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Committing to a healthier diet is one thing, but man can only stand so much raw kale and undressed tofu before he starts demanding some flavor. True, we live in the golden age of recipe-sharing. But who can be bothered to scroll through a drugstore-receipt-length saga about some home-cooks husbands lactose intolerancejust to find a healthy-ish meal idea thats two hours and 12 ingredients too complicated? Somebody, maybe, but not you. Rather than struggle through overhauling your diet, you could just start making a few simple, everyday swaps thatll help you eat more mindfully, without sacrificing taste. Here are five of them.

Theres no denying the magic of a fried buffalo wing, but theres also no denying the health consequences of treating every day like it's Sunday when it comes to inhaling breaded, deep fried meats. Enter the air fryer, which works sort of like a convection oven to cook food with superheated air instead of boiling oil. More importantly, it takes a bunch of the work out of cooking.

Some experts suggest swapping traditionally fried foods for air-fried can cut your calorie intake by up to 80 percent. Note: That math won't be on your side if you swap all the foods you eat for air-fried ones. But its a good starting point for making chicken cutlet night a little healthier. Air fryers also cook faster than lard or oil does, so the hot-right-now method also gives you more time to savor the flavor.

In the Venn diagram of healthy and tasty, there aren't many beers that land in the middle. Deschutes Brewery, which hails from the craft-beer haven of Oregon, has managed to stick the landing on this trick, with low-calorie brews that are more than just fizzy, vaguely hoppy water. Their signature Wowza! hazy pale ale is packed with citrus flavor yet infinitely crushable, with just 100 calories and 4g of carbs. The light and crispy Da Shootz! is a summer pilsner thatll quench your thirst all year round. For something hoppier, their gluten-reduced Lil Squeezy Juicy Ale is a lighter alternative to the typically calorie-heavy IPA, at 145 calories per 12 ounces. All three make great replacements for the same old high-cal lagers. And yeah, the names are just really fun to say.

They say you cant have your cake and eat it, but nobody mentioned ice cream. Maybe thats because the frozen-treat landscape is ever expanding with improved, better-for-you recipes with more nutritious, novel ingredients. Now, when your streaming service asks you if you're still watching, at least the pint in your hand can be a more virtuous optionwhether lower calorie, familiar, or not even milk-based.

What's more, you might be doing your health a favor by sprinkling in dessert. A study published by the Journal of Consumer Psychology argues that goals that require extended inhibition of desires, such as weight loss and financial saving, can benefit from including planned hedonic deviations in the goal-striving plan. So as long as those moments of hedonism dont involve chain-smoking or competitive hot-dog eating, giving yourself planned cheat days can actually help you get healthier.

Recent research suggests that cooking at home is a smart way to cut down on excess fat, unhealthy additives, and harmful chemicals in your food. But did those researchers have the week you just had? When you just cant be bothered to cook, by all means, eat out. Just remember to dine out smartly.

This is easier to do today than ever, with so many restauranteurs taking a mindful approach to diners dietary restrictions and health priorities. Which is to say, go ahead and customize your meal within reason (without worrying about what your co-diners or your server thinks; it's 2020, it's cool). Get rid of unnecessary add-ons like extra cheese or sour cream. Given the option, sub white rice for the healthier side or base du jour.

When ordering a salad, pay attention to the nutrition content of the dressing, says registered dietician Ayla Gentiletti. Just two tablespoons of certain creamy dressings can add as much as 300 extra calories to your salad, she notes. When in doubt, choose a vinaigrette or cut your dressing use by adding fresh lemon or lime juice, Gentiletti says.

Or sweet potato-spiral it, or rice up your favorite vegetable. We've reached peak veggie swap: Zucchini got in early for being crazy low in calories and carbs, in addition to being packed with potassium, fiber, and vitamins A and C. But when youre craving a big bowl of your favorite carbonara or Mom's Sunday gravy, you can also swap starchy pastas for prepackaged sweet potato noodles or riced cauliflower or broccoli, which deliver plenty of fiber, iron, and vitamins while remaining a fun-to-eat delivery system for sauce, protein, and flavor. Pour some turkey meatballs with teriyaki sauce over some riced veggies and youll be jet-skiing off to flavor country in no time.

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5 Easy Healthy Food Swaps That Still Taste Great - Esquire

Executive Summary

Its normal to feel a bit of disappointment after starting a new job. After all, youve likely pinned a lot of hopes on this new opportunity. But before you decide whether to stick it out or start sending out resumes again, consider a few things. Just because you dont know how to do all of the tasks of your new job, doesnt mean you shouldnt be in the job at all. Ask for help early on and assume that everyone believes learning is a fundamental part of succeeding in the new position. It may be helpful to keep a running log of your performance so that you can determine whether you are actually making progress even when you feel like youre not. If you feel unsatisfied in the job, consider whether theres a mismatch between your values and the organizations. This can take time to assess but if there isnt a fit, its often hard to remedy. And be careful you dont stick out a bad situation for too long because of a resistance to change. If after six months to a year, you feel like the job is a poor fit for you, then you have to be willing to act.

Starting a new job is often a hopeful experience. In the weeks leading up to your first day, youre likely to think about the impact youll make, the relationships youll forge, and the ways in which youll succeed. The first few weeks in the new position may be disappointing however, and many people wonder at that point if they made the right decision.

This unpleasant transition from hopes and dreams to reality makes sense from a psychological perspective. Research on construal level theory suggests that we treat things further away from us (in time or physical distance) more abstractly than things that are close up. Before you start a new job, youre often more focused on the abstract potential than on the actual tasks youll be doing. Once youre in the new position, you may be mired in the day-to-day specifics, which may make it harder to see the contribution you hoped to make.

Youre also often focused on the desirable characteristics of a new job before you start. That can create a motivational state called a promotion focus, which makes you more sensitive to positive things in your environment. But once you start work and there are responsibilities you have to deal with, youre more likely to adapt a prevention focus, which naturally focuses on the negative things. The perfect job doesnt feel as perfect anymore.

This disappointment can make you feel like the new role is a mistake. And sometimes a position isnt a right fit. So how do you tell the difference between normal disappointment and adjustment and signs that the job truly isnt working out? Before you decide that you should look for something new, here are three things to consider.

One reason why the new job may feel wrong is that there are elements you feel unprepared for. Of course, you dont know the policies and procedures of the new workplace, and it will take time to get acclimated. But there will also be tasks that you dont know how to do.

Many people in new roles suffer from a variation of imposter syndrome, in which they feel like theyve risen into a position theyre not qualified to take. That can make you feel as though the tasks you dont know how to do are a sign that you shouldnt be in the job at all.

Its important to ask for help with new tasks early on and to assume that everyone believes learning is a fundamental part of succeeding in the new position. When you feel bad that you arent performing well, treat that as an opportunity for growth rather than a sign that you are failing.

Even if you adopt this kind of growth mindset, your progress will likely be slower than you want it to be. A well-studied phenomenon in psychology is the learning curve, in which you make fast initial progress when learning something new, but when it comes time to get polished at the details of what you are learning, your progress slows.

When the learning curve flattens out, its often hard to detect progress and you may begin to feel like you are not cut out for the job. Instead, find some metrics that allow you to measure what you are accomplishing and learning. Keep a running log of your performance so that you can determine whether you are actually making progress even when you feel like youre not.

Even when you feel like youre succeeding at the individual tasks of the job, you may find the overall work unsatisfying. One of the hardest things to figure out about a company during the application and interview process is the set of underlying values the firm promotes.

