Category Archives: Nihilism

Brad Pitt, at 56, is an Oscar winner for the second time. His prior win came only six years ago, for helping produce 12 Years a Slave, and his victory tonight, for his performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is his first for his onscreen work. An entire career is a long time to wait just ask Al Pacino, runner-up to Pitt tonight, who has been nominated and lost so many times that he sometimes forgets the exact number. (Nine total is the answer, and only one win.) But Pitt, lately, has seemed to make an art of waiting and watching. Your own wins and lossesthe older you get, they don't seem like so much of a win or so much of a loss, he told me last year.

Despite 2019 having been an uncommonly good year for movies, the Academy Awards have had a kind of leaden, preordained feel to them for months now (until *Parasite*'s shocking best picture upset, anyway), as Joaquin Phoenix and 1917 marched through various precursor and guild awards shows, collecting one prize after another. Pitt, too, has been part of this march, though hes done it with flair (so much flair, in fact, that some have started speculating about who is writing his acceptance speech jokes) and, on at least one occasion, with the worlds most redundant nametag on. But there is nevertheless something satisfying, and maybe even surprising, about Pitts win.

Hes been nominated three times before, twice in the best actor category; his win for supporting actor will provide even more evidence for those that like to say that hes a character actor cloaked in the seductive guise of a leading man. But Pitt has always been one of Hollywoods great reactors and scene partners, and hes a different performer now than he was even a few years agomore relaxed, more confident; his many years of living in the spotlight have, paradoxically, sanded away whatever artifice or showiness there was in his work. Hes taught himself to listen and do less. He told me that hes constantly working on finding strength in vulnerability, in life and in acting: the real confidence, as he described it, that comes from really knowing yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses.

Since briefly meeting him for a profile last year, I have tried, without much success, to explain to friends the energy that Pitt brings to a room these days. Everyone is looking at him. And yet the feeling you get is one of total freedom. Hes learned to use the space between him and everyone else to his advantage. Hes got great comic timing, but he also can depend on the fact that youll wait. In Once Upon a Time, his character, Cliff Booth, is a washed-up stuntman and a professional friend and gopher to Leonardo DiCaprios Rick Dalton, but hes accepted his lot. Hes even, like Pitt himself, found the humor in it, the silver lining, the gift of no more expectations. Its an incredibly funny performance, an obscurely sad one, and at times its also menacing and violent; it channels a kind of blithe masculinity that is right on the edge between zen and nihilism. As Booth, Pitt has your attention; he knows that for a fact. How could he not? So he lets you come to him, even as he makes no guarantees about your safety once you get there.

Its not a performance he couldve given even a few years ago, I dont think. He had to give it up, almost, to get back to it. There was just too much emphasis on finding interesting characters, he told me about his previous life in Hollywood. I went, Fuck me, man. Live an interesting life and the rest will take care of itself. Now hes got the trophy to show for it.

More here:

Oscars 2020: Brad Pitt Won, and Its About Time - GQ

Matt Bomer is worried about sending you the wrong message.

The 42-year-old is no stranger to being in front of the camera. He booked his first commercial at 18, was the top-billed star of a hit drama series for six seasons, has been nominated for an Emmy, won a Golden Globe, worked opposite everyone from Channing Tatum to Lady Gaga, and still collaborates regularly with Ryan Murphy. In other words: Hes used to the public eye.

READ: Matt Bomer Remembers His Failed Audition to Play Tarzan on Broadway

But sit him down on a mid-November evening in New York Citys Financial District and tell him you want to talk about his acting process, from his days at Carnegie Mellon to his upcoming starring role on The Sinner, and his usual eager smile and engaged, can-do body language may veil some reluctance. Especially since hes most often asked about his sexuality and socially engaged projects since he came out as gay in 2012, his family of five with husband and celebrity publicist Simon Halls, and his dedicated (and admirable) health and fitness regimen, to talk candidly about the craft and all the different actor-y things we do, he says, feels esoteric and strange.

But, he interrupts himself, offering a winking acknowledgment to Backstages legacy, I know youre interested in that, so this is probably the place to do it! And honestly? Once he buckles in, our interview becomes an hours acting lesson that would easily run you a couple hundred dollars at any Midtown studio.

At the root of all of his acting endeavors, Bomer is just looking for the truth. And when the work allows him to run with it, hes willingand, at this point in his career, ableto do just about anything it takes to get it right.

This is perhaps most apparent in his commitment to a roles physical demands. From the sexed-up brawn required of his male stripper in the blockbuster Magic Mike and its sequel to the 40 pounds he shed for HBOs award-winning screen adaptation of Larry Kramers HIV/AIDS drama The Normal Heart, Bomer physically drags his body that extra mile when given the opportunity and the material.

On Normal Heart, I felt a tremendous responsibility to my community, to all the people who had to suffer through that time, and I thought, Well, if I have to risk my life to do it, to convey that, then its worth it to me to tell that story, he says.

To a lesser but still laudable degree, the current third season of The Sinner, produced by UCP, also called for a tangible sacrifice. This photo shoot and interview were booked months before the premiere, because three-quarters of the way through filming the anthological USA Network drama with Bill Pullman and Chris Messina, Bomer was due to make some severe alterations to his appearance that hed rather not have captured on a magazine cover. (No spoilers, but his diet was limited to 500 calories a day, and he sips a pressed juice for dinner intermittently during our conversation.)

But his role prep is more than skin deepBomer employs exacting character work for each of his performances. The Sinner, for one, from creator and showrunner Derek Simonds and casting directors Douglas Aibel and Stephanie Holbrook, has him playing Jamie, a beloved teacher at an all-girls private school, a husband, and a soon-to-be father who harbors a dark past. Upon an unexpected reunion with a college friend (Messina), his actions lead to tragic consequences.

