Daily Archives: June 23, 2017

Far more people came to Expo 67 than expected, at a time when Canadas entire population was just 20 million, and the islands were more than just a fairground. They were a cosmopolitan pleasure garden, a place to see and be seen. The swankiest Expo denizens were the 1,800 or so pavilion hostesses, kitted out in polyester or lam uniforms and hired for more reasons than just bilingualism. (Montreal is generally known for its attractive women, a male CBC broadcaster intoned in 1967, but this year the situation has become ridiculous.)

Expo 67s subtitle was Man and His World, an English approximation of the title of Saint-Exuprys Terre des Hommes. The place of women at the fair, and the expression of modernity and national ambitions through clothing, is the subject of Fashioning Expo 67, on view at the McCord Museum downtown. Mannequins display Bill Blasss mod uniforms for hostesses at the American pavilion: a white tent dress with a red-white-and-blue head scarf, plus a killer striped raincoat. At the Quebec pavilion, the attendants wore bulbous cloches, while the Brits toted Union Jack handbags; newly independent African nations went for more traditional designs and wax fabrics. Throughout the Expo, hostesses wore pale blue A-line skirts, blazers and pillbox hats. (Over at MAC, the artist Cheryl Sim wears one of these sky-blue uniforms in a contemplative three-screen video, in which she sings a melancholy remix of the Expo theme song Un Jour, Un Jour.)

The futuristic fashions had a counterpart in the Expos architecture, entrusted to young, experimental engineers and backed by budgets unimaginable today. Many made use of industrial materials and modular construction techniques above all, Frei Ottos West German pavilion, whose swooping tensile roofs were reprised at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Expos most lasting architectural project was not a pavilion at all, however, but an experimental housing development. The Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, then just 28, proposed a new mode of living that married urban density and suburban spaciousness, in the form of concrete cubes stacked like building blocks. Habitat 67 was initially imagined as a self-contained community, similar to the superblocks of Braslia, which could be endlessly repeated. It became upper-middle-class condos, and when I walked past Habitat this week, residents were sunning themselves on the balconies while gardeners buzzed the grass. (Mr. Safdies designs and models are now at the Centre de Design de lUQAM, a university art gallery downtown.)

Many cities have gained an iconic structure from their days hosting the world: the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Space Needle in Seattle, the Atomium in Brussels. Montreals legacy, along with Habitat, is a massive geodesic dome on le-Sainte-Hlne, designed by Buckminster Fuller, which served as the American pavilion in 1967. Inside were paintings by Warhol, memorabilia from Elvis and Hollywood, and space capsules from the Apollo and Gemini programs, but it was Fullers pavilion itself, pierced in two spots by a monorail track, that enthralled fairgoers most.

At MAC, the Canadian artist Charles Stankievech has assembled a bulging archive of materials that limn the contradictory aims of Fullers dome, as indebted to American military ambitions as to Spaceship Earth environmentalism. But I decided to head out to the island, where Fullers dome gleams beneath the sun. The acrylic panels went up in flames in 1976, and the dome sat vacant for years. Its since been rechristened the Biosphre, and the museum inside hosts exhibitions on the natural world and climate change though, for the summer, a temporary exhibition, Echo 67, includes testimonials from Expo visitors and a small display on environmental impact.

As the clouds went by, and the maple leaf flag fluttered beneath Fullers awing, column-free expanse, I found myself overcome with a feeling I dont often confront when I look at the art of the recent past. That feeling was envy an envy of the certainty in cultural and social advancement felt by the millions who passed across this island, and an envy shared, I think, by many of the artists in MACs exhibition. Its one thing to identify the gaps in Expo 67s narrative, to call out its sexism and nationalism. Harder, and more urgent, is to admit why artists are still infatuated with past visions of the future that didnt come true. We would give anything to believe in progress again.

In Search of Expo 67 Through Oct. 9, Muse dArt Contemporain de Montral, macm.org.

Fashioning Expo 67 Through Oct. 1, McCord Museum, musee-mccord.qc.ca.

