Category Archives: New Utopia

A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry.

No one likes to think about limits, especially in the tech industry, where the idea of putting constraints on almost anything is perceived as anathema.

In fact, the entire tech industry is arguably built on the concept of bursting through limitations and enabling things that werent possible before. New technology developments have clearly created incredible new capabilities and opportunities, and have generally helped improve the world around us.

But there does come a point and I think weve arrived there where its worth stepping back to both think about and talk about the potential value of, yes, technology limits ... on several different levels.

On the positive side, theres a sense that technologies like AI or autonomous driving are going to solve enormous societal issues in a matter of a few years.

On a technical level, weve reached a point where advances in computing applications like AI, or medical applications like gene splicing, are raising even more ethical questions than practical ones on issues such as how they work and for what applications they might be used. Not surprisingly, there arent any clear or easy answers to these questions, and its going to take a lot more time and thought to create frameworks or guidelines for both the appropriate and inappropriate uses of these potentially life-changing technologies.

Does this mean these kinds of technological advances should be stopped? Of course not. But having more discourse on the types of technologies that get created and released certainly needs to happen.

Even on a practical level, the need for limiting peoples expectations about what a technology can or cannot do is becoming increasingly important. With science-fiction-like advances becoming daily occurrences, its easy to fall into the trap that there are no limits to what a given technology can do. As a result, people are increasingly willing to believe and accept almost any kind of statements or predictions about the future of many increasingly well-known technologies, from autonomous driving to VR to AI and machine learning. I hate to say it, but its the fake news of tech.

Just as weve seen the fallout from fake news on all sides of the political perspective, so, too, are we starting to see that unbridled and unlimited expectations for certain new technologies are starting to have negative implications of their own. Essentially, were starting to build unrealistic expectations for a tech-driven nirvana that doesnt clearly jibe with the realities of the modern world, particularly in the time frames that are often discussed.

In fact, Id argue that a lot of the current perspectives on where the technology industry is and where its headed are based on a variety of false pretenses, some positively biased and some negatively biased. On the positive side, theres a sense that technologies like AI or autonomous driving are going to solve enormous societal issues in a matter of a few years. On the negative side, there are some who see the tech industry as being in a stagnant period, still hunting for the next big thing beyond the smartphone.

Neither perspective is accurate, but ironically, both stem from the same myth of limitlessness that seems to pervade much of the thinking in the tech industry. For those with the positive spin, I think its critical to be willing to admit to a technologys limitations, in addition to touting its capabilities.

On the negative side, there are some who see the tech industry as being in a stagnant period, still hunting for the next big thing beyond the smartphone.

So, for example, its okay to talk about the benefits that something like autonomous driving can bring to certain people in certain environments, but its equally important to acknowledge that it isnt going to be a great fit for everyone, everywhere. Realistically and practically speaking, we are still a very long way from having a physical, legal, economic and political environment for autonomous cars to dramatically impact the transportation needs of most consumers. On the other hand, the ability for these autonomous transportation technologies to start having a dramatic impact on public transportation systems or shipping fleets over the next several years seems much more realistic (even if it is a lot less sexy).

For those with a more negative bias, its important to recognize that not all technologies have to be universally applicable to make them useful or successful. The newly relaunched Google Glass, for example, is no longer trying to be the next-generation computing device and industry disruptor that it was initially thought to be. Instead, its being focused on (or limited to) work-based applications, where its a great fit. As a result, it wont see the kind of sales figures that something like an iPhone will, but thats okay, because its actually doing what it is best designed to do.

Accepting and publicly acknowledging that certain technologies cant do some things isnt a form of weakness its a form of strength. In fact, it creates a more realistic scenario for them to succeed. Similarly, recognizing that while some technologies are great, they may not be great for everything, doesnt mean theyre a failure. Some technologies and products can be great for certain sub-segments of the market and still be both a technical and financial success.

If, however, we keep thinking that every new technology or tech industry concept can be endlessly extended without limits everything in my life as service, really? were bound to be greatly disappointed on many different levels. Instead, if we view them within a more limited and, in some cases more specialized, scope, then were much more likely to accurately judge what they can (or cannot) do and set expectations accordingly. Thats not a limit, its a value.

Bob ODonnell is the founder and chief analyst of Technalysis Research LLC, a technology consulting and market research firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. Reach him @bobodtech.

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We have unrealistic expectations of a tech-driven future utopia - Recode

Image credit: Hanson Robotics

What would we do without wishful thinking?

Not much apparently. According to some of the most recent science on the way our brains work, the Zen Buddhists and psychoanalysts are up against it. No matter how much we try to focus on the present, well be pulled away by the Utopia of the next moment.

As a New York Times piece on some of the most recent science of the brain explained:

[I]t is increasingly clear that the mind is mainly drawn to the future, not driven by the past. Behavior, memory and perception cant be understood without appreciating the central role of prospection. We learn not by storing static records but by continually retouching memories and imagining future possibilities. Our brain sees the world not by processing every pixel in a scene but by focusing on the unexpected.