Everything seems to be going his way, but underneath all that, he is suffering from a really profound sense of loneliness and isolation, and that ultimately leads him to a kind of nihilism and terror and, ultimately, violence, Bomer teases. Hes having a romance with a philosophy that he doesnt necessarily have the psychological structure to be able to support in a responsible way.

Its a goliath role, one that brings him back to prime time after White Collar, the USA Network series that made him famous, and one that Bomer admits he was uneasy about taking on. Then again, it was that questioning gut check that let him know he had to say yes.

One thing thats always been a big lure for me is [asking], Am I going to have to get out of my comfort zone to play this part? he says. You have opportunities that come your way where youve done it before and you know you can do it in a certain way. But certainly with The Sinner, I thought, I dont know how Im going to do this; I dont know how Im going to bring this to life. That scared meand thats very appealing. People make entire careers out of just doing what theyre good at, and I respect that. But for some reason, that [fear] is what makes the process exciting to me.

The first episode alone has his character questioning his reality, toying with self-harm, and losing control of his emotions in the midst of a police interrogation, and it previews the fatal moment that sets his downward spiral into motion. All that is paired, of course, with Bomers trademark charm and charisma placed front and center.

So, how did he find his way into such a complex psyche? According to Bomer, praise is due to Simonds for giving him and the rest of the cast the creative tools and time they needed to mine the crime thrillers material. Especially in television, Bomer says, a rehearsal period like theirs is unheard of. Simonds also introduced an all-new creative process for the longtime actor: dream work.

As Bomer explains it, Simonds employed the help of creative dream work coach Kim Gillingham to help the Sinner ensemble tap into their subconscious and find authenticity beyond the page.

Without bastardizing anything, because this is the first time Ive done it, Ill try to give you the best [explanation] I can in laymans terms, Bomer says. Basically, you keep a journal near your bed at night, and you ask your psycheyour higher power, whateverto reveal certain aspects of the characters experience in a dream that night. For the first few days, nothing was really coming. And then I started to get these hugely archetypal dreams.

Then, with Kim, you bring the dream to life. You do all these exercises, you drop back into the dream; and from that, you can find gesture, physical aspects of your character, emotions that they might be going through, how the piece parlays to your life and your experience and where you are right now. Often, things from my past will become suddenly relevant to the story.

Particularly when playing opposite Messinaa man with whom Jamie is meant to have had a close, yearslong relationship on the seriesBomer enthuses that the dream work allowed both of them to break down so many walls and to really lay ourselves bare. It fostered an understanding and mutual support before getting to set that would otherwise take an entire shoot to accomplish.

I was really interested in doing dream work because I was interested in not intellectualizing everything and letting creativity bubble up from my subconscious, he says, adding, I would recommend it to anyone. Its a great way to have an experience with the piece.

READ: The Definitive Guide to the Stanislavsky Acting Technique

Beyond the preparatory dream work (I only got to do it for maybe the first three or four episodes, because then the workload just got so intense, he admits), Bomer has more practical bolts of building a character. Hell often turn to the textbook teachings of Konstantin Stanislavsky, posing, What from my life could be compared to the circumstance that [this character is] in? He also cites two influential acting coaches and mentors he trains with in Los Angeles.

In terms of how I approach every role, one of my main mentors is Larry Moss, and we always work with the given circumstances and then use the as-ifs when we need to. Noted movement teacher Jean-Louis Rodrigue is also in his rotation. Hes actually an Alexander [Technique] teacher, but he works with all different kinds of physical aspects of character. [We] do a lot of things just to get you out of your head.

On top of that, Bomer is a lover of note-taking: I could show you my reams and reams and reams of pages of notes. Im a homework nerd. He even keeps a journal titled My Split Personality Says where the left side of the page has the heading Im thinking this, while the right lists Im feeling this. Particularly with a character like Jamie, where how he presents himself may not actually coincide with who he is on the inside, such a simple tool proved invaluable while doing the day-to-day work.

Even just between scenes, I would jot down what Jamie was thinking and what he was really feeling while they were setting up the camera, Bomer recalls. I found that to be a useful exercise, and also a way to kind of maintain some isolation without being rude.

Its all a testament to the fact that even 20-plus years into his careerone that he readily admits saw leaner periods of catering, bellhopping, and survival job hustling to make rentBomer is continuing to learn, grow, and navigate new parts of himself and his process. Even at the height of his abilities, hes still looking to better his previous best.

Our conversation eventually takes him back to his first film, the Jodie Fosterstarring Flightplan in 2005, and one particular lesson gleaned from his days on set. Recalling how the makeup of the seta literal airplaneallowed for everyone to look on during Fosters rehearsals, Bomer says that someone advised him point-blank during that downtime to take every job thats offered to you. Hes never forgotten it.

Im really glad that woman told me that, because I took her advice and I just started taking, pretty much, whatever gigs came my way, he says, citing bombed auditions for Tarzan on Broadway, his unlikely day player stint on soap opera Guiding Light, and his much-reportedbut sadly never realizedcasting as the Man of Steel.

You get out of theater school and you start to think, Hmm, I should really be doing Hamlet at the Delacorte. And its like, Yeah, good luck, kid! We dont all have that charmed existence, you know? So sometimes the best thing you can do is take the job. And no matter what that job is, bring your work ethic, bring your collaboration, be on time, and bring a sense of enthusiasm and commitment and dedication to the work. We can be overly precious, and sometimes its good just to make sure youre exercising your instrument. If its an opportunity to work and get paid for it in a production that you feel like you can expand your craft on, do it.

This story originally appeared in the Feb. 13 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.

Ready to get to work? Check out Backstages TV audition listings!

