Boisterous, hop-filled India pale ales have fueled the American craft beer movement and turned it into a global phenomenon. Wherever you go around the world these days youll find upstart breweries pouring American-style IPA, which itself is a radical reinvention of the original, more genteel British IPAs of past centuries.

New England is a hot bed of the style, one of the first regions of the country to embrace IPA and now with its own signature version. New England IPA is intentionally hazy and dry-hopped with nouveau varieties that display tropical and citrus flavors.

There are thousands of IPAs to choose from across New England. But heres our pick of the regions 11 best, featuring a broad range of styles under the IPA umbrella.

11. Melt Away Session IPA (Newburyport Brewing, Newburyport) A rare session IPA that tastes like the real deal. Loaded with trendy Citra and Amarillo hops, it packs plenty of flavor in an easy-drinking package. A perfect summertime IPA.

10. The Juice (Peak Organic Brewing, Portland, Maine) Marketed as a pale ale, The Juice displays all the hallmarks of contemporary American IPA, with 5.8 percent alcohol, 61 IBUs and a deliciously juicy citrus character. Oh, and its flavored with hops grown by small organic farmers across New England.

9. Burn the Ships Smoked IPA (Able Ebenezer Brewing, Merrimack, N.H.) One of the most interesting IPAs in the region, Burn the Ships is brewed with cherrywood-smoked malts, imparting a delicious complexity on top of its distinct IPA hop profile.

8. Keeper New Age IPA (Castle Island Brewing, Norwood) A tasty and crushable IPA that departs from the hazy New England style, but still displays plenty of hop aroma and flavor. One of my everyday go-to IPAs.

7. Santilli (Night Shift Brewing, Everett) I knew the industry had reached an inflection point when I saw Night Shifts taproom packed with blue-collar Bruins fans in Terry OReilly jerseys paying top dollar for trendy suds before a game just down the road at TD Garden. Santilli is the best of Night Shifts IPAs and IPA knockoffs.

6. Sip of Sunshine (Lawsons Finest Liquids, Warren, Vt.) A tropical hop cult classic that, true to its name, pours bright and sunny.

5. Congress Street IPA (Trillium Brewing, Boston, Canton) Intoxicatingly tasty Congress Street IPA, and its more muscular double dry-hopped big brother, each loaded with Galaxy hops, are two big reasons behind the Trillium movement thats swept up Greater Boston beer lovers.

4. Julius (Tree House Brewing, Monson) The top-rated American IPA anywhere in the nation, according to BeerAdvocate.com, which based its ranking on more than 3,500 reviews. Julius is packed with tropical fruit flavors and its made the tiny, remote town of Monson a must-see destination for craft beer aficionados.

3. Steal This Can (Lord Hobo Brewing Co., Woburn) Big flavors, consistent with the contemporary hop fueled zeitgeist. But Steal This Can is breezier and easier drinking than many of the trendiest IPAs, including Lord Hobos own flagship Boom Sauce. Hell, its so lip-smacking delicious, it should be called Crush This Can.

2. Heady Topper (The Alchemist, Waterbury, Vt.) The beer. The myth. The legend. This hauntingly rich, iconic IPA with its distinctive dank marijuana aroma was largely responsible for launching the cult brewery phenomenon here in New England. A friend of mine once scored a $90 case of Heady Topper, but only after lucking into a lottery ticket that allowed him the privilege of buying the beer at a Vermont general store. He was offered $1,000 for the precious stash as he walked out the door. He turned it down. Thats good beer!

1. Harpoon IPA (Harpoon Brewery, Boston, Windsor, Vt.) Nouveau beer geeks will howl at the fact that this crystalline, clean-drinking, distinguished legacy brand tops the list of best New England IPAs here in the era of juicy, unfiltered, overzealous hop bombs.

The reality, though, is that Harpoon IPA is a ground-breaking beer in a league of its own. It reshaped the 7-year-old brewery brand when it debuted in 1993 and, in the process, inspired Americas IPA obsession. Harpoon IPA was the nations first beer packaged and distributed as IPA, at a time when beers labeled as such were found only on premise at brewpubs. Harpoon IPA is still the top-selling IPA in New England.

Read more:

Here are the best IPAs from New England - Boston Herald

Forty-five minutes late, and surrounded by minderswho are frantically negotiating their vehicle through Manhattan rush-hour traffic to its next destinationAndy Serkis is in the throes of a press tour thats just taken him to the couch of Stephen Colberts The Late Show, where he tantalized the Tolkien fanboy with his readings of President Donald Trumps early-morning rage-tweets in the voice of Gollum, and the following day will see him teach correspondent Sara Haines some dance moves on the set of Good Morning America.

He is, at 53, more in demand than ever before, having just wrapped Black Panther and Star Wars: The Last Jedi whilst putting the finishing touches on his ambitious directorial debut, The Jungle Book. And he is such an unrelenting force of nature that, when he recently told The Guardian he has sex four, five times a day, the internet actually believed him (for the record, he was just taking the piss).

Serkis is busy promoting War for the Planet of the Apes, the dramatic conclusion to this centurys most underrated blockbuster film franchiseone thats seen him embody the character of Caesar, an ape imbued with human-like intelligence, from infancy to old age. It is a stunning achievement, even eclipsing his iconic motion capture turn as the aforementioned fiend in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and one that deserves serious awards consideration.

In director Matt Reeves War, Caesar and his clan of apes have been locked in a seemingly never-ending battle with the humans in the two years since the events of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. When Caesar learns that a battalion of reinforcements is coming to help the humans eliminate the apes once and for all, he plans to lead his fellow simians on a journey across the desert to start a new civilization. But his plans are dashed when a war-hungry Colonel (Woody Harrelson, excellent) murders Caesars wife and eldest son, sending him off on a mission of revenge.

The Daily Beast spoke to Serkis about his triumphant turn as Caesar and the evolution of motion capture.

In War for the Planet of the Apes we are treated to a more hardened, battle-tested Caesar.

He is a leader during a time of war thats trying to ensure the survival of his species, but hes still holding on to the hope that he can find a peaceful solution to the conflictuntil the events that happen in the beginning of the movie that spiral him off on a journey of revenge and hatred. And were it not for the people around him, his soul would be lost forever. For me, it was a very personal journey, actually, because Caesar has become more human-like, so his emotional responses are much more aligned to me. I wanted to put myself in the position of Caesar and draw from that. Going from this empathetic leader to this character who is literally torn apart was a huge challenge.

Caesar has ascended to Biblical status in War. There are scenes of him leading his apes across the land like Moses, as well as ones of him tortured and tied to a cross.

We fully intended him to be, for this sake of the journey, the making of the legend of Caesar. If an ape civilization were to be created, you could point to this figure as the seminal figure who brought about their coming into being. Matt Reeves always intended to have the scope and scale of a 1950s Biblical epiccombined with a war movie. And he modeled it after films like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments.

Youve shepherded this character from infancy to adulthood. What was the biggest obstacle in War when it comes to embodying this ever-evolving character?

It was about bringing him as close to evolving to humanity as possible without overstepping the mark. That was the big challenge. From his speech to connecting to his emotions, it was always walking on a tightrope. And for me, as an actor, it was holding the audiences hand and saying, See the world through Caesars eyes, and Ill be your guide. But we couldnt cross over the line to where he was too human and therefore unbelievable. Matt Reeves and I worked tirelessly on the way Caesar communicates and expresses, and I think the scenes with the Colonel were some of the biggest challenges. Its such a fascinating meeting, coming face to face with the man responsible for the death of his loved ones, and yet finding a fascination in himand therefore an understanding. Once he begins to unfold the story of his personal loss, and his personal sacrifice, it meant that Caesar could not let go entirely of his hatred for him, but begin to understand him.

The humans are of course the villains here, and fear of the other seems to be a running theme in these Apes films, which are awash with social commentary.

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Its in their DNA and always was, from the original onwards. Obviously they were dealing more contextually with the Civil Rights Movement in the earlier movies, but theyve always connected to the zeitgeist. When this film was written, which was two and a half years ago, it was way before current political events were beginning to unfold. But like all good sci-fi, it plugs into the ether and is prophetic in that way. The atmosphere was ripe for talking about a world that was careening towards the demise of empathy, where were disabled from feeling or sensing equality with other cultures, people, species, the planet. Its very much a push to the far-right, fundamentalist, Darwinian survival of the fittest mentality that we find ourselves in. Thats what Matt wanted to get at.

In War for the Planet of the Apes, Woody Harrelsons villainous Colonel attempts to erect a giant wall to protect his soldiers from an oncoming attack, and forces enslaved apes to build it.

The film is not topical in the Saturday Night Live sense. The wall thats talked about in the movie, we were not aware that Trump was going to come up with that. But its just in the etherthat sense of putting up a barrier between us and them. If you watched this film in ten years, you wouldnt think it was about Trump or Syria. Hopefully, it would be about whats going on at the time.

Has motion capture acting made you more in tune with your body? And has it made you a better actor?

I think I was always a physical actor. As you probably know, actors have different ways of finding a root into a character, and for me, physicalityand linking physicality to psychologyhas always been important. When a character carries their pain, do they have tension in their shoulders? If theres anger, where does that come from? Is it from the heart? Is it from the head? When performance capture came along, it fit like a glove for me. That said, what performance capture does is it allows you to play the character very internally, too. Its not just physical activity, but how you place your energy. When youre working with this technology, you are both puppeteer and marionette at the same time, so you become very attuned to the subtleties. In the rehearsal periods, you can see on a monitorthats almost like a magic mirrorthat the suit with the dots on it drives a real-time image of the character, so you can very subtly understand what your shifts in posture and movements can do to a character. And thats how you learn to drive the puppet, if you like. You become acutely aware of the physicality in that sense.

How would you compare the experience of playing Caesar to, say, Gollum? And how has motion capture evolved in those 17 years?

This is a combination of things. The cameras are now placed 360-degrees around the set and have all become more robust, allowing us to shoot in real locationsout in the wild, in snow, etc. But the essence of performance capture acting hasnt changed that much over the last 17 years. Rise was a very domestic film that mostly took place in the home or a laboratory, and with Dawn and now War weve gone much further afieldinto the woods, into the wild. Since Gollum, weve worked with Weta closely for 17 years, so they now how my face worksevery muscle twitch, every expression, every flicker of my eyelids. Those have been scanned and analyzed time and again, and theres a team of artists who have grown to know how to interpret the performance that we shoot on the day. The rendering is so extraordinary.

