Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

I dont know about you, but I gobbled all three volumes of Kevin Kwans gossipy, name-droppy and wickedly funny Crazy Rich Asians trilogy as if they were popcorn. (Really fresh, still-warm popcorn, with that good European butter but I digress.) The novels, set among three intergenerational and ultrarich Chinese families and peppered with hilarious explanatory footnotes, are set mostly in Singapore but flit easily from one glamorous world city to another, with Young family heir Nick and his American-born girlfriend (later wife) Rachel as our levelheaded tour guides.

The final volume in the trilogy, Rich People Problems (Doubleday, 416 pages, $26.95), is here to the chagrin of those who arent quite ready to say goodbye to Nick and Rachel and their irresistible world. (The previous books were Crazy Rich Asians, published in 2013, and China Rich Girlfriend in 2015.) Kwan, born and raised in Singapore but now settled in New York, answered some questions via email for me last week about the novel, the upcoming movie of Crazy Rich Asians (which began filming last month), and his many inspirations, including Dynasty.

Q: Did you always conceive this as a trilogy? (Meaning, any chance of another book in the series?)

A: From the very beginning, even before I started writing the first book, I knew I wanted to make it a trilogy. I knew it would take three books to get the full story out, and though I really need a break from the Young clan right now, nothing is ever definitive and if readers truly want more, they just might get it!

I had the entire story arc of the three books more or less in my head. I knew where I wanted to go with each of the characters, although the journey itself was a meandering one. As I began to write, my characters really would speak to me and take me on rides filled with unexpected twists and turns.

Q: Your footnotes are delightful. How did they evolve?

A: When I began the first book, I realized that there were just so many things that needed translating or further explanation. But I felt it would interrupt the flow to put them into the text, so I tried experimenting with footnotes. In the beginning, the footnotes were very formal and a bit dry. So I started trying to make them more humorous, and the idea really took shape. I should note that the voice of the footnotes isnt me its actually all done in (Nicks cousin) Olivers voice!

Q: I love big family sagas, complete with family trees to keep everyone straight. Do you have any favorites in that genre that inspired you?

A: I love Anthony Trollopes Dr. Thorne and his Palliser Series, Evelyn Waughs Brideshead Revisited, as well as everything Jane Austen has written. I have to admit that being a child of the 80s, I was also inspired by family sagas on TV: Dynasty, Falcon Crest and more recently Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones!

Q: Whats been the reaction from your family in Singapore?

A: Each of my characters is inspired by many people sometimes a mix of family, friends and people Ive just observed over the years. My family in Singapore is so big and sprawling; the reactions have been so diverse. Some love my books, some are completely baffled by them, and one relative actually flipped through my second novel, China Rich Girlfriend, as if it was a rotting piece of fish and said, Kevin, I cant think of anyone in Singapore who would want to read this!

Q: Youve spoken of doing a lot of nonfiction reading as research. Can you share a few titles?

A: Sure! Forgotten Armies: Britains Asia Empire and the War With Japan, The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang, and The Dragon Behind the Glass by Emily Voigt, just to name a few.

Q: The books are full of amazing details of life among the Singapore ultrarich such as plastic surgery for pet fish. Do you have a favorite from the books? Are any of them made up?

A: I love all my crazy details, so its really hard to play favorites. One detail I do love in the new book concerns the two Thai aristocrats that married into Catherine Young Aakaras family (Nicks aunt who lives in Thailand): Its mentioned that the two ladies only eat shellfish, and this was directly inspired by a story a chef once told me about having to prepare an entire meal for a Thai princess whose entire diet consisted of shellfish. NOTHING is made up In my books!

Q: I would like to be Astrid (Nicks glamorous, preternaturally poised cousin). Thats not really a question, just a statement.

A: Not only do I get (that) all the time, I get sent poetry and artwork inspired by Astrid from her fans, and Im told that quite a few women in Singapore and Hong Kong have gone around claiming to be the inspiration for Astrid!

Q: Tell me about the movie! (Fun fact: Screenwriter Pete Chiarelli is a Tacoma native and a University of Washington alum.)

A: I did everything I could to be helpful to Pete as he worked on the script. I think hes done a fabulous job!

Ive been involved in almost every aspect of the film from the very beginning I first worked with the producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson of Color Force to select the screenwriter that would adapt the book into a script, and then we focused on finding the perfect director to make the film. After Jon M. Chu came on board, we went into full casting mode and then very quickly into production. Since then Ive worked with the costume designer Mary Vogt and the production designer Nelson Coates, and its all been so exciting. I think very few authors have been as involved in the film adaptation of their book as I have, and I feel very lucky to have had this experience. Everyone involved is so brilliant, and Im thrilled by the way theyre bringing the book to life on screen.

Q: This movie seems to be arriving at exactly the right moment in the zeitgeist for Asian performers in Hollywood. Do you think theres extra pressure because of that?