Photographed by Chad Griffith on Nov. 18th in NYC

Benjamin Lindsay is a senior editor at Backstage, where if youre reading it in our weekly magazine, hes written or edited it first. Hes also producer and host of our inaugural on-camera interview series, Backstage Live, taking informative deep-dives with actors across mediums to discuss their craft, their work, and their advice for others getting started in the field.

See original here:

Matt Bomer's Acting Education Is Only Beginning - Backstage

Not so Donald Trump. The day after the Senate vote, he gave a rambling speech in which he insisted that he had done nothing wrong, that the Russia investigation had been bullshit, and that his political opponents are evil and sick. He waved newspapers that read Trump Acquitted. His approval ratings have risen. Meanwhile, his Republican allies in the Senate are pushing forward with an investigation into Hunter Bidenexactly the subject on which Trump demanded dirt from Ukraine. The president did indeed learn a lesson (though not the one Maine Senator Susan Collins suggested)he learned that he is, for all intents and purposes, immune to oversight and criticism, that he can do whatever he wants and get away with it.

Impeachment was always a Democratic pipe dream, a doomed act of idealism destined to be squelched in the Senate. This was also its power: an assertion of constitutional value in the face of nihilism. This came through clearly in lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiffs closing argument for the Houses case, which ended with an appeal to justice. I do not ask you to convict him because truth or right or decency matters nothing to him, he said, but because we have proven our case and it matters to you. The Senates response, in acquitting, was clear: Nothing mattered.

The trouble with doomed acts of idealism, of course, is that theyre doomed. If the country has any luck, the impeachment of Donald Trump will be seen in the long term as the right thing to have done. In the meantime, though, we all have to live in the short term.

The temptation at this point is to give up and accept the presidents belief that he will be able to get away with anything. And indeed, much of the press coverage of the acquittal and Trumps promises of vengeance amounted to a shrug: Well, what can you do, really? Until the voters render their verdict, in November, Susan Glasser wrote in The New Yorker, Trump will be the President he has always wanted to be: inescapable, all-powerful, and completely unaccountable. The New York Times described how the self-described counterpuncher appears eager to prosecute his case against his prosecutors Conciliation and acknowledging mistakes are not in his nature. Perhaps a Washington Post headline best captured the sense of deflation: Yeah, Trump didnt learn any new lessons from impeachment.

An exhausted shrug is a fair response to the bleakness of everything that has taken place over the three years of the Trump presidency, and especially to a week like this one. There is always a feeling of loss in the wake of a failure. The compelling way forward is to accept the inevitability that there will be other failures and keep pushing anyway.

Grappling with how to be in the world in this moment, I turned to the German sociologist Max Webers classic 1919 lecture Politics as a Vocation, which describes political life as torn between the voice of conscience and the practicalities of getting things done in an ethically irrational world. At a certain point, Weber wrote, a moment of crisis arrives: The irrationality becomes too much. The politician reaches the point where he says: Here I stand; I can do no other.

Excerpt from:

How to Avoid Despair - The Atlantic

Everyman Theatre continues its 2019/2020 season with Deborah Zoe Laufer's intricately calibrated production Be Here Now. Laufer also directs the production, which runs January 21 through February 16, 2020.

Bari (Beth Hylton*) has always been a bit of an angry, depressed misanthrope. Losing her job teaching nihilism in New York City to work at the local fulfillment center in her rural hometown upstate sends her into despair. But lately, her recurring headaches manifest bizarre, ecstatic, nearly religious experiences. They're changing her entire view on life. She's in love! She's almost...happy?!

When she finds out these headaches are also killing her, she must decide whether it's better to live a short, joyful life, or risk a lifetime of despair and misery. Through extremes of laughter, sorrow, pain, and love, Bari must ask herself what she's willing to do for love, and in the end... is it even worth it?

Rounding out the cast for the Everyman production are Katy Carkuff* as Patty Cooper, Shubhangi Kuchibhotla as Luanne Cooper, and Kyle Prue* as Mike Cooper.

Deborah Zoe Laufer's plays have been produced at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Cleveland Playhouse, Geva Theatre Center, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Portland Stage, and The Humana Festival. Informed Consent, an Alfred P. Sloan/EST commission appeared at The Duke Theatre in NYC in 2015, a co-production of Primary Stages and EST. It was a NY Times Critics Pick. Her play End Days won The ATCA Steinberg citation and has received over 70 productions around the country as well as in Germany, Russia, and Australia. Other plays include Leveling Up, Out of Sterno, The Last Schwartz, Sirens, Meta, The Gulf of Westchester, Miniatures, and Fortune.

According to Everyman Theatre Artistic Director, Vincent M. Lancisi, "Be Here Now is a beautiful, funny play that recognizes the importance of laughing at ourselves and seizing the moment to find the joy in life. Playwright and director Deborah Zoe Laufer and this talented cast will make you laugh out loud and reminds us how precious life is. In my mind, it's the most profound romantic comedy in the theatre today."

Be Here Now had its world premiere at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in February 2018, and has since played in Boca Raton, FL at Theatre Lab, Aurora Theatre in Atlanta, and Shattered Globe in Chicago. Everyman Theatre marks the production's East Coast premiere.

Deborah Zoe Laufer's Be Here Now runs January 21 - February 16, 2020. Tickets ($10-69) are on sale now, online (everymantheatre.org), by phone (410.752.2208), or at the Everyman Theatre Box Office (315 W. Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD).

Photo Credit: Teresa Castracane

More:

Photo Flash: First Look At BE HERE NOW At Everyman Theatre - Broadway World

Monday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. World dignitaries will gather together in Israel to mark the coinciding seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. As personal tragedy often brings people together, driving out the petty with the profound, so the memory of historic tragedy can do the same if we are determined to use it for good.

