Daily Archives: July 2, 2021

The immersive narrative art installation called Nove Ita opens this weekend.

Denver loves its immersive art. Weve got not one, but two immersive Van Gogh experiences, Prismajics popular Shiki Dreams installation, whats soon to be the countrys biggest Meow Wolf installation yet, and countless other pop-up immersive art experiences.

While youre waiting for Meow Wolf to open, check out Novo Ita, a new augmented-reality art experience that combines immersive, narrative, psychedelic elements and is created entirely out of recycled and reclaimed materials.

Brought to Denver by the team behind Spookadelia, Meow Wolf Denver artist Douglas A. Schenck and a team of more than 35 artists, writers, performers and tech professionals, Nova Ita takes guests into a magical, botanical utopia where humans and nature live in harmony. Guests can engage with augmented reality spirit guides and wander from installation to installation, where theyll interact with botanic art, lights and sound to uncover a narrative and learn more about this strange world.

Nova Ita challenges visitors to take a world-centered view that recognizes the relationships that exist among all living systems & the many ways these systems are consistently moving toward harmony and balance, according to press materials. It is a movement towards a novo ita which roughly translates from Latin to new we or new us.

The experience runs through August 29 out of Spectras gallery on South Broadway. You can buy tickets now.

See the original post:

Spectra Art Space opens immersive art installation, Nova Ita, in Denver this summer - Denverite

In Mexico, we call the tasks that fall to us unexpectedly and must be attended urgently a "bomberazo" (a term similar to "bombshell" in English). For any work team, the first bombshells usually correspond to unforeseen events or information. However, this way of solving problems tends to take hold as a modus operandi among us. Too readily, we become accustomed to postponing essential things until they become urgent. Perhaps it is because goods are not plentiful, so we prefer to wait until the task in question proves to be truly necessary. Yes, maybe it all reduces to a resource economy.

The world at large experienced the pandemic as a highly contagious and lethal virus that fell on humanity overnight; we had to rush to cope with the disaster, firehose in hand. Without prior warning, we learned to be at home 24 hours a day, wash our hands frequently, wear masks, distance ourselves from others, and do our activities remotely. (Unfortunately, many also had to learn to lose their loved ones, jobs, lifestyles).

However, the arrival of the pandemic was not truly new and unexpected; it had been anticipated many years, all over the world. As evidence of this that I found in my personal library, in 2009, Dr. Octavio Gmez Dants warned about the subject in an article published in a high-circulation, prestigious journal. That same year, another university science magazine titled one of its covers "The Foreseen Epidemic." Likewise, the title of a 2015 book demonstrates what I am saying: The Mexican Influenza and the Coming Pandemic. In it, six authors announced that a global health catastrophe such as the one we are experiencing was looming over us.

So why was nothing done to prevent this? In daydreams, we can go back a few years and imagine leaders meeting worldwide to resolve future pandemics: UN-type congresses where measures would be dictated to reduce the expected impact; economic agreements, legal briefs, information campaigns, hospital prevention protocols, virtual technology development.

From this imaginary congress, international organizations in the field of education, such as UNESCO, would call on school systems around the world to develop prevention content and practices and to leverage the unstoppable influx of electronic media to organize preventively, logistically and technologically, the deployment of emergency remote education (as Fernanda Ibez taught us to call it in an article published here). Then they would have had years to run training drills with students and teachers and develop teaching strategies, health prevention measures, instructions for the use of masks, and healthy distancing.

Why then was nothing done?

Vctor Briones, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, explains it to us in two words: all this preparation "is expensive." Just hearing this, deep indignation grips us: How expensive could it be compared to the costs of sacrificing the world's population and (speaking of our field now) forcing the entire educational community to become experts in remote teaching from one moment to the next? The teacher Maya Niro rightly calls all this a shipwreck: "At that moment, I boarded a ship in the middle of a storm, where I was given a different rudder than the one I knew how to maneuver."

Con rabia e impotencia imagina uno a los gobiernos de todo el mundo pasando en silencio la estafeta a sus sucesores o ms que la estafeta, la pistola de una ruleta rusa que llevaba dentro un virus que pondra a toda la humanidad contra las cuerdas.

With rage and impotence, one imagines the governments of the whole world silently passing the baton to their successors or, worse than that, the Russian roulette wheel pistol that the virus carries to put all humanity against the ropes.

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However, the anger wanes when Briones' response reveals its realism. Calm returns. We understand then that by saying "expensive," the analyst is talking about an incomprehensible "expensive," not only in money, time and effort, but also in risk: risk for the greatest economic and political interests, yes, but also emotional and mental risk for the world's population in the face of the news. The announcement that (who knows when) a catastrophe will occur may generate immense anguish for some, more than the event itself. At the end of it all, we can foresee a wave of intense disagreements, confrontations, and conflicts coming, possibly even social chaos. In those circumstances, preventing and preparing ourselves could be a disaster.

Perhaps, despite supposed human rationality, our coordinating such an event would be as tricky as getting the world's bees to organize in the face of the threat of climate change.

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A new blow against the rudder: What if world leaders then decided to let the pandemic come and function a bit as a "drill" for other health crises that are expected to arrive soon? Just thinking about it, anger and horror return: a thousand conspiracy theories come to mind, distrust of the authorities (including the scientists) grows, and pseudoscientific proposals, rejection of the medical/hospital system and vaccines, and alternative treatments are talked about with great hope. Finally, against this background of indignation, resignation, and painful doubts, the image remains of a group of leaders waiting year after year for the appearance of patient zero to sound the world alarm and call on us all (right now!) to put out the fire.