A: Certainly. There really seems to be a whole movement behind this film and its become a symbol of hope not just for Asian performers, but for Asian communities all over the world. I think everyone working on this film from Jon to the actors to everyone on our incredible crew feels that sense of excitement and expectation, and its really inspiring everyone to give that much of themselves to the movie. I think audiences are going to be crazy happy with the results!

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A Q-and-A with Kevin Kwan, of 'Crazy Rich Asians' fame - The Missoulian

ERBIL, Iraq Here in the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, the mood is "Kurdistan First" with the announcement of a referendum on independence in September. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, it's "Saudi First," as a brash young crown prince steers the kingdom toward a more assertive role in the region. In Moscow, where I visited a few weeks ago, it's "Russia First," with a vengeance. And so it goes, around most of the world.

The politics of national self-interest is on steroids these days. For global leaders, it's the "me" moment. The nearly universal slogan among countries that might once have acted with more restraint seems to be: "Go for it."

The prime catalyst of this global movement of self-assertion is, obviously, President Donald Trump. From early in his 2016 campaign, he proclaimed his vision of "America First" in which the interests of the United States and its companies and workers would prevail over international obligations.

Trump has waffled on many of his commitments since becoming president, but not "America First." He withdrew from the Paris agreement on climate change and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to name two multinational accords that Trump decided harmed American interests, or at least those of his political supporters.

Trump's critics, including me, have been arguing that this selfish stance is actually weakening America by shredding the network of global alliances and institutions on which U.S. power has rested. But let's put aside this issue of self-inflicted wounds and focus instead on what happens when other leaders decide to emulate Trump's disdain for traditional limits on the exercise of power.

Nobody wants to seem like a chump in Trump world. When the leader of the global system proclaims that he won't be bound by foreign restraints, the spirit becomes infectious. Call the global zeitgeist what you will: The new realism. Eyes on the prize. Winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing.

Middle East leaders have been notably more aggressive in asserting their own versions of national interest. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates defied pleas from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to stop escalating their blockade against Qatar for allegedly supporting extremism. Their argument was simple self-interest: If Qatar wants to ally with the Gulf Arabs, then it must accept our rules. Otherwise, Qatar is out.

For the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan, the issue has been whether to wait on their dream of independence. They decided to go ahead with their referendum, despite worries among top U.S. officials that it could upset American efforts to hold Iraq together and thereby destabilize the region. The implicit Kurdish answer: That's not our problem. We need to do what's right for our people.

Trump has at least been consistent. His aides cite a benchmark speech he made April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, in which he offered an early systematic "America First" pitch. He argued that the country had been blundering around the world with half-baked, do-gooder schemes "since the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union."

Trump explained: "It all began with a dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western democracy. We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed."

What's interesting is that this same basic critique has been made, almost word for word, by Russian President Vladimir Putin. That's not a conspiracy-minded argument that Trump is Putin's man, but simply an observation that our president embraces the same raw cynicism about values-based foreign policy as does the leader of Russia. (It's an interesting footnote, by the way, that in the audience that day as Trump gave his framework speech was Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak).

Who are the outliers in this me-first world? Perhaps the Europeans. Despite body blows to the European Union over the past few years, France and Germany, the two dominant players, retain the conviction that their destinies involve something larger than national self-interest. Fear and nationalism have shaken Europe, but not overwhelmed it. An enlightened center is holding at Europe's core.

China, too, manages to retain the image that it stands for something larger than itself, with its "One Belt, One Road" rhetoric of Chinese-led interdependence. The question, as Harvard's Graham Allison argues in his provocative new book, "Destined for War," is whether the expanding Chinese hegemon will collide with the retreating American one.

The politics of selfishness may seem inevitable in Trump world. But by definition, it can't produce a global system. That's its fatal flaw.

David Ignatius is a Washington Post columnist. Email him at davidignatius@washpost.com.

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The global politics of selfishness: David Ignatius - GoErie.com

WWE Superstar Power Rankings: Goodness Gracious, Great Ball(s) of LaVar! by Michael Whitlow

NBA Free Agency 2017: 5 offseason targets for the Los Angeles Clippers by Akash Anavarathan

After months of looking for work, Colin Kaepernick remains unemployed. At this juncture, the only logical conclusion is a blackballing from the NFL.

The Colin Kaepernick saga and saga is putting it nicely has disintegrated to a point at whichthe NFLs underbelly of ugliness can no longer be camouflaged. The past week alone has produced a new round of rationales for Kaepernicks unemployment so reeking of desperation they have actually helped bring the truth into focus: Kaepernick is being blackballed because it turns out that in the NFLs cesspool of criminals, individualized politicization not aligned with league culture is the worst crime of them all.

Yahoo!s Dan Wetzel, a typically brilliant columnist, suggested Kaapernick isnt dedicated to being a football player in part because he doesnt have enough football content on his personal website, Kaepernick7.com. The pieces headline, Kaepernick is making his choice: Activism over the NFL, is particularly disheartening because it rightfully assumes that in the NFL, a player must choose.

