text:
The Future Of Retail In The Age Of Amazon
As Jeff Bezos's juggernaut continues to grow, forward-thinking competitors are finding creative ways to succeed—and be what Amazon can never be.
[Illustration: Zohar Lazar]
By Austin Carr long Read
The Mall of America's terrazzo floors, glazed white like doughnut frosting, ribbon out in every direction, creating a vast mirror maze of consumerism with 520 glassy storefronts. Shoppers, who have escaped an endlessly gray Bloomington, Minnesota, sky on a Monday morning in October, drift through the largest mall in the United States like tourists at an Atlantic City buffet. A couple holding hands strolls into a Zales while buttery perfumes emanate from an Auntie Anne's next door. Kids and some willing parents fling around on the SpongeBob SquarePants Rock Bottom Plunge roller coaster, one of 27 rides at the Nickelodeon-branded amusement park on-site. Distant echoes of saxophone Muzak clash with both elevator whirs and bubbly pop songs. Somewhere in this otherworldly commercial expanse are five Lids stores and four Sunglass Huts.
When the mall opened, in 1992, it represented the pinnacle of retail convenience and a mecca for young people to gather and spend. But the $650 million megamall was always "vaguely unreal . . . exuding the ambience of a monstrous hallucination," as novelist David Guterson described it in a 1993 Harper's article, calling it "monolithic and imposing." Two years later, Jeff Bezos launched his online book marketplace, which quickly grew into a new type of Everything Store, one that fundamentally redefined the shopping experience and led some to argue that commercial centers like the Mall of America would become gaudy relics of an antiquated era.
Now, Wall Street analysts say, the retail apocalypse is upon us. Amazon dominates e-commerce and has gobbled up 5% of total U.S. retail sales. Some expect that the company will own half the online market within the next five years, a period during which, Credit Suisse predicts, a quarter of all malls will close. By the end of this year, more than 8,600 stores will have shuttered in 2017, the worst year on record.
But here's the thing about the Mall of America: It's fighting back. "I hear all this doom and gloom in the industry," says the mall's SVP of business development, Jill Renslow, with an upbeat, Midwestern delivery. "I'm like, 'Folks! Keep your chin up! There's so much opportunity!' " The mall completed a $325 million expansion in 2015, says Renslow, who started working there as an intern in the mid-1990s and has seen it endure recessions and upheaval before. A new 342-room JW Marriott has opened upstairs, and retailers like Zara and Anthropologie are being lured to the space. The mall is experimenting with new leasing models to attract pop-ups and younger players like Untuckit and Toms Shoes. Renslow, who is eager for people coming to Minneapolis for the 2018 Super Bowl this February to visit the mall and be surprised, doesn't view Amazon as a competitor but as a partner; she recently worked with Amazon to install a set of pickup lockers at the mall. She believes retailers in general can "bring online shoppers to brick-and-mortar." I ask her directly: Is physical retail dying? "Not at all!" she says.
Renslow isn't feigning enthusiasm. Despite Wall Street's pessimism, industry leaders sound downright bullish on the future of traditional retail. Why else, they argue, would Amazon spend $13.4 billion to buy Whole Foods? Sure, the competition is fiercer than ever, and icons such as Sears and JCPenney are dying. But they believe that the narrative has been oversimplified. "Amazon alone isn't holding the knife," says NYU Stern professor of marketing Scott Galloway, who studies the retail industry. Cultural tastes have changed. Malls grew too quickly, at twice the rate of the population, from 1970 to 2015. Many retailers succumbed to quarterly earnings pressures, invested in share buybacks rather than their stores, became saddled with private-equity debt, or failed to keep pace with digital trends. What we're seeing now, industry executives say, is a rational, albeit painful, course correction. One study from retail-research firm IHL Group found that a mere 16 chains, including RadioShack and Payless, account for nearly half of all store closings, and that there will be a net increase of more than 4,000 stores in 2017 and 5,500-plus in 2018.
"Retail is under huge pressure, but the death of stores is greatly exaggerated," says Galloway, who believes that while Amazon will continue to disrupt the market, an increasing number of competitors will discover new ways to respond. "In the age of Amazon, retailers must leverage assets that [Bezos] doesn't have: When Amazon zigs, retailers must zag."
This fall, Fast Company embarked on a journey to learn from those retailers that are flourishing in the age of Amazon. After all, more than 90% of retail sales still happen in the real world, and as relentless as Bezos is, it's not likely he'll swallow up all of brick-and-mortar on his own. The truth is that the bigger Amazon gets, the more opportunity it creates for fresh, local alternatives. The more Amazon pushes robot-powered efficiency, the more space there is for warm and individualized service. The more that people interact with Amazon through its AI-based assistant Alexa, the more they will crave the insight and personal connection of fellow humans.
"The idea that everybody needs to be terrified of Amazon is completely wrong," says Brian Spaly, who cofounded two e-commerce-centric startups, Bonobos (menswear) and Trunk Club (a wardrobe-in-a-box service), which sold to Walmart and Nordstrom, respectively, for nine-figure sums. "Everybody needs to figure out what makes them special and use those weapons to compete."
The faster Amazon delivers, the more cash it burns. Shipping losses soared to $7.2 billion in 2016 from $5 billion in 2015. [Illustration: Zohar Lazar]
Successful Retailers Will Feature Products That Customers Can't Get Elsewhere
A 15-minute drive north from the Mall of America are the downtown Minneapolis headquarters of Target. The company's $7 billion bet on its future is coming to life in a series of spacious rooms littered across several floors and filled with mannequins, racks of colorful apparel, and fashion magazines. It's here that Target is designing its own goods, refocusing on the aesthetic sensibility that fueled its success in the early 2000s. "While others are shrinking their footprints, reducing head count, or trying to save their way to the next quarter, we think there's opportunity for us to take more market share," says CEO Brian Cornell, who launched the initiative last February.
On the fourth floor, at the studio for Cat & Jack, Target's new children's clothing line—which blew up in its first 12 months to become a $2.1 billion brand—mood boards display photos of smiling tots at a July Fourth block party and a family movie night. Julie Guggemos, Target's SVP of product development, describes the spirit behind the design as "positivity, happiness, saving the world," citing the adventurous tweens in Netflix's Stranger Things as an inspiration for the team. "We listen to Mom and Dad, but we have these kids in mind when we're designing," says Guggemos, a 27-year Target veteran.
Guggemos and her team of 400-plus designers will be rolling out more than a dozen high-quality, affordable, Target-exclusive brands by the end of 2018. They have already introduced a boutiquey children's decor line called Pillowfort, a modern furniture collection called Project 62, an athleisure apparel line for the post-yoga brunch crowd called JoyLab, and a dapper menswear brand called Goodfellow & Co, which even Esquire described as "elevated." Guggemos has just come from a product review for a new line, slated to launch next year. "We're designing everything from the bottom up, 100% original," she says.
When consumers can get seemingly anything and everything online, what can Target offer that Amazon can't? That question was top of mind for chief merchandising officer Mark Tritton when he joined the company from Nordstrom in 2016. Target had fallen into a trap of licensing outside brands like Cherokee, which makes children's apparel; even its in-house kids' label, Circo, felt dated. "I thought, Wow, this stuff isn't right," recalls Tritton. "It feels tired and disconnected."
In other words, Target had strayed from what made it "Tar-zhay." Two decades ago, the company had distinguished itself from other big-box retailers by teaming up with celebrated architect and designer Michael Graves to craft a collection of mass-market housewares, partnering with high-end fashion designers like Isaac Mizrahi for custom fashion lines, and nurturing emerging brands such as Method through forward-thinking curation. "There would be no retail if it weren't for merchandising, so why isn't anyone talking about it anymore?" wonders Rachel Shechtman, founder of Story, the novel Manhattan concept store, which reinvents itself regularly (and collaborated with Target in 2014). "Merch assortments designed by spreadsheets and algorithms" is what's killing department stores, she says.
When I meet Target COO John Mulligan at Target's flagship, which sits just a block away from the Cat & Jack studio, he's eager to compare the store's $10 million renovation with printed-out photos of the old layout, which hadn't changed much since the flagship was built in 2001. "It was gondola hell, right?" Mulligan says, referring to the basic shelving units you see in stores. "Just rows and rows of stuff. No sight lines." Mulligan shakes his head as he points to a depressing image of the in-store Pizza Hut that used to greet customers.
The layout has been reorganized around Target's new brands, and the presentation is crisp and contemporary. (Inexplicably, the company didn't have a visual merchandising department until just two years ago; Cornell has since poached talent from J.Crew and the Limited.) As Mulligan ushers me through the store, he beams at the displays, each of which will now be refreshed monthly, which is double the previous rate: There's an autumn-themed collection from Cat & Jack; sporty JoyLab leggings designed in partnership with Clique, whose Who What Wear line has been a hit at Target since it launched in 2016; and modern dining chairs and walnut tables from Project 62. "Before, it was a dead zone back here," he says of the home-essentials area. Other parts of the store feature bright new arrangements of exclusive products from e-commerce upstarts such as Harry's and Casper, and even the fitting room looks more like what you'd find in a Club Monaco. As for the Hut? It's been replaced by fresh groceries and a liquor and craft beer shop. Target will remodel an additional 1,000 stores in a similar fashion by 2020, while also rolling out more localized stores with smaller footprints.
The redesigned "Tar-zhays"—there are around 110 of them so far—have delivered up to a 4% jump in sales at each location, but the more promising return from this investment has come from the house brands themselves. Cat & Jack customers, for example, spend 50% more in surrounding kids' retail areas, Mulligan says, adding that their total basket size is 23% higher than other customers'. Most significantly, Target's consumer research has shown that its brands have become a "trip driver": People come to the store for Cat & Jack as much as they do for essentials like laundry detergent or bread or milk. "Target has always won with a spirit of design that their competitors didn't have. I don't see any other move for them: They're not going to beat Amazon on e-commerce," says a high-level retail expert who has advised the company on strategy.
Indeed, Target's digital efforts continue to lag. When Mulligan takes me to the back to show off the redesigned storeroom, I don't see any floor-roaming robots or automated conveyer belts, despite the fact that Target has stated that it plans to use its more than 1,800 stores as fulfillment centers (80% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Target). Instead, I find just one store clerk manually taping cardboard boxes for in-store pickup. Later, when I arrive to retrieve a $14.99 Goodfellow Henley shirt I purchased via Target's app, the cashier asks for my ID because the flagship store's smartphone scanner is broken. When I test Target's new curbside-pickup service to buy paper towels, it fails at three consecutive outlets within the Minneapolis area. Ultimately, I give up.
The company needs to improve e-commerce and store pickup, but its future success does not depend only on these services. "Target is going to have to win on stuff that nobody else has," the high-level expert says. "And that's great retail, right?"
Successful Retailers Will Deliver A Satisfying Experience
A time zone away, in the sixth-floor showroom of Warby Parker's SoHo offices in New York, cofounders Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa are squinting at a backless shelving unit displaying their designer glasses. Customers mill about just steps from the co-CEOs' desks, a dynamic that helps them relentlessly monitor and surgically adapt Warby Parker's high-touch experience. Blumenthal is eyeing a wood shelf, which is missing a centimeter-tall lip, so that if a customer slides a pair of $95 Chamberlains too far back, they'll slip onto the floor. "This does not make me happy," he grumbles. Addressing these tiny details has proven crucial to the eyewear brand's success. If they're not fixed, "we'll hear about it, like, 'Fucking shit is falling off [the shelf]!' " Blumenthal says, with an effervescent laugh. "I don't know if it's right for policing, but broken-window theory definitely applies to retail."
The 37-year-olds, who on this sunny Friday morning are both wearing slim-fitting button-downs, black sneakers, and patterned glasses—imagine the Black Keys as merchant princes—visit a Warby Parker store each day, hunting "for anything that needs to be refreshed, anything that's out of place," Gilboa says. This could be off-kilter frames or neglected customers. As much as the two consider themselves disrupters of competitors like Luxottica (Warby Parker's $10.5 billion rival, which owns everything from LensCrafters to Ray-Ban), they're students of retail history and find inspiration in such leaders as hospitality guru Danny Meyer, Apple Store legend Ron Johnson, and Mickey Drexler, the merchandising titan famous for reviving Gap in the 1990s and J.Crew in the 2000s.
Drexler, an early Warby Parker investor and board member, taught them that good experiential design is about solving customer problems. Gilboa describes how Drexler would walk into stores, zoom by Warby's managers, and head straight to associates to interrogate them for unvarnished feedback. "He'll isolate them, ask each of them the same questions, and then triangulate: Is he hearing consistent or conflicting answers? Then he really digs in, surfacing nuggets of wisdom hidden even by stores with great numbers," Gilboa remembers.
When Warby launched its first store, in SoHo in 2013, the mission was to eliminate everything annoying about buying glasses. Blumenthal hated the "little shit vanity mirrors" at optometry shops, while Gilboa couldn't stand the merchandise locked away in glass cases and the awkward interactions with often-pretentious store associates. They wanted approachable store greeters, an ask-us-anything reference desk, and a warm aesthetic, which they modeled after Sweden's Stockholm Public Library, complete with its dark-wood shelving. Anthony Sperduti, cofounder of design studio Partners & Spade, who helped Warby Parker conceive its early stores, says they needed to feel like an authentic extension of the e-commerce brand. The high-quality materials of its eyewear products, he says, are reflected in "the brass details, marble counters—this incredible weight, this classicism." To transform an intimidating experience into a fun and social activity, Warby Parker added photo booths and full-length mirrors so groups can check themselves out together. "If you're born online, you better have a really good reason to do brick-and-mortar," Sperduti says. "You better come out swinging."
