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indexxindices · 4 months

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Top Index Services Providers and Their Offerings

Index services providers are integral to the financial markets, offering a wide range of indices that serve as benchmarks for various asset classes and investment strategies. These providers develop, maintain, and disseminate indices that measure market performance, facilitate passive investment, and provide critical insights for investors. This article explores some of the top index services providers and their key offerings.

1. S&P Dow Jones Indices

Overview: S&P Dow Jones Indices is one of the world's leading index providers, offering a comprehensive suite of indices across various asset classes. It is a joint venture between S&P Global, the CME Group, and News Corp.

Key Offerings:

S&P 500: One of the most widely followed equity indices, representing 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S.

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA): A prominent index tracking 30 major U.S. companies.

S&P Global 1200: A broad index covering 31 countries and approximately 70% of the world's market capitalization.

S&P GSCI: A leading commodity index that includes a diversified mix of commodity futures.

Custom Indices: Tailored indices designed to meet specific investment criteria or strategies.

2. MSCI Inc.

Overview: MSCI Inc. is a global leader in providing equity, fixed-income, hedge fund stock market indexes, and multi-asset portfolio analysis tools.

Key Offerings:

MSCI World Index: A global equity index that covers large and mid-cap equities across 23 developed markets.

MSCI Emerging Markets Index: Tracks large and mid-cap companies in 27 emerging markets.

MSCI EAFE Index: Measures the performance of developed markets outside of North America.

MSCI ACWI (All Country World Index): A comprehensive global equity index that includes both developed and emerging markets.

MSCI ESG Indices: A suite of indices designed to integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria.

3. FTSE Russell

Overview: FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group, provides a wide array of indices that cover global markets, specific sectors, and thematic investing.

Key Offerings:

FTSE 100: Tracks the performance of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Russell 2000: Measures the performance of the 2,000 smallest companies in the Russell 3000 Index, representing the small-cap segment of the U.S. equity market.

FTSE All-World Index: Includes large and mid-cap stocks across 49 countries, providing a comprehensive global benchmark.

FTSE Nareit Equity REITs Index: Focuses on U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs).

FTSE ESG Index Series: A range of indices incorporating ESG factors.

4. Bloomberg Barclays Indices

Overview: Bloomberg Barclays Indices, known for their robust suite of fixed-income indices, provide comprehensive benchmarks for bond investors.

Key Offerings:

Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index: A broad-based benchmark that measures the performance of the U.S. investment-grade bond market.

Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index: Covers global investment-grade fixed-income markets.

Bloomberg Barclays Municipal Bond Index: Tracks the performance of the U.S. municipal bond market.

Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Index: Focuses on below-investment-grade corporate bonds.

Custom Fixed-Income Indices: Tailored solutions for specific fixed-income investment strategies.

5. Nasdaq Global Indexes

Overview: Nasdaq Global Indexes offer a diverse range of indices covering equities, fixed income, and commodities, with a particular focus on technology and innovation.

Key Offerings:

Nasdaq-100 Index: Includes 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market, heavily weighted towards the technology sector.

Nasdaq Composite Index: Tracks all domestic and international common stocks listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Nasdaq Biotechnology Index: Focuses on biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Nasdaq Clean Edge Green Energy Index: Measures the performance of clean energy companies.

Custom Indices: Provides customized index solutions to meet specific investment needs.

Conclusion

Top index services providers like S&P Dow Jones Indices, MSCI Inc., FTSE Russell, Bloomberg Barclays Indices, and Nasdaq Global Indexes play a critical role in the financial markets. Their diverse offerings provide benchmarks that facilitate investment strategies, enhance market transparency, and drive market insights. Understanding the offerings of these leading providers is essential for investors and financial professionals looking to navigate the complex world of investments and achieve their financial goals.

#Index Services

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your-dietician · 2 years

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S&P ends lower, dollar loses ground after Fed minutes

New Post has been published on https://medianwire.com/sp-ends-lower-dollar-loses-ground-after-fed-minutes/

S&P ends lower, dollar loses ground after Fed minutes

NEW YORK/LONDON, Oct 12 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s equity indexes ended Wednesday’s volatile session in the red and the dollar made little progress while bond yields fell as investors digested minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting and waited for a key U.S. inflation reading.

The dollar pared gains after earlier climbing to a fresh 24-year peak versus the yen, holding above levels that prompted intervention by Japan last month. Sterling regained ground after a sharp fall the previous day as investors eyed the Bank of England’s next steps. read more

Wall Street indexes struggled to find direction after the minutes of the Sept. 20-21 meeting showed many Fed officials “emphasized the cost of taking too little action to bring down inflation likely outweighed the cost of taking too much action.” read more

But the minutes also showed some dovish undertones with some participants noting the importance of calibrating the pace of tightening to mitigate risks to the economy.

“Maybe there is a bit of hope within the minutes that basically officials are weighing the risk of going too hard or going too high on hiking,” said Juan Perez, director of trading at Monex USA in Washington. “That’s not the number one concern right now. Number one concern continues to be inflation.”

While the Fed has said it is willing to risk a recession in order to tame inflation “it’s possible that as the recession risks increase they may lose their nerve a little bit,” and slow their tightening, said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 28.34 points, or 0.1%, to 29,210.85, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 11.81 points, or 0.33%, to 3,577.03 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 9.09 points, or 0.09%, to 10,417.10.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) had lost 0.53% while the MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) shed 0.31%.

Global equity markets have been volatile in recent sessions as investors have worried about the impact that aggressive rate hikes by central banks would have on slowing economies.

On Tuesday, Wall Street stocks had quickly flipped from green to red after BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said pension funds hit by a spike in UK gilt yields had three days to fix their problems before the BoE ends its emergency bond-buying scheme.

The BoE has also signaled privately to lenders that it is prepared to extend support beyond Friday’s deadline if necessary, the Financial Times reported.

Wednesday’s U.S. inflation reading, the Producers Price Index (PPI), left expectations for the Fed’s November rate hike intact. Still, investors were laser-focused on Thursday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI).

“The market is looking ahead to the CPI release tomorrow,” said Zaccarelli with some bulls hoping that if inflation slows it will give the Fed reason to “slow down or pause.”

In currencies, sterling was last trading at $1.1091, up 1.17% on the day after going as low as $1.0925 earlier. read more

The euro fell 0.04% against the dollar to $0.9699 while the Japanese yen weakened 0.67% versus the greenback to 146.84 per dollar. FRX

In U.S. Treasuries, the recent sell-off eased a bit. Benchmark 10-year note yields were down 4.1 basis points to 3.898%, from 3.939% late on Tuesday.

Oil futures fell for a third straight day fueled by worries about weaker demand and expectations for continued interest rate hikes by central banks around the world.

U.S. crude futures settled down 2.3% at $87.27 per barrel and Brent settled at $92.27, down 2% on the day.

Gold eked out gains on Wednesday after five sessions of losses, although an uptick in the dollar kept prices in check as investors waited for the Fed minutes.

Spot gold added 0.5% to $1,673.76 an ounce. U.S. gold futures fell 0.54% to $1,670.30 an ounce.

Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York, Elizabeth Howcroft in London; Gertrude Chavez-/Dreyfuss, Editing by Alex Richardson, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Nick Macfie, David Gregorio and Aurora Ellis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read the full article here

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rosegardendentalpractice · 2 years

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#Dentist Kingsbury #Dentist North London #Invisalign North London #Teeth whitening North London #Dental Implants North London #Veneers North London #Composite Bonding North London

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newmusickarl · 3 years

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Top 50 Albums of 2021

2. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert by Little Simz

It is no coincidence that, when abbreviated, the title of the fourth album from British rapper Little Simz spells out her own name – SIMBI. This little fact should tell you everything you need to know about the thematic contents of this record which, if every single year-end list is to be believed, is undoubtedly one of the finest albums to drop in 2021.

Having transported listeners to the top of North London high rises where she grew up on her outstanding breakout third record, Grey Area, Simz now brings the listener into her world today on SIMBI, where she is found navigating an industry that isn’t built for a naturally shy person like herself. Where there is still the dazzling whirlwind of fierce lyricism and exciting eclectic sounds that made Grey Area such a success, here Simz also puts greater focus on the production and narrative too.

Much like her contemporary Dave on his latest LP, the introspection and sharing of personal experience from Simz is gloriously backdropped by some stunningly ambitious cinematic presentation. This is highlighted in both the grand, orchestral moments found scattered across SIMBI, but also from the album’s interludes where The Crown actress, Emma Corrin, occasionally turns up to play a sort of Fairy Godmother role to Simz.

It is no secret that Introvert has been one of my favourite songs of the year, and you will really struggle to find a better opening track on any album in 2021. At six minutes in length, it is both epic and triumphant, with this majestic and operatic political yet personal anthem aiming to grab the listener by the collar and shake them awake, getting them prepared for what’s to follow. Despite being less than a year old, this track already feels like an all-time classic.

Following this epic start is Woman, Simz’s brilliant collaboration with Cleo Sol that offers a chilled-out R&B groove with which you can easily sway along. At the core the song is about female empowerment and inspirational women within Simz’s life and, as Anthony Fantano said in his own review for the album, “it’s as flawless as the women it describes.”

