Category Archives: New Utopia

She had come as a child to this house on the island. She remembered the reflection of the waves, their patterns shimmering on the walls of her bedroom in the early mornings. She remembered the winds rattling the string of seashells that hung on the balcony where she would lie in the hammock, daydreaming. She remembered the frigate birds, sailing in cloudless skies, and the fishermen coming each morning with their catch, holding them up for her aunt's inspection. I could not bear to lose this house, she said. It was so much a part of my childhood.

The house overhangs the sea. With the water lapping beneath the decks, it feels like being on board a ship, sailing away. Stone steps lead straight down. There is the smell of ginger and mango and coconut and brine. The Caribbean touches the horizon with its rainbow of seven blues, while the breezes fill the house, still stirring the shells that were gathered by children a generation ago. The house is called Monasterio del Viento, the Monastery of the Wind, and I was staying in a room looking out to the ocean.

In the morning, a man named Malcolm came, his boat turning through silver waves. This is the best day of our lives, he called to us. Let's go, man. The sea, she is calling. The house's owner, Cristina Garca de la Concha, appeared at the top of the steps. He will take you snorkeling at Crab Cay, she said. And you can grill your fish on Morgan's Head beach. It is named after the pirate. Malcolm knows all the stories. But only half of them are true.

The island is called Providencia, in the care of God. They say it is the island that disappeared. It's not like any place I have ever been.

Colombia can feel like all South America in a single country. There are Andean peaks and Amazonian jungles, gaucho prairies and colonial towns, indigenous tribespeople and a wild Pacific coast. But it is also on the Caribbean, with an extensive shoreline facing north toward Jamaica and Cuba, running almost 1,000 miles from the Darin Gap and Panama in the west to the border with Venezuela in the east. The mistress of this remarkable coast is Cartagena, the most beautiful Spanish colonial city in the Americas.

Dishes at Titi Gamba Cevichera, in Palomino, northeast of Cartagena

Oliver Pilcher

Oliver Pilcher

To visit Cartagena is to begin a love affair. I know people who came for a week and stayed 10 years. I know a man who only wanted a vacation and ended up with a wife, a troupe of children, a back-street bar, and a half-finished novel in a drawer. Cartagena is all Mrquezian charm, with old mansions, courtyards of divans and potted palms, churches moored like ships, shuttered rooms where, in the still hours of the siesta, an erotic frisson crackles like electricity and women call to one another from balconies and horses' hooves clip-clop on the cobblestones below the window. But it was time for me to break the bonds of the city. The Caribbean coast was beckoning. I wanted to escape Cartagena's narrow streets for the wide ocean, for the islands and beaches. It was time to run away to the cerulean sea.

My first stop on this new voyage would be the Islas del Rosario, right in Cartagena's backyard, a scattered archipelago of about 30 islands beyond Isla de Bar and an hour's boat ride away. It has long been a playground for wealthy Colombians: Yachts come and go between the islands, negotiating a labyrinth of secluded bays and inlets that showcase some of the country's smartest waterfront properties.

To get there, we sailed down the length of the city's sheltered harbor, the Baha de Cartagena, where the galleons of the Spanish Main had dropped anchor. At one of the entrances to the bay lies the 17th-century fortress of San Fernando. Here I stepped ashore onto the quay where English pirates had once arrived in shackles and where Tony, a local fisherman limping like Long John Silver, waited to show me round. He was a one-man theatrical experience, bringing the old fortress to vivid life. In the empty courtyard, he marched and wheeled and saluted. In the barracks he dozed on a stone bunk before waking suddenly and hurrying to the watchtower to scan the horizons for pirates. Unlocking the dungeons, he led several phantom prisoners up to the ramparts and promptly threw them into the moat where 150 sharks, so he claimed, had once waited to devour them. Finally, in the guards' room, he showed me how to use the latrine and fire at the enemy at the same time. It's an acrobatic trick, but you never know when it could come in handy.

Later we dropped anchor to snorkel among trumpet fish and blue-striped grunts on one of the Caribbean's finest reefsColombia declared these waters a national natural park in 1988. Deep in the mangroves, I stopped for lunch at Las Islas hotel, where boardwalks wind through the trees, connecting stylish bungalows of stone, pine, and thatch. Like so much of the archipelago, it felt like a private members' club.

On a long beach on the island of Tierra Bomba, I disembarked at Blue Apple Beach House, an elegant hotel conjured out of driftwood, and a stylist's daydream. With its pools and umbrellas and informal, youthful vibe, it has an Ibiza feel, as if a party is about to kick off. But the evening petered out into a splendid stillness. Late at night I swam alone in the dark ocean. Cartagena might have been half an hour away, but I felt a long way from anywhere. The bonds of the city were loosening.

A four-hour drive east of Cartagena lies Colombia's most dramatic slice of Caribbean coast, where the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains sweep down to the sea in a tumble of greenery and swollen rivers. Here the jungle-covered slopes are home to jaguars and tapirs, and some indigenous tribes still live a Stone Age existence. There's a vine-strangled Lost Cityyou can trek to it in three daysthat was once an important center of the Tayrona people.

At the foot of these mountains I spent a Huckleberry Finn day messing about in boats on the Don Diego River in the dense ecosystem of the coastal Tayrona National Natural Park. I kayaked under the gaze of red howler monkeys and truant boys floating in inner tubes. Colombia is home to 20 percent of all the world's bird species, and on this lazy afternoon most of them seemed to have turned up to dance among the branches. Later I followed sandy paths through the jungle to the most unexpected restaurant. On a balcony overlooking a clearing where hornbills clattered between trees, Samy's three-table establishment served up the home cooking of this coastcoconut rice and prawns the size of drumsticks, washed down with beer cooled in a mountain streamwhile Samy herself regaled me with hilarious stories about wayward husbands.

On my way to Providencia and Cristina's house by the sea, I was watching the shadow of our small plane passing over the turquoise patterns of the water. The island lies about 500 miles off the coast, closer to Nicaragua than to Cartagena, and like all the best places, it's tricky to get to. Flying first from Cartagena to San Andrs, the larger of the two islands in this archipelago, I board an 18-seater propeller plane of uncertain vintage. It is also a time journey. While San Andrs has long been overtaken by modern package holidays from the mainland, Providencia feels more like the Caribbean did 70 years ago.

The first settlers arrived here from England in 1631 on the Seaflower, a sister ship to the Mayflower. Centuries later, many islanders still think of Providencia as an outpost of the British Empire and speak EnglishSpanish is the second languagein spite of the fact that the British government gave the land to Spain in 1783. It was known as the island that disappeared, vanishing from colonial maps. When it became part of the new nation of Colombia, it sent the only native-English-speaking member of parliament to Bogot.

Those settlers came with conflicting motives. On the one hand they dreamed of creating a new utopia of God-fearing people. On the other, they hoped to plunder the galleons setting off for Spain from Cartagena and Portobelo, Panama. In no time, piracy won out over prayer. The placeindulgent, gorgeous, swept by tropical windswasn't helping. The buttoned-up settlers soon gave up on being buttoned up. Utopia it might have been; God-fearing it could never be. By the time the pirate Henry Morgan set foot on the island some decades later, it had already acquired a reputation as a refuge for seafaring riffraff for whom even Jamaica was too dull and uptight.

Las Islas hotel, Islas del Rosario

Oliver Pilcher

Oliver Pilcher

Today, Providencia remains an undiscovered corner whose 5,000 largely Afro-Caribbean inhabitants are the descendants of pirates, slaves, and settlers. Among themselves the islanders lapse into Creole. Keen to preserve their way of life and distinctive character, and to avoid being swamped by people from the continent, as they call Colombia, they blocked plans, for now, for a new airport that would allow direct flights from Cartagena and Barranquilla. With hardly any carsmost people get around by scooter or golf cartthe island remains as sleepy as it has always been.

There is a single road, and it circles the coast. I set off to explore a succession of ravishing beachesAlmond Bay, Fresh Water Bay, South West Bay, Manzanillo Beach, and a dozen more with names I never learned. On some, little shacks have taken root, serving cold beer and grilled fish, places such as Roland's, with gangly palm trees and hammocks slung between the trunks. In the evenings this is the place to be, with a reggae soundtrack and ready supply of coco locospia coladas served in coconuts. But on many beaches there's nothing at all except the hot sun and the curling waves.

Days blurred into one another. I watched the horse races on South West Bay, where the riders galloped bareback through the surf. I went to townSanta Isabelthree streets of double-story buildings with a caf serving pies and cakes that could have come from England. In the cooling evenings, I headed to baseball games, joining the raucous crowds in the bleachers as they cheered the teams playing against their neighbors and kinsfolk. In the old days, they had to turn off all the lights on the island in order to have enough power to illuminate the field. On Sunday I went to church where dour puritanical instincts have long since vanished among uplifting music and glamorous outfits.

A colonial building in Cartagena

Oliver Pilcher

Isla Grande, part of Islas del Rosario

Oliver Pilcher

Manzanillo Beach, Providencia

Oliver Pilcher

Bird-inspired artwork, Providencia

Oliver Pilcher

Roland, of Rolands reggae bar on Manzanillo Beach

Oliver Pilcher

A colonial house in Cartagena

Oliver Pilcher

A bedroom at Blue Apple Beach House

Oliver Pilcher

Las Islas hotel, Islas del Rosario

Oliver Pilcher

I spent a day on the water, snorkeling on what is thought to be the world's third longest and one of the best preserved coral reefs, now part of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve. We went fishing and lunched on our catch at Morgan's Head beach on Santa Catalina, where I climbed to the old pirate's hideaway, the ruins of Fort Warwick. Malcolm had the inside scoop on how the island disappeared from the British Empire. The Queen Victoria, he said, she fell in love with the president of Colombia. And she gave us away as a present to her new boyfriend.

