text:
Salt Sweet Bitter
Writing. Cooking. Reading.
Author: Ashley
There are some lovely traditional Christmas songs; this is not one of those, but it's my favourite, the way Die Hard is now so many people's favourite Christmas film.
Author AshleyPosted on December 24, 2016 Categories UncategorizedTags Christmas, holidays, Kirsty MacColl, The Pogues1 Comment on Happy Holidays
Friday Fave: Ballet
Like many small girls at the age of four or five, I went through a phase of wanting to be a ballerina when I grew up. This was preceded by having wanted to be one of those people who bags groceries and then a football player, so I'm sure my mother was relieved by this. Me being me, however, I was always determined to do it myself, without the need for actually learning what was involved in the art from someone who knew what he or she was doing. This resulted in a dislike of the ballet class I was duly enrolled in, and permanent damage to the big toes on both of my feet because I was certain that I could master pointe work if I just learned to balance. I retained a desire to possess one of those pink-and-white ballet boxes and a fondness for wearing leather-soled ballet slippers around the house, but soon after this I discovered Laura Ingalls Wilder, L.M. Montgomery, and Robin Hood, and moved on to even less practical daydreams of being an adult in times other than the one in which I lived.
I didn't pay much attention to ballet again until I was sixteen and happened to see a brief Vladimir Malakhov performance on television one Sunday, back when the A&E channel in the US actually showed Arts and Entertainment programming. I waited patiently for a repeat, or other performances; the only thing that I could find were recordings and screenings of the Nutcracker. Finding these interesting but not especially inspiring, I gave up and returned again to my books and music.
The Christmas before last I saw an ad that PBS was airing the film of Matthew Bourne's production of Sleeping Beauty. I noticed the costumes more than anything else–all sparkly and lace-trimmed goth aesthetic–and set it to record. I had other things on my mind at that time and didn't bother to watch it for a couple of months, but when I did, I was hooked. I did like the costumes and the twist on the classic story, introducing vampires and other new elements to an old fairy tale, but I loved watching the dancing. It isn't classical ballet by any means–lots of dancing barefoot, and I don't remember any pointe work–but this was my gateway drug. It was like discovering a new genre in fiction I'd never paid attention to before, learning the terminology, the different periods of dance, watching enough to distinguish between the styles of specific choreographers and dancers.
I have learned enough to have preferences, but I'm still an amateur, not a proper fangirl yet. I haven't found anything that bores me in the field–every production I've seen yields something interesting in terms of the techniques of the dancers, the way the movements tell a story, the costumes. I have acquired five different performances of Swan Lake, without meaning to specialize in a particular piece; the thing about relying on the handful of fairy-tale-inspired ballets that keep drawing audiences back generation after generation is the consequent need to reinvent and reinterpret the stories to keep them alive. There are classic versions with sumptuous sets and costumes, and there are stripped-down versions with modern choreography and, Matthew Bourne's production, most of the genders of the roles switched.
I recently read Jennifer Homan's Apollo's Angels (2011), in order to learn something of the history of the art. I do recommend it as a thorough introduction to the origins and different regional styles of the art through the centuries, but I disagree strongly with her assertion that the art is dying if not already dead. Choreographers such as Christopher Wheeldon and Wayne McGregor are hammering out new ways to tell stories through dance, and dancers are again becoming prominent pop culture figures, drawing new audiences and more importantly inspiring new generations of dancers–Natalia Osipova and Sergei Polunin, Steven McRae, Carlos Acosta, and most of all Misty Copeland, are known to audiences beyond dedicated ballet aficionados, and are bringing ballet back to international prominence. There are companies such as the BalletBoyz, who created a dance to commemorate the centenary of World War I, and the collaboration between the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet to create a new version of Handel's Acis and Galatea, with the singers shadowed by dancers who illustrate the opera as it is sung.
There are so many amazing dancers that it would take too long to go into even a handful here–aside from those mentioned above, Eric Underwood, Zenaida Yanowsky, and Lauren Cuthbertson are always well worth watching. Vladimir Malakhov is still a prominent figure, more as a director and advisor these days than a performer, although his Caravaggio (2009) is as vital and enthralling a performance as anything done by younger dancers. My current favourite, though, is Edward Watson. There's something shallow in a lot of the emotion portrayed in a lot of the stories told in ballet, generally a necessary side effect when the aim of the art is making such strenuous and difficult movement look effortless. Watson has a particular gift for making the emotions his characters are possessed by feel real, especially the darker ones–grief, fear, desperation, and madness. His performance in Mayerling, as the hedonistic and unbalanced crown prince of Austria who is obsessed with his mother, abuses his wife, and eventually kills his teenage mistress before killing himself, is as compelling as it is disturbing; he is even more magnetic as Gregor Samsa in Arthur Pita's adaptation of The Metamorphosis.
Alongside the old standards of fairy tales, there are new works appearing every year based on literature, from Shakespeare to Lewis Carroll to Virginia Woolf. There are also works that follow Balanchine rather than MacMillan or Ashton in dispensing with a storyline altogether in favour of pure expression and form. Next time you're looking for something to watch online, give a ballet a try–it isn't all tutus and sugarplum fairies and Tchaikovsky. Now there are sets decorated by Swarovski, costumes by prominent fashion designers, music by Jack White. I'm entirely convinced there's something for everyone, if only everyone would give it enough of a chance.
Author AshleyPosted on December 9, 2016 Categories Culture, Friday Fave, Reviews, UncategorizedTags Balanchine, Ballet, Christopher Wheeldon, classical ballet, classical dance, contemporary ballet, dance, Edward Watson, Eric Underwood, Frederick Ashton, Kafka, Lauren Cuthbertson, Lewis Carroll, Misty Copeland, modern dance, Shakespeare, Steven McRae, Wayne McGregorLeave a comment on Friday Fave: Ballet
Friday Fave: Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Whenever you see a film made from a book, the standard response is "the book was better." This is usually true, to be fair; the problem is that it's such an automatic response these days I often wonder if the person telling me that has actually read the book. (These are usually strangers who are unaware that reading novels is about as vital as eating to me.) However, it isn't invariably true. There are some perfectly good films that have remarkably little to do with the book that supposedly inspired them (Easy A, 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless) and some excellent films that alter the story they are based on in minor or sometimes drastic ways but turn out to be so good that I can't bring myself to care (The English Patient, The Princess Bride). And then there are films that are so, so much better than the book, such as Body of Lies (2008), The Assassination Bureau (1969), and most of all Last of the Mohicans (1992).
I've never understood why James Fenimore Cooper is still taught in schools–a book having been a bestseller during a certain period is not the same thing as it actually being a great novel. (Imagine Dan Brown or Stephanie Meyer being taught in high schools.) (Actually, don't. If that ever comes to pass, please don't tell me.) Cooper apparently felt no burning need to write or create stories, nor demonstrated any particular talent for it at an early age; he was reading a novel one day and decided it was no great challenge, so he sat down to write his own. His lack of any inherent genius for the form shows in the inconsistency of his characterizations and many other flaws. I tried to read The Last of the Mohicans when I was fourteen, found the female characters unbearable, and gave up. Later, the year I studied American Lit in high school, on the one day my English teacher devoted to Cooper and the other early American writers we would not cover (we read Hawthorne and several poets from the time instead), he explained that Cooper's novels contained a number of lovely descriptions of the long-vanished New England wilderness, but not much else worthwhile, and referred us to Mark Twain's essay "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses." (Very much worth reading, if you haven't already.)
I can't think of any other instance where so poor a novel has been made into so compelling a film. I have a feeling that the film of The Last of the Mohicans is variously dismissed by critics and adored by some fans solely as a visually stunning romantic adventure (emphasis on the romance), due mostly if not entirely to the famous scene of Daniel Day-Lewis shouting at Madeline Stowe "No matter how long it takes, no matter how far–I will find you!" I've always found this to be decidedly unfair; there's a lot more to the film than Hawkeye and Cora's undying love, dramatic and gorgeous as it is. It is about the reasons that the American colonies rebelled against Britain, without being about the revolution itself; it also offers a wealth of detail about people lived in the 18th century, and particularly attitudes towards women during that time, again without being preachy or even intentionally feminist. I have no idea whether Cooper had any intention of earnestly mourning the loss of the indigenous American cultures that European settlers wiped out, but those who made the 1992 film evidently did. Alongside the love stories and the conflict between settlers and the military, the film dramatizes some of the more subtle methods used eradicating native cultures and populations. Most people know about the smallpox blankets, the Trail of Tears, and the massacre at Wounded Knee, but the damage done by alcoholism, the exploitation of native populations as servants and cat's-paws, the co-opting and whitewashing of indigenous traditions aren't common knowledge in the same way. The titular Last of the Mohicans at the end of the story is a man mourning his only son, and the end of his tribe with him, but the grief is simply personal; it is the loss of a culture. It feels wrong to me to say I like this, but in the same way I treasure Dark Hour of Noon and the film Wit, I find it valuable–it is beautifully done and important to revisit, even when it is hard to do so.
There are a thousand other things to like about the film. The sharp little glints of sarcasm in the dialogue, particularly those between Hawkeye and Cora; Jodhi May's excellent turn as Alice, making what could have been an insipid and useless character compelling and heartbreaking; Eric Schweig, just because; the soundtrack; the locations where the filming took place. Seriously, you could watch solely for the views of the Blue Ridge mountains and you wouldn't be wasting your time.
One of the more unusual, though certainly not unique, problems afflicting fans of the film is that when it was released on dvd, for some reason it was decided to release a different cut of the film. Then, when the blu-ray came out, a definitive director's cut was released (because apparently Michael Mann hadn't made up his mind when he did the first director's cut…). There are at least three (possibly four) versions of the film; the second, the first dvd version, cuts some of the best lines. (They did the same thing with the new Ghostbusters. It's quite maddening.) The differences between three of the versions are discussed in detail here, if anyone is interested; if you can get the original theatrical release, I recommend that one, at least to watch first. After that, the Definitive Director's Cut restores some of the missing lines, if not all. The first Director's Cut is still the film, still plenty to see and enjoy, but definitely the worst of the three.
Author AshleyPosted on December 2, 2016 December 2, 2016 Categories Films, Friday Fave, Reviews, UncategorizedTags Colonial America, Daniel Day Lewis, Eric Schweig, French and Indian War, Indigenous Americans, James Fenimore Cooper, Jared Harris, Jodhi May, Madeline Stowe, Russell Means, Steven Waddington, The Last of the Mohicans, Wes StudiLeave a comment on Friday Fave: Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Right Here, Right Now
I had plans for Tuesday night. I had a bottle of decent prosecco chilling in the fridge and a bottle of very nice single malt, a lovely gift from some friends, ready to celebrate. The day itself turned out stressful for other reasons, and by the time it was 5 pm I was extremely on edge and feeling unaccountably panicky. By 10 pm I was feeling quite sick. I didn't get a lot of sleep that night, and then on Wednesday morning I woke up to find myself a part of American Horror Story: Politics.
I believed the polls to the extent that the 25 to 35 percent chance of a Trump win bothered me; for those of you dismissing Nate Silver's calculations as inaccurate, at no point did he discount a substantial possibility of Trump winning, even if it was never more than 50 percent. What I couldn't believe as the vote came in was that so many women would tolerate a man such as Trump has shown himself to be–on camera, on the record, unfiltered–as president. I knew there were women who supported Trump, I saw them on television just like everyone else, I know a few personally, but I thought we had reached a stage as a country, as a culture, where a flat-out majority of women, regardless of race or ethnicity, had more respect for themselves than that. I have never been so bitterly disappointed to be wrong.
I don't blame the Democratic party. I don't think they've done a great job, I think Debbie Wasserman Schultz has done plenty of harm, but to believe that Bernie Sanders would have won where Hillary Clinton failed is to discount the common voiced again and again by conservative media and the conservatives I've spoken to personally that there is no daylight between socialist policies and Stalinism; that if we have universal, single-payer healthcare and repair our infrastructure and improve education, the next step is pogroms and gulags. You know, like they have in Denmark and the UK. It is also to discount the poisonous anti-Semitism that came out into the open during the months of Trump's campaign. Having Sanders as a candidate wouldn't have eliminated any of that.
I do blame the media, to an extent; I blame the thousands of hours given to obsession over emails that revealed very little more shocking than John Podesta's recipe for creamy risotto and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Huma Abedin having a weakness for creme brulee. Clinton had already faced Congress a number of times over what happened in Benghazi, and then over the server; none of the recent so-called "revelations" brought to light anything substantial that wasn't already known. Little time on television media platforms was given to covering each candidate's policy proposals and actual political experience, and how these things would impact our lives in a practical sense. They could have done so much better. The thing is that we don't force them to do better; we're abandoning print media ostensibly because the online versions are cheaper and more convenient, but we don't seem to be reading much of anything that delves deeply into facts. The problem isn't that CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc., are feeding us poison; the problem is that they've become the 'circus' part of bread and circuses, alongside reality TV. There are still voices on each of the cable political stations worth listening to–Shep Smith, Rachel Maddow, Christiane Amanpour, Sally Kohn, Joy Reid–but no one hour of news coverage or commentary per day is going to be sufficient to present a full picture. The television news media found that we preferred name calling, demonstrations of shock and outrage, and fuzzy human interest stories to confronting uncomfortable facts and searching for constructive ways to resolve problems, and by god have they given it to us. Enough of it to drown a democracy. So yes, they may be to blame, but so are we every time we discount a story of what's actually happening in favour of watching Bill O'Reilly or Chris Matthews spluttering in outrage over their offended sensibilities. It's all well and good to remember how nice it was to grow up as white boys in places where most women stayed home and minorities were barely visible (if present at all), and secure jobs that paid enough to support a family were available the day after you graduated high school, for those who didn't want to go to college. The constant indulgence in nostalgia for those experiences discounts everyone else whose opportunities were denied in order to make that life possible, and it doesn't do a damn thing in the way of confronting the fact that technology has moved on, demographics have changed, the pressures and dangers we face now are wildly different, and people are no longer content to be pushed aside and suppressed so that straight white men can continue to dictate the terms of everyone's existence. We don't live in that world any more, and this desperate pretense that we can somehow go back there is causing us very real harm.
I cried a lot on Tuesday night and most of the day on Wednesday. I've had a few breakdowns since then. I argued with friends who tried to tell me that it's not as bad as it looks, that Trump's supporters want at heart the same things that I want–safety and security, and the freedom to live in peace. I argued because I've been watching for months as his supporters have targeted journalists who spoke out against Trump with anti-semitic attacks, images of their faces, their children's faces, superimposed on images of gas chambers with Trump flicking the switch. Threats of rape, beatings, lynchings. Children being told by classmates that they're going to be deported once Trump wins. The LGBTQ community now has a vice president who believes that their respective sexualities can be tortured out of them, and the fear that their right to marry, so recently and so hard won, may be taken away from them. Trump has threatened to repeal libel laws so that he can sue those who criticize him, and on Wednesday implied that he would require all Muslims to register with the government (because that's never gone wrong before…). In my worst moments, I wonder about the prospect of violence and what could happen where I live, a predominately conservative neighbourhood in a predominately liberal city in what was, as of last Tuesday, an almost evenly divided state, if the voting reflects the state as a whole. The rest of the time I am worried mostly for my friends who are part of the LBGTQ community, who are immigrants or the children of immigrants, who are people of color. I am a heterosexual white woman; I'm not an obvious target to the people I fear, at least not yet. It is up to me, then, and the other women and men like me, to support those who are targets–to put ourselves between the people who are the targets of the bigotry Trump's campaign has enabled and those who seek to do them harm. I'd like to think it would be enough for this shielding will take the form of arguments, protests, votes, and petitions, but given the people Trump is appointing to his transition team–including Peter Thiel, a man who has publicly expressed admiration for Apartheid–I wonder how soon we're going to have to act as human shields.
By mid-Wednesday I started to feel better. Anxiety and grief take a very real physical toll on me; I find it hard to sleep, hard to concentrate, hard to sit still at times, and my body has a knack for producing physiological reactions to my emotions. I can't afford any of that right now. I started to play more energetic songs that I liked, even if I didn't feel like listening to them, and I started to map out what viable options are left to protect what I value in the face of a government that appears entirely committed to taking most of that away. I will renew my second passport, as that remains legal for now, but I have no intention of leaving at the moment. This is my home; moving our household overseas is not an appealing prospect for myself or my father, even if it remains an option. I believe that the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice, although I worry about how long it is going to be. I believe the rise of these nationalist governments is the death throes of a white, male-centered supremacy that sheer force of numbers is in the process of overwhelming; the question is how many people will it take with it before it dies out.
The media has now by and large taken the tone that as Trump is president-elect, we must accept and learn to work with him. I refuse to accept this in the sense of treating any of the policies he has threatened to impose on us as normal, as a simple conservative alternative to the progressive policies President Obama pursued. It drove my mother mad for years that the conservatives she knew refused to treat the president with the respect he was due as holder of the office because he was black, because he was liberal, because of his education; I am not willing to engage in similar hypocrisy. When Trump is inaugurated as President, I will be willing to call him such; I don't think it's of much use to dispute the legitimacy of the electoral college at this point, however little I like it. I will not engage in violent protest, and I will not condone or connive in others committing violent acts against Trump or his supporters. I will, however, continue to protest, in whatever ways I can. I will write letters. I will donate to causes supporting the rights that the GOP is threatening to take away from us. I will not stand silent if I witness someone being attacked for their faith or their sexuality or the color of their skin. If I can get to a protest or a march, I will participate, as I have done before. If any conservatives happen to be reading this (unlikely as that is)–to those who are mocking and insulting liberals for questioning whether they want to stay in the U.S., for wondering if our rights are going to be taken away, for fearing the worst is coming–if you're wondering what hypocrisy looks like, take a long look in the mirror. Conservatives have been whining for years about Obama was coming for their guns, which never happened, and there were plenty of conservative media figures who *promised* they would leave when Obama was elected but didn't. We've already witnessed reproductive rights being rolled back, by some of the same people Trump is bringing into his administration. We already have evidence that our fears our justified.
Things will get better. In two years we have a chance at taking back either the House or the Senate, if not both; in four years, if Medicare is privatized, Roe v. Wade overturned, the ACA repealed, gay marriage once again prohibited, journalists are silenced, if we're in a trade war with China and NAFTA is repealed, all of which Trump and/or other Republican leaders have promised in the last months and weeks, I hope that the combination of those of us who are angry enough now and those who will have buyer's remorse over voting for Trump will make a Democratic victory a certainty. The party does need work, but we have a number of strong candidates rising through the ranks. The problem is it will not get better in time for the women who are going to die or be left severely ill from botched abortions if Roe v. Wade is overturned. For the people who are going to die all over the world as a result of accelerating climate change, from worsening economic inequality and the other financial consequences of lowering the U.S.' tax rates across the board, from losing their health insurance, from any wars that Trump escalates or instigates. For the people who are going to die of their injuries after attacks by people who now believe that anyone they look down on is now fair game, as happened to a Saudi Arabian college student a couple of days ago.
