#Bill Rauch

[shakespearenews]

Rauch had been told that the three pinnacles of theatre as a popular art in the Western world were Greek tragedy, English Renaissance drama, and American musicals. As a senior, he founded his own theatre company, and mapped out a mashup of “Medea,” “Macbeth,” and “Cinderella”—one exemplar of each style—so that they could be performed simultaneously. It was a way of seeing what they had in common, and how theatre could return to its populist roots.

---

After that production was over, Rauch, Carey and their friends, calling themselves the Cornerstone Theater Company, drove to North Dakota, where they recruited locals to put on “Hamlet” in an old vaudeville theatre. At one point, Carey took over pouring drinks in a bar so that the owners could perform. The locals they recruited worried that Shakespeare’s language was too arcane, so the company modernized it, converting “arrant knave” to “downright prick,” for instance. (They ultimately changed that one: “downright prick,” they were told, was something “smart-ass college kids” would say. A rancher suggested “horse’s rear,” and that went into the script instead.)

---

Rauch stayed in L.A. for fifteen years. He left in 2007 to become the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the country’s oldest and largest repertory-theatre companies, in Ashland, a small town just north of the California border. Rauch promised to expand its repertoire to include non-Western classics and to diversify both the company and the staff. He also announced a project called American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle—thirty-seven new plays to be written by a diverse group of playwrights and loosely modelled on the scope of Shakespeare’s collected works. Within a decade, actors of color made up around seventy per cent of the company, and they were putting on adaptations of Indian, Chinese, and Latin American classics alongside their Shakespeare productions. Meanwhile, American Revolutions, overseen by Alison Carey, achieved wide renown.

[frontmezzjunkies]

"Cats - The Jellical Ball" at PAC NYC Death Drops Deliriously Divine and Feline-Free

#frontmezzjunkies reviews: #CatsTheJellicleBall at @pac_nyc #AndrewLloydWebber d: #ZhailonLevingston & #BillRauch ch: @omari_wiles & @arturo_thaengineer w/ @andre_deshields #SydneyJamesHarcourt #EmmaSofia #AntwaynHopper #JuniorLaBeija #GarnetWilliams

The cast of Cats – The Jellicle Ball at PAC NYC. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman. The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: PAC NYC’s Cats – The Jellicle Ball By Ross “This is a ball darling, emote!” and with the glitter dust blown off an iconic album, this Jellicle Ball reimaging eyes the runway in classic form, giving a nod to the old, but radically restructuring this new version of Andrew…

[mt-nynj-queer]

[watchingdiary]

the big bang theory

Type: Serial/Movie

Genre: Sitcom

Number of Season(s): 12

Running Years: 2007-2019

Creators: Chuck Lorre & Bill Prady

This show is insane. One of the best sitcoms out there. This is genius comedy. Nevertheless, I'd classify this show as an 'exclusive' show, in a sense that this show tends to be understood by certain groups of people. Those who understand academic settings, for example.

[chambergambit]

"A radical reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s iconic dance musical based on T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

Inspired by the Ballroom culture that roared out of New York City over 50 years ago and still rages on runways around the world. Staged as a spectacularly immersive competition by Zhailon Levingston (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Chicken & Biscuits) and PAC NYC Artistic Director Bill Rauch (All the Way), with all new Ballroom and club beats, runway ready choreography, and an edgy eleganza makeover that moves the action from junkyard to runway.  Come one, come all, and celebrate the joyous transformation of self at the heart of Cats and Ballroom culture itself."

ok ngl i'd see this

[drowninginredink]

I figured I should post the director's note from Cats: The Jellicle Ball. So here it is:

From the Co-Directors:

Welcome to the culminating production of PAC NYC's Inaugural Season!

With its glorious and beloved score, Cats is in its essence the story of a competitive ball, a ball in which the ultimate prize goes to the unlikeliest but most deserving competitor.

T. S. Eliot's language, often playful, is also full of shadows: the bittersweet longing for lost youth and beauty; the wisdom of elders passing the baton across generations; and the spiritual depth in knowing that, even though we are alone in our mortality, it is ultimately our communities that save us.

The idea for this production was born when we began to think about Andrew Lloyd Webber's iconic musical with T.S. Eliot's words through a queer lens.

The global phenomenon called Ballroom was created by Black and Brown communities here in New York City over 50 years ago, growing out of even older traditions of Harlem drag pageants. A safe haven for gay men and transgender women, the gender-fluid Ballroom community is often organized into "houses" in which "house mothers" and "house fathers" mentor their "children" to stylishly walk and dance on the runway (the "catwalk") in specific competitive categories. In the context of our production, "cat" is slang for any queer person or ally who is part of the Ballroom scene.

Both Cats and Ballroom celebrate transformation and self-acceptance, the power of choosing one's own name. And both this musical and the Ballroom scene remind us how essential it is that we respect the names—and the identities—that people choose for themselves. After all, all of us cats have nine lives...

There are so many generous and gifted Ballroom and musical theater artists who have given of their time and talent through multiple workshops to make this production a reality, including our extraordinary creative team and the musical theater titans and Ballroom icons who are part of today's performance. Our profound thanks to all of you. We also cannot overstate our gratitude to Andrew Lloyd Webber and his colleagues at The Really Useful Group for their bold leap of faith and their thoughtful collaboration throughout our production's journey.

On behalf of all of us who have worked on Cats: "The Jelicle Ball," we are so happy that you have come the ball!

-Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch

Photo:

[junkyard-gifs]

have you heard about this ballroom-style production happening in nyc this summer? i'm so intrigued!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6EnK7xuf8_/

Yes! It's been on my radar for a while though I don't think I've posted anything about it yet - at least, I haven't decided on a tag for the production.

Honestly, going by my usual tagging system it should probably be '2024 pac' or '2024 nyc' but. For these guys. I sort of want to name it after its most prominent attribute which is. '2024 ballroom' 😌

Anyway have a promo clip, from their official insta, and some random cast photos out of costume.

(We don't have a lot of costume photos yet but we do know that these Jellicles will be fully humans, not feline: they are people existing within the ballroom cultural milieu of the period and 'jellicle cats' is just the pride name they use for themselves and each other. So if you strongly prefer your cats as cats, this might not be the show for you—but it's certainly a show that speaks to somebody else!)

(Also I'm just really enjoying the flurry of excitement from former Jellicles in comments on this production's posts.)

Dudney Joseph: Munkustrap (Emcee) (he/him).

