Category Archives: Hedonism

Who knew it was possible to take so much pleasure in watching people banter and brawl and have panic attacks over stuff that means absolutely nothing to you?

By that, I dont mean that the financial worldso stylishly and sexily dramatized in HBOs Industry, launching into season two August 1is something I dont care about. I mean literally that its incomprehensible. The young brokers and analysts spit industry jargon at approximately a million words per minute: a mind-bending barrage of futures and shorts and positioning thats pure yadda yadda yadda to me, as abstract and alien as the subatomic realm of quarks and neutrinos. But it doesnt put me off. In fact, Im enthralled. This trading floor is a killing field of emotional and erotic carnage as much as its a place where fortunes are made and lost in a millisecond.

Lots of people (and critics) I know took a pass on the first first season of Industry, which revolves around a group of college graduates working at Pierpont & Company, a fictional London investment bank. Theyve been hired on a trial basis and know that only half of them will survive an imminent cull (RIF, short for Reduction In Force) and secure permanent jobs. Not that anything is long-lasting or stable in this rapid-turnover world.

Both established traders and the Pierpont managers charged with training and monitoring the new recruits live in a constant state of paranoid anxiety about their quarterly performance; they spend their days cosseting elite clients who might be flight risks. The fast-churn lifestyle demands release, and its found in drugs and alcohol, eruptions of rage, badinage so brutal its basically hazing, and raunchy sex that shreds the rules about not mixing business and pleasure. Quick learners, the students take to the debauched afterwork culture as avidly as the daytime fray of speculation and deal-making.

The core group includes Yasmin (Marisa Abela), a smart and sensual woman from a wealthy Middle Eastern family who gets treated like an errand girl by a male supervisor who cant see past her chic surface; Robert (Harry Lawtey), a working class white boy whod rather sniff coke and sext Yasmin than study markets; and Gus (David Jonsson), a Ghanian-British Etonian who studied classics at Oxford and quickly finds the financial world unfulfilling. Floating at the center of the bunch is Harper (Myhala Herrold), a mysterious, mixed-race young American fueled by voracious ambition and intelligence.

Harper has never been in any doubt that she is an underdog. In the first season, while sitting in a bathroom cubicle, she overhears a pair of posh fellow trainees complaining about how she allegedly has an unfair advantage in the competition for a permanent job, since she enjoys the minority capital of being black and female. (When Harper emerges from her stall, Yasminone of the twois still standing by the sink and simperingly apologizes: I was the less cunty one.). Harpers grit and willingness to do almost anything to get a trade done are what hooked her boss Eric (Ken Leung) into hiring her. He sees a younger version of himself: a scrappy and mischievous American with no pedigree. In season one, Harper returned the favor in a dramatic series of backstabbing maneuvers that kept Eric on top, if only temporarily.

Everything is temporary in Industrys worldan employees value can fall as swiftly as a stock plummets. (Nobody owes anybody a tomorrow here, one Pierpont bigwig says.) And everyone is fake: the new employees, their managers, and the clients alike are engaged in an endless jockeying game of fronting and confidence projection. Grueling office days, whose work rate is sometimes propped up and propelled by semi-legal stimulants, blur into nocturnal sessions of almost harrowing hedonism, fueled by booze and coke and pills of many kinds. The alcohol and the stripes chopped out on the tops of toilets inevitably fuel sexual escapades: one-night stands, threesomes, selfie-porn texts, mutual masturbation via Zoom. Its like a zombie version of the counterculture: all the 1960s demands for erotic liberation and pharmacological freedom have been absorbed, but without any elevation of consciousness and with all the power structures and class hierarchies intact.

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HBO's Industry is the Missing Link between Euphoria and Succession - Vanity Fair

Last year, Magixx, was signed with Mavin Records and there after his debut self titled extended play was unveiled. His co-sign was no different from Boy Spyce who was launched earlier this year, alongside the release of his debut EP, and that of Ayra Starr, who had a graceful year in review with Magixx the same year they were launched.

Meanwhile, the beautiful talents that these artistes posses speaks of enough cultural novelty. It has spoken once for Magixx after his critically acclaimed debut extended play, it spoke generously for Ayra Starr and Boy Spyce, and now it ultimately speaks for the Mavin all stars after they jointly dished out the Donjazzy produced Overdose featuring Crayon, Magixx, Ladipoe, Ayra Starr and Boy Spyce. It is the same flare for good music that Magixx propagates his sophomore extended play which shoulders his carefree attitude. He craves fun, non-stop enjoyment with his quite beautiful approach to sonic diversity, telling his plush and intense love tales that might yield an unending romance with his woman.

Also, Magixx, pays attention to detail, it is one of the quality Atom EP flows with down to a smouldering cohesion that powered each track. The opener All Over, has Magixx crooning his endearing love for his lover. While he seemed entangled in between her love, he spectacularly chorused all over with a certain amount of grit and carefree attitude attached as to how he has grown affection with readiness to spend all his dime on her. However, his pen game is on the spike. And upon Weekenjoyment, he plays around the core of Yoruba local percussions to relish splendour and hedonism as the saxophone politely graces the song, it enlivens the beauty, as it becomes another track akin to Fela Kutis creations. In addition, his diversity shined through, and it wasnt short lived on the project either.