The MMQBs Albert Breer echoed the notion Kap lacks allegiance to the NFL, at least according to an anonymous 49ers source. Breer suggested Kaepernick should publicly state his desire to play in order to prove his devotion to the NFL gods. All of Kaps activism from the $700,000 hes raised for a bevy of charities as part of his Million Dollar Pledge, to the Know Your Rights camps he started to help underprivileged urban kids understand their local resources, to the millions hes inspired actually makes him a liability in the NFL zeitgeist.

There is a faction of the NFL waiting for Kaepernick to hold a press conference and write, The NFL is my soul mate 1000 times on a chalkboard. Of course in that alternate universe called reality, the free agent quarterback is working out 5-6 days a week and directly reiterated his desire to play to The Nations Dave Zirin last month.

Even if naysayers opened their eyes (and hearts) and understood Kaps professional goals, more mud would be slung. There would be more disinformation than the heart is not in football excuse or saying Kaps not a goodenough quarterback. (Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said he should be starting.) Or that hes asking for too much money. (No one knows what hes asking for.) Or that hed disrupt a locker room (His Niners teammates voted him Most Inspirational Player last year.) Or that he wouldnt accept a backup role. (He said he would and visited Seattle that is pretty set with its first-team quarterback). Or that hes not a system quarterback. (Have fun with system quarterbacks Ryan Fitzpatrick, Mark Sanchez and Blaine Gabbert.) Or that hell draw too much media attention. (Um, when did the NFL not love media attention?) But the desperate excuse bank only serves as a Band-Aid as football people serve as a shield for the league.

(Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

Underneath the pile of excuses, each one more hideous than before, lies the dark reality of the NFLs black and white patriotism. Since 9/11, the NFL has draped itself in the American flag, creating nonstop optics to promote the military. Collecting over $700,000 from the Department of Defense, the league created military tributes. But beyond the sheer commercialism of sponsorships, the NFL profited by effectively marketing itself as part and parcel ofour countrys most respected institution. A true symbiotic relationship.

Along the way, the league has not-so-subtly delivered the message that the national anthem and flag are solely vessels for pledging allegiance to our Armed Forces. So even though Kaepernick expressed his freedom of individual thought and kneeled not out of disrespect to the military but to protest the errant state of Americas policing, he committed the ultimate sin. In real life, the flag can mean so many different things to this countrys 321 million citizens from a staggering array of backgrounds, but in the NFL there is only one definition. Abusers of women, children and dogs, DUI collectors, and weapon brandishers all get to litter NFL rosters, but showcasing an ounce of variant politicization will get you ostracized.

The Merriam-Webster definition of blackball is: to exclude from membership by casting a secret vote. Owners may not be actively colluding to keep Kaepernick out of league in that its unlikely they all huddled on a private plane and took a formal vote. But Kaepernick has been blackballed by the leagues deep culture of conformity.

Among a mostly conservative pack of 32 owners there are a few outliers for example, Arthur Blank is a known Democrat who has publicly teased Robert Kraft for befriending Donald Trump. But even the few progressive owners, general managers and coaches are ill-equipped to fend off the implicit biases stemming from the leagues incredibly clear definition of patriotism since 2001. Implicit biases are the powerful stereotypes often gender and race based that impact our decision-making in an unconscious manner.

(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

According to the Kirwin Institute at Ohio State, these implicit associations we hold do not necessarily align with our declared beliefs or even reflect stances we would explicitly endorse. So even if a more open-minded individual like, say, Pete Carroll overtly supported Kaepernicks protest, his unconscious would identify red flags for a candidate who defies expectations of what a football player should be. So when choosing between Kaepernick and Austin Davis, the implicit bias that football players should be apolitical patriots (an oxymoron itself) would present Kaepernick as the weaker candidate despite obvious evidence suggesting otherwise.

That Kaepernick is a quarterback only compounds his situation. Naysayers like to point outthat most of those who joined Kaepernick in protesting ex-teammate safety Eric Reid, linebacker Brandon Marshall and defensive tackle Jurrell Casey, to name a few are still in the league. Well, they dont play under center. One of the many archaic realities of the NFL is how it embraces team leaders who are conformists. The staler the better. Who is the last quarterback to say anything provocative of note? Even the leagues top quarterback refuses to admit hes friends with the president for fear of making waves. Juxtapose this reality to the NBA, where star players and coaches repeatedly publicly discuss polarizing political issues without fear of ramifications, where the commissioner is comfortable dancing on a float during a Gay Pride parade.

Kaepernick has sparked a movement, simultaneously inspiring fellow millionaires and homeless children, professors and students, blacks, whites and yes, media members. As the NFL purports to be a body of altruism, there is no person more appropriate to rally around than Colin Kaepernick. Instead, because the league has the nerve to try and define the meaning of the American flag (itself a symbol!), he has been shunned.

In fact, I just got the following text from a highly respected NFL executive associated with the Jags, Browns, Bears and XFL: Hey, did you hear that Colin Kaepernick doesnt have football sheets on his bed, spent five hours in an art museum, and get this, doesnt even have Hank Williams Jr. on his workout playlist. His playing days are over.

