At first glance many would assume that with a CFO background I wouldn’t have the right traits to be responsible for a customer experience management program. After all, customer experience is about people while finance is about numbers. Customer experience deals with emotions while finance involves facts. However, here I am today doing just that. I sit in front of customers and prospects weekly helping them answer the question, “I know it is right to invest in our customer experience, but how do I justify the economic value to my stakeholders?”
My financial background blended with my customer experience knowledge and helps me attribute specific value to their business problems. In my role I lead processes for:
Trends identified through reporting that can be applied to solve real business issues
Customer-focused, customer-lead benchmarks and measurements against goals with a definable, measurable ROI attached
Honest sales processes that practice what they preach and are not afraid to walk away from a situation if value cannot be delivered.
I am not saying it is easy. In a solution game where by its very definition we are focused on ‘soft dollar impacts’ like saving time, searching for information, finding what we need fast versus finding hard ROI examples and defining them credibly is a challenge. However, when you find that right situation—when the need is real, when the customer knows they have a need and believes in the measurement of improvement—it is then that you know you truly enjoy what you do and a ‘win-win’ isn’t just a cliché.
Most often the value of search-based success is in findability. Companies, especially companies that have annual revenues exceeding a billion per year, already have the answers—they simply cannot find them. The problem may be cultural more than technical; the very DNA of the organization is often a main reason the right answer can’t find their customer, but with the right technology in place, with the best practices-based processes around it, with good people focused at the target of improvement, findability can be turned from a liability into an asset.
In proving the value of finadability in a customer experience setting, a finance-based mind finds its playground. Attributes of what drives a company to succeed are everywhere in this Rubix cube of possibilities, such as:
Talking to the front lines that deal with the customer’s customer. What are their needs? How do you solve what they are looking for? What gets in your way to finding the right answers for them?
Measuring the impact of what that improvement may look like. What if you held them on the phone for an extra one minute to present an add-on upsell? What if the total time of the call reduced, even with this extra revenue opportunity?
Enabling a team to meet its goals, even beyond what they imagine can be done. Mobile access to real-time information about an account in the hands of a sales person as they walk into an appointment ensures fewer surprises—and maybe just one additional sale per year, per Rep—which has a game changing impact.
It isn’t hard for any executive to picture these improvements. The magic is when it is translated into bottom line impact, validated in conjunction with their teams, their customers, and their trusted internal advisors up front. When it’s followed-up on, vetted, measured, re-estimated, and then included in the budget for the following year based on quantifiable results, the magic heightens.
The intersection of finance-type metrics with explosive sales-based results is the intersection where value lives. This is the thing that excites any results-driven CFO and what led me to customer experience management and thus began my journey.
2012年3月31日星期六
2012年3月30日星期五
Wegner Show a Must-See At Hifa
Be prepared for your world to literally be turned on its head in this amazing show. This innovative offering comes to the Harare International Festival of the Arts courtesy of Innscor and will grace the ZB Bank Reps Theatre.
The performance creates a world of boundless imagination where the limits of the physical world are totally disregarded leaving the audience deliciously confused.
Created by Tobias Wegner with the German ensemble Circle of Eleven, the show tells of the follies and forebearance of humankind in a world gone topsy-turvy. Leo, the character played by Wegner, is locked in a cube-like room where the force of gravity shifts his world 90 degrees.
The performance is presented in such a way that the audience see both Leo's live performance as well as the altered, gravity-defying appearance which is projected onto a screen.
Wegner says that the magic of this fantastical playground only works when his real physical relationship to the screen world is as clear as his relationship to the real world.
The show premiered at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe, winning three awards, including the Three Weeks Editors Award and the Carol Tanbor Best of Edinburgh Award.
The storyline succeeds, without any dialogue in having great emotional impact on the audience.
This is a must-see at Hifa this year as audiences watch Wegner explore his new and confusing world with deft physical adjustments and arduous balances.
For fans of this type of physical theatre, Hifa will this year offer a regular circus act by the name of Lady Cocktail free for those in the Festival's Royal Norwegian Embassy Global Quarter.
The performance creates a world of boundless imagination where the limits of the physical world are totally disregarded leaving the audience deliciously confused.
Created by Tobias Wegner with the German ensemble Circle of Eleven, the show tells of the follies and forebearance of humankind in a world gone topsy-turvy. Leo, the character played by Wegner, is locked in a cube-like room where the force of gravity shifts his world 90 degrees.
The performance is presented in such a way that the audience see both Leo's live performance as well as the altered, gravity-defying appearance which is projected onto a screen.
Wegner says that the magic of this fantastical playground only works when his real physical relationship to the screen world is as clear as his relationship to the real world.
The show premiered at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe, winning three awards, including the Three Weeks Editors Award and the Carol Tanbor Best of Edinburgh Award.
The storyline succeeds, without any dialogue in having great emotional impact on the audience.
This is a must-see at Hifa this year as audiences watch Wegner explore his new and confusing world with deft physical adjustments and arduous balances.
For fans of this type of physical theatre, Hifa will this year offer a regular circus act by the name of Lady Cocktail free for those in the Festival's Royal Norwegian Embassy Global Quarter.
2012年3月29日星期四
Champlain student takes gaming dreams from fantasy to reality
Mentioning Shakespeare’s Birnam Wood might conjure up images of castles, witches and unexpected outcomes, but for one Burlington woman it is symbolic of her technology-based future.
Marguerite Dibble not only sees the forest for the trees, she is paving the way for others to discover its mystery through video gaming.
Birnam Wood is the name of the forest in “Macbeth,” Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy and also the name of Champlain College student Dibble’s new Burlington-based game developing studio. She’s set to launch her company’s first video game, Loc, on April 4.
Loc is a 3D puzzle game in which the player is a prisoner of the Queen of the Faeries . The goal is to escape her kingdom by solving a series of Rubik’s Cube-like puzzles.
Dibble is riding the entrepreneurial wave in her industry. While it’s no secret women play video games now more than ever before, she is further breaking with tradition by heading up her own game studio. It’s all a sign of the times, a natural chain of events, she said.
It’s an exiting time to be in the industry, she said. “It has been a burgeoning media form, and I thought it would be great to learn about it, and it really worked out,” she said.
Dibble, 22, will graduate from Champlain College next month. She hopes Birnam Wood Games will be an unsuspected force, like the soldiers who emerged from the literary Birnam Wood. She has begun to create games that capture a sense of wonder and exploration, much like the classic stories she grew up with.
The Champlain College Game Development cohort from which she is graduating relies on a team-based structure, modeled on real industry studios. The Princeton Review named Champlain College among the top 10 undergraduate schools for video game design last year. Since Champlain College implemented the program in 2004, the numbers of women enrolling in the program have increased steadily each year. There are four game majors offered, media management, game art and animation, game design and game programming.
Marguerite Dibble not only sees the forest for the trees, she is paving the way for others to discover its mystery through video gaming.
Birnam Wood is the name of the forest in “Macbeth,” Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy and also the name of Champlain College student Dibble’s new Burlington-based game developing studio. She’s set to launch her company’s first video game, Loc, on April 4.
Loc is a 3D puzzle game in which the player is a prisoner of the Queen of the Faeries . The goal is to escape her kingdom by solving a series of Rubik’s Cube-like puzzles.
Dibble is riding the entrepreneurial wave in her industry. While it’s no secret women play video games now more than ever before, she is further breaking with tradition by heading up her own game studio. It’s all a sign of the times, a natural chain of events, she said.
It’s an exiting time to be in the industry, she said. “It has been a burgeoning media form, and I thought it would be great to learn about it, and it really worked out,” she said.
Dibble, 22, will graduate from Champlain College next month. She hopes Birnam Wood Games will be an unsuspected force, like the soldiers who emerged from the literary Birnam Wood. She has begun to create games that capture a sense of wonder and exploration, much like the classic stories she grew up with.
The Champlain College Game Development cohort from which she is graduating relies on a team-based structure, modeled on real industry studios. The Princeton Review named Champlain College among the top 10 undergraduate schools for video game design last year. Since Champlain College implemented the program in 2004, the numbers of women enrolling in the program have increased steadily each year. There are four game majors offered, media management, game art and animation, game design and game programming.
2012年3月28日星期三
Save money by freezing food properly
It's quick, easy and downright cheap to freeze and store your food. You may find savings hidden in your freezer.
You may do it without thinking about it -- enjoy your lunch or dinner, and pack up the leftovers to toss them in the freezer. But putting a little more thought behind it could save you lots of money.
Forget calling in for takeout or dishing out cash in the drive-through, save money and open your freezer.
You can pretty much freeze any kind of food, you just have to know how to prepare it and store it properly. Those who rely on this say it really pays off.
Who knew that a freezer -- the place that can become a black hole for old and un-used food -- can really save big bucks.
"I like to call my freezer foods 'freezer gold,' because it's like a discovery in your freezer that will pay off in many ways," said meal planner Brenda Thompson.
There are a few simple rules for storing food and saving cash. Thompson, author of the blog Meal Planning Magic says first, freeze items that may be close to the expiration date -- including dairy products.
She said, "Sometimes when you need buttermilk, you just need a little for a recipe. You have some left over, you can put some in an ice cube tray and pull out what you need."
Next, freeze individual portions. It's quick and easy that way.
"We can pull them out for lunches and heat them up on the go," Thompson explained.
Thompson says don't be afraid to cook a little extra and freeze that too. Always let the food cool off completely before putting it away.
"Generally, if you put something in the freezer too fast, like, if you take it off the stove and you stick it in the freezer, it has a hard time adjusting and the crystals will form on the food," Thompson explained. "Occasionally those freezer crystals are freezer burn."
For the final and most important rule, when it comes to freezing foods, always label.
"No matter how great you think your memory is, you are just not going to know what it is," Thompson cautioned. "If you sort of identify it, then you may not know how old it is."
After all, throwing it out could mean throwing away a bargain meal
"Put it in your freezer and pull it out when you need it," Thompson said. "By doing so, you can save money by not making so many impulse buys at the grocery store."
You may do it without thinking about it -- enjoy your lunch or dinner, and pack up the leftovers to toss them in the freezer. But putting a little more thought behind it could save you lots of money.
Forget calling in for takeout or dishing out cash in the drive-through, save money and open your freezer.
You can pretty much freeze any kind of food, you just have to know how to prepare it and store it properly. Those who rely on this say it really pays off.
Who knew that a freezer -- the place that can become a black hole for old and un-used food -- can really save big bucks.
"I like to call my freezer foods 'freezer gold,' because it's like a discovery in your freezer that will pay off in many ways," said meal planner Brenda Thompson.
There are a few simple rules for storing food and saving cash. Thompson, author of the blog Meal Planning Magic says first, freeze items that may be close to the expiration date -- including dairy products.
She said, "Sometimes when you need buttermilk, you just need a little for a recipe. You have some left over, you can put some in an ice cube tray and pull out what you need."
Next, freeze individual portions. It's quick and easy that way.
"We can pull them out for lunches and heat them up on the go," Thompson explained.
Thompson says don't be afraid to cook a little extra and freeze that too. Always let the food cool off completely before putting it away.
"Generally, if you put something in the freezer too fast, like, if you take it off the stove and you stick it in the freezer, it has a hard time adjusting and the crystals will form on the food," Thompson explained. "Occasionally those freezer crystals are freezer burn."
For the final and most important rule, when it comes to freezing foods, always label.
"No matter how great you think your memory is, you are just not going to know what it is," Thompson cautioned. "If you sort of identify it, then you may not know how old it is."
After all, throwing it out could mean throwing away a bargain meal
"Put it in your freezer and pull it out when you need it," Thompson said. "By doing so, you can save money by not making so many impulse buys at the grocery store."
2012年3月27日星期二
'Commercial pop music has lost its magic'
Kindness, the name for Adam Bainbridge’s musical project, has attracted a resurgence of attention recently, since he first appeared in 2009. After months of an intriguing and impressive reinvention campaign – during which vinyls and 7-inches illustrated with moody black and white self-photographs, a 16-page newspaper that included a thought-provoking interview with the printer Robin Bell, and invitations to a couple of secret shows were siphoned off to the chosen – the album World, You Need a Change Of Mind is out and Kindness is live. His shows at SXSW, the key festival for new music, finally threw him into the gladiator ring
In a world where pop music is churned (chundered?) out by hit factories, amid branding exercises, perfume ads and pedestrian music videos, the Kindness approach is a breath of fresh air. He’s going back to the old school. Take his album artwork. Inspired by Barney Bubbles, the late graphic designer who made radical covers for Ian Drury and the Blockheads, Hawkwind and Elvis Costello, Bainbridge chose analogue, instead of digital, methods. Gee Up and the Cyan videos were filmed on 16 mm film and the “overall concept was that everything should be untouched by photoshop”.
The album was recorded in a studio in Paris, instead of on a laptop. Overlaying a hazy, monochrome, almost melancholy aesthetic with a funky, disco sound was intentional. Bainbridge explained why when I interviewed him in Austin, Texas:
The album artwork was meant to be simple, unadulterated, a little bit traditional. I thought it would be interesting to make music that was quite ambiguous in terms of its time period or what genre or scene it belongs to. Ambiguous in time and space, and then put on top a fairly traditional record sleeve.
It all comes back to using the most appropriate tool for what you're doing and I think shooting films as a photographer has never been surpassed by digital and recording in studio has never been surpassed by a laptop.
The record pulses with the thought that’s gone into it. On a tangible level, there are little secrets. Each track goes up one key, like a musical stairway. The seconds between them are carefully thought through so that certain tracks run into each other. Philippe Zdar, the French house legend, produced the record and was at pains to find the right tools and recording methods for the job. Is it, then, more of a work of art than other pop albums? Bainbridge cringes:
It would be horribly pretentious to call it a work of art. It's a bit of a hippy answer but I always felt that even if the impression was subconscious, if you put so much effort into something, people feel it in the end result even if they don't know why. I think that was what motivated the artwork, videos and music.
Sonically, he’s been compared with Prince, because of the funked-out guitars and R’n’B vocals. It certainly stands out from the music of our time. Disco crooning with a funky house edge could sound a bit wrinkly, but it escapes this, thanks partly to Zdar. The dichotomy of disco and funk - upbeat, propulsive music in a major key that makes you want to dance, underpinned by often sorrowful lyrical content – is central to Bainbridge’s ideology. He explains why:
I think it's two things. It's the dynamism of those kinds of music and it's a reflection of those genres of music which were often started by people marginalised in society. I identify more with the outsiders than the insiders even though now I'm probably appeared as insider. Collaborator number one! The roots of disco and the universal roots of funk – be it the civil rights movements or Sly and the Family Stone – strike a chord with me because they say more about the human experience than guys writing dreary rock ballads about a night out in Camden.
In a world where pop music is churned (chundered?) out by hit factories, amid branding exercises, perfume ads and pedestrian music videos, the Kindness approach is a breath of fresh air. He’s going back to the old school. Take his album artwork. Inspired by Barney Bubbles, the late graphic designer who made radical covers for Ian Drury and the Blockheads, Hawkwind and Elvis Costello, Bainbridge chose analogue, instead of digital, methods. Gee Up and the Cyan videos were filmed on 16 mm film and the “overall concept was that everything should be untouched by photoshop”.
The album was recorded in a studio in Paris, instead of on a laptop. Overlaying a hazy, monochrome, almost melancholy aesthetic with a funky, disco sound was intentional. Bainbridge explained why when I interviewed him in Austin, Texas:
The album artwork was meant to be simple, unadulterated, a little bit traditional. I thought it would be interesting to make music that was quite ambiguous in terms of its time period or what genre or scene it belongs to. Ambiguous in time and space, and then put on top a fairly traditional record sleeve.
It all comes back to using the most appropriate tool for what you're doing and I think shooting films as a photographer has never been surpassed by digital and recording in studio has never been surpassed by a laptop.
The record pulses with the thought that’s gone into it. On a tangible level, there are little secrets. Each track goes up one key, like a musical stairway. The seconds between them are carefully thought through so that certain tracks run into each other. Philippe Zdar, the French house legend, produced the record and was at pains to find the right tools and recording methods for the job. Is it, then, more of a work of art than other pop albums? Bainbridge cringes:
It would be horribly pretentious to call it a work of art. It's a bit of a hippy answer but I always felt that even if the impression was subconscious, if you put so much effort into something, people feel it in the end result even if they don't know why. I think that was what motivated the artwork, videos and music.
