Daily Archives: July 25, 2017

Jessica Lange in American Horror Story, Francois Arnaud in Midnight, Texas and Anna Paquin in True Blood. Composite: REX/Getty Images/HBO

Ryan Murphy. Shonda Rhimes. Noah Hawley. Equally deserving of a place alongside these architects of modern television is Charlaine Harris perhaps an odd choice, considering the fact that the longtime novelist has never directly gotten her hands in the TV game. But as the writer behind the hot and heavy fantasy novels on which True Blood and the upcoming Midnight, Texas, are based, shes done a lot to shape the current landscape of the supernatural on the small screen. For better and, eventually, for worse her approach to longform storytelling has colored much of what followed True Blood in its genre. And as the next major Harris adaptation touches down on the network airwaves, it can learn from the successes and shortcomings of its enchanted, perpetually horny forebears.

True Blood had the good fortune of arriving during a time when national interest in vampires and their lore had spiked at an all-time high, but the skill with which it sold itself set it apart from a large pack. The hothouse romance between Sookie Stackhouse and vampire hunk Bill Compton fused the supernatural amusements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a soap opera structure that favored season-long arcs over monster-of-the-week paranormal-procedural fare. But the real secret to the shows success laid in creator Alan Balls undying quest to top the last provocation. He capitalized on the elasticity of magic, a concept that essentially eliminated all narrative restrictions on his over-the-top hedonistic style. The show began with the spotlight on vampires, but their weird universe rapidly grew in size, eventually incorporating werewolves, werepanthers, erotic fairies and parallel dimensions. Whenever things threatened to get stale, Ball could just throw a new occult variable into the equation for added freshness.

This worked like a charm, until it didnt. The hazard of this anything-goes ethos of storytelling, which orients itself around the spectacle of novelty, is that it can only outdo itself so many times before spinning out of control. Unmoored from any laws governing its world, the show lost all sense of grounding and went haywire. Plot twists were freely doled out and undone when they became inconvenient, character traits were established then contradicted, and the supernatural elements eventually lost their luster as well. The shows final years were sloppy and scattershot, a far cry from the inspired lunacy of its sophomore season (also known as the orgy season).

This method of constant reinvention to hold viewer interest motivated the recent anthology boom as well. American Horror Story, for one, followed True Bloods same path, but with a series-long decline in quality condensed to each individual season. By beginning anew with a fresh premise and fresh cast every year, Ryan Murphy gave himself a reset button that could wipe away any and all writerly convolutions with a season finale. As such, every new batch of American Horror Story episodes begins bizarre and thrilling, only to eventually sputter into total incoherence about seven or eight hours in. The anthology structure freed Murphy up to cover more ground in the realm of the supernatural, but more than that, it gave him an escape route.

Other shows have devised ways to make the inevitable muddling of internal logic into a feature rather than a bug. After 12 seasons and 264 episodes, Supernatural is still going strong because its embraced its quirks of continuity to the point that the staggeringly complicated storyline has grown into a joke of its own. To make it work, the shows been forced to retreat into its insular fanbase, but that same core viewership has been devoted and sizable enough to render the show viable seemingly indefinitely. If a shows going to have to occupy a niche, its in that shows best interest to fully ensnare its audience.

Midnight, Texas, is already at a disadvantage. NBCs standards and practices department wont let fly half of what True Blood got away with on HBO, meaning one of supernatural fictions most reliable generators of intrigue and titillation has been taken off the table. But theyve still got plenty of lurid material to hold viewers interest, from psychics to witches to, yes, vampires. Now, the show lives or dies by the extent to which it can control itself while still maintaining that out-of-control feeling. Striking that elusive balance between the illusion of total narrative anarchy and an underlying sense of order requires delicacy and discipline. Historically, those have not been defining traits of Charlaine Harris bustling imagined world, a new series and new creative team means a new lease on serialization. Instead of hooking viewers by striving to do it all, perhaps this series can learn to keep them hooked by doing a few things expertly.

More here:

How True Blood's supernatural hedonism changed genre television - The Guardian

There are some who think there is no God, but the evidence for God is overwhelming (Movement on the move, Faith & Values article, Friday). Nevertheless, they hold onto that belief because it gives liberty to hedonism.

Hedonism is rejected by many atheists, but for no good reason. Bertrand Russel once wrote, We feel that the man who brings widespread happiness at the expense of misery to himself is a better man than the man who brings unhappiness to others and happiness to himself. I do not know of any rational ground for this view.

