Hola, Slice'rs. Girl Slice and I are back from our honeymoon. I'm happy to at the helm of Slice again after two weeks away, but I have to say I could use another week to decompress and catch up with the pizza news that went on while I was away. Speaking of which, here is some crap you've probably seen already....

Dom DeMarco Jr. to Open Chain of Pizzeria

Dom DeMarco Jr. serves customers at Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn. [Photograph: Adam Kuban]

I have to apologize to you in advance. Dom DeMarco Jr. tipped me to this news the day before I left to get hitched and I didn't have the time to whip this into an item for Slice. So you had to read this the New York Post instead. Basically, Dom Jr. has partnered with LaPour Partners to open a chain of pizzerias called Dom DeMarco's Pizzeria & Bar starting in Las Vegas with plans to expand within Nevada, then Texas, Arizona, and California.

The big question I had for Dom Jr. when I spoke to him was, "But ... has your dad ever passed on his pizza secrets to you?!?"

"Yeah, I know how to make the pizza there," Dom Jr. said. "I was taught by my uncles when I was 7 years old — before they went back to Italy. A lot of people don't realize that I make seven to ten pizza a day — usually during the break between lunch and dinner; the first few pies of dinner are the ones I make."

Dom Jr. plans do do food at the new chain; longtime Di Fara fans will remember that the Midwood pizzeria used to serve soups, pastas, and heroes before the pizza became THE THING.

"It used to be a place about the food," DeMarco Jr. told me, "Now it's people with cameras, getting my father to sign pizza boxes. It's lost a little of what it had back in the day. I hope to bring that back."

DeMarco Jr. will be using Wood Stone ovens in the new chain, which will serve both round and square pizzas.

Maffei Launches Dollar Slice Truck

You'll no longer have to trek to Maffei's brick-and-mortar joint for a slice of its celebrated grandma pie. [Photograph: Adam Kuban]

Midtown Lunch reports that longtime grandma-slice fave Maffei is coming out with a dollar slice truck. That report came on the 13th and it said the truck was launching in a couple of weeks. I haven't dug around enough yet to see if it's rolling yet....

Campo de'Fiori: Roman-Style Pizza in Park Slope

When it rains it pours. First Park Slope got grilled pizza in the form of Michael Ayoub's Fornino location in the tony Brooklyn nabe. Now it's got Roman style in the form of Campo de'Fiori. Says Fork in the Road:

Campo de' Fiori's pizzas are made into rectangles, cut into four square pieces. The crust is a bit thicker than we thought it would be (perhaps a half-inch thick), and very crisp on the outside, slightly softer on the inside. It tastes sweetly yeasty and just a bit salty.

Looks like I have my work cut out for me in the Slope. Campo de'Fiori: 187 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11215 (near Berkeley Place/Sackett Street; map)

Olio Pizza e Più: VPN Pizza in Greenwich Village

Giulio Adriani pulls a Margherita pizza from the oven in this Time Out New York slideshow. [Photograph: Clotilde Testa/Time Out New York]

Time Out New York gets a look at the VPN-certified pizzas coming out of the oven at Olio Pizza e Più. Giulio Adriani is the pizzaman there, moving from Italy to NYC to ply his trade.

Hmm ... Jet lag is screwing with my mealtimes and I haven't had lunch yet ... this place is close enough to Slice/SE HQ via the train .... Olio Pizza e Più: 3 Greenwich Avenue, New York NY 10011 (near Christopher Street; map)

Pizza Helps Catch Serial Killer

Shortly before I got hitched this story broke. L.A. police detectives used discarded pizza to get a DNA match on the "Grim Sleeper" serial killer in Los Angeles:

The suspect in the killings had left DNA evidence at several of the crime scenes. The LAPD learned that a man in state prison showed a strong familial match. Detectives questioned the man, who was too young to have committed several of the older murders, and he led detectives to his father, Franklin, the source said. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said detectives got a piece of discarded pizza with Franklin's DNA to make the link.

Weird, creepy stuff.

Big by name, big by nature, the Bolshoi possess a distinctive, muscular style that melds drama with spectacle. Even Lady Gaga is a fan

In short

The Bolshoi is arguably the most famous ballet company in the world; it all but stars in its own epic tale of fortune and failure, a story with more dramatic turns than a pirouetting prima ballerina.

Backstory

The Bolshoi (yes, that's Russian for "big") was formed in 1776 in Moscow by the English entrepreneur Michael Maddox and the Russian arts patron Prince Urusov. Its first dancers were drawn mainly from the Moscow Orphanage; Filippo Beccari, an Italian ballet master, had begun teaching there in 1773, having been given just three years to whip the new recruits into shape. The company swiftly grew in size and stature – by the mid-19th century it boasted 155 dancers and had developed a distinctive theatrical style that encompassed folk dancing, melodrama and comedy as well as ballet.

It was soon eclipsed by the ballet at St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre, where Marius Petipa was busy developing the style and choreography of what became known as "classical" ballet. Despite notable stagings, such as the first productions of Petipa's Don Quixote (1869), and of Julius Reisinger's Swan Lake in 1877 (a flop – the now-classic version of Tchaikovsky's ballet was produced later in St Petersburg) – the Bolshoi went into decline. Towards the end of the century it was cut to almost half its former size, and the directorate of the Imperial Theatres considered closing it down altogether.

But change – and revolution – were afoot. Alexander Gorsky, who directed the company from 1900 to 1924, was an enthusiastic artistic reformer, influenced both by Stanislavsky's theories of drama and by the work of modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan. Following the 1917 revolution Moscow was made the country's capital, and the Bolshoi became the flagship company of Soviet Russia – though increasingly (and especially after Stalin) its works were in the heroic socialist realist style, The Red Poppy (1927) being the most famous example.

The arrival of Leonid Lavrovsky as director in 1944 upped the company's artistic and technical standards. When the Bolshoi first visited the west in the 1950s, its bravura, muscular style caused a sensation, and the company went on to become the Soviet Union's single most important cultural export. In 1964, Yuri Grigorovich became director and began producing blockbuster ballets that were hits around the world.

Perestroika changed that. Forced to compete in a global marketplace, the Bolshoi ran into financial problems and standards fell. In 1995 Grigorovich was ousted from his autocratic rule, after which the company staggered on under successive directors. But in the 21st century, its fortunes changed once again with the financial support of Russia's new super-rich and the artistic directorship of young Alexei Ratmansky, who between 2004 and 2008 hugely broadened the repertoire and also revitalised old works – a painful process that none the less met widespread acclaim. The current director is Yuri Burlaka, a specialist in reconstruction; Ratmansky continues as guest choreographer, and Grigorovich has also returned as a ballet master.

The Bolshoi Theatre has been closed since 2005 due to a massive renovation project that has already overspent its budget and overshot its 2008 deadline, with still no end in sight.

Watching the Bolshoi ballet

The Bolshoi is often contrasted with the Mariinsky ballet: compared with the St Petersburg company's refined, aristocratic delivery, the Bolshoi has long been associated with a flashier style that melds drama with spectacle. The Bolshoi's calling-card in this mode is Grigorovich's Spartacus, a butch sword-and-sandals spectacle that wows audiences with sky-scraping lifts and big, dam-busting bounds.

As with most major ballet companies, the core repertory still consists of the classics – Giselle, Swan Lake and so on – but during Ratmansky's time the scope widened considerably to include the likes of George Balanchine, Twyla Tharp, Christopher Wheeldon and Roland Petit. Today's Bolshoi dancers need to be more versatile, even if their approach remains theatrical.

As well as introducing modern works, the Bolshoi's been revitalising the past. Ratmansky scored a surprise hit with a new version of an old Soviet ballet, The Bright Stream (set to music by Shostakovich), and the Bolshoi has revived or recreated a number of old or lost ballets, including The Flames of Paris.

Who's who

Alongside Gorsky, Lavrovsky, Grigorovich and Ratmansky, the Bolshoi's notable choreographers include Adam Glushkovsky (in the early 19th century), and Vassily Vainonen and Rostislav Zakharov (mid-20th century choreographers who moved from the Kirov – the Soviet name for the Mariinsky).

Ekaterina Geltzer and Mikhail Mordkin were the star dancers of the bravura Bolshoi style in the early 20th century. In the Soviet era, Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya ruled the roost, while husband-and-wife duo Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev were stars from the 60s on and Irek Mukhamedov a favourite before he left for the Royal Ballet in the 80s.

Current wunderkinds include Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasiliev, and Svetlana Zakharova.

Fact

In 1848, when the director of the Imperial Theatres sent his mistress, the ballerina Yelena Andreyanova, from the Mariinsky to the Bolshoi, members of the Moscow audience were so resentful that instead of throwing flowers on stage they threw a dead cat. Andreyanova fainted – which so moved the audience that they then gave her a standing ovation. She stayed with the Bolshoi for 15 years.

In their own words

"I think it's not possible for the company to live as a museum. But the classics are our heritage and our roots – if not us, who will preserve these works? We have to breathe new life into them."
Alexei Ratmansky, interview with Nora Fitzgerald, Washington Post, 2007

"The St Petersburg style is cooler, it's more academic, it's classicism in its highest level. The Bolshoi is more spontaneous, more emotional – more crowd-pleasing, I would say."
Ratmansky, in a video interview with Charlie Rose, 2005

"I love classical ballet, but there must be a balance … Life is continuous and ballet is continuous. We have to move ahead, or else the Bolshoi will become like a big trunk in the attic."
Ivan Vasiliev, interview with Joel Loebenthal, Dance Magazine, 2009

In other words

"When the Bolshoi first appeared in the west, in 1956, the sheer scale and power of the dancing caused a sensation. Bolshoi technique – particularly the high, spectacular lifts – and Bolshoi characterisation had a huge impact on companies around the world."
Zoe Anderson, Independent, 2007

"Ratmansky has said that he wants the Bolshoi to remain true to its own style – a politic statement that may also be heartfelt. Don't tell him, but the Bolshoi style is going to change, partly because of his ballets, and so be it."
Joan Acocella, New Yorker, 2005

"In the old days the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet, with their soft backs and lyrical St Petersburg schooling, could be relied upon to knock spots off the Bolshoi … Not any more. Today Moscow rules."
Luke Jennings, Observer, 2007

Do say

"Bolshoi nazvaniyem, bolshoi svoistvom" – Russian for "big by name, big by nature" (less complimentary if addressed to a dancer, though).

Don't say

"Couldn't they dance some more to Lady Gaga?" – So last year. The Bolshoi accompanied Gaga in 2009 at an art-fashion-celebrity-fest. Artist Francesco Vezzoli produced a slick video from it and extolled Gaga as "one of the Nijinskys of our epoch". Our lips are sealed.

See also

The Mariinsky ballet is the other big Russian company. The American Ballet Theatre has several Bolshoi connections – notably Mikhail Mordkin, Alexander Gorsky's star dancer, whose subsequent American company was ABT's precursor; and Alexei Ratmansky, currently a resident choreographer at ABT.

Now watch this

Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya in a 1953 film of The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.

Ekaterina Maximova, Vladimir Vasiliev and Maris Liepa in a 1968 production of Spartacus.

A 1990 performance of Grigorovich's The Stone Flower.

Maria Alexandrova in Alexei Ratmansky's The Bright Stream.

Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in Le Corsaire in 2008. Interspersed with interviews (in Russian) – but the dancing is a-maz-ing.

Where to see them next

19 July-8 August, Royal Opera House, London.

‘American Top 40′ Flashback: July 4, 1970

Sunday (July 4) marked the 40th anniversary of the first airing of “American Top 40″ with Casey Kasem.

The National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame icon co-created the show that brought the Billboard Hot 100 into the homes of millions in audio form. Since, multiple generations of music fans have been introduced to following Billboard rankings, countless radio DJs have been inspired to enter the medium and artists have celebrated the honor of hearing Kasem pronounce their song “the biggest hit in the land.”

Billboard.com

Allison Iraheta will open for Adam Lambert at the September 21 Puyallup Fair in Tacoma, WA. Allison is replacing Orianthi, who canceled her appearance. Read more at Tacoma Rock City.

Chart Watch Extra: AT40 Turns 40

The beauty of American Top 40 is its simplicity. As Casey said every week, “Three hours once a week with AT40 and you can find out how your favorite songs are doing from coast to coast.” The show is a neatly organized package that brings order and clarity to a messy world.

To mark the show’s 40th anniversary, I’ve prepared this list of the 40 longest-running #1 hits on Billboard’s Hot 100 in the past 40 years. “One Sweet Day” by Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men is the biggest #1 hit of the past four decades. It logged 16 weeks on top in 1995-1996.
Yahoo.com

Carrie Underwood Trying to Plan a ‘Small Wedding’

“We’re trying to keep it as small as we possibly can, but you know, obviously, there’s certain people we have to have there,” Underwood told “Extra’s” AJ Calloway in an exclusive backstage chat at one of her concerts, flashing her gorgeous 5-carat yellow diamond.

What about Simon Cowell attending? “I don’t know. I don’t want him to judge my wedding,” the singer laughed.

Extra

Adam Lambert vs. Clay Aiken: A Tale of Two Coming Outs

Adam Lambert is all over the place with his hit record, so I honestly don’t think coming out got in the way of his making a huge splash at all.

Clay Aiken, on the other hand, waited to come out till he was on the way down and needed a boost.

Village Voice

CornFest around the corner

Entertainment for the three days will kick off with a spectacular fireworks display on Friday night. Throughout the weekend, crowds will be wowed by acts such as Stars of America Tour, featuring former American Idols Michael Johns, Nikki McKibbin and Alexis Stone Lopez; the Beatles cover band Sun Kings; Journey Unauthorized; and a magic act from Biernacki and the Illusion. See complete list of bands below.

(Michael will perform on July 11 more information at michaeljohnsonline)

The press.net

We Are The Fallen: interview with Carly Smithson

We Are The Fallen is a band unto its own, insists Carly Smithson, and that’s not changed by the fact that she was not too long ago a favored American Idol contestant nor the fact that three of her bandmates were at one time members of the popular band Evanescence (including co-founder Ben Moody). And she’s right, of course. A year after announcing their new band, and getting pelted with questions from the media about their past the whole time, We Are The Fallen have finally released their debut album Tear The World Down. And on opening day of their tour with Saving Abel, Carly explains to me that being in a band is what she’s always wanted – and why she would never have wanted to name the band after herself, even despite the name recognition she gained from a year of television exposure.

Beatweek Magazine

Danny Gokey’s “I Will Not Say Goodbye” Inspires

Throughout my life, I’ve found many songs I can relate to, but rarely do they resonate with me as much as Danny Gokey’s “I Will Not Say Goodbye.” The lyrics, about not letting go of a loved one’s memory, are touching and emotionally hard-hitting, while the music video tells the stories of people who have lost a husband, a mother and a son. Having lost my father when I was 15, I’ve personally experienced the emotions in this ballad, written by Chuck Cannon, Lari White and Vicky McGehee after the funeral of the 13-year-old son of Nashville songwriter Jeffrey Steele.

CMT.com

After ‘American Idol,’ Michael Sarver Chases His Next Dream

Dreams are important to Michael Sarver. The Louisiana native has been chasing his for several years now. Finally, it appears that things are about to pay off, as the American Idol alum is set to release his debut self-titled album on July 27th. “With this new album, I’m finally getting a chance to be the real me,” says Sarver. “All my life, I knew I would find my dream if I chased after it hard. I want to deliver my heart through my music, with integrity and substance. I’m also grateful that in turn, this will allow me to encourage others to achieve their own happy endings.”

LimeWire

AUDIO: American Idol’s Kara DioGuardi Wants To Have A Baby

When asked if she wanted to have a baby, Kara said “I would love that” to Valentine in the Morning on 104.3 MY FM in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

PHOTOS: American Idol’s Most Memorable Contestants

“If that happens, that would be great,” the sexy songwriter said. “I’d be very excited, yeah.”

The sexy songwriter just celebrated her one-year wedding anniversary to contractor Mike McCuddy on Monday.

Radaronline

‘The LXD’ brings ‘Glee’ star and dance to the Web

The art of dance is hot right now, as are superheroes. So what happens when you combine the two?

Such is the concept behind a new Web series “The LXD” which stands for “The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers.” The brainchild of director/filmmaker Jon M. Chu — “Step Up 2: The Streets,” “Step Up 3-D” — the series features a group of hip-hop dancers described as “the justice league of dancers.”

The group has appeared in various venues including on the hit Fox dance show, “So You Think You Can Dance.” They also opened for the sold out “Glee: Live” tour across the country and one of “The LXD’s” choreographers, Harry Shum Jr., appears on “Glee” as dancing choir member Mike Chang.

Shum and fellow choreographer Christopher Scott recently spoke with CNN about their new series which debuts on July 7 on the website Hulu and mixes narrative with dance and film.

Cnn.com

Getting a movie deal in Hollywood is only the beginning. Hammering out the details is when dreams and egos really collide

In Hollywood, the deal is king. Deals are how scripts get optioned, how stars and directors get signed up, how films make it to production. A good one can mean financial security and a name above the title. A bad one can be as dispiriting, gruelling and financially ruinous as building your dream house on unmarked floodland. The bad news is sometimes it's worse than that, and in the current financial climate it's getting tougher to make the right deal.

In these straitened times, George Clooney is allegedly settling for upfront fees of a paltry $2m, while Megan Fox has walked away from Transformers 3 because her salary demands "cannot be met". The most dramatic illustration of the difficulties Hollywood faces, though, comes in the plight of MGM – reportedly $3.7bn in debt – which has postponed production of the 23rd Bond film, despite it being part of the second most successful franchise of all time, after Harry Potter. MGM's much-anticipated co-production (with New Line) of The Hobbit is in similar disarray, with director Guillermo del Toro leaving the project last month, because his contract had only been for three years and he didn't fancy stretching it to infinity.

It isn't all doom and gloom for big-time dealmakers, though: the Potter films come to an end later this year, after generating fortunes for all concerned. (Prominent UK entertainment lawyer Reno Antoniades explains: "If you're doing Potter, there are no issues – the head of Warner Bros presses the green light and off you go.") And it's probable that the likes of James Cameron and Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan – who was handed $170m to enjoy relative artistic control on the forthcoming Leonardo DiCaprio blockbuster Inception – aren't feeling the chill wind either.

The trickiest deals for producers to hammer out are generally in the so-called "mid-price" market – lower-end Hollywood movies and aspirational indies seeking finance and distribution agreements. Ricky Gervais, who became his own producer with 2009's The Invention of Lying, says: "The more you need to court different people to get their money, the more they try to interfere." The story behind Mike Figgis's 1993 movie Mr Jones remains a salutary tale for aspirant dealmakers. Figgis still seethes at his treatment by producer Ray Stark: he says he was banned from the editing room and discovered people he thought were allies were also working for Stark."Finally I read my contract myself and discovered that what Ray Stark had told me – that he had the final cut – was not true," he says. When, in a meeting, he accused Stark ("Fuck you, Ray, you don't have final cut!"), it transpired that the head of the studio, who did have the rights, had delegated them – to Stark.

Andrew Eaton, the producer behind A Mighty Heart and 24 Hour Party People, says the most exasperating element of deal-making in Hollywood is the prevailing culture of obstruction. "A lot of people in business affairs think the last bit of power they have is to stop something happening. They take up time going over these ridiculous what-ifs: what if the ceiling collapses, what if there's a flood? It's just willy-waving. Similarly, agents don't like it if you speak directly to talent. I remember a producer friend of mine had an agent come up to him and say, 'You've shat in my mouth.' He meant the producer had talked to the client before he talked to the agent." He adds, darkly: "There are people in the business who consider the green-lighting of any project a failure."

Certainly, there are numerous stories of agents punishing producers for leaving the marked path. Stephen Woolley says he pitched the storyline of his 1986 thriller, Mona Lisa, to Sean Connery as they descended 28 floors in a lift. Connery loved the idea and told Woolley he wanted to do it. "So I called his agent, CAA, one of the biggest agencies in the world, and the assistant said: 'What do you mean Sean's read it? You mean you didn't come through us?' The agent himself refused to take my calls. That was it – doomed."

Even if you do get the star you want, reaching agreements on their dizzying array of demands can be wearisome. Apart from negotiating "back end" top-ups on stars' fees (anything from gross profit participation and image rights payments to awards bonuses), studios and producers have promised all sort of things to "quirky" actors, such as unlimited Montecristo cigars (Roger Moore), round-the-clock chauffeurs (Eddie Murphy), and a mysterious clause that Eaton was forced to offer – a guarantee to one actor that "no orifices" would be shown on screen.

Eaton admits the sheer slog of trying to close a deal in LA has occasionally broken down his defences to an embarrassing degree. "We did bad deals on The Claim with Pathe and MGM/UA. They kept asking for changes which meant all our fees were eaten up. I remember at the very last minute, 10 o'clock at night on Friday, when we thought the deal was finally done, someone from business affairs came into the room and said, 'No, actually, we want you to defer another chunk of your fees.' I can't remember the exact words I said but I know the last one was 'cunt'. Then I stormed out and burst into tears."

Of course, no matter who you are, a deal can go wrong, as John Travolta found out when he took half his usual $20m fee for 2000's Battlefield Earth, in favour of a $15m bonus if it took over $55m. It didn't. But if you're a wannabe producer whose hope has not entirely deserted, there are a few pointers that might come in handy.

One, tell the studio your script is "life-affirming". Apparently DreamWorks supremo Jeffrey Katzenberg begins pitch meetings by asking, "How is this movie life-affirming?" (Meaning, Basic Instinct writer Joe Eszterhas has said, "How will this movie make $100m?"). Two, don't fall out with a powerful lawyer (some say it's equally crucial not to upset any powerful Scientologists). Three, don't leave a deal before it's finished. According toWoolley, whose $63m-grossing The Crying Game aided Miramax's ascent to super-indie powerhouse status in the 90s: "It's all about timing, knowing the point when you've gone as far as you can with a distributor, where they are still in the contract zone and you can close the deal. You don't want them to sleep on it. My ex-partner Nik Powell would go to people's hotels and sleep outside their rooms until they came out for breakfast. That's how you close a deal."

For Gervais, the secret is simply to care more about your film than the money. When he was preparing The Invention of Lying, he says: "I went into every meeting with one great strength: I was always ready to walk away. I don't care if they say no and that makes me bulletproof. They don't know what to say when I say I don't care about the money. The room literally goes quiet. I don't think they think, 'Wow, what a man of integrity.' I think they're thinking, 'Wow, what a fucking idiot.'" Nevertheless, he says, the secret of good film-making is not worrying about the bottom line: "If you want to make a good film – try to make your film for £40."

It's all worked rather well so far for Gervais, who secured final edit on The Invention of Lying and had the film in the black before it was released, having kept the budget down and sold 50% of the film's equity (retaining the other half for himself) to a studio for more than it cost to make. But the new climate of film-making is hugely challenging for the mid-range film-maker working with a budget between $5m and $50m. Pre-sales – the industry practice of selling distribution rights before a film is actually made – are drying up, and the studios, fearful of the democratising properties of digital media, are pouring their energies into 3D, a process still beyond the financial realities of most non-studio film-makers.

