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Daniel Lopatin's R Plus Seven, Genre and the Sonic Ideograph of <Plastic>
by Fernando Santos
Brooklyn-based artist Daniel Lopatin exemplifies the way in which a rhetorical understanding of sound and genre can guide listeners towards understanding specific artistic effects. Lopatin, who produces music under the name Oneohtrix (pronounced "one-oh-tricks") Point Never, was introduced to music early in life. As Lopatin details in an interview with Mike Powell, both his parents, immigrants from the Soviet Union, have musical backgrounds. He was taught to play the piano by his mother as a child, and his signature instrument, a 1983 Roland Juno–60 synthesizer, was originally owned by his father. With this history as his initial production background, the early work he released as Oneohtrix Point Never revolved around vintage synthesizers played in arpeggios mixed with noise music influence. Since his first musical endeavors, Lopatin's work has a keen sense for reinvention, exploring the inner workings of genres attached to his preferred instruments: synthesizers. Lopatin's approach to composition has been described as "a cracked mirror refracting the sounds of the past" while creating new music (Pattison).
This "refraction" present in his previous works can be seen a prototype of the re-appropriation techniques present in Lopatin's 2013 album, R Plus Seven. This understanding is possible through recent studies in the rhetoric of sound, such as the work of Steph Ceraso. In her 2014 article "(Re)Educating the Senses: Multimodal Listening, Bodily Learning, and the Composition of Sonic Experiences," Ceraso examines how different situations can affect our impressions of compositions. She argues that listening is a contextual experience that changes from one setting to the next (117), emphasizing the contextual relations between sound and environment. A particularly relevant example illustrated by Ceraso is the difference between listening to music on poor quality computer speakers versus attending a live concert. In the first context, she would listen for content, that is, lyrics and composition. However, after experiencing the same music in a new environment, new sonic aspects revealed themselves, such as bass vibrations from big speakers. These new experiences opened new doors for her to engage with the sound (106). A different intention wrapped in a different situation completely changed the experience and meaning of a composition previously thought as a static. Ceraso argues that sound can work as rhetoric by lending itself to the discovery of new contexts around the act of listening, something listeners can modify by taking their own motives in account.
Cesaro's argument is one that, in a modified version, lends itself to application in R Plus Seven. While working in a similar way, when we look at the sounds used in R Plus Seven the question is not one of motives. Lopatin employs the quality of sound for effect similarly to how Cesaro describes it, but he does it in a different way, as he plays with generic expectations due to his use of one particular sound quality.
Lopatin's use of rhetoric in R Plus Seven can established as the way he manipulates sounds for effect without being preoccupied with appropriateness or existing associations. Lopatin is using sounds that already "belong" to specific music sub-genres in new ways. In observing this movement, we're brought to a question of genre. Lopatin's previous work has most often been associated with one particular sub-genre of electronic music: "Intelligent Dance Music." This association is exemplified by his music's relation to the work of contemporary electronic group Boards of Canada. To illustrate this relationship, consider the 2013 song "Reach For The Dead" by Boards of Canada and compare it to Lopatin's "Power of Persuasion" from his 2011 album Replica. Notice the faint static sound and the long sustained, heavily-processed notes. This aesthetic works perfectly establishing a nostalgic ambience for Lopatin's and Boards of Canada's music. The instruments used are processed in order to artificially age the resulting sound, giving it a "dusty, patina-like" projection (Kalev).
Boards Of Canada – "Reach For The Dead" (2013)
Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) – "Power of Persuasion" (2011)
In a 2004 electronic music album review, Brian Howe notes that Boards of Canada's take on electronic music is "so eminent and frequently imitated that it's become almost a sub-genre in itself." And that influence continues today. Specifically, Joe Colly writing in 2011 for Pitchfork contends that the "electro-organic approach" to composition of that Lopatin used in his previous work follows Boards of Canada.
The generic associations present in Lopatin's music can be understood rhetorically through the work of Carolyn Miller. Miller's 1984 "Genre as Social Action" shows how genres are not just simple classifications, but rather are how we expand our knowledge by recognizing similarities in new experiences (157). For example, if we first listened to "Reach For The Dead" before listening to Replica, we might understand Lopatin as following Boards of Canada's footsteps. Miller defines genre as "typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations" (159). By initially participating in this long established sub-genre, Lopatin is responding typically to the recurring situation of "electronic music listening," though a generic criticism approach will show us how he is in fact defying listeners' generic expectations with R Plus Seven. In doing so, Lopatin is bending Carolyn Miller's definition of genre to his favor. He is using sounds that are typical of a certain genre in atypical ways.
Lopatin's work, to be sure, has an ideological dimension to it. Sounds, like genres and rhetoric function ideologically. Just as Michael Calvin McGee and others have argued that rhetoric functions ideologically, Amy Devitt (cf. Writing Genres 64) developed her own argument to claim that genres have an ideological function. When discussing the ideological function of rhetoric, critics often use ideographs. And so, in this essay, I'll follow the convention of marking a term as an ideograph by enclosing it in angle brackets, < >. Ideographs, as defined by McGee are "seemingly commonplace terms that reveal and help shape ideological shifts in society" (qtd. in Enoch 423). Critics need to observe an ideograph in use in order to understand this "shifting" effect, as ideographs have flexible meanings that are "elaborated and constrained through use and circumstance" (428). In R Plus Seven, Lopatin uses sounds that can be described by the sonic ideograph <plastic>, a fluid term that describes a type of sound that shifts from being associated with a single genre to one that's being re-appropriated and put to new use. Lopatin is using this sonic ideograph <plastic> as a rhetorical tool to defy generic expectations.
R Plus Seven can be understood by Carolyn Miller's definition of genre as an atypical response to the recurring situation of "electronic music listening." Lopatin's response to this situation works atypically, as I'll demonstrate in this article, due to his use of "disguised" <plastic> sonic features in his productions. That is, in R Plus Seven Lopatin uses the rhetorical quality of sound to assemble musical pieces composed of parts that can be read as being typical responses if approached individually. A rhetorical approach to Lopatin's sound and his work with <plastic> reveals the paths to interpretation that are being disrupted when listeners recognize this shift, allowing his music to be discussed inductively instead of deductively. Expanding on recent work on the rhetoric of sound, I propose that sound can possess rhetorical functions that modify a listener's experience even when regarded as discrete components. In this essay, I will discuss three specific instances of this modification at work: The re-appropriation of timbre in relation to composition, of tempo in relation to continuity, and of history in relation to artificiality.
The Disguised Sonic Features in Plunderphonics
A rhetorical understanding of how Lopatin uses the sonic ideograph <plastic> to defy generic expectations complements Canadian Composer John Oswald's decades-old musical theory. In his 1984 paper, "Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative," Oswald posits that the act of making music and the act of listening to music aren't as discrete as commonly thought (134). People modify music on the fly, as they listen to it, intentionally or unintentionally. Oswald isn't talking about personal interpretations, but about the physical interference that can come into play during the act of listening to music, such as noise from poor quality stereos or the accidental dubbing of a cassette tape. One specific example he talks about is the revolutions per minute setting in turntables (135). Even if by mistake, choosing the wrong speed either slows down or speeds up the music, resulting in a new piece with a completely different timbre, something Lopatin exploits. Oswald claims that since those performances can be considered separate instances of music, such modifications are might to be considered new compositions (135).
Furthermore, while discussing authorship in the context of sampling, Oswald asks: "Are the preset sounds in today's sequencers and synthesizers' free samples or the musical property of the manufacturer?" To pretend that they are bound to the manufacturer is to deny that sampling synthesizers are instruments, Oswald argues, and that what actually distinguishes musical quoting from plagiarism is the contextual information external to the music (136).
Just like a slow saxophone is generically connected to easy listening jazz, synthesizers, Oswald's main point of concern, are already deeply tied to a specific genre in their most primitive form—the 80s darling synthpop. When they were considered novel, synthesizers were prized for their capability of being able to generate different timbres, but due to the technological limitations of the time, their sound came with certain faults. However, these faults, such as off-pitch notes and unnatural tones, have been considered as part of their <plastic> appeal (Matos). That worked in their favor back in the 80s, as period synthpop was made notable by the then-futuristic premise of having instruments sound unlike any other instruments before.
However, once technology progressed, and synthesizers started sounding more natural, this differentiator was lost. By consequence of the availability of fully developed, genuine-sounding synthesized instruments, the use of early synthesizers has been relegated to a tool used to mimic the specific aesthetic in which they came into prominence. The 2001 album Discovery by Daft Punk is a particularly notable example of 80s synthesizers being used to this effect. Simon Reynolds, writing for The Guardian's music column, notes that by using qualities that can be described by the sonic ideograph <plastic> to successfully play into the "retro-futuristic" image of the 80s, Daft Punk has "created a sound of transcendent artificiality." This self-denying relationship between futuristic intent and retrograde results makes this aesthetic the perfect choice for Lopatin to use for in his work, matching the concepts of plunderphonics.
Though Oswald's argument revolves around copyright law and authorship claims, Lopatin's music asks a much more nuanced question: Are certain sounds the musical property of a genre? In other words, while Oswald showed us why a manufacturer can't claim de jure ownership over a sound made with its instruments, R Plus Seven asks if the collective consciousness can unintentionally establish a genre's de facto ownership of its sounds. That is, Lopatin's music doesn't just ask a listener whether sounds can do more than just participate in a genre. Rather, it asks if sound can constitute a genre by itself.