Our emotions are less reactions to the present than guides to future behavior. Therapists are exploring new ways to treat depression now that they see it as primarily not because of past traumas and present stresses but because of skewed visions of what lies ahead.

Thus we are all writers of our own fictions, not searching for truth in the past or peace in the present but constantly striving to write our future selves. Some people might see it as creative recombination but another way of thinking about it is that we are addicted to retelling our stories in order to suit the next version of ourselves.

Humans are, according to this scientific narrative, Homo Prospectus. We arent just constantly telling and retelling our futures, but sharing jointly constructed futures with each other. As the Times piece notes, We make sacrifices today to earn rewards tomorrow, whether in this life or in the afterlife promised by so many religions.

So, it appears that we are, depending on how one looks at it all, artists painting the canvass of our imagined future. Or perhaps, taking a darker view, we are collectively subject to the worst sorts of self-delusion, constantly lying to ourselves about our past and present to create a more attractive future.

Then again, maybe we are all Utopians banking on the next moment, fueled by what Ernst Bloch called anticipatory consciousness, dreaming of the improved self that could be part of the better collective future.

One could conceive of this kind of research as an excuse to surrender to a mechanistic view of human consciousness, devoid of any mystery or larger agency. Surely, we should be cautious before we reduce ourselves to a series of measurable processes but so much of the demystifying science of the last century has pulled us in that direction.

Still, with that caution in mind, this science might also be seen as evidence that we are built to imagine the future, to make our own myths, to dream until we can dream no more.

In any event, it does make you think about the stories we tell ourselves to make live worth living, to work ourselves out of some of lifes darker corners. Whether we see it as troubling or charming, its clear that the band Wilco was on to something when they wistfully sang about the beautiful folly of wishful thinking.

Jim Miller, a professor at San Diego City College, is the co-author of Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See and Better to Reign in Hell, and author of the novel Drift. His most recent novel on the San Diego free speech fights and the IWW, Flash, is on AK Press.

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Summer Chronicles # 3: The Utopia of the Next Moment - San Diego Free Press

FT Alphaville (registration)

In ICO utopia, there is no division of labour FT Alphaville (registration) These voting rights, similar to any other democratic system, allow holders of [name redacted] to vote on future investments in other tokens, including new and upcoming ICOs. Profits from investments will be distributed quarterly in the form of a dividend. and more »

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In ICO utopia, there is no division of labour - FT Alphaville (registration)

Principality of New Utopia Micronation Status In Construction Officiallanguages English Organizational structure Constitutional monarchy

Princess

Total

Website http://www.weylandgroup.co.uk

The Principality of New Utopia[1] is a micronation project established by Lazarus Long Now the project is headed by Elizabeth Henderson And Siber Henderson

The project was founded in 1995 when Lazarus Long the founder of new utopia came up across an unclaimed plot in the Caribbean he then filled a claim with United nations then new utopia was Born

Long raised up to $100 million from investors from all over the world with a majority coming from the united states then The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC) termed New Utopia a "fraudulent nationwide Internet scheme",[1] and complained that Long had made "material misrepresentations and omissions concerning, among other things, the status of construction of the project, the companies associated with the project, the safety of the investment, and the status of the Commission's investigation into his activities."[2] The SEC's case against Long (SEC v. Lazarus Long) ruled for long. Lazarus Long died in April 2012 at age 88 having raised up to $500 million for the new Utopian project [3]

New Utopia's project was restarted in early 2017 by Lazarus Longs daughter Elizabeth Henderson who promises to have the Project completed by 2021 https://www.weylandgroup.co.uk/%5B4%5D

The social model and trade system would have been hyper-capitalistic, modeled after the writings of Ayn Rand, Napoleon Hill, Robert Heinlein, Dale Carnegie and Adam Smith.[5] Long also promised that the tiny nation would have a clinic better than the Mayo Clinic, a casino modelled after the Monte Carlo Casino, and "the ultimate luxury spa".[5] Residents would live in one of the 642 apartments and condos that would be built.[6] It would have been a tax haven, with all services paid by a 20% tax on imported consumable goods.[6]

Before creating New Utopia, Howard Turney had been introduced to the Human Growth Hormone (HGH) by an anti-aging doctor. He was so impressed with the results that he became an advocate of the hormone and he created in February 1993 a longevity spa called El Dorado Clinic in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. In 1995 he changed his name after Lazarus Long, a recurrent character in Heinlein's novels who goes through several rejuvenation treatments in order to live hundreds of years and eventually become immortal. Also around 1995 he stopped injecting HGH in the El Dorado clinic because of the corruption of local officers, and he moved to the US. A few years later he had to stop injecting HGH also in the US when doctors stopped prescribing due to illegal doping in sport. Then he tried to fund New Utopia, a place where the government couldn't tell him what he could do and what he couldn't. But in 1999 the SEC closed his bond offering because the bonds were unregistered with them.[7] He dedicated the rest of his life to the creation of New Utopia.