According to Colin Vaines, a former executive vice-president in the European arm of Miramax and now a producer, it's increasingly important for a mid-budget film looking for finance to have an X Factor: a newsworthy headline-generator putting your film above the movie-fan parapet. For Vaines, currently producing Ralph Fiennes's directorial debut, Coriolanus, this comes in the shape of gossip-magnet Gerard Butler. For Eaton, it's Liam Gallagher, with whom he is working on the Beatles biopic The Longest Cocktail Party. Vaines's next project? A time-spliced love story, directed by Madonna. Harvey Weinstein sure taught him a few things.

Clause for concern: five classic movie deals to learn from

The first "morality" clause was implemented in 1921 when actor Fatty Arbuckle (below), was arrested for the manslaughter of a young actress. Arbuckle was found not guilty but a good behaviour clause is still common in Hollywood today.

In 1949, Jimmy Stewart became the first actor to be awarded profit participation. Universal-International, concerned about the upfront costs of Anthony Mann's ambitious western Winchester '73, struck a deal with Stewart's legendary agent, Lew Wasserman, to give Stewart half the profits instead of a large fee. In 1980, Paramount gave birth to the modern super-producer, when it granted George Lucas retained ownership of 50% of Raiders of the Lost Ark and control of every aspect of expenditure on the project, while assuming all risk and sacrificing a hefty share of revenues before recouping costs. The film needed to gross $42m before Paramount turned a profit. It grossed $242m.

Johnny Depp is set to become Hollywood's highest paid actor of all time, when he picks up his "guaranteed minimum" cheque for $35m for appearing in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. All in all, the Pirates movie franchise will net him at least $80m. Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas broke the record for a script fee, when he received $3m for his work on Basic Instinct (above, starring Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas), in 1990. The amount led to a meeting of studio heads to discuss ways of keeping script prices down. Eszterhas claims it took 13 days from idea to the script auction.

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.

Totally Awesome 4: More Films of the 1980s

Plenty of venues try to do 1980s-themed film series (particularly among the various outdoor film series here in D.C.), but no one programs them better than the AFI, which debuts its fourth annual celebration of that decade this weekend. Of course, the 80s has no shortage of fan favorite films, and you can't really go wrong with the programs of popular hits that most of these series put together. But what really sets the AFI's programming apart is the way they blend the big names -- the ones that are first to roll off your tongue when asked to rattle off a few titles that epitomize the decade -- with a smattering of cult hits and great movies from the decade that you might not think of first, but that you're likely to enjoy just as much (if not more) for not having seen them two dozen times already.

What that means this year is that you definitely have movies that you probably wore out on VHS during your wasted youth: The Lost Boys, The Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, The Neverending Story, Wargames, plus a group of seven John Hughes movies to memorialize the death of the teen angst auteur. On the cultish side, there are some real gems here: Re-Animator, horror director Stuart Gordon's updated adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story about bringing the dead back to life; John Carpenter's super-creepy The Fog, starring two generations of scream queens with both Jamie Leigh Curtis and her mom Janet Leigh; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, which was, of course, far from the final chapter, but remains the most watchable and bizarre entry in the series -- worth it just to see Crispin Glover as a collar-popping prep who also has some spazz-tastic heavy metal dance moves; and After Hours, one of the most consistently overlooked films on Martin Scorsese's resume, a strange and hilarious foray into a near-surrealist territory never really approached before or since in the director's career.

This week, there are three titles on tap. This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the release of what remains the best of the Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back. Between bleak scenes on Hoth, including the great Tauntaun gutting sequence, the Leia-Luke kiss that would forever be rendered skin-crawling by the revelations in Return of the Jedi, Lando Calrissian bringing a taste of welcome cool to the series, and that final battle between Luke and Vader (I used to have nightmares about falling through those Cloud City chutes as a six-year-old), it's the one film in Lucas' saga I can go back to again and again. Also on the agenda is Ridley Scott's dark fantasy, Legend, with a young Tom Cruise working to save the fair maiden (and the daylight itself) from the red-faced, bull-horned Lord of Darkness, and Clue (pictured), probably one of the few successful board-game to film adaptations in cinema history, a kitschy good time with an all-star ensemble cast of 80s comedy fixtures including Tim Curry, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, and Christopher Lloyd. When the film was released to theaters, it came with three different endings, so different theaters would have different versions of the film, just as the game could end in different ways. The cut that generally gets shown now includes all three.

View the trailers for The Empire Strikes Back, Legend, and Clue.

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South of the Border

It's been some time since director Oliver Stone's name was synonymous with political provocation, a designation that's gradually faded with each foray into big budget movies-of-the-week (W., World Trade Center). With an inevitably disappointing but potential return-to-form waiting in the wings (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps), Stone is warming himself up with South of the Border, a daft attempt at humanizing the struggle of Hugo Chavez and other South American leaders. For better or worse, facts have never been Stone's strong suit, a quality that has polarized audiences beyond the predictable red and blue state divide. Depending upon the circumstance, his willful bending of history has been inspired and infuriating, though it's been at least 20 years since he's found himself at the center of controversy. It's a role Stone clearly relishes, and though South of the Border's reception will inevitably provide plenty of satire worthy clips on "Fox and Friends" (I thought this was someone else’s full-time position?), it's hard to imagine anyone with a reasonable knowledge of geopolitical affairs taking such a flimsy treatise seriously.

Using journalistic standards even Michael Moore would balk at (were he not portrayed heroically in the film), Stone's central hypothesis is that leaders like Chavez are unfairly maligned by the media (possible) and that a shrewd, personality-focused PR campaign will rehabilitate their image (preposterous). Thus, the director sets out upon the remarkably naïve mission of settling nuanced policy disagreements with heart-to-heart chats. What proof does the audience get that Mr. Chavez -- a leader whose merits warrant a genuinely spirited and informed debate -- "is not such a bad guy"? When he gets on a small bicycle in his childhood backyard, he falls down. Controversial Venezuelan presidents: They're just like us! This brand of diplomacy for dummies, which the film's writers and director assert is "intentionally" fawning, might propel Stone back to the top of Rush Limbaugh's talking points, but does nothing to foster any real understanding of South America's political movements of the past ten years.

View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Shirlington.

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Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is opening an exhibit tomorrow on Norman Rockwell, with the paintings on display drawn exclusively from the private collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, both avid collectors of the Americana icon's works. Given this cinema tie-in, the museum is also screening a few movies as part of the exhibit, one by Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan), and two by the filmmaker probably most in tune with the wholesome, small-town American life typified in Rockwell's paintings: Frank Capra. The first of those films screens next week, as the museum shows Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, starring Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds, the role later ruined by Adam Sandler in the forgettable remake Mr. Deeds. Deeds is a small-town Vermont boy who gets a huge inheritance from his uncle, and is brought to New York City by an attorney looking to swindle the cash out from under what he assumes must be a country rube. Of course, Deeds might not be quite as dumb as the lawyer thinks he is.

View the trailer.
Next Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. Free.

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Best Worst Movie and Troll 2

D.C. audiences have been treated to both of these films on the big screen previous to this, but E Street is providing local audiences with a great (or awful) opportunity to see the pair back-to-back. Troll 2 is a bad movie of legendary proportions, consistently coming in near the top (or bottom) of "Worst Movie Ever" polls, and a popular pick for midnight movies or any other occasion on which you're looking for a movie to heckle as much as watch. And while it was never on Mystery Science Theater 3000, it certainly fits the profile; the producers of that show have done a full length mockery track over on their current home at RiffTrax. Best Worst Movie is a documentary about that cinematic debacle, directed by one of the original film's child stars, Michael Paul Stephenson. When it screened at last year's Silverdocs festival, DCist's Chris Klimek called it "absorbing" and said that "what makes Stephenson's doc a winner is the fact that the humans who put their all into Troll 2 are a strange and lovable bunch." One of that lovable bunch, a dentist by the name of George Hardy, who starred in Troll 2, and figures prominently in Best Worst Movie, will be in attendance at the last two screenings of the documentary Friday night, as well as the midnight screening of Troll 2.

View the trailers for Best Worst Movie and Troll 2.
Best Worst Movie opens tomorrow for one week only at E Street, and Troll 2 screens there on Friday and Saturday at midnight.

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A Matter of Size

This Israeli comedy, which played D.C. last winter in the Washington Jewish Film Festival, has been picking up plenty of fans along the festival circuit, and this week gets a proper theatrical release at the Avalon. The film centers on a group of overweight men, hounded to lose weight, but unsuccessful in their attempts, who discover sumo wrestling as a way to gain some respect because of (rather than despite) their girth.

View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at The Avalon.

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Also opening tomorrow is The Killer Inside Me. We'll have a full-length review tomorrow, as it opens at E Street.

… but the Shallow Grave actor is considering a move into comedy after primal scream soul-baring of Lennon Naked

Back in 1994, when Christopher Eccleston was playing a psychotic chartered accountant in Shallow Grave, he spent the best part of a day in a working mortuary pretending to be dead. There wasn't enough money to recreate the mortuary in a studio and, anyway, director Danny Boyle wanted to keep it real. So Eccleston, then 30 and best known for playing Derek Bentley in Let Him Have It three years earlier, was put in a drawer with a Glaswegian member of the crew.

"I was stark bollock naked and the Glaswegian, who was dressed in a parka, Doc Martens and jeans, kept saying, 'Are we finished? 'Cos I'm fucking freezing, by the way.' And all this time, I'm lying not only naked but next to a head that had recently been fished out of the River Clyde."

It's not so much the perfect Glaswegian accent, all muscular and heightened, that pleases. It's not even the idea of a shivering Eccleston keeping a random disembodied head company. It's the physical intensity with which he tells the story. He tips forward on the edge of his chair – we're drinking water in the bar in a dreary London hotel – and emotes. Yet his lean, runner's body barely moves; it's all in the steady, passionate eye contact. And, best of all, when the story is told he pushes himself back into the chair and roars with laughter. His image as a professional northerner – a chippy one at that – falls away. Eccleston is a funny guy.

Eccleston says his family and friends back home in Salford have, for the last 20 years, been asking why he hasn't done comedy. "I have always been extroverted; I like the attention. I wasn't a serious kid. I didn't stand on my desk at school doing Hamlet soliloquies. My first role was as Bandy Bertha the transvestite in a primary school musical; I played it for laughs." As for the northern thing? He adds, with mild irritation, that he is "not covered in black puddings".

The problem is that Eccleston is one of the best when it comes to being dour and northern on screen. In this country at least, he has been typecast as the brooding, frustrated working-class hero, in everything from Michael Winterbottom's Jude and Jimmy McGovern's Hillsborough to one of the most venerated TV dramas of the 90s, Our Friends In The North. He may have modernised Doctor Who in 2005 by insisting on playing him as a resolute northerner in contemporary costume but then, for fear of being typecast (as an alien, one imagines, and not a northerner), walked away after just one series.

Now, after a rather odd spell in Los Angeles in which he appeared in five episodes of Heroes, he's produced another outstanding performance in his favoured milieu, British television, this time as John Lennon.

It's not easy to impersonate Lennon: late last year Aaron Johnson played a version of him as a troubled teenager in Sam Taylor-Wood's conventional biopic Nowhere Boy; until now, Ian Hart offered the most convincing portrayals in the films The Hours And Times and Backbeat. Even Liam Gallagher is making a Beatles movie (although he says the band won't actually be in it).

In Lennon Naked, a new BBC4 biopic that highlights Lennon's life between 1967 and 1971, Eccleston plays the Beatle as an imperious joker. His marriage to Cynthia, his first wife, falls apart and he is ready to devour all the love Yoko Ono (a serene Naoko Mori) has to give. Without Yoko, he is by turns sneering and sarcastic, angry and bereft; his mother has been dead for almost a decade and his father, who walked out on him when he was six, shows up and unwittingly forces Lennon to face up to his abandonment issues. With Yoko, he is complete.

'I've had my backside out a few times, in Shallow Grave, in Jude. Lennon thought he was making an artistic statement, but he couldn't resist filming his arse for the back of the album'

Lennon Naked was shot on a shoestring budget in 18 days ("You almost feel like a criminal achieving that schedule in TV; it shows a very good film can be made in no time at all"), but it has a decent script and Eccleston lights up almost every scene. His accent, which he slips into as he talks about the film, is faultless and the wigs … well, don't look too hard and you can just about ignore them.

Eccleston had, by chance, been reading obsessively about Lennon before being offered the role. In the three weeks before the shoot, he listened constantly to Lennon's Rolling Stone interview tapes and worked with a dialect coach. The nude scenes – in the bath; shooting the naked photos with Ono for the infamous cover of Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins – only felt "vaguely unusual". Eccleston laughs. "I've had my backside out a few times, in Shallow Grave, in Jude. Lennon thought he was making an artistic statement, but he couldn't resist filming his arse for the back of the album."

More demanding was the scene in which Lennon undergoes primal scream therapy and relives the moment his father left him and his mother when John was just six. "On a technical level it was a real 'give-me-my-Bafta' opportunity. How much restraint could I show? It wasn't a matter of, 'Am I baring my soul?' and all that bollocks. I just had to decide how to pitch it." So he wasn't mining his own pain? "I don't think I've experienced much pain; I've had a fantastic life!" Which suggests he hasn't had therapy himself? "No, never."

Eccleston has perhaps forgotten that, back in 2000, he went around saying things like: "I bloody hate my work. I'm not very happy with it. I feel very limited as an actor." Or perhaps when he talks about his fantastic life he is thinking about his family and upbringing: parents who were manual labourers, who instilled a work ethic and the importance of decency into the young Christopher and his older twin brothers.

He talks romantically about his love of Manchester United, his respect for Paul Scholes – meeting him even topped the time he bumped into Morrissey in Waterstone's – and how sport "should be about dreaming" and not greed. One of his earliest memories is being told about the 1958 Munich air disaster, in which eight young United players died: "It was only 13 years after the end of the second world war and the crash meant a number of young men had died again. My mum was a trolley dolly at Old Trafford in the 50s and she used to tell stories about seeing Duncan Edwards eating fish and chips at the bus stop after a game."

Despite his parents' work ethic, Eccleston didn't find academic life easy; he was slow to read and failed a series of exams. Finally, after Salford Tech, he got into the Central School Of Speech And Drama and, in 1983, moved to London. Small parts in Casualty and Inspector Morse followed but it wasn't until Let Him Have It, almost a decade after leaving Central, that regular work came his way.

He has never been a fashionable actor; his parents advised him to build a solid body of work rather than "hitting the main chance". Still, he was ambitious: "I wanted to change the world with acting." And has he? "No! Though I was very pleased when there were some questions in the Commons after Hillsborough was on."

Despite his principled nature, Eccleston has made some questionable choices along the way. He says he's extremely fussy about television, less so about film. Which may explain his surprising appearance in Gone In Sixty Seconds in 2000. At the time he hoped appearances in blatantly commercial films would result in more work, but the blockbuster parts never came up and he just felt miserable. He had another spell in Los Angeles recently, until the work dried up and he moved back to London. "After the uniformity of LA, I really fell for London again. The first couple of months were a trip. The variety, the seasons, the accessibility. If I'm not running on Hampstead Heath, I'm walking. I'm usually out and about; I'm quite a restless fella."

Does he listen to music when running? "No. I'm a purist about running. Music is a passion for me, though: Van Morrison, the Smiths. The first album I properly heard was Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. I was a soul boy." He's also an avid reader. He cites My Traitor's Heart, in which Rian Malan returns to South Africa just before the collapse of apartheid, and If This Is A Man, Primo Levi's Holocaust memoir, as books that changed his life. Now he is hooked on biographies – "Peter Ackroyd's Dickens is a masterpiece" – and trying to read more fiction.

Never mind his hobbies, what about his work? He is about to start filming Jimmy McGovern's crime and punishment drama Accused, but how about that move into comic acting? After all, he has had a cameo in The League of Gentlemen, as a fedora-wearing character who owned a cat theatre, and on the Sarah Silverman Program, as Dr Lazer Rage, a kind of crap Doctor Who.

There is a flash in those Eccleston eyes that's hard to read. "I don't know … there's a myth that playing Hamlet, which I've done, is harder than doing a comedy. But comedy is the hardest of all because there's an even greater need for truth. I love Julia Davis: Nighty Night, Human Remains, Lizzie And Sarah. And Caroline Aherne: The Royle Family and Early Doors. There's a real truth and pain to those comedies."

He looks serious and then, finally, smiles again. "I'd like to do comedy because of the technical challenge. And because, basically, I like an audience and I'd like to make that audience laugh for a change."

It’s getting to be that time again- time for the Teen Choice Awards. And on August 9th, the hottest celebrities in the business will compete for the coveted Teen Choice trophies.

Leading the pack with three nominations, Miley Cyrus will compete in the Choice Movie Actress: Drama, Choice Movie: Dance, and Choice Movie; Female Artist.

Meanwhile, “New Moon” will be up against “Alice in Wonderland,” “Clash of the Titans,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” and “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time” in the Choice Movie: Fantasy category.

Additionally, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are up for the Choice Movie Actor: Fantasy prize, and Kristen Stewart is a hopeful in the Choice Movie Actress: Fantasy realm.

The complete list of nominees is:

Choice TV Show: Drama
90210
Gossip Girl
Grey's Anatomy
House
The Secret Life of the American Teenager

Choice TV Actor: Drama
Penn Badgley, Gossip Girl
Ken Baumann, The Secret Life of the American Teenager
Chace Crawford, Gossip Girl
Daren Kagasoff, The Secret Life of the American Teenager
Tristan Wilds, 90210

Choice TV Actress: Drama
Sophia Bush, One Tree Hill
Blake Lively, Gossip Girl
Leighton Meester, Gossip Girl
Olivia Wilde, House
Shailene Woodley, The Secret Life of the American Teenager

Choice TV Show: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Fringe
Lost
Smallville
Supernatural
The Vampire Diaries

Choice TV Actor: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Josh Holloway, Lost
Joshua Jackson, Fringe
Ryan Kwanten, True Blood
Tom Welling, Smallville
Paul Wesley, The Vampire Diaries

Choice TV Actress: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Nina Dobrev, The Vampire Diaries
Evangeline Lilly, Lost
Hayden Panettiere, Heroes
Anna Paquin, True Blood
Anna Torv, Fringe

Choice TV Show: Action
24
Burn Notice
Chuck
Human Target
NCIS: Los Angeles

Choice TV Actor: Action
Jeffrey Donovan, Burn Notice
Zachary Levi, Chuck
LL Cool J, NCIS: Los Angeles
Kiefer Sutherland, 24
Mark Valley, Human Target

Choice TV Actress: Action
Gabrielle Anwar, Burn Notice
Mary Lynn Rajskub, 24
Daniela Ruah, NCIS: Los Angeles
Katee Sackhoff, 24
Yvonne Strahovski, Chuck

Choice TV Show: Comedy
The Big Bang Theory
Glee
Modern Family
Sonny with a Chance
Wizards of Waverly Place

Choice TV Actor: Comedy
Steve Carell, The Office
Jonas Brothers, JONAS
Sterling Knight, Sonny with a Chance
Cory Monteith, Glee
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory

Choice TV Actress: Comedy
Miranda Cosgrove, iCarly
Kaley Cuoco, The Big Bang Theory
Selena Gomez, Wizards of Waverly Place
Demi Lovato, Sonny with a Chance
Lea Michele, Glee

Choice TV: Animated Show
American Dad
The Cleveland Show
Family Guy
South Park
Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Choice TV: Reality Show
The Hills
Jersey Shore
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
The Price of Beauty
Taking The Stage

Choice TV: Reality Competition Show
American Idol
America's Next Top Model
Dancing with the Stars
Project Runway
Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew

Choice TV: Male Reality/Variety Star
Paul DJ Pauly D DelVecchio, Jersey Shore
Lee DeWyze, American Idol
Brody Jenner, The Hills
Bret Michaels, Celebrity Apprentice
Michael The Situation Sorrentino, Jersey Shore

Choice TV: Female Reality/Variety Star
Crystal Bowersox, American Idol
Kristin Cavallari, The Hills
Lauren Conrad, The Hills
The Kardashians, Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Nicole Snooki Polizzi, Jersey Shore

Choice TV: Villain
Russell Hantz, Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains
Jane Lynch, Glee
Terry O'Quinn, Lost
Ian Somerhalder, The Vampire Diaries
Ed Westwick, Gossip Girl

Choice Movie: Action Adventure
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Kick-Ass
Robin Hood
Sherlock Holmes
The Losers

Choice Movie Actor: Action Adventure
Nicolas Cage, Kick-Ass
Russell Crowe, Robin Hood
Matt Damon, Green Zone
Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock Holmes
Channing Tatum, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Choice Movie Actress: Action Adventure
Cate Blanchett, Robin Hood
Mila Kunis, The Book of Eli
Rachel McAdams, Sherlock Holmes
Sienna Miller, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Zoe Saldana, The Losers

Choice Movie: Sci-Fi
2012
Avatar
District 9
Iron Man 2
The Time Traveler's Wife

Choice Movie Actor: Sci-Fi
Sharlto Copley, District 9
John Cusack, 2012
Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man 2
Jude Law, Repo Men
Sam Worthington, Avatar

Choice Movie Actress: Sci-Fi
Scarlett Johansson, Iron Man 2
Rachel McAdams, The Time Traveler's Wife
Gwyneth Paltrow, Iron Man 2
Amanda Peet, 2010
Zoe Saldana, Avatar

Choice Movie: Fantasy
Alice in Wonderland
Clash of the Titans
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Choice Movie Actor: Fantasy
Johnny Depp, Alice in Wonderland
Jake Gyllenhaal, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Taylor Lautner, The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Robert Pattinson, The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Sam Worthington, Clash of the Titans

Choice Movie Actress: Fantasy
Gemma Arterton, Clash of the Titans / Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Rosario Dawson, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Kristen Stewart, The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Mia Wasikowska, Alice in Wonderland
Emma Watson, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Choice Movie: Drama
The Blind Side
Dear John
The Last Song
Remember Me
The Runaways

Choice Movie Actor: Drama
Jake Gyllenhaal, Brothers
Tobey Maguire, Brothers
Robert Pattinson, Remember Me
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Channing Tatum, Dear John

Choice Movie Actress: Drama
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Miley Cyrus, The Last Song
Dakota Fanning, The Runaways
Amanda Seyfried, Dear John
Kristen Stewart, The Runaways

Choice Movie: Romantic Comedy
The Back-up Plan
Just Wright
Letters to Juliet
The Proposal
Valentine's Day

Choice Movie Actor: Romantic Comedy
Gerard Butler, The Ugly Truth / The Bounty Hunter
Josh Duhamel, When in Rome
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer
Ashton Kutcher, Valentine's Day
Ryan Reynolds, The Proposal

Choice Movie Actress: Romantic Comedy
Kristen Bell, When in Rome
Sandra Bullock, The Proposal
Queen Latifah, Valentine's Day / Just Wright
Jennifer Lopez, The Back-up Plan
Amanda Seyfried, Letters to Juliet