At one point I went to meet musician and island historian Elkin Robinson, who lives at Lazy Hill, a seaside settlement on the southwest shore. He cheerily welcomed me to the laziest place on the laziest island in the laziest part of the world. He played a set on a terrace above the sea while neighborhood children ran about our feet. His band consisted of guitar, washtub bass, and horse's skullthe percussion was played with a stick, running up and down the teeth. Must be the skull of the mare, said the horse-skull player. Sweeter sound. The rhythms were thrilling. You could hear Africa in this music, as well as reggae, flamenco, and calypso, with a dash of melancholic country and western.

Another time I sat with Perla, Robinson's great-aunt, in her kitchen as she talked about the old days when everyone came and went on boats that plied between Jamaica, the Caymans, and the Creole coasts of Nicaragua and Panama. Her grandfather had been a ship's captain from the Caymans. Sure that man had wives and children all over the Caribbean, she chuckled.

Back at Monasterio del Viento, I chatted to Cristina, who remembered the place from her childhood. Though she grew up in Bogot, she used to come to Providencia on holidays and stay in this house, which belonged to her uncle. When he wanted to sell the property in 2015, she suddenly decided that she had to keep it. And so she and her boyfriend, the chef Rodrigo Perry, left for remote Providencia to turn Monasterio del Viento into a small, intimate hotel. I wanted to preserve what I had loved so much as a child, she said. I could not bear to lose the house, or to leave this idyllic island.

I doubt that anyone leaves without a feeling of loss. Untethered from Colombia, adrift in the Caribbean, a place that is neither here nor there, the island that has disappeared could be anyone's half-remembered childhood dream, composed of innocence and seascapes and the sound of the wind rattling strings of shells.

Hotel Las Islas

Opened in mid-2018, this pretty beach hotel is a real game changer. Although it was built among Bar's mangrove forests, no trees were felled in its construction. Guests can cycle around the grounds on winding boardwalks that link the 55 bungalows, and take in 360-degree views from the clubhouse rising above the mangrove canopy. The private terraces have plunge pools or hot tubs; snorkeling and helicopter tours are available, plus a first-class spa. Bungalows from $555.

Blue Apple Beach House

This informal Tierra Bomba Island hotel, made up of thatched cabanas with brightly patterned fabrics, attracts a fresh influx of clued-in day-trippers from Cartagena, settling on the canopied Bali beds. Kayaks and paddleboards keep everyone entertained, massage therapists ease tired limbs, lunch is a pescatarian's delight, and a chill-out playlist draws from soul, jazz, and Latin. In the evenings, when the visitors go home, lanterns illuminate paths to the sea for night swimming. Doubles from $170.

Villa Playa Tayrona

With just six rooms, discreet Villa Playa appears more like an elegant private house than a hotel. In one direction are the cloud-bumping peaks of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in the other the roaring surf. But it's the palm-tree groves and still lagoon belowwhere egrets stalk their own reflectionsthat lend the place its dreamy atmosphere. Three local women prepare seafood feasts that are served on the pool patios, and the pristine beach is five minutes away. Although the spectacular waves draw a small band of surfers, most days you'll find yourself alone with the sea spray. Doubles from $210.

Kasamar

This villa is set above the forest, with views of both mountain and sea, and is designed to give a whole new meaning to the term open plan. Kitchens and dining and living areas all flow into one another; most of the house receives the sea breeze; and instead of windows, entire walls fold open like shutters. The terrace with huge sofas is made for a cool drink and a good book. From $2,040 for two (inquire for groups; sleeps 14), full board.

A bedroom at Monasterio del Viento

Oliver Pilcher

Conch fritters at Monasterio del Viento

Oliver Pilcher

Monasterio del Viento

Right on the ocean's edge, with white-washed walls and forget-me-not-blue accents, this place still feels like a memorabilia-filled home. A jetty is laid with cushions for candlelit dinners, and chef Rodrigo Perry, who has worked at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, does some mean coconut prawns. From $400 for a room or about $1,000 for the house (sleeps four).

Deep Blue

A neighbor of Monasterio del Viento, Providencia's only properly sophisticated hotel is up the steep hill from its seaside restaurant, the best place to eat on the island. The villas overlooking Crab Cay are like light-flooded ship's staterooms, and there are plunge pools on the terraces from which to watch the moon rise. Staff are a hoot and will teach you a bit of Creole. Doubles from $195.

Cazenove+Loyd creates trips to Colombia that can include four nights at Monasterio del Viento on Providencia, three nights at Casa San Agustn in Cartagena, two nights at Las Islas on Bar, and three nights at Villa Playa Tayrona from $6,190 per person, B&B, including transfers but excluding international flights.

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You Haven't Seen the Colombian Coast Without Time in Providencia - Cond Nast Traveler

Photo Source: Matthew Murphy

Annie-B Parson can make anything movejust ask her collaborators. Between her work in theater, dance, concert, and beyond, the auteur choreographer has worked alongside everyone from St. Vincent to Lucas Hnath to Mikhail Baryshnikov to David Bowie. Her newest venture reunites her with David Byrne, one of her longtime artistic colleagues, though it takes them both to somewhere neither has been before: Broadway. With Byrnes American Utopia (running at the Hudson Theatre through the new year), Parson is using the entire breadth of her skillset in ways tried, true, and completely new.

Parson tells Backstage how she can make even the most stagnant performances kinetic and her advice for all actors to get moving, whether or not they believe they can (spoiler: they can).

How did you come to work on American Utopia?Since 2009, Ive had the honor of working with David Byrne, making dances for him and his band on a number of his concert tours. These shows also included his collaborations with Brian Eno, Fat Boy Slim, and St. Vincent.

Details about this show are being kept pretty under wrapshow would you describe it?For your ears, American Utopia is a concert; for your eyes its a dance piece redefined; for your mind its a meditation on community. But first and foremost its a celebration of the brilliant canon of David Byrne, which has had far-reaching musical and aesthetic influence. Seeing him livesinging, dancing, and speakingis the heart of the piece.

Youve obviously worked extensively in all types of performance spaces; what has been unique about American Utopia?We overuse the word unique on a daily basis, but when he created American Utopia, David Byrne created something that actually is unique. And thats a big promise! In a way, the show poses a theatrical argument: Can a rock concert hold all theatrical elementscostumes, sets, text, dance, a narrative arc, as well as a protagonistyet still make you want to get up and dance?

READ: An Interview With Choreographer Justin Peck

In general, whats different about choreographing for theater compared to dance or concert performance?The compositional elements are the same in both mediums; issues of the use of space, of time, of line, motion, dynamics, and so forth. Those considerations are always going to be part of your craft in dance-making. But the givens are different, the contract with the audience is different in the theatrical concert form; the heavy lifting is coming from the catalogue of songs, with the dance as a very strong supporting player. The form of the show, the marriage of dance and music, is what holds it together.

I imagine the answer is very closely but, in theater, do you work with performers directly?Yes, true! I work very closely with performers in all [types of performance]. In music, the performances are crafted primarily from the self, meaning there is no pretend or actingat least in the shows Ive worked on. But finding that is tricky; its more like dance. In acting, the crafting of the role is created through a pretty intense relationship between me and the performer and the material.

Also speaking to theater, specifically, lets say youre working with an actor who is more mover than dancer. What are some ways you help them get more comfortable with movement?I always start standingno table work. We start with the physical body and how it relates to the space, creating movement material first based on my initial reading of the text, before we even delve into textual analysis and acting, so that it comes from a more kinetic place. This can be very, very simple movement, often not what people associate with dance. We think of dance as full-bodied, extended, and very felt actions, or as some style that we are accustomed to seeing onstage that has been passed down from play to play. But dance is many, many things; the best of it doesnt even exist yet. New ways of moving are constantly being invented. I dont much like couch theater (when the performers sit on couches), disembodied in a way, and talk to each other for three acts.

In general, what are some ways actors can gain confidence with movement?My best advice for actors who want to gain confidence with movement is training, training, training. Dont be afraid of going to dance class. There is sort of no way around it; you have to study how to use your body. Its like learning an instrument.

Catch Annie-B Parsons Big Dance Theatre companys The Road Awaits Us at Skirball Center in November; her new book Drawing the Surface of Dance is also out in November.

Want to hear more from the best creators in film, TV, and theater? Get it right here!

Casey Mink is the staff writer at Backstage. When she's not writing about television, film, or theater, she is definitely somewhere watching it.

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This Choreographer's Worked With David Byrne to Bowieand She Has Advice for You - Backstage

The Black Keys continue their "Let's Rock" tour at TD Garden in Boston tonight and The Anthem in Washington, DC, on Saturday. They close out the Northeast leg of the tour with shows at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and a return to The Anthem for a second show, all next week.

The bands ninth studio album, "Let's Rock," was released in June via Easy Eye Sound / Nonesuch Records. From top to bottom, the 12-track 'Lets Rock' holds tight to captivating instrumentation, with guitar at the center, says the Associated Press. The Black Keys are rock royalty and to the relief of many, they arent quite ready to relinquish their reign.

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Composer John Adamss Violin Concerto is performed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Andr de Ridder and featuring violinist Leila Josefowicz, in the Netherlands this weekend: with concerts at De Doelen in Rotterdam tonight and TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht on Saturday. The program also includes Adamss The Chairman Dances, the Dutch premiere of Steve Reichs Music for Ensemble and Orchestra, and the world premiere of Mathilde Wantenaars Prlude une nuit amricaine.

Nonesuch released a recording of Josefowicz performing Adams's Violin Concerto with St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Robertson last year.

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Composer/pianist Timo Andres and NYCbased ensemble yMusic help celebrate the seventieth birthday of composer Robert Sirota with the New York premiere of his Luminous Bodies at Kaufman Music Centers Merkin Hall in New York City on Sunday.

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David Byrne is in conversation with The New Yorkers Burkhard Bilger at Florence Gould Hall in New York City on Sunday morning as part of The New Yorker Festival.