Read more here:

The NFL is blackballing Colin Kaepernick - FanSided

Fox Searchlight Pictures has revealed a new poster for their sports drama Battle of the Sexes. You can check out the retro 1970s-style poster below. The drama stars Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Elisabeth Shue, Sarah Silverman, Alan Cumming, Andrea Riseborough, Eric Christian Olsen, Natalie Morales, Austin Stowell, Wallace Langham, Jessica McNamee, Mickey Sumner and Bill Pullman and opens on September 22nd.

The electrifying 1973 tennis match between World number one Billie Jean King (Stone) and ex-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs (Carell) was billed as the Battle of the Sexes and became the most watched televised sports event of all time. The match caught the zeitgeist and sparked a global conversation on gender equality, spurring on the feminist movement. Trapped in the media glare, King and Riggs were on opposites sides of a binary argument, but off-court each was fighting more personal and complex battles. With a supportive husband urging her to fight the Establishment for equal pay, the fiercely private King was also struggling to come to terms with her own sexuality, while Riggs gambled his legacy and reputation in a bid to relive the glories of his past. Together, Billie and Bobby served up a cultural spectacle that resonated far beyond the tennis courts and animated the discussions between men and women in bedrooms and boardrooms around the world.

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New Poster Released For Battle of the Sexes - 411mania.com

ERBIL, Iraq Here in the capital of Iraqi Kuridstan, the mood is "Kurdistan First" with the announcement of a referendum on independence in September. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, it's "Saudi First," as a brash young crown prince steers the kingdom toward a more assertive role in the region. In Moscow, where I visited a few weeks ago, it's "Russia First," with a vengeance. And so it goes, around most of the world.

The politics of national self-interest is on steroids these days. For global leaders, it's the "me" moment. The nearly universal slogan among countries that might once have acted with more restraint seems to be: "Go for it."

The prime catalyst of this global movement of self-assertion is, obviously, Donald Trump. From early in his 2016 campaign, he proclaimed his vision of "America First" in which the interests of the United States and its companies and workers would prevail over international obligations.

Trump has waffled on many of his commitments since becoming president, but not "America First." He withdrew from the Paris agreement on climate change and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to name two multinational accords that Trump decided harmed American interests, or at least those of his political supporters.

Trump's critics, including me, have been arguing that this selfish stance is actually weakening America by shredding the network of global alliances and institutions on which U.S. power has rested. But let's put aside this issue of self-inflicted wounds and focus instead on what happens when other leaders decide to emulate Trump's disdain for traditional limits on the exercise of power.

Nobody wants to seem like a chump in Trump world. When the leader of the global system proclaims that he won't be bound by foreign restraints, the spirit becomes infectious. Call the global zeitgeist what you will: The new realism. Eyes on the prize. Winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing.

Middle East leaders have been notably more aggressive in asserting their own versions of national interest. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates defied pleas from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to stop escalating their blockade against Qatar for allegedly supporting extremism. Their argument was simple self-interest: If Qatar wants to ally with the Gulf Arabs, then it must accept our rules. Otherwise, Qatar is out.

For the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan, the issue has been whether to wait on their dream of independence. They decided to go ahead with their referendum, despite worries among top U.S. officials that it could upset American efforts to hold Iraq together and thereby destabilize the region. The implicit Kurdish answer: That's not our problem. We need to do what's right for our people.

Trump embraces the same raw cynicism about values-based foreign policy as does Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Who are the outliers in this me-first world? France and Germany retain the conviction that their destinies involve something larger than national self-interest. Fear and nationalism have shaken Europe, but not overwhelmed it. An enlightened center is holding at Europe's core.

China, too, manages to retain the image that it stands for something larger than itself, with its "One Belt, One Road" rhetoric of Chinese-led interdependence. The question, as Harvard's Graham Allison argues in his provocative new book, "Destined for War," is whether the expanding Chinese hegemon will collide with the retreating American one.

The politics of selfishness may seem inevitable, in Trump world. But by definition, it can't produce a global system. That's its fatal flaw.

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David Ignatius: Selfishness rises in global politics | Columnists ... - Billings Gazette

EXCLUSIVE: Fox has set Life And Def: Sex Drugs Money + God, a feature biopic that chronicles the rise of Russell Simmons from the inner city streets of Queens to one of the most influential music/fashion culture impresarios of his era. The studio has set to write it Kenya Barris, the creator of ABCs hit series Black-ish and co-writer of films that include Barbershop: The Next Cutand the upcoming comedy Girls Trip (written with Tracy Oliver). Pic is a co-production between SimmonsDef Pictures and Misher Films, with Simmons and Kevin Misher producing. Jake Stein, Bobby Shriver, Josh Bratman and Andy Berman are the exec producers.

Associated Press

Fox last year signed a deal with Barris and his production company, Khalabo Ink Society, to hatch films aimed at telling compelling stories that pull back the curtain on the parts of our society that typically go unnoticed. Life And Def will capture the rebellious rise of rap and hip hop in America, through the prism of the disruptive Simmons and the formation of Def Jam Records. That label started with rap icons like L.L. Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys and grew to include Kanye West, Jay-Z and DMX.

