Category Archives: New Utopia

The popular video game League of Legends is exploring new frontiers, making the jump to an animated TV series Arcane on Netflix. The show will bring to life the background stories of the main League of Legends champions from the game, as well from what can be seen in the trailers and sneak peaks some new characters will be introduced.

For those unfamiliar with League of Legends Arcane, its the story of one society that has been split in two. Piltover is a wealthy utopian city which sits on the clifftops above Zaun, a seedy city built in the canyons below, existing in a perpetual smoggy twilight. The two exist in symbiosis but the advent of a new technology which allows a person to control magic, hextech, is threatening the balance between the two.

The Arcane TV series will explore the origin stories of iconic characters from the video game franchise as well as bringing some new faces that will help fill in the story. The show will consist of nine episodes broken into three Acts. Heres a look at who the main characters

In the League of Legends, Vi is a Piltover Warden tasked with keeping the peace, however in the trailer we see her sitting in a prison cell. She was originally a criminal from the grimmy streets of Zaun, where she honed her survival skills growing up practically alone. It appears that the story will revolve around her search for her younger sister. She is impulsive, has a short fuse and wields a pair of hextech gauntlets that pack a fearsome punch.

Jinx is walking chaos carrying a lethal arsenal of weapons, and especially loves to see things go boom! She lives in Zaun where she carries out her criminal activities spreading mayhem and panic. It appears though that at one time she got in over her head, thus why her sister Vi comes looking for her.

A crack shot with a steady temperment, Caitlyn is one of Piltovers finest Wardens using her superior intellect to ensnare criminals that dare to disturb the utopic peace. From the Arcane trailer, and the video game storyline, Caitlyn and Vi will pair up. There are even rumors among fans that the two are a couple but that has yet to pan out.

Viktor is a scientist who desires to push the bounds of technological achievement to bring about humanity's full potential. He wants to bring the utopia of Piltover to the people of Zaun. In the videogame he is a Cyborg giant but as the TV series delves into the origins of the characters, this genius starts out as just flesh and bone.

Jayce, like Viktor, is also an inventor pushing the limits to achieve ever greater progress and will do everything in his power to protect Piltover. In that pursuit he uses a hextech hammer that can deliver a crushing blow.

Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger, is a brilliant yet eccentric scientist. He belongs to a race of spirits, the Yordle, which come from a mystical place known as Bandle City on Runeterra. He invents incredible and lethal machinery in his pursuit of answers to the universe's most impenetrable questions.

Mel is an enigma who doesnt come from League of Legends lore. Shell be one of the new characters that will play a role is developing the back stories of the other heros.

Silco is one of the main antagonists of Arcane, but new to League of Legends lore, or is he? The common consensus is that Silco is really Singed, a Zaunite alchymist and mad scientist. Highly intelligent but with no moral boundaries to limit his desire to gain more knowledge.

Vander is another new character brought to life in the Arcane TV series. Going by the trailer, he is either Vi and Jinxs father or protector. What can be gathered is that he runs the bar where we see Jinx at the beginning of the shows theme song Enemy performed by Imagine Dragons and & JID.

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League of Legends Arcane: who is who in the show? characters and cast - AS English

There are two kinds of blue states, which can be defined as states you can safely put in the Democratic presidential column and have uncompetitive Senate races. There are some that go blue all the way down the ballot, including for governor. This is California and New York. Then there are those that support Democrats in federal elections but are perfectly willing to support a Republican for governor, given the right circumstances. This is Massachusetts and Maryland, and maybe Virginia.

How about Connecticut? Well find out more over the next year, but it has tended more toward the latter kind. Governors races are close here, and could be again next year, despite a wide margin in party registration in favor of Democrats. No one, though, thinks that means our electoral votes are in doubt in the near-term.

All of which highlights why its important not to draw too many conclusions for next year from Tuesdays election results.

Republicans had a good day, and its important to understand why. Its just as important to remember that whichever party is in the White House typically suffers in off-year elections and then again in the midterms. Were in a never-ending cycle of wave and reprisal as the parties trade control of the federal government, and even a literal assault on the nations seat of political power less than a year ago was not enough to break that cycle. Instead, the party that countenanced that attack has been granted renewed political momentum as if nothing happened.

Regardless, it would be dumb to ignore the patterns. Democrats performed poorly in both New Jersey and Virginia, and are likely to struggle in next years elections, too, no matter what legislation ultimately passes Congress. That this pattern continually repeats itself doesnt make it less serious.

Connecticut didnt have any statewide races this year, but votes in nearly every town for local races gave enough grist for observers to draw conclusions, not necessarily based on reality. Republicans are convinced theyre back in the electoral picture after a series of wins Tuesday, but it wasnt all good news for them.

The biggest story nationally, after all, was whats been shorthanded as Critical Race Theory, which (a) doesnt really exist in the context its usually discussed even as (b) the winning Virginia candidate continually railed against it. We should expect this winning formula to be repeated across the nation in the coming year, pundits tell us.

But that strategy was taken for a test run here in Connecticut, in Guilford, for instance, and it was soundly defeated. Connecticut is no ones idea of a post-racial utopia, but neither is it apparently in the mood for the latest conservative moral panic. The Guilford news should give pause to anyone who thinks Connecticut Republicans can replicate what we just saw in Virginia.

So how will Republicans in Connecticut capitalize on momentum from races they did win? A good start might be laying off the social media for a while. Whoever is behind the official Connecticut Republican Party Twitter feed got into a fight just before Election Day first with a Democratic lawmaker and eventually with the entire internet by arguing that Nazis were a left-wing phenomenon because their official name included the word socialist.

Thats not only untrue historically but is an exceedingly odd subject for an official party organ to go to the mat over. Its fine to say it doesnt matter what happens on Twitter and that voters dont care, but a party that wants to be taken seriously should maybe attempt to present a dignified online appearance.

The most important takeaway from Tuesday, though, is that no one knows anything. Republicans are likely to do well in 2022 because thats what historical patterns show, and everyone whose opinion matters has decided Jan. 6 is some kind of aberration wed all be better off moving past. Its worth remembering, though, that a good national environment did not help the party get over the top in 2010 or 2014 in Connecticut, so it will take more than general anti-Biden feelings to get a win here.

What would be best would be for everyone to lay off the 2022 prognostications altogether. This years elections will have real consequences, but not in terms of predicting the future. Well all find out what happens over the next year. Then, if history is any guide, we can start collectively obsessing about 2024.

Hugh Bailey is editorial page editor of the New Haven Register and Connecticut Post. He can be reached at hbailey@hearstmediact.com.

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Hugh Bailey: Here's what this year's elections mean for CT 2022: Nothing - The Advocate

NEW YORK - When David Lee was growing up in Brooklyn, his older brother would drag him out of the house whenever he got the urge to make a film.