While research by Shalom Schwartz and his colleagues has shown that there are universal values across cultures, each person and organization emphasize different ones. Cultures promote particular values, but individuals adopt values based on their underlying personality characteristics and their experiences.

For example, some people value benevolence, in which they want to do good things for other people, while others value achievement, in which they want to be recognized for their success. Some people value tradition and want to uphold the way things have always been done, while others value hedonism and want to experience pleasure.

If you work for a company that promotes very different values than the ones you hold, then youre likely to feel unsettled and dissatisfied at work. It can take time to determine whether there is a match between the companys values and your own, so dont jump to conclusions. But, if you do detect a significant mismatch, that could be a sign that you may want to consider working elsewhere.

You certainly dont want to make a hasty decision about whether a new job is a good fit. It can take several months to determine whether you are progressing in what you need to learn to be good at your job. And it also takes time to really understand the values of the firm you work for.

But, if youve been working for six months to a year and feel like the job is a poor fit for you, then you also have to be willing to act. Because of a status quo bias, we have a tendency to stick with bad decisions for too long whether they are poor investments, bad relationships, or a job that isnt a good fit. We dont like making changes because doing so requires admitting an error and facing uncertainty (while the status quo is a known option).

Build some energy to make a change. Find an advisor, mentor, or coach to help you with this process. Often, the fear that comes with choosing an uncertain option will look worse to you than it does to someone else. A mentor can help you to see the advantages of making a change and can give you advice for navigating the uncertainty that comes from choosing a new path.

Even when youre hopeful about a new job, its normal to experience some disappointment at first. So think carefully about what youre experiencing so you can distinguish whats your brain adjusting to the new situation and what are true signs that its time to cut your losses and move on.

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Give It Time Before Deciding You Hate Your New Job - Harvard Business Review

Quietly leaving after a purely physical sexual encounter is guilt-ridden enough when it occurs in the vacuum of one's own emotions, on display for nobody.

It becomes exponentially worse when the act of leaving involves immediately confronting the fallout of another purely physical sexual encounter.

And both partners are related.

The "walk of shame" is a cultural institution. The libido-fueled cloud of desire from the prior evening faded sometime in the night while both parties slept.

In the morning after no strings attached, transactional sex, there is one goal on a person's mind: remain invisible, get home without interacting with anybody and reflect in the shower.

BlewOffMyLegOffas the master of ungraceful exit is known on Redditbegins his hook-up story by establishing the setting: a place where transactional sex abounds.

The foreshadowing here is clear.

He continues on to the sexual encounter at hand, no doubt sparked by a dating app.

"Stupidly," used here, is likely the product of hindsight.

Based on the tale thus far, this man does not appear to be prudish at such a moment in the date.

"Follow your gut" has never felt like such good advice.

BlewOffMyLegOff had the solution in his grasp; he smelled that things were awry.

But he pressed on toward hedonism and the inevitable come down (which would strangely involve eggs, as the reader will learn).

Needless to say, the Reddit community was way more positive about the whole thing, tossing around jokes and questions.

After all, it's far easier to derive enjoyment when you're not the one locked into eye contact with an old flame, a phoenix rising from the ashes and you just had sex with mama bird.

First, there were outlandish suggestions.

Some got over their laughter and swooped in with some logic and reasoning.

Nerds.

It is unclear where the narrator of this story ultimately ate breakfast. Maybe there's a story there too.

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Guy Mortified After Realizing He Just Hooked Up With A Woman Whose Daughter He Had Recently Slept With - Comic Sands

Gerry GoodsteinTimon of Athens is quite possibly the weirdest play in the Shakespeare canon. Based loosely on the life of the ancient misanthrope described in Plutarch, theres no record of it ever being performed or published in Shakespeares lifetime. Many regard it as an unfinished work nearly lost to history, as it was only a late addition to the posthumously published First Folio of 1623. While both Herman Melville and Karl Marx have sung its praises, it has never been widely popular, and even in cities which boast more than one theater company dedicated to the Bard, its rarely seen. Yet given its themes of wealth and excess, there has been a noticeable revival of interest since the global financial crisis of 2008the Folger staged a production in 2017.

Director Simon Godwin, who also coedited the script with Emily Burns, originally presented his Timon at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2018 before reviving it in January at New Yorks Theatre for a New Audience prior to its transfer to D.C.s Shakespeare Theatre Company where Godwin just took on the mantle of artistic director. In Godwins version, the scene is not Athens of antiquity, but a future Athens in which lavish displays of wealth distract from signs that the city is teetering on the precipice of socio-economic instability.

Scenic designer Soutra Gilmour has crafted a world of opulence that the figures seen in Gustav Klimts paintings would inhabit: a gigantic gold-leafed curtain, chandeliers, a long banquet table (also in gold-leaf ) being set by servants, all gorgeously illuminated by lighting designer Donald Holder. The first characters to speak are a painter (Zachary Fine) and a poet (Yonatan Gebeyehu) who, like the elites they serve, have been clothed by Gilmour in gold threads. They use their craft to honor their patronperhaps a stroke of self-satire, as Shakespeare and his company, by then known as the Kings Men, had an intimate relationship with the crown and royal court. The titular Timon (Kathryn Hunter) is a wealthy lady of Athens, taking on and forgiving the debts of both servants and her peers, and hosting lavish parties with music and dance. Michael Bruces compositions for clarinet, bouzouki, and voice evoke both Greek rebetiko and klezmer bulgars, while Jonathan Goddard choreographs an intoxicated dance inspired by the Balkan Peninsulas circular folk dances.

After the party, the bills are due. Timons charity and hedonism were both on credit, and none of her beneficiaries are willing to fill the collection box. Bankrupt, Timons philanthropy becomes misanthropy and she trades her golden palace for a dirty hole in the ground. Like her cynical philosopher friend Apemantus (Arnie Burton, dressed as a middle-aged punk rocker in a black cardigan and a Patti Smith T-shirt), she now subsists entirely on root vegetables (he prefers parsnips; she carrots). When she does find gold, she does not seek to restore her standingbut to destroy Athens, turning Alcibiades (Elia Monte-Brown) blackclad anarchist drum corps protesting economic inequity into an armed-to-theteeth nihilist militia prepared to march into the city and with mans blood paint the ground.

Even in his other Jacobean-era collaborations with Thomas Middleton, Shakespeare is never more pessimistic. Its a puzzle as to what two dramatists who enjoyed King James favor were thinking about the politics of the time. But as modernist as it seems, prefiguring the gnomic existentialism of Samuel Beckett and the class struggle of Bertolt Brecht by centuries, it is also a puzzle for today. What to make of the anarchists affections for a now down-and-out member of the aristocracy? The elites of Athens did not consider Timon too big to fail, and only invited her back into their ranks so she might call off Alcibiades armies.

While the production boasts an excellent cast, they are constantly in the shadow of Kathryn Hunter in the lead role. Despite her diminutive stature, she is an imposing presence, with a voice that growls and purrs yet speaks with classical diction. But it is her mastery of physical theater that ensures that she is always the center of the spectacle. She is uninhibited with bawdy comedy, but with every flutter of her fingers or split-second cantilevered pose she etches her performance into the audience's memory.

To March 22 at 450 7th St. NW. $35$112. (202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org.

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Timon of Athens at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Reviewed - Washington City Paper

Cocktails, craft gin and now no-alcohol bars may be fighting for attention in London, but the UK capital is still a wine city.

It has been the focus of the worlds wine trade since long before the Bordeaux region was governed by the English crown in the Middle Ages.

