lot about this film was leaked prior to its release.  For such a dated character and a seemingly outdated style of humor, Borat once again exposed the simplest parts of society in an incredibly insightful (albeit cringey as all get-out) manner.

Guns Akimbo (dir. Jason Lei Howden) One of the most fun films of 2020.  Somewhere, the creative minds behind Nerve are wishing that they’d made this film instead. 

Henrietta and Her Dismal Display of Affection (dir. Jeffrey Garcia) Jeffrey Garcia is the homie, and I’ve had the pleasure of being in a number of his short films, so when he announced his intentions to write and shoot a feature film in 2020, I was completely on-board.  Miraculously, he was able to film the movie while the world was being ravaged by COVID-19, and though I cannot publicly announce details yet, this film has definitely already met (and likely succeeded) his expectations.

The Midnight Sky (dir. George Clooney) With each film that George Clooney directs, I realize more and more than he is an old soul trapped in a body idolized by the new school of film.  That being said, it’s nice to know that there are directors out there willing to embrace patient, silent and contemplative moments while simultaneously withholding from force-feeding viewers exposition.  

Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan) This was possibly the most anticipated release of the year, considering it was the king of the IMAX release crowd in its pre-release promotion.  After a small delay due to COVID-19, it was one of the first films released in hopes of testing the movie-going waters during what was sure to be a diminished period of time, which probably hurt its numbers.  Too many, the film was confusing, and the nit-picking was fierce from the criticism contingency, but in all honesty, this was pretty impressive Nolan fare... certainly a good second movie in a Nolan double feature.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (dir. Aaron Sorkin) I cannot tell a lie... I was hugely impressed with how Sorkin managed to reel his personality and voice back in order to let this well-known, controversial moment in time present itself.  Sorkin has a tendency to be the star of his films, be it when he is in the writer or director role, but for this film, he managed to focus the best parts of his skillset into a highly respectful, educational and inspiring tale that fit the tumultuous summer we endured.

VHYes (dir. Jack Henry Robbins) I remember seeing this trailer as 2019 was coming to a close, and it was a film high on my list of desired viewing.  Then 2020 reared its ugly, stupid head and many releases disappeared into obscurity or found themselves delayed.  Luckily, this one slipped through the cracks and found a home in the streaming world, which in all honesty, suited its presentation very well.  One of the most delightfully weird films of the year, hands down. 

Vivarium (dir. Lorcan Finnegan) Of all the films cut from my Top 15 list, this was the toughest cut to make.  I went into the film totally blind (with Jesse Eisenberg and my respect for his acting chops being the sole selling point), but this film really hit a lot of my buttons... it’s trippy as can be, there is a character that is freakishly unique and wholly unnerving, and the production design leaves a lasting impression.  Don’t let the Honorable Mention designation fool you... this one is a winner.  

Wonder Woman 1984 (dir. Patty Jenkins) The Christmas gift that the masses collectively decided that they did not want.  Much like Ava, there is one glaring aspect of this film that I could have done without, but otherwise, I found this to be an enjoyable film.  Gal Gadot was made for this role, while Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal stepped up to the plate and impressed.  If you’re looking to be blown away, the Wonder Woman franchise isn’t the smartest place to go, but if you’re looking for entertainment, there’s plenty of it here.   

THE TOP 15 FILMS OF 2020

15. Mignonnes (dir. Maïmouna Doucouré) This one started off the year with plenty of controversy.  What was an award-winning tale about womanhood and the difficulties surrounding coming of age in an ever-changing and evolving world quickly devolved into a campaign to ban the film (and Netflix).  Many people overlooked the film as a cautionary tale about what access to the Internet and the sexually-charged nature in which women are portrayed can do to developing girls, instead choosing to accuse the film of being fodder for malicious types seeking to exploit the sexualizing of young women.  More than anything, in my opinion, Mignonnes served as an example of our outrage-fueled culture and the way it tends to skew our perspective and/or our ability to take art at face value.

14. His House (dir. Remi Weekes) As I’ve mentioned many times over the past week or so on this blog, horror films were one of the few genres that found a benefit from the film industry’s transition to streaming services for primary access to film.  While a number of traditional horror films received notice, His House took the opportunity to not only make a pure horror film, but one that spoke on racism and the conditions that asylum-seekers and refugees face.  The film is well-acted, the production value is high quality, and it’s paced beautifully... while not the highest film on this list, it is certainly one I will encourage others to see as time goes by.

13. All Day and a Night (dir. Joe Robert Cole) When human nature reared its ugly head during COVID-19 in the form of numerous race-related killings, multitudes of businesses quickly adopted the Black Lives Matter mantra, with film distributors and streaming services taking advantage of the moment to produce and release content relevant to cultural and social awareness.  Netflix was no different, and of the many films they released in the wake of the harrowing events, All Day and a Night is the one that feels the most sincere and honest in its approach and presentation.  The streets of Oakland are presented with a vast array of characters, each with complex backgrounds and states of mind, all of which helps the viewer understand the pressure many minorities live with and process on a daily basis.

12. She Dies Tomorrow (dir. Amy Seimetz) Execution is king, even when applied to the simplest of premises, and She Dies Tomorrow is a shining example of this.  In a very John Cassavetes move, director Amy Seimetz took her payment from her appearance in Pet Sematary and used it to fund a personal project that more than likely would have been ignored by studio heads.  The result is a hypnotic, entrancing and haunting film where stillness and anticipation play antagonist, while we as viewers feel the need to transpose ourselves into the protagonists we are presented due to their stilted but emotional performances.  Hopefully this one finds some notoriety in the cult classic realm as the years pass.

11. The Vast of Night (dir. Andrew Patterson) For a debut film, The Vast of Night handles itself with a surprising amount of confidence in its vision.  The immersion is nearly instant as we are first placed in the premise of a TV show, and then a 1950′s town, but once the actors and camera get going, it’s up to us as viewers to strap in for the ride.  The story is deeply intriguing, the performances are strong enough to carry a very dialogue heavy movie, and the final act is chilling in its reveals.  I will be surprised if this one finds its way to a Best Original Screenplay nomination due to it being a debut film from a relatively unknown writer/director, but if it manages to get the nomination it will certainly be a well-deserved one.

10. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (dir. Cathy Yan) The movie that broke the list.  If someone would have told me in 2019 that a film directly connected to Suicide Squad would be anywhere on a Top Films list I curated, I would have laughed dead in their face, and yet, here we are.  It’s like every good idea that was poorly executed in Suicide Squad found new life in Birds of Prey, which makes the film not only an entertaining watch, but a satisfying one.  Not only is Margot Robbie perfect in this film (as well as given a break on the exploitative costuming), but Mary Elizabeth Winstead arguably takes a stab at stealing the show with her performance.  Don’t let the DCEU association fool you... Birds of Prey is the real deal.    

9. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (dir. Eliza Hittman) Probably the most contemplative film on the entire list, and impressive in its nature for sure.  To my knowledge, the cast is made up of mostly unknowns (unless I’m sleeping on actors and actresses, which has been known to happen), and as a result, a tough slice of life to swallow is presented in an extremely grounded nature.  Sidney Flanigan gives a powerful performance, hopefully the first of many.

8. Possessor [Uncut] (dir. Brandon Cronenberg) Easily the most “what the f-ck” film on this list, and certainly one worthy of the Cronenberg name.  Andrea Riseborough has been on my radar since Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and Mandy, and seeing her in a lead role confirms her talent.  I’m a sucker for science-fiction films that don’t rely on digital effects and elaborate set pieces, and Possessor rings both of those bells with a vengeance.  I watched the uncut version, which has a couple of extremely brutal sequences that will unnerve even the most hardened viewer, but these sequences only serve to drive home the lost nature of Tasya, our protagonist.  This one isn’t for everyone, but for those who can stomach a bit off graphicness and process a narrative that doesn’t spoon-feed you answers, this one is a must see.

7. Da 5 Bloods (dir. Spike Lee) Spike Lee has always been a huge influence on me as both an aspiring filmmaker and a fan of the medium, but I’d be lying if I told you that his last decade was a memorable one.  Outside of BlacKkKlansman, Lee has found himself falling short of his vision more often than not, but Da 5 Bloods is a tonal and stylistic bullseye.  Fans of Lee will dig it, fans of Vietnam films will dig it, and anyone who had an inkling of respect or admiration for Chadwick Boseman will be moved.  If Lee continues to make films as good as this one, he may find an entirely new generation of fans as a result.

6. Soul (dir. Pete Docter) As mentioned at the top of this list, people love to try and sink films due to their own personal agendas, and Soul found itself in the crosshairs prior to its late 2020 release.  Many people were upset that a minority character would not only spend most of the movie as a blue blob, but would also seemingly serve as a tool for another character’s “salvation”.  That being said, once Soul dropped, anybody with common sense dropped those stances and realized that Pixar had not only made a stunningly beautiful film, but one that likely spoke to adults more than children.  Plain and simple, Soul is a bonafide instant classic.

5. Kajillionaire (dir. Miranda July) If Evan Rachel Wood doesn’t win an Oscar for her performance in Kajillionaire (or at least garner a nomination), Hollywood needs to collectively have their head checked.  Every year worth its salt has a weird, quirky but loveable film, and Miranda July more than succeeded in making one for 2020.  The humor, both physical and dialogue-based, is on point, and the bittersweet nature of the story is gut-wrenching as the film progresses.  This one was probably the biggest surprise for 2020 in terms of prior awareness versus post-watch admiration.

4. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (dir. George C. Wolfe) The final film of Chadwick Boseman’s short but prolific career is one that allowed him to exist in the wake of his reality, making his performance powerful and (seemingly) cathartic.  He is surrounded by supreme talent on all sides, as there are no weak performances in this film, and despite it essentially being a play shot for film, it feels far from limited, contained or constrained.  Not only does it speak on larger issues of the commodification of Black pain and talent, but it may serve as a vehicle for a posthumous Oscar for Boseman.

3. The Devil All The Time (dir. Antonio Campos) This was the first Netflix original that made me really and truly respect them as a film distributor.  The list of talent for The Devil All The Time is truly impressive, and Tom Holland knocked his lead role out of the park.  Robert Pattinson is great as always, and the way that the story winds back into itself keeps you locked in and connected until the credits roll.  For something that came out so many months ago, it’s respectable that it was able to hold such a high position on a list that was as fluid as any I’ve ever put together.

2. Mank (dir. David Fincher) For a time, this was the hands down film of the year on my list.  Gary Oldman has basically become a “can do no wrong” actor, and his performance was amplified by David Fincher’s ability to emulate the look, sound and feel of a bygone Hollywood era.  On top of this, the built in intrigue that comes with handling anything remotely connected to Orson Welles is present, making Mank almost feel like a companion piece to the prolific film that is Citizen Kane.  If The Devil All The Time was a victory for Netflix, then Mank was the win that put them into a true spot as contenders in the future of film distribution. 

1. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (dir. Charlie Kaufman) Where does one even begin with Charlie Kaufman?  Time and again, he proves to be one of the most truly unique voices to gain fame.  For I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Kaufman seemingly returns to his foundation of odd, offbeat love stories, only to take us on a journey of truly mind-bending and psyche-warping proportions.  Of all the movies on this list, this is the one that almost demands repeat viewings, as one must have an idea of the entire journey before they can understand the individual aspects laid out.  If dialogue isn’t your thing, then this one may not hold you, but that would be a shame, as this beautiful mystery stands head and shoulders above the rest of 2020′s stellar output.