Spike would say, You gotta come with me. Im shooting something, says David Lee. His early impulse was to document. The 77 blackout, he went out and filmed. He would yank me and say, Come on. Come on.

In an artistic family (Spike and Davids father, Bill Lee, is a well-regarded jazz musician who scored several of Spikes early films), David took up still photography. David, four years Spikes junior, discovered photography when an upstairs tenant in their familys brownstone taught him how to process 35mm black-and-white film.

Spike, meanwhile, was already on his way as a movie director. And from the beginning, no one had a front-row seat to the birth and evolution of the master American filmmaker like David. From Spikes first feature film, Shes Gotta Have It, and ever since, David has been his brothers on-set photographer.

He was there to capture Spike, in a Jackie Robinson jersey as Mookie in Do The Right Thing, in the afternoon light of a Brooklyn street. He was there to photograph Denzel Washington lounging in the backseat of a convertible in Malcolm X. He was there for some of Chadwick Bosemans last moments on film during the making of Da 5 Bloods.

Spike, a new retrospective photography book to be published Nov. 17, is filled with images David shot over the years, with stills from Spikes 35-plus films. It even comes complete with custom typography based on RadioRaheems LOVE/HATE brass knuckles from Do the Right Thing. Its a hefty, glossy compendium of the still-unfolding career of one of cinemas most clarion voices. Its also an intimate story of family, with siblings on both sides of the camera: Spike as seen through his brothers lens.

Its kind of funny when your brother becomes famous, David Lee, 60, said in a recent interview. Hes always been my brother, but then hes like a world possession somehow. People in Fort Greene would always talk to him as if they knew him.

And from the start, Spike understood something about self-promotion. Few filmmakers since Alfred Hitchcock have made themselves more recognizable to a movie-going public. As the unit photographer whose images are used in a movies marketing, Davids pictures helped create his brothers iconography including those Nike commercials with Michael Jordan. He fondly remembers an early trailer for Shes Gotta Have It where Spike sells the movie while hocking tube socks on Fulton Street.

Many images like that one of Mookie David cant always recall whose idea it was.

I dont know if I did it or Spike said, Take a picture of this or that. Spike always had this other awareness of promoting himself, said David. Spike entered the mainstream on his own terms.

That included, by way of his production company, 40 Acres and a Mule, far more diverse film sets than were seen elsewhere in the industry. David recalls Spike bringing lists of Black crew members, including himself, to the various guilds to get them inducted into unions.

But the 40 Acres crew many of whom have lasted since the late 1980s and early 1990s also included Spikes actual family. Their younger sister, Joie Lee, has appeared in at least nine of Spikes films. Their younger brother, Cinqu Lee, has had various duties, including co-writing 1994s Crooklyn. There are, David jokes, no business school graduates among the Lees.

From The Beginning I Have Kept It All In The Family, Thanks To God For Talent In The Lee Family, Spike said in an email.

But why would Spike Lee want a 360-page capstone to a movie career while still in the midst of it? Just during the pandemic, Spike Lee has released two features ( the Vietnam war drama Da 5 Bloods, the documentary David Byrnes American Utopia ), been president of the Cannes Film Festival jury and begun prepping a movie musical about the origins of Viagra. He also, like during the 1977 blackout, documented New York under the first wave of the pandemic in a short film.

In the books first pages, Spike explains: This Book Revisits All Da Werk Ive Put In To Build My Body Of Work. Film Is A Visual Art Form And That Sense Of My Storytelling Has Been Somewhat Overlooked. Why Now, After All These Years? FOLKS BE FORGETTING.

For David, the book is a moment to reflect on how his brothers body of work once received as so incendiary by some has only grown more prescient with time. When Do the Right Thing first debuted, some columnists famously predicted it would incite riots.

It shouldnt have seemed revolutionary or such a startling conversation to start. It just really underscored the difference to me how white people and Black people, very broadly, view the different attitudes toward race relations, David said. White people seem eternally startled by Black outrage. It shouldnt be a new story.

David doesnt exclusively shoot Spikes films. He has more than 90 credits. During a recent interview, he was in Pittsburgh for a Netflix film about the civil rights leader Bayard Rustin.And sometimes, their experiences of the past 35 years vary wildly.

Im not sitting there courtside at the Knicks games, David said, laughing. Im not palling around with the Obamas.

But flipping through Spike captures a filmmakers journey that starts out like a family photo album. There in a photograph of Spikes film school graduation is David next to him, with a camera slung over his shoulder. That hes been along on the ride ever since still astounds David. Theres so much talent in front of you. Its like a jazz trio. Im in the band! said David. So much is laid out for me to try to capture.

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David Lee gives behind the scenes look at brother Spike in new book - Richmond Free Press

Before we get started with this list of the best Simpsons episodes, know this: yes, these are all episodes from the 'classic' seasons of 2-8 (though we'd say 1-10 counts as the classic era, at a push). And yes, there are far more great episodes of The Simpsons than we can fit on this list in fact, you could rearrange these 30 picks in almost any order and that would still make sense to a lot of people. We constantly switched this order around in the run-up to publication, because ranking them is so damn hard.

Still, our goal was to offer a cross-section of the show at its best, mixing in outright hilarious episodes with sweeter ones, and contrasting episodes that focus on the family with those that spotlight Springfield's wider, weirder population. If you're not in the mood to watch every season again right now, these 30 choices should tick all your boxes.

If you want to check out a few episodes that come later in The Simpsons' life, we can help with that too have a look at our list of The Simpsons' post-golden age greatest hits. As a reminder, you can stream 32 seasons of the show on Disney Plus, including all the episodes below. Let's get started these are The Simpsons best episodes, according to us.

Bart skips school for the day, only for Principal Skinner to become suspicious and track him down across town unsuccessfully, thanks to a timely escape. Bart ends up at Mayor Quimby's compound, where a French waiter is seemingly attacked and Quimby's cousin is implicated as the assailant. Even though Bart saw what really happened and knows he should testify in court, he understands confessing will get him in trouble with Skinner. Homer, meanwhile, is on jury duty for the case, and begins ransacking his hotel for free items.

This excellent episode is big on laughs, which is why we've picked it. The highlight is arguably the Westworld parody, where Skinner walks into a river, only to emerge robotically on the other side. Chowdah!

When Lisa's favorite doll, Malibu Stacy, gets a talking version, she's dissatisfied to learn that the voice clips are limited to phrases like "don't ask me, I'm just a girl!" She tracks down the real Stacy, the doll's creator, a now-alcoholic recluse called Stacy Lovell (played by Kathleen Turner).