With Shaye, he embraced all of his carefree nature completely, the one that vouches for an edge to edge fun and enjoyment. Particularly, the one that loves to party and relish in the vibe all along as Magixx alludes his turn up to Tiwa Savage, and went further to give an happy ending to the project there after. Finally, Forever, was the closing track where he goes back to the tail end of love, confessed his love interest and accepts that hed be with his woman forever. Unarguably, this is one of the most outstanding track off the project. However, Magixx is just getting started and this project alludes to his carefree attitude and nature that often falls in love.

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Magixxs Atom EP, alludes his love and care free attitude, he is only getting started - More Branches

In what feels like no time at all, DIY event space and music venue Gut Level has become a much-loved pocket of queer club culture in Sheffield. Its ethos of community and collaboration is manifested through providing a platform for people who are traditionally underrepresented in the music industry - so queer / LGBTQ+ people, women and non-binary folks - and nurturing a safe space which encourages skill sharing, intersectional collaboration and grassroots creative activities. Oh, and they throw turbo mega parties too.

However, their home on Snow Lane has fallen foul of property developers, a story which is all too familiar for people who set up DIY spaces in Sheffield. Posting on Instagram, GL said: Insecure tenancies, accelerated gentrification and the appearance of luxury accommodation on every street corner has made it virtually impossible for small independent spaces to exist long-term in central locations.

The t-shirt is bold and defiant

But the Gut Level organisers have refused to let the unexpected eviction get them down and are forging ahead with plans for the future. To raise funds for said future theyve launched a t-shirt campaign in collaboration with Everpress. All funds from the campaign will go straight into Gut Levels piggy bank so they can continue supporting the future of the organisation, and funding grassroots, queer and DIY activities in Sheffield.

With Queer Hedonism is Alive in the North emblazoned across the front, the t-shirt is bold and defiant. You can buy yours via Everpress until 4 August.

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Queer Hedonism is Alive in the North | Now Then Sheffield - Now Then Magazine

One of the most influential figures of the San Francisco Renaissance, Gary Snyder, has made it into the Library of America, a series that displays the breadth and diversity of our canon with one ambitious new volume after another, though sadly its editors do not always put merit first.

In the case of the new inductee, the quality of the work preempts any fight about whether he deserves such a distinction. Like his pal and traveling companion Jack Kerouac, whom he has outlived now by well more than half a century, Snyder has a deep interest in beatitude, revelry, transcendence, Dionysian extremes, and gorging on beauty as manifested in literature and the world. Again like Kerouac, he rejects todays tendency to consign to the memory hole each and every thing from the past that does not jibe with all of todays sensibilities.

Like Kenneth Rexroth, whom some view as the catalyst of the West Coast literary renewal, Snyders inner compass leads him to the Far East, and to the city we know today as Kyoto, formerly Heian Kyo, which stood as the capital of a flourishing culture and nation for more than a thousand years. Here is a West Coast poet who cannot shut out the call of Japan. In the heyday of Snyders spiritual home, writing verse was as common as breathing.

While never overtly political, a few of these poems show a concern for an environment that we humans have not treated admirably. But the environmentalism is part of a broader vision uniting personal and social imperatives in a unique way.

Snyders ecological concerns come to the fore as he insists that people can do better, must do better, not just in their habits and patterns of consumption but in their thoughts and acts as members of a polity. In Hills of Home, you will find one of the more darkly ironic accounts of the Bay Area ever put to paper. Though known around the world for its beauty and ease of living, San Francisco enjoys a rather different distinction in this poem. Snyder admits the opulence of the locale, bonewhite in blue sea bay, while naming as its primary features two major jails, Alcatraz and San Quentin, and an oil refinery, with plenty of sailboats all around and jagged rocks where you can sit down and have your lunch amid the breezes.

The poem gives new meaning to damning with faint praise. We are tossing people in the slammer at terrific rates and making a killing off prisons and oil even as we befoul and ruin the beauty of the world. But the construction of the poem is too artful, the imagery too indelible, for it to sound preachy.

One of the works from the Kyoto period, Bomb Test, leads with a haunting image: The fish float belly-up, for real / Uranium in the whites / of their eyes. Those fish were minding their business, at an ocean level so far down under the waves that all you see around you is darkness, when Silvery snow of something queer / glinted in / From cirrus clouds to the seamounts.

Leave it to humans to disrupt the beauty and harmony of the world for their crass and selfish ends. As yet another figure associated with the San Francisco Renaissance, Kenneth Patchen, put it in Continuation of the Landscape, only man / Would change his distance from that beautiful center.

Yes, he may be an environmentalist and in that sense a progressive. But in Gary Snyder, we have a creator who eschews the banalities and mundanities of partisan politics, while suggesting a sky-blue pastoral reality where les extrmes se touchent, or where those with totally different values might actually find common ground. In addition to his concern for the natural world, Snyder brings to bear, over and over, an ethos of personal responsibility.

You are bound to ask why, in so many of his poems, people consuming huge volumes of booze and tobacco do not appear to be having a good time. In fact, their level of happiness may seem inversely proportionate to their indulgence in those chemicals identified with fun. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that Snyders subjects, whether they dwell in California or in Japan, cannot fail to notice the beauty of the landscapes around them and feel all the more acutely how out of place their moral nature is in the midst of such splendor and grace, like a pile of trash in a field of daisies.

