Category Archives: New Utopia

Kevin Noodles Wasserman knows whats coming even before he calls to chat about the Offsprings new record , Let The Bad Times Roll, its first album of new material in nearly nine years.

What took you so long?

Thats been the first question in almost every interview, Noodles says, and laughs. Fair enough. I mean, theres lot a lot of reasons, you know.

We finished our deal with Sony, so we didnt have anyone cracking the whip, the bands guitarist says. We didnt have any deadlines. Dexter (Holland, the bands singer) went back to school, got his PhD. That took a little bit longer than he thought.

Add to that the Orange County punk bands annual touring and the acrimonious departure of original bassist Greg Kriesel in 2018 and the bands 10th album in more than 35 years together just took a bit more time.

Let The Bad Times roll is the new record by the Offspring. Seen here, left to right, are drummer Pete Parada, bassist Todd Morse, singer Dexter Holland, and guitarist Kevin Noodles Wasserman. (Photo by Daveed Benito)

Let The Bad Times Roll is the 10th studio album from the Offspring and its first in nearly nine years. (Photo courtesy of Concord Records)

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Let The Bad Times Roll is the 10th studio album by the Offspring. Seen here, left to right, are drummer Pete Parada, guitarist Kevin Noodles Wasserman, singer Dexter Holland, and bassist Todd Morse. (Photo by Daveed Benito)

Let The Bad Times roll is the new record by the Offspring. Seen here, left to right, are bassist Todd Morse, drummer Pete Parada, singer Dexter Holland, and guitarist Kevin Noodles Wasserman. (Photo by Daveed Benito)

We had been working in the studio, on and off, the whole nine years, Noodles says. Whenever Bob (Rock, the bands producer) was in town wed hook up for a week or two in the studio. Sometimes as long as a month. The record didnt really start coming together until a couple of years ago when we just had a really creative period.

Let The Bad Times Roll displays all the familiar strengths of the Offspring, from Hollands vocals to Noodles crunchy riffing and the strong melodies throughout, across a dozen songs that feel both fresh and familiar.

Given its lengthy gestation, its not surprising that some bits and pieces had been in the works for years, according to Noodles. Coming For You, for instance, was released as the albums first single, complete with a music video of a clown fight club, six years before the album finally arrived.

Thats certainly the oldest one that was finished, Noodles says. Some of the songs are older than that. Like, We Never Have Sex Anymore, its probably a 20-year-old song but its changed a lot. The skeleton was there but the meat and bones, the meat and potatoes part of it has been fleshed out.

And then then some of the songs we steal from older stuff even before Offspring, he says. Theres a guitar break on Hassan Chop that predates, I think, us being called the Offspring. That comes back to our Manic Subsidal days.

Took us about 35 years to get it right, but I think we finally nailed it in this take.

The album is rewardingly diverse in both sound and lyrics, something Noodles says came about through the long process of picking which songs to include and what order to run them.

The album opens with one-two punch of This Is Not Utopia and the current single Let The Bad Times Roll, both of which are about as political as the Offspring get, offering critiques of socio-political dysfunction wrapped in the case of the title track in catchy singalong melodies.

Without having to take sides politically, I dont think anybody has been enjoying the last four years, Noodles says of the title track. I think everyones a little wound up by it. And its really just an observation of what weve seen.

And then something like This Is Not Utopia is far more like, Ah, man, the world, evil people are at odds, he says. Ultimately in that song its, When will love finally conquer hate? Which we kind of think eventually it will. We try to provide some hope its not just all doom and gloom.

We Never Have Sex Anymore, a fun take on the waning of passion, is one of the jazziest numbers the Offspring have ever done, complete with a horn section to accentuate the swinging feel. Hassan Chop is an old-school blast of high-speed punk. Theres even an Offspring-ized cover of classical composer Edvard Griegs In The Hall of the Mountain King here.

The penultimate track on the album, a gentle piano-based reboot of Gone Away, which originally was on 1997s Ixnay on the Hombre, was done as a sort of musical gift for longtime fans.

Weve been doing it live, just a stripped-down piano version, for about four or five years now, Noodles says. And, really, the fans were the ones that said, Hey, where can I get a studio version of the piano Gone Away? I mean, its on Twitter, on Instagram. When we do meet-and-greets we get asked about it a lot.

So we finally decided, lets see if we could pull something together that still sounds like us but maybe purifies the song a little bit, just kind of strips it down, he says.

The album might have landed earlier had the COVID-19 pandemic not turned the world upside down a year ago. Instead of putting out a record that couldnt be supported live the band waited. A wait, Noodles says, that was difficult for a band like the Offspring that plays live so frequently.

I mean, we miss it, he says, laughing ruefully. Weve been rehearsing. And not just getting together in the room and playing through the songs. Weve been doing deep dives and getting into the weeds on how we play some of these things. Making sure Todd (Morse, the Offsprings bassist) and I are locked in our strumming, and making sure that matches with what Pete (Parada) is doing on the drums.

The layoff has also given him time to break bad habits that slipped in over the years, too.

I dont know why, but over like 25 years somehow my strumming has evolved in ways that the song was never intended to go, Noodles says. Like Self Esteem, Ive gotten a lazy right hand and I had to really look at that: Oh (bleep), Im doing upstrokes when everyone else was doing downstrokes, and it doesnt sound as good.

I had to really dial it in. Most people probably wouldnt notice, but its something on my radar.

He and Holland have launched a series of short how to videos online, some, like the debut How To Catch a Wave, made for a laugh, others, like a future one on breaking down a guitar solo, more serious.

And, slowly, signs of future life on the road are surfacing. Like many bands, the Offspring had some of its pandemic-postponed dates pushed back a year into late 2021 or 2022.

But were looking at setting up shows that werent ever booked before, Noodles says. And maybe as early as the end of the year. Hopefully well have some announcements to make sooner rather than later about those dates.

