You know, in December, all the CEOs in the world were selling their stocks. They knew the stock market was gonna crash. When you see all the kings of the world and queens of the world taking action, don't be too slow. And I told people to buy farmland, you know, I've been telling people that for the last seven years for multiple reasons, not just for financial, also lifestyle. An Amish former called me the other day and places like Iowa gone from 10,000 an acre to 20,000 an acre in the last year or two. It's wild. Farmland has been one of the most stable, non-volatile asset classes, pretty much uncorrelated with stock market. Over the last 30 years, it's returned over 12% a year. And when you look at risk adjusted return, which a lot of people don't understand, you also have to factor in how much risk you had to take.


Hey guys, it's Brandon, creative, happily dressed, a fashion blog dedicated to self-acceptance, self-confidence, and self-sufficiency, and welcome back to the channel. Today's video is a how I made this hoodie right here. We all know I already have a how to sew a hoodie video using the simplicity pattern that I bought that helped me make that hoodie and this hoodie here. I have not self-drafted a hoodie just yet, but this pattern is super easy to get your hands on. And once you do, there's so many other things you can create like this blanket hoodie. So I'm super excited because I found this blanket at Goodwill for literally $4.99, and I thought it was perfect. You'll get the full experience soon. I'm not wearing any pants, so. I'm trying to make sure you guys don't see that. Now you know it, but I don't have to show that to you. Anyways, this isn't exactly a tutorial of how exactly to do it. I'm kind of just walking you through my process. I do already have a video on how to sew a hoodie using this pattern, so you can go watch that. But without further ado, let's get into the video. So one of the most important things when making a blanket hoodie is how you lay out your pattern. So this just takes some finessing because sometimes your blanket isn't big enough or it's too big, like with mine, I actually had to cut out the hood in a different fabric because it wasn't big enough. And I wanted the fringe to be at the bottom of the piece and also the bottom of the sleeves. But once that was all done, this is what my pieces look like. I was actually really excited with how it was going and the placement I chose for all the cars. After that was done, I went ahead and set up my machine. I feel like a lot of tutorials with blankets and all this stuff doesn't tell you what settings your machines are on. So I wanna make sure I do that throughout this video. All right, so I'm actually gonna start with the front of the piece. I'll put everything else aside. And then we'll actually find the front of the sleeve. You'll know the front of the sleeve because it only has one cut. That's why it's so important to make your markings because when you get to the sleeve, it's like, well, which one is the front? And you'll look, oh look, this only has one. Cool, so this goes right sides facing to the front body. And then I'm gonna sew this down at five eighths of an inch seam allowance. And then once that's done, I'll do the same with this one. And if you have like a clear right and wrong side of your tapestry blanket, whatever, then it should be pretty obvious like this would be the front. But sometimes you could cut it wrong. So you just wanna double check. All right, I feel like no one really talks about the settings they have their machine on when they do this. But mine is on a straight stitch and a three stitch length. And then my tension is at like four. But I'm just gonna make sure that my markings line up and I'm gonna start sewing at that five eighths of an inch seam allowance. You wanna make sure you back stitch as well or reverse stitch, whatever. But that'll lock the stitch in place. I always back stitch to the very top of the fabric and then keep going. And you're working with a thicker fabric so I do have a heavy duty needle in. I feel like heavy duty or denim would work for this piece. And it'll probably be best to pin everything down. I am just lazy. And now we'll move on to adding the back to this. And the key here too is that you just wanna take your time. Like go as slow as you need to. I would never say go as fast as you need to because you never need to go fast when it comes to sewing this type of stuff. Slow is the best way to go because then you'll make sure you always stay within your seam allowance. And you don't have to worry about your project being too small. So here we go. Now you can start to check the length. I know for me I wanted to make sure that the fringe hem ended on the bottom. So I don't have to hem anything, especially with the sleeves as well. So I'm actually liking the way it's looking. Very excited. Now we can close it up. But before we do that, I'm going to surge all the seams I just sewed. Before we close this, when I had it on, I thought it might be really cool to add some fringe in the sleeve seam. So I want to measure how long this is. I think that'd be so cool. So I'm going to get these pieces together and then show you how I'm going to put them in there so that I make sure that they show. All right, so I got my pieces. I realized that I wanted at least two of the checkerboards to show with this like fringe bat wing kind of thing in the seam. So what I did from there is that I lined up my ruler with this top line here and then gave myself five eighths seam allowance. When I put this in the sleeve like this, I can line it up with the seam allowance that's already present with the sleeve and sew it in place that way. So when I flip this right sides out, you can see the fringe and those two squares. So we've hit a dilemma, guys. This is what it looks like.  I feel like a racing flag, but I was like, I still want the fringe. So I took out the checkerboard part and just added the fringe on this part and I like it so much more. I think I just wanted fringe in the seam and I thought it'd be cool to have that. And honestly, it looks kind of cool from this direction, but I'm just like not a fan of it and it doesn't let you like close your arms that well. So I'm gonna have to seam rip this and then make it smaller and then do it again. So I've hit a bump and it's okay. I mean, I'll just take my time. I wanted to finish this before I went to work, but it looks like it might have to be done when I get back. Actually having less of a stressful job, seam ripping this out than I thought I would. That's crazy. This seam ripper is perfect. That's what happens when you get a sharp blade instead of the dull one you've been working on for three years. It does its job. That's what I'm talking about. I love this. Right here, feels good. And stitch now at 5 eighths of an inch. All right guys, so I fixed it. Now we're rocking with just the double fringe and now we have to do the hood. I'm gonna sew these clothes and then sew them together right sides facing so I have a double layer hood. And then I'm gonna sew the hood to this. But first I'm going to surge this so that way it's not really in the way. I do have to be careful because it's really thick right here. And that is the hoodie all done. It is a few days later now. I actually don't know when I started this project, now that I think about it. So it might be more than a few days later, but I'm super excited with how the fringe and the sleeves turned out. I'm very happy that I did not have that little extra wing part. That's the beauty of, you know, experimenting. It's like, hey, I wanna try this. And if it doesn't work out, guess what? You still have another solution to go, another route to go that you may not have even thought of without that initial, oh, I should try this.  But I am in love with this hoodie. I love how I chose the back of the car with a front. And honestly, I love a good contrast hood. Like, this is really working out for me. When I made my first blanket hoodie for my friend that you can go see on my Instagram, I used the same fabric for her contrast hoodie. And I was like, oh, her contrast hood. I was like, I really like that. If I make any more, I might just always do this as a hood. Like, I have a lot more of this. I thrifted it, of course. And I thought I was gonna make it into pants. But now I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna keep it on deck for some hoods because I actually have some more blankets over there that I need to make a hoodie for my brother. But yeah, that's this week's video. I hope it provided some inspiration for you on what to do with your next thrift find, whether it's a blanket, whether it's a, I don't know, something else, some other cool textile.  So yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you wanna see more of the things that I make and create, you can hit that subscribe button right down below. You can also go follow my Instagram because that's where I post a lot of the things that I don't make a video for. And until next time, I will catch you all in the next video. See you guys later.


The study examined land use changes in the Mula and Mother River catchments in Pune, India over a 20-year period from 1989 to 2009. During this time, urban areas increased from 5.1% to 10.1% while crop plants increased from 9.7% to 13.5%. These changes can be attributed to rapid socioeconomic development in the region. The study also used the soil and water assessment tool SWOT to analyze the impacts of these changes on the water balance. It was found that urbanization had a positive effect on water yield, increasing it by up to 7.6% while crop land had a negative effect, decreasing it by up to 5.9%. Overall, the study concluded that land use changes in the Mula and Mother River catchments have had a mixed effect on the water balance with some areas benefiting from urbanization and others suffering from crop land expansion. This article was authored by P. D. Wagner, S. Kumar, and K. Schneider. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Gaza City endured intense Israeli strikes that filled its sky with large clouds of smoke, while audio of explosions could be heard across the targeted residential area on November 6. UN agency leaders saying enough is enough demanded a humanitarian ceasefire on Monday nearly a month into Gaza's war, as health authorities in the enclave said the death toll from Israeli strikes now exceeded 10 000.Israel has rebuffed mounting international pressure for a ceasefire, saying hostages taken by Hamas should be released first Dada Reuters journalist in Gaza said an overnight bombardment by air, ground and sea was one of the most intense since Israel began its offensive following. The October 7 attack in which Hamas killed 1 400 people and seized more than 240 hostages.