Today, visitors to London can choose from hipster wine bars in the citys trendy eastern quarter, some of the worlds most eclectic restaurant wine lists and wine stores staffed by unusually knowledgeable and enthusiastic wine geeks. And, if you can score an invite, the city now has at least three private members clubs devoted to wine. Here are some places to look out for:

67 Pall Mall, Londons first private members club for wine lovers, in the heart of St Jamess, boasts a far, far wider array of fine wines 1,000 available by the gossamer-thin Zalto glass than any of the traditional gentlemens clubs in the vicinity. Women are welcome and members may store their own wines in its cellars.

This also applies to the newer Oswalds club, a wine-soaked, more spacious sister of proprietor Robin Birleys 5 Hertford Street, with fine wines at such low prices you could, in effect, save your membership fee with a single dinner.

Trade in Soho is more raffish, aimed at hospitality professionals who want to drink great wine after work.

Russian-owned Hedonism Wines in Mayfair, a shop that is effectively a luxurious wine cave, offers visitors a frequently changing roster of 48 wine treasures available to taste (for a fee). It has spawned a restaurant on Piccadilly, Hide, where customers can order any wine to be ferried round from Hedonisms shelves as well as those on the restaurants list.

The other obvious magnet for wine browsers is Berry Bros & Rudds new shop, challengingly across the street from 67 Pall Mall. Its not quite as atmospheric, nor nearly as ancient, as this family companys original premises round the corner at 3 St Jamess Street but, like Hedonism, its one of remarkably few places in London where you can buy all that fine wine that is traded in and around the capital by the single bottle.

Another possibility is one of the five Lea & Sandeman stores, in Chelsea, Fulham, Kensington, Barnes and Chiswick. Other small groups of wine shops include Jeroboams, Vagabond (whose stores double as wine bars) and The Sampler, both of which always have interesting wines on taste. Seek out Bottle Apostle and Theatre of Wine for a particularly idiosyncratic range.

A magnet for serious wine lovers is Noble Rot, a wine bar and restaurant in Bloomsbury and home of the ground-breaking wine magazine of the same name. Its proprietors are adding a second branch in Soho, on the site of the now-closed Gay Hussar restaurant, one of the most famous names in Londons political dining history.

Vinoteca, a small group of bustling wine bars with wine shops attached, has locations dotted across central London. Its wine selection traditionally has been particularly strong on Italy a much-needed specialism in Francophile London.

Quality Wines on Farringdon Road is run like a salon for food and wine lovers, with a rotating selection of wines available by the glass and a small-plates menu featuring wine bar classics and staples from neighbouring modern British restaurant Quality Chop House. Disclosure: it is co-owned by our son Will Lander, but Gus Gluck, who previously ran two Vinoteca restaurants, is given complete and particularly effective autonomy over it.

Wine importer Les Caves de Pyrene was an early advocate of natural wines. Its wine bars Terroirs and Soif, in Charing Cross and Battersea respectively, have long championed these wines made by the simplest of methods, and are not quite as prevalent on the London wine scene as in, say, north-east Paris.

London even has its own wineries now places where wine enthusiasts can experience how wine is made, using not just English grapes but those from mainland Europe too. London Cru, based in a Victorian warehouse and former gin distillery in west London, offers wine tastings to the public as well as winemaker for a day events, guiding participants through tasting and blending wine. Blackbook, located in a railway arch in Battersea, also offers tours of the winery and tastings of its range of pinot noir and chardonnay.

Where are your favourite places to buy and drink wine in London? Wed love to hear in the comments below

Follow @FTGlobetrotter on Instagram for insider tips from our global network of correspondents to help you make the most of your work travel. Let us be your locals

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Tips from the Top: Jancis Robinsons best wine addresses in London - Financial Times

Its been a good six months since Euphoria left our screens, and honestly were still hurting from the loss of it. The hit HBO series, which follows a group of high school teenagers discovering sex, drugs and general hedonism, was all anybody could talk about last summer. Production -- thank God -- has finally begun on its follow-up, which means new episodes should hit our screens by the time 2020 draws to a close.

In the meantime, the shows breakout stars have become darlings of the fashion industry but none so flawlessly as Hunter Schafer. The actor, who plays trans teenager Jules in the series, has cemented herself as a veteran of the frow, from Givenchy to Burberry. Its a well deserved spot, considering she was walking these runways herself as a model just a few years prior.

But although fashion month is still fully in swing, Hunter took time out of her schedule to chat to Arca for a cover story in V Magazine, in which the two cultural pioneers dissected their respective works, and navigating their industries as trans people. In the interview, Hunter unpacked the ways in which Jules -- a girl embroiled in a strange flurry of identity, sexual agency and learning to feel loved in her body -- was a reflection of herself. She effectively acted, Hunter explains, as a consultant on her own character.

It didnt feel natural at first, Hunter says of putting such a personal story on show for an audience of millions. Part of surviving [that] experience was just, like, getting through shit. Letting it rest, and not addressing it. I think thats what I had been [doing] up to that point: just going and going, fighting to be on the other side of my transition. There was so much that I was working towards, and I was so excited to [be out of] North Carolina that I dont think Id ever looked back on [that experience]. The show, in a sense, gave her the chance to.

When they were shooting, Hunter tells how shed have ...to remember a new detail, to dig up an artifact from within myself, and hold onto that moment for the scene. Jules yearning to escape her home town and find someplace new correlates closely with Hunters own segue into the fashion world: she moved, at the age of 17, to New York and started afresh. Its an interesting mirror to her still unravelling plotline in Euphoria, and to Juless uncertain future.

I know she has dreams, [many of] which she stated in the first episode, Hunter says. Which is just what I did in a way: escaping to New York, and working or interning in fashion. And that was [part of the character] before I was even cast, so it was really freaky to see that written into the script.

So there we have it: maybe Euphorias second season will widen its world view, and hop states to portray the lives of its characters travelling even further afield. Well have to wait a few months to find out.

Link:

Euphorias Jules was based on Hunter Schafers teen years - i-D

Courtesy Christopher Bryant, Mobile

Its Mardi Gras time! The annual tradition will culminate tomorrow on fat Tuesday with parades, booze, moon pies, beads, and general hedonism, but where did this tradition come from? I know your first instinct is to say New Orleans, of course, since no city in the US more associated with Mardi Gras, but you may be interested to know that the first Mardi Gras celebrations in America didnt start in NoLa they started slightly to the East, in Mobile, Alabama.

Now before we discuss Mardi Gras in America, we have to discuss its continental roots and larger history. Mardi Gras is one of many iterations around the globe of Carnivale, which is technically the period between Epiphany and Shrove Tuesday/Ash Wednesday.

Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, by the way, is the celebration of the three magi actually making it to Bethlehem to give Jesus his presents and when Christ received the holy spirit. There was a dove and thats why the twelve days of Christmas are actually the twelve days after Christmas. But anyway! Back to Carnivale!

Most Carnivale traditions dont go on for that entire time (thank god), but the general idea is living it up before the fasting and prayer of Lent. Mardi Gras literally means Fat Tuesday and is the Tuesday well you get, well, fat before lent. (The Monday before is Lundi Gras). Its a very catholic thing, but of course like all good holiday traditions, it probably has deeper pagan roots in winter and early spring festivals like Saturnalia and Lupercalia where the Romans (who liked any excise to a party) would go wild.

Now to America. The first celebrants of Mardi Gras in America were French soldiers led by a guy by the name of Pierre Le Moyne dIberville. In 1699, they were exploring the area around was is now New Orleans. They came to a point around sixty miles upriver and made camp and realized it was Shrive Tuesday and names the spot Point Du Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday point!).

