Daily Archives: April 25, 2022

We’re Not Really Listening to One Another: A Conversation with Gal Beckerman – lareviewofbooks

Posted: April 25, 2022 at 5:13 pm

THE ARAB SPRING, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the Green New Deal: one thing we can say about all of these movements however distinct in their goals, strategies, and tactics is that they managed to capture the public imagination, at least for a certain moment, with a hashtag. They manifested to varying degrees in city squares and streets, courtrooms, legislative chambers, and election campaigns, but its fair to say that, without the emergence of dominant social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, our social movements and politics since 2011 quite a history would be unrecognizable. And, maybe, more successful.

Gal Beckerman, in his new book, The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas, would like those of us who care about making social and political change to take a break from our scrolling and posting and consider what our social media are doing to us, what we may be losing. But rather than write yet another cyber-pessimist jeremiad, Beckerman gives us a series of richly detailed historical narratives, deeply researched and reported, ranging from France during the 17th-century Scientific Revolution to the working-class Chartist movement of 1830s Britain, from the anticolonial stirrings in Accra in the 1930s to the Soviet samizdat dissidents of the 1960s, and from the riot grrrl zines of the early 1990s on up to the Arab Spring, the alt-right, and the Black Lives Matter uprisings of recent years. In each case, it becomes clear that the means of communication, the media through which radical thinkers and movement builders interact, can be as important as the ideas being developed and shared.

A book like this isnt meant so much to inform our present fights for survival, democratic and social and planetary, as to help us step back and think about where the next radical ideas will come from, the ones well need if were going to get through a catastrophic century. The question is whether if we fail to get our heads out of our corporate-serving, profit-fueling feeds these ideas will come at all.

I spoke with Beckerman by video call from his home in Studio City on February 2.

WEN STEPHENSON: So, this is a conversation about people having conversations.

GAL BECKERMAN: Its true!

I admit Im deeply biased in favor of your argument in this book. Its been about a year now since I deleted my Twitter account and swore off social media. Best thing I ever did. [Laughs.] But my relationship to digital media goes back to 1994, when I was a young editor at The Atlantic helping dream up the online version of the magazine, and then co-creating TheAtlantic.com in 1995 and editing its web-only journal. And I was guardedly optimistic about the internet and digital media back then. I was less sanguine about their so-called democratizing potential. I think a lot of us sensed that corporations would figure out how to monopolize the new media, as capitalism always does. But what I failed to see coming was the dominance of social media. And I can honestly say that our social media saturation, and the damage its doing, is now beyond anything I ever imagined, even in my most dystopian moods. Now add to this background my experience since 2010 as a journalist and activist engaged in the climate justice movement, and you see where Im coming from. So, Im curious, whats the story of your own relationship to digital media and its intersection with politics and social movements?

They are kind of separate spheres. Theres how we understand the role of social media when it comes to our personal lives, and I think that people appreciate how strange and skewed the forms of communication online are, compared to what we know from real life. We understand that these are private companies that are hosting these platforms on which we communicate. They have their interests, which are opening up certain types of conversations and foreclosing certain other types of conversations. I think thats really in the bloodstream now. When it comes to social movements, though, I believe theres still a lot of dreaminess and sort of romanticizing of what it means to have a platform, an enormous megaphone that any person can have.

I became acutely aware of this around the time of the Arab Spring, when there was a lot of romantic talk about Twitter revolutions, and it seemed to me then, even in the flush of it, just watching it happen, that this was not sustainable. It was really great that they were able to call everybody to the square right away the scale and the speed cannot be disputed but it occurred to me how seductive that could be, to have a tool that allowed for that, and to believe thats the only tool that you need. And what happened in the Arab Spring and I didnt make this up, this is from conversations with people who were on the ground is they said to themselves, with some hindsight, we were so enamored with our ability to use Facebook or Twitter that we continued to do that, even the day after, when the dictator fell. Even in the best of circumstances, lets say Egypt, when they brought the dictator down, the next day they needed some other kind of tool to build themselves into a political opposition. And thats when it became clear that you cannot do that kind of work on Facebook and Twitter. Those platforms dont want you to do that work on there. Its not what theyre built for.

Are you a heavy user of social media? And have you ever thought about deleting your Twitter account?

[Laughs.] Oh, yeah, and I have definitely gone through periods of time where, lets say, I knew I needed a degree of focus and Ive deleted the apps from my phone or promised myself not to look at it before a certain time of day. I try to be as self-aware as I can about what its doing to me, or how Im being incentivized, what kind of speech Im putting out into the world. The other thing Im aware of with Twitter is Im not good at it. Because its not just about being witty or funny, its almost like this performative vulnerability. Its putting out certain parts of yourself in order to create an impression. And to be honest, if I could be better at it, Id probably do it too. Theres a lot to be gained these days in journalism and the media world by having 200,000 followers, its something that really has capital attached to it. But Im just not good at it!

The book is a great read, and one thing I appreciate is that its a book about media that contains almost no jargon and very little in the way of abstract theorizing. Instead, its built entirely on specific stories about specific people, at specific times and places, engaged in specific forms of movement-building and idea-forming. The argument of the book is actually quite simple and direct, and the books great strength is in the details and the narratives. Often, its the other way around a book will have an elaborate, complex argument and be weak on the details. So, tell me about the books argument and structure, and how it emerged.

I really appreciate that. The argument is a fairly simple one. Its that a radical idea, an idea thats going to undermine some fundamental aspect of our shared reality change the way we see things, the way we see ourselves, the way our relationship is to nature or to other people that an idea like that demands a certain amount of incubation.

Incubation is this process by which people can come together, and refine an idea, imagine different aspects of it without fear of being shamed. They can throw out certain things, egg one another on, push one another, but also gain a certain amount of cohesion as a group, if theyre going to become a social movement, and a sense of identity, of identification with each other and with the cause. All of this stuff, I believe, needs to happen, if not in a completely closed space, then a space thats quieter and slower than we have access to these days in our dominant media forms. So thats the argument of the book, and the idea was, what would it be like to do a book that starts in the 17th century, looking at the Scientific Revolution and how it sort of percolated through letters, as a medium, and ends with Black Lives Matter and the role that Twitter played in elevating that movement.

Initially, I was really drawn to certain kinds of stories. I did my first book about dissidents in the Soviet Union, and Ive always been fascinated by their use of samizdat, those underground, self-produced, typewritten journals and all kinds of things theyd produce in multiple copies and share hand to hand. Samizdat had a lot of value for those groups of people, because it was the only kind of intellectual currency they could create for themselves, and they had to do it underground, it was entirely subversive, sharing ideas that were not allowed in the culture at all, they could get people thrown into jail or sent to the gulags.

And my fascination with that happened around the same time as the Arab Spring, and the hoopla around the Twitter revolutions, and the contrast between these two forms of communication really struck me. And then I started casting backward historically, and thinking, is it possible to kind of reverse-engineer some of the movements weve come to think about as having been successful and see at their source a form of communication, a medium, that actually helped these groups of people begin to incubate their ideas? And a rich store of examples presented itself.

One of the themes or threads I found running through the book is the need for dissidents and movement-builders to connect with one another first as individuals, or as a small group, and to relate to each other as people, not as abstract avatars on a screen or aggregate numbers of followers. And certain forms of communication, as you argue, have been better at allowing this than others. But it always comes back to people, and the relationships between people. Can you talk about that? The Soviet dissidents are a great example, because they formed a tight community and really took care of each other as human beings. And it seems to have been similar with the riot grrrl community in the early 90s, which you write about, and the Black Lives Matter groups theres always this human element, and different forms of media can either help it or hinder it.