We must, therefore, renew our determination to educate all young people about the Nazi genocide of six million Jews, and of the murder of so many others amid a human catastrophe that took more than fifteen million lives in Europe alone between 1939 and 1945. We must do this because the memories and the lessons attached to those memories are fading.

Alas, the intricate texture of historical memory inevitably decays with the passage of time. What people see with their own eyes, and process with their own hearts, cannot possibly be as emotionally resonant to those who must learn about such events from after-the-fact testimonials. This is why we make extra efforts to preserve the memory of those events, like the Holocaust, that bear critical lessonsfor memory is the only tool we have to capture time.

It is not enough, however, to remember the Holocaust. We must remember it with special nuance because its lessons are not all obvious.

The Holocaust was something genuinely new in the annals of human evil. It represented the pairing of the methodology of the industrial revolution to the dark tradition of mass murder. It showed how technologized propaganda methods dehumanized other people so as to make actual acts of industrialized mass murder possible.

Remembering the Holocaust teaches us not only about evil but about the conditions that enable evil motives to seed evil deeds. At a time when the world is rushing madly ahead on a new wave of unprecedented technological change, we dare not lose the lessons that show us how to connect means and ends, motives and deeds.

The passage of time is not the only obstacle to memory. All historical memory is embedded in specific social contexts. Sometimes, too, historical memory is instrumentalized to serve the interests of the present. Jews do not remember the Holocaust the same way Germans do, or Poles or Russians or French. And what of the Arabs?

The Arabs are a special case. How can Arabs remember usefully an event that many were never taught the truth about to begin with?

For decades, millions of Arabs have lived under autocracies that have manipulated history to serve their appetites for power, and to hide the fact that their anti-colonialist nationalisms had once made many of them the fans of German war efforts. Many Arab historians have colluded in the falsification of Holocaust historyminimizing or outright denying itout of fear of social ostracism or punishment at the hands of authorities. The result is that entire chapters of history are missing from the programs that Arab governments teach their students.

Into the vacuum have poured the diatribes of religious extremists, spread in recent years through certain satellite television channels that are often protected if not supported by governments, that distort history as they spread hatred. In these diatribes, Palestinians and other Arabs are the only victims of history, as Jews and Israelis are predictably turned into Nazis. Young Arabs are told that the Nakba of 194748 was a wholly one-sided crime, while twisted lessons on the Holocaust depict the Jews as having been responsible for their own much-exaggerated difficulties.

In most of the world the Holocaust is fading from memory with the passage of time; but, in much of the Arab world, falsified memories of the Holocaust are, if anything, spreading. This is disastrous. Distortion of Holocaust history is being pressed into the service of a destructive and counterproductive political nihilism. It is nurturing a grievance culture that yields only self-loathing and paralysis. And it is separating the image of Arabs from that of all other civilized peoples, making them into an international embarrassment.

Arab youth must be taught the truth about the Holocaust, for its lessons are universal. Some of those lessons apply acutely to Arabs and Muslims right now because many Muslims are no safer today from bigotry and violence than were European Jews in 1939. Not to teach them about human-rights violations during World War II undermines their capacity to fully grasp the Rohingya tragedy, the building of concentration camps for Uighurs in Xinjiang, and the meaning of new anti-Muslim immigration restrictions in India.

The Holocaust can also teach todays Arab youth how to deal with fanaticism, through the stories of brave individuals in Nazi-occupied Europe who resisted the power of the crowd and risked their lives to save their Jewish neighbors. There is much to learn from examining the motivations and behavior of the perpetrators and collaborators, as well as passers-by, protesters, and heroes.

Learning real history, even of great tragedies, also shows that reconciliation, justice, and peace really are possible. No people have atoned more sincerely than the German people, who have sought persistently and sincerely to reconcile with their European neighbors and who acknowledge a special bond withand responsibility towardIsrael. Knowing this bears a truly precious lesson: Peace is achievable between Israel and the Arabs.

I am fortunate to be a Moroccan. Distortions of history thrive when counterevidence is unavailable, but the well-known history of Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco over many centuries immunizes nearly all Moroccans against the sirens of calumny, hatred, and fanaticism. All of us know how King Mohammed V worked to protect Moroccan Jews during the war, and how he resisted de facto calls for the boycott and isolation of Israel after 1948. We know that King Mohammed VI recently visited the newly opened house of Moroccan-Jewish heritage Essaouira, and years ago resolved to raise awareness of the Holocaust in Morocco, both through his own historic statement and through a range of cultural and educational interventions.

On this anniversary, more Arabs must join in the cause of sharing the hard-won lessons of the Holocaust. These lessons belong to the world, and one of those lessons, stated as a question, stands out above all others: If we cannot empathize with the pain of other human beings, how much less human and less deserving of human kindness does that make us?

Ahmed Charai is a Moroccan publisher. He is on the board of directors for the Atlantic Council, an international counselor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of the Advisory Board of The Center for the National Interest in Washington and the Advisory Board of Gatestone Institute in New York.

Image: Reuters

Originally posted here:

Young Arabs Must Know the Truth About the HolocaustFor Their Own Good - The National Interest Online

Regardless of whether youre watching every minute of coverage, or just the highlights, the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump is coming across as two different events.

The House managers prosecuting the articles of impeachment against Trump charging that he abused the power of the presidency to cheat in the 2020 election, then obstructed Congresss investigation of the same are engaged in, or are attempting to engage in, an actual trial.

You know: evidence, witnesses, facts.

The presidents defense team is performing for Fox News and other conservative media outlets. There is no discussion of evidence, witnesses or facts, just a recitation of blustery talking points, grade-school deflections, legalistic doublespeak and Trumpian conspiracies. Its all recycled material.

