Monthly Archives: January 2022

David Byrne let his guitar slump on its strap for a moment, after opening his Broadway show, American Utopia, with a fiery rendition of The Revolution. He looked wearily into the audience and asked, Wouldnt it be heavenly if nothing ever happened? People laughed. Byrne let out a hard snort. The joke, gift-wrapped as a question, needed no elaboration. The subtext, the audience understood, was Treat yourself tonight, since the world is collapsing.

Not so long before, during the week leading up to Christmas, American Utopias producers had cancelled five performances. Too many cast and crew members had been sidelined by COVID, with seven testing positive, even though theyd been vaccinated. Rather than close the show, Byrne announced on social media, You can cash in your ticket, or you can have whats behind this curtain, which he billed as a show youll never, ever see again. He was offering a retooled American Utopia, featuring an assortment of songs reimagined by a scaled-back band of musicians. Were just gonna come up with a show, you know? Hey! he said. This is our opportunity to make lemonade from COVID lemons.

In a recent Zoom call, Byrne explained how it happened: We looked at the situation and we mapped it out. We said, O.K., we can do this with the people we have left. He paused to adjust a strap on his blue-and-white striped overalls. With fewer crew members, we could not do Burning Down the House. That is a big onevery popular with the audience. He continued, Onstage, its Look, were going to show you whats possible.

It got hectic as fuck, Bobby Wooten III, the bassist, said, on a separate Zoom call. Wooten, who has played with every version of the show, said that although they were using the same stage and some of the same people, the show were putting on is completely different. Were doing songs that basically none of us, outside of David, have ever played beforelike, thirteen new songs. He went on, We literally had eight hours of rehearsal the Sunday before and we had four hours the day of. And then each person put in a lot of time outside of that.

Remembering the music! Remembering the lyrics! Byrne said on the Zoom, chuckling. Hed been pleased to see a lot of younger people in the audience lately, and he noticed that other, older fans had come more than once. I thought, Wait a minute. Ive seen that couple at a previous show, he said. Theyre back!

On a bare stage, Byrne and company appear in shiny gray suits, with no shoes. Between songs, while band members switch up instruments and regroup, he tells stories. He winces if his punch lines come out garbled, and sometimes he wears the Who, me? grin of a seven-year-old who hassnagged your wallet and then offers to help you find it.

On the third night of the experiment, the audience, many of whom were double-masked, was palpably nervous. Heads swivelled, as people reassured themselves that their neighbors had their masks on tightly enough. By the time Byrne sang the Talking Heads hit Once in a Lifetime, they relaxed.

I could see them listen to each other, Ayla Huguenot, a seventeen-year-old musician in the audience, said of the band members. At certain points, Byrne would turn around and motion, like, O.K., lets do that chorus one more time. And then they would all kind of look at each other to see when they were going to end it. Her friend Carter Nyhan, also a musician, appreciated the teamwork, too, including some bumps here and there.

By the closing number, Road to Nowhere, the whole audience was on its feet and dancing. It was an anti-Broadway evening, an unapologetic display of solidarity and trust amid a cloud of anxiety. When the curtain fell, masks could not muffle the rapturous hollers.

On the Zoom, Byrne had said, I do feel a lot of love coming from the audience. I try not to take it personally. I tend to think to myself, They dont really love me. They dont know me as a person. They love what Ive done and what that means to them. He added, And I try and reciprocate thatbe very present and real. Let them know that Im talking to them in that moment.

He is enjoying the scrappy element of the show. I think I might miss how we had to really scramble, he said. But, performing in the era of COVID, theres nothing glamorous about that, either. Ill be happy when thats all over, when the audiences can take off their masks.

Read more:

David Byrne Does Broadway on the Fly - The New Yorker

In its tale of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist convicted of paedophilia, Hanya Yanagiharas first novel, The People in the Trees, introduced her as a novelist with a gift for the subversive. But it was her second that took the Hawaiian author to a different plane.