Have you spoken with members of The Academy and noticed a sea change when it comes to the perception of motion capture? Because its about time these performances start getting some awards recognition.

Ive always maintained that acting is acting, and there is no difference between putting on a costume and makeup and playing the role or just playing the role and having a digital mask placed on something you do afterwards. If you go back to the original films, they wore prosthetic makeup and that was the way of doing it then. This is the 21st century version of that. But the acting is the same. Ive always maintained that there shouldnt be any special category or a different way of approaching it. The visual effects awarding bodies will award the great work that the visual effects companies do, and I think the acting branches need to really get behind understanding what performance capture is, which is acting. It is changing. As more A-list actors play performance capture roles, the perception is changing, but I think its important to be fully understood for what it is. That has changed a lot, but it has a ways to go still.

Your character Ulysses Klaue featured quite prominently in the first Black Panther trailer. How would you define Klaues role in the film, and what would you say sets Black Panther apart from the rest of the films in the MCU?

Its a great character. I think its gonna be an extraordinary film. I dont want to discuss it much, since its such a long ways out. As you can tell from the trailer, it has huge vision. Ryan Coogler is one of the coolest directors, and the performances I was witnessing around me were absolutely extraordinary.

Are we likely to see more of Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi than we did in The Force Awakens?

You are likely to see more of Snoke, yes.

And in addition to all these projects, you also are putting the finishing touches on your directorial debut, Jungle Book.

Jungle Book is coming along really well. Thats going to be coming out next year, and it is, as we always intended, a darker version of the storya PG-13 that is much closer to the tone of Rudyard Kiplings book. Its been a crazy year.

Serkis father is an Iraqi-born gynecologist of Armenian descent. He was primarily raised in the U.K. by his mother while his father worked abroad in various parts of the Middle East.

In an old profile, you said that you were much drawn to the karmic possibilities of energy transference. How does that apply to actingembodying these different characters?

I seem to gravitate towards roles and projects that center on the notion of being an outsider. That really comes from my roots: my father being born and brought up in the Middle East and my mother from England, and me having a childhood that was partially in the Middle East and partially in England. I suppose Im drawn to projects and characters that have something about the outsider in them. But I do believe in putting out good energy, and then hopefully receiving good energy. I hold that as a central belief.

Read the original:

Give Andy Serkis an Oscar Nomination Already - Daily Beast

Fifty years ago, 100,000 hippies converged on an unassuming San Francisco neighbourhood, launching a grand-scale living experiment known as the Summer of Love.

To most Americans, 1967 hardly seemed like an auspicious year for a summer of love.

After the first US boots hit the ground in Vietnam, the spectre of conscription hung over every young man's head. On college campuses, students destroyed their draft cards and took to the streets to protest the country's bloody involvement in the conflict.

There was domestic unrest, too, as tensions stirred up by the Civil Rights movements exploded into race riots across the country.

For many suburban young people exposed to these harsh realities, their parents' vision of the American Dream - a land of white picket fences and even whiter communities - began to look increasingly hollow.

Sickened by the Vietnam War and what they saw as a shallow, consumerist culture, these "flower children" pushed back against the idea that the path to happiness was littered with gleaming, white kitchen appliances.

Soon, this subculture developed its own signature "look" - long, untamed hair, bell-bottom jeans, sandals and kaftans - much of it influenced by their interest in Native American culture.

Many experimented with marijuana and psychedelic drugs as part of their quest to reject traditional values and discover a new meaning in life, an attitude exemplified by Timothy Leary's famous phrase: "turn on, tune in, drop out".

In 1967, these aspiring drop-outs converged on San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood, already a focal point for the burgeoning west coast counterculture movement.

When spring break and then the summer holidays rolled around, the ranks of the hippie community swelled by thousands of high school and college students flocking to the mecca of "flower power".

The newcomers slept and lived wherever there was space, often establishing communes where members were expected to work together as equals and pool resources.

By June 1967, the "flower children" of Haight-Ashbury were a fully-formed community of 100,000, with regular food distributions, a free medical clinic and their own newspaper, the San Francisco Oracle.

San Francisco's Summer of Love was a utopian living experiment on a scale never before seen in the US, and its ideology of love, peace and the freedom from social constraints, inspired poetry, art and music.

For many, the anthem of the movement was San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) by The Mamas & the Papas, a bestseller throughout the summer, while others preferred the rawer sounds of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.

The Grateful Dead's Grace Slick remembers that time as "just a whole bunch of people playing music and hanging out and having fun".

"It was pretty much that simple," she told Voice of America.

William Schnabel, who was a 17-year-old San Francisco high school student during the Summer of Love and went on to write a book about the era, told the Los Angeles Timesthat there was a dark side to life in Haight-Ashbury, however.

Despite the utopian vision behind the movement, ingrained prejudices and social tensions reared their heads.

For one thing, most "flower children" were white and middle-class - a fact not lost on mostly black, working-class residents of the neighbouring Fillmore district, where the sight of suburban kids calling for a rejection of materialism sounded hopelessly naive, says Schnabel.

"The Afro-Americans wanted part of the American dream," he said. "They wanted all these so-called meaningless goods that the hippie culture was rejecting."

Women attracted to the hippie movement for its rejection of gender norms and embrace of sexual freedoms often found themselves disappointed, too, according to Schnabel.

"In many ways, women did seem to have a subservient role in the counterculture," he said. Even in communes whose departure from social norms was shocking mainstream America, the lion's share of cooking, cleaning and child-rearing fell to the female residents.

Nonetheless, the San Francisco movement spawned offshoots across America and beyond. Hippie hubs "were blooming in every major US city from Boston to Seattle, from Detroit to New Orleans," Timemagazine wrote in a July 1967 story.

London soon caught the hippie spirit, with the capital's countercultural art, fashion and music scene earning it the title "Swinging London".

Soho clubs hosted daring new groups like the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, while established bands like The Beatles and The Small Faces tapped into the zeitgeist and embraced the psychedelic sounds of the hippie movement.

As autumn approached, the idyll of the Summer of Love started to turn sour, thanks to "an influx of violent heroin dealers into the Haight, subsequent overdoses and, eventually, tourist buses arriving to gawk at the hippies", says The Guardian.

Little by little, the flower children drifted away - many returned to their colleges and schools, taking their radical politics back with them, while some hold-outs decamped into the unspoiled backcountry to set up smaller communes.

Despite its short lifespan, 50 years on the Summer of Love still "looms large over popular culture", says The Conversation.

By questioning every "social, political, economic and aesthetic feature of mainstream Western society", the Summer of Love represented a break from postwar conformity and the dawning of the age of individuality.

Read more from the original source:

The truth about the Summer of Love - The Week UK

Published July 11, 2017

First-time visitors to Icelands capital are often struck by the city planning patchwork that Reykjavk is. Soviet-style apartment buildings, modernist structures and old-timey 19th century timber houses seem to be scattered amongst one another without rhyme or reason. As you might imagine, this was far from intentional. But as you look around the city, what you are witnessing is the citys growth in four dimensions, as the city made its way through struggles economic, social and political, all of which shaped the urban landscape of today. Trausti Valsson is probably Icelands most eminent planner. His new book, Shaping the Future, tackles the issues of planning and design. He took the time to share with us how we got the Reykjavk that we know and love today, for better or worse. We started with this European style, he tells us, referring to the Danish timber houses you find downtown. But we soon discovered that we needed more space, such as for the university and other institutions. After World War II, the expansion of Reykjavk really took off. There was a plan made in 1948 that was too grand in scale.

Out with the old, in with the new By this, Trausti means the concept of zoning: attempting to fully separate residential, commercial and industrial areas. However, the zeitgeist soon shifted away from the old style and into a more modernist approach. During this period people lost interest in the old types of buildings, Trausti explains. Even as I was growing up, and I was born in 1946, there was hostility towards the old buildings. With the arrival of the Americans, and our strong ties with them, came these modernistic ideas about buildings and architecture. So the planners at that time suggested we demolish more or less all of downtown, and some lots were developed with new buildings. However, not all of these modernist buildings fit into the landscape, and some of them were decidedly unpopular. By the 1960s, the pendulum began to swing in the other direction.

And in with the old again Along came the hippie movement, and people started to say, Wait a minute, these old buildings are so beautiful. We shouldnt demolish them, Trausti says. There were huge protests against some of the planning projects for more modern buildings, and some of these projects were stopped. Basically, architects didnt consider trying to find a way to make the new buildings fit in with the old ones. They just assumed the entirety of downtown would be new and modern buildings.

The idea that we can contain Reykjavk within the old boundaries is not going to work.

Some ideas, such as to build massive highways through and sometimes even over the city (you can see the remnants of one such highway on the roof of Kolaporti), never got past the planning stages. And naturally, politics also played its part.

Politics ruins everything

The House of Icelandic Studies, for example, was started by [former Prime Minister] Jhanna Sigurardttirs government, he says, referring to the giant open pit in front of the National and University Library. They had gotten as far as the foundation being dug out when new elections came, and a right wing government came to power. Now its been included in the five-year planning outline, but theres a delay in this because of these political tug-of-wars. When the leftist government came to power in Reykjavk in 1978, they threw all the plans of the conservative government into the waste basket, and when the conservatives came to power in 1982, they did the same thing [to the leftists]. Its childish, and its been very sad for the city. Trausti is not terribly positive when it comes to the state of city planning today, as he sees tourism having a disproportionate impact on the landscape of the city.

Tourism is killing downtown

Things have already gone too far, and we cant stop it, he tells us. Rent is increasing, and not just for apartments; tourist shops make so much money that they can just buy out the old stores. Its not interesting anymore to go downtown. Not least of all for tourists. I am very fearful that many of these young people will say, We cant afford to live in the only urban area in Iceland; Ill just move abroad to some nice city somewhere else.

Trausti believes one way to remedy this problem would be to move the domestic airport out of the city, thereby freeing up land to build affordable housing thats close to downtown. Ultimately, though, the citys very boundaries are going to have to change with the times.

The idea that we can contain Reykjavk within the old boundaries is not going to work, he says. Were going to need to expand them.

How and where these boundaries will expand is an unknown to be answered by future generations.

Read more:

Reykjavk's Planning Debacle - Reykjavk Grapevine

10 July 2017 | by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt 'Churchs social teaching must also be applied to the way employees are treated here in Rome', Mller told a German newspaper

Cardinal Gerhard Mller, who was informed by Pope Francis on 30 June that his mandate as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) would not be prolonged, has sharply criticised the way in which the Pope dismissed him.