The House managers evidence is recycled, too its a summary of the case they built during the impeachment inquiry.

This is a show trial, pure and simple, in which Republicans stated goal is to exonerate the defendant.

The House managers very much want to provide senators with new information, by putting witnesses with first-hand knowledge on the stand, people such as John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and Trump himself.

It stands to reason that a man as confident of his innocence as Trump would be eager to get all the evidence out there and clear his name, right? It stands to reason that the senators sworn to judge the presidents guilt would want the same thing, right?

Wrong.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and his merry band of quislings, know that Trump is guilty. Thats why they want this proceeding over as quickly as possible. To call it a trial, as Ive argued, is disinformation. This is a show trial, pure and simple, in which Republicans stated goal is to exonerate the defendant.

The moment hes acquitted, we know Trump will immediately crow about his glorious exoneration, because his entire brand is based on impunity the idea that he is powerful enough to say and do whatever he wants without consequence.

This exoneration, in turn, will establish a new precedent: for Trump himself, and all future presidents. They'll forevermore be able to pressure a foreign government to dig up dirt on opponents, freely subvert our elections and block Congress from investigating them.

This behavior will no longer be abuse of power. It will become standard operating procedure.

In a sense, the GOP senators will be ratifying the lesson ofthe 2000 election (which George W. Bush won only because the Supreme Courts conservative majority voted to halt the recount in Florida), of the weapons of mass destruction hoax that lead to the war in Iraq, and of theSandy Hook slaughter of 26 people, including 20 first graders. In each of these situations, Republicans faceda choice. They could either cling to power or faceaccountability. In each case, theychose power.

The only way to repudiate this culture of sociopathic nihilism and lawlessness is for citizens of good faith to become more politically active.

The transformation of Trump from party pariah a man Lindsay Graham called a kook a loser and a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot-- to a de facto monarch is the inevitable culmination of this moral rot. Any time you ignore what could become an evil force, Graham observed four short years ago, you wind up regretting it. These days, Graham isnt ignoring that force. Hes become its loudest defender.

Now Trumps Republicans will be on the record for all of eternity.

And for what? To prop up a corrupt and cruel grifter whom most of them despise and mistrust. The only thing greater than their shame, apparently, is their shamelessness. They needed Trump to find that shamelessness. Thats what hes given them and all it cost them was our constitutional democracy.

The only remaining remedy is the 2020 election, an election already besieged by voter suppression, gerrymandering and the perverse math of the Electoral College and, thanks to Mitch McConnell, foreign subversion, too.

The only way to repudiate this culture of sociopathic nihilism and lawlessness is for citizens of good faith to become more politically active. We can, and should, watch what's happening on the floor of the Senate in despair and outrage.

But each of us who feels that distress has a duty to act.

If you care about our democracy, make your plan.

Follow Cognoscenti on Facebook and Twitter.

Read the rest here:

The Impeachment Trial Is The End Of Democracy As We Know It - WBUR

Emojiland was a stand-out at the 2018 New York Musical Festival and perhaps the last production to be able to leverage that platform. On a roster of underwhelming projects that ranged from overinflated to overly earnest, Emojiland had a gimmicky concept that wrapped its arms around some big ideas with surprising success: simulation theory, xenophobia, and the corruption of monarchical power among them (cue Lesli Margherita in a princess crown dancing with the egomaniacal power of a birthday girl on My Super Sweet 16).

Now in a full production directed by Thomas Caruso at the Duke on 42nd Street, Emojiland still has all of those assets to its credit not to mention a crystal-clear spirit of good intentions and optimism (or at least anti-nihilism). It all just feels a little less remarkable in its new quarters, even with its substantially enhanced production value (scenic designer David Goldstein has built a towering pixelated paradise while costume designer Vanessa Leuck charmingly reimagines a throng of emoji lewks).

There are a lot of moving pieces in the plot. But to make a too-long story shorter, Emojiland is set in the sunshiny innards of an iPhone on the eve of an update, which will bring new emoji to town and perhaps add nuanced layers of feeling to the existing ones at least that's what the perpetually happy Smize (the musical's coauthor Laura Schein) is hoping for. What the update ends up bringing Smize is a new friend by the name of Nerd Face (George Abud), a scientist of sorts who values truth and curiosity, and is the polar opposite of Smize's bullish cool-guy boyfriend, Sunny (Jacob Dickey).

On the regal side of Emojiland, the update creates a Prince (Josh Lamon) to join Princess (Margherita) in her castle a development Princess is not too keen on. Prince and Princess quickly become besties, but they're not willing to press their luck with another upgrade that might bring a King or Queen into the fold. So with some advisement from Man in Business Suit Levitating (Max Crumm bringing subtle capitalist villainy), Prince and Princess order the construction of a firewall, pedaling fear of invading emoji. Meanwhile, a spurned Nerd Face befriends resident outcast Skull (Lucas Steele, giving dark Jud Fry energy in an operatic tenor), which leads him to agree to assist Skull incommitting suicide.

It's a pretty heavy turn of events, but in the innocuous world of emoji, even the most disturbing things can stay in the realm of thought experiment: Does life have inherent value? Is it rational to fear the outsider? Can someone's insides be at odds with their outsides? Schein and her coauthor Keith Harrison capitalize on that strength, even as the journey through all of these plot points becomes a bit of a slog.

Schein and Harrison break it up with pleasant, pop-inspired songs, each with a different degree of re-listen value. Smize's character song "Sad on the Inside," for example, isn't going to make anyone's list of favorite showtunes, whereas Police Officer's Act 2 ballad "A Thousand More Words" is a total showstopper in the extraordinary hands of Felicia Boswell. And I thought no one could top Natalie Weiss's Act 1 solo "Stand For" as Police Officer's romantic partner Construction Worker.