David Byrnes American Utopia is currently in previews on Broadway as part of its strictly limited engagement at the intimate Hudson Theatre and ahead of the official Opening Night on October 20. Performances continue through January 19. The Boston Globe calls the show a marvel of humanity and hope an undertaking made in hopes of bringing wonder back to the world.

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Daughter of SwordsMountain Man's Alexandra Sauser-Monnigperforms as special guest of Wilco this weekend, with a concert at Boch Centers Wang Theatre in Boston tonight and two sold-out shows in New York City, at Radio City Music Hall on Saturday and Brooklyn Steel on Sunday. Her debut album, Dawnbreaker, released earlier this year on Nonesuch, reveals her effortless skill as a songwriter as she delivers an homage to the betwixt and between of a relationship in its twilight, says Pitchfork.

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Emmylou Harris takes the storied Opry House stage in Nashville tonight to perform on the Grand Ole Opry early and late sets. Harris has been an Opry member since 1992. "I feel like Ive come home to a family I didnt even know I was a part of," she said on her induction. Also performing on tonights shows are Margo Price, Chris Janson, and Bill Anderson, with Dierks Bentley joining for the early set. Folks around the world can listen live online at opry.com.

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Kronos Quartet is at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia this weekend: the group brings its Around the World with Kronos family concert to Toorak Uniting Church on Saturday afternoon and live-scores the Australian premiere of filmmaker Sam Greens A Thousand Thoughts: A Live Documentary at Melbourne Recital Centre on Sunday evening. The multimedia experience blends live music and narration with archival footage and filmed interviews with some of the artists with whom Kronos has collaborated, like Philip Glass, Tanya Tagaq, Steve Reich, Wu Man, and Terry Riley.

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Lake Street Dive plays The National in Richmond, Virginia, tonight and Saturday, followed by a sold-out show at Greenfield Lake Amphitheater in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Sunday. The tour closes out with concerts in Toronto and upstate New York next week.

Lake Street Dives Rachael Price and composer, singer, and guitarist Vilray stopped by WNYC Studios in New York City last week to perform songs from their self-titled debut album, Rachael & Vilray, on All of It and talk with host Alison Stewart about their music. You can hear the conversation and performance here.

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Gaby Moreno continues her tour of Germany with concerts at Kulturgut Hagenbach in Backnang tonight, Burgersaal in Helmbrechts on Saturday, and Centralstation in Darmstadt on Sunday.

Moreno and Van Dyke Parks were on NPR's Alt.Latino to discuss and share tracks from their new album, Spangled!, last week. Host Felix Contreras calls it a stunning collection of music ... a fabulously gorgeous album." You can listen to the episode here.

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Chris Thile hosts his public radio show, Live From Here, from its new home, The Town Hall in New York City, on Saturday, with special guests Trey Anastasio, The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Sarah Jarosz, and comedians Dulc Sloan and Tom Papa. Folks in the US can tune in on their favorite public radio station this weekend and around the world via livefromhere.org, starting at 5:45 PM.

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Yola brings music from her Dan Auerbachproduced debut album, Walk Through Fire, to Zilker Park in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, as part of the Austin City Limits Festival. Rolling Stone named Yola among the best of both AmericanaFest and Farm Aid; you can watch her Farm Aid performance of It Aint Easier here.

Walk Through Fire has been named one of The Best Albums of 2019 (So Far) by NPR Music, which says its an exhilarating album that encapsulates country-soul lustiness, plushly orchestrated pop transcendence and a range of expression both subtle and striking.

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Nonesuch Events for the Weekend of October 1113 - Nonesuch Records

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Staten Islands own Pete Davidson is everywhere these days: Saturday Night Live cast member. Movie star whos in the next Suicide Squad film. Stand-up comic. Boyfriend to songbirds and Hollywood starlets.

Even the older folks are noticing.

There was a concert at the St. George Theatre on Thursday night to mark the 50th anniversary last year of the Beatles landmark White Album.

Helping lead the all-star band was rocker Todd Rundgren, 71, famous for big radio hits like Hello, Its Me, I Saw the Light and Bang the Drum All Day.

Many in the crowd looked like they could have been first-generation Beatles fans themselves, so not the venue where youd expect to hear about the young and hip Davidson.

But Rundgren is nothing if not unpredictable in concert.

In between songs, Rundgren was talking about how he hadnt visited Staten Island.

I didnt have a reason to go to Staten Island, Rundgren quipped.

That brought a wave of good-natured catcalls from the crowd.

Tell it to Pete Davidson, Rundgren said with a laugh.

There truly is no escaping Davidson on Staten Island.

Rundgrens borough references didnt end there.

Introducing fellow performer Christopher Cross, Rundgren talked about taking the Staten Island Ferry, which he described as jammed with tourists.

He talked about the loud volume of tourist babble, and, perhaps apocryphally, of seeing a familiar sloop out in the sea (as Rundgren referred to Upper New York Bay) piloted by Cross. Cross then performed his number-one 1980 hit Sailing.

Get it? The ferry? Sailing?

Despite his quips, Rundgren is no stranger to Staten Island or to the St. George Theatre.

He performed there during his White Knight tour in 2017. And way back on Oct. 1, 1979, Rundgren and his band, Utopia, performed at the theatre. Playing bass for Rundgren was Islander Kasim Sulton, who has performed with Rundgren for decades.

Todd Rundgren and Utopia played on Staten Island on Oct. 1, 1979. (Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance)

It was big news when Davidson skipped an appearance on Saturday Night Live recently to attend a Joker movie premiere and to do some filming for Suicide Squad.

And Davidson was all over the Island this summer, filming his own feature film, so far untitled, with director Judd Apatow.

Then theres Petes love life, an endless source of fascination for the tabloid press and his hometown paper. Davidson was engaged for a time to singer Ariana Grande. Hes also dated Kate Beckinsale and now Margaret Qualley.

As for Rundgren, he doesnt mind getting controversial. The rocker is so virulently against President Donald Trump that hes said that Trump supporters should stay away from his concerts.

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What rocker name-checked Pete Davidson from the stage last night? - SILive.com

Labor has blasted Michaelia Cash for refusing to say how much taxpayers are paying The Block star Scott Cam to promote vocational education in his new role as national careers ambassador.

At a press conference on Thursday the skills and employment minister said Cams pay for the 15-month role was commercial in confidence but suggested spending was about outcomes and reflected the fact the government had secured one of the highest profile people in Australia.

Labor and the unions suggested the Coalition should stop hiring celebrities and properly fund Tafe and apprentices instead, claiming $3bn has been cut from vocational education since it came to office.

Cash said the government is determined to shine a light on how fantastic vocational education and training is and described Cams role as to work with us to really get that message out, explaining she would be out and about with Scott attending high-profile events to do so.

Cash described Cam as a former apprentice around 40 years ago now and literally a household name in Australia, citing the fact he ran his own business and had employed apprentices as qualifications for the role.

Cam did a three-year carpentry apprenticeship at age 17 and has worked as a television presenter since 2000 when he first appeared on Backyard Blitz. He won a gold Logie award in 2014 for hosting renovation reality television show The Block.

Cam told reporters he was very privileged to have the role, adding he is not taking it lightly.

Cam said the National Careers Institute provides a one-stop shop for people to get information about vocational education and careers pathways and my role is to get the information out there, to let them know that its there.

Contracts on AusTender show in 2009 the Labor government paid $74,250to SWC Contractors for representational services by Mr Scott Cam at Centrelink Job Expos.

A separate contract published in 2011 suggests the same company was paid $76,500 for sponsorship of event or celebrity for a representative for job expo.

In February 2013 Treasury officials told Senate estimates the Australian Taxation Office paid $77,962 to Media Heads to create a series of YouTube videos called Build a better business lodge online featuring Cam, although it did not say what part of the fee was paid to Cam.

Mr Cam was used because he is a well-recognised celebrity with broad demographic appeal and credibility with small business, Treasury said in an answer to a question on notice.

In November 2016 Cam featured in an education department advertisement with Karen Andrews, then the assistant minister for vocational education and skills. The video has 866 views despite almost three years online.

On Thursday Labors shadow education minister, Tanya Plibersek, responded that Scott Cam is a good bloke, but if the Liberals were serious about fixing the skills crisis theyve created, theyd stop hiring celebrities [and] start funding TAFE and apprentices.

At a doorstop in Melbourne, Plibersek said it was unacceptable for the government to refuse to say how much Cam was paid.

If the government believes that this is a worthwhile investment they should be upfront about what theyre spending, she said. But this isnt about Scott Cam.

In the 2019 budget the Coalition promised to create 80,000 apprenticeships through employer incentives, unveiling a $525m skills package with just $55m of new money, with the vast majority ($463m) the result of reallocating unspent funds in the Skilling Australians Fund.

Plibersek said there were 150,000 fewer apprentices and trainees in Australia today than when the Liberals came to office in 2013.

We have more people dropping out of apprenticeships today than completing them, she said.

Weve got fewer apprentices and trainees today than 10 years ago and all that while weve got 1.9 million Australians looking for work or looking for more hours of work and weve got three quarters of Australian businesses saying they cant find the trained and skilled staff they need.

Producers of the ABC TV political satire Utopia later tweeted about an episode that talked about appointing Cam as an ambassador.

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Coalition refuses to say how much Scott Cam is being paid as 'national careers ambassador' - The Guardian

California University of Pennsylvanias Department of Music and Theater showcases the talents of its newest crop of aspiring actors and technicians when it presents playwright Jason Pizzarellos "Saving the Greeks: One Tragedy at a Time."

Curtain times for the 23rd annual First Year Show are at 7 p.m. Oct. 24-25, and at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Oct. 26.

The 23rd annual First Year Show is open to the public and will be performed in the Gerald and Carolyn Blaney Theater in Steele Hall on Cal U.'s main campus.

Saving the Greeks is a breezy comedy full of laugh-out-loud merriment that pays homage to the melodramatic absurdity that is Greek tragedy.