The Pope informed me within one minute of his decision not to prolong my mandate. He did not give a reason, just as he gave no reasons for dismissing three highly competent members of the CDF a few months ago. I cannot accept this way of doing things. As a bishop one cannot treat people in this way. The Churchs social teaching must also be applied to the way employees are treated here in Rome, Mller told the Bavarian daily 'Passauer Neue Presse' on 6 July.

He had informed Cardinal Joachim Meisner of the Popes decision not to renew his [Mllers] mandate in a long telephone conversation on the evening of 4 July, a few hours before Meisner unexpectedly died in his sleep. Meisner had been particularly upset to hear of the Popes decision, Mller said. He thought it would harm the Church.

Meisner had also been most concerned about the current situation of the Church, about the disputes and altercations that were standing in the way of church unity and the truth, Mller added.

Asked if Meisner had been upset that Pope Francis had not answered the letter he (Meisner) and three other cardinals had written to the Pope and later published asking Francis for clarification on whether or not remarried divorcees could in certain individual cases receive the Eucharist, Mller said it would have been better if instead of publishing the letter, thedubia, that is the four cardinals doubts, had been discussed at a confidential meeting.

He recalled that he himself had never taken part in the dubia debate, but added, I must stress with all due clarity that the attempts to date to explain how the balancing act between dogma, that is church teaching and pastoral practice can be achieved by Cardinals Schnborn, Kasper and others, are simply not convincing.

He recommended that Pope Francis discuss the dubia with the three remaining cardinals. And I suggest the Pope entrust me with the dialogue as I have the competence and the necessary sense of responsibility required. I could moderate the discussion.

He had no intention, however, of allowing himself to lead a movement which was critical of Pope Francis. Dialogue and cooperation were called for. Bridges are needed to prevent a schism, he emphasised.

Asked in the 'Passauer Neue Presse' interview of 6 July on his relationship with Meisner and what he thought of Meisners views, Mller replied:

We were on good terms and I admired his courage to raise his voice against certain currents of the zeitgeist. It is easier to swim with the current than to speak up for the truth. The Apostles already experienced that standing up for the truth meant giving witness, and giving witness has something to do with martyrdom not necessarily martyrdom of the blood. There is also martyrdom of the word for which one has to suffer certain disadvantages - especially if one is not part of the main stream.

Article List

Originally posted here:

Mller criticises Pope for the way he dismissed him and offers to help mediate 'deep rift' in the Church - The Tablet

Playing an ass-kicking international spy cant be easy, but Charlize Theron really suffered for her craft in Atomic Blonde. She twisted her knee, bruised her ribs and had to undergo extensive dental surgery, because she clenched down so hard on her jaw she cracked two teeth while getting in shape to throw burly men over her shoulders.

This story first appeared in the July 11, 2017 issue of Variety. Subscribe today.See more.

It happened the first month of training, Theron says. I had severe tooth pain, which I never had in my entire life. She thought it was just a cavity at first, until her dentist told her shed need to have an operation before leaving for the shoot in Budapest. Having to cut one of the teeth out and root canals, Theron says. It was tough. You want to be in your best fighting shape, and its hard. I had the removal and I had to put a donor bone in there to heal until I came back, and then I had another surgery to put a metal screw in there.

Its the kind of confessional that would make even the toughest male star wince. But Theron tells the story matter-of-factly, offering a look to a reporter that signals: Next question?

Atomic Blonde, a high-adrenaline action movie that feels like a mash-up of The Bourne Identity and Alias set in 1989 Berlin, is poised to be a summer hit when Focus Features debuts it on July 28. Following the success of Wonder Woman, which has grossed more than $350 million at the U.S. box office, it just may be that female action stars are finally getting some respect in the business where cash speaks even louder than sexism. At the same time, their macho big-screen counterparts, Tom Cruise, the Rock and Charlie Hunnam, have suffered costly box office disasters this summer.

Director Patty Jenkins, who made Wonder Woman, says shes hopeful that the age of the female action star has dawned. For our films to be successful and make a lot of money as well as having a female lead sends a huge message to the world that this is something possible, she says. People are watching and paying attention. Although Jenkins hasnt seen Atomic Blonde yet, she feels a kinship to the project because she directed Theron in her 2003 Oscar-winning role in Monster. Every once in a while, Jenkins adds, Ill see a newspaper with a picture of Gal Gadot on the left and Charlize on the right, and Ill get emotionally confused. Those are my girls!

It feels like the perfect moment in the zeitgeist for strong women to roar on-screen, amid a renewed wave of feminism that has risen up against the Trump administration. But this wouldnt be the first time that Hollywood was stuck in the past. Even an A-list star like Theron wasnt being courted for tentpole action pictures until power agent Bryan Lourd slipped her the script to Mad Max: Fury Road, and she met with director George Miller for the part of the one-armed Imperator Furiosa.

I got offered a lot of stuff in action movies that was either the girl behind the computer or the wife, Theron says. At a peak in her post-Monster career, in 2005, she tried to launch a strong female hero, only to be savaged by terrible reviews. When Aeon Flux came to me, I thought that could be something. I was never completely sold on the entire concept, but I really loved [director] Karyn Kusamas movie [Girlfight]. So I threw myself into that with the belief that shes a great filmmaker.

And then we fed it all up, she says with a laugh. I just dont think we really knew how to execute it. And its disappointing, but it happens. Ive been in this business long enough to know that you cannot get it right every time. I might have gotten this right because of that.

Atomic Blonde was a passion project for Theron that she produced through her company Denver & Delilah Prods. (named after her dogs), run by Beth Kono and AJ Dix. She spent five years developing the material, after reading a treatment based on a then unpublished graphic novel named The Coldest City. She hired screenwriter Kurt Johnstad to expand on the character, an enigmatic woman named Lorraine who is ruthless and tough.And she brought on David Leitch (John Wick) as the director, after interviewing both men and women, to choreograph dazzling fight sequences on a shoestring budget for the genre of $30 million.

Word of mouth has been so positive since the movie premiered in March at SXSW that executives at Universal took over the marketing from its indie division, sidelining Focus from its own release. It does look like a big movie, says Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley, who envisions the story as the first in a franchise. Its a phenomenal character that shes created, and I see deploying that character in many different adventures and scenarios.

Yet even the budget of the movie points to gender disparity in the industry. When Matt Damon and Vin Diesel flex their muscles on-screen, the studios line up with buckets of dough. Theron, who is making $10 million a film after starring in hits like Snow White and the Huntsman and Prometheus, took a pay cut in exchange for a percentage of box office receipts.

The actress spent a long time preparing to step into the stilettos of Lorraine, a mysterious Brit with no attachments or backstory. You know nothing about this woman, says Theron, who wanted to avoid contrivances like having her grieve for a dead husband. Its so rare that a female gets that in a movie. A lot of critics had issue with that thats such old-school thinking. You dont need to be emotionally manipulated to feel something for someone.

For two and a half months before the shoot, Theron trained for four hours a day to learn how to fight convincingly. It was daunting. Im coordinated because I was a dancer, and I definitely have movement memory, but Ive never been a fighter, she says. Im also really tall and a girl. That tends to make you look like youre Big Bird.

Theron appears in nearly every scene in the film, and she staged many of her own stunts. On the second day, while rehearsing an elaborate fight sequence in a stairwell, she twisted her knee. I was like, Why are you rehearsing! Leitch says. We got to get this on camera. The 50-day shoot was emotionally draining because they kept resetting the big fights. After Theron caught the flu in the freezing Budapest winter, she worked through her fever. Even when she was sick, shes wearing a little miniskirt and kicking ass, says co-star James McAvoy.

Theron wanted to break the rules that had been set for women in the genre. When Lorraine gets hit, she bleeds, and Theron wore a prosthetic on her face to suggest that she was on the verge of death. A lot of times studios or producers are not comfortable with seeing a woman with bruises, she says. We really wanted to pay attention to that authenticity. After a fight in the third act, she trades her vanity for a swollen face and a sealed-shut eye. We had early makeup tests where she had no whites in her eyes, Kono says. Thats how far they wanted to go.

For a love interest, Lorraine is too suave to be impressed by the male colleague played by McAvoy. Instead, she has sex with another female spy (Sofia Boutella), without stopping to explain her bisexuality. I just loved it, Theron says about the idea. For so many reasons: My frustration of how that community is represented in cinema, or lack thereof. And also, it made perfect sense. It just suited her. It just felt there was a way through that relationship and the fact that it was a same-sex relationship to show a woman not having to fall in love, which is one of those female tropes. Its a woman; she better fall in love otherwise, shes a whore!

And the sex scenes are right out of the 007 playbook, although Theron rolls her eyes at the comparison. James Bond doesnt have such hot you-know-what, she says. I loved that we didnt hide under the sheets.

Theron acknowledges that shes following a path carved out by other high-octane female action stars. I think we would be remiss not to acknowledge Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton, she says about the protagonists of, respectively, the Alien and Terminator franchises. Weve had moments like this, where women really showcase themselves and kind of break glass ceilings. And then we dont sustain it. Or theres one movie that doesnt do well, and all of a sudden, no one wants to make a female-driven film.

And look, she says, I am ashamed that Im part of an industry that has never allowed a woman to work with a budget higher than what the budget has been on Wonder Woman. Thats so fing caveman-like. I am always hoping that this is the movie thats going to change it and keep it for us.

Theron didnt have a movie playing at this years Sundance Film Festival, but she still flew to Park City on a snowy Saturday morning in January, on the day after the inauguration, to march for womens rights. I went there because Im a woman. I went there because I have kids, she says, referring to her two children.

A photo from the event went viral because it showed Theron in tears. Its so weird, she says, explaining what happened. I made eye contact with a man she starts to cry, thinking back to that day I think it just caught me off guard. I wasnt expecting to see a man so emotionally charged in that march. I just felt like he had kids, or maybe little girls. It touched me, as you can tell, she says, wiping away the tears running down her cheeks.

Therons drive was instilled in her from a young age, growing up in a country governed by apartheid. I had to be very resilient as a kid in South Africa, she says. As she was helping one of her children prepare for a class assignment recently, she remembered a moment from her grade school days. The teacher asked us to go home and find an outfit and come back the next day and talk about what we wanted to be, Theron recalls. And I said I wanted to be a doctor because I found a really good coat that looked like a doctors coat and goggles. She says she had no interest in medicine. I think there was an actor inside me even at that age.