This is the song that kept running through my mind on Tuesday morning, and I was so looking forward to posting it again and again, any excuse I could find, on Wednesday, instead of being unable to shake the lyrics of "This is not America". This is the first political song I understood in political terms, being old enough to have a grasp, if not a full understanding, of the events that inspired it. I played it again and again back in 2008 following Barack Obama's election, and I hope that I will get to irritate all and sundry with it the day after election day 2020, along with a clip of Daveed Diggs shouting "We Won We Won We Won We Won." Because we will. I hope we will all be there to witness it.
Author AshleyPosted on November 12, 2016 Categories Culture, Feminism, Politics, UncategorizedTags 2016 election, Barack Obama, David Bowie, Donald Trump, freedom of speech, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huma Abedin, Jesus Jones, John Podesta, Kellyanne Conway, Mike Pence, Peter Thiel, politics, protest, reproductive rights, resistanceLeave a comment on Right Here, Right Now
Friday Fave: Whiskey
I haven't met many varieties of alcohol I didn't like, but whiskey is my favourite. It will get you plastered, certainly, if that's what you're looking for, but drinking it solely to get drunk is really quite a waste; it is best when savoured slowly, and well worth the time and patience to learn the distinct qualities of the different brands and types, be it American, Canadian, Scottish, Irish, or Japanese, single malt or blended, rye, Kentucky bourbon, etc. (If you want to know what decent whiskey tastes like, avoid the aberration that is Fireball at all costs.)
It still has a reputation for being a man's drink, which is a pity; happily, this seems to be changing. (There is an organization dedicated to introducing more women to whiskey in its many forms, and cocktails made therefrom, called Women Who Whiskey. If you're interested and over 21, do join up.) If you've ever watched Mad Men, you'll know what an old fashioned is, but there are many, many more whiskey cocktails to enjoy. It also makes a good digestif and is awesome in Irish coffee, although I strongly recommend not trying this if you have anything you need to focus on in the following hour or two, and workplaces generally frown on the practice. With good reason. I personally believe that it's demented to spend more than two or three hundred dollars on anything meant to be eaten or drunk, unless doing so for charity, but when it comes to whiskey I do at least understand the pricing given the aging process, the rarity of older whiskeys, and the fabulous decanters used for some of them. Happily a good quality bottle of scotch can be had for $40 or so.
So if you haven't tried a good whiskey before (and you're old enough to do so and not driving afterwards–seriously, I can get tipsy on a couple of mouthfuls on an empty stomach, and I drink often enough to have a moderate tolerance), make this your week to ask a trusted bartender or knowledgeable friend to recommend you one. My current personal favourites that are commonly available are Glenmorangie, Highland Park, Maker's Mark, Knob Creek, and Redbreast; everyone has their own. On Tuesday evening we might all need one.
Author AshleyPosted on November 4, 2016 Categories Friday Fave, UncategorizedTags alcohol, cocktails, digestif, drinking, Glenfiddich, Glenmorangie, Highland Park, irish coffee, Jamesons, Kentucky bourbon, Mad Men, old fashioned, Redbreast, rye, sazerac, scotch, single malt, whiskey2 Comments on Friday Fave: Whiskey
The Real America
My parents always referred to themselves as expatriates. They were both born in London, England, but met by chance in Atlanta, GA. Neither had planned on staying in the U.S., but that's what they ended up doing, I assume because they had good jobs and were uninclined to cope with the financial upheaval of moving back–they were happy with their jobs, and a few years later Britain was grappling with the energy crisis (if there's anything my mother hated, it was being cold). Eventually they had me, and bought a house, and here we stayed.
I read somewhere recently that people who take up residence in a new country refer to themselves as expatriates when they look down on the country they've come to, whereas self-described immigrants look up to and admire their new home. I never thought much about my parents' preference for the word "expatriate" over "immigrant". I doubt they considered it in any conscious sense–it has a ring to it, and evokes British colonialism in a way that they remained faintly (or very, in my father's case) nostalgic for and makes me distinctly uncomfortable. My mother considered applying for citizenship at one time and studied for the exam, but never went through with it, because time or, later, physical energy was always lacking; my father has never wanted to. When I was growing up we listened to Garrison Keillor and watched every minute of Ken Burns' The Civil War many times over, we celebrated Thanksgiving without fail and looked forward to the Boston Pops concert every July 4th, but the most important tastes and traditions in my household growing up were the ones they brought with them from England. Whenever my mother heard certain Americanisms creeping into my speech, she would correct me constantly until I stopped doing it, from saying "ben" instead of "been" when I was eight to interspersing every sentence with three or four 'likes' when I was fifteen. (Oddly, she never objected to me saying "Y'all".)
I was born in Atlanta, and so the appellation "expatriate" has never applied to me. I never thought of myself as an immigrant either, or the child of immigrants, until I recently, but I always knew myself to be foreign, "not from around here" despite my birth. People recognized my accent as not local, but, unless one of my parents was with me, could rarely tell where it was from–some asked if I was Canadian, but most people assumed I was from up north. Until I corrected them, that is, as I've always been insufferably proud of my heritage. For a long time I wished I had been born in London like my parents, that I was fully English; but I did, after all, grow up here. I may be able to change my accent at will, but I can't entirely eradicate either part of the blend, no matter how much I concentrate, and I no longer wish to. I am American as much as I am English.
I know what it is to be subject to xenophobia, albeit such experiences have been rare for me. I remember occasions growing up when my mother would be pointedly ignored by staff when we were out shopping. When I moved to Scotland I encountered a regular, if not universal, assumption that because I was American I wasn't as prepared for university as everyone else, and that St Andrews lowered its standards in accepting students from the U.S. because we paid more in tuition. When I visited Japan, there was one occasion when I was standing in a queue to pay for food and the person behind me insisted on pushing the edge of the tray she was holding into my back, no matter how many times I stepped from one side or the other to get out of her way. These incidents were few and far between and by no means characteristic of the reception I've found wherever I've traveled, but few though they are I found them maddening, infuriating, sometimes to the point that they kept me up at night. I can't imagine the frustration of having to live with such behavior on a daily and weekly basis; I'm not surprised that persistent racism has been linked to PTSD and other psychological disorders in PoC.
I started to think more carefully about the question of immigration and personal identity when I returned to the U.S. at the end of 2006 and endured the 2007 presidential election. I started hearing frequent references to the "real America"–a specific segment of the U.S. population distinguished by a particular income bracket and living in the land-locked parts of the U.S., or at least that's what I thought the phrase meant the first few times I heard it. Its meaning seemed to morph and grow the more Sarah Palin and other politicians and media figures used it, and like a lot of such catchphrases, it was used more exclude than to include. The real America wasn't the liberal strongholds in California and the east coast; the real America wasn't respected universities and research institutions; the real America wasn't communities where a significant percentage of the population spoke English as a second language, or had dual nationality, or retained any sort of multi-ethnic character. It didn't include me (liberal elitist, apparently), or many of my friends (not white or not Christian or, like me, liberal elitist). Palin lost the election for McCain, but the idea persisted, under different names, taking on additional implications. Mitt Romney's dismissal of the "47%" who would vote for President Obama in the 2012 election revived the idea, giving it different parameters–which bore little resemblance to his technical definition of this group as those who don't pay income tax, as most of the states with the highest populations of non-payers are reliably red states, not blue ones. Now we have Trump, and the "real" America–the Americans who want to "make America great again"–is predominately white, Christian, and heterosexual. Where does that leave us, the "not real" Americans, who still comprise a majority even as the race grows a little tighter?
I fit the definition of the so-called "anchor baby". My parents were never citizens, and when they arrived in the U.S. they had high-school educations. However, no one ever accused them of being under-achieving or lazy. They had high-paying jobs that could, after all, have gone to U.S. citizens, but no one ever accused them of "stealing American jobs". No one ever hissed or shouted at us to go back where we came from. This is what white privilege is; in a crowd I am accepted, whereas people who can't–or have no desire to–conceal their accent or the color of their skin or their hair are not. People of color, from various backgrounds and heritages, are every day told to go back where they came from, that their parents must have been engaged in illegal activities to earn a living, that they don't belong here, even when in many cases they were born here, as I was, or come from families who have been American citizens for generations, centuries. Now there is talk of rescinding birthright citizenship, which would make me and everyone else whose parents came and remained here legally, never breaking any laws or avoiding any taxes, no longer Americans in fact as as well as in the minds of Trump's supporters. I find this monstrous, coming as it does from the mouths of politicians and members of the public who constantly criticize the President, democrats, and liberals alike for not understanding or respecting the Constitution.
The backlash against Barack Obama snowballed, as calls grew for immigration reform, as gay people were granted the right to marry, as our arts and culture began to better represent the country's demographic reality. Now the backlash has gained not just a local habitation but a name: the alt-right. The people comprising this group are not by definition Trump supporters, nor do I imagine that all Trump supporters would define themselves as alt-right, but there is a significant and frankly quite frightening overlap between the two. The past few months have brought a barrage of defensive pundits, Trump supporters, and Trump surrogates–not to mention a broad variety of thinkpieces from left and right alike–insisting that Trump's popularity is rooted in the economic grievances of working-class Americans. If I hear one more such tirade I think I'll scream. I know that the ramifications of the Great Recession and economic policy over the last several decades has fueled a great deal of this bitterness. What I would like some of the people writing these thinkpieces and arguing this point in the media to acknowledge is that while financial strain may have been the spark, the tinder and now the fuel is a strong desire to return to the America before Obergefell v. Hodges, before Roe v. Wade, before the Civil Rights Act. I do not hear Trump supporters on television discussing the complexity of U.S. tax law and how it has given major corporations and manufacturers incentives to move jobs overseas, where they can pay their workers less, or admitting the damage that trickle-down economics has done. They do not discuss how Donald and Ivanka Trump have taken advantage of the cheap labour available overseas to increase their own profits from their clothing and fashion lines. Instead they talk about building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, complain about NAFTA as though it Bill Clinton was responsible for it (he wasn't–it was George H. W. Bush who signed the treaty), and suggest instigating a trade war with China. There is a lot of heated discussion about severely reducing or stopping immigration (from some countries) and doing more to deport those who have arrived in this country illegally, but I've yet to hear Trump or any of his surrogates present a practical policy proposal to do this. Many of Trump's suggestions over the past few months have been just as irrational and ridiculous as the idea of having open borders, but any time this point is made in the media it is dismissed as 'liberal bias' rather than a reflection of a decent grasp of policy, law, and economics.
Trump and his son Eric have many times retweeted and reposted comments and slurs against Hillary Clinton and a variety of other targets that originated from white supremacist and neo-Nazi accounts. Trump, despite crowing about how 'the blacks' love him, last week noticed a black supporter of his in the audience at a rally, called him a thug, and had him removed. The man hadn't said anything; the color of his skin was enough to identify him as an enemy. There's a bumper sticker of a figure representing the confederate flag delivering a roundhouse kick to another figure representing the pride flag, the image of which is making the rounds on the Internet. Anti-Semitic harassment of journalists and anyone who doesn't support Trump have surged, particularly online. Kurt Eichenwald found himself the subject of a barrage of attacks and harassment when he began reporting on the many questionable aspects of Trump's personal, financial, and business history, including one email that included a flashing image capable of inducing an epileptic seizure (Eichenwald has been very open about his struggle with the disorder). A politician who considered running against Trump decided against it after receiving images of his adopted daughter superimposed on pictures of gas chambers and other violent scenarios. Children are being harassed at school, and some schools have cancelled classes for the day of the election. These attacks aren't manifestations of the desire for greater economic equality; they are the product of racial and ethnic hatred, a belief that being white, Christian, and heterosexual makes a person superior to any one with a differing skin color, creed, or sexuality.
I'm tired of hearing how American was founded as a Christian nation, and thus everyone should say "Merry Christmas" to all and sundry during the holiday season, school children should be required to recite Christian prayers, and the Ten Commandments should be posted on the wall in courtrooms. The founding fathers also lived in a world where it was taken for granted that only white men had the right to vote, where it was legal to enslave other people based on the color of their skin, and Native Americans were often as not ignored or massacred if they got in the way of what the U.S. government decided to do on American land. The America that exists today would be unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers–we have cars and smartphones and medical practices that would be tantamount to miracles to someone from the 18th century; women vote, being gay is no longer a crime or a form of madness, and slavery is illegal. (I guess the "ignoring Native Americans" part hasn't changed much.) Quite frankly, I find the idea that people are nostalgic for a time when women were second-class citizens and people of color barely citizens at all rather nauseating. Every nation, every culture has committed wrongs that it must come to terms with, accept responsibility for; reverting to the conditions that gave rise to those wrongs is not going to make anything better. The United States is not the same place it was in 1775–not geographically, not demographically, not technologically, not environmentally. What this country has always done right is the struggle to fully manifest the words of the Declaration of Independence: that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are self-evident and inalienable. The alt-right is the latest manifestation of the idea that these rights are not self-evident and inalienable, but can be denied based on one's skin color, sexual orientation, religion, gender, and apparently, in some minds, the birthplace of one's parents. If that is the Real America, if Trump wins the election next Tuesday, I am alarmed to think of what might happen to the millions of Americans who don't fit into that mould, me and most of those I hold dear among them.
Author AshleyPosted on November 2, 2016 December 7, 2016 Categories Culture, Politics, UncategorizedTags Barack Obama, citizen, culture, Donald Trump, expatriate, immigrant, immigration, Native American, politics, racism, Sarah Palin, U.S. electionLeave a comment on The Real America
Friday Fave: Vampire Films
The Hunger (1983), starring Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie
Vampires actually aren't my favourite paranormal theme: I much prefer ghost stories. The trouble is that ghost stories made into films are usually rubbish, in my experience; there are a few notable exceptions, such as The Others, but on the whole they're a disappointment unless done tongue-in-cheek. I've never found werewolves a particularly appealing theme either, again with the occasional exception such as An American Werewolf in London. Vampires are the reverse–often (although not invariably) dull in fiction, but frequently excellent as subjects for film stories. As supernatural/paranormal type films go. When I was a teenager, The Lost Boys (1987), (Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992), Interview with the Vampire (1994), and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) were the best recent offerings of the genre; after that the focus seemed to shift to ghosts and all the horror films inspired by The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Saw (2004). There were the Underworld and Blade franchises, and the occasional silly or incredibly dark vampire film (Van Helsing, 2004; 30 Days of Night, 2007), but while Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel were going strong on television, there was a bit of a dip in production of films about vampires.
Then came Twilight. Love the series or hate it–I'm closer to the 'hate it' end of the spectrum, although I did read all of the books in a single binge during a fit of depression–Stephenie Meyer did bring vampires back to the forefront of pop culture. The first book in the series came out in 2005; in 2006 there was a sudden burst of vampire films, and the vogue has remained in effect since then, dominated, of course, by the film adaptations of the books. Lots of these films are dross, of course, but there have been a few gems in the flood.
Let the Right One In (2008) was in theatres at the same time as Twilight. Everyone I knew went to see Twilight; few people I spoke to had even heard of Let the Right One In, which I felt to be a crying shame, because it's an excellent film regardless of genre, and so much more interesting than its more famous rival. Most vampire films incorporate some element of sexual attraction in their vampires, or else make them horrific, repellent creatures (Coppola's Dracula manages to do both); Let the Right One In takes a different approach, telling the story of a lonely boy who befriends what he thinks at first another similarly lonely child; the sweetness of relationship between the two makes the child-vampire Eli's predatory nature all the more eerie. The two kids in the lead roles, Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson, are brilliant–Leandersson is currently studying theatre and seems intent on pursuing acting as a career, but Hedebrant seems to have abandoned acting for music, which is the film world's loss but, I presume, music's gain.
Byzantium (2012) flew even further under the radar than most of the artier vampire films. I remember reading a review of it and thinking I wanted to see it, but somehow I got it into my head that it was a tongue-in-cheek vampire story about a girl's boarding school. (I have no clue where I got this idea. All I can think is that I was reading a preview or review of American Horror Story: Coven, which started at about the time Byzantium would have been released on dvd, and I conflated the two in my memory. It wouldn't be the first time my mind has played such a trick on me.) I forgot about it until I noticed it playing on one of the film channels and recorded it; even then it took me a couple of weeks to get around to watching it. I particularly regret this–it's one of those films that would look particularly good on a big screen.
Byzantium isn't tongue-in-cheek in the slightest, but neither is it a blood-and-guts horror film. It's a little like Twilight in being at its core a romance between a vampire and a human, but it's also an engaging, if flawed, thriller. This time the tension isn't between vampires and their human prey; it's between the race of vampires, here a sort of eternal Victorian men's club a la Boodles or The Athanaeum, and the only two female vampires in existence, who are being hunted down for violating the rule of the order (i.e. that only men should be vampires). It's a feminist vampire story, something that, to my knowledge, is entirely new in the genre, unless you count Buffy. It isn't perfect; Gemma Arterton's and Sam Riley's characters are well-acted but inconsistent in their aims, and their respective about-faces at the end of the story, though necessary for the conclusion, make little sense psychologically. Saoirse Ronan and Caleb Landry-Jones, on the other hand, are pretty much perfect. (Landry Jones, unprepossessing as Banshee in the X-Men franchise, is absolutely magnetic as the terminally ill Frank, and would be worth watching even if the rest of the film were terrible.) The film also features Thure Lindhardt and Jonny Lee Miller being evil and Tom Hollander and Maria Doyle Kennedy being cluelessly human. Its greatest weakness is its title–Byzantium is ostensibly the name of a bed-and-breakfast in a small coastal resort town in Britain, which presumably opened some time in the sixties or seventies. I can't imagine an English family opening a B&B called Byzantium in any decade, even the swinging sixties. A bar, maybe, but not a B&B. Interesting and evocative as a title for a vampire film; completely at odds with the tone and locale of the story that the film unfolds.
The Only Lovers Left Alive
The best and most recent of my favourites of the genre is Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), which features Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as the eponymous lovers (Adam and Eve), Mia Wasikowska as Swinton's wayward (well, possibly psychotic) younger sister, and John Hurt as Christopher Marlowe. (The Christopher Marlowe.) There is some existential angst and fear of a mysterious plague that is killing vampires, but mostly the story is a snapshot of what Adam and Eve experience during the course of one of their rare reunions, on this occasion interrupted by Eve's younger sister Ava. There really isn't much in the way of gore or terror in this one; it is instead littered with a wealth of cultural references and gorgeous cinematography. It is the most accessible of Jarmusch's films, and the most elegant of Tom Hiddleston's–well, except perhaps for his turn as Henry V in the BBC's The Hollow Crown (swoon). I'd like to add a superlative for Tilda Swinton, but when is she not unheimlich and beautiful in a performance?