If action had been taken in these two decades, if world leaders had decided to prevent and prepare people for a possible pandemic, if they had organized international meetings and emergency remote education drills, everyone in the world would have ended up asking the crucial question: why is a pandemic inevitable? Then we would have turned with distressing alarm to the corners of the planet that, for the moment, prefer to remain hidden. Thousands of industries shred the planetary ecosystems, disturbing, among other things, animal coexistence and boosting the proliferation and diversification of viruses.

Dr. Julio Frenk, former Secretary of Health of Mexico and current rector of the University of Miami, has not tired of repeating that the COVID-19 pandemic is a phenomenon that has its origin in human activity. In an interview in the magazine CONECTA of Tec de Monterrey, he emphatically summarizes: "Pandemics are not natural events; they are anthropogenic, reflecting inhumane practices."

Peter Daszak, president of Ecohealth Alliance, confirms, "There is no great mystery about the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic or any modern pandemic. Human activities that drive climate change and biodiversity loss also generate pandemic risks through their impact on our environment.

The problem is more or less this: There are more animals with contagious diseases. The more they reproduce and coexist, the more variants of viruses emerge, and the more likely it is that one of these will be highly contagious and lethal to humans. The same happens when an ecosystem is destroyed, and animals migrate and concentrate in habitats where healthy distancing is impossible and viral contagion increases. Historically, the issue boils down to the fact that while animal husbandry was performed in small jacals by a few people, the chances of a deadly disease emerging were slim. However, when we talk about a virus mutating and spreading among a huge herd of pigs on an industrial-meat-production farm staffed by hundreds of people (as occurs now in many parts of the world) or thousands of bats cornered in a cave in China for having lost their forests, then it is more likely that a homicidal viral mutation will emerge.

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To the above, let us add a human population that lives in narrow spaces in an overcrowded locality, to which come all kinds of rodents, birds and primates seeking better living conditions. Let us say that these people also tend to eat meat, often wild animals, and they attend bullfights or cockfights. They frequent markets with live animals, hunt or traffic fauna, make fur coats, perform rituals, or practice traditional medicine with animals. Some have weak immune systems due to poor nutrition. They live in poor hygiene conditions, work in cleaning and sanitation, and do not have access to adequate health services. In addition, to top it all, many of them (rich and poor) travel through their country or cross borders into super-congested land and air transport hubs. When these things happen, the greater is the creation of lethal viruses and the shorter the time they spread throughout the world. These factors are what epidemiologists have been studying since the last century, and they have come to make significantly reliable forecasts.

On all of the above, Dr. Julio Frenk can assure that the COVID-19 pandemic is man-made. Indeed, we are not victims. When we refer to the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was created in a laboratory, we can believe that it is true because humans have turned nature into an immense laboratory where the creation of lethal viruses is already a tremendous probability.

Knowing all this, what can the school do with so much and so crude information? Indeed, the first thing we want is to leave the question asked and run away. Haven't we gone through enough? Because in the challenging and terrible present, the school seems to be thwarted; it has come undone. We have had to adapt to a model without physical coexistence. We encounter faces without bodies in virtual classrooms where the air is not shared; we listen to breathless voices and pour our presence through electronic cables, resenting everywhere the lack of resources. The three dimensions of space have been replaced by two, by one, by zero (many students have not been able to receive any classes and can only wait for the day to return to school).

The tension of the Zoom classes leads to socialization to which we are not accustomed. Teachers regret having to communicate with their students through a screen. Girls and boys have stopped touching and running together. That absence of touch, that lack of physical simultaneity, seems to have detracted from the tri-dimensionality of the world, causing a kind of desiccation of the environment and even a painful habit of isolation.

On the monitor, what we know as a "class" becomes a mosaic, a mural. It is almost impossible to establish complicities; the teacher's management is hindered. "Now the teachers (Paulette Delgado reminds us ) are distanced from their students, which can trigger anxiety from not knowing how they are and impotence from not being able to help them."

Technologies are still not advanced enough to allow that chaos of voices that brings the classroom to life when everyone speaks at the same time. There is no complete sensory perception; everything is limited to the visual and auditory senses. We only have a two-dimensional appreciation of others.

In short, the loss of the collective and private spaces that are part of school socialization prevails.

However, despite all this, we decide to be brave and stop to think a little. Is face-to-face socialization truly the only one possible? Is there another that we have somehow neglected? Suddenly, an answer comes to mind. It has to do with the school ritual.

First, let us recall the idea of the philosopher Emil Wittgenstein that our language contains complete mythology. It seems to me that this means, for example, that knowing "I am part of a school" (whether online or remote) enrolls me in a learning community where multiple social roles are played. The entire personality is engaged and exercised. In that mythological community, we are sometimes heroes, sometimes wise, sometimes villains, and we buzz from order to disorder, attracted by a common goal that gives meaning to our encounter

Today, when it is difficult to perceive reality and understand what we can do with it, the school still thrives in that role play, perhaps more mobilized than ever to give its very detailed response. Language and mythology are in a state of freedom and freshness that allows processing the harsh reality with incomparable spontaneity.

At the beginning of the pandemic, there was the possibility of not going back to school even virtually and having to abandon everything until further notice. All the community members cried out with the courage of heroes who wanted to continue, and they did whatever was necessary to achieve it. They discovered a new and powerful form of socialization: they confirmed as never before that they belong to that convulsed world, not as victims but as beings whom the planet needs and awaits something. They are active; they resist; they respond indignantly and compassionately like heroes of shared mythology who advance toward a joint and deep dialogue.

A dialogue not only among them and with the rest of humanity, but with nature, to which we believed we had imposed our discourse and it has reacted. Nature, which made us intelligent and from which we have passed prepared. Today the kids are inwardly debating the enduring belief that we own every environment. They are beginning to understand themselves as biological beings, sensitive and immersed in a painful but empathetic existence and search for meaning. They are together, learning and trembling. Avoiding triumphalism, they maintain utopia, fulfilling what the writer Eduardo Galeano teaches that this is not something that is attained but something to guide us in our progress.