She harbored dreams of being a ballerina and landed early work as a model. When she came to the United States at age 18, she arrived with only $300 and a single fabric suitcase (which shed stitched with bobby pins because it was worn) packed with clothes and maps from the places she traveled all over Europe, with a pager, waiting for her next job. When did she think she made it? When I got an extra role on Children of the Corn III, she says. I called my mom and said I can see the Hollywood sign and I just did a movie. And by doing a movie, I ran through a field with 100 other kids and had my scream looped.

She was never afraid to shed her beauty for a role, like when she packed on 40 pounds to play a serial killer in Monster. Winning the Oscar turned her life inside out. As far as work goes, it opens up a lot of doors, Theron says. But also, its so overwhelming to have everybody clamoring and saying, This is what you should do. Theres so much noise. I felt a little unstable afterwards. Asked how she found her way, she says, Someone else wins. So it takes it off you.

When she finished Atomic Blonde, she was looking for a role in a small film where she could lose herself. Thats why she reunited with her Young Adult director, Jason Reitman, on Tully, which required her to gain weight again to play a mom with three kids. But it was harder for her now than when she was in her 20s. It was brutal in every sense, Theron says. This time around, I really felt it in my health. The sugar put me in a massive depression. I was sick. I couldnt lose the weight. I called my doctor and I said, I think Im dying! And hes like, No, youre 41. Calm down.

If you walk down the Universal lot, past the statue of the foulmouthed talking teddy bear Ted, youll come upon Therons production offices, decorated with posters of her previous movies and her awards (including two trophies from Victorias Secret for Sexiest Legs of the Year). Her company, which she launched 14 years ago, signed a first-look deal with Universal in 2015 that gave it a studio home. I think our mission and mojo remains the same, says Dix. Its a mandate to fall in love with great characters and great worlds.

Along with movies, Denver & Delilah makes TV shows, such as Netflixs Girlboss. Theron doesnt need to star in all of the projects; shes happy to launch young talent. She doesnt see a differentiation between movies and TV anymore either. Its the same thing, she says.

When she co-starred in That Thing You Do!, she recalls asking Tom Hanks to sign her script. He obviously had done Bosom Buddies, and Id never seen it, Theron says. He wrote in my script the most flattering, most beautiful things about how hell always say he discovered me. And he ended it with Promise me youll never do television. And I bet hes eating his words.

Theron has kept her eye out for material anchored by female characters, estimating that more than 60% of her projects center on women leads. Many female stars in Hollywood talk about the importance of mentoring other young women, but Theron walks the walk. She first met Kono years ago, when she was answering phones at the desk of her late agent, J.J. Harris. When Kono was at a crossroads in her career, Theron brought her on as a personal assistant on her movie sets, giving her room to grow into a full-fledged producer. Im so lucky, Kono says. Ive been so fortunate to work for some of the most wonderful women who nurture other women.

Yet in spite of some progress thats been made in Hollywood, theres still a long road ahead. After the Sony hack, Theron negotiated to receive the same pay as Chris Hemsworth on Snow White and the Huntsman, but she doesnt necessarily see that as a victory. We have a ways to go, she says. I asked for it, Universal was supportive of it and it happened. The fact that I got that doesnt mean 90% of women get that, especially not in our industry.

On the day of our Variety interview, Theron had spent the morning glued to the TV, watching the James Comey hearing. This is a very big thing thats happening in our country right now, she says. Im concerned about all of that stuff. Does she think shell see a female president in her lifetime? She sighs. I mean, we would literally be the last country to come to that party, Theron says. Thats not even special anymore! Look at the world. The world is like, You guys are seriously still having this conversation?

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How Charlize Theron Got Ripped, Bruised (and Naked!) for 'Atomic Blonde' - Variety

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, 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 about the novel, the upcoming movie of Crazy Rich Asians (which began filming last month), and his many inspirations, including Dynasty.

Kevin Kwan Photo by Giancarlo Ciampini/Courtesy of Doubleday

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!

Continued here:

Q & A: Kevin Kwan and his world of 'Crazy Rich Asians' - Press Herald

Hear an orchestra accompany a mysterious movie, listen to some local rock, or see a legend sing his greatest hits.

Success in pop music is more the result of timing than talent, and in the ever-changing world of hip-hop, you have to read the zeitgeist before you can, to paraphrase Kanye, pop a wheelie on it. Perhaps no one in the DMV is better at reading the rap zeitgeist than Rico Nasty, a young woman from Largo who calls her music sugar trap, as in trap-rap with a sweet edge. Her mixtape cover of the same name finds her smiling like Mona Lisa with an assault rifle in hand, flanked by unicorns and teddy bears. Shes bound to be as divisive as Lil Yachty and Lil Uzi Vert, but the Great Rap Hope baton might end up in her hands anyway. Rico Nasty performs with Dae World and O Slice at 8 p.m. at Songbyrd Music House, 2477 17th St. NW. $10$12. (202) 450-2917. songbyrddc.com. (Chris Kelly)

EAT THIS

With its new chef settled in, The Riggsbyhas a new brunch menu worth splurging on this weekend. Try a "New Crab Benedict" with miso-crab hollandaise sauce and Duroc pork ($19), short rib hash with a 60-minute egg, crisp potato, red pepper, and horseradish hollandaise sauce ($22), or for something sweet, Anson Mills cornmeal griddle cakes with homemade berry compote, strawberry Chantilly, and lavender honey ($14). Brunch is offered Saturdays and Sundaysfrom 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Riggsby, 1731 New Hampshire Ave. NW. (202) 787-1500.theriggsby.com. (Laura Hayes)

OH AND ALSO

Friday: Early aughts college rock comes to Merriweather Post Pavilion when Dispatch and Guster play a double bill with Marco Benevento. 7 p.m. at 10475 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. $46$56.

Friday: Help raise money for the DC Abortion Fund while drinking and dancing to tunes by The Perfectionists and DJ Tezrah at the Black Cat's IndepenDANCE: A Pro-Choice Prom. 8 p.m. at 1811 14th St. NW. $25$30.

Friday: Enjoy the music of John Williams and the mysteries buried in Hogwarts when the National Symphony Orchestra performs the score of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stonewhile the movie screens live at Wolf Trap. 8:30 p.m. at 1551 Trap Road, Vienna. $35$58.

Saturday:Art Garfunkels ethereal voice was forged in the fires of the 1960s, during the burgeoning civil rights movement and the televised atrocities of the Vietnam War. If he sounds weathered now, it is only because his clear voice, seemingly delicate yet resiliently sturdy, has suffered a few chips and cracks from bearing a good portion of the worlds pain and relief. Garfunkel still gets on stage to deliver Simon & Garfunkels longstanding hymns of hope like The Boxer or Bridge Over Troubled Water, but now mixes in some of his own favorites by artists like the Everly Brothers, Randy Newman, the Gershwins, and other masters of American song. Read more >>>Art Garfunkel performs at 8 p.m. at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, 2700 F St. NW. $39$99. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org.(Jackson Sinnenberg)

Saturday: See the story of a boy who never grows up when you travel to Sidney Harman Hall for a screening of the National Theatre's Peter Pan. 2 p.m. at 610 F St. NW. $10$20.

Saturday: D.C.-based folk soul duo Oh He Dead takes the stage at DC9 with opening act Caz Gardiner, the local reggae rock singer. 9:30 p.m. at 1940 9th St. NW. $13$15.

Sunday:If there is a God, he/she/they/it sure must love the 90s. How else can you explain the 90s revival pop culture is currently in the midst of? This year also gave us the quiet return of one of the most quintessential 90s shows (even if it technically premiered in 1988):Mystery Science Theater 3000. Creator Joel Hodgson portrays a janitor named Joel who is trapped on a spacecraft by mad scientists and forced to watch shitty B-movies with his three robot friends, Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, and Gypsy. Seeing Hodgson and his bots live will feel like youre watching terrible movies with your funniest friends.Read more >>>The shows begin at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at The Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW. $39.50$299. (202) 888-0050. thelincolndc.com.(Matt Cohen)

Sunday: Beloved author Neil Gaiman discusses his work, reads stories, and answers questions when he speaks at Wolf Trap. 8 p.m. at 1551 Trap Road, Vienna. $25$65.

Sunday: Close out the weekend at U Street Music Hall, where Kap G and J.R. Donato take the stage with Paper Paulk. 7 p.m. at 1115 U St. NW. $20.

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To Do This Weekend: Rico Nasty, Art Garfunkel, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 Live! - Washington City Paper

Erwan Frotin

Later this year, somewhere in central London, a daily extravaganza called Avolution will celebrate the avocado as a curious quirk of our time. Here, adults will be given the opportunity to frolic in a plastic-avocado ball pit, to sew avocado-shaped cushions and even button themselves into avocado sumo suits and smash into each other in a game of human guacamole. For those watching from the sidelines there will be chips and you guessed it avocado dips. Avolution evolved (of course it did) from last years grossly successful avocado appreciation brunch, Avopopup, also the brainchild of event organiser Meredith OShaughnessy. From quinoa-dipped to ice cream to macarons, Avopopup dished up six courses of avocado, and there are plans in the works to take the concept to America and Dubai. According to OShaughnessy, The avocado has captured peoples imagination because it is a fruit which doesnt take itself too seriously.

Which could just be the crowning of hipster absurdity, although Miley Cyrus did get an avocado tattooed on to her left tricep. And yet the fruit, whose name derives from the Aztec ahuacatl (meaning testicle, because it grows in pairs and hangs heavy from its tree), has become absurdly, ubiquitously popular. Every day, 3 million new pictures of it whole, halved, slathered on wholemeal gluten-free toast are posted on Instagram. (And thats not counting the many, many avocado memes todays ultimate measure of cultural influence that regram across social media bearing cute messages of the lets avocuddle variety.) Last year, 5 million avocados passed through Pret A Mangers kitchens, more than double the number that did in 2013, and today 12 of its products contain avocado, which is savvy because avocado sells. In 2015 British shoppers spent 142 million on their avocados, while in the same year, in America, the largest global avocado consumer, 4 billion were eaten (an estimated 300,000 of them in Los Angeles). Over in China, 33 shipping containers of avocados are delivered weekly on to its shores; three years ago the country didnt import a single avocado.