There are certainly other excellent vampire films, but if I covered them all we'd be here all day. (If you haven't seen The Hunger, do, because–well, David Bowie is in it, do you need another reason?) Also, if you're looking for a novel dealing with vampires that is not modeled on either Anne Rice or Stephenie Meyer, I strongly recommend Lauren Owen's The Quick–a bit steampunk, a bit literary, all kinds of awesome. And of course there is the original, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Author AshleyPosted on October 28, 2016 October 28, 2016 Categories Books, Films, Friday Fave, Television, UncategorizedTags An American Werewolf in London, Bram Stoker, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Byzantium, Caleb Landry Jones, Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, Dracula, Film, Francis Ford Coppola, Gemma Arterton, ghosts, halloween, John Hurt, Jonny Lee Miller, Kare Hedebrandt, Let the Right One In, Lina Leandersson, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Mia Wasikowska, movies, Saoirse Ronan, Susan Sarandon, The Hunger, The Only Lovers Left Alive, Thure Lindhardt, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Hollander, Tom Riley, tv shows, Vampires, werewolvesLeave a comment on Friday Fave: Vampire Films
Now Playing: Brandi Carlile, 'Before It Breaks'
Margaret got me hooked on Brandi Carlile. During one of my visits to Boston she played songs from Carlile's first couple of albums over and over again; all I could think was how much she sounded like a female version of Ryan Adams, and while I wasn't hooked, I was definitely piqued; when I got home I started looking up music videos, and realized that I'd seen "The Story" before. To be entirely honest I was hooked when I read that she had a tattoo of the Auryn from The Neverending Story on each arm; I figured that no matter what she sounds like, she's a girl after my own heart.
I really fell in love with the music when she released her third album, Give Up the Ghost, which remains my favourite of hers. "Before It Breaks" is the loveliest of the songs therewith; there's no music video for it, but this is an excellent performance, imperfect audio notwithstanding.
Author AshleyPosted on October 26, 2016 Categories Music, UncategorizedTags Brandi Carlile, Give Up the Ghost, Phil Hanseroth, The Neverending Story, The Story, Tim HanserothLeave a comment on Now Playing: Brandi Carlile, 'Before It Breaks'
Friday Fave: Ben Whishaw
I have a hard time narrowing down lists of favourites. I love questions such as "what are your desert island discs" or "name your seven favourite books" but I find them challenging to answer, because in my mind I have to run through a list of a dozen or two and then weigh them against one another–which ones do I think are qualitatively the best, and which do I find most appealing for personal reasons, some emotional significance or love of a particular character? Chopin is in every way a superior musician to Jeff Buckley (well, we don't know what kind of voice Chopin had), but I would be just as grieved by not being able to listen to the latter as I would if all of Chopin's music were suddenly taken from us.
I have lots of favourite actors, to the point that the appellation 'favourite' usually feels pointless–there are those I feel capable of excellent performances, who likely number a couple hundred or so, I haven't counted, and then there's everyone else. Awards for best acting nearly always go to deserving recipients, in my opinion; it's just that there are so many fine performances in each year's crop of films and television shows that which ones get noticed seems to be more like a lottery and less like a process of elimination, usually based on who's prettiest. 2009 was a good year for film, and the nominees for the 2010 Oscars and Baftas were all worthy. The problem to me was that Jane Campion's Bright Star, and its stars Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider, and most particularly Ben Whishaw, weren't among them.
There are good actors, and then there are the likes of Paul Newman, Michael K. Williams, Tilda Swinton, for whom every performance is compelling, even in poorly directed films, and flawless when paired with a good director. Ben Whishaw is this caliber of good, which seems to be widely agreed among film and theatre critics whose opinions make it into print, and yet he's received a paltry number of nominations, let alone awards, considering his body of work. The man is living, breathing art; there were performances as good as his turn as John Keats (and I don't feel that any of the awards won by The Hurt Locker), but Bright Star was every bit as good as An Education.
He is not your average box-office draw–he lacks the matinee idol looks of George Clooney or Tom Hiddleston–but he's beautiful to watch. There is a grace and vulnerability to him that informs every character I've seen him play. Even in roles such as Grenouille in Perfume and Shakespeare's Richard II, rather than undercutting the darkness of such characters, his slight frame and gentleness serve to make those characters more insidious. When he's playing a character such as John Keats, Ben Coulter in Criminal Justice, or Freddie Lyon in The Hour, it can be devastatingly charming–or just devastating. He's one of those actors for whom I will automatically buy everything he's in just because it's him and I know he'll be worth watching, but I haven't been able to watch Lilting yet, because it came out at about the time my mother died and until recently I've been quite sure I wasn't able to handle revisiting that magnitude of grief. I'm almost there.
His stage performances are apparently almost legendary. I'm pretty sure I've said this before–probably about Hamilton–but why isn't releasing performances of plays and musicals on dvd/blu-ray/streaming a thing like it is for opera and ballet? I'm entirely sure people would be as happy to buy a recording of a stage play as they would a film or tv show featuring a favourite actor, and there are so very many film stars to who do stage performances on the side. (There is a series of very good recordings of Shakespeare and Marlowe plays staged at the Globe Theatre, but this series is a rarity.) Whishaw's performance of Hamlet opposite Imogen Stubbs is recorded on film, but it's locked away in a vault in somewhere in London and only available to view if you sign up for an appointed time. Surprisingly enough there aren't many people who can hop on a plane to come visit.
His voice by itself is almost as compelling as his performances. Here is a rendition of Keats' Ode to a Nightingale, which plays during the closing credits of Bright Star. The background music is arranged by Mark Bradshaw, now Whishaw's husband. It is the perfect end to a perfect film.
Author AshleyPosted on October 21, 2016 Categories Films, Friday Fave, Television, UncategorizedTags Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Bright Star, Criminal Justice, Globe Theatre, Hamlet, Imogen Stubbs, Jane Campion, Kerry Fox, Lilting, London Spy, Mark Bradshaw, Marlowe, Ode to a Nightingale, Perfume, Romola Garai, Shakespeare, Skyfall, Spectre, The Hour2 Comments on Friday Fave: Ben Whishaw
Now Playing: The National, "Conversation 16"
The National is one of those bands that I love desperately but once in a while can't listen to for long stretches of time because their explorations of the experience of anxiety, grief, and depression strike too close to home for me. Some of their songs are pretty dark, and Conversation 16 is one of their darkest. One of the (many) things I love about the band, however, is that they usually don't attempt to create straightforward illustrative music videos for their singles; while their songs are earnest and sometimes heartbreaking, they use their videos to poke fun at themselves, deflating any traces of pretentiousness. This is one of their best: it has Kristen Schaal (The Daily Show, The Last Man on Earth) as POTUS and John Slattery (Mad Men) as her lovesick bodyguard, and it's brilliant.
Author AshleyPosted on October 19, 2016 October 19, 2016 Categories MusicTags Conversation 16, John Slattery, Kristen Schaal, Now playing, The National1 Comment on Now Playing: The National, "Conversation 16"
Friday Fave: New York Review Books Classics
Macarons: Or, Why I Am Not A Baker
Now Playing: The National, "Don't Swallow the Cap"
Friday Fave: Mindwalk
Speculative Fiction and Literary Snobbery
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Bobbie Bonte on Speculative Fiction and Literary Snobbery
Carrie Stelzer on Thomas Keller's Mushroom Quiche
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Sherry Sass on Macarons: Or, Why I Am Not A Baker
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How Facebook Used Science And Empathy To Reach Two Billion Users
Facebook's growth team has a methodical approach to understanding what new users want, and a surprisingly broad mandate.
By Harry McCracken long Read
As of yesterday afternoon, Zuckerberg said over 650 students had registered [to] use thefacebook.com. He said that he anticipated that 900 students would have joined the site by this morning.
"I'm pretty happy with the amount of people that have been to it so far," he said.
—The Harvard Crimson, "Hundreds Register for New Facebook Web Site," February 9, 2004
From almost the moment that a Harvard sophomore named Mark Zuckerberg launched a site designed to help his classmates find each other, one of the most notable facts about Facebook has been that it just keeps getting larger. Just as the Crimson marveled at the service approaching 900 users after less than a week, it was a news-making mindbender when the service hit 100 million users in 2008, 500 million in 2010, and a billion in 2012.
And today, less than half a decade after reaching one billion monthly active users, Facebook is announcing that it has two billion of them. The fact that it's still finding new members at such a rapid clip–more than thirteen years after its founding, and long after it ran out of easy pickings–startles even the company's VP of growth, Javier Olivan.
Javier Olivan
"I would have thought that the fastest growth would have been at the time where we were launching so many languages and making it available for so many people in different countries," he told me recently when I visited Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California. "But it turns out we're actually at peak growth now, a few years later."
Even if Olivan didn't anticipate Facebook's enduring success at expanding its ranks around the world, he's one of the people who can claim credit for it. A decade ago, he was a founding member of the company's first team officially dedicated to scaling up its membership base. He's been at it ever since. So have three other members of that original eight-person growth team: VP of social good Naomi Gleit; director of core data science Danny Ferrante; and VP of growth marketing, analytics and internationalization Alex Schultz. Their work has been widely envied and imitated throughout the tech industry, and the in-house expertise they've shared helps explain why Facebook's other big services–Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger–are growth phenoms themselves.
By thinking about growth the way Facebook thought about every other aspect of its experience, the team redefined how internet companies go about scaling themselves up. "We were one of the first teams to really have a data-driven, product-driven approach to growth, which was historically more of a business function," says Gleit, who joined Facebook in 2005 after writing about the tiny startup for her Stanford senior thesis, and is now the company's second longest-tenured staffer after Mark Zuckerberg himself. "PR and marketing were supposed to drive news."
Related Video: Marck Zuckerberg In A Minute
But as fabulously effective as these staffers and others who have joined them in subsequent years have been, they've never obsessively restricted their mission to the nuts and bolts of recruiting new members. Facebook's efforts to bring internet connectivity to more of the world through means such as solar-powered drones, for instance, were sparked by the realization that the service could only keep growing if the number of people who were online did. The Safety Check feature that lets members mark themselves as safe in the event of crises such as natural disasters also spun out of the growth team's work. So did the recent GoFundMe-like tools for personal charitable fundraising. Facebook is even applying the growth team's learnings to the measures it takes to suppress fake accounts and objectionable content. And when the company decided to shear Messenger off from the main Facebook service into an app of its own, it asked the growth team to supervise the divvying process.
In 2010, when it reached a half-billion monthly users, Facebook charted its first six years of growth.
If all of these disparate projects have anything in common, it's that their success is contingent on the company combining data science with an empathetic understanding of what people want out of Facebook, an approach that the growth team developed early on and continues to apply to new initiatives as they pop up.
"Sometimes I think of us like a SWAT unit or like a ninja team," says Gleit. "We don't have to work on just growth, we can take on new problems and then hire people that are smarter than us to take them to the next level."
The 70-Million User Ceiling
From Facebook's earliest years, it grew–but not because it had already turned growth into a science or developed unique expertise about the subject. Even in 2007, it was still worrying about basic stuff like search-engine optimization. (That seems odd today, given that the social network has long been a walled kingdom that doesn't let Google inside to index its posts–but at the time, people still found Facebook by Googling for it.) The company recruited Alex Schultz from eBay to help with such matters. "It wasn't like it was particularly tough work, but Facebook had nobody who did online marketing and my background was online marketing, my entire career," he remembers.
Soon after Schultz arrived, Facebook faced a stark challenge: It began to look like the site might have peaked. "Everyone had been on this kick of, 'We're going to have billions of users, we're going to get everyone in the world on this thing,' and then we stopped at like 70 million," he says. "Then everyone started panicking about whether or not we could even get to 100 million active users."
It was then that Zuckerberg charged a Facebook executive named Chamath Palihapitiya with forming a group devoted to expanding Facebook's membership, a holistic mission that encompassed not only marketing but technology, design, and other domains. Palihapitiya left the company in 2011 for venture capital–and is now an owner of the Golden State Warriors–but the growth engine he built has been remarkably durable.
As his team strategized how to get Facebook to 100 million users, international growth was an obvious opportunity, but one that was contingent on the service being available in more languages. Instead of methodically checking off other widely used tongues–like MySpace, which followed up English with French, Italian, German, and Spanish—the company built functionality that allowed Facebook members themselves to implement new languages. That approach made the service available even in obscure dialects, assuring that nobody would be denied access to Facebook solely because of a language barrier. And it turned out that the volunteer translators understood their work in ways that paid experts might not have.
"The translations were really good, better than when you use professionals, because the community understood the product really well, and there are concepts on Facebook that are kind of hard, like tagging someone," Olivan says. "How you translate that? Or poking someone, or writing on someone's wall?" Facebook users answered those questions in the process of translating the service into over 100 languages to date.
In the early days, Facebook's sign-up process was a click away from the home page and involved five screens' worth of fields. The company ground that down to seven fields embedded directly in the home page, making it impossible to miss and a breeze to complete. Once signed up, new users only found value in Facebook if they could locate their friends. So the home page also got a link to a contact importer developed by Blake Ross, the co-creator of Firefox, who was a member of the growth team at the time.
None of these steps were strokes of genius on their own, but in aggregate, they had a powerful effect: "It was massive best practices," says Schultz. Thanks in part to them, Facebook got growing again and announced it had signed up its hundred millionth user in August 2008.
Some inspirational balloons at the growth team's headquarters in Building 20 on Facebook's campus in Menlo Park, California.
By early 2009, many of the most straightforward tweaks had already been put into effect, so the growth team turned its attention to data. It began to track the flow of techniques it used to find, sign up, and engage new users, allowing it to judge their effectiveness on a granular level.
"It was really obvious stuff like how many emails did we try to send?," Schultz explains. "Did we send them? Did they arrive? Were they opened? Were they clicked? Did the people actually come to our site? And did they convert?" Working with data expert Danny Ferrante, team members created a system of "growth accounting" that broke their work down into components–new signups, the churn of members who became inactive–and helped them understand the effect of changes they made.
By paying attention to such matters, Schultz says, a bunch of Facebook employees in Silicon Valley learned to tell whether what they had built resonated with specific groups of people around the world. (His example user: a farmer in rural Punjab, India, who's using the internet, including Facebook, for the first time.) "In the Valley, there is this myth that you optimize for metrics or users, and as the head of analytics for Facebook, arguably the biggest big data company in the world, I think that is fundamentally flawed," he argues. "At its heart, data gives you empathy."
Growth Goes Mobile
At the same time that the growth team was ramping up, the mobile age of computing was dawning–a transformation that had a profound impact on the growth group's work. "We saw that a lot of the people that were joining the product at that time and now, are not like us, using high-end Androids or iPhones with 4G connectivity," says Olivan. "They were actually people in really bad networks with very low-end devices. And our products were not necessarily working well in those type of devices."
200 million people use Facebook Lite, a version designed for basic phones and sluggish networks.
In 2011, the growth team instigated Facebook's acquisition of Snaptu, an Israeli startup that, on its own, had created a stripped-down version of Facebook designed to run on basic "feature phones." That technology, which requires neither a cutting-edge smartphone nor a high-speed data network, eventually morphed into Facebook Lite, a minimalist version that is a vital component of the company's growth strategy. In February, Mark Zuckerberg reported that it has 200 million users in countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Nigeria.
But the challenge of making Facebook make sense in emerging markets is only partially a technical one. Getting new members up and running on Facebook is a wildly different challenge than it was in the days when a typical newbie to the service was a computer-literate person who'd grown up in the era of desktop PCs. Today, a newcomer to Facebook is more likely to use it on a phone, and may still be early in the process of figuring out the internet, period. That changes everything about the design decisions that go into the initial sign-up steps, the process of logging in, and other aspects of the service that Facebook long-timers never even stop to think about.
Luke Woods
"We have email accounts," says head of design Luke Woods, who joined Facebook in 2011. "We know what an account is. We have a conceptual model of what Wi-Fi is and that you might be able to get it here, but not get it there. Things like that. We find that we really have to check a lot of these basic core assumptions."
If you're reading this article, chances are that you signed up for Facebook eons ago on a PC, don't remember the details of the experience, and are unaware of what a new user encounters in 2017. But the company continues to refine the process. The home screen that once used a utilitarian blue wall now features some imagery of people sharing stuff to convey Facebook's purpose. It replaces "Sign Up For Facebook" with the more straightforward "Create New Facebook Account." And it gives you a "Forgot Password?" link without making you type in an incorrect password first.
From left, the logged-out Facebook Android app as it appeared in 2011; its current incarnation, with simpler language and more inviting visuals; and the account switcher that makes it easier for multiple people to share a phone.
Another assumption about phones that Facebook had to discard: the notion that they're always personal devices. In some of the service's fastest-growing markets, it's common for multiple people to share one phone, as the members of an American family might do with a desktop PC. So the company built an account switcher that makes it possible for two or more people to share the Facebook app without having to manually log in and out.
Will the growth team ever see another sea change as significant as that of the transition from the PC to mobile devices? Maybe–as a company, Facebook is certainly betting big on VR—but for now, the important point is that the mobile shift is still a work in progress rather than a mission accomplished. "I think that people might be too quick though to think of mobile as the past or to be anticipating what the next thing might be," says Woods. "So many people are coming online for the first time on their mobile phones."
From Sign-Ups To Safety Check And Beyond
Facebook's Safety Check feature sprung out of the growth effort in a way the company could never have planned. In 2011, it sent a team to Japan to research the needs of consumers in that country, where people used unique local models of phones that made it a special use-case scenario. "One week later, literally, the whole Fukushima tsunami disaster happened, so we had to evacuate our engineers," says Olivan. "It was like, some 23-year-old guys lost in Tokyo … so we evacuated them to south of Japan. They were there in Fukuoka just stranded in a hotel."
Safety Check now lets you not only mark yourself as safe, but also provide context.
At a safe remove from the danger, the employees realized that Facebook would be a useful way for people in similar situations to alert friends and family. "They basically hacked together Safety Check, which was the first version of the product that we now deploy," Olivan says.
Naomi Gleit
[Zuckerberg] wants us to take this data-driven, product-driven approach and apply that to other problems because it's not unique, per se, to growth," says Gleit, who as VP of social good is leading this intermingling of efforts. Among her responsibilities: Safety Check, fundraisers, and the steps that Facebook is taking to deal with some of its most serious problems, such as the broadcasting of suicides on Facebook Live.
Related: What "Safety Check" Reveals About Facebook's Changing Role
The influence of Facebook's growth team is felt in the fact that Gleit's social-good projects have metrics attached to them, rather than simply being fuzzy and aspirational. "At a high level, we want to drive real world actions, and real world actions are things that actually have some sort of impact in the real world," she says. For the fundraiser feature, for example, the benchmark is the number of dollars that get raised for charity.
Going about its work in such a practical fashion–and sticking with it until the desired results fall into place–is what has made the growth team so instrumental to the Facebook story. "I don't actually think our killer feature as a team is that we're smart," says Schultz. "I think our killer feature is that we're good at executing."
But Olivan brings up another killer feature that helps explain the growth team's success: the fact that vast numbers of people care about what Facebook offers. "No growth team in the world can grow something that has no value," he says. "Indeed, you see all these viral schemes that just implode on themselves because there's no retention, no product-market fit." The fact that Facebook coupled a service with near-universal appeal with such diligent steps to broaden its user base is what got it across the two-billion user line–a lesson, both sobering and inspiring, for any startup that dreams of joining it there someday.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


