Category Archives: New Utopia

The Assembly announces its third cohort of artists in the Deceleration Lab, an initiative to foster new theatrical projects that experiment with multi-perspective and multi-disciplinary models of creation.

This year's Lab Artists are Andy Boyd, syd island, and Philip Santos Schaffer, collaborating on Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone, an acoustic hyperpop folk opera about gender, celebrity, belief, and slander exploring the life of 18th-century American mystic Publick Universal Friend (PUF); and Soomi Kim, developing Body Through Which the Dream Flows, a dance/acro theater work looking at the culture of gymnastics with a cast of seven female competitive gymnasts. The artists will share excerpts of their works-in-progress and participate in a discussion about their process at free public events to be announced later in 2022.

The Assembly, a collaborative theater collective whose ten original plays include New York Times Critic's Pick HOME/SICK and Seagullmachine, launched the Deceleration Lab in 2020 to support artists in The Assembly's broader community to develop work that takes artistic risks, challenges traditional hierarchical structures, and creates new professional opportunities for the participating artists. Previous Lab artists include Nehassaiu deGannes, Dante Green, Matthew Paul Olmos, and Melisa Tien.

Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone will be an acoustic hyperpop folk opera about gender, celebrity, belief, and slander exploring the life of Publick Universal Friend (PUF) - an American mystic who had a vision in 1776 in which they were told by two angels to preach the word of God. From the moment of their vision on, the newly reborn PUF refused to use gendered pronouns or presentation, and when asked what gender they were, would simply reply "I am that I am." Room, Room, Room will incorporate experimental and contemporary queer music as well as ecstatic religious music and group-singing. The performance will highlight questions of queer history, and investigate the realities of intentionally antagonistic second-hand sources. While problematizing the American vision of utopia, the work aims to invoke a temporary genderless/genderful? utopia with its audience (even if just for a second).

Body Through Which the Dream Flows is dance/acro theatre work about gymnastics in the time of the #metoo and #cancelculture movements and will feature veteran coach, choreographer and theatre artist Soomi Kim as well as 6-7 competitive gymnasts. It began in 2018 after the scandal broke about Dr. Larry Nassar's systemic sexual abuse of 100s of gymnasts. The culture of gymnastics quickly unraveled as USAG was under fire for their role in enabling the culture of sexual and emotional abuse (and, most recently, the FBI's lack of action). Outraged, Kim felt it essential to merge her professions as a competitive coach and theatre-maker. Through dance & acrobatics, text and ensemble devising work, Body Through Which the Dream Flows will intersect Kim's personal gymnastics history, the deconstruction of the governing body of the sport and personal stories from gymnasts (age 11-17) in order to help us to better understand the moment we are in now. This project is told from an insider's lens and will explore original forms with non-actor gymnasts in this never before seen "downtown theatre-style" performance.

Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA at Columbia University, where he studied with David Henry Hwang, Lynn Nottage, Charles Mee, Kelly Stuart, and Doug Wright. His plays have been produced by Theater in Asylum, Naked Theatre Company, IRT Theater, and Epic Theatre Company. His plays have been developed or presented at/by Pipeline Theatre Company, The Gingold Group, Dixon Place, The Kennedy Center, Roundabout Theatre Company, Out Loud Theatre, Contemporary Theater Company, The Trunk Space, Columbia University, Marquette University, and Harvard University. He is the host of the New Books in Performing Arts Podcast and the co-host with Danny Erickson of the socialist theatre podcast Better than Shakespeare. His work has been supported by the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts

syd island (they/them) is a queer, nonbinary, Black, "biracial," performing, music, and visual artist currently based in Canarsie, Lenapehoking (so-called Sunset Park, Brooklyn, NY). as a vocalist and music creator, syd enjoys collaborating on various musical styles from improvisational experimental music to medieval sacred choral music. they have experience as a dancer/performer in devised and improvised experimental dance. as a visual artist, they document their life through colorful self-portraits and create digital and watercolor protest posters. syd has a BA in Music Theory, History, and Composition from Brown University and is a graduate of Arizona School for the Arts. they have performed at Roulette Intermedium, the Exponential Festival, Judson Memorial Church, and the Brick Theater.

Philip Santos Schaffer (they/he) is a playmaker creating interactive performances in intimate and unconventional settings. Philip's work has been seen in bathtubs across the country, listened to over the phone, and found in a series of living rooms (as well as appearing in more traditional spaces). Philip's work deals with politics, pop culture, intimacy and empathy through participation, humor, music, and more. Philip has a BFA in Directing from Hofstra University and an MFA in Dramaturgy from Columbia University. Philip is 1/5 of the creative team behind WalkUpArts, which they co-founded in 2015.

Soomi Kim is a New York City based actor/movement artist and has conceived (and co-devised with director Suzi Takahashi) a trilogy of work based on Asian American visionaries: Lee/gendary, dictee: bells fall a peal to sky and Chang(e). Chang(e) was developed through the HERE Artist in Residency Program (2012-2015). Dictee: bells fall a peal to sky (dance theatre adaptation of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee) premiered at Culture Project's Women Center Stage Festival in 2012. Lee/gendary ran at HERE Arts Center's main stage. Kim's autobiographical dance theatre show, MLCG (My Little China Girl) was commissioned by Dixon Place (2017). Awards: HERE A.I.R. (2015), Dixon Place commission (2017), Orchard Project's Greenhouse Lab (2020-21), Marble House A.I.R. (2019), Hemispheric Institute (2014), Asian Arts Intiative (2012 & 2013), Mabou Mines A.I.R. (2014). In 2018 she was named Coach of the Year at Chelsea Piers, NY and is the founder of GymKim Choreo LLC. http://www.soomikim.com | http://www.gymkimchoreo.com | IG: @soomdawg

THE ASSEMBLY is a collective of multi-disciplinary performance artists committed to realizing a visceral and intelligent theater for a new generation. Assembly members unite varied perspectives in service of wide-reaching, unabashedly theatrical and rigorously researched ensemble performances, crafted to spark conversation with their audiences. Their work embraces the complexities of our present moment; it is a call for empathy and engagement. Embracing collaboration as the core of the creative process, the company chooses projects through consensus and develops text, action and design side-by-side within the rehearsal environment. From workshops to productions to post-performance discussions, The Assembly is dedicated to rooting its artists, audiences, and peers in a profound sense of community.

The company has performed at venues across New York such as La MaMa ETC, Jack, New Ohio Theatre (Archive Residency Award), The Incubator, The Prelude Festival, HERE Arts Center, Horse Trade, and The Collapsable Hole, and has toured to the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles, Wesleyan University, the Edinburgh Fringe (Fringe First nomination) and the Philly Fringe. In 2016, The Assembly's process was documented by Professor Cindy Rosenthal in the cover essay of the industry's leading academic journal, The Drama Review: "Circling Up with The Assembly: A Theatre Collective Comes of Age." The Assembly's educational workshops are designed to foster empowered and empowering collaborators, training young artists in the ethics and techniques of their unique method of ground-up creation. The company has worked with students at top-tier colleges and universities like Columbia, NYU, Dartmouth, Williams, and Wesleyan, as well as workshops in NYC, LA, and online. The Assembly is currently developing the company's first musical In Corpo, by Nate Weida and Ben Beckley, which will premiere in November 2022 at Theatre Row. For more information visit assemblytheater.org or follow The Assembly on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @assemblytheater.

The Assembly is Stephen Aubrey, Ben Beckley, Emily Caffery, Jess Chayes and Meredith Lucio.

The Deceleration Lab is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

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Andy Boyd, syd island, Philip Santos Schaffer, and Soomi Kim Develop New Work In The Assembly's Deceleration Lab - Broadway World

The Big Apple has got some pretty big spaces. From the many theatres of Broadway to the stunning lobbies of the grand hotels, world-famous galleries and museums, and the green expanse of Central Park, New York City ranks among the most iconic cities the world has ever seen. But, as with the other great cities in this little series, there are a wealth of hidden spaces waiting for you to uncover.

And do it quickly because New York is not doing so well right nowdont all move to Austin, Texas, just yet! As this list will show, there are plenty of places to see.