Russell was a secularist; what values did he hold and, for that matter, for what reason did he hold them? His daughter, Katharine, took these words from his autobiography, thus an accurate conveying of a despairing sentiment, suggesting the values of a secularist have no foundations and are fluid.

In the battle of ideas, especially on college campuses, secularism and theism should be made available to each student to choose on his and her own. Let the debates begin, and let not the campuses shut them down because one might be conservative and the other progressive/liberal.

The Rev. Ron Thomas

Sunrush Church of Christ

Chillicothe

See the article here:

Letter: Encourage open debate of secularism - Columbus Alive - Columbus Alive

I thought I was a beat, but I was just a boy

Notes on Re-Reading Kerouac in my 50s

I think one of the reasons the novel is attractive to readers in their early 20s, in particular, is it's simplistic anti-establishment bias.

Consider the section in which Sal and the fang visit Old Bull Lee. Bull -- the book version of William S. Burroughs -- is a libertarian-anarchist junkie who loves his guns, experiments with all manner of drugs, reads voraciously, and is an aggressive skeptic, a pessimist of the first order, who trusts no one and nothing. He did things "merely for experience" (143), had multiple personalities and a

sentimental streak about the old days in America, especially 1910, when you could get morphine in a drugstore without a prescription and Chinese smoked opium in their evening widows and the country was wild and brawling and free, with abundance and any kind of freedom for everyone. (144-145)

He hated bureaucracy, which I think is a common human feeling, but he also hated "liberals; then cops," an all-purpose dislike of anything that might interfere with fulfilling one's desires. Remi Boncoeur, Sal's old prep-school buddy, has a similar world view, an ingrained antipathy toward authority. Remi's term for authority figures who impose limits is Dostioffski -- a bastardization of Dostoevski, who Sal has been reading. The Dostioffskis of the world are there to keep you down; they are "the man," the straight world, parental. They interfere with the hedonism that drives Sal and his friends, which is all about kicks.

There is a scene in San Francisco that allows me to how my view of the book has changed over the years, perhaps more than any other. Sal is staying with Remi, who is working as a security guard. He gets Sal a job, but there is not enough money coming in so they supplement their income by stealing food and supplies from the former military camp at which they work. Sal and Remi break into the barracks cafeteria, which they do frequently to stock up on supplies. Once inside, Sal goes "to the soda fountain."

Here, realizing a dream of mine from infancy, I took the cover off the chocolate ice cream and stuck my hand in wrist-deep and hauled me up a skewer of ice cream and licked at it. Then we got ice-cream boxes and stuffed them, poured chocolate over and sometimes strawberries too, then walked around in the kitchens, opened ice boxes, to see what we could take home in our pockets. (70)

Sal views these break-ins as risky, but justified. He doesn't necessarily put this justification in words, but he does describe it as part of a bigger adventure, as just another necessary experience. And the younger me thrilled to this, understood implicitly the anti-establishment, anti-authority motivation. Stick it to the man, my younger self says.

My older self, my 54-year-old self, cringes at this simplistic reading. There is injustice -- the camp is paying starvation wages, which makes the theft necessary -- but Remi and Sal's actions are still morally suspect, at best, and exist outside of politics when what is needed to address the issue is a political response. This individual act of rebellion, as satisfying as it may be, will do nothing to alter the broader dynamics and, in fact, may leave a worse situation for those who come after Remi and Sal are long gone.

This comes up through out the book -- authority and rules exist as impediments and nothing more, without distinction, without any sense that some may be necessary. It is very much an American mode of thought, a bowdlerization of Emerson on self-reliance or Thoreau's jeremiad in "Civil Disobedience" against immoral government power. Sal, Old Bull, Remi, Dean view authority itself as immoral, because it interferes with their pleasure or their intellectual curiosity.

Sal, for instance, walks by themselves to one of the levees of the Mississippi, near Old Bull Lee's house.

I wanted to sit on the muddy bank and dig the Mississippi River; instead of that I had to look at it with my nose against a wire fence. When you start separating the people from their rivers what have you got? "Bureaucracy!" says Old Bull; he sits with Kafka on his lap, the lamp burns above him, he snuffs, thfump. His old house creaks. And the Montana log rolls by in the big black river of the night. "Tain't nothin but bureaucracy. And unions! Especially unions!" (148)

less a cornerstone work of environmental literature than the original cabin porn: a fantasy about rustic life divorced from the reality of living in the woods, and, especially, a fantasy about escaping the entanglements and responsibilities of living among other people.