Lazarus Long, who was 66 years old in 1998,[8] died on 26 April 2012 at the age of 80. After that the project was taken over by Elizabeth Henderson the daughter of Lazarus Long

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New Utopia - Wikipedia

To the sneerers, Milton Keynes is a soulless stretch of concrete cows and roundabouts.

But the notorious new town is actually the culmination of humankinds search for Utopia, a new BBC season will claim.

As a young person, I did find Milton Keynes a boring, soulless place to grow up. It was just famous for concrete cows and roundabouts Filmmaker Richard Macer

A BBC4 series investigating the concept of Utopia, the blueprint for a perfect world coined by Thomas More in 1516, concludes that the visionary overspill town established 50 years ago is our closest post-war embodiment of the ideal.

The centrepiece of the Utopia season, which examines the designs of architects including Frank Lloyd Wright and Norman Foster, is a documentary about Milton Keynes by Richard Macer, the filmmaker behind a revelatory BBC expose of life inside British Vogue magazine.

Macer, brought up in Milton Keynes, admits he used to feel embarrassed about living in an urban experiment once dismissed as an utterly depersonalised nightmare.

Returning aged 50, to move back in with his parents, as Milton Keynes celebrated its half-centenary, he now recognises the Buckinghamshire town as a prosperous tribute to enlightened social engineering.

As a young person, I did find Milton Keynes a boring, soulless place to grow up. You couldnt find a decent pub. It was just famous for concrete cows and roundabouts, he told the i paper.

Now I recognise the place as a proper Utopian vision, an attempt to create aspirational, perfect living spaces for people, with greenery at its heart and totally funded from the public purse.

Milton Keynes, which has the highest proportion of new builds in Britain outside London, offers a model alternative to the failures of high-rise urban living exposed by the Grenfell Tower disaster.

It was social engineering to achieve a positive ideal, Macer said. Its grid network was inspired by Los Angeles.

They created little sustainable communities with their own schools and doctors. The founders ruled that no building should be taller than the tallest tree and every householder was given a tree to plant in their garden. Its economy is buoyant.

Macer discovered threats to this utopia during filming. One councillor said they are desperate not to become a Crewe, a place people just pass through that dies. They feel Milton Keynes doesnt have cultural cache. Its not like Manchester.

Macer, who has previously documented the lives of Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder and Katie Price, said he hoped viewers wouldnt find an hour devoted to Milton Keynes boring.

The concept of Utopia has been interpreted as a place or state of things in which everything is perfect.

Cassian Harrison, BBC4 Channel Editor, said: Utopian ideals have always fascinated and inspired the human race from art and architecture movements, to genres of fiction, new experimental societies and beyond.

The season of films will delve into a world of visionaries, philosophers, and genius to examine what propels us to endlessly search out ideas of perfection.

It is name is adapted from the 13th century settlement Mideltone Kaynes.

There are more than 20,000 parking spaces in central Milton Keynes and 130 roundabouts.

Main roads are designated H or V depending on whether they run horizontally or vertically.

The sculpture of concrete cows and calves was created in 1978 by Canadian artist Liz Leyh.

It is home to 22m trees and shrubs, around 100 for every resident.

The population of 275,000 enjoy a per capita income 47% higher than the national average.

The Style Councils 1985 single Come To Milton Keynes satirised towns supposed artificiality.

Around 7.5m people live within a one-hour drive of Milton Keynes.

@adamsherwin10

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Want to see Thomas More's Utopia in action? Come to Milton Keynes - iNews

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The modern day warrior of Rushs Tom Sawyer helps cyber-sleuth Wade Watts kick some major robot butt in the the new trailer for Steven Spielbergs upcoming film Ready Player One.

The highly anticipated movie, based on the popular 2011 science fiction novel by Ernest Cline, is set in a energy crisis-ravaged future where millions of people have sought refuge in the world of virtual reality. From there thing get very exciting and action-packed, as described in the books official synopsis:

In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when hes jacked into the virtual utopia known as theOASIS. Wades devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this worlds digital confinespuzzles that are based on their creators obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wades going to survive, hell have to winand confront the real world hes always been so desperate to escape.

In the above trailer released yesterday as part of the annual San Diego Comic-Con festival Tom Sawyer provides the soundtrack to a massive chase scene featuring hundreds of VR-controlled police robots,Dr. Emmett Browns DeLorean from Back to the Future and absolutely no respect for the laws of physics.

The synthesizer-dominated Tom Sawyer appears on Rushs 1981 album Moving Pictures. Drummer Neil Peart explained the songs meaning in the bands 1985 Backstage Club newsletter: Tom Sawyer was a collaboration between myself and Pye Dubois, an excellent lyricist who wrote the lyrics for Max Webster. His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be namely me I guess.

it has now been over five years since Rush released a studio album 2012s Clockwork Angels and almost two years since they completed what was billed as their last major concert tour. Peart has since strongly indicated that he is retiring from the road, citing a desire to spend more time with his family as well as the toll that four decades of playing drums has taken on his body.

I would say that its unlikely that well tour again as Rush, Guitarist Alex Lifeson revealed back in April. Really, we toured for 41 years, and I have to say that first year off, I felt like I was grieving for my career and the band, but truly, 41 years of touring the way we toured, I shouldnt feel badly about that.