#ChiefDoomsday #DOOMonFILM #Mignonnes #MaimounaDoucoure #HisHouse #RemiWeekes #AllDayAndANight #JoeRobertCole #SheDIesTomorrow #AmySeimetz #TheVastOfNight #AndrewPatterson #BirdsOfPreyAndTheFantabulousEmancipationOfOneHarleyQuinn #CathyYan #NeverRarelySometimesAlways #ElizaHittman #Possessor #BrandonCronenberg #Da5Bloods #SpikeLee #Soul #PeteDocter #Kajillionaire #MirandaJuly #MaRaineysBlackBottom #GerorgeCWolfe #TheDevilAllTheTime #AntonioCampos #Mank #DavidFincher

[ericvick]

Wall Street forecasts just keep going up: Morning Brief

TipRanks

3 U.S. Cannabis Stocks Gearing up for Growth; Cantor Says ‘Buy’

At the end of 2018, Canada fully legalized cannabis, nationwide, for both medical and recreational use. With the incoming Biden Administration, the US is expected to follow suit with Federal-level legalization, or at least formal decriminalization, sometime in the next four years. An exact timetable is impossible to predict; much will depend on the partisan makeup of Congress after the Georgia Senate runoff vote in early January.For now, cannabis legalization in the US is something of a checkerboard. Most states have at least partial legalization, with only Idaho and Nebraska holding out. Eleven states have made cannabis fully legal for all adults; the remaining 37 states have some form of partial medical use, and even Nebraska has decriminalized the substance. Under Federal law, cannabis remains an illegal controlled substance.Cantor analyst Pablo Zuanic recently met with several cannabis industry execs and came back with a few takeaways.”[The] speakers believe that under a Biden WH and Republican-controlled Senate, banking reform would pass in early 2021 and would be included in a COVID relief package […] In general, both speakers believe measured progression in legislation is the best path at the federal level, and expect a version of the STATES act (making cannabis federally permissible) to pass the Senate post the next midterms (this could take place sooner in the event of a 50-50 Senate split and a Biden WH). Other changes (descheduling, federal legalization) may take longer,” Zuanic noted.Prepping for the possible changes, Zuanic has also been reviewing several cannabis stocks operating in the American market. Using the TipRanks database, we’ve pulled up the stats on three such stocks, which show the classic ‘growth stock’ profile: plenty of upside potential, recent strong share appreciation, and a Strong Buy rating from the analyst consensus. Curaleaf (CURLF)We’ll start with Curaleaf which, with a $7.7 billion market cap, is one of the largest cannabis companies around. By revenue, Curaleaf is the world’s largest cannabis producer, a position it cemented with the acquisition, earlier this year, of private competitor Grassroots. Curaleaf has operations in 23 states, including 30 processing facilities, 88 dispensaries, and 134 dispensary licenses. Curaleaf grows its product in 22 cultivation sites, with a combined 1.6 million square feet of cultivation capacity.Curaleaf’s performance this year, both in financial results and share appreciation, show the potential of the cannabis market in the US. The company reported $193.2 million in Q3 revenue, for a 59% sequential gain and even more impressive 164% year-over-year growth. The gains were powered by retail revenue, which grew 3x year-over-year to 135.3 million and wholesale revenue, which saw a massive 7x yoy gain to $45 million. While Curaleaf reported a net loss for Q3, that loss was only 1 cent per share, where analysts had expected twice that amount.Curaleaf shares are up 85% year-to-date. While trading in the company has been volatile, it has regained all of its COVID related losses from last winter.Covering this stock for Cantor, Zuanic writes, “We believe the company’s scale advantage, ability to raise funds ($1Bn shelf), and continued store and cultivation expansion, all warrant a valuation premium to peers… [Curaleaf] did not provide guidance for 2021, but the assumption is that it would post growth over the $1Bn annualized figure with which it will likely exit 2020.”Backing this bullish stance, Zuanic gives the stock an Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating, and his $20 price target suggests it has room for 71% growth in 2021. (To watch Zuanic’s track record, click here)Overall, CURLF shares get a Strong Buy rating from the analyst consensus, based on an 8 to 1 mix of Buy versus Hold reviews. The shares are trading at $11.69, and their $14.87 average price target implies a one-year upside potential of 27%. (See Curaleaf stock analysis on TipRanks)Green Thumb (GTBIF)Green Thumb is a Canadian company that has been expanding its foothold in the US market. While Canada’s nationwide legalization regime gives it an advantage over the fragmented, the US is a far larger market, with nearly 10x Canada’s population. Green Thumb’s products include edibles, pre-rolled joints, and vapes, along with a range of CBD-infused wellness items aimed at the home healthcare market. In the past two months, the company’s market cap has expanded from $3.3 billion to $4.6 billion.That market cap growth has been fueled by a massive share appreciation. GTBIF bottomed out in March, at the height of the coronavirus crisis, and is up 426% since then. Year-to-date, the stock is up 120%.That share growth, in turn, has been powered by strong revenues through 2020. In fact, Green Thumb’s Q1 top line showed a 35% sequential gain, at a time when many companies were registering quarter-over-quarter losses. GTBIF has continued to growth revenues since then, with Q3’s top line coming in at $157.1 million, up 131% year-over-year and 31% from Q2. These strong revenues yielded a Q3 EPS of 4 cents per share, derived from total net income of $9.6 million.In his note on Green Thumb, Zuanic reiterates his Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating, and sets a price target of $35 to indicate a 62% upside in the coming year.Backing his outlook, Zuanic writes, “We estimate that there is at least 20% upside to 2021 consensus sales estimates […] Given the profitability trackrecord, growth potential, and franchise strength, we think valuation multiples well above CPG stocks would be deserved (CPG multiples are ~20x EBITDA on average). Also, with federal permissibility still 2-4 years out, the larger MSOs have a window before CPG or the larger Canadian companies (the well-funded ones) can get involved in the US market in a major way. All this should be factored into the stock’s valuation.”Overall, Green Thumb has a unanimous analyst consensus rating, showing that Wall Street agrees with Zuanic’s views. The stock has no fewer than 8 Buy reviews in recent weeks. The average price target is $30.81, which suggests a 43% upside potential. (See Green Thumb’s stock analysis on TipRanks)Cresco Labs (CRLBF)Last but not least is Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based cannabis company with operations in the medical marijuana sector. The company markets its products in retail stores under the Sunnyside* brand, with licenses in 6 states: Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Cresco full product line-up includes eight other brand names, offering everything from buds, joints, and edibles to vapes and gummies. Counting all production facilities, retail licenses, and operational dispensaries, Cresco has a presence in 9 states.Cresco has shown strong growth in 2020. The stock is up 48% year-to-date, and there are still another three weeks of trading before year’s end. The gains have fully erased losses taken early in the COVID pandemic.Cresco has posted Q3 revenues of $153.3 million, a company quarterly record. The top line result was $59 million higher than the previous quarter, for a 63% sequential gain. The revenues rested on a foundation of strong retail sales, which totaled $90.5 million in the quarter. Cresco’s quarterly earnings are up from $66.4 million in Q1, a 130% gain year-to-date.Pablo Zuanic notes the company’s retail success in his note on the stock. He says, “Cresco beat our above consensus sales estimate by 23% on market share gains in wholesale in states like IL, PA, and CA, and continued IL retail outperformance… The branded wholesale model (near 60% of sales vs. 25% at peers) and depth (leadership in key states, with wholesale share above 20% in IL/PA) over time could lead to a premium over peers, in our view… As we project into 4Q, we model at least the same share levels per state in 3Q plus underlying market growth. In CA the company is gaining share per store (existing customers) as well as adding new retail customers.”These comments back up Zuanic’s Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating. His price target, of $18, indicates confidence in 77% growth potential for next year. With 5 Buy reviews overbalancing a single Hold, Cresco is our third Strong Buy cannabis stock. At a current trading price of $10.12, the $14.61 average price target gives a one-year upside of 44%. (See Cresco’s stock analysis on TipRanks)To find good ideas for cannabis stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

#Forecasts #Morning #Street #Wall

[patriciahaefeli]

A Cautionary Tale? A Love Story? You Decide

It's been one of those rollercoaster weeks, one that began with a great deal of pain, which I tried to ignore at first, so as not to ruin my 17- year old’s already Corona-compromised birthday party. At some point during our 5 p.m. family Zoom celebration, I quietly left the room and went upstairs to lie down, writhe in pain, get back up, bend over, moan, repeat. This continued through the night Monday – and at one point, I remember thinking that labor wasn’t this bad and that I should probably go to the emergency room. In this new world we’re in, that thought was quickly dismissed by one word: COVID. I paced the floor at 3 a.m., alternately moaning and then bopping my head and sort of softly singing what kept running through my head, which was the chorus of The Knack’s 1979 hit song, “My Sharona.” Only my version went “My Corona.” Yes, even while suffering, I’m clever that way. 

By Tuesday morning the pain had subsided. I was exhausted however, and slept throughout the day. “Tricia! Drink this! Jesus, she’s burning up.” It was the alarm in my husband’s voice that I responded to more than the command. I sat up, drank the water he was holding out to me, and when I caught my reflection in the mirror over the dresser I had the brief, feverously detached impression of someone who’d sat under a sun lamp for too long. Sun lamp, the words made me almost giggle out loud. Sun-lamp, sun-lamp, sun-lamp…Does anyone even know what that is anymore? A few hours later I had a virtual appointment with my regular GP, during which the decision was made for me to go to the office first thing Wednesday for a full exam. My instructions (my fever-addled brain again added the words “should I choose to accept them” - hehehe), for entering the building would come in the form a text. 

My office exam was efficient and thorough. Upon arrival, I called the office and someone met me at a side door. As we were both masked and gloved, we nodded and murmured muffled greetings. Two PAs and an MD palpated my tender abdomen while I stifled screams. They decided that I should have a C-T scan that day, with the expectation that the offending culprit was a kidney stone. As many radiology facilities are currently closed, it took a few hours for them to locate one that would take me. My scan took place at 4:30. I was the last patient of their day. 

 Fast forward to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday evening. I picked up the call, which was remarkable in itself because anyone who knows me knows how irritating it is that, a) my phone is always on silent mode, and, b) I rarely answer numbers I don’t recognize. It was another doctor from Vanguard, calling to let me know that my C-T scan showed no evidence of kidney stones – “Yay!” BUT, he cut in, it did show acute appendicitis. What I needed to do, he said, was to go directly to the nearest ER. 

So here’s where this story really begins, because I was about to get a reality check regarding the difference between the inconveniences of “social distancing” and quite literally, matters of life and death. For those of us who are shuffling around at home in our sweatpants, eating too much, complaining about the buffoonery of our President, laughing at all the funny memes, and who are, to one degree or another, COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS to the fact that health care workers do not have the luxury of ANY of that, here’s the newsflash: The Corona virus has virtually SHUT down normal operations for hospitals and surgical facilities, so if you’re also laughing in the face of social-distancing guidelines, and just can’t wrap your head around the possibility of contracting this deadly disease, know this too: If you break your arm, or your spouse has a heart attack, or your child’s strange rash won’t go away and you’re just really concerned, good luck. We are NOT in Kansas anymore, peeps. 