The avocados meteoric rise owes much, in recent years, to celebrity endorsement. Gwyneth Paltrow is a fan, Kim Kardashian too, and after Nigella Lawson showed the television-watching public how to cook avocado on toast, Waitrose reported a 30 per cent rise in sales. But before the avocado got among this heady company, there were PR firms pushing it. In the Nineties, New Yorks Hill & Knowlton etched the fruit into the public consciousness by turning them into a cheerful cartoon, while Londons Richmond Towers distributed pamphlets with recipes and explanations. The avocado might have been first tasted on British shores in the 17th century, brought back from South America by explorers, but it only became widely available more recently. (Sainsburys and Marks & Spencer had a public squabble over which was first to put an avocado on its shelves. It was Sainsburys, in 1962.) It was marketed then as the avocado pear, because of its shape, but the suffix was soon lost as uninitiated shoppers were eating it like one. Nonetheless, the avocado gained traction in a postwar, post-ration era that was hungry for new experiences. Cue the Seventies and avocado vinaigrette, prawn cocktail dolloped in halved avocados, avocado bathroom suites. The avocado had arrived.

Its pleasingly tasteless, versatile flesh is not, however, the summation of the fruits appeal. The avocado is now outselling satsumas in December, because it is good for you. Really very good for you. It is an excellent source of monounsaturated fatty acids, otherwise known as healthy fats, which can reduce bad cholesterol and heart disease. It is high in fibre (which promotes healthy digestion and reduces the blood-sugar spikes that make you feel hungry); it is a source of protein, potassium (which keeps blood pressure low and maintains the electrical gradient in the bodys cells) and folate (which plays a role in DNA synthesis and repair). Then there is the fruits beguiling, bankable mix of vitamin E (fights free radicals, repairs damaged skin), vitamin K (used by the body in blood clotting) and vitamin C (which keeps cells healthy). It is good for you even when you dont eat it. Applied to the skin, its oils omega 9 and oleic acid, which is the closest naturally occurring chemical to the skins own oils are highly moisturising. Skin beneath an avocado mask becomes soft and supple, says facialist Abigail Jones.

For a growing global spending community beguiled by wellness that annoyingly ubiquitous, zeitgeist-fuelled noun that denotes anything remotely connected to the pursuit of health the avocado is manna. It can be used to thicken green juices, as a vegan substitute for dairy and meat, and it requires little preparation before eating. The act of simply smashing an avocado into a palatable pure and adding lemon juice, salt, pepper and chilli flakes suddenly gives you access to a wider movement in which people feel more connected to their food because they have prepared it (even if that preparation took less than two minutes), and more connected to their bodies because they have chosen an avocado to put into them. As a symbol, then, the avocado is democratic; it says anyone can be healthy, and inhering in its chipper green flesh are all the smiling, sunny connotations of those ridiculously good-looking health bloggers Deliciously Ella, the Hemsley sisters, Madeleine Shaw who promote it.

Little wonder, then, that there is now an avocado deficit near-on a luxury food crisis in which demand for the avocado is exceeding supply. Prices have risen: at the time of writing, a single avocado on Ocado is 29p more expensive than it was in March last year. They are big business, too so much so that in Latin America, where avocado trees have been growing since 7000BC, the fruit has earned the nickname green gold because it yields more profit per acre than most other crops, including marijuana. Problem is, asis often the way with big business, growing green gold in increasing quantities can inflict unpalatable social and ecological costs.

The Mexican state of Michoacan sits in the southwest of the country. Its wide, white beaches border the Pacific Ocean, and from there the verdant hills climb towards a volcanic field the last eruption was in 1952 that has left a fertile legacy of ash in the soil. As a result, many crops grow very well in Michoacan (better, in fact, than anywhere else in Mexico), and that includes the avocado, which likes altitude 1,500 metres or more above sea level and rain. Ninety-two per cent of Mexicos avocado production comes from this state, which becomes all the more impressive when you consider that between 2015 and 2016 Mexico exported one million tonnes of avocados 800,000 more than its closest competitor, Indonesia.

It is Mexicos widely publicised tragedy that where there is money made, drug cartels circle, savvy to the opportunities of business diversification. By 2012, Michoacans avocado production, like its lemon and timber industries, was crippled by extortion, kidnapping and many, many murders, all at the bloody hands of Los Caballeros Templarios a cartel that swears allegiance to a bastardised version of a medieval chivalric code. Under its deadly influence, illegal plantations had sprung up all over the state, felling ancient pine species to make room, resulting in soil erosion and a diminished winter home for the monarch butterfly. In February 2013, the avocado growers who were still in business (and many smaller farmers unable to pay the extortionists were not) clubbed together to hire heavily armed private militias to protect their crops. The Mexican government didnt just allow this; many journalists, including Camilo Olarte an investigative reporter who spoke to Vogue from Mexico City believe it helped to fund them.

The armed militias succeeded where even the army had failed. Olarte tells me that from 2013 to 2015, all was relatively calm. There were no more extortions. The avocado producers were paying only $100 per month to the drug cartels. They were happy, he says. But Michoacan is a complicated place, and Olarte has been observing new volatilities in recent months. There are more than 20,000 avocado producers in Michoacan, but the foreign export of their avocados is almost entirely controlled by the APEAM trade association. When the association lowered the price it set for the fruit, there was nearly an armed rebellion. The growers went on strike. That was October last year. Whether it is now under control is not very clear. What was clear was the effect this strike had on Americas market supply. Guacamole was dropped from New York restaurant menus, while grocers in the city doubled their prices for the fruit. Circumstances that could become entrenched if Donald Trump really does build that wall and inflict its gargantuan cost on Mexico, via a 20 per cent tax on imports, as was briefly mooted by a White House press secretary. Today the atmosphere in Michoacan remains tense. Some roads are now controlled by an armed militia that has set up roadblocks to limit movement into municipalities. In Tierra Caliente Spanish for hot land an area that sprawls across a corner of Michoacan and is fecund with opium and ephedra plants (which are later turned into methamphetamine), there may be a worrying foreshadowing of what is to come elsewhere in the state. There is a new cartel at work there, known as H3, says Olarte. It is using extraordinary violence. Homicides are as high now as they were in 2012. H3 is a breakaway militia: it once defended agriculture in the region and is now criminalised.

Erwan Frotin

All of which seems a quantum leap from the city clich of brunch served on a distressed wooden table by a waiter in a plaid shirt, featuring bread that accommodates food intolerances, and, of course, avocado. But the chances are, that trendy avocado was Mexican after all, the country supplies 45 per cent of the international market and in particular it grows the Hass variety, heralded as the most delicious avocado cultivar thanks to its high fat content. When I ask Avolutions OShaughnessy if it is important to her where she sources the many avocados her customers will eat, she is quick to respond. We dont buy avocados from Mexico. But is this the right approach? Olarte tells me of a group of radical farmers who are trying to bypass the control of the avocado associations and export directly to foreign countries. The logic here is clear: fewer people involved in the production chain, so fewer weak links for exploitation. It would be a gross generalisation to suggest that every Mexican avocado lines the pockets of drug cartels, even if Olarte says that all of Michoacans economy is, in an indirect sense, linked to them. Boycotting Mexican avocados could punish small farmers who depend on their sales. Although the clear issue for the conscious consumer is that there is no way to be sure you are buying the right Mexican avocado.

Mexico is not the avocados only troubled home. Chiles avocado groves are located in a range of latitudes similar to those in California, but in the southern hemisphere. So when California has its winter, Chile can fill the gap in the market. It is the eighth-largest producer of avocados in the world, but many of its valleys dont have nearly enough water to cater for this scale of export: before an avocado is picked, it will have drunk a whole bathtub of water. Jessica Budd, a senior lecturer in geography at the University of East Anglia, last visited La Ligua in Chile in 2014, where she witnessed what happens when a valley is drained to feed the fruits considerable thirst. The whole landscape was dry, bare and dusty, she says. Fields were abandoned, some no longer viable for any agricultural purpose. Many of the smaller farmers were forced to abandon their farms and seek paid labour elsewhere.

In the end, the availability of water is a question of money. During a drought the big avocado farms, owned either by multinational companies or rich Chilean landowners, can afford to bring water in on trucks or, more typically, to use expensive machinery to make their wells deeper, meaning the water table for the whole region drops, and those who can afford only shallow wells are left without water either for their crops, or to drink. Groundwater in Chile is very prone to theft because there is hardly any government regulation, says Budd. In fact, small farmers who diversify into green gold are given grants to do so by the government, masking the risk involved in their new business. Unlike traditional crops maize or beans avocado saplings take three years to grow into a fruit-bearing tree. Thats three years without income. When the fruits come in if the fruits come in they are highly labour-intensive to pick by hand. Avocados are susceptible to drought and disease, which can knock out the whole crop not just for that year but for good. Few small farmers would have the finances to restart the process; instead they would be (and have been) ruined.

Later, Budd says something surprising. No one in La Ligua views the avocado plantations as sustainable farming. They are perceived as a 10-year cash crop. After that the trees will be old, the soil eroded and worthless, unable to support any crop without significant amounts of fertiliser. The long-term plan is just to move on and find a new patch.

There is some good news. In Peru, the World Bank identified areas in which the Hass avocado would grow well, and embarked on a long-term project to educate communities on sustainable avocado farming, while also offering them financial support to set up their farms. The Dominican Republic has a huge potential for increased avocado production, and the avocado (although not always the Hass variety) grows very easily in its high tropical fields. Spains avocado production is small, but the government is beginning to see the value of investing in it; while Israeli avocados are grown with exemplary practice (when the fruit isnt destroyed by frost). Anyone who really cares about the environment should never buy an avocado from New Zealand in a British grocer, as each fruit generates 1.36 tonnes of carbon emissions but it is worth noting for markets near the country that the avocado grows well there (so well, in fact, that in the past year there has been a spate of large-scale thefts from farms). And in California, which until last winters storms had been experiencing its sixth year of drought, agricultural scientists are working with producers to create an avocado that needs less water. For the organic purist, the pro-s-pect of the ultimate health food being genetically modified will be unappealing. But for areas where Wholefoods doesnt have a store, it may save livelihoods, even lives.

The simplest course of action would, of course, be to eat fewer avocados, to reclassify them in the cultural cognisance as a weekly treat instead of a daily necessity. But, as avocado advocate and wellness tastemaker Madeleine Shaw tells Vogue, When they are so good, its hard not eating one after another. To experience avocado health benefits, Shaw recommends half an avocado a day. And she is not totally unaware of the problems besetting the avocado market. When you eat too much of anything, she muses, it puts a strain on resources. And avocado trees take a long time to grow. They arent like berries although, technically, the avocado is a berry. She just hopes that pressure on the market will mean that new farms will emerge closer to Britain. I suspect Shaw doesnt know very much about avocado farming, despite her uncle owning a plantation in New Zealand.

There are actually alternatives to avocados. You could always get your hit of mono-saturated fatty acids, fibre, potassium, vitamin E and folate by frying kale in olive oil, and washing that down with a satsuma for some vitamin C. And when you do buy avocados, you can shop responsibly. A Soil Association organic sticker will mean that this independent body has verified the practices of the farm that grew the avocado. Try to resist buying ready-ripened avocados because supermarkets ripen fruit by pumping hot air through them, a further pollutant. Avocados can ripen easily at home: that old trick of putting the fruit in a paper bag with a banana for a day or two really does work. If you need an avocado to be soft instantly, wrap the fruit in foil, bake it in the oven at 200C for 10 minutes to release its own ripening agent, ethylene gas, and then leave it to cool. On the flipside, every year thousands of avocados go to waste because they spoil in peoples cupboards. So eat that avocado, because wherever it came from, a considerable cost went into producing it.

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The True Cost Of Our Avocado Obsession - Vogue.co.uk

THE F WORD by the company (SaMel Tanz). At the Al Green Theatre. July 8 at 3:30 pm, July 9 at 8:30 pm, July 10 at 5 pm, July 11 at 2:45 pm, July 13 at 1:45 pm, July 15 at 6:15 pm. See listing. Rating: NNN

Hot on the heels of Lipstique comes another Fringe Festival exploration of dance and feminine power.

There are some striking similarities in the two works most noteworthy the use of Maya Angelous poem Still I Rise. Chalk it up to the zeitgeist and an idea whose time has clearly come again.

I wanted to love The F Word, but it needs a good edit. While the choreography is inventive and the dancers are skilled (especially in the high-octane urban dance sections), the message gets muddy when the movement stops.

Poorly delivered banal prose and kitschy forays into visual comedy just distract from the genuine power of this groups fine dancing.

Read more from the original source:

Fringe review: The "F" Word - NOW Magazine

Hong Kong 20/20: Reflections on a borrowed place contains some of the most moving pieces you will read about how Hong Kong has changed in the last 20 years. The launch of the book of essays, fiction, poems and cartoons by PEN Hong Kong also turned out to be a test of this citys tolerance of dissent.

The Asia Society Hong Kong Center was the original venue for the launch and readings by contributors but it had one condition: that Joshua Wong Chi-fung, one of the contributors, did not speak at the event.

The executive committee of PEN Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation supporting literature and freedom of expression, voted to hold the event elsewhere instead of accepting a demand to exclude the Occupy movement student leader. PEN Hong Kong believes building a strong community means generating conversation, not stifling it, said Jason Y. Ng, President of PEN Hong Kong.

In respect to our discussions with PEN Hong Kong, despite earnest efforts to collaborate on a programme design, we were unable to come up with one that would be mutually compelling to our respective target audiences, said the Asia Society press office.

The Foreign Correspondents Club subsequently took over as host. Wong, secretary-general of Demosisto, didnt attend in the end because he was taking part in the Black Bauhinia protest in Wan Chai ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinpings visit.

Apart from political celebrities like Wong, veteran journalists such as Stephen Vines, Louisa Lim and Ilaria Maria Sala have turned their pens to more personal pieces and, in Salas case, fiction that still capture the zeitgeist as well as their professional writings.

Award-winning writer Mishi Sarans contribution is a short story called Walking Through Hong Kong. Like most of the pieces collected here, the tone is dark: I understood at that moment that we were all trapped in the same dark cinema. The Exit sign had wavered and then had blinked off. It was too late to leave.

Last year, the Asia Society called off a screening of a documentary about the 2014 Occupy movement at its Hong Kong centre, citing a need for neutrality.

PEN Hong Kong is crowdfunding for a Chinese version of the anthology.

You can order the book here.

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Handover book launch relocated after Asia Society says Occupy leader Joshua Wong can come but can't speak - South China Morning Post

THE BEST known story of British art in the 1930s is in the grounds outside the National Gallery of Modern Art. A reclining figure, a rock form with holes Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth these are the sculptors, the artists which we remember. But it is not the only story of art in the 1930s, as this new exhibition amply and rather fabulously demonstrates.

There are 58 painters in this large but not unwieldy show, the first-ever exhibition of a forgotten generation working in the realist tradition. The realism was not just in their staggering detailed technical attention to the depiction of the world around them, but in their subject matter, from changing technology to the evolving role of women. A diverse grouping never a movement these disparate artists flew in the face of abstraction and expressionism to convey their own perceptions of life in the interwar period, often deliberately evasive (yet not entirely dismissive) of the horrors of the war which much of the population had just been through.

And what a hugely surprisingly and eye-opening show it is. The aesthetic is in many ways instantly familiar, for this is partly the art of the iconic 1930s railways posters, of the age of the new leisure pursuit, of fitness and health in the face of austerity and poverty. This is the age when the lido became popular, when swimsuits, so we are told in the blurb next to Harold Williamsons stylishly posed swimmer, Spray (1939), were made from a new latex fabric, rather than baggy wool.

In similar vein, James Walker Tuckers Hiking (c.1936), a healthy vista of young women in shorts and what passed, then, for walking shoes, pouring over a map of the Cotswolds, rucksacks and billy cans on their backs. Its a scene so overflowing with health, cleanliness and a curious freshness of light (which is, in part, down to Tuckers choice of tempera as medium) that it seems to echo the calls of those such as the Sunlight League, founded in 1922, to restore sunlight to our malurbanized millions, to those residing in the dirty, polluted cities which Ruskin had once denounced.

There is much cleaning up of dirty situations in these frequently luminous images, much idealizing of (nonetheless realistic) landscape. Edward Wadsworths view, again in egg tempera, of the notorious red light district, Rue Fontaine de Caylus, Marseilles (1924), is a pastel-hued vista of vertiginous clothes lines hiding the dark doorways off the street below.

Darkness is more evident in the portraits of Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, a society painter society that included Marlene Dietrich and the Duchess of Windsor whose luminous oils are represented here by Dorette (1933), a striking portrait of the woman who was to become his lover, and By the Hills (1939), a painting so glamorous the word was that the painter had used real lipstick for the lips. Both are painted in front of Italianate backgrounds, reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci.

Brockhurst, who also worked as a printmaker, was just one of many looking back art historically to the classical period, to Italy, to the Netherlands in an attempt to reinvigorate, to mark a sea change from the time and reality of war.

There are many striking portraits here, sometimes of athletes or gymnasts, sometimes of wives, families, evacuees and domestic scenes. Meredith Framptons immaculate Woman Reclining has a glossy luminosity, a pared-back classicism emphasized by the simple white dress, the red shoes, the almost complete absence of visible brush strokes.

Further on, there is Bernard Fleetwood Walkers more tactile, vulnerable and human portrait of evacuees, Children in the Country (1942). And then, subverting but reinforcing the genre, there are Alan Beetons curious but striking oils of lay figures posed or left in a chair, doll humans given the scrutiny, as his peers noted, of a Dutch master.

Stanley Spencer is the name most will know from this era of realism, and there are a number of his works here, not least in a room of religious tableaux. These works, by various artists, are all largely transposed to more modern or contemporary classical (the 1920s equivalent of a theatre director putting everyone in grey suits) settings, notably Spencers unfussy St. Veronica Unmasking Christ (1921).

In a further change in style, the dour brilliance of Winifred Knights (1899 1947) whose The Deluge is a masterpiece of balletic, angular movement, an instant sombre rush of figures and supplicant hands, moving in one wave away from the flood which threatens to consume them.

In the final room, harking back to Victoriana in its very traditional tableaux yet capturing the zeitgeist, there is Charles Spencelayhs stoic First World War veteran, sitting in his lonely parlour on the eve of World War Two, staring into the distance as if the cipher for all the unexpressed fears of all the painters and workers, hikers, debutantes and swimmers of the interwar years. It is an emotive image, quietly capturing the futility, the remembered horror, and placing it right in the heart of the realists intricately detailed domestic arena.

True to Life: British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two), Edinburgh until October 29

http://www.nationalgalleries.org

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Visual Art: True to Life British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s at Scottish National Gallery of Modern ... - Herald Scotland

Going to work on Monday with a freshly cracked phone screen is like walking into the office with a black eye. Inquisitive coworkers will ask how it happened. Others may notice, but they'll refrain from making comments. But unlike black eyes, your cracked screen won't heal on its own, and costs more than a bag of frozen peas to fix.

The spiderwebbed phone screen is also a conspicuous detail in social situations. Not everyone will vocally call it out, but some will wonder: Did you break your phone when you drunkenly fell out of a cab? Potential suitors may jump to conclusions: Did a jealous ex smash it in a fit of rage? Why haven't you fixed it? If this is how you treat your phone, can you provide for another person?

The state of your iPhone screen and model are indicators of status. Noted Apple affiliate and rapper Drake says his "side girl got a 5S with the screen cracked" at the beginning of "Portland." An outdated model with a cracked screen? Drake doesn't care about you. Drake is an Apple Genius warning us, "Don't come around thinkin' you gettin' saved," when you bring in that broken phone. In this way, we are all the side girl.

Chance the Rapper, who's also released exclusive music through Apple, mentions in the first verse of "Blessings" he "walked into Apple with cracked screens and told prophetic stories of freedom." Chance is flexing his wealth here: He can afford to repair his phone multiple times, or even more flexingly, that he has multiple Apple devices.

Louis the Child, a band of two adults named Robby and Freddy, highlight the broken iPhone screen as proof of recklessness. Their song "Weekend" starts with "Last night / too turnt / No water, ripped shirt / iPhone screen cracked / Did I pay the bar tab?" Even the owner of a cracked iPhone judges thyselfwhen you see a cracked screen, you wonder: What else have I possibly done?

Since the iPhone first fell into (and out of) of our hands in 2007, Apple has been conditioning us to think its screens are inherently fragile. It's become part of the zeitgeist, reflected in hit songs spanning multiple genres.

The iPhone isn't alonethe Samsung Galaxy S8 is by all accounts the most fragile smartphone on the marketbut until our devices become more durable, manufacturers are exposing customers to a deluge of prying questions, judgement, and embarrassment. We're all walking around, our screens bearing proof of weekend stumbles, impromptu karate matches, and other business that would otherwise go undiscovered.

