Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

The year ahead holds some interesting possibilities for the watch world. Each year sees watch brands celebrate any anniversary with a round number, but 2022 marks a big one: the iconic Audemars Piguet Royal Oak turns 50. This and other factors suggest that the already white-hot category of sport-lifestyle watches represented by the Royal Oak will further heat up in 2022.

The Royal Oak created a new genre of watches in 1972 by offering a steel luxury watch with a sporty style more so than a sporty purpose. Watches with similar traits (integrated bracelets, prominent bezels, polygonal shapes, etc.) like the Patek Philippe Nautilus followed, along with an army of wannabes. This type of watch will be in the zeitgeist even more in 2022 than it already is.

The year ahead will see Royal Oak designer Gerald Genta's own Royal Oak auctioned, Patek Philippe is expected to replace its outgoing 5711 with a new Nautilus, and the Vacheron Constantin Overseas has an anniversary of its own. But what does this mean for the industry in general? Aside from much fanfare from those brands, we expect the concept to trickle down to more affordable brands, as we've already seen it begin to.

The year won't only be about the Royal Oak, though, as we expect other trends to continue: it's about time for green dials to follow blue and go mainstream; and shrinking median watch sizes may settle around 39-40mm. Can we expect more balance between vintage reissues and fresh, forward-looking designs? Watch consumers are surely starting to itch for that.

The year ahead will hopefully be full of interesting watches, and even surprises (we like those). To whet your horological appetite, below are some of the watches we'd like to see and some of what we expect in 2022.

The Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711 is discontinued, but it would be insane for Patek to simply stop making one of the most successful watches of all time at the height of its popularity. The Nautilus collection, however, lives on, and there'll have to be some new version with a new reference number to replace the 5711 eventually. We don't expect it to be a radical departure.

Expectation for the outgoing 5711's replacement will be part of the general zeitgeist of 2022. It's perfectly plausible, however, that the brand will stay silent for a year or longer on whatever it's got in store for the collection, and simply let the hype build.

There are a few reasons to expect something new from the Vacheron Constantin Overseas. Firstly, the Overseas' progenitor, the "222" from 1977, has its own 45th birthday in 2022. Secondly, the Overseas is Vacheron's answer to the Royal Oak and Nautilus, but it doesn't have the same overinflated prices, hype and availability issues, and it therefore has the chance to fill a market niche.

What can we expect from the Overseas? The upgrades the line got in 2016 are still looking fresh, but they leave a gap between 37mm and 41mm sizes. A 39mm automatic version (ok, maybe some with variations or complications, too) would be in-line with current tastes and trends. To make it more than just a new size of an existing model, vintage cues that reference the 222 would help it feel more special and deliberate.

Yes, the Porsche Design brand is also turning 50 in 2022, and its catalog is wide open to include a reissue of its inaugural product: the world's first all-black watch.

Though Porsche Design hasn't leaned in to the rest of the industry's vintage reissue bonanza and remained resolutely modern in its designs, the anniversary presents an opportunity. A reissue would be cool, but we'd be equally happy with a modern interpretation perhaps with relatively "vintage sizing." The brand recently seems more open to smaller case sizes as evidenced by its 39mm Sport Chrono.

Only a couple Rolex watches remain that haven't yet gotten the latest movement upgrade. With a compelling backstory and a pretty funky look for the brand, the Milgauss remains one of Rolex's most distinctive watches. It's about time for it to get some love and attention.

While the people fantasize about amazing new Rolexes, like a "Coke" (black-and-red-bezel) GMT Master II or even a titanium Yachtmaster, modest and very subtle tweaks and upgrades to existing watches are generally what you can expect. Rolex's 3230 movement for the Milgauss would be the minimum we'd expect, but something like a new colorway (there are currently two) would make an even bigger splash.

We're just going to keep hammering at this until we get it: for god's sake, Tudor, a Black Bay Fifty Eight GMT is a no-brainer! Will hit happen? We think eventually it will. The simple formula of the Black Bay GMT in the Fifty Eight's 39mm size would be celebrated, but Tudor regularly surprises us. We might not get exactly what we want this year, but we can't help but dream.

Someone pointed it out recently: Omega hasn't yet brought much green to its sport watch collections. Everyone else is doing it, the trend seems set to continue, and the brand hasn't been afraid of color in the past, so why not?

Although the Seamaster Planet Ocean might seem like a good candidate, with a precedent of colorful iterations, it'd be particularly cool to see it on the more versatile Seamaster Diver 300m. It's pretty well established that just about any watch that also looked good when it got a blue treatment can also look great in green, and the Seamaster Diver 300m fits the bill.

For Only Watch 2021, Girard Perregaux teamed up with Bamford Watch Department on something rather unexpected. It was like a reissue of the funky LED driver's watches the brand made in the 1970s, but with a very modern case in carbon fiber and titanium.

The one-off creations for the Only Watch auction often portend future releases, so it seems possible that Girard-Perregaux has something like a collection in the works in a more accessible execution such as stainless steel or titanium. It would fit the industry's general vintage reissue trend but sure would be interesting to see from the prestigious brand otherwise firmly rooted in mechanical watchmaking.

A while back, Citizen released some of its very cool and affordable Promaster "Fugu" dive watches with automatic movements. Unfortunately, they were only available in certain regions, and not in others like the United States. We thought they'd arrive eventually, but we're still waiting.

It's currently hard to find any automatic watches on Citizen's US site (aside from a couple weird, high-end ones) despite that the brand owns Miyota, one of the biggest producers of automatic movements in the world. Citizen has the chance to fill a market niche and compete with Seiko dive watches, and maybe this will be the year we'll finally see it happen.

This is the last thing about integrated-bracelet watches, I promise. The IWC Ingenieur collection was last overhauled in 2017 to reference its conservative 1955 roots, but the resulting dressy watches don't add much to the brand's catalog. Why not bring back the Ingenieur of 1976?

Redesigned by Gerald Genta (him again) with all the sporty style that made the Royal Oak successful (and introduced the same year as Patek's Nautilus), the Ingenieur gives IWC the chance to offer something hip with legitimate provenance at a competitive price.

Shortly after I pleaded with G-Shock to offer an online watch customizer, news emerged on G-Central that the company's financial report mentioned plans for such a program "starting with Japan." The program is called "My G-Shock," and we can only hope that we'll see it more widely available in 2022 with all the models, colors and options we dream of.

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10 Watches We Hope to See in 2022 - gearpatrol.com

Intense, Retina-searing Colours

If there ever was a visual riposte to uncertain, challenging times that manifested through the reflective microcosm that is the world of design, then the recent rise in the use of dramatic, eye-searing colours was definitely it. Intense gradients and blazing hues showed up across advertising campaigns, album and book covers, identity systems and editorial design that made it almost impossible for the viewer to look away.

It was no coincidence that we felt the need to go full-tilt bright last year in some of our colour choices. Hope and optimism go a long way, and colour as a visual identifier of this sentiment seems like a choice many people and organisations will continue to make, says Jason Little, co-founder and executive creative director of For The People, who designed the identity for the Sydney Film Festival 2021. Its like theres all this pent up energy waiting to be released, and this is definitely an avenue to express it.

We cant wait to be safe and free again, so we pour that intention, that hope into our work and the colour choices, says Zuzanna Rogatty, senior designer at Collins. In a way, this ballsy use of colours also points towards a clear intention to make brands unignorable, Zuzanna explains. I hope it is actually a movement, a characteristic of the zeitgeist, a colour uprising, and not only a trend.

The use of provocative, complex hues is definitely here to stay. Theres always a long tail to these things, right? says Jason. While its been brewing gently for a while, lately, colours have become emblematic of the current, get-up-and-go creative landscape, and it promises to be something well see a lot of in 2022. Jason adds: And maybe the late majority and big tech will be right in this space by 2024, who knows.

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Five design trends set to visually shape 2022 - It's Nice That

These days, it seems, bad news is painfully easy to find. The good stuff often takes a bit more digging. Thats where GPs expert writers and editors come in, keeping their fingers on the pulse of the industries they cover to tap into all the exciting product news breaking now and waiting for us on the horizon.

With that in mind, we tasked our teams with ID-ing the most interesting trends in their areas of expertise, and wow, theres lots to celebrate and anticipate. Just a few examples to whet your appetite: microdosing mushrooms or LSD is becoming a legal way to level out, you can order coffee beans via text message, digital audio quality has never been better, and holy crap a lot of rad EVs are coming this year.

So hey, quit the doomscrolling and do some pleasant perusing of whats good in outdoors, fitness, style, wellness, food & drink, home, tech, audio, motoring and watches below. It wont erase the bad news, but it just might make things easier to ride out.

They say threes a trend, right? In that case, we are officially declaring the outdoor industrys push toward endemic recycling incorporating factory scraps into new products just that. The micro movements inspiration is, of course, Cotopaxi. The seven-year-old Salt Lake City-based brands colorful packs and jackets are legendarily scrap-sourced, with 94 percent of its products containing repurposed, recycled or responsible materials. More to the point, it has an entire series dubbed Remnant, currently composed of 21 different bags made with fabric sourced from other companies larger production runs.