 I considered doing a bit of a negative a rant on the first hospital that I went to here, but perhaps that wouldn’t be fair. “The nearest ER” for me would have been another hospital, but due to their somewhat dubious reputation, we opted to go just a bit farther away. The best thing I can say about that experience was that the safety protocols to enter the ER were impressive. Picture the scene in E.T. where the Hazmat-suited guys from the space program find out about him and “invade” the house in a tunnel of white - then picture the people standing six feet apart outside of say, ShopRite, only these people don’t look so great. They’re kind of bent over, or swaying, or leaning on someone else. Then count your blessings that your gut hurts and you’re not bleeding out…or struggling to breathe. 

Three hours later, after they’d reviewed my scans and completed all of the necessary pre-op tests (blood work, EKG, urine analysis), I got the word that most of the ORs were being used as ICUs for COVID patients, and they were only doing “emergent” surgeries. They sent me home with massive doses of antibiotics, and a referral to see their staff general surgeon - outpatient. 

I figured they were right, too. Must not be very serious. I was doing well with that notion until the following morning, when I heard the barely concealed shock in the voice of my regular MD.  

“Did they see your scans?” his tone serving only to increase my anxiety. 

 “Yeah. But my appendix hasn’t exploded yet.” I said. 

 “Ah,” he sighed, “I know things are being handled differently in the ‘current environment,’ but last time I checked, acute appendicitis was emergent.” 

Okay, pay attention now, because here’s where it gets really interesting: See if you can answer his parting questions: 

 “Do you have a general surgeon? Preferably one with their own facility?” 

 So, do you? And if you do, are you sure they’re even open right now? I sure as hell didn’t (and the name they gave me at the hospital turned out to be for a doctor whose answering machine told me he was not seeing new patients). And the idea that it was now pretty much my problem to solve was a little intimidating – especially for someone who generally needs to be told that they’re sick (enough) or in (enough) pain to seek help—but that’s another story. Now that doctor, who I respect and like a lot, said he’d be trying to find me one, but that I should do my research as well. 

 My husband and I made a fairly long list of people/places to call, and split it. Those we were able to reach at all offered possible solutions to my dilemma, but each dead-ended pretty quickly. I focused on the task now, trying to ignore what it might mean that the ache in my belly seemed to be spreading down my right leg. 

As of this writing, I have yet to hear back from my regular GP and yet, here I sit, post-op, able to get this down mostly because of a Facebook message I sent to one of the nurses in the Belleville Public School district. The only real help I got came from her, a nurse, who responded immediately to an “in-boxed” message, and kept responding for the next hour, sending me the names and phone numbers of doctors (sometimes with their credentials!), links to possible facilities, and words of encouragement. She gave me her personal cell phone number and encouraged me to call it if I had questions and/or to let her know how it was going. I felt like she meant it, too. I also think she was responsible for the first in a series of serendipitous events that just may have saved my life. One of the names she gave me turned out to be the dad of one of my kid’s friends. 

 At that point, things happened pretty quickly. I called him (at home) and told him my situation. In a matter of 20 minutes, he had my scans and had booked  a time slot for me for same-day surgery at Clara Maass. He’s a high-energy, outgoing kind of guy, and although I’d stood on sidelines with him and his lovely wife at many a sports event, I don’t know him well enough, nor did I think it was appropriate to laugh out loud when he laid out the plan: “With everything going on, I just really want to do you – and get you the hell out of there!” 

So here I am, more grateful to him than I can possibly express and having some time to consider just how random and crazy and dangerous that whole situation was (turns out, my appendix had begun to perforate after all, and the real fun was just beginning) and how fortunate I am. 

 But the real heroes here - Oh, and God, aren’t we all a little sick of the “hero” thing? – well get over it, and listen up! From the minute I walked through the door of Clara Maass yesterday, my experience was the best it could possibly have been. The nurses! OMG the nurses - I was in pre-op for hours. Lucky as I was to have been squeezed in to an already crowded surgical schedule, the truth of the matter was that my presence had required a quick shifting of resources—stretchers and space and - nurses. My sudden appearance in the queue was inconvenient, possibly even annoying. And yet all of them, including the nurse who ran the OR, came by to check on me, to give me extra blankets, to chat with me, and laugh with me. A friend’s daughter-in-law, who is a nurse there, got a text from him and even she came from three floors below just to say hello and charm me with her Australian accent and tired-but-twinkling blue eyes. I swear, for me? The whole experience was a cross between a weirdly sterile spa stay, and – as mine all happened to be women - a girls’ sleepover with your best girlfriends—only these were women I'd just met (but they’d also pretty much seen me naked, so, there’s that…). 

Most of them were nearing the end of a 12-hour shift. As I lay there, relaxed and warm, reading and texting, they race-walked back and forth among those of us who waited, or were recovering. I lost count of how many times one of them asked me if I was okay, or if I needed something. They ate their dinners on the move, taking bites and then sprinting off, tearing off one set of gloves, putting on another. These people Do. Not. Sit. The sink was right near my bed, so I saw a lot of hand-washing traffic too, and a lot of red, chapped, over-sanitized hands. They spoke in soothing voices to those who were waiting, and possibly scared, and loud-enough voices for those emerging from the cloud of anesthesia to understand. Sometimes they shouted good-natured complaints to one another, or teased one another – and me, as when one started repacking those bags they give you for your clothes, amusement in her voice as she yelled, “What the hell did you do here, shove it all in like a little kid? Your purse is open – Maria, come over here and see this – she’s a mess!” Hahahaha! One came by and pointed to the cover of the book I was reading entitled “The Silent Patient”, and joked “That’s the kind we like!” 

I even began to wonder if what I was getting was “special treatment” reserved for those whose surgeries were personally called-in by the surgeon. Once he arrived, however, it was clear that not only did they not know he was the one who got me in, but they chided him in the same affectionate way. At a point, I said to one of them, “Doctors think they’re all that, but nurses really run the show don’t they?” She winked at me and elbowed me a little, “Like husbands, honey – they just think they’re in charge!” 

I lounged, for over four hours while they stood on what had to be tired feet, hands on hips as they talked to me, telling me which part of the hospital they’d spent the morning in, or where they were headed next in this crazy, all-hands-on-deck environment. We chatted about jobs and kids, and only when the topic of this deadly disease came up did the lack of words become conspicuous. Then it was all a mime of sad shakes of the head and downward glances. 

It occurs to me today that after all of this, I'm not sure I would recognize any of them tomorrow if I saw them on street – nor they me. Of course, we were all masked. But maybe I would – if I could see their eyes again. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that most of all, those eyes conveyed a profound kindness. And laughter, and concern, and compassion, and dedication—and a toughness that allows them to do it all. 

I'll tell you a secret: I am a person who often has a weird response to unexpected kindness - it makes me cry. I welled up more than once yesterday afternoon. I may have been just one of many for them – this is just what they do - but for me, a bond was made. I will always remember them. 

Make no mistake: it’s no hardship to be home in your sweatpants with your gel manicure looking a little ratchet, and your spouse and kids seeming more like houseguests who have overstayed their welcome. Today, I want you to feel really, really blessed and grateful, and if you’re like me, a generally healthy person who never really gave too much thought to the job that these people do, I hope I was able to convey just a little of it. 

That school nurse who rescued me put it this way: “I took an oath when I graduated just as physicians do. I have followed it for 28 years and it has never let me or my patients down.” That whole oath thing is good and important and all, but the heart behind it gives it grace. 

So, if you get an invitation to do one of those car processions where you beep your horn and cheer for the local health care workers as they go in to, or leave, work– get in your car and go. Or, just mail them each a check for a million dollars. Either way.

[thebestbusinesspodcast]

Godfather of mRNA Vaccines Prescribes How To End Pandemic Quickly - with Robert Malone MD | Harvard Medical School

Listen to this interview or check out bestbusinesscoach.ca for FULL show notes & the video version of this call.

4 Steps to Stop the Pandemic 1. Vaccinate people who are at high risk. But not everyone like we're doing. 2. Provide self-assessment tools to help people identify if they are high risk. 3. Provide early treatments - purge the parasitic entities suppressing them. 4. Create a home diagnostics system to test if you’re infected.

About Our Guest

Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the core mRNA vaccine technologies & RNA transfection. He has done extensive research and development work in: Preclinical discovery research, Clinical trials, Gene therapy, Vaccines, Immunology, and bio-defense.

Dr. Robert Malone trained at UC Davis, UC San Diego. At the Salk Institute of Molecular Biology & Virology Laboratories. He received medical training from Northwestern University (MD), Harvard Medical School (Clinical Research Post Graduate), and UC Davis (Pathology).

To date, he has written close to 100 peer-reviewed publications. These have 12489 citations. 31 are h-index & 50 are i10-index [it's a big deal].

Dr. Robert Malone has been involved in developing, designing, and providing oversight to around: 40 phase-1 clinical trials, 20 phase-2 clinical trials, and 5 phase-3 clinical trials. Plus vaccine-focused clinical research organizations

In most of those as medical director & medical monitor.

With 20+ years of management and leadership experience in pharmaceutical, biotechnology industries, academia, government and non-government organizations. He is one of the most experienced & credible experts you can find on this subject.

His prescription to end this pandemic quickly?

1. Only vaccinate the high-risk groups. Not everyone.

Natural immunity is 10x better, stronger, faster, longer-lasting. So if you're not high risk, it should be a choice to not get vaccinated.

Vaccine effectiveness is diminishing fast. Covid-19 is mutating way more each week than they anticipated.

Vaccine-induced disease enhancement is a real thing. Mass vaccination campaigns are only encouraging this.

Based on current rates of reduced vaccine effectiveness. Estimates are current vaccines will be ineffective within 6-12 months. Meaning new ones will replace them. 

There are legitimate risks involved from vaccination.

If vaccines synthesize a misfolded protein, we wouldn't know. Misguided spike proteins CAN cause problems with Prion Diseases. Lipid-nanoparticles with mRNA can pass the blood-brain barrier. The covid vaccines went out fast. We don't have good long-term data. There HAVE been production contamination issues. [See Moderna + Japan as an example].

Alphabet agencies could do better tracking & reporting adverse events. Many things significant to an individual, don't register as clinically significant. Like a 3% drop in fitness for an NFL player].

Recently 2 top brass left the FDA. For reasons related to the third shot rollout.

My questions, not his, are: Will a third shot meaningfully boost immunity? Or are they moving big pharma inventory before the new vaccines come in?

#ProductLifecycles

Did anyone use a fax machine lately? 8 track? CDs? Just curious. Each year some major pharmaceutical company is paying hundreds of millions in criminal and civil settlements. Often for marketing dangerous drugs or paying kickbacks to incentivize prescriptions.

2. Early Detection. Provide home test kits. Apps. Tools to help people make data-driven decisions. If they should get vaccinated or not.

Some people need to be vaccinated. Vaccines aren't perfect, but they do serve a purpose.

3. Early Treatment: This is a virus best battled early. Ivermectin, HCQ, Vitamin D & even Aspirin have GREAT data they're effective - if used early.