Now, Pierre was on this expedition with his younger brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, who went on to found a settlement in the same general area near the Gulf of Mexico, the first capital of French Louisiana Mobile. The first organized Mardi Gras celebration in America happened in Mobile in 1703. The capital of Louisiana was moved to New Orleans in 1723 (five years after the city was founded in 1718), but the Mardi Gras tradition in Mobile continued, mainly thanks to the parades and festivities as organized by mystic societies or krewes of which Mobile had the first.

Joe Cain day float in Mobile. Photo: Christopher Bryant.

While Mardi Gras continued as a tradition in much of the French-influenced and settled areas of the deep south, like New Orleans and Mobile, it wasnt always met with approval by the various controlling governments. First the Spanish and then the Americans either banned or tolerated Mardi Gras and the first official Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans didnt happen until 1837.

Mardi Gras in Mobile for its part had a similarly checkered history under various controlling governments, including the victorious Union forces that were occupying Mobile in 1868, when a man named Joe Cain, inspired by the Parades in New Orleans, decided to stage his own parade in front of Union troops dressed as a fiction Chickasaw Indian as a means of mocking them. The racial and historical context of that is complicated and fraught, but Joe Cain Day is still celebrated in Mobile with the peoples parade the only procession not run by a formal parade krewe.

Mardi Gras is a beloved tradition in Mobile and other strongly cajun southern cities, but thats not to say Mardi Gras is the same in those places as it is in New Orleans. For one thing, its much smaller and less of a tourist draw and tends to be a little more family-friendly and community-focused than its raucous cousin in Lousiana. But there are still beads, masks, and treats aplenty.

So whether youre enjoying King cakes or moon pies tomorrow when you throw on your green, gold, and purple, remember that the Mardi Gras we know and love today has deep roots and a fascinating history thats worth knowing.

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The Roots of Mardi Gras Arent Just in New Orleans - The Mary Sue

Died: February 17, 2020

ANDREW Weatherall, who has died of a pulmonary embolism aged 56, was a British musical polymath of wide-ranging tastes and skills, a DJ, producer, musician, songwriter, record-label owner and noted gentleman of style. He was as responsible as any other individual for the sound and style of British club and alternative music in the 1990s.

First coming to recognition through his DJ residency at the seminal London acid house club, Shoom, Weatheralls most enduring achievement came soon afterwards. As the main producer of the Glasgow-founded indie-rock group Primal Screams 1991 third album, Screamadelica, he was widely credited with a significant role in fusing the sounds of guitar-pop and euphoric acid house with elements of soul, gospel and psychedelic rock in a way which was both singular and would come to be much imitated.

The majority of songs on the record bore Weatheralls influence (often in tandem with Alex Paterson of The Orb and engineer Hugo Nicolson), including the enduring hymn to joyous hedonism, Loaded; essentially a remix of Primal Screams ballad Im Losing More Than Ill Ever Have, married to a loose beat taken from a remix of Edie Brickells song What I Am, a joyous, ska-style trumpet line, and a vocal sample of Peter Fonda from the 1966 cult Hells Angels film, The Wild Angels.

The album won the first Mercury Prize, and from this point on, guitar-based groups could often be heard declaring in interviews that there had always been a dance element to their music. Weatheralls influence could be heard trickling down through the 1990s in various ways. In the spirit of unbound hedonism employed by guitar groups such as Oasis and the Charlatans, and the arrival of arena-level electronic artists such as the Chemical Brothers, Orbital and Fatboy Slim, the spirit of Screamadelica was invoked.

The music archive site Discogs lists more than 400 remix entries for Weatherall. Among the most enduring and popular were his reworkings of the Happy Mondays Hallelujah; Saint Etiennes Neil Young cover Only Love Can Break Your Heart; My Bloody Valentines Soon; Flowered Ups Weekender, and The Future Sound of Londons Papua New Guinea. All helped define the sound of the early 1990s in British music.

As a producer he also worked with Beth Orton, James, and Glasgows One Dove, and as co-producer (with the band) of Kilsyth group The Twilight Sads No One Can Ever Know (2013). Between 1992 and 1995, he and studio engineers Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns were the acid house and dub reggae-influenced Sabres of Paradise (also the name of one of his labels), who released three albums and a number of singles; the single, Wilmot, and the debut album, Sabresonic, were minor hits.

As artist-in-residence with the publisher Faber & Faber, Weatherall created the mini-album Unreal City with author Michael Smith in 2013, and his final album, Qualia, arrived in 2017.

Weatheralls eclectic tastes in rockabilly, glam and punk were explored on the 2007 mix Sci-Fi-Lo-Fi Vol.1, released on Glasgows Soma label. He had an ongoing association with the city, most recently bringing his and Sean Johnstons A Love from Outer Space parties along for a regular residency. In an appreciation for the club site, Resident Advisor, Keith McIvor aka JD Twitch of celebrated Glasgow club Optimo (Espacio) remembered booking him for his seminal Edinburgh night, Pure, in the early 1990s.

With Andrew it was never, ever dull, he said. He had endless uproarious anecdotes and whimsical tales filled with arcane historical knowledge and much hilarity He did it his way, never forgetting the power and value of music A lifelong maverick.

Andrew James Weatherall was born in Windsor, Berkshire, in 1963 and raised in Slough. I had a very nice upbringing, but it was dull, he once told Uncut magazine. He played in a post-punk band, eventually escaping to London. Among other places, he lived and worked in Battersea and Shoreditch, his prodigious beard and distinctive dress sense placing him ahead of the gentrification of the latter area which eventually pushed him out to north London, an area he preferred for its raw reality. Invited to DJ at parties during the 1980s, Weatherall met Shooms Danny Rampling at one such event, and received an invite to the decks at Londons hottest club.

His hunger for music, art, intellectual stimulation and good conversation as many music journalists will attest was prodigious, and his devotion to the act of creation, which he considered a job but never a career, was enviable. Ive always been obsessed with style, not fashion, he would say, the David Bowie of the acid house generation.

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Obituary: Andrew Weatherall, music producer renowned for his groundbreaking work on Primal Scream's Screamadelica - HeraldScotland

Fish-out-of-water stories are nothing new, but with Californian Commando we might be getting one of the most extreme cases in recent memory.

The show focuses on 23 year old Van Hamilton (Kian Lawley), a spoiled rich kid from the golden state who is going on an exciting holiday to Finland. At least thats what he thinks. The holiday gets off to a bad start when Van gets knocked unconscious upon arriving in the country, and the next thing he knows he finds himself in an army barracks conscripted to the special forces.

Little does Van know that this was a setup from the start, with his parents shipping him off hoping that time in the army will reform their spoiled son.

On the surface, the shows premise doesnt quite sound like typical Finnish fare and thats by design.

Californian Commando is a comedy drama rather than a thriller, so it isnt as dark as a lot of Scandinavian content, notes Lisa Fidyka, senior scripted acquisitions manager at Red Arrow Studios International.

Despite its broader approach the show is targeted at younger adults and contains quite a lot of slapstick humour, says Fidyka the show is still reverent to its roots.

The series addresses the clash between the hedonism and individualism of youth and those traditional Nordic values about working for the common good, adds Fidyka.

Californian Commando has also been designed to be more accessible to western audiences. Fidyka says that the show is 80% in the English language and that its look and feel is more American than Finnish.

The producer also touts star Kian Lawley who received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for his performance in the go90 original Zac and Mia and co-runs a YouTube channel with over 3.7 million subscribers as being an asset that will definitely help drive the younger audiences.

