text:
In San Francisco's Mission District, the Black Bloc Breaks Windows and Fails to Make An Impact

  • Posted on: 1 October 2012
  • By: worker

From the new issue (#111) of Berkeley's 'Slingshot:'

Gentrification is a process where a working class, low-income neighborhood is colonized by the affluent and transformed into a bourgeois area. The 'embourgeosification' of a formerly proletarian quarter often begins when authentically impoverished low-income artists and bohemians move in. Minimum-toil-culture types are drawn to a low-income area by cheap rents, and are also often animated by an authentic antipathy for the larger homogenous corporatized society around us. Their marginal presence is followed by a proliferation of artsy enterprises: high-end galleries, shops, bars and restaurants drawing mainstream prosperous types to shop and consume in an area once thought to be too dark, dirty and (usually) non-white for upper middle class tastes. The gentry come to shop and party, and end up moving in, driving up the cost of rental housing, annexing affordable housing altogether, helping to drive hardcore wage slaves and the poor out of their homes and remaking an area in the image of the gentry's grasping, conspicuously consuming, conformist selves.

Gentrification is all about private property and the primacy of property rights over human needs in a market society. Vandalism of the property of wealthy invaders is an organic automatic response to the threat of dispossession gentrification brings. But sometimes a brick through a window is only a brick in a window. In fact, in most cases a broken window is just a broken window, a mere expression of atomized powerless rage. Context is everything.
</...
A one-night-only mass vandalism spree that occurred several months ago in San Francisco's rapidly gentrifying Mission District shows how a successful episode of mass property destruction can in fact be a complete failure in terms of authentic subversive social struggle.

On the night of Monday, April 30th, a rally associated with the Occupy movement was held in the Mission District's Dolores Park. As the rally ended, a march departed from the park and headed down 18th street, which is now a hyper-gentrified corridor of expensive restaurants and stores. Marchers vandalized a number of highly appropriate targets and eventually turned onto a particularly loathsome stretch of Valencia Street. Valencia is ground zero in the negative class transformation of the formerly working class Mission and on Valencia, more high-end eateries and stores were paint-bombed and had their windows broken. Expensive cars were also trashed. The Mission District police station was paint-bombed and some of its windows were broken as well. According to the capitalist news media, more than 30 stores and restaurants were vandalized. Only one person was arrested, and this person was quickly released.

This event was an excellent first step.

Unfortunately there was no second step:

The people who did the April 30th action made no subsequent effort to communicate their reasons for indulging in mass vandalism, thus robbing their efforts of all credibility. Evidently they said nothing because they had nothing to say. Their mass vandalism spree could have been a foot in the door for a larger message against the gentrification of the Mission in particular and against capitalist society in general, but nothing more was heard from them. With this lapse into characteristic complacency and silence, in their passivity and juvenile ineptitude the wannabe insurrectionary vandals handed a huge propaganda victory to both the Mission's bourgeois invaders and to the corporate news media, who were able to portray the event as an exercise in self-indulgent adolescent nihilism.

This silence of the lambs also left an opening for the event to be denounced by obnoxious liberalish elements in the local Occupy movement, who were given center stage by the dumb vandals to decry the vandalism in any way they choose. In fact, people I spoke with at random, both around the neighborhood and at Occupy Oakland events at Oscar Grant Plaza surmised that the police themselves were behind the April 30th vandalism action. This seems absurd, but the silence of the vandals and their abject social ineptitude led to this.

In an anti-gentrification fight, time is of the essence in all things. In a larger sense, public high-profile anti-gentrification actions have to begin before the transformation of an area has become irreversible. And in an action like April 30th, the larger objectives that motivated the action's authors -- if indeed they had any motivations beyond providing themselves with entertainment -- have to be communicated while the event is still fresh in people's minds. This would have meant some kind of transparently clear public statement within a few days of April 30th. No such statement was forthcoming.

As I write this, in mid-September, it's been four and a half months since the April 30th nocturnal vandalism spree, and there has been no subsequent noticeable public action against the gentrification of the Mission. The vandalism spree did not lead to any new resistance. Forms that public collective resistance could still take include rowdy demos on Valencia Street during the dinner hour on Friday and Saturday nights to disrupt the pleasures of the table for the bourgies, and big public neighborhood meetings, and sustained picket lines outside of the business offices and home addresses of egregious gentrifiers -- all of these in combination would be best.

An article in the 'New York Times' about the current tech-boom-generated gentrification of San Francisco compares the tech boom of the late 1990's and the tech boom of today, saying,

"…Back then, antigentrification posters appeared in the Mission urging people to vandalize luxury cars parked in the area…few marks of protest have occurred this time…"
('New Tech Boom Brings Jobs But Also Worries,' NYT, June 4)

Barely a month after the April 30th vandalism spree, the event was completely forgotten, and not perceived as a credible threat to the galloping gentrification of one of San Francisco's last remaining working class areas. Indeed, April 30th compares poorly to the much smaller but sustained effort of the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project of the late 1990's. The MYEP, with fewer than a handful of people in a long-term effort, did more to publicize gentrification as a class-conflict issue than did a hoard of one-night-standers in April. A useful critique of the MYEP can be found at: (

In a period of relative social peace, authentic revolutionary extremist action is all about communication. It is about communication to the virtual complete exclusion of all else. If an action or event fails to communicate, then it has failed completely -- and it doesn't matter how much fun it was for the people doing it. Subjectively, radical individuals have to try to communicate an uncompromising subversive message, on as wide a scale as possible, of direct relevance to the mundane everyday life concerns of mainstream working people. By this measure the April 30th Mission District vandalism event was an abject failure. To some degree, it even represented a brief 'colonization' of a real world problem by the 100% American/consumer society/all-entertainment-all-the-time ethos of the Black Bloc.

Black Bloc tactics are solely for the fleeting entertainment of the people who take part in them. They communicate nothing to the world at large. They lead nowhere. They offer nothing to build on. Mainstream working people aren't going to adopt Black Bloc tactics, or join the Black Bloc at protest ghetto events. The lack of credibility and commitment and failure of imagination seen in the April 30th Mission District vandalism spree is a symptom of the fact that a society gets the dissidents that it deserves. A society that proclaims that being entertained is the highest possible form of human aspiration gets a brand of ersatz radicalism that loyally mirrors this.

Max Crosby

Didn't want to be the one to break it to you all...but breaking window, and such act likes these won't accomplish shit, almost as useless as holding up signs and stuff like Occupy must attack these mother fuckers where it hurts...this doesn't scare thema bit, they laugh at this and love when you fight the Police instead of them as they sit nice and bundled in their fancy offices in their facy suits...get it now?...

the trltrt

Dear trltrt,

Where the hell is that poster? You're two days late.

Señor Grumps A Lot

Also, the pizza you delivered was cold.

-- Grister Mumpy

Workin on it right now boss.

The trltrt.

Gracias Amigo.

Señor Moody

I fist wanted to reply... but I don't think I got the superior intelligence to argue with such comment.

I dunno about you, but last time I attacked somebody in a "facy suit" the police were there within minutes. You're a poser and it shows.

yea. we should all just join DGR, I guess.

In South Berkeley the slingshot publishes 111 poorly written newspapers and fails to create anything worth retaining

In fact, even worse, their publications kills as many trees as Derrick Jensen's work does. Ouch!

this article sucks. if you want to put out some grandiose article about why it's important to vandalise shit why don't you? instead you write all this shit about how others failed to do something you could have done. total fail. there's no stage at which gentrification "can't" be reversed. there's plenty of areas around the world where action sprees did lead to further action. who the fuck are you to know what is going to lead to creating a culture of action and what is not?

They have published many, many, many, many issues of their magazine. That means they know how to win the revolution.

i don't think this article is THAT of it are a thoughtful critique...there's for sure some unnecessary insults (calling everyone who participated in a particular action 'dumb' or childish or whatever) and the last part that just straight up says black blocs are never useful at all, even though previously in the article it seemed to imply that a) the bloc on april 30th was a good action (it just needed more follow through) and b) targeted property destruction in and of itself is a valid form of protest.

the useful critique part that i take from it is the need (desire? opinion?) for more clear communication to people outside of a particular militant protest (black bloc or otherwise) as to why it is happening. i'd personally say that this isn't always necessary, as sometimes the medium is the message, but in the case of what could be a sustained campaign to effect a particular sort of change (like stopping or reversing gentrification in a given area), than communicating this as a message, or at least following up and continuing that campaign in some way (examples are given in the article) would make sense.

i'm assuming that the author(s) of this piece take the fact that no additional actions, messages, etc took place after the bloc on april 30th to mean that there was never any actual plan or strategy to try to stop or reverse gentrification in the mission district, which is probably their source of frustration.

although, in all honesty, if you're capable of printing however many hundreds or thousands or whatever copies of a newspaper, you could probably print up a few hundred decent quality anti-gentrification posters and get those out there, too. just sayin.

After reading this I bought 100 more slingshot organizers, that will stop gentrification!

Boring. How is it that people who have completely failed to achieve social revolt are such experts in how to bring it about? STFU already. Put up or shut up.

No kidding. Fuck these people.

"Black Bloc tactics are solely for the fleeting entertainment of the people who take part in them. They communicate nothing to the world at large. They lead nowhere. They offer nothing to build on. Mainstream working people aren't going to adopt Black Bloc tactics, or join the Black Bloc at protest ghetto events."

