Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

Norco is a many-headed creaturea narrative hydra of place, personhood, nostalgia, and spirituality. But to start with the basics, it's a real Louisiana town named for the New Orleans Refining Company, a monumental piece of psychogeographical storytelling, and in March 2022, I'm ready to call it my game of the year.

Impossibly careful, subtle dithering imbues each scene with warmth and life

The tiny dev collective Geography of Robots has called Norco's style "petroleum blues," a nod to the area's relationship with the oil corporation that has defined both the town and the environmental decline that colors its existence. The game pointedly avoids the disaster porn and fetishization that tend to dominate media portrayals of the Deep South, and while a big part of Norco revolves around grief and trauma, it's also full of rousing punk momentum channeled from the DIY music scene. The result is nothing short of incredible.

Norco is a bristling pastiche of Louisianan references, pop culture, and satirical moments distilled into a point-and-click pixel art adventure. The townscape and Greater New Orleans area take the form of distant highways, refinery stacks, and familiar snapshots of suburbia; impossibly careful, subtle dithering imbues each scene with warmth and life. Norco isn't just for Louisianans, though residents will get a kick out of seeing real locations like Kenner's Esplanade Mallclosed due to Hurricane Ida and now being repurposed for political eventsrebirthed as the Promenade Mall.

Despite its hyperlocality, Norco has a universal reach that touches on widespread issues like the gig economy and automation. For starters, the non-descript bar Saint Somewhere is an instantly recognizable fixture of gentrifying neighborhoods across the US.

On the surface, its story is simpleKay is returning home after roaming around post-apocalyptic America doing piecemeal jobs, hitching rides, and fighting in fragmented militias. Her mother Catherine has died of cancer, which means reconnecting with her fragile younger brother. The player alternates between Kay and Catherine to uncover something strange and sinister in their hometown, culminating in a fascinating exploration of faith and identity. But while Norco is most obviously about external destruction and decaythe oil corporation's environmental harm is critical to the story but overwhelmingly dominated its media coverageit's also about so, so much more.

If Norco's aesthetic is "petroleum blues," then its existential milieu can only be described as "bummer vibes."

Creator Yuts, who was born and raised in Norco, began working on the beginnings of the project in 2015 as a series called Bummera handful of short films and an experimental sidescroller starring Norco's robot Million, with original music by Norco collaborators Gewgawly I and Andy Gibbs from sludge metal band Thou. "The game was going to be Bummer 4 where it was just going to be like a short little vignette," says Yuts. "So yeah, bummer vibes is the word."

Today Norco has become a small but mighty sensation in the indie game world, winning the first ever Games Award at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021. Geography of Robots isn't just Yuts anymore, eitherit includes musician Gewgawly I, artist Jesse Jacobi, sound designer fmAura, and coder/designer Aaron Gray; orbiting this core are other collaborators like Yuts' sister, who's helping to produce the artbook.

Jacobi, who comes from a traditional painting background, took to pixel art so fast that Yuts redrew and replaced all of Norco's older art last December to maintain a cohesive aesthetic.

Gray brought some of his gaming favorites to the table, namely Undertale's use of humor and pacing. "The way they use combat more as a narrative device than as a skill-test is a philosophy we've stuck to for various parts of the game," he says. Yuts wrote an exchange between two characters about their favorite game "Fantasy Horse 6" after being inspired by Gray's love of Kingdom Hearts (as well as weird 2.5D platformer Tomba! 2).

"I used to boot up Kingdom Hearts when I was a youngun and just pretend to coexist in those spaces with these fun characters," says Gray. "I feel like Norco has a similar vibe."

Norco's characters are lively and beautifully written, but infused with a pervasive sadness that brings us back to bummer, which sits in my head like a mantra throughout the game. It's not as bleak as "depression," but a very nuanced form of disappointment with a hint of playfulness. The word comes from the old German word "bummler," which means "loafer." In a modern American context it took on more antisocial connotations, and can be used interchangeably as a noun and a verb. It's also a great way to understand the Garrettsa cult of teen malcontents who form the backbone of the story.

I think people are exhausted by the alienation and the dematerialization of the internet

Norco comes from the same DNA that you'll find in DIY music scenes and punk collectivesa formative part of Yuts' youth and several others in the collective. "The informal nature of DIY punk as well as almost a proto-internet of zine exchanges and informal and esoteric knowledge in those spaces was something that carried over into the game," Yuts says, explaining where he first shared his art. Punk subcultures are directly referenced in the game world, like a book called Crisis LARPing that chronicles the early days of disaster tourism before "collapse became the zeitgeist."

There's nothing that delves more into this rich ecology of subcultures than the game's introduction of the Garrettsblue-shirted boys who answer to a sociopathic pseudo-religious leader named Kenner John. Their home base is the abandoned Promenade Mall, where they wander its hallways reading, playing video games, doomscrolling, and bickering among themselves. The Garretts are working on something importantsomething that John has promised themwhile the rest of the town (particularly the patrons at Saint Somewhere) derides them as "mall Nazis."

"There's the whole rift between the Garretts and what they call 'the scum,' which are basically crustpunks and DIY punks, who they don't like," Yuts explains. "The insular, often small-minded nature of those scenes is worth analyzing and critiquing [and] is incorporated into the game, but it also in certain oblique ways tries to touch on the value of those kinds of scenes as we become more atomized. That there are these new emergent forms of community to be built."

The Garretts mostly come into play in Act 2, which Yuts describes as the most collaboratively-constructed part of Norco. Gray designed a Voice Memo mechanic and the team iterated on that idea to create a clever exploration of quarreling social identities and performativity. It's also got some of the funniest moments in the game. While a few Garretts are goofy caricatures of some of the dev team, there's a little bit of Yuts in all of them. "It's all of these infantile 4chan-esque tendencies that we keep buried in our personalities," he says. "This was a way of exorcizing those things."

Some of these emergent Garrett-like communities coalesce around faitha huge social and cultural pillar for folks in the South. And while Kay goes through a very personal spiritual, quasi-religious journey, Yuts deliberately avoids offering the player any crumbs of objective truth. But he did still weave pieces of his Catholic upbringing into his work. "If you try to over-secularize your life and your community, and you lose the rootedness, and the kind of folkways that religion offers," he says, "then when you return to it, you lose a lot of its material application, and it becomes what you see with the Garretts just this bizarre perversion of what it should be."

For all their impotence, the Garretts are in many ways the true protagonists of the game. Yuts didn't want to make a didactic narrative around these desperate, problematic little bummers. "I wanted them to be more or less identifiable sympathetic characters," he says. "I tried to avoid any kind of binary thinking when it comes to that stuff. The Garretts' place in the larger world is most evident towards the end of the game when a bunch of hipster partygoersgathered to watch a Garrett-created spectacle of epic proportionsreflect on what the Garretts have managed to accomplish.

"These punks are like, 'we've just been drinking and hanging out doing the same shit,'" says Yuts. "And so in a way it's like, respect for these kids. Maybe we're more confused than they are."

Perhaps the most significant impact of Norco as a game (and a piece of interactive art) is its place in a small but vital group of hyperlocal narrative-driven point-and-click gamesyes, Kentucky Route Zero includedthat focus on the material world: class and social and economic issues that define distinct regions and industries across the US. This started to feel like a trend with Night in the Woods, which came out in 2017, and reached peak hype around 2020 with the final acts of Kentucky Route Zero.

Kentucky Route Zero is doubtless a landmark game, but it's also been an exhausting point of reference for Norco: the default framing being that Norco is the next KR0. It's easy marketing for a game with so much to say, and it feels like games critics and fans haven't yet cultivated better ways to talk about this sub-genre. Yuts played the first part of the first chapter of KR0 and stopped, partially because he didn't want to deal with the anxiety of influence. "I don't think it's an unreasonable comparison to make," he says. "But I do see Norco as very different mechanically, thematically, and everything else."

If there wasn't a distinct movement around hyperlocal material games, back when KR0 ended, there should be one now with Norco. "I think people are exhausted by the alienation and the dematerialization of the internet, and I think there is kind of a new emergent regionalism as well as a new kind of emergent sincerity that I can kind of see in my filter bubble," says Yuts. If collapse already became the zeitgeist years ago, perhaps this emergent sincerity is simply the result of younger generations' increasing desperation and frustration with climate change, widening class divides, and virulent technocapitalism. It's not romantic to be cynical and disaffected when we still have the power to do something about it, at the very least, in our own backyards.

However we come to talk about games like Norco, I don't think they need a quirky catch-all "-punk" label. "It's like advertising, to construct some kind of identity that stands against [something] kind of just makes you seem like you're even more psyop'd than everyone else," says Yuts wryly. "I'm not even interested in trying to construct some kind of outward facing identity that seems subversive or something."

For now, Norco has been a way to make sense of his relationship to his hometown, his home state, and even his old faith. It's been a way to make sense of Louisiana as a region and a cultural identity. And even if you've never been to Louisiana, one thing is certainNorco is a testament to the transformative power of politics in art, and proof that even in the midst of the world falling apart, games remain potent vectors for love and humor in the most unexpected places.

Go here to see the original:

This stunning Deep South fable isn't the next Kentucky Route Zeroit's the first Norco - PC Gamer

Sign up herefor The74s daily newsletter.Donate hereto support The74's independent journalism.

See previous 74 Interviews: Andrew Rotherham on the Virginia governors race, researcher Gloria Ladson-Billings on culturally relevant teaching, and author Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder on free speech and Critical Race Theory. The full archive is here.

Over the last two years, a dispute over history has been waged in classrooms, school board meetings, and statehouses. It has drifted in and out of the spotlight as the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic have dragged on, but the question at the heart of the controversy persistently hangs over the discourse around K-12 education: Who gets to decide what students learn about the nations past, especially when it addresses the topic of race?

Daryl Scott doesnt hesitate to call the conflict a war a culture war begun long before the emergence of the 1619 Project or the sudden ubiquity of the term Critical Race Theory. A professor of history at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Scott describes himself as a private intellectual who frequently shares his views on race, politics, and historiography with other academics on his public Facebook page. But as his discipline has grown more contentious, he has increasingly ventured into public view.

