Monthly Archives: September 2021

Festival Goers in Long Island, NY & Fairfax County, VA Are Invited to Experience the Immersive Wonderland of Lights

2021 Theme 'Shine Again' Features a New Exhibit Entitled "Lumi's Utopia"

NEW YORK, Sept. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LuminoCity Inc., a multimedia entertainment company that transforms captivating stories into multidimensional experiences, announced the return of its one-of-a-kind holiday event, LuminoCity Festival, with its 2021 festival theme, 'Shine Again.' Inspired by the power and warmth of light overcoming the darkness, the LuminoCity Festival features exhibitions of spectacular light art displays and is a celebration of cultures and the world around us. Touted by TimeOut Magazine as a must-see experience, we are so excited to show you a brand new experience this year!

The LuminoCity Festival features exhibitions of spectacular light art displays and is a celebration of cultures and the world around us.

For the first time ever, the LuminoCity festival will be taking place in 2 different locations Roer's Zoofari in Fairfax County, Virginia (opening October 15) and Clark Botanic Gardens in Long Island, New York (opening November 12) local residents and families are invited to venture through the forest of warm glowing lights.

"We are excited to announce the details for our third annual LuminoCity Festival, which we are thrilled to host in two new locations this year," said Xiaoyi Chen, CEO of LuminoCity. "As one of the only expansive holiday experiences to safely open in 2020, it was an honor for us to bring some hope and joy to many individuals and families last year. For 2021, we hope to inspire even more with our theme, 'Shine Again,' and create an unforgettable and joyous holiday event that everyone can share with their loved ones."

Set upon a world lit-up with towering luminous sculptures, The LuminoCity Festival will take you to dazzling new worlds with Lumi, the LuminoCity mascot, as your guide. The immersive outdoor event will be a festive timed-entry experience for guests of all ages! Be prepared to stop and stare at all the handmade sculptures the festival has to offer. Featuring new light art installations, highlights of the 2021 LuminoCity Festival include the all-new 'Lumi's Utopia' as well as our annual 'Lumi's Friends' exhibit.

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Following the conclusion of Lumi's children's art event that took place this summer, Lumi's Utopia will feature the artwork from six young artists. Their 2D art designs, whose inspiration was 'My Favorite Gift,' will be brought to life as large 3D light-art sculptures to be viewed by all attendees of the 2021 LuminoCity Festival, creating an unforgettable experience for the talented young artists.

Our annual "Lumi's Friends" Exhibit is back by popular demand! LuminoCity's lantern artists will bring to life several of today's most popularand furrysocial media stars as part of "Lumi's Friends." Through the unique partnership with these furry friendsincluding @smoothiethecat & @turboroofestival goers will get to enjoy the artistic sculptures that capture each of the personalities of their favorite social media pets brought to life through light and color. The immersive experience is fun for all! Come with your friends, family, and loved ones. And make sure you have your camera ready to take photos with Lumi and the gang!

2021 LuminoCity Festival Locations

Clark Botanic Gardens: Long Island, NY (November 12, 2021 to January 9, 2022)Tickets Available Here

Roer's Zoofari: Fairfax County, VA (October 15, 2021 to January 2, 2022)Tickets Available Here

Ticket Information: Timed entry admission tickets will run between $22 to $76 for visitors to experience the full LuminoCity Festival immersive experience. An admission ticket is required for each visitor ages 3 and up.

For more information about the LuminoCity Festival, and to plan a visit for 2021, visit http://www.luminocityfestival.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram

Media Kit

Media Contact: Justine Chen 317248@email4pr.com 929-370-3907

Set upon a world lit-up with towering luminous sculptures, The LuminoCity Festival will take you to dazzling new worlds.

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LuminoCity Festival Returns for Anticipated 2021 Holiday Season in Two Brand-New Locations - Yahoo Finance

Ever tried to catch a wave after two weeks in hotel quarantine?

Sally Fitzgibbons has.

"It was super draining, every time you felt like you've never surfed before," she told AAP of her repeated efforts to get back to speed during the most extraordinary of World Surf League seasons.

"You see waves coming, paddle in, but miss them for the first three days.

"You're waiting for your proprioception to come back, your balance and awareness on board.

"There was a lot of 'oh my gosh I don't think I'm going to make it' moments and then even then it's if you don't make this next COVID-19 test it'll be the end of the road.

"It's felt like at any moment someone's going to just turn the lights out.

"It'll be nice to rest that system."

The Australian world title hope will finally get that chance once the Rip Curl WSL Finals are run and won as early as this weekend at California's Lower Trestles.

Only seven events have been possible in a campaign that began in Hawaii in December.

A fatal shark attack in Honolua Bay forced the women's Maui Pro to be shifted to the Banzai Pipeline for the first time, but not before the event was paused when WSL CEO Erik Logan contracted COVID-19.