4. Follow Good Health Science. Allow open discussions about: - Risk Mitigation - Leading Indicators - Black Swans

Right now the major alphabet agencies fly in the face of good health science. There is no room for discussion on any of these things. It's either: Follow the narrative of vaccines are our saving grace - or your career is gone.

They want 100% irrefutable, giant study data it 100% works. Proof so solid, it's cost & time prohibitive in an evolving pandemic. These emergency use Vaccines have NOT been studied as well as some PRE-existing drugs we could use as therapeutics. Conversations are being shut down as if they're lethal. When it's these NEW vaccines we have no long-term safety data on.

He believes in this climate - no one can publish papers saying anything against the narrative. Only if it's a giant study with immaculate outcomes. There is little space for open dialogue or exchange.

Careers are being ended for trying to open discourse.

Misc items which came up:

We don't know enough about Viral Reactivation of Covid-19.

Despite years of trying, there are no successful vaccines for a coronavirus. For a successful vaccine, viruses must activate a strong immune response.

There have been many problems with corona vaccines in the past. For example, the original SARS vaccine. It actually increased the pathology rather than reducing it.

So the first SARS corona vaccine caused, in animals, inflammation in the lungs. Inflammation which wouldn't otherwise have been there if the vaccine hadn't been given. Vaccines can also create hyper-sensitivity in certain cases. This means they work well against main target virus. But when a wildly mutated virus comes along.. The immune system response kills the host.

Vaccines in general are very safe. But these COVID vaccines lack sufficient long-term data. In 1976 there was a swine flu outbreak. Mass vaccination campaigns like this rolled out and were stopped due to adverse effects causing neurological issues.  Rushing vaccine due process can have severe consequences.

August 22nd 2021, a paper was published saying: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.22.457114v1 "Although Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2-immune sera neutralized the Delta variant, when four common mutations were introduced into the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the Delta variant (Delta 4+), some BNT162b2-immune sera lost neutralizing activity and enhanced the infectivity."

But there's no space for discussion... The propaganda machine is running bigger and harder than it ever has historically. Shutting any doubt down. Censorship is rampant. It's really crazy what's going on right now. Some say it's because there is so much profit to be made. According to the FDA website: FDA may authorize unapproved medical products or unapproved uses of approved medical products to be used in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions caused by CBRN threat agents when certain criteria are met, including there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives. https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-legal-regulatory-and-policy-framework/emergency-use-authorization Again, Listen to this interview or check out bestbusinesscoach.ca for FULL show notes & the video version of this call.   Be safe everyone. As always, thank you for your time & attention. 

Check out this episode!

#actioncoach #automation #bestbusiness #bestbusinesspodcast #business #businessbooks #businessbookstoread #businesscoach #businesscoaching #businessdaily #career #ceo #coach #company #database #entrepreneur #expert #growth #interview #makemoney #makemoremoney #marketing #million #mostsuccessfulentrepreneur #smallbusiness #topbusinessbooks

[independentartistbuzz]

Indie 5-0: 5 Questions with Reggie Harris

A teaching artist in the Kennedy Center’s CETA program (Changing Education Through the Arts) and a fellow for the prestigious Council of Independent College lecture program, Reggie Harris also serves as Co-President and Director of Music Education for the Living Legacy Project—an advocacy group that sponsors Civil Rights pilgrimages throughout the South and online education seminars worldwide. His new album On Solid Ground is about all healing and inspiration in the face of injustice and dissension. From love songs (“Come What May”) to protest songs (“Standing in Freedom's Name”) to the album-closing tribute (“High Over the Hudson”) to his friend and mentor Pete Seeger, On Solid Ground has a little bit of something for everyone. Harris is the 2021 recipient of Folk Alliance International's Spirit of Folk Award and is a DJ on the new program Prisms: The Sound Of Color on SiriusXM’s The Village. He was recently featured on CNN’s Silence is Not An Option with Don Lemon and in The New York Times.

Listen to Reggie Harris via Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0HWFtZHIDLRaW9POYMsAtp

1. At what age did you realize that music was the career you wanted to pursue? What was your ‘ah-ha’ moment? Wow. It came late. I mean, I’ve been singing since I was three or four years old, but I never really had any reason to think of music as a possible career. No one in my family or for that matter, in my social circle, did anything of the sort. People asked that question “What do you wanna be?” all the time but I saw music as just something you did in church or at school or in family sings around the piano. I always loved music and I was always good at it. I learned to harmonize really early and I sang all through high school but never gave any thought to it as a profession. I thought I’d be a teacher. But the “aha moment” came when I heard James Taylors' "Fire and Rain" on the radio one night in 12th grade. Something about his guitar and his expressive voice lit a fire that burned inside until I got a guitar in my hands in 1974. That happened when a young woman I was dating dared me to learn 3 chord on the guitar. That event unleashed something inside of me that had gone untapped in all my years of singing in choirs and groups and at school. I now had the ability to accompany myself with music that I heard from within. I bought the album Sweet Baby James and played the grooves out. That opened the door to Gordon Lightfoot, Don McClean, Cat Stevens, Kenny Rankin and the singer songwriters. I started watching shows like The Midnight Special or Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert and I started going to concerts. And around that same time, I met another young woman named Kim who played guitar and loved the same artists I did. She and I started meeting up and practicing songs, then we began writing songs and quickly became singing partners. Eventually we got married and I’d say, we pushed each other out the door and onto the stage. We were both passionate about making music and helped each other learn and grow and we were both willing to struggle to make it work. We did that for forty years and then separated and I became a solo act in 2016. I love the way it feels to spend hours making music and I really love how it makes other people feel when they hear it. It also gives me a voice to express what I see in the world. My passion for creating music and connecting the dots is stronger than ever. 2. Who are your musical inspirations? What artists inspired you to start your career and find your musical passion? My musical inspiration started early and there have been so many streams. Hearing the “old folks” in my church sing spirituals and hymns was formative and Sunday afternoon church events where 6 or 7 or more church choirs would travel around and have a gospel song fest at another church was exciting and grounding. All those amazing singers covering those great songs. I remember hearing Harry Belafonte, Mahalia Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sam Cooke and others on my mother's radio in the morning as she got ready for work. Their voices just made you feel emotions like nothing else in the world. Our teachers in elementary taught us the songs of Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and we sang “Blowing in the Wind” (The Peter, Paul, and Mary version) and "If I Had A Hammer" for 6th grade graduation. I remember standing on the steps of my house in Philly with three of my friends, in the summer of 1964, singing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” at the top of our lungs. We all took different roles as The Beatles. I thought I was Paul of course! That strikes me funny now… four little black boys in inner-city Philadelphia thinking they were English rockers? Why not The Temps? Or Smokey and the Miracles? There was also Aretha Franklin and The Stones in 1965 with "Satisfaction." Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder fascinated me and all those great Motown artist’s voices came floating down the hall to my room as my sister came of age. I paid attention to the musicians and the arrangements too. Years later, after I discovered the guitar, I met Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton and Ritchie Havens and other folk musicians and started to find a groove that combined what they were doing with other music I loved. My inspiration stream crosses genres, race, decade and style. Stevie Wonder to Pete Seeger, to Bach to Dolly Parton to Joan Armatrading to the Yellow Jackets to Beyonce. Listening across genres gives me more information to process which I can incorporate in melodies, harmonies or language for lyrics. 3. What inspired you to write & record On Solid Ground? I got home on March 8, 2020 after my tour was abruptly ended by COVID-19 shutdowns. For 3 weeks, I sat watching the news, talking with friends, feeling the world come apart as concert dates disappeared from my calendar for months and months into the future. Since concerts, lectures and school programs are the major ways that I get to sow seeds of hope in the world, I felt at a great loss. Like everyone else, I saw tensions building and protests against the various issues of hate and division exploding in the streets and felt that I needed to make sense of it all.

Music is the place I go when I need the world to make sense. So I started doing online concerts and that helped me to see how hungry people were for music and connection. My answer to the desperation and fear that I saw rising all around was to write the song "On Solid Ground." It’s written in the style and frame of the spirituals which are songs I grew up singing and that I still sing now. They are songs composed by people who endured slavery…people who were suffering through devastatingly tough times and still found ways to persevere through music and community. So my message? We can get through this time of challenge and change if we pull together and face ourselves.

Then the floodgates opened. I watched people flood into the streets to protest the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor killings and the growing acts of election suppression and wrote “Standing in Freedom’s Name” and “Let’s Meet Up Early.” I also arranged Malvina Reynolds' “It Isn’t Nice" as a tribute. Inspired by articles about workers who were being put in danger by callous factory owners and government officials, I wrote “My Working Bones.”

In the isolation of missing my girlfriend, who lives 10 hours away, I wrote “Come What May.” Then, watching street scenes on TV in 2020 that mirrored C.T. Vivian’s classic stand-off with Sheriff Jim Clark in Selma in 1965, I was inspired to write “It’s Who We Are.” It’s my challenge to the avoidance of questions of race, inequality and disenfranchisement that we as a nation are still struggling to face. But the protests showed a possible willingness to change?

I wrote the song "High Over the Hudson" about Pete Seeger in 2014 but never put it on a CD. And "Maybe It’s Love" was a fun writing exercise about the nature of romance.  Song after song was born as a timely reflection on what was on my mind every day and as I would finish one song, another would rise up.

Soon I had 9 originals and 4 songs that I was inspired to arrange as covers and I thought, ”Looks like a CD to me.” 4. What was the process like bringing the album to life, and who did you work with to create it?

Recording this CD was both supremely challenging, deeply therapeutic and also the most relaxed I’ve ever been in the studio. The project gave me an outlet for stress. We had to be very careful about COVID-19 protocols and close proximity at all times. Travel was weird and in a few impossible moments, we worked remotely. I was also wondering if I’d ever get to go out and perform the songs once they were done or if anyone would ever buy physical music again since that has been decreasing for years. But as I called on musicians who were not only good friends but who I knew would respond to my vision, the way to proceed got clearer.  My core co-contributors, Greg Greenway and Dave Schonauer, have been critical collaborators on my last three CDs. Greg and I have known each other for over 30 years and were born three days apart. So we have a language that just flows. We met and did pre-production in August and then hit the studio in September. Dave, the engineer at Morningstar Studios, is just brilliant. He makes things possible that most people don’t think of. Pat Wictor is my improvisational exploration brother as is Tom Prasado-Rao. Pat got up from a bout with COVID-19 and a recovery from tearing a tendon in his arm and played his newly retrained fingers off. Tom came out of a major bout with cancer and simmered with vocal ideas. They were all amazing at helping me chase my vision and “letting me be me" while adding brilliance and calling me on things didn’t quite measure up. We work at a level of trust that transcends words. I met bassist Chico Huff and drummer Matt Scarano when I recorded the CD Ready to Go in 2017-18 and they both play my music like they were there when I wrote it! Eric Byrd is a friend who is an amazing musical force and funny as hell. And Colleen Kattau, Mark Murphy and Ken Ulansey are longtime friends who just find the right temperature and vibe all the time. Everyone did what I love: They came in the door with passion and flexibility, brought their “A” games and didn’t leave until we got it right. And now Kari Estrin, Sarah Bennett and my friend Joann Murdock are helping me get it out to the world. 5. What do you have in store for the rest of 2021? I’m looking forward to continuing to unveil these songs, first during online concerts and then, as things begin to open up, with the start of whatever the new in-person performing landscape will become. I’ll continue to provide education videos for schools and doing lectures and residency work with colleges and universities on my own and through the Council of independent Colleges. The pandemic also gave me the time to work on a memoir which I’m trying to finish with a friend who is co-writing. And I’ll continue my work in civil, voting and human rights with the Living Legacy Project organization as we work to extend awareness and social activism. In my spare time, I hope to go to a few baseball games, see fully vaccinated friends for visits and hugs, watch a few movies and hopefully see my 76ers win the NBA championship. And I think I also need to get some rest.

