Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

Tuesday, August 22

A full decade after its release, Hot Fuzz remains just as kooky and cultish as ever; its 10th anniversary gives Alamo Drafthouse ample reason to screen the film once again. In it, top cop Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is so good he makes everyone else look bad. So, after a little shuffling of paperwork, hes off the London force and assigned to the sleepy British town of Sandford, where nothing ever happensuntil peoples heads start falling off. Its a group of cops who find out there is a dark conspiracy, and it becomes a parody of American action films, says the theaters programming director, Robert Saucedo. To add to the fun, a curated pre-show 30 minutes before the film will provide gags and props to use throughout the movie. 7:30 p.m. August 22. 531 South Mason. For information, call 281-492-6900 or visit drafthouse.com/houston. $12. Sam Byrd

Wednesday, August 23

Yoga, craft beer and the breweries that produce that craft beer are all a big part of the Houston social scene. Why not combine all three into one? Thats exactly what Yoga & Hops has done, bringing yoga and beer to a number of local breweries, including Karbach and 8th Wonder. Entry includes one hour of vinyasa-based yoga, which focuses on movement and breath, and a craft beer to help wind down afterward. Yoga & Hops is a chance to do something outside of the studio and maybe bring yoga to people who might not initially be drawn to that sort of environment, says Cindy Agnew, who co-founded Y&H with college friend Angie Currell in 2014. Its a really friendly community setting. 7 p.m. August 23. 8th Wonder Brewery, 2202 Dallas. For more information, call 832-930-0391 or visit yogaandhops.com. $20 to $25; bring your own mat or rent one for $3. Clint Hale

With President Trump making progress pulling out of the Paris climate accord and global warming deniers growing louder by the day, its good to know there are folks whove got our back. When not busy keeping track of the pollution released each year in the Bayou City (more than 68 million pounds in 2015), Air Alliance Houston also helps organize the Houston Green Film Series. Next up is Wild About Houston 2017: Short Films Screening, and its being held, fittingly enough, at the Cherie Flores Garden Pavilion at Hermann Park. Just based on whats going on politically, people have kind of opened their eyes a little bit to seeing whats going on around them. How their lives are being affected, says Ryan Small, communications director. Come immerse yourself in nature, breathe in the (hopefully) fresh air and catch half a dozen shorts about wildlife and ecosystems. Stay after for a panel convo about our regions conservation needs. Co-presenters include Katy Prairie Conservancy, Citizens Environmental Coalition, Coastal Prairie Partnership and Houston Native Prairies Association of Texas. 7 to 8:30 p.m. August 23. 1500 Hermann Drive. For information visit facebook.com/HoustonGreenFilmSeries. Free. Susie Tommaney

Thursday, August 24

Its hard to imagine a world without smiley faces, LOLs or other emoticons that describe our current state of mind. Newest kid on the Houston dance block Group Acorde is premiering a work that explores how technology has become so intertwined with our interactions. After developing a hashtag for a performance last year, Director Roberta Paixao Cortes said the troupe began talking about how we communicate with hashtags, emojis, emails and Facebook, which all fed into the title of this new work: Unemojional. Its a full collaboration. All of the music is original and performed live, says Cortes. She describes their dance as contemporary, though both Cortes and Associate Director Lindsey McGill are classically trained. They also seem to have tapped into the zeitgeist with the timely release of The Emoji Movie. 8 p.m. August 24-25. Rec Room, 100 Jackson. For information, call 713-344-1291 or visit groupacorde.org or recroomhtx.com. $15 to $20. Susie Tommaney

The Wayans are an entertainment dynasty, but how has Shawn Wayans kept his career satisfying? Diversity! Besides starring in and sometimes writing box-office hits like Little Man, White Chicks and the first two Scary Movie films, hes kept his stand-up comedy a priority by hitting the clubs for more than 20 years, a tradition that continues with a weekend headlining the Houston Improv. Stand-ups not easy! Wayans explains. Its never boring, theres always excitement with new people coming to see you. The high you get from making people you dont know laugh is impossible to explain, this jolt of energy. Youll get out of shape if you dont do it youll go from being Kobe when hes in shape to now Kobe with his shirt on. 8 p.m. August 24, 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. August 25, 7 and 9:30 p.m. August 26, 7:30 p.m. August 27. Houston Improv, 7620 Katy Freeway. For information call 713-333-8800 or visit improvhouston.com. $25. Vic Shuttee

Friday, August 25

Imagine a door becoming a see-saw, a 12-foot-tall stone mill morphing into a Ferris wheel or a tunnel that narrows your point of view like a telescope. Now factor in a company of dancers, leaping and swinging, climbing and twisting against these transformable set pieces, and youve got NobleMotion Dances Catapult: Dance meets Design. Husband-and-wife artistic directors and choreographers Andy Noble and Dionne Sparkman Noble agree that it would have been easy to make the five dance works mechanical, and therefore less human, but, adds Dionne Noble, I think music and lighting and the dancers themselves soften the edges throughout, but it is true that these are real structures theres steel onstage, theres a largeness, a grandness to the structures. I think we can only be human against them. 7:30 p.m. August 25-26. The Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For information, call 713-315-2525 or visit noblemotiondance.com. $25 to $35. Natalie de la Garza

The premise is simple: A couple has invited another couple over for a dinner party, but the guests show up on the wrong night. What makes Yasmina Rezas Life X 3 ominous and/or funny, depending on which of the three outcomes the audience is watching, is how protagonists Henry and Sonia respond when theres no food and no way to calm their unhinged six-year-old child. Its not what happens to you, its how you respond, says Trevor Cone, executive director of Dirt Dogs Theatre Co., producing the French playwright known for Art and God of Carnage for the first time. Its a very philosophical yet scientific look at who we are in the universe, adds Cone, whos directing the play. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. August 25 through September 9. The MATCH, 3400 Main. For information, call 713-561-5113 or visit dirtdogstheatre.org. $22. Steve Jansen

Sure, card-carrying designers get first crack at The Houston Design Centers Designer Sample Sale during a day before preview but trust us there are still plenty of couture furnishings to be had for a song. Sheri Roane, marketing director for the center, tells us they keep raiding designer storage areas throughout the event, even Sunday. Its really good stuff; designer furnishings, things that go into beautiful homes and condominiums all over Houston. Look for rugs, case goods, accessories, lighting and one-of-a-kind pieces. Time it right (the early bird finds the bargains), refuel at the food trucks (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.), and attend one of the free lectures about mastering luxury (10:30 a.m. August 25), remodeling tips (10:30 a.m. August 26) and escaping the clutter (11:30 a.m. August 25-26). 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. August 25-27. 7026 Old Katy Road. For information, call 713-864-2660 or visit thehoustondesigncenter.com. Free. Susie Tommaney