What is going on everybody? This is 2019-20 upper deck ice hockey one box break number two First we'll do the randomizer and the dice roll for only the one box break of ice hockey And then the separate randomizer with a new dice roll at the very end of the break We'll randomize all 31 customer names at top seven and win spots in the Selly hockey mixer coming up next So upper deck ice hockey one boxer. This is just for the ice remember that and we're gonna go five times One and a four five times There's one two three four Fifth and final time five Lucas down to Ryan and now for the list of NHL teams one two three Four and fifth and final time the Anaheim ducks down to the Flyers Lucas ducks Wade Preston Hurricanes Ryan Knights Stephen Kay Islanders Wade Flames Ryan Black Hawk Steve sharks Chad Wilde Fred Penguins William Capps Daniel Redwings Mike Sabres Fred Blues Ryan Panthers Jack Jets Kevin Bruins Steve Bluejackets Jason Rangers With Wesley stars Fred lightning Steve Devils Barry Coyotes Jack Canadians Wesley predators Fred Senators Rick Oilers Stephen Kay Kings Fred Maple Leafs with Wade Ryan Canucks and Flyers So let's print this and rip. I don't think there's much trading on a one-boxer You never know what could come out though. So trade window closed Let's rip this one box break Upper deck ice hockey Kind of a new configuration ice is here. I kind of like it. I think one or two less hits per box but less packs per box and Think kind of a cheaper starting price point. So that's cool. I like that So no veteran will ship, but all the inserts and the color will inserts Brook cards. All right, let's see what we got in this one box break There's a kachuk It's not numbered first hit is numbered to to 199 It's a Alexander Tesher for the Columbus bluejackets. That's Ryan Shackleton There's a Miro gold. Sorry green one of 15 Blake Wheeler patch for the Winnipeg Jets That's nice Jack B with the Jets very thick card Eric stall we got an ice premier's auto number to 399 That is a Emile Benstrom That's a another bluejacket couple hits for the bluejackets in this one boxer That's Steve Birch I like the I like the clear autos Carrie Price There's number 1299 Matthew Oliver Mark Andre Fleury And up to 499 Carl Grunstrom ice premier's So there you go. That was a break. Let's take all 31 customer names now and randomize them We're gonna do a fresh dice roll for this one as well So let's take all 31 names the top seven Top seven after however many times we roll the dice Will be Crown victorious and we'll be doing a little celebration themselves since they'll be getting into the Selly hockey mixer. Let's roll the dice three times top seven. Good luck everybody. Thanks again for giving the shot one Definitely do not expect this to fill in one day, so that's awesome two and Three top seven Wade Chad Stephen Kay Steve Birch Danny Paterra Fred Williams and Jason Kay Congrats to you seven You are in the hockey mixer Congrats. Thanks buddy else for giving a shot Coming up next the mixer


So, hello everyone and thanks for connecting. It's a pleasure for me to be here with more GR this time in this unusual format, but I hope you are enjoying it. Okay, so I'm going to present today one of our slides where we monitor the COVID crisis using high-resolution transaction data from BBBA, the second largest bank in Spain for those that are abroad with presence in many other countries too. The COVID pandemic, as you know, has meant a full stop in the way in which economies measure the impact of a shock, with few presidents in the history and also all over the world, like the one that we are living nowadays. In this context, the importance of using high-frequency data to measure and track the impact of the virus spread is crucial. Using the cost, it is coaching on how they are distributed across time and space. Moreover, from a policy-making point of view, it is quite useful to track the impact of the lockdown measure implemented in some countries, helping governments and public institutions to design adequate policies to combat the virus effects. Well, the aggregated and anonymized data, the financial data, is a very illustrative example of it. Particularly, in our case, using transaction data from BBBA, we are going to collect all the payments that are done with a credit and debit card of a BBBA client, as well as all the payments collect BBBA.0 sales, to construct a proxy of consumption and to track it on real-time and high-definition. Of course, the most important part of this project is to check the robustness of our data for the analysis, assuring their quality and representativeness over the whole period. This is indeed, as you can imagine, the most time-consuming part in the project, where we put special care to process, plan, and transform, and test also all the data. Once you have it ready for the analysis, the potential is huge. We have been working, during more than two years, in an ambitious project to measure national accounts in real-time and high-definition, using this financial data, data from cards, credit and debit cards, but also data from the bank accounts, from transfer. From this big project that I mentioned, different applications arise, and today I'm presenting one of these applications to use card spending for now casting aggregate consumption, as well as to make granular economic analysis with this high-definition data. Moreover, we are going to use this develop indicator to understand better what is happening nowadays, how is the expenditure adjustment during the COVID crisis across countries, but especially in our case, in Spain. Okay, so let's go to that part of monitoring consumption or card spending in real-time and high-definition. Here you have maps where you can see the transactions that are done using a credit or debit card of BBBA across geographies, particularly in Spain, Turkey and Mexico. These are three countries where the bank has a high market share. In the case of Spain, for example, we are using for this project 2.1 billion of transactions, and for the rest of countries where BBBA operates, that are Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, US, especially the southern part, and Turkey, we are using almost four billions of transactions. Going further into the data, as I said before, we are going to take all transactions of BBBA operated point of sales and the ones that are done with BBBA credit and debit cards, of course, avoiding duplicates and double content. The time span that we are studying is for 1st of January of 2019 until the end of June of 2020. Nevertheless, for the presentation you are going to see graphs that are updated even until the first week of November. So that's good for getting some insights of what is happening nowadays. Well, this table collects the descriptive statistics for the case of Spain, where you can see these 2.1 billion of transactions that I was mentioning before, and all this data you have with a really great detail. You have geographical detail, even you have the postal code where the transaction was done, you have sectorial detail. We are working with 76 different categories of consumption, and moreover, from the point of view of the card holder, we are considering 6 million of card holders with information about their home postal code, education level and age. And for sure, I would like to highlight that all the data is anonymized and encrypted so there's no any issue with the security of our clients. It is important also to notice that we have all this type of data with this great detail for all the countries where BBBA operates. The data I said before, they are Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, US and Turkey. So, as you can imagine, we are considering a very high universe of data that we can incorporate in our analysis. We carefully need, before using for the analysis, to test if this BBBA expenditure data is a coincident indicator of consumption. Could we use it for the analysis? Are we sure that the data is mimic and replicating the official figure, both in the aggregate and at the micro level in order to take into account that we don't have problems with market share or with other type of things? Well, here you can find the case of Spain where we compare our built indicator with the monthly retail sales indicator published by the National Institute in the case of Spain. This is a really good proxy of consumption that they are publishing on a monthly basis and we aggregate the data just to see how it behaves. And here you have the results. The results are pretty, pretty good. You see that the correlation is quite high. Actually, it is higher than 95% in all the series that the National Institute of Statistics provides for the case of Spain that is at national level by regions and also by distribution classes or the size of the merchant. Okay? These are the data that is released by the National Institute of Statistics. And here you have for all of these series the correlation and the comparison with our data. So this is for the case of Spain, but we have done it for all the countries. And if you go to our web page, you can find the details as well as the comparison with other cities that could be of your interest. So once we check that the indicators are robust and we can trust on them, there are two main important advantages of using our data that I would like to highlight. First of all, it is the time advantage. This is really, really important. We can have fast and timely answers on what is happening in each moment on consumption given the high frequency of our data. Getting the BBIA expenditure indicator between one and three months ahead than the release of official data. You know what I mean. This is a really, really important issue. This time advantage is especially important for emerging economies where the official data is more scarce. So you see here in the slide that for the case of the US and Spain, that's good that we are anticipating almost one month, but for the case of emerging economies, this is crucial. Moreover, the other important issue is that our transaction data has a great detail that is for sure not available in the official data. Like consumption categories or geography, as I mentioned before in the previous slide, but also we have other features that we can explore, like the disaggregation between virtual and physical point of sales. So we can compare the evolution of e-commerce versus of line one. We have also information about the ATM withdrawals that could be used as a proxy of the use of cash, comparing it with card payment. Moreover, we can know if these payments are done with a national or a foreign card in order to identify tourist flows that is really, really important in the case of Spain, but also in other geographies. So here in the small graphs that you see in the slide below, you can see some of the examples that we have for Spain and for other countries with this analyzed data. So this is important that you take into account that with the data that we build, we can replicate official figures, but we can go one step ahead. We can have it before the release of the official figures, and more over, we can have it in a great detail that the official figures is not providing for many countries. Once we have it clear, so let's go to see the results. This is the important part. Here we are going to present a global overview of the impact of the COVID on expenditure patterns across countries. So here for each of the countries that we are considering, we aggregate all transactions at a daily frequency and then we compute the moving average 14 days and the year on year growth rates that are we are comparing how we are nowadays comparing with the same date in one year ago in 2019. And the data, we are presenting it in percentage point deviation from the pre-COVID period in order to take into account that data is nominal and different countries experience different inflation rates. Then you should interpret these areas as the following. This is the total percentage point decline or variation in daily year on year growth relative to the average growth observed before the crisis. Okay, so what these global pictures tell us? So here we can observe the cross-country heterogeneous impact of the pandemic, right? Because