The virus then played constant havoc on the tour schedule, while the sport's Olympics debut added further logistical hurdles for Fitzgibbons.

Despite it all, three thirds and a win at Rottnest Island's debut event means Fitzgibbons has registered her equal-best WSL season since finishing second in three straight campaigns between 2010-12.

Admitting that "some days she fell in a heap", Fitzgibbons said the secret to coping was "to get comfortable with the silence of it all".

Ranked third in the new top-five finals format, the 30-year-old believes "utopia is within reach" after a gutting quarter-final loss stopped her short of a sought-after Olympic medal.

She could meet compatriot Stephanie Gilmore (fourth seed) in her knockout heat, the winner of that to battle Tatiana Weston-Webb for the right to face top seed Carissa Moore in a best-of-three final.

"You can go 'urgh' and contemplate everything that's happened," Fitzgibbons said.

"But you don't need tol; just show up and let the experience show you in a way.

"If it's your day it'll happen.

"That moment, in the ultimate amount of pressure, you find that little bit of space in yourself to bring out your creative genius.

"On any given day it may not be there, but we just search for utopia and lean on those glimmers of hope that some components of it will be."

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Surfing 'utopia' within Fitzgibbons' reach - 7NEWS.com.au

Sonic recently celebrated his 30th anniversary, showcasing new games, new merch and a fantastic symphony that played through many classics from throughout the years.

However, another aspect that doesnt get talked about often is the amazing community that has allowed fans to create Sonic games in their own image - the games that they had hoped SEGA would one day develop.

In recent years, these fan games have become so sophisticated that they easily rival the official games, with remakes of past zones that have new control schemes to make Sonic fresh and exciting.

With this in mind, weve got three fan games that we simply had to tell you about, and how they showcase just what a Sonic game can be capable of.

This is a free-roaming take on Green Hill Zone that features many surprises. Released in 2017, it was developed for a fan game contest thats held every year, and this was created with an aim of seeing just how a 3D Sonic game could work with a different control scheme, and graphics that look as though theyve been made in the mid-nineties.

Think of a Sonic game that crosses with Breath of the Wild, with a sprawling Green Hill Zone, and you have Sonic Utopia. The control scheme is retro-inspired but works well, with the mouse able to make Sonic jump or perform a super peel out, while the WASD and space keys all control the blue blur with ease. You never feel like you lose sight or control, and everything is in your grasp.

Theres plenty of Easter eggs in this fan game, with a hidden area that houses Labyrinth Zone, a level from Sonic 1 which would guarantee anxiety as the drowning music will constantly play.

The SEGA Master System versions of Sonic games dont get much love. The most recent appearance of the 8-bit games were in Sonic Adventure DX, released back in 2003 as hidden games once you collected enough emblems throughout the game.

Fortunately, the community came through here, but went one step further. Both Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 have been remade from the ground up, but also with new features that borrows from the 2017 release of Sonic Mania Plus.

You get extra zones, such as Marble Zone - a level from Sonic 1 on the SEGA Genesis, but also has music that was discovered by the community. Theres also other characters to play as, such as Tails, Knuckles, Mighty and Ray.

Super forms are also here once you collect the 7 Chaos Emeralds, and theres even abilities lifted from other 8-bit Sonic games, such as the Rocket Shoes from Sonic Chaos. Add on a boss rush mode and even more secrets to uncover, youve got two remakes here that SEGA should take notice of. They not only give the two Master System games a new lease of life, but also showcase how the new features give the impression that theyve always been a part of these games for thirty years.

Its still a work in progress, but you can play the remakes right now on your PC or Android device, in native widescreen.

Think of this as the fan game equivalent of Sonic Generations, but with classic zones from the Master System and Genesis era remade into a modern take.

Released in 2020 as a demo and updated for SAGE 2021 (Sonic Amateur Games Expo), which is a festival celebrating fan games of Sonic and more. You can play Angel Island Zone and Ice Cap Zone from Sonic 3 alongside Oil Ocean Zone and Mystic Cave Zone from Sonic 2, and Aqua Lake Zone from the Master System version of Sonic 2.

Everything has been given a remake in every level, while staying true to the source material - from the badniks to the music, even to the bosses that were originally included.

You can run at high speeds and explore each zone before you face off against the boss. The game controls just like Sonic Forces and Sonic Generations on PC, so make sure you have a controller ready to go for this.

Its built on the Unity engine, so there arent high specifications here, but playing it in ultra settings in 1440p is a sight to behold, especially if youre using headphones. Everything feels immersive, its almost as if its DLC to Sonic Generations, its that good.