Echo 67 Through Dec. 17, Biosphre, ec.gc.ca/biosphere.

Expo 67 A World of Dreams Through Oct. 8, Stewart Museum, stewart-museum.org.

Habitat 67: The Shape of Things to Come Through Aug. 13, Centre de Design de lUQAM, centrededesign.com.

A version of this article appears in print on June 23, 2017, on Page C13 of the New York edition with the headline: Utopia: The Reboot.

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Expo 2017: Utopia, Rebooted - New York Times

Serena Ryder, shown here performing at the 2013 Juno Awards in Regina, will be back in the Queen City on June 25 at the Conexus Arts Centre. CARAS photo / iPhoto

Canadian songstress Serena Ryder just released her sixth album, Utopia, a fresh and funky follow-up to her gold-selling, Juno-winning release, Harmony. Punchy new songs like Got Your Number and Electric Love reflect her rekindled passion for rhythm, she tells Postmedias Lynn Saxberg, while a quick recording job meant she never lost sight of the groove. Heres more from the interview with Ryder, who performs at the Conexus Arts Centre on June 25.

Q: Its been five years since your last record. Whats been happening?

A: Well, it was five years but I toured it for three years so really its only been two years for me. And then just a lot of writing. I was living in L.A. for a couple of years, and writing so much. I just started doing it for fun because I love it. I wanted to write for other people, try other things. I was not even thinking about a record because I just finished my album cycle. It was super cool, way less pressure. Not like, This song is going to be on the radio, it has to mean something for you and you have to sing it over and over again.

Q: But then you ended up keeping the songs for yourself anyway?

A: I fell in love with a lot of the songs I was writing because they were from a personal place. I always write from a very personal spot. And I started playing the drums and writing songs on the drums in my apartment. I wrote almost 100 songs.

Q: Plus you did some touring. Were you road-testing songs?

A: I went to the U.K. and worked with a few people there, and did some writing and touring in Australia. But the songs didnt change. Whats been happening with me is Ill write a song and record it in the same day, in, like, a few hours, and thats what goes on the record.

Q: Wow, thats different.

A: Its so different now from what it used to be like for me, when youd write a song and then hire a studio band to go in and get a bunch of different takes of it. For me, the energy of right when youre finished writing is so exciting and to be able to record it, its like being in the moment. It used to be such a long waiting process. It was almost like the life in it was gone for me because it was so processed.

Q: That must be why the music feels so fresh and immediate.

A: I think so. We didnt go over and over and over with the different versions.

Q: The songs also have a lot of rhythm, and you mentioned writing on drums. Is that new for you?

A: Yeah, all the rest of my stuff has been based on guitar parts. Ive dabbled on the drums for a while. I wouldnt say Im a drummer but the rhythm is what makes me excited to write a song so a lot of the sessions would start with a beat, and a rhythmic kind of vibe. When I get excited about the beat, thats when I start playing melodies and guitar parts. I love that pulse that moves. Its the music of your body.

Q: Whats the significance of the title, Utopia?

A: I like to create my future by coming up with mantras for myself. What do I want to repeat to myself? The last record was Harmony, and that was about finding balance in everything. My new record is about finding my dream. Whats my fantasy? What reality do I want to create?

Q: And? Whats your definition of utopia?

A: Right now (on a warm, summery day in downtown Ottawa), mine would definitely be a cottage with an amazing dock, warm water, an ice-cold beer and a bunch of books and magazines and board games.

lsaxberg@postmedia.com

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Serena Ryder has moved on from Harmony to Utopia with new album - Regina Leader-Post

Forgive me for complaining, but recent decades have not been easy ones for my peeps. I am from birth a member of the WHAM tribe, that once proud, but now embattled conglomeration of white, heterosexual American males. We have long beentheres no denying ita privileged group. When the blessings of American freedom get parceled out, WHAMs are accustomed to standing at the head of the line. Those not enjoying the trifecta of being white, heterosexual, and male get whats left.