The Waiting Room follows the spirit of a Bengali-British housewife who has just died but has three sunrises remaining to eavesdrop on her family and find closure before she moves on to await reincarnation. Her spirit guide? Bollywood heartthrob and legendary actor Dilip Kumar, who reached his peak with audiences in the 1950s and '60s yet remains crush-worthy for Priya even in death.British dramatist Tanika Gupta garnered attention (and the John Whiting Award) in 2000 for this sentimental comedy that takes us through the stages of denial, outrage and acceptance as long-held secrets are revealed. Bree Bridger, who just finished a stint directing for Mildred's Umbrella's Museum of Dysfunction IX, directs this production for presenter Shunya Theatre, a Texas-based South Asian theater troupe. 8 p.m. Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. August 25 through September 3. The MATCH, 3400 Main. For information, call 713-521-4533 or visit shunyatheatre.org or matchouston.org. $20. Susie Tommaney

Anybody who has ever wondered about the glamour of the greasepaint and the prestige of hanging out backstage will think again after witnessing the door-slamming British farce, Noises Off, where everything that can go wrong, does. Playwright Michael Frayn got the idea for the play after realizing that behind-the-scenes hijinks are sometimes funnier than what the audience members are watching, and his play-within-a-play debuted in London in 1982. Stageworks Theatre is opening the season with this classic romp and updating the piece by setting it in 1971, the same year that No Sex, Please, We're British debuted. Costumer Ellen Girdwood has her work cut out for her, outfitting the cast in the groovy bell-bottoms and bright, psychedelic colors of the early '70s. Sean Thompson (As You Like It) directs. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. August 25 through September 17. 10760 Grand Road. For information, call 281-587-6100 or visit stageworkshouston.org. $19 to $28. Susie Tommaney

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21 Best Things to Do in Houston This Week: Deathcopter and an Arts Open House - Houston Press

Kansas City Star (blog)

Steve Bannon is what made Donald Trump who he is Kansas City Star (blog) The impresario of apocalyptic politics gave Trump a grandiose image of himself at a time when the real estate mogul was building a movement but had no real ideas. Until Bannon came ... He was a vibe, a zeitgeist not a platform. Bannon convinced him ... Bannon gave Trump exactly what he cravedWashington Post Steve Bannon, destroyer of worlds: After electing a president, he's back to building a right-wing media empireSalon Steve Bannon, UnrepentantThe American Prospect New York Times all 4,809 news articles »

Original post:

Steve Bannon is what made Donald Trump who he is - Kansas City Star (blog)

August 21, 2017 Seattle; and Los AngelesWhen Shawna Nelson leaves her office in Seattles suburbs, she does what 28-year-olds often do: dines with friends, goes out dancing, or sees a show. Sometimes she hits her swanky gym.

But at the end of the night Ms. Nelson always returns to Dora, the dusty Ford Explorer she calls home. In the back, where a row of seats should be, lies a foam mattress covered with fuzzy animal-print blankets. Nelson keeps a headlamp handy for when she wants to read before bed. Then, once shes sure she wont get ticketed or towed, she turns in for the night.

I still strive to have some sort of routine, says Nelson, who started living in her car about a year ago. Would I rather spend $1,200 on an apartment that Im probably not going to be at very much, or would I rather spend $1,200 a month on traveling?

For her, it was an easy choice.

Shes not alone. As housing costs soar, US communities have faced ballooning homelessness, declining homeownership, and tensions over gentrification. But the rising expense of homes, when combined with the demographic, cultural, and technological trends of the past decade, has also prompted a more positive phenomenon: smaller, leaner living. This conscious shift, mainly among portions of the middle and upper classes, springs from a desire to live more fully with less.

For some it means choosing tiny homes and micro-apartments typically less than 350 square feet for the chance to live affordably in vibrant neighborhoods. For others, like Nelson, it means hitting the road in a truck or van, communing with nature and like-minded people along the way. Proponents range in ages and backgrounds, but they all share a renewed thirst for alternatives to traditional lifestyles like single-family homes, long cherished as a symbol of the American dream.

I think fundamentally it comes down to a shift in perception about the pursuit of happiness how it doesnt require a consumerist lifestyle or collection of stuff, says Jay Janette, a Seattle architect whose firm has designed a number of micro-housing developments in the city. Theyre not really living in their spaces, theyre living in their city.

John Infranca, a law professor at Bostons Suffolk University who specializes in urban law and policy, says the phenomenon is driven largely by Millennials, who have been the faces of both the affordable housing crisis and the shift to minimalism.

Research shows that the 18-to-35 cohort continues to rent at higher rates than previous generations: 74 percent lived in a rental property in 2016, compared to 62 percent of Gen Xers in 2000, according to the Pew Research Center. And while the Millennial desire to not buy homes tends to be overstated studies suggest many want to own, but often cant afford to they do prioritize experiences over stuff.

They arent the only ones. Spending on experiences like food, travel, and recreation is up for all consumers, making up more than 20 percent of Americans consumption expenses in 2015. (In contrast, the share for spending on household goods and cars was in the single digits.) Baby-boomer parents, downsizing as they enter retirement, find that their grown children are uninterested in inheriting their hoards of Hummels and Thomas Kinkade paintings. The same live with less logic has begun to extend beyond stuff to the spaces these older adults occupy.

There is some cultural demand for simpler living, says Professor Infranca. And by virtue of technology, we are able to live with a lot less.

Its a distinct moment for a culture that has long placed a premium on individual ownership and a keeping up with the Joneses mentality, Mr. Janette and others say.

I think the recession changed the playing field for a lot of people, notes Sofia Borges, an architect, trend consultant, and lecturer at the University of Southern California. Job security, homeownership a lot of that went out the window and never really returned. When a change like that happens, you have to change your ideas a little bit too.

That was certainly the case for Kim Henderson, who was a marketing manager making more than $80,000 a year before the recession. I never again found a job like I had [before 2008], says Ms. Henderson, now in her 50s. When they were available, they went to younger people.

Kim Henderson plays with her dog, Olive, on Aug. 12 in her apartment in downtown Los Angeles. Ms. Henderson, who moved into the 175-square-foot unit about a year ago, says downsizing has been good for both her soul and her savings account. Theres an energy you get from purging, she says. I have more money in my pocket and less things.

Jessica Mendoza/The Christian Science Monitor

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Today Henderson makes about $37,000 a year as an executive assistant to a bar owner and lives in the Bristol Hotel, a mixed-use apartment building in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Her studio, which she shares with her small dog Olive, is 175 square feet the equivalent of about four king-size beds. The walls are covered in framed artwork that Henderson collected from thrift shops and friends. An apartment-sized fridge and a fold-out couch are her largest possessions.

Its the same exact lifestyle [I used to live], just with less things and more money in her pocket, she says.

Henderson pays $685 a month including electricity a bargain for Los Angeles, where studios average $1,500. She can save money and still have enough disposable income to eat out and travel, she says. But at least as important is the sense of liberation. Theres an energy you get from purging, Henderson says. You dont need six towels. You dont need a ton of dishes. You pick the things out that you really want to keep in the useful category.