I'm inclined to say that Boswell and Weiss are the musical's power couple, but Emojiland, of all things, has stiff competition in that category: Lamon and Margherita (who death-drops in her big solo "Princess Is a Bitch") are an endless delight to us and each other in their royal partnership; and as Nerd Face, Abud partners beautifully with both Skull and Smize, bringing incredible dimension to a character with one personality trait. Emojiland in a vacuum ranges from solid to underwhelming, but performance-wise, this production is an embarrassment of riches (I mean, who doesn't want to see Ann Harada perform a musical number as a Pile of Poo?).

Sure, by the time Nerd Face unearths his heroic side to save Emojiland from a permeating virus, you're a little fatigued from the techy metaphors and gamified atmosphere as if you've stared too long at the screen of your iPhone. But to Emojiland's great credit, there aren't many other off-Broadway musicals with a whole host of performances that can be described by the "Shocked Face With Exploding Head" emoji.

Loading...

Loading...

Read this article:

Emojiland Asks, Is It Really So Great to Be Alive? - TheaterMania.com

With impeachment framed as an exercise in moral nihilism, Republicans and Democrats have now entered the field of battle over witnesses, with each side bafflingly defending the political interests of the other. House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiCNN's Axelrod says impeachment didn't come up until 80 minutes into focus group On The Money Presented by Wells Fargo Social Security emerges as flash point in Biden-Sanders fight | Dems urge Supreme Court to save consumer agency | Trump to sign USMCA next week Veronica Escobar to give Spanish-language response to Trump State of the Union address MORE withheld delivery of the impeachment articles in an effort to secure witnesses during the Senate trial, including former White House national security adviser John Bolton. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellCNN's Axelrod says impeachment didn't come up until 80 minutes into focus group Democrats feel political momentum swinging to them on impeachment Impeachment throws curveball in Iowa to sidelined senators MORE sees absolutely no need for new witnesses. He said, This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it.

However, with acquittal certain, the president actually needs witnesses to testify. How else can he justify his tweets of total exoneration, as he did after the special counsel investigation? Witnesses would give his acquittal the patina of legitimacy. Without any witnesses, the president and Senate Republicans up for reelection become vulnerable to claims of a sham trial or, even far worse, an orchestrated coverup rooted in a fear of the truth.

The absence of witnesses during the impeachment trial of Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump says his advice to impeachment defense team is 'just be honest' Trump expands tariffs on steel and aluminum imports CNN's Axelrod says impeachment didn't come up until 80 minutes into focus group MORE would only draw unwanted attention to this particular lack of openness. One could almost hear the chants of what is he hiding? reverberating loudly from the steel rafters at the Democratic National Convention this summer. Denying witnesses is also off brand for the president himself, as his primary defense for nearly all of his transgressions in office has been transparency. Trump brazenly obstructed justice in full view of the public during the special counsel investigation and openly called on a foreign power to investigate his domestic political rivals from the White House.

With the outcome not in doubt, the wisest move by the president would be to promote witness testimony, not of Hunter Biden, but of those who participated in carrying out his perfect call directive precisely because of its damning nature. Just get everything out. No more drips and drabs of tantalizing details to extend the Ukraine story closer to the election. By contrast, although Democrats desperately claim that they need witness testimony from those involved, such as Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, their testimony will not result in conviction.

Taking the effects of past testimony as prelude, further testimony will not sway the hearts and minds of independents, much less the Trump base. But it could make Democrats seem ineffective, in the way that repeated failures to defeat ObamaCare did to Republicans such as Eric Cantor and John Boehner. Extending the impeachment process could also hamper the several Senate Democrats vying to be the party nominee this year.

In an actual court of law, it takes but one witness to establish a fact if the jury finds that witness credible. So five witnesses are no more compelling or persuasive than one. If Republicans could buy the time to drag out the impeachment trial into the Democratic primary season by interviewing redundant witnesses, why would they not do so? If Democrats could end the trial with questions left unanswered and hanging over the reelection campaign of the president, why would Republicans acquiesce to that?

The facts are known. The truth is obvious. Trump personally orchestrated the pressure campaign against the newly elected president of Ukraine to secure an investigation of his political rival in the election. That pressure campaign included the quid quo pro in the form of a prized White House visit and holding up nearly $400 million in vital American military aid that Congress had already appropriated and that the president had approved.

However, with Senate Republicans grotesquely eager to simply acquit the president, the strategy of Pelosi holding out for witnesses in the trial was politically counterproductive, even if it was morally, ethically, and legally correct. Without witnesses, Trump will have to play defense on the issue of impeachment and Ukraine in 2020, especially if one assumes more and more information will find its way into public view in the coming months.

With witnesses in the trial, the claims of exoneration by the president will find little credible resistance in the public. So with a nihilistic tip of the hat to the political spectacle that impeachment has turned into, but given the damning state of the record to date, on the question of witnesses, here is to hoping McConnell is successful in orchestrating a Senate whitewash.

Chris Gagin is an attorney and adviser to Republicans for the Rule of Law.

View post:

Why Senate Republicans should eagerly call witnesses to testify | TheHill - The Hill

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The Bahamian champion and liberal advocate of womens reproductive healthcare and Nassau Tribune columnist, Alicia Wallace, by calling for the decriminalisation of abortion, reminds the writer of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

According to Jewish conservative writer Arthur Goldberg, Sanger openly spoke of her desire to exterminate the Negro population via abortion.

Based on this troubling statement, it would appear that racism was the motivating factor in Planned Parenthoods attempts at population control within the African American community a phenomenon which has been called institutionalised racism by pro-life activists.

This can explain why 62 percent of Planned Parenthood abortion mills are within walking distance of African American neighbourhoods.