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Offspring guitarist Noodles explains why the bands new album took 9 years to finish - San Bernardino County Sun

In the context of the global climate in the 1960s, Yuri Gagarin emerged as a new ideal of a Cold Warrior. As the first human in space and the first human to orbit the Earth, Gagarin served as the exclamation point on Soviet space achievements in their competition with the United States. He was the human embodiment of Sputnik: a walking and talking demonstration of the superiority of Soviet mastery of space technology. Yet, there is another role that Gagarin played that historians frequently ignore. He was a domestic hero who was leading the way for post-World War II generations of Soviet youth to a future that attempted to recapture the optimism of pre-World War I and Early Soviet revolutionary artistry. There is no better example of the expression of this re-discovered optimism than in the song, Gagarins March (Gagarinskii marsh).

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin waves to crowds lining the street as he rides in an open car during a parade; circa 1961. (NASM 00159149)

Every year in Russia during the week of April 12, the anniversary of Yuri Gagarins flight in space, also known as Cosmonautics Day, one hears Gagarins March replayed on radio and websites. The 1961 musical piece has music and lyrics by composer and science fiction poet Oleg Aleksandrovich Sokolov-Tobolsky. Popular baritone Eduard Labkovskii sings the song with the backing of the civilian Soviet Song orchestra. When listening to it for the first time, one can recognize that the title is a misnomer as it is a musical break from the traditional celebratory songs that retell heroic battles of previous generations. The March differs from previous patriotic songs dedicated to aviation. It has neither a civil defense nor a military theme. Gagarins March does not speak of wartime but paints a picture of a bright and enthusiastic trek into the Soviet future with Yuri Gagarin at the lead. In this case, Gagarin is leading the homeland to a new optimistic world.

The lyrics are as follows:

We're leaving for space to work,

Seated in orbiting ships

And everything starts from the first flight,

Gagarin's first turn around the Earth.

Commander of the ship, as clear-eyed Russian guy,

He gave his whole universe a smile,

No, it was not for nothing that Gagarin first visited space,

He opened new roads for us.

Space miracle machines

Explore Venus and the Moon,

And it will be necessary, and we take off guys,

We will life up any virgin land in the far space.

Commander of the ship, a battle brave guy,

With the crew will go to Mercury and Mars,

No, it was not for nothing that Gagarin first visited the space,

He opened new roads for us.

The Earth is sweeping the expanses of the Universe,

Around the Sun its habitual way keeps,

And we live, earthlings, dreaming of daring

Throughout the Solar System, walk one day.

The ships commander, the son of the Earth, is a great guy,

Cosmonauts, scientists will deliver to Pluto.

No, it was not for nothing that Gagarin first visited the space,

For the future to come the feat is accomplished.

The ships commander, the son of the Earth, is a great guy,

Cosmonauts, scientists will deliver to Pluto.

No, it was not for nothing that Gagarin first visited the space,

For the future to come the feat is accomplished.

The songs first three lines echo a poem written by Russian futurist avant-garde poet Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1925. The Flying Proletariat was a utopian science fiction-themed long poem set two centuries into the future in the year 2125. Just as Mayakovsky began his poem, Gargarins March anticipates a utopian technological future in space, free of long hours of backbreaking, dirty work. The difference between the poem and the march is tone of immediacy. The song gives the impression that the technological utopia will follow quickly with the occasion of the Yuri Gagarins first spaceflight around the Earth. As the story unfolds, Gagarins importance to the future unfolding is repeated throughout in three ways. First Gagarin is described repeatedly as a Russian guy. This is a reference to him personifying the ideal of an overall good guy, a friend to everyone. Throughout the song, his good-guy image is modified as being clear-eyed, brave, and great as the crescendo of the song builds.

The second way that Sokolov-Tobolsky reinforces the importance of Gagarins flight to the future of the USSR is the repetition of the refrain, No, it was not for nothing that Gagarin first visited space. Although grammatically awkward in English, this is a classic Russia language expression. It translates to mean that his flight is the launch vehicle on which the future is mounted. His flight leads to opening the new road to spacea phrase used by early Bolshevik space futurist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. With him, Gagarin leads the Soviet people to the future, including exploration of the solar system and the creation of a Soviet economic and agricultural ideal on other planets.

And finally, the composer focuses on Gagarins most favored physical attributehis smile. This is the ubiquitous smile that everyone recognized and for Russians it indicated an open and honest character.

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin surrounded by a crowd of children, circa 1961. (NASM 00159145)

I encourage you to take the opportunity to listen to the Gagarin March this week. It is widely available on YouTube and other websites.

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Gagarin's March: 60th Anniversary of the First Human in Space - National Air and Space Museum

Get ready to get your game face back on, as Leeds-based megabrand Roxy Ball Room is set to return bigger, better, and bolder on Monday 17th May when it reopens its doors to reveal a supersized gaming utopia spanning three floors.

The revamped venue will still focus heavily on the ball games, food, and drink that the brand has become famous for, whilst unveiling some exciting new gaming options to make it the citys premier gaming bar.

Former sister venue Roxy Arcade has been completely ripped out and refitted as Roxy Ball Room, creating one mammoth gamers paradise with its spacious basement area. Here, a diverse range of entertainment will be available offering endless hours of fun, along with a shiny new bar area.

Competitive streak

The basement will also feature two newly installed Duckpin Bowling Lanes, where players can flaunt their competitive streak with a game that splices ten-pin bowling with skittles. Another game to make its Leeds debut is Bank Shot Shuffleboard, which twists the popular game with a board that loops back on itself, making it even more challenging to get the puck into the scoring zone. The basement area will boast two Bank Shot Shuffleboards, as well as a ping pong table.

Also new to Roxy Ball Room are three hi-tech private karaoke rooms, where budding performers can order a round of drinks at the push of a button,and a selection of iconic arcade machines, including the ever-popular basketball.

The ground floor bar will feature no less than five beer pong tables, whilst the light and airy first floor will boast 4 full-size American pool tables, two shuffleboards, two beer pong tables and two more ping pong tables.

Guests can expect the same stellar selection of draught lagers and craft beers as before, including Roxy Lager, Camden Pale and ABK Weissbier.

The Roxy bar team will be on-hand across the venues three bars to shake up both classic and signature cocktails, including the bestselling Ping Star Martini and the Tropical Rumbull. Hungry gamers will be able to hit up Roxys bold and tasty food menus, which spans loaded nachos, chicken wings, pizzas, and burgers.