The sentiment is in keeping with a growing culture of minimalism. Marie Kondos The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, which urges people to keep only those things that spark joy, has sold 1.5 million copies in the US alone. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, also known as The Minimalists, have also helped take the notion mainstream with a podcast, website, bestselling books, and documentaries.

There are other forces at play, too. Digital access to resources makes living lean more feasible, says Infranca at Suffolk. Henderson, for instance, doesnt own a car, relying instead on ride-sharing services or her own two feet to get around. And because she lives downtown shes closer to the amenities and establishments she loves.

Its a value proposition, says David Neiman, whose Seattle design firm focuses on small-efficiency dwelling units, which start at 150 square feet. I could live for the same price in a central location in housing thats clean, has internet, and I can walk to work and exciting things. Or I can live farther away, have more space, and its in a secondary neighborhood and I have to drive.

Instead of renting a micro-unit in an urban center, filmmakers Alexis Stephens and Christian Parsons decided two years ago to build their own 130-square foot house and load it onto the bed of a U-Haul. They then set off across the country in a bid to live more simply and sustainably, travel, and invest in their own place all while documenting the experience.

The Tiny House Expedition has since become a thriving enterprise. Ms. Stephens and Mr. Parsons have interviewed tiny house advocates and dwellers across 30,000 miles and 29 states. At a sustainability festival outside Seattle in July, they sold T-shirts and copies of the book Turning Tiny, a collection of essays they contributed to. They gave tours of their home. And they answered questions about building and living in a tiny house, touting its potential as an affordable, sustainable, and high-quality alternative lifestyle.

Christian Parsons stands inside the entryway of his tiny home on July 22 at a local sustainability festival at Shoreline Community College in Shoreline, Wash. Mr. Parsons built and shares the home with his partner, Alexis Stephens, and together they travel the country documenting tiny home communities.

Jessica Mendoza/The Christian Science Monitor

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People are empowering themselves to build housing options that work for them that are not available in the market, Stephens says.

Tiny homes can range from about 100 to 300 square feet and cost between $25,000 to $100,000, give or take. Stephens and Parsons built theirs using reclaimed material for about $20,000, and it comes with a loft for a queen-sized bed, a compost toilet, walls that double as storage, and shelves that turn into tables. For those with more lavish tastes, vendors like Seattle Tiny Homes offer customizable houses complete with a shower and a washer and dryer for about $85,000.

You arent downgrading from a traditional home, says founder Sharon Read. It can have everything you want and nothing you dont want.

Those who would rather not lug around a whole house while they travel, however, have turned to another alternative: #vanlife. The term was coined in 2011 by Foster Huntington, a former Ralph Lauren designer who gave up his life in New York City to surf the California coast, living and traveling in a 1987 Volkswagen Syncro. His photos, which he posted on Instagram and later compiled in a $65 book titled, Home Is Where You Park It, launched what The New Yorker dubbed a Bohemian social-media movement.

The hashtag has since been used more than a million times on Instagram. Vanlifers drive everything from cargo vans to SUVs, though the Volkswagen Vanagon remains the classic choice.

Its definitely found a renewed zeitgeist, says Jad Josey, general manager at GoWesty, a Southern California-based vendor of Volkswagen van parts. The fact that you can be really compact and mobile and almost 100 percent self-sufficient in a Vanagon is really attractive to people.

People like freelance photographer Aidan Klimenko, who has been living off and on in vans and SUVs for three years, traversing the US and South America.

The idea of working so hard to pay rent which ultimately, thats just money down the drain is such a hard concept for me, says Mr. Klimenko. Vanlife, he adds, is access to the outdoors and its movement. Im addicted to traveling. Im addicted to being in new places and meeting new people and waking up outside.

Still, the movement to live smaller may not be as extensive as social media makes it seem, some housing analysts say. Zoning regulations especially in dense urban areas often restrict the number and size of buildable units, slowing growth among micro-apartments and tiny homes. Constructing or living in a tiny home or micro-unit can still pose a legal risk in some cities.

And by and large, Americans continue to value size. The average new home built in the US in 2015 wasa record 2,687 square feet 1,000 square feet larger than in 1973, according to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Living mobile isnt all grand adventures and scenic views, either. Van dwellers say theyve had to contend with engine trouble, the cold and the heat, and unpleasant public restrooms. And Henderson in Los Angeles says she once lived in an affordable micro-housing development that had a pervasive drug-dealing problem.

Still, those who have embraced leaner living say what they might lose in creature comforts, they gain in perspective and experience. In crisscrossing the country, Stephens and Parsons opened themselves up to the kindness of strangers. Its a nice reminder that as Americans we have so much more in common than we realize, Stephens says. They also spend more time connecting with others, instead of closeting themselves at home.

Whether youre choosing a van, a school bus, a tiny house, or a micro-apartment, you get a lot of the same benefits, she says. We need more housing options, period, in America. Weve boxed ourselves in a very monolithic housing culture. Were showing its OK to venture outside of that.

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Why it's becoming cool to live in your car or a 150-sq. ft. apartment ... - Christian Science Monitor

Stephen K. Bannon may be gone, but he wont soon be forgotten.

Firing the chief strategist from the White House will bolster the frayed hopes of Chief of Staff John F. Kelly that he might somehow corral the raging bull in the Oval Office. Plenty of china has been smashed since January, but a few dishes maybe even the prized platter of tax reform could yet be rescued. Maybe.

But Bannon played a role for President Donald Trump that no one else can fill, one that Trump will pine for like a junkie pines for smack. The impresario of apocalyptic politics gave Trump a grandiose image of himself at a time when the real estate mogul was building a movement but had no real ideas.

Until Bannon came along, Trump was a political smorgasbord. He had been a Democrat, an independent and a Republican. He had been pro-choice and anti-abortion. He did business in the Middle East and tweeted about a Muslim ban. As for deep policy debates, he really couldnt be bothered. He was a vibe, a zeitgeist not a platform.

Bannon convinced him that he was something more than a political neophyte with great instincts and perfect timing. Bannon painted a picture of Trump as a world-historical force, the revolutionary leader of a new political order, as the strategist told Time magazine earlier this year.

Under the influence of a pair of generational theorists, William Strauss and Neil Howe, Bannon conceives of American history as a repeating cycle of four phases. A generation struggles with an existential crisis: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II. The next generation builds institutions to prevent a future crisis. The next generation rebels against the institutions, leading to a Fourth Turning, in which the next crisis comes.

Believing that another crisis is upon us, Bannon framed a role in Trumps imagination for the former real estate mogul to remake the world. To the list of crisis presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt they would add the name of Trump.

With Bannon gone, the White House might become a place less in love with conflict and chaos. But it is hard to think that Trump will be happy without aides who can paint such a picture for him.

He will be looking for ways to keep in touch with his Svengali, because once youve been a Man of Destiny, its hard to go back to being a guy who got lucky.