At times, it is the circumstances of their partying that make it impossible to feel good about what they are doing. In the poem April, Snyder describes his experience of lying with a lover on a grassy slope. She happens to be pregnant for the third time. He speaks directly to that lover, having obtained Your husbands blessing on our brief, doomed love. All the wine, sun, and sex do not make the two elopers or others alluded to in the poem happy, but foster a puritanical if largely unarticulated guilt, whose indelible impression comes across in a final image: The sun burns the / Writhing snakebone / Of your back.

In another poem, Makings, Snyder recalls having grown up watching his fathers friends roll cigarettes, a habit that he took on himself, though not in the rosiest of circumstances. His father lived in a big house, but Snyder describes himself as a black sheep of the family, a layabout with dubious ethics who did not come to enjoy the postwar prosperity others did and who lives now in a shack. Rolling cigarettes in your shack, just as your fathers friends did, theres progress and the good life for you.

In Map, Snyder invites the reader to envision a farmhouse in the middle of a lush valley replete with pastures where cows, deer, hawks, crows, wren, and frogs abound, and the residents of the farmhouse are notably less well adjusted that these other dwellers. The stock market is in the doldrums, and it is hard to sell corn. The world around them doesnt care, for they are just visitors supremely unaware of the brevity of their stay. The poem concludes: The woods have time. / The farmer has heirs.

The natural world is everywhere in this oeuvre, and not seldom does the reader sense that we are simply unworthy of it and it does not and should not offer us any esteem. We are not only ecologically clumsy, but fall short of any ideal of virtue in our daily deportment and our treatment of others.

One of Snyders heroes is Alan Watts, whose quintessential work, This Is It, makes a case for recognizing the urgency of the moment and the truth of the trope that life is not some thing that will happen later when all your plans come to fruition, it is here, it is now, for a fleeting moment. This is it. For Alan Watts is a tribute written on the gurus passing in 1973. It would be easy to construe Wattss teachings as a call for hedonism and decadence, but Snyder exhorts people to rise to their personal and social best and thereby fulfill a more mature reading of this ethos.

For all the vividness of his evocations of the Bay Area and the Midwest, it is Kyoto that inspires the most eloquent passages in the thousand pages of this volume. In the Kyoto pieces, in particular, the unity of the poets pleas for ecological and personal rectitude is evident. Snyder does not need epic length to say what he has to say. Some of the poems are as pithy as anything by Dickinson or Frost.

Housecleaning in Kyoto is just eight lines about Snyders decision to throw out a red washrag that he found one day in 1956 while camping with Kerouac, not long before his departure for Asia. The rag has languished in the mans digs in Kyoto and, he tells us, has faded to a grayish-pink hue as a result of his incessant use of it to clean smoky pots. In just a few lines, he says volumes about a way of life and the self-indulgent habits in which he indulges without regard for the wear and rot that they inflict. He has come thousands of miles to a place of splendor and grace, and lived in a manner hardly worthy of his surroundings or of certain standards of discipline and rectitude.

I See Old Friend Dan Ellsberg on TV in a Mountain Village of Japan is an account of watching the Vietnam-era activist stand at a spot amid the rice fields of the Yura valley in Kyoto Prefecture and speak into the camera as owls call out from their nocturnal perches. Snyder likes Ellsbergs message, which is that the world should disarm and Japan should hold onto its postwar neutrality and not get into the great-power conflicts that have come close to ending the world and may still do so. The reader senses, that, for Snyder, the appeal of what Ellsberg has to say here goes a bit further. Snyder wants Japan to retain its cultural idiosyncrasy and maybe even return to the splendor that the encroachments of the West over the years have helped bury.

But Japan today has come a long way from the heyday of Heian Kyo, thanks partly to Western junk culture but also to the choices of the Japanese. The personal failings to which Snyder alludes are not the domain solely of Westerners, he subtly suggests. Rather they may be universal, or at least cross-cultural, traits in the fallen world in which we dwell. Seeing the Ox is a similarly laconic Kyoto poem with a slightly misleading title, for it is the ox, standing outside the Daitoku temple, who does the watching.

Snyder describes a slobbering, sad creature watching kids play near the temple with rolling eye as it lingers above a pile of its own dung. Theyre carrying on like a bunch of dopey Western tourists. The poem raises more questions than it answers, leaving the reader to speculate about the emotional intelligence of a putatively inarticulate creature that may not be reacting well to the frivolity, not to say impudence, of the rambunctious kids outside a monument that once held a sacred place in the culture of Heian Kyo.

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Gary Snyder Joins the Greats - Book and Film Globe

Twenty years ago, Up the Bracketlit the spark that saw Britain go up in a blaze of skinny jeans and leather jackets, with similarly minded indie acts flourishing alongside The Libertines throughout the 2000s.

Back in 2002, though, the Camden kings Anglo-leaning ethos set them apart from a set then spearheaded by The Strokes, one of most exciting new bands on the planet. The Libertines were nipping at the heels of Britpops heaviest hitters, ready to seize the torch from Oasis. They were fresh, determined and spoke to an unbridled hedonism that helped them earn the loyalty of their tribe. With their romantic veneration of Britains rock and literary canon, Pete Doherty, Carl Bart, John Hassall and Gary Powell were primed to become the countrys next obsession.