First came a long essay in the journal Liberties challenging the view that the Thirteenth Amendment led to the development of convict slavery, a system of forced penal labor that arose in the United States after the abolition of slavery. Then, in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, he warned that historians have endangered their credibility through a reductionist focus on slavery and racism over the achievements of African Americans over four centuries. He has been outspoken in his criticism of the New York Timess 1619 Project, including its inclusion in classroom curricular materials.

Scotts concerns are grounded in a career spent advocating for the study of Black history. He formerly served as the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, formed over a century ago by former Howard faculty member Carter G. Woodson. In 2008, he edited and released a previously lost manuscript by Woodson, who is often referred to as the father of Black history.

In an interview with The 74s Kevin Mahnken, Scott argued that the fabric of American civic life has been dangerously frayed by politics, and that educators needed to help students recover a shared culture.

The stakes of the past are nothing like the stakes now, Scott said, referring to past battles around American history in schools. You may have had one or two people at a school board meeting trying to outlaw one or two books, but now were looking at every red state changing laws about what teachers can teach.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The 1619 blowup isnt the first big debate over the teaching of U.S. history, but it seems like the most intense weve seen in a long time. What factors do you think led us here? The release of the 1619 Project, and reaction to it on the political right, may have been the proximate cause, but it also seems like cultural politics have been headed this way for a while.

Its the collapse of multiculturalism. What brought it to a head was the arrival of Barack Obama, and what that meant to people on both sides of the political divide. One side thought it would mean racial progress, in the sense that the needs of the Black community would be better met. Thered be affordable education, affordable housing, and wed have more progressive politics. The other side said, in effect, Theyre now playing quarterback, and were represented by a guy whos not like us. And what better way to express that than by saying he was a Muslim born in Kenya?

I trace a straight line going all the way back to the 1960s and the end of the white supremacist Democratic Party. Some of those people found a home in the Republican Party for a price. The price of the ticket was this: Well talk about and the excesses of liberalism on race, but were not a white supremacist party, and were going to keep you in the background. And by the time you got to Obama, the people who had been in the Klan had retreated from politics. They couldnt articulate their racism fully until Trump came along. There was an acceptance of a multicultural society where Republicans would elect people like Bobby Jindal and Tim Scott and tell you that diversity was our strength. But after Trump, multiculturalism dies out on that side.

On the left, it dies out as well. It dies out because people thought they were getting a return to Great Society liberalism with race-conscious programs for Black people, and a lot of those folks were disillusioned. With the economic decline of the 2010s, Black wealth dropped precipitously, and its as if the Civil Rights Movement had done nothing for Black people economically. Theres a denial about the society-wide growth of inequality, and instead of this being talked about in class terms, it gets talked about in racial terms.

These developments are related to the ideas that had become important in the academy, like white supremacy and white privilege. Those are being taught in the academy, people are going to school to become teachers, and theyre taking a body of courses that includes this. This stuff isnt necessarily taught in education courses, but maybe it finds its way into them. The association I was with [the Association for the Study of African American Life and History] published the Black History Bulletin; its not a famous journal, but it has teachers who write lesson plans in it, and you could see the influence there. You started seeing it in the social studies groups that the teachers run. And so it starts trickling down as part of the education teachers would get, either directly in school or in some of the workshops they attend to keep their accreditation Its in the cultural and intellectual milieu.

You get terms like white fragility. Theres less promotion of anything multicultural, and it creates an environment where everybody increasingly becomes combative. The whole concept of white fragility is pejorative; you could frame it in a non-pejorative way, but it matters that it was framed in a pejorative way. You get people saying that there is no such thing as white, European culture.

This didnt have to be a polemic, but when the tone changes, all of this is weaponized. You could say that some of this starts with the 1619 Project, but its important to know where the first shots were fired. Im no student of the Hundred Years War, but I would guarantee that they were not fighting every day.

Could you trace the development of how schools have approached the teaching of racism and slavery and how, in your view, the 1619 Project is tackling things differently?

People will say that conservative textbooks since the 1960s have tried to erase slaveryby calling Black people anything but slaves and, if they have to talk about slavery, to suggest that its just one of several different labor systems in the New World. So you hear slavery discussed, fleetingly, as a labor system in certain states. It gets glossed, and when its dealt with, its as a fairly benign institution. Some people see it as hearkening back to the Lost Cause narrative of the happy slave.

But we should also remember that something like Roots has already been part of popular culture and had been in the classroom since the 70s. And the emphasis on slavery and Black history this is where the 1619 Project really deviates has been on cultural continuity with West Africa and a sense of pride in that cultural continuity.

Thats the predominant K-12 message I saw when I started at the Association, and by the way, its still the predominant message. People lost jobs in the 60s and 70s if they ran around saying that Black people had been crushed by slavery and lost their culture. That was the Nation of Islam position, and the Nation of Islam was understood by the mainstream of the Black community to be extreme and wrong.

The 400th year marking the origins of slavery in the New World would have been expected, in the tradition of Roots, to be a celebration of cultural achievement and African retentions. Thats how it was done virtually everywhere else! There was a state commission on the anniversary of 1619 in Virginia, and everyone signed off on it, conservatives and liberals alike. The traditional 1619 story was accepted because it had pretty much become the multicultural story.

The New York Times Magazine version of history doesnt talk about Black people so much as it talks about what white people did to Black people. It becomes a story of unrelenting oppression at the hands of white people with everything being measured in racism, including how you take the highway to work. It wasnt completely self-created Nikole Hannah-Jones is a product of the same cultural experience over the last 12 years, part of that same zeitgeist. At the same time, shes saying it from a very exalted platform, so that the mainstream 1619 celebration gets bumped in favor of a narrative that comes from a different intellectual movement.

So much of what were seeing in this alternative interpretation of 1619 has now become the dominant interpretation. And behold! How did that happen? Because it comes from the New York Times, the institution that many people on the center-left genuflect to. And now in many red states, where Black history had to be fought for from 1926 forward success in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, Black History Month celebrated everywhere its now being called into question. Thats progress?

It feels like the Trump administrations reaction to the 1619 Project, and especially the curriculums rapid adoption in schools, was at least as important in raising the stakes of history education as the Timess own product. What was your response to the short-lived 1776 Commission?

One of the things about the new, allegedly conservative stuff like the 1776 Commission is that its borrowed liberal ideology. American exceptionalism is a liberal project, and its always been a liberal project. It gets borrowed by conservatives in the absence of anything else. When you imagine a real conservative historiography, it really would be about innate inequalities along class and racial lines. It would be a true, thoroughgoing defense of aristocracy, and the slaveholding class.

Instead, you have a group of people today who, for lack of a better term, really are close to being fascist we just have to admit that this is where some of these people are headed but they dont really have their own thing. The 1776 Commissions report is basically a recooked Reaganite adoption of American exceptionalism that was tacked onto a Trump agenda by people who werent necessarily Trumpists themselves. It was a bizarre thing.

So Trump creates the commission, and the commission comes back with 50s liberalism and 50s liberalism on race was American exceptionalism. In the mid-50s, no ones called America systemically racist yet. Thats a 60s concept, and it gets talked about a lot in the 60s. What you see in the 50s is basically the belief that if you dismantle segregation and give Black people the right to vote that is to say, if you dismantle real white supremacy then we would be the liberal society weve always said wed be. Theres the notion that we can live up to this vision, and theres always been progress made toward this end. What theyre arguing against, just like any good 50s liberal would have argued, is that theres nothing permanent about American racism. Thats an awfully damned liberal position.

Youve mentioned the way certain progressive intellectual tendencies trickled down from the academy into K-12 teaching, but that notion feels sort of incomplete to me. I wouldnt have pictured schools of education as the same kind of hothouse intellectual environment as a graduate-level humanities department, for example.

Well, theres a zeitgeist, right? You dont have to take a course on Critical Race Theory to hear one of its cardinal concepts, which is that theres a kind of permanence of racism in society. And of course, critical race theorists didnt discover this; it was a Civil Rights Movement problem for intellectuals and policymakers. There was a need to categorize certain behaviors as racist, because were trying to condemn them. So discrimination on the basis of race becomes the standard definition of racism in the 1960s.

Its not necessarily taught in all the schools of education, but every teacher would know this. Implicitly, they would know this. The critical race theorists didnt discover this measure of discrimination, but it becomes one of their metrics for determining that racism still exists and is permanent.

Its not even the only subfield thinking that way. The whole multicultural project is about how to root out discrimination from the schools! This is not to say that every teacher went to school and learned it that way, but it was part of the professional culture they entered.

When parents start saying whether theyre being egged on by right-wing activists or not that their children are being taught to hate themselves or feel guilty for what other people have done, its going to have consequences. Parents dont want their children taught that theyre the source of the problem and that this problem is permanent. I mean, wasnt multicultural education, going back to Carter G. Woodson, essentially an attempt to make everybody, including Black kids, feel that they werent inferior, werent less than, werent to blame?

So much of this is about pre-existing combat, and the combatants want to say that theyre just into truth-telling. But theres so many truths you can tell, so why do you tell this truth, and why do you tell it in this way? Why is there this effort to poke the opposition in the eye? Part of the answer is that theres a lot of frustration on both sides, and the cultural war is playing out that dimension among what would otherwise be perfectly reasonable people.

It seems like the political reaction of the last few years caught a lot of people by surprise. Whats your reaction to the movement in statehouses to limit the scope of what teachers can discuss in the classroom?

A lot of this stuff is just so East Coast-centric and blue state-centric. They dont understand the nooks and crannies of this country, and they dont understand how a school board functions. Youve got people saying, Let the teachers sort out what needs to be taught, as if that was all that was at stake. They seemed not to understand that school boards ultimately have a say, that state departments of education have a say, and that legislatures have a say.

My whole thing from the very beginning was that this was not just a book, it was an attempt to transform K-12 education. Youre attempting to shape whats going on in schools, and youre doing so from the highest intellectual platform. Its the most important newspaper in the country, and when that newspaper says its going to make an intervention in education, are you really surprised that the opposition was listening? And that Trump, who lives in New York, reads the New York Times?

Before all this, the history culture war mostly centered on monuments. Now it centers on the teaching of history itself. And what I want people to understand is that this is just not one event. Its the escalation of a war at a critical juncture in American history, when anti-democratic forces are now in control of the Republican Party. Those anti-democratic forces are disenfranchising people, and this is the realm in which you are making these assaults, as if youre not part of the broader fight?