Seriously, is this Chris Hedges? Is it a coincidence that we're seeing exactly the same line from the police, the corporate media, self-important left journalists, and now yesterday's heroes of the radical (un)intelligentsia?

Something is happening, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Hedges/Keating!

"Seriously, is this Chris Hedges?" You are obsessed with me, aren't you? Think I'm everywhere and behind everything, don't you?

Not who you're replying to, but:

1. I highly doubt that you are Chris Hedges.

2. The phrase "Seriously, is this Chris Hedges?" is more likely a reference to Chris Hedges becoming a symbol/spokesperson for ineffectual leftist critiques of black bloc tactics based on the idea that they alienate "the mainstream", rather than a sincere allegation that Chris Hedges is the sole author of every such critique.

1. I see that sarcasm escapes you.
2. I see that the word "seriously" in the phrase "Seriously, is this Chris Hedges?" can be taken as seriously as anything else on this website -- not at all seriously.

this wasn't black bloc tactics. This was an empty expression of anger and a very well written article over reaching statements aside. Black bloc is active resistence, this is shit I do when I'm drunk. Not kidding either. Difference between you and me, when I wake up in a jail cell spelling of paint I don't want a fucking boot in the air. Jesus. Its the Bay. 7 minutes walking distance they have drive by shootings. Get real kid.

Ah yes, the fact that people did not follow up on what was admittedly a good start proves that the Black Bloc is useless. The author clearly has a personal grudge against people he identifies with the Black Bloc.

And a news flash: Mainstream people will never join a black bloc, nor read Slingshot, nor join a protest, because being mainstream is all about avoiding all of those things.

"When police officers arrested a person suspected of dealing drugs in a house on a narrow street in North Camden last year, residents set upon their cars and freed the prisoner."

Mob rule. That's the way it should be.

Common mainstream person:

-sees a rowdy protest going on, people shouting, maybe tearing things up, maybe not
-asks "what is this all about?"
-is handed a thoughtful and well worded, well thought out flyer explaining what it "is all about"
-still doesn't (or can't?) read the flyer, continues to ask "what is this all about?"

If people can't have something explained to them in a 15 second fashion like they're spoon fed on the news, they don't want to look into it.
It is no fault of our own, it is a problem with this culture.
I've seen this scene play out a thousand times.

your assessment of mainstream people just summed up at least 30 percent of the people here and both the reactions to this article as well as the initial action.

Stupid article except for the astute observation about "obnoxious liberals" in Occupy. Maybe you liked the recent FTP in the Mission better; too bad it negates your basic premise.

True that, and sometimes the writers at Slingshot com across as slightly less "obnoxious" but still more or less liberal themselves. I mean really now, "embourgeosification"? WTF?

"Mainstream working people"
"Protest Ghetto Events"

So it's all about the "communication" eh?

I have been communicated to since I was born:

You must get up at 6am every day. You must commute long distances using fossil fuels. You must slave from 8am-5pm every day for someone else's profit, while your one and only life of possibility slips relentlessly down the drain.

Furthermore: You must dress, act, live, work, travel, dream, eat, think, talk, grow your tomatoes, toss out your trash and conduct your life in a very specific circumscribed way.

Absent following this program, the communication I receive is violence. Total and absolute violence.

And what happens when, in response, I attempt to COMMUNICATE my agenda and my point of view? Violence. Total and absolute violence and an aggressive unwillingness to listen to any point of view other than the proscribed Bataan Death March.

Communication goes both ways.
So far I am only being communicated to most viciously
and the willingness to communicate in the spirit of "Community" is not reciprocated in any way.

When this is view and nature of your community, do not be surprised when the cinder block that you have been dropping on half of humanity comes crashing through your front door.

Cheers y'all

Cedric Price, “…dialogue might be the only excuse for architecture.”, and vandalism also. but, "authentic revolutionary extremist action is all about communication. It is about communication to the virtual complete exclusion of all else" this is not true, and never has been. Abraham Guillen, Carlos Marighella, and Che Guevara have all stressed the importance of "above ground" organizing and propaganda; but none of them would have totally dismissed a collective attack against an "appropriate" target.
"The only way in which the population can make its impression on the immense armada which has gotten stranded around our city center is to wear them out. Destruction is the only way left. “ Habraken- from Colin Ward's collection Vandalism
"Black Bloc tactics are solely for the fleeting entertainment of the people who take part in them." Its not possible to deflate this one denominational criticism, any farther.
Mike Davis with Occupied London "I think that we need to propagandise and fight for the idea of a universal insurrection...Kevin Lynch...thought that anything that involved people and the built environment, including destroying it, was a good thing. If you wanted to generate a theory of participatory architecture or urbanism, vandalism seemed to be the most common and popular form of participating in the built environment by revolting against its dehumanisation..."
"They offer nothing to build on." The people quoted above, focused largely on building, and all saw building on/with the ruins as immediately necessary.
One thing you are right about in this article, is we need more, this isn't enough. And though you tried to be validating in ways, you still threw too much of a "self-indulgent adolescent" fit yourself, in the way that you make a spectacular object of Black Bloc, as if it is a thing and not people at times, and you can just throw your stones at it and smash it away.

The last paragraph is stupid. But I think the first point -- that no one did anything to explain what the April 30th smashy-smashy was about -- is totally correct. There was no communique written, nothing was handed out during the march. Given the fact that a bunch of people wanted to demonstrate what awesome nihilists they were by smashing up minivans and stuff, most people had no clue that this was an attempt to combat gentrification. If one's goal is to encourage more stuff like that among one's neighbors -- the few poor people left in the mission -- then this was an important oversight.

Dear everyone who is bummed that there wasn't a communique for april 30th:

if you spent half as much time writing your own as you do whining, we would have hundreds of communiques by now. Kevin Keating alone could write a book about april 30th in a fraction of the time he has spent whining on listservs and anews. Nobody has authorship over those events. If you think there should be a communique, why didn't you write one?

Oh that's right, its easier to just whine on the internet.

Yeah, I did see a few worthwhile critiques in there...the article really wasn't half as bad as I expected from the title. We do need better communication, but that doesn't prove the action was a failure or justify the abysmal last paragraph.

Here's my question: why must the bloc be held responsible? What about all those intellectuals, who write in papers with dramatic, insurrectionary names like "slingshot"? Where the fuck were you, mr author, over those four months?

Making public statements (even communiques) about why you rioted is very dangerous. These kids already went out and fought for "us", doesn't that count for something? Everyone seems to want a bloc that's orderly and obedient, constantly blaming them for not living up to our expectations, but nobody seems willing to go an inch out of their comfort zone to back them up.

Don't be an ageist uh? I'm almost 30 and I still say "me and the other black bloc kids" or "those fucking occupy kids". You're being defensive.

I'm not. And I'm not condmning these people for this. But in a situation like this, its useless. Fucking lazy too. This isn't engaging the state or vocalizing an intelligent thought. Its just anger. And legitimate anger but fucking useless. No one gets the message on a human level. Its the equivelant of saying fuck you to I'll beat your ass to a biggot andthen walking away without an explanation.

nah, you're the one who defensively explained yourself. I just called out the use of ageist language w/o context (like what you now provided).

now everything is right with the world!

You're right Id rather not be the arrogant dick who says this is the way lazy children who care less about the people who are losing their homes and more about to conforming and perpetuating cultural stereotypes act. If you cared you'd set up a committee, distribute flyers, remind Dockers that the reason their vapid ass is moving in is because of someone elses misfortune. Not break a handful of windows spraypaint slogans that only show cultural divisions with barely a shadow of class division and then post it here to get your brownie points among people indirectly involved. That or suite up and actively try to fight the state to reclaim the neighborhood at 5 in the evening. But as it stands these people are going to face political repression, unjustifiably for a bullshit act. There was nothing worth percieving as political or moral to Will n Grace in this action. I see it, but I'm in the cult so who gives a shit. Bitchy or not I'm still with you. But poor folk in the Mission are still fucked and they'd be fucked either way but maybe not forgotten. Check with the folk up in Portland, see how they do it.

The day we look to Portland to see how they do anything is the day we're all in trouble, unless by "it" you mean "open vegan mini malls" or "put birds on things".

*The spirit of the 90s is alive in Portlaaannnd*

The headline is the best part.

yawn, the problem isn't gentrification. the neighborhood is mixed.

of course, this is probably fake. written by someone who has no fucking clue what they're talking about. someone who couldn't even purchase a clue in college...

why don't some of you fuckers here go volunteer in an ER? I'd rather had people with AIDS bleed all over me and die, than to have to listen to your pathetic first world whining any more.

"the problem isn't gentrification. the neighborhood is mixed"

only yuppies and wanna-be yuppies whine endlessly about gentrification

says some white and/or well off person

Last paragraph is not true.... Seattle 99' extremely poor ppl participated in the black bloc spontaneously

Mainstream working people Mainstream working people Mainstream working people Mainstream working people Mainstream working people Mainstream working people Mainstream working people Mainstream working people Mainstream working people Mainstream working people. Didn't you know the class still only has social democratic consciousness?

whatever bro...

break everything, say nothing.

> break everything, say nothing.

Nothing else needs to be said.

Man I had no idea the Egyptian revolution was against Mubarak because the people in tahrir never posted any communiques to ANews after fighting the cops and smashing police stations!

This guy says the same fucking thing over and over. Where does he get the energy?