The show is an original for Elisa Viihde, which has ordered a range of dramas to date such as Bullets and Shadow Lines. Writer and Fire Monkey Productions co-founder Mikko Pll said that Californian Commando is a good complement: I think they were really attracted to the idea of looking at the modern day army in a comedic fashion and through the lens of a Finnish-American pacifist who is forced to join the special forces.

Californian Commando joins Plls other series creations such as crime dramas Black Widows and Easy Living.

He continues: Elisa was 100% committed from the day we pitched the show, then Red Arrow Studios International got involved after reading the pilot script. We also got funding from the Finnish Film Foundation and Business Finland.

Should it prove a hit, Californian Commando will join an ever-growing list of stellar Nordic scripted output and momentum isnt slowing down for the region.

We expect the demand to continue, concludes Fidyka. There is great talent and storytelling coming out of that region and we dont see that changing anytime soon.

Producer: Fire Monkey Productions

Broadcaster/Platform: Elisa Viihde

Distributor: Red Arrow Studios International

Logline: A bratty American-Fin doesnt get the holiday hes hoping for when he gets conscripted into the army as soon as he lands, with his parents hoping the experience will turn their spoiled son into a real adult.

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Show of the week: Californian Commando - TBI Vision

The latest lifestyle, fashion and travel trends

Amsterdam is a capital synonymous with hedonism and debauchery, particularly in its infamous red light district.

Yet, tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the workers here will no longer be able to take a tour of the district under new regulations.

This new rule, which will be implemented from April 1, is an attempt to fight overtourism in De Wallen, where the red light district is found. While all organised tours within De Wallen were banned in January, the new regulation will disallow all Amsterdam-based tours to visit sex work windows.

Deputy Mayor Victor Everhardt said in a statement: It is disrespectful to treat sex workers as a tourist attraction, therefore tours at De Wallen will be banned. Tours outside the Red Light District will still be permitted, but only if guides and participants of tours adhere to the new, stricter rules. This will help to prevent disruptions for residents and businesses.

The best hotels in Amsterdam

Any tour guide found breaking these rules after the six week warning period will be fined 190 and the tour will be disbanded immediately. Three violations mean the guide will lose their permit and companies face penalties between 2,500 and 7,500.

While tourists are still free to wander this district on their own accord, Amsterdam has seen a boom in tourist activity in recent years. An estimated 19 million tourists visited the city (home to just 850,000) in 2018, a number expected to jump to 29 million visitors per year by 2025.

This is just the latest move by Amsterdams city council to fight overtourism, over the past two years the city has placed a limit on the amount of days residents can place their home on Airbnb for and tourist tax was raised on rooms at the start of this year.

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Amsterdams red light district tours will be banned from April - Evening Standard

She thought it was an opportunity for a relaxing Caribbean vacation.

Instead, for a few weeks in the late 2000s, she said she found herself squarely in a den of iniquity, captained by its hedonistic owner Winnipeg fashion mogul Peter Nygard at his compound in the Bahamas.

"I wasn't a part of the sexual lifestyle and I never witnessed any sex or sodomy but everybody went around topless," a former Winnipeg woman, who asked her name not be published, said Friday.

The woman said she was visiting the Nygard Cay compound as the guest of an employee.

"(Nygard) would have 'pamper parties' he had a (stripper's) pole on his plane... There was a lot of parties... I took one girl to a dentist once, and I saw a dental assistant and I said, 'I didn't recognize you with your clothes on.' I'd seen her at the pamper parties bouncing around, but now she looked totally professional."

Another time, at the dock as Nygard's yacht came in, the woman said she saw the multi-millionaire on the deck, with a woman performing a sex act on him.

SUPPLIED PHOTO

Nygard at his home in the Bahamas.

"He just stood up, zipped up his pants and that was it," she said. "I heard people asked for the morning-after pill I didn't even know what that was at the time."

Nygard, 78, is currently facing claims in a class-action civil lawsuit that he lured women some under the age of 18 to his Bahamian estate, where he drugged, assaulted, raped and sodomized them. The allegations of 10 women are listed in the 99-page lawsuit, filed in New York City.

Since news of the lawsuit went public more than a week ago, lawyers heading the court action say dozens of other possible victims have come forward, as well as numerous alleged witnesses.

No statement of defence has been filed, and the allegations haven't been proven in court.

Nygard through his lawyer has denied all of the allegations.

Meanwhile, the former Winnipeg woman said Friday she never saw any acts at Nygard Cay that weren't consensual. She said she didn't take in the nightlife there on a regular basis, and only ventured once into the compound's disco.

"No one ever came down asking for assistance," she said. "I didn't hear anybody being raped. If I had, I would have tried to help them.

SUPPLIED PHOTO

Nygard claims to have hosted many star-studded events at the residence.

"You have to remember: it was invite-only; no one snuck in there. The gates... have to be opened by security," she said. "People were there and (Nygard) knew they were there. They would take a photo of everyone going in and they would keep it.

"It wasn't just women anyone who went in had their photo taken."

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The woman said she wasn't just bothered by the hedonism she witnessed, but also the shoddy treatment of employees at the compound.

"There would be workers standing on two-by-fours on top of rocks washing the windows and there were a lot of windows there," she said. "But, if they were to complain, there were 20 people in line to take their jobs.

"It didn't matter which way you looked, there were always people trying to do what they could to survive... I was glad to leave."

More than a decade later, the woman said just hearing the Nygard name or seeing clothes from his fashion lines takes her back to those few weeks.

"I still wear his clothing, I like the quality of some of his clothes," she said. "But it's not somewhere I want to go back and visit."

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin RollasonReporter

Kevin Rollason is one of the more versatile reporters at the Winnipeg Free Press.Whether it is covering city hall, the law courts, or general reporting, Rollason can be counted on to not only answer the 5 Ws Who, What, When, Where and Why but to do it in an interesting and accessible way for readers.

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'I didn't recognize you with your clothes on': woman recounts visit to Nygard Cay - Winnipeg Free Press

Nearly five years have passed since Grimes ended her last album Art Angels with a reminder: If youre looking for a dream girl, Ill never be your dream girl. Few people seemed to grasp that lyric. Trigger happy at the sight of one of its favorite artists getting sucked into the absurdity of the late 2010s, music media (The FADER included) spun her hiatus into a saga: When Grimes mentioned new music, she was a headline. When Grimes expressed discontent about the industry, she was a headline. When Grimes started dating a technocrat, she was a headline and a class traitor and that was just the beginning. By the time would-be lead single We Appreciate Power dropped, nearly everyone seemed to doubt her intentions.

Rather than dial back those suspicions, on Miss Anthropocene, Claire Boucher plays with the idea that she just might be the villain we seem to want her to be. Conceptually, the album loosely emulates the software that the new gods use to design the simulation, pictured on its cover. Its coded in the space where self destruction and global destruction entwine, with an emphasis on the former. Each of the albums most explicitly pop moments are barbed with hedonism: the precision lash and sting of Violence, the Bollywood vertigo of 4M.

She punctuates My Name Is Dark with insomniac screams and then sings about listening to Smashing Pumpkins while watching over the city with bloodshot eyes. When she coos about imminent annihilation sounding so dope, it reads as both a mission statement for the album and a potent distillation of everything weve demanded from Grimes. Its pop excellence written from the brink of insanity.