Yeah, one of the things thats occurred to me over the last few years is our confusion over what the word social actually means. Theres the social of being at a cocktail party and being in a room with a lot of people, and its really loud, a lot conversations and snippets of conversations, and youre moving from one to another, and then you come home at the end of the night and youre like, I dont feel like I really talked to anybody. Thats one kind of social. And then theres the social of, you know, five people sitting around a table with beers or coffee, and really sharing ideas, and maybe confronting one another about something one person believes. Both these things are social, but theyre very different and they can have different outcomes, in terms of the sorts of relationships that you build.

And for me, whats missing in our intense sociability I mean, were with people all day long online, constantly hearing hundreds of different voices is were not really listening to one another and building off of one anothers ideas.

You mentioned earlier that theres something performative about Twitter and Facebook, and I think thats crucial. Because its all public, all for an audience, whether you have a few hundred followers or a few hundred thousand followers, its still performative. And one thing you draw out in the book is that theres this need for people to have the space, the safety, to fail, to put your foot in your mouth, to just be wrong.

Absolutely, yeah.

And in the final chapter, on Black Lives Matter, I think you found perfect vehicles for illustrating these kinds of tensions.

Whats funny is I had written a Black Lives Matter chapter that I finished a draft of in December 2019, before the George Floyd protests. And that chapter was very elegiac, like, heres this movement that got overtaken by the social media metabolism. And then when it came back in 2020 in such an incredible way, it actually gave me an opportunity, because the activists Id gotten to know were familiar with the cycle now. They understood what it meant to have this moment of very intense attention and visibility, and how quickly it could dissipate, and how hard it was to translate that energy into the sort of granular local changes that they were trying to achieve.

Right, they had been through the wringer with social media, through that learning process. I mean, in most of the grassroots organizing spaces Im familiar with, the real work of organizing doesnt happen on social media platforms. And there can be a very fraught relationship between the organizing work thats going on and the public-facing social media interactions. Again, it all comes back to relationships and this basically human aspect of it, and a big part of that is the trust you need to build with the people youre working with.

Yeah, how do you build that trust when, lets say in the best of circumstances, only half of the reason someones saying something is so they can actually communicate with you and the other half is so that they can perform for the other however many thousands of people who are watching. Its like a conversation through megaphones.

Exactly. So, one thing I thought was interesting about the way you told the story of the BLM groups in Minneapolis and Miami was how it illustrates that the real work of organizing and social-movement building happens offline. Or at least, not in public on social media. You have the example of how Dream Defenders made a very intentional effort to get away from social media with their blackout.

They literally went offline.

Yeah, and most of the organizers I know spend very little time on social media they use it strictly as a tool because theyre too busy actually doing the work of organizing.

So, for the Dream Defenders this group in Miami that came out of the moment around the murder of Trayvon Martin, one of the earlier cases that was part of the BLM trajectory they had a very high-profile protest in Florida, and then the movement spread throughout the country, it blew up in Ferguson, and they felt they were constantly trying to catch up with what they felt was a value system of visibility and attention. They told me that this was a time when newspapers and magazines would list the most effective activists in the country, but do it in terms of their Twitter followers. So, you have to have an extremely healthy, almost an impossibly healthy ego to not be affected by that, to say, Im just going to do the work and Im not going to care about the attention its getting. And the attention also matters, by the way, because with the attention come resources, theres money to be had for nonprofit organizations if you can make your work visible.

All this was extremely confusing, or troubling, to these activists, because it felt like it scrambled their priorities. It made them see that there were things that needed to be handled or dealt with at the local level, but, as in much of our politics, they had to think nationally, in terms of how to gain attention on these big platforms. And to their immense credit, some of these leaders saw that they were going to get subsumed, they were not going to be able to have a real function anymore if they didnt sort of stop and pull the plug, and figure out what they called their DNA, who they really were, and what they were there for.

And as I write in the chapter, Rachel Gilmer, the activist with Dream Defenders I spent a lot of time with, told me that one of the first things they realized was that one of the big items on their platform, abolishing the police this was a very popular position on Twitter and within the community they were interacting with there as soon as they did this blackout, where everyone deleted their apps for, I think it was three months, and started talking to people in the communities they were ostensibly serving, walking door to door, just having conversations, they realized that people didnt really want to get rid of the police. Even if this group felt that was the ultimate goal, they were a long way off from convincing the constituency that they were supposedly speaking on behalf of. And so, the focus shifted entirely, and it became, lets not try to draw the most attention to ourselves, lets try to create environments where we can sensitize people to what community-led safety might look like. And lets get their ideas, too, not talk at them but actually hear what is working and what isnt working.

And then you write about the Black Lives Matter group in Minneapolis.

In Minneapolis, as we all remember, there was that dramatic moment in the summer of 2020 when the city council said they were going to get rid of the police. That was the most overt example of a municipality responding to the protests. But it didnt happen. The city council had promised it, but there was another body in the city thats in charge of the constitutional charter, and it said, no, this is not taking place. So, the only recourse, for the activists who had made this happen, was to get a petition going that would put the question on a ballot referendum, which was voted on in November 2021. My chapter ends with them embracing the petition effort here was an opportunity that was extremely local, like canvassing, they really had to figure out how to have conversations with people, convince them, get them on board with this idea, or figure out what version of this idea could possibly work and gain their support. I think they had to get 20,000 signatures. And they managed to do it, it got on the referendum, and it was voted down, 56 percent of the city voted that they didnt want to get rid of the police.

Well, on one level thats a failure, right? They tried to make this happen, and it didnt happen. But on another level, if you think of change as incremental, especially change thats this radical and it is radical, when you think of something as taken for granted as the cop in the blue uniform on the corner not being there anymore then going from zero to 44 percent, thats a pretty big increment, you know? And theyre not stopping.

You can have an opinion about their approach, or whether their goal is right or wrong, but from a purely organizing perspective, and having an idea that is very status-quo-busting, what worked for them was to get very local and have conversations. Thats what they told me, that at the end of the day, developing relationships with city council members that were sympathetic to them, and helping to get city council members elected who could represent their agenda, its old-school organizing, in a way, but its gotten kind of obscured.

Its local politics 101.

Thats right.

Heres one from the wayback machine. Back in 1999, I interviewed Lawrence Lessig about his book Code, which among other things made the basic point that there are political values and ideologies embedded in the design of software and computer systems, as much as in constitutions. What do you think is the ideology of Facebook or Twitter? Is it just capitalism?

[Laughs.] Thats what I would guess. I mean, its a business thats built on maximizing the amount of time people will be using their service. Its masked with a lot of fancy romantic talk about what it all means, but now I think some of that mask has dropped. But thats what it is: its a privately owned business that wants you to be on there as much as possible so that it can sell advertising, and do other kinds of things, with your data.

To me, whats interesting is thats the starting point theyre driven by these capitalist instincts but then what does it mean for the type of communication we can have on there, and the ways it can mold our thinking and our relationships to one another? Theres the Marshall McLuhan, medium is the message, slightly technological-deterministic thinking about what a medium can do. I feel like thats gone out of fashion, in a way, partly because it sounds so deterministic, like we dont have any power in this situation. Neil Postman is another thinker that I was very inspired by.

