Troublesome times call for troubling theater. Hence, "Hello, Dolly!" despite the joyous, candy-colored revival that cakewalked through the Citizens Bank Opera House this pastsummer will not be found on this list. Instead, we have singled out plays and musicals, including a few that arent new, that speak to the currently splintered zeitgeist. We were especially impressed by works that dealt with the ferocity of adolescence and our dealings with the world from American Utopia to the Middle East to the Far East. Doubtless, Dolly! has traveled to those places and then some but to an old-fashioned Broadway melody. Here, then, are 12 productions that got the modern music just right.

Lauren Yees 2018 play, seen here in a joint production by Pittsburghs City Theatre, Chicagos Victory Gardens Theater and MRT, proved an ingenious, intricately woven tapestry of horrific history and family mystery drama. Seamless, it was framed by the buoyant, thunderous songs of the California-based band Dengue Fever, whosemission has been to resurrect the psychedelic rock that was a youthful bulwark of the Cambodian Republic overrun in the 1970s by the Khmer Rouge (which, of course, snuffed out the music along with a quarter of the population). The plays action flips around in time between 2008, when a young Cambodian-American woman is in Phnom Penh working to catch a real-life Khmer Rouge henchman known as Comrade Duch, and the earlier life of her dad, who escaped the ruthless regime in the 1970s but has never talked to his daughter about his experience. We revisit the fathers exuberant youth as a member of the Cambodian rock band of the title and the unspeakable things that happened to him and his band mates in the wake of the 1975 crackdown. Audaciously, the dapper if sinister Duch emcees the proceedings. And the actors double quite credibly as the band, ripping through the Dengue Fever songs in both English and Khmer. Marti Lyons helmed the searing yet infectious production.

In this Tony-winning musical with book by Steven Levenson and score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the circle of hell that is high school becomes a gaping social-media maw as the titular teen finds himself backed into a lie that goes viral, tumbling the already anxious youth into a virtual stream of prolonged panic. It also leads him to fame as unlikely as the success of this curiously intimate, original musical in which the human action is dwarfed by a moveable, mutating feast of Facebook feeds, tangled tweets and, of course, cascading emojis. Yet it is on the heartfelt human scale that the musical triumphs. At its grief-stricken center is one gangly, troubled teen who feels diminished and invisible and who yearns to be seen and acknowledged. And in director Michael Greifs tight, fluid, never maudlin national-touring production, he was portrayed by Ben Levi Ross, a young actor possessed of a sweet gawkiness and a lovely tenor that soars effortlessly into falsetto like an adolescent voice, or a heart, cracking.

The Tony-nominated 2017 Broadway production of Paula Vogels 2015 play was gorgeously, grittily remounted for Los Angeles Center Theatre Group and the Huntington Theatre Company. Shaking the dust from the scandal caused by the 1907 Yiddish Theater classic God of Vengeance, which included a lesbian love scene and was shut down on Broadway in 1923, Vogels work proved a lively, fluid piece of stagecraft encompassing the fraught histories of Jewish culture, Yiddish theater, arts censorship and the love that for so long dared not speak its name all played out to a feverish, toe-tapping klezmer score. Director Rebecca Taichman deservedly won a Tony for her ghostly yet vibrant staging, which played out on an almost bare stage amid stacked suitcases before a looming if muted gold proscenium. The period-perfect ensemble was impeccable, and the ending, a cleansing soak in pouring rain and burgeoning same-sex love, was exquisite.

Composer, librettist, lyricist and orchestrator Dave Malloy and director Rachel Chavkins mighty if quirky musical adaptation of Herman Melvilles iconic 1851 novel doesnt run to 600 pages. But it is an epic undertaking: a three-and-a-half-hours-long, singing and dancing riff on the Pequod as a stand-in for America whether in the run-up to the Civil War or now, when our melting pot is captained by a megalomaniac. Stylistically, the work, like the novel, sprawls all over the place, encompassing not just Melvilles allegorical adventure tale but a vaudeville, a jazz cycle and a profane stand-up comedy routine by Captain Ahabs Parsee prophet, Fedallah. Not everything works, but Malloys score lush, dissonant, soaring and melodic is both wonderful and well rendered by the nine-piece band and the diverse cast. And Tony-winner Mimi Liens set puts us all in the belly of the whale, its wavy wooden ribs also the ribs of the Pequod encompassing the entirety of the Loeb Drama Center auditorium.

It pains me to report that this enigmatic, penetrating production will be the last by Israeli Stage, which has closed down after nine years of conversation-stirring staged readings and full productions of works by Israeli dramatists. The Return was not only the troupes last hurrah but its first offering by a Palestinian playwright, Hanna Eady, written with his frequent American collaborator, Edward Mast. Brief, cryptic and alive with emotion, the piece takes the form of four tense encounters between a Palestinian mechanic alone on Shabbat duty at an Israeli garage and a Jewish woman who show up seeking not car repairs but redemption or at least recognition. We are left with more questions than certainties regarding the characters (or the playwrights) motivations, and some audience members found the dramaturgical deck stacked against the privileged Israeli majority and the Jewish governments fierce, intrusive security apparatus as came out in the post-performance discussion that followed all Israeli Stage outings. But artistic director Guy Ben-Aharon helmed a staging that was more metaphoric than didactic, its four scenes separated by long ominous chords against which Cristina Todescos abstract white set pulsed with vivid color. And the performances by Nael Nacer and Philana Mia throbbed less with political pointedness than with yearning.

This 2016 play, a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, marked an impressive dramaturgical debut by writer Sarah DeLappe, who used her youthful experience on a girls soccer team to create a microcosm of female adolescence. In the playwrights words, the work is a portrait of teenage girls as human beings that, in the Lyric staging, proved a stretching, kicking, jumping-jacking whole and the sum of its idiosyncratic parts. Taking the form of a series of chatty warm-ups by the titular team, neatly packed into the 90 minutes allotted a soccer match, the play features random, overlapping dialogue that pings around faster than even the most deftly propelled ball. But what is most striking about it, even if you dont catch every word amid the shifting alliances and butt kicks, is that it takes its nine strong, budding personalities seriously even as it lays out the near-comic cacophony in their heads fed by parents, politics, schoolwork, social media and a lifetime of shared pop-cultural references. A. Nora Long was at the helm of the fast-moving, high-prancing production set on an AstroTurf slope surrounded by protective netting. And the nine Wolves, most portrayed by recent graduates of respected actor-training programs, were convincing in both their ferocity as a huddled, howling pack and their vulnerabilities as individuals bravely groping toward adulthood.

Carolyn Clay

David Byrnes interests and he has quite a few have taken a turn for the theatrical in recent years, particularly with choreographer Annie-B Parson at his side. His 2014 Here Lies Love at the Public Theater, a deeply immersive musical about Imelda Marcos, was one of the theatrical events of the decade. American Utopia wasnt quite in that league it began life as a rock concert though it did have Byrne and a company of dancer-musicians tearing up the Emerson Colonial stage trying to make sense out of these strange times we find ourselves in. Byrnes answer to todays divisive politics isnt so much Dont Worry, Be Happy but Do Worry, But Dont Give Up. And dont forget what unites us. Ill dance to that.

The third great musical of the 21stcentury, along with Here Lies Love and that Hamilton fellow, was the inspired collaboration between one of the worlds great playwrights, Tony Kushner, and one of the worlds great theater composers, Jeanine Tesori. The story is about the relationship between a young Kushner stand-in and his familys maid, as well as the challenges in both their family lives. Kushner treats both the Jewish and the African-American experiences with utmost respect and sophistication, and so does Tesori with an amazing, almost operatic mixture of klezmer,rock, gospel and theater music. Yewande Odetoyinbo, in the title role, and Davron S. Monroe were particularly in tune.

One of the many things that stands out in Spiro Veloudos historic 21-year term as artistic director of the Lyric Stage has been his championing of Stephen Sondheim musicals, and not just the usual Little Night Music suspects. He made people stand up and pay attention with Assassins early in his run and finished the Sondheim journey with the difficult but rewarding Pacific Overtures. Commodore Matthew Perrys cultural invasion of Japan in 1853 is the jumping off point for a score that reflects a broad interest in Eastern music and staging. Veloudos assembled some of his favorite designers for his 10thand last Sondheim as he steps down as artistic director from a theater he made an essential part of the local theatrical scene.

One of the happier developments in Boston theater the past few years was the residency engineered by Babson College and the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, producer of Shakespeare on the Common. One of the sadder developments in the past year was the demise of that Babson residency. Steven Maler embraced a modernistic aesthetic that brought us sterling productions of Samuel Beckett and Caryl Churchill with top-notch casts. This past year gave us Naomi Wallaces stirring adaptation of Birdy, which you might remember as a movie starring Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage. Maler did a fine job of casting the unlikely duo of high-school jock and bird lover with two different pairs of actors, younger and older. Its something of a clich that the title character teaches the jock to fly, but both the script and staging take so many chances that the spirit soars.

Maybe some creative producer will do with Sara Porkalob what the BBC did with Phoebe Waller-Bridges Fleabag and turn it into a great TV series. Porkalob is as transfixing a presence as Waller-Bridge and her stories are just as cinematic. Where Waller-Bridge, though, talks about a life on the run from her rich parents, Porkalob inhabits two (soon to be three) generations of Filipino-Americans who didnt have it so easy financially. And I do mean inhabits. She reprised Dragon Lady at the Oberon about her grandmother in a cabaret-influenced performance and followed it with the premiere of Dragon Mama, the gut-wrenching story of her mother, a more traditional voyage into solo performance, but no less emotional as it veers from comic to tragic elements. Porkalob dives not only convincingly into her mother and grandmother but into the men and women in their lives. Its Porkalob, herself, though, who emerges as fully formed, both as a person and an artist. Added kudos to the A.R.T. for SIX, the rock musical about the wives of Henry VIII, updated for the #MeToo times we live in.

There is an increasing void in the Boston-Cambridge area forthe kind of non-representational theater championed by the three Robs Robert Brustein, Robert Woodruff and Rob Orchard at the A.R.T. and ArtsEmerson. If youre a fan of this less overtly realistic style of theater then hie thee to the hills of Needham Heights where the Arlekin Players and play is a big part of their arsenal inhabit a space thats utterly nondescript from the outside and utterly enchanting and intimate inside. Most of their adaptations spring from the wildly creative mind of Igor Golyak, who this season staged a Germanavant-garde play, The Stone, a Holocaust-inspired story about history, honesty and ownership. And more recently, The Seagull, a meta-ish piece about a troupe of actors working their way through the wonders of Chekhov. Ive never felt as close to Chekhovs psychically-damaged characters literally, since the performers were almost in my lap, but more importantly, Golyaks sense of tragedy mixed with comedy melded perfectly with Chekhov.

Finally --A few shows from Western Mass. I can't not mention:

Ed Siegel

Link:

12 Plays And Musicals That Mattered In Boston This Year - WBUR

Peter Halleys Heterotopia II, a candy-colored shrine to geometric abstraction closed on December 20 at Greene Naftali gallery in Chelsea (Manhattan). The exhibition, which embodied the relationship between painting and architectural space, brought visitors into a disorienting, hyperreal world collaged out of references to science fiction, modernist architecture, and mass mediaall painted in fluorescent hues. The installation was both a fortress and a stage set and brought to mind the importance of creating alternative worlds and ways of seeing while also probing the ties between architecture, art, and image.

The experience could be described as stepping into one of the Neo-Geo paintings Halley became known for in the 80s. Or, like stepping into a Josef Albers color studythe same floor appearing to drastically transform in color as one moves from a room with pink walls to one painted orange. Housed between floor-to-ceiling yellow walls coated in Roll-A-Tex, visitors could catch small glimpses of the polychromatic, multi-level interior spaces from narrow cut-outs along the perimeter prior to entering and one could enter one of two ways: through a long hall covered in glimmering metallic tinsel, or an entry immediately confronted with a set of low, blue steps.

The rooms in the exhibition are organized around an unpenetrable, yellow core. (Courtesy Greene Naftali)

Six rooms in total contained eight new shaped-canvas paintings that incorporated the same Roll-A-Tex coating as the exterior walls. Like the three-dimensional space the paintings occupied, symmetry was abandoned in favor of variously sized stacked rectangles reminiscent of prison cells, circuit boards, or maybe a section taken through a PoMo building. The rooms emanated from a central glowing core which was the only space in the gallery that could not be climbed into and occupied, but only looked down into through three distinct apertures in the surrounding rooms. Both the positive and negative shapes recalled iconic elements from modernist architectsLuis Barragan or Ricardo Legorretas stairs (not a handrail in sight), Louis Kahns concentric cut-outs, or Peter Eisenmans grid.

Terminus, 2019. Acrylic, fluorescent acrylic, and Roll-a-Tex on canvas 84 x 80 inches. (Courtesy Greene Naftali)

Halley utilized such elements to compose sightlines, resulting in the most exciting views of the paintings being not from directly in front of, but mediated by the architecture itselffrom the top of a staircase, at the intersection of two contrasting colored walls, between beams and columns, or framed by a window. The paintings themselves are worlds within a world within a world and have accordingly been named after Isaac Asimovs fictional universes: Helicon, Galaxia, Terminus, and Gaia.

Installation view from one of two entrances into the series of interlocking rooms. (Courtesy Greene Naftali)

Creating paintings that depicted both social isolation and connectivity, the artists work has often looked to geometry as a metaphor for society. A heterotopia can be defined as institutions that are in opposition to the utopia, spaces that are different and that operate outside of societal norms (prisons, temples, cemeteries, and brothels are some of the examples Michel Foucault outlined in his essay Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias). At the same time, heterotopias often reveal as much as they conceal, acting as a mirror that reflects back the values of the dominant culture. Halleys Heterotopia II is a labyrinthian universe that highlighted visitors relationship to and perception of color in the built environment whether applied to a canvas, a wall, or pixels of a photo uploaded to social media. In todays terms, the installation is Instagrammable, to say the least.

From the other entrance, one stepped into a neon green room with the painting Terminus. (Courtesy Greene Naftali)

The work exhibited tensions and connections between rationalist geometry, color, and the relationship to technology that seem inescapable. So of course, I posted an image of the alien green room housing the painting Terminus to my Instagram story, to which my sister replied: Wow! It looks like Mario World. Despite her distance from any sort of contemporary art world discourse, shes not all that far off. And perhaps like Mario World, much of the essence or aura of the installation was lost in stillness, on pause, or in a photograph. It took traversing the space, hugging the wall so as not to fall off the different heighths of stairs, moving up to go back down again, hopping over obstacles, or darting past other gallery-goers to truly experience the work.

Its impossible to enter this exhibition and not think about the thousands of uploads it will, and has, generated in digital space. In the age of pop-up experiences and Instagram museums, Heterotopia II inevitably lends itself well to fashionable stories and selfie opportunities (yes, it was listed on FOMOFeed). Perhaps the work was more of a reverie than critique. The installation depicted digitally in the square cells of Instagram, rather than the physical location itself, could be viewed as the heterotopia at hand. How we see and perceive color on the screen, as opposed to witnessing the interplay of surfaces IRL, reveals a lot about how weve come to relate to, consume (and share) both art and architecture on a broader level.