WILL FREE SENIOR HIGH IMPROVE THE LOT OF THE RURAL FARMER AS A PARENT?
For most Northern parents, September is a period of waiting to see whether they can have good harvest from their farms, it's also the same period their investments is locked up on their farms, if you have a ward entering into tertiary institution, its also in September, you prepare for the fees.
The free senior high is a relief to many rural farmers who according to the headmaster of Kanton Senior High who spoke earlier to RADFORDFM, 'Parents would have needed to pay GH535.00 as fees as was applied last year including other prospectus' but for this policy, it's free, all children need to come to school is their chopbox.
This results into a situation where farmers trades their unharvested maize farms for GH50.00 per 100KG of maize bag just to raise the fees. This peanut makes them poorer as the source of revenue to a farmer is just a single stream.
Aside of the fact that with free senior education the state resources will now be distributed to every child that is serious to go to school, we should as a nation debate other sources of funding the free senior high school so it becomes a permanent and sustainable part of our education. I see how fewer parents will go round in search of credit to support their wards high school in view of the Policy as compared to years past where families make contributions to send a ward to school. Last year, headmasters of Tumu Sectech and kansec were in the studio to appeal to parents to pay up their fees. I hope this will not happen during this year free senior high school.
The rural and community banks should begin an initiative to get parents to start savings if any, towards their wards in future.
I shudder to think of how much relief will free senior high school bring to a parent especially the rural parent involve in farming?
COORDINATING DIRECTOR STOPPED CALL TO PREVENT SOMEONE FROM DEFECATING IN BUSH.
TUESDAY RAIN STORM SHUTS DOWN GWOLLU FM, RIPPED OFF HILLA LIMAN SHS AND HOMES.