you see that there was a large and important decline in global year on year growth starting at mid-March in most of the geographies and then we have a global recovery since the end of April, more or less. But the speed of recovery was different depending on the country. For example here at the early May we see that Mexico or US saw a relative mild decline of 30-20% respectively. But if we go for example to Peru or Spain, you see that they are still suffering at this date really large declines of 60% below the observed period in the pre-COVID crisis. Regarding the recovery dynamics, it seems that the slowest recoveries are in South America, in Argentina and Colombia particularly. In the case of Peru we observe something that is also interesting because you see that it was the most hit economy in March and the recovery started later comparing with the rest of economies but then the trend was really stable over time reaching at the end of October positive growth rates. The improving trend in Spain for example was different. You see that it behaves well at the end of August when the epidemic isn't worsening or indicators also does it. Okay this information could be summarized in this bar graph that we have here where you see the month average for October, September and April that was the worst month and here you see that the only country that is growing in October taking into account this average over the whole month was US. Okay so we also test regarding this data using cross correlations that the larger declines in Spain detours are associated as we can expect with the lockdown measures imposed by governments. Okay so here the case of Spain is a good example of it. Here we can observe the evolution of Spain and you see that the week before the lockdown we have an increase in expenditure in anticipation to it and then we have again a really important and a sharp decline about 60 percent in year and year growth rates where mobility and commercial activity was restricted in that moment but then you see that it remained depressed until in the same level until the end of May where the lockdown partially relaxed and at that point we see the recovery but what is happening that the easing of restrictions for the fourth further consecutive phases was implemented in different provinces at different times so we need to take it into consideration because given the healthcare conditions the recovery is going to be different and the impact of these measures on expenditure is going to be different too. So in the next slide we are going to exploit this differential timing in intensity of easing across provinces. Here we saw this event the Static Grads centered around the implementation of a phase one to a three comparing with provinces that stay in another in another phase that is we are showing the average growth rates of provinces that goes to phase one to or three and we are comparing with provinces that stay in a more restrictive phase. Then visually you can see that there is evidence that there is a divergence in expenditure parts of both group of provinces and this difference seems to be more important in the case of phase one and phase two because cities are starting to diverge in the taking into account these dates. Okay so for testing that we did some regressions and indeed the results demonstrate that phase one and two are the one that contribute the most to the strong recovery of the economy while phase through a phase three sorry does not generate an statistically significant differential effect. Therefore we can conclude seeing this data that the suit downs are more damaging than capacity restrictions which is a really important insight from a policymaking point of view. Okay so we also explore in this time expand the evolution of the expenditure by category and buying con and how they are related. Okay so we are going to compute the consumption share in each of the 76 categories we have across Madrid postal codes so this is really disaggregated and granular data and then we correlate this set of individual categories with official data of income per capita from the household budget serving in Spain and the main target of this exercise was validating that the card spending could be used also as a proxy of income and results show us that we can do that. So here in this table what you can see is how income affects consumption by categories across Madrid and by income groups. So categories that are in red means that they are they were restricted during the lockdown and what are the main insight of it. What we found is that high-garing compost codes or neighborhoods are associated with more spending on restaurants, health, well-being, travel and time efficient transportation like the case of taxes and parking. However, lower income postal codes are associated with spending on essential goods related with food and also with the household care and also with consumption of tobacco that is also interesting to know. This provides an important insight into how different people and income groups are using and redistributing expenditures in order to take into account their trade-offs between time and money, how they invest in personal health and also in leisure or entertainment for example. So in this sense this data is also a good proxy of a survey or time use data that is really important in economy. So we are seeing that the data is really rich for getting different insights and for for doing this different type of analysis. Now we are going to see and to study the expenditure reallocation during the crisis. This is also quite interesting to see. We analyze here the chain of expenditure patterns across categories during the lockdown and the processing process and what we are finding. We are finding that consumption shares were quite stable in the week before the lockdown as you can see here in the graph but then what is happening that a clear reallocation patterns emerge. When the lockdown was implemented spending on food and on hypermarkets grows significantly and these two sectors were supposing half of all the expenditure by late March. At the same time other sectors like passion or expenditure in leisure collapse totally. Moreover in the same manner that in the aggregate spending we observe our recovery once the restrictions begin to be eased we are going to observe the same in this composition of consumption that data started to return gradually to the previous allocation since the beginning of May. Taking into a look to the growth rates during the last month that is the bar graph that you have here we check that food expenditure for example is still increasing at 40% comparing with the pre-COVID crisis and among the most stagnant categories we have expenditure in travel and accommodation that are the main categories associated with tourism that you know that is almost zero at least at the beginning of the year and then we see also large declines in other categories that are associated also with leisure and entertainment. Okay so we also study this is another important issue taking into account all this granular data we are going to see how these spending patterns have been affected during the lockdown for different groups within these micro areas in Madrid considering again the postal code. Here you can see the aggregate evolution of expenditures for postal code group by five average income quintiles. Okay so this is also this is also really really important to take into account because here in this data you see that the evolution in absolute values and also in year on year growth rates that is the second graph give us a really important insight and what is that that apart from the important fall in consumption observed at mid-May, at mid-March sorry and the recovery and with implementation of these restrictions we are observing that different groups of income are affected differently taking into account where they live. Okay so the falling total expenditures as well as the relatively falling total expenditures is larger in the richer neighborhoods. Okay so this is this is the reason that is behind that could be that these richer people have a really different patterns of consumption comparing with the rest. They are consuming more luxury goods than essential goods so the the redistribution of consumption was more important for them than for the rest. So here you see in the blue line that they were the most affected one and the recovery that's true it affects all income groups but it was most important for them because they again started to go to restaurants and to spend money in these non-essential goods and this insight could be also seen in in a previous slide that we were commenting before. So here you see that the most restricted activities that are in writing this table was the ones that affect more these high income high income categories or high income neighborhoods. So for this reason this was the population that was most affected by the COVID crisis at least in consumption. For sure there are other variables that we should take into account for in the economy for having a comprehensive impact of the virus but this was a really a really important one. Okay on the other hand taking into account the importance of mobility patterns during this COVID crisis we are we we also construct a car expenditure indicator based on the a BBA expenditure or spending done in categories related with transportation. The idea behind behind it is that if individuals spend money on these categories of consumption we are considering that they do so because they want to move. So according to this idea or serious should be correlated for example with the movement captured by mobile phone based measure that we have a a lot of public data for analyzing. So taking into account we compare or indicate or proxy of a transportation or mobility using spending in transportation with the Google mobility data that they are providing in their web page. And what they found is that there is a very tight relationship between the two series especially during the lockdown. Since guard spending on transportation tracks mobility during the lockdown really really well we are going to explore this heterogeneity across Madrid postal codes in mobility. Okay during this period that could be also really really interesting. So what we can see in the second graph so in the second graph we see the evolution of mobility in Madrid using this information by postal code and buying congroup. One of the results that can be summarizing this graph is that the evolution of spending in transport by income design is also really different. For example for the poorest people we see that the decrease in this spending on on transport categories was lower than the one for the high income people. So what is what is that and what is also interesting to observe that these differences is more important during the working days. So it means that people are using transport because of work that is and not because of preferences and this is the lower income groups. So using this this data and this inside that we can see in this graph another another question arise. Moreover given that we have this data really really granular we desegregate all this data and we were asking with type of transport groups and transport methods people were using and what we found is that the adjustment in all the transport methods for high income household was significantly more important than for the lowest income but especially in public transport. So this is also a really important issue because it is not just does the lower income household are traveling more during the lockdown. They are doing so also in the most risky transport methods. Okay so what is the the natural question that emerged from this is a lower income population relative more exposed to infection that the richest one. This is also this is also an exercise that we did in order to see if in fact these lower income postal codes travel relative more than those of higher income postal codes during the lockdown and so they are using public transportation at least in Madrid that were the city where we use this really granular information and postal codes and could be relatively more exposed to infection. We run simple regression model to see how these mobility