Here is the original post:

Peter Halley's Heterotopia II explored the relationship between painting, architecture, and image - The Architect's Newspaper

WHAT WE CANT WAIT TO WATCH

New Eden

Beamed in from some cable channel in 1992, this true-crime mockumentary series from writer/stars Kayla Lorette and Evany Rosen investigates the large-scale feminist utopia of New Eden, a women-only retreat in rural BC established by two friends who had no idea what they were doing, and just kept digging a deeper hole for their poorly researched, alien-goddess-worshipping cult. Given that Lorette and Rosen have been part of some very weird, very funny things over the last few years among them the web series Space Riders and the comedy troupe Picnicface, respectively New Eden looks ready to build a cult of its own once it drops. January 1

Avenue 5

The new HBO series from Armando Iannucci (The Thick Of It, Veep, The Death Of Stalin) takes its name from its setting: a luxury space liner taking 5,000 people on a grand tour of the solar system, led by a dashing, confident captain (Hugh Laurie). So of course things go wrong almost immediately, sending the large cast which includes Frozens Josh Gad as an entitled mogul, Dr. Kens Suzy Nakamura as his exhausted assistant, Being Humans Leonora Crichlow as a beleaguered engineer, Silicon Valleys Zach Woods as an overwhelmed cruise director, Ethan Phillips as an ex-astronaut and Rebecca Front, Andy Buckley, Jessica St. Clair and Kyle Bornheimer as front-facing passengers on the voyage of a lifetime. Like all of Iannuccis projects, its a comedy about cranky, overmatched people trying to function within a badly broken system; its just that this particular system is a long, long way from home. January 19

Curb Your Enthusiasm (season 10)

Its been just over two years since we had new episodes of Larry Davids long-running improvised comedy series. The last time around, Larry wound up producing Fatwa: The Musical with Lin-Manuel Miranda though, as per usual, that loose narrative thread frequently took a backseat as trivial digressions snowballed into screwball scenarios. We dont know much about season 10 except that Laverne Cox, Jane Krakowski, Isla Fisher and Fred Armisen are among the guest stars, as is Jon Hamm, who plays himself. January 19

The Outsider

Stephen King takes a stab at a True Detective-style procedural in The Outsider, his recent novel turned HBO series. Jason Bateman plays a teacher arrested for raping and murdering a young boy. Ben Mendelsohn and Cynthia Erivo play the investigators sifting through evidence and alibis and confronting monsters the kind you would expect from the guy who wrote It. The Outsider is premiering on Crave alongside original series Cravings: The Aftershow, which brings you post-episode recaps and discussions hosted by eTalk and The Socials Lainey Lui. January 12

Star Trek: Picard

Its a fascinating thought experiment: can any television series that brings back Patrick Stewarts beloved captain possibly satisfy the fan base thats been clamoring for more Next Generation action since that the crew of the Enterprise-E signed off in the profoundly disappointing Nemesis 18 years ago? Well, after a year of rumours and teases, were about to find out, as events conspire to bring good ol Jean-Luc out of a comfortable retirement and into the final frontier, accompanied (apparently) by a number of his old pals. Whatever this adventure holds, it wont be his last: CBS All Access has already ordered a second season. January 24

Shrill

Inspired by Lindy Wests memoir and starring SNLs Aidy Bryant as a plucky aspiring reporter dealing with fatphobia and flaky dates, Shrills winning first season made an early impact on last years TV landscape. (That transcendent pool party episode! The scene where she tears her worst online troll a new one!) This season sees Bryants Annie dealing with the repercussions of last seasons decisions, including storming out of her job at an indie magazine, finally getting serious with crusty stoner fuckboy Ryan and throwing a cement planter through a dudes window. Were ready to devour it like so much post-sex leftover spaghetti. January 24

The Grizzlies

Marketed as an underdog sports movie about a high-school teacher (Ben Schnetzer) who inspires his Indigenous students to form a lacrosse team, Miranda de Penciers first feature is considerably more complex than that, thanks to a carefully established sense of place (Kugluktuk, Nunavut, circa 2004), thoughtfully fleshed-out characters and a refusal to shy away from the darkness that lurks at the edges of the story. The Grizzlies is a movie about suicide prevention as much as it is about sports, and about generations of trauma reverberating through a community thats long since stopped expecting anything to change. Screenwriters Moira Walley-Beckett (Anne With An E) and Graham Yost (Speed) tell their story with authenticity and heart, and that makes all the difference. Read our review here.January 10

Three Identical Strangers

Tim Wardles hit documentary about American triplets separated at birth told a sensational and disturbing story while thoughtfully exploring the way young boys have historically been raised. The movie recounts the incredible story of Robert Shafran, Eddy Galland and David Kellman, three brothers who reunited in the 80s by chance and became media sensations. Things take a darker turn as it becomes clear that the separation was intentional. Read our review here.January 17

For Nonna Anna

A year after screening at Sundance, Toronto writer/director Luis De Filippiss assured debut about a young trans woman (Maya Henry) who is left home alone to care for her ailing Italian grandmother (Jacqueline Tarne) is hitting streaming. The intimate short film explores generation gaps and the way grandparents can sometimes defy presumed biases to surprise their grandkids. Read more here.January 31

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Avengers: Endgame got Iron Man out the way, giving Tom Holland the room to stretch his legs and grow into his own as Spider-Man. Robert Downey Jrs iconic character is a structuring absence in Spideys European vacation, a light-hearted, fun and moving adventure that sees Hollands Parker step up to be a new figurehead among the Avengers. This sequel has the right balance of teenage drama and world-saving shenanigans. And in Spideys battle against a villain who conjures over-the-top CGI monsters, Far From Home parodies so many superhero movies before it. Read our review here.January 17

Bad Boys

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are returning to the roles that made them movie stars in Januarys Bad Boys For Life. In anticipation for that reunion, the first two Michael Bay movies are hitting Starz. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the original remains a groundbreaking guilty pleasure: its the first mainstream action movie to pair and lean into two Black leads (as opposed to having Eddie Murphy tempered with white people). Meanwhile, Michael Bay practiced his slow-mo swooping aesthetic, packing in the money shots and turning his movies into feature length trailers for themselves. January 17 (with the Starz add-on)

28 Days Later

A man (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital, drags himself from its corridors and steps out into a London that has been left ragged and deserted. That eerie cold open is brilliantly slow and patient, contrasting the zombies who come sprinting Olympic-level fast when they finally show up. Danny Boyles bloody adrenaline hit opened alongside the first Resident Evil, reviving the zombie movie and whetting appetites for Shaun Of The Dead, Walking Dead and even Romeros late-career return to the genre he made iconic. January 24 (with the Starz add-on)

Full list of new titles available in January, by date. The + symbol indicates a TV show or movie that is only available on Crave+ . The * symbol indicates a TV show or movie that is only available with the Starz add-on.

January 1

New Eden (season 1)

January 3

Howie Mandels 5th Annual All-Star Comedy Gala

Gold Digger (season 1)

January 5

The L Word: Generation Q (season 1, episode 5)

Power (season 6, episode 11)*

Power Confidential (season 6, episode 12)*

Ray Donovan (season 7, episode 8)

Shameless (Season 10, episode 9)

Work In Progress (season 1, episode 5)

January 9

Star Trek: Short Treks (season 2, episode 6)

January 10

Daniels Tigers Neighbourhood (season 3)

Healthy Is Hot (season 1, episode 1)

January 12

Cravings (season 1, episode 1)

The L Word: Generation Q (season 1, episode 6)

The Outsider (season 1, episodes 1-2)+

Power (season 6, episode 12)*

Power Confidential (season 6, episode 13)*

Ray Donovan (season 7, episode 9)

Shameless (Season 10, episode 10)

Work In Progress (season 1, episode 6)

January 13

The New Pope (season 1, episode 1)+

January 17

Almost Naked Animals (season 3)

Om Nom (season 3)

Real Time With Bill Maher (season 18, episode 1)+

January 19

Avenue 5 (season 1, episode 1)+

Cravings (season 1, episode 2)

Curb Your Enthusiasm (season 10, episode 1)+

The L Word: Generation Q (season 1, episode 7)

The Outsider (season 1, episode 3)+

Power (season 6, episode 13)*

Power Confidential (season 6, episode 14)*

Ray Donovan (season 7, episode 10)

Shameless (Season 10, episode 11)

Work In Progress (season 1, episode 7)

January 20

The New Pope (season 1, episode 2)+

January 24

Real Time With Bill Maher (season 18, episode 2)+

Shrill (season 2)

Star Trek: Picard (season 1, episode 1)

Whisky Cavalier (season 1)

Wolfoo & Friends

January 26

Avenue 5 (season 1, episode 2)+

The Circus (season 5, episode 1)

Cravings (season 1, episode 3)

Curb Your Enthusiasm (season 10, episode 2)+

The L Word: Generation Q (season 1, episode 8)

Our Cartoon President (season 3, episode 1)

The Outsider (season 1, episode 4)+

Power (season 6, episode 14)*

Power Confidential (season 6, episode 15)*

Shameless (season 10, episode 12)

Work In Progress (season 1, episode 8)

January 27

The New Pope (season 1, episode 3)+

January 30

Star Trek: Picard (season 1, episode 2)

January 31

Enchantimals

Real Time With Bill Maher (season 18, episode 3)+

Wows Cartoon Hangover Shorts

January 1

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu+

January 2

Read more from the original source:

What to watch on Crave in January 2020 - NOW Magazine

It's time for the biggest party of the year - New Year's Eve.

Read more: New Year's Eve 2019: Top events across Shropshire

If you haven't decided where to fill yourself with buffet food and champagne to count down to 2020, here in the Midlands we have a perfect selection of themed events to wave goodbye to 2019:

Is there an event we've missed? Email webdesk@expressandstar.co.uk to let us know.

As we welcome 2020, Uprawr is set to celebrate the 'rawring twenties' in style with their annual New Year's Eve bash.

The themed event will include a confetti and balloon drop at midnight, as well as CO2 guns, big screens and themed drinks.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

The Twisted Circus returns to Birmingham for the sixth year running.

The event will include live entertainment with contortion and knife swallowing performances

There will also be giveaways, 'giant balloon attacks' and a confetti shower across two rooms of music, a VIP balcony, and even an adult ball pit.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

See in 2020 with laughter, food, and an after party to remember at The Glee Club.

The event will see performances from Andy Robinson, Mickey D, Joanne McNally and Robert White.

There will also be a countdown at midnight and a DJ.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Birmingham's Hare and Hounds is set to host a New Year's Eve carnival.

The event will include three rooms of music playing everything from disco to house, Latin, afro, funk, soul and hip hop.

DJs from Tropical Soundclash, Brum Tropicana and Youngculture will be spinning tunes throughout the night.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Birmingham's Resorts World is hosting a range of New Year's Eve events to welcome 2020.

Visitors can grab their glad rags and party like Gatsby at Sky By The Water, taking a trip back to the 80s at the World Bar, party like its 1999 at High Line and enjoy a classy night filled with glamour at the Sports Bar.

Resorts World will not be having a fireworks display this year, but there is plenty of entertainment, food and fun to enjoy at these events.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

The annual festive gala returns to Birmingham Symphony Hall for New Year.

The show will feature Ilona Domnich, Alexander James Edwards, Anthony Inglis and the London Concert Orchestra performing all of your New Year's Favourites.

Expect the works of Greig, Puccini, Verdi, Strauss, Suppe and Tchaikovsky among others.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Chase and Status will perform at The Mill Digbeth as part of A Weird and Wonderful New Year's Eve 2019.

The musical duo will be joined by a range of special guests yet to be announced.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Magic Door returns to LAB11 for another New Year's Eve bash.

Billed as the venue's biggest party of the year, the event is set to be a 'spaced out utopia' with mirrorballs and glitter galore.

Richy Ahmed will be DJing the event among a variety of special guests yet to be announced.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

The UK's biggest street food event is set to host a special New Year's Eve event.

Expect a four full-venue takeover as well as live music, DJs and more.

Children and dogs are allowed at the event until 9pm.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Enjoy three floors and four rooms of music and live entertainment at The Nightingale Club.

The annual event will include drag queens, go go dancers, pyro performers and more from 10pm until 5am.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Whether you prefer a quiet meal or a lively party, you can welcome in the new year in style at Moor Hall.

Visitors can enjoy a family disco, or dining options in the Oak Rooms Restaurant or the Country Kitchen Carvery.

The evening can be completed with a stay at the hotel and use of the onsite spa facilities.

For more information and to book, click here.

Rhythm at Wolverhampton's Grain Store celebrates its first anniversary with a New Year's Eve bash.

The event will include DJs and special guests yet to be announced.

Third release tickets are now available at a reduced rate.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Word of Mouth returns to The Bohemian with their roulette-themed New Year's Eve party.

There will be two floors of nu disco, house anthems, garage and R'n'B classics with DJ Stuart Ojelay, Rob Cook, Joe Williams and Dan Warby.

A smart evening wear dress code is in place, with an additional non-compulsory 'ladies in red and men in black' rule in place.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Blossoms Liquor + Grind marks its first year in Wolverhampton with a Pink Party to welcome the New Year.

Both floors will be open with performances from Dave Fogg, Alex Ceney, Jay Hatton, DJ Shox, Gavin Omari and Ant Nicho.

If you wear pink on the night, entry will be reduced to 5.

For more information, click here.

Perfect for the whole family, head to Perton Park Golf Club this New Year's Eve.

From 11am until 1pm the venue will be host to a magic show, dancing, games and more.

When midday strikes, kids will be able to celebrate the start of 2020 without having to stay up until midnight.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club will present the best in stand-up comedy in Wolverhampton this New Year's Eve.

The line-up for the event, set to include four top comedians, is yet to be announced.

The show will include full bar service as well as group discounts for 10 people or more.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Get your dabber ready as Bongo's Bingo returns to The Hangar ready for 2020.

Expect a mix of a live show, a rave and a heads-down game of bingo, with dance-offs, rave intervals, audience participation and countless classic anthems.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

T.Rextasy's annual New Year's Eve bash heads to Bilston's Robin 2.

T.Rextasy are the only band to have been authorised and endorsed by Marc Bolans Catalogue Management, are now officially recognised as the worlds number one group dedicated to the star.

The group has performed alongside artists such as Wizzard, Cockney Rebel, Ian Hunter and Slade among others.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Celebrate the start of 2020 in style at Hogshead.

Enjoy a free glass of fizz if you turn up in black tie attire as the venue rolls out the red carpet for the special occasion.

DJ Neil Jackson will start the new year countdown with fireworks on the big screens.

There will also be drinks deals and complimentary snacks.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Head to Patshull Park Hotel, Golf and Country Club for a night of live entertainment to wave goodbye to 2019.

Enjoy a five-course meal and disco until 2am as part of the celebrations.

There will also be entertainment from Liam Price.

For more information, click here.

Enjoy a glass of bubble, themed entertainment and more at Ramada Park Hall Hotel for New Year's Eve.

The ballroom will be transformed into a magical enchanted forest including music from the venue's resident DJ as well as a table served buffet.

For more information, click here.

Dress to impress at Mercure Wolverhampton with their New Year's Eve gala buffet and disco.

The Regency Suite will play host to a four-course bugget and disco for the whole family.

Overnight packages are also available including accommodation and breakfast the following morning.

For more information, click here.

Gave a ball and get your glad rags on for the Village Hotel's annual New Year's Eve celebrations.

The night's themed menu includes dishes such as beef wellington, roasted parsnip and pear soup, roast seatrout, warm chocolate fondant and more.

For more information and to book, click here.

Bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new one at The Lyttleton Arms.

Guests can enjoy a three coarse meal as well as live entertainment throughout the night.

For more information and to book, click here.

Enjoy a Mexican-themed fiesta at Katie Fitzgerald's this New Year's Eve.

There will be tapas, tequilas and margaritas as well as performances from Giant and the Georges as well as The Loveless.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Dudley's Ye Old Foundry will be hosting its own New Year's Eve party.

Starting from 7pm, guests will be able to enjoy live entertainment, DJ sets, and music from Moose Jaw until 3am.

For more information, click here.

Link:

New Year's Eve 2019: Top events across the West Midlands - expressandstar.com

Earlier this year, EFF noted that the United States is facing a high-speed broadband access crisis. For the foreseeable future, it appears that a supermajority of Americans will not have access to fiber to the home. Instead, it is cable monopolies or nothing at all.

Government data indicates that this problem is particularly pronounced in low-income neighborhoods and rural markets. But this future is not set in stone. We support efforts to aggressively meet this challenge so that this generation can benefit from affordable, universally accessible, competitive high-speed broadband access.

This year we have worked hard to unwind much of the damage the incumbent telecom industry cause through laws theyve pushed over the last decade. We also conducted and published research to educate policymakers.

For example, we have shared our most recent findings that fiber is so vastly superior to all of its alternatives in wireless (including 5G) and cable as a data transmission medium that only universal fiber to the home will ensure a network viable for decades of growth. Our paper shows that claims made by industry that 5G or cable are sufficient are just tactics to prevent legislators from demanding what people need and deserve.

Every country that is ahead of the United States got there because government policies promoted competition, universality, affordability, and high-speed access. In the U.S. though, the FCC pursues a policy of total deregulation of the broadband access market through the Restoring Internet Freedom Order and greenlighting blatantly anti-competitive mergers like Sprint and T-Mobile. AT&T kicked off this year by just relabeling their wireless 4G services as 5G and calling it a day while simultaneously ending their fiber to the home construction efforts (Verizon stopped years ago) when the government mandate to build fiber expired, which is significant given that half of the fiber to the home construction for 2018 was by AT&T.

Policymakers in Washington, D.C. finally caught on to how far behind the U.S. is and why. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is openly debating spending billions on broadband infrastructure under the LIFT Act, although it has admittedly not fully committed to making it a gigabit future to match our international counterparts. The House of Representatives voted to put the FCC back on the job with the passage of the Save the Net Act and it awaits a vote in the U.S. Senate. And the FCC has made correct calls on spectrum policy and could potentially raise billions Congress can invest into fiber infrastructure while also expanding access to unlicensed spectrum, which will improve WiFi routers and small ISP access to high-speed wireless services. But all of these await action by Congress, support by the president, and for a federal agency to enforce competition and universal access policies already required under federal law. So long as these languish, the limited federal efforts to improve our fiber infrastructure situation will continue to remain inadequate.

At the state and local level substantial progress is being made to chart their own future. Californias legislature allowed an AT&T and Comcast law (Public Utilities Code 710) that prohibited the California Public Utilities Commission from addressing their monopolies after strong opposition from EFF and other consumer groups. Shortly following this major victory for Internet users, Governor Newsom announced plans to begin crafting a Broadband for All initiative that EFF supports so long as it is pursuing universal fiber access and a gigabit future. We believe this states lack of a broadband plan has contributed heavily to the fact that most of us that live here have monopolies or no access at all for high-speed access (with the exception of San Francisco). There is no good reason California is so far behind its international competitors, and EFF has been working with fiber experts and advocating to California ways to not just catch up to South Korea but to become number one in the world.

In other states, we are seeing progress driven by local leaders and citizens who demand more than the abysmal service they are offered. Utah is proving to be a hotbed of forward-thinking activity with the consistent expansion of an open-access fiber network run by local cities called Utopia where residents enjoy 11 options for gigabit service. This type of approach to broadband infrastructure where the government builds the wires but someone else sells the broadband service holds tremendous promise. One study predicts a structurally separated network deployment could connect rural homes to fiber without low-interest long term financing and new open-access fiber deployments are cropping up such as the multi-city effort of Neighborly.

Alabama recently made changes to its state laws to allow for the recent announcement by C-Spire to deploy fiber to the home through a joint venture with the electric utility. And in Colorado voters are repeatedly approving community broadband solutions with Fort Collins deploying municipal gigabit broadband at $60 a month. As each state and local communities rises up to demand more from their elected officials, we expect more progress to connect the nation.

Quite simply, if we do not build an infrastructure ready for the future Internet, then it will not be accessible to us. The next generation of applications and services that need high-speeds and low latency will just not work well for a great number of Americans. Testbeds for innovation will exist overseas where technology companies will have large local populations of high-speed users with access to near-instantaneous gigabit and 10-gigabit connections (and beyond) will be the norm while Americans spend 300% above market rates for their Comcast line. There is very little reason to expect the future Silicon Valley to be in the United States if we allow our telecom infrastructure to be bogged down by yesterdays infrastructure.

But more importantly, without a new commitment to the universality of future broadband access, then the digital divide of today will substantially worsen. Americans with little money will be forced to pay monopoly rates for an essential service while wealthy Americans will enjoy the benefits of cheap high-speed access. Rural Americans will fall even further behind with last centurys infrastructure (if they even have access to it) will hit its limited capacity with no means of upgrading absent a fiber transition.

But EFF remains committed to fighting for a better future. The ideas and what works are already available to us and can be adopted in new policies. History is full of examples of these national challenges being met from the roads, water, and electricity. It is just a matter of mustering the political will to transform a nation. We may not be completely on track yet today, but so long as we keep pushing together we will eventually reach that goal of a 21st-century connection for all people regardless of where they live or how much money they make.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2019.

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America Is Still in Desperate Need for a Fiber Broadband for Everyone Plan: Year in Review 2019 - EFF

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Asummer of smoke and red-stained skies has brought the environment to the forefront of our daily lives, and human interaction with the natural world is dominating the pages of contemporary fiction and non-fiction. There's a sense of things falling apart, of a centre not holding. But as systems and institutions come under question, there's room to imagine new ways of being, and there's no shortage of hope to be found. Here is a selection of books we are looking forward to reading next year.

The golden boy of Australian letters, Trent Dalton, releases his highly anticipated second novel All Our Shimmering Skies (June, Fourth Estate), which is set in Darwin in 1942 and follows an actress, a fallen Japanese fighter pilot, a sorcerer and a gravediggers daughter. Daltons 2018 debut, Boy Swallows Universe, inspired by his childhood in working-class Brisbane, broke Australian sales records and is being transformed for the silver screen.

Eyes and expectations will also be on Craig Silvey as he publishes his first novel, working title Honeybee (second half 2020, Allen & Unwin), since Jasper Jones became an instant Australian classic a decade ago. After her own hiatus from fiction, Kate Grenville returns to the historical landscape of The Secret River with A Room Made of Leaves (July, Text), a novel that follows Australian pastoralist and merchant Elizabeth Macarthur in a fledgling Sydney colony.

Former Booker Prize winner Tom Keneally reimagines the life of Plorn, the 10th child of Charles Dickens who was sent out to Australia, in The Dickens Boy (April, Vintage).

The year will also see two Miles Franklin Award-winners return to our shelves: Evie Wyld (The Bass Rock, February, Vintage) and Sofie Laguna (working title Big Sky, second half 2020, A&U). The German invasion of Russia during World War II forms the backdrop of Prime Ministers Literary Award-winner Steven Contes second novel, The Tolstoy Estate (August, Fourth Estate).

Craig Silvey will publish his first new novel in a decade in 2020.Credit:Steven Siewert

The apocalypse has well and truly hit Australian fiction, with climate catastrophe, extinction, human/animal relationships and the collapse of civil order recurring themes. Look for James Bradleys Ghost Species (April, Hamish Hamilton); Donna Mazzas Fauna (February, A&U); Kate Mildenhalls The Mother Fault (September, Simon and Schuster); Dennis Glovers Factory 19 (July, Black Inc.); and Patrick Allingtons Rise and Shine (June, Scribe). A fossil narrates over 13,000 years in Chris Flynns ambitious exploration of human interaction with the natural world, fittingly titled Mammoth (May, UQP).

Jamie Marina Lau follows her success debut with Gunk Baby.Credit:Simon Schluter

Sydney Morning Herald 2019 Best Young Novelists Robbie Arnott (The Rain Heron, June, Text) and Jamie Marina Lau (Gunk Baby, May, Brow Books) return with second novels after their highly successful debuts. Publishers were clamouring after Sophie Hardcastles Below Deck (March, A&U). Look out for rising talents: S.L. Lim (Revenge, June, Transit); Liam Pieper (Sweetness and Light, March, Hamish Hamilton); and Mirandi Riwoe (Stone Sky Gold Mountain, April, UQP).

While the future of UWA Publishing is in doubt, contracted books will go ahead, including Meaghan Delahunts genre-crossing feminist MeToo novel, The Night-Side of the Country (March). Other new releases include: Margaret Bearman (We Were Never Friends, March, Brio); Jon Doust (Return Ticket, March, Fremantle); Ceridwen Dovey (Life After Truth, Hamish Hamilton, November); Bem Le Hunte (Elephants with Headlights, March, Transit); and Kirsten Krauth (Almost a Mirror, March, Transit).

In short fiction, Mark O'Flynn brings his wit to Dental Tourism (February, Puncher & Wattmann); Laura Elverys collection is inspired by the 20 times women have won Nobel Prizes for science (Ordinary Matter, second half 2020, UQP); Elizabeth Tans Smart Ovens for Lonely People is recommended for fans of Black Mirror (June, Brio); and Emma Ashmere takes on the world around us in Dreams They Forgot (April, Wakefield Press).

In what is set to be the biggest release of the year, two-time Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel brings her Thomas Cromwell trilogy to an exultant close with The Mirror and the Light (March, Fourth Estate), eight years in the making.

Author Hilary Mantel will conclude her Thomas Cromwell trilogy in 2020.Credit:Reuters

And there will be huge interest in the latest Elena Ferrante to appear in English, The Lying Life of Adults (June, Europa Editions), which is set once again in Naples.

An Irish theatre legend and her daughter take centre stage in Anne Enrights Actress (February, Jonathan Cape) while eccentricities are celebrated in Anne Tylers Redhead by the Side of the Road (April, Chatto & Windus). Inspired by all the active wear she saw during a trip to Australia, Lionel Shrivers The Motion of the Body Through Space (Fourth Estate, May) promises a hilarious evisceration of the cult of fitness.

Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell produces his first novel in six years, Utopia Avenue (June, Hachette), about a British band in Londons psychedelic scene in the late 1960s. Isabel Allende's A Long Petal of the Sea (Bloomsbury, January) is an epic about refugees who escape Spains civil war and embark on a boat voyage arranged by the poet Pablo Neruda. More than a decade after her multimillion-selling debut, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke returns with Piranesi (second half 2020, Bloomsbury).

Lionel Shriver won't pull punches in The Motion of the Body Through Space.Credit:Edwina Pickles

Eimear McBrides Strange Hotel starts with a nameless woman entering a nondescript hotel room (February, A&U); Booker Prize-winner Graham Swift's Here We Are (February, Scribner) follows a Brighton theatre group in 1959; and The North Water author Ian McGuire transports us to 1860s Britain and America and the war for Irish independence in The Abstainer (May, S&S).

The limits of the novel are tested in Colum McCanns masterpiece Apeirogon, A Novel (February, Bloomsbury). Also playing with form is Michael Christies ambitious Greenwood (February, Scribe), an intergenerational saga that covers hundreds of years and is structured like the rings of a tree.

Look out for: Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt, January, Hachette); Louise Erdrich (The Night Watchman, March, Hachette); Jodi Picoult (second half 2020, A&U); Philippe Sands (The Ratline, May, Hachette); and Emma Jane Unsworth (Adults, March, HarperCollins). For a short-story fix consider Richard Fords Sorry For Your Trouble (May, Bloomsbury) and Matthew Bakers Why Visit America (second half 2020, Bloomsbury).

Gender, geography and sexuality emerge as dominant themes in a promising line-up of Australian debuts. Ronnie Scotts The Adversary (April, Hamish Hamilton), a coming-of-age novel that follows a friendship between two gay men in Melbourne, has already attracted rave reviews. Andrew Pippos' Luckys (second half 2020, Picador) visits a Greek-Australian family over six decades, and Pip Williams reimagines the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary in The Dictionary of Lost Words (April, Affirm).

A couple give polyamory a crack in Paul Dalgarno's Poly (August, Ventura) and Tobias McCorkell draws on his childhood growing up with his grandparents and troubled mother in Everything in its Right Place (July, Transit). Two novels offer intriguing examinations of human/non-human relationships: Erin Hortle's The Octopus and I (April, A&U) and Laura Jean McKay's The Animals in that Country (April, Scribe).

Author Alice Pung will publish her first adult novel, One Hundred Days.Credit:

Striking a fictional note for the time is memoirist and pianist Anna Goldsworthy with Melting Moments (March, Black Inc.), a story about love before and after World War II that is partly inspired by her grandmothers life. Alice Pung also has her first adult novel, One Hundred Days (October, Black Inc.).

Other new voices include: Laura McPhee-Browne (Cherry Beach, February, Text); Catherine Noske (The Salt Madonna, first half 2020, Picador); Dani Powell (Return to Dust, UWA); Madeleine Ryan (A Room Called Earth, September, Scribe); Rebecca Starford (Hidden, July, A&U); Josephine Taylor (The Rook, November, Fremantle); and Jessie Tu (A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing, July, A&U),

Look out for collections from Melissa Manning (Smokehouse, second half 2020, QUP); Wayne Marshall (Shirl, Affirm, February); Sean OBeirne (A Couple of Things Before the End, February, Black Inc); Stephen Pham (Vietnamatta, October, Brow Books); and Barry Lee Thompson (Broken Rules and other Stories, August, Transit).

Internationally, keep your eye on: L. Annette Binder (The Vanishing Sky, Bloomsbury, June); Kiley Reid (Such A Fun Age, January, Bloomsbury); Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa, April, Fourth Estate); Kawai Strong Washburn (Sharks in the Time of Saviours, March, Farrar Straus Giroux); An Yu (Braised Pork, February, Harvill Secker); and C Pam Zhang (How Much of These Hills is Gold, April, Hachette).

The three musketeers of Australian crime writing return: Jane Harper (second half 2020, Pan MacMillan), Chris Hammer (second half 2020, A&U) and Dervla McTiernan (The Good Turn, March, HarperCollins). Call Me Evie author J.P. Pomare captures the dark side of small town life In the Clearing (January, Hachette). From Fremantle Press, Dave Warner looks to Sherlock Holmes in Over My Dead Body (July); David Whish-Wilson has the third in his Frank Swann series with Shore Leave (November) and Alan Carters sergeant Nick Chester takes on a scandal-plagued religious sect (December).

Crime writers to watch include Gabriel Bergmoser, who has signed a two-book deal and movie rights, starting with his debut The Hunter set on a deserted Australian highway, and Kyle Perrys Tasmanian-based The Bluffs (July, Michael Joseph), described as "Scrublands meets Picnic at Hanging Rock".

Dervla McTiernan will publish her third crime novel in 2020.Credit:Julia Dunin

Stephen King has four stories in his collection If it Bleeds (May, Hachette). Other for crime buffs include: Stuart Turton's second novel set on the high seas Devil and the Dark Water (second half 2020, Raven); Stephanie Wrobels The Recovery of Rose Gold (March, Michael Joseph); Max Brooks Devolution (May, Century); Dugald Bruce-Lockharts The Lizard (April, Bloomsbury); Jessica Moors Keeper (April, Viking); and and Iain Ryan's The Spiral (June, Echo).

In true crime, two books take on the case of vanished William Tyrrell: Caroline Overington (Missing William Tyrrell, March, HarperCollins) and Ally Chumley (Searching for Spiderman, March, Hardie Grant). Walkley Award winners Anthony Dowsley and Patrick Carlyon expand their journalism about lawyer turned police informant Nicola Gobbo in Lawyer X (June, HarperCollins), while embroiled cop Paul Dale has Cops, Drugs, Lawyer X and Me (March, Hachette).

An impressive line-up of Australian women writers offers genre-crossing works exploring emotion, trauma, bodies, sexuality and gender. Clementine Ford explores love through her own experiences in How We Love (second half 2020, A&U), while publisher Donna Ward reflects on being a spinster in She I Dare Not Name (March, A&U). Look out for Emily Clements' The Lotus Eaters (February, Hardie Grant); Bastian Fox Phelan (September, Giramondo); Eloise Grills' Big Beautiful Female Theory (August, Brow Books); and Ellena Savages Blueberries (March, Text). Storm and Grace novelist Kathryn Heyman details her remarkable story of being a deckhand on a trawler in the Timor Sea after experiencing poverty, violence and assault in Fury (July, A&U). Katerina Bryant looks at mental illness and how medical institutions treat women in Hysteria (May, NewSouth).

Clementine Ford will explore love through her own experiences in How We Love.

Indigenous fire practitioner Victor Steffensen looks at how Indigenous fire practices could help our country in Fire Country (March, Hardie Grant) while poet John Kinsella explores his relationship to the environment in Displaced (March, Transit)

Pollies in need of more air time include Malcolm Turnbull (A Bigger Picture, April, Hardie Grant), Scott Ludlam (Full Circle, August, Black Inc.), Christopher Pyne (July, Hachette) and Derryn Hinch (Unfinished Business, April, MUP).

Torres News editor Aaron Smith pulls no punches as he looks at the nation from its most northerly outpost, Thursday Island, in The Rock (November, Transit) and former ABC Middle-East Correspondent Sophie McNeill shares stories from war-ravaged corners of the earth in We Cant Say We Didnt Know (March, HarperCollins).

Two-time Miles Franklin Award-winner Alex Miller has a memoir about his dearest friend and mentor, Max Blatt (second half 2020, A&U).

Alex Miller has a memoir about his dear friend and mentor.

Biographer Darleen Bungey, the sister of writer Geraldine Brooks, turns the lens on herself with a memoir of their father, crooner Laurie Brooks in Daddy Cool (May, A&U). Also look out for memoirs from actor Miranda Tapsell (Top End Girl, May, Hachette), and renowned Australian ballerina Mary Li, wife of Li Cunxin (Ballet, Li, Sophie and Me, September, Viking).

Internationally, memoirs come from whistleblower Chelsea Manning (July, Bodley Head), musician Alicia Keys (More Myself, March, Flatiron) and Greta Thunberg and her family (Our House is on Fire, March, Allen Lane).

Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker look set to cause ripples with new reporting on Donald Trumps presidency, A Very Stable Genius (January, Bloomsbury).

The leader of the Hong Kong protests, Nobel Prize nominee Joshua Wong, tells his story in Unfree Speech (January, WH Allen) and long-term resident Antony Dapiran looks at the history of the protests and what they mean for the future in City on Fire (May, Scribe). Clive Hamilton follows his controversial Silent Invasion with a comprehensive exploration, written with academic Mareike Ohlberg, of communist China (Hidden Hand, May, Hardie Grant).

Hong Kong protest leader Joshua Wong tells his story for the first time in Unfree Speech.Credit:Bloomberg

In matters of gender, race and representation look out for Ada Calhoun's Why We Cant Sleep (January, Text); Ariel Gores F*ck Happiness (May, Black Inc); Peggy Orensteins Boys and Sex (July, HarperCollins, July); Layla F. Saads Me and White Supremacy (February, Quercus); and Tanya Talagas All Our Relations (March, Scribe). Former PM Julia Gillard explores gender bias in Women and Leadership (July, Vintage), written with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Carly Findlay edits the anthology Growing up Disabled in Australia (Black Inc, June).

There's no shortage of books on climate change. Bill Gates looks at new technologies in How to Avoid Climate Change Disaster (June, Allen Lane). Locally, expect to see Ketan Joshi (Road to Resolution, August, NewSouth); Paddy Manning (Body Count, May, S&S); Jonica Newby (Climate Grief, September, NewSouth); and Marian Wilkinson (Carbon Club, June, A&U). And now that we've messed it all up, Elise Bohan argues that we should embrace the transhuman in the thought-provoking Future Superhuman (October, NewSouth).

If youre after something a little more hopeful, Julia Baird explores the light within, the internal happiness, that she calls Phosphorescence (April, Fourth Estate) and Utopia for Realists author Rutger Bregman looks at how altruism offers a new way to think in Human Kind (second half 2020, Oneworld).

In current affairs, Bernard Collaery, a lawyer charged after exposing an Australian bugging operation in East Timor, publishes (Oil Under Troubled Water, March, MUP), and regional tensions are explored in Rory Medcalfs Contest for the Indo-Pacifc (March, La Trobe). Lindy Edwards looks at big business (Corporate Power in Australia, February, Monash); Royce Kurmelovs at our debt (Just Money, second half 2020, UQP); Supreme court justice Michael Pembroke (August, Hardie Grant) looks to the US in Play by the Rules; Peter Cronau reveals Australias role in the War on Terror (The Base, June, ABC); and political journalist Samantha Maiden takes us inside the Australian Labor Partys failed election campaign (March, Viking).

Bernard Collaery, author of Oil Under Troubled Waters.Credit:AAP

Others to look out for include Melissa Daveys book on Cardinal George Pell, A Fair Trial (second half 2020, Scribe);Stephanie Convery's account of the death of Sydney boxer Davey Browne (After the Count, Viking, March); GP Karen Hitchcocks The Medicine: A Doctors Notes (February, Black Inc); Teacher author Gabbie Strouds Dear Parents (February, A&U); Robert Dessaix on ageing (Time of Our Lives, second half 2020, Brio); and Randa Abdel-Fattahs Growing up in the Age of Terror (July, NewSouth).

Expect biographies on New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern (Madeleine Chapman, April, Black Inc.); NRL stars Owen Craigie (OCD : The Owen Craigie Disorders, Rupert Guinness, September, Affirm) and Cameron Smith (second half 2020, A&U); and Australian Jewish leader Mark Leibler (The Powerbroker, Michael Gawenda, May, Monash).

Cassandra Pybus publishes her long-awaited work Truganini (March, A&U). Other historical biographies include: Evelyn Juers on Philippa Cullen (The Dancer, September, Giramondo); Gabrielle Carey on Australian-born novelist Elizabeth von Arnim (Only Happiness Here, second half 2020, UQP); RobertWainwright on the great granddaughter of the Lindeman wines founder, Enid Lindeman (A&U, July); and David Duffy on the first Australian woman electrical engineer, Florence Violet McKenzie (Radio Girl, May, A&U).

Look out for a biography of New Zealand PM Jacinda Arden.Credit:Getty Images

Nick Brodies Force of Arms (May, Hardie Grant) looks at the history of the firearm in Australia; Patrick Mullins considers the publishing decision that forced the end of literary censorship in The Trials of Portnoy (June, Scribe); and Stuart Kells has the history of the Abbotsford Convent, The Convent (MUP, March). Mark Dunn (Convict Valley, June, A&U) and Peter Gross (Ten Rogues, February, A&U) tell of daring convict escapes, while Garry Linnell explores the fall of the Australian bushranger in Badlands (September, Michael Joseph). Military history includes James Phelps' exploration of a female team of code breakers in World War One (Australian Code Breakers, March, HarperCollins) and Elizabeth Becker on female journalists during the Vietnam War (Journaliste, September, Black Inc.)

Conversations presenter Richard Fidler turns his eyes abroad with a history of Prague (The Golden Maze, July, HarperCollins).

Felicity Plunkett has a long-awaited new collection, A Kinder Sea (February, UQP). Also from UQP comes Ellen van Neervens second collection, Throat (May), and an anthology of First Nations poetry, Fire Front edited by Alison Whittaker (April, UQP). Ellen van Neerven also collects hip-hop poetry written by First Nations young people in Homeland Calling (May, Hardie Grant).

Giramondo has collections from Michael Farrell (Family Trees, March), Laurie Duggan (Homer Street, April) and J.S. Harry's posthumous New and Selected Poems (May, Giramondo). Bron Bateman has a deeply feminist project in Of Memory and Furniture (February, Fremantle).

Ellen van Neerven has a second poetry collection due.

Look out for Thuy Ons debut collection, Turbulence (March, UWA), and Courtney Peppernells Pillow Thoughts IV (August, AMP).

Puncher and Wattmans list includes: Martin Langord's Eardrum (February); Ella Jeffery's debut Dead Bolt (April); Todd Turners The Thorn (June); Rebecca Edwards Plague Animals (July); and Louise Crisps Glide (November). Vrasidas Karalis brings us the experience of living on Glebe Point Road in The Glebe Point Road Blues (February, Brandl & Schlesinger)

From Wakefield comes Kate Llewellyn's Harbour (February) and Ali Whitelocks The Lactic Acid in the Calves of Your Despair (April).

Melanie Kembrey is Spectrum Deputy Editor at the Sydney Morning Herald.

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The books to read in 2020 - Sydney Morning Herald

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Posted: Dec 27, 2019 12:01 AM

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

Many people reading this will have already taken down their Christmas lights. Just a few decades ago, it was pretty normal for Christians in America to leave up their lights for all 12 days of Christmas. Now, many think Christmas Day is the 12th day instead of the first. My lights will burn bright until Jan. 5, where, by tradition, the lights must be off before sunset. On Jan. 6, which is Epiphany, Mardi Gras season starts in earnest for those of us from Louisiana.

As I get older, I love the Christmas season more and more. Easter comes as a weekend. Christmas comes as a month of Advent on the heels of Thanksgiving. It gives time for more reflection, often centered around some pretty deep theology in carols. The basic gist of the caroling is all the same. God became flesh and humbled himself by being born in a manger and giving up the trappings of royalty and then dying a criminal's death having committed no crime.

In the United States, whether we like to admit it or not, we are already deep into political campaign season. Impeachment season is upon us as well. Everything is now political. Just two weeks ago, the author J.K. Rowling walked into a firestorm for having the audacity to be pro-science. She declared sex is immutable. Men cannot become women, and vice versa. Though she endorsed this scientific fact, woke protestors decided to burn her books. Even opinion writers in The New York Times denounced her for expressing an opinion others in The New York Times have expressed in the past.

Everything has become political. Every political cause has taken on religious fervor. It can wear a person out. In wokeness, every principled position firmly held will eventually give way to something more extreme, radical and wholly disconnected from reason. Truthfully, though, none of it matters. Too many people have separated themselves from the eternal to focus on the here and now. They have decided to seek a future utopia of some kind, aware their mortal life is limited and unaware there is an eternity. Behaviors change when one recognizes eternity.

Too many partisans have forgotten eternity. On both sides of the political spectrum, people are looking for political saviors to save them from people on the other side of that spectrum. It is sad to see secular progressives running in hamster wheels of outrage, perpetually spun up about some perceived injustice. It is hilarious to see Christian evangelicals insistent on loyalty to a politician to save them from the other side. Apparently, having the God of the universe on their side is not enough.

Americans need a recalibration on priorities. So much of what we argue about does not really matter. No Republican was ever profoundly impacted by Barack Obama except, arguably, in the area of health care. No Democrat has ever been profoundly impacted by Donald Trump except, arguably, in their take-home pay. Both sides treat Washington as more important than it is.

What is actually important is this: You have a soul, you will live forever, and there is a God who wants a relationship with you. One day you will stand before him, and he will judge you. Everything else should flow from that. For those who do not believe, one day they will, and hopefully that belief will come on this side of the grave. For everyone else, behaving in politics as if eternity does not matter might ultimately suggest one is not as truly committed to the idea of eternity as one might claim.

Protestant Christians believe we are saved by faith alone, and good works derive from our faith. Regardless of how one sees salvation, I would suggest a lot of us could stand to dwell more on it than on Washington. We find our welfare in our local communities, not in far off cities that affect us far less than we claim. As we move beyond Christmas and into a new year, I would urge you (and me) to dwell less on the here and now and more on eternity.

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The Eternal and the Here and Now - Townhall

New Years Eve Eve & New Years EveColorado Convention CenterDecadence is back for two nights of dancing. Transport yourself to a utopia of lights, music, and art installations. The lineup features some of the biggest EDM stars including Bassnectar, Steve Aoki, Tiesto, and Diesel (aka Shaq himself).Cost: Single night tickets start at $89

New Years EveThe Woods at The Source Hotel + Market HallWith one of the best views of Downtown Denver, this is the most scenic spot to welcome the new decade. Along with the city lights and front row fireworks view, youll enjoy live music from the Quemando salsa band, small bites from The Woods kitchen, cocktails, and a midnight toast. Youll also be able to order up some special items from The Woods downstairs neighbor, Safta.Cost: Tickets are $95

New Years EveMile High StationIf theres ever a good excuse to break out a tux or gown and feel elegant as f*ck, its the dawn of a new decade. Go all in on NYE glam at this party, where your tickets include an open bar, live music and DJs, casino games, and 2,000 balloons falling from the ceiling at midnight.Cost: $100

New Years EveMcNichols Civic Center BuildingThis party is taking over the three floor McNichols building with DJs, dancing, live music, art installations, and open bars. This is the 11th annual Resolution Denver NYE party and theyre going extra big this year. Bonus: you dont even have to leave the party to catch the Downtown fireworks show at midnight.Cost: Tickets start at $99

New Years EveThe LobbyBeer fests are pretty much happening every week in Denver, so why should NYE be any different? Opt for the other kind of bubbly this year and spend your night sipping all you can drink craft beer. Theres also an optional three-course dinner, plus a midnight release of a brand new brew (the first beer release of the new decade, and you can be the first to sip it!).Cost: All you can drink tickets start at $70

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Denvers 10 Best New Year's Eve Parties - Thrillist

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Last year, Lexingtons Cary Memorial Library was one of the largest and most popular in the state, despite the fact the towns population does not rank among the top 50 in Massachusetts. Cary Librarys 208,968 print holdings are the 11th most in the state. Also, it is the sixth busiest library in the state, coming in just behind the libraries of Boston, Newton Cambridge, Brookline, and Worcester, according to data from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. The fact Lexingtons library is able to keep pace with those of much larger communities speaks to Carys significant and longstanding importance for residents of Lexington and the surrounding area.

This popularity did not wane in 2019, as visitors to Cary expressed their interest in a wide variety of books. Below is a list of the 10 books, in order, that were most frequently checked out in Lexington this year, according to information provided by library staff.

"Becoming" byMichelle Obama

The former first ladys memoir takes the top spot in 2019. Here, Obama takes readers from her childhood in Chicago through her time at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and beyond. Critics have praised Becoming for the intimacy and candor Obama imbues her writing with.

"Educated: a memoir" byTara Westover

Lexington readers loved memoirs this year. In Educated, Westover details her childhood in Idaho, where she was raised by survivalist parents in near-isolation. After going to school for the first time at age 17, Westovers world opened up. She went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is now a bestselling author.

"Where the Crawdads Sing" byDelia Owens

When a North Carolina man is found dead in 1969, locals immediately suspect the marsh girl, a mysterious young woman who lives alone in the reeds outside of town. The novel that follows is one part murder mystery, one part bildungsroman, and entirely a hit with local readers.

"Transcription" by Kate Atkinson

This novel dives into and beyond the world of WWII-era espionage, following a woman who is recruited by MI5 to keep keep tabs on fascist sympathizers in England. After a time jump, her past comes to light and she must face the consequences of her actions.

"Unsheltered" by Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolvers latest tells two simultaneous stories. In one, a husband and wife struggle to make ends meet despite their best efforts. In the other, a science teacher and contemporary of Charles Darwin tries to make his voice heard in a repressive village initially envisioned as a utopia. As the tales grow, Kingsolver deftly intertwines them, creating another bestseller.

"Nine Perfect Strangers" by Liane Moriarty

The author of Big Little Lies sets her sights on a new age, remote health resort and the nine strangers who have decided to attend for a variety of reasons. Eventually, shocking secrets are uncovered about the resorts owner and the nature of their gathering there in the first place.

"The Witch Elm" byTana French

With this stand-alone thriller from the author of the Dublin Murder Squad series, French tells the story of Toby, a cocky young man whose world is upended when he is nearly beaten to death by burglars. While he struggles to recover his memory, a mysterious skull is found in a tree on the family estate and an investigation begins. Through Toby, French explores the nature and origin of upper-class white privilege while also crafting another acclaimed pageturner.

"Past Tense: A Jack Reacher Novel" by Lee Child

The latest in this long-running blockbuster series follows former soldier Jack Reacher as he searches for the truth surrounding his father in an isolated New England town.

"Normal People" by Sally Rooney

In Normal People, Rooney acquaints readers with Connell and Marianne, two childhood friends whose differences continue to draw them together through college and beyond. Critics have praised Rooneys book for its insight into class dynamics and its compelling love story.

"Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng

This novel details what happens when an enigmatic single mother and her teenage daughter become tenants of Elena Richardson, a buttoned-up woman from a seemingly idyllic Midwestern suburb. Ngs book has been praised for its unflinching look at the force of motherhood and the secrets that can accompany it.

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What did Lexington read this year? Here are the most popular books at Cary Library in 2019 - Wicked Local Watertown

Although we have not yet reached the point where automation threatens to displace vast swaths of the labor force, a narrative of techno-disruption will continue to frame debates about work, education and economy policy. That narrative should make allowance not just for the future of work, but also for the possibility of leisure.

LONDON The most depressing feature of the current explosion in robot-apocalypse literature is that it rarely transcends the world of work. Almost every day, news articles appear detailing some new round of layoffs. In the broader debate, there are apparently only two camps: Those who believe that automation will usher in a world of enriched jobs for all, and those who fear it will make most of the workforce redundant.

This bifurcation reflects the fact that working for a living has been the main occupation of humankind throughout history. The thought of a cessation of work fills people with dread, for which the only antidote seems to be the promise of better work. Few have been willing to take the cheerful view of Bertrand Russells provocative 1932 essayIn Praise of Idleness. Why is it so difficult for people to accept that the end of necessary labor could mean barely imaginable opportunities to live, in John Maynard Keyness words, wisely, agreeably and well?

The fear of labor-saving technology dates back to the start of the Industrial Revolution, but two factors in our own time have heightened it. The first is that the new generation of machines seems poised to replace not only human muscles but also human brains. Owing to advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, we are said to be entering an era of thinking robots; and those robots will soon be able to think even better than we do. The worry is that teaching machines to perform most of the tasks previously carried out by humans will make most human labor redundant. In that scenario, what will humans do?

The other fear factor is the increasing precariousness of wage laborthough this concern is seemingly belied by headline statistics suggesting that unemployment is at a historic low. The problem is that an economy at full employment now contains a large penumbra of what economist Guy Standingcallsthe precariat: under-employed people who work less and for lower pay than they would like. A growing number of workers, seeming to lack any kind of job (and pay) security, are thus forced to work well below their ability.

It is natural that one would interpret the onset of precariousness as the first stage in a broader trend toward workforce redundancy, especially if one pays attention to alarmist predictions of the next category of jobs at risk. But this conclusion is premature. The penetration of robotics into the world of work has not yet been sufficient to explain the rise of the precariat. So far, cost cutting in the West has largely taken the form of offshoring to the East, where labor is cheaper, rather than replacing humans with machines. But onshoring work that was previously offshored will offer cold comfort to workers if machines get most of the jobs.

According to the first viewlet us call it job enrichmenttechnology will eventually create more, better human jobs than it destroys, as has always been the case in the past. Simple, mundane tasks may increasingly be automated, but human labor will then be freed up for more interesting and creative cognitive work.

In late 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) publishedJobs Lost, Jobs Gained, which claimed that as much as 50 percent of working hours in the global economy could theoretically be automated; the authors suggested, however, that not more than 30 percent actually would be. Further, they estimated that less than 5 percent of occupations could befullyautomated; but that in 60 percent of occupations, at least 30 percent of the required tasks could be.

In line with the usual mainstream assessment, MGI believes that while there will be no net loss of jobs in the long run, the transition may include a period of higher unemployment and wage adjustments. It all depends, the authors say, on the rate at which displaced workers are re-employed: A low re-employment rate will lead to a higher medium-term unemployment rate andvice versa.

MGIs proposal for massive investment in education to lower the unemployment cost of the transition is also conventional. The faster the labor reabsorption, the higher the wage growth. Lower re-employment levels will cause wages to fall, with a greater share of the gains from automation accruing to capital, not labor. But the authors hasten to add:

Even if the particulars of historical experience turn out to differ from conditions today, one lesson seems pertinent: Although economies adjust to technological shocks, the transition period is measured in decades, not years, and the rising prosperity may not be shared by all.

This assessment is typical, and it has led many to call on governments to invest heavily in so-called upskilling programs. In acommentaryforProject Syndicate,Zia Qureshiof the Brookings Institution argues that, with smart, forward-looking policies, we canensure that the future of work is a better job. In this view, automation is simply the continuation of the move toward more, higher-quality jobs that has characterized capitalist growth since the Industrial Revolution.

History is on the optimists side. Mechanization has been the durable engine of productivity and wage growth as well as reductions in working hours, albeit usually with a considerable lag. Although the Roberts loom cost hundreds of thousands of handloom weavers their jobs in the nineteenth century, the broader wave of new industrial technologies enabled a much larger population to be maintained at a higher standard of living.

But, according to the second viewcall it job destructionthis time is different. The programming of machines to perform ever more complex tasks with ever-increasing speed, accuracy, precision and reliability will result in mass unemployment. InRise of the Robots, author and entrepreneur Martin Ford addresses the techno-optimists head-on. There is a widely held beliefbased on historical evidence stretching back at least as far as the industrial revolutionthat while technology may certainly destroy jobs, businesses, and even entire industries, it will also create entirely new occupationsoften in areas that we cant yet imagine. The problem, Ford argues, is that information technology has now reached the point where it can be considered a true utility, much like electricity.

It stands to reason that the successful new industries that will emerge in the years ahead will have taken full advantage of this powerful new utility and the distributed machine intelligence that accompanies it. That means they will rarelyif everbe highly labor-intensive. The threat is that as creative destruction unfolds, the destruction will fall primarily on labor-intensive businesses in traditional areas like retail and food preparation, whereas the creation will generate new industries that simply dont employ many people.

On this view, the economy is heading for a tipping point where job creation will begin to fall consistently short of what is required to employ the workforce fully. We will soon reach the stage where the machine-driven destruction of existing human jobs far outpaces the creation of new human jobs, resulting in inexorably rising mass technological unemployment.

Optimists response to such concerns is that the workforce simply needs to be trained or upskilled in order to race with the machines. Typical of this outlook is the following headline on acommentarypublished by the World Economic Forum: How new technologies can create huge numbers of meaningful jobs. According to the author, concerns about the looming devastation that self-driving technology will have on the 3.5 million truck drivers in the U.S. are misdirected. Augmented-reality technology, we are told, can create loads of new jobs by enabling people to work from home. All that will be needed is training of the kind offered by Upskill, an augmented reality company in the manufacturing and field services sectors, which uses wearable technologies to provide step-by-step instructions to industrial workers.

The author, himself the co-founder of an augmented-reality company, goes on to argue that, With the pace of technological progress only accelerating and with increasing specialization becoming the norm in every industry, reducing the time necessary to retrain workers is pivotal to maintaining the competitiveness of industrialized economies. There is no mention of the wages that will be offered to these upskilled workers in their meaningful new jobs. We are simply told that they will be relocated to lower cost areas more in need of job creation. Only at the very end of the commentary does the author acknowledge that, in fact, Technology is a force that has the potential to eliminate entire industries through robotics and automation, and for that we should be concerned.

The retraining argument should give us pause. In portraying upskilling as the solution to the labor displacement caused by new technologies, optimists rarely admit that if predictions about thinking robots turn out to be anywhere near true, workers would need to be trained in technical skills to an extent that is unprecedented in human history.

Moreover, the time it takes to upgrade the skills of the workforce will inevitably exceed the time it takes to automate the economy. This will be true even if claims about an imminent deluge of automation are greatly exaggerated. In the interval, there will be under- and unemployment. In fact, this has already been happening. Although automation is not yet bearing down on workers to the extent that has been predicted, it has nonetheless pushed more of them into less-skilled jobs; and its mere possibility may be exerting downward pressure on wages. There are already signs of the new class structure envisioned by the pessimists: lovely jobs at the top, lousy jobs at the bottom.

A more fundamental question is what we mean by upskilling, and what its consequences might be. Often, heavy emphasis is placed on the importance of better technological education at all levels of society, as if all people will need to succeed in the future is to be taught how to write and understand computer code.

As the technology writer James Bridle hasshown, this line of argument has a number of limitations. While encouraging people to take up computer programming might be a good start, such training offers only a functional understanding of technological systems. It does not equip people to ask higher-level questions along the lines of, Where did these systems come from, who designed them and what for, and which of these intentions still lurk within them today? Bridle also points out that arguments for technological education and upskilling are usually offered in nakedly pro-market terms, following a simple equation: The information economy needs more programmers, and young people need jobs in the future.

More to the point, the upskilling discourse totally ignores the possibility that automation could also allow people simply to work less. The reason for this neglect is twofold: It is commonly assumed that human wants are insatiable, and that we will thus workad infinitumto satisfy them; and it is simply taken for granted that work is the primary source of meaning in human lives.

Historically, neither of these claims holds true. The consumption race is a rather recent phenomenon, dating no earlier than the late nineteenth century. And the possibility that we might one day liberate ourselves from the curse of work has fascinated thinkers from Aristotle to Russell. Many visions of Utopia betray a longing for leisure and liberation from toil. Even today, surveysshowthat people in most developed countries would prefer to work less, even in the workaholic United States, and might even accept less pay if it meant logging fewer hours on the clock.

The deeply economistic nature of the current debate excludes the possibility of alife beyond work. Yet if we want to meet the challenges of the future, it is not enough to know how to code, analyze data and invent algorithms. We need to start thinking seriously and at a systemic level about the operational logic of consumer capitalism and the possibility of de-growth.

In this process, we must abandon the false dichotomy between jobs and idleness.Fullemployment need not meanfull-timeemployment, and leisure time need not be spent idly. (Education can play an important role in ensuring that it is not.) Above all, wealth and income will need to be distributed in such a way that machine-enabled productivity gains do not accrue disproportionately to a small minority of owners, managers and technicians.

Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University. The author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes, he began his political career in the Labour party, became the Conservative Partys spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords and was eventually forced out of the Conservative Party for his opposition to NATOs intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

Project Syndicate, 2019

An indispensable guide to finance, investing and entrepreneurship.

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How Humans Can Compete Against Machines in the Workforce - Worth

Im going to say something that theater critics arent supposed to say: Lately Ive been enjoying going to the movies a lot more than going to the theater.

Theater has had a special pull for me since I got my first goosebumps seeing Annie Get Your Gun and South Pacific at the South Shore Music Circus when I was in grade school. David Wheelers Theater Company of Bostons brilliant stagings of modernist masterpieces thrilled me in college. That magnet was even stronger after I switched from television to theater criticism at the Boston Globe in the mid-90s. Lately, though, Ive been feeling that pull to be resistible.

To be fair, its not every month that four of the greatest filmmakers in the world release new films: Pedro Almodvars Pain and Glory; Bong Joon Hos Parasite; Martin Scorseses The Irishman; and Franois Ozons By the Grace of God. So it would be premature and probably inaccurate to declare a new day dawning in world cinema.

Still. All four movies deliver what Id call a peak artistic experience. What in the world is that? Its often out of this world, maybe even beyond words, a transcendental experience that leaves one weak at the knees or in awe of the artistic excellence or emotional impact of whats just been witnessed.

As the fall theater season winds down, it disappoints me that I havent had any such peak artistic experiences in Boston area theater this year. David Byrnes American Utopia at the Colonial and Cambodian Rock Band at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre came close, but American Utopia needed more of a thematic through line and the dialogue in Cambodian Rock Band was often a little too unsophisticated when it wasnt talking about genocide. There were a number of other excellent productions this season including SIX at the American Repertory Theater; Admissions at SpeakEasy Stage Company; My Fascination with Creepy Ladies by Anthem Theatre Company; The Purists and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead at the Huntington; Nixons Nixon at New Repertory Theatre.

So isnt excellence good enough? And sharing a communal experience with live actors and audiences that arent siloed into popcorn-munching easy chairs? What more do I want?

What I want not all of the time, but certainly some of the time is to see a play or musical that makes me look at the world differently when I walk out of the theater. Admissions is certainly a provocative play and nicely staged by SpeakEasy, but its debate about the pros and cons of striving for diversity doesnt tell me anything I didnt know about the issue. I often get the sense that Boston theater, unlike New York or even Berkshires theater, is so obsessed with telling stories of the moment that theyre giving short shrift to stories meant to last.

What I want not all of the time, but certainly some of the time is to see a play or musical that makes me look at the world differently when I walk out of the theater.

Will people still be talking about Admissions and SIX 50 years from now? My guess is that unlike say, A Raisin in the Sun or Caroline, or Change, these shows dont address their issues about diversity, empowerment and misogyny in a way that feels transcendent and timeless.

This year is a far cry from last fall, which was loaded: SpeakEasys Between Riverside and Crazy; A.R.T.s The Black Clown; the Huntingtons Man in the Ring; ArtsEmersons import of Measure for Measure; and the long-awaited Hamilton. If you look, for example, at Between Riverside and Crazy, Stephen Adly Guirgis' play feels absolutely of the moment in terms of how it deals with multiculturalism and economic displacement, but is also hilariously written, thoroughly transporting, empathetic, scabrous and redemptive. Not unlike Parasite. And a great SpeakEasy production to boot. If Im around in 50 years, Id get off my deathbed to see this again.

Im still thinking about the emotional and/or intellectual wallop of all of these productions a year later. This year feels more like a tap on the shoulder by contrast. Some of it can be attributed to accidents of timing, but the fact is that theaters often lead with their best in September and this year felt a little complacent.

Take another play I admired Ronan Noones one-man play the smuggler, at Boston Playwrights Theatre, with the wonderful Billy Meleady in the title role of a writer so down on his luck that he turns to a life of violence and crime. Spoken in verse, no less. I chuckled at a lot of the rhymes and had sympathy for the devilish path that the character embarked on, despite the victims in his wake.

It was a far cry, though, from how Scorsese handled Frank Sheerans (Robert De Niro) similar pragmatic immorality in The Irishman or how Bong managed the twists and turns of the central impoverished family of con artists in Parasite. In the play and the two movies were presented with a world in which the only way to live the dream, American or Korean, is through crime, betrayal and stepping on the backs of others.

But even in an amoral universe there doesnt seem like theres that much at stake in the smuggler and everything seems to be at stake in those two films, politically and personally. In all four films, really, as Pain and Glory is about finding personal redemption through art and fellowship and By the Grace of God is a deeply sophisticated, humanistic look at the courage of French victims of child abuse risking everything by standing up to the reprehensible lack of attention by the Catholic Church.

Theater should be offering more than the movies and TV, not less.

I dont mean to single out Noone's play. Im a fan of his work, including this one. But it only served to solidify my dissatisfaction with this season of Boston theater. Theater should be offering more than the movies and TV, not less. And its not about the buckets of money that someone like Scorsese can throw at a film compared to the money available to local theater. God knows there are megamillion dollar movie disasters, but there are also one-man shows that Ill never forget like the Sgn Theatre Companys one-man St. Nicholas from the 90s with Richard McElvain starring as Conor McPhersons protagonist (a theater critic no less).

I could make the same argument about television vs. theater. There was recently a play at the New Repertory Theatre called Trayf, about the conflicts between orthodox and secular Jews. It was cute enough, but not one-tenth as satisfying as an Israeli TV comedy series on Netflix, Shtisel, that dealt with the same issue.And talk about peak artistic experiences if you didnt see the HBO series,Our Boys, an Israeli-Palestinian co-creation about the murder of a Palestinian boy and the tension it creates between Orthodox and secular Israelis, get thee to HBO On Demand. Have I been as moved in a Boston theater as I have on my couch watching Allen Ginsbergs benediction in Scorseses Netflix film about Bob Dylans Rolling Thunder Revue or by Ken Burns storytelling on PBS Country Music? Not that I could remember.

I do think that Boston theater, at least since Ive been covering it, goes through cycles of moving forward and then plateauing, and that part of the current plateau has to do with obsessing about the divisive politics of the moment. That should absolutely be part of the mission of theater in general and local theater companies in general. But lets not lose the artistic forest through the political trees.

One of the undeniable peak artistic experiences in recent years was Dave Malloyand Rachel Chavkins Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 at the American Repertory Theater in 2015. A.R.T. is premiering the same teams Moby-Dick in December. And the Huntington is about to open Quixote Nuevo followed by Lynn Nottages Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat.

I hope they all kick-start the theater season. By the end of2020 I want to be eating my words and writing that local theater offers something that no other medium can match.

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Boston Theater Needs To Start Offering Something No Screen Could Match - WBUR

Its the height of folly to conduct an interview in the middle of a New York City sidewalk on a weekday morning. But during a stroll earlier this month along Roosevelt Islands quiet Main Street downright pastoral by Big Apple standards Lizabeth Cohen was coming in loud and clear.

Theres something very peaceful about this place, Cohen said, taking in the rows of mixed-use buildings that line the gently curving streets mile-long course. Theres all this open space, and its so much quieter than Manhattan. And [the retail] is not dominated by huge chains, like Hudson Yards is.

That as she has documented at length in a new book was by design.

Cohen, a history professor at Harvard University, whose first book, Making a New Deal, won the fields prestigious Bancroft Prize in 1991, has spent the last 14 years cataloguing the career of Ed Logue, the mastermind behind the residential enclave that sits tucked between Manhattan and Queens in the middle of the East River. Logue, who died in 2000 at the age of 79, planned Roosevelt Islands development in the late 60s and early 70s as the crown jewel of a massive state-backed housing program.

Logue, who served as the head of the New York State Urban Development Corporation, took the initiative to turn the narrow island, which had been primarily a dumping ground for unsavory city institutions like insane asylums and prisons, into what he envisioned as a utopian mixed-income community. The UDC obtained a 99-year development lease in 1969 and Logue set to work drawing up designs for the island in exacting detail.

Those plans remain the islands backbone even now that private developers have entered the scene. In 1996, Related Companies and Hudson Companies were the winners of a state bidding process for private development on the island. Since then, their nearly 2-million-square-foot Riverwalk development seven of the planned nine buildings have already been completed has added nearly 1,500 apartments to the island, some market rate and some affordable. And the $2 billion Cornell Tech campus has brought a significant new presence from an Ivy League university.

Still, the island remains an oddity of the public sector qua developer: an ever-lonelier relic of an era when governments werent shy about building big things.

Its difficult to write about Logue without yielding to the temptation to compare him with one of the most divisive figures in New York City history, master builder Robert Moses. Moses, a generation older than Logue and a fellow Yale alumnus, ran his own ambitious development agency, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, from Randalls Island, another East River Island just a mile north of Logues domain.

Logue, in the end, succeeded on territory that eluded Moses, who had made two failed attempts to develop Roosevelt Island in the decades before Logue came to New York.

Still, Cohen said, itd be a mistake to draw too direct a line between the two men.

Logue was Robert Moses and the anti-Robert Moses all at once, Cohen quotes a former Logue colleague, Lawrence Goldman, as saying. He would think as large as Moses but unlike Moses, he was as committed to social transformation as he was to physical building.

When Cohen began researching Logues career in the early 2000s, she couldnt have foreseen the relevance her work would have for New York Citys current political moment. But the fruits of her labor a 500-plus-page biography of Logue called Saving Americas Cities that Farrar, Straus and Giroux published in October couldnt have been timelier.

Two years ago, New York Citys 421-a tax credit for housing lapsed for more than a year before being resurrected as Affordable New York, a hair-raising period of uncertainty for New York City multifamily developers that spawned renewed conversation about the governments role in promoting renter-friendly housing markets.

And this year, Albany lawmakers drew fury from New York City developers when they passed a far-reaching new housing law aimed at making it much more difficult for landlords to deregulate rent-protected buildings.

All of a sudden, the same broad questions about governments proper place in guiding housing markets that animated Logues ambitious plan for Roosevelt Island are, once again, reverberating through the halls of power.

That made a visit to Roosevelt Island with Cohen earlier this month a prime occasion to reflect on the islands example. Tracking its evolution from centrally planned community to mixed-use destination is informative most of all because it provides a case study in the strengths and weaknesses of both government planning and private development.

Theres sort of a natural check-and-balance philosophy to the place, said Alexandra Kaplan, a project manager at Hudson Companies, which since the early 2000s has joined with Related as the force behind the islands private apartment buildings. Its a true public-private partnership. Thats part of what has made it so successful.

Related and Hudson are currently at work on their eighth and ninth private residential buildings on the island, but the companies emphasize that scrupulous attention to Logues broad vision for the space if not his specifics have guided their work throughout.

Our development, at the end of the day, is additive to the original, said Frank Monterisi, a Related Companies executive. You look at Roosevelt Island and say, from the original thought, how can there be further development brought to the island to make it better?

Cohen, who during our visit to the island professed a fondness for the heavy, brutalist UDC-built multifamily properties that sprang from Logues original plan, might disagree with Monterisis assessment that Related and Hudsons buildings are a seamless fit. She grimaced at seeing that some of the developers newest construction, such as a project called Riverwalk Point, had an off-street drive for cars. Originally, Logue meant for the island to be mostly an auto-free zone.

This feels really different, doesnt it? she asked, approaching the development. Because there were no cars originally. There was no sense that youd be arriving in a vehicle. It was just going to be, Youre going to approach the building as a pedestrian.

More broadly, she suggested Logue would have been less than comfortable with the arrival of private developers in the first place, which, in bringing luxury tenants to the island alongside subsidized renters, have brought the beginnings of a class divide to the island.

Logue was very proud of the fact that Roosevelt Island was a total piece of social engineering, Cohen said. As [planners of Logues era] were watching inequality grow and boy, it was nothing then compared with today there was a confidence that government interventions in the physical environment could make a huge difference in the way people lived.

But elsewhere, Cohen was pleased to observe continuity with Logues original vision. Disembarking from the aerial tram, which connects the island to 59th Street in Manhattan, she was thrilled to notice a handful of tourists apparently setting off in the direction of Four Freedoms State Park, at the islands southern tip. The small park, which features a monument to Franklin Roosevelt, for whom Logue rechristened the island, was commissioned by Logue in 1972 but didnt open until 40 years later more than a decade after Logues death.

She was also happy to see that a handful of historic sites predating Logues plan which Logue preserved remain intact. One example is the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, a church built on the island in 1889 as a place for the almshouse denizens who lived on the island at the time to worship. Under Logues plan, the chapel was converted to a more sublunary purpose, taking on a role as a community event space. That vision was alive and well last month, when posters advertised upcoming book talks and other community meetings in the building.

This is literally an island unto itself, with its own culture, Ben Kallos, the New York City councilman who represents Roosevelt Island, told Commercial Observer. This is a small-town environment with about 12,000 residents. Everyone knows everyone.

But private development has also brought radical change, including in the form of Manhattanesque rents for market-rate units a taste of the larger citys housing market from which Logue had hoped the island could provide sanctuary. Today, for instance, rental rates for a market-rate studio in The Octagon, a private building at the islands north end, have approached $3,000 per month, according to data from StreetEasy. And two-bedroom apartments in Riverwalk Point have been leased for more than $4,800. BMWs and Range Rovers were not an uncommon sight among the cars parked near those developments entrances.

Even though were responding to market forces, were operating around some basic elements of Roosevelt Island, Hudsons Kaplan said. Were seeing a lot of families [in our developments], and thats a product of supplying really high-quality housing at a price point thats less than the Upper East Side.

Suri Kaiserer, whose firm represented Cornell Tech to island residents and local politicians during its development process, said the islands strong at times forceful community was in evidence throughout.

Those years of work were so intense, Kaiserer recalled. Its such an organized, engaged community. We couldnt just show up. We really needed to build those relationships.

At one early meeting, she added, I almost felt we were getting tomatoes thrown at us. In the end, community engagement led to significant concessions during the construction process, including an arrangement for materials to be shipped to the island by barge instead of via more disruptive trucking.

During the visit, Cohen was interested in the question of how well Logues clarion call for social and racial diversity has persevered on the island. Under Logues plan, 70 percent of the islands stock would be set aside for middle-income residents, with the balance meant to house the poor and the elderly. He also hoped to rent at least 30 percent of the islands apartments to minorities, a goal that came from his desire that no one development would be too strongly associated with a particular ethnic group.

The U.S. Supreme Courts 1978 decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke has since strictly limited governments abilities to target racial quotas that way. Thats a change thats mirrored the direction of government housing policy writ large, which has grown far less activist in the decades since Logue was in his prime.

Compared with looking back in time to when government actually built things, the current state of affairs is that government lays the groundwork and creates the framework and puts the incentives forward. The government communicates to developers, Heres what we think should happen, and asks the market to respond, Monterisi said. When you look at any place around the city, its all about public-private partnership.

In Monterisis view, developers responsiveness to incentives on Roosevelt Island has borne out as a key advantage compared with the earlier era of government-driven development, arguing that despite the coming of wealthier renters, the islands community is as strong as ever.

Theres a healthy incremental approach today, compared with when government comes in and plops something down, Monterisi said. Its a bit more of a market-based concept and a community-based concept.

Separately, Monterisi and Cohen both noted an irony in the course of the islands history. Logue had attempted to achieve diversity by means of central planning. But since the state, through its local agency, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, opened the enclave to more private development, the arrival of market-rate housing has made the island for better or worse more diverse than Logues state agency could have achieved on its own.

After all, Logue hadnt envisioned a Roosevelt Island outpost of an Ivy League school, but Cornell Tech has now opened shop near the islands southern tip. Nor had he planned for a ritzy indoor tennis facility, but that facility too the Roosevelt Island Racquet Club has diversified the crowd that pays the island weekly visits

The fact that theres now the university here, the market rate housing, that theres more recreation: That is still consistent with what [Logue] wanted, Cohen said.

Judging by a stroll past one of the public schools Logue built on the island, his legacy has not disappeared. Cohen noted that the kids running around in the courtyard during recess there were a diverse bunch racially at least.

The scene was a rebuke to an argument Logue heard from developer Richard Ravitch in the 1970s: that Logue had better persuade a ritzy Upper East Side private school such as Dalton to start an outpost on the island, because white families would surely never send their children to its public schools.

Cohen recalled Logans reaction: Logue basically said, Thats not my idea. And this is my island, not your island. So get off.

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Roosevelt Island Was Ed Logue's Utopia. Would He Like It Today? - Commercial Observer

What is your idea of the perfect utopia for kids? Where would you want to see your younger loved ones spend their summer? Regardless of where you choose, your loved ones belong in a place where they are respected, loved, and appreciated. My idea of the perfect utopia for kids is far more than any physical place. A utopia is more of how you feel rather than where you find yourself. That utopia is Camp Uncommon.

Camp Uncommon is a camp that runs over the course of the summer and prioritizes children in elementary and middle school from impoverished neighborhoods. Camp Uncommon serves children from a number of cities such as Boston, Camden, New York, Newark, Rochester, and Troy. Camp gives children the opportunity to venture outside of their neighborhoods and connect with other kids who, in most cases, become lifelong friends. Camp Uncommon first began in the summer of 2016 at Colby College, but has since changed locations to Poyntelle, Pa.

Camp Uncommon is split up intofour different sessions to accommodate as many kids as possible.The goal this past summer was to share the experience with overone thousand kids, which is now the largestnumber of kidsthey have ever served in camp history. In previous years, they have only had about 500 kids over a span of two weeks, butthey believe so strongly in theirmission of giving children the best summer ever thatthey continue to groweachyear.

Children who attend Camp Uncommon engage in various activities throughout the course of the summer such as hiking, nature discovery, athletics, arts, and STEM courses. Alongside the various physical activities the kids take part in during their time at camp, they are also immersed in character building activities such as Discovery and Morning/Evening Summit. Discovery takes place every other day during the span of two weeks and focuses on self reflection as well other values of the day such as empathy, gratitude, wisdom, and honesty. Camp Uncommon prioritizes making kids summer enjoyable, but also insightful so they can become young leaders the following school year.

Camp Uncommonnot only benefits the kids who attend, but also helps employees with their future by building qualities needed for adulthood, college, and teaching. Most employees at Camp Uncommon are teachers themselves, or are getting involved with teaching as a career. Camp Uncommon is under Uncommon Schools so most people find themselves with an opportunity to have a career in teaching after their first or second summer with Camp Uncommon. Aside from this career opportunity, Camp Uncommon also employs high school juniors as junior counselors, which is a good way for them to gain a recommendation for college applications and a paying job for the summer.

In my own experience, Camp Uncommon has strengthened my college application, given me a new perspective on life, and has granted me with life-long connections that I cherish.My coworkers similarly believe Camp Uncommon has made a difference in their lives.

Its made me a more responsible and aware person in my professional life, said Louis Copin. Its made me more comfortable in who I am and expressing who I am no matter who is around me.

Working at Camp Uncommon has encouraged me to step out of my shell, and network with different people, which ultimately made me trust myself more and give new things a try, Tyriq Presely added.

Camp Uncommons ultimate goal is to provide the best summer for as many kids as possible every year.More information about the camp can be found on their website and Instagram page.

Read the rest here:

How one camp is changing the lives of many - The McDaniel Free Press

Canadian author Margaret Atwood speaks during a press conference at the British Library to launch her new book 'The Testaments' in London, Sept. 10, 2019. | Alastair Grant / AP

Margaret Atwood, who turns 80 on November 18, 2019, has written several novels that explore dystopian situations or circumstances where people are subjected to control and violence. The most famous of these is The Handmaids Tale (1985). However, what distinguishes Atwoods work is that people resist such coercion, not just in individual acts but most successfully as part of a secret group or illicit organization. This might be considered a leitmotif of her work. We encounter such resistance not only in The Handmaids Tale, but also elsewhere, for example, in the deeply disturbing The Heart Goes Last (2015), or in her contemporary take on Shakespeares The Tempest, Hag-Seed (2016).

Oscar Wilde, in The Soul of Man Under Socialism, had this to say about hopes for a positive future:

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias.

Utopia, according to Wilde, is the hope of a better possible life, one where humanity will feel at home. Thinking about what will define such an ideal, and that progresses toward it, occupied writers from Thomas More to William Morris. With the Industrial Revolution and the appearance of more hidden forces at work in society at the beginning of the 19th century, the arts increasingly reflected the experience of horror, and of extreme violence over people and nature. The old, visible powers of feudal society (God, king, law) enter into an alliance with the invisible powers of capital power, and everyday life becomes a world in which the ghostly omnipresent terror of an anonymous dominating and oppressive power can break out at any time. Examples of such horror include the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Goyas Caprichos and Desastres de la Guerra, Schuberts Winterreise. Toward the end of the 19th century, further manifestations are Stokers Dracula and Munchs The Scream.

These visions of horror become the dystopias of the 20th and 21st centuries, many leaving little hope for liberation. Continuing wars, with their displacement of people, the ever increasing anonymity of domination and accompanying loss of control, as well as environmental disaster are all valid factors feeding into this pessimism.

The Maddaddam trilogy

Margaret Atwoods Maddaddam trilogy imagines an all but post-human world. She explores a world where the free market has led to global anarchy. A technocracy of enormous corporations has destroyed national governments, communities, the ecosystem and, finally almost extinguished life on the planet. Apart from some very few humans, there are left genetically engineered animals such as pigoons, wolvogs and rakunks, and artificially created creatures called Crakers, produced by Crake in his top-secret Paradice project.

Oryx and Crake is the first of the trilogy; Year of the Flood the second, and Maddaddam concludes it. Oryx and Crake sets the scene. The time is in the future, however, the elements making up this future have their recognizable roots in our present. The world is divided into the haves and have-nots. The haves are the corporations; their employees live in corporation compounds. They are given better lifestyles than the working-class pleebland inhabitants. The raison dtre of the companies is to produce, in competition with others, products promising eternal youth, vitality, sexual prowess, and the promise of resulting happiness: AnooYoo, HelthWyzer, OrganInc and RejoovenEsense. OrganInc created pigoons to grow organs for transplant. AnooYou is designed to prey on the phobias and void the bank accounts of the anxious and the gullible. HelthWyzer manufactures pills for profit, not for health, indeed, health is one of their last considerations. In the race for profits, they introduce viruses into their health products, to which they can then develop and sell antidotes. Wars over markets are commonplace.

The compounds are policed by private Corporation Security, CorpSeCorps, who control their populations movements, by violence and murder, if they deem it necessary. Opposition is not tolerated.

A hierarchy exists among the corporations, some being rather less successful and thereby poorer than others. The wealthiest ones still provide real food to their workers; the less successful ones seem to be sliding into the artificial food and other conditions imposed on the outside world. This setting is the profit-making class with its more or less bribed employees.

The outside world is called Pleebland (plebeian land, desolate neighborhoods, where the poor live). The pleeblands still contain cities like New New York and San Francisco and hold some attraction for the corporation employees as, while dangerous and diseased, places of entertainment and time out. Permission and passes are required to go there. This is where the poor live, those at whom the sale of products is aimed.

The story is told from the point of view of Snowman from the novels current time, with flashbacks to his past when he was still Jimmy. His best friend at the time, Glenn, is referred to as Crake, a name he picked as a character in an online game the two played, Extinctathon, controlled by the enigmatic Maddaddam.

Both characters have parents who have disappeared. Crakes father died in a car accident when Crake was very young. Crake believes his father was eliminated for objecting to the practice of introducing disease into the population in order to profit from then selling the remedy. Jimmys mother, whom the reader gets to know better, runs away from the compound and protests against their practices. Such defection is dangerous, and she knows she needs to disappear without a trace. The corporation tries to locate her, follow her surreptitious messages to Jimmy, and interrogate him occasionally regarding her whereabouts. It is likely, although not certain, that Jimmy and Crake witness her execution online.

These two people are not the only examples of resistance to corporate rule. During the coffee war, there is mention that Union dockworkers in Australia, where they still had unions, refused to unload Happicuppa cargoes. While Crakes fathers protest is an individual one, these dockworkers act in unison, and they are supported: in the United States, A Boston Coffee Party sprang up. Jimmys mother, too, has clearly joined opposition groups. When Jimmy hears from her or sees her online, she is always part of broader movements.

Crakes highly valued academic science and maths skills ensure his speedy progression in corporation hierarchy. Jimmys verbal skills land him in advertising. Eventually, Crake brings him to the most powerful RejoovenEsense corporation, in which he is a high senior operator. Jimmys job here is to run the ad campaign for BlyssPluss, a product to increase sexual performance, protect against STDs, extend youth, and function as male and female birth control to reduce global population. Secretly, Crake works on the creation of humanoids, the Children of Crake. These are grown in an artificial dome.

Jimmy and Crake both love Oryx, whom they first see in a child pornography film. She is Asian by birth and was sold, as was common practice in her village, to a white man. Her odyssey brings her to North America and Crake later hires her to be a teacher for his Crakers: to explain simple concepts and communicate with them. She also markets BlyssPluss around the world.

When the catastrophe strikes, both Crake and Oryx die violently, and Jimmy takes the Children of Crake to a safe place by the sea. Just how safe this place is, is debatable, as the environment is badly damaged and they need to seek food and other essentials for survival. The children of Crake have been programmed to live on plants only.

This first volume of the trilogy ends as first the Children of Crake, later Snowman, encounter other human survivors. Perhaps playing on a set of fossilized early human footprints discovered on the shore of Langebaan Lagood, South Africa, in 1995, here too, Snowman traces the whereabouts of the humans by following their imprints on the beach. He finds Two men, one brown, one white, a tea-colored woman. He is uncertain as to what to expect, knowing his own species, and considers different scenarios of how to relate to them. In the end, he leaves them without making himself known and returns to the Children of Crake, who he knows are nave, friendly, peaceful, and care for him.

Toward a new humanity

While Oryx and Crake (2003) is set in the Compounds, the second volume in the trilogy, The Year of the Flood (2009), is set contemporaneously in the violent and disease-ridden pleeblands. This is where the novels central female characters, Toby and Ren, live, relating the stories of their lives and individual survival of Crakes pandemic. The narrative shift from compound to pleebland is echoed in the transition from individual narrator to two narrators, from male to female, from isolation to group.

The two women had been members of a religious sect (albeit themselves not terribly religious), the pacifist and ecological Gods Gardeners, who had predicted the apocalyptic Waterless Flood brought about by environmental destruction. As they see it, Crakes pandemic is this flood. Gods Gardeners is a dropout group, which is not idealized by Atwood, but shown with its own weaknesses.

A disagreement over tactics causes Zeb to leave the pacifist Gardeners and engage in active bioterrorist opposition to the Corporations security police. As the narrative draws toward the present, surviving Gardeners are forced into hiding and are hounded by dehumanized criminals (painballers), who murder and kidnap. Echoing the ending of Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood concludes as the main characters find other survivors, including Jimmy, and the two painballers, along with their kidnap victim. They do not kill their criminal captives, but tie them up and feed them. The closing paragraph announces the arrival of Crakes Children approaching them, many people singing. Now we can see the flickering of their torches, winding towards us through the darkness of the trees.

The final book in the trilogy, Maddaddam (2013), is written from the perspective of Zeb and Toby, who were both introduced in The Year of the Flood. Their stories are told in the wake of the same biological disaster. They eventually meet up with Jimmy (from Oryx and Crake) and other survivors. Together with the Crakers, they start remaking civilization, but are still troubled by criminals. Some humans mate with the Crakers, but eventually die out. The end part of the story is told by the human-like new race. They are peace-loving and environmentally aware.

Atwoods outlook is cautiously, if thinly, optimistic for the survival of life on the planet. Despite an impending profit-driven environmental catastrophe, wars, and cynical disregard for human beings, it is the ordinary human beings who have the greatest potential for survival. Very few do survive, but they realize that continued existence can only be achieved in solidarity with one another, not in competition, rivalry, exclusion, or individualism. While the danger is by no means banished, a return to the awareness our tribal ancestors had of community is essential. And perhaps humankind will only live on in a new version of itself.

Originally posted here:

On her 80th birthday: Margaret Atwood points the way toward a new humanity - People's World

This content comes from our partnerVisit Philadelphia. Used with permission.

Philadelphia, youre blushing.

The City of Brotherly Love is one of the 25 must-visit destinations in the world in 2020, according to a phenomenal new write-up in National Geographic Traveler that hits newsstands on Friday, November 29.

Even more impressive: The city is one of only two U.S. destinations (alongside the Grand Canyon) to make the list, which is part of the publications annual Best Trips feature.

In the piece, author Johnna Rizzo reflects on Philly as a metropolis of the unexpected in the midst of an exciting reinvention, saying that Philly has changed from a city of industrial might to a city of ingenious makers.

For Rizzo, that excitement is palpable in the citys art. She draws attention to the eclectic (The Electric Street neon installation off East Passyunk Avenue, Klip Collectives holiday Deck the Hall Light Show) as well as the familiar (the LOVE sculpture, the William Penn statue on City Hall).

Elsewhere, Rizzo finds lots to love in the citys dining scene, noting that food in Americas first capital city is being reinvented at a radical clip.

Nationally acclaimed eateries like Fishtowns Suraya and South Philly Barbacoa warrant glowing mentions. So does the cheese-and-salami utopia Di Bruno Bros. and dive bar Dirty Franks. (One thing we learned: Bob Dylan was maybe once kicked off the stage at Dirty Franks.)

Rizzos exploration of the city as an American classic also finds her visiting Cherry Street Pier on the Delaware River waterfront, the Philly Typewriter store on East Passyunk Avenue, Keith Harings only in situ mural in the U.S. and Indonesian to-die-for restaurant Hardena/Waroeng Surabaya.

And The Rittenhouse, the Lokal Hotel and the Notary Hotel receive call-outs as worthy places to lay your head after a full day exploring the city.

The whole article is, of course, worth a read. (Were also admittedly a bit biased.)

Check out a sneak peek of the article on National Geographic Travelers site, then pick up a hard copy of the Best Trips edition on newsstands beginning on Friday, November 29 to read the full piece.

Ready to start planning your own epic Philadelphia adventure? We thought so. Check out Visit Philly's overnight hotel package, an easy way to start exploring the spots extolled by National Geographic and beyond.

See more here:

Philadelphia Named the Top U.S. City To Visit in 2020 - NBC 10 Philadelphia

In 1985, a squid from another dimension appeared in New York and killed 3 million people with a psychic blast. I feel like I have a decent idea of what that psychic blast must have felt like, because its how I feel after noting all of the Easter eggs and comic references in the fifth episode ofHBOs Watchmen series.

Here are all the Easter eggs from Episode 5, and we will update the list with any that are missing.

DOOMSDAY CLOCK ON THE RADIO

When the episode opens, we hear a snippet of a news broadcast where the anchor mentions that the Doomsday Clock has been set at one minute to midnight. The Doomsday clock is a real-life metaphor for how close humanity is to man-made global catastrophe. In the comic, it was set at this time right before Ozymandias unleashed his squid on New York, as well soon see.

A JERSEY CARNIVAL

Young Looking Glass/Wade Tillman and his fellow proselytizers are attempting to convert sinners at a carnival in Hoboken. In the graphic novel, Jon Osterman and Janey Slater visit a similar carnival in New Jersey before his transformation into Doctor Manhattan.

WHORES' DEN

The group leader calls the New York-New Jersey area a whores den, echoing Rorsarchs famous all the whores and politicians will look up and shout Save us! ...And I'll look down and whisper No, quote.

WATCHTOWER

The Watchtower is a Jehovah's Witnesses publication, but its fitting that it would feature in the Watchmen series.

THE VEIDT METHOD

One of the people Wade passes by as hes looking for someone to convert is reading what appears to be an issue of Tales of the Black Freighter, complete with an advertisement for Adrian Veidts much-promoted workout routine, The Vedit Method. This same comic appeared in the graphic novel.

PALE HORSE POSTER

Pale Horse, as well be reminded later in the episode, was the name of the band that was playing in Madison Square Garden the night of the squid attack.

KNOT TOPS AND KATIES

The group Wade ends up talking to are Knot Tops, a gang who frequently appeared in the graphic novel. Theyre known for their distinctive hairstyle and use of a drug called KT-28s, or Katies for short. One particular Knot Top is wearing a shirt that says Katies on it, which really underlines the connection.

SINATRA DRIVE

As Wade screams in the middle of the carnage, we zoom out past Sinatra Drive, a real street in Hoboken, just as Ol Blue Eyes classic New York, New York starts playing. Again, a little on-the-nose, but it works

THE SQUID

Not really an Easter egg, but theres our first live-action glimpse of the infamous squid. The 2009 Zack Snyder movie swapped the squid for an imitation of Doctor Manhattans power gone haywire.

OPPENHEIMER, THE MUSICAL

As part of the return to New York ad, we see a glimpse of a couple who have apparently just seen the hit new Broadway musical based on Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the Atomic Bomb.

PROMETHEAN CAB CO.

In the background of the Broadway shot, theres a sign for the Promethean Cab Co., which also operated in the original graphic novel.

"LITTLE FEAR OF LIGHTNING"

The title of the episode is a twist of a quote from Jules Vernes Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning. Presumably, it refers to Wades discovery later in the episode that the inter-dimensional squid isnt real, meaning he shouldnt really have a reason to fear lightning.

BEANS!

As Looking Glass, Wade rolls up his mask partways and eats beans straight from the can, which is extremely Rorschach-core.

AMERICAN-HERO STORY

While eating his beans, Wade watches the next episode of American Hero Story, which once again features Hooded Justice and another Minutemen-era hero, Captain Metropolis. The two were rumored to be lovers, as the show portrays.

SMILEY-OS

Back at his day job, Wade watches some kid try a new cereal with a name and logo that brings Watchmens iconic smiley face button to mind. The camera even zooms out from the button, echoing the way the first issue of the comic begins and ends with a zoom in or out from the Comedians blood-stained button.

PET CLONING AND PET KILLING

Wades ex-wife works at a lab where they clone peoples pets. Less advanced versions of this service actually exist in the real world, but in Watchmens reality, the technology stemmed from some of Veidts advances that allowed him to create Bubastis, his genetically modified Lynx. Lady Trieu further developed the technology, as seen in the previous episode. Also, the way the little puppy is unceremoniously incinerated resembles the sad way Bubastis met her end in the original comic, when she was disintegrated in Veidts attempt to stop Doctor Manhattan.

NOSTALGIA

One of Veidts many business ventures in the comic was Nostalgia, a brand of cosmetics and perfumes. The drugs Will gave to Angela share the same name, but if Veidts old Nostalgia was supposed to evoke the comfort of the past through a fondly remembered scent, the pills, which Trieu Pharmaceuticals created,are literally memories in medicinal form.

DOES IT EVER END? OF COURSE IT DOES.

At the support group, Wade contradicts Doctor Manhattans final words from the graphic novel, when he tells Vedit that Nothing ever ends. However, later conversations in the episode imply that Wade doesnt exactly believe the optimism hes selling.

TECHNICALLY, DOCTOR MANHATTAN WON VIETNAM

The United States lost the Vietnam War in the real world (although the conflict did catastrophic damage to Vietnam and many surrounding countries), but in Watchmens reality, Doctor Manhattan won the war in two months. Vietnam would eventually become a state.

STEVEN SPIELBERGS PALE HORSE

As we learn, inWatchmen's 1992, Steven Spielberg made a movie about the Dimensional Incursion Event, titled Pale Horse because of the band that was playing Madison Square Garden when the squid attacked. Its described as being black-and-white except for certain flashes of color, like a little girls red coat. This would seem to imply that, in Watchmens reality, Spielberg made Pale Horse instead of the gripping Holocaust drama Schindler's List, which is similarly in black-and-white and came out in 1993.

TOBACCO IS OUTLAWED

Just a minor detail, but apparently tobacco is outlawed in Robert Redfords America.

THE WALL OF TVS

The 7th Kavalry sit Wade in front of a wall of TVs, which is an obvious visual allusion to Veidts wall of TVs in his Antarctic lair, where he learned about the success of his gambit to unite the world against his squid invader.

WHERES THE ORIGINALITY IN THAT? NO, WERE GONNA DO SOMETHING NEW.

In October, showrunner Damon Lindelof told SYFY WIRE that he thought it would be super-duper lame to adapt the original Watchmen, and repeat all of the original graphic novels beat for TV, which is why he instead decided to create a sequel of sorts. Senator Keenes promise that the Kavalry isnt planning to just drop another squid on the world seems like a sly wink at Lindeloffs adaptation.

I LEAVE IT ENTIRELY IN YOUR HANDS

When letting Wade know that the decision to watch his video or not is his choice, he quotes the very last line of the graphic novel, when The New Frontiersmans editor Hector Godfrey tells his hapless employee Seymour that the choice of what to pull from the crank box and put in the paper is up to him. Seymour has Rorsarchs journal in front of him when Godfrey says this meaning that in both instances, the truth behind Veidts plan is about to be revealed.

UTOPIA

While telling President Redford his plan in the pre-recorded video, Veidt invites Redford to be his partner in building a Utopia. Hes almost certainly talking about the better world he wants to build, but its worth noting that in the graphic novel there was a movie theater with that name in New York right by where the squid first appeared. The theater, which was renamed New Utopia after the Dimensional Incursion Event, was probably owned my Veidt Enterprises, and showed lots of old sci-fi movies to subconsciously prime people for the idea of alien invaders.

Veidt launches himself into the sky and he suddenly appears on the surface of one of Jupiters moons. (This would appear to debunk the theory that hes on Mars with Doctor Manhattan, though it still seems likely that Doctor Manhattan has something to do with Veidts captivity). In order to write his SAVE ME! message out of the broken, frozen bodies of his deceased servants. Its similar to the moment in Tales of the Black Freighter, the graphic novels comic-within-a-comic when the protagonist uses the bloated bodies of the dead to create a buoyant life raft for himself. Its not quite as literal, but Veidts message is also a life raft of sorts.

I DID IT!

After assembling his message, Veidt throws up his hands and yells I did it! This is the same thing he says after news reports reveal his plan with the squid did, in fact, bring an end to the Cold War.

YOUR GODS ABANDONED YOU

Upon returning back to his manor estate, Vedit comes face-to-face with The Game Warden. Much of the Wardens character is still a mystery, but it seems increasingly likely that Doctor Manhattan created this facsimile of human life, as he implied he might in the final moments of the comic.

DOCTOR MANHATTAN IS HOODED JUSTICE???

Panda, who by all accounts appears to be the idiot of the Tulsa Police Department, is telling Red Scare his theory that Doctor Manhattan was Hooded Justice. That this was a real fan theory that got written up by a number of entertainment news sites is embarrassing.

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Every last Easter egg and comic reference in Episode 5 of HBO's Watchmen - SYFY WIRE

LONDON, Nov. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A new study reveals that whilst overly masculine behaviours in workplaces are on the way out, there is still a lot to be done by employers in supporting the needs of modern men who want to shoulder responsibilities for childcare as well as be the main provider for their family.

Research by culture change business Utopia and The Hobbs Consultancy found men's expectations of themselves have shifted. Seven in ten (71%) men report they still feel the need to be the main financial provider for their family, yet almost half - 46% - claim that it's now also their responsibility to be the primary carer to their children.

And yet, only a third of men (35%) say their workplace has a formal strategy of inclusiveness in place that helps ensure an understanding that work can have an impact from parental pressures to mental health or sickness.

Whilst progressive parenting and equality is a key step in modern relationships, workplaces are falling behind when it comes to modernising and supporting men in being all round providers to their families.

From flexible working hours and working from home to last minute childcare, parenting comes with challenges made easier with an accommodating employer.Research found one in five men (21%) say their employers actively discourage them from taking on parenting duties that may affect their work and a mere 11% report their boss is comfortable with them taking unexpected days off due to child sickness showing a distinct lack of flexibility and support.

Furthermore, both men and women face challenges in flexibility to work from home when needed with 28% of all workers claiming their employer actively discourages them from working from home.

Whilst not a typical trait of a masculine culture often associated around behaviours and personality traits such as assertiveness and competitiveness the lack of support and flexibility for men in sharing childcare responsibilities and parental leave is an issue employers need to address.

Daniele Fiandaca, Co-founder of culture change business Utopia, says: "Recent focus has been on the changes that women need to make to fit into a masculine workplace, when we should be focusing on creating more inclusive workplaces which work for all genders. Blokey banter might be dying out, but traditional masculine traits are still hindering modern businesses, and this research shows why we need to continue to work to build workplace cultures that are more effective and more inclusive for everyone."

Roxanne Hobbs, Founder at The Hobbs Consultancy, adds: "It's integral that everyone is able to be their authentic selves at work. The fact that men now feel they can't balance their careers with their families is worrying - the world is changed via conversation, and until the conversation about men and family happens, men will continue to be dragged down by a system that's inclusive in name only.

"We want to create a culture in which being a male leader is synonymous with courageous vulnerability, caregiving, empathy, and balanced mental health. We simply cannot talk about creating a difference with gender in the workplace without including men and making masculinity part of that discussion."

Notes to Editors

Utopia and The Hobbs Consultancy's Masculinity in the Workplace research was completed through market research company Opinium. The research polled a representative sample of 2,001 across the UK, between October and November 2019.

About Utopia:

Utopia is a culture change business. In a business landscape where creative thinking is the primary driver of growth, our changemakers help organisations build more purposeful, more inclusive and more entrepreneurial cultures, fit for this age of creativity. We do this by disrupting, inspiring and rewiring - from the intern to the CEO, through workshops and hacks - to create happier, inclusive, more productive workforces that deliver competitive advantage. And we've done it for businesses across the board, including Coca-Cola European Partners, D&AD, Google, Schneider Electric, Spotify and Universal Music.

To find out more, click here.

About The Hobbs Consultancy:

The Hobbs Consultancy is passionate about putting the humanity in to the workplace. We are a team of coaches, facilitators and content creators who are all passionate about transforming business through inclusion. We support individuals in showing up as their authentic selves. We support businesses in creating a culture in which people feel able to show up as themselves, where diversity of thought is valued and where people are cherished. We recognise that creating diverse and inclusive organisations is not necessarily an easy path and we help businesses to navigate this complexity, learning the skills required for everyone to be able to step into their inclusive leadership.

Original post:

BLOKEY Banter is Dying Out in the Workplace: British Men Embrace the Culture of the "Modern Man" - Yahoo Finance

ROME French Bishop Philippe Jean-Charles Jourdan has some big shoes to fill: At the age of 45, in 2005, he was appointed as the apostolic administrator of the Church in Estonia and became only the second bishop in Estonia since the Protestant Reformation.

The Catholic Church in Estonia, a country Pope Francis visited last year, is a small minority where those who belong to an institutional church are a small minority themselves: an estimated 80 percent of the population describes themselves as non-believers.

When some foreigners visit, Jourdan told Crux they say that they feel like God has disappeared, from this nation that was under Soviet rule from the Second World War until 1991.

The Soviet Union saw Archbishop Eduard Profittlich, Jourdans predecessor and second Catholic bishop since the Reformation, as a threat. He was arrested during World War II and accused of spying for the Germans and inciting hatred against the USSR by appealing to the religious feelings of the masses. He was sentenced to execution by firing squad, but he died in a Gulag in Kirov, in the northeast of European Russia.

Today, Jourdan is leading the cause for his predecessor to be declared a martyr, as he was sentenced to death due to his faith.

Crux caught up with the bishop, a member of Opus Dei, while he was in Rome last week to ordain 29 new deacons to the personal prelature. Among other things, he discussed the rapid secularization in some quarters of western Europe, saying it is true that our experience of the religious situation in Estonia could be, and with some probability will be, the experience of western Europe in the next generation.

Jourdan also said that he doesnt agree with the proposal from some circles calling for Christians to live in small communities isolated from the dangers of a post-Christian society, saying instead that a dedicated presence in the world is necessary, based on a realistic, but also hopeful vision of the society, even of a secularized society.

I find that, perhaps because of difficult circumstances, there is a latent pessimism among Christians nowadays, sometimes leading to apathy and resignation, sometimes on the contrary to an activism mixed with bitterness, the so-called bitter zeal of the spiritual literature, he said.

Crux: A year ago, Pope Francis visited Estonia. What would you say was the impact, if any, of the visit to the country?

Jourdan: Certainly, the visit of Pope Francis had a great impact in our country. Firstly, for the local Catholic Church. We saw a greater number of persons asking to know better the Church and eventually being baptized and received in the Catholic Church.

But it had an impact in society at large too. Before, for the people of our country, the Catholic Church was something very far away, in space or in time. I would say that now the average Estonian perceives the Catholic Church, and especially the Holy Father, as something much closer.

We are much more a part of the religious and social landscape. For the future of the Church in Estonia, which is slowly but steadily growing, it is very important.

You minster in a country where a majority of the population 50 percent describe themselves as non-believers. What is this like?

I would be happy if I could say that half of the Estonian population are believers. But in fact, all the surveys made about religion in Estonia indicate far less, between 20 and 25 percent, 75 to 80 percent being without religion. For that reason, sometimes foreigners visiting Estonia said to me that, by comparison to other places, our country looks like as if God had disappeared, was nowhere to be seen.

Of course, it is also due to the fact that a foreigner never knows very well the country he is visiting and tends to judge only on some appearances. But there is certainly a truth in that. Nevertheless, you find also good people everywhere, looking for a sense in their life.

For instance, I was recently in Santiago of Compostela and was told that since the beginning of the year hundreds of Estonians have come as pilgrims to Santiago, the great majority of them being probably non-Catholics or non-Christians.

In some circles of the Church, theres a lot of concern over growing secularization, but youre in a country where, due to its history, this has been the case for a long time. What would your advice be for those who minister in some of these places, like for instance, most of western Europe?

If I had a recipe against secularization, I would have published it, and of course used it long ago! It is true that our experience of the religious situation in Estonia could be, and with some probability will be, the experience of western Europe in the next generation.

But I dont agree with an idea present in some Church circles that due to the growing secularization living as a Christian in the society becomes virtually impossible, and Christians should retire in small communities, a little bit like the monasteries of the first millennium, which were like well protected sources of light in a dark age.

I dont think this would be a solution. Certainly, each one of us needs, more than ever, the support of a fervent community of Christians where people help each other, on the material as well as spiritual level. It is especially clear in a situation like ours, where every Catholic is usually the only Catholic in his or her family, and often the only Christian.

But a dedicated presence in the world is necessary, based on a realistic, but also hopeful vision of the society, even of a secularized society. I find that, perhaps because of difficult circumstances, there is a latent pessimism among Christians nowadays, sometimes leading to apathy and resignation, sometimes on the contrary to an activism mixed with bitterness, the so called bitter zeal of the spiritual literature.

Both should be avoided.

We should find our model in the first Christians, not in a new utopia fueled by fear. Despite obvious attacks against the sanctity of life and family, a secularized world is not like a new Moloch, swallowing small children.

But living in a secularized world will be certainly a purifying experience, where our former Christian society and way of life will probably be reduced to the one necessary thing Jesus spoke of in Bethania. I think that Pope Francis, thanks to the divine Providence, is preparing us to such an experience. And in the purification are already the seeds of the resurrection!

So, we should not live in a nostalgia of better times. Our time is the time prepared for us by God, and it will also revealthe fruitfulness of the grace of God.

Earlier this year, you were in Rome to deliver to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints the documents of the diocesan phase of the process of beatification for your predecessor, Archbishop Eduard Profittlich, the first bishop of Estonia after the Lutheran Reformation. He could become Estonias first saint, a martyr. What impact could this official recognition have in the countrys small Catholic community? Have you heard anything about the cause, or have you been given a possible date for his beatification?

Of course, I have heard about the cause of Archbishop Profittlich: I have been and I am very directly involved in it! The first phase, the diocesan phase, is finished, and the cause is now in Rome and advancing well. We were given a founded hope that, if things go on well, the Beatification could take place when we celebrate the 80 years of the death of Archbishop Profittlich, in 2022.

But of course, sometimes things in Rome take a lot of time, and we cannot for sure give a date with certainty. It is of course important for our small Catholic community, but also for the whole Estonian society, because it will be also, in a certain way, a recognition by the universal Church of the tragic fate of the whole Estonian people in that dark period of our history.

In any case, I recommend to the readers of this article to ask many things through the intercession of Eduard Profittlich, who is helping many people!

What brought you to Rome this time around?

I am now in Rome to ordain deacons, more than 29 members of the Prelature of Opus Dei. It is certainly for me a great joy, both personally as a member of the Work, and as a bishop, [I am] happy to bring new workers to the vineyard of the Lord.

Follow Ins San Martn on Twitter:@inesanma

Crux is dedicated to smart, wired and independent reporting on the Vatican and worldwide Catholic Church. That kind of reporting doesnt come cheap, and we need your support. You can help Crux bygiving a small amount monthly, or witha onetime gift. Please remember, Crux is a for-profit organization, so contributions are not tax-deductible.

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Estonian bishop doesn't have 'a recipe against secularization' - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

Critical Linking, a daily roundup of the most interesting bookish links from around the web is sponsored by Read Harder Journal, a reading log for tracking your books and reading outside your comfort zone!

On this, the one-year anniversary of the release of Becoming, I have compiled a list of 21 new releases from August to the years endbooks of all kinds on my reading listthat showcase what black womens literature this year is becoming, and what it has always been: essential to fully understanding the American story, the human story, and to what we are all becoming.

Challenge accepted!

The new location for Russell Books was the scene of a world record Thursday as about a thousand books were used to make a tower six metres high (19 feet, eight inches) in front of a cheering crowd.

All were copies of Guinness World Records books dating back as far as 1962.

I get so nervous watching these!

In creating space for just that, lesbian romance novels are essential, radical, and also just a fun break from the heaviness that so often coexists alongside our queerness. While some lesbian romance novels respect and recognize that heaviness in their plots, other lesbian romance novels choose to sidestep homophobia and sexism entirely, preferring to offer up a utopia in which their readers can luxuriate, if only briefly.

Below, youll find a mixture of books that do bothand that give us thoughtful, queer pleasurefreed of the male gaze and written with queer readers in mind.

Lesbian romances to love.

Go here to read the rest:

Read BECOMING? Here Are 21 More Recs: Critical Linking, November 19, 2019 - Book Riot

Express News Service

BENGALURU: The expression of revolt varies in different countries. Drug taking is a form of that revolt. The revolt of the black and white in America, anti-war, pro-war, the explosion of population right throughout the world, the undeveloped countries. And has revolt any meaning at all? And to act is necessary, to do something. Either one does, or responds adequately to the fragment of a particular breakdown, taking the political issue and throwing oneself into it, or the economic issue, or the social work, or shall one withdraw completely into ones own isolation, retire into a world of meditation, which is what is happening also. Surely all these are an indication, arent they, of approaching the problem fragmentarily? This is a human problem - as a whole, not of a particular group or a particular people, or of a particular culture.

Can one respond to this, totally, as a whole phenomenon, not a particular kind of phenomena? And is it possible to respond to this with our whole mind and heart, so that we act not in fragments but as a whole being? And I feel thats the only possible response and the only possible action, confronted as we are, with this phenomenon of degeneration. After all, degeneration takes place when one knows what to do, and not to do it. And do we know what to do? Not what to do with regard to a particular fragment, but what to do with regard to the whole structure and nature of our society and of ourselves? I dont know if you have thought about this, or if you are interested in this kind of approach. Because the house is burning - not your house or my house, but the house that man has built for millennia, where there is so much sorrow, illusion, where there is no faith in anything - quite rightly.

How is one to respond to all this? Shall one invent a new ideal, a principle, a directive? Because the old ideals, the old directives, the old morality has completely failed. So in reaction to that, one can have or intellectually conjure up a marvellous ideal, a new utopia, and work for that. And is that the answer? An ideal? A new principle? When the old ideals and old principles have completely failed? And mustnt all ideals always fail? Because theyre not real; theyre just the opposite of what actually is. So can one discard all ideals? And if you do, can one live without a directive? Ideals at least give a certain directive, as one can lay the course of ones life along that. But the ideals, as in the past, have really no meaning whatsoever, when one examines it very closely. So if you have no directive - and apparently human beings at the present state have no directive - they are driven by various issues. And being driven by propaganda, by certain structure of a particular society and culture in a certain direction is not directive at all; its just acting out of confusion. This is really a very serious question.

Original post:

Necessity of action - The New Indian Express