Choice Movie: Comedy
Date Night
Get Him to the Greek
Hot Tub Time Machine
Killers
She's Out of My League

Choice Movie Actor: Comedy
Russell Brand, Get Him to the Greek
Steve Carell, Date Night
Jonah Hill, Get Him to the Greek
Ashton Kutcher, Killers
Chris Rock, Death at a Funeral

Choice Movie Actress: Comedy
Kristen Bell, Couples Retreat
Lizzy Caplan, Hot Tub Time Machine
Tina Fey, Date Night
Zoë Saldana, Death at a Funeral
Emma Stone, Zombieland

Choice Movie: Horror/Thriller
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Paranormal Activity
Shutter Island
Splice
The Stepfather

Choice Movie Actor: Horror/Thriller
Penn Badgley, The Stepfather
Adam Brody, Jennifer's Body
Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island
Jackie Earle Haley, A Nightmare on Elm Street
Micah Sloat, Paranormal Activity

Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller
Katie Cassidy, A Nightmare on Elm Street
Megan Fox, Jennifer's Body
Audrina Patridge, Sorority Row
Michelle Williams, Shutter Island
Rumer Willis, Sorority Row

Choice Movie: Animated
How to Train Your Dragon
Marmaduke
The Princess and the Frog
Shrek Forever After
Toy Story 3

Choice Movie: Villain
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Stephen Lang, Avatar
Rachelle Lefevre, The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kick-Ass
Mickey Rourke, Iron Man 2

Choice Movie: Dance
Sandra Bullock and Betty White, The Proposal
Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth, The Last Song
Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man 2
Tina Fey and Steve Carell, Date Night
Michael Jackson, This Is It

Choice Music: Male Artist
Justin Bieber
Jason Derulo
Drake
Adam Lambert
Usher

Choice Music: Female Artist
Miley Cyrus
Ke$ha
Lady Gaga
Shakira
Taylor Swift

Choice Music: Group
The Black Eyed Peas
Glee Cast
Selena Gomez & The Scene
New Boyz
Young Money

Choice Music: Rap Artist
Drake
Eminem
Jay-Z
Ludacris
Pit Bull

Choice Music: R&B Artist
Beyonce
Alicia Keys
Rihanna
Trey Songz
Usher

Choice Music: Rock Group
Kings of Leon
MGMT
Muse
Paramore
Train

Choice Music: Male Country Artist
Luke Bryan
Kenny Chesney
Brad Paisley
Darius Rucker
Keith Urban

Choice Music: Female Country Artist
Miranda Lambert
Martina McBride
Taylor Swift
Carrie Underwood
Gretchen Wilson

Choice Music: Country Group
Gloriana
Lady Antebellum
Rascal Flatts
Sugarland
Zac Brown Band

Choice Athlete: Male
David Beckham (Soccer)
Drew Brees (Football)
LeBron James (Basketball)
Apolo Anton Ohno (Speedskating)
Albert Pujols (Baseball)

Choice Athlete: Female
Candace Parker (Basketball)
Danica Patrick (Auto Racing)
Misty May Treanor (Volleyball)
Lindsey Vonn (Skiing)
Serena Williams (Tennis)

Choice Action Sports Athlete: Male
Travis Pastrana (Motocross)
Kevin Pearce (Snowboarding)
Ryan Sheckler (Skateboarding)
Kelly Slater (Surfing)
Shaun White (Snowboarding)

Choice Action Sports Athlete: Female
Torah Bright (Snowboarding)
Sarah Burke (Skiing)
Ashley Fiolek (Motocross)
Maya Gabeira (Surfing)
Hannah Teter (Snowboarding)

Choice Comedian
Aziz Ansari
Ellen DeGeneres
Jimmy Fallon
Chelsea Handler
George Lopez

Last week was about as bad as I predicted.  But there is hope for this week as it’s 80’s Revival Week.

Also up for this weekend…the premier of Season 3 of True Blood, along with lots of World Cup action and Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

Mini Review  - It’s Complicated

The really complicated thing about this movie is that it is a chick flick that I actually found enjoyable to watch.  I had lots of trepidation going in, as it is from director Nancy Meyers, who also gave us “What Women Want”, “Something’s Got to Give”, and “The Holiday”…not exactly macho fare.

And this isn’t either, but at least it didn’t totally insult either my intelligence nor my manhood.

Alec Baldwin steals the show as the bawdy, middle-aged philanderer who ends up cheating on his trophy wife with the ex-wife that he left 10 years earlier, played by Meryl Streep.  She has “just gotten” to the emotional point in her life where she was past her hurt from the divorce, but is now dealing with empty nest syndrome as the youngest of their three children is about to leave for college.

It’s all very predictable and formulaic, but it’s done in such a breezy, lighthearted way, with no real malice for anyone.  Streep is her usual consummate professional, and Steve Martin adds a nice touch as the nice-guy lonely architect attracted to Streep’s character as well.  But the funniest performance, other than from Baldwin, comes from John Krasinski (from “The Office”) as the fiancé of the couple’s oldest daughter.  His character Harley inadvertently discovers the details of this little fling, and his efforts to keep the other children from finding out is hilarious.

Mostly, I like the fact that they can have a movie about the love life of people over “a certain age”.  That part of it was handled well, and was a welcome relief from the domination of the 20 somethings on screen.

All in all, if you’re a guy over the age of 35, and your significant other demands some quality time watching one of “her movies”, this won’t leave you wanting to hang yourself.

My Rating – Bill Nelsen (2 ½ footballs)

News and Rumors

~ Here is my Big News of the Week:  Steven Spielberg is doing another war movie, “War Horse”.  It is set in World War I, concerning an extraordinary friendship between a boy and a horse, who find their fates linked as the conflict progresses.  Sounds a lot more like “Empire of the Sun” than “Saving Private Ryan”.

~ Confirmation of a previous rumor.  The final Twilight book “Breaking Dawn” will officially be split into two movies.  That news is almost as shocking as finding out that LeBron James loves attention.

~ Angelina Jolie is considering taking on the role of Cleopatra in a big budget biography.  Did she learn nothing after the flop that was “Alexander”?

~ We already know that Johnny Depp and Ian McShane are in the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and that Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are not.  A third bit of good news (as you can tell, I’m all for the other news from the casting front), Geoffrey Rush is officially returning as Captain Barbossa.

~ So what all will Guillermo del Toro do now that he is no longer going to be directing “The Hobbit”?  One project will involve being the producer for a “Van Helsing” movie.  Now this alone should make me drop it to the stupid category…but note that I didn’t say “sequel”.  The Hugh Jackman movie was one of the worst films I have ever seen, so I personally welcome del Toro’s sure-to-be imaginative new take on the old vampire hunter.

~ A Les Grossman movie?  That’s what we hear after Tom Cruise’s hilariously foul creation from “Tropic Thunder” had such a rousing reception with his dance with Jennifer Lopez at the MTV Awards.  I thought Les was one of the best parts of Tropic Thunder…so we’ll see how this one goes.

Stupid Remakes and Sequels

~ The fourth Jason Bourne movie is officially moving forward with previous writer Tony Gilroy penning the script.  This will stay in the “Stupid” category until Matt Damon officially signs on…something he says he won’t do unless director Paul Greengrass is also on board.

~ A “Clash of the Titans” sequel is being put into motion.  You’ve got to be kidding me.

This week's new movie releases: 

The A-Team

Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel

Plot :  Framed for crime they didn't commit, a team of four former Special Forces soldiers looks to clear their name with the U.S. military.

View Trailer

The BeerBuzz: The early consensus on this is that it is a lot of fun, and well worth seeing…just don’t go in expecting anything like a great script or decent acting from anyone other than Liam Neeson, the casting of whom I still think is the best thing this movie has going for it.  I’m catching it this afternoon…so this time I really, really promise I’ll write a review (yeah…didn’t quite make it out to see “Splice” last week.  That’s OK, no one else did, either).

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The Karate Kid

Starring: Will and Jada Picket Smith’s ungodly lucky recipient in the genes department…and that old guy from Hong Kong who can’t speak English very well, but is very flexible.

Plot : A boy moves from Detroit to China with his hard-working mom, where his feelings for a girl in his class make him the target of a jealous bully who is trained in kung fu. Fortunately for him, his building's maintenance man reveals himself to be a master of the self-defense form and begins training the boy.

View Trailer

The BeerBuzz: Another one of those movies that I initially hated as an idea…but from reading things about it, and seeing the trailers; it’s kind of growing on me.  It seems that most of the critics are in the same boat, and it’s getting the same “not great, but very enjoyable” early reviews that “The A-Team” is seeing.

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New DVD Releases for Tuesday, June 15:

The Book of Eli  – Enjoyable movie that is all over the place; one minute a somber post-apocalypse downer like “The Road”, the next more like “Mad Max”, and then throw in Gary Oldman as the villain, borrowing somewhat from Dennis Hopper’s turn in “Waterworld”.  It leads to a very uneven movie, but the acting of Denzel Washington really lifts it, supported ably by Oldman and Mila Kunis. Complaints about the script aside, I’m wanting to watch this again as the last 30 minutes really surprised me.

When In Rome  – Absolutely atrocious romantic comedy with Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel mugging it up in Rome, aided by some sort of magic spell from a fountain. 

Youth in Revolt – It was more like “Audience in Revolt” as this Michael Cera custom made job (where Michael Cera plays Michael Cera for something like the 30^th time) that completely bombed at the box office.

Calendar Watch  

Next Week: Toy Story 3D, Jonah Hex

Upcoming Biggies (click on the hyperlink to view the available trailers).

Grown Ups – June 25 – Another Adam Sandler summer comedy, with him teaming up with Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – July 2 – More Wussy Vampires!  I can’t wait! (sorry…sarcasmectomy isn’t scheduled for a few months yet).

The Last Airbender – July 2 – Can M. Knight Shyamalan continue his downward spiral of suck?  Or will this be the start of a redemption for him?

Predators – July 9 – Re-booting of the original Ah-nuld franchise.  Looks to be intriguing.

Inception – July 16 – Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page in a Christopher Nolan sci-fi mind bender that looks to be in the mode of “Momento”

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – July 16 – Live action remake of the Disney classic short, starring Nicolas Cage.

Salt – July 23 – Angelina Jolie as a CIA operative accused of being a Russian spy.

Eat Pray Love – August 13 – Julia Roberts in this critically acclaimed ultimate chick-flick about a newly divorced woman’s journey of self-enlightenment.  Guys…get ready to get drug to this one.

The Expendables – August 13 – Sylvester Stallone, Jason Stratham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Randy Couture, and Steve Austin in a movie about mercenaries.  With appearances from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  What more could any guy ask for?  

The American – September 1 –George Clooney as an assassin hiding out in an Italian village awaiting what he hopes is his last job.

Machete – September 3 – Yes, they made a full length film from the “trailer” shown in “Grindhouse” with Danny Trejo as the revenge minded blade wielder.

The Adjustment Bureau – September 17 – Matt Damon in a mind bender about a politician falling for a ballerina (Emily Blunt), only to be stymied by mysterious forces keeping the would-be lovers apart.

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps – September 24 – Oliver Stone brings Michael Douglass back as Gordon Gecko, teaming him with Shia LaBeouf in a film that looks to be quite different in tone than the last one.

Secretariat – October 8 – Diane Lane in the story of possibly the greatest race horse ever.  Could this be another “Seabiscuit”?

Red – October 15 – Another Bruce Willis action vehicle.  This time he is a former black ops agent reassembling his old team to thwart an attack from a high-tech assassin.

Hereafter – October 22 – Clint Eastwood directs a supernatural thriller with Matt Damon.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I – November 19 – Part One of the final book about Harry, Hermione, and Ron.  This one (and I’m sure the last one) will be in 3-D.

Red Dawn – November 25 – Yes, they actually remade this semi-classic.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – December 10 – Third tale of the series…some people (like my wife) are still looking forward to it.

Tron Legacy – December 17 – Might be the most anticipated Holiday release of this year.

Gulliver’s Travels – December 22 – Jack Black takes on the iconic role.

True Grit – December 25 – The Coen Brothers remake the iconic John Wayne movie with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon.

 

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" by Stieg Larsson (Knoph)

2. "Bullet" by Laurell K. Hamilton (Berkley)

3. "The Spy" Clive Cussler and Justin Scott (Putnam Adult) (F-H)

4. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam Adult/Amy Einhorn)

5. "Dead in the Family" by Charlaine Harris (Ace)

6. "61 Hours: A Reacher Novel" by Lee Child (Delacorte Press)

7. "Storm Prey" by John Sandford (Putnam Adult)

8. "The Burning Wire: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel" by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster)

9. "Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Objective" by Eric Van Lustbader (Grand Central Publishing)

10."Innocent" by Scott Turow (Grand Central Publishing)

11."Heart of the Matter" by Emily Griffin (St. Martin's Press)

12."The 9th Judgement" by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown)

13."Blockade Billy" by Stephen King (Scribner)

14."Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Allies" by Christie Golden (Del Rey/Lucas Books)

15."The Rule of Nine: A Paul Madriani Novel" by Steve Martini (Morrow)

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. "Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything" by Geneen Roth (Scribner)

2. "Sh t My Dad Says" by Justin Halpern (It Books)

3. "Spoken from the Heart" by Laura Bush (Scribner)

4. "WAR" by Sebastian Junger (Twelve)

5. "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton & Company)

6. "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang" by Chelsea Handler (Grand Central Publishing)

7. "To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine" by Newt Gingrich (Regnery Press)

8. "If You're Not First, You're Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition" by Grant Cardone (Wiley)

9. "The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn" by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking)

10."The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch (Hyperion)

11."The Promise: President Obama, Year One" by Jonathan Alter (Simon & Schuster)

12."Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Broadway)

13."Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain To Get and Keep The Body You Have Always Wanted" by Daniel G. Amen, M.D. (Harmony)

14."Hitch-22: A Memoir" by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve)

15."Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown)

MASS MARKET PAPERBACKS

1. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson (Vintage)

2. "Black Hills" by Nora Roberts (Jove)

3. "The Girl Who Played with Fire" by Stieg Larsson (Vintage)

4. "McKettricks of Texas: Garrett" by Linda Lael Miller (HQN)

5. "Married by Morning" by Lisa Kleypas (St. Martin's Paperbacks)

6. "The Doomsday Key: A Novel" by James Rollins (Harper)

7. "Orchard Valley Grooms: Valerie/Stephanie" by Debbie Macomber (MIRA)

8. "Medusa" by Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos (Berkley)

9. "Matters of the Heart" by Danielle Steel (Dell)

10."Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Deception" by Robert Ludlum and Eric Van Lustbader (Vision)

11."Honeysuckle Summer" by Sherryl Woods (MIRA)

12."Ten Things I Love About You" by Julia Quinn (Avon)

13."The Last Song" by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central Publishing)

14."Run for Your Life" by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Vision)

15."The Apostle: A Thriller" by Brad Thor (Pocket)

TRADE PAPERBACKS

1. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson (Vintage)

2. "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin)

3. "The Girl Who Played with Fire" by Stieg Larsson (Vintage)

4. "Little Bee: A Novel" by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)

5. "Best Friends Forever: A Novel" by Jennifer Weiner (Washington Square Press)

6. "Savor the Moment" by Nora Roberts (Berkley)

7. "South of Broad: A Novel" by Pat Conroy (Dial)

8. "A Reliable Wife" by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)

9. "My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands" by Chelsea Handler (Vintage)

10."Tinkers" by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press)

11."The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel" by Garth Stein (Harper)

12."With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa" by E.B. Sledge (Presidio Press)

13."Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea" by Chelsea Handler (Simon Spotlight Entertainment)

14."Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese (Vintage)

15."Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home" by Rhoda Janzen (Holt)

More on Bestsellers

The Republican primary campaign for Iowa secretary of state has lacked the drama and publicity of the governor's race, but it is turning into a test of strength between a "fresh face" and a veteran of Iowa Republican politics.

The nominee challenging our outstanding Secretary of State Michael Mauro will be either Council Bluffs City Council member Matt Schultz or former State Representative George Eichhorn ("say I-Corn").

A third Republican qualified for the ballot in this race, but I'm focusing on Eichhorn and Schultz because Chris Sanger is not a serious contender. He has no campaign staff and has raised only about $400, all at bake sales in Stuart, where the candidate and his wife own a bakery. The only newsworthy moment in Sanger's campaign was his involvement in a meet and greet organized by a guy who thinks killing abortion providers is justifiable homicide. In fairness to Sanger, though, he may have a place in the record books for choosing the longest campaign committee name in Iowa history: Elect Chris Sanger, He Will Vote The Way People Want. Someone should have told him the secretary of state isn't a legislator who votes on policies.

But I digress. Links and commentary about Schultz and Eichhorn are after the jump.  
Early on in this campaign, I didn't think much of Eichhorn's chances. Although he has relevant experience as a former state legislator, his recent career moves haven't turned out well for him. In 2006 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in Iowa Senate district 5 after Stew Iverson announced his retirement. Then Eichhorn lost the 2006 general election in Iowa House district 9 to McKinley Bailey. Eichhorn finished second in the 2008 Republican primary for U.S. Senate to the novice candidate Christopher Reed. In the current electoral cycle, his opening salvo against Mauro distorted some facts. He was the first secretary of state candidate to release a list of well-known endorsers, but in March and April Schultz's campaign rolled out quite a few endorsements too. Eichhorn may be a hero to opponents of Iowa's public smoking ban, but I didn't expect that to carry him far in a statewide primary.

Despite Eichhorn's years in the Iowa House, he didn't manage to raise any more money than the newcomer Schultz. Between January and mid-May, each candidate had raised about $9,000 and had more outstanding bills than cash on hand.

I will say this for Eichhorn: the "massive list of endorsements" his campaign released yesterday included a lot of well-known Republicans. Ten current state senators and 19 state representatives from all over the state were among more than 50 Eichhorn supporters listed. In addition, the press release named some prominent former legislators and a few power-brokers, like former Iowa GOP chairman David Oman, longtime Republican National Committeeman Steve Roberts, and John Gilliland of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. Eichhorn also has the backing of the Iowa Family PAC, which could be helpful as that group's organizers and volunteers work to get out the vote for Bob Vander Plaats next Tuesday.

Schultz is a first-time statewide candidate, and about a dozen state legislators are backing him, including former Iowa House Speaker Chris Rants. Schultz seems to have the unofficial seal of approval from The Iowa Republican blog, which represents a certain faction of the Iowa GOP establishment. Publisher Craig Robinson heaped praise on "the new kid from Council Bluffs," while writer Chuck Laudner depicted Schultz as stronger on immigration issues than Eichhorn and Krusty Konservative wrote, "I couldn't pick Schultz out in a crowd, but we need new faces, not perennial losers."

Yesterday Schultz's campaign announced its biggest endorsement so far, from Paul Pate, the last Republican to serve as Iowa's secretary of state. Pate also agreed to be "state chair" of Schultz's campaign.

Paul Pate, a successful small businessman from Cedar Rapids who is a former State Senator, Iowa Secretary of State, Mayor of Cedar Rapids and President of the Iowa League of Cities, pointed to elected experience in city government, knowledge of the issues and a youthful fire in the belly as reasons for his support of Matt Schultz.

"As the former chief commissioner of elections, I know too well the importance of having a watchdog over our election process to guarantee that they are both clean and fair. Matt Schultz has demonstrated to me that he is indeed the man to do just that," said Pate.

Not only did Schultz score some free media coverage from the Pate endorsement, he has managed to launch a limited radio and television advertising campaign during the final week before the primary. That may give him a boost in name recognition before Republicans vote. Neither candidate for secretary of state has a lot of visibility, but I've seen a few Vote Matt Schultz signs around the Des Moines area, and nothing for Eichhorn.

As for campaign issues, Eichhorn emphasizes his greater experience in matters related to the Secretary of State's Office. He claims Iowa regulations "leave the door open for elections fraud" and wants all voters who register on election day to use provisional ballots rather than regular ballots. He also supports a task force to develop small business regulatory reform and asserts that he will "protect the taxpayer" by eliminating wasteful spending in the Secretary of State's Office. (Take Eichhorn's claims about misuse of money with a grain of salt.)

Schultz has talked about "fighting for Iowa jobs," streamlining the secretary of state's business services and cracking down on illegal immigration, but stopping alleged voter fraud is the centerpiece of his campaign. He agrees with Eichhorn that election-day registrants should have to vote with provisional ballots, but he goes further. Schultz's stump speech, campaign website and radio ad all advocate photo identification requirements for Iowans voting in person. Here's the script of the radio ad:

Did you know you have to show a photo ID before you get on an airplane, open a checking account, and even to buy adult beverages?  So why don't we have to show an ID when we vote?  I'm Councilman Matt Schultz, and when I'm elected Secretary of State I'm going to fight to require a Photo ID when you go to vote.  Remember, Ronald Reagan always said "Trust, but verify."  Go to my website VoteMattSchultz.com, then vote Schultz for Iowa Secretary of State on June 8th so we can stop voter fraud in Iowa.

I give "the kid from Council Bluffs" extra credit for the Reagan reference, even though he is surely too young to remember that Reagan was talking about arms control and U.S.-Soviet relations when he used that phrase.

Anyway, Schultz's fear-mongering about rampant election fraud, complete with ACORN references, will probably strike a chord with the Republican base. For most of the last decade, influential Republicans have stoked fears about voter fraud in order to build support for voter suppression policies. A fake "think tank" called the American Center for Voting Rights became "the only prominent nongovernmental organization claiming that voter fraud is a major problem." Researchers trying to find evidence of voter fraud have mostly come up empty. Voter registration fraud, in which someone paid per person registered fills out cards for non-existent or dead people, does occur, but the fake voters don't turn out on election day and consequently don't affect the results.

Photo ID requirements have become the "most widespread modern voter suppression tactic" in the U.S. because

Identification requirements pose a special burden to the approximately 12 percent of voting-age Americans - mainly the poor, racial minorities, senior citizens and students - who do not have a driver's license.[1]

Proponents of new voter identification requirements cite the supposed problem of voter fraud as the impetus for their action, but there's no evidence that voter fraud exists in this country in any significant way, or that identification requirements would fix the problem if it were to exist. Indeed, the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform acknowledged that "there is no evidence of extensive fraud in U.S. elections or of multiple voting,"[2] And, according to a 2005 study by the Ohio League of Women Voters, out of more than nine million ballots cast in Ohio in 2002 and 2004, just four were found to be fraudulent.[3]

What about Schultz's point that if we have to show photo ID to board a plane, we should be willing to do the same to exercise our right to vote? Spencer Overton, a law professor at George Washington University, refuted that argument:

Just under half the states require ID to vote, and most of these states accept a long list of non-photo ID such as a utility bill, bank statement, government check or paycheck. About a dozen of these ID states allow voters without ID to prove their identity by signing an affidavit or reciting information such as birthdate and home address. [...]

ID proponents claim that their proposal is reasonable because photo IDs often are required to board a plane or cash a check. But voting is different. Airlines have no incentives to exclude legitimate travelers. Some politicians, however, reap political benefits by reducing turnout among legitimate voters of particular demographic groups. [...]

