Daily Archives: April 26, 2020

In an alternate version of 2020, hip-hop artist Travis Scott would have finished his second performance atop the bill at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this past weekend. Yet in a sign of our stay-at-home times, the Houston artist instead essentially just headlined Fortnite, the competitive video game-turned-brand platform that is as much a social network as it is a way to get shot with virtual bullets by strangers.

The battle royale game has never been this psychedelic. Moments before the event began Thursday at 4 p.m. PST our digital guns disappeared. Instead, players could suddenly wield a flaming microphone stand and hoist it above our heads as we danced.

Welcome to the coronavirus era of live music events.

Scotts invasion of Fortnite was essentially an interactive music video, one the artist used to premiere The Scotts, a new song with Kid Cudi. While Scotts concerts can be over-the-top spectacles involving amusement park rides, in Fortnite, the artist and Epic Games focused on the trippier side of his work.

Throughout the roughly 10-minute experience, players were constantly disorientated, teleported around the Fortnite map while an extremely buff holographic version of Scott (at least until he took on more of a cyborg form) stomped throughout an interactive universe.

Fortnite brought out the trippier side of Travis Scotts music.

(Epic Games)

While some of Fortnites other high-profile pop culture events the premiere of a clip from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker or concert from electronic artist Marshmello felt relatively loose and free-form, Scott and the North Carolina-based Epic Games concocted a communal event that had ambitions to transcend its promotional nature.

While quickly touching on hits such as Sicko Mode and Goosebumps, players were constantly thrown around the world. Every few seconds the screen would flash as we were tossed from Fortnites beachside towns to outer space, and at one point we were completely submerged under water, attempting to float toward an astronaut.

While players swirled around and away from Scott, the event, dubbed Astronomical, constantly aimed to toy with our perceptions. If theres a party-amid-the-flames aspect to Scotts increasingly languid soundscapes, Astronomical was hedonism at its most disorienting, largely giving a makeover to Fortnites exaggerated and simplistic design.

When shot to an area filled with palm trees, with Scott the Giant and a neon light shower towering above us, Astronomical had something of an 80s-inspired, Miami Vice aesthetic. But that was short lived; soon star fields glistened and the ground below our avatars morphed into neon-green dance floors.

While much of the iconography was pulled from art stemming from Scotts 2018 album Astroworld, including the cover that turns Scotts head into a golden entryway into an amusement park, there were surprises, such as the mechanical planet-like structure filled with carnival rides that gradually fell apart as we hovered closer. It came to an end as we flew through a space into a flashing butterfly light, a callback to an earlier Fortnite event.

The Travis Scott Fortnite event only lasted 10 minutes, but it had plenty of eye candy.

(Epic Games)

The event built to the premiere of the new song Fortnite centered on moments from The Scotts that appeared to feature slower, melancholic synths and then ended abruptly. A flash of light, and suddenly we were no longer in what seemed to be the video game of Scotts dreams and back to Fortnite, where the digital bullets could then inflict harm on our virtual characters.

If theres a shortcoming to Fortnite becoming a rival to, say, Facebook or YouTube, its that it comes with its own language, requiring users to essentially puppeteer avatars around the world to experience content.

But while Fortnite can be intimidating to the uninitiated this world isnt as friendly as that of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, of course it is versatile. It can house the Avengers, and also construct its own pop-up amusement park outside of arenas. As it evolves, at times Fortnite feels less like a game and more an experiment to test the waters on where interactive entertainment can go.

And its one with power. Fortnites Marshmello concert reportedly attracted more than 10 million people, so artists and brands will no doubt continue to turn to games to explore the potential benefits of their outlandish virtual stages. Lest there was any confusion as to why Scott was appearing in Fortnite, moments later his record label, Cactus Jack/Epic/Wicked Awesome, sent a press release detailing that the new single, as well as Fortnite"-branded Scott action figure and NERF gun, would be available this evening.

Astronomical will repeat four more times through Saturday, with staggered times aimed at various time zones around the globe. Arrive about 30 minutes early to get a lay of the games map and to navigate to the show. Youll want time to play with that flaming microphone stand.