The practice makes both environmental and business sense, which may explain why at least three other prominent brands have somewhat mimicked it. First theres Nemo Equipment, which assembles the Chipper Reclaimed Closed-Cell Foam Seat aka butt pad from leftover sleeping pad foam. On a larger scale, youll find Fjllrvens Samlaren collection. Named after the Swedish word for gathering, the very limited series features unique color combinations, including a Pink-Air Blue Knken pack, which we are crossing our fingers comes back in stock.

Most recently, we have Arcteryxs ReBird program, a sweeping effort to rethink sustainability that includes an initiative to collect end-of-roll materials and upcycle them into new products. This stuff seems to sell out even faster than Samlaren does, perhaps because it truly doesnt skimp on performance: the lightweight, ski-ready Rush Jacket Rebird features Gore-Tex Pro Most Rugged, after all. That fabric is so high-performance, its no wonder Arcteryx isnt letting an ounce of it go to waste.

As curious creatures, we humans been tracking ourselves for a pretty long time. We've created almanacs, cave paintings, the Manpo-kei and more to document our exploits, bringing ever-better technology to bear with every passing year.

Until recently, breaking down our bodies activities has been fairly hands-on: the pedometer, the wireless heart rate monitor, the accelerometers embedded in phones all record various data, but they still demand a degree of user engagement. The advent of Fitbit and its ilk introduced passive tracking monitoring biometrics in real time, with minimal effort, to hone our pursuit of physical perfection (or something like that). And now, thanks to brands like HidrateSpark and Whoop, were seeing a truly friction-free movement on the horizon.

The HidrateSpark PRO sets hydration goals, employs an LED smart sensor to record water intake and glows to remind you when its time to take a swig, pretty much autonomously. The Whoop 4.0 with Any-Wear clothing technology is more advanced but just as unobtrusive. Users can hide the sensor pod on various points of their bodies to track physical activity, heart rate, stress levels and more. The unit never turns off charge it on the go with the battery pack, and digitize your metrics, 24/7. Theres no screen, no buttons, no effort (other than the initial setup, and, well, your workouts).

Different as they are, both products signal the dawn of a new era in fitness one where we can comprehensively keep tabs on our bodies, without breaking a sweat.

GORP Takes to the Streets

Arcteryx, Salomon, Patagonia, Snow Peak, And Wander, The North Face. Do these brands sound familiar? Probably so if youre prone to long, treacherous hikes across rough terrain. But for fashion-minded folks, these labels represent a new subset of the industry growing with each passing season: GORPcore, an adaption of the acronym for good ol raisins and peanuts, a popular snack mix people take on the trail.

XT-6 Trail Running Shoes

$190.00

The term encompasses technical outerwear for city-oriented types. No, the conditions in a place like New York City cannot compare to the Pacific Northwest, where trails like the Alpine Lakes or the Badlands are located, but youll find people wearing the gear within city limits nonetheless. The trend can be traced back to the early 2010s, when trendsetters turned their attention toward the elderly or the unknowingly boring for inspiration. Then, it was normcore, embodied by gray sneakers, high-end chinos and crisp, plain shirts. The TL;DR of it all: think of someone dressed head-to-toe in humbly priced pieces, or a designers rendition thereof.

Now, a $339-dollar Arcteryx jacket outweighs a silky bomber by a well-known Maison; fleeces are fighting suit jackets off the shelves; Salomon sneakers are converting lifelong Nike and Adidas loyalists. It's a signal that function and form can not only coexist in the menswear space, but drive the conversation.

Microdosing Goes Mainstream

Lets break microdosing down into its two parts: micro, meaning small, and dosing, a reference to the way you dole out a certain substance over time. The word has upended the medical and psychedelics industries respectively over the past half-decade, but it's all coming to a head now.

Substances once perceived as mere gateways to hallucinogenic (often great, occasionally bad, sometimes horrible) trips like mushrooms or LSD are now breakthrough therapeutic treatments in their own rights, capable of aiding those battling depression, PTSD or addiction with one to 10 percent of the amount needed to trip taken daily for a mild, nearly unnoticeable impact. Over time, though, consistent ingestion can lead to transformative change.

Psilocybin, the compound in mushrooms that triggers trips, is still fully illegal in almost every state. Oregon, in late November 2020, became the first state to legalize it for medicinal use. In Denver, Detroit, Somerville, Massachusetts and Oakland, California, psilocybin mushrooms are merely decriminalized, essentially meaning the police cannot enforce laws against possession or consumption.

In Texas and Pennsylvania, bills to further research the compounds potential to treat mental illnesses are nearly law. Plenty of research has already confirmed the likely upsides of both mushrooms and LSD, but professional, state-level assessments could convince even more states to pass similar, medicinal-first legalization plans. That could save thousands of lives, and help millions establish healthier habits and exist with less anxiety, new research reveals.

Sandbagging, Microwaves and Convenience

If describing food as "convenient" sounds a bit like a dog whistle (lazy, bad), know that, as of 2022, it's not. More time at home means more time in the kitchen and, after a year-plus spent indoors, no one should be ashamed to admit they could use a little more help.

The Everyday Set From Anyday

Help like Fellow's new text-to-order coffee bean service, Drops, which asks that you reply to a text with a number indicating how many bags you want. David Chang, self-proclaimed master of the art of sandbagging in the home kitchen, played a part in a pair of new releases: an absurdly good instant noodle released under his Momofuku line and cookware meant not for the stovetop, but the microwave.

Shit, a podcaster came up with a new dried pasta shape to optimize sauce carrying capacity. Making convenient also good isn't entirely new. (Ever heard of an Instant Pot? How about air fryer?) But it's easy to argue we've never seen low- and high-brow merge quite like this.

If you're not a gamer, you probably didn't know there's a whole product category dedicated to gaming furniture and accessories. Brands like Razer and Secretlab have dedicated their entire existence to help gamers achieve win after win.

Embody Gaming Chair

$1,795.00

In the past couple years, we got hints that gaming would become more pronounced outside of the gaming sphere. Razer made a mouse to help with the recent surge in working from home, and Herman Miller released a gaming chair with Logitech G.

In 2022, gaming gear continues to extend far beyond these niche brands, entering almost every aspect of the cultural zeitgeist and becoming more approachable. Mavix released an entry-level gaming chair to complement its pricier options, maintaining its gamer-friendly features minus the huge investment.

And if there's one release that solidifies the category's staying power, it's Ikea's Uppspel collection. The line was designed in collaboration with Republic of Gamers, an Asus-owned brand dedicated to PC gaming. It's filled with stuff to make gaming more comfortable, from chairs to desks, and while no one needs gaming-specific furniture, it's just a hint at what's to come.

The March of the Microchips

For decades, devices that compete on the open market have shared some very, very similar components inside. Until Apple's M1-chip initiative brought to its apex with the new MacBook Pros Mac and Windows computers alike ran on the same Intel chips. In the land of smartphones, meanwhile, virtually every Android phone, from Samsung or Google or LG, has historically had a Qualcomm chip of some sort at its heart.

Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro

But the times are changing. Apple's M1 chip is the loudest example, but this past fall Google announced it's heading in the same direction with its "Tensor" chip that powers the Pixel 6. Amazon is already on its third generation of in-house Graviton chips, used to power the computers at its cloud data centers. Tesla is preparing to produce its own chips as well. Facebook ("Meta," if you must) is on the war path too.

What does this mean? For you, the humble end user, the direct effects may not be completely clearly microchip related. On the upside, a device that's designed as one piece from silicon to screen can reach new heights of efficiency. That means better battery life, more horsepower and less bulk all at the same time.

On the downside, cross-compatibility could take a nosedive. Devices that used to share some common DNA increasingly won't. This could leave developers in the lurch to prioritize one evolutionary path over another. As if they aren't under enough pressure to do so as it is.

From a broader perspective, it illustrates a world-historical concentration of capital in the hands of tech mega-giants. Companies that once made their bones running goofy college websites or delivering books through the mail have ascended to architecting products on a scale that, just decades ago, required the cooperation of entire industries. That kind of centralized planning comes with its benefits, but not all of them are for you.

The Commoditization of Lossless Audio

Audio quality took a big hit in the '90s during the age of Napster and the iPod when compressed digital files (which take a lot of details out of the music, especially on the high and low ends) were all the rage. But over the past four decades there's been a steady resurgence of high-quality audio, largely thanks to old-school analog formats (like vinyl) becoming en vogue again and, more recently, lossless audio becoming easily streamable.

Last year was a banner one for lossless audio. The two biggest music streaming services on the planet, Apple Music and Spotify, both announced lossless streaming tiers. While Spotify's service has yet to appear, Apple's lossless tier made waves by rolling out to all paying Apple Music subscribers at no extra cost. Now you can stream lossless (or CD quality) for $10/month, which is half the price that some legacy lossless streaming services (like Tidal) are charging.

This move by Apple subsequently forced the hand of every other lossless streaming service out there Tidal, Deezer, Qobuz and Amazon all lowered the barrier of entry to their lossless streaming tiers. Now it's not only easier than ever to listen to high quality music streams, but it's also affordable.