A Little Life told of Jude, a successful New Yorker who could never overcome the effects of his childhood trauma. Some found the book overly gratuitous, others darkly beautiful. It was celebrated by some as the great gay novel, criticised by others for its omission of 9/11. Nothing impeded its Booker shortlisting, or its route to million-copy bestsellerdom. These days it is enjoying a resurgence on TikTok, where users record their swooning, tearful, angry or admiring reactions. Ive never wanted to unread a book more in my life, claims one TikTokker as she sobs before camera. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is my favourite book, says another.

It is hard to imagine similarly charged responses to Yanagiharas third book, To Paradise, which, at 700-odd pages is almost as long but nowhere near as emotionally rousing as her last. The three parts that comprise the book read like three separate novels, with oddly placed linking elements. Its mayhem, so buckle up.

First, were in an alternative version of America in 1893. New York is part of the Free States, where homosexuality is the norm, but only white people can live there. A stilted old-fashioned register introduces David Bingham, a still almost-young man who is heir to the Bingham fortune. He has been promised to a suitor much older than him, but when a poor music teacher enters his life, everything he believes about the world is thrown into disarray.

Layered with allegory

Next, we are in 1993 Manhattan. Another David (or is it the same one, reincarnated? Perhaps its a descendent of our first David, though we are told he descends from the last monarch of Hawaii) has just received a letter from his long-lost father. He defers reading it out of dread, or more likely because the plot demands such deferral so we can be filled in on his relationship with an older man whose former lover wishes to be euthanised.

The Aids epidemic is alluded to repeatedly but never really affects the storyline. For the reader (at least for this reader), the feeling that there is something we are supposed to be getting, but are not quite, is a constant. When we finally get around to the letter, it tells of Davids childhood, the colonisation of Hawaii, his fathers mental decay and a doomed utopian project to live off the grid in Lipo-Wao-Nahele. Its layered with allegory but is too chaotic to impart its meaning successfully.

Finally, the third section is set in New York at the end of this century. Climate disaster and recurring pandemics have led to totalitarian rule. There are curfews, checkpoints, containment camps for those with diseases. We follow Charlie, a young woman who lives in Zone Eight, and C, a government scientist.

The book seems to play with the butterfly effect: examining what the world might look like if small tweaks were made to history. (Or, in the case of the third section, focusing on how certain elements of the present might define how the future looks). Naturally, a lot of artistic licence is employed. The main through line is the theme of utopia. Paradise recurs in various guises. To some, it is freedom, to others safety, touch, love, wealth, death, legacy, a fresh start, a suicide bomb. In some ways, the utopian impulse was also explored in A Little Life, as its characters danced around the ephemeral notion of happiness. But To Paradise comes at it in a decidedly different way. It almost reads like 18th century satire. Like Voltaires Candide or Swifts Gulliver, a young naf goes out in search of the best of all possible worlds and discovers it is always beyond reach: one persons utopia is anothers dystopia. As in these Enlightenment texts, the characters and storylines feel more like vessels for ideas than real people and stories.

Unfortunately, this storytelling mode obscures most of what makes Yanagiharas writing good. The book felt beefy and convoluted and it was not until the third section that I felt drawn to read on.

Charlies sections are narrated in the first person. The tone is detached. She has experienced an illness that altered her brain chemistry, so she finds it hard to feel. The state, in any case, does not allow for individual expression. She wonders if it was possible that I was actually not who I thought I was.

But through her emotionless register, humanity creeps through. She is certain she will never be loved, and will never love, either. But then a man (named David, of course) enters her life and the feeling I had when I stood at the north of the Square, watching him wave awakens something in her. Was I able to feel it after all? she asks herself. Was what I had always assumed was impossible for me something I had known all along?

The book attempts to interrogate the bind between humanity and idealism but the third section is the only one that does so effectively. It is Charlies voice, and the irony of her emotionlessness inspiring emotion in the reader, thats the kicker. Had the book consisted of this section alone, it would have made for a decent work of speculative fiction. As a whole, though, To Paradise demands far more from the reader than it gives back. Like all ambitious, utopian projects, it feels nothing like Utopia, really.

