Zeitgeist: The Movie is a documentary film with two sequels: Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, presenting a number of conspiracy theories and proposals for broad social and economic changes. Peter Joseph created all three films.[1]

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Zeitgeist: The Movie is a 2007 documentary-style film by Peter Joseph presenting a number of conspiracy theories.[2] The film disputes the historicity of Jesus (the Christ myth theory) and claims that the September 11 attacks in 2001 were pre-arranged by New World Order forces,[3] and claims that bankers manipulate world events.[4] In Zeitgeist, it is claimed that the Federal Reserve was behind several wars and manipulates the American public for a One World Government or New World Order.[3][4][5]

The Zeitgeist film, according to writer Paul Constant, is based solely on anecdotal evidence, its probably drawing more people into the Truth movement than anything else.[3]Jay Kinney questioned the accuracy of its claims and the quality of its arguments, describing it as agitprop and propaganda.[6]

Released online on June 18, 2007, it soon received tens of millions of views on Google Video, YouTube, and Vimeo.[7] The film assembles archival footage, animations and narration into a kind of primer on conspiracies.[4]

According to Peter Joseph, the original Zeitgeist was not presented in a film format, but was a performance piece consisting of a vaudevillian, multimedia style event using recorded music, live instruments, and video. Zeitgeist, the first movie of the trilogy, has been described as a pseudo-expos of the international monetary system. The expos theme runs through both its sequels, according to Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates. Many of the themes of Zeitgeist are sourced to two books: The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin, a member of the John Birch Society, and The Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins.[7]

The film starts with animated visualizations, film segments and stock footage, a cartoon and audio quotes about spirituality by Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche, then shots of war, explosions, and the September 11 attacks. Then the films title screen is given. The introduction ends with a portion of a George Carlin monologue on religion accompanied by an animated cartoon. The rest of the film is in three parts with narration by Peter Joseph.[3]

Part I questions religions as being god-given stories, asserting that the Christian religion is mainly derived from other religions, astronomical assertions, astrological myths, and other traditions, which in turn were derived from other traditions. In furtherance of the Jesus myth hypothesis, this part claims that the historical Jesus is a literary and astrological hybrid, nurtured by political forces and opportunists.[3]

Part II alleges that the 9/11 attacks were either orchestrated or allowed to happen by elements within the United States government; the governments purpose, it alleges, was to generate mass fear, initiate and justify the War on Terror, provide a pretext for the curtailment of civil liberties, and produce economic gain. It asserts that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the attacks, that the military deliberately allowed the planes to reach their targets, and that World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and 7 underwent a controlled demolition.[3]

Part III states that the Federal Reserve System is controlled by a small cabal of international bankers who conspire to create global calamities to enrich themselves.[4] Three wars involving the United States during the twentieth century are highlighted as part of this alleged agenda, started by specifically engineered events, including the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The film asserts that such wars serve to sustain conflict in general and force the U.S. government to borrow money, thereby increasing the profits of the international bankers. The film also states that the Federal Income Tax is illegal.[3]

This segment also alleges a secret agreement to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into a North American Union as a step toward the creation of a single world government. The film speculates that under such a government, every human could be implanted with an RFID chip to monitor individual activity and suppress dissent.

The newspaper The Arizona Republic described Zeitgeist: The Movie as a bramble of conspiracy theories involving Sept. 11, the international monetary system, and Christianity saying also that the movie trailer states that there are people guiding your life and you dont even know it.[8]

A review in The Irish Times wrote that these are surreal perversions of genuine issues and debates, and they tarnish all criticism of faith, the Bush administration, and globalizationthere are more than enough factual injustices in this world to be going around without having to invent fictional ones.[9]

Ivor Tossell in the Globe and Mail cited it as an example of how modern conspiracy theories are promulgated, though he praised its effectiveness:

The film is an interesting object lesson on how conspiracy theories get to be so popular. Its a driven, if uneven, piece of propaganda, a marvel of tight editing and fuzzy thinking. Its on-camera sources are mostly conspiracy theorists, co-mingled with selective eyewitness accounts, drawn from archival footage and often taken out of context. It derides the media as a pawn of the International Bankers, but produces media reports for credibility when convenient. The film ignores expert opinion, except the handful of experts who agree with it. And yet, its compelling. It shamelessly ploughs forward, connecting dots with an earnest certainty that makes you want to give it an A for effort.[4]

Filipe Feio, reflecting upon the films Internet popularity in Dirio de Notcias, stated that [f]iction or not, Zeitgeist: The Movie threatens to become the champion of conspiracy theories of today.[10]

Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society, mentioned Zeitgeist in an article in Scientific American on skepticism in the age of mass media and the postmodern belief in the relativism of truth. He argues that this belief, coupled with a clicker culture of mass media, results in a multitude of various truth claims packaged in infotainment units, in the form of films such as Zeitgeist and Loose Change.[11]

Jane Chapman, a film producer and reader in media studies at the University of Lincoln, called Zeitgeist a fast-paced assemblage of agitprop, an example of unethical film-making.[12] She accuses Peter Joseph of implicit deception through the use of standard film-making propaganda techniques. While parts of the film are, she says, comically self-defeating, the nature of twisted evidence and use of Madrid bomb footage to imply it is of the London bombings amount to ethical abuse in sourcing. In later versions of the film a subtitle is added to this footage identifying it as from the Madrid bombings.[citation needed] She finishes her analysis with the comment: Thus, legitimate questions about what happened on 9/11, and about corruption in religious and financial organizations, are all undermined by the films determined effort to maximize an emotional response at the expense of reasoned argument.

Alex Jones, American radio host, prominent conspiracy theorist and exe cutive producer of Loose Change, stated that film segments of Zeitgeist are taken directly from his documentary Terrorstorm, and that he supports 90 percent of the film.[13]

Skeptic magazines Tim Callahan, criticizing the first part of the film (on the origins of Christianity), wrote that some of what it asserts is true. Unfortunately, this material is liberallyand sloppilymixed with material that is only partially true and much that is plainly and simply bogus.[14]

Chris Forbes, Senior lecturer in Ancient History of Macquarie University and member of the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, severely criticized Part I of the film, stating that it has no basis in serious scholarship or ancient sources, and that it relies on amateur sources that recycle frivolous ideas from one another, rather than serious academic sources, commenting that [i]t is extraordinary how many claims it makes which are simply not true.[15] Similar conclusions were reached by Dr. Mark Foreman of Liberty University.[16]

Paul Constant writing in Seattle newspaper The Stranger characterized the film as fiction couched in a few facts.[3] Of the religious critique in the film he said: First the film destroys the idea of God, and then, through the lens of 9/11, it introduces a sort of new Bizarro God. Instead of an omnipotent, omniscient being who loves you and has inspired a variety of organized religions, there is an omnipotent, omniscient organization of ruthless beings who hate you and want to take your rights away, if not throw you in a work camp forever.[3]

In Tablet Magazine, journalist Michelle Goldberg criticized Zeitgeist: The Movie as being steeped in far-right, isolationist, and covertly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and she went on to write that the film borrows from the work of Eustace Mullins, Lyndon LaRouche, and radio host Alex Jones, and that it portrays a cabal of international bankers purportedly ruling the world.[7] In an interview with TheMarker, Joseph stated that while the film does mention bankers it does not seek to place blame on any individual or group of individuals. He argues they are merely a product of a socioeconomic system in need of change.[17]

Chip Berlet writes that the 9/11 conspiracy theories are bait used to attract viewers from the 9/11 truth movement and others who embrace conspiracist thinking to the idiosyncratic antireligion views of the videographer and the world of right-wing antisemitic theories of a global banking conspiracy.[18]

According to Jay Kinney:

At other times, Zeitgeist engages in willful confusion by showing TV screen shots of network or cable news with voice-overs from unidentified people not associated with the news programs. If one werent paying close attention, the effect would be to confer the status and authority of TV news upon the words being spoken. Even when quotes or sound bites are attributed to a source, theres no way to tell if they are quoted correctly or in context.[6]

In June 2013, Peter Joseph directed the music video for God Is Dead? by Black Sabbath, using extensive imagery from Zeitgeist: The Movie and its sequels.[19]

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Zeitgeist: Addendum is a 2008 documentary-style film produced and directed by Peter Joseph, and is a sequel to the 2007 film, Zeitgeist: The Movie. It premiered at the 5th Annual Artivist Film Festival in Los Angeles, California on October 2, 2008.

The film begins and ends with excerpts from a speech by Jiddu Krishnamurti. The remainder of the film is narrated by Peter Joseph and divided into four parts, which are prefaced by on-screen quotations from Krishnamurti, John Adams, Bernard Lietaer, and Thomas Paine, respectively.

Part I covers the process of fractional-reserve banking as illustrated in Modern Money Mechanics, by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The film suggests that society is manipulated into economic slavery through debt-based monetary policies by requiring individuals to submit for employment in order to pay off their debt.

Part II has an interview with John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, who says he was involved in the subjugation of Latin American economies by multinational corporations and the United States government, including involvement in the overthrow of Latin American heads-of-state. Perkins sees the US as a corporatocracy, in which maximization of profits is the first priority.

Part III introduces futurist Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project and asserts a need to move away from current socioeconomic paradigms. Fresco states that capitalism perpetuates the conditions it claims to address, as problems are only solved if there is money to be made. The film looks at Frescos proposal of a resource-based economy, which puts environmental friendliness, sustainability and abundance as fundamental societal goals. He goes on to discuss technology which he sees as the primary driver of human advancement, and he describes politics as being unable to solve any problems.

Part IV suggests that the primary reason for what the film sees as societys social values (warfare, corruption, oppressive laws, social stratification, irrelevant superstitions, environmental destruction, and a despotic, socially indifferent, profit oriented ruling class) is a collective ignorance of the emergent and symbiotic aspects of natural law. The film advocates the following actions for achieving social change: boycotting of the most powerful banks in the Federal Reserve System, the major news networks, the military, energy corporations, all political systems; and joining, and supporting The Zeitgeist Movement.

Zeitgeist: Addendum won the 2008 Artivist Film Festivals award for best feature (Artivist Spirit category).[20]

Originally, the film was uploaded-released on Google video. The current video posting on YouTube surpassed 5,000,000 views by late 2013.[21]

Alan Feuer of The New York Times noted that while the previous film was famous for its alleging that the attacks of September 11 were an inside job, the second installment was all but empty of such conspiratorial notions, directing its rhetoric and high production values toward posing a replacement for the evils of the banking system and a perilous economy of scarcity and debt.[22]

Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) started the chain of events leading to the introduction of the Zeitgeist movement.[7] The group advocates transition from the global money-based economic system to a post-scarcity economy or resource-based economy. VC Reporters Shane Cohn summarized the movements charter as: Our greatest social problems are the direct results of our economic system.[23] Joseph created a political movement that, according to The Daily Telegraph, dismisses historic religious concepts as misleading and embraces a version of sustainable ecological concepts and scientific administration of society.[24] The group describes the current socioeconomic system as structurally corrupt and inefficient in the use of resources.[22][25]

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward is the third installment in Peter Josephs Zeitgeist film trilogy. The film premiered at the JACC Theater in Los Angeles on January 15, 2011 at the Artivist Film Festival,[26] was released in theaters and online. As of November 2014, the film has over 23 million views on YouTube.[27] The film is arranged into four parts. Each part contains interviews, narration and animated sequences.[28]

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The film begins with an animated sequence narrated by Jacque Fresco. He describes his adolescent life and his discontinuation of public education at the age of 14 and describes his early life influences.

Part I: Human Nature

Human behavior and the nature vs. nurture debate is discussed, which Robert Sapolsky refers to as a false dichotomy. Disease, criminal activity, and addictions are also discussed. The overall conclusion of Part I is that social environment and cultural conditioning play a large part in shaping human behavior.

Part II: Social Pathology

John Locke and Adam Smith are discussed in regard to modern economics. The film critically questions the economic need for private property, money, and the inherent inequality between agents in the system. Also seen critically is the need for cyclical consumption in order to maintain market share, resulting in wasted resources and planned obsolescence. According to the movie, the current monetary system will result in default or hyperinflation at some future time.

Part III: Project Earth

As with Zeitgeist: Addendum, the film presents a resource-based economy as advocated by Jacque Fresco discussing how human civilization could start from a new beginning in relation to resource types, locations, quantities, to satisfy human demands; track the consumption and depletion of resources to regulate human demands and maintain the condition of the environment.

Part IV: Rise

The current worldwide situation is described as disastrous. A case is presented that pollution, deforestation, climate change, overpopulation, and warfare are all created and perpetuated by the socioeconomic system. Various poverty statistics are shown that suggest a progressive worsening of world culture.

The final scene of the film shows a partial view of earth from space, followed by a sequence of superimposed statements; This is your world, This is our world, and The revolution is now.

List of Interviewees

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward received Best Political Documentary in 2011 from the Action on Film International Film Festival.[29]

A review in the The Socialist Standard regarding production values said the film had a well-rounded feel. In terms of content they criticized the shaky economic analysis contained in the second part of the film, said that Karl Marx had already undertaken a more scientific analysis, and that, despite these false beginnings the analysis is at least on the right track. Regarding transition to the new system proposed in the film, the review critically noted that in the film there is no mention of how to get from here to there.[30]

Fouad Al-Noor in Wessex Scene said that the film was more focused on solutions than the previous film, and commented that while there are controversial elements, he challenged those using labels to describe the film to watch the films.[31]

In her article, published in Tablet Magazine, Michelle Goldberg described the film as silly enough that at times [she] suspected it was [a] satire about new-age techno-utopianism instead of an example of it.[7]

Links to related articles

Follow this link:

Zeitgeist (film series) Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See the article here:

Zeitgeist Movement | Prometheism.net - Part 31

The Zeitgeist Movement isaglobalgrass-roots organizationfocused on achieving a paradigm shifttoward a sustainable futurefor our planetin which all needs are metand human potential can be realized.