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David Von Drehle: Steve Bannon made Trump who he is - Omaha World-Herald

CHARLOTTESVILLE After using his blog and Wes Bellamys Twitter history to make a name for himself last fall, those platforms are now being used against Jason Kessler, the pro-white activist who organized the Unite the Right rally that turned deadly on Saturday.

Articles and conspiracy theories about Kesslers past as a supporter of President Barack Obama and wannabe liberal activist who participated in the Occupy movement abound now as President Donald Trump continues facing backlash for his response to the rally that resulted in one woman, as well as two state police officers in a separate incident, dying.

On Monday, Kessler uploaded a video hoping to dispel rumors that he intentionally organized a violent rally that would reflect poorly on the so-called alt-right movement of white nationalists. He accused the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as less extreme nationalists, of spreading misinformation about him.

Earlier this summer, the SPLC labeled Kessler a white nationalist, and wrote a profile about him that included assertions that some people on white nationalist forums have been questioning his ideological pedigree.

I grew up in Charlottesville. Anybody whos seen the way Charlottesville was this weekend understands that its an incredibly left-wing, commie town, Kessler, 33, said in a video he posted online Monday.

Kessler said that he used to align himself with the citys politically left-leaning residents, but went on to say he was red-pilled about three years ago.

The term is a reference to the film The Matrix, and has been used by alt-right followers as a way to describe someone who has taken to white identitarian issues and now rejects ideas such as multiculturalism, feminism and political correctness. Critics argue that attachment to white identitarianism is nothing more than a veil for white supremacist beliefs.

But old tweets, a neighbor, a liberal activist and some of Kesslers old friends attest that he held strong liberal convictions just a few years ago.

In a series of tweets in November, Kessler said many alt-right followers are former liberals, and that he previously voted for Democrats. He said he voted for Trump in the primary and the general election.

I like Trump more than I did Obama, he wrote on Nov. 6. My Trump enthusiasm is through the roof. I like people who push the edge.

In an interview last month, one of Kesslers childhood friends, David Caron, said Kessler previously had identified as a Democrat, but became disillusioned when he started thinking that there was no place for him in a party that has focused its efforts on embracing diversity and minority issues. He said the two of them had started supporting Trump last summer and attended one of his rallies in Richmond.

He was a Democrat until last year. The main thing is, he said he felt like the party didnt want him, Caron said.

Laura Kleiner, a Democratic activist who lives in Staunton, said she dated Kessler for several months in 2013. She said Kessler was very dedicated to his liberal principles, and that he was a strict vegetarian, abstained from alcohol and drugs, embraced friends of different ethnicities and was an atheist.

He broke up with me, and a lot of it was because I was not liberal enough, she said. I am a very progressive Democrat but he didnt like that I ate fish and that Im a Christian.

Kleiner said Kessler was well aware that she was of Jewish heritage, and that he showed no signs of being anti-Semitic. She also said he had a roommate for several years who was an African immigrant.

In an interview earlier this week, one of Kesslers neighbors, Zoe Wheeler, said she knew of two different African roommates who lived with him, and never thought Kessler was a racist, even after he started to make waves in the local news late last year.

I met him 12 years ago, before he got really obsessed with white identity issues, Wheeler said. I think he went off the deep end There was no stopping it, and then he was fueled by being an enemy and having something to stand for.

If you spend too much time on the web and youre alone, youve got a lot of guys plying you with all kinds of ideas, she said. You want to grab hold of something. He wants to stand for something I get that. But I feel like hes all over the place.

I celebrate a diversity of cultures, and that was something that seemed to have been a part of his life, too, Kleiner said. I was really surprised to hear the stories that hes changed and is now far-right. Its really shocking and disappointing.

Hes an extremist in whatever he decides to do. Thats all I can really say.

Kesslers ties to Emancipation Park and the statue of Robert E. Lee go beyond the past year, when he decided to target Charlottesville City Councilor Bellamy for his effort to remove the statue of the Confederate general. The rally Saturday was ostensibly intended to be a protest of the councils decision to remove the statue.

According to a woman (who wished to remain anonymous) who was part of the Occupy movement camp in what was then called Lee Park, Kessler was present there for several weeks in late 2011. She said Kessler ultimately removed himself from the camp after activists there started to make it known that his presence was not welcomed.

He was just so disagreeable that hed start fights between other people. He was very manipulative and very aggressive, the woman said.

He wanted people to be more violent and aggressive. He wanted to be the leader of things. ... Even if his politics had been good, I dont think people would have liked him, she said.

The former occupier said Kessler also tried to attach himself to other leftist groups around that time, such as Food Not Bombs and an atheist social club. She said Kessler had attempted to insert himself in those groups and radicalize them.

I dont think he knew what they really did. They just feed people thats it, she said. Its like he got the idea that he could make it into some more militant group.

I dont think he actually has any central beliefs at all not that that makes what hes doing any less dangerous.

Kessler did not reply to messages seeking comment for this story. But essays he published on his blog through late 2015 seemed to demonstrate a shift in thinking. (The blog, Jason Kessler, American Author, recently was taken down. It remains unclear why.)

Last fall, The Daily Progress reported that Kessler published a blog post in February 2016 in which he reflected on the potential of war between different racial groups in the future. He argued that white people would need to fight to avoid becoming a minority in America a phenomenon hes described in recent months as white genocide.

Cultures, tribes and civilizations are meant to clash just as we always have in the past, just like it is with nearly every other beast in the animal kingdom, Kessler wrote last year.

Kessler used his blog to excoriate Bellamy in November. After uncovering a trove of offensive and inappropriate tweets Bellamy had written between 2009 and 2014, before he was elected to office, Kessler used his blog to expose the city councilor and call for his removal.

In his other blog posts that have been archived and shared with The Daily Progress, Kessler seemed to foreshadow his future role in the community and the events that took place at the Unite the Right rally.

I cant think of any occupation that I admire more than the professional provocateur, who has the courage and self-determination to court controversy despite all slings and arrows of the world, he wrote in December 2015 as part of a blog post he updated a few times over a span of about two months his running thoughts.

Also that December, he published his historical perspective on mass violence.

We get so caught up in the emotion of the violence that we dont consider the long-term, historical consequences, he said.

Perhaps wed be happier if we made peace with the fact that rabid animals are going to dwindle the herd from time to time (as they have in much greater volume throughout history) and thats not really a bad thing in the long run.

Regarding large-scale attacks, he said, I dont think the zeitgeist should have an aneurysm every time one occurs either. I think wed be served to draw some historical perspective on how difficult the human condition has always been and how that is something of a blessing in disguise.

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Organizer of Charlottesville's Unite the Right rally described as ... - Richmond.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE After using his blog and Wes Bellamys Twitter history to make a name for himself last fall, those platforms are now being used against Jason Kessler, the pro-white activist who organized the Unite the Right rally that turned deadly on Saturday.

Articles and conspiracy theories about Kesslers past as a supporter of President Barack Obama and wannabe liberal activist who participated in the Occupy movement abound now as President Donald Trump continues facing backlash for his response to the rally that resulted in one woman, as well as two state police officers in a separate incident, dying.