The other singles still stand out here too, with I Love You, I Hate You seeing Simz deliver her perfectly penned verses over more Bond Theme-esque orchestration and soulful production. Then there’s the swaggering Rollin Stone which sees Simz on top form as she spits memorable bars over some pulsing and spacey back beats. However aside from the opener, it is the wonderfully African-influenced later single Point and Kill featuring Nigerian artist Obongjayar that will have you hitting the repeat button – quite amazing to think this one was recorded in Simz’s own living room on a complete whim!

Outside of the singles, the other highlights for me include Speed, with its pulsating synths and Simz’s hard vocals that will leave you completely blown away. There’s also her own vibrant synth-pop number, Protect My Energy, the soulful orchestration of Standing Ovation and understated, piano-backed closer Miss Understood. This brings me to what is also amazing about this record and that is the fact that there is only one track, Two Worlds Apart, that features any sampling – for the most part, these are all original compositions which seems crazy. Considering how expertly crafted and classic sounding the instrumentation is at times here, it really is quite unbelievable and also immensely impressive.

Grey Area was a special record, making my own personal Top 20 Albums of 2019 whilst also earning Simz her first Mercury Prize nomination. However with SIMBI, I believe she has surpassed even that amazing record, as the scope, ambition, artistry and lyricism have all been elevated to another level above that previous effort here. Since Introvert dropped earlier this year, this was one album that I was anticipating being something special - and I’m so glad to say it’s massively delivered on those expectations. This is my runner-up Album of the Year for 2021 by the slimmest of margins and right now I fully expect Simz to land her first Mercury Prize win for this record next year.

From now on, we need to stop talking about Little Simz as the best female rapper around and recognise her for what she is – one of the best working artists, man or woman, making music today. Period.

Best tracks: Introvert, Speed, Protect My Energy, Point and Kill, I Love You I Hate You

Listen here

#albums of the year #best albums 2021 #albums of 2021 #album of the year #top albums 2021 #best of 2021 #new music #best new music #little simz #sometimes i might be introvert #simbi #introvert #mercury prize

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theculturedmarxist · 6 years

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By Joseph Joyce. Originally published at Angry Bear

Economists rarely write about “empires,” unless they are referring to historical examples such as the Roman empire. But Thomas Hauner of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Branko Milanovic of the Graduate Center of City University of New York and Suresh Naidu of Columbia University have presented a study of empires using criteria drawn from an economics classic, John Hobson’s Imperialism (1902). The same criteria can be used to examine whether any empires exist today.

Hobson was not a Marxist, but his work greatly influenced later Marxist writers who wrote about imperialism, including Vladimir Lenin, Rudolf Hilferding and Rosa Luxemburg. Hobson believed that there was chronic underconsumption in advanced capitalist countries due to unequal distributions of income. This lowered the return on domestic investment, and as a result the owners of financial capital turned to foreign markets where returns would be higher. These investors relied on their governments to guarantee the safety of their foreign holdings from seizure.

Hauner, Milanvic and Naidu demonstrate that there was a high degree of inequality within the advanced capitalist countries in the late 19th century. The foreign assets held by wealthy investors in Britain and France expanded greatly during this period, and these assets generated rates of return higher than those available from domestic investments. They also present evidence of a linkage between the accumulation of foreign assets and militarization that led to World War I. These results are consistent with Hobson’s work.

Hobson’s empires established positive net international investment positions (NIIP) and received income from these foreign investments. The payments appear in the current account of the balance of payments as “net primary income.” This component of the current account records the difference between payments received by domestic residents for providing productive resources, such as their labor, financial resources or land, to foreigners minus the payments made to foreigners for their productive resources made available to the domestic economy. For most countries, receipts and payments on financial assets are the largest component of their net primary income.

Great Britain was a financial center and the preeminent creditor nation during the zenith of its empire, and a net recipient of foreign income. It earned net income worth 5.4% of GDP in the period 1974-1890, and 6.8% from 1891 to 1913 (Matthews, Feinstein and Odling-Smee 1982). The surpluses were large enough to offset a trade deficit and allow the country to continue to invest abroad and expand their foreign holdings.

What are the largest creditor nations today? Are they also Hobsonian empires? Japan is the leading creditor nation, with a net international investment position of $2.8 trillion in 2015, which represented 67% of its GDP. It earned $165.88 billion in net primary income, worth 3.8% of its GDP. Germany is also a creditor nation, with a NIIP of about $1.5 trillion (45% of GDP) in 2015 and net income of $74.6 billion (2.2% of its GDP).

But Japan and Germany nations do not fulfill the other criteria to be called empires. They do not have the disparities in wealth that the U.S. and many developing countries possess. Their Gini coefficients are almost identical: 32.1 for Japan and 31.4 for Germany. These are similar in magnitude to those of other European countries, higher than those of the Scandinavian nations but below those of Portugal and Spain.

Moreover, the two nations are not militaristic powers. Japan’s constitution forbids the use of force, although the country does have Self-Defense Forces. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking to amend the country’s constitution in order to clarify the rules governing the disposition of these troops. Germany is part of NATO, but the foreign deployment of German forces is strictly supervised by Parliament.

The situation of other large countries is more anomalous. China is a leading creditor nation, with a NIIP in 2015 only slightly lower than Germany’s and equal to 194% of its GDP. But that country registered a deficit of net primary income of $41.8 billion. On the other hand, the country with the largest inflow of income in absolute terms was the U.S., a debtor nation with a NIIP of -$7.8 trillion in 2015, worth about 45% of GDP. Its net income inflow of $204.5 billion represented 1.1% of its GDP.

The explanation for these seemingly inconsistent results lies with the composition of the external assets and liabilities. The U.S. is “long equity, short debt,” with assets largely composed of foreign direct investments (FDI) and portfolio equity, and liabilities primarily in the form of debt (bonds, such as U.S. Treasury securities, or bank loans). In 2015, for example, 60% of its assets were held in the form of FDI or portfolio equity, which earn an equity premium because of their riskier nature. China, on the other hand, is “long debt and short equity,” where the debt includes the central bank’s foreign reserves held in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds. Debt assets and foreign reserves constituted 79% of China’s foreign assets in 2015, and the returns on these have been quite low in recent years. FDI and portfolio equity liabilities, on the other hand, accounted for 74% of the external liabilities.

The unusual nature of these income flows have attracted great attention. Yu Yongding of China’s Academy of Social Sciences, for example, has written about his country’s “irrational IIP structure.” He attributes this to an undervalued exchange rate that has allowed the country to have surpluses in both the current and capital accounts that were balanced by increases in foreign reserves, as well as government policies that favored FDI from abroad.

The positive return that the U.S. receives has been called an “exorbitant privilege” that is due to the status of the dollar as a reserve currency. In 1966 Emile Despres of Stanford University, Charles P. Kindleberger of MIT and Walter S. Salant of the Brookings Institution wrote that the configuration of the U.S. balance of payments was due to its status as the “world’s banker”, issuing short-term liabilities in exchange for long-term assets. More recently, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas of UC-Berkeley and Hélène Rey of the London Business School updated this description of the U.S. to the “world venture capitalist.”

The global financial crisis might have ended this status of the U.S., but the influence of the U.S. economy and its monetary policies has not diminished. Changes in U.S. interest rates have widespread effects on capital flows and credit creation. Several recent studies, including one by Òscar Jordàof UC-Davis, Moritz Schularick of the University of Bonn and Alan Taylor of UC-Davis, have referred to the existence of a global financial cycle that is very responsive to U.S. monetary policy. Similarly, Matteo Iacoviello and Gaston Navarro of the Federal Reserve Board have written about the spillover effects of U.S. interest rates on foreign economeis.

It may be time for a new definition of imperialism. If the U.S. possesses an empire, it is based on its ownership of foreign capital that it accumulates in return for the issuance of “safe assets.” It takes advantage of this position to invest in more lucrative equity. In addition, it hosts the largest and most liquid financial markets and networks. Moreover, the U.S. government has shown its willingness to use financial sanctions as a policy tool.

With respect to the other attributes of 19thcentury empires, we no longer send Marines to Central America to safeguard our foreign holdings. But our military spending greatly exceeds that of other nations. Wealth is heavily concentrated; the richest U.S. families—those in the top 1% of the distribution of wealth—own 40% of the wealth in this country. Those assets undoubtedly include direct and indirect ownership in foreign enterprises, which contribute to the returns they receive.

What could end this arrangement? The renminbi and the euro are rival currencies, but it is doubtful that they will attain the global status of the dollar. Under ordinary circumstances, one might expect the U.S. position to continue for the foreseeable future. But these are not ordinary times. The Trump administration seems ready to shred a wide range of international agreements, such as those that established the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Association. Moreover, the tax legislation passed last year that lowered personal and corporate tax rates is pushing up the government’s budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office’s projection for this fiscal year’s deficit has risen from $563 billion to $804 billion and is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2020. Will U.S. Treasury securities continue to be viewed as safe?

The record of transitions in international monetary regimes does not bode well for the future. The gold standard collapsed in the 1930s as governments sought to escape the world-wide contraction in global economic activity. The Bretton Woods regime began to disintegrate when the Nixon administration ended the conversion of the dollar reserves of foreign central banks into gold in 1971. None of these regime ends were planned and they led to further instability. The end of America’s hegemonic financial position has long been forecasted–and avoided. But the shockwaves of the global financial crisis are still taking place, and eventually may be even more disruptive than we ever imagined.