An EV for Everyone

So far, buying an EV has meant buying a Tesla or buying a not quite-as-good alternative to a Tesla that is expensive and not that conducive to most peoples lifestyles. But an avalanche of EVs will enter the market in 2022 many on new dedicated EV platforms. And if youre in the market for a new vehicle, there should be an EV that meets your needs.

Luxury options will increase dramatically. Want range and performance? The Lucid Air will deliver more than 500 miles of range and 1,100 horsepower. Want that performance from an off-road EV? The Hummer SUT arrives very soon, and it will accelerate as quickly as a Porsche in WTF mode with off-roading specs that beat the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. Just want the luxury car you would have bought but electric? Stay tuned for new offerings from Mercedes, BMW and Audi that are just that.

Want an electric truck? You can hop on the Rivian bandwagon with the new R1T or keep things a bit more traditional with the Ford F-150 Lightning arriving next year. Want something relatively affordable? The VW ID.4 is out. And Nissan, Toyota, Subaru, Kia and Hyundai are launching electric crossovers. Oh, and the starting MSRP for that F-150 Lightning is under $40,000 before the potential tax credit.

Hurdles remain for mass-adoption EVs charging infrastructure isnt where it needs to be yet if you dont have a Level 2 home charger but the right option should be out there if youre willing to leap into the future.

Lean, Green Machines

While 2021 wasn't the first year we noticed a trend toward, shall we say, a more "verdant" timepiece, it was certainly the year in which the green watch firmly took hold. As horological veteran William Massena once explained, the watch world is on a roughly three-year product development cycle, so while entirely new models take quite a while to develop, habillage, or "dressing up" is much quicker and easier to execute. (Read: Take that watch that already exists and make it green! Because everybody else is doing it!)

While it would've perhaps been unthinkable just a few short years ago and certainly 20 or 30 years ago watches with colored dials are back in a big way. Something that isn't black, white or silver or, heaven forbid, blue! seems like it might just be the next big thing. Rolex launched a new series of "Stella" dials in their Oyster Perpetual line, and for the first time (perhaps ever), an OP became nearly impossible to buy at retail. Then came a green Datejust with what looks like either pot leafs or palm fronds on it (depending how much weed you smoke), and the entire Internet lit up.

Patek did the same thing, turning its 5909 annual calendar into a lean, green machine (and making it in steel, no less), which earned the timepiece a spot in our GP100. (The brand did the same for a short, final run of the famed 5711 pure unobtanium if there is such a thing.) Who knows what's next? If green is "in," anything seems possible. Is this the end of boringly bland watch dials a window into a brighter future? Color us intrigued.

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10 Fascinating Trends to Watch in 2022 - gearpatrol.com

Sir The annual publication in the UK of the queens New Year Honours seems to inevitably elicit contributions from various correspondents regarding our system of honours, or in some cases, the lack of it.

erhaps it was the sugar rush from the last of the mince pies, but my imagination went into overdrive as I imagined the link with the crown had not been broken 100 years ago.

In my reverie, I saw Aidan OBrien on one knee, head bowed, as the queen placed the ceremonial sword on each shoulder. I heard her whisper: Arise, Sir Aidan.

The two monarchs of their respective spheres then joined in in close conversation, presumably on equine matters.

From the wings, actor, Sir Gabriel Byrne appeared, preceded by the more senior knight Sir Gabriel Byrne. The double-take confused no one, certainly not Sir Bob Geldof nor Sir Daniel ODonnell, who got the gong for their services to music and charitable work. Sir Ben Dunne got his prefix for business.

The ladies are also in the mix. Dame Sonia OSullivan for sports, Dame Mary Robinson for human rights, Dame Mary Kenny for journalism and Dame Miriam for TV.

I dreamed the Upper House was also represented, and Lord Kinsealy created quite a stir in the sedate House of Lords, though his gallop was balanced by the more correct Lord Michael of Galway, who found the ancient house a suitable venue to exercise his oratorical skills.

Alas! To paraphrase the Bard, We are such stuff, as any dreamers are made of.

Patrick Fleming,Glasnevin Dublin 9

Sir I read with interest your editorial piece in last Sundays paper. I completely agree with your opinion on the stable state of our country and the fact we have far more that unites us than divides us.

However, I contrasted your positive piece with that of Gene Kerrigan, whose theme, week-in week-out, on the prominent back page is to shred the current and indeed past governments for every move they make.

Mr Kerrigan is a fine writer and can be so sharp on certain topics, but if one were to only read his opinion every week we could be led to believe we live in a shambles of incompetency, fraud, corruption and general chaos, with no hope for the future unless a group of hard-left politicians take over and put us on the right track.

May I suggest everyone in the country be asked to read Mark Henrys excellent recently published book, In Fact:An Optimists Guide to Ireland at 100.

This might level the argument for the naysayers and doom merchants. And also the cynics and pessimists.

Yes we have big problems here in Ireland, as there are in the rest of the world. A wise man said: The world has enough for everyones needs, but not everyones greed.

Mary Cleary,Firhouse, Dublin 24

Sir I am amused by Joe Brollys naive reliance on record sales for The Men Behind the Wire as proof of the emotional connection that the people of the Republic had with them.

Aside from the fact an RT ban broadened the appeal of the song in question, Joe should know that, in the real world, democratically held elections provide a sounder basis for assessing the opinion of the people. From 1976 to 1994, over 85pc of those who voted in seven general elections supported political parties that maintained Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act.

The people and the political parties were on the same page on this one, Joe.

PJ OMeara,Cahir, Co Tipperary

Sir Joe Brollys excellently written piece last week reminded me of Fianna Fils attitude to the Troubles in Northern Ireland and indeed to its treatment of the Irish media of the time.

That Irish journalists, many of them solid NUJ trade unionists, were silenced and an eminent RT reporter ended up in prison for reporting the truth in the news was certainly an indictment of a party that has the word republican in its shop window.

Mr Brollys words were obviously written from the heart. Along with my favourite columnist, Gene Kerrigan, he truly is a nugget of hope at a time when stenographers and press releases are stymieing a proud tradition.

Jimmy Rhatigan,Loughboy, Kilkenny city

Sir In the first half of an Ulster Championship match against Down in 1994, Joe Brolly destroyed all before him. But, with regard to his article last week, I fear I must put a stop to Joes relentlessly one-sided revisionist viewpoints much like Paul Kelly did when he came on for Down in the second half and took Joe out of the game.

I cannot pretend to understand what growing up in South Derry was like, to be a second-class citizen. But it reflects poorly on Joes legal training to hammer the same line, without context, at every opportunity.

Hindsight is always clear. A barrister always has time to analyse, parse and deconstruct the decisions of others who have to actually deal with a chaotic or stressful or dangerous situation.

Pearse Doherty,Co Monaghan

Sir I want to compliment you on the supplement on the Treaty Debates in last weeks issue of the Sunday Independent.

It was so interesting and factual and a pleasure to read and even my grandchildren showed great interest in it. They loved the old advertisements.

Sally McDonald,Ballinacarrig, Carlow

Sir By agreeing to attend the Treaty negotiations in 10 Downing Street, London, did that not somehow imply that ownership of Ireland was vested in the UK government?

Accordingly, did this not reduce the plenipotentiaries to the role of beggars begging the owners for concessions to bring home to the Dil in the guise of obtaining the best deal?

Apart from conceding home advantage to the opposition, surely by insisting on a more neutral venue Edinburgh or Cardiff the Irish delegation would have kicked off the negotiations on a more equal footing?

Separately, compliments to the editor for last weeks supplement in the Sunday Independent an excellent coverage of the Dil debates leading to ratification.

Mick OBrien,Springmount, Kilkenny

Sir The Golfgate trial in Galway was told the public was whipped up into hysteria and good people had to resign.

I found this statement to be absolutely ludicrous.

I say that based on the millions of people in this country who at that time were asked to make unprecedented sacrifices.

The least I would have expected from our public representatives is that they too would have been on board with the zeitgeist of that time.

It appeared to me that Golfgate was one rule for them and another rule for everyone else.

Name and address with Editor

Sir Hold on, lets nip this in the bud. We are all fairly much aware of the facts and circumstances of this. Trial of the Four is a futile exercise. No new facts will emerge. Legal profession get another fat pay day. Court time wasted. Mood of the nation gets another kick in the teeth.

Instead why not ask Donie Cassidy and Noel Grealish to request a modest 2k each from the offenders. We and they know who they are. Include Phil Hogan and Samus Woulfe. Nobody loses further face. Money paid to go to a nominated charity (charities). All legal action dropped.

Common sense and decency should prevail.

Tony Finucane,Ennis, Co Clare

Sir I was surprised at An Taoiseachs attack on Sinn Fin and his allegation of them having a pro-Putin stance on Ukraine. It is a poor reflection on a leader to be encouraging confrontation with Russia and compromising our neutrality.

Surely Mr Martin, a teacher qualified in political history, must remember what happened in 1955 when the US positioned missiles in Turkey aimed at the USSR and Russia reciprocated by placing missiles in Cuba?