patterns impact on disease incidents and we are going to try to explain the new COVID cases from total spending on urban transportation of BBA clients. In the model we introduce a lab in order to take into account that there is a time for incubation of the of the virus. There are the lies in testing and also the lies in the release of official figures of confirmed cases so we introduce this this lab to take it into account. We introduce other variables for control like a lockdown that is also important to take into account or some fixed effects related to the postal code which controls income, a destructor or the distance to the center of of Madrid and what we we found after doing this this model is that there is a statistically significant effect of urban transport spending on carbon cases that is the results supports the idea that traveling in Madrid during the epidemic and the lockdown increase the probability of infection. This is a really really important issue also from the policymaking point of view. So once we have it and we know that the the mobility matters in the probability of infection we are going to we have another question and we are going to do another exercise that is according to this second graph. How much of the COVID cases in the lower income neighborhoods would fall if household could reduce their urban transport expenditure to the level of the richest people, the richest design in our sample. To do this counterfactual exercise we impose to the lower income design the urban transport expenditure reduction of the top income design and here you have the results you see that the percentage of people that is infected or COVID cases will reduce significantly especially for these poorer people. So this is also a really important to know. So finally we are going to briefly comment the latest evolution of carbon spending in the case of Spain by nationality, by sector of activity, by provinces in order to give you the most updated and comprehensive image of what is happening nowadays since the end of summer to the yesterday well not yesterday but the first week of November. So you can have all these figures in your in your mind and ask me questions if you have any doubt. All these type of graphs are interactive and here what you can see for example if you if you go to this graph you see the expenditure by nationality you see expenditure that is done with a foreign card comparing with a national card. Also you see expenditure that is done in a point of sales that is physical in a merchant that is physical or a virtual one and which are the results that you have here that the highest impact of the crisis for sure was for foreign people. You see here in that period that was when the the virus arrived and we have the lockdown that a foreign foreign expenditure was the most hit a category and then how it started to recover. If you see this this type of data again you see that during the fourth of May where we started in phase one in the easing process national expenditure started to recover really fast but it was not the case of a foreign expenditure of during people. We have that in the in the worst moment they they was the decreasing in growth rates that was almost to 95 percent so it was a lot and right now again we are still really really bad in that in that figure. We have a decrease of 71 percent okay but however with information about this national consumption you see that this is the one that is leading the recovery of consumption it started to increase at the beginning of June especially keeping a positive growth rates until the second half of October when we have this second wave of cases in in Spain and then it started to reach again negative values. It's starting and the data that we have nowadays it is negative but it is close to to the zero part area okay and then another important issue is the online consumption the e-commerce you see that it is growing since the end of summer compared with previous year that is in year on year growth rates reaching at the beginning of November an increase of more than 50 percent and nowadays it is around 20 percent in the case of Spain which is also really really important. Okay so focusing right now on the evolution of sector of activity in the case of Spain you see also different patterns in the recovery and also during the crisis during the the worst part I should say okay so here you see how consumption for example of accommodation and travel agencies were the most heated categories it seems that during the summer they started to recover as you can see here in that video that we have here but then at the end of summer it started again to to have a bigger decline in these growth rates given that we have again this second wave and it was really really important. If you go for example to the case of restaurants it also let me put it like this one it is also really interesting the pattern of of the evolution of bars and restaurants that you see that since mid-October they started to decrease significantly so the the the peace of the decline was higher than for example in in accommodation or in other categories like leisure leisure this is like something that is interesting to analyze why you we observe that and it is a common pattern across most of the of the communities communities and provinces that we are analyzing but what happened we saw the categories of consumption like for example food that we see that increase a lot during the lockdown because people were consuming at home everything so it is reflected on on the data and then we have also for example that is interesting to see the expenditure in in home equipment that you have here that is furniture so we see that after the lockdown and the easing of restrictions people started to consume more and spend more money in having a good material and good equipment at home for teleworking or for whatever they want but they realize they notice that they are going to spend more time at home so probably it's good to spend some money on it and it is reflected in our data and right now again the category that is increasing a lot regarding to and comparing to previous year is food because probably previous year we were distributing our expenditure for for food at home in restaurants in the workplace whatever but right now we don't have so many possibilities so it is reflecting on on the data on health we also have an important increase comparing with with the year before and also on technology that they are growing at 20 percent this is also interesting to take into account okay if we want to see the what happened by province here you have for the case of Spain for the 52 provinces that we have how was the evolution comparing it across time and across geographies and you see the important shock of the of the crisis in in late March and you see how was the recovery okay and all this data that is available also for analyzing and comparing with with other data in you see that you have well just let me say that here that that blues means a lower growth so here you see that the impact especially during the first half of April was the most important issue and then the recovery was different you see that the most heat parts where the most tourists won like the islands and then the big cities madrid barcelona valencia and if you compare the the current moment with the previous one you also see really important differences you know see that we are in a second wave of the pandemic and the number of covid cases infection rates and deaths are really important but from an economic point of view considering consumption the effects are quite different and this is because we don't have the lockdown that was the measure that avoids to to consume okay so now he information by country this is a cross country comparison and let me let me mention that this information is a viable in interactive perhaps in our web page and moreover we can send you the data upon request for a academic purposes or research purposes okay so if you are interested in this type of data we are setting it with you just go to our web page you have here the link and we will give you the data so here again you see that the recovery in my country is especially important in countries like uh darky or or for example peru that was a best performer during during this last month and you see that the spain is on the tail you have also in our web page information about the evolution of consumption in online and physical one atm withdrawals compared with total purchases and you have it for all the countries so here you see for example in countries like darky the importance of the e-commerce the without adab the crisis supposed a really important point for digitalization and digital trends especially in emerging economies and it is also reflected in the data you have for example mexico that also the the evolution of dc commerce was really really important and for example in the case of us you have also this importance in online expenditures because people cannot consume or consume less outside but for sure the highest growth rates was in in emerging economies and finally let me give you this information that is also for comparing across countries and across sectors what is happening this is really good to see the the recovery and the evolution of the of consumption taking into account the impact of the virus and you see in spain that the impact was really high but the recovery started at the beginning of may and was good comparing with other countries for example in the case of mexico that's true that the the decline was lower but the recovery was also lower okay so you see for example peru that started with really dark colors that means with low values for growth rates and then it started to really light colors so the recovery materializing this economy so after all of this information and before going to the decade weights I would also like to give you some some important insights regarding this type of data we we know that the this transaction data we have proved that could be useful for for the society for assess assessing the economic conditions capturing really relevant patterns of spending in real time and high definition at aggregate and at the micro level and this could be especially useful for policymakers and researchers so in in the commitment of bba to help the society and to combat the crisis we are saving frequently this granular data for spain and for for other countries with public institutions to help them in their policy decisions okay and as I said before this is especially important for emerging economies where they don't have so much data we study the impact of the covid crisis on expenditure how was the nissan shock how was the recovery and expenditure adjustment across geographies and income groups and also across categories of consumption so and finally we also test that this transportation spending indicator that we constructed with our data could be also a really good indicator to explain the disease incidents particularly across income groups that we see that varies a lot so with that I finish the presentation thank you everyone for your attention it was a pleasure to to share this type of insights with you and I'm more than happy to answer any questions that you have