Iconic nightlife scene

And, whilst Roxy fans will have to hold on until May the 17th to get their game on, they can get a taste of their signature food and drink menus from Monday 12th April onwards at the Merrion Street party.

Roxy has joined forces with neighbouring bars including Mojo, Verve and Yard & Coop to create the citys biggest outdoor hospitality area. A roof spanning the full street will ensure guests are kept both safe and sheltered from the elements, whilst DJs will be on hand with a diverse party playlist to suit the highly anticipated return of the iconic nightlife scene synonymous with Leeds.

Roxy brand development manager Joel Mitchell had this to say ahead of the re-launch: We are all extremely excited about taking our Merrion Street venue to another level! The people of Leeds are long overdue for a big night out on the town. Roxy Ball Room is coming back in a big way to help create memories that can make up for all those special occasions that weve all missed out on.

The bar is ready to go from Monday 17th May, and Im looking forward to seeing some familiar faces, from our loyal customers to co-workers and friends from our neighbouring bars. Im confident the people of Leeds are going to love our new-look, supersized venue when it finally reopens, and I know jaws will drop when they check out the new basement bar and see the massive selection of gaming that is now on offer.

With Bank Shot Shuffleboard, Crazy Pool, Karaoke, Arcade Machines and Duckpin Bowling thrown into the mix, Roxy Ball Room Merrion Street is going to be the citys number one gaming hotspot, with an unrivalled selection of entertainment options. 2021 is going to be a year to remember for sure.

Find out more and book your spot at the Roxy Ball Room as part of the Merrion Street party from the 12th or reserve your chance to play indoors when the full venue opens in May by visitingRoxyballroom.co.uk.

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Roxy Ball Room Merrion Street set to reveal supersize gaming utopia | TheBusinessDesk.com - The Business Desk

Svetlana Kana Radevi, a socialist Yugoslav architect who effortlessly moved between and drew influence from Philadelphia, Tokyo, and the Montenegrin capital city of Podgorica over the course of her celebrated career is the subject of a comprehensive exhibition opening May 22 at the Palazzo Palumbo Fossati as one of 17 collateral events at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale.

Titled Skirting the Center: Svetlana Kana Radevi on the Periphery of Postwar Architecture, the exhibition is organized by the APSS Institute, a research- and education-focused urbanism and design platform based in Montenegro. Its cocurators are Dijana Vuini, founder of the APSS Institute and interdisciplinary architectural practice DVARP, and Anna Kats, a New York-based architectural historian, curator, and critic who served as curatorial assistant of the 2018 Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia: 1948-1980exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. As Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss noted in his review for AN, Radevi and other socialist Yugoslav female architects were largely present in the exhibition.

Skirting the Center turns the spotlight exclusively on Radevi, the first Montenegrin female architect, by displaying an extensive collection of drawings, photographs, and newly discovered correspondences that make it possible to contextualize and historicize an exceptional, but overlooked figure of postwar architecture, as stated in an exhibition press release.

The exhibition is the first major survey of Radevis built work, which includes bus terminals, housing blocks, business centers, Brutalist hotel towers, and anti-fascist memorials. Also highlighted is the Hotel Podgorica, a spectacular convergence of indigenous materials and radical modernist forms that melds into its verdant site along the banks of the Moraca River. (And yes, you can still very much book a room there.) The competition-winning hotel design earned Radevi the Federal Borba Award for Architecture in 1967. Radevi, who relocated to Philadelphia to study with Louis Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania as a Fulbright fellow pursuing her Master of Architecture several years after the landmark hotel was completed, was just 29 when she was bestowed with the prestigious Borba Award. She remains the awards youngestand only femalerecipient.

Radevic subverted hierarchies that privilege cosmopolitan centers over provincial peripheries by locating her personal practice in Montenegro. Yet her architecture was ultimately supranational, simultaneously digesting vernacular building traditions as well as her global study and work experience, wrote the Skirting the Centers curators. By positing how to re-center a historical figure and geopolitical context that have long been at the peripheral fringes of architectures normative history, this exhibition recovers her distinctive role as a negotiator of the spatial contractbetween state and citizenry, between center and peripheryas a case study in facilitating social consensus and cultural exchange for contemporary practitioners.

Radevic was born in 1937 in Cetinje, Yugoslavia, the former royal capital of what is now Montenegro. She died in 2000 at the age of 62. Prior to relocating to Philadelphia to study with Kahn while simultaneously maintaining her independent architectural practice in Podgorica, Radevic attended and graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Belgrade. Throughout her globe-spanning yet ancestrally grounded career, Radevic frequently collaborated with her sister Ljiljana Radevi, who was also an architect.

As mentioned, Skirting the Center opens on May 22 in Venice. It runs throughout the entirety of the biennale, closing on November 21. The organizers of several national pavilions (Singapore, Switzerland, and the Netherlands among them) at the biennale, which has already been postponed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic, recently announced their intentions to hold guest-free silent openings during the invite-only preview period in reaction to a spike in COVID-19 cases in Italy.

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Yugoslav architect Svetlana Kana Radevi is saluted at the Venice Architecture Biennale - The Architect's Newspaper

Accused of pandering to the far-right ahead of Frances federal election in 2022, President Emmanuel Macron attempted a balancing act. In January 2021, the leaders party said it would create a memories and truth commission on Frances painful colonial history and war with Algeria. In March, it released a report on the positive contributions of individuals of immigrant backgrounds called Portraits of France.

These initiatives are part of a broader effort to find alternative solutions to growing demands for the removal of statues and street names honoring historical figures that are connected to Frances colonial past, including its slave trade. Yet, at the same time, Macron and some of his ministers have been igniting emotions as they publicly denounce forces that they see as stoking so-called separatism, including what many see as US-style political correctness and cancel culturethe latter of which is a largely unpopular but growing concept in Franceas well as a perceived US-version of multiculturalism.