Granted, most Americans would bring a Real ID card to the polls if required to do so, and some who forget to bring ID would track down the "appropriate election office" and present ID within the commission's 48-hour deadline. But millions of Americans -- many of whom are poor, elderly, disabled or people of color -- would not overcome the commission's hurdles.

For all the Republican chatter about voter fraud, the irony is that no one has done more to keep Iowa elections clean and fair than Mauro. Thanks to his leadership, all Iowans are voting with paper ballots that can be secured and recounted if necessary. The Secretary of State Project recognized other achievements by Mauro too:

In the fall of 2009, Iowa's election laws and procedures implemented by Secretary Mauro gained national attention when the state ranked first in a study focusing on the ease of voting for members of the military and U.S. citizens living overseas. In just his first term, he has worked with the state legislature to allow same-day voter registration and to establish a uniform voting system for all 99 counties. As a result, legislation is now in place to ensure a voter-verified paper trail for all future elections. He has also helped create electronic poll books available for use across the state, enhancing precinct officials' ability to process voters effectively and consistently and adding another layer of security to Iowa's voting process.

But wait, there's more: this spring Mauro's office introduced a system for Iowans to track their own absentee ballots.

The reality is that same-day voter registration went smoothly in 2008 and allowed tens of thousands of Iowans to vote. Eichhorn and Schultz want to fix a system that isn't broken.

The secretary of state race is clearly a stepping stone for Schultz, and Eichhorn will run for just about any political office. Mauro has a "passion" for the work of the secretary of state and isn't using the platform to run for higher office someday. He is doing a great job and deserves our support.

Share any thoughts about the secretary of state's race in this thread.

Impressionist Paul Burling and singer Christopher Stone – forever to be known as the "shy, balding, accountant" – make it through to the final

Slotted around the incredible number of ad breaks, we actually managed to see a few acts in the third semi-final. First came Starburst, who appeared to have come dressed as sweets. Brilliant! I could not be more in favour of sweetie-style clothing. But while you couldn't fault their enthusiasm, watching Starburst perform was a bit like watching a really good school play – cute but not the pinnacle of the cast's career. I'd like to see them come back in five years time when they might be amazing. (And yes, I do bathe only in the tears of small children, thanks for asking. I also spend my evenings cruelly stamping on their dreams).

Oddly, I didn't have the same reservations about Chloe Hickinbottom, the 10-year-old with a voice that sounds like she could already be training for the West End. Surely even Glee's Rachel wasn't so assured at such a young age, although she was probably a great deal more precocious. It's that lack of showiness that has always seemed Chloe's strength, although you have to wonder if it worked against her here: I'm sure I wasn't alone in assuming she'd get through to the final.

But then singing against Christopher Stone probably didn't improve Chloe's chances – particularly when he pulled an absolutely spectacular turn out of the bag. The "shy, balding accountant," as he must now forever be known, gave an accomplished performance that saw him through to the final, sending the judges into full-on patronising mode. "I'm very, very proud of you" said Simon, apparently in the belief that all accountants must dream of ditching their careers in exchange for some words of wisdom from Amanda Holden. Good grief.

Thankfully impressionist Paul Burling was on hand to lighten the mood somewhat, with his act going through to the final on the audience vote, thanks to a slick, funny routine featuring Harry Hill, Alan Carr and Phil Mitchell. The audience loved him, Pixie Lott (who had apparently borrowed one of the Ruby Girl's costumes) loved him, and so did the judges. In a horribly mangled analogy which took in snobby TV types, food critics and fancy food, Cowell eventually found the right words to describe Paul: "You are fish and chips".

And from fish and chips to "sun-dried tomatoes" (thanks Dec, for that additional awkward food link) and The Arrangement, a bunch of sixth formers with an act that in all honestly felt like it had been conceived by a bunch of sixth formers. Funny for a few minutes, but not a great deal longer. The act was "slightly crazy" according to Piers, which is frankly enough to send me running to the hills. Or at least not running to my phone to vote.

Similarly Madonna tribute act Philip Grimmer didn't provoke a stampede of phone votes. Which is hardly surprising. Because while it's lovely that Britain likes a man in a leotard and wire-rimmed glasses dancing to Madge, he really never stood even the smallest change of winning. Great hair. Great spangles. Not very great dancing. "To me it didn't look like you'd worked out a dance routine," Amanda said. Quite. The emergence of Jimmy Forde a green-bearded, Irish-dancing leprechaun on the semi-final stage was almost as mystifying. And while there's much to admire about Jimmy (I'd like to still be dancing like that at 75) Louis Walsh's assertion that he's like "a younger – or older – Michael Flatley" both never made sense or rang true.

Finally, at the other end of the dancing spectrum came street dance troupe Peridot, who made it through to the final three acts before Amanda and Piers ditched them for Christopher, following some slightly unfair comparisons to Diversity who won BGT last year. The boys looked distinctly unimpressed – but then so would you if you'd had Piers Morgan lecturing you about body-popping and been forced to take it seriously.

So were Peridot robbed? Is there any street in Britain that doesn't have it's own dance outfit? Will tonight's winners storm the final? Your thoughts, please, below. Heidi Stephens will be back blogging the semi-final tomorrow - and don't forget to join us on Saturday for our liveblog, to see how it turns out.

Christopher Hitchens hasn't mislaid his passion for polemics in this unapologetic account of his life

In the final chapter of this book, entitled "Decline, Mutation or Metamorphosis?", Christopher Hitchens tries to answer the charge that he has, in the words of Julian Barnes, "done the ritual shuffle to the right". Quite a tough one to wriggle out of, that, considering he started out as a Trotskyist and now finds himself as one of the few public intellectuals willing to defend the war on terror. His defence is that he has developed as a political thinker, discarding the utopianism of his youth in favour of the rueful wisdom of middle age. "It is not that there are no certainties, it is that there is an absolute certainty that there are no certainties," he writes.

For fans of "the Hitch", among which I count myself, this is potentially bad news. Has the New Statesman's original street fighting man finally hung up his cudgels? Has the sneering polemicist of American cable television decided to be less argumentative? Has the Grub Street legend, who can drink any Fleet Street hack under the table and then turn out 1,000 words of flawless copy, mellowed now that he has reached his 60s?

On this last point, at least, the answer is no. In a section entitled "A Short Footnote on the Grape and the Grain", he emphatically denies being a "piss-artist" and then, by way of proof, says that he never has a glass of scotch before 12.30pm and usually confines himself to half a bottle of red wine at "luncheon" ("not always more but never less"). This routine is then repeated in the evening, followed by "nightcaps", but he most decidedly never mixes whisky with gin or vodka. (The words "No mixing" are italicised.) That sounds suspiciously like a "non-denial denial" – and, presumably, it's intended to be taken as such.

Thankfully, he doesn't appear to have grown up much in other respects either. The note of Prospero-like equanimity he tries to strike in the final chapter is undercut by the furious bellicosity of almost everything that comes before. So angry is Hitchens with the failure of his former comrades to face up to the dangers of Islamist terrorism – what he calls "Islamofascism" – the book might as well be subtitled "La trahison des clercs". The moment when Hitchens becomes fully alive to this threat is when his friend Salman Rushdie has a death sentence pronounced on him by the Iranian regime. "I felt then as I feel now: that this was a test," he writes. After a few perfunctory passages in which he talks about how he was equal to this historic moment – just as his idol George Orwell broke with the Party after Stalin revealed his true colours – he really gets into his stride, drawing up a long list of those who failed this test. They include George Bush Sr, Norman Podhoretz, AM Rosenthal, Charles Krauthammer, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Shawcross, Auberon Waugh, Paul Johnson, the archbishop of Canterbury, the Vatican and the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel. However, it is the leftwing appeasers of theocratic absolutism that he reserves his most biting scorn for, including Germaine Greer, John Berger, Michael Dummett, Bernie Grant and Arthur Miller.

Pretty much the only leftist intellectual to have behaved well during this episode – apart from himself, obviously – is Susan Sontag, who as president of the writers and human rights group Pen was unwavering in her support of Rushdie. "Susan Sontag was absolutely superb," Hitchens writes. "I loved her."

Alas, she doesn't acquit herself quite so favourably in the next "test", namely, the attack on the World Trade Centre. This, even more than the Rushdie affair, has a galvanising effect on Hitchens, leaving him in no doubt about which side he's on in the clash of civilisations. "Before the close of that day," he writes, "I had deliberately violated the rule that one ought not to let the sun set on one's anger, and had sworn a sort of oath to remain coldly furious until these hateful forces had been brought to a most strict and merciless account." Once again, he recites a roll call of those who failed to choose the right side in this fight: Noam Chomsky, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Oliver Stone, Gore Vidal, Michael Moore and, yes, Susan Sontag.

The boy who was recruited by the International Socialists at the age of 17 may have abandoned Trotskyism, but he's still a Trotskyist at heart, never happier than when compiling lists of those who, come the revolution, will be first up against the wall.

The portrait of Hitchens to emerge from this book, then, is at odds with his self-image. He thinks of himself as an ironist, permanently alive to the contradictions of the world, a master of negative capability. In fact, he's a born polemicist, only fully alive when marshalling all his forces to advance a particular cause. His critics accuse him of being a professional controversialist, taking up positions merely in order to be given the opportunity to defend them in print and on television. But few traces of such opportunism are detectable in this memoir. On the contrary, it's the absence of cynicism that's so striking. He's an ideologue, as full of passionate intensity when defending George Bush Jr as he was when attacking Richard Nixon.

This explains some of the book's lapses. There's no sense of intimacy, of an inner life being revealed. There's very little about either his first or his second marriage, and his children are mentioned only fleetingly. He devotes a chapter to Martin Amis and another to Rushdie, but the descriptions are unreflective and adulatory, as if he's terrified of saying anything that might offend them. The highest tribute he can pay to Rushdie is to point out how sharp-witted he is. He writes of a game he and Rushdie and others played in which someone challenged them to come up with titles for Shakespeare's plays in the style of Robert Ludlum. Rushdie chose Hamlet and, quick as a flash, came up with "The Elsinore Vacillation". This, apparently, is evidence that Rushdie is a genius on the scale of Mozart.

The best parts of the book are those dealing with his parents – his mother, Yvonne, who committed suicide when he was 24, and his father, a former naval officer known as "the Commander". Yet even here, the polemicist is in danger of eclipsing the memoirist. "I had once thought that he'd helped me understand the Tory mentality, all the better to combat and repudiate it," he writes of his father. "And in that respect he was greatly if accidentally instructive. But over the longer stretch, I have come to realise that he thought me – without ever intending to – what it is to feel disappointed and betrayed by your 'own' side."

So not a particularly revealing autobiography, but, then, Hitchens is not a man given to introspection. Instead, it's more of an intellectual memoir, an account of how he shifted from the left to the right – or, rather, steadfastly remained true to his principles while all around him were abandoning theirs. The best anecdote concerns a meeting with Margaret Thatcher shortly after she'd been elected leader of the Conservative party. After a bit of friendly banter about Rhodesia, she tells him to bend over and whacks him on the bottom with a rolled up order-paper. As she walks away, she looks flirtatiously over her shoulder and mouths the words "Naughty boy". "I knew I had met someone rather impressive," he writes.

Perhaps he recognised a kindred spirit. Keith Joseph once described Thatcher as "political to her fingertips" and the same could be said of the Hitch.

The greater and more influential an artist, the harder she or he can be to see. Can this be true of Bob Dylan, who turns 65 today? It is difficult to imagine the history of the last four and a half decades in popular music without him, so pervasive has his impact been – and not just in the west (dozens of countries around the world, from Russia to Japan and Chile to [South] Vietnam, had "their" Bob Dylan in the 1960s).

In the last three years, the sense of his prolific omnipresence in the culture has if anything increased, as technology, marketing, film (especially Martin Scorsese's superb documentary No Direction Home), books (including Dylan's astounding first volume of autobiography, Chronicles) and the artist's own relentless touring schedule make his work freshly available to old fans and new generations alike.

Indeed, the burgeoning interest in Dylan's life, concerts, back catalogue, current and future projects (which range from lingerie advertisements and DJ slots to endorsed biopics) in the 2000s arguably makes him as unavoidable, more "visible" today than at any time since that transforming 1960s breakthrough moment. The opportunity to encounter Dylan – from attending his shows to hearing his recordings and reading his lyrics online on his impressive official website – has never been greater. What is hard to see here?

There are two ways to answer this question. Each can be accompanied by a recycling of one of the many tropes beloved of Dylan aficionados. The first is to focus on his characteristic elusive, mercurial, chameleon-like artistic identity. Dylan is always moving on, quicksilver, a shapeshifting troubadour. He is hard to see because he contains plenitudes. Let Dylan be Dylan, is the cry.

The merest engagement with Dylan's prolific, multifarious work across the decades is enough to confirm that there is so much truth in this. On its own it suggests a valuable way to make sense of a career and an oeuvre that defies simple classification. It can also be unsatisfying, and for a reason that becomes more compelling as Dylan's place close to the centre (even the "mainstream") of popular music and culture seems more and more secure. If Dylan is both diverse and uncategorisable, ever the wanted man and ever uncaptured, he can be viewed as embodying – rather than challenging – the conformist neophilia of a media-drenched order that totemises the creative figure as differentially marketable "brand".

When the elusive is accommodated as part of a new and commercially powerful orthodoxy – promising endless tantalisation and sales as the brand finds new vehicles of distribution – the excitement of discovery can be accompanied by a more melancholy sense: that of a loss of edge, of sharpness, of the subversive definition that originally made Dylan's work an active presence in the lives of millions. This can lead to the second answer to the question of why he is hard to see: that there is a real or true Dylan accessible to the privileged (and usually hardcore) follower, which has either been forgotten by the artist himself or is routinely overlain by a cultural system that creates efflorescence without depth. Dylan is not yours (or even his) but ours, is the cry.

The promise of a return – to form, to greatness, even to politics – is part of the impulse that keeps commitment alive. Many who experienced directly the unique cultural moment of the 1960s which Dylan dynamised and rode – what Ian McDonald calls in his brilliant book of that title the "revolution in the head" – cannot allow themselves to surrender the ideals that it seemed to distil. They continue to invest its agents with the longings of a time when it became possible suddenly to feel freer, clearer and more hopeful. Dylan's continuing creative presence offers both validation and insurance against profound fidelity to that past curdling into mere nostalgia.

Craft Sean Phillips Makes A Cover Shaenon Garrity Fulfills A Commission Exhibits/Events Dan Clowes In New York Best Event Hype Write-Up Ever History It Wasn't Hard To Understand Industry Colleen Doran Is A Badass Interviews/Profiles CBR: Jeff Lemire CBR: Dylan Horrocks Newsarama: Len Wein Newsarama: Paul Levitz CBR: Brian Michael Bendis CBR: Dan McDaid, Glen Brunswick Newsarama: James Stokoe, Mark Andrew Smith Not Comics What Jason Aaron's Desk Looks Like Publishing Your Iron Man Comic Book Possibilities It Doesn't All Depend On Those Old Guys Why Is There A Stigma Surrounding Licensed Comics? Reviews John McMurtrie: Wilson Alan David Doane: Wilson Christopher Allen: Various Johnny Bacardi: Thor #145 Nina Stone: The Sword #24 Lori Henderson: Twilight Vol. 1

Williamstown Theatre Festival Presents an all-male production of A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM June 30 through July 11. Directing the production will be Jessica Stone. Starring as Pseudolus is Tony Award nominee Christopher Fitzgerald. Also starring in the production are Graham Rowat, Josh Grisetti, Kevin Cahoon and Paul Castree, as well as David Costibile, Zackary Grady, Adam Lerman, Chivas Michael, Bryce Pinkham, Joe Reid, Jeremy Shamos, David Turner and John Patrick Walker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The VIP guests expected to be in attendance today are:  

Emil ABOSSOLO M'BO, Pierre ARBILLOT, Aure ATIKA, Alberto BARBERA, Kate BECKINSALE, BEKHTI, Haley BENNETT, Juliette BINOCHE, Cate BLANCHETT, Sandrine BONNAIRE, Louise BOURGOIN, Stephane BRIZE, Jim BROADBENT, Josh BROLIN, Valeria BRUNI TEDESCHI, Tim BURTON, Guillaume CANET, Emmanuel CARRERE, Fred CAVAYE, Lolita CHAMMAH, Monia CHOKRI, Isabel COIXET, Marion COTILLARD, Russell CROWE, Alejandro DE LA IGLESIA, Rossy DE PALMA, Thomas DEKKER, Benicio DEL TORO, Matthieu DEMY, Catherine DENEUVE, Claire DENIS, Anne DEPETRINI, Alexandre DESPLAT, Carlos DIEGUES, Youssouf DJAORO, Michael DOUGLAS, Lea DRUCKER, Victor ERICE, Javier ESPADA, Patrick FERLA, Gael GARCIA BERNAL, Matteo GARRONE, Luminita GHEORGHIU, Barbara GOENAGA, Janine GOLD, Angeles GONZALEZ-SINDE, Olivier GOURMET, David HALLIDAY, Isabelle HUPPERT, William HURT, Do-Youn JEON, Gemma JONES, Maria JURADO, Shekhar KAPUR, Huan-Ru KE, Dong Ho KIM, Diouc KOMA, Shia LABEOUF, Diane LANE, Franck LANGELLA, Marc LAVOINE, Jung-Jae LEE, Gilles LELLOUCHE, Grégoire LEPRINCE-RINGUET, Ling-Yu LI, Evangeline LILY, Pilar LOPEZ DE AYALA, Lesley MANVILLE, Tonie MARSHALL, Pierre-François MARTIN-LAVAL, Roxanne MESQUIDA, Giovanna MEZZOGIORNO, Jordi MOLLA, Carey MULLIGAN, Candice NEYLL, Maria Isabel PAREDES, Elsa PATAKI, Manu PAYET, Vincent PEREZ, Melvil POUPAUD, Olivier RABOURDIN, RAMZI, Karole ROCHER, Jean-Paul ROUVE, Niels SCHNEIDER, Lea SEYDOUX, Ruth SHEEN, Mark STRONG, Said TAGHMAOUI, Fernando TRUEBA, Gaspard ULLIEL, Jean-Claude VAN DAMME, Clara VODA, Max VON SYDOW, Naomie WATTS, Michelle YEOH, Yuh-Jung YOUN, Billy ZANE.

Also expected: Edward HOUSDEN, Diego LUNA, David VERBEEK, Hector BABENCO, Jean-Pierre MOCKY, Cristi PUIU, Radu MUNTEAN, Xavier BEAUVOIS, Mohamed LAKHDAR HAMINA, Charles FERGUSON, Oliver STONE, Xiaoshuai WANG, Marjane SATRAPI, Lucy WALKER, Christopher THOMPSON, Agnes VARDA, Raoul PECK, Daniel LECONTE, Francine BRUCHER, Jean-Jacques ANNAUD, Christian CARION, Pascal THOMAS, Julie BERTUCELLI, Sangsoo IM, Woody ALLEN, Timur BEKMANBETOV, Costa GAVRAS, Patricio GUZMAN, Hideo NAKATA, Thomas VITENBERG, Xavier DOLAN, Gregg ARAKI, Oliver SCHMITZ, Jean-Pierre SALOME, Mrinal SEN, Michael WINTERBOTTOM, Mike LEIGH, Agnes KOCSIS, Ke JIA ZHANG, Marialy RIVAS, Pedro ALMODOVAR, Isabel COIXET, Mahamat SALEH HAROUN, Bertrand TAVERNIER, Sophie FIENNES, Guy MARCHAND, Volker SCHLONDORFF, Souleyman CISSE, Abderrahmane SISSAKO, Catherine CORSINI, Nikita MIKHALKOV,Fabrice GENESTAL, Takeshi KITANO, Ivan FUND, Pierre SCHOENDOERFFER, Elia SULEIMAN, Yarden KARMIN, Pablo TRAPERO, Michael HANEKE, Jean-Luc GODARD, Alfonso CUARON, Alejandro GONZALEZ INARRITU, Santiago LOZA, Laurent CANTET.

 

 

-Summer Hawkins

Filed under: TV Previews

MONDAY, MAY 10
'How I Met Your Mother' (8PM, CBS)
Sure, the episode is called 'Robots vs. Wrestlers,' and Ted is involved in a scene that, well, let's just say it's rather reminiscent of an afternoon we once spent at Medieval Times. But tonight's funniest moments come when Ted, Barney, Marshall and Lily crash a super swank New York City soiree, where Ted decides to show his pals just how smart he can be with such a fancy crowd. In fact, Huffington Post editor Arianna Huffington, director Peter Bogdanovich and New York Times Crossword Puzzle Editor Will Shortz guest star as themselves at the snooty party, which is hosted by -- wait for it -- a Mr. Jefferson Van Smoot (guest star Michael York). How can a name like that not lead to hilarity?

'Chuck' - Chuck's got his hands full with a CIA psychiatrist (guest star Christopher Lloyd), while Morgan's got his hands full with a blast from his past (8PM, NBC)

'Unwrapped' - An episode on "wild and crazy" candy includes gummy eyeballs and the sticky, rocky goodness that is Nerds Rope (8:30PM, Food Network)

'24' - Four more hours. Just four more hours (9PM, Fox)

'The Big Bang Theory' - A famous physicist (guest star Judy Greer) sparks tension between smitten kittens Leonard and Sheldon (9:30PM, CBS)

'Nurse Jackie' - Coop sets Eddie up on a date. Who accompanies Eddie to Kevin's bar. Where they run into Jackie (10PM, Showtime)

'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' - Fallon celebrates the upcoming re-release of the Rolling Stones' 'Exile on Main Street' with a week of special musical guests -- including Green Day, Keith Urban and Phish -- performing covers of the album's classics (12:35AM, NBC)

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TUESDAY, MAY 11
'Lost' (9PM, ABC)
Here's what we've been promised about this week's episode: It will feature none of the series regulars, except in some very revealing flashbacks; it will focus almost solely on the struggle between Jacob and the Man in Black, which will reveal, once and for all, what Locke's motives are; 'West Wing' star Allison Janney guest stars as a character who is pivotal to tonight's revealing storyline; and, though two episodes remain, tonight's big Locke-related revelations will supposedly convince even the most skeptical fan that show creators really have been planning every little detail since day one. Not that fans don't deserve it, particularly after last week's tearjerker of an episode.