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Grimes plays the villain we want her to be on Miss Anthropocene - The FADER

The Weeknds epochs can be clearly defined as pre- and post-Cant Feel My Face. The mysterious character of his mixtape trilogy cut an enigmatic figure lurking seedy club and hotel corridors, and producer Max Martin transformed him into a radio-friendly Kids Choice Award nominee, a progression that led to an eventual rebirth as a Daft Punk-retrofitted Starboy. He straddled the line on his last EP, My Dear Melancholy, but there has always been an explicit conflict between the volatile, shapeless R&B of his breakthrough and the sophisti-pop of his star turn.

The Weeknd did it Martins way on the upbeat, incandescent Blinding Lights, an obvious contender for Top 40 radio charts. Now hes reverting back to old habits for After Hours, the title track from his upcoming album. Well, sort ofwhile the track is moody, long, and somewhat restless, it is never as spellbinding as his old work nor as advanced as his newer material. Co-produced by the Weeknd, Trilogy mastermind Illangelo, frequent collaborator DeHeala, and singer-songwriter Mario Winans, the song opens with his old signature stylefalsetto, echoes, and recurrent tonesuntil suddenly it erupts into dance production. I turned into the man I used to be, he sings, but the transformation is incomplete, and he seems stuck halfway.

While the songs dark atmospherics are reminiscent of the Weeknds early music, there is a noticeable thematic shift: After Hours is an apology for who he was and a vow to change. It is a remorseful pivot away from unapologetic hedonism. I was running away from facin reality/Wastin all of my time on living my fantasies, he sings. This is the Weeknd at his most repentant and cliche, willing to give it all up just to hold her close. The irony is that the man hes apologizing for is the same emotionally abusive low-life featured on the albums lead single, Heartless. It seems these shifts in the Weeknds mood are as inevitable as the phases of the moon he prowls under.

Read more here:

After Hours by The Weeknd Review - Pitchfork

Iconic Barcelona festival OFFSnar reveals 2020 lineup for Get Losts Europen debut and Drumcode parties.

We are exactly four months ahead of the 2020 edition of the legendary OFFSnar festival. Less than a month ago, OFFSnar presented its phase 1 lineup including Innervisions and Amelie Lens; now the festival is back with the 2nd and last phase that welcomes Get Losts Europen debut and Drumcode. With its four-day parties, prepare to return to Barcelonas historic Poble Espanyol complex on June 18 to 21.

On Saturday 20th June Crosstown Rebels and OFFSnar will present the inaugural Get Lost party in Europe, led by the main-man himself Damian Lazarus. Located in three of Poble Espanyols iconic spaces (Monasterio, Carpa & Picnic, and La Terrazza) the party sees an epic lineup featuring Dubfire, Felix Da Housecat, Art Department, Bedouin, Acid Pauli and many more. Renowned for its bohemian atmosphere and immersive environments, Get Lost will bring a day and night of hedonism to OFFSnar. After having thrown parties in Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City over the past 15 years, this will be the first-ever outing in Europe.

Pairing with Get Lost on Saturday, Drumcode label will make its return to OFFSnar. The lineup features some of the biggest international artists and upcoming acts in the modern techno scene in tow. Joining label boss Adam Beyer will be Cirez D, the darker, techy-nuanced alter ego of Eric Prydz, plus a host of Drumcode family and friends in Ida Engberg, Victor Ruiz, Bart Skils, Layton Giordani Joel Mull, Wehbba and Raxon.

OFFSnar is the companion event of the annual Snar festival. With its four-day schedule, OFFSnar offers an unrivaled party experience in a truly breathtaking setting. Even if phase 2 has been revealed, more surprises are expected as lineups for Circoloco and the OFFSnar Special with Paul Kalkbrenner and Boris Brejcha are still to come. If this wasnt enough an additional party is yet to be revealed. With the series boasting showcases from the most forward-thinking labels and brands in electronic music, it attracts like-minded music lovers from across Europe for Summers most important party-week.

Starting at only 20, tickets for OFFSnar 2020 are now available from Resident Advisor.

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OFFSnar 2020 reveals lineups for Get Losts Europen debut and Drumcode - The Groove Cartel

"When Tim is telling this story [in the film] he gets choked up, because he said he'd never seen anything more compassionate," Lunch continues. "It was his friend, who then not only wrote me this incredible letter but also he got sober and has been sober ever since.

"That moment really flips the script of the documentary. It makes you go, 'Well of course, she's f---ing compassionate'."

I am always trying to get to the root of not only my own insanity, but this global and political patriarchal insanity.

Skyping from her Brooklyn apartment, Lunch speaks with the ravaged resonance of a woman who's been shouting all her life. Her musical output is staggering, from her noise-punk debut with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks in 1976 to countless other bands and collaborations (Rowland Howard, Sonic Youth, Die Haut)

Her spoken-word works are no less intense. Daddy Dearest from 1988 contextualises her rage in harrowing detail. The sexual violence began at her house when she was six or seven. She left at 16 and has been flipping that script ever since. The results are not for the faint-hearted.

"My goal has always been to try to make sense of those things that nobody else was talking about," she says, "whether it was familial trauma, imbalance in all power relationships, climate change [since 1984, for the record], the prison-industrial complex when Bill Clinton was president...

Retrovirus featuring Lydia Lunch (left).Credit:Jasmine Hurst

"I am always trying to get to the root of not only my own insanity, but this global and political patriarchal insanity. I still feel like I am the woman on the mountain with a bullhorn. I do feel like the town crier. And this is no time to stop crying," she adds with a dry cackle.

The ever-present gallows humour is one weapon that signifies Lunch's refusal to surrender power alongside the abrasion of her music, the unflinching content of "a pathological f--king truth-teller", and a truly ravenous hedonism.

Her "message of resistance," says Retrovirus guitarist Weasel Walter, is about "turning abuse outward instead of inward." Just don't infer victimhood, and nobody needs to get hurt.

"Oh please. Mine was far from the worst situation," she says. "By the age of nine, I was getting vindictive. I was actually becoming very murderous and having dreams every night of murdering my family."

She started writing at 12, she says, "so that I could actually defend myself. I also realised when I started reading Selby, Miller, Foucault, de Sade when I saw the pattern [of abuse], that it never starts with the person in your house. They had to be polluted by this behaviour. So once I recognised this, not only did that makes sense to me, but then I knew what path I had to take."

The phrase The War Is Never Over is an acknowledgement of eternal vigilance for those who have been on the wrong side of power. When she defines that as "any kind of persecution or abuse or trauma or prejudice or injustice," the size of her mission these last 45 years looms into view.

"Art is a salve to the universal trauma," she says. "If it burns in you, and you have to create, other people are going to be afflicted by the need to see or hear what it is that you're doing. Because people. Burn. Deeply."

Lydia Lunch's Retrovirus is at Melbourne's Corner Hotel on Friday, February 28, then Theatre Royal in Castlemaine on Saturday, and on to the Brisbane Hotel in Hobart on March 1.

Michael Dwyer is an arts and music writer

Originally posted here:

'This is no time to stop crying': punk's high priestess is back - The Sydney Morning Herald

What does being a mother really feel like? Clover Strouds powerhouse of a memoir gets closer than anything else I have read to answering that question. The motherhood she describes is the very antithesis of the sanitised, smiling vision we are sold in washing powder ads. There are no pastel colours here; Strouds mother-love is as raw and rare as cutting through the soft dark crimson of uncooked liver. When someone gives her new baby a stuffed toy monkey, she longs to surround him with more ancient and serious things: the Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The business of bringing a person into the world, after all, is not cute or clean or fluffy.