Its a different view of a zeitgeist movement than L.A-set films like Straight Outta Compton or All Eyez On Me. The backdrop here is New York City in the early 80s, when crime and crack were spreading like wildfire, Gotham City teetered on bankruptcy and MTV was blowing up as disco was dying. Into that vacuum walked Simmons, a young party and record promoter who emerged from hustling on the streets of Hollis, Queens to managing young musical artists who were rapping words to a beat instead of singing a melody, with furious passionate lyrics that burned across ethnic, class and geographic lines and spoke to an emerging youth culture.

Barris is represented by CAA, Principato Young, and Morris Yorn.

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Kenya Barris To Write Russell Simmons Movie About Def Jam Start ... - Deadline

Language is flexible, and definitions can easily turn on a moment or a movement. Change can grip even the most literal of terms: adjectives can go from functional one day to charged the next. Which is what has happened to woke a word that once invoked the state after sleep but this week officially entered the Oxford English Dictionary in its socially conscious, online-friendly 2017 form.

To recap: to be woke is to be sensitive to social issues and how they shape the world we live in, but moreover it suggests that you will call them out, noisily, online and offline. It implies a distrust of elites, imparts exasperation with the status quo, and connotes action and change. The wakeful cohorts tend to be young, and obviously Left-leaning. Incidentally, the term has shades of entitlement: ultimately, you can only wake up to the existence of deeply etched social issues if they havent really affected you much until now.

Furthermore, the term is complicated by the allegation that it has been appropriated from the Black Lives Matter movement. Stay woke became a watch word in parts of the black community for those who were self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better, explains the Merriam-Webster dictionarys blog. Following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the word woke became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement [and] became a word of action.

Perhaps sensitive of this, the OED justified the words addition to this years book with characteristic straightness. By the mid-20th century, it notes, woke had been extended figuratively to refer to being aware or well-informed in a political or cultural sense. Though Urban Dictionarys version is less generous, calling it a state of perceived intellectual superiority one gains by reading The Huffington Post.

Inclusion in the OED signifies a words transition from counterculture to mainstream. And wokes shift has undeniably been in process for a while. But perhaps the definitive moment of its evolution into a buzzword for (gently) entitled modern activism was Brexit.

Just over a year ago to the day, the country woke up literally to the news that we had voted to leave the European Union, and 48 per cent of us also woke up figuratively to the idea that the country was mired in a battle of ideals. The top line, Leave versus Remain, disguised a rather more opaque clash of ideologies which are still being thrashed out, and tripped off a summer of protest and prevarication, led mainly by the woke.

Inevitably, the dismal summer became a dismal autumn, which became a desperate winter, when the world woke up literally to the news that Trump had been anointed President and liberals woke up figuratively to the reality that they definitely hadnt called this, and they definitely didnt know who or what to call on now.

2016 crescendoed into a loud backlash against Trump: the liberal echo chambers roared while the fake news sites catered to the illiberal versions of the same cacophony. Memes lampooned the President and rumours impugned his campaign; zeitgeist television shows such as Saturday Night Live the distillation of woke entertainment satirised his verbal ticks and physical curiosities.

As the year turned, we remained wakeful: in January, women marched in pussy hats, so-called after Trumps infamous instruction to grab women indelicately. Woke boys or, woke baes marched with them, determined to show wakefulness does not discriminate on gender grounds.

It was a frantic few months, although not everything that is political is, by definition, woke. And so when the general election was called, it seemed like it could mark a settled, sleepy period. Certainly, the early stages of the campaign had a somnambulant feel: no one seemed very invigorated by the prospect of going to the polls at all, and many hypothesised that turnout would be abysmal. Politicians seemed only to be going through the motions: the Tories kicked off on a vow to be strong and stable, Corbyn didnt seem to have kicked off at all.

And then, suddenly, the electorate animated. Pundits did not predict it, though if theyd been more sensitive, they might have realised the restfulness of the preceding months was unlikely to fall suddenly dormant. Defying expectations from both camps, Jeremy Corbyn animated a youth base that is typically too apathetic to turn up on election day. It is estimated that turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds was as high as 64 per cent for this election, making it the highest turnout since 67 per cent voted in 1992, and ended two decades of disproportionately low turnout in that cohort. They had woken up and roared, and in the mean time got in the way of a neat Tory majority. This in turn drove May towards the DUP, and ignited change.org after a Facebook page about how to agitate.

So it is perhaps poetic that, on Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn (at 68, a notable exception to the rule that the woke tend to be young) addressed the unwashed and underslept crowds on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, which is where many bereft Remoaners found out last year that we would be leaving the EU. He quoted Shelley, while the crowd retorted with choruses of Oh, Jeremy Corbyn to the tune of the White Stripes Seven Nation Army.

In a year, the woke have acquired an official conference, a protest song and a namecheck in the Oxford English Dictionary. No ones sleeping for the foreseeable future.