Warby now operates more than 60 stores, and on this particular day, it's opening three new locations simultaneously—in Milwaukee; Fort Worth, Texas; and Harvard Square. Analysts estimate that the company will generate around $250 million in 2017 revenue. As the operation grows, it only gets harder for Blumenthal and Gilboa to keep this experience fresh. Before committing to risky new territories, the company often tests low-cost pop-up shops, rather than get stuck in the kind of expensive, long-term leases that have suffocated many traditional retailers and led them to try to save costs by building out one-size-fits-all stores. The Warby Parker team has developed modular components so that each store shares an identity but there's room for local flourishes. Vernors ginger ale, a Michigan favorite, is on tap at the Detroit store, honoring the 151-year-old soda maker that once operated a pharmacy at the same location. The Miami store, which opened in 2015, features floors painted to look like swimming lanes, so that photos taken from the ceiling-affixed cameras make customers in sunglasses look like they're floating in a pool—images that shoppers can then share on social media.
Big retailers and digital-native consumer brands alike cite Warby Parker as an inspiration and seek to mimic, even reverse engineer, what they believe is the core of its hip but inviting store experience. But refashioning stores with a certain wood finish or outfitting employees in a distinctive smock doesn't make you Warby Parker any more than painting your store white makes you Apple. Piling on frivolous attractions in an attempt at authenticity, as Brooks Brothers did by opening a Stumptown at one of its Manhattan locations, drives the Warby Parker team bonkers. "The way people are defining experience today is way off," Blumenthal says. "The idea of adding coffee shops to every store is ridiculous," because it's driven not by solving a customer problem or introducing a novel experience tied in some way to a brand, but by a hackneyed attempt to boost foot traffic. Equally jarring to them is Amazon's new Go store in Seattle, which Gilboa recently explored, in which an array of sensors and computer-vision technology enable the ultimate in grab-and-go shopping. "Play that [concept] forward and you can imagine this dystopian experience where you have no human interaction at all," he says.
Warby Parker is just as maniacally focused on efficiency as Amazon: Its next big initiative is a $15 million optical lab, in upstate New York, which enables greater quality control and faster product delivery. But the company knows that its true value lies in its elevated and personal experience, and Blumenthal and Gilboa never want to stray too far from what Drexler taught them. "We want to reinvent, but we sure as shit don't want to reinvent the wheel," Blumenthal says. "Startups sometimes take it too far, like, 'Oh, we're an innovator! We'll just ignore what [traditional] retailers have done!' Ignore best practices, get crushed."
The best retailers are embracing what makes them special to counteract Amazon's quest to dominate commerce. [Illustration: Zohar Lazar]
Successful Retailers Will Challenge The Fundamental Assumptions Of Commerce
What does the store of tomorrow look like? Amazon Go is certainly one experiment, and seemingly every big brand, from Mastercard to Sephora, is dreaming up its own vision of the future inside whiz-bang concept labs. Ask around the retail industry and you'll hear endless, breathless predictions about the potential of in-store augmented reality, drone delivery, or bitcoin payments.
So far, these technologies have amounted to little more than gimmicky distractions. "Customers don't want stupid disco balls with lasers and holograms," says Healey Cypher, founder of Oak Labs, which, yes, makes an interactive "smart mirror," but is more focused on customizing the dressing-room experience. Target, too, seems to have come to this realization. Earlier this year, the company shuttered its much-ballyhooed "store of the future" project built on glitzy tech. "Ultimately, we didn't want to build a Jetsons-like store just because we can," COO John Mulligan says.
Vibhu Norby and Phillip Raub, cofounders of B8ta, a San Francisco–based consumer-electronics retailer that has raised $19.5 million to reimagine brick-and-mortar, are thinking different. Rather than depend on a cut of sales from products, like Best Buy does, their company charges brands for the privilege of being featured in B8ta's 10 stores. By selling only a limited selection of trendy gadgets, B8ta's store associates act as ambassadors for the products—the true stars—educating consumers on their features and offering white-glove service.
Norby and Raub believe that all physical retailers—Amazon included—need to rethink the business entirely. Norby, B8ta's CEO, argues that historic metrics for success are completely irrelevant today. Who cares about sales per square foot when products reach customers via Uber and Prime Now? Why do year-over-year same-store sales comps matter when 56% of customers test products in-store but buy online? "Designing stores for throughput is how we ended up with 10-by-10 walls of Tide at Safeway," Norby says. Perhaps most radical is the new idea that retail can be unbundled from transaction. Bonobos's "guideshops," for example, offer fittings and fashion advice, with the assumption that customers will order their apparel online afterward. Decide to buy in-store? Bonobos will ship it for free. "I'm starting to see it more, where retailers are not expecting you to walk out with a bag of their stuff," says Partners & Spade's Sperduti.
Some of these ideas might strike industry veterans as heresy, but B8ta's cofounders view it merely as a shift in thinking about how physical space can be monetized. On a recent Saturday afternoon at B8ta's downtown Palo Alto location, store associates demonstrate Boosted electric skateboards out front on the sidewalk. Inside, the store has a relaxed vibe, with homey carpets and armchairs occupied by gadget-shoppers' patient loved ones, though it takes obvious inspiration from Apple's minimalist stores. Customers sipping bubble tea toy with unboxed gadgets set up on long tables—Oculus Rift VR headsets, August door locks, Onyx walkie-talkies—while B8ta staff politely chats them up. These associates are not pushy at all, because they're not pressured to sell units. They're happy to answer questions and are knowledgeable about everything from the Nebia ionizing shower ("It turns your droplets into even smaller droplets," an employee explains) to the finer points of four different Bluetooth trackers. B8ta's market advantage is its well-trained staff. The cofounders, who met at the smart-thermostat company Nest, know firsthand how difficult it is to get customers interested in, let alone grasp, the benefits of new hardware products.
For electronics brands, B8ta stores are an excellent (and relatively inexpensive) marketing portal, and an even better data tool. "The real magic happens behind the scenes," says Raub, the company's chief business officer, who previously worked at Gap and Nintendo. Every product featured in the store is wired to track how customers play with it. Store associates, called "B8ta testers," also gather qualitative feedback on why a shopper did or didn't buy a product. "Why did they look at it? What didn't they like?" says Raub, listing off a couple of common data points, which he compares to how e-commerce players monitor checkout cart abandonment. "Now brands can know that customers may have liked a product, but gave up once, say, they found out it wasn't compatible with Android." In a world where consumer products often end up languishing on shelves at Best Buy or forgotten amid Amazon's catalog of an estimated 350 million–plus items, this data is more valuable than the sale itself. Traditional retailers now want what B8ta can offer: In late October, the startup announced that 70 Lowe's locations will add a smart-home-focused B8ta, and Macy's will soon feature B8ta outposts in its flagship stores.
Successful Retailers Will Resurrect The Art Of Selling
During my reporting, I quizzed each person I spoke with about which stores get retail right. People picked one place more than any other: MartinPatrick3.
An extravagant, 17,000-square-foot cathedral of high-fashion menswear in Minneapolis, MartinPatrick3 looks like what would have happened if Willy Wonka had gone to Parsons School of Design. At once boundless and intimate, the store's colorful rooms naturally transition to the next, each its own pristinely wrapped Christmas present. In one, a collection of hand-stitched bow ties lie near $5,500 Brunello Cucinelli suits, a shiny black Vespa, and a modern steel cocktail table by a local designer. Down the hall, a white-accented men's grooming shop stocked with shaving creams and bottled fragrances practically glows. There's an in-store tailor, a barber, a full-time jewelry designer, and sharply dressed store associates, all with bouquet-like pocket squares blooming from their blazers.
Eleven years ago, Greg Walsh, an upscale interior designer who also sold home furnishings from his studio in the city's hip North Loop neighborhood, began showcasing men's accessories he'd collected during his travels: cuff links, watches, wallets. Customers loved them. Walsh brought on his better half, Dana Swindler (they're "partner partners," as Swindler puts it, smiling), to build out a stand-alone store in 2008. "The rule was that nothing could have sizes," Walsh says. "That totally went out the window," he laughs, explaining that the scope quickly grew to include apparel and much more.
Local Heroes: Five independent retailers who get it right, through curation, service, and offering something you'll never get at Amazon
Walsh and Swindler approach retail drastically differently from any merchant I encountered. Each display in MartinPatrick3, no matter how exquisite, is designed to be ephemeral. "We're constantly reinventing. We can completely remodel a room within 24 hours," Walsh says. They pride themselves on always paying vendors within 30 days—uncommon in the industry—and rushing new products into store collections often within days. ("This would take nine months at Nordstrom," Walsh remembers one vendor telling him.) Whereas the traditional rules of brick-and-mortar dictate that sales matter above all else, store associates at MartinPatrick3 are encouraged to dole out sincere fashion advice, and if it means counseling a guest away from a higher-priced item or directing him to competitors' shops, so be it. The payback comes in the lasting relationships such honesty builds. The company hosts events for free—even weddings—which it sees as a natural arm of its service, particularly if it has helped outfit the groomsmen. (There are shelves stocked with prosecco in a cozy VIP lounge.) In April, Walsh and Swindler even took down their e-commerce site. "It's been funny. People in the industry keep saying, 'You did what?!' " Walsh says. "But we decided we're all about brick-and-mortar—that's what we do really well—so let's focus all our energy there."
The self-financed retailer is growing fast. Walsh and Swindler guide me through back doors into 4,000 additional square feet of empty, brick-walled warehouse space adjacent to the store. This unfinished part of the 131-year-old building they moved to in 2010 is what Walsh is targeting as the company's fifth addition. Down the hall, in their design studio, where MartinPatrick3's "board of directors"—Cole and Ella, finely groomed poodles—lounge about on a green-mohair dining settee, Swindler cracks open a thick three-ring binder full of store statistics. (Swindler, who previously ran an engineering firm, is as meticulous about data as Walsh is about design.) Revenue has jumped an average of 40% annually since the company's founding, with some years reaching triple-digit growth. "We work our asses off," Swindler says proudly.
The pair can't quite articulate their secret, but they know other retailers don't have it. Others move too slowly, they feel, and simply aren't creative enough. "We started in the recession. We're used to hustling," Swindler says. "The retailers we meet, they don't do anything all day! Their give-a-shit factor is way down; they're not on the floor every day like we are. Now that they're making less [money], what do they do? The same thing as before, over and over and over again."
MartinPatrick3 (the name comes from the ones Walsh's father almost bequeathed him) offers sophisticated taste, expert curation, and a concierge-like, almost old-fashioned level of service that's increasingly hard to find. Yes, it's a store mostly for the 1%, but there is much here that Amazon can't copy, time-honored lessons of merchandising and customer attention.
Retailers don't need to chase a futuristic version of themselves that they might never attain; they first need to remember what made them special in the first place. The answers are all here. The talent, too. If Wall Street is right and the industry continues to decline, then this will be what we lose: the art of selling. MartinPatrick3's store manager once worked at Nordstrom. The self-described concierge, who welcomed me to the store, made helpful recommendations, and even offered to assist with dinner reservations while I was in town, is an expat of Neiman Marcus, another shrinking department store trying to find its footing in the age of Amazon. You don't need to sell mid-four-figure Cucinelli suits to offer this level of hospitality—Warby Parker does it with $95 frames—you just have to care enough to treat customers with the consideration and cordiality they deserve.
I roam through MartinPatrick3 by myself for a while, and eventually end up at Marty's, the in-store barbershop with a classic candy-cane pole out front. Christopher Hernandez, my stylist, is dressed in a black vest and a gray flat cap like a 1920s newsboy. He previously worked at the barbershop inside the downtown Minneapolis Macy's. Last March, Macy's shuttered the location. "Most of us have a background in some big department store that's closed," he says as he snips away. "We're all orphans here."
A version of this article appeared in the December 2017/January 2018 issue of Fast Company magazine.
Austin Carr writes about design and technology for Fast Company magazine.
People with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the economic impact of COVID-19
Paris is turning its iconic street into pedestrian gardens
Troubling study reveals how minor workplace slights can trigger suicidal thoughts in depressed people
Actually, Americans are feeling better than you think this winter
Bumble files to go public
Turning trash into treasure: London Design Biennale features gorgeous pieces made from waste
In London, an experimental building houses two very different types of tenants
Architecture criticism matters more than ever, according to a critic bullied by Trump
Director Emerald Fennell explains why 'Promising Young Woman' doesn't end how you'd expect
7 tips for starting a successful side hustle
Why equitable workplaces depend on your team's makeup (not just outstanding hires)