Together, they make a (doomed) doll called Lisa Lionheart that encompasses more wholesome values, but Malibu Stacy still wins out, thanks to a new hat. When Lisa episodes land, they really work and this plot is excellently realized, even if it ends in failure for her. This episode also has the bonus of Smithers' computer booting up to a topless Mr Burns saying, "Hello Smithers, you're quite good at turning me on!"

So many Simpsons episodes show Lisa having the shittiest time, perpetually misunderstood by those around her and unfulfilled by education. This episode lets her find a group of cool friends while on summer vacation something that Bart just can't let her have, as he becomes the less popular one. This is very well-observed in terms of how kids behave in real life.

But this one has many other delights, including lots of hilarious jokes at Milhouse's expense. 'The dud' moment while he's playing the Mystery Date board game with Homer is a legendary joke, one canonized in meme form many times over.

This episode still manages to get Lisa a sweet ending, and it's weirdly good at capturing the very specific nice feeling of going on vacation after a year at school.

The 100th episode of The Simpsons focused on one of the show's best supporting characters, Principal Seymour Skinner (or Armin Tamzarian, but we don't need to get into all that). After Bart brings Santa's Little Helper to school and the dog wreaks chaos resulting in a near-naked Groundskeeper Willie landing on Superintendent Chalmers Skinner is fired and replaced by Ned Flanders.

Bart and an unemployed Skinner form a sweet friendship as his former nemesis deals with a more pitiful, tedious existence. He eventually returns to the army, until Bart manages to get Flanders fired.

This episode, written by future showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein (Oakley would write the legendary Steamed Hams skit featuring Skinner), deepens the Skinner character and shows the dimensions to his relationship with Bart. It also features the all-time great joke that Skinner is writing a novel about dinosaurs in a futuristic amusement park: it's called Billy and the Cloneasaurus, much to Apu's chagrin.

The Simpsons has never been shy about parodying Citizen Kane, but this episode takes it to the next level. Mr Burns' lost childhood bear Bobo a symbol of his lost youth and innocence ends up in the hands of Maggie Simpson decades later (after a spell in Adolf Hitler's possession). Homer tries to negotiate money and some Hawaiian islands out of Mr Burns in exchange for the bear, but Maggie's benevolence ultimately wins out and the family gets nothing.

One of Rosebud's many highlights is The Ramones' birthday message to the cranky billionaire: "go to hell, you old bastard."

After Miss Hoover takes some time off to recover from Lyme disease, Lisa becomes enchanted by her substitute, Mr Bergstrom (played by Dustin Hoffman under a pseudonym). When Bergstrom suddenly leaves, Lisa is devastated, and it spotlights what a mismatch of a father figure Homer really is for her. Reconciling that is a key development for the character.

This episode crystallizes Lisa is as the intellectual member of the family, and Bergstrom leaving is an all-time tearjerker moment of the series.

Homer is shocked to learn that the family's new friend, John (played by cult director John Waters), is gay and he's determined to stop Bart from ending up the same way. This episode still works today because you're never in any doubt that Homer's prejudice and unfounded paranoia is the joke.

The various boneheaded attempts he makes to keep Bart 'straight' leads to one of The Simpsons' most memorable gags: the steel mill that turns out to be entirely populated by gay men, which transforms into a nightclub called The Anvil before Homer's very eyes. "We work hard, we play hard!"One of the best jokes in TV history.

This episode was originally blocked by a Fox censor, until a change in management allowed sense to prevail.It's definitely a product of its time in how the subject is tackled, but mostly holds up on a rewatch.

This episode makes our list because it's perhaps the greatest in the series' history for exploring Bart and Lisa's sibling relationship: the alternating jealousy and affection for each other, here explored as they both become hockey stars on opposing teams.

Homer is a total jerk in this one, encouraging his children to compete for their parents' love, which is absolutely a damning take on overzealous spots parents. The moment at the end, as Lisa and Bart choose to abandon the game during a penalty in the face of a fiery crowd, is extremely sweet.

Has divorce ever been funnier than how it's portrayed in this episode? Kirk Van Houten fails to draw the word dignity, sleeps in a racing car, and asks if he can borrow a feeling as Milhouse's family breaks apart.

It cleverly explores the ways people can take a steady partner for granted tying it back to Homer's own cruddy treatment of Marge, and how he fears divorce is on the cards after he finds frozen hot dogs in the sink for dinner.

Still, you're really here to laugh at Kirk, then pray to god you never become him.

"My eyes, the goggles do nothing!" The Simpsons' various in-universe fictional characters add color to its world, and here the show uses Radioactive Man to riff humorously on the '60s Batman series. Milhouse beats Bart to the coveted Robin-style role of Fallout Boy, but freaks out about the role before production is finished.

This episode has no great emotional stakes, it's just a smart look at Hollywood and an excuse for a bunch of fun nerdy gags. Plus, you get to a flashback to the time Moe murdered a child actor. Up and at them!

Mr Burns assembles a team of ringers to win a softball match against the rival Shelbyville power plant's crew. Even if you didn't know who all the different baseball players were who guest-starred in this episode, it was irrelevant: this is one of the funniest episodes of the show.

To people outside the US, Darryl Strawberry is just the guy who's a better batter than Homer and who shed a tear after the Simpsons kids jeered at him.

After the kids of rival town Shelbyville steal Springfield's fabled lemon tree, Bart and friends head over to try and take it back. This episode is perfect at spotlighting the pointlessness of local rivalries, revealing that Springfield and Shelbyville only became separate towns because the residents of the latter wanted to marry their (allegedly attractive) cousins. An extremely funny episode, rife with good Milhouse moments, which always goes down well with us.

If you have to measure the greatness of an episode of The Simpsons by meme potential, then Lemon of Troy is up there as anyone familiar with the 'lemon face' expression from this episode will be familiar with.

This sweet episode traces the origins of Marge and Homer's relationship in flashback form. After Homer lies about being a French student to get close to Marge, she decides to go to prom with the smart but gross Artie Ziff (played by Jon Lovitz) before realizing Homer was the one for her (poor Marge).

This is an example of how delicately The Simpsons' writers and animators handled the characters' histories back in the show's early days.

Smithers needs a vacation, so he puts the most incompetent person possible in charge of looking after Mr Burns in his absence: Homer Simpson. Unfortunately, this leads to Burns becoming self-reliant, after Homer punches the old man in the face out of frustration.

When Smithers returns, he loses his job, and Homer hatches a hare-brained scheme to get him re-employed. This episode features a ton of funny moments: Mr Burns' somehow still-alive mother, Burns demanding that Homer make him a dodo egg for breakfast and a drunk Lennie giving the old man a terrifying thumbs up.

Apu has become a tough character to discuss in the modern age: the show was fairly subjected to criticism for his depiction, with actor Hank Azaria deciding to no longer play him.