The world came close to nuclear war until, fortunately for us all, both sides sensibly removed their cause for war in 1962.

Mr Martin should exhort the EU to bring their influence to bear on Biden and Putin and stop Ukraine becoming another pawn with the potential for war.

Don Teegan,Monkstown, Demesne, Co Cork

Sir Conor ODonovans letter (GAA must resolve to fix hand-pass fiasco) resurrected the spiky issue that, for me, has dimmed the brilliance of our ancient game in recent years.

There is an article on his countys Premierview site about the issue of the hand-pass with statistics that seriously undermine the legality of how the pass is being executed. For instance, two-thirds of the hand-passes in the semi-finals and final of this years senior hurling championship were illegal ones.

Its long been the rule that if a player wants to carry the sliotar for more than four steps he/she has to bounce or balance it on the hurley, while the sliotar can only be handled twice in such a possession. It would be in keeping with this principle that the hand-pass be adjusted, whereby both hands must be used to execute the movement. Failing that the hand pass as is should be limited to a maximum of three hand-offs.

Such modifications would limit the easy retention of possession, promote more contesting of the sliotar as was traditional in the game and carry the potential to make a referees life a smidgen easier.

Michael Gannon,St Thomas Square, Kilkenny

Sir The comments by the Pope concerning pets and children were undoubtedly insensitive and unkind to animal lovers. He perhaps unintentionally strayed off message. Where was his shepherd?

He was bemoaning the global decline in birth rates and clumsily threw the pets out of the bath water to make a point.

I can remember from coming from a family of 10, not including the many wonderful pets we had, that it was considered a bit selfish for parents to have so many children or at least it sometimes felt like that. All those mouths to feed. But my parents managed to share the sustenance and love.

Obviously, the church welcomed all, the more the merrier with that expectation of some dayof a Christian brother, a nun and a priest for the fold.

I fondly remember an episode from The Vicar of Dibley, when Geraldine organised an impromptu gathering (pre-Covid) for the local pet owners to bring their pets to the church for a special sermon thanking God for all living creatures. The service was a lively event as humans and their pets packed out the church and the choir sang All Things Bright and Beautiful and Puppy Love.

I wonder what St Francis of Assisi would think of the Popes comments? I suspect he might identify more with the vicar.

Aidan Roddy,Cabinteely, Dublin 18

Sir In the haste to dismantle the religious trappings of Christmas, spare a thought for the Three Wise Kings (aka the Magi), who arrived, camel-sore, weary and in the nick of time into Christian history and a mere few days ago in our family cribs on January 6.

Shouldnt we afford Balthasar, Melchior and Caspar a period of Yuletide welcome beyond the cut-off point of the 12 days and Little Christmas?

It would be (to borrow TS Eliots wonderful word in Journey of the Magi) satisfactory.

Oliver McGrane, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16

Sir With the present Governments regulations on alcohol price control forcing the consumer to drink less, perhaps they should set a good example and ban alcohol from the Dil?

David Smyth,Co Leitrim

Sir The Governments introduction of minimum alcohol pricing is a progressive step if it encourages people to drink a little less. It reminds me of one of the many stories my late father told me about the customers of the family pub.

John arrived at the pub every evening around 8pm. He had three pints of Guinness before closing time. He enjoyed discussing Austin Stacks football, greyhounds, horses and the news of the day. He then walked home, where he lived alone.

When the price of the pint went up from 11p to an old Irish shilling, the regulars called down every misfortune on the powers that be in Dublin, but the porter continued to flow.

Making his way to John, who was sitting contentedly by the fire, Dad asked: Will you follow the pint at the new price, John?

My dear man, replied John. Ill follow it to Hell. Drinking the juice of the barley in such pleasant company is priceless.

Billy Ryle,Spa, Tralee, Co Kerry

Sir Our legislators are among the highest-paid in the world, but the new regulations on buying alcohol are more Luddite than progressive. They display a paucity of imaginative and innovative thinking and the implementation of these measures will only benefit special interest groups, again.

Those of us on fixed incomes, particularly those of us getting on in years, will have to pay prices out of the reach of many.

Like all responsible people, I would like to see an end to anti-social drinking and the social ills that accompany this scourge, but it is wrong to scapegoat everyone for the irresponsible behaviour of the few.

Tom Cooper,Templeville Road, Dublin 6W

Sir The reality of binge drinking and cheap alcohol was brought home to our family 11 years ago when our 19-year-old son, David, died by suicide after leaving an all-night house party.

At his inquest we asked that the problem of cheap alcohol be addressed, along with promotion and availability.

We were just parents who saw a problem and wanted change, not sympathy.

At times, total strangers saw fit to tell us we were just looking for something to blame and that we were allowing ourselves to be used as pawns despite the proven facts that alcohol is a contributing factor in 50pc of suicides in Ireland and a person is eight times more likely to die by suicide when they are binge drinking.

It says on Davids death certificate that alcohol was a contributing factor in his death. It never ceases to amaze us that so many people choose to ignore these facts.

Minimum unit pricing is the can that was kicked down the road until eventually someone decided to pick it up and thank God they did.

John Higgins,Ballina, Co Mayo

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Arise, Sir Aidan dreaming of the Irish who deserve honours - Independent.ie

bell hooks, undoubtedly the most influential mind in contemporary times, is a name not so familiar in India, but in the feminist world of struggle and academia, she is considered as one who gave path-breaking trope to feminist discourse. She passed away on Dec. 15, 2021, at the age of 69, leaving behind her oeuvres that certainly would enrich and clarify the political nuances present within the feminist theory and practice. She forcefully spoke publicly, that which was hitherto spoken in private, the conditions of black women and their visible inequalities sort of enmeshing race and class categories and envisioned a good society with dignity for all.

She resisted the title public intellectual, though she became one, and used to follow jargon-free-flowing writing style.

READ: bell hooks: A Radical, Black Feminist Whose Ideology Created Far-Reaching Impact

hooks began her education in the segregated schools in Christian county, completed her Masters at the University of Wisconsin and her doctorate in literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She worked as a professor at Yale, Oberlin, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. She published almost 40 books encompassing a wide range of subjects such as literary criticisms, childrens fiction, memoirs, poetry, education, capitalism, American history, and, in between, wrote passionately on love and friendship. She established bell hooks institute at Berea College to focus on, what she described as, the imperialist-white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy power structures. The multi-hyphenated term, for her, represented the intersectionality that one needs to understand while explaining the much more complex category called interlocking oppressions. She remained, nevertheless, essentially focused on the sliding of race identity into class identity. The slippage of the signifier and the signified between black woman and poor-black woman endures the zeitgeist of her opuses. Aint I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, written as her first major work in 1981, raised several questions on marginalisation and subjugation of black women and intervened, to include the experiences of black and working-class women, in the civil rights and womens liberation movements. She pitched into the feminist debate as an insider, from within, and sharpened the existing faultlines for contemporary feminists to take political positions.

Debates within and about feminism.

The second wave of feminism, unlike the first that dealt largely with what is feminism and feminist theory?, gave attention to internal debates in feminism, so to say, on debates within and about feminism. The feminists, in the 1980s and 1990s, explored deeper into the assertions that all women are victims of oppression and should be equal to men to gather the crucial differences within race/caste/ethnicity/class and to contest the straightforward stereotypical notion of a shared set of ideas and values. hooks wasnt comfortable with the slipshod account of feminists content the shared meaning for feminism as a collectivist generalised agenda rather, building her thesis on difference and equality, she asked to reject anything goes approach and focus on particular set of ideas. For hooks, feminism is not for any and every woman who regardless of her political position wants equal rights as men. In fact, she is choosy about the term feminism as it involves political commitment.

READ: Casteing Gender At The Ballot Box

In Feminist Theory: From Margin to Centre, she says I say the minute you begin to oppose patriarchy, youre progressive. If our real agenda is altering patriarchy and sexist oppression, we are talking about a revolutionary movement. For hooks, therefore, feminism is a distinct political perspective, with distinct shared political agenda than a mere ecumenical politics. She was deeply antagonistic to the capitalist economy and toyed much with the idea of sexual oppression predating or postdating class power that gets predicated on to the capitalist patriarchy subversions.

White-Feminism: A Reassessment

hooks stoutly raised the issue of invisibilisation of the marginalised black woman, particularly black working women. Her efforts led to the recognition of the differences related with marginalised racial/ethnic communities and the rejection of the presumption that women share a common identity based in a shared experience of oppression. White, western-middle class women as the custodian of feminism and as the norm for what constitutes woman, got a severe drubbing when hooks alarmed about the white-feminists complicity in exacerbating racism and ethnocentricism. In Black Looks: Race and Representation hooks disparages white-feminism for their perception of the pop-icon Madonna as subversive and suggests that Madonnas projection of sexual agency is scarcely of use to black woman of United States who may wish to refuse their representation as being sexually available. However, hooks was among those writers who envisioned the conception of feminism as a coalition that which is based on the principle of solidarity, on the ideas of political community, and usually on specific problems in some long term sense. In an essay Sisterhood: political solidarity between women, she writes:

..abandoning the idea of sisterhood as an expression of political solidarity weakens and diminishes the feminist movement..There can be no mass-based feminist movement to end sexist oppression without a united front.Women are enriched when we bond with one another .We can bond on the basis of our political commitment to a feminist movement.

