#keith koane

[cockybusiness]

Treat It With Care

From the Priest Bride AU

[liberalsarecool]

Oh, how my cup runneth over....

* A Georgia pastor and and conservative political activist Ken Adkins was sentenced to 35 years in prison on charges of child molestation and aggravated child molestation.

* Republican mayor Thomas Adams of Illinois charged with 11 counts of disseminating child pornography and two counts of possession of child pornography.

* Republican campaign worker and self proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken convicted of having se with two underage girls.

* Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.

* Republican activist and rising Colorado Republican star Randal David Ankeney (who named his dogs Nixon and Reagan) pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child. Later he was rearrested for 5 counts of sexual assault on a child, 3 counts of sexual enticement of a child and one count of sexual exploitation of a child.

* Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.

* Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16 year old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

* Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to, 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

* Republican preacher Hewart Lee Bennett arrested for soliciting sex from 16 year old boys while claiming that he did so to gain their trust and then teach them the love of Jesus.

* Republican Christian Coalition chair Louis Beres investigated for molesting three female family members as teens.

* Republican legislative aide Howard Brooks was charged with molesting a 17 year old boy and possession of child pornography.

* Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13 year old boy.

* Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was charged with seuxal misconduct involving a 15 year old girl.

* Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.

* Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.

* Republican election board official Kevin Koan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14 year old girl.

* Republican councilman John Collins pleads guilty to sexually molesting a 13 + 14 year old girls.

* Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer (who appeared in an ad blasting Al gore) convicted of molesting 9 yr old girl stepdaughter

* Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.

* Republican Committeeman John Curtain charged with molesting a teenage boy.

* Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups Richard A. Dasen Sr. was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15 year old girl for sex. Dasen 62 who is married with grown children and several grandchildren has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.

* Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos

* Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 15 year old girl.

* Republican spokesman Brian Doyle arrested for trying to seduce a 14 year old girl over the Internet.

* Republican director of the Young Republican Federation Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6 year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

* Republican congressman Mark Foley resigned from Congress after sending sexually explicit emails to former male pages under the age of 13.

* Republican constable Larry Dale Floyd of Denton arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex from an 13 yr old girl.

* Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13 year old girl.

* Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.

* Republican Mayor Philip Giordano of Waterbury Connecticut is serving a 37 year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8 and 10 year old girls

* Republican activist Marty Glickman convicted in Florida on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

* Republican Mayor John Gosek sentenced to jail for soliciting sex from two 15 year old girls.

* Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.

* Republican President of NYC Housing Development Russell Harding pleads guilty to possession of child pornography on his computer.

* Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer", was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11 year old girl and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

* Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 17 year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

* Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.

* Republican pastor Mike Hintz (whom George Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign) surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.

* Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.

* Republican anti-gay activist Earl Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for **molesting an 8 year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.**

* Republican activist Lawrence E. King Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980's.

* Republican Judge Ronald Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation.

* Republican Congressman Donald Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in Jail

* Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.

* Republican Douglas County election official Pat McPherson arrested for fondling a 17 yr old girl.

* Republican anti abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor..

* Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5 year old girl being raped.\

* Republican Judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10 year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.

* Republican boy scout leader and zoning supervisor Dennis Rader pleaded guilty for performing a sexual act on an 11 year old girl he murdered.

* Republican petition leader Tom Randall pleads guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14.

* Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter Susan Smith.

* Republican ex congressman Peter Schmitt of Orange County convicted of raping a 6th grader and bearing his two children.

* Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative Larry Jack Schwartz was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.

* Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.

* Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15 year old girl.

* Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year old girl and served six months in prison.

* Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980's.

* Republican party leader Bobby Stumbo arrested for having sex with a five year old boy.

* Republican County Commissioner David Swartt pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

* Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano arrested for sexually molesting a 14 yr old girl.

* Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond raped a 15 year old black girl which produced a child.

* Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Canderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.

* Republican consultant Lawrence Scott Ward arrested at Dulles airport after authorities found child pornography and videotapes of him having sex with children.

* Spokane Republican homophobic mayor Jim West recalled after evidence surfaced that he molested little boys.

* Republican politician Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).

* Republican preacher Stephen white (who demanded a return to traditional values) was sentenced to jail after offering $27 to a 14 year old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

* Republican activist and James Dobson protege Steve Wilsey convicted of sexual assault after being charged with molesting an 8 year old boy.

[honeychildoz]

GOP Sex Crimes as of Jan 14, 2020

MAGA pedos:

• Republican Paul Peterson charged with human trafficking adoption scheme.

• Republican senator Mike Folmer arrested on child porn charges on 9-17-2019.

• ⁠Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison in a hush money case that revealed he was being accused of sexually abusing young boys as a teacher in Illinois

• ⁠A Georgia pastor and and conservative political activist Ken Adkins was sentenced to 35 years in prison on charges of child molestation and aggravated child molestation.

• ⁠Republican mayor Thomas Adams of Illinois charged with 11 counts of disseminating child pornography and two counts of possession of child pornography.

• ⁠Republican campaign worker and self proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken convicted of having se with two underage girls.

• ⁠Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.

• ⁠Republican activist and rising Colorado Republican star Randal David Ankeney (who named his dogs Nixon and Reagan) pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child. Later he was rearrested for 5 counts of sexual assault on a child, 3 counts of sexual enticement of a child and one count of sexual exploitation of a child.

• ⁠Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.

• ⁠Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16 year old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

• ⁠Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to, 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

• ⁠Republican preacher Hewart Lee Bennett arrested for soliciting sex from 16 year old boys while claiming that he did so to gain their trust and then teach them the love of Jesus.

• ⁠Republican Christian Coalition chair Louis Beres investigated for molesting three female family members as teens.

• ⁠Republican legislative aide Howard Brooks was charged with molesting a 17 year old boy and possession of child pornography.

• ⁠Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13 year old boy.

• ⁠Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was charged with seuxal misconduct involving a 15 year old girl.

• ⁠Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.

• ⁠Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.

• ⁠Republican election board official Kevin Koan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14 year old girl.

• ⁠Republican councilman John Collins pleads guilty to sexually molesting a 13 + 14 year old girls.

• ⁠Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer (who appeared in an ad blasting Al gore) convicted of molesting 9 yr old girl stepdaughter

• ⁠Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.

• ⁠Republican Committeeman John Curtain charged with molesting a teenage boy.

• ⁠Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups Richard A. Dasen Sr. was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15 year old girl for sex. Dasen 62 who is married with grown children and several grandchildren has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.

• ⁠Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos

• ⁠Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 15 year old girl.

• ⁠Republican spokesman Brian Doyle arrested for trying to seduce a 14 year old girl over the Internet.

• ⁠Republican director of the Young Republican Federation Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6 year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

• ⁠Republican congressman Mark Foley resigned from Congress after sending sexually explicit emails to former male pages under the age of 13.

• ⁠Republican constable Larry Dale Floyd of Denton arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex from an 13 yr old girl.

• ⁠Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13 year old girl.

• ⁠Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.

• ⁠Republican Mayor Philip Giordano of Waterbury Connecticut is serving a 37 year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8 and 10 year old girls

• ⁠Republican activist Marty Glickman convicted in Florida on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

• ⁠Republican Mayor John Gosek sentenced to jail for soliciting sex from two 15 year old girls.

• ⁠Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.

• ⁠Republican President of NYC Housing Development Russell Harding pleads guilty to possession of child pornography on his computer.

• ⁠Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer", was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11 year old girl and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

• ⁠Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 17 year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

• ⁠Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.

• ⁠Republican pastor Mike Hintz (whom George Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign) surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.

• ⁠Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.

• ⁠Republican anti-gay activist Earl Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8 year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

• ⁠Republican activist Lawrence E. King Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980's.

• ⁠Republican Judge Ronald Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation.

• ⁠Republican Congressman Donald Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in Jail

• ⁠Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.

• ⁠Republican Douglas County election official Pat McPherson arrested for fondling a 17 yr old girl.

• ⁠Republican anti abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor..

• ⁠Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5 year old girl being raped.

• ⁠Republican Judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10 year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.

• ⁠Republican boy scout leader and zoning supervisor Dennis Rader pleaded guilty for performing a sexual act on an 11 year old girl he murdered.

• ⁠Republican petition leader Tom Randall pleads guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14.

• ⁠Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter Susan Smith.

• ⁠Republican ex congressman Peter Schmitt of Orange County convicted of raping a 6th grader and bearing his two children.

• ⁠Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative Larry Jack Schwartz was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.

• ⁠Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.

• ⁠Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15 year old girl.

• ⁠Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year old girl and served six months in prison.

• ⁠Republican party leader Bobby Stumbo arrested for having sex with a five year old boy.

• ⁠Republican County Commissioner David Swartt pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

• ⁠Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano arrested for sexually molesting a 14 yr old girl.

• ⁠Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond raped a 15 year old black girl which produced a child.

• ⁠Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Canderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.

• ⁠Republican consultant Lawrence Scott Ward arrested at Dulles airport after authorities found child pornography and videotapes of him having sex with children.

• ⁠Spokane Republican homophobic mayor Jim West recalled after evidence surfaced that he molested little boys.

• ⁠Republican politician Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).

• ⁠Republican preacher Stephen white (who demanded a return to traditional values) was sentenced to jail after offering $27 to a 14 year old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

• ⁠Republican activist and James Dobson protege Steve Wilsey convicted of sexual assault after being charged with molesting an 8 year old boy.

[hyacinthetic]

IF I CAN LIVE THROUGH THIS, I CAN DO ANYTHING: interpreting shiro's character in season 8 of voltron

i've been thinking about shiro's character development a lot since vld ended.

of voltron's seasons, s8 seems to have been the most controversial and criticised. many reactions have articulated feelings i couldn't quite express for myself in the first few weeks after the finale, so the backlash has been endlessly fascinating to me.

much of the shiro-specific criticism seems to boil down to "shiro was passive in scenes when he should have taken action." by and large, i agree with this. but season 8 was very clearly not a season about either keith or shiro's personal growth. we know from the production codes that voltron's production team structured the show into three seasons of twenty-six episodes apiece. coming on the heels of season 7, season 8 was written as the back-half of an arc that spent its first half highlighting shiro and keith's new roles. in order to balance out the preceding season, these thirteen episodes were supposed to be the culmination of the lance/allura romance, the last stage of The Galra Empire Strikes Back -- and the final installment of a highly-anticipated mecha/sci-fi show, which often puts show-writers under pressure to plug in a lot of explosions and Now The Stakes Are Higher Than Ever.

this means that, by design, both keith and shiro had to take a back seat in season 8. there just wasn't enough room to highlight them in the chapter that the production team wanted to write: a final chapter where the atlas is ultimately a support for voltron and keith is, above all, a leader to the rest of his team, someone they can count on for personal advice and inspirational koans. thus, shiro had to miss narrative cues that he would have picked up in seasons 1-6. it's a simple case of "don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story".

that answers the question of "why did they write shiro like that?" the questions of "but what are our in-universe justifications for shiro's behavior?" and "where is shiro likely to go from here?" are separate issues. both, i think, are essential for anyone interested in creating fanworks for a canon-compliant post-s8 time period.

as an important foreword: i didn't write this post to criticise the show, to defend its characterisation choices, or to suggest that this is what the vld writers intended when they wrote the final season. this post is a non-definitive reading of shiro's character. it was written for people who found it difficult to recognise his inaction and distance from his team in season 8, and still haven’t come to their own conclusions. it takes shiro's s8 portrayal at face value, as presented, and attempts to reconcile it with the way we interpreted the character in the preceding seven seasons. ultimately, my hope's that someone in this tag enjoys it unironically. all ... 5,800 words of it. good lord.

here's my argument: the shiro we saw in season 8 was still recovering from the loss of his role as a paladin of voltron and his connection with the black lion. he hyperfocused on his new role as the atlas's captain in an effort to crush down any remaining longing for his old life. this is not a new habit: more than once, shiro has fixated on his role for a greater cause, and used that role to deny something significant in his own life. every time, that fixation's come back to bite him.