Ready Player Onewill star Tye Sheridan, Mark Rylance,Ben Mendelsohn, Simon Pegg,Olivia Cooke, andHannah John-Kamen. The film hits theaters March 30, 2018, and you can learn a whole lot more about it from our friends at Screencrush right now.

Rush Albums Ranked Worst to Best

Alex Lifeson on His Least Favorite Rush Songs

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Rush's 'Tom Sawyer' Dazzles in Steven Spielberg's New 'Ready Player One' Trailer - Ultimate Classic Rock

Joan, the script & the wardrobe - the Emmy Award-winning costume designer who dressed David Bowie

Independent.ie

In 1976, in Dublin's Focus Theatre, Joan Bergin abandoned her dream of acting. She was playing Natalya, the lady of the manor, in Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Her co-stars included Gabriel Byrne and Olwen Four and one evening, while watching Four on stage, Bergin came to a sudden and profound decision.

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/joan-the-script-the-wardrobe-the-emmy-awardwinning-costume-designer-who-dressed-david-bowie-35946202.html

http://www.independent.ie/incoming/article35947637.ece/8b7ba/AUTOCROP/h342/IW%20JOAN%20BE%206.jpg

In 1976, in Dublin's Focus Theatre, Joan Bergin abandoned her dream of acting. She was playing Natalya, the lady of the manor, in Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Her co-stars included Gabriel Byrne and Olwen Four and one evening, while watching Four on stage, Bergin came to a sudden and profound decision.

"I haven't a great speaking voice," she says, "and the big, big thing for me was I'm a butterfly for everything. I was interested in a hundred different things. I realised, to be an actor, you have to be very single-minded."

If Focus Theatre was where she let go of one ambition, it was also where she cultivated another. Deirdre O'Connell, who founded Focus in 1967, had trained in the immersive Stanislavski system in New York and was "such a purist", Bergin says.

"To her it was all about the acting and performance. I was really quite taken aback if people were wearing their mother's cardigans. So one rash day, I said, 'Why don't I do the costumes?'"

"Doing" the costumes proved to be Bergin's calling. With nice circularity, during the course of her award-winning career, she has dressed both Gabriel Byrne and Olwen Four, as well as scores of Hollywood stars.

When Meryl Streep saw the clothes she'd be wearing in the film Dancing at Lughnasa, she gave Bergin a hug. On the set of My Left Foot, Daniel Day-Lewis, in character as Christy Brown, insisted Bergin feed him his lunch. While shooting The Prestige in LA, David Bowie alighted from a carriage, grabbed the lapels of her coat and told her he loved his costumes.

Bergin has a wealth of such stories and, in a caf in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, is happy to share them, despite a summer cold. Dressed in black with her trademark cowboy hat, she has a style of her own - a distinctive blend of masculine and feminine. Small details stand out: the shoulder ruffles on her blouse, the Harley-Davidson badge on the front of the hat, her lilac nail polish, long silver necklace and flat hoop earrings.

On the wall opposite us hang entries from the Sightsavers Junior Painter Awards. Along with Laureate na ng PJ Lynch and Director of Arts & Disability Ireland Pdraig Naughton, she was one of this year's judges. Despite being "up to her tonsils", she agreed to adjudicate because she had seen a documentary about Sightsavers' doctors in India stopping off at train stations and performing cataract surgery within 20 minutes.

Bergin was the "non-professional" on the panel and loved being involved with the competition. The theme was Framing the Future. The judges had no difficulty agreeing on the winner: eight-year-old Dylan Williams from Co Clare, whose painting In the Future I Will Live in a Music City is an extraordinary, exuberant feat of visual intelligence that turns musical instruments into buildings.

"I'd forgotten the gift of the imagination in children," Bergin says. When she first saw the entries, she was "blown out of the water".

She doesn't have children but is very involved in the lives of her grandnieces and grandnephews, just as she was with her nieces and nephews when they were growing up. She lives in Ranelagh, Dublin, with her partner, the journalist and writer Kevin O'Connor, and is part of a big, "madly supportive" family that is extremely important to her.

Though she might not have realised it until later, the seeds of her career were planted in her childhood home. She had a "great childhood", she says. The eldest of five - four girls and a boy - she grew up in Cabra.

"Cabra then was a lot of people taken from all over and placed in what was to be the new utopia of houses and schools. There was a tremendous mix of people."

Her mother was from West Cork. Her father, from Dublin, got TB and had to retire from CIE. A socialist, he was "very creative" and, significantly, used to hand-paint evening gowns to earn money.

"It was a house that was always full of books," she says. "My father really thought any one of his daughters could be President of Ireland. And you really resent that as a teenager. All I ever wanted to be was an actress."

Though they valued books and the arts, Bergin's parents were "scared stiff" of their eldest daughter's acting ambitions, which to them "would have seemed like a huge indulgence". But Bergin's creativity was also fostered in school. At the Dominican Convent in Cabra, she had a young teacher called Sister Mary Jude who would go on to work in the Louisiana State Penitentiary - the prison featured in the film Dead Man Walking.