Marrying the blunt fury of The Clash with the poeticism of The Smiths, and the nicotine-stained thrill of early Suede with the pissed-at-the-piano rockney knees-ups of Chas & Dave, The Libertines were radically out of step with 2002s musical landscape. Up the Bracket landed a year after The Strokes debut Is This It, which cemented the New York act as the most effortlessly cool on the scene. This was the Libertines response: with The Clashs co-architect Mick Jones helming their debut (and Suedes Bernard Butler producing the bands non-album singles), Doherty, Bart and co were positioning themselves as the successors to the UKs hallowed indie lineage.

Clocking in at just over half an hour, Up the Brackethit like a hurricane. Recorded mainly live, Bart and Dohertys fuzz-soaked, galloping guitars ran roughshod over Hassall and Powells solid rhythm section. Throughout the albums 12 tracks, the Libs leading lyricists painted a warring picture of twin dimensions of Britain. Their songs were set amid vomit-soaked pubs and featured street-stalking debt collectors, hotel room hook-ups, and ride-or-die debauchery. Bart and Doherty also conjured visions of a long-lost, half-dreamed, mythical Albion, particularly on their penultimate manifesto The Good Old Days.

Purposefully lo-fi, Bart and Dohertys wilfully imprecise approach to guitar masked their true ability. Typically toting a Gibson Melody Maker (or SG), Barts penchant for seemingly spontaneous but actually well-mapped solos and riffs resulted in some of the records fiercest guitar work. Just listen to the white-knuckle closer I Get Along. Meanwhile, Doherty, then rarely seen without his Epiphone Coronet, demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for songcraft that underpins every minute of Up the Bracket.

Though the barbed wire riffage of Vertigo is an effective starting point, its on the albums second track, Death on the Stairs, that the clearest indication of The Libertines musical and emotional breadth can be found. Built around a swerving chord sequence, Barts jibing A riff keeps pace with the arrangement, as he and Doherty exchange lead vocals. The only let-up comes during the chorus sections sublime six-note motif.

On the heels of the unrelenting Horror Show, the magisterial Time for Heroes bursts out of the speakers with punchy Smiths-esque chords, lurching from a bright D major to a troubled Fm to a six-beat, punctuated G. The songs intensity builds with each successive verse before it erupts with Barts frenzied solo. Yes, their exterior was rickety but any band that could pen a song as vital as Time for Heroeshad to be worth your commitment.

The Libertines own distinct character is all over Up the Bracket but its an album clearly assembled from a well of influences. Theres the Clash-like truculence of the whirlwind title track, and the dreamy lull of Radio America, which elicits a misty image of Syd Barrett. Then theres the bawdy strut of Boys in the Band, which The Libertines: Bound Together author Anthony Thornton describes as The Jam soundtracking a late Carry On movie in a suitably saucy, British seaside-postcard kind of way. Up The Bracketbalanced thrilling bluntness with an astute grasp of what had gone before.

Though it reached only No. 35 in the UK album charts upon its release in October 2002, The Libertines growing ubiquity in the press would see its sales rise as the decade progressed. The bands next two records featured delicacies of their own but its across Up The Brackets 12 songs that The Libertines skirted true greatness, even if it was always slightly out of reach.

Up the Bracket was the wake-up call that many of the soon-to-be players in what was called the indie renaissance by some and indie landfill by others desperately needed. Now established as The Libertines central text, Up The Bracket remains a rousing listen 20 years on.

The Libertines. Image: Stuart Mostyn / Redfferns

The Libertines, Up the Bracket(Rough Trade, 2002)

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The Genius Of Up the Bracket by The Libertines - Guitar.com

Surfers all have different answers to the question why do you surf? Whether its to escape the mundane, to challenge oneself, or to immerse oneself in nature, the one common theme between all these answers is that, no matter what, the pursuit of surfing is done for oneself. The progression that occurs with each completed session benefits you alone, the best sessions are often the ones with the least people around, and the happy feelings one experiences when walking out of the ocean affect, well, that surfer alone. But the reality is that its very simple: people surf because surfing feels good.

But it seems as if surfing (along with most things that make people feel good) has been pitted as a waste of time since at least the sixties, even during surfings golden years. In one scene from Pacific Vibrations, an iconic film by none other than John Severson, a surfer lying on the beach laments: Surfings a far out thing. Its the only thing I like to do, but my parents know this and so if I dont get a good grade on my report card they wont let me surf until I bring it up, and if I dont get a job, theyll use it against me, I cant surf. If I didnt surf, I dont know what theyd do, they wouldnt have anything to hold against me! (Watch the clip here at 15:52)

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The oldest clich in the book is that surfing is hedonistic and selfish. Sessions are ruined by the presence of other people in the water, surfers throw everything away just to catch a few waves, and the most core surfers of all evade responsibility, never marry, never get a real job the list goes on, infinitely. One extreme example of this type of hedonism comes in the form of, perhaps, the most infamous rebel surfer of all time, Miki Dora, who embodied this notion to such an extent that he even earned the title The Black Knight and is often referred to as the ultimate non-conformist. Miki isnt exactly seen as a role model. In fact, hes kind of seen as a menace.

