Category Archives: New Utopia

IN LATE JANUARY 1941, Bucharest, Romania, was overrun by a barbaric pogrom that resulted in over 120 deaths, the looting of thousands of Jewish shops and homes, and the desecration of numerous synagogues. Sixteen-year-old Isidor Goldtein, an administrative secretary, found himself rounded up alongside 200 other Jews at an Iron Guard headquarters near the citys Jewish district. For several days, they were beaten savagely with clubs, planks, and crowbars; if they asked for water, a basin filled with blood was kicked their way. Between beatings, the depleted and weary Jews were forced to do exercises for the amusement of their torturers. Insults like dirty Yid and folk songs about how the popor (people) was seizing control of its national destiny by exterminating the Jews filled the air. When even the Legionnaires tired of all the beating, two groups were formed: one, in line for further abuse, was eventually released, while the other, numbering nearly 90 souls, was taken to a forest where bullets ended their ordeal.

By mere chance, the young Goldtein was placed in the group that survived, but the memories of that night, as Andrew Hussey argues in his riveting biography Speaking East: The Strange and Enchanted Life of Isidore Isou, were the impetus the emotional core behind the strange, expansive, and ultimately overwhelming body of work that would appear under the name Isidore Isou. Having confronted certain death and witnessed indescribable savagery, Isou vowed not to die anonymously as so many of his brethren had. His trademark megalomania as the inventor of Lettrism It is a name and not a master that I wish to be [] the Name of Names: Isidore Isou. [] The Messiah is called Isidore Isou? is less ludicrous when seen as a response to the calculated extermination of European Jewry. I will create, he proclaimed, the ambition, the blazon and the armor of my race, and it will be ennobled. In a subversion of Aryan values, he anointed himself Isou the Jew. For the project of annihilation could not be complete if one Jewish name lived on; those who had killed the people of the book, either with their own hands or through their silence, would have to acknowledge him.

Almost five years to the day from that fateful pogrom, on January 21, 1946, Isous improbable plan was put into action when, having arrived in Paris several months earlier, he stormed the stage during the premiere of Tristan Tzaras La Fuite. Tzara had been Isous idol (and a perfect mirror: a bourgeois Romanian Jew with an alliterative pseudonym who led the avant-garde), but now it was Down with Dada, let us speak of Lettrism! With the papers delightedly scandalized by his howlings, Isou went from being a stateless Jew who was surviving thanks to a combination of charity (Zionist flophouses and soup kitchens), prostitution (elderly British ladies paying a few hundred francs for company), and thieving (which was an art, Isou insisted) to a Left Bank figure with two books contracted to Gallimard. This was truly an astounding feat for someone in his early 20s even more astounding given that Isou was writing in a foreign language that he barely mastered (and spoke oddly, as can be heard in the voice of Ltranger in his 1951 film Trait de bave et dternit [On Venom and Eternity]).

Introduction une nouvelle posie et une nouvelle musique (Introduction to a New Poetry and a New Music, 1947) established the principles of Lettrism, which Isou claimed was at the avant-garde of the avant-garde, while LAgrgation dun nom et dun messie (The Making of a Name and a Messiah, also 1947) was a novel-cum-memoir that fictionalized Isous formative experiences in Romania (without explicitly naming that cursed land). Because those books, along with the vast body of his later work, from the hypergraphic novels to the 1,400-page La Cratique ou la Novatique (19411976) (The Creative or the Novatic, 2004), have long been out of print or difficult to find in the original French (little has been translated into English), Isou remains the least well known of the major avant-gardists of the 20th century. Following upon a major retrospective held at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 2019, Andrew Husseys rich biography aims to correct that oversight, providing an engaging, readable narrative of Isous multiple dimensions and sprawling ambitions.

After Futurism, Dada, and surrealism, Lettrism was the last of the total avant-gardes to appear, the end stage of arts decomposition before a new art would arise. Dada had reduced poetry to the word; Lettrism whittled it down to the letter. An alphabet of bodily sounds hisses and growls, cackles and coughs, snores and sighs was elaborately systematized to create sound poems that purified the form. For Isou, Lettrism was more than invented hieroglyphs and brute noise; it was the starting point for a creative methodology that would be valid for the plastic arts, architecture, economics, mathematics, medicine, psychiatry, even sex (there are Isouien methods of kissing, of fucking, even of masturbation). An elaborate jargon mca-esthtique, esthaprisme, art infinitsimal, cadre supertemporel, polythanasie esthtique, and so on provided a veneer of intellectual heft to the impenetrability of Lettrism. While a number of disciples moved in and out of the group over the years, it was in many respects a closed shop with Dieu-Isou (God-Isou) at its absolute center.