#reggie harris

[aion-rsa]

Why Pokémon Has Endured For 25 Years

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This article is presented by:

In 1996, Joseph Tobin was a professor of early education at the University of Hawaii when he decided to walk into a hobby store in Kaimuki for field research.

“They had some Pokémon stuff—the Japanese versions of the cartridges,” Tobin recalls. “People could buy them in this store before they were even available elsewhere. We interviewed the owner and decided that Pokémon would be a really interesting thing to study.”

Tobin had a pre-existing interest in Japanese culture from time spent in Japan as an exchange student and therefore continued his research in other hobby shops and toy stores throughout Honolulu. As the years progressed, he traded Pokémon cards with children who were adamant that he would not get ripped off in lopsided swaps. He followed as a colleague’s six-year-old son spent 90-plus hours with his Pokémon Blue cartridge for the Nintendo Game Boy, learning to read, understanding maps, and calculating sums in the process.

The years of Poké studies culminated in Tobin hosting an academic conference in 2000, where educators, anthropologists, and other cultural experts gathered in Honolulu to discuss this massive, yet certainly fleeting, Pokémon phenomenon. The findings and arguments of the conference were collected in the insightful and thoroughly-researched, yet tragically named, Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon.

“We thought we better hurry and get this out before the craze is over,” Tobin says.

25 years later and the Pokémon craze is nowhere near over. 

Today, Pokémon is one of the most successful, if not the most successful entertainment entities in human history. Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, having taken in an estimated $88 billion in revenue. According to eBay, there were 160 million searches on the platform for Pokémon cards last year, and they outsold even baseball cards. In December of last year, a Base set 1st edition PSA-graded 10 “shadowless” Charizard card sold on eBay for a staggering $350,100. The Pokémon games are now in their eighth generation and have sold over 340 million units. The long-running anime is in its 24th year and features more than 1,100 episodes. 

In defense of Tobin and The Rise and Fall of Pokémon’s title, the franchise, created by Game Freak and Nintendo, did seem like it was on the ropes in the early 2000s. “Pokémania” had largely died out and financial markers like the Pokémon card market had cooled. But Pokémon didn’t need a lengthy Pokémania to become one of the most successful entertainment franchises ever. To find success, all Pokémon needed was a consistent track record of innovative creators behind the scenes and a dedicated fan base of children—and eventually adults—willing to catch them all. 

“This will probably be something you hear from me and the rest of the team at Pokémon a lot. But Pokémon really is for everyone,” says Daniel Benkwitt, Senior Manager, Communications & Public Relations for The Pokémon Company International. “As long time fans will tell you, Pokémon has always been around throughout many iterations. The fans have been dedicated to Pokémon for 25 years, no matter when they came in.”

Benkwitt has a unique perspective on the nature of Pokémon’s ebbs and flows. Now working on the franchise’s 25th-anniversary celebrations, Benkwitt joined the Pokémon Company during Pokémon’s 20th anniversary—the same year that the massively popular augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go debuted.

“I was excited to work on an exciting franchise, but who knew what it was actually going to be once Pokémon Go had launched?” he says. “Truly, Pokémon Go on the 20th anniversary brought Pokémon back into the zeitgeist.”

In many ways, Pokémon Go served as a reminder of what the Poké die-hards already knew: this is Pikachu’s world and we’re just living in it. Whether it be through the series of beloved games, a highly successful card game, long-running anime, or sheer power of brand alone, Pokémon is one of the last quarter century’s big pop culture winners. 

The reasons why Pokémon survived its early fad status to blossom into a titan of entertainment are varied and innumerable, but it all starts with accessibility.

“There’s a variety of different ways and different touchpoints that fans can enter into Pokémon. My personal story is the anime,” Benkwitt says. “For a lot of folks, it was the video games, because that truly is the core of the franchise. Everything emanates out from there.”

Let the Poké Games Begin!

Pokémon Red and Green first premiered in Japan on Feb. 27, 1996. Its English counterparts, Red and Blue, would arrive in North America in 1998. Just about everything that’s appealing about the Pokémon franchise is apparent in those first two installments: exploration, training, trading, battling. The games capture creator Satoshi Tajiri’s experience of collecting insects as a boy in Japan, scaled up and fine-tuned for a larger, and eventually more Western audience. 

The games have evolved over the years, moving from a Matrix-green original Game Boy sprite display to the gorgeous, full-color three dimensions of Nintendo Switch. Along the way, new generations of fans have found their respective access points into the games and the franchise at large.

Pokémon content creator Ron Sroor is part of the next wave of Pokémon fandom, having been born after Red and Blue even debuted. He knows as well as anyone that the appeal of Pokémon has been constant, even if the heights of the franchise have waxed and waned. 

“To the people who were around at the beginning of Pokémania, it seemed like it was dying down, and it definitely was,” Sroor says. “But it never stopped being big. It was going from the biggest thing ever to just a normal, big thing.”

Like Benkwitt, Sroor came to Pokémon through the anime before coming to appreciate the larger tapestry of the franchise through the Pokémon Black and White games, which are set in a world approximating his native New York City. Now Sroor interacts with Pokémon fans via a variety of creative YouTube videos in which he discusses elements of the games like tier lists for powerful Pokémon, and shares his own artistic Pokémon renditions.

“I think the Pokémon are the draw of the franchise. They’re the perfect formula for creating creatures that aren’t too monstrous, but also not too childish or too cute,” he says. “Every single Pokémon is based on something, whether it be an animal or myth, and every location in the game or in the show or whatever is based on places in the real world.”

Cardboard Craze

Though the Pokémon series of games were the progenitor of the franchise, Pikachu and friends quickly proved too big to be contained by only one medium. The Pokémon Trading Card Game was first published by Wizards of the Coast in October 1996, just eight months after Red and Blue’s debut. These days, the Pokémon Trading Card Game (now under the auspices of The Pokémon Company) is considered one of the “Big Three” TCGs, alongside Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh!. 

Competitive Pokémon TCG player Andrew Mahone recalls experiencing the first wave of Pokemania when he was in fourth grade. 

“1999—it was everywhere. Kids were playing the cards at recess, at the pool, wherever we went. I got captivated by the initial craze as it was the cultural phenomenon happening at the time. And being 10 years old, you’re the same age as the hero in the Pokémon franchise. So it really hit home with me there.”

Like many other kids of his generation, Mahone set Pokémon aside throughout his high school years and picked up a diverse array of other interests like soccer, skateboarding, and competitive running. It was during college, however, that Mahone met back up with the franchise that never truly went away, playing Pokémon Diamond and Pearl on the bus to and from track meets.

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“I fell in love with the franchise all over again doing that, and I played the DS game for hundreds of hours throughout my college career. When I graduated college, that’s when I was like, ‘Okay. Well, now I want something else that’s competitive to do now that I’m done with sports.’ That’s where I got into competitive Pokémon.”

Mahone attended his first competitive TCG event in 2012 and won his first regional championship in 2015. By 2017, he was making YouTube videos about the competitive Pokémon TCG scene. That channel has now evolved into his multimedia enterprise Tricky Gym, supported by Full Grip Games.

As part of the Pokémon TCG diaspora, Mahone has had a front-row seat to the game’s latest renaissance, this time likely driven by young adults looking to connect with their past while stuck indoors due to COVID lockdowns.

“We see a lot of young adults now in their mid-20s and 30s revisiting Pokémon because they have such strong nostalgic feelings for it. It came out in this very impactful time in their early childhood.”

I Wanna Be the Very Best…

One of the reasons that so many adults have warm fuzzies for the franchise is the storytelling around it. Premiering in 1997, the anime story of Ash Ketchum and his quest to become a Pokémon master has been a constant companion of the franchise through 24 years and hundreds of episodes. It also had a tremendous impact on the woman who would one day voice the young hero of Pallet Town.

“It was hard for me even as a kid to see it as a fad, because of the show,” Sarah Natochenny says. “It had heart, relatable characters, and adorable, unique creatures. This wasn’t just a game or set of toys. Pokémon had a story.”

Natochenny is an artist with eclectic talents and interests. After winning a bronze medal at the Junior Olympics in rhythmic gymnastics in 1999, she studied at the Strasberg Theater Institute for four years while also doing improv at UCB, and taking voice and dance classes on the side. In 2006, she auditioned for the role of Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon anime’s English dub, taking over for the role’s progenitor, Veronica Taylor.

“Pokémon was the biggest job I booked. It was only my second voiceover job, after a medical industrial,” Natochenny says. “I was the perfect age when Pokémon first came to America, and I loved the show and remember begging my parents for the cards. I had one deck. I have no idea where it is or whether or not there was a million-dollar card in there.”

Since 2006, Natochenny has voiced Ash, his mom Delia, along with a host of other human and Pokémon characters (Buneary being a particular favorite because it’s very cute). As part of the Pokémon 25th anniversary, Natochenny is most looking forward to wrapping up work on Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle, along with some of the other planned festivities. 

“I’m looking forward to celebrating with fans and continuing to bring joy to people who grew up with my portrayal of their favorite character. I’ll also probably dance to the music that comes out, so tune in to my social media to see if those dance classes paid off,” she says. 

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25 Years of Pokémon

As Natochenny suggests, The Pokémon Company indeed has big plans—musical and otherwise—for the franchise’s 25th anniversary.

The team has been working on the celebration for over a year and has partnered with UMG and Katy Perry for a year-long musical campaign called P25 Music. Other corporate partners include Build-A-Bear Workshop, General Mills, Levi’s, McDonald’s, Jazwares, Scholastic, Mattel, Funko, PowerA, and The Wand Company (which is manufacturing a lifelike Poké Ball). And there are still more announcements to come.

“All I can say is, stay tuned because the rest of the year is going to be quite exciting with more surprises. Pokémon likes to surprise its fans,” Benkwitt says.

One thing that wouldn’t surprise its fans is if Pokémon one day observed a 50th- anniversary celebration, or even a centennial. It certainly wouldn’t surprise Tobin, who is still an early education professor, now at the University of Georgia.

“I’m not surprised that [Pokémon] has lasted this long in the sense that I think it’s really good,” he says. “It was really cleverly designed and it has a really rich narrative. I’m happy to see that it’s made it.”

Shop Pokémon on eBay today!