'Hole: On the Record with Fuse' - Courtney Love sits down for a chat about her band's new album, 'Nobody's Daughter,' and, of course, about so much more (8PM, Fuse)

'NCIS' - Escalation: The investigation of a marine's murder turns into the hunt for a serial killer (8PM, CBS)

'Glee' - Kurt goes to ridiculous lengths to please his dad. A hint: it involves him wearing a trucker hat, and not in an ironic way (9PM, Fox)

'Chopped' - Among tonight's ingredients: cuttlefish and calf's liver. Mmmmm? (10PM, Food Network)

'Justified' - Raylan's on vacay, but, of course, that doesn't mean a cruise or a trip to King's Island (he lives near Cincinnati, ya know). Nope, Raylan's down time is spent going after the mobsters who are threatening his ex-wife's current hubby, Herman's Head (10PM, FX)

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 12
'Cougar Town' (9:30PM, NBC)
Congratulations to the graduate: Travis (Dan Byrd) is not only set to don the cap and gown and accept his diploma, but he may be also be making a big speech at the ceremony. This would all be great news if he had, you know, normal parents, but since he's the offspring of neurotic Jules and wacky Bobby, well ... trouble begins when Jules reads a copy of the speech Travis has penned. She thinks it's great, until she realizes she's not mentioned in it at all. Warning: mommy meltdown ahead. Meanwhile, Bobby's also proud of his son, but he has to focus all his efforts on trying not to embarrass his son on the big day.

'America's Next Top Model' - The pack of four finalists become two, who have to shoot a makeup commercial and walk in an Anna Sui fashion show to determine which one is the season's champ (8PM, The CW) season 14 finale

'Music by Prudence' - The Oscar-winning documentary -- remember, when the co-producer "Kanye-d" the film's director while he was accepting the award? -- is about disabled Prudence and her band, Liyana, and their determination to live their musical dreams despite the fact that their culture considers disabled babies to be connected to witchcraft (8PM, HBO2)

'New Adventures of Old Christine' - The biggest surprise at Christine's bridal shower: How inferior she feels to Max's pals (8PM, CBS) season 5 finale

'American Masters: The Doors: When You're Strange' - Doors fan Johnny Depp narrates this compelling rock documentary, which includes never-before-seen footage of Jim Morrison and company (9PM, PBS)

'Mercy' - Dawson, er, Dr. Briggs (James Van Der Beek) finds himself in a desperate situation with the mob and his gambling debts (9PM, NBC) season 1 finale

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THURSDAY, MAY 13
'Vampire Diaries' (8M, The CW) season 1 finale
The whole first season hasn't lacked for drama and excitement, but the first season finale kicks all that up a notch or 20 with an episode that series star Nina Dobrev tells TV Guide will include "a lot of vampire ... a battle ... (and) fatalities." The episode revolves around Mystic Falls' Founder's Day celebration, which means lots of fancy dresses and parade floats. But the merriment takes a turn for the tragic, as Dobrev's Elena continues to be torn between the Salvatore brothers, one her boyfriend (Paul Wesley's Stefan) and the other her ally, Damon (Ian Somerhalder). "The finale might make a lot of people angry," Dobrev warns. And very anxious for the second season premiere, too, we're guessing.

'Parks and Recreation' - Rob Lowe and Adam Scott join the cast as state auditors who make Leslie's life more complicated and promise to make the show even better (8PM, NBC)

'CSI' - In the first installment of a two-parter, Nate Haskell (guest star Bill Irwin) is back, and he claims to have pertinent info on the Dr. Jekyll serial killings (9PM, CBS)

'Fringe' - In part one of the season finale, Olivia heads off to alt universe world with Walter, who's preparing for a showdown with William (guest Leonard Nimoy) (9PM, Fox)

'Grey's Anatomy' - Disney darling Demi Lovato guest stars as a teen whose 'rents say she's schizophrenic, while 'Happy Days' mom (and 'Gilmore Girls' grandma) Marion Ross plays a heart patient who meets up with an old flame at Seattle Grace (9PM, ABC)

'Supernatural' - As if he isn't creating enough havoc on 'Lost,' Mark Pellegrino's Lucifer is still trying to take over Sam's body as the Winchester bros. face (yet more) tough choices when the Apocalypse is upon them (9PM, The CW) season 5 finale

'30 Rock' - Liz Lemon's looking for love in all the familiar places, which means the return of Jon Hamm, Michael Sheen, Dean Winters and Jason Sudekis (9:30PM, NBC)

'The Mentalist' - Leslie Hope returns as psychic Kristina Frye, and she's got a little spark with Jane. Hopefully this will turn out better than her association with Jack Bauer did (10PM, CBS)

'Private Practice' - Any guesses about which "major character" bites the dust in tonight's season ender? (10PM, ABC) season 3 finale

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FRIDAY, MAY 14
'Smallville' (8PM, The CW) season 9 finale
With this primetime TV season barreling towards its conclusion, if we had to pick one theme that has seemingly affected almost every drama, it would be death. And, sorry to say it, but 'Smallville' isn't going to be an exception, as the season ender includes one -- that we know of -- major casualty. There's also a handful of cliffhangers; a sneak peek, for Clark, at his future; and a very big moment between Clark and Lois. And, the episode's central plot: the showdown between Clark and Zod (Callum Blue), with the stakes being a little ol' planet you might have heard of: earth.

'Friday Night Lights' - Riggins' homecoming is all about finding a new home since Billy kicked him to the curb (8PM, NBC)

'Live from Abbey Road' - Michael Bublé chats and croons (8PM, Sundance) season 3 finale

'Degrassi: The Next Generation' - Riley's considering coming out and going on his first date with a guy. This would be a good spot for a pop-in visit from Marco, who's so been there, done that (9PM, Teen Nick)

'Kitchen Nightmares' - It's going to take a lot of Gordon's, um, energy, to help the owners of a California sushi eatery bounce back, since the family owners are in debt, in-fighting and un-interested cooking anymore (9PM, Fox)

'Stargate Universe' - Tamara has to separate the afflicted from the not when several crew members are sick with something that makes them have hallucinations that play on their worst fears (9PM, SyFy)

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SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, MAY 15-16
'Survivor' (Sun., 8PM, CBS) season 20 finale
'Survivor' fans can set their TV to CBS and leave it there tonight, as the 20th season (and 10th year) of the seminal reality show comes to an end with a two-hour finale, followed immediately by a one-hour live reunion special (10PM). The opening moments of the reunion, as usual, will include the revelation of the winner of 'Heroes vs. Villains,' but the two hours leading up to that will find the five finalists trying to make it to the final tribal council and a shot at the big $1 million prize. The finale's sure to include lots of twist and turns, though we're still trying to get over the shock of 'Survivor: All-Stars' runner-up Boston Rob Mariano not making it past week eight.

'Saturday Night Live' - Alec Baldwin ties Steve Martin for the record of most times hosting 'SNL' (they've each hosted 15 times) and welcomes musical guest Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Sat., 11:30PM, NBC) season 35 finale

'Miss USA Pageant' - Chef and 'Celebrity Apprentice' contender Curtis Stone hosts and last season's 'Celeb Apprentice" winner Joan Rivers provides commentary for the 59th annual beauty pageant, live from Planet Hollywood in Vegas (Sun., 7PM, NBC)

'Desperate Housewives' - A mad man from the past plays into the current happenings on Wisteria Lane, where this season ends with a shocker, setting up some big changes for season 7 (Sun., 9PM, ABC) season 6 finale

'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' - NFL star Michael Oher and the Tuohy family -- the inspiration for the book and movie 'The Blind Side' -- help build a new home for a family whose father has been stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease and whose son has spina bifida (Sun., 8PM, ABC) season 7 finale

'The Pacific' - The powerful 10-part WWII miniseries concludes with the Japanese surrender in 1945 and Leckie and pals' return to their homes, which proves to be easier for some than for others (Sun., 9PM, HBO) series finale

'Brothers and Sisters' - With the state of the family business, only a long-forgotten investment by Papa Walker may save Ojai Foods, but the bigger issue in this season ender: Rob Lowe's leaving the series, so it's no spoiler to say his Robert is also on his way out (Sun., 10PM, ABC) season 4 finale

 

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'It's a problem people have had to come to terms with at different times in history: what do you do in a period of defeat?'

In photographs and news footage of political demonstrations of the 1960s, Tariq Ali is unmistakeable: the thick black hair and thatchy moustache; the clenched fist and characteristic surge to the foreground amid a sea of fair faces. Almost immediately on coming down from Oxford in 1966, Ali began to agitate for a workers' uprising – not just in Britain but across the world. His book 1968 and After: Inside the Revolution (1978) stressed "the key importance of the working class as the only agency of social change". His hero was Che Guevara. Meeting Malcolm X at an Oxford Union debate in 1964, he was pleased to discover that Malcolm was "a great admirer of Cuba and Vietnam". Ali was Britain's own "other", a role he took up with zeal and played with dash and style. He didn't get his revolution, but he did get a Rolling Stones anthem in his honour. Mick Jagger is said to have written "Street Fighting Man" for him. Ali returned the compliment by calling his autobiography Street Fighting Years.

Ali had a strong personal presence then, and he has it still. Now 66, he lives in a roomy neogothic house in Highgate, north London – friends have been heard to call it "Chateau Tariq" – with his partner of 35 years, Susan Watkins. She edits New Left Review, to which Ali has been a longstanding contributor. They have two children (Ali has another, with a former partner). In 1974, he ran for parliament as the International Marxist candidate, but the sloganeering public persona is tempered by an erudite domestic man.

He has not forsaken his opposition to "neoliberal economic policies" (capitalism, in a word) but is resigned to the fact that the predicted disintegration of the system has not occurred. "It's a problem people have had to come to terms with at different times in history: what do you do in a period of defeat?" In his case, the realignment took an unexpected form: he turned to writing fiction. The second act of the drama of Tariq Ali opened after the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989.

"I had already begun to shift my priorities, which were totally political until the early 1980s, by forming Bandung Films. Jeremy Isaacs, who was then head of Channel 4, asked me to make some programmes. Time to move off the streets and be on the other side, in terms of looking at people and not being one of them." But writing fiction, which involves months of solitary endeavour, was a new sort of commitment. Ali's first novel, Redemption, a roman à clef about feuding Trotskyites in London, was published in 1990. The next year he worked on an entirely different sort of story, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, which entered an imaginative realm no less important to him, the historical world of Islam. It depicts the conflict between Christians and Muslims at the end of the 15th century, during the Spanish inquisition, and was to be the first of a five-part series called the Islam Quintet. It is concluded with the publication this month of Night of the Golden Butterfly.

"It was something we just started by accident" – "we" being Verso, the independent radical publishing house of which Ali is editorial director, which has kept all five novels in print. "I wrote Pomegranate Tree and it went down quite well, and then Edward Said said to me: 'You've got to tell the whole bloody story now. You can't just stop midway.'"

The novels of the quintet do not proceed sequentially, or even chronologically. Volume two, The Book of Saladin, steps back three centuries and into the Middle East. Volume three, The Stone Woman, visits 19th-century Istanbul. With the fourth, A Sultan in Palermo, we are in 12th-century Sicily. There are no long-string relationships threaded through the ages, or historical bloodlines. The common dynamic is the repeated collision of east and west, and its fearsome aftershocks. Night of the Golden Butterfly, is set in the present day, with characters flitting from London to Paris, from Germany to China. At the centre of the story is a Pakistani painter, Plato (by naming his hero after a founder of western thought, Ali asserts his belief that the twain shall meet). At the end of the book, the characters congregate in Lahore for a viewing of Plato's last great painting. It is a triptych, at centre of which is Barack Obama, "the first dark-skinned leader of the Great Society", with the stars and stripes "in a state of cancerous decay" tattooed on his back. "The newest imperial chieftain was wearing a button: 'Yes we can . . . still destroy countries'." Elsewhere in Plato's painting, tumours sprout and bearded jihadis are shown "developing a life of their own".

Ali's narrator asks: "Was this the first critical entry by the art world?" Perhaps not, but the author claims it is "the first criticism of Obama in a work of fiction. It just came to me at the time the drone attacks were taking place against Pakistan. I thought: I want to be the first." His gleeful laugh belies a long opposition to American foreign policy, which has not been mitigated by the election of a "dark-skinned" hope-and-change president.

Night of the Golden Butterfly is also a return to the domain of Ali's childhood and youth – "Fatherland", in the novel. The Lahore in which he was born in 1943 was still part of British India (Pakistan gained independence four years later). His parents, who were first cousins, were committed communists, but he describes them as coming from "a deeply reactionary family, heavily involved in running the state at different levels". Ali's maternal grandfather was prime minister of the Punjab. "My parents joined the Communist party in the last years of the British presence, and struggled against that."

Until they were about seven or eight, he and his sister spoke Punjabi. "For a long time there were problems. It was possible to speak it, but it had to be kept at a distance." The language of education and achievement was English. He devoured the English classics – "all of them, probably too young" – then the Russian. "All the socialist realist writers from the Soviet Union were in our house: And Quiet Flows the Don by Sholokov and so on. But I hated all that. My father was quite cross with me, because he was an orthodox communist in many ways. But I found them too formulaic." His literary heroes include Hardy, Balzac – he laughs uproariously at the suggestion that he has just completed an Islamic Comédie Humaine – and, above all, Stendhal, "because the rhythm of his prose is fast and furious, as were his Jacobin politics".

He became politically engaged in his teens, in opposition to Pakistan's first military dictatorship, which was formed in 1958. "An uncle, who was a senior figure in military intelligence, just told my parents: 'Get him out. He can't be protected.'" In his case, out meant Exeter College, Oxford, where he read law between 1963 and 1966. "I was very happy. I made friends rapidly. I was involved in the Labour club, but the Humanists seemed much more daring to me. Because they were saying: there is no God. And I thought, how refreshing: this can all be said in public! That made a big impression on me."

He had assumed that the desire to write fiction was something that developed only in his late 40s, "but I was sorting through my mother's papers in Lahore some time ago, and I found a letter to her from me. It was written on the notepaper of my Oxford college, so it must have dated from 1966 at the latest. And it said: 'I will write fiction. But I don't know when. There's too much else to do at the moment.' I had no memory of that, but the idea must have been in my head."

There was indeed much to do. In January 1967, as an employee of the monthly magazine Town, edited by the Tory MP Julian Critchley (proprietor: Michael Heseltine), he travelled to Prague, to report on theatre and film behind the iron curtain. From there, Town sent him to Vietnam, where he amassed a photographic record of civilian casualties ("I still get the occasional royalty"). Later the same year, he flew to Bolivia to attend the trial of the French revolutionary Régis Debray, who was being pressed (Ali says tortured) to reveal the whereabouts of Che Guevara. Later still, he received news of Che's execution from the Guardian reporter Richard Gott, "whose dispatch was the first confirmation". When he learned of Che's death, he wept. "The sense of loss and grief was overpowering," Ali wrote in Street Fighting Years. He claims not to remember where he was when John F Kennedy was assassinated, "but I can recall every small detail of the day that Che died".

Ali remains essentially a citizen of the world. A recent trip to Yemen from where he wrote an article down-playing the dangers posed by al-Qaida in the region (currently a high CIA priority), was followed by a visit to Granada to receive the 2010 Granadillo prize for the Islam Quintet. He relates how, at a reading from one of his novels in Berlin, an old comrade "rose to his feet and said to the young audience: have you any idea who this man is?" The covers of his books display recommendations from Il Manifesto and Le Monde Diplomatique. Notably absent in his fiction is a story set in modern Britain (apart from the sulking socialists of Redemption). "I suppose I do find English fiction provincial. I prefer American, always have." He proclaims himself "happy" not to be considered part of the English literary scene. "It's a very self-referential and incestuous world. And I don't like the fact that many of them don't like being criticised. I'm always being criticised, and I don't mind it. Unless you're totally vain, criticism can be useful."

In addition to his new novel, Ali has recently published a collection of essays, Protocols of the Elders of Sodom. It contains tributes to Anthony Powell and Proust, and takes swipes at old comrades, such as Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie. He detects a "marked decline" in Rushdie's fiction – "it is sad to write this" – but the event that really riles him was "accepting a knighthood from Blair. The less said the better". Hitchens, who once praised Ali for having "spent much of his life denouncing America as the arsenal of counter-revolution", is grouped among "slightly frivolous figures" and is said now to sound "more like a saloon-bar bore than the fine, critical mind that blew away the haloes surrounding Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton". Invited to respond to the criticism, Hitchens answered: "I can't be bothered."

The predominant theme of Ali's fiction is exile. People are cut off at various points from what is most important to them – their faith, their lovers, their books, their fatherland. The Oxford to which he came in 1963 was not so different from "Fatherland" he says. "I've always felt, since I arrived in Britain, that it was quite familiar. We'd been brought up in a post-colonial world, still very much part of what it had been like before it became independent." But he acknowledges that he has spent the past 20 years writing about the disjuncture. "It's true. One was cut off at different levels. On the level of friendships, for example, because all your friends were left behind. And this novel talks about that. And a disjuncture from lovers. And politics. And food – when I came to Oxford, I could not believe how bad the food was. That was not familiar. In our part of the world, even the poorest family would eat something decent."

Among the most impressive features of the Islam Quintet is the attention to detail: custom, law, dress, archaic place-names, all in addition to a command of the historical events around which each novel in turn is structured. "For the first year or so, I just read anything I can get my hands on. And I go and visit these places I'm writing about – Sicily and Granada and Istanbul – just to smell them." Once started, however, he strides ahead rapidly, without revision – even without rereading what he has written.

"I am a bad person like that. I just write in one big outpouring. And I can't reread it until some time has elapsed. I am a great believer in editors. They send back 10 pages of notes. Then I re-read it, and do what they ask."

Protocols of the Elders of Sodom also contains the statement (originally made in the New Left Review in 1993) that "there cannot be any Chinese wall between literature and politics". Literary comrades of the 60s included the politically engaged poets Christopher Logue and the late Adrian Mitchell. Logue's poster poem, "Know Thy Enemy", showed a huge fist bearing a ring with Che Guevara's picture on it, about to smash the faces of bosses and property owners. The poster was produced by the Black Dwarf, the "radical political-cultural-feminist mag" of which Ali was editor.

When asked if the experience of being a storyteller has softened the rigidity of his stance on the relationship between art and politics, he begins to talk again about his move "sideways" into films and Channel 4. Is he ever troubled by self-doubt? "Yes I am. To be fair to myself . . . we had doubts even at the time. I never had any illusions about Stalinism or that style of society. What we hoped was that it would be replaced by something much better, instead of being a total regression. But that didn't happen."

His early non-fiction is stamped with the mark of total self-belief, and faith in the ideology for which he was fighting, which can lead to moments of unintended humour now. In Street Fighting Years, Ali describes how he asked Jagger to write out the words of "Street Fighting Man", to be printed in facsimile in the Black Dwarf. "He agreed immediately. We photographed the sheet of paper and I threw the original into the wastepaper basket. No one in the office thought this was sacrilegious. The cult of the individual is always a substitute for collective action."

Ali's intention on Thursday was not to vote – "for the first time". "I can't vote for New Labour, and of course the question of voting Conservative doesn't arise. I'll probably go and spoil my ballot, just so as not to be passive."

 

God can only be present in creation under the form of absence - Simone Weil

 

 

 

In his introduction to Thomas’s collection, Song at the Year’s Turning: Poems 1942–1954, the Poet Laureate John Betjeman wrote that "the 'name' which has the honour to introduce this fine poet to a larger public will be forgotten long before that of R S Thomas.” His literary executor, Professor Meurig Wynn Thomas, described him as “the Alexander Solzhenitsyn of Wales” and he was in fact eventually also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996 but lost out to Seamus Heaney. Forty years earlier Kingsley Amis said of Thomas’s work that it "reduces most modern verse to footling whimsy." whilst Amis’s friend, Philip Larkin, who, being of a cantankerous disposition himself one might have imagined would have more empathy, merely referred to him in his letters, rather uncharitably, as “our friend Arsewipe Thomas.”[1] The papers nicknamed him the “Ogre of Wales”[2] and it was a title he was perfectly capable of living up to. He even lived in a cave for a while, well it “was practically a cave made of four-foot-wide boulders, and here he wrote poetry 'with mould on his shoulders'. He ate baked potatoes with nothing on them, possibly preceded by a single glass of elderflower sherry.”[3]

His 1500+ poems make him the most prolific British poet of the post-war period and yet I would not expect that many people to know him nowadays even though he only died ten years ago.

We all have different sides to our characters but I can imagine few people more conflicted than Ronald Stuart Thomas: the kindly misanthrope, the God-questioning priest, the fiercely Pro-Welsh CND supporter who glossed over nothing in his fiercely critical portraits of his parishioners. He was born into an Anglicised middle-class family in Cardiff but you’d never know that to listen to him: he spoke with a cut-glass English accent and didn’t learn to speak Welsh until in his late thirties when, in 1942, he became rector of Manafon, a predominately Welsh-speaking community; he never found he was able to write poetry in Welsh although he did produce several prose works, including his 1985 autobiography written in the third person. It was entitled Neb, which means "Nobody".

"There is no such thing as an Anglo-Welshman . . . you have to make a stand, and that is the stand I have chosen to make," he said, which is curious when, although educated in Wales himself he made sure his son, Gwydion, received a private education in England. I mentioned that he was a priest. He was a priest in the Church of Wales but don’t let the name deceive you. It is an Anglican Church, an established church, yes, but also a minority one especially in the rural provinces where he served and had to compete with “numerous rival, nonconformist churches and chapels. Thus, professionally, in his priestly role, Thomas was an outsider in Wales.”[4]

He was a painfully shy man from all accounts who would dive behind a hedge rather than pass the time of day with one of his parishioners and yet delivered blood-and-thunder sermons from his pulpit, one of his favourite topics being the evils of domestic appliances; he refused to allow even a refrigerator in his house but didn’t seem to see the contradiction in his owning a Mini Clubman. They did send off for a vacuum cleaner once. "Makes a lot of noise, doesn't it?" Thomas remarked, and it was never used again. His son said:

As a vicar’s son I was obliged to attend church and to listen to him drone on about the evils of fridges. . . . [I]t was the Machine, you see. And washing machines. And televisions. This to a congregation that didn’t have any of these things and were longing for them.”[5]

Thomas was married to his first wife, the English artist Martha Elsi Eldridge[6], for fifty-one years until she died in 1991. He was an unpublished poet when he met Elsie, but she already had the makings of a successful artist. After winning the Royal College of Art's Prix de Rome’s travelling scholarship and selling several paintings at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition she was poised for international success but instead chose to retreat with him to a succession of small cottages in ever more remote parts of North Wales; he ended his days living at the end of the Llŷn Peninsula, in one of the wildest and most isolated and most westerly parts of Wales. It was to be a curious marriage. Despite being the recipient of some of the finest love poetry (see ‘A Marriage’) she also had to endure his long silences. "There were, of course, weeks when nobody said anything in our house," their son is reported to have said.[7] He also never demonstrated affection to her publicly.

Whilst getting on perfectly well, they seem to have lived somewhat separate lives, for she liked to stay at home and paint, whilst he liked to be out an about in the countryside, particularly bird watching, which was his greatest passion in life. There were no newspapers in their house, still less a television, and virtually no heating. Thomas himself was clearly something of a recluse, but his wife was a very private person as well. When she died a journalist asked him whether he missed his wife 'I suppose so' he replied. 'Was he lonely?' 'I was lonely when I was with her', he said.[8]

One might imagine that the poetry written by a priest would be very God-centric and yet Thomas leaves much of his proselytising for the pulpit. In so many of his poems God is missing. This confuses many people.