The audience follows the story of Dialysis and his downtrodden slave, Peon, as they try to right all the wrongs done to the pitiful citizens of Athens.

Their efforts lead them to create Betterland, a city where formerly doomed tragedians can start their lives over again, free from the misfortunes of their previous existence. Traveling from tragedy to tragedy, Dialysis and Peon gather inhabitants for their new utopia.

Our students have been working tirelessly to bring some of the most popular tragic Greek heros to life while staying true to some ancient Greek comedic performance practices, said Dr. John Paul Staszel, director and assistant professor in the Department of Music and Theater. If you have always wanted to study Greek mythology, or just brush up on your Greek history, but wanted to do so with a comic twist, this is the show for you.

Subject matter offers mature content and themes, which may not be suitable for younger patrons.

The cast is partnering with Greek Life and the Cal U. Cupboard for a breakfast food drive. Nonperishable breakfast food items may be dropped off at the door before the show.

Ticket price is $12 for adults; $6 for those 60 and older and 12 and younger. Cal U. students with valid CalCards pay a $5 deposit that is refunded at the show.

For ticket information, or to charge tickets by phone, call the Steele Hall Box Office at 724-938-5943.

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Cal U. theater fall season opens with Greek comedy - Observer-Reporter

One day last November, Mitch Japczyk, an administrator at an Illinois staffing agency, was called upon to help solve an office mystery. A handful of his co-workers were huddled around the office printer, where a one-page document had just printed itself out, unprompted. Nobody in the office knew what it meant.

ATTENTION! the document began. PewDiePie is in trouble and he needs your help to defeat T-Series! It went on to explain that PewDiePie, a 29-year-old Swedish YouTube personality, was in danger of being overtaken as the platforms most popular channel by T-Series, an Indian music label and Bollywood production studio. In order to prevent this from happening, the author recommended five steps:

1. Unsubscribe from T-Series.

2. Subscribe to PewDiePie.

3. Share awareness to this issue. #SavePewDiePie.

4. Tell everyone you know. Seriously.

5. BROFIST!

Japczyk, now 33, spends more time on YouTube than many of his colleagues and was able to explain the broad strokes: PewDiePie (rhymes with cutie pie; real name: Felix Kjellberg) was a YouTube megacelebrity with a group of hard-core fans, known as the Bro Army, who often went to extreme lengths to show their support. But it was only when Japczyk got back to his computer that he realized the scale of the operation. A hacker was claiming responsibility for finding a set of 50,000 printers all over the world with unsecured network connections, taking them over and using them to print these fliers.

The printer hack wasnt an isolated incident. For months, tributes to PewDiePie had been popping up all over the world. Billboards and fliers appeared in India, Bangladesh and Times Square. Early this year, hundreds of Estonian fans held a parade in the nations capital city, chanting his name and holding signs that said Sub 2 Pewds. Someone chalked Subscribe to PewDiePie on a World War II memorial in Brooklyn.

Like Japczyks colleagues at the staffing agency, many people who witnessed these events most likely wrote them off as dumb stunts or random emanations from some Gen Z media universe they werent plugged into which, of course, they were. But as the Subscribe to PewDiePie movement grew, its meaning got blurrier. Some people were cheering for PewDiePie because they liked his videos. Other people saw him as the flag-bearer of an older, weirder internet culture that was being steamrollered by bland corporate interests and needed to be defended. And a few had much darker motives.

On March 15, a white nationalist in Christchurch, New Zealand, said, Remember, lads, subscribe to PewDiePie on his Facebook live stream, just before going on a shooting rampage, killing dozens of worshipers inside two mosques. A few weeks later, another violent white nationalist cited PewDiePie, this time in writing. In his manifesto, the suspect accused of killing one woman and injuring three others at a synagogue in Poway, Calif. even claimed that the YouTuber aided in the plot. I had the help of a man named Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, wrote the shooting suspect, who, like the Christchurch suspect, has pleaded not guilty. He was kind enough to plan and fund this whole operation the sly bastard.

Just to be abundantly clear: As far as we know, these were both sick jokes. Kjellberg has no connection to either man, and there is zero evidence that their deeds were actually inspired by him. But he was not a randomly chosen target either. For years, Kjellberg has been trying, fairly unsuccessfully, to shed a reputation as a far-right sympathizer. Partly, thats because a few years ago, he made some Holocaust jokes on his channel, which led to a nuclear-grade backlash. And partly, its because Kjellberg responded to being called out for those jokes, and other offensive statements, the way a reactionary might: by mocking his critics, casting himself as the victim of a media smear campaign and refusing to back down.

Modern right-wing extremism is wrapped in so much irony that its hard to know what motivates any particular adherent. The suspects in the shootings in Christchurch and Poway might have been casually trolling PewDiePie by mentioning him in the context of mass murder knowing that it would set off a media frenzy and stall his campaign to rehabilitate his image. They might have been trying to bait reporters into wrongly blaming PewDiePie for the killings. (Which would make those reporters look gullible and out of touch, thereby proving that PewDiePie was right about the media.) They might have just been chaos-loving nihilists. A lot of internet culture exists in this frustrating quantum state things are either total jokes or total nonjokes, depending on their context and your vantage point.

A few weeks after the Poway shooting, Kjellbergs publicist called me. Kjellberg hadnt given an interview in years a guy with millions of YouTube subscribers has little need for reporters but in the wake of the shootings, I had asked, and he agreed to talk. People were accusing him of supporting white nationalism again, and he wanted to explain why they were mistaken. I flew to Brighton, the seaside town in Britain where Kjellberg has lived since 2013, and we met at an Airbnb near his house. He showed up a few minutes late, popping out his earbuds to greet me.

Here we are, he said.

Here we are, I agreed.

In his YouTube videos, Kjellberg is a spring-loaded ball of manic energy he screams, he curses, he cracks himself up. But in person, he was withdrawn and polite, with the stiff body language of a job applicant. He seemed eager to make a good impression, or at least to appear nonthreatening.

Im happy to have this opportunity, he said unconvincingly.

One crucial thing to understand about YouTube is that there are really two of them. The first YouTube is the YouTube that everyone knows the vast reference library filled with sports highlights, music videos and old Comedy Central roasts. But theres a second YouTube inside that one. It is a self-contained universe with its own values and customs, its own incentive structures and market dynamics and its own fully developed celebrity culture that includes gamers, beauty vloggers, musicians, D.I.Y.ers, political commentators, artists and pranksters. The biggest of these personalities have millions of subscribers and Oprah-level influence over their fandoms. Many Inner YouTubers never watch TV and develop elaborate parasocial bonds with their favorite creators. For people who frequent Inner YouTube generally people under 25, along with some older people with abundant free time the site is not just a video platform but a prism through which all culture and information is refracted.

I started hanging out on Inner YouTube in earnest a few years ago, and its scale and insularity was jarring at first. Imagine a genetic mutation that gave everyone born after 1995 the ability to see ultraviolet light. Imagine that these people developed an identity around UV light, started calling themselves UVers and became suspicious of any media product made exclusively on the visible spectrum. As an old person with normal eyes, you would experience this change as a kind of slow cognitive decline. Every day, as more and more of the world played out in UV, you would struggle to catch glimpses of it. All of a sudden, people would be talking about Area 51 or eating Tide Pods, and youd have no idea why. This deep chasm of understanding between Inner YouTube and the rest of the world has proved to be the defining problem of Kjellbergs career.

When Kjellberg started his channel in 2010, YouTube culture hardly existed. He was a 21-year-old college student in Gothenburg, Sweden, who liked playing video games in his apartment. Eventually he took his game footage, superimposed some running commentary in the corner and started uploading it to YouTube early examples of a genre that became known as lets play. Thanks to some combination of goofy charisma and algorithmic luck, Kjellbergs channel blew up, in a way no YouTube channel ever had. In 2012, he hit a million subscribers. The following year, PewDiePie became the biggest channel on the site, and Kjellberg started making serious money a reported $4 million from ads on his channel and was involved in various lucrative offshoot projects, including a deal with the Disney-owned Maker Studios. In 2014, a survey found that PewDiePie was more popular with American teenagers than Katy Perry, Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio.

Despite the fact that PewDiePies audience had grown larger than that of any late-night talk show, many mainstream outlets still treated him like an exotic animal. Journalists wrote breathless stories about his earnings (sample 2014 headline: This Guy Makes Millions Playing Video Games on YouTube. What?!), and late-night hosts puzzled over his mass appeal (Why do you think people like it so much, watching you play games? Stephen Colbert asked him on The Late Show). He appeared on several episodes of South Park, where the running gag was that nobody could understand what he did for a living.

Inside YouTube, PewDiePie was a prized talent. The company put up PewDiePie posters in its headquarters and gave him a starring role in YouTube Rewind, the companys year-in-review video. (Rewind has become a kind of annual report card for Inner YouTubes top creators, who analyze it frame by frame, looking for hints about their place in the platforms pecking order.) During these years, PewDiePie was not just the YouTuber with the biggest channel. To many Inner YouTubers, he represented the values of the platform lo-fi, authentic, defiantly weird. In 2016, when his channel became the first in history to hit 50 million subscribers, YouTube commissioned an enormous ruby-colored statue of the brofist he signs off most videos by raising a clenched hand to the webcam and mailed it to him.

Kjellberg unboxed it in his kitchen with his camera rolling and seemed genuinely moved.

YouTube really has given me everything, he said.

Years ago, YouTube embarked on a radical experiment in self-governance. In 2012, the company vastly expanded the number of creators it allowed to make money from ads on their channels, provided they stayed within some loose boundaries of taste. This made YouTube unique among social platforms, in that it was possible for popular creators to earn a full-time living directly from the platform. YouTube built an algorithm that recommended those creators videos based on how engaging they were. Then it stepped back, let the machines run and let a thousand media moguls bloom.