Sonically, he’s been compared with Prince, because of the funked-out guitars and R’n’B vocals. It certainly stands out from the music of our time. Disco crooning with a funky house edge could sound a bit wrinkly, but it escapes this, thanks partly to Zdar. The dichotomy of disco and funk - upbeat, propulsive music in a major key that makes you want to dance, underpinned by often sorrowful lyrical content – is central to Bainbridge’s ideology. He explains why:
I think it's two things. It's the dynamism of those kinds of music and it's a reflection of those genres of music which were often started by people marginalised in society. I identify more with the outsiders than the insiders even though now I'm probably appeared as insider. Collaborator number one! The roots of disco and the universal roots of funk – be it the civil rights movements or Sly and the Family Stone – strike a chord with me because they say more about the human experience than guys writing dreary rock ballads about a night out in Camden.
2012年3月26日星期一
Romney campaign has monopoly on gaffes
It is typical of Mitt Romney's luck that, on the morning after he all but secured the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign became embroiled in a controversy over a 1950s plastic toy.
On Wednesday, hours after Romney's 12-point victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary silenced most of the remaining doubters, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom went on CNN and gave new meaning to the term "game change."
"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," he said, explaining why the fight for conservative primary voters has not pushed Romney too far to the right. "Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."
Actually, it appeared more like Romney was playing Chutes and Ladders: He just landed on Space 87 and slid all the way back to 24. Suddenly, Romney's event at an American Legion hall here in the Baltimore suburbs was transformed from a gab session about gas prices into an Etch a Sketch fest.
Alice Stewart, a Santorum aide, brought a bagful of pocket-size Etch a Sketches and handed them out in the parking lot. "Conservative principles should be written in stone, not on Etch a Sketch," the Santorum aide declared righteously.
Thirty feet away, Romney was shaking hands. Reporters inquired: Would he address the toy story? "We think gas prices are more important," spokesman Rick Gorka replied, examining the reporters' Etch a Sketches.
Santorum, who has taken Romney apart as if playing Operation, posed in his car Wednesday with the rectangular device. His campaign tweeted out the photo with the caption "Rick Santorum studying up on Mitt Romney policy positions."
"You take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone, and he's going to draw a whole new picture for the general election," Santorum crowed at a campaign stop in Louisiana.
Also campaigning in Louisiana, Newt Gingrich, who has turned the trail into a round of Twister, gave an Etch a Sketch to a young girl in the audience and told her, "You could now be a presidential candidate."
Will Romney ever end his string of debilitating gaffes? As the Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook not so good.
After the New Hampshire primary, Romney appeared to have it made in Candy Land. But Santorum and Gingrich felled his inevitability like dominoes, and — Sorry! — Romney finds himself in a coast-to-coast game of Connect Four with competitors who were not supposed to have been in his league but who are benefiting from voters' disenchantment with him.
There is some enthusiasm for the Republican front-runner. Outside the Romney event here, retiree Jim Wilson sat in his GMC truck decorated bumper to bumper with Romney paraphernalia and American flags. Wilson, who lives outside Charlottesville, Va., has been on the road since August, to each primary state except Colorado — and that's only because he wanted to make it to Kansas in time. "That's a bunch of horse apples," he said when asked about Romney's enthusiasm gap. "Look at this crowd," he said, between puffs on his pipe.
True enough. Two hundred supporters filled the hall, with at least that many outside. "This is really something," the candidate exulted to the overflow crowd in the parking lot.
But holding that enthusiasm has been, for Romney, quite a Rubik's Cube. Inside, the candidate talked about health care, education, Iran, the economy — anything but children's toys.
Although it was not particularly warm in the hall, Romney ended by saying that the temperature had "reached 140 in here" — and retreated while glaring at reporters shouting Etch a Sketch questions.
Realizing that he could not shake the queries, Romney returned a few minutes later for a "short Q&A," known in the jargon as a "press avail." It lasted 90 seconds.
"The issues I'm running on will be exactly the same," he declared in response to an Etch a Sketch question. "I'm running as a conservative Republican. I was a conservative Republican governor."
So he was a conservative when he enacted Romneycare?
"Can you guarantee to Republican voters that you won't take more moderate positions?" CNN's Jim Acosta asked.
"I answered the question," Romney replied.
"An avail is more than one question, governor, if you don't mind my saying so," Acosta told him.
Romney grinned. "This wasn't an avail. It was a chance to respond to a question I didn't get a chance to respond to."
On Wednesday, hours after Romney's 12-point victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary silenced most of the remaining doubters, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom went on CNN and gave new meaning to the term "game change."
"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," he said, explaining why the fight for conservative primary voters has not pushed Romney too far to the right. "Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."
Actually, it appeared more like Romney was playing Chutes and Ladders: He just landed on Space 87 and slid all the way back to 24. Suddenly, Romney's event at an American Legion hall here in the Baltimore suburbs was transformed from a gab session about gas prices into an Etch a Sketch fest.
Alice Stewart, a Santorum aide, brought a bagful of pocket-size Etch a Sketches and handed them out in the parking lot. "Conservative principles should be written in stone, not on Etch a Sketch," the Santorum aide declared righteously.
Thirty feet away, Romney was shaking hands. Reporters inquired: Would he address the toy story? "We think gas prices are more important," spokesman Rick Gorka replied, examining the reporters' Etch a Sketches.
Santorum, who has taken Romney apart as if playing Operation, posed in his car Wednesday with the rectangular device. His campaign tweeted out the photo with the caption "Rick Santorum studying up on Mitt Romney policy positions."
"You take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone, and he's going to draw a whole new picture for the general election," Santorum crowed at a campaign stop in Louisiana.
Also campaigning in Louisiana, Newt Gingrich, who has turned the trail into a round of Twister, gave an Etch a Sketch to a young girl in the audience and told her, "You could now be a presidential candidate."
Will Romney ever end his string of debilitating gaffes? As the Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook not so good.
After the New Hampshire primary, Romney appeared to have it made in Candy Land. But Santorum and Gingrich felled his inevitability like dominoes, and — Sorry! — Romney finds himself in a coast-to-coast game of Connect Four with competitors who were not supposed to have been in his league but who are benefiting from voters' disenchantment with him.
There is some enthusiasm for the Republican front-runner. Outside the Romney event here, retiree Jim Wilson sat in his GMC truck decorated bumper to bumper with Romney paraphernalia and American flags. Wilson, who lives outside Charlottesville, Va., has been on the road since August, to each primary state except Colorado — and that's only because he wanted to make it to Kansas in time. "That's a bunch of horse apples," he said when asked about Romney's enthusiasm gap. "Look at this crowd," he said, between puffs on his pipe.
True enough. Two hundred supporters filled the hall, with at least that many outside. "This is really something," the candidate exulted to the overflow crowd in the parking lot.
But holding that enthusiasm has been, for Romney, quite a Rubik's Cube. Inside, the candidate talked about health care, education, Iran, the economy — anything but children's toys.
Although it was not particularly warm in the hall, Romney ended by saying that the temperature had "reached 140 in here" — and retreated while glaring at reporters shouting Etch a Sketch questions.
Realizing that he could not shake the queries, Romney returned a few minutes later for a "short Q&A," known in the jargon as a "press avail." It lasted 90 seconds.
"The issues I'm running on will be exactly the same," he declared in response to an Etch a Sketch question. "I'm running as a conservative Republican. I was a conservative Republican governor."
So he was a conservative when he enacted Romneycare?
"Can you guarantee to Republican voters that you won't take more moderate positions?" CNN's Jim Acosta asked.
"I answered the question," Romney replied.
"An avail is more than one question, governor, if you don't mind my saying so," Acosta told him.
Romney grinned. "This wasn't an avail. It was a chance to respond to a question I didn't get a chance to respond to."
2012年3月25日星期日
'Snow queen' Pippa's ski trek raises 12,000 to aid children
She proved herself more than a pretty behind by completing a 56-mile cross-country skiing course – now Pippa Middleton has revealed she and brother James raised 12,000 for charity.
The professional party planner sent a round-robin email to her friends after finishing her Swedish challenge in seven hours 13 minutes 36 seconds – and securing an impressive 412th place out of 15,800 racers
She wrote: ‘We made it! James and I just wanted to say a huge thank you for your incredible support for our cross-country ski challenge in Sweden.
‘We are truly grateful and appreciate the kindness and generosity you have all shown.
'It was one of the best sporting adventures we have both participated in and we couldn’t have enjoyed it more.’
Entrepreneur James, 23, finished 26 minutes ahead of Pippa as they raised money for the Magic Breakfast charity, which provides free breakfasts to poverty-stricken children.
Pippa, 28, pictured left in the event, also told how eating a breakfast of porridge helped them complete the race.
‘Incidentally, it was porridge that morning at 6am that helped us make it to the finish line so we couldn’t be bigger fans of a hearty breakfast!’ she said.
The Duchess of Cambridge’s younger siblings are now keen to sponsor friends in similar events. ‘Thank you so much again and please let us know if any of you are doing any charity challenges in the future – we would love to support you,’ Pippa added.
Singer Bryan Ferry has finally chosen a belated wedding gift for his new wife Amanda Sheppard – some pop art.
‘Bryan took Amanda to Gilbert and George’s London Pictures exhibition at the White Cube gallery in Bermondsey, South London,’ says a friend.
‘They met the artists and congratulated them on the show and Amanda set her heart on one of the small pictures which cost 40,000. Bryan didn’t buy it then, but promised that a London picture would take pride of place in their home soon. He’s really been spoiling her since their wedding.’
Bryan, 66, and Amanda, 29, wed in a secret ceremony in January on the Turks and Caicos Islands.
As the first anniversary of William and Kate’s wedding approaches, the Middletons’ online party business has recruited a ‘Wedding Fairy’ to help make everyone’s big day as magical.
The Party Pieces website, run by Kate’s mother Carole, now offers a host of ‘wedding theme ideas and inspiration’.
Suggestions include investing in ‘an individual mood board’ – something the Duchess of Cambridge found helpful while planning her nuptials.
And just to make sure all bases are covered, Party Pieces adds that ‘Cool Britannia styling is bang-on trend and great fun with the Diamond Jubilee just around the corner’.
The professional party planner sent a round-robin email to her friends after finishing her Swedish challenge in seven hours 13 minutes 36 seconds – and securing an impressive 412th place out of 15,800 racers
She wrote: ‘We made it! James and I just wanted to say a huge thank you for your incredible support for our cross-country ski challenge in Sweden.
‘We are truly grateful and appreciate the kindness and generosity you have all shown.
'It was one of the best sporting adventures we have both participated in and we couldn’t have enjoyed it more.’
Entrepreneur James, 23, finished 26 minutes ahead of Pippa as they raised money for the Magic Breakfast charity, which provides free breakfasts to poverty-stricken children.
Pippa, 28, pictured left in the event, also told how eating a breakfast of porridge helped them complete the race.
‘Incidentally, it was porridge that morning at 6am that helped us make it to the finish line so we couldn’t be bigger fans of a hearty breakfast!’ she said.
The Duchess of Cambridge’s younger siblings are now keen to sponsor friends in similar events. ‘Thank you so much again and please let us know if any of you are doing any charity challenges in the future – we would love to support you,’ Pippa added.
Singer Bryan Ferry has finally chosen a belated wedding gift for his new wife Amanda Sheppard – some pop art.
‘Bryan took Amanda to Gilbert and George’s London Pictures exhibition at the White Cube gallery in Bermondsey, South London,’ says a friend.
‘They met the artists and congratulated them on the show and Amanda set her heart on one of the small pictures which cost 40,000. Bryan didn’t buy it then, but promised that a London picture would take pride of place in their home soon. He’s really been spoiling her since their wedding.’
Bryan, 66, and Amanda, 29, wed in a secret ceremony in January on the Turks and Caicos Islands.
As the first anniversary of William and Kate’s wedding approaches, the Middletons’ online party business has recruited a ‘Wedding Fairy’ to help make everyone’s big day as magical.
The Party Pieces website, run by Kate’s mother Carole, now offers a host of ‘wedding theme ideas and inspiration’.
Suggestions include investing in ‘an individual mood board’ – something the Duchess of Cambridge found helpful while planning her nuptials.
And just to make sure all bases are covered, Party Pieces adds that ‘Cool Britannia styling is bang-on trend and great fun with the Diamond Jubilee just around the corner’.
2012年3月22日星期四
Etch a Sketch gaffe
It is typical of Mitt Romney's luck that, on the morning after he all but secured the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign became embroiled in a controversy over a 1950s plastic toy.
On Wednesday, hours after Romney's 12-point victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary silenced most of the remaining doubters, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom went on CNN and gave new meaning to the term "game change."
"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," he said, explaining why the fight for conservative primary voters has not pushed Romney too far to the right. "Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."
Actually, it appeared more like Romney was playing Chutes and Ladders: He just landed on Space 87 and slid all the way back to 24. Suddenly, Romney's event at an American Legion hall here in the Baltimore suburbs was transformed from a gab session about gas prices into an Etch a Sketch fest.
Alice Stewart, a Santorum aide, brought a bagful of pocket-size Etch a Sketches and handed them out in the parking lot. "Conservative principles should be written in stone, not on Etch a Sketch," the Santorum aide declared righteously.
Thirty feet away, Romney was shaking hands. Reporters inquired: Would he address the toy story? "We think gas prices are more important," spokesman Rick Gorka replied, examining the reporters' Etch a Sketches.
Santorum, who has taken Romney apart as if playing Operation, posed in his car Wednesday with the rectangular device. His campaign tweeted out the photo with the caption "(at symbol)RickSantorum studying up on (at symbol)MittRomney policy positions."
"You take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone, and he's going to draw a whole new picture for the general election," Santorum crowed at a campaign stop in Louisiana.
Also campaigning in Louisiana, Newt Gingrich, who has turned the trail into a round of Twister, gave an Etch a Sketch to a young girl in the audience and told her, "You could now be a presidential candidate."
Will Romney ever end his string of debilitating gaffes? As the Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook not so good.
After the New Hampshire primary, Romney appeared to have it made in Candy Land. But Santorum and Gingrich felled his inevitability like dominoes, and -- Sorry! -- Romney finds himself in a coast-to-coast game of Connect Four with competitors who were not supposed to have been in his league but who are benefiting from voters' disenchantment with him.
There is some enthusiasm for the Republican front-runner. Outside the Romney event here, retiree Jim Wilson sat in his GMC truck decorated bumper to bumper with Romney paraphernalia and American flags. Wilson, who lives outside Charlottesville, Va., has been on the road since August, to each primary state except Colorado -- and that's only because he wanted to make it to Kansas in time. "That's a bunch of horse apples," he said when asked about Romney's enthusiasm gap. "Look at this crowd," he said, between puffs on his pipe.
True enough. Two hundred supporters filled the hall, with at least that many outside. "This is really something," the candidate exulted to the overflow crowd in the parking lot.
But holding that enthusiasm has been, for Romney, quite a Rubik's Cube. Inside, the candidate talked about health care, education, Iran, the economy -- anything but children's toys.
Although it was not particularly warm in the hall, Romney ended by saying that the temperature had "reached 140 in here" -- and retreated while glaring at reporters shouting Etch a Sketch questions.
Realizing that he could not shake the queries, Romney returned a few minutes later for a "short Q&A," known in the jargon as a "press avail." It lasted 90 seconds.
"The issues I'm running on will be exactly the same," he declared in response to an Etch a Sketch question. "I'm running as a conservative Republican. I was a conservative Republican governor."
So he was a conservative when he enacted Romneycare?
"Can you guarantee to Republican voters that you won't take more moderate positions?" CNN's Jim Acosta asked.
"I answered the question," Romney replied.
"An avail is more than one question, governor, if you don't mind my saying so," Acosta told him.
Romney grinned. "This wasn't an avail. It was a chance to respond to a question I didn't get a chance to respond to."
On Wednesday, hours after Romney's 12-point victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary silenced most of the remaining doubters, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom went on CNN and gave new meaning to the term "game change."
"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," he said, explaining why the fight for conservative primary voters has not pushed Romney too far to the right. "Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."
Actually, it appeared more like Romney was playing Chutes and Ladders: He just landed on Space 87 and slid all the way back to 24. Suddenly, Romney's event at an American Legion hall here in the Baltimore suburbs was transformed from a gab session about gas prices into an Etch a Sketch fest.
Alice Stewart, a Santorum aide, brought a bagful of pocket-size Etch a Sketches and handed them out in the parking lot. "Conservative principles should be written in stone, not on Etch a Sketch," the Santorum aide declared righteously.