The character remains an important part of the show's journey, however, despite that significant baggage and this episode, where Apu faces an existential crisis after getting fired by the Kwik E Mart, is probably the highlight of his relationship with the Simpsons family over the years. Apu travels across the world to try and get his job back, an opportunity that Homer ultimately manages to sabotage.

Luckily, Apu secures employment once more by saving the life of actor James Woods, his replacement at the store.

The Simpsons writers cleverly examine the show and its fans in this episode, which adds a dog called Poochie to the classic cartoon-with-a-cartoon Itchy and Scratchy. As a creation, Poochie is cynically engineered to appeal to the widest audience possible, and is therefore rejected completely by the viewers Homer gets the short-lived job of voicing the character.

This episode makes the point that fans weren't happy with the old Itchy & Scratchy series when it got stale, but didn't want to see any changes to it either. It was ahead of the curve when it came to commenting on our relationship with TV shows, which makes even more sense in an age of YouTube explainers and episodic recaps.

Homer buys a snow plow and carves out a neat little business clearing out people's driveways that is, until Barney comes along and steals his idea, shoots out Homer's tires and calls him an alcoholic in his TV commercial.

This episode is probably the single greatest Barney showcase in the entire series, aside from maybe his short film in 'A Star is Burns'. "Come back, diaper!" is a top five Barney moment, but it's arguably the Mr Plow song that embeds this one in the memory.

This was apparently considered the best episode of The Simpsons (dental plan!) for a long time (Lisa needs braces), and it's definitely a highlight. Homer becomes the head of the power plant workers' union, after its previous leader is murdered and buried under a football pitch.

He fights to save the workers' dental plan so Lisa can get a humane pair of braces, going up against Mr Burns, who mistakenly thinks his union opponent is a tactical mastermind. Lisa's legally distinct Yellow Submarine hallucination is a highlight.

Now do 'Classical Gas'!

We only wanted to select a single Halloween episode for this list to represent the mostly-great breadth of themed specials that have rolled out over the years. This episode contains The Shining parody known as The Shinning, the segment where Homer travels through time using a toaster and the one where the teachers are eating the kids in the school cafeteria. That's a strong trilogy.

It was tough to pick this one over the following year's, which would take Homer into the third dimension, but an immortal Kirk Van Houten line clinched it: "I don't like the idea of Milhouse having two spaghetti meals in one day."

Bart, Lisa and the children of Springfield head to a Krusty the Klown-branded camp, only to find it's more of a prison than a utopia with their days filled with life-threatening activities, overseen by the bullies and the ruthless Mr Black. Bart eventually overthrows the management, installing himself as leader.

Krusty, meanwhile, spends the summer in London until he finally sees the nightmare resort bearing his name at which point he confesses that a dump truck full of money was driven to his house in exchange for creating the camp. This is a great, fun episode that was originally intended to form the plot of a movie. It doesn't have enough meat on the bones for that, but it just about fills one brilliant 20-minute episode.

The heartfelt episodes of The Simpsons have a special place, because when they land, they really hit the spot and this one, featuring the first proper appearance of Homer's mother, played by Glenn Close, is also rife with great jokes.

Homer faking his own death is itself hysterically funny, particularly the accompanying headline on the Springfield Shopper: 'Local man loses pants, life'. Mrs Simpson's all-too-quick departure stays in the memory as one of the saddest moments of the series, even if the show's creators made the fraught decision to bring her back later on.

Marge vs the Monorail has everything: a great musical number, a massive story as Springfield gets a totally unnecessary transportation system operated by Homer, a huckster played by Phil Hartman and a preposterous resolution.

It even has a Leonard Nimoy cameo, and so many immortal lines Homer gets two alone. "I call the big one Bitey" will swim around your head for days after watching, just as it did for Marge. "Donuts: is there anything they can't do?" also springs to mind.

There's no real contest for the best Sideshow Bob episode though the episode with Cecil, Brother From Another Series, comes close it has to be the one with the rake joke.

Cape Feare is arguably more well-known now than the Martin Scorsese movie remake it was parodying at the time, with the Simpsons entering the witness protection program and moving to Terror Lake to protect Bart from Bob's revenge. This episode is packed with terrific jokes, from Bob's 'Die Bart Die' tattoo to Homer's total failure to comprehend that his new surname is Thompson. All the Bob episodes from this era are terrific, but this was their peak.

Season 3 is where The Simpsons really hits its stride, as the writers lean further into the strength of the show's supporting characters. This episode spotlights bartender Moe Szyslak, who profiteers off an idea for a drink he stole off of Homer Simpson the fabled 'Flaming Homer', reappropriated as the 'Flaming Moe', which makes his business takes off.

From a daft Aerosmith guest appearance to a perfect Cheers parody, this is one of the series' first all-time classic episodes.

For some, the death of Frank Grimes marks the point of no return for Homer Simpson as a callous and cruel character. To everyone else, this episode about an unlucky everyman driven over the edge by Homer Simpson's perfect life is the show at its smartest and funniest. Grimes' awful life a childhood of delivering presents to more privileged children, getting blown up in a silo explosion, almost having his diploma stolen by a bird sets him up as the ultimate doomed figure to enter Homer's orbit.

He suffers the ultimate humiliation in death: his coffin being lowered into the ground as Springfield laughs at Homer falling asleep during his funeral. A masterpiece.

Homer joins and then ruins the ancient Springfield illuminati group known as the Stonecutters in this memorable episode. From the "we do!" musical number to the 'No Homers' club gag (they're allowed one), this is a brilliantly conceived episode and evidence that it doesn't matter how wacky an idea is for a Simpsons storyline, as long as it's executed well.

Plus, the sight of a naked Homer Simpson dragging the stone of triumph is an all-timer visual joke.Now let's all get drunk and play ping pong!

Part one is the stronger episode, seeding the mystery of who shot Springfield's most hated billionaire after he blocked out the sun, crippled Bart's dog and forgot Homer's name in genuinely dramatic fashion. But the whole two-parter is a treat. Wrapping the whole town into the mystery led to a whole summer of viewers trying to work out who did it then they found out it was the baby (*cough*).

While the resolution to the mystery isn't particularly mind-blowing episode writers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein originally wanted Barney to be the culprit, but it ended up being decreed that it had to be a member of the Simpsons family the episode is a fantastic, fun ride with an all-time great reference to Twin Peaks in part two.

A high-concept anthology inspired by Pulp Fiction, this episode is now best known as the origin of the 'Steamed Hams' meme. Even before that was a thing, though, the segment between Seymour Skinner and Chalmers was masterful a hilariously detailed encounter between a failing suck-up and his constantly incredulous boss. That Skinner sacrifices his own mother to a house fire to placate Chalmers remains a brilliant gag.