Dava Huesca: Rumpelteazer (she/her)

Jonathan Burke: Mungojerrie (he/him)

Andre Deshields: Deuteronomy

Sydney Harcourt: Rum Tum Tugger

Baby: Victoria

Choreographers Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles. (Obvs we're not going with Dame Gilly's choreo here.)

"A radical reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s iconic musical based on T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Inspired by the Ballroom culture that roared out of New York City over 50 years ago and still rages around the world. Staged as a spectacularly immersive competition by Zhailon Levingston (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Chicken & Biscuits) and PAC NYC Artistic Director Bill Rauch (All the Way), with all-new Ballroom and club beats, runway-ready choreography, and an edgy eleganza makeover that moves the action from junkyard to catwalk.  Come one, come all, and celebrate the joyous transformation of self at the heart of Cats and Ballroom culture itself." (X)

[bestmusicalworldcup]

The drag-ball reimagining of Cats (officially titled Cats: The Jellicle Ball) now has its full cast with the following newly announced cast members: Xavier Reyes as Jennyanydots, Bebe Nicole Simpson as Demeter, and Dava Huesca as Rumpleteazer, along with understudy Shelby Griswold.

Previously announced cast members from the world of ballroom include Baby as Victoria, Dudney Joseph Jr. as Munkustrap, Capital Kaos as DJ, Junior LaBeija as Gus, Robert "Silk" Mason as Mistoffelees, "Tempress" Chasity Moore as Grizabella, and Primo as Tumblebrutus, along with understudies Dominique Lee and Kendall G. Stroud.

Previously announced musical theatre and dance names in the company include Jonathan Burke as Mungojerrie, Emma Sofia Caymares as Skimbleshanks, André De Shields as Old Deuteronomy, Sydney James Harcourt as Rum Tum Tugger, Antwayn Hopper as Macavity, Shereen Pimentel as Jellylorum, Nora Schell as Bustopher Jones, Garnet Williams as Bombalurina, and Teddy Wilson Jr. as Sillabub. Rounding out the company will be ensemble members Tara Lashan Clinkscales and Frank Viveros.

The production is directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch.

Performances begin June 13 at the Perelman Performing Arts Center, with opening night set for June 20. Closing night is July 14.

[mariacallous]

On the always contentious subject of LGBT issues, both parties’ 2024 platforms are significant—one for what it contains, the other for what it omits.

The Democrats’ 2024 platform looks much like the 2020 version. Written before Vice President Harris replaced President Biden at the top of the ticket, and approved without significant revision, the 2024 document declares: “President Biden is committed to leading the most pro-equality administration in history.” It boasts that Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act (recognizing same-sex marriage in federal law), reversed former President Trump’s ban on military service by transgender Americans, pardoned service members who were punished by the military for their sexuality, ended the Food and Drug Administration’s ban on blood donations by gay and bisexual men, protected gender-affirming health care, and more.

Also as in 2020, the 2024 platform pledges to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would extend federal civil rights protections to LGBT people that has passed the House but stalled in the Senate; to protect the rights of LGBT adoptive and foster parents; to restrict so-called “conversion therapy” and expand mental health and suicide prevention efforts targeting LGBT people; and to fight “hate-fueled” violence.

Among the most controversial issues in the culture wars is the provision of “gender-affirming” medical treatment to minors, which U.S.-based pediatric medical associations say is medically necessary but which some countries in Europe have backed away from. Half the states, most of them Republican-led, have banned or restricted such procedures. The Democratic platform does not shy away from this issue, promising that “Democrats will vigorously oppose state and federal bans on gender-affirming health care and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors—not politicians—in making health care decisions.”

All in all, the platform extends and renews promises the party made to LGBT Americans in 2020—and, in doing so, consolidates the party’s repudiation of its checkered past on LGBT issues. Only a few years ago, the party handled LGBT issues cautiously and often, for LGBT advocates, disappointingly. President Bill Clinton signed the anti-gay-marriage Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and candidate Barack Obama opposed same-sex marriage in 2008. Today, on LGBT issues, there is little daylight between the Democratic Party and its progressive wing.

By comparison, the 2024 Republican platform has little to say on LGBT issues and that is, in itself, a significant change for the GOP. In fact, it devotes only a few sentences to the subject, and those are confined to the “T” (transgender) portion of the debate. It promises to “defund schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination using federal taxpayer dollars,” including “gender indoctrination”; it likewise promises to “end left-wing gender insanity” by keeping men out of women’s sports, banning taxpayer funding for sex change surgery, and stopping taxpayer-funded schools from promoting gender transition.

On “L,” “G,” and “B” issues (lesbian, gay, and bisexual), the platform keeps a silence that speaks volumes. The 2016 platform vigorously condemned same-sex marriage, promised to defend marriage “against an activist judiciary” and said, “Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” By contrast, here’s everything the 2024 platform has to say about marriage (the GOP skipped writing a platform in 2020): “Republicans will promote a culture that values the sanctity of marriage, the blessings of childhood, the foundational role of families, and supports working parents. We will end policies that punish families.” Nothing about or against same-sex marriage.

What’s the reason? The party follows Donald Trump; and he, while no friend of transgender Americans, has never been inclined to attack gays and lesbians, even though LGBT groups have vehemently criticized him. Less than a week after the 2016 election, he repudiated his party’s platform by telling an interviewer he had no problem with same-sex marriage. More recently, in 2024, Melania Trump held two fundraisers for the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT Republican group. In the pre-Trump era, those actions would have brought a rain of brickbats down upon a Republican presidential candidate.

Charles Moran, the Log Cabin Republicans’ president, may have overstated the case when he said, “This platform is welcoming, it’s inclusive, this is the most radical and revolutionary way to make the Republican Party competitive in many years.” But he was not off the mark. Although the culture war over gender identity continues, the GOP has waved the white flag on marriage. It is a sign of Trump’s transformational influence on the GOP that today, on the most controversial LGBT issue of the past 50 years, his Republicans stand to the left of Barack Obama’s 2008 Democrats.

I think this is overly generous to the GOP, tbh, and I don't know that I agree with some of the framing, but I appreciate the accuracy about the Democrats and the Biden-Harris Administration.

[cryptidvoidwritings]

Full text below.

A D.J. pawing through a carton of old LPs — Natalie Cole, Angela Bofill — comes upon a curiosity: the original cast album of “Cats.” When he opens the gatefold, glittery spangles fly everywhere.

That’s how “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” begins, and it’s basically what the Perelman Performing Arts Center’s drag remake of the Broadway behemoth does to the drab original. It sets the joy free.