Thirty feet away, Romney was shaking hands. Reporters inquired: Would he address the toy story? "We think gas prices are more important," spokesman Rick Gorka replied, examining the reporters' Etch a Sketches.
Santorum, who has taken Romney apart as if playing Operation, posed in his car Wednesday with the rectangular device. His campaign tweeted out the photo with the caption "(at symbol)RickSantorum studying up on (at symbol)MittRomney policy positions."
"You take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone, and he's going to draw a whole new picture for the general election," Santorum crowed at a campaign stop in Louisiana.
Also campaigning in Louisiana, Newt Gingrich, who has turned the trail into a round of Twister, gave an Etch a Sketch to a young girl in the audience and told her, "You could now be a presidential candidate."
Will Romney ever end his string of debilitating gaffes? As the Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook not so good.
After the New Hampshire primary, Romney appeared to have it made in Candy Land. But Santorum and Gingrich felled his inevitability like dominoes, and -- Sorry! -- Romney finds himself in a coast-to-coast game of Connect Four with competitors who were not supposed to have been in his league but who are benefiting from voters' disenchantment with him.
There is some enthusiasm for the Republican front-runner. Outside the Romney event here, retiree Jim Wilson sat in his GMC truck decorated bumper to bumper with Romney paraphernalia and American flags. Wilson, who lives outside Charlottesville, Va., has been on the road since August, to each primary state except Colorado -- and that's only because he wanted to make it to Kansas in time. "That's a bunch of horse apples," he said when asked about Romney's enthusiasm gap. "Look at this crowd," he said, between puffs on his pipe.
True enough. Two hundred supporters filled the hall, with at least that many outside. "This is really something," the candidate exulted to the overflow crowd in the parking lot.
But holding that enthusiasm has been, for Romney, quite a Rubik's Cube. Inside, the candidate talked about health care, education, Iran, the economy -- anything but children's toys.
Although it was not particularly warm in the hall, Romney ended by saying that the temperature had "reached 140 in here" -- and retreated while glaring at reporters shouting Etch a Sketch questions.
Realizing that he could not shake the queries, Romney returned a few minutes later for a "short Q&A," known in the jargon as a "press avail." It lasted 90 seconds.
"The issues I'm running on will be exactly the same," he declared in response to an Etch a Sketch question. "I'm running as a conservative Republican. I was a conservative Republican governor."
So he was a conservative when he enacted Romneycare?
"Can you guarantee to Republican voters that you won't take more moderate positions?" CNN's Jim Acosta asked.
"I answered the question," Romney replied.
"An avail is more than one question, governor, if you don't mind my saying so," Acosta told him.
Romney grinned. "This wasn't an avail. It was a chance to respond to a question I didn't get a chance to respond to."
2012年3月21日星期三
Filling the Gaps
If you've been playing Magic for some time, you've almost certainly experienced a temporary waning of the general fervor for the game. Don't be alarmed, this is perfectly normal. Do not attempt to cash out and sell your collection, you'll regret it when you want to start playing again, and even more so when you look up the would-be value of your cards in the future. Instead, take a breath, take a step back, and let's take a quick jaunt through some of my typical meanderings while I wait for my playgroup's interest to be rekindled by a new expansion or a shiny new deck.
If you're interested in some fairly in-depth Solitaire versions of Magic, you should check out this article, Playing Your Pet. I've been playing goldfish since I picked up a Magic deck, unbeknownst to myself until recently. It's just such an intuitive way to test a deck's ability to drop an opponent from 20 to 0, that in my mind it never needed a name and it was only the past couple of years that I discovered that it was called something after all. The long and short of goldfish is that your opponent does nothing, much like a goldfish swimming in its bowl. There is no real interaction. It simply looks on with awe as you deal 20 damage as fast as possible. Without any resistance, it should be fairly straightforward to win in short order, but it should be noted that just because it works against a goldfish, doesn't mean it works. Take an extreme case of a deck with 40 Goblins of the Flarg and 20 Mountains. Sure, you can beat a goldfish in 6 turns, but a single Grizzly Bears will basically shut you down. It takes a bit of refinement to see to it that your deck can deal 20 damage in only a few turns, while also being sure you are capable of powering through some defenses. Enter the dog. This solitaire opponent is much more of a challenge, since it actually does stuff during the game, and can even garner card advantage in a longer game (one land plus one spell per turn means that 7+ turns gives card advantage to the dog.) This is a more complex approach, but actually attempts to simulate playing an opponent, which can easily outclass a lesser deck, since the mana base is artificially perfect and the player will always be casting the most powerful possible spell on a given turn. Of course, if I'm involved enough to be playing against the dog, I typically just pit two of my decks against each other, playing both sides and vying for neither deck in particular.
When I get tired of dueling myself in solitaire Magic, there's always my fallback digital facsimile, Duels of the Planeswalkers. I played the original and the more recent version(Duels 2012) to completion, and still I go back for more. They make a very sound investment for any Magic player that's used to spending $4 on a single Booster Pack, since you get access to several decks for only a few dollars. While the deck choices are pretty solid, the game will leave you wanting for more customization. You are not able to build custom decks in Duels, though you do unlock upgrades for most decks as you play, giving some element of optimization, if not construction, the longer you play. In Duels 2012 they even included Archenemy Mode which, if you're not familiar, pits up to three players against a single enemy. You can play as or against the Archenemy, and the casual format brings something new to the table with the Scheme Cards that give powerful effects to benefit the common enemy. If you're new to Magic or even just interested in learning, Duels is a great place to start. You'll learn all you need to know about the turn structure, as well as the basics of the Stack and Priority from playing a few games against the computer, which should prepare you well for a real game against a friend.
Finally, there is MTGO, the actual online counterpart to the paper-based game. This is a whole different beast than Duels of the Planeswalkers, since you'll need to have some idea of what you're doing to really get started here. If you're avoiding Duels because of the lack of customization, however, this is a great place to look. Not only can you get access to the Duels decks in the Planeswalker format, but you can even create custom decks from scratch without the heavy monetary investment required to get a Standard collection started. I started my own account a few years ago, but I never kept up with it, since I so favor paper Magic. As a result, my entire collection sports a paltry 26 Standard legal cards, making the barrier to entry into Standard a bit high for me. Though I am recently considering working on my drafting in MTGO, I'm currently relegated to the Planeswalker format and building out new decks from the pre-constructed card pool, at least until the new Cube format debuts at PAX East.
If you're interested in some fairly in-depth Solitaire versions of Magic, you should check out this article, Playing Your Pet. I've been playing goldfish since I picked up a Magic deck, unbeknownst to myself until recently. It's just such an intuitive way to test a deck's ability to drop an opponent from 20 to 0, that in my mind it never needed a name and it was only the past couple of years that I discovered that it was called something after all. The long and short of goldfish is that your opponent does nothing, much like a goldfish swimming in its bowl. There is no real interaction. It simply looks on with awe as you deal 20 damage as fast as possible. Without any resistance, it should be fairly straightforward to win in short order, but it should be noted that just because it works against a goldfish, doesn't mean it works. Take an extreme case of a deck with 40 Goblins of the Flarg and 20 Mountains. Sure, you can beat a goldfish in 6 turns, but a single Grizzly Bears will basically shut you down. It takes a bit of refinement to see to it that your deck can deal 20 damage in only a few turns, while also being sure you are capable of powering through some defenses. Enter the dog. This solitaire opponent is much more of a challenge, since it actually does stuff during the game, and can even garner card advantage in a longer game (one land plus one spell per turn means that 7+ turns gives card advantage to the dog.) This is a more complex approach, but actually attempts to simulate playing an opponent, which can easily outclass a lesser deck, since the mana base is artificially perfect and the player will always be casting the most powerful possible spell on a given turn. Of course, if I'm involved enough to be playing against the dog, I typically just pit two of my decks against each other, playing both sides and vying for neither deck in particular.
When I get tired of dueling myself in solitaire Magic, there's always my fallback digital facsimile, Duels of the Planeswalkers. I played the original and the more recent version(Duels 2012) to completion, and still I go back for more. They make a very sound investment for any Magic player that's used to spending $4 on a single Booster Pack, since you get access to several decks for only a few dollars. While the deck choices are pretty solid, the game will leave you wanting for more customization. You are not able to build custom decks in Duels, though you do unlock upgrades for most decks as you play, giving some element of optimization, if not construction, the longer you play. In Duels 2012 they even included Archenemy Mode which, if you're not familiar, pits up to three players against a single enemy. You can play as or against the Archenemy, and the casual format brings something new to the table with the Scheme Cards that give powerful effects to benefit the common enemy. If you're new to Magic or even just interested in learning, Duels is a great place to start. You'll learn all you need to know about the turn structure, as well as the basics of the Stack and Priority from playing a few games against the computer, which should prepare you well for a real game against a friend.
Finally, there is MTGO, the actual online counterpart to the paper-based game. This is a whole different beast than Duels of the Planeswalkers, since you'll need to have some idea of what you're doing to really get started here. If you're avoiding Duels because of the lack of customization, however, this is a great place to look. Not only can you get access to the Duels decks in the Planeswalker format, but you can even create custom decks from scratch without the heavy monetary investment required to get a Standard collection started. I started my own account a few years ago, but I never kept up with it, since I so favor paper Magic. As a result, my entire collection sports a paltry 26 Standard legal cards, making the barrier to entry into Standard a bit high for me. Though I am recently considering working on my drafting in MTGO, I'm currently relegated to the Planeswalker format and building out new decks from the pre-constructed card pool, at least until the new Cube format debuts at PAX East.
2012年3月20日星期二
Richard Diebenkorn's Masterful "Ocean Park" Series Is Presented
During the Summer of Love in the Ocean Park neighborhood bridging the L.A. coastal communities of Venice Beach and Santa Monica, a well-established middle-aged painter moved from one studio into another, better lit one. Physically, the shift was nominal, but it prompted Richard Diebenkorn to abandon his successful signature style of saturated Matisse-like depictions of seated women and tabletop detritus to embark on a radical new direction. It wasn’t the first time he had done this—but it was the last. The “Ocean Park” series was the artist’s big shift into pure abstraction. It would hold his attention for the remaining decades of his life (which ended in 1993) and represent one of the most acclaimed bodies of work in the history of 20th-century painting—lyrical drafting-table palimpsests; layer upon layer of incrementally reconfigured rectilinear lozenges of nuanced chroma; a squashed cubist armada endlessly jostling in a Pacific-hued harbor. Edward Hopper in Flatland, deprived of his magic hour shadows and intricate architectural scaffolding, but finding new life in crisp aerial origami topographies enclosing cloudy washes of muted complements. Stained glass permutations and combinations, dripping beauty. The Bomb.
Unlikely as it seems, Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park” series—ultimately comprising hundreds of paintings, drawings, collages, and prints created between 1967 and 1988—has never been the subject of a comprehensive museum exhibition until just now. “Richard Diebenkorn: the Ocean Park Series” seems to have been hovering in the Coming Attractions section of the Orange County Museum of Art’s schedule for half a decade.
Apart from the economic crisis, the major obstacle has been logistics—as curator Sarah Bancroft points out, “There are ‘Ocean Park’ works in over 45 museum collections in the U.S., but only two institutions own more than one of them.” More widely acknowledged than deeply understood, Diebenkorn’s magnum opus has been fragmented and scattered across the landscape. “The grand diaspora of major works,” opines Bancroft in the awesome, copiously illustrated catalogue, “has ensured that audiences rarely have the opportunity to view ‘Ocean Park’ works in their depth and their diversity of media.”
Audiences finally have their chance. “Richard Diebenkorn: the Ocean Park Series” debuted at the co-organizing Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth last September and arrived in Bancroft’s Newport Beach base of operations in late February. After May, it moves on to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., for the summer, which will give Americans one more chance to reassess their tippy canon.
The OCMA installation will be hard to beat—most of the museum’s half-dozen galleries are devoted to the exhibit and each of the large canvases is apportioned an expansive wall unto itself, a masterful curatorial decision that allows each work to unfold its architectonic structure into the nooks and crannies of the white cube (if ever there was an argument in favor of institutional white cubism, this show is it!) and initiates a complex four-way dialogue between the occupants of each room. The curious non-linear stylistic development of the “Ocean Park” series subverts the exhibition’s chronological sequencing, resulting in a larger, more complex—and somewhat arbitrary— version of these intimate arguments. Epic.
Two narrower galleries feature prints, collages, and smaller paintings, all remarkable in that they are lesser works only in size and dollar value. It is apparent that Diebenkorn put some effort into conquering the bugaboo of scale, and these miniatures—along with a sequence of painted cigar-box lids the artist presented to his friends, which anchor a wall in one of the larger galleries—more than hold their own in the company of the big boys: A small gouache on paper such as the atmospherically flesh-tinted Untitled #8, 1988, contains all the compositional intricacy and exquisite color of a similar gargantuan work, Ocean Park #83, 1975.
It took me some years to warm up to the pieces in Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park” series, and I came to them through his earlier work. At the time—the early 1980s—the “Ocean Park” works held center stage. It was the most visible and best received of his oeuvres. Its popularity and adherence to the still-powerful modernist obsessions with geometry and flatness in painting had all but pushed Diebenkorn’s earlier, gushy abstractions and contrarian figurative work into the wings. To me, the paintings seemed like so many impressionist envelopes and file folders scanned from above.
When I discovered the heavily impastoed, loosely gestural still lifes and luminous abstract patchworks of color from Diebenkorn’s previous incarnations, I was shocked (a not uncommon response I later found out) to realize that this was the same Diebenkorn whose serene and cerebral geometric abstractions seemed to owe more to Sol LeWitt than to Willem de Kooning.
Diebenkorn had something of a charmed career, especially for an artist so inextricably identified with the West Coast. After winding down World War II by doing various artsy chores for the marines, he landed a yearlong painting sabbatical grant after his first semester as a student at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art institute), and he lit out for the East Coast. After a year in Woodstock, New York, he returned to a CSFA faculty position and began producing the work that would establish him as one of the most gifted practitioners of the West Coast iteration of Abstract Expressionism. After a highly productive graduate school stint in New Mexico (the Albuquerque period—itself the subject of an acclaimed traveling exhibit in 2007), Diebenkorn spent a year teaching at the University of Illinois (the Urbana period) before settling in Berkeley.
Throughout these travels, Diebenkorn was perfecting an extraordinarily robust abstract visual vocabulary, synthesizing historical influences as various as Matisse, Cézanne, Arshile Gorky, Joan Miró, Hopper, and Piero della Francesca and contemporary influences from Mark Rothko and Franz Kline to fellow Bay Area painters and friends, Elmer Bischoff and David Park, as well as popular and industrial visual affinities, ranging from Krazy Kat comics to aerial photography. The resulting amalgam is an intensive exploration of landscape-inspired shape, line, and color unrivalled in its virtuosity—except perhaps by the work of Willem de Kooning.
Like de Kooning, Diebenkorn shocked his supporters in the mid ’50s by abruptly and emphatically embracing figuration, joining Bischoff and Park in what became known as the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Overnight his loose, complex planar compositions dissolved into perspectival landscapes, then interiors and still lifes, and finally they began to be populated by people—usually women, especially his wife, Phyllis.
This heretical turn was greeted with dismay by Abstract Expressionism’s coterie of true believers: Diebenkorn was a backslider, a reactionary, a sellout. Problem was, by 1955, when he made the switch, Ab-Ex had already become the prevailing orthodoxy, and Diebenkorn was comfortably ensconced in its canon. With Pop art still just a twinkle in Eduardo Paolozzi’s eye, it was in fact a courageous— possibly foolhardy—leap into the unknown.
But Diebenkorn’s luck held, and his representational work eventually brought him an entirely new audience on top of the one that was actually able to discern his undiminished formal chops, now operating under the thin veil of narrative. The images were not putting the carefully honed, abstract painterly techniques at the service of pictorial storytelling, but rather allowing the paintings’ formal elements to rearrange themselves around the psychological gravity fields of identifiable figures. Bay Area figuration was a feat of legerdemain that led many a diehard abstractionist to reconsider what was actually going on across the history of painting.
Without a cutting-edge theoretical mechanism behind them, though, the Bay Area figs were generally perceived as retreating from the inevitable Modernist juggernaut into what many, after Duchamp, disparaged as “retinal art.”