A lot of people seem to be worried about how I combine my work as a poet and my work as a priest. This is something that never worried me at all. . . . [A]ny form of orthodoxy is just not part of a poet’s province . . . A poem must be able to claim . . . freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry. . . . And, in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry. The message of the New Testament is poetry. Christ was a poet, the New Testament is a metaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights as priest and as preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preaching Christianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. The core of both are imagination as far as I’m concerned. . . . My work as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginative truth.[9]

I’m no longer a religious person but I once tried to be and one of the things I struggled with was how I saw God. I read in the Bible:

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.[10]

This is something Thomas believed too, that evidence of God’s existence was all around us:

         I take my place
by a lily-flower, believing
with Blake that when God comes
he comes sometimes by way
of the nostril.[11]

which makes me think that people must model God on the world they see before them. Thomas looked for God in the bleak beauty of the Welsh countryside and I guess he found a bleak God there; there’s very little “God is love”[12] to be found in his poetry. Nature is there in his poetry – for “Nature” you might want to read “God” – but he’s not someone that jumps to my mind as a nature poet, no babbling brooks nor hosts of golden daffodils.

Thomas finds the God of nature elusive, but when He reveals Himself, he does so through the natural world. God’s reflection, His shadow, and His echo exist in the Welsh hills. His influence there is both a presence and an absence (and, at times, an absence that is like a presence).[13]

Wanting to see God is one thing. Expecting to see him is another. Actually “seeing” (as with the eyes of faith) something else. Thomas looked but didn’t always see:

I emerge from the mind’s
cave into the worse darkness
outside, where things pass and
the Lord is in none of them.

I have heard the still, small voice[14]
and it was that of bacteria
demolishing my cosmos. I
have lingered too long on

this threshold, but where can I go?
To look back is to lose the soul
I was leading upwards towards
the light. To look forward? Ah,

what balance is needed at
the edges of such an abyss.
I am left alone on the surface
of a turning planet. What

to do but, like Michelangelo’s
Adam, put my hand
out into unknown space,
hoping for the reciprocating touch?[15]

Elijah steps out of a literal cave and looks for God in the wind, in an earthquake and in fire but that’s not where he finds him. There is no doubt that Thomas is looking for God but the final image of him in the role of Michelangelo’s Adam with his hand stretched out waiting for that spark to bring faith to life is a rather sad one.

Despite the different tense, I see a similar situation with him smelling the lily and waiting to connect with the divine, to perceive God’s reflection in the natural world. I wonder if faith can exist without doubt. I don’t think so. Doubt has to be there as an option, an alternative.

Most of the time though it is not a “still, small voice” that he hears but nothing but:

    the silence
that is his chosen medium
of communication[16]

and frequently we have an image of the priest alone in his church:

                 There is no other sound
In the darkness but the sound of a man
Breathing, testing his faith
On emptiness, nailing his questions
One by one to an untenanted cross.[17]

Thomas saw his role as a poet as being a translator, taking the silence and making it bearable:

There was a frontier
I crossed whose passport
was human speech. Looking back
was to silence, to that
wood of hands fumbling
for the unseen thing. I
named it and it was
here. I held out words
to them and they smelled
them. Space gave, time was
eroded. There was one being
would not reply.[18]

So he tries to make him reply, to tell him his name. In the poem ‘The Combat’ Thomas uses as his metaphor the time when Jacob wrestles the angel, most likely the archangel Michael, also known as the Logos or the Word since he most often acts as God’s spokesman. After the struggle Jacob wants to know the angel’s name but he’s told it is too wonderful for him to understand.[19] When Thomas talks about not knowing God’s name I have no doubt that he knows that it is often rendered as Yahweh or the Latinised Jehovah in many translations. That’s not the issue here. He wants God’s name to mean something to him personally. It’s like the names Franz Kafka or Adolf Hitler – these names mean something more than simply identifying a literary and an historical figure.

The image of the hand seeking and the quest for God’s name are brought together in the poem ‘The Hand’, the opening poem in Laboratories of the Spirit:

It was a hand. God looked at it
and looked away. There was a coldness
about his heart, as though the hand
clasped it.

[...]

But the hand wrestled with him. ‘Tell
me your name,’ it cried, ‘and I will write it
in bright gold.’

Up until now the poems I’ve quoted from all reveal a man searching. One might even go as far as to talk about a man whose faith is in crisis. I’m not sure how I would feel about a priest standing in a pulpit espousing the word of God knowing that he was still searching for ‘Him’. It wouldn’t fill me with confidence. You expect a man of God, so called, to have that under his hat by then. You expect to be able to go to that man and ask him perhaps not to prove to you there’s a God but at least to prove why he believes there is one.

There are other poems by Thomas that make one wonder though. Apparently the idea of becoming a priest was not his, it was his mother’s. His father was an officer in the merchant navy and so spent a lot of time away from his family affording his wife plenty of time to indoctrinate her son.

As he'd always freely admitted . . . his own vocation had come in a hand-me-down sort of way from his mother, who'd always harboured a desire that her son should become a cleric. "I wasn't under any pressure but, by the time I'd been through the training, if I'd been convicted of rape and unfrocked, what else would I have been fit to do?" He made it sound like an inescapable life sentence.[20]

His mother was certainly a major influence not only in his religious development but his emotional one too:

I don't think I'm a very loving person. I wasn't brought up in a loving home - my mother was afraid of emotion - and you tend to carry on in the same way, don't you? I suppose my son Gwydion could say he was the victim of the same lovelessness. I tended to leave it to Elsi to give him that more demonstrative affection.[21]

One of his earliest poems (1955), a paradigmatic one as far as much of his religious poetry goes, is this one:

In a Country Church

To one kneeling down no word came,
Only the wind’s song, saddening the lips
Of the grave saints, rigid in glass;
Or the dry whisper of unseen wings,
Bats not angels, in the high roof.

Was he balked by silence? He kneeled long,
And saw love in a dark crown
Of thorns blazing, and a winter tree
Golden with fruit of a man’s body.

In 1972 we have this striking piece:

Via Negativa

Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.

And in 1978 he returns with a similar piece to ‘In a Country Church’:

The Empty Church

They laid this stone trap
for him, enticing him with candles,
as though he would come like some huge moth
out of the darkness to beat there.
Ah, he had burned himself
before in the human flame
and escaped, leaving the reason
torn. He will not come any more

to our lure. Why, then, do I kneel still
striking my prayers on a stone
heart? Is it in hope one
of them will ignite yet and throw
on its illuminated walls the shadow
of someone greater than I can understand?

The Bible says, “Seek and you will find,”[22] and yet here we have a man who has spent his entire life seeking and finding only where his God may have been. This is a major obstacle for so many. How can they see the one that is invisible?[23] I suppose the real question when it comes to Thomas’s religious (and seemingly antireligious) poetry is: Is this some kind of poetry therapy? Beckett did not believe in God and yet his works (Waiting for Godot especially) are replete with Judaeo-Christian imagery because they were familiar to him (and would be to his public). It’s much easier to get someone to believe in God by not ramming religion down their throat, if that was his purpose in publishing his writing bearing his mind what he wrote about his reasons for writing it in the first place.

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I think Thomas had a fairly unique approach to finding God. Via Negativa is Latin for “by way of what is not”, better known today as Apophatic theology.

Apophatic theology—also known as negative theology—is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, to speak of God only in absolutely certain terms and to avoid what may not be said. In Orthodox Christianity, apophatic theology is based on the assumption that God's essence is unknowable or ineffable and on the recognition of the inadequacy of human language to describe God. – Orthodox Wiki

In simple terms then: God is the creator but all we have is the creation; it’s like reading my poems and trying to discern what I’m really like. This is why Thomas’s God is presented as a deus absentia, an absent god or perhaps merely a hidden one, a god who is always one step ahead of his followers in any case. (Is it too obvious here to mention Thomas’s own frequently absent father? And even when his father did return he became more and more distant as he grew increasingly deaf.)

I said that Thomas could be viewed as a translator but really what he’s attempting to do is translate the untranslatable. This is a philosophy more akin to Hinduism than Christianity:

In Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajnavalkya is questioned by his students on the nature of God. He states, "It is not this and it is not that" (neti, neti). Thus, God is not real as we are real, nor is He unreal. He is not living in the sense humans live, nor is he dead. He is not compassionate (as we use the term), nor is he uncompassionate. And so on. We can never truly define the Divine in words. In this sense, neti-neti is not a denial. Rather, it is an assertion that whatever the Divine may be, universally or personally, when we attempt to conceptualize or describe it, we limit our transcendent experience of "it." – Wikipedia

When I first wrote that I had assumed that I was reading into Thomas’s poetry more than he perhaps intended but this is not the case. In interview he said quite plainly:

[W]e have been brought up on a Bible to believe that God is a Being, whereas the slightly more impersonal approach of Hindu thought, and Buddhistic thought for that matter, does give me a feeling that this is more what I am after.[24]

It’s easy to misread a lot of Thomas’s writings. Take the kneeling for example. My first thought was that he was kneeling in prayer but perhaps not. He’s never had very much taste for prayer or meditation:

At theological college, the first hour was given over to it, but it was quite beyond me. Whenever I tried it later, it always turned into an effort to write poetry. One of the things that leaves me completely cold is the prayer "Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." After you've said it for the 556th time, something is supposed to happen to you. By then, I'd have gone to sleep anyway. [Compare his poem ‘Kyrie’ here.]

I find prayer the most difficult aspect of religion. With the Lord's Prayer, I even have difficulty with the word Father. Bishops send me their booklets on prayer and I write back politely, but I've found them all completely useless. No, the nearest I can come to prayer is to leave it all to the force of creative good, which is what God is.[25]

You would also do well to compare Thomas’s poem ‘Kneeling’ here.

“‘God moves in mysterious ways’ he often said ‘and putting a dog collar on R S Thomas was very mysterious indeed.’”[26] He died when he was 87. The year before he gave an interview to The Telegraph where he was asked pointedly why “why the Almighty made such frequent appearances in his verse. Thomas looked dumbfounded . . . ‘I believe in God,’ he retorted baldly, as if there was nothing more to be said.”[27] Belief in God is not the end but the beginning though. Thomas believed in a god but what kind of god? Since God refused to talk to him what else was left to Thomas the poet other than to put words into God’s mouth?

The Island

And God said, I will build a church here
And cause this people to worship me,
And afflict them with poverty and sickness
In return for centuries of hard work
And patience.
And its walls shall be hard as
Their hearts, and its windows let in the light
Grudgingly, as their minds do, and the priest’s words be drowned
By the wind’s caterwauling. All this I will do,
Said God, and watch the bitterness in their eyes
Grow, and their lips suppurate with
Their prayers. And their women shall bring forth
On my altar, and I will choose the best
Of them to be thrown back into the sea.

And that was only on one island.

There is something of a repetitiveness to Thomas’s religious poetry. He asks the same – or similar – questions over and over again. I get that. I don’t see it as a fault. I tackle the same themes again and again because I always feel I can do a bit better the next time, nudge that bit closer to the truth.

His religious poetry was not what first drew me to Thomas. As with most poets I’ve encountered it was a single poem, one we were handed out as school, ‘On the Farm’. This had a similar effect on me to ‘Mr. Bleaney’ and is a poem that always unsettles me. It is typical of the poems of his middle period which deal with the Welsh peasantry he spent so much time with. Maybe I’ll talk about Iago Prytherch, Walter Llywarch, Job Davies, Evans and Cynddylan on his tractor some other time though.

FURTHER READING

John Pikoulis Martin Roberts, ‘R.S. Thomas's Existential Agony’, Poetry Wales, Vol. 29, No 1 (July 1993)

Greg Hill, R S Thomas: Metaphor and Simile, Hill’s Chronicle

Ephraim Radner, Passing Through Hard Facts: The Poetry of R.S. Thomas

R S Thomas website

Poetry Foundation R S Thomas page (contains links to several poems)

REFERENCES

[1] Feb. 20, 1962, letter to Robert Conquest: “Our friend Arsewipe Thomas suddenly was led into my room one afternoon last week, and stood there without moving or speaking: he seems pretty hard going. Not noticeably Welsh, which is one comfort.” (See also Patrick Kurp, ‘I’m Tempted to Let Him Rot’.)

[2] Mark Jarman, Praying and Bird Watching: The Life of R S Thomas: “One widely published photograph of him, leaning out of the half door of his last home, Sarn, in Aberdaron, on the Lleyn Peninsula, led him to be dubbed ‘The Ogre of Wales.’”

[3] Andrew Martin, R S Thomas, ogre of Wales, The Telegraph, 2 Jul 2006

[4] William Virgil Davis, R S Thomas: Poetry and Theology, p.19

[5] Theodore Dalrymple, ‘A Man Out of Time’, City Journal, Winter 2010, Vol. 20, No. 1

[6] Mildred Elsie – she dropped the final ‘e’ from her middle name after getting married in deference to her husband's Welsh aspirations and he called her ‘Elsi’.

[7] AN Wilson, ‘Recipe for a happy marriage’, The Telegraph, 16 June 2008

[8] Rt Rev Lord Harries of Pentregarth, ‘Christianity and Literature: The paradoxes of R S Thomas’ – transcript of a lecture given in Gresham College on 5^th March 2009

[9] R S Thomas: Priest and Poet. A transcript of John Ormond’s film for BBC Television, broadcast on April 2nd, 1972; introduced by Sam Adams, Poetry Wales, vol. 7, no. 4 (Spring 1972): p.52,52

[10] Romans 1:20, New Living Translation

[11] R.S. Thomas, ‘Retired,’ Mass for Hard Times, p.23.

[12] 1 John 4:16 – God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

[13] Daniel Westover, ‘A God of Grass and Pen: R.S. Thomas and the Romantic Imagination’, North American Journal of Welsh Studies, Vol. 3, 2 (Summer 2003)

[14] 1 Kings 19:12 – And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

[15] R.S. Thomas, ‘Threshold,’ Between Here and Now, p.110

[16] R.S. Thomas, ‘The New Mariner,’ Between Here and Now, p.99

[17] R.S. Thomas, ‘In Church’, Collected Poems, p.180

[18] R.S. Thomas, ‘One Way,’ Between Here and Now, p.95

[19] Judges 13:17 – He replied, "Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding." New International Version

[20] An interview with Graham Turner, The Electronic Telegraph, Dec 4, 1999

[21] Ibid

[22] Matthew 7:7 – Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you, New International Version

[23] Hebrews 11:27 – By faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

[24] Christopher Morgan, R S Thomas: Identity, Environment and Deity, p.172

[25] An interview with Graham Turner, The Electronic Telegraph, Dec 4, 1999

[26] Ibid

[27] Ibid

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See ya later, size zero!

Calvin Klein has reportedly ditched beyond-skinny models in favor size 2-4 beauties, Fashionologie reports.

With size 4 supermodel Lara Stone rumored to front several Calvin Klein campaigns this fall, designer Francisco Costa -- who recently spoke out about the use of underweight, underaged models -- has apparently decided to ditch size 0 girls altogether, according to the fashion blog.

Meanwhile, 1 Management Christopher Michael reportedly spilled more details, tweeting that it was "a sign of the times indeed."

Woo Hoo! We might actually have to fight for a cheese cube at the catering trays backstage next Fashion Week -- usually we're the only ones eating.

Though sizes 2 and 4 are hardly "meaty," it is a big step for the fashion industry and further proof that the ongoing celebration of curves still has legs. (Sorry, Garance.)

But what will become of these size 0 castoffs? Perhaps they can find work elsewhere... as human toothpicks?

Meanwhile, check out Lane Bryant's beef about a censored plus-size lingerie commercial.

Calvin Klein Rumored to Stop Using Size Zero Models originally appeared on StyleList on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Calvin Klein creative director Francisco Costa has done away with casting size 0 models, Fashionologie reports. Christopher Michael of 1 Management tweeted, "Calvin Klein has discontinued their use of the Size 0-2 Models and traded them in for a 2-4...a sign of the times indeed," and size 4 Lara Stone is rumored to be the face of Calvin Klein come fall. Think of it as another small step for woman; we'll let you know when the leap for womankind happens.

More on Body Image

>> Calvin Klein Reportedly Discontinues Use of Size Zero Models -Francisco Costa recently said that always casting the youngest, freshest-faced models was becoming "a little too formulaic" for him, and now it appears he's been swayed by the current push for healthier-appearing models, too. Costa, who is rumored to have chosen Lara Stone to represent a number of the Calvin Klein lines come Fall, has also reportedly done away with casting size 0-2 models in favor of size 2-4 models. As 1 Management's Christopher Michael notes, "a sign of the times indeed." [@TheCreatrix]

Many variables affect the performance of prospects in the pros outside of talent, such as coaching, scheme fits/complexity, personality matches, injuries and work location, not to mention many other adjustments rookies must make to the NFL. Thus, the future success of an NFL prospect is difficult to predict without knowing which team a prospect will be playing for.

Nonetheless, PFW personnel analyst Nolan Nawrocki ranks the following defensive ends for the 2010 NFL draft according to their likelihood for success, heavily based on how they grade out on tape and factoring in the character, intelligence and medical grades of each player. The order of our rankings does not necessarily reflect the order in which we believe they will be drafted.

 

by MAPLight.org

A bill to help rescue miners in emergencies and protect miners’ safety was
defeated in Congress three years ago. After passing the House, the bill, called
the S-MINER Act, died in a Senate committee.

Mining interests, who were opposed to this bill, gave twice as much money in
campaign contributions to House members who voted against the bill as they gave
to members who voted in favor.

In the Senate committee where the bill died, mining firms gave more than
twice as much money to committee members as the unions in
support.

Background

The recent explosion at the Massey Energy coal mine in West Virginia that
killed 29 coal miners has left many bewildered Americans questioning how the
federal government could have prevented this tragedy. It has been reported that
Massey was in violation of safety regulations and that federal regulatory oversight of mining conditions was
lax.

In June of 2007, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced the Supplemental Mine
Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (S-MINER) Act, which, according to the Congressional Research
Service, would have supplemented existing mining provisions in the Federal Mine
Act to require: “(1) emergency response plans to incorporate new technology; (2)
the Secretary of Labor to require the installation of rescue chambers in
underground coal mines; and (3) accident response plans to provide for the
maintenance of refuges.”

Miller chairs the House Committee on Education and
Labor, which issued a report stating: “The S-MINER Act aims to prevent disasters
and, in cases where disasters do occur, to improve emergency response. It also
aims to reduce long-term health risks facing miners, such as black lung.”
Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) explained the bill was necessary because the 2006 MINER Act
provisions had not been effectively enforced. So far, I am concerned that the
slow pace of reform is leaving America’s miners at risk. We’ve made progress.
But [the Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA)] has not moved
aggressively to implement all of the provisions of the MINER
Act.”

Opposition

Two months after introduction of the bill, the Crandall Canyon mining
disaster occurred, killing six miners in Utah. Even after this tragedy
highlighted the dangers of industry standard practices and deficiencies of
regulatory oversight, the mining industry continued to oppose the bill. The
National Mining Association’s Vice President for Safety, Health and Human
Resources testified before the committee. “To be forced to respond to an
additional layer of statutory requirements at this time will undermine the
progress that has been made on miner training and other vital objectives of the
act. It is premature to consider imposing further legislation before the full
impact of the original MINER Act can be comprehensively evaluated.” Further
opposition cited concerns about energy independence and job losses. Congressman
Don Young of Alaska (R) argued, “If this bill was to become law, mines will be shut
down. They will be shut down.” The Bush Administration also strongly opposed the
bill, claiming that “several of the regulatory mandates in the
S-MINER bill would weaken several existing regulations and overturn regulatory
processes that were required by the MINER Act and are ongoing.”

Money and Votes

After four amendments were considered and three passed, the House passed
the S-MINER Act in January 2008. The bill subsequently died in the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The HELP Subcommittee on
Employment and Workplace Safety, chaired by Sen. Murray, met to consider the
bill. Only three members were present for the hearing. No further action was
taken on this bill.

For the House vote, 25 House Democrats and nearly all House Republicans voted
against the bill. On average, House opponents received 103 percent more money from mining interests than House
members voting Yes (an average of $12,526 to each member voting No, $6,174 to
each voting Yes). Democrats voting No received 197 percent more money from mining interests than their
colleagues voting Yes (an average of $16,314 to each Democrat voting No, $5,489
to each votin g Yes).

Seven House Republicans, including West Virginia’s Shelley Capito, supported
passage of the bill, although they received little campaign funding from unions,
the primary special interest MAPLight.org found to be supporting the
bill.

Members of the Senate HELP Committee received 122 percent more from the
mining interests than from the unions (see table below). Only three committee
members represent states that have a significant mining industry. Sen. Murray
received more than twice as much money from mining interests than any other
Democrat on the committee, although her state of Washington is not ranked as a
top mining industry state.

Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey and board member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has spent millions
of dollars in personal funds to support judicial and state political campaigns,
including $3 million in an attempt to buy a West Virginia state Supreme Court
justice. Nearly another $400,000 was disbursed by Massey’s employees,
including Blankenship, over the last four election cycles to state and federal
candidates, according to query results from a new Sunlight Foundation transparency database. Also, see the Center for Responsive
Politics’ Capital Eye blog for more information about contributions and
lobbying expenditures by Massey and its CEO.

Contributions (2003-2008) from interest groups that supported and opposed
the S-MINER Act to members of the Senate HELP Committee in the 110th

Congress

Senate HELP Committee
Member

Party

State

State Rank in
Mining Production

$ From
Supporting Interest Groups

$ From
Opposing Interest Groups

Isakson, John

R

GA

20th

$0

$97,500

Murray, Patty

D

WA

32nd

$42,000

$74,141

Hatch, Orrin

R

UT

6th

$0

$73,350

Murkowski, Lisa

R

AK

10th

$0

$72,850

Enzi, Michael

R

WY

3rd

$0

$68,600

Burr, Richard

R

NC

26th

$0

$63,449

Alexander, Lamar

R

TN

28th

$0

$45,800

Roberts, Pat

R

KS

25th

$0

$40,300

Bingaman, Jeff

D

NM

16th

$10,000

$33,400

Clinton, Hillary

D

NY

24th

$24,500

$22,700

Coburn, Thomas

R

OK

31st

$0

$22,299

Gregg, Judd

R

NH

47th

$0

$11,800

Dodd, Christopher

D

CT

44th

$18,500

$9,000

Allard, Wayne

R

CO

12th

$0

$7,500

Obama, Barack

D

IL

19th

$29,500

$7,000

Brown, Sherrod

D

OH

21st

$65,250

$6,000

Harkin, Thomas

D

IA

33rd

$23,850

$5,550

Mikulski, Barbara

D

MD

29
th

$26,000

$4,500

Reed, John

D

RI

49th

$11,000

$4,000

Kennedy, Edward

D

MA

39th

$4,500

$0

Sanders, Bernard

I

VT

48th

$46,800

$0

Total

$301,900

$669,739

Methodology

Campaign contributions data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics’
OpenSecrets Open Data. Date range of contributions is: Jan. 1, 2003 -
Dec. 31, 2008. According to MAPLight.org, manufacturing unions and mining
unions supported the S-MINER Act and the following interest groups opposed: coal
mining, metal mining and processing; mining; mon-metallic mining; and stone,
clay, glass and concrete products. Contributions to the presidential campaigns
of members of Congress are not included.