The book follows Stroud and her family through a tumultuous year, in which her fifth child, Lester, is born. We get a remarkable 360-degree view of many different stages of mothering, all happening at once: she lives through the passionate intensity of her first attachment with Lester, just as her eldest son, 16-year-old Jimmy, is in the process of separation, his adolescence compelling us further and further apart, once magnets, now repelled. Meanwhile her daughter Dolly is grappling with dyslexia and the onset of puberty. As Stroud battles through pregnancy, labour, breastfeeding, and meetings with the school about Jimmys weed habit, her third and fourth children, Dash and Evangeline, wheel about in a world of spilled cornflakes and imaginary cats.

Stroud was shortlisted for the Wainwright prize for nature writing for her debut memoir, The Wild Other. Her new book is nature writing, too; but this is nature as experienced from the inside. She excels in evoking the feral, instinctive forces that motherhood unleashes, which can be so difficult to explain or describe (hence the shocked refrain of new mothers: Nobody ever tells you!). And while she is acutely alive to its joys sexual, exhausting, earthy joys these are always intertwined with darkness and difficulty. Motherhood hurts, she writes. And I like to be hurt.

Childbirth itself is the ultimate expression of this heady cocktail of pleasure and pain. For Stroud, there is no question of an epidural: labour is and needs to be an extreme experience, which takes her to the brink of life and death, and feels to me like the very reason I was put on this planet. As the baby crowns, pain rips through her body and Stroud reaches down to press her clitoris. Just as being fucked so hard it hurts can feel good, this pain becomes something I recognise as clearly as I know myself. The agony of early breastfeeding, too, is offset by the pure liquid heaven hormones that course through her, which she compares to the effect of heroin. These natural processes are strong drugs, and she proudly tells us shes an addict.

This is a vision of motherhood for the (now middle-aged) MDMA generation

This is a vision of motherhood for the (now middle-aged) MDMA generation. Its not about duty, or even about juggling the demands of kids and work; mothering for Stroud has more to do with hedonism and adventure, about escape, and exploring the outer limits of human experience. Her own mother was brain damaged in a horrific riding accident when Stroud was 16: Much of my life has been about seeking strong motion both to make me feel alive and distract from the pain of existence.

As a motivation for creating new humans, this is not without its ethical problems. Stroud briskly shrugs people off when they question the practicality of having a fifth baby (I want messy), and cheerfully admits that in many ways another child is the last thing they all need. But the imperative of obliterating her own inner pain is more urgent to her than the imperative of giving time and attention to the children she already has. After all, wheres the fun in providing boring old steadfast support when you could be out there getting buzzed on oxytocin? When they grow up and write their own books, perhaps her children will tell us how her messiness felt to them.

There is no arguing, however, with the sheer force of her writing. The reader is simply swept up in her painful, wonderful world. Buy it, read it, and enjoy it for the wild ride it is but do think twice before you throw away the contraceptives.

Alice OKeeffes novel On the Up is published by Coronet. My Wild and Sleepless Nights by Clover Stroud is published by Doubleday (16.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p on all online orders over 15.

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My Wild and Sleepless Nights by Clover Stroud review what does being a mother feel like? - The Guardian

Royals is the theme of Actors Theatre of Columbus 39th season, which opens May 21 in Schiller Park.

The German Village-based theater company will perform two Shakespeare plays, King Lear (May 21 to June 14) and Queen Margaret (July 16 to Aug. 9), plus Simon Levys adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby (June 18 to July 12). The season will close with William Congreves The Way of the World (Aug. 13 to Sept. 6).

I think that theres a sort of fantasy to live in that 1 percent-type of environment, said Philip J. Hickman, artistic director of Actors Theatre. And I think that these plays, something like The Great Gatsby, sort of explores what its like to achieve that dream and what it might cost.

King Lear, one of Shakespeares most noted works, tells the tale of pre-Roman legend Leir of Britain.

The Great Gatsby, adapted from a book written in 1925, is a tale about decadent parties and contrasting idealism and hedonism on Long Island, New York, during the Roaring Twenties, it also is a cautionary tale about the American dream.

Perhaps lesser known are Queen Margaret, to be directed by Hickman, and The Way of the World.

Actors Theatres performance of Queen Margaret is the version edited by Jeanie OHare that premiered in England in 2018.

Queen Margaret of Anjou was one of the most powerful queens in English history and ran the country while her husband (King Henry VI) was ill and wasnt a very effective king, Hickman said.

The Way of the World, by William Congreve, is a pretty classic Restoration comedy, Hickman said, referring to the period between 1660 to 1710.

It was very popular in its day, and its still very funny, he said. Its a story of young love between a young man whos trying to move up in the work and a young woman who is going to come into some money. But theres a very modern sensibility to the comedy.

Jodi Marmion, new president of the Actors Theatres board of trustees, said she is looking forward to this years lineup because it has something for everybody.

We want to bring classical theater to the 21st century, she said. Actors Theatre has been working hard in the past few years to bring more content and doing more throughout the entire year, not just the summer, but obviously, our main focus is the summer. Thats the meat of our work.

Were very excited to bring contemporary new works adapted from the classics, Marmion said.

gseman@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekGary

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Actors Theatre of Columbus 39th season will have royal flavor - ThisWeek Community News

Michael Griffiths, Australia's king of one-man cabaret shows, is returning to the McCallum Theatre at 7:00pm., Sunday, Feb. 16, bringing back Cole, his one-man tribute to the great Cole Porter. How insanely talented is Michael Griffiths? Cole will be taking place just hours before he takes the McCallum stage for an evening performance of In Vogue: Songs by Madonna.

Cole covers the colorful life and timeless songs of Cole Porter. It's a tale of hedonism and grave misfortune-with a legacy that sparkles with wit and wisdom. Sometimes, anything goes! Songs include "You're the Top," "It's De-Lovely," "Let's Misbehave" and "Night and Day," woven around Anna Goldsworthy's cleverly written script.

With pop music as his first love, Michael grew up in Australia, playing the piano by ear, dancing to Michael Jackson and dreaming of pop stardom. Discovering musical theater later in his teens, he moved from his hometown of Adelaide to Perth to study at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, whose alumni include Hugh Jackman. Michael graduated bachelor's degree in music theater; he also has a diploma in music composition.

This led to many years touring around Australia performing in musicals, including Priscilla, Queen of the Desert during which he learned to dance in high heels. Other performances include the Australia and Japan tour of We Will Rock You, where he was thrilled to meet Queen's Brian May. He was nominated for a Green Room Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Bob Crewe in Jersey Boys, a role he performed for more than four years. He was also in the original Australian cast of Shout!, and in the original workshop for the Australian musical Prodigal. Michael performed cabaret at Sydney's legendary Showqueen at the Supper Club and for Kookaburra's "Up Close and Musical" series.

In his absence, his sleepy hometown launched the annual Adelaide Cabaret Festival-which quickly became the biggest of its type, hosting some of the finest cabaret performers from all corners of the globe. Michael stumbled across this festival on a visit home-and a new love for cabaret was born. In Vogue was his first one-man cabaret show, and it went on to win the Best Cabaret Adelaide Fringe Award in 2014.

A chance conversation with old school friend and best-selling author Anna Goldsworthy led toCole, which premiered at the 2015 Adelaide Cabaret Festival by invitation of Barry Humphries (also known as "Dame Edna"). With his intoxicating combination of talent and wit, Michael stole the show at the 2016 Adelaide Fringe, and his performance in Cole earned Michael a Helpmann Award for Best Cabaret Performer in 2016. That same year, Cole was the top-rated cabaret show at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The Herald Scotland said of Cole: "Heartbreak is always bubbling under the surface as the beautifully melancholic tunes, such as 'Night and Day,' transport the musical mind to another era full of glamour and tragedy. ... You will leave on a little cloud of cabaret heaven; it's simply 'De-Lovely.'"