@phoebeluckhurst

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Oxford English Dictionary extends its definition of the word 'woke' - Evening Standard

The concept of being "woke" is inextricably woven into the zeitgeist. To be truly woke, you have to be aware of not only current social injustices, but also the historical fight against prejudice.

While probably coined by Erykah Badu in 2008 in her song Master Teacher, "woke" and "stay woke" became closely affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement after the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. That event prompted artists William Villalongo and Mark Thomas Gibson to curate "Black Pulp!" and "Woke!," now on view at the University of South Florida's Contemporary Art Museum.

The two exhibitions are presented in separate galleries. "Black Pulp!" takes you on a journey of African-American history through print media. "Woke!," which features Villalongo's and Gibson's artwork, picks up today.

View "Black Pulp!" first. The exhibit focuses on more than a century of print media created predominately by African-American artists, writers and publishers, displayed in cases, with works of contemporary art from leading artists strategically peppered in on the walls. "Black Pulp!" explores how African-Americans strove, and continue to reinvent the image so negatively painted by whites in the Jim Crow era, and gives a fairly comprehensive history of that struggle.

Villalongo and Gibson did an astounding job culling examples of print from important writers, scholars and artists, and there's plenty of information accompanying each piece to explain its historical significance.

There's a copy of The New Negro, Alain Locke's 1925 compilation of cultural criticism, art and literature. It was nearly the definitive text of the Harlem Renaissance, including writing by Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and W.E.B. Du Bois. The book gave rise to the discussion of self-determination among African-Americans. It includes illustrations by Aaron Douglas, a premier artist of the Harlem Renaissance, known for his African figures stylized in an Art Deco aesthetic. Douglas also illustrated the Harlem-based publications The Crisis and Opportunity (examples of both are included), which featured literature, politics and art, the goal being to present informed images of African-American life in the face of mainstream media's racist caricature of it.

Many of Aaron Douglas' illustrations are included in the show. While he was a prominent artist of his era who was exploring cubism and primitivism at the same time Picasso was, he's certainly not as well known. I'd never heard of him until well into my art history degree, during a class in 20th century art.

The exhibit includes many iconic covers of the Black Panther Party newspaper, illustrated by Emory Douglas, the party's minister of culture. By presenting the book Women Builders (1931), a number of significant histories are revealed. Written by Sadie Iola Daniel and illustrated by influential illustrator Lois Mailou Jones, the book features the biographies of seven African-American women who founded institutions for their communities. It was published by the Associated Publishers, founded by Carter G. Woodson, whose mission was to collect then almost nonexistent written African-American history. Woodson's endeavor is what led to the creation of Black History Month.

"Black Pulp!" also explores the theme of heroes. There weren't many, or really any, examples of black heroes in mainstream comic strips and comic books, so artists had to create their own. The exhibition includes a number of examples of African-American comics, including Orrin C. Evans' All-Negro Comics from 1947. We see the first black cowboy in a comic in Don Arenson's Lobo from 1965, also the first African-American standalone comic book. Billy Graham, who wrote Luke Cage and Black Panther, was the first African-American artist to work for Marvel Comics.

That theme is bolstered by Renee Cox's Chillin With Liberty (1998). The Cibachrome print features Cox perched atop the Statue of Liberty's crown, dressed as the superhero Raje, a character she invented to address the dictated roles of African-American women.

In response to the lack of black superheroes, Kerry James Marshall creates his own in the comic strip Dailies From Rythm Mastr (2010) by conjuring the Seven African Powers, Yoruban gods, reimagined as Nat Turner, the slave who led the famed 1831 rebellion.

The contemporary art portion of "Black Pulp!" continues the conversation. Acclaimed artist Kara Walker's Alabama Loyalists Greeting the Federal Gun-Boats is part of a series she did using illustrations from Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated). She screenprints silhouettes of stereotypical caricatures of African-Americans on them, large and in the foreground. The silhouette of a woman falling disrupts the scene of a crowd of people eagerly welcoming the arrival of Confederate war vessels.

While "Black Pulp!" deals with the representation of the black figure, in "Woke!" Villalongo addresses the physical body. Two graphic pieces use the language of Black Lives Matter and Eric Garner, who died from a police officer's choke hold: You Matter and We Can't Breathe. Each letter is printed on a page from a coloring book of the human anatomy, including the skin, the central nervous system and the mechanics of breathing and swallowing. The need to point out that African-Americans are living, breathing human beings and therefore should matter is heartbreaking.

Villalongo expands the theme of the body in four large-scale paintings called The Four Seasons. Each painting focuses on a black female figure that takes the concept of "nude" to the next level. Through the skin we can see bones, nerves, the brain, heart and digestive system. They're framed in foliage of the corresponding season, bordered in designs reminiscent of Matisse's plant and flower motifs. This was probably intentional, as Villalongo is seeking to reframe art history and Western art by using black women as the subject, instead of the pervading white female nude. He uses the seasons to illustrate the change he wishes to see and also as a reminder of how history repeats itself.