This unexpectedness present in Lopatin's abandonment of his previous style and the following re-appropriation of the sonic ideograph <plastic> is a common thread that can be traced across the critical response to R Plus Seven. Andy Beta in his Spin review, for instance, notes that unlike Lopatin's previous work of "grimy underground […] basement noise," R Plus Seven is instead made of "strange MIDI polymers." Here, Beta describes the <plastic> quality and its lack of sound processing almost accusingly. Similarly, Heather Phares, writing for AllMusic, noted that R Plus Seven's "bright, crisp glossiness" suggests that it is "made from pop songs that were shattered into shards." Phares suggests a supposed need for the album to dovetail in to an existing genre, pop. Mark Richardson in his Pitchfork review is more explicit in how he, as a listener, is perceiving Lopatin's music. Richardson notes that "The aesthetic is identifiably '80s'," and that Lopatin focused on the "hauntingly clean and clear pre-set sounds" of the equipment of the era. These reviews are exposing the critics' preconceptions about <plastic>. Even though they are knowledgeable about Lopatin's past re-appropriating experiments, they still expect his use of the <plastic> sound to conform to past synthpop revivals, such as Daft Punk's Discovery.
Re-Appropriations Of <Plastic>
Mirroring Oswald's argument, R Plus Seven misleads superficial judgments prompted by genre association. Because R Plus Seven isn't compatible with the genre associations employed by musical critics, Lopatin's music counters the usual deductive approach used by critics. Once this clash between the expected genre and the perceived genre appears, critics fall back into breaking down music into its constituent parts, categorizing those. The select critical response quotes serve to illustrate this effect, as in these quotes we can see critics immediately latch onto the 80s sound palette, considering it a genre by itself; and then they attempt to extrapolate the genre from there. This particular process used by the critics is a very common way of making sense of something. For example, it is why we usually describe music as "sounding like" something else when introducing a new band to a friend. It is easier to demonstrate when compared to explaining what instruments are used in what ways to what effects. Lopatin wants to invite new sound descriptions not based on precedent into our thought processes.
This re-appropriation of the sonic ideograph <plastic> to defy a recurring situation can be understood as analogous to painting. Even though painting an ocean scene is a fitting choice when your palette is filled with shades of blue, Picasso didn't limit himself to such scenes in his blue period ("Pablo Picasso," Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History). In a similar way, just because the sounds Lopatin uses are associated with an existing genre, it doesn't mean that there isn't tremendous value to be found by not conforming to it. When Lopatin chooses to use the <plastic> palette as his blue, while being conscious of his history of participating in the electronic music genre, he is misguiding the listener. This contradictory effect is key to Lopatin's invitation to re-evaluation.
"Boring Angel": <Plastic> Re-Appropriation of Timbre
A very concrete example of Lopatin's inventive approach can be heard in the first song from R Plus Seven, "Boring Angel." In the song, listeners can clearly hear the particular type of 80s synthesizers critics have discussed being used in unexpected situations. Consider Lopatin's "Boring Angel" contrasted with the 1987 song "Shopping," by the synthpop group Pet Shop Boys. Notice how similar the foreground instrument in the Pet Shop Boys song is to the sound used by Lopatin.
Pet Shop Boys – "Shopping" (1987)
Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) – "Boring Angel" (2013)
Pet Shop Boys is one of the pioneers of mid 80s synthpop and their use of the Fairlight CMI (computer musical instrument), one of the earliest sampling synthesizers, defined the particular sound aesthetic that was used by many 80s synthpop bands ("You Can Now"). But while "Boring Angel" has sounds similar to a synthpop piece, it is structured in a very different way. "Boring Angel" follows a repetitive-addictive structure that can be traced to minimalist period Philip Glass. As a prime example of post-modern classical music, the structure in the 1969 composition by Philip Glass, "Two Pages" foregrounds the internal evolution of the composition, placing the beauty of its structure above its traditionally perceived acoustic beauty.
Philip Glass – "Two Pages" (1969)
By employing a reference to the post-modernism right on the opening track, Lopatin places the questions R Plus Seven is meant to ask front and center, making them impossible to be overlooked. An attentive listener wouldn't be able to move beyond the first song in R Plus Seven without reconsidering his expectations by pitting synthpop against post-modernism. "Boring Angel" makes a perfect song to introduce Lopatin's re-appropriation of sound in his music.
By comparing "Boring Angel" with "Two Pages," it is easy to identify the present characteristics of post-modern music proposed by music theorist Jonathan Kramer. These characteristics include the presence of irony and contradiction, the repudiation of structural unity, and the presence of references not just to other musical contexts but to other social contexts (Kramer 22). Even though this piece is structured in an observable way, it foreshadows the rest of the album's use of discontinuities and fragmentations in its composition. Most importantly, it enables Lopatin to declare the conceptual values R Plus Seven possesses in a succinct and effective way. That is, once the connection between post-modernism and the sonic ideograph <plastic> is established, with R Plus Seven as the bridge, Kramer's characteristics become evident.
With the opening song, Lopatin challenges the listener's expectations from the very start. This is Lopatin's first and perhaps most important proposition present in R Plus Seven. Ironically, it is also the easiest to derive once the usage of the sonic ideograph <plastic> is taken into account. By looking at the raw materials through Lopatin's lens, listeners are prompted to acknowledge the references to the <plastic> sound as mere building blocks, detached from the associations to synthpop they might induce, while at the same time hinting at a possible connection to post-modernism, by assembling a specific composition that could fit in that genre with those <plastic> building blocks.
"Zebra": <Plastic> Re-Appropriation of Continuity
Once these initial expectations are challenged and corresponding genre associations are broken, Lopatin further plays with more aspects of <plastic>. Throughout the rest of the album, Lopatin shows what can be done once his material is molten and ready to be shaped. Another prime example is the song "Zebra" from R Plus Seven, when held in contrast to the 1987 song "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order. When listening to these, notice that the New Order piece uses synthesized "stabs" heavily. Popular in the 80s, stabs are single detached chords meant to grab the listener's attention. The R Plus Seven track follows the same initial pattern, except that while the original is consistently timed, the tempo in "Zebra's" synthesized stabs eventually collapses onto itself. Lopatin reshapes the tempo present in the sound he used by the end of this clip, transforming this cycle's familiar regularity into a single "block" of sound.
New Order – "Bizarre Love Triangle" (1987)
Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) – "Zebra" (2013)
This effect is a direct result of Lopatin's adherence to the technique introduced in "Boring Angel." That is, by highlighting a piece's internal evolution over its genre appropriateness, Lopatin exerts greater control over the raw <plastic> material he used. Instead of having the stab chord structure following a pattern that could be replicated in, for example, a piano, he develops a new sonic texture by playing with the tempo. "Zebra" evolves from possessing a "bleepy hook" into an atmospheric "musical chasm" (Fisch). While it is possible to rework recordings into having similar characteristics, the <plastic> quality is inherently present in synthesized, artificial, fabricated sounds. Specifically, this quality is the material's innate capability of being used in an ever-changing tempo, keeping up with the structural changes that ensue.
By acknowledging the movement that is inherently present in an instrument that can be procedurally tweaked to sound like other instruments, Lopatin demonstrates another aspect of the sonic ideograph <plastic>. For Lopatin, <plastic> evokes fluidity and immediacy that is only made possible through artificiality. When we consider how "Zebra" follows through with the instrument re-appropriation approach set with "Boring Angel," another dimension is added to Lopatin's approach to production, resulting in a richer, more meaningful and personalized path to re-appropriation.
"Chrome Country": <Plastic> Re-Appropriation of Histories
Now that Lopatin has used both the timbre and tempo present in his source material, redirecting the associations they carry to his benefit, for the last track he tackles the main issue perceived in <plastic>: artificiality itself. This final movement is illustrated by comparing the 1981 song "The Beginning and The End" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark to the closing track in R Plus Seven, "Chrome Country." The tracks in this particular comparison don't sound as close as those in the previous one, but the intentions are strikingly similar. Both the Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and the Oneohtrix Point Never songs are used as the closing tracks in their respective albums, and both attempt to project a "spiritual" image present in the songs and the albums they close, an idea made stronger by the presence of the church organ sample to the very end of the Oneohtrix Point Never song. However, there are two big differences here that highlight Lopatin's approach to re-appropriation. Unlike the decidedly artificial sound reminiscent of the popular Mellotron proto-synthesizer keyboard present in many 80s pop songs, such as the one in "The Beginning and The End," Lopatin's choir sounds quite natural at first listen. Initially, "Chrome Country's" choir could even be confused with a real boys' choir recording, even if the way Lopatin uses this instrument is unnatural. Their voices are distorted and its vocal range is artificially expanded, but even so, it's still recognizable as a clichéd 80s choir.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – "The Beginning and The End" (1981)
Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) – "Chrome Country" (2013)
Lopatin has used a modern version of an instrument in contradictory ways while still maintaining a connection and making references to the instrument's history. What we see here is Lopatin's re-appropriation of not only a single moment in the history of synthesizers but of their entire history, acknowledging technological evolution. The <plastic> artificiality of synthesizers' attempts to mimic the human voice, and this attempt is perfectly encapsulated by Lopatin's choice of instrument; then it is re-appropriated in relation to a potential alternative history. Lopatin essentially projects what would've happened had technology advanced enough to provide 80s artists with a more natural sounding voice. Then, Lopatin re-appropriates this projection.
The secondary aspect of Lopatin's use of the choir voice instrument is a continuation of the tempo-based compression seen in "Zebra" to redirect expectations. Once the connection to the ethereal, holy image that the choir instrument painted in the 80s is established, Lopatin can then bend this connection to his own benefit. Specifically, he can reconstitute the image painted by this choir, "flipping [it] from angelic to anguished with a wink" (Saxelby). The <plastic> quality is crucial to demonstrating this unsure effect; a listener's expectations in terms of message tone are invalidated. Despite initially possessing this "angelic" quality, the choir's significance can't be easily gleaned anymore, leaving a listener unsure of the song's optimism or pessimism.