But this whole episode, which divided up scripting duties between the very talented Simpsons writing room, is full of highlights. Cletus' theme song rhyming 'folk'll' with 'yokel'; Moe locking himself behind bulletproof glass while Snake robs him; Nelson laughing at a tall man in a small car. It's all wonderfully inventive, and it's amazing The Simpsons hasn't tried this format again in the intervening years, given that a few classic episodes like Kamp Krusty have been revisited in the modern era.

The Simpsons leave Springfield, after Homer is offered a job by Globex Corporation just for being the power plant's second-longest serving employee (after Waylon Smithers). The family moves to Pike Creek, which is seemingly idyllic. Unfortunately, Lisa realizes she's allergic to the wildlife, Bart is put in 'remedial' class with troublesome children ("I like to burn things!") and Marge starts drinking a small glass of red wine a day because she has no housework to do.

The problem is, Homer is happy for once, working for new boss Hank Scorpio (Albert Brooks) without knowing he's on the payroll of a James Bond villain come to life. This is almost a movie-sized Simpsons plot, rife with brilliant jokes and putting the emotional focus on every member of the family at once.

Picking a single episode as The Simpsons' best is truly difficult so we've opted for a big, funny storyline featuring every member of the family for our number one. Itchy & Scratchy Land is functionally a parody of Westworld, as the robots working at the park come to life, as well as a riff on Disneyland. But it's the cloud of terrible Simpsons holidays past hanging over the family's trip that makes this episode so funny, as Marge faces the doomed reality that Homer and Bart will find a way to ruin this vacation like they always do.

"Mom, dad! Bart's dead!" followed by "That's right! Dead serious about going to Itchy & Scratchy Land!" is a top-tier joke in this episode. But the winning gag in Itchy & Scratchy Land is the 'Bort' license plate in the park's gift shop a masterful creation that's inspired the best Simpsons meme group on the internet, which is the last non-cursed thing on Facebook.

There's no single Simpsons episode that has absolutely everything: this isn't a heartfelt episode, and it doesn't really feature the rest of Springfield, which are key ingredients in so many episodes on this list. But it's so brilliantly funny and inventive, tied to a story idea that's a perfect vehicle for The Simpsons' type of satire. There is no day where we're not in the mood to rewatch Itchy & Scratchy Land.

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The best Simpsons episodes: 30 highlights of the animated sitcom - TechRadar

Dennis Kellys Utopia dropped in the UK in January 2013 and amassed a cult following for its striking visuals, astonishing violence, and fascinating storyline. Five years later, Amazon bagged the right to churn out an American version of the black comedyconspiracy thriller, which premiered in September 2020. Adapted by Gillian Flynn, Utopia follows a bunch of eccentric nerds who embark upon a quest to find the eponymous manuscript of the sequel to the comic book, Dystopia.

They believe that since Dystopia predicted the outbreak of pandemics and deadly infections, they need to find Utopia to save the world. When a cultish network shows interest in the comic, chaos ensues. After binge-watching the first season, fans must be wondering: Will there be a Utopia season 2? Well, lets find out!

Utopia season 1 premiered in its entirety on September 25, 2020, on Prime Video. It consists of eight episodes with a runtime of 50-55 minutes each.

As far as another season is concerned, heres what we know. While Amazon is yet to announce the renewal or cancellation of the conspiracy thriller, the inconclusive ending is a testament to the fact that the showrunner, Gillian Flynn, is looking forward to expanding the show beyond the first season. Moreover, there is enough source material to adapt from, as the International Emmy award-winning British version already comprises two seasons.

In case you arent aware, Amazon has also inked the shows creator to an overall deal. If we couple the aforementioned points with the favorable reviews, it seems likely that the network might recommission the show for a second season. If and when that happens, we can expect Utopia season 2 to release sometime in 2022 on Prime Video.

American Honey star Sasha Lane headlines the cast as Jessica Hyde. The Office (US) fame Rainn Wilson joins the cast as Michael Stearns, while High Fidelity actor John Cusack appears as Dr. Kevin Christie. Gotham star Cory Michael Smith essays the character of Thomas Christie. Christopher Denham plays the role of Arby.

The cast also comprises Dan Byrd as Ian, Javon Walton as Grant, Ashleigh LaThrop as Becky, Sonja Sohn as Agent Katherine Miller, Desmin Borges as Wilson Wilson, Farrah Mackenzie as Alice, Jeanine Serralles as Colleen, Jessica Rothe as Samantha, Felisha Terrell as Hailey Alvez, Dustin Ingram as Tallman, and Hadley Robinson as Lily, among many others. Except for a few, almost all the main cast members might reprise their respective characters in season 2. The second season might also feature some fresh faces.

The first season revolves around several comic enthusiasts who set out to find a manuscript titled Utopia, after figuring out that the prequel, Dystopia, seemingly foreshadowed tragic pandemics like the SARS and MERS. After roping in a mysterious stranger who claims to be the girl in the book, Jessica Hyde, the quirky pack strives to find the manuscript to prevent future epidemics. However, their mission is hindered by the people of a crooked biotech mogul, Dr. Kevin Christie. What follows is a series of relentless carnage and odd hijinks.

In the finale, Jessica Hyde is abducted by Agent Katherine Miller, who reveals that she is, in fact, the main culprit Mr. Rabbit. Jessica throws the manuscript out of the window, but Miller is unfazed as she tells Jessica that the script was just a pawn to entrap her. In the final moments, Miller goes to the basement and informs Jessicas father, I have your daughter.

Season 2 might pick up right from the ending of the first season. In the season 1 finale, Miller tells Jessica that she (along with Jessicas father) aims to build a paradise packed with people who are relieved of all the biological impulses and shortcomings and have no right to make their own decisions. Now that Miller has Jessica in her clutches, we can expect the evil agent to map out a plan to use the young woman to fuel her mission -to rebirth the world. However, the nerd gang might pull out all stops to liberate Jessica and prevent Miller from executing her plan. Apart from delving deep into the origins of the Network, season 2 might also throw light on Jessicas father and his intentions.

Read More: Is Utopia a True Story?

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Utopia Season 2 Release Date, Cast, New Season/Canceled?

Fans of Byrne will recognize this device of an empty stage being gradually populated and animated by the arrival of music makers from the great 1984 Jonathan Demme concert film Stop Making Sense. Theres a difference, though.

In that film, even when hes sharing a mic with another singer, Byrne registers as an isolated being, in radioactive communion with himself alone. (He has spoken of probably being on the milder end of the autism spectrum.) In American Utopia, hes in propulsive dialogue with everyone onstage, and with the audience, too.

In recent years, Byrne has become fascinated with color guards, those precision-tooled marching band units. (The infatuation was translated into a 2017 documentary.) The ensemble in American Utopia is as synced as any military corps.