On Monday, Kessler uploaded a video hoping to dispel rumors that he intentionally organized a violent rally that would reflect poorly on the so-called alt-right movement of white nationalists. He accused the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as less extreme nationalists, of spreading misinformation about him.

Earlier this summer, the SPLC labeled Kessler a white nationalist, and wrote a profile about him that included assertions that some people on white nationalist forums have been questioning his ideological pedigree.

I grew up in Charlottesville. Anybody whos seen the way Charlottesville was this weekend understands that its an incredibly left-wing, commie town, Kessler, 33, said in a video he posted online Monday.

Kessler said that he used to align himself with the citys politically left-leaning residents, but went on to say he was red-pilled about three years ago.

The term is a reference to the film The Matrix, and has been used by alt-right followers as a way to describe someone who has taken to white identitarian issues and now rejects ideas such as multiculturalism, feminism and political correctness. Critics argue that attachment to white identitarianism is nothing more than a veil for white supremacist beliefs.

But old tweets, a neighbor, a liberal activist and some of Kesslers old friends attest that he held strong liberal convictions just a few years ago.

In a series of tweets in November, Kessler said many alt-right followers are former liberals, and that he previously voted for Democrats. He said he voted for Trump in the primary and the general election.

I like Trump more than I did Obama, he wrote on Nov. 6. My Trump enthusiasm is through the roof. I like people who push the edge.

In an interview last month, one of Kesslers childhood friends, David Caron, said Kessler previously had identified as a Democrat, but became disillusioned when he started thinking that there was no place for him in a party that has focused its efforts on embracing diversity and minority issues. He said the two of them had started supporting Trump last summer and attended one of his rallies in Richmond.

He was a Democrat until last year. The main thing is, he said he felt like the party didnt want him, Caron said.

Laura Kleiner, a Democratic activist who lives in Staunton, said she dated Kessler for several months in 2013. She said Kessler was very dedicated to his liberal principles, and that he was a strict vegetarian, abstained from alcohol and drugs, embraced friends of different ethnicities and was an atheist.

He broke up with me, and a lot of it was because I was not liberal enough, she said. I am a very progressive Democrat but he didnt like that I ate fish and that Im a Christian.

Kleiner said Kessler was well aware that she was of Jewish heritage, and that he showed no signs of being anti-Semitic. She also said he had a roommate for several years who was an African immigrant.

In an interview earlier this week, one of Kesslers neighbors, Zoe Wheeler, said she knew of two different African roommates who lived with him, and never thought Kessler was a racist, even after he started to make waves in the local news late last year.

I met him 12 years ago, before he got really obsessed with white identity issues, Wheeler said. I think he went off the deep end There was no stopping it, and then he was fueled by being an enemy and having something to stand for.

If you spend too much time on the web and youre alone, youve got a lot of guys plying you with all kinds of ideas, she said. You want to grab hold of something. He wants to stand for something I get that. But I feel like hes all over the place.

I celebrate a diversity of cultures, and that was something that seemed to have been a part of his life, too, Kleiner said. I was really surprised to hear the stories that hes changed and is now far-right. Its really shocking and disappointing.

Hes an extremist in whatever he decides to do. Thats all I can really say.

Kesslers ties to Emancipation Park and the statue of Robert E. Lee go beyond the past year, when he decided to target Charlottesville City Councilor Bellamy for his effort to remove the statue of the Confederate general. The rally Saturday was ostensibly intended to be a protest of the councils decision to remove the statue.

According to a woman (who wished to remain anonymous) who was part of the Occupy movement camp in what was then called Lee Park, Kessler was present there for several weeks in late 2011. She said Kessler ultimately removed himself from the camp after activists there started to make it known that his presence was not welcomed.

He was just so disagreeable that hed start fights between other people. He was very manipulative and very aggressive, the woman said.

He wanted people to be more violent and aggressive. He wanted to be the leader of things. ... Even if his politics had been good, I dont think people would have liked him, she said.

The former occupier said Kessler also tried to attach himself to other leftist groups around that time, such as Food Not Bombs and an atheist social club. She said Kessler had attempted to insert himself in those groups and radicalize them.

I dont think he knew what they really did. They just feed people thats it, she said. Its like he got the idea that he could make it into some more militant group.

I dont think he actually has any central beliefs at all not that that makes what hes doing any less dangerous.

Kessler did not reply to messages seeking comment for this story. But essays he published on his blog through late 2015 seemed to demonstrate a shift in thinking. (The blog, Jason Kessler, American Author, recently was taken down. It remains unclear why.)

Last fall, The Daily Progress reported that Kessler published a blog post in February 2016 in which he reflected on the potential of war between different racial groups in the future. He argued that white people would need to fight to avoid becoming a minority in America a phenomenon hes described in recent months as white genocide.

Cultures, tribes and civilizations are meant to clash just as we always have in the past, just like it is with nearly every other beast in the animal kingdom, Kessler wrote last year.

Kessler used his blog to excoriate Bellamy in November. After uncovering a trove of offensive and inappropriate tweets Bellamy had written between 2009 and 2014, before he was elected to office, Kessler used his blog to expose the city councilor and call for his removal.

In his other blog posts that have been archived and shared with The Daily Progress, Kessler seemed to foreshadow his future role in the community and the events that took place at the Unite the Right rally.

I cant think of any occupation that I admire more than the professional provocateur, who has the courage and self-determination to court controversy despite all slings and arrows of the world, he wrote in December 2015 as part of a blog post he updated a few times over a span of about two months his running thoughts.

Also that December, he published his historical perspective on mass violence.

We get so caught up in the emotion of the violence that we dont consider the long-term, historical consequences, he said.

Perhaps wed be happier if we made peace with the fact that rabid animals are going to dwindle the herd from time to time (as they have in much greater volume throughout history) and thats not really a bad thing in the long run.

Regarding large-scale attacks, he said, I dont think the zeitgeist should have an aneurysm every time one occurs either. I think wed be served to draw some historical perspective on how difficult the human condition has always been and how that is something of a blessing in disguise.

Go here to read the rest:

Organizer of Charlottesville's Unite the Right rally described as onetime wannabe liberal activist - Richmond.com

California rappers live in their own, sovereign hip-hop republic, one thatsave for the occasional Kendrick Lamar or YGcan seem as foreign to the rest of the United States as the U.K.s grime music. In California, the songs are bouncier, and yet the rappers are far more intimidating; gangs have a real hold over the music. To a mainstream rap fans ears, the lingo and geography of California hip-hop songwriting is, at times, indecipherable.