The ranking of state mining production is from Table 2 of the National Mining
Association’s report on The
Economic Contributions of U.S. Mining in 2007.

Related Links:

Don Blankenship called safety regulators ‘as silly as global warming’

Before the Massey mine disaster, there was Crandall Canyon

Grist: hating on Don Blankenship before hating on Don Blankenship was cool

I've been meaning to do this here as the Night Shade Message board, where I originally posted them, is not active....I'll see if I can do it in several sections...then if that works, I'll post the Best Horror of the Year volume 2.

Abel, Colleen “The Anatomist,” (poem) West Branch 63.
Addison, Linda “The Road,” (poem) Desolate Souls.
Alexander, William “Clockwork Iris,” Postscripts 16.
Alexander, William “Something Borrowed, Something Red,” Postscripts 14.
Allen, Mike “deathmask,” Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, winter.
Allen, Mike “Der Maulkorb,” The Journey to Kailash.
Allen, Mike “Ghosts of the Apocalypse,” Ibid.
Allen, Mike “Midnight Rendezvous, Philly,” Ibid.
Allen, Mike “Time Triptych,” Ibid.
Allen, Nina “Amethyst,” A Thread of Truth.
Allan, Nina “Ryman’s Suitcase,” A Thread of Truth.
Al-Mohamad, Day “Of Orishas and Saints,” Space and Time 102.
Anderson, Gail-Nina “The Tale Untold,” The Werewolf Pack.
Angell, R. R. “Clinical Delicacies,” Stress City.
Arnold, Joel “Rotten Fruit,” Bits of the Dead.
Arthur, Keri “To Die For,” Hotter Than Hell.
Asther, Idun “Ice Might Break,” Nossa Morte 3.
Atkins, Peter “The Girl in the Blue Volcano,” KRDR, Welcome to the Ether.
Avery, Simon “101 Ways to Leave Paris,” Crimewave, Now you See Me 10.
Bailey, Michael “Without Face,” Something Wicked 6, May-July.
Barlas, Tarkan “A Woman, Any Woman,” Istanbul Noir.
Barnhill, Kelly “Notes on the Untimely Death of Ronia Drake,” Fantasy, January 14.
Barnhill, Kelly “The Stone-Hearted Queen,” Weird Tales 350.
Barron, Laird “The Occultation,” Clockwork Phoenix.
Battersby, Lee “In From the Snow,” Dreaming Again.
Battersby, Lee “Rabbit, Run,” Scary Food.
Battersby, Lee “The Claws of Native Ghosts,” The Beast Within.
Battersby, Lyn “As We Know It,” Borderlands 10.
Bear, Elizabeth “Seven Steeds,” (poem) Lone Star Stories 28.
Bear, Elizabeth “Shoggoths in Bloom,” Asimov’s Science Fiction March.
Bear, Elizabeth “Sonny Liston Takes the Fall,” The Del Rey Book of SF & F.
Bear, Elizabeth and Monette, Sarah “Boojum,” Fast Ships, Black Sails.
Beaudoin, Penny-Anne “Drowning in Air,” Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 37.
Beaulieu, Bradley P. “Shadows in the Mirrors,” The Dimension Next Door.
Bell, Karl “Kali’s Kiss,” (poem) Dark Horizons 53.
Benedict, Pinkney “The Beginnings of Sorrow,” Sonora Review 54.
Berliner, Janet “High Kicks and Misdemeanors,” Blood Lite.
Bestwick, Simon “Cold Reading,” Shades of Darkness.
Bestwick, Simon “Left Behind,” Midnight Street 10.
Bestwick, Simon “The School House,” (novella) Houses on the Borderland.
Biancotti, Deborah “Pale Dark Soldier,” Midnight Echo 1.
Bird, Allyson “The Bone Grinder,” Bull Running for Girls.
Bird, Allyson “Bull Running,” Ibid.
Bird, Allyson “The Caul Bearer,” Ibid.
Bird, Allyson “The Conical Witch,” Ibid.
Bird, Allyson “Hunter’s Moon,” Ibid.
Bird, Allyson “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” Ibid.
Bishop, Anne “Stands a God Within the Shadows,” Imaginary Friends.
Bishop, Michael “Vinegar Peace, or, the Wrong-Way Used-Adult Orphanage,” ASF July.
Black, John “Devil’s Pork,” A Field Guide to Surreal Botany.
Blamire, Larry “The Line Shack,” Tales of the Callamo Mountains
Blamire, Larry “Old Rhiney’s Tale,” Ibid.
Blamire, Larry “The Trouble at Poysadine,” Ibid.
Blamire, Larry “The Unexpected Stop,” Ibid.
Blevins, Brenta “Beyond,” ChiZine, 38.
Block, Lawrence “Keller the Dogkiller,” EQMM May.
Bobet, Leah “Bell, Book, and Candle,” Clockwork Phoenix.
Bodard, Aliette de “The Dancer’s Gift,” Fictitious Force 5.
Bogdan, Al “The Girl Who Whispered Beauty,” Writers of the Future, XXIV.
Boland, John C. “Sargasso Sea,” Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, September.
Boston, Bruce “California Noir,” (poem), The Nightmare Collector.
Boston, Bruce “They Say the Lion is Dead,” (poem), The Nightmare Collector.
Bowes, Richard “Aka St. Mark’s Place,” The Del Rey Book of S. Fiction and Fantasy.
Boyce, Frank Cottrell “Continuous Manipulation,” The New Uncanny.
Boyle, T. Coraghessan “Thirteen Hundred Rats,” The New Yorker, July 7&14.
Bradbury, Ray “The Drothldo,” Masks.
Bradbury, Ray “The Face of Natalie,” Ibid.
Bradbury, Ray “They Never Got Mad,” Ibid.
Brooke, Keith “Hannah” Extraordinary Engines.
Brown, John “From the Clay of His Heart,” OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show 8.
Brown, Kevin “Angela’s Rising,” Space and Time 103.
Brown, Simon “A Thousand Natural Shocks,” Borderlands, 10.
Brown, Simon “Empire,” Dreaming Again.
Browne, Adam “The Final Writings of Baron Sir Heinrich Proteus von Z…”Aurealis 40.
Brozik, Matthew David “What the Redmond Men Found,” Zahir16.
Brugioni, Daniel “Roaring Seraph, Singing Thunder,” Zahir, 16.
Bulkin, Nadia “Intertropical Convergence Zone,” ChiZine 37.
Bull, Scott Emerson “End Time,” OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show 8.
Bunn, Austin “Bonsai Kitten,” West Branch 63.
Bunn, Cullen “Cry of the Machine,” Desolate Souls.
Bunn, Cullen “Remains,” (novella) Like a Chinese Tattoo.
Burns, Luke “Selections From H. P. Lovecraft’s Short Tenure as a...”McSweeney’s.
Burrage, Nathan “Spirals in the Sky,” Aurealis 40.
Butcher, Jim “Day Off,” Blood Lite.
Byatt, A. S. “Doll’s Eyes,” The New Uncanny.
Cacek, P.D. “Dead End,” Traps.
Campbell, J. R. “The Entwined,” Gaslight Grimoire.
Campbell, Ramsey “Double Room,” The New Uncanny.
Campbell, Ramsey “The Long Way,” PS chapbook.
Carreiro, Lisa “Those Among Us,” On Spec 73.
Casson, Tim “The Second Death of Johan Kluge,” Black Static 5.
Castro, Adam-Troy “The Shallow End of the Pool,” chapbook.
Cevasco, Christopher M. “Less a Dream Than This We Know,” Black Static 5.
Cheney, J. Kathleen “Masks of War,” Fantasy July 28.
Chinn, Mike “All Under Hatches Stow’d,” The Second Black Book of Horror.
Chinn, Mike “Like a Bird,” The Third Black Book of Horror.
Choo, Mary E. “Killing Daniel,” Snafu Anthology 1.
Chwedyk, Richard “The Ambiguities,” Hell in the Heartland.
Clark, George Makana “Blood Reader,” Exotic Gothic 2.
Clements, Dominy “Angel Zero,” Cone Zero: Nemonymous 8.
Cluley, Ray “Viva Las Vegas,” Black Static 6.
Colangelo, Michael R. “Dust and Bibles,” ChiZine 35.
Collins, Nancy A. “The Ice Wedding,” Exotic Gothic.
Connelly, Tina “On the Eyeball Floor,” Strange Horizons, June 2.
Conyers, David “Homo Canis,” 2008 Award Winning Australian Writing.
Cook, C. Michael “The Boys of Bald Cove,” Unspeakable Horror.
Cook, C. Michael “The Living World,” Horror Library, volume 3.
Cooney, S.C.E. “My Body Your Banquet,” Hell in the Heartland.
Cooper, James “There’s Something Wrong with Pappy,” Black Static 8.
Cooper, Ryan “Wendy,” Read by Dawn, volume 3.
Copley-Woods, Haddyr “Dead,” Strange Horizons, February 25.
Couch, Stephen “The Birdie,” Horror Library, volume 3.
Cowdrey, Albert “The Overseer,” (novella) The Magazine of Fantasy & Science March.
Cowdrey, Albert E. “Poison Victory,” The Magazine of Fantasy & Science July.
Cowdrey, Albert E. “Thrilling Wonder Stories,” The Mag. of Fantasy & Science May.
Crandall, Edward P. “The Arrangement,” Exotic Gothic.
Crow, Jennifer “Midnight in the Panopticon,” (poem) Illumen, autumn.
Crow, Jennifer “The Probability of Ruin,” (poem) Space and Time 103.
Currier, James “The Bloomsbury Nudes,” Unspeakable Horror.
D’Ammassa, Don “The Natural World, Analog January/February.
Dalrymple, Scott “Enfant Terrible,” The Magazine of Fantasy & Science July.
Dann, Jack “Under the Shadow of Jonah,” Postscripts 15.
Decker, Sherry “The Proper Application of Pressure to a Wound,” AHMM, Dec.
Dedman, Stephen “Teeth,” Clarkesworld 18.
Deonandan, Raywat “Midnight Shift,” Toronto Noir.
DeYoung, Jason “Mariska’s Tongue,” Gargoyle 53.
Dikeman, Kris “Nightmare Lotus,” A Field Guide to Surreal Botany.
Dikeman, Kris “Nine Sundays in a Row,” Strange Horizons, October 27.
Dinan, Kurt “Ashes of the Dad,” Horror Library, volume 3.
Dix, Shane “The Man Who Murdered Love,” Borderlands 10.
Douglass, Sara “This Way to the Exit,” Dreaming Again.
Dowling, Terry “The Fooly,” Dreaming Again.
Downum, Amanda “Ghostlight,” Not One of Us 39.
Downum, Amanda “Pinion,” Not One of Us 40.
Drummond, Oz “Re\Creation,” Analog, November.
Duffy, Steve “The Oram County Whoosit,” Shades of Darkness.
Edelman, Scott “Petrified,” Desolate Souls.
Edwards, Sarah L. “Simulacrum’s Children,” Writers of the Future, XXIV.
Elliott, M. J. “The Finishing Stroke,” Gaslight Grimoire.
Emshwiller, Carol “Wilmer or Wesley,” Asimov’s Science Fiction August.
Evans, Kendall “Rufio’s Song,” Space and Time 102.
Evenson, Brian “Angel of Death,” Conjunctions 50: Fifty Contemporary Writers.
Farris, John “Like Father,” Subterranean online spring.
Faulkner, Ian R. “Shadows on the Wall,” Something Wicked 7.
Faust, Christa “Firebird,” Sins of the Sirens.
Fazi, Melanie “Back on the Road,” Black Static 6.
Femling, Jean “After Babygirl,” EQMM, September/October.
Ferris, Joshua “The Dinner Party,” The New Yorker, August 11&18.
Fields, L.A. “Bluff,” Unspeakable Horror.
Files, Gemma “Mrs. Margery Lovett, Her Book,” (poem) Mythic Delirium 18.
Files, Gemma “Sown From Salt,” The Harrow volume 11, number 12.
Finch, Paul “Bloody Essex,” Ghost Realm.
Finch, Paul “In the Thicket,” The Third Black Book of Horror.
Finch, Paul “The Crannog,” Ghost Realm.
Finch, Paul “The Killing Ground,” (novella) Ghost Realm.
Finch, Paul “The Pumping Station,” We Fade to Grey.
Fishler, Barry “This Much I Remember, “Black Static 4.
Fonseca, Rubem “The Taker,” The Taker and Other Stories.
Ford, Jeffrey “Daltharee,” The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Ford, Jeffrey “The Golden Dragon,” The Drowned Life.
Foster, Eugie “Beautiful Summer,” Killers.
Fowler, Christopher “Arkangel,” Exotic Gothic.
Fowler, Christopher “The Velocity of Blame,” The 2nd Humdrumming Bk of Horror Sto.
Frame, Janet “ Gorse is Not People,” The New Yorker, September 1.
Franks, Stone “Into the Woods We Go,” Supernatural Tales 14.
Fulbright, Christopher “Mechanix,” Bound For Evil.
Gage, Joshua “The Kappa,” (poem), Goblin Fruit, summer.
Gailey, Jeannine Hall “Sure, Beauty Sleeps (poem) Mythic Delirium 18.
Garfinkle, Gwynne “Scarlet Ode,” (poem) Goblin Fruit, summer.
Gemio, Waldo “Company of Cannibals,” Premonitions: Causes For Alarm.
Gillespie, Jonathan C. “The Eighteenth Floor,” Something Wicked #8.
Goelman, A.B. “God’s Country,” Subtle Edens.
Goelman, Ari “The Annie Oakley Show,” Fantasy, September 29.
Golaski, Adam “A String of Lights,” Worse Than Myself.
Golaski, Adam “The Animator’s House,” Worse Than Myself.
Golaski, Adam “The Dead Gather on the Bridge to Seattle,” Worse Than Myself
Goodfellow, Cody “Atwater,” Black Static 4.
Goodwin, Steve “The Cold Harvest,” The Second Black Book of Horror.
Grant, Helen “Grauer Hans,” Shades of Darkness.
Grant, John “Will the Real Veronica LeBarr Stand Down,” Postscripts 16.
Greaves, Edward “Sucker Kiss,” Dark Territories.
Green, Christopher “Lakeside,” Dreaming Again.
Greenhut, Michael “Think Fast,” GUD 3.
Gregory, Eric “Blood God Blood,” Black Static 7.
Grey, Orrin “The Reading Room,” Bound For Evil.
Guthridge, George and Ayne, Blythe “Hatoey,” Space and Time 104.
Gutiérrez, Peter “A Different Kind of Sunshine,” Read by Dawn, volume 3.
Gwaltney, Jane “Corrections, Beneath the Stones.
Haines, Paul “Taniwha, Swim with Me,” Midnight Echo 1.
Haines, Paul “The Festival of Colour,” GUD 2.
Hambly, Barbara “Repossession,” Hellboy: Oddest Jobs.
Hand, Elizabeth “Up North, “ (poem) Lone Star Stories 25.
Harland, Richard “A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead,” Dreaming Again.
Harvey, Colin “Just Another Day,” Killers.
Hatcher, Brian J. “The Monster with the Shape of Me,” (poem) Weird Tales 351.
Heluk, J.M. “Two Miles as the Crow Flies,” Traps.
Henderson, C. J. “Body and Soul,” Degrees of Fear.
Henderson, Mark P. “East Norham,” Rope Trick: Thirteen Strange Tales.
Henderson, Mark P. “Genius Loci,” Ibid.
Henderson, Mark P. “Return Ticket,” Ibid.
Henderson, Mark P. “The Well Dresser,” Ibid.
Henderson, Samantha “Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Stage IV,”(poem) GUD 2.
Henderson, Samantha “Hungry: Some Ghost Stories,” Lone Star Stories 27.
Henderson, Samantha “The Seasons’ Dying,” (poem) Goblin Fruit, summer.
Hendrix, Laura “A Record of Our Debts,” McSweeney’s 29.
Henry, Loïc “Celadon Green,” ASIM 33.
Herbertson, Craig “Synchronicity,” The Third Black Book of Horror.
Heuler, Karen “Landscape, with Fish,” Weird Tales, 348.
Heuler, Karen “The Difficulties of Evolution,” Weird Tales 350.
Heuler, Karen “The Inner City,” Cemetery Dance 58.
Hickey, Laurel “Red and the Machine,” Space and Time 105.
Higgins, Peter “Listening for Submarines,” Asimov’s Science Fiction November.
Hines, Gene “Dead Boys,” Swill 3.
Hirshberg, Glen “Like Lick em Sticks, Like Tina Fey,” KRDR.
Hiss, Sandy “Guardian,” (poem) Illumen, spring.
Hobson, M.K. “The Hand of the Devil on a String,” Shimmer 9.
Hoffmeister, Curtis “Passed,” Thinner than Mist.
Holness, Matthew “Possum,” The New Uncanny.
Holness, Matthew “The Toad and I,” Black Static 3.
Hood, Robert “Kulpunya,” Exotic Gothic.
Houarner, Gerard “Devoured by her Enigmatic Smile,” Abominations.
Howard, Andrew “Molting,” Kaleidotrope 4.
Howison, Del “The Necrosis Factor,” Traps.
Huff, Tanya “Music Hath Charms,” Hotter than Hell.
Humphrey, Andrew “Butter Wouldn’t Melt,” Other Voices.
Humphrey, Andrew “Old Wounds,” Midnight Street 10.
Hunt, Todd “Apparel for Hopelessness,” Sinister Tales, volume 3 issue 1.
Hunter, Ian “The Fox and the Trickster,” Lips of Scarlet.
Hunter, Ian “Where I Went on My Holidays,” Postscripts 17.
İplikçi, Müge “The Hand,” Istanbul Noir.
Ireland, Davin “Maryland,” The Second Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories.
Irvine, Alex “Black Lagoon,” Crimewave, Now you See Me 10.
Isitt, Martin “A Bridge to Nowhere,” Quercus One, The West Pier Gazette.
Jackson, Shelley “Early Dispatches from the Land of the Dead,” Conjunctions 51.
Jamieson, Trent “The New Deal,” Dreaming Again.
Jessup, Paul “A Word Without Ghosts,” Fantasy, April 28.
Jessup, Paul “The Ghosts We Have Become,” Postscripts 14.
Jones, Stephen Graham “Captain’s Lament,” Clarkesworld 17.
Jones, William “The Whispering Dead,” The Strange Cas

International theme features prominently in programme for annual literature festival

Bill Clinton called it the "Woodstock of the mind" while Joseph Heller said it was like a cross between "an international conference and a country wedding". This year's Guardian Hay Festival promises to be no different with a diverse line-up that includes Pervez Musharraf, Martin Amis, Zadie Smith and Nadine Gordimer.

More than 100,000 visitors are expected at Hay-on-Wye this summer, where some of the biggest themes are explored over 11 days by some of the biggest names.

Announcing the programme today, the festival's founder and director Peter Florence said Hay was the place to be "if you're interested in the world and people, in love and death, in what is the best thing to do and how to be happy".

There will be a strong international theme to this year's festival, he said, with visits by Musharraf, the former president of Pakistan, and the Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor.

One highlight will be a discussion between the president of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, and the current climate change secretary, Ed Miliband. Nasheed, who will, appropriately, be beamed in by satellite rather than flying to the UK, will talk about the environmental disaster facing his disappearing country and efforts to relocate the population.

The international flavour will continue with the long list of fiction writers attending. Florence said: "We need to be more like the premiership and realise that the best fiction writers are not always from the English-speaking world."

For that reason there will be six new voices from Arab literature – Joumana Haddad, Adania Shibli, Youssef Rakha, Abdellah Taia, Faiza Guene and Randa Jarrar – and an appearance by one of the world's literary titans, the South African Nobel winner Nadine Gordimer, returning to Hay after a 20 year absence. Florence said the 86-year-old writer was "hitting an extraordinary golden patch … She is one of the most articulate commentators that there is and her views on Mugabe and Zimbabwe are absolutely compelling."

It is also a year, said Florence, when British writers are showing themselves as being at the top of their game: Martin Amis, for example, who will be discussing his novel The Pregnant Widow; Zadie Smith talking about her collection of essays, Changing My Mind, and the Booker prize winner, Hilary Mantel.

Antonia Fraser will be talking to Melvyn Bragg about her late husband, Harold Pinter, and her book, Must You Go? Other big names include Tom Stoppard, Roddy Doyle, Bill Bryson and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Florence said the often bizarre times we are living in, mean we need help from writers more than ever. They are, he said, writing with more "invention and imagination" than he can remember.

One of his personal highlights of the year has been the bestseller Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives.Its writer, the American neuroscientist David Eagleman will be at the festival.

Elsewhere, religion features heavily. Philip Pullman, who is still gathering headlines for his retelling of the gospels, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, makes an appearance while the Guardian debate will explore rationality with speakers Maggi Dawn, the theologian, and Martin Rees, the astronomer.

On journalism, the legendary former Sunday Times editor Harold Evans will talk to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger about the glory days of newspaper publishing. Andrew Marr, John Simpson, Max Hastings and Christopher Hitchens will be discussing the latter's autobiography, Hitch 22.

Florence promised a healthy wodge of history at this year's Hay, not least with appearances from Norman Stone and from Niall Ferguson talking about his biography of the financier Sigmund Warburg.

The law will be another prominent theme with a keynote lecture by Lord Bingham and speakers including lawyers Michael Mansfield, Helena Kennedy and Philip Sands. There will also be Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former UK ambassador to the UN; Tom Buergenthal, a judge at the international court of justice at the Hague; and Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, a former foreign policy advisor to Jacque Chirac.

I's not all writing. Florence said: "Hay is one of the biggest gigs for writers but also one of the most intimate gigs for musicians."

This year sees performances from Beth Orton, Laura Marling, Malian musician Toumani Diabate, Christy Moore and the super-cool DJ Bonobo.

There will also be comedy from Tim Minchin, Ruby Wax and Shappi Khorsandi, the latter talking about A Beginner's Guide to acting English.

Art highlights include Grayson Perry arriving on what an "art motorbike" while Quentin Blake will be conducting live drawing sessions. Photographer Don McCullin will be discussing his book, Shaped by War.

Hay, sponsored for the ninth year by the Guardian, takes place between 27 May and 6 June. www.hayfestival.com

Stephanie Beatriz and Danforth Comins star in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival celebrates its 75th season this year by trying to build on its huge success and tremendously high standards.

Last year, OSF had a record total attendance of 410,034. It was quite an achievement for artistic director Bill Rauch, who now launches his fourth season in Ashland with an impressive notch in his belt.

Managing director Paul Nicholson attributed the success to high-quality, well-received productions and the relationship this festival has with its audience. He suggested there was smart, effective marketing by his staff as well. Reflecting on the past season, Nicholson said, "We're one of the few theaters in the country where putting on something like 'The Music Man' is a risk."