So Kjellbergs relationship with YouTube has always been a two-way street. His videos brought the company lucrative advertising revenue and a steady stream of loyal users at a time when it was fending off competition from Facebook, Netflix and other video platforms. In exchange, the company promoted his channel and turned a blind eye to some of his more erratic behavior as in 2012, when he was criticized for his habit of referring to beating his video-game opponents as raping them, or in 2016, when he was temporarily banned by Twitter after joking that he was joining ISIS. Kjellberg called these mistakes his oopsies, and he knew they were easily fixed with an apology. At the time, YouTube took pride in being a creators utopia, and PewDiePie was hardly the only one pushing the limits. Gamers with David Duke vocabularies were everywhere, and a nascent group of right-wing reactionaries was beginning to learn that skewering political correctness was a ticket to YouTube virality. But so was a more garden-variety brand of shock humor, carefully calibrated to the sensibilities of teenage boys.

Edgelords people who post offensive things online for attention had always existed on message boards like 4chan. But YouTube brought them out of the shadows and turned provocation into a viable career path. On YouTube, there were few rules and no lawyers looking over creators shoulders which is precisely why millions of young people went there, to find the kind of stuff they couldnt get on TV. The platforms algorithms promoted engaging videos, with little regard for what made them engaging, and showered ad revenue on the most successful channels. And as all kinds of boundary-pushers raced to fill this void, it became harder to tell who had an actual ideology and who was just feeding the machines what they wanted.

Kjellberg knew plenty of edgelords he was a gamer, after all but he never considered himself one of them. Sure, he cursed and shouted while playing video games, but that was normal behavior. Of the hundreds of videos he posted every year, most were solidly PG-13. Around 2015, though, he began to take more risks. He continued playing video games, but he started experimenting. He did viral challenges, made fun of other YouTubers and reviewed meme submissions from his fans. His video titles from that period sound like a jumbled set of X-rated refrigerator-poetry magnets:

SEX WITH YOUR CAR SIMULATOR

FIST ME DADDY

FINGERING SHREK

TOILET EXPLOSION DEATH???

Today Kjellberg attributes this period to a combination of immaturity, boredom and YouTubes platform incentives which encouraged creators to increase their watch time by doing outrageous things. He says that he grew sick of playing video games and that his channels growth had plateaued, which gave him the urge to let loose. Looking back, it was a bubble waiting to burst this bubble of, how far can we push this? Kjellberg told me. I think YouTube at that time was at a place where no one really knew where the limit was.

But Kjellberg did know where the limit was, because he had already started breaching it. In early 2015, he nearly blew up his Maker Studios deal over a video in which he read erotic fan fiction starring characters from the hit Disney movie Frozen. According to a person with knowledge of the incident, Bob Iger, Disneys chief executive, was very upset when he found out that a YouTuber employed by one of his subsidiaries was cackling over pornographic depictions of Elsa and Olaf the Snowman. Iger calmed down after a Maker Studios staff member explained that erotic fan fiction was a popular internet genre. (A spokeswoman for Disney said that Iger found the video to be in poor taste.) Another former colleague of Kjellbergs told me about an incident that happened in November 2016. Kjellberg arrived at a taping of Scare PewDiePie a show he was making for YouTubes premium video service in a T-shirt with a swastika drawn on it. Kjellberg explained that the shirt was part of a running joke on his vlog, in which he and his friends, at least one of whom was Jewish, pranked one another by drawing things on one anothers shirts. The colleague intervened, telling Kjellberg that it would be irresponsible to wear a Nazi symbol on a show that millions of young people would see. (Videos posted by Kjellberg during this period show him and a friend wearing shirts with swastikas drawn on them, but Kjellberg denied wearing one on the shows set.)

I talked to roughly a dozen people who knew or collaborated with Kjellberg during this period, and none thought he was a genuine anti-Semite. Some theorized that Nazi jokes were just the most offensive type of humor he and his friends could imagine, and therefore the funniest. They said he didnt understand the power he had as YouTubes most popular creator, or what millions of impressionable kids might make of a blond, blue-eyed European joking about Hitler. Even today, Kjellberg whose 100 million subscribers would collectively form the 14th-most-populous nation on earth has a hard time making sense of his influence. In his mind, hes just a normal guy who happened to get famous.

My job is just: I go to my office; I record a video in front of a camera, he told me. He then glanced down at the microphones sitting on the table. Its weird for me to be in this position, because I dont really want to be in this position.

In February 2017, Kjellberg learned that The Wall Street Journal was preparing to run an article about nine videos, posted on his channel over the course of six months, that contained anti-Semitic jokes or Nazi imagery. Kjellberg knew that the videos were controversial, and he did some quick damage control. In a post on his Tumblr, he explained, I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. His jokes, he said, were in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes.

Some of the videos The Journal featured were clearly less offensive in context, like the one in which he told his fans to stop building swastikas in a video game. But other jokes like a video in which he tested the limits of what people on the gig website Fiverr would do for money, including paying two Indian men to hold up a sign that read Death to All Jews were harder to explain. A few of these videos captured the attention of established anti-Semitic groups, who speculated that Kjellberg wasnt totally kidding and might be converting to their cause. The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi hate site, was so hopeful that it changed its tagline to the worlds #1 PewDiePie fan site. Today, Kjellberg blames himself for stepping over the line, but he also characterizes what happened as a kind of category error a group of outsiders, blind to UV light, who mistook his trolling for genuine hate. Of course, even people who understood that he was trolling found it irresponsible. As a writer on the video-game website Polygon put it, Intent only gets you so far when it comes to toying with hate speech in front of an audience of tens of millions, many of whom are younger children.

The fallout from The Journals article was swift and brutal. Maker Studios ended its partnership with Kjellberg, and YouTube canceled his Scare PewDiePie series and dropped him from a V.I.P. advertising program. By the end of the day, Kjellberg who was on a Valentines Day getaway with his longtime girlfriend, Marzia Bisognin, when the article went online was in danger of losing his whole empire. I spent the day being in this little cottage with no internet, he said. And then I go on Twitter, and theres J.K. Rowling calling me a fascist, and Im like: How is this happening? This is crazy.

A few days later, Kjellberg posted an angry, defensive video in which he vacillated between self-deprecation and grandiosity, accusing The Journal of punching down at a rookie comedian seconds before saying things like, Old-school media does not like internet personalities because theyre scared of us. He recast The Journals article as a conspiracy, implying that the jealous, dishonest mainstream media had ginned up a fake controversy in order to take him (and by extension, all of YouTube) down a peg. By turning attention to the news media, Kjellberg found a fight he could win. Mainstream outlets had, in fact, botched some of their early coverage of YouTube culture, and YouTubers were inherently suspicious that the media establishment saw them as competition.

PewDiePie felt besieged, even though his audience dwarfed that of any mainstream media outlet and the Bro Army agreed. For weeks, they barraged The Journals reporters with harassment and threats, and even dug up off-color jokes one reporter made years earlier on Twitter. Kjellberg promptly featured the tweets in a video; afterward, the reporter received so many death threats that The Journal offered to briefly move him out of his house. The Bro Army also took aim at YouTube, which fans believed was siding with the media and punishing PewDiePie in response to outside pressure. When the 2017 version of YouTube Rewind came out, he was nowhere to be found.

After the Journal article, Kjellberg seemed to lose whatever was left of his inhibitions. He started his own parody news series, Pew News, in which he mocked the media and dissected negative articles about him. He took on the kinds of culture-war topics he once avoided, like microaggressions and the wage gap. Kjellberg never identified himself as a conservative, but his new, more politicized views attracted the attention of right-wing personalities like Carl Benjamin, a British YouTuber known as Sargon of Akkad, and Alex Jones, who offered Kjellberg a guest slot on Infowars. (Kjellberg politely declined.)

Kjellberg also kept making oopsies bad ones, the kind that would instantly end careers anywhere outside YouTube. In a September 2017 video, he yelled nigger on a gaming live stream. (He apologized, saying in a video, I know I cant keep messing up like this.) In 2018, he recommended an anime review channel that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be rife with anti-Semitic and hateful content. These scandals made Kjellberg toxic outside YouTube. But they only strengthened his fan bases perception of him as a martyr, a symbol of YouTubes freewheeling culture sacrificed at the altar of corporate profits. And they endeared him to the alt-right, which saw in him a potentially valuable ally. In an age of ruthless cultural conformity, someone like PewDiePie isnt supposed to exist, Paul Joseph Watson, a far-right YouTube commentator, said in a 2019 video defending Kjellberg from his critics. Which is why theyve tried to tear him down, over and over again.

Kjellberg and I sat in the Airbnb together for an entire afternoon, and I spent at least an hour trying to pin down his actual political beliefs or get him to talk about how this period of intense criticism shaped his views. He spoke freely about his feud with the news media he now regrets going after the Journal reporters, he said, especially given what happened to them afterward but when the conversation approached partisan politics, he clammed up. He told me that he was more apolitical than anything, and when I asked him whether he was more right-wing or left-wing, he said he was somewhere in between. We had a lot of long, futile exchanges like this:

Are there any politicians who excite you?

No.

Like, anywhere in the world?

I couldnt name one, no.

What did you think about UKIP endorsing you? I asked. On Twitter, the far-right British party had recently told its followers to subscribe to his channel to stop T-Series from overtaking him.

Its kind of funny how a political party would post about a meme, he said. But its also kind of like, Ehh, dont drag me into your politics.

To Kjellberg, the past few years have proved that there is no reward for engaging in politics, even if it would be good fodder for his channel. He is especially annoyed that he continues to be linked to the far right, despite his insistence that he doesnt support its causes. When Kjellberg is accused of being far right, he doesnt respond by protesting that hes actually a classical liberal or a heterodox Stoic or whatever YouTube reactionaries are calling themselves these days. Instead, he insists that hes not interested in politics at all. Its a clever strategic position for a guy whose audience straddles the partisan divide.