Hussey seems to be frankly torn about the intellectual value of the entire project. Of Isous first book laying out Lettrist principles, he writes: [F]or most readers, including assiduous followers of the latest avant-garde trends, the book was convoluted, fragmented, and largely unreadable when it was not incomprehensible or possibly even insane. Of the series of new alphabets Isou invented: They seem like the obsessive creation of a madman. Of the hypergraphic novel Jonas: [I]t is a work produced by someone who knows that he is unwell, possibly quite mad. Of the 1976 novel Lhritier du chteau (The Inheritor of the Castle), a sequel to Kafka: In truth the book is a discordant mess [] a visceral and disturbing account of a mind in free-fall. Isou had indeed suffered a psychotic breakdown during the revolutionary fervor of May 1968 he was convinced that the uprising was indebted to his postwar theories about youth culture and even attempted to have himself proclaimed its leader and spent the latter part of his life in and out of mental hospitals. But the madness inherent in the entire project of Lettrism was there from the start, only it was a calculated response to the rationality and order that had spawned the Shoah.

Hussey has no doubts, though, about the rollicking tale of Isous life and times. Born in 1925 in the provincial city of Botoani, in Romanias northeast, Isou settled in Bucharest with his well-off, assimilated family. As a precocious teenager he immersed himself in the capitals Jewish literary circles. After the war, Isou crossed a continent in ruins to get to Paris (for a while, he wondered if he should go to Israel, but since Paris was the absolute center of world culture, he decided that was where he needed to be). His charisma, good looks, and unbounded confidence won him a gang of devoted admirers. He managed, as a stateless Jew barely out of his teens, to secure meetings with Jean Paulhan, Gaston Gallimard, Jean Cocteau, and Andr Gide. When his genius was not immediately recognized, threats were issued: Each generation brings with it a mass of new values which old bastards like you try to stifle. Im warning you now that my friends and I will come and smash your faces in if you dont publish my work which will create great upheavals. I do not salute you, Isidore Isou. He accosted movie producers to get his then-unfinished Trait de bave et dternit screened at the Cannes Film Festival (that film announced the start of discrepant Lettrist cinema, which cut the tie between the image and language, influencing Jean-Luc Godard and Stan Brakhage; it also brought Guy Debord into the Lettrist ambit before an acrimonious break). Isou and his band physically attacked an orphanage to free a young admirer; another scandal involved a Lettrist priest taking the microphone during Mass at Notre-Dame to spout an anticlerical screed. Orson Welles was reduced to an earnest, aw-shucks Midwesterner when Isou and some Lettrist pals recited a sound poem for a BBC documentary on Saint-Germain-des-Prs.

At times, the scandals and adventures so captivate the biographer that Hussey does no more than renarrate Isous own tellings of those exploits. Yet Isou could hardly be taken for a reliable narrator and he was upfront about that: when an editor at Gallimard asked him to change the ending of a chapter in LAgrgation, Isou demurred, saying that he would not add yet another lie to a story already full of lies. Despite admitting that it is impossible to separate the real from the fantasies within fantasies in Isous writings, Hussey treats Isous own work as a true document of his life and era; a precise eyewitness account (this of LAgrgation, a novel creating the myth of a character named Isidore Isou) or a true account of what Isou had lived through and seen (of an erotic novel set in a mental hospital). The mistake is compounded when considering the books inconsistencies and errors, from minor things like dates (the nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany was signed in 1939, not 1938; Guy Debord and Isou were not close friends in the 1940s, as the third line of the book has it, having only met in 1951), names (it is Mihai Eminescu, not Mohai), and geography (the city of Oradea is in the plains and hills, not the mountains; there could not possibly be a night train going the 40 kilometers from Constana to Mangalia) to larger errors in cultural history (Paris, liberated a year earlier, was not in the midst of the puration sauvage when Isou arrived in August 1945; to state that five of the original founders of Dada in Zurich were Jewish exiles from the same part of Romania as Isou is wildly off since only two Romanian Jews were among Dadas founders and one of them came from Bucharest). When writing about Romania, Hussey relies on accounts in translation or by foreigners; original sources are largely missing (I counted four in seven chapters).

Whatever the documentary faults of Husseys book, his subject is riveting, and he tells the tale well. Isou was that rarest of things, a sensitive soul who remained stubbornly convinced of his genius and asserted his right to venture into any field of thought, without a care for traditions or established principles. Some of the results were, as Hussey freely concedes, off the mark, but there was a freedom to Isous mind that strongly rebuked the culture of experts and rationality that had once decided utopia would be Judenfrei. If Paul Celan, a fellow Romanian Jew whom Isou befriended in Paris, answered in his own way Adornos famous remark about the fate of poetry after Auschwitz, Isous whole way of being with its madness and delirium, its wild excesses, sexual energy, disaggregation, and decomposition was its own form of justification. In a world where no one is master of his destiny, as Isou put it in Trait de bave et dternit, where the idea of dying peacefully in ones bed is a fairy tale since violence surrounds us all in this inhospitable world, the only thing left is creation unbounded, godlike creation.

Marius Hentea, a professor of English at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), is the author of TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara (2014).

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Madness as Method: On Andrew Hussey's Speaking East: The Strange and Enchanted Life of Isidore Isou - lareviewofbooks

No satirist could have plotted it better. The residents of Bandhapari village, in Odishas Kalahandi district, invited their MLA, BJD leader Pradeep Kumar Dishari, to inaugurate a telecom tower. Only, the tower was a rickety bamboo structure, bearing a banner that read BSNL 4G. This was the angry villagers way of protesting against the lack of response to their repeated requests for a mobile tower the absence of which makes it necessary for them to travel 4 km to another village in order to make a simple phone call.