Whether upper- or lowercase, cats never previously offered me much pleasure. The underlying T.S. Eliot poems, ad libbed for his godchildren, are agreeable piffle, hardly up there with “Prufrock” as fodder for the ages. The musical, instead of honoring the material’s delicacy, stomped all over it, leaving heavy mud prints. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s score, and especially the rigged-up story and original staging by Trevor Nunn, tried so hard to make big statements from little ditties and kitties that it wound up a perfect example of camp.

Camp, cleverly, is the new version’s base line, neutralizing that criticism. It turns out that the show once advertised vaguely (and threateningly) as “now and forever” — it ran on Broadway from 1982 to 2000 — works far better in a specific past.

That past is the world of drag balls, which at the time of the original “Cats” was beginning to achieve mainstream awareness. Madonna’s appropriation of the participants’ style and dance moves in her videos and concerts, as well as Jennie Livingston’s celebration of them in her documentary “Paris Is Burning,” helped pave the way for the supremacy of RuPaul and dragmania today. But beneath that triumph lay a darker truth: that the thrill of ball culture depended on its drawing extravagance from destitution, meeting prejudice with bravery, and staring down death with style.

The key insight of this “Jellicle Ball,” which opened on Thursday at the new downtown arts cube, is that at least some of those themes could resonate with Eliot’s subtext and Lloyd Webber’s score. The directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch have thus transported Grizabella, Skimbleshanks, Rum Tum Tugger and the rest from a metaphysical junkyard to a hotel ballroom for a vogueing competition, accompanied by new versions of the songs that go heavier on the synthesizers, turn some lyrics into raps and add a distinctive house beat.

It’s often a good fit. The former felines — now fantastically attired humans — compete in traditional categories, like Opulence and Hair Affair, that are to some degree matched to Eliot’s descriptions. The song “Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer,” for instance, pits those two “knockabout clowns” against the pairing of the balletic Victoria and the acrobatic Tumblebrutus in a showdown called Tag Team Performance.

Not that it is any easier to keep the cats straight just because they’re queer. The structure of the show doesn’t allow it. Hemmed in by the Eliot estate, Nunn could not add dialogue, making it difficult to flesh out any characters or encourage specific emotional investment. His solution was a bizarre framing device with late-1970s woo-woo overtones: The clan meets each year on the evening of the Jellicle moon so that their leader, Old Deuteronomy, can choose one lucky cat to ascend to the Heaviside Layer and be reborn.

That silliness didn’t help much. It remained difficult to keep Jellylorum and Sillabub apart or care about either. In revivals like the one on Broadway in 2016, let alone the dreadful 2019 movie, the material seemed fatally ludicrous.

And if “Jellicle Ball” doesn’t quite solve that problem, it succeeds in making it mostly irrelevant. The new frame allows you to feel something for the characters, at least as a group, even when you don’t know what’s going on, which is often. The design of the long, narrow room, with the audience surrounding a runway on three sides, is awkward in the way one imagines the balls were: You can’t see everything, you’re constantly craning, the sound (by Kai Harada) is blurry and some fuss or hilarity is always happening somewhere you missed.

Even so, we recognize Rum Tum Tugger (Sydney James Harcourt) far better now that he competes in the Realness and Body competitions. (He’s a smooth playah.) Gus, the theater cat, is a more instantly recognizable type as performed by Junior LaBeija, the M.C. of the “Paris Is Burning” ball, as a catty old queen who, though “no longer a terror” can still throw ample shade. And it takes little more than the arrival of André De Shields, with his unsurpassed ability to freeze attention onstage, to show us that Old Deuteronomy is a Moses.

It helps, too, that he’s given a glowing Ten Commandments-like set of tablets, and that he’s dressed (by Qween Jean) in royal purple topped by a gigantic matching lion’s mane (by Nikiya Mathis). Indeed, the wonderfully over-the-top design of the show is as important as the concept itself in filling out the vast blanks of the characters as written. Enjoyable as that is in itself, the chief benefit of the physical staging (on sets by Rachel Hauck, with lighting by Adam Honoré and projections by Brittany Bland) is that it grounds the performative mayhem on the runway in a real environment that suggests the struggles of real lives.

Among other things, this rescues the nominal star role, Grizabella, from bathos. A faded “glamour cat” seeking the reincarnation nod, she has no other function in the original story, not even suspense. (We know she’s going to be chosen because she keeps popping up to sing fragments of “Memory.”) But here, in smeary makeup, a ratty fur and carrying a tarnished old trophy, scrambling about the outskirts of the action, we see at a glance the pain of an outsider now exiled from the place she’d once been safe. Especially as played by Chasity Moore, known in the ball world as Tempress, that pain feels authentic.

That is not something that ever occurred to me in watching the old-school “Cats.” At best the Broadway show felt like a stoned oratorio about nothing, with a dog’s breakfast of song styles including ear-wormy music hall, grating electronica and the occasional Gilbert and Sullivan chorale. (The choral singing here, under the direction of William Waldrop, is gorgeous.) Likewise, the original choreography, by the Royal Ballet star Gillian Lynne, seemed totally random despite its supposedly catlike footwork. The athletic vogueing created for this production by Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles, sometimes blended with throwbacks to Lynne’s classical style, is instead perfectly tailored to its milieu, and thrilling besides.

I should say at this point that, no, I haven’t turned into a fan of the show itself, the one you can see at your community theater or license for your high school. I don’t believe musicals should need whisker consultants. But as happens occasionally, the right idea can transform the wrong material. If “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” has managed a Grizabella turn, reincarnating itself in fabulousness, do not expect an 18-year run or, pardon me, copycat productions. It’s a lightning strike: not now and forever but now and once.

(Honestly, I'd respect this guy more if he came out and said 'I'm taking money to pretend to review the new show but actually am just regurgitating 40 years of The Smart, Cultured Critics Hate CATS.')