But its also plausible, if you watch more than a few of the roughly 4,000 videos on his channel. PewDiePie doesnt endorse candidates, debate podcast hosts or make fun of transgender-bathroom bills. He plays video games, reads memes off Reddit and sometimes jokes about stuff in the news. His political preferences, to the extent they exist, seem almost entirely predicated on entertainment value. President Trump, he told me, became a meme for a while, until it stopped being funny. And while recent history has taught us that extremists often use stupid memes to smuggle their views into the mainstream, in Kjellbergs case, the memes themselves seem to be the point.

Kjellberg described the New Zealand shooting as a major turning point in his life. The morning after, he was in bed, struggling to get back to sleep, when his phone began buzzing. He saw, on Twitter and in a flurry of texts, that the shooting suspect had said, Subscribe to PewDiePie just before he began his slaughter. After Kjellberg absorbed the shock, a sequence began unspooling in his mind. First, the news media which wouldnt understand that all that Subscribe to PewDiePie stuff was as much a joke as an actual endorsement would accuse him of inspiring a mass murderer. All the Nazi stuff would come back up. He would have to issue a statement, and doing so would make it seem as though he were drawing attention to himself and away from the victims.

It had been about a month since the shooting when I asked Kjellberg about it, and he looked genuinely pained. He repeated his concern for the victims and their families, and he reiterated what he said about himself a hundred times before: He wasnt a white nationalist, and he didnt condone violence. He told me that he was planning to release a video calling for an end to the Subscribe to PewDiePie campaign and was hoping to return to his roots as a goofy, uncontroversial gaming vlogger.

We parted ways. And then, for whatever its worth, everything he said would happen did. A few days after our interview, he persuaded his fans to end Subscribe to PewDiePie. He stopped grinding axes with the news media and started playing Minecraft again. He and Bisognin married and went on their honeymoon. He got new advertising deals, and he returned to YouTubes good graces. YouTube sent him a red diamond play button on the occasion of his 100 millionth subscriber, along with a congratulatory letter from Susan Wojcicki, the chief executive a sign that, in the companys eyes, he has turned back from the edge.

The charitable way to interpret PewDiePies new attitude is that he has actually grown up, developed a thicker skin and taken stock of his own power and responsibility. The more pragmatic way is to point out that Kjellberg is a professional YouTuber and that for now, at least his career prospects are partly dependent on his ability to stay out of trouble. Either way, if Kjellberg ever achieves something like redemption, it will always be complicated by the world-historic nature of his YouTube stardom and the daily high-wire act it requires of him. Stand too close to the edge, and he risks jeopardizing his standing with the people who sign his checks, host his videos and write about him on gaming websites. Stand too far from the edge, and he risks looking like a sellout in front of 100 million fans, many of whom follow him expressly for the unfiltered straight talk or worse and could turn on him if they sense that he is taking directions from above.

In September, after reaching 100 million subscribers, PewDiePie uploaded a new video. In it, he pledged to give $50,000 to the Anti-Defamation League, one organization that criticized him for joking about the Holocaust. It was a symbolic gesture of closure, a signal that he had matured and was ready to apologize and move on. Ive finally come to terms, he said, with the responsibility I have as a creator.

Some of his fans, though, werent ready to bury the hatchet. They barraged the videos comment section with anti-Semitic slurs and conspiracy theories and accused the Anti-Defamation League of blackmailing him into making a donation. Some of them were actual anti-Semites, but others were just suspicious. Why would PewDiePie donate to an organization that criticized him? Was he being bullied? They had been conditioned to think that any time a YouTuber apologized for stepping over the line, it was because someone from the outside a media organization, an advertiser, YouTube corporate was forcing his or her hand. As his second family, one commenter on a PewDiePie-themed subreddit wrote, I feel like were obligated to voice our concerns when theres something clearly not right here.

The next day, Kjellberg posted another video and announced that he wasnt giving the $50,000 to the Anti-Defamation League after all. He said that it doesnt feel genuine for me to proceed with a donation at this point and that he didnt know a lot of things about the groups activities when he made the pledge. He would find another charity, he said, one that better represented his values. Some people interpreted Kjellbergs about-face as a sign that he wasnt actually sorry for the Nazi jokes. Others surmised, probably more accurately, that he feared offending his most vocal fans more than he feared the criticism he would face for retracting a donation to a Jewish anti-hate group. No one was particularly happy, least of all Kjellberg, who took to his YouTube channel to confess that he just wanted to make the drama go away.

Watching all this play out, I thought about something he told me back in Brighton. We had been talking about the likelihood that T-Series would soon dethrone him after six years as YouTubes top creator. Kjellberg surprised me by saying that it didnt really bother him that, in fact, he had been getting nostalgic for the days when he had fewer subscribers. He confessed that he periodically thought about giving up on YouTube altogether. His wife had given up her popular YouTube channel last year. I suggested that he could do the same thing shutter his channel and spend his days lounging on a hammock somewhere with her.

Dont tempt me, he said with a smile. I kind of question if the positive outweighs the negative, he went on. Its a lot more than I think I signed up for. He seemed to catch himself mid-daydream and clarified: Deleting his channel is not something he would really go through with. Like many other extreme ideas, its just something he plays with from time to time.

Original post:

What Does PewDiePie Really Believe? - The New York Times

When the thriller Parasite premiered at Cannes in May, a hashtag appeared on Twitter: #BongHive. A swarm of devoteesboth those at Cannes and others living vicariously through themwere showing their support for the Korean director Bong Joon-ho, unaware that he was about to make history: His film would go on to win top prize at the festivalthe coveted Palme dOra momentous first for South Korea. So momentous, in fact, that a new term started trending among film fans on the internet: Bong dOr (with merch soon following, naturally).

Bong seems especially tickled by that pun. He exploded with laughter when I mentioned it during our interview on an October afternoon at the Whitby Hotel in midtown Manhattan, though it cant be the first time hes heard it. (He admits hes only vaguely aware of his online hive since he doesnt use social media.) But its impossible to ignore the fact that Parasite is a Big Deal: Not only is it already a global box office hit, but there are also whispers of a possible Best Picture nomination at the Oscars next year. (A lot of pressure rides on the latter, as South Korea has never been nominated, even in the Foreign Film category, though theyve submitted 31 films since 1962; the closest they ever came was last years shortlisting of Lee Chang-dongs Burning.) Hailed as a masterpiece, Parasite is a hilariously twisted, anxiety-riddled film about a poor family that infiltrates a wealthy household. The film, which opens on Friday, hasnt suffered post-festival comedownCannes favorites, especially Palme winners, can often be hit-or-miss, but Parasite lives up to the hype.

When Memories of Murder, Bongs breakout sophomore feature, came out in 2003, he established himself as a leading force in a new wave of Korean cinema, in league with fellow countrymen who were telling serious, gritty stories of ambitious scope. In 2006, Bong made the monster movie The Host, reminding us that a creature feature could be smart, not sillyit was infused with family drama and social commentary while still being a blockbuster hit. His 2009 feature Mother took him back to his crime-realism roots and nabbed him the first Oscar submission from his home country (Parasite is the second). His two films before Parasite were proof that Bong was on the Hollywood radar, with Chris Evans starring in 2013s Snowpiercer (a dystopian rich-versus-poor thriller) and Jake Gyllenhaal in 2017s Okja (an animal-liberation fantasy adventure about a large pig-like creature). Tilda Swintonwhos known for her unusual, daring role choices in working with visionariesappeared in both. (I am entirely devoted to his work as a filmmaker and would be happy to assist in any way to support and help to protect his vision in the future, Swinton told WWD in 2017 about her collaborations with Bong.)

With Parasite (Gisaengchung in Korean), the 50-year-old director is back to working with an all-Korean cast. His muse, Song Kang-ho, who appeared in Memories of Murder, The Host, and Snowpiercer, stars as the patriarch of Parasites poverty-stricken family. As a director, its pretty simple: We love good actors, Bong said about returning to Song time and time again. But, more than that, he acts with insight with every small detail and nuance, and never goes against the big context that surrounds the film. When he plays a scene, I think the audience is more convinced that something like that could happen.

By the time we met, Bong had gained more momentum from the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival circuits. This may sound a little irresponsible, but to be very honest, regardless of whether its an international or domestic audience, I create films for me, for my own joy, he said. I always pursue things that seem new and fun for me and I try to satisfy myself. Bong had been traveling a lot recentlyfrom Toronto to Seoul to Los Angeles to New York, before heading to Los Angeles again. He was jet-lagged, naturally, and nursing a sty with an iced coffee.Is your eye OK? I asked in Korean. He paused his irritated eye-rubbing and shot his hand out to me. Shall we shake hands? he asked, then guffawed with a hearty belly laugh.

Bong has a sense of humor, but that much is obvious from his movies. I initially watched Parasite in Korea this past summer, and then again in New York in October with a mostly non-Korean-speaking crowd. Subtitled or not, the film elicits laughter in almost exactly the same way: the creative hoaxes, the eccentricities of the wealthy, the foul-mouthed gruffness of the Kims. Bong said hes secretly sat in on the movie in many different cities: They laugh at the same things, are shocked by the same things, he said. But the crowd favoritea beloved laughingstock of sortsseems to be the naive matriarch of the rich family, Mrs. Park (Jo Yeo-jeong), who gullibly falls for one glorious scam after another. Through a chain reaction of forgery and setups, all four members of the barely-making-ends-meet Kim family manipulate the Parks into hiring them: first the son as the tutor (rebranding himself with the English name Kevin), then the daughter as the art teacher-cum-therapist (also rebranded as Jessica), then the father as the driver, and finally, the mother as the maid, pushing out the woman who had lived in the mansion even before the Parks moved in. Mrs. Park is simple, according to a friend of Kevin, and she has a penchant for mixing English phrases into her speecha gauche signifier of sophistication and a reflection of Koreas Americonophilia. She probably takes Pilates lessons, works out diligently, and has a native-speaker conversation teacher who she meets once a week to practice her English, Bong said of the backstory hes imagined for Mrs. Park. But she has no chance to use it, so whenever she gets the opportunity, it just slips out of her. The actor [Jo] was very entertained by it.