Unlikely as it seems, Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park” series—ultimately comprising hundreds of paintings, drawings, collages, and prints created between 1967 and 1988—has never been the subject of a comprehensive museum exhibition until just now. “Richard Diebenkorn: the Ocean Park Series” seems to have been hovering in the Coming Attractions section of the Orange County Museum of Art’s schedule for half a decade.
Apart from the economic crisis, the major obstacle has been logistics—as curator Sarah Bancroft points out, “There are ‘Ocean Park’ works in over 45 museum collections in the U.S., but only two institutions own more than one of them.” More widely acknowledged than deeply understood, Diebenkorn’s magnum opus has been fragmented and scattered across the landscape. “The grand diaspora of major works,” opines Bancroft in the awesome, copiously illustrated catalogue, “has ensured that audiences rarely have the opportunity to view ‘Ocean Park’ works in their depth and their diversity of media.”
Audiences finally have their chance. “Richard Diebenkorn: the Ocean Park Series” debuted at the co-organizing Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth last September and arrived in Bancroft’s Newport Beach base of operations in late February. After May, it moves on to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., for the summer, which will give Americans one more chance to reassess their tippy canon.
The OCMA installation will be hard to beat—most of the museum’s half-dozen galleries are devoted to the exhibit and each of the large canvases is apportioned an expansive wall unto itself, a masterful curatorial decision that allows each work to unfold its architectonic structure into the nooks and crannies of the white cube (if ever there was an argument in favor of institutional white cubism, this show is it!) and initiates a complex four-way dialogue between the occupants of each room. The curious non-linear stylistic development of the “Ocean Park” series subverts the exhibition’s chronological sequencing, resulting in a larger, more complex—and somewhat arbitrary— version of these intimate arguments. Epic.
Two narrower galleries feature prints, collages, and smaller paintings, all remarkable in that they are lesser works only in size and dollar value. It is apparent that Diebenkorn put some effort into conquering the bugaboo of scale, and these miniatures—along with a sequence of painted cigar-box lids the artist presented to his friends, which anchor a wall in one of the larger galleries—more than hold their own in the company of the big boys: A small gouache on paper such as the atmospherically flesh-tinted Untitled #8, 1988, contains all the compositional intricacy and exquisite color of a similar gargantuan work, Ocean Park #83, 1975.
It took me some years to warm up to the pieces in Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park” series, and I came to them through his earlier work. At the time—the early 1980s—the “Ocean Park” works held center stage. It was the most visible and best received of his oeuvres. Its popularity and adherence to the still-powerful modernist obsessions with geometry and flatness in painting had all but pushed Diebenkorn’s earlier, gushy abstractions and contrarian figurative work into the wings. To me, the paintings seemed like so many impressionist envelopes and file folders scanned from above.
When I discovered the heavily impastoed, loosely gestural still lifes and luminous abstract patchworks of color from Diebenkorn’s previous incarnations, I was shocked (a not uncommon response I later found out) to realize that this was the same Diebenkorn whose serene and cerebral geometric abstractions seemed to owe more to Sol LeWitt than to Willem de Kooning.
Diebenkorn had something of a charmed career, especially for an artist so inextricably identified with the West Coast. After winding down World War II by doing various artsy chores for the marines, he landed a yearlong painting sabbatical grant after his first semester as a student at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art institute), and he lit out for the East Coast. After a year in Woodstock, New York, he returned to a CSFA faculty position and began producing the work that would establish him as one of the most gifted practitioners of the West Coast iteration of Abstract Expressionism. After a highly productive graduate school stint in New Mexico (the Albuquerque period—itself the subject of an acclaimed traveling exhibit in 2007), Diebenkorn spent a year teaching at the University of Illinois (the Urbana period) before settling in Berkeley.
Throughout these travels, Diebenkorn was perfecting an extraordinarily robust abstract visual vocabulary, synthesizing historical influences as various as Matisse, Cézanne, Arshile Gorky, Joan Miró, Hopper, and Piero della Francesca and contemporary influences from Mark Rothko and Franz Kline to fellow Bay Area painters and friends, Elmer Bischoff and David Park, as well as popular and industrial visual affinities, ranging from Krazy Kat comics to aerial photography. The resulting amalgam is an intensive exploration of landscape-inspired shape, line, and color unrivalled in its virtuosity—except perhaps by the work of Willem de Kooning.
Like de Kooning, Diebenkorn shocked his supporters in the mid ’50s by abruptly and emphatically embracing figuration, joining Bischoff and Park in what became known as the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Overnight his loose, complex planar compositions dissolved into perspectival landscapes, then interiors and still lifes, and finally they began to be populated by people—usually women, especially his wife, Phyllis.
This heretical turn was greeted with dismay by Abstract Expressionism’s coterie of true believers: Diebenkorn was a backslider, a reactionary, a sellout. Problem was, by 1955, when he made the switch, Ab-Ex had already become the prevailing orthodoxy, and Diebenkorn was comfortably ensconced in its canon. With Pop art still just a twinkle in Eduardo Paolozzi’s eye, it was in fact a courageous— possibly foolhardy—leap into the unknown.
But Diebenkorn’s luck held, and his representational work eventually brought him an entirely new audience on top of the one that was actually able to discern his undiminished formal chops, now operating under the thin veil of narrative. The images were not putting the carefully honed, abstract painterly techniques at the service of pictorial storytelling, but rather allowing the paintings’ formal elements to rearrange themselves around the psychological gravity fields of identifiable figures. Bay Area figuration was a feat of legerdemain that led many a diehard abstractionist to reconsider what was actually going on across the history of painting.
Without a cutting-edge theoretical mechanism behind them, though, the Bay Area figs were generally perceived as retreating from the inevitable Modernist juggernaut into what many, after Duchamp, disparaged as “retinal art.”
2012年3月19日星期一
Zola Jesus, Shabazz Palaces, and more at Creators Project
Along with all the epic-sized Lite-Brites and wing-flapping guardian angels at Creators Project this weekend in soggy Fort Mason, there also was plenty of super bass-heavy, heart-pumping, mind-expanding live music. Again, all free.
In the airport-hanger openness of midday in the Festival Pavilion — after a brief, freak hale storm outside — a loud, high-pitched electro-clatter came ringing down the forever long row of speakers. The culprit being Bejing indie rock act, New Pants.
With rapid energy the band bounced through hyperactive synth pop “punk disco,” while video projections by new media artist Feng Mengbo flashed on the screen behind. I most recall one song nearly matched up lyrically with clips from Spongebob Squarepants — the lyrics inexplicably being “I am not gay. Gay gay gay gay gay” and later, New Pants singer Peng Lei in a white button-up smashing a computer on stage, much to the small gathering crowd’s amusement.
After a quick trip back through the "Origin" cube and a saucy vegan tofu burger with pineapple from an Off the Grid truck (Koja Kitchen), I crawled back through the slightly more filled up hanger for always-entertaining LA noise band, HEALTH. As far as I’m concerned, the best parts of HEALTH were the drumming and the headbanging, which went hand in hand.
The experimental sounds, the mixed vocals, the frantic live show, it was great — but the drummer just killed it, and when another band member picked up the sticks to drum along in pummeling unison, it was near blistering perfection. And to my other point, I just like seeing bands headbang on stage, especially in this odd setting .
There was one true fan in the crowd — though I’m sure more were there, just possibly bodily contained — that couldn’t help but headbang along with dark flowing hair flying, jump methodically in place, and throw a near-empty cup of beer, much to the chagrin of the nerds around him.
The Antlers followed, and were rather unexciting. It was just that mild, lovely indie rock from a former blog buzz band, suitable for impassioned scenes on nighttime soaps. Though they played it well, not a whole lot of heat.
Seattle’s Shabazz Palaces brought the fun back. While the music off last year’s Black Up is sometimes playful, there’s a refined dynamic in the act, laid out by the casual-close interplay and synchronized dancing between smooth lyricist-808 controller Ishmael “'Palaceer Lazaro” Butler and bongo slapping multi-instrumentalist Tendai “Baba” Maraire. Lots of grooving followed, and some memorably awkward white boy shoulder jerks of free-form dance in the crowd.
After a round of sweet potato tator tots from Brass Knuckle, it was Zola Jesus mind-melting time. And just in time to catch that powerfully operatic voice soaring through moving single “Avalanche” off Conatus.
The diminutive vocalist, wrapped in her usual flowing, cape-y white frock, spread her winged-arms out wide during high notes, giving the illusion of a bird about to take flight, or an eerily angelic force, like the inverse of the black angel in Chris Milk’s interactive installation in the nearby Herbst Pavillion.
She was the first act of the day able to truly transcend the challenges of the wide-open space fighting the elements . Though that also could have been because the sun was finally officially down, and the true crowds were finally there, more efficiently using the room to huddle.
And this is when a balding elder with a badge around his neck began holding up his camera and filming Zola Jesus’ set. And it was right in front of me. And then I was watching the floating eerie angel through his tiny screen.
With general media personnel, bloggers, reporters, Intel people, and VICE people all there with a barrage of fancy cameras with huge lenses, or iPads, or iPhones snapping away all day, it felt like nearly everyone was there to document the event. If not for a specific outlet, most definitely for some form of social networking.
It left me wondering, who was there to simply absorb the magic in real-time? Who came for fun? Are we all part of some scary dystopia in which nothing happens but documentation? But also, perhaps paradoxically, who cares? This was a great event, tying together master creators in the worlds of technology, art, music, and food. Who am I to shit on that?
Left pondering this, I realized: my cheeks were frozen stiff, my belly ached from fried foods, and my ugly sniffling cold was rearing its ugly sniffling head. It was time to go home. Luckily, my photographer stayed behind to document Squarepusher and Yeah Yeah Yeahs for those who missed it real-time.
In the airport-hanger openness of midday in the Festival Pavilion — after a brief, freak hale storm outside — a loud, high-pitched electro-clatter came ringing down the forever long row of speakers. The culprit being Bejing indie rock act, New Pants.
With rapid energy the band bounced through hyperactive synth pop “punk disco,” while video projections by new media artist Feng Mengbo flashed on the screen behind. I most recall one song nearly matched up lyrically with clips from Spongebob Squarepants — the lyrics inexplicably being “I am not gay. Gay gay gay gay gay” and later, New Pants singer Peng Lei in a white button-up smashing a computer on stage, much to the small gathering crowd’s amusement.
After a quick trip back through the "Origin" cube and a saucy vegan tofu burger with pineapple from an Off the Grid truck (Koja Kitchen), I crawled back through the slightly more filled up hanger for always-entertaining LA noise band, HEALTH. As far as I’m concerned, the best parts of HEALTH were the drumming and the headbanging, which went hand in hand.
The experimental sounds, the mixed vocals, the frantic live show, it was great — but the drummer just killed it, and when another band member picked up the sticks to drum along in pummeling unison, it was near blistering perfection. And to my other point, I just like seeing bands headbang on stage, especially in this odd setting .
There was one true fan in the crowd — though I’m sure more were there, just possibly bodily contained — that couldn’t help but headbang along with dark flowing hair flying, jump methodically in place, and throw a near-empty cup of beer, much to the chagrin of the nerds around him.
The Antlers followed, and were rather unexciting. It was just that mild, lovely indie rock from a former blog buzz band, suitable for impassioned scenes on nighttime soaps. Though they played it well, not a whole lot of heat.
Seattle’s Shabazz Palaces brought the fun back. While the music off last year’s Black Up is sometimes playful, there’s a refined dynamic in the act, laid out by the casual-close interplay and synchronized dancing between smooth lyricist-808 controller Ishmael “'Palaceer Lazaro” Butler and bongo slapping multi-instrumentalist Tendai “Baba” Maraire. Lots of grooving followed, and some memorably awkward white boy shoulder jerks of free-form dance in the crowd.
After a round of sweet potato tator tots from Brass Knuckle, it was Zola Jesus mind-melting time. And just in time to catch that powerfully operatic voice soaring through moving single “Avalanche” off Conatus.
The diminutive vocalist, wrapped in her usual flowing, cape-y white frock, spread her winged-arms out wide during high notes, giving the illusion of a bird about to take flight, or an eerily angelic force, like the inverse of the black angel in Chris Milk’s interactive installation in the nearby Herbst Pavillion.
She was the first act of the day able to truly transcend the challenges of the wide-open space fighting the elements . Though that also could have been because the sun was finally officially down, and the true crowds were finally there, more efficiently using the room to huddle.
And this is when a balding elder with a badge around his neck began holding up his camera and filming Zola Jesus’ set. And it was right in front of me. And then I was watching the floating eerie angel through his tiny screen.
With general media personnel, bloggers, reporters, Intel people, and VICE people all there with a barrage of fancy cameras with huge lenses, or iPads, or iPhones snapping away all day, it felt like nearly everyone was there to document the event. If not for a specific outlet, most definitely for some form of social networking.
It left me wondering, who was there to simply absorb the magic in real-time? Who came for fun? Are we all part of some scary dystopia in which nothing happens but documentation? But also, perhaps paradoxically, who cares? This was a great event, tying together master creators in the worlds of technology, art, music, and food. Who am I to shit on that?
Left pondering this, I realized: my cheeks were frozen stiff, my belly ached from fried foods, and my ugly sniffling cold was rearing its ugly sniffling head. It was time to go home. Luckily, my photographer stayed behind to document Squarepusher and Yeah Yeah Yeahs for those who missed it real-time.
2012年3月18日星期日
Symphony benefits from gymnasts' acrobatics
You won't hear Ravel's "Bolero" in quite the same way after you've seen a man painted gold balancing on another man's neck.
But that's what Sioux City Symphony Orchestra goers got Saturday night when members of the Cirque de la Symphonie performed to a handful of classics.
Not quite Cirque du Soleil (though the performers probably wouldn't mind the confusion), the show consisted largely of solo acts hanging from silks, rings and ropes while the Sioux City musicians went through their paces. Surprisingly, the acrobats' timing was impeccable, matching the scores' intensity with their own dramatic moves.
Of the bunch -- some eight in all -- Christine Van Loo and Alexander Streltsov were most impressive. Both worked on bolts of fabric, dropping, posing and floating in time to Rachmaninov, Saint-Saens and Wagner. During "Ride of the Valkyries," Streltsov flew out over the audience, conjuring thoughts of what the Broadway Spider-Man musical must be like.
Of the more grounded acts, Jarek and Darek's strong men routine had the most thrills. They performed to "Bolero," balancing on various body parts while contorting the others. At one point one of the two practically dug a finger into the other's eye in order to do a handstand on his head. Painful -- and powerful.
Vladimir Tsarkov -- the group's comedian -- kept the show moving with a variety of juggling bits. He also performed a piece of magic that involved Elena Tsarkova (a great contortionist) and conductor Ryan Haskins. She was tied up in ropes. Haskins joined her in a black tent. In seconds, she emerged -- still in ropes -- wearing Haskins' jacket. Even better? Haskins got a later laugh asking for his wallet.
What we learned from Saturday's show was that classical music needn't be boring. Even though die-hards might insist the gymnastics detracted from the music, I'm pretty sure they helped introduce new audiences to the classics.
To its credit, the orchestra played several selections without the diversions and, yes, they were fine -- particularly Strauss' "Thunder and Lightning Polka."
Several musicians -- including the concertmaster -- got solos that were just as attractive as the folks in front.
Aloysia Gavre, working on an aerial hoop, moved perfectly with the Bacchanale from "Samson et Delilah." She suggested much of what was built into the dance and scared with her own daring moves.
Up close you could appreciate the intensity that went into her -- and the others' -- work. While Streltsov's spinning cube didn't come close to his aerial stuff, it was nice to hear Bizet's "Carmen" suite. Trade-offs, no doubt, but mutually beneficial.
Cirque du Soleil could learn a lesson from this experiment: You don't need weird music to appreciate skilled athletes.
And symphony officials could realize something, too: The house will fill if you shake things up once in a while.
Saturday's production was both fun and satisfying -- an ideal marriage, you might say, of art forms.
But that's what Sioux City Symphony Orchestra goers got Saturday night when members of the Cirque de la Symphonie performed to a handful of classics.
Not quite Cirque du Soleil (though the performers probably wouldn't mind the confusion), the show consisted largely of solo acts hanging from silks, rings and ropes while the Sioux City musicians went through their paces. Surprisingly, the acrobats' timing was impeccable, matching the scores' intensity with their own dramatic moves.
Of the bunch -- some eight in all -- Christine Van Loo and Alexander Streltsov were most impressive. Both worked on bolts of fabric, dropping, posing and floating in time to Rachmaninov, Saint-Saens and Wagner. During "Ride of the Valkyries," Streltsov flew out over the audience, conjuring thoughts of what the Broadway Spider-Man musical must be like.