But I feel like we dont really engage enough with those ideas anymore. We understand that these are privately owned platforms that have certain biases, in terms of the kind of speech that they want to create. But then the next step, of asking, so what does that mean? How do we contort ourselves to fit that? Thats the part that was interesting for me in terms of understanding social movements. Because if you have an entire value system thats built out of those platforms, and out of what they want from us, then thats going to have a very wide impact on society as a whole, and certainly on (my specific lens) our ability to make change.

Ill mention one counterpoint. When I was on Twitter, every once in a while Id point out, in a critical way, the nature of these platforms. And I was tweeting to a lot of people on the left, people who arent white, cis, men like me, and issues of privilege came up. And I got this blowback which I take to heart that in some ways it sounded like I was putting down, or devaluing, the contributions of women and people of color and queer folks who had really found a voice and a kind of empowerment through Twitter.

Yeah, and I struggled sometimes in this book, because I dont actually think of it as a cyber-pessimist book that says we should switch off the internet. I really dont think that. I think theres absolutely a role for a Facebook or a Twitter, the kind of loud social media, giving anybody who wants it a megaphone, which wasnt allowed to happen in the past. What a glorious thing that that exists. I mean that genuinely. My problem is when we assume that thats the only thing that matters, and we ignore that there are other modes that we should also be communicating in.

And again, to use the Black Lives Matter example, this frustrates the activists themselves. Even though they see the value of it, they understand that the people who are good at it gain so much capital from that without having done the work. I have an example in the book of DeRay Mckesson, who became a sort of activist star at the time, and interestingly enough, I just did a podcast with him. But he became a symbol of the type of activist who I mean, DeRay was actually on the ground in Ferguson doing real activism, he wasnt just sitting and tweeting at home but nevertheless, he has like a million people who are following him, and it bought him a lot of access. He said he went to the Obama White House so many times that he stopped being nervous about going. He was on late-night TV shows. And he was speaking for an entire movement. And not only because he was good at Twitter, but largely because he was good at Twitter.

And so, even if youre coming from a perspective that says heres a medium that gives voice to the voiceless, if it allows somebody, just because they really understand how to work it, to gain that much more power from it without any kind of accountability or, not in DeRays case but other peoples, not actually doing the work that can be very frustrating, even for people who see it as an empowering tool. Because it empowers the wrong people, or for the wrong reasons. So, Im saying yes, but we shouldnt discount how important it is that these tools exist, but we need to see them as tools, that they have their particular function, and are not the be-all, end-all.

Wen Stephenson is an independent journalist, essayist, and activist. A frequent contributor toThe Nation and The Baffler, he is a former editor at The Atlantic and The Boston Globe and has written for many publications, including The Atlantic,Slate,The New York Times Book Review,The Boston Globe, andThe Boston Phoenix.He is the author ofWhat Were Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice(2015).

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We're Not Really Listening to One Another: A Conversation with Gal Beckerman - lareviewofbooks

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Jamie Raskin on the climate crisis: Weve got to save democracy in order to save our species – The Guardian

Posted: at 5:13 pm

When it comes to fighting for democracy and climate change two of Jamie Raskins top priorities the whole thing feels a bit like a game of chicken and egg to the Democratic congressman.

On the one hand there is the planet, heating up quickly past the limit that is safe and necessary for human survival, while Congress stalls on a $555bn climate package. On the other, a pernicious movement, spurred by Donald Trump and other rightwing conspiracy theorists, to upend voting rights protections and cast doubt on the current election system.

But Raskin, a progressive congressman from Maryland, is clear about which comes first: he said America cant fix the planet without fixing its government.

Weve got to save the democracy in order to save the climate and save our species, he said in an interview with the Guardian in collaboration with Reuters and Climate One public radio, as part of the Covering Climate Now media collaboration.

Later Raskin added: Were never going to be able to successfully deal with climate change if were spending all our time fighting the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and Ku Klux Klan, and the Aryan nations and all of Steve Bannons alt-right nonsense.

In the past two years Raskins popularity has surged, picking up fuel after his closing remarks at Trumps second impeachment trial in early 2021, which he led on behalf of House Democrats. This trial is about who we are, he said then, in video clips shared millions of times. His impassioned and meticulous rhetoric are a clear intersection of his past as a Harvard-trained constitutional law professor and son of a progressive activist.

But it was an exceptional speech also because of the circumstances in which it was given, which both took place in the span of just a week. The first the loss of Thomas (Tommy) Bloom Raskin, the congressmans oldest son, who died by suicide at the tail end of 2020 after a long battle with depression. Just six days later Trumps followers stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to decertify the election results.

Raskin, who said Tommy hated nothing more than fascism, was moved to help lead the response to the insurrection through the Houses January 6 select committee.

His fight to convict Trump is not only about holding the former president accountable. Its about sending a message to the country that no other crisis, even the existential threat of the changing climate, can be solved without first protecting the fabric of American democracy.

I think for me the struggle to defend the truth is a precondition for defending our democracy, and the struggle to defend our democracy is a precondition for taking the effective action that needs to be taken in order to meet the climate crisis in a serious way and turn it around, he said.

This concept plays out clearly in the countrys uneven political representation. The majority of Americans think the government should be doing more to reduce the impacts of climate change, including taxing corporations based on their carbon emissions. But issues like partisan gerrymandering, where politicians manipulate voting district lines, often allow rightwing politicians to retain disproportionate power across state governments.

The key to understanding the collapse of civilizations is that you get a minority faction serving its own interests by dominating government, he said, referencing Jared Diamonds book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. And then everything collapses, usually through the exploitation of natural resources to a point where its unsustainable and untenable. That fits pretty perfectly the situation that were in with the GOP and climate change today.

Raskin was an early adopter of the Green New Deal, and during the pandemic he sought to block his fellow representatives from using Covid relief money to further fossil fuel interests. His commitment extends to his personal life, where inspired again by Tommy he is a devout vegetarian, convinced that new science and technology will render a meat-centric diet unnecessary.

But the stakes for protecting the Democratic partys climate agenda are especially high right now. The climate protections in Joe Bidens ambitious Build Back Better framework have been drastically whittled down. With the midterm elections revving up, and Republicans expected to dominate in state and local races, Democrats face a small window of opportunity to advance their promise of new jobs and tax credits to incentivize a shift to cleaner energy.

Those same midterm races are rife with candidates who are following Trumps big lie that the 2020 election was not legitimate and continue to hack away at voting rights protections, such as mail-in voting and weekend voting hours.

Raskin remained optimistic about Congress passing climate legislation, noting last years climate-friendly infrastructure bill, but said the party must always be realistic about what that means, even if it denotes considering alternative energy legislation via Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia who has stood in the way of several progressive bills in the Senate. (Manchin was also a critical roadblock in Raskins wife Sarah Bloom Raskins nomination to the Federal Reserve Board.)

The democratic governments and democratic parties and movements of the world have got to confront this reality. Nobody else is going to do it, Raskin said.

There isnt much leeway when it comes to enacting change. Storms are getting stronger, people are being displaced from their homes, and anti-science politicians are gaining more ground. But Raskin, armed with his fathers message to be the hope and his childrens sense of urgency around climate change, is confident his side is going to win.

We should cut the deals that need to be cut but from a position of power and strength by mobilizing the commanding majorities of people across America that believe in climate change and know that we need to act.