To enrich feminist movement anywhere, including India, there is much to learn from hooks monumental works.

(Tanvir Aeijaz The author teaches public policy and politics at the University of Delhi and is an honorary Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Views in this article are personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the views of Outlook Magazine)

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Remembering bell hooks: Political Commitment And The Feminist Movement - Outlook India

2020 was predicted to be the big year the year that sustainable went mainstream.

After all, it had a nice ring to it: the start of a new decade; an era of change. Even the symmetrical structure of the year itself two twenties, striding forth side-by-side into the future seemed to signal the winds of change, that a forward-looking epoch was upon us.

It followed a year of peak Greta Thunberg, widespread Extinction Rebellion protests, David Attenboroughs heart breaking more visibly with each of his series that aired, and the flygskam (flight shame) movement gaining traction. It looked like sustainability was about to go from zeitgeist to ubiquitous, including across the travel sector.

Well, our old friend corona put paid to a lot of the real change we thought wed see two years ago. But now, as we enter 2022 not quite as aesthetically pleasing as 2020, granted, but beggars cant be choosers it looks like this could be the year. Anecdotally, the number of emails in my inbox mentioning sustainable, slow and responsible travel has reached a fever pitch. And, while much of this may indeed be more green-wash than true commitment, theres definitely been a shift in the importance that global travel brands including airlines are putting on emphasising their eco-credentials.

Theres definitely been a shift in the importance that global travel brands including airlines are putting on emphasising their eco-credentials

It reflects the way in which sustainability has crept up the agenda for us civilians, with events like COP26, held in Glasgow in November, and the release of the latest damning IPCC report over the summer, infiltrating the national psyche. A survey by Kantar of residents of 10 countries, including the US, UK, France and Germany, published in November, found that 62 per cent of people saw the climate crisis as the main environmental challenge the world was now facing, ahead of air pollution (39 per cent), the impact of waste (38 per cent) and new diseases (36 per cent). Some 76 per cent said they would accept stricter environmental rules and regulations in response.

Elsewhere, research from Booking.coms 2021 Sustainable Travel Report found that 43 per cent of nearly 30,000 people surveyed said the pandemic had made them want to travel more sustainably in the future.

So, does Neo from The Matrix need to watch his back could 2022 be The One? Lets take a look at the elements that could help holidaymakers get their green on in the year to come.

Slow and flight-free travel

The popularity of eschewing air travel in favour of slow travel has gone from strength to strength. So far, 3,590 people have signed up to the Flight Free UK pledge for 2022 committing to take no flights, or only essential flights (no leisure trips allowed) for the next 12 months. This compares to 5,000 in 2021; founder Anna Hughes is aiming to convince 10,000 people to sign up in the year ahead.

Even though Covid is still very much with us, and travel of all kinds is difficult, people are keen to show that they are staying grounded for the climate, she tells The Independent. There has been a growing awareness in the past few years of the environmental impact of our travel choices, and we have seen more and more people signing our pledge because of their concerns for the planet.

Slow travel is gaining popularity

(Getty Images)

And there are all kinds of interesting companies popping up to offer flight-free itineraries in response to demand. Two new enterprises were created during the pandemic arguably not the easiest time to set up shop, but if they can survive that, they can probably survive anything to cater to this burgeoning market of travellers. Byway, a pioneering slow travel planner for flight-free trips, launched in 2020. Each multi-stop trip is personalised for the holidaymaker, and optimised for quality of experience instead of speed. No Fly Travel Club launched the following year, offering sustainable rail trips for adventurous souls. The main tenet of each is the idea that stopping flying doesnt have to mean stopping travelling and that, in fact, swapping plane for train can add a massive injection of adventure into any trip.

In addition, Europe seems to be taking the slow travel theme and running with it numerous sleeper train routes are launching on the Continent over the next year or so, offering travellers the opportunity to cover vast distances while they kip.

After 20 months in which many of us were forced to stay grounded and slacken our pace, the idea of embracing slow travel might not be so out there in 2022.

Carbon labels for holidays

Picture this: youre scrolling through holiday options, trying to decide where to book for your next big trip. But instead of comparing the facilities, the number of infinity pools or the size of the breakfast buffet, youre weighing up the carbon emissions of each possibility because the numbers are right there, in black and white, for all to see.

Carbon labels arent just a flight of fancy, nor a nice-to-have extra to be added on at some unspecified point in time: its a trend that has already taken off, and looks set to only get bigger.

Do I think it will be everywhere? I do, Sam Bruce, co-founder of Much Better Adventures, says of carbon labelling. It was the first international travel company to introduce the concept at the beginning of 2021. It should go beyond travel and they should be on all products that we buy; carbon labels should be the new calorie.

Forget designer labels in 2022, carbon labels are going to be the ultimate sustainable accessory

Pura Aventura, another travel company with sustainability at its heart that released carbon labelling this year, has taken a different approach. The UK tour operator introduced labels for itineraries as part of its preparation to become a certified B Corporation the premier sustainability certification only awarded to brands that are legally committed to balancing purpose and profit but it wasnt as straightforward as giving each trip a number.

The complexity we have is that all our trips are tailor-made so we cant say weve got 50 trips and lets measure the carbon of each one, says co-founder and CEO Thomas Power. Every trip is different. You need a live tool so we built it into our database.

Meanwhile, even Google is getting in on the action: the search engine launched a range of new product features to give people greener options when they travel in the autumn of 2021. These included putting carbon emissions information on Google Flights, with travellers able to see associated carbon emissions per seat for every flight and find lower-carbon options.

Hopefully more travel companies will follow suit. Forget designer labels in 2022, carbon labels are going to be the ultimate sustainable accessory.

Nature positive travel

The concept of offering trips that are net neutral or that do no harm take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints, keep nothing but memories and all that jazz has been around for a while. But some forward-thinking companies believe that no longer really cuts it.

Ethical tour operator Responsible Travel has been offering green and conservation-driven breaks and holidays for two decades, but in 2021 year its 20th anniversary founder Justin Francis decided that he wanted to go further, offering trips that actively make destinations better. The brands new goal is to make every trip nature positive by 2030. Just as being climate positive goes a step further than being carbon neutral not just cancelling out carbon production, but actively removing carbon from the atmosphere this travel ethos aims to leave the environments we visit not just in the same state that we found them, but better off.

In this decade, humans have become ever more aware of climate change. Calls for leaders to act echo around the globe as the signs of a changing climate become ever more difficult to ignore

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Fierce wildfires have flared up in numerous countries. The damage being caused is unprecedented: 103 people were killed in wildfires last year in California, one of the places best prepared, best equipped to fight such blazes in the world

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Entire towns have been razed. The towns of Redding and Paradise in California were all but eliminated in the 2018 season

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While wildfires in Greece (pictured), Australia, Indonesia and many other countries have wrought chaos to infrastructure, economies and cost lives

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In Britain, flooding has become commonplace. Extreme downpours in Carlisle in the winter of 2015 saw the previous record flood level being eclipsed by two feet

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Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire has flooded repeatedly in the past decade, with the worst coming on Christmas Day 2015. Toby Smith of Climate Visuals, an organisation focused on improving how climate change is depicted in the media, says: "Extreme weather and flooding, has and will become more frequent due to climate change. An increase in the severity and distribution of press images, reports and media coverage across the nation has localised the issue. It has raised our emotions, perception and personalised the effects and hazards of climate change."

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Out west in Somerset, floods in 2013 led to entire villages being cut off and isolated for weeks

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"In summer 2012, intense rain flooded over 8000 properties. In 2013, storms and coastal surges combined catastrophically with elevated sea levels whilst December 2015, was the wettest month ever recorded. Major flooding events continued through the decade with the UK government declaring flooding as one of the nation's major threats in 2017," says Mr Smith of Climate Visuals

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Weather has been more extreme in Britain in recent years. The 'Beast from the East' which arrived in February 2018 brought extraordinarily cold temperatures and high snowfall. Central London (pictured), where the city bustle tends to mean that snow doesn't even settle, was covered in inches of snow for day

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Months after the cold snap, a heatwave struck Britain, rendering the normally plush green of England's parks in Summer a parched brown for weeks

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Worsening droughts in many countries have been disastrous for crop yields and have threatened livestock. In Australia, where a brutal drought persisted for months last year, farmers have suffered from mental health problems because of the threat to their livelihood

Reuters

Even dedicated climate skeptic Jeremy Clarkson has come to recognise the threat of climate change after visiting the Tonle Sap lake system in Cambodia. Over a million people rely on the water of Tonle Sap for work and sustinence but, as Mr Clarkson witnessed, a drought has severley depleted the water level

Carlo Frem/Amazon

In reaction to these harbingers of climate obliteration, some humans have taken measures to counter the impending disaster. Ethiopia recently planted a reported 350 million trees in a single day

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Morocco has undertaken the most ambitious solar power scheme in the world, recently completing a solar plant the size of San Francisco

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Electric cars are taking off as a viable alternative to fossil fuel burning vehicles and major cities across the world are adding charging points to accomodate

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Cities around the world are embracing cycling too, as a clean (and healthy) mode of transport. The Netherlands continues to lead the way with bikes far outnumbering people

Jeroen Much/Andras Schuh

Cycling infrastructure is taking over cities the world over, in the hope of reducing society's dependency on polluting vehicles

Ma Weiwei

Despite positive steps being taken, humans continue to have a wildly adverse effect on the climate. There have been numerous major oil spills this decade, the most notable being the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010

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More recently, large swathes of the Amazon rainforest were set alight by people to clear land for agriculture

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This decade may have seen horrors but it has led to an understanding that the next decade must see change if human life is to continue

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Adventure tour operator Exodus also has nature positive travel at the top of its agenda; the company has pledged to become what its calling nature net positive by 2024.