But anything done in excess can be harmful. So, just because some people, like Miki, throw it all away to surf, that doesnt mean surfing itself is the problem. But all of this just begs the question: should we feel guilty about surfing? Just because surfing has the tendency to pull us away from more traditional responsibilities, the way 9-5 work schedules pull us away from our families, hobbies, and leading healthy lives, it causes one to wonder: just because something is fun, does that make it bad?

On a flight to Australia, while pondering this question, I read the bookFlow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,by the late psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I thought I was just killing time on the plane, but, in doing so, I found my answer: we dont need to feel guilty about surfing at all. In fact, surfing is more than just a far out thing to do. Its a worthwhile pursuit.

In Flow, Csikszentmihalyi details the exact science of reaching optimal experience, or being in the flow state. At its core, the flow state is the mindset one has when totally and completely immersed in an activity to the point where all else fades away. The flow state is desirable, not only because it leads to greater happiness, but because it represents time where energy is exerted with intention and we are living life to the fullest. Most of our greatest memories involve the flow state the flow state moments are the ones well look back on and wish we had more of. So, surely these moments arent a waste of time.

And, no surprise here, but surfing checks all of the boxes of being in the flow state. A challenging activity that requires skills? Wave reading, balance, paddle strength, footwork. The merging of action and awareness? Surfing in a nutshell. Clear goals and feedback? Every time. Concentration on the task at hand? On a good day. The paradox of control? Check. The loss of self consciousness? If the waves are good. The transformationand lost track of time? Absolutely.

All of this makes surfing enjoyable, and not just pleasurable. Whats the difference? Enjoyment is something to aim for, while pleasure is just something thats, well, pleasurable. Pleasure is comparable to the feeling we get from eating a cookie. Or, to use a more risqu example, taking drugs. And when the cookies gone, or the chemicals wear off, the feelings gone too, and were no better off. Enjoyment, however, comes from the conscious cultivation of specific experiences, and when the experience is gone, we still benefit. Take your pick: a quick sugar rush or a lasting, elated mood from the memory of a great session? I know what Id choose.

This analysis from Csikszentmihalyi also helps us figure out why surfing makes us happy. Its not just because theres a chance to score every time we paddle out. Its because were devoting our attention to a specific goal, and, usually, making progress at it. Putting ones full effort into things feels good, especially when were doing it for ourselves, theres immediate feedback on our performance, and our concentration not only benefits us, but helps us forget the rest of our daily problems.

What Im trying to say is: go surf, and dont feel so guilty about it. Even if chasing perfect lefts makes you shirk a few responsibilities once in a while, as long as youre not dropping in on anyone, bringing a huge group of people to a local spot, or throwing your board, surfing is a great use of your time. And maybe, just maybe, surfing can even be a path to finding, and creating, happiness.

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Surfing is Enjoyable, Not Pleasurable Here's the Difference - TheInertia.com

By Bob Garver

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) hasnt been seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2019s Avengers: Endgame, where he decapitated Thanos, got really fat, and ultimately left to go have space adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy. I remembered the first two parts just fine, but I had to be reminded of the third prior to Thor: Love and Thunder. It seems like the movie had to be reminded of that as well, like it only remembered at the last minute that it needed to include the Guardians. Chris Pratt and company pop up early in this movie, but they and Thor soon part ways. If you saw this movies advertising and thought you were in for a 50/50 Thor/Guardians split, you are in for a letdown.

Fortunately, the old-hat Guardians are replaced with something arguably even better: the return to the MCU of Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Thors former lover from the Asgardian gods first two standalone films in 2011 and 2013. Janes mind is as sharp as ever, but her body is failing her. She travels to the city of New Asgard, now a tourist trap run by a bored Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), to see if she can be magically treated by the remnants of Thors hammer Mjolnir, which was destroyed in Thor: Ragnarok back in 2017. Due to a protection spell put on the hammer by Thor while he and Jane were dating, the hammer repairs itself with Jane as its new wielder.

Jane teams up with Thor, Valkyrie, and Korg (Taika Waititi, also the films director) to battle villain du jour Gorr (Christian Bale), a heartbroken former worshipper with a god-killing Necrosword and a grudge against all gods following the death of his daughter. Our heroes travel to Omnipotence City to ask Zeus (Russell Crowe, doing a Borat voice for some reason) for an army to battle the God Killer, but are met with mockery and refusal. It turns out Gorr has a point about gods caring more about indulging in hedonism than doing anything god-like. But hes kidnapped a pack of New Asgardian children to use as Thor-bait, so he needs to be stopped.

The writing of Gorr is probably the worst thing about the movie. Bale is acting his heart out, and the character is truly sympathetic at times, but hes just such an afterthought for all but about three scenes. And in between those scenes hes a sarcastic jerk, which isnt consistent with his overall tone or motivations. The movie really dropped the ball with this character.

But then theres the best thing about the film, which is Hemsworths effortless chemistry with everybody, especially Portman. The ups and downs of their relationship are much more exciting than any action sequence, which are pretty much whats to be expected from the MCU at this point. Its thanks to them that life and death seem consequential in the MCU again, which is refreshing after a few movies where Ive become convinced that characters can always be brought back via Infinity Stones or Multiverse shenanigans. Second to Portman is Hemsworths chemistry with new weapon Stormbreaker. Not since Joan Rivers has an old battle axe had this much personality.