And the marvel of what these musicians do while playing their instruments skip, hop, leap, run in circles and bend like Gumby, always (like Byrne) in bare feet. Gospel call and response is translated into a physical conversation, rapturously underscored by Rob Sinclairs lighting. And yes, there is room for the manic flailing steps that are Byrnes signature. (I dance like this, because it feels so damn good/If I could dance better, well, you know that I would.)

Though the name of the sitting president is never spoken, our topsy-turvy political climate is acknowledged by the performance of a nonsense song by the Dadaist artist Hugo Ball, prefaced by a description of the confusing, dangerous era from which it emerged (in 1930s Berlin). And the ensemble brings a flaming rage to Janelle Mones protest song, Hell You Talmbout, an angry, invigorating memorial to African-Americans killed by police officers.

Like Bruce Springsteens smash Broadway show of two seasons ago, American Utopia repositions a onetime rebel as a reflective elder statesman, offering cozy cosmic wisdom. The angry young Byrne is acknowledged here with rousing versions of the classics Burning Down the House and Once in a Lifetime.

Time hasnt exactly mellowed these songs. But they now sound oddly hopeful in their bewilderment. When Byrne and company perform the 1985 hit Road to Nowhere as an encore, theres the jubilant reassurance that if the journey still has no destination, at least were all in it together.

American Utopia

Tickets Through Jan. 19, 2020, at Hudson Theater, Manhattan; americanutopiabroadway.com. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

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Review: American Utopia Is ... - The New York Times

Album by David Byrne

2018 studio album by David Byrne

American Utopia is the tenth studio album by British-American rock musician David Byrne, released on March 9, 2018 through Todo Mundo and Nonesuch Records. The release is his first true solo studio album since 2004's Grown Backwards, and serves as a musical component of a larger multimedia project titled Reasons to Be Cheerful, which attempts to spread positivity. Byrne announced the album and posted its lead single, "Everybody's Coming to My House", online on January 8, 2018.[1] The album received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.[2]

The album is part of a larger multimedia project titled Reasons to Be Cheerful which aims to give reasons for being happy and optimistic in spite of political strife and environmental problems.[1] The title is derived from the Ian Dury song "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3".[3]

American Utopia received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 72 based on 32 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[5] The Arts Desk's Howard Male gave the album a positive review calling it a "a muscular and quirky return to form".[16] Erik Adams of The A.V. Club gave the album a B, calling the album an uneven "mixed bag" but praising the album's themes.[7]

American Utopia became Byrne's first solo top 10 album on the Billboard 200, debuting at No. 3 with the equivalent of 63,000 copies sold in the United States.[17]

The release of the album was backed by a world tour that lasted from March to November 2018. The elaborate concert included an empty stage surrounded by metal chains and a cast of twelve musicians (including Byrne himself) wearing identical gray suits. Cutting-edge technology in wireless audio, MIDI, lighting and real-time tracking was used to totally untether the musicians from any cables, allowing free movement and complex choreography like in Byrne's previous tours. In addition to songs from American Utopia, the setlist incorporated material from Byrne's solo catalogue, several hits by Talking Heads and a cover of Janelle Mone's "Hell You Talmbout".

In September 2019, an altered version of the concert was previewed at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. It now featured small changes to the setlist and to the structure to achieve a format closer to that of a musical stage production. It premiered on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre in previews on October 4, 2019 and officially on October 20, closing on February 16, 2020.[18] It was set to return to the Hudson for another limited engagement in September 2020, but this was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. A new six-month run started on September 17, 2021, now at the St. James Theatre.

A cast recording of the production titled American Utopia on Broadway was released in 2019 and received a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album nomination.[19] A documentary/concert film version of the Broadway play was directed by Spike Lee and released in late 2020,[20] on HBO.[21]

An homonymous picture book was released in late 2020, intended to be a companion piece to the Broadway show.[22] The book includes words and lyrics by Byrne and illustrations by Maira Kalman.

All tracks are written by David Byrne and Brian Eno, except where noted.

Personnel according to David Byrne's homepage.[23]

Technical personnel

The rest is here:

American Utopia - Wikipedia

Men Like Gods

First US edition

Men Like Gods (1923) is a novel, referred to by the author as a "scientific fantasy",[2] by English writer H. G. Wells.[1][3] It features a utopia located in a parallel universe.

Men Like Gods is set in the summer of 1921. Its protagonist is Mr. Barnstaple (his first name is either Alfred or William[4]), a journalist working in London and living in Sydenham. He has grown dispirited at a newspaper called The Liberal and resolves to take a holiday. Taking leave of his wife and family, his plans are disrupted when his and two other automobiles are accidentally transported with their passengers into "another world," which the "Earthlings" call Utopia.

A sort of advanced Earth, Utopia is some three thousand years ahead of humanity in its development. For the 200,000,000 Utopians who inhabit this world, the "Days of Confusion" are a distant period studied in history books, but their past resembles humanity's in its essentials, differing only in incidental details: their Christ, for example, died on the wheel, not on the cross. Utopia lacks any world government and functions as a successfully realised anarchy. "Our education is our government," a Utopian named Lion says.[5] Sectarian religion, like politics, has died away, and advanced scientific research flourishes. Life in Utopia is governed by "the Five Principles of Liberty", which are privacy, free movement, unlimited knowledge, truthfulness, and free discussion (allowing criticism).

Men Like Gods is divided into three books. Details of life in Utopia are given in Books I and III. In Book II, the Earthlings are quarantined on a rocky crag after infections they have brought cause a brief epidemic in Utopia. There they begin to plot the conquest of Utopia, despite Mr. Barnstaple's protests. He betrays them when his fellows try to take two Utopians hostage, forcing Mr. Barnstaple to escape execution for treason by fleeing perilously.

In Book III, Mr. Barnstaple longs to stay, but when he asks how he can best serve Utopia, he is told that he can do this "by returning to your own world".[6] Regretfully he accepts and ends his month-long stay in Utopia. But he brings with him back to Earth a renewed determination to contribute to the effort to make a terrestrial Utopia: "[H]e belonged now soul and body to the Revolution, to the Great Revolution that is afoot on Earth; that marches and will never desist nor rest again until old Earth is one city and Utopia set up therein. He knew clearly that this Revolution is life, and that all other living is a trafficking of life with death."[7]

Contemporary reviews of the novel were largely positive,[8] though some found the story weakly plotted. As is often the case in his later fiction, Wells's utopian enthusiasm exceeded his interest in scientific romance or fantasy (his own terms for what is now called science fiction). The novel was yet another vehicle for Wells to propagate ideas of a possible better future society, also attempted in several other works, notably in A Modern Utopia (1905). Men Like Gods and other novels like it provoked Aldous Huxley to write Brave New World (1932), a parody and critique of Wellsian utopian ideas.[9]

Wells himself later commented on the novel: "It did not horrify or frighten, was not much of a success, and by that time, I had tired of talking in playful parables to a world engaged in destroying itself."[10]

Several characters in the novel are directly taken from the politics of the 1920s. Rupert Catskill probably represents Winston Churchill,[11] as he was seen at that time: a reckless adventurer. Catskill is depicted as a reactionary ideologue,[12] criticises Utopia for its apparent decadence, and leads the attempted conquest of Utopia.