Read the original here:

Travis Scott, 'Fortnite' and live music in coronavirus time - Los Angeles Times

The past few years in fashion have given us a lust, bordering on obsession, for all things maximalist.

Be it at Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Moschino or Philipp Plein, decadent layering, opulent finishes and an abundance of bling have dominated the runway, fuelling our insatiable need for "more".

But that was before the arrival of the coronavirus. With industries laid waste, countries shuttered and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the world we all knew has dramatically altered and as we begin cautiously to re-emerge after self-imposed isolation, we are all seeking markers of reassurance, comfort and stability.

Moving forward, will we crave a return to the decadent hedonism of maximalism? It may be gaudy, indulgent and over the top, but it is ultimately about celebration, about joy and embracing the sheer expressiveness of fashion.

It can be expressed in many ways. Who hasnt felt the thrill of pulling on a new dress, or unearthing a gilded find at a thrift shop? Who hasnt longed for something from our grandmother's wardrobe or looked forward to the day we can borrow our mother's vintage boots? And such giddy longing does not make one greedy. Far from it. The thrill of the chase, taking joy and enjoying a moment, are all vital parts of the human condition.

Singers Lady Gaga and Harry Styles, actor Jared Leto and Madonna have all dedicated themselves to being modern-day Lounge Lizards, in preposterous make-up, high-waisted flares and velvet capes, embracing the sheer joy of being alive.

But even before Covid-19, the ever-faster fashion merry-go-round was drawing complaints that it moved too quickly, burning too fast through designers and precious resources.

In a recent interview with Vogue, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele said: I hope we will never go back to that 'normal'. Because the life we lived before has been fearfully unsustainable. So, yes, we will go back to life. But, I hope, to a different life.

When we finally emerge from our cocoons, will we yearn for the spartan purity of pared-back designers such as Jil Sander and Helmut Lang, whose severity of line better fits the present mood? Or will we want to celebrate, indulge, and announce that we are one of the lucky survivors?

The autumn / winter 2020 collections, which were unveiled just as Covid-19 was starting to spread its full, destructive power, were filled with clothes that spoke of practicality, of utility, of "hunkering down" instead of excess and exhibitionism.

Balenciaga, for example, gave us clothes for an apocalypse, shown on a flooded runway and under an end-of-days sky, while Marine Serre continued what she had begun so joltingly for spring / summer 2020 (that took place in September 2019) with face masks in what now feels like chilling foresight.

Or how about Prada, with its belted practicality? Simple garb almost nun like in its simplicity in stoic grey and tightly held with thick leather belts. Or Alexander McQueen who looked to the folklore of ancient Wales to create clothes for modern warrior women.

Even Louis Vuitton looked back in time, to deliver a collection of space-age history, mixing ruffles of old with technical fabrics.

At Gucci, it, too, was about less. More fancy ruffles were heaped into skirts, but then added to sparse tops, and Puritan hats, that gave it all an air of restraint.

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and it is fascinating to reflect on collections unveiled so recently with new perspective, and see that the signs were already there.

We were already beginning to turn away from the glory days of the maximum, shift away from the endless "new", and instead, turn towards a sense of "make do" and re-wear. It was already happening. It just took a pandemic for us to see it.

Updated: April 26, 2020 07:38 PM

Link:

Fashion post-Covid-19: is this the end of maximalism? - The National

NewsOpinionColumnistsFollowing the global Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918/19, the Roaring Twenties saw people embrace hedonism so people will need pubs and restaurants after coronavirus outbreak subsides, writes Stephen Jardine

Friday, 24th April 2020, 4:45 pm

Ive given up watching the TV news every night. Its just too depressing. However some of the programmes on Netflix are even worse. Shows like Chefs Table provide a disturbing insight into another world, one where people used to pay to sit in restaurants and eat food.

I had my last meal out in an Edinburgh restaurant on the day of the lockdown. I went for a lunch with a friend and we felt like the last table in the Titanic dining room. With more staff than customers, catastrophe was in the air.

The lyrics to Big yellow Taxi sum up the feeling since. Dont it always seem to go, that you dont know what youve got til its gone. Joni Mitchell wasnt singing about restaurants but she might as well have been.