Ill give Thor: Love and Thunder a mild recommendation, thanks mostly to the efforts of Hemsworth and Portman, and Bale in the few scenes where his characters pathos really comes through. The humor can be hit-or-miss (this movie thinks there is nothing funnier than screaming goats) and the action is memorable only for being set to the music of Guns N Roses. This movie isnt essential MCU viewing, but its okay for something on the second or third tier.

Grade: B-

Thor: Love and Thunder is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, some suggestive material and partial nudity. Its running time is 118 minutes.

Image credit: IMDB.com

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Watching Movies: Thor: Love and Thunder - thesuntimesnews.com

I'm really interested in glitz and glam and twinkles, says painter Louise Giovanelli. Things which dont have any sort of permanence in reality. Thanks to her seductively ethereal canvases, the Manchester-based artist is high in demand with the art crowd. Her works capture ephemeral moments, something you see [in] a flash, and give them permanence in painting. Wine glasses, soft ribboned curls of hair and a sequin, split-leg dress belonging to Mariah Carey are motifs that recur in a new body of works, currently on show at White Cube in Bermondsey.

As If, Almost takes over the two front rooms of the gallery, while fellow contemporary painters Danica Lundy and Ilana Savdie own the back of the space. Thematically, the works conjure a sense of glossy hedonism yet somethings a bit off. I paint beautiful things, Giovanelli says. But theyre beautiful things that are always on the verge of collapsing into something not beautiful.

Born in London, Giovanelli was drawing and painting from a young age. Contemporary pop culture moments caught her eye even then; portraits of Jimi Hendrix and Marilyn Monroe were her subjects. Now, when an image captures her, she closely crops the exact details she wants the audience to see, often reworking and warping it on her phone screen. While her current subjects cant always be directly identified, the sense arises that behind Giovanellis initial digital trickery and subsequent paintbrush, a scene on show may have been seen before. A painting seeming to represent the moment in Carrie (1973) when the bucket of pigs blood lands on the prom queens head has saturated hues, popping neons, while the image itself is stretched. The image is a starting point, Giovanelli says. Im not a painter who can just look at a blank canvas and just start.

Having received her BA from the Manchester School of Art in 2015, she studied under Amy Sillman at Stdelschule, Frankfurt (2018-20). Its prominent, the artist considers, that I came out of a German school. For some, the Stdelschule is revered for a conceptual approach to painting, a radical dissection of the medium, associated with the likes of artist Martin Kippenberger and his former assistants Michael Krebber and Merlin Carpenter. [There was] this cynicism with painting and as much as I respect those artists for me, its more about the joy, Giovanelli explains. Im trying to show viewers that its okay to love painting, its OK to love looking at beautiful things.

Fabric and hair are signature Giovanelli motifs, surfaces whose textures are notoriously tricky to render in oils. It is the challenge that inspires her to paint, as well as a desire to learn how artists before her have done it. If youre a painter, you really have to understand where your medium has come from, you have to understand history, she argues. Just to use the act of painting, to make a mark, is to hold all of that baggage of history with you. Once the image is ready to paint, Giovanelli uses thin layers at a time, waiting for each to dry, just as the Old Masters did, to achieve the luminosity that makes her work so compelling. You can see elements of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden and all these Flemish painters, the Northern Renaissance painters that was the first period of influence that I was really struck by, she says. Those painters really dealt with fabric, and hair, and [I] was always fascinated with how they created those textures. Its a question she wants her audience to ask too how did she do that?

As If, Almost by Louise Giovanelli is on at White Cube Bermondsey in London until 11 September 2022.

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Louise Giovanelli, the Artist Fusing Old Masters and Digital Imagery - AnOther Magazine

The distance between very good and superb is actually quite far and it requires motivated teams, attention to detail, and above all creativity to break out of commodity service delivery. Here are a few brands, ideas, and services that deserve a tip of the hat.

Colin Nagy

The pace of travels resurgence means this recurring column feature feels right to do twice a year, as I have in the past. There has been a lot to take in, and crisis has been a forcing factor for interesting ideas born from constraint. There is also a bit of bad behavior in the market, with price gouging and formerly iconic names still trading on badge value though their service isnt up to snuff. Still, we opt for a more cheery outlook, giving airtime to the places and spaces that manage to stand out.

After all, the distance between very good, and superb is actually quite far. And it requires motivated teams, attention to detail, and above all creativity to break out of commodity service delivery.

Here are a few brands, ideas, and services that deserve a tip of the hat:

Ive heard a lot of rumblings about JSX, but just got around to trying it. And Im a convert. It takes the best part of private travel, the ability to turn up 20 minutes before your flight, and turns it into its brand superpower. They fly retrofitted Embraers which are perfectly nice, but the true appeal of the product is getting to skip the chaos of summer airports completely. Plus, the company is run by someone who knows brand and operations well: Alex Wilcox, who logged time at Virgin and Jetblue. Hes pragmatic, sharp, and the product has been delivering.

