Daily Archives: November 26, 2020

Review: David Byrnes American Utopia, directed by Spike Lee

Two years ago, on a warm Broadbeach night strolling back to our hotel, my teenage daughter gathered up what we were thinking in eight words: That was the best night of my life.

We had travelled south from Brisbane to see show number 141 of a 143-date world tour of David Byrnes American Utopia.

It takes a lot to prise us loose from our suburban setting, but memories of Talking Heads first Australian tour came back into focus and gave me a nudge.

The Festival Hall show in the winter of 1979 had been sharp and groovy. A gaggle of us walked the two blocks back to their hotel with the band. I followed Byrne into the lift, where we suffered in pained silence until his floor. I was too shy to speak.

Back in the bar with the rest of the band, bottles of red wine and my silly, punky buddies I was probably loquacious as hell.

The Byrne on stage in Broadbeach was 40 years older but no less energetic or committed. The energy was different smoother and more focused than the frenetic twitch of the 70s but the commitment was clear.

This show was a transformation. A new way of looking at live music.

A bare stage. An oblong light illuminates Byrne on a basic wooden chair, his hands flat on a wooden table framing a human brain.

The music delicately builds as he lifts the brain and sings:

Here is a region of abundant detail, here is a region that is seldom used.

Thin cables raise mounds of chains gathered on the floor. A set has been created: three walls of shimmering metal curtain.

Spike Lee filmed five shows at the Hudson Theatre in New York in order to create David Byrnes American Utopia. The result is stunning.

The breadth of the show the shape and swing of it are captured in shots from the audiences perspective. Precise overhead shots of the stage provide neat patterns of light and movement. But, edited by Adam Gough, it is the feeling of being onstage with the performers, the close-ups and crane shots, which bring this remarkable story home.

Byrne and his band come and go through the walls, barefoot, in matching grey suits and shirts. After the opening of Here, the band are slowly revealed through slices of the Byrne/Talking Heads catalogue. Beautiful versions of Dont Worry About the Government, This Must Be the Place (Nave Melody) and then I Zimbra, when the whole band finally appears onstage.

There are five drummer/percussionists, guitar, bass and keyboards, two wonderful singers and Byrne. All are untethered as he describes it later wireless mics and marching band rigs allow them to be anywhere, redefining the idea of what a band onstage looks like.

There are some songs, like The Bullet or One Fine Day, which have a slow, almost static quality, but mostly the movement is constant. Annie-B Parsons choroeography is delightfully appropriate to Byrnes style, and as intrinsic to the film as the music.

Somewhere around the middle of the film, he is thrown into the spotlight a floppy man, a rag doll for Once In A Lifetime. People on stage sway and swoop, sometimes chaotic, sometimes ordered and symmetrical.

The constant movement is mesmerising, often with Byrne at the centre and the players snaking and skipping around him.

As in Johnathon Demmes 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, Byrne has much to say.

He carefully illustrates the importance of voting, asking people to register at the table in the foyer. He tells the story of Kurt Schwitters Ursonate, and of Hugo Balls poem Gadji beri bimba which became I Zimbra. He remembers Janelle Mone singing Hell You Talmbout at the Womens March on Washington in 2017 before performing his own powerful version.

Lee makes this moment bigger and stronger by cutting in pictures of the names being spoken: relatives holding up the faces of their murdered sons and daughters on an empty stage.

But what resonates most with me, maybe because it feels so personal, is the thread which begins with the brain in Here. We start life with a myriad connections between the hemispheres, discarded as we grow and we make choices on our way.

As the show comes to a close, Byrne proposes these connections, seemingly lost, can be reconstructed in our relationships with others; that music and performing are his way of rebuilding those potent connections with which we are born.

American Utopia had a profound effect on audiences around the world. The movie honours that love. Lee has created a live performance film that can sit up there happily with the best of the genre.