Speaking with Bong, I, too, mixed my Korean with Englishotherwise known as Konglishas we contextualized the polar-opposite living situations of the Kims and the Parks. The Kims spend their days climbing on top of their toilet to leech free Wi-Fi from inside their semi-basement, while the Parks live in an architectural utopia. The glass mansion where the Parks residewhich, by the way, was a digitally furnished soundstage setalmost seems like a fantasy. Most well-to-do Koreans live in luxury apartments; to live in a house like that would mean you were at the tippity-top of the food chain. When I expressed my disbelief at that residence, Bong told me to check out Seongbuk-dong, a rich neighborhood in northern Seoul, the next time Im in Korea. The house in the film may be a set, but the exteriors of streets were shot there, and Bong assured me people really do live like that, even in a crammed city like Seoul.

Those even somewhat familiar with Bongs filmography will notice his continued fascination with class differences. In his school days, Bong was embedded in protests, in a country recovering from military dictatorship. His most recent films all have to do with laypeople fighting against authoritarian forces in a capitalist system. The distinction between good versus evil were a bit clearer in Okja and Snowpiercer, but Parasite is more complicated than that, and those nuances make it a richer film. All characters in Parasite are in the gray zone, Bong said. Theyre all nice to some degree and bad to some degree. And I think thats closer to reality. There are twists to the films allianceswhich I wont spoil herebut rooting for one family or another is never very easy.

Bong name-checks Jordan Peele and Ken Loach as filmmakers also concerned with class. But Bongs socioeconomic themesalso present in Lees Burning, another tale of class warfare, as well as the countless Korean shows and films pitting the haves against the have-notscan feel like a specifically Korean cinematic interest. That can be credited to South Koreas uniquely rapid economic boom, which largely happened under the military dictatorship of President Park Chung-hee, who aggressively prioritized economic growth over civil liberties. I turned 50 this year and during the past half-century, I watched Korea develop into a pretty rich nation, Bong said. But, like Germany and first-world nations of Europe, the richer the country gets, the more the relative gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider. And so you get this polarization. And I think Korea is the same.

In Parasite, that gap pervades every aspect of the two families livesin smell (an important part of the film) and in the literal climate. When a torrential storm hits, the Kims abode is almost devastated, while the heavy downpour becomes a fun excuse for the Parks young son to camp out in a tent in the front yard. Its both fascinating and sickening to watch.

Yet for all the sensationalism and even fantastical elements of Parasite, Bong gives his audience a reality check as they exit the theaters. Its something only Korean speakers may catch: The end-credits song, Soju One Glass, composed by Jung Jae Il, is sung by Choi Woo-sik, who plays Ki-woo (a.k.a. Kevin), the Kim family son and a key figure throughout the film. As people were leaving the theater, I wanted them to hear Ki-woos voice at the end, Bong said. So I asked the actor to sing the song and I wrote the lyrics myself. The unsubtitled words to the song document a hard days work thats filled with pollution and calloused hands and ends with drinking soju. Initially Bong wanted something a bit optimisticand the up-strum guitar and Chois boyish voice convey thatbut eventually the lyrics were not so optimistic. I really wanted to relay the sense that he is continuing to just live his life and work and maybe after work he comes home to have a shot of soju, Bong said. Just that very simple sense that hes living on with his life.

Surprisingly, Bong is optimistic about the future despite constant reminders of a turbulent climate ahead. It will get better, he said, speaking of his 23-year-old son and possible future grandchildrens generations. Its heartening to hear that from Bong, and we parted in high spiritswith a handshake. As I left the room, I suddenly remembered that he was rubbing his eye with that hand. Getting infected by the director of Parasite might not be so bad, I thought. But I ran to the bathroom and vigorously washed my hands anyway.

Kristen Yoonsoo Kim is a South Koreaborn, New Yorkbased writer whose work has appeared in GQ, Pitchfork, and elsewhere.

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Bong Joon-ho Talks Parasite and the Wealth Gap in South Korea - The Ringer

Published: 10/7/2019 6:00:56 PM

Ofelia Fernndez bursts into the room with a large smile on her face. She has come for an interview between a million other things.

On Oct. 27, Argentina faces an important election from the presidential to the municipal levels. Ofelia is running to be a legislator for the city of Buenos Aires; if she wins, she will be the youngest person to do so. Ofelia does not want to talk about her age. She wants to talk politics.

Argentina has a vibrant feminist movement, which became a major political force a few years ago with the Ni Una Menos or Not One More Woman movement. Massive demonstrations in her native Buenos Aires drew Ofelia into this orbit. Ni Una Menos, the protestors chanted, and then others answered, viva nos queremos! (we want us alive).

At that time, Ofelia was the president of her high school student union. Her society, she said forthrightly then, is 100% machista, but we are now starting to hear about abortion, about womens trafficking, about femicide. We are starting to speak about gender inequality. Ofelia, then 15, said Being a feminist is about understanding these realities, criticizing them, but mostly it is about doing something to transform them.

Argentina has been in the midst of a terrible economic crisis, exacerbated by its President Mauricio Macri. A visit to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year put Argentina at the mercy of Washington, D.C. Borrowing came alongside demands by the IMF for austerity inside Argentina. The countrys currency plummeted, its peoples incomes and savings collapsed. Because of the widespread unhappiness with his government, the situation is known as the Macrisis.

There is a sensation of chaos, Ofelia tells me, an uncertainty about the future, a feeling that this government is simply unable to keep up with the problems that it faces.

Ofelia is running as a candidate of the coalition known as Frente de Todos Everybodys Front, which is led by Alberto Fernndez and Christina Fernndez de Kirchner (the former president). Neither Alberto nor Christina are related to Ofelia. The logo of the Front is clever. The second ois replaced by a sun. This removes the masculine sense in the word todos; young Argentinians often use an xor an eas part of their anti-patriarchal culture. The bright sun in the logo also offers a symbol of hope and aspiration.

Feminism is key to Ofelia, but in a broad way. Last year, the feminist journalist Luciana Peker described the new movement for abortion rights as the revolution of the daughters(la revolucin de las hijas). Ofelia was happy to talk about the abortion campaign. If her coalition wins, she said, it will take up the issue vigorously and not allow it to fail as it did last year.

But Ofelia does not want to define her politics narrowly. She wanted to make it clear that feminism must take up all the social issues from a feminist perspective not allow itself to be restricted to womens issues,which are themselves, she pointed out, everyones issues.

In the poorer parts of Argentina, organizations have emerged to fight against the outcome of the crisis. Hunger is a serious issue, with special emphasis on the hunger of children. Most of the leaders of these popular organizations, Ofelia said, are women. Their fight around the economy of care and against austerity must also be seen as a feminist fight. The fight against hunger, Ofelia said, is also feminism.

The political system imagines that women are only interested in womens issues, she said, when women in politics must be interested in power. The entire framework of policymaking what is known as neoliberalism must be challenged. Governments must create policies that lift the capacity of the people, not that only answer to the bond holders and the creditors. This is the kind of politics imagined by Ofelia.

In the election this year, 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to cast their votes for the first time in the national election. There are now 6million people between the ages of 18 and 24. They comprise 22% of the electorate.

The major social campaigns of the past few years particularly the feminist campaign galvanized many young people, including Ofelia, into politics. Polling data shows that these young people define their political landscape around the issues of gender violence, abortionand racism. This suggests that they will vote for the coalition to which Ofelia belongs.

Across Argentina, I run into young people who belong to Ofelias political tendency Frente Patria Grande. This political organization emerged out of the mass demonstrations in 2001-02 around the collapse of Argentinas economy. Large numbers of people blocked streets and banged pots and pans, earning themselves the name the piqueteros (the picketers). Most of those who took to the streets were women, which is why there are so many women in Patria Grande.

Ofelia says that her generation needs a new utopia. They want to believe in anything other than the reality that does not meet their expectations. They want a world of gender equality and without environmental destruction, a world where bankers do not suffocate dreams.

We are impatient, she says. Our impatience is a strength. It must be accompanied by perseverance. We cannot give up.

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Columnist Vijay Prashad: This feminist is the future of Argentina - GazetteNET

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley writes about labs in which the traits of future infants are selected. Fetuses destined to become simple workers undergo manipulation to lower their IQs. Others are calibrated to develop frigophobia an unnatural fear of cold so that they can work at the equator. In some, the sense of balance is tampered with, enabling them to work more readily in outer space. The basic attributes of each individual are corrected and modified according to a predetermined future.

A fantasy some of us harbor is to engineer our own genius babies with light or dark hair, of basketball-player height to suit our personal taste. In short, designer babies. But at least some of what was once science fiction is today an integral part of artificial insemination.

Some inherited diseases are caused by a disorder in a single gene. Various syndromes are related to the sex of the embryo. Once an initial cell cluster forms, the genes of the embryo can be examined to ascertain its sex, and whether it is carrying a hereditary disease. Thus, only embryos not carrying the flawed gene will be returned to the uterus.

For ethical reasons, most countries in the developed world prohibit additional manipulations. The only modification parents are permitted to make is to reject an embryo in accordance with certain conditions. In China, though, at least one scientist thought the situation was too restricted.

In November 2018, a Chinese biophysicist named He Jiankui announced that he had succeeded in altering the genetic structure of twins with the use of CRISPR technology, which allows change at the level of gene. Jiankuis goal was to render the embryos resistant to the AIDS virus by modifying a particular gene. According to him, the children had been born the preceding month.

