Category Archives: New Utopia

Before omicron arrived to ruin the holidays, I had a short but lovely visit to New York City. I planned to write about my suggestions for dining and entertainment for those who might be making a holiday visit. Pre-pandemic, Rhode Islanders oftentook that convenient Amtrak train to go see a show and have a special dinner around Christmas and New Year's.

While it seems foolhardy to share this story now, I will. There are two reasons: hope for better days, and my bad memory.So cut and save if a trip to the city is in your future.

I took the fast Acela train and everyone stayed masked up. It was my first time seeing the newMoynihan Train Hall, an expansion of Pennsylvania Station, in the former main post office building. It opened this year and it's sparkling new. That is one very,welcomeupgrade.

I had a lunch I will not soon forget at a new restaurant that was not far from Rockefeller Center, where I wanted to see the tree.

Casa Limone just opened this summer, occupying two stories at 20 East 49th St.

It is the first restaurant fromMichelin-starred Italian chef Antonio Salvatore.It's inspired by the Amalfi Coast in design and menu. There are flower-strewn pergolas hanging over second floor tables and the staircase. There are also bright, refreshingdrinks(made with Prosecco and limoncello) and classic Italian cocktails. Welcome plates with olives, focaccia and mortadella are served.

The aroma from wood-fired oven wafts in the air.

Casa Limone is one of those places that transports you while you dine. It's not hard to believe you are in Southern Italy, at least for a few hours. Some of the tables are inlaid with Italian ceramic tiles, which are also used for some of the dishware. It adds to the cheerful setting.

From burrata appetizers to desserts including delicate doughnut holes served with ice cream and chocolate, everything is beautifully plated and delicious. There's plenty of creativity on the menu, such as Provolone Podolico,a baked provolone dish served with vegetables. It's plated by the server for a bit of a show.

While I went for lunch, the all-day menu includes pastas, seafood and meat.Pizza, too, from that wood-fired oven,is on the menu and includesthe Tartufata with black truffles and ricotta.

The lunch carried us right into the evening, when we headed to the St. James Theatre to see "David Byrne'sAmerican Utopia"on Broadway.

You mayrecall that Byrneand his friends from theRhode Island School of Design founded Talking Heads back in 1977 in New York City, so what could be more appropriate to see?.

Itis a totally entertaining show and I left the theater with a smile on my face.

Many, though not all, of the songs came off Byrne's "American Utopia" album. There are also some Talking Heads songs;"Burning Down the House" isa crowd-pleaser.

It's not like your usual Broadway show, nor is it any kind of rock opera. It's a performance play. The band is more like a marching band, wearing their instruments so they can dance at the same time. The stage is stark and all the performers are in gray suits and barefoot. Watching them play and move is nothing short of mesmerizing.

I always liked Talking Heads and Byrne but I'm no super fan, nor do I love going to concerts. This was entertainment, pure and simple.

Byrne doessome narration to tie the songs to a theme of resilience. I found that tedious and just wanted more music and the celebrationof the dance.

My idea to eat after the show at Junior's was not a good one. Or maybe it was a very good idea, because every theater-goer was trying to get in.

But walking from the theater, we heard some piano music that called to us. It was coming from a restaurant that was down a stoop on West 49th St.

Turns out, Da Marino is open until midnight. After we showed the manager our vaccination cards and IDs, we were seated at a table in this grotto-like restaurant. The walls here are brick, adding to the grotto feel. They have celebrity photos on the walls and artificial garlic hanging. The bathroom feels like a shrine in the old country.

It's all wonderful.

We hadn't intended to have another Italian meal this visit but we enjoyed polenta, ravioli andPenne alla Vodka. This is a red-sauce restaurant, but they do it all well.

We also enjoyed the festive holiday cocktailsand fresh bread and oil.

But mostly we loved hearing the piano player singChristmas songs, Billy Joel tunes and a Hanukkah song. It was a loud, festive, fun place which is just the energy we wanted after our return to Broadway.

On the way out, we met the owner, Craig Perri, who wanted to talk about the Patriots. He said he played football at the U.S.Naval Academy under Bill Bellichick's father, Stephen Belichick.

The manager wanted to talk baseball. But he was a Mets fan, so the answer was no.

Before leaving for home, I had to get real New York bagels. I foundEss-A-Bagel, which is known for huge, airybagels, a wide varietyofcream cheese and sandwiches made with bagels. They are kosher-certified and not made with eggs or dairy. They started the business in 1976.

The line at the shop at831 3rd Ave, between 50 and 51st streets, was out the door, and isn't that always a good sign. A woman I can only assume was the bubbe of the family was manning the phone. She was also telling the newly arrived crowd how things worked.

"If you ordered hot bagels and cream cheese, go to the back corner. If you only want hot bagels and cream cheese, go to the guys at the back counter. If you want a sandwich or anything else from the deli counter, stay in the line."

She didn't say to order iced coffee at the deli. You could order hot coffee at the register but not iced. That's important for us New England folks.

I would absolutely go there again. The bagels were still great two days later and so big you could share one between two people.

Finally, I learned one huge lesson about getting around the city. I embrace ride-sharing services when I visitmy kids in San Francisco. Uber and Lyft are not the preferred transportation here. Even though the holiday crowds were as minimal as I've ever seen, there was traffic, horrid traffic.

If you have to get anywhere, you need the aggressive moves of a taxi driver. I'm only sorry I didn't record myride back to Penn Station to post in this story. It was one for the ages.

Casa Limone is located at 20 East 49th St,(646) 370-6282,casalimonerestaurant.com. Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Da Marino, 220 West 49th St.,(212) 541-6601, damarino.com. Open seven days for lunch and dinner and late dinner and drinks.

Ess-a-Bagel, 831 3rd Ave,(212) 980-1010, ess-a-bagel.com, open seven days a week. There are other locations as well.

"David Byrne'sAmerican Utopia,"St. James Theatre, 244 West 44th St., americanutopiabroadway.com

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Your NYC to do list for dining and more, when the time is right - The Providence Journal

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for December 21st, 2021. Another quiet day today, but we do have a couple of new releases to look at. Ive also put together a review for the rather lovely puzzle game FILMECHANISM. Aside from that, we have a whole bunch of new sales for you to consider. Yes, there are more of them. I dont know where theyre coming from either. Well, lets get to it!

Ah, puzzle games. So simple, but so complex. At least, the best ones are. Give the player a mechanic that is easy enough to understand, then throw a series of challenges at them, escalating ever so gently yet steadily until theyre pulling off absurd things they never could have dreamed of at the start. If this is done well, its almost invisible to the player. But there are a lot of ways things can go wrong. A cool core mechanic helps. But its the level designs where things come together or fall apart. Too slow of a ramp-up and the players will get bored. Too fast and they may well get stuck.

FILMECHANISM gets it right. Your character is a sort of camera-creature named Rec. You can move about and jump, like any average platforming protagonist. But Rec has an extra talent: provided youve picked up film, you can snap an image of the screens current layout. Then, whenever you need to, you can restore the image that film took. Rec will stay put, but any other things youve moved or messed with will go back to wherever they were when you took the snapshot. At first, youll only be dealing with one snapshot at a time. Sure, you have to decide when to take it, but there are really only so many options.

As things start to heat up, youll get more film. Great power, great responsibility. As each shot can be taken and restored individually, you will find yourself with more and more possibilities for solutions. Theres no punishment for failing, save for having to restart the stage. Each world also offers you three routes to the next one, with varying levels of difficulty. Naturally, youll eventually want to clear them all. There are more than 200 of them, which will keep you busy for quite some time. If you do get stuck, you can unlock a series of hints using the coins you earn from beating each stage. The coins are plentiful enough and the puzzle designs ramp up fairly enough that you should be able to get hints whenever you need them.

If you enjoy puzzle platformers, youll have a great time with FILMECHANISM. Theres no grand story here, and its aesthetic is cute but not exactly stunning. But the gameplay is excellent, with a strong core mechanic to build puzzles around and level designs that fully deliver on that promise. It nails its difficulty curve perfectly, making it well-suited to newcomers to the genre and veterans alike. Its just that simple.

SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5

This feels a lot like a template flip, but I cant be sure. Anyway, its a handheld-only puzzle game that basically rips off Tsum Tsums gameplay and dresses it up in a vaguely Halloween-ish theme. You get 60 levels to play. I would suggest downloading Disney Tsum Tsum on your mobile device of choice instead and keeping your seven bucks for delicious Snickers bars or what-have-you.

You can probably figure most of this out from the title, but whatever. Shaun needs to fill out the article a bit. Its a match-3 puzzle game with a pirate theme! There are a bit over one hundred levels to clear, and youll use the coins you get from clearing stages to buy pieces to customize your pirate theme park. Pirates love making pirate theme parks, you see. Not much separating this from free-to-play stuff on mobile other than it having less content and less polish. Also, you have to pay ten bucks for it instead of nothing.

(North American eShop, US Prices)

There are a bunch of Capcom games on sale, but nothing we dont see every so often anyway. Never a bad time to stock up, of course. The discounts from Marvelous/XSEED are rarer, and there are some great games in that bunch. Yes, this is where I tell you to buy Sakuna: Of Rice & Ruin again. Do it. No More Heroes is also really good. Other points of interest include sales on Thalamus games like Bezier: Second Edition, Thomas K Young games like Dadish, and more. Give a good look through the list, as there are plenty of good titles in todays batch. Oh, and check the outbox too. Bandai Namco games get discounted often enough that you probably dont need to get on them right now, but you may want to think about picking some of them up to help you pass your holidays anyway.

Select New Games on Sale

S.N.I.P.E.R. Hunter Scope ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/27)WarriOrb ($2.59 from $12.99 until 12/27)Dune Sea ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/30)Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S ($11.20 from $14.00 until 1/3)Alpaca Ball: Allstars ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/3)What The Dub?! ($5.99 from $7.99 until 1/3)Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen ($14.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Shinsekai Into the Depths ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Phoenix Wright: AA Trilogy ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection ($44.99 from $59.99 until 1/4)Onimusha: Warlords ($7.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Monster Hunter Generations Ult. ($15.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Okami HD ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Mega Man Legacy Collection ($9.99 from $14.99 until 1/4)

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Mega Man X Legacy Collection ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Mega Man Zero/ZX Collection ($19.79 from $29.99 until 1/4)Mega Man 11 ($14.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Street Fighter Anniversary Collection ($14.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil ($12.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil 0 ($12.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil 4 ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil 5 ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil 6 ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil Revelations ($7.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Resident Evil Revelations 2 ($7.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)No More Heroes ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)No More Heroes 2: DS ($14.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)

Sakuna: Of Rice & Ruin ($23.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Can Androids Pray:Blue ($2.79 from $6.99 until 1/4)Heroland ($8.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Senran Kagura Reflexions ($4.99 from $9.99 until 1/4)Senran Kagura Peach Ball ($14.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Fate/EXTELLA The Umbral Star ($19.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Fate/EXTELLA Link ($24.99 from $29.99 until 1/4)Story of Seasons: FoMT ($27.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Story of Seasons: PoOT ($29.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Cloudbase Prime ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/4)Shadowverse: Champions Battle ($29.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Knockout Home Fitness ($29.99 from $39.99 until 1/4)Henchman Story ($7.49 from $14.99 until 1/4)Gal Metal ($7.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Akibas Trip: H&D ($19.49 from $29.99 until 1/4)

Freedom Finger ($4.49 from $14.99 until 1/4)BurgerTime Party! ($9.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Freedom Planet ($4.49 from $14.99 until 1/4)Corpse Party ($17.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Corpse Party: Blood Drive ($11.99 from $19.99 until 1/4)Forest Guardian ($3.49 from $10.99 until 1/4)#DRIVE ($6.49 from $12.99 until 1/4)GUNKID 99 ($2.99 from $6.99 until 1/4)Sheepo ($4.99 from $10.99 until 1/4)Potion Party ($4.99 from $9.99 until 1/4)Merrily Perilly ($2.49 from $4.99 until 1/4)Double Pug Switch ($2.19 from $5.49 until 1/4)Into A Dream ($4.99 from $13.99 until 1/4)Aperion Cyberstorm ($4.39 from $10.99 until 1/4)Big Dipper ($2.49 from $4.99 until 1/4)Lynn, The Girl Drawn on Puzzles ($7.19 from $7.99 until 1/6)The Legend of Tianding ($15.99 from $19.99 until 1/6)

Unavowed ($10.49 from $14.99 until 1/6)Beast Breaker ($7.50 from $15.00 until 1/7)Keep Talking & No One Explodes ($7.49 from $14.99 until 1/7)Dadish ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/9)Dadish 2 ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/9)Super Fowlst ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/9)Super Fowlst 2 ($2.00 from $10.00 until 1/9)Apparition ($2.99 from $9.99 until 1/10)Street Basketball ($1.99 from $5.99 until 1/10)Moorhuhn Remake ($5.59 from $6.99 until 1/10)Moorhuhn Kart 2 ($13.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)Death Ray Manta SE ($2.00 from $10.00 until 1/10)Bezier: Second Edition ($1.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)Lumo ($1.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)Cecconoid ($1.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)

10 Second Ninja X ($1.99 from $11.99 until 1/10)Destructivator SE ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)LOVE: A Puzzle Box ($1.99 from $19.99 until 1/10)Guns of Mercy: Rangers Edition ($2.69 from $8.99 until 1/10)Finding Teddy 2: DE ($2.99 from $9.99 until 1/10)Food Truck Tycoon ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Pancake Bar Tycoon ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Frontier Quest ($9.59 from $11.99 until 1/10)Cooking Tycoons 3 in 1 ($1.99 from $12.99 until 1/10)Elemental Knights R ($2.00 from $8.64 until 1/10)Bring Them Home ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)Classic Games Collection Vol 1 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)2048 Battles ($1.99 from $3.99 until 1/10)Fatum Betula ($2.99 from $5.49 until 1/10)Freecell Solitaire Deluxe ($1.99 from $8.99 until 1/10)

Must Dash Amigos ($1.99 from $6.99 until 1/10)Super Trench Attack ($2.40 from $8.00 until 1/10)Match Three Pirates II ($7.49 from $9.99 until 1/10)Shmup Collection ($4.49 from $14.99 until 1/10)Gigantic Army ($2.69 from $8.99 until 1/10)Wolflame ($2.09 from $6.99 until 1/10)Satazius Next ($2.09 from $6.99 until 1/10)Armed 7 DX ($2.09 from $6.99 until 1/10)Rogue Aces ($1.99 from $12.99 until 1/10)Finn & the Ancient Mystery ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Elli ($1.99 from $7.99 until 1/10)The Lost Light of Sisu ($1.99 from $9.99 until 1/10)UNI ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Summer in Mara ($9.99 from $24.99 until 1/10)Zombies Cool ($1.99 from $3.99 until 1/10)

Ellipsis ($1.99 from $4.99 until 1/10)Uncharted Tides: Port Royal ($2.09 from $14.99 until 1/10)Persian Nights 2: TMV ($2.09 from $14.99 until 1/10)Paratopic ($1.99 from $5.49 until 1/10)Zombie Scrapper ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)Spellkeeper ($1.99 from $5.99 until 1/10)Creepy Balls ($3.99 from $6.99 until 1/10)Abyss ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)99Seconds ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)99Moves ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)Darts Up ($1.99 from $2.99 until 1/10)Hocus 2 ($3.74 from $4.99 until 1/13)

Sales Ending Tomorrow, Wednesday, December 22nd

#RaceDieRun ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Active Life Outdoor Challenge ($29.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Adverse ($2.03 from $5.99 until 12/22)Akuto: Showdown ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Arcane Arts Academy ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Badland: GotY Edition ($2.99 from $5.99 until 12/22)Barbarous: Tavern of Emyr ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Beautiful Desolation ($9.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)BIT.TRIP Series, Assorted ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)BRAWL ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Captain Tsubasa: RoNC ($19.79 from $59.99 until 12/22)CHOP ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Coffee Crisis ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Deadlings ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)Deaths Hangover ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)

Deployment ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Dex ($1.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth CE ($14.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Disney Tsum Tsum Festival ($19.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Door Kickers ($3.99 from $11.99 until 12/22)Doraemon Story of Seasons ($12.49 from $49.99 until 12/22)Dragon Ball FighterZ ($9.59 from $59.99 until 12/22)Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 ($7.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot ($35.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)DungeonTop ($3.99 from $13.99 until 12/22)Epistory: Typing Chronicles ($5.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)EQQO ($1.99 from $5.99 until 12/22)Escape Doodland ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Fort Triumph ($11.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Geki Yaba Runner AE ($1.99 from $2.99 until 12/22)

God Eater 3 ($9.59 from $59.99 until 12/22)Golf Club Wasteland ($7.49 from $9.99 until 12/22)Good Night, Knight ($4.79 from $11.99 until 12/22)Gravity Rider Zero ($1.99 from $6.99 until 12/22)HyperParasite ($1.99 from $17.99 until 12/22)It Came From Space & Ate Brains ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Journey of the Broken Circle ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Jump Force: DE ($12.49 from $49.99 until 12/22)Katamari Damacy Reroll ($7.49 from $29.99 until 12/22)Koloro ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Little Mouses Encyclopedia ($4.99 from $12.99 until 12/22)Little Nightmares CE ($7.49 from $29.99 until 12/22)Little Nightmares II ($20.09 from $29.99 until 12/22)Little Racer ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Love Colors ($1.99 from $3.99 until 12/22)

Lydia ($1.99 from $3.99 until 12/22)Metamorphosis ($7.49 from $24.99 until 12/22)Mini Trains ($1.99 from $5.99 until 12/22)Mr Driller DrillLand ($7.49 from $29.99 until 12/22)My Hero Ones Justice ($9.59 from $59.99 until 12/22)My Hero Ones Justice 2 ($20.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)Mythic Ocean ($8.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Namco Museum ($7.49 from $29.99 until 12/22)Namco Museum Archives Vol 1 ($4.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Namco Museum Archives Vol 2 ($4.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 ($24.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy ($15.99 from $39.99 until 12/22)Ni no Kuni II: RK PE ($41.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)Ni no Kuni: WotWW ($9.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 DE ($6.39 from $39.99 until 12/22)

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 ($17.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)One Piece: Unlimited World Red DE ($6.39 from $39.99 until 12/22)One Strike ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)Pac-Man CE 2 Plus ($5.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)RAD ($4.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Red Wings: Aces of the Sky ($1.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Rimelands: Hammer of Thor ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Rune Factory 4 Special ($23.99 from $29.99 until 12/22)Space Cows ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Super Dragon Ball Heroes WM ($8.99 from $59.99 until 12/22)Super Hero Fight Club: Reloaded ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Sword Art Online FB Complete ($9.59 from $59.99 until 12/22)Sword Art Online HR Deluxe ($7.49 from $49.99 until 12/22)Taiko no Tatsujin Drum n Fun ($9.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)Taiko no Tatsujin Rhythmic Adv. ($24.99 from $49.99 until 12/22)

Tales of Vesperia DE ($12.49 from $49.99 until 12/22)Tharsis ($2.99 from $11.99 until 12/22)The Hong Kong Massacre ($9.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)The Red Lantern ($19.99 from $24.99 until 12/22)Timothy & the Mysterious Forest ($3.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Tiny Lands ($2.99 from $5.99 until 12/22)Tools Up! ($2.99 from $19.99 until 12/22)Unit 4 ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Urban Trial Playground ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Urban Trial Tricky ($1.99 from $14.99 until 12/22)Utopia 9: A Volatile Vacation ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Welcome to Primrose Lake ($1.99 from $7.99 until 12/22)Wind Peaks ($7.49 from $14.99 until 12/22)Wondershot ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)Wreckin Ball Adventure ($1.99 from $4.99 until 12/22)Zombie Blast Crew ($1.99 from $9.99 until 12/22)

Thats all for today, friends. Well be back tomorrow with a few new releases to look at, and they appear to be a little better than todays. Not fabulously better, but were four days from Christmas. No one is going to be bringing the heat this week. Im sure well somehow have more sales to check out, and if there is any interesting news Ill have that too. I hope you all have a terrific Tuesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

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SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring 'FILMECHANISM', Plus the Latest New Releases and Sales TouchArcade - Touch Arcade

During the pandemic, playwright Ray Yamanouchi found himself captivated by Carole & Tuesday, a sci-fi anime about two girls trying to make it in the music business. He began to think about how he could challenge himself to create something similar, something rooted in the kind of optimistic expectation that this show made him feel. Around the same time, Cygnet Theatre was looking for an artist to support in the creation of a play that would offer hopefulness to this current period of radical change.

Yamanouchi became the first recipient of the inaugural Dee Silver M.D. Commission, with an award of $10,000 and an unrestricted time limit. The commission includes three development sessions: a weeklong retreat with The New Harmony Project in Indiana, writing with a team and group of playwrights; a weeklong workshop with the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis to dig deeper into the play; and a final workshop with Cygnet for a reading in front of an audience with a full cast, director, and dramaturg (with the final goal of producing Yamanouchis play as a premiere at Cygnet in an upcoming season).

Yamanouchi is based in Astoria, Queens, in New York City, earned a bachelors degree in film and theater at Hunter College-City University of New York. His plays include The American Tradition and Impact; hes developed work with Leviathan Lab, WT Theatre, Rising Circle Theater Collective, among others; and is a commissioned playwright with Ars Nova and the co-creator of RE: (Regarding), a theater talk show in New York City. He took some time to talk about the Cygnet commission, his approach toward this new challenge, and hope as survival. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q: How did you get started writing plays?

A: (My work) focuses on race in America and all of its intersections, and initially, I wanted to pursue filmmaking. Akira Kurosawa, great Japanese filmmaker (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo), was my idol growing up as a kid. My dad was a huge fan of his films, so I watched his films growing up as a child. Hes a very influential filmmaker and I just idolized the man. When I decided to go into filmmaking, I read so many books on this guy and I read his autobiography, and in the very end of it he has notes for young filmmakers. One of them was to learn every part of filmmaking, including how to write scripts. To be a good scriptwriter, he said that you should read all these different kinds of plays, whether you like them or not. It was just necessary to know why they were important. So, I started reading plays and taking classes in theater, getting involved in productions. Then, I was like, Oh, I think I like this better. Theater was much more democratic. Theres a much more democratic creative energy, and the sense of community was much stronger, especially where I went to college. When I started really getting into theater later, I just thought that I needed to go back to my roots, to writing plays, writing, writing, writing. Then, in 2015, I decided that I wanted to see if I could make this a profession.

Q: What led you to shift your focus more on playwriting in 2015?

A: It was sort of how I got into film as a kid I was just so excited about it. It was that moment in theater where I realized this is something that I identify with and its the most expressive I can be, so I wanted to make this my lifes work. I feel like the only way to do that is if I make it my profession, a part of my identity.

Its very difficult to be a playwright full-time. You either need to be in an educational institution or write for TV, which is playwriting adjacent. For me, I still work in the box office at an off-Broadway theater, and I have other forms of income to supplement that.

Q: Congratulations on receiving Cygnet Theatres first Dee Silver M.D. Commission award. What was your initial reaction to the premise of the project?

A: The fact that it has to be hopeful? It actually worked out really well because, with the pandemic and everything going on, I was watching this anime called Carole & Tuesday. Its a very feel-good, family-friendly anime and I was just so drawn to it because it made me feel really good and hopeful. It was so different from the things Im usually interested in, which is grieving or things that tackle big subjects. I was thinking, Man, I want to do something like this. Then, coincidentally, this commission came my way and the stars aligned, and now I get to do something that takes a different direction than what I usually go for. I always like to challenge myself in those ways. I still want to explore the big themes that Im usually drawn to, but Im going to try and explore in a way thats different. Im going to try to use the energy of Carole & Tuesday. I cant say for sure because were still so early in this process, so I dont know where its going to go, but Im hoping that Im going to be able to find something there.

Q: In the announcement about you receiving this award, it says you approach difficult subject matter with a tilt towards the mystic and develops characters with gentleness. Was this always an approach you took toward your playwriting? Where did this focus in your work come from?

A: Gentleness is an interesting word. I definitely approach every single character with empathy, no matter how much I disagree with them or find them despicable because you need to make them human. I like to see my characters as products of their environments, so in that sense, I always approach them with empathy. The mystic is a little different. I was talking about the idea I had for the commission, and I was thinking of a sci-fi setting with these, potentially, supernatural elements. Typically, I dont really go for that sort of thing, but Im challenging myself so Im approaching this material a little differently.

Q: Where did the focus on approaching your characters with empathy, come from?

A: Its based on my upbringing. I grew up in Long Island, New York, in the early 2000s when I was a teenager, and it was very White. I was one of the few Asian people, people of color, in the entire community, so I endured a lot of racism. At the time, I didnt really know it was racism; I just thought it was teenagers being as. In my public school, the way that we learned about racism was through the Holocaust, and segregation, but it wasnt really about these microaggressions that we know now. You dont even really learn about Asian American history unless its about the Japanese internment camps during World War II, or that Chinese immigrants built the (transcontinental railroad) across America.

I didnt really think about it until I left and went to college. Becoming older, doing my own research, talking to different people helped me realize that that was the real world, especially learning about housing segregation and school segregation in Long Island. I realized that the environment Id grown up in was so dictated by government policy and systemic issues and history. The only reason that people think the way that they do is because of the big, systemic, historic things that they dont really think about, but it has shaped who they are, shaped their communities, shaped their families. Learning that really felt like a violation. It felt like history, and the government, have altered these peoples personalities. In a weird way, its not their fault. These people have just been living in this false, artificial community thats been manmade to keep certain people out of very White communities. Knowing that made me feel like were all products of our environments, and the only way I could really make character-driven plays while tackling these big subjects, was by approaching every character with seeing how they are psychologically and personally influenced by their families, their environments. I cant do that if Im going to immediately start painting people as good or bad, evil or racist; thats reductive. Its not that simple. Thats why I feel like I always have to think about the history of where they came from, and thats why I try and approach a lot of my work with research and history, and to see how that trickles down to regular people.

Q: The point of the commission is to provide funding and an unrestricted time limit to the creation of a play that responds to our present times with hope and healing. Whats been coming to mind for you in thinking about the meaning of our present times?

A: After the summer of 2020, there were a lot of institutions trying to respond to the moment. You had a lot of companies saying, Black Lives Matter and were gonna diversify, yadda, yadda, yadda. Now, a lot of that seems to be pushed under the rug. I was so hopeful at the beginning. I guess, naively so. It almost feels like were now retracting to a business-as-usual type of thinking and its very frustrating. I dont know how thats going to affect my work, but perhaps I can sort of see what kind of thing I want.

Ive been really obsessed with this idea of a utopia. What does that word mean? The commission sent me to The New Harmony Project, and they do this thing that emphasizes the idea of that utopia and hopefulness for the work. Ive also been interested in the ideas of this Dutch historian, Rutger Bregman, who talks about envisioning the utopia and working backward in order to make progress. You cant just make these incremental changes that are just Band-Aids, without having an idea of what you want your future to look like. Its better to know what the future looks like and then take the necessary, concrete steps to get there. Ive been thinking about that more and more, nowadays, especially with this commission. What is this utopia that I want and what are these things that I could explore in a play?

Q: I understand that youve completed the first of three development sessions, in partnership with The New Harmony Project with a weeklong retreat in community with more than 200 other writers and artists. What was that process like for you and how did it help inform your work in this commission?

A: When I went in there, I had zero idea of what I wanted to do. By the time the week was over, I wanted more time there because I felt like I finally had a play idea. I went from nothing to Oh, I have three or four pages by the end of the week. That may not seem like a lot, but to go from literally nothing and having no idea what I wanted to do, to having some sort of trajectory for where I think I want the play to go, was pretty big for me. The reason I was able to do that was because the artists they had there were really incredible, intelligent people who had diverse backgrounds. Not just in ethnicity and gender, but also in ideas. Everyone was aesthetically different, and it was just interesting to hear everyones takes on certain things. The things that helped a lot were the post-workshop time of hanging out and having drinks, letting ideas flow. The next morning, Id wake up and be like, Oh yeah, what that person said. Then, wed have these dramaturgy meetings to work through your play with a dramaturg and basically just brainstorm. It was like playwriting therapy. It was really wild; Ive never done that in my life. It was so cool.

Q: Why was this commission something you wanted to participate in?

A: I think its because I wanted that and I feel like, if this commission didnt come my way, I cant say I would have put my brain in that space. I think about these things and think, Oh, I kind of want to do this. I also think about writing TV scripts, like every playwright does, and that maybe I should write a pilot and that feels something thematically close to Carole & Tuesday. To do a play in such a way, I truly didnt really think about it until this commission came my way, and then I was like, Well, of course. Why didnt I? because thats sort of what I want to do anyway. Id just been thinking in TV terms and not play terms. So, I was ecstatic. And, again, Im repeating myself, but its different and I like to challenge myself in those ways. I think its perfect for what I need and what I want.

Q: Why does creating a story that responds to these tumultuous times with hope and healing, matter?

A: I think hope is survival, ultimately. Sometimes, with my plays, my generous interpretation of them is to think of them as hopeful because I write them with the idea that if we investigate these big things, well find ways to solve them. Someone who may just be engaging with it without that context, might feel some despair and that these problems can be so big. If I can have an objective like hope and healing, perhaps I can make that sharper. I think, especially for these times when everything hurts everything hurts maybe this is the type of play I need to be writing anyway.

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Stars align to give playwright an opportunity to bring 'hope and healing' to new Cygnet Theatre commission - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Courtesy Orem City

If Orem needed another mascot, then outgoing Councilman Brent Sumner should be on the short list of choices.

Sumner, 73, has been an Orem boy from his earliest baby days and grew up learning about Orem through his father, Harold Jack Sumner, who owned the Orem-Geneva Times newspaper.

Sumner attended Hillcrest Elementary School, Lincoln Junior High and graduated from Orem High, where he played football, in 1967.

While Sumner was busy with all of his senior year activities, there was a young lady in her sophomore year he would meet later. Her name was Becky and Brent thought the last name Sumner would go well with it.

Before the wedding bells, Sumner went into the Army at the height of the Vietnam War. He finished up basic training and then went to Snow College for a year. He transferred to Brigham Young University and studied in communications with an emphasis in advertising. He graduated in 1976 and went to work for his dad at the paper.

In 1970, he was just out of basic training for the National Guard and his father invited him to come to a meeting with a Mr. Woodbury and DeLynn Heaps.

They were talking about a grandiose mall, Sumner said. In 1972, the mall opened. It was amazing Orem could have a shopping center like this.

Working at the newspaper I was involved with promotions and activities at the mall, he added. On the council, I approved the expansion of the mall. My finger has been in it since its conception.

Sumner believes the mall is a bright spot in the community and approved the tax breaks because they were based on performance.

By the early 1980s, Sumner has taken over the paper and in 2000 sold it to the Daily Herald. After that, he went to Utah Valley University and served as newspaper adviser for 11 years.

It was former Orem Mayor Jerry Washburn and former Gov. Gary Herbert, Sumners next door neighbor, who encouraged him to run for a council seat.

I thought maybe I could do some good, Sumner said of running for office. And according to most who are asked about Sumner, he has done just that.

Council Member Sumner was a thoughtful representative of the people. He carefully reviewed and considered city issues from all perspectives and voted to always do what he thought best for the community, said Jamie Davidson, city manager. His 12 years of service on the city council will also be remembered for his advocacy of small, local businesses and for his efforts to improve recreational offerings in the community, including the Orem Family Fitness Center.

Brent has been a steady and reasonable voice on the council for a long time. I have relied on him for a lot of institutional knowledge about Orem, said Tom Macdonald, a fellow council member. His experience as a long-time newspaper man and a lifelong Orem resident has been such an asset to all of us. I have the highest regard for him and Becky and the service they have both rendered to all of us. I will miss Brents humor, wisdom and steady approach to difficult situations. I am honored to call him my friend.

Sumner has served 12 years on the city council and opted not to run for reelection this year. During that time, he has seen a great change in the city.

I loved serving on the Orem City Council with Brent. I valued his history with Orem, his preparedness, his journalism experience and pleasant demeanor, said former Councilwoman Karen McCandless. We didnt always agree on issues, but I felt listened to and that he thoughtfully considered my position.

When I was dealing with my husbands sudden illness and subsequent death, Brent and his wife, Becky, were some of the first to offer comfort and support. I will never forget that, McCandless added.

There were many items over the years that Sumner tackled with associates like McCandless, not only University Place, but also UTOPIA fiber network, the new library hall and the new family fitness center. Its a real jewel in the city, Sumner said of the center.

Sumner said the past two years have been a strange time with COVID-19, but he and the council got business done. However, with the remote streaming of council meetings, he said he missed the personal connection with residents.

One of his more melancholy moments on the council was the death of former City Manager Jim Reams in September 2010.

Mayor Washburn interviewed every department head to see who could take over (Reams job) temporarily, Sumner said. Bruce Chestnut stood out and served for one year until Jamie Davidson was hired.

One year later, after fighting with cancer, Washburn died while serving as mayor.

It was a shock to the city, Sumner said. We had to select a new mayor and that is when we appointed Jim Evans for Washburns last two years.

There have been many ups and downs for Sumner while he has been on the council, he said, none more so than the current concern over the State Street Master Plan.

Everybody had good intentions on that, but there are a few things we need to tweak on that, Sumner said. I dont think well blow up the whole master plan. We need some housing on State Street.

Sumner said he isnt happy with the legislative overreach that is happening with housing and noted that if the city doesnt provide more housing in Orem, the Legislature will mandate it, and that could mean expansion anywhere including in family neighborhoods.

After so many years of dealing with city issues, talking with residents, answering emails and watching Orem grow into the 21st century, leaving the council will be a big change, Sumner said. But he is also sure that he will always be paying it forward and helping Orem fulfill its potential as a center of activity in Utah County.

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After 12 years of city council service, Orem's hometown boy moving on - Daily Herald

At a time when a new coronavirus variant threatens to undo any modicum of progress that New York City made during the pandemic, it seems almost preposterous that live theater ever even happened this year. But it was not only restored; it was exuberant.

Following necessary and long-overdue action to further diversify the Broadway stage, Black playwrights wrote every new play on the so-called Great White Way, The Grio reported in July.

With that came a plethora of rich, deeply human stories about Black and other people of color, illuminating a variety of lives that defy all moral, sexual or gender binaries.

From two Black men contemplating their lives at a crossroads to six disregarded Tudor-period women taking center stage, to Broadway confronting its own demons in a more than 60-year-old play, these productions show more than whats possible. They show whats actually already here if we only choose to look.

Along with those are the outside-of-the-box plays and musicals, including one helmed by a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and another that challenges the very limits of what a single talent can personify in one story. In spite of everything, it was an overflow of genius.

Merry Wives

OK, this one wasnt exactly on Broadway, but Merry Wives helped welcome the return of live theater farther uptown last summer at Shakespeare in the Park after it went dark throughout the harrowing first leg of the pandemic. Awkwardly described as a Shakespearan Real Housewives, Merry Wives is more about two idle ladies of the house (the hilarious Pascale Armand and Susan Kelechi Watson) who decide to band together and give swindler Falstaff (Jacob Ming-Trent) a taste of his own medicine.

Ghanaian American playwright Jocelyn Bioh remarkably adapted Merry Wives from Shakespeares 1602 comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. Bioh seamlessly thrusts an already timeless tale into present-day South Harlem where West African immigrants uproariously play the game of love often set to an electrifying drum beat. It is pure bliss.

Six

Who knew that the stories of the ill-fated wives of Henry VIII could look as cool as a female sextet donning kinked-up versions of their medieval wardrobes while belting out irreverent songs about how they were done wrong? Divorced! Beheaded! Died! Divorced! Beheaded! Survived!

Yes, not one but two of his former spouses were decapitated, so obviously, they have some residual feelings about that as they join the other women in a musical battle for the audiences sympathy.

The multicultural cast featuring Adrianna Hicks, Andrea Macasaet, Abby Mueller, Brittney Mack, Courtney Mack and Anna Uzele is such a riot to watch as they bring to life writers-directors Lucy Moss and Toby Marlows thrilling and poignant retelling of the ultimate jilted brides. Yes, there are themes of despair and heartbreak, but Six is most profoundly about reclaiming their narratives, together.

American Utopia

David Byrnes American Utopia is a bit hard to describe. Its title suggests that it is an attempt by a white guy albeit the illustrious lead singer of The Talking Heads to paint a broad image of what American paradise could look like. But its not that at all.

Using the rock bands poignant tunes, including Burning Down the House and Once in a Lifetime, Byrne grapples with the idea of hope and promise of revival in the midst of turmoil. Collaborating with musicians from around the globe who often serve as parallel characters onstage with him the whole time, Byrne creates a singular theatrical experience that could only come from one of the most visionary minds.

Pass Over

In short, playwright Antoinette Nwandus Pass Over is one of the most fascinating plays to hit Broadway this year. Thats because it dares to reach far beyond what you might look for in a play that deals with faith and hopelessness in equal measure through lengthy riffs between two Black friends (the incredible Jon Michael Hill and Namir Smallwood) sitting on a corner waiting forsomething.

The mystery surrounding whats next is met with bleak impossibility as the two men ponder their mortality and what is real. It seems like they will never leave this literal and metaphorical corner until another presence enters their realm and disrupts their daydream. Questions about this person (Gabriel Ebert) and the Promised Land he represents linger with you long after youve seen the play. But one thing is clear: Pass Over is a gem.

Photo by Joan Marcus, 2021

Trouble in Mind

It only takes Broadway legend LaChanzes name on a Playbill for audiences to come out in droves to watch her perform. Add Alice Childress who was known for four decades as the only Black woman to have written, produced and published plays to the list of credits and you have a bonafide hit without knowing anything else about it.

Still, Trouble in Mind, which was supposed to debut on Broadway in 1955 but was canceled when Childress refused to tone down its messaging, is so riveting that you forget that youre actually watching a performance. Thats because it dares to confront the real-life racism in the theater world through the eyes of Black artists, most deeply felt with Willetta Mayers (LaChanze) story as a Black female thespian who must rely on playing one stereotype after the next to survive.

Despite its heaviness at times, Childress play within a play is infused with humor and sarcasm, as well as beautifully paced dialogue that shows the dexterity of a Black female voice that is as resonant as ever.

Nollywood Dreams

Biohs Nollywood Dreams was such a delight. The play, which premiered off-Broadway in November after being delayed by the pandemic, is laugh-out-loud funny as it explores the Nollywood film industry in the 90s. Centered on Ayamma (Sandra Okuboyejo), a young woman who works at a travel agency with her sister Dede (Nana Mensah) but lands an audition with an up-and-coming Nigerian director as he gets ready to shoot his new film.

The production takes a fun look at the early days of what is now a booming film industry in Lagos, Nigeria, and is full of fun, vibrant costumes that take you straight to the 90s. And best of all, in the final moments of the play, we get a look at the wacky final production of the film at the center of the story. A fun time, indeed.

Lackawanna Blues

If youve only watched the 2005 HBO film of the same name, it might take you a second to realize that the exceptional playwright Ruben Santiago-Hudson is playing all 20-plus characters in Lackawanna Blues.

That includes Miss Rachel, or Nanny, as she is affectionately called, a character inspired by the real-life woman who raised Santiago-Hudson in a 1950s boarding house in Buffalo, New York. Marvelously unburdened by the many different souls he embodies throughout the play, sometimes even picking up a harmonica and joining onstage guitarist Junior Mack in song, the Tony Award winner totally vanishes on stage as the audience is immersed in the story. A truly uncanny feat.

Thoughts of a Colored Man

You dont really know what to expect at the start of playwright Keenan Scott IIs Broadway debut, even though it is exactly what the title suggests and yet so much more. Seven Black men (portrayed by a cast that includes Luke James, Tristan Mack Wilds, and Dylln Burnside) shoot the breeze about life, love, sexuality and the struggle everywhere from the barbershop to waiting in line for the newest sneakers on the market.

Everything about Scotts play, under the direction of Steve H. Broadnax III, feels so lived-in as the audience eavesdrops on the means uninhibited conversations with each other as well as their most personal conflicts and musings. The two storytellers give these men permission to be uncertain, powerful, funny, and even embrace failure. As an audience member, all you ever want to see is a reflection of the human experience, and Thoughts of a Colored Man is exactly that.

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The Best Broadway Shows Of 2021 - HuffPost

Former New Orleans Independent Police Monitor Susan Hutson defeated long-time Sheriff Marlin Gusman in Saturdays runoff election, making it the first time since the 1970s that an incumbent sheriff has been defeated in Orleans Parish.

Gusman has held the office since 2004.

Hutson will take over the long-troubled New Orleans jail that has been under a federal oversight due to violence, inadequate medical and mental health care, and in-custody deaths. Running on a progressive platform, she pledged to work with others in the criminal legal system to address the harms associated with mass incarceration, further reduce the jail population, and finally bring the jail into compliance with the conditions of the consent decree.

I promised I would help those in custody, our neighbors in custody to be better. Hutson said in a Saturday victory speech. We will not harm them, we will not kill them, we will help our neighbors.

Her victory also changes the shape though possibly not the outcome of a long-running debate over a new jail building meant to house detainees with acute mental illness that Gusman has been attempting to get built for years. Hutson, along with a number of reform groups and Mayor LaToya Cantrells administration, is opposed to the facility, and made it a key issue in her campaign. However, opposition to the facility faces a major obstacle even with Hutson in office next year. A federal judge, overseeing a long-running federal consent decree over the jail, has ordered the city to move forward with its construction. (The city is appealing that order.)

Hutson won with 53 percent of the vote to Gusmans 47.

That follows the November primary, where Hutson narrowly forced Gusman into Saturdays runoff election in November, receiving 35 percent of the vote to Gusmans 48 percent, just shy of the 50 percent plus one he needed to win outright.

The head-to-head race between Gusman and Hutson grew increasingly heated after the primary. Hutson and her supporters said that Gusman has failed to live up to the terms of the eight-year-old consent decree and that his mismanagement has led to unnecessary deaths inside the jail. Gusman cast Hutson as a radical and a puppet of out of state interest groups who want to go soft on crime while also claiming credit for significantly reducing the size of the jail during his tenure.

Gusman, a former New Orleans City Councilman, was first elected sheriff in 2004. While he has maintained a firm grip on the office for nearly two decades, his tenure has been the subject of ongoing criticism from civil rights lawyers, city officials, and the federal government over the conditions inside the jail and the treatment of people locked inside.

Just months after he took office, Hurricane Katrina formed in the Gulf of Mexico, prompting the city to issue a mandatory evacuation order for New Orleans residents. But Gusman made the decision not to evacuate the jail, telling reporters that detainees and prisoners would stay where they belong. In the flooding that followed, people locked inside said they were left without food or water for days in flood water some described as being up to their neck. Guards abandoned their posts, and many detainees said they were maced and beaten.

Gusman attacked the credibility of the reports out of the jail after the storm, saying they were falsehoods being peddled by crackheads, cowards, and criminals. He said that the people locked in his jail had it no worse than others who were still in the city following the storm. But the accounts were enough to gain the attention of the United States Department of Justice, who began an investigation in 2008 into the conditions of the jail. Following several visits, the agency found that the conditions inside didnt meet the minimum standards required by the constitution. In 2011, after they issued another letter, saying things hadnt improved.

In 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class action lawsuit against the sheriff saying that he demonstrates deliberate indifference to the basic rights of the people housed at OPP by implementing constitutionally deficient security, staffing, classification and mental health policies and practices, and that his inability or refusal to manage a facility of this size has become increasingly apparent in recent years, with violence and health crises steadily escalating within the facility.

The lawsuit eventually led to the ongoing federal consent agreement between the Department of Justice, civil rights lawyers representing people incarcerated at the jail, the city of New Orleans, and the Sheriffs Office, meant to bring the jail into compliance with the constitution. As part of the agreement, the jail is overseen by a team of federally appointed monitors, who issue periodic and frequently critical reports on the Sheriffs Offices progress.

The agreement also led to Gusman temporarily ceding full control of the jail to a compliance director, who had final authority over jail operations for several years.

In 2015, Gusman moved most of the detainees out of old Orleans Parish Prison facilities into the current jail building, called the Orleans Justice Center. He predicted that the new facility would usher in a new era of incarceration in New Orleans where were not going to be just warehousing inmates, but were going to be concerned about public safety.

But less than a year after the facility opened, the DOJ and lawyers for the plaintiffs filed a motion in federal court alleging that conditions in the jail remained dire, and that Gusman wasnt making progress fast enough in complying with the consent decree.

Unacceptably high levels of prisoner assaults, staff excessive use of force, and suicide and selfharm continue to pose grave risks of harm, even in the brand new direct supervision Orleans Justice Center (OJC), where most prisoners are now housed, they wrote. They argued that Gusman was incapable of implementing the reforms necessary to come into compliance with the consent decree.

Gusman eventually agreed to have a compliance director take over the day-to-day operations of the jail. He took over again in November.

In 2016, 15-year-old Jaquin Thomas hung himself inside the facility. It took nearly an hour for anyone working at the jail to discover him, a lawsuit claimed. Weeks prior he had been assaulted inside the facility, and at one point prior to his death he was given incorrect medication which resulted in medical staff having to pump his stomach.

Gusman has regularly blamed the conditions of the jail on lack of funding, which he receives from the city, and has touted jail programming such as a work-release, behavioral health, and an accredited high school within the jail walls. Last year he accused the monitors of attempting to create a jail utopia and said they only are finding the jail out of compliance because they want to hold on to their jobs.

Hutson, a Tulane Law graduate, returned to New Orleans in 2010 to become the citys Independent Police Monitor. She has never held elected office, but during her campaign she fashioned herself as a progressive alternative to Gusman, and gained the support of New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams, who was elected last year on a platform promising to roll back the policies of mass incarceration and reduce the prosecution of low-level crimes associated with poverty and mental illness.

Hutson said she is in favor of scrapping the contract with the jails current private medical provider, Wellpath, and that she would make phone calls at the jail free for detainees. (Gusman, who received campaign contributions from the private call provider, Securus, said that the jail calls provide a much needed source of revenue for his office.)

While her opposition to the special needs facility known as Phase III was a major part of her campaign, it is unclear whether or not it will make any difference in whether or not it actually gets built. The city agreed to build the facility during Mayor Mitch Landrieus administration, and a federal judge has ordered that they move forward with construction, despite opposition from Mayor LaToya Cantrell. The DOJ and lawyers representing people incarcerated at the facility have also come out in favor of the building, and the consent decree monitors have said it is necessary.

A spokesperson with the Gusman campaign was not able to be reached on Saturday.

A number of criminal justice reform groups cheered Hutsons victory.

Today marks a new chapter for Orleans Parish, which has been devastated by a mass incarceration crisis for decades, said Chris Kaiser, ACLU of Louisiana advocacy director in a press release. Orleans Parish voters sent a clear message in this election that theyre demanding bold reforms that advance racial equity and prioritize people over prisons.

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New sheriff in town - The Lens

This year we read tons of books. Whether we bought a hard copies at the local bookstore or checked out audiobooks from a library app, or consumed them via e-reader. Lots new authors wrote fantastic debuts in 2021, while many of our favorite authors continued their sprawling series ones we were extremely excited to jump back into.

If you love books then you know: They arent just escapism, they also inspire introspection, making us think harder about the world we live in. This is precisely the promise of great science fiction and fantasy categories weve chosen to consider in a list together, as fantastic books continue to blur the line between the two speculative genres (and besides, we love to read them all). These 20 books span genres and perspectives from space operas, to Norse mythology retellings, to romances with a dash of time travel. But all of them gave us something new to consider.

In a year with so many incredible choices, it was hard to narrow down the list. So weve also included some of our favorite runners up.

If youve read the Wayfarer series, then you know Becky Chambers has a talent for creating hopeful scenarios, despite characters facing down harrowing odds. A Psalm for the Wild-Built has a similarly comforting spirit. The novella is set in a world where robots developed agency and so humans allowed them to form their own communities.

A human named Dex decides to become a Tea Monk, traveling from city to city, offering weary people freshly brewed tea and a listening ear. Their wanderlust leads them to meet a robot named Splendid Speckled Mosscap, a Wild-Built who was created from parts spared from other robots. They form an odd friendship, as the two compare the realities of their day-to-day with the pursuits that fill a life. From its dedication For anyone who could use a break to its meandering spirit, the novella is a perfect read for anyone who wants to slow down a bit.

Black Water Sister is a contemporary ghost story, using the supernatural to weave a tale about intergenerational trauma and the Asian diaspora. Jessamyn Teoh is in the process of moving back to Malaysia with her parents when she starts to hear a voice in her head. But its not her own; its that of her estranged grandmother Ah Ma. Zen Chos portrayal of Ah Mas ghostly voice is halfway between chiding family member and portentous spirit and she uses Jess as an avatar to meddle with family affairs. She hasnt moved on, thanks to some unfinished business in the mortal realm. These themes are woven together to tell a suspenseful coming-of-age story, as Jess navigates adapting to a new culture and surviving family secrets, as well as her queer identity.

Roshani Chokshi brings her opulent, 19th century fantasy-heist series to a bittersweet conclusion in The Bronzed Beasts, which begins after Sverin seemingly betrays his friends to chase godhood. Because of the resulting rift, the book is missing a lot of the charming teamwork, trust, and banter that was so core to the previous two installments.

But Chokshis refusal to give readers exactly what they want is precisely what makes The Gilded Wolves series so compelling. Plus, all of the heart-wrenching interpersonal angst and introspection doesnt get in the way of the treasure hunts and puzzle solving that weve come to love and expect. Watching the team relearn how to work together after all theyve been through provides a fascinating new dynamic, as they race against the clock to discover how to save Lailas life and figure out whether this found family can ever be put back together again.

The final book in the Expanse series has been a long-time coming (10 years, to be specific) and it is well worth the wait. What started as a geo-political power struggle between residents of Earth, Mars, and the Belt told as an action-adventure set in the cold vacuum of space has evolved into an all out fight to save humanity.

The series huge questions are finally answered: Who are the ring builders? How, if at all, can we defuse the massive threat they represent? How does the protomolecule play into all of this? The Roci crew has changed over the many years that span the Expanse, and in Leviathan Falls their story comes to a satisfying, bittersweet end.

Adequin Rake is the commanding officer of the Argus, a run-down ship stationed at the edge of the universe, tasked with watching out for the potential return of humanitys alien enemy the Viators. Rakes crew of Sentinels is made up of the militarys dregs criminals, misfits, exiles, and anyone else the government would rather forget about, including a disowned prince.

But when the universe begins collapsing, this band of rogues becomes the last line of defense between humanitys survival and total annihilation. With no aid coming, tensions are high as the Sentinels have to figure out how to use their scant resources to not only outrun the encroaching edge of the universe, but figure out a way to stop it from collapsing any further. The Last Watch is a thrilling adventure that leans heavily on speculative science and humor, and Dewes experience as a cinematographer shows through in her ability to to translate the complex visuals and action onto the page.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a history-spanning tale about storytelling, following the perspectives of five characters in three different eras: an orphan and an outcast in 15th-century Thrace and Constantinople, an ecoterrorist and an octogenarian in 2020 Idaho, and a young girl on a 22nd-century spacecraft. Each of the novels vividly drawn characters is connected through the way stories have impacted their lives, particularly a fictional Greek tale about a fools quest to reach the mythical utopia Cloud Cuckoo Land.

With its spectacular world-building, rhythmic prose, and deeply empathetic character development, Cloud Cuckoo Land is a remarkable celebration of the comfort, magic, and connections to be found in books, as well as the stewards who preserve and nurture these tales across time.

Fans of Circe will find a lot to love in The Witchs Heart. Genevieve Gornichecs debut novel is a stirring and heartbreaking reimagining of Norse mythology from the perspective of the witch Angrboda. After being burned at the stake by Odin for refusing to share visions of the future with him, she begins a life of solitude in the woods where the vengeful god cant find her. But when she meets the trickster god Loki, the pair begin an unconventional marriage and family, setting the world on a path that ultimately leads to Ragnarok.

The Witchs Heart is a tragic tale about a beautifully complex, resilient woman who is willing to go against the gods and fate in order to protect her children, no matter the cost. And even though you may know how this story turns out, dont be surprised to find yourself weeping when Angrbodas story comes to an end.

300 years after the gods went extinct, their human descendants are hunted down and enslaved, while their bones are highly sought after by anyone desperate for riches or power. The brutal, Norse-inspired story follows three characters making their way through this dangerous land, and Gwynne is largely unparalleled when it comes to writing battle scenes. Despite featuring things like deities, ice spiders, and twisted tooth fairies, there is a sense of authenticity in The Shadow of the Gods thanks to the detail Gwynne puts into his world-building. Though he takes his time revealing where the three, largely disparate storylines are headed, by the time you reach the books nail-biting climax the slow burn more than pays off.

British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro is hard to pin down, but who would want to? The stylistic and conceptual gap between his mannered historical novel The Remains of the Day, his dystopian science fiction novel Never Let Me Go, and his melancholy Arthurian fantasy The Buried Giant is vast, and each new Ishiguro novel winds up as a surprise.

But those books all connect around the pain of loss and the pressure of societal expectations around it. That builds context for Klara and the Sun, a mournful science fiction novel that starts out feeling like A.I. Artificial Intelligence and gradually becomes something more like a dreamy fable. In a future where the well-off buy android companions (or Artificial Friends) for their kids, Klara is an AF who becomes obsessed with her companion Josie, whose health is deteriorating due to genetic tinkering meant to improve her intellect.

Ishiguro filters everything through Klaras imperfect understanding of the world, giving readers a sense of Josies relationships with other people, while Klaras limitations cause her to miss key cues. Its a book full of constant, unexpected turns, but the distance between what Klara sees and what readers will intuit is masterfully handled, melancholy, and tense, to the point where this feels as much like constrained horror as science fiction.

T. Kingfisher loves her paladins. Ursula Vernons books under the Kingfisher pseudonym (to separate her adult novels from her several childrens series) have always focused on fantasy characters with an innate practicality and selfless determination. While the paladins in Clocktaur duology and the Saint of Steel books (currently a trilogy, projected as a seven-book series) are defined by their nobility and self-sacrifice, in the Saint of Steel series, theyre also defined by the death of the god they served, which has left them all purposeless and on the brink of madness.

The first three books in the series (Paladins Hope also came out in 2021) are all mysteries and romances, each focused on a different protagonist. Paladins Strength is the story of Istvhan, a bear of a man whos navigating the same despair and hopelessness, but still doggedly trying to help people.

He gets diverted by meeting a nun whose order has been kidnapped. Claras nature, hinted at in the margins throughout the book, is clear enough, but its worth not spelling out, for the fun of the reveal. As in previous books, Kingfisher highlights the protagonists mutual longing and misunderstandings, making this a sort of fantasy rom-com, but its also built around berserker violence, horrific monsters, and a kind of comforting humor thats one of Kingfishers best stocks-in-trade. The book can be read as a standalone or an introduction to the series; Kingfishers unique style and worldview makes for compelling reading. TR

The second installment in Arkady Martines Teixcalaan series is somehow even better than the first. A Desolation Called Peace finds Mahit Dzmare traveling to the edge of Teixcalaanli space to find a way to communicate with an encroaching alien fleet a difficult task made more challenging by the fact Mahit is still navigating her bond with Yskandr, as well as working out where her loyalties and home lie after her experiences on Teixcalaan.

The novel switches between the perspectives of Mahit, Three Seagrass, Mahits former envoy and the new Undersecretary to the Minister of Information; Nine Hibiscus, the captain of the fleet charged with fostering diplomacy with the hostile aliens; and Eight Antidote, the young clone of the former emperor. Martines astounding prose weaves together explorations of cultural identity, communication, imperialism, and identity in a tightly plotted story that burrows deep under your skin.

For those who prefer romantic comedies with a science fiction leaning, Casey McQuistons newest romance absolutely delivers. After a life of failing to lay down roots, August moves to New York for a fresh start. She meets Jane, the mysterious woman who is always on the subway at the right time, sporting the same well-loved leather jacket. As August falls for her, she realizes Jane has been trapped on this line since the 1970s and August is determined to set her free.

Come for the sapphic romance, and stay for the queer found family, late night diner runs, and 70s music references.

If youre a fan of magical boarding school stories, you might have noticed a theme: these schools are incredibly dangerous for the students who attend. But fantasy books dont usually acknowledge it focusing, instead, on the wonderment of becoming a witch or wizard. In Naomi Noviks Scholomance series, this violence is fully a part of the plot. Even making it to graduation alive is part of the challenge as the school is bursting with Malificers, deadly creatures that are hungry for students.

The Last Graduate is an energetic follow-up to the excellent A Deadly Education. El is a senior now, intent on translating the Golden Stone sutras and navigating the attention of numerous enclaves, which have finally caught on to her immense power. But will she and her friends even make it through graduation?

This novella is short, but it packs one hell of a punch. In Remote Control, a young girl becomes the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. With the new name of Sankofa, and the power of death in her gaze and touch, she travels from town to town with only a fox companion. The novella feels part folk tale, part technology-driven science fiction.

Like most of Okorafors work, Remote Control explores Africanfuturism, rather than the Afrofuturist label that is often applied to her stories. In a blog post, she explains: Africanfuturism is specifically and more directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view as it then branches into the Black Diaspora, and it does not privilege or center the West.

A queer reimagining of the story of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty, She Who Became the Sun is a lyrical exploration of gender, identity, and the cost of desire set against the backdrop of war-torn 14th century China. The brutal historical epic begins when a young peasant girl destined for nothingness takes on the identity of her late brother, Zhu Chongba, who was fated for greatness. At first, living as Zhu is only a means to survive, but over time it transforms into an all-consuming need to claim Zhus fate for their own. As Zhu works their way from being a novice at a monastery up through the ranks of the rebel army, they dedicate themselves so fully to being Zhu, even in their own head and heart, in the hopes that doing so will fool Heaven into believing theyre the one destined to achieve the unthinkable.

Teenager Vern is seven months pregnant when she finally escapes the cult she was raised in, and the abusive husband who led it. As the denizens of this compound, Cainland, chase her down, she gives birth to two children, Howling and Feral. Together, they survive in the woods, before a mysterious growth and her own need to survive force her to find refuge in other places.

This incredibly compelling, terrifying, and genre-defying book makes commentary on misogyny, racism, religion, and motherhood through its haunting prose. Rivers Solomon continues to be an absolute force.

In the far-future, humanity is fighting an antagonistic, god-like alien presence called the Architects, capable of obliterating entire planets. Only intermediaries can reach through the void of space, making a connection in the vain hope of telling the Architects to stand down. Thats exactly what Idris, a human engineered into an intermediary, did to stop the war 50 years ago. He hasnt slept a blink since. In the intervening years hes worked as a contractor on a salvage vessel, the Vulture God but hes spurred into action as it looks like the Architects might be coming back.

Shards of Earth is Tchaikovskys take on a space opera, full of intergalactic action and geopolitical conflict. The world is as unique and detail-filled as his spider civilization opus, Children of Time. Fans of The Expanse and Mass Effect will have lots to chew on here.

Its been eight years since Helene Weckers stunning fantasy debut The Golem and the Jinni, and her fans were about ready to give up on her promised sequel. But The Hidden Palace takes up the story seamlessly, and brings back all the elements that made the first book so indelible.

In turn-of-the-century New York City, a genie escaped from captivity and a golem whose master has died fumble through understanding themselves and their relationships to humanity. In The Hidden Palace, they become lovers, but the creation of a male golem and the arrival of a female jinn remind both protagonists of their own natures, and highlight their differences and their dissatisfactions with the world.

With this sequel, Wecker moves the story rapidly forward in time, showing New Yorks evolution and highlighting the characters unaging bodies and difficulty integrating with a human world. Those are just a few of the many, many threads she juggles in a rich literary novel that digs into what it means to be human, by setting up a series of meaningful contrasts from characters who arent.

With Project Hail Mary, Weir is back in full Martian mode, telling a story about a man trying to survive in space through scientific improvisation and experimentation. Project Hail Mary goes much further into speculative science fiction than The Martian it has the same focus on real physics, chemistry, and the scientific process, but its premise includes a single-celled organism thats eating the sun, pushing humanity toward extinction.

The protagonist, former junior-high science teacher Ryland Grace, wakes up alone in a spaceship, traveling toward a distant star, with no memory of how he got there. Bit by bit, he has to reassemble his own past and define his future, and Earths. The book goes to startling places that shouldnt be spoiled, and it gets a lot wilder than The Martian, but it keeps the science accessible and thoughtful as a grounding tool. Not quite a Stephen Hawking universe-explainer, and not quite a zippy beach-blanket adventure book, it has some of the best aspects of both.

In order to fend off the alien Hunduns, Huaxias military fight in Chrysalises, massive mecha built from Hundun corpses that are powered by the qi of two people: the male pilot, who controls the Chrysalis, and the female concubine-pilot, who acts like a qi battery until her lifeforce is completely drained. When Zetians older sister is killed by a pilot, the peasant girl enlists as a concubine-pilot in order to get close enough to assassinate the man responsible, and enact vengeance on the entire system. But when its discovered that Zetians willpower is strong enough to drive the Chrysalis and subsume the male pilots qi, she becomes a feared Iron Widow, avoiding a military death sentence by being paired up with another criminal pilot. Never one to be cowed by authority, Zetian becomes the biggest threat to the Hunduns and to Huaxias patriarchal society in this action-packed story about a woman determined to manipulate, destroy, and rebuild the system to get justice for silenced and sacrificed women.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka AokiRule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) by Leigh Bardugo

How to Talk to a Goddess (The Thinking Womans Guide to Real Magic #2) by Emily Croy Barker

The Fall of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #3) by M.R. Carey

Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers #4) by Becky Chambers

A Master of Djinn by P. Djl Clark

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

Future Feeling by Joss Lake

The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu

The Veiled Throne by Ken Liu

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor

Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat

Breeder by Honni van Rijswijk

Vespertine (Vespertine #1) by Margaret Rogerson

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot #6) by Martha Wells

Hard Reboot by Django Wexler

Original post:

The best fantasy and sci-fi books of 2021 - Polygon

Fatima Al Qadiri, Danny Harle, and UNIIQU3 all land on NPR Music's best electronic music of 2021 list. Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr/NPR; Getty Images hide caption

Fatima Al Qadiri, Danny Harle, and UNIIQU3 all land on NPR Music's best electronic music of 2021 list.

As the world began to open up in 2021, so did some of its dance floors and parties, and electronic artists arrived ready to map these spaces with sounds that pushed and challenged listeners to break free. The best electronic music of this year was often filled with heart-bursting passion, in the outright declarations of love for music-making in the work of Porter Robinson and MoMa Ready, and in the metallic, dizzying beauty of hyperpop's many rising stars. An A-list popstar turned to dance music for a remixed reinvention, and a veteran vinyl DJ dug in the crates to craft a joyous debut. From Jersey club to the U.K. underground, 2021's best electronic music looks like a complex melting pot of genre and history united by a fevered dedication to setting fire to the barriers and boundaries of what music can be. Hazel Cills

The centerpiece of Lakkis' brief album was good enough to make two of our lists, but its entire runtime is noteworthy; tongue-in-cheek, vaguely paranoiac, always bright and novel. Lakkis' brilliance is not only in her mastery of the dance floor groove, but the winking personality she imprints on it like a language-free journal. Andrew Flanagan

Throughout the worst of the pandemic, most of my social engagement was through "Zoom raves" live streamed parties with each person dancing alone from the comfort of their own homes. Despite the inconvenience of having to turn your bedroom into a warehouse, it reminded me that, despite the circumstances, the power of electronic music will endure. And for those of us who live for the dance floor, Danny L Harle's debut full-length album Harlecore encapsulated the specific joy that can only come from sharing a laser-strewn space with a thousand sweaty bodies. Anchored by Harle's four different alter egos DJ Danny, DJ Mayhem, DJ Ocean and MC Boing the LP darts back and forth between electronic subgenres with a maximalist nostalgia, creating a primer for the world of millennial rave. Reanna Cruz

Two years ago, Fatima Al Qadiri scored the Cannes Grand Prix-winning movie Atlantics a Senegalese, slow-bubbling, gently horrifying ghost film with an ice-cold electronic palette and a host of disturbing drones. This year, she's produced an album that seems to be possessed by the same phantom. Here her digital orchestra of lutes and pipes envelop bits of seventh-century Arab poetry in slow, serpentine emissions. Dread, lust, longing, all of it simmers patiently in this dark, ten song vat. At this point, it's Al Qadiri's high-concept hallmark to make disquieting pieces of art that mix grand psychological extremes alongside her muse in the Middle East, but as someone who is down with dangerously rich ideas and the concept of being pushed to emotional breakage, Medieval Femme does an excellent job at handing a listener the sort of delicious anxiety that makes life feel, temporarily, like good foreign cinema. Mina Tavakoli

Across her lengthy career as a vinyl DJ and rave evangelist, electronic producer Eris Drew has espoused her concept of "The Motherbeat," a testament to dance music's ability to heal. On her first full-length album, Quivering in Time, she harnesses that ability in full force for a collection of bouncy, exuberant dance music that blurs the borders of house and techno, rife with surprising samples of breaking plates and movie monologues. Recreating the loopy unpredictability of her DJ sets, Drew's debut delivers a mix of non-stop fun, with flashes of meditative beauty. Hazel Cills [This review originally appeared in NPR Music's The 100 Best Albums of 2021]

Anunaku, also known as TSVI, is an Italian-born composer and DJ who finds a further depth of sophistication in every new release within the baroque, overcast world he's sculpted for himself. It's all floor-appropriate, but the songs' cruxes are embracive, turned inward like a debate with the moon. That the communion is so easily and reliably found about halfway through "Ninfea," two-thirds through "Luminosa," the entirety of "Spirale" shows the strength of signal the producer has tapped into. Andrew Flanagan

Let's hear it for the all-killer, no-filler career. In a streaming environment when we can hear almost anything we want at any time, potency is at a premium, and Doss seems to realize that more so than most. She's released just 8 original tracks across two EPs during her seven-year recording career, and each and every one is a bop and, going by the title to this year's EP, she knows it. 4 New Hit Songs mixes house, shoegaze and pitched-up vocals for a 15-minute burst of endorphins. --Otis Hart [This review originally appeared in NPR Music's 26 Favorite Albums Of 2021 So Far]

Despite representing herself solely through 8-bit images of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," London's DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ transcends gimmick in creating immersive, sample-laden house records that can make three hours feel like twenty minutes. On The Makin' Magick II Album, her songs flow into one another like a stream (or perhaps a lazy river) of consciousness listening to just one track can be sacrilegious, but each song is like the sonic version of looking back to a treasured childhood memory. Throughout the record, indiscernible vocal samples build on top of each other (is that Celine Dion on "I'm Still High"?) cloaked in carefree nostalgia, and highlights like the 12-minute "Being Alone" feel as though your molly just hit in the garden of Eden. It's easy to lose yourself in DJ Sabrina; just relax and surrender to the evergreen magic. Reanna Cruz

Pauline Anna Strom's Angel Tears in Sunlight was supposed to launch her return to music. The electronic musician emerged in the early 1980s with her spacey, New Age-inspired compositions, but stopped making new work due to financial constraints. After over 30 years of silence during which time her work experienced a newfound resurgence among younger artists, Strom made what would tragically become her last album: Angel Tears in Sunlight. Released posthumously this year, its lush, analog synth sound falls right in line with her earliest recordings which are clear precursors to the work of contemporary artists like Avalon Emerson and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. It beautifully immerses listeners in Strom's playful musical utopia. Hazel Cills

2020's Chromatica was a quarantine spectacle, and for Lady Gaga a return to the stratospheric pop music that defined her first records. The Chromatica universe is a futuristic dystopia, founded on inclusivity and what Gaga calls "kindness punks," making it only fitting that a track-by-track remix album would look to a group of artists that aren't afraid to disrupt the system. Under executive producer BloodPop's curation, Dawn Of Chromatica enlists over 20 artists to take the bona-fide earworms of the original Chromatica and put them under the lens of what's bubbling in the underground: distorted house, shiny hyperpop, hardstyle, and even "Dragula"-esque industrial all make appearances on more than one track. Packed to the brim with transcendent potential, Dawn speaks to two separate generations of artists, creating a bridge between a boundary-pushing pop icon and the like-minded folks who follow in her footsteps. Reanna Cruz

Dwayne Parris-Robinson is a hyphenate in more ways than one. The London electronic producer runs his own record label, works at another, DJs at England's most adventurous clubs, and makes his own genre-defiant music under his first surname Parris. After spending the 2010s scattering 12-inch singles throughout London's underground, Parris finally released his debut LP in November, Soaked In Indigo Moonlight, and it takes that aversion to categorization one step further by adding pop music to the mix. "Skater's World," featuring the sugary vocals of Eden Samara, will catch the ear of even the most casual listeners and then leave them totally befuddled as the record proceeds through pointillist dub, polyrhythmic ambient and malfunctioning drum and bass. Soaked In Indigo Moonlight is an aesthete's treat and recommended to anyone who wants to hear something they've never heard before. Otis Hart

There's a touching backstory to this euphoric song by former EDM wunderkind-turned-hyperpop auteur Porter Robinson about falling back in love with making bangers after a festival-sized bout of self-doubt. While teenage stardom isn't exactly the most relatable background, his irrational obsession with music and the joy he feels producing it will strike a chord with anyone who can't stop, won't stop. "This is why we do it, for the feeling," Robinson belts out, his voice pitched up and poignant. And what better way to express that exuberance than that sample of Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock's "It Takes Two"? Otis Hart [This review originally appeared in NPR Music's The 100 Best Songs of 2021]

One pillar of the colosseum that is Haus of Altr, a Brooklyn-based label and DJ confederation, MoMA Ready has been releasing and playing his house and DnB-honoring cuts since 2017. "We Love Music" is exactly what it claims to be; a deep house distillation of New York club energy the whole album is good for that and a broader bow to the only thing that makes any sense these nights. Andrew Flanagan

The year in electronic music started on a mournful note with the loss of SOPHIE in January. Throughout her short-lived career, the producer and artist found herself straddling the line between abrasive industrial sounds and shiny bubblegum pop music, often blending the two together on a single track. Her final song came two days before her death in the form of "UNISIL," a pounding, galvanic B-side from her earlier 2015 compilation, PRODUCT. As the last release from a once-in-a-lifetime talent, the track stands as a reminder of the artist and potential art we lost. Reanna Cruz [This review originally appeared in NPR Music's The 100 Best Songs of 2021]

"Oddball," like "outsider" or "leftfield," is one of those uninspired, catch-all titles that's been foisted onto art that seems like it's been dropped randomly onto Earth. Nice Girl the nom de plume of Ruby Kerkhofs is both relatively unknown and extremely fluent in a mess of distinct electronic styles, which makes her an easy target for any of the banal labels above. She can be campy, Goa trancey, even full-on New Age, but she's deft in mixing unlikely forces in a way that feels welcome, if alien. Like the title of the track suggests, the song's thick with the moos and coos of longing, but she's draped them like a painted odalisque over a rug of skanking dub. Regardless of whatever you want to call her, "The Coming" signals Kerkhofs' arrival. Mina Tavakoli

As the reigning queen of Jersey Club music, UNIIQU3 has spent the last several years churning out bubbly club bangers, and "Microdosing" is a fast and furious addition to her excellent catalogue. "Stop microdosing my love," UNIIQU3 sings in the chorus over a frenetic beat, sweetening a demand to commit with the promise of a never-ending high, before spitting in the verses: "I ain't something you can reject." Cuffing season has arrived. Hazel Cills [This review originally appeared in NPR Music's The 100 Best Songs of 2021]

This band has always had a Mandelbrotian relationship to rhythm, keeping time in coiled spikes across a deep, warm core. Above it usually has hung a sort of pixelated and charming, if opaque, wonder at the world in general. Not so these days the title seems to be their recommendation for each and every one of us, over a string of increasingly desperate rhythmic pleas for action. Andrew Flanagan

When asked about the state of hyperpop, PC Music's Hyd once summed it up effectively by likening it to an "exploding container." The movement keeps growing, amplified by both its popularity and its possibility there are no genre lines to keep inside, no rulebook to follow. A perfect encapsulation of the lack of boundaries came from underscores this year with their album fishmonger. The record is equally digicore as it is emo, drawing on both Soundcloud rap and whatever you could classify the "Lorem" Spotify playlist as, resulting in a delightful blend of emotional sincerity and distorted chaos. On the record's catchiest track "Your favorite sidekick," underscores enlists fellow glitchcore artist 8485 for a sweet duet about realizing you're growing closer to someone; their words are always in your mouth, and killing time feels like the most exciting thing in the world. "It's the new wave of the future!" a voice proclaims. Believe them. Reanna Cruz

Most dance tracks that extend past the 10-minute mark attempt to establish a hypnotic state, someplace you can lose all concept of time. And then there's "1" by rising Canadian hyperpop producer Petal Supply. The neon paean to immaterial infatuation unfolds like an epic prog-rock journey through the metasphere. That's largely due to the guests in parentheses above each remixed Petal Supply's original demo for "1," but instead of taking the results and compiling them on an EP, she sequenced them to create a Voltron unlike anything I've ever heard before. If only its runtime was 11:11. Otis Hart [This review originally appeared in NPR Music's The 100 Best Songs of 2021]

There's a mesmerizing pull to Tammy Lakkis' "Notice," its stripped-down house shape-shifting by the second. "When the clock tick-tocked before, I didn't notice," Lakkis sings, her breathy vocals a siren call at its center. Inspired by the dance floors of Detroit, "Notice" is the sound of a mind carried away by a beat, blurring the edges of time enough to let the bliss rush in. Hazel Cills

Berlin-based electronic producer Sofia Kourtesis created "La Perla" in memory of her late father, inspired by the trips to the ocean they would take together when she would visit her native Peru. With a heart-beat evoking drum as its strong center, "La Perla" unfolds delicately outward in glittering layers of warm synths, soft percussion and hazy, mournful vocals, enveloping you in sound like a salty ocean wave cresting the shore. Hazel Cills [This review originally appeared in NPR Music's The 100 Best Songs of 2021]

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The Best Electronic Music of 2021 - NPR

More than 25 years after the original chapter, it finally arrives Beyond a Steel Sky, a 3D graphic adventure that offers not only a recovery of that canon so dear to the British studio already author of the Broken Sword series (do you remember it? Here is our review of Broken Sword 5: The Curse of the Snake), but a restyling of it accurate and modern. The hours spent solving the well thought-out puzzles of this second chapter have proven us how much the graphic adventure genre can still be a harbinger of good design insights, aesthetic and narrative. And now we are ready to talk to you about what, without a shadow of a doubt, is much more than an antiquarian celebration.

After saving Union City from authoritarian drift and deposing his robotic friend Joey in charge of it in Beneath a Steel Sky, Robert Foster he decided to return to the Glade in order to finally be able to live in peace with his community. A peace which, however, is broken precisely in the opening words of this new chapter, when on a peaceful day of fishing a mecha quadruped emerges with a crash from the water and kidnaps Milo, the son of a close friend of the protagonist.

Although visibly aged, Robert still retains all the reckless spirit of the past, and therefore does not take long to track the missing child: a path that will lead him right in front of the gates of Union City, the banner of the futurist utopia from which he had taken leave ten years earlier. Under its metal sky, the megalopolis appears inexplicably immutable, as if it were stranded in a synthetic perfection, the result of technological progress which has been able to reconstruct the routines of citizens by offering them new standards of life.

Robert Foster will therefore find a very different Union City, in which the inhabitants always smile and seem to spend their time on amenities of all kinds, but where there is also the disturbing suspicion of an unspoken reality much less pleasant, whose murky mystery deepens precisely because of the events that led our protagonist there.

The creative forge made up of is also making its return to the field Charles Cecil And Dave Gibbons (well-known illustrator of Watchmen, Green Lantern and The Secret Service), the duo who in 1994 gave shape to one of the most fascinating cyberpunk imaginaries in the field of graphic adventures. In Beyond a Steel Sky the original bitmap leaves room for a subtle and inspired cel-shading, capable of tracing the light-hearted but incisive comic book attitude of the first chapter, and which goes well with the futuristic script of this new epic.

And after all, even here the world building speaks for itself and carries the message of a decisive social criticism in its dystopian staging. Retracing the footsteps of an artistic direction that still today evidently manages to achieve impressive qualitative peaks, the game world unveils the story of a perfect society, exposing all the contradictions with surprising effectiveness and placing the player inside a visceral experience.

In a desperate attempt to find Milo we will meet several characters, all characterized properly as in any self-respecting graphic adventure. These will give us very useful information on how to penetrate the cybernetic arteries of Union City which remains a technologically inaccessible bulwark for any foreigner and will also allow us to deepen the hidden background of the timelapse of ten years that separates the two episodes.

A period of time in which crucial events have taken place including Joeys disappearance, which is why it is advisable to have made the acquaintance of the original chapter before approaching this new adventure (even if its plot stands well on its own legs). Here too, in short, the narration plays a central role, and is exciting and stylistically well constructed, with excellent dialogue writing and flashes of humor that dissolve the otherwise pervasive tension of a frantic race against time. Net of some directorial stumbles that will require some more effort than the simple suspension of disbelief, the work of Revolution can be said to be satisfactory, capable of evoking nostalgic sensations to long-time players and bewitching even the youngest players with irresistible storytelling. In the course of his 10 hours of campaign the story becomes more and more pressing, composing the mosaic of a modern sci-fi thriller which however contains intact and perfect the winning formula of its predecessor.

In this sense, the Revolution branded production stands both as a very successful sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky, and as a virtuous tribute to the old glories of graphic adventures in general. AND although the plot certainly does not shine for originality, the narrative sector appears to be one of the main strengths of the title.

In addition to having to converse with NPCs to obtain essential information, the gameplay of Beyond a Steel Sky focuses on solving the inevitable environmental puzzles. From the vestiges of the point and click more classic, the Revolution team recovers a truly inspiring puzzle design, original and only in rare cases a bit cumbersome.

Thanks to the spatiality offered by the 3D setting, which masterfully adapts to the retro canon of the playful mixture, the resolution of the puzzles joins the exploration of the city, requiring a fundamental but never redundant backtracking. The latter takes place via monopod, that is the automated capsules that allow the movement between the different areas of the city center: a ploy that fully benefits from the speed of the uploads on PlayStation 5, canceling the dead times of rapid travel. An important novelty is the introduction of hacking: at the beginning of the adventure, in fact, Robert will obtain a device capable of connect to city systems to modify its operation.

Replacing the logical nodes of an electronic device to be able to view, for example, the data on a characters tablet, or even start various machinery using the lever of a toaster as a switch are just some of the possibilities offered by this tool, which contributes to significantly raise the caliber of puzzles, provided you have a good deal of lateral thinking. This, together with the discreet amount of objects that can be found and the rough but inseparable crowbar, extends the range of the puzzles to an even wider dimension 360 where intuition and observation skills will be the masters.

The result is a graphic adventure equal to the expectations it brings with it, satisfying and ingenious just like those of the great classics such as Grim Fandango and The Secret of Monkey Island (by the way, if you have lost it we recommend you to recover our review of Grim Fandango). The headlines brain-bending streak should not, however, be interpreted as a lack of accessibility: in fact, Revolution has made up for this with a brilliant system of optional suggestions useful, intuitive and never too explanatory.

Beyond a Steel Skys main flaw lies in its technical implementation. Although on the whole it appears visually more than appreciable, the graphic sector is plagued by a constant and annoying pop-in effect, various interpenetrations and too little defined textures. Added to this are the problems of the camera, which does not fail to frame the characters often and willingly inexplicably too close, and the sporadic but unexpected frame drops.

Fluctuations of a technical nature that certainly do not undermine the general quality of production, which as we have said reaches very high standards from an artistic, narrative and gameplay point of view, but it is also true that given the low demand in terms of hardware resources we would have expected a much more dignified yield. However, the sound design and the soundtrack remain of a good level, and above all the work done with the dubbing, available only in English, but with a rather accurate translation in the subtitles.

Excerpt from:

Beyond a Steel Sky Review: the return of a great graphic adventure - InTallaght

Space was hard to avoid thinking about in 2021. We entered a new era of star treks, with the long-promised era of space tourism finally upon us at least for those who are extremely well-funded. The rest of us terrestrial plebes made do with video clips and telescopes, watching the six-hour partial lunar eclipse last month, the longest in duration since the days of the Medicis.

Conspiracists and alien enthusiasts rejoiced at reading headlines about U.F.O.s in reputable outlets such as The New York Times. Thinking about the infinite cosmos also provided a psychological release from the grinding pandemic, when space tended to be measured in square feet.

Here are some highlights.

Space became a retreat for plutocrats more exclusive than Bohemian Grove this year, as two billionaire earthlings Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson took maiden voyages as space tourists, and made the term masters of the universe just a bit more literal.

In this space race, Mr. Branson went first on July 11, soaring 50 miles above the New Mexico desert aboard the V.S.S. Unity, which looked eerily like a hood ornament from a 1956 Chevy.

But Amazons 200 billion dollar man refused to concede. Nine days later, Mr. Bezos soared 65 miles above Texas wearing a flyboy-meets-cowboy ensemble not seen in aerospace circles since Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, and claimed victory, noting that he actually crossed a boundary known as the Krmn line 62 miles above sea level into so-called real space.

Yes, a rocket is a phallic symbol. But does it have to be so blatant, like something Carrie Bradshaw might have picked up at the Pleasure Chest?

Mr. Bezos had scarcely blasted off for his 10-minute maiden voyage to space when social media erupted with X-rated memes. One porn site even created a line of sex toys called the Billionaire Flesh Rocket Series.

After the snickering died down, engineers pointed out that the rockets bulbous tip and roomy shaft allowed for maximum occupancy and, also, stability on re-entry. No jokes, please.

U.F.O. sightings no longer occupy the same cultural space as Bigfoot or Jim Morrison sightings at Burger King.

In June, the federal government declassified an intelligence report in which it admitted there is no earthly or, at least, governmental explanation for more than 120 reports of objects in the skies, as former President Barack Obama put it on The Late Late Show With James Corden.

Sure, that mysterious Kubrickian metal slab in the red canyons of Utah was likely an artwork or a hoax, not alien. And an eerie radio signal from the direction of Proxima Centauri was, alas, probably just human radio frequency interference. Given the state of the world, though, you cant blame people for hoping to find intelligent life somewhere in the universe.

When the United States Space Force unveiled its uniforms in September, it was hard not to make joking references to Star Trek, or the Netflix show Space Force, starring Steve Carell, that parodies the sixth and newest branch of the military.

The asymmetrical dark blue coat with gray pants looked to many observers like it had been designed by science fiction nerds. The U.S. Space Force Will Wear Battlestar Galactica Uniforms, declared a headline on Giant Freakin Robot, an entertainment website.

The rivalry between the United States and China extended far beyond national borders. In February, NASAs Perseverance rover touched down on Mars and achieved a Wright Brothers moment by launching the first powered flight on another planet (a small robotic helicopter named Ingenuity).

Then in May, China landed a rover called Zhurong in a huge basin known as Utopia Planitia, which was not only its first exploratory trip on Mars, but also ushered in a new era of space competition, as it showed its ability to compete in a space race long dominated by Americans and Russians. The Chinese rover even planted a wireless camera on the red dirt and snapped a picture of itself. How 2021. Whats the point of traveling if you dont get the selfie?

Space travel movies are as old as cinema itself, thanks to Georges Mliss landmark 1902 film, A Trip to the Moon. In 2021, however, a Russian film crew spent 12 days aboard the International Space Station, filming scenes for The Challenge, the first feature-length drama containing scenes shot in space.

Time will tell if the film, about a surgeon rushing to space to save an ailing cosmonaut, will become a science fiction classic. If nothing else, however, the filmmakers beat the Americans to the punch. (Plans for a Tom Cruise action-adventure movie shot in space were announced last year.)

First Sputnik, now this. At least the Americans got that gold medal in hockey.

In July, Oliver Daemen, 18, the son of a Dutch private equity executive, became the youngest person to travel to space when a would-be Blue Origin passenger, who had paid $28 million for the privilege, had to drop out for a scheduling conflict. Must have been some conflict.

Humans being humans, we leave a mess wherever we go. In May, a 10-story, 23-ton piece of a Chinese rocket came crashing down to the Earth in an uncontrolled path, leading some to wonder if it would fall on their heads. Luckily, it landed harmlessly in the Indian Ocean.

In November, the Russians created another mess when they tested an antisatellite weapon on a defunct spy satellite, creating an enormous cloud of debris that forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station to batten down the hatches.

Some fear that all that space junk may make space travel difficult or even impossible in the future. But maybe theres hope. In March, a Japanese company launched a space vacuum of sorts to suck up some of the 3,000 inactive satellites orbiting Earth. If only we could recycle them.

William Shatner, the actor who made space travel safe for sideburns and Beatle boots a half-century ago, seized the record for oldest person to travel to space in October, by tagging along with Mr. Bezos on a Blue Origin voyage.

It was fair to wonder if Mr. Bezos was just using his billions to indulge a boyhood fantasy. Mr. Bezos, after all, is a confirmed Trekkie who once competed with his fourth grade classmates for the right to play Kirk. Wed have little cardboard phasers and cardboard tricorders, you know, he said at an event for The Washington Post in 2016.

Mr. Shatner seemed to be a fanboy himself. Yes, its true; Im going to be a rocket man! he tweeted before the trip. He even promised to write a song about the experience. Too bad Space Oddity is taken.

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The Year Space Got Sexy All Over Again - The New York Times