Obviously, youre not a fan of 1619. But what view of Black history would you like to see in K-12 classrooms? Is it that Roots version, the multiculturalist perspective that emphasizes themes of cultural continuity and pride in the achievements of Black people?

We live in a diverse, multicultural society. Public schools belong to all of us, and it behooves us to teach about our past in a way that respects everyone. Maybe the multicultural nirvana was never possible, but what counts is the good faith effort to be inclusive, to be respectful, and to realize that were on a boat at sea together. You cant drill a hole in one side of the boat without sinking the other side.

Here comes the most uncomfortable truth of all: We dont know whether white Americans will become a self-conscious ethnic group in their own right, but there are reasons to believe that theyre becoming precisely that. To the extent that theyre becoming that, they are part of this diverse America that has to be taken into account as well, and you cant treat them as a default category with no culture and no history.

The fact of the matter is, white people are becoming one among many ethnic groups, and their anger is a reflection of what they feel to be the growing power of other groups. To the extent that their perception is creating a reality, were all going to have to deal with that reality. And the way to deal with that reality, in a pluralistic society, is to honor the identity group that presents itself to us. Because theyre far from powerless. We cant pretend that theyre powerless, just like we cant pretend that we have no power.

What Im calling for is a return to multiculturalism as a procedural frame for how we go about educating our kids about history. As a good pluralist, I believe theres a shared culture, and I dont believe that everybody is an equal contributor to history at any given moment. World War II shouldnt be reduced to the multicultural history of World War II; theres an ethnic dimension to how people recruit for World War II, and there are stories we can tell about various groups during World War II, but those key battles are the key battles. History is not always reducible to a story of multiculturalism.

However we teach it, though, we need to be mindful that there is a diverse group of people participating. As a kind of modus operandi, how we teach history is what Im most concerned about. The purpose should never be to make anybody in the audience uncomfortable to the point that this is grievance history. Because what happens then? Everybody gets to voice their grievances? I think thats where were headed if were not careful.

One criticism Ive heard about multicultural K-12 history was raised by the education historian Jonathan Zimmerman, who told me that schools have spent decades making room for heroes of new ethnicity: We went from cheerleading for George Washington to cheerleading for George Washington Carver.

Some of this is just the nature of K-8 history, which gets taught around biographies too much. K-8 will invariably be that way because biographies matter to kids. Woodson defended this by saying, We wont teach less about George Washington, well teach more about Peter Salem. Thats how he pitched this at the elementary level.

But even Woodson took the celebration of Douglasss birthday and Lincolns birthday and transformed them into the commemoration not of two people there were often celebrations of those two events but of a whole group of people. There was still a biographical aspect in how he was doing it, but what made him a social historian was talking about the role that common people played in the making of history. Woodson at his best is beyond biography, but he got into a collective biography of how peoples contribute to the making of history.

What you could say the 1619 Project is doing at its best is to talk about the African American contribution to making America live up to its ideals. Thats actually a very traditional point of view within the African American community that its our struggle that transformed America and makes it live up to its ideals. So everybody has done this, and we should continue to talk about different ways in which collectivities have shaped the country.

All of this is legitimate turf for future discussions of how history is written. It is a debate about how we want to tell our past, and it has got to get beyond simply grievance history. History that is propaganda for the sake of getting certain policy outcomes is not going to get us through this. And I really mean get us through this, because theres a possibility that we rend ourselves on the question of race. The longest-standing question of democracy is, How much homogeneity is necessary? The assumption once was that if its too heterogeneous, a democracy cant work. So we really need to ask ourselves, how do we go about teaching our past in a common way, so that we have a common project? We have to deal with history for the common weal.

I think this addresses the supply-side question of history education youve got practitioners of Black history and womens history and labor history who all want to have their say. But the public demand for historical knowledge seems to be so weak, to the point where most Americans demonstrate very little grasp of it at all.

America is a history wasteland, and February is about the only month where youre going to get any American history. There are interviews and surveys showing that the average American doesnt know who was on what side of the Civil War. How ironic is it, then, that were over here splitting each others skulls about this?

Having said that, one could argue thats how we got here in the first place that we have a lack of knowledge about our history, and if were going to make it through this, we have to do better at teaching history with civics embedded in it. We need to teach about shared government and shared culture, and if these things tend to go in one ear and out the other, we have to figure out how to keep it in peoples heads.

I dont know if youve ever heard of this, but February used to be American History Month, not Black History Month. After World War II, the Daughters of the American Revolution started promoting February as American History Month because it had the birthdays of two major presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. They went out and got the proclamations of presidents and governors, and it went through Lyndon Johnson. And the way they dealt with American History Month was the story of the WASP; they didnt even talk about the white immigrants. And so American History Month was not a big-city affair, where all the immigrants were. (Laughter) It was really a small-town movement in the hinterlands. Phyllis Schlafly was a big deal in this whole thing.

But it just faded. I only caught onto this because I saw someone post online, Do you remember when February was American History Month? They were complaining about Black History Month, and another person said, Oh yeah! But by 1976, there were presidential proclamations for Black History Month, and nobody remembered that February was American History Month. This is what happens if you do this history that excludes people. So White History Month, if you will, failed; the people doing it wanted Anglo-Saxon Month, but they called it American History Month. They werent boasting about how Eisenhower saved Western Civilization, you know?

Do you think the general lack of knowledge among Americans about their past is why theres this appetite for historical myth and misinformation? Or could it be the other way around, that the political pathologies of today are eroding our historical awareness?

Theres always been a market for popular history and what you were never taught in school. This is not something exclusive to African Americans. Theres a notion that schools are not serving us well. Yet theres also a perception that the schools are serving someone else well just not the cause I believe in. Its hard to get across this point to people: If I created a multicultural curriculum, Id have to throw out a whole lot of stuff that you want to stay in, because youre going to share time with other groups. What that means is that the ultimate multicultural history would be disappointing to virtually all groups even the best-faith efforts to be inclusive would still be met with, Theyre excluding us!

This is a very particular moment. Social media has, on the one hand, made people more conscious of what is consumed as history, and its also led to the sense that the white story is not being told. You see this everywhere. There are certain white nationalists who will now falsely say that the Irish were slaves, and their story is not being told. There are people who say that, in the name of 1619, the true American history is not being told. So in this moment, the history has been politicized, and the history that serves ones own cause is the history people are looking for. This sense of being excluded is because we dont have a sense that were in this together anymore.

The obvious question is, were we ever all in this together? As youve acknowledged, battles over what history to include or exclude go back a long way, and inter-group relations have long been fractious in the United States.

The multicultural battle we waged between the 70s and the 2000s was just not the same battle as the one were looking at now. Progress was made that is now denied. People act as though there was never a Black History Month in Montana, when there was; people act like everything was excluded from K-12 in Idaho, when it wasnt. Theres a pretense that everything in textbooks has been the Lost Cause until this very day, and that everything Woodson attempted to do in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s went to naught.

And of course, the Civil War was there also. The people who want to pretend that we started teaching about Critical Race Theory and stopped teaching about the American Revolution, thats false. If they think schools have been teaching that the Revolution was caused by slavery, its not really taught that way. But lets also not deny that the 1619 Project was poised to go into public schools teaching precisely that. They were moving at 100 miles per hour, and if people didnt scream and yell, thats what would have been printed and disseminated to teachers.

So there was an effort to change the narrative in such a way that people couldnt recognize themselves in their own history. The argument was, Its one telling of the story, one narrative among manybut its what we want you to teach in schools. Anybody who understands K-8 education should understand that you dont give multiple narrations of history to children. You dont tell them that it could have been this way and could have been the other way. Its just not how elementary school is taught.

Im here to say that the history that gets taught is not as important as the effort to build a shared culture in society moving forward. You will not exterminate your enemies, and youre going to cohabitate the same territory. The question is how much damage youll do to each other and to everyone else. Were at that point.

Lincoln would say that you can destroy your enemies by making them your friends.

Thats precisely my point.

What makes this different for me is that Im a South Side ghetto boy, but I served in the U.S. Army with people from all walks of life during the Cold War. So I cant be that partisan in the culture war I know its going nowhere good. Youre not going to get the reparations that some people think youll get from amassing this evidence of repression. And youre certainly not going to get it by poking the other fella in the eye with this history that you say indicts them. Its just not how this is going to be done, unless theres some third party that takes over the entire government and gives what you think you deserve as the spoils for destroying the country. It would be the Chinese Reparations Committee hearing the grievances of African Americans and Native Americans.

Changing the subject a bit, youve described yourself as the product of Catholic education, all the way up to attending Marquette University as an undergraduate. What effect did that have on your scholarship and your development as a human being?

My context of Catholicism is really from the vantage of a set of schools that were servicing Black communities. They were really white Catholic institutions serving a Black Protestant population. I happen to be Catholic, but I was probably one of a minority of Catholics going to those grammar schools and high schools.

This was a moment in history after the World Wars. My father boxed in the Catholic Youth Organization in the 30s, but he didnt go to a Catholic school. In a lot of the urban North, as the Catholics left the inner city, they were replaced by Black folks during the Great Migration. The schools were only dealing with Catholics before Vatican II, and much of the Black people were committing apostasy to get an education, going from Protestant to Catholic in the 50s.

The motto at my high school was Unto Perfect Manhood; there was an effort to make us good Christian, Catholic men, and to some extent, Im a product of all of that. The Catholic schools became an opportunity structure for social mobility for me and my brother and a whole lot of other people. Being a Black Catholic on the South Side of Chicago during the Great Society, thats what shaped me.

It was only much later that I realized that Catholics were some of the earliest advocates for school choice, and that goes back to trying to use public funds to support religious education. And Im a decidedly liberal person who says, Nah, not with my tax dollars. Ive understood choice to mean opting out of public schools at your own expense, and politically, thats where I still come down. It is conceivable that we could all take our fair share of the tax dollars and let people take them to whatever kind of school they want to, but if this moment tells me anything, it tells me that we collectively would be better off with shared experiences. If you want to opt out of that shared experience, maybe you should underwrite it yourself.