Some folks at Slingshot and the Long Haul infoshop had problems putting female bodies people with guns on the cover of one of the issues. Not necessarily all but most are soft ass anarcho-liberals. Does the author of this live in the mission and talk to the everyday folks on the block?

If not, fuck you! And fuck Kevin Keating too for good measure

Come on, Keating IS DEFINITELY the author of this article. It has all the tell-tale signs. It uses the same insults he does over and over and over. He links to his own projects, always the page from infoshop. This guy is pathetic.

"...Does the author of this live in the mission and talk to the everyday folks on the block?"

Answer: yes.

From the author of the piece.

Seriously guys, don't blame the Slingshot Collective on this one. They've been pretty starved for good material recently, and they're less inclined to be picky about what they publish. This issue definitely isn't their best (possibly one of their worst, actually), but it isn't really that awful to begin with. This ain't another hedgegate.

This is really a worthless article.
So you're mad because people who engaged in an attack didn't properly (in your opinion) communicate to the "working-class" why they attacked? Ok. your opinion is fine but your bad mouthing the efforts of comrades for adhering to your leftist formula for what is supposed to happen after an attack is pathetic.

i have good manners, so i'm going to nicely ask you TO PLEASE GET A FUCKING LIFE SOCIOPATH.

What you got against sociopaths fool?!
Some of us have better moral compasses than the ones they hand you in skool!

i just don't give a shit about anything anymore.

take it easy

...but take it

"In San Francisco's Mission District, the Black Bloc Breaks Windows and Fails to Make An Impact"

Yeah, I think we've known this for about 30 years now.

But I'm sure the BB are thinking to themsleves: "Just one more broken window and we'll all be free!!"

Can somebody be pro-Black Bloc tactics/property destruction and be concerned about people who actually do Black Bloc tactics ?

Some really aggressive people doing black bloc and not fully being against capitalism/property. Really angry democrats bashing windows, etc.

ok fine yes i could also be pro-black bloc and not want time traveling terminators or the pope to join in, look at me posting ideas on the internet oh yeah

What working class? You mean the mass pool of unskilled laborers? or the almost non-existent American industrial workers?
I've seen more radicals coming out of the "ghetto" then I have in years. Black bloc speaks to the uncontrollables. The thugs who want more than a life spent in and out of cages. Those looking for a sexier rebellion. People who can't fucking take it anymore.
Fucking up business as usual is never a bad thing.
I don't think communicating a message is a bad thing, but who the fuck are they supposed to be communicating to? A profiteering business owner? A propertarian prole?
Revolt is spreading. Smashy smashy is a catalyst for radicalization.

Blac Bloc is obviously neo-dada street theater.

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Tag Archives: blues rock

Walter Trout – “The Blues Come Callin'” Album Review

  The vast majority of the rock/blues world’s thoughts have been with Walter Trout recently. Stuck in hospital and forced to appeal to friends and fans for money to raise funds for a life or death liver transplant, the people … Continue reading

Posted in Album Review, Music | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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Samsung Galaxy J3 2017, Galaxy C7, Galaxy A5 2016 and Galaxy A3 2017 are getting new security updates for the month of December

Samsung Galaxy A5 2018 and Samsung Galaxy A7 2018

Last week, Samsung published the official Maintenance Release for the month of December that included up to ten fixes for vulnerabilities discovered in its own software alongside others discovered in Google’s software. As at the time of this writing, a handful of Sammy handsets are now receiving the update.

Beating the expectations, the rollout started with Samsung Galaxy A5 2016, which received December’s Android security patch last week. In addition to installing the latest security patch, the update also improves charging stability of the A5 2016 as well as the overall performance and system stability. Carrying software version A510FXXU4CQL1, the update weighs about 200MB, which means you shouldn’t expect new features or huge changes to the device, but it’s needed for security purposes.

This week, Samsung continued with the rollout, this time taking the goodies to Galaxy C7 users. This is a phone that is mainly sold in China, but it’s also available here in Kenya and other markets as well. Since the update is rolling out in China, it should also mean that those rocking the phone in other markets are also receiving December’s Android security patch. As expected, Samsung Galaxy C7 users will get fixes for numerous Android exploits alongside stability improvements. The update comes with software version C7000ZCU2BQL2 and is dated December 5, 2017.

Those using the Samsung Galaxy J3 2017 and Samsung Galaxy A3 2017 have also joined the party. If your Galaxy J3 2017 or A3 2017 hasn’t received any update in the recent past, make sure you don’t miss out on this one because it should bundle several important fixes to exploits like KRACK and Blueborne that have been targeting Wi-Fi and Bluetooth services, respectively. Where the Galaxy J3 2017 is getting firmware version J330FNXXU2AQK8, those on the Galaxy A3 2017 can expect an update with software version A320YDXU1BQI2.

READ:  Samsung's most ambitious mid-range smartphone, the Galaxy A8+, starts selling in Kenya

Note that all of these updates are rolling out over the air (OTA), which means they are staged and as such, not all units will receive them at once. If you can’t wait for the OTA notification, now would be a perfect time to try a manual update via the Settings>Software update>Download updates manually. Before you do this, however, make sure you have a strong Wi-Fi connection and the battery is at least 50%.

Each one teach one.


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Posted in mind, wellness

Total Wellness: Mind

mind platter

Our minds play a critical role in our overall well-being.  We should care for it just as we do our bodies.  Realizing that the mind needs certain things to operate at an optimal level, Dr. David Rock and Dr. Daniel J. Siegel developed The Healthy Mind Platter.  It highlights the seven essential mental activities that are needed to ensure our brain matter operates at an optimal level.   They are necessary for our total well-being.  Here is a summary of the items included on the platter.

Focus Time

Focus on some task that will lead to a specific goal each day.  The challenges caused by closely focusing on the task help to make deep connections in the brain.

Play Time

Be creative and spontaneous; enjoy some new experience each day.  This helps to make new connections in the brain.

Connecting Time

Connect with other people, preferably in person.  Our relationship with others helps reinforce the brains relational circuitry.

Physical Time

Take time to exercise daily.  Moving our bodies helps to strengthen the brain.

Time In

Take time to reflect.  Quiet reflections help us integrate the brain better.

Down Time

Do not focus.  Let the brain recharge by simply relaxing and letting the mind wander.

Sleep Time

Get enough sleep.  This allows the brain to rest and helps us recount, recover and rejuvenate.

For more information, visit Dr. Siegel’s website.

My name is Nicole. I am a graduate student at the wonderful Savannah College of Art & Design, and I am pursuing an MFA in writing, which just so happens to be my passion. Here you'll find a myriad of lifestyle topics involving mental wellness, self-care and tips for greater well-being. I hope you enjoy your stay here in the world wide web of my mind!

2 thoughts on “Total Wellness: Mind

  1. Love this!!! I really believe balance is the key to happiness and this is a good way to remind yourself to spread your time around – too much of one thing isn’t good for us. Do you mind if I share this on my blog? I did a post a few weeks ago about balance and would love to add this info to my site – with credit to you ofcourse 🙂

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New Series and Other News

Well hello there. It’s been forever since I updated my blog. *hangs head in shame*

Daily Grind, the 4th Takeover book, has been out for about three months, and I am grateful for all the reviews and love the book has gotten! I’m so happy folks have enjoyed Brian and Rob’s story!

Folks have been asking if there will be more Takeover stories, and yes, eventually. But I’m going to be taking a little break from Sam Anderson and his crew to work on two new books. And I can finally talk about them! Here’s the announcement from Publisher’s Marketplace:

PM announcement

I sold two rock star novels to Carina Press! The first one is Syncopation, and it, as the announcement says, follows the lead singer of a band on the rocks as he attempts to salvage his career and manage his feelings for the band’s new drummer — who happens to be his unattainable high school crush.

Basically, it’s a reunited, unrequited enemies to lovers with snark, kink, attitude, a queer rock band, and a lot of self-discovery. I’m so looking forward to introducing you to Ray Van Zeller, a singer with too much anxiety and the weight of the world on his shoulders, and to Zavier Demos, a drummer who really is that good at beating skin.

Counterpoint is the second book of the series, which which will follow the lead guitarist as he navigates his public and private life, which he’s managed to keep separate, until they run straight into each other.

They should both be out next year.

But what about this year?? Well, October should see the release of a Bluewater Bay book I wrote for Ripetide: Outside the Lines, which is the poly romance I’ve been talking a little bit on twitter about.

I owe you all a Takeover short story, so I’ll be releasing one that’s basically Eli and Justin’s hosting Thanksgiving dinner for Eli’s relatives. Justin’s cooking. (Be afraid.) Look for that, hopefully, in early to mid November.

Last but not least, I’ll be re-releasing my paranormal romance Close Quarter, probably in July. I have a lovely new cover by Garrett Leigh, too. Wait until you see it!

More on that later.


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6 Days in Gothenburg, Sweden. Early April. What to expect?

So, I’ve visited Gothenburg this easter, and I liked it enough that think I could live there – a quiet city surrounded by beautiful nature.

I’m going to list a few things I liked and maybe make you want to visit Gothenburg one day, too?

– Having visited Delsjöområdet, a local (huge) park on a quiet Sunday morning, almost everyone was running. As a runner myself I was excited to see so many people of all ages so active!

-Breakfast at the lovely hotel. Cosy atmosphere, quiet people who put the chairs back when finished.