This is how Indias dream of zooming down the digital highway to arrive at some kind of technological utopia, where people buy groceries using payment apps, run entire businesses on their devices and children learn in virtual classrooms, stumbles against reality. While the hardship faced by the residents of Bandhapari is particularly unfortunate, the frustration they feel over being denied what has become a basic necessity to live and work in the 21st century would be familiar to many. Indians may have access to all the latest smartphones that hit the market, but none of the hype that accompanies a new launch can offset the discomfort of dangling precariously on a window ledge or off balcony railings to catch a signal. Or trying to make the Hobsons choice between service providers who are technically different, but offer exactly the same patchy network connectivity and indifferent customer service (until one threatens to port to a trade rival, in which case the red carpet of undivided attention and special offers is suddenly rolled out).

While Dishari said that he understood their frustrations, he couldnt do much, as clearance for a new tower would have to come from the Centre. As for the Bandhapari villagers, they have threatened to boycott all elections until their demands are met. Perhaps they are hoping that will send a message even clearer than the bamboo 4G mobile tower.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on January 7, 2022 under the title Network unavailable.

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Unable to text or call due to lack of mobile tower, a village in Odisha finds a unique way to send a message - The Indian Express

If water was the main thing that happened to a bagel that makes it great, there are about five bagel stores around my store here they would make as good of a bagel as we make, says Utopia Bagel shop co-owner Scott Spellman on the myth that New York City water is what gives its bagels the reputation as the best in the country.

Its what you do with the water. Its how much water you put in, its how much, when you proof, [when] you let in the air, Spellman says. Those are the things that are not talked enough about... Its those techniques that make our bagels what they are. The wildly popular Queens, NY shop is famous for its fresh bagels with soft, airy dough and a crisp crust. Spellman attributes his shops notoriety to two things: Having skilled workers make bagels by hand, and keeping everything from the ingredients, to the kettle, to the oven, to the baking techniques the same as they were 40 years ago when the shop first opened.

Another element that Spellman believes is absolutely necessary to making a good bagel is hand-rolling the dough, versus having a machine create the round shape. A machine, he explains, pumps the dough over and over again, tightening it up. Its the rolling that really keeps it soft. And rollers are a dying breed...Its not like theres a school for bagel rollers, he says standing over one of his employees, Henry, who has perfected the art of bagel rolling during his 27 years at the bakery.

[For] any craft, making it by hand is special. It takes an individual to be at the top of his game to make it good, Spellman says. The one problem youre going to have with my bagel, is once you eat it, youre just not going to want any other bagel.

Watch the full video to see more of what goes into Utopia Bagels process.

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The Secrets Behind One of New York's Best Bagels - Eater

It is often taken for granted, but occasionally worth stating that as a sport, football is virtually perfect at least within the white lines. It was a game that was fortunate enough to almost stumble upon the optimum laws and layout very early. Theres a sufficient balance between freedom and order, between creativity and destruction. The preciousness of a goal has ensured it has the right amount of scoring to strike the perfect balance between satisfying reward for performance and exhilarating risk of surprises.

All of this, which is founded on the joyous liberation of just kicking a football, has made the sport by far the most popular in the world. It is that very popularity, however, that has created a multitude of problems off the pitch that now impinge on its perfection on it. Too much of the games immense wealth goes to too few places, greatly eroding competitive balance, and threatening the future of many clubs and even competitions. This is what led to the existential threat of the Super League.

Rather than dwell on such negatives, though, the start of a new year should offer an opportunity to look to something more hopeful; to something utopian. What would need to be done for the structure of football to be as perfect as the playing of it? If we could start the sport from scratch, what would we do? What would a football utopia actually look like?

To answer this question, The Independent asked a number of figures from within and around the game. They included those willing to publicly comment, such as historian David Goldblatt, director of Fair Game, Dons Trust board member Niall Couper, and football finance academic Dr Rob Wilson, as well as a series of sources speaking off the record including agents, club staff and football administrators.

The discussions kept coming back to the same core question: who, and what, is football actually for? Thats quite an easy one to answer. It is firstly the simple playing of the game, in meaningful competition, as a representation of a community. Thats it. That is what arguably human historys most popular cultural pursuit is founded on, and what it has spread from. Once you ensure that principle is preserved and protected, so many other problems from the competitiveness of leagues to the structure of competitions and problematic owners take care of themselves.

The problem is that hasnt been the case. A largely unregulated game has generally left clubs to fend for themselves in a wider embrace of unfettered capitalism, the driving forces of which are directly contrary to sporting ideals and the concept of clubs as social institutions. This paradox is the central tension in football, that has led to a financial stretch with huge gaps emerging, and a lot of uncompetitive clubs, games and trophies.

As former FA chief executive Mark Palios has argued to The Independent, the goal of business is to kill competition indefinitely; the goal of sport is to revive competition every year. The two can never meet. So, as a transformative first step, clubs must be protected as products of their local community.