Theres always been an underwritten fact that a community of Sonic fans have had their idea of how a Sonic game should play, and its only in the last five years that weve seen them match up to the official games.

Remade levels that would have had a minimal chance of appearing, alongside remade 8 bit games that have not been seen since the Gamecube release of Sonic Adventure DX.

Its the fans that keep part of this memory of Sonic alive - that feeling of running fast, and with no gimmicks. While theres been plenty, from transformations into a werewolf in Sonic Unleashed, to blatantly copying Super Mario Galaxy with Sonic Lost World in 2014, the fan games go back to the zones that many remember, but in a style that works for the modern era.

With Sonic ready to celebrate the next thirty years, it would be great to see another game in the style of Sonic Mania, one made by fans who know what makes a Sonic game fun. To see this made with Sonic Encore, it could appeal to those fans who felt left out with that release, and even introduce others to remade zones that have only been seen in their original forms for the last thirty years.

But regardless of what SEGA has planned for the blue blur, you can always depend on the passionate fans to impress with games like these, and hopefully we see the company take notice of these incredible efforts soon, just like they did for Sonic Mania.

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How fans have created the Sonic games you've always wanted - TechRadar

Containerized cargo is stacked high on a China Shipping Line freighter at Miami Beach, Florida. ... [+] (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images)

So far, the Biden administrations trade policy has not been much different than the America First trade policy championed by Donald Trump. That may surprise some observers, given that economists viewed the Trump trade policy as imposing significant costs on consumers and businesses while unsuccessful in achieving its aims. To better understand the views of the business community on the Biden administrations approach to trade, I interviewed John Murphy, senior vice president for international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Stuart Anderson: The Biden administration has launched a comprehensive review of U.S. trade policy and set the goal of making it worker-centric. Whats your impression of this approach to date?

John Murphy: Its early, but theres both progress and frustration for the business community. The administration has pledged to restore regular order to trade policy by working more closely with Congress and the private sector, and theres good dialogue today. U.S. Trade Representative Tai deserves kudos for ending the long-running U.S.-EU trade dispute over aircraft subsidies and rejecting unwarranted tariffs on imports from Vietnam.

As for that worker-centric approach, its evident in the outreach to organized labor. This has led the administration to focus on issues such as union organizing rights in Mexico, for example. From our perspective, though, the U.S. needs to get back on offense on trade: Other countries are charging ahead with their own trade negotiations while the U.S. has not entered into a major new market-opening trade agreement in a decade. Forty million American jobs depend on trade: A worker-centric trade policy should open markets for their exports.

Anderson: Does business support this trade policy review?

Murphy: Yes, but as a country we need to expedite it, and we shouldnt get bogged down on questions that are pretty straightforward. Theres no reason the U.S. shouldnt move ahead with the trade negotiations with the UK and Kenya, for example. Declaring we have to address domestic economic priorities first isnt an answer: Trade is one of the best tools to strengthen our domestic economy.

Anderson: What about the tariffs Biden inherited from Trump?

Murphy: The business communitys frustration with the tariffs is growing. Theyre costly, they cover hundreds of billions of dollars of imports, and theyre still there. American families and companies are paying these taxes, as they have from the beginning.

Take the steel tariffs: Steel prices have soared by more than 300% in the past year, and six million American workers are employed by manufacturers that use steel as a critical input. Turning the U.S. into an island of expensive steel puts Americas most innovative and fastest growing manufacturers at a disadvantage relative to their global competitors. And steel imported from allies in Europe, Japan or Korea presents no threat to U.S. national security, which is the focus of the Section 232 statute. Tariff relief is an urgent priority.

Anderson: Were there costs to the Trump administrations trade policy?

Murphy: The Trump administration made tangible progress in select areas like digital trade, as we saw in a U.S.-Japan agreement and USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement). The structural reform commitments in the U.S.-China trade deal represent tangible progress. But the repeated threats to withdraw from trade agreements and the imposition of tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of imports imposed real costs. By 2019, the drag on investment was visible, FDI (foreign direct investment) declined and U.S. manufacturing fell into a recession; for agriculture, it would have been a depression absent government support. The reason folks dont talk about it more today is the coronavirus pandemic hit and produced an even bigger disruption. We should learn from this record.

Anderson: What are the Chambers priorities on trade policy in 2021 and 2022?

Murphy: In addition to rebooting a market-opening trade agenda and untangling the tariffs, we want to establish the foundation of a trade policy that supports growth in tomorrows industries to ensure continued innovation, growth and job creation here at home.

For example, the idea of negotiating a digital trade agreement with partners in the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere presents real opportunity. New digital trade tools are allowing huge numbers of small businesses to tap foreign markets. Services trade is now growing twice as fast as merchandise trade, thanks to digital tools. But protectionist barriers to digital trade are also spreading, so an agreement to keep the digital trade lanes open is important.

