So when I was planning for a quick getaway to celebrate our 4 year non-marriage wedding anniversary, (yes, I still include that now that we're married! It's an extra reason to travel, right!?), I wanted to go somewhere new and exciting. We keep going to Austria or the Czech Republic and I wanted some beautiful scenery, turquoise water glistening in the sunshine and as rain was headed our way, heading south to Switzerland seemed like the luckiest chose ever as the weather clearly stated blue skies for dayyyys! Plus, it gave me a reason to finally have some Fondue! With fuzzy memories of Lucerne from my tween years, I wanted a chance to relive those memories and make new ones!
Want that Swiss experience? PIN IT FOR LATER!!
Getting to Lucerne is really quite easy! Right smack in the middle between the capital, Bern and the financial banking center of Zurich, Lucerne is a great place to stop for a few days when traveling between the two cities. Zurich can easily be reached by car in just under an hour. If you're interested in flying into Switzerland, the nearest airport to Lucerne is Zurich, so it is possible to spend 24 hours in Zurich and then easily come to Lucerne! For the record, there are many things to do in Zurich should you so decide to head here before or after a visit to Lucerne.
Should you arrive by train, the main station is just a few minutes walk from the famous Chapel Bridge, giving you time to do a quick walk though if you're short on time. Hopefully, you stay longer!
Should you drive into town, there are two main parking garages I highly recommend. The first, Altstadt Parkhaus, is near Speyerbrücke. The second, is Bahnhof Parkhaus near the main station and the docks.
For an entire day, you can expect to pay 20 CHF.
If you're planning a trip to Switzerland, then I will provide you with a list of things to see and do in Lucerne that are easy enough to visit over a weekend or in two days. I've included all of the main sights to see in Lucerne as well as a boat and cogwheel excursion up into the most idyllic mountain, Mount Rigi-Kulm. Visiting Switzerland on a budget is quite hard and we tried to stay within our budget but ended up splurging just a bit to go up the mountain.
There are many things to see Lucerne, and mapping it out just right so that you don't have to backtrack is always important! Coming from the train station, you can immediately begin with the Chapel Bridge!
If you're headed to Lucerne, then you're probably coming here because you saw the iconic picture of the covered Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) on Pinterest which crosses the Reuss River, lined with bright, colorful flowers with stunning blue water and a few swans. The bridge is in the heart of the town and dates back to 1333 when it was built to help protect the town from an attack. It is also Europe's oldest wooden bridge and is one of the main points of interest in Lucerne. A visit to Lucerne would be incomplete with visiting the Kappellbrücke, Lucerne's most popular sight!
Inside of the roof depicts scenes of Lucerne's history, unfortunately, in 1993 the bridge caught fire. Luckily, 30 of the original 158 paintings were fully restored and are visible today and the bridge was rebuilt the following year.
Towards the center of the river, the bridge joins together with the octagonal tower, known as the Wasserturm. Standing at 140 ft tall, this quirky tower has served as a lighthouse, a prison and a treasury! Unfortunately, it's closed to the public, so there won't be any climbing of towers!
Looking for things to do around Lake Lucerne? Once you leave the covered bridged, you will be greeted with magnificent views of Lake Lucerne. This is the panorama we've all been waiting for, with Alpine peaks off in the distance. (I'll save those pics for the boat tour at the end!) You can simply stroll along the shore or even rent a paddle boat and enjoy the beautiful weather!
Near here, you'll come across one of five of Lucerne's historic paddle wheel steamers, which we highly recommend doing a boat tour across the lake, should you have enough time.
On the south bank of the Reuss, you'll find one of Lucerne's major landmarks, the Jesuitenkirche. It's onion-domed towers were not completed until the 19th century, while the rest of the church was built in 1666-73, and are reminiscent of the onion-domed Frauenkirche in Munich. Inside, you'll discover it is decorated with pale pink frescoes and stuccowork.
Another wooden bridge you'll first come upon if you park at the Altstadt Parkhaus, which is smaller than it's more famous bigger sister, the Chapel Bridge, can be found at the western end of the Old Town. It was built in 1408 and a small chapel can even be found in the center of the bridge. Here, the panels are also painted with images, depicting the Dance of Death. At the end of the bridge, you'll find the old mills of the city dating back to the Middle Ages, which helps to control flooding.
At the base of the Old Town, near the glistening lake Lucerne, you'll find one of the finest examples of late Renaissance Swiss architecture, although it looks rather modern. The church was destroyed by a fire in 1633 and was rebuilt, incorporating the original towers. Here, you'll also find a small plaque honoring Swiss Guards and 500 years of service to the Pope.
Not far from the Hofkirche, you'll come upon the massive figure of a dying lion pierced by a spear as a massive monument carved into stone, honoring the Swiss Guards who died protecting King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The Palais des Tuileries in Paris had been stormed by revolutionaries and those who survived the attack were arrested and guillotined. The Lion monument was not unveiled until 1821 by the Danish sculptor, Bertel Thorwaldsen. Being a big fan of Marie Antoinette, I knew I didn't want to miss this as it is also one of the most important sights to see in Lucerne.
Family friendly tip: Next to this is the Gletchergarten, a tranquil setting with natural phenomenons dating back to the Ice Age, as well as a mirror maze perfect for children!
While doing my research for Lucerne, I was quite excited to learn about the Old Town's well-preserved medieval fortifications, which run about 2,800 ft long from the north bank of the Reuss almost to the north shore of Lake Lucerne. Along the way, there are nine towers, four of which are open to the public (Schirmer, Zyt, Wacht, and Männli) and offer the best views over Lucerne, and we all know I loooove to climb towers for the best views in town and finding unique things to do!
Only the Männli tower has a viewing platform, which we found to be quite empty of tourists, as it's the last tower and I think after people have already climbed the first three, they no longer want to climb the fourth, which is as shame as the best is always last! So, naturally taking a walk along the wall, which offers amazing views over the city, is a must!
Of all the towers, the most interesting one is quite possibly Zyt, which is the town's oldest clock dating back to 1535. What makes this one special is that it is set to chime every hour, one minute before any other clock in the town!
Located along the Rathausquai with a view of the Chapel Bridge, we found this authentic-style English pub with the best fish'n'chips I've ever had in my life! I know, who comes to Switzerland to have English pub food? But it was too good to pass up and perfect for a light lunch!
If you're looking for traditional Swiss Fondue in Lucerne, then consider one of the top rated restaurants by TripAdvisor! Pfistern, is located next to the Rathaus with a view of the Reuss and the Jesuitkirche, booking a reservation here to sit along the promenade, while you eat cheese fondue for dinner, topped off with a chocolate fondue for dessert while sipping on an excellent paired wine, you will have had the best Lucerne experience ever! I quite thoroughly enjoyed my glass of Zunftwein Weiss, a local wine from Lucerne! Can you say "a little slice of heaven!?" Yes! It was hard to find cheap fondue in Lucerne, and yes it was a bit pricey, but absolutely splurge-worthy! Plus, the views were to die for!
However, there is a lesson to be learned here. While I have no comparison as to whether or not this was the best fondue in Switzerland, I did however discover that traditional Swiss Fondue is ONLY a cheese fondue served with potatoes and cubes of bread unlike what I had experience as a kid. One Christmas my family went to a Fondue restaurant for Christmas dinner and had a 3-course meal, starting with a cheese fondue, meat fondue and finally a chocolate dessert fondue. It wasn't until the 1950s that the term "fondue" included other foods dipped into a communal pot of liquid.
**Tip: If you reserve in advance, you're bound to get one of the best seats in the house!
A fun fact: According to the Local, Swiss eat a nearly 50 pounds (21.49 kilos) of cheese per person! That's a lot of delicious cheese!
If you have more time, then you can do a round trip sightseeing tour and excursion around Lake Lucerne. A bit like a hop-on-hop-off boat tour, you can stop at any of the towns along the way, and continue on before coming back to Lucerne. Prices vary, but for a round trip boat tour to Vitznau we paid 45 CHF each.
A boat tour is one of the top things to do while visiting the canton of Lucerne! The views are just stunning and the water, is so turquoise when the sun hits it just right! For good seats, obviously get in line early because everyone wants to sit at the back of the boat for the iconic picture of the the Swiss flag billowing in the wind with the mountains in the backdrop.
We did this, but only getting off and exploring Vitznau before taking the Rigi-Kulm Bahn up the mountain, before taking the ship back to Lucerne. The Rigi-Kulm cogwheel is Europe's first and oldest, opened in 1871! We paid: 45 CHF per person not including the BergBahn. 25 CHF per person for BergBahn.
Tip: If you decide to do the BergBahn, buy your tickets at the docks when you buy your boat tickets. It's a tad more expensive, but then you can directly catch the train up the mountain. Otherwise, you risk not making it on the train because the trains are aligned to depart after the ship arrives, and if you have to buy your ticket, you'll miss out like we did and have to wait an extra hour!
We definitely splurged a bit after much consideration and wasting time trying to decide whether or not to go up, and after loosing precious time, and after all, we were in Switzerland, we decided to go up and it was worth every penny! It was honestly the best day excursion in Lucerne we could have chosen!
The cogwheel train moves at a leisurely pace that leaves enough time to take in the scenery and take plenty of photos as it climbs 1798 meters up to Mount Rigi. The route is brimming with quaint Swiss chalets, lush green patches, and a handful of happy cows and residents, which is exactly how I imagined it!
And yes, I was the only person at the top of the mountain in a sun dress and sandals while everyone else was in full-blown hiking gear looking at me like I was a lunatic! But it was perfect weather for a frolic around in the fields! I even thought about singing The Sound of Music, but thought I would be cheating on Salzburg!
But don't leave just yet!
If you plan to stay overnight in Lucerne, then try to stay long enough to enjoy sunset in Lucerne, which is the most romantic time to be in the town. Visiting Lucerne at night is completely different from visiting during the day. The tourists will have all returned to their buses and headed to the next town, giving you the chance to really admire the town at dusk.
Currency: Swiss Francs (CHF), although some locations accept the Euro.
Speeding in Switzerland is highly NOT recommended as fines are incredibly high!
The Swiss are fluent in German, English and even Italian and Romanse.
Christmas and Easter holiday weeks are the most crowded time, while February is considered the "high season", as well as during the summer months of July and August.
If you have a car, I would highly recommend staying a bit out of town for some more affordable hotel prices. We stayed at feRUS Hotel, just a 5 minute drive from Lucerne with a fantastic bar/restaurant downstairs with a bit of a rustic manly feel to it!
We were really excited to visit a new country and finally get to see Switzerland. Lucerne is incredibly beautiful and we could not have asked for better spring weather! We underestimated just HOW expensive Switzerland is, so you should definitely be prepared for that! So needless to say, we splurged a little since we were there, but we'll be eating like rabbits the next couple of weeks! We found that the Swiss are incredibly friendly people. However, we found the tourists here incredibly snobbish and more obnoxious than usual as if they were in a hurry. Or perhaps, we've become too accustomed to visiting peaceful and quaint little towns, we've forgotten the hassle of dealing with crazy tourists.
We would however, not spend more than 2 days here unless you really plan to explore the towns around the lake and we found the ship prices to be rather ridiculously high! Consider driving around the lake to save money! Also, if you plan to stay longer, consider going up Mount Rigi or Mount Pilatus, two of the most beautiful mountains in the region.
If you're interested in visiting Switzerland and are looking for more information, I highly recommend using the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide or the Lonely Plant Travel Guide! Without these guides, I would be lost! These are my travel Bibles!
I was hoping they'd have the flowers on it by then but we were too early I guess, even though it felt like summer!
It was definitely way more beautiful than I remembered as a 14 year old!
This is true! If it wasn't so dang expensive, we would totally go more often! Next time we're bringing a cooler full of food because that was really the most expensive part!
Hope you can go one day! Thanks for stopping by!
Oh yes with all that scenery there is so much to do!
Definitely a beautiful place worth visiting at least once!
I love Lucerne! I went there with my Mom about 12 years ago and I loved it! Your photos are fantastic!
Thank you! It was amazing!
Haha glad to hear that!! If you don't go for any other reason, go for the cheeeese!
Thank you! It went perfect with our perfectly summery-spring day!
Oh yes you should have as the bridge is really only a 2 minute walk from the station!
So glad to hear that!! You're going to have a great time!!
I really like Lucerne. Visited long time ago but the place really make an impression on me. I didn't know about the second wood bridge (why? why?). The lion monument would always be my favorite part of the city.
Ah that's a shame you didn't know about the Speyerbrücke! I actually also didn't remember it!
Loved this post as it made me recall our time there in December 2015. I really like it there and after this post would love to go back again.
Oh Vlad, you definitely need to go at least once!!! It was lovely! We could have stayed forever!
Climbed 2 other towers before getting to that amazing view so it was well worth the effort!
What a charming town, and your photos are stunning.
That bridge is incredible, it's wooden and it's survived all those centuries!! I'm actually hoping to go to Switzerland in the summer to see a friend so I'll definitely bear this in mind, what a beautiful place.
Although, we didnt eat the mushy peas … I don't do well with mushy anything. I was hoping for a bit more snow though on the mountains for it being only early April, but I'll take it! Thanks for linking up!
Taking another look at this for #theweeklypostcard – Lucerne is so breathtakingly beautiful!
Gorgeous photos! I am so excited to finally visit Switzerland this summer!
Then have a great time! It's really a special place! Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you! Lucerne is definitely worth a visit!!
Amazing photos!!! Never knew there are other fondues besides chocolate. I keep hearing how expensive Switzerland is. The day I make it over there, I know I will fall in love with its natural beauty.
Beautiful photos! We visited Lucerne during winter and spent New Year's 2016 there. Lucerne actually puts on a spectacular fireworks show. We knew we needed to go back during warmer weather. Thanks for all these photos showing just how much we missed with all those views. We also used it as a base to explore Mt. Titlis which was an easy day trip. Highly recommend that one too!
Ooh I didn't know that about NYE, we are always looking for places to go! I'll have to keep that in mind!
What a lovely place to spend a honeymoon! Congrats to you and your family!
Lucerne looks gorgeous and I'd love to take that train trip. Plus cheese fondue followed by chocolate fondue? Sold!
It's even more beautiful by night!
Lucerne is absolutely beautiful and your post refreshed my memories of visiting it a few years ago. The Chapel Bridge with all its flowers was definitely my favourite!
What a stunning place! Lucerne is not the 1st destination I'd think to visit when heading to Switzerland but it is now on the list. Love the view from the tower viewing deck. Such a gorgeous town.
Oh glad to hear that! You'd love it!
Thanks! My mom says we should celebrate this anniversary anymore but only our marriage, but hey, what's an extra excuse to travel, right!?
Oh I'd go back for the food alone!
Lovely photos! Lucerne looks like a great place to spend a relaxed day outing. And the food looks so yummy! Oh! The fondue!
Thanks Katy! My husband said any trips to Switzerland will always be a day trip now haha but most fun places are only 4 hours away so it's not so bad!
Thank you Clare! Hope you can make it there one day!
I spent 2 days in Lucerne last summer. It indeed was breathtakingly beautiful!
I would have sworn that I've visited Lucerne ages ago with my parents, but none of this looks familiar to me. What you've shown me is so pretty, and the promise of an authentic Swiss fondue is tempting. Great picture of the two of you on the mountain!
Thank you! It was the same for me, I remember going to Lucerne at 14 with my parents, but I couldn't remember anything except the lion. It was way more different than I had remembered!
Wonderful post! I love, love all the pictures…beautiful.
Switzerland is so nice and Lucernes such a pretty town! I miss that country!
Switzerland is a beautiful country and Lucerne looks stunning. I have always wanted to see Chapel Bridge and spend some time on the lake. Love that you also got to take the train into the mountains – looks like an awesome experience!
Oh Annecy has been on my bucket list FOREVER!! 🙂 thanks for stopping by!