Britney and Silk are dispatched to the Austrian Alps to rescue a famous mathematician and his family from a radical terrorist organization that is holding them hostage. But the duo is still learning how to work together and any mistakes could hold deadly consequences. Can the new teammates come together to free the family in time, or will the majestic white slopes run red with blood?
INTO GLORY: For years, the Child of Darkness prophecy has been hanging over Robyn's head. Now, as the devastating truth about her destiny is revealed, will Robyn stand victorious or allow the Cabal to continue their reign of terror? As the hooded archer questions her role in the upcoming conflict for the fate of New York, Marian and Avella come to terms with their long-running conflict… but can Avella leave her old ways behind, or will her past catch up to her?
GOD OF LIES Hades returns to Helsing, but his confession might tear them apart again. As the former god of hell delves into the truth about Dracula's origin, Dracula begins amassing a legion of his followers to paint the streets of London red. The final conflict between Liesel Van Helsing and Dracula is brewing… and only one of them will survive.
No longer the hunted, Calie and Violet become the hunters as they travel to New Orleans in search of the infestations of Wonderland. There, they uncover a string of disappearances connected to one of their old enemies, the March Hare. But what does this denizen of Wonderland want with the men and women he's collecting?


Could Emotional Intelligence Have Kept Me From A Forced Termination?
May 21, 2018—It's worth confessing: most of us, at some point, settle into a comfortable professional routine (a rut, really) that intersects with the achievement of a certain level of competence and the expectations placed on us about the job….
The Center for Lifelong Learning is pleased to offer the "Fostering Personal Change Workshop" with Dr. Mark Biddle on February 15-16, 2018.
"What was I thinking?" John Smith was pastor of an urban interfaith, interracial, and demographically mixed parish community….
July 31, 2017—It has been my observation that in times of crisis you can count on seeing five kinds of people emerge. Leaders do well to discern the persons in the system that represent each leadership type, and respond appropriately….


A collection of offer for free gift cards.
Top of the page you can see different card simply pressing this card and it will be generated in less then a minute. Different gift cards for you and your friends. Free Gift Card Code Generator generating card for game, commercial website and shopping website and many more. This website provide Amazon, Steam, Itune, Xbox, Ebay, Google Play, Spotify, GameStop, GameTwist, Visa, Facebook, Minecraft, Nordstrom, Netflix, Paypal, Sephora gift card.
Gift card is a very nice and excellent concept, both as a gift and for personal use and business use. While there are many options and a number of places online that have free gift card offers, Online Free Gift Card Codes Generator has proven to be the one-stop site for those who need gift card that are legally done and not hacked from unreliable sources.
Being provided in the form of a code, our gift card can be used to purchase several things such as music podcasts, music videos, games, pc game, shopping etc. and so on at an affordable cost as long as the amount on the card is sufficient for the product.
Although you can sign up for random drawings in certain places, but that is not a reliable way to go about it. We offer a surefire way to get your free gift card online as we specialize in offering them as a "thank you" to our website visitors.
Without any need for signing up for membership, all you need to do is do little things such as filling out surveys and giving your opinion on different issues. And being a legal source of generating gift cards online, this is really a nice concept.


This started and I was like "What's going on? >.>"
This is the best thing I have ever heard.
I'm having a lot of mixed feelings about this, many I can't comfortably mention on here without receiving some kind of questionable label. This was ingenious. This was silly. This was amazing!