During the week the pupils spoke Irish. On Saturdays they studied English literature and music. Sister Mary Jude inspired them "by stealth", says Bergin. "Ever since, I have a lot of time for the nuns."

It was a very political household, and she still keeps a close eye on politics and current affairs. O'Connor is a former radio producer and Bergin listens to a lot of radio, which she thinks "keeps you very grounded and focused". She also describes herself as "like a cobbler's son". In her downtime, one of her favourite things to do is go to the theatre. "I'm as interested as ever," she says.

She may have decided that the stage wasn't for her, but her acting background has undoubtedly given her work an edge, deepening her understanding of scripts and characters. Even when dressing private clients such as Sabina Higgins - another acting graduate of Focus Theatre - or architect Peter Marino, known for his tattooed biker look, she can tap into the potential symbolism of an outfit.

"I think you get to understand the fields. I often say to people, at this stage of my career, where I'm working beyond my allotted span, that what you do is you harness everything you have learned and then you deploy it to whatever the situation is."

Bergin stayed with Focus Theatre as in-house designer through the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, developing her interest in costume as she trawled through Dublin's vintage shops.

Noel Pearson was an early mentor. She designed several of his productions and began collaborating with Jim Sheridan, a professional relationship which led to her working on My Left Foot, The Field and In the Name of the Father, and which continues today.

Self-taught, Bergin learned on the job, her achievements - along with those of fellow designer Consolata Boyle - paving the way for younger Irish costume designers. But though the 1990s and early 2000s were extremely successful for her, including as they did several Jim Sheridan films, Brian Friel's Translations and Riverdance on Broadway, she was always "a little wary" of men's clothes. It took her until the film Veronica Guerin in 2003 to "really enter into the psychology of how men define themselves through their clothes".

"It clicked on Veronica Guerin, where I decided that even though they were Dublin crims, lots of them had very interesting backgrounds," she says. "I decided for an international audience that I should show their aspirations, so I dressed them in Louis Copeland," she says.

Over the past four decades, Bergin has worked on numerous high-profile theatre productions. Given that theatre is her first love, it would be understandable if her preference was to design for the stage, but it's film rather than theatre - or television - that seems to excite her most.

"It's very fashionable now to say television is where it's at," she says, "and, yes, television has changed beyond recognition - some of the best stories are there - but maybe because I'm old-school and, having started with Jim Sheridan on independent feature films, nothing beats the buzz of film."

Nevertheless, it's her work for television that has brought her the most acclaim. From 2006 to 2009, Bergin was costume designer on The Tudors, the lavish Showtime drama starting Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII.

Filmed in Ardmore Studios, The Tudors was a massive opportunity and challenge, for which Bergin won three Emmys, beating Mad Men twice.

With characteristic thoroughness, she became something of a Tudor historian, immersing herself in the era so she could reinterpret its clothes for a contemporary audience. Over the course of four series, she and her team made thousands of costumes.

"We made everything, right down to the shoes people wore. I don't want to claim too much for it but it did start a big interest in embroidery and jewellery making."

She's very conscious of crediting her colleagues on The Tudors, as well as other projects.

"I know it's a clich but the costume designer is as good as the crew, as the workshop and the assistants working with them," she says. "You're a fiefdom within the piece of work you're on - you have to keep it like that."

Winning the Emmys was "wonderful"; she keeps them on her kitchen mantelpiece but The Tudors began an intense, work-heavy decade of episodic television from which she eventually needed to emerge.

"I came back from LA [on a Friday] and started on The Tudors, somewhat behind, on the Monday and there was no let-up. I remember Kevin asking me, 'Which of us is bringing the cat to the vet?' And for one awful moment, I thought, 'Do we have a cat?' It was so, so demanding."

After The Tudors came Camelot, an Irish-Canadian co-production starring Joseph Fiennes, and four seasons of Vikings, a History Channel series filmed at Ashford Studios in Co Wicklow, which she left in 2016. Then she worked on The Dawn, a pilot for Amazon about a group of Neanderthals. It was the first time she'd been involved with a project that didn't get picked up.

Bergin wasn't sure what direction her career would take beyond the world of television.

"I thought I'd perhaps left it too late."

She took some months off supposedly to extend her kitchen - the drawings are currently yellowing - and also to look at what she wanted to do.

"The work is rolling in. My agent says I'm like someone who has been hidden under a stone." She quotes Wordsworth: "A violet by a mossy stone. Half-hidden from the eye."

Earlier this year, she spent four months in Prague and Boston as costume designer for The Catcher Was a Spy, a thriller set during World War II. The project was "terrific" and she immersed herself in the 1930s and 1940s.

"But I was delighted to get home," she says. "I fell in love with Dublin. I was beaming at the place when I came back. I would hesitate now to go away again unless it was Scorsese."

At this point, she can pick and choose projects. The previous night, she turned down a "huge" movie in Argentina. "They wanted me there two weeks from today."