Of the more grounded acts, Jarek and Darek's strong men routine had the most thrills. They performed to "Bolero," balancing on various body parts while contorting the others. At one point one of the two practically dug a finger into the other's eye in order to do a handstand on his head. Painful -- and powerful.
Vladimir Tsarkov -- the group's comedian -- kept the show moving with a variety of juggling bits. He also performed a piece of magic that involved Elena Tsarkova (a great contortionist) and conductor Ryan Haskins. She was tied up in ropes. Haskins joined her in a black tent. In seconds, she emerged -- still in ropes -- wearing Haskins' jacket. Even better? Haskins got a later laugh asking for his wallet.
What we learned from Saturday's show was that classical music needn't be boring. Even though die-hards might insist the gymnastics detracted from the music, I'm pretty sure they helped introduce new audiences to the classics.
To its credit, the orchestra played several selections without the diversions and, yes, they were fine -- particularly Strauss' "Thunder and Lightning Polka."
Several musicians -- including the concertmaster -- got solos that were just as attractive as the folks in front.
Aloysia Gavre, working on an aerial hoop, moved perfectly with the Bacchanale from "Samson et Delilah." She suggested much of what was built into the dance and scared with her own daring moves.
Up close you could appreciate the intensity that went into her -- and the others' -- work. While Streltsov's spinning cube didn't come close to his aerial stuff, it was nice to hear Bizet's "Carmen" suite. Trade-offs, no doubt, but mutually beneficial.
Cirque du Soleil could learn a lesson from this experiment: You don't need weird music to appreciate skilled athletes.
And symphony officials could realize something, too: The house will fill if you shake things up once in a while.
Saturday's production was both fun and satisfying -- an ideal marriage, you might say, of art forms.
2012年3月15日星期四
Tastiera laser per iPhone presentata al MWC 2012
Quest’anno al MWC 2012, il Mobile World Congress, la Celluon ha presentato una innovativa tastiera chiamata Prodigy, una periferica in grado di proiettare un raggio laser su una qualsiasi superficie piana direttamente dalla cover dell’iPhone 4 o 4S.
Sembra una notizia arrivata da qualche film di fantascienza, invece è realtà: la Celluon, una società con sede in Korea, ha creato una tastiera laser per iPhone che, collegata a dispositivi come l’iPhone 4 o iPhone 4S tramite la connettività bluetooth, permette di scrivere su una qualsiasi superficie piana e sufficientemente estesa come se si trattasse di una vera tastiera.
L’azienda coreana produttrice di un altro prodotto simile, il Magic Cube, un apparecchio portatile in grado di proiettare un fascio luminoso che funge da tastiera, per il momento ha presentato solo un prototipo della nuova apparecchiatura che dovrebbe svolgere lo stesso compito, ma senza bisogno di altri dispositivi, semplicemente integrandosi in una cover rigida per smartphone.
Questa nuova cover risponde al nome di Prodigy e per il momento presenta ancora qualche bug, essendo ancora un prototipo, ma tutto sommato sembra funzionare piuttosto bene. La lente da cui è proiettato il raggio laser si trova nella parte inferiore della cover di modo che se inserite all’interno il vostro iPhone e lo posizionate orizzontalmente di fronte e voi avete la possibilità di scrivere guardando lo schermo per controllare che vada tutto bene.
Ancora non si conosce la data esatta del lancio sul mercato, ma tra presto verrà commercializzato il Magic Cube, ad un prezzo che dovrebbe aggirarsi sui 159 dollari circa.
Sembra una notizia arrivata da qualche film di fantascienza, invece è realtà: la Celluon, una società con sede in Korea, ha creato una tastiera laser per iPhone che, collegata a dispositivi come l’iPhone 4 o iPhone 4S tramite la connettività bluetooth, permette di scrivere su una qualsiasi superficie piana e sufficientemente estesa come se si trattasse di una vera tastiera.
L’azienda coreana produttrice di un altro prodotto simile, il Magic Cube, un apparecchio portatile in grado di proiettare un fascio luminoso che funge da tastiera, per il momento ha presentato solo un prototipo della nuova apparecchiatura che dovrebbe svolgere lo stesso compito, ma senza bisogno di altri dispositivi, semplicemente integrandosi in una cover rigida per smartphone.
Questa nuova cover risponde al nome di Prodigy e per il momento presenta ancora qualche bug, essendo ancora un prototipo, ma tutto sommato sembra funzionare piuttosto bene. La lente da cui è proiettato il raggio laser si trova nella parte inferiore della cover di modo che se inserite all’interno il vostro iPhone e lo posizionate orizzontalmente di fronte e voi avete la possibilità di scrivere guardando lo schermo per controllare che vada tutto bene.
Ancora non si conosce la data esatta del lancio sul mercato, ma tra presto verrà commercializzato il Magic Cube, ad un prezzo che dovrebbe aggirarsi sui 159 dollari circa.
2012年3月14日星期三
The Gathering casts a spell on UNL students
Ryan Hildreth put down the cards because he couldn’t afford them. But only a few years later, the freshman general studies major found himself addicted again.
Magic: The Gathering, created in 1993, was one of the first collectible trading card games.
And now it’s making a comeback.
In 2011, there were approximately 12 million players, including students at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Hildreth was originally brought back into the world of Magic by his sister. He played Magic while growing up but has been on break from the game for the past four years.
“I quit because it’s a money trap,” Hildreth said. “Then I sat down with (my sister) and all of her friends and I remembered how fun it is.”
Every Tuesday night at 6 p.m. a group made up of mostly UNL students gather in the Nebraska Union to play the card game.
Each game of Magic is a battle between wizards called planeswalkers. Two or more players try to reduce their opponents to a score of zero by dealing the designated Magic cards that cause damage, or loss of points, to other players.
Students began playing Magic together about five years ago in the 501 Building off Stadium Drive. The gamers said they moved to their current location two years ago in hopes of a higher attendance rate.
“It turns out there’s lots of Magic players here (at the Union),” said Elliot Campbell, an economics graduate student said.
According to Campbell attendance peaks between 14 to 16 people some Tuesday nights. With this increase in numbers, Campbell found a way to adapt Magic to larger groups. He took the concept of the card game Bang, based on the wild-west, and applied it to Magic.
“There’s one person that everyone knows who they are,” Campbell said. “Then there are a bunch of hidden roles and they have different objectives. It adds a layer of social games like Werewolf or Mafia to Magic.”
With this change, he has fixed a couple of problems with the multiplayer version of Magic.
“It’s possible to lose early and you’re just sitting there doing nothing,” Campbell said. “In this variant you’re in teams so if you lost, you might still be interested in the game because your teammates are still playing.”
With this different style of Magic, the group can play three or more games between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., according to Campbell.
“I think it’s interesting enough where it keeps people coming back,” Campbell said.
Many of the regular Magic players at the Union had heard of the group from someone they knew. Mauricio Lang, a senior economics major, was invited into the group by one of his friends when Magic was still being played in the 501 Building.
“I started playing Magic with them and when they moved up to the Union, I moved too,” Lang said.
Hildreth also introduced at least three more friends to Magic, one who had never played before. Members said those who don’t know how to play but are interested are welcome to join.
“There are people that bring decks to share so you don’t have to have your own Magic cards to play,” Campbell said. “We have a thing called a cube. Someone has made a mini set of Magic that you can build deck out of.”
Campbell, Hildreth and Lang all say they play Magic simply because they enjoy the game.
“Magic is a way for me and my friends to hang out,” Hildreth said, “and it’s fun.”
Magic: The Gathering, created in 1993, was one of the first collectible trading card games.
And now it’s making a comeback.
In 2011, there were approximately 12 million players, including students at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Hildreth was originally brought back into the world of Magic by his sister. He played Magic while growing up but has been on break from the game for the past four years.
“I quit because it’s a money trap,” Hildreth said. “Then I sat down with (my sister) and all of her friends and I remembered how fun it is.”
Every Tuesday night at 6 p.m. a group made up of mostly UNL students gather in the Nebraska Union to play the card game.
Each game of Magic is a battle between wizards called planeswalkers. Two or more players try to reduce their opponents to a score of zero by dealing the designated Magic cards that cause damage, or loss of points, to other players.
Students began playing Magic together about five years ago in the 501 Building off Stadium Drive. The gamers said they moved to their current location two years ago in hopes of a higher attendance rate.
“It turns out there’s lots of Magic players here (at the Union),” said Elliot Campbell, an economics graduate student said.
According to Campbell attendance peaks between 14 to 16 people some Tuesday nights. With this increase in numbers, Campbell found a way to adapt Magic to larger groups. He took the concept of the card game Bang, based on the wild-west, and applied it to Magic.
“There’s one person that everyone knows who they are,” Campbell said. “Then there are a bunch of hidden roles and they have different objectives. It adds a layer of social games like Werewolf or Mafia to Magic.”
With this change, he has fixed a couple of problems with the multiplayer version of Magic.
“It’s possible to lose early and you’re just sitting there doing nothing,” Campbell said. “In this variant you’re in teams so if you lost, you might still be interested in the game because your teammates are still playing.”
With this different style of Magic, the group can play three or more games between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., according to Campbell.
“I think it’s interesting enough where it keeps people coming back,” Campbell said.
Many of the regular Magic players at the Union had heard of the group from someone they knew. Mauricio Lang, a senior economics major, was invited into the group by one of his friends when Magic was still being played in the 501 Building.
“I started playing Magic with them and when they moved up to the Union, I moved too,” Lang said.
Hildreth also introduced at least three more friends to Magic, one who had never played before. Members said those who don’t know how to play but are interested are welcome to join.
“There are people that bring decks to share so you don’t have to have your own Magic cards to play,” Campbell said. “We have a thing called a cube. Someone has made a mini set of Magic that you can build deck out of.”
Campbell, Hildreth and Lang all say they play Magic simply because they enjoy the game.
“Magic is a way for me and my friends to hang out,” Hildreth said, “and it’s fun.”
2012年3月13日星期二
Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum Make an Unlikely Pair
At first, Jonah Hill balked when he was offered the assignment of co-writing an R-rated comedy based on the show, 21 Jump Street.
He just couldn't see his way into a modern take on the TV police procedural that showcased Johnny Depp in his 1980s breakout role.
"I was like, 'Forget it, I pass,'" recalled Hill in Chicago recently to promote the movie with Channing Tatum.
After some persuasion by the studio, and creative sessions with writer Michael Bacall, Hill started to appreciate how a revamped adaptation might function.
"The goal was making it like a Bad Boys meets a John Hughes movie," said Hill. "And now I feel confident that we have some kind of cool version of that."
Opening March 16, 21 Jump Street is co-directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, and features Hill and Tatum as rookie cops assigned to go undercover by posing as high-school students in order to bring down a synthetic-drug ring. Co-starring are Ice Cube as the harried police captain and Rob Riggle as the overzealous coach.
The film, and the laughs, are mostly driven by the unlikely team of Hill and Tatum. Hill, 28, earned a recent Oscar nod for his co-starring role in Moneyball, but is mostly known for his foul-mouthed sidekick in Superbad, and as one of the rude friends in Knocked Up. Tatum, 31, is the handsome hunk type, and divides his screen time between action (Haywire) and romance (The Vow).
A raucous buddy flick is new territory for Tatum, but that's exactly why Hill thought the unlikely combination would work.
"I really wanted the pairing to feel unexpected," Hill said. "And I really wanted the movie poster to be like, 'Wow, I've never seen these two guys together.'"
For his part, Tatum was a little anxious about his role. Improvising in a flat-out laugh-fest is far from his comfort zone.
"You've got to give yourself over to it, in a way," he said of the improv approach that Hill favours. "And you have to have faith in Jonah, and the people that chose you, and go with it."
Along the way, Tatum said he felt he was "schooled in the art, because I can't imagine making a movie in this genre without the actors helping each other."
As it stands, Hill gives Tatum an A for effort in ad libbing. In fact, both actors agreed it was Riggle, as the out-of-control coach, who came up with some of the best lines.
"Rob Riggle is psychotically funny," admitted Hill. "It's like a medical issue."
Tatum said in one sequence involving the three of them that "all Jonah and I did was try to figure out a way not to laugh."
Riggle, memorable as the Tasering cop in The Hangover, said the 21 Jump Street environment "was freeing to the point of craziness," which encouraged him to go full throttle. "When you know the best line wins no matter what, it only makes things better, and funnier," he said.
Besides the Riggle bits, another of Hill's favourite scenes is the opening, when the actor goofs on his teen life in high school as a wannabe Eminem during the rapper's Slim Shady phase.
"I had that idea while we were shooting," said Hill, whose character struts into his school to Eminem's Slim Shady tune. "I had a lot of resistance from people on that, but I was like, 'Just trust me.'"
The moment sets the tone for the rest of the action-comedy ride, which includes a high-profile cameo.
"I wanted the movie to feel like an hour-and-a-half party," Hill said. "I wanted to have fun doing it, and the audience to have fun watching it, and I feel we deliver on that."
He also said he thinks the film connects on a level that the teenager in all of us can appreciate.
"I like our film's back-to-the-future element of reliving a really important period of your life," said Hill. "You know, that's when you think you have all the answers in high school, but then you find out all the answers are completely false."
So, when the undercover cops return to high school, "they revert to the insecurities they had when they were 17, because of their surroundings."
At the conclusion, there's even a hint that the buddy cops might be heading to college for a sequel. Hill and Tatum said they are willing, if movie fans show their support.
Meanwhile, Tatum said he has a proposition for Hill that might be a change of pace for him. In a few weeks, Tatum is doing a few re-shoots on his film, Magic Mike, set for a summer release. It recalls Tatum's brief stint as a male stripper.
"We might have a cameo for Jonah," said Tatum.
Hill chuckled: "Yeah, then it would be time for me to improv the weights, man."
He just couldn't see his way into a modern take on the TV police procedural that showcased Johnny Depp in his 1980s breakout role.
"I was like, 'Forget it, I pass,'" recalled Hill in Chicago recently to promote the movie with Channing Tatum.
After some persuasion by the studio, and creative sessions with writer Michael Bacall, Hill started to appreciate how a revamped adaptation might function.
"The goal was making it like a Bad Boys meets a John Hughes movie," said Hill. "And now I feel confident that we have some kind of cool version of that."
Opening March 16, 21 Jump Street is co-directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, and features Hill and Tatum as rookie cops assigned to go undercover by posing as high-school students in order to bring down a synthetic-drug ring. Co-starring are Ice Cube as the harried police captain and Rob Riggle as the overzealous coach.
The film, and the laughs, are mostly driven by the unlikely team of Hill and Tatum. Hill, 28, earned a recent Oscar nod for his co-starring role in Moneyball, but is mostly known for his foul-mouthed sidekick in Superbad, and as one of the rude friends in Knocked Up. Tatum, 31, is the handsome hunk type, and divides his screen time between action (Haywire) and romance (The Vow).
A raucous buddy flick is new territory for Tatum, but that's exactly why Hill thought the unlikely combination would work.
"I really wanted the pairing to feel unexpected," Hill said. "And I really wanted the movie poster to be like, 'Wow, I've never seen these two guys together.'"
For his part, Tatum was a little anxious about his role. Improvising in a flat-out laugh-fest is far from his comfort zone.
"You've got to give yourself over to it, in a way," he said of the improv approach that Hill favours. "And you have to have faith in Jonah, and the people that chose you, and go with it."
Along the way, Tatum said he felt he was "schooled in the art, because I can't imagine making a movie in this genre without the actors helping each other."
As it stands, Hill gives Tatum an A for effort in ad libbing. In fact, both actors agreed it was Riggle, as the out-of-control coach, who came up with some of the best lines.
"Rob Riggle is psychotically funny," admitted Hill. "It's like a medical issue."
Tatum said in one sequence involving the three of them that "all Jonah and I did was try to figure out a way not to laugh."
Riggle, memorable as the Tasering cop in The Hangover, said the 21 Jump Street environment "was freeing to the point of craziness," which encouraged him to go full throttle. "When you know the best line wins no matter what, it only makes things better, and funnier," he said.
Besides the Riggle bits, another of Hill's favourite scenes is the opening, when the actor goofs on his teen life in high school as a wannabe Eminem during the rapper's Slim Shady phase.
"I had that idea while we were shooting," said Hill, whose character struts into his school to Eminem's Slim Shady tune. "I had a lot of resistance from people on that, but I was like, 'Just trust me.'"