They should only be owned and run by those whose sole motivation is the health of the football club. There should be no parallel motives. That means supporter trusts or fan groups. It also precludes venture capitalists, billionaires, wealth funds, nation states or anyone looking for financial growth or political capital out of the game. At a stroke, that would eliminate all of the problematic discussions that come with these owner profiles, while ensuring there are no moral concerns about just supporting your club.

So, any football utopia would involve a German recognition that clubs have a cultural value beyond just winning and accumulating wealth if not necessarily a direct German-style 50+1 system, despite many of its obvious strengths. This, accompanied by the right regulations such as transparent accounting and incentivised standards on issues like fan engagement, would secure clubs in their community. No one would be able to spend more than they earn. Core parts of identity like the name, badge and location would be protected. A club could only ever be as big as its fanbase, or how big that fanbase can organically grow.

Nation states would be precluded from owning football clubs in a ideal world

(AFP/Getty)

An obvious problem with this is what has actually happened in Germany, and how Bayern Munich have dwarfed everyone else. An obvious response is that a remedy is what starting from scratch allows. Examples could be taken from American sport without needing to necessarily go as far as a draft. Instead, the immense wealth that football earns could keep going back into the game, and be redistributed fairly.

The lowest-ranked clubs could receive the greater share of the broadcasting deals. Sponsorships could be shared, so no club ever earns too much. Ethically questionable sponsors, such as gambling or cryptocurrency firms, could be prohibited. More money could also be put into womens teams, academies, infrastructure as well as community schemes such as local education and civic society involvement. This is all possible when the owners are singularly concerned with the health of the clubs, rather than just making more money. You wouldnt get external forces looking to push Super Leagues because they wouldnt be involved.

It also eliminates the need for more complicated structural regulations like salary caps, because there is just a greater financial parity. There could beconstant checks that anchor everyone towards a competitive centre. The wider game would perpetuallyseereplenishing reinvestment. It would also encourage the development of academy players, further fostering local connections. Ticket prices could be lower.

Couper, who is well versed in all of this from his experiences in reviving AFC Wimbledon, explains the benefits. All of these different elements come together to make football more sustainable in the long term, while using the wealth at the top to make sure that every corner has the opportunity for a well-run community football club.

Clubs could still seek to grow as teams, which is what it should be about, rather than constantly seeking to grow big as businesses.Empire-building managers like Jurgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola or Sir Alex Ferguson could still try to do that, but wouldnt have to be as concerned by outside forces.

Some modern fans might well complain that would similarly preclude the construction of the current super-squads, like Lionel Messis Paris Saint-Germain, that bring a new scale of glamour and popularity. There is a fundamental misunderstanding there, though. Football is not more popular because of these modern teams. Football has always been immensely popular anyway. The history of the sport emphatically proves this. The popularity of the sport has instead led to these super squads, but only because theres no regulation on where the immense wealth from that mass popularity goes. It accumulates in certain areas, creating a virtuous cycle for a decreasing pool of clubs. They buy better players, so enjoy more success, so become more commercially attractive, so they buy better players and on and on. That is something that is eroding the product of football, rather than enhancing it.

The glamour of super-squads like PSGs is not needed to make football more popular

(Getty)

Preserving clubs as community institutions smashes this. It spreads the wealth, and the stars. The talent would just be more evenly distributed, making more clubs more interesting. And this is ultimately much better for the sport.

Consider the Euro 2020 match between Croatia and Spain, or the last Champions League round-of-16 tie between Porto and Juventus, which were both among the best games of 2021. The drama and stakes mattered much more than the identity of the players on the pitch, all of whom also became more interesting because they were involved in such a contest.

Consider most of football history, pretty much up until the last decade. Dinamo Tbilisi or Dynamo Kyiv may not be teams most fans are bothered to watch anymore, but that wasnt the case in 1981 or 1999, respectively. Since both clubs were able to keep talented groups together that bit longer, they sent a spark through Europe. Kyiv, in particular, were almost unmissable when they had Andriy Shevchenko and Sergiy Rebrov together. It added a colour and vitality to the Champions League way beyond the same cast of current clubs.

This can be the case across the game, and the continent maybe even the world. If clubs are solely fan-owned enterprises, and federations like Uefa also introduced centralised redistribution models as well as regulations on homegrown players, it would hugely increase competitive balance in the sport. This was a point strongly emphasised by almost everyone consulted. Competitive balance is key, Dr Wilson says. Getting it right benefits everyone in the pyramid.

There would just be more mobility in the game. The big clubs could stay strong, but everyone from Preston North End right down to Northampton Town could harbour realistic ambitions of gradually rising up through the divisions and experiencing success, let alone the sports adrift middle class such as Everton and Aston Villa. This is what was meant by meaningful competition. Everyone would be afforded the opportunity to hope, in the way football should really be about.

From that, other structural problems would start to evaporate. The Champions League group stages would cease to be so predictable. There would be much more vitality and variety, which are the lifeblood of competitive sport.

Champions League upsets like Portos victory over Juventus will become more common if wealth is distributed more evenly between clubs

(Getty)

The compensation for economic modesty is a more diverse football culture, Goldblatt argues. There is already an example of this in Swedish football. Through their own adaptation of German-style ownership rules, it is one of the few domestic leagues with proper competitive balance and internal mobility.