Jiankui did not publish an article about the case in any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and his methods were not examined by an external team of scientists. Jiankui forged the documents of the committee that approved the research, and its not even known whether the parents who took part in the project gave their agreement. Moreover, no external verification exists that the effort achieved its goal in other words, that the embryos were genetically modified in the lab and that the modifications were expressed in the newborns.

The most important aspect of this research, however, lies in the discussion it stirred about the possibility of genetic editing of embryos. Existing technology allows gene editing to be carried out by the splicing out of undesirable elements and their replacement with others. In contrast to the process of in vitro fertilization and the subsequent transfer of the resultant healthy embryo into the uterus, gene editing works by modifying the existing genome.

The biological dilemma is relatively straightforward. The human genetic system is complicated and complex; modification in one place could cause unexpected change. Accordingly, its necessary to wait with experiments involving humans until were certain that a particular modification is genuinely site-specific. Were short of information that would enable precise genetic manipulation, and it may take decades before well be capable of repairing embryonic flaws with certainty. Here, too, as is often the case, technology advances faster than ethical discourse.

The ethical issue, however, is far more complicated. Should the modification of the genetics of embryos be allowed? Theres a difference between not using an embryo with a known fatal condition and repairing a genetic flaw.

The World Health Organization has established a panel of experts tasked with setting international criteria for what may and not be done to human embryos. In the meantime, genetic manipulation is prohibited in most of the world, and special authorization is required to perform embryonic genetic modifications.

Even as the various committees meet and discuss the issues, however, a Russian biologist named Denis Rebrikov has announced that he is planning to carry out additional CRISPR experiments on human embryos. He intends to modify the same gene that He Jiankui did, but in a different way, in the hope of achieving better and more precise results.

Risk-free pregnancy?

In the 1999 film The Matrix, the protagonist discovers that he and other humans are hooked up to a sophisticated computer program that simulates a human environment. The machines running the world use human bodies to produce energy, and people are no longer born, but are, rather, bred in vast fields so they can be used in powering the computers. They still think theyre experiencing life, however, because they are connected, through the brain, to machines, and spend their whole life in a liquid-filled bag.

Is this a utopia or a dystopia?

The film maintains that such a future would be blacker than black, and that the purpose of humans is to thrive far from the control of machines, free to do whatever they please, and of course to continue to multiply by means of pregnancy and birth. But imagine a situation in which embryos are bred in bags of liquids that nurture them as they develop and can be harvested when they are ready. Perhaps The Matrix presents a sort of utopia?

Pregnancy is an extreme physiological condition, which has the potential to endanger the life of the mother and the fetus. According to WHO data, 830 women die around the world every day from pregnancy and childbirth complications leading to a total of more than 300,000 deaths, for example, in 2015. And 99 percent of those deaths occur in developing countries, about half of them in sub-Saharan Africa and a third in South Asia. The risk of mortality from complications of pregnancy and delivery is particularly high among girls under 15.

By comparison, in the United States, about 700 women a year die as a result of pregnancy and labor complications, and more than 50,000 women develop various complications during pregnancy and childbirth. What is truly worrisome in this context is that while there is a downward trend in the world, in the United States there was a significant increase in maternal mortality during the past decade.

The main causes of death in pregnancy are bleeding, contamination and preeclampsia. In developed countries, such as those in Europe, efficient, safe treatment exists for these disorders. The primary contributing factors to pregnancy and childbirth complications are poverty, lack of access to health services, and a dearth of information about safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. Even if the number of cases in developed countries is far lower, the reasons remain identical.

In all countries, premature delivery namely, before the 37th week is a leading cause of child mortality. The earlier a child is born, the less mature his organs will be, something that can lead to systemic failure, infection and death. About a million infants die worldwide every year due to complications arising from premature birth. Around 60 percent of the preemies are born in countries of Africa and East Asia. The causes of premature birth vary, and include multiple pregnancies, infections and a range of chronic diseases.

In developed countries, there are options for assisting women in labor, treatments for preventing premature birth and, of course, access to proper health services. In addition, once they are born, preemies can get far better treatment in developed countries, thus significantly lowering the mortality rate associated with premature birth.

External mothers

The uterus is far more than a bag filled with fluids. Its a combination fetal sleeping bag, restaurant, toilet and oxygen mask. Its mission is to safeguard the developing embryo from slightly after fertilization until the fetus is delivered. Safeguard in all senses: to enable the passage to the fetus of nutritional substances and oxygen, and the evacuation of waste via the placenta, which is connected to the uterus by the umbilical cord, and also to protect the fetus physically in various situations. Because the placenta filters the substances that reach the fetus, only a small number of diseases the mother might contract are transmitted to the embryo. Oxygen passes through the blood directly into the fetal body by means of special blood vessels in the umbilical cord.

Medicine today is able to preserve the infants body temperature, protect it from the environment and supply it with nutrients, but it doesnt know how to introduce oxygen directly into its blood. The only artificial uterus that exists today is the incubator. Its disadvantage is that its capable of helping only infants born from the sixth month on. In other words, an incubator is not capable of assisting an infant born earlier than that, still less could it be the venue for a full pregnancy.

The ideas presented below for technology that could potentially enable out-of-body pregnancies are still in stages of experimentation in animals, and not yet close to being tried in human beings.

Idea No. 1: Biological bag

The first stage in the development of an artificial uterus is to try to advance the period during which the fetus can be born and survive. That is, to develop a sophisticated incubator. Thats exactly what the biological bag (biobag) looks like. Durable and sterile, its made of transparent polyethylene, making it possible to monitor the fetus and to maintain uterine-like pressure and form. Its filled with artificial amniotic fluid, the fetus is placed in it and connected to an exchange system through the blood vessels in its umbilical cord (just like in the womb: oxygen and nutrients pass from mother to fetus; carbon dioxide and waste pass from fetus to mother). The bag is closed and we have an incubator potentially capable of keeping preemies alive already from the fifth month of pregnancy.

The amniotic fluid is replaced frequently in order to preserve a clean environment for the preemies development, the bag itself is placed on a temperature-controlled surface in order to maintain proper body heat, and if an infection is detected, it can be treated with antibiotics. Some medications and other substances can be administered directly via other large blood vessels in the fetal body; this is in fact done with preemies. But the purpose of the bag is to replicate as closely as possible the uterine environment while reducing the need for medical procedures to be carried out on the fetus.

How close are we to using this technology on humans?

Experiments conducted on fetal lambs showed that they developed in the biobag like their fellow animals in the womb. After four weeks in the bag they could be delivered and allowed to breathe normally. In human terms, this would be equivalent to delivery in the fifth month being initially transferred to a biobag and afterward to a regular incubator. Most important, it appears that the brain of the lambs in the biobag developed identically to that of lambs in the womb, with no significant adverse effects. The big advantage of the bag is that it treats the preemie as though it were not yet born, in contrast to a regular incubator, in which the newborn is obligated to breathe on its own and cope with the outside world, to some extent.

Idea No. 2: Artificial placenta

The placenta is the organ that connects mother and fetus. Oxygen arrives at the placenta by way of the mothers blood, by means of which it is passed into the fetus blood; carbon dioxide takes the opposite route and empties into the mothers blood for disposal. One of the placentas functions is to filter the mothers blood before it reaches the fetus. When we speak of substances that infiltrate the placenta, we are referring to those capable of penetrating the wall of the mothers blood vessels and passing through to the blood vessels of the fetus, which can cause damage.

The underlying idea of the artificial placenta sounds similar to the biobag, but in this case the preemie is in a regular incubator, though with two significant differences: for one, its lungs remain filled with liquid; and, the blood vessels in the umbilical cord and the cervical vein are connected to a system that enables oxygenation of the blood and removal from it of carbon dioxide. Unlike the biobag, the uterine environment is not fully replicated here, though there is replication of the basic function of the placenta, in order to allow the lungs to develop to a degree that will make it possible to connect the newborn to a ventilator.

How close are we to using this technology on humans?

Experiments have shown that this method is effective and allows the lungs to develop properly. These experiments, too, are currently being carried out on animals to gauge the effectiveness and safety of this technology.

Barbaric present

The science-fiction genre was launched with a story about parenthood being effected without the need for a womb. Victor Frankenstein, conceived in the imagination of Mary Shelley, found a way to connect organs and create new life in his laboratory, without the aid of any reproductive organ.

The idea of containers for breeding babies is scattered here and there in science fiction, but only a few works in the genre examine the effect an artificial womb would have on the life of the mother and the embryo. One of the most fascinating such accounts can be found in Barrayar, a 1991 novel by Lois McMaster Bujold. Near the beginning of the book it turns out that the protagonist, a decorated officer, is pregnant. She reflects on the world she came from, in which womb replications are standard practice, and about how she never noticed the difference between vitro and vivo babies like her. But at the moment shes in a backward world, where women are expected to bear the whole pregnancy by themselves, without any choice, unlike civilized worlds where an embryo can be planted in a replicator, to wait until its parents obtain a permit to raise it.

Later, it becomes necessary to transfer a fetus from the uterus to an artificial container in order to save its life, and the heroine is delighted to see the civilized replicator, in contrast to the barbaric and primitive style of pregnancy that exists in the world where she is now.

The placenta is transferred to the replicator, and after its accepted the connected fetus is moved to it. The umbilical cord is attached to a monitor that injects oxygen into it, and finally the replicator is filled with amniotic fluid and the container is closed, to allow the fetus to go on developing.

In our reality, an artificial womb that will be inexpensive and accessible, and which can be used in developing countries, would be able to save the lives of both the mother and the infant. The more available and the cheaper the technology is, the greater the number of lives that can be saved. In the end, maybe we, too, will look on a world in which women were compelled to carry the fetus by themselves as a barbaric, primitive place.

Dr. Keren Landsman specializes in epidemiology and public health, and is a founder of Midaat, an organization dedicated to promoting public health in Israel. Special thanks to doctoral student Hadas Sloin, who helped in writing this article.

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We may soon gestate babies in fluid-filled bags and it will save lives - Haaretz