Related: Top 10 Jaw-Dropping Hidden Spaces In Paris or Top 10 Jaw-Dropping Hidden Spaces In London

New York, alongside the worlds other great cities, has a strong game when it comes to old-timey, elegant, exclusive members clubs. But this one seems a touch more opulent than the others. When you look at the founding membersfinancier JP Morgan, railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, steel magnate James M Waterbury, former Assistant Secretary of State John L Cadwalader, and James A Rooseveltit is little wonder how this place became so fancy.

Founded in 1891, the place retains its Gilded Age splendor. The West Lounge, found on the clubs first floor (of six), is the stand-out space. The stunning Renaissance murals look down upon the ornately decorated marble fireplaces, rendering the impressive views over the iconic Central Park rather dullwhy would you look out when this is what is inside? So if you fancy gathering your pals for a knees-up, imagining yourselves all captains of industry and masters of the new world, the spaces throughout are available for hire. Im sure theyll take your house as collateral against the down paymentyeah, maybe just blag your way in for a quick peek. [1]

Nearest Subway Station: 5th Avenue StationBroadway Local Line.

Virtual Tour of Greenacre Park!

Parks are a fascinating human invention. More so than any ancient druid pointing to the boughs of an oak tree (where he just hung up a bunch of entrails) to demand reverence for nature, the modern park is the ultimate reverential symbol weve made for nature. We, those shaved apes that send people into space and create intricate systems that govern all aspects of our life, carve out portions of cities and towns and recreate the natural world. We need this. But not all parks are created equally, and some smaller parks are relatively ignored, remaining in the shadow of their bigger, flashier, more historic brethren.

One such hidden gem is Greenacre Park. With its 7.6-meter (25-foot) granite-constructed waterfall at its heart, this park is comprised of three levels, allowing for a multi-tiered experience. And what a pleasant experience it is! The waterfall births a babbling brook that leads to the entrance of the park. Next to the waterfall is a seating area, the perfect place to sit back, read a book, and forget that New York is dying.[2]

Nearest Subway Station: Lexington Avenue/53rd StreetE Line or the M Line.

Ford Foundation Building/New York City/

Many public spaces in Lower Manhattans skyscrapers have been off-limits to the general public in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. However, the Ford Foundation Buildings atrium has not closed. Since 1963, the tiered garden space has offered an awe-inspiring haven for people to escape the hustle and bustle of Gothams busiest area. If Greenacre Park provides an outdoor getaway for New Yorkers, the Ford Foundation Buildings atrium is the indoor equivalent.

The garden was designed by landscape architect Dan Kiley and, since a 2018 redesign, has retained the peaceful aura the original vision created. The mid-century buildings and spaces in Americas main city really are a departure from earlier designs. Gone were the days of the celebration of progress and glory, of industrial mastery and financial victories; here came a time of escape, a move toward a more socially-conscious and sustainable futureprogress at a more neck-preserving pace than the break-neck past. The Ford Foundation Building makes a great argument for this form of beauty far better than the contemporaneous monstrosities elsewhere in the city.[3]

Nearest Subway Station: Grand Central StationLines 6, 7, and the 42nd Street Shuttle.

There is something creepy about abandoned subway stations. Not this one, however. This one is cool as hellit answers the age-old question of why did people in the past wear such fancy clothes when out and about? Beautiful, mirror-shine green and white glass tiles line the gorgeous Gustavino vaulted ceilings, allowing the gentle light from the many chandeliers to dance around this subterranean space. Given that this was a busy commuter hub at the beginning of the twentieth century, one wonders how many people stopped to appreciate this stunning space when it was in regular use as a station. Not many, probably.

The City Hall station is an absolute gem. That is probably why the New York Transit Museum charges $50 for a tour of the place (and you have to be a member of the museum to attend, which is an additional $60). But if youre a meh, I dont mind a fleeting glimpse sort of person, why not just hop on the 6 train? Itll pass through the station on its loop, allowing passengers to take a quick (and deeply envious) look at the sort of environment people used to stand in and wait to get moved around the city.[4]

Nearest Subway Station, cmon Okay, NEXT nearest Station: Chambers Street StationA Line.

Tourist In Your Own Town #30 Gould Memorial Library and Hall of Fame

Some have claimed the USA is the modern equivalent of the Roman Empire. So, there should be no surprise that this 19th-century University library in the Bronx was a reinterpretation of Romes Parthenonand a hell of a good one, at that! Now a part of Bronx Community College, this space is well worth a look. A long look.

Built between 1894 and 1895 by the citys foremost architect, Stanford White, as part of the University of New York Citys (now NYU) expansion onto the recently acquired Mali Estate, the whole complex is a monument to academia. The main reading room is breathtaking. From the sixteen imported Connemara marble columns, ones eye is drawn upwards to the 21-meter-wide (70-foot) stucco-covered dome gilded with Dutch metal. It is meant to help inspire students to lofty academic heights, driven home with a wonderful quote from Miltons Paradise Lost adorning the large entablature: And chiefly thou o spirit that dost prefer before all temples that upright heart and pure. Instruct me for thou knowest what in me is dark. Illumine what is low raise and support. Indeed.[5]

Nearest Subway Station: 183rd Street Station4 Line.

The AT&T Long Distance Building New York, N.Y. Hildreth Meire

Beyond the melty clocks and vaguely smiling ladies, the out-of-place anatomical features, and the formaldehyde-bathed sharks, the visual arts have often been explicitly celebratory of mankinds achievements, not merely impressionistic, expressionistic, devotional, or outright weird. We tend not to see this heroic style as often today, save on a very localized scale in school murals or public art commissioned by small community groups. If you get to visit the AT&T Long Distance Building in Manhattans Tribeca district, youll certainly get a sense of this once powerful artistic trend.

The art deco stylings within and without the building are amazing. However, there are plenty of far more famous buildings in New York that can show off their exterior deco cred. It is the incredible murals that run through the building that elevate this space to a must-see for art lovers.[6]

Nearest Subway Station: Canal Street StationA Line.

Some of you may balk at the idea of a gated communityit smacks of elitism as well as producing more than a whiff of stay the hell away from me. But once you manage to take a sneaky peek of Grove Court (alongside the many other tourists found doing the same thing), youll begin to dream of living there yourself. A square of brick-red townhouses, all in a charming Federal-era design, is a far cry from the austere brownstone, stooped buildings found elsewhere in the West Village.

This hidden architectural gem was built in 1854 by a grocer named Samuel Cocks (oh, stop sniggering and grow up!) to house laborers and local traders. So, not a fancy hideaway for the wealthy at all. Well, thats what it is now, of course. The last time a 2-bed, 2-bath townhouse went up for sale, it fetched a cool $3.5 million.[7]

Nearest Subway Station: Christopher Street Station3 Line.

Columbia University Underground Tunnels

One of the worst-kept secrets in New York is the network of tunnels found under Columbia University. Despite the wide-ranging knowledge of these fascinating subterranean passageways, they dont draw in masses of urban explorers that you might expect.

We often forget that the world around us, all the boons we take for granted, are manufactured, maintained, and require spaces such as these. The tunnels are Columbia Universitys circulatory system. But before their role in keeping the uni humming, the tunnels served a far more sinister institutionThe Bloomingdale Insane Asylum. The tunnels also played host to scientists working on the Manhattan Project. So if you want to see the place where scientists, madmen, and some mad scientists used to scurry around, take a trip under Columbiaitll be more interesting than attending a lecture.[8]

Nearest Subway Station: 116th Street Station, Columbia University1 Line.

Hidden Nuclear Bomb Shelter at Brooklyn Bridge

Urban exploration has undergone a real image transformation in recent years. Much like action sports like skateboarding and BMXing, there is now a veneer of respectability and cool to this once derided, nuisance pursuit. Urban explorers are the Indiana Joneses of the cities, uncovering artifacts and spaces that our forebears once used. Perhaps this could be considered the crowning achievement of this subculture in New York; the uncovering of a disused nuclear bunker inside the Brooklyn Bridge!