But Mozzy, a 30-year-old street rapper from Sacramento, is making a particularly difficult translation into hip-hops mainstream. His hometown plays host to one of the most varied and exciting rap scenes in the country today, and Mozzy has built a modest national fan base on the strength of hyperactive output and a deadly way with words. His new album, 1 Up Top Ahka term for shooting someone once in the head, neck, and throat with precise aimout Friday, missed its previous, shaky release dates for the past couple of years, lost in a flurry of great mixtapes that spared no quality. There was a point when Mozzy was dropping four mixtapes per year without spreading himself thin. Mozzys tough talks duets mixtape, Dreadlocks and Headshots, recorded with South Florida rapper Gunplay and released in May, marked a second phase of his national come-up; three months later, 1 Up Top Ahk is his solo confirmation.

Still, Mozzy continues to work mostly with his local crew of rappers such as Philthy Rich, E Mozzy (Mozzys brother), Celly Ru, and Show Banga; and his longtime producer JuneOnnaBeat, who, since 2012, has helped craft Mozzys dark and quarrelsome sound. Indeed, Mozzy carries himself with the knuckleheaded disposition of your typical legit gangsterturned-rapper. On his home turf, he has fought with the incarcerated Sacramento rapper Lavish D. and regional godfathers C-Bo and Brotha Lynch Hung. Beyond Northern California, Mozzy has faced some difficulty achieving the crossover appeal of, say, 21 Savagean Atlanta street rapper whose subdued, zonked-out delivery is more in line with hip-hops zeitgeist than Mozzys full-throated barking, and whose trap production is an easier mainstream sell than Mozzys dark Sactown bounce. Mozzy doesnt sing. He doesnt mosh. He doesnt dye his dreads, nor is he a particularly fashionable dresser. He doesnt spill romantic confessions and catharsis left and right. Mozzy is too tightly wound for all that.

And Mozzy doesnt take too kindly to these trends among his Eastern contemporaries. In June, XXL published its 2017 freshman class magazine cover, featuring 21 Savage, Lil Yachty, and a few other stars of the so-called mumble rap movement. Two months before the cover had even dropped, Mozzy anticipated his exclusion from the list with the release of a song called Dear XXL, in which he made the case that shady record-label politics blocked the rap magazine from celebrating his independent success. I see progression when I look at the mirror, Mozzy raps. Look at your magazine and all the freshmen is queers. In a year when Mozzy finally seems destined to achieve real national traction, hes chosen alienation, instead of assimilation, as his manner of distinction.

Mozzy fits awkwardly into conversations about modern hip-hop. He is a traditionalist in some ways, but hardly a reactionary. Hes as quick to disparage C-Bo as Lil Yachty is to discount the Notorious B.I.G. And his fondness for codeine, shaky cams, and laser sights is pure millennial hip-hop aesthetic. But he also comes across, on Dear XXL and on 1 Up Top Ahk, as a young man who is too old for this shit. Mind you, Mozzy and Meek Mill are the same age, but where Meek is quick to balance his power rapping with R&B hooks, and his clear 2000s musical influences with Young Thug verses, Mozzy resists slipping into a continental sound. He is so thoroughly West Coast that his even being on the verge of national recognition, despite a lack of YG-sized hit singles, is a small miracle for the genre. His insults aside, XXL may well tap him for the freshman cover next year. (By then, who knows: Mozzy may well be hip-hops future.)

As hyped as its been in the mainstream rap press, 1 Up Top Ahk is the closest thing Mozzy has to a properly nationalized hip-hop record. For a year now, hes collaborated with an expanded cast of guest rappers, which awkwardly but inevitably includes the Bays white boy pop rapper G-Eazy. 1 Up Top Ahk includes significantly stronger and more appropriate cameos from Boosie, Lil Durk, Jay Rock, and Dave Eastall offering dense, hardbody flows over Mozzys whistling, high-noon beats.

Typically, tough rappers will soften themselves, in some form or another, on their retail releases. Meek Mill made his biggest record, All Eyez on You, with Chris Brown and Nicki Minaj. Future made the leap from trap mixtape supremacy to superdom only after a year of singing duets with Drake. Where most of these guys opt for R&B, though, Mozzy sings the blues and channels the late the Jacka, his rap idol, through beautiful groans and aching recollections of violence. On 1 Up Top Ahk, the blues is the sound of a piano at a gospel choir rehearsal on Cant Take It (Ima Gangsta) and Afraid. Its the sheer number of times Mozzy and Celly Ru say cry, or some variation of it, on Take It Up With God. Mozzy isnt repenting, exactly; this isnt his come-to-Jesus album. He still issues threats with utmost slickness. But hes cleaned himself up a bit. Save for a posthumously released, rags-to-riches verse from the Jacka, theres hardly any drug talk from a rapper who has previously dedicated much of his songs to celebrating feats of codeine consumption, and who still frequently features double cups in his Instagram posts. In 2017, Mozzy is a relatively sober gangster rapper who could not be any more out of touch with the zeitgeist than he already is if he tried. His iconoclasm is his strengtheven if it renders him unintelligible to the Hot 100.

Read more:

Can Mozzy's Sacramento Street Rap Translate Beyond the West Coast? - The Ringer (blog)

CHARLOTTESVILLE After using his blog and Wes Bellamys Twitter history to make a name for himself last fall, those platforms are now being used against Jason Kessler, the pro-white activist who organized the Unite the Right rally that turned deadly on Saturday.

Articles and conspiracy theories about Kesslers past as a supporter of President Barack Obama and wannabe liberal activist who participated in the Occupy movement abound now as President Donald Trump continues facing backlash for his response to the rally that resulted in one woman, as well as two state police officers in a separate incident, dying.

On Monday, Kessler uploaded a video hoping to dispel rumors that he intentionally organized a violent rally that would reflect poorly on the so-called alt-right movement of white nationalists. He accused the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as less extreme nationalists, of spreading misinformation about him.

Earlier this summer, the SPLC labeled Kessler a white nationalist, and wrote a profile about him that included assertions that some people on white nationalist forums have been questioning his ideological pedigree.

I grew up in Charlottesville. Anybody whos seen the way Charlottesville was this weekend understands that its an incredibly left-wing, commie town, Kessler, 33, said in a video he posted online Monday.

Kessler said that he used to align himself with the citys politically left-leaning residents, but went on to say he was red-pilled about three years ago.

The term is a reference to the film The Matrix, and has been used by alt-right followers as a way to describe someone who has taken to white identitarian issues and now rejects ideas such as multiculturalism, feminism and political correctness. Critics argue that attachment to white identitarianism is nothing more than a veil for white supremacist beliefs.

But old tweets, a neighbor, a liberal activist and some of Kesslers old friends attest that he held strong liberal convictions just a few years ago.

In a series of tweets in November, Kessler said many alt-right followers are former liberals, and that he previously voted for Democrats. He said he voted for Trump in the primary and the general election.

I like Trump more than I did Obama, he wrote on Nov. 6. My Trump enthusiasm is through the roof. I like people who push the edge.

In an interview last month, one of Kesslers childhood friends, David Caron, said Kessler previously had identified as a Democrat, but became disillusioned when he started thinking that there was no place for him in a party that has focused its efforts on embracing diversity and minority issues. He said the two of them had started supporting Trump last summer and attended one of his rallies in Richmond.