#imperialism #capitalism #economics #world trade #history #japan #germany #china #united states #british empire

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foodandbeveragesupdates · 3 years

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Self-healing materials market Research Report Forecast by 2028, Fortune Business Insights™

The global self-healing materials market size is expected to reach USD 62.66 billion by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 62.5% between 2021 and 2028. The increasing adoption of CMCs, composites, polymer-based materials in construction buildings will encourage the healthy growth of the market, states Fortune Business Insights, in a report, titled “Self-Healing Materials Market, 2021-2028.”

The self-healing materials market size stood at USD 1.29 billion in 2020.

In 2020, the global pandemic had a mixed effect on the consumer goods industry. The supply chain instability resulted in significant declines in consumer products prices, but had a smaller effect on some sectors such as food and drink, shipping, and consumer electronics. Insignificant cash flow, the adaptation of modern online and digital-first technologies, supply chain management, and inventory management, on the other hand, have been difficult obstacles for producers and vendors during the pandemic. As a result, businesses are focusing on developing and introducing innovative plans to respond to the new standard and set a new supply chain approach to sustain revenue and development in such challenging times.

Acquisition of Air Products by Evonik Industries AG to Strengthen Business

Evonik Industries AG, based in Germany, a specialty chemicals company, completed the procurement of Air Products, Inc.'s specialty additives industry (Performance Materials Division) for approximately €3.5 billion. The transaction funding was accomplished in September and would comprise €1.6 billion in business assets, with the remaining portion backed by shares with an asset value of €1.9 billion. The acquisition will have an exceptional effect on this market as it will raise the adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of Evonik.

Rising Demand for Self-Healing Materials to Promote Market

For the past few decades, self-healing systems have seen major advancements. Various chemistry and material engineering R&D experts have been continuously engaged in creating self-healing polymeric materials, which will boost the market share. Self-conductive materials are electronic or bioelectric materials made by incorporating flexible bonds into inorganic nanoparticles through conductive fillers in self-healing polymers. NASA has used various self-healing devices for insulation frameworks and engineering design, with excellent performance and no scars after healing. In addition, the growing utilization of these materials in aerospace, rotorcraft, aircraft, and bulletproof applications in the defense sector will have an outstanding effect on the self-healing materials market growth.

Browse summary:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/self-healing-materials-market-102947

Transportation Segment to Hold the Largest Share

Based on form, the market is divided into intrinsic and extrinsic. The intrinsic segment is expected to hold the largest share during the forecast period due to its innate ability to restore the integrity of the material after damage.

Based on the product, the market is segmented into polymer, concrete, metal, coating, ceramic, asphalt, and fiber-reinforced composites.

Based on the application, the market is classified into transportation, consumer goods, building construction, energy generation, healthcare, and others. Transportation is expected to account for the high share due to the high demand for materials to maintain the structural integrity in vehicles.

Geographically, the market is classified into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, and Africa.

High Demand for Self-Healing Materials to Intensify Market in Europe

· Rising awareness about the benefits of self-healing materialssuch asdurability, thermal stability, abrasion resistance, stiffness, and strength will fuel its demand in Europe.

· High demand for consumer goods, consumer electronics, and wearables will augment growth in Asia Pacific.

· The utilization of polymer-based self-healing materials in the aerospace and defense sector will push growth in North America.

· The increasing wind power construction activity is expected to accelerate the healing materials industry in the Middle East and Africa.

Emphasis on Improved Product Quality to Intensify Competition

Local producers are increasingly incorporating cutting-edge technology into their products. Manufacturers have been seen focusing on improving product quality and establishing solid manufacturing and export networks in order to achieve an edge over their competitors. Acciona S.A., AkzoNobel N.V., Arkema SA, BASF SE, Covestro AG, Du Pont, Evonik Industries, among others are some of the major players in the global market.

The Report Lists the Key Companies in this Market:

· Acciona S.A. (Alcobendas, Spain)

· AkzoNobel N.V. (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

· Applied Thin Films, Inc. (California, U.S.)

· Arkema SA (Colombes, France)

· Autonomic Materials Inc. (Illinois, U.S.)

· Avecom N.V. (Wondelgem, Belgium)

· BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany)

· Covestro AG (Leverkusen, Germany)

· E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company (Delware, U.S.)

· Evonik Industries (Essen, Germany)

· Sensor Coating Systems Ltd. (London, U.K.)

· Slips Technologies, Inc. (Massachusetts, U.S.)

Request a sample PDF file:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/self-healing-materials-market-102947

About Us:

Fortune Business Insights™ delivers accurate data and innovative corporate analysis, helping organizations of all sizes make appropriate decisions. We tailor novel solutions for our clients, assisting them to address various challenges distinct to their businesses. Our aim is to empower them with holistic market intelligence, providing a granular overview of the market they are operating in.

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train2invests · 4 years

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Toronto Stock Exchange Is One Of The Oldest And Largest Stock Exchanges Around North America

Canada is a popular country for diverse natural resources and mining industry, making it important for international investors. Though the country has a great number of stock exchanges, the most popular one is the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

Most casual investors don’t invest their ample time in thinking about Canadian stock market. They may focus on market fluctuations and own a few mutual funds. You should ask someone professionals on how to make the most of the trading market. Nevertheless of the investment level, it’s really a good idea to know about the Toronto Stock Exchange – the biggest stock market in Canada.

The TSX – toronto stock exchange is one of the oldest and largest stock exchanges around north america. The main objective of the stock exchange is to serve as the central meeting place for those seeking to invest in their company and willing to provide such investment. The TSX is the principal stock exchange in Canada. Generally, the trading of securities like shares is greatly regulated at the provincial level.

The History of Toronto Stock Exchange –

The TSX – Toronto Stock Exchange was opened in 1861 with 18 stock listings and has famed for its innovative securities-trading technology. Earlier TSE was used as an acronym for the Toronto Stock Exchange. It was the first North American exchange that was replaced the fractional pricing with decimal pricing (1996).

The TSX was the first major exchanges to use the electronic trading in 1997 by ditching its trading floor a completely computerized system. However, the TSE became a part of publicly traded company – TSX Group Inc. in 2000. In the year 2002, the exchange got its abbreviation as TSX.

In fact, the TSX Group was acquired the derivatives market – Montreal Exchange Inc. (MX) and changed its name to the TMX Group. Both TMX and the London Stock Exchange had merged in 2011.

The Electronic Trading –

The trading activity on the TSX depends on different factors like the economy, industry or company developments and resulting investor confidence. Most researchers spend enough time to determine the influences in a precise way.

The TSX was eliminated the trading floor in 1997 and acquired the electronic trading – which is analogous to the Nasdaq in the United States. The electronic trading instruments include the shares in investment trusts, companies, and exchange traded funds.

Other financial instruments that are used for active trading on TSX include bonds, futures, commodities, options and other derivative products. The Canadian dollar is designated for all transactions.

The Listed Companies –

Over Many companies are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Among all the listed companies, the Suncor Energy – the largest energy company in Canada, the Royal Bank of Canada – the largest bank in Canada and the 12th largest around the world and the Canadian Railway are the largest ones.

In addition to, over 2000 smaller companies are enlisted on the TSX Venture Exchange – well-known as the TSX-V. The S&P/TSX Composite Index helps in tracking the value of the 60 largest stocks on the TSX. Moreover, the trading on these companies account for around 70% of the total volume on the exchange.

Bottom Line –

These are only the brief details about TSX. If you are concerned about learning to trade on TSX, you should join the Northern American leading investment education and training corporation.

For more information visit our social media profiles Facebook and Twitter…

#Learning to Trade on the TSX #TSX #Toronto Stock Exchange

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rosegardendentalpractice · 2 years

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#Dentist Kingsbury #Dentist North London #Invisalign North London #Teeth whitening North London #Dental Implants North London #Veneers North London #Composite Bonding North London

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newmusickarl · 3 years

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Album & EP Recommendations

Album of the Week: Sometimes I Might Be Introvert by Little Simz

It is no coincidence that, when abbreviated, the title of the fourth album from British rapper Little Simz spells out her own name – SIMBI. This little fact should tell you everything you need to know about the thematic contents of this new record, which is undoubtedly one of the finest hip-hop projects to drop so far this year.

Having transported listeners to the top of North London high rises where she grew up on her outstanding breakout third record, Grey Area, Simz now brings the listener into her world today, where she is found navigating an industry that isn’t built for a naturally shy person like herself. Where there is still the dazzling whirlwind of fierce lyricism and exciting eclectic sounds that made Grey Area such a success, here Simz also puts greater focus on the production and narrative too.

Much like her contemporary Dave on his latest LP, the introspection and sharing of personal experience from Simz is gloriously backdropped by some stunning and ambitious cinematic presentation. This is highlighted in both the grand, orchestral moments found scattered across SIMBI, but also from the album’s interludes where The Crown actress, Emma Corrin, occasionally turns up to play a sort of Fairy Godmother role to Simz.

It is no secret that Introvert has been one of my favourite songs of the year so far, and you really couldn’t ask for a better opening track for this album. At six minutes in length, it is both epic and triumphant, with this majestic and operatic political anthem aiming to grab the listener by the collar and shake them awake, getting them prepared for what’s to follow.

What does follow is Woman, Simz’s brilliant collaboration with Cleo Sol that offers a chilled-out R&B groove with which you can easily sway along. At the core the song is about female empowerment and inspirational women within Simz’s life and, as Anthony Fantano said in his own review, “it’s as flawless as the women it describes.”

The other singles still stand out here too, with I Love You, I Hate You seeing Simz deliver her perfectly penned verses over some Bond Theme-esque orchestration and soulful production. Then there’s the swaggering Rollin Stone which sees Simz on top form as she spits memorable bars over some pulsing and spacey back beats.