Today young people see each other, touch each other at least imaginatively, feeling that something common among them exists. They dream of feats in which they take risks, are endangered, and even die and are resurrected several times. All their inner mythology buzzes. In many ways, they sense that what happens externally also happens inside them, and they ultimately take the truth of their time into their hands because, as sad as it is, it is still their truth.

In school, the call to truth puts into conversation all our ideas, superstitions, and beliefs, aligns them, and attracts them to a place where they fit, including even the conspiratorial and pseudoscientific. Already in that place, which we call "dialogue," teachers can lead them little by little until they begin to glimpse a common truth.

Thus, the students have become aware that what we are experiencing now is almost certain to happen again. (The tycoon Bill Gates, with all the information he can access, has stated that a new pandemic can arrive between three and 20 years). Today, hurrying to impulse changes that reduce the risk of pandemics, among other things, students inform one another and discuss how to convince governments to invest resources in disease prevention, even not knowing if or when the diseases will arrive (finally, understanding that letting them come can be much more expensive than preventing them). They inquire and discuss how to strengthen global health systems and basic hygiene; how to create and promote forms of production that do not overcrowd spaces or hoard resources in the hands of a few. They seek to prevent the rise in family well-being from becoming synonymous with over-consumption of meat (as occurs throughout the world) and, simultaneously, reduce industrial livestock, which in addition to being cruel, requires massive deforestations (such as the recent ones in the Amazon), also causing a catastrophic emission of greenhouse gases.

2020 and 2021 are not lost years; they are saved years, saved by and for schools. More than ever, we are a community (global, as if that were not enough) searching for a balance between what we want and what we really can and should want, understanding as the Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater explains that the destiny of others is our own.

In school, Truth is a call more than a conclusion; we are summoned to it by the school bell. But what will that truth look like? It is only out of curiosity that we ask ourselves this question because we know how difficult it will be to answer. Nevertheless, we want to imagine a little, together, the kind of truth we can conceive in this threatened but hopeful present we have described.

The first indication of an answer is found in the increasingly visible presence of the so-called "false sciences" or pseudosciences. It is a fact that, with the pandemic, this presence demonstrated its global dimensions, exploding in a kind of boom that many scientists are beginning to seriously fear. We have all seen astrological or conspiratorial theories sprout about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 treatments that science says not been studied with sufficient rigor or are flat-out fiction.

My opinion is that, however far-fetched they may be, these positions come to occupy a space that reason, and especially scientific thought, tend to abandon. I refer to that delicate terrain where objectivity and something we can call "spirituality" go hand in hand.

Many people of science claim that their certainties are the only reliable knowledge. They argue that having been proven, we should rely only on them if we want to make good decisions (this includes the non-exact sciences, such as psychology and pedagogy). How can we not listen to them if, with methodical idealism, they claim that there is an ultimate truth that is not only affordable but verifiable? The prestigious popularizer Brian Greene, for example, states that the so-called String Theory may soon solve the central enigma of the universe. Saying one can determine Truth indeed seems a conceited, know-it-all stance, but we must recognize that in a world where most of us feel like carriers of the truth, those who limit themselves to what they can see seem humble.

Of course, it is also true that as the writer, G. K. Chesterton, says with fine irony some of these scientists are "very proud of their humility." Many of them, and their supporters, occasionally overstep their bounds and claim that, apart from their own, there is no other true knowledge. Daniel C. Dennet, a famous rationalist philosopher, states that "nothing we want to address can be beyond the limits of science." God, spirituality, and such things must be addressed as cultural phenomena that can be explained with scientific studies on evolution and the brain (Dennet is known worldwide as one of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheism.)

It is the old philosophical problem one of the first between two tendencies: that of "forcing life, life as a whole, (to follow) the destiny of knowledge," as the philosopher Mara Zambrano points out, and that of accepting that something exists beyond reason we can access by other means: toward reason, toward the reasonable Erich Fromm explains to us: it is up to man to admit his limitations and to know that "we will never capture the secrets of man and the universe, but we can know them, nevertheless," in other ways.

It is surprising to learn that some of the most influential theories that deny that total truth can be achieved come from Science itself. Without needing to believe in "an afterlife," experts like Niels Bohr (whose atomic model we studied in high school) have shown that the most here is not as "true" as believed. Eugene Wigner, Nobel Laureate in Physics, flatly states that it is impossible to explain reality without referring to infinite cosmic consciousness.

This brings us face to face with the question of how the educational field should approach the issue of scientific truth and its not-always-humble opposition to the so-called "spiritual." To summarize, I believe that school truth, while retaining its scientific inclination, must return to forms of knowledge such as those that Fromm describes. (In one of his most famous books, he refers specifically to knowledge through Love). And suppose we, the supporters of science (starting in the school itself), do not reasonably approach the field where the explainable and the inexplicable are linked. In that case, we will allow all kinds of conflicting ideas to take over that territory. Yes, as long as rational knowledge continues to pretend that it has the last word without admitting its limits or honoring the place that corresponds to the spiritual with true humility; if reason refuses to reach out "beyond" itself, envisioning continuity between reason and mystery, then it will be leaving that corner vacant and encouraging opportunistic positions to occupy it, some of them perhaps only nave, wanting to safeguard the delicate link with superstitions.

In the debate between science and belief (we might better say "open litigation"), the school has remained on the sidelines, no doubt respecting the scientific criterion but presenting itself at the same time as neutral where the other side is concerned. However, let us trust that the classrooms will increasingly become the site of reconciliation, elevating the search for truth to other realities where, being well-grounded, we can flourish.