Im for public schools as a venue for those shared experiences, and Im actually for all kinds of incentives to join the military in pursuit of common experiences. I believe the draft ended in 74, and here we are roughly 50 years later without that common experience of military service. If youve never met that poor white kid from West Virginia, if youve never met that brown-skinned kid from Samoa, if youve never met the guys from Puerto Rico, if youve never met that Black Mississippian, then you really dont understand whats out here in this country, and you dont know how people share a culture and share experiences.

See original here:

The 74 Interview: Howard Historian Daryl Scott on 'Grievance History,' the 1619 Project and the 'Possibility that We Rend Ourselves on the Question of...

Editors note: The following is taken from the webinar Family Matters. It is a conversation between Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project and Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and professor Arthur Brooks from Harvard University. The conversation draws from Brooks new book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity:

Brad Wilcox: Welcome, Arthur.

Arthur Brooks:Thank you, Brad. And thank you for your work on this important subject.

BW: So lets just begin with the basics here. How do you define happiness, and why is it important for us to think about?

AB: Happiness, in the general zeitgeist, when I ask my students at Harvard, whats happiness, they generally start talking about feelings. And feelings are related to happiness. But happiness as we understand it in the modern world of neuroscience and social science is basically a combination of three phenomena. The first is enjoyment. The second is satisfaction. And the third is purpose. People who are truly happy and what Im saying is the people who have these things in balance and abundance are the people who will report high levels of self-reported happiness. And so enjoyment means pleasure plus elevation. So its not just pure pleasure, its actually being able to enjoy things in a way that you understand what youre enjoying, which is important. Satisfaction is the reward for a job well done, or a goal met. And purpose, which is maybe the most paradoxical of all, comes from actually understanding the coherence and meaning of your life. I suspect that most of the people watching this will know that it actually requires sacrifice, even pain and trouble in our lives. And so the great irony is that to have happiness, you need purpose, and to have purpose, you need sacrifice and pain. And that actually entails some unhappiness. So when people are going through their lives trying to avoid unhappiness, what they inadvertently do is they wind up avoiding a lot of their own happiness.

BW: Im going to come back to that, because it actually relates to new book by Paul Bloom, as you may know. You and I both have a number of kids, and theyre all very different, including different levels of happiness. And this makes me wonder, as we begin our conversation here, how much of happiness is genetic? How much is it related just to good fortune and bad fortune, or things that are beyond our control?

AB: Yeah, its a good question. You have a lot of kids. I only have three, but three is enough to get a sample. When it comes to your children, you notice that they all have different levels of basic life satisfaction. And the truth is that theres been very good research on identical twins separated at birth adopted into different families it wasnt an experiment run kids, of course, that would be unethical and then who are reunited as adults and get personality tests. And what this research finds is that more of our personality than we ever thought possible is actually genetically based. So somewhere between 40% to 80% of most personality characteristics has a relationship to whats passed on from our parents, and that includes happiness. So most studies find somewhere between 44% and 52% of our happiness is genetic. Lets just say half. Half of our happiness is related to what we get from our parents. And that leaves the other half thats in the other two big categories of what brings happiness. One is circumstances and the others habits. Now, I dont want that to be true. As an American, I want all of my happiness to be under my control, basically and completely having to do with my habits. But I have to recognize the truth. So 50% is genetic. About another quarter is circumstantial, so the good and bad things that are happening in my life. The thing to keep in mind about that is that its a quarter, its a lot, but it doesnt last, and so good things dont last for your happiness, and bad things dont last for your unhappiness. The part that endures, that we can truly manipulate, that we can truly affect is our habits, which is about a quarter of our happiness. And thats based entirely on how we live our lives. And that can be extremely enduring. And thats what we should therefore be focusing our energies on.

BW: So on the things that we can control, then, what do you think are the keys to happiness for the average person?

AB: In all the research on this, you can kind of boil it down to four big categories of habits, and we call these the Four Habits of Highly Happy People. You could say, it doesnt mean that if you have these habits, youre gonna be happy all the time, because once again, genetics and circumstances, but youre going to be as happy as you can be on the basis of what you have control over. And they fall into four categories: faith, family, friendship and meaningful work. And meaningful work has nothing to do with money or prestige or job title or even education. It has everything to do with earning your success and serving other people. So faith, family, friendship, earning your success and serving other people those are the portfolio of habits. And so one of the things that I recommend, when I look diagnostically at people who say, I cant find a particular direction in my life, I dont feel like Im as happy as I could be, I look diagnostically at their happiness portfolio. And I almost always find that theyre over indexing on one thing, and under indexing on the other things. And for a lot of people who are really successful, people who work all the time, for example, it means theyre under indexing on their faith and their family life. And especially for a lot of people, especially men on their friendships. And you can get a lot of happiness by working on the hygiene of those habits.

BW: Now, you mentioned work here. But as we look at this kind of issue of happiness, in our recent survey with YouGov, we found a pretty big difference in terms of how women and men to relate to a paid work and happiness. So for men, theres a clear connection between gainful, full-time employment and happiness in a recent survey. But there is no such clear pattern for women. There are plenty of women who are not working at least in the paid labor force, who are very happy. So how do you think about this gender difference when it comes to paid work and happiness? Whats the story there, from your perspective?

AB: It has everything to do with the tradition of how we value ourselves. So this is something that gets back to the psychological literature on what they call extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is where youre motivated by outside things. And what happens is, if youve only ever done work thats paid by the market, you start to value yourself in terms of the market returns to your labor. So for a lot of families that are set up in a more traditional way, a more conventional way, where dad earns salary outside, and mom does a lot of the work in the home, perhaps volunteer work, for example. Mom becomes really, really good at intrinsically valuing her time and the value that shes creating. Shes able to get an accounting system thats more helpful. And it reflects more of the value that shes actually creating with her time. I mean, nobody would say that women who stay home with their children and raise their children are wasting their time. Youd say, well, thats a really valuable thing to do. And yet, if it doesnt bring in dollar wages, most women who do that would say, Well, yeah, thats not how I denominate my time. Well, men get really, really bad at doing that. Which is why theyll say, if Im not getting paid more one job to the next job, somethings wrong with my career. So whats going on is kind of a blinkered accounting system thats based entirely on money for men. I think this is more of a problem for men than it is for women, generally speaking.

BW: Right. But as you know, theres another wrinkle here. And that is today, as you know, your former colleague, Nicholas Eberstadt, has written theres a way in which a lot of men are no longer engaging with the workforce. And this is probably also a big part of the deaths of despair trend that weve been seeing in the U.S. in recent years. What do you think is driving this movement of at least a decent minority of men away from a regular engagement with the labor force, with work?

AB: Whats happening in the modern economy is that more and more people, not just men, more and more people are in a situation where they dont feel that they have an opportunity to create value in the lives of other people. Thats how we earn our success. We earn our success by serving others and creating value with our lives and value in the lives of other people. And what happens is, when people are discouraged from forming families, discouraged from serving other people in their communities, discouraged from participating in the formal workforce, they dont feel like theyre creating value. And thats what actually leads to despair. Despair is really the opposite of dignity. And dignity requires one big thing, which is being needed. This is really, really important. I mean, there was a Roman Catholic Cardinal in Chicago for the longest time named Francis George. And one time, he was giving a famous speech to his wealthiest donors on the north shore of Chicago, talking about a South Side poverty initiative, saying, dont forget the poor need you to pull them out of poverty. And then he said, and you need the poor to keep you out of hell, which is a pretty gutsy fundraising line, I have to say. Ive never used that in my own fundraising. But the bottom line is, people need to be needed. Thats the basis of dignity. And when theyre not needed whether its by a full-time job, whether its by children, whether its by community, whether its by other people then they will lose their dignity, which is the basis of despair. And what we find is that people who are not involved in the workforce, that have no education, for example, so they have a hard time creating value in the workforce and are not involved in the workforce, dont have children and they dont have any of these other institutions. Theyre way more likely to get involved in drugs and alcohol. Theres almost a 400% increase in drug overdose deaths. We find a significant increase in suicides. Thats why these things are called deaths of despair. What they should be called is deaths of the lack of dignity.

BW: I mentioned this book by Paul Bloom that just came out, The Sweet Spot. It talks about the role of suffering. And he actually talks about parenting, and the way in which theres a certain measure of suffering that follows from being a parent. And yet, it seems like that makes ones sense of meaning and happiness more salient. Its kind of a U curve, in terms of sort of suffering. With tons of suffering, theres more despair, often even meaninglessness. But no suffering also is linked to less meaning and less happiness. The sweet spot is having some degree, some portion, of suffering, connected to needful activity as a parent, or even as a worker too. So how do you think about the relationship between yourself between suffering and happiness, or suffering and meaning in life?

AB: Some people will split meaning off from happiness, and I dont do that. I think meaning is one of the components of happiness. And its the most paradoxical component because, as you suggest, suffering, challenge, resiliency, overcoming barriers thats really, really important. I mean, nobody ever says, You know when I found my purpose in life, Brad? Ill tell you, it was that week with my friends. Nobody says that. They always talk about, you know, when my father died, or when I was thrown out of college and I had to find my way. You know, people always talk about these challenges are when they find the purpose in their life. And one of the most common kinds of challenges is when youre raising children, and you have your first child, and theres no manual. And you know, when we had our first child, and my parents were incapacitated and across the country, and my in-laws were in Spain, and we had nothing, man. And it was lonely, and it was hard. But we figured out who we were in our marriage. We figured out who we were as parents, who we wanted to be, and the child that we wanted to raise. And child by child, the challenge is augmented, to be sure, and the pain and suffering is really there. But your purpose and meaning strongly grow into those circumstances. So today, when people say, well, youll be happier if you dont have kids, what theyre saying is, youll have more enjoyment if you dont have kids. The problem is the trade-off. Youll have more enjoyment; youll probably have less meaning and purpose. And so net-net, thats actually not good for you on the happiness scale. Because both of those things, plus the satisfaction that comes from different rewards of life, are what you need to be a fully happy individual.

BW: Right. Now, your new book, From Strength to Strength, explores what its like to live a purposeful and happy life, when youre kind of moving into the next stage of life, past the peak of your career. Whats the key message in the book thats coming out, and whats the link back to happiness?