With the availability of such facilities in the US, nearly half of all pregnancies among black women end in abortion, compared to only 16 percent among white women, according to the Centres for Disease Control.

In New York, for every 1,000 live births there are 1,180 abortions among black women. And according to the liberal think tank the Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than five times as likely as white women to have an abortion.

Small wonder American clergyman Walter Hoye opined that African Americans will be an endangered species if this disturbing trend continues.

With an astounding 62 percent of African Americans supporting legal abortion, that racial demographic will continue playing the role of ethnic minority in the US in the foreseeable future.

As with our American counterparts, the issue of ethnicity will undoubtedly be a factor in The Bahamas if abortion is ever given the green light by lawmakers. Moreover, with an average of 100 murders committed in The Bahamas each year, legalised abortion would only reinforce the perception that ours is a culture of death.

Hiding behind the subterfuges of reproductive healthcare and socioeconomics, Wallace and other pro-choice activists are attempting to undermine our traditional moral values handed down to us by the Judeo-Christian worldview that teaches us that infanticide is wrong, by lobbying for legalised abortion in The Bahamas.

As it relates to human sexuality among Bahamians, Wallace seems to be unwittingly calling for the implementation of Friedrich Nietzsches nihilism.

This dangerous and irresponsible mindset gave Americans the sex revolution, Hustler, Penthouse, AIDS, and other STDS a testament of the abject failure of the kind of sex education Wallace is clamoring for to be taught to Bahamians.

Nihilism has also led to the deconstruction of the nuclear family, most especially within the African American community, where only 37 percent of black women have ever been married.

In the event Wallace gets her wish and abortion is legalised in The Bahamas, with a population of only 400,000, the ratio of Bahamians to Haitians, be they legal or illegal, will experienced a precipitous decline.

To be sure, Haitian women will not be lining up at the abortion mills to terminate the lives of their babies. Such a phenomenon would inevitably lead to the radical altering of the Bahamian social fabric, much like what has occurred in Sweden due to its reckless, free-for-all immigration policy. It will bring about the Haitianisation of The Bahamas. As an evangelical Christian who believes in the intrinsic value of the life of unborn babies, I utterly reject Wallaces irresponsible calls for the legalisation of abortions for convenience.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama

January 22, 2020.

Read more here:

Abortion brings Haitianisation of The Bahamas - Bahamas Tribune

As 24 million acres of Australia burned in record bushfires between September and January, Australian teens turned to TikTok. Chlo Hayden, a 22-year-old motivational speaker and YouTuber based in Victoria, had barely used the video-sharing app, but her peers were flooding it with their frustration with Prime Minister Scott Morrisons mishandling of the crisis and footage of the dense smoke as a way of raising awareness among a largely ignorant public.

Chlos video was a perfect encapsulation of the TikTok sensibility: She used a popular meme format to show the hypocrisy of the lack of media attention by comparing it to the immediate outpouring of financial support after the Notre Dame fire. It was equal parts funny and incisive, and ended up being viewed nearly 300,000 times.

I love that through the use of short comedy sketches, teens are getting a bigger point across than most lengthy, informative articles posted by some old bloke who we cant relate to in the slightest, she explains. Its both parts a coping mechanism and an incredible way to speak our minds where were all equal, and I genuinely dont think theres any other platform that you can do that in a similar way.

TikTok has, in its barely year and a half of existing, become the most effective way for a random person to spread a message to the widest possible audience in the shortest amount of time. It takes the best of Twitter (brevity, as videos can be a maximum of 60 seconds but most are much shorter) and YouTube (the ability to see someones face as theyre speaking to you) and adds the ability to go viral with virtually zero followers.

That the app is populated largely by teens also means that so much of what happens on it participates in a brand of ironic internet comedy that complicates the idea of serious news-sharing. TikTok videos on geopolitical events, from the Australian fires to the vague threat of World War III, can be viewed variously as awareness-spreading of underreported stories, coping mechanisms, exercises in nihilism, or goofy videos that no one should spend too much time analyzing.

Though its always tried to position itself as a joyful space for creating and viewing silly and inspiring content, TikTok has unintentionally become one of the best means of disseminating ideas on the internet. Its a power thats being used for better or for worse, and largely by minors.

TikTok was never supposed to be political. The app was expressly designed to discourage news-sharing its home feed is non-chronological, and there are no visible timestamps for when a video is posted, making it nearly impossible to understand what happened when. Political advertisements are not allowed, and until recently, TikTok had vague content guidelines that reportedly encouraged moderators to censor content sensitive to local governments. Its slogan is Make your day, presumably by distracting you from *gestures widely at everything*.

TikTok was never supposed to be political, but of course it was always going to be. During 2019s widespread climate strikes, TikTokers used jokes about e-girls to spread awareness about e-missions. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was revealed to have worn brownface, TikTok had fun brutally roasting him. In November, a New Jersey teen posted a viral TikTok discussing the Chinese mass internment of Muslims (and was subsequently locked out of her account). Another teen used the app to organize a strike in solidarity with her school districts teachers. When adults on TikTok mocked teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, there was a flood of comments with just one phrase, sparking one of the years biggest memes: ok boomer. US Democratic presidential candidates are on TikTok. Police officers, soldiers, and the Israel Defense Forces are on TikTok. Nazis and terrorists are, too.

Most importantly, millions of regular people are on TikTok, all of whom have at least some awareness of what happens in the world and who probably have opinions about it. In the first week of 2020, just a few days after memes about new year new me and leaving negativity in 2019 proliferated on the internet, the world seemed to explode: President Trump ordered the assassination of Quassem Soleimani, pushing the US and Iran to the brink of war. Puerto Rico was hit by a series of massive earthquakes, cutting off power for nearly a million people and access to clean water for hundreds of thousands. Bushfires, worsened by climate change, continued to rage across Australia, killing at least 28 people and an estimated 1 billion animals and destroying 2,000 homes. The most powerful man in the world faced an impeachment trial.