And then the chains rise and disappear, leaving black walls and the band onstage singing the beautiful a capella introduction to Road to Nowhere. Then the instruments kick in and they slide off the stage and around the theatre, making the connection between performer and audience as real as it can be.

The song finishes, Byrne hooting and high-fiving the audience, and looking genuinely happy as he exits the stage door on his bicycle, heading off into the chilly New York night.

My kid was right. That was the best night of my life.

American Utopia is in Australian cinemas from today.

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Review: David Byrnes American Utopia is a film honouring the love of the live performance - The Conversation AU

To succeed on an open-access network, providers must treat customers well, assess the competition, and take a modern approach to marketing.

I did a double take. On my computer screen was the second negative Google review in a matter of days. We hardly ever see negative reviews at UTOPIA Fiber! I called the marketing team into my office. Whats going on, guys? I asked.

We had just finalized a deal to let a new ISP onto the UTOPIA Fiber network. The agreement was a coup for both UTOPIA and the ISP. Virtually overnight, the ISP got to expand its footprint to 15 cities in the greater Salt Lake City region, UTOPIA got bragging rights for landing a major provider on its open-access fiber network and customers received an additional residential choice for gigabit service from a big-name brand.

But it looked as though the honeymoon was ending before it even began. That struck me as strange because UTOPIA Fiber is the highest-ranked internet company for customer satisfaction in Utah and among the highest in the United States. UTOPIAs net promoter score (which measures whether a providers customer base would recommend it to friends) is a whopping +61. Most other internet companies rank around -15.

So why were there now two negative reviews? I dialed our contact at the ISPs corporate headquarters. Hey, its Kim. We received two negative reviews on Google. Can you please look into it? I went on to say that we hold our ISPs to the highest standards and want to make sure our customers are taken care of. I explained that UTOPIA has worked extremely hard to create the industrys best customer experience, a designation the network didnt want to lose. I offered to help.

Kimberly McKinley, chief marketing officer of UTOPIA Fiber, inside one of UTOPIAs nearly 200 fiber huts strategically placed throughout the Greater Salt Lake City area

I was surprised that the ISP responded to my request with data. Data from the call center experience, data from hold times, data from an incomplete install. Data, data and more data.

What the ISP didnt come back with was a solution. Though it has been in business for more than a decade with a robust customer base, it was unable to solve problems with basic business issues when it came to installations and customer care. It hadnt listened to the customer concerns and just closely followed the call-center script. It became clear that this ISP could not rise to UTOPIAs level of customer experience because the ISP wasnt really ready to operate on an open-access network.

This was instructive. You see, competing for market share on an open-access network is like nothing a traditional ISP has ever experienced. Suddenly, the playing field is larger and wider and has more competitors. The ISP in my example offers the same products as a dozen others competing on the UTOPIA network, so the ability of an ISP to deliver a seamless customer experience can make or break its success.

And its not just the competitors that an ISP needs to think about. Its also intertwined with the infrastructure owner. That means the network owners reputation and the ISPs reputation are married. When things go wrong, customers dont care about a blame game they just want their problems resolved, and they dont care who handles them.

Offering services on an open-access network differs from typical models. Weve seen a lot at UTOPIA Fiber and have identified best practices for ISPs looking to compete. Here are five key factors to consider before joining an open-access network:

Customer service also has to adapt to an open-access network environment, particularly when it comes to troubleshooting. Communicate quickly and transparently about outages and maintenance issues. Take the lead on messaging. If your company has an outage, get that message out to your customers. If youll be doing maintenance on your system, set customer expectations early and often. At UTOPIA, if we have a fiber cut or are performing maintenance, we overcommunicate to our customers through a variety of channels to let them know were doing our best to keep their downtime low.

Another customer service area to focus on, particularly on an open-access network, is handling customer complaints. If we all do our jobs right, there will be few complaints. However, the world is imperfect, so handling complaints and other customer issues is a top priority. In UTOPIAs case, a customer can switch to 13 other providers in one click, so customer service has to be effective and able to solve problems.