Welcome to The Zeitgeist Movement India Chapter

Even as youre reading this, something incredible is happening all over the world. People are waking up to a new reality, where mindless jobs, conflict, stress, inflation, poverty, hunger, debt, climate change and all other perils of the current world simply do not exist.

By your interest in the movement, youve expressed your inclination to help shape our wonderful future! We encourage you to go through each and every tab and link on this website thoroughly.

In order to understand the movement in detail, we encourage you to go through at least the following links in the order theyre mentioned below. There are quite a few, so you might want to stagger them over a few days (or weeks, based on your schedule). Do add them to your Favorites/Bookmarks, so you can revisit them later.

Once you have gone through the material below, and you find that your thinking and views resonate with those of the movement, if you havent subscribed to us already, please consider doing so at the Registration link provided in this page. Youll discover a growing number of like-minded people who want to make this world a better place.

Register and get updates on events related to The Zeitgeist Movement in India.

Read the global mission statement.

Get to know how this movement works.

Access to the various (free) resources required to understand the aims, goals and direction of the movement.

If any links on this site do not work, please do let us know atinfo [at] tzmindia [dot] comso that we can correct them.

We wish you a wonderful journey in the movement.

In solidarity,

The Zeitgeist Movement India Chapter

View original post here:

The Zeitgeist Movement (India)

Powerful movement imagery Skin. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

There was a thrill and a buzz around 201 Dance Company when they brought their last production, Smother, to Edinburgh. In telling the stories of two gay men and their community of friends, 201 were staking out significant new ground for hip-hop, proving that the language of street dance was supple and expressive enough to deal with complex character and emotion.

With Skin, choreographer Andrea Walker tackles even more demanding material, charting the story of one childs journey towards gender transition. This is a theme thats currently blowing through the theatrical zeitgeist, but the challenge of navigating its psychological and political intricacies is a particularly tricky one for pure dance.

Smartly, Walker opts for images of graphic simplicity to establish the premise of his story. Two figures stand facing each other, identically dressed in jeans and a knitted cap. Theyre the child and adult versions of Michael, Walkers protagonist; as they pull off their caps and shake out their hair, as they reluctantly revert to wearing dresses, its made unambiguously clear that Michael was born female.

Walker finds powerful movement imagery to show how alienated Michael feels within his body. Michaela Cisarikova as the adult Michael distills a harrowing level of tension into her angled, robotic moves, tugging at her dress as if it was burning her skin. Flashing back to childhood, little Michael (Candy Dickinson) is groomed by her mother (Lara Rose McCabe) to look and move like a girl. But she cant make sense of her mothers brittle manikin posing, her high heels and tight dress. Her body eases into confident joy when Michael finds an adult male to follow and can mimic his sturdy slouch, or attempt her own, giggling version of his gregarious B-boy moves.

The social pressures on Michael as s/he gets older are neatly encapsulated by a group dance in which s/hes caught between sexually aggressive men, and women who want to trade makeup and clothes. Yet as cleverly as Walker sketches the narrative basics, as fine and committed as his dancers are, Skin doesnt develop into a fully felt or fully imagined drama. The characters surrounding Michael especially his mother are limitingly schematic, and the choreography for everyone, except Cisarikova, looks underworked. When Michael finally commits to being a man, it all feels too tidy a diagrammatic conclusion rather than the outcome of a lived experience.

The rest is here:

Skin review brave attempt to dance gender transition - The Guardian

Never less than spectacular: Cirque Eloizes Cirkopolis, inspired by Fritz Langs Metropolis. Photograph: Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images

Thats not right The taxi driver and I had been talking about Chill Habibi, the Arab-Scottish cabaret at Summerhall. Id repeated the comperes stories about the difficulties Arab artists are having getting visas. Its called the international festival, the driver said. Its meant to break down borders.

This turned out to be the theme of my festival week. Is it chance, unconscious selection or antennae to the zeitgeist? This year, almost all the shows Ive seen revolve around identity, belonging, rejection and acceptance; the breaking down of borders, real and imaginary. Between shows, the citys crowded streets come to seem like a celebration of togetherness when they arent a human barrier of leaflet-wavers, costume-wearers and punters blocking routes between venues.

Theyre beached. We have to help them. On a windy corner outside Assembly George Square theatre, a pod of Whales (in fact a group of volunteers in wet suits) flaps its fins. More volunteers spray them with water. This is the Wellington-based Binge Culture collective, part of a season celebrating New Zealand artists: Look them in the eyes, the speaker calls. Sing. Make contact. Voices join a haunting melody: Ng iwi e. Its a Mori song, someone tells me, about people pulling together and standing strong. The whales return to the ocean (or top of the steps). That was strangely moving, says a Scottish voice beside me.

I was at primary school when, in 1966, 116 children and 28 adults in the Welsh village of Aberfan were buried beneath colliery spoil. I shall never forget what I saw on television that day. Thats why I wanted to see Neil Anthony Dockings The Revlon Girl (Assembly Roxy). Now, I shall never forget the play either; its cloud-scuddingly fast changes between light and dark, laughter and tears. Based on the true story of bereaved Aberfan mothers who, ashamed to seem frivolous, secretly invited a Revlon sales rep to one of their weekly meetings to give them beauty tips, this is a study in the masks grief wears, and what it takes and what it might mean to put on a brave face. There are stupendous performances from the five actors, whose highly individual characters refract universal suffering and resilience.

Dundonian by dialect, Asian by birth, adolescent Jaimini is torn between cultures and obsessed by the spectre of Idi Amin, self-proclaimed last king of Scotland. When Amin expelled Asians from Uganda in 1972, the writer Jaimini Jethwa was just a child. Her family, forced to flee their comfortable home, eventually settled in the unfamiliar surroundings of a housing scheme in the D Dundee. The Last Queen of Scotland (Underbelly, Cowgate) is a fiction based around these real events. Jaiminis emotional journey back to Uganda, in search of her true self and her place in her community, is evoked by two women. Rehanna MacDonald is a confused, angry, questing Jaimina; singer-songwriter Patricia Panther plays supporting roles and, sitting at a computer, the live soundtrack. What the performance occasionally lacks in pace it makes up for in passionate intensity.

The world has turned grey. Until Jihans Smile (Summerhall) returns, the sun and moon cannot shine. Jihans father sends a talking bird to fetch experts from abroad to help bring back his daughters smile. But its the local boy who realises the answer does not lie outside but within. With five actors and a musician, puppets and masks, Al-Harah Theater based in the West Bank in Palestine perform this childrens tale in English and Arabic. Accompanying adults might enjoy the multiple levels in the story, but what about the youngsters? Did you like it, I ask a brother and sister of about seven and 11. Yes. Would you recommend it to your friends? Yes!

Manual Cinemas world is meant to be grey. On a huge screen the US company projects shadows created by puppets, actors and cut-outs. With these they create cinematic effects close-ups, long shots, etc in full view of the audience. In Lula del Ray (Underbelly Med Quad), these live manipulations unfurl the story of a young girls coming of age via conflict with her mother and disillusionment with pop idols (lovely live music). The artistry is exquisite but sometimes upstages a rather slow-moving storyline.

The colourful and lively conflicts between Auntie (Laughing Horse @ 48 Below), who hails from the pan-African state of Kengeria, and her gay, mixed-race, London-based son, Mtoto, are based around the experiences of their creator, Gavino di Vino. His characters are exuberantly idiosyncratic, yet their views on race and sexuality expose contemporary hypocrisies and reveal poignant pain. If di Vinos act feels, as yet, embryonic, I imagine Dame Edna Everage, on her first outings, would have made a similar impression: not quite formed, but brimming with wicked potential.

A man in a grey suit sits on a park bench flanked by a briefcase and sandwiches. He writes on a piece of paper, screws it up, discards it, begins to talk: Even as the sun... Gently he entices us into the world of Venus and Adonis (C-Primo) as imagined by Shakespeare, the goddess of love seeking sexual satisfaction from the youth who, rejecting the advances, pleads with her: Before I know myself, seek not to know me. Christopher Hunter is the narrator, the goddess, the boy, a stallion chasing a mare. I thought I would not see anything else so finely crafted, so movingly delivered for the rest of the fringe.

And then I saw Tash Marshall. Alone in an empty space she creates the world of an English village where I am that mixed-race kid... Around here Im about as black as it goes. Half Breed (Assembly George Square) is the semi-autobiographical story of a 17-year-old girl faced with choices facing up to prejudice and rejection, discovering within herself the person she might become. Vivid characters; split-second changes; intelligent analysis delivered with emotional intensity as writer and as performer, Marshall is breathtaking.

Exquisite artistry, often delivered at dizzying speed, is provided by the acrobats, jugglers, dancers and all-round extraordinary people who make up Quebecs Cirque loize. Cirkopolis (Pleasance at EICC) takes its visual inspiration from Fritz Langs 1927 expressionist film Metropolis. Against back projections of giant cogs and endless-seeming colonnaded corridors, stifling bureaucracy is subverted by untrammelled movement. At times the fast format and loud, pre-recorded soundtrack block contact between stage and auditorium, but the acts are never less than spectacular.

How to resist a play about football after the England teams near triumph last month? Offside (Pleasance Courtyard), by Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish, is not just a term to describe a rule in the beautiful game; its also a state of mind, a position in society. Three actors nimbly pass the action from pasts (1892 and 1921) to present as their characters tackle obstacles on and off the pitch. Issues covered include race, body image, mental health and media intrusion, but the team keep their eyes firmly fixed on their goal to engage and entertain.

Woman or beast? Captured in the forests of Borneo, after growing up in a pride of lions, and transported to 1861 Holland, Lilith: The Jungle Girl (Traverse) is torn between the human and animal kingdoms. Subjected to scientific examination in a lab; rejected by the big cats in the zoo, her only hope is the opera. This zany three-hander from Australias Sisters Grimm is gloriously absurd, but its promised satire slithers across too many targets to take hold.

Because nobody would cast them in the roles they believed they were destined to play, actors Helen Norton and Jonathan White took matters into their own hands and wrote To Hell in a Handbag (Assembly Rooms). This comic gem follows Canon Chasuble and Miss Prism beyond their exit from The Importance of Being Earnest, into their private worlds of secrets and lies. The dialogue, delivered with impeccable timing and modulation, is light, wicked, artful. Never straining to imitate Oscar, it strikes a satisfyingly Wildean tone. Altogether a hoot of an instant classic.

In a mayhem of computer-smashing cabaret only just contained by compere Miss Annabel Sings, Dive Queer Party celebrate fun (queer or otherwise). One speaker on their Rainbow Soapbox (Traverse) encourages: Take fun seriously and we just might change the world a fitting motto for this festival.

Read the rest here:

Edinburgh theatre review a world without borders, almost - The Guardian

by Shane de Lange (@shanenilfunct) Lets delve into great media design from South Africa and around the world:

Find a cover we should know about? Tweet us at @Marklives and @shanenilfunct. Want to view all the covers at a glance? See our Pinterest board!

As an establishment in the South African surfing community, one would think that the recent redesign of Zig Zags masthead could have gone pear-shaped. But it didnt. The updated logo, accompanied by a major layout refresh, has made the magazine look a great deal more contemporary. The rustically rendered lettering, superimposed over an energetic action shot, compliments the theme of the issue: Made in Africa. Imbuing a sense of rawness and angst reminiscent of the doodles that teenagers carve into their classroom desks in school, the textured, almost juvenile use of typography is effective, simultaneously suggesting the vibrating pulse of the continent and the ocean, and the free-spirited veneer of surf culture.

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Wired has never been shy to experiment with the left-inclined side of its editorial design sensibility. The latest issue is an example of its culture and its sophisticated design palate, proving that formalism can be contemporary and speak experimentalism. With its orthodox use of typography and colour blocking, contrasted with glitch-inspired abstract forms indicative of the digital age, this cover reminds one of the classic album by British electronic music producers, Autechre, titled Tri Repitae. Aside from the music production that set the bar for the time, the 1995 album is famous for its cover designed by Designers Republic, which uses a similar marriage of High-Modernism and Post-Modernism set forth in this months issue of Wired.

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Aptly referencing George Lois infamous Mohammed Ali cover for Esquire in 1968, the cover for the 31st issue of independent/niche iJusi magazine is a witty commentary on the current sociopolitical state of South Africa and the man at the helm of it all. From a graphic-design perspective, iJusi is undoubtedly an institution in SA; its documented an important visual record of what it means to be African over the past two decades since independence.

Note: Shane de Lange worked on this issue of iJusi.

Australian Fashion magazine, Frankie, is noted for its tasteful, well art-directed covers. Issue #78 is a testament to the refined curatorial sensibility of the editors eye, displaying an illustration that is simultaneously child-like and sophisticated. A more-innocent and nave version of the avant-garde aesthetic propagated by the Fauves in Europe during the early 20th century, this cover illustration is supported by the simple and uncluttered layout, with a masthead that is unobtrusive, effectively framing the vibrancy of colour, gestural mark-making and expressive ability of the artist. Most importantly, it stays true to Frankies tone of voice.