World War III seemed imminent, but on TikTok it was already raging. Me in the trenches doing my 10-step Korean skincare routine, read the caption on one video by 19-year-old Australian student Isaac Tuazon. Gays when we get drafted into WW3, read another in a video of TikToker Sir Carter voguing with Nerf guns. Me after getting my first kill in WW3, wrote one TikToker while doing a Fortnite dance.

I just thought the idea of bringing my entire skin care routine with me to the battlefield would be a little extra and would earn a few laughs, Tuazon tells me about his K-beauty WW3 TikTok. He likes the app because it gives him a chance to see average kids, no matter their country of origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, having fun and laughing together.

Its the same for Juana Isabelle Sarenas, an 18-year-old student in Hong Kong who recently posted a video about Cabin 6, the theoretical cabin where all the cool TikTok kids will end up when Trump is impeached and President Mike Pence sends queer teens to conversion-therapy summer camp.

The LGBT community there is huge, Sarenas says of TikTok. The jokes dont erase the tragic events if anything, they use the memes to bring light to them in a humorous way. I learned more about concentration camps and other horrifying current events from TikTok than I had any other platform.

Cabin 6 memes, in general, are a pretty joyous way to react to the reality that the US vice president once advocated for allocating federal dollars to conversion therapy groups instead of HIV/AIDS patients. As many of the memes reference, conservative boomers sending a bunch of queer kids to a summer camp together seems like a great way to encourage the very sexuality those people find so repugnant. We all know that if [Pence] tried to force people to go to camps, it would never be passed as a law, one 16-year-old told Mel Magazine. I just find it funny to joke about that like summer camp with the fellow gays.

Like the rest of the internet, as much as TikTok is a place for blas nihilism kids self-deprecating about how ugly they are, or begging for Harry Styles to run them over its also proved to be a great way of getting other people to listen. On TikTok, users dont have to follow anyone to see videos the app thinks they might like. As on Reddit, information can come from anywhere, as long as enough people favorite it. Thats how Gem Nwanne, a 24-year-old grad student, data analyst, and activist in New York, went viral after posting a video about the citys crackdown on subway fare evasion using the same meme format as Chlos.

Nwanne was used to the kind of discourse that takes place in activist and academic circles on Twitter and Instagram, with long threads and jargon-y paragraphs. Its a little difficult to engage on Twitter because if you ask the wrong question to the wrong person ... there will be a pile-on. Youll get kicked the shit kicked out of you, Nwanne says with a laugh. But with a platform like TikTok, its way more accessible. Im dancing. Its a joke. Its a lot easier to teach or to spread an idea when people are laughing.

The subway fare video helped Nwanne gain 10,000 followers in a month on TikTok, where they continue to post videos about race, queer identity, capitalism, and leftist politics. I think TikTok as a tool for education can be so revolutionary, and I would really love to see more people on my side of the political spectrum using it, moving away from these academic Twitter threads. Lets meet the people where they are.

Its much easier to see the humanity of someone whose ideas youre hearing when you can actually see them. The dominant TikTok aesthetic is a person in their own home, alone, speaking to the camera without knowing who will end up seeing their face on their screen. Its like YouTube one of the most effective platforms for sharing ideas, for better or for worse but TikToks take even less effort to produce.

Conversations are difficult to have on Twitter or Instagram because of how reactive everybody is on those apps, Nwanne says. Comments on a video about the Australian fires were like, folks asking questions and people answering them. On Twitter or Instagram theyd be like, How dare you ask the question? The communitys a lot chiller, and I do think its because theyre younger, and so they dont know to be pretentious douchebags yet.

I always compare TikTok to all of the rhymes and hand games that we played in middle school, says Sophie Dickinson, an associate editor at Know Your Meme who covers TikTok. The bushfires, other things that are happening now, its all the same jokes over and over and over again. It has to do with whatever the popular opinion is. It could be dangerous, but its also nice for kids to be coming together over something that might be very difficult and challenging to wrap their heads around.

It would be easy to make TikTok out to be a utopian Gen Z playground, where authenticity sells and love wins and the rest is mostly just dancing, but thats not the whole story. Nwanne, for instance, doesnt read their comments because they say the platform is often quite conservative like Facebook-lite. The #impeachment hashtag on TikTok seems to have nearly as many earnest Trump supporters as it does people poking fun at the president using a popular Camila Cabello song.

TikTok has some of the same political pitfalls as YouTube ironic memes and jokes can seduce people into believing harmful ideologies and its mysterious algorithm makes it such that the TikTok I see, the one with hilarious and well-meaning teens goofing off in their bedrooms, is not the same one that someone else sees. That certain songs and sounds, dances, and memes go hugely viral, and fast, also ends up with many people using those memes to spread false or extremist information. Nurse Holly, a nurse on TikTok with nearly 2 million followers, recently received major backlash when she used a popular song and video format to post a video that said the best way to prevent STDs was by waiting for sex until marriage. Even mostly harmless jokes about getting drafted for WW3 led at least some college kids to briefly panic over the idea of being forced to join the Army, even though the US hasnt had a draft since 1973.

Bad stuff has been happening in the world forever, and the internet has always been full of very funny and very sad people to make jokes out of it. TikTok is now a crucial part of that machine, one that can set the discourse in practically zero time. Whatever comes of it, Nwanne knows one thing is certain: Were gonna set some shit on fire on TikTok.

Sign up for The Goods newsletter. Twice a week, well send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.

Read the original here:

TikTok memes like WW3, impeachment, and Australian fires prove the platform is political - Vox.com