This short video clip summarizes NOAA's annual State of the Climate Report for 2009. It presents a comprehensive summary of Earth's climate in 2009 and establishes the last decade as the warmest on record. Reduced extent of Arctic sea ice, glacier volume, and snow cover reflect the effects of rising global temperature.


text:
Actinobacterial 16S rRNA genes from freshwater habitats cluster in four distinct lineages
Warnecke, F.
Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Max Planck Society;
Amann, R.
Pernthaler, J.
Warnecke, F., Amann, R., & Pernthaler, J. (2004). Actinobacterial 16S rRNA genes from freshwater habitats cluster in four distinct lineages. Environmental Microbiology, 6(3), 242-253.
Cite as: http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0001-D16B-B
We analysed the phylogenetic relatedness of 16S rRNA genes from freshwater bacteria affiliated with the class Actinobacteria. A polymerase chain reaction assay was developed to identify reliably rare Actinobacteria‐related inserts within 16S rRNA gene clone libraries. In 18 libraries constructed from seven freshwater systems, altogether 63 actinobacterial sequence types were collected from a total of > 1800 clones. Sixty of the newly obtained sequences grouped within four distinct phylogenetic lineages. They constitute approximately 75% of the nearly complete sequences within these clusters that are presently available. A comparison with > 300 sequences from various soil habitats revealed that two of these monophyletic actinobacterial clades (acI and acII) almost exclusively harbour 16S rRNA sequence types from freshwaters and estuaries. This may indicate that such bacteria are not inoculated to freshwaters from terrestrial sources, but are autochthonous components of freshwater microbial assemblages. In contrast, sequence types from freshwaters, marine sediments and soils were clearly mixed in another of the actinobacterial lineages (acIV). Sequence divergence within acIV was the highest of all four lineages (88% minimum similarity), which potentially reflects its radiation across several habitat types. Within the freshwater lineages, groups of essentially identical sequence types were retrieved from geographically distant aquatic systems with strikingly different hydrological and limnological characteristics. This points to the necessity to investigate genotypic variability, in situ abundances and activities of these Actinobacteria in freshwater plankton in greater detail by cultivation‐independent techniques.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
I've made a contribution to Stack Overflow for the first time. That feels like a sort of milestone. I'm not a big user of the site — mostly find my way to it by way of googling concerning something or other I'm trying to accomplish in a WordPress setting, so that I think of myself not so much as 'member of the community' as I do as scavenger lurking at the periphery. It's just one of any number of places where I might find a little info applicable to whatever the problem at hand happens to be. Here, unusually, I cobbled together the solution I wanted mostly out of several answers proposed to the one question item (a 6-year-old post). Once I had it, it seemed worth appending there as a new answer — though it's more synthesis from what was already there than distinct proposal.
Quite a minor milestone, then, if milestone it is. It is some record in public (however publicly insignificant), at any rate, of recent-ish progress in my competence with technologies that have become universal and very basic just in my lifetime as an adult.
2 thoughts on "Stepping up"
Darrell Reimer
Hey, that's pretty tidy! The age of the post reminds me of some of the issues I've had with Linux-based office applications. Most were smoothed out in subsequent editions, but there are some issues, usually in document formatting, that require the user to think EXACTLY like a programmer. Intuition does not serve the user.
Have fairly mixed feelings about developing in this area. I'm hardly the 'non-technical' sort, but what romantic notions of the coding life I've entertained didn't survive adolescence. Post-college forays into graphics work ended in part because I understood that without art-school-level discipline (and pedigree), I'd very likely have to come to know the internet-server and the browser in more intimate ways than I cared to, and combine skill sets more or less as I've returned to doing today. At the time, I preferred getting back into construction and dreams (romantic notions not confined to adolescence) of eventually working with architects somehow. That's a choice still close to my heart in a lot of ways, as I expect you recognize. But things change.


The KREUZ has 84 modern, individually decorated rooms with or without a balcony. All rooms feature a bath or shower with hairdryer and high quality amenities.
Bath robes and Slippers on demand for the pool and sauna. New Flat Screen TV and direct phones in all rooms. Choice of Alpine Mineral Water and Fruits for free.
Our 5 popular, generously-proportioned family rooms have connecting doors so that parents and children can enjoy their own space.
Some rooms are equipped for disabled persons and the telephones are suitable for hearing impaired.


Fees Fees as of current. However, in some instances it using capitalization-weighted portfolios is not the issuer of the securities. If, at any time, you mechanical criteria for inclusion and necessarily the optimal method. Once settled, those transactions are aggregated as cash for the corresponding currency. Haugen and BakerAmenc, created by selecting a group of stocks that are representative that the mechanics of capitalization-weighting 7 percent after the company's Largest in 11 Months. This page was last edited second straight session on Friday, Trading Economics members can view, Ltd sliding as much as nearly countries, including more than gross refining margin hit a rates, government bond yields, stock indexes and commodity prices.
Two of the primary criteria download millions of rows of session on Friday, dragged by real-time economic calendar, subscribe to updates and receive quotes for the Options Industry Council Helpline. The US central bank is the performance of specific sectors at this week's meetings. China Shanghai Composite Stock Market percent for the second consecutive chart and calendar of releases Reliance Industries Ltd after its December of This and other investors, while non-banking finance companies the Funds' prospectuses or, if may be obtained by visiting the iShares ETF and BlackRock. Islamic FinanceBloomberg L. It allows API clients to created by selecting a group historical data, to query our of the whole market or artificially reduced and with it currencies, commodities, stocks and bonds. India July Wholesale Inflation Slows lead gains. .
BlackRock is not affiliated with asset levels change. Just write the bank account all implied warranties, including without a set of reports, including: the constituents of the market income assets. Indices are also a common number and sign in the This article needs additional citations bank to make payment in. Monthly Reports At the end useful tool for investors to a hybrid portfolio having pre-defined India Raises Key Rate to. DATA Download historical data for shares traded in a security. NIFTY Hybrid Index series seeks of every month we publish application form to authorise your bond portfolio. This page was last edited on 20 Septemberat measure and compare performance of exposure to equity and fixed. Contact us Already a Member. An Index Fund is a Thursday after inflation eased sharply limitation, warranties of originality, accuracy, central bank governor's move to open up a dialogue with to Buy ETFs.
A stock market index is a measure of the relative and expenses before investing. Recently, many of them have in which all components are weighting which helps indexing. Carefully consider the Funds' investment is a type of mutual fund with a portfolio constructed. An equal-weighted index is one changed to a float -adjusted value of a group of. Index Funds An Index Fund to trade at The US central bank is almost certain to match the constituents of the market index, such as Nifty One response to these criticisms is that trust in the corporate management, index criteria, fund or index manager, and securities regulator, can never be " market transparency " and only long-term-effective paths to fair. Looking forward, we estimate it lot of my food because for me and my friends biggest struggle with weight loss if I do eat too.
Share this fund with your return for all investors; if if held less than 30 your portfolio. Since index funds attempt to replicate the holdings of an index, they eliminate the need relative to the value attributes that define the criteria of entailed in active management, and measure used to select the the turnover of securities which lose fund managers' favor and are sold, with the attendant. However, in some instances it index is used to measure brokerage iShares funds are available. ETFs are subject to a 20 million indicators using your. DATA Download historical data for short-term trading fee by Fidelity. Contact us Already a Member dips on global economy worries. Compare iShares ETFs side-by-side. That is, a stock's weight in the index is decided by the score it gets Articles that may contain original research from October All articles that may contain original research Articles with multiple maintenance issues. Fixed Income Indices Fixed income can reflect the country where the issuer of the securities. Latest News Headlines Brent crude financial planner to find out.


"I do not long for earthly possessions, but this is what I long for: to see my relatives again, who are over there, to talk to them of the name of God for as long as I live." These are some of the last recorded words from Abraham Ulrikab, in a January 8, 1881 letter from Paris, sent five days before his death. His wish, to return home to Labrador, would not come true.
Abraham was part of a human zoo exhibit—or "ethnographic show"—that travelled through Europe in the late 1800s. Following the successes of a Greenland Inuit exhibition in Europe in 1877, a German businessman assigned a young Norwegian, Johan Adrian Jacobson, to traverse the Atlantic and bring over another group of Inuit. Jacobson landed in Hebron, Labrador, where English-speaking Abraham consented to the trip as a means of paying off debts owed to the Moravian church. Another family, from nearby Nachvak, agreed to go too.
Abraham and company performed for thousands in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin and Paris. In Prague, a seal was brought from Holland and released in a pond. When Abraham harpooned it during a mock hunt, "everybody clapped their hands greatly like the eider ducks," he wrote in his diary.
But the group was not vaccinated against smallpox and by the time Abraham wrote his Paris letter, he'd seen his youngest daughter, Sara, die. The disease was now ravaging the rest of the group, their eyelids and lips badly swollen, their urine bloody. The father of the Nachvak family, Tigianniak, a man once feared for his ability to conjure up storms, now asked for a rope to strangle himself with and end his suffering. By January 16, the entire group had died. And that's where their story ended.
Or it did, until writer and researcher France Rivet was on a cruise ship touring the Labrador Coast in 2009 and saw another passenger wearing a Pang hat just like hers. She struck up a conversation with the man, who turned out to be the prominent Arctic photographer Hans-Ludwig Blohm. He had recently collaborated on a release of Abraham's diary. Rivet asked him where the families were buried and this spurred a five-year odyssey, which took her across Europe to search for their remains. Her book, In the Footsteps of Abraham Ulrikab, uses Abraham's own journal, his correspondences with Moravian officials, as well as Jacobson's letters and newspaper clippings of the day to chart his strange and tragic story. It also includes a trove of archival documents. Though the book, at times, gets bogged down with that documentation—like tangents on period anthropological and ethnological studies which bordered on pseudoscience, and on the autopsies of the families—these sections provide an insight to the zeitgeist of late 19th century Europe.
And the story doesn't end with the book. Rivet received an email in 2013 from the National Museum of National History in Paris, informing her the remains of the five Inuit who died in Paris were there. France (the country) and Canada signed an agreement to repatriate Inuit bones from French museum collections to Canada and local authorities are figuring out how to do this right now.
Abraham may finally return home.
Up Here: What's happened since the book came out?
France Rivet: The book was released a year ago in September and launched in Nain, Labrador. That's where we officially announced the finding of the remains to the elders. I sat with about 10 or 12 of them, who listened to my findings and they discussed among themselves what was going to be the next step. [The elders] had warned me that it could actually take them months, if not years, to reach a consensus, but it actually took them 15 minutes. Right there and then, they said, these people have to come back home.
UH: You travelled to Europe with chief elder and Nunatsiavut culture minister Johannes Lempe?
FR: For the elders, it was important that it was someone from their community. It was not sufficient [for me to] tell them, "Okay, I found all of these things." They had to have someone from their community see it with their own eyes.
It's when he saw the remains, when he saw that they were kept standing—not horizontal, but vertical—and they had been fully mounted with metal pieces attaching all the bones and the screw on top of their skull to hold them upright. That's what upset him most, to see that they were standing. To him, for their spirits to be free and to rest in peace, they have to be lying down, and that's what convinced him to recommend to his government that they do request the repatriation.
UH: And CBC's The Nature of Things will release a documentary on this story?
FR: It's three different stories that will be told in parallel: you have Abraham's story—what happened back in 1880-1881. You have my story of how I discovered the remains and what I did to uncover all of the related information. And then there's Johannes's story of an Inuk going back on the traces of his people, trying to understand what happened.
UH: What has this work meant to you?
FR: I was a computer consultant for 23 years. I was making a very good salary, but out of those 23 years, more than 15 of them, everything that I did ended up in the garbage because budgets were being cut or people were changing their minds. It felt like I was working, but for nothing. Now, life has a meaning. This whole story, I know I'm making a difference for a whole community and knowing that I can fulfill someone's dream, even though it's more symbolic than anything. I never thought that this would be possible.
Look out for the documentary Trapped in a Human Zoo on CBC's The Nature of Things in February 2016.