*

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S MORE FULFILLING THAN BEING A PALADIN." the importance of roles to takashi shirogane

in eight seasons of canon, we see shiro go through a five-stage cycle over and over: (1) he wants to deny something, (2) he finds a role that will allow him to live in denial of that thing, (3) he succeeds in the role, but only by defining himself almost exclusively according to its duties, shutting out everything that could oppose it, and eventually (4) pouring everything he's got into his role hurts shiro more and more (5) until he's cut off from that role and forced into a new cycle.

(i don't intend to argue, either here or at any point in this post, that shiro's only reason for becoming a pilot/paladin/captain is because he knows he can use it to live in denial; i don't think it's even a primary consideration. but it's interesting to note that the way he occupies these roles always helps him to ignore his own issues.)

for clarity's sake, i'll be using the following template to look at shiro's cycles through his roles as garrison pilot, black paladin, and captain of the atlas:

(1) denial —

(2) role —

(3) temporary success —

(4) losses —

(5) breakdown —

let's start by looking at shiro's garrison record. we know that, at least one year before the kerberos mission's launch, shiro discovers that he has a neurological degenerative disease. adam's remarks strongly suggest that shiro's record at the garrison was driven by this, at least in part. ("there's nothing left for you to prove. you've broken every record there is to break", s7e01.) undeterred, shiro continues on his path as the garrison's best pilot; he lets adam go without protest when the latter breaks up with him, and makes sure that his remaining years of assured good health will be spent in space.

or, to rephrase:

(1) denial — shiro wants to deny his illness.

(2) role — shiro goes beyond the usual reaction of refusing to allow his illness to define him, and explicitly chooses to inhabit a role/life that should be barred to a man in his condition. in effect, he uses this role to further his denial.

(3) temporary success — shiro becomes the garrison hero, and a highly-regarded commander's go-to pilot for groundbreaking missions.

(4) losses — as a direct result of these choices, shiro loses the man he was once willing to marry. i can't stress the enormity of this enough. the show strongly implies that shiro has no family left on earth -- even in season 7, the season where every single one of the human paladins is reunited with loved ones, the only close relationships we see for shiro are with keith, sam holt, and adam, the three people who seem to know that he's sick. and shiro deliberately sets that last one aside before the series even starts, all for the sake of living out his role. being a successful pilot is more important to shiro than not being alone, because the role defines who he is.

(5) breakdown — shiro's cut off from his role as pilot when he's kidnapped by the galra.

the next time we see him on-screen, shiro's fresh from a year as the champion of the galra's prisoner arena. we aren't given enough information from that period to know exactly how shiro survived that role, but it's clear that the experience traumatised him -- we see shiro suffering flashbacks, memory loss, and hallucinations. despite the fact that shiro knows the galra's priorities -- e.g. to conquer earth and find a weapon on the planet, both much more important than punishing a single escapee -- he responds to seeing a galra warship in the sky, not with a hero's anger, but with the very personal horror of a prisoner who has nightmares about getting taken back to his cell: "they found me." (s1e01)

in spite of this, shiro pulls himself together to pilot the black lion. he leads the paladins to save planets left helpless under galra rule. but shiro also isolates himself from the rest of the team in a hundred different ways. when we see shiro in his downtime, he's usually alone, doing push-ups in his paladin gear or reviewing star-system data. he puts an unnatural responsibility on his own shoulders, one that seems to be expected from no one else. even knowing that memory extraction doesn't require his presence, shiro stays with sendak's pod in s1e09, waiting for the process to start, focused and unmoving with an intensity that the scene takes care to show isn't matched by any other member of his team. when zarkon tries to take control of the black lion in season 2, shiro responds "i'll have to forge a new bond with my lion. one that's stronger than his." -- in spite of the fact that allura just announced that there'd never been a precedent for two paladins battling for the same lion, and so what he suggests might not even be possible.

it takes us seven seasons to find out that shiro was ever sick, because he never drops any hint of it to the team -- except keith.

over the course of the show, we see pidge, lance, hunk, and allura admit their secrets, their fears, and their personal goals to the other paladins. we even see keith share his concerns with krolia, shiro, hunk -- and, on a few occasions, allura. but it's very rare that shiro gets any opportunity to be vulnerable. outside of his moments with keith ("how many times are you going to save me?"), and a minor breakdown with lance to foreshadow the kuron project, every instance of shiro's weakness happens when he's alone.

the show never outright states why shiro chooses to isolate himself. but i think it's reasonable to suggest that shiro didn't want to detract focus from the war, and -- as with his position at the garrison -- didn't want to be defined by what he's been through. voltron isn't only a unit of soldiers -- it's a group of friends who increasingly tell each other to take it easy and rest as soon as they see one another faltering. as soon as the team knows that he has a debilitating disease, they'd know that his time as black paladin is limited, and part of voltron's focus would have to be diverted towards training a new leader. that would be a practical step for a man who knows that he has to step down sooner or later -- but, by and large, shiro holds back.

see also: denial.

to recap:

(1) denial — shiro wants to crush down and deny the trauma he still suffers from his time as a prisoner/experiment of the galra.

(2) role — shiro goes beyond the usual reaction of refusing to allow his trauma to define him, and explicitly chooses to inhabit a role/life that should be barred to a man in his condition. in effect, he uses this role to further his denial.

(3) temporary success — shiro becomes the leader of voltron: its face and its hero.

(4) losses — time after time, shiro isolates and pushes himself to the breaking point. these incidents range from minor to life-changing: shiro stays behind when the other paladins go out together to see an alien space mall for the first time. he keeps his own worst fears and concerns secret from everyone but keith. in s1e09, shiro's inability to deal with his own trauma alone causes shiro to jettison sendak's pod into space. as kuron, he diminishes his own issues as "a weird headache". and his isolation means that haggar's mind control takes everyone by surprise. tellingly, shiro sums up his entire philosophy in blackout,* the season 2 finale: "one way or another, this may be our last battle. we've got to give everything we have." and in the end, he does -- the original shiro dies in the course of voltron's first major victory against zarkon.

(5) breakdown — after his return in season 6, shiro's literally cut off from his role when allura pulls his soul from the black lion, thus -- according to showrunner interviews -- stripping away the bond necessary for him to be black paladin.

(* sidenote: in retrospect, there's something horrifically funny about the title 'blackout', which doubles as a morbid joke: 'black, out'.)

two roles aren't a significant sample size, but shiro's behavior in each role gives us some clues as to what attracts him to them. shiro doesn't limit himself to roles that play to his strengths. instead, he goes for roles that will help the biggest number of people. shiro favors roles that keep him at the frontlines, capable of making decisions based on his own discretion -- but also roles that force him to minimise and ignore his own weaknesses for the greater good.

with this in mind, we can make some guesses about shiro's mindset from seasons 6 to 7 as he transitions from black paladin to captain of the atlas.

* "WE'VE BEEN THROUGH MORE THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE." shiro's recovery through season 7

for the first half of season 7, shiro's very obviously kept away from the action: he, romelle, and keith's wolf are left behind when krolia leads the paladins to investigate the blades of marmora rally point in s7e02. krolia explicitly notes that shiro's "still recovering" during their flight away from zethrid and ezor's ships. despite the affirmation of the keith-shiro bond only two episodes ago, it's lance that keith tells to keep the team back together as they escape in the final act of s7e03. and in the same way that coran and romelle have to hold onto krolia and hunk respectively as they fly through space back to the lions, so does allura hold onto shiro. he is, in every way, positioned as a non-combatant: someone who can't be expected to fend for himself in an ongoing warzone.

as the season goes on, shiro starts to take an active role again. he tells the team that "replacing the castle of lions is our top priority" in s7e06, a leaderly decision that keith backs up immediately. he stands against admiral sanda when she suggests using the lions as a bargaining chip with the galra. in a bit of mysticism inspired by his time in the black lion's timeless void, shiro's the one who tells the team that they're capable of the impossible: remotely directing their lions to earth.

still, while it was clear that shiro was getting better over the course of the season, i was never quite certain that these scenes were meant to show that shiro'd fully recovered. as i noted at the end of the previous section, shiro tends to choose roles with clear responsibilities -- roles that keep him in the fray, where he may be responsible for the safety of others as part of a team but which give him some leeway to make his decisions independently. as a mentor, a strategic advisor, and a part-time leader, shiro had a role that gave him some of these things. but ultimately, mentorship didn't seem to offer the same agency that he'd once had as the kerberos pilot or the black paladin.

this uncertainty seems to fade in the last three episodes of season 7. i don't think it's a coincidence that shiro takes a decisive step forward in each of these episodes: in episode 11, he oversees the launch of the igf atlas and takes command as its captain; in episode 12, he faces sendak, who was a memorable and visceral trigger for shiro's ptsd in season 1; in episode 13, shiro manages to transform his new ship into a giant mecha fighter in its own right -- just in time to support his friends.

the end of season 7 could have been groundwork for the final act of shiro's recovery. in an interview, lauren montgomery confirmed that, in kuron's body, shiro no longer has the disease which once put a time limit on his piloting. he's faced his worst horrors -- failure, dying, sendak -- and come back from them. i think it's reasonable to suggest that shiro at the end of season 7 is stronger than the one we meet in season 1. at the close of the season, shiro has a promising new role with opportunities for action, and a group of friends who have supported him through his every trial. while he still had a few storylines to tie up (most notably: the fallout from being replaced by 'kuron' and the staggering loss of his bond with the black lion), these weren't impossible for season 8 to address.

to end shiro's arc on a satisfying chord, his recovery needed to hit three notes: (i) show that shiro didn't lose his connection to the paladins -- the bonds that got him through actually physically dying -- when he became captain of the atlas; (ii) show that shiro has moved past, or is in the process of moving past, his death and his loss of the black lion; and (iii) show that shiro's new position as captain of the atlas fulfills him in the same way that the positions of garrison pilot and black paladin once did.

what we got, instead, was a season that drove shiro's development backwards on each point. by failing to cement shiro's recovery, and ignoring his unresolved issues, shiro in season 8 comes off like a man relapsing into a familiar unhealthy cycle: denial, obsession, and a breakdown on the horizon.

* "WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS." shiro's isolation as captain of the igf atlas

there are quite a few descriptors you could use for shiro's behavior as captain of the atlas in season 8. but the one that you can't use, i'd argue, is joyful. gone is that tone of open delight from when shiro said "welcome back to the fight, paladins!" in s7e12, the relief when he looks at sam holt and offers him a place on the igf atlas as its chief engineer, the worldbreaking resolve that drives him to transform the atlas and save voltron. throughout the season, shiro's stern. he's distant. he addresses his friends -- the only people who know exactly what he's been through -- collectively as "paladins". he's exhaustively business-like. in thirteen episodes, only once do we see shiro take a break; in every other scene, he's in the bridge, in the strategy room, or frozen in place in a garrison flyer, just a little too late to rescue one of his closest friends.

so what changed between the moment that shiro took command of the atlas and season 8?

easy. the atlas failed.

in the closing episodes of season 7, shiro fought as hard as anyone to win against haggar's robot. after an extended recovery period -- presumably an unsettling and restless state for a man who's hardly ever gone easy on himself -- shiro came back just in time to throw himself against impossible odds. and, for a while, he seemed to be winning. driven by willpower alone, shiro forced an unflyable ship into the air; he drove it to transform into a mecha fighter even bigger than voltron -

and he still had to watch as his friends pulled a ticking bomb into space to save the earth from its blast radius. he watched its explosion swallow their lions, and watched them fall to earth, knowing that he'd tried his best, and that it hadn't been enough.

remember: shiro's used to being the one people count on. from the garrison to the castle of lions, he's always taken a disproportionate share of the responsibility for himself. he's done it because he wants to, because being in the thick of the action fulfills him, because giving everything he has to the cause is what shiro does best. but based on past incidents, we know that shiro responds to personal failure by pouring even more of himself into the fight. we know that he spent over half a season on the sidelines, treated as a non-combatant while people shielded him. we also know that he has multiple losses that he hasn't addressed by the end of season 7 -- nor can he address them without diverting time, energy, and resources away from the fight at hand.

what better way to suppress his own issues than by obsessing over his new role as captain of the atlas?

so, to recap:

(1) denial — shiro has no productive way to deal with the losses he's faced over the series: being stripped of his bond with the black lion, his feelings over dying and getting trapped in a timeless void, his issues with being replaced by kuron (whom he describes, rather reductively, as an "evil clone"), and his failure to protect his friends against haggar's robot. thus, he has a strong incentive to deny them.

(2) role — shiro goes beyond the usual reaction of refusing to allow his losses to define him. thus, he throws himself headlong into being captain of the atlas. in effect, he uses this role to further his denial.

(3) temporary success — shiro lives and breathes his duties as the atlas's captain. he oversees the repairs to the atlas, galra activity around the milky way, and the rebuilding of earth's defenses (s8e01). he inspires and encourages the people who turn to him, and he takes no time for himself.

(4) losses — as a result, shiro's losses in season 8 are small but increasingly felt. after telling garrison crew, rebels, and voltron paladins alike to take a night off and "be with the ones [they] love" -- shiro disappears for the rest of s8e01. in an episode explicitly about reinforcing the bonds established in the preceding seasons, shiro's absence feels deliberate. for the next twelve episodes, shiro gets exactly one moment of familiarity -- when he's standing with the rest of the paladins, showing his quiet, grieving gratitude for the final sacrifice of the woman who gave him back his right arm. in a season that starts off as a story about the universe coming together to defeat the galra once and for all, shiro is emotionally isolated in almost every scene: a man who lives to strategise and give orders and nothing else.

point (4) seems especially worth examining. shiro's disconnection from the paladins, and from his own former role as the black paladin, is staggering. where he once flew and fought in his own right, shiro-as-captain only succeeds when he's managing and delegating tasks. he might give the order to fire, but someone else is pulling the trigger and telling him what happens when it hits. when we see shiro take a break at last, it isn't of his own accord -- a tough-talking alien has to show up and guilt-trip him into it. even then, shiro justifies the day off as something the atlas crew needs: "morale on the atlas is low after what happened on oriande. who knows? a few hours at the carnival might give us the boost we need to get back on track." (s8e08, clear day.) no mention's made whatsoever of the paladins' feelings or exhaustion, let alone his own.

bearing in mind shiro's previously established character -- a devoted leader and a friend with nothing but good intentions -- this lack of explicit interest in his friends' well-being is pretty disorienting. but it's understandable, i feel, if you read shiro as a man trying desperately to distance himself from a bond that once defined him and whose loss he hasn't properly mourned, struggling to distinguish his new role in every way from the one he can never take back. as black paladin, shiro was largely independent -- he was responsible for a team, but he could fly alone and make his own decisions in battle with the pull of a lever. as captain of the atlas, he has an entire crew to do that in his stead; his authority stems from the garrison and he can no longer afford to make independent judgment calls. as black paladin, shiro's priority was the well-being of the paladins, his friends; as the atlas' captain, shiro's top priority has to be the professional one -- watching out for the officers serving aboard the atlas, his garrison-assigned crew.

but this creates a new problem -- specifically, monitoring and managing the atlas isn't what brought shiro such triumph and joy in season 7. in episode after episode, we've seen that shiro thrives in roles that allow him to save people directly -- roles that let him charge into the action for himself, and that give him as much independence as possible. it's why the atlas's transformation in s7e13 resonates as the final step in the season towards shiro's ongoing recovery, and it's why his actions as captain in s8 fail to carry any such emotional charge.

merely being the captain of the atlas isn't what shiro needs -- at least, not if it's as hands-off and delegatory as it seems for most of season 8. but it's the only role he has left to help his friends, and it's his best chance of crushing down any inconvenient feelings of personal loss. given his choices, it shouldn't surprise anyone that shiro goes back to an old familiar cycle.

this tension between what shiro wants and shiro allows himself, i think, works as a useful explanation for a lot of his behavior in season 8. shiro's pouring everything he's got into his new role; he's running on autopilot, and wearing out fast. as examples, here are four more commonly raised criticisms:

why does shiro only ever address his friends collectively as "paladins"? because it's their formal title. it's correct according to garrison procedure -- which, as the commanding officer of a garrison ship, he's bound by regulation to follow while on duty. and it reminds him, over and over, of what he isn't -- what he can never have again.

why isn't he with his friends in any of the scenes where they're taking a break? because he's working -- monitoring every force on their side, reviewing the atlas's operations, and all the thousand other managerial details of an ongoing war. going into season 8, shiro knows that he's already failed his friends once, and that they nearly died in the process. how can he give himself a break when he's already been shown that his best isn't good enough?

how does shiro fail to notice that it isn't keith on the line in s8e05, even though the false keith spits out stiff lines like "we had some technical difficulties" and "we're still assessing that", and why does he freeze up when he sees zethrid on the precipice holding keith by the throat? hey buddy, have you ever tried facing the living embodiment of your nightmares after months of overworking and sleeping four hours a night?

no, but seriously, a handgun? whatever the garrison's feelings on firearms before the war, i feel it's fair to assume that every ranking officer started carrying some kind of ranged weapon once the galra invaded. as a newly-promoted captain, shiro would have been entitled to the privileges and regulations that come with his rank. as to why he'd use a gun -- what are the odds that shiro, exhausted and overworked, would put his faith in his own self-control when it's already failed him so many times? taken by itself, the character decision is bizarre but not inexplicable; in context, it's one more sign that he's leaning into his role of 'garrison officer' more than 'former paladin' or 'man with non-regulation weaponised prosthetic'.

we aren't shown the full scope of shiro's duties as captain of the atlas in the closing scenes of season 8. but what we see doesn't seem to be especially engaging for shiro on a personal or a professional level. shiro takes a supporting role as hunk handles the actual speech at a table of feuding alien diplomats. learning that sam holt's stabilised the teladuv technology, shiro responds as if pidge's news is pleasant, but completely new, information: "that'll make travel on the atlas much easier." he's unfamiliar with the most recent developments on daibazaal, the epicenter of a culture that was still conquering galaxies only a little while ago.

in short, shiro's shifted away from the highly managerial role he took during the war. this final transition from part of the action to a role whose duties are mostly delegation and support shouldn’t be particularly surprising -- the atlas is, after all, property of the garrison, and shiro operates it under the garrison's authority, which was (despite its name and design) introduced by emphasising its scientific function, not its military one. but it's clear that shiro's no longer the primary contact for coordinating efforts between the garrison, the rebels, and voltron. it's also clear that he's drifted apart from both keith and sam -- the two people who once saw shiro through some of his lowest moments. in a way, shiro's succeeded in what he's set out to do when he latched onto his new role as captain of the atlas: he has completely divorced himself from the man who helped sam holt achieve his dreams, and the black paladin who first forged voltron into a true team.

shiro isn't, strictly speaking, isolated at the end of season 8. but it's hard to be happy for a character who goes into his epilogue stripped of what he'd once fought for so desperately.

* WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? speculations on shiro's epilogue

given our limited context for shiro's post-series responsibilities, it feels very difficult to analyse his epilogue photos (stubble, glasses, marriage) in any meaningful way. but if we accept this post's hypothesis that shiro tends to go through role after role in cycles, then it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to suggest that he's overdue to leave his role as captain of the atlas, or at least the duties framed in season 8. shiro's denied himself so much in order to live up to the position. there's no sign that its supporting/delegation-heavy role dovetails with anything he loved in his previous roles. and the show's final scenes don't do anything to suggest that shiro's attempted to tailor the role to fit his own passions at all.

so let's go for some wild conjectures.

let's assume, first of all, that shiro wants to be happy, and can eventually recognise when he isn't.

assume that shiro continues in his position as the atlas' captain for a while after the team dinner on allura day in s8e13. the epilogue photos leave this possibility open -- despite never having any issues with eyesight or with keeping himself clean-shaven before, shiro turns up in the second team photo with glasses and stubble, both of which tend to be fairly standard cartoon-signals for overwork. assume that shiro isn't stupid and realises over time that -- having poured all of his energy into his position, having made sacrifice after sacrifice to serve the atlas crew well, having pushed away the bonds that he'd once formed as black paladin -- being a garrison captain isn't exactly what he wants either.

with the above as our basis, let's go further and suggest that the shiro we see at the allura day reunion dinner is a shiro who, despite continuing to put in his best efforts, already has one foot out the door, looking for a more fulfilling role. this accounts for his continued distance, his ease in playing a hands-off backup role, and his surprise at the world-changing news from each of his friends.

but shiro's still shiro. so when he decides he wants to be happy, he thinks of the most ordinary, far-off dream of happiness. he imagines something that contrasts his duties as captain of the atlas in every way -- and dials that up to eleven, because shiro doesn't commit himself by halves. in short, shiro moves away from the action and backlashes into devastating normalcy: he finds an attractive man who seems to like him and he marries him as soon as he can, hoping that the role of 'good husband' will finally be enough.

let's take a moment to acknowledge that the wedding photo's caption is vague: "left the battlefield behind" is not synonymous with "retired and never touched intergalactic matters again". hunk left the battlefield and became a chef, and yet his epilogue photo leaves it plausible that he's still very much involved. but i think there's a reason that so much of fandom read shiro's leaving the battlefield as retirement, and it's this: in eight seasons of canon, we've never seen shiro torn between multiple personal priorities for long. he has always committed himself to a single role at a time. if you read shiro as a character who puts everything he's got into one passion, then it's likely that you recognise him as someone who won't juggle his roles -- he only exchanges them, one for the next: garrison pilot to leader of voltron to atlas captain to husband.

and yet: even if we disregard his multiple unaddressed issues and assume he no longer misses the freedom of being garrison's top mission pilot or the black paladin, shiro's new role doesn't feel plausibly satisfying. in season after season, shiro's been consistent about his need for independence, his desire to help and save as many people as possible, and his interest in doing the work with his own two hands, as directly and immediately as possible. consider what we know about shiro's ambitions and passions. he was the first human being to fly to kerberos. he's rejected every opportunity he's ever been offered to live as an invalid or a mentor or any position on the sidelines. time and again, he's saved the universe, and he's never been more fulfilled than when he's been on the ground and at the heart of the action.

whether or not shiro keeps his position aboard the atlas after marriage, what are the odds that playing spouse, supervisory officer, or second-string diplomat will be enough to make him happy?

read in this light, "the end is the beginning" is the perfect title for the show's final episode. like his friends, shiro's story is far from over. if vld was meant to be a show about hope, then let's close on this thought: shiro arrives at the epilogue as a character who's lost and denied himself so much -- but he hasn't lost everything. a little backsliding doesn't put an end to all hope of recovery. whatever shiro's left behind, there's a chance that it can still be won back.

if there's hope, then there is a satisfying place for shiro in vld's infinite universe -- somewhere in the thick of the action as star-systems begin to heal from galra tyranny. there's a place where he can take charge without resorting to violence or deferring to the garrison's authority or diplomatic rites. keith clearly found one, after all -- we see in his epilogue photo that he's delivering supplies to areas still getting used to being free, traveling to far-flung worlds desperate for the kind of help that few can offer.

so it's not hard to imagine that shiro might find something similar -- that his search will bring him back to the people who love him as he learns to prioritise his own strengths, weaknesses, and needs at last. of course he'll find happiness eventually.

all he needs to do is to keep looking for it.

[galacticfairy18]

A Sailor Moon x VLD AU Part 1

It’s been a while since I thought in this AU so I’m just gonna leave this over here~

1) Haggar as Wiseman

2) Lotor and the Generals as Prince Demande and the Specter sisters

Lotor as Prince Demand

Acxa as Petz (Green haired).- Ezor as Berthier (White haired) - Zethrid as Koan (purple Haired) and Narti as Calaveras.

If you wanna add Keith in an AU Keith could be Sapphire (Prince Demand Brother).

[ulfwolf]

Hakuin - Musing 161

By Hakuin’s side I am nothing but   a small Spiritual dabbler

There are times I feel pretty good about myself—as a Buddhist, as a writer, as a reader, as a meditator, as a person. Then you come across a life of someone who truly lived his (or her) convictions.

Hakuin Ekaku (1686—1769) was an odd giant among Japanese Zen Buddhists. Not only is regarded as the reviver of the Rinzai school from a moribund period of stagnation, refocusing it on its traditionally rigorous training methods integrating meditation and koan practice, he was also an amazing poet.

Yes, this is a man who lived his convictions.

Running into a figure like this—pure, it seems from head to toe—you can turn in either of two directions: you can, in the run-of-the-mill human knee-jerk movement-school tell yourself to touch some walls, get real, and then crawl back under your blanket (or rock, or whatever); or, you can take the Keith Jarrett approach: Ah, that’s how true you can be (what Jarrett said was, “Ah, that’s how good you can be,” about, I think, Thelonious Monk).

It is inspiring to learn about men like Dogen who by the age of twelve knew he was going to dedicate his life to Buddhism and then went right ahead and spent the rest of his days doing just that.

But we don’t live in times like those. There are no Zen temples nearby who’d take me in, especially not at my age. And, of course, yes, this is how things worked back then. Back then.

Then an unwelcome thought brings this to my attention: what if this is the only way it ever can work: total dedication. What if one should take these old teachings literally. Literally cease current affairs involvement. Entirely. Basically, step off the grid.

Nah, not really. Right?

Well, yes, really.

Current man is so unbelievably screwed up that only total detachment, total abandonment of life as usual will work.

I should, says this thought, live just like Hakuin or Dogen. Eyes for no other thing, plans in no other directions.

A monk then?

That’s a start.

At my age?

At any age.

But reason wants to chip in here, if this is the only way, if a monastery is the only way, then there’s to chance for mankind, because we all must reach enlightenment but we cannot all be monks, too—the world would stop.

So, I back off the monk-plan a little and then consider this, too: so many teachers (gurus) claim—no doubt here, this is it, must be it—you must find a teacher you can trust, a living being, a person teacher you can trust, and then dedicated yourself to following him or her: the only way, they say.

Well, this too dooms mankind to eternal samsara, because with almost eight billion people on this planet and only a handful of teachers—well, you do the math: it’s a grim outcome.

So, I’m here to prove that you can gain true and full enlightenment by practicing with the help of good books (and perhaps online teachers, which I must confess I have not tried) and good schedules. Should this work, and I pray it will, then there is hope for us humans, if not—pity, really.

Okay, back to Hakuin, or, for that matter, Ryokan (another amazing Japanese poet), I am glad that people like this have lived lives that we can hold up as examples of integrity and dedication, as torches to carry, as lights to guide us, for without them, how would we find our feet?

::

P.S. If you like what you’ve read here and would like to contribute to the creative motion, as it were, you can do so via PayPal: here.

[wizardchris1963]

Print-Koan #106: Analoge Konzentration

Print-Koan #106: Analoge Konzentration

  Der Abt, Cyberlord Gutenberg, tritt feierlich vor den Konvent, die Versammlung der Mönche. Er hält einen kleinen Gegenstand in die Höhe und sagt: „Heute war ich in einem Schallplattengeschäft und habe tatsächlich eine alte Single von den Rolling Stones gefunden: Jumping’ Jack Flash. Ich habe sie für Euch gekauft.“

Die Mönche sehen ihm atemlos zu, während er die Schallplatte auspackt und auf…

[konmarkimageswords]

Jun Po Denis Kelly is a man of many things -Zen Buddhist Roshi, Ashtanga yogi, psychedelic pioneer, former federal prisoner, cancer survivor, and noted modernizer of the famed Rinzai tradition of samurai-era Japan.

His contemporary Rinzai path, known as Mondo Zen, updates the traditional Zen koan study with a new dialectic “ego deconstruction/reconstruction” dialogue process born of an innovative blend of East and West.

https://integrallife.com/author/jun-po-kelly-roshi/

http://www.mondozen.org/people/abbot-jun-po-denis-kelly

http://sweepingzen.com/junpo-denis-kelly-bio/

https://beyondmeds.com/2013/08/06/jun-po-roshi/

http://www.vaildaily.com/news/from-federal-prisoner-to-zen-master/

http://www.keithmartinsmith.com/a-heart-blown-open/

http://www.keithmartinsmith.com/heart-blown-open-excerpts/2014/12/a-heart-blown-open-first-interview-with-jun-po

http://www.thenewmanpodcast.com/2012/06/jun-po-denis-kelly-heart-blown-open-2/

http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/232133/the-heart-of-zen-by-jun-po-denis-kelly-roshi-and-keith-martin-smith/9781583947647/

https://vimeo.com/12327442

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

Bad at Sport Sunday Comics- Chicago Alternative Comics Expo Roundup #1

By Max Morris

Well hey there, welcome back to another installment of Sunday Comics at Bad at Sports. This week I’m providing you with our top picks from last weekend’s Chicago Alternative Comics Expo! CAKE is always a potent Chicago event- local talent brings out their best, and out of town publishers and artist flock in with a stock of debuts and work that’s fresh to the eyes.

When it came to my own picks, I chose to angle toward the self-published and the stapled. While there was some great work brought out by publishers such as 2D Cloud (Sec by Margot Ferrick, Extended Play by Jake Terrell) and Fantagraphics (Songy of Paradise by Gary Panter) that I picked up, one of the special things about comics shows such as CAKE are the books that fully embrace the special nature of publication, taking advantage of effects and formats that can sometimes best work in a smaller edition. It was quite a challenge to pick through the mountain of books I purchased, was given, or traded to receive, but here is a smattering of what I felt stood out at the show.

Spine by Noel Freibert, published by Bred Press

Freibert, the RL Stein of the art comic, does it again with a satisfying narrative of suburban fright and folly. The novelty of production is tickling enough- the front of the spiral-bound book features an embroidered patch on the cover, but in order to remove one must permanently damage the book. I considered if this is a commentary on the state-of-affairs for the merchandise-obsessed art book/comic book fair market. However,when it comes down to it, I believe Noel also really likes patches and destruction

I also enjoyed the printing choice, initially seeming like a standard xerox copy on white paper, but on closer investigation shows 2-color print- black ink over dark grey. The choice is absurdly subtle, and an appropriate one from maverick Chicago publisher Brad Rohloff. Available for purchase at store.brohloff.me , for more of Freibert’s work head to cutcross.storenvy.com, and be on the lookout for his full length out from Koyama Books this fall.

Various Titles by SBTL CLNG/Carolina Hicks, self-published

An artist I was particularly excited to see in advance on the CAKE Exhibitor list this year was Carolia Hicks, who publishes under the name of SBTL CLNG (Subtle Ceiling). I first encountered Carolina’s work at Chicago Zine Fest 2016, who’s table stood out just by the sheer amount of content on the table. Their work has a Ray Johnson link approach to application, with expressive and seeming coded doodling. But rather than being cryptic, the books are no-holds-barred personal revelation- explorations of sex, love, despair, politics, and philosophy are laid out on the page raw.

The way the thoughts are presented on the page move the way thoughts move through the mind- flashes of memory interspersed with documentations of interior monologue, but with an element of depth and intensity outside the trappings of a regular PerZine. The books themselves are often a mish-mash of recycled material- images are taped directly to the page, fragments are copied onto lined notebook paper, and some sections appear to be hand-colored, making each book both reproduced but also one of a kind. For more of Hick’s work, head to http://ift.tt/2sEnH6W.

Sicker Book by Haejin Park and Open Letter to Sleep by Alyssa Berg – both self-published

When Krystal and myself decided to do this list, we agreed to do a Top 3 list, but I decided to cheat/cop out due to these to pleasant discoveries I made at CAKE this year. An important part of the comics festival experience is that of discovery- traveling across hundreds of exhibitor spaces looking for the unexpected. Parks’ book I found at a table shared with Paige Mehrer, whose Ex Votos was very close to making into my hot picks for the weekend. Sicker Book is less of a comic, and more like a wonderfully illustrated ecstatic koan- the colors are bright, complementing the enigmatic text, outlining a traumatic-sounding hospital visit. The production is insane, a 20 page booklet, with each insert page smaller as the book progresses, and held together delicately with a single staple in the center.

Berg’s book shares a similar approach to content, perhaps both indebted to contemporary schools of comic poetics. Berg’s book quotes Sappho and Leonard Cohen, its contents a testimonial of lonesome insomnia, a slow-and-stormy downer jam. The key takeaway from this is the drawing and printing- thick with layers of riso-ink, this book is a fantastic accomplishment in bookmaking. The mark-making is loose, and matches well with the color- one particular full page splash of an oncoming thundercloud was worth the purchase alone.

These two books represent what is exciting in small press: where rather than being shackled to the restrictions of larger-press formats and printing, an individual artist can express something more original and refreshing. For more of Park’s work, head to www.haejinart.com. For Berg, go to alyssa-berg.tumblr.com.

I felt some special mentions were required- Apple ‘69, by Brian Blomerth, printed by Tan and Loose, a bad-vibes tech-trip; Inktoby by Andy Pratt, who never met a comics page that couldn’t be filled with overwhelming detail; Stereo Sniffer by Keith Herzik, always debuting something bright and ferocious at CAKE: Combed Clap of Thunder by Zach Vaupen and Retrofit, a new book for the first time a couple of years, a black-metal cyber-mangaka, work both high in quality and evil; Fool of Memory by Ben Marcus, an adventure into Shojo-Dystopia; Tintering by Conor Stechschulte, which we previewed last week on the blog, an exploration in joy and suffering for intuitive artists; Garbage Island #3 by Max Huffman, a laugh and a half; Pallor Pink, and excellent anthology edited by Yewon Kwon and a swell group of kiddies; In the Middle of the Night by Nicole Del Rio, a small wandering of bizarre doodles just trying to get by; Gabe Howell, who had a full spread of dark books, well paired with neighboring table Caroline Cash’s bounce; Needy by Chloe Perkis, which needs no further description; Idiot Phone by George Porteus, a rubber-legged misadventure; Sophie McMahon’s full color Dreaming of Johnny, reminding us all of the horror of the pastel color palette; Enrique “Henry” Guerra’s Casino Knights, a neon-lit shortie; Walker Tate’s newest ludicrous voyage; Hiromi Ueyoshi’s animist wrangle WWWF #3; and Lale Westvind, who did not have a new book at CAKE this year, but was thrilled to finally lay hands on Mary (which I still can’t tell is body-horror or body-worship).

All this is just the tip of the iceberg of the many books I received from friends, foes, and everything in-between. If I didn’t write about your book, that means I either hated it, have not read it yet, or I think Krystal will have it in her write-up. Also very special shout out to Alicia Obermeyer for Pubes and ‘tudes, and to my B@S Sunday’s partner-in-crime Krystal DiFronzo her CAKE debut of Tongue Breaks! Thanks to everything that was great at this year’s CAKE! Keep your peeper’s peeled for Krystal’s post next week on her own picks from CAKE 2017.

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Ben Marcus

Bad At Sports Sunday Comics with Gabe Howell

Bad At Sport Comic Sundays (On Tuesday) with Believed Behavior

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Julia Gfrörer

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Conor Stechschulte

Bad at Sport Sunday Comics- Chicago Alternative Comics Expo Roundup #1 published first on http://ift.tt/2rcdcDH

[flauntpage]

Bad at Sport Sunday Comics- Chicago Alternative Comics Expo Roundup #1

By Max Morris

Well hey there, welcome back to another installment of Sunday Comics at Bad at Sports. This week I’m providing you with our top picks from last weekend’s Chicago Alternative Comics Expo! CAKE is always a potent Chicago event- local talent brings out their best, and out of town publishers and artist flock in with a stock of debuts and work that’s fresh to the eyes.

When it came to my own picks, I chose to angle toward the self-published and the stapled. While there was some great work brought out by publishers such as 2D Cloud (Sec by Margot Ferrick, Extended Play by Jake Terrell) and Fantagraphics (Songy of Paradise by Gary Panter) that I picked up, one of the special things about comics shows such as CAKE are the books that fully embrace the special nature of publication, taking advantage of effects and formats that can sometimes best work in a smaller edition. It was quite a challenge to pick through the mountain of books I purchased, was given, or traded to receive, but here is a smattering of what I felt stood out at the show.

Spine by Noel Freibert, published by Bred Press

Freibert, the RL Stein of the art comic, does it again with a satisfying narrative of suburban fright and folly. The novelty of production is tickling enough- the front of the spiral-bound book features an embroidered patch on the cover, but in order to remove one must permanently damage the book. I considered if this is a commentary on the state-of-affairs for the merchandise-obsessed art book/comic book fair market. However,when it comes down to it, I believe Noel also really likes patches and destruction

I also enjoyed the printing choice, initially seeming like a standard xerox copy on white paper, but on closer investigation shows 2-color print- black ink over dark grey. The choice is absurdly subtle, and an appropriate one from maverick Chicago publisher Brad Rohloff. Available for purchase at store.brohloff.me , for more of Freibert’s work head to cutcross.storenvy.com, and be on the lookout for his full length out from Koyama Books this fall.

Various Titles by SBTL CLNG/Carolina Hicks, self-published

An artist I was particularly excited to see in advance on the CAKE Exhibitor list this year was Carolia Hicks, who publishes under the name of SBTL CLNG (Subtle Ceiling). I first encountered Carolina’s work at Chicago Zine Fest 2016, who’s table stood out just by the sheer amount of content on the table. Their work has a Ray Johnson link approach to application, with expressive and seeming coded doodling. But rather than being cryptic, the books are no-holds-barred personal revelation- explorations of sex, love, despair, politics, and philosophy are laid out on the page raw.

The way the thoughts are presented on the page move the way thoughts move through the mind- flashes of memory interspersed with documentations of interior monologue, but with an element of depth and intensity outside the trappings of a regular PerZine. The books themselves are often a mish-mash of recycled material- images are taped directly to the page, fragments are copied onto lined notebook paper, and some sections appear to be hand-colored, making each book both reproduced but also one of a kind. For more of Hick’s work, head to http://ift.tt/2sEnH6W.

Sicker Book by Haejin Park and Open Letter to Sleep by Alyssa Berg – both self-published

When Krystal and myself decided to do this list, we agreed to do a Top 3 list, but I decided to cheat/cop out due to these to pleasant discoveries I made at CAKE this year. An important part of the comics festival experience is that of discovery- traveling across hundreds of exhibitor spaces looking for the unexpected. Parks’ book I found at a table shared with Paige Mehrer, whose Ex Votos was very close to making into my hot picks for the weekend. Sicker Book is less of a comic, and more like a wonderfully illustrated ecstatic koan- the colors are bright, complementing the enigmatic text, outlining a traumatic-sounding hospital visit. The production is insane, a 20 page booklet, with each insert page smaller as the book progresses, and held together delicately with a single staple in the center.

Berg’s book shares a similar approach to content, perhaps both indebted to contemporary schools of comic poetics. Berg’s book quotes Sappho and Leonard Cohen, its contents a testimonial of lonesome insomnia, a slow-and-stormy downer jam. The key takeaway from this is the drawing and printing- thick with layers of riso-ink, this book is a fantastic accomplishment in bookmaking. The mark-making is loose, and matches well with the color- one particular full page splash of an oncoming thundercloud was worth the purchase alone.

These two books represent what is exciting in small press: where rather than being shackled to the restrictions of larger-press formats and printing, an individual artist can express something more original and refreshing. For more of Park’s work, head to www.haejinart.com. For Berg, go to alyssa-berg.tumblr.com.

I felt some special mentions were required- Apple ‘69, by Brian Blomerth, printed by Tan and Loose, a bad-vibes tech-trip; Inktoby by Andy Pratt, who never met a comics page that couldn’t be filled with overwhelming detail; Stereo Sniffer by Keith Herzik, always debuting something bright and ferocious at CAKE: Combed Clap of Thunder by Zach Vaupen and Retrofit, a new book for the first time a couple of years, a black-metal cyber-mangaka, work both high in quality and evil; Fool of Memory by Ben Marcus, an adventure into Shojo-Dystopia; Tintering by Conor Stechschulte, which we previewed last week on the blog, an exploration in joy and suffering for intuitive artists; Garbage Island #3 by Max Huffman, a laugh and a half; Pallor Pink, and excellent anthology edited by Yewon Kwon and a swell group of kiddies; In the Middle of the Night by Nicole Del Rio, a small wandering of bizarre doodles just trying to get by; Gabe Howell, who had a full spread of dark books, well paired with neighboring table Caroline Cash’s bounce; Needy by Chloe Perkis, which needs no further description; Idiot Phone by George Porteus, a rubber-legged misadventure; Sophie McMahon’s full color Dreaming of Johnny, reminding us all of the horror of the pastel color palette; Enrique “Henry” Guerra’s Casino Knights, a neon-lit shortie; Walker Tate’s newest ludicrous voyage; Hiromi Ueyoshi’s animist wrangle WWWF #3; and Lale Westvind, who did not have a new book at CAKE this year, but was thrilled to finally lay hands on Mary (which I still can’t tell is body-horror or body-worship).

All this is just the tip of the iceberg of the many books I received from friends, foes, and everything in-between. If I didn’t write about your book, that means I either hated it, have not read it yet, or I think Krystal will have it in her write-up. Also very special shout out to Alicia Obermeyer for Pubes and ‘tudes, and to my B@S Sunday’s partner-in-crime Krystal DiFronzo her CAKE debut of Tongue Breaks! Thanks to everything that was great at this year’s CAKE! Keep your peeper’s peeled for Krystal’s post next week on her own picks from CAKE 2017.

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Ben Marcus

Bad At Sports Sunday Comics with Gabe Howell

Bad At Sport Comic Sundays (On Tuesday) with Believed Behavior

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Julia Gfrörer

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Conor Stechschulte

Bad at Sport Sunday Comics- Chicago Alternative Comics Expo Roundup #1 published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[nofomoartworld]

Bad at Sport Sunday Comics- Chicago Alternative Comics Expo Roundup #1

By Max Morris

Well hey there, welcome back to another installment of Sunday Comics at Bad at Sports. This week I’m providing you with our top picks from last weekend’s Chicago Alternative Comics Expo! CAKE is always a potent Chicago event- local talent brings out their best, and out of town publishers and artist flock in with a stock of debuts and work that’s fresh to the eyes.

When it came to my own picks, I chose to angle toward the self-published and the stapled. While there was some great work brought out by publishers such as 2D Cloud (Sec by Margot Ferrick, Extended Play by Jake Terrell) and Fantagraphics (Songy of Paradise by Gary Panter) that I picked up, one of the special things about comics shows such as CAKE are the books that fully embrace the special nature of publication, taking advantage of effects and formats that can sometimes best work in a smaller edition. It was quite a challenge to pick through the mountain of books I purchased, was given, or traded to receive, but here is a smattering of what I felt stood out at the show.

Spine by Noel Freibert, published by Bred Press

Freibert, the RL Stein of the art comic, does it again with a satisfying narrative of suburban fright and folly. The novelty of production is tickling enough- the front of the spiral-bound book features an embroidered patch on the cover, but in order to remove one must permanently damage the book. I considered if this is a commentary on the state-of-affairs for the merchandise-obsessed art book/comic book fair market. However,when it comes down to it, I believe Noel also really likes patches and destruction

I also enjoyed the printing choice, initially seeming like a standard xerox copy on white paper, but on closer investigation shows 2-color print- black ink over dark grey. The choice is absurdly subtle, and an appropriate one from maverick Chicago publisher Brad Rohloff. Available for purchase at store.brohloff.me , for more of Freibert’s work head to cutcross.storenvy.com, and be on the lookout for his full length out from Koyama Books this fall.

Various Titles by SBTL CLNG/Carolina Hicks, self-published

An artist I was particularly excited to see in advance on the CAKE Exhibitor list this year was Carolia Hicks, who publishes under the name of SBTL CLNG (Subtle Ceiling). I first encountered Carolina’s work at Chicago Zine Fest 2016, who’s table stood out just by the sheer amount of content on the table. Their work has a Ray Johnson link approach to application, with expressive and seeming coded doodling. But rather than being cryptic, the books are no-holds-barred personal revelation- explorations of sex, love, despair, politics, and philosophy are laid out on the page raw.

The way the thoughts are presented on the page move the way thoughts move through the mind- flashes of memory interspersed with documentations of interior monologue, but with an element of depth and intensity outside the trappings of a regular PerZine. The books themselves are often a mish-mash of recycled material- images are taped directly to the page, fragments are copied onto lined notebook paper, and some sections appear to be hand-colored, making each book both reproduced but also one of a kind. For more of Hick’s work, head to http://ift.tt/2sEnH6W.

Sicker Book by Haejin Park and Open Letter to Sleep by Alyssa Berg – both self-published

When Krystal and myself decided to do this list, we agreed to do a Top 3 list, but I decided to cheat/cop out due to these to pleasant discoveries I made at CAKE this year. An important part of the comics festival experience is that of discovery- traveling across hundreds of exhibitor spaces looking for the unexpected. Parks’ book I found at a table shared with Paige Mehrer, whose Ex Votos was very close to making into my hot picks for the weekend. Sicker Book is less of a comic, and more like a wonderfully illustrated ecstatic koan- the colors are bright, complementing the enigmatic text, outlining a traumatic-sounding hospital visit. The production is insane, a 20 page booklet, with each insert page smaller as the book progresses, and held together delicately with a single staple in the center.

Berg’s book shares a similar approach to content, perhaps both indebted to contemporary schools of comic poetics. Berg’s book quotes Sappho and Leonard Cohen, its contents a testimonial of lonesome insomnia, a slow-and-stormy downer jam. The key takeaway from this is the drawing and printing- thick with layers of riso-ink, this book is a fantastic accomplishment in bookmaking. The mark-making is loose, and matches well with the color- one particular full page splash of an oncoming thundercloud was worth the purchase alone.

These two books represent what is exciting in small press: where rather than being shackled to the restrictions of larger-press formats and printing, an individual artist can express something more original and refreshing. For more of Park’s work, head to www.haejinart.com. For Berg, go to alyssa-berg.tumblr.com.

I felt some special mentions were required- Apple ‘69, by Brian Blomerth, printed by Tan and Loose, a bad-vibes tech-trip; Inktoby by Andy Pratt, who never met a comics page that couldn’t be filled with overwhelming detail; Stereo Sniffer by Keith Herzik, always debuting something bright and ferocious at CAKE: Combed Clap of Thunder by Zach Vaupen and Retrofit, a new book for the first time a couple of years, a black-metal cyber-mangaka, work both high in quality and evil; Fool of Memory by Ben Marcus, an adventure into Shojo-Dystopia; Tintering by Conor Stechschulte, which we previewed last week on the blog, an exploration in joy and suffering for intuitive artists; Garbage Island #3 by Max Huffman, a laugh and a half; Pallor Pink, and excellent anthology edited by Yewon Kwon and a swell group of kiddies; In the Middle of the Night by Nicole Del Rio, a small wandering of bizarre doodles just trying to get by; Gabe Howell, who had a full spread of dark books, well paired with neighboring table Caroline Cash’s bounce; Needy by Chloe Perkis, which needs no further description; Idiot Phone by George Porteus, a rubber-legged misadventure; Sophie McMahon’s full color Dreaming of Johnny, reminding us all of the horror of the pastel color palette; Enrique “Henry” Guerra’s Casino Knights, a neon-lit shortie; Walker Tate’s newest ludicrous voyage; Hiromi Ueyoshi’s animist wrangle WWWF #3; and Lale Westvind, who did not have a new book at CAKE this year, but was thrilled to finally lay hands on Mary (which I still can’t tell is body-horror or body-worship).

All this is just the tip of the iceberg of the many books I received from friends, foes, and everything in-between. If I didn’t write about your book, that means I either hated it, have not read it yet, or I think Krystal will have it in her write-up. Also very special shout out to Alicia Obermeyer for Pubes and ‘tudes, and to my B@S Sunday’s partner-in-crime Krystal DiFronzo her CAKE debut of Tongue Breaks! Thanks to everything that was great at this year’s CAKE! Keep your peeper’s peeled for Krystal’s post next week on her own picks from CAKE 2017.

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Ben Marcus

Bad At Sports Sunday Comics with Gabe Howell

Bad At Sport Comic Sundays (On Tuesday) with Believed Behavior

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Julia Gfrörer

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Conor Stechschulte

from Bad at Sports http://ift.tt/2sEl4lP via IFTTT

[newstwitter-blog]

New Post has been published on News Twitter

New Post has been published on http://www.news-twitter.com/2017/02/04/la-times-essential-arts-culture-zoot-suit-anew-art-and-the-travel-ban-jimmie-durhams-timely-sculptures-12/

La Times: Essential Arts & Culture: 'Zoot Suit' anew, art and the travel ban, Jimmie Durham's timely sculptures

Art, theater, music and performance that resonate with this tumultuous moment in world history. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, and your friendly neighborhood newsletter writer with the week’s most intriguing culture stories:

Art that throws stones

A new retrospective at the Hammer Museum of Arkansas-born artist Jimmie Durham (who claims Cherokee heritage) couldn’t be better timed, writes Times art critic Christopher Knight, “given deplorable declarations of American xenophobia now splashed across newspaper front pages.” Durham’s work — visceral assemblages that combine “cheekiness and humility” — hasn’t been shown in a significant way in the U.S. for two decades. But his art, Knight says, “speaks with a voice that is otherwise only heard in American life at times of profound crisis.” Los Angeles Times

Art, architecture and the travel ban

Airports around the country, including LAX, became sites of protest in the wake of Donald Trump’s travel ban. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne looked at how the design infrastructure of these ports of entry served as curious stages for acts of civil disobedience. “Airports,” he writes, “are conveners for the kind of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism that Trump’s nativist, ‘America first’ rhetoric has put squarely in the cross-hairs.” Los Angeles Times

I wrote about how artists and arts institutions are being affected by the travel ban. As artists poured into LAX to protest, organizations around Los Angeles are bracing themselves for a chill on cultural exchange. In an impassioned statement on the travel ban, James Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, wrote: “The Getty stands against it and adds its voice in favor of established American principles of freedom and engagement.” Los Angeles Times

Times culture writer Jessica Gelt reported on a group of artists wielding their art as protest: the activist theater group Artists Rise Up Los Angeles, which was formed by producer and director Sue Hamilton in the wake of the 2016 election. In a performance that incorporated song, dance, spoken word and poetry earlier this week, the troupe took on some of the political issues of our age. “One can imagine these shows,” writes Gelt, “beginning to resemble the famously lewd, satirical and politically subversive cabarets of Weimar Berlin.” Los Angeles Times

Plus, Oscar-nominated Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi, of “The Salesman,” has announced he won’t attend the Academy Awards in protest of the ban, even if an exception were made for him. Times film and culture writer Jeffrey Fleishman, who has served as foreign correspondent in Iran, uses the news as a jumping-off point to explore his journeys through the region, and the issue of art in an era of divisive politics. Make this a must-read. Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, The Times’ Deborah Vankin pays a visit to the exhibition “Focus Iran 2: Contemporary Photography and Video,” at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles — a juried biennial organized by the nonprofit Farhang Foundation. “We wanted to show different aspects of Iran than what’s typically covered in mainstream media,” director Alireza Rex Ardekani tells Vankin. “The more people know about a particular culture, and understand it, the less fear they will have about it.” Los Angeles Times

The return of ‘Zoot Suit’

“Zoot Suit,” the fabled musical by Luis Valdez, inspired by key moments in L.A. history — including the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon Murder and the Zoot Suit Riots of the ’40s — has returned to the stage at the Mark Taper Forum. In the role of the mythical character of El Pachuco: Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir. The Times’ Daryl H. Miller sat down with Bichir to discuss his approach to this otherworldly character. El Pachuco, says Bichir, is “a wise man, a wizard, a shaman. He’s good and he’s bad and he’s hideous and virtuous and he’s profane and reverential. He’s a trickster, a joker; he’s life and death.” Los Angeles Times

Plus: Times contributor Sylvie Drake speaks with Valdez, who talks about the childhood inspirations that drew him to theater, the roots of El Teatro Campesino, the roving theater troupe he established in the heady days of the farmworker movement, and the play that brought him international fame: “Zoot Suit.” His early work, writes Drake, represented a “combustion of raw energy, defiance, irony and joy.” Los Angeles Times

Gravity-defying Moby Dick and more

Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” checks in at more than 500 pages — but Chicago’s Lookgglass Theatre Company has shrunken down this literary behemoth into a buoyant two hours of stage time that offer an impressionistic, yet stunning, view of Ahab’s obsessions. The production is now on view at South Coast Repertory through Feb. 19, and Times theater critic Charles McNulty describes it as a work of art that is well-suited to the moment. “A voyage into the heart of darkness,” he writes, “‘Moby Dick’ is still the most incisive guide to the lure of destruction that threatens to capsize all that our civilization has built up in its defense.” Los Angeles Times

McNulty also checked out Keith A. Wallace’s powerful solo performance piece “The Bitter Game” at the Skirball Center last week — a work that “brings the theatrical tool of emotional enlightenment to the issues that have given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.” The story touches on well-covered subjects of gun violence and police brutality, writes McNulty, “but it’s how Wallace personalized the words and individualized the experiences that made the difference.” Los Angeles Times

And because too much theater is never, ever enough: The KOAN Unit ensemble has been staging a series of short plays by Samuel Beckett at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. In these five works — which include “Act Without Words II,” “Come and Go,” “Catastrophe,” “Footfalls” and “Krapp’s Last Tape” — McNulty says he found “resonances and divergences” and at least one piece that “resonated with our politically own turbulent moment.” But in staging so many plays at one go, he writes, there were signs of haste that would have driven “the famously stringent Beckett mad.” Los Angeles Times

A cry for a beloved country

Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars,” inspired by the South African novelist Alan Paton’s anti-apartheid bestseller, “Cry, the Beloved Country,” was hailed for ushering in a new era in American opera when it first premiered on Broadway in 1950. Times classical music critic Mark Swed caught a rare revival staged by Anne Bogart and co-produced by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. A work that examines the ways in which injustice thrives, “‘Lost in the Stars,’” writes Swed, “fit the mood of its time, and though rarely revived, it fits the mood of our own.” Los Angeles Times

A ballet competition fuels ambition

The Youth America Grand Prix, a national competition for young ballet dancers, landed in Huntington Beach last week, where children and teens staged their best choreographies for the possibility of landing scholarship money for a top dance school. The Times’ Gelt sat it in on the performances, where hundreds of young girls took to the stage as “little women” — “but offstage they are as small as their age would indicate.” Los Angeles Times

In other news…

— New York’s Museum of Modern Art is protesting the Trump administration’s travel ban by rehanging part of its permanent collection to feature works created by artists from Muslim nations — including pieces by the late Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid and L.A.-based painter Tala Madani, who was born in Iran. New York Times

— How the travel ban has affected the architecture community. Architectural Record

— New York City’s security estimate for protecting the Trumps in New York is more than double the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. Hyperallergic

— Plus, the best visualization I’ve seen yet of the relative smallness of the NEA’s budget. New York Times

— A musical version of George Orwell’s “1984” is coming to Broadway. Huffington Post

— Marta Becket, the desert icon who made the Amargosa Opera House at Death Valley Junction a destination for performance, has died at the age of 92. Los Angeles Times

— Glafira Rosales, the woman at the center of an art fraud scheme that passed off works by an unknown artist as Modernist masters, and brought down the famed Knoedler & Company gallery, has been sentenced to time served. New York Times

— How Japanese American designers shaped American art and architecture in the post-World War II era — and how their World War II internment experiences shaped their lives and work. Essential reading from design writer Alexandra Lange. Curbed

— Enough with the obtuse dance titles, writes Lindsey Winship. The Guardian

— One word: Puppets. New York Times

— LACMA has acquired Random International’s popular “Rain Room” installation for its permanent collection. Los Angeles Times

— Plus, the Getty Research Institute has acquired artist Miranda July’s feminist DIY video archive, “Joanie 4 Jackie.” Curator Astria Superak writes about what it was like to be part of that unusual video network. Los Angeles Times, The Iris

— The Times’ Makeda Easter looks at an exhibition at Inglewood’s Residency gallery, which offers a different way of picturing black men. Los Angeles Times

— And, an art critic has a go at Beyoncé’s pregnancy portrait. Plus, a little bit about Awol Erizku, the artist who made the pic. The Guardian, ARTnews

And last but not least…

Trump Tweets the classics. This is bigly funny. New Yorker

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter »

carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah

ALSO

Artist Theaster Gates on W.E.B. DuBois and what Donald Trump doesn’t get about Chicago

With vigils, a film, a comic and plenty of marching: How the L.A. art world faced Trump’s inauguration

As Trump talks building a wall, a Japanese art collective’s Tijuana treehouse peeks across the border

This post has been harvested from the source link, and News-Twitter has no responsibility on its content. Source link

[jajarts]

undefined

bro duet- jason gotay/george salazar

idk what to fuckin put here cuz ive never done this before but heres this hot gorbage 

[newstwitter-blog]

New Post has been published on News Twitter

New Post has been published on http://www.news-twitter.com/2017/02/04/la-times-essential-arts-culture-zoot-suit-anew-art-and-the-travel-ban-jimmie-durhams-timely-sculptures-11/

La Times: Essential Arts & Culture: 'Zoot Suit' anew, art and the travel ban, Jimmie Durham's timely sculptures

Art, theater, music and performance that resonate with this tumultuous moment in world history. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, and your friendly neighborhood newsletter writer with the week’s most intriguing culture stories:

Art that throws stones

A new retrospective at the Hammer Museum of Arkansas-born artist Jimmie Durham (who claims Cherokee heritage) couldn’t be better timed, writes Times art critic Christopher Knight, “given deplorable declarations of American xenophobia now splashed across newspaper front pages.” Durham’s work — visceral assemblages that combine “cheekiness and humility” — hasn’t been shown in a significant way in the U.S. for two decades. But his art, Knight says, “speaks with a voice that is otherwise only heard in American life at times of profound crisis.” Los Angeles Times

Art, architecture and the travel ban

Airports around the country, including LAX, became sites of protest in the wake of Donald Trump’s travel ban. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne looked at how the design infrastructure of these ports of entry served as curious stages for acts of civil disobedience. “Airports,” he writes, “are conveners for the kind of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism that Trump’s nativist, ‘America first’ rhetoric has put squarely in the cross-hairs.” Los Angeles Times

I wrote about how artists and arts institutions are being affected by the travel ban. As artists poured into LAX to protest, organizations around Los Angeles are bracing themselves for a chill on cultural exchange. In an impassioned statement on the travel ban, James Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, wrote: “The Getty stands against it and adds its voice in favor of established American principles of freedom and engagement.” Los Angeles Times

Times culture writer Jessica Gelt reported on a group of artists wielding their art as protest: the activist theater group Artists Rise Up Los Angeles, which was formed by producer and director Sue Hamilton in the wake of the 2016 election. In a performance that incorporated song, dance, spoken word and poetry earlier this week, the troupe took on some of the political issues of our age. “One can imagine these shows,” writes Gelt, “beginning to resemble the famously lewd, satirical and politically subversive cabarets of Weimar Berlin.” Los Angeles Times

Plus, Oscar-nominated Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi, of “The Salesman,” has announced he won’t attend the Academy Awards in protest of the ban, even if an exception were made for him. Times film and culture writer Jeffrey Fleishman, who has served as foreign correspondent in Iran, uses the news as a jumping-off point to explore his journeys through the region, and the issue of art in an era of divisive politics. Make this a must-read. Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, The Times’ Deborah Vankin pays a visit to the exhibition “Focus Iran 2: Contemporary Photography and Video,” at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles — a juried biennial organized by the nonprofit Farhang Foundation. “We wanted to show different aspects of Iran than what’s typically covered in mainstream media,” director Alireza Rex Ardekani tells Vankin. “The more people know about a particular culture, and understand it, the less fear they will have about it.” Los Angeles Times

The return of ‘Zoot Suit’

“Zoot Suit,” the fabled musical by Luis Valdez, inspired by key moments in L.A. history — including the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon Murder and the Zoot Suit Riots of the ’40s — has returned to the stage at the Mark Taper Forum. In the role of the mythical character of El Pachuco: Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir. The Times’ Daryl H. Miller sat down with Bichir to discuss his approach to this otherworldly character. El Pachuco, says Bichir, is “a wise man, a wizard, a shaman. He’s good and he’s bad and he’s hideous and virtuous and he’s profane and reverential. He’s a trickster, a joker; he’s life and death.” Los Angeles Times

Plus: Times contributor Sylvie Drake speaks with Valdez, who talks about the childhood inspirations that drew him to theater, the roots of El Teatro Campesino, the roving theater troupe he established in the heady days of the farmworker movement, and the play that brought him international fame: “Zoot Suit.” His early work, writes Drake, represented a “combustion of raw energy, defiance, irony and joy.” Los Angeles Times

Gravity-defying Moby Dick and more

Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” checks in at more than 500 pages — but Chicago’s Lookgglass Theatre Company has shrunken down this literary behemoth into a buoyant two hours of stage time that offer an impressionistic, yet stunning, view of Ahab’s obsessions. The production is now on view at South Coast Repertory through Feb. 19, and Times theater critic Charles McNulty describes it as a work of art that is well-suited to the moment. “A voyage into the heart of darkness,” he writes, “‘Moby Dick’ is still the most incisive guide to the lure of destruction that threatens to capsize all that our civilization has built up in its defense.” Los Angeles Times

McNulty also checked out Keith A. Wallace’s powerful solo performance piece “The Bitter Game” at the Skirball Center last week — a work that “brings the theatrical tool of emotional enlightenment to the issues that have given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.” The story touches on well-covered subjects of gun violence and police brutality, writes McNulty, “but it’s how Wallace personalized the words and individualized the experiences that made the difference.” Los Angeles Times

And because too much theater is never, ever enough: The KOAN Unit ensemble has been staging a series of short plays by Samuel Beckett at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. In these five works — which include “Act Without Words II,” “Come and Go,” “Catastrophe,” “Footfalls” and “Krapp’s Last Tape” — McNulty says he found “resonances and divergences” and at least one piece that “resonated with our politically own turbulent moment.” But in staging so many plays at one go, he writes, there were signs of haste that would have driven “the famously stringent Beckett mad.” Los Angeles Times

A cry for a beloved country

Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars,” inspired by the South African novelist Alan Paton’s anti-apartheid bestseller, “Cry, the Beloved Country,” was hailed for ushering in a new era in American opera when it first premiered on Broadway in 1950. Times classical music critic Mark Swed caught a rare revival staged by Anne Bogart and co-produced by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. A work that examines the ways in which injustice thrives, “‘Lost in the Stars,’” writes Swed, “fit the mood of its time, and though rarely revived, it fits the mood of our own.” Los Angeles Times

A ballet competition fuels ambition

The Youth America Grand Prix, a national competition for young ballet dancers, landed in Huntington Beach last week, where children and teens staged their best choreographies for the possibility of landing scholarship money for a top dance school. The Times’ Gelt sat it in on the performances, where hundreds of young girls took to the stage as “little women” — “but offstage they are as small as their age would indicate.” Los Angeles Times

In other news…

— New York’s Museum of Modern Art is protesting the Trump administration’s travel ban by rehanging part of its permanent collection to feature works created by artists from Muslim nations — including pieces by the late Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid and L.A.-based painter Tala Madani, who was born in Iran. New York Times

— How the travel ban has affected the architecture community. Architectural Record

— New York City’s security estimate for protecting the Trumps in New York is more than double the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. Hyperallergic

— Plus, the best visualization I’ve seen yet of the relative smallness of the NEA’s budget. New York Times

— A musical version of George Orwell’s “1984” is coming to Broadway. Huffington Post

— Marta Becket, the desert icon who made the Amargosa Opera House at Death Valley Junction a destination for performance, has died at the age of 92. Los Angeles Times

— Glafira Rosales, the woman at the center of an art fraud scheme that passed off works by an unknown artist as Modernist masters, and brought down the famed Knoedler & Company gallery, has been sentenced to time served. New York Times

— How Japanese American designers shaped American art and architecture in the post-World War II era — and how their World War II internment experiences shaped their lives and work. Essential reading from design writer Alexandra Lange. Curbed

— Enough with the obtuse dance titles, writes Lindsey Winship. The Guardian

— One word: Puppets. New York Times

— LACMA has acquired Random International’s popular “Rain Room” installation for its permanent collection. Los Angeles Times

— Plus, the Getty Research Institute has acquired artist Miranda July’s feminist DIY video archive, “Joanie 4 Jackie.” Curator Astria Superak writes about what it was like to be part of that unusual video network. Los Angeles Times, The Iris

— The Times’ Makeda Easter looks at an exhibition at Inglewood’s Residency gallery, which offers a different way of picturing black men. Los Angeles Times

— And, an art critic has a go at Beyoncé’s pregnancy portrait. Plus, a little bit about Awol Erizku, the artist who made the pic. The Guardian, ARTnews

And last but not least…

Trump Tweets the classics. This is bigly funny. New Yorker

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter »

carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah

ALSO

Artist Theaster Gates on W.E.B. DuBois and what Donald Trump doesn’t get about Chicago

With vigils, a film, a comic and plenty of marching: How the L.A. art world faced Trump’s inauguration

As Trump talks building a wall, a Japanese art collective’s Tijuana treehouse peeks across the border

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La Times: Essential Arts & Culture: 'Zoot Suit' anew, art and the travel ban, Jimmie Durham's timely sculptures

Art, theater, music and performance that resonate with this tumultuous moment in world history. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, and your friendly neighborhood newsletter writer with the week’s most intriguing culture stories:

Art that throws stones

A new retrospective at the Hammer Museum of Arkansas-born artist Jimmie Durham (who claims Cherokee heritage) couldn’t be better timed, writes Times art critic Christopher Knight, “given deplorable declarations of American xenophobia now splashed across newspaper front pages.” Durham’s work — visceral assemblages that combine “cheekiness and humility” — hasn’t been shown in a significant way in the U.S. for two decades. But his art, Knight says, “speaks with a voice that is otherwise only heard in American life at times of profound crisis.” Los Angeles Times

Art, architecture and the travel ban

Airports around the country, including LAX, became sites of protest in the wake of Donald Trump’s travel ban. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne looked at how the design infrastructure of these ports of entry served as curious stages for acts of civil disobedience. “Airports,” he writes, “are conveners for the kind of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism that Trump’s nativist, ‘America first’ rhetoric has put squarely in the cross-hairs.” Los Angeles Times

I wrote about how artists and arts institutions are being affected by the travel ban. As artists poured into LAX to protest, organizations around Los Angeles are bracing themselves for a chill on cultural exchange. In an impassioned statement on the travel ban, James Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, wrote: “The Getty stands against it and adds its voice in favor of established American principles of freedom and engagement.” Los Angeles Times

Times culture writer Jessica Gelt reported on a group of artists wielding their art as protest: the activist theater group Artists Rise Up Los Angeles, which was formed by producer and director Sue Hamilton in the wake of the 2016 election. In a performance that incorporated song, dance, spoken word and poetry earlier this week, the troupe took on some of the political issues of our age. “One can imagine these shows,” writes Gelt, “beginning to resemble the famously lewd, satirical and politically subversive cabarets of Weimar Berlin.” Los Angeles Times

Plus, Oscar-nominated Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi, of “The Salesman,” has announced he won’t attend the Academy Awards in protest of the ban, even if an exception were made for him. Times film and culture writer Jeffrey Fleishman, who has served as foreign correspondent in Iran, uses the news as a jumping-off point to explore his journeys through the region, and the issue of art in an era of divisive politics. Make this a must-read. Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, The Times’ Deborah Vankin pays a visit to the exhibition “Focus Iran 2: Contemporary Photography and Video,” at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles — a juried biennial organized by the nonprofit Farhang Foundation. “We wanted to show different aspects of Iran than what’s typically covered in mainstream media,” director Alireza Rex Ardekani tells Vankin. “The more people know about a particular culture, and understand it, the less fear they will have about it.” Los Angeles Times

The return of ‘Zoot Suit’

“Zoot Suit,” the fabled musical by Luis Valdez, inspired by key moments in L.A. history — including the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon Murder and the Zoot Suit Riots of the ’40s — has returned to the stage at the Mark Taper Forum. In the role of the mythical character of El Pachuco: Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir. The Times’ Daryl H. Miller sat down with Bichir to discuss his approach to this otherworldly character. El Pachuco, says Bichir, is “a wise man, a wizard, a shaman. He’s good and he’s bad and he’s hideous and virtuous and he’s profane and reverential. He’s a trickster, a joker; he’s life and death.” Los Angeles Times

Plus: Times contributor Sylvie Drake speaks with Valdez, who talks about the childhood inspirations that drew him to theater, the roots of El Teatro Campesino, the roving theater troupe he established in the heady days of the farmworker movement, and the play that brought him international fame: “Zoot Suit.” His early work, writes Drake, represented a “combustion of raw energy, defiance, irony and joy.” Los Angeles Times

Gravity-defying Moby Dick and more

Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” checks in at more than 500 pages — but Chicago’s Lookgglass Theatre Company has shrunken down this literary behemoth into a buoyant two hours of stage time that offer an impressionistic, yet stunning, view of Ahab’s obsessions. The production is now on view at South Coast Repertory through Feb. 19, and Times theater critic Charles McNulty describes it as a work of art that is well-suited to the moment. “A voyage into the heart of darkness,” he writes, “‘Moby Dick’ is still the most incisive guide to the lure of destruction that threatens to capsize all that our civilization has built up in its defense.” Los Angeles Times

McNulty also checked out Keith A. Wallace’s powerful solo performance piece “The Bitter Game” at the Skirball Center last week — a work that “brings the theatrical tool of emotional enlightenment to the issues that have given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.” The story touches on well-covered subjects of gun violence and police brutality, writes McNulty, “but it’s how Wallace personalized the words and individualized the experiences that made the difference.” Los Angeles Times

And because too much theater is never, ever enough: The KOAN Unit ensemble has been staging a series of short plays by Samuel Beckett at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. In these five works — which include “Act Without Words II,” “Come and Go,” “Catastrophe,” “Footfalls” and “Krapp’s Last Tape” — McNulty says he found “resonances and divergences” and at least one piece that “resonated with our politically own turbulent moment.” But in staging so many plays at one go, he writes, there were signs of haste that would have driven “the famously stringent Beckett mad.” Los Angeles Times

A cry for a beloved country

Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars,” inspired by the South African novelist Alan Paton’s anti-apartheid bestseller, “Cry, the Beloved Country,” was hailed for ushering in a new era in American opera when it first premiered on Broadway in 1950. Times classical music critic Mark Swed caught a rare revival staged by Anne Bogart and co-produced by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. A work that examines the ways in which injustice thrives, “‘Lost in the Stars,’” writes Swed, “fit the mood of its time, and though rarely revived, it fits the mood of our own.” Los Angeles Times

A ballet competition fuels ambition

The Youth America Grand Prix, a national competition for young ballet dancers, landed in Huntington Beach last week, where children and teens staged their best choreographies for the possibility of landing scholarship money for a top dance school. The Times’ Gelt sat it in on the performances, where hundreds of young girls took to the stage as “little women” — “but offstage they are as small as their age would indicate.” Los Angeles Times

In other news…

— New York’s Museum of Modern Art is protesting the Trump administration’s travel ban by rehanging part of its permanent collection to feature works created by artists from Muslim nations — including pieces by the late Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid and L.A.-based painter Tala Madani, who was born in Iran. New York Times

— How the travel ban has affected the architecture community. Architectural Record

— New York City’s security estimate for protecting the Trumps in New York is more than double the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. Hyperallergic

— Plus, the best visualization I’ve seen yet of the relative smallness of the NEA’s budget. New York Times

— A musical version of George Orwell’s “1984” is coming to Broadway. Huffington Post

— Marta Becket, the desert icon who made the Amargosa Opera House at Death Valley Junction a destination for performance, has died at the age of 92. Los Angeles Times

— Glafira Rosales, the woman at the center of an art fraud scheme that passed off works by an unknown artist as Modernist masters, and brought down the famed Knoedler & Company gallery, has been sentenced to time served. New York Times

— How Japanese American designers shaped American art and architecture in the post-World War II era — and how their World War II internment experiences shaped their lives and work. Essential reading from design writer Alexandra Lange. Curbed

— Enough with the obtuse dance titles, writes Lindsey Winship. The Guardian

— One word: Puppets. New York Times

— LACMA has acquired Random International’s popular “Rain Room” installation for its permanent collection. Los Angeles Times

— Plus, the Getty Research Institute has acquired artist Miranda July’s feminist DIY video archive, “Joanie 4 Jackie.” Curator Astria Superak writes about what it was like to be part of that unusual video network. Los Angeles Times, The Iris

— The Times’ Makeda Easter looks at an exhibition at Inglewood’s Residency gallery, which offers a different way of picturing black men. Los Angeles Times

— And, an art critic has a go at Beyoncé’s pregnancy portrait. Plus, a little bit about Awol Erizku, the artist who made the pic. The Guardian, ARTnews

And last but not least…

Trump Tweets the classics. This is bigly funny. New Yorker

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter »

carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah

ALSO

Artist Theaster Gates on W.E.B. DuBois and what Donald Trump doesn’t get about Chicago

With vigils, a film, a comic and plenty of marching: How the L.A. art world faced Trump’s inauguration

As Trump talks building a wall, a Japanese art collective’s Tijuana treehouse peeks across the border

This post has been harvested from the source link, and News-Twitter has no responsibility on its content. Source link

[newstwitter-blog]

New Post has been published on News Twitter

New Post has been published on http://www.news-twitter.com/2017/02/04/la-times-essential-arts-culture-zoot-suit-anew-art-and-the-travel-ban-jimmie-durhams-timely-sculptures-8/

La Times: Essential Arts & Culture: 'Zoot Suit' anew, art and the travel ban, Jimmie Durham's timely sculptures

Art, theater, music and performance that resonate with this tumultuous moment in world history. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, and your friendly neighborhood newsletter writer with the week’s most intriguing culture stories:

Art that throws stones

A new retrospective at the Hammer Museum of Arkansas-born artist Jimmie Durham (who claims Cherokee heritage) couldn’t be better timed, writes Times art critic Christopher Knight, “given deplorable declarations of American xenophobia now splashed across newspaper front pages.” Durham’s work — visceral assemblages that combine “cheekiness and humility” — hasn’t been shown in a significant way in the U.S. for two decades. But his art, Knight says, “speaks with a voice that is otherwise only heard in American life at times of profound crisis.” Los Angeles Times

Art, architecture and the travel ban

Airports around the country, including LAX, became sites of protest in the wake of Donald Trump’s travel ban. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne looked at how the design infrastructure of these ports of entry served as curious stages for acts of civil disobedience. “Airports,” he writes, “are conveners for the kind of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism that Trump’s nativist, ‘America first’ rhetoric has put squarely in the cross-hairs.” Los Angeles Times

I wrote about how artists and arts institutions are being affected by the travel ban. As artists poured into LAX to protest, organizations around Los Angeles are bracing themselves for a chill on cultural exchange. In an impassioned statement on the travel ban, James Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, wrote: “The Getty stands against it and adds its voice in favor of established American principles of freedom and engagement.” Los Angeles Times

Times culture writer Jessica Gelt reported on a group of artists wielding their art as protest: the activist theater group Artists Rise Up Los Angeles, which was formed by producer and director Sue Hamilton in the wake of the 2016 election. In a performance that incorporated song, dance, spoken word and poetry earlier this week, the troupe took on some of the political issues of our age. “One can imagine these shows,” writes Gelt, “beginning to resemble the famously lewd, satirical and politically subversive cabarets of Weimar Berlin.” Los Angeles Times

Plus, Oscar-nominated Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi, of “The Salesman,” has announced he won’t attend the Academy Awards in protest of the ban, even if an exception were made for him. Times film and culture writer Jeffrey Fleishman, who has served as foreign correspondent in Iran, uses the news as a jumping-off point to explore his journeys through the region, and the issue of art in an era of divisive politics. Make this a must-read. Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, The Times’ Deborah Vankin pays a visit to the exhibition “Focus Iran 2: Contemporary Photography and Video,” at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles — a juried biennial organized by the nonprofit Farhang Foundation. “We wanted to show different aspects of Iran than what’s typically covered in mainstream media,” director Alireza Rex Ardekani tells Vankin. “The more people know about a particular culture, and understand it, the less fear they will have about it.” Los Angeles Times

The return of ‘Zoot Suit’

“Zoot Suit,” the fabled musical by Luis Valdez, inspired by key moments in L.A. history — including the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon Murder and the Zoot Suit Riots of the ’40s — has returned to the stage at the Mark Taper Forum. In the role of the mythical character of El Pachuco: Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir. The Times’ Daryl H. Miller sat down with Bichir to discuss his approach to this otherworldly character. El Pachuco, says Bichir, is “a wise man, a wizard, a shaman. He’s good and he’s bad and he’s hideous and virtuous and he’s profane and reverential. He’s a trickster, a joker; he’s life and death.” Los Angeles Times

Plus: Times contributor Sylvie Drake speaks with Valdez, who talks about the childhood inspirations that drew him to theater, the roots of El Teatro Campesino, the roving theater troupe he established in the heady days of the farmworker movement, and the play that brought him international fame: “Zoot Suit.” His early work, writes Drake, represented a “combustion of raw energy, defiance, irony and joy.” Los Angeles Times

Gravity-defying Moby Dick and more

Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” checks in at more than 500 pages — but Chicago’s Lookgglass Theatre Company has shrunken down this literary behemoth into a buoyant two hours of stage time that offer an impressionistic, yet stunning, view of Ahab’s obsessions. The production is now on view at South Coast Repertory through Feb. 19, and Times theater critic Charles McNulty describes it as a work of art that is well-suited to the moment. “A voyage into the heart of darkness,” he writes, “‘Moby Dick’ is still the most incisive guide to the lure of destruction that threatens to capsize all that our civilization has built up in its defense.” Los Angeles Times

McNulty also checked out Keith A. Wallace’s powerful solo performance piece “The Bitter Game” at the Skirball Center last week — a work that “brings the theatrical tool of emotional enlightenment to the issues that have given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.” The story touches on well-covered subjects of gun violence and police brutality, writes McNulty, “but it’s how Wallace personalized the words and individualized the experiences that made the difference.” Los Angeles Times

And because too much theater is never, ever enough: The KOAN Unit ensemble has been staging a series of short plays by Samuel Beckett at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. In these five works — which include “Act Without Words II,” “Come and Go,” “Catastrophe,” “Footfalls” and “Krapp’s Last Tape” — McNulty says he found “resonances and divergences” and at least one piece that “resonated with our politically own turbulent moment.” But in staging so many plays at one go, he writes, there were signs of haste that would have driven “the famously stringent Beckett mad.” Los Angeles Times

A cry for a beloved country

Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars,” inspired by the South African novelist Alan Paton’s anti-apartheid bestseller, “Cry, the Beloved Country,” was hailed for ushering in a new era in American opera when it first premiered on Broadway in 1950. Times classical music critic Mark Swed caught a rare revival staged by Anne Bogart and co-produced by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. A work that examines the ways in which injustice thrives, “‘Lost in the Stars,’” writes Swed, “fit the mood of its time, and though rarely revived, it fits the mood of our own.” Los Angeles Times

A ballet competition fuels ambition

The Youth America Grand Prix, a national competition for young ballet dancers, landed in Huntington Beach last week, where children and teens staged their best choreographies for the possibility of landing scholarship money for a top dance school. The Times’ Gelt sat it in on the performances, where hundreds of young girls took to the stage as “little women” — “but offstage they are as small as their age would indicate.” Los Angeles Times

In other news…

— New York’s Museum of Modern Art is protesting the Trump administration’s travel ban by rehanging part of its permanent collection to feature works created by artists from Muslim nations — including pieces by the late Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid and L.A.-based painter Tala Madani, who was born in Iran. New York Times

— How the travel ban has affected the architecture community. Architectural Record

— New York City’s security estimate for protecting the Trumps in New York is more than double the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. Hyperallergic

— Plus, the best visualization I’ve seen yet of the relative smallness of the NEA’s budget. New York Times

— A musical version of George Orwell’s “1984” is coming to Broadway. Huffington Post

— Marta Becket, the desert icon who made the Amargosa Opera House at Death Valley Junction a destination for performance, has died at the age of 92. Los Angeles Times

— Glafira Rosales, the woman at the center of an art fraud scheme that passed off works by an unknown artist as Modernist masters, and brought down the famed Knoedler & Company gallery, has been sentenced to time served. New York Times

— How Japanese American designers shaped American art and architecture in the post-World War II era — and how their World War II internment experiences shaped their lives and work. Essential reading from design writer Alexandra Lange. Curbed

— Enough with the obtuse dance titles, writes Lindsey Winship. The Guardian

— One word: Puppets. New York Times

— LACMA has acquired Random International’s popular “Rain Room” installation for its permanent collection. Los Angeles Times

— Plus, the Getty Research Institute has acquired artist Miranda July’s feminist DIY video archive, “Joanie 4 Jackie.” Curator Astria Superak writes about what it was like to be part of that unusual video network. Los Angeles Times, The Iris

— The Times’ Makeda Easter looks at an exhibition at Inglewood’s Residency gallery, which offers a different way of picturing black men. Los Angeles Times

— And, an art critic has a go at Beyoncé’s pregnancy portrait. Plus, a little bit about Awol Erizku, the artist who made the pic. The Guardian, ARTnews

And last but not least…

Trump Tweets the classics. This is bigly funny. New Yorker

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter »

carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah

ALSO

Artist Theaster Gates on W.E.B. DuBois and what Donald Trump doesn’t get about Chicago

With vigils, a film, a comic and plenty of marching: How the L.A. art world faced Trump’s inauguration

As Trump talks building a wall, a Japanese art collective’s Tijuana treehouse peeks across the border

This post has been harvested from the source link, and News-Twitter has no responsibility on its content. Source link