It is a fanatic's book, a "paean to living purely, with all the moral judgment that the word implies" (Schulz). Walden was published nearly a decade after Thoreau's seminal political essay, "Civil Disobedience," which has been used as the foundation protest movements as varied as the push for India independence to the American civil rights movement.

It is a solitary protest, a personal protest. It is steeped in American individualism, and ultimately lacks the force the effect change. It is a personal complaint absent a movement, though it is built upon the same moral questioning one finds in Erich Fromm's On Disobedience and the writings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Beats constantly rage against the straight world, against the impositions of authority, but they rarely -- at least in the decade after World War II -- fully consider what amounts to true injustice and what it takes to push back. Small individual protests and minor criminal acts stand in for a declaration of individuality, and it is rare that Sal or Dean, in particular, consider how their actions create ripples in the universe, that they affect others in ways they do not foresee or perhaps care to see.

This is hedonism run amok. Hedonism as a philosophy seeks to maximize pleasure, but it also has an eye on the way our actions affect others. It is an extreme form of utilitarianism, which seeks to maximize good -- an action is judged as positive if it creates more good than bad, if more people benefit than are hurt. Hedonism functions the same way, but the Beats, many among the Sixties generation, many of the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street, ignore the damage that can be left in their wake.

This is a young-man's attitude, but it has infected the broader culture -- think of all the dopey t-shirts available in t-shirt shops that glorify the act of getting falling down drunk or proclaiming the right to be an unmitigated asshole.

Im automatically attracted to beautiful women I just start kissing them, its like a magnet. Just kiss. I dont even wait. And when youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything," he said in the 2005 conversation. "Grab 'em by the pussy."

And this sums up our current cultural moment, one in which rich and powerful men like Trump and Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton, Ben Rothlesberger, R. Kelly and so many other feel as if there are no limits, as if everything including women's bodies and minds are their's regardless of whether there is consent.

But I've gone off on a tangent -- I'm not implying that Sal and/or Dean or the rest of the On the Road gang operate in this way. But we can't ignore the selfish elements of their world view -- or I can't today.

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I thought I was a beat, but I was just a boy, part 5 - centraljersey.com (blog)

The Association Of Independent Festivals (AIF) has announced the return of its flagship Festival Congress to Cardiff for its fourth year from October 31.

Selling out every year since its inception, this year'sconference at Wales Millennium Centre will be based around the theme ofPseudoscience to play homage to experiments made by scientists and festival promoters alike.

The two-day event, which accommodates 400 delegates, will be led by a keynote by artistic director and CEO of Manchester International Festival, John McGrath, in addition to quick fire talks from author Zoe Cormier about her book Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll: The Science Of Hedonism And The Hedonism Of Science, and Creative Industries Federation CEO John Kampfner, who will speak about creative industry red lines on Brexit.

Were back for a fourth year with Festival Congress, the ultimate conference and festival party for the independents," said AIF co-founder Rob Da Bank (pictured). "Were proud of how essentia this event has become and all at AIF HQ are buzzing to be joining the dots between festival promotion and science this year, in what promises to be a packed and extremely fun couple of days in Cardiff.

Elsewhere, Dr Julia Jones of Found In Music will discuss her forthcoming book The Rock N Roll Guide To Staying Alive, exploring the lifelong effects of music on human behaviour and the positive effects that music has on well being.

There will also be a Question Time-style panel exploring political issues in relation to festivals and featuring some leading lights of the independent festival world, with other key topics at the conference including event security, welfar booking processes, up scaling small festivals and creative production. Another headline panel discussion will explore the next steps of AIFs Safer Spaces campaign, which reiterated the zero tolerance approach that festivals have to sexual assault with a 24-hour coordinated website black out in May.

Attendees include festival organisers from the likes of Glastonbury, Bestival, Boomtown Fair, Kendal Calling, Shambala, End of the Road and Liverpool Sound City.

The full conference programme will be announced in September. Tickets are on sale now; priced at 100 for AIF members, 135 to Friends of AIF and 200 general sale exclusively through headline event Gold sponsor The TicketSellers.

Read Music Week's exclusive interview with AIF general manager Paul Reed here.

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AIF reveals details of 2017 Festival Congress - Music Week

By Kevin Thomas | July 25, 2017, 7:08 EDT

Printed from: http://newbostonpost.com/2017/07/25/move-aside-parents-were-talking-sex-to-the-kids/

Im starting to understand the arguments against school choice.

Why give parents a say in their childrens education when, obviously, there are experts who know better?