text:
Chris Petersen announces coaching staff at Washington
Tue., Dec. 31, 2013
Tim Booth Associated Press
SEATTLE – Chris Petersen announced his first coaching staff at Washington on Monday with most of his Boise State staff joining him in Seattle.
Petersen's staff includes two former Greater Spokane League football players, Bob Gregory and Jimmy Lake, and Jeff Choate from St. Maries.
Eight coaches who worked with Petersen at some point in his tenure at Boise State will be with him at Washington.
"I'm thrilled to welcome this talented group of coaches to Washington," Petersen said in a statement from the school. "They bring with them both a wealth of experience, and an understanding of what we want to accomplish here and how to get it done."
Pete Kwiatkowski will be the defensive coordinator after serving in that role under Petersen at Boise State. He'll be joined on that side of the ball by Gregory, Boise State's interim coach for its bowl game loss to Oregon State.
Gregory, a former standout at Gonzaga Prep and Washington State University, will be the Huskies' linebackers coach/assistant head coach.
Lake, a prep standout at North Central, will coach defensive backs. Lake was an assistant defensive backs coach at UW in 2004 and played college football at Eastern Washington, where he got his coaching start as a graduate assistant in 1999.
Choate, who grew up in St. Maries and coached at Post Falls, will be the special teams coordinator and defensive line coach. He coached linebackers for one season at Washington State before accepting the defensive coordinator job at UTEP, which he left before the 2013 season to coach outside linebackers and special teams at Florida.
On the offensive side, Jonathan Smith will be promoted from his role at Boise State and be the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Smith, a former quarterback at Oregon State, spent the past two seasons as the Broncos' quarterbacks coach.
Brent Pease will rejoin Petersen's staff as the wide receivers coach after he was recently fired as Florida's offensive coordinator. Pease was with the Gators for one season. Keith Bhonapha will be in charge of running backs and will be the Huskies' recruiting coordinator and Chris Strausser will be the offensive line coach.
Petersen is also expected to hire a tight ends coach.
The staff will not include Tosh Lupoi, defensive line coach under Steve Sarkisian. UW is looking into allegations of recruiting violations against Lupoi, first reported by the Los Angeles Times. The school said Lupoi is being reassigned within the athletic department, but gave no details.
Petersen also is bringing Tim Socha from Boise State as strength and conditioning coach. Rich Rasmussen will be director of player personnel and Mike McHugh is leaving Fresno State to be director of football operations. Damon Huard will remain chief administrative officer for the football program.
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Thousands of current and former Spokane County residents would be repaid for fines from unconstitutional drug law under new bill
Frugal new year: Ideas to help offset the rising costs of housing and food
Superintendent struggle: COVID-19 pandemic, incivility likely to blame for exodus of school leaders, experts say
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10 COVID-19 myth busters: Get the facts about vaccines
The importance of COVID vaccinations will be kept at the forefront of discussions as Washington state reopens after a long and challenging time.