Ive been patiently watching Alila, born in Asia, and now part of Hyatt. The brand is starting to beautifully come together: it is focused on nature-centric experiences (think Big Sur and Oman). It takes awhile for a brand to find its footing, but my experiences with Alila Marea in San Diego as well as the Alila in Southern Oman showed me a brand that is going to be competing with the big players for luxury spend, set in interesting new areas around the globe. Theyve nicely built off of the hospitality and design of the brands Asian roots, and are starting to bring all elements together nicely.

If were being honest, there are really only a few chains operating at a hyper luxury space in terms of service, vision, consistency and the wow effect. Sharing airspace with Oetker, Aman, Nihi, and Soneva is Airelles, who have been on my radar lately thanks to some interesting openings and strong word-of-mouth from connected travelers. They are expanding their portfolio rapidly in France with two properties in Saint-Tropez, following their launch of their Chteau de Versailles property last year. The brands earlier properties, particularly Courchevel, have a cult-like following and it will be interesting to see if they can scale the touch and service as the brand grows. This is the true challenge at the highest level.

It gets a lot of airtime among the long haul set, but Qatars Al Safwa lounge has been getting better and better. It is museum-like in its tranquility, and service is polished and professional. The sleeping rooms have gotten me through many long layovers at Doha.

It says a lot about a brand to see who they aspire to hire as GMs. Ive been really inspired by the design and execution of Proper. Their downtown LA opening is manned by Stephane Lacroix, a luxury veteran who has the new property running crisply. Santa Monica is helmed by the superb Julien Laracine, a veteran of Nihi, who co-runs the hotel with his wife Carla Stoffel. Friends Ive referred his way come back raving with his attention to detail, warmth and overall vibe. The duo also managed to steward the property through the doldrums of Covid back into its thriving self.

Two openings caught my eye for their sheer ambition: Raffles London at the OWO and Passalacqua in Lake Como. The former, like the original in Singapore is epic in scale and will be a restaurant and bar destination as well as a hotel, transforming Whitehall in the same way the Ned did the financial district in London. It is manned by a superb hotelier, Philippe le Boeuf. Passalacqua, from the owners of Grand Hotel Tremezzo, has an anytime, anywhere approach to service and one of the best views of the lake, with a JJ Martin-designed pool.

The Rooster in Antiparos is labor of love, built within a 30-acre site of hills, ruins, rocks and sand dunes in Greece. The founder, Athanasia Comninos, created a small, perfectly formed property that feels private, unspoiled, and too good to be true. The fact it is a personal project is very apparent, though there are architectural nods to Aman with some of the room layouts, it also feels completely unique. And because of the friction required to get to Antiparos, it is unlikely to be overun by hedonistic hordes. The room design is tranquil, and fits beautifully with its environs. The roosters crowing nearby in the morning give you a clue as to the names origins.

I was in Amman, Jordan toward the end of the year, and was absolutely impressed by the recent re-fit of F&B at the Four Seasons Amman. The hotel has long been a place of diplomatic intrique and hushed conversations, which they playfully parlayed into Sirr, a secret bar with dark wood paneling and some of the best bartenders in the city. They were able to recreate one of my favorites from Employees Only, the Billionare, perfectly. Also, La Capitale was an absolute standout brasserie helmed by people who really loved their jobs. I found myself lured back because things were run so well.

I thought Auberges re-fit of the Mauna Lani on the big island of Hawaii was inspired. They did an incredible job with the design, F&B, and notably the experiences: where as I detailed in a longer column, they manage to thread Hawaiis cultural depth through their experiences, doing something more soulful and meaningful than the stock-standard island hedonism. Everything was considered, including retail (theres a Goop), as well as NYC-style deli items among the locally roasted Kona coffee. Its hard to make all elements come together, and they did.

Sanjiv Hulugalle, Pete Alles and Danny Akaka from Auberge lead with vibes, energy, and optimism. Stephanie Pournaras and Yasmin Natheer Al-Sati of Four Seasons are tight on the details and the craft of hospitality on every level. Rubina Gurung from Al Maha in Doha goes above and beyond. And finally, Im sending best wishes to the ever elegant Petar Krstic of Aman as he is poised to open the new property in New York.

For the longest time, I noticed an elegant signature on the welcome when Id check into the Park Hyatt Tokyo: Philippe Roux-Dessarps. Hes a legendary hotelier who I only knew by this signature, and by reputation. We got to spend some time at his new post, The Four Seasons Astir Palace on the Athenian Riviera and followed was a wide ranging conversation on Japan, detail, hospitality, and brand. It was a pleasure to spend time and see how hes bringing an international career to bear with one of the brands priority properties. And it was nice to put a signature to a person, finally.

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The Biggest Innovators in Travel and Hospitality: Summer Edition - Skift Travel News

Those visiting Chamonix last month might have been surprised to hear a reverberating pulse echoing from Planpraz apicturesque plateau just beneath a mountain summit that can be accessed via cable car. Under normal circumstances, such sound waves at 2,000m of elevation might come with an avalanche warning. But this time, the buzz was electric, not tectonic the echoes of a live stage line-up hosted by the Canadian outdoor brand Arcteryx.