This hyper focus on aesthetic creates a phone that looks beautiful until you drop it. And then you can't even lick it.

The broken screen is a conversation starter, whether you'd like to have that conversation or not. Consumers do not deserve to wear a sign that says "Ask me about a very expensive mistake I made recently, even though I just told this story five minutes ago."

Sure, you could get a case. But case selection exposes you to another unique set of criticisms. Do you want to be the doofus with a bulky Otterbox? Unless you're doing something that involves a helmet-mounted GoPro, it looks wildly unnecessary. You don't wear football pads to commute to workwhy does your iPhone? Also, why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box?

Cases have become such an essential part of the iPhone, using an uncovered device is described as an intense, dangerous, and deeply sexual experience.

How did it get this way?

The lip on the case of my vintage 4S, required to protect the screen. Image: Ashwin Rodrigues

In 2000, Steve Jobs famously bragged about the Mac OS X operating system's icons looking "so good you want to lick them." This hyper focus on aesthetic creates a phone that looks beautiful until you drop it. And then you can't even lick it.

The power balance between Apple and consumer is so skewed, there's a fight for the right to simply fix the iPhone. "Right to Repair" bills put pressure on Apple and other phone manufacturers to sell replacement parts and provide instructions on how to complete repairs.

Without donning a stylish tinfoil hat (Apple doesn't make one yet) it's clear the iPhone's fragility may be connected to Apple's motive for profit. Materials stronger than Gorilla Glass exist, but make the phone too expensive per unit (in the case of "unbreakable" sapphire glass) or not sexy enough (in the case of plastic.) And if you're willing to have your entire view of phone manufacturers shattered, or at least cracked, consider the unfounded but compelling theory that our phones are getting bigger as humans remain the same size on purpose, so we're more likely to drop them.

In my experience, the common response to my concerns about our overly fragile phones is victim-blaming: Just don't drop your phone. That's not the point. Everyone drops their phone: drunk, sober, clumsy, responsible, toddler, and senior. Technology is supposed to work for us. Why should we adapt to a faulty technology, instead of demanding it gets better?

A mobile repair kiosk in San Francisco. Image: Ashwin Rodrigues

When The Shattering occurs, we no longer ask, "Why did that happen?" Instead, we instinctively ask ourselves a number of hard questions that are second nature by now: Will the phone still work? Should I pay to get the screen fixed? Should I just wait for the next iPhone to come out?

Based on the number of shattered iPhones I see in the wild, we're a hopeful bunch. In the meantime, we're left trying to figure out a reasonable alibi for our cracked screensone that doesn't require us to reveal our weekly Thursday rollerblading lessons.

On the upside, Apple is making noticeable concessions in response to the right to repair movement. It's a great step, but consumers are still far behind. The iPhone's fragility is so entrenched in our minds, we've forgotten its root cause. We shouldn't be asking for help getting tools to fix our screens, we should be asking for a more durable device.

For these reasons, I switched from iPhone to Android last year. I got an LG Nexus 5x, a plastic phone as design-forward and dependable as a Toyota Corolla.

I've dropped my phone least 71 times in the 15 months I've owned it. In our iOS-centric world, I'm sometimes ridiculed for my texts showing up green instead of blue (another Apple psyop, in my opinion). But I get to keep my privacy and rollerskating spills to myself, thanks to its durable screen. Hopefully the iPhone catches up soon.

Motherboard staff is exploring the cultural, political, and social influence of the iPhone for the 10th anniversary of its release. Follow along .

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Society Has Turned the Shattered iPhone Screen Into a Mark of Shame - Motherboard

GuelphMercury.com

Guelph Hillside artists chosen 'with resistance and protest in mind' GuelphMercury.com She said this movement has largely been influenced by changes to the United States political system and the shifting zeitgeist of U.S. culture. We're looking to reinvigorate faith in the social function of art, she said. We look to particular ...

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Guelph Hillside artists chosen 'with resistance and protest in mind' - GuelphMercury.com

On a recent weekday in Oakland, only a few hours before the Temescal neighborhoods post-work crowd found its way to Arthur Macs Tap & Snack, Walter Pizarro, 36, and his wife, Regina Chagolla, 31, sat down at a picnic table in the shops beer garden.

It isnt the kind of place we look for, but its convenient, said Chagolla, who admitted that she and her husband prefer the cozy confines of dive bars. You kind of see these places popping up everywhere.

Fueled by a confluence of economical and cultural factors, beer gardens are multiplying across Oakland at a dizzying rate, outpacing most other Bay Area cities. Its a trend mirrored in Oaklands rise of craft brewers; of the 15 active small beer manufacturer licenses in the city, all but two have been issued since 2014. Over a dozen beer gardens now call the city home, all of which have opened since 2010; however, that number has doubled in the last 18 months alone and there are more on the way.

In particular, Temescal has become a hub. Temescal Brewing, around the corner from Arthur Macs, opened in 2016, and Roses Taproom, just opened last weekend, is a few blocks north. More beer gardens are coming, including a controversial proposal from Golden Road, which is owned by Anheuser Busch InBev, the worlds largest beer corporation. It, too, is in Temescal.

American beer gardens can be traced back to Germanys biergartens, which themselves were born of necessity. In the 16th century, when breweries were banned from making beer during the summer, brewers built cellars in cool areas, often close to riverbanks, to store their wares for consumption between May and September. To cool the spaces even more, breweries planted trees and covered the cellars with gravel. Tables and chairs soon followed, as did the crowds.

Just like those early German pioneers, the Bay Areas modern beer gardens seem to have tapped into a thirsty audience.

Its a trend that isnt new to the Bay Area. Back in 2011, Biergarten in San Franciscos Hayes Valley was considered a pioneer in aesthetics for its use of shipping containers. Zeitgeist has long been a San Francisco destination, and like Biergarten, still draws crowds on sunny days.

In the Bay Area, where dinner and drinks for two at a mid-level restaurant regularly exceed $100, beer gardens have become a cheaper, family-friendly alternative. Arthur Macs menu, for example, is built around $4 pizza slices and $7 beers.

The appeal goes beyond value for consumers, according to Joel DiGiorgio, the owner of Arthur Macs who also had a hand in the opening of Drakes Dealership in Oakland and Westbrae Biergarten in Berkeley. He pointed out that many young people are struggling to find real estate thats relatively affordable and spacious enough, especially for a growing family.

On any given afternoon, the crowd at many Oakland beer gardens has a smattering of young children with their parents, baby strollers parked next to pints. For consumers, beer gardens have become a replacement for dining rooms and backyards, DiGiorgio said. They no longer have that space they may have had generations ago.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

A pedestrian passes by on MacArthur Boulevard as people sit in the sun at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden.

A pedestrian passes by on MacArthur Boulevard as people sit in the sun at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden.

A napkin box sits on a picnic table at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland.

A napkin box sits on a picnic table at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland.

People sit in the sun at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland on June 24, 2017.

People sit in the sun at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland on June 24, 2017.

A dog sits in the sun between tables at Arthur Macs. The Temescal area has become home to several of Oaklands growing number of beer gardens, raising questions over gentrification.

A dog sits in the sun between tables at Arthur Macs. The Temescal area has become home to several of Oaklands growing number of beer gardens, raising questions over gentrification.

Taps Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland.

Taps Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland.

A beer sits in the counter above a daily pizza on display at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack.

A beer sits in the counter above a daily pizza on display at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack.

Children play in a sandbox as parents socialize at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack in Oakland.

Children play in a sandbox as parents socialize at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack in Oakland.

Jing Yu, right, chats with her friend Sarah Kleinman over drinks at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland.

Jing Yu, right, chats with her friend Sarah Kleinman over drinks at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland.

Grace and Rob McGuinness of Oakland sip their beers at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden.

Grace and Rob McGuinness of Oakland sip their beers at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden.

Sever Henna Papineau delivers slices of pizza to Suz Sillett, left, and Tamara Ooms at Arthur Mac's in Oakland.

Sever Henna Papineau delivers slices of pizza to Suz Sillett, left, and Tamara Ooms at Arthur Mac's in Oakland.

Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland.

Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack beer garden in Oakland.

People sit in the sun at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack.

People sit in the sun at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack.

Oakland overflowing with beer gardens

For business owners, Oaklands beer garden market is not yet viewed as saturated, a fact that continues to spur the rapid transformation of the citys bar scene. Craft beer is popular right now, and beer gardens have become a logical, cost-efficient move for many entrepreneurs hopping on the trend.

Our initial thinking was pretty basic, and I imagine not too uncommon: rent and construction costs are crazy high, and were going to spend all our cash on installing a production brewery, said Sam Gilbert, founder of Temescal Brewing, which opened last year. So why not turn the parking lot into pleasant place to hang out, and let good weather and good beer do the rest?

On the corner lot next to Gilberts brewery is a Churchs Chicken. On the opposite side toward 41st Street is Harmony Missionary Baptist Church. The beer garden property is surrounded by fencing and stocked with tables, umbrellas, cinder blocks and plants or as Gilbert describes it, DIY-able stuff. Temescal Brewings construction was driven by local labor, a Kickstarter campaign and the contributions of a few artists.

That never would have been possible working on an interior space of the same size, Gilbert said.

Up the road, Roses Taproom also reaped the benefits of a crowdfunding campaign. Its a relatively small operation a small, seven-barrel brewhouse capable of producing about 215 gallons per batch twice a week but the outdoor drinking space follows a similar design scheme of other setups with wooden benches and plants.

The most common refrain among bar owners is a simple one: With lower costs, beer gardens are better suited for a tumultuous industry, despite being subject to the whims of weather.

Server Mana Shimamura and general manager Nathan Guarrasi joke around as they pour beers for customers at Arthur Mac's Tap and Snack.

Server Mana Shimamura and general manager Nathan Guarrasi joke...

Oakland is cheaper. Licenses are cheaper, rent is cheaper and labor is cheaper, said Thad Vogler, owner of Bar Agricole and Trou Normand, two cocktail bars in San Francisco, where a Type 47 liquor license, which allows for the sale of hard liquor, can cost upward of $300,000. Meanwhile, a Type 41 beer and wine license in Oakland can cost $3,000 to $5,000.

Its difficult separating the idea of gentrification from the beer garden movement. The craft beer industry itself is overwhelmingly white, especially in the Bay Area. And neighborhoods like Temescal are still home to Eritrean, Latin American and Korean restaurants, not to mention the minority-run doughnut-wielding corner stores.