Rhetorical inquiry helps us single out the way Lopatin uses the sonic ideograph <plastic> in three instances. Using the rhetorical quality of sound, Lopatin's music responds to the recurring electronic music listening situation by executing three moves: Re-appropriation of timbre in relation to composition, tempo in relation to continuity, and history in relation to artificiality. These three moves defy generic expectations to great effect. By accepting these moves, listeners are invited to hear the instruments for what they are without being subject to any inherited contexts that might cloud their judgment. In other words, these <plastic> synthesizer sounds are no longer reminders of a pop genre gone by. For Lopatin, they're just another tool. Instead of being negatively associated with contrived artificiality and a "default" material, Lopatin redirects <plastic> to carry its original connotation: a triumph of technology, a malleable new material that can be used to make most anything in modern society. Lopatin acknowledges the existing aesthetic references the sonic ideograph <plastic> possesses while drawing a parallel between the all-purposefulness of the material and the malleability of <plastic> as a sound. Throughout R Plus Seven, Lopatin not only re-constructs the culture both surrounding the sounds themselves but even the culture surrounding the descriptors of those sounds.
Without being manipulated by undesirable histories and stereotypes present in his sound, Lopatin can manipulate his sound with maximum freedom, freeing it from any generic associations that have developed or are yet to be developed. This malleability is key to his music, since breaking down the relationship between sound and genre allows him to constantly "bend" his instruments in new ways. Instead of being preoccupied with genres, appropriateness, and tradition, Lopatin can use the sounds of his choice in objective, material-oriented ways. Lopatin also establishes the almost recursive relationship in generic associations—that is, music can be considered an instrument used to make more music. The acknowledgment of the movement present in sound opens up the possibility for this music to be put through the cycle once more. The cycle never allows music or its effects on listeners to settle in a single place. Lopatin then situates his compositions in this cycle. His music reconstructs sound, sound effects, and culture, and in doing so, is proof of Lopatin's musical genius.
Beta, Andy. "Oneohtrix Point Never and Nicolas Jaar's Darkside Serve Up Noirish, Sensuous Hypnosis." Spin. 23 Sept. 2013. Web. 27 Jul. 2014.
Boards Of Canada. "Reach For The Dead." Tomorrow's Harvest. Warp, 2013. CD.
Ceraso, Steph. "(Re)Educating the Senses: Multimodal Listening, Bodily Learning, and the Composition of Sonic Experiences." College English, Vol. 77, Number 2, Nov. 2014. PDF File. 1 Feb 2015.
Colly, Joe. "Tycho: Dive." Pitchfork. 28 Nov. 2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
Daft Punk. Discovery. Virgin, 2001. CD.
Devitt, Amy J. "A Theory of Genre." Writing Genres. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. 1-32. PDF File. 10 Feb. 2015
Enoch, Jessica. "There's No Place Like the Childcare Center: A Feminist Analysis of in the World War II Era." Rhetoric Review 31.4 (2012): 422–442. PDF File. 1 Feb. 2015
Fisch, David. "Album Review: Oneohtrix Point Never – R Plus Seven." LA Music Blog. 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
Howe, Brian. "Bibio: fi." Pitchfork. 14 Nov. 2004. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
Kalev, Maya. "One Very Important Thought: Boards of Canada's Music has the Right to Children At 15." FACT. 6 Jun. 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Kramer, Jonathan. "Postmodern Concepts of Musical Time ." Indiana Theory Review 17.2 (Fall 1996): P. 21–62. PDF File. 9 Aug. 2014.
Matos, Michelangelo. "The Melancholy Sound of the Synth." Wondering Sound. 11 May 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Miller, Carolyn. "Genre as Social Action." Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984):151-167. PDF File. 1 Feb. 2015.
New Order. "Bizarre Love Triangle." Brotherhood. Factory, 1986. CD.
Oneohtrix Point Never. Replica. Mexican Summer, 2011. CD.
—. R Plus Seven. Warp, 2013. CD.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. "The Beginning and the End." Architecture & Morality. Virgin, 1981. CD.
Oswald, John. "Bettered by the Borrower: The Ethics of Musical Debt." Whole Earth Review#57 Winter 1987: 131–137. PDF File. 9 Aug 2014.
"Pablo Picasso: The Blind Man's Meal." Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Mar. 2010. Web.31 Aug. 2014.
Pattison, Louis. "Oneohtrix Point Never – Rifts." The Quietus. 3 Dec. 2009. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Pet Shop Boys. "Shopping." Actually. Parlophone, 1987. CD.
Phares, Heather. "R Plus Seven – Oneohtrix Point Never." AllMusic. 1 Oct. 2013. Web. 27 Jul. 2014.
Philip Glass. "Two Pages." Two Pages / Contrary Motion / Music in Fifths / Music in SimilarMotion. Nonesuch, 1994. CD.
Powell, Mike. "Machine love: Oneohtrix Point Never." Resident Advisor. 27 Jul. 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Reynolds, Simon. "The 1980s Revival That Lasted an Entire Decade." The Guardian. 22 Jan. 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Richardson, Mark. "Oneohtrix Point Never: R Plus Seven." Pitchfork. 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 27 Jul. 2014.
Saxelby, Ruth. "First Listen: Oneohtrix Point Never, 'R Plus Seven'." NPR. 22 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
"You Can Now Buy A Fairlight Sampler Loaded With Sounds From Yello, Pet Shop Boys, Art of Noise And More." FACT. 23 Oct. 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Fernando Santos is a senior majoring in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at Western Michigan University, where he is set to graduate this spring. He originally wrote this essay for Dr. Brian Gogan's parody-focused Rhetoric, Writing and Culture class. Fernando is particularly interested in music, and how instrumental music can function as a form of "wordless rhetoric."
3.2 ideograph Lopatin music Oneohtrix plastic R Plus Seven Santos sound


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Tag: Gavin Francis
The 2019 Wellcome Book Prize: Shadow Panel and Wish List
On Tuesday the longlist for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize will be announced. For the third year in a row I'm running a shadow panel, and it's composed of the same four wonderful book bloggers who joined me last year: Paul Cheney of Halfman, Halfbook, Annabel Gaskell of Annabookbel, Clare Rowland of A Little Blog of Books, and Dr. Laura Tisdall.
This year we're going to do things slightly differently: we plan to split up the longlist, taking two to three titles each, so that between us we will have read them all and can announce our own preferred shortlist before the official shortlist is announced in March. At that point we'll catch up by (re)reading the six shortlisted books, each reviewing the ones we haven't already. Essentially, I'm adding an extra stage of shadow panel judging, simply because I can. I hope it will be fun – and also less onerous, in that we should get a leg-up on the shortlist and not have to read all six books in March‒April, which has proved to be a challenge in the past.
My Wellcome Prize hopefuls are all the fiction or nonfiction titles I've read on a medical theme that were published in the UK in calendar year 2018. I have put asterisks beside the 12 books in this post that I predict for the longlist. (The combination of wishful thinking and likelihood means that these are not exclusively my personal favorites.)
Below is a list of the books I've already featured on the blog in some way, with links to my coverage and a few-word summary of their relevance.
Gross Anatomy by Mara Altman: Female body woes
*Beneath the Skin: Great Writers on the Body: Essays on organs
*All that Remains by Sue Black: Forensic anthropology
Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler: Living with advanced cancer
Heal Me by Julia Buckley: Tackling chronic pain
*The Unmapped Mind by Christian Donlan: Adjusting to life with MS
From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty: Funerary rites around the world
This Really Isn't About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein: A genetic disease in the family
Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich: Questioning the wellness culture
On Smaller Dogs and Larger Life Questions by Kate Figes: Pondering breast cancer
Shapeshifters by Gavin Francis: Instances of bodily change
The Reading Cure by Laura Freeman: Healing from an eating disorder
Nine Pints by Rose George: The story of blood
Waiting for the Last Bus by Richard Holloway: Ageing and death
*Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar: Heart disease and treatments
Sick by Porochista Khakpour: Chronic Lyme disease
Human Errors by Nathan Lents: Flawed bodies; evolutionary adaptations
Skybound by Rebecca Loncraine: Breast cancer; flying lessons
Amateur by Thomas Page McBee: Memoir of F2M transformation
*Face to Face by Jim McCaul: Tales of facial surgery
*Somebody I Used to Know by Wendy Mitchell: A firsthand account of early Alzheimer's
*That Was When People Started to Worry by Nancy Tucker: Mental illness from the inside
*The Language of Kindness by Christie Watson: Nursing as a vocation
Little by Edward Carey: Anatomical models in wax (thanks to Clare for the reminder!)
Orchid & the Wasp by Caoilinn Hughes: Non-epileptic seizures
*The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason: Neurology, surgery during WWI
The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry: Medicine in 1840s Edinburgh
Other eligible books that I have read but not happened to mention on the blog:
In Shock by Rana Awdish: The doctor became the patient when Awdish, seven months pregnant, was rushed into emergency surgery with excruciating pain due to severe hemorrhaging into the space around her liver, later explained by a ruptured tumor. Having experienced brusque, cursory treatment, even from colleagues at her Detroit-area hospital, she was convinced that doctors needed to do better. This memoir is a gripping story of her own medical journey and a fervent plea for compassion from medical professionals.
Doctor by Andrew Bomback: Part of the Bloomsbury Object Lessons series, this is a wide-ranging look at what it's like to be a doctor. Bomback is a kidney specialist; his wife is also a doctor, and his father, fast approaching retirement, is the kind of old-fashioned, reassuring pediatrician who knows everything. Even the author's young daughter likes playing with a stethoscope and deciding what's wrong with her dolls. In a sense, then, Bomback uses fragments of family memoir to compare the past, present and likely future of medicine.
A Moment of Grace by Patrick Dillon [skimmed]: A touching short memoir of the last year of his wife Nicola Thorold's life, in which she battled acute myeloid leukemia. Dillon doesn't shy away from the pain and difficulties, but is also able to summon up some gratitude.
Get Well Soon: Adventures in Alternative Healthcare by Nick Duerden: British journalist Nick Duerden had severe post-viral fatigue after a run-in with possible avian flu in 2009 and was falsely diagnosed with ME / CFS. He spent a year wholeheartedly investigating alternative therapies, including yoga, massage, mindfulness and meditation, visualization, talk therapy and more. He never comes across as bitter or sorry for himself. Instead, he considered fatigue a fact of his new life and asked what he could do about it. So this ends up being quite a pleasant amble through the options, some of them more bizarre than others.
*Sight by Jessie Greengrass [skimmed]: I wanted to enjoy this, but ended up frustrated. As a set of themes (losing a parent, choosing motherhood, the ways in which medical science has learned to look into human bodies and minds), it's appealing; as a novel, it's off-putting. Had this been presented as a set of autobiographical essays, perhaps I would have loved it. But instead it's in the coy autofiction mold where you know the author has pulled some observations straight from life, gussied up others, and then, in this case, thrown in a bunch of irrelevant medical material dredged up during research at the Wellcome Library.
*Brainstorm: Detective Stories From the World of Neurology by Suzanne O'Sullivan: Epilepsy affects 600,000 people in the UK and 50 million worldwide, so it's an important condition to know about. It is fascinating to see the range of behaviors seizures can be associated with. The guesswork is in determining precisely what is going wrong in the brain, and where, as well as how medicines or surgery could address the fault. "There are still far more unknowns than knowns where the brain is concerned," O'Sullivan writes; "The brain has a mind of its own," she wryly adds later on. (O'Sullivan won the Prize in 2016 for It's All in Your Head.)
I'm also currently reading and enjoying two witty medical books, The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris, and Chicken Unga Fever by Phil Whitaker, his collected New Statesman columns on being a GP.
Four additional books I have not read but think might have a chance of making the longlist:
Primate Change: How the World We Made Is Remaking Us by Vybarr Cregan-Reid
The Beautiful Cure: Harnessing Your Body's Natural Defences by Daniel M. Davis
Because I Come from a Crazy Family: The Making of a Psychiatrist by Edward M. Hallowell
*She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity by Carl Zimmer
Look out for the announcement of the longlist on Tuesday afternoon! I'll report back, perhaps on Wednesday, with some reactions and the shadow panel's reviewing strategy.
Have you read, or are you interested in, any of these books?
Can you think of other 2018 releases that might be eligible for the Wellcome Book Prize?
Ambrose Parry
Andrew Bomback
Barbara Ehrenreich
cancer memoirs
Caoilinn Hughes
Carl Zimmer
Christian Donlan
Christie Watson
Daniel M. Davis
Daniel Mason
Edward Carey
Edward M. Hallowell
Gavin Francis
Jean Hannah Edelstein
Jessie Greengrass
Jim McCaul
Kate Bowler
Kate Figes
Laura Freeman
Nancy Tucker
Nathan H. Lents
Nick Duerden
Nicola Thorold
Patrick Dillon
Phil Whitaker
Porochista Khakpour
Rana Awdish
Rebecca Loncraine
Richard Holloway
Rose George
Sandeep Jauhar
Suzanne O'Sullivan
Thomas Page McBee
Vybarr Cregan-Reid
Wellcome Book Prize
Wendy Mitchell
Two Records of Bodily Transformation: Amateur and Shapeshifters
Amateur: A True Story about What Makes a Man, Thomas Page McBee
Thomas Page McBee was the first transgender man to box at Madison Square Garden. In his second memoir, which arose from a Quartz article entitled "Why Men Fight," he recounts the training leading up to his charity match and ponders whether aggression is a natural male trait. McBee grew up in a small town outside Pittsburgh with a stepfather who sexually abused him from age four. In 2011 he started the testosterone injections that would begin his gender transformation. During the years that followed, other men seemed to pick fights with him fairly often, and he was unsure what to do about it. Finally, in 2015, the Manhattan editor decided to confront the belligerent male stereotype by starting boxing training.
What I most appreciated were the author's observations of how others have related to him since his transition. He notices that he's taken more seriously at work as a man, and that he can be an object of fear – when jogging behind a woman at night, for instance. One of the most eye-opening moments of the book is when he realizes that he's been talking over his own sister. Thankfully, McBee is sensitive enough to stop and change, recognizing that kindness and vulnerability are not faults but attributes any person should be proud of.
I have a feeling I would have preferred his previous memoir, Man Alive, which sounds like it has more about the transition itself. Jonathan Eig's biography of Muhammad Ali is one of the best books I've read this year, and in comparison I didn't find the boxing writing here very interesting. Likewise, this pales beside two similar but more perceptive books I've read that have been hugely influential on my own understanding of gender identity: Conundrum by Jan Morris and The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson.
Amateur was published in the UK by Canongate on August 2nd. My thanks to the publisher for the free copy for review.
Shapeshifters: On Medicine and Human Change by Gavin Francis
Gavin Francis is a physician with a practice near Edinburgh. His latest book is like a taster course in medical topics. The overarching theme is the modifications the body undergoes, so there are chapters on, for example, body-building, tattoos, puberty, prosthetic limbs, dementia and menopause. Over his years in general practice Francis has gotten to know his patients' stories and seen them change, for better or worse. These anecdotes of transformation are one source for his book, but he also applies insight from history, mythology, literature, etymology and more. So in a chapter on conception he discusses the Virgin Mary myth, Leonardo da Vinci's fetal diagrams, the physiological changes pregnant women experience, and the case of a patient, Hannah, who had three difficult, surprise pregnancies in quick succession.
We are all in the process of various transformations, Francis argues, whether by choice or involuntarily. (I decided on the link with McBee because of a chapter on sex changes.) I was less convinced by the author's inclusion of temporary, reversible changes such as sleep, hallucinations, jet lag and laughter. And while each chapter is finely wrought, I felt some sort of chronological or anatomical order was necessary to give the book more focus. All the same, I suspect this will be a strong contender for next year's Wellcome Book Prize because of its broad relevance to human health and its compassionate picture of bodies in flux.
Shapeshifters was published by the Wellcome Collection/Profile Books on May 2nd. My thanks to the publisher for the proof copy for review.
Jonathan Eig
Maggie Nelson
Wellcome Collection
My Most Anticipated 2018 Releases, Part I
Here are 30 books that are on my radar for the months of January through June. This is by no means a full inventory of what's coming out (or even of what I have available through NetGalley and Edelweiss); instead, think of it as a preview of the books I actually intend to read. This time my list seems strangely skewed towards plants (the covers too), with a couple of bird- and medical-themed reads in there too. Also: two feminist group biographies, plenty of historical fiction, some short stories, a bit of true crime, and a fair few memoirs. I hope you'll find a book or two here to tempt you.
(The descriptions below are generally adapted from the publisher blurbs on Goodreads, NetGalley or Edelweiss. Some of these I already have access to in print or galley form; others I'm still on the look-out for. The list is in chronological order by first publication date; if multiple books release on the same day they are in alphabetical order by author surname.)
On the Bright Side: The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen [Jan. 11, Michael Joseph (Penguin UK)]: I loved the first Hendrik Groen novel back in 2016 (reviewed here); this promises more of the same witty, bittersweet stories about elderly Dutch eccentrics. "Chaos will ensue as 85-year-old Hendrik Groen is determined to grow old with dignity … He dreams of escaping the confines of his care home and practising hairpin turns on his mobility scooter." (NetGalley download)
Writer's Luck: A Memoir: 1976–1991 by David Lodge [Jan. 11, Harvill Secker]: I reviewed the first volume of Lodge's memoirs, Quite a Good Time to Be Born, for Nudge back in 2015, so I'm eager to continue his life story in this second installment. "Readers of Lodge's novels will be fascinated by the insights this book gives—not only into his professional career but also more personal experience. The main focus, however, is on writing as a vocation."
Brass: A Novel by Xhenet Aliu (for BookBrowse review) [Jan. 23, Random House]: "A waitress at the Betsy Ross Diner, Elsie hopes her nickel-and-dime tips will add up to a new life. Then she meets Bashkim, … who left Albania to chase his dreams. … Told in equally gripping parallel narratives with biting wit and grace, Brass announces a fearless new voice with a timely, tender, and quintessentially American story." (NetGalley download)
Heal Me: In Search of a Cure by Julia Buckley [Jan. 25, Weidenfeld & Nicolson]: The "search for a cure [for chronic pain] takes her on a global quest, exploring the boundaries between science, psychology and faith with practitioners on the fringes of conventional, traditional and alternative medicine. Rais[es] vital questions about the modern medical system … and the struggle to retain a sense of self." (print review copy)
The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar [Jan. 25, Harvill Secker]: "A spellbinding story of curiosity, love and obsession from an astonishing new talent. One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah's ship for what appears to be a mermaid." Comes recommended by Elle. (NetGalley download)
Owl Sense by Miriam Darlington [Feb. 6, Guardian Faber]: Darlington's previous nature book, Otter Country, was stunning. Here, "Darlington sets out to tell a new story. Her fieldwork begins with wild encounters in the British Isles and takes her to the frosted borders of the Arctic. In her watching and deep listening to the natural world, she cleaves myth from reality and will change the way you think of this magnificent creature."
The Grave's a Fine and Private Place by Alan Bradley [Feb. 8, Orion]: I've read all eight Flavia de Luce novels so far, which is worth remarking on because I don't otherwise read mysteries and I usually find child narrators annoying. There's just something delicious about this series set in 1950s England. This one will be particularly interesting because a life-changing blow came at the end of the previous book.
A Black Fox Running by Brian Carter [Feb. 8, Bloomsbury UK]: "A beautiful lost classic of nature writing" from 1981 that "sits alongside Tarka the Otter, Watership Down," et al. "This is the story of Wulfgar, the dark-furred fox of Dartmoor, and of his nemesis, Scoble the trapper, in the seasons leading up to the pitiless winter of 1947. As breathtaking in its descriptions of the natural world as it is perceptive in its portrayal of damaged humanity." Championed by Melissa Harrison.
White Houses by Amy Bloom [Feb. 13, Random House]: The story of Lorena Hickock's friendship/affair with Eleanor Roosevelt. "From Washington, D.C. to Hyde Park, from a little white house on Long Island to an apartment on Manhattan's Washington Square, Amy Bloom's new novel moves elegantly through fascinating places and times, written in compelling prose and with emotional depth, wit, and acuity." (Edelweiss download)
The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman [Feb. 20, Riverrun/Viking]: I'm a huge fan of Rachman's, especially his previous novel, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers. "1955: The artists are gathering together for a photograph. In one of Rome's historic villas, a party is bright with near-genius, shaded by the socialite patrons of their art. … Rachman displays a nuanced understanding of twentieth-century art and its demons, vultures and chimeras." (Edelweiss download)
The Sea Beast Takes a Lover: Stories by Michael Andreasen [Feb. 27, Dutton (Penguin Group)]: "Romping through the fantastic with big-hearted ease, these stories cut to the core of what it means to navigate family, faith, and longing, whether in the form of a lovesick kraken slowly dragging a ship of sailors into the sea [or] a small town euthanizing its grandfathers in a time-honored ritual." (NetGalley download)
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington [Feb. 27, PublicAffairs]: "After two three-year-old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men, [who] spent a combined thirty years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008. Meanwhile, the real killer remained free."
The Gospel of Trees: A Memoir by Apricot Irving [March 6, Simon & Schuster]: "Apricot Irving grew up as a missionary's daughter in Haiti—a country easy to sensationalize but difficult to understand. Her father was an agronomist, a man who hiked alone into the hills … to preach the gospel of trees in a deforested but resilient country. Her mother and sisters, meanwhile, spent most of their days in the confines of the hospital compound they called home. As a child, this felt like paradise; as a teenager, the same setting felt like a prison."
The Little Book of Feminist Saints by Julia Pierpont (illus. by Manjitt Thapp) [March 6, Random House]: This project reminds me a lot of A Glorious Freedom with its focus on women's achievements and the full-color portraits of the subjects. I've just opened the file and the first two pieces give you a sense of the range that will be covered: Artemisia Gentileschi and Michelle Obama! (Edelweiss download)
Orchid Summer: In Search of the Wildest Flowers of the British Isles by Jon Dunn [March 8, Bloomsbury UK]: Dunn's were my favorite contributions to the Wildlife Trusts' Seasons anthologies (e.g. Winter). I've also enjoyed following his botanical travels on Twitter. "From the chalk downs of the south coast of England to the heathery moorland of the Shetland Isles, and from the holy island of Lindisfarne in the east to the Atlantic frontier of western Ireland, Orchid Summer is a journey into Britain and Ireland's most beautiful corners."
Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles [March 13, Hogarth]: Miles's previous novel, Want Not, is one of the books I most wish I'd written. "Rendered paraplegic after a traumatic event, Cameron Harris has been living his new existence alongside his sister, Tanya, in their battered Biloxi, Mississippi neighborhood where only half the houses made it through Katrina. … [A] stunning exploration of faith, science, mystery, and the meaning of life."
Happiness by Aminatta Forna [March 16, Grove Atlantic]: "London. A fox makes its way across Waterloo Bridge. The distraction causes two pedestrians to collide—Jean, an American studying the habits of urban foxes, and Attila, a Ghanaian psychiatrist there to deliver a keynote speech. … Forna's unerring powers of observation show how in the midst of the rush of a great city lie numerous moments of connection." (NetGalley download)
The Long Forgotten by David Whitehouse [March 22, Pan Macmillan/Picador]: "When the black box flight recorder of a plane that went missing 30 years ago is found at the bottom of the sea, a young man named Dove begins to remember a past that isn't his. The memories belong to a rare flower hunter in 1980s New York, whose search led him around the world and ended in tragedy." (NetGalley download)
The Parentations by Kate Mayfield (to review for Shiny New Books?) [March 29, Oneworld]: From editor Jenny Parrott: "a stunning speculative historical novel … The story spans 200 years across Iceland and London, as a strange boy who can never die is surrounded by a motley collection of individuals, each with vested interests in his welfare. … [S]ome of the most extraordinary literary prose I've read during a thirty-year career."
Things Bright and Beautiful by Anbara Salam [April 5, Fig Tree]: "1954, the South Pacific islands. When Beatriz Hanlon agreed to accompany her missionary husband Max to a remote island, she knew there would be challenges. But it isn't just the heat and the damp and the dirt. There are more insects than she could ever have imagined, and the islanders are strangely hostile. [Then] an unexpected … guest arrives, and the couple's claustrophobic existence is stretched to breaking point." Sounds like Euphoria by Lily King. (NetGalley download)
Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion by Michelle Dean [April 10, Grove Press]: "Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler, and Janet Malcolm—these brilliant women's lives intertwine as they cut through the cultural and intellectual history of America in the twentieth century, arguing as fervently with each other as they did with the sexist attitudes of the men who often undervalued their work as critics and essayists."
The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena [April 10, Doubleday]: "Carlos Magdalena is not your average horticulturist. He's a man on a mission to save the world's most endangered plants. … [He] takes readers from the Amazon to the jungles of Mauritius. … Back in the lab, we watch as he develops groundbreaking, left-field techniques for rescuing species from extinction, encouraging them to propagate and thrive once again." (NetGalley download)
The Man on the Middle Floor by Elizabeth S. Moore (for blog tour) [April 12, RedDoor Publishing]: "Despite living in the same three-flat house in the suburbs of London, the residents are strangers to one another. … They have lived their lives separately, until now, when an unsolved murder and the man on the middle floor connect them. … It questions whether society is meeting the needs of the fast growing autistic section of society." (print ARC)
Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan [April 24, Random House UK]: "This is a love letter to the joys of childhood reading, full of enthusiasm and wit, telling the colorful story of our best-loved children's books, the extraordinary people who created them, and the thousand subtle ways they shape our lives." (NetGalley download)
You Think It, I'll Say It: Stories by Curtis Sittenfeld [April 24, Random House]: I would read anything Curtis Sittenfeld wrote; American Wife is still one of my absolute favorites. "The theme that unites these stories … is how even the cleverest people tend to misread others, and how much we all deceive ourselves. Sharp and tender, funny and wise, this collection shows [her] knack for creating real, believable characters that spring off the page."
The Valley at the Centre of the World by Malachy Tallack [May 3, Canongate]: I've reviewed and enjoyed both of Tallack's previous nonfiction works, including The Un-Discovered Islands. "Set against the rugged west coast of Shetland, in a community faced with extinction, [this] is a novel about love and grief, family and inheritance, rapid change and an age-old way of life. … [T]hese islanders must decide: what is left of us when the day's work is done, the children grown, and all our choices have been made?"
Shapeshifters: A Journey through the Changing Human Body by Gavin Francis [May 8, Basic Books]: "Francis considers the inevitable changes all of our bodies undergo—such as birth, puberty, and death, but also … those that only some of our bodies will: like getting a tattoo, experiencing psychosis, suffering anorexia, being pregnant, or undergoing a gender transition. … [E]ach event becomes an opportunity to explore the meaning of identity."
The Ensemble by Aja Gabel [May 15, Riverhead]: An "addictive debut novel about four young friends navigating the cutthroat world of music and their complex relationships with each other, as ambition, passion, and love intertwine over the course of their lives."
Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? by Lev Parikian (for blog tour) [May 17, Unbound]: "A lapsed and hopeless birdwatcher's attempt to see 200 birds in a year. But it's not just about birds. It's about family, music, nostalgia; hearing the stories of strangers; the nature of obsession and obsession with nature."
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai [June 19, Viking]: I loved both of Makkai's previous novels and have her short story collection on my Kindle. "Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter, who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer …, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways the AIDS crisis affected her life and her relationship with her daughter." (Edelweiss download)
Other lists of enticing 2018 releases that might give you some ideas:
Guardian (UK, nonfiction)
Halfman, Halfbook (UK, mostly science/nature and history)
Parchment Girl (mostly nonfiction)
Sarah's Book Shelves
Stylist (UK)
Which 2018 books are you most looking forward to? Do any of my choices interest you?
Aja Gabel
Alan Bradley
Aminatta Forna
Amy Bloom
Anbara Salam
Apricot Irving
bibliomemoirs
Carlos Magdalena
David Whitehouse
Elizabeth S. Moore
Flavia de Luce
Imogen Hermes Gowar
Janet Malcolm
Jon Dunn
Jonathan Miles
Julia Pierpont
Kate Mayfield
Lev Parikian
Lily King
Lucy Mangan
Malachy Tallack
Manjitt Thapp
medical memoirs
Michael Andreasen
Nora Ephron
Pauline Kael
Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca West
Renata Adler
Tom Rachman
Tucker Carrington
Xhenet Aliu

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Before it is built, every building will have evolved through an iterative process in order to achieve a balance between function and experience.
It is no wonder then that architecture thrives on innovation. In recent years, as a field it has been revolutionised by numerous developments in technology, with new opportunities unlocked. Designs can now be rendered and prototyped more realistically and rapidly than ever before. These designs can also be subjected to an ever-expanding range of tests using a variety of newly developed and bespoke software products. New materials can be created, whilst existing materials can be manipulated in new ways. Advances in fields such as 3D printing mean that once impossible shapes can now be created and new construction methods utilised.
The UK is home to many world-leading architectural practices and is known across the world for its innovative architecture. Much of this innovation revolves around designs that tackle the big shared problems of our age head-on, like energy-efficiency, air quality and sustainability. Innovation also lies in using technology to directly challenge what is achievable. With the boundaries between architecture and engineering becoming increasingly blurred along with further advances in robotics, 3D Printing, design software and computer modelling, it really is a brave new world.
Many architectural projects today will involve significant risk-taking, the development and use of bespoke software, adapting the latest technologies to help solve a range of problems, either on-site or during the design stages. Many of these areas may qualify for tax relief under the R&D Tax credit scheme.
Where is the R&D In Architecture?
Research and development often occurs in an architectural project when a design seeks to resolve "a scientific or technological uncertainty." Any costs incurred in attempting to resolve the uncertainties faced can qualify as research and development. Creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications could potentially be considered as R&D for tax relief purposes.
When embarking on a project an architect may encounter a problem that means a conventional approach is not possible. It is then necessary to find a solution that works. A new way of doing things in order to overcome whatever unique set of challenges standing in the way. This requires 'out of the box' thinking, research into design, and investigating how clever design and use of technology can be utilised to resolve the scientific or technological challenges that the project presents. In other words, research and development.
Some of the common areas of architectural R&D involve using and adapting technology in a range of ways, like to improve the performance of products/materials and processes. Advances in testing, prototype design and design software to resolve challenges and uncertainties in new materials and technologies can also qualify.
As well as problem-solving, R&D can also occur when systems or processes are appreciably improved. If a more cost effective or less resource intensive method of doing an age-old task has been created then the costs incurred in developing this process could be considered. The demands on architectural practices to create architecturally stunning creations in increasingly challenging locations, and the unique buildings that are often the result demonstrate a huge range of architectural R&D, and the associated costs incurred could potentially qualify for R&D tax relief.
In a routine project where conventional design techniques have been utilised to create the end result it would be unlikely that R&D costs had been incurred, qualifying R&D tends to occur where complex design solutions have been created in response to sometimes unique, but often common challenges faced by architectural firms all around the world.
The design stages of an architectural project are often complex and technologically advanced and as such are where the majority of the research and development occurs. Although hand-drawings and sketches are still used, it is computation and parametric tools that make up the bulk of the design phase. The development of new design and computer-aided design tools to resolve challenges or aid modelling capabilities would likely incur qualifying expenditure.
Although using computers as part of the design process is nothing new, in recent times computational design tools have developed significantly. Design software is now often interlinked with fabrication, simulation and modelling tools all unlocking huge potential for architects.
Design tools and software give architects the ability to quickly and accurately visualise their designs as well as test and manipulate them. The process is much easier than ever before thanks to technological advances. Architects can now experience their designs with higher and higher levels of realism, being able to identify flaws that they most likely wouldn't spot on plans. They can also quickly change the design as well as see how different materials and lighting options will look. There are now a variety of techniques and programmes available to render buildings with ever increasing realism.
Larger architectural practices are developing their own architectural visualisation tools in house so they can more accurately communicate how inhabitants might interact and the mood of a space. Hi-res 3D flythroughs have been commonly used by architects for many years to market properties, the development of proprietary tools, plugins or workflows to aid the creation of this polished 3D content could also be considered.
Further advances in virtual reality could see this visualisation process become more immersive, allowing architects and their clients to walk around and get a unique perspective on the designed space. Virtual reality has the potential to revolutionise how architects work. By virtually experiencing their designs, architects can identify potential issues and resolve them in the design stages. There is also a level of interactivity which allows you to try various materials and experiment with different solutions to issues. London 3D imaging company IVR NATION have created virtual reality houses that are 90% accurate and utilise the Oculus Rift headset.
The development of VR technologies is likely to be a hotbed for R&D for many years to come as companies look to improve the field of view and resolution as well as resolve issues with the devices themselves, architecture is set to be both one of the most significant driving forces behind this development as well one of the biggest beneficiaries.
Another big area of R&D is in the development of various tools and methodologies that aim to streamline the transition from digital design to fabrication. Architects can now output their digital designs as models by using 3D printing, stereolithography laser-cutting and selective laser sintering (SLS). This allows them to experiment with accurate models of their designs and be much more aware of potential issues at prototype stage. Custom tools can also test concepts, examine energy use and even get a realistic idea of how their design will perform in a range of scenarios such as natural disasters.
3D printers are a key area in architectural research and development as they expand the possibilities of architectural modelling, allowing rapid prototyping so that you can evaluate and refine your design. 3D printing doesn't have to stop at single buildings but whole complexes, streets and even cities.
3D printing is also being used in construction, either to support traditional construction or in self-constructing designs such as cheap 3D homes that can be built in situ. 3D printing is an attractive prospect as it is faster and creates less waste. A range of materials such as glass, concrete, acrylic, wax, ABS composites, metals and multi-material designs. Recycled materials can now sometimes be used within some 3D printing processes.
It is particularly exciting for architects as once impossible forms are now able to be created. If you experiment with different ways achieving the architecturally improbable with a variety of new materials or printing prototypes and test components to solve a design challenge then you may well qualify for R&D tax credits.
Understandably, there is a huge amount of risk-taking and research and development occurring as people explore the radical new possibilities opened up by 3D printing. There is a vast amount of experimentation as people look to scale-up and push what is achievable. In China, for example, WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co. have 3D printed a five-storey apartment block, using a mix of glass fibre, steel, cement, hardening agents and recycled construction waste. Such projects demonstrate how relatively easy it is to create whole pre-fabricated buildings – the potential is there to solve the global housing crisis as well as provide disaster relief.
3D printing relies heavily on 3D modelling software and other specialised printing equipment to all work together to create the forms. There are new developments in 3D printing all the time like Carbon3D, that could have a huge impact on architectural design allowing for parts to grow rather than be printed layer by layer.
Read more on R&D in the construction industry or Rapid Prototyping, 3D printing and R&D.
Why aren't more architect practices claiming for R&D?
Architectural practices aren't claiming as much R&D tax relief as they could. There are many reasons for this but chief amongst them is that many architects are unaware that what they do constitutes R&D. As a consequence, firms are often missing out on tens of thousands of pounds worth of tax credits.
Traditionally many architectural practices have been structured as LLPs, which has precluded them from being able to secure R&D tax relief on activities which would have otherwise qualified, as the firms did not incur a corporation tax liability. A combination of changes applied to rates of taxation means that structuring an architectural practice as an LLP has for some become potentially less advantageous, meaning many architects that couldn't previously claim R&D tax credits as LLPs are now able to qualify having changed their structures to become Limited Companies.
The innovative solutions that architects develop are all too often seen as simply getting the job done and not something that qualifies for Research and Development tax relief. There is also the mistaken notion that if it the solution isn't ultimately successful, that the time spent on it does not qualify – this is not the case. Activities seeking to achieve an advance in science or technology can still be eligible for R&D tax credits, regardless of their ultimate success. Others believe that you need to have a dedicated research and development team in order to apply. This is definitely not the case. The test applied by HMRC is whether a competent professional in the field would have been able to resolve the challenges faced and reach the same conclusions without their competencies being overly stretched.
As some of the most innovative in the world, UK architects need to take full advantage of R&D Tax Credits in order to maintain their global position and continue to advance the technological baseline. The R&D tax credit scheme will not apply to every architectural practice but chances are if you invest in innovation then you will be able to claim.
Here at ForrestBrown, we are particularly good at spotting every R&D tax opportunity, including those hidden innovations that occur within 'on the job' problem-solving, and helping practices make the most of it. Find out today if your practice can qualify by speaking to one of our expert advisers. Get in touch with us by phone or email to discuss your situation with our dedicated R&D tax specialists.


No kitchen has trained more of Charlottesville's top chefs than The Clifton Inn's. One former chef owns the C&O. Another co-owns Maya, while another founded The BBQ Exchange. And, others are scattered among the kitchens of great Charlottesville restaurants. It's no wonder because, for twenty-five years, The Clifton Inn has been one of the area's top fine dining destinations.
From the professional service, to the elegant and historic setting, to the stellar wine list, The Clifton Inn has become synonymous with special occasion dining. But, the star of the show is the food. While the men and women who have served as The Clifton Inn's Executive Chef over the years have varied in style and approach, they have all shared one thing: exceptional talent. This is no less true of current chef Yannick Fayolle, who took over in 2015 and has continued the inn's recent trend towards more progressive cuisine. Whether for a drink on the beautiful verandah or an over-the-top meal, The Clifton Inn is Charlottesville's signature destination for a luxurious night out.
The most exciting place to dine at The Clifton Inn is the Chef's Counter, a seven-seat marble bar inside the kitchen, with a front row view of all of the action. There, the chefs themselves will serve a multi-course extravaganza of tastes of their favorite dishes, while chatting with the guests. As for the regular menu, it changes so often that specific dishes may be less helpful than suggested categories. Below is a list of our suggestions, the chef's own favorites, and appearances in Five Finds on Friday, where a local chef or personality has named a Clifton Inn dish or experience as one of the best in town.


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You've likely missed the deadline to max out a 401(k) this year. Here's what else you can do
Carmen Reinicke@csreinicke
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If you planned to max out your 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement plan before the end of the year, you've likely run out the clock.
An employee contribution deadline is Dec. 31 or the year's final paycheck.
Employers generally need a few weeks to process requests such as putting more money into your retirement account. With the last paycheck of the year coming in the next two weeks for most, it means many have blown past the deadline to contribute more to their retirement plans.
Of course, anyone expecting one more paycheck or year-end bonus should check with the human resources department to see if you can still increase how much your are contributing, said certified planner Niv Persaud, managing director at Transition Planning & Guidance, LLC, in Atlanta.
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"It doesn't hurt to ask," said Persaud. "But be prepared for a 'no' answer."
Fortunately, even if your employer does say no, there are a few other things you can do to put extra money to work, according to financial planners.
Put the extra funds in another account
If you have extra money that you were hoping to save, there are a few other options to maximize those dollars.
Health savings account: If you'd like to use the money towards a workplace benefit, another place you could allocate it is to a health savings account, said Judson Meinhart, CFP and manager of financial planning at Parsec Financial in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
"HSAs are one of the best opportunities for long-term savings, because you can make a contribution with pre-tax dollars," said Meinhart, adding that if you take out funds for a qualified medical expense, you don't pay taxes on it, either.
If you haven't put in the maximum for 2020, you have until mid-April to top it off, and the funds automatically rollover at the end of the year.
Individual retirement account: If you'd still like to save towards retirement, you could also deposit extra funds in an individual retirement account. Like an HSA, you have until April to contribute the maximum for 2020 into an IRA.
This could mean opening or contributing extra to a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA, which have different rules about when they are taxed. (Traditional IRAs are funded with pre-tax money and future withdrawals are taxed; with Roth IRAs, contributions are made after taxes but withdrawals are tax-free.)
"Be aware of the contribution limits and your eligibility based on your adjusted gross income," said Meinhart. Both types of IRA cap how much people can put into them each year, and Roth IRAs have an income limit for contributions.
Retiring with $1 million: How much money you'll have in your monthly budget
Regular brokerage account: You don't have to put all retirement savings in a retirement-specific account, said Persaud. If you have extra money to save and invest at the end of the year, you can put it in a regular brokerage account, she said. Of course, the money is then taxable — unlike funds put into a traditional 401(k) — but there are other benefits.
"The advantage of this type of account is that there are no restrictions on when you can take money out of it," she said. "If someone wants to retire at age 55, then money in this account is easily accessible."
It's also a good idea to have your retirement assets diversified by tax treatment, or when you will have to pay the IRS for the funds, Meinhart said.
"You can either fund a brokerage account directly with your leftover savings or earmark that savings to pay the taxes you would incur on a Roth conversion," Meinhart said.
Prepare for next year
To be sure, you don't have to put any extra money you have at the end of the year into another investment account — you could also use it to pay down debt or boost emergency savings, especially if you had to tap into them this year.
Beyond deciding where to put the money, there is one more thing you can do if you missed the deadline for maxing out your employer-sponsored retirement account this year — make a plan so that it doesn't happen to you again in 2021, Persaud explained.
"Individuals should go ahead and change their designation to max their 401(k) contributions for income they will earn in 2021," she said.
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The Amazon Prime Video app features a user-friendly interface for easy access
Amazon has started implementing the revamped user interface for the Prime Video app with the primary goal of simplifying content discovery for its consumers.
According to an official statement from the company, the Prime Video app will now host a simplified and more user-friendly main navigation menu for easy access to movies, TV shows, sports and premium channels.
With the revamped menu, titles like The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will be easily accessible to Prime Video subscribers. The new lobby app navigation menu has also been moved to the side of the screen for easy access.
Additionally, the Prime Video app will launch six main pages – Home, Store, Search, Live TV, Free with Ads, and My Stuff. If a visitor prefers to browse by content or offer type, sub-browse choices will also be available.
The new app also comes with a carousel that showcases movies with more spectacular graphics as part of the overhauled user interface. For example, the "Top 10 Chart" will feature the most popular and trending material on Prime Video, while the "Super Carousel" will feature prominent titles such as Amazon Originals and Exclusives.
Amazon is also making it easier for Prime Video customers to distinguish between a video included in their Prime subscription and content that needs to be purchased. To do this, titles now come with visual cues in the form of a blue tick symbol for available content and a shopping cart icon for titles that need to be purchased.
By selecting the My Subscriptions line at the top of the home page, one can also see all the videos that come with the Prime subscription.
The Search page has also been improved by the new user interface. Prime members can choose to filter results by genre or 4K UHD.
According to Amazon's statement, the new Prime Video app interface for Fire TV, Android and other connected living room devices has already started rolling out, while it will soon be available for iOS and the web.
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It was October 21st, 1954, when Jessie Rosenberg stepped outside of her home in West Midlands, England. Mrs. Rosenberg, then aged 29 had gone outside to investigate a strange hissing sound that made her uneasy.
Outside, her two children were laying low on the grass. They were in a state of shock, screaming that a flying saucer was above them. That's when Mrs. Rosenberg witnessed a "Mexican-hat" like craft hovering low above their home. It was then that she saw two blonde humanoid figures staring down at her from a viewing window on the craft. All she could do was to stare back in disbelief.
The West Midlands sighting has been told and investigated for over half a decade. In that time, none of the witnesses have wavered from what they claimed to have seen that October day in 1954. However reports of close encounters of the third kind usually seem over-sensationalized, which for a skeptic mind spells hoax. In Mrs. Rosenberg's case, what's interesting to note is her description of the humanoid occupants in the UFO.
Mrs. Rosenberg describes the occupants as having long golden hair and beautiful faces that had a large upper half. They wore a pale blue skin-tight suit with what appeared to be a glass helmet.
In the 1950s there was a rash of claims of alien abductions around the world. It coincides a lot with the rise of the flying saucer in America's pop culture. However in most of Europe those who claimed to have been taken, almost always described the aliens as tall, blonde, beautiful, and wearing some type of tight suit. What many refer to as the Pleiadians, or Nordic Aliens.
These blonde humanoids have been part of European history for decades. Hitler and his SS henchmen spent a considerable amount of time, effort, and money in eccentric attempts at contacting these supposed higher-state beings. It wouldn't be until a decade after the fall of the Third Reich that people all over Europe began to describe encounters with these beings.
The Nordic Aliens are almost a total opposite of what was being seen all across the Americas at the time; especially in the United States. When the Roswell incident hit the press in the late 40s, the public image of 'little green men' had drastically changed.
However it is unclear who's stealing from whom. Did science fiction writers take from the headlines or did abductees take from their pages?
Whatever your thoughts are about the Blonde or Grey aliens you should always remember that these stories have one underlying theme in common: Something strange is definitely out there and it's visiting us.
ok… now I'm officially freaked out. My twin brother and I experienced the same encounter. We were in the grass outside home watching the stars when the same humanoid figure appears. We only saw one figure, it was above us, so close to us that we could heard the thing on where that thing was flying. We still don't remember what exactly happened after that, but I can tell you we both have the same memory of that night.


Stepfamilies are a fact of life in our society, but that doesn't mean that everyone likes them. In fact, most teens are uncomfortable in their first few weeks, months and even years of living as part of a stepfamily. And it's no wonder - suddenly you have to live with new people, adjust to new routines, get used to new tastes and opinions, and all the while try to remain true to yourself and your birth family as well. If you are having a hard time dealing with a stepfamily, these tips just might help you settle in and settle down.
Stepfamilies come about when a parent loses a partner through death or divorce and decides to remarry (or move in with) a new partner and even his/her children. Consider that if your mum marries a new man, he will be your stepfather and his children will be your stepsiblings. If you dad then remarries a new woman, she will become your stepmother and her children also your stepsiblings. Can you see how stepfamilies sometimes become large and complicated?
It is an understandable worry that as your family gets larger and more complicated it will lose some of what made it unique. Even more understandable is the worry that somewhere in this large, complicated stepfamily YOU will get lost in the shuffle. To make sure this doesn't happen, sit down and think about what defines you and your family. You'll be surprised by how easily these traits can accommodate new members, if you want them to.
You might argue that your stepfamily is neither made up of friends nor family, but given time they will start to feel like both. The point here is that before you can become comfortable with your stepfamily, you need to give them a chance, and to treat them with respect during this time. One way to help calm your nerves is to remember that your mum or dad has found a new partner that (s)he likes enough to let into your lives. Would (s)he do this if (s)he honestly thought it would hurt you?
Sometimes the hardest part of dealing with stepfamilies is learning the new rules and positions in your household. How will the money be spent? Who will discipline the kids? Who is going to cook and clean? These are all issues best left up to the adults of the house. If you are uncomfortable broaching these topics with your stepfamily, then stick with your own parent for the time being. Take your lead from how your mum or dad acts, and talk to them about any problems you foresee. As you live together with your stepfamily, you'll probably become more comfortable with them naturally anyway.
It may be that your younger sister takes a shine to your new stepfamily right away, but that doesn't mean that you will, or even that you should. Move at your own pace when it comes to dealing with stepfamilies so that you don't have to jump outside of all of your comfort zones all at once. Even if you move at a snail's pace towards adjusting to your stepfamily that's fine, as long as you are giving it a chance and accepting changes as you go along.
Dealing with stepfamilies can be a frustrating, tiring and worrisome business. Give yourself permission to have doubts, but also ask yourself to accept that changes are inevitable and it will take a while before you feel comfortable again. Don't be afraid to admit your fears, but make sure that you celebrate your milestones and successes as well.


Put her there: The science (and art) of internships gets a work-over in Savvy Hires' new "internship collective."
Just weeks after announcing a partnership with Adelphi University, Northwell Health and others to create a hiring "pipeline" for autistic college graduates, the Westbury-based recruiting firm has noted a new collaboration with LaunchPad Long Island aimed at perfecting the internship process.
The basic idea: deliver the benefits of top-rate, potential-hire interns and a full-on campus-recruiting team – a luxury that could cost private employers upwards of $100,000 internally, according to Savvy Hires founder Felicia Fleitman – in dynamic, options-included packages starting around twenty-five-hundred bucks.
Felicia Fleitman: Woman on hire.
LaunchPad is the muscle here, providing networking support and venues for program-related training seminars and other Savvy Hires-led events. First up is a panel discussion on strategic internship programs, scheduled for Feb. 7 at LaunchPad Huntington.
The brains of the operation is Savvy Hires, where Fleitman has cooked up a soup-to-nuts smorgasbord of services and programs to serve employers and future employees alike.
The effort starts with the client, according to Fleitman, which will ultimately be presented with two "prescreened, qualified candidates" for each available internship.
Savvy Hires also does the training, preparing both its candidate pool and its clients to reap the maximum benefits from each internship. The firm, a LaunchPad Westbury resident that Fleitman officially launched in July 2016, cherry-picks prime candidates through close working relationships with career-services offices at numerous colleges and even high schools, beating the bushes to flush out the right intern for each assignment.
When it comes to summer internship programs, Savvy Hires casts an even wider net. By cultivating relationships with career offices at numerous off-Island schools, the company has essentially put out an APB for top students who study elsewhere but come home to Long Island between semesters.