The post Why Pokémon Has Endured For 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[ericvick]

BioNTech’s COVID-19 Vaccine May Face Stiff Competition, Says 5-Star Analyst

TipRanks

3 U.S. Cannabis Stocks Gearing up for Growth; Cantor Says ‘Buy’

At the end of 2018, Canada fully legalized cannabis, nationwide, for both medical and recreational use. With the incoming Biden Administration, the US is expected to follow suit with Federal-level legalization, or at least formal decriminalization, sometime in the next four years. An exact timetable is impossible to predict; much will depend on the partisan makeup of Congress after the Georgia Senate runoff vote in early January.For now, cannabis legalization in the US is something of a checkerboard. Most states have at least partial legalization, with only Idaho and Nebraska holding out. Eleven states have made cannabis fully legal for all adults; the remaining 37 states have some form of partial medical use, and even Nebraska has decriminalized the substance. Under Federal law, cannabis remains an illegal controlled substance.Cantor analyst Pablo Zuanic recently met with several cannabis industry execs and came back with a few takeaways.”[The] speakers believe that under a Biden WH and Republican-controlled Senate, banking reform would pass in early 2021 and would be included in a COVID relief package […] In general, both speakers believe measured progression in legislation is the best path at the federal level, and expect a version of the STATES act (making cannabis federally permissible) to pass the Senate post the next midterms (this could take place sooner in the event of a 50-50 Senate split and a Biden WH). Other changes (descheduling, federal legalization) may take longer,” Zuanic noted.Prepping for the possible changes, Zuanic has also been reviewing several cannabis stocks operating in the American market. Using the TipRanks database, we’ve pulled up the stats on three such stocks, which show the classic ‘growth stock’ profile: plenty of upside potential, recent strong share appreciation, and a Strong Buy rating from the analyst consensus. Curaleaf (CURLF)We’ll start with Curaleaf which, with a $7.7 billion market cap, is one of the largest cannabis companies around. By revenue, Curaleaf is the world’s largest cannabis producer, a position it cemented with the acquisition, earlier this year, of private competitor Grassroots. Curaleaf has operations in 23 states, including 30 processing facilities, 88 dispensaries, and 134 dispensary licenses. Curaleaf grows its product in 22 cultivation sites, with a combined 1.6 million square feet of cultivation capacity.Curaleaf’s performance this year, both in financial results and share appreciation, show the potential of the cannabis market in the US. The company reported $193.2 million in Q3 revenue, for a 59% sequential gain and even more impressive 164% year-over-year growth. The gains were powered by retail revenue, which grew 3x year-over-year to 135.3 million and wholesale revenue, which saw a massive 7x yoy gain to $45 million. While Curaleaf reported a net loss for Q3, that loss was only 1 cent per share, where analysts had expected twice that amount.Curaleaf shares are up 85% year-to-date. While trading in the company has been volatile, it has regained all of its COVID related losses from last winter.Covering this stock for Cantor, Zuanic writes, “We believe the company’s scale advantage, ability to raise funds ($1Bn shelf), and continued store and cultivation expansion, all warrant a valuation premium to peers… [Curaleaf] did not provide guidance for 2021, but the assumption is that it would post growth over the $1Bn annualized figure with which it will likely exit 2020.”Backing this bullish stance, Zuanic gives the stock an Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating, and his $20 price target suggests it has room for 71% growth in 2021. (To watch Zuanic’s track record, click here)Overall, CURLF shares get a Strong Buy rating from the analyst consensus, based on an 8 to 1 mix of Buy versus Hold reviews. The shares are trading at $11.69, and their $14.87 average price target implies a one-year upside potential of 27%. (See Curaleaf stock analysis on TipRanks)Green Thumb (GTBIF)Green Thumb is a Canadian company that has been expanding its foothold in the US market. While Canada’s nationwide legalization regime gives it an advantage over the fragmented, the US is a far larger market, with nearly 10x Canada’s population. Green Thumb’s products include edibles, pre-rolled joints, and vapes, along with a range of CBD-infused wellness items aimed at the home healthcare market. In the past two months, the company’s market cap has expanded from $3.3 billion to $4.6 billion.That market cap growth has been fueled by a massive share appreciation. GTBIF bottomed out in March, at the height of the coronavirus crisis, and is up 426% since then. Year-to-date, the stock is up 120%.That share growth, in turn, has been powered by strong revenues through 2020. In fact, Green Thumb’s Q1 top line showed a 35% sequential gain, at a time when many companies were registering quarter-over-quarter losses. GTBIF has continued to growth revenues since then, with Q3’s top line coming in at $157.1 million, up 131% year-over-year and 31% from Q2. These strong revenues yielded a Q3 EPS of 4 cents per share, derived from total net income of $9.6 million.In his note on Green Thumb, Zuanic reiterates his Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating, and sets a price target of $35 to indicate a 62% upside in the coming year.Backing his outlook, Zuanic writes, “We estimate that there is at least 20% upside to 2021 consensus sales estimates […] Given the profitability trackrecord, growth potential, and franchise strength, we think valuation multiples well above CPG stocks would be deserved (CPG multiples are ~20x EBITDA on average). Also, with federal permissibility still 2-4 years out, the larger MSOs have a window before CPG or the larger Canadian companies (the well-funded ones) can get involved in the US market in a major way. All this should be factored into the stock’s valuation.”Overall, Green Thumb has a unanimous analyst consensus rating, showing that Wall Street agrees with Zuanic’s views. The stock has no fewer than 8 Buy reviews in recent weeks. The average price target is $30.81, which suggests a 43% upside potential. (See Green Thumb’s stock analysis on TipRanks)Cresco Labs (CRLBF)Last but not least is Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based cannabis company with operations in the medical marijuana sector. The company markets its products in retail stores under the Sunnyside* brand, with licenses in 6 states: Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Cresco full product line-up includes eight other brand names, offering everything from buds, joints, and edibles to vapes and gummies. Counting all production facilities, retail licenses, and operational dispensaries, Cresco has a presence in 9 states.Cresco has shown strong growth in 2020. The stock is up 48% year-to-date, and there are still another three weeks of trading before year’s end. The gains have fully erased losses taken early in the COVID pandemic.Cresco has posted Q3 revenues of $153.3 million, a company quarterly record. The top line result was $59 million higher than the previous quarter, for a 63% sequential gain. The revenues rested on a foundation of strong retail sales, which totaled $90.5 million in the quarter. Cresco’s quarterly earnings are up from $66.4 million in Q1, a 130% gain year-to-date.Pablo Zuanic notes the company’s retail success in his note on the stock. He says, “Cresco beat our above consensus sales estimate by 23% on market share gains in wholesale in states like IL, PA, and CA, and continued IL retail outperformance… The branded wholesale model (near 60% of sales vs. 25% at peers) and depth (leadership in key states, with wholesale share above 20% in IL/PA) over time could lead to a premium over peers, in our view… As we project into 4Q, we model at least the same share levels per state in 3Q plus underlying market growth. In CA the company is gaining share per store (existing customers) as well as adding new retail customers.”These comments back up Zuanic’s Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating. His price target, of $18, indicates confidence in 77% growth potential for next year. With 5 Buy reviews overbalancing a single Hold, Cresco is our third Strong Buy cannabis stock. At a current trading price of $10.12, the $14.61 average price target gives a one-year upside of 44%. (See Cresco’s stock analysis on TipRanks)To find good ideas for cannabis stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

#5Star #Analyst #BioNTechs #Competition #COVID19 #Face #Stiff #Vaccine

[theseadagiodays]

May 19, 2020

The Art of Upcycling 

In 1995, as the culmination of my doctoral work, I’d planned a fairly complex graduate recital of duets with artists from four different mediums (dance, poetry, film, & painting).  But, when nearly all of my collaborators fell through, just 6 weeks before the performance, my mentor told me a Duke Ellington story that has informed my resiliency ever since.  Apparently, Duke was coaching an emerging conductor as he led a big band with limited instrumentalists.  When his mentee asked, “How am I supposed to conduct this song with only one sax, two trumpets, a bass, no drums and no trombones?” Duke replied, “You gotta work with what you got!”.  Whether we like it or not, Covid has asked many of us to “make do” with less than the usual resources available to us.  Botched DIY haircuts and suffocating, Mcguyvered facemasks have been a few low points in our upcycling attempts.  

But there have been many more examples of highly inventive, and even elegant solutions that have emerged.   In fact, the expansiveness of the creativity that is currently happening is in direct inverse proportion to the limiting constraints of our present circumstances.

The industry that has perhaps most inventively and profitably capitalized on the current DIY trend is the upcycled fashion world.  Businesses like Depop, which sell primarily upcycled or reconstructed clothes online, have seen a 65% increase in sales since March. Some highlights from their site include Manchester artist, Sam Nowell’s trench coats made from discarded bar towels (pictured above): https://www.instagram.com/samnowellstudios/; and New Mexico seamstress, Jeremy Salazar’s handpainted ski overalls (below): https://www.depop.com/happyxloco/.

My friend Katya’s very stylish daughters, Vanessa and Natalia, have got in on the action, too, with their repurposed bedsheet Met Gala ballgowns.

I’ve always been a huge fan of repurposed art projects like these. And, as a lifelong environmentalist and musician, I’ve found ways to intersect my passions in some of our own upcycling projects.  Below, is an interactive music wall that Instruments of Change built out of trash in 2017.

Street Beats, a pop-up installation on the Arbutus Greenway, funded by VIVA Vancouver 

I must confess that this project would not have been possible without the impressive skills of composer/construction expert, Paul Snider, since all the handy genes in my family went to my brother instead of me.

My industrious brother, Gregg, and the identical dog yurt that he built for his pet Cauli, during quarantine, to match his Catskills home which he also renovated entirely on his own

However, my lack of fix-it skills does not stop me from being constantly inspired by websites like this (https://www.nixxitjunk.com/post/25-ideas-to-revive-your-junk-and-keep-you-inspired-during-quarantine), because it allows even those of us who don’t know the difference between a nut and a bolt to manage their basic instructions.  So, if you’re wondering what to do with that build-up of wine corks, coke bottles, or unread books you’ve accumulated while stuck at home, this article has tons of upcycled ideas to sort through.

May 20, 2020

Homegrown Goodness

Textiles and furniture have not been the only mediums repurposed during Covid.  This period has also seen a huge resurgence in urban gardening, using many upcycled approaches.  Maybe this is because the current rules, restricting human touch, have us all hungry to work with our hands. Not to mention the fact that gardening provides a more autonomous alternative to feeding ourselves, while we all try to limit our trips to the grocery store.  Consequently, apartment dwellers with little more than an asphalt parking spot for land, have found ways to plant flowers, grow vegetables and keep bees.  

This follows a pattern that emerged during former social crises, seen in the Victory Gardens that cropped up all over North America, after both World Wars.  

So, if you’re eager to farm in your own backyard, here’s another great site with “harvest at home” tips ranging from DIY bee hotels (above) to upcycled jean planters (below).

https://seedpillproject.wordpress.com

May 21, 2020

Private Serenades

“When all you want is pancakes but you just get eggs.”   That was the first line of a song I collaboratively wrote with one of our Lullaby Project participants a few years ago.  In the lyrics of the chorus, the self-comforting strategy for life’s disappointing moments, which this mom shared with her children, has really helped me in the past few months.  “Let it out, move right on, let it go.”  