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Dada-data is an online publication celebrating the centenary of the historically influential Dada movement. Embracing the interactivity that the internet brings to the field of editorial design, this publication is a living document, remaining loyal to the conceptual mechanisms and anti-art tactics that were used by the original Dadaists.

The site allows one to participate in Dada-hacktions (staying true to the notion of automatism and the happenings that Dada arguably helped to invent), and to visit Dada-depots to learn about the history of the movement. The bold use of typography, subdued greyscale visuals, and parallax motion of the landing page all play into the zeitgeist of the inter-war, avant-garde period during the early 20th century in Europe.

A Dada tone is instantly struck by the landing page, a homage to the famous 1922 poster collaboration between Theo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters a poster titled Kleine Dada Soire (used during their tour of Holland and their so-called Dada Campaign).

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Dot Zero was a quarterly produced by Unimark International, the firm where iconic Modernist designer, Massimo Vignelli, started out. Five issues were printed between 1966 and 1968, with the second cover arguably being the most experimental for its time.

The magazine dealt with the overall rubric of visual communication, effectively mapping what we now see to be normal forms of communication in the media. Modernist to the nth degree, the highly formal almost Minimalist use of black-on-black is still considered sexy today, exhibited by the cover to the new single by Oneohtrix Point Never, titled Leaving the Park, which clearly uses the same visual language that Vignelli contributed to over 50 years ago.

Shane de Lange (@shanenilfunct) is a designer, writer, and educator currently based in Cape Town, South Africa, working in the fields of communication design and digital media. He works from Gilgamesh, a small design studio, and is a senior lecturer in graphic design at Vega School in Cape Town. Connect on Pinterest and Instagram.

Cover Stories, formerly MagLove, is a regular slot deconstructing media cover design, both past and present.

Sign up now for the MarkLives email newsletter every Monday and Thursday, now including headlines from the Ramify.biz company newsroomservice!

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Cover Stories: Thoughtfulness in design (11 August 2017) - MarkLives.com

There are eight candidates for the presidency in Kenyas 2017 election. Of these, two are the main contenders; Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Raila Amolo Odinga. This is a replica of the 2013 polls where the two presidential candidates were the dominant opponents.

The running mate configuration has not changed either, with both retaining their previous partners. William Ruto for Kenyatta and Kalonzo Musyoka for Odinga. The only thing that has changed is their party identities.

Kenyattas 2013 Jubilee coalition is now the Jubilee Party, comprising most of the constituent parties that had been part of the coalition. The 2013 Jubilee formation was an alliance between parties loyal to the president, and his deputy William Ruto.

For its part Odingas camp underwent a coalition overhaul, morphing from the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy to the National Super Alliance. The coalition brings together several parties, both old and new, led by the Orange Democratic Movement, Odingas longtime party.

Latest polls have indicated that the two candidates are neck-and-neck. Both have factors working for and against them.

Uhuru Kenyatta

A few things are in Kenyattas favor. At 55 years of age, he is a young president who represents generational change. Kenyatta also comes from one of the wealthiest families in Kenya. Forbes Magazine ranks him as the 26th richest person in Africa, with an estimated fortune of $500 million. This means that hes been able to contribute financially to a vibrant campaign.

As the incumbent, some would also argue that he has had access to state resources and agencies to facilitate his re-election. Incumbency has also allowed him to drive his campaign on the steam of his development record and flagship projects in infrastructure, the energy sector and public service delivery.

In terms of voting blocs, Kenyatta has the support of Kenyas two most populous ethnic groupings: the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru (GEMA) and the Kalenjin. The registered voters in the GEMA grouping are approximately 5,588,389, in the Kalenjin are 2,324,559.

Combined, thats 7,912,948 votes, which is equivalent to 40 per cent of the electorate. Thats a formidable start when you consider that presidential strongholds have historically recorded a higher voter turnout during elections.

On the other hand, Kenyattas four-year tenure has been riddled with corruption allegations, including the Eurobond and National Youth Service scandals.

His admitted inability to rein in corruption in his government has worked against him. Additionally, his government is also accused of ethnic exclusion.

The Jubilee presidency is seen as a two-man show. This has contributed to the perception that Jubilee is not ethnically representative.

Raila Odinga

Odinga has many things going for him. High up on the list are his charisma and strong political mobilisation skills. Historically, Odinga has always been a formidable opposition politician; not being an incumbent has enabled him to galvanise effectively.

Odinga enjoys wider ethnic support compared to President Kenyatta, comprising among others the Kamba, Luhya, Luo and Maasai tribes. These communities comprise over a third of the voting population. But the disadvantage is their historically lower record of voter turnout.

At 72 years of age, Odinga represents the older generation of Kenyan leaders who joined politics in the 1970s and 80s. And this being his fourth attempt at the presidency, theres lethargy among some of his supporters.

Hes viewed by some as power hungry and untrustworthy, especially because of his alleged association with Kenyas 1982 coup. His calls for mass action after the contentious 2007 election, during a period that saw the displacement and death of thousands of Kenyans, also contributed to this perception.

Also to his disadvantage is an association with past corruption scandals during his term as prime minister, including the maize and Kazi Kwa Vijana youth programme scandals.

The main political formations

There are two main formations in the 2017 election - the Jubilee Party and the National Super Alliance.

The Jubilee Party, formed in September 2016, followed a merger between the National Alliance and the United Republican Party representing two ethnic communities - the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. The Jubilee Party also has the support of other political parties including the Kenya African National Union, NARC Kenya, the Labour Party and the Democratic Party amongst others.

The National Super Alliance is a coalition of political parties formed in April 2017. Its leading lights are Odingas Orange Democratic Movement, the Wiper Democratic Movement led by Kalonzo Musyoka, the Amani National Congress led by Musalia Mudavadi, Ford Kenya led by Moses Wetangula and Isaac Rutos Chama Cha Mashinani. The coalition brings together the Luo, Kamba and Luhya ethnic groups, and a section of the Kalenjin community.

In this election cycle, party manifestos have become increasingly important. This explains the Jubilee administrations scramble to complete promises outlined in its 2013 document.

The Jubilee Party has made even more promises in its recently launched manifesto. Three that have caught the public attention include the creation of 1.3 million jobs a year, free public secondary education and the expansion of Kenyas food production capacity.

The National Super Alliances promises are more political. They include a constitutional amendment to provide for a hybrid executive system to foster national cohesion. Two other notable promises are to lower the cost of rent by enforcing the Rent Restriction Act and to implement free secondary education.

Strengths and weaknesses

The strengths of the Jubilee Party lie mainly in its incumbency and its development track record over the last four-and-a-half years. But the party has been weakened by divisions within its ranks. These were amplified during the campaign as disagreements broke out over the leadership of campaign teams. The ruling party is also handicapped to the extent that its not as ethnically diverse as its competitor.

The National Super Alliances main strength lies in its ethnic diversity. Its five principals represent different ethnic communities.

The super alliance also creatively captures the zeitgeist of a section of the electorate, with some of its campaign slogans such as -vindu vichenjanga (things are a-changing in the Luhya dialect) making their way into popular use. It is riding on the euphoric wave that usually accompanies the hope of regime change.

One of its weaknesses, however, includes a perceived predilection to violence because the opposition has previously resorted to mass action. In 2016 for example, it organised a series of protests to mobilise for the removal of key members of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries commission, the body responsible for organising the general election.

Another weakness is its close association with allegedly corrupt financiers.

Key concerns

There is a perception that historically, the presidency has been the preserve of two ethnic groups the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. This feeling of disenfranchisement has become a key campaign issue.

There are, however, some non-tribal issues that have taken the foreground. These include corruption, economic and social stability, lower cost of living and improved security.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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JOE BENNETT

Last updated05:00, August 9 2017

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Very suddenly, the electric motor is in vogue.

OPINION: Hallelujah, as Handel put it in his Chorus, hallelujah, we shall be saved. And the name of the saviour is the electric engine. It is blowing its bugle and galloping our way. All we have to do is to hold on for a few years. Then suddenly we shall all be driving electric cars and all manner of things shall be well.

We've had electric vehicles for as long as I've been alive. The milk delivered to our house when I was a kid came on an electric truck. The bread didn't.

The coal didn't. But milk came with an electric whirr and the empties left as quietly.

Golf carts were already electric too and powerful enough to lug the Trumps of yesteryear from tee to green to gin. But somehow the electric engine never migrated into other vehicles. This had something to do with the inefficiency of batteries but rather more to do with the oil industry. Oil was cheap and oil was abundant and oil would go on for ever.

But now, so very suddenly, the electric motor is in vogue.

Government ministers around the world compete to boast of how soon their national fleet will be wholly and greenly electric. By 2050, says one. Ha, says another, we shall be all humming and virtuous by 2040.

Curiously, New Zealand has not joined the chorus.

Even though we have to import our petrol and even though we have vents to the steaming heart of the earth from which to generate electricity, along with wind and sun and water in abundance, the latest projection for New Zealand is that by 2040 the proportion of our cars that are electric will have soared to 8 per cent.

READ MORE: *All electric car trial for business users *Tesla hands over first Model 3 electric cars to early buyers *The challenges and consequences of moving to electric cars *New Zealand's first 3D-printed electric car being built in Otara *The electric car's day has come thanks to battery technology Of course. the boastful ministers of elsewhere aren't really making predictions. They know that they'll be dead or gaga by the time 2040 comes round, so they'll never be held to account. And besides, no one will remember what they said. They're just tossing a date out to gratify the zeitgeist that is desperate for any form of optimism. For we are drenched in gloom.

Mankind dreads the future, as it has not done since the plagues of the Middle Ages. We see nothing ahead but decline. We see mounting pollution, barren seas, animal extinctions, smothering deserts, death by heat, death by drowning, death by storms and death by drought. We see poverty, misery, hunger and war, a Book of Revelations future that our grandchildren will have no choice but to read every morning when they open their curtains. Both rich and poor can see it coming.

The rich are hoping to swap this planet for another one. The poor are merely hoping. And hope has recently come to rest on the shoulders of the electric engine.

Her sister the internal combustion engine represents everything that has gone wrong. Unsustainable, noisy, dirty, destructive and greedy, she is a metaphor for the part of ourselves that got us into this mess.

She has scoured the land and sea for oil and sucked it up and burned it willy nilly. She may have shrunk the world with aeroplanes and given the prosperous few unprecedented freedom of movement, but she has done so at great cost. She has acted like one who burns down her house to warm her hands.

We have clung to her for a century but now we are now turning on her. We want to expel her, like the goat that ancient priests would burden with the people's sins and then drive beyond the city walls to die.

And with her will go the oil barons. Consider them. Putin depends on oil. Maduro too. The loathsome House of Saud is built on it. Trump adores oil. Saddam grew from it. Oil breeds monsters. But not for very much longer.

Soon the world will whirr with electric engines.

The air will start to clean itself.

People will taste the sweetness in their lungs and hear the quiet on the streets and they will see that it is good. And it will be the catalyst for great and lasting change, and people will finally come to their senses, plant trees, ease the climate back from the brink, stop fighting, stop being greedy, stop overpopulating, stop using plastic, stop electing bullies, stop raping the sea and ruining the land, stop believing they are loved by some fictional super-daddy and stop going to war on the pretext of that super-daddy.

United in one common cause all the nations of the earth will hold hands and go skipping through the meadows like the von Trapp children.

So that's that then, we are saved, and all without giving up the cars we love. Hallelujah.

* Comments on this article have been closed.

-The Dominion Post

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Joe Bennett: The great hope for our future | Stuff.co.nz - The Dominion Post

There is one great truth that ties all revolutions in common and that is they never burst out in surprise. History, or at least when current events have been aged in the cask long enough to be classified as history, always has shown that there were warning signs, hints, foreshadowing adeptly revealed yet not immediately obvious. It is as though the story of humanity is being written by a truly cunning mystery novelist, thus casting God as the supreme meld of Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie. A failed assassination attempt here, a farmers protest there, like a red sky at morning we sailors should take warning. Except we usually dont. Wed rather ignore what in retrospect seems so obvious. If we notice the approaching thunderheads at all, we prefer to just wish them away, as though the winds respond to wishes. Good luck with that.

Donald J Trump and his ultra-nationalist, white supremacist, anti-democratic crew have been what Bob Dylan once called a slow, slow train comin up around the bend, but we didnt put our ears to the track in time. My personal regret is that I actually did quite literally read the signs but I couldnt figure out the final stage. A story:

As a writer, its been my recreation disguised as work to indulge my passions. Plays, poetry, Human Rights, sports, border collies, I cover the waterfront and those are the docked freighters I unload. My bread and butter has been book reviewing and for a significant (slightly shameful) portion of my career I took contracts writing Sponsored Reviews for various websites. A Sponsored Review is something an indie author buys, essentially an ad thinly disguised as an objective opinion. God knows I never let my name appear as a by-line as the content would have to be approved by the author or else I wouldnt get paid.

