Category Archives: New Utopia

December 23, 2021

December 23, 2021

2021 was full of surprises: The Capitol riot was a bit of a shock; COVID-19variants sprung up left and right; and, perhaps strangest of all, sperm was all over the papers.

That's because the pandemic caused a serious shortage in the market for sperm.Many people have put off having children while COVID runs its course. But among those with male infertility or no male partner,the luxury of working remotely, and the means to pay for some sperm, the pandemic offered a golden opportunity to make dreams of a family a reality. But just as demand skyrocketed, donations fell, and in the resulting shortage, women turned instead to unregulated Facebook groups with nameslike "Sperm Donation USA."The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Esquire all ran features on this growing underground world of sperm philanthropy.

The picture that emerged should give the feminists among us a lot to mull. Artificial insemination by donors is part of a range of assisted reproduction tools that allow people to have children outside the bounds of a heterosexual relationship between two fertile people. It opens up procreative possibilities not only for couples struggling with infertility, but also for women who, for whatever reason, aren't in a committed relationship, as well as lesbian and gay couples.

In other words, sperm donation issupposed to liberate people from traditional gender roles. But the recent spotlight on informal donationpracticessuggests it often does exactly the opposite.

The informal market for sperm differs from its more clinical counterpart. Traditional sperm banks usually keep the personal information of the donor private, at least until the child turns 18. But in the world of Facebook sperm sharing, donors and donees seek each other out, firstonline, then in person.

"Like online dating, the matchmaking kicks off with a direct message from either party expressing interest, before an offline get-to-know-you," wrote Tonya Russell in The Atlantic. And the vetting goes in both directions: Understandably, many donors want assurance that the person raising their biological child has the meansand temperamentto raise them well.

This produces a variety of unconventional arrangements. Some donors, Russell reported, refuse to donate "artificially" and arrange meet-ups to donate the old-fashioned way. In many cases, donors maintainsome sort ofrelationship with the children they sire, or at least hope their children will reach out to them in the future, establishing them as what researcher Nicole Bergen refers to as an "estranged patriarch."

"I have this vision of me being in my 50s and 60s, and I have a large dinner table, and I'm inviting all my donor kids to join me for dinner to tell me their stories, their journeys," one popular 30-year-old donor told The New York Times.

Arguably the most famous of these estranged-patriarchs-in-the-making is Ari Nagel, who has fathered nearly 100 children through word-of-mouth sperm donation. Nagel is a strange figure who stays in loose contact with many of the women he's impregnated, as well as with their children. PerEsquire's sweeping profile, the women are friendly with each other, referring to each other's children as nieces and nephews and to themselves as "Ari's baby mamas."

To his offspring, Nagel plays a kind of distant father figure, swooping in for trips to the park while he's in town to catch another woman's fertile window. He reminds me a little of Stiva Oblonsky from Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina,a charming father of six who flits in and out of his childrens' lives but is otherwise entirely unencumbered by their needs, socializing and drinking and philandering as he pleases.

And that similarity is revealing: The novel is set in imperial Russia in the 1800s, a country still under the feudal system. Central characters have a serious discussion about whether women ought to be educated. It is not a feminist utopia and maybe sperm donation patriarchy isn't either.

After all,the arrangement Nagel has with his baby mamas is arguably not just regressive butantediluvian. The imbalance of parental responsibility ismore extreme than any 1950s gender stereotype. Nagel gets to enjoy casual relationships with dozens of children, and his "baby mamas" do literally all of the work of providing for their wellbeing.

Even if we step back from an extreme example like Nagel, the population of people raising children afterassisted reproduction is overwhelmingly feminine. There's no reliable data on exactly how many children are conceived by donor sperm each year, but according to the Timesreport, sperm banks report about 20 percent of their clients are heterosexual couples, while the rest are gay women or single moms by choice.

The population of men who adopt children or have them through surrogacy doesn't come close to counterbalancing this distribution which makes sense, as even a $1000 vial of sperm is much less expensive than a $30,000 adoption or $100,000 surrogacy. That's part of why the vast majority of same-sex couples raising children are female, as are thevast majority of single parents, whether they're single by choice or not.

All told, artificial means of becoming parents seem to be upholding, rather than dismantling, a gendered division of aggregate reproductive labor.

Whether or notthat matters to youwill depend not only on whether you care about gender equality, but what your vision of gender equality looks like. Does achieving parity in domestic labor matter? What about parity in reproduction, insofar as that's possible? Or should women pursue reproduction, including reproduction without male responsibility, guided by what they personally want instead of loyalty to some abstract principle of equality?

Feminism doesn't have a single answer to any of these questions, nor can I answer them here.Some feminists, like Robyn Rowland, fear the commodification of reproductionas a threat to women's self-determination over their bodies, even going so far as to say that women struggling with infertility should forgo the use of these technologies for the sake of women "as a social group." Others, such as Rosalind Petchesky, countered that, far from being imposed on women, reproductive technology is "a critical tool of reproductive freedom."Shulamith Firestone also saw liberation in reproductive technology, but,believing childbearing was the root cause of women's societal oppression, arguedtrue equality would only be achievedif it was used tofree women from their biologically-imposed reproductive burden.

Whatever else comes out of the sperm donation boom within the COVID baby bust, it may be some clarity on these points. This year and into the next, unknown thousands of babies whose conception began in the comment threads of "Sperm Donation USA" will be born. And, two decades hence, they'll be uniquely positioned to tell us: Is the new estranged patriarch any less oppressive than the old?

Read the original post:

Is sperm donation good for feminism? - The Week Magazine

New Zealand is an enigma. It belongs to the rich Global North yet its near the east-southern tip of the globe! Its a Western country yet its to the easternmost part of this earth!

Its a sovereign nation.or is it? Under the tutelage of the Queen of England, its a monarchy, right? Well, wrong! Its a Realm comprising a number of islands. The difference, search me!

Whatever oddities, however, whod believe that its a country where a man can be hired by ten people to take their Covi-19 jabs and he actually comfortably tucks them in, in a single day?

Thats exactly what happened early this December. The man went to ten different vaccination centres as ten peoples jab-taker for hire. About the effect on him, opinions are divided. And whether his sponsors will be identified, thats for the birds.

Now, consider that New Zealand is one of the most organised of Western governments. And that its widely praised for a very low infection rate. With a population of 5 million, it has reported 12,500 infections and just 46 deaths, this far.

But with this incident, only one as it may be, isnt the reliability of its statistics thrown into question? Can its claim of 89% of residents being fully vaccinated be relied upon?

In Rwanda we may laugh but maybe it can happen to us, too, although I cannot imagine how.

Here, itd mean the man belongs to Isibo, the smallest administrative unit. Since its composed of not more than 20 households, its residents more or less know one another. If they dont, the Isibo head knows most of them or, if not all, knows someone who knows that whom she/he doesnt.

Which means any recalcitrant member of the unit whos likely to accept multiple punctures in his body on behalf of others for pay will have been known even before embarking on their enterprise!

In this age of advanced technology, moreover, the whole Isibo membership will have a social media platform where they exchange all titbits of information. Which means therell be no escape for that rogue member of their unit and none for those jab-dodgers.

With these sub-villages, villages, cells, sectors, districts, provinces up to the central government working as if in what Id call unending inter-cyclic motion, I see no escape route for rascals.

Besides, in a society where, however rich, you can freely borrow something you miss from a neighbour and vice versa, you are family and will fight any wrong together. Where, before the Covid-19 pandemic, you met in church, Umuganda, Ubudehe, et al, at all levels of interaction, none can play such tricks on society undetected even for a few hours.

Is this country a Utopia? Far from it. Rwanda has its own share of miscreants, conmen/women, thieves, robbers, corrupt elements and embezzlers in government and in institutions. Everywhere there are different unsavoury characters alright, but this country is not ranked among the cleanest, most orderly, least corrupt, etc., for nothing.

Those wayward elements, be they at local or national level, in government or in institutions, civil society or the private sector, wherever, all must be accountable; the citizenry is watching.

The citizens are watching because government has earned their trust. They know the effort it puts in working with them to save their earnings, to spend it thriftily, to live in a safe atmosphere, to realise progress, to do everything transparently and together to work for their common good.