Men Like Gods is notable for a number of set pieces: a description of telepathy,[13] which has become the standard means of communication among Utopians and which enables them to communicate in the languages of the Earthlings (English and French); a meditation on mortality;[14] a reflection on the continuing distinctions between the races in Utopia, there being little interbreeding as a matter of individual choice, although social intercourse is free;[15] a description of how society could function without money;[16] a denunciation of Marxism;[17] a description of a wireless communication device;[18] and several discussions of multiple universes.[19]

Excerpt from:

Men Like Gods - Wikipedia

Utopia VR The MetaVeRse for EveryoneTM

KELOWNA, British Columbia, Sept. 23, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via InvestorWire -- Utopia VR (Utopia VR or the Company) has positioned itself to capitalize on worldwide market share of the Metaverse with the release of its Apple mobile app. Utopia VRs app enables users to personalize their own 3D environments and then schedule business meetings or social meetups in seconds through a proprietary link management system.

Utopia VRs The Metaverse for Everyone is a one-click, web-based, avatar-driven, mobile-friendly audio and videoconferencing platform that utilizes innovative 3D web technology. Utopia VRs free virtual platform works on all relevant devices: PC, mobile and VR headsets such as Oculus Quest or HTC Vive.

A preview of Utopias virtual MetaVeRse can be experienced at: Utopia VR MetaVeRse

At present, the Company has 36 virtual 3D room (VRoom) options, with new environments being added on a regular basis.

Utopia VRs app is now available for all iPhone and iPad users. The Companys website mirrors the app, which means users can access Utopia VR directly from a PC, laptop, tablet or VR headset without downloading the app. Utopia VRs Android version is anticipated to be released in Q1 of 2022.

Utopia VRs technology does not require a download or installation when users are invited to attend a VRoom meeting. The receiver of an invitation simply clicks on a web link to access the environment. Users can use their mobile app or log in to their online user account at http://www.utopiavr.com to schedule or attend a meeting or social meetup. The Company is currently featuring a selection of 36 virtual rooms (VRooms ) for registered subscribers to use on an unlimited basis during Utopia VRs global prelaunch.

Stuart Gray, president and co-founder of Utopia VR, stated, With our mobile app and integrated website mirroring functionality, Utopia VR has positioned itself to be a market leader among the technology giants all vying for market share in the Metaverse. Utopia VR has already been recognized as a standout leader in the high-quality design of three-dimensional virtual environments. In addition, the consistent feedback the Company has received is that Utopia VR is the easiest to use and most versatile virtual platform available today. Utopia VR offers far more engagement and collaboration than a traditional Zoom meeting. Utopia VR is truly The Metaverse for EveryoneTM since our service is web-based and works on all devices without the need to download software.

Story continues

Cory Braden, Utopia VR CTO, said, The Metaverse for Everyone is a collection of 3D worlds that users explore as avatars. Individual users or companies can outfit their own private virtual rooms with pictures, videos, PowerPoint presentations or even 3D objects. You can permanently pin the objects, therefore making your virtual environments live forever! After subscribing, a user can create their own marketplace for e-commerce both physical and digital products or even upload and sell their own NFTs in one of their own virtual galleries.

Members of Utopia VR navigate through the various VRoom environments by using avatars; users can walk, talk and sit just like they do in the real world. A users avatar can be controlled with a computer keyboard, smartphone or virtual reality headset such as Oculus Quest or HTC Vive. Text chat, voice and video can be used to communicate with others. For important meetings and presentations, users can also import audio, video, 3D pictures, animated objects, PDF files and their favourite NFTs by simply dragging and dropping their file into a VRoom or by pasting a link from media platforms such as YouTube.

Kevin Vincent, VP of international sales for Utopia VR, said, Over the past six months, Ive toured hundreds of individuals from around the globe through our platform, and their instantaneous reactions underline our excitement. This is so simple or This is a way better experience than (other online meeting systems) were common from everyone who has experienced Utopia VR.

Utopia VR will continue to offer an all-free service to users after the Company enters the launch phase in the next few months. When the Company launches, exciting, feature-rich paid packages will also be available.

David Martin, VP of global operations, said, I was fortunate enough to be involved in companies leading the charge in global digital disruption over the past 20 years. I believe the transition from todays one-dimensional websites and mobile phones over to tomorrows three-dimensional, web-based representation and expression will be more dramatic. This technology advancement will be looked back upon as an instrumental pivot point that greatly influenced a new way of interacting and a brand-new digital future.

Timmu Tke, CEO and co-founder of Wolf3d, designer of the avatars utilized in Utopia VRs VRooms, stated, Last year made it clear that remote collaboration is going to be the future of work. We are excited to work with companies like Utopia VR that make these immersive tools a reality today. Utopia VR has joined our growing list of 500+ companies who are integrating Ready Player Me avatars into their apps and games. Users of the platform can travel between these experiences using a consistent digital identity.

About Utopia VR (Apex VR Holdings Inc.)

Apex VR Holdings Inc. (Apex) is doing business as Utopia VR. Apex is a diversified remote tech solutions company. The members of the Apex management team have extensive experience in technology and innovation and have been employed or worked in third-party capacities with technology companies such as Microsoft and Skype. In addition, the management team members have backgrounds in both the private and public financial markets and have led junior-listed public offerings for companies that have realized billion-dollar market valuations.

Trademarks: The Metaverse for Everyone, VRoom, VRooms

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARDStuart GrayPresident

For Media inquiries stuart@utopiavr.com Office: 250-868-0787

Tech journalists are invited to interview Mr. Gray and produce stories while experiencing the Utopia VR platform.

For sales, business development and general inquiries

email: kevin@utopiavr.com

To schedule a virtual tour demoemail: jazmin@utopiavr.com

For technical inquiries email: cory@utopiavr.com

For more information, visit our website: http://www.utopiavr.com

Wire Service Contact InvestorWireLos Angeles, Californiawww.InvestorWire.com212.418.1217Editor@InvestorWire.com

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Utopia VR Enters the Metaverse, Releasing Its Mobile App in the Apple Store to Enable Users to Power Avatar-Driven Virtual Meetings, Social Meetups...