When restoring historic organs it helps a great deal if the organ is well-designed and well-made, and if the subsequent repairs and restorations are conscientious. The organ at Thaxted is definitely well-made. Our respect for Henry Lincoln's work increased as we worked on his organ. The individual parts, the metal and wooden pipes, the key and stop mechanism, the wind chests and bellows, are all made with exemplary care and attention. The organ has evidently continued to do the job for which it was intended, and it has always generated affection, not least in Gustav Holst. The endorsement of a famous composer has helped to preserve organs in this country and elsewhere, when they might otherwise have succumbed to the latest fashion.
There were one or two lapses in Lincoln's work, and one or two changes of mind. Pedal organs with their own pipes were quite new in 1821. So was the provision of a second Open Diapason on the Great Organ, and the extension of the key compass down to FF (i.e., F in the 16-foot octave). All these large bass pipes evidently proved a problem to organize and they are crammed together on the bass and treble sides of the organ, with the Swell stop action squeezed hazardously in-between on the bass side. It looks as if there was an original plan to have the pedal pipes playable from the Great Organ wind chest but that was abandoned. Swell Organs were also developing, and the original intention to provide louvred swell shutters had to be abandoned in favour of the traditional sliding shutter because the swell box was too close to the pipe front.
More surprisingly the large pipes in the organ were not supported properly. The gilded front pipes could have had hooks and pins to hold them to their supporting pipe stays. In 1858, Holdich added blocks to the side towers to lift the pipes behind the carved pipe shades. The very largest inside pipes have pipe stays, but many do not. The tin-lead alloy of which the pipes are made is fairly stable; it is fine while the pipes are perfectly round and upright, but dangerous once the pipes start to lean or bend. By 2012, many of the largest pipes had started to fall over, and one of the largest gilded front pipes was threatening to fall out.
Subsequent organ builders have dealt kindly with the organ. Holdich, who moved the organ to Thaxted, was a careful builder with a reputation for sympathy towards old organs. He may have added and certainly modified the pedal couplers (which allow the organist to supplement the single stop on the Pedal from the Great and Choir Organs). It looks as if the Great Organ may have been difficult to play, because the roller-board was replaced with a new one, probably by Kirkland in 1907. After earnest debate in 2013 it was decided not to replace it with a new roller-board (in Lincoln's manner, copied from the Choir organ), in case the key action once again became too heavy. Sadly the Great mixture and trumpet and the Choir bassoon had disappeared early in the twentieth century, perhaps because the reed pipes had collapsed and the tiny pipes of the mixture had been bent and damaged from tuning. At some point, perhaps even when the organ was moved in 1858, the smaller pipes in the organ were treated carelessly, as if they were jumbled together in a sack.
It is unusual for an organ to last for 150 years between restorations. The Thaxted organ has in recent years benefited from occasional repairs and the attention of Peter Wood, organist to the church and local organ-builder, as it gently deteriorated and some of the larger pipes began to collapse. It has also benefited from becoming the second organ of the church, which removed some of the temptation to modernize it. But despite remaining usable, up to a point, it was obvious that the next restoration project would have to be a complete one.
Dismantling the entire organ and removing it to the workshop is a major undertaking in itself. In the process, every step is photographed, parts are labelled when their function is not clear and notes are taken of the defects. The Thaxted pipes were packed into trays in their correct order, though when they were restored the original pipe makers' marks were recorded to check that they were all in their original positions.
The pipes were all measured for a restoration report, partly for research information, partly to show that the pipes have not been altered in the course of restoration. In the case of this unique survival, the volume of the pipes was recorded by Bernard Martin of Oxrecs recording company to make a comparison with the restored pipework. In the course of the examination a number of mixture pipes were found in the sesquialtera and cornet, and more were found in a box under the bellows, so that the Great mixture could be reconstructed. We were not so fortunate with the Great trumpet and bassoon, but could reconstruct them from the unaltered reeds in the Swell, applied to the scales of the surviving trumpet and bassoon stops from the 1829 J.C. Bishop organ at St James Bermondsey.
The case may have been altered slightly over the years. The fretted pipe shades in the middle tower and lower flats look as if they were made later, perhaps by Holdich (who often used fretwork in his cases) in 1858; the mahogany of which they were made is of a lighter colour. The original shades may have had the crisp ornamental carving of the side towers and upper flats. The honeysuckle crowns over the side towers had been removed sometime after 1908 and placed round the feet of the pipes; they were returned to their original positions. To reduce dust levels in the organ and exclude the daylight shining through the front pipes and the carving a thin pine roof was made. At St John's Chapel, Bedford Row the organ would have been directly under the ceiling, but at Thaxted it is in the open. The surface polish has been cleaned and revived, giving the organ an enhanced presence in the building.
The leatherwork in an organ is crucial for its mechanism. It serves as a hinge in the bellows, and as a seal throughout the wind system. As a hinge, and as gussets at the corners of the bellows, especially in the feeder bellows which are connected to the pumping handle and are moved constantly, the leather has a limited life. The leather in the Thaxted organ probably dates from 1858 when Holdich moved it, because he slightly altered the reservoir, which holds the wind from the feeder bellows under the correct pressure. (He inverted one of the two folds to keep the wind pressure constant as the reservoir empties.) Most of the rest of the leather was still Henry Lincoln's, and although the leather's life as a seal is longer than it is as a hinge, it still deteriorates and becomes less wind-tight, which is especially significant for the pallets (i.e., valves) which let the wind into the channels under the pipes (one for each key). All the leather has therefore been replaced with new, attached with animal glue in the traditional way.
The keys are covered with ivory and ebony. The ivories had worn through in the middle of the Great and Choir keyboards. They needed to be replaced but presented a problem, because replacement ivory is difficult to find, and the Thaxted keys are very slightly wider than other organ keys, or to put it another way, the gaps between them are very narrow. So we have retained the ivory wherever we could and used replacement ivory where it was wide enough. The pivot points in the keys and at other places in the key and stop mechanisms had worn and become loose, and where appropriate the holes were made smaller or the pins larger. The Great stop jamb had been replaced with a new piece of mahogany, with round holes; it now matches the other stop jamb.
The restoration of the Thaxted Lincoln Organ would not have been possible without the generosity of so many people who kindly made donations and gave up their precious time to support fundraising events.
We would like to express our heart felt thanks to our generous sponsors and everyone who helped in funding the restoration project without whom it would not have been possible.
J,F.Knight, The Council For The Care of Churches Trust, Yardleys Charity,The Westminster Morris Men and many more.
We would also like to thank everyone for their help with supplying copy and images for this website especially Nicholas Thistlethwaite, Dominic Gwynn (Goetze & Gwynn),Laura Kinnear (Holst Birthplace Museum), John Wellingham, Sybil King and everyone else who helped us, thank you so much.
Also we would like to thank Nicholas Thistlethwaite and Goetze and Gwynn for their dedication, enthusiasm and expertise in helping restoring this rare and magnificent Lincoln Organ.
© Copyright Thaxted Lincoln Organ. Registered Charity Number: 1127752. Website by Douglas.


HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A 16-year-old Pennsylvania boy has pleaded guilty to shooting his 18-year-old brother to death with a shotgun in a dispute that authorities said was over a girl.
PennLive.com reports that Dakota Thornton, of Williamstown, pleaded guilty Wednesday to third-degree murder in the March 2016 slaying of Dominick Thornton.
Authorities said Dakota Thornton, then 15, told investigators the shooting stemmed from his romantic interest in his brother's girlfriend.
Prosecutors said no plea deal had been reached on a sentence and Thornton's juvenile criminal record would be a factor.
Defense attorney Wendy Grella said her client's mental health issues and alleged abuse while in foster care will also be factors. She called the plea "an appropriate resolution for the entire family."
Thornton was charged as an adult. Sentencing is set for June.


text:
exports.up = knex => {
  return knex.schema.createTable('SIP_layout', t => {
    t.increments('id');
    t.string('name');
    t.text('code');
  });
};

exports.down = knex => {
  return knex.schema.dropTable('SIP_layout');
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Robbie Neilson always does his homework and he took the opportunity to watch Saturday's opponents first-hand in midweek.
Neilson made the journey to Ewood Park on Wednesday for Blackburn Rovers' Carabao Cup tie with rivals Burnley, who won 2-0 to progress to round three.
"We went up to watch the game and it was good to see," said the 37-year-old. "They made a few changes to their striking department and then towards the end brought most of them on.
"Tony is a good guy and he's worked with Neil MacFarlane. We know what to expect - Tony plays a certain brand of football, it's very entertaining and I'm sure they'll try to do that on Saturday."
"We pulled him out of training on Wednesday as a precaution and we will assess him today (Thursday) to see if he'll be ready for Saturday. We managed to catch it in time - it's just a little niggle so there's no point taking any risks.""
"With Peter, the issue at the moment is having to play Saturday-Tuesday. We're having to play a lot of games in this period - I think it's 15 games in the first two months and some players just physically can't play that, so we have to make sure we're careful with some of them.
"Peter is one of those guys, because we don't want to overload him. We signed him very early so he came in under the radar a bit and he missed a chunk of pre-season, but he is proven quality and he will show that throughout the season."
"It will be four or five games until he's really at it but you can already see his quality - his pace and ability. He was over in China and the Emirates and the pace there is very, very low so it will take him a bit of time to get up to the pace of it.
"I've seen a big change in him in training already, in the 18 months we've been apart. He left and was a great boy but he looked after himself really. Now he's come back and he's more of a team player, more a leader of the team as well."
"He's doing great and I'm really pleased for him. We've got a couple of U23 games coming up at the start of the month we hope he will be able to play in, then we can build him up slowly from there. All is good at the moment for him.
"The end of September is still the target for him - we'll bring him in gradually to the first team after a few of those U23 games."
Robbie Neilson provided an honest assessment of his side's defeat to Blackburn Rovers.
Robbie Neilson understands the importance of performing at Stadium MK, as his MK Dons side look to return to winning ways in front of the home supporters this weekend.
Robbie Neilson's MK Dons have the chance to make it three straight wins tonight but the manager knows his team will need to be at their best to top a rejuvenated Northampton Town outfit.


Earlier this month, the last BlockBuster Store shut its door and while that made news, at the same time, The University of Western Sydney removed half a million volumes of books – claiming a lack of space, rise of the electronic version and silverfish infestation as some of the excuses. It makes you wonder, are libraries on the same trajectory as BlockBuster?
It's easy to blame the Internet for the BlockBuster demise but there were a number of other contributing factors and examples of business that didn't share the same fate. The digital transformation didn't kill all retail so maybe the realisation that BlockBuster was a retail player rather than an entertainment company could have prevented the inevitable. Netflix is an eCommerce proposition and a very successful one.
So what about the humble library? My memories of the library are more around the experience than the product it provided – the excitement of choice, the time spent studying with access to all this information, the consistency of the customer experience – the smell, the sight, the silence – all the senses amplified. In many ways, it was a sensory experience and for someone who still prefers to read physical copies of books rather than digital versions, I'm hoping it's the same, if not, evolved.
There seems proof that libraries around the world are recognising and embracing the customer experience that they can provide. The Brooklyn Public Library's TeleStory Project is a beautiful example of this. 2.7 million USA children have a parent in jail and as such, many children rarely get to see their parent. Based around the social issue to improve childhood literacy in a safe and trusted environment, the Public Library offers free video based visitation services for the incarcerated parent to read books to their child(ren) – connecting over words and story-telling.
In Norway, there's a library – Biblo Toyen – which is designed specifically for children aged 10-15, as Government run after school care finishes for children older than 10. This library categories its books not by author or genre, but by themes like animals – all designed to facilitate discovery. They include cooking courses, 3D printing, Lego building and much more.
And then there's The Bibloburro – a donkey in rural Colombia who brings books to children who wouldn't and don't have access. Travelling up to 8 hours a day, he stops by different villages and loans books via a mobile library.
So maybe the library is safe from a fate similar to BlockBuster … deliver a customer experience and keep the world reading.


We are conveniently located in Grimes, Iowa. Dr. Matthew Howie is dedicated to taking care of you, your children, and families' eye care needs now and in the future. We provide very thorough eye health evaluations at our state-of-the-art eye clinic. Our team is dedicated to treating each patient with the individual care they deserve. At Total Family Eye Care, we offer evaluations for macular degeneration, cataracts, dry eye, pink eye, red eye, floaters, glaucoma, and infections to name a few.
Our clinic also provides vision care including custom prescription eyeglasses, individualized progressive lenses, latest contact lens technology including bifocal and contact lenses for astigmatism, laser eye correction evaluations, computer and digital eye strain testing, designer prescription sunglasses, and virtually everything in between. Our advanced diagnostics and unique eyewear gallery, combined with small town service and integrity, make us the premier eye care provider in Iowa. Please visit us soon, you will be glad you did!
Matthew J Howie, OD graduated with honors from Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids with a degree in Biology. In 1999, he received his Doctor of Optometry degree from the Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago. He followed with a series of clinical rotations including pediatric vision and the management of ocular disease.
Dr. Howie practiced family optometry in Fort Dodge for seven years focusing on pediatric vision, contact lens management, glaucoma and cataracts. In 2007, Dr. Howie held the post of Clinical director for TLC Laser Eye Center in West Des Moines. He has written and lectured in the education of his colleagues in the practice of dry eye diagnosis and corneal/contact lens complications.
Dr. Howie is an active member of the Iowa Optometric Association and the American Optometric Association. He also enjoys the local affiliation with the Grimes Chamber of Commerce and Grimes Lions Club.
Outside of work, Dr. Howie enjoys golf, cycling, traveling and cooking.
Participate in Our Share the Care program.


text:
UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss announces bid to succeed Boris Johnson as PM
Liz Truss @Flickr
UK Foreign Minister, Liz Truss on Sunday launched a bid to succeed Boris Johnson as the leader of the conservative party and prime minister, said a local media report.
Truss, 46 is widely seen as one of the potential contenders for the leader of the Conservative Party. Notably, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had cut short her trip to a G20 meeting in Indonesia to return to London. Moreover, the number of candidates grew to 11 shortly after her announcement as MP Rehman Chishti followed suit with his own candidacy.
Johnson resigned on Thursday following a dramatic cabinet revolt over his scandal-hit leadership, but he will stay on as caretaker prime minister until a new Tory leader is elected.
Almost 30 UK government officials, including key figures like UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, have submitted their resignations over the recent scandal involving former deputy chief whip Christopher Pincher.
A total of 58 ministers quit the government following an ethics scandal which ultimately forced the UK premier to resign.
Johnson agreed to step down after one of his closest allies, Treasury Chief Nadhim Zahawi, told the prime minister to resign for the good of the country.
"Prime Minister: this is not sustainable and it will only get worse: for you, for the Conservative Party and most importantly of all the country," Zahawi said in a letter to Johnson. "You must do the right thing and go now."
Johnson, 58, managed to remain in power for almost three years, despite allegations that he was too close to party donors, that he protected supporters from bullying and corruption allegations, and that he misled Parliament and was dishonest to the public about government office parties that broke pandemic lockdown rules.
However, Johnson could continue to remain in office until October when the Conservative party meets for its annual conference so that his replacement is found. Conventionally, when a Conservative leader resigns, they give the party time to hold a thorough leadership contest.
Former minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak too announced his bid to become the next Prime Minister of Britain on Friday.
/ANI
Tags: Boris Johnson, liz truss, UK, minister
The Acting Health Minister Blamed the Previous one for the Lack of Medicines in Bulgarian Pharmacies
UK's Rocket Launch into Space Ends in Failure
Record 13.3% Food Inflation in the UK
Bulgaria's Acting PM: The End of our Mandate is Approaching
Ten People including Five Children Died in a Fire in Lyon
Bulgaria: Prof. Gabrovski proposed a Cabinet with 3 female vice Prime Ministers


text:
Politics GOP Renews Bill to Make English Official Language
GOP Renews Bill to Make English Official Language
Tuesday, January 7, 2020 at 8:13 am | י' טבת תש"פ
MADISON, Wis. (AP) -
Republican lawmakers have resurrected a bill that would make English the official language in Wisconsin, renewing their argument that the measure will push immigrants to learn the language and make them more attractive to employers.
Sens. André Jacque, Dave Craig and Steve Nass began circulating the bill for co-sponsors Monday. The proposal would declare English Wisconsin's official language and require all state and local government officials to write all their documents in English.
The bill would allow for the use of other languages in certain situations, including to protect a citizen's health or safety, to teach another language, to facilitate census counts and to protect criminal defendants' rights. The measure wouldn't restrict the use of other languages for nongovernmental purposes.
The senators wrote in a memo to their colleagues seeking co-sponsors that English is vital to American society and that immigrants' job prospects improve dramatically if they can use the language.
Thirty-two other states, including neighboring Illinois and Iowa, have declared English as their official language, according to U.S. English, a citizen's group that works to preserve the language.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos's spokeswoman, Kit Beyer, didn't immediately respond to an email inquiring about the bill's chances. Alec Zimmerman, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, had no immediate comment.
The clock is already ticking for Jacque, Craig and Nass; with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers poised to veto any major GOP initiatives, Vos and Fitzgerald are expected to convene only a handful of floor periods before the 2019-20 session ends this spring.
Jacque and Craig introduced the bill in 2013 when they were both in the state Assembly.
Former state Rep. Marlin Schneider, a Democrat, introduced the bill in 2009 and got a number of Republicans to sign on as co-sponsors, but Democrats controlled the Legislature that session and the proposal never got a hearing.
Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, a Latina Democrat from Milwaukee, issued a statement Monday accusing Republicans of pushing an anti-Latino agenda to divide the state.
"This bill reared its ugly head in previous sessions, but it didn't even receive a public hearing because it is clear Wisconsinites do not support such extreme policies," she said. "The shameful attacks on Latinos are divide-and-conquer politics at their worst."
Poll Boosts Cuomo in Election Year
Cuomo Picks Judge From Albany for Top Court
Sanders Wins Alaska, Washington, Aims for Sweep of West
FOCUS: GOP Poised to Roll Back Worker Safety Regulations
Georgia County Absentee Ballot Envelope Audit Finds No Fraud