I want to welcome you to TCG's 25th National Conference. Yep. And welcome to Cleveland. You know, it's been 39 years. It was 39 years ago that 215 theater people gathered for four days on Yale's campus for the very first TCG National Conference. At that time, their discussions ranged from artistic policy to fundraising strategies, from the role of music and productions to the role of theater in communities. That conference really launched the biannual and now annual TCG tradition of convening the field. Coming together now for the 25th time, we honor the game-changing leaders who saw the power of pure connection to make, in the words of TCG's vision statement, a better world for theater and a better world because of theater. Here with us today, we have at least two theater leaders who attended that first gathering at Yale, the amazing David Hawkinson and Woody King, Jr. Feel free. We're going to hear from them in a bit. But I also want to mention that we have leaders here who are here for the very first time. It's their first conference. And in order to, yes, we can clap for those people as well. But to honor this intergenerational legacy, we'll be sharing key memories from conferences passed throughout our three days together. And there is perhaps no greater defining story than the one I'm going to share with you now. August Wilson's first conference was in 1984, just a few months after his production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom had been at Yale Repertory Theater. Our publisher, Terry Nimeth, was tasked with talking to artists who didn't seem to know anyone. And so we approached the emerging playwright as he stood off to the side watching a cocktail reception underway. As always, August was dressed in a coat jacket with a vest, a tie, and a hat. And Terry remembers that it had just been announced that Ma Rainey was going to Broadway. 12 years later, on the Princeton campus, August stood on our plenary stage at the MacArthur and delivered his game-changing keynote address, The Ground on Which I Stand. That was my first TCG conference. And I still remember everyone leaping to their feet for a standing ovation. Nine years after that, at our 2005 conference in his adopted home town of Seattle, August signed copies of his first TCG published play, King Hadley II, for over an hour in spite of not feeling well. It was at that conference that he finally agreed to let TCG publish all 10 of his plays in the century cycle. So we are joining here together on Hallowed Ground. It's made sacred by the game-changing vision of August Wilson and the thousands of theater people who have gathered over the past 24 conferences. And as we honor that legacy, we must also call the emerging artists and leaders who, like a young Wilson, may stand a little outside of things wondering how they fit in. So we are asking you, how will you shake the ground on which we stand? Over the next three days, what game-changing moments can we make together? How can we extend those questions to those watching the conference on livestream? Thank you, howl around. And now I'd like to acknowledge that this time together would not be possible without the support of our wonderful conference sponsors. I'd like to take some time to name them, and I ask you to hold your applause until the end. The City of Cleveland, the Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland State University, Destination Cleveland, the Edgerton Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, Intrinsic Impact by Wolf Brown, Jack Prince, Key Bank Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, MailChimp, John P. Murphy Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the Nord Family Foundation, Patron Technology, Playhouse Square, the Ruth Easton Fund, Spectrics, and Westlake Reed-Liskowski. Thank you to all of our conference supporters. The names on that list represent just a small measure of the profound support that we've received from the Cleveland Theater community. Over the next three days, you'll get a small taste of the strength and diversity of this community, which itself is celebrating the 100-year anniversaries of Caramu House, the oldest continually operating theater of color in the country, and the Cleveland Playhouse, which is this year received the Regional Theater Tony Award. To help me honor this amazing city and acknowledge the work of our tireless Cleveland host committee, please join me in welcoming Bob Taylor and Raymond Bob Gann to the stage. Hello, everybody. My name is Bob Taylor. I'm the Executive Director of Great Lakes Theater. And on behalf of the host committee, welcome to Cleveland. We're so glad to have you here. The sun always shines. I just wanted to say that I think it is so special that we are holding our first plenary session here in the Ohio Theater. The Ohio Theater was the very first theater restored in the Playhouse Square District in 1982, and Great Lakes Theater moved from its west side suburban location to move down here and become the first resident company of Playhouse Square. So over the past 33 years, our organization has witnessed this incredible transformation to the gem that you guys have seen when you got arrived this week. So thanks to Playhouse Square for sharing all these gorgeous theaters with us for a theater conference. Isn't that wonderful? Thanks, Playhouse Square. We are really blessed in this community also to have a wide panoply of theaters available to us. We have a varied, a wide variety of sensibility, of talent, of taste. We have legacy theaters, we have new kids on the block, and all of us are working together and separately sometimes to serve the varied needs of our diverse community. So we're very fortunate to have that community. And our host theater group has been working the past 15 months with TCG to create a representative experience both of our city and of our theater community, and which we hope will be both pleasurable and fun and memorable to all of you. So thank you for being with us here. It is my pleasure to thank the host theaters that have worked so hard again over the last 15 months. So if I could ask the host theater board members, staffs, and artists that are here today to just stand, I just wanna recognize you so you guys can be recognized. If you guys could just stand up for a second. And again, this, amen. This group represents, as Teresa said, both our Centenary theaters, Caramu House and the Cleveland Playhouse, but also theaters with other very strong histories. Obama Theater has been around for 56 years. Great Lakes Theater for 54, Cleveland Public Theater 31, and then the new kid on the block, Theater Ninjas, five years young, right? So it's a great, great group of people. I'm grateful to work in this community every day. And thank you all for everything you've done to bring, did to bring this conference here for the celebration of our art form that you, that you do, that you work in every day and for the richness you bring to our community. It's fantastic to be have you here. So thanks so much. And finally, it's my pleasure to recognize a man who exemplifies our art form every single day. And my friend Raymond Bobkin, the Executive Artistic Director of Cleveland Public Theater, thanks Raymond. Okay, so I imagine that some of you are still thinking, really, Cleveland? Because that's what I was thinking 20 years ago when I stopped off here, what I thought temporarily for a couple of years. But what I found here was an incredible community. A community that values kindness and has a strange, deep sense of civic pride, but also civic participation, a city that has played such an important role in the history of our country in so many areas, but especially in the area of diversity. And what I also found is that here, artists really are celebrated. We just have such an incredible history and that as an artist, I could play a role in the community in a very, very interconnected community that has incredible need for the arts, but also welcomes them in to really address critical issues and to remind us all of our true purpose. Tonight, you will get a sense, I think, of that Cleveland. You'll get an opportunity at the opening night party to experience not only Cleveland Public Theater, but dozens of other theaters, dance groups, performing artists and musicians all from the Cleveland area. There will be lots of food. Stay late, there will be lots of drink. And this night is going to be based on our annual extravaganza, pandemonium. Pandemonium at TCG is sort of a mini-pandemonium, but it's unlike any opening party that you have ever experienced, I am guessing. So you have to gear up your adventurous spirit. You have to nurture curiosity. You may encounter a play by Eric Kobel on a staircase, or you might meet a goddess in a closet or a ninja in a cabaret, or perhaps you will experience a revelation in an elevator. And at 9 p.m., the desserts will arrive from three great Cleveland favorite places, and then it's dancing with the pink elephants. You'll understand that later. The party goes to 11 p.m. for those of you who are Cleveland tough. Now, it's my honor and privilege to introduce my friend and truly one of my heroes, Joe Simperman. Joe is the councilman of Ward 3. We're in his ward right now, but he works across the city. 10 years ago, CPT had lost a significant funder for our teen program, STEP, where we employ very, very low-income youth. We employ them over the course of the summer to write and produce their own plays and perform them at city parks. And Joe had helped out a little bit that summer, and he called me up and said, we're ready to go. And I said, I just don't know if we can actually go forward. And he said, let's meet. And he said, what do you need me to do? And he led an effort to not only save the program, but to make it sustainable. And this is just one of the many things Joe has done. He led legislation to have a same-sex registry in the city of Cleveland. He, yes, he also led the effort, along with my councilman, Matt Zone, to make sure that city employees who are in same sex, who are registered as same-sex couples, can get equal health benefits. And he has also added transgender to one of the protected groups in the city and continues to fight every day. And I could go on and on. This is just a snapshot of his leadership to build a more fair and equitable city. This man, he is the real deal. He gets it, he understands, he advocates loudly, but most importantly, he walks the walk. The amazing Joe Simperman. Good evening, everybody. And welcome to the great city of Cleveland as a son of the city of Cleveland. I have to do this appropriately. On behalf of Mayor Frank G. Jackson, the 56th mayor of the city of Cleveland, and on behalf of Council President Kevin J. Kelly, welcome to the great city of Cleveland established in 1796. Now that that's done. And now let me speak to you as your brother. I am so deeply moved by each and every one of your presence here and knowing that I won't be able to introduce myself to each and every one of you. Let me, on behalf of somebody who grew up in a family with issues on a street that was numbered, it wasn't named after an animal or a botanical garden. As somebody who didn't know what it was like to dream or imagine until I had the chance to work with people in your field, thank you. Thank you for opening doors that are closed that we call closets. Thank you for opening minds for people, some of us in our own room, who change when we see things happening before us. Thank you for being the force of good and light and love in a nation that right now is desperate for good and light and love. I say this to you.  But it is so rare that I get to actually tell the honest to God truth in my job and I'm not going to pass up this minute. Thank you for changing communities, communities that you're going to visit, communities where storefronts were boarded until places like Cleveland Public Theater working collaboratively with Great Lakes, with Playhouse Square, with performers from Caramu, with places like Near West Theater, were able to transform an entire neighborhood and an entire community and make it safer and better for young people and yes, for people who never have yet bought a ticket. Thank you for changing places like neighborhoods where we have young people who are coming from all different backgrounds performing in neighborhoods of all different backgrounds with programs like the STEP program that Cleveland Public Theater does but also another program called Why Haven, where men who are recovering put on their own performance and tour how appropriately before and after the holiday of American Thanksgiving hearing Cleveland to speak the truth. And thank you for being so relevant in this time of discordance in our nation when it is so hard for us to be honest about our past and our present and we only need to realize that we aren't going anywhere until we do that and I'm in a room right now with 800 people who are reminding us that there is only one way forward and that's the truth. That's the truth. This past year, we had the privilege through Cleveland Public Theater and Raymond's direction to enliven a church for the second time in two years that was one of the most northern termini of the Underground Railroad, a place called Station Hope. It was a church that had been shuttered. It was a church that nobody knew the history of until a group of 150 people like you and you and you came to this quiet place, opened the doors and said this is the story of Cleveland and freedom. This is the story of Cleveland and freedom of when people treated each other as human beings and not as people who were part of one racial group or another. This is the story of the city of Cleveland when police officers in the time of Cleveland's founding actually aided abolitionists who were taking people who were coming from the south to get out of this country that had backwards views and horrific places where people died and took them to better places. This was a place that was in the middle of the city that nobody knew about until people like you opened the door and said welcome. You said welcome. You said welcome to a person who was 12 years old whose mother spent six months in the hospital as somebody struggling with bipolar disorder. You said welcome to somebody who grew up on a numbered street who didn't know, wasn't focused, was failing out of school and brought that person into theater. You said welcome to someone who when they were in high school played Jerry in the zoo story and Cheswick in One Flew of the Cuckoo's Nest and that person still uses those phrases in city council meetings every single day because sometimes my friends you have to go a very long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly. Little Edward all the action there. But you said welcome to me. And I'm going to say this to you because the person who brought me up in theater was a wonderful man named Pierre Davenian who passed away this past spring and I didn't get a chance to ever have this conversation because he was too sick by the time I realized he was dying. But had it not been for him and had it not been for people like you across this country there would be people who wouldn't know what it meant to be loved, what it meant to feel goodness and what it meant to feel what it's like when you're alive. I know who you are. I know exactly who you guys are. You guys are the ones who help people like me that you never know you helped but without you we wouldn't be here. So welcome to this great city. We love you. Have a great time. One last thing. Sorry. On behalf of the city of Cleveland, Teresa is now the councilwoman for all things theater in Cleveland. Fantastic. By the way, thank you Bob and Raymond and thank you Councilman Simperman. And by the way, Councilman Simperman has been tweeting the proceedings. So check out hashtag TCG15. There's a really sexy picture of me and Bob and Raymond backstage that you'll get to see. And now to present the first of three awards that we're giving over the course of the conference, I'd like to welcome two of those 1976 conference attendees you heard of earlier to the stage, David Hawkinson and Woody King. I just want to clarify something before we start. I think I'm speaking for both Woody and myself. We were at that conference by accident and we were at this conference by accident.  There are scores of active and vital people around this country that were at that conference. They are all in assisted care, homes, but there are scores of them. Thank you, Teresa. So today we're talking about TCG Visionary Game Changer Award.  To the individual who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to advance the field as a whole nationally or internationally, individuals who regularly and beyond think beyond the end lobe to implement practices, new models, advocacy efforts on behalf of the field. Today TCG is honoring Jim Houghton. My dear friend and a man I most admire him. Jim has worn many hats in his career. He started as an actor. He worked in the company thousands of years ago. He's director, producer. He's an educator. He's the head of the Juilliard drama program right now. He's worked on other similar, when he's over the life of his signature life, which he never could figure out how he did it, he worked on a lot of other similar initiatives like the New Harmony Project. He ran the O'Neill Center. He was artistic advisor to Joe Dowling at the Guthrie where we worked together. But today's honor is not about all of that. It's about what Jim has done for the signature. He started in a small storefront in 1991 in Lower Manhattan. Later on it went to the public. Well, let me say this. It started from the beginning. Its focus was on the playwright. And in the very beginning, the focus was on presenting each year one playwright, a body of his or her work. They've never veered away from that. Then he went to the public. And then in his seventh season, he got the wonderful Peter Norton Theater on 42nd Street. The thing that's so amazing. Jim is one of the best fundraisers in our field. And he's one of the best fundraisers in our field because he's so passionate and so consistent and so on the mark all the time when he talks about what he's trying to accomplish. An amazing thing to me about this company has never veered from that. It's done some really interesting initiatives over the years. For example, in the tenth season he introduced a legacy program which inviting back its past playwrights to return to the stage either new works or old known works. In the fifteenth season, he introduced a very controversial signature ticket initiative that was offering tickets starting at $20 to all performances making the playwrights work more accessible to the community at large. In the eighteenth season, he hosted the Historic Negro Ensemble Company and presented a whole year of their incredible body of work back in the eighties, I think it was. He launched this, opened this incredible performing arts center. Three theaters, offices, studios, rest round. But it was not just the fact that it was such an interesting multiplex space that we all dream about having. It's that, it's, the whole idea was so consistent with what he's always tried to do with his company. He wanted a space for a cross-section of artists, audiences, and community members to experience the theater and each other. And the space does it brilliantly. Woody, do you want to make some comments? I'm done. They brought me out here to make some comments, too. In 2012, Signature Theater opened its 66 million dollars, 70,000 square foot, Persian Square Signature Center at 480 West 42nd Street. It's a three theater complex designed by Lee designer Frank Gehry including office spaces, rehearsal spaces, and a cafe. It is a theater space in New York comparable to the National Theater in London. The cafe of which I often hold my meetings over coffee and browse the collection of plays by Signature Theater playwrights only. What I know is Signature Theater makes its tickets affordable, probably the lowest tickets in New York. What I know is Jim's commitment to African-American playwrights, August Wilson, Kateri Hall, Regina Taylor, Adrian Kennedy, Brandon Jacobs, Jenkins, who was reviewed in today's time brilliantly, by the way, is incomparable. Jim's commitment to Ruben Santiago Hudson's resulted in major revivals of August Wilson's work, the piano lesson. And I thought Fugaz, my children, my Africa, and a place on the Signature Theater board. I think that's unique. I think that's totally different than most theaters around the country. And Jim Horton, the visionary. We have a short period of time and we could go on and on with all of his accomplishments. I hope you get the gist of why we think this guy is a visionary and change artist. I think the other thing is what I have to say is Jim is the most decent, respectful person. Not only the artist, but the people who work for him. He's an incredible man, which is why I love him. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thanks a lot, really. Thank you, guys. You're amazing. You're amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much, David and Woody. Wow. You guys are rock stars and you know it, I hope. Thank you, Teresa, the board. I'd like to give a shout out to my dear friend Kate Lapuma, who is not only a trustee of TCG and the executive director of Chicago's Terrific Writers Theatre, but she's one of my most cherished friends and colleagues. Many of the things David mentioned about signature in our earlier years were all seated or established when Kate was executive director there. So lots of love to you, Kate, and thank you. Thank you. So it's beyond a privilege to be with you all here tonight, honestly. I grew up and was mentored and inspired by the companies and work represented in this room and across the country. I was raised in San Francisco and as a kid I was exposed to the early plays of Sam Shepard at the Magic Theatre, the astounding Tony Kushner at the Eureka Theatre Company, the eclectic and wonderful work of Berkeley Rep, the crazy Bill Ball at ACT, Luis Valdes at the Atro Campesino, not to mention Beach Blank of Babylon Goes Bananas and Bullshot Crumman, and of course the wonderful Del Arte Company in Blue Lake, California. I traveled to Oregon Shakes every year for my annual nine plays in three days chaos and wondered just how they pulled it off. I did trips to the Taper and to La Jolla Playhouse in the Old Globe. I was an actor and a member of the company in the early days of San Jose Rep, which now may explain its demise. In graduate school I was in Dallas watching the work of Adrian Hall at the Dallas Theatre Center and the beginnings of Undermain Theatre in Deep Ellum. As a member of John Hausman's company, the acting company, we traveled across the country bringing Shakespeare, Chekhov, Fornez, and Mark Twain as seen through the eyes of Connie Congdon to eager audiences. We performed in huge, Broadway-sized theaters to small gymnasiums in small rural communities, places that had held fundraisers throughout the year just for the possibility of having a couple of nights of theater. You know, it was that kind of work that we get to do every day. It's the luxury we have. And by some good fortune, work has brought me to nearly every state in this country. And I've been inspired by you in our robust American theatrical landscape. So many of us have collaborated together through New Harmony Project, The O'Neill, The Guthrie, Signature, and we've shared in making our work, questioning the work and nurturing it and have grown mightily because of it. So this award, this Visionary Gain-Changer Award, it's pretty lofty stuff, I would say. And don't get me wrong, I'm very touched to be thought of and to be in your company. But I think all those words relate to results and that's good. But I have to say it's the process of making the work where the fire burns brightly for me. It's the process of changing vision comes to life. You and your collective work are truly the defining vision of our American theater and the thing that is moving the work forward. If there's any game-changing going on, it's in every tiny office, an intimate stage and every theater in this country where you, you all show up every day dreaming about the impossible and then making it happen one day at a time one crisis after another all in the quest to realize the possibility of perhaps one transformative moment where we all rise together and meet our potential audience and artists alike. That's truly game-changing and that's what you do every day. I know tomorrow Lear is going to receive an acknowledgement and I know she shows up every day not to game-change or to have vision. She shows up and lives in the moment she's in and lucky for us, those moments stack up and result in transformative and exciting theater. On a personal note, today is sort of an interesting day for me. This morning my 20-year-old daughter, Lily, got on a train for a four-day playwriting conference at Yale. She confronted her own fears about it and just applied and off she went this morning. Brave, brave, brave is what I say. And tonight, my son, Henry, opens in Anything Goes in the After Work Theater in New York City. There's two things about that. Henry has special needs and has confronted his autism for over 22 years. He's an angel and a champ and a lover of theater. And After Work Theater is the only community theater in New York City home to over 350 off-and-off-off Broadway theaters. After Work Theater was started about four years ago by a young guy named Evan Greenberg who wanted to create a safe space where anyone, anyone could be in a play. Everyone pays 500 bucks, that's what funds it, and that's it. They're in. They make theater and just as the name says they rehearse after work and on Saturdays. So tonight they're going to open up with Anything Goes and that audience will be filled with friends and colleagues and family. And that stage will be populated by nurses and professors and professionals from every walk of life who happen to be some of the most courageous storytellers you'll ever see. It's incredibly moving and represents the core of what we do and why we do it. We honor each other in this work. And for me, Evan's work and every member of that company is a game changer and visionary. Transformation and tears will be witnessed tonight in that small, tiny, off-off Broadway theater. So for me, making theater any theater is a miracle, truly. And we say level up over the course of this few days. Shoot, I don't know about you guys, but I contend that showing up is the level up. That's where we all live every day, where you live every day, where you show up. The act of making theater is self-aspirational. You are the miracle makers. And I'm very, very, very proud to be part of your community. This gives me a moment to thank you all for your vision and for your truly making it possible that a little boy from San Francisco could be so inspired by you, all of you, to listen to the tiny, tiny voice in his head that just maybe he could find his voice and just maybe be part of your community. So lots of love to all of you. And thanks to you for all this honor and the many years of work and the many more years to come and all best wishes for the coming days. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much, Jim, for all the work you've done to advance theater and champion this singular voice of the American playwright. While theater may be the oldest form of storytelling, this digital age gives us new platforms for a story seemingly every other week. With the game changing so quickly, a sense of humor may be our best navigational tool. That's why I'm pleased to welcome our first plenary speaker to the stage, Baratunde Thurston. Baratunde is a technology loving comedian who has contributed to Fast Company and NPR, served as director of Digital for the Onion, and authored the New York Times bestseller, How to be Black. He co-founded Cultivated Wit, a startup that exists at the intersection of comedy, creativity, and technology to make the world more fun. Please welcome Baratunde Thurston to the stage. Thank you for it, man. Yay! We have this evening learned a few things together about ourselves, about the place that we're in. We've learned that Cleveland keeps goddesses inside of its closets. We have learned that there's always one over exuberant gentleman in the back of the house excited about the alcohol to be served later. We've learned that the leaders of the theater community in this beautiful and vibrant city have a requirement that their names must contain the name Bob. We have learned that politicians are capable of finishing their remarks at the same time and making great points when they do so. Thanks for restoring our faith, Councilman. It was great. And we've learned that some awards are big, like a visionary award would be big. Other awards are also big, like a game changer award would be pretty massive, but sometimes you have accomplishments so big you just smash them together in a Venn diagram known as the Visionary Game Changer Award. Congratulations, Jim. Congratulations. We have learned that this gathering is 39 years old but this gathering is number 25. At first I thought it was a mistake. Like a math error. And then I remembered no, theater people, of course. My people welcome to TCG 15 and give yourselves a big round of applause. So happy to be here. I'm going to share some stories with you. In my beginning which doesn't start with me, it technically starts with this adorable little girl. That's my mother. Arnita Lorraine Thurston at age 4 in Washington, DC where she was born. You can see the resemblance. She's adorable. I'm also adorable. My mother's mother was named Lorraine Martin and she was the first black employee inside the U.S. Supreme Court building. A fact that I did not know nor did my older sister know until 2005 when our mother passed away. Our mother's father was born at the very tail end of slavery and worked for the government of the District of Columbia designing and working on the roads and highway systems at the time. My mother would end up protesting outside of buildings that her mother worked in that her father could not even work. My mother was sent to a private school in rural Pennsylvania when she was 8 years old and she didn't like it. I know because she wrote letters that I will now share with you. Dear mother I am having fun but I do not like it here. Now that's code for I don't like it.  That's a sad letter. Why am I showing you a sad letter from my mom's childhood? Because the letter's not ended. Her letter's over but the letter that her mother received was just beginning. You turn this page over and there's this other letter. If your little girl is dissatisfied we'd be glad to have her bed for children who are anxious to come. Signed. What you are looking at ladies and gentlemen is an early prototype of the NSA wiretapping program. Circa 1948. It turns out it's a clear and present danger to these United States when a little black girl wants cookies and a doll. Because she might want voting rights and equal pay next. And that's a slippery slope. So sister is on it. I asked my mom in high school dressed very appropriately for the times a dress cut below the knees a basket presumably filled with positive affirmative thoughts toward the great American democratic experiment. She didn't stay looking like that. This is my mom and her friends gathered marching south on 16th street northwest outside of what is now known as Malcolm X Park in a 1968 African Liberation Day parade. Most people in a march look forward. You don't want to trip over someone. You want to keep your eyes on the proverbial prize but my mother looks at you. She knew she might end up in a PowerPoint someday. When you have a mother like this, it affects the media that you consume as a child. I did not have typical Saturday morning cartoons. I did not read typical pop up books. See Dick or Jane do simple verb thing and move on with your life. The very first book I can remember reading as a child was this.  Got me on my stoop protesting cocoa puffs because they got to be racist. I don't know how. But these messages get in. This is a shot outside the home.  It was very popular in the early 90s in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. Now white people are very popular in that same neighborhood. It's different, different strokes, different strokes. Family photo, middle school. I went to the Sidwell Friends school from 7th through 12th grade. My mother is pictured in the middle. My older sister, Belinda, is with her back to me. She's in Lansing, Michigan. She was in the newspaper business for 25 years. In fact, when she took her job as the assistant managing editor of the Lansing State Journal, she was one of 25 black assistant managing editors in America. And the year was not 1800 anything. It was very recently. She left the newspaper world to start a yoga studio. A donation based yoga studio in the hood in Lansing. Now you can either take that as a great testament to her community service and commitment to sharing an art with people who truly need it, not just those who could afford it or you could take it as a massive indictment about the prospects for journalism in these United States. I give you choices. I give you choices. Since then, I've been involved in, learned from, and helped create a few very interesting institutions and organizations. I studied at the Improv Olympic in Chicago for a summer, which was so great. As a child, I was in actually a childhood theater company called City at Peace, which got teenagers to write their own stories. Give it up. Yeah. One person who knows it and the rest, because I told you to. Thank you. You heard some of the other stuff in the bio, and I do have a podcast that's very new. It's called Our National Conversation about conversations about race. We don't have much to talk about. Most significantly over the past few years, I've been spending time building this institution cultivated with several of my onion colleagues, and I left to advance the cause of comedy and storytelling and technology and try to bring those together more. The name was inspired by an old poet from Rome named Horace, who said these words are cultivated with one that badgers less can persuade all the more. And so we're trying to take that power of humor to connect with the power of technology to amplify and bridge them together. It's often easier to hear such a message. Along the way I've learned a few things and want to share some of those lessons with you. The first has to do with kind of a general life lesson that sounds obvious and then you play it out and it gets more interesting. Having a clear identity and point of view, many of you run theatrical organizations, you are on stages yourself. When I joined this theatrical organization America's finest news source known as the onion I thought I got it and people often say this is such an onion story you know and those people are always wrong it's never what they think it is. Most people think oh it's politically absurd it's goofy it makes fun of a president therefore it must be in the pages of the onion.  Now the history of the onion is one of a Prussian tuber farmer who immigrated to this country and knew only two words of English, the and onion. He saw an opportunity to monetize attention by pimping out readers to advertisers and the rest is history. The onion's modus operandi has been as media satire as an all-seeing, all-knowing condescending I whose motto is Latin for you are dumb. All the news that fits a print versus you are dumb. And from that comes a lot of the humor out of those pages regardless of the platform that that humor exists on. Now when I wrote this book I tried to channel some of that mythology, some of that grounding essence into a message that I thought would be as clear and as effective as what I learned from the onion. And my scientists my scientists came up with this. It's true, it's true. So who are you really the only question that matters in life in general? There are fun ways to play that I have learned some formally, some informally, some by accident. I want to share a couple of those cases with you. I wrote a book that was weird for me. I was a product of the internet. I blogged and tweeted and I balanced my phone before I came into large public events because of the mother that you saw who raised me so right. But this book is an act of absurdity. There's no way to be black. So let's write a book about that. And it's mostly a memoir, but it's also a bit of lessons learned along the way. There's chapters like how to be the black friend, how to speak for all black people which I'm doing right now. This is exhibit A to be the next black president. I'm looking into the future as well. I also knew that the question was too big for just my own experience to adequately address. And so I built a panel of experts who I called my black panel. And these were black people. That's it. That was the requirement. They were black people. And they had lifetimes of combined experience in blackness. And so I recorded my interviews with the black panel. I asked them questions like when did you first realize you were black, how black are you, can you swim, like science based queries to really get at the heart of it. And because I'm a scientist, I also had a control group. And so there were three black women, three black men, coastal and Midwestern representation plus the diaspora also represented outside of these states. But one white Canadian man served as my control group. That was Christian Lander. He wrote the book Stuff White People Like. And I figured if anybody knows white people it's the guy who wrote that. So here's a little snippet of some of what they share. This one girl, it was her turn to kiss me and she didn't and she sort of ran away laughing and the kids ran away laughing and the thing I realized at that point that I was black and they were all white because this was a small prime school in Boston and that was the first time I ever felt like black was somehow separate from the norm, you know. I think I knew I was black before then because as I say in my show my mom would not have let me not know I was black there would have been no way that she would have let that information slip.  