The moment sets the tone for the rest of the action-comedy ride, which includes a high-profile cameo.
"I wanted the movie to feel like an hour-and-a-half party," Hill said. "I wanted to have fun doing it, and the audience to have fun watching it, and I feel we deliver on that."
He also said he thinks the film connects on a level that the teenager in all of us can appreciate.
"I like our film's back-to-the-future element of reliving a really important period of your life," said Hill. "You know, that's when you think you have all the answers in high school, but then you find out all the answers are completely false."
So, when the undercover cops return to high school, "they revert to the insecurities they had when they were 17, because of their surroundings."
At the conclusion, there's even a hint that the buddy cops might be heading to college for a sequel. Hill and Tatum said they are willing, if movie fans show their support.
Meanwhile, Tatum said he has a proposition for Hill that might be a change of pace for him. In a few weeks, Tatum is doing a few re-shoots on his film, Magic Mike, set for a summer release. It recalls Tatum's brief stint as a male stripper.
"We might have a cameo for Jonah," said Tatum.
Hill chuckled: "Yeah, then it would be time for me to improv the weights, man."
2012年3月12日星期一
Hill and Tatum's unlikely comedic pairing
At first, Jonah Hill balked when he was offered the assignment of co-writing an R-rated comedy based on the show, 21 Jump Street.
He just couldn't see his way into a modern take on the TV police procedural that showcased Johnny Depp in his 1980s breakout role.
"I was like, 'Forget it, I pass,'" recalled Hill in Chicago recently to promote the movie with Channing Tatum.
After some persuasion by the studio, and creative sessions with writer Michael Bacall, Hill started to appreciate how a revamped adaptation might function.
"The goal was making it like a Bad Boys meets a John Hughes movie," said Hill. "And now I feel confident that we have some kind of cool version of that."
Opening March 16, 21 Jump Street is co-directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, and features Hill and Tatum as rookie cops assigned to go undercover by posing as high-school students in order to bring down a synthetic-drug ring. Co-starring are Ice Cube as the harried police captain and Rob Riggle as the overzealous coach.
The film, and the laughs, are mostly driven by the unlikely team of Hill and Tatum. Hill, 28, earned a recent Oscar nod for his co-starring role in Moneyball, but is mostly known for his foul-mouthed sidekick in Superbad, and as one of the rude friends in Knocked Up. Tatum, 31, is the handsome hunk type, and divides his screen time between action (Haywire) and romance (The Vow).
A raucous buddy flick is new territory for Tatum, but that's exactly why Hill thought the unlikely combination would work.
"I really wanted the pairing to feel unexpected," Hill said. "And I really wanted the movie poster to be like, 'Wow, I've never seen these two guys together.'"
For his part, Tatum was a little anxious about his role. Improvising in a flat-out laugh-fest is far from his comfort zone.
"You've got to give yourself over to it, in a way," he said of the improv approach that Hill favours. "And you have to have faith in Jonah, and the people that chose you, and go with it."
Along the way, Tatum said he felt he was "schooled in the art, because I can't imagine making a movie in this genre without the actors helping each other."
As it stands, Hill gives Tatum an A for effort in ad libbing. In fact, both actors agreed it was Riggle, as the out-of-control coach, who came up with some of the best lines.
"Rob Riggle is psychotically funny," admitted Hill. "It's like a medical issue."
Tatum said in one sequence involving the three of them that "all Jonah and I did was try to figure out a way not to laugh."
Riggle, memorable as the Tasering cop in The Hangover, said the 21 Jump Street environment "was freeing to the point of craziness," which encouraged him to go full throttle. "When you know the best line wins no matter what, it only makes things better, and funnier," he said.
Besides the Riggle bits, another of Hill's favourite scenes is the opening, when the actor goofs on his teen life in high school as a wannabe Eminem during the rapper's Slim Shady phase.
"I had that idea while we were shooting," said Hill, whose character struts into his school to Eminem's Slim Shady tune. "I had a lot of resistance from people on that, but I was like, 'Just trust me.'"
The moment sets the tone for the rest of the action-comedy ride, which includes a high-profile cameo.
"I wanted the movie to feel like an hour-and-a-half party," Hill said. "I wanted to have fun doing it, and the audience to have fun watching it, and I feel we deliver on that."
He also said he thinks the film connects on a level that the teenager in all of us can appreciate.
"I like our film's back-to-the-future element of reliving a really important period of your life," said Hill. "You know, that's when you think you have all the answers in high school, but then you find out all the answers are completely false."
So, when the undercover cops return to high school, "they revert to the insecurities they had when they were 17, because of their surroundings."
At the conclusion, there's even a hint that the buddy cops might be heading to college for a sequel. Hill and Tatum said they are willing, if movie fans show their support.
Meanwhile, Tatum said he has a proposition for Hill that might be a change of pace for him. In a few weeks, Tatum is doing a few re-shoots on his film, Magic Mike, set for a summer release. It recalls Tatum's brief stint as a male stripper.
He just couldn't see his way into a modern take on the TV police procedural that showcased Johnny Depp in his 1980s breakout role.
"I was like, 'Forget it, I pass,'" recalled Hill in Chicago recently to promote the movie with Channing Tatum.
After some persuasion by the studio, and creative sessions with writer Michael Bacall, Hill started to appreciate how a revamped adaptation might function.
"The goal was making it like a Bad Boys meets a John Hughes movie," said Hill. "And now I feel confident that we have some kind of cool version of that."
Opening March 16, 21 Jump Street is co-directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, and features Hill and Tatum as rookie cops assigned to go undercover by posing as high-school students in order to bring down a synthetic-drug ring. Co-starring are Ice Cube as the harried police captain and Rob Riggle as the overzealous coach.
The film, and the laughs, are mostly driven by the unlikely team of Hill and Tatum. Hill, 28, earned a recent Oscar nod for his co-starring role in Moneyball, but is mostly known for his foul-mouthed sidekick in Superbad, and as one of the rude friends in Knocked Up. Tatum, 31, is the handsome hunk type, and divides his screen time between action (Haywire) and romance (The Vow).
A raucous buddy flick is new territory for Tatum, but that's exactly why Hill thought the unlikely combination would work.
"I really wanted the pairing to feel unexpected," Hill said. "And I really wanted the movie poster to be like, 'Wow, I've never seen these two guys together.'"
For his part, Tatum was a little anxious about his role. Improvising in a flat-out laugh-fest is far from his comfort zone.
"You've got to give yourself over to it, in a way," he said of the improv approach that Hill favours. "And you have to have faith in Jonah, and the people that chose you, and go with it."
Along the way, Tatum said he felt he was "schooled in the art, because I can't imagine making a movie in this genre without the actors helping each other."
As it stands, Hill gives Tatum an A for effort in ad libbing. In fact, both actors agreed it was Riggle, as the out-of-control coach, who came up with some of the best lines.
"Rob Riggle is psychotically funny," admitted Hill. "It's like a medical issue."
Tatum said in one sequence involving the three of them that "all Jonah and I did was try to figure out a way not to laugh."
Riggle, memorable as the Tasering cop in The Hangover, said the 21 Jump Street environment "was freeing to the point of craziness," which encouraged him to go full throttle. "When you know the best line wins no matter what, it only makes things better, and funnier," he said.
Besides the Riggle bits, another of Hill's favourite scenes is the opening, when the actor goofs on his teen life in high school as a wannabe Eminem during the rapper's Slim Shady phase.
"I had that idea while we were shooting," said Hill, whose character struts into his school to Eminem's Slim Shady tune. "I had a lot of resistance from people on that, but I was like, 'Just trust me.'"
The moment sets the tone for the rest of the action-comedy ride, which includes a high-profile cameo.
"I wanted the movie to feel like an hour-and-a-half party," Hill said. "I wanted to have fun doing it, and the audience to have fun watching it, and I feel we deliver on that."
He also said he thinks the film connects on a level that the teenager in all of us can appreciate.
"I like our film's back-to-the-future element of reliving a really important period of your life," said Hill. "You know, that's when you think you have all the answers in high school, but then you find out all the answers are completely false."
So, when the undercover cops return to high school, "they revert to the insecurities they had when they were 17, because of their surroundings."
At the conclusion, there's even a hint that the buddy cops might be heading to college for a sequel. Hill and Tatum said they are willing, if movie fans show their support.
Meanwhile, Tatum said he has a proposition for Hill that might be a change of pace for him. In a few weeks, Tatum is doing a few re-shoots on his film, Magic Mike, set for a summer release. It recalls Tatum's brief stint as a male stripper.
2012年3月11日星期日
Idea of reliving youth sold Jonah Hill on "Jump Street"
Sincerity is not necessarily what you'd expect from the executive producers of a comedic riff on "21 Jump Street." The late-1980s hit TV series famously featured Johnny Depp, Richard Grieco and Holly Robinson as cops working undercover in the harrowing teen environs of high schools and colleges.
Earnestness is also not what you'd expect from those same producer-stars who greet you in a downtown Denver hotel suite wearing bicycle patrol uniforms.
On one heckuva blustery day recently, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum were clad in short sleeves, black bike shorts and short-fingered gloves, just like their characters Schmidt and Jenko before the underachieving rookies are drafted for an undercover assignment in a high school.
"We're just doing a little work here. Keeping you safe," Tatum intoned as he entered the room. "If we could have brought our bikes, we would have."
Funning aside, the duo proved rather serious about their unexpected partnership, their careers, their adventure in producing.
Cracking wise isn't the norm for Tatum. Which is why Hill — the nudger in this undertaking — approached the former stripper turned model turned gainfully employed, endearingly committed actor in the first place.
"I knew I didn't want the other person to be known as a comedic persona. I wanted it to be myself and an action star who hadn't done a lot of comedy," said Hill, sipping a soda and ignoring a saucer of brownies and cookies a publicist set down.
"Channing has this great metaphor. It's like the eighth bite of steak — if it were me and another comedy guy. You've seen that before. You know what it tastes like. It's good. But it's steak. We wanted to have a combination that felt really fresh."
So Hill cold-called Tatum, best known for action and tear-streaked romance .
"I loved 'A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,' " said Hill of the Sundance award-winning drama that reaped Tatum breakout recognition in 2006. "It's one of my favorite performances, ever. It felt to me — and I'm not just saying this because he's sitting here — it felt like a 'Mean Streets' type of performance. One of the rawest performances I've ever seen."
Tatum still credits writer-director Dito Montiel — for whom he also did "Fighting" and "The Son of No One" — with his love of acting.
"He ushered me in. He made me really care, made me dare myself. His honesty level is brutal," he said.
It was important to Hill that someone have his back, "who was protecting what I was really going after from the get- go," said Hill, who conceived the story with screenwriter Michael Bacall ("Project X"). "We could put a bubble over what we were trying to make, which was an R-rated 'Bad Boys' meets John Hughes movie."
Hill admitted having misgivings. It was his agent who suggested the project.
"I rolled my eyes like anyone would about turning a television show into a film. It wasn't something I aspired to or was interested in."
The idea of making a film "about guys who got to relive the most important and affecting period of their youth," Hill offered. "Thinking you have all the answers but going back and realizing you have none of the answers. And all your insecurities immediately revert back to when you were 17. That's a fun, fascinating and ripe idea for a film. "
Last year Hill developed quite an appreciation of the power of the unexpected. In a departure from the raunchy shenanigans of "Superbad" and "Get Him to the Greek," he portrayed statistical whiz Peter Brand in the Brad Pitt-championed baseball drama "Moneyball."
Hill and Pitt were nominated for Oscars for their work.
In light of that success, "21 Jump Street" might seem like a reverting to type for Hill.
Don't be fooled. The day after the Oscars, it was announced he'd signed on for the drama "True Story." Based on disgraced New York Times Magazine writer Michael Finkel's memoir about meeting Christian Longo, his imposter — and a murderer. The film co-stars James Franco. Pitt is producing.
As for Tatum, next up is director Steven Soderbergh's comedy "Magic Mike," slated for summer, in which Tatum plays mentor to a fellow stripper .
Then in a bit of director-swapping, he hopes to team up with "Moneyball" filmmaker Bennett Miller for a drama about brother Olympian wrestlers Dave and Mark Schultz. The former was murdered in 1996 by heir John E. du Pont.
Earnestness is also not what you'd expect from those same producer-stars who greet you in a downtown Denver hotel suite wearing bicycle patrol uniforms.
On one heckuva blustery day recently, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum were clad in short sleeves, black bike shorts and short-fingered gloves, just like their characters Schmidt and Jenko before the underachieving rookies are drafted for an undercover assignment in a high school.
"We're just doing a little work here. Keeping you safe," Tatum intoned as he entered the room. "If we could have brought our bikes, we would have."
Funning aside, the duo proved rather serious about their unexpected partnership, their careers, their adventure in producing.
Cracking wise isn't the norm for Tatum. Which is why Hill — the nudger in this undertaking — approached the former stripper turned model turned gainfully employed, endearingly committed actor in the first place.
"I knew I didn't want the other person to be known as a comedic persona. I wanted it to be myself and an action star who hadn't done a lot of comedy," said Hill, sipping a soda and ignoring a saucer of brownies and cookies a publicist set down.
"Channing has this great metaphor. It's like the eighth bite of steak — if it were me and another comedy guy. You've seen that before. You know what it tastes like. It's good. But it's steak. We wanted to have a combination that felt really fresh."
So Hill cold-called Tatum, best known for action and tear-streaked romance .
"I loved 'A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,' " said Hill of the Sundance award-winning drama that reaped Tatum breakout recognition in 2006. "It's one of my favorite performances, ever. It felt to me — and I'm not just saying this because he's sitting here — it felt like a 'Mean Streets' type of performance. One of the rawest performances I've ever seen."
Tatum still credits writer-director Dito Montiel — for whom he also did "Fighting" and "The Son of No One" — with his love of acting.
"He ushered me in. He made me really care, made me dare myself. His honesty level is brutal," he said.
It was important to Hill that someone have his back, "who was protecting what I was really going after from the get- go," said Hill, who conceived the story with screenwriter Michael Bacall ("Project X"). "We could put a bubble over what we were trying to make, which was an R-rated 'Bad Boys' meets John Hughes movie."
Hill admitted having misgivings. It was his agent who suggested the project.
"I rolled my eyes like anyone would about turning a television show into a film. It wasn't something I aspired to or was interested in."
The idea of making a film "about guys who got to relive the most important and affecting period of their youth," Hill offered. "Thinking you have all the answers but going back and realizing you have none of the answers. And all your insecurities immediately revert back to when you were 17. That's a fun, fascinating and ripe idea for a film. "
Last year Hill developed quite an appreciation of the power of the unexpected. In a departure from the raunchy shenanigans of "Superbad" and "Get Him to the Greek," he portrayed statistical whiz Peter Brand in the Brad Pitt-championed baseball drama "Moneyball."
Hill and Pitt were nominated for Oscars for their work.
In light of that success, "21 Jump Street" might seem like a reverting to type for Hill.
Don't be fooled. The day after the Oscars, it was announced he'd signed on for the drama "True Story." Based on disgraced New York Times Magazine writer Michael Finkel's memoir about meeting Christian Longo, his imposter — and a murderer. The film co-stars James Franco. Pitt is producing.
As for Tatum, next up is director Steven Soderbergh's comedy "Magic Mike," slated for summer, in which Tatum plays mentor to a fellow stripper .
Then in a bit of director-swapping, he hopes to team up with "Moneyball" filmmaker Bennett Miller for a drama about brother Olympian wrestlers Dave and Mark Schultz. The former was murdered in 1996 by heir John E. du Pont.
2012年3月8日星期四
In Defense of Liquid Smoke
My mother cooks to feed her family. She produced low-fat, low-salt, balanced meals for four children who grew up healthy and strong.
My father cooks to soothe his soul. He sometimes whistles hymns while he works, turning his kitchen into a Sunday morning church service.
Everything my father cooks begins with a full stick of butter, melted slowly just until it starts to foam. On special occasions, he unearths the faded black stock pot he and my mother received as a wedding gift and makes his “secret” recipe barbeque sauce. The recipe is secret, because it’s always different, made from whatever condiments my mother has in the fridge. But there are three constants: that stick of butter, ketchup and a healthy dose of Liquid Smoke.
When my mother went back to work, some of the family cooking duties fell to me, and I set out to capture the magic I felt when my father was in the kitchen. I knew I’d never get away with using butter by the stick, and my 12-year-old knife skills were no match for my father’s. That left the Liquid Smoke. I put it in everything.