Outside of the singles, the other highlights include Speed, which sonically draws comparisons to the cutting Grey Area opener and standout Offence. There’s also Simz’s own vibrant synth-pop number, Protect My Energy, and piano-backed soul closer Miss Understood. Which brings me to what is also amazing about this record and that is the fact that there is only one track, Two Worlds Apart, that features any sampling – for the most part, these are all original compositions and they are all just so expertly crafted.

Grey Area was a special record, making my own personal Top 20 Albums of 2019 whilst also earning Simz her first Mercury Prize nomination. However with SIMBI, I believe she has even surpassed that record, as the scope, ambition, artistry and lyricism have all been elevated to another level above that previous effort. Since Introvert dropped this was one album that I was anticipating being something special - and I’m glad to say it’s delivered on those expectations. From now on, we need to stop talking about Little Simz as the best female rapper around and recognise her for what she is – one of the best hip-hop artists, man or woman, making music today. Period.

Listen here

Trauma Factory (Live) by nothing, nowhere.

Elsewhere this week, two albums I have enjoyed throughout 2021 have had the repackage treatment, starting with Trauma Factory by Joe Mulherin, AKA nothing, nowhere. Trauma Factory is a wonderfully eclectic album that perfectly showcases Mulherin’s growing confidence as a songwriter and artist. Now released as a live version, it also shows how he’s maturing as a performer too, with these songs sounding as tightly put together as they do in the studio. The full live performance is available for free on YouTube, or you can simply listen to the live recording on the link below.

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Evering Road (Special Edition) by Tom Grennan

Evering Road is still one of my favourite “chart-friendly” records of the year, with singer-songwriter Tom Grennan having his own Amy Winehouse Back to Black moment by delivering a soulful, heartbreak record. Fresh off the back of his Man of the Match performance at this year’s Soccer Aid, Grennan has repackaged his sophomore album to include five additional tracks, including his fun collaborations with both Ella Henderson and Calvin Harris.

However, the best of these new tracks is new opener Don’t Break My Heart. Written shortly after the album originally came out when a friend of Grennan’s mother passed away, it’s about having one last moment with a loved before they go. A wonderful slice of anthemic pop music that’s also emotionally stirring.

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Mirrors by DJ Seinfeld

And finally on the albums front this week, DJ and producer Armand Jakobsson, AKA DJ Seinfeld, has released his brilliant new album Mirrors. One to file under ambient rave, it’s quite an enchanting front-to-back listen with Jakobsson taking elements of garage, disco and EDM and combining them into some trippy, chilled-out electronica. I Feel Better is one particular highlight, with a haunting vocal sample gliding over a spacey backdrop of strings, synths and guitars. Whether you fancy a dance in your front room or a quiet record to put on just as background music, this DJ Seinfeld record can be the remedy for either occasion.

Listen here

Tracks of the Week

If You Say the Word by Radiohead

Quite out of nowhere, this week the Oxford legends announced they would be re-releasing their two classic albums Kid A and Amnesiac as a new triple album called Kid A Mnesia, with the third part made up of rarities and demos from those back-to-back recording sessions. If You Say The Word is the first taste of the treasure we can expect from this new release, a brilliant and typically haunting number that simply glistens with the vintage Radiohead sound from that era.

Listen here

Don’t Shut Me Down by ABBA

Also completely out of the blue, Swedish pop legends ABBA have made a return, nearly four decades after their last official release. New album Voyage is on the way, with two new tracks giving the first glimpse at the reunion – both songs are quite theatrical, with Don’t Shut Me Down the better of the two thanks to its classic ABBA feel.

Listen here

Tell No Lies by The Slow Readers Club

Manchester indie rockers The Slow Readers Club have kept themselves quite busy over the last 18 months, releasing two fantastic albums already with another one looking likely to be on the way. Tell No Lies is their latest track and may just be one of their finest to date, with shimmering synths and a soaring, anthemic chorus. Great video featuring actor Craig Parkinson too!

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Metafeeling by Hayden Thorpe

Hayden himself describes this latest single from forthcoming album Moondust For My Diamond as “Music for the mountain top. When you’re suspended between rock and sky, there’s an explosion of senses. Translating just a fraction of that feeling is a lifetime’s work.” With funky guitars, some wonderful horns and his own signature falsetto, it’s possibly my favourite single yet from his upcoming second solo album.

Listen here

Uber by Don Broco

And finally, Bedford rockers Don Broco have been known to call out casual racism in their music and on the latest single from their forthcoming album Amazing Things, they do just that by turning their attention to taxi driver bigotry. With some acidy synths and scathing metal riffs, the energy, aggression and whole sonic aesthetic perfectly matches that of a hazy, and frustrating, cab ride home.

Listen here

#little simz #introvert #sometimes I might be introvert #radiohead #nothing nowhere #tom grennan #dj seinfeld #hayden thorpe #don broco #abba #new music #best new music #album of the week #tracks of the week

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hannahlouillustration · 4 years

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Art Director week

This week we were tasked to be art directors. we were paired up and one had to choose an article for the other and vice versa.

Illustrator’s POV

I was partnered with my friend Amara, and she gave me an article to create an editorial illustration for from The New Yorker Magazine titled “ Returning to Storm King”

The text went as follows:

“Few installations at the Hudson Valley sculpture park are new, but in this pandemic summer the park’s breeze, changing light, and theatre of clouds are novelty enough.

What’s with the metal-band-worthy name of Storm King, the marvellous sculpture park—or, better, landscape with sculptures in it—about fifty miles north of Manhattan, in Cornwall, New York? I’ve just spent some happy hours there, sprung from months of art deprivation, on the occasion of the Storm King Art Center’s reopening to visitors with timed tickets. The setting is thundery enough, under the mighty brow of one of the highest mountains of the Hudson Highlands, in a valley of variegated hills, lawns, meadows, forest, and waters, along with elegant alterations that include arboreal allées and plantings with deference to native flora—some five hundred acres hosting roughly a hundred art works. I hadn’t known, until I was told during my visit, that the park’s name owes its provenance to the Romantic exasperation of a writer who, in 1853, pressed locals to rebrand their principal mountain Storm King from—get ready—Butter Hill. That nineteenth-century embrace of the hyperbolic anticipated the moxie, in 1960, of two art-loving businessmen, Ralph E. Ogden and his son-in-law H. Peter Stern, who gradually acquired much of the valley. They founded the park as a nonprofit entity, made a museum of an existing château on a hilltop, and pondered the ambient possibilities of the terrain.

In 1967, Ogden bought thirteen works from the estate of America’s greatest sculptor, David Smith. Mostly made of welded steel, they deploy a repertoire of shapes, from the surreally animate to the nobly abstract, gracing dancerly postures with lyrical drawings in space. A suite of eight of them, currently installed under cathedralesque oak and black-walnut trees, is modestly scaled. Not so the vista-dominating, gestural arrays of mostly steel elements by a favorite of the collectors since 1968, Mark di Suvero, which at times suggest playground facilities for giants. Nine of those were supplemented last year by a three-year loan of “E=mc²” (1996-97)—a tower, more than ninety-two feet high, whose converging I-beam legs are topped by flaring forms in stainless steel that grab at the sky. Also monumental are two maximum-sized stabiles by art’s foremost bejeweller of air, indoors or out, Alexander Calder. There are major works, as well, by Richard Serra, Andy Goldsworthy, and, most recently, Maya Lin, whose earthwork “Storm King Wavefield” (2007-08) represents a vast expanse of mid-ocean waves, up to fifteen feet high, with grassy undulations.

Sculpture parks proliferated, worldwide, in the second half of the twentieth century, in the wake of an identity crisis for large three-dimensional art. Modernist austerity had stripped sculpture of its traditional architectural and civic functions: there were no more integrated niches and pedestals, few new formal gardens, and an epochal apathy regarding statues—until lately! (We are now practically neo-Victorian in our awakenings—rude, for the most part—to symbolism in statuary.) Never mind the odd plaza-plunked, vaguely humanist Henry Moore. Where could one put outsized works that were almost invariably abstract—modernism’s universalist ideals persisting—to give them a chance of seeming to mean something? In nature! Conjoining the made with the unmade, gratifying both. Sculpture parks emerged as game preserves and laboratories for big art. Storm King’s early concentration of works by relevant artists of the late nineteen-sixties and seventies includes some formulaic banalities, tending to presume a surefire magic in embowered angular geometry, but even there you may savor the zest of a moment when sculpture jumped into nature’s lap. The history is complicated and obscured, in the art world, by the contemporaneous development, in the sixties, of Minimalism, which, by engaging the physical presence of viewers, shrugs off its surroundings. (The park’s chastely white modular piece by Sol LeWitt doesn’t mind a bucolic site one way or another.) As a consequence, Minimalism sidelined poetic potencies that prove their lasting worth at Storm King.

Prior visitors won’t be kept away by learning that few installations in this pandemic summer are new. The park’s changing light, breezes, and theatre of clouds will do for novelty. The best recent addition, on view until November 9th, is “River Light” (2019), a ring of nine high-flying cyan-blue silk flags that Kiki Smith derived from a sun-sparkled film she made on a walk along the East River. Wind stirs the fabric to rippling, soft applause. The ensemble suggests a rallying point for angels. Also new is “A stone that thinks of Enceladus” (2020), a piece by a young New York-based artist, Martha Tuttle, which consists of a mowed field studded with boulders and cairns and rather hectically festooned with carved rocks and molded glass stones. Close by, propped on an island in a pond, is a startling curio, the hull of an America’s Cup-grade racing boat that, in 1994, was prettily decorated with a mermaid motif by Roy Lichtenstein. Its abrupt presence, which you may less look at than gawk at, invokes the metaphysical truth that everything has to be somewhere. Storm King’s prevalent rectitude might serve as a foil for other sorts of interesting shocks, within appropriate limits.”