For most people, the experience is about more than just food. From a great sandwich at lunchtime to a delicious pizza or a juicy steak at night, restaurants are simply one of lifes great joys. So when will we visit them again?

The UKs 25,000 restaurants have been one of the worst affected parts of the economy and it looks like being one of the last areas to emerge from lockdown.

Its not hard to see why. An academic paper published in the New York Times this week showed how one customer with coronavirus at a restaurant in China in January went on to infect nine other customers, with air-conditioning apparently helping spread the virus around the room. Three months on, when restaurants started to reopen in Shenhzhen, they had to follow stringent procedures including reducing capacity by 50 per cent and checking customer temperatures. Diners were required to enter wearing a mask, taking it off only to eat and drink.

Here restaurants have already started thinking about what life will be like after lockdown. Cutting the number of covers to allow more space is inevitable but other ideas include disposable menus, hand sanitiser on each table and masks for waiting staff to offer visible reassurance. In time, the measures will ease but the industry needs to reopen if it is to survive.

With one in 13 jobs linked to hospitality and the sector contributing 46 billion to the UK economy, a lot is at risk. Already, TexMex chain Chiquitos has said 61 of their 84 UK branches will not reopen with the loss of 1,500 jobs. Many more will also never again open their doors.

Recovery, when it comes, will be slow and stuttering but we need it to happen. The jobs and livelihoods are important but restaurants are so much more than just balance sheets and bank accounts. They are the backdrop for romantic dates and birthdays and anniversaries and staff Christmas parties. They are where we celebrate new jobs and toast loved ones now departed. From the first Pizza Express trip as a kid to the special pensioners high tea at the local hotel, they are the life and soul of the land.

If all looks gloomy now, remember the Roaring Twenties. In 1918 the Spanish Flu Pandemic infected a third of the worlds population and killed at least 20 million. Yet just two years later came a bounce-back decade of decadence, enjoyment and hedonism. That should give a ray of hope to every chef and restaurant owner in the land.

Link:

After Covid threat passes, we will party like the Roaring Twenties Stephen Jardine - The Scotsman

As anyone who has been there knows, Cambodia is a bubbling mass of contradictions. Natural beauty and friendliness collide with grinding poverty and corruption, for a start. In Phnom Penh, piles of rubbish languish in the gutter next to skyscraper hotels with glossy cocktail bars. It attracts people for many reasons.

Expats call Phnom Penh the playpen, Maeve Galvin, who has worked in the country as a humanitarian, smiles. Its a very particular setting for people with any kind of compulsion towards addiction or hedonism, it might not be a great place, especially if you have unlimited [financial] resources.

There are, famously, the sexpats who frequent Street 51; the backpackers and tourists, and then those who arrive into the country for humanitarian work. And even in the latter faction, there are divides.

In full: https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/people-can-get-a-compulsion-to-fix-the-place-cambodia-can-be-seductive-like-that-39152988.html

2020, All rights reserved.

See more here:

'People can get a compulsion to fix the place. Cambodia can be seductive like that' - The Cambodia Daily

There are 773,000 entries under #naturalwine on Instagram, many thousands of which have been taken during the last month of global lockdown. There are photos of orange pt-nats posted from Spitalfields, organic pinot noir on a table in Seoul, Sancerre in Singapore. A Georgian wine called Pheasant Tears, being drunk in Brooklyn, and another bottle of pt-nat, this time located in Calgary, Alberta. Its caption claims that it will explode on opening. Hopefully thats just a figure of speech.

With bars, wine shops, restaurants and pubs across the world shuttered for who knows how long, a curious thing has happened to the world of trendy wine culture: it has gone online. Zoom tastings, Instagram Live walkthroughs and specially curated 'natty' wine packages have popped up around the globe, in a matter of weeks, as the wine world scrabbles to adjust to our new and strange corona economy.

It [the coronavirus] is not a great thing for the wine industry, says Brodie Meah, owner of Shop Cuve, a restaurant, bottle shop, online grocery store and natural wine bar in north London, which has a loyal clientele and a growing Instagram following. I think, particularly for some small growers, it could be catastrophic financially. But as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, so we're certainly trying to turn the whole thing into a positive for our customers. I think people are happy for guidance on what to drink and discover new things.