Pragmatic about her place in the pecking order of costume designers, she's very lucky, she says, to be in a pool of half a dozen. "Not the top six, the Sandy Powells, the Colleen Atwoods - the great American designers who would be first choice." But a group of "good creative people that directors have worked with".

From her point of view, the big thing is the script. "It's of little satisfaction at the end of the day, however nice it is, when someone says, 'Why are the costumes so great but the movie is awful?'"

She's about to start work on Jim Sheridan's film H-Block - starring Cillian Murphy, Pierce Brosnan and Jamie Dornan - and is very much looking forward to the shoot.

"Jim's back at what he's terrific at," she says, "that ambiguity of a moral dilemma."

Bergin is still ambitious, still reaching for the best from herself, but these days she enjoys the simpler things too: hanging clothes out on the line, for example. She smiles at herself. "Kevin will have a good laugh and say, 'When do you hang clothes out on the line?'"

Home is where she wants to be, but to really get your bearings, "you need to get out there", to travel, she says. "It's a great way of examining where you're at."

One of her favourite places is New York, less so LA, where she spent five months in 2006. At 7pm when shooting finished, "everyone got in their car and went home. Same on a Friday."

"I've made some great friends in the business, of course I have, but you learn to be quite savvy about your time."

Alan Rickman, who died in 2016, was one such friend. He was a "most generous, wonderful man. And as interested in my career as he was in his, and would complain if I didn't go after a particular job."

You need people to believe in you, she says, but it doesn't mean you've to turn into a "pain in the whatever". Sometimes she comes upon young people and "reels a bit at their self-belief... it's tilted a bit the other way. On the whole, I think the world is full of fairly decent people."

Amid the unhealthy egos and excesses of the industries she works in, she seems to have maintained perspective. She talks about having "your own moral compass".

"It's terribly important to make a decision about what you want from life and how you want to treat people, apart from how you want to be treated."

Scorsese may call yet but, even if he doesn't, it's clear that Joan Bergin will continue "doing" the costumes for as long as she can - as happy to look forwards as backwards.

"I used to be shy of saying I've had a remarkable life, not least because I probably thought it made me sound too old," she says, "but I have been incredibly lucky."

The 15 finalist paintings from the Sightsavers Junior Painter Awards will be displayed in Powerscourt Townhouse Centre until August 5

COSTUME DRAMA

Joan Bergin's five favourites from her repertoire

Daniel Day-Lewis's Afghan coat in In the Name of the Father

When Gerry Conlon, played by Daniel Day- Lewis, "finds" some money, he buys himself a pair of hand-painted shoes and a long, white Afghan coat. Bergin brought the skin in from Afghanistan and had it made up in Dublin.

The Spanish dancer's dress in Riverdance

Bergin did not design the costumes for the original Riverdance but took over when the show went to Broadway in 2000. As part of her research, she studied Jim Fitzpatrick's work and looked at how the Celts used to make dye from berries. The Spanish dancer's dress for the production was "quite, quite something", she says.

Jane Seymour's wedding dress in The Tudors

Jane Seymour's wedding to Henry VIII took place during season three of The Tudors. For the occasion, Bergin dressed Annabelle Wallis (who played Seymour) in an extravagant gown with quilting and intricate embroidery - including on the bodice and sleeves. A tiara held down the veil.

All of Scarlett Johansson's clothes in The Prestige

Johansson plays the assistant and lover of magician Robert Angier in the neo-Victorian mystery thriller set in the early 1900s. David Bowie makes a cameo appearance as real- life inventor Nikola Tesla.

Lagertha's clothes in Vikings

Played by Katheryn Winnick, the legendary figure of Lagertha fights alongside the men in shield walls. "The embroidery and Irish tweeds" on her costumes "were a nice fusion between Celtic and Viking", says Bergin.

Photos: Steve Humphreys

Weekend Magazine

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Joan, the script & the wardrobe - the Emmy Award-winning costume designer who dressed David Bowie - Independent.ie

My first step toward my first major milestone was an awkward one. At the age of 15, in the White River Junction office of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, I took the written learners permit test. I handed my test to a dedicated civil servant, who reviewed my answers, and said, One too many wrong, Mark. I detected glee in her voice.

In the waiting room, I told my mother I had failed the test. She said, Yeah right and started to walk out. I said it again, stressing that I was not joking. Her reaction is chiseled into my memory:

I didnt think anyone failed that test.

We laugh about it now.

Regardless of when one gets ones drivers license (in addition to my written fiasco, I failed the road test; apparently my hill start in a manual transmission car made a sedan behind me brake on the ascent up to Hartford High), it is a monumental life change. Suddenly, with that authorization to operate a motor vehicle, independence, speed, danger, friends and responsibility come flying into your life. Things get a lot more interesting very quickly. Soon, I was on the back roads of Strafford or in the hills of Etna, chasing a party, a swimming hole, a walk in the woods, a place to disappear.

Eventually, my attention turned to 18 and the right to vote, fight in a war, go to any movie, and generally be regarded in legal terms as an adult. Honestly, this milestone elicited more of a shrug than a celebration; it was cool, but nothing more. Five months after my 18th birthday, however, I hit another jackpot milestone: I left home for the first time, moving into a college dormitory where, apparently, there was no supervision. Want to come in at 3 a.m.? Sleep until noon? Play music loud? Leave underwear on the ground? Not change your sheets? Go 48 hours without telling anyone where you are? All were permitted in this new utopia.

Like just about every undergraduate in recent history, I discovered quickly that, while 21 was clearly going to be a nice threshold to cross, college afforded plenty of opportunity to drink alcohol before reaching that magic birthday. Additionally, I spent my junior year when I turned 21 in the spring in Paris, where there was no discernible drinking age. By the time my big day arrived, I had already been drinking legally for eight months. I gathered with a group of American friends and we toasted my birthday, but the celebration didnt approach those happening back on campus.

These chronological, state-supervised milestones seemingly cease after 21, and a vaguer set of markers appears on the horizon. After the dorm room, there is Apartment Living. No matter where I have laid my head on the second floor of a Victorian house, above a preschool in Middlebury; in a sweltering room of about 40 square feet on the sixth floor of a Parisian walk-up; in an affordable housing complex with carpet in the kitchen; in a Washington, D.C., rowhouse; anywhere that wasnt owned by my parents there has been an unmistakable aura of freedom. You cannot have any idea of what it feels like until you experience it, but when you do, giving it up becomes unimaginable.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one person to join up with another, some of that independence evaporates. Congratulations, you have reached another milestone: the live-in partner, often swiftly followed by engagement and marriage.

The physical and emotional intensity of courtship and commitment are all-consuming, and it is easy to trick your silly little mind into thinking that this is it: You are a grown-up! Living with someone who sleeps in the same bed as you! Monogamy! Spicy conversations about how to load the dishwasher! Establishing a rotation between your parents and her parents for the holidays! Anniversaries over- and under-celebrated! Morning breath! Inside jokes and knowing looks!

You are at the zenith of growth, secure in your choices, your path, your happiness, your life. Living together in a space that is perfect for two people, with lots of professional obligations but room for romance and spontaneity ... it is good.

Right at this perfect moment is when evolution intrudes, gnawing at you, filling your head with the supreme drug for your ego. Perhaps the world needs a little bit more of me and my wife in it, you think. Nay, not perhaps, the world definitely needs more of us! We should bring more humans to Earth. Together, you turn a murmured conversation into a drumbeat, building a stronger and stronger case for why you must add to the population. Even the vocabulary supports the idea: It is not CON-create but PRO-create.

When the baby arrives, euphoria, satisfaction and an overwhelming sense of accomplishment rush into your lives. You have joined the billions and billions of humans who have, over tens of thousands of years, kept this marvelous adventure moving forward.

Late last year, a friend welcomed her first child. It's all true, I told her. Parenthood is The Game Changer, the permanent, relentless, oppressive milestone, impossible to ignore or escape. It's all true, I informed her. I cry about twice a day because my kids make me so proud I burst, and I cry two additional times a day because my kids make me so infuriated I burst.

It's all true, I told her, about the nitwits out there who try to convince us that they have decoded parenting, that theyve got the answers. These people are exhausting and to be avoided at all costs, I admonished, because their children, generally, end up about as wonderful or as disappointing as all children. I told my friend that she would look back with howls of laughter at the money she used to spend on things she liked to do. When that new body arrives, those days are gone. You will sleep when you are dead, I told her.

Parenthood, I wrote to my friend, is a daily, minute-by-minute miracle. Unexpected laughs. Crazy joys. Incomprehensible behavior. Wild hugging sessions. Debilitating exasperation. Glorious belief in the power of our species. Tears over lollipops and pajamas. More kisses than you could possibly fathom. Smiles that make your knees buckle. Countless introductions to things that blow a childs mind: whistles, whales, snow, Goodnight Moon, Fleetwood Mac, swimming, dental floss, the moonwalk, poison ivy, skipping stones, English muffins with peanut butter and peaches. Along with all those truths, there is the comforting knowledge that whatever happens between you is unique, never before seen in the history of the world.

As a parent, when you get a free second, you cloak yourself in these experiences, and you realize that all those other milestones in your life were just practice for the big stuff, training wheels to prepare you for what actually matters.

Mark Lilienthal lives in Norwich. He can be reached at mlilient@gmail.com.

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Column: Life's Major Milestones - Valley News

OLYMPIA The Attorney Generals Office today announced a lawsuit against a Seattle-based company offering campaign and non-profit fundraising services, alleging Blue Utopia failed to send all the donations it collected to its clients, and used new donations to cover old debts to other campaigns. The lawsuit alleges these are unfair and deceptive practices in violation of state law. The office has identified at least two affected campaigns in Washington so far.

Today, the Attorney Generals Office obtained a temporary restraining order, requiring the company to provide donations to its clients in a timely fashion and in the proper amounts.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson recused himself from the case, meaning he has no involvement in the legal decision-making related to the matter.

The lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court, accuses Trace Anderson and his company, Blue Utopia, of unfair and deceptive practices, thereby violating the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

Political campaigns and nonprofits use Blue Utopia to collect, process and manage online fundraising. They pay a monthly subscription fee, and Blue Utopia takes a percentage of all donations processed through its service. The company then sends the net donations on to the candidates or nonprofits in batches on a weekly basis.

As early as 2013, the lawsuit alleges, Blue Utopia failed to send the weekly donation batches, delayed payment, or failed to pay out net donations from multiple donors to its clients, including at least two Washington political campaigns.

The Attorney Generals Office investigation found that the bank Blue Utopia used to process its transactions began charging a higher rate, and the company failed to notice and raise its fees accordingly. To cover the losses, it began diverting donated funds from its campaign clients.

Blue Utopia was using new donations in order to make payments owed to its clients for past donations from different donors. Thus, some donor funds never made it to the campaign to which they donated.

People making donations through Blue Utopia, and Blue Utopia clients, expected the donations to be processed and sent on to the intended candidates or nonprofits. Diverting them to another purpose, the lawsuit alleges, is an unfair or deceptive practice in violation of Washington state law.

The complaint asks the court to order Anderson and Blue Utopia to stop their deceptive practices, provide restitution to affected clients, and impose civil penalties of up to $2,000 per violation.

Once the defendants are served, they have 20 days to respond to the complaint.

Assistant Attorneys General Tiffany Lee and Kate Barach are handling the case.

-30-

The Office of the Attorney General is the chief legal office for the state of Washington with attorneys and staff in 27 divisions across the state providing legal services to roughly 200 state agencies, boards and commissions. Visit http://www.atg.wa.gov to learn more.

Contacts:

Brionna Aho, Interim Communications Director, (360) 753-2727; brionna.aho@atg.wa.gov

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AG's Office sues Blue Utopia for deceptive conduct - Access Washington

Citizens Environment Alliance executive director Derek Coronado , shown in this 2013 file photo, is concerned about the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion under the Detroit River. Jason Kryk / Windsor Star

Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan is looking to replace a one-kilometre pipeline that runs under the Detroit River between Wayne County and Windsor with one thats bigger and buried deeper in the ground.

And the Citizens Environment Alliance vows to pay close attention to the project, to guard against any problems that could harm the environment. The company itself cites such potential risks during construction as: soil degradation, temporary loss of wildlife habitat; introduction of invasive species; and damage to wildlife, water quality and soil by unintended loss of drilling fluids.

It is expected that potential environmental and socio-economic effects will only occur during construction, which will involve vegetation clearing, topsoil stripping, excavation, (horizontal directional drilling), backfilling, site grading and clean-up, Kinder Morgan says. It lists seven measures it will take to head off or address any problems, from restoring vegetation to a spill prevention and response plan. We are committed to the safe and efficient operation of our pipeline systems in accordance with environmental and safety laws and regulations, the company says in a document detailing the project.

The environment alliances executive director Derek Coronado agreed the biggest risk will be during construction.

Generally, replacing old infrastructure with new infrastructure is a good thing, these things become stressed and weakened over time, particularly when youre dealing with a hazardous material, said Coronado.

According to a letter sent in June to the City of Windsor, Kinder Morgan intends to file an application to the National Energy Board next month to authorize the project. According to a map supplied by the company, the pipeline runs between a point in the Michigan side east of Zug Island to just east of Prospect Avenue in west Windsor. Attempts to interview company representatives on Wednesday werent successful.

Coronado said the alliance will be seeking safeguards, such as bonds and other commitments by Kinder Morgan to pay for cleanups if any accidents occur.

The pipeline from Wayne County to Windsor is part of the 346-km Kinder Morgan Utopia Pipeline. The company is building new 12-inch pipeline from Harrison County, Ohio to its existing pipeline and facilities in Fulton County, Ohio, continuing on to Windsor. The new Utopia system would transport natural gas liquids, including ethane and ethane-propane mixtures for use in the plastics industry.

The company is currently doing construction work on the U.S. portion of the pipeline and wants to take the opportunity to improve the pipeline beneath the river, going from a 10-inch-diameter pipe to 1,025 metres of 12-inch pipeline. It also wants to replace 472 metres of existing pipeline on the Windsor side with 332 metres of new 12-inch pipeline using open-cut trenching.

The pipeline going under the river will be installed using horizontal directional drilling, a trenchless method that has minimal impact on the surrounding area, according to the company which says HDD was chosen to avoid disturbing aquatic habitat and halting ship traffic.

HDD involves drilling a smaller-diameter pilot hole between the entry and exit points, angling gradually down to below the river bed, proceeding horizontally and then angling up again to the exit point. Then the pilot hole is expanded by going back from the exit to the entrance with a reamer attached to the drill. Once the hole is cleaned out and prepared, the pipeline is pulled back, from entrance to exit.

Kinder Morgan hopes to start construction in June 2018 and have the pipeline back in service by October. The old pipeline is gong to be left in the ground, decommissioned in place in a safe manner, according to the company.

bcross@postmedia.com

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Kinder Morgan wants to replace its pipeline beneath Detroit River - Windsor Star