[morethanonepage]

i know it's easy to be cynical about Cats (and most people agree ALW is like. an awful person), but I saw this re-staging of the show a couple of weeks ago and loved it so much i cried:

Levingston and Rauch’s melding of “Cats” and the queer ballroom scene is so effortless that it seems to have required only the slightest alterations. The synthesizer groove has been juiced up with some new club beats by Trevor Holder, the directors have added a plotlet about the naughty thief Macavity (Antwayn Hopper) getting rumbled by the cops, and the entire number “Growltiger’s Last Stand,” in which the titular tom hates “cats of foreign name and race,” has been tastefully deleted. The true difference, though, lies in the piece’s shift from commercialized kitsch to camp sincerity. The performers here—among them the magnificent dancer Robert (Silk) Mason as Mistoffelees, with Cher hair swinging long, and the ultra-charismatic Hopper as Macavity, who can control the room just by dropping his hat—appear to be dancing for the love of it, and for one another. As the show goes on, a more mysterious literary synchrony emerges: how wonderful that Eliot, in 1939, placed such an emphasis on the power of names known only to those who understand you, and on a thriving community’s reverence for its elders.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Jon Haidt and Zach Rausch

Published: May 15, 2023

When parents are asked to identify their top fears about the safety of their children, what do you think tops the list? According to a survey last year by Safehome.org, it’s not cars, strangers, or any other physical threat; it’s “internet/social media.” That’s not just for parents of teenagers and pre-teens, whose lives seem to revolve around their phones. It’s even true for parents of younger kids, ages 7-9 because every parent sees it coming and few know what to do about it. Parents don’t want their children to disappear into phones, as so many of their friends' children have; some resolve to wait until 8th grade, or later. Then their child hits them with the main argument that makes parents buckle: “But everyone else has a phone, so I’m being left out.”

For parents who resisted, or who plan to resist, a new report may encourage many more parents to join you: Sapien Labs, which runs an ongoing global survey of mental health with nearly a million participants so far, released a “Rapid Report” today on a question they added in January asking young adults (those between ages 18 and 24): “At what age did you get your own smartphone or tablet (e.g. iPad) with Internet access that you could carry with you?”  When they plot the age of first smartphone on the X axis against their extensive set of questions about mental health on the Y axis, they find a consistent pattern: the younger the age of getting the first smartphone, the worse the mental health that the young adult reports today. This is true in all the regions studied (the survey is offered in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili), and the relationships are consistently stronger for women.

We believe these findings have important implications for parents, heads of K-12 schools, and legislators currently considering bills to raise minimum ages or require age verification for some kinds of sites (especially social media and pornography). We’ll address those implications at the end of this post. But first: what did Sapien Labs do, and what did they find?

1. The Sapien Labs Study

Sapien Labs is a non-profit research foundation with the goal of understanding how the rapidly changing social and technological environment is changing human brains and minds. Their main research project has been the Global Mind Project, an ongoing program that tracks mental well-being around the world using a comprehensive assessment of mental health along with questions about demographics and various cultural, technological, and lifestyle factors. They have issued a variety of reports on the state of mental health around the world. Among their most important findings is that in all the regions they’ve studied, mental health is worst for the youngest generations.

It didn’t used to be this way. There is a well-known finding in happiness research that, across nearly all nations, happiness or well-being forms a U-shaped curve across the lifespan (See Rauch, 2018). Young adults and people in their 60s and 70s are happier than those in middle age. But that may be changing, especially for women, as Gen Z (born in and after 1996) enters young adulthood. You can see the sudden collapse of young adult mental health in some of our previous posts on this Substack. For example, Figure 1 shows that up until 2011, young Canadian women were the most likely to report having excellent or very good mental health. By 2015 they were the least likely, and the decline in their self-reported mental health accelerated after that, while it changed very little for older women. (The same pattern holds for Canadian men, but to a lesser degree.)

[ Figure 1. Percent of Canadian women reporting excellent or very good mental health, by age group. Canadian Community Health Survey (2003-2019). Graphed by Zach Rausch. ]

Why would this be? What changed in the early 2010s that could have rapidly reduced the mental health of teens around the world, with a bigger impact on girls? At the After Babel Substack, we have argued that the sudden switch of teen social life from flip phones (which are designed for communication) to smartphones (which enabled continuous access to social media and much higher levels of phone addiction), is the major cause, though not the only one. There are unique factors at work in each country, but we know of no alternative that can explain the synchronized, gendered, and global decline in teen mental health. 

At Sapien Labs, they decided to test the smartphone hypothesis by adding a question about the age at which people got their first smartphone (or tablet). Is it just a coincidence that the first global generation to grow up on smartphones became the first global generation to have lower well-being than the one before them? 

Sapien Labs uses a comprehensive assessment of mental well-being that asks participants about 47 elements of mental, social, and emotional functioning on a life impact scale. These 47 elements are aggregated into a single score called the Mental Health Quotient (MHQ), which gives extra weight to patterns that indicate severe problems. It also uses subsets of these 47 elements to create scores along six domains: Mood & Outlook, Social Self, Adaptability & Resilience, Drive & Motivation, Cognition, and Mind-Body Connection. 

(You can take the MHQ yourself and you can request access to the full dataset. For scoring and validation of the MHQ, see Newson, Pastukh, & Thiagarajan, 2022, and see this blog post that offers a clear explanation of how the MHQ is scored, and why.) 

Figure 2 shows the most basic result in the report: they simply plotted the responses from the nearly 28,000 participants who answered the “first phone” question, from all countries combined. 

[ Figure 2. As age of first smartphone goes up, so does the mental health reported by young adults, assessed by the MHQ. Data from SapienLabs.org. ]

MHQ scores are calculated from responses to the 47 questions and converted to a scale that runs from -100 to 200, as shown here: 

As you can see, the respondents who got their first smartphone before they were 10 years old are doing worse, on average, than those who didn’t get one until they were in their teens. The most mentally healthy respondents are those who did not get a phone until their late teens.1 You can also see that the slope is steeper for young women than for young men. The Gen Z women who got their first smartphone before they were 9 years old are in negative territory, on average.

The power and unique contribution of the Sapien Labs dataset come from two features of their work: First, they use a far more detailed measure of mental health than is used in most other large surveys. The second important feature is their international coverage. So, let’s zoom in and explore the six domain scores that make up the MHQ, first for the global sample, and then for the region and culture we know best: the Anglosphere.

2. Domains of Functioning

As you’ll see if you read the full report, the next step after examining the overall MHQ scores is to examine scores on the six domains of mental functioning:

Mood & Outlook: Includes items about optimism, calmness, anxiety, mood swings, sadness, and anger. 

Social Self: Includes items about self-worth, relationships with others, empathy, cooperation, aggression toward others 

Adaptability & Resilience: includes items about adaptability to change, ability to learn, and emotional resilience.  

Drive & Motivation: Includes items about motivation, curiosity, enthusiasm, and addictions.

Cognition: Includes items about memory, decision-making and risk-taking, focus, and concentration, unwanted thoughts, hallucinations

Mind-Body Connection: Includes items about sleep quality, energy level, appetite, and physical health issues. 