Theres an expanding band of travel firms actively looking to make the world a better place through the holidays they run and their growth is testament to the fact that more and more tourists are placing a higher value on booking with a clear conscience.

Sustainable stays

In Booking.coms 2021 Sustainable Travel Report, 64 per cent of travellers said they wanted to stay in sustainable accommodation in the year ahead. While its not always easy to know exactly what that means after all, if a hotel has composting toilets but barely pays its workers a living wage, is it really the better choice? this research highlights that the issue is becoming a bigger factor in holidaymakers decision-making when it comes to where they stay.

As part of its greener travel options launch, Google has included information on sustainability efforts when searching for hotels, from waste reduction and water conservation measures to whether theyre Green Key or EarthCheck certified.

And a new platform catering specifically to travellers looking for more eco digs has also been created: Staze claims to be the planet's first carbon negative hotel platform. Users can filter more than 450,000 hotels by carbon footprint in any city and double carbon offsetting is offered for free on every booking.

Thats it, Im calling it: greener getaways look ready to hit the mainstream in 2022.

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Will 2022 be the year sustainable travel goes mainstream? - The Independent

2021 was a weirdly liminal year for music. Most of the best pop projects this year were retro-skewing triumphs of craft (30, An Evening With Silk Sonic, Solar Power, Lana Del Reys two albums) rather than anything that felt like the future. The left-field New York scene thats producing much of the best hip hop is plateauing. Mainstream rock is still in the slow process of being rehabilitated by former rappers digging around in their middle-school pop-punk CD collections. With Bandcamp Fridays becoming less of a big deal, we arent seeing quite so many of the delightful low-stakes Bandcamp releases we got so many in 2020. There werent even that many consensus albums, which made year-end season a lot less predictable than last years RTJ4/Fetch the Bolt Cutters doldrums. [See Daniels 2020 picks here.]

The most exciting rustlings this year in American music came from the young, queer, experimental underground, and theres a good chance next years prestige indie albums will come from names like Claire Rousay, More Eaze, Lucy Liyou, and Nick Zanca. Its hard to shake the feeling that the 2020s has yet to really start from a cultural standpoint, but until the other shoe drops, here are 20 of the years best albums.

1. Lana Del Rey, Chemtrails Over the Country Club This was the only album I heard this year where I choke up just thinking about it. This isnt because of what happens to any of the characters (though the telepathic exchange between Nikki Lane and Tammy Wynette is gobstopping) but because of how brilliant it is, how much is going on, how well its executed, how boldly it takes risksand the possibility Lana Del Rey will never again make an album I love so much. She has some great songs, but I find her classic-rock references cloying and her attempts at importance unnecessary, and she had no albums in my regular rotation until now. Here, she splits her Statue of Liberty-sized alter ego into a handful of smaller protagonists lost in the transient vastness of the worlds third-largest country, looking for the right vantage point to watch the world end. Down at the Men in Music Business Conference/down in Orlando/I was only 19 says more about how much it can suck to be a pop star than the entirety of the Billie Eilish album from this year. The song whose chorus goes not all those who wander are lost transcends clich by being exactly the kind of sentiment one of the characters in her songs would find apt to print on a wall ornament. Producer Jack Antonoff, who Im starting to like, uses softly brushed cymbals and the muted moan of a steel guitar to make the whole album sound like a nuclear wind blowing over a field. This isnt the most consistent album of the year, but because its the one Ive had the most fun picking apart in my mind, itll probably be the one Ill still listen to the most by the time the world does end.

2. Bitchin Bajas, Switched On Ra Synth-drone band does Sun Ra could be a recipe for freak worship or aimless meandering, but Chicago trio Bitchin Bajas uses the almighty jazz pianists music as a springboard for some of their brightest, most accessible, and most rigorous music yet. Daniel Quinlivans vocoder sounds just as insouciant as Ras favorite singer June Tyson, who instead of acting as a surrogate for the listeners awe sounded like shed been traveling the stars for years. And by interpreting this music on an array of vintage synths (shouting out another forebear in the process, Wendy Carlos), Bajas connect to Ras interest in keyboards both as instruments and objects, specifically the 50s and 60s recordings that included some the earliest-ever use of electric pianos in jazz. Though this pulsing, blacklit synthpop is generally unrecognizable as Ra until the melodies come in, Bitchin Bajas are honest and thoughtful about interpreting the music of an artist whos more widely known than widely heard. This should be treated less like a cover album than as a jazz album that uses source material from a single composer as a platform for a fierce new sound and vision.Anne Guthrie, Gyropedie The most important trend in experimental music this year was the folding of everyday objects and field recordings into diaristic, Internet-savvy, faintly emo music intended to document its creators lives. Most participants are in their twenties or early thirties: an age where time starts to slip through your hands at an alarmingly fast rate and when people, especially young artists, tend to live transiently. Making this music is a way of wresting control over time, and I felt this most poignantly on Anne Guthries Gyropedie, an album made on a journey from the East Coast to the West Coast. No idling cars, no hotel chatter or clatter of plates in roadside diners: just cold mornings, frost on breath, the resolve of getting into a car every day for a long, lonely trek. Whether Guthries move had anything to do with COVID is unknown to me, but I thought of my COVID-spurred move from Portland to my native San Francisco, the deep exhale before entering the unknown for months or possibly years. So why do I find this album so comforting? Maybe because Im happier than I was in March 2020, maybe because I know now that you can bottle the past and take it with you into the future.Grouper, Shade I realized all of the songs on Shade were love songs six hours after I got the edits back on my Pitchfork review, which I regret making all about how ooooh, inscrutable! the record is when what it was really about was under my nose the whole time. But Liz Harriss latest ultimately resonates most strongly for its sense of place. Its acoustic tracks sound like they were recorded in a hotel room, and I Followed the Ocean sounds like it was recorded as she was actually following the ocean. I was lucky enough to get the advance before going to a rave in rural Washington and spending the night awake in a tent in the middle of the woods freaking out. When youre half-awake in a tent on drugs, anything sounds inscrutable, but when I had it on my stereo over morning coffee, it filled the room like a great folk album. Looking back at my original piece, I was right that the album takes her knifes edge balance between intimacy and inscrutability to the extreme, but I was wrong that what shes saying is just out of reach.

6. Joshua Chuquimia Crampton,4 This LA guitarist-martial artist-comic-book creator topped my list last year with an ambitious double-album of solo guitar music called The Hearts Wash, and heres his new mini-album, clocking in at well over an hour across four pieces. If you were to visualize this music, you might envision a film-strip, or a geological timeline, or maybe a strip of colored beads; he meanders from one landscape to another, some lush and welcoming, others rugged and volcanic, each movement of his hands over the strings taking us a little further away from home. 4 is evocative enough that were not necessarily thinking about the fact that this is just one man with a guitar, but we never really forget it either. He puts his whole body into the instrument, the tap of his feet on the pedals audible, strumming with such force that our hands hurt in sympathy, until mind and body are one and were witnessing a crude form of telepathy.7. Parannoul,To See The Next Part Of The Dream What a delight to hear a rock album that goes so out of its way to be gorgeous. The second album from this anonymous Korean project is about how beautiful the world is (its first track is called Beautiful World) and about how its narrator is too despondent and depressed to enjoy it. This theme climaxes in a stunning moment in Beautiful World where the guitar shifts into a percussive five-beat pattern and that frustration becomes physical, as if theyre punching the wall. Though the songwriting is in an emo idiom, Dream is also one of the best-sounding shoegaze albums Ive heard, hyper-distorted yet hyper-compressed, so that its rough edges are shaved off into a square and the songs seem just as boxed-in as their hero. Lots of music has been made about teenage despondency, but Dream may be the rock album that best visualizes the realization that time is slipping out of your hands.

8. Pendant, To All Sides They Will Stretch Out Their Hands Brian Leeds Pendant project brings us some of the best horizontal ambient this year, its 10-plus-minute cloud-drifts curiously blank at first before their creepy little textural details emerge on subsequent listens. It might be the years best comedown soundtrack, keeping interest at chill-out intensity until the middle of the album crashes open on The Story Of My Ancestor The River. Most ambient albums are content to be ominous without a payoff, but the possibility that something scary actually will happen heightens the listeners interest, and we scan the surroundings looking for something that might jump out and attack. My colleague Ted Davis and I both noticed a paranoid undertone in Leeds work, as if leering pairs of eyes are squinting out of the chords and synth pads. To All Sides zeroes in on that feeling at the expense of almost everything else. Its a little too quiet.