Recent events within and outside of France have further stoked this fire. The #MeToo movement has been met with uneven hostility. The October decapitation of a teacher who showed cartoons of the prophet Muhammad during a course on free speech has led to a new bill against separatism, which aims to combat Islamic radicalism. And the protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in the US last year have prompted renewed conversation about the nature of racism in France, and put the countrys old ways of cultural assimilation on trial.

Against this backdrop of a culture war that shows little signs of abating, artistic projects remain a powerful place for progressive discourse in Franceeven as some factions in the country move to denounce what many have called an importation of Americas discourse on identity politics.

President of France Emmanuel Macron. Photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images.

As warring factions argue over how to integrate populations of citizens descended from former colonies, a new resurgent left, notably marked by young people from within the very populations at the center of the issue, has been pushing back against the countrys universalist social model, which traditionally downplayssome would say ignorescultural differences between citizens. The traditional style of governance aims to avoid what is often viewed as an Americanized version of warring ethnic and religious groups.

In a Le Monde editorial from March, supporters of the presidents Portraits of France project said that playwrights, filmmakers, and painters should seize upon these life stories and make works of art out of them that speak to our society and our world. They added that by ignoring a part of our shared past, we have made it harder to understand our present and to write our future.

But these cultural in-roads are not always met with open arms. The executive branch of French government has specifically singled out academia, including the social science fields of post-colonial and intersectional studies, saying that these areas are under risk of influence from radical agendas that are pitting communities against each other. It also announced in February a sweeping investigation into the presence of Islamo-gauchismea term loosely referring to extreme-left activists who are complacent toward radical forms of Islamism or who apologize for terrorismin universities. As a result, many are worried about censorship in schools and that scholarly research into the darker chapters of Frances history is under threat.

Emo de Medeiros notwithstanding the forces at hand (2018).Collection MACAAL / Fondation Alliances ADAGP, Paris, 2021. On view with the exhibition Ce qui soublie et ce qui reste currently on view at the Palais de la Porte Dore.

This debate spewed over into the art world when a government-commissioned portrait series of women publicly displayed in March in Paris, which was designed to celebrate diversity by featuring images of professionals from an array of different fields, sparked a vicious response. The photographs in 109 Mariannes became fodder for controversy due to the inclusion of the young astrophysicist Fatoumata Kb who was singled out for her headscarf. Angered that Kb was chosen to emblematize Marianne, the personification of the French Republic often seen interpreted in art or on stamps, former spokesperson for the right-leaning Republican party, Lydia Guirou, was among the angry tweeters: Marianne is not and will NEVER wear the headscarf!

The sentiment dovetails with a draft bill that the Senate amended this month to forbid chaperones on school field trips from wearing Muslim headscarves. The bill has been strongly criticized for stigmatizing Muslims and called an overreach of Frances already strict secular laws, which forbid the wearing of clearly visible religious symbols in schools, and by civil servants.

Visitors look at The Slave for sale (1873) painting by Jean-Leon Gerome during the press visit of the exhibition Black models: from Gericault to Matisse at the Musee dOrsay in Paris on March 25, 2019. Photo: Francois Guillot/ AFP) via Getty Images.

Despite instances of incendiary reactions, the cultural sphere is being won over by a new wave of progressive viewpoints and views are indeed changing. A younger generation has become eager to more openly focus on the topic of race and difference. French citizens of immigrant descent are raising their voices to say that, in practice, their identities are under-represented in a society that discriminates against them for their inherent differences. With a sense of irony, they describe a society which claims to be blind to those differences while demanding that any outward signs of that differencefor example, hijabsare avoided, to best fit a cultural mold.

We like the idea of universalism, because its a kind of utopia But its easier to go to Mars than to the land of universalism, Nadine Houkpatintold Artnet News. She is co-curator with Cline Seror of a show that includes work by artists from Africa and its diaspora called Memoria: accounts of another Historythat is on view until November at the Frac-Nouvelle Acquitaine MECA in Bordeaux. Houkpatin notes that while a new generation has indeed been inspired by some of the woke political ideas stemming from the US, the theorists behind many of these left-leaning ideas are often of French origin.

Views of the exhibition Memoria: Tales of another History at the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MCA. Photos: Galle Deleflie.

The curators of the Bordeaux show surmise that, when it comes to discussing these issues through art, people have an easier time accepting more progressive, controversial topics. I think that through art, we can address these questions that are essential, said Seror. Art gives a certain liberty that enables us to express ourselves about these subjects, she added.

Indeed, it seems that the art world has been somewhat shielded: Responses were overwhelmingly positive to the two shows, despite the debates going on in the public realm. The show at Muse dOrsay even received a nod from a critic who supports the governments investigation into academics. I saw the exhibition, and very much appreciated it, said Nathalie Heinich, a sociologist who has published work on contemporary art. She is in favor of the French governments recent stance against radical intellectual currents that come from elsewhere and a signatory in an editorial in Le Monde that described them as feeding a hatred for whites.

Immigration Museum director Pap Ndiaye, a French historian, poses during a photo session, outside the museum in Paris on March 5, 2021. (Photo by Martin BUREAU / AFP) (Photo by MARTIN BUREAU/AFP via Getty Images)

Pap Ndiaye, the historian and new director of Frances immigration museum, the Palais de la Porte-Dore, recently told reporters that he too is concerned by the pushback on academia. It comes at a moment when post-colonial and intersectional questions are beginning to find their very small space in French universities, he said. If we stop teaching them, where will the students go? The Paris museum he oversees is currently showing an exhibit on the immigrant experience that includes 18 artists from Africa and its diasporait is a poignant explorationof artistic diversity and it falls on the 90th anniversary of the museum, which infamously opened with an exhibition to celebrate the colonies and included human exhibits.

The title of the show at Ndiayes museum, Ce qui soublie et ce qui reste, which translates to What is forgotten and what remains, also seems to ask what traces of this dark past remain in the popular subconscious today. It is on view until July.

While the government and certain factions of the population continue to rail against the universities, art institutions are set to become an increasingly singular voice for pressing questions about post-colonialism in France. When an artist presents [their work] in a museum that is open to the public, then we can start talking about colonialism, decolonization, and its impact on society, said curator Seror. Thats the power of art.

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As a Cultural War Continues to Cause Waves in France, Art Has Become a Lighthouse for Progressive Views - artnet News

On the stage of an empty concert hall, the Austrian-born composer Peter Ablinger sits in a chair and begins to tell the time. At the third stroke, it will be twenty oclock precisely, he says, adhering to the hallowed formula of the BBCs Speaking Clock. He accompanies himself with a simple C-minor sequence on a keyboard. After continuing in this vein for twenty minutes, Ablinger cedes the floor to the young German actress Salome Manyak, who speaks over an atmospherically bleeping soundtrack by the Finnish experimental musician Olli Aarni. The ritual goes on for nearly twenty-seven hours, with an ever-changing team of artists, curators, composers, singers, and d.j.s announcing the time in German, English, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, Oromo, Mandarin, and twelve other languages. A rotating assortment of prerecorded tracks, usually electronic, provide accompaniment. Most of the reciters maintain a crisp, cool demeanor, even when their Web sites lead one to expect something more uproarious. The Swedish dancer and costume designer Bjrn Ivan Ekemark, for example, gives no sign that he also performs under the name Ivanka Tramp and leads a sticky and visceral cake-sitting performance group, called analkollaps.

We are, needless to say, in Berlin, witnessing the finale of MaerzMusik, an annual bacchanal of sonic extremes that falls under the aegis of the Berliner Festspiele. This years edition was streamed online, meaning that you could absorb it from the banal comfort of an American home. In keeping with European practice, there was an imposing but vague central theme: Zeitfragen, or time issues. The programming emphasized experiences that sprawl beyond conventional time frames and engulf the consciousness. The most potent example was liane Radigues Trilogie de la Mort (1988-93), a three-hour soundscape of darkly hypnotic electronic drones. It had the feeling of an indecipherable monument outside time.

Yet MaerzMusik offered more than an escape from aesthetic norms. In a high-profile, well-funded festival such as this, time becomes a political question: Who gets to speak, and for how long? In the European cultural sphere, the long-unquestioned dominance of the white-male perspective is receiving nearly as much scrutiny as it is in America. MaerzMusik, which is led by the arts curator Berno Odo Polzer, has taken a sharp turn away from the usual suspects. The African-American composer and scholar GeorgeE. Lewis was invited to organize a concert devoted to Black composers. Several events paid tribute to the eclectic Egyptian-American composer Halim El-Dabh, who died in 2017, at the age of ninety-six. Two Berlin-based experimental groups, phnix16 and noiserkroiser, presented a multimedia evening in collaboration with the Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos, a Bolivian ensemble that seeks new contexts for traditional Andean instruments.

The ever-formidable Lewis, who is based at Columbia but is currently a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (the Wissenschaftskolleg), has led the way in confronting the German new-music world with the question of race. A few years ago, he assembled statistics showing that the venerable Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music had featured only two Black composers in seven decadesamounting to 0.04 per cent of all the compositions selected. In response, Lewis has argued not only for greater numerical diversity but also for a different vision of musical culture itselfone of a creolized world in which histories and identities circulate freely. The word creole is often used to denote racial mixing, but for Lewis, and for post-colonial theorists who have embraced the term, it denotes a broader confluence of languages and values.

The young Swiss composer-drummer Jessie Cox, who is studying with Lewis at Columbia, exemplifies what such a hyphenated future might look and sound like. Cox grew up in the majority-German-speaking town of Biel, but his family has roots in Trinidad and Tobago. At an early age, he took up djembe and Latin drumming; later, he turned to a serious study of modern composition. At MaerzMusik, he appeared during the tribute to El-Dabh, playing drums alongside the guitarist Nicola Hein and the sheng player Wu Wei in a partly improvised piece titled Sound Is Where Drums Meet. He was also featured on an Ensemble Modern program called Afro-Modernism in Contemporary Music, which included works by Hannah Kendall, Alvin Singleton, Daniel Kidane, Andile Khumalo, and Tania Len.

The idea of a creolized music was most obvious in Sound Is Where Drums Meet, with its implicit fusion of deep-rooted world traditions. (The sheng, a Chinese free-reed instrument, is at least three thousand years old.) The piece was hardly an ethnomusicological exercise, though; the performers adopted an experimental lingua franca, ranging from delicate washes of timbre to furious spells of collective pandemonium, which reminded me at moments of duos between Max Roach and Cecil Taylor. No less commanding was Existence lies In-Between, Coxs contribution to the Ensemble Modern project. This is a fully notated score that nonetheless offers some freedom to the performers. The bass clarinet, for example, is sometimes asked to engage in wild, free-jazz-like playing in the manner of Marshall Allen, the longtime saxophonist of the Sun Ra Arkestra. Coxs style might be described as dynamic pointillism, with breathy instrumental noises giving way to mournfully wailing glissandi, and then to a climactic stampede of frantic figuration.

The two pieces still seemed to dwell in separate worlds: one in the experimental zone, the other in the concert hall. Online, Cox has undertaken projects that collapse such distinctions by creating their own virtual acoustic spaces. Just after his visit to Berlin, he presented, in league with issue Project Room, a ninety-minute work titled The Sound of Listening, which invites spectators to visit an array of rooms where various musical activities are unfolding. The mood here is spacious, ruminative: an opening solo, for the bassist Kathryn Schulmeister, comes across as a restless, questing meditation. Far more fraught is Breathing, a kind of video aria that Cox made for the Long Beach Operas Songbook series, in November. The Black bass-baritone Derrell Acon vocalizes as he wanders through city and forest landscapes, his voice fractured by pain and rage. At the end, he exhales while birdsong fills the soundtrackan idyllic turn that appears to astonish him as much as it does the viewer.

Amid a general trend toward ad-libitum frenzy at MaerzMusikthe event with the Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos swelled to an impressively apocalyptic roarthe premire of Jrg Freys Fourth String Quartet provided an oasis of focussed stillness. Frey, who is from Aarau, Switzerland, about forty-five miles from Coxs home town of Biel, writes chamber music that seems to pick up where Shostakovichs left off, in a realm where Romantic harmony has decayed into beautiful, half-buried ruins. The Fourth Quartet is especially notable for its coda, in which a soft, low C-sharp is plucked out more than a hundred times on the cello, like a muffled clock, while the violins and viola grasp at ghostly chords.

The festivals epic speaking-clock finale had its own bleary pleasures. Titled timepiece, it built on Ablingers 2012 work tim Song. Lewis appeared as a reciter in the first hour; a few hours later, the Bozzini Quartet accompanied the speakers with Michael Oesterles Consolations, which is not unlike Freys quartet in mood. Long past midnight, the Irish composer-performer Jennifer Walshe took over the broadcast and wreaked havoc, as is her wont. She switched to Dublin Mean Time, which has not been in active use since 1916, and diverged from the script with such announcements as At the third chime, it will be arse oclock. Above all, it was mesmerizing to hear the time told in so many languagesa multiplicity that testified to Berlins cosmopolitan nature. According to the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, diverse world cultures should take pride in their distinctive features while seeking the higher truth of a shared humanity. For a day or so, this utopia seemed to come into being, as the people of many nations came to agree about at least one thing: the time.

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The Sonic Extremes of the MaerzMusik Festival - The New Yorker

NEW YORK, April 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Why are life coaches so popular these days? Life coaches have helped their clients in many ways, ranging from achieving and maintaining a good mindset to shedding light on tough decisions. They help you in setting the right goal and gain confidence along the way.

If you are planning to invest your time with life coaches, then today is your lucky day as Building Your Authority has compiled a list of the best female life coaches that will impact and elevate your life this year.

These women have proven their reputation with years of undying passion for helping their clients. For them, providing compassion and commitment is an absolute priority when it comes to maintaining partnerships and creating results with their clients.

In this list, these incredible women offer different niches in their line of business that can impact your life in 2021!

1.Nadiya Manji (@nadiyamanji)

Nadiya Manji is a highly sought-after transformational master coach, registered clinical hypnotherapist, board-certified master neuro-linguistic programmer, and emotional intelligence expert; who helps clients achieve powerful internal alignment and optimal mental health. Author of the book Searching for Balance, Nadiya shares her story and the pivotal life lessons that changed her life, unlocking her high performance through internal alignment. Nadiya first shared her message of alignment and the work-life balance fallacy on the TEDx stage. Nadiya develops self-awareness in professionals of all levels, producing aligned, emotionally intelligent, and resilient leaders through her twenty years of global experience, honing her skills in science, spirituality, and intuition. Nadiya offers a wide range of life coaching programs, corporate workshops, and training sessions through her Rewire Your Life, Rewire your Business, and Profound Wellness programs.

Begin your personal transformation with Nadiya here, or learn more about her through LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.

2.Kelly Kristin (@mskellykristin)

Kelly Kristin (@mskellykristin) is a globally known coach and the founder of The Worshipped Woman Movement. She focuses on helping women recover from toxic relationships. Her goal is to help women who are ready to break the cycle, heal, and experience the love and life they deserve. Between her online on-demand programs, group and private clients, Kelly has already helped over 3000 women in their personal transformation. Kellys book, The Call to Rise, became an instant bestseller on Amazon and continues to inspire and uplift women all over the world. Kelly is an expert in subconscious transformation and facilitates deep healing through embodiment practices and an emphasis on nervous system regulation. She utilizes a number of unique modalities and her own personal knowledge of having been through toxic relationships, which in turn, allows her to offer a one-of-a-kind coaching experience. Her mission is to have every woman recognize and embody their worth, love themselves fully, and become their own version of The Worshipped Woman. To learn more about Kelly and her upcoming programs, visit her at Kelly Kristin Co.

3. Dr. Nikki Starr Noce(@drnikkistarr)

Dr. Nikki Starr Noce is a medical doctor turned transformational life coach. Shes traveled the world touching every continent except Antarctica, researching alternative healing modalities while awakening her innate healing and intuitive abilities. Dr. Nikki comes from a lineage of Colombian healers. She also appeared on the FOX show Utopia where they named her #DrLove. Dr. Nikki Starr uses a holistic approach to help clients dissolve drama and turn pain into purpose with the Awaken Your Spiritual Power Guidebook. She also works with high-achieving women ready to rise to their next level via the Ultimate Woman Uprising Cheat Sheet.

4.Emily Harris (@_emilyanneharris)

Emily Harris is a Lifestyle Coach and Mindset Mentor for overwhelmed women who are ready to break free from autopilot and step into their power. Following a burnout in 2019, Emily became a certified life coach. For Emily, true fulfillment comes from knowing that we all have the power to wildly transform our lives if we're prepared to get back in the driver's seat.

Emily's 12-week program involves a blend of deep self-discovery, spirituality, and mindset work which, using her unique formula; Connection + Compassion + Conscious Creation = Freedom, creates massive shifts for everyone who works with her. Emily endeavors to make herself redundant by empowering her clients to walk away with unshakeable confidence and self-trust, breaking through anything that stands in their way.

Emily is committed to guiding her community to take control and consciously create the powerful, purposeful, and fulfilling life they were born to live. Visit her website here.

5.Courtney Quinn (@coachingwithcourt)

Courtney Quinn is an intuitive life and health coach who aims to help women step into their power, reclaim their radiance, and live a life of fulfillment. Through one-on-one life coaching, and her high-level mastermind Reclaiming Radiance, she has helped women gain clarity on what they want in life, commit to healthy rituals that set them up for success, and let go of limiting beliefs that hold them back from their true potential. She began coaching over 5 years ago, where she started in fitness and nutrition. Since then, Courtney Quinn has helped hundreds of women transform their bodies, mind, and life. If you are looking to up level your life in 2021 and reclaim your radiant power as a woman, visit her website here to learn more.

6.Chrystal Rose (@xtalrose)

Chrystal Rose is a Self-Love Life Coach, entrepreneur & host of the Self Love Breakfast Club Podcast. She is dedicated to helping women heal their hustle, make peace with food and their bodies, and step into their best selves. Chrystals passion and desire to create a massive impact stems from surviving an incredibly traumatic childhood. She now uses the same techniques in her coaching that allowed her to heal. Rather than focusing on the surface with mindset and behavioral change, Chrystal helps her clients achieve lasting results by getting to the root and healing it from within. Chrystal offers multiple levels of accessibility, from her high-level one-on-one coaching, group program Pendulum, retreats, to a full-blown membership site coming soon. She is obsessed with exceeding her clients expectations and promises youll never feel the need to pick up a self-help book again. If you are truly ready to transform, visit Chrystals website.

7.Natacha Cottu (@natachacottu)

Natacha Cottu is a life and business coach for World Enhancers.

She believes that the world is in the direction of shaping itself for the better. Her priority is to empower people who want to take part in this positive change, hence the name World Enhancers.

She focuses on two pillars; mindset and project/business strategy and execution. Thanks to her business background, she understands the inner struggles her clients face when starting, which often are lack of clarity, self-doubt, and inconsistency. Natacha helps them turn into empowered, in-the-zone, and high-momentum World Enhancers.

While building her World Enhancers Community, she is going forward with her vision of aligning people and business, so that it becomes a no-brainer for the longer term.

Dont let your potential and creation be untapped, the world needs it! If you feel that boiling energy inside, want to participate in change for the better, and don't know where and how to start? Get in touch with Natacha today!

8.Kristy Love (@KristyLove)

Kristy Love is the CEO of Kristy Love LLC Coaching. She is a Mindset/Quantum Coach and NLP Practitioner. Over the last six years, Kristy has worked with clients to uncover the beliefs, blocks, behaviors, habits, and patterns of thinking that prevent them from living the life that they desire through her Mindset Coaching Programs. 95% of Kristys clients have achieved new jobs they love, started businesses, improved their credit scores, changed their diet, and gained new mental growth by completing her program. Kristy states, Think about this, what is it costing you to hold on to your excuses and procrastination? What are the benefits of holding on to your limiting beliefs? Then make a decision from there. If youre looking to step into the best possible version of you, book a consultation with coach Kristy Love and check out her Mindset Programs.

9.Brooke Summer Adams (@brxc)

Brooke Summer Adams is an internationally accredited Transformation Coach and NLP Master Practitioner, coaching women into the very best version of themselves. Specializing in mindset, self-worth, and lifestyle transformations, Brooke works one-on-one with clients, runs her Best-Self Blueprint course, and provides training in various online communities. She showcases an impressive amount of testimonies and client transformations on her social media, and credits her results to addressing the root of the problems, rather than their symptoms. This approach, Brooke says, is what allows her to address many of my clients complaints simultaneously, allowing for total transformations in a relatively short amount of time. Find out how to work with her on her website, and join her free Transformative Trainings Facebook community here to learn how her work helps women become their best versions, so they can love themselves and their lives.

10.Sushma (@resetwithsushma)

Sushma is an Emotional Alignment Specialist and master life coach based in Dubai. She uses NLP tools and Time Paradigm techniques to enable her clients to clean up their suppressed negative emotions and self-limiting beliefs on a subconscious level. Shedding layers and aligning your thoughts and actions with your desires is an integral part of any healing, as it helps a person build resilience.

Sushma specializes in coaching her clients to break thought patterns, build self-worth, and get them to a state of feeling empowered through her program. The Reset Alignment Program is done over ten days and consists of seven coaching sessions which are ninety minutes each. She has seen phenomenal results in her clients once they discover their true selves and feel empowered to achieve their goals.

During her sessions, her clients release many years of piled up negative emotions like anger, resentment, fear, and live a more fulfilling life. Her biggest strength lies in her very own life experiences, which have enabled her to intuitively heal, guide, and uplift her clients effortlessly. The techniques used during the program result in creating a change swiftly, whilst keeping the growth consistent. One can expect to feel totally new from within and gain immense clarity about their lives as they finish the program. As Sushma states, You are simply a decision away from creating lasting change from within.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4c486046-8014-4b71-b397-d2f526e314f8

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Top 10 Female Life Coaches That Will Impact Your Life in 2021 - GlobeNewswire

Construction work on the newest addition to Nuneaton's Ropewalk Shopping Centre continues.

The new Barclays bank continues to take shape at the main Queens Road entrance to the mall.

It is in readiness for when the new branch opens its doors next month.

The bank has now officially left its former home, the hugely prominent Grade II listed building in Market Place.

Its last day of trade from historic building, which is now on the market, was on Friday, April 9, and customers have to wait until May for the new branch to open.

A sign previously on the window said: "Your Nuneaton branch will be moving on Friday, 9 April 2021.

"We will be closing on Friday 9 April 2021 and will re-open at our new home on Monday 10 May 2021."

It goes on to add: "Your new branch will have a new look and a feel along with the latest banking technology."

As we reported in our newsletter, news about the bank's move was first revealed when a planning application was submitted to Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council.

The application requested permission for the bank to move to the unit 15A, the former home of Utopia clothing, which faces onto Queens Road.

Utopia moved into the former Topshop and Topman unit within the shopping centre, leaving its old unit empty.

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When the newest big name addition to Nuneaton's Ropewalk Shopping Centre will open - Coventry Live

Bored with pacing the same streets and parks or lacking motivation to get off the couch?

If so a Nottingham runner has planned new running routes themed around restaurants and eateries.

Each month the Grub Run, founded by primary school teacher Marc Faulder, has a different venue with a tasty treat to eat after exercising.

The 33-year-old, from Cotgrave, said: "The idea is that the runner places their order before running and collects to eat afterwards, starting and ending at the food venue.

"I am publishing one Grub Run each month of the year, but they can be downloaded and followed at any time.

"Whenever I feel unmotivated to run, it is route planning that excites me again."

The routes are planned around click and collect services and this month's Grub Run starts and ends at the Rustic Crust in Farnsfield. May's route will be announced shortly.

March was Annie's Burger Shack, February was Doughnotts and in January runners could reward themselves by buying chocolate from Chocolate Utopia in Friar Lane.