This would of course require another utopian ideal: that federations are themselves solely interested in safeguarding the sport, and collaboration to serve the wider game, rather than being in competition with each other. Again, the sport being treated as a sport, rather than an endless quest to create more money, conditions this.

The calendar would be streamlined, easing the stress on players. More of them could play more games at their top level, without being pushed to physical limits. More consideration could be given to environmental concerns.

This isnt to preclude modern innovations, either. It now seems clear that the nature of a lot of international qualification, especially in Europe, is a relic from a previous age. This could be honed and improved, potentially allowing more Nations League-style competitions and in short more interesting international breaks. This would perhaps permit a more symmetrical 32-team European Championship, too, since qualification wouldnt have to be so large.

Again, club regulations on homegrown players would similarly be to the benefit of national teams as well as national leagues, revitalising both.

The continental federations would also bring in proper ethical judgements on hosting major competitions. This could apply for everything from human rights concerns to a countrys ability to spend on sporting infrastructure without costing societal infrastructure. Through this, it would no longer be a case of Fifa, say, looking to use whatever country it requires to serve the World Cup as has been the case with South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014.

It would instead be football as a force for good in the way it professes to be. The game could really use the huge leverage it has. Countries would have to greatly improve records to even be involved. Sportswashing could be made impossible.

The response to this utopia will no doubt be that its impossible to implement, of course. That isnt the point. The point is about having a vision to strive towards. Footballs current reality is something that certainly shouldnt be taken as a given. The beauty of the game deserves a better sport around it.

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What would a football utopia look like? - The Independent

Skiing poorly on Buttermilk, celebrity-spotting, party-hunting and altitude sickness are time-honored elements of a classic New Years Eve visit to Aspen for the international jet set.

Andy Warhol checked all those boxes and of course had some fun, too during his visits to Aspen to ring in three New Years during the 1980s. Warhols local history went back to the 1950s for art exhibitions and visits with his Carbondale-based patrons and friends John and Kimiko Powers. These glitzier holiday trips put Warhol on snow with his boyfriend Jon Gould, an athlete more prone to mountain snowsports than the artist, and at A-list gatherings here with everybody from John Denver and Jack Nicholson to Elizabeth Paepcke and John Oates, Barbi Benton and Buzz Aldrin, Bob Rafelson and Baby Jane Holzer, Cornelia Guest and Tab Hunter and Jimmy Buffett. His camera and journal in tow, Warhol documented the scene and the scenery.

As the Aspen Art Museum celebrates its monumental career survey Andy Warhol: Lifetimes, here a are some high points from the artist New Years Eves in Aspen.

Warhol and artist Christopher Makos ventured to Buttermilk Ski Area for a Powder Pandas lesson with instructor Gary Bonn.

We did about two hours of zig-zagging and going up on the handrail and you just sort of sit on the thing and go up the whole hill, and it was really fun, he wrote in his journal on Dec. 30. It was easy, all the two-year-olds skiing with me, and if you start when youre two you can really go with the waves and relax and become a good skier, but I was so tense. I fell three times.

Warhol also had an altitude problem during this stay, and popped into Aspen Valley Hospital to check if hed broken his wrist in his many falls on Panda Peak (he hadnt).

He also soaked up the local enthusiasm for fresh powder the best snow they ever had, he reported and enjoyed seeing people outside of his New York element: Met all these people who were surprised seeing me and I didnt recognize them in their ski clothes, he wrote.

Warhol rang in 1983 at Jimmy Buffetts all country-western party, though the journal doesnt specify whether the bash was at Buffetts legendary Old Snowmass home or off-site somewhere else. The guest list included that included Jack Nicholson (Jacks got a big fat belly now, Warhol wrote) with Anjelica Huston, Barry Diller and Diana Ross.

He also noted he was invited to but apparently didnt attend Sonny Bonos wedding at the Aspen Chapel and went out with TV actress Cathy Lee Crosby and a group to Aspens era-defining disco Andres.

It was like trying to get into Studio 54, he wrote.

On New Years Day, a group including Makos, Gould and Denver-based photographer Mark Sink went snowmobiling in the Maroon Creek Valley from T-Lazy-7 ranch.

Something strange happened, Warhol wrote of the experience. I though Jon was trying to kill me. We were on a snowmobile and he pushed me over a cliff. I thought he did it on purpose. But somehow there were trees there and I fell off into a deep snow. We rode to the house, that was fun, but I didnt realize till I get back how scary going off the cliff was.

Sink, in an interview this fall, explained that he had sprayed snow in Goulds face on the joyride, which caused Gould to veer off-course. The good-time spirit of the incident is captured in Sinks photos of Warhol giddily smiling as he dug out from the crash.

It should be no surprise that Warhol sought out Elizabeth Paepcke, the co-founder of the Aspen Skiing Co. and progenitor of Aspen as a utopia, wife to the late Walter Paepcke. He went to her West End home (since demolished, it sat on the property above Hallam Lake where the Lewis family compound was recently completed).

Met the Dowager of Aspen, the Grand Dame, Warhol write on Dec. 31 with un-ironic appreciation.