AB: Well, a pretty strong majority of people find particularly those who work hard and are successful in their careers at some point, they start losing their edge. Ad it happens to most people before they think theyre going to. Most think that its only them, and somethings wrong with them. So what I show in this book is that particularly in thinking industries you know, doctors, lawyers, accountants, professors, like you and me that when it comes to the innovative capacity, to think of brand new ideas, that tends to go into decline between the age of 35 and 50. And thats very, very normal. It has to do with something called fluid intelligence, from a psychologist named Raymond Cattell, a British psychologist from the 1960s and 70s. What most of us dont know is theres another intelligence that lurks behind it that happens later in life, called crystallized intelligence: our ability to teach, to share, to pass on knowledge, to synthesize ideas into a big framework, to write better books, for example. To be better teachers, under the circumstances. Maybe not to be able to think of the new mathematical theorem, but to write the book that actually tells a story about whats actually going on. So what I talked about in this book is how to design your life, no matter what business youre in, to jump from your fluid intelligence curve to your crystallized intelligence curve so you can be maximally useful, happy and serve other people in a fulfilling way, all the way to the end of your life, which is, I think, what we all deserve, and we can do it. And what I show is that everybody actually can do this. And so its a step-by-step guide book on how to be happier at 80 than you even were at 30.

BW: And so again, it seems like part of the message here, based upon your notion of crystallized intelligence, if Im getting this correct, is that theres a way in which people who are kind of moving through their 50s and beyond can share a kind of accumulated life wisdom or professional wisdom that is valuable, and maybe in some ways, more developed. Or they may have a better capacity to be an elder in a profession or a community at that stage in their life, than they were when they were 35, for instance.

AB: For sure. I mean, one of the reasons as you and I both know that the best teaching evaluations at universities tend to go to people who are over 70 is because they have a high level of crystallized intelligence. Its just easier to learn from an older professor than it is from a younger professor. You know, when I was brand new in academia, I remember it was just harder. And now, you know, young professors ask me, Whats the secret to good teaching evaluations? Its like, wait 25 years, to no small extent. And so the trick, for all of us, if we want to grow old well without frustration, without the discouragement and without regret the key thing is going from innovator to instructor, whatever that means in our lives. And thats a blessed thing. You know, the idea of going from being the inventor, being the star, or even the sole proprietor, to being somebody who passes on wisdom, somebody whos beloved, for actually making it possible for other people to learn the circumstances. Not everybody can be teachers like you and me, Brad. But everybody can be more of an instructor than they currently are. And that should be the goal. And so I talk about how to get on that curve the skills to actually develop, the things to be thinking about along the way. Thats the point of the book.

BW: Is there any connection between your book and that famous Harvard study of adult development, which tracks men and women over the course of their lives, and figures out what is linked to rich and meaningful and happy lives, as people are in the last chapter of their lives? Any connections there?

AB: There are, and youre referring to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, also known as the Grant Study, thats been running for 80 years. It looked at some famous guys who graduated from Harvard JFK was in the study, Ben Bradlee was in the study who graduated from 1930 into 1941. And then it mixed it with another study of people who didnt go to college, so its more socioeconomically and racially diverse. And then it looks at the spouses and the children of the first cohort going forward. So its incredible crystal ball. It looks at, what did people do in their 20s and 30s, and how does that predict if theyre going to be happy in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s? And its astonishing. Theres a lot of different practices. It talks about alcohol use and exercise and rumination, and the tendency to be able to deal with problems and reading and all this stuff. But the bottom line is what the founder or the guy who ran the study for 30 years, of professor named George Vaillant, when he was asked to summarize it in just a few words, he said, OK, happiness is love, full stop. And this is a really important thing, and I talk an awful lot about it in my book. If youre going to go from innovator to instructor, you need to develop your life around the principles of love. If youre going to have the four happiness habits that I talked about a little bit earlier faith; love of the divine; family, a love the people that are the ties that bind but dont break and should never break; friendship, which is voluntary love-based relationships; and service to other people it is. Happiness is love, Brad.

BW: Well, thats a great note to end our conversation on, Arthur. I appreciate your time today and Im looking forward to getting the book. And when is the book coming out?

AB: Thank you.

Read the rest here:

What is the secret to happiness? Arthur Brooks talks sources of happiness | Opinion - Deseret News

The Godfather (1972)Director: Francis Ford CoppolaScreenwriter: Mario Puzo, Francis Ford CoppolaStarring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Lenny Montana

The Godfather is one of the most significant films in the history of American cinema. The film was popular both critically and commercially, winning three out of ten Oscars at the 45th Academy awards including Best Picture. It tells the story of the Corleones, a New York mob family who follow the old ways of Sicily. Michael Corleone is on the outside of his family following his time in college, Michael served in World War II. What follows is the tragic downfall of Michael as he slowly rises to the head of the family.

The production process of The Godfather wasnt entirely smooth. Director Francis Ford Coppola was notoriously difficult to work with, but theres no question that he was the right man for the job. He adapted the screenplay with the author of the original novel, was essential to getting Marlon Brando on board as the Godfather, Vito Corleone, and brought in family members, illustrating a personal touch. At the same time, he feuded with Paramount, and was forced to work within boundaries he wasnt used to as a more independent filmmaker. He didnt receive permission to edit his final cut, and the film became a romanticization of gangsters, a celebration of violence albeit an endlessly entertaining one. One reason The Godfather Part II is so highly praised is because Coppola got to tell the story his way, all due to the success of The Godfather.

Marlon Brando won Best Actor for this 1972 release, though he declined to accept the award, and was represented by Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache actress who spoke about the negative treatment of Native Americans in the film industry and American society. Brando is the stand-out performer, famous for making offers people cant refuse. He shows a range from menacing mobster to playful grandfather, and embodies his character through every stage of the story. Vito is tightly intertwined with the opening wedding scenes, as they provide opportunities for him to show his different sides. Hes a family man who cares for his community, but hes also a brutal mobster who hangs around with made men like Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana).

Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, and James Caan were each nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards in 1973, but none won. They play Vitos three sons, Michael, Tom Hagen, and Sonny respectively. Pacino was the star as Michael, and his transformation across the film is played to perfection. Michaels pivotal scene takes place in the first half of the film, when Michael moves his fathers hospital bed to prevent further attempts against his life. He gets a local baker to stand outside and act as if theyre guards watching over the Don. In those moments, he becomes involved in his family despite trying to stay out of their operations. Tom is the familys attorney. In one sequence, hes sent to represent Vitos interests in California to get a godson a leading role in a Hollywood war movie. The director awakens to find a horse head in his bed when he doesnt comply, and the godson, Johnny, ends up with the role. Sonny is the hot head of the family. Caan was actually initially hired to play Michael, but this was something Coppola didnt want. Caan was quoted saying he had it in his mind that Michael was the Sicilian-looking one and Sonny was the Americanized version. Throughout the film, Sonnys demeanor is exploited, and his story ends when hes shot in a toll booth, an example of the excessive violence featured in the film.

But the violence is what makes The Godfather so entertaining. If youre going to glorify violence, the least you can do is incorporate tragedy and character development, and Coppola does so here. It is arguable that scenes like leave the gun, take the cannoli are too much, but for the most part the violence is meaningful beyond the spectacle of blood and explosions.

It is notable that the list of female characters is sparse. Theyre often shunted to the background, a representation of an archetype rather than an actual character. Vitos patriarchal perspective reigns supreme, and stands as a symbol of respectability. Hes doing criminal activity the right way, and were implored to contrast Vitos anti-drug ways with Sollozzos pro-drug aspirations. This is something Part II improves upon at least a bit, giving Kay (Michaels partner played by Diane Keaton) an actual amount of intelligence and agency compared to the first film.

The Godfather probably doesnt have the same social relevance as it once did, but it is a film that many film lovers care about because of its historical relevance. The only thing stopping it from being the first blockbuster is that is came out in March, but it is not so much the films success that keeps it relevant as much as it is the success of an American independent auteur. Coppolas earlier and subsequent films were spaces for him to express creative freedom, in whichever form that took; he pushed the boundaries of what cinema is and could be, and made each film personal to himself. He put the auteur movement into the consciousness of mainstream cinema, and he continues to finance and re-present his own works to this day. The Godfather, like Psycho or The Searchers, is a film that has staying power in the cinephile zeitgeist, and that will maintain its position as one of the greatest American films of all time.

21/24

Film and Media Studies major at Arizona State University. Bad movie connoisseur, admirer of surrealism, reluctant superhero movie watcher.

Read the original post:

'The Godfather' at 50 Review - The Film Magazine

Theres a scene in The Power of the Dog in which Phil Burbank, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, kneels in a small glade by a body of water. He is stripped to his waist and he slowly pulls a yellow handkerchief from the front of his pants. Phil languidly, achingly runs the handkerchief across his naked chest and his rough, weathered face. Hes delicate with the object, painstakingly careful with what it represents to him and as slowly as it is drawn across his face, the monogram BH is revealed and there is confirmation of everything we have suspected about the nature of Phil and Bronco Henrys relationship. Its confirmation that while Phil is utterly reprehensible, hes also a human with needs, desires, and deep complicated emotions. The Power of the Dog is filled with slow, beautiful filmmaking that reminds us why we love the medium and why it is unique among storytelling mediums.

The Power of the Dog wades into the complicated cruelty of humans. With a visual panache that breathes subtext into every movement of the film, director Jane Campion and her crew have not only captured a period, but a zeitgeist as well. We grapple now, as the people in Phils orbit then, with men afraid their place in the world is being usurped. Yet, as often happens with these men, as loud as they may be, their belly will eventually be exposed and they will find the world prefers the new way and they can accept it or be left in the dust.

The narrative suits the paradigm shift in viewing habits as well. The Power of the Dog is a film produced by and streaming on Netflix, the portent of the end of the traditional film going experience. Yet, a great film doesnt require a certain size of screen to make an impact. A great film requires our eyes to be open to what it has to offer and The Power of the Dog has so much to offer. From its rich textured close ups, to its awe-inspiring wide shots of gorgeous vistas, The Power of the Dog is a masterpiece that reminds us that a visual medium can convey as much or more information as text spoken or written. The films plot is layered, its performed expertly by its entire cast, and brings a depth of sound that heightens our sense of tension and desire. The Power of the Dog is exquisite and proves why Jane Campion is one of our greatest living filmmakers. The Power of the Dog deserves to represent the 2021 film year as its Best Picture.