We all have to be aware of it, and we have to make sure we do what we can to keep people from being displaced, said DiGiorgio, an Oakland native whose father lives a mile or so from Arthur Macs. Gentrification became a nasty word when displacement became a component of it. At its core its just taking an area of lower income and bringing it and everyone there up to where its middle income. Thats a good thing.

From 5 p.m. until around 10 p.m., bike racks outside of Arthur Macs and Temescal Brewing slowly fill to capacity, suggesting a significant customer base from the local community. The workforce at many beer gardens is overwhelmingly composed of Oaklanders; three-quarters of the staff at Arthur Macs, for example, live in the neighborhood. Most walk to work.

Its much easier to staff in Oakland as more and more restaurant workers are settling there, Vogler said.

Trends rarely come with a clear indicator of their shelf life, but when it comes to beer gardens, several proprietors admitted they can see the boom lasting a few more years, especially in the East Bay.

On a recent Saturday at Temescal Brewing, a group of 20- and 30-year-olds, clad in T-shirts, sunglasses and skinny jeans, sipped craft beers while posting pictures on Instagram with captions waxing poetic about the weekends paradisaical weather. Its a familiar scene scattered across neighborhoods from Broadway in Uptown to the warehouses of West Oakland, with no signs of slowing down at least for now.

Theres certainly some novelty to the idea, Gilbert said, before adding a final thought: Chances are pretty high that the 101st Bay Area beer garden will jump the shark and folks will get bored.

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips

Prominent Oakland Beer Gardens

Beer Revolution: 464 Third St. (Opened 2010)

Telegraph: 2318 Telegraph Ave (2012)

Brotzeit Lokal:1000 Embarcadero (2013)

Lost & Found: 2040 Telegraph Ave. (2014)

Classic Cars West: 411 26th St. (2015)

Drake's Dealership: 2325 Broadway (2015)

Temescal Brewing: 4115 Telegraph Ave. (2016)

Stay Gold: 2635 San Pablo Ave. (2016)

7th Street Cafe: 1612 Seventh St. (2016)

Degrees Plato: 4251 MacArthur Blvd. (2017)

Arthur Macs: 4006 M.L.K. Jr Way (2017)

Old Kan Beer Co.: 95 Linden St. (2017)

Roses Taproom: 4930 Telegraph Ave. (2017)

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Oakland overflowing with beer gardens - San Francisco Chronicle

Modern politicians recognize that an abundance of demographic data can pollute policy decisions, Dan Delmar writes. Dario Ayala / Montreal GAZETTE

Political polling can be informative and enlightening when it gauges public opinion with relative accuracy. When political parties and media rely too heavily on polls that divide electorates along cultural lines, however, demographic data could inspire less enlightened ideas.

One such idea, still far too accepted in pluralistic democracies, is that the views of minority citizens are worth less than views of those who belong to the cultural majority.

In Quebec, polling among francophones is common practice, but it merits some reflection ahead of next years provincial elections. Though reflexively dividing the electorate along linguistic lines could in part be a reflection of institutionalized nationalism, it is widely accepted industry practice and by no means unique to Quebec pollsters.

Political prognostication might not be an exact science, but it is a legitimate private-sector endeavour. Works like Le Code Qubec can reveal fascinating truths about this society, truths that work in favour of arguments for diversity.

As unimpeachable as pollsters believe their methodologies to be, surveys are often commissioned by political parties and others interested less in demography and more in manipulating data to further exclusionary narratives.

There is nothing inaccurate or unethical with, for instance, a Quebec newspaper reporting on polls like last months describing, as the Montreal Gazette did, the key francophone-only category, which actually decides who wins the election because it is spread in many ridings across Quebecs capacious political map.

What is less ethical is having much of the political class fostering a climate where its encouraged to shamelessly appeal almost exclusively to the majoritys perceived sensibilities over the long-term collective interests of Quebecers.

Anglophones also receive unwarranted preferential treatment.

Just as attempting to capture the francophone zeitgeist can be myopic, prioritizing anglophone concerns as the second-most relevant category also contributes to repressing the views of less historically privileged minority groups. In polls, they are often lumped into the allophone or other category, a smorgasbord of ethnics whose identities and priorities are rarely worth quantifying, let alone considering in legislation.

One neednt look far to find examples of destructive demographics.

South of the border, Donald Trumps presidential campaign relied heavily on mass outrage but it was also successful because of the sophisticated microtargeting of white voters in key Rust Belt districts. The consequences for minorities of his narrow appeal, from travel bans to the elimination of basic social services, are becoming more frightening by the day. Gerrymandering electoral districts based on racial demographics will only further cement institutional discrimination.

While language-based policies are less toxic than the racial kind, both are discriminatory. They are also becoming less effective by the day, as millennials and younger Canadians children of multiculturalism defy long-held stereotypes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron could be seen as examples of successful millennial-driven leadership with more universal appeal. Modern politicians recognize that an abundance of demographic data can pollute policy decisions and, since all citizens are theoretically equal in a democracy, much of this data should ultimately be considered immaterial to crafting truly successful political movement.

All polling could be limited in the days or preferably weeks leading up to a vote rather than only the day of (the guideline currently enforced by Elections Canada), but unfortunately, there are few simple solutions. Bans on cultural polling would be unfeasible in an age of widely available Internet metadata, and possibly unconstitutional.

The onus is on political parties and, to a lesser extent, the polling industry to self-regulate and resist the temptation to use data to place greater value on one group of citizens over another. Political polling is most valuable when it measures impressions, not identities.

Dan Delmar is a political commentator and managing partner, public relations, with TNKR Media

twitter.com/DanDelmar

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Dan Delmar: How some polling can breed discrimination - Montreal Gazette

The Hindu

Straddling two worlds The Hindu While the play is a while away from being considered a masterful work, it clasps in its palm an adequate sense of the Zeitgeist to which it belongs. The staging is tight and innovative, working with both text and movement, even if a consistent grammar ...

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Straddling two worlds - The Hindu

If the Trump administration and the Trumpist movement represent anything, it is the destruction of establishmentarian sacred cows. Already, the spirit of populist iconoclasm the President embodies has left globalist false idols scattered like tombstones up and down the Acela Corridor. Some of the casualties are obvious, such as the presumption that the administrative state is made up of disinterested experts, rather than ideologically motivated sleeper agents. Some of the losers from the Trumpist Zeitgeist are equally obvious: mainstream media outlets and the tech industry.

However, what seems to occur to few people is that the fall from grace that such ideas and institutions are suffering is not only of their own making, but all traceable back to the same cause. Namely, the shift of such institutions from attempting to promote freedom to attempting to constrict it. In other words, groups that were originally designed and trusted to make the world bigger have instead begun systematically trying to make it smaller. They have gone from battering rams to gatekeepers.

Take the mainstream media. While conservatives correctly bemoan the liberal bias that infects the landmark publications and TV networks, and has infected them all the way back to the Vietnam War, it is easy to forget a simple fact about that anti-Vietnam coverage: It was the first time the medias reporting was not subjected to official censure by the military. No doubt this led to anti-American bias that distorted the story, but for Americans watching, the idea of a media that was critical of the government line no doubt seemed like an advancement for freedom to access information and freedom to be skeptical of government policy.

Flash forward to today, though, and it is obvious that the media has gone from being uncensored truth-tellers to censors themselves. From the cyberbullying, SJW left morality policy approach of sites like the defunct Gawker and Vice, to the arrogant agonizing by media figures over their supposed ability to control what people think, to the overwhelming and unprecedented hostility toward the president that even the most seemingly respected media falls prey to, it is very clear that giving the public greater freedom to make informed decisions has ceased to be a media objective. Rather, out of fear that those informed decisions will not meet the partisan standards of the reporters themselves, they seek a full-on pre-Vietnam role reversal: now the political and military actions approved by the American people must pass muster with them to be legitimate. Americans, who have never much liked being told what they must believe or what they must do, have rightly rebelled.

But while the mainstream medias behavior is egregious, it is also fair to say that they are rapidly becoming a marginal player in the information marketplace. More sinister and influential is the rapidly growing tech industry, and in particular the social media wing of that industry. But here, too, we are observing a corruption of organizations that previously offered freedom. In its early days, Google gave Americans the extraordinary power to find new information and new perspectives, YouTube provided a fertile and untamed Wild West-style playground for creative minds to make a living, and sites like Facebook and Twitter offered the ability to connect and speak to both friends and strangers from all around the world.

To say that this is not the case anymore is a gross understatement. Now, Google openly admits to viewing conservative viewpoints as contrary to science, and acts as if its blatantly partisan policy preferences are somehow apolitical good sense because they can find a few pet Republicans to agree to them. This is reflected in their search results, which now exclude disfavored viewpoints, and their stewardship of YouTube, which now strips money and possibly even subscribers from its users, sometimes for such minor crimes as simply telling off-color jokes that offend the humorless sensibilities of corporate HR departments. Facebook and Twitter, meanwhile, liberally (pun intended) shadowban or outright shut down the accounts of users who do nothing but express distasteful opinions, or call them out on censorship. Facebook has even arrogated to itself the right to decide what does and does not count as fake news using standards insourced from left-wing donors, despite having previously landed in hot water for acting too much like a newsroom and less like a neutral platform.

In short, Silicon Valley fears the freedom that it created and seeks to curtail it, despite the fact that the only thing that gave their business models life was the perception that they were building a world where both people and information could be free.

So far, an emerging rebellion from consumers, in tandem with tougher scrutiny of their practices, is not working out for the mainstream media, or the tech companies. The first is shedding trust and likely will shed viewers in the future. The second is facing an emboldened raft of competitors that actively market their political neutrality and commitment to freedom of speech and information. The gatekeepers have had their gates blasted off their hinges and now are watching their Towers of Babble being sacked.

Good riddance.

Mytheos Holt is the Senior Fellow in Freedom to Innovate at the Institute for Liberty, and a former speechwriter for US Senator John Barrasso (R-WY).

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The Media and Silicon Valley Fear the Freedom They Created | The ... - The American Conservative

Magnetic Magazine (blog)

Detroit Movement 2017: The Dark Lord Rumbles Magnetic Magazine (blog) It's a badge of honor for us, really; we derive enormous satisfaction from remaining on our high horses as the gen-pops latch onto and then quickly water-down every unique sound that happens to pop into the zeitgeist. When it was announced that ...

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Detroit Movement 2017: The Dark Lord Rumbles - Magnetic Magazine (blog)

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