1 Stop seeing Age as an indicator for quality.
A person might be 55 (what I would see as "older") and just started coding at 50. Age (as well as gender, ethnicity etc.) is no indicator for how good you are.
2 Where I live, they don't. No company has the right to lay off people based on those indicators.
Yeah, some of the comments on this made me think "WTF - legally you cannot do that!" then I remembered its mostly US and their employment law is basically broken.


Home Bibliography From Second Life to authentic educational Virtual Worlds?
Not an excellent article at all. The Chronicle should be ashamed for publishing something that was badly researched and factually incorrect. For a real look at what's going on in Virtual Worlds and education, check out the upcoming Virtual Worlds Best Practice Conference – where you can meet educators who are ACTUALLY WORKING in a virtual world – as opposed to being ill-informed tourists.
And um – what is an authentic educational virtual world? One owned by a university rather than a commercial entity?
Please check out http://ec3v3.projectchainsaw.com for a showcase of AVAYA's web.alive. It is based on the UNREAL engine and is capable of accomodating models with millions of poygons, is web-embedded with VOIP spatial communication.
Actually it's a very uninformed article. Not sure what you are basing your judgement on, but even the NMC study mentioned in the article actually shows the opposite – interest in other virtual worlds is minimal by comparison, and the number of creative projects and collaborations in Second Life is still growing. Check out the comments on the article to get some perspective. Even the Department of Agriculture put out an RFP that mentions Second Life, and the Department of Energy has a new sim. Also see the articles by a former skeptic at vizworlds.com.
For some reason some of the in-the-know folks WANT Second Life to fail, but in opposition to the position put forth in the article you describe as "excellent," Education is moving INTO SL in a big way. Corporations moved into SL early to make money, and left disappointed—but now educators, government and other organizations see SL's potential and are making SL's future brighter than ever. That article is ill-informed, as evidenced by the comments submitted by its readers.