Figure 3 shows that for young women, all six domain scores show the same basic pattern as the MHQ: a consistent rise. You can also see that a few of the domains seem to rise more slowly or level off somewhat after the age of 13 or 14: Drive and motivation, Mind-body connection, and Cognition. However, the other three dimensions continue to rise all the way to age 18. The domain that rises fastest, meaning that it is most highly correlated with age of first smartphone, is the “social self” domain. 

[ Figure 3: The 6 domains of well-being, for young women, as a function of when they got their first smartphone. From SapienLabs.org. ]

Figure 4 shows the same analysis for young men. The pattern is similar, with two important exceptions. First, the slopes are substantially lower, meaning that the mental health and well-being of young men are not as strongly related to the age at which they got their first smartphone as it is for their sisters, although it is still related. (All of the significance tests and effect sizes can be found in supplementary materials posted in this Google Drive link.2) The second difference is that all of the lines are higher for boys, meaning that boys are doing better than girls at all ages (at least, according to their self-reports). The one exception is that the line for Adaptability & Resilience reaches the same level for both sexes by age 18. Given the steeper slopes of all six lines for girls, this means that sex differences in adult mental health are larger among those who got a smartphone earlier.

[ Figure 4: The 6 domains of well-being, for young men, as a function of when they got their first smartphone. From SapienLabs.org. ]

One major issue in analyzing an international dataset is that there are just so many differences between countries, regions, and religions that there are many opportunities for confounding variables to lead us astray. For example, in the Sapien Labs dataset, in the less wealthy countries such as India, few young adults had received a smartphone before the age of 10, which means that the data points on the left sides of the graphs contain almost no Indians, whereas the data points on the right side (no phone until 17 or 18) contain many Indians and fewer from the USA. If Indians are mentally healthier than Americans (for other reasons), this could cause the lines to slope even if smartphones had no effect on mental health. It is important, therefore, to look at individual countries and regions. (The Sapien Labs report does this in its appendix, where you can see that the trends hold for each of the world regions). 

The region that we (Jon and Zach) know best and have written on extensively is the Anglosphere (the English-speaking countries of The United States, Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and sometimes Ireland). We, therefore, decided to examine what Sapien Labs had found about those countries and compare it to what we have found. 

3. Zooming in on the Anglosphere

At the After Babel Substack, we have been documenting the patterns of rising mental illness among teens around the world, and, like Sapien Labs, we have found that the sudden decline of teenage mental health is an international phenomenon. Our research so far indicates that the increases in mental illness in the 2010s were slightly larger in the Anglosphere than in any other region we’ve examined. Figure 4 shows the large and sudden rise in self-harm rates among teens, particularly girls, in four of these nations (you can see much more in Zach’s initial report on the Anglosphere).

[ Figure 5. Since 2010, rates of self-harm episodes have increased for teens in the  Anglosphere countries. For data on Australia and for all sources, see Rausch and Haidt (2023). ]

In every Anglosphere country, the mental health of teens declined sharply around the same time (~2012) and in the same way (depression, anxiety, and self-harm, with bigger increases for girls). We have also found that the five Nordic nations show similar trends, particularly when examining changing rates of depression and anxiety (though not always for self harm). 

The Sapien Labs study began in 2019 so it cannot show us trends since 2010, but it can show us how young adults are doing today, and it can link variations in mental health today to variations in age of first smartphone. We wanted to get more familiar with the data and examine these links for ourselves, so we downloaded the full dataset as it was available on their Brainbase site on May 13, 2023, which was just about 2 weeks later than the dataset used in the Sapien Lab report. Our dataset contains 1,798 more participants, for a total of 29,767. The number of participants from the six anglosphere countries was much smaller: 1,465 (823 females, 584 males). By country: 682 in the USA, 297 in the UK, 224 in Canada, 239 in Australia, 10 in New Zealand, and 13 in Ireland.

We cleaned and organized our dataset in the same way as the team at Sapien Labs, with a small modification to account for our much smaller sample size. To reduce the jerkiness of the graph lines when we drop down to lower numbers of respondents for each point, we grouped participants into 2-year buckets (or three years, for our youngest bucket, 5-83). Figure 5 shows that the MHQ scores of Anglosphere boys and girls show patterns very similar to those reported in Figure 1 by Sapien Labs for the full 28,000-person international sample: The later the age of smartphone acquisition, the better the mental health. At least, that is true for the girls, all the way up to 18. For Anglosphere boys, there is a leveling off after the 11-12 mark. Delays beyond age 12 do not seem to be related to further increases in MHQ scores.4 

[ Figure 6. Anglosphere countries only: As age of first smartphone goes up, so does the mental health reported by young adults, especially for women. Data from SapienLabs.org, graphed by Zach Rausch. ]

We also plotted the six MHQ domain scores and found similar results. For females, all six dimensions of mental well-being improve as the age of smartphone acquisition increases.5 The effects are particularly strong for the “social self” and “mood and outlook”, which correspond well to the rise of internalizing disorders (depression and anxiety), which Zach has shown is rising within every Anglosphere nation. 

[ Figure 7. Anglosphere countries only: female MHQ dimension scores. Well-being on all 6 dimensions increases as age of smartphone acquisition increases.  ]

The trends for boys are similar to girls, though the effects are smaller and there is more fluctuation.6 Figure 8 shows that at the youngest ages, increasing age corresponds with improvements in each of the six dimensions. However, for boys, improvements tend to level off after age 12.

[ Figure 8. Anglosphere countries only: male MHQ dimension scores. Changes are smaller and more varied compared to females.  ]

4. Limitations

It’s important to note that the report from Sapien Labs is one of their “rapid reports” made possible by their fast-growing number of participants and the easy access they offer to their data. They added the question about age of first smartphone in January and they are publishing a report, with data from nearly 28,000 participants, in May. We believe that this ability to move quickly is a public service during a global pandemic of teen mental illness. While their rapid report is not a standard academic publication and has not been through peer review (which often takes a year or more), the open access to the data has allowed us to investigate and confirm the trends they are reporting. We hope and expect that other researchers will download the dataset and offer critiques of the data, the analyses, and the conclusions drawn. This sort of “post-publication peer review” is becoming increasingly common as the problems with the existing peer review system become more widely known.