-No one was shouting on the streets. It may come off as a weird statement, but coming from London, it’s a change. For people who visited London – have you ever noticed it?

-Not a heavy drinking culture. It is absolutely amazing.

-Fresh Air. Once again, Londoner in me can’t help but point out. Was close to taking a jar of air with me.

-Food, I had smoked salmon at the Cafe on Vrango – a southmost island on the Gothenburg archipelago and it was great. Overall healthy choices almost everywhere, loads of gluten free stuff too. Yay!

-People. Reserved but really friendly, no awkwardness, no small talk.

-Scandinavian skincare… I bought too much. My mum said that Lumene hydrating serum is better than the one she had from Clinique. Another good reason to ditch big companies who test on animals.

As for the pictures – I’ve taken them with my iPhone 6s, I wanted to do a small experiment and didn’t bring my camera with me. Tell me what you think about them!

f4e426ba-247b-442c-84a7-8fbffc2ccd7a2 gothenburg
That’s me!

Are you wondering how to prepare for the weather in the early April? I regretted not taking my timberlands… Unless you won’t be hiking 🙂

Things to take with you, if you plan to visit nature parks:

  • A good pair of gloves. We took cycling gloves as we were planning to cycle.
  • Seriously, take timberlands. But I recommend a lighter version, I have them and they are great!
  • Comfortable and warm outwear. Thankfully I took my parka with me, but I really want to buy this one Fjällräven Keb Padded Insulated Jacket
  • Backpack! I adore the Kanken, and it’s waterproof! They’re on sale now, I might get another one.

Disclaimer: I put affiliate links on this blog, but I recommend things that I feel are great and worth buying.

How do you like the photos? Have you ever been to Sweden?


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Oliver Stone: Forget ISIS, America Is the Real Threat to the World

Written by Jake Anderson at theantimedia.org

Many people thought Oliver Stone’s days of rankling the establishment were over. Many people were wrong. His 2012 book and TV series, The Untold History of the United States, suggests the iconic filmmaker is renewing efforts to challenge the mainstream narrative regarding American exceptionalism, economic imperialism, and our government’s “nefarious involvement” in the Middle East.

To complete the 10-part documentary series and 750 page book, Stone collaborated with World War 2 scholar Peter Kuznick. The controversial filmmaker says that in assessing American history since the 1930s, it’s our involvement in the Middle East that really grabbed his attention.

“We’ve destabilized the entire region, created chaos. And then we blame ISIS for the chaos we have created,” Stone said.

According to Stone, the U.S. government’s destabilizing role actually goes back much further than ISIS. His new series pinpoints moments of American intrusion in the region as far back as the 1930s and follows it all the way to the CIA-backed Iranian coup in 1953, support for Afghanistan-based, anti-Soviet Union militants in the 1980s, George H.W. Bush’s Iraq invasion of 1990, and present-day efforts in Iran, Syria, and other countries.

Stone etched his way into the hearts and minds of the American public in the mid-to-late 1980s with two films depicting powerful experiences from the Vietnam War. Platoon and Born on the 4th of July represent Stone’s confusion over his own service in the war, for which he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

Stone’s JFK famously questioned the mainstream narrative of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, endearing the filmmaker to conspiracy theory circles for decades with a fictional account of a lawyer bringing the U.S. government to trial for its role in the assassination.

In recent years, Oliver Stone has received less acclaim for films like World Trade Center, which failed to question the mainstream narrative of 9/11, and W., which gave relatively gentle treatment to George W. Bush’s presidency.

Stone’s 2012 series, The Untold History of the United States, is a return to the intellectual form of one of his earliest successes, Salvador, which was strongly critical of the U.S.-supported right wing military of the Salvadoran Civil War. The last episode in the series is called Bush & Obama: Age of Terror. It covers the following subjects:

  • The Project For A New American Century, a neoconservative think tank that called for a Pearl Harbor-type event to catalyze military action in the Middle East
  • The tyranny of neoconservatives who pushed us to war with Iraq using faulty intelligence
  • The rushing through of the Patriot Act, which stripped Americans of a wide variety of civil liberties while bestowing legal precedent to the new surveillance state
  • The national brainwashing and fear-mongering of the War on Terror
  • Invading Afghanistan to defeat some of the same terrorists the U.S. armed and trained two decades earlier
  • Unconstitutional torture and interrogation tactics at Guantanamo Bay
  • The mainstream media’s facilitation of war through propaganda and corporate collusion
  • Obama selling out to J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, General Electric, and Big Pharma
  • The $700 billion financial bailout paid for by workers, pensioners, homeowners, small businessmen, and students with loans
  • The rise of CEO compensation amid the collapse of the middle class
  • Obama’s failure to deliver hope, change, or transparency, his prosecution of government whistleblowers, his fortification of Bush’s national security state (though he repudiated the unilateralism of Bush, he doubled down on troops and, according to Stone, “lacked the courage of a John F. Kennedy”)
  • Obama’s targeted drone strikes on Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia (includes a breathtaking clip of his remark to troops: “Unlike the old empires, we don’t make these sacrifices for territory or for resources….We do it because it’s right.”

Stone says his documentary series is an alternative approach to American history, one he hopes will fight the“educational crime” of exposing today’s schoolchildren to the propaganda of standard textbooks and television programs.

On this note, Stone doesn’t mince words:

“American exceptionalism has to be driven out of our curriculums. We’re not under threat. We are the threat.”

This article (Oliver Stone: Forget ISIS, America Is the Real Threat to the World) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Jake Anderson and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email[email protected].

  1. Oliver Stone is one of the true voices of reason, truth,honesty and decency.Sourly lacking in a government that hides the truth with many distractions . May he continue his vital work of informing the public of the real truth about
    the history and motives of this government

  2. Freemasons defiled Christianity with Sunday during the Renaissance. Muslims keep Friday, and Jews hate Jesus. We’re born into bondage to a secular establishment. The Egyptian pyramid illustrated on the United States one dollar bill is not just random art. The Illuminati eye of Satan is depicted at the top.

    Slavery is very Biblical, it’s part of being mortal. Who is your master? Who do you serve?

    We’re all going straight to hell if we don’t change our ways. Few find that strait and narrow way. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the begotten Son of God said he who does the will of My Father which is in heaven; that would be the Law of Moses. What else could it be? The Sabbath is a sign between God and his people. I want to be one of those.

    Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy.

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Nothing like a good lurid headline on which to end the day, and to give us with an apt example, the Guardian has conjured up this gem to furnish their report on the mysterious Bili apes. For many years the stuff of legend, the apes, named for the local area, were eventually observed in the flesh, in once instance chomping away on the carcass of a leopard. This, if true, is surprising enough, but not as odd as the idea that it may even have killed its feline prey, a behaviour never before reported in apes, but corresponds to rumour that has persisted locally for some time. There doesn’t appear to be any explanation of how this killing of a leopard by one or more apes might have been accomplished, or whether or not they could have made and/or used weapons, such as rocks, or trapped it in some fiendish device. The Bili or Bondo Mystery Apes are to be found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and are described thus in Wikipedia

The Bili Ape is massive by chimpanzee standards. Heights can exceed 5 feet (about Gorilla height), their skulls are larger than chimp skulls, and their footprints are larger even than gorillas. Unfortunately, there have been relatively few detailed observations of the Bili Ape and no thorough examination of either remains or a living Bili Ape in captivity. They are also various(ly) described as having silver backs and even snouted faces (uncommon).

The locals in Bili refer to Bili Apes as “Lion Killers”. While chimps tend to stay in the trees and make good prey for big cats, Bili Apes nest on the ground like gorillas and have been reported to hunt lions.

Until recently, very little has been heard of these apes, as apparently they were only reported in the West as late as 1996, and the Wikipedia article claims Jane Goodall was able to send in an expedition to find them in 2004, at a time when there must have been a lull in the local warfare that has plagued the region for years. However, when I ran a quick search at Jane Goodall’s website, nothing came up for ‘Bili’ or ‘Bondo’, so I can’t as yet confirm her involvement in the discovery. This from the Guardian…

The most detailed and recent data comes from Cleve Hicks, at the University of Amsterdam, who has spent 18 months in the field watching the Bili apes – named after a local town – since 2004. His team’s most striking find came after one of his trackers heard chimps calling for several days from the same spot.

When he investigated he came across a chimp feasting on the carcass of a leopard. Mr Hicks cannot be sure the animal was killed by the chimp, but the find lends credence to the apes’ lion-eating reputation.

“What we have found is this completely new chimpanzee culture,” said Mr Hicks. Previously, researchers had only managed to snatch glimpses of the animals or take photos of them using camera traps. But Mr Hicks used local knowledge to get closer to them and photograph them.

“We were told of this sort of fabled land out west by one of our trackers who goes out there to fish,” said Mr Hicks whose project is supported by the Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation. “I call it the magic forest. It is a very special place.”

I daresay that a fair amount of scepticism will greet this news, at least until further corroborative observations have been made, but if it’s confirmed that these apes really do behave in the manner described, it will be interesting to see whether there is a debate as to whether they should become classified as Pan or Homo. In the meantime, here’s a good link which reports on Cleve Hicks’ field studies back in 2004

Apes at night are generally to be found sleeping in nests which are built in the branches of trees as a precaution against being attacked on the ground in the night by anything with harmfully large teeth and sharp claws, but many of the Bili apes appear to prefer ground level dormitory accommodation…

Mr Hicks reports that he found a unique chimp culture. For example, unlike their cousins in other parts of Africa the chimps regularly bed down for the night in nests on the ground. Around a fifth of the nests he found were there rather than in the trees.