My mom’s meatloaf recipe got a dose of Liquid Smoke. So did the instructions she left me for making taco meat. It was not until I started putting the stuff in my spaghetti sauce that my older brother, John, pushed his chair away from the dinner table and declared that he would eat nothing more that I cooked, unless I stopped cooking with Liquid Smoke.
I dialed it back a bit after that.
Today, my father can still be found standing in the golden desert sunlight that streams through my family’s Southern California kitchen, slowly and meticulously chopping onions and potatoes into perfectly uniform cubes. Here in Boston, I have learned to reserve Liquid Smoke for my dad’s barbeque beans and amazing slow cooker pulled pork. I did not inherit his patience, so I buy commercially made barbeque sauce. But, you should see my Sunday morning potatoes and onions. Every cube is perfect.
My father cooks to soothe his soul. He sometimes whistles hymns while he works, turning his kitchen into a Sunday morning church service.
Everything my father cooks begins with a full stick of butter, melted slowly just until it starts to foam. On special occasions, he unearths the faded black stock pot he and my mother received as a wedding gift and makes his “secret” recipe barbeque sauce. The recipe is secret, because it’s always different, made from whatever condiments my mother has in the fridge. But there are three constants: that stick of butter, ketchup and a healthy dose of Liquid Smoke.
When my mother went back to work, some of the family cooking duties fell to me, and I set out to capture the magic I felt when my father was in the kitchen. I knew I’d never get away with using butter by the stick, and my 12-year-old knife skills were no match for my father’s. That left the Liquid Smoke. I put it in everything.
My mom’s meatloaf recipe got a dose of Liquid Smoke. So did the instructions she left me for making taco meat. It was not until I started putting the stuff in my spaghetti sauce that my older brother, John, pushed his chair away from the dinner table and declared that he would eat nothing more that I cooked, unless I stopped cooking with Liquid Smoke.
I dialed it back a bit after that.
Today, my father can still be found standing in the golden desert sunlight that streams through my family’s Southern California kitchen, slowly and meticulously chopping onions and potatoes into perfectly uniform cubes. Here in Boston, I have learned to reserve Liquid Smoke for my dad’s barbeque beans and amazing slow cooker pulled pork. I did not inherit his patience, so I buy commercially made barbeque sauce. But, you should see my Sunday morning potatoes and onions. Every cube is perfect.
2012年3月7日星期三
A look at Seven Souls Online with the NEOWIZ team
Just a few short weeks ago, Seven Souls Online was in closed beta and Massively readers were scooping up beta keys to test it out. Now, with closed beta, well, closed and open beta just around the corner, the team at NEOWIZ GAMES sat down to show off the state of the game and its plans for launch. The devs showed some beginner gameplay and then revealed some of the content that's ready and waiting for the higher levels. From jackpots to cubes to rage mode, Lead Community Manager Cesar Gatica and Marketing Manager Joon Yoon explained it all. What the heck are jackpots, cubes, and rage mode? Read on!
First off, the team gave an overview of the nuts and bolts of the game, starting with classes. As Community Manager Gatica explained, there are three classes. The Exiled Avenger is best described as a rogue type, with stealth, dagger, and ranged attacks. The Imperial Guard is basically a melee toon, with a variety of weapons at his dispense, while the Manatech Rebel is looks like a hybrid melee/magic user. There is a fourth class hinted at on the character select screen, but right now its still under wraps and will be revealed later on. The character creator is very detailed, and when open beta arrives, the team plans on holding an in-game event called "infamous character creator" to see how many famous icons players can come up with.
The game takes place in the realm of Akkadia, and when open beta launches, players will be able to access more areas than in closed. The tutorial areas and the UI have the same familiar features that are common in MMOs, with features like minimaps, quest trackers, waypoint paths, and casting hotbars. One of the more unique features, though, is the Jackpot bar. It's based on damage dealt, and when you've dealt enough and filled the bar, you can select from four different prizes and then roll to see what you've won. There is a chance of failure, though!
Another feature that the team showed off is the cube system. When players reach level 10, they gain access to the Cube, in which players can place items and then combine, dismantle, or copy them. Combining unwanted items in the cube gives you a chance of creating a tier pebble, which is a crafting item, and from there you can click on that to get a random item. If you dismantle an tem, it spawns jewels that can be applied to the armor and gives stat bonuses as well as improves the look of the armor. There are currently 10 levels, and when you reach the higher levels you begin to glow silver and eventually gold. If you feel lucky and want to see if you can double your loot, you can put an item in the cube, copy it, and have a chance to create a second copy of the item.
Combat is fast, and based on a combo-system. The more successive hits, the greater the damage you deal. It also opens up special attacks and chain attacks as well as rage mode. When a player does enough damage, he can activate rage, which allows him to do double damage for a certain amount of time. As players level up, the time they remain in rage increases.
While you're out adventuring, there are regular task-type quests, area quests that open up as you enter a certain area, and special storyline quests. The storyline quests are a bit more in depth, and during the demo, the team showed a cutscene involving a traitorous general and his army, who are attempting to take over a palace, and the player is asked to drive them back. As for the zones, when players start off, the areas have an Asian look to them, but as players venture out, the areas take on more of a Medieval-European look. Players can use both portals located throughout the areas to speed up travel and travel hubs that allow them to ride floating futuristic-steampunk motorcycles to various waypoints.
The team also talked about features and content for groups and guilds. Guilds can level up in game, and as they level up, they can earn special buffs. There is group content for up to groups of four as well as overland bosses for groups and larger bosses for raids of over 20 players.
The world is PvP, but there are no factions, so it's pretty much a free-for-all. However, the team has said that it is always listening to what the community wants, and the devs have the ability to switch to a PvE style if the players demand it.
First off, the team gave an overview of the nuts and bolts of the game, starting with classes. As Community Manager Gatica explained, there are three classes. The Exiled Avenger is best described as a rogue type, with stealth, dagger, and ranged attacks. The Imperial Guard is basically a melee toon, with a variety of weapons at his dispense, while the Manatech Rebel is looks like a hybrid melee/magic user. There is a fourth class hinted at on the character select screen, but right now its still under wraps and will be revealed later on. The character creator is very detailed, and when open beta arrives, the team plans on holding an in-game event called "infamous character creator" to see how many famous icons players can come up with.
The game takes place in the realm of Akkadia, and when open beta launches, players will be able to access more areas than in closed. The tutorial areas and the UI have the same familiar features that are common in MMOs, with features like minimaps, quest trackers, waypoint paths, and casting hotbars. One of the more unique features, though, is the Jackpot bar. It's based on damage dealt, and when you've dealt enough and filled the bar, you can select from four different prizes and then roll to see what you've won. There is a chance of failure, though!
Another feature that the team showed off is the cube system. When players reach level 10, they gain access to the Cube, in which players can place items and then combine, dismantle, or copy them. Combining unwanted items in the cube gives you a chance of creating a tier pebble, which is a crafting item, and from there you can click on that to get a random item. If you dismantle an tem, it spawns jewels that can be applied to the armor and gives stat bonuses as well as improves the look of the armor. There are currently 10 levels, and when you reach the higher levels you begin to glow silver and eventually gold. If you feel lucky and want to see if you can double your loot, you can put an item in the cube, copy it, and have a chance to create a second copy of the item.
Combat is fast, and based on a combo-system. The more successive hits, the greater the damage you deal. It also opens up special attacks and chain attacks as well as rage mode. When a player does enough damage, he can activate rage, which allows him to do double damage for a certain amount of time. As players level up, the time they remain in rage increases.
While you're out adventuring, there are regular task-type quests, area quests that open up as you enter a certain area, and special storyline quests. The storyline quests are a bit more in depth, and during the demo, the team showed a cutscene involving a traitorous general and his army, who are attempting to take over a palace, and the player is asked to drive them back. As for the zones, when players start off, the areas have an Asian look to them, but as players venture out, the areas take on more of a Medieval-European look. Players can use both portals located throughout the areas to speed up travel and travel hubs that allow them to ride floating futuristic-steampunk motorcycles to various waypoints.
The team also talked about features and content for groups and guilds. Guilds can level up in game, and as they level up, they can earn special buffs. There is group content for up to groups of four as well as overland bosses for groups and larger bosses for raids of over 20 players.
The world is PvP, but there are no factions, so it's pretty much a free-for-all. However, the team has said that it is always listening to what the community wants, and the devs have the ability to switch to a PvE style if the players demand it.
2012年3月6日星期二
Logitech struggling to produce new products
While many companies were showcasing upcoming and concept technology at CES 2012 in January, Logitech was simply showcasing a few new mice both which are quite unique.
The first which some may say won the Ugliest product of CES 2012, is the Logitech Cube.
This is the Logitech Cube, a combination of a miniature mouse that fits in your pocket, and also turns itself into a presenter.
The Cube is not available in Canada, and only available to the USA via the online store at a whopping $69.99.
Next we have the Touch Mouse M600, or what some may call, the black Apple Magic mouse. The M600 Touch, available now via pre-order, is a touch based mouse and will retail for $69.99.
I suppose it was just a matter of time before we saw someone copy the Magic mouse and perhaps next month we will see a revised Trackpad.
And that about sums up what Logitech has been up to. After giving up on Google TV and losing over $100 million, I suppose Logitech is simply taking some extra time and consideration.
We had high expectations Logitech would deliver some updates to the universal remote control department, one sector that has been doing fairly well for them in the last few years. But with no sign of a revised model, there are many companies playing catch up and at much reduced prices. Griffin and Voomote both offer products which offer the ability to convert an iPhone or other iOS device, into a fully programmable universal remote at less then 50% of the cost. There are also several Android models available and coming soon that feature built in IR Blasters which would also offer low cost alternatives.
Logitech released the Harmony Link IR Blaster for iOS and Android devices in October 2011, but the reviews are not favourable.
The first which some may say won the Ugliest product of CES 2012, is the Logitech Cube.
This is the Logitech Cube, a combination of a miniature mouse that fits in your pocket, and also turns itself into a presenter.
The Cube is not available in Canada, and only available to the USA via the online store at a whopping $69.99.
Next we have the Touch Mouse M600, or what some may call, the black Apple Magic mouse. The M600 Touch, available now via pre-order, is a touch based mouse and will retail for $69.99.
I suppose it was just a matter of time before we saw someone copy the Magic mouse and perhaps next month we will see a revised Trackpad.
And that about sums up what Logitech has been up to. After giving up on Google TV and losing over $100 million, I suppose Logitech is simply taking some extra time and consideration.
We had high expectations Logitech would deliver some updates to the universal remote control department, one sector that has been doing fairly well for them in the last few years. But with no sign of a revised model, there are many companies playing catch up and at much reduced prices. Griffin and Voomote both offer products which offer the ability to convert an iPhone or other iOS device, into a fully programmable universal remote at less then 50% of the cost. There are also several Android models available and coming soon that feature built in IR Blasters which would also offer low cost alternatives.
Logitech released the Harmony Link IR Blaster for iOS and Android devices in October 2011, but the reviews are not favourable.
2012年3月5日星期一
21 Jump Street
Hill, who pitched the pic's producers on attempting "21 Jump Street" as an action-comedy, was 23 when he shot "Superbad," and already he looked too old to pass as a high schooler. Now 28, the star has shed his baby fat and appears undeniably adult. Pair him with Tatum, 31, and there's no way teens would mistake the duo as two of their own -- a paradox that sets the tone for the film's patently absurdist approach, which uses our willing acceptance of ridiculous genre conventions as a clothesline on which to hang its ruthlessly immature sense of humor.
High school was hell for Schmidt , a book-smart outcast with braces and a bad Eminem-style dye job. Jocks like Jenko had it relatively easy, though both were forced to sit out prom. That's why their first big assignment after graduating from police academy -- to infiltrate a high-school drug ring -- feels less like punishment than a chance for a "do-over." Older and wiser, the mismatched partners plan to apply the lessons learned the first time around to the case, only to discover that things have changed since they were in school.
Now, tolerance is cool, bullying is uncouth, and the popular kids all look like well-coiffed extras from the Disney Channel. "I totally know the cause: 'Glee,'" sneers Tatum, who hasn't looked this comfortable onscreen since "Step Up," embracing the awkwardness as he attempts to blend in with the science nerds, while Hill's character fumbles his way through flirting with a student suspect .
The operative idea here is that two guys who would have been rivals in high school have to buddy up to make it as cops. But instead of complementing one another, brainy Schmidt and brawny Jenko merely bring each other down, botching their first arrest attempt. After that debacle, the duo are reassigned to a canceled undercover project from the '80s overseen by a surly captain . "All they do now is recycle shit from the past and expect us not to notice," quips their chief , in a line that hints at just how little respect the script, by "Project X" scribe Michael Bacall, shows its source.
Most of the humor concerns how inappropriate the language, behavior and attitudes are for the high-school setting, especially coming from grown men expected to act as role models: When it comes time to earn the drug dealers' trust, they steal weed from the evidence lockup and throw the ultimate high-school party. These two may not look like teens, but they sure as heck don't behave like cops.
Given the cartoonish way co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller approach the premise, it should come as no surprise that the two got their start in animation. Together, they made the disaster-movie spoof "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," and they apply that same wink-wink sensibility to their live-action debut. Such a flip attitude serves the comedy well , but belies just how insincerely everyone involved feels toward the story's emotional core.
Maybe those raised on a diet of "Family Guy" don't require the courtesy of a script that cares about its main characters, but why bother packaging the story as a male-bonding experience if the plan is merely to undermine it with vulgarities and homophobia? Where "Superbad" set the standard for mixing high-school sentimentality with gross-out humor, this lesser effort seems content redefining audiences' idea of "dirty cops."
Bringing composer Mark Mothersbaugh along for the high-energy assignment, the helmers make slick use of their new live-action collaborators. Considering that hardly anyone was asking for a "21 Jump Street" reboot, they've put their own playful stamp on it -- which just goes to show what happens when a bunch of pot-positive cut-ups get their hands on a relic of Reagan-era anti-drug hysteria.
High school was hell for Schmidt , a book-smart outcast with braces and a bad Eminem-style dye job. Jocks like Jenko had it relatively easy, though both were forced to sit out prom. That's why their first big assignment after graduating from police academy -- to infiltrate a high-school drug ring -- feels less like punishment than a chance for a "do-over." Older and wiser, the mismatched partners plan to apply the lessons learned the first time around to the case, only to discover that things have changed since they were in school.
Now, tolerance is cool, bullying is uncouth, and the popular kids all look like well-coiffed extras from the Disney Channel. "I totally know the cause: 'Glee,'" sneers Tatum, who hasn't looked this comfortable onscreen since "Step Up," embracing the awkwardness as he attempts to blend in with the science nerds, while Hill's character fumbles his way through flirting with a student suspect .
The operative idea here is that two guys who would have been rivals in high school have to buddy up to make it as cops. But instead of complementing one another, brainy Schmidt and brawny Jenko merely bring each other down, botching their first arrest attempt. After that debacle, the duo are reassigned to a canceled undercover project from the '80s overseen by a surly captain . "All they do now is recycle shit from the past and expect us not to notice," quips their chief , in a line that hints at just how little respect the script, by "Project X" scribe Michael Bacall, shows its source.
Most of the humor concerns how inappropriate the language, behavior and attitudes are for the high-school setting, especially coming from grown men expected to act as role models: When it comes time to earn the drug dealers' trust, they steal weed from the evidence lockup and throw the ultimate high-school party. These two may not look like teens, but they sure as heck don't behave like cops.
Given the cartoonish way co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller approach the premise, it should come as no surprise that the two got their start in animation. Together, they made the disaster-movie spoof "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," and they apply that same wink-wink sensibility to their live-action debut. Such a flip attitude serves the comedy well , but belies just how insincerely everyone involved feels toward the story's emotional core.
Maybe those raised on a diet of "Family Guy" don't require the courtesy of a script that cares about its main characters, but why bother packaging the story as a male-bonding experience if the plan is merely to undermine it with vulgarities and homophobia? Where "Superbad" set the standard for mixing high-school sentimentality with gross-out humor, this lesser effort seems content redefining audiences' idea of "dirty cops."
Bringing composer Mark Mothersbaugh along for the high-energy assignment, the helmers make slick use of their new live-action collaborators. Considering that hardly anyone was asking for a "21 Jump Street" reboot, they've put their own playful stamp on it -- which just goes to show what happens when a bunch of pot-positive cut-ups get their hands on a relic of Reagan-era anti-drug hysteria.