Thank heavens (and I mean that rhetorically; please, take no offense) that we have the Massachusetts State Senate and Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts watching out for our childrens welfare.

If youve been reading New Boston Post, you know of the Massachusetts sex education bill that has beenintroducedand nowpassedby the Senate. NBP has alreadyeditorializedabout it.

If you are not up to speed, the bill titled An Act Relative To Healthy Youth (who could be against that, right?) supposedly offers comprehensive sex education. Among the curriculum is a program called Get Real, aimed at middle school students. It is published by the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (such a pro-child group).

According to Andrew Beckwith, who first wrote about this for NBP, the Get Real workbook for seventh graders gives instructions on how to perform oral and anal sex. As Andrew writes, let that sink in.

There are other programs, including role-playing between children who want to have sex.

The state Senate passed the bill. Hey, theyre the ones who know whats best. And no problem using tax dollars for such programs, because we know schools have so much money.

Of course, citizens cannot spend tax dollars in religious-themed schools. Instead of Get Real, our impressionable children might learn the Ten Commandments, or the Beatitudes, or even the definition of the word chastity.

The title Get Real has just the right message. Who would ever think of being chaste? Hedonism is where its at. Get real.

It appears the only controversy about the Senates vote was a proposed amendment requiring parental permission to take part in the program.

That would require school districts to chase down the parents of every single student, complained Senator John Kennan of Quincy.

Why would a school district want to communicate with parents?

What the senators and the educators wont say is that some parents could care less. And, bottom line, isnt that a key to our public school woes? The continued collapse of family structure means children come to school less prepared and less disciplined. They are not being taught values at home, nor are they read to; let alone hearing about the birds and the bees.

Enter the lower-the-bar mentality. Our society is several generations into the sexual revolution. Instead of combatting that with messages of chastity, dignity, and true respect, there is resignation. The children supposedly cant control themselves when it comes to sex, so we might as well show them how to do it, safely.

The sex-ed bill is now headed to the state House of Representatives.

There is a better way, but I know it is not trendy, nor considered realistic. In the sexual ethics section of the morality class I taught high school students, we did not discuss sex as an inevitable event in their young lives. We did speak of the inherited beauty of sex, with its role in life and true love. (Yes, I can picture the eye-rolls from the enlightened crowd.)

For an introduction, we talk a lot about the value of friendship, which is not a collection of Facebook followers, but people who care about you. You care about your friends, you dont use them. (This is where I mention thecourtship of the woman I married.)

Next comes the sex talk. (Not that sex talk I defer to the biology class.) Natural reasoning tells us that there are three factors in sex.

One, openness to life. (It happens, see your biology notes.)

Two, a lifelong commitment between the man and woman. (To take care of the life that may come along.)

Three, pleasure.

I-know, I-know, I-know that our advanced society wants to bypass one and two, and go straight to three. (See Hedonism). I opted for truth.

Before we were so advanced, there were mothers and fathers committed for a lifetime, to themselves and their children. These groups were called families and they took responsibility for their children, teaching them morals, while also making sure they were ready for school.

Now, schools and politicians assume too much of a role. Maybe they think they must. But institutions cannot replace family. There must be boundaries. Programs like An Act Relative To Healthy Youth step over the line, especially when they want to keep parents out.

My cynical side thinks this is about control. Although I pay taxes, I cannot use that money for the school I want my children to attend. The government decides. That same government creates school programs that I consider immoral and not healthy at all.

Is it any wonder why homeschooling becomes more popular every year?

Kevin Thomas is a writer and former teacher, living with his wife and children in Standish, Maine.

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Move Aside, Parents, We're Talking Sex to the Kids - NewBostonPost (blog)

If you've been reading Greatist for any length of time, you know we're big proponents of the #healthyish lifestyle. And there's no one who reps it better than blogger and private chef Phoebe Lapine.

After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease at 22, Lapine began healing herself with healthy comfort foods. And by that we don't mean quinoa and kale. We're talking loaded baked potato beets, mushroom Bolognese, Paleo "ramen" burgers, and mac and cheese. Her mantra is "healthy hedonism," which she describes as "balancing the things that nourish you on all cylinders with the things that nourish your body." Sign us up!

In this video, she shares her key to healthy livingand her recipe for beef larb lettuce wraps, a healthier version of a traditional Thai dish, which is full of fresh herbs, green veggies, tangy lime juice, and lean ground beef.