Fiction: To Paradise by Hanya YanagiharaPicador, 720 pages, hardcover 16.99; e-book 9.99

Excerpt from:

To Paradise: Winding road to utopia is riddled with dead ends - Independent.ie

Utopia Gymnastics Club was originally formed in 2017 in Brighouse and proved a success with 500 members participating each week.

Through the Club Capital project, they were given the opportunity to expand and provide a second dedicated facility for local residents to be able to experience gymnastics and dance, promoting a healthy and active lifestyle particularly for young people and a new site in Wakefield was chosen.

The site can be found on Caldervale Road and it is Wakefields only dedicated gymnastics facility and the first offering artistic gymnastics programmes. It is already a success with almost 500 members joining since it was opened in 2021.

Utopia Gymnastics was created by ex-Yorkshire gymnast Kirstie Limbert and husband Luke, with the goal of introducing the sport and more importantly, the opportunity for anyone to participate in physical activity to the local community.

Going beyond simply providing the sessions, Utopia have focused on an inclusive practice to ensure that gymnastics remains accessible and enjoyable to play a key role in aiding the development of young people.

Kirstie reflected on the clubs approach:

We are very much a grassroots club, but its fantastic to have a new and dedicated facility where you can best deliver community outreach and give every young person the best experience in gymnastics possible.

We have already seen a really positive impact on the children and young people, particularly with the social and mental health benefit. This site has helped us to serve the community and provide for more young people than ever before the growth has been about double what we expected initially but its fantastic to see the enthusiasm that the local area has for gymnastics.

We are also working hard to continue developing our relationship with local schools where we are able to go in and deliver sessions to those who may never have had the chance to experience the sport at all.

We wouldnt have been able to open without Club Capital. After being turned down by quite a few different lenders, we spoke to our facilities support officer at British Gymnastics who helped us get it off the ground.

As soon as we heard about the opportunity, we were interested immediately and were just desperate to realise our vision, and Im so glad we have got there.

Without the necessary affordable loan, it would not have been possible for Wakefield to have this new facility.

Remarkably converted from an aging industrial unit, the project needed 320,000 to transform dead space into an outstanding leisure space, including an all-new reception, communal area, gymnastics floor, podium pit, as well as an additional dance studio which includes further gymnastics space.

British Gymnastics Club Capital gave Utopia the opportunity to develop this dedicated facility in Wakefield, also handing an opportunity to hundreds of young people who before did not have the same access to sport and wellbeing activities.

Dave Marshall, participation director at British Gymnastics and at the forefront of the Club Capital initiative, visited the club recently and was delighted to see the remarkable community outreach since the new facility dream became reality.

He said: It is absolutely wonderful to see Utopia Gymnastics making the most of their new facilities, and continuing their brilliant work in ensuring everyone has the opportunity to get involved in gymnastics and experience the joys of the sport.

Gymnastics is considered a foundation sport because it has so many benefits that are integral to wider development, whether thats supporting cognitive development, co-ordination and flexibility, or skills like teamwork.

We are passionate about supporting clubs and it is extremely important that funding does not stand in the way of clubs who want to develop or move into their own facilities.

We have been working hard to create as many opportunities in gymnastics through our Club Capital project, as well as providing stability to clubs whilst they rebuild through our Covid Recovery fund, which includes a 1.5 million recovery loan to help clubs who have been impacted by the pandemic.

Utopia Gymnastics is open to anyone who wants to give gymnastics a try for the first time, to find out more you can visit http://www.utopiagymnastics.co.uk

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Utopia is right here in Wakefield thanks to British Gymnastics' funding programme - Wakefield Express

American democracy is in peril and nearly everyone paying attention is trying to find the best way to say so. Should we in the intellectual classes position our warnings in satire, in jeremiads, in social scientific data, in historical analogy, in philosophical wisdom we glean from so many who have instructed us about the violence and authoritarianism of the 20th century? Or should we just scream after our holiday naps?