He was a Democrat until last year. The main thing is, he said he felt like the party didnt want him, Caron said.

Laura Kleiner, a Democratic activist who lives in Staunton, said she dated Kessler for several months in 2013. She said Kessler was very dedicated to his liberal principles, and that he was a strict vegetarian, abstained from alcohol and drugs, embraced friends of different ethnicities and was an atheist.

He broke up with me, and a lot of it was because I was not liberal enough, she said. I am a very progressive Democrat but he didnt like that I ate fish and that Im a Christian.

Kleiner said Kessler was well aware that she was of Jewish heritage, and that he showed no signs of being anti-Semitic. She also said he had a roommate for several years who was an African immigrant.

In an interview earlier this week, one of Kesslers neighbors, Zoe Wheeler, said she knew of two different African roommates who lived with him, and never thought Kessler was a racist, even after he started to make waves in the local news late last year.

I met him 12 years ago, before he got really obsessed with white identity issues, Wheeler said. I think he went off the deep end There was no stopping it, and then he was fueled by being an enemy and having something to stand for.

If you spend too much time on the web and youre alone, youve got a lot of guys plying you with all kinds of ideas, she said. You want to grab hold of something. He wants to stand for something I get that. But I feel like hes all over the place.

I celebrate a diversity of cultures, and that was something that seemed to have been a part of his life, too, Kleiner said. I was really surprised to hear the stories that hes changed and is now far-right. Its really shocking and disappointing.

Hes an extremist in whatever he decides to do. Thats all I can really say.

Kesslers ties to Emancipation Park and the statue of Robert E. Lee go beyond the past year, when he decided to target Charlottesville City Councilor Bellamy for his effort to remove the statue of the Confederate general. The rally Saturday was ostensibly intended to be a protest of the councils decision to remove the statue.

According to a woman (who wished to remain anonymous) who was part of the Occupy movement camp in what was then called Lee Park, Kessler was present there for several weeks in late 2011. She said Kessler ultimately removed himself from the camp after activists there started to make it known that his presence was not welcomed.

He was just so disagreeable that hed start fights between other people. He was very manipulative and very aggressive, the woman said.

He wanted people to be more violent and aggressive. He wanted to be the leader of things. ... Even if his politics had been good, I dont think people would have liked him, she said.

The former occupier said Kessler also tried to attach himself to other leftist groups around that time, such as Food Not Bombs and an atheist social club. She said Kessler had attempted to insert himself in those groups and radicalize them.

I dont think he knew what they really did. They just feed people thats it, she said. Its like he got the idea that he could make it into some more militant group.

I dont think he actually has any central beliefs at all not that that makes what hes doing any less dangerous.

Kessler did not reply to messages seeking comment for this story. But essays he published on his blog through late 2015 seemed to demonstrate a shift in thinking. (The blog, Jason Kessler, American Author, recently was taken down. It remains unclear why.)

Last fall, The Daily Progress reported that Kessler published a blog post in February 2016 in which he reflected on the potential of war between different racial groups in the future. He argued that white people would need to fight to avoid becoming a minority in America a phenomenon hes described in recent months as white genocide.

Cultures, tribes and civilizations are meant to clash just as we always have in the past, just like it is with nearly every other beast in the animal kingdom, Kessler wrote last year.

Kessler used his blog to excoriate Bellamy in November. After uncovering a trove of offensive and inappropriate tweets Bellamy had written between 2009 and 2014, before he was elected to office, Kessler used his blog to expose the city councilor and call for his removal.

In his other blog posts that have been archived and shared with The Daily Progress, Kessler seemed to foreshadow his future role in the community and the events that took place at the Unite the Right rally.

I cant think of any occupation that I admire more than the professional provocateur, who has the courage and self-determination to court controversy despite all slings and arrows of the world, he wrote in December 2015 as part of a blog post he updated a few times over a span of about two months his running thoughts.

Also that December, he published his historical perspective on mass violence.

We get so caught up in the emotion of the violence that we dont consider the long-term, historical consequences, he said.

Perhaps wed be happier if we made peace with the fact that rabid animals are going to dwindle the herd from time to time (as they have in much greater volume throughout history) and thats not really a bad thing in the long run.

Regarding large-scale attacks, he said, I dont think the zeitgeist should have an aneurysm every time one occurs either. I think wed be served to draw some historical perspective on how difficult the human condition has always been and how that is something of a blessing in disguise.

Read the original post:

Kessler described as onetime wannabe liberal activist - Richmond.com

A still from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. Alongside Amitabh Bachchans rise in the 1970 and 80s, a group of filmmakers and actors, graduates from Delhis National School of Drama and the Film and Television Institute of India, solidified the parallel cinema movement. Photo: Picasa

Eight years ago, I had called up Dev Anand for an interview. I know him through television, and through laboured, sanitized pop culture nostalgia. The man picked up the phone and introduced himself before I could say a word, in crisp, lilting English, Dev Anand here. I met him a few days later at his office in the clean, affluent neighbourhood of Pali Hill. At 86, he was pompous, as Id expected, but in an elegant way. He seemed like the perfect misfit in the corporate studio era of the Hindi film industry of the time. Aamir Khans calculated, politically correct crispness was the movie star zeitgeist in Mumbai. A star of 1950s and 1960s Hindi cinema, Devsaab talked about nostalgia, stardom and independence, and why he believed 1950s Hindi cinema wouldve been better if the hero wasnt so weepy.

The Dev Anand hero was optimistic and wily, in a stylized way. He projected the optimism of newly independent, Jawaharlal Nehrus India with relish. In the films of the other two stars of the time, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor, the city was often a menacing place, devouring the poor and the sensitive. It was a world view repeatedly and beautifully evoked in the films also of actor Balraj Sahni and director Bimal Roy. In Anands films, like one of his first hits, Taxi Driver, Bombay is a cruel city, but the hero is tenacious and canny. He was a minor aberration in Nehruvian cinema of the time, in which filmmaking was the stomping ground of poetry and Leftism. Balraj Sahni, Sahir Ludhianvi, Mehboob Khantheir works were as much about entertainment as about social commentary. The Progressive Writers Association and Indian Peoples Theatre Association marshalled the talent pool that mattered. The look of a production house such as Devika Ranis Bombay Talkies and Navketan Films, which Anand set up with his director brothers Vijay Anand and Chetan Anand, reflected the ambitions and fantasies of the men who ran them, the film genres they cultivated and the writers, directors, and craftsmen they hired.

The influence of Hollywood on cinemas all over the world was solidifying by then, and a decade later it had started becoming prominent in Bombays cinema. Ramesh Sippys Sholay (1975), one of the most celebrated Hindi films of all timein movie memory as well as cultural studies classroomswas written by Javed Akhtar and Salim Khan like a Western, with Indian characters and provincial North Indian wit. Born a year before its release, Ive never watched Sholay on the big screen, in its 70mm grandeur. But Ive inherited a 3-LPs set of the film. If you must know, listening to Sholay, and not just its music but the entire film, is a Hindi film worship ritual.