This contemporary ORIENT 36mm mechanical watch features a rose gold stainless steel case, white crocodile textured band, white dial, and automatic self-winding functionality. Distinguished features include rose gold hands and hour markers, a semi-skeleton view outlined in rose gold, and roman numeral placement at the 12 and 6 o'clock positions. The sophisticated DB0A002W supports water resistance of 30 meters.


text:
More College
Butterfly Specialist Grace Nuhfer Chooses University of Akron for 2021
Franklin Community Indiana HS Sectional champion Grace Nuhfer has verbally committed to swim for the University of Akron beginning in the fall of 2021.
Minnesotan Sprinter Owen Nord Verbals to Mines for 2021
Owen Nord verbally commits to the Colorado School of Mines, giving them a sprint weapon with a conference-winning 50 free.
PA 2AA Champ Peter Kawash to Remain In-State with Verbal to Lafayette College
2019 Futures qualifier Peter Hawash has verbally committed to swim for Lafayette College beginning in the 2021-2022 season.
Stanford Women Finish Atop Final CSCAA Polls
Katie Ledecky and the Stanford Cardinal sit atop the final CSCAA polls.
USC Men To Host California, Stanford
The No. 10 USC men's swimming and diving team — unbeaten so far this season – gets its toughest challenge yet as it hosts No. 1 California on Friday (Feb. 2) at 2 p.m. and No. 4 Stanford on Saturday (Feb. 3) at the Uytengsu Aquatics Center.
Cal Remains #1 In Men's Week 2 Water Polo Rankings
Press Release courtesy of CWPA. The Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) releases the 2017 Men's Varsity National Top 20, Division…
MACARENA CEBALLOS ESTUVO A .02 DE SU PROPIO RECORD ARGENTINO
MACARENA CEBALLOS ESTUVO A .02 DE SU PROPIO ARGENTINO EN LOS 100 METROS PECHO
2017 W. NCAA Analysis: Stanford Returning 308 Individual NCAA Points
Stanford is projected to return nearly 200 points more than any other team due to their strong depth heading into next year as they look to defend their 2017 NCAA title.
Scoring Out The 2016 NCAA DI Psych Sheet – Women's Edition
California will be competing to defend their NCAA title. If they win this year, it will be their fifth national championship in program history.
City Planners Release Statement & Detailed Survey Reports For Belmont Pool Project
Progress is continuing to be made on the Belmont Pool project in California. The city managers are deep in the…
Mckeever Hires Her Consultant, Kathie Wickstrand, As California Assistant
"I believe that we have a tremendous core group supporting our program and I have elected to maintain as a staff those people who understand us best."
California Olympians Break Ground On New $15m Aquatics Facility
California Olympians Anthony Ervin, Caitlin Leverenz, Rachel Bootsma, Nathan Adrian, and Natalie Coughlin were at the University of California this evening…
Missy Franklin Named NCAA DI Academic All-American Of The Year By CoSIDA
he College Sports Information Directors of America, CoSIDA, recently published their 2015 Capital One Academic All-America team, naming Franklin the Academic All-American of the Year.
Nevada State Champion Madi Hurst Commits To California
As she approaches her final high school meet of the year, 2014 Nevada State Champion, Madi Hurst, has committed to…
California governor moves to curb water usage, private pools already being restricted
As California continues to face a drought that's entering its fourth year, pools are beginning to feel the squeeze of water-conserving measures.
Ryan Murphy Breaks Ryan Lochte's 200 Back American Record To Repeat As NCAA Champion
Murphy won the 200 backstroke with a final time of 1:36.77, breaking Lochte's 200 backstroke American and US Open record from 2007 of 1:36.81.
2015 Men's NCAA DI Championships: Day 3 Ups/Downs
After the first two days of competition, Texas, California, and Michigan are locked in as the top 3 teams this year.
California Busts 200 Medley Relay American Record In Prelims; Katis Swims Fastest 50 Breaststroke Split In History
After breaking the American record last night in the 400 medley relay last night with Stubblefield as the anchor, the…