Some of us pick up our pens and do what we can. We quote wise scribes such as George Orwell on how there may be a latent fascist waiting to emerge in all humans, or Hannah Arendt on how democracies are inherently unstable and susceptible to ruin by aggressive, skilled demagogues. We turn to Alexis de Tocqueville for his stunning insights into American individualism while we love to believe his claims that democracy would create greater equality. And oh! how we love Walt Whitmans fabulously open, infinite democratic spirit. We inhale Whitmans verses and are captured by the hypnotic power of democracy. O Democracy, for you, for you I am trilling these songs, wrote our most exuberant democrat.

Read enough of the right Whitman and you can believe again that American democracy may yet be the continent indissoluble with the life-long love of comrades. But just now we cannot rely on the genius alone of our wise forbears. We have to face our own mess, engage the fight before us, and prepare for the worst.

Our democracy allows a twice-impeached, criminally inclined ex-president, who publicly fomented an attempted coup against his own government, and still operates as a gangster leader of his political party, to peacefully reside in our midst while under investigation for his misdeeds. We believe in rule of law, and therefore await verdicts of our judicial system and legislative inquiry.

Yet Trumpism unleashed on 6 January, and every day before and since over a five-year period, a crusade to slowly poison the American democratic experiment with a movement to overturn decades of pluralism, increased racial and gender equality, and scientific knowledge. To what end? Establishing a hopeless white utopia for the rich and the aggrieved.

On this 6 January anniversary is it time to sing anew with Whitmanesque fervor, or is the only rational response to scream? First the scream.

On 6 January 2021, an American mob, orchestrated by the most powerful man in the land, along with many congressional and media allies, nearly destroyed our indirect electoral democracy. To this day, only Trumps laziness and incompetence may explain why he did not force Vice-President Mike Pence to resign in the two months before the coup attempt, install a genuine lackey like Mark Meadows, and set up the formal disruption of the count of electoral votes. The real coup needed guns, and military brass thankfully made clear they would oppose any attempt at imposing martial law. But the coup endures by failing; it now takes the form of voter suppression laws, virulent states rights doctrine applied to all manner of legislative action installing Republican loyalists in the electoral system, and a propaganda machine capable of popularizing lies big and small.

The lies have now crept into a Trumpian Lost Cause ideology, building its monuments in ludicrous stories that millions believe, and codifying them in laws to make the next elections easier to pilfer. If you repeat the terms voter fraud and election integrity enough times on the right networks you have a movement. And replacement theory works well alongside a thousand repetitions of critical race theory, both disembodied of definition or meaning, but both scary. Liberals sometimes invite scorn with their devotion to diversity training and insistence on fighting over words rather than genuine inequality. But it is time to see the real enemy a long-brewing American-style neo-fascist authoritarianism, beguilingly useful to the grievances of the disaffected, and threatening to steal our microphones midway through our odes to joy.

Yes, disinformation has to be fought with good information. But it must also be fought with fierce politics, with organization, and if necessary with bodies, non-violently. We have an increasingly dangerous population on the right. Who do you know who really wants to compromise with their ideas? Who on the left will volunteer to be part of a delegation to go discuss the fate of democracy with Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy or the foghorns of Fox News? Who on the right will come to a symposium with 10 of the finest writers on democracy, its history and its philosophy, and help create a blueprint for American renewal? As a culture we are not in the mood for such reason and comity; we are in a fight, and it needs to happen in politics. Otherwise it may be 1861 again in some very new form. Unfortunately it is likely to take events even more shocking than 6 January to move our political culture through and beyond our current crisis.

And if and when it is 1861 again, the new secessionists, namely the Republican party, will have a dysfunctional constitution to exploit. The ridiculously undemocratic US Senate, now 50/50 between the two parties, but where Democrats represent 56.5% of the population and Republicans 43.5%, augurs well for those determined to thwart majoritarian democracy. And, of course, the electoral college an institution more than two centuries out of date, and which even our first demagogue president, Andrew Jackson, advocated abolishing offers perennial hope to Republicans who may continue to lose popular votes but win the presidency, as they have in two of the last six elections. Democracy?