Awesomeor it would have been were it not for the fact that it was actually uncovered by some construction workers doing some routine inspections on the bridge. Ah well, at least they can lay claim to the next entry.[9]

Nearest Subway Station: Fulton Street Station3 Line.

Behind-the-Scenes at the Explorers Club

The feeling one gets on entering a particularly beautiful or interesting space is driven by the styling. A highly baroque interior evokes a sense of opulence and a gentile lifestyle. An austere brutalist building suggests humanitys progress to a utilitarian utopia/dystopia. Often, however, the styling is overridden by other elements. A baroque interior dotted with Lalique vases, Romantic landscape oil paintings, and bronze busts of various French monarchs will transport your minds eye to a Paris salon.

What we find in New Yorks Explorers Club is not so much a transportation to a time and place but rather a whistle-stop journey around the globes wilder localities, evoking a sense of adventure, scientific discovery, and mankinds emergent role as custodians of the natural world. Stuffed animals from all over the world are found everywheretaxidermized cheetahs, lion pelts, rhino heads on walls, and great Elephant tusks flanking a fireplace in the reading room. Pith helmets may be required. Vegans need not apply[10]

Nearest Subway Station: 68th Street, Hunter College6 Line.

fact checked by Darci Heikkinen

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Top 10 Jaw-Dropping Hidden Spaces in New York City - nation.lk - The Nation Newspaper

If you arrived in Aspen after 2002, you may not have heard of the 24 Hours of Aspen race at all. If you have, its likely some apocryphal tale of some strange middle-of-the-night phenomenon during the suffer-fest event that sent thrill-seeking pairs of skiers lapping Aspen Mountain for a full day and night annually from 1988 to 2002.

For the creative team at the Aspen Skiing Co. and Pop-Up Magazine, vividly recreating the story of the 24 Hours in all its extreme and oddball glory was among the countless deep dives and storytelling feats they undertook to make Aspen 75, a mixed-media production that aims to capture the essence of the ski town as Skico celebrates its 75th anniversary. The show has four performances at the Wheeler Opera House on Friday and Saturday.

We tried to dig and find some pretty spectacular tales, said Skico director of content Kate Kate Wertheimer.

Teaming with Pop-Up, whose acclaimed and unique live magazine format was also the centerpiece of the Aspen Ideas Festival Afternoon of Conversation in 2019, they are aiming to make something unforgettable out of the stories theyve collected. Pop-Up brings together reporters, writers, filmmakers, comedians and musicians to tell live stories collaboratively.

For the 24 Hours segment, for example, the Skico and Pop-Up team interviewed people who had been part of the race to crown the worlds toughest skier, dug up all the video and audio recordings they could find. As they put the segment together, they found holes where they didnt have video, so they added original animation. For the show, they also have scripted live narration and a musical score, with live performers interacting with those on the big screen.

It really is a total multimedia production to bring the energy and the craziness of what that race was to the stage so that everyone in the audience can really feel it through what theyre hearing through what theyre seeing, Skico creative director Mark Carolan said.

The midway station for Lift One on Aspen Mountain, 1963.Aspen Historical Society/Aspen Times Collection

Approximately 150 skiers joined a ski parade from the top of Aspen Mountain to the bottom of Lift 1A to celebrate the 75th anniversary of lift access skiing and Aspen Skiing Company on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022.Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times

Local racer Casey Puckett in the 24 Hours of Aspen race in 2002.Aspen Times archive

The spirited ski parade down Aspen Mountain for the 75th anniversary celebration.Jordan Curet photo.

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Skico early this winter ran a popular and admirably curated 75-part social media countdown, leading up to the actual anniversary on Jan. 11, which included a ski parade and toast at the original Lift One (the Pop-Up shows had been scheduled for then as well, but the local coronavirus surge pushed it to March). The 75-post series functioned as a sort of preview of what to expect from Aspen 75, physical posters of the countdown have also been up on Skico properties all winter.

The event aims to thread the needle between the hyper-local and the global Aspen audience.

Were trying to tell stories that locals will still feel excited about, even though they may have heard about it, but also still educate anybody whos just on holiday or has never been to Aspen before and just want to try out the show, Carolan said.

So dont expect a rote Aspen history. Theyre aiming to go deeper and wider than the narrative Aspen normally tells itself and the world about its postwar history the story most locals can recite to a visitor in the length of a chairlift ride of the Paepckes, the Aspen Idea, the rebirth of the mining town as a utopia and ski resort, the ski bum incursion, the glam years of the 80s and the more recent billionaires forcing out the millionaires era.

Both Carolan and Wertheimer are recent transplants to Aspen Carolan started in March 2021 allowing them to see the story of Aspen with fresh eyes and a sense of wonder that some longer-tenured and more jaded locals may have lost.

Their local team dug for original narratives and lesser-known stories of the people, places and events that have made Aspen what it is, or what it can be when its at its best.

They dug deep for the 75 chapter countdown and for Aspen 75 on things like the miraculous avalanche control bombing that allows ski patrollers to keep Highland Bowl safe, the birth of Gay Ski Week here in 1977, Hunter Thompsons Freak Power campaign, the Buttermilk Biscuits, World Cup and downhill racing, the X Games and the art/ski collaborations that led to happenings like the artist Yutaka Sone rolling massive dice down the Buttermilk halfpipe.

They also hit on adaptive skiing at Challenge Aspen, on our local cinematic classics Dumb and Dumber and Aspen Extreme, on Bauhaus master Herbert Bayer and ski racer Ingemar Stenmark and mountaineer Andre Roch, sustainability and equity efforts, on Belly Up and Aspen Film and incredible archival finds like the short-lived Aspen Soda and its ludicrous ad campaign.

We really wanted to honor our tradition of storytelling and our rich history, Wertheimer said, and wanted to tell the towns most incredible stories in a new way.

In keeping with the Pop-Up ethos, the show itself will be a surprise and will only be seen by the four audiences who come to the Wheeler, as they dont record or broadcast their productions and audience members are asked to put their phones away. As Pop-Up producer Haley Howle put it before the Ideas Fest performance, You are in it with the people around you and the sequence of stories is only happening for you and this group of people at this moment. There is something magical and unexplainable that happens.

For this moment of pandemic Zoom burnout and virtual event fatigue, a Pop-Up spectacle is a welcome change.

Pop-Up just seemed like the perfect partnership for a community with such a rich history of storytelling, because thats exactly what they do, Wertheimer said.

And for Skico, which this winter launched a new logo and a fashion line and events division called ASPENX and appears to be redefining how it tells its own story with Carolan and Wertheimer at the helm of the brand, there may be more events like Aspen 75 coming in the future.

Hopefully this is the first big step to telling a wider range of stories and in new and creative ways, Wertheimer said.

atravers@aspentimes.com

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75 Chapters of Aspen: Skico, and Pop-Up Magazine staging multimedia anniversary event at Wheeler - The Aspen Times

Las Vegas sportsbooks see heavy college basketball betting action on Arizona (Photo by Christopher Hook/Icon Sportswire)

Thirteen months ago, a patron at one of MGM Resorts many Las Vegas Strip outlets wagered $500 on Oregon State, at 200-to-1 odds, to win the 2021 Pac-12 hoops tournament at T-Mobile Arena.

The Beavers had dropped their regular-season finale, at home to rival Oregon, after having won three in a row. They went into the league tourney at 14-12 overall, 10-10 in the Pac-12.

Nothing spectacular or special, by any angle or metric. OSU went on to beat UCLA, 83-79, in overtime, again the Ducks (75-64), and then Colorado (70-68) to win the event and secure a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

In the NCAAs, OSU beat Tennessee, Oklahoma State, and Loyola-Chicago before bowing out against Houston in the Elite Eight. But lets back up.

Five hundred bucks, at 200-1 someone won $100,000.

Somebody got us pretty good, says BetMGM director of trading Jeff Stoneback. Lost six figures on Oregon State, which went to (win in) the Sweet 16, to one person. But talk about a turnaround; the Beavers have won three games this season, and only one in the Pac-12.

At the South Point, sportsbook director Chris Andrews and his team posted their Pac-12 odds Monday. Interest trickled in, but he didnt pause a nanosecond when asked about his shops biggest liability come NCAA Tournament time next week.

Arizona, no question, he says. Oh, god yeah. We have a lot of Arizona money, a ton of money, on the Wildcats to win the entire thing. Arizona is our biggest liability.

With a new coach, former Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd, and nearly a completely new roster, No. 2 Arizona forged a 28-3 regular season. Its lone pocks are away losses to Tennessee, UCLA, and Colorado.

Their unselfishness, leading the country with a 20.1 assists average, is part of the Wildcats excellence. Theyre also No. 5 in 2-point shooting, at 57.8 percent, and boast top-10 defensive efficiency, allowing a paltry 0.890 points per possession.

We also have a little bit of Arizona State money, at 50-1, but nothing crazy, Andrews said Tuesday. Thats about the only one, but 50-1 is not that outrageous. Plus, we have two locations in Mesquite, near the Arizona border, so well get some Arizona money from those guys.

Also, we took a little money on Xavier to win the Big East. But, again, nothing crazy.

An Oregon State-like windfall has not been had, so far, in 2022, as favorites held serve in eight of the first 11 conference tourneys.

Bellarmine (10-to-1 odds at the South Point) in the Atlantic Sun, Delaware (8-1) in the Colonial Athletic Association, and Wright State (5-1) in the Horizon League were the longest shots to have won their tournament crowns.

The elite leagues have just begun their postseason events, and the Vegas consensus indeed appears to favor Arizona as the top team in money, tickets, and attention.

That interest is exacerbated at BetMGM, whose properties line the Strip and nearly surround T-Mobile.

Stoneback expected Arizona to have five times as much money on it than any other Pac-12 squad. Ultimately, the Wildcats might garner as much as 75 percent of the total Pac-12 tickets written, he says, compared to the rest of the league combined.

Vegas odds on Arizona winning the Pac-12 tourney ranged from -130 to -175. Should the Wildcats play an opponent whose fans dont travel well, it will not shock Stoneback to see a 100-1 ticket advantage in Arizonas favor.

Our future odds might be a little bit higher on other teams, because of the money were getting on Arizona, says Stoneback. But we pretty much stay at the market price. We dont really stray away from it, just to give the professional bettors a bargain, or whatnot.

We just ride it out and hope it works out well.

Oregon State was 150-1 at Circa Sports and 500-1 at the South Point, but it showed that its stardust allotment was extinguished a year ago in a 14-point defeat to Oregon on Wednesday.

A doctor pal who did his undergraduate work at Arizona State asked me to pick up a futures ticket on his alma mater Tuesday, and I found 110-to-1 odds at Circa on the Sun Devils.

Alas, ASU 2022 was no OSU 2021, either. Wednesday, the Devils led by 17 with less than 14 minutes left but lost when Stanfords James Keefe picked up a loose ball and sank an eight-foot fling at the buzzer.

In the Big East on Wednesday, Xavier wilted toward the end of regulation against Butler and lost to the Bulldogs in overtime.

So Andrews and the South Point were alleviated of any worry in conference futures liability regarding both Arizona State and Xavier. Once again, its good to be the house.

Among the big boys, keep an eye on Texas Tech, which is 20-11 ATS this season and a 7.5-point favorite against Iowa State in the Big 12 tourney late Thursday night, according to DraftKings. The Red Raiders are about +275 to win the Big 12 tourney, at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.

In the SEC, Alabama games have gone 20-10-1 to the over this season. The Crimson Tide vs. Vanderbilt total is 151 for Thursdays tilt inside Amelie Arena in Tampa, Fla.

Also, Texas A&M games are 20-10 to over, and the Aggies-Florida total Thursday at noon ET is 134.5 at Amelie.

In the mid-majors, the South Point has Toledo the -110 favorite to win the Mid-American. The Rockets are 22-8 ATS, second to only Middle Tennessees scintillating 21-7-1 in the nation.

Toledo is a 16.5-point favorite against Central Michigan at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland.

In the Big West, in the debut event for the new Dollar Loan Center in the southern Vegas foothills, UC-Irvine is the South Points 3-to-1 favorite.

The Anteaters, whose games have been 15-6-2 to the under this season, play UC-Santa Barbara, and the game has a 125.5 total. Ten of UCSBs past 14 games have finished under. The Gauchos are second in the nation over their past three games, shooting 55.4 percent. The game is a pick em.

Long Beach State, one of the countrys best cover teams at 18-9, is a 5-point favorite Thursday against Cal State Bakersfield, whose 6-16-2 ATS record is one of the worst in college hoops.

Many professionals and expert bettors relish the next few days when there will be as many as 50 games on the menu.

To Stoneback, this is the best week in Las Vegas for college basketball, especially considering customers have been able to attend any of the five conference tournaments being staged in the city.

If you like to bet college basketball and you like to attend college basketball games, and youre a college basketball fan, he says, this is the Utopia week, more than next week.

Next week, though, the NCAA Tournament begins, with 16 first-round games on both Thursday and Friday, and eight second-round tilts apiece on Saturday and Sunday.

Andrews says the great paradox is that the conference tournaments offer such exceptional games, but the real wagering commences next week with the NCAAs.

Definitely an appetizer, he says of the conference tourneys. Ive been saying it for years. The basketball is great, but the betting is not fantastic. Maybe its just because our numbers [power ratings and point spreads] are pretty solid at this point.

But the next phase, when we get into the NCAA Tournament, you have a lot of matchups that have never happened. THAT is when the betting really goes crazy.

Also read: Can I bet on college sports in my state? | Big Ten tourney odds | Big 12 tourney odds | SEC tourney odds

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Conference Tournament Betting Report & Trends: Liability On Arizona - Gaming Today

David Byrne and the cast of David Byrnes American Utopia appeared on The Tonight Show to perform the Broadway productions quirky number Like Humans Do.

Byrne also sat down with host Jimmy Fallon to discuss American Utopia, which is in the midst of a run at the St. James Theatre, as well as his musical career. The late-night host also joked with Byrne about the similarity between the iconic boxy suit the Talking Heads frontman wore in the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense and the one actor Robert Pattinson wore to the recent premiere of The Batman.

I hadnt seen this photo, Byrne replied. Hes going to need a couple of seats for that. The musician added that he personally wore the giant suit so it would make my head look smaller.

David Byrnes American Utopia plays at the St. James Theatre through April 3. The cast recently performed several songs from the musical on CBS Mornings.

Appearing on that show, Byrne noted that he was unable to write new songs during the Covid-19 pandemic I thought, I have not been able to process this, he said and instead devoted his talents to drawing, which are now on exhibit at New Yorks Pace Gallery.

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David Byrne, American Utopia Cast Bring Like Humans Do to Fallon - Rolling Stone

The bulldozer arrived one night in December, shaking Ganga Park awake in her treehouse and sending her scurrying down the trunk.

When its operator paused the menacing machine, which was there to clear a path through the surrounding forest, Park clung to it. Their standoff continued until the driver gave up and turned back.

When the bulldozer returned a few days later, Park confronted it again, but this time she was joined by dozens of her neighbors in the south Indian arcadia of Auroville.

They linked arms around the bulldozer, chanting Om Namo Bhagavate, a popular Hindu mantra that roughly translates to Obeisance to the Almighty. They remained until they won at least a temporary victory: a stay order from an environmental tribunal, forcing the demolition work to stop.

It was super instinctive, Park, 20, said of her leap into action. If theres an intruder, you immediately protect and defend.

The intruder, in this case, was the government of Auroville, an idealistic community founded in 1968 with the goal of realizing human unity by putting the divine at the center of all things.

That unity, however, has recently frayed.

A bitter dispute has arisen between Aurovilles government, which has revived a long-delayed plan to vastly expand the community, and those residents who want to protect the thriving forest they have cultivated from the barren stretch of land where their social experiment began more than 50 years ago.

The community was founded by a French writer, Mirra Alfassa, better known to her followers simply as the Mother, who believed that a change of consciousness and aspiration to the divine in Auroville would ripple out to the rest of the world.

Before her death in 1973, the Mother had commissioned French architect Roger Anger to develop a design for a city of 50,000, about 15 times the current population. Anger conceived of a galactic form: spiraling concentric circles around the Matrimandir a circular golden meditation chamber with 12 radial roads.

But without the money or manpower over the decades to carry out the plan, the communitys residents, or Aurovilians, built something different.

They dug wells and built thatched-roof huts. And they planted trees. A lot of them. Under the cool forest canopy, civets, jackals, peacocks and other creatures roam, and muriel bushes release a sweet, heady fragrance.

The divide between those Aurovilians who want to follow the Mothers urban development plans known as constructivists and those who want to let the community continue developing on its own organicists has long existed.

But the struggle took on a heightened pitch in July, when the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed a new secretary, Jayanti Ravi, to head the townships governing board.

Ravi had been the health secretary in Gujarat, Modis home state. Earlier, she was a district magistrate under Modi, then the states top official, when he faced near-universal condemnation for failing to control two months of religious riots in Gujarat in 2002 that left more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslim, dead.

The governments new interest in enacting Angers design reflects Modis penchant for ambitious construction projects to foster tourism around Hindu or nationalist sites. His Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, is the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a social organization devoted to making India an explicitly Hindu state.

Although Auroville was founded by a Frenchwoman, she was the disciple of Sri Aurobindo, a spiritual teacher and a freedom fighter for Indias independence. The planned redesign of Auroville is being done before Sri Aurobindos 150th birth anniversary in August for which Modi is planning a big celebration.

Part of Narendra Modis agenda is to appropriate all religious and spiritual figures into the fold of the BJP, said Navroz Mody, the resident who filed the petition to pause the development project.

Ravi promised to infuse the project with millions of dollars in federal funding. The development would start by paving a perfectly circular road, part of a broader, pedestrianized beltway that would connect Aurovilles four distinct zones. But in the way stand Aurovilles youth center, a water catchment area and hundreds of trees.

Sindhuja Jagadeesh, a spokesperson for the local government, said it was a kind of decadence for Aurovilles approximately 3,300 people about half Indian, and half foreigners to live on 3,000 acres of land in a country as densely populated as India.

Many people have become attached to their comfort in the greenery, but we are supposed to experiment and evolve, said Jagadeesh, who is also an architect and an Aurovilian.

The stance of those opposed to the development, Jagadeesh added, clashes sharply with the Mothers vision for a model city of the future that would be replicated around the world.

We are here for human unity, but also to build a city, she said.

The proponents of the development plan, which ultimately envisions a high-density, self-sustained city with a bustling economy and experimental architecture, deride the Auroville of today as an eco-village where a visitor can get a good cappuccino but not the change in consciousness its founder hoped for.

Its not just a city plan. Its meant to hold an experiment, said Shrimoyi Rosegger, a resident who approves of the development and has a deep faith in the transformative power of the Mothers plan. We believe it is an intelligence which is beyond us, she added, that if we follow her guidelines, something will be revealed to us.

Leaning against a motorcycle outside the communitys free clothing store and food co-op, Auroson Bystrom, 51, among the first children born in Auroville, said he opposes Ravis plans but thinks the intense debate has energized the community.

Aurobindo is all about evolution, Bystrom said, referring to Sri Aurobindo. And for the last 35 years, Auroville hasnt felt all that evolutionary.

Some opponents of the plan say that the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was not as much about building a new city as it was building a new human. And that takes time.

How we urbanize is more important than how fast we urbanize, said Suhasini Ayer, an architect whose mixed-use development in Auroville recently won a design award at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

The communitys small population, opponents of the development say, owes more to the unusual conditions for residency than to the lack of the ring road that the government wants to plow through trees.

Those wishing to live here must undergo a year of vetting and must invest their own money into homes that will remain town property.

Auroville receives some funding from the government but drums up most of its budget internally, from private enterprise and donations.

Residents purify their own water, grow their own grains and make their own paper. Those who work for Aurovilles public services receive a meager salary known as maintenance.

These people want to be pragmatic, Renu Neogy, a lifelong Aurovilian, said of Ravi and her supporters. But this is not a pragmatic place. This is utopia.

Some foreign residents said they feared that Ravi could deprive them of the sponsorship they need to continue living in India if they fail to get on board with her plans.

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Build a new city or new humans? A Utopia in India fights over future - The Indian Express

Basketball coaches love to play the role of amateur shrinks. They do it all the time. In Hoosiers, when Ollies about to take the most important free throws of his life, Norman Dale pulls out a trick coaches from CYO to the Celtics have tried going back to the beginning of time: he sets up a defense for when Ollie make the free throws, not if.

Mike Anderson has decided to borrow another gem from the coaching medicine cabinet.

Ive got four outfits, he said Tuesday.

He smiled as he said this, but he was as serious as a tax audit, of course. Because St. Johns gets one last chance to salvage a disappointing season starting Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden, first round of the Big East Tournament, facing off against their sister Vincentian school, DePaul. If they are to crash the NCAA Tournament it will require four wins in four nights.

Hence, four changes of clothes.

Everyone is zero and zero, Anderson said. Were looking forward to this tournament. The winner gets the automatic bid and thats our goal. Thats our quest.

It didnt have to come to this, but thats all prologue now. Its all prelude. Anderson pieced together a pillow-soft preseason schedule that meant the Johnnies were going to have to do their most damage in the Big East, except that never quite happened, not enough. They come into this tournament 16-14 overall, having lost 11 of their 19 Big East games.

We know, Julian Champagnie said, that its win or go home.

Logically, everyone else knows that this is more of a fools errand than a true quest. But there are a few things that St. Johns has on its side. For one thing, it was only a year ago that Georgetown entered the tournament 10-12 and all but buried except it proceeded to blow out Marquette, squeak by Villanova, handle Seton Hall and absolutely obliterate Creighton on four consecutive nights to steal the leagues automatic bid and craft a perfect blueprint for precisely what St. Johns must do right down to beating Villanova in Round 2 if they can survive DePaul.

St. Johns has other advantages, of course, but they have those advantages every year. The Big East Tournament is, essentially, a St. Johns home game whenever the Johnnies are playing. The fact it has only rarely been kind to them for most of the last 35 years is as stinging an indictment of where the program has tumbled as anything else.

But the fact is, its still the Garden. Its still New York. And no matter how many Villanova or Seton Hall or Providence fans are in the building, its still going to feel like Utopia Parkway in a close game, under two minutes to play. Some year, thats going to matter.

Maybe next year can be this year.

Maybe its our time, Anderson said.

There is this, too: St. Johns is exactly the kind of team the top-tier teams, the ones with NCAA bids already locked up, want no part of this weekend. The Johnnies 94-foot style is uncomfortable on any court, but especially the Gardens. And the Johnnies will have the advantage of desperation on their hands against just about anyone they play.

(Assuming they can survive DePaul, anyway.)

We have no choice, Anderson said. If were going to get in, weve got to win it.

You can call this a lot of things: fantasy, delusion, pipe dreams. The St. Johns team that scuffled most of the year will be lucky to make it to Thursday. But anyone who watched this team all year knows there is another team loitering, lurking and fully capable of disrupting the weekend. That version humiliated Seton Hall at Walsh Gym, twice lost heartbreakers to UConn, gave Villanova plenty to think about until the very end at the Garden.

Maybe that version of this team is destined to stay hidden. Or maybe, as the man with four outfits said, its their time. Their turn.

There comes a time when it all comes together, Mike Anderson said. And this would be the perfect time to come together.

No need to save it for the NIT.

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St. John's needs to put it all together now -- starting against DePaul - New York Post

HALF A CENTURY AFTER the publication of Post Office (1971), how should we understand Charles Bukowskis literary achievement? His publisher predicted that Bukowski would never reach a mainstream audience. And yet his books, including his poetry, have sold millions of copies in more than a dozen languages. Writing for The New Yorker in 2005, Adam Kirsch claims that Bukowskis liminal status and seedy persona were part of his appeal: He is one of those writers whom each new reader discovers with a transgressive thrill. Describing his verse as pulp poetry, Kirsch also notes the authors penchant for autobiography. Bukowskis poems are best appreciated not as individual verbal artifacts but as ongoing installments in the tale of his true adventures, like a comic book or a movie serial, he observes. They are strongly narrative, drawing from an endless supply of anecdotes that typically involve a bar, a skid-row hotel, a horse race, a girlfriend, or any permutation thereof. That combination made a strong impression on readers. The effect is as though some legendary tough guy, a cross between Philip Marlowe and Paul Bunyan, were to take the barstool next to you, buy a round, and start telling his life story.

The pulp comparison is on point in fact, Bukowskis final novel, Pulp (1994), draws on the conventions of hard-boiled detective fiction but Kirsch also mentions Bukowskis efforts to place himself in more reputable literary company. He occasionally took pains to align himself with a coherent literary tradition, writing about his admiration for Dostoyevsky, Hamsun, Cline, and Camus the classics of modern alienation, the biographers of the underground man, Kirsch writes. He was especially fond of Hamsuns Hunger, the story of a young writer demented by poverty and ambition. While Bukowskis literary ambitions were grandiose, he is, for Kirsch, essentially a genre writer: prolific, predictable, and popular.

Kirsch does not mention an equally coherent tradition to which Bukowski belongs, one that includes some of the most notable fiction and film produced in Los Angeles during his lifetime. This tradition is by no means at odds with the classics of modern alienation. In fact, Bukowskis favorite author was L.A. novelist and screenwriter John Fante, who also admired Hamsun. After achieving his own success, Bukowski persuaded his publisher to reissue Fantes novels, including Ask the Dust (1939). Demented by poverty and literary ambition during the Great Depression, Fantes protagonist passes his days at a saloon in Downtown Los Angeles, where he drinks bad coffee and obsesses over a Latina waitress. Bukowskis preface to the reprint recalls his own days as an impoverished writer in the city: I was a young man, starving and drinking and trying to be a writer. Scouring the L.A. Public Library for suitable reading, he was unmoved by modern fiction until he discovered Fantes novel. The beginning of that book was a wild and enormous miracle to me, he writes: Fante was my god and I knew that the gods should be left alone, one didnt bang at their door.

That homage suggests that Kirsch overlooked the most proximate influence on Bukowski, or at least on his fiction. In fact, Bukowski cannot be understood apart from his midcentury Los Angeles milieu. His vision of the city was an integral part of his output, and few writers have documented its squalor more meticulously. Nowhere is the citys significance clearer than in Post Office, Bukowskis first and most famous novel, and nowhere else does he tap the regions deepest literary tradition more directly.

In the opening pages of his 1990 book City of Quartz, Mike Davis sketches that tradition and identifies Los Angeless unique place in the public imagination. For him, the ultimate world-historical significance and oddity of Los Angeles is that it has come to play the double role of utopia and dystopia for advanced capitalism. Davis attributes that double role to the interplay among the citys boosters, its debunkers, and the noir tradition. In his overview of the boosters, Davis pairs the Arroyo Set, led by Charles Fletcher Lummis, with the Chamber of Commerces effort to present Los Angeles as the promised land of a millenarian Anglo-Saxon racial odyssey. The booster parlance was pithier, of course. The racist and anti-labor Los Angeles Times, for example, described the city as the white spot. Whether or not that phrase was an open expression of white supremacy, the Times certainly did not describe L.A. as the brown, black, or red spot. In fact, the newspapers coverage was mostly designed to burnish the regions image and thereby support the Chandler familys real estate investments and other ventures.

The Great Depression ushered in the debunkers, chief among them Louis Adamic and his recently radicalized friend, Carey McWilliams. In a 1930 magazine article, Adamic cast the citys boosters as grim, rather inhuman individuals with a terrifying singleness of intention namely, to turn huge profits by growing Los Angeles into the nations largest metropolis. The article also recounted the Great Water Caper the creation of the Los Angeles Aqueduct which permitted the citys rapid expansion in the first decades of the 20th century. Adamic moved east to edit Common Ground magazine, but not before McWilliams, who was Fantes best friend, published a short book about him in 1935.

After World War II, McWilliams retold the aqueduct story in Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (1946). Often regarded as the regions finest interpretive history, that book was part of a remarkable streak. Between 1939 and 1950, McWilliams turned out almost one book per year on a wide range of topics, including California farm labor, the Japanese internment, systemic racism, antisemitism, Latinos in the Southwest, and the early stages of McCarthyism. His output directly inspired Robert Townes Oscar-winning screenplay for Chinatown (1974) and Luis Valdezs Zoot Suit (1979). It was also cited in a Supreme Court dissenting opinion on the constitutionality of the Japanese internment. As a reward for his labors, McWilliams was red-baited relentlessly before and after he decamped for New York City to edit The Nation magazine. A decade after he died in 1980, however, Davis and others sang his praises. In City of Quartz, Davis described a fraction of McWilliamss work as one of the major achievements within the American regional tradition. Likewise, historian Kevin Starr, in his 2002 book, Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 19401950, cast McWilliams as the states most astute political observer and the single finest nonfiction writer on California ever.

Adamic and McWilliams took obvious pleasure in challenging Los Angeless ersatz history and image, but they were not alone. During the 1930s, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Nathanael West also subverted the popular conception of Los Angeles as a sunny paradise. So did film noir, which flourished in the 1940s and 50s and later influenced Chinatown and Blade Runner (1982). Yet even as the noir tradition propagated a sinister image of the city, it never stifled the regions utopian impulse, whose most fantastical expression was Disneyland. Pitched to the Baby Boom generation, the iconic theme park earned its right-wing founder a reputation as an urban utopianist. In the meantime, other authors, filmmakers, and musicians were also packaging and selling idealized versions of SoCal youth culture. Frederick Kohners Gidget, The Little Girl with Big Ideas (1957) launched a series of novels about teenage surfers in Malibu that soon morphed into a popular film and television franchise. The Beach Boys scored their first hit in 1962 and eventually produced dozens of Top 40 singles about surfing, girls, and cars. The Beach Party movie franchise, which also featured teenage frolicking, began its run in 1963; in 1965 alone, a dozen such films appeared before the genre virtually collapsed in 1968. Taken together, these works presented Los Angeles as a city of youth, romance, and healthy fun.

Bukowskis experience stood in stark contrast to that image. Born in 1920, beaten regularly and savagely by his father, his face and body ravaged by boils, Bukowski graduated from Los Angeles High School and attended Los Angeles City College for two years. He drank, wandered, lived in rooming houses, married, divorced, and was treated for a near-fatal bleeding ulcer in 1955. After leaving the hospital, he began writing poetry. For 15 years, he lived in sketchy East Hollywood, working first as a postal carrier and then as a letter-filing clerk. According to Howard Souness 1998 biography, Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life, he told his literary friends that his work was triple super hell, baby. [] The post office is nailing me to the cross. Later, however, Bukowski said that the work helped him to master the terrain. You get the stink of L.A. in your bones, you know? he told one interviewer in an excerpt included in John Dullaghans 2003 documentary, Bukowski: Born into This. His contempt for Disneyland, which opened the same year he was released from the hospital, led one colleague (also cited in Born into This) to claim that Bukowskis entire body of work was dedicated to the de-Disneyfication of all of us. Against the boosterist vision of Los Angeles as a place of youth and healthy fun, Bukowski offered a vision of the city that featured aging, scabrous, tortured alcoholics.

When John Martin created Black Sparrow Press in 1969, Bukowski was 49 years old and writing a column called Notes of a Dirty Old Man for the Los Angeles Free Press. He appreciated the rapid dissemination of his work in the underground weekly, but he had no sympathy for the countercultures music, drugs, or politics or for political causes in general. Martin, who managed an office supply store, had a longstanding interest in modern writers, including Henry Miller and the Beats. After discovering Bukowskis poetry in an underground magazine, he sold his first editions of D. H. Lawrence and used the proceeds to open his press in Los Angeles. Although the two men never had a contract, Martin promised to pay Bukowski $100 per month for life if he resigned from the post office. After his final shift, Bukowski stayed drunk for days. After living in the cage, I had taken the opening and flown out like a shot into the heavens, Sounes quotes him as saying.

Martin encouraged Bukowski to write whatever he wanted, but he also indicated that a novel would be welcome. Three weeks after Bukowski resumed writing, he unexpectedly delivered the complete manuscript for Post Office. Its success, modest at first, convinced Martin that his press would survive. The novel sold especially well in Europe, and Martin used the revenue to publish Fante, Paul Bowles, Wanda Coleman, and other writers. Toward the end of Bukowskis life, Martin was paying him $10,000 per month and adding any balance due at the end of each year. In 2002, he sold the rights to the work of Bukowski, Fante, and Bowles to HarperCollins. Martin did not regard Black Sparrow as a publisher of pulp poetry; he described his operation, rather, as one of the only self-supporting, highly successful, widely distributed, purely literary presses.

More The Day of the Locust than How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Bukowskis first novel falls naturally into the dystopian strain of L.A. literature. Its protagonist, Henry Chinaski, is a middle-aged alcoholic trying to survive in 1960s Los Angeles. His job as a substitute letter carrier is a brutal exercise in alienation: the work is exhausting and degrading, his supervisor is a sadist, and his colleagues are browbeaten. The subs themselves made Jonstone possible by obeying his impossible orders, Chinaski says. I couldnt see how a man of such obvious cruelty could be allowed to have his position. Only Chinaski addresses their soup (i.e., superior) by his nickname, The Stone. His customers are lunatics, their dogs are a menace, and the postal service itself is a faceless, spirit-crushing bureaucracy. Even the weather, Los Angeless saving grace, is a perpetual threat. On the job, Chinaski is either soaked by ferocious rainstorms or sweating out last nights booze under a boiling sun. I was hungover again, another heat spell was on a week of 100 degree days, he reports. The drinking went on each night, and in the early mornings and days there was The Stone and the impossibility of everything. Along the way, he objectifies and occasionally brutalizes women in one episode, he angrily enacts a female characters rape fantasy yet he also expresses sympathy for their suffering. At the end of the novel, Chinaski resigns from the post office and launches an epic bender.

For all its bleakness, Post Office is a comic novel, and readers have many chances to relish Chinaskis sardonic outlook. A less obvious but central motif is the novels surreptitious utopianism. As much as any character in American literature, Chinaski seeks the good life, even if his jaded outlook and squalid surroundings belie that quest. The opening passage sets the bar comically low for human happiness. It began as a mistake, Chinaski says.

It was Christmas season and I learned from the drunk up the hill, who did the trick every Christmas, that they would hire damned near anybody, and so I went and the next thing I knew I had this leather sack on my back and was hiking around at my leisure. What a job, I thought. Soft!

A married woman who is big in all the right places emerges from her home and accompanies him on his appointed round. They arrange a tryst, and after a short affair, Chinaski reflects on his good fortune. But I couldnt help thinking, god, all these mailmen do is drop in their letters and get laid. This is the job for me, oh yes yes yes.

Chinaskis delight turns to misery as the job tightens its grip on him. He describes his travails and the post offices daily operations in its distinctive argot. The accumulation of detail strengthens the novels realism and underscores the petty cruelties that kill by slow torture. Chinaski occasionally witnesses real suffering, and the bureaucratic indifference to it, but even the quotidian observations are meaningful. For example, he notes that the regular postal carriers call in sick after holidays, or when the mail loads are especially heavy, or when the weather is intolerable. As their substitute, Chinaski must bear those burdens without the perquisites his colleagues enjoy, chalking up that inequity to human nature. At no point does he imagine work that is dignified or properly rewarded; even to entertain that notion is to misunderstand the full horror of his situation.

Despite his tribulations, Chinaski occasionally finds time to enjoy the good things in life. When his girlfriend Betty returns to work, he takes a leave of absence from the post office:

I got up around 10:30 a.m., had a leisurely cup of coffee and a couple of eggs, played with the dog, flirted with the young wife of a mechanic who lived in the back, got friendly with a stripteaser who lived in the front. Id be at the track by one p.m., then back with my profit, and with the dog at the bus stop to wait for Betty to come home. It was a good life.

That leisure, however, is impossible to sustain. After Betty drifts off, Chinaski marries Joyce, who comes from a wealthy family. Nevertheless, she insists that they live on their wages. Baby, thats grammar school, Chinaski protests. Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working. He returns to the post office but eventually floats a proposition:

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was with my crazy 12 hour night I was no longer sure what was what I said, Look, baby, Im sorry, but dont you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, lets give it up. Lets just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Lets go to the zoo. Lets look at the animals. Lets drive down and look at the ocean. Its only 45 minutes. Lets play games in the arcades. Lets go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Lets have friends. Lets laugh. This kind of life is like everyone elses kind of life: its killing us.

Joyce is unmoved by his humane vision. No, Hank, weve got to show them, weve got to show them Attributing that urge to Joyces upbringing, Chinaski gives up. There is hope, but not for them.

At one point, Joyce acquires two parakeets, whose chattering bothers Chinaski. When he complains, she suggests that he put the birds in the backyard. He does, but he also opens their cage. Both birds looked at that cage door. They couldnt understand it and they could. I could feel their tiny minds trying to function. They had their food and water right there, but what was that open space? One bird leaps down from his rung, stands in front of the open door, and tries to decide his next move. Then something clicks in his tiny brain. He didnt fly, Chinaski says. He shot straight up into the sky. The second bird is more reluctant: He walked around in the bottom of the cage nervously. It was a hell of a decision. Humans, birds, everything has to make these decisions. It was a hard game. Finally, the second bird also flies the coop. The parable of the parakeets seems straightforward enough, but Chinaski later banishes all ambiguity by comparing his decision to leave the post office to their existential drama.

Before his final departure from the job, Chinaski has other brushes with the good life, especially at the racetrack. Having parsed the Daily Racing Form, he showcases his mastery of the idiom by analyzing one race:

The 6 horse had lost by a neck to the favorite in a mile race last time out. The 6 had been overtaken by the favorite after a 2 length lead at the head of the stretch. [] Both were coming back in the same class. The favorite was adding two pounds, 116 to 118. The 6 still carried 116 but they had switched to a less popular jock, and also the distance was a mile and a 16th. The crowd figures that since the favorite had caught the 6 at a mile, then surely it would catch the 6 with the extra 16th of a mile to run.

The crowds logic, however, is faulty. Trainers enter their horses in what seems unfavorable conditions in order to keep the public money off the horse, Chinaski explains. The distance switch, plus the switch to a less popular jock all pointed to a gallop at a good price. When he tells Vi, his female companion, that he is betting on the 6 horse, she calls it a quitter. Nevertheless, he places a $10 bet to win and collects at eight to one. She put that leg and breast up against me, Chinaski says, I took a nip of scotch and opened the Form. After another shrewd bet pays off, the couple move to the bar, where Vi really laid her body against me. His winnings cover their hefty tab, after which they repair to her apartment for a sodden attempt at intercourse.

If his sexual performance is subpar, Chinaski has shown that he can make it without working. The wins boost his confidence, and he starts to envision life beyond the post office.

Then I developed a new system at the racetrack. I pulled in $3,000 in a month and a half while only going to the track two or three times a week. I began to dream. I saw a little house down by the sea. I saw myself in fine clothing, calm, getting up mornings, getting into my imported car, make the slow easy drive to the track. I saw leisurely steak dinners, preceded and followed by good chilled drinks in colored glasses. The big tip. The cigar. And women as you wanted them.

By this time, readers can feel the pull of Chinaskis vision. It is not a dream of upward mobility based on freedom and opportunity, even less a belief in hard work and its rewards. To the contrary, the track represents the possibility of wealth without labor or soups. At the same time, it is not a place of leisure or social exchange. While Chinaski recognizes many regulars there, and his accounts suggest a certain bonhomie, his vision is not a social one. He is there to make money, and others are there to lose theirs. For him, success at the track is salutary as well as solitary. Betting tests his acumen, but it does not destroy his mind, body, or spirit. If the post office represents suffering without redemption, the racetrack offers the prospect of full humanity, Bukowski style.

Feeling confident, Chinaski requests a 90-day leave of absence. So I stood in the tour superintendents office, he says. There he was behind his desk. I had a cigar in my mouth and whiskey on my breath. I felt like money. I looked like money. The post office has treated him well, he says, but he has outside business interests that simply must be taken care of. The tone is comical, but Chinaski clearly relishes the shift from aggrieved worker to successful investor. He begins to visit the track down the coast. It was a good life, and I started winning. After the last race each night I would have one or two easy drinks at the bar, tipping the bartender well. It looked like a new life. I could do no wrong. Even the drive home is pleasant:

Every night was about the same. Id drive along the coast looking for a place to have dinner. I wanted an expensive place that wasnt too crowded. I developed a nose for those places. I could tell by looking at them from outside. You couldnt always get a table directly overlooking the ocean unless you wanted to wait. But you could still see the ocean and the moon, and let yourself get romantic. Let yourself enjoy life. I always asked for a small salad and a big steak. The waitresses smiled deliciously and stood very close to you.

Savoring his success, Chinaski reflects on his humble origins. I had come a long way from a guy who had worked in slaughterhouses, who had crossed the country with a railroad track gang, who had worked in a dog biscuit factory, who had slept on park benches, who had worked the nickel and dime jobs in a dozen cities across the nation. He has led, he concludes, a magic life. And I did not tire of it.

The enchantment ends abruptly when a new girlfriend and her male companion try to rob him in a motel room. Chinaski sees his attackers reflection in a mirror, drops him with a beer bottle to the mouth, kicks his stiletto away, and slaps around the treacherous girlfriend. Is that how you make it, cunt? Killing men for a couple hundred? She declares her love for him, but he grabs her dress and rips it to the waist. She didnt wear a brassiere. The bitch didnt need one. This is Bukowski at his pulpiest, but the incident also signals the end of Chinaskis winning streak. Somehow the money slipped away after that and soon I left the track and sat around in my apartment waiting for the 90 days leave to run out. He was back on the cross.

The racetrack recedes into the novels background, but Bukowski later (in comments excerpted in Dullaghans 2003 documentary) explained its significance. For him, the track was not only a setting for his fiction, but also a part of his literary process. When I dont go to the track, he said, I cant write. When asked what the racetrack meant to him, he described the faces he saw there and the inner lives behind them: They all have dreams, they want to win. Its a big arena, and you can see what they want and what they dont get. If the post office is a dystopian bureaucracy, the racetrack is a site for unbridled but ultimately thwarted desire. It stirs hopes of wealth that cannot be possessed, and of ease that vanishes as quickly as it appears. It is Eden, but after the fall. Once his girlfriend betrays him, Chinaski must live by the sweat of his brow.

After a series of personal setbacks, however, Chinaski can no longer tolerate the old routine. He quits the post office for good and debases himself even more energetically than usual. When his fellow revelers drop him off at his squalid apartment, he resumes drinking before collapsing on his bed. He says: In the morning it was morning and I was still alive. Maybe Ill write a novel, I thought. And then I did. Nothing prepares the reader for these final lines, which hold out the faint promise that Chinaskis novel will improve his miserable condition. After rubbing the readers nose in the stink of Los Angeles, Post Office concludes by alluding to the redemptive power of art, the most romantic notion of all.

Yet the ending also maintains the delicate balance between dystopian text and utopian subtext. To endorse Chinaskis hope in any way to imagine, for example, that his novel will sell millions of copies in a dozen languages would undermine Post Offices hard-earned realism. If Chinaski became an underground hero, the subject of a documentary film with appearances by Sean Penn and Bono and Tom Waits, the novel would no longer belong in the realm of modern alienation. If Chinaski ended up living in a large house near the ocean, earning $10,000 per month, sleeping with groupies, and driving a BMW, his life would become a louche version of a Horatio Alger story. If he were profiled in The New Yorker, well, no one would believe it.

Post Office is not a rags-to-riches story, but it illustrates Mike Daviss point about Los Angeless double role as dystopia and utopia for advanced capitalism. The city never transcends its essential shabbiness, but it gradually admits another possibility a world of easy living for aging lushes who understand the crowd and its desires. When that possibility is dashed, Chinaski resorts to wishing upon a star not at the track but in the fickle realm of fiction. Ironically, Bukowskis success would outstrip Chinaskis unspoken wish, adding another layer of oddity to the citys reputation. Well before any of that came to pass, however, Bukowskis stealthy utopianism had more in common with Walt Disneys vision than he probably cared to acknowledge.

Peter Richardson teaches humanities and American Studies at San Francisco State University. He has written critically acclaimed books about Hunter S. Thompson, the Grateful Dead,Rampartsmagazine, and Carey McWilliams. He received the National Entertainment Journalism Award for Online Criticism in 2013.

Link:

Charles Bukowski's Lush Life: Post Office and the Utopian Impulse - lareviewofbooks

After finding roots in Hollywood in the Fast and the Furious family and as the DCEUs Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot is keeping herself busy with a host of upcoming projects. One especially exciting one is a Mission: Impossible-style spy action thriller called Heart of Stone. The movie that was scored in a competitive bidding war by Netflix last year will star the actress alongside Fifty Shades Jamie Dornan. And Heart of Stone just added four more actors to the project.

The upcoming action flick will also star Army of the Dead fan-favorite, Matthias Schweighfer in an indisclosed role. The German actor had a breakout year in 2021 when he starred in Zack Snyders Netflix film and preceded to star and direct in the prequel Army of Thieves. Hes not the only new star boarding Heart of Stone either.

Per the Deadline report, Gal Gadots Death on the Nile co-star Sophie Okonedo will also re-team with the actress in the upcoming movie. Okonedo has an impressive resume across her thirty years as an actress, also finding memorable roles in Hotel Rwanda, The Secret Life of Bees and Aeon Flux.

Also, up-and-coming British-Chinese actress Jing Lusi is part of the Heart of Stone cast after finding a notable role in 2018s Crazy Rich Asians and coming off filming roles in the upcoming Henry Cavill-led spy thriller Argylle and the new season of HBO Maxs Pennyworth. Finally, Paul Ready, who is a television actor from The Terror and Utopia is also on board the big-budget Netflix project.

Its a solid lineup of actors who have put down solid work over the years and would fit right in a spy movie starring the likes of Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan. If Heart of Stone follows suit with the typical spy genre, wed expect these actors to either be part of Gadots entourage or amongst the villains shell have to infiltrate somehow.

At this time, we dont have much details about what Heart of Stone will be about, but the movie comes from a script by Greg Rucka, who penned the script for the 2020 Netflix action flick The Old Guard alongside Allison Schroeder, who previously wrote Hidden Figures and Christopher Robin. Aeronauts and Peaky Blinders director Tom Harper is directing the movie.

Heart of Stone just started filming this week, per an Instagram update by Gal Gadot. The movie does not have a release date yet, but well keep you posted as the production continues to progress. For the time being, check out what 2022 Netflix movie release dates have been set and hold your breath for Wonder Woman 3, its going to be a while.

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Gal Gadot's Netflix Action Movie Has Added An Army Of The Dead Star And More - CinemaBlend

Mitski and David Byrne appear together on "This Is A Life," the first single from Son Lux's soundtrack to new A24 movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. You can hear what the three artists cooked up together below.

"This Is A Life" is just one track on the massive, 49-song soundtrack to the upcoming movie. Other guests involved in the project include Andr 3000, Randy Newman and Moses Sumney.

"This Is A Life" is Mitski's second time on an A24 movie soundtrack already this year. Her version of Lily Chou Chou's "Glide" appears over the credits of the recently-released After Yang. A filmed version of Byrnes critically-acclaimed Broadway musical, American Utopia, directed by Spike Lee, was released in 2020.

Everything Everywhere All At Once is a surreal and comedic sci-fi action-adventure about an exhausted Chinese-American woman who can't seem to finish her taxes. Set inside a multiverse, the movie stars Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis. It hits theaters on April 8.

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Mitski and David Byrne appear on Son Luxs This Is A Life - The FADER