One issue to keep in mind with the Sapien Labs dataset is that the participants in each country are not a random or representative sample of the people in that country. Such studies would be extremely expensive to run, and now that so few people agree to phone solicitations or even answer their phones, it is unclear how representative such surveys can be. Those who agree to be interviewed, or who are motivated by money to participate, are not representative of the broader population. For this Sapien Labs report, participants came to the site on their own, or from online advertisements paid for by Sapien Labs, for the purpose of getting a detailed report on their wellbeing. So, the means reported for any country should not be treated like direct measures of the true means. However, samples such as these are still very useful for examining differences within the sample, such as those between men and women, or between those who got a smartphone early and those who got one late. And the much larger size of the Sapien Labs dataset, compared to Gallup and other survey organizations, allows for many additional analyses. 

A second factor to keep in mind is that like all surveys, what we get is correlational data that is open to alternative interpretations. The graphs in the report are likely to suggest to most readers that getting a smartphone early causes later mental health problems. But with correlational data we must always consider the possibility that the causal arrow could run in reverse. In this case: having low well-being as a young adult could cause people to believe that they got a smartphone earlier than they did, but this seems unlikely. We must also always consider that there could be “third variables” that cause both of the first two variables to rise. In this case, one plausible confounding third variable is permissive parenting. Perhaps permissive parents (in each country) simultaneously do two things: they give their kids smartphones at very young ages, and they also give them few boundaries and little structure, which then interferes with development and produces struggling young adults. While this hypothesis is plausible and should be investigated, it is not clear how it would explain the fact that, in all the regions studied, it is the girls who show a tighter connection between early phone acquisition and later mental health problems, just as it is the girls who show a tighter connection between heavy social media use and concurrent mental health problems. Nor would it explain why mental health dropped so rapidly in the early 2010s (especially for girls) if permissive parenting (or some other variable about family life) was the real culprit.

And finally, we note that no one study is definitive, and more research is needed. We have been able to find a few other studies that examined the age at which children got their first smartphones (We have created a new appendix [8.14] in our collaborative review doc on Social Media and Mental Health). So far they are mostly smaller studies that have produced mixed results. If you know of any others, please add them to the doc or put a link to them in the comments below. We want to get this right.

5. Implications

We cannot be certain that the correlations shown in the data are evidence of causality, but we think it is appropriate for those who care for children to act on the preponderance of the evidence (which is the standard in a civil trial) rather than waiting for evidence beyond a reasonable doubt (which is the standard used in a criminal trial. See proposition 2 in this post.) There is increasing evidence that smartphones have a variety of detrimental effects on child development including reductions of sleep, focus, and time with friends in person, along with increases in addictive behaviors, so it makes sense that the cumulative effect of getting one’s first phone in elementary school would be larger than for those who don’t get a phone until high school. This is an important point made in the Sapien Labs report: The relationships they find suggest that there is a cumulative effect of having had a smartphone (and its many apps) over many years of childhood; they do not represent the effects of having used a phone a lot in recent days or weeks (which is the focus of most of the published research).

We think the implications for action are strongest for policies related to children and younger teens––those still in elementary and middle school (that is, age 14 and below) In most of the graphs in this post, including those for the Anglosphere, the slopes of the lines are steepest for those ages, and the links are visible for boys as well as girls (though smaller for boys). This concern to protect children before and during early puberty is consistent with a study published last year which found that in a large longitudinal study of British adolescents, the peak years for evidence of links between social media use and lower satisfaction with life were 11-13 for girls (which corresponds to the early part of puberty), while for boys (who begin puberty a bit later) it was 14-15.

On the other hand, the implications for action related to older teens and especially boys are less clear, at least within the United States and other Anglosphere nations. The lines for boys are somewhat flat in those ages, and the increases for girls generally slow down too. Furthermore, the arguments for why high school students need a smartphone (rather than an alternative, such as a flip-phone) are stronger than the arguments for why elementary and middle school students need one. 

We, therefore, believe that the Sapien Labs findings should motivate us to think carefully about whether and when to give children their own smart devices, especially before high school. It is not the Internet per se that is harmful; so much of the internet is fantastically educational, useful, and entertaining. The most relevant questions, we think, are: 1) At what age do you want to give a child continuous access to the internet and social media, even when away from home, even when sitting in class? 2) At what age do you want to give social media companies, and other companies, continuous access to a child’s attention? And 3) does a child really need a smartphone when other kinds of phones (such as “flip phones” or Light Phones) work just as well for general communication (phone calls and texting)?

Implications for Parents

The group Wait Until 8th was founded to solve the collective action problem that parents and teens are in: Even if most parents wanted to wait until high school to give their children smartphones and social media, as long as most kids have those things by 6th grade, there will be enormous pressure on their children, and hence on the parents, to relent. Unless the parents can coordinate. So Wait Until 8th asks parents to sign a pledge, when their children are in elementary school, that they will wait until 8th grade to give them a smartphone. The pledge only takes effect once ten families in that child’s grade have signed the pledge so that the child will have a community of peers and will not feel so isolated before 8th grade.

We think this is a great idea, we just suggest that the pledge should be: Wait Until 9th. Or Wait Until High School. Children are usually 12 or 13 at the start of 8th grade; that is still within the period of early puberty. Plus, if 8th graders have smartphones, that means that smartphones will be everywhere in middle schools, increasing the desire of 7th graders to get them. To solve collective action problems, we think it’s best to focus on setting good norms within collectives (such as schools): make elementary schools and middle schools be smartphone free. 

Parents understandably want to be able to reach their children when they are away from home, and a flip phone or other “dumbphone” is a very reasonable first phone that allows parents and children to reach each other. We suggest that parents not give smartphones as first phones. Let children learn to master a simpler kind of phone, one that cannot be loaded with addictive apps. Wait Until 8th offers an excellent list of the many smartphone alternatives.

Implications for Schools

Many of the teachers and heads of schools that Jon talks to are bitter about the effects of smartphones on their students and their school culture. They complain about the constant drama unfolding on social media during the school day. They complain about the distraction and the increased difficulty of getting students’ attention during class, since many students sneak looks at their frequently-buzzing phones, especially those sitting in the back rows. Many schools say that they ban phones, but what they often seem to mean is “the rule is that you can’t take out your phone during class.” That means that some students (the ones most suffering from phone addiction) will learn to do it stealthily, and many of the rest will just pull out their phones as soon as class is over, thereby missing out on face-to-face interactions with the students right next to them. 

We suggest that schools consider going phone free, meaning that students can use their phones to arrive and depart from school, but once they enter, their phones (smart or dumb) would be placed in a phone locker, or in a lockable pouch. We think the case for doing this in elementary schools and middle schools is strongest. In a few weeks, Jon will write a substack post laying out the empirical evidence that smartphones distract students and disrupt education, even when they are kept in students’ pockets.