“How can they get away with sleeping on the ground when there are lions, leopards, golden cats around as well as other dangerous animals like elephants and buffalo?” said Mr Hicks.

“The ground nests were very big and there was obviously something very unusual going on there. They are not unknown elsewhere but very unusual,” said Colin Groves, an expert on primate morphology at the Australian National University in Canberra who has observed the nests in the field.

And most surprising of all, was the revelation that there seem to be plentiful numbers of these apes in the surrounding countryside, especially as we often hear how many other apes and other fauna in the area are falling victim to poachers, hunters and trigger-happy others. (TJ)

see also: National Geographic – Elusive African Apes: Giant Chimps or New Species?

and: Karl Ammann – The Bondo Mystery Apes


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Process Development Engineer

I currently have an exciting new position that has just opened up for a process development engineer in a leading medical device company. If you are looking to join a dynamic R+D team located in the heart of Galway. You could be the engineer we're looking for.

This is a permanent position with great salary and benefits.

What I will be doing as a Process Development Engineer?

  • You will have the responsibility for developing and maintaining manufacturing processes, supporting both product development and manufacturing needs.
  • Primary responsibility for process development activities in assigned area, supporting the needs of new product developments and manufacturing/continuous improvement initiatives.

Product Development

  • Review product designs, test protocols and co-develop critical characteristics/tolerances for initial testing, validations and subsequent routine manufacturing controls.
  • Participate in design evaluations where appropriate.
  • Support product development builds including prototype and pre-production build

Continuous Improvement Support

  • Support design and process improvement activities.

  • Act as an advocate for continuous improvement activities using statistical techniques, lean manufacturing tool, six sigma, design experimentation for process and equipment, to achieve targets and cost savings.

Manufacturing and Lab equipment Support

  • Lead or support, troubleshooting on equipment while providing coaching and mentoring to other engineering staff. Will have prime role with respect to equipment and process safety ensuring standards are met and exceeded at all times.

  • Maintain the R&D equipment and laboratories in line with GMP to support all R&D prototyping activities and pre-design verification builds.

What I need to be a Process Development Engineer ?

  • Minimum of Bachelor's degree in engineering or material Science.

  • 2 to 6 years of experience preferably in the medical device industries or other comparable industries (e.g. electronics, automotive etc...)

  • Proficiency and experience in 2D and 3D CAD Modelling using Solidworks or equivalent is an advantage.

If you are interested in hearing more about this opportunity with a leading company going through an exciting growth phase please respond with an updated CV or call me on 01 888 3477 for immediate consideration. Don't miss out on this opportunity today!!!

To find out more about Real please visit

Real Staffing, a trading division of SThree Partnership LLP is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy| Registered office | 1st Floor, 75 King William Street, London, EC4N 7BE, United Kingdom | Partnership Number | OC387148 England and Wales


text:
Magic Piano Tiles 2018 v1.18.0 MOD APK

Magic Piano Tiles 2018 v1.18.0 MOD APK

Games , Music

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Screenshot Image Screenshot Image Screenshot Image Screenshot Image

Magic Piano Tiles 2018 - another representative of wonderful music projects that can test their skills in piano playing or perform serious training using different compositions solo or in competition with other pianists. Simple but nice graphics, music styles for every taste and so appealing and sensitive control make this game one of the best in its genre.
* Simple graphics, music tiles that are different from other music games.
* Stunning rhythm tiles will challenge your hand speed limit!
* Update numerous songs, original, classic, anime, pop and all style to satisfy different tastes.
* Share your music with your friends
* High quality sound makes you feel like being in a concert, more than a musical game.
* Save your progress via Facebook account and share the progress in different devices.
* More challenge, more bonus and a better music game, a better self.

Supported Android
{4.0.3 and up}
Supported Android Version:-
Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.3–4.0.4), Jelly Bean(4.1–4.3.1), KitKat (4.4–4.4.4), Lollipop (5.0–5.0.2) ,Marshmallow (6.0 – 6.0.1),Nougat (7.0–7.1.1), Oreo (8.0-8.1)

Download Magic Piano Tiles 2018 v1.18.0 MOD APK Here


text:
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A man who died of dehydration at the Milwaukee County jail "was subjected to a form of torture" during 10 days in solitary confinement, his family alleges in a federal lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed Thursday claims jail staff ignored 38-year-old Terrill Thomas' pleas for water last April and that inmates "overheard his cries for water for days."

Melissa Baldauff, a spokeswoman for County Executive Chris Abele, said the county takes all complaints filed against it seriously but can't comment on pending litigation.

Thomas was among four people who died at the Milwaukee County jail last year. A woman whose baby died at the jail after she gave birth is also suing.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Thomas' three sons, comes the same week that the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office indicated in court documents it is considering felony charges against jail staff who were on duty when Thomas died. His parents and a cousin, who urged that his death be investigated, have said they are considering a separate lawsuit.

His family has said Thomas was having a mental breakdown when police arrested him April 14 for shooting a man in front of his parents' house and later firing a gun inside a casino. Police took Thomas to a hospital to be examined because of he was being disruptive at the city jail and showing "signs of acute psychological disorders," the lawsuit states. The hospital cleared him for transport to the county jail.

At some point, corrections officers turned off water in Thomas' cell, according to the lawsuit. Corrections officers told inmates they turned off his water because he had been flooding his previous cell and being disruptive, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported last year.

The medical examiner who conducted Thomas' autopsy said he had suffered from "profound dehydration."

Sheriff David Clarke, who oversees the jail, said he had no comment on the lawsuit but he noted Thomas' criminal background in an email statement.

"I have nearly 1000 inmates. I don't know all their names but is this the guy who was in custody for shooting up the Potawatomi Casino causing one man to be hit by gunfire while in possession of a firearm by a career convicted felon?" Clarke said. "The media never reports that in stories about him. If that is him, then at least I know who you are talking about."

The lawsuit asks that a jury determine a compensatory amount.

Also named in the lawsuit are several correctional officers and Miami--based Armor Correctional Health Services, Inc., which provides care for inmates at the county jail. The company said in a statement it does not comment on pending lawsuits.


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Working for KCRW’s master storyteller was an inspiration and an adventure

Joe Frank, a groundbreaking radio broadcaster who stretched the very boundaries of the medium while at KCRW, has died. Photo by Michal Story.

By Esme Gregson

Joe Frank — the brilliant, neurotic, groundbreaking broadcaster who redefined radio storytelling at KCRW in Santa Monica and a boss who became a second father to me — succumbed to his lifelong nemesis, cancer, on Jan. 15. The disease had attacked his bladder twice, his testicles at age 19 and, most recently, his colon. Joe spent his final years with his beloved wife, photographer Michal Story, which is somewhat comforting in that he was always happiest at her side. He was 79.

Obituaries in The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times recount his fabulous public exploits — calling ex-girlfriends to sing to them in the middle of the night; imagining Pol Pot, Stalin and Hitler discussing wedding floral arrangements and pleated pants; radio’s first live broadcast of a mime performance.

“There are not many people in the world who are able to push a medium into a new shape. Joe Frank did that with audio,” KCRW General Manager Jennifer Ferro, who introduced me to Joe 22 years ago, tells The Argonaut. “He combined fiction and audio that transported you to an entirely different world. You felt like a voyeur, an eavesdropper and an invited guest into a world that lived in someone else’s mind.”

I worked for Joe from 1996 to 2002, first part-time and then full-time, mostly creating transcripts of recordings he’d use as raw material for his broadcasts. In the beginning I’d stop by his home once or twice a week to pick up one or two audiocassettes (60 minutes each side) of bizarre, unscripted phone conversations between Joe and his collaborators — the topics ranging from angry threats by psycho exes to the finer points of Zoroastrianism.

But my favorite part of the job was the research Joe would ask me to do.

“Esme,” he would say, then pause, interrupting a conversation midstream, “I need you to look up how many ounces of milk are in a Tahitian coconut. Tahitian.” Or, “Esme, I need you to get me a Spanish translation of Psalm 23 — the one that begins, ‘The Lord is my shepherd …’ in Spanish. Thanks.”

I lived for those small tasks, eager to show him my cleverness, impress him with my work ethic. It succeeded; he eventually asked me to work for him full-time when I was unceremoniously fired from KCRW after faxing then station manager Ruth Seymour her 70-page “emergency” transcript in reverse order at 2 a.m. Ruth had brought Joe to KCRW from weekend hosting duties at NPR’s “All Things Considered” in 1986, but their relationship had deteriorated when was fired from the station in 2002.

Once I had asked Joe if I could come in a little late the next day so my writing partner and I could troll a popular “girls night” in West Hollywood for bar scene extras for a pet project we were producing on spec. I arrived the next day around 10 a.m., slightly hung over but feeling OK … until I saw Joe waiting for me in his office, wearing his bathrobe and pajamas and leather slippers, looking as if he’d been up all night. He set his coffee cup down and cleared his throat; I stopped as though I’d just walked in on a bank robbery.

“Esme, next time you butt dial me from a lesbian bar at one-thirty in the morning and leave a half-hour message …”

I gasped: “No! I did not! No!”