New bottles are announced on its Instagram page in a vernacular more akin to a trainer drop than a fresh delivery of Domain Durrmann: New heat in the shop! The captions are fun and informative with plenty of crystal ball, fire and drooling emojis, while photos of customer hauls are reposted on its stories. The labels are, invariably, illustrated, a bit wonky, bright and visually appealing with names like 3 Colours, Chin Chin and No Control. Like all good social media content it feels light-hearted, cool and desirable. Like you want to join the club, even if youre not entirely sure what that means, or what the dress code is.

In our new retail setup, branding and labels play a much bigger part in people's decision," says Meah. "I've always been of the opinion that branding has an effect on people's perception of flavour. I always put myself in the customer's shoes when making a decision and making assumptions on how a product is presented is part of that.

At Newcomer Wines, a Dalston wine bar and merchants that specialises in varieties from Swiss and Austrian vineyards, they are experimenting with virtual talks and tours featuring experts and winemakers. We wanted to help keep our growers and customers connected and learning during these times when face to face tastings and travel is not possible, says Bryan Jackson, one of Newcomers founders. Every Wednesday in April, at 3pm, we host three winemakers and discuss a different topic each time from preserving heritage grape varieties, through to what we can learn from slow winemaking and returning to a simpler way of life.

Wine has always been a little slow to catch-up with the digital world, but the pandemic is changing this up a bit," he adds. I think that everyone and every business is adjusting the best they can. Wine will always be social, whether you are drinking with someone in a bar sometime soon, we hope or having a glass of wine with a friend over Zoom.

I think the wine world is really playing its best role here, offering relaxation and comfort to people who are cooped up in their homes, says Rachel Signer, founder of Pipette, a beautiful and trendy quarterly magazine about natural wine. A glass of nice wine takes the edge off whatever news article you're reading.

I know some people have been doing Zoom happy hours. I did one with some friends who I traveled with around Slovenia last year. We had a trip planned for Italy, this year, and of course it's cancelled. So we drank on Zoom. The other day, I did an Instagram Live 'apro' on the Pipette Magazine Instagram account, which was really fun. A few hundred people joined and I opened up four bottles of natural wine and chatted about them, and about making the magazine. I may do it again.

Hedonism, a Mayfair merchant of some repute, is even offering Zoom tastings with a professional sommelier at a cost of 100 per hour (excluding wine costs). "They have been extremely popular," says Matthias Simonet, Hedonism's shop and events manager. "We have a nice mix of new and former clients. It has allowed us to offer tasting experience to people living outside of London, who are usually not able to make the journey to the shop for a 'normal' tasting."

Despite the global wine industry being valued at more than $29 billion annually (natural wine makes up around $4 billion of that figure) the vast majority of winemakers function on razor thin margins, working with and against ever-fragile factors such as weather, rot, plague and changing tastes. An unseasonably wet summer or a particularly frostbitten winter can be catastrophic for an independent wine business. Now add in a pandemic that doesn't appear to want to adhere to any kind of human timeframe (stop... now?) and things have gotten tricky. "We are trying to stay sane over here but I can't wait for lockdown to be over to take the surfboards out again," says Jurgen Gouws, the young owner of Intellego Wines, a "minimal intervention" producer in the Swartland region of South Africa, north of Cape Town. His wines are sold at natural wine bars and stores around the world. The labels are, of course, very appealing, with lots of primary colours, clean space and abstract lines. If Intellego sold prints, you'd want to buy one.

"Branding definitely plays a bigger part than before as people, and especially the younger generation, like to explore and try new things," says Gouws, who reveals that online and social media interaction has been way up during quarantine. "There is still a generation that has their favourites and sticks with them, so its 50/50. I do think that we are moving into a time where people will have to 'taste' more with their eyes and a big part of selections made are based on that.

"Design is one thing that cant be rushed and with some of the labels it took me months before I came up with the imagery and story. Selling wine is also very much about selling the story and thats why one has to make sure imagery and the story complement each other."