Most of those novels were excrementally awful; badly edited (if edited at all), with paper-thin characters that spoke not in dialogue but in slogans. There was some value in it reading a ton of crap improved my own skills as an Editor and later as a Literary Agent, but I digress. For you see, there was a certain overlay of a common element that I began to find disturbing. Most, and I mean an actual majority, had a dystopian setting. Usually centred on America, traditional government had crumbled, some form of neo-fascism had taken hold, small groups of resistors hid in the hills or woods, struggling for survival. There were variations on the theme, but you get my point.

Generally speaking, none of these lousy novels ever put together a plausible case for how A got to B why did democracy collapse? What was the method? It was all just a matter of, Well here we are and doesnt life suck?

Still, these dozens of books crawled inside my consciousness like a subcutaneous parasite. You see, years earlier when I was studying Film at university I learned about the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. Oh I know, properly one should learn about such things in a course on Philosophy, comparing and contrasting Hegel with Thomas Caryles opposing Great Man theories. Instead I watched His Girl Friday and saw the dawning of the womens movement. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell were much more fun than droning German philosophers. Regardless of the origin point of this academic sidebar I did come to the conclusion that the Zeitgeist is a tremendous predictor of future events. We emotionally or instinctively feel, as a group, what is coming even if our conscious selves choose to think instead of birthday parties and picnics, hot sex and the Premier League. We know theres a slow, slow train coming, but we still dont move in time.

When Trump emerged, I realized that all those terrible dystopian writers had got it right. I still do not know what those writers didnt know either How did we get from A to B? Why did over 60 million American voters go off their nut simultaneously and vote for a bog ignorant, racist, misogynistic blowhard? It wasnt all Russia and stealing Hillary Clintons campaign emails, you know. That may have been the casus belli but there equally or more so an itch in the American mind-set that made it susceptible to that specific manipulation. In any event, Trump Watch is going to be here for awhile, so we can come back to that analysis another day.

On this day though, we have to be good generals and anticipate the enemys next move. There is a sense among those that resist Trump that once the Republicans in Congress get their collective shit together, likely after Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivers his final report with or even without criminal indictments, they will in turn begin Impeachment proceedings, remove Trump (and possibly Vice-President Pence, Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) from Office and then all shall be sweetness and light again.

Not so fast.

Trump throughout his career has been a Vampire, rising again and again, even after five bankruptcies. This is why I wonder what his long game is. The man may be an idiot, but he is not entirely stupid and certainly the moneyed powers that put him in office in the first place will not give up quite so easily.

Thus, my nightmare scenario, one born of noticing how Trump has turned against his own Republican Party, mocking it as weak, indecisive, ignoring the yahoo base that elected him and them. You see, even if Trump is successfully impeached and ordered to pack his belongings including all those hideous gold curtains and get out of the White House immediately, there is nothing to stop him from running again in 2020. Nothing at all.

But wait! What if he is in prison for State crimes? Even a Presidential pardon, such as Gerald Ford granted Richard Nixon, has no effect on State sentences. Well thats true, but I invite you to look at Article Two, Section 1 of the US Constitution, which states the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Do you see anything in there about, Must not be a convicted criminal? No, neither do I. A Trump, seen by his followers as a victim, with all the squeezing of the electoral lists (over 500,00 have recently lost the right to vote just in the State of Georgia alone) and intimidation of mild-mannered others could win again. He could run the US from prison like a convicted Mafia don.

Is any of this likely? Perhaps not, but I remind you of something. When Prince Yusopov saw Rasputins body sink into the river he thought the danger to Imperial Russia had been destroyed once and forever. He failed to account for all those nasty peasants foaming at the mouth. History never ends, it just starts a new chapter following from its previous.

Be seeing you.

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Trump Watch: Vampires, Yusopov and The Zeitgeist - The London Economic

Every city has its moment a time when events and people converge in one place to define it for years to come. Drill down and those moments often decades long are generally associated with neighborhoods Montmartre in the first years of the 20th Century, Harlem in the 1920s, Soho in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Cary Cordovas new book, The Heart of the Mission, Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco, offers the first history of the Mission Districts moment a confluence of art and culture that began in the late 1960s and lasted into the 1990s. The Beats, jazz, the 1968 student movement and the Central American wars all fueled a Mission Renaissance. The Heart of the Mission is a lively guide throughthis history, but its also an important book in documenting and contextualizing the work of Mission artists.

Cordova, a San Francisco native who teaches at UT Austin, traces the beginning of the Mission Renaissance back to the Latin Quarter in North Beach, and such early institutions as The Unin Espaola, also known as the Spanish Cultural center, a block away from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Latin music seeded San Franciscos bohemian culture through some of the centers tenants including the 1941 Marimba Club and the 1967 Tropicana Club. By the 1970s, Cordova writes, music of the North Beach Latin music scene had relocated to the Mission District. Muralist Patricia Rodriguez describes to Cordova what that sounded like: In every corner in the Mission in the seventies Santana was playing, Malo was playing, whoever was playing in the street. Drumming sessions became part of Dolores Park culture, precipitating a debate over the right to occupy public space in the city.

While a pan-Latino arts community would follow, initially Latino artists and musicians played in the citys avant-garde milieu and the evolving bohemian counterculture, perhaps most notably embodied in Beat and jazz cultures, Cordova writes. The San Francisco Art Institute then the California School of Fine Arts and its training in abstract art and Bay Area figurative abstraction influenced artists such as Luis Cervantes, Jos Ramn Lerma and Ernie Palomino. Later, when the Mission District and its artists became identified with political and mural art, these and other artists continued to produce first-rate abstract, pop and assemblage art.

Gallery artists had a difficult time getting recognition, but the media discovered the muralists early on. The artists working in 1974 on Homage to Siqueiros inside the Bank of America building at Mission created a media spectacle designed to undermine their corporate sponsor, while the artists of Latino America caught attention as one of the first all-female community mural groups in the nation. From the outset, politics local and pan-Latino were embedded in the mural tradition.

Cordova provides an excellent narrative and analysis of both murals. She also documents the shift provoked by the Central American civil wars, most visibly on Balmy Alley where in 1984, 27 artists contributed 27 murals attacking U.S. intervention in Central America. The concentration of murals in a single block proved an astonishing display of diverse aesthetics and shared politics, Cordova writes.

If you thought you knew Balmy Alley, think again. Cordova recounts its history but also gives a close contextual look at the iconography, often supplemented by interviews with the artists. And she goes deep: Balmy Alley, we learn, was a needle strewn alley in 1972 when artist Emilia Mia Galaviz de Gonzalez envisioned it as a Mexican garden with murals of flowers, birds and fish.

Poets, artists, activists and musicians riff off one another throughout the Mission Renaissance. Cordova sets the scene as poet Nina Serranos re-christens the 24th Street BART plaza as Plaza Sandino, then documents the ways all of the Mission players connected with the zeitgeist of a global third world movement. Poet Roberto Vargas, Cordova writes, brought together the war to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua with the battles at Wounded Knee and the fight to free U.S. activist Angela Davis.

To demonstrate the threads of these relationships, Cordova follows the November 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State and its impact on Juan Fuentes, Rupert Garca and Yolanda Lpez. Lpez and others also embraced an alliance with the Black Panthers. From the politics we better understand Lpezs complex and stark posters. Another section follows the trajectory of three Salvadoran artists, Romero G. Osorio, Martivn Galindo and Victor Cartagena, and shows how closely their Salvadoran roots affected their journeys and those of fellow Salvadoran activists, some of whom joined the Salvadoran guerrillas and Nicaraguan Sandinistas on the front lines.

There is a rich history of how Da de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, provided a cultural nexus for mourning in the 1980s in San Francisco. Grief consumed a city in the midst of the AIDS crisis, but also families losing loved ones in Central America as well as on the streets of San Francisco. The Mexican tradition, which Ren Yaez and Ralph Maradiaga at Galera de la Raza, took into the public sphere in 1972, provided a collective release and remembering.

Although Da de los Muertos is now mainstream San Francisco, it was suspect at first. When Yolanda Garfias Woo lectured about it to her students at John McLaren School, one teacher accused her of teaching witchcraft. And when Yaez tried to get a permit from the police for the candlelight procession, he tells Cordova, This captain thought I was part of a Charles Manson cult or something.

This summer has produced a number of retrospectives of artists left out of museums during the periods when they created art. These include the Brooklyn Museums We wanted a Revolution Black Radical Women, 1965-85, New York MOMAs Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction, and finally SF MOMAs Revelations: Art from the African American South. Perhaps it is time for a retrospective of the Mission Renaissanceone that attempts, as Cordova succeeds in doing, to more than scratch the surface. A retrospective would showcase some of the artists featured in the bookGraciela Carrillo, Ren Yaez, Romeo G. Osorioas well as the exquisite work by such artists as Lpez, Garcia, Fuentes, Enrique Chagoya, Juan Pablo Gutirrez and many more. In the meantime, you can start by paying closer attention to the historic murals on Balmy Alley and elsewhere in the Mission as well as the art from newcomers and old timers showing up at the Galera de la Raza and other neighborhood galleries.

I will be interviewing Cary Cordova at a book event on August 17th at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission St. The event will include music, free tapas and it will run from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. You can get free tickets here.

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On Tuesday, August 8th, the Bourbon Theatre hosts the first Nebraska appearance by Kabaka Pyramid, one of the new generation of Jamaican performers from the Reggae Revival movement. While Bob Marleys contemporaries such as Burning Spear, the Wailing Souls, and Black Uhuru have made Nebraska tour stops for years, the inheritors of the roots reggae legacy havent found their way to this part of the prairie until now.

Assuming youre curious, the word Kabaka comes from the head of the Ugandan kingdom Buganda, and presumably you know about pyramids. Born Keron Salmon, the singer-songwriter and lyricist has a career dating back over 10 years and has been scoring popular reggae and dancehall tracks along the way.

Roughly five years ago, Kabaka Pyramid was among a group of younger Jamaican artists to gather regularly near a beach East of Kingston where singer and actor Billy Wilmot had founded a surfing camp called Jamnesia. This like-minded group of artists, also including Protoje, Chronixx, and Jah9, found common ground in the mission of advancing Afrocentrism through music and the arts, something fewer and fewer Jamaican performers have explicitly embraced in the last three decades. As recording artists, they soon would make guest appearances on each others projects, name-check each other in concert, and generally provide each other the moral support not often found in an otherwise hyper-competitive music culture.

Kabakas take on the whole thing is encapsulated in the lyrics to The Revival from 2013:

This movement, they call it a revival, we all got a part to playIn this movement, none a we nuh rival, the mission is all the sameIn this movement, is more than music, much more than tours and jewelry.

While advancing Afrocentrism through music may sound like nothing new, for at least 30 years, the most popular continuum of artists out of Jamaica have come out of its dancehalls exemplified most recently in the unparalleled success and influence of the genius emcee and criminal mastermind Vybz Kartel. Kartels aesthetic was the perfect reflection of the Jamaican youth zeitgeist of the mid-2000s, which often manifested in wanton materialism. Kartel is currently a few years into a life sentence for murder and will likely remain a folk-hero for generations to come.

The artists of the reggae revival, in contrast, saw a strong position to uphold in a celebration of an Afro-Jamaican identity, Rastafari, and an embrace of reggae and its original one drop rhythms as the music vehicle of choice. At the same time, each of the Reggae Revival artists shows to varying degrees a millennial affection for American hip-hop Kabaka Pyramid and Protoje chief among them. Jamaicas identity as an Afro-Caribbean society has long been informed by its proximity to the United States. While American music has influenced the development of Jamaican music since the days of Louis Jordan and Bill Doggett, one of Jamaicas well documented roles was in providing the seminal ingredients for African-American sound-system music, aka hip-hop. (See the story of Kool Herc if you doubt this for a second, or check the video from Jay-Zs recent trip to Jamaica to collab with Damian Marley on Bam, in which Kabaka Pyramid makes a minor cameo.)

If there is one thing to understand about Kabaka Pyramid, he is not a pure reggae artist in the tradition of Bob Marley or Burning Spear. If thats your flavor, an artist like Samory I will hit closer to the mark. Kabaka Pyramid is more in the line of artists like Sizzla, Capleton, or Damian Marley, Rasta dancehall performers who have a strong interest in hip-hop and whose emphasis on lyrical fusillades outshines instrumental virtuosity.

Kabaka seems to love rapping almost as much as being a dancehall emcee, and its hard to tell which he does with more authority. He embraces this duality most clearly on Kabaka vs. Pyramid, from the 2016 Major Laser/Walshy Fire mixtape.

For more examples of Kabaka Pyramid in action, I recommend the early Reggae Revival combination, Selassie Souljahz, where Kabaka trades verses with Chronixx, Protoje, and Sizzla. Also, give a listen to the lyrical climax on Protojes The Flame from Protojes outstanding Ancient Future LP; or Well Done, a harder reggae dancehall outing, based on R.E.M.s Losing My Religion and first adapted by Wayne Marshall as On The Corner.

Kabaka Pyramid tours with his own band, the Bebble Rockers, seen here at their recent performance at the Summerjam festival. His most recent single is Cant Breathe.

Carter Van Pelt hosts Eastern Standard Time, Fridays from 10 to midnight on KZUM-FM and is the founder and host of Coney Island Reggae On The Boardwalk. Check out his writing on Protoje and Chronixx.

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Kabaka Pyramid comes to Nebraska and surveying Reggae Revival | Concert Preview - Hear Nebraska (registration) (blog)

Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, has vowed he plans do a Steve Jobs and stage a comeback as Ubers CEO.

Whether or not he can improve the treatment of women in Uber and restore its dominance in the ride sharing market are not two independent goals.

The inability of its investors and board to enforce ethical conduct shows its level of disarray even as they have been seeking a new CEO. The Washington Post reported last week the short list has been narrowed down, to three men.

Discrimination against women is alive and well in Silicon Valley and technology. I know successful female engineers who were told in high school by teachers even female teachers they should plan for a career as a secretary.

How Hong Kong women are levelling the pitch in the male-heavy tech industry

From an early age, to start-ups and right up to board level, women are treated poorly in the male dominated, fraternity house atmosphere.

Sexism, ageism and other afflictions of stereotyping are rising to the surface in Silicon Valley and technology like no other time.

One of the reasons is that women are more willing to speak out and militate against sexual harassment and campaign for equal pay. Feminism may be dead as a social movement, but it has evolved into issue-driven battles.

Sexism, ageism and other afflictions of stereotyping are rising to the surface in Silicon Valley and technology like no other time

As more brave women have come forward to share their own tales and experiences from the belligerent environment of the tech world, it is becoming more evident the industry has long-standing, pernicious problems. And everyone in the industry is complicit.

But, today the financial and technological stakes in Silicon Valley are higher than ever. And tech, venture capital and the power and glory of successful start-ups have become mainstream culture.

The Silicon Valley zeitgeist is accurately skewered in the HBO series Silicon Valley. At a valuation of $60 billion, sovereign funds and leading private equity investors have piled into Uber. Yet, they cannot seem to extricate themselves from this embarrassing corporate governance dilemma.

Unlike established corporates with longer histories, start-ups are usually formed with little regard for issues such as political correctness and gender balance. The founders are usually friends or colleagues or classmates people close and relevant and necessary for starting the business and developing the technology.

There is scant thought for any political sensitivities. Meeting gender quotas in management or at board level is a low consideration.

Start-ups are a high risk for founders, surviving milestone to milestone, month to month.

Today, a new breed of start-up like Uber presents conflicting corporate governance issues. Its not really a new company since it has been around since 2009. With $6.5 billion in 2016 sales and a $60 billion valuation, its certainly not a small operation.

Ellen Pao drops high-profile Silicon Valley gender bias case, citing personal resources

But, because it is not publicly listed, Ubers investors treat it like a start-up have indulged a dominant founders excesses. They fear that if they lose him that the enterprise will collapse. And with billions of capital tied up, it could one of the biggest failures in VC history.

Meaningful change can only begin at board or investor level. The overarching issue for investors is how tech companies even as big as Uber can cross the chasm into becoming sustainable and successful high growth corporations.

There is scant thought for any political sensitivities. Meeting gender quotas in management or at board level is a low consideration

It used to be that hiring adults older and more experienced senior managers from IBM or Hewlett-Packard was enough to convert a start-up with a successful product with structured sales and marketing and product support teams.

It is no excuse that ethics and corporate sustainability have a hard time keeping up with sprawling growth. All of Ubers institutional investors state they adhere to ethical codes, yet few of them acted to rectify serial sexual harassment and bad boy CEO conduct.

The ability for a young company to cross the chasm from being a small enterprise into a large one remains a constant challenge facing tech start-ups. The initial promise of monopolies like Uber can encourage an investment frenzy. The lure of temporary exclusivity makes it almost worthwhile to ignore or suspend unethical behaviour because the rewards are astronomical.

How Ubers board works together to resolve its current dilemma will serve as an important example for years to come.

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Many start-ups, bulging with endless capital, still lack the nous on how to enforce the ethical values needed to mature - South China Morning Post

The running mate configuration has not changed either, with both retaining their previous partners. William Ruto for Kenyatta and Kalonzo Musyoka for Odinga. The only thing that has changed is their party identities.

Kenyattas 2013 Jubilee coalition is now the Jubilee Party, comprising most of the constituent parties that had been part of the coalition. The 2013 Jubilee formation was an alliance between parties loyal to the president, and his deputy William Ruto.

For its part Odingas camp underwent a coalition overhaul, morphing from the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy to the National Super Alliance. The coalition brings together several parties, both old and new, led by the Orange Democratic Movement, Odingas longtime party.

Latest polls have indicated that the two candidates are neck-and-neck. Both have factors working for and against them.

Uhuru Kenyatta A few things are in Kenyattas favour. At 55 years of age, he is a young president who represents generational change. Kenyatta also comes from one of the wealthiest families in Kenya. Forbes Magazine ranks him as the 26th richest person in Africa, with an estimated fortune of $500m. This means that hes been able to contribute financially to a vibrant campaign.

As the incumbent some would also argue that he has had access to state resources and agencies to facilitate his re-election. Incumbency has also allowed him to drive his campaign on the steam of his development record and flagship projects in infrastructure, the energy sector and public service delivery.

In terms of voting blocs, Kenyatta has the support of Kenyas two most populous ethnic groupings: the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru (Gema) and the Kalenjin. The registered voters in the Gema grouping are approximately 5588nbsp;389, in the Kalenjin are 2nbsp;324nbsp;559.

Combined, thats 7nbsp;912nbsp;948 votes, which is equivalent to 40% of the electorate. Thats a formidable start when you consider that presidential strongholds have historically recorded a higher voter turnout during elections.

On the other hand, Kenyattas four-year tenure has been riddled with corruption allegations, including the Eurobond and National Youth Service scandals.

His admitted inability to rein in corruption in his government has worked against him. Additionally, his government is also accused of ethnic exclusion.

The Jubilee presidency is seen as a two-man show. This has contributed to the perception that Jubilee is not ethnically representative.

Raila Odinga Odinga has many things going for him. High up on the list are his charisma and strong political mobilisation skills. Historically, Odinga has always been a formidable opposition politician; not being an incumbent has enabled him to galvanise effectively.

Odinga enjoys wider ethnic support compared to President Kenyatta, comprising among others the Kamba, Luhya, Luo and Maasai tribes. These communities comprise over a third of the voting population. But the disadvantage is their historically lower record of voter turnout.

At 72 years of age, Odinga represents the older generation of Kenyan leaders who joined politics in the 1970s and 80s. And this being his fourth attempt at the presidency, theres lethargy among some of his supporters.

Hes viewed by some as power hungry and untrustworthy, especially because of his alleged association with Kenyas 1982 coup. His calls for mass action after the contentious 2007 election, during a period that saw the displacement and death of thousands of Kenyans, also contributed to this perception.

Also to his disadvantage is an association with past corruption scandals during his term as prime minister, including the maize and Kazi Kwa Vijana youth programme scandals.

The main political formations There are two main formations in the 2017 election the Jubilee Party and the National Super Alliance.

The Jubilee Party, formed in September 2016, followed a merger between The National Alliance and the United Republican Party representing two ethnic communities the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. The Jubilee Party also has the support of other political parties including the Kenya African National Union, NARC Kenya, the Labour Party and the Democratic Party amongst others.

The National Super Alliance is a coalition of political parties formed in April 2017. Its leading lights are Odingas Orange Democratic Movement, the Wiper Democratic Movement led by Kalonzo Musyoka, the Amani National Congress led by Musalia Mudavadi, Ford Kenya led by Moses Wetangula and Isaac Rutos Chama Cha Mashinani. The coalition brings together the Luo, Kamba and Luhya ethnic groups, and a section of the Kalenjin community.

In this election cycle party manifestos have become increasingly important. This explains the Jubilee administrations scramble to complete promises outlined in its 2013 document.

The Jubilee Party has made even more promises in its recently launched manifesto. Three that have caught the public attention include the creation of 1.3 million jobs a year, free public secondary education and the expansion of Kenyas food production capacity.

The National Super Alliances promises are more political. They include a constitutional amendment to provide for a hybrid executive system to foster national cohesion. Two other notable promises are to lower the cost of rent by enforcing the Rent Restriction Act and to implement free secondary education.

Strengths and weaknesses The strengths of the Jubilee Party lie mainly in its incumbency and its development track record over the last four-and-a-half years. But the party has been weakened by divisions within its ranks. These were amplified during the campaign as disagreements broke out over the leadership of campaign teams. The ruling party is also handicapped to the extent that its not as ethnically diverse as its competitor.

The National Super Alliances main strength lies in its ethnic diversity. Its five principals represent different ethnic communities.

The super alliance also creatively captures the zeitgeist of a section of the electorate, with some of its campaign slogans such as vindu vichenjanga (things are a-changing in the Luhya dialect) making their way into popular use. It is riding on the euphoric wave that usually accompanies the hope of regime change.

One of its weaknesses, however, includes a perceived predilection to violence because the opposition has previously resorted to mass action. In 2016 for example, it organised a series of protests to mobilise for the removal of key members of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries commission, the body responsible for organising the general election.

Another weakness is its close association with allegedly corrupt financiers.

Key concerns There is a perception that historically, the presidency has been the preserve of two ethnic groups the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. This feeling of disenfranchisement has become a key campaign issue.

There are however, some non-tribal issues that have taken the foreground. These include corruption, economic and social stability, lower cost of living and improved security.

Daisy Maritim Maina is a PhD candidate in Political Economy at SMC University

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What you need to know about the Kenyan elections - African Independent

How we respond to the Beatles as entities in musical pop culture more likely than not depends on when we were born. Those of us born near the middle of the 60s, that decade when this musical force of nature put their concentrated stamp on the world, came of age with them in the 70s. We were finishing elementary school six years after their 1970 dissolution as the boy band group that blossomed into introspective intellectuals who unabashedly wore their influences on their sleeves. Through John, Paul, George, and Ringo, countless white suburbanites learned about the magic of Motown girl groups, about Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and about the omnipresent power of Chuck Berry.

We responded to the Beatles in the 70s not just because they were superior alternatives to pop fluff like The Bay City Rollers and Starland Vocal Band or dangerous rock theatrics from KISS, but also because they were all still very active (with varying degrees of success) through most of the decade. John Lennon retired from recording in 1975, re-surfaced in 1980 with a new album and a flurry of publicity only to be gunned down weeks later. The dream ended, the music died, and the merchandising and mythologizing went into overdrive.

Veteran Rolling Stone journalist and music writer Rob Sheffields wistful, elegiac Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World makes no pretense of objectifying the story, and telling it from the comfortable distance of time to create academic context. If we want to know how Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr conspired to capture the national zeitgeist upon their first visit as a group to the United States in February 1964 for a performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, to their final dissolution as an artistic entity in early April 1970, accepting that means were comfortable with the received text.

The idea is that the Beatles were the soothing balm that healed the nation less than 12 weeks after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Its the usual place to start this narrative, but Sheffield doesnt settle for convenience. He also notes that The Beverly Hillbillies, ... especially the quartet known as the Clampetts, did as much to comfort the country in the weeks between Kennedys murder and the arrival of the Beatles. The show featured the exploits of a painfully stupid backwoods country family that hit it rich after they struck oil. They moved to Beverly Hills, and the fun began as their primal basic new money culture clashed with the world of old money California. For Sheffield, both the Beatles and the Clampetts were soothing fantasies that spoke to post JFK fantasies about the state of the nation. He goes on to not so successfully extend the metaphor, assigning roles to each member that connected to a Beatle, but the argument is clear. The Clampetts appealed to our slapstick nature and our struggle to succeed without any effort, and the Beatles appealed to our dreams of unity.

If the timeline of 9 February 1964 to 4 April 1970 is the easiest to follow, a paint-by-numbers account of the Beatles and their relationship with the United States, its not found in this book. The group had already been a recording entity for two years, and their trip to New York was really their final step in conquering the lucrative teen pop music marketplace. Basically, Sheffields thesis seems to be that while there might be a definitive beginning to the Lennon/McCartney relationship (a sort of hybrid brother and spouse union) that can be traced to July 1957, when they first met, there would be no ending.

Sheffield is at his best when he elaborates on how their personality dynamics worked to serve as both a necessary elixir and an addictive poison in the creation of their music. In the chapter A Toot and a Snore in 74, we meet John and Paul at a Burbank Recording Studio. They are in the midst of drug excess, cocaine and booze, and the results of their spontaneous jam session (heard for years through legendary bootlegs) are primary evidence that while the drugs might have enhanced creation and performance in 1966-1969, they were deadly in the next decade and a different context: John and Paul spent so many years estrangedbut the harder they tried to pull away to their opposite corners, the more they resembled each other.

Sheffield continues by elaborating on Silly Love Songs, the hit McCartney would have two years after this night in the Burbank studio. For Sheffield, and for those who were tuned into pop radio at the time, this was an anti-love song, a defense of exactly what the title contained. For Sheffield, McCartneys Silly Love Songs of 1976 and Lennons Revolution of 1968 were in favor of love but squeamish about the details Lennon dabbled in protest pop with Revolution and other songs, to varying degrees of success. The radical chic sentiments were sometimes pedestrian and misguided, but they were heartfelt, like McCartneys love songs.

Revolution is John making a statement, though the statement is John making a statement. He condescends to Rock, just as Silly Love Songs condescends to pop, pandering to clichs For John, songs werent enough unless they expressed a big idea; for Paul, pop was the big idea

Sheffields narrative of this scene sympathetically and convincingly paints a picture of two drifting rock n roll legends stuck in time. Lennon was in the midst of his famous 15 month Lost Weekend estrangement from wife Yoko Ono, and McCartney was still trying to find his definitive identity as a solo artist. He had released Band on the Run three months earlier, a strong collection of songs, but his biggest popularity (and perhaps validation) would come later in the decade as a touring warhorse.

George Harrisons experiences in the 70s had more glaring pits of despair, and Sheffield shines an interesting, equally sympathetic light on them. We know 1970s triple album All Things Must Pass and 1971s Concert for Bangladesh. What we dont know as much is his 1974. In When George sang In My Life, Sheffield carefully navigates what must have been a dark time for the more overtly spiritually-minded Beatle who was still drifting at sea with no sign of help on the horizon:

Each nights In My Life is horrifying in its own way George begins singing, and you can hear the crowd wake up His pipes choke on the low notes or high notes For the big climax, he rasps I love God more. Its like he summoned up an intimate memory for the fans just to tell them it doesnt mean shit to him.

Its this direct honesty that serves an interesting role in Dreaming The Beatles. Sheffield isnt aiming to hang any of them out to dry. He might lean towards uncomfortably precious hagiography more often than not, but he sincerely knows and loves their work, their legacy, the connected spirit they developed in their career as a unit and through their lives.

What this book emphasizes is how tough it must have been to come up with a second act at least in that first decade after they were finished as a group. In the chapter I Call Your Name, Sheffield builds on the idea that the relationship between Lennon and McCartney was loving. It wasnt sexual in nature, but they loved each other. They called each others names. The scene: Madison Square Garden. The time: Thanksgiving 1974. Lennon joins his friend Elton John to fulfill a commitment. If their collaboration Whatever Gets You Through The Night hit Number One, hed perform it on stage with him. They sing it, the Beatles classic Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds (which Elton had recorded in a reggae-tinged version), and then they sing an encore. Sheffield makes a good point here when he wonders about their choice of a second song, I Saw Her Standing There, most famously performed by Beatle Paul eight years earlier

Why is he doing a Paul song? Why is he making this moment about him and Paul, when all anybody wants is to cheer and shower John with love? But in the middle of the crowd, he calls Pauls name.

Ringo gets his solo moment in the chapter The Importance of Being Ringo, and Sheffield wisely focuses on the general perception of the drummer as heard on record rather than the quality of Starrs post-Beatle work. Ringo shined brightest when recording work by other ex-Beatles. Photograph was a Starr-George Harrison classic given life by Ringos earnestness and Harrisons production. Ringo was an actor, a raconteur, a mediator between the others while they were in their last days as a group. He was the last to join, but also the oldest and most experienced. He was the bearded drummer poached from Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in 1962 and he was the foundation that provided the steady strange backbeat to Tomorrow Never Knows, the tough time signatures of Rain, and the difficult rhythms of a song like Blue Jay Way. He may have been slighted and underestimated and relegated to one novelty song per album, but Ringo was a Beatle for a reason:

Ringos bumpkin charm has always tempted people to underrate him as a musician, but he was the only Beatle hired strictly for his playing They couldnt have done it without him.

We can consider the appearance of cool, and the steadfast poker face he had backing up George at the Concert for Bangladesh, the fact that even just in the way he looked he never really wavered or lost his beat. Sheffield considers the surface level issues a drummer should always have, that its okay to be goofy and flamboyant so long as youre still cool, but he also follows through with moments in songs that should be memorialized (though Ringos solo in The End is conspicuous in its absence.)

If there are distinct schools of music criticism, the high-minded literacy of Greil Marcus or the pointed critical rants of Lester Bangs or the navel-gazing tendency of so many others to impose their own narratives onto the artists in question, Sheffields style here takes a little from each camp. It can get frustrating when music criticism falls deep into the pool of discursive solipsism, the idea that the tunes were significant because they changed my life, but Sheffield can be forgiven for those occasional indulgences. He makes that style work because he knows the material. We follow his reflections on the 1968 release The Beatles (better known as The White Album) and how the legacy of the insane Charles Manson has permanently marred the power of that collection of songs. We are also with Sheffield as a 70s kid encountering that first wave of product from Capitol Records in those years after the Beatles had broken up. He might be cramming his own narrative into this story of the music and how it mattered in its time, but it doesnt completely derail the books flow.

The best thing any book about such a remarkable entity as the Beatles can do is shed light on deep cuts that are perhaps even now best known only by hardcore devotees. He does this with Yes It Is, Mr. Moonlight, and This Boy, three songs featuring gorgeous lead vocals from John and harmony from the others. Sheffield could have trimmed or removed the chapter Instrumental Break: 26 songs about the Beatles in favor of more discussion about similarly neglected Beatles songs. That chapter is great when looking at Princes cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and Aretha Franklins cover of The Long And Winding Road. The history of other great covers of Beatles songs (where is Ray Charles Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby?) shouldnt be relegated to a small chapter. Sheffields attempts to offer thumbnail sketches of all 26 songs in this chapter, some of which are a stretch to connect with The Beatles, falls too much into Dave Marsh music writing territory, and Marsh is the master of that domain.

Dreaming the Beatles, minor flaws considered, is still a strong and heartfelt appreciation of The Beatles as a force in their time and examples of potential that was greatest when working as a unified force. In 2017, upon the release of the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and 46 years after they ceased existing as a group, they are now the top-selling vinyl artists. Record albums are back, and The Beatles are at the forefront of that movement. This news was too late to include in Dreaming The Beatles, but that absence doesnt hurt the book.

Sheffield is at his best when hes reflecting on scenes, quiet moments in a group not known for them. He knows enough to start with their iconic final live performance, 30 January 1969, on top of Londons Apple Records offices. On that day, captured in part in the film Let It Be, this explosively popular combo was stripped to their simplest form. Theyre plugged in, but its freezing. Theyre fumbling with lyric sheets and their fingers are too cold to form the guitar chords. Theyre playing Get Back, the performance that ends with John saying I hope we passed the audition, and Sheffield wonders what Paul was seeing during those last moments that would (excepting later work on Abbey Road) for all intents and purposes begin their post-Beatles lives:

Paul probably looks into the future and sees the end of the road. He sees solo careers. He sees his thirties. Married life on the farm. Not spending time with John anymore He sees uncertainty, which is not Pauls scene. He doesnt know how to begin talking about this future

There are lost chords, major chords, minor chords, and dissonant counter-melodies. In his own way, with Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World, Sheffield has added an extended chord to this seemingly never-ending story of The Beatles thats lush and resonant with infinite varied possibilities.

Rating:

Christopher John Stephens is an adjunct college English Instructor at Northeastern University and Bunker Hill Community College.

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Lost Chords, Major Chords, Minor Chords, Dissonant Counter-melodies - PopMatters

Happy Birthday Andy Warhol. This is the artist that propelled contemporary art to the breaking-point that we know today. He was the zeitgeist artist of the 1960s and 70s who broke away from the strict boundaries dictated by the Abstract Expressionist establishment controlled by critics like Clement Greenberg. Here is a quick biography. Enjoy!

Im afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning. Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola on August 6, 1928. As a child, Warhol suffered from Sydenham chorea, a neurologicaldisorder commonly known as St. Vitus dance, characterized byinvoluntary movements. When the disorder occasionally kept himhome from school, Warhol would read comics and Hollywoodmagazines and play with paper cutouts. Growing up in Depression-era Pittsburgh, the family had few luxuries, but Warhols parentsbought him his first camera when he was eight years old.

Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe 1967

After graduating from art school with a degree in pictorial design, Warholmoved to New York City to pursue a career as a commercial artist, and hedropped the final a in Warhola. He moved with fellow classmate PhilipPearlstein and created a circle of close-knit friends including college friendLeila Davies Singeles and dancer Francesca Boas. His work firstappeared in a 1949 issue ofGlamourmagazine, in which he illustrated astory called What is Success? An award-winning illustrator throughoutthe 1950s, some of his clients included Tiffany & Co., I. Miller Shoes,Fleming-Joffe, Bonwit Teller, Columbia Records, andVogue.

In 1960, Warhol turned his attention to the pop art movement, whichbegan in Britain in the mid-1950s. Everyday life inspired pop artists, andtheir source material became mass-produced products and commercialartefacts of daily life; commercial products entered into the highly valuedfine art space. In 1961, Warhol created his first pop paintings, which werebased on comics and ads. Warhols 1961Coca-Cola [2]is a pivotal piecein his career, evidence that his transition from hand-painted works tosilkscreens did not happen suddenly. The black and gray composition firstsketched then hand painted is a blend of both pop and abstraction, whichhe turned away from at the beginning of his career before experimentingwith it again in the 1980s.

Warhol turned to perhaps his most notable stylephotographicsilkscreen printingin 1962. This commercial process allowed himto easily reproduce the images that he appropriated from popularculture. Among Warhols first photographic silkscreen works are hispaintings of Marilyn Monroe made from a production still from the1953 filmNiagara. In 1962, he began a large series of celebrityportraits, featuring Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and ElizabethTaylor. Warhol made his series ofCampbells Soup Cansin 1962and exhibited them the same year in his first solo pop art exhibitionat Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.

In 1963, Warhol began his series ofDeath and Disasterpaintingsthat used images from magazines and newspapers as well aspolice and press photographs of suicides, car crashes, andaccidents as source material. Warhol produced a range of filmsbetween 1963 and 1968, beginning with his first feature-length filmSleep(1963), five hours and twenty-one minutes of poet JohnGiorno asleep. His groundbreaking eight-hour-long silent filmEmpire(1964) features continuous slow motion footage of theEmpire State Building in New York City. In 1966, he made his mostcommercially successful film, the three-hour-long, double-screenThe Chelsea Girls.

In 1964, Warhol moved his studio to a large loft at 231 East 47thStreet in midtown Manhattan. Warhol collaborator Billy Namedecorated the space with silver paint and aluminium foil, and itbecame known as the Silver Factory. It was a creative hub forparties and experimentation, from drug use to music and art. Itspopularity grew quickly, and it attracted a diverse and inclusivecrowd of artists, friends, and celebrities, many of whom posed forshort film portraits. With a stationary Bolex camera, from 196466Warhol made almost 500 of these silent four-minuteScreen Testsplayed back in slow motion.

Warhol was infatuated with Hollywood celebrity and fame sincechildhood. He wrote to movie stars for headshots and fan photos,assembling scrapbooks between 1938 and 1941. In the 1960s, TheFactory became a hangout for artists, musicians, and writers,including Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Truman Capote, and much more.Warhols Superstars, including Edie Sedgwick, Brigid Berlin,Ondine, and Candy Darling, were Factory goers who appeared inhis films and became fixtures in his social life. In the 1970s, Warholwas a regular at the New York disco Studio 54, and he receivedhundreds of portrait commissions from wealthy socialites,musicians, and film stars. He remained in the spotlight in the 1980swith his television work and high-fashion modelling. Warholachieved stardom, and helped others do the same, realizing hisexpression, In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15minutes. Words Courtesy The Warhol

P.S. If this isnt enough excitement for one day, Its also Richard Prince and Howard Hodgkins Birthdays today!

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Happy Birthday Andy Warhol 89 Today Rest In Peace - ArtLyst

Getting its bid in early, Switzerland has selected The Divine Order to represent it in the Foreign Language Oscar race. Directed by Petra Volpe, the period drama about the fight for equal rights for women has sold more than 300,000 tickets at home. In April, it played the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Audience Narrative Award, the Nora Ephron Prize for Volpe, and Best Actress in an International Narrative Feature Film for Marie Leuenberger.

By accounts, Switzerland is the first to declare for Foreign Language this year. The majority of selections will roll in during early fall. Last year, Switzerland put forth Claude Barras My Life As A Zucchini which made the Foreign shortlist and then scored a Best Animated Film nomination.

The Divine Order centers on Nora, a young housewife and mother living in a quaint village with her husband and their two sons. The Swiss countryside is untouched by the major social upheavals the movement of 1968 has brought about. Noras life is not affected either; she is a quiet person who is liked by everybody until she starts to publicly fight for womens suffrage, which the men are due to vote on in a ballot on February 7, 1971.

At the Swiss Film Awards it won three prizes including Best Screenplay and Best Actress. Kino Lorber and Zeitgeist co-acquired it in the U.S. where it has an October release set.

Other international sales include Italy (Merlino Distribuzione), Germany/Austria (Alamode Film), China (DD Dream), Canada (Films We Like), Benelux (September Film), France (Version Originale), Spain (Surtsey Films), Former Yugoslavia (Discovery Film), Poland (Bomba Film) and Denmark (Filmbazar).

The film is produced by Reto Schaerli and Lukas Hobi for Zodiac Pictures, co-produced by Swiss Radio and Television and Teleclub with support from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, Zurich Film Foundation, Canton of Aargau, Lucerne and Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Suissimage and Migros Kulturprozent. Trust Nordisk is handling international sales.

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Oscars: Switzerland Selects 'The Divine Order' For Foreign ... - Deadline

Credit: Marvel Comics

With "Marvel Legacy" under two months away and neither hide nor hair of the Richards family cropping up, it is starting to seem as though the one returning title fans most expected as part of the (un)relaunch may not happen after all.

Yes, there is a small Fantastic Four presence in the "Legacy" solicitations Marvel Two-In-One brings back Ben Grimms 70s team-up title in a big way. But the family dynamic the team once occupied has largely been co-opted by the new Defenders, which features Marvels new premiere married couple, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.

But the somewhat surprising lack of Fantastic Four Marvels literal first superhero family - in a movement designed to capitalize on Marvels roots and its decades long history led us to consider what it would take to bring the FF back in a meaningful way, as a continuing presence in the Marvel Universe and the reasons why they left in the first place.

The perception of the why of the Richards familys absence certainly seems to be that the Fantastic Four no longer connected with audiences - according to Marvel.

Fantastic Four is a title and a concept that has a lot of built in historical importance in the Marvel Universe, but to the readership of today, it doesnt resonate the same way that X-Men, or Avengers, or even Guardians of the Galaxy does right now, Marvel Executive Editor Tom BrevoorttoldNewsarama in January 2016 after the conclusion of Secret Wars, the crossover that took the Richardses and by proxy the FF off the board. Its sort of taken for granted. Its sort of seen as a holdover from another era. Which isnt to say that the characters arent great, or the concepts arent important, or that it isnt a lynchpin of the Marvel Universe, but its just the facts of the world, and the zeitgeist of today. Fantastic Four hasnt been at the forefront.

However, Jonathan Hickman, who wrote Fantastic Four and the companion FF series, as well as Secret Wars, takes a slightly different position.

Of course not, Hickman told Newsarama when asked if he agreed there was a disconnect between audiences and the Fantastic Four. Not only because my personal experience is that it's not true, but the idea behind that conceit is that the core concept is somehow broken. Which is nonsense.

"Family, Future, and Exploration, are timeless, universal concepts. Sure, they can be nostalgic, but they don't have to be. That's really the brilliance of a lot of the early Marvel characters, they were created by guys wrapping both arms around timeless themes, Hickman continued. There are some exceptions to this, of course, but for the most part almost everything Marvel owns is highly malleable and easily exploitable. I'd argue execution is the mission critical element necessary for a Marvel book to succeed. Fantastic Four is no different.

Its funny - just a few years ago there were two ongoing Fantastic Four comics, said one-time Marvel and IDW editor, now writer John Barber, echoing Hickmans sentiment. So I think it can connect with the audience - you just need the right story, and the right hook to draw people in to find out its the right story.

Kwanza Osajyefo, former DC Comics editor and current Director of Creative Strategy for PR firm Weber Shandwick (as well as writer of Black), pointed to other Marvel properties once perceived as far-fetched, saying Dont tell me a talking tree and anthropomorphic raccoon can sell but the Fantastic Four cant.

The concrete whys of the Richards familys absence have been a matter of speculation since they left the Marvel Universe in Secret Wars, but as it turns out, the actual reason for their disappearance from Marvel's publishing line may be exactly what some conspiracy minded fans have said all along - 20th Century Fox's ownership of the franchise's film rights - but maybe not for the reasons they may expect.

I think its pretty common knowledge at this point that Marvel isnt publishing Fantastic Four because of their disagreement with Fox, Hickman explained. While it bums me out, I completely understand because, well, it isnt like theyre not acting out of cause. Fox needs to do a better job there.

Hickmans reasoning seems to imply that Marvel did indeed drop the FF because of the Fox films not necessarily for financial reasons, but because the most recent reboot was both critically and financially unsuccessful, and failed to reflect well on Marvel's comic books. Marvel still publishes an entire line of X-Men comic books, for example, despite Fox also controlling that franchise's film rights.

Barber spelled it out more directly, saying Not to be blunt, but three f---ing terrible movies dont help anything.

I think the lack of a current Fantastic Four series owes a lot more to the film situation than to a lack of interest, he clarified.

But Hickman also says that the Fantastic Four didnt need to leave the Marvel Universe.

That kind of thinking runs contrary to everything I believe in as a professional storyteller, Hickman explained. It comes from a place of manipulation where an attempt is made to make the reader desire something through denial. It's hacky. It's suboptimal. It's the central tenet of all sh---y dating advice. If you want someone to care about a book, write a story they care about.

Its the publishers job to find a creative team with heart for the project and then get it to the right audience, added Osajyefo. Guardians of the Galaxy gave Marvel territory in sci-fi, Avengers is superhero drama, but exploratory, family adventure - thats the Fantastic Four.

Its clear which characters are absent, and thats a darned shame because I assume both Marvel editorial and fans have love for the Fantastic Four, he continued. Maybe that will be rekindled the way it has been with X-Men, but without a ride at Disneyland, their future is dubious.

When it comes to comic books, however, the Fantastic Four might just be one of the lynchpins to what Stan Lee himself described as "Marvel Legacy"'s intent of "returning to classic characters as they were originally portrayed" after all.

Fantastic Four is the birth of the Marvel Universe, explained Barber. Its the first comic published under the Marvel banner; it really started the set-up of heroes that dont always see things the same way. When Namor returned in Fantastic Four #4, it established the idea that the Marvel Universe was expansive and persistent - the stories from the 1940s still happened!

That was a wild notion. Plus, via the Skrulls and Galactus and Mole Man and Wakanda and the Microverse and Latveria the series created the foundation what the Marvel Universe was like, on Earth, below, and above. And in a literal sense of creating characters - so much came out of those Stan Lee/Jack Kirby issues, from Black Panther to the Kree to Doctor Doom to the Inhumans. Its an incredible bout of world-building and unfettered imagination.

But its the central tenet of the Fantastic Four, the guiding principle, that made them a hit in the first place that Barber says is the key to making them work in 2017 and which makes them so essential to the idea of the classic Marvel Universe.

Focus on the family, Barber said. I dont buy family being a problem with the Fantastic Four, its just a matter of figuring out and understanding what 'family' means to the contemporary world.

Youd be hard-pressed to make me believe Marvel cant light a torch under the Fantastic Four, quipped Osajyefo.

Art from 'Secret Wars #9'

But there's still the question of when they'll be back - because none of the creators talked to for this article are under the assumption that the Fantastic Four are gone forever.

"We knew a year or so out that the Fantastic Four as a property wasn't going to be published at Marvel past 2015," Hickman explained of their last appearance in Secret Wars. "When this became a foregone conclusion, then Secret Wars moved about six inches to the left to read as 'the last Fantastic Four story.' I mean, it's not, as it'll be back someday, and it's not, as it's only the Doom-Reed axis and not the entire family, but it's the best we could do because of how pregnant we were."

Back in 2016, just after the end of Secret Wars, Brevoort took the same position.

"Whether its tomorrow, or in a year, or in five years, the potential, and indeed the likelihood, is that there will be some new Fantastic Four book again," Brevoort said. "And in the meantime, those characters, for the people that love them, are still in play, and are still a factor in the Marvel Universe. But the omnipresent but overlooked Fantastic Four is not. Hopefully that absence will actually make it more valuable when we announce some Fantastic Four thing at some date in the future."

And, according to Hickman, there is one specific thing that could definitely bring the Fantastic Four back.

"Disney probably needs to buy Fox.

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Understanding FANTASTIC FOUR's Legacy & Possible Future - Newsarama

Mick Jagger: both he and Jeremy Corbyn are frauds when it comes to Brexit. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters

In the days following Theresa Mays triggering of Article 50 last March, Mick Jagger sat down to write a pair of songs that would capture the anxiety and the unknowability of a post-Brexit UK.

The songs England Lost and Gotta Get A Grip were released last week. They are both hideous. It behoves a future generation to commemorate in musical form that the day Sir Michael Philip Jagger got woke about Brexit was the day that rock music died.

I went to find England, it wasnt there. I think I lost it in the back of my chair. I think Im losing my imagination. Im tired of talking about immigration, sings Sir Mick over a beat that could only charitably be termed as funk-like.

The realpolitik of Brexit is addressed in the final verse of England Lost: I had a girl in Lisbon, I had a girl in Rome, now Ill have to stay home. Which is as cutting a take on the EUs freedom of movement directive as you are ever likely to hear.

With lyrics on the two songs about fake news, lunatic political leaders, refugees, Isis and, everyones favourite, metadata scams, Jagger has been saluted by a supine music press for becoming politically charged and capturing the zeitgeist.

Whenever a figure from the world of showbiz or politics (and the distinction is now blurred) engages with a political talking point for profit commercial or otherwise we need to see receipts.

Jagger may be anxious about Brexit now but just a few weeks before the EU referendum last year he was a lot more sanguine about it, telling Sky News that Brexit would be beneficial to the UK in the long-term.

But as a vocal supporter of Margaret Thatcher so much so that he held private meetings with her when she was in office he would think that way about Brexit.

His concern about England on his new songs is touching. This is the England he ran away from to take up residency in France in 1971 when the then Labour governments tax regime didnt suit his enormous bank account.

And hes kept running: since the 1970s the Rolling Stones have had their multi-millions managed out of Amsterdam to reduce their tax. Its working out quite well for them. Figures released in 2006 showed the Stones paid $7.2 million in tax on earnings of $450 million a rate of 1.6 per cent.

Its just as well that paying a drastically reduced tax rate on your earnings in a foreign country for most of your career doesnt disqualify you from writing politically aware songs about your own country.

Like many a rock star Jagger would do anything for his country except pay tax in it.

In the idolatrous world of showbusiness you can say or do what you want with impunity no matter how inconsistent or hypocritical your words or behaviour may appear to be. The political world is more circumspect or used to be according to Simon Kuper of the Financial Times, who last week cast a cold eye over the rise of the political fan.

He writes: Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn have fans, Hillary Clinton and Theresa May dont. The political fan is a poorly understood modern phenomenon. Political fans reason a lot like sports or music fans.

Corbyns rapturous reception at this years Glastonbury Festival is described by Kuper as an event unprecedented in British political history. At Glastonbury 2016, many festival-goers wept openly on the Friday morning as the EU referendum result filtered in.

This year, not only did Corbyn receive a heros welcome while speaking on the main stage but over the three days of the festival crowds spontaneously broke into chants of his name. There was more than a touch of the Papal Mass in Phoenix Park about it.

Like Jagger, Corbyn is seasoned campaigner who knows how to artfully dissemble. Addressing the Glastonbury crowds, he was touchy-feely in excelsis in every child there is a poem before erupting into paroxysms of platitudes about the environment, peace and love. He didnt once mention the B word the word that had reduced Glastonbury to tears the previous year.

But when he was talking to the grown-ups on an ITV political show just weeks previously, he outlined in stark terms how he wanted a hard Brexit and how clearly the free movement of people ends when we leave the European Union and there will be managed migration. The dog-whistle term, managed migration, has been in every UKIP manifesto since 1999.

As with Jagger on his new single, Corbyn is opportunistically and cynically getting down with the youth vote without disclosing some important facts such as that Jezs voting record on the EU is up there with the rabid right of the Conservative Party and has drawn effusive praise from Nigel Farage.

In Britains previous referendum on EEC membership in 1975, Corbyn voted to leave. He was one of the architects of Michael Foots 1983 Labour manifesto which promised to pull the UK out of the EEC immediately. He voted against the Maastricht Treaty, against the Lisbon Treaty and in 2011 crossed the floor to vote with hardline Tory MPs in calling for an EU referendum.

In March of this year, he imposed a three-line whip on Labour MPs to prevent any of them from voting against Theresa May triggering article 50. Back in the day, we used to call that democratic centralism.

That article 50 vote brings us back to Jagger and the reason he wrote his Brexit blues. Born within a few years of each other in the 1940s, Jagger and Corbyn were nice middle-class boys who went to grammar schools.

If for one the future held sex, drugs and rocknroll, the other had to make do with fair-trade coffee, protest demos and speechifying.

But both headlined Glastonbury. And both are frauds when it comes to Brexit.

Im sorry to hear youll have to give up your girl in Lisbon and your girl in Rome, Mick, but as you said yourself, Brexit could be beneficial in the long term.

And Jez, there is indeed a poem in every child. Even the migrant ones you intend to manage.

Read this article:

Brian Boyd: Spare me Mick and Jez's Brexit hypocrisy - Irish Times

The Democratic Socialists of Americahave a big question to answer a 24,000-person strong question. According to a recent announcement, thats how many members the group claims to have, thanks in part to the interest in socialism prompted by the insurgent presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders and as a reaction to theelection of a far-right president in Donald Trump. But, as800 delegates descend on Chicago forthe DSA National Conventionthis week, the group must figure out how itsmasses of card-carrying socialists will engage in electoral politics.

Local chapters have debated how much energy to put into running for office versus engaging in issue advocacy, and whether to align with Democrats or work on building a new political party.

EnterJabari Brisport a DSA-endorsed, Green Party candidate for New Yorks 35th City Council District whooffers one potential path forward for the group.

A flyer for a New York City Council candidate forum hangs outside the Epiphany Lutheran School in Brooklyn, NY on July 26, 2017.

Photo: Bryan Thomas for The Intercept

Brisport is a 29-year-old African-American artist and activist who was born and raised in the 35th District, which includes portions of Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and other neighborhoods in Brooklyn. In a wide-ranging interview with The Intercept, he described his motivation for running, and his thoughts on the larger political zeitgeist.

Grassroots politics runs deep in his family as does radicalism. Brisports mother is a former Black Panther. Hespent years organizing around local causes, and was an enthusiastic backer of Sanderss presidential campaign. Unlike Sanders, however, Brisport chose to end his cooperation with Democratic Party after the election.

Last year, I was really just fed up with the party, he said. After Bernie lost the nomination, I decided to moved on out to the Greens who, honestly, ideologically Im closer to and are a better fit with me. I was also tired of arguing with other Democrats over things I think are basic, like whether money influences politics.

The New York City Councils first-past-the-post elections, where whoever gets the most votes wins outright, running as a third-party candidate is tough.But because Brooklyn is so heavily dominated by Democrats,Brisport is essentially trying to introduce atwo-party competition. In doing that, hes walking a path similar to Kshama Sawant, the Socialist Alternative councilwoman in Seattle who defeated a Democratic opponent on a platform designed around democratizing wealth and power in the city.

The incumbent in the 35th District is a former art museum executive named Laurie Cumbo,who moved into the district to run for office in 2013. Brisports main ideological difference with Cumbo is their divergent approaches to developing Brooklyn.

Hers is what Ive seen called the Guggenheim Theory of development, which is that if you bring lots of really glitzy art spaces to an area, really great concert halls, really great art museums, so on and so forth, thatll bring economic improvement to the area, he noted. Which is like a half-truth. Because it brings more wealth and improvement to the area but also pushes out the poor people.

What Brisport is describing is the process of gentrification, which has swept his part of Brooklyn in recent years, drawing the ire ofAfrican-American and West Indian communitiesin the district. Brisport claims to offera more democratic form of growth guided by the local community.

Give more community control, he suggested, pointing to the redevelopment of the Bedford-Union Armory in Crown Heights. Brisport opposes plans to turn the 138,000-square-foot armory into a bonanza for private developers. Instead, he is supporting residents who want to turn the site into a community land trust. Under such a model, land development would be approved by a nonprofit controlled by the local community.

People from the community organize into a non-profit, and then you can turn over the land to them, instead of wealthy developer, he explained. They can choose who they contract out to. Maybe theyll contract out to a non-profit. Ultimately, theyll have final say in the negotiations.

That same spirit of greater localized democracy runs through the entirety of Brisports platform: From expanding participatory budgeting, to requiring police officers to live in the city, to taxing the rich to ensure a more equitable distribution of wealth and power.

One of the challenges ofBrisports run for office and for DSA, in general is defining democratic socialism in a way that Americans will embrace it as a mainstream ideology.

You tell somebody socialism without hearing somebody describe it, they automatically think government owns everything, takes away your property, he complained. Its not necessarily thinking about it as government. Its about We The People. Its about having power and agency over how things are guided.

He cited the financial crisis as an example of how a group of elites were able to negatively impact the lives of millions of people without facing democratic accountability.

In 2008, when the banks crashed the economy, we cant vote out the CEOs of those banks, we have no say over those bankers, he noted. However, if an elected official messes up the economy, you can vote them out. You have a say.

A crowd gathers for a New York City Council candidate forum inside the Epiphany Lutheran School in Brooklyn, NY on July 26, 2017.

Photo: Bryan Thomas for The Intercept

One of the obstacles Sanderss presidential campaign faced in his race against Hillary Clinton was the strong loyalty shown by older African-American voters to the establishment of the Democratic Party. The only cohort of the black electorate Sanders won was the youngest. The establishment party candidates also made strong showingsamong these voters of other ethnic backgrounds in races againstpopulists. In his re-election bid, Chicagos Mayor Rahm Emanuel, for instance, counted on strong black support to beat back challenger Chuy Garcia in his Democratic primary. Sanders-backed Tom Perriello suffered from a deficit among black voters in the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial primary.

For Brisports part, these shortfalls came largely thanksto a coordinated campaign by the partys establishment and the deep Southern tiesheld by Clinton and her husband, the former Arkansas governor President Bill Clinton.

The Democratic Party weaponized identity politics a little bit against Bernie Sanders, he said of last years presidential primary. As soon as he started losing the South, they made this whole thing of him not connecting with black voters. Which is insane. Because like, if Coke was really doing well in the South over Pepsi, nobody would be like, Well, I guess Pepsi is having trouble connecting with black voters!'

However, he also said Sanders should have adjusted his approach to appeal to a wider set of voters. Bernie also is a little bit guilty, he conceded. At some point, he failed to move things outside of an economic lens. I think he was asked this one question at a debate that was like, whats your biggest blind spot as a white person. He said, when youre white you dont know what its like to be poor. I dont know how he got to that conclusion.

I love Bernie. I would vote for him 10 times. But Im not sure what he was going for with that statement, Brisport continued. I think his bigger blinder was seeing so much from an economic lens, when you do need a mixture of an economic approach and an approach toward marginalized groups. When I said weaponized identity politics earlier, I dont mean to say Im anti-identity politics. I understand their role. Its a double-edged sword. Its something to be addressed not something to be used as character assassination.

Brisports criticism matches that of Khalid Kamau, a DSA-backed socialist candidate who won a city council seat in South Fulton, Georgia, in the spring.

I love Bernie, but I think where his campaign failed I dont think this is a personal failure of Bernie, but perhaps of the people that were around him and advising that campaign is that there wasnt enough attention paid to people of color, Kamau told Truthout in March. I am not sure that people of color who were in that campaign were listened to the way they should have been.

New York City Council candidate Jabari Brisport (second from left) meets with constituents following a candidate forum inside the Epiphany Lutheran School in Brooklyn, NY on July 26, 2017.

Photo: Bryan Thomas for The Intercept

Going forward, Brisport believes the best way for democratic socialists to build a truly multi-racial movement is to show up and support communities of every background.

DSA is multi-tendency. Its electoral but also fighting lots of different battles: housing, immigrant justice, climate, labor rights, strike solidarity, education, he explained. What theyve been really great at doing is going into these conflicts where the community is fighting. And not only allying themselves with the local community, but amplifying them and also taking a backseat. Not like coming up and saying, Were DSA, were running this. But also saying how can we amplify what you do?

New York Citys 2,000-member strong DSA chapter has put its money where it mouth is in diversifying the movement. So far, both of the candidates it supports for city council races comes from non-white backgrounds. In addition to Brisport, DSA voted to endorsethe Rev. Khader El-Yateem in his Democratic primary in Brooklyns diverse Bay Ridge neighborhood. El-Yateem is a Palestinian Christian and a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign a bold stance in a city known for its stridently pro-Israel politics.

El-Yateem is Trumps worst nightmare. He supports immigrants, is Arab-American and explicitly refuses to take money from developers, NYC-DSA Co-Chairwoman Rahel Biru said in a statement.

Brisport has seen the difficulties in organizing people of different ethnic backgrounds into one movement firsthand. He pointed to disputes between Caribbean-Americans and Jewish-Americans in Brooklyn over housing as an example.

Theres a general sense in the community that the Jews are buying up the land and controlling everything, he said of complaints hes seen in the Caribbean community. Which is upsetting. He added, Its almost like what I saw Trump do. He saw peoples real concerns about an economy that was failing them and shifting it over to Muslims and Mexicans.

Brisports goal is to end racial infighting and unite his diverse district behind democratic socialism.

What I tell people is gentrification isnt caused by white people, its caused by capitalism, he said. If you de-commodify the land and you take the profit motive away, then we can actually fight against this.

Top photo: Jabari Brisport, a 29-year-old actor-turned-activist-turned-member of the Democratic Socialists of America, poses for a portrait in Brooklyn, NY on July 26, 2017.

Read this article:

Jabari Brisport Is Running For City Council to Bring Democratic Socialism to Brooklyn - The Intercept

He remembers the early days of hope, when he was working on a weekly newspaper in Birmingham and dreaming of being anywhere else. Then theres the hard times when OCS had no money and were propped up by Steve Craddocks session fees from Paul Weller. There was the overwhelming, zeitgeist-capturing success of Moseley Shoals, a record that sold more than a million copies and put them alongside Oasis and The Verve as one of the most important bands of the times. And, of course, there has been the blur of drink and drugs, of hang-ups and let-downs, of friends and family, of familiar places and places hes known.

When OCS played the Symphony Hall, Foxy was pretty sure he was going to burst into tears. And when they headlined the Town Hall, for an emotional homecoming gig that was released as a DVD, he pretty much did.

Nah, Id trodden on a nail, Foxy deadpans.

Hell be back home for Beyond The Tracks, the Birmingham festival that runs from September 15-17.

Birmingham is one of the places thats always really kind to us. If you go outside the area, a lot of bands think audiences have a tendency to be dull. But Ive never ever found that. I think that opinion says more about the people who think it, than it does about the Birmingham crowds. The Town Hall was a really nice gig. Steve started off on the organ and people were sitting there, all around him. That was a really nice show.

And the Symphony Hall was special because we played with a string quartet. The first night was probably one of the quietest and most disappointing that we did during that set of gigs. It was a Saturday. But the Tuesday one was miles better. We thought it would be the other way round. I remember walking out and thinking I was going to burst into tears. I thought what the hell are we doing here? The Symphony Hall is such a beautiful place.

OCS work when their mojo clicks in, these days, rather than when a record company demands. In recent months, Foxy has been trying to write new songs that will form their 11th album, the first since 2013s Painting. Its an unhurried process thats devoid of the normal deadlines.

Weve had a busy year, with these summer gigs and then with shows planned at the end of the year for Australia and New Zealand and Dubai. But we need to start recording and I need to find time. I write the songs, I always have done. Then the others turn it into OCS. Steve is our musical director.

There are no concessions to modernity when Foxy is writing songs. Though OCS once released an album called One From The Modern and, like Weller, are intrinscially linked with the Mod movement, the songwriting process is distinctly Old Skool.

I sit down with an old Sony tape player, that you would have had for Christmas circa 72, with cassettes. I had to buy a job lot of because I wanst sure how long theyd be about. I got them from Asda Living, in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I play and record and just start. I just see what happens. Sometimes nothing comes and other times a song will come in minutes.

He always feels nervous before he starts, over-thinking and worrying about what might happen. For him, OCS come to life on the stage, rather than in the studio. I think bands start because you want to play to your mates in pubs and impress girls. Then suddenly you find yourselves in the studio. These days, once Ive written the song, I may as well head off down the pub for two days while theyre recording, then come back to do the vocals.

OCS were the apogee of Britpop. When Cool Britannia ruled the waves, no band had the same swagger and street cred, no band looked as smart or partied as hard. A carousel of drink and drugs seemed to spin for years as the band enjoyed five top 10 albums, and became the house band for Chris Evanss TFI Friday.

It was a lot worse than anyone can ever imagine, but it was wonderful.

Those days have gone, however. Yes, no longer. These days, I live in a village near Stratford, where I know everyone and everyone knows me. Were all friends. I spend most of my days reading The Times at the local pub, or with my friends, instead of songwriting, which is probably what I should be doing. The other boys have their own lives and Steves is down in Devon. When we started out, we were a gang. That was one of the greatest things about being in the band.

Foxy remains a roadhog. As much as he likes his village pub, hes never lost his love of a hotel room. And as the band remain popular around the world, particularly Down Under, hell be spending plenty of time in them.

We played Australia and New Zealand for the first time last year and we sold the gigs out in hours. None of us had a clue what it would be like. We didnt know if theyd even heard of us. Were going back and doing bigger places.

I like being on the road. I love hotels. Everyone says it must be a nightmare but its quite good fun. All your rooms are nice, theres a bar and theres nice food what else do you want? When we started saying in decent hotels, Id been used to living in student accommodation in Kings Heath and Moseley. I couldnt believe it, I was staying in rooms where the windows werent broken.

And yet for all of the rocknroll excess, Foxys true home is with an acoustic guitar in a pub, playing songs like Simon and Garfunkels The Boxer. You dont have to be Mick Jagger. A pint on the table, a Neil Young song and an acoustic guitar . . . thats what makes me happy.

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Ocean Colour Scene talk ahead of Birmingham festival appearance - expressandstar.com

America is experiencing an extraordinary episode in the history of manufacturing opinion. Never has there been such focused determination to ruin an American president by the opposition party and the press that supports them.

Why is the Left dedicated to destroying the Trump presidency? Because Trump is the one person who says he wont submit to the world around him. He is the symbol of national sovereignty in the battle with globalism, and a symbol of the sovereignty of individuals We The People in the battle with steroidal expansion of government and government control.

The Left cannot allow the zeitgeist of nationalism or self-determination; a government party barreling toward socialism must quash both wherever they appear. They must cut off Trumps head and stab him to death politically and personally, just as Kathy Griffin and the Shakespeare players did in effigy. The American press, as part of that Leftist movement, is a vital tool in the mission to destroy anything and anyone that threatens their forward motion. That determined destruction clearly centers on the current President and his administration. Turn on network news, pick up a major paper, and there is no denying the collaboration.

Resist, Resist, Resist, they say. But what is the rest of their message? Rise with us to silence those who disagree? Rise to make american leadership less significant in the world? Rise to preserve uncontrolled government expansion and soaring national debt? Rise to redefine our military into an experiment in social engineering rather than a force to protect the nation and its allies? Rise to disdain American values? Rise to remove gender as well as excellence from our lexicon and the lives of our children? Rise to deconstruct the Constitution and ignore Federal law?

All those things were initiated and/or amplified under Barack Obama. Those things and more like them are what the progressive left, dragging silly liberals with them, stands for. The complete rejection of those things and those people by millions of americans gave us the Trump presidency. We can only watch and see which vision prevails, but if there is any hope, it lies in patriotism... in the continued commitment of Americans to personal freedom, and in the vision, personal strength, and determination of Donald Trump.

Hartley Porter

Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

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Letter to the editor: Rallying behind Trump - South Strand news