Thats how strong leadership comes in: never tire in inculcating into fellow citizens the ethos of one for all, all for one. And this ethos necessarily demands and creates strong institutions, which must be safeguarded.

So, a fig for the man who came breathing fire for Africa to ditch strong men or else.

Well, the else didnt see light of day because we knew that the strong institutions he advocated for are built by strong men and strong women. The latter whom he could not remember to mention because a Ms President seems to be an alien concept in USA, thus far.

But I beg your indulgence, for I digress.

My laboured effort is in the service of expressing how people whove worked hard to build their brand of democracy, not the do-what-you-will democracy constantly being shoved down our throats, do not allow any malfeasance, of whatever type and however minor.

In the name of transparency also, every shot-taker must be properly identified.

Our democracy doesnt mean freedom to abuse anybody/thing. It doesnt mean going on rampage breaking things or getting unearned rights destined for others.

We may have religious and other zealots who may reject vaccination but, for that, if you are likely to put someone else in danger when you catch the virus, youll not escape the long arm of the law. Ibid if you take more than your due share of shots and deprive others of theirs.

Taxpayers money has been expended to buy vaccines for such a number of citizens. That exact number must get their allotted jabs, not sink into one mans shoulder. Un point un trait!

Read more from the original source:

Taking ten Covid-19 jabs for pay? The long arm of the law awaits thee - The New Times

Mackenzie Davis in HBO's adaptation of Station Eleven.

In early 2020, before the lockdown, before the coronavirus even had a name, the passengers and crew aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess began a two-week quarantine off the coast of Japan. I remember telling a friend the world was starting to feel like Station Eleven. Life imitating art.

One of the most memorable and haunting images of Emily St. John Mandel's 2014 speculative novel Station Eleven is not a cruise ship but an airplane. An airplane meeting tarmac, slowing to a stop and sitting dormant without opening its doors or releasing its passengers, sealing the infection inside. It is Schrdinger's airplane, its passengers already ghosts before they die.

Now, in late 2021, the wildly popular before-times novel is an after-times HBO Max original limited series. Instead of COVID-19, Station Eleven's world is devastated by the Georgia Flu. Its story of collapse and rebirth returns to find an audience that may well be too weary to turn to dystopian speculation for entertainment. Because now Station Eleven reminds me of the early pandemic: grocery hoarding, overrun emergency rooms, face masks. Art imitating life.

Entertain your brain with the coolest news from streaming to superheroes, memes to video games.

The first death we see is not from the flu: Movie star Arthur Leander (Gael Garca Bernal) is playing the titular role in a stage production of King Lear. Child actor Kirsten Raymonde (Matilda Lawler, played as an adult by Mackenzie Davis) watches Arthur succumb to a heart attack while audience member Jeevan Chaudhary (Himesh Patel) interrupts the show to perform CPR. Arthur dies on stage. Soon, almost everyone in the theater will be dead, too.

The fictional plague is both more deadly and more contagious than COVID-19, killing some 99% of the earth's population in a matter of weeks. Those who survive become unwitting actors on a post-apocalyptic stage where there are no doctors, no countries, no supply chain, no internet, no celebrities, a world where luck and fate pick who lives or dies, and children learn to kill or be killed.

Matilda Lawler as young Kirsten.

"I remember damage," Kirsten repeats 20 years later, quoting a comic book called Station Eleven that was given to her by Arthur before his death. Kirsten has improbably survived the pandemic and joined The Traveling Symphony, a roving Shakespeare troupe, spreading art and culture from the before times to a Great Lakes region that is now dotted with small settlements of survivors coexisting in relative harmony, but with an ever-thrumming baseline of danger.

The plot unfurls across not only timelines but characters, and Kirsten's comic book is the portkey that reveals the tangled web we weave -- the six degrees of separation, the missed connections, the "what a small world!" coincidences. The world of Station Eleven is small, the ensemble cast like that of a late-career Garry Marshall film. We jump from the before to the during to the after; between Kirsten and Jeevan and Arthur; and also Arthur's first wife Miranda (Danielle Deadwyler), his second wife Elizabeth (Caitlin FitzGerald), their son Tyler (Julian Obradors), and his good friend Clark (David Wilmot). We see how this interconnectivity both creates and dismantles civilization. It is this same connectedness that allows a virus to proliferate, after all.

One of the most unsettling of the COVID-era catchphrases is "new normal." And while the screen adaptation of Station Eleven concerns itself more with the immediate aftermath of the collapse than the novel does, it is still primarily a story of rebuilding normalcy. Not only do people continue to perform Shakespeare in the after-times, but they fall in love, they give birth, they go swimming, they read comic books and they curate museums. Strangers become family. Stranded airport denizens become a community. The world is as different between Year 20 and Year One as it was between Year One and "pre-pan."

In this way, Station Eleven depicts not the end of the world -- not a before and after -- so much as the inflection point of general systems collapse, a theory that posits more of a cyclical pattern, a waxing and waning of societal complexity throughout history. (Sally Rooney's 2021 novel Beautiful World, Where Are You also references this theory.) Our infrastructure is tenuous in its complexity, a fact we've grappled with in real life amid supply chain disruptions and the coining of "essential worker." So it is somewhat comforting to look at collapse through the lens of business as usual.

A contemporary soundtrack does the heavy lifting for the series' point about continuity, and every recognizable song is a reminder that this unfamiliar world isn't as far removed as we'd like it to be. Unlike the novel, in which Kirsten's memories of Year One have been lost, Davis's Kirsten remembers so vividly that she essentially lives in both timelines at once, even returning to the early collapse and conversing with her younger self in a fever dream. Her performances are animated by her grief, and the series seems to say that art is not just a consolation prize, but a gift. Perhaps Station Eleven is not even dystopian then, but a somber grasp at utopia.

The project of any book-to-screen adaptation is to recapture the magic of the original using the tools of the new medium. And showrunner Patrick Somerville (of Netflix's Maniac) achieves this goal deftly, bringing to life some of Mandel's most indelible images -- the ghost plane, the horse-drawn pickup trucks, the failure of the electrical grid -- while amplifying some of the book's quieter moments. The adaptation turns Jeevan and Kirsten's chance encounter into the series' emotional hinge, a revision that seems so fitting I had to double-check it wasn't in the source material.

Himesh Patel and Matilda Lawler as Jeevan and young Kirsten in Station Eleven.

The biggest change in HBO's adaptation is the treatment of the prophet (Daniel Zovatto), whose simple villainy in the novel fuels the plot and provides the stakes in Year 20. Here, his "there is no before" belief system is more enigmatic and empathetic and thus, frankly, more interesting. This version of the prophet is understandably more attractive to Kirsten, too, battling with the preservationist ideology behind the Museum of Civilization. Even post-collapse, human culture finds its footing astride the conservative and the radical, and the prophet reminds me of the burn-it-all-down, can't-go-back-to-normal rhetoric of our current pandemic, where systemic inequality is finally foregrounded in the cultural conversation.

Still, the miniseries is quieter than a lot of viewers will expect, given the premise and genre, and by complicating the prophet, the story loses much of its momentum. Tonally, moments of lightheartedness feel dissonant and even cringey, like the message of hope is a pill the actors couldn't quite swallow. Perhaps the adaptation would have felt different if it had arrived earlier within our own pandemic, but of course it was the pandemic that delayed filming.

The Traveling Symphony's mantra is "Because survival is insufficient." As a piece of culture in a post-COVID world, the HBO miniseries has taken up this mantra itself, a reminder of dystopian fiction's raison d'etre. It is why everyone started streaming Contagion and reading Camus last year. Even when the bubonic plague shuttered Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the show went on. Art has its own survival instinct.

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Review: Station Eleven's HBO adaptation came at a weird, but good, time - CNET

It looks as if Travis Scottcould be moving forward with the rollout for his upcoming album, Utopia.

Over the weekend, eagle-eyed fans noticed that the Houston rhymer changed his Instagram account bio with the word UTOPIA in all caps. Previously, Travis quietly removed the word from his bio following the deadly events at the 2021 Astroworld Festival at NRG Park in Houston on Nov. 5.