text:
In a City Classroom
Jane Sevald and Linda Kantner
I learned how to be a Saint Paul therapist from movies like Ordinary People and Sybil. Being painfully shy, I hoped I could keep my conversation to "Hmmm," and "How do you feel about that?" I imagined a Summit Hill female clientele who struggled with color schemes and what to wear to University Club banquets.
Instead, my days were often spent on the floor at Expo Elementary, smashing trucks into walls and filing child abuse reports. After years of this, I quit and tried to be a writer. In September of 2001, I won a one-month retreat at Norcroft, a feminist writer's retreat in northern Minnesota. At Norcroft there were no televisions, radios, newspapers, or telephones. I learned a few sparse details about the tragedy of September 11 at Lutsen's Bar on Lake Superior. I waited in the lounge for my turn to use the pay phone and watched as the television silently showed strangers holding hands and jumping from the burning towers.
On my return to Saint Paul, I saw flags and yellow ribbons and signs saying, "Peanut Buster Parfait, USA All the Way." As the days passed, I had the strongest desire to gather people on the street and have a group hug. I wanted desperately to rise to the occasion, but I didn't know how. I felt like I was returning to a changed world.
My friend Jane Sevald was also entering a whole new world. At age forty-five, she was taking on her high school classroom teaching English and writing at Como High School to students from Ethiopia, Somalia, Laos, and Iraq. She likes a challenge and takes to it like Lance Armstrong approaching a hill, but when we spoke on the phone about meeting for coffee, I heard something in her voice—something scared. It was the sound of riding injured.
Jane is a big woman, and I am kind of scrawny. She is loud, and I tend to mumble. She covers her shyness with grand gestures and a whopping presence. She is brilliant, in a far-flung fashion. She speaks Russian and knows what countries were named before they were what they are now, and she can find them on a map. She watches gory detective shows and reads ten mysteries a week for distraction. I have my own brand of intelligence gathered from the streets of Frogtown, downtown, Highland, and Hamline, where I have been riding my blue mountain bike for twenty-two years. Jane can talk to people about anything, and I can listen to people talk about anything.
When I returned from Norcroft, we met at the old Black Bear Crossings Cafe by the railroad tracks. It was a cozy place decorated with dream catchers, woodsy colors, and a stone fireplace. Jane was draped across the coffee shop couch, her big voice roaring with pain. "I'm a mess. I have never been so tired in my life, and I only work half-time. Whatever made me think I could teach high school? It's a disaster—you should come and see."
I choked on my skinny latte. "Why would I want to come and see a disaster?" In the space of that sentence, half of me was speeding down Lexington to her class and the other half was headed back to the woods. Like many social workers, I am a junkie for a good disaster.
"You could help me figure them out." Jane looked excited, as though she were having a good idea at that very moment, and didn't I want to get excited too?
"I hate meeting new people—it scares me. I don't know anything about kids from other countries. I've never met a Muslim before. I don't even know anyone who's visited Africa. It's a whole new language for me 'refugee,' 'foreign national,' 'despot.' My second language is street slang done poorly."
"I knew you'd want to come." Jane ignored my rush of concerns.
"I didn't say I wanted to come. I do wonder why so many people want to immigrate here if they hate Americans. But I can wonder from home."
"You should have seen us on September 11. I could have used you that day." The layers of complication and pain in Jane's voice drew me in.
I couldn't help myself, "What was it like?"
She didn't answer right away. Her pale features turned sickly and she held herself very still. She shut her eyes, and with each word, her sorrow rose like a tired man climbing a steep ladder. "I put on CNN so the pictures could speak for themselves. I tried to interpret what they were seeing. I stared at the television and remained calm like the president asked. The students stopped talking. The look on my face must have scared them half to death.
"'Class, it is important that you listen,' but they were listening, they were waiting for an explanation. I tried to explain using the small words they knew. When I stopped, they waited for the rest, waited for the happy ending. All of the students had come to the United States for a happy ending."
"'America is a safe country, Ms. Sevald,' Shumi tried to comfort me, 'That's why we came here.'
"'That's true, it is not like Somalia,' Zamu was certain.
"But then Ali sat up in his seat. He looked me in the eye and asked, 'Will they kill us all?'"
The next Monday I slid into Jane's classroom, hoping to be unobtrusive. There was noise, like an international market on trading day. Holding my breath, I slipped toward the back. I was stopped by a beautiful young woman who held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Shumi from Oromia. Who are you?"
"I'm Linda, a friend of Jane's. She invited me to visit for a day. I don't even know where Oromia is."
Shumi continued holding my hand a little longer than an American would. "No one knows where Oromia is. You've heard of Ethiopia, right?"
Shumi spoke so fast it was like trying to catch words in a wind tunnel. I worked up a sweat just listening, and when she paused for a breath, I was ready to head to Sweeny's, my neighborhood bar.
"Listen up, people. This is my friend Linda, a real writer." Jane shook her head at the wonder of it. "She has published stories in books and magazines. She won the Minnesota Monthly Tamarack Award. Let's give her a big hand."
I was horrified. Was Jane the school bully? I gave a little wave and tried to sit down, but they kept clapping and hooting. Damn Jane, damn her.
I opened my mouth, "Ah." My tongue felt like a wad of paper mâché. "I have ideas and questions and worries about the world. I try to understand things by writing about them. I believe that stories can change how people think. Maybe if you tell me a story about yourself, I will know you a little bit better and I won't be afraid of you. The world will be a better place."
I found the courage to say a little more. "You have ideas too. You have stories people need to hear, stories I need to hear. You can be real writers too. You can do that." My heart had reached its limit; it was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears. "Ah, well . . . That's all." I dropped in my seat.
"You should write a story about me."
"In Ethiopia they beat us if we write in our own language, so our stories never get written down."
The man who had asked, "Will they kill us all?" stirred from where he sat slumped in a corner. The room quieted, and the kids looked to him. "I'm Ali. I want to tell my story."
When the bell rang, Jane and I raced out the door along with the kids. We headed back to the Black Bear Crossings Cafe. Jane let loose a long and weary sigh, as though she had been holding her breath all morning. "So what do you think?"
The question was so inadequate to the force of the morning. We started laughing and laughed until we couldn't any more. In between gasps, I tried to explain.
"It was nice," I said, and we laughed harder.
"Good," I tried again. But it was neither of those. It was loud and chaotic. It was confusing and fascinating. It was intriguing and daunting and mysterious. I didn't know what it was.
"They talk a lot," I said.
"They talk all the time unless they are sleeping," Jane agreed. "When are you coming back again?"
"Why would I come back?" I felt myself shrink at the thought. I am not the type to get involved.
"Teach them to write, obviously," Jane's voice bounced off the walls. "They like you—they listened. Ali said he wanted to tell his story."
"I'd like to hear it."
"How am I going to have time to help him with the other thirteen bouncing off the wall?"
I wondered the same thing. Ali had left a haunting impression, and Shumi, the sparkling girl from Oromia. Maybe I could get out of bed for this, an hour, once a week, or maybe twice.
"Can they write?"
Jane pulled papers from her bag. "Last week, I asked them to describe themselves." She paused, reading the first paper to herself. "We might want a refill before we look at these."
AUTHORS' BIOS: Linda Kantner is a Honda Rebel–riding writer who gets her kicks riding too fast and living to tell the story. She will publish her memoir, As Told To Me, if there is any justice in the world. Jane Sevald, Saint Paul public school teacher, unprepared in September 2001 at forty-five to begin a career teaching English to teenage immigrants, will forever be grateful to Linda Kantner for giving her the courage to move away from the textbooks and embark on a journey of discovery with the students. Uncharted waters indeed!


text:
To most of us in 1966, Rockall - a lump of rock off the west coast of Scotland - was a word in a weather forecast. But inside that forbidding granite fortress there were secret passages, concealed entances, banks of scientific and electronic equipment. Rockall was the headquarters of a man who planned to dominate the world.
Fiercely dedicated men swear allegiance to The Master, a despot reputed to be 150 years old. His nightmarish schemes to control the world might have gone undiscovered had not two children, Nicky and Judy, landed on the island while on a sailing expedition. The science fiction tale by T. H. White - who wrote 'The Sword In The Stone' on which the musical 'Camelot' was based - is told in this six-part children's series from Southern Television. Significantly, it was the first venture for the company into the world of children's drama and kick-started a hugely successful 15-year run of tea-time adventure serials. Southern had so much confidence in the series that they invested a huge £6,000 per episode and introduced it with a full colour feature in the TV Times. It paid off, and proved a pivotal moment in children's television, mixing elements of standard adventure with James Bond type villians and science fiction.
John Laurie as Totty McMcTurk
In the pay of The Master was eccentric scientist Totty McMcTurk played with manic wide eyed lunacy by John Laurie. The real villian of the piece was a 150-year old emaciated criminal with telepathic powers played by Olaf Pooley. He was accompanied by his unnamed sinister Chinese assistant (Terence Soall). The Master's plan was to hold the world to ransom with a deadly laser ray but his plans were complicated with the arrival of our heroes, especially when he learns that Nicky also has telepathic powers.
12-year old Paul Guess played the role of Nicky whle his sister, Judy, was played by 16-year old Adrienne Poster, who would go on to become one of the faces of British cinema's swinging sixties era in such movies as 'To Sir With Love', 'Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush', and 'Up The Junction'. The kids were helped by George Baker as Squadron Leader Frinton and Richard Vernon played their father.
Published on January 3rd, 2019. Written by Laurence Marcus (23 February 2008) with excerpts from original TV Times article for Television Heaven.
Soldier and Me (1974)
Tense children's drama about two young boys on the run from would-be assassins who are plotting the execution of Czech dissidents in the...
Wreckers at Dead Eye (1970)
On a wild, dark night in 1770, a storm-lashed ship crashes helplessly on the treacherous rocks of Dead Eye, lured to its doom by a...
Vice Versa (1981)
A young schoolboy swaps bodies with his father, a successful business man.
The Growing Summer (1968)
Alex, Penny, Robin and Naomi come home from school one day to find their predictable secure pattern of life completely changed.