In the earliest days of his career, the twenty-two-year-old musician Lil NasX was a poster child for success on TikTok, after the platform helped propel his song Old Town Road to unprecedented ubiquity. Lately, hes grown into something more old-fashioned: a music-video star. Pop culture is more visual than ever, but the traditional music videoin all its cinematic, big-budget gloryhas been overtaken by bite-size, off-the-cuff material tailored for rapid consumption on social media. Still, the extravagant music video has become the most effective way for Lil NasX, a master of visual iconography, to make a splash. In March, he released a video for a new single titled Montero (Call Me by Your Name), which begins with a voice-over: In life, we hide the parts of ourselves we dont want the world to see.... But here we dont. Welcome to Montero. Lil NasX, born Montero Lamar Hill, was using his given name for a fantastical underworld of his own making, a pastel-colored utopia where everyone could fly a freak flag. Rendered in C.G.I., the video follows Lil NasX through a baroque, Boschian netherland, populated by outrageously costumed clones of the artist, and crackling with sexual charge.

For Lil NasX, who revealed in 2019 that he is gay, Montero signalled a new and emphatically libidinal phase in his art. At the end of the video, the singer, dressed in nothing but a pair of briefs and thigh-high boots, slides down a never-ending stripper pole and lands in a version of Hell, where he performs a striptease for Satan. As part of the rollout for the video, Lil NasX announced a collaboration with a company called MSCHF, which designed a limited-edition run of satanic-themed Nikes, each allegedly containing a drop of human blood in its sole. The video was raunchy, sure, but it was too absurdist to be as salacious as its naysayers made it out to be. Nevertheless, after the release of the video and the sneakers, Lil NasX was decried by Christian pastors, Fox News, and even the South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem. (We are in a fight for the soul of our nation, she tweeted.) The critiques only affirmed Lil NasXs intuitive ability to create a major moment in pop culture. Montero the songa hand-clappy fusion of hip-hop and flamenco with lyrics about Lil NasXs desperate longing for one manwas almost beside the point. Old Town Road lived in a psychedelic alternative universe, bridging the familiar with the futuristic. Montero positioned Lil NasX in pop musics present-day reality, which is not nearly as fun.

The frenzy of attention around the Montero video seemed only to fuel Lil NasXs taste for provocation. In July, he released the music video for a new single, Industry Baby, another ambitious visual feast, this time with a mischievous eye trained on the institution of prison. The clip features Lil NasX as an inmate at Montero State Prison, a place where the prisoners wear bright-pink uniforms, and sometimes nothing at all. Riffing on Black male sexuality in the context of incarceration, Lil NasX performs an energetic dance routine in the showers with his fellow-inmates. The song, which nods to some of the hip-hop pumping out of Lil NasXs home town of Atlanta, contains a triumphant horn arrangement and a swaggering chorus: This one is for the champions. It also has a forgettable guest verse by Jack Harlow, the faintly charming, cocksure white rapper du jour. (Near the end of the video, Lil NasX escapes the prison when one of the guards is distracted by watching the video for Montero (Call Me by Your Name).) Not since Lady Gaga in her early days of stardom has an artist so fully taken advantage of the music video as a receptacle for camp, comedy, social commentary, and ostentation. And as with Lady Gaga theres some cognitive dissonance involved in the pairing of such over-the-top videos with otherwise unremarkable pop songs. Since Old Town Road, Lil NasX has yet to produce a song that feels worthy of such pomp.

He may never need to. In todays pop ecosystem, music is often a vessel for stardom and charisma, not the other way around. And Lil NasXs uncanny understanding of the Internets attention economy has seldom failed him. In 2018, he was a college student in Atlanta reportedly managing a popular Nicki Minaj fan account on Twitter. He began recording songs, and promoting them by attaching them to memes that were already going viral. After dropping out of school, he recorded Old Town Road, a rudimentary country song filled with hip-hop Easter eggs, not necessarily because he was interested in inverting genre tropes but because hed noticed that country trap was trending online. As anyone with a pulse knows, his strategies worked: his remix of Old Town Road, featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, became the longest-running No. 1 song in history, a track with a miraculous ability to transcend cultural and generational divides.

Montero (Call Me by Your Name), on the strength of the music video, also shot to No. 1, and helped transform Lil NasX from a one-hit wonder into a full-fledged pop star. It underscored his savvy, although to characterize him as a marketing genius, as many have done, ignores his burgeoning artistic talents. The song, along with Industry Baby, turned Lil NasX into an icon because of his unrestrained expressions of queer sexual desire. Unlike some of his most successful contemporariessuch as Frank Ocean or Tyler, the CreatorLil NasX refuses to participate in the game of coyness when it comes to his sexuality. (Im queer, ha! he says on Industry Baby.)

But his new, full-length album, also called Montero, is not the bawdy romp that fans might have anticipated. If those singles were about Lil NasXs desires, the album is largely about the disappointment arising from passions left unfulfilled, or the melancholy that floods in once youve got what you want. Lil NasX has refuted the assumption that hed never have a hit after Old Town Road, but the accomplishment comes with a host of new demands and stressors, and it has not granted his every wish. Even the albums most cheerful and peppy songs are backlit with innocent yearning: I want someone to love / Thats what I fuckin want! he shouts on a track called Thats What I Want. Co-written by Ryan Tedder, the song is a whirligig of whoops and claps that seems designed for the wedding dance floor. Like much of this mostly wholesome record, it is hardly an expression of demonic lust or sexual debasement.

Old Town Road, at the peak of its popularity, generated a heated discussion about the boundaries of genre. Initially, Lil NasX had classified the song as country, but as it gained velocity Billboard removed the song from its country chart, arguing that his label had not promoted it as a proper country track. At the time, the decision seemed strange, especially given how stylistically broad the country charts were becoming. Old Town Road assumed such cultural force that these distinctions now feel irrelevant, but the success of the song helped fuel an evolution in the crossover between hip-hop and country. Monteroa pop-rap album that shares almost no DNA with country musicis less interested in musical innovation. Its genre agnostic, a blur of hi-hats, guitar flourishes, and midrange trap beats that make you wonder whom, exactly, the record is intended for. Its an awkward vehicle for Lil NasXs charisma. It points to the insufficiency of the album as a format for the modern pop star.

The back half of Montero takes an unexpected turn toward the morose and the introspective. On one song, Void, Lil NasX pens a letter to an old friend to let him know that the exuberance of his public image is all smoke and mirrors. The song is spare, with a bleary electric-guitar line but not much else; in the open space, Nas is able to use his vocals to mark the contours of his emotions more delicately than on his other songs. I spent inordinate mounts of time / Trapped in a lonely, loner life / Looking for love where Im denied, he sings mournfully in a half whisper, as if in a confessional booth. Weve experienced Lil NasX as an Internet troll, a hypersexual provocateur, a pop star with a Warholian visual sensibility, but Montero shows something different: a human being.

Link:

The Unexpected Introspection of Lil Nas Xs Montero - The New Yorker