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HomeThe HypeTelevision"Marianne" brings French horror to a modern audience
"Marianne" brings French horror to a modern audience
Sally Dobie
November 27, 2019 Television, The Hype
Released back in September, "Marianne" is a French Netflix original series that serves as a triumph for horror.
The story of "Marianne" centers around author Emma Larsimon, who writes books about the witch Marianne in order to stop herself from having torturous nightmares and visions of her. But when she ends the series with the death of the heroine, she's visited by an old friend with a deadly warning.
When she returns to her hometown, she meets not only old friends and family, but once again comes face to face with the source of her fear.
Well, it turns out old women are just as scary as small children, "Marianne" more than proves that.
After the success of Netflix original, "The Haunting of Hill House", last year, horror series were given a new lease of life. Unfortunately, as good and well crafted as "Marianne" is, it hasn't achieved the same popularity.
Perhaps the thought of watching a subtitled show while trying to be completely sucked in by the action is difficult for some people, distracting from the jumpscares and content of the show itself. But for most, it shouldn't prove to be an issue at all.
For those of us who have failed to extend our knowledge of the French language to much further than the days of the week, which funnily enough comes in handy when watching "Marianne", the subtitles will prove to be a great aid in understanding what is going on in the show.
There is the option to watch the drama with English voiceover which may be easier for some people, but it tends to break the tension and can prove to be more distracting when the words don't sync up to what the character is saying a lot more than occasionally being distracted by the subtitles.
The series not only has jumpscares and traditional tension, but it effectively builds a disturbing, uncomfortable feeling of dread in your stomach the whole time you're watching.
The characters of Emma (Victoire Du Bois) and her assistant Camille (Lucie Boujenah) are played with such feeling that you're drawn in completely, even before the stellar performance of Mireille Herbstmeyer as the possessed Mrs Daugeron. And admittedly, the comic relief of Alban Lenoir as Inspector Ronan was much needed.
Combined with a fantastic soundtrack, it's the kind of series you need to watch a little bit at a time so you don't get overwhelmed. Be warned, though, Marianne does not shy away from topics like suicide and exorcism, which some viewers may be uncomfortable with.
The series is the work of Samuel Bodin and writer Quoc Dang Tran. It has a 7.5/10 rating on IMBb and 91 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
All-in-all Marianne is a must-watch for horror fans, the timing and tension in the series is so effective, and the excellent acting makes the series a well-crafted success.
Even if you're wary of foreign horror, give Marianne a try. Just remember to watch something more cheery before you go to sleep…
Image Credit: Netflix

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


disasters now just miniatures, a thumb of hidden resin.
in the form of a look of surprise.
Copyright © 2014 by Astrid Lorange, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.


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The Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) rose in 1968 as a coalition of ethnic student groups on college campuses in California in response to the Eurocentric education and lack of diversity at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) and University of California, Berkeley. The TWLF was instrumental in creating and establishing Ethnic Studies and other identity studies as majors in their respective schools and universities across the United States.

At the end of the American Civil Rights Movement, the combined determination of the Latin American Student Organization (LASO), the Black Student Union (BSU), the Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action (ICSA), the Mexican American Student Confederation, the Philippine (now Pilipino) American Collegiate Endeavor (PACE), La Raza, the Native American Students Union, and later the Asian American Political Alliance galvanized California and the rest of the nation with the first student strike, bringing to light the need for wider perspective within educational disciplines. The TWLF strikes for Ethnic Studies in California drew the attention of the universities' administrative leaders as well as the attention of the Governor of California Ronald Reagan. The student strikes to establish these courses started in 1968 and lasted for several months. The establishment of the first College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State, the first Ethnic Studies Department at Berkeley, increased hiring of faculty of color, and efforts to increase minority representation on college campuses all resulted from the actions of the Third World Liberation Front.

Black Student Union & Third World Liberation Front strike at San Francisco State College
The student and faculty strike started on November 6, 1968 and lasted until March 21, 1969, making it the longest strike by students at an academic institution in the United States. The strikes arose to protest the perpetual Eurocentric lens on education, as the demands of the strikers included an establishment of an autonomous department for Ethnic Studies, more faculty of color representation, and more representation of students of color on campus. John H. Bunzel writes that the students felt that "education from kindergarten to college under the authority of the white community failed to focus on subject matter that was germane to the life experiences of the people in the minority community."

Origins
The contention between students and administration can be traced to May 2, 1967, when students orchestrated a sit-in at the office of the newly appointed president of the university, Dr. John Summerskill, in protest of the Selective Students Committee's access to students' academic standing. Subsequent events, which included the suspension and firing of high-profile educators of color. The Black Student Union, and The Black Communications Group, seeing the need of the other ethnic student groups to organize, led the Black student organizers to expedite the formation at San Francisco State College of the Third World Liberation Front.

One year to the day before the strike, the editor of the student newspaper The Daily Gator, James Vaszko, was attacked by several Black students on November 7, 1967. The "Gator incident", as it was called, occurred after he wrote an editorial petitioning the Carnegie Corporation of New York to withhold funds from proposed "service programs" including classes in Black history and culture requested by the Black Student Union. After six assailants were arrested and suspended, the BSU held a press conference in order to elucidate the reasons for the classes they advocated. These programs were to be established to "awaken and develop Black awareness and consciousness," according to the San Francisco Strike Collection. The rising tension between students prompted the formation of a faculty committee by President Summerskill. Individuals sympathetic to the six suspended students began protesting in the administration building at San Francisco State College, leading Summerskill to close the campus. During this period, there were also protests against the Vietnam War, further heightening tensions between the administration and students. On February 22, 1968, Dr. Summerskill resigned from his post as of the following school year, to be later replaced by Dr. Robert Smith.

As tension continued to rise, BSU & the Third World Liberation Front occupied the school's YMCA on March 23, 1968, forcing all YMCA employees to leave. Despite demands from President Summerskill to evacuate the premises, the students remained in protest to keep a revered faculty member as a professor. They listed their demands as:
 An end to Air Force ROTC on campus,
 Retention of Juan Martinez,
 Programs to admit 400 ghetto students for the fall semester, and
 The hiring of nine minority faculty members to support the minority students."
The protest culminated on May 21 of that year with the arrival of the police and arrests of 26 individuals of the 400 protesters.

The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) played a significant role in the strike.

The fall of 1968 semester saw the formation of the Black Studies Department but also mounting tension. President Smith refused a demand by the California State Colleges trustees to relegate George Mason Murray (the Minister of Education for the Black Panther Party), a graduate student and instructor in the English department, to a non-teaching position. This came after Murray's remarks to students at Fresno State College where he allegedly said, "We are slaves, and the only way to become free is to kill all the slave masters." Mounting pressure from trustees and administrators like SF State Chancellor Dumke induced Dr. Smith to suspend Murray despite threats of a strike from the BSU and led to the presentation of 15 demands from them and the TWLF.

Demands of the strikers and administrative response
From Helen Whitson's Introductory Essay in the San Francisco State College Strike Collection:

BSU demands
 "That all Black Studies courses being taught through various departments be immediately part of the Black Studies Department and that all the instructors in this department receive full-time pay.
 That Dr. Hare, Chairman of the Black Studies Department, receive a full-professorship and a comparable salary according to his qualifications.
 That there be a Department of Black Studies which will grant a Bachelor's Degree in Black Studies; that the Black Studies Department chairman, faculty and staff have the sole power to hire faculty and control and determine the destiny of its department.
 That all unused slots for Black Students from Fall 1968 under the Special Admissions program be filled in Spring 1969.
 That all Black students wishing to be admitted in Fall 1969.
 That twenty (20) full-time teaching positions be allocated to the Department of Black Studies.
 That Dr. Helen Bedesem be replaced from the position of Financial Aid Officer and that a Black person be hired to direct it; that Third World people have the power to determine how it will be administered.
 That no disciplinary action will be administered in any way to any students, workers, teachers, or administrators during and after the strike as a consequence of their participation in the strike.
 That the California State College Trustees not be allowed to dissolve any Black programs on or off the San Francisco State College campus.
 That George Murray maintain his teaching position on campus for the 1968-69 academic year."

TWLF demands
 "That a School of Ethnic Studies for the ethnic groups involved in the Third World be set up with the students in each particular ethnic organization having the authority and control of the hiring and retention of any faculty member, director, or administrator, as well as the curriculum in a specific area study.
 That 50 faculty positions be appropriated to the School of Ethnic Studies, 20 of which would be for the Black Studies program.
 That, in the Spring semester, the College fulfills its commitment to non-white students in admitting those who apply.
 That, in the fall of 1969, all applications of non-white students be accepted.
 That George Murray and any other faculty person chosen by non-white people as their teacher be retained in their positions."

The BSU/TWLF strike that began on November 6, 1968 was catalyzed by the suspension of graduate student and Black Panther Minister of Education George Mason Murray. There was an approximate 15% reduction in student attendance in November at the start of the strike, but police were called to campus anyway on that first day. Police brutality was a common sight throughout the strike. From that moment on, these students would remain on strike for 5 months until March 21, 1969.

Negative and violent interactions between police and students lead Dr. Smith to close campus for a week and faculty meetings ensued. Appeals by Professor S. I. Hayakawa to support President Smith's request to reinstate Murray were made to the faculty members, who were also considering striking as well. It was highlighted that Murray was "suspended without due process" by a faculty grievance committee. When campus reopened on November 20, 1968, only 10% of students returned for the school-wide discussion on current state of affairs. After disagreeable interactions with students, Dr. Smith resigned on November 26, and Professor Hayakawa becomes acting president. On December 11, the campus American Federation of Teachers (AFT) also join the strike to have trustees meet eye to eye with the students.

On January 6, 1969, acting President Hayakawa ordered that there shall be no more gatherings at the center of campus. Yet, two days later, campus AFT members and students continued to strike on campus. Despite many judicial actions to order AFT members and students to disband, striking continued. On February 29, it was decided that Murray, along with the Black Studies Department Chair, would not be rehired, further perpetuating the desire to strike. After another month of violence and striking, on March 20, 1969, the TWLF, BSU, and members of the selection committee of San Francisco State College came to an agreement, ending the strike the following day.

Outcomes of the strike
Whitson's essay for the San Francisco State College Strike Collection highlights and tabulates the demands and their outcomes during the agreement of March 20, 1968. :File:Outcomes of the TWLF Strike at SFSU in 1968.pdf

, San Francisco State University holds an annual Ethnic Studies Conference, inviting high school students to engage with and understand what ethnic studies is and the reasons for its establishment.

TWLF strike at University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley housed an establishment of the Third World Liberation Front and saw the second longest student strike in US history for reasons similar to that of the TWLF at San Francisco State College: to address the Eurocentric education and integrate into academia conversations about identity and oppression. Although the Berkeley strike started on January 22, 1969, several months after the San Francisco strike, unrest on campus existed long before. On June 30, 1968, the Mayor of Berkeley, California Wallace Johnson issued a curfew for three days after declaring a state of emergency due to protesting students in support of the student and worker strikes in Paris, France in May of that year. In February 1969, 13 students, including leaders of the movement Manuel Ruben Delgado, Ysidro Macias, and LaNada Means, were arrested for their part in the demonstrations and suspended.

The TWLF strike at Berkeley proved to be more violent than that which was at SF State College, with a greater incidence of police brutality against students, striking members of the American Federation of Teachers, and campus workers who decided to strike. The strikers also drew support from several university faculty members. Students and faculty members not in direct support of the TWLF protested the police presence on campus. The violence escalated to a point at which Governor Ronald Reagan had to declare a "state of extreme emergency," while the Berkeley President decided to prohibit demonstrations on campus. Students incensed students continued to strike, and tear gas was exchanged between the National Guard and the striking students. Their efforts resulted in the first Ethnic Studies Department in the United States on March 7, 1969, closely followed by the creation of the first College of Ethnic Studies in the US at San Francisco State on March 20.

Origin
In April 1968, the Afro-American Studies Union (AASU) at University of California, Berkeley submitted a proposal to institute a Black Studies Program. The proposal was passed around the administration, from Chancellor Roger Heyn to professors to the Dean of the College of Letters and Sciences, Walker Knight. In December, when a committee was assembled to discuss the students' proposal without a student representative, no conclusion could be made as to whether or not a Black Studies should be a program within a larger department or a department itself.

In August, the Mexican-American Student Confederation (MASC) to ask the university to withhold the purchase of table grapes in support of striking farm workers. The university agreed to boycott the grapes. Yet, Governor Reagan and his Agricultural Secretary Earl Coke spoke out against the school's decision to boycott the table grapes. President Hitch forced the school to resume the purchase of table grapes, and eleven MASC students were arrested for trespassing and unlawful assembly when trying to meet with President Charles J. Hitch.

Events of the UCB Strike
In January 1969, the AASU, MASC, the Native American Student Association and the Asian-American Political Alliance coalesced to form Berkeley's Third World Liberation Front, with the establishment of a Strike Support Committee. The demands were as follows: "1. Establishment of a Third World College with four departments; 2. Minority persons be appointed to administrative, faculty, and staff positions at all levels in all campus units; 3. Additional demands included Admission, financial aid, and academic assistance for minority students; Work-study positions for minority students in minority communities and on high school campuses; 4. Minorities be allowed to control all minority-related programs on campus; 5. No disciplinary action against student strikers." The LA Times chronicled the events of the strike:

"The deputies moved in again and tried to arrest Delgado. He resisted and was clubbed to the ground. Strikers began swinging and screaming at the deputies, who retaliated with blows from their clubs. Macias briefly escaped officers pursuing him but was cornered when he resisted. Both strike leaders were taken into Sproul Hall, apparently unconscious. Four others were arrested in the schuffle (sic). The striking students reformed at Bancroft-Telegraph and clinked arms again. About 30 California Highway Patrolmen formed a wedge and charged into the crowd, chasing the students into the streets."

By March 3, over 150 students were arrested and 36 were suspended. However, five days later, Chancellor Heyns and President Hitch conceded to most of the demands of the TWLF, which included the establishment of the Department of Ethnic Studies.

Origin of the name TWLF
Students at the campuses of San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley joined together in 1968 and 1969 and created the name Third World Liberation Front in relation to the Third World Liberation struggles. The students understood the similarities between the two and "recognizing their task as one of decolonization in a US context." The students understood these struggles in terms of education and wanted to embody the Third World Liberation into these campuses by a "Third World College."

References

1968 protests
1968 in California
Student protests in California
Student strikes
Protests in the San Francisco Bay Area
History of the San Francisco Bay Area
1968 in San Francisco

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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text:
Photo: Joan Marcus
Nothing much happens in the new Broadway musical High Fidelity, but the enthusiastic cast works hard trying to convince us otherwise. They dance with athletic bounce and deliver the not so bad pop/rock tunes with committed zest, but the evening directed by Walter Bobbie fails to engage and is most notable as an exercise in what not to do.
In bringing High Fidelity (based on the Stephen Frears's 2000 successful film of the same name that was itself adapted from Nick Hornby's 1996 novel) to the stage the producers of the mega hit musical Rent have latched onto a smart idea; turn the romantic comedy into a rock musical about hip young urban adults. In an obvious attempt to capitalize on the success of Rent, they have put together a high profile team of talent that seems to have missed the point of the source material.
The book by David Lindsay-Abaire chronicles a tale about a young man Rob (Will Chase), who loses his girl, Laura (Jenn Colella) and then gets her back, adheres closely to the original novel, but the characters haven't been fleshed out. There is no inherent struggle to change, and you wonder why they get back together in the end. Rob is an unsympathetic lout, who appears to sabotage his chances, but still Laura takes him back. In the film Rob, played by John Cusack, was obnoxious, but underneath was an endearing realness that made you like him anyway, so you understood her attraction to him. On Broadway Laura is underwritten and neither character evolves in any way. There are no complexities to their relationship, and we learn little of the dynamics that bind them.
Laura leaves Rob because he was unfaithful; they sleep with other people, and then reunite, but why. If Abair intended the story as a comment on the inability to break free of sexual addiction, I guess he makes a point. I believe, however, this is a love story with charm, and we need to become involved with the characters as they wrestle their internal demons and ultimately learn to adapt. This is fertile territory that could be layered with dichotomy and nuance, especially considering our society's dysfunctional concepts of love. Nothing happens in Abair's account to validate their reunion, and their journey is non-existent. These characters appear to feel nothing except when they break into song in vain attempt to prove otherwise.
Another problem that further distances us from the action is the lack of chemistry between the two leads. Will Chase has a likable quality, but his performance is one noted. Jenn Colella is lovely to look at, but displays little charm or quirky humor leaving us to wonder just what draws Rob to her.
The rock music by Tom Kitt is laced with heavy metal chords throughout giving it a manic intensity. The rhyming lyrics by Amanda Green are unfortunately rather corny and often startlingly vulgar in an attempt to be hip. There are, however, a few amusing numbers.
Photo by Joan Marcus
The very funny "I Slept With Someone" is the evening's highlight. The leads have both just had sex with other people, and they are reflecting on their conquests in a witty duet. The song is beautifully staged by Mr. Bobbie on a whimsical set that is a marvel as it flips intricately to simultaneously reveal two separate bedrooms.
The vigorous choreography by Christopher Gattelli is punctuated with lively kicks and jumps, but it suffers with an animated vigor that keeps the evening in the same one track mode.The set by Anna Louizos, although decidedly tacky, makes arresting shifts that fold and shift with impressive ease to accommodate swift changes from the Rob's apartment, to his record store, to a club, to the street and even to an upstairs apartment bedroom. However, when you leave the theatre thinking the set was the best part of the evening, something is dreadfully wrong.
gordin & christiano
Originally Published in Dan's Papers
High Fidelity opened at the Imperial Theatre, 249 West 45th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, on December 7, 2006. For tickets call 212-239-6200 or visit the box office
Author Eric MarchPosted on February 15, 2007 January 13, 2017 Categories Reviews, x-Drupal Import
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text:
Niżnia Przehyba (słow. Nižná priehyba) – mało wybitne wzniesienie o wysokości 1779 m w głównej grani odnogi Krywania w słowackich Tatrach Wysokich. Od północno-wschodniej strony sąsiaduje z Wyżnią Przehybą (1982 m), oddziela je Siodło między Przehybami (Sedlo priehyb).  Od południowo-zachodniej strony sąsiaduje z Gronikiem (1576 m), wzniesienia te oddziela Gronikowska Przehyba (Grúnikova priehyba). Zachodnie stoki Niżniej Przehyby opadają do Doliny Koprowej, znajduje się w nich kotlina Terianska dolina, dnem której spływa spod Niżniej Przehyby potok uchodzący do Koprowej Wody powyżej Rozdroża pod Gronikiem. Przez Niżnią Przehybę prowadzi szlak turystyczny, omijając jej wierzchołek po wschodniej stronie.

Nazwa Przehyba jest myląca. Pierwotnie bowiem w języku słowackim słowo priehyba oznaczało ukształtowanie terenu podobne do przełęczy, np. płytką, rozległą przełęcz, wyrównanie terenu na grzbiecie czy polanę na grzbiecie górskim. Później dopiero na mapach i w literaturze błędnie przesunięto nazwę przehyba z tych formacji na sąsiedni szczyt (garb). Tak więc nazwa Niżnia Przehyba nie ma nic wspólnego z oryginalnym ludowym nazewnictwem.

Szlaki turystyczne
   – zielony szlak od Trzech Źródeł przez Gronik, Niżnią i Wyżnią Przehybę do Rozdroża pod Krywaniem, stąd  na Krywań niebieskim szlakiem. Czas przejścia 4:50 h, ↓ 3:45 h

Bibliografia

Szczyty Tatr Wysokich


text:
The mountain that broke the speed limit
The summit of Heart Mountain is near the right edge of this satellite image, but scientists have determined that the rock around the summit migrated from the Absaroka Range near the left edge.NASA
May 19, 2006, 9:09 PM UTC / Source: LiveScience
By By Corey Binns
A mountain near the Montana-Wyoming border once moved 62 miles in a half-hour, in a catastrophic scenario that could be repeated elsewhere, scientists say.
Rock at the summit of Heart Mountain is 250 million years older than at its base. That suggests the top and the bottom have not always been together. The presumed migration to its present home has puzzled scientists for years. They knew the mountain moved, but no one ever explained how it happened or how long it took.
A new explanation comes from deep underground, where lava bubbled up to the surface and sent the mountain on its way in surprisingly quick fashion.
Lots of vertical cracks, or dikes, in the rock set the geology of the wandering hill apart from others. The dikes filled with lava, funneling it through a zone of limestone saturated with water.
"A unique feature that helped this strange scenario is that Heart Mountain had a deep confined fluid layer," said geophysicist Einat Aharonov at the Weizmann Institute of Science. "Into this layer many, many dikes intruded in close sequence — such dike density is also not extremely common."
With Columbia University geologist Mark Anders, Aharonov devised a computer model to describe what happened below Heart Mountain 50 million years ago. The era was one of serious mountain building with a series of volcanic eruptions that formed the now-extinct volcanoes of the Absaroka Range. (Click here for an annotated satellite image.)
The dikes directed the lava into the water, heating both the rock and the water. The water was trapped, and as in a pressure cooker, its pressure rose as it was heated. Caught between layers of impermeable slate, the boiling water couldn't escape.
With nowhere to go but up, the tension finally lifted the rock, and the mountain began to glide.
"We think the slide motion was catastrophic," Aharonov told LiveScience. "According to our calculation, the motion took less than 30 minutes."
The findings, announced this week, were published in the March issue of the journal Geology.
Heart Mountain isn't the only movable mountain. Aharonov warns that, sitting on a volcanic site, the Canary Islands could be traveling soon — posing a significant tsunami risk.
By Corey Binns


text:
Caleb Nichols
Caleb Nichols is at an exciting stage: after some 20 years of working in glass, he has reached the point where his ideas, not technical virtuosity, come first. As a result, his work has grown in size to 30-inch sculptural pieces and his imagery has expanded. Still inspired by the moods and vastness of the ocean, he has lately been pushing his concepts a step further. "It's interesting," he explains "the wilder and more colorful I make these pieces, the more they invoke a sense of calm. A funny kind of inverse effect."
In the process, he has discovered a new eloquence. "It's taken me years," he says "to make something simple and not have the urge to gussy it up." Influenced by Japanese art, a quiet sensibility is poking through after years of experimenting in the studio. Like all other glass addicts, Nichols has done his share of obsessing on technique. In his quest to "build a better vocabulary," he has mastered such standards as blowing, casting, annealing and fusing. He has even devised one of his own: smashing. "I blow these forms," he states, "then hit them with a hammer."
This leaves him with chunks of glass that become fog, froth, foam, waves, beach stones and boulders in his fused works. The technique, which allows him to work bigger without requiring assistance, gives his work its distinctively rough dynamics. Interestingly, the medium brought him to the subject. Even though he has gone to Penobscot Bay in Maine "all my life" and seeks out Winslow Homers in museums, and even though he loves to sail and drive power boats and spends hours contemplating the ocean, he enrolled in studio arts at Tulane University to draw live models, not seascapes. There he stumbled into glass, got hooked, and the medium's parallels with water brought him back to the jagged coast of Maine and his New England roots. "I like to take the traditional idea of a seascape," he explains, "and bring it into contemporary glass."
--Lee Lawrence
Offshore Bowl-Low-Green-Ocean Series
https://galleryofmodernmasters.com/art/offshore-bowl-low-green-ocean-by-caleb-nichols
From the artist's website: Caleb Nichols is at an exciting stage: after some 20 years of working in glass, he has reached the point where his ideas, not technical virtuosity, come first. As a result, his work has grown in size to 30-inch sculptural pieces and his imagery has expanded. Still inspired by the moods and vastness of the ocean, he has lately been pushing his concepts a step further. "It's interesting," he explains "the wilder and more colorful I make these pieces, the more they invoke a sense of calm. A funny kind of inverse effect." In the process, he has discovered a new eloquence. "It's taken me years," he says "to make something simple and not have the urge to gussy it up." Influenced by Japanese art, a quiet sensibility is poking through after years of experimenting in the studio. Like all other glass addicts, Nichols has done his share of obsessing on technique. In his quest to "build a better vocabulary," he has mastered such standards as blowing, casting, annealing and fusing. He has even devised one of his own: smashing. "I blow these forms," he states, "then hit them with a hammer." This leaves him with chunks of glass that become fog, froth, foam, waves, beach stones and boulders in his fused works. The technique, which allows him to work bigger without requiring assistance, gives his work its distinctively rough dynamics. Interestingly, the medium brought him to the subject. Even though he has gone to Penobscot Bay in Maine "all my life" and seeks out Winslow Homers in museums, and even though he loves to sail and drive power boats and spends hours contemplating the ocean, he enrolled in studio arts at Tulane University to draw live models, not seascapes. There he stumbled into glass, got hooked, and the medium's parallels with water brought him back to the jagged coast of Maine and his New England roots. "I like to take the traditional idea of a seascape," he explains, "and bring it into contemporary glass." --Lee Lawrence
https://cdn.artcld.com/img/w_400,h_400,c_fill/smwmzc0i0g964lvhy9xe.jpg


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El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz in Washington to advocate for 'Dreamers,' immigrants, border
David Burge
El Paso Bishop Mark J. Seitz has been in the nation's capital this week advocating on behalf of immigrants and border communities.
The leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of El Paso spoke with members of Congress on Monday, took part in a march and preached during the celebration of a Mass.
"Stand for something," Seitz told a group of lawmakers in Congress, according to a tweet from the Hope Border Institute. "Don't be guided by the political morass in Washington."
Monday was the original deadline set by the Trump administration for Congress to extend protection for "Dreamers" into law. The federal courts, however, have ordered the federal government to continue taking renewal applications under the original Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program started by the Obama administration.
"For us, this is not a matter of being involved in politics, but rather, it's the church being the church and bringing our message to the place where decisions are made," Seitz told the El Paso Times on Tuesday in a phone interview from Washington.
Seitz said he met with Democratic U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, as well as with representatives from Texas Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn's office, and participated in a legislative briefing with some 50 interns and aides from both the House and the Senate.
"We were very touched by people who are wrestling with this issue in their conscience," Seitz said. "Even those on the side of those that are calling for more restrictions on immigration are wrestling with the issue that there's a need for compassion in legislation."
Seitz said he will continue to tell the story of the border, of immigrants and of refugees and will continue to pray that elected officials will find a way to deal "justly" with them.
"I had no illusions that I would come here to Washington and the tone would automatically change. But the fact is we can't tire; we have to keep speaking and standing up for the most vulnerable," he said, adding that he wants immigrants to know that he and the church stand with them "come hell or high water."
Seitz also spoke during a breakfast Tuesday in Washington. He discussed the militarization of the border under the Trump administration, the criminalization of asylum seekers, the proposal for a controversial border wall and children of undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.
The breakfast was hosted by the Hope Border Institute and Bread for the World, a nonpartisan Christian group that works to end hunger.
"God's dream is for every child and every family to enjoy safety and security," Seitz said in a news release. "In my ministry as a bishop on the border, I have seen how the aspirations and hard work of Dreamers have renewed everyone's faith in the American dream and the hope of reform that keeps families together and protects the vulnerable who seek refuge at the border."
Dylan Corbett, the executive director of the Hope Border Institute, said Seitz "takes the Gospel mandate to be in solidarity with the poor and vulnerable seriously."
"We continue to be inspired by his vision that border communities can lead the way in building a more just society and in getting the job done on immigration reform," Corbett added.
David Burge may be reached at 546-6126; dburge@elpasotimes.com; @dburge1962 on Twitter. Cindy Ramirez may be reached at 546-6151; cramirez@elpasotimes.com; @EPTCindyRamirez on Twitter.


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« Haredim Plan Mass Protest Against Girls' Grade School | Main | Haredi Rabbi Stands Next To Israeli War Memorial And Accuses Zionists Of Planning The Holocaust »
35 Orthodox Rabbis Sign Petition For Prison Reform
None of the rabbis who signed are Chabad or are linked to Sholom Rubashkin's defense fund, and few, if any, appear to be haredi.
Our prison system is broken and we need to fix it!
Join Uri L'Tzedek and over 35 Orthodox Rabbis to support prison reform!
America maintains the highest incarceration rate in the world (around 743 adults incarcerated per 100,000 population, 2009): overshadowing such countries as Russia, Iran, and Rwanda. Currently, 2.3 million Americans live behind bars.
Tax payers collectively pay $60 billion annually - the fastest-growing general fund expenditure in the United States right below Medicaid. The cost, both monetarily and socially, of prisons is growing exponentially, with contributing defects at every stage of the criminal justice system: draconian penalties on petty offenders, inadequate assistance of counsel, overcrowded prisons, failed rehabilitative programming, and underfunded reentry programs.
The system not only disproportionally jails minorities, but forces all prisoners into increasingly overcrowded prisons (on the state and federal level). At their worst, American prisons are 175% of their maximum capacity . The emotional and physical consequences are debilitating. For example, scholars show a higher rate of prison rape, one of the most traumatic and demeaning aspect of incarceration, which is a direct result of overcrowding. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy recently referred to the overcrowding in the penal system which has led to inadequate health care as "incompatible with the concept of human dignity."
The debilitating factors of the prison system result in a growing recidivism rate, another clear indicator that the system is falling short. Governor Bobby Jindal (R) of Louisiana recently said "We cannot say we are doing everything we can to keep our communities and our families safe if we are not addressing the high rate at which offenders are becoming repeat criminals." Rehabilitation programs are failing as more than half of all released prisoners re-enter the system within three years.
America must reform its rehabilitation programs in order to cultivate productive members of society and to reverse the dangerous cycles of violence and recidivism. Millions of non-violent criminals are becoming violent in the system and this is the cycle we must stop.
Our incarceration system is not just failing the people behind bars or even those at risk, but it is failing the American people, our community and our society.
Proper prison conditions, rehabilitation, and re-entry support, including funding vocational programs, increasing transitional living, and restoring voting rights, will benefit prisoners and the American public.
Our prison system is broken. We need to fix it.
Jewish Tradition
The Torah teaches that all people are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and must be treated with dignity: even sinners and criminals have inalienable rights. The Prophets demand that we act as advocates for the vulnerable: those locked away and silenced in dark places. Yet our current system doesn't honor this dignity with inhumane treatment of prisoners including solitary confinement, prison rape, torture, and the dearth of growth opportunities.
The Jewish tradition, through the seven Noahide laws, makes the establishment of systems of justice a fundamental human responsibility of every society. Further, Jewish law supports society taking steps to protect itself from those who harm others and yet it also mandates that even when punishments are called for that these are to be carried out in ways that protect the full dignity of the individual.
Jewish tradition has two effective models for embracing rehabilitation with criminals: an indentured servitude and a city of refuge. The Talmud teaches that a master must preserve the dignity of an indentured servant while he repairs his debt (Pesachim 88b). The worker remains in society, in a family, and in an apprenticeship to be prepared to return as a responsible citizen.
The Ir haMiklat (city of refuge) is another model found in the Torah (Numbers 35) that promotes rehabilitation. It is a city of refuge where people who have unintentionally killed (different than our situation today) may flee and live in a protected community operating in almost all ways like a normal city including specific teachers (Levites). Individuals can continue to learn and grow as productive members of society because the protected community operates as a fully functioning city.
The prison system in America today does not operate by standards that are condoned by the Torah. Further the criminal justice system neither honors the dignity of the prisoner nor makes our society safer. It does not make sense to spend so much of our tax money on a system that does not promote justice and fails to rehabilitate former offenders or make society safer.
Jewish wisdom teaches that "it is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it" (Pirkei Avot 2:16). Impactful change begins with simple, but powerful steps. A growing coalition of activists, faith leaders and politicians are currently dedicated to repairing the broken system.
Reparation can only occur with a basic understanding of the problem. To create change within the prison system, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has recently introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2011 (N.C.J.A.), an exceptional initiative, which Jews should support. This bill will create a bipartisan commission to study the United States criminal justice system and offer concrete recommendations to combat its imbalances and injustices. This bill has already attracted broad support, from over 150 civil rights, criminal justice, community and faith-based organizations, as well as the National Sheriff's Association, National Fraternal Order of Police, International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition, and International Union of Police Associations.
Research and thorough analysis of the problem is a first step to addressing this crisis. But more is needed. We must demand that our elected officials in Congress and the Senate prioritize reforming the prison system by investing more in rehabilitation programs, security in prisons, and re-entry programs. This will reduce the recidivism rate. We can spend less money and make the system more safe, effective, and dignified. The right to health, education, and protection and other basic rights must be upheld for all Americans.
Jewish Leaders Take Action
Jewish leadership supports prison reform and calls upon Congress and the Senate to support the National Criminal Justice Commission Act to merely move forward with a comprehensive study of the prison system.
The following Orthodox Rabbis and Jewish leaders call upon the Jewish community to sign this letter of solidarity. Supporters of this statement also commit to speaking publicly about criminal justice and prison reform (especially if possible on Parshat Vayeshev as part of a national education campaign), contacting Congress to create change, visiting correctional facilities when possible, and considering hiring former prisoners in order to aid their re-entry into society. We also express our public gratitude to all those who serve the criminal justice system to make our society more just and safe.
With Blessings of Peace,
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, Uri L'Tzedek, Founder & President, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Ari Weiss, Uri L'Tzedek, Director, NY, NY
Rabbi Jason Herman, International Rabbinic Fellowship, Executive Director, NY, NY
Rabbi Hyim Shafner, Bais Abraham Congregation, Saint Louis, MO
Rabbi Avi Weiss, Founder & President, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, NY, NY
Rabbi Zev Farber, Aitzim (Atlanta Institute of Torah and Zionism), Founder, Atlanta, GA
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, Jewish Life Network, Past President & CLAL:National Jewish Center for
Learning and Leadership, Past President, NY, NY
Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, B'nai David-Judea, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Marc Angel, Founder & Director, Institute for Jewish Ideas & Ideals, NY, NY
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, Ohev Sholom: The National Synagogue, Washington D.C.
Rabbi Naftali Citron, Carlebach Shul, NY, NY
Rabbi Uri Topolosky, Beth Israel, New Orleans, LA
Rabbi Saul Strosberg, Senior Rabbi, Congregation Sherith Israel, Nashville, TN
Rabbi David Jaffe, Gann Academy, Mashgiach Ruchani and Kirva Institute, Dean, Boston, MA
Rabbi Aaron Frank, Kehilat Netivot Shalom, Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, High School Principal, Baltimore, MA
Rabbi Yitzchok Adler, Beth David Synagogue, West Hartford, CT
Rabbi Ben Greenberg, Jewish Chaplain of Harvard University & Orthodox Rabbi of Harvard Hillel, Cambridge, MA
Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro, Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Congregation, Prison Chaplain at Baltimore County Detention Center, Baltimore, MD
Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, Beth Tfiloh Congregation, Baltimore, MY
Rabbi Ari Leubitz, Shalhevet High School, Judaic Studies Principal, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Seth Winberg, Assistant Director, University of Michigan Hillel, Ann Arbor, MI
Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld, Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh, Portland, Maine
Rabbi Kenneth Stein, Teaneck, NJ
Rabbi Josh Feigelson, Evanston, IL
Rabbi Daniel Levitt - Assistant Rabbi, Congregation Sherith Israel, Nashville, TN
Rabbi Maurice Appelbaum, Congregation Ahavas Israel, Brooklyn, NY
Rabbi Yechiel Hoffman, Executive Director, LimmudLA, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Aaron Finkelstein, The Prospect Heights Shul, Brooklyn, NY
Rabbi Zachary Truboff, Cedar Road Synagogue, Cleveland, Ohio
Rabbi Daniel Smokler, Senior Jewish Educator, NYU Hillel, NY, NY
Rabbi Dr. Doniel Z. Kramer, Brooklyn, NY
Rabbi Avi Finegold, Chicago, IL
Rabbi Mike Schultz, Kehilat Ohel Avraham
Rabbi Benjamin Berger, Senior Jewish Educator, Ohio State University Hillel, Columbus, OH
Rabbi Seth Braunstein, Director of Religious Experience, Carmel Academy, Greenwich, CT
Rabbi Akiva Dovid Weiss, OU-JLIC Rabbi, Rutgers Hillel, Rutgers University
Please consider signing this petition in support of these courageous Orthodox leaders addressing one of the greatest human rights crises of our time!
To sign, click here.
[Hat Tip: Reb Yudel.]
Posted at 10:54 AM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim, Hessed, Kosher Business?, Kosher Scandal, MO & Chardal | Permalink


Lord of the Fries is the purveyor of the best fries you will ever try, with a side of burgers, hot dogs and munch boxes that Australia finds itself craving weekly.
The idea was born from late night snack excursions in 2004 where founders, Mark and Mandy, met while living in Taiwan. Their love of fries (and each other) drew them closer while their conscience to help build a better world led them to look for alternative solutions to the chemical and beef-tallow-laden options on the market. With Mark's brother Sam, a former animator, hopping on the bandwagon, Lord of the Fries, an ethical fast food business, was born.
Lord of the Fries first hit the streets as a food truck in 2004 (pre-hipster uprising) and continue to deliver the ultimate fries and sauces, along with award-winning burgers, hot dogs and sides through their nine bricks and mortar takeaway and sit-down stores across Melbourne and Sydney.
Based on their love of the mighty french fry, food made with love, not animals and a passion for the environment, the Lord's offering is all-inclusive with a 100% vegetarian menu. Lord of the Fries source local where possible and the menu includes low gluten, Halal, Kosher and vegan fare that will satisfy even the most carnivorous of stomachs.
The Lord's fries, including Classic, Chunky, Sweet Potato and Shoe String, are made with fresh potatoes sourced seasonally and fried in the best oil you can buy, free from chemicals, preservatives and animal products.
And boy they are good. Crispy, delicious and the sauces…oh, the sauces.
Some have called them 'taste freedom fighters'; Lord of the Fries is on the frontline proving how delicious veggie food can be.
The Lord loves the people, the animals and the planet and regularly gives to like-minded charities and not-for-profits including Edgars Mission, Animals Australia and the Sea Shepherd.
With plans to expand with new openings in Perth and Parramatta this year, and launches slated for Queensland and Asia as well, the Lords are on a mission to help the world eat better and to introduce friends, local and abroad, to more sustainable food options.
This Wednesday is National Fry Day. To celebrate, Lord of the Fries will be giving away free fries for one hour to anyone craving some crispy, golden deliciousness.
What: Lord of the Fries are celebrating National French Fry day with FREE FRIES for one hour. Between 1-2pm, customers can grab a kids classic fries and any classic sauce on the house.
When: Wednesday 13th July, 2016 from 1.00pm – 2.00pm. Grab a lunch time snack on the Lords and satisfy all your fry-cravings on National Fry Day.