So, in an effort to relinquish any less-than feelings I’ve experienced during our “distanced” reality, the first step has been to voice them.  And for me, what needs to be cleared right now is my complicated relationship with the new member of our household.  His name starts with a letter near the end of the alphabet.  And while Geoff, as someone with a fairly common name, has always secretly wished for a pseudonym that could start with X, it’s not Xenon, his alter ego, that I’m referring to.  It’s Zoom.  I imagine most of you know him well by now, too.

Of course, I appreciate the facile way in which he has allowed me to connect with people near and far.  I have been continually surprised about the ways in which he has facilitated creative collaboration, beyond my wildest expectations.  I’ve been tickled by the novelty of the intercontinental cocktail hours and birthday parties he’s invited me to.  And I’ve taken full advantage of his livestream capacity to bring world-class performers right into my living room.  But, I must confess, I am an analog girl.  Pre-Covid, I probably attended 2 live art events a week.  My TV-viewing time amounted to little more than 30 minutes per day.  I’ve never used an e-reader and purchase a few paperbacks a month, because something about the printed page in my hand truly does bring the words more to life for me.  And I held out until a few years ago to get a cell phone, because a face-to-face coffee with a friend always appealed far more than a text.   So, some of these Zoom experiences have left me sadly cold.  It’s hard to admit this, because I’ve earnestly tried to mine the internet for artful experiences that could soothe myself and others during this time.  And it is certainly true that I have been moved, at times, by many generous offerings of music or dance or theatre - even once brought to tears. But, at least for me, the intangible quality that flesh and bones performance brings has just been undeniably absent.  This many not be the case for people who were already far more accustomed to digital forms of entertainment.  But, if I’m to be completely honest, rarely have I felt the hair stand up on my arms or goosebumps shiver up my spine the way live performance so often elicits.   And denial has never worked for me.  So, I guess now that I’ve “let it out”, I can “move right on”.  To a place of dreaming about what else might be possible within our current constraints.  And luckily, in full Duke Ellington style, many artists are already “working with what they’ve got” by responding to this quandary in very imaginative ways.

Flutist, Stephanie Winker playing for Annika Fink at the Stuttgart Airport

Fusing two professional domains that have been highly impacted by Covid, some clever Stuttgart musicians have been “upcycling” the Covid concert experience by offering live performances at airport gates, in the most intimate way imaginable.  Solo artists have been giving private classical concerts to lucky Facebook raffle winners, as documented in this article, below.   https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/arts/music/stuttgart-airport-coronavirus-concert.html?fbclid=IwAR0yU8hDeHQXTY4JBCA96cU24CC3N2qyIPWdkmR6JdDQ4YY8BvkvCso_OtQ

For me, the universal striving that this sublime Bach Sonata expresses usually conjures quiet stirrings in my belly.  So, while I listen in this compromised digital format, to a tinnier version of what I know is this beautiful player’s fully-bodied tone resonating through the cavernous chamber of the airport, I can at least try to live vicariously through her audience-of-one who I imagine must be completely titillated by such a deeply personal and embodied experience of the music.   I can also take solace from the fact that safe alternatives like these, and others, will slowly begin to emerge as we hopefully enter the next phase of increased, though still socially-distant connections to art and to one another.

May 22, 2020

No Words

I have always loved to laugh.  But humor has recently become a palpable need.  Particulary at the end of the day or the week.  Latenight heroes like Colbert and Trevor Noah have become essential elixirs for me.  And even as a voracious reader, I’ve increasingly foregone my nightly reading habit, for an extra dose of their wit.  

We all need to be gentler with ourselves right now.  And we all need to feed ourselves what we can.  So, I just have to share this video, because everyone I know who has seen it finds it the next best medicine to a Covid vaccine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f7OwFqTnco

[anneedmonds]

Now That’s What I Call Summer! 2020

We’re having another heatwave here in the UK – in September! Honestly, this year must be breaking some kind of hours-of-sunshine record. It feels as though we’ve had the longest summer in history, starting in March and running all the way through into the autumn – we’ll be Trick or Treating wearing shorts and flip-flops at this rate. Imagine Mr AMR leading the kids about the dark streets in full beach regalia.

Knock knock..

“Trick or Treat!”

“Sod off you chancer – what are you supposed to be then? You’re not even scary.”

“I’ve come as a British holiday-maker trying to successfully go abroad somewhere hot!”

“Oh yeah, I get it. Nightmare mate. Have some Haribo.”

It’s a good job we’ve had some lengthy sunny spells, because holidays to exotic places haven’t really been on the cards, have they? Even if you managed to book one, the likelihood was that it would be cancelled by the time you flew out, or else you’d get there and all of the Covid rules would change and you’d have to hurry back in the dead of night, racing along the autoroutes like a compromised secret agent, albeit a compromised secret agent driving a Volvo estate with a yellow roofbox and two bikes tied to the back.

So thank God for the UK weather! A sentence I never thought I’d write. I’d like to celebrate summer 2020, if you don’t mind, because despite its shortcomings (you know, horrendous deaths, mass unemployment and serious political and social unrest, no biggies) it feels as though it has been, for many people I’ve spoken to, quite a unique time. Without sounding as though I’m about to chime some miniature cymbals above your heads and gently blow incense at your chakras, it seems that many have found the time to reflect and reset over the past six months. Reconnect with family members, examine the way they’ve been living and whether they want to continue with the same routine.

Here are some of the things I’ve noted down about Now That’s What I Call Summer! 2020 and why it may have been the best ever season of my life. Despite often wanting to stick a very long kebab skewer through one ear and push it out of the other side, mainly on the days that my kids got up pre-6am and then proceeded to scream about the fact that the special Cheerios bowls were still in the dishwasher.

Anything good, at all, has been twenty times better than it has ever been. It must be a coping mechanism in bad times – cling on to any shred of joy and amplify it. A bit like when you were in your early teens and you’d arrive at the shittest holiday Gite known to man, that had rats in the roof and a toilet inside an armoire like the lavatory version of Narnia, and your Mum (God bless her forever) would say “well this is nice isn’t it? Look! Someone left a brand new packet of biscuits next to the back door!”

Thus any short spell of intense sunshine has been met in our house with the exclamation, “we could be in Greece!” Any pop-in by a neighbour or short, socially distanced catch-up with a friend has been followed by a sappy look between us all and a “well that was lovely, wasn’t it? Isn’t it amazing to have lovely friends?” Even a quick exchange grabbed over a garden wall on our daily walk has filled us all with immense but OTT pleasure, like we’ve had all of our mental markers for enjoyment completely removed and replaced with the lowest possible benchmarks. “OH! LOOK! A butterfly, A BUTTERFLY! God isn’t the earth beautiful!”

So it goes without saying that the – quite lengthy – runs of heatwave have sent the pleasure sensors into absolute overdrive. First in Spring, for – well, almost the entire season – then again in summer proper, weeks and weeks of uninterrupted, baking hot sun that threatened to kill off everyone’s gardens that they’d spent all of their going out money doing up, but did we care? No we did not. We thanked the weather Gods that at least something in 2020 was going our way.

Time has passed more slowly. Especially for those who had to shield for health reasons. Or those with dependents. Or people who have been wondering, painfully, day after day whether or not they still have a job. Or people who have a business that was slowly, tick by tock, going down the pan. Even for those with no immediate life concern, time went slowly, I’d imagine, because they were taking things day by day. No idea of the future, suddenly thrown into the tumultuous world of Covid uncertainty (unprecedented times!) and just tentatively edging forward, shuffle by shuffle, into the new normal. Nothing like Covid to make you stop in your tracks and take stock of things.

But with this slower pace comes the welcome opportunity to take stock of things – the fact that you eat the same three meals on rotation, perhaps, or that you would love to work with animals or that you absolutely detest your flatmate. All useful realisations, even if they can’t immediately be put right. Unless you start working at a zoo, ticking off your career goals, bring home a lion to maul your flatmate to death, thus taking care of the space-sharing problem and then… no. Too far. Nobody wants that meal added to their culinary repertoire.

We’ve spent more time outside. As lockdown started, we all became avid joggers, dog-walkers and cyclists. Going outside for exercise became the nation’s favourite pastime, “doing up the garden” was a close second. It’s no wonder we’ve noticed the weather more and appreciated the sunshine hours. I suppose it’s also been easier for people to get outside because many haven’t been at work or have been working from home and not shuttered in their usual house-car-office-car-house routine. There are few better ways of lifting the spirits, I’ve found – even sitting on your doorstep for a few minutes in the sun can have a restorative effect, so imagine a whole summer spent outside!

And so, Summer 2020, I award you with the weirdest-yet-nicest season of my lifetime award. You’ve been the backdrop to the most frightening and frustrating world events, yet you showed up with the sunshine and made the bleak days more bearable. If you could just pass the memo to Winter 2020 then that would be great…

The post Now That’s What I Call Summer! 2020 appeared first on A Model Recommends.

©2020 " Now That’s What I Call Summer! 2020 published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[ladystylestores]

China Chalet, Fashion’s Studio 54 of the Instagram Era, Closes – WWD

https://pmcwwd.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/china-chalet-008.jpg?w=640&h=415&crop=1

For the last decade on cold, winter Friday nights in New York City’s Financial District — long after the neighborhood’s army of suits and City Hall workers had packed up their briefcases for the weekend — a second wind would hit Lower Broadway.

In front of the second-story Chinese restaurant China Chalet, a line of partygoers snaked north for blocks — their glitter eye shadow flaking off in sub-zero temperatures; eBayed vintage Dior bags, midriff tops and chain belts cocooned deep within sleeping bag coats.

While unknown to many, China Chalet was legend to an influential few — a carpeted Chinese restaurant by day and underground nightlife space by weekend night that was frequented by the kinds of New York counterculture communities whose style of dress is observed, exploited and commercialized by the larger fashion industry. What had been founded as a Cantonese establishment and banquet hall in 1975 organically became a haven for all walks of youth culture — with its owner Keith Ng renting the space for a considerably affordable fee, welcoming party organizers from a broad spectrum of sexual identities, ethnicities and economic means.

The scene at China Chalet.  Amy Lombard/WWD

In a time pre-pandemic when people were still allowed to congregate en-masse, China Chalet was the central gathering place for New York designers, stylists, gallerists, artists and personalities. So it was a shock this past weekend when news broke that the 45-year-old institution was closing — another casualty of the coronavirus’ economic wreckage. China Chalet became a trending topic on Twitter and will, by many accounts, be remembered as the Studio 54 of the “BC” — or before coronavirus — era.

It took Ng, a Cantonese immigrant, to set the stage for a safe space party culture. “I don’t think you will find that many people out there gutsy and ballsy enough to allow their space to become what China Chalet was,” Opening Ceremony cofounder Humberto Leon said of Ng.

Boldface names were often in attendance, including Cardi B, Timothée Chalamet, Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, Kiko Mizuhara and even disgraced heiress and accused Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Famous or not, it was the parties’ mix of crowds and sense of sanctuary — particularly for those who felt disoriented in the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s election — that will remain in memory.

“Even though a good party at China Chalet was thrown by organizations geared toward a specific group of people, it was a mix there. It’s one of those cross-generational places that will go down in New York history as a place where everyone gathered,” said Arthur Soleimanpour, founder of community-driven media platform Parks Department.