Warhol noted with glee her nickname (Pussy), her immaculate house and her indomitable spirit.

Shes 82 and shes very beautiful, Warhol wrote, she looks like Katharine Hepburn. An immaculate house and she runs up and down the stairs to get ginseng tea, shes spry.

atravers@aspentimes.com

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Andy Warhol's Aspen New Year's Eves | AspenTimes.com - The Aspen Times

Frank Stanfield| For the Daily Commercial

LEESBURG City commissioners on Monday will vote on annexing a 1,088-acre parcel for the proposed 3,000-home Bella Vista at Whispering Hills development off U.S. 27and a 149-acre Dewey Robbins Road plot planned for 481 homes.

Lake County commissioners met with their city counterparts Thursday in hopes the city might consider requiring some natural buffers between the new homes in Whispering Hills and their rural neighbors, and lowering the housing density for the Hodges Reserve tract on Dewey Robbins.

The joint workshop at the community building in Venetian Gardenssometimes turned into a heated discussion with major philosophical differences.

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Residents who now enjoy pastures, lakes and wildlife said they felt invaded this summer when they learned of the $1.6 billion Whispering Hills plans that include a golf course, equestrian center, hotel and commercial properties. It is a joint venture with Ayana Holding, based in Dubai, and Marsan Real Estate Group in Orlando.

We have received a lot of public comment, said County Commissioner Leslie Campione.

The area is on the east side of U.S. 27, north of Power Line Road and west of Number 2 Road.

The area is now in a county rural protection area, which calls for vegetation boundaries between developments.

Tim McClendon, the countys planning and zoning director, also pitched what he calls rural conservation subdivisions, basically squeezing houses closer together to create more green space.

City Manager Al Minner called the idea of having fewer people per acre a rural utopia.

He said to accomplish such a thing would require thinking outside the box, and necessitate cities subsidizing the projects with utilities.

Campione said the conservation subdivisions have the same density, just arranged differently.

But the topic hit a nerve.

We didnt go out and seek growth, Minner said. Growth comes to us. It is the citys job to manage growth and if annexed, to provide services.

We are not going to stop growing, he said.

City Commissioner Dan Robuck III said reduced density is nice idea, but impractical.

A house built on one acre is a $500,000 home, he said.

What the area needs is affordable housing for nurses and firefighters, including multi-family homes. This is hard to find now, with homes selling for $300,000, he said.

We cant force people to build what they dont want.

County Commissioner Josh Blake agreed. Property owners have rights, he said.

Existing residents do not have a right to a perpetual view, he said.

The Whispering Hills and Hodges Reserve annexations are up to Leesburg, he said.

Campione said she hopes the city and county can engage in some future, collaborative master planning, including traffic.

She said there will be too much traffic on Dewey Robbins Road.

As for Whispering Hills, the developer has agreed to make several changes, including limiting traffic to the two-lane Number 2 Road to 41 homes, not hundreds.

Ive never seen a developer do that, Robuck said.

Access will now be limited to two points on U.S. 27. Before, County Road 48 would be an access point.

Its not perfect, said Karen West told the Daily Commercial of the Whispering Hills plans after the meeting, but she said it is much better now. She lives in the Water Wood subdivision in Yalaha.

Mayor John Christian said it would be unfair to ask the developers to wait three or four months to make changes now.

The city does a good job managing growth, he said, and growth is crucial for the city. Lake Square Mall needs business, the south end of the city contains rundown motels and other businesses, and the city needs more schools.

Leesburg hasnt had a new school in years. Parents are sending their children to private schools.

Mondays meeting is set for 5:30 p.m.at the community center at Venetian Gardens.

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Leesburg considers annexing land for proposed Whispering Hills development off U.S. 27 - Daily Commercial

Riverdale Season 6 is far from over. In November, the CWs Archie Comics adaptation kicked off its five-episode Rivervale event set in an alternate universe. After five weeks of shocking deaths, confusing twists, and even a cameo from Sabrina Spellman, the event concluded with Riverdales 100th episode on Dec. 14. Riverdale Season 6 is now on its winter hiatus, but the teen drama will return in spring 2022. Heres everything to know about the mid-season return.

The Rivervale event aired on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET. However, fans shouldnt get too attached to that time slot. According to the CWs mid-season schedule, Riverdale Season 6 will pick up on March 6 at 8 p.m. Instead of Tuesday nights, the show will air weekly on Sunday nights at its new time.

And as for how many more episodes fans can expect from the season, the answer isnt quite clear yet. A report from Decider in December seemed to indicate the cast is still filming season 6. If thats the case, the season might finish airing sometime in the summer. For reference, previous Riverdale seasons have included anywhere from 13 to 22 episodes.

It looks like most of the cast will remain the same heading into the second half of season 6. That includes KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes, Cole Sprouse, Madelaine Petsch, Vanessa Morgan, Casey Cott, Mdchen Amick, Charles Melton, Drew Ray Tanner, and Erinn Westbrook. However, the CW did bring on one new face.