9. Claire Rousay, A Softer Focus If Guthries Gyropedie got to the heart of the field-recording-soft-collage-documentary-emo ambient thing, A Softer Focus is its imperial statement and one of the best recent examples of an experimental musician moving to well, a softer focus without compromising their art. Rousay was a San Antonio punk drummer who got into the avant-garde at a young age, and now in her mid-20s she stands astride the scene with this glorious fusion of ambient music, diaristic recordings from her life, found objects, and the Auto-Tuned lilt of the emo-rappers shes long carried a torch for (centerpiece Peak Chroma in particular sounds at once like an anthem and a gentle survey of day-to-day life). A Softer Focus is loving and sentimental with a streak of stoner mischief, and it captures the loneliness of the Internet age without resorting to name-dropping or the awkward shoehorning of contemporary cues. It remains to be seen how it will age, but it might be the album from this year that sounds most like now.

10. Hoavi, Music For Six Rooms I quail to think of the alternate universe in which I took one look at the title, assumed it was a ripoff of Hiroshi Yoshimuras Music For Nine Postcards, and missed this dub-techno gem. But Music For Six Rooms is the best new album in the genre Ive heard since Space Afrikas Somewhere Decent to Live back in 2016. Dub techno is a head-expanding genre with a conservative streak, and its always a thrill to see someone get creative and cross-genre while staying true to the formalism thats arguably a prerequisite. The Topdown Dialectic album from this year might have more sounds that no one has ever heard before, but its more impressive to me when someone takes those mile-wide chords Basic Channel invented and finds new contexts for them. A whole documentary of dub techno history flashed through my head as I floated through its 70 minutes, but Id never heard an album using those sounds that felt quite like it. Instead of rusted and dank, instead of spacious and stoned, it felt soft, warm, diurnal, domestic: Now that I think about it, a little like Music For Nine Postcards.

11. Leather Rats,No Live Til Leather 98 This is apparently an American psychobilly band that was huge in Japan in the 90s, and on this purported live EP you can hear swells of crowd noise comparable to the ones that greeted Cheap Trick at Budokan. Of course, Leather Rats was no such band, and this is clearly a latter-day producer with a taste for misdirection, exploiting the old joke about weird music being huge in Japan against all odds. Whats funny is that this music isnt even psychobilly but a fusion of heavy dub with Suicide/Danzig-style dark-Elvis vocals, which works so spectacularly that Im surprised this is the first example Ive heard of it (if anyone can put us onto more psychodubilly well start a dedicated outlet, says label Bokeh Versions). In this context, the applause becomes a production affectation just like an airhorn or a loon sample, and the hoary old big-in-Japan joke is forgiven because it exists in the service of the music.

12. Jeff Parker, Forfolks Its a treat to see one of the most imaginative guitarists of the last 25 years do so much with just a guitar and a looping pedal. Here, the real-time link between the Tortoise guitarists brain and fingers is complicated by the question: What do I loop? Little vamps, sure, but also long lunar tones made from single notesand moments where hes either not looping at all or is so fantastic at looping we dont notice.

13. Arooj Aftab, Vulture Prince An illuminated manuscript: Urdu poetry dressed up with enough harps and strings to rub the cultural specificity of stripped-down authenticity in your eye like a finger full of gasoline. You dont need to know shes mourning the death of her brother to catch the albums central tension: As the arrangements bloom outward, her voice seems to be digging inward, like a fountain pen jabbing deeper into the paper.

14. Playboi Carti, Whole Lotta Red The preening boy-king of SoundCloud rap speaks in little grunts and squeaks and micro-tics and humphs of superiority over military-grade beats that put so many trebly, trendy dalliances in experimental rap to shame. His character is an insufferable dipshit, but the music is so exploratory and his princely schtick so cartoonish that enduring this orgy of contempt actually becomes kind of fun.

15. Lost Girls, Menneskekollektivet Jenny Hval and her awesomely named collaborator Hvard Volden expand on the philoso-trance of 2019s Practice of Love, taking the track lengths and the potential pretentiousness to extremes. Its Hval going full Hval, tying metatextual knots as sweet chords yield to creepy industrial shrieks, and its so easy to enjoy as ASMR that you might find yourself understanding it (!) before you even know it.

16. Soshi Takeda, Floating Mountains Have ever played a video game and known in your heart that its world doesnt stop at the edge of the map, that beyond those impassable trees and rocks and oceans there must be more to explore? You already understand this album, which rejects vaporwaves ironic treatment of turn-of-the-millennium virtual aesthetics and focuses on how pretty it all looks, how cool it all feels.

17. SUSS, Night Suite The expansive ambient-country visions of New York quartet SUSS have slowly soured and turned apocalyptic over time, and their new EP Night Suite is their most despairing and desolate vision yet. These five tracks, all named for American cities, are suggestive of decaying machinery, abandonment, sparsely populated expanses harboring old secrets. Is this the Dust Bowl or the fall of the American empire?

18. _____, The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid Seth Graham and More Eazes collab album is a tear-jerker. Listen to that monologueabout rock bottom, listen to those bells come in, and tell me they dont know exactly which buttons to push. Such sentimentalism is a relief in an experimental zeitgeist that often prefers to leave us guessing, and though guessing is fun, sometimes I want a punch in the gut to prove my heart pumps blood.

19. Jana Rush, Painful Enlightenment Opener Moanin has us thinking Jana Rushs new album might be a five-finger exercise before throwing us into the tank with confrontational male voices, pained yelps, and what sounds like a girl being repeatedly slashed with a knife. This is such frightening stuff that I can only imagine what Rush mustve put herself through tomakethese tracks, let alone to listen back and mix them.

20. Daniel Lichtenberg, Swan Island Tapes My gig at Willamette Week requires me to dig through the depths of the Portland Bandcamp tag, and this is the most rewarding thing Ive found therein. This ambient EP from a classically trained pianist shows off some of the most plaintive sounds Ive heard from a keyboard, woven into pieces that remind me of the organ in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds wandering off on its own trip.

Bonnie Prince Billy & Matt Sweeney, Superwolves Will Oldhams career has been defined by continual improvement: not just as a musician but as a person, a lover, a provider. Superwolves is his greatest tribute yet to just being good. The production is punched up, the guitarwork from Matt Sweeney and hotshot guest Mdou Moctar proves they practice, and the songs for his kid are as pure and rustic as a handmade toy horse.

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20 best albums of 2021: 'A weirdly liminal year for music' - 48 hills - 48 Hills

(Credit: Alamy / Far Out / Elektra Records)

In The Doors 1971 masterpiece L.A. Woman, Jim Morrison yells the words, Well, Ive been down to god damn long, that it looks like up to me, with the war cry rattle of a frustrated builder who has just found out his jackhammer has been stolen but is going to try and shake the wall down anyway. This wail of the beleaguered disenfranchised echoes in Bob Dylans music too, albeit in a wildly different style, but the connection between the icons is far less nebulous than that.

Jim Morrisons purring words in Been Down So Long were actually plucked straight from Richard Farinas novel,Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, published five years earlier. As if woven into place by fickle fingers of fate, this book almost serves as an allegorical paradigm of the tragic side of counterculture, weaving a few of its most prominent figures into the picture as it does so.

In the novel itself, Farinaevokes the Sixties as precisely, wittily, and poignantly as F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the Jazz Age, according to Penguin. The hero, Gnossus Pappadopoulis, weaves his way through the psychedelic landscape, encountering-among other things-mescaline, women, art, gluttony, falsehood, science, prayer, and, occasionally, truth. The proto-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegasmasterpiece provides a vignette of counterculture and almost prognosticates its demise, as he states therein: This is a nervous little decade were playing with.

Farina wasnt just observing the counterculture movement and rendering it in precisely wavering prose, he was very much a part of it. He was a singer who became good friends with Bob Dylan and even married Joan Baezs younger sister, performing with her as Richard & Mimi Baez. This inner world insight illuminates lines like, The conscience of my elusive race gives not a fig for me, baby. But I endure, if you know what I mean, a certain fateful weight especially given what was to come.

Two days after his seminal work was published, Farina was at a book signing promoting the novel. He chitchatted with fans, discussed the whys and wherefores of the novel and the way the art world was seemingly teetering on the brink of bringing the old William S. Burroughs quote to fruition: Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. When all was said and done, the novelist left the signing behind, jumped on his motorbike and was tragically killed in a collision.

Dylan was saddened by the loss and would later suffer a motorbike accident of his own, prompting him to turn away from the zeitgeist which, as Farina put it, [mistook] induction for generation and reclaimed a sense of spiritual youth, extolling that message that he was much older then, Im younger than that now. Meanwhile, Morrison was stirred by Farinas prose and sad loss in a different way, relishing in the ways of youthful revolt in a splurge of visceral creativity that nevertheless harked back to some notion of the mystic spirit of great old America. Morrison would also tragically die shortly after he uttered the fateful title.