Gibson's pieces in "Woke!" are selections from a previous exhibition he had called "Some Monsters Loom Large." His painting Turnt Up shows a giant werewolf arm, skin ripping off to reveal the furry, clawed paw clenching a fist beneath. It could be interpreted that, like the change the werewolf goes through, so does the awareness of how unequal things really are. When another violent act against black people goes unpunished, the beast awakens, moved to protest. Then the curse ends, and the man wakes up, amnesic. Until the next time.

Gibson's The Last Dance is six drawings of an apocalypse, using animal figures to wage the battle between good and evil. Dog police and skeletons brutalize wolf-men that have been protesting. In one scene they're trampling a banner that just shows the word "matter." But in another, the wolf figure is a cavalry officer on horseback, led by another wolf-angel blowing a horn and accompanied by the same skeletons. A sign reads, "The end is nigh." That this figure is both victim and perpetrator may suggest something about the nature of this American cultural crisis. Artist and critic Robert Storr writes in an essay about this piece, "So if he is 'Everyman,' then every man is his own biggest problem."

The scene doesn't seem to end well.

Contact Maggie Duffy at mduffy@tampabay.com.

USF's 'Black Pulp!' and 'Woke!' exhibits reframe African-American representation 06/28/17 [Last modified: Wednesday, June 28, 2017 12:33am] Photo reprints | Article reprints

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USF's 'Black Pulp!' and 'Woke!' exhibits reframe African-American representation - Tampabay.com (blog)

ERBIL, Iraq -- Here in the capital of Iraqi Kuridstan, the mood is "Kurdistan First" with the announcement of a referendum on independence in September. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, it's "Saudi First," as a brash young crown prince steers the kingdom toward a more assertive role in the region. In Moscow, where I visited a few weeks ago, it's "Russia First," with a vengeance. And so it goes, around most of the world.

The politics of national self-interest is on steroids these days. For global leaders, it's the "me" moment. The nearly universal slogan among countries that might once have acted with more restraint seems to be: "Go for it."

The prime catalyst of this global movement of self-assertion is, obviously, Donald Trump. From early in his 2016 campaign, he proclaimed his vision of "America First" in which the interests of the United States and its companies and workers would prevail over international obligations.

Trump has waffled on many of his commitments since becoming president, but not "America First." He withdrew from the Paris agreement on climate change and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to name two multinational accords that Trump decided harmed American interests, or at least those of his political supporters.

Trump's critics, including me, have been arguing that this selfish stance is actually weakening America by shredding the network of global alliances and institutions on which U.S. power has rested. But let's put aside this issue of self-inflicted wounds and focus instead on what happens when other leaders decide to emulate Trump's disdain for traditional limits on the exercise of power.

Nobody wants to seem like a chump in Trump world. When the leader of the global system proclaims that he won't be bound by foreign restraints, the spirit becomes infectious. Call the global zeitgeist what you will: The new realism. Eyes on the prize. Winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing.

Middle East leaders have been notably more aggressive in asserting their own versions of national interest. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates defied pleas from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to stop escalating their blockade against Qatar for allegedly supporting extremism. Their argument was simple self-interest: If Qatar wants to ally with the Gulf Arabs, then it must accept our rules. Otherwise, Qatar is out.

For the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan, the issue has been whether to wait on their dream of independence. They decided to go ahead with their referendum, despite worries among top U.S. officials that it could upset American efforts to hold Iraq together and thereby destabilize the region. The implicit Kurdish answer: That's not our problem. We need to do what's right for our people.

Trump has at least been consistent. His aides cite a benchmark speech he made April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, in which he offered an early systematic "America First" pitch. He argued that the country had been blundering around the world with half-baked, do-gooder schemes "since the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union."

Trump explained: "It all began with a dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western democracy. We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed."

What's interesting is that this same basic critique has been made, almost word for word, by Russian President Vladimir Putin. That's not a conspiracy-minded argument that Trump is Putin's man, but simply an observation that our president embraces the same raw cynicism about values-based foreign policy as does the leader of Russia. (It's an interesting footnote, by the way, that in the audience that day as Trump gave his framework speech was Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak).

Who are the outliers in this me-first world? Perhaps the Europeans. Despite body blows to the European Union over the past few years, France and Germany, the two dominant players, retain the conviction that their destinies involve something larger than national self-interest. Fear and nationalism have shaken Europe, but not overwhelmed it. An enlightened center is holding at Europe's core.

China, too, manages to retain the image that it stands for something larger than itself, with its "One Belt, One Road" rhetoric of Chinese-led interdependence. The question, as Harvard's Graham Allison argues in his provocative new book, "Destined for War," is whether the expanding Chinese hegemon will collide with the retreating American one.

The politics of selfishness may seem inevitable, in Trump world. But by definition, it can't produce a global system. That's its fatal flaw.