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Legalizing bigotry with "Don’t Say Gay" bill will chase businesses away from Ohio – Ohio Capital Journal

Posted: at 5:13 pm

Question: How could you blow a $20 billion investment in Ohio? Answer: Chase away business with legislation to legitimize bigotry. A cynical attempt by Ohio House Republicans to further stigmatize and marginalize LGBTQ people in Ohio with a Florida-style Dont Say Gay bill could give Intel pause about breaking ground on the states largest private sector investment ever. Understandable. The mammoth chipmaker is a major champion of LGBTQ rights.

Imagine how Intel might react to a Welcome to Ohio sign with a subheading (Unless youre non-heterosexual) as it prepares to drop a ton of money on a sprawling new complex east of the state capital. Big roadblock for any business hoping to lure the best and brightest minds to fill job openings in Ohio. Good luck recruiting employees or retaining them in a Dont Say Gay state run by myopic radicals who have fallen way down the Fox News rabbit hole.

Brainless legislation introduced in the Ohio House to score cheap political points by going after LGBTQ children and schools is obviously bad for business and bad for families. It could put the brakes on a massive manufacturing hub and thousands of high-paying Intel jobs. Thats how bad it is. But stupidity reigns supreme among the worthless MAGA muppets destroying Ohio to grab Statehouse headlines. And now the Dont Say Gay proponents have alerted job creators looking to invest in an environment where everyone can feel safe, welcomed and celebrated for who they are to look elsewhere.

Does that include Intel? As one of the largest computer hardware and software companies on the planet, it been at the forefront of corporate LGBTQ advocacy for decades. In 1994, the technology giant established its first employee resource group to drive awareness of issues impacting the LGBTQ community and serve as a support network for its members. So how does Intels steadfast affirmation of inclusion, equality and diversity among its worldwide employees square with a state like Ohio that allowed doctors to deny LGBTQ health care on moral grounds and has now targeted LGBTQ discussions in the classroom for censorship?

It doesnt. Last year Intel joined over 80 major companies across the U.S., including Facebook, Amazon, AT&T and Microsoft, in publicly opposing the rash of anti-LGBTQ bills speeding through Republican-led states. They seek to put the authority of state government behind discrimination and promote mistreatment of a targeted LGBTQ population, the business statement read. Well, yes.

These bills would harm our team members and their families, stripping them of opportunities and making them feel unwelcome and at risk in their own communities. Well, again yes. As we make complex decisions about where to invest and grow, these issues can influence our decisions, the corporate giants concluded. And yet, here we are, my fellow shellshocked Ohioans.

A new anti-LGBTQ bill, (Ohio House Bill 616) that mirrors the other so-called Dont Say Gay bills popping up in Republican-led states, is on the table. The far rights playbook against the LGBTQ community is all the rage these days. Its the perfect wedge issue parent versus indoctrinating schools. A way to repackage anger over critical race theory and mask mandates. Ban classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation.

Pretend these salacious issues permeate daily K-12 lesson plans throughout the state. Make gay cancel culture acceptable. House Bill 616 isnt just about banning books and discussions; its about erasing people who are different. Make believe they dont exist or shouldnt exist. Put vulnerable LGBTQ youth in even more harm to get a rise from the MAGA base.

Thats the ugly underpinning of Ohios Dont Say Gay legislation. Its repulsiveness has mobilized Ohio business organizations to strongly reject House Bill 616 and the devastating message it sends Ohios brand that we are not a welcoming and inclusive state. The legislative gems who co-sponsored this vaguely written piece of garbage, bray that their bill is about protecting the innocence of kindergarteners and ensuring an age-appropriate education that is free of indoctrination. What a crock.

State Reps. Mike Loychik, R-Bazetta, (a Marjorie Taylor Green wannabe) and Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, (a former congresswoman tainted by scandal) fool no one with this demoralizing attack on personal identity. But they display a shocking lack of awareness about the pedagogy practiced in K-12 classrooms. Spoiler alert: As a rule, kindergarten teachers dont teach gender identity and sexual orientation to 5-year-olds.

Clearly, House Bill 616, (with a splash of critical race theory hysteria thrown in for good measure) isnt rooted in rational thought. Its a mean-spirited, concocted charade to light a fire. Ohios Dont Say Gay bill was drafted to demonize what the alt-right hates from critical thinking about enduring racism to equity and acceptance of LGBTQ people. That community, (more than 380,000 strong in Ohio) is being scapegoated by Republican extremists in the legislature who see no political downside to enshrining LGBTQ discrimination into law.

But if Intel balks at the injustice before it breaks ground in Ohio, what then? Will the partisan bullies buckle or blow off a $20 billion bonanza in exchange for seeding a hostile LGBTQ landscape? Will Intel insist on relocating to a state that upholds fundamental nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Ohioans?

Wed lay out the welcome mat if the multinational corporation made that demand non-negotiable.

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Terence Donovan captures the hedonism of Birmingham’s ’90s raves – The Face

Posted: at 5:13 pm

In January 1996, Terry Donovan was, happily, in the rave and techno trenches.

DJing in his hometown of London, and back in Birmingham where hed studied philosophy at university, the 25-year-old was spinning the likes of Vamp by Outlander, Energy Flash by Joey Beltram, Jeff Mills Mecca EP and LFO by LFO.

It was amix of historical rave culture you could take anything from 87, 88 onwards alongside some of the more metallic, fierce stuff that the actual DJs at the club were making, he says of his sets, mentioning Surgeon (aka Tony Child), the sound of UK techno at the time and the genres local hero.

That location in Englands second city was The Que Club, housed in the historic, 1904-built Methodist Central Hall, with 35 to 40 rooms spread over three or four floors. Quite the venue, and it created legendary nights like House of God, where Donovan spun.

Id been aDJ for along time by that point, and it was really hard to find that feral energy, Donovan remembers, where the crowd could overwhelm the sound system. And then you took that to the architectural scale of this venue, and the scale of 2000 or 3000, whatever the number of people in The Que Club was Id never done anything in my life where Iwanted to say to my dad who had apretty special eye and had seen some pretty special things over the years Dad, could you come and look at this please? It was literally like alittle kid saying: Hey, Ithink this is cool.

Terry Donovans dad was Terence Donovan, the legendary fashion photographer. Alongside David Bailey, Donovan Sr. had pretty much captured the Swinging Sixties, shooting models and celebrities galore. He also directed sleek Eighties pop videos like Robert Palmers Addicted to Love, lensed myriad television commercials and snapped assorted royals, including Diana, Princess of Wales in 1987 and the Duchess of Yorks engagement photographs.

And now here he was, at his sons urging, aged 59, patrolling aheaving, throbbing late-Nineties rave in wee hours Birmingham.

He was wearing apair of black tracksuit bottoms and an old British army camo jacket, and he just wandered around and did his thing. You know, the nature of Birmingham and the nature of House of God, people were unimpressed by fame and celebrity, says Terry, who went on to become co-founder of Rockstar Games and now lives in Colorado. Thats one of the greatest gifts Iever got out of both dad and Birmingham aconstant reminder to treat everybody equally.

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Finding Joy in the Dark: The Bold Prayer of Psalm 70 – Desiring God

Posted: at 5:12 pm

I recently spent three days with a group of pastors, almost all our time devoted to deep sharing of our life stories. We laughed at the silly things weve done. We marveled at the lineaments of Gods grace. We wept over sins, wounds, and struggles, both past and present.

I drove home pondering the fact that when ten tenderhearted, Jesus-loving, spiritually alive pastors get into a room and are honest with each other, we share stories of theft, pornography, broken families, paralyzing anxiety, suicidal thoughts, marital struggles, and unfulfilled longings. If theres such brokenness in the histories and hearts of godly shepherds, what must be the inner reality of the sheep in our churches? Surrounded by such brokenness within and without, how can the people of God possibly hope to sustain their joy in God?

The odds seem long and the situation bleak. But Psalm 70 gives me strong hope.

Ive been drawn to Psalm 70:4 for many years, because it brings together two awesome truths that thrill the heart of every Christian Hedonist:

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great!

Only a capacious heart could breathe such an expansive prayer. Notice that David isnt content for just a few (or even most) seekers of God to rejoice. No, he longs for all to experience God-centered gladness. And Davids requesting more than just a flickering, intermittent passion for the glory of God among the people of God; rather, he prays for their lips and lives to communicate Gods worth continually, at all times, without interruption.

This is a plus-sized prayer. Its so big that many millions of people can (and have) fit inside it. David was surely praying it for himself. He was also praying it for those of his generation and all future generations. In fact, if were seeking God and loving Gods salvation, Davids prayer is for us. David is asking God to sweeten our joy and strengthen our passion for his glory. He doesnt specify how these two prayers might fit together, but John Piper has helped many of us treasure the biblical teaching that they are in fact one. As we find our deepest joy in God (in you), we display his worth to the world.

Though Ive loved Psalm 70:4 for years, it wasnt until recently that I noticed the context. And its the context that has filled me with hope.

Heres what Ive noticed: Psalm 70 is not a sunny psalm. Its not a walk in the park or a day at the beach. Life is not good in this psalm. Instead, its hard very hard. In fact, the psalm is an almost-unremittingly desperate plea for Gods help. Verse 1 (the first verse) and verse 5 (the last verse) are bookends:

Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me!

Hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay!

Theres a focused urgency here. David sounds like a soldier pinned down by enemy fire, radioing desperately to central command. His enemies want David dead, and they gloat over Davids misfortunes (Aha, Aha! verse 3).

Weve already seen Davids response to this dark situation. He feels two overwhelming desires, one expected and the other exceptional. First, David wants out of the situation. In four out of five verses, he pleads with God for speedy deliverance. This reaction is perfectly natural and completely understandable. Who wouldnt want this? Of course, wed all be asking for the same rescue.

Second, however, the intense pressure of Davids circumstances also squeezes from his heart another cry, this one much more unusual. Stunningly, the request in verse 4 is not just for himself, but for others. Its nothing short of miraculous that David, in his foxhole, under heavy fire, prays not simply for personal escape, but for gladness among all Gods people, and for the continual glorifying of God. What is going on here?

Some of us hear the Bibles repeated calls to pursue our joy and believe that its simply beyond us in our present state. For the moment, our attention is occupied by other matters: sin, sickness, loneliness, financial difficulty, opposition, relational pain. We feel were in the 101 class of Surviving Our Problems and not quite ready for the 201 class of Pursuing Our Joy. Verse 4, we think, is for people who have it all together (or at least more together).

And this is why the context of verse 4 is so challenging and so encouraging, because verse 4 exists in a sea of suffering. David doesnt say, Once I get free from my enemies, then Ill start to care about the gladness of Gods people and the glory of God. His foxhole prayer, in worrying and uncomfortable circumstances, is for gladness and glory. This is a real-world prayer. Christian Hedonism is as much for bleak days as it is for bright ones.

If God can work this extraordinary impulse in Davids heart, why cant he do the same in us? Why cant he implant a renewed passion for our joy and his glory even in the midst of intense suffering? Could it be that God might even use the desperation of our brokenness to drive us to him?

In his poem The Storm, George Herbert ponders how, like the violent force of a terrible rainstorm,

A throbbing conscience spurred by remorseHath a strange force: It quits the earth, and mounting more and more,Dares to assault thee, and besiege thy doore. (lines 1012)

Our inner and outer conflicts may produce something good. They purge the aire without, within the breast (line 18). This was certainly the case for David in Psalm 70. His desperation yielded a passionate cry to God that continues to encourage followers of God to this day.

You can pray a David-like prayer in your own bleak situation by taking two cues from David himself.

First, seek God. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! Joy and gladness are the unassailable possession of those who fix their eyes on Jesus in the storms of life. Look more deeply and more often at Jesus than you look at your enemies or your troubles.

Second, love Gods salvation. May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great! Consider frequently how God has saved you (and how hes saving many others). Delight in this salvation. Rest in it. Love it. The more you love your salvation, the more readily your lips will spill over with natural praise of the God who saved you.

Please dont wait to pursue your joy in God until God has healed your brokenness and resolved your problems. Verse 4 isnt a postscript to Psalm 70; it doesnt come after Davids crisis. It emerges from the midst of it. This is an example and invitation for us. Dont wait to pursue your joy. Start right now.

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Like the Roadrunner – The Smart Set

Posted: at 5:12 pm

When you get right down to it, so much of rock and roll (and pop music in general) is about fantasy. Imagining how the good life sounds, feels differently when youre listening to a rock band. Lets be real; you will probably never approach the hedonistic apex of, say, Led Zeppelin or KISS and if you really tried to rock and roll all night and party every day, youd most likely collapse from sheer exhaustion, as many rock stars tend to do. And thats probably a good thing; burning out isnt necessarily more glorious than fading away.

Rock and roll is an inherently democratic art form; you dont necessarily need any specialized musical knowledge or skill to do it well. Virtuosity is certainly appreciated but not a prerequisite. If you yeah, you just step up and give it a try some time you might find yourself uncorking a style, a sound, a worldview you didnt even know you had, which can be exhilarating and downright life-changing. Everyday life is what most of us are muddling our way through, with musics spiritual booster shot keeping the blood pumping and the soul refreshed, makes life a little less ordinary, transforming the given through the alchemy of art.

So its entirely appropriate, then, that the greatest rock song of all should concern itself with what the people in the audience actually do, speaking directly to and for the lives we actually live by, celebrating the act of listening itself. The cynics who claim that rock amounts to no more than adolescent self-obsession or mere hedonism are utterly missing the point.

And thats why I submit that the greatest rock song of all time is Roadrunner by The Modern Lovers, written by the truly sui generis Jonathan Richman. Anybody can play it, for starters. And as Richman hoarsely enthuses about being in love with the picayune details of modern moonlight, cruising to the Stop & Shop at night with the radio blaring, anybody can live it. To adapt a line from the underrated band The Minutemen, Roadrunner could be your life.

After counting off to an eccentric six beats instead of the usual four, Roadrunner opens with a bang, stealing the two-chord churn of his beloved Velvet Undergrounds manic Sister Ray. The way Richman sets the scene, the song thrives on the space in which most of us grow up listening to music most passionately: in the car, at night, barreling down familiar highways and backstreets, with no particular place to go, in love with the music on the radio.

When Richman sings I love the fact that all his vocals come out as an impassioned croak, which makes him sound hip but in truth was due to a head cold that hes in love with Massachusetts / 128 when its dark outside hes talking about a specific place that anyone like him from the Boston suburbs knows very well. But the regional shoutout paradoxically enhances the songs universality. New York or L.A. would have been a much more glamorous place to namecheck, which has been done a million times, but instead, the landscape Richman is singing about so passionately is trust me on this about as pleasantly ordinary as it gets. Which is precisely why hes so in love with it. He honors his humble little life and the world around him.

Despite the countless times Ive heard it, I never fail to fall in love all over again with that surging momentum, the brisk head-snapping insistence of the backbeat, the songs center of gravity always chugging relentlessly forward. Everyone feels utterly locked into that very simple but potent groove, synchronized like a well-oiled machine. Drummer David Robinson, who will later join The Cars, sets the pace and thrillingly tosses in some quick fills that keep the energy up between the extremely basic chord changes, D to A, as elemental as a beating heart or a sudden gear shift.

As Richman talk-sings about the power of the AM radio and of the flash of suburban streets going by at top speed, he gets some stop-and-start support from the band: Roadrunner once / Roadrunner twice / Im in love with rock n roll / And Ill be out all night. Then future Talking-Head, Jerry Harrison, the bands secret weapon, plays a keyboard solo that gracefully undulates over the churning rhythm like a hand waving out of an open window as the wind rushes past.

Towards the end, Richman starts almost chanting in a stream-of-consciousness about everything thats happening to him all at once: the radio, the night, the highway, the moonlight, the beauty of it all. The band encouragingly shouts, RADIO ON! behind him, punctuating his euphoria like the dorkiest pep rally ever, and the song finishes grandly with some final swipes at those immortal two chords. Richmans satisfied voice bids us adieu with a casual alright, bye bye and informs us that we have reached our destination, wherever that may be.

When he blurts out I love the USA! its not about flag-waving patriotism; its about adventure, newness, and fresh possibility. These are all part of what America has represented to many (though, of course, not everyone) from the beginning. Theres nothing provincial about his vision: Richman started doing eccentric open mics in Boston and hung out with his adored Velvets in New York, went on to a long and sterling solo career, recorded country songs and folk tunes, and has lived in California for many years while singing songs in translation from all over the globe. Route 128 was merely the launching pad for his fertile imagination he might as well be getting his kicks on Route 66 or out on Dylans Highway 61.

In terms of rock history, Roadrunner simultaneously points towards the past and future. Those two chords hearken back to the raucous bang and clang of the garage rock of the past (the tune also name-checks Bo Diddleys lively Roadrunner, the chorus of which is rumored to be the inspiration for the Warner Bros. cartoons signature beep-beep) while anticipating the primal shape of the punk rock to come shortly thereafter, perfected by the likes of The Ramones. Then theres also a wink at Chuck Berrys witty takes on motorvatin over the hill in a Cadillac, of course.

Richmans a very passionate fellow but hes not a slick, cocky player like Diddley and Berry. All hes aiming to do is drive to the Stop & Shop, with the radio on but that midnight snack attack carries a little extra swagger when the radios on full blast. He doesnt need the decadent life; hes resolutely following his own idea of bliss.

Despite a million sullen teenage suburbanites complaining about how theres nothing going on, Richman challenges us to find something worth singing about anyway. I used to bemoan the fact that plenty of my youthful nights were just like the lyrics in the That 70s Show theme song: hanging out / down the street / the same old thing we did last week / wish we had / a joint so bad. Little did I know this was, in fact, a cover of a song by the wonderful and unappreciated band, Big Star a near contemporary to The Modern Lovers, and if they saw fit to write and perform anthemic songs about such suburban ennui, then maybe it wasnt so bad after all.

This might be what Richman is gesturing towards when he murmurs that the highway is your girlfriend as you go by quick / suburban streets, suburban speed / and it smells like heaven.As a record, The Modern Lovers paved the road that Jonathan Richman has been driving on ever since: Taking the road less traveled by openly embracing an almost childlike innocence and earnestness that, given our cynical hyper-ironic age, almost seems like a put-on until you see the look in his eyes.Its too bad that the lack of hip marketability hurt the bands chances of survival and success at the time, an often predatory record deal was pretty much the only way to get on that sacred radio.

The Modern Lovers were a unique band for a number of reasons, not the least being theres so little of their work that survives. Aside from some live bootlegs, its mostly just one self-titled record which was cut in the early 70s only to be released in 1976, which has a diary-like intimacy partially because it was initially intended to be demos for a record that was never to be made due to the band breaking up. The instrumentation is potent but unfussy, vibrant but minimalistic, which is an ideal backup for Richmans earnest tour through his deeply personal but all-too-human joys and sorrows.

Name me another band, especially one from the bloated, hairy mid-70s whose songs celebrate the joys of monogamy (Someone I Care About and Astral Plane) or being proud not to do drugs (Im Straight and Shes Cracked) and offered some of the most heartbreakingly naked love songs (Hospital and Girlfriend) ever. These songs are about the kind of vulnerability that most rock songs can only hint at, where egomania tends to carry the day.

Roadrunner is the subject of a recent book-length study by the poet and academic Joshua Clover, paying tribute to the universality and vitality of Richmans song while occasionally veering off into unnecessary, if informative, detours.Clover accurately remarks that Richmans career really isnt like anyone elses. Even if hes the leader of a band with plenty of garage rock edge, he never presents himself in the usual egocentric way of lead singers and principal songwriters pretty much all of his songs are about being lovelorn, vulnerable, anxious, and yet still ready for a good old fashioned rave up. One 70s-era journalist described the vibe perfectly: Richman looked like Dustin Hoffman but he moved like Mick Jagger. Clover admires the fact that Richman doesnt pretend not to care about mainstream success; if anything, he couldnt be bothered.

An academic as well as a poet, Clovers detailed and informed aesthetic-socio-historical analysis of Roadrunner veers off into many interpretive directions and varying degrees of success. He connects Roadrunner to the aforementioned American tradition of early rock songs that celebrate the open road and were consciously created to appeal to a youth culture besotted with disposable income, vehicles of their own, and the exhilarating autonomy they offered.

When Richman says hes in love with modern world hes not applauding a lifestyle that is out of the reach for ordinary people like him. He just wants to make it new, which is pretty much what Modernism was about in the first place. Clover perceptively emphasizes how postwar suburbanization changed the face of American life forever, spreading it out from the density and unease of the city into the kinds of spacious highways Richman celebrates.

The reverberations of that social and economic policy are still being felt today, especially in Richmans home turf of Boston, gentrifying like crazy through what used to be called urban renewal all over again, pricing out all the gifted weirdos who make it special, like Richman. Suburbanization is by no means always for the best, and, historically, it has very much excluded people of color. Clovers radical politics make him especially sensitive to the ways in which capital and urban planning changed the landscape of America during the postwar boom. In some ways, Clovers historical analysis is quite sharp and certainly relevant to todays concerns. Yet its somewhat misplaced since politics were never really Richmans bag. Richman has never written what Bob Dylan once referred to as finger-pointin songs.

Where Clover especially gets a bit carried away is when he starts to go off on a tangential discussion of the song Brimful of Asha by the band Cornershop. Its a fine song, but theres not much connective tissue between it and Roadrunner. Clover gets closer to the mark when he goes deep on the brilliant M.I.A.s smash record Kala and its breakout single Paper Planes which actually does reference Richmans tune, citing the RADIO ON! chorus, and takes the possibility of the open road in a more politically potent direction.

M.I.A. offers catchy, edgily Swiftian satire on the xenophobes caricatured attitude towards immigrants (all I wanna do is / bang bang bang bang / and take your money) which is ironically the least American attitude there could possibly be. The gunshots, so potently used in the songs chorus, were censored when performed on network TV. For that matter, the insistent beat of Paper Planes is more heavily indebted to The Clashs superb, Straight to Hell, which is also a pro- immigration song, and which deserves a book-length treatment all on its own.

Explaining why he wrote so much about Dublin while spending his life in self-imposed exile, James Joyce once wrote that in the particular is contained the universal. He ambitiously assumed that if I could get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities in the word. Thats exactly it: Wherever you are, whatever you know best, no matter how humble or nondescript, contains multitudes, if we can only learn to see rightly. Art helps us to do that. The greatest songs change lives by giving the listener back what is truly and uniquely theirs, allowing them to experience it anew and take off in their own directions.

Roadrunner is a song for all of us, whoever and wherever we happen to be, and whatever frequency youre on. Roadrunner reminds us of the elemental truth that you can feel the universe flowing through you even when youre doing nothing more noteworthy or dramatic than sitting in a car, cruising through your familiar suburban streets, hitting up the Stop & Shop, in love with rock and roll, out all night, with the radio on.

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Chinese premier stresses need to further anti-corruption fight, build clean government – China.org.cn

Posted: at 5:12 pm

BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday called for further efforts to combat corruption and build a clean and honest government.

Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks at a State Council meeting on clean governance.

Zhao Leji, secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and Vice Premier Han Zheng, both members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, attended the meeting.

Li said that advancing economic and social development is the basic responsibility of governments at all levels and also an essential requirement for improving Party conduct and building a clean government.

The new, increased downward pressure facing China's economy due to the impact of the greater-than-expected changes in the domestic and international situations deserves great attention, he said.

Li stressed that policy initiatives that have already been formulated must be largely implemented in the first half of this year so as to ensure stable jobs, prices, and supplies, and to keep the fundamentals of China's economy stable.

Governments are urged to shoulder their responsibilities to safeguard food and energy security and keep supply chains stable, according to the premier.

Li called for further efforts to create a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, noting that tax and fee reduction policies should be implemented in a fair, equitable and efficient manner.

Moreover, the premier stressed the need for greater efforts to oppose pointless formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance, with a particular focus on the first two problems. Enditem

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The Corvette’s Junk in the Trunk – Car and Driver

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The 2022 Chevrolet Corvette is 182.3 inches long. That is 7.9 inches longer than the Audi R8, which squeezes a V-10 into its engine bay. Its 3.8 inches longer than the Acura NSX, and 2.6 inches longer than the Ferrari 296 GTB. And much of that extravagant length is concentrated aft of the cabin. The C8 is radically cab-forward, and from a three-quarter view, front or rear, it can look like the front third of the car is being swallowed by an 8/7ths scale version of itself. Or as if its in the process of telescoping, like the Rinspeed Presto. The Corvette looks fantastic in profile and dead on, but it isnt as tidy, visually, as it might be if it didnt have about 20 inches separating the engine bay from the rear bumper. Theres just no disguising the Corvettes big ol trunk.

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But that little stretch aft of the engine bay is what transforms the C8 from a gaudy plaything into a real everyday car. When you start seeing Corvettes with 150,000 miles, that wont be because they get great fuel economy or have Barcalounger seats. Itll be because of the trunk. Its easy to take off on a 600-mile trip when you dont have to think about what to pack. And removing a practical obstacle to road trips means racking up more miles, which ought to be the ultimate goal for a car that treats driving as hedonism rather than a chore. And for this glorious flexibility, we can thank the roof.

The C8 can impersonate a practical car. Even in the snow.

Early on in the C8 planning, Chevys focus groups confirmed that a switch to a mid-engine layout would not change customers expectation that all Vettes are convertiblesas in, coupes get a removable roof panel. And if the roof comes off, you need a place to stow it in the car. Hence, the C8s rear trunk isnt designed around your luggage or golf clubs (though itll hold two sets) or the bags of mulch you might throw in to flex at Home Depot. Its designed to store the roof, and this thing aint a T-top. That panel is large. And so the C8s total cargo capacity is 13 cubic feet, which is comparable to one of those rooftop cargo bags you might see on an SUV.

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As a consequence, when I took a 2022 Corvette on an overnight trip to the North Carolina mountains, I had plenty of room for the bulky detritus demanded by winterno cramming every air pocket in the cabin with rolled-up jackets and individual socks, no sliding the seats uncomfortably forward to create a few spare cubic centimeters of cargo space, as Ive done in an R8. Just get in and go, both trunks filled to the brim but the interior uncluttered.

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And that capaciousness leverages what is otherwise a fantastic year-round road-trip car, a grand tourer in track-rat clothes. When I got a ride in a heavily camouflaged pre-production C8 at GMs Milford Proving Grounds back in 2019, chief engineer Tadge Juechter said, It's got 911 performance along with the best attributes of the Boxster and Cayman. And some Lexus refinement thrown in, which might surprise people. While the Corvette can execute brutal launch control clutch-drops and hit 60 mph in 2.8 seconds, it can also mellow out on the highwayactive exhaust muted, magnetic ride control limber, transmission smoothly slurring from gear to gear. With winter tires, you can blast up a snow-covered mountain road with no trouble whatsoever. And the optional front-end lift system helps the C8 shimmy over steep approaches or speed bumps without grinding. The Corvette isnt a normal car, but it can impersonate one.

Car and Driver

Not everyone is satisfied with the Corvettes compromise between aesthetics and utility. I have a friend who bought the past two Z06s, the C6 and C7, but doesnt know if hell go back for a third. The new Corvette just looks weird from some angles, he said. The last one looks much better to me. And I know what he means, but hes also not one of the people who takes advantages of the Corvettes capaciousness (the C7 had even more cargo space). When I asked him how many miles were on his C7 Z06, now four years old, he replied, 3000. I got a long way toward that number in one weekend with the C8.

Back when I visited Milford, Juechter said, There are literally a million decisions on the way to making a new car. Going with the removable roofand hence big trunkwas one of them. And they got it right.

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Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe portraits expose the darker side of the ’60s – BusinessWorld Online

Posted: at 5:12 pm

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)Shot Sage Blue Marilynacrylic and silkscreen ink on linen40 x 40 in. / 101.6 x 101.6 cm.Painted in 1964.

IF you remember the 60s, you werent really there. This famous quip says much about our rose-tinted nostalgia for the decade. The fun-loving hedonism of Woodstock and Beatlemania may be etched into cultural memory, but Andy Warhols Marilyn Monroe portraits reveal a darker side to the swinging 60s that turns our nostalgia on its head.

Warhols iconic Marilyn Monroe portrait Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, due to go on sale at Christies in May, is expected to fetch record-breaking bids of $200 million (153 billion), making it the most expensive 20th century artwork ever auctioned. Nearly 60 years after they were first created, Warhols portraits of the ill-fated Hollywood star continue to fascinate us.

According to Alex Rotter, Christies chairman for 20th and 21st century art, Warhols Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American dream, encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity and iconography all at once.

Hollywood stars were great sources of inspiration for the Pop art movement. Monroe was a recurring motif, not only in the work of Warhol but in the work of his contemporaries, including James Rosenquists Marilyn Monroe, I and Pauline Botys Colour Her Gone and The Only Blonde in the World.

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson but renamed Marilyn Monroe by 20th Century Fox, the actress went on to become one of the most illustrious stars of Hollywood history, famed for her roles in classic films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot. She epitomized the glitzy world of consumerism and celebrity that Pop artists thought was emblematic of 1950s and 1960s American culture.

While Rotters statement may be true to some extent, there is also a sinister edge to the Marilyns because many were produced in the months following her unexpected death in 1962.

On the surface, the works may look like a tribute to a much-loved icon, but themes of death, decay, and even violence lurk within these canvases. Clues can often be found in the production techniques. One of the collections most famous pieces, Marilyn Diptych, uses flaws from the silkscreen process to create the effect of a decaying portrait. Warhols The Shot Marilyns consists of four canvases shot through the forehead with a single bullet. In this, the creation of Warhols art is as important as the artwork itself.

At a glance, the surface-level glamor of Warhols Marilyn immortalizes the actress as a blonde bombshell of Hollywoods bygone era. It is easy to forget the tragedy behind the image, yet part of our enduring fascination with Marilyn Monroe is her tragedy.

Her mental health struggles, her tempestuous personal life, and the mystery surrounding her death have been well documented in countless biographies, films, and television shows, including Netflixs documentary The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes and upcoming biopic Blonde. She epitomizes the familiar narrative of the tragic icon that is doomed to keep repeating itself something that Warhol understood all too well after surviving a shooting by Valerie Solanas in 1968.

The death at the heart of Warhols Marilyns is not just rooted in grief but is also a reflection of the wider cultural landscape. The 1960s were a remarkably dark period in 20th century American history. A brief look at the context in which Warhol was producing these images reveals a decade plagued by a series of traumatic events.

Life Magazine published violent photographs of the Vietnam War. Television broadcasts exposed shocking police brutality during civil rights marches. America was shaken by the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Footage of JFKs death captured by bystander Abraham Zapruder was repeatedly broadcast on television. Celebrated Hollywood stars were dying young and in tragic circumstances, from Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland to Jayne Mansfield and Sharon Tate.

This image of the 1960s is echoed by the postmodern theorist Fredric Jameson, who describes the decade as a virtual nightmare and a historical and countercultural bad trip. Stars like Monroe were not as flawless as they may appear in Warhols portraits, but were notorious cases of burnout and self-destruction.

Warhol understood this more than anyone. His Death and Disaster series explores the spectacle of death in America and affirms the 1960s as a time of anxiety, terror, and crisis. The series consists of a vast collection of silkscreened photographs of real-life disasters including car crashes, suicides, and executions taken from newspapers and police archives. Famous deaths are also a central theme of the series, including portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jackie Kennedy all of whom are associated with significant deaths or near-death experiences.

Death and Disaster came about in 1962 when Warhols collaborator Henry Geldzahler suggested that the artist should stop producing affirmation of life and instead explore the dark side of American culture:

Maybe everything isnt always so fabulous in America. Its time for some death. This is whats really happening.

He handed Warhol a copy of the New York Daily News, which led to the first disaster painting 129 Die in Jet!.

The recent hype around the auctioning of the Marilyn portrait reveals as much about our time as it does about our nostalgia for the 1960s. We choose to remember the decade in all its glorious technicolor, but uncovering its darker moments provides room for reconsideration. Perhaps Warhols Marilyn is not just a symbol of the swinging 60s, but an artefact from a time that was as turbulent and uncertain as our own.

Harriet Fletcher is an Associate Lecturer in English and History at the Lancaster University.

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Sex, blood and strangeness reign in The Northman – Cult MTL

Posted: at 5:12 pm

In The Northman, a child born to be king grows up to be a wild man rippling with muscle and consumed by revenge. In a loose reworking of Hamlet, set in the heyday of Vikings and old religion, a man will do anything to avenge his family. He will pillage and plunge, and will voluntarily subject himself to slavery, all in pursuit of his goal. His single-mindedness reduces him to a shell of a person, an almost mythical beast driven by a single, all-consuming purpose.

Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) continues to explore his fascination with the intersection of the folkloric and the grotesque in The Northman. Following very much in the footsteps of his previous films, he manages to zero in on the strangeness of the world to retell an otherwise familiar story. The film is at its best when he leans into that aspect of the world, exploring the rituals and practices of the old religion, particularly how those beliefs break down the line between man and animal.

Eggers understands that folklore is a set of stories told by a community in order to make sense of themselves and the world around them. In the savage world of The Northman, the gods need to be ruthless and earthy to align with how the Vikings see themselves and their lives. Hedonism and brutality play equal roles in this system, which sees blood as a symbol of power. Blood lineages may birth future kings but blood spilled can make anyone a royal. The religion paradoxically inscribes power in both conformity and rebellion all at once. As a viewer, we sense the liberating power of this system of belief, particularly as rituals allow people to explore hidden parts of themselves. In a dark wood, as a fire crackles, everyone regardless of social status wanders through the trees searching for a mate. For one night, slave and owner become equals, able to live free and carnally, at least until the sun rises.

The earthiness of these pleasures, though, is the same earthiness of the carnal violence inscribed in religion. In images evoking The Wicker Man and the opening sequence of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a monstrous God rips people apart only to arrange them back together again into an unholy horse sculpture as a warning of impending divine vengeance. As shocking as this may be to the people of the small Icelandic farm where much of the film takes place, they also readily accept it as part of a world forged through blood and violence.

The folkloric aspects elevate The Northman into something a bit more interesting than just a Skyrim-inspired Viking revenge story, but it can only do so much in elevating a rather thin and poorly constructed story. For all the ecstatic folkloric work at play, Eggers has a dull tendency of laying too many of his cards down on the table at once. Almost immediately, we understand that the character relations are not as rosy as seen from a childs POV and that we are missing core pieces of the puzzle. This may be more true to life, in the sense that old gods dont exist and most royal men suck, but it deflates almost all the narrative tension before the movie even gets started. Everything feels carefully set up for a late-movie revelation that anyone with a modicum of social awareness could have spotted a mile away.

These decisions also impact the writing and performance of the main character. While there are many great films about men run ragged by revenge, this one simply does not work. From the get-go, the revenge plot feels misguided, a childish fantasy, therefore we never have time to grow with the character. The normally charismatic Alexander Skarsgrd is demure and flattened here, coming across as a wounded slow-witted animal. Its hard to fault him though, as the script does him very few favours.

Ironically, his parents, played by Nicole Kidman and Ethan Hawke, are too much, taking their performances in a completely different direction. They embrace the most indecent and high-strung aspects of their characterizations and also adopt weirdly SNL-like Scottish accents. Kidman, in particular, creates a character who feels like a cross between Lady Macbeth and the Wicked Witch of the West. Shes maniacal and duplicitous, delivering a performance at a high register of over the topness. Its genuinely entertaining though, much in the same way Ben Afflecks spoiled bottle blonde was in The Last Duel.

If anyone comes out looking good, its Anya Taylor-Joy, whose otherworldly intensity shifts the tone of the entire film. She has a nymph-like quality that draws from the barren landscapes most ethereal and fantastic elements. Her performance, shrewd and open-hearted, offers a clever mirror image to Kidmans more craven mother figure. Both women have contrasting relationships with dignity and power. While they rarely share any screen time, the way their fates intertwine is compelling and rich in its ideas and execution.

Depending on your feelings about Eggers other films, The Northman may or may not be for you. Personally, Ive yet to really connect with any of his movies, though Im happy hes able to draw in audiences hungry for dirty, subversive and smart genre cinema. The Northman is certainly flawed, perhaps more so than his previous films, but it more than makes up for it with its strangeness and spectacle.

The Northman opens in Montrealtheatreson Friday, April 22.

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Sex, blood and strangeness reign in The Northman - Cult MTL

Posted in Hedonism | Comments Off on Sex, blood and strangeness reign in The Northman – Cult MTL