“… Yes, you did. Please allow me to finish. … Next time you butt dial me from a lesbian bar at one-thirty in the morning and leave a 30-minute voicemail featuring loud, shitty, migraine-inducing music from diabolical beginning to godforsaken end, please make sure I can hear what’s going on! Next time, pull your phone out of your ass, your purse, or wherever and put it somewhere I can catch a conversation.”

Joe turned on his heels, trudged up the stairs to his exercise bike and pedaled furiously for 45 minutes while I quietly catalogued, labeled and organized hundreds of cassette and DAT tapes, contemplating my nonexistent severance package.

After I’d been working for Joe for many years, my father — born just days before Joe in August of 1938 — died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Joe was incredibly kind and protective of me. A few days after the funeral, when I stopped by his house to pick up a tape, he got up from his chair and hugged me. Joe had never been physically affectionate towards me, so it caught me off guard. I broke down, because it was such a sweet thing to do, and because I hadn’t anticipated it. He held me for at least a solid minute.

“Esme, I didn’t know your father, and I’m sorry to say but I’m very angry at him right now for doing this to you. … He did a cowardly thing. That’s just how I see it. … I can’t understand how he could do this to you, his family. It’s utterly beyond me.”

I love my father and understood his decision to take his own life came after years of suffering and “battling demons which have robbed me of my will to live” — his exact words in his suicide note to me.

But to Joe, who battled an utterly relentless terminal disease his entire life, it must have seemed such an incredibly selfish and senseless act. Around his first birthday, Joe’s family fled Europe to escape the Nazis; at age five, his father died while Joe was in surgery to correct childhood deformities of his legs and feet.

“You know I would never, ever do that to you,” Joe said. “I won’t leave you. I promise.”

“I know, Joe. I know you wouldn’t,” I said. Then, after a pause, “So you’re telling me you’re going to be my dad now? You’re going to walk me down the aisle, if I get divorced and remarried?”

Joe, who had no siblings or children, blanched.

“Don’t be insane … please. … You better hope Mike doesn’t divorce you, because finding another guy foolish enough to marry you — good luck with that.”

From then on I would joke with Joe, calling him Dad and scolding him when he forgot my birthday. He was a bit neglectful as a father, but then again he had not agreed to the job, so I was OK with the relationship as it was.

Joe Frank may have come off as a tortured soul, but was filled with compassion for animals and people. Photo by Michal Story.

Joe would spend hours in the studio, sometimes getting there at 9 a.m. and working until two or three in the morning. His process was grueling. He’d take the printed transcripts I’d typed and physically cut out individual lines of dialogue to make a new “script” from the lines he wanted to use, and then go back into the recording and pull out each line individually and remaster them. In the beginning he would do this by hand, with a razor blade and scotch tape.

As Ferro recalls, “Joe was incredibly thoughtful and totally possessed by his work. When he wasn’t making programs, you could tell he was obsessing over thoughts about the next one.”

Eventually everything became digitized, but instead of making things easier for Joe, that only seemed to expand his options. I remember bringing sandwiches to the studio at midnight, and he’d begrudgingly pause his work to wolf down a few calories.

“Did you feed the cat?” he asked.

“I did.”

“You didn’t just take the can from the fridge and put it in the bowl cold, right? You heated it up in the microwave — but not for too long, right?

“Just 20 seconds.”

“Good. She won’t eat it if it’s cold,” he said. “She’s not like you; she has high standards.”

“How sad, then, that she got you as an owner.”

“Ha!” he laughed. “Nice.”

After Joe had started a relationship with Michal and was nearing the end of his time with KCRW, he no longer needed me to transcribe for him, or pick up his dry cleaning, or give his cat a massage. We only talked once or twice a year, over the phone, until we saw each other at a dinner party one night. I brought my friend Elia as my date, and she and Joe hit it off — instant friends. She asked if I’d been a good assistant.

“Yes, Esme was the best assistant anyone could wish for … that is, until she caused me to be sued for $100,000,” he answered.

Elia blanched; I coughed a sip of Trader Joe’s chardonnay out of my nose.

“I thought you knew,” Joe said. “I’ll explain later.”

Later, we cornered Joe in the kitchen. I already knew all of the details, except that there had been a lawsuit.

Joe met a woman online and they “clicked,” emailing each other casually at first, then hourly, then moving their conversations to the phone. He would spend hours on the phone with her, as many as four nights a week. He believed there was real potential for a relationship, and told me so.

Once I started transcribing their conversations — Joe recorded many of his conversations, personal or professional; it was all material — I concluded this woman was nuts. And a liar.

One day something she said struck Joe as odd, and he asked my opinion. That led to Joe asking me to write transcript footnotes that would call out anything which seemed patently absurd or especially suspect. I became more and more annoyed with this woman, and remember my comments reflecting that. Ruthlessly scrutinizing her motives, openly contemptuous of her points of view and, obviously, threatened by her, I resorted to the mean, brutal and petty character assassination that women exclusively use to destroy other women — particularly any perceived rivals.

Shortly after I accepted a new full-time job at a music licensing company, Joe invited his telephonic New York girlfriend to Los Angeles. I remember him telling me on the phone that the visit was a disaster, but it wasn’t until the dinner party that I learned it was positively apocalyptic.

“We had an argument because I knew she was lying about something,” Joe told us, “and I told her she shouldn’t bother denying it because I had a transcript to prove she was lying.”

“No!” I screamed. Literally, screamed. Everyone else at the party stopped talking and looked at us alarmed. “You told her?! What do you mean, you told her? Told her you were illegally recording her and having these illegal recordings transcribed? Ermagherd. WHY?

“Because she was lying and it was infuriating!”

“But, Joe, she’s a liar. I told you at least 100 times that she was a liar! Did you read any of the transcripts?”

“Not until after.”

“After what?”

“She read them.”

“Oh my good gay God, Joe.”

Apparently Joe had forgotten he’d asked for my opinion — gave me carte blanch to be “totally honest.” And now he remembered.

But Elia threw me a withering look and patted Joe on the shoulder.

“It’s not your fault,” she told him. “Esme should have been nicer.”

Joe perked up immediately.

“Right!” he said. “She shouldn’t have been so mean.”

I looked alternately between the two of them, initially speechless.

“It’s awful late, Joe,” I said. “We’ve got an ecstasy-fueled, clothing-optional lesbian rave party to go to.”

We left. Not for any such party, but I thought the idea might keep Joe awake late enough to ruin the next morning, perhaps hoping for another butt dial like so many years before.

Illustration by Tony Millionaire

I miss Joe greatly. He was kind, thoughtful and funny. He loved animals and people, and was deeply, intensely grateful for the years of life he was given on this planet.

But because of his work, Joe isn’t really gone. His art lives on at, where I can visit him whenever I like.

Esme Gregson lives in Venice, where you’ll find her playing paddle tennis on the boardwalk.


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Afghan Political Experts Call Both Parties for Unity

(Last Updated On: August 04, 2014 12:55 am)

A Number of the Afghan political experts have expressed their reaction against the recent Election tensions saying both Presidential candidates should consider the Afghanistan National interests and avoid and disagreements and clashes they should be responsible to Afghans and enter a new phase of negotiations.

Afghan experts have declared that the continuation of the challenges within the Election process is harmful especially in the sensitive critical condition of our country is experiencing.

Afghan political expert Aziz Rafiee said,” these following tensions within the Afghanistan Election Process is not new issue.”

It’s said that after the mediation of UNAMA and US secretary of the United State   John Kerry the auditing of the votes was begun today within the presence of the Abdullah Abdullah supervisors now a question rises where this Election process will take us?

The second round of the Presidential Election auditing process was delayed four times during past two weeks this time the Independent Election Commission IEC has begun the auditing process without the presence of the Abdullah Abdullah campaigners.

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Time in Yerevan: 11:07:36,   22 September

The National Defense Research University’s Geostrategic Project on the eve of the Agreement with the European Union

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS. Statement by Lieutenant General Hayk Kotanjian, Head, National Defense Research University, MOD, RA, Doctor of Political Science, Professor, at the parliamentary hearings on “Armenia-EU: Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership between the European Union and Armenia”, 1 December, 2017.

In July 2017 facing the conclusion of Armenia’s agreement with the European Union, the National Defense Research University, MOD, RA, embarked on the elaboration of the geostrategic initiative of the RA’s integration into China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project. It is targeted at the assessment of the possibility of launching a new alternative China-Europe route in the context of the OBOR initiative, by integrating the China-Iran sea transit into the “Persian Gulf-Black Sea” multimodal transport corridor.

The given elaboration was previously discussed in July 2017, during the visit of the delegation headed by MG Chan Inli, former Head of the School of Defense Studies of China’s National Defense University, to our University. The project was reviewed with the Chinese side by Azat Davtyan, NDRU Research-Fellow, on 20-28,  July, at the international strategic conferences in Xian and Shanghai.

In order to review the outcomes of the meetings with the Chinese strategic analysts with the Iranian side, with the support of the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the RA Embassy in Iran, Benyamin Poghosyan, my Deputy Head on Research—Head, Institute for National Strategic Studies, and Azat Davtyan, Research-Fellow, took a mission trip to Tehran. On 24 October of this year they attended the international conference “Central Asia and Caucasus”, hosted by the Institute of Political and International Studies of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During the expert discussions of our joint elaboration in July-November, 2017, Chinese and Iranian specialists have underscored this project designed by the prime RA state think-tank. This very strategic integration project was delivered to the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China. Iranian specialists in particular have highlighted Iran’s interest in providing for the transit route to Europe across Armenia’s territory. The NDRU-developed project is to endow Armenia’s geopolitical role in the region with a new strategic caliber, and raise to a qualitatively new level the European Union’s bilateral and multilateral cooperation with Iran and China with participation of Armenia.