We also suggest that school districts collaborate with social scientists to do experiments on entire schools, rather than on individual students. What if a state or district identified 20 middle schools that were willing to cooperate, and then randomly assigned half of them to go phone free?  There is no research of this kind that we can find, yet such a simple study would give us results within a single year that could potentially yield findings that improve both mental health and educational outcomes. 

Implications for Legislatures

If there is a cumulative effect of smartphone ownership in childhood, and if the effect is due in part to heavy use of certain kinds of apps (such as social media) rather than other kinds of apps (such as watching movies, or using Wikipedia), then it becomes even more vital that we develop ways of age-gating certain apps and content. At present, US law sets a minimum age of 13 at which children can sign contracts with companies to give away their data (when they check a box on the terms of service). But the law was written such that the companies are not required to verify ages. As long as a child says that she is 13 or older, she’s in and can create a social media account. 

This must change. If the minimum age were enforced, it would help parents solve their collective action problem, at least with regard to Instagram, Tiktok, and other social media sites for underage users. It is precisely Congress’s failure to enforce the age 13 rule that puts parents in the trap. Many states are now introducing legislation to remedy this omission. And there is one federal bill that does a particularly good job of focusing on age limits and age verification: The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, introduced by Senators Schatz (D-HI), Cotton (R-AR), Murphy (D-CT), and Britt (R-AL). The act would “set a minimum age of 13 to use social media apps and would require parental consent for 13 through 17 year-olds.  The bill would also prevent social media companies from feeding content using algorithms to users under the age of 18.” The bill also requires social media companies to develop rigorous age verification methods. (There are already many in existence, and many more would appear if the bill gets passed.) We also think the Kids Online Safety Act of 2022, introduced by senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Blackburn (R-TN) would do a lot to make social media less damaging to children, and easier for parents to control. The fact that so many bills are bipartisan, at both the state and federal level, is a very encouraging sign in our polarized time. Legislators often report seeing the problems in their own children.

In conclusion: there is a great deal that can be done, individually and collectively, to address one of the top fears that parents express, about the safety and health of their children. The Sapien Labs data offers us new insight into the nature of the problem, and it alerts us that the problem may be global. It also guides us to the ages at which reform efforts are most likely to work.

--

POSTSCRIPTS (added on May 18, 2023)

1—We welcome additional and deeper analyses of the Sapien Labs data, and will post links here to such reports whether they support or contradict our analyses in this post.

2—One issue we should have discussed in the text is the inclusion of tablets, along with smartphones, in the Sapien Labs’ questionnaire. If their findings differ from those of other labs which asked only about age of first smartphone, then we won’t know whether part of the difference is the inclusion of tablets. We hope that future studies will ask about the two devices separately to figure out which devices are associated with harm at which ages (if any).

3—Some commentary online has made the important point that it’s not the phone itself which is harmful; it is the particular apps that the child uses, a child with a particular personality, in the context of a particular family that does (or does not) exercise oversight and apply restrictions. We agree. The original iPhone introduced by Steve Jobs was three devices: a phone, an iPod, and a web browser. Great! Three tools. Probably not harmful. It’s the addition of the app store that turned the smartphone into a portal to everything. If early acquisition of a smartphone is shown to be reliably associated with developmental problems, it would likely be because it enables continuous 18-hour-per-day access to hundreds of activities.

[disneytva]

Disney Branded Television Presents Cheerful Holiday Programming for Kids and Families With Disney Channel Fa La La La Lidays and Disney Junior Cheerful Holidays.

Disney Branded Television, the leader in kids and family entertainment content, will present an abundance of cheerful and festive programming for the whole family to enjoy throughout the holiday season.

Beginning FRIDAY, NOV. 25, through MONDAY, JAN. 2, Disney Channel’s Fa-la-la-lidays and Disney Junior’s Magical Holidays will serve as the hub for Disney Branded Television’s holiday-themed content, including the brand-new special “Mickey Saves Christmas” and holiday-themed episodes of “Big City Greens,” “Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends,” “Puppy Dog Pals,” “Alice’s Wonderland Bakery,” “Eureka!” and new hit series “Firebuds,” which will include both a Hanukkah and Christmas story in its 22-minute holiday episode.

Also included as part of Disney Channel’s Fa-la-la-lidays programming event are holiday-themed episodes of hit series, including the following:

Big City Greens “Virtually Christmas”

Saturday, Dec. 3, at 9:00 a.m. EST on Disney Channel

In this half-hour special, when Cricket gets snowed in at the Remingtons’ on Christmas Eve, he attempts to recreate his family’s Christmas Eve traditions in a virtual reality video game. Alfonso Ribeiro (“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”) guest stars as a virtual reality video game character, Mr. Extras.

For preschoolers, parents and caregivers, special holiday-themed episodes of favorite Disney Junior series are premiering all season long as part of Disney Junior’s Magical Holidays, including the following:

Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends

“Halted Holiday/Merry Spidey Christmas” Friday, Nov. 11, at 8:30 a.m. EST on Disney Channel

“Halted Holiday” – When all roads to the city are blocked on Thanksgiving, Team Spidey works to clear up the traffic. Scott Porter (“Friday Night Lights”) guest stars as Gwen’s dad, George Stacy“Merry Spidey Christmas” – Team Spidey uses their Glow Webs to save Christmas after baddies try to ruin it. Featuring the new original song “Merry Spidey Christmas,” written and performed by series’ songwriter/composer Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy).

Puppy Dog Pals “Wrap Party Pups/Fixing Santa’s Sleigh”

Thursday, Dec. 1, at 7:00 p.m. EST on Disney Junior

“Wrap Party Pubs” – The pets go on a mission to find Grace’s gift before she needs to swap presents.“Fixing Santa’s Sleigh” – When Santa’s sleigh breaks down mid-delivery, the pets make it their mission to fix it

Firebuds “Hanukkah Hullabaloo/The Christmas Car-Sled Race”

Monday, Nov. 28, at 7:00 p.m. EST on Disney Channel

“Hanukkah Hullabaloo” – Bo gets carried away decorating his house for Hanukkah.“The Christmas Car-Sled Race” – Bo enters a car-sled race to try to win his dad a Christmas present. Melissa Rauch (“The Big Bang Theory”) and Lou Diamond Phillips (“Elena of Avalor”) recur as Bo’s mom and dad, Beth and Bill Bayani, respectively.