As it happens, even the novel that tied the counterculture icons leapt back into the deep roots of pop cultures past. The phrase Been down so long, that it looks like up to me, actually originates in the old rock n roll precursor of the blues. In Furry Lewis 1928 track I Will Turn Your Money Green he lies his way through swooning a lady with lines like, I show you more money Rockefeller ever seen, before hinting at a darkness with, If the river was whiskey baby and I was a duck, Id dive to the bottom, Lord, and Id never come back up, before the truth is revealed that he is terribly lonely and he purrs out the now-iconic line.

In 1997, Dylan would then bring the loop full circle by lending a verse from Lewis track for his anthemic blues send-up Trying to Get to Heaven which is inspired by both the late bluesman and his old friend Farina. In the song, Dylan rattles with his earthly tones the Money Green line: When I was in Missouri, they wouldnt let me be, I had to leave in a hurry, I only saw what they let me see. And in doing so, he seemed to tie together some long-wavering paths of history that had led culture to a particular point in the ever-unfurling roads of the disenfranchised folksala we might be ugly but we have the music.This connected tale might be one riddled with tragedy but the art it spawned along the way will always endure, if you know what I mean.

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PICTURED: Roger Dean, Relayer, mixed media and watercolor. Photo courtesy Michael Pearce/CLU

by Emily Dodi

Step into The Otherworld at the William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art at California Lutheran University, an exhibit of visionary paintings by artists who imagine the world as another place where alternatives to everyday reality are made manifest, and landscapes, animals, and people are transformed.

On view through Feb. 3, the exhibit features an array of paintings that represent some of the best examples of the psychedelic art movement, including the iconic Relayer by Roger Dean, Rick Griffins famous flying eyeball Jimi Hendrix concert poster, and works by Alex Grey and Mars-1.

The Otherworld is the brainchild of artist and CLU professor Michael Pearce, who guest-curated the exhibit. It started to germinate in my head two years ago, Pearce explains, adding that psychedelic art is making a big comeback. It captures the Zeitgeist of the time . . . and like all great art, it is telling us our own story.

Pearce is quick to note that the exhibit is not about LSD, nor does it endorse illicit drug use. Its about the visionary state, which can exist in many forms, not just chemical. Pearce also adds that psychedelic imagery has been around since ancient times, long before the 1960s brought it to the forefront. Yet it is largely missing from art history. If The Otherworld is any indication, that is about to change.

The art is so strong. You cant ignore it, Pearce exclaims.

One of the centerpieces of The Otherworld is Deans Relayer, made famous as an album cover for progressive rock band Yes in 1974.

Pearce confesses he nearly cried when he picked it up for the exhibit. Its like a religious icon.

The rest of the exhibit is just as powerful. A particular standout is Bicycle Day, a collaboration by Mars-1, an up-and-coming artist based in San Francisco, and Alex Grey, whose paintings are now fetching upwards of $250,000 at auction.

Nuclear Mystics is another work in the exhibit by Mars-1, who Pearce says epitomizes contemporary sci-fi psychedelia. His work is very dutifully gentle and calming. [Nuclear Mystics] just keeps giving and giving. There is so much material there. You can construct your own narrative about it, which Pearce adds is a vital attribute of great art. Art is supposed to be a conversation.

Carl Dobsky, The Gibbering Soul, oil on Linen, 54 x 66. Photo courtesy Michael Pearce/CLU

Indeed, at The Otherworlds opening reception, most people were transfixed by the art. It was a ball, Pearce recalls. It was not hushed and gloomy. It was exciting and fun. That seems to be the extraordinary effect The Otherworld has on people.

While visiting The Otherworld, a wander over to the Kwan Fong Gallery is highly recommended. The gallery is hosting Carl Dobsky: Now Is the Happiest Time of Your Life. Also curated by Pearce, the exhibit celebrates one of Americas finest figurative painters . . . who makes large oil paintings about contemporary society with amazing perception.

The Otherworld and the real world are both awaiting you at CLU.

The Otherworld (William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art) and Carl Dobsky: Now Is the Happiest Time of Your Life (Kwan Fong Gallery) are both on exhibit through Feb. 3 at California Lutheran University, 60 W. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks. For more information, call 805-493-3697 or visit rollandgallery.callutheran.edu or blogs.callutheran.edu/kwanfong/2021/10/27/carl-dobsky-now-is-the-happiest-time-of-your-life/.

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ON EXHIBIT | The Otherworld and Carl Dobsky at CLU - Ventura County Reporter

Gripping New Docuseries Coming to Prime Video Showcasing the Behind-the-Scenes Secrets and Controversies Surrounding Some of Reality Television's Most Famous Families

From Amazon Studios and the team behind the buzzed-about docuseries LulaRich, the new untitled series explores the shocking connection between large "quiverfull" families made famous by reality television and a controversial fundamentalist organization

CULVER CITY, California - December 22, 2021 - Amazon Studios announced today the greenlight of an untitled new docuseries from the award-winning team behind this fall's buzzy and critically-acclaimed LuLaRich. On the heels of Josh Duggar's explosive criminal trial, the untitled project will expose shocking connections between some of reality television's large, most famous large families and The Institute in Basic Life Principles, a controversial fundamentalist organization and homeschooling empire. In addition, prominent commentators, writers, and social media voices will explore the broader zeitgeist of reality television, social media, faith, fundamentalism, patriarchy, and power. The series, in production now, will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

The docuseries is currently in production and is being produced by Amazon Studios, The Cinemart, Story Force and Chick Entertainment.

About The Cinemart

Since 2011, The Cinemart has repeatedly examined and illuminated core issues facing humanity with award-winning programming. The company exposed racial extremism in the heartland with Welcome to Leith, which premiered in competition at Sundance and was nominated for an Emmy. Working with Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, The Cinemart reached hundreds of millions of people, raising awareness for criminal justice reform with Time: The Kalief Browder Story and tracking the inception of the BLM movement in Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story. These seminal projects earned the team a Peabody Award and multiple Emmy nominations and have stood the test of time, frequently topping essential viewing lists for social justice and racial equity.

In 2019, The Cinemart partnered with Hulu to release Fyre Fraud, a true-con about social media influencers and a failed music festival in the Bahamas. A stunt release authored and executed by The Cinemart made the film a smash hit, garnering an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program." In 2020 the company released The Pharmacist for Netflix, which showcased one man's 20-year journey to solve his son's murder and combat the opioid epidemic. The show was a standout hit for the streamer and has since been adapted into a scripted feature. In September 2021, the company released LuLaRich for Prime Video and the new true-comedy examining multilevel marketing and the patriarchy exploded on social media and the streaming platform, becoming one of the biggest docuseries of the year.

Heading into 2022, The Cinemart is developing and producing multiple new hard-hitting projects and the company continues to debut critically-acclaimed documentary events for hundreds of millions of viewers globally. Lauded in the industry as a best-in-class producer and disruptor, The Cinemart is dedicated to premium programming with purpose, growing their factual slate and expanding into scripted.

About Story Force

Founded in 2019 by Oscar- and Emmy-winning founders Blye Pagon Faust and Cori Shepherd Stern, Story Force Entertainment produces elevated, entertaining film and television. The company's first release, LuLaRich, was a smash hit multipart docuseries produced in partnership with Amazon Studios and The Cinemart. Projects in development include both scripted and unscripted programming in partnership with Netflix, Searchlight, and Participant Media, among others.

Prior to founding Story Force, Faust produced the 2016 Academy Award-winning film Spotlight, which was awarded Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. She most recently received an Emmy for her work on Erika Cohn's Emmy- and Peabody-winning 2020 film Belly of the Beast.

Prior to partnering with Faust, Stern received an Oscar nomination for producing Open Heart, a 2013 HBO documentary, and was a 2016 Emmy winner for the documentary Collisions. Her documentary feature Bending the Arc premiered at Sundance and was released on Netflix in 2020. Her scripted credits include Warm Bodies, a 2013 feature film global hit for Lionsgate.

About Chick Entertainment

Founded by award-winning filmmakers Olivia Crist and Lauren Andrade, Chick Entertainment develops and produces dynamic content by underrepresented voices to illuminate diversity both on- and off-screen.

Crist and Andrade have amassed a slate of producing credits across music videos, branded content, and narrative work. Andrade notably earned a co-producer credit on the 2021 romantic comedy "The Long Weekend" which was acquired by Sony's Stage 6 Films. She has also produced numerous music videos, including the video for Grammy Award-winning artist Jon Batiste's song "Don't Stop." Crist's work to date has included feature films that premiered at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, as well as human-centered docu-style content for national brands.

Crist and Andrade had co-producer credits on the Gotham Award-nominated film "Swallow." Chick Entertainment are currently slated to produce independent drama "My Twin is Dead" with producer Eric Cook, and are in development on an exciting roster of projects heading into 2022.

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Breaking News - Gripping New Docuseries Coming to Prime Video Showcasing the Behind-the-Scenes Secrets and Controversies Surrounding Some of Reality...