I was born in Africa so everybody's black. So we don't really think about it like that and I mean here you're like oh is it black? Is it white? Is it black? Is it black? Africa you don't ask. The assumption is that you're black. Therefore what becomes more important is other things what your name is, where you come from, what your language do you speak, what's your culture, what's your tribe etc. So I knew I was black when I was 8 I moved to the Middle East I think the Middle East is the first time I discovered I was black because people would come to talk to you and they'd be like we're going to talk to you and they'd be like and what does that translate to? That means this is a black guy. I've been to East Chinatown in Toronto so it was made very clear that I was Guailal from a very early Guailalian white ghost so you know I know every derogatory term for a white person in Chinese. Important question so that was I had dreams when I wrote this book about how it would be received this was not in my dreams but I'm grateful for it the cover was designed intentionally to be provocative, to be a bit of a banner and to put public readers of the book on the spot and make them ask a question like hey what the hell are you doing with that book? Which is what happened to the white man who was carrying this book before just a group of gentle black men inquired about the reasons for possession of such an object their faces capture the full range of response to the book that are possible according to science my favorite is that one because the others are in some way engaged like they are excited they are confused or they are upset that's an emotional space but this guy over here he's saying I don't need some book to tell me how to be black as evidence by my matching turtleneck and my leather jacket and my hat go on with that go on with that I've got this I have not staged the photos that have started to explode from an audience which wasn't exactly intended but kids across Instagram love to pose with a book called how to be black because it doesn't matter if you're black or not it is ridiculous to hold a book called how to be black if you're black do you need refresher courses is everything are you okay is this like continuing education if you're white do you think that like this makes you a certain thing and it's very sad understanding sometimes people aren't happy about it and then last week last week this great country of ours this gifts that keeps on giving yet also taking but giving but then taking provided us with an opportunity and so we've had one award presented already tonight but I would like to present an award to one of the most incredible performances that I have ever seen in my 30s plus years lifetime achievement award Miss Rachel someone help her someone help her she did inspire something serious in me she went on today show this week and she embraced this term by transracial which is a bit of a complex term around giving where we're at with transgender rights etc and she says I identify as black and I thought alright I could be upset by this or I could see an opportunity here to change my station in life so this is me this is who I am when I was a small child I used to draw dollar signs all around myself I made it rain invisibly ambillionaire I love you all so much one other storytelling fun time experiment that I played with was when I wrote this book I opened up my computer screen to the world to witness the writing from their own desktops not entirely that would be stupid and I would never have finished the book or be here to talk about it and I did an experiment of writing a chapter in public and then as I edited I had these office hour windows where you could just tune in and see how it goes and I came with chat software because there is no vanity author software to boost one's ego while one writes one's own book Silicon Valley has solved a lot of problems but not that one so I used tech support software it allows people to take over your computer when you're writing and it allows them to talk to you which is very distracting when you're actually trying to write so I saved the chat logs and I wanted to share with you some of what this audience had to say as I was writing this book someone from the UK wished that you could stay and watch but it's nearly one in the morning someone suggested a title change for a chapter a chapter about me going to Senegal for the first time I took that advice that chapter is actually called Black to Africa I'm a mixed child of immigrants and I'm not black, but I look black doesn't mean I'm black, help! Rachel Dogell was on my chat room you got to aginate people love to tell you about how bad your spelling is on the internet so that was interesting there was a hotel reference they told me not to stay there this had already happened but it didn't matter I think they worked at the Holiday Inn in Dedim so this is like a buzz marketing kind of thing and there's the great payoff, this is awesome, I'm going to tweet about this and they did and people were like come check out this weird show this dude is writing his book in public but the greatest moment from the chat history around this book is this my girlfriend is Chinese and I'm half Jamaican half regular black I think our kids might end up Dominican or something what else would they end up as chairs like the human children so I just want to thank this anonymous user for paving a way forward for us as a nation the last area that I kind of want to talk about has to do with technology I have played with and been a benefactor of my mom was a computer programmer in the early 1980s before there was a program for that and she never graduated college but she found her way into that universe and that influenced me a lot so I think about where performance can happen and does it have to be on a stage is there a way to interact with it and I've witnessed some very interesting examples and been a part of a few myself this is a Google texting software lets you send a text message from your computer and you can see from the numbers counting down that those are the number of characters you have left in your message I mean the second message already what happens on the third Google judges you that is delightful I was like oh the board is hilarious this guy jokes that's really cool at cultivated wit we have created this theatrical experience actually called comedy hack day it's a tech hackathon where developers would normally be coding on something rather serious over a short amount of time we pair them with comedians and also with designers to make ridiculous things on purpose and put them on stage like an apple keynote about a very ridiculous thing so some of the ideas people pitched at our last comedy hack day that just tells you to look up from your fucking phone when you're walking down the street just a lifesaving technology really there was race book which is like a special version of Facebook that filtered out all the idiotic racist comments that happened after there are racial incidents there was alternative mints, mints is a financial software that helps you budget and kind of shows you how you've been spending your money alternative mints shows you what your money would look like if you had made better choices with it well deserved won our San Francisco competition this is an online platform that lets you lease your excess privilege right and it works so if you get free lunch at google but you don't use it you could put it on the platform if you're a dude who gets to walk down the street without being cat called you could like walk with a woman to prevent that for like five dollars so it's very empowering it's like empowering technology and then there's these guys who got this thing which is a calendar app they call it a no ductivity app and this is for the situation where a friend asks for your help and you don't have a good reason why you can't help because you don't actually have anything going on this auto populates your calendar with real events from your local area as well as a few made up ones but I am so busy man I got this thing trying out for the x games cats is playing cats is cats come on come on they'll understand and then there's some fun cases that happen in the world where it's not on purpose it's not crafted but it's spontaneous in many ways flash mob meets performance meets the internet this is a real place in texas big earls bait house and country store big earls does not like to serve homosexuals and they made it clear with signs like this where men act like men women act like ladies and no saggy pants and then they made this known to a gay couple that was dining and the response was beautiful it wasn't a sit in it wasn't a protest it was much more than a hashtag it was let's make big earls the best biggest baddest gay dining facility in all of texas they took over their yelp page and they started adding testimonials about how great big earls is if you are gay and then the media picked up on this that's not the kind of attention big earl wanted but that's what happens when you hate that's what happens the artist the artist will get you the artist with their technology last example the onion did this story a few years ago it's an amazing story I'll let you digest that so this is a piece of satire which isn't real but there were many members of our society who thought it was an elected member of congress thought this was real and posted it to his facebook page and warned that this is what we fight for this is what we're up against and the reason he did that is because he's an idiot and he didn't use his brain before he clicked a thing but the onion audience had fun with this and they did a similar yelp thing they created this place on yelp and started adding reviews to it very detailed reviews but I'm not going to spend much more time on because I'm pretty much out of time but it's like people wanted to be a part of the show and they didn't ask permission they just did it it was beautiful so look what does this all mean I have in some ways been to the future I hang out with people who are building fun new tools I have the luxury of traveling a lot and I have a strong belief that the distinction between those on stage and off stage those who get to choose what goes on stage is breaking down and that powerful metaphor is not just a theatrical one it's very much the technological one we have in some weird way created a world where anti-social people build all of our social technologies how did that happen because we were partying with that guy that's how it happened so I think is very important for us in the interactive world whether that's physically or technologically to shift that power a little bit to be a lot more inclusive especially when you're defining tools that determine how we interact with our families not just how we entertain ourselves so you guys I'm honored to be here thank you so much for having me and if there's one last thing that I've learned from our future it's that it's wonderful Dominican thank you very much thank you very much oh thank you Baratunde that was fantastic um let's see oh here's the great thing there's a party coming but also Baratunde is going to be signing copies of his book in the TCG bookstore so if you would like to get a copy of his book and talk to Baratunde for a minute please do that otherwise we have buses outside that will take you to pandemonium at TCG pandemonium at TCG party at the edge so those buses are right out on Euclid so either go get your book signed or go party and we'll see you all there thank you


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