More:

David Ignatius: The global politics of selfishness - Winston-Salem Journal

Despite being written over 30 years ago in a world very different to the one we are now confronted with, the TV show has captured the zeitgeist and it is resonating deeply with audiences thanks to its terrifyfing real-life parallels.

The rise of Donald Trump and that of the far right across Europe have eerie echoes in the Hulu TV show, so too does the latest wave of the feminism movement trying to protect the rights of women against regressive legislation from conservative lawmakers and organisations around the globe.

In fact, after the recent general election and the subsequent coalition between the Conservatives and the DUP - a party who are anti-abortion and anti-gay - it feels as though Britain has taken a step closer to the fictional New England that is Gilead.

For those whove only overheard water cooler conversations about The Handmaids Tale, the show is based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood and imagines a world called Gilead where a totalitarian regime has taken over and subverted women's rights amid a nuclear disaster.

Fertile young women are forced to become Handmaids and wear white bonnets and red robes to preserve their modesty as part of their role. Each of the Handmaids is assigned to a Commander - a powerful older man within society - and is forced to "mate" with him as the majority of the population has become infertile due to the catastrophic environmental fallout.

Mad Men and Top of the Lake star Elisabeth Moss leads the TV series as Offred and we are shown the world through her eyes, including the events leading up to Gilead and the present horrors she lives in.

We've taken a look back at the themes in the book and the TV show, exploring the historical events and references that inspired Atwood while she was writing her novel and how the story continues to resonate today, serving not as a warning but worryingly a forecast.

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Sexual repression:

The Handmaid's Tale sees the feminist movement completely turned on its head as women lose all their rights and liberties, lose their bank balance and become subjugated to a lower class - their wombs and reproductive organs being the only forms of currency in Gilead.

It's something that Atwood was very much thinking of as she worked on the novel and it appears she was influenced by the elections of both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, conservatives politicians that espoused a return to traditional values.

With a conservative revival in the West, there was a fear among feminists that the sexual revolution and freedoms fought for during the 60s and 70s would be undone.

More recently, these stereotypical roles bring to mind the words of Theresa May who recently suggested that they are boy jobs and girl jobs in the home.

Lets not forget US President Donald Trumps own views on women - particularly the abhorrent grab them by the p***y remarks and referring to the menstruation of a journalist because she was grilling him - have sparked a new fear for women's rights.

When the most powerful leader in the world is spouting such values and opinions, the fear is palpable amongst women's rights campaigners and the slippery slope we could be going down.

The treatment by the so-called Islamic State of Yazidi women as sex slaves is another frightening parallel that simply cannot be ignored either.

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The costume of a Handmaid

Handmaids must wear veils and head coverings to signify their place in society and Atwood initially had in mind the Puritans of New England - indeed the outfits look like something from the time of the Salem Witch Trials.

But the dress code of the Handmaids also brings to mind the Burka, which women have to wear in some countries across the Middle East, to symbolise modesty.

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Totalitarian regime & propaganda

Atwood wrote in West Berlin and Alabama in the mid-80s when the Iron Curtain was still very much in place and the Cold War raging on.

She would have been very much aware of the authoritative regime controlling the people behind the Wall in East Berlin by means of propaganda and misinformation.

The rise of the far-right and the authoritarian regime of East Berlin would have been on Atwood's radar but perhaps the biggest influence appears to be Hitler and the Nazis, who essentially created their own brand of Christianity but politicised it and used propaganda to promote their values.

The Kinder, Kche, Kirche policy, which translates to children, kitchen, church, encouraged women to stay at home and raise babies. In fact there was even Nazi legislation awarding more money to those families who had more children.

Gilead feels like it was borne out of these things because it is filled with propaganda and banned material.

The Red Centre, too, where woman are indoctrinated before they are turned into Handmaids, feeds into a regime controlling aspect of its populations lives.

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Anti-abortion

Again, much like sexual repression - Gilead is anti-abortion and this harks back to the panic towards the growing conservatism in the Eighties. But it's something that has come back around again full circle and is terrifyingly relevant.

Interestingly, in a moment of meta-textuality, a group of protesters in the US donned Hamdmaid costumes to demonstrate against anti-abortion legislation in Ohio. It's a damning indictment of the world we're living in now.

Britains is now also run by a government consisting to DUP members who are staunchly anti-abortion, anti-LGBT and creationists - very much a reflection of the values of Gilead and its use of Christianity and the Bible to push through its political agenda.

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Treatment of homosexuals

Atwood was writing during a decade where the AIDS epidemic was at its height and there was moral panic surrounding the disease.

The Handmaid's Tale draws on this as all homosexuals in Gilead are punished either through execution or being sent to the colonies.

Moira is revealed to be a lesbian and meets an ambiguous ending in the novel.

The treatment of homosexuals in Gilead also taps into Christian and Islamic extremism that still exists in our society today - look no further than the hate preaching of the Westboro Baptist Church or the medieval punishments and sick ideology of ISIS.

The Handmaids Tale airs on Channel 4 on Sundays at 9pm.

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The Handmaid's Tale: What are the real-life influences and parallels of the TV show? - Express.co.uk