Those prodigal Islanders will join regional students in a host of training protocols both before and during the internships, Fleitman noted, including lessons on communicating with the boss and interacting with peers.
"For many of them, it's the first time they've been in a professional setting," Fleitman noted. "So we'll teach them about connecting through communication, being able to identify communication styles and alter their own communications accordingly.
Employers, meanwhile, receive additional training also, reinforcing their knowledge of labor laws and helping them spot the key traits of quality future hires. They also benefit from Savvy Hires-sponsored networking events, exposing them to quality interns selected for other assignments – a wider range of "future pipeline hires," according to Fleitman.
The Westbury recruiter offers an array of continuing client services that buff the internship collective to a high shine, including protocols mastered by Fleitman when she ran similar summer internship programs for multiple New York City law firms. Among them: as-necessary conflict-resolution intervention, intern-evaluation assistance and real-time feedback on company and intern performance.
To further grease the skids for smaller employers, Savvy Hires will even serve as the intern's official employer of record, alleviating on-boarding costs and certain liabilities.
Savvy Hires is currently filling its intern pool for two scheduled programs, covering internships during the upcoming Spring 2017 semester and this year's summer break, which is just five months away. Fleitman said Tuesday she has "back-to-back calls for literally the remainder of the week" with schools and companies hoping to participate, or those she hopes to attract.
There's also inherent opportunity in doing something completely new, according to Fleitman, who suggested the internship collective is the first of its kind.
"To my knowledge, there hasn't been anything like this anywhere else in the country," she said. "I think this is going to be very powerful.


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You are here: Home / Industry Profiles / Is Horse Racing Dead in Massachusetts? Not Yet
Is Horse Racing Dead in Massachusetts? Not Yet
June 17, 2018 by Editor Leave a Comment
Sterling Suffolk Racecourse, LLC (SSR), the company that operates Thoroughbred racing, wagering and simulcasting at Suffolk Downs, and Fairgrounds Realty LLC and Fair Grounds Community Redevelopment Project Inc., the entities that own the Great Barrington Fairgrounds, have reached an agreement for a long-term lease of the historic race track property in Great Barrington to commence racing as soon as 2019, the companies recently announced.
Under the agreement, Sterling Suffolk Downs would refurbish the Fairgrounds property and operate a commercial race meeting at Great Barrington while continuing to operate simulcast wagering at its current location in East Boston. Suffolk Downs, the New England Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NEHBPA) and the Massachusetts Thoroughbred Breeders (MTBA) are seeking modifications in state racing and simulcasting laws, which are set to expire at the end of July, to accommodate the new arrangement.
"This is a very exciting opportunity for us to help preserve and refurbish an iconic property in the heart of the Berkshires, to boost economic development in Great Barrington, continue live racing and preserve the hundreds of jobs, associated agribusinesses and working open spaces associated with the Massachusetts racing industry," said Chip Tuttle, Sterling Suffolk Racecourse's chief operating officer. "We are confident that we can do this consistent with Fair Grounds Community Redevelopment's vision for sustainable preservation of the fairground property as a space devoted to community recreation and with a strong connection to its agricultural heritage."
"We are excited to enter into this partnership which offers potential benefits to so many people and organizations in our community, western Mass. and the surrounding area," said Bart Elsbach, chairman of the Fair Grounds Community Redevelopment Project, "Finding a group to partner with us in a meaningful way to continue use of our site in keeping with its history while continuing to offer the area valuable recreational and economic benefits without aggressive commercial development is consistent with our ongoing vision for the fairgrounds."
The Great Barrington Fairgrounds has a rich history. It was the host of the longest continually operating agricultural fair in New England. Horse racing started on the property in 1859 and it was regarded as the centerpiece of the Massachusetts fair circuit. Pari-mutuel wagering began at Great Barrington in September of 1940 and continued through 1983. The track last offered Thoroughbred racing 20 years ago in 1998. The grandstand, barns and track facilities still stand, though they will require restoration and repair. In addition to improvements to the track surface, grandstand and other facilities, SSR officials indicated that they would be looking at expanding the racing surface at Great Barrington.
"In its current condition, we are confident that we could conduct racing as soon as next year, should we need to, and we plan to explore with Bart, his team and the town options on expanding the racing surface to accommodate racing at longer distances. There was traditionally strong support for racing here and we hope to attract fans from across New England and New York."
Suffolk Downs is scheduled to host three live racing and food truck festival weekends this summer on Saturday and Sunday, June 9-10, July 7-8 and August 4-5. Track officials have said that they hope to continue racing at the site in 2019.
In December 2012, the 57-acre fairgrounds property was purchased by Sheffield couple Bart and Janet Elsbach with the vision to preserve and restore the environmental health of the site. The Elsbachs created the not-for-profit Fair Grounds Community Redevelopment Project which has provided agricultural, educational, recreational, and other beneficial opportunities to the local community and visitors through the preservation and sustainable development of this historic fairgrounds site.
The revival of racing at Great Barrington has the support of the NEHBPA and the MTBA. The two organizations entered a joint agreement with Sterling Suffolk Racecourse in November of last year to seek alternative venues for continuing Thoroughbred racing in the state and to pursue changes in the state's racing and simulcast laws that would facilitate the continuation of live racing. SSR sold the Suffolk Downs property to a development company in May of 2017 and has continued to operate under a lease agreement since then.
"Our membership is made up of hundreds of small businessmen and women and local family farms who want to continue the chance to earn purse monies and to make a productive contribution to the Massachusetts' economy," said Anthony Spadea, president of the NEHBPA. "Many of us raced at Great Barrington in 1997 and 1998 and would enjoy the opportunity to make it the seasonal home of racing here. We appreciate the support of the Legislature, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and the Suffolk Downs team to keep this industry active and vital."
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Filed Under: Horse Racing Promotion | Marketing, Horse Racing Survival, Industry Profiles Tagged With: Horse Racing Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Suffolk Downs
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About Editor
Rich Nilsen is a 16-time qualifier to the National Horseplayers Championship (NHC), an event he has cashed in four times. He was the first player to finish in the top 10 twice. He cashed on the NHC Tour for 2018 with a 19th overall finish. Rich was also a winner of a $24,000 package into Kentucky Derby Betting Championship I. A former executive with Brisnet.com, Rich is a graduate of the University of Louisville Equine Business Program and is founder of AGameofSkill.com, a site devoted to horse racing education and promotion.
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Q: Show that $f_n(x):=\sqrt[n]{x}$ is Lipschitz continuous and determine the Lipschitz constants $L_n$ The question:
Let $a>0, n\:\epsilon\: \mathbb{N} $ and let $f_n:[a,\infty)\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ be defined by $f_n(x):=\sqrt[n]{x}$. Show that $f_n$ is Lipschitz continuous and determine the appropriate Lipschitz constants $L_n$.
Now I wrote down the basic statement:
$|\sqrt[n]{x}-\sqrt[n]{y}|≤L_n|x-y|$
But I can't come up with any idea of how to get a Lipschitz constant, especially for all n.
Edit: I'm not allowed to use derivates.

A: We can apply mean value theorem. Note that $\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}x} x^\frac{1}{n} = \frac{1}{n}x^{\frac{1}{n} - 1}$, so:
$$
\left|\frac{\sqrt[n]{x} - \sqrt[n]{y}}{x - y}\right| \leq \max_{x \in [a,\infty)}\left|\frac{1}{n}x^{\frac{1}{n} - 1}\right| = \frac{1}{n}a^{\frac{1}{n} - 1}
$$
So we can choose $L_n = \frac{1}{n}a^{\frac{1}{n} - 1}$.
Note that the following theorem is used to conclude the inequality: Let $f : \Bbb{R} \supseteq D \to \Bbb{R}$ be a differentiable function. Then:
$$
\left|\frac{f(x) - f(y)}{x - y}\right| \leq \sup_{x \in D}|f'(x)|
$$
The proof is very simple. By MVT, there exists $c \in [x,y]$ such that $f(x) - f(y) = f'(c)(x - y)$, so $\left|\frac{f(x) - f(y)}{x - y}\right| = |f'(c)|$. Clearly $|f'(c)| \leq \sup_{x \in D}|f'(x)|$, so the result follows.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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TVJ Sports : NBA First Month Recap
Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James, left, strips the ball from Brooklyn Nets' Joe Harris during the first half of an NBA basketball game Tuesday, March 10, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
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Marvin A Azrak The NBA season is nearly a month old and we've already witnessed some delightful (Or dreadful) basketball that has this 2021-22 campaign on track for one of the most memorable in league history so much so, that it changes the landscape of the game.
Five Takeaways from the NBA so far:
EAST> WEST:
The Eastern Conference has 147 wins
The Western Conference has 143 wins.
The last time the East finished ahead of the West at the end of the season was the 1998 season.
THE WARRIORS ARE BACK:
They don't even have Klay Thomson back yet and are 16-2 on the season. A large part is of course due to the absurd play of Stephen Curry who is averaging 28.2 points per game and just surpassed Ray Allen for the most three point makes of all time now with 3,366 to Allen's 3,358. The big question is will Steph break the record for the most three's in a season which he set in 2016 by hitting 402. In addition to that, Draymond Green has rekindled his passion and has found his game with eight rebounds per game, while Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole are pouring in 29 points per game respectively. If the Dubs keep this up, they will tie the benchmark for the best regular season record of all time set by the 2016 Warriors at 73-9.
GET YOUR SUNBLOCK:
The reigning Western Conference champion Suns are on a 14 game win streak and are 15-3 to begin the season.
HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM:
The Rockets bested the Bulls 118-113 on Thursday to snap their 15 game skid but that was only their second win of the season putting them at 2-16. They're currently on pace for a franchise worst 9-73 record.
BROOKWIN:
The Nets are 12-2 in their last 14 games and are 14-5 which is good for first in the Eastern Conference and don't even have KYrie Irving yet. Brooklyn is a team you don't want to mess with when completely healthy and are showing it at the moment minus one of their superstars.
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