See the original post:

Opinion | The School Ritual: Utopia, Truth, and Spirituality in the Face of the Pandemic - Observatory of Educational Innovation

A new month means an exciting batch of new content is arriving on HBO Max! As has been the case for much of 2021 thus far, the big news for the streamer is the simultaneous release of a big theatrical property on the same day that it arrives in theaters. This month, there are actually three!

The highly anticipatedSpace Jam: A New Legacyarrives on HBO Max on July 16 and will see NBA great LeBron James following in Michael Jordans footsteps by playing basketball with a bunch of animated Looney Tunes characters. (Just go with it.) Elsewhere, two other new WB films also arrive this month, heist dramaNo Sudden Move and animated sequelTom and Jerry in New York.

Elsewhere, theGossip Girlrevival Reboot? Remake? How are we categorizing this thing? will also hit our screens in July, bringing back all the Upper East side scandal and drama we can handle though now with a premium cable sheen. IThough there appears to be a sad lack of headbands.)

And fans of The CW dramas can also rejoice, the full runs of the most recent seasons ofBatwomanand Culturess faveNancy Drew hit the streamer toward the end of the month.

FBOY Island, Max Original Season 1 PremiereRomeo Santos: King of Bachata, 2021 (HBO)Romeo Santos Utopia Live from MetLife Stadium, 2021 (HBO)

Come! (aka Eat!), 20208 Mile, 2002 (HBO)All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, 1996 (HBO)All Dogs Go to Heaven, 1989 (HBO)Behind Enemy Lines, 1997 (HBO)Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 1970 (HBO)Bio-Dome, 1996 (HBO)Black Panthers, 1968Blackhat, 2015 (HBO)Brubaker, 1980 (HBO)Cantinflas (HBO)Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, 1972 (Extended Version) (HBO)Cousins, 1989 (HBO)Dark Water, 2005 (HBO)Darkness Falls, 2003 (HBO)Demolition Man, 1993Dirty Work, 1998 (HBO)Disturbia, 2007 (HBO)Doctor Who Holiday 2020 Special: Revolution of the Daleks, 2020Duplex, 2003 (HBO)Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1971 (HBO)Eves Bayou, 1997Firestarter, 1984 (HBO)First, 2012For Colored Girls, 2010 (HBO)For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada, 2012 (HBO)Full Bloom, Max Original Season 2 FinaleGhost in the Machine, 1993 (HBO)The Good Lie, 2014 (HBO)Gun Crazy, 1950House on Haunted Hill, 1999Identity Thief, 2013 (Extended Version) (HBO)Ira & Abby, 2007 (HBO)Joe Versus the Volcano, 1990Judas and the Black Messiah, 2021 (HBO)Laws Of Attraction, 2004 (HBO)Lucky, 2017 (HBO)Maid in Manhattan, 2002Married to the Mob, 1988 (HBO)Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 1997Mississippi Burning, 1988 (HBO)Monster-In-Law, 2005Mousehunt, 1997 (HBO)My Brother Luca (HBO)No Sudden MovePleasantville, 1998The Prince of Tides, 1991Project X, 1987 (HBO)The Punisher, 2017 (HBO)Punisher: War Zone, 2008 (HBO)Rambo, 2008 (Directors Cut) (HBO)Reds, 1981 (HBO)Reservoir Dogs, 1992 (HBO)The Return of the Living Dead, 1985 (HBO)Return of the Living Dead III, 1993 (Extended Version) (HBO)Rounders, 1998 (HBO)Saturday Night Fever, 1977 (Directors Cut) (HBO)Scream, 1996Scream 2, 1997Scream 3, 2000Semi-Tough, 1977 (HBO)The Sessions, 2012 (HBO)Set Up, 2012 (HBO)Snake Eyes, 1998 (HBO)Staying Alive, 1983 (HBO)Stuart Little, 1999The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2003Tom and Jerry in New York, Max Original Series PremiereTrick R Treat, 2009 (HBO)Tyler Perrys Daddys Little Girls, 2007 (HBO)Tyler Perrys Diary of a Mad Black Woman, 2005 (HBO)Tyler Perrys I Can Do Bad All by Myself, 2009 (HBO)Tyler Perrys Madea Goes To Jail, 2009 (HBO)Tyler Perrys Madeas Big Happy Family, 2011 (HBO)Tyler Perrys Madeas Family Reunion, 2006 (HBO)Tyler Perrys Why Did I Get Married Too, 2010 (HBO)The Watcher, 2016 (HBO)The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, 2007 (HBO)Westworld (Movie), 1973White Chicks (Unrated & Uncut Version), 2004The White Stadium, 1928Wont Back Down, 2012 (HBO)Zero Days, 2016 (HBO)

Lo Que Siento por Ti (aka What I Feel for You) (HBO)

Let Him Go, 2020 (HBO)Nancy Drew, Season 2

Dr. STONE, Seasons 1 and 2 (Subtitled) (Crunchyroll Collection)Shiva Baby, 2021 (HBO)

The Dog House: UK, Max Original Season 2 PremiereGossip Girl, Max Original Series PremiereHuman Capital, 2020 (HBO)The Hunt, 2020 (HBO)Looney Tunes Cartoons, Max Original Season 2 Premiere

July 9

Frankie Quinones: Superhomies (HBO)

The White Lotus, Limited Series Premiere (HBO)

Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, Documentary Series Premiere (HBO)

Tom & Jerry, 2021 (HBO)

Betty, Season 2 Finale (HBO)Space Jam: A New Legacy, Warner Bros. Film Premiere, 2021Un Disfraz Para Nicolas (aka A Costume for Nicolas) (HBO)

The Empty Man, 2020 (HBO)

100 Foot Wave, Documentary Series Premiere (HBO)

Through Our Eyes, Max Original Documentary Series Premiere

Corazon De Mezquite (aka Mezquites Heart) (HBO)

Freaky, 2020 (HBO)

Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, Documentary Series Finale (HBO)

Batwoman, Season 2Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (HBO)

Uno Para Todos (aka One for All) (HBO)

What are you planning to check out on HBO Max this month? Let us know in the comments.