As Deadline reported, Yous Chris OShea has joined the Riverdale cast in a recurring role for the rest of the season. Hell play Percival Pickens, the towns newest baddie. Percival is described as charming but manipulative, powerful, and increasingly dangerous. Hell clash with Riverdales residents, especially Archie.

A descendent of one of Riverdales founding fathers, General Pickens, Percival wants to turn Riverdale into a utopia, a dark agenda he pursues quietly but ruthlessly, the character description reads.

The first half of Riverdale Season 6 brings its characters to a much darker and more dangerous version of Riverdale called Rivervale. No one is safe in this alternate reality, and supernatural occurrences are common.

When Riverdale returns with season 6 episode 6, the story picks up where season 5 left off. The disgraced and exiled Hiram Lodge (Mark Conseulos) plants a bomb in Archies (Apa) room, where he and Betty (Reinhart) are hooking up. Although they survive the blast, the incident will have lasting effects.

Showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa hasnt shared too much about what to expect from the rest of the season. However, he did have an ominous message for fans via Variety:

Death is definitely coming to Riverdale, and it is definitely permanent.

Riverdale Seasons 1 through 5 are now streaming on Netflix. Meanwhile, fans can catch up on the Rivervale event via The CWs website and app.

RELATED: Riverdale Cast Teases 100th Episode: Nothings Off the Table, Everyones a Savage

Read more from the original source:

Riverdale' Season 6 Mid-Season Return: Release Date, New Cast, and What to Expect - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

The ball ambled into the far corner of the net and Marcelo Bielsa fell instantly into the arms of his assistant, Pablo Quiroga. Seconds remained but the game was done and the pair of them stood there, embracing tightly for what felt like an eternity. Amid the pandemonium they were lost in time and in each others orbit.

Bielsa does not go in for unsolicited celebrations and even at Swansea City, on the day when the Championship gave up on holding Leeds United against their will, he limited himself to a clench of his fists and a wipe of his nose as Pablo Hernandez cleared the way to utopia.

His staff have learned to keep their distance when goals fly in. But gentle emotion like Elland Road saw yesterday is what drips from Bielsa when the dogs are on him, when the strain builds and self-doubt develops. No length of service in football makes a coach impervious to a league table as the Premier League looked to Bielsa on New Years Day.

His hug with Quiroga was like their hug away to Rotherham United in 2019, at the end of a victory that brought welcome relief in the wake of Spygate. Bielsa had spent the fortnight before that win fighting fires with his integrity under attack and Quirogas beeline to him at full-time was a symbolic line in the sand.

Bielsa had form on his side back then, though, and the unerring confidence of everyone in Leeds. That he and Quiroga were embracing before full-time against

See the rest here:

Marcelo Bielsa and a hug that says it all - The Athletic

In an era when social media has made everyone with an annual pass a theme park influencer, it seems like weve got rankings of every Disneyland ride, wait time, snack, souvenir and entertainment offering. But no one is talking about one of the most crucial elements to the park experience: the smell. Walt Disney himself knew that scents were important to forming positive memories. Just think about the irresistible aroma of baked goods on Main Street, or the popcorn carts in the hub, and how integral they are to the park experience. That philosophy has carried itself through Disneyland ride design for the past six-plus decades.

Well, for the most part. Some rides need a serious scent makeover. Here are the highs and lows of the ride scents at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, in a totally subjective ranking from best to worst, based solely on opinions Ive formed on my many trips around the track.

Soarin' Around the World

1. Soarin Around the WorldThere can hardly be an argument about the fact that Soarin Around the World, the attraction that most prominently features scents, is the best smelling in Disneyland. Im sure there are plenty of you who are totally incensed (see what I did there?) that Pirates isnt No. 1. Dont worry, well get there, but for now, just take a moment to remember the pure bliss of being suspended in the air, surrounded by an 80-foot, 180-degree screen, as you breathe in the grassy savannah of Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania, the cool ocean breezes of the Lau Islands in Fiji, and the jasmine surrounding the Taj Mahal in India. Or, at least, Disneys interpretation of what those places smell like.

2. Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!Heres the sleeper hit of this list. The Monsters, Inc. ride in Hollywoodland in Disney California Adventure has subtle scents, but it smells delicious. Next time youre cruising through Monstropolis, take an extra-deep breath in the Harryhausens scene, when a sharp, pleasant scent of ginger pervades the air. In the ride finale Scare Floor, at the part where a door randomly opens to reveal a different scene each time, youll get a blast of sweet lemon if you happen to get the Adorable Snowman door. It smells so good that it sends me beelining to Adorable Snowman Frosted Treats for a Pixar Pier Frosty Parfait every. Single. Time.

Pirates of the Caribbean

3. Pirates of the CaribbeanOK, its the moment youve been waiting for. The scent of this iconic 1967 ride is, for many people, the defining scent of Disneyland. But what does it smell like? I can never quite put my finger on it, other than that its one part chemical (the bromine the park uses to clean the water), one part smoke and fog from the special effects, one part kitchen aromas from Blue Bayou, one part mustiness from the attractions 54 years of history and one part nostalgia. The scent is so deeply beloved that it has inspired candles, room sprays, even perfumes.

The gingerbread house from the 2018 Haunted Mansion Holiday

4. Haunted Mansion HolidayIm a Haunted Mansion purist. Its not that I dont love the seasonal overlay of Haunted Mansion Holiday, its just that I love the original spooky dark ride more. But when my Doom Buggy rolls into the Halloweentown-inspired ballroom scene and I get a whiff of the spicy-sweet air coming off that killer gingerbread house, I cant help but feel excited. Does it feel too Christmasy at Halloween and too Halloweeny at Christmas? Of course, but thats all part of the delightful conundrum that is The Nightmare Before Christmas.

"It's a Small World" Holiday

5. Its a Small World HolidayIn a total reversal from my stance on Disneylands other holiday overlay, the festive version of Its a Small World is my absolute favorite iteration of that ride. The coconut smell in the Hawaii scene, the jasmine in the India scene and the unmistakably Disney-at-Christmas gingerbread scent are all welcome additions for me.

6. The Many Adventures of Winnie the PoohHeffalumps and Woozles dont have a smell, but the honey pots in this ride definitely do. The sugary scent of Poohs favorite food is subtle on this ride, but it adds to the atmosphere in just the right way. It also gets your taste buds ready for a sweet treat from Pooh Corner, if youre like me.

The Disneyland Railroad in New Orleans Station

7. Disneyland RailroadMaybe the Disneyland Railroad doesnt have an aroma you can really pinpoint, but its second only to Pirates in what you might describe as the Disneyland scent you find on older attractions. Next time youre chugging through the Primeval World section of the track, with the dinosaurs, take a deep breath. Its part pleasantly musty, part like old plastic plants. To me, it smells like the field trips I used to take to museums when I was a kid, and I get a delightful sense of nostalgia every time I ride.

Jungle Cruise

8. Jungle CruiseIf the backside of water had a smell, it would be this combination of foliage, flowers, animatronic animals and unapologetic puns. Jungle Cruise has less of a scent and more of a refreshing atmosphere. Its not just a nice break from walking and from thrill rides with the water and the shade, this boat ride is also a nice break from the dry California heat.

9. Big Thunder Mountain RailroadMost of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad doesnt have a particular smell, which, given that its based on the Wild West, a time not particularly remembered for its hygiene, is probably a good thing. Theres one part that does have an olfactory component to it, though: In the scene where the mine is about to explode, theres a burning scent. The first time I smelled it after the ride was plussed to include the smoke smell, I thought maybe it was the machinery of the train itself. Now I know its just a haunted mine about to detonate with me inside. Much better.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

10. Mr. Toads Wild RideJust like on Big Thunder Mountain, the only part of Mr. Toad that has a smell is the most intense part only instead of barely escaping an incendiary mine, you descend into literal hell. The blast of heat that comes with the appearance of the devils has a hot, dry scent that isnt exactly pleasant but perfectly fits the netherworld scene.

11. Casey Jr. Circus TrainThis little kid ride in Fantasyland isnt the worst smelling ride in the park, but its close. The smell of the engine of this narrow gauge train, which opened as an original attraction in 1955, is a little too strong for my preference. Maybe Im just averse to squeezing myself into a kid-sized monkey cage, though. Its a real toss up.

Autopia in 1957

12. AutopiaYou had to know this was coming, right? Jack Plotnick, who makes modern updates to classic Wonderful World of Color videos, described Autopia as a ride for people who, I guess, like sitting in traffic. The only difference is the exhaust on the kid-sized cars on this Tomorrowland ride actually smells worse than a freeway full of rush hour-trapped cars in the middle of a heat wave. Every time I get a whiff of this odiferous attraction I wonder why, when there are so many fumes coming off the cars, Disneyland still has it operating in fundamentally the same way it was when the park opened in 1955 (though the most recent versions of the cars to be implemented went in in 2000). The kicker? Autopias name is a portmanteau of automobile utopia. Oh, the irony.

Continued here:

Does it pass the smell test? Disneyland rides ranked by their scents. - SF Gate

David Byrne will present a revised version of his American Utopia Broadway show beginning Tuesday, due to several breakthrough Covid cases among his onstage band.

In an Instagram video today (watch it below), Byrne explained that with several band and crew members out, he and the remaining Utopia band will temporarily perform a new show at the St. James Theatre. The new show will include songs from his Talking Heads era, his solo albums as well as some of the American Utopia numbers.

In the video, Byrne says that rather than canceling our shows, he will honor our commitment to ticket-holders. Were going to do a show that, well, were just going to come up with the show! Hey, lets make a show! He described the revised show as unlike anything weve done before.

In a second Instagram video, Byrne offers a sneak peek of at least one song on the new set list: A rehearsal of the song And She Was can be heard as the camera focuses on a masked band member.

The new show Byrne calls is Unplugged, or maybe Unchained will begin with the Tuesday, Dec. 28, 8 p.m. performance. The unplugged Utopia will then play the following dates:

Byrne says in the video that hes only going to do it for a few weeks and then we hope well all be back with the regular American Utopia show.

Watch both Instagram videos below.

Go here to see the original:

David Byrne Revises American Utopia On Broadway Due To Band Member Covid: Teases Unplugged & Unchained Version With Sneak Peek Video - Deadline