One of the most frequent reasons UTOPIA Fiber customers switch providers is because of problems with their routers. Our most successful providers know how to help customers troubleshoot issues with routers. Weve seen many customers switch ISPs because a provider tells the customer that the speed issue is UTOPIAs, when its not, or to contact the routers manufacturer. Customers see right through these tactics.

However, simply putting together a great package for customers is not enough; you have to do your homework. Understand the market; have a clear understanding of the revenue margins you realistically can expect from both the commercial and residential customer bases. Most important, understand what youre offering. Are you seeking to provide business-class service, residential service or both? My best advice is to offer only services in which you have experience, so you can always deliver top-notch service. This is a winning formula for the ISPs on our network.

Some may be surprised to hear that when it comes to product offerings, I dont recommend giving away the farm. The race to the bottom in a price war has no winners. But that does not mean I advocate overcharging customers. Rather, be sure to give yourself enough of a margin to invest in your operations, your marketing and your people. Do your homework, have a clear understanding of what the market will bear, and then put your best offerings out there.

When you join an open-access network, be prepared to get in front of consumers and businesses in creative ways. What works best are digital marketing campaigns, social media marketing, referral campaigns, PR, and grassroots marketing. What doesnt work? Relying solely on telemarketing or direct mail campaigns. Those are outdated tactics, yet I see many in the fiber broadband industry still relying heavily on them. There also may be co-op marketing opportunities with a network operator. At UTOPIA Fiber, we do the heavy lift; we take the lead on marketing the network so that all our ISPs have to do from a marketing perspective is focus on differentiating their offerings and providing the best customer experience for network subscribers.

That said, be realistic in your approach and market-share expectations. One provider asked me how to market because it wasnt seeing any return on investment from its direct mail campaign. Naively, the provider expected a 10 to 15 percent uptick in sign-ups with one direct mail campaign. Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.

Ultimately, to succeed in open access, treat customers well, show them you value their business, do your homework and take a modern approach to marketing. This will set you up for success.

So, hows that ISP on our network with the negative Google reviews doing now? Im happy to report that it followed our advice and made the necessary adjustments. Its been a process, but the ISP has a much stronger understanding now of how to compete on the UTOPIA network. I was excited to learn that one of the ISPs executives actually called an unhappy customer to learn how the company could do better. This type of action goes a long way in the hearts and minds of customers. Im sure our mutual customer now feels heard.

The telecom industry is notorious for providing terrible customer service. After a decade as a marketing director in the hospitality business, I came to the fiber broadband industry with the goal of reinventing the customer experience. For UTOPIA Fiber to succeed, I knew wed have to operate differently. From the get-go, we emulated the type of customer care that high-end resorts practice each day. We began anticipating our customers needs, listening to feedback (really listening, not just giving lip service) and redefining what being a UTOPIA customer means.

And it worked. Really well.

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Want to Compete on an Open-Access Network? Better Read This First! - Broadband Communities

Covid-19 has crippled television production in 2020. And yet, an astonishing number of new series limited and otherwise have premiered so far this year. Maybe youve already seen the most talked-about shows: The Last Dance, Normal People, The Queens Gambit, Tiger King, The Vow. That leaves only about 500 more. No person with decent sleep hygiene can or should keep up with them all.

But Thanksgiving, and the long weekend it introduces, invites bingeing of all kinds. Here are a dozen options, across form, genre and age rating, that you may have slept on. And since these are all debuts (meaning they have aired only one season or are limited series), you can watch them in their entirety, or at least until that tryptophan really kicks in.

American girls who came of age in the 80s and 90s regarded Ann M. Martins novels of tween entrepreneurship as sacred texts. Happily, the series creator Rachel Shukert has updated these stories to the screen without losing any of Martins sympathy, pluck and can-do attitude. Its heartwarming but not heavy, our critic James Poniewozik wrote. The casting is impeccable, for the preteens and parents both particularly Alicia Silverstone as a frazzled mom. Which probably explains the shows immense intergenerational appeal. Gen X and millennial parents can reunite with the literary heroines of their youth. Their Gen Z kids can ask what a landline is.