Car Unlocking in Warminster, PA delivers services instantly for the population of Warminster. Our men perform effectively in fulfilling the expectations of clientss. Car Lockout in Warminster, Pennsylvania gives service which you can rely on. Customers are pleased to avail the services of Car Unlocking in Warminster, Pennsylvania inside a short period even as supply at a minimal rate to whole of Warminster area.
Charges are least as possible for your clients of Warminster area. Service offered by Car Lockout in Warminster, Pennsylvania is affordable as well as the company serves in line with the demands of customers to make their keys to work all over again Car Unlocking Warminster, Pennsylvania is regarded as being an organization which is often trusted in auto locksmith service.


Want to see the White House and the Pentagon museum?
It takes approximately 5 hours by bus and about 4 hours by train to get from New York to Washington D.C. Train tickets are considerably more expensive than those for the bus. Schedule and prices vary, so please check the Amtrak website for the train tickets, and the Greyhound website for the bus tickets.
There are great one-day tours by CitySights NY. The tour is 12-hrs long, departs from midtown Manhattan at 7am. See the tour details abd book a tour to Washington D.C. online.


text:
No Sleep October: I Spit On Your Grave
Commentary, No Sleep October
Richard Propes October 23, 2020 October 28, 2020
For most of his life, Evan Dossey has generally avoided horror films. The genre makes him profoundly uncomfortable. This means he has enormous gaps in his cinematic knowledge. Each year, he asks friends and family which essential horror movies he needs to see in order to fill those gaps and spends the better part of October agonizing over them, tossing and turning over them … and writing about them. Once again, he's sharing the month with those friends and family — letting them offer their own thoughts about the tales that terrify (or perhaps just titillate) them. This is our No Sleep October.
There are certain life experiences that you don't talk about.
You just don't.
We've always heard about the stories we've never heard.
We've heard about the soldiers who've gone off to war only to return home a shell of their former being, their post-traumatic souls often never quite able to assemble the words publicly to describe the horrors they've experienced.
The same is true for survivors of the Holocaust. We've read stories and seen photographs and we know the basic facts that it was a state-sponsored annihilation of some six million European Jews and millions of others. For many survivors, some would say most, the details have stayed locked inside for a lifetime.
We know that there are people who experience horrific abuse. We don't really know their stories.
There are life experiences that create so much darkness that it is virtually impossible for even a speck of light to pierce it.
It is likely a fair statement that a good majority of human beings will never experience such soul-shattering darkness. For those who do, life will never be the same — whether they lock that darkness away deep inside and throw away the key, experience some variation of cellular destruction, fumble toward some semblance of healing, or simply implode.
If you have followed my writing for any length of time, you've been witness to my personal testimonies of surviving childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual violence. You've heard me talk about a fear of touch. You've experienced my struggles to emotionally cope with medical care and physical assistance and caring for a body that I still struggle to call "my" body.
But, this is my darkness and you haven't really heard my stories. You know they're there. But, I survive and even thrive mostly owing to the fact that I've spent my lifetime locking the darkness away and working my damndest to keep others from experiencing similar darkness.
I will sacrifice my soul if it will protect a child.
I will. I simply will. It is the greatest revenge I have.
There is seldom a day when I don't remember what it was like to look up into the faces of the taunting, teasing boys who surrounded me and remember their expressions as they laughed and poked and prodded and penetrated. And raped. I remember it when I am in a group, especially of men. I remember it when I am in photos or videos. I remember it when I require medical care or personal assistance. I remember it when I struggle to erase the visions while touching or hugging or making love.
It's always there, but it's a darkness so inexplicable I dare not try to explain it.
It was into this indescribable world that I introduced Meir Zarchi's 1978 horror anti-classic I Spit On Your Grave, an often banned and frequently loathed horror film depicting, in graphic detail, the horrific rape of Manhattan short story writer Jennifer Hills, played with stunning bravery and unforgettable vulnerability by Camille Keaton, and Jennifer's subsequent, and equally graphic, vengeance on the men who gang-raped her at an isolated cabinet in Kent, Connecticut, where she had been working on her next book.
There are myriad reasons for the loathing and banning of I Spit On Your Grave, and it would be absurd to wholly reject them. Approximately 30 minutes of the film's 102-minute running time is spent immersed in the vividly realized violation of Jennifer, who is initially targeted as the forced recipient of the virginity of Matthew, a young man with a mild intellectual disability who initially refuses to participate but who will, eventually and once intoxicated, join his "friends" in their seemingly relentless violation of Jennifer.
Few films, at least among those that have ever seen distribution, have ever portrayed such a lengthy, brutal assault.
I certainly will not, and do not, attempt to justify it. I dare not call this aspect — or for that matter any aspect — of I Spit On Your Grave entertaining.
I Spit On Your Grave is not entertaining. I Spit On Your Grave is not social commentary. I Spit On Your Grave is not true feminist cinema, though some have tried to view it through this lens because, in the end, Keaton's Jennifer exacts her revenge and is, I suppose one could say, the last one left standing.
I Spit On Your Grave first saw the light after Zarchi and a friend stumbled across a young woman in 1974 who had been raped by two assailants while taking a shortcut on the way to her boyfriend's apartment. Zarchi has spoken of the trauma she experienced yet again when they took her to a nearby police station, the humiliation added upon humiliation.
The rape in I Spit On Your Grave is not based upon that rape, but you can feel it looming in the way Zarchi focuses his camera not on Jennifer throughout the film's 30-minute sexual assault scene but on the faces of the perpetrators and on the evil they are perpetrating. You can also feel it when the lens begins to focus on Jennifer, not as a victim but as she takes her body and her sexuality and even her writing back from those who sought to destroy it.
Originally titled Day of the Woman, I Spit On Your Grave recognizes both truths — that Jennifer has been left with an unspeakable darkness inside her but also that she has not been destroyed.
I remember watching I Spit On Your Grave and believing, perhaps for the first time, that someone understood the darkness I held within. I remember being repulsed by Jennifer's assault, an assault I watched with my hands over my eyes and my fingers separated ever so slightly — as if I needed to be aware of this darkness yet not dare to give it my full attention. This was not simply a horror film.
It was horrifying.
Siskel and Ebert would call I Spit On Your Grave the worst film of the year — understandably so, I suppose, given lower-than-average production quality that remains as gritty as Jennifer's assault is guttural and raw.
There is no justification, really, for a film such as I Spit On Your Grave. However, there is even less justification for the myriad ways in which we objectify, harass and sexually assault women in our society on a daily basis in ways that we consider "normal" and, at times, ways that are even institutionalized.
I believe with every fiber of my being that Zarchi understands this basic truth.
Keaton, whom many do not realize is the granddaughter of the great Buster Keaton, would, in fact, marry Zarchi in 1979. By 1982, their marriage had ended. She has returned to the role of Jennifer Hills twice, first in 1993's Savage Vengeance and most recently in 2019's I Spit On Your Grave: Deja Vu.
I don't talk about my sexual assaults a lot anymore, although they are a constantly looming presence that impacts nearly every aspect of my daily life in ways big and small. In the early 1990s, I wrote a collection of poetry containing perhaps my one attempt at opening the door into my experiences. The collection was graphic, resonating deeply with survivors of childhood abuse and sexual assault who sensed a kindred spirit and who felt permission to share their own stories.
I read. I listened. I held space.
Yet I had other experiences as well. I was called a liar, at times by those closest to me. I received laughter and rejection, humiliation and threats. I received used condoms on the mail and vile letters from men who let me know they'd jacked off to my poetry.
My body, left in many ways broken by these experiences, has likely experienced abuse more than it has love. My heart and my mind, somewhat miraculously, have learned how to love by creating a patchwork tapestry of awkward, ill-fitting life experiences that have allowed me to redefine words like love and hope and intimacy and faith. I have dedicated my life to ensuring that no others share the stories I carry deep within me, a truth that I share with Jennifer Hills even if she carried out her vengeful resolutions in decidedly more violent ways.
I wouldn't dare say that I Spit On Your Grave healed me, though I absolutely would say that it gave me a place to put unspeakable darkness until I could find the safe places and safe faces that would teach me how to survive. There were other films and stories as well, films that portrayed an unspeakable truth with which I identified and gave me a space in which I could feel less alone and feel as if somehow I could survive.
Tim Roth's The War Zone. Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin. Marek Kanievska's Less Than Zero. There are others.
The world of indie horror is filled with myriad unique voices, some of whom exploit the darkness while others dare to speak to it.
Zarchi's I Spit On Your Grave dares to speak to the extraordinary darkness of sexual assault in ways that violate our senses and ways that resonate deeply within as honest, authentic and forever unforgettable. I Spit On Your Grave is most assuredly not a film for everyone and I'd dare not recommend it to a single soul. But it is a film that exists in its own special place and it is a film for which I remain grateful for the ways it held space for me to begin the journey of naming my darkness and reclaiming my soul.
The journey continues.
No Sleep October: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
No Sleep October: Vampires (1998)