Its equally important to avoid self-inflicted wounds. The pursuit of an intellectual property waiver for Covid-19 vaccines at the WTO (World Trade Organization) not only wont help increase vaccine productionwhich is growing rapidly by any accountbut threatens to divert limited supplies of critical inputs away from the facilities best prepared to manufacture these complex medicines. Creating industry partnerships is the path forward, not breaking patents.

Anderson: What role would you like to see Congress play in trade policy?

Murphy: The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive authority to regulate foreign trade and levy tariffs, and too much of this authority has been delegated to the executive. We strongly support legislation to ensure that Congress always has a say in the imposition of tariffs. And further down the road, we hope to see Trade Promotion Authority restored to ensure that Congress sets the priorities for trade negotiations and is consulted in trade talks.

Anderson: What would be the Chamber of Commerces ideal trade policy for the United States?

Murphy: A trade policy utopia . . . doesnt utopia mean a place that doesnt exist? But as an organization that represents businesses of every size, sector and state, we are leery of proposals that would impose costs on the many to advantage the fewand usually a well-connected few at that. This is too common in trade policy, across history and around the world. Historically, America has gotten this right much of the time, more than many other countries, and Im optimistic we can do so in the future.

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Chamber Of Commerce Frustrated With Tariffs But Sees Trade Progress - Forbes

Gail Omvedts anticaste writings have a unique influence on the Dalit-Bahujan movement in Post-Independent India. Her intellectual activism was organised around a critique of inequality and the struggle for social justice in India. We know that Omvedt was influenced by Buddha, Kabir, Phule, and Ambedkar. Her work clearly outlines the vision of a casteless, classless, and democratic just society, and reflects the important ways in which the non-brahmin movement and the dissenting religious imagination produce the anti-caste intellectual thought in India. Indeed, Omvedts literature reminds us of the radical bhakti movements in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries as a society of equalitarianism and the rejection of the traditional brahminic hegemony.

In 2012, when I was in the first year of my Bachelors degree, back in Nagpur I came across her writings. I read her first seminal book The Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman Movement in Western India. It took me one whole day to finished her book. After finishing it, my interest in Omvedts work increases in great detail. The second book which caught my attention was We Will Smash This Prison: Indian Women in Struggle. Her scholarly writings shown the concrete problem of organising autonomous womens movement in India. For her, womens liberation from daily caste experience and patriarchy was important for social emancipation.

Omvedts commitment to democracy as well as her superb writings provide a rich account of the socio-cultural meaning of the Dalit movement. In many ways, her contribution to Dalit literature emerged as a strong voice of the oppressed caste in the state of Maharashtra and later in other states. Interestingly, Omvedt suggested that Dalit protest was a key factor in shaping the discourse of rights and constitutional safeguard. It is worth noting that her intellectual activism focused on the agency of the Dalits and challenged the limits of the politics of the left and Hindutva impulses to rediscover India.

My friend had gifted me Omvedts book Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectual. The book acquires significance because it traces the cultural movement of depressed classes and their social experiences. She offers a critical understanding of Indian history. In contrast to Gandhis village utopia of Ram Rajya, she emphasises the relevance of Dalit-Bahujan anti-caste intellectuals in the era of globalisation.

Omvedt grasped the importance of morality as a movement from a Phule-Ambedkarite perspective. She charted the utopian vision and underlined the new social and political project against communalism. She deeply engaged with the unequal and culturally diverse society through her numerous writings and activism. While rejecting orientalist, nationalist, and Hindutva imaginations of India, she undoubtedly gave a distinct development turn to it by avowing egalitarianism, Buddhism to reconstruct the world.

Although I did not Omvedt personally, but her rare blend of work brings together the Dalit-Bahujan history, politics, culture, a religious movement, and of lives that had been buried under long Brahmanic tradition in India. Being a social thinker, she provided deep insights into the grassroots level of Dalit leadership like Dadasaheb Sambhaji Tukaram Gaikwad who played a revolutionary role in organising the Mahad Satyagraha in 1927. Omvedts scholarship is valuable for researchers, activists, farmers and all those who are engaged in progressive social movements in India.

Besides being active in the social and cultural movement, Omvedt was significantly involved in the social transformation of Dalit women. She presents a social world where caste humiliation and class exploitation and gendered violence exist as a fact of the everyday life of the marginalised section. In fact, Omvedts valuable work asks for forging democratic solidarity among all the marginalised sections to reinvent India. In todays higher learning education, Dalits-Bahujan students actively face caste discrimination, and anti-caste literatures have been withdrawn from the university syllabus. This needs to be challenged.

The writer is a PhD Scholar at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

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Gail Omvedts anti-caste vision - The Indian Express