In Zanjeer, Deewar and Coolie, one of Sholays stars, Amitabh Bachchan, unleashed the vigilante on screens across India who took the idea of social justice embedded in the movies of Dev Anands era to the streets. Soon, Hindi cinema was Bollywood, a portmanteau derived from Bombay and Hollywood (or Tollywood in West Bengal, from Tollygunj and Hollywood). By the late 1970s and 1980s, Bollywood became a mass machine, and formula became a safety valve for screenwriters. Alongside Bachchans rise, a group of filmmakers and actors, graduates from Delhis National School of Drama and the Film and Television Institute of India, and heavily trained in the stage repositories of Ebrahim Alkazi and Satyadev Dubey, solidified the parallel cinema movement. Realism had no pop or formulaic filter in the early films of directors like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Ketan Mehta and others.

For the post-liberalization, over-the-wedge generation like mine, these arthouse movies were Doordarshan staples. As children, we went to watch Bachchan in the theatres, and watched Ketan Mehtas Mirch Masala and Shyam Benegals Ankur at home, sipping Campa Cola. There was great comfort in knowing and understanding these binary oppositesit shaped in some of us, a kind of movie love that can embrace cinema as an art form, which depends on artistry, craft, moral ambivalence and individualism, and also sink into the song-and-dance, melodramatic pap in numerous and delightfully shocking derivatives of the formula. Its a gift to be this ideal movie loverdisturbed and thrilled by the unusual picture, and cossetted and babied by movies with bubble-wrapped stories in which generations of stars, often from the same families, are in leading roles.

In 1995, Shah Rukh Khan, a Delhi theatre actor and already seasoned in the outsiders struggles in Mumbais film world, appeared in Aditya Chopras Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge drinking Strohs beer, and wearing frumpy international labels. Despite all his flaws, he was an aspirational hero. He was ordinary, capable of the extraordinarythis is what liberalization also promised us. The rise of the Khans in the next decade reinforced the joy and pain of the formula film, but at the same time, the Mumbai gangster film was born through the films of Ram Gopal Varma (Satya, Company, D), taking gangster violence to the citys streets. Since then, the edges of the Mumbai film world, which officially became an industry in 2001, have been soulfully alive with directors who have swerved off the formula even as the centre has mostly remained an algorithm for making money.

As with Hollywood, alls not well with todays Bollywood.

The Hindi movie-making industry is more than 100 years old. It operates out of two or three suburbs of the over-bloated city of Mumbai. It is also a splendid, exasperating clich which transcends class, caste and language. One Direction fans pale in comparison to the Amitabh Bachchan fans who congregate outside his home every other Sunday to get a glimpse of the still prolific, ageing star.

Just like the fate of Hollywoods multi-billion, digitally-engineered franchise films, theres a dull sameness in the way most expensive Hindi movies release with the roar of publicity, and slips into oblivion after a couple of weeks. The Bollywood signature is the choreographed song: sometimes sublime, sometimes just a sorry excuse to swell up emotions. But unlike Hollywood, our producers make money outside of India only from its huge diaspora audienceA Shah Rukh Khan film will rarely not run housefull in theatres of central New Jersey. The success of PK and Dangal, both Aamir Khan films, in China suggests Bollywood could well be our most dependable soft power if consistently interesting films are made and distributed across the world. While Hollywood is spending less and less on stories with complex characters, wit and drama and more on digital wizardry that ensures sensory excitement, in Bollywood reigning stars and a few families producing films and making stars are dictating filmmaking more and more.

Seventy years of films, around 1,400 movies a year, is a lot of cinema. Every corner of India, and now even China, watches Bollywood. We are still a nation of the family movie. In most likelihood, Bollywood will survive beyond 200 years if there are enough upstarts, enough rough edges to balance out its safely walled centre. Defiance, not nostalgia, will make it survive.

Read more:

The binary pleasures of Hindi cinema - Livemint

The title of Kara Walkers upcoming solo exhibition at New Yorks Sikkema Jenkins & Co., even by Walkers baroque standards, is ostentatious: Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to present The most Astounding and Important Painting show of the fall Art Show viewing season! But its the extraordinary press release for the show that has already caused a stir on social media.

The first half of the release is written in the style of an old-timey advertisement for a sideshow attraction. It reads, in part, as acritique of the blockbuster status of Walkers previous exhibitions, such as her 2014 Creative Time installation, A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby.

That35-by-75 sculpture, of a conspicuously naked black women rendered in tons and tons of white sugar, seemed to capture the cultural zeitgeist, attracting crowds and becoming an Instagram sensation during its run at an abandoned Brooklyn sugar factory.

Earlier this year, Walker toldNew Yorkmagazine that she was surprised to find that visitors to the exhibition were just as quick to gawk at her, when she stopped by, as at the mammoth sculpture.

That interview also hinted at Walkers struggles with her fame.Were in too much of a celebrity culture, she said, but at least that means I can be a disappointment to others.

Kara Walker, A Subtlety (2014). Courtesy Creative Time/photographer Jason Wyche.

Walker catapulted to fame in 1994, at the age of just 25, with her show at New Yorks Drawing Center, Gone:An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred btween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart. The exhibition introduced her signature, paper cut-outs in the style of vintage silhouettes, depictingcartoonish scenes of horror and debauchery from the Antebellum South.

Famously, that work attracted protest from artists including Betye Saar, a veteran of the Black Arts Movement whose letter condemning Walkers work askedAre African Americans being betrayed under the guise of art?.

Kara Walker, Gone, An Historical Romance of Civil War As it Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of Young Negress and Her Heart (1994). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.

The new press release preemptively anticipates (or courts) more contemporary criticism, with a tone at once defiant and ironic:

Students of Color will eye her work suspiciously and exercise their free right to Culturally Annihilate her on social media. Parents will cover the eyes of innocent children. School Teachers will reexamine their art history curricula. Prestigious Academic Societies will withdraw their support, former husbands and former lovers will recoil in abject terror. Critics will shake their heads in bemused silence. Gallery Directors will wring their hands at the sight of throngs of the gallery-curious flooding the pavement outside. The Final President of the United States will visibly wince. Empires will fall, although which ones, only time will tell.

Kara Walker, U.S.A. Idioms(2017), detail. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

But the textthen shifts into a more personal and world-weary register in a second section, in which Walker begins by addressing the motivation for the unusual press release itself:

I dont really feel the need to write a statement about a painting show. I know what you all expect from me and I have complied up to a point. But frankly I am tired, tired of standing up, being counted, tired of having a voice or worse being a role model.

Read the full exhibition press release here:

Kara Walker: Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to present The most Astounding and Important Painting show of the fall Art Show viewing season! is on view at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., 530 West 22nd Street, New York, September 7October 14, 2017.

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Personal and Politically Charged, the Press Release for Kara Walker's New Show Is a Work of Art All by Itself - artnet News