Watch it on Netflix

If you want to spend the holiday considering how the wrongs of the past echo into the present, give this Showtime limited series a go. Based on the National Book Award-winning novel by James McBride and created by Ethan Hawke and Mark Richard, the seven episodes provide an antic, imaginative biography of the 19th-century abolitionist John Brown (Hawke). Its like getting to be King Lear, but even better, Hawke told the Times. Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson), a Black boy informally adopted by Brown, narrates the hourlong episodes. Few shows since Deadwood have offered a vernacular so lush or a vision of an earlier America so morally complex.

Watch it on Showtime

This Netflix documentary series, which turns its anti-aging-creamed eye on Paltrows wellness and lifestyle company, seems purpose-built for hate watching. Yes, its version of the best life ethos focuses on healthy, wealthy lives that float free of systemic oppression. And it often trades in woo-woo. (Although is woo-woo the worst thing?) But the series brisk, unexpectedly engaging and beautifully shot throughout includes one perfect episode: The Pleasure Is Ours. An exploration of female anatomy and sexuality, it features the peerless sex educator Betty Dodson, who died in October, and demonstrates the female orgasm without winking or embarrassment.

Watch it on Netflix

A prestige dramedy with a filthy mouth and a staggering textiles budget, this 10-episode show from Tony McNamara (a co-writer of The Favourite) embeds itself in the Russian court of Peter III (Nicholas Hoult). The enchanting Elle Fanning plays Catherine, Peters bride, who learns that while the emperor has very nice clothes, he has little brain and an entirely depraved moral center. Subtitled an occasionally true story, the shows liberated approach to historical fact gives the series a saberlike satirical edge. A comedy of royal corruption and debauchery, it is also a canny tale of a young womans political awakening.

A workplace sitcom that trades on the real-world slog that makes online gaming possible, this Apple TV+ series debuted in February. Created by Rob McElhenney, Megan Ganz and David Hornsby of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the show sets its nine go-down-easy episodes within a studio responsible for a wildly successful multiplayer online game. If the characters begin as flimsy stereotypes, later episodes fill them out a little. And in May, the show somehow managed its best episode yet, a surprisingly moving 25 minutes, shot remotely during quarantine a technical feat made manifest in a delirious Rube Goldberg finale.

Watch it on Apple TV+

Come for the dancing. Stay for the feminist workplace critique. This Starz drama, from the first-time showrunner Katori Hall, follows the employees of a struggling shake joint in the Mississippi Delta. Here these women, most of them Black, get to be subjects, not objects, Poniewozik wrote. And they demand notice. Plotlines tangle, like a string bikini left in the dryer, and resolve only rarely. But the dancing is dynamic, no character is minor and a drama that treats exotic dance as just another grind deserves the rain of some very large bills. Playing the principal dancers, Brandee Evans, Elarica Johnson and Shannon Thornton give stand-up, standout and occasionally upside down gripping the pole by thighs alone performances.

Watch it on Starz

Philip Roths 2004 novel imagines an alternate history in which Charles Lindbergh, an America First xenophobe, wins a presidential election, sowing racial and ethnic division. Which makes David Simon and Ed Burnss wintry, richly textured adaptation only slightly more comfortable viewing now than when the limited series debuted on HBO in March. If your family fights about politics, scroll past. Otherwise enjoy the layered performances from Zoe Kazan, Morgan Spector and Winona Ryder and the uneasy reminder that totalitarianism can happen here. Its a story, Poniewozik wrote, in which America comes to realize that democracy is merely a choice, not an inevitability.

Watch it on HBO

This Portland noir stars Cobie Smulders as Dex, a locked-and-loaded private investigator with big-time personal trauma. A case-of-the-week procedural, it might have benefited from the prestige treatment: fewer episodes, bigger budgets. But Smulderss persuasive, tight-lipped performance and the pleasure of seeing tough-guy conventions tailored to a tough-girl form made it sing, however morosely. This show actually debuted in September 2019, but its first season ended in March. ABC renewed it for a second, then walked back that renewal this September, blaming coronavirus-related delays. The season finale cracked one foundational mystery, then introduced one more. Maybe another network can pick up the series and put Dex back on the case.

Watch it on Hulu

In this 10-episode series from the Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis plays the title character, an American college football coach improbably hired to manage an English Premier League soccer team. Its a familiar fish-out-of-gridiron situation, redeemed by Sudeikiss inherent likability and some snappy writing. (Also watch for Hannah Waddinghams French-manicured, iron-fisted team owner.) Ted Lasso makes pleasant family viewing, assuming your family doesnt mind colorful cross-cultural obscenity. Citing relentless positivity and commitment to making its audience comfortable, our critic Mike Hale called Ted Lasso the dad pants of sitcoms.

Watch it on Apple TV+

Think of this show, about twin sisters who collar wanted criminals and bail jumpers, as kettle corn television: sweet, salty. Set in Atlanta, where the girls (Maddie Phillips and Anjelica Bette Fellini) attend a conservative Christian high school, the show does smart, sometimes subtle work as our heroines make their own moral choices. And the cast attacks the scripts with the enthusiasm of a newly adopted shelter puppy. Its quirky and naughty and funny, the show so many teen shows think they are but arent quite, satirical and earnest often in the same scene, our critic Margaret Lyons wrote. So dont flee this series, created by Kathleen Jordan, even though Netflix canceled it not long after its August premiere.

Watch it on Netflix

This hallucinatory limited series, which borrows from folk horror (think Midsommar, but chillier, or The Wicker Man, though less flammable), entrenches an elegant nightmare in a bold structure. Created by Felix Barrett and Dennis Kelly (Utopia), its first three episodes star Jude Law as a man ensnared on a peculiar island. The next three star Naomie Harris as a woman who goes in search of him. When the series aired in late summer, a durational performance by the immersive art stars Punchdrunk linked the two halves. Youll just have to perform your own response to a claustrophobic chiller about the inability to travel.

Watch it on HBO

Has 2020 sometimes felt like a simulation gone awry? That sensation will prepare you for this bleak, ingenious comedy from Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation). In the near future, technology allows the recently deceased to upload consciousness into a cloud-based afterlife. The show stars Robbie Amell (all chin and masculine complacency) as a bro coder who is suddenly introduced to a plush digital heaven. (It looks a lot like Mohonk Mountain House in upstate New York.) The series skews cynical. Nathan is often punchable. But theres some nifty Imagineering and charming support from Andy Allo as Nathans living handler. And as Poniewozik wrote, coming to screens around the height of the pandemic, a comedy about death and bridging the distance between the living and the digitized had an unintended level of poignancy.

Watch it on Amazon

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Catch Up on These 12 Great 2020 Series This Thanksgiving Weekend - The New York Times

That film was mesmerising, a road map to the digital future. Surely he could not do anything as good this time, 36 years later and without the Heads? Im here to say yes, he can. American Utopia is so good, I wanted to turn around and watch it all over again. It made my heart soar and my feet stomp. Ive always thought Byrne a bit of a show pony enormously talented, but a little too full of himself. I was wrong: he is the complete show pony, but what a show. And with age, he has acquired a certain humility and generosity, sharing the limelight here with 11 talented musicians from around the world Brazil, France, Canada, Chicago, New Jersey.

David Byrne (centre), and cast: the whole show is meticulously choreographed.Credit:Matthew Murphy

He reverses the idea of the original film. This time, there are no fixed trappings of a band no amps, no drum kit, no mic stands, no wires. Everyone carries their instrument, even the keyboardist, and everyone dances. There are four or five drummers, not just one, splitting the kit so the players can move, like an American marching band.

Its the right film for the times, a blast of joy and high spirits. As Molly would say, do yourself a favour.