Come nighttime, the restaurant’s cocktail lounge and pink, fluorescent-lit dining room would fill with all walks of city life and a thick cloud of cigarette smoke — sending revelers home with an ashtray stench that could only be removed by the most abrasive of shampoos. Without ventilation, the restaurant’s parquet-floor banquet hall, its makeshift dance floor, clocked August subway station temperatures and humidity in the dead of winter.

The scene at China Chalet.  Amy Lombard/WWD

“These kids put on the grandest of looks to stand in a stuffy, smoke-infested room. Not even your dry cleaner could probably take that out,” Raul Lopez, founder of Luar, said of the scene there. By 11 the next morning, the space had cleared out and China Chalet’s food was again available for order delivery platforms like Seamless, their sesame chicken reaching customers likely clueless of what had occurred there just hours before.

Ng declined multiple requests for an interview but humbly relayed through frequent party organizer Alexander Kellogg: “China Chalet is one of the many businesses affected by the national lockdown. I think we will let it go….We were just one of the many impacted.” In addition to the Financial District outpost, Ng also ran restaurants on the Upper East Side, Staten Island and was planning a jazz bar concept in Midtown — all of which have ceased operation.

Leon had held Opening Ceremony’s annual holiday parties at China Chalet since 2003 and would frequent events there as well. “I think it will go down as a space that will personify a period. It’s pretty sad because as I think about what place I would want to go right after coronavirus, China Chalet was on that list of places to have fun and see something familiar,” he said.

“The amount of people talking about it now and making memes about this Chinese restaurant in the Financial District is proof [of its longevity],” said Kellogg, who brokered party contracts on Ng’s behalf, including events for Vogue and Red Bull. “I don’t think people in the Seventies expected Studio 54 to be remembered as it was and I think China Chalet will be the same.” 

While pop-up events occurred at China Chalet throughout the year — increasingly by big-ticket hosts like Converse and Highsnobiety as the space’s reputation grew — it was Dese Escobar’s reoccurring “Glam” party, sometimes held in collaboration with Vaquera and Telfar, as well as Ty Sunderland’s monthly “Heaven on Earth” event for the LGBTQ community, that cemented China Chalet status as a counterculture Shangri-La.

The scene at China Chalet.  Amy Lombard/WWD

While acceptance was key to China Chalet’s status as a hot spot for the anti-establishment, so were the clothes worn there. Lopez labeled weekend partygoers there as “beautiful swans.”

“There was a mirrored hallway that was like a runway, people would sit down and look at each another. You had the opportunity to be seen so people saw it as an opportunity to get dressed up and keep fashion relevant,” Escobar recalled. “It’s where a lot of designers came to be inspired and cast models or take some notes. It was a place where people knew they could find young, fresh talent and inspiration.”

Communities have been pushed to mostly online-only contact during the COVID-19 crisis. But during its run, China Chalet was a sort of intermediary between social media and the real world — a common ground where virtual friends and foes could see each other in person, often meeting for the first time.

“For me, it represented a lot of Internet culture,” Sunderland said of his parties. “The parties became a meeting place for people to meet others with similar ideals and aesthetics — I heard so many cases like, ‘Oh we have followed each other on Twitter for five years and met at your party.’”

“It was very much about being seen and being seen in real life probably for the first time by a lot of people who only know you from Instagram. What you were wearing was always important,” Vaquera’s designers Patric DiCaprio, Claire Sullivan and Bryn Taubensee recalled of their time there over e-mail.

“It felt like a free space where rules didn’t apply. You could smoke inside, approach your crush, wear what you want. So in a way it was testing ground for new ideas: everyone was wasted and eager to see each other and to try something new. It was like this safe space to just go for it,” they added.

Leon summarized: “It always felt underground and somewhat gritty. Anything that comes after this would be a wannabe version.”

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[ruminativerabbi]

COVID-Era Diary, Week Thirteen

It really does occasionally happen that the inner world and the outer one meet unexpectedly in the context of a book, or even a movie or a television show, that you undertook on a whim to read or to watch but which then turns out almost amazingly able to serve as a bridge between your inner self and events going on in the outside world. I suppose everybody has had experiences like that, at least now and then! (And I speak as someone who actually was in the middle of Barbara Tuchman’s 1985 The Zimmerman Telegram—a book about how our nation entered the First World War based on the fantasy-notion that Germany and Mexico were planning a joint invasion of the United States mainland—as our nation embarked in the post-9/11 months on a war in Iraq based on the fantasy-notion regarding Saddam Hussein’s vast stores of weapons of mass destruction.) And now that weird coincidence of book and front-page has revisited me as I’ve been reading daily about the massive demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the same time I’ve been immersed in Mark Twain’s 1884 novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Widely acclaimed as one of the greatest American novels, Huckleberry Finn is about a lot of different things. At the heart of the story, however, is the relationship between Huck, a free white lad in antebellum Missouri, and Jim, an enslaved adult. (Jim’s age is not made explicit in the book, but he is a married man with children—so clearly far older than fourteen-year-old Huck.) They are, to say the least, an unlikely pair. They don’t always get along. They are clearly living in parallel universes, the kind that allow them to open their eyes in the same direction at the same time and still see entirely different things. And yet they are depicted as each other’s true intimate, as two people bound to each other by ties of friendship so deep that they themselves are unable to stand back far enough fully to understand the role they play in each other’s lives.

That their relationship is at the core of the book is obvious, the precisely way to characterize it, however, dramatically less so. Some authors have seen their bond as essentially erotic, which is to say homoerotic. (The great proponent of this point of view was Leslie Fiedler, notably in his 1948 essay, “Come Back to the Raft, A’gin, Huck Honey!”). Others have convincingly written about Jim and Huck as father and son. (Click here for an especially convincing exposition of this line of interpretation by Heather M. Shrum.) And still others, legion in their own right, have taken Huck and Jim to represent white and black America in all the complicatedness of their intertwined and un-unravelable past and present.

As ever, I wear my own eyeglasses when I read. And it was in that mode that I found myself thinking of Huckleberry Finn as a kind of moral coming-of-age tale that has at its core a question I have written about many times in this space: the question of just how reasonable it is to expect people to transcend the moral givens of their day and to see clearly things that everybody else in the world sees entirely differently. Fiedler took note of the theme of nudity in the book—Jim and Huck are regularly depicted as taking their clothes off to sun themselves in the nude or to swim naked in the Mississippi—Fiedler saw in that a hint of their essential gayness. And I agree that their nakedness is a key point—but to me it suggests an entirely different way into the book, one that takes Huck and Jim as the American version of Adam and Eve.

The first couple too are depicted as romping around the garden unclothed until they finally eat of the fruit of the Tree of Moral Discernment and, suddenly aware of their nakedness, become ashamed and try to cover themselves up with kilts fashioned of fig leaves. That is a key moment in the saga too—because it reminds us that Adam and Eve were not created as babies, but as grown-ups possessed of the psyches and concomitant moral bearing of children. But then they do grow up. And, tragic though the story may be from one vantage point, theirs is also a story of positive and desirable growth. They get dressed. They figure out sex. Yes, being kicked out of paradise is depicted as punishment for the sin of eating the forbidden fruit. But it leads, not to agony, but to adulthood, to growth, to responsibility. If they want to eat, they’re going to have to grow their own food. If they want to have shelter, they’re going to have to figure out how to build at least some rudimentary kind of roofed structure. And if they want the human race to endure, they’re going to have to figure out how to raise a family on their own. And that actually is what happens: the line in the Torah right after the one about their exile from Eden notes that, in the wake of their suddenly being thrust into adulthood, “Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived and eventually gave birth to their first son, to Cain.” And with that the games were on!

Huck too grows in the course of the story, and particularly in terms of his ability to see Jim not as a slave and not as a black Untermensch, but as a human being, as a friend, as (and this is key) as an equal. What’s interesting is that Huck is not depicted as disliking Jim even in the beginning of the book. Just the opposite is the case, in fact. But he is depicted as a child of his era and his place: in one place, he actually expresses surprise that black people can love their spouses and their children with the same level of commitment and passion that white people bring to those relationships. And when Huck learns that Jim is actually running away and trying to reach Illinois, the nearest non-slave state in which he could live as a free person, Huck is—at first—horrified that Jim is planning to commit what in pre-Civil-War Missouri was a serious crime.

But Huck grows in the course of the book. The turning point is the one mentioned above when he realizes the depth of emotion of which Jim is capable. And he slowly comes to see in his friend not just “Miss Watson’s big Negro” (and “Negro” is not the word he uses), but another human being. At one point, he perceives it to be his moral obligation to inform Miss Watson, who owns Jim (or rather owned him and whose will has already freed him, although Huck doesn’t know this yet)—to inform her that he knows where Jim is and can return him to his mistress. And then there is this moment of moral clarity in which he understands that the definition of morality has to do not with conforming to popularly-held attitudes but by resisting them. And so, holding his letter to Miss Watson in his hand, he steps over the line to adulthood: “I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’—and tore it up.” And with that, Huckleberry Finn becomes an adult.

I first read Huckleberry Finn when I was a teenager. It wasn’t taught in high school back then because the racial politics of the day made it unimaginable that a book the used the n-word more or less on every page be presented to schoolchildren in a positive light. (It probably still isn’t in most place.) Of course, that ban only made me more interested in reading the book, which I did. I don’t think I understood it fully back then, although I remember liking it very much. But I understand it now, and reading it in light of the events of these last weeks has been remarkable.

Like most of my readers, I’m sure, I was raised to have the greatest respect for the police in general and particularly for the individual policemen with whom I occasionally came into contact. And it is also true that I haven’t ever met a police officer who wasn’t courteous and friendly towards me. Like most of us, I have always been more than prepared to wave away any report of untoward activity on some specific officer’s part as the function of the obligation with which police officers are regularly faced to make split-second decisions that cannot wait for a period of prolonged moral rumination to conclude before action has to be taken. And, of course, I was raised watching dozens of television shows that featured police officers as heroes willing to put themselves in harm’s way regularly for the sake of making the public safe and secure.

I still think that the vast majority of police officers behave morally and bravely in the course of their careers. But I too have grown in these last weeks as I have found myself face to face not with one or two, but with too many examples of untoward police behavior towards black citizens for even someone as favorably pre-disposed to the police as myself simply to wave away as the random bad acts of a few bad apples. Clearly, we have a problem. And that problem needs to find a solution.

In the last few weeks, any number of possible reforms have been put forward. I don’t feel able, at least not yet, to determine which are realistic and which, unworkable or unfeasible. The idea of defunding or dismantling police departments, for example, would require that a clear alternative program to make secure and safe the citizenry be ready to be set in place instantly. But even less dramatic solutions are going to require an enormous amount of pre-planning, not to mention the willing buy-in of the actual men and women who serve in our nation’s police departments. What is clear to me now, however, is that there is a serious problem here that needs to be addressed and resolved. That that will happen eventually now seems clear to me as well. The nation’s sociologists, criminologists, police chiefs, and politicians will all have opinions about how best to address the issue once the daily demonstrations die down and, as our nation re-opens, people go back to work. But I just don’t see us returning to business as usual even after the George Floyd incident itself fades into history. I sense our nation at a real turning point…and one that will lead us to the creation of a finer and more just society. Huck grew up! And can and shall we all.

#George Floyd #Huckleberry Finn #Mark Twain