Fair? No, but from time immemorial those have been the rules. Anyway, no real American would carp. After all, the whole idea of America derives from the conviction that some people (us) deserve more than others (all those who are not us). Its Gods willso at least the great majority of Americans have believed since the Pilgrims set up shop just about 400 years ago.

Lately, however, the rules have been changing in ways that many WHAMs find disconcerting. True, some of my brethrenlets call them 1 percentershave adapted to those changes and continue to do very well indeed. Wherever corporate CEOs, hedge-fund managers, investment bankers, tech gurus, university presidents, publishers, politicians, and generals congregate to pat each other on the back, you can count on WHAMsreciting bromides about the importance of diversity!being amply represented.

Yet beneath this upper crust, a different picture emerges. Further down the socioeconomic ladder, being a WHAM carries with it disadvantages. The good, steady jobs once implicitly reserved for uslunch-pail stuff, yes, but enough to keep food in the family larderare increasingly hard to come by. As those jobs have disappeared, so too have the ancillary benefits they conferred, self-respect not least among them. Especially galling to some WHAMs is being exiled to the back of the cultural bus. When it comes to art, music, literature, and fashion, the doings of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, gays, and women generate buzz. By comparison, white heterosexual males seem bland, uncool, and pass, or, worst of all, simply boring.

The Mandate of Heaven, which members of my tribe once took as theirs by right, has been cruelly withdrawn. History itself has betrayed us.

All of which is nonsense, of course, except perhaps as a reason to reflect on whether history can help explain why, today, WHAMs have worked themselves into such a funk in Donald Trumps America. Can history provide answers? Or has history itself become part of the problem?

For all practical purposes history is, for us and for the time being, what we know it to be. So remarked Carl Becker in 1931 at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. Professor Becker, a towering figure among historians of his day, was president of the AHA that year. His message to his colleagues amounted to a warning of sorts: Dont think youre so smart. The study of the past may reveal truths, he allowed, but those truths are contingent, incomplete, and valid only for the time being.

Put another way, historical perspectives conceived in what Becker termed the specious present have a sell-by date. Beyond their time, they become stale and outmoded, and so should be revised or discarded. This process of rejecting truths previously treated as authoritative is inexorable and essential. Yet it also tends to be fiercely contentious. The present may be specious, but it confers real privileges, which a particular reading of the past can sustain or undermine. Becker believed it inevitable that our now valid versions of history will in due course be relegated to the category of discarded myths. It was no less inevitable that beneficiaries of the prevailing version of truth should fight to preserve it.

Who exercises the authority to relegate? Who gets to decide when a historical truth no longer qualifies as true? Here, Becker insisted that Mr. Everyman plays a crucial role. For Becker, Mr. Everyman was Joe Doakes, John Q. Public, or the man in the street. He was every normal person, a phrase broad enough to include all manner of people. Yet nothing in Beckers presentation suggested that he had the slightest interest in race, sexuality, or gender. His Mr. Everyman belonged to the tribe of WHAM.

In order to live in a world of semblance more spacious and satisfying than is to be found within the narrow confines of the fleeting present moment, Becker emphasized, Mr. Everyman needs a past larger than his own individual past. An awareness of things said and done long ago provides him with an artificial extension of memory and a direction.

Memories, whether directly or vicariously acquired, are necessary to orient us in our little world of endeavor. Yet the specious present that we inhabit is inherently unstable and constantly in flux, which means that history itself must be pliable. Crafting history necessarily becomes an exercise in imaginative creation in which all participate. However unconsciously, Everyman adapts the past to serve his most pressing needs, thereby functioning as his own historian.

Yet he does so in collaboration with others. Since time immemorial, purveyors of the pastthe ancient and honorable company of wise men of the tribe, of bards and story-tellers and minstrels, of soothsayers and priests, to whom in successive ages has been entrusted the keeping of the useful mythshave enabled him to hold in memorythose things only which can be related with some reasonable degree of relevance to his own experience and aspirations. In Beckers lifetime it had become incumbent upon members of the professoriate, successors to the bards and minstrels of yesteryear, to enlarge and enrich the specious present common to us all to the end that society (the tribe, the nation, or all mankind) may judge of what it is doing in the light of what it has done and what it hopes to do.