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


As they move forward with the process of planning the 2012-2013 fiscal year budget, employee salaries remain on the forefront of the minds of the members of the Caldwell County Commissioners Court.
by the Court was nearing completion; that survey shows a woeful deficit in Caldwell County employee pay, as compared to other counties' pay scales for the same positions. In an effort to address the problem, County Administrator Ron Heggemeier has encouraged the Court to consider implementing salary increases on a five-year structure, which will offer many employees considerable pay increases, in an effort to have pay rates "normalized" within five years.
What Kortan called a "wall of brown" from the Caldwell County Sheriff's Department lined the room to show their support for the plan. For several years, the Sheriff's Department has led the charge for pay equity, often arguing that turnover is high because officers leave almost immediately after being trained to seek employment in greener pastures.
Through the course of the conversation, scrutiny fell on several of the high-paid new positions created in last year's budget – Heggemeier's position in particular.
While Commissioner Neto Madrigal and Joe Roland both expressed support for the tiered system that Heggemeier had suggested, they both said they believe the plan should "start at the bottom," addressing the lowest-paid employees first, and only increasing the highest-paid positions after the lower-paid employee salaries are equalized.
The discussion, at that point, became heated, and finally the County's Civil Attorney Mack Harrison had to step in and ask the Commissioners to return to the task at hand, which was the survey itself. He said it was off-agenda and possibly inappropriate to be discussing specific positions.
In a related item, Heggemeier also suggested that the Court approve a re-posting of the potential salaries for Caldwell County elected officials, in conjunction with the five-year plan.
Although Heggemeier reminded the Court that they did not have to approve the salaries at the levels advertised, they cannot approve salaries higher than what they have already advertised.
The new notice, which addresses structured increases for not only the Judge and Commissioners, but for all of Caldwell County's elected officials, appears on Page 4B of today's Post-Register.
The Commissioners will continue to discuss the budget, and the pay structure, as budget talks continue through the summer.
In other business, the Court heard a presentation from Plum Creek Watershed Coordinator Nick Dornak regarding the possibility of implementing a Feral Hog Bounty Program, along with other ideas to help decrease the feral hog population in Caldwell County.
Dornak said the program should be instituted during the three-month period between October and December, and that if successful, would likely increase the County's opportunity to receive grant funds to help control the hog population in the future.
The program is expected to include a $2 bounty for each feral hog "taken," and will likely be capped at a cost of $1,000 to the County.
The Commissioners also discussed the use of the Caldwell County Courthouse Lawn, in an effort to continue the ability for the community to use the lawn during festivals, but to mitigate the damage done to the lawn during those times.
One possibility presented is the construction of "platforms" which will allow vendors to erect booths on the street, rather than on the lawn. This might allow foot traffic to stay on the sidewalks while allowing citizens the use of the lawn.
It is unclear how, or if, such platforms might be built or could be effective, but the Court asked staff to consider the possibility and return with a report at a later time.
The Court agreed to enter into negotiations with the architectural firm of Steinbomer, Bramwell and Vrazel for their services in connection with the construction project at the "old WalMart building," which the County has made plans to purchase and convert into a judicial center.
The firm was the highest-ranked among those who responded to a recent Request For Qualifications. If a suitable contract cannot be negotiated with the Steinbomer firm, the County will begin negotiations with the next vendor on the list.
The Commissioners issued an order authorizing Caldwell County Constables to enforce weight limits on county roads.
They heard a report from Heggemeier on the projected cost increase for employee health care in the coming budget year. Although original budget projections looked toward a $500 per employee increase, the final number is far smaller, amounting to an average of $43.25 per employee.
County Judge Tom Bonn drew citizen names for the salary grievance committee for the current budget year. The committee is called to serve when an elected official files a grievance about the salary they are scheduled to be paid. Although the clock for such grievances has been reset with the new "announcement" approved this week, one elected official had filed a grievance to ask the committee to review her salary. It is unknown at this time whether the committee will be called to serve, in light of the new budgetary developments. However, those chosen to serve include: Philip Seelig, Rory Voigt and Pat Roberts, as well as alternates Michael Pullen, Denise Garcia and George Dittmar.
The Caldwell County Commissioners' Court meets on the second, third and fourth Monday of each month at 9 a.m. in the Training and Conference Room at the LW Scott Annex. The meetings are open to the public and interested stakeholders are encouraged to attend.


So, yes, they needed German Marquez's one-hit gem to beat the Giants 4-0. Marquez took a no-hitter into the eighth — the perfect game was ruined when he hit Kevin Pillar leading off the sixth — and had thrown just 76 pitches, so pitch count wasn't the issue it has been with so many no-hit bids these days. Brandon Crawford led off the eighth and grounded a one-hopper to third base, the ball bounding off Arenado and into the air, where he grabbed it and threw out Crawford. With a little luck like that, the final five outs felt like a sure thing.


text:
Па́мятник Никола́ю Пилю́гину — памятник советскому учёному, конструктору, специалисту в области систем автономного управления ракетными и ракетно-космическими комплексами Николаю Пилюгину. Открытие состоялось 19 мая 2008 года, его приурочили к столетию со дня рождения академика. Установлен на улице, которая носит его имя. Авторами проекта являются скульптор, академик РАХ Владимир Борисович  Соскиев и архитектор Сраждин Ильясович Сатубалов. Монумент подарил городу Научно-производственный центр автоматики и приборостроения (НПЦАП). Спонсорами стали миллиардер Алишер Усманов, компании «Транснефть», «Росбанк» и другие.

Впервые НПЦАП предложил на рассмотрение комиссии по монументальному искусству при Мосгордуме проект памятника в 2007 году. Он представлял собой фигуру шагающего человека. Высота статуи вместе с постаментом составляла 2,4 метра. Однако эксперты отклонили этот проект и отправили на доработку специалистам Москомархитектуры.

В конечном варианте бронзовый памятник изображает учёного в полный рост. Он стоит на гранитном скошенном постаменте в форме круга, на котором изображены траектория и этапы вывода искусственного объекта на орбиту Земли. На пьедестале выгравирована надпись: «Николай Алексеевич Пилюгин, дважды Герой Социалистического Труда, лауреат Ленинской и Государственной премий, основатель систем управления ракетно-космической техники», ниже — «От благодарных учеников. НПЦ АП».

Художественная ценность памятника была оценена невысоко:

Примечания

Пилюгину
Скульптуры по алфавиту
Пилюгин
Здания и сооружения, построенные в 2008 году в Москве
Скульптуры 2008 года

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia