text:
towards a radical multiracial/ethnic movement
Naming a Movement
Bill of Rights for Mixed People
Syllabus 2011
Waking from Mixed Dreams
Let me begin, if I may, by introducing this rather belated post with the powerful words of some scholars, poets, writers, and activists to set our scene:
"American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it--and that it belongs to him [the black child]. I would teach him that he doesn't have to be bound by the expediencies of any given administration, any given policy, any given morality; that he has the right and the necessity to examine everything." (James Baldwin)
"It is in this space that we will find those words with which we can speak of Ourselves and Others. And by exploring this hybridity, this 'Third Space', we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves." (Homi Bhabha)
" The effect of mass migrations has been the creation of radically new types of human being... people
who have been obliged to define themselves--because they are so defined by others-- by their otherness; people in whose deepest selves strange fusions occur, unprecedented unions between what they were and where they find themselves... To see things plainly you have to cross a frontier." (Salman Rushdie "Imaginary Homelands")
To survive the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads. (Gloria Anzaldua- full poem at the end of the post)
I've been feeling a lot like an oyster these past couple of years, working out, mulling over, rubbing painfully up against a little grain-- an irritant-- that made its way suddenly into my pristine little shell (although, perhaps, it had always been there). Now bear with me, I promise this image will (hopefully) make sense by the end of this.
I began this blog back in 2009 as a response to a very particular moment in our ever-shifting, ever-challenging social terrain in the U.S. That moment was what I liked to call the time "We-Drank-That-Postracial-KoolAid-And-Almost-Died". It was a time of short-lived, but heady hope for a new America in the wake of President Obama's historic 2008 win. To that point, there are actually some really interesting reflections out there on how the visceral reaction against the post-racial moment (of which I was very much a part) in its fervor actually obscured the possibility that a particularly important and valid desire was being articulated. A desire, that perhaps, prematurely and albeit naively, declared itself into a celebratory daze despite all obvious evidence to the contrary.
Yet, arguably, the desire itself was not bad, wrong, destructive, oppressive, or misguided at all. Beneath all the la-dee-dah-ing, the desire was simple and not altogether new: a society in which race was not a thing that divided, was not a thing that subsumed everything else you were, where processes of racialization were obsolete because that power that fed on it with such insatiable voracity was at long last toppled. In this light, was it not an articulation of a desire for a "postracial" future when MLK in his now iconic (albeit much-coopted) speech said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."? We hardened social justice critics, often eschew the I Have A Dream speech of MLK's for his more radical and his more incisive ones in warranted resistance to the normalization
and domestication of MLK and the 1960s civil rights struggle more generally. But that dream he spoke of remains, as ever, a passionate one, a live one, an aspirational one, a good and valid one. Of course, the getting there is what thwarts us every time. We look for the messianic leaders, or the catch-all social-political dictums and prescriptions of colorblindness or multiculturalism, or the recognition and celebration of certain bodies or identities (like the multi-babies of the world) as panacea to fix things or just erase them from memory altogether. Meanwhile, a tormented America cries out silently at every turn beneath the cracked and rotted veneer of unity and diversity for racial redemption, a deliverance from the racial sins upon which it was built. But the American power recalcitrant, refuses to do the work and to understand deeply and profoundly that that road to redemption is long, arduous, and very possibly, never-ending. And that that road cannot and will not be crossed on the already broken backs of people of color. But the desire for "deliverance" in the post- civil rights era, as was so crudely and cursorily expressed through postracial rhetoric as was colorblindness before it, is in itself something that we should continue to grapple with and continue to hold our society and ourselves accountable for.
In the often defensive and critical stance taken to make sure we STAY WOKE, perhaps, we're forgetting to give dreams a chance, and most importantly, to remain creative and imaginative. I've been starting to think that our spit-fire social media world has made our thoughts and our politics more reactive than anything else and for that reason, I retreated into my shell for well over a year to continue reflecting and thinking without necessarily feeling the need to send those half-baked strands and threads into the cyber ether. This post is more a reflection on a picture (or to follow my oyster metaphor, a pearl-- an ugly lumpy one at that) that is slowly beginning to emerge from some of my thinking on multiracial issues over the past year. Still half-baked, but ready for some preliminary putting out there.
The model upon which I developed much of the early blog content and the course I taught in Oberlin on multiracial identities relied heavily on the social justice frameworks which have been my bread and butter for over a decade now. Frameworks, which were based on the kind of powerful identity politics that shaped the social justice movements of people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community. My project, at its tender beating heart, was and continues to be a political one. Identity politics was the tool I had at hand-- one which I felt had been useful in bringing together, developing critical consciousness, and mobilizing communities. Yet, in my passion for developing a kind of radical or "critical" mixed-race understanding, I failed to ask, what for? Of course, I knew what for-- multi people needed to come together, needed to know "'bout themselves" and how we fit into the very salient racial histories and realities in America. But in declaring this, I inadvertently toed a very tenuous line that left me at risk of reducing and essentializing multi identities and experiences. My project was at once personal but also political. The personal project needed to be about fluidity and empowering self-identification, and a recognition of those third and fourth and fifth spaces we occupy as mixed folk. But the political one needed to be about critical consciousness building and understanding structures of power and oppression and inequality and how we were implicated in those systems. Reconciling those two is not an entirely easy task when multiracial people are so diverse and when the world is calling upon some yet nascent multiracial self-hood to represent itself in all its pretty glossy glory on the one hand, yet on another, being told in not so many words that it needs to take several seats 'cause folk is still out here struggling.
Which brings me to the second reason I began this blog: to address what I saw as the increasing cooptation of multiracial people and identities to usher in the aforementioned post-racial era. I wanted to figure out how to temper that proclivity to make multiracial people the poster children for some brave new world. I felt that the multiracial students I was working with were hungering for a history, a name, tools to express who they were. Similarly, I was beginning to feel that the multicultural politics that became standardized and institutionalized in schools, college campus', workplaces, and even (disturbingly) in corporate America were creating a kind of diversity complex that was wholly reductive, essentializing, and even in more radical or resistant iterations of it, still grappling with how to account for the multitudes, the axes of difference, the intersections, and asymmetrical privileges and inequalities that all make up our social realities and identities. Why were all these categories or racial and ethnic differences so monolithic when the reality has always been far from that? These concerns prompted me to imagine that perhaps alongside the conversation of multiracial identities and experiences, we also needed to complicate and disrupt all these other categories that hem us in and make us recognizable or unrecognizable to ourselves, others, and the "state" writ large (and I evoke the state here, because identity politics as mobilized by social justice movements were every much about representation and the politics of recognition vis-a-vis state power as much as they were about creating community and building consciousness). And this worked in the context of higher education I was in. The course I taught and the work that emerged from it was really amazing. But, I soon left the hallowed halls of higher learning and perhaps it was then that I began to take note, however vaguely, of the little grain inside my shell.
The third reason I began this blog and the general project of writing and thinking about multiracial issues was one that was deeply personal and perhaps, not very obvious at the start. To the extent that I can (for my "story" is also shared by others whom I can't speak for), I've written here and there about my multi identity and what that's meant for me alongside my identities as a black woman. Being the nerd I am, I felt developing some educational material and critical thought for myself and others might help me make sense of who I am and again, the political implications of multi-ness.
I travelled to India for a year upon finding out about my birth story in my early twenties. That year was a trippy one for me and really complicated my thinking on race in ways that even years later I am still working out. Passing as I did for Indian and also realizing that my birth mother had actually never grown up in India, and instead identified much more with the southern African country in which she was raised, threw open so many issues about identity and origins, heritage, race, nation, and the complexities of migration that my personal history came to embody. People with whom I share my "whole" story are often amazed and encourage me to write a book or make a movie. Which is flattering, of course, but what I'm more invested in is demonstrating how unexceptional my story is. While the small details of it may be unique, the bigger themes are no different than so many other stories. And I think there is something important at stake in making stories like mine the norm instead of the exceptional, the Other, the spectacular. If our future is poised to recognize these "new" realities, perhaps, something important will be gained. I'm married to someone who identifies as multiracial and is Japanese and white-American. So while, that "multiracial" so called "new face" of America is being called into existence, he and I may inevitably be part of literally reproducing that future (as will the thousands of "new" families that are not only multiracial, but make up queer families, multi-religious and transnational families, etc. Indeed, the normative bounds of "family" are due to be disrupted and transformed). To be sure, imma need lots of reflection on raising African-Latino-Indian-Japanese-White-American children in a world and a society that's slow to catch up on changing realities in ways that are critical, meaningful, and committed to breaking down barriers instead of building them up sky-high. So, I take up these issues for myself but also for the family I might have and the world they might inherit.
I've been studying Migration Studies at the University of Oxford since October and living in the UK has been a strange and enlivening experience. I also left the States, in the wake of the killing of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, the latter who hailed from my hometown of Staten Island, NY. It's been strange being outside of the U.S. and coming to a place like Oxford, in particular, at a time in which communities back home have been taking to the streets and we just may be witnessing one of the biggest social movements in my short life-time. During this time, I've wondered what place my previous work and thinking on multiracial identities have when people of color are being killed in cold blood? That multi stuff, I keep thinking was for those other days, not these days when the sky seems to be falling and America is waking up with a massive lurching hangover from its postracial sleep. I feel like I need to put away my multiracial hat and throw myself full on into the "struggle" lest my loyalties be questioned-- but then I realize no one is questioning those so-called loyalties but me. I realize, that while I'm good at talking that big talk, I didn't escape entirely unharmed from all the pressures of thinking of black as a monolith-- a conception that with a new generation is steadily being challenged. So on good days, I consider that it still is a really important and worthy project and not just some pet project. That my approach to multiracial issues actually has some interesting co-valences with "queer" critique, insomuch as I'm calling for a disruption of the normative and raising political concerns and questions about how power and structures are implicated.
In many ways, I've felt like those black artists and intellectuals who had come to Europe at some pivotal point in their lives-- and how that distance from the racial saga of the U.S. meant that they could for the first time think, reflect, and confront that beast in distinct ways. At Oxford I've had to rethink identity politics and multiculturalism in an academic and socio-political context that has critiqued it and declared them "failed," and "dangerous groupism." With multiculturalism, that backlash has been the particular pet project of a growing conservative and extreme right governments against the social policies which many European nations happily adopted and institutionalized in the 80s and 90s. But the backlash, warranted or not, has been picked up and academics have offered new terms like "superdiversity" (Vervotec) which aim to get at what multiculturalism seemed to have missed-- the layers, the growing number of axes of difference people occupy and identify with. It's also been used as multicultural was, to describe new spatial realities, material practices, and zones of contact in global cities and elsewhere. Of course, the term superdiversity is not without its strong critiques. Chief among them, is how new is this really and what are the political implications-- will we start speaking of a superdiversity politics and to what extent can it resist cooptation (much like the multiracial movement in the U.S. to get more Census categories)? The mostly UK-based and academic-driven conversation on superdiversity is an interesting one and one that I think could have interesting reverberations if it does not fall prey to the same malaise of multiculturalism.
Frankly, far from enlightening, my thinking during my time in the UK has been (until recently) rather
muddled. While I organized a solidarity march for Ferguson and other activities to open up dialogue on race here at Oxford, it's also been a really trying time for me to see if my tools work-- if they are at all translatable and intelligible in a context like the UK (which may have more in common with the U.S. than it'll ever own up to). I've had to bring race into the space in ways I never had to before, in ways that have angered me, opened up old wounds, and left me feeling exposed, tired, and confused. I've had to talk about race to peers who, understandably, can't quite grasp its meaning from their diverse national backgrounds. Why would black lives matter here? I struggle with not wanting to practice American "cultural imperialism" and bring in these U.S. social justice frameworks that really actually don't fit. While still grappling with my belief that racism is globalized and that is a reality we need to acknowledge from outside our national bubbles. So I've started working with others on really important, albeit exhausting, process of making connections, provoking expansive analyses about the systemic and root causes of issues that may have different area codes and time zones, but actually beneath the surface really are very similar. The black lives matter message can be imagined internationally as a powerful call for us to reflect on who "matters" in the different places we call home.
I already see how the "Black Lives Matter" movement back home is perhaps marking a new and inspiring activism and politics of identity and social justice that is responsive to a complex, diverse, and multiply-situated reality. Started by a Nigerian woman and two queer black women, the organization Black Lives Matter and the mobilization of orgs like the Dream Defenders have fostered a desperately needed expansive analysis and understanding of the structures of state- sanctioned violence and racism in the U.S. and globally. It's reviving the kind of international black politics of Angela Davis, Malcolm X and others. They've also spoken about black struggles right along with women of color, queer and trans struggles, and class struggles. In the UK there was a critical time when "Black" was an identity taken up by South Asians and other racial and ethnic groups in a kind of collective politics. Further back in the day, during the time of the Haitian revolution and its foundation as the first black republic, all of those first citizens of Haiti (including white people, for indeed there were white people who took up the cause alongside the black revolutionaries) all claimed the identity "Black." This shows us that our activism and our politics can be "hybrid" and multiracial (and in fact most of the poc movements have been) and that we must always call upon ourselves to reimagine our politics of identity in creative and transgressive ways.
I've often felt like Ralph Ellison who wrote " I was taken very early
with a passion to link together all I loved within the Negro community and all those things I felt in the world which lay beyond." I've struggled over the years to figure out where to hang my political hat, where to draw those lines of my being in all those different spaces when I was being called upon to be just black, or just Latina, or just multi, or... just me. For the political is not the only thing that constitutes identity and belonging and I have sometimes lost sight of that.
I titled the blog and subsequent work, including the course at Oberlin "Mixed Dreams" and I seem to be waking up from that dream committed to seeing how some of those dreams can constitute a reality. There is really amazing work that's come out over the years in the "critical mixed-race studies" world, including DePaul's conference of the same name and the site Mixed Race Studies is always updated with compelling and important material. To the extent that wider society will pick things up and stop reproducing the same tired message about our multiracial future is yet to be seen. But these are indeed difficult, but exciting times to be doing a little dreaming.
So I'll keep working on that grain in my shell to see what dreams may yet come and what brave new futures we can create.
To Live in the Borderlands
Gloria Anzaldua
To live in the Borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra espanola
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps
while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
To live in the Borderlands means knowing
that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years,
is no longer speaking to you,
that mexicanas call you rajetas,
that denying the Anglo inside you
is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;
Cuando vives en la frontera
people walk through you, the wind steals your voice,
you're a burra, buey, scapegoat,
forerunner of a new race,
half and half - both woman and man, neither -
a new gender;
To live in the Borderlands means to
put chile in the borscht,
eat whole wheat tortillas,
speak tex-mex with a brooklyn accent;
be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints;
Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to
resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle,
the pull of the gun barrel,
the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;
In the Borderlands
you are the battleground
where enemies are kin to each other;
you are at home, a stranger,
the border disputes have been settled
the volley of shots have shattered the truce
you are wounded, lost in action
dead, fighting back;
To live in the Borderlands means
the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off
your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart
pound you pinch you roll you out
smelling like white bread but dead;
be a crossroads.
Posted by mixed dreamer at 5:38 PM
Kaitlin Smith February 27, 2015 at 7:04 AM
Hey Nikki-- I really enjoyed reading the complex and multifaceted narrative that you presented in this post. I particularly appreciate your statement toward the end, "For the political is not the only thing that constitutes identity and belonging..." as it reflects what has been, for me, an unfolding realization over the last six years, leading me to a personal and political orientation that I feel is marginalized within many activist discourses in the U.S. centered around racial politics. This live and unfolding orientation has found validation in a number of places including a book that I read a couple of years ago called The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture by black cultural theorist Kevin Quashie (http://www.amazon.com/The-Sovereignty-Quiet-Resistance-Culture/dp/0813553105). Though the title might seem anachronistic, particularly in light of the events that you highlight in your piece, I suspect that at least some of it may resonate with you given what you've written above. Though he articulates much of the unease that I began feeling toward the end of college and that you seem to be pointing to, it is not a position that I have encountered elsewhere in black, or related domains of, cultural theory. As a result, engaging with it, and with its author directly, has been a breath of fresh air.
Another dimension of this post that I particularly appreciate is your reflection that pressure surrounding "where" you hang your political hat seems to arise, primarily, through a kind of self-policing process rather than a set of external demands. Though it's obviously a complex matter due to the imbrication of individuals in community and society, I hope that there can be greater dialogue about the dynamics that you've highlighted within activist spaces (and perhaps there already is and I'm simply ignorant of it!).
I'm thinking that a blog entry that I wrote a while back might resonate with you: https://acreativeresponse.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/deconstructing-myself-to-death-or-when-essentialism-stops-being-strategic/ Though it felt somewhat embarrassing to me to unearth this blog project just now after not having glanced at it in so long and after undergoing certain changes in thinking and writing style, I think that it speaks to some of the concerns that you're raising and how I was conceptualizing "be[ing] a crossroads" at that moment.
Thanks so much for this great entry, Nikki, and I hope you're well on the other side of the pond!
ELsayed Osama November 17, 2017 at 11:35 AM
هل تريد الحصول على افضل خدمات التنظيف بالرياض نقدم لكم افضل شركات التنظيف بالرياض شركة ركن الاندلس الافضل الامثل فى الرياض لتقديم جميع خدمات لتنظيف بسعر مناسب وبشكل يناسب الجميع لمزيد من المعلوامات يرجى الدخول من خلال الرابط التالى شركة تنظيف بالرياض
لدينا ايضا شركاتاخر تقدم جميع خدمات التنظيف بالرياض اليكم اقدم وافضل شركات التنظيف فى الرياض اليكم الرابط الرئيسى لشركة لتحصل على المعلومات الكافية حولةالخدمة التى نقدمها وبعضروابطالخدماتالاخرى مثل شركة تنظيف بالرياض
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text:
Returning home from Minnesota
The family came out to meet the Grady Kane's at Dallas Love Field after they returned from Minnesota, June 1968. Front row (little ones) from left: Robert, Kathy, Patrick, Betsy (mostly hidden behind John), John, Andrew, Michael and Kelley. Back row from left: Shorty Giacomazzi, Bill, Cheryl G., Mary Clare, Cindy, Alma, Russ, Stevie Kennemer, and Myra.
Big crowd at Dallas Love Field after the Grady Kane family returned from Minnesota, June 1968. From left: Patrick, John, Stevie Kennemer, Robert, Michael, Russ and Kelley Kane.
John, Michael (cousin), Robert (cousin), Patrick and Kelley (cousin) Kane at Dallas Love Field after the Grady Kane family returned from Minnesota, June 1968.
The Bill and Grady Kane kids on Mother's Day 1971. Back from left to right: Michael, John, Robert and Kelley. Front: Andrew, back of Patrick's head, Betsy and Kathy. We're at Bill and Myra Kane's "Glasher House" outside of Denison, Texas.
Cousins John and Robert Kane on Mother's Day 1971. We're at Bill and Myra Kane's "Glasher House" outside of Denison, Texas.
Andrew, Patrick and Robert Kane on Mother's Day 1971. We're at Bill and Myra Kane's "Glasher House" outside of Denison, Texas.
Kelley, Patrick, Robert and Andrew Kane on Mother's Day 1971. We're at Bill and Myra Kane's "Glasher House" outside of Denison, Texas.
Kennemer Family Reunion
Robert, John and Michael Kane at the Kennemer family reunion, Garland, Texas, circa Summer 1971
We made a stop in Texas to visit family during our move cross country (a 1-1/2-year detail in Washington DC for Pat). Kathy was the gracious host for the gathering. It was great to see all of the family again and Sydney surely enjoyed being spoiled by everyone.
2005 Kane Family Reunion

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Animation Academy explores the unique world of animation, from traditional hand-drawn cels to exciting breakthroughs in stop-motion and CGI. Stage Nine Exhibitions proudly welcomes involvement from major US animation studios.
Visitors can create their own stop-motion animated short, learn about the art of storyboarding, go behind the scenes with artists and animators, and enjoy America's largest 3D zoetrope.
Each display and interactive activity features the participation of industry leaders, from original hand-drawn cells to real stop-motion maquettes. Click here for a behind-the-scenes in-depth video on the exhibit.


- Patch #156582 by c960657, pwolanin, townxelliot, Damien Tournoud, kbahey, mikeytown2, drico, jpmckinney: drupal_http_request() should support timeout setting.
* code is set to the HTTP_REQUEST_TIMEOUT constant.
* A context resource created with stream_context_create().
// stream_socket_client() requires timeout to be a float.
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This 15 oz. Black Ceramic Photo Mug is the perfect gift for Mom, Dad, or Grandma... or even to buy for yourself! Dishwasher & microwave safe.
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text:
Schools & Community
Cherry fruitworm
Grapholita packardi Zeller
Lepidoptera: Tortricidae
Distribution: Most fruit-growing states and provinces in eastern North America.
Adult is a small, brownish-gray moth with a median gray band on the forewings and a dark spot at the base of the hind wings. NY State Ag Experiment Station
The adult is a small, brownish gray moth with a median gray band on the forewings and a dark spot at the base of the hind wings (A). Although whitish gray with a black head when young, the larva eventually becomes pink tinted, with a brownish tan head (B). Larvae possess an anal comb.
Crops Affected: apples, cherries, peaches
Attacks cherry, apple and peach. Larvae bore into the fruit shortly after hatching and form small, brown tunnels as they feed. More extensive feeding produces sunken, rough, brownish areas on the surface. The inside of the cherry, next to the pit, is completely eaten away; a larva may damage more than one fruit.
An insecticide applied one to two times after petal fall can provide effective control.
Resembles the oriental fruit moth (Grapholita molesta) and lesser appleworm (G. prunivora), which are in the same genus, but the former lacks the median gray band on the forewings, and the latter has orange and bluish patches mixed in with the gray; neither has the dark hindwing spot. Separating the larvae of these species is more difficult, but compared with the other two, G. packardi has larger and more prominent dorsal plates, each containing several setae (hairs), on its last 2 abdominal segments.
More Information on Similar Species
- Lesser appleworm
- Oriental fruit moth
Read about the IPM Program
IPM Resources
IPM Events


"It's not about any one company. It's about creating rules that are going to support good choice and good service for citizens."
Edmonton's city council threw Uber a lifeline Tuesday as it heads into the busy holiday season.
But in passing first reading of a bylaw to regulate the popular ride-sharing company Tuesday, councillors also set the city up to crack down quickly with higher fines, better enforcement and a bylaw they hope would stand up in court if a bad accident and insurance snafu changes the situation.
Uber has said the $920 per driver fees in the current bylaw would cost the company millions and force them out of Edmonton. They've signed up 3,000 drivers and most are part-time.
Council referred the bylaw back to administration for changes before voting on the second and third reading, saying it just wasn't workable as is. They'll reconsider the fee structure for Uber-type companies along with several other proposals.
"I'm trying to accommodate ride-sharing because it's what citizens want and it's the best way to meet the increasing need for service in our city, rather than issue more cab licences," said Mayor Don Iveson, after the vote.
The bylaw comes back to council Jan. 26.
Passing first reading was critical because council can only pass two readings on any bylaw in one sitting without unanimous consent. Council has been split on this issue. Uber has been operating outside the bylaw since last December, letting private individuals give rides to strangers using their own private vehicle and personal insurance.
It was a tense and frustrating debate for many as council worked through the fine details of the bylaw. They voted not to force driver training requirements on the taxi industry or ride-sharing companies. They also voted not to force Uber and related industries to abide by the same fixed price currently dictated by taxi metres.
Several councillors wanted the bylaw passed already. "These guys are breaking the law," said Coun. Dave Loken, who advocated minimum fares for Uber so it can't use predatory behaviour to force other companies out of the market.
The new bylaw would increase fines for driving without a taxi licence to $5,000 from the current $1,000, and give bylaw officers the authority to demand to see insurance papers when they pull over a driver on the road.
It was also written with the idea that Edmonton might have to return to court to reapply for a court injunction against Uber if it refuses to comply, said lawyer Nancy Jacobsen, who helped write the bylaw with the city's chief livery officer. A judge denied Edmonton's last request for an injunction, saying the bylaw was too vague and needed to be brought into the 21st century.
"By not referring it, we have an enforcement tool. I say we pass the bylaw. Give us some teeth," said Coun. Michael Oshry, before losing that vote.
Taxi drivers packed council chambers but were generally quiet throughout the proceedings. The traditional taxi companies launched a joint taxi app Tuesday called Taxi Commander, which can summon the closest cab to any location. An announcement from the taxi partnership says the app includes a way to pay for the ride within the app and rate the driver.


text:
Articles, etc.
AnimalRighter Blog
I have written many articles for magazines and
nonprofits. Much of this work is included here.
Since 2003, I have written numerous articles, columns, business profiles, and book reviews for VegNews magazine, the premiere vegetarian lifestyle publication in North America. Click here to read them.
I worked as a staff writer/editor at Farm Sanctuary from 2008-2009, during which time I was Associate Editor of the organization's quarterly magazine Sanctuary. Click here to read some of the feature articles I wrote for that publication.
From 2005 to 2010, I wrote a monthly column for Animal World USA when it was still a print magazine, and I still periodically write for their website. Click here to read these columns.
I wrote one article for Satya magazine before it ceased publication in 2007:
- Undercover TV: Animal Rights Reality Television (October 2005)
I wrote these two articles for Animal Affairs Journal (a publication that is no longer active):
- Men Changing the Face of Animal Welfare: Three innovative advocates redefine masculinity for the new millennium (profiles of Randy Grim, Gene Bauston and Eddie Lama) (Fall 2006) TEXT VERSION
- In a Pig's Eye: A Porcine Perspective on Pork Production (Spring 2006) TEXT VERSION
I wrote a single short article for The American Dog, "a parent magazine for all dog lovers."
- California Compassion: Proposition 2 Passes! (Winter 2009)
I wrote this article for the online magazine Healthy Living NYC when it was still a print publication:
- They're Still Doing That? Some cosmetics companies resisting shift to non-animal testing in the face of effective humane alternatives (Summer 2005)
Website & eNewsletter Articles
I have written numerous web and newsletter articles for the Food Empowerment Project, a nonprofit food justice organization. Click here to read them.
Here's my "self-portrait" (in the "Vegan Professionals" segment) for the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of VStream, Vegan Mainstream's ezine
I was a staff writer/editor at In Defense of Animals (IDA) from 2004-2008. Here are some features I wrote for IDA's homepage:
- Vegan Pro Athletes Excel and Inspire
- Mother's Day is for Animals, Too
- César Chávez: A Legacy of Animal Advocacy
- Are You Prepared for Disaster? How to keep yourself and your animal companions safe
I wrote these articles for the Women's Online Media and Education Network:
- Animal Abuse and Advocacy on the Internet (June 2006)
- Premarin: Hormone Drug Hurts Women and Horses (July 2006)
- China Massacres more than 54,000 Dogs in Rabies Scare (August 2006)
Soul Food-For-Thought (Benefit Event Review, March 2010 - Design & Photography by James McCaffry)
Kenneth G. Williams - Vegan Bodybuilder (20-page promotional booklet - Design & Photography by James McCaffry)
Ark Magazine (promotional booklet - Design & Photography by James McCaffry)
Magnificent Glass Pelican - Audio Theater
The Brain From Planet Anus - A comedy skit I wrote back in college when I was a member of a radio theater troupe...


Data protection management was formerly classified by the CDM program as the final step in the program's four-phase effort to help put agencies on a better cybersecurity footing (the first three are asset management, identity and access management, and network security management). While the program has done away with the "phases" nomenclature in favor of emphasizing a more holistic and non-sequential approach, its pending work to bring data protection management to selected agencies indicates that some agencies are preparing to work on closing the full circle of the program's stated aims.
Data protection management, the program office has said, focuses on "how data is protected" with capabilities including identification of cybersecurity risks on an ongoing basis, prioritizing risks based on potential impacts, and enabling cybersecurity personnel to mitigate the most significant problems first.
Speaking at today's event, Cox said his office was just about ready to "go out with work" for the data protection effort at five agencies, which he did not identify in his remarks. That work, he said, includes development of Requests for Service, encryption, and data loss management.
"There's more to come here," he said.
Cox reiterated that his office continues to work on a new CDM dashboard contract, and now expects to have something to announce in May.
The program continues to work with Federal agencies on "filling gaps" in the program's initial two capabilities, especially among agencies that were not early participants in the program.
While the program initially focused on on-prem networks, and will continue to do so, it is also in step with agencies that are adopting more cloud services, and is working with more cloud service providers in that regard.
For the remainder of FY 2019, the program is working on operationalizing agency and Federal dashboards, and in the October timeframe will be ready for a "soft rollout" of its AWARE (Agency-wide Adaptive Risk Enumeration) algorithm that will help agencies track their progress on overall cyber hygiene.
In the longer term, the program wants to develop a version 2.0 of the AWARE algorithm that can generate a score down to the system level, rather than just the agency level.
As agencies sign onto new Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contracts, the CDM program "will be aligning with that" as part of the larger objective to follow agencies in their path to cloud services and security.
"We want to continue to challenge our assumptions" with the CDM program, he said, "and bring solutions that the agencies need" to fight adversaries and to achieve "a really solid defense footing," Cox said.


text:
Andre Nickatina returns....
Degree One, Hip Hop Canada and Timbre Concerts present...
ANDRE NICKATINA 'LIVE' IN CONCERT.
with special guests MISTAH F.A.B. & MUMBLS.
Thursday October 11th, 2012.
Club 9ONE9 - 919 Douglas St.
Last show SOLD OUT.... Get your tickets ASAP.
$25 advance tickets ON SALE NOW.
Available at Lyle's Place, Complex, Ditch Records, Strathcona Hotel and On-Line at http://www.ticketweb.ca/
Doors at 9PM - 19+ W/ 2PCS. id
Check out the Facebook Event Page Here... RSVP & Invite Your Friends.!
ANDRE NICKATINA:
Born and raised in the Fillmore District of San Francisco, Andre Nickatina has been a Hip-Hop/Rap luminary since the release of his critically acclaimed debut, "The New Jim Jones." A favorite at public venues and on college campuses, Andre Nickatina continues to sustain a loyal fan-base, while engaging new supporters throughout North America. Nickatina's classic stage show combined with his rare interviews, maintains his mystery and unique musicianship that has spanned two decades.
http://www.andrenickatina.com/
http://www.timbreconcerts.com/
http://www.degreeone.blogspot.com/


text:
Home Submit
ORIGINALS About Contact
HomeSubmit Festival 2018 2017 ORIGINALSAboutContact
(Wavelength #4) From Launching AstroLab Studios to Meeting Drake's OVO Owl Inspiration
Wavelength #4: Blast off with Adam Weitner, Founder of AstroLab Studios and music producer, Space pun addict
Photo-interviewer: Jacqueline Lee
Who: Adam Weitner, 34, founder of AstroLabs Studio
Style: Making creator's dreams come true (Also a big fan of space and exploring the unknown)
His roots: Burlington, where he started from barely passing high school and doing construction
Quirk: Not a dad but makes dad jokes. AstroLabs Studios' website is filled with amazing space puns.
His Wavelength: Encouraging creators to stop questioning whether they can or cannot do something and just fucking do it.
What's the New Wave to you: "It's people feeling empowered to tell stories and not worry about the production."
Let's say you've never been in a studio before, and you have an idea of what you want to create. You're not sure how to make it happen and you want to trust the pros, but they seem to be pushing for what they think you should be rather than your actual vision.
That's something that'll never happen at AstroLabs studio.
"We welcome people who never shot in a studio before. They aren't going to be laughed on, they're going to feel like they belong and their dreams can come true."
Adam is a fan of all things space and he started Astrolab Studios despite the naysayers who didn't think space had anything to do with the studio. Before AstroLab, he started off doing social media for marketing agencies where he'd have to turn boardrooms into on-demand studios. With all the time it took to do shoots in an office space, Adam realized there's a need for actual on-demand studios in Toronto. Despite the head scratches from the people around him and the voice in his head saying, What the fuck would you know about running a studio, he focused on what he did know rather than what he didn't. He also made the smart decision to surround himself with people that do know more than him, particularly his studio manager Jeff Hanley, who has played a HUGE role in helping him bring this crazy idea to life.
On February 16th, 2016, Astrolabs Studio lifted off into reality.
Now he's worked with Warner Brothers, Nike, SickKids and helped countless emerging musicians and filmmakers make their vision come to life. Adam describes his entire career in the music and film industry as a passion project.
"I'm lucky to be exposed to all these undiscovered artists with great messages. There's always something different, music I've never heard of before or thought of listening to that then gets stuck in my head."
Pre-launch beginnings: The first 180
In high school, Adam did the bare minimum to pass and got Ds in almost everything. The only classes he ever did well in was English and woodshop. Back then he was just a kid with ADD who didn't know what he wanted to do. When he graduated, he actually thought he wanted to be a firefighter.
He talked to as many firefighters as he could around his hometown in Burlington but unfortunately, the job was a lot of sitting around which Adam could NOT do. He loves being active, so he ended up doing construction for a few years before figuring out what to do. Eventually, Adam talked to a neighbour who was in PR and became intrigued. He did some research and applied for a PR program in Algonquin college in Ottawa that was almost exclusively post-grad. It was a complete 180 from high school and he did extremely well.
"I went from party guy to dedicated student. I started being early to class instead of late, handing in my assignments early, it transformed me in a person."
After he graduated and started working for creative agencies, he was producing a lot of social content for big brands who would rather spend their budget on something other than social. He saw the need for an on-demand studio that would make life so much easier for people like him, but he had no time to turn it into reality. However, agency life was demanding as hell and the few moments of spare time he had not working was spent recovering from his crazy hours.
"I wanted to create a space where creators can come in for an hour or two, walk in with their people and not need a ton of money to do it."
"Space travel represents exploration and learning new things. This is an environment where people can test, tinker, and trying out the unknown."
Fun fact: AstroLab Studios is full of space-themed artwork, handpicked by him and his studio manager Jeff Hanley, some of which are colour coded to be blue and orange (AstroLab's official colours - also the colour of his eyes and hair).
Launching AstroLab: Partnerships in Space
AstroLab Studios is a dream come true to Adam. He's been able to work with some of his biggest idols as well as bring up grassroots artists just getting started. The studio has been transformed into a full out range with sand and a fire pit, turned into a sky full of clouds and used as a canvas for painted dancers to leave their mark. Guests includes DeMar DeRozan from the Raptors, Warner Brothers and the owl that inspired Drake's label OVO.
Adam still remembers being told this legendary bird was in Studio 2. He walked into the room, peeked around the doorway and there it was. It was sitting with its face away from him but it's head spun straight at Adam and started hissing. The handler said it was fine and it was just warning him, but Adam honestly wasn't too sure. Besides that badass owl, Adam loves being witness to all the behind the scenes of the creative projects that take place in the studio.
"Whenever there's a shoot here, you can feel the creative energy in the air. There's an awesome creative vibe and the juices come flowing every time."
AstroLab Studio works with a lot of up and coming artists, from independent musicians to film students. They've hosted five of Toronto film school's final projects. Adam remembers one film where there were mirrors built into the walls and doors, and every time the main character thought he could get out, he'd be trapped.
"I just had an artist here today called In the City who came to us for a music video. We want to be able to bring their dream to life without blowing their budget."
Although Adam loves working with every artist that comes in, he also has his own project with his studio manager he's working on. It's a short horror film about a group of college friends who go back to their old cottage after one of the friends from the group commits suicide.
To Infinity and Beyond: The Right Mindset
Adam's working with celebrities and big brands now, but he used to struggle with some serious self doubts. He's literally thought to himself before, I don't know shit, what do I know about running a studio, but he never let those thoughts get to him. His advice: Tell your ego to shut the fuck up, and don't worry about what other people think. Nobody's paying attention and nobody notices your little mistakes, it's something you put on yourself. If you act confident, people will believe it. Just go on what you know, take a chance and trust it.
"Stop throwing barriers up and questioning whether you can or cannot do something. Everything is an iteration, just create and don't worry about it being perfect. Just go do it."
Adam is looking forward to launching Astrolab Studio even further, and growing alongside up and coming artists!
Check them out: https://www.instagram.com/astrolabstudios/
Toronto New Wave July 5, 2018
(Wavelength #5) What is Masculinity? Former Degrassi Star Plays the Personification of Manhood in Indie Film
Toronto New Wave November 11, 2018
(Wavelength #3) A Pioneer of VR Story and Cinema
Toronto New Wave June 29, 2018
TORONTO NEW WAVE
633 Bay Street, Suite 558
Toronto, ON, M5G 2G4
Toronto, ON, M5G 2G4,
(416) 655-2875 contact@torontonewwave.com


Apple has disabled group functionality on its FaceTime application over a new bug reported recently by 9to5Mac which allowed users to eavesdrop on other users before they accepted a call. The bug in certain cases also enabled callers to access the video of the person on the other end before they picked up.
The bug can be accessed by following simple steps. First start a FaceTime video call with a contact, then tap Add a Person by sliding from the bottom while the dialing continues. When you add your own number in the Add Person screen, a group FaceTime call starts which allows the caller to hear the audio of the person on the other end even without their accepting the call. The bug effectively converts the FaceTime call into a secret microphone with spying functionalities. The bug affected all iOS devices running on iOS 12.1 and later.
The app also allowed the broadcasting of video to initial caller if the recipient pressed the power button which is used typically to silence or ignore a call. The glitch concerned iOS users as it can potentially violate user's privacy. The FaceTime has become a top viral story on all social media platforms. The bug is an embarrassment to the company which was reported on the Data Privacy Day instituted by Council of Europe Since 2007 to raise consciousness about the vital importance data privacy in the 21st century for both businesses and consumers.
The bug revelation is a severe setback for Apple's brand image of protecting user's privacy. Apple's CEO Tim Cook have reiterated the company's commitment of privacy protection as a top priority over anything else. The company is already under heightened scrutiny in Europe as European Commission is on a mission to discipline tech giants for data & privacy protection of its citizens.
The flaw's reporting came a day before Apple planned to release its quarterly performance report. The company reported a decline in annual revenue from iPhone by 15% mainly due to the slowdown in China amid US-China trade war. It reported a total revenue of $84.3 billion, a decline of 5% from the previous year.
The bug forced apple to freeze the group functionality in the FaceTime app before a security update could be rolled out. Apple assured that new security update iOS 12.2 which will be released next week will have a permanent fix for the FaceTime problem. Apple has distinguished itself from other tech rivals by emphasizing on its enhanced privacy and security enabled software apparatus. The company which often boasts that what happens in iPhone remains in the iPhone is facing severe backlash from iOS users owing to the disastrous FaceTime glitch. The company's ongoing headache regarding privacy protection also includes a Facebook Research app that was published by Facebook which stole data from users.


Keeping you car dealership clean is crucial to the success of your business. Auto Dealers benefit from unique features that set us apart from other janitorial services.
The cleaning and auto dealership industries are very similar because they both rely on creating a great first impression for their customers and Alfa & Omega Houston will help you present the greatest first impression possible.
We are professionals with extensive training and experience in all facets of cleaning, which include the service windows, showrooms, customer wait areas, and floor.


text:
[![License](https://img.shields.io/cocoapods/l/DLPublic.svg?style=flat)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ibireme/YYWebImage/master/LICENSE)
[![Version](https://img.shields.io/cocoapods/v/DLPublic.svg?style=flat)](https://www.apple.com/nl/ios/)

## Example

To run the example project, clone the repo, and run `pod install` from the Example directory first.

## Installation

DLPublic is available through [CocoaPods](http://cocoapods.org). To install
it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

<!--Please insert the source in the begain
```ruby
source 'http://192.168.30.20:3020/zjcai/DLCocoaPods.git'
source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'
```-->
e.g.

```ruby
# Uncomment the next line to define a global platform for your project
# platform :ios, '9.0'
<!--source 'http://192.168.30.20:3020/zjcai/DLCocoaPods.git'
source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'-->

target 'QTAirPurifier' do
  # Uncomment the next line if you're using Swift or would like to use dynamic frameworks
  # use_frameworks!

  # Pods for QTAirPurifier

pod 'DLPublic'
pod 'SVProgressHUD'

  target 'QTAirPurifierTests' do
    inherit! :search_paths
    # Pods for testing
  end

  target 'QTAirPurifierUITests' do
    inherit! :search_paths
    # Pods for testing
  end

end
```

## DLPublic
Category文件 - 常用的分类集合
Functions文件 - 常用的一些功能

## 更新步骤
1. 修改 `Pods/DLPublic/DLPublic/` 下源文件
2. 编辑 PodSpec 文件,主要是修改版本号 s.version 属性
3. 测试 PodSpec 文件格式是否正确:`pod lib lint`
4. 更新本地代码库(提交至远程仓库)
5. 打 tag, tag 值要同版本号一致:`git tag 1.0.x`,推送tag到服务器地址`git push origin 1.0.x`
6. 更新 PodSpec 文件到cocoapods官方仓库:`pod trunk push DLPublic.podspec`
7. 更新完毕
8. 搜索命令:pod search DLPublic
9. 协同工作:pod trunk add-owner DLPublic email@email.com
## License

`DLPublic` is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tell Premier Horgan: It's time for a Just Recovery!
Right now, we are facing a host of difficult conditions: the climate and ecological crises, a global pandemic, and economic and racial inequality. All of these challenges are connected. Though this moment is difficult, it also gives us the chance to come together. We can build a better future that centres communities, a livable climate and the abundant ecosystems which sustain us.
But we're not the only ones who are getting to work. Big Oil, forestry corporations and interest groups who want to keep the status quo at all costs are intensely lobbying and pressuring the BC government right now. They're trying to win concessions as part of BC's economic stimulus response to the pandemic that will allow them to continue industrial resource extraction and climate pollution.
We stand a very real risk of going back to the same problematic 'normal' as before, or even worse. The accelerating breakdown of ecosystems, unequal economic systems and exploitative race relations show us that we can absolutely no longer settle for the old normal.
It's time for a Just Recovery — a more hopeful vision for a way to build back better by giving priority to health and wellbeing, resilient communities, ecosystem protection, economic equality, and justice for Indigenous peoples.
On May 25, hundreds of civil society groups across Canada came together to endorse 6 Principles for a Just Recovery, outlining the most important priorities for rebuilding the economy. Sierra Club BC was part of the effort to develop these Principles, and we believe that they have the potential to help us transform our society and relationship to nature in the wake of the global pandemic.
In short, a Just Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will be one that puts people and planet before profit. Are you in?
You can help advocate for a Just Recovery by calling on Premier Horgan and the BC government to make the principles a core part of BC's economic recovery.
And stay tuned — in the coming weeks, we'll let you know of other ways you can take action to build a better future for BC and beyond.
We'll also forward your letter to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, George Heyman; Minister of Finance and Deputy Premier, Carol James; Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Shane Simpson; Minister of Jobs, and Economic Development and Competitiveness, Michelle Mungall; Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, Scott Fraser; and Opposition party leaders Adam Olsen and Andrew Wilkinson.
Send a letter today
Here are the 6 Principles for a Just Recovery
Featured illustration by Mya Van Woudenberg/Sierra Club BC. Just Recovery Principles illustrations by Corrina Keeling.
Registered charitable number: 11914 9797 RR0001
© Copyright – Sierra Club BC
© Copyright - Sierra Club BC - Enfold WordPress Theme by Kriesi
Donate to protect old-growth forests! Mya Van Woudenberg/Sierra Club BC Photo by kQwa'st'not (Charlene George, tSouke) Donate to support our webinar series


text:
The Man That Got Away
by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin
https://www.steynonline.com/9477/the-man-that-got-away
Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland in 1954, at the premiere of A Star Is Born
This weekend we're spending some time with Judy Garland, who half-a-century ago - June 22nd 1969 - was found dead in the bathroom of her rented London mews house. We're focusing on late Judy not the child star phase, so, if you're expecting "Over the Rainbow", you can find my thoughts on that song here. We started with what Jonathan Last called my "beautiful, funny, sad" essay on the third Mr Judy Garland, Sid Luft. To close out the weekend here's the story of what became, as "Over the Rainbow" was to her youth, the great anthem of the mature years:
It's a smokey poky joint after closing, chairs upturned on tables. But the musicians are still around, and an aspiring singer, enjoined by the pianist to "Take it, honey, c'mon...", rises from the bench and starts to sing, moving among the players...
According to the American Film Institute, that's the eleventh greatest screen song in movie history. You don't really notice it unless someone points it out, but the director, George Cukor, shot the number in one fluid shot. It's a very different feel from the way musical films of the day inflated even intimate numbers, and certainly beyond the capacity of, say, La La Land. The number itself, however, had a far less smooth glide path to take-off. Its story begins a decade-and-a-half before Cukor director that scene. In 1941 the composer Harold Arlen was working with Johnny Mercer on the film Blues In The Night, for which they wrote the song "Blues In The Night", which would be enough for mere mortals. But Arlen cooked up another pretty good tune and Mercer put words to it:
I've seen Sequoia
It's really very pretty
The art of Goya
And Rockefeller City
But since I saw you
I Can't Believe My Eyes...
And that killed the tune stone dead. Go on, try it: Sing those words to the melody Judy's singing up above. It was cute-ish, after a fashion - although, when you get to the middle section, Mercer's not exacting some kind of revenge on the music:
You've got that ooh-la-la
That old je ne sais quoi
I feel like shoutin 'Ma!
Just my size!'
Arlen and Mercer were just at the beginning of a pretty good run through the Forties: "My Shining Hour", "That Old Black Magic", "Come Rain Or Come Shine", "One for My Baby (and one more for the road)"... But this time Mercer blew it: "I Can't Believe My Eyes" is a shallow lyric that doesn't say what the music says. Arlen alluded to it decades later, while careful to avoid mentioning the culprit by name:
I wrote a song with a pretty goddam wonderful lyric-writer. He brought me a lyric that didn't have any strength. Sometimes a lyric depletes a melody, just as a poor melody can deplete a good lyric.
"I Can't Believe My Eyes" never made it into the picture. Twelve years on, Arlen and Ira Gershwin had agreed to write the songs for a musical remake of the old Janet Gaynor/Fredric March film A Star Is Born. It would be remade yet again as a rock(-ish) musical in the Seventies, with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson (the less said about that the better) and then once more with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper just last year. The 1954 version was supposed to be Judy Garland's "comeback": she'd not made a film since MGM had canceled her contract four years earlier. Her new man, Sid Luft, was producing it at Warner Brothers. He'd hired the distinguished playwright Moss Hart for the script and the great George Cukor to direct, and Cukor wanted Cary Grant to star in the role of Judy Garland's mentor and husband, whose own star is eclipsed as Judy's rise. But Grant turned it down because (according to Cukor) "Judy Garland was a drug addict". The director then proposed Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra, but Jack Warner nixed both. So James Mason was hired (and our late friend Kit Carson's uncle Jack for the third-billed role).
So Harold Arlen went round to Ira Gershwin's pad to work on the score. The house was on what was then the most glamorous street in Beverly Hills, 1021 North Roxbury Drive, next to what had once been the home of Ira's late brother George (1019 North Roxbury, where Rosemary Clooney was then living and would for the next half-century). Ira's secretary Lawrence Stewart sets the scene:
Harold Arlen arrives about two-thirty in the afternoon with his old tan briefcase under his arm... Gershwin moves to a cat-clawed green armchair nearer the piano, where he sits with Calliope, the Siamese, on his lap and pets her abstractedly as he smokes a cigar. He puts his glasses upon his forehead, leans back and closes his eyes, as he moves his hands in tempo with the music.
They wrote a couple of numbers, and then they turned to what Moss Hart called "the dive song" - because that's where it was going to be sung: in some basement nightclub after hours, with a just a small jazz combo. This was the score's designated Big Song and, as it was Judy's comeback picture, the Big song had to be Big!!! It had to land. Arlen noodled around on the keyboard and then started to play something.
And from the kitchen or the hall or some such Ira's wife Leonore called out:
Sounds like Gershwin to me!
I suppose she meant well, although with Lee Gershwin it wasn't always easy to tell. But Arlen froze. This was George Gershwin's old piano he was playing. George had died, not yet 40, in 1937, and a big part of Ira Gershwin the lyricist had died with him. Ira would write only very occasionally after that, usually when some good friend - Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, Burton Lane - twisted his arm and dragged him into it. But, even more than those other composers, Arlen in particular felt the ghost of George. And here he was in the house next door to George Gershwin's, with George Gershwin's brother, playing George Gershwin's piano, and being told by George Gershwin's sister-in-law he was writing a pretty good imitation of a George Gershwin tune. Not an Arlen tune, but a Gershwin tune. I like a Gershwin tune - how about you, Harold?
So Arlen immediately abandoned his "sounds like Gershwin" composition and, for want of anything better, segued into that old trunk melody Johnny Mercer had wrecked twelve years earlier. As Lawrence Stewart put it, "When Ira heard this music he was instantly on the alert."
"Play it again," he instructed Harold. The composer did and Ira Gershwin sat back, eyes closed.
At the end, he leaned forward and whispered to the man at the piano: "'The Man That Got Away'."
"I like," replied Harold.
Ira attached great importance to titles and usually had great difficulty finding them, so this one came surprisingly easy. If you're about to object "Shouldn't it be 'The Man Who Got Away'?", well, no. Ira was thinking of the fisherman's traditional plaint: "You should have seen the one that got away." You had him, just for a while, but you couldn't quite reel him in. As I write in my book A Song For The Season (personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available right here), Ira preferred what he called "the left-field or circuitous approach to the subject preponderant in Songdom" -ie, love songs:
Required to approach said preponderant subject less circuitously, the lyricist fell back on the lamest of lame clichés. 'There have,' wrote Wilfrid Sheed, 'seldom been dumber words to anything than those of the young Ira Gershwin's "Lady Be Good" and "The Man I Love".' Very true:
Someday he'll come along
And he'll be big and strong
The Man I Love...
We'll build a little home
Just made for two
From which I'll never roam
Who would? Would you?
That's it? How could anyone do that to that music? Who would? Would you? But Ira, unlike Cole Porter, eschewed passion, no matter what George had going on in the music.
The fishing origins of the title suggest that Ira has latched on to yet another twee, amusingly literate angle on "the subject preponderant" - like "They All Laughed" or "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" - that will allow him to do the usual "circuitous" avoidance of having to say "I love you". Instead, in this, the last great lyric of a 35-year career, Ira Gershwin finally tackles "the subject preponderant" head on, and with real feeling:
The night is bitter
The stars have lost their glitter
The winds grow colder
And suddenly you're older...
It took hours for those lines to emerge that day round the piano with Harold Arlen. Ira was always a slow writer. Stalled on "Embraceable You", he once holed up in a New York hotel room to emerge triumphantly 48 hours later with "Come to poppa, come to poppa, do" - which I don't think is worth the minibar tab, never mind the NYC room-occupancy tax, bellboy's tips, and all the rest. Like the proverbial angler, Ira had a hard time reeling this one in. He'd correctly figured that the main theme sounds better with the rhyme scheme AABB than with the ABAB form of Johnny Mercer's original:
I've seen the table
That held the Declaration
And Betty Grable
In my imagination...
Bitter/glitter and colder/older serves the tune much better. But Ira had a hard time getting there. Originally he started out with:
There's just no sleeping
Your eyes are red with weeping
Though you know better
You're waiting for that letter...
Which is like the torch-song version of "The Man I Love"'s vapidities. But he pushed on."Good riddance, goodbye", for the first five notes of the release, took half-a-day to come up with. And there were a lot of notes to fill: "Arlen is no 32-bar man," observed Ira in his book Lyrics On Several Occasions, and it's true. "The Man I Love" is 62 bars. It's not a blues in the twelve-bar "Well, I woke up this morning" sense, but it's blues-infused, and it obliged Ira Gershwin to write with a rare emotional directness:
The road gets rougher
It's lonelier and tougher
With hope you burn up
Tomorrow he may turn up
There's just no let-up
The live-long night and day...
When they'd finished, they knew they had something special. At which point Arlen announced he was going to Palm Springs for the weekend. Ira Gershwin didn't like the sound of that: for one reason or another, he wanted to keep the song under his hat for a while, and he knew Judy Garland, Sid Luft and Moss Hart were all in Palm Springs, and Arlen was almost bound to run into one or all of them. So Ira made Harold swear not to breathe a word about the song.
Harold swore.
Saturday morning in Palm Springs, and Arlen heads to the Tamarisk Country Club and the first people he sees, just about to tee off, are Sid and Judy. And so Harold joins the Lufts and a hole or two later, just as Sid's putting, Harold finds himself whistling a phrase from "The Man That Got Away". Some 20 yards away, Judy has an odd feeling: she recognizes that she doesn't recognize whatever it is he's whistling. So she asks, "What is that, Harold?"
"Oh, it's nothing," he says.
But a hole or two further on he finds himself whistling another phrase from the song, and Judy, by now suspicious, demands: "What are you whistling, Harold? Is that for A Star Is Born?"
He murmurs no, no, nothing could be further from his mind. But on the 18th hole he whistles it again, and Sid Luft lobs his ball 320 yards into the sand trap, and, while he's digging it out, Judy drags Harold back to the clubhouse, sits him down at the piano, and forces him to play that damn tune he's been whistling all day.
And so he does. And she's delighted.
And, when Sid gets out of the sandpit, she calls him in to hear it. And he loves it. And Sid wants Moss Hart to hear it, so they all go round to Frank Sinatra's place, where Moss Hart and my old chum Kitty Carlisle are staying (Kitty and I used to introduce the "Lost Musicals" at the Barbican in London a zillion years ago). And there they run into a slight hiccup, because, somewhat remarkably, there's no piano at the Sinatra compound. But next door is the old Jolson pad, where Joley's widow Erle now lives with the screenwriter Norman Krasna, who'd just finished White Christmas. So off they go and Arlen plays it again, and the Lufts love it, and the Harts love it, and the Krasnas love it, and pretty soon half of Palm Springs has heard it, and "The Man That Got Away" has become the song that got away - from Ira Gershwin. And, while Arlen is still wondering how he's going to explain all this to his writing partner, Moss Hart wanders back to the Sinatra house and calls Ira to rave that the new song is going gangbusters "out of town".
It didn't go so gangbusters when Judy Garland got to the studio
For his part, George Cukor felt that she sang it "too loud", but, given that her husband was the film's producer, he couldn't figure out a way to tell her that that wouldn't cost him his job. But, as he forcefully complained to Hugh Martin, "Can't you do anything to stop her yelling it?" If you've heard part two of our tribute to him, you'll know that Hugh, the composer of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", was the vocal arranger on A Star Is Born and felt that she should sing it a tone down. Judy arranged a run-through in the lower key, gave a lackluster performance, and then sneered at him before the full room, "Admit it, Hugh. You're wrong. You're so f**king wrong about the lower key." And, being a rather shy and retiring fellow, he replied, "I don't know why you bother asking me, Judy. I'm always so f**king wrong." And she said, "You got that f**king right." And so, in front all the musicians and everyone else, Hugh picked up his arrangements, walked out the studio door, got into his car, and it wasn't until he was far from Hollywood and driving through the Rockies that he switched on the radio and heard she'd fired him from the picture.
It was that kind of a movie. And maybe because he didn't like her vocal performance it took Cukor a while to figure out how to film it. They shot it three different ways, months apart, before he finally, notwithstanding the "yelling", got what he wanted:
After turning in a film lasting three-and-a-quarter hours, George Cukor himself wound up being removed from the picture. But, with its release still some months away, one afternoon Ira Gershwin got a phone call from Frank Sinatra, who'd been thinking about the song since Judy and Sid and Harold all showed up on his doorstep looking for Moss Hart and a piano. Frank explained that he'd like to record "The Man That Got Away". Ira pointed out that the instance of "man" in the title "usually limits the rendition of a song to female vocalists". But Sinatra was the first male vocalist at ease with the vulnerability of the more overwrought sections of the distaff repertoire: he enjoyed singing female songs and he actively sought them out. So he pointed out to Ira that, aside from switching a few pronouns, all that was needed was a modification to the ending:
Ever since this world began
There is nothing sadder than
A one-man woman looking for
The Man That Got Away...
The lyricist considered the matter and, with Frank hanging on the line, Ira improvised:
A lost, lost loser looking for
The Gal That Got Away...
Frank liked the line and wrote it down. "His excellent recording resulted, and 'The Gal That Got Away' got away with it," wrote Ira, while primly noting that "a sex transilience of this sort is unusual".
Ira Gershwin's right: Sinatra's record, to a great Nelson Riddle arrangement, is indeed "excellent". I'm not sure one can say the same about that "lost, lost loser" modification. But "The Gal That Got Away" entered the Billboard charts in July 1954, followed by Judy Garland's own version in August. Frank got to Number Twenty-One, Judy to Number Twenty-Two. If there was any rivalry between the two, it had vanished by the end of September, when Sinatra attended the premiere of Judy's movie and was effusive in his praise. So were the critics. Time reported that Arlen and Gershwin had given Miss Garland "one unforgettable lump in the throat, 'The Man That Got Away'. Her big dark voice sobs, sighs, sulks and socks them out like a cross between Tara's harp and the late Bessie Smith." As he had done fifteen years earlier with "Over the Rainbow", Arlen had given Garland a song that her fans would call out for at every concert for the rest of her short life.
Still, Riddle's arrangement for Sinatra is, I think, far superior to Skip Martin's on the Garland record. Frank and Judy were fast friends for life, and he was there for her when a lot of others weren't - which was more demanding than you might think. As I wrote in Mark Steyn's Passing Parade:
Between bust-ups and reconciliations, Judy was finding consolation elsewhere. She'd go round to Sinatra's pad and hector Frank into having sex with her. He would plan a quiet night sitting in his orange mohair sweater reading Bennett Cerf, only to look down and find Judy trying to pull his pants off. One night her TV producer, Bill Colleran, was at her place watching the show when he noticed her hand on his crotch. "I can't," he protested quaintly. "I'm married." Judy flounced across the room and sighed, "Nobody wants to f**k the legend."
But Sinatra respected her professionally and, perhaps out of deference to her claim on the song, for the rest of her short life he didn't return to "The Gal That Got Away" as often he might have. After her death, however, "The Man That Got Away" languished. In Britain in the Seventies, the camp comic Larry Grayson used a fabulous thumping vamp of its main theme as the signature tune for his TV show - a joke I doubt very few of his millions of fans got, but a splendid jest nonetheless. But in the wider world the song seemed to be having a bit of difficulty until in the late Seventies Sinatra paired it with Rodgers & Hart's "It Never Entered My Mind" for a killer saloon-song medley he would sing almost every night for his last two decades on stage. His pianist and musical director Vincent Falcone, Jr tells me the story of that great arrangement in one of our Sinatra centenary audio specials, so I won't reprise it here. But I would like to note a very rare Sinatra live performance of the song during Judy Garland's lifetime.
It was This is with Quincy Jones and the Count Basie band on the "Hollywood Palace" TV show in 1965, with Frank backed by Quincy Jones and the Count Basie band. They've slowed down the Nelson Riddle arrangement, and it's on its way to becoming a saloon song:
No more that all-time thrill
'Cause you've been through the mill
And never a new love will be the same...
The next passage - around "But fools will be fools" can be especially tough for a singer, as the vocal line and the harmony seem to part company, and it's very easy to find yourself adrift while almost atonal chords are flying all around you. Frank and the Basie band get through it, and he's so on top of all the drama, all the storytelling. Sinatra could be very tentative on TV, especially in ballads, because there are so many technical considerations with the medium and he hated having to do retakes. But on live TV he was often more relaxed. And on this broadcast, after a magnificent set ("Fly Me to the Moon", "Please Be Kind", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Everybody Has a Right to be Wrong") he got just a wee bit too relaxed and made one mistake - but it's a doozy. In an otherwise peerless rendition, he botched Ira Gershwin's rewritten ending and reverted to the female original:
There ain't nothing sadder than
A one-man woman...
Uh-oh. You can hear a little something in his voice - he knows he's gone astray - but there's nowhere to go, so he concludes Sapphically:
...a one-man woman looking for
And he takes a pause before starting the leisurely out-vocal and you can see on his face that he knows he's blown it. It starts at about 11-45 below, as Frank introduces "one of the great Judy Garland songs":
The poor chap's devastated. It's still a great performance, but I like to think that's just God's way of reminding even the greatest star that "The Gal That Got Away" is still "The Man That Got Away", and his old friend's song. If you're a singer, you're always being asked to sing other people's songs, and Judy Garland had a great line when invited to sing "I've Got You Under My Skin" or "Mack the Knife" or any other thing indelibly linked to another performer: "That song has been sung."
And so it is with "The Man That Got Away": That song has been sung.
~Mark tells the story of many beloved songs - from "Auld Lang Syne" to "White Christmas" - in his book A Song For The Season. Personally autographed copies are exclusively available from the Steyn store - and, if you're a Mark Steyn Club member, don't forget to enter the promo code at checkout to enjoy special Steyn Club member pricing.
The Mark Steyn Club is just beginning its third year. We thank all of our First Month Founding Members who've decided to re-re-up for another twelve months, and hope that fans of our musical endeavors here at SteynOnline will want to do the same in the weeks ahead. As we always say, club membership isn't for everybody, but it helps keep all our content out there for everybody, in print, audio, video, on everything from civilizational collapse to our Sunday song selections. And we're proud to say that thanks to the Steyn Club this site now offers more free content than ever before in our sixteen-year history.
What is The Mark Steyn Club? Well, it's an audio Book of the Month Club, and a video poetry circle, and a live music club. We don't (yet) have a clubhouse, but we do have other benefits including not one but two upcoming cruises. And, if you've got some kith or kin who might like the sound of all that and more, we also have a special Gift Membership. More details here.
7 Reader Comments
Susan Dooley • Jun 24, 2019 at 03:46
I first came across this song on a Shirley Bassey album and was hooked. Never a Garland fan, nevertheless, watching her live performances I could appreciate her talent and magnetism. And although I think Sinatra is peerless, I prefer Bassey's version of this song.
I'm a Newby to The Mark Steyn Club and would like to thank Mark and all his contributors for the great stuff so enthusiastically delivered on a daily basis. Brilliant and uplifting in these chaotic times.
Speaking of which, does anyone know anything about New California and its bid to secede as the 51st State?
Sounds like a fine idea to me!
Mark replies:
No worries, Susan. We all love Shirl. Welcome to the club.
Brilliant! What's your opinion, Mark, of James Masons role? Apart from his glorious voice, I'm always fascinated by this bloke from my home area ......who reverted to Yorkshire type for 'Spring and Port Wine' with Susan George.
Lisa Gerlich Larry Gavin • Jun 24, 2019 at 11:05
James Mason is one of my favorite actors. It has all to do with the voice and the restraint. The first time role I saw him play was Humbert Humbert in "Lolita." His performance was brilliant among other brilliant performances, especially Shelley Winters. But that voice. I have seen him in a few other movies most notably "The Shooting Party," but I want to search him out more.
Larry Gavin Lisa Gerlich • Jun 24, 2019 at 16:27
Fantastic voice and persona. He made a ton of films. He was from Huddersfield, a mill town in West Yorkshire......but he seems cut glass?!
Mark, that's a hilarious description of Frank's flub - and all so true.
Perry Pattetic • Jun 23, 2019 at 22:01
I preferred Frank's version.
Heidi S Rothenberg • Jun 23, 2019 at 21:13
It's hard to adequately express how I treasure the independent thinking, superb taste (I ADORE the American Songbook), witty commentary----I could go on and on--but to this point I've not been stimulated to speak. THEREFORE------The Conrad Black conversation is an enormous gift. And the Song of the Week (The Man That Got Away) pushed me to asking whether or not you could possibly access a video of the Gus Giordano Dance Company's production of same--using the Garland sound-track--and an amazing interpretation by one of their premier dancers Megan McArdle with Kevin McGirr as "The Man". I wish that I knew how to send the video--it's so incredible. But, alas! Kevin sent it to me and I don't know how to get it back to him!!! When I watched the film so far as I was concerned it ended with the conclusion of this song........
Grateful appreciation--and thank goodness for thinkers such as Conrad Black!!!! (and you) and all good wishes--HSR


If you're looking for the best gaming headsets and gaming headphones on the market today then you have come to the right place.
That's because we love quality gaming audio here at T3.com and, as such, have filtered out only the very best gaming headsets on the market today. The gaming headphones in this guide are the best available and, depending on your intended usage scenarios, we are sure one of them will be perfect for your gamine needs.
If you want one single gaming headset recommendation right off the bat, though, then the SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless is T3.com's top choice of right now. It's one of the most attractive, best sounding headsets we've ever tested, with its Hi-Res capable speaker drivers, lightweight aluminium alloy and steel construction, and swappable dual-battery system delivering a super all-round gaming package.
For those who wish to peruse the best gaming headsets on the market for maximum choice, however, then read on.
As you've most likely gathered already, there are a lot of headsets and headphones out there angled at gamers, with most firms offering multiple versions that might seem identical. Now it's easy to just go with a certain model because of a recognisable brand, but before you blow all your cash on such folly, you should consider exactly what you need from the headset your looking to buy.
For example, do you want a great sounding headset for gaming that can also be used as a regular pair of headphones? If so, you need to go for a pair of on-ears and, for style and portability issues, one with a built-in or detachable mic.
Equally, if you are looking for a dedicated, heavy duty headset for streaming and super long gaming sessions, then you're going to need a set with excellent battery life, a good boom mic, and an over-ear comfortable fit.
So how have we made our choices? Well, we've selected headphones from across the best manufacturers producing headsets today, giving you a chance to see what all the biggest brands are offering and, crucially, how they differ – such as the Astro Gaming A50 and its stunning 3D surround sound, or the colossal 7.1 surround sound of the Logitech G35, and onto the classy Roccat Khan Aimo that delivers a built-in DAC with passive noise cancellation tech.
Each one might appear to offer the same functions at first glance, but everything from build quality to fit, and the comfort of the cups to features can differ, making each one a unique investment.
So whether you're looking for a super high-end model or something to dip your toes into the gaming audio market, T3 has all the bases covered with this new and improved headset guide for 2017 and beyond.
The best wireless gaming headset on the market today, the SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless is an awesome piece of kit, delivering a best-in-class audio experience for PS4 and PC gamers.
The headset not only features a dual-wireless audio system that allows for both 2.4G and Bluetooth connections simultaneously (meaning you can listen to music or chat while gaming), but it is also comes packing Hi-Res capable speaker drivers and lossless audio, too.
A very impressive 40-feet range, well-built wireless transmitter, lightweight aluminium construction, and swappable dual-battery power system complete a superb all-round package.
T3.com hasn't heard better from a wireless gaming headset.
Audio wizards Audio-Technica brings its expertise to the gaming headset field with a product that, price tag aside, is pretty much perfect. That's because the ATH-ADG1X not only delivers a very high-fidelity audio experience while gaming, with 53mm drivers delivering crisp and accurate sound reproduction, but also a 3D Wing support system that helps completely mitigate its weight (which is already pretty light) on the head. The result is superb levels of comfort even when in prolonged gaming sessions. A vivid and clear microphone, soft ear pads, and a bundled 2-metre cable extender complete a top package.
HyperX's first attempt at a wireless gaming headset has produced a versatile and robust set of cans for playing games or streaming on other platforms. With 30 or so hours of battery life on a single charge you won't have to worry about the Cloud Flight running out of juice, and its bass is something to be reckoned with, with a meaty punch that is right up there with the best sets on the market. It comes with a pair of rather handy 90-degree rotating ear cups, too, and even adds in some LED lighting effects for good measure. A very attractive and competitively priced gaming headset for PC and PS4 gamers.
Roccat really knows what it is doing with gaming headsets and here, with the Khan Aimo, delivers an incredible package at a very attractive price point. The Khan Aimo comes rocking Hi-Res audio compatible speaker drivers, delivers 7.1 surround sound, has a built-in DAC with passive noise cancellation tech, and also boasts a 16.8M colour lighting engine with various effects and pre-sets. If that wasn't enough, the Khan Aimo also sports some seriously comfortable memory foam ear pads, and premium stainless steel sliders, too. A gaming headset that is very easy to recommend.
Turtle Beach is clearly aiming to transform its headset lineup and shake-off that budget connotation that it's held for so long, with the Elite 800 sharing many of the high quality additions you'll find in the impressive Elite Pro.
For the most part it's an impressive bit of kit – the noise cancellation software makes for a great way to immerse yourself in your chosen game (especially in a busy house), while the audio transfer itself remained crisp and powerful across multiple titles. It's also surprisingly comfortable for a TB headset, making it ideal for long Twitch streams.
However, while it works right off the bat with PS4 and PC, there's no compatibility with Xbox One – purely for the fact TB has an Elite 800X model designed specifically for Microsoft's console. It's a tactic we wish TB would grow out of since it robs the Elite 800 of being a proper full package.
Logitech has really upped its headset game of late, and the G633 Artemis Spectrum is one such example of the firm bringing together a bevy of impressive highlights into one package. The build quality is great, feeling both light and sturdy all at once (they also look pretty rad as well). There are also a set of handy hot key-esque G-keys on the side of the headset that can be customised for certain quick in-game actions.
The wireless audio transfer never compromises on audio quality, and it's compatible with PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360 via 2.4 GHz wireless tech. The only slight niggling issue is the battery life levels out around the 10 hour mark – if you're a casual player, this won't be an issue, but for bigger sessions or pro tournaments.
SteelSeries' Arctis range are probably the closest thing gaming headset market will come to works of art, thanks to a design that makes the various models feel more like something a pro DJ would use in the studio than a gamer in front of their console or PC.
And the Arctis 7 is one of the best gaming headsets available today, offering a stainless steel finish and balanced 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound that delivers powerful bidirectional sound and reliable noise cancellation. And its wireless connection is one of the clearest we've ever tested with nary a moment's lag, too.
Okay, this is one of the most expensive headsets we've reviewed as part of this feature, but getting quality and comfort as good as this while still being lightweight comes at a price. For your money, you're getting one of the most comfortable professional headsets we've ever tested, with zero pinch and a lightweight design that never weighs on your neck.
The sound quality is killer, too – the 7.1 Dolby surround sound turns every game we tested it with into a cinematic theatre of immersion, with individual sounds kept clean and clear without being washed out by the bass. There's also a companion app for adjusting audio levels and tweaking profiles – ideal if you're partial to multiple game sessions.
Taking over from the already impressive Siberia 800, the Siberia 840 adds Bluetooth connectivity to the mix and creates one of the most reliable wireless headsets on the market. We didn't experience a moment's lag while testing them, but then again this is a premium PC gaming headset so high-quality performance is a prerequisite at this level.
While designed with PC gaming in mind, the headsets selection of customisable sound profiles (which can be tweaked from the OLED of its base unit or the SteelSeries Engine 3 app) so you can use it with PS4, Xbox One and old-gen consoles, too.
While far from Logitech's most premium headset, the G35 is still an impressive and robust bit of kit for gaming sessions. Logitech has done wonders with the G35's design – its materials might not be the most deluxe, but the matte black colour choice makes everything feel distinctly less budget. The design also extends to the buttons on the cups, while include a handy mute button, a volume wheel and three customisable ones.
While the bass could be a little punchier, the use of two 40mm drivers provides an in-ear soundscape that's not a true surround sound experience. It's crisp and clear enough, but this is far from the 3D audio you can find elsewhere – but for the price, the highlights elsewhere still make it a decent set of cups.
While there are plenty of headsets out there with the oft-unclean word 'budget' stuck to them, that doesn't mean that every one has to feel like it's just fallen out of a cracker. The brilliant little HyperX Cloud Stinger is one such example, offering a crisp, punchy sound that belies its sub-£50 price tag.
That sounds driven by two 50mm drivers, with cups that swivel 90-degrees for ease of movement. Of course, this being a low-end model, there are compromises – while it is lightweight, the materials do feel very flimsy and the mic (which swivels rather than retracts) fails to offer a decent signal when chatting or streaming.
Sony's second swing at a first-party headset for PlayStation 4 offers much of the same features the original boasted, designed specifically for use with the firm's three major consoles – this means you can employ its 7.1 Dolby surround sound on your PS3 as well as your current gen machine. It'll also work with your PS Vita (but the surround sound won't work with the handheld, sadly).
It offers a clean audio transfer with a punch to its bass, and even the mic performs remarkably well for an internal version. It's just a shame the battery life (which offers a paltry eight hours) and foldable design bring it down.
With Razer pretty much dominating the PC gaming market in almost every sector, it only seemed a matter of time before the firm applied the same focus on the world of game-related headsets. The Man O' War is a beast, too – both in its huge size and considerable weight, but also in the power of its drivers, the sumptuously clear signal and bass with extra teeth.
It supports 7.1 Dolby surround sound so you're getting that full spectrum experience whether taking the fight online or relaxing in single-player. There's also a USB dongle that offers up to 14 metres of wireless coverage – and you can even store it in the headphones when packing it away.
If you're really serious about immersing yourself in a game, be it because of an extra in flow of cash or because you're preparing to go pro in the eSports arena, then you need a headset such as the Astro Gaming A50. It's just got it all – and for £250 you'd hope so, too!
All that hard-earned wonga will get you a top-of-the-line set of noise-cancelling cups that boast a sultry 7.1 Dolby surround sound and a brilliant mic for clear voice signal without any background interference – perfect if you're streaming over Twitch or relaying info to teammates while playing online. And with Kleernet 5.8 GHz wireless technology and a super-comfortable design you're getting a serious slice of premium for your lugs.
While the Roccat Khan Pro won't be winning any prizes for its bland and forgettable design, it more than makes up for it with rich lows, ultra-clear highs and support for frequencies up to 40Hz. It's a shame the in-built mic isn't detachable, but it's crisp signal makes it great for party chat or live streaming.
Turtle Beach has finally brought its impressive Elite Pro headset to PC, and it's just as much of a knockout as it was elsewhere. It's right up there with the flagship models of HyperX and SteelSeries, with its premium build quality, Aerofit cups, slick 7.1 Surround Sound and compatibility with TB's own TAC (sold separately). The only downside is it's gargantuan price tag, but you get your money's worth.
Plantronics has pedigree, so this should deliver, right? Wireless strength is commendable, angular gamer design is on point (with an on board team chat / game audio mixer if you're using it on the PS4) and at least some concession has been made to comfort. But not, alas, quite enough; the self-adjusting headband, a la the Arctis line, doesn't distribute the weight nearly as well as its rival, and the mesh-covered ear cups are itchy and tight. What's more, the sound is a letdown: while there's a good rumble in the ears it's a little hollow, and the RIG's mic is highly lacking.
HyperX knows what it's doing when it comes to big and bold gaming headsets, and one of its latest models is pushing its way into the premium end of the market. That price tag might put some potential buyers off, but considering you're getting one of the best 7.1 surround sound setups on the market, powerful 50mm drivers and a noise-canceling microphone (that's detachable, no less).
It works with PC and PS4 (including most VR headsets), but you'll need to fork out for an extra adaptor if you want to use with the Xbox One family of consoles.
Sat right in the middle of the gaming headset range is the Astro A20, a wireless headset that combines a blocky yet minimalist look with a robust audio experience. Whether you're streaming, chatting in a party or just enjoying your game's audio as it was intended, this set of cups offers an impressive 15 hours or more of use on a single charge.
It's made from tough materials to so it can take a few knocks without losing its looks or its fidelity. Its 40mm drivers ensure the best audio signal at all times, but make sure you buy the right one for your system of choice as some versions don't work with PS4/Xbox One.
Corsair may be known more for its prolific PC peripheral ranges, but that hasn't stopped it making waves in the world of gaming audio as well. Its latest model, the Void Pro RGB Wireless, might have a weight asking price, but it's packed with all the features you'd want from a premium set of cans.
The 7.1 audio really brings you game audio and chat to life with deep bass and clear treble, while its wireless signal holds true however long your session might be. That eye-catching design also includes RGB lighting, which can be synchronised with other Corsair products for your very own desk-based light show.
Apple releases have become ..