Shop Cuve

A bottle of red wine arrives at my house from Shop Cuve (they even include two stickers, how kind). It's called Bock Les Grelots, a blend of Syrah, Merlot and Grenache. It's made by Sylvian Bock out of a low intervention vineyard in the tiny French town of Alba-la-Romaine in the Ardche. The label is ecru with an irreverent, bulbous font in a wispy grey pencil-effect. It looks lovely in contrast to the dark green of the bottle.

I wait for the late afternoon spring light to cut through my kitchen window and take a photo of the bottle held up to a wall, dappled in 5pm sunlight, posting it to my Instagram stories. Shop Cuve reposts it. I feel good, like I'm part of the club now. I feel like a man of means and good taste. Aspiration in isolation. A wine guy. I pour a glass later that evening, which quickly turns to three. It tastes good, too. Am I being influenced by the minimalist label? Probably. Who cares. I'm a wine guy now.

I finish the bottle and admire the label again.

Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more delivered straight to your inbox.SIGN UP

Need some positivity right now? Subscribe to Esquire now for a hit of style, fitness, culture and advice from the expertsSUBSCRIBE

See the article here:

The Very Instagrammable World Of Isolation Wine - esquire.com

We may be tempted to think that once Jesus had risen from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit upon the early Church, the lives of the Apostles were easy; after all, they were filled with the light and joy of knowing that the Lord had conquered sin and death; they knew that He was with them in the power of the Holy Spirit and the sacraments of the Church.

Yet, a simple reading of the Acts of the Apostles reveals that they met with immediate and violent opposition when they began to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ. Those who had conspired to kill Jesus certainly did not want Him coming back from the dead. How much easier for them if He had remained cold and lifeless in the tomb.

After Peter and John heal the blind beggar in Acts 3, the Sanhedrin -- the same body which condemned Jesus for blasphemy on the night of His arrest -- summons the Apostles for questioning, attempting to frighten and intimidate them into silence.

Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, mounts a bold defense, fearlessly proclaiming the risen Jesus as the savior of the world. The same man who cowardly denied even knowing Jesus in the moment of the Passion, is now filled with an evangelizing zeal which cannot remain silent. The Sanhedrin threatens the Apostles but cannot deny the truth of the miraculous healing of the beggar which has all of Jerusalem talking.

The fact that all of the Apostles, with the exception of John the Evangelist, were martyred for their faith in the risen Lord reminds us that proclaiming the Gospel is dangerous business. Satan, the master of the sinfully established disorder of things, wants Jesus to remain in the tomb and His followers to stay fearfully silent.

If Jesus Christ has been raised and is the Lord of Life and the center point of human history, then every person is called to follow Him and live by His teachings, to enter in this New Covenant, sealed in the Precious Blood of the Son of God, and there discover healing, forgiveness, and salvation. Evil does not want salvation to happen.

If Jesus Christ has been raised, then the abortion industry must close, euthanasia cease, the radical economic inequalities which afflict us end, the forces of greed, lust, violence, and selfishness surrender, and the reign of sin and death admit that God has definitively defeated them.

If Jesus has come forth from the tomb and reigns forever, this fundamental truth becomes the keystone for an entirely new moral and social order of things. Early Christians stood out from the crowd, not only for their heroic charity and contagious joy, but also because they rejected infanticide, hedonism, materialism, and sexual profligacy, common practices of the culture they lived in.

For many years now, Western civilization has fallen prey to the illusion that "willful desire" should be the guiding principle of human action. In the areas of sexuality, economics, politics, and even religion, the subjectivity of the autonomous self dictates one's course of action. Appeals to objective truth, natural law, moral principles, and religious doctrine are dismissed as echoes of a regressive consciousness which modern humanity has finally overcome.

What a different Spirit exudes from the pages of the New Testament! In the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, the writings of Saints, Paul, John, Peter, Jude, and James, Christians clearly understood that faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ demanded a radical and profound conversion of morals, values, practices, and beliefs.

Christians had left bad habits, sinful practices, and destructive attitudes behind. They needed their hands and hearts free in order to receive the astonishing Good News of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the transformation such a gift offered.