Read more here:

Gossip Girl, Space Jam: A New Legacy, and more on HBO Max in July - Culturess

Conspiracy time: Maybe the light release week was because musicians knew of the heat wave before we did? Oh, its a holiday weekend? I sound unreasonable? Whatever, because we still got some bangers to prepare for a hot, sweaty and rockin July. Practice your synchronized swimming in the kiddie pool with The Go! Team playing in the background, or have a house kickback with Laura Mvulas 80s-infused style. Perhaps G Herbo is your grilling music of choice, and Snapped Ankles can accompany you when you may have had one too many burgers before you pass out in the aforementioned kiddie pool. We wont judge. Have a safe and happy long weekend from the Paste staff and find a new album to tide you over until next week!

London rockers Desperate Journalist demanded our attention with the April release of Fault, the lead single from their fourth full-length Maximum Sorrow! The follow-up to 2019s In Search of the Miraculous, the album lives up to that songs promise, with Jo Bevan (vocals), Rob Hardy (guitar), Simon Drowner (bass) and Caz Helbert (drum) consistently delivering moody, tightly-wound post-punk thats occasionally brightened by flashes of ethereally melodic dream-pop (e.g., Personality Girlfriend, Utopia, and the particularly light The Victim), like a flare turning night into day. Bevans vocals bring to mind the late Dolores ORiordan; meanwhile, her bandmates couch her contemplations of fear, uncertainty and conflict in shimmering waves of instrumentation. The overwhelming sense you get from Maximum Sorrow! is one of confidence and control, as if Desperate Journalist know the 70s gothic rock tradition theyre operating within both inside and out, and are uniquely equipped to carry it forward. Scott Russell

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The sixth album from English indie-pop collective The Go! Team, and their first since 2018s Semicircle, Get Up Sequences Part One is a characteristically vivid mosaic of samples and melody, certain to add some color and verve to your holiday weekend. The albums upbeat brightness belies the tribulations bandleader Ian Parton endured during its making: He began losing his hearing due to Menieres disease while recording, recalling in a statement, The trauma of losing my hearing gave the music a different dimension for me and it transformed the album into more of a life raft. Whatever the corresponding pain in your own life may be, Get Up Sequences Part One is a safe bet to whisk you away from it, if only for a little while. From the horns and steel drums of We Do it but Never Know Why and shuffling groove of A Bee Without Its Sting to Indigo Yajs singsongy, flute-backed raps on Cookie Scene and the battering ram toms of closer World Remember Me Now, The Go! Team have added another kaleidoscopic entry to their joyous, technicolor universe. Scott Russell

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The fourth album from Chicagos G Herbo, 25 sprawls at 19 tracks and nearly an hour of runtime, with buzzy collaborators including Polo G, 21 Savage, Gunna, Lil Tjay and The Kid LAROI chipping in verses. Herbie peppers his gritty prestige raps with just enough bounce and melody to make them go down easy, but its the heft of his subject matter that deserves close attention: A devoted advocate for destigmatizing mental health issues in his community, the Windy City emcee offers his perspective on the hard-knock life many can only imagine: Broad day, had guns blazin with the bravest, for real / Seen action like a movie but that shit was real / Then bein too courageous got my n*gga killed, he raps on Stand the Rain, letting the beat ride for a full minute as he speaks plainly to PTSD and the cycle of violence he remains trapped in: Im only 25 but I feel like Ive lived ten lifetimes. Rather than using street violence as a superficial stylistic trademark, G Herbo puts the implications of that life on full display, telling his truth in songs with downright operatic power. Scott Russell

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A few months after 2016s A Dreaming Room was released, Laura Mvula was dropped from her label. So, she did what anyone else would do: made a kickass pop album to show them what they were missing out on. Her righteous return on Pink Noise is a crisp homage to the 80s, with elements of Michael Jackson and Prince finding a fitting home within Mvulas impressive artistry that extends far past the music into the entire aesthetic (have you seen those press photos?). Mvula didnt get bitter, she got better, and its a refreshing comeback if weve ever seen one. Jade Gomez

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At times recalling the best of indie-pop stalwarts Animal Collective and Yeasayer, Snapped Ankles create a captivating and unique sound completely their own on Forest Of Your Problem. Taking inspiration from the forest, the band draws from that kind of mysticism to effortlessly hop across genres, moving from the acid basslines of Psythurhythm to the new wave influence of Undilated Lovers, leading to the ecstatic conclusion of Xylophobia. Through their explosive music and unique style of production, as well as their mysterious performative antics, Snapped Ankles in recent years have proven themselves to be one of the most intriguing acts coming out of London, and thats only bolstered by Forest Of Your Problem. Jason Friedman

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New Albums to Stream Today: The Go! Team, Laura Mvula, Snapped Ankles and more - Paste - Paste Magazine

Former Trump campaign communications strategist and expert DNA communicator Jason Miller has launched a new social media platform he hopes will be the long-awaited free-speech utopia to rival Big Tech's supposedly crushing grip on public discourse.

The app known as GETTR, not to be confused with Turkey-based groceries app Getir has actually been available on the Google and Apple app stores since mid-June, but had only been downloaded a thousand or so times on each until it was soft-launched yesterday (1 July).