Well, we all have our favorites. The Criterion Channel (and this column is no different). In terms of... Read More

Sports have always been perfect for film. The competition around them makes the perfect set-piece for conflict. Films... Read More

2021 had a lot of very good films. Villeneuves follow-up to the stunning Blade Runner 2049, Dune is... Read More

Originally posted here:

Chasing the Gold: Why 'The Power of the Dog' Should Win Best Picture - InSession Film

In place of visibility, there is a crowd. It is more like a mass and moves across the sky, at times hanging low to the ground, where it slows down and is called fog to those who pass through it, at a loss for where they might have planned to go. But from above, to those who fly, it might be seen as no different than the land itself, a natural emergence of air from the soil, as its elements commingle and create the texture of Earth.

The metaphor of cloud cover, as seen from above and below, concerns the curation of historical artwork from a gender perspective in the context of seeing the show, I-You-They: A Century of Artist Women at Meher, where leading ladies on the first floor, such as abstract expressionist painter Fahrelnissa Zeid and Turkeys first female professional photographer Yldz Moran hold a canonical presence alongside peers, antecedents and successors.

Zeids oil on canvas Resolved Problems (1948) pushes the envelope of the exhibitions ambitious timeline near to its conclusion. The work is abstract but calculated, her mosaic-like forms recall Byzantine culture, and the fragmentations of visual perception, conceived in an age which she presciently forecasted would be increasingly dominated by the saturated overpopulation of voices and works streamlined into corporate media.

All artists, whether they were men or women, who came into the world between the 1850s and 1950s, responded to an entirely different zeitgeist of perceptual discernment. When Zeid made Resolved Problems she was not so much revealing or obscuring, as much as she was showing obscuration itself.

That knack and intuitive grasp that Zeid exhibited was common among women who were expressing, however obliquely, the fact that they had been subjugated to less importance in the cultural historiography of Western art, and more so for being Turkish. Moran, the genius that she was, produced a trio of photographs, Echo (1952), blurring the self-examination of mirrored portraiture in a figure absorbed by her reflection to the point of subjective dissolution.

The liberal spaciousness of Meher can offer particularly creative curatorial opportunity, such as when the Beyond the Vessel show exhibited Kim Simonssons Moss People (2019), transforming one of its walls into an enchanted forest, or when it formerly housed Arter, and painter Can Aytekins Empty House emphasized the absence of its architectural anomalies. I-You-They, however, succumbs to the regressive tendency to merely decorate.

There is a long overwrought debate on the lightness of being in art, on whether or not aesthetically engaged work can confidently kick up its feet and exist as mere decoration, or disembark from amusement theme institutionalization into the deep waters of many fields.

And in walks feminism. After a long march from prehistory, when goddesses and the female form served as the inspiration for the earliest works of figurative art in the archaeological record, women confronted men on the soapboxes of fin-de-siecle society. Righteously, they were frustrated over their displacement amid the rise of democracies led by working classes empowered to reform their governments, representative of human equality.

Their ideas were large, and so were their strides. Turkey stands out as having led a successful womens suffrage movement before many Western countries like France, Greece and Switzerland, although not without a few compromises to their overall electoral system. There is an oil painting on plywood at the show from that time, titled, Girls Practicing Painting by Emel Koruktrk, dated to the 1930s. Its impressionistic bent is rosy, if faceless.

That incipient era of Turkish feminism, as it might be remembered, had a parallel life in and among the pictures that women created before and in the midst of its burgeoning actions. But its beginnings toward a more enlightened republic of liberated women were not without awkward moments, considering the patriarchal background of Ottoman art history. A pastel on cardboard by Mihri Mfik, born in 1885, is that of a self-Orientalist. The Sultans Favorite with Mirror, follows familiar tropes, and Artuns often haphazard curation is not exactly critical.

Mfik, who lived wide awake and working through the Ottoman Empires transition to the Republic of Turkey, showed a girl from the palace in the typical fashion. Like Morans modernist woman, invoking a semblance of American artist Cindy Sherman, Mfiks subject gazes away from the artist, and into a mirror. She is demure and half-dressed.

When placed next to a work of oil on hardboard by Semiha Berksoy, Self-Portrait, their divergent approaches to making art are clearly distinct. Mfik was weighed by the lingering influences of Turkeys past, Berksoy was a daughter of the secular republic, whod come to painting with the ecstatic joy and uninhibited expressionism, freed from the stage that made her name as she went back and forth between Turkey and Germany in the 1930s, famous as an independent, bohemian bon-vivant throughout her illustrious, eccentric career.

But the temptations of the Orientalist were not entirely extinguished by the cold shower of modernism. That is patent at I-You-They in an untitled photograph by Semiha Es, whose globe-trotting adventures gleaned images from exotic locales, including that of a black woman draped in the fur of a big cat. It appears that she made the woman pose, as she lays facing the camera directly, exposing her forehead and chest, marked with ritual scarring.

In the final act of I-You-They, the top floor of Mehers galleries is mobbed with a wall of paintings, drawings, manuscripts and other forms of artwork. Their attributions are heaped together in a long series of lists set apart from the art. The effect is disillusioning. If the idea of the exhibition was to inform and foreground women as central to Turkeys art history, it was a confusing balancing act, jumbled, as it were, in search of something more tangible than those names that are already canonical. But, if seen with a welcome naivety, and an open heart, it is still an opportune feast of visions in the name of so many, countless Turkish women who lived empowered lives as accomplished artists, uniquely important as ever.

The exhibition can be visited until May 29.

The Daily Sabah Newsletter

Keep up to date with whats happening in Turkey, its region and the world.

SIGN ME UP

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Read the rest here:

On art and women: I-You-They at Istanbuls spacious Meher | Daily Sabah - Daily Sabah

Analysts discuss whether the price of oil could hit $200 a barrel - Photo: Shutterstock.

Russia claims that oil could hit $300 a barrel if its crude is boycotted by international markets, warning that European Union (EU) sanctions on Russian oil could prompt it to close the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Europe.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Novak, said in a state television address on Monday, It is absolutely clear that a rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market.

The surge in prices would be unpredictable. It would be $300 per barrel, if not more.

While a potential price surge of oil reaching $300 sounds a little far-fetched, given the worlds dependence on Moscows commodities, is it improbable?

Capital.com asked several energy analysts for their thoughts and whether oil could hit $130, $150, or even $200-plus and what impact a further surge in prices could have on the global markets.

Oil prices jumped more than 3% on Monday, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) inching closer to resistance at $110 a barrel.

Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said in a note sent to Capital.com on Monday that March has seen the sharpest oil market volatility since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when the commodity became technically worthless.

Mondays sharp rally is being driven by ongoing constrained supply from OPEC+, a stalemate in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, a potential Russian oil embargo from the European Union and a Houthi attack on a Saudi energy terminal, all exacerbating an existing imbalance between supply and demand in the market, she said.

Evridiki Dimitriadou, an analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insights, told Capital.com the front month ICE Brent crude oil futures contract price showed a head-and-shoulders pattern over the first week of March, which is often indicates that prices have peaked at a multi-year high level in this case.

So far, the short and long-term moving averages dont provide a clear bullish or bearish signal if we consider this technical indicator as well, however the data is quite noisy, mainly due to the volatility caused by the developments associated with the Russia-Ukraine military conflict. Crude oil prices are rising again today as some European Union countries could consider joining the US and UK in banning Russian crude oil.

If the EU actually makes such a move, the levels reached earlier in March are very possible, it is harder to estimate how much further they can move up, however, as it would depend on Europes alternatives to the banned oil volumes and the specific terms of the ban, Dimitriadou said.

According to Trading Economics data, crude oil reached an all-time high of $147.27 in July 2008 and as reported by Capital.com the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine has already pushed oil prices to a 14-year high.

INGs head of commodities strategy, Warren Patterson, discussed the significance of western dependency on Russia in a podcast last week, as the country currently supplies the EU with more than 25% of its oil and up to 40% of its gas.

Russia is a key oil supplier to global markets. It exports somewhere in the region of seven and a half million barrels a day of crude oil and refined products, which is about 12% of global trade. This amount of oil is not something that can be offset by other producers any time soon, he said.

Osama Rizvi, an energy analyst at Primary Vision, told Capital.com oil could reach $200 per barrel.

Right now, the oil markets have almost become untraceable as the sentiment keeps shifting at a dizzying speed, he said.

It is interesting to note that there havent been any new additions in terms of variables affecting the price of oil. Concerns regarding supply, falling spare capacity continued to keep the prices higher. After that, the geopolitical flashpoint in the form of the Russia-Ukrainian crisis provided the impetus to take the prices all the way to $100s.

Rizvi also noted how prices approached their 2008 highs on 7 March, touching $139 and falling after that. He said the price went up on the possibility of the EU sanctioning Russias oil and gas, and fell because the EU realised it could not be done.

Why have prices rallied again? The EU is once again considering cutting off Russian oil and gas. Can they do it? Practically speaking, yes. Will they? I don't think so, Rizvi added.

Rizvi also said he believes prices will fall. However, if they go ahead with that, with an impending three (million barrels per day) shortfall in terms of Russian production expected, this can take prices to $200, he said.

Rizvi further noted that if the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action the Iran nuclear deal is successfully renegotiated, and the EU delays its decision to ban energy imports from Russia, along with an expected de-escalation of the conflict, it would result in a selloff in prices with the possibility of $50 Brent once again.

Brendan Long, director of institutional research at investment advice company WH Ireland, was also of the view that oil prices could hit $200 a barrel, or more.

In my opinion, the oil market is in disequilibrium and will be in disequilibrium for the foreseeable future. By that I mean the price of oil will exceed the marginal cost of production.

For perspective, I believe that the oil market was headed for an undersupply crisis even before the war in Ukraine, Long told Capital.com on Monday.

He further highlighted that oil prices could conceivably spike above $200 per barrel, depending on how the undersupply crisis plays out.

The situation is analogous in some respects to the 1979 oil crisis. One of the big changes from the late '70s is that today the price of oil is determined in financial markets. During the 1979-81 period panic led to hoarding, which further increased the price of oil. Today that could be exacerbated by the financial markets aspect of commodity markets, Long said.