Meanwhile, I believe, it is necessary to mention that the further delay of the launch of the interstate discussions on this matter with Iran and China may essentially reduce the possibility of implementing the given program targeted at surmounting Armenia’s strategic isolation.

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Time in Yerevan: 11:07:36,   22 September

President Armen Sarkissian hosts academician Yuri Oganessian

YEREVAN, JULY 12, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian today hosted academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Oganessian, scientific leader of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Dubna Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

President Sarkissian said he has signed a decree on July 11 on granting Yuri Oganessian a citizenship of Armenia. The President congratulated the renowned scientist on this occasion and highly valued his contribution to the development of nuclear physics, stating that Armenia and its people are proud of Oganessian’s scientific reputation and achievements.

President Armen Sarkissian welcomed the renowned scientist’s readiness to assist the development of science in Armenia, as well as to have contribution to the education and progress of young scientists.

At the meeting they also exchanged views on the prospects of science development in Armenia.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan

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Document Type

Conference Paper

This item is available under a Creative Commons License for non-commercial use only

Business and Management., Urban studies (Planning and development)

Publication Details

European Association for Education & Research in Commercial Distribution Conference Proceedings,

This paper illustrates the Irish public policy response to the location and development of large stores, through new planning guidelines issued in 2001. These guidelines provide the basis for a framework to guide local authorities in preparing development plans, in line with the broad principles of ‘sustainable development’. The context against which the new planning guidelines were deemed necessary is outlined. The paper concludes that the new guidelines will not seriously hinder non-food formats, nor disadvantage potential new international or national entrants. While it will limit large food-store development, average food-store size will continue to increase and existing operators will re-engineer store formats to compete effectively across the sub-sector.


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30. Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed

Abenteuer.pngJuly 1926
Directed by Lotte Reiniger

According to Andre Bazin in “The Ontology of the Photographic Image”, photography is a medium whose magic is conjured by the camera’s ability to turn an object of our affection into an image by a mechanical process, as if the very hand of God has saved our beloved from annihilation by capturing her in permanent and holy form. What the Egyptians did with mummies in tombs, the photographer does with photosensitive film.

The cinema director takes these holy images and sets them into motion.

But now we have arrived at a movie that does not conform to this holy Bazinian sense. While this movie is a set of moving photographs, these are photographs of drawings – objects fashioned by a human hand that represent imagined things.

If we don’t think about the fundamental shift here, it’s because animation has now come to define the essential features of cinema today.  In its most immediate form, the cinema exists today as Netflix, a continuous stream of moving images which are for the most part not depictions of real events from the past, but pictures painted on to the screen. Computer-generated imagery has replaced Bazinian photography.

By 1926, animation had been used not just for making primitive cartoons, but also for making avant-garde films, shown in the context of modern art exhibitions. In the days when it wasn’t obvious that cinema would be used to make narratives out of moving photographs, these were both significant genres. Avant-garde cinema, one could say, was the expression of the various paths abandoned when cinema chose the Birth of a Nation as its model.

To my eyes, the most fascinating avant-garde filmmaker of the 1920’s is Walter Ruttmann, who composed a series of Lichtspiel films, where tinted shapes and pattern wash over the screen in dynamic movements of color and energy. The pleasure of these movies is in seeing the actual film – the actual colored light, as if watching an abstract painting where the colors can’t stop swirling and jutting about. As the Lichtspiel series progresses, the shading becomes more sophisticated – the colors gradually change, and the colors begin to flash in visual rhythms. The shapes that form now develop a symbolic power in addition to their rhythmic geometry. There is no human narrative for the brain to interpret, the movie is strictly for the eye to experience the pleasure of looking. To watch the Lichtspiel is to relearn how to look.

Ruttman was Lotte Reiniger’s principal collaborator on Achmed, and while he’s responsible for some of the most alluring visual effects – the hypnotic backgrounds – this is Reiniger’s film. I’ve written before on how women’s role in film history has not just been forgotten but deliberately erased. Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed has found a strange space in the intersection of children’s culture, folk culture, and avant-garde culture where a woman can direct a masterpiece, a film that depicts events that are not really happening, yet are still real images that we can see. The film made at this crossroads was so undeniably great that it could no longer be forgotten or written off, although it has been watched and discussed less than most of the neighboring movies of this story. Achmed does not fit easily into any category we could attempt to assign to it. Many of her innovations were lately credited to the cultural glutton Walt Disney, whose movies as of 1926 are not even worth talking about here. The glowing print that we have today seems to have been saved, not by happy accident, but by a magical charm of protection. It would be quite appropriate if after a calamitous 21st century sends us into a dark age, this were the only silent film to survive.

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Beverly Hills, 90210: Season 6 (1995)

*Screenshot 2015-02-02 22.32.01

Jennie Garth and Jason Wiles in Beverly Hills, 90210

On a show full of enfants terrible, it takes a lot for one character to sink to the bottom of the likeability scale. And when there’s an artist in the group, it’s not hard to figure out who the outcast will be… that’s right, it’s the artist.

We already know that male artists are cads, but Colin Robbins (Jason Wiles) is also a cocaine addict, who turns his girlfriend into a cocaine addict, and then gets sent to prison (but not before trying to skip town). He also has sex with his art dealer in exchange for her selling his paintings.

Colin's art dealer Claudia Van Eyck (Mary Crosby) tells Kelly like it is.

Colin’s art dealer, Claudia Van Eyck (Mary Crosby), tells Kelly like it is.

Colin is physically indistinguishable from the rest of his So Cal counterparts, aside from the paint smears on his clothes. You might mistake him for a JC Penney model were it not for the hippy-dippy things he says, hoping he doesn’t “forget how fresh strawberries taste” while he’s in prison, for example.

Painter or hunk? Colin Robbins (Jason Wiles)

painter / heart-throb Colin Robbins (Jason Wiles)

From the way the other characters treat him, we are meant to believe that Colin has received substantial acclaim for his work. When his girlfriend’s roommate Clare (Kathleen Arnold) meets him, she regurgitates a quote she has memorized, for some reason, from a review of Colin’s work in Art News: “Colin Robbins’ work attains a formal depth and radiance, yet reflects the tangential nature of living in a fast, media-filled environment.”

For the most part, the paintings are comprised of circles, squares and stripes, painted in different colors and textures. An exception is the time he paints a picture of a cake with a dude in a toga for his girlfriend’s birthday (a painting that oddly ends up later in his gallery show, presumably for sale).

Happy Birthday, Kelly!

Safety Tip: Do not EVER smear toxic oil paint all over your face, or someone else's face, unless you like using turpentine as a skin cleanser!

Safety Tip: Do not EVER smear toxic oil paint all over your face, or someone else’s face, unless you like using turpentine as a skin cleanser!

The script is problematic as it seems to jumble up the logical course of events in an artist’s career. We know that Colin already has gallery representation and has been written about in a major publication, but then he is commissioned to paint a gaudy mural in his friend Valerie’s night club (and it looks exactly like a mural you’d expect to see in a night club). Maybe he should have his next show at the Peach Pit Diner next-door.

Hope they don't spill too much Budweiser on Colin's latest work...

Hope no one spills beer on Colin’s new work…

Colin routinely puts his artwork before the needs of his girlfriend Kelly (Jennie Garth). The assumption that artists are selfish is a familiar trope, as is the cliché that they rely on drugs as a catalyst for creativity. The sensationalized substance abuse by Basquiat, Damien Hirst and Jackson Pollock, among others, reinforces the audience’s predisposition to accept this as the norm. It is even confirmed in Colin’s mind after a collector buys two of his new canvases he painted while high. “You don’t need coke to paint,” his friend Valerie (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen) tells him. “No,” he says, “I only need it to paint well.” But when he gets Kelly hooked on coke, as well, he loses our sympathy completely.

“High” art

As an artist (and a New Yorker), Colin is an outsider amongst his friends, but his most significant distinction is that he is the only truly unredeemable character in the season’s storyline. After being sentenced to two years in prison for drug possession and resisting arrest in a high-speed car chase, he then puts his friends who bailed him out in jeopardy by fleeing when he is supposed to turn himself in. It then becomes the plight of the rest of the cast to track him down and bring him to justice, even briefly uniting arch rivals Kelly and Valerie for the cause.

Indeed, Colin is no less than a villain. And, as is to be expected when villains are defeated, a great relief settles in his victims when he is apprehended by the authorities. Such was the relief when I realized I didn’t have to watch any more episodes of this show.

It could have been a brilliant career...

It could have been a brilliant career…


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2016 Recipients of Student Art Awards

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Sharon Lacey

After cruel April’s deluge of exams and critiques, May brings showers of praise. Now is the jubilant time in the academic calendar when the Council for the Arts at MIT recognizes the achievements of the Institute’s student artists with the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts and the Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards.

The Schnitzer Prize was established in 1996 through an endowment from Harold and Arlene Schnitzer of Portland, Oregon. Harold Schnitzer, a real estate investor, graduated from MIT in 1944 with a degree in metallurgy. The prizes—a first prize of $5000, second prize of $3000, third prize of $2000 and honorable mentions of $1000—are awarded to undergraduate and graduate students for excellence in a body of artistic work. This year’s recipients represent the diverse academic backgrounds of contemporary artists, as well as the distinctive creative culture of MIT, where science, technology and art inform each other.

The Wiesner Awards are presented annually to the most exemplary undergraduate and graduate students for outstanding achievement in and contributions to the arts at MIT. Established by the Council for the Arts at MIT in 1979, these awards honor the late President Emeritus Jerome Wiesner and Mrs. Wiesner for their commitment to the arts at MIT. An endowment fund provides a $2,000 honorarium to each recipient. Nominated by members of the faculty, this year’s recipients are not only supremely gifted in the visual or performing arts, but also embody a spirit of collaboration and community-building.

Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts

An exhibition of selected works by the Schnitzer Prize winners—Joshuah Jest, Emily Tow, Laura Perovich, Chris Kerich, Qiuying Lai, Deniz Tortum—will be on view in the Wiesner Student Art Gallery from May 10 to June 10.

The first-prize winner, Joshuah Jest (SMACT ’17), draws on his architectural background and his research on media facades, mapping technology and digitally augmented objects to create sculptures and installation work. Building on the tradition of experimental media projects exemplified by such pioneers as Stan van der Beek of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Jest seeks new ways to integrate dynamic media systems into the architectural environment and into people’s physical space.

For his “Star Dome” project, Jest reimagines the translucent stadium roof of the Houston Astrodome as a mediated surface for projection. “Digital Shadows” sensitively deploys the basic principles of light and shadow to activate a two-dimensional projection surface on a human-scale. He says that with this work, he wanted “to establish a system that could digitally represent something that would look almost identical to the original.” For the collaborative sculpture, “A Tale on Textile, The Colony,” he merges the three-dimensional textile surface with illuminated animation. He will exhibit a site-specific shadow piece in the Wiesner Gallery.

Emily Tow (PhD student, Mechanical Engineering ’17, MIT, SB ’12 and MIT, SM ’14), who was awarded the second prize, uses patterns literally and metaphorically in her mixed media and performance works. She created a bright intricate mural in the neutral MIT basement designed to slow passersby, or alter people’s usual patterns of behavior. Her performances are likewise designed to disrupt everyday habits. For instance, in her performance on the MBTA Red Line, “Unexpect it,” she drew commuters’ attention by crawling on the floor of the train car in a fanciful costume that completely concealed her identity.

Art feats that involve physical endurance interest her because of her own medical history. She has a surgically-fused spine, which limits her movement. After multiple surgeries and complications, she says the experience became her motivation for making art: “I was descending into the depths of being a patient, feeling like I was taking all these resources, with no obvious trajectory for getting better. I felt like I needed to produce something.” Her dual interests in mathematics and art led her to major in Mechanical Engineering with a HASS minor in Art, Culture & Technology. She says, “Being creative in my art work contributes to my being creative in my research.” Objects from her performances will be on view in the Wiesner Gallery.

Laura Perovich (PhD student, Media Lab, Object-based Media Group), who also won the second prize, explores physical and artistic ways to represent data in her textile works. She hopes to make data more approachable and to give scientists and the general public a space to discuss it. After her undergraduate studies, she entered the Peace Corp for two years and  taught mathematics in West Africa. Before coming to MIT, she worked for Silent Spring Institute, a nonprofit in Boston that researches connections between the environment and health. Her works stem from her drive to convey information about data to people who would not necessarily engage with mathematical charts or graphs and her interest in textile manipulation.

From dying and printing to laser cutting, Perovich employs a variety of techniques to create wall hangings and garments. Using laser cut synthetic fabrics and R statistical software, she produced a series of garments representing the chemical levels found in an individual’s home. The number and size of squares in the lace pattern derive from the number and amount of chemicals found.

Third Prize was awarded to Chris Kerich (Masters student, CMS ’17), who focuses on systems in his work. He is interested in what systems tell us about the people who made them and use them and how they transform information. In his “Motion Studies,” he uses techniques of video compression, such as datamoshing, to push the limit of the codec and bend the systems governing video. For his project, “Eigenfaces,” he experiments with the eponymous facial recognition algorithm. In each piece, he aims to expose something about the system he is investigating or the people around it.

Honorable Mentions were awarded to Qiuying Lai (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science ’17) and to Deniz Tortum (Graduate student, CMS ’16). Lai is a documentary photographer who works mostly in medium format with a Seagull 4B1. Her recent project, Lost Road, focuses on the deterioration of Route 66, which after its decommission in the late 1980s fell into decline despite its once near-mythic status in the American imagination. Tortum, who currently works with the Open Documentary Lab, works in film, video and new media. His first feature film, Zayiat has been screened internationally, including SxSW and !F Istanbul Film Festivals. Curator Ulya Soley says of his single channel video, Corridor of Memories Walkthrough, this anti-game “stands at the intersection of game and video art, which enables a sort of slacktivism, inviting the audience to watch but not to participate.” His work interrogates how technologies of vision—from linear perspective to virtual reality—shape the way we make sense of the world.

Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards (in alphabetical order)

The 2016 recipients of the Wiesner Awards are Angel Chen, Samantha Fomon and Samantha Harper.

Since joining the MIT program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) in 2015, Angel Chen (SMACT ’17) has worked within the Institute to connect students with common interests in art and has also worked outside the Institute to connect ACT’s unique history with artistic practices abroad, most notably in East Asia. Her work investigates social relations, particularly in the context of digital culture and urbanization. In her various publishing projects, images and research, she focuses on the broad questions of digital culture—what is real, how strong is our desire for the real, how does the process of seeing inform our relationship to the world. She describes one research project focused on the CAVS archives as an attempt “to understand the motivations and aspirations of CAVS Fellows in the 1960s and 70s, the ups and downs of the marriage of art and technology, and the public perception of that beyond CAVS and beyond MIT.” She adds, “I think we are at another art and technology moment in history.” Her book, A Murder-Suicide Story in Two Parts, similarly explores—in her words—“how tools and technologies of communication enable us to perceive different aspects of reality and how different desires to know are unlocked as a consequence.”

“Being an artist at MIT gives you access to communicate—not just see—what is happening, and to be in dialogue with people from very different fields who are pushing their research in new ways,” she explains. She is currently collaborating with lab technicians across the Institute to create images using various scientific equipment, and her work will be on view from May 13-19  in Wiesner Building (E15), Lower Lobby.

As a physics major, Samantha Fomon ’16 specializes in astrophysics and planetary science, yet she places an equally high priority on her music and poetry. “As a singer, I’m drawn to words and to telling stories, to explaining the emotional world,” she says. “Music is a language of the internal world. Physics is the language and structure of the external world. Both give satisfying meaning to things.” Over the past two years, she has accomplished three significant firsts for an MIT music student: first vocal jazz Emerson Scholar, first vocal jazz participant in MTA’s highly selective Advanced Music Performance Program, and first vocal jazz scholar to present a full length recital. As a student leader of the MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, she impressed the group’s first coach, Institute Professor John Harbison, and his successor Liz Tobias with “her high artistic merits as a solo singer and astute collaborator with her peers.”

Among her most cherished memories at MIT are performing at John Harbison’s Chamber Music Festival in Madison, WI, the Token Creek Music Festival. She says, “That felt special to perform for people outside the MIT community. It was a lot of responsibility and a real chance to do what we do to our best ability. It cemented the place John Harbison has in my heart as a mentor. He’s been an incredible resource to me.” Another formative experience was her Emerson Scholar solo recital, “Love is more thicker than regret,” named after an e e cummings poem, where she performed both jazz standards and experimental music. Harbison says of this performance, “No participant in our Emerson Scholars performance program ever designed a more varied, adventurous and polished program than (Sam’s) spring 2015 recital. Like so much of her work it was built around the skills of her mates, while it pushed them to much more intricate situations.” Her recital this year will feature the work of Janelle Monae, among cross-genre R&B, funk, acid jazz, and popular music.

Samantha Harper ’16, a Civil and Environmental Engineering major and Theater minor, has participated in the arts community at MIT as an actor, stage manager and costume designer for Theater Arts and Dramashop productions. This year, she founded a new theatre company on campus, The Experimental Theater Company, which she hopes will engage students in theatrical risk-taking and be a vehicle for student-driven productions. The company’s mission as she describes it is, “to create a collaborative space for artists of many different disciplines to design, experiment, and innovate while creating unique performance pieces.” ETC’s first show was a romantic comedy about quantum mechanics, “Now, Then Again.”

“The value of theater is changing with the on-demand aspects of media. Some of the magic of theater comes from the fact that you are dealing with live humans,” she says. In her current project, she explores the current attachment to technology in our culture. She will examine our habit of mediating thoughts and feelings through electronic devices in order to address feelings of loneliness and isolation that many students experience. The Music and Theater Arts Faculty note her “creativity, collaborative spirit, kindness and an open heart” and her “fresh and innovative ideas” among her many personal and artistic strengths. In her upcoming work, she  will continue to explore the boundaries of media—the degree to which it fails us in our human interactions—in a mix of performance art and audience participation pieces.

With each year, the range of disciplines represented by the student award winners increases—a testament to how the arts not only intersect with other disciplines, but also enrich studies in a variety of subjects.


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