The energy came from a 1,500-strong crowd of mountain enthusiasts who hadspent the previous week at the Arcteryx Alpine Academy a week-longmountain extravaganza thats bringing the hedonistic air of the musicfestival into the wellness arena. Asthe sun sets,festival-goers sunkissed, sweaty and ready to party ascended to the summit to let loose tohiphop and R&B from a roster ofinternational artists. Theyhad tiredmuscles, big smiles andbeer thirst, according to Stphane Tenailleau, a marketing director at Arcteryx and the brains behind the festival.DJs are on thedecks until 2am.Every night theres thechance to burnoff your last calories onthe dancefloor Were taking [the experience] to new heights.

Fitness holidays are undergoing a rebrand and in 2022 endorphins are the headline act. Forget the traditional yoga retreat theres no snoozy Eat, Pray, Love mood or matcha mornings here. This summer, those seeking a collective high canhead to the wilds of the Faroes (tjan Wild Islands Festival), the coasts of Devon (Above Below) orthe trails of Tring (Salomon) for a gorpcore-meets-Glastonbury experience.

For many, the festivals give access to a sense of community

Arcteryx, meanwhile, has rolled out itsconcept this year to include climbing academies in Vancouver and backcountry ski festivals in Wyoming punctuated byfilm screenings, photography workshops and gigs. Other labels are offering smaller iterations: Raphas Pennine Rally is a 500km point-to-point cycle from Edinburgh down the Pennines to Manchester, which culminates with beers and food, while Japanese outdoor brand Snow Peak and theOutdoors Store have teamed up withThe Good Life Society for a weekend of fly fishing, egg-and-spork racing andfirepit cooking.

Its about challenging stereotypes astowhat fitness and wellness can be,saysTheo Larn-Jones, founder of LoveTrails, a four-day running festival heldinWales that offers everything frompaddleboarding and surfing to banquetdinners hes launching it in Madeira later this year.

And outdoorsy activities have seen ahuge boom of late, says Will Watt, co-founder of Above Below, a three-day swimathon in Devon that sees attendees pack their possessions into a raft and breaststroke along estuaries and coastal bays before camping each night. People are starting to understand that challenging your body and your brain gives you anatural high instead ofother pursuits that leaveyou feeling less thangood afterwards.

Healthy hedonism is areal draw. Organisers arecareful to feed the moreconscious lifestyle: many on-site bars are now stocked with zero per cent abv beers and plant-based foods. Norway even plays host to Morning Beat, a booze-free yoga festival headlined by trance DJs. Its not all-or-nothing, says Henry Knock, a 42-year-old London-based freelance photographer who has shot campaigns for Adidas, Barbour and Manchester United. A self-professed party boy, he has spent decades dancing in fields. But this year, he has bought a ticket for Love Trails his first fitness festival. I can let my hair down but still indulge in my new passion for running, he says. As I approached my 40s, I became much more conscious of my health.

Knock, who usually runs in the city, is keen to try trail running for the first time. And many festivals offer a refreshing change of pace from the status quo: 10km road-runners are encouraged to try sprinting up a mountain; urban boulderers can get to grips with craggy rock faces; and lido swimmers can plunge into coastal waves.

Under the supervision of expert guides, festivals can provide experiences that one is unlikely to attempt alone. They give you the confidence to try something new, says Larn-Jones, who offers add-on adventure days where happy campers can run 20km routes before coasteering or abseiling alongthe Gower Peninsula. In Chamonix, meanwhile, Arcteryx attendees could bookinto more than 40 clinics from an overnight bivouac in the Mont Blanc massif with Slovenian climbing champion Luka Lindic to rescue training including how to haul your partner out of a crevasse. Its money-cant-buy events that cant easily be found on the market, says Tenailleau, who has enlisted the expertise of more than 30 world-class athletes and sponsored guides to host sessions.

Regular music festivals dont offer such experiences. According to research bythe Harris Poll, 78 per cent of millennialswould rather spend on an eventthan a possession. Arcteryx says younger clientele are attending 30 per cent this year are under 30, an increase on2019 while Love Trails says about 60 per cent of its campers are young women. The festival environment offers them relative safety in the outdoors, and the chance to make new friends.

People can come and find their tribe, says Larn-Jones, who notes that many campers turn up alone. In a similar vein to running or swimming clubs, which have surged in popularity, fitness festivals give access to a sense of community.

The epicly Instagrammable settings of these events are another USP. tjan Wild Islands trail-running playground in the Faroes boasts scenes that look straight out of a Tolkien novel, where wild mountain paths meet verdant valleys. The islands arent easily accessible, yet this year, 90 per cent of the festivals attendees are set to make the pilgrimage from overseas.

The scenery is neck-twisting, says Tenailleau of the Chamonix mountainscape that adds to the Arcteryx Academys appeal. Its Alpine village is flanked by jagged peaks. We could have just rented ahall but any first-timer is blown away bythe Bossons Glacier, which looks like a river of lava flowing towards the valley, and the radiant dome of Mont Blanc.

Envisage that scene on Planpraz when the sun sets. Body pulsing from the bass; newfound friends letting loose; Mont Blanc twinkling in the distance. Up there in the crisp air, flanked by the shadowy mountains, you feel insignificant. But spiritually, you belong. Moments flicker by. You lose yourself in the ethereal experience. Just as mother nature and the DJ intended.

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Highs on a hill inside the fitness festivals of 2022 - Financial Times