He also noted setting aside the intricacies of market mechanics the oil market is exceptionally tight and spare production capacity is limited.

Due to the perceived malignancy of oil and a resulting under investment in the sector, we are, in my opinion, facing an acute energy crisis of our own making, Long concluded.

Ajay Parmar, a senior oil market analyst at ICIS also shared his views with Capital.com on how high oil prices might go.

Crude prices of over $150/bbl are certainly possible, but it would necessitate a confluence of a number of bullish factors to reach this level. Namely, it would require the EU to fully sanction the 2.5 million barrels per day of crude imports into Europe, whilst demand in China would also need to recover promptly from the rising Covid cases it is currently seeing, he said.

He noted that, in this case, the ICIS high case forecast sees Brent oil prices reaching above $150/bbl in the summer.

Needless to say, oil prices at these levels would inevitably lead to some demand destruction, he said.

Parmar also noted that a more likely scenario is for a reduction in near term global oil demand due to lockdowns in China, which he said will provide the market with some reprieve from the high prices weve recently seen.

Looking into the summer, we assume the Russia/Ukraine conflict continues but is no longer at the forefront of the zeitgeist, whilst China is expected to recover from its lockdowns and overall global oil demand will be strong due to seasonal trends. ICIS forecasts a base case crude price of over $120/bbl in the summer, he said.

Giles Coghlan, chief analyst at HYCM also shared his thoughts with Capital.com and said as long as the geopolitical risk between Russia and Ukraine remains, oil prices will be susceptible to spiking higher.

Right now, $130 is the first near-term target, as this was the previous spike high area. However, thereafter investors can expect $150 to be the next target, in line with July 2008 highs selling was strong at this level, and growth worries should keep oil pressured in the medium term, he said.

Coghlan added the higher oil prices soar, the more it will stoke inflation concerns. In turn, this will mean that central banks many of which are already hiking their interest rates will face a much greater risk at slowing their economies and hindering consumer confidence.

He added that it means high oil prices will ultimately play into recessionary concerns, as growth prospects take a hit.

As the old saying goes in the commodity market, the best cure for high prices is high prices. When oil prices surge higher, producers tend to respond by producing more in the face of diminished consumer demand it is a self-corrective mechanism, which eventually results in a fall in prices, Coghlan said.

Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates, told Capital.com he believes only an Iranian nuclear deal could save this market from going up to $130 again, given the war in Ukraine is protracted and as sanctions against Russia bite.

We could see $150 in case Europe imposes an energy ban on Russian sales, just like the US did. Bidens visit to Europe this week will provide an answer to that question. In case Russia retaliates by turning off the natural gas spigots, even higher prices cannot be excluded, he said.

For the long term, he said we need to keep in mind that high inflation and interest rate increases, that are partly the product of the current oil price strength, are sowing the seeds of a considerable demand destruction.

Marc Chandler, managing director at Bannockburn Global Forex, thinks it would.

I think that before oil were to get to those higher levels, OPEC+ would step up. Also, the higher oil prices will destroy demand. In my work, I have been talking about how oil prices have doubled before the last three US recessions.

There are a couple of other sources of oil: Venezuela, where there has been some movement between the US and the sanctioned government. The same with Iran. Also, the tapping of strategic reserves has been quite minor. It could be increased, too, he told Capital.com.

Read the original:

Oil time high: Do analysts think crude will hit $200 a barrel? - Capital.com

Its hard to believe that the National Ballet has been performing Rudolf Nureyevs version of The Sleeping Beauty for 50 years. The lavish work, which first premiered at St. Petersburgs Mariinsky Theatre in 1890, entered the Nationals repertoire in 1972. It immediately became a landmark production that led to the company acquiring a worldwide reputation through a series of extended tours. In other words, Nureyev and The Sleeping Beauty put the National on the ballet map.

For this 50th anniversary run, the ballet has been staged by artistic director emerita Karen Kain who has to be pretty happy with the opening night performance. In an interview I did with Kain when she first became artistic director in 2005, she told me that one of her goals was to raise the companys standard of classical dance technique, and that she did.

The National is currently filled to the brim with accomplished classicists, and their prowess was on full display opening night. The corps de ballet, both women and men, were absolutely spot-on in their togetherness. Not so much as an arm was out of place, so kudos to the coaches.

The Sleeping Beauty is the full monte of classical ballet, the sine qua non of in-your-face technique. One of the hallmarks of the Russian story ballet classics is the numerous secondary roles that collectively show off the depth of a companys ranks.

In Nureyevs version, and exclusive of the two leads, Princess Aurora and Prince Florimund, there are sixteen roles that require serious dancing. Without classical chops, a company and The Sleeping Beauty are dead in the water.

What follows are some of my impressions of the opening night performance.

Principal dancer Heather Ogden was absolute perfection, and Im hard-pressed to remember a time when she shone brighter than in this performance. From the first moment she descended the grand staircase as a giddy sixteen-year-old, to the poise of the mature young woman that she is in her final pas de deux, Ogden nailed the role. Her Rose Adagio where she balances on one point shoe and raises her arms above her head was breath-taking. In fact, she kept her arms aloft longer than most ballerinas do, which made me sit in open-mouthed admiration.

Her swain was Harrison James who is one of the Nationals first line danseur noble, or, in other words, a quintessential ballet prince. James certainly has the technique that he performs with ease. There is a smoothness and grace to his movements, and I particularly enjoyed how he executed Nureyevs additional solo that shows the Princes ennui. The dance steps flowed together seamlessly with never a choppy moment. On the other hand, and Ive said this before, Id like to see him more animated.

There is one little quibble, however. I was surprised to see that Ogden was paired with James because she is a bit taller than him when she is on point. Now there are ballet purists who absolutely insist on lines above all else, mandating that the ballerina be shorter than her partner (but not too much shorter because that is equally as bad). I have to confess, that the height differential did bother me a bit in the close partnering.

On the other hand, when they performed side by side in synchronized movement, it was pure magic. The dancers both share a similar musicality that makes them look like they are of one cloth. Ogden and James absolutely riveted the eye with the perfection of their togetherness, and it showed off their technical skills to the best advantage.

The question is, however, how much do lines matter?

This uber-famous duet features a male dancer, the Bluebird, who is mostly in the air through a never-ending series of jumps, and a feather-light partner, Princess Florine, who is the epitome of delicate grace.

Principal dancer Naoya Ebe certainly has the technical skills and is both a beautiful mover and jumper, but while conductor David Briskin was pouring out the excitement in Tchaikovskys music, Ebe could not translate that into his dancing. He did have one weeny slip up on a landing, so perhaps that threw him off. I really do enjoy Ebes performances but he really needs some oomph to generate the cheers that this pas de deux usually receives. The height of his jumps was pretty spectacular, though.

Principal dancer Tina Pereira was absolutely beguiling as Princess Florine, shy and coy at the same time. She is one of the best in the company when it comes to lightning-fast movement executed with exquisitely detailed technique, and her performance was flawless. The two together painted a charming picture.

This duet is always a crowd-pleaser because its cute and funny as two pussycats squabble with each other while pulling off some technical dancing.

First soloist Spencer Hack is fast becoming the dancer of choice when you need someone who is fleet of foot. He is like liquid mercury that overlays an assured technique. In other words, hes the companys, quick foot. He also has a strong sense of humour.

Second soloist Miyoko Koyasu is equally fast but she layers her technique with uber-feminine delicacy. She too was really into her role, and together they were adorable.

These are mostly solos, and mostly female. There are six fairy variations in the first act, while in the third act, the variations are grouped together as the Jewels Pas de Cinq which allows for the presence of one man.

Each variation is different, one from the other, sometimes obviously so, sometimes more subtly, and all are famous. What they all share is technique, technique, technique. Balance, precision placement, extended leg and arm swings, lightning-fast limb thrusts, rapid-fire bourres (tiny runny steps on point), quick change of direction, not to mention jumps, spins and turns, all performed with seemingly superhuman control and consummate grace. The dancers have to make these variations look easy, when they are anything but.

In other reviews, I have pointed out the Nationals talented army of mostly first and second soloists who fill these roles with aplomb, but it doesnt hurt to mention them again, because these variations are an important part of The Sleeping Beauty zeitgeist.

The fairy variations in the first act were beautifully performed by principal dancer Tina Pereira (Third), first soloists Jeannine Haller (Second) and Calley Skalnik (Fifth), second soloists Miyoko Koyasu (Second), and Genevieve Penn Nabity (Sixth), and corps members Jaclyn Oakley (First) and Tirion Law (Fourth). The second variation is a duet.

The notoriously difficult third act Jewels Pas de Cinq is a combination of showy solos, duets and trios. The cast included first soloist Chelsy Meiss (Diamond), second soloists Genevieve Penn Nabity (Silver) and Brenna Flaherty (Gold), and corps member Clare Peterson (Emerald). Second soloist Donald Thom did princely duty as the Diamond swain. Peterson is a new name for me so she gets added to my list of ones to watch.

Of added interest is the fact that these roles get traded around in other performances, so the women arent just one-trick ponies.

These variations in The Sleeping Beauty, as well as featured roles in other ballets, allow me to watch these dancers execute their craft while getting a measure of their talent. I can then gauge their march up the company ranks. To know the principal dancers of a company is not enough.

This is going to sound absolutely preposterous, but I found the sound too loud. I kid you not. Is it because this was the first time in two years Ive heard a full orchestra in the Four Seasons, and wasnt used to the very live acoustics? (Neither of the first two programs of the Nationals season featured the full orchestra.)

Despite the loudness, there was real passion, depth, and where needed, nuance, in the music. Ive said it before, and Ill say it again. Maestro David Briskin is one of the finest ballet conductors in the world, and the number of companies who want him as a guest are legion. He is, however, ours.

The Lilac Fairy, unlike in other versions of The Sleeping Beauty, is a non-dancing role. Nureyev has her be a spirit guide throughout, and her movement is one of floating on air. First soloist Tanya Howard was simply the finest Lilac Fairy I have seen. She actually seemed to defy gravity.

It was a surprise to see principal dancer Piotr Stanczyk as the non-dancing King Florestan, Auroras father. Is he transitioning to character roles? He certainly has a lot of dance still in him. Nonetheless, Stanczyk was excellent as the king superior and commanding in every way.