Thankfully, it is the same for us 2000 years later! The Lord Jesus invites us to leave sin and death behind and step into the vast, beautiful world of the Resurrection.

I value this quotation from Francis Cardinal George: "If the earth is our mother, then the grave is our home and the world is a closed system turned in on itself. But if Christ is risen from the grave and the Church is our mother, then our destiny reaches beyond space and time, beyond what can be measured and controlled. And therein lies our hope."

Read the original post:

The resurrection invites us to leave sin and death behind - Catholic Herald

The release of this documentary coincides with #MeAt20, a heart-twisting craze on social media for posting pictures of yourself at 20 years old. Middle-aged peoples timelines are speckled with funny, sweet and sometimes unbearably sad images of themselves in unlined, unformed youth, doing goofy things in milky analogue pictures from back when you had 12 or 24 exposures on your roll-film camera and getting them developed at Boots was a pricey business. Thats what I thought of while watching this engaging, oddly moving film from Spike Jonze: a record of the live stage show he devised at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, in tribute to white hip-hop stars and tongue-in-cheek party-libertarian activists the Beastie Boys. It is presented by the two surviving members, Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, in tribute to the third member, Adam Yauch, who died of cancer in 2012. Jonze is reuniting with the band after having directed a string of their music videos, including the crime-TV spoof for their single Sabotage in 1994.

Horovitz and Diamond amble on stage, apparently dressed head-to-toe in Gap, and appear for all the world to be about to unveil the iPhone 4S, although actually their jokey anecdotalism makes the show in some ways like the regional tours once presented by George Best and Rodney Marsh. With amiably rehearsed back-and-forth banter, they introduce the embarrassing photos and excruciating TV clips that are shown on a big screen. And the effect of seeing them juxtaposed with the plump-faced frizzy-haired imps of 1986 is startling and bizarre. In the present day, the advancing years seem to have boiled away the badass attitude, leaving behind the quirky humour.

They started out in their teens as post-punk enthusiasts for the Clash, and the photos of them at this stage are starkly black-and-white. But then the archive images turn into the garish colour of MTV. The Beastie Boys got very excited by rap, were picked up for management by the (now notorious) Russell Simmons, brother of Run DMCs Reverend Run, and soon they were opening for Madonna. In 1986, their album Licensed to Ill happened, along with its fascinating and deplorable and horribly brilliant single (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) an anthem for blearily defiant Reagan-years hedonism. I remember hearing it around the time I read PJ ORourkes Republican Party Reptile.

The Beastie Boys sold truckloads of records all over the world, and their puppyishly zany image co-existed with limitlessly energetic anarchy. They were, as they fondly recall, expected to be very dangerous on their foreign tours: particularly the British tour. Surreally, a full page of the Sun is flashed up on stage, and the band appear next to a giant picture of former Tory education secretary Kenneth Baker.

The bands live show featured a giant penis emerging from a box. Horovitz and Diamond explain they were intending to satirise the frat-boy image and it took over though they have the grace to say that they didnt really care at the time about an alleged misunderstanding that was making them globally famous and rich. However, they also appear genuinely mortified at the fact that, in the early days, they fired the only woman in their original lineup: Kate Schellenbach (now the TV producer of The Late Late Show with James Corden). They repudiate their early reputation for sexism, but nobody in the film mentions these lyrics from the early single Paul Revere: I did it like this / I did it like that / I did it with a whiffle ball bat.

Inevitably, the Beasties spiralled financially over the top, relocating to LA where they rented a gigantic house featuring a swimming pool with a bridge over it, and went broke. Their accountant phoned to announce this event and heartlessly signed off with: Ive gotta go; Ive got Donny Osmond on the other line. A relocation back to New York, a chastened existence playing smaller clubs, and continued musical experimentation proved to be their path back up to the big league, and Yauch became a campaigner for Tibet. This film is a time capsule of the 1980s: an era that was crass and excessive in so many ways, but now seems weirdly exotic.

Beastie Boys Story is available on Apple TV+ from 24 April.

See the original post here:

Beastie Boys Story review Spike Jonze and the boys are back in town - The Guardian