The images needed to be 1980 x 2560 pixels and my art director wanted me to capture the hudson valley landscape in the image.

I did some research of the sculpture park and sent my roughs in:

The third image was approved.

I tried a new technique with this piece that I have been meaning to try for a while. I used Watercolour and coloured pencils to introduce some textures in my work and I drew the background and foreground seperately so that the image could have a collage-inspired feel to it. The collage style didn’t end up as I was hoping but I think that what it ended up looking like was just as interesting.

I then used photoshop to merge them together (which was a lot more of a hassel than I was expecting as the drawings were bigger than my scanner at home so I had to scan the images in parts and photomerge them together on photoshop). I also added some extra details digitally (the clouds, leaves and ground) to create this final piece:

The art director was very happy with the image and had no major changes.

I was also incredibly happy with this piece. The new medium really worked for me and I really feel as though this piece could be a turning point in my artwork.

Art Directors POV

I found a good article on Country Living magazine that I thought Amara would enjoy illustrating, as I know from her previous work that she enjoys drawing people and animals. For this task I pretended to be an art director for Country Living magazine in an attempt to make my emails as realistic as possible.

The first email was as follows.

Hello,

I am an art dierctor for Country living Magazine, I came across your work and I would like you to create an illustration to accompany an upcoming article for our magazine.

The image would need to be full colour and 1280x720 pixels at 300 dpi

The article is as follows:

Country Living Magazine

Dogs are our oldest and closest companions, new DNA has confirmed

Pups were domesticated before any other known species

We know that dogs are man's best friend, but new DNA has confirmed that they are in fact our oldest and closest companions, too.

The study, which was conducted at London's Crick Institute, found that dogs were domesticated before any other known species. Interestingly, it discovered that humans have had pet dogs for around 11,000 years, showing just how far back our love for them really goes.

Shining light on the "inextricable bond between dogs and humans", the study is based on DNA from 27 ancient canine specimens from around Europe, Siberia and the Near East.

"Dogs are our oldest and closest animal partner. Using DNA from ancient dogs is showing us just how far back our shared history goes and will ultimately help us understand when and where this deep relationship began," Greger Larson, a co-author from the University of Oxford, told BBC News.

Elsewhere in the research, they also found that the genetic patterns of dogs were fairly similar to that of humans. This is because when humans adopted dogs, they took them with them wherever they moved and shifted, strengthening their bond.

Anders Bergström, lead author and post-doctoral researcher at the Crick, also added: "If we look back more than four or five thousand years ago, we can see that Europe was a very diverse place when it came to dogs. Although the European dogs we see today come in such an extraordinary array of shapes and forms, genetically they derive from only a very narrow subset of the diversity that used to exist."

Just another reason to adopt one of your own...

Many thanks,

Hannah Jones

Art director for Country Living Magazine.

The same day, I heard back from her with attatched roughs.

I liked the second one best as the concept was clever and the composition was very nice.

After a short while she came back with two different options of the image.

One without hands and one with hands, I prefered the image with hands as it showed the human connection with dogs more, which is what the article is all about.

Overall, I was happy with the finished image so I approved it. I think she did a really good job.

You can follow Amara’s fantastic work at https://www.instagram.com/apiple_art/

#HJIllustrationApplications

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dentistrevieweruk · 4 years

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Should I replace my metal dental fillings with a composite material?

Yes, if your dental fillings are defective or show signs of decay as the decay may lead to an infection.

Most metal dental fillings are dental amalgam – this means its combination of different metal or an alloy and is made with mercury, silver, tin, copper and other metals. Concerns have been raised over the years about the safety of mercury in dental amalgam.

Mercury makes up 50% of amalgam fillings which can potentially be a health risk to some patients. While on-going research and debate continues regarding the potential dangers of amalgam, peace of mind is a good consideration for many patients.

Amalgam fillings can also react to changes in temperature. If we consider that mercury is used in thermometers because adjusts to the temperature. When you drink something hot, the amalgam filling will expand and place a lot of extra strain on your tooth, which can eventually lead to cracks and fractures. And when you eat something cold, like ice cream, these fillings contract, creating a gap around the filling and your tooth. These on-going expansions and contractions will weaken your tooth.

A composite filling works differently to mercury fillings as they can actually strengthen your tooth by filling the cavity and bonding directly to your tooth and supporting it as it is used. On a personal level, other people won’t see your composite fillings when you smile or laugh as they are matched to the colour of your teeth.

If you are located in any of the following areas in North London and feel you want to change your amalgam fillings then I recommend Chase Lodge Dental as a good choice. Chase Lodge dental in located in Mill Hill and serves all surrounding areas including Barnet, Totteridge, Finchley, Edgware and Stanmore. They invest in the latest technology and have a number of options for you.

Chase Lodge Dental offer a superb white fillings service and more information can be found here: https://www.chaselodgedental.co.uk/general-dentistry/white-fillings . Chase Lodge Dental additionally offers the vital service of switching from metal fillings to white composite fillings aka white fillings for anyone who either are wanting to improve the appearance of their fillings or for any health reasons. If you are interesting their service then you can call them via 020 8358 7100 or email them via [email protected].

Here are the summary of the benefits of changing to white fillings?

White fillings blend in with your teeth, so you won’t feel self-conscious with them Once placed, you can use your teeth as normal straight away It’s a simple and minimally invasive treatment They strengthen the teeth and reduce the chance of chips and fractures

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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Elena Comay Del Junco, Cool Women, The New Inquiry (February 21, 2020)

When the apparently hard-edged rejection of identity betrays a hidden sentimentalism

In Margarethe von Trotta’s 2012 film Hannah Arendt, the protagonist paces back and forth in her apartment, cigarette in hand. She lectures about the banality of evil amidst a halo of cigarette smoke. She stretches out on a divan in a grey wool dress, eyes closed, perfectly still. She looks as if she were sleeping, but we know that she is thinking, furiously, perhaps about how to mount a defense against accusations of self-hating Jewishness, perhaps about what to serve at her next party. Ever since sitting in the theater watching that scene, I have wanted a daybed of my own.

The fantasy of cool female intellectualism has stayed with me for years. Soon after I began to talk for the first time about what kind of woman I wanted to be, the initial movement of my thought made a grasping lurch at Arendt—or, more accurately, the actress Barbara Sukowa as Arendt—reclining, smoking, and thinking. In a close second was Peter Hujar’s famous 1975 portrait of Susan Sontag: stretched out on a bed in a turtleneck, arms behind her head, thinking. Arendt and Sontag are both arch, cool, impenetrable, intelligent, well-educated, dark-haired, Ashkenazi Jews. (My Upper West Side psychoanalyst immediately replied, “Like me?” in a two-for-one flash of transference and countertransference.) I lived for a couple years around the corner from Arendt’s apartment in upper Manhattan, and every time I passed it I wondered about trivial things: How did she commute downtown to The New School—did she take the 1 train? A taxi? Maybe she drove herself. Should I learn to drive? Arendt and Sontag are undeniably glamorous but also, as objects of identification, safe. At least for someone of my class and social location—highly (or over-) educated North American Jews—to take Arendt or Sontag as a model of femininity is a way of ensuring that, despite the public spectacle of transitioning, it is still possible to be taken seriously. That is, they allow one to defensively respond, “Yes, this is what I’m doing, but please, let’s talk about something more interesting.” That this was not a recipe for happiness should come as no surprise.

My own identification was not a result of Sukowa’s performance or Hujar’s abilities as a photographer. Rather, it is a sign that I am very much of my time. Von Trotta’s movie anticipated the recent growth—becoming most visible around 2017—of interest in mid–20th century women intellectuals. Writers like Arendt, Sontag, Diana Trilling, Mary McCarthy, Joan Didion, and Renata Adler have been making a comeback. There is, for example, Deborah Nelson’s Tough Enough, a book on “unsentimental women” that came out in 2017 and whose cast consists of Simone Weil, Arendt, McCarthy, Sontag, Didion, and Diane Arbus. Michelle Dean’s recent book Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion is a collection of biographical anecdotes about the same group plus a few others. As a kind of synthesis, both Nelson and Dean’s books seek to redeem a certain style of female intellectual that, it is implied, has been largely lost. Articles reveling in the allure of seriousness appear in the New Yorker, the Nation, and the New York Review of Books—the publications in which the central figures in this canon themselves published—as well as later additions like the Boston Review, and the London Review of Books. (Sontag seems in a class of her own, having generated an endless stream of hagiography since her death 15 years ago. The latest addition, Benjamin Moser’s new biography, is 800 pages long).

The fascination today with these women is part of a more general reaction against the sentimentalism of identity politics and a nostalgia for the intellectual rigors of a lost public sphere. It was not coincidental that increased interest in these women occurred around the time of the 2016 election, the Women’s March, and the emergence of Me Too, as well as earlier growing skepticism toward liberal feminism—ranging from substantive concerns about due process in Title IX processes to derision toward leaning in. Whatever the cause, however, the Apollonian, in general, is back, and its female adherents are particularly potent avatars.

The reevaluation of individual writers has happened over a longer and more sporadic time frame, and some, like Didion, have never had their public profiles fade. What is new is the understanding of “serious women” as a category and the writers in question as a group. The “seriousness” in question proclaims itself to be a matter of good writing and a rigorous analytical frame, a move away from narcissistic sentimentalism. Merve Emre, reviewing Nelson’s book, finds in the cool women an antidote to a “vision of the world [that] is totally apolitical, bereft of any common political or ethical position.” Tobi Haslett describes Sontag wielding seriousness like “a flashing machete.” Most recently Lauren Oyler, though she does not mention any of the cool women by name, has tapped into precisely the ethos in question when she faults Jia Tolentino for representing a brand of writers that make “any observation about the world lead back to their own lives and feelings, though it should be the other way round.”

Yet it is worth pausing to consider what this leaves unsaid. I do not mean to dismiss any interest in these writers—or in seriousness generally—as inherently reactionary, but they are a profoundly limited group, and these limits are too often ignored. First, the writers undergoing a renaissance are, to a woman, white. But it is not primarily the individual racial composition of this group with which I am concerned. Rather, it is the way race—and gender—are subjects of anxiety, sometimes explicit but just as often unspoken. It is hard not to suspect that appeals to their ideals of “seriousness,” at times at least, disguise an anxiety about the supposed excesses of identity politics, the way that personal grievance, in particular, is supposedly mistaken for injustice.

Second, and more specifically, it is perhaps even harder not to detect in these authors’ writing an attitude toward gender that sits uncomfortably against the basic contours of contemporary feminism. Theirs is a brand of seriousness that demands impersonality, the banishing of any sentimental attachments that might interfere with the autonomy of one’s critical faculties. Does this not undercut the bonds of solidarity necessary for a feminist politics? Does “thinking for oneself” not limit the degree to which one can identify with a collective? I am not so sure that one needs to identify with a collective in order to support collective struggles (Or: Does solidarity require identification?), but it is clear that all of the major figures of this canon, to some extent or another, thought this way.

These female intellectuals would have reacted with some degree of displeasure at being classified as “female intellectuals.” But in 1950s New York, the typical—maybe the only—frame of reference for understanding a woman who was also an intellectual was one that made recourse to a thinker’s gender: She was a “woman writer” or a “female intellectual.” This sort of public reception would seem profoundly limiting, even insulting. A sense that such a classification ignores what is serious and substantive about one’s work, reducing one instead to one’s gender, surely would have shaped the self-fashioning of woman intellectuals in the middle of the last century.

In 1967, Carolyn Heilbrun, one of an early generation of feminist literary critics, summed up this straitened state of affairs in her account of interviewing Sontag for the New York Times: “How short the world is of famous intelligent women: one per country, per generation.” In a 1989 interview with the New York Times, Sontag echoed Heilbrun, arguing against the “grotesque” pattern of thinking that “the next woman to come along that has a bit of pizazz and authority, [is] going to be praised beyond her merits because, look, she’s finally arrived.” For her own part, despite all the attention lavished on her appearance and personal life (which continues unabated with Moser’s new biography), Sontag resented the framing and swore that it had not affected her work.

In their work, it seems that displeasure about being classed as a woman writer, in many ways understandable, gives way to ambivalence toward feminism, or even outright derision. Sontag is the most sympathetic and published one essay entirely devoted to women’s liberation: her little-known 1973 essay “The Third World of Women” (whose now outrageous title was typical of contemporary internationalism). The essay offers a full-throated defense of women’s liberation, and even includes a glancing criticism of Arendt’s unthinking disinterest in the status of women as such. But even Sontag never became identified as a “feminist writer,” and, in an exchange with Adrienne Rich the following year, declared, “Like all capital moral truths, feminism is a bit simple-minded.” There is a note of distaste: Despite her sympathy with the political aims of the movement, feminism stands accused of narrow moralism that ignores the complexity and subtlety of human life.

Arendt, too, was a target for Rich, who criticized The Human Condition as a “lofty and crippled book,” embodying “the tragedy of a female mind nourished on male ideologies.” But unlike Sontag, Arendt was genuinely contemptuous of feminism, avoiding the “woman question” almost entirely in her work, although her biographers and later interpreters make her personal opinions clear. As the editor of a recent anthology on feminist reappropriations of her work put it, “Arendt was impatient with feminism, dismissing it as merely another (mass) movement or ideology.” Arendt’s hostility is largely a matter of anecdote. Dean reports a scene of Arendt pointing at one of her students’ Women’s Liberation Union pins and intoning—“in her thick German accent”—that it was “not serious.”

But if any single work embodies the distance between this group of women writers and feminism, it is Joan Didion’s 1972 essay titled simply “The Women’s Movement,” published on the cover of the New York Times Book Review. From her opening sentence’s deployment of scare quotes around the word “oppressed,” she excoriates contemporary American feminism, then in full efflorescence, for in essence rendering women weak, infantilized: “everyone’s victim but her own.”

The list of books printed with the essay as forming the basis of her critique is instructive: Simone de Beauvoir, Shulamith Firestone, Germaine Greer, Kate Millett, Vivian Gornick, Juliet Mitchell. It is tempting to see the group as a kind of feminist pendant of the cast assembled by Dean and Nelson: serious, unrelentingly intellectual, but also unambiguously feminist authors. At one level this would be right. The Dialectic of Sex, Sexual Politics, and The Female Eunuch, whatever their flaws, certainly can stand up in sheer force of argumentative power to Didion, Sontag, or McCarthy. But seriousness is not only determined internally to a work. It is also a matter of being taken seriously, and despite an author’s best efforts, this sort of recognition is never distributed equally.

So the question no one, then or now, seems to be asking is whether there is a connection between how cool—in both senses—a writer is and her attitude toward taking gender as a topic worthy of serious writerly attention. Does the cool, impersonal distance that allows for unemotional apprehension require, from a woman writer, a disinterest in gender or feminism? Is an interest in gender inevitably going to be seen as the expression of a personal grievance? Or, more bluntly: Is it just cooler not to be a feminist?

There is a temptation—to which Dean, at least, appears to succumb—to make the following sort of argument: that this rejection of feminism can itself be redeemed as the expression of a certain strain of feminist values or at least of women’s empowerment (Dean speaks of “taking away a feminist message”). The thought amounts to a parody of liberal feminism: that not only should women have the autonomy to choose how to live their lives, but whatever the object of choice happens to be will become imbued with feminism, including an anti-feminist stance. This is, in effect, a political stance that takes its opponent to be no better or worse than itself, and whatever their views of feminism, none of the “sharp” and “tough” women would fall for the idea that this could be it.

Something similar to these women’s skepticism about feminism holds about their political orientation globally. None of them descended to the level of conservatism that their male Partisan Review colleagues did, but all of them bear the traces of cold-war liberalism. Didion, in particular, is famous for her critique of late ’60s counterculture and expressed a more broadly conservative Weltanschauung. In her essay on the women’s movement, she makes a charge against anti-racist politics similar to the one she makes against feminism, with the accusation that the civil rights movement had failed to treat “the integration of the luncheonette and the seat in the front of the bus” as means to a higher purpose rather than ends in themselves. Arendt had a similar—frankly racist—contempt for an earlier moment in the American civil rights movement. Her “Reflections on Little Rock,” published in 1959, condemned the NAACP project of legally enforced school integration and, to many readers, the broader aims of the civil rights movement. Her comments about Arabs—Jewish and Palestinian—are similarly notorious.

At the same time, Arendt’s repudiation of group belonging in the case of her Jewishness is often received by many readers—among whom I have, at least at times, included myself—enthusiastically. To the charge that her description of Jewish complicity in the Holocaust in Eichmann in Jerusalem amounted to heartlessness, a lack of affection for “her” people, she replied, “I have never in my life ‘loved’ any people or collective—neither the German people, nor the French, nor the American, nor the working class or anything of that sort.” This stance, which often resulted in accusations of internalized anti-Semitism, is responsible to a great degree for the power of Arendt’s writing not just about the Eichmann trial but about the Holocaust and its aftermath more generally. She sets aside group loyalty for the sake of thinking clearly about what really happened, describing Eichmann as blandly human, rather than monstrously evil, an detailing the role of the Judenräte in the destruction of the European Jewry. Arendt’s critique of Zionism has a similar aura: She resists the collective impulse in favor of facing the facts.

What then of her similar repudiation of group identity in the case of feminism? Unlike her rejection of loyalty toward the Jewish people in the form of Zionism, her anti-feminism constitutes, in tandem with her analysis of American racism, the weakest spot in Arendt’s thinking. In both of these latter cases, though, she goes wrong not out of a commitment to avoiding sentimentality that has been taken too far but out of a lapse in her anti-sentimental stance.

In her Little Rock essay, she intensely identifies with the parents of the Little Rock Nine and what she imagines to be their intense attachment to protecting the intimacy of the private sphere from politics. It is this emotional identification, undergirded by a profound naivete about the reality of American racism, that prompts her, explicitly at least, to reject the overall shape of the civil rights movement. That is, sentimentality—albeit of a perverse sort—leads to an inability to think straight with regard to race. Similarly, Arendt’s easy dismissal of feminism has as much to do with a surfeit of sentiment as with its deficit.

This dismissal may be presented in terms of feminism not being serious. But understood dynamically, Arendt’s hostility toward feminism also works as a defense: silence on the topic as a calculation, not necessarily conscious (defense mechanisms usually aren’t), about being taken seriously in the undeniably misogynist intellectual scene of the immediate postwar period. It is also a way of not letting anything get to you. Sexism is rampant, and morally and politically repugnant, and while you will certainly condemn it wholeheartedly when it comes up, it’s not the sort of thing that you are going to allow to interfere with either your life or, more importantly, your thought.

I am willing to speculate that part of the reason my desire to transition took on the urgency it did—or finally felt permissible—at the moment it did had to do with the fact that the end of my doctorate was finally a real, if not imminent, possibility. A PhD became a license for me to become a woman, a way of inhabiting womanhood and intellect at once. At one level, this is simply yet another iteration of the double bind in which women tend to find themselves, having to embody ideals that are commonly taken to contradict one another. But in this case it means not just navigating an undeniable tension but confronting a choice that can, at least at times, seem tragic: one in which femininity and intellect seem to find themselves through an implicit “despite.” Beautiful and yet intelligent, yes, but also intelligent despite being beautiful, serious despite being feminine, an intellectual, ultimately, despite being a woman. The result, of course, is the implicit equation of beauty with stupidity, femininity with frivolity, and intellectuals with men.

But there is a particular kind of triumph in being taken seriously despite the distraction posed by one’s captivating charms or, indeed, one’s devastating beauty. Hence the endless fascination, nearly 60 years after her death, with Marilyn Monroe’s intellect: her interest in psychoanalysis, the marginalia in her books, her consultation in London with Anna Freud.

In her eulogy for Arendt, Mary McCarthy captures something of the fascination that beautiful yet (the choice of conjunction is important here) serious women seem to hold over public consciousness as well as over themselves. She described her dead friend as

a beautiful woman, alluring, seductive, feminine. . . . She had small, fine hands, charming ankles, elegant feet. She liked shoes; in all the years I knew her, I think she only once had a corn. Her legs, feet, and ankles expressed quickness, decision. You had only to see her on a lecture stage to be struck by those feet, calves, and ankles that seemed to keep pace with her thought.

Speaking from the pulpit of Riverside Church, what McCarthy seems to say is: Hannah was smarter than all you men, and she was more beautiful too—essentially the far too often repeated line about dancing backwards in heels, but applied to writing philosophy.

On the surface, Sontag did the best at squaring the circle of beauty and intellect. No writing about Sontag fails to mention her appearance—her glamorous combination of beauty with inattention to appearance. Dean writes about how beautiful she was, but also, like Moser, about how she sometimes neglected her looks and how her habit of wearing all black was a “strategy of those who don’t want to have to think about what they are wearing,” rather than a strategy to make other people think you are the kind of person who doesn’t think about what she is wearing.

But like all circles, this one cannot really be squared. In my case, an unsentimental stance about gender simply resulted in alternating exhortations not to bother transitioning at all or, in more charitable moments, just to get on with it. My own case is particularly absurd—genuine indifference does not typically lead to embarking on a multi-year process that will almost certainly be a great deal of trouble, cost too much money, and considerably increase one’s odds of social and economic alienation. That is, however unsatisfying the sentimental narratives of always knowing one’s “true” gender, of being trapped in the wrong body may be, no one transitions out of indifference and without thinking that it is a serious undertaking. And I cannot imagine that such self-imposed indifference about one’s own situation is intolerable only for trans people. The impulse to downplay one’s own vulnerability to the oppressive social forces under which one suffers is perfectly understandable. But taking too ironic a stance toward oneself nearly always risks turning into self-punishment. That is just the personal aspect. Beyond the costs such rigor imposes on its subjects, a strategy of self-protective disavowal has distinct social and political costs as well. If everyone adopted such a position—all the more so if they did so successfully—the effect would be that no one would make a big deal out of precisely those things out of which a big deal ought to be made.

And, my own stance has also been precisely the opposite of an unsentimental one. It is an avoidance of turning to face the facts: ignoring a painful reality for the sake of self-protection, both material and psychic. It is not a product of unsentimentality but of its contrary. Unsentimentality is not a position of invulnerability. It marks a reckoning with the world, painful as it may be, and it is a far more fragile position than the comfort of familiar emotion. But to turn away from a painful object cannot make the object disappear or even weaken its hold, and nor can dismissing such an object as, in fact, simply not a big deal. The problem is that gender in general, and femininity in particular, is a big deal, whether one loves it or hates it or, as is more often the case, both at the same time. To disregard an object of attention, to dismiss it as “not serious” either in the personal or in the political sphere is a temptation that can only lead to disappointment.

More concretely, the failure of liberal feminism, however manifest it may be, cannot be rectified with a dismissal of feminism tout court. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is an overused expression. But, like many such figures of speech, it is overused for a reason. Doing so with feminism may work for any one individual woman, but, as with any problem of collective action, what seems good for one person may not be so good for everyone. But I am not simply calling for the sacrifice of one’s own comfort for the greater good, although there are times when that may be what is required. Because, in general, the tension between the individual and the greater good is overstated. The strategy of disavowal used by a figure like Arendt or Sontag may seem comforting, but ultimately it risks leaving one in a position of insecurity and fragility. Such disavowal, it turns out, not only results in a political failure but, to put it simply, feels bad.

#image #media #femininity #women #female intellectuals #liberal feminism #feminism #individualism #heroes #celebrity #susan sontag #hannah arendt #identity #representation #identity politics #critique

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themuller13 · 7 years

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We are in a pokey costumier’s workshop somewhere in the bowels of the Almeida theatre in Islington in north London. It’s not much more than a broom cupboard really, and Ben Whishaw sits on a stool amid the clothes and faceless Styrofoam wig-stands sipping a cup of tea. He seems happy.

All actors — particularly once they become successful — like to go on about how much they just love doing theatre. With Whishaw this is genuinely, honestly true. Ever since he arrived, fully formed, as Trevor Nunn’s Hamlet aged only 23, he has continued to return to the stage even as his screen career has blossomed. It’s almost impossible for him to do TV without being at least nominated for some award — Criminal Justice, The Hour, London Spy — and his film roles are as varied as they are acclaimed: John Keats in Bright Star, Keith Richards in Stoned and supporting turns in Suffragette and The Danish Girl. There are also his regular gigs as Q to Daniel Craig’s James Bond and, of course, the voice of Paddington Bear. Yet for all that here he is, backstage and back in rehearsals, drifting contentedly through the organised chaos of theatre company life.

“I love that about doing plays,” he says softly. “I love being part of a group of people, part of a troupe. It suits me. There’s no etiquette. It’s a profession that is really accepting of everyone’s oddities.” He smiles. “All sorts of people are actors.”

What sort of person is Whishaw? This has not always been an easy question to answer. Over the years a composite image has emerged of a fierce talent who is nevertheless guarded, opaque and fragile. His appearance (skinny, elfin) and manner (gentle, modest) add to this perception. Only, he explains, we’ve got the wrong idea. “Sometimes I get really annoyed because people think I’m going to be cute. And nice. And I’m not very nice sometimes. And I’m not very cute really,” he says, frowning in a way that, to be honest, is quite cute. “There’s this notion that I might be sensitive and shy. Which is partly true. But I can be grumpy and angry and irritable.”

He chuckles and drinks his tea. Still, it’s only fair to point out that these preconceptions about Whishaw are not totally unfounded. Now 36 years old, he says that during his twenties he struggled badly with performance anxiety. “I suffered a lot of awful, terrible nerves and stomach pains,” he says. “Really debilitating things. You realise that other people are dependent on you doing well. Money. All sorts of things become part of the equation. I remember not sleeping because I was so stressed.”

For a very long time he was by his own admission anxious about submitting himself to scrutiny. We knew he grew up in Hertfordshire, went to Rada and has a non-identical twin brother who doesn’t act? Beyond that? Not loads. Talking about himself is still not his favourite thing in the world. “I find interviews quite nerve- racking,” he says apologetically, but explains that he’s trying harder to not get stressed about them or to second- guess what people might make of him. He stops and regards me with what looks a lot like sympathy. “I understand,” he says. “It’s the pressure of your job to capture an essence of somebody, which I suppose is very difficult.”

He thinks he used to use his reputation for shyness as a defence mechanism. “Maybe you can end up playing a role or something?” he says. “Behaving in a certain way because you think people are going to expect that of you. And it becomes a place that’s quite comfortable because you’ve been there before. So you just trot it out again.”

One big change — perhaps the big change — came in the wake of Whishaw coming out as gay in 2011. “I definitely feel like I’m more relaxed as a person,” he says. “I don’t know if that makes you a better actor or more available or anything, but it’s certainly lovely not to have to be worrying about keeping something private. That’s a really, really good feeling. It makes me realise that I spent a long time — too long, really — in a private agony about something. About it.”

So that’s good. He’s also “become really obsessed with this amazing Buddhist nun who teaches meditation practice that is all about acceptance of whatever comes up. About being OK with things being uncomfortable.” This has also helped him to become more sanguine. “You see yourself. Your own mad thoughts, your repetitive thoughts and your own blind spots. It’s very easy to think that everyone else is nuts and you’re sane, but you’re really not,” he says cheerfully.

Madness, as it happens, permeates the play he is about to appear in. Against, by Christopher Shinn, is about a Silicon Valley tech magnate called Luke who believes he is in communication with God, who has given him the task of ending all violence on Earth. It’s a powerful work — occasionally frightening and certainly not the satire it could be — with this well-meaning but eerily detached protagonist at its centre.

“He is vaguely modelled on someone like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, and he’s involved in AI and rockets and thinking about the future. But before the play begins he has had this revelation and God has spoken to him and issued an instruction to him to ‘go where there is violence’. So we meet someone at the beginning of the play who is a changed man.”

Whishaw says that, to prepare for the role of Luke, he spent a lot of time on YouTube. “I did begin by watching a lot of TED Talks, people being interviewed, Elon Musk showing people around his factory. And actually, in that sense, it feels very much a play of the moment because there are so many of these people talking about mankind with a messianic, visionary zeal. But the biggest challenge is trying to understand what it feels like to really, truly believe you have been spoken to by God. That’s the thing. That’s the centre of it.”

Whishaw admits what most actors don’t: that he’s competitive when it comes to his career and getting the roles he wants. “I’m definitely competitive, yeah. And I definitely want things for myself. Yeah. Definitely. And I think that’s good.” Has he ever gone up for parts and missed out on them, and felt angry about it? Pissed off? “There are one or two things,” he says a little airily, smiling to himself. “One or two things where I’ve thought . . . I could have done that. I should have done that.”

For a long time he was down to play Freddie Mercury in a forthcoming biopic. The Queen guitarist, Brian May, had said that he hoped Whishaw would get the role, because “he’s fabulous, a real actor”, but that’s fallen through, Whishaw says. He was up for it, but he says there’s no hard feelings. “I don’t really understand what happened myself, but just one day I wasn’t doing it. And somebody else was. And it’s fine. It was just one of those funny things that happen sometimes in the way that films get made.”

Whishaw will be back in the theatre in the new year when he plays Brutus in Julius Caesar, one of the eagerly awaited productions in the first season of Nicholas Hytner’s new London start-up venue, the Bridge Theatre. He has also just finished filming Mary Poppins Returns, a sequel to the classic 1964 musical in which he plays a grown-up Michael Banks. The film is released at the end of next year. “I sing in it,” he says, but then backpedals slightly. “Well, it’s more like talking-singing. It’s Emily Blunt playing Mary Poppins and my sister, Jane, is played by Emily Mortimer. It was wonderful fun.” In fact, he says that doing these big Hollywood numbers are invariably a laugh. “I don’t think a job is more noble or valuable for not being fun. Although I think I used to.”

Playing Michael Banks was a particular pleasure given that Mary Poppins was the first film he saw. “My dad taped it off the telly. I watched it in the way that my niece and nephew watch Frozen. Over and over and over again.”

In 2012 Whishaw entered into a civil partnership with the Australian composer Mark Bradshaw. They met during the filming of Bright Star and live together in east London. “We’re quite weird. Music relaxes me, but it doesn’t relax Mark because it’s Mark’s thing,” he says, meaning that the last thing Bradshaw wants at the end of a long day of listening to music is to listen to more music. “So we always have a tussle about when I can play my music. He’ll hate me for saying that.”

Bradshaw produced the score for the latest season of Top of the Lake, the crime drama featuring Elisabeth Moss. Whishaw says that he recently gorged on it. “I just watched the whole thing in one day and what Elisabeth Moss did in it was really inspiring to me. I thought: ‘F***! That’s reminded me why this job is such a great thing to do.’ ” Was the music any good? He nods with faux-solemnity. “The music was good as well.”

Someone knocks on the door to say it’s time to go back to rehearsals. Whishaw seems slightly relieved, but he’s trying his best. “In the past I might have been very defensive about a whole load of things. And I’m telling myself not to be that,” he says. He’s still shy and sensitive and all the rest of it, but nothing like he used to be. “I’m probably a little bit more confident in myself. A bit more relaxed in myself. More relaxed in my own body.” He is, despite his protestations, every bit as cute and as nice as we imagine. He’s also a brilliant actor. All said, there are worse things to be. Against is at the Almeida, London N1 (020 7359 4404), to September 30

#Ben Whishaw

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hetmusic · 5 years

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UNSIGNED: THE KTNA | The Most Radicalist x BBH Global

In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up and coming stars on the planet. This time we caught up with the Kenyan-born, Manchester-bred and now London-based duo The KTNA. Most of us will be familiar with the inevitable descent of disillusionment with our hometown. It’s a universal experience that The KTNA captures to other-worldly effect in their most recent single ‘OWT’, short for ‘One Way Ticket’. Their music is a captivating combination of R&B, trip-hop and future-soul, all glued together by pure grit, determination and an unparalleled love for their craft. As you’ll discover in the interview below, sisters Hope and Millie Katana don’t cast off their Northern roots, in fact they owe a lot to their childhood in Manchester. It’s more the case that growth sometimes calls for upping those roots and planting yourself down somewhere new. The song and video for ‘OWT’ was written around a pivotal time for the sisters, living in Manchester, lacking inspiration and selling their furniture for extra income. As the old adage goes… should they stay or should they go? In case the answer wasn’t already apparent, the pair upped sticks and left for London. However, the trials of The KTNA wouldn’t be over just yet. With little money and no place to live, a friend of the band offered them a studio to record in for free, one that doubled up as a place to live. What ensued was a year of sleeping on the floor of a windowless studio with their respective twin sister. It was throughout this particularly testing time that they finalised and recorded their soon-to-be-released Life Under Siege EP. It’s safe to say that The KTNA has been through the fire over the years, as is the experience of so many unsigned artists. Now, these flames have been lit under their project which has the explicit aim “to break all the boxes that have been handed down to us by no faults of our own. As overly sexualised, dual heritage, working class women from the North, we want to show the world that anything is possible.” In closing, they impart yet more refined wisdom: “We can be whoever we choose to be. You can change the world no matter how small you THINK you are.” It’s at our core to continue supporting the rising, the unsigned, the names we believe that are on the cusp of greatest, The KTNA clearly being one of them. Get to know Hope and Millie a little better below.

TMR: Let’s dive right in and talk about the new Life Under Siege EP. What does this release represent for you? This release is the freedom we’ve been seeking for many years now. It marks the end of a very long chapter in our lives and we hope it is a good introduction to the world we’re trying to create, through music. TMR: What are some of the themes that run through the EP? Life Under Siege is about the struggle and hustle of this crazy human experience we’re all currently living. We’re as brutally honest as possible with our writing, especially when discussing our own mental health throughout. We don’t really class ourselves under any genre, so we tried to keep the subjects of the songs as real and consistent as possible. TMR: We recently shared the apocalyptic video for ‘OWT’, which appeared to be an exaggerated retelling of living through tough time and wishing to be elsewhere? Absolutely. I’m sure everyone’s had a moment in their lives where they wished everything was different, that you could weather the storm and end up somewhere completely different. Yeah, that was our lives daily for a long time. So we thought we’d make a visual with that thought in mind, and honestly with the help of a small village, we made it come to life. TMR: Has music always managed to provide an escape? Definitely, for as long as I can remember. One of my first ever musical “experiences” was whilst watching The Prince Of Egypt as a young kid. I remember the minute the music and film started it swept me far, far away. Even as a kid. So yeah, I think you can say we’re still chasing that high. TMR: Growing up in Manchester with its rich music industry and multicultural population, what music and other forms of creativity were you exposed to? Growing up in Manchester 100% enhanced us as creative beings. When we were growing up we’d go to an organisation called GMMAZ (Greater Manchester Music Action Zone) where we’d meet people from every borough of Greater Manchester and get together and make music. People from every race and religion got together put our differences aside and made beautiful (sometimes strange) music together. That experience definitely had an impact on the way we made music going forward. TMR: Looking forwards, your music takes genres like trip-hop and R&B and transforms them into something distinctly KTNA. Is this an active choice through the songwriting process or does it come naturally? Haha well our motto is “don’t do too much, just enough.” So we try not to force anything creatively. If it’s not coming naturally we tend to end the session pretty quickly and start something new. In respect to genre we grew up on - so many different amazing artists from probably every genre imaginable. We just try to incorporate a little of our favourites in everything we do regardless of being put in a genre “box.” TMR: When it comes to songwriting duties, does one of you take point with the lyrics, and the other composition or visuals or production? Or is it an entirely shared process? Our process is based off of team work. It depends on the day, or how we’re feeling, or what we’re working on. However, most of the time we work on a 50/50 basis.. it’s the best way we find (No cat fights.) TMR: The French duo Ibeyi cite the special, and often sacred, connection between twin sisters. Is this something you relate to? And does it influence your music? We defo relate, it is SO special. Our twin bond definitely influences our music a whole lot for sure! There’s something about when voices blend together as siblings that we just find so beautiful and satisfying. Above all though we just love singing together it’s life joy! TMR: Did you find the tightness of your relationship was tested while recording the EP in the windowless studio that also doubled as a shared bedroom for a year or did it bring you even closer together? Hahah both!! We’re not going to lie, it’s very difficult! When you live and work with a person non stop, especially in that environment, it’s very hard for you to turn off and think about anything other than work (making us HIGHLY irritable at times..) It truly tested our bond, but honestly we made the most beautiful music of our lives in that studio and even though it was very hard we had so many beautiful times there, so many beautiful songs and memories were made in that period... we wouldn’t change that time for anything in the world!! It was a life changing time for us. TMR: What’s next for The KTNA? LOTS of music!!! (Like sooo much) LOTS of shows !!!! AND LOTS OF HAPPINESS!!

http://www.themostradicalist.com/features/tmr-talks-to-the-ktna/

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