Character artist Rebekah Rimsay had fun chewing up the scenery as the evil fairy Carabosse, while fellow character artist Stephanie Hutchison was suitably flirtatious as the Countess trying to entice Prince Florimund. These two dancers switch roles in other performances, so all their considerable acting skills have to be at hand.

It was nice to see former company members Jonathan Renna and Sophie Letendre back on stage. Renna was positively pathetic as the grovelling master of ceremonies Catalubutte, while Letendre was a most gracious Queen.

New artistic director Hope Muir is inheriting a company filled with talented Young Turks who have technique up the whazoo. The competition for promotions is going to be tough.

And, can I add that I still hate Nicholas Georgiadis overblown costumes which are lam on steroids. Its hard to distinguish colours, one from the other, and all those feather headdresses are just plain dumb. Im not keen on his confined set either. Nonetheless, in 1972 the look of ballet was considered the height of opulence.

Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.

Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her own website, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance writer for The Globe and Mail, associate editor of Opera Canada magazine, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life magazine. She has been a guest lecturer for various cultural groups and universities, particularly on the role of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Before assuming a full-time journalism career, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama department of the Claude Watson School for the Arts.

Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her own website, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance writer for The Globe and Mail, associate editor of Opera Canada magazine, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life magazine. She has been a guest lecturer for various cultural groups and universities, particularly on the role of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Before assuming a full-time journalism career, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama department of the Claude Watson School for the Arts.

Originally posted here:

SCRUTINY | National Ballets The Sleeping Beauty Filled To The Brim With Talent - Ludwig Van

If not for Alan Mair, one of the best-known rock and pop collaborations of the 20th century might never have happened.

In the 1970s, Alan, a musician and former bootmaker who grew up in Glasgow and tasted UK-wide success with seminal '60s beat group The Beatstalkers, hired the then unknown Queen frontman Freddie Mercury to run his fashion boutique in London's Kensington High Street.

As if that wasn't sensational enough, Alan happened to know David Bowie and once asked Freddie to fit the Life On Mars and Space Oddity legend with a pair of platform boots.

It was a first meeting between the two iconic rock stars, who would one day collaborate together on the epic international hit 'Under Pressure'.

Alan, whose successful fashion outlet attracted everyone from Deep Purple and The Who to Santana and Yes, says he started making clothes around 1969 after the Beatstalkers split up. By the early 1970s, he was earning a fortune as the owner of one of the best-known boutiques in London.

At the birth of the glam movement in Britain, anybody who was anybody had to own a pair of Alan Mair platform boots.

He told Glasgow Live: "It was a very natural progression for me and just as exciting as being in the Beatstalkers. I was the first person to do handmade platform boots in Kensington Market, and that's why it was so successful.

"I supplied a huge percentage of the rock bands that were playing in the Britain, and from abroad as well. Any time I went down to the shop unit you would see Deep Purple, or Keith Moon, or the guys from the Tremeloes there.

"One of the best adverts was the Santana double-gate sleeve. The whole band are sat on this couch and wearing my boots. Early shots of Queen were the same.

"I had 10,000 'Boots by Alan Mair' bags printed. It wasn't long till I'd sold out of them - so that's how I knew sales were going really well."

In 1970, with business booming and further outlets opening across London, Alan was finding he had less and less time to oversee the day-to-day running of his main boutique at Kensington Market. Help would arrive from the most unlikely of sources.

Queen frontman Freddie Mercury ran another clothes shop nearby with his drummer mate Roger Taylor. However, their outlet, a second hand clothes emporium, wasn't nearly as busy as Alan Mair's.

Alan, who is now in his 70s and still living in London, recalls: "Freddie found out I was a musician and we got talking. I told him how the factory was getting too busy, and asked how he might feel about looking after my shop in the mornings.

"He said yes, and within a few weeks he decided to close his shop down and suggested becoming my full-time shop manager - it was perfect.

"I knew I could trust Freddie. It was really important to get someone trustworthy, and there was a really nice way about him - he was a really pleasant guy. Songwriters were quite often very boastful, Freddie was never like that. He would say things like, 'I've got this little band called Queen'."

With Queen only recently having formed, Alan Mair's shop would be Freddie's main source of income throughout the early 1970s.

One man who wasn't in need of a second job at this time was David Bowie. After years of struggling to become known, David was capturing the zeitgeist of the glam era with his alter ego outfit Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.

Alan had gotten to know David years earlier from recording cover versions of Bowie originals when he was still with the Beatstalkers. The pair were good friends and Bowie even penned a track in tribute to Alan's son, Frank.

Sign up to our Glasgow Live nostalgia newsletters for more local history and heritage content straight to your inbox

Fast forward to 1973, when he was at the peak of his powers in the UK, David Bowie paid Alan a visit at his boutique. The Starman singer would leave that day with a new pair of platform boots fitted by none other than Freddie Mercury.

"I asked David if he'd come in for a pair of boots, and he replied, 'No, I've just come in to see you," explains Alan.

"I told him how he was doing really well these days and he said he didn't have any money. 'But you're a big rock star,' I said, to which he replied, 'Oh, you know what the industry's like, Alan'.

"That's when I said, 'Freddie will fit you up with a pair of boots - you can have them for free'.

"I could tell Freddie recognised David - this was around '73 - but Bowie didn't know who Freddie was. David didn't acknowledge him as a fellow musician, more just a shop assistant fitting him with a pair of boots."

Within a period of just 18 months, Freddie's 'little' band Queen were riding high in the UK charts with international success to follow. Never again would Freddie Mercury be fitting platform boots for a living.

Queen would go on to play a pivotal role in engineering David Bowie's early '80s comeback, with the band and singer collaborating on the worldwide smash Under Pressure in 1981.

Alan added: "When I first met David and first met Freddie, nobody back then could've imagined what they'd become. I remember first hearing Bohemian Rhapsody, I just thought, 'my God, this is the band? This is Queen!?'. That song's so iconic, it deserves all the credit it gets.

"That's when I think of the modest Freddie, saying, 'I've got this little band called Queen'."

Alan Mair is still active in music and is currently working on a new single due to come out in coming months.

Go here to read the rest:

The Glasgow bootmaker who ordered Freddie Mercury to fit David Bowie with a pair of platforms - Glasgow Live

Hes the designer famed for reviving Savile Row tailoring in the Cool Britannia era of the 90s with his sleek, jewel-coloured suits. Since then, office attire has become less formal and working from home has taken off, yet Ozwald Boateng believes rumours of the death of the suit are greatly exaggerated.

As he prepared to show at London fashion week on Monday after a 12-year absence, he told the Observer that he believes the suit will be seen as less an everyday work uniform and more as special occasion wear but with many of those going into an office just two or three days a week making more of an effort and opting to dress more formally.

During the pandemic, we had two years of re-evaluating everything, and our attitudes to the way we dress changed, Boateng said. Hybrid working had informed the way we approached suiting up, he added this time last year, searches for suits had fallen by 34% and there was a rise in smart-casual workwear informed by virtual office meetings. Now its a choice, rather than a uniform. When we go back into the office, youll think more about [wearing a suit]. It will be more of an occasion. I think were going to make more of an effort, he said.

Despite his absence from London fashion week hes been concentrating on other projects, including designing uniforms for British Airways staff Boateng remains relevant. The conversation about the death of the suit is as current as ever, and diversity and structural racism remain hot topics among the fashion set. Mondays show will be an immersive celebration of black excellence in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, with nods to his Ghanaian heritage.

The George Floyd experience brought a sadness to my heart and made me think that theres so much more to be done, he said. Even though there has been change, there also has to be an acceptance of change. Sometimes, its easier to push it away and say can we move on?. But it still needs to be talked about.

When Boateng opened his shop on Savile Row in the 90s, he was part of the New Bespoke Movement: hip young gunslingers who were seen as modernising the area, cutting through the elitism. In the late 1990s, Cool Britannia was reaching a global audience and Savile Row was ripe for being reinvented, says Professor Andrew Groves, director of the Westminster Menswear Archive.

Like Tommy Nutter in the 1970s, Ozwald Boateng, along with Richard James, Timothy Everest and Richard Anderson, made it cool to hang out on Savile Row.

But he faced discrimination, too. In his biographical film, A Mans Story, Boateng said: You werent accepted because you are black, encapsulating the uneasy tensions that existed. I came to Savile Row to evolve tradition, he says now. I remember Andr Leon Talley saying, youre not a tailor, youre a couturier. What I was doing was taking traditional values and finding ways of modernising them. That created a uniqueness.

Moving on to become creative director at Givenchy Homme in 2003, Boateng and his trademark look became a favourite of celebrities, including Will Smith, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba, Jamie Foxx, Spike Lee, Jude Law, Prince Charles and Barack Obama. He was also in demand in Hollywood (Ebony magazine called him Great Britains biggest import since the Beatles) and has costumed films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Black Panther and Stanford Blatchs character in Sex and the City.

Boatengs appeal was that his tailoring was always edgier than the average suit and, after showing sporadically at Harlems Apollo Theatre and in Accra, hes now back. His show promises to be of epic proportions, featuring 100 creatives, and will focus on the African diaspora. Both thematically and aesthetically, his reappearance chimes with a zeitgeist that seems more open to diverse stories told through fashion. The inspiration behind his current show marks a change from his early days 30 years ago, when he admitted in an interview that when I first started designing, I never used to reference Africa.

His name is mentioned by young menswear designers, such as Bianca Saunders and Priya Ahluwalia, both of whom use their experience as second-generation immigrants to influence their collection. It was incredibly inspiring for me as a young black woman to see someone that looks like me become such an industry powerhouse, said Saunders. When I started, Ozwald and his team were very supportive and provided me with fabrics for my graduate collection. His arrival on Savile Row and in the fashion industry had huge cultural significance, and he has inspired many others, too. At that point, Ozwald Boateng was one of the few people of colour in the UK fashion industry.

Boateng doesnt see Mondays show as a return to showing regularly. When I have something to say, Im going to do a show, he says. But he does see it as a restart of sorts. In terms of me doing another show next season, I havent thought about it, he says. Lets get through Monday and see what happens. I might do another one next week No, Im kidding!

See the rest here:

Wear a suit to the office. Its a special occasion - The Guardian