Marc, who started running in 2015 through Couch to 5k, said he has always been motivated to run in new places and see the sights. After his first marathon in Amsterdam, he trained to run events in other cities and countries.

He said: "When the third lockdown came in January 2021, I was a runner who was uninspired by running the same streets, parks and trails.

"My running club, Holme Pierrepont RC, remained closed, parkrun still postponed and all race events continued to be cancelled. I watched as local businesses continued to be creative and adapt the way they could sell products and remain open. I decided to plan new running routes around these new creative click and collect restaurants and eateries.

"Grub Runs are designed to support local businesses and motivate people to lace-up and run the streets with a new focus or goal. They are three to five mile routes that can be ran or walked, or both."

Run so far have taken in the sights including the Arboretum, the Sky Mirror, the Park Tunnel and along canal paths out to the River Trent.

"It's a chance for local people to rediscover our city of culture, history and art or a chance for new residents to discover the gems of Nottingham."

"After completing the run, good food can be collected and enjoyed. Its like getting a coffee and cake after a parkrun, a feeling of community and connectedness without the crowds but knowing the route is the same and can be shared on social media or by meeting with a friend to exercise."

As lockdown started to ease, Grub Runs can travel a little further out of the city limits so this month's focus is the pizza restaurant, the Rustic Crust, in Farnsfield, which is the first-off road Grub Run.

"It takes in the countryside scenes of Hexgreave Estate hall and deer park and the Southwell Trail. Theres even a special offer for Grub Runners when they order a DIY pizza kit," added Marc.

"I hope to see groups of friends meeting up to run these routes and catch up over good food as the lockdown continues to ease."

The routes can be downloaded for free at tiny.cc/grubruns or follow @ordinary_marc on Instagram.

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How to get on board Nottingham's Grub Run - fitness with a tasty reward - Nottinghamshire Live

Unreasonable requests

I would like to respond to the nasty letter from the CEO of Kalispell Regional Healthcare.

I retired last July, so I can write this without fear of retribution, which would of been swift, sure and vicious. It wouldnt be for this letter, per se, but some other sin, real or imagined. That is one of the unreasonable wants from the nurses, employee advocates. There is none.

The re-organization in 2019 was disastrous. Not only did staff have zero input, this was done right before Christmas! Although I am not a nurse, I worked closely with them in an acute care setting. It was heartbreaking listening to them talk about being afraid to buy their children or grandchildren presents because they didnt know if they would have a job. Then there were all these new executive directors, making an administratively top-heavy organization more so. This heavy-handed, top down change is what started the drive for the union. I guess its unreasonable to want a say in what happens to you on the job.

What the CEO also doesnt mention is the high turnover of skilled acute care nurses going to travel nursing. Why are they doing this? When they walk out the door, they can immediately make double, if not more. Wanting decent wages and benefits is unreasonable.

It is also not mentioned about staffing. Wanting a good nurse-to-patient ratio for the safety and security of the patient is unreasonable. I can remember a shift when there was an LPN and a new graduate nurse for 20 patients. 20! Is that safe? They set up staffing based on productivity numbers instead of acuity, i.e. the sicker a patient is, the more staff is needed.

The letter written in the paper, and giving all the non-union staff higher wages are all a blatant attempt to break the union and bribe the non-union staff form doing so.

I was appalled and deeply angry at this trying to turn the community against the nurses. Shame on you, sir.

Patrice Neal, Columbia Falls

How do you warn friends who no longer hear your words? How do you get through to someone who hears global socialism and sees a utopia?

Global socialism, the Democratic goal of today, will give us an earth that will look like Cuba, Venezuela, China or the pre-Cold War USSR. Anyone who has lived in or spent time in these countries, one or all, knows the ultimate disaster we are facing. Do yourself a favor of talking to anyone who has escaped one of these totalitarian socialist governments. They will all beg you to not go down this path.

The magic of the U.S. lies in one word that completely disappears in the vocabulary of socialist countries: opportunity. Opportunity to seek your dreams of lifestyle, occupation, belief system, and happiness only lies where the cultivation of hope is possible. In a land where the decisions of your life are no longer your own, but left to the regulations and decision making boards, your dreams only die and wither.

I have had the experience of having conversations with people still trapped in or escaped from these socialist governments. Talk to someone who has heard, first-hand, directly from a Cuban just coming out of a ration card food distribution center, escaped from Venezuela to feed their starving children, had their reproductive decisions made by the Chinese government, escaped from a USSR labor factory to work and thrive in a U.S. company. No one sees the slippery slope coming, its a fallacy, until it isnt. They didnt see it.

William Lincoln, Lakeside

As a biomedical scientist, I watched with dismay last year as the CDC said masks only protect other people and not the wearer. Huh?

They also said the SARS-Cov-2 virus that causes the disease, Covid-19, is mainly spread by coughs from infected people. Clearly absurd because the virus was spreading like wildfire and not that many people cough in public.

Anyone who searched the available literature about the spread of respiratory viruses would have known that the major route of viral spread is through tiny aerosol particles that are released by breathing, talking, or worse, singing and shouting. They dont settle out for hours and travel 20 feet or more.

The CDC, of course, knew all that. Why didnt they say it? Perhaps from political pressure or an overdose of caution because they didnt have peer-reviewed, 10,000 patient, masked and mask-less controlled trials that would have shown that masks greatly reduce Covid transmission and protect the wearer. The point is they failed to state the obvious and many Americans needlessly died.

So, the question becomes how many Americans would have died had we done what other countrys governments did in terms of shutdowns, masking and social distancing? To answer it, we need to look at Covid death rates per million people in a country and compare it to our 535,000 Covid deaths in the U.S.

The answers are startling! If we had done what each of the following countries did, we would have had the following Covid deaths, based on our population: Canada, 196,363; Australia, 12,817; South Korea, 10,606; New Zealand, 1,746; China, 1,142; Thailand, 416. Thailand?

You would think we could have done better than all those countries. Pitiful and tragic, I say. Does anyone still think that government is the enemy?

These data are from statista.com.

Matthews O. Bradley, Kalispell

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Letters to the editor April 15 - Daily Inter Lake