Recipe by: Phoebe Lapine Makes: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS 2 tablespoons jasmine rice (or any type of white rice) 2 tablespoons hemp seeds 1 tablespoons vegetable or coconut oil 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced 1 pound lean (93 percent) ground beef 1 tablespoon honey 2 Thai or serrano chili peppers, thinly sliced 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice 3 tablespoons fish sauce 1 large shallot, thinly sliced 2 cups finely chopped green beans (about 1/2 pound) 1 cup roughly chopped basil, cilantro, or mint leaves (or all three) 1 head lettuce leaves separated, for serving (Boston, Bibb, or romaine work best) 3 cups cooked, short-grain brown or cauliflower rice, for serving

DIRECTIONS 1. In a large nonstick wok or skillet, toast the jasmine rice over medium heat until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Like nuts, rice can go from brown to burnt very quickly, so keep an eye on it.

2. Remove the toasted rice and place in a coffee or spice grinder. Add the hemp seeds and pulse until it becomes a fine powder. Set aside.

3. Heat oil in the skillet. Cook garlic over high heat until golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Add beef and cook, breaking apart with a spatula, until no pink remains (about 5 minutes).

4. Stir in honey and chilis, then continue to cook until the beef begins to brown, 3 more minutes. Stir in lime juice, fish sauce, shallot, and green beans, and stir-fry 1 minute more, until the vegetables are heated through.

5. Remove from heat, add herbs, and taste for seasoning. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with the toasted rice-hemp mixture.

6. Serve warm alongside lettuce leaves, cooked brown rice, and lime wedges.

LAPINE'S RECIPE NOTES

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This Wellness Pro's Health Mantra Is One You Can Actually Get Behind - Greatist

It's every man for himself.

Ever wanted to be inside the world of everyones favourite medieval softcore porn show,Game Of Thrones?If youre at uni, you kind of already are. As long as you replace ale with beer, swords with academic ridicule, and the word hodor with fucking parking inspectors dammit shit!

If you fall down here, no ones going to help you up. Whether youve been given an involuntary amputation or stranded without a computer in the library, you can expect bystanders to keep right on walking. And so they should.

Ruthlessness is survival, my friend.

Group assignment? Reclaiming the Riverlands for House Stark? Expect in-fighting, ceaseless suspicion of glory-stealing, and the odd leadership challenge. Personally, I hearThe Rains Of Castamereevery time I see that contact sheet.

Surely, could I not give less than half a groat for the meandering pomposity of yonder professor? Does he not shrivel ones ears? His vaunted tales of workforce maturation are as nipples on breastplates to me.

Oh, my sweet summer child! So you came down from the safety of your parents house and expected life in this bustling metropolis to be just dandy, did you? To quote someones creepy uncle: Life is not a song, sweetling.

Sure, the drinks are cheap, but every courtier hides a dagger in their smile, and every professor a penalty mark.

Do authority figures ever get tired of telling us that the case study is imperative or that winter is coming? I mean, it all sounds very grim and impressive at first, but eventually you just start tuning it out.

Yeah, yeah. My assessment is one month overdue. The Others march on Westeros. Whatever.

When it comes to uni, parents love to assume that youll be drawn into a world of orgiastic hedonism the likes of which Tyrion himself could not conceive. Then they see good oldGoTon your laptop and all their worst fears are confirmed.

But thats just intergenerational bias. We dont watch it for the nudity, we watch it for character development and cultural subtext! Right guys?

Right?

I swear by Tyrions broken bedsprings, in every crowd theres at least one smartarse who thinks its cool to act all big and start waffling on about the history of the Seven Kingdoms or this weeks mandatory tutorial chapters. And then they have thenerveto tell us what will happen next week.

Some of us prefer to be left in suspense. Thanks a lot, arsehole.

Theres so much foreshadowing and just not a lot else. I mean, everyone keeps talking about throwing insane parties and reclaiming their birthright, but it seems like most people just sit around and wait for someone else to do it.

Seriously, were this far in already and no-ones done a keg stand? Daenerys is still in Meereen? Just what the hell is this?

Though maybe not quite on the level of Jaime and Cersei Lannister, after the initial awkwardness of the first few tutes, your classmates will begin to notice each other. It starts off civil enough, but all it takes is onepub crawl, and suddenly everyone starts pairing off for the winter break.

Kind of gives gross new meaning to the words of House Stark.

Joel Svensson

Business major, journalism minor and sometime voice-actor, Joel Svensson pretends to be smart at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

(Lead image:Official HBOGame Of Throneswebsite)

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If Uni Life Was Game Of Thrones - Junkee