With his dear friend Amelia Ryan, he recently toured Livvy and Pete: The Songs of Olivia Newton-John and Peter Allen across Australia. His original song "Resemblance" was featured in the award-winning ABC documentary Sperm Donors Anonymous.

http://www.michaelgriffiths.co

Tickets for this performance are priced at $68, $48 and $28. Tickets are available at the Theatre's website at http://www.mccallumtheatre.com or by calling the McCallum Theatre Box Office at (760) 340-2787.

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Australia's 'King Of One-Man Cabarets' Michael Griffiths Returns To The McCallum With COLE - Broadway World

Valentine'sDay" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-9319326-/topic/Valentine'sDay" data-vars-event-id="c6">Valentines Day comes at just the right time to brighten up the middle of what can be the dullest month of the year the festive season is a distant memory, the weather is pretty grim and there are still a few weeks to go before we can feel spring in the air.

And theres not much in the way of seasonal foods shellfish apart perhaps to liven the table prompting us to find some compatible wines.

So, although the day has become horribly commercialised, lets surrender a little to all the pink fluffiness, avoid the often horrible Valentines Day themed menus in restaurants, shut out the cold, light some candles and indulge in some nice food and wine with our loved ones

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

And its obviously a great excuse to open a bottle of something sparkling. If it really is a special occasion for the two of you, then a bottle of pink champagne is a must. There are loads of timely big name discount offers on the high street such as the impeccable, refined, red berry flavoured Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Brut Rose NV Champagne (37.49; normally 49.99 until 18 Februarywaitrose.com) or try the more expressive, lighter, chardonnay dominated Ayala Rose Majeur NV (32.50 champagnedirect.co.uk; 33.50 tanners-wines.co.uk).

My personal choice would be a fine English sparkling rose, such as the Ridgeview Fitzrovia NV (35ridgeview.co.uk; 30.56 thedrinkshop.com) made in Sussex by one of the pioneers of English sparkling an elegant bottle, classy carefully made, precise red fruits and hedgerow aromas.

If you are looking for something a little more budget friendly, then try a pink cremant such as the Domaine Langlois-Chateau Cremant de Loire Rose Brut NV (14.95 winedirect.co.uk; 15.25 divinefinewines.co.uk) made in the champagne method, with cabernet franc grapes in the Loire, which gives really fulsome, raspberry and blackcurrant flavours.

All pink sparklings are a great match for seafood, but particularly anything which is also pink, such as lobster, crab or prawns. My view is that mid-February is not really a great time for a chilled still rose, but if thats your preference, there are lots around in lovely, romantically styled bottled, such as the Whispering Angel 2018 (17.99 waitrosecellar.com; ocado.com; various independents) a blend of Grenache, cinsault and vermentino and one of the originators of the trend in upmarket Provencal roses, with its very dry, orange scented flavours and distinctive bottle.

Many other have followed suit, such as the Jean Claude Mas empire [which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago] which has the syrah dominated Jardin de Roses (14.99 sohowine.co.uk) from an estate in Roussillon near Mount Canigou, dry, slightly spicy, but aromatic and lively and stylishly bottled and labelled, with four different rose-themed variants.

Speaking of roses, wine gifts have become increasingly popular at Valentines, as an alternative or indeed an accompaniment to flowers and there are lots out there on the High Street or via online wine merchants, including the Tattinger Rose and Two Glasses (48.75 amazon.co.uk; 55 johnlewis.com) which pairs a bottle from this excellent house with two fine sparkling flutes. There also good ranges here from online wine merchants Virgin and Laithwaites.

But, you say, enough of all this pink fluff, what about a big, meaty red to accompany, say, a fine Chateaubriand for two? Well, of course there are masses to choose from, but and, like those roses, you have to acknowledge the French are pretty good at this sort of thing here is a terrific gift for anyone with interest in mediaeval history and the story of the ill-fatedlove affair between 12th-century theologian Pierre Abelard and abbess Heloise dArgenteul, which has entranced France ever since.

The upmarket, organic and biodynamic boutique Chne Bleu winery, based near Mont Ventoux in Provence, names its flagship wines after the pair: The Chne Bleu Abelard 2010 (49normally 59, until February 18, waitrosecellar.com; 69.30 hedonism.co.uk) is a big, intense, rich, powerful, brooding, special occasion Grenache based blend in typical Rhone style, that needs to be decanted at least two hours before drinking, while the Chne Bleu Heloise 2011 ( 57.00 waitrosecellar.com;67.90 hedonism.co.uk) is Syrah based and lighter and more expressive and fragrant, but still a big, fulsome, concentrated wine. also needing plenty of air before drinking.

Both wines can now be bought in a stylish and elaborately decorated gift box fromHedonism Wines(in-store only) from 167.20 or sent direct from the Chne Bleu wineryhereat 150 (127.24 + shipping) for Ablard & Hlose or 160 (135.66 + shipping) to include a third bottle, Astralabe, named after their son and, naturally, a lighter syrah/Grenache blend. Orders need to be placed by Tuesday, 11 February, for delivery by Friday.

Yes, its all quite pricey, but it makes a change from a bottle of branded Aussie syrah and a bunch of roses from the petrol station, doesnt it?

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Wines of the week: 9 bottles to celebrate Valentine's Day with - The Independent

A legendary British rock band are heading to Lincoln after celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2019.

Fresh off the release of their 25LIVE@25, Skunk Anansie have announced they will hit the road with a major headline tour starting June 2020.

Having spent most of the past year playing too sold out crowds over 13 countries, the group will now perform at Lincolns Engine Shed on Saturday, November 28.

The well-known group has reunited and disbanded several times over the last two and a half decades.

Paranoid & Sunburnt was their first studio album and in released in 1995.

It was swiftly followed by Stoosh in 1996, Post Orgasmic Chill in 1999, Wonderlustre in 2010, Black Traffic in 2012 and Anarchytecture in 2016.

They also released one compilation album, Smashes and Trashes in 2009 and several hit singles, including "Charity", "Hedonism", "Selling Jesus" and "Weak".

The name "Skunk Anansie" is taken from Akann folk tales of Anansi the spider-man of Ghana, with "Skunk" added to "make the name nastier".

Skunk Anansies success continues to be recognised as the band were presented with the Hall of Fame Award at the 2019 Kerrang Awards joining the likes of past winners Rage against the Machine.

Vocalist Skin picked up the Inspirational Artist Award at the Music Week Awards in 2018.

Last year Skunk Anansie also released their first instalment of brand new music in three years with the brilliant track What You Do For Love.

The track garnered airplay on BBC Radio 2 and was an instant fan-favourite.

They release its riff-raging follow-up This Means War on Friday.

Both tracks will be made available as a limited run collectors edition double A-side vinyl 7 in April, with pre-orders available from Friday via https://skunkanansie.tmstor.es/

The last 25 years have seen the band internationally acclaimed as one of the greatest British rock bands of all time, while Skin herself has become one of the worlds most iconic female performers, as well as inspirational role model, activist, trailblazer for women in the music industry, model and muse for designers.

Now reflecting on her incredible journey, Skin has announced her very first memoir, co-written by journalist and friend Lucy OBrien.

For more ticket visit The Engine Shed website.

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Legendary rock band to play Lincoln fresh off 25th anniversary - Lincolnshire Live