Yet Becker took pains to emphasize that professional historians disdained Mr. Everyman at their peril:

Berate him as we will for not reading our books, Mr. Everyman is stronger than we are, and sooner or later we must adapt our knowledge to his necessities. Otherwise he will leave us to our own devices. The history that does work in the world, the history that influences the course of history, is living history. It is for this reason that the history of history is a record of the new history that in every age rises to confound and supplant the old.

Becker stressed that the process of formulating new history to supplant the old is organic rather than contrived; it comes from the bottom up, not the top down. We, historians by profession, share in this necessary effort, he concluded. But we do not impose our version of the human story on Mr. Everyman; in the end it is rather Mr. Everyman who imposes his version on us.

Becker offered his reflections on Everyman His Own Historian in the midst of the Great Depression. Perhaps because that economic crisis found so many Americans burdened with deprivation and uncertainty, he implicitly attributed to his Everyman a unitary perspective, as if shared distress imbued members of the public with a common outlook. That was not, in fact, the case in 1931 and is, if anything, even less so in our own day.

Still, Beckers construct retains considerable utility. Today finds more than a few white heterosexual American males, our own equivalent of Mr. Everyman, in a state of high dudgeon. From their perspective, the specious present has not panned out as it was supposed to. As a consequence, they are pissed. In November 2016, to make clear just how pissed they were, they elected Donald Trump as president of the United States.

This was, to put it mildly, not supposed to happen. For months prior to the election, the custodians of the past in its now valid version had judged the prospect all but inconceivable. Yet WHAMs (with shocking support from other tribes) intervened to decide otherwise. Rarely has a single event so thoroughly confounded historys self-assigned proctors. One can imagine the shade of Professor Becker whispering, I warned you, didnt I?

Those deeply invested in drawing a straight line from the specious present into the indefinite future blame Trump himself for having knocked history off its prescribed course. Remove Trump from the scene, they appear to believe, and all will once again be well. The urgent imperative of doing just thatimmediately, now, no later than this afternoonhas produced what New York Times columnist Charles Blow aptly calls a throbbing anxiety among those who (like Blow himself) find the relentless onslaught of awfulness erupting from this White House intolerable. They will not rest until Trump is gone.

This ide fixe, reinforced on a daily basis by ever-more-preposterous presidential antics, finds the nation trapped in a sort of bizarre do-loop. The medias obsession with Trump reinforces his obsession with the media, and between them they simply crowd out all possibility of thoughtful reflection. Their fetish is his and his theirs. The result is a cycle of mutual contempt that only deepens the longer it persists.

Both sides agree on one point only: that history began anew last November 8, when (take your pick) America either took leave of its senses or chose greatness. How the United States got to November 8 qualifies, at best, as an afterthought or curiosity. Its almost as if the years and decades that had preceded Trumps election had all disappeared into some vast sinkhole.

Where, then, are we to turn for counsel? For my money, Charles Blow is no more reliable as a guide to the past or the future than is Donald Trump himself. Much the same could be said of most other newspaper columnists, talking heads, and online commentators (contributors to TomDispatch notably excepted, of course). As for politicians of either party, they have as a class long since forfeited any right to expect a respectful hearing.

God knows Americans today do not lack for information or opinion. On screens, over the airways, and in print, the voices competing for our attention create a relentless cacophony. Yet the correlation between insight and noise is discouragingly low.

What would Carl Becker make of our predicament? He would, I think, see it as an opportunity to enlarge and enrich the specious present by recasting and reinvigorating history. Yet doing so, he would insist, requires taking seriously the complaints that led our latter-day Everyman to throw himself into the arms of Donald Trump in the first place. Doing that implies a willingness to engage with ordinary Americans on a respectful basis.

Unlike President Trump, I do not pretend to speak for Everyman or for his female counterpart. Yet my sense is that many Americans have an inkling that history of late has played them for suckers. This is notably true with respect to the postCold War era, in which the glories of openness, diversity, and neoliberal economics, of advanced technology and unparalleled US military power all promised in combination to produce something like a new utopia in which Americans would indisputably enjoy a privileged status globally.

In almost every respect, those expectations remain painfully unfulfilled. The history that served for the time being and was endlessly reiterated during the presidencies of Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama no longer serves. It has yielded a mess of pottage: grotesque inequality, worrisome insecurity, moral confusion, an epidemic of self-destructive behavior, endless wars, and basic institutions that work poorly if at all. Nor is it just WHAMs who have suffered the consequences. The history with which Americans are familiar cannot explain this outcome.

Alas, little reason exists to expect Beckers successors in the guild of professional historians to join with ordinary Americans in formulating an explanation. Few academic historians today see Everyman as a worthy interlocutor. Rather than berating him for not reading their books, they ignore him. Their preference is to address one another.

By and large, he returns the favor, endorsing the self-marginalization of the contemporary historical profession. Contrast the influence wielded by prominent historians in Beckers dayduring the first third of the 20th century, they included, along with Becker, such formidables as Henry Adams, Charles and Mary Beard, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Frederick Jackson Turnerwith the role played by historians today. The issue here is not erudition, which todays scholars possess in abundance, but impact. On that score, the disparity between then and now is immense.

In effect, professional historians have ceded the field to a new group of bards and minstrels. So the bestselling historian in the United States today is Bill OReilly, whose books routinely sell more than a million copies each. Were Donald Trump given to reading books, he would likely find OReillys both accessible and agreeable. But OReilly is in the entertainment business. He has neither any interest nor the genuine ability to create what Becker called history that does work in the world.

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Still, history itself works in mysterious ways known only to God or to Providence. Only after the fact do its purposes become evident. It may yet surprise us.

Owing his election in large part to my fellow WHAMs, Donald Trump is now expected to repay that support by putting things right. Yet as events make it apparent that Trump is no more able to run a government than Bill OReilly is able to write history, they may well decide that he is not their friend after all. With that, their patience is likely to run short. It is hardly implausible that Trumps assigned role in history will be once and for all to ring down the curtain on our specious present, demonstrating definitively just how bankrupt all the triumphalist hokum of the past quarter-centurythe history that served for the time beinghas become.

When that happens, when promises of American greatness restored prove empty, there will be hell to pay. Joe Doakes, John Q. Public, and the man in the street will be even more pissed. Should that moment arrive, historians would do well to listen seriously to what Everyman has to say.

Excerpt from:

Bill O'Reilly Is America's Best-Selling Historian | The Nation - The Nation.

New Llano has a unique, 100-year-old, history. It is arguably the longest-lived socialist community in the United States.

New Llano has a unique, 100-year-old, history. It is arguably the longest-lived socialist community in the United States.

Originally established in 1917 as a Utopian community, people came from all walks of life, and from all over the world to New Llano. They were seeking a paradise where you produce for use, not profit;" where all members did equal work for equal benefits in a self-sufficient cooperative.

The first colony in California, called the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony, was established by Job Harriman, in 1914. It was abandoned just four years later. Llano del Rio turned out to be too far from other settlements to develop a sustaining economy, and it had an unreliable water supply.

In 1917, 200 of the original 600 California colonists chartered a train and moved the experimental colony to Louisiana. They settled into the former lumber town of Stables, and changed its name to New Llano.

For the next 20 years, the colony evolved its own brand of "cooperativism," southern-style. Everyone over the age of 18 had a job. Usually jobs were assigned, but people were allowed to change occupations if they were competent.Life at the colony was not easy, but no one starved physically or intellectually.

In the early 1900's, lumber workers in Louisiana had faced many conflicts with big lumber interests in the state. This made the politics of a co-operative society appealing to them.

The socialist concept had much popular support in the United States, during the late 19th and early 20th century. Utopian colonies were scattered throughout the country during the industrial age, as the working class struggled to gain rights.

The New Llano Colony has often been dubbed a "socialist commune," however, this is not entirely accurate.