text:
Jonathan Griffin
Criticism and essays on art and culture
David Hammons
Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles
'David Hammons', 2019, exhibition view. © David Hammons; courtesy: the artist and Hauser & Wirth; photograph: Fredrik Nilsen Studio
Just inside one suite of galleries at Hauser & Wirth is a small display of material related to Ornette Coleman, the late saxophonist and free jazz innovator to whom David Hammons has dedicated the largest survey of his work to date and the first in Los Angeles for 45 years. 'It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something,' said Coleman, who died in 2015. Read the rest of this entry »
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas
Sterling Ruby, The Cup, 2013, foam, urethane, wood and spray paint, 2.3 × 2.9 × 2.2 m. Courtesy: the artist; photograph: Robert Wedemeyer
The Nasher Sculpture Center is, by many metrics, something of a paradise for art. Designed by Renzo Piano, the building's travertine walls and barrelvaulted glass ceilings provide a warm, light-filled setting for expensive objects made of steel, stone, wood and bronze. A graceful garden, designed by Peter Walker, is home to sculptures by Pablo Picasso, Anthony Caro and Alexander Calder. Read the rest of this entry »
D'Ette Nogle
Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles
D'Ette Nogle, D'Ette Nogle (installation view) (2019). Image courtesy of the artist, Public Storage, and Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles.
It's easy to forget how tranquillisingly reassuring the standard commercial gallery format is until you are obliged to seek out exhibitions in other settings. D'Ette Nogle's exhibition, titled D'Ette Nogle 2019, is mounted not in the not-yet-refurbished 1952 Paul Revere Williams-designed modernist villa that will soon be Hannah Hoffman's new home, but in a public storage facility down the street. Access is via the loading bay, then up an unlit stairway. The exhibition is by appointment only, and on my visit, several other viewers shuffle uncertainly through a succession of four storage units separated by dim corridors of padlocked doors. It is like visiting a jail for art.
Darren Bader
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Darren Bader, 'character limit', installation view, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
How much of Darren Bader's art do we need in the world? The world, after all, is already full of the kinds of objects that Bader brings into his exhibitions: art, words, images, personalities, ideas. Its very fullness is arguably the condition that Bader's work both critiques and thrives on. "The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more," Douglas Huebler famously wrote in 1970. The question of whether Bader is adding more objects to the world depends on whether you consider two existing objects placed together to constitute a new object, or just a reconstitution of what was already there. It also depends on whether you consider a near facsimile of an existing object to be a new object. It depends—crucially—on whether an object can consist of language alone. Read the rest of this entry »
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Manny Farber, Cézanne avait écrit (1986). Oil on board, 72 x 72 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Quint Gallery, San Diego
Manny Farber is not an obvious artist around whom to structure an exhibition. A painter of still lives known primarily as a film critic, Farber left New York in 1970 to teach painting at the University of California, San Diego. Once there, he also picked up a course on the history of film, which suited him better, and ended up influencing a generation of visual artists, many of whom still reside in Southern California. He died in 2008. Read the rest of this entry »
Lari Pittman
Left: Portrait of a Textile (Damask), 2018, Cel-vinyl, spray enamel on canvas over wood panel 81 x 70 x 2 inches Right: Portrait of a Human (Pathos, Ethos, Logos, Kairos #14), 2018, Cel vinyl and spray paint over linen mounted on wood panel, 28 5/8 x 24 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches Courtesy: Regen Projects
Since he began exhibiting them in the early 1980s, Lari Pittman's paintings have agitated for a principle of radical equivalency, a democratic (re)evaluation of all content as being equal in status (or, at least, potentially equal) once it manifests on the paper or canvas. In his exhibition 'Portraits of Textiles & Portraits of Humans', Pittman presents 12 pairs of paintings, one large and one small, one depicting an invented textile pattern and one an invented portrait. The show's conceit, in crude terms, is that a portrait of a face and a design for a fabric are interchangeable – that a pattern can be a portrait and, inversely, a face can be a pattern, or an arrangement of patterns, in the broadest sense of that word. Read the rest of this entry »
Robert Yarber
Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles
Robert Yarber, Error's Conquest, 1987, oil on canvas, 71 x 129.50 in
What I would give for a time machine that could transport me back to Venice, Italy, in the summer of 1984. That year, at the Biennale, an exhibition titled Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained: American Visions of the New Decade had been commissioned for the United States Pavilion by the New Museum's firebrand director, Marcia Tucker. Along with figurative painters such as Charles Garabedian, Roger Brown, Judith Linhares, and the Reverend Howard Finster, it included a young Oakland- based artist named Robert Yarber, whose nocturnal oil painting of a glowing motel pool and a couple falling past a high-rise window (Double Suicide, 1983) launched him into the public eye.
Per Proscenia
JOAN, Los Angeles
Sandra Vista, Margarita Iowa, 1985, oil on unstretched canvas, 60 1/2 x 45 1/4 inches, courtesy of the artist
When people talk of theatricality in art, typically they mean the notional 'stage presence' that Michael Fried ascribed to minimalist art in 1967, rather than the hot lights, heavy blackout curtains and uncomfortable seating of actual theatres. Other times, theatricality alludes to a sense of contrivance coupled with a frontal mode of address: a structural dynamic rather than a dramatic tone. Read the rest of this entry »
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, George Jones Greeting the Newest Members of Heaven's Band, 2017
Not so much a city as an unevenly populated, multi-centered megalopolis, and not so much a year as a point in an escalating concatenation of national and global crises, there might seem to be no possible way to get "Made in L.A. 2018" right. Add to that the divisions within LA's art community that mirror many of the historically entrenched divisions within the city itself—between east and west, north and south, white and non-white, gentrified and gentrifying, young and no longer young, left and far left. If artists, as "Made in L.A. 2018" curators Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale write, are "some of our most active citizens," then biennial curators might be something akin to well-intentioned politicians, expected to represent a plurality of impassioned positions while trying also to retain sight of their own. Read the rest of this entry »
François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles
Yoshua Okón, Oracle, 2015, courtesy François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles
Despite the dismaying evidence of recent political discourse in the US, it is still hard to believe that people like this actually exist. In Yoshua Okón's two-channel video installation Oracle (all works 2015), we are bouncing across the Arizona desert in a pickup truck with a portly man who looks a little like George H.W. Bush, and who interrupts his own demented diatribe about the consequences of messing with him with random bursts of one-handed automatic rifle fire, blindly out of the window. "Yeeee-haw!" he whoops. Read the rest of this entry »
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Whether you like to grow your own food, are a regular at Farmers' Markets, or simply enjoy eating fresh, seasonal produce, Seasonal Sunday Lunch is for you!
Each season we set a date for lunch and we'd love for you to join in. It's as simple as holding or attending a lunch where all the ingredients on the menu are locally seasonal.
Lazy or raucous, casual or fancy, at home or out-and-about – it's really up to you.
Set the date We'll be holding our lunch around the middle of each season. We'd love for you to join us but if our date doesn't work for you simply set your own.
Invite your guests Sunday lunch is about kicking back and enjoying yourself, work out your guest list and send out the invites.
Plan your menu This is where the fun starts! 3 courses or 12 courses, 12pm or 3pm, a bbq, family style platters or even a huge brunch spread – do what makes you comfortable and happy.
Find out more about hosting a lunch here.
We'll be sharing our menus and recipes, great seasonal food resources and all sorts of other treats, let us know what happening on your seasonal table!
Don't forget to share your event on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even Pinterest.
There are some wonderful chefs embracing seasonal and sustainable food, so if cooking isn't for you, you can still enjoy a Seasonal Sunday Lunch!
Whether you are booking for a group of friends or want to be surprised by your table-mates once you arrive we have an event for you. All of our participating restaurants have created menus specifically for their Seasonal Sunday Lunch events.
Check to see if there is a restaurant or cafe in your area that is part of the Seasonal Sunday Lunch community.
We are always looking for great chefs and restaurants to partner with Seasonal Sunday Lunch, recommend a restaurant and we'll get right on it.


text:
Magnificent re-telling of the Luddite Rising speaks to us today.
What's in a name? For most of us, our contribution to time's rolling credits will be in the briefest of acknowledgements - two dates and a handful of syllables in between - solely of interest to lexicographers and genealogists. Those of us who are remembered by the official records and narratives for impacting on key events more forcefully, remain vulnerable to being maligned and misrepresented, by what E.P.Thompson described as 'the enormous condescension of posterity'. None more so than the Luddites, most of whom are seemingly anonymous figures in the historical record, yet whose collective name is hurled accusingly a thousand times a day across offices and the airwaves, by the inheritors of a misapprehension; that the Risings of 1812/13 in the North of England were largely about technology.
Those picking up Georgina Hutchison's third historical novel may also share this assumption, yet be drawn to its narrative by a nagging echo of their own political unconscious; that the actions of this collection of nascent class fighters, counted for something profounder than 'just' the replacement of the skilled cropping trade by the new mechanised cutting frames. Somehow, we sense that this seductive teleology of 'progress' is really a chimera for the exercising of political power and control; we can see how technologies carry the values of those who design and fund them; why there seems little difference between the hated mill owners of the early nineteenth century and the rogue multinational corporations parachuting their enterprises into vulnerable minds and societies today.
Representations of the Luddites have come a long way from the thugs of Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, and in recent decades this is because of intellectual and methodological shifts in how we look at history. Thanks to the emergence of the working class histories, the feminist and cultural studies perspectives of the generation of E.P.Thompson, we now take a more nuanced and anthropological reading of what he described as 'the lost causes of the people of the Industrial Revolution', in order to 'discover insights into social evils which we have yet to cure.' (i) This is now a default position of many writing historical fiction.
Under the Canopy of Heaven is a magnificent evocation of these truths; a complex, engaging and heart-wrenching exegesis of people trying to retain their humanity whilst fighting for their lives and communities. Seen largely through the eyes of the leader of the Huddersfield Luddites, George Mellor, a charismatic inventive and passionate young cropper – this is a riveting, sometimes almost hypnotic read – which aims (in the author's framing words) to elucidate 'their plight, purpose, bravery and continuing relevance'. Given that Mellor almost certainly assassinated mill owner William Horsfall, after the Luddite campaign was met with deadly force at Rawfolds Mill in April 1812 and the clampdowns and military occupations began, this puts the reader in an interesting ethical position as to how one acts in what might be seen as a guerrilla war situation.(ii)
As with Hutchison's earlier, more female-centred histories – Cartimandua (2012); Daughters of Lac (2014) - the authenticity of time, place and cosmology is utterly convincing, with the accessible period dialect conveying this very male environment in all of its strange idiosyncrasies. It is a time of recession, massive infant mortality, industrial strife throughout England, and the continuing political fallout from the imaginative hold which the French Revolution has over people of all classes. Military and political leaders in London want to suppress any industrial action as brutally as possible, which is why Parliament passes legislation making machine breaking a capital crime (something Lord Byron famously spoke out in opposition to). There is even a comet in the sky at the time as an omen, and the unrelated shooting of the Prime Minister Spencer Perceval hardly helps the Luddite cause.
If you are coming to this book hazy on the key events of 1812/3, then this is as fine an introduction to how the Huddersfield croppers drew the full force of government wrath, as the now classic social history Liberty or Death by Lesley Kipling and Alan Brooke, to whom the author pays plenty of homage. (iii) With good reason, for the legacy of the Luddites is a rich area of ongoing historical research, exemplified by Hutchison's own work on the family trees of those who hung at York in January of 1813 and how they were remembered over the generations.
The harsh realities of the struggle absorbs us right away, in its opening view from the gallows, as Mellor and his two Luddite friends, William Thorp and Tom Smith contemplate the paths that brought them there. Framing the book this way not only gives the narrative an almost unbearable dramatic tension – as we flick backwards and forwards to reveal the initial successes, the miscalculations, the betrayals – but it serves to underpin something much more profound than the actual tactics: the power of friendship, family, and community, rooted in the unique geographies of the Pennine valleys.
This is significant: one of Hutchison's main themes in her fiction is 'invasion', centred on the protagonist's preparation for impending military and political onslaught; where the inner world of those in the eye of the storm is revealed and tested along with their personal friendships and relationships. Here the foe is more subtle, as the trust of communities in each other is slowly stretched by fear of Luddite association, the temptations of being bought off, or how those who play both sides will act. In such circumstances, one is never sure whether one is seeing the whites of an enemy's eyes, as one jostles for position and air in the claustrophobic sweaty throngs of alehouse meetings or the cropping shops of Huddersfield. Many of the situations here are universal – the politics of division and infiltration – but knowing how we would react to a situation where a word or accusatory finger may save our lives (and our families from penury) is quite another.
Yet, for many months of 1812 no one broke ranks, and those who had been 'twissed' into the Luddite Oath (where the book's title originates) protected by the sense of tight social unity. Here the landscape not only aids the struggle – as frame breakers slip away through the maze of darkened snickets and cloughs, or march 'after hours' across moors in their training 'divisions' - but offers respite. Amidst all of the cacophony of workshops and taverns and shattering frames, there are moments of stillness and transcendence, as the reader is afforded a glimpse into the emotional terrain of Mellor's mind, as he sits and watches the sun go down from Castle Hill above the town, or takes a walk with a potential lover through the turning autumn trees, wondering about the life he might have lived beyond the paths which he has taken.
Hutchison is good at these imaginings in her work, and relaxes out from the clipped terseness of describing a meeting or an action into more speculative metaphysical prose, befitting of the Romantics who were penning their views of nature in those very years. Chiefly, this is through Mellor's Methodism, as he tries to reconcile his faith with the lack of politics in the sermons he hears, searching for a balance between the light he yearns for his world and the apparent absence of a just God. Such ideas may be familiar to us as inheritors of the legacies of Tom Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft, but there are also reminders here of the strangeness of the world of the croppers; where in a largely non-tactile macho culture, the power of the touch of a hand (from a family member or friend) is seemingly more sensual than anything shared in the arms of a pub prostitute. Such a disparity is indicative of the believability of this fictional universe, as are the moments of Mellor brawling or poising (kicking people who are in your way) or the helpless fury, depression and guilt he feels about the death of his friend John Booth at Rawfolds.
As for the ethics of targeting the mill owners directly, no doubt some readers may find the relative indifference conveyed here of the shooting of Horsfall a bit shocking; yet Hutchison is smart enough to write this as a military ambush in a war which has come to the croppers on many fronts. From Mellor's viewpoint, his associates have been killed, others tortured by the investigating authorities, women have been assaulted by occupying forces, and there is no sign of the kind of accommodation which had occurred in Leeds the decade before, as union activists played the mill owners successfully and peacefully (against each other) to delay attempts to deskill a variety of other artisan trades. Horsfall himself had boasted that he would ride up to his saddle girths in Luddite blood.
In a speech on the bi-centenary of the hangings, anarchist historian Alan Brooke noted that the Left have been careful not to turn Mellor into a martyr (iv) and our fictional 'George' does not appear to contradict this. There are of course plenty of romanticisations of the Luddites, particularly in song, but more interesting perhaps are cultural rememberings which occur less obviously. In her companion article to the novel, 'Dead Ends?: The Quiet Legacy of the Hanged Luddites', Hutchison's genealogical research on the families (v) shows how the names of the convicted were passed on, especially that of William Thorp. This underscores the views of other historians that the families of those who had died at York (there were 17 in all, most of them for the attack on Rawfolds Mill) were not shunned – unlike those who turned King's Evidence – but absorbed back into a strong community that had only been temporarily fractured by the military occupation.
Why we remember the Luddites so vividly is because of their ongoing relevance. The wider narratives have not changed - the struggle around deskilling and control, of communities sacrificed for money, of technologies dehumanising the individual – some of which are more pervasive than ever. The bi-centennial celebrations in 2012/3 yielded considerable international interest, finding the space to debate the Luddite Rising in terms of the politics of genetics and artificial intelligence. Now, as other early Industrial Revolution era movements, such as the Cragg Vale Coiners, are receiving a re-evaluation, a novel such as Under the Canopy of Heaven is indicative of how we can write histories of the present even as we empathise with the cold truths of the struggles of the past.
Some of those nineteenth century insurrections may indeed have been lost causes, but in our contemporary appreciation of small scale technologies, the artisan, the interconnections of ecology and democracy, we continue to breathe the same air of the possible and the just. Sometimes, in the whirl of the information age, we need the storyteller, the song writer, the poet, to connect us to the realities of lives already lived; to call out those names, light up those dark wretched moments with a hope that many only saw momentary glimmers of in their travails. 'Lads of high renown' indeed.
(i) Thompson, E.P. (1980) Preface to The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, Penguin); originally published 1963: p12.
(ii) Many of the actions described in the book take place only within a few miles of each other, yet the varying terrain – often covered in darkness – made these significant endeavours even by fit men at the end of a day's work. Any second edition would benefit from a period map (or web-link) which provides some detail of the topography to those unfamiliar with West Yorkshire.
(iii) Brooke, A. & Kipling L. (2012) Liberty or Death: Radicals, Republicans and Luddites 1793-1823. Huddersfield: Huddersfield Local History Society (original edition 1993).
(iv) Brooke, A. (2013) 'The Luddite Legacy' talk given at York Guildhall, January 19th, reproduced at https://undergroundhistories.wordpres... (accessed 11/9/2018).
(v) Hutchison, G. (2018) 'Dead Ends?: The Quiet Legacy of the Hanged Luddites' in Journal of Huddersfield & District Family History Society, V 31 no 4 July. p26-29. see www.hdfhs.org.uk
NB: On the Cragg Vale Coiners - see Benjamin Myers (2017) The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury (originally Blue Moose)