The app's official launch day will be 4 July, which will undoubtedly lead to hugely positive coverage from any tech journalists who have to cover it, instead of being at home celebrating Independence Day with their families.

In a pre-launch interview on the US right-wing news network Newsmax, Miller claimed that GETTR was going to "blow away anything on social media right now."

"Here is a thing I think that has really stymied a lot of conservatives in our efforts previously: we haven't had a lot of good products," he said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that conservatives have had access to exactly the same products as liberals, libertarians, greens, communists and everybody else up until this point. They just never paid enough attention to the terms and conditions.

The main selling point for Miller's new venture seems to be that GETTR will have fewer pesky rules to catch out well-meaning and under-represented right-wing voices, an aspiration it shares with Parler, Gab, Frank, Minds, and seemingly dozens of others. However, GETTR's terms are actually as restrictive as Twitter's, if not more so:

Click to enlarge

As YouTuber JustALazyGamer has pointed out, this effectively just makes it Twitter without the porn.

If Twitter is its main rival and the internet is lacking "good product," you would expect the new site to be radically different. But instead GETTR shares a great deal in common with the more established microblogging site, effectively cloning Twitter's UI and layout while missing out some of the features. This makes Miller's suggestion that conservative voices were just lacking a certain special product to really allow them to shine all the more odd.

GETTR users can also import all of their Twitter tweets and contacts. Early on, this fact led to some of the bigger accounts having more followers than there were registered users on the site, a bug which has since been fixed.

The platform has a number of other odd quirks when compared with its obvious main rival. To begin with, the maximum length of posts is 777 characters rather than 280. This seemingly completely arbitrary number is probably intended to allow posters overly verbose former presidents, perhaps to express themselves more fully than they might have been able to on Twitter.

Unfortunately, the number 777 also happens to be the symbol of the Afrikaner-Weerstandsbeweging or Afrikaner Resistance Movement, a South African white supremacist neo-Nazi organisation. This may be a simple coincidence, of course, but it does seem like a bit of a red flag that nobody noticed it.

Users can also post videos of up to three minutes in length, compared to 140 seconds on Twitter.

As yet, the former rambler-in-chief has not set up an account on the platform, which seems a little unkind given that it appears to have been set up mostly with him in mind. Donald Trump has made no secret that he has been looking for another place to deign with his bombastic presence since he was booted off of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, parts of Reddit, and most of social media following the Capitol Riots in January 2021.

"I will tell you that 'Real Donald Trump' is reserved for the 45th president, my favorite president, so if he does decide to join the platform then we'd love to have him," Miller said in another Newsmax interview on Thursday night (1 July), possibly more in hope than expectation.

Trump has struggled to find a suitable home for his online primal scream therapy, having started a blog in May, only to close it down weeks later due to an absence of traffic. His organisation is reputedly looking to either start or buy into a new social media home for the former president, preferably on terms that would make his involvement profitable, rather than just helpful to his public profile in the run-up to a possible tilt at the 2024 presidential election.

That said, there is no guarantee that Trump will even have the means or the personal liberty to conduct such a campaign following the tax charges levelled yesterday against the Trump Organisation and its CFO Allen Weisselberg by the Manhattan District Attorney.

Given that the allegations include suggestions that the Trump Organisation kept the details of its tax violations on a secret "internal spreadsheet," it might be better for the former president and everybody around him if he steers clear of technology altogether in future.

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A real go-GETTR: Former Trump aide tries to batter Twitter by ripping off its UI - The Register

OTTAWA, July 1 (Reuters) - Multiple cities scrapped Canada Day celebrations on Thursday after the discovery of hundreds of remains of children in unmarked graves at former indigenous schools sparked a reckoning with the country's colonial past.

Calls to scale back or cancel celebrations snowballed after, beginning in May, almost 1,000 unmarked graves were found at former residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan that were mainly run by the Catholic Church and funded by the government.

Traditionally the holiday is celebrated with backyard barbecues and fireworks much like July 4 in the United States. This year, however, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the day would be "a time for reflection." read more

A #CancelCanadaDay march in Canada's capital, Ottawa, turned into a sea of orange as thousands rallied wearing orange shirts to honor the victims and survivors of Canada's residential school system. They carried a large banner that read, "No pride in genocide."

The residential schools forcibly separated indigenous children from their families, in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called "cultural genocide."

Hundreds of people, likewise in orange shirts, also marched through downtown Toronto, Canada's financial capital, in support of the indigenous children. Indigenous performer Danielle Migwans performed a healing dance during the march.

Orange has come to symbolize the acknowledgment of the victims of the countrys residential school system.

Vigils and rallies were held across other parts of the country.

"Canada is having a reckoning with its history," said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a University of Toronto sociology professor who studies race, crime and criminal justice.

"I don't think we can celebrate this country for what it is without recognizing this country for what it isn't: a utopia and a bastion of equality and freedom and equal opportunity for all members of society," he said.

Canada's reputation for tolerance was built on its efforts, starting in the 1970s, to create a multicultural society. But data shows inequalities abound both for indigenous communities and among visible minorities.

In his Canada Day message, Trudeau said the discoveries of the remains of hundreds of children at former residential schools "have rightfully pressed us to reflect on our country's historical failures," and the injustices that still exist for indigenous peoples and many others in Canada.

"This Canada Day, let's recommit to learning from and listening to each other so we can break down the barriers that divide us, rectify the injustices of our past, and build a more fair and equitable society for everyone."

STARK DISPARITIES

Indigenous people, who make up less than 5% of the population, face higher levels of poverty and violence and shorter life expectancies.

The unemployment rate for visible minorities, who make up more than 20% of the total population, was 11.4% in May compared with 7.0% for whites, according to Statistics Canada. In 2020, the unemployment rate for indigenous people in Ontario was 12.5%, compared with 9.5% for non-indigenous people.

Some 30% of visible minorities and indigenous peoples feel treated like outsiders in their own country, according to an Angus Reid Institute poll on diversity and racism published on June 21.

The discovery of the remains and a deadly attack on a Muslim family in June that killed three generations of members has led to soul-searching in Canada about the country's oft-touted reputation for tolerance. The suspect is accused of murder and domestic terrorism. read more

Hate crimes against Muslims rose 9% to 181 in 2019, according to the latest data by StatCan. About 36% of indigenous people and 42% of visible minorities said Canada is a racist country, according to the Angus Reid survey.

A number of Muslim women who wear hijabs have also been attacked in Alberta in recent weeks, while in Quebec a law banning public servants from wearing the hijab is facing legal challenges, and critics have called the measure a form of institutionalized racism.

New Democrat lawmaker Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, who is Inuk, said she felt unsafe in the House of Commons as an indigenous woman, and last month announced she would not run for re-election. read more

"I don't think there's any reason for celebration (on Canada Day)," Qaqqaq said.

Reporting by Steve Scherer, additional reporting by Julie Gordon; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Dan Grebler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Canada Day muted as country reckons with treatment of indigenous, other minorities - Reuters

China's first Mars rover has captured its first sounds of the Red Planet and beamed back stunning views of a drive on the dusty world.

A new video released by China's state-run CCTV news channel today (June 27) shows the first sounds recorded by the Mars rover Zhurong as it drove off its Tianwen-1 lander and onto the Martian surface on May 22. It also includes stunning video of Zhurong driving on Mars captured by stitching together images from a small camera deployed the rover.

"In fact the sounds were made when the pinion of the Mars rover rotates on the rack, or say the clashing sounds between metals," Jia Yang, Tianwen-1 system deputy chief designer, said in the video according to a CCTV translation. "The purpose we [installed] the recording device is to capture the sounds of wind on Mars during its windy weathers. We really want to hear how the winds sound like on a planet other than the Earth."

Related: China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission in photos

China's Zhurong rover is the centerpiece of the country's Tianwen-1 mission, which delivered an orbiter and the rover to the Red Planet this year. The combined spacecraft launched in July 2020 and arrived in orbit around Mars in February. The Mars rover Zhurong landed on the plains of Utopia Planitia on May 14. It's using six science payloads to study the Red Planet, including its microphone.

"With the [video, image and audio] files we released this time, including those sounds recorded when our Mars rover left the lander, we are able to conduct in-depth analysis to the environment and condition of Mars, for example, the density of the atmosphere on the Mars," said Liu Jizhong, deputy commander of China's first Mars exploration program, in the CCTV interview.

A second video also released today shows a series of stunning views from the Tianwen-1 lander and the Zhurong rover itself as it drives on Mars. They capture views of the lander's parachute, the moment of parachute separation and views of the Martian surface from the lander as it approached the ground.

"When we were designing, we wanted to obtain some visual states of the rover, which could be used as a basis for further improvement of the project," said Rao Wei, deputy chief designer of the Tianwen-1 probe, according to CCTV. "Then we designed several parts, including the process of opening the parachute, releasing the canopy and descending."

Those systems appeared to work as planned, with the Tianwen-1 lander descending as designed and then pinpointing a safe landing spot.

"According to the telemetry, we can see that the landing point is only three kilometers away from our designed position," Rao said. "In general, the landing position is very accurate and the control system is very good."

The 530-lb. (240 kilogram) Zhurong rover is expected to last about 90 Martian days exploring the Red Planet with its high-resolution cameras, subsurface radar, multi-spectral camera and surface composition detector, a magnetic field detector and a weather monitor. The Tianwen-1 orbiter is designed to last a full Martian year, which is about 687 Earth days.

Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.comor follow himon Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow uson @Spacedotcom and Facebook and Instagram.

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Hear the 1st sounds from China's Mars rover Zhurong and watch it drive in new video - Space.com

New images from orbit and from Mars surface show the Zhurong rover on the move. Chinas National Space Administration (CNSA) released new pictures and video this week, and NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has followed the rovers movements from above.

The image above shows wheel tracks left behind by the Zhurong rover.

As of the morning of (June) 27th the Zhurong rover has been working on the surface of Mars for 42 Martian days and has traveled 236 meters in total, CNSA said in a press release. The orbiter and the rover are in good working condition. (They are) reporting safety from Mars to the Party and the motherland, sending distant blessings at the time of the Communist Party of China centennial.

July 1 will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.

You may recall that on June 1, Zhurong moved to place a wireless camera on the ground, and then went back to take a self-portrait of itself and the lander. That movement is now shown and documented in footage of the rover reversing, and seemingly backing itself into the sunset, and maneuvering into place next to the lander.

The Tianwen-1 mission is Chinas first Mars mission, and consists of an orbiter, and lander and the rover. The spacecraft successfully entered Mars orbit in February, after a seven-month flight following the launch in July 2020.

In May, Zhurong, drove off a landing platform and onto the surface of Mars. The surface mission is expected to last about three months.

Meanwhile, from orbit, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera has seen evidence of the rovers movements. In this false color image, the landing site remains distinctly colored from removal of Martian dust during landing and movement of the Zhurong rover toward the south can be seen, the HiRISE team wrote.

HiRISE has taken images a couple of times (this one on June 11, the other on June 6) and with those two images the team was able to create a create a three-dimensional stereo view of the lander. This image should be viewed with red/blue glasses to reveal the lander, as well as the gently rolling plains in southern Utopia Planitia on Mars.

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New Photos and Video Shows Chinas Zhurong Rover on the Move - Universe Today

Imagine a nightmarish future in which the essentials of life are ruthlessly supplied to allone where each citizen is brutally denied the cliffhanging entertainment of recurrent life-and-death crises, and where there is not even a single genetically engineered hyper-intelligent carnivorous flightless parrot roaming daycare facilities. Benevolent providence has so far protected us from such hellishly stable futures, but it cannot prevent authors from imagining them. But once such utopias are imagined, how is the poor author to squeeze an interesting story out of a world lacking everything that makes life precious (as well as precarious)?

I previously reviewed a series in which this challenge was successfully met and found myself wondering how other authors have handled the problem. Here are a few such worksdoubtless there are more, which readers may feel free to suggest in comments.

Tanith Lees classic duology Dont Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine is set on a desert world hostile to unprotected life. Not that this matters, because all of its human inhabitants live in one of three domed cities: Four BEE, Four BAA, and Four BOO. Within those cities, virtually every need and desire is met. Even death is only a momentary inconvenience before one is incarnated in a new designer body.

The nameless protagonist, offered material paradise, commits the unforgivable sin of realizing that while the options offered are pleasant, none of them are meaningful. That realization is the border between life in paradise and life in a cossetted hell. Unfortunately for our hero, the Powers That Be in the three cities are determined to maintain the status quo of their cozy societies, keeping them just as they arewhich means crushing (by any means necessary) any pesky aspirations for personal fulfillment.

***

Pacific Edge is that rara avis, a Kim Stanley Robinson book about which I will make favourable comments. Set in a utopian world in which the excesses of capitalism and environmental degradation have been brought to heel, its a setting in which most people can expect to enjoy perfectly acceptable middle-class lives of placid ambitions and ecological moderation. Aside from people with burning desires to build strip malls or dark satanic mills, Pacific Edges world seems one where it would be easy to be happy.

Except, of course, if one is an essentially unlovable prig like the novels lead, Kevin Claiborne, whose steadfast adherence to the ethic that makes his world the quasi-utopia that it is does not make him one iota more desirable to Ramona, the woman with whom he is smitten. Convinced that he is in a romantic triangle, Kevin contends mightily against the man he sees as his rival. Its a romance with a happy ending, although not for Kevin.

***

Hitoshi Ashinanos Yokohama Kaidashi Kik is set not long after the end. Events never fully explained led to rising sea levels and the inexorable decline of the human species. Despite this, the era in which protagonist Alpha lives seems to be a tranquil one, in which one day is much like another. It helps that Alpha is not a human, but rather one of the immortal androids who will inherit the Earth once were gone.

Nothing much happens in YKK, and what does, happens slowly. The series eschews drama for depictions of lifes quiet moments, moments of melancholy (for the humans, who to be honest do not seem all that bothered by their coming extinction), shared happiness, and (of course) lavish scenery porn. Which gets us to

***

Amano Kozues Aria is set on 24th-century Mars. Implausibly effective terraforming has turned the dead world we know into an ocean-covered garden world now called Aqua, one across which energetic humans have sprinkled works of impressive civil engineering. One of its jewels is the city of Neo-Venezia, which is as close to a one-to-one scale model of Venice as its architects were able to create. It seems likely that the process of transforming Mars involved many dramatic moments, but all of that is in the past. Modern Aqua cares not for plot-enabling drama.

Instead, the manga follows Akari and her friends as they struggle to master the skills needed to join the upper ranks of Aquas Undines (or gondoliers). All that stands between the teenaged girls and the positions they desire is years of hard work. This slice of life futuristic tale is, like YKK, about the quiet moments in life, illustrated by lavish scenery porn: Come to Mars for the gondolas, stay for the exquisite submerged ruins.

***

Terrestrial humanity is entirely extinct in Arthur C. Clarkes The Songs of Distant Earth. No doubt awareness of the Suns impending nova provoked all manner of drama on Earth. For the people of the exoplanet Thalassa, settled centuries before by a sub-light seedship, the nova is barely a historical footnote. Ocean-covered Thalassa offers its island-dwelling population of decent, sensible people satisfactory small lives punctuated only by small-scale, non-threatening interesting events.

This tranquil existence is disrupted by the sudden arrival of Magellan, the last starship from now-expunged Earth. Forced by mishap to pause briefly at the backwater world, the crew of Magellan appeal to Thalassa to allow them to orbit and rebuild their debris shield from Thalassas abundant water. Briefly is still enough time for the Thalassan woman Mirissa to notice just how attractive strangers can be (in a world thats normally entirely lacking in strangers). As the ensuing romance and its repercussions unspool, the Magellans crew must decide whether to continue to their intended destination or to stay at Thalassa.

***

Mods (body modifications) grant the characters that populate walkingnorths webcomic Always Human nigh-perfect health and virtually any appearance they desire. These beautiful folks live in a peaceful world filled with ample opportunities for rewarding work. Mods and other high technology also facilitate humanitys inexorable spread across the Solar System (even if the mods are not yet as powerful as John Varleys null-suits, as featured in his Eight Worlds books).

When VR designer Sunati encounters university student Austen while riding the lavishly funded public transit, Sunati is intrigued by Austens bold decision to not use mods. In fact, Austen has a disability that prevents her from using mods; the excruciating conversation provoked by Sunatis misapprehension is the meet-cute that kicks off the romance that forms the central plot line of the webtoon. Along the way, walkingnorth illustrates all the challenges that even people in quasi-utopian worlds will inevitably face, from crippling self-doubt to impossible work-life balance challenges. There are moments of gentle dramatrue love does not always run smoothbut in the end, all is love and kisses.

***

All those are from recent reading. What about you?

Originally published in September 2018.

In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of questionable notability. His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is surprisingly flammable.

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6 Stories That Find Drama in Utopian Settings - tor.com