Although Harriman and many of the long-time colonists were Socialists, it was not a requirement for membership. Members simply had to agree to live co-operatively and abide by the Golden Rule-- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Many of the ideals, which were promoted within the Utopian community, were a source of pride, and have been instituted in today's American society. These include minimum wage, Social Security, low-cost housing, old-age pensions, equal rights for women, welfare, and a move toward universal health care.

Members collectively owned all industries, which they ran themselves, including water and electricity for their homes. The group produced many high-quality items, from shoes to machine tools, and popular food products.

New Llano was once home to a broom factory, sawmill, ice plant, sheet metal factory, and the leading national socialist newspaper.

The colony was one of the first groups in America to adopt the Montessori teaching method. Theodore Cuno, one of the founders of Labor Day, made New Llano his home until his death. Cuno endowed the colony with a substantial library, one of the best in Louisiana. Colony orchestras and theatrical groups performed on a roof garden, free of charge, to fellow colonists and their neighbors.

Everyone worked together to produce whatever they needed.

Eventually, in 1939, a series of financial problems and internal dissent forced the colony into receivership.

Documentary filmmakers Beverly Lewis and Rick Blackwood produced the 1994 film, "American Utopia," about the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony in Vernon Parish.

The Town of New Llano is celebrating the 100-year anniversary with a two-day festival-style celebration, featuring live music and vendors selling arts and crafts, food and drinks.

The event runs Friday, June 30 - Saturday, July 1 at the park on Stanton Street. It will get started both days at 8 a.m. The celebration will will close at 6 p.m. on Friday. A fireworks display will take place on Saturday at 9 p.m.

Alcoholic beverages and pets are prohibited at the celebration.

The Museum of the New Llano Colony Museum will be open during the event. It is located at 211 Stanton Street, and is regularly open Tuesday-Friday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (closed from noon - 1 p.m.).

Read more here:

The Town of New Llano is celebrating its 100th anniversary - Beauregard Daily News

Press Release

While many wrongly believe reaching out for support is a weakness, Utopia Creations, a leading provider of sales and marketing solutions, believes it is the key to long-term success

Based in Leeds, Utopia Creations creates personalised marketing campaigns for their clients which they implement in specially selected areas across the UK.

About Utopia Creations: http://www.weareutopia.co.uk/about-us/

Using in-person communication and engaging presentations the firms collective of sales and marketing representatives are experts at securing trust with consumers and providing a unique experience which gets to the heart of consumer need. This drives their clients brand loyalty, brand awareness and customer acquisition, making Utopia Creations a highly sought after outsourced solution.

Throughout their continuing work with aspiring young entrepreneurs in the industry, Utopia Creations has recognised a common misconception that entrepreneurship is a lone journey and that asking for help and support is seen as a sign of weakness. Utopia Creations, on the contrary, are adamant that success is a collaborative process and that every entrepreneur that has found success has done so through possessing the strength and confidence to reach out to people who they can learn from.

The firm believes that creating a support network of expertise allows aspiring professionals to access knowledge and expertise that cannot be gained anywhere else. It opens a source of real world business experiences that can help people to navigate their own journeys more effectively and help them to respond to challenges in a balanced and professional way. Creating a network of support is also integral to launching new ideas and innovation, offering a sounding board to bounce ideas off of and gain new perspectives on how to approach all areas of business.

Utopia Creations is confident that when it comes to building a professional network, no other industry does it better than sales and marketing. While competitive, the sales and marketing industry has one of the best global networks of support. Outlined Utopia Creations. Entrepreneurs understand that for the sector to thrive, we need to work together to develop the next generation and share our ideas and expertise. With a plethora of events held across the UK and beyond every year, we firmly believe that for young people looking to break through as entrepreneurs, there really is no better environment for learning and creating lifelong connections with other ambitious individuals.

To find out more about Utopia Creations, follow them on Twitter @UtopiaCreation_ and find them on Facebook.

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Utopia Creations outline why all great entrepreneurs need a support network - Journalism.co.uk