2012年3月4日星期日
Gilbert and George open dark new show in Hong Kong
British artists Gilbert and George have never shied away from looking the brutal truths of life directly in the eye, and their latest collection, which debuted in Hong Kong this week, is no different.
"London Pictures" is a disturbing examination of sex, violence, power and death through the medium of Britain's tabloid billboards, collected over six years from newsstands near the artists' home in East London.
From the shocking ("Suicide Gang's Terror War on Britain") to the banal ("Cat Is Killed in Park Dog Attack") and the bizarre ("Big Bummed Burglar Banged Up"), the headlines are a morbid narrative on society's grim obsessions.
But the artists — Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore — are the first to defend the tabloids from calls for greater regulation in light of the hacking scandal that has gripped the News of the World and the Sun, despite saying they were bugged themselves.
"It seems very, very difficult. Regulation is going to interfere with a lot of freedoms if we're not careful," George told AFP in an interview at the new White Cube gallery in Hong Kong, surrounded by panels of tabloid headlines laid over photographic images of the artists themselves.
"As least rules as possible is the best, we think. We don't need ideas. Writers and artists and poets and musicians have the ideas. Governments shouldn't have brainwaves for us."
Both artists agree that until the scandal over Milly Dowler, a young murder victim whose voicemail was allegedly hacked by the media, no one would have been shocked to hear that journalists eavesdropped on private conversations.
"We never thought there was anything wrong with that," Gilbert says, wearing the tweed suit and tie that have become the artists' trademark.
"They were always trying to snoop on us for many, many years but in some way we accepted that, and we still accept that. I think it's a kind of freedom that has to be there... We were bugged, we know that."
Dowler's name appears in "London Pictures," but hers is just one of the countless personal tragedies the work forces the viewer to confront.
"It's a very simple poster just for one day, but it's a nightmare of everlasting consequences for the people (behind the headlines) and the people around them," George explains.
He says the artists "began to feel almost ill" as they assembled more than 3,700 billboard posters into groups according to their often gruesome subjects — murder, rape, suicide, money, killing, knife and so on.
"It made us think, is this the world we live in? How responsible are we? We began to think, is this the price of freedom, is this the price of democracy?" he says.
Gilbert points out the artists' ghost-like presence in the pictures. They became "very involved" in spiritualism during the creative process after watching a movie about Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the hero of the Battle of Britain who claimed to communicate with the ghosts of dead airmen.
"In some strange way we still think that we are in conversation with Dickens, or we are still in some way in touch with Shakespeare, and we would like the figures in these pictures to be like that," George says.
Gilbert and George met at art school in London in the late 1960s and have been inseparable ever since. They still live in East London, never go out to the theatre or the movies, do not have a kitchen at home and only entertain at restaurants.
Their profanity-laced early works were designed to shock and confuse establishment critics, but now the pair sit comfortably in the pantheon of modern British art, a reflection, they say, of how times have changed.
Even so, the "illustrious British duo," to borrow from White Cube's promotional blurb, insist their work remains as subversive as ever despite their new insider status.
They chuckle at the likely reaction of some critics to the image of Queen Elizabeth that appears in all 292 pieces of the collection, which eventually will be exhibited in major galleries around the world.
"I think we are still outsiders enough. As a friend said when he first saw these pictures and the queen in the corner: 'There goes your knighthood'," laughs George.
The tabloid headlines needed "something to preside over them," he says. At first the artists considered a policeman in a helmet, but then they seized on images of the queen's head taken from various coins.
Enlarged in panel-sized clarity, complete with the nicks and cuts of everyday use, the coin heads lend the monarch a Dorian Gray-like quality, as if, the artists say, she is ravaged by her reign over the mayhem they depict.
"London Pictures" is a disturbing examination of sex, violence, power and death through the medium of Britain's tabloid billboards, collected over six years from newsstands near the artists' home in East London.
From the shocking ("Suicide Gang's Terror War on Britain") to the banal ("Cat Is Killed in Park Dog Attack") and the bizarre ("Big Bummed Burglar Banged Up"), the headlines are a morbid narrative on society's grim obsessions.
But the artists — Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore — are the first to defend the tabloids from calls for greater regulation in light of the hacking scandal that has gripped the News of the World and the Sun, despite saying they were bugged themselves.
"It seems very, very difficult. Regulation is going to interfere with a lot of freedoms if we're not careful," George told AFP in an interview at the new White Cube gallery in Hong Kong, surrounded by panels of tabloid headlines laid over photographic images of the artists themselves.
"As least rules as possible is the best, we think. We don't need ideas. Writers and artists and poets and musicians have the ideas. Governments shouldn't have brainwaves for us."
Both artists agree that until the scandal over Milly Dowler, a young murder victim whose voicemail was allegedly hacked by the media, no one would have been shocked to hear that journalists eavesdropped on private conversations.
"We never thought there was anything wrong with that," Gilbert says, wearing the tweed suit and tie that have become the artists' trademark.
"They were always trying to snoop on us for many, many years but in some way we accepted that, and we still accept that. I think it's a kind of freedom that has to be there... We were bugged, we know that."
Dowler's name appears in "London Pictures," but hers is just one of the countless personal tragedies the work forces the viewer to confront.
"It's a very simple poster just for one day, but it's a nightmare of everlasting consequences for the people (behind the headlines) and the people around them," George explains.
He says the artists "began to feel almost ill" as they assembled more than 3,700 billboard posters into groups according to their often gruesome subjects — murder, rape, suicide, money, killing, knife and so on.
"It made us think, is this the world we live in? How responsible are we? We began to think, is this the price of freedom, is this the price of democracy?" he says.
Gilbert points out the artists' ghost-like presence in the pictures. They became "very involved" in spiritualism during the creative process after watching a movie about Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the hero of the Battle of Britain who claimed to communicate with the ghosts of dead airmen.
"In some strange way we still think that we are in conversation with Dickens, or we are still in some way in touch with Shakespeare, and we would like the figures in these pictures to be like that," George says.
Gilbert and George met at art school in London in the late 1960s and have been inseparable ever since. They still live in East London, never go out to the theatre or the movies, do not have a kitchen at home and only entertain at restaurants.
Their profanity-laced early works were designed to shock and confuse establishment critics, but now the pair sit comfortably in the pantheon of modern British art, a reflection, they say, of how times have changed.
Even so, the "illustrious British duo," to borrow from White Cube's promotional blurb, insist their work remains as subversive as ever despite their new insider status.
They chuckle at the likely reaction of some critics to the image of Queen Elizabeth that appears in all 292 pieces of the collection, which eventually will be exhibited in major galleries around the world.
"I think we are still outsiders enough. As a friend said when he first saw these pictures and the queen in the corner: 'There goes your knighthood'," laughs George.
The tabloid headlines needed "something to preside over them," he says. At first the artists considered a policeman in a helmet, but then they seized on images of the queen's head taken from various coins.
Enlarged in panel-sized clarity, complete with the nicks and cuts of everyday use, the coin heads lend the monarch a Dorian Gray-like quality, as if, the artists say, she is ravaged by her reign over the mayhem they depict.
2012年3月1日星期四
Cirque, philharmonic present night of derring-do
Back in their heyday, every circus would travel with a full band that would supply the soundtrack for the various clowns, acrobats, aerialists and other acts offering thrills and amazement under the big top.
In today's cost-conscious entertainment world, though, tight budgets mean many of those musicians have been replaced at performances by prerecorded tracks — a practice that, while often necessary, makes a circus seem just a little bit smaller.
To reclaim some of that magic, Cirque de la Symphonie has gone the other direction by teaming up with orchestras across North America, and the result is a unique blend of classical music and Big Top showmanship that has earned acclaim from critics and audiences alike.
Bill Allen, Cirque de la Symphonie's executive director and producer, first formulated the idea when visiting Russia in the early 1990s, where he became "mesmerized" with the circus world's performers and culture.
"One day, an acrobat came into the warm-up area of the Bolshoi Circus and set down a boombox. I thought, 'Oh boy, some kind of Russian rap music,'" Allen said in an interview from his Georgia office. "She turned it on and Tchaikovsky came out! That's the kind of music the circus was meant to go with."
After the fall of the Soviet Union, circus performers sought new opportunities in the United States, and Allen acted as a talent representative for those he had met there, as well as like-minded Americans and others. A series of ad hoc performances with symphonies was booked, including a 1998 Valentine's Day event featuring aerialists that was recorded and shown on PBS.
In 2005, Allen teamed up with Russian aerial superstar Alexander Streltsov — a veteran of the Bolshoi Ballet and Broadway — to incorporate Cirque de la Symphonie. Since then, he said, the troupe has been "overwhelmed" with demand; in the 2010-11 season, 60 different orchestras shared the stage with its jugglers, aerialists, contortionists and more.
"I always thought that this art form should be taken a little more seriously based on all of the things they do," Allen said. "A lot of the artists are national champion or Olympian athletes who convert their skills to something in the entertainment world. They're so respected if they win a gold medal in the Olympics, but it seems like they aren't taken quite as seriously if they go into the entertainment business."
Cirque de la Symphonie will team up Saturday with the Binghamton Philharmonic — under the baton of conductor José-Luis Novo — at Binghamton University's Anderson Center. The musical selections will include Dmitri Shostakovich, Gerónimo Giménez, Ruperto Chap, Johann Strauss II and, of course, Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
"From the audience's perspective, it's like a 'one-plus-one-equals-three' experience. The sum is greater than the parts," Allen said. "We don't try to be a distraction to the orchestra. We're there to be a visual complement to the whole concert, and if we do our jobs correctly, it's a balanced program. I never have more than two artists onstage at a time — it's not one of these things when you have clowns dancing all over the stage and confetti flying and lasers going off. We don't do any of that. It's very elegant."
One of the performers at Saturday's concert will be Irina Burdetsky, who specializes in dazzling hula-hoop tricks. She grew up as part of the third generation of a Russian circus family.
"It was very special. I didn't know any other life other than that, so that was natural for me. We traveled all the time, I changed schools all the time, but that's good because you learn to adapt to new environments, and obviously it gave me the basis for my future," Burdetsky said last week.
"My father was my coach, and I started performing really young. I learned the discipline that makes you grow. I was a little adult when I was 8 — very responsible, very disciplined. I didn't have a standard childhood like most kids have, with play-dates and stuff. It was more practice and homework, so it was more work than fun — but it was good."
She emigrated in America at age 16 to pursue both performing and educational opportunities, earning a doctorate in physical therapy. Today, she balances both careers.
"I love both of those worlds, but being a performer is more dear to me than anything else," she said. "Once you're born a performer, you always will be one."
Also part of Saturday's Binghamton Philharmonic concert will be aerialists Alexander Fedortchev and Shana Lord; juggler Vova Tsarkov, known for utilizing the spinning cube and frame; and contortionist/dancer Byamba Jigdengombo.
"Every performer you will see in Binghamton, that's years and years of hard work just to come out and do those routines," Burdetsky said. "It might appear that it's easy, but it's not, and that's the trick of it."
Both Allen and Burdetsky are amazed at the wide spectrum of people who attend Cirque de la Symphonie performances and walk away dazzled.
"This is for every audience, from the young to the old — it's something everybody will enjoy. You get two different experiences in one. It's not like you're just going to see a circus or just going to see a symphony. You see it on one stage, and we're the only ones out there who are doing it like that," Burdetsky said.
"We hear from audience members that it's the best show they've ever enjoyed, because of that unique combination of two different art forms brought together. ... I haven't met one single person who wasn't blown away by what they saw."
Judging from early signs, Burdetsky's 3-year-old daughter could continue her family's circus tradition for a fourth generation.
"Oh my gosh, I sure hope so!" she said with a laugh. "She's definitely doing those splits at home already, and she has hula-hoops of her own that she twirls. She seems very natural at it. She'll do whatever she likes, obviously, but I'm going to emphasize education as much as I'll emphasize cirque to her."
In today's cost-conscious entertainment world, though, tight budgets mean many of those musicians have been replaced at performances by prerecorded tracks — a practice that, while often necessary, makes a circus seem just a little bit smaller.
To reclaim some of that magic, Cirque de la Symphonie has gone the other direction by teaming up with orchestras across North America, and the result is a unique blend of classical music and Big Top showmanship that has earned acclaim from critics and audiences alike.
Bill Allen, Cirque de la Symphonie's executive director and producer, first formulated the idea when visiting Russia in the early 1990s, where he became "mesmerized" with the circus world's performers and culture.
"One day, an acrobat came into the warm-up area of the Bolshoi Circus and set down a boombox. I thought, 'Oh boy, some kind of Russian rap music,'" Allen said in an interview from his Georgia office. "She turned it on and Tchaikovsky came out! That's the kind of music the circus was meant to go with."
After the fall of the Soviet Union, circus performers sought new opportunities in the United States, and Allen acted as a talent representative for those he had met there, as well as like-minded Americans and others. A series of ad hoc performances with symphonies was booked, including a 1998 Valentine's Day event featuring aerialists that was recorded and shown on PBS.
In 2005, Allen teamed up with Russian aerial superstar Alexander Streltsov — a veteran of the Bolshoi Ballet and Broadway — to incorporate Cirque de la Symphonie. Since then, he said, the troupe has been "overwhelmed" with demand; in the 2010-11 season, 60 different orchestras shared the stage with its jugglers, aerialists, contortionists and more.
"I always thought that this art form should be taken a little more seriously based on all of the things they do," Allen said. "A lot of the artists are national champion or Olympian athletes who convert their skills to something in the entertainment world. They're so respected if they win a gold medal in the Olympics, but it seems like they aren't taken quite as seriously if they go into the entertainment business."
Cirque de la Symphonie will team up Saturday with the Binghamton Philharmonic — under the baton of conductor José-Luis Novo — at Binghamton University's Anderson Center. The musical selections will include Dmitri Shostakovich, Gerónimo Giménez, Ruperto Chap, Johann Strauss II and, of course, Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
"From the audience's perspective, it's like a 'one-plus-one-equals-three' experience. The sum is greater than the parts," Allen said. "We don't try to be a distraction to the orchestra. We're there to be a visual complement to the whole concert, and if we do our jobs correctly, it's a balanced program. I never have more than two artists onstage at a time — it's not one of these things when you have clowns dancing all over the stage and confetti flying and lasers going off. We don't do any of that. It's very elegant."
One of the performers at Saturday's concert will be Irina Burdetsky, who specializes in dazzling hula-hoop tricks. She grew up as part of the third generation of a Russian circus family.
"It was very special. I didn't know any other life other than that, so that was natural for me. We traveled all the time, I changed schools all the time, but that's good because you learn to adapt to new environments, and obviously it gave me the basis for my future," Burdetsky said last week.
"My father was my coach, and I started performing really young. I learned the discipline that makes you grow. I was a little adult when I was 8 — very responsible, very disciplined. I didn't have a standard childhood like most kids have, with play-dates and stuff. It was more practice and homework, so it was more work than fun — but it was good."
She emigrated in America at age 16 to pursue both performing and educational opportunities, earning a doctorate in physical therapy. Today, she balances both careers.
"I love both of those worlds, but being a performer is more dear to me than anything else," she said. "Once you're born a performer, you always will be one."
Also part of Saturday's Binghamton Philharmonic concert will be aerialists Alexander Fedortchev and Shana Lord; juggler Vova Tsarkov, known for utilizing the spinning cube and frame; and contortionist/dancer Byamba Jigdengombo.
"Every performer you will see in Binghamton, that's years and years of hard work just to come out and do those routines," Burdetsky said. "It might appear that it's easy, but it's not, and that's the trick of it."
Both Allen and Burdetsky are amazed at the wide spectrum of people who attend Cirque de la Symphonie performances and walk away dazzled.
"This is for every audience, from the young to the old — it's something everybody will enjoy. You get two different experiences in one. It's not like you're just going to see a circus or just going to see a symphony. You see it on one stage, and we're the only ones out there who are doing it like that," Burdetsky said.
"We hear from audience members that it's the best show they've ever enjoyed, because of that unique combination of two different art forms brought together. ... I haven't met one single person who wasn't blown away by what they saw."
Judging from early signs, Burdetsky's 3-year-old daughter could continue her family's circus tradition for a fourth generation.
"Oh my gosh, I sure hope so!" she said with a laugh. "She's definitely doing those splits at home already, and she has hula-hoops of her own that she twirls. She seems very natural at it. She'll do whatever she likes, obviously, but I'm going to emphasize education as much as I'll emphasize cirque to her."
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