Alice’s Wonderland Bakery “The Gingerbread Palace”

Tuesday, Nov. 29, at 7:00 p.m. EST on Disney Junior Friday, Dec. 2, at 7:00 a.m. EST on Disney Channel Alice and her friends build a gingerbread palace to host a Christmas dinner for all of Wonderland.

Eureka! “Jingle Bog Rock”

Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 7:00 p.m. EST on Disney Junior

Eureka invites Bog to perform with her band at Winterfest when she invents a new instrument that only he is able to play.

[thequietabsolute]

Top Artists — Medium Term (6 months)

Felbm

Radiohead

Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Kate Bush

Nick Drake

Midlake

Paul Simon

Simon & Garfunkel

Slowdive

Boards of Canada

Canary Room

The Beatles

Fionn Regan

Beach House

Leonard Cohen

hemlock

Vashti Bunyan

Clara Mann

Bob Dylan

The Smiths

ABBA

Grouper

David Bowie

The Clientele

Jessica Pratt

Olovson

Bill Callahan

Laura Marling

Rachel Grimes

Chet Baker

Belle and Sebastian

Sibylle Baier

Aldous Harding

Cocteau Twins

Acetone

Connan Mockasin

Fleetwood Mac

Cornelia Murr

John Martyn

Julie London

Sea Oleena

Sufjan Stevens

Meg Baird

Shannon Lay

Van Morrison

Pink Floyd

Caroline Says

Sun Kil Moon

Maxine Funke

Fairport Convention

that spotify stats page

Top Tracks — Long Term (years)

Calla — Canary Room

4 Lieder, Op. 27, TrV 170: IV. Morgen! — Richard Strauss, Jonas Kaufmann, Helmut Deutsch

6 Melodies, Op. 4 - 6 melodies, Op. 5: Allegretto — Fanny Mendelssohn, Beatrice Rauchs

Long Before Us — Rachel Grimes

Sandalwood I — Jonny Greenwood

Stabat Mater: 1. Stabat Mater — Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

Thaïs / Act 2: Méditation — Jules Massenet, Joshua Bell, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton

Songs My Mother Taught Me, Op. 55 No. 4 — Antonín Dvořák, Alisa Weilerstein, Anna Polonsky

Elegy No. 1 in D Major — Giovanni Bottesini, Andrew Burashko, Joel Quarrington

The Carnival of the Animals, R. 125: XIII. The Swan (Arr. for Cello and Piano) — Camille Saint-Saëns, Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott

Julie With - 2004 Digital Remaster — Brian Eno

wallingford bossa — hemlock

Fantasiestücke, Op. 73: No. 1, Zart und mit Ausdruck — Robert Schumann, Sol Gabetta, Hélène Grimaud

By This River - 2004 Digital Remaster — Brian Eno

Just When You Need Yourself Most — Oberhofer

Gianni Schicchi: O mio babbino caro — Giacomo Puccini, Renée Fleming, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras

Bleecker Street — Simon & Garfunkel

House of Woodcock — Jonny Greenwood

Shaker — Acetone

All The Time — Acetone

Jazz Suite No. 2: VI. Waltz II — Dmitri Shostakovich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35: II. The Kalendar Prince (Excerpt) — Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Riccardo Muti, Philadelphia Orchestra

Christine — Canary Room

Me at the Museum, You in the Wintergardens — Tiny Ruins

Valse sentimentale, Op. 51, No. 6 — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Josef Sakonov, London Festival Orchestra

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73 "Emperor": II. Adagio un poco mosso — Ludwig van Beethoven, Wilhelm Kempff, Berliner Philharmoniker, Ferdinand Leitner

Deux Arabesques, L. 66, CD 74: I. Première Arabesque — Claude Debussy, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet

Green Bus — The Innocence Mission

Lucida — Thomas Bartlett

Introduction et Allegro, M. 46 — Maurice Ravel, Oxalys

Two Thousand and Seventeen — Four Tet

When It Rains — Felbm

Lake Effect — Canary Room

Candy Says — The Velvet Underground

Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op. 48, TH 48: II. Valse — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, Dmitri Kitayenko

Schumann: Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, Heft II: No. 14, Zart und singend — Robert Schumann, Jonathan Biss

Magnolia — J.J. Cale

day one — hemlock

Return From The Ice — Acetone

Requiem in D minor, K.626: 6. Benedictus — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Anne Sofie von Otter, Barbara Bonney, Hans Peter Blochwitz, Willard White, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner

River — Terry Reid

Where Should I Meet You? — Canary Room

This Night Has Opened My Eyes - 2011 Remaster — The Smiths

Brother — Vashti Bunyan

Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: I. Prélude — Johann Sebastian Bach, Yo-Yo Ma

Sweeten Your Eyes — The Clientele

Knickerbocker Holiday: September Song (Arr. by Paul Bateman) — Kurt Weill, Daniel Hope, Jacques Ammon, Zürcher Kammerorchester

Funicular — Felbm

Piano Sonata No. 12 in F Major, K. 332: II. Adagio — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jenő Jandó

Sensuela — Column

[brookstonalmanac]

Beer Events 4.7

Events

George Rauch patented a Beer and Hops Separator (1914)

Anchor Steam Beer 1st brewed after Prohibition (1933)

Budweiser Clydesdales 1st used (1933)

3.2 Beer became legal in CA, CO, DE, DC, IL, IN, KY, MD, MN, MO, MT, NV, NJ, NY, OH, OR, RI, VT, WA & WI, after the Cullen-Harrison bill went into effect (1933)

Richard Runyon patented a Beer Bottle design (1964)

Union Carbide patented a Beer Lagering Process (1964)

Charles Koch patented a Preparation of Beer (1995)

Leigh Beadle patented a Reusable Beer Keg Plug (1998)

Anheuser-Busch InBev debuted Johnny Appleseed Hard Apple Cider (2014)

Brewery Openings

Roosters 25th Street Brewing (New York; 1995)

Iron Horse Brewpub (Missouri; 1997)

Betlehem Brew Works (Pennsylvania; 1998)

Miller's Thumb Micro Brewery (Scotland; 1998)

Camino Brewing (California; 2018)

[citylifeorg]

Perelman Performing Arts Center and Galvan Initiatives Announce The Democracy Cycle

PAC NYC Exterior. Photo by Iwan Baan A multi-year program of 25 commissions across theater, opera, dance, and music.Submissions will be accepted from January 16 – April 1, 2024 The Perelman Performing Arts Center (Khady Kamara Nunez, Executive Director, Bill Rauch, Artistic Director) and Galvan Initiatives (T. Eric Galloway, Co-Founder and President) announce a new program with a multi-year…