With all of the tour hubbub going on in the fall, sometimes it's nice to kill two birds with one stone. This particular concert merged the current Sonata Arctica and Dark Tranquillity tours, both great packages on their own, into one festival-esque billing. An early start (5PM), particularly for a Tuesday (and Election Day no less), with seven national acts in the billing meant that it was going to be a memorable one for certain.
Unfortunately, the only sounds of Starkill I was able to witness were through the wall during an interview with Dark Tranquillity, but with any luck the band will be back around sooner than later (see Starkill interview here). With interviewing out of the way, the first band I was able to catch was that of Enforcer, who brought plenty of energy to the unfortunately small turn out at that point in the evening. Fun, classic metal riffage alongside plenty of movement and crowd interaction (including a little sing-a-long at one point) made their short set one to remember and included "From Beyond" and "Take Me Out of This Nightmare," among a few more.
Next up was Omnium Gatherum, whom I've managed to miss a few times at this point. They played an impressive set, expectedly focusing on newer material given the set time. A good thing though, as their last two albums have been exceptional releases. "The Pit," "New Dynamic," and "Skyline" all made a noticeable impression, with the band pouring everything that had into it with genuine class – vocalist Jukka Pelkonen himself giving off an infectious smile throughout as well as flashing the OG symbol (a clever use of sideways metal horns) while the rest of the band played their melodeath faire to a tee with a bounty of flair. Would love to catch a longer set from these guys!
Going back more than ten years to the last time that I caught Leaves' Eyes, the biggest thing that was kept in the memory bank was how much fun they were live. This is the first North American tour with new female vocalist Elina Siirala, and she more than proved her worth with some stunning vocal work and enigmatic presence over the set. Growler Alex Krull is a true worker on the stage, almost constantly going around to get the audience involved – and it works like a charm. Their epic symphonic metal is simply a joy when hearing it live – it's hard not to smile (and headbang along). Much of the all-too-short set consisted of the new Fires in the North EP, but a few older tracks mixed in (such as "My Destiny") left a lasting impression as well. With any luck, perhaps we'll see a true headlining run in the future.
In sheer contrast to Leaves' Eyes, Swallow the Sun brought total doom and darkness to the stage. Thick, hypnotic riffs filled the air as they played "10 Silver Bullets." A killer start, which lead to other tracks like "Hate, Lead the Way!" and "Cathedral Walls" rounding out a number of different faces to the act. Swallow the Sun sounds even more dense live on stage than on disc, and the near-hypnotic riffs and Katatonia-esque melodies captured the crowd from the beginning. There was a definite change in atmosphere from the preceding bands, but Swallow the Sun capture their own essence, which is equally enthralling.
Despite the double-billing night, Dark Tranquillity still had about a 70-minute set to engage the crowd. Much of this focus was directed at the recently released (and excellent) Atoma, with "Force of Hand," "Forward Momentum," "Atoma," "Neutrality," and "The Pitiless" all getting a chance to shine (particularly "Atoma" – wow). But the band also had some wise choices from their lengthy past, though the oldest track was the sing-a-long friendly "Therein," but was an absolute highlight of their set. Additionally, "The Treason Wall," "Monochromatic Stains," "The Wonders at Your Feet," "Final Resistance," and "The Lesser Faith" provided a nice mix of cuts from the last 15-ish years, among a few more.
Strange to see Dark Tranquillity without Niklas Sundin (who is sitting this tour out) or Martin Henriksson (who resigned to more of a band management position), but the band more than held their own. Frontman Mikael Stanne's frequent smiles (admittedly lots of smiles for a metal show tonight – not a bad thing in the least) and energetic interactions, alongside the remainder of the band made for an infectious feeling. The crowd by this point still being only about 150-ish people (again, Tuesday night and Election Day coming into play presumably), Dark Tranquillity gave it 110% and played like they were in front of ten times that number. Over 25 years in the bag and Dark Tranquillity is as impressive as they have been – continuing to show themselves to be the masters of melodeath that they are.
Not being huge into Sonata Arctica and fully aware of the 2.5 hour drive that awaited me (along with getting up early in the morning), I stayed only for a few songs into their set before making my way south once more. It was a different sort of feeling to their set, but the fans were enjoying it quite a bit, with vocalist Tommy Kakko incorporating the crowd from the beginning, with some group singing (complete with the lights aiming into the crowd). Surprisingly (or not so much, given upstate's penchant for death metal above all), a number of people from the small crowd left after Dark Tranquillity's set, but those who remained seemed quite happy with what Sonata was bringing forth.
Unfortunate for such a low draw for what could have easily been labeled as a European metal mini-festival (plus Starkill), but with the mid-week and election day worries, the crowd present witnessed some excellent metal from beginning to end, and both tours are of the can't miss mentality in this crowded late fall season.


As it rebranded from Land Securities to Landsec, the UK's largest commercial property company needed a streamlined and impactful digital footprint to being its new 'everything is experience' philosophy to life.
The challenge to MSL involved merging three disparate websites into one immersive experience and rewriting the unwritten rules of the familiar corporate website. Finesse in design and excellence in user experience were essential in meeting the audiences' needs and expectations.
The first and most vital stage of this process was to simplify the navigation and structure. This began with a visually engaging and interactive digital experience to challenge the traditional corporate communications approach.
There are many ways to tell stories, and MSL chose to tell Landsec's in a variety of different ways across the website, making use of video, photo and long-form copy to keep the users' experience engaging and explorative.
The result is Landsec.com: a dynamic online focal point that illustrates Landsec's past and explores the brand's future.
More on this? Say hello.