Whether this is an announcement that Travis is resuming his rollout for the project is unclear.

XXL has reached out to Travis Scotts reps for confirmation.

Before the Astroworld calamity, Travis had been teasing fans about his Utopia project since the beginning of this year.

In the Spring 2021 issue of i-D magazine, Travis revealed small tidbits of what to expect on the album.

"I never tell people this, and Im probably going to keep it a secret still, but Im working with some new people and Im just trying to expand the sound, he told the publication. Ive been making beats again, rapping on my own beats, just putting everything together and trying to grow it really. Thats been one of the most fun things about working on this album. Im evolving, collaborating with new people, delivering a whole new sound, a whole new range."

Fast forward to November, just a day before his headlining set at Astroworld, La Flame released two singles, Escape Plan and Mafia, which the latter song features an uncredited cameo from J. Cole.

However, a dark cloud still looms over Trav in the wake of the Astroworld fatalities. According to a medical examiner's report that XXL obtained last Thursday (Dec. 16), the official cause of death for the 10 victims was listed as "compression asphyxia." The report further explained that the crowd surge at the festival caused the victims' lungs to be crushed, ultimately resulting in suffocation.

Only one of the victims had an additional cause of death, which is described as a combination of cocaine, methamphetamine and ethanol. All 10 of the manner of deaths are labeled as accidental, with the victims' ages ranging from nine to 27 years old.

A criminal investigation into the mass casualty event is still ongoing.

On top of that, Travis faces billions of dollars in lawsuits filed against him and other parties for their alleged gross negligence, which Trav has recently filed documents to have them thrown out.

In an interview with television and radio personality Charlamagne Tha God, a remorseful Travis said that he wishes he could heal all those who were impacted by the tragedy.

"Fans come to the show and have a good experience. And I have a responsibility to figure out what happened here," he stated. "I have a responsibility to figure out a solution and hopefully this takes a first step into us as artists having that insight of what's going on. And the professionals to kind of surround and figure out more intelwhether it's tech, whether it's more of a response, whatever the problem is, to figure out that. [And] in the future, move forward in concert safety and make sure it never happens again."

Check out Travis Scotts updated IG bio below.

La Flame's fan base is ready to rage at a moment's notice.

Original post:

Travis Scott Appears to Confirm New Album Utopia Is Still Coming After Astroworld Tragedy - XXLMAG.COM

Before omicron arrived to ruin the holidays, I had a short but lovely visit to New York City. I planned to write about my suggestions for dining and entertainment for those who might be making a holiday visit. Pre-pandemic, Rhode Islanders oftentook that convenient Amtrak train to go see a show and have a special dinner around Christmas and New Year's.

While it seems foolhardy to share this story now, I will. There are two reasons: hope for better days, and my bad memory.So cut and save if a trip to the city is in your future.

I took the fast Acela train and everyone stayed masked up. It was my first time seeing the newMoynihan Train Hall, an expansion of Pennsylvania Station, in the former main post office building. It opened this year and it's sparkling new. That is one very,welcomeupgrade.

I had a lunch I will not soon forget at a new restaurant that was not far from Rockefeller Center, where I wanted to see the tree.

Casa Limone just opened this summer, occupying two stories at 20 East 49th St.

It is the first restaurant fromMichelin-starred Italian chef Antonio Salvatore.It's inspired by the Amalfi Coast in design and menu. There are flower-strewn pergolas hanging over second floor tables and the staircase. There are also bright, refreshingdrinks(made with Prosecco and limoncello) and classic Italian cocktails. Welcome plates with olives, focaccia and mortadella are served.

The aroma from wood-fired oven wafts in the air.

Casa Limone is one of those places that transports you while you dine. It's not hard to believe you are in Southern Italy, at least for a few hours. Some of the tables are inlaid with Italian ceramic tiles, which are also used for some of the dishware. It adds to the cheerful setting.

From burrata appetizers to desserts including delicate doughnut holes served with ice cream and chocolate, everything is beautifully plated and delicious. There's plenty of creativity on the menu, such as Provolone Podolico,a baked provolone dish served with vegetables. It's plated by the server for a bit of a show.

While I went for lunch, the all-day menu includes pastas, seafood and meat.Pizza, too, from that wood-fired oven,is on the menu and includesthe Tartufata with black truffles and ricotta.

The lunch carried us right into the evening, when we headed to the St. James Theatre to see "David Byrne'sAmerican Utopia"on Broadway.

You mayrecall that Byrneand his friends from theRhode Island School of Design founded Talking Heads back in 1977 in New York City, so what could be more appropriate to see?.

Itis a totally entertaining show and I left the theater with a smile on my face.

Many, though not all, of the songs came off Byrne's "American Utopia" album. There are also some Talking Heads songs;"Burning Down the House" isa crowd-pleaser.

It's not like your usual Broadway show, nor is it any kind of rock opera. It's a performance play. The band is more like a marching band, wearing their instruments so they can dance at the same time. The stage is stark and all the performers are in gray suits and barefoot. Watching them play and move is nothing short of mesmerizing.

I always liked Talking Heads and Byrne but I'm no super fan, nor do I love going to concerts. This was entertainment, pure and simple.

Byrne doessome narration to tie the songs to a theme of resilience. I found that tedious and just wanted more music and the celebrationof the dance.

My idea to eat after the show at Junior's was not a good one. Or maybe it was a very good idea, because every theater-goer was trying to get in.

But walking from the theater, we heard some piano music that called to us. It was coming from a restaurant that was down a stoop on West 49th St.

Turns out, Da Marino is open until midnight. After we showed the manager our vaccination cards and IDs, we were seated at a table in this grotto-like restaurant. The walls here are brick, adding to the grotto feel. They have celebrity photos on the walls and artificial garlic hanging. The bathroom feels like a shrine in the old country.

It's all wonderful.

We hadn't intended to have another Italian meal this visit but we enjoyed polenta, ravioli andPenne alla Vodka. This is a red-sauce restaurant, but they do it all well.

We also enjoyed the festive holiday cocktailsand fresh bread and oil.

But mostly we loved hearing the piano player singChristmas songs, Billy Joel tunes and a Hanukkah song. It was a loud, festive, fun place which is just the energy we wanted after our return to Broadway.

On the way out, we met the owner, Craig Perri, who wanted to talk about the Patriots. He said he played football at the U.S.Naval Academy under Bill Bellichick's father, Stephen Belichick.

The manager wanted to talk baseball. But he was a Mets fan, so the answer was no.

Before leaving for home, I had to get real New York bagels. I foundEss-A-Bagel, which is known for huge, airybagels, a wide varietyofcream cheese and sandwiches made with bagels. They are kosher-certified and not made with eggs or dairy. They started the business in 1976.

The line at the shop at831 3rd Ave, between 50 and 51st streets, was out the door, and isn't that always a good sign. A woman I can only assume was the bubbe of the family was manning the phone. She was also telling the newly arrived crowd how things worked.

"If you ordered hot bagels and cream cheese, go to the back corner. If you only want hot bagels and cream cheese, go to the guys at the back counter. If you want a sandwich or anything else from the deli counter, stay in the line."

She didn't say to order iced coffee at the deli. You could order hot coffee at the register but not iced. That's important for us New England folks.

I would absolutely go there again. The bagels were still great two days later and so big you could share one between two people.

Finally, I learned one huge lesson about getting around the city. I embrace ride-sharing services when I visitmy kids in San Francisco. Uber and Lyft are not the preferred transportation here. Even though the holiday crowds were as minimal as I've ever seen, there was traffic, horrid traffic.

If you have to get anywhere, you need the aggressive moves of a taxi driver. I'm only sorry I didn't record myride back to Penn Station to post in this story. It was one for the ages.

Casa Limone is located at 20 East 49th St,(646) 370-6282,casalimonerestaurant.com. Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Da Marino, 220 West 49th St.,(212) 541-6601, damarino.com. Open seven days for lunch and dinner and late dinner and drinks.

Ess-a-Bagel, 831 3rd Ave,(212) 980-1010, ess-a-bagel.com, open seven days a week. There are other locations as well.

"David Byrne'sAmerican Utopia,"St. James Theatre, 244 West 44th St., americanutopiabroadway.com

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Your NYC to do list for dining and more, when the time is right - The Providence Journal

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for December 21st, 2021. Another quiet day today, but we do have a couple of new releases to look at. Ive also put together a review for the rather lovely puzzle game FILMECHANISM. Aside from that, we have a whole bunch of new sales for you to consider. Yes, there are more of them. I dont know where theyre coming from either. Well, lets get to it!

Ah, puzzle games. So simple, but so complex. At least, the best ones are. Give the player a mechanic that is easy enough to understand, then throw a series of challenges at them, escalating ever so gently yet steadily until theyre pulling off absurd things they never could have dreamed of at the start. If this is done well, its almost invisible to the player. But there are a lot of ways things can go wrong. A cool core mechanic helps. But its the level designs where things come together or fall apart. Too slow of a ramp-up and the players will get bored. Too fast and they may well get stuck.

FILMECHANISM gets it right. Your character is a sort of camera-creature named Rec. You can move about and jump, like any average platforming protagonist. But Rec has an extra talent: provided youve picked up film, you can snap an image of the screens current layout. Then, whenever you need to, you can restore the image that film took. Rec will stay put, but any other things youve moved or messed with will go back to wherever they were when you took the snapshot. At first, youll only be dealing with one snapshot at a time. Sure, you have to decide when to take it, but there are really only so many options.

As things start to heat up, youll get more film. Great power, great responsibility. As each shot can be taken and restored individually, you will find yourself with more and more possibilities for solutions. Theres no punishment for failing, save for having to restart the stage. Each world also offers you three routes to the next one, with varying levels of difficulty. Naturally, youll eventually want to clear them all. There are more than 200 of them, which will keep you busy for quite some time. If you do get stuck, you can unlock a series of hints using the coins you earn from beating each stage. The coins are plentiful enough and the puzzle designs ramp up fairly enough that you should be able to get hints whenever you need them.

If you enjoy puzzle platformers, youll have a great time with FILMECHANISM. Theres no grand story here, and its aesthetic is cute but not exactly stunning. But the gameplay is excellent, with a strong core mechanic to build puzzles around and level designs that fully deliver on that promise. It nails its difficulty curve perfectly, making it well-suited to newcomers to the genre and veterans alike. Its just that simple.

SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5

This feels a lot like a template flip, but I cant be sure. Anyway, its a handheld-only puzzle game that basically rips off Tsum Tsums gameplay and dresses it up in a vaguely Halloween-ish theme. You get 60 levels to play. I would suggest downloading Disney Tsum Tsum on your mobile device of choice instead and keeping your seven bucks for delicious Snickers bars or what-have-you.

You can probably figure most of this out from the title, but whatever. Shaun needs to fill out the article a bit. Its a match-3 puzzle game with a pirate theme! There are a bit over one hundred levels to clear, and youll use the coins you get from clearing stages to buy pieces to customize your pirate theme park. Pirates love making pirate theme parks, you see. Not much separating this from free-to-play stuff on mobile other than it having less content and less polish. Also, you have to pay ten bucks for it instead of nothing.

(North American eShop, US Prices)

There are a bunch of Capcom games on sale, but nothing we dont see every so often anyway. Never a bad time to stock up, of course. The discounts from Marvelous/XSEED are rarer, and there are some great games in that bunch. Yes, this is where I tell you to buy Sakuna: Of Rice & Ruin again. Do it. No More Heroes is also really good. Other points of interest include sales on Thalamus games like Bezier: Second Edition, Thomas K Young games like Dadish, and more. Give a good look through the list, as there are plenty of good titles in todays batch. Oh, and check the outbox too. Bandai Namco games get discounted often enough that you probably dont need to get on them right now, but you may want to think about picking some of them up to help you pass your holidays anyway.

Select New Games on Sale

S.N.I.P.E.R. Hunter Scope ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/27)WarriOrb ($2.59 from $12.99 until 12/27)Dune Sea ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/30)Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S ($11.20 from $14.00 until 1/3)Alpaca Ball: Allstars ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/3)What The Dub?! ($5.99 from $7.99 until 1/3)Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen ($14.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Shinsekai Into the Depths ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Phoenix Wright: AA Trilogy ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection ($44.99 from $59.99 until 1/4)Onimusha: Warlords ($7.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Monster Hunter Generations Ult. ($15.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Okami HD ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Mega Man Legacy Collection ($9.99 from $14.99 until 1/4)

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Mega Man X Legacy Collection ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Mega Man Zero/ZX Collection ($19.79 from $29.99 until 1/4)Mega Man 11 ($14.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Street Fighter Anniversary Collection ($14.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil ($12.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil 0 ($12.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil 4 ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil 5 ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil 6 ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil Revelations ($7.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil Revelations 2 ($7.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)No More Heroes ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)No More Heroes 2: DS ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)

Sakuna: Of Rice & Ruin ($23.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Can Androids Pray:Blue ($2.79 from $6.99 until 1/4)Heroland ($8.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Senran Kagura Reflexions ($4.99 from $9.99 until 1/4)Senran Kagura Peach Ball ($14.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Fate/EXTELLA The Umbral Star ($19.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Fate/EXTELLA Link ($24.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Story of Seasons: FoMT ($27.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Story of Seasons: PoOT ($29.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Cloudbase Prime ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/4)Shadowverse: Champions Battle ($29.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Knockout Home Fitness ($29.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Henchman Story ($7.49 from $14.99 until 1/4)Gal Metal ($7.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Akibas Trip: H&D ($19.49 from $29.99 until 1/4)

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Unavowed ($10.49 from $14.99 until 1/6)Beast Breaker ($7.50 from $15.00 until 1/7)Keep Talking & No One Explodes ($7.49 from $14.99 until 1/7)Dadish ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/9)Dadish 2 ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/9)Super Fowlst ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/9)Super Fowlst 2 ($2.00 from $10.00 until 1/9)Apparition ($2.99 from $9.99 until 1/10)Street Basketball ($1.99 from $5.99 until 1/10)Moorhuhn Remake ($5.59 from $6.99 until 1/10)Moorhuhn Kart 2 ($13.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)Death Ray Manta SE ($2.00 from $10.00 until 1/10)Bezier: Second Edition ($1.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)Lumo ($1.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)Cecconoid ($1.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)

10 Second Ninja X ($1.99 from $11.99 until 1/10)Destructivator SE ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)LOVE: A Puzzle Box ($1.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)Guns of Mercy: Rangers Edition ($2.69 from $8.99 until 1/10)Finding Teddy 2: DE ($2.99 from $9.99 until 1/10)Food Truck Tycoon ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Pancake Bar Tycoon ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Frontier Quest ($9.59 from $11.99 until 1/10)Cooking Tycoons 3 in 1 ($1.99 from $12.99 until 1/10)Elemental Knights R ($2.00 from $8.64 until 1/10)Bring Them Home ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)Classic Games Collection Vol 1 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)2048 Battles ($1.99 from $3.99 until 1/10)Fatum Betula ($2.99 from $5.49 until 1/10)Freecell Solitaire Deluxe ($1.99 from $8.99 until 1/10)

Must Dash Amigos ($1.99 from $6.99 until 1/10)Super Trench Attack ($2.40 from $8.00 until 1/10)Match Three Pirates II ($7.49 from $9.99 until 1/10)Shmup Collection ($4.49 from $14.99 until 1/10)Gigantic Army ($2.69 from $8.99 until 1/10)Wolflame ($2.09 from $6.99 until 1/10)Satazius Next ($2.09 from $6.99 until 1/10)Armed 7 DX ($2.09 from $6.99 until 1/10)Rogue Aces ($1.99 from $12.99 until 1/10)Finn & the Ancient Mystery ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Elli ($1.99 from $7.99 until 1/10)The Lost Light of Sisu ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/10)UNI ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Summer in Mara ($9.99 from $24.99 until 1/10)Zombies Cool ($1.99 from $3.99 until 1/10)

Ellipsis ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Uncharted Tides: Port Royal ($2.09 from $14.99 until 1/10)Persian Nights 2: TMV ($2.09 from $14.99 until 1/10)Paratopic ($1.99 from $5.49 until 1/10)Zombie Scrapper ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)Spellkeeper ($1.99 from $5.99 until 1/10)Creepy Balls ($3.99 from $6.99 until 1/10)Abyss ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)99Seconds ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)99Moves ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)Darts Up ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)Hocus 2 ($3.74 from $4.99 until 1/13)

Sales Ending Tomorrow, Wednesday, December 22nd

#RaceDieRun ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Active Life Outdoor Challenge ($29.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Adverse ($2.03 from $5.99 until 12/22)Akuto: Showdown ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Arcane Arts Academy ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Badland: GotY Edition ($2.99 from $5.99 until 12/22)Barbarous: Tavern of Emyr ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Beautiful Desolation ($9.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)BIT.TRIP Series, Assorted ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)BRAWL ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Captain Tsubasa: RoNC ($19.79 from $59.99 until 12/22)CHOP ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Coffee Crisis ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Deadlings ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)Deaths Hangover ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)

Deployment ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Dex ($1.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth CE ($14.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Disney Tsum Tsum Festival ($19.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Door Kickers ($3.99 from $11.99 until 12/22)Doraemon Story of Seasons ($12.49 from $49.99 until 12/22)Dragon Ball FighterZ ($9.59 from $59.99 until 12/22)Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 ($7.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot ($35.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)DungeonTop ($3.99 from $13.99 until 12/22)Epistory: Typing Chronicles ($5.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)EQQO ($1.99 from $5.99 until 12/22)Escape Doodland ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Fort Triumph ($11.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Geki Yaba Runner AE ($1.99 from $2.99 until 12/22)

God Eater 3 ($9.59 from $59.99 until 12/22)Golf Club Wasteland ($7.49 from $9.99 until 12/22)Good Night, Knight ($4.79 from $11.99 until 12/22)Gravity Rider Zero ($1.99 from $6.99 until 12/22)HyperParasite ($1.99 from $17.99 until 12/22)It Came From Space & Ate Brains ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Journey of the Broken Circle ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Jump Force: DE ($12.49 from $49.99 until 12/22)Katamari Damacy Reroll ($7.49 from $29.99 until 12/22)Koloro ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Little Mouses Encyclopedia ($4.99 from $12.99 until 12/22)Little Nightmares CE ($7.49 from $29.99 until 12/22)Little Nightmares II ($20.09 from $29.99 until 12/22)Little Racer ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Love Colors ($1.99 from $3.99 until 12/22)

Lydia ($1.99 from $3.99 until 12/22)Metamorphosis ($7.49 from $24.99 until 12/22)Mini Trains ($1.99 from $5.99 until 12/22)Mr Driller DrillLand ($7.49 from $29.99 until 12/22)My Hero Ones Justice ($9.59 from $59.99 until 12/22)My Hero Ones Justice 2 ($20.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)Mythic Ocean ($8.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Namco Museum ($7.49 from $29.99 until 12/22)Namco Museum Archives Vol 1 ($4.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Namco Museum Archives Vol 2 ($4.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 ($24.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy ($15.99 from $39.99 until 12/22)Ni no Kuni II: RK PE ($41.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)Ni no Kuni: WotWW ($9.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 DE ($6.39 from $39.99 until 12/22)

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 ($17.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)One Piece: Unlimited World Red DE ($6.39 from $39.99 until 12/22)One Strike ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)Pac-Man CE 2 Plus ($5.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)RAD ($4.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Red Wings: Aces of the Sky ($1.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Rimelands: Hammer of Thor ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Rune Factory 4 Special ($23.99 from $29.99 until 12/22)Space Cows ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Super Dragon Ball Heroes WM ($8.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)Super Hero Fight Club: Reloaded ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Sword Art Online FB Complete ($9.59 from $59.99 until 12/22)Sword Art Online HR Deluxe ($7.49 from $49.99 until 12/22)Taiko no Tatsujin Drum n Fun ($9.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Taiko no Tatsujin Rhythmic Adv. ($24.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)

Tales of Vesperia DE ($12.49 from $49.99 until 12/22)Tharsis ($2.99 from $11.99 until 12/22)The Hong Kong Massacre ($9.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)The Red Lantern ($19.99 from $24.99 until 12/22)Timothy & the Mysterious Forest ($3.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Tiny Lands ($2.99 from $5.99 until 12/22)Tools Up! ($2.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Unit 4 ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Urban Trial Playground ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Urban Trial Tricky ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Utopia 9: A Volatile Vacation ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Welcome to Primrose Lake ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Wind Peaks ($7.49 from $14.99 until 12/22)Wondershot ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Wreckin Ball Adventure ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)Zombie Blast Crew ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)

Thats all for today, friends. Well be back tomorrow with a few new releases to look at, and they appear to be a little better than todays. Not fabulously better, but were four days from Christmas. No one is going to be bringing the heat this week. Im sure well somehow have more sales to check out, and if there is any interesting news Ill have that too. I hope you all have a terrific Tuesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

More:

SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring 'FILMECHANISM', Plus the Latest New Releases and Sales TouchArcade - Touch Arcade

During the pandemic, playwright Ray Yamanouchi found himself captivated by Carole & Tuesday, a sci-fi anime about two girls trying to make it in the music business. He began to think about how he could challenge himself to create something similar, something rooted in the kind of optimistic expectation that this show made him feel. Around the same time, Cygnet Theatre was looking for an artist to support in the creation of a play that would offer hopefulness to this current period of radical change.

Yamanouchi became the first recipient of the inaugural Dee Silver M.D. Commission, with an award of $10,000 and an unrestricted time limit. The commission includes three development sessions: a weeklong retreat with The New Harmony Project in Indiana, writing with a team and group of playwrights; a weeklong workshop with the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis to dig deeper into the play; and a final workshop with Cygnet for a reading in front of an audience with a full cast, director, and dramaturg (with the final goal of producing Yamanouchis play as a premiere at Cygnet in an upcoming season).

Yamanouchi is based in Astoria, Queens, in New York City, earned a bachelors degree in film and theater at Hunter College-City University of New York. His plays include The American Tradition and Impact; hes developed work with Leviathan Lab, WT Theatre, Rising Circle Theater Collective, among others; and is a commissioned playwright with Ars Nova and the co-creator of RE: (Regarding), a theater talk show in New York City. He took some time to talk about the Cygnet commission, his approach toward this new challenge, and hope as survival. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q: How did you get started writing plays?

A: (My work) focuses on race in America and all of its intersections, and initially, I wanted to pursue filmmaking. Akira Kurosawa, great Japanese filmmaker (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo), was my idol growing up as a kid. My dad was a huge fan of his films, so I watched his films growing up as a child. Hes a very influential filmmaker and I just idolized the man. When I decided to go into filmmaking, I read so many books on this guy and I read his autobiography, and in the very end of it he has notes for young filmmakers. One of them was to learn every part of filmmaking, including how to write scripts. To be a good scriptwriter, he said that you should read all these different kinds of plays, whether you like them or not. It was just necessary to know why they were important. So, I started reading plays and taking classes in theater, getting involved in productions. Then, I was like, Oh, I think I like this better. Theater was much more democratic. Theres a much more democratic creative energy, and the sense of community was much stronger, especially where I went to college. When I started really getting into theater later, I just thought that I needed to go back to my roots, to writing plays, writing, writing, writing. Then, in 2015, I decided that I wanted to see if I could make this a profession.

Q: What led you to shift your focus more on playwriting in 2015?

A: It was sort of how I got into film as a kid I was just so excited about it. It was that moment in theater where I realized this is something that I identify with and its the most expressive I can be, so I wanted to make this my lifes work. I feel like the only way to do that is if I make it my profession, a part of my identity.

Its very difficult to be a playwright full-time. You either need to be in an educational institution or write for TV, which is playwriting adjacent. For me, I still work in the box office at an off-Broadway theater, and I have other forms of income to supplement that.

Q: Congratulations on receiving Cygnet Theatres first Dee Silver M.D. Commission award. What was your initial reaction to the premise of the project?

A: The fact that it has to be hopeful? It actually worked out really well because, with the pandemic and everything going on, I was watching this anime called Carole & Tuesday. Its a very feel-good, family-friendly anime and I was just so drawn to it because it made me feel really good and hopeful. It was so different from the things Im usually interested in, which is grieving or things that tackle big subjects. I was thinking, Man, I want to do something like this. Then, coincidentally, this commission came my way and the stars aligned, and now I get to do something that takes a different direction than what I usually go for. I always like to challenge myself in those ways. I still want to explore the big themes that Im usually drawn to, but Im going to try and explore in a way thats different. Im going to try to use the energy of Carole & Tuesday. I cant say for sure because were still so early in this process, so I dont know where its going to go, but Im hoping that Im going to be able to find something there.

Q: In the announcement about you receiving this award, it says you approach difficult subject matter with a tilt towards the mystic and develops characters with gentleness. Was this always an approach you took toward your playwriting? Where did this focus in your work come from?

A: Gentleness is an interesting word. I definitely approach every single character with empathy, no matter how much I disagree with them or find them despicable because you need to make them human. I like to see my characters as products of their environments, so in that sense, I always approach them with empathy. The mystic is a little different. I was talking about the idea I had for the commission, and I was thinking of a sci-fi setting with these, potentially, supernatural elements. Typically, I dont really go for that sort of thing, but Im challenging myself so Im approaching this material a little differently.

Q: Where did the focus on approaching your characters with empathy, come from?

A: Its based on my upbringing. I grew up in Long Island, New York, in the early 2000s when I was a teenager, and it was very White. I was one of the few Asian people, people of color, in the entire community, so I endured a lot of racism. At the time, I didnt really know it was racism; I just thought it was teenagers being as. In my public school, the way that we learned about racism was through the Holocaust, and segregation, but it wasnt really about these microaggressions that we know now. You dont even really learn about Asian American history unless its about the Japanese internment camps during World War II, or that Chinese immigrants built the (transcontinental railroad) across America.

I didnt really think about it until I left and went to college. Becoming older, doing my own research, talking to different people helped me realize that that was the real world, especially learning about housing segregation and school segregation in Long Island. I realized that the environment Id grown up in was so dictated by government policy and systemic issues and history. The only reason that people think the way that they do is because of the big, systemic, historic things that they dont really think about, but it has shaped who they are, shaped their communities, shaped their families. Learning that really felt like a violation. It felt like history, and the government, have altered these peoples personalities. In a weird way, its not their fault. These people have just been living in this false, artificial community thats been manmade to keep certain people out of very White communities. Knowing that made me feel like were all products of our environments, and the only way I could really make character-driven plays while tackling these big subjects, was by approaching every character with seeing how they are psychologically and personally influenced by their families, their environments. I cant do that if Im going to immediately start painting people as good or bad, evil or racist; thats reductive. Its not that simple. Thats why I feel like I always have to think about the history of where they came from, and thats why I try and approach a lot of my work with research and history, and to see how that trickles down to regular people.

Q: The point of the commission is to provide funding and an unrestricted time limit to the creation of a play that responds to our present times with hope and healing. Whats been coming to mind for you in thinking about the meaning of our present times?

A: After the summer of 2020, there were a lot of institutions trying to respond to the moment. You had a lot of companies saying, Black Lives Matter and were gonna diversify, yadda, yadda, yadda. Now, a lot of that seems to be pushed under the rug. I was so hopeful at the beginning. I guess, naively so. It almost feels like were now retracting to a business-as-usual type of thinking and its very frustrating. I dont know how thats going to affect my work, but perhaps I can sort of see what kind of thing I want.

Ive been really obsessed with this idea of a utopia. What does that word mean? The commission sent me to The New Harmony Project, and they do this thing that emphasizes the idea of that utopia and hopefulness for the work. Ive also been interested in the ideas of this Dutch historian, Rutger Bregman, who talks about envisioning the utopia and working backward in order to make progress. You cant just make these incremental changes that are just Band-Aids, without having an idea of what you want your future to look like. Its better to know what the future looks like and then take the necessary, concrete steps to get there. Ive been thinking about that more and more, nowadays, especially with this commission. What is this utopia that I want and what are these things that I could explore in a play?

Q: I understand that youve completed the first of three development sessions, in partnership with The New Harmony Project with a weeklong retreat in community with more than 200 other writers and artists. What was that process like for you and how did it help inform your work in this commission?

A: When I went in there, I had zero idea of what I wanted to do. By the time the week was over, I wanted more time there because I felt like I finally had a play idea. I went from nothing to Oh, I have three or four pages by the end of the week. That may not seem like a lot, but to go from literally nothing and having no idea what I wanted to do, to having some sort of trajectory for where I think I want the play to go, was pretty big for me. The reason I was able to do that was because the artists they had there were really incredible, intelligent people who had diverse backgrounds. Not just in ethnicity and gender, but also in ideas. Everyone was aesthetically different, and it was just interesting to hear everyones takes on certain things. The things that helped a lot were the post-workshop time of hanging out and having drinks, letting ideas flow. The next morning, Id wake up and be like, Oh yeah, what that person said. Then, wed have these dramaturgy meetings to work through your play with a dramaturg and basically just brainstorm. It was like playwriting therapy. It was really wild; Ive never done that in my life. It was so cool.

Q: Why was this commission something you wanted to participate in?

A: I think its because I wanted that and I feel like, if this commission didnt come my way, I cant say I would have put my brain in that space. I think about these things and think, Oh, I kind of want to do this. I also think about writing TV scripts, like every playwright does, and that maybe I should write a pilot and that feels something thematically close to Carole & Tuesday. To do a play in such a way, I truly didnt really think about it until this commission came my way, and then I was like, Well, of course. Why didnt I? because thats sort of what I want to do anyway. Id just been thinking in TV terms and not play terms. So, I was ecstatic. And, again, Im repeating myself, but its different and I like to challenge myself in those ways. I think its perfect for what I need and what I want.

Q: Why does creating a story that responds to these tumultuous times with hope and healing, matter?

A: I think hope is survival, ultimately. Sometimes, with my plays, my generous interpretation of them is to think of them as hopeful because I write them with the idea that if we investigate these big things, well find ways to solve them. Someone who may just be engaging with it without that context, might feel some despair and that these problems can be so big. If I can have an objective like hope and healing, perhaps I can make that sharper. I think, especially for these times when everything hurts everything hurts maybe this is the type of play I need to be writing anyway.

Read more:

Stars align to give playwright an opportunity to bring 'hope and healing' to new Cygnet Theatre commission - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Courtesy Orem City

If Orem needed another mascot, then outgoing Councilman Brent Sumner should be on the short list of choices.

Sumner, 73, has been an Orem boy from his earliest baby days and grew up learning about Orem through his father, Harold Jack Sumner, who owned the Orem-Geneva Times newspaper.

Sumner attended Hillcrest Elementary School, Lincoln Junior High and graduated from Orem High, where he played football, in 1967.

While Sumner was busy with all of his senior year activities, there was a young lady in her sophomore year he would meet later. Her name was Becky and Brent thought the last name Sumner would go well with it.

Before the wedding bells, Sumner went into the Army at the height of the Vietnam War. He finished up basic training and then went to Snow College for a year. He transferred to Brigham Young University and studied in communications with an emphasis in advertising. He graduated in 1976 and went to work for his dad at the paper.

In 1970, he was just out of basic training for the National Guard and his father invited him to come to a meeting with a Mr. Woodbury and DeLynn Heaps.

They were talking about a grandiose mall, Sumner said. In 1972, the mall opened. It was amazing Orem could have a shopping center like this.

Working at the newspaper I was involved with promotions and activities at the mall, he added. On the council, I approved the expansion of the mall. My finger has been in it since its conception.

Sumner believes the mall is a bright spot in the community and approved the tax breaks because they were based on performance.

By the early 1980s, Sumner has taken over the paper and in 2000 sold it to the Daily Herald. After that, he went to Utah Valley University and served as newspaper adviser for 11 years.

It was former Orem Mayor Jerry Washburn and former Gov. Gary Herbert, Sumners next door neighbor, who encouraged him to run for a council seat.

I thought maybe I could do some good, Sumner said of running for office. And according to most who are asked about Sumner, he has done just that.

Council Member Sumner was a thoughtful representative of the people. He carefully reviewed and considered city issues from all perspectives and voted to always do what he thought best for the community, said Jamie Davidson, city manager. His 12 years of service on the city council will also be remembered for his advocacy of small, local businesses and for his efforts to improve recreational offerings in the community, including the Orem Family Fitness Center.

Brent has been a steady and reasonable voice on the council for a long time. I have relied on him for a lot of institutional knowledge about Orem, said Tom Macdonald, a fellow council member. His experience as a long-time newspaper man and a lifelong Orem resident has been such an asset to all of us. I have the highest regard for him and Becky and the service they have both rendered to all of us. I will miss Brents humor, wisdom and steady approach to difficult situations. I am honored to call him my friend.

Sumner has served 12 years on the city council and opted not to run for reelection this year. During that time, he has seen a great change in the city.

I loved serving on the Orem City Council with Brent. I valued his history with Orem, his preparedness, his journalism experience and pleasant demeanor, said former Councilwoman Karen McCandless. We didnt always agree on issues, but I felt listened to and that he thoughtfully considered my position.

When I was dealing with my husbands sudden illness and subsequent death, Brent and his wife, Becky, were some of the first to offer comfort and support. I will never forget that, McCandless added.

There were many items over the years that Sumner tackled with associates like McCandless, not only University Place, but also UTOPIA fiber network, the new library hall and the new family fitness center. Its a real jewel in the city, Sumner said of the center.

Sumner said the past two years have been a strange time with COVID-19, but he and the council got business done. However, with the remote streaming of council meetings, he said he missed the personal connection with residents.

One of his more melancholy moments on the council was the death of former City Manager Jim Reams in September 2010.

Mayor Washburn interviewed every department head to see who could take over (Reams job) temporarily, Sumner said. Bruce Chestnut stood out and served for one year until Jamie Davidson was hired.

One year later, after fighting with cancer, Washburn died while serving as mayor.

It was a shock to the city, Sumner said. We had to select a new mayor and that is when we appointed Jim Evans for Washburns last two years.

There have been many ups and downs for Sumner while he has been on the council, he said, none more so than the current concern over the State Street Master Plan.

Everybody had good intentions on that, but there are a few things we need to tweak on that, Sumner said. I dont think well blow up the whole master plan. We need some housing on State Street.

Sumner said he isnt happy with the legislative overreach that is happening with housing and noted that if the city doesnt provide more housing in Orem, the Legislature will mandate it, and that could mean expansion anywhere including in family neighborhoods.

After so many years of dealing with city issues, talking with residents, answering emails and watching Orem grow into the 21st century, leaving the council will be a big change, Sumner said. But he is also sure that he will always be paying it forward and helping Orem fulfill its potential as a center of activity in Utah County.

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After 12 years of city council service, Orem's hometown boy moving on - Daily Herald

At a time when a new coronavirus variant threatens to undo any modicum of progress that New York City made during the pandemic, it seems almost preposterous that live theater ever even happened this year. But it was not only restored; it was exuberant.

Following necessary and long-overdue action to further diversify the Broadway stage, Black playwrights wrote every new play on the so-called Great White Way, The Grio reported in July.

With that came a plethora of rich, deeply human stories about Black and other people of color, illuminating a variety of lives that defy all moral, sexual or gender binaries.

From two Black men contemplating their lives at a crossroads to six disregarded Tudor-period women taking center stage, to Broadway confronting its own demons in a more than 60-year-old play, these productions show more than whats possible. They show whats actually already here if we only choose to look.

Along with those are the outside-of-the-box plays and musicals, including one helmed by a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and another that challenges the very limits of what a single talent can personify in one story. In spite of everything, it was an overflow of genius.

Merry Wives

OK, this one wasnt exactly on Broadway, but Merry Wives helped welcome the return of live theater farther uptown last summer at Shakespeare in the Park after it went dark throughout the harrowing first leg of the pandemic. Awkwardly described as a Shakespearan Real Housewives, Merry Wives is more about two idle ladies of the house (the hilarious Pascale Armand and Susan Kelechi Watson) who decide to band together and give swindler Falstaff (Jacob Ming-Trent) a taste of his own medicine.

Ghanaian American playwright Jocelyn Bioh remarkably adapted Merry Wives from Shakespeares 1602 comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. Bioh seamlessly thrusts an already timeless tale into present-day South Harlem where West African immigrants uproariously play the game of love often set to an electrifying drum beat. It is pure bliss.

Six

Who knew that the stories of the ill-fated wives of Henry VIII could look as cool as a female sextet donning kinked-up versions of their medieval wardrobes while belting out irreverent songs about how they were done wrong? Divorced! Beheaded! Died! Divorced! Beheaded! Survived!

Yes, not one but two of his former spouses were decapitated, so obviously, they have some residual feelings about that as they join the other women in a musical battle for the audiences sympathy.

The multicultural cast featuring Adrianna Hicks, Andrea Macasaet, Abby Mueller, Brittney Mack, Courtney Mack and Anna Uzele is such a riot to watch as they bring to life writers-directors Lucy Moss and Toby Marlows thrilling and poignant retelling of the ultimate jilted brides. Yes, there are themes of despair and heartbreak, but Six is most profoundly about reclaiming their narratives, together.

American Utopia

David Byrnes American Utopia is a bit hard to describe. Its title suggests that it is an attempt by a white guy albeit the illustrious lead singer of The Talking Heads to paint a broad image of what American paradise could look like. But its not that at all.

Using the rock bands poignant tunes, including Burning Down the House and Once in a Lifetime, Byrne grapples with the idea of hope and promise of revival in the midst of turmoil. Collaborating with musicians from around the globe who often serve as parallel characters onstage with him the whole time, Byrne creates a singular theatrical experience that could only come from one of the most visionary minds.

Pass Over

In short, playwright Antoinette Nwandus Pass Over is one of the most fascinating plays to hit Broadway this year. Thats because it dares to reach far beyond what you might look for in a play that deals with faith and hopelessness in equal measure through lengthy riffs between two Black friends (the incredible Jon Michael Hill and Namir Smallwood) sitting on a corner waiting forsomething.

The mystery surrounding whats next is met with bleak impossibility as the two men ponder their mortality and what is real. It seems like they will never leave this literal and metaphorical corner until another presence enters their realm and disrupts their daydream. Questions about this person (Gabriel Ebert) and the Promised Land he represents linger with you long after youve seen the play. But one thing is clear: Pass Over is a gem.

Photo by Joan Marcus, 2021

Trouble in Mind

It only takes Broadway legend LaChanzes name on a Playbill for audiences to come out in droves to watch her perform. Add Alice Childress who was known for four decades as the only Black woman to have written, produced and published plays to the list of credits and you have a bonafide hit without knowing anything else about it.

Still, Trouble in Mind, which was supposed to debut on Broadway in 1955 but was canceled when Childress refused to tone down its messaging, is so riveting that you forget that youre actually watching a performance. Thats because it dares to confront the real-life racism in the theater world through the eyes of Black artists, most deeply felt with Willetta Mayers (LaChanze) story as a Black female thespian who must rely on playing one stereotype after the next to survive.

Despite its heaviness at times, Childress play within a play is infused with humor and sarcasm, as well as beautifully paced dialogue that shows the dexterity of a Black female voice that is as resonant as ever.

Nollywood Dreams

Biohs Nollywood Dreams was such a delight. The play, which premiered off-Broadway in November after being delayed by the pandemic, is laugh-out-loud funny as it explores the Nollywood film industry in the 90s. Centered on Ayamma (Sandra Okuboyejo), a young woman who works at a travel agency with her sister Dede (Nana Mensah) but lands an audition with an up-and-coming Nigerian director as he gets ready to shoot his new film.

The production takes a fun look at the early days of what is now a booming film industry in Lagos, Nigeria, and is full of fun, vibrant costumes that take you straight to the 90s. And best of all, in the final moments of the play, we get a look at the wacky final production of the film at the center of the story. A fun time, indeed.

Lackawanna Blues

If youve only watched the 2005 HBO film of the same name, it might take you a second to realize that the exceptional playwright Ruben Santiago-Hudson is playing all 20-plus characters in Lackawanna Blues.

That includes Miss Rachel, or Nanny, as she is affectionately called, a character inspired by the real-life woman who raised Santiago-Hudson in a 1950s boarding house in Buffalo, New York. Marvelously unburdened by the many different souls he embodies throughout the play, sometimes even picking up a harmonica and joining onstage guitarist Junior Mack in song, the Tony Award winner totally vanishes on stage as the audience is immersed in the story. A truly uncanny feat.

Thoughts of a Colored Man

You dont really know what to expect at the start of playwright Keenan Scott IIs Broadway debut, even though it is exactly what the title suggests and yet so much more. Seven Black men (portrayed by a cast that includes Luke James, Tristan Mack Wilds, and Dylln Burnside) shoot the breeze about life, love, sexuality and the struggle everywhere from the barbershop to waiting in line for the newest sneakers on the market.

Everything about Scotts play, under the direction of Steve H. Broadnax III, feels so lived-in as the audience eavesdrops on the means uninhibited conversations with each other as well as their most personal conflicts and musings. The two storytellers give these men permission to be uncertain, powerful, funny, and even embrace failure. As an audience member, all you ever want to see is a reflection of the human experience, and Thoughts of a Colored Man is exactly that.

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The Best Broadway Shows Of 2021 - HuffPost

Former New Orleans Independent Police Monitor Susan Hutson defeated long-time Sheriff Marlin Gusman in Saturdays runoff election, making it the first time since the 1970s that an incumbent sheriff has been defeated in Orleans Parish.

Gusman has held the office since 2004.

Hutson will take over the long-troubled New Orleans jail that has been under a federal oversight due to violence, inadequate medical and mental health care, and in-custody deaths. Running on a progressive platform, she pledged to work with others in the criminal legal system to address the harms associated with mass incarceration, further reduce the jail population, and finally bring the jail into compliance with the conditions of the consent decree.

I promised I would help those in custody, our neighbors in custody to be better. Hutson said in a Saturday victory speech. We will not harm them, we will not kill them, we will help our neighbors.

Her victory also changes the shape though possibly not the outcome of a long-running debate over a new jail building meant to house detainees with acute mental illness that Gusman has been attempting to get built for years. Hutson, along with a number of reform groups and Mayor LaToya Cantrells administration, is opposed to the facility, and made it a key issue in her campaign. However, opposition to the facility faces a major obstacle even with Hutson in office next year. A federal judge, overseeing a long-running federal consent decree over the jail, has ordered the city to move forward with its construction. (The city is appealing that order.)

Hutson won with 53 percent of the vote to Gusmans 47.

That follows the November primary, where Hutson narrowly forced Gusman into Saturdays runoff election in November, receiving 35 percent of the vote to Gusmans 48 percent, just shy of the 50 percent plus one he needed to win outright.

The head-to-head race between Gusman and Hutson grew increasingly heated after the primary. Hutson and her supporters said that Gusman has failed to live up to the terms of the eight-year-old consent decree and that his mismanagement has led to unnecessary deaths inside the jail. Gusman cast Hutson as a radical and a puppet of out of state interest groups who want to go soft on crime while also claiming credit for significantly reducing the size of the jail during his tenure.

Gusman, a former New Orleans City Councilman, was first elected sheriff in 2004. While he has maintained a firm grip on the office for nearly two decades, his tenure has been the subject of ongoing criticism from civil rights lawyers, city officials, and the federal government over the conditions inside the jail and the treatment of people locked inside.

Just months after he took office, Hurricane Katrina formed in the Gulf of Mexico, prompting the city to issue a mandatory evacuation order for New Orleans residents. But Gusman made the decision not to evacuate the jail, telling reporters that detainees and prisoners would stay where they belong. In the flooding that followed, people locked inside said they were left without food or water for days in flood water some described as being up to their neck. Guards abandoned their posts, and many detainees said they were maced and beaten.

Gusman attacked the credibility of the reports out of the jail after the storm, saying they were falsehoods being peddled by crackheads, cowards, and criminals. He said that the people locked in his jail had it no worse than others who were still in the city following the storm. But the accounts were enough to gain the attention of the United States Department of Justice, who began an investigation in 2008 into the conditions of the jail. Following several visits, the agency found that the conditions inside didnt meet the minimum standards required by the constitution. In 2011, after they issued another letter, saying things hadnt improved.

In 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class action lawsuit against the sheriff saying that he demonstrates deliberate indifference to the basic rights of the people housed at OPP by implementing constitutionally deficient security, staffing, classification and mental health policies and practices, and that his inability or refusal to manage a facility of this size has become increasingly apparent in recent years, with violence and health crises steadily escalating within the facility.

The lawsuit eventually led to the ongoing federal consent agreement between the Department of Justice, civil rights lawyers representing people incarcerated at the jail, the city of New Orleans, and the Sheriffs Office, meant to bring the jail into compliance with the constitution. As part of the agreement, the jail is overseen by a team of federally appointed monitors, who issue periodic and frequently critical reports on the Sheriffs Offices progress.

The agreement also led to Gusman temporarily ceding full control of the jail to a compliance director, who had final authority over jail operations for several years.

In 2015, Gusman moved most of the detainees out of old Orleans Parish Prison facilities into the current jail building, called the Orleans Justice Center. He predicted that the new facility would usher in a new era of incarceration in New Orleans where were not going to be just warehousing inmates, but were going to be concerned about public safety.

But less than a year after the facility opened, the DOJ and lawyers for the plaintiffs filed a motion in federal court alleging that conditions in the jail remained dire, and that Gusman wasnt making progress fast enough in complying with the consent decree.

Unacceptably high levels of prisoner assaults, staff excessive use of force, and suicide and selfharm continue to pose grave risks of harm, even in the brand new direct supervision Orleans Justice Center (OJC), where most prisoners are now housed, they wrote. They argued that Gusman was incapable of implementing the reforms necessary to come into compliance with the consent decree.

Gusman eventually agreed to have a compliance director take over the day-to-day operations of the jail. He took over again in November.

In 2016, 15-year-old Jaquin Thomas hung himself inside the facility. It took nearly an hour for anyone working at the jail to discover him, a lawsuit claimed. Weeks prior he had been assaulted inside the facility, and at one point prior to his death he was given incorrect medication which resulted in medical staff having to pump his stomach.

Gusman has regularly blamed the conditions of the jail on lack of funding, which he receives from the city, and has touted jail programming such as a work-release, behavioral health, and an accredited high school within the jail walls. Last year he accused the monitors of attempting to create a jail utopia and said they only are finding the jail out of compliance because they want to hold on to their jobs.

Hutson, a Tulane Law graduate, returned to New Orleans in 2010 to become the citys Independent Police Monitor. She has never held elected office, but during her campaign she fashioned herself as a progressive alternative to Gusman, and gained the support of New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams, who was elected last year on a platform promising to roll back the policies of mass incarceration and reduce the prosecution of low-level crimes associated with poverty and mental illness.

Hutson said she is in favor of scrapping the contract with the jails current private medical provider, Wellpath, and that she would make phone calls at the jail free for detainees. (Gusman, who received campaign contributions from the private call provider, Securus, said that the jail calls provide a much needed source of revenue for his office.)

While her opposition to the special needs facility known as Phase III was a major part of her campaign, it is unclear whether or not it will make any difference in whether or not it actually gets built. The city agreed to build the facility during Mayor Mitch Landrieus administration, and a federal judge has ordered that they move forward with construction, despite opposition from Mayor LaToya Cantrell. The DOJ and lawyers representing people incarcerated at the facility have also come out in favor of the building, and the consent decree monitors have said it is necessary.

A spokesperson with the Gusman campaign was not able to be reached on Saturday.

A number of criminal justice reform groups cheered Hutsons victory.

Today marks a new chapter for Orleans Parish, which has been devastated by a mass incarceration crisis for decades, said Chris Kaiser, ACLU of Louisiana advocacy director in a press release. Orleans Parish voters sent a clear message in this election that theyre demanding bold reforms that advance racial equity and prioritize people over prisons.

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New sheriff in town - The Lens