The whole show is choreographed within an inch, each musician taking his or her place in a crafty design that makes full use of the enclosed cube of stage. The lighting is intricate and timed to the millisecond. Its a clockwork performance, without tape loops or stage tricks. What we hear is played live, as Byrne demonstrates, building a song voice by voice, to show how good the band is. Bassist Bobby Wooten and guitarist Angie Swan had me transfixed.

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Byrne is sometimes at the centre of it all, his arms outstretched like a preacher. At other times, hes at the back, letting the others strut. His songs are heavy on traditional American forms notably call and response. His structures may be unconventional, but he synthesises a lot of traditions, not just American ones: lyrical pop, Brazilian funk and groove, the Broadway songbook and a dollop of Motown. Its a heady mix, delivered with humour and verve.

Spike Lees direction is unobtrusive. Byrnes show was already highly developed for the proscenium stage. Lee adds aerial views, Busby Berkeley-style, to give it an extra dimension, but otherwise, he lets the performers carry the weight. We come to see each of them as an individual, which is remarkable when there are 12 people on stage, most of the time. Its the right film for the times, a blast of joy and high spirits. As Molly would say, do yourself a favour.

David Byrne's American Utopia releases in Australian cinemas nationally on 26 November.

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American Utopia is so good I wanted to turn around and watch it all over again - Sydney Morning Herald

November 24, 2020 As internet service providers are moving to enable numerous Wi-Fi services for their customers, security threats are looming larger than ever.

According to the Parks Association, the typical American family currently has an average of 12 connected devices per home, with the amount of Internet of Things devices utilized in each household rising every year; however, the majority of these devices lack the proper security or have no security at all.

In the face of manifold cybersecurity threats, Tier 2 internet service operators, or internet service providers which engage in peering with other networks, are working tirelessly to combat security threats alongside efforts to expand broadband access.

On Monday, representatives from Tier 2 operators gathered to explain their companies approaches to securing Wi-Fi networks, during a Broadband Communities webinar.

Wi-Fi has evolved, said Matt Krueger, vice president of product management at Shentel, Six or seven years ago our job was to provide a single Wi-Fi connection. Now, we are on the security front. According to Kreuger, Tier 2 operators role in network security has drastically evolved over the past five years.

We pushed security responsibilities to the device originally, said Krueger. Yet, in 2016, the service provider launched Eero, a company specializing in network monitoring tools, which moved the tracing of cybersecurity threats to the network.

According to Kreuger, Eeros system allows Shentel to see where threats exist and where they initiate. If there is a fishing attempt or a malware attempt, we are able to see what is being threatened on a device-level, he said.

UTOPIA Fiber CEO Roger Timmerman detailed UTOPIAs unique wholesale and open access model causes it to utilize a different approach to securing its networks.

However, that does not keep us from getting involved, said Timmerman. We provide recommendations, but we do not provide ISPs with network security monitoring tools.

Timmerman recommended that users only connect trusted devices to their Wi-Fi networks, and that they not attempt to discount crucial equipment, such as routers.

Users cannot rely on old or cheap routers, said Timmerman, adding that the life cycle of routers is typically three years, and that outdated equipment is likely to get hacked.

David Smith, vice president of technical operations at Lumos, detailed the companys approach to securing its networks, saying that getting network security tools in the hands of customers is a high priority.

We want to give customers the tools they need to control their homes, said Smith.

Lumos partnered with AirTies to empower users to utilize the range of security functions offered by the Wi-Fi mesh technology, one of the most secure wireless networking strategies.

According to the security experts, technology and cybersecurity threats are going to keep adapting, with Wi-Fi 6 capable devices on the horizon.

Shentel will be deploying Eero Wi-Fi 6 devices within the next 30 days, said Krueger, saying we want to get the devices out there so end users can begin to feel the benefits.

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Continuing Pandemic is Causing Broadband Operators to Adjust to New Cybersecurity Landscape - BroadbandBreakfast.com