And now the song? Well, keep reading. Of all the books on democracy in recent years one of the best is James Millers Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World. A political philosopher and historian, Miller provides an intelligent journey through the turbulent past of this great human experiment in whether we can actually govern themselves. He demonstrates how thin the lines are between success and disaster for democracies, how big wins turn into reactions and big losses, and how the dynamics of even democratic societies can be utterly amoral. Intolerant new ruling classes sometimes replace the tyrants they overthrow.

Democratic revolts, like democratic elections, Miller writes, can produce perverse outcomes. History is still waiting for us. But in the end, via examples like Vclav Havel in the Czech Republic, Miller reminds us that the ideal survives. Democracy does require the best laws, Havel intoned, but it must also manifest as humane, moral, intellectual and spiritual, and cultural. Miller does the history to show that democracy is almost always a riddle, not a recipe. Democracy is much harder than autocracy to sustain. But renew it we must.

Or simply pick up Whitmans Song of Myself, all 51 pages, from the opening line, I celebrate myself, and sing myself, to his musings on the luck of merely being alive. Keep going to a few pages later when a runaway slave enters Whitmans home and the poet gazes into his revolving eyes, and nurses the galls of his neck and ankles, and then to his embrace of primeval, complete democracy midway in the song, where he accepts nothing which all cannot have. Finally read to the ending, where the poet finds blissful oblivion, bequeathing himself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. Whitmans sign of democracy is everywhere and in everything. The democratic and the authoritarian instinct are both deep within us, forever at war.

After 6 January, its time to prepare thee to sing, to scream, and to fight.

Read more from the original source:

Trump has birthed a dangerous new Lost Cause myth. We must fight it - The Guardian

Call it an Intrigue of the Seas, but are cruise passengers getting a hint at the possible names of Royal Caribbeans upcoming ships?

About three weeks ago the cruise line registered dozens of names with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). While the registration doesnt specify them distinctly as vessel names, they all carry Royal Caribbeans signature naming convention for its ships:

Names include Intrigue of the Seas, Unity of the Seas, Bliss of the Seas, Eternity of the Seas and more.

All were registered on December 16, 2021 under a 1B filing basis with the patent office. This status indicates that a filer has a bona fide intention to use your mark in commerce with your goods and/or services in the near future, according to the USPTO.

To be sure, it doesnt mean that the names have to be used, but going through the process of trademarking means they are more serious than just brainstormed ideas.

So what are the new names? Here they are in order as listed on the patent offices website:

To be sure you can see some theme patterns in the trademarks. For instance, Joy, Bliss, Awe, & Splendor all feel as if they could belong to the same class of ships. Melody of the Seas certainly feels like a sister ship to current Oasis-class ships Symphony of the Seas and Harmony of the Seas. And Nirvana, Utopia, and Paradise all seem to belong to the same group.

The cruise line generally has ship names that tie into a central theme surrounding a class. For instance, its Freedom-class ship names include Freedom of the Seas, Liberty of the Seas, and Independence of the Seas. Having multiple names in the trademark list that revolve around a theme is not surprising.

So will all these names ever see use?

The sheer number of trademarks means that even if they do use them all, it will be a long time before all these names start sailing. Even at a rate of one new ship per year, it would take more than two decades to go through the entire list.

As of now, the cruise line has four ships on order through 2026. This includes an unnamed Oasis-class ship that is planned for 2024. It also includes three ships in the cruise lines new Icon class. The first ship in that class is dubbed Icon of the Seas and is scheduled for 2023. Two more ships in the class have yet to be named.

One other hint? A user on a CruiseCritic message board posted images of a survey asking which name they preferred for the upcoming unnamed Oasis-class ship. On the list were most of the trademarked names, including Melody of the Seas, Utopia of the Seas, and Unity of the Seas.

From the looks of it, Royal Caribbean has plenty of ideas on what to call its upcoming ships.

Read the original post:

Intrigue of the Seas: Will Royal Caribbean's Next Ship Name Come From This List? - Cruzely.com