And it was a risk, because a big, mainstream singing and dancing musical is not what OSF's audiences have come to expect. The penetrating drama of last season's world premiere, "Equivocation," was more like it, yet both plays were embraced by audiences.

From Rauch's crisp, buoyant staging of "The Music Man" to Gale Edwards' chilling, hallucinatory vision of "Macbeth," last season's reviews were strong and, most important, all the play choices resonated with the audiences.

This year, Rauch's modernistic take on "Hamlet" pairs with the dramatization of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" as the festival centerpieces, which run all season.

There will be two world premieres as Richard Montoya and Culture Clash inaugurate the American History Play Cycle with their "American Night."

Also Ping Chong, a seminal figure in Asian American theater, premieres his adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood." After closing in Ashland, "Throne of Blood" will travel to New York for performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The 2010 season runs through Oct. 31, offering 766 performances of 11 productions in three venues.

HAMLET

As the audience enters the theater, a funeral viewing is already taking place on stage. Denmark's simple flag is draped over a closed casket and the tense, somber mood feels completely dictated by a slumped young man dressed in a dark suit, smoldering behind dark glasses.

Other figures drift in and out of the room until finally there is just the one man – Dan Donohue's audibly grieving Hamlet – staring at the casket. Then the stage and the house go dark and we're plunged into director Bill Rauch's challenging and tremendously satisfying modern take on "Hamlet."

Rauch makes so many bold choices throughout the production, it's impossible to sidestep his ideas. The director says he considers "Hamlet" an experimental play, and his decisions are in keeping with the play's progressive sensibility.

Hamlet's dead father, the ghost king haunting the story, is played by Howie Seago, a deaf actor who communicates through sign language. Hamlet signs with him and other actors often sign words when referring to him. At first the conceit seems awkward, but visual recognition of the physical motions gains resonance as the narrative develops.

The players who come to the castle are a hip-hop troupe, and their interlude is performed complete with a turntable-wielding DJ and Hamlet as the guest emcee. Though the characters are in contemporary dress, the castle's stone interiors feel period. The symbolic mash-up of eras has become one of Rauch's artistic trademarks.

Donohue's prince displays a searing temperament, but he also contains a generous empathy. His madness is not so much feigned as a cynical mocking reaction to the hypocrisy he sees all around him. Central to Hamlet's darkened world view are naturally his imperious Uncle Claudius (the authoritative Jeffrey King) now suddenly his stepfather, and his mother, Gertrude (the subtle Greta Oglesby). Oglesby moves Gertrude from detached and oblivious to eerily knowing and sorrowful. Susannah Flood's movingly conflicted Ophelia and Richard Elmore's comic Polonius add tragic humanity and simple charm.

Rauch's production smartly balances the play's endless bounty of big ideas with a poignant intimacy through fully realized characters.

WELL

1/2

The biggest problem with staging "Well" by playwright Lisa Kron is the absence of Lisa Kron the performer. Kron wrote the clever, esoteric meditation on wellness for herself.

A veteran of one-person shows, Kron is a distinctive, funny performer, an artless storyteller, and her work is expertly calibrated to her friendly persona and dexterous performance rhythms.

In "Well," Kron ostensibly lays out a story about her many years being unhealthy or sick, including time spent at a clinic for allergy testing. Her explanations of the sources of her illness and how she cured herself spin the play to an unforeseen conclusion.

As fine an actor as Terri McMahon is in portraying Kron, bringing her own comic sensibility to the production, it doesn't quite take hold. Part of the play's challenge comes from the stylistic tightrope Kron has created. Often stepping outside of the fourth wall frame to address the audience and stepping back in to act out "the story," there's already a built-in self-consciousness. Kron bridged the distance with her ease and affability – after all, it's her story, despite the contrivance.

McMahon is less successful, though Kron's intent comes through intact. The fine ensemble, which plays numerous characters, includes Gina Daniels, G. Valmont Thomas, K.T. Vogt and Brent Hinkley. Using Kron's often- distracted mother (Dee Maaske) as the unlikely focal point, the production intentionally lurches about, though here it seems more unsteady than ironic misdirection.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Former OSF artistic director Libby Appel's sleek and satisfying production of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" provides the most surprising emotion of any production in the festival's opening quartet.

Austen's classic novel of class and romance in the early 1800s maintains an earned fascination from its clear-eyed and satiric view of the now-vanished world it encompasses.

The central spirited characters are Kate Hurster's confident Elizabeth Bennet and Elijah Alexander's prideful Mr. Darcy. Finding themselves undoubtedly attracted to each other, they have the gulf of economics and stifling social conventions separating them.

The spare stage adaptation by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan relays Austen's satire of the social structures and also her underlying dissatisfaction with the restrictions. Staged as a quickly moving spectacle, Appel's handsome production also features Nell Geisslinger as Elizabeth's older sister, Jane, Judith-Marie Bergan as their busybody mother and Christian Barrillas as Mr. Bingley, a very rich, single and desirable young man.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

1/2

Director Christopher Liam Moore's woozy "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" deftly explores the darkness of Tennessee Williams' operatic drama.

Set in designer Christopher Acebo's exotic floating bedroom, a palpable sense of joyless humidity wafts from the stage. The dense atmosphere perfectly suits the story of unrequited desires and repressed sexuality.

The first act is given over to Stephanie Beatriz's angular Maggie and her litany of complaints against her relatives. As Maggie rants and rails, changing clothes, but mainly strutting around in her slip, husband Brick quietly drinks and listens. Of course, Danforth Comins' aloof, occupied Brick doesn't really want to listen, but his recently broken ankle leaves him captive to Maggie's aria of frustration and disgust.

Michael Winters' overbearing Big Daddy takes over in the second act with his own narrative, capturing slightly more of Brick's attention. The subject of both Maggie and Big Daddy's mostly solo conversations is the mute drunk Brick and how he became that way. Comins expertly layers Brick's detachment as he drinks himself toward oblivion.

The text used for this production is primarily Williams' 1974 revision, which makes Brick's personal dilemma more explicit and restores much of the incendiary language the writer intended. The production is all a Southern gothic drama should be.

Conflicting social conventions are at the heart of the stage adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

A bold version of "Hamlet" stars Dan Donohue, left, in the title role, with Jeffrey King and Greta Oglesby.

Stephanie Beatriz and Danforth Comins star in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival celebrates its 75th season this year by trying to build on its huge success and tremendously high standards.

Last year, OSF had a record total attendance of 410,034. It was quite an achievement for artistic director Bill Rauch, who now launches his fourth season in Ashland with an impressive notch in his belt.

Managing director Paul Nicholson attributed the success to high-quality, well-received productions and the relationship this festival has with its audience. He suggested there was smart, effective marketing by his staff as well. Reflecting on the past season, Nicholson said, "We're one of the few theaters in the country where putting on something like 'The Music Man' is a risk."

And it was a risk, because a big, mainstream singing and dancing musical is not what OSF's audiences have come to expect. The penetrating drama of last season's world premiere, "Equivocation," was more like it, yet both plays were embraced by audiences.

From Rauch's crisp, buoyant staging of "The Music Man" to Gale Edwards' chilling, hallucinatory vision of "Macbeth," last season's reviews were strong and, most important, all the play choices resonated with the audiences.

This year, Rauch's modernistic take on "Hamlet" pairs with the dramatization of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" as the festival centerpieces, which run all season.

There will be two world premieres as Richard Montoya and Culture Clash inaugurate the American History Play Cycle with their "American Night."

Also Ping Chong, a seminal figure in Asian American theater, premieres his adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood." After closing in Ashland, "Throne of Blood" will travel to New York for performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The 2010 season runs through Oct. 31, offering 766 performances of 11 productions in three venues.

HAMLET

As the audience enters the theater, a funeral viewing is already taking place on stage. Denmark's simple flag is draped over a closed casket and the tense, somber mood feels completely dictated by a slumped young man dressed in a dark suit, smoldering behind dark glasses.

Other figures drift in and out of the room until finally there is just the one man – Dan Donohue's audibly grieving Hamlet – staring at the casket. Then the stage and the house go dark and we're plunged into director Bill Rauch's challenging and tremendously satisfying modern take on "Hamlet."

Rauch makes so many bold choices throughout the production, it's impossible to sidestep his ideas. The director says he considers "Hamlet" an experimental play, and his decisions are in keeping with the play's progressive sensibility.

Hamlet's dead father, the ghost king haunting the story, is played by Howie Seago, a deaf actor who communicates through sign language. Hamlet signs with him and other actors often sign words when referring to him. At first the conceit seems awkward, but visual recognition of the physical motions gains resonance as the narrative develops.

The players who come to the castle are a hip-hop troupe, and their interlude is performed complete with a turntable-wielding DJ and Hamlet as the guest emcee. Though the characters are in contemporary dress, the castle's stone interiors feel period. The symbolic mash-up of eras has become one of Rauch's artistic trademarks.

Donohue's prince displays a searing temperament, but he also contains a generous empathy. His madness is not so much feigned as a cynical mocking reaction to the hypocrisy he sees all around him. Central to Hamlet's darkened world view are naturally his imperious Uncle Claudius (the authoritative Jeffrey King) now suddenly his stepfather, and his mother, Gertrude (the subtle Greta Oglesby). Oglesby moves Gertrude from detached and oblivious to eerily knowing and sorrowful. Susannah Flood's movingly conflicted Ophelia and Richard Elmore's comic Polonius add tragic humanity and simple charm.

Rauch's production smartly balances the play's endless bounty of big ideas with a poignant intimacy through fully realized characters.

WELL

1/2

The biggest problem with staging "Well" by playwright Lisa Kron is the absence of Lisa Kron the performer. Kron wrote the clever, esoteric meditation on wellness for herself.

A veteran of one-person shows, Kron is a distinctive, funny performer, an artless storyteller, and her work is expertly calibrated to her friendly persona and dexterous performance rhythms.

In "Well," Kron ostensibly lays out a story about her many years being unhealthy or sick, including time spent at a clinic for allergy testing. Her explanations of the sources of her illness and how she cured herself spin the play to an unforeseen conclusion.

As fine an actor as Terri McMahon is in portraying Kron, bringing her own comic sensibility to the production, it doesn't quite take hold. Part of the play's challenge comes from the stylistic tightrope Kron has created. Often stepping outside of the fourth wall frame to address the audience and stepping back in to act out "the story," there's already a built-in self-consciousness. Kron bridged the distance with her ease and affability – after all, it's her story, despite the contrivance.

McMahon is less successful, though Kron's intent comes through intact. The fine ensemble, which plays numerous characters, includes Gina Daniels, G. Valmont Thomas, K.T. Vogt and Brent Hinkley. Using Kron's often- distracted mother (Dee Maaske) as the unlikely focal point, the production intentionally lurches about, though here it seems more unsteady than ironic misdirection.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Former OSF artistic director Libby Appel's sleek and satisfying production of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" provides the most surprising emotion of any production in the festival's opening quartet.

Austen's classic novel of class and romance in the early 1800s maintains an earned fascination from its clear-eyed and satiric view of the now-vanished world it encompasses.

The central spirited characters are Kate Hurster's confident Elizabeth Bennet and Elijah Alexander's prideful Mr. Darcy. Finding themselves undoubtedly attracted to each other, they have the gulf of economics and stifling social conventions separating them.

The spare stage adaptation by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan relays Austen's satire of the social structures and also her underlying dissatisfaction with the restrictions. Staged as a quickly moving spectacle, Appel's handsome production also features Nell Geisslinger as Elizabeth's older sister, Jane, Judith-Marie Bergan as their busybody mother and Christian Barrillas as Mr. Bingley, a very rich, single and desirable young man.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

1/2

Director Christopher Liam Moore's woozy "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" deftly explores the darkness of Tennessee Williams' operatic drama.

Set in designer Christopher Acebo's exotic floating bedroom, a palpable sense of joyless humidity wafts from the stage. The dense atmosphere perfectly suits the story of unrequited desires and repressed sexuality.

The first act is given over to Stephanie Beatriz's angular Maggie and her litany of complaints against her relatives. As Maggie rants and rails, changing clothes, but mainly strutting around in her slip, husband Brick quietly drinks and listens. Of course, Danforth Comins' aloof, occupied Brick doesn't really want to listen, but his recently broken ankle leaves him captive to Maggie's aria of frustration and disgust.

Michael Winters' overbearing Big Daddy takes over in the second act with his own narrative, capturing slightly more of Brick's attention. The subject of both Maggie and Big Daddy's mostly solo conversations is the mute drunk Brick and how he became that way. Comins expertly layers Brick's detachment as he drinks himself toward oblivion.

The text used for this production is primarily Williams' 1974 revision, which makes Brick's personal dilemma more explicit and restores much of the incendiary language the writer intended. The production is all a Southern gothic drama should be.

Conflicting social conventions are at the heart of the stage adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

A bold version of "Hamlet" stars Dan Donohue, left, in the title role, with Jeffrey King and Greta Oglesby.

Stephanie Beatriz and Danforth Comins star in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival celebrates its 75th season this year by trying to build on its huge success and tremendously high standards.

Last year, OSF had a record total attendance of 410,034. It was quite an achievement for artistic director Bill Rauch, who now launches his fourth season in Ashland with an impressive notch in his belt.

Managing director Paul Nicholson attributed the success to high-quality, well-received productions and the relationship this festival has with its audience. He suggested there was smart, effective marketing by his staff as well. Reflecting on the past season, Nicholson said, "We're one of the few theaters in the country where putting on something like 'The Music Man' is a risk."

And it was a risk, because a big, mainstream singing and dancing musical is not what OSF's audiences have come to expect. The penetrating drama of last season's world premiere, "Equivocation," was more like it, yet both plays were embraced by audiences.

From Rauch's crisp, buoyant staging of "The Music Man" to Gale Edwards' chilling, hallucinatory vision of "Macbeth," last season's reviews were strong and, most important, all the play choices resonated with the audiences.

This year, Rauch's modernistic take on "Hamlet" pairs with the dramatization of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" as the festival centerpieces, which run all season.

There will be two world premieres as Richard Montoya and Culture Clash inaugurate the American History Play Cycle with their "American Night."

Also Ping Chong, a seminal figure in Asian American theater, premieres his adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood." After closing in Ashland, "Throne of Blood" will travel to New York for performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The 2010 season runs through Oct. 31, offering 766 performances of 11 productions in three venues.

HAMLET

As the audience enters the theater, a funeral viewing is already taking place on stage. Denmark's simple flag is draped over a closed casket and the tense, somber mood feels completely dictated by a slumped young man dressed in a dark suit, smoldering behind dark glasses.

Other figures drift in and out of the room until finally there is just the one man – Dan Donohue's audibly grieving Hamlet – staring at the casket. Then the stage and the house go dark and we're plunged into director Bill Rauch's challenging and tremendously satisfying modern take on "Hamlet."

Rauch makes so many bold choices throughout the production, it's impossible to sidestep his ideas. The director says he considers "Hamlet" an experimental play, and his decisions are in keeping with the play's progressive sensibility.

Hamlet's dead father, the ghost king haunting the story, is played by Howie Seago, a deaf actor who communicates through sign language. Hamlet signs with him and other actors often sign words when referring to him. At first the conceit seems awkward, but visual recognition of the physical motions gains resonance as the narrative develops.

The players who come to the castle are a hip-hop troupe, and their interlude is performed complete with a turntable-wielding DJ and Hamlet as the guest emcee. Though the characters are in contemporary dress, the castle's stone interiors feel period. The symbolic mash-up of eras has become one of Rauch's artistic trademarks.

Donohue's prince displays a searing temperament, but he also contains a generous empathy. His madness is not so much feigned as a cynical mocking reaction to the hypocrisy he sees all around him. Central to Hamlet's darkened world view are naturally his imperious Uncle Claudius (the authoritative Jeffrey King) now suddenly his stepfather, and his mother, Gertrude (the subtle Greta Oglesby). Oglesby moves Gertrude from detached and oblivious to eerily knowing and sorrowful. Susannah Flood's movingly conflicted Ophelia and Richard Elmore's comic Polonius add tragic humanity and simple charm.

Rauch's production smartly balances the play's endless bounty of big ideas with a poignant intimacy through fully realized characters.

WELL

1/2

The biggest problem with staging "Well" by playwright Lisa Kron is the absence of Lisa Kron the performer. Kron wrote the clever, esoteric meditation on wellness for herself.

A veteran of one-person shows, Kron is a distinctive, funny performer, an artless storyteller, and her work is expertly calibrated to her friendly persona and dexterous performance rhythms.

In "Well," Kron ostensibly lays out a story about her many years being unhealthy or sick, including time spent at a clinic for allergy testing. Her explanations of the sources of her illness and how she cured herself spin the play to an unforeseen conclusion.

As fine an actor as Terri McMahon is in portraying Kron, bringing her own comic sensibility to the production, it doesn't quite take hold. Part of the play's challenge comes from the stylistic tightrope Kron has created. Often stepping outside of the fourth wall frame to address the audience and stepping back in to act out "the story," there's already a built-in self-consciousness. Kron bridged the distance with her ease and affability – after all, it's her story, despite the contrivance.

McMahon is less successful, though Kron's intent comes through intact. The fine ensemble, which plays numerous characters, includes Gina Daniels, G. Valmont Thomas, K.T. Vogt and Brent Hinkley. Using Kron's often- distracted mother (Dee Maaske) as the unlikely focal point, the production intentionally lurches about, though here it seems more unsteady than ironic misdirection.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Former OSF artistic director Libby Appel's sleek and satisfying production of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" provides the most surprising emotion of any production in the festival's opening quartet.

Austen's classic novel of class and romance in the early 1800s maintains an earned fascination from its clear-eyed and satiric view of the now-vanished world it encompasses.

The central spirited characters are Kate Hurster's confident Elizabeth Bennet and Elijah Alexander's prideful Mr. Darcy. Finding themselves undoubtedly attracted to each other, they have the gulf of economics and stifling social conventions separating them.

The spare stage adaptation by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan relays Austen's satire of the social structures and also her underlying dissatisfaction with the restrictions. Staged as a quickly moving spectacle, Appel's handsome production also features Nell Geisslinger as Elizabeth's older sister, Jane, Judith-Marie Bergan as their busybody mother and Christian Barrillas as Mr. Bingley, a very rich, single and desirable young man.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

1/2

Director Christopher Liam Moore's woozy "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" deftly explores the darkness of Tennessee Williams' operatic drama.

Set in designer Christopher Acebo's exotic floating bedroom, a palpable sense of joyless humidity wafts from the stage. The dense atmosphere perfectly suits the story of unrequited desires and repressed sexuality.

The first act is given over to Stephanie Beatriz's angular Maggie and her litany of complaints against her relatives. As Maggie rants and rails, changing clothes, but mainly strutting around in her slip, husband Brick quietly drinks and listens. Of course, Danforth Comins' aloof, occupied Brick doesn't really want to listen, but his recently broken ankle leaves him captive to Maggie's aria of frustration and disgust.

Michael Winters' overbearing Big Daddy takes over in the second act with his own narrative, capturing slightly more of Brick's attention. The subject of both Maggie and Big Daddy's mostly solo conversations is the mute drunk Brick and how he became that way. Comins expertly layers Brick's detachment as he drinks himself toward oblivion.

The text used for this production is primarily Williams' 1974 revision, which makes Brick's personal dilemma more explicit and restores much of the incendiary language the writer intended. The production is all a Southern gothic drama should be.

Conflicting social conventions are at the heart of the stage adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

A bold version of "Hamlet" stars Dan Donohue, left, in the title role, with Jeffrey King and Greta Oglesby.

[1]Add Legion — a recent apocalyptic fantasy film starring Paul Bettany — to the long list of movies and TV shows about angels to totally miss the mark. Indeed, most pop-culture rangels -- such as Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life,  Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven, John Travolta in Michael, and Christopher Lloyd in Angels in the Outfield -- have been as annoying as, well, Hell. [2] But at least one recent angel has been tolerable -- even incredibly compelling. That's the sarcastic protagonist of Mercury Falls [3], a hilarious apocalyptic novel that has consistently ranked among the top ten best-sellers in the humor section of Kindle Books on Amazon (and which can be yours for a mere 99 cents [4]!), despite the fact that it's entirely self-published [5]. I recently asked the novel's author, Robert Kroese [6], a 39-year-old Bay Area computer programmer, to give me his list of the lamest angels of all time. And strangely, he complied. Probably because I went to junior high with him. And no, one of his choices isn't Kate Jackson from Charlie's Angels, pictured above. "She's freaking adorable," says Kroese. Tess (Della Reese) from Touched by an Angel "If heaven is populated by overweight, mannish angels who dispense homilies that manage to be simultaneously trite and nonsensical (‘You don't hit bottom ... you hit God'), count me out," says Kroese. Angel from The X-Men "What can you say about Warren Worthington III [7], aka Angel, aka Archangel?" he asks. "First of all, there are his superpowers -- er, power. He has just the one: He can fly, which puts him just below Tinkerbell [8] as a formidable superhero. "Then there's his origin: As a teenager, he mysteriously developed wings that allow him to fly. Top it all of with a truly imaginative name (seriously, was Stan Lee sick that day?), and you've got all the ingredients for a completely forgettable character." Roger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) from Angels in the Outfield "You knew this treacly 1994 Disney tale [9] had to make it onto this list somehow," says Kroese. "The tough part is picking which character best represents the movie's uneasy mix of cynical spirituality, juvenile humor [10] and calculated exploitation of personal tragedy. Surely Tony Danza has been beaten up enough, so I'll just go with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's 11-year-old Roger, the superfan who comes up with that annoying flapping cheer." Criss Angel "There's a name for people who do magic on TV that can't be replicated in real life," says Kroese. "They're called effects guys. "If I wanted to see two hours of pointless visual effects [11] broken up by annoying banter and lame attempts at drama, I'd pop The Phantom Menace [12] into the DVD player." Nicolas Cage in City of Angels "Cage plays an angel of death who starts to have second thoughts about his job when he meets cute-as-a-button surgeon Meg Ryan," says Kroese. "Contemplating giving up his immortality, he gushes, 'I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it.' Besides being unforgivably cheesy [13], the sentence doesn't even make grammatical sense. Would he settle for two out of three?" Brooke Hogan "Brooke 'Daughter of Hulk' Hogan earns her a spot on this list with the cover of her second album [14] (yes, she's had two), featuring an airbrushed picture that seems to have been lifted from the side of a conversion van of a mentally unstable stalker," jokes Kroese. "Call me crazy, but I prefer chubby Brooke [15] over a cross-eyed, anorexic rendition of Brooke that looks like it was painted by Napoleon Dynamite during his Xanadu phase." Precious Moments angels "If angels do exist," says Kroese [16], "let's pray that they aren't freakish, giant-headed toddlers with huge, tear-drop-shaped eyes and vestigial, bird-like wings. These cultish figurines [17] are sold as 'inspirational gifts,' but it's unclear what they're supposed to inspire us to do, other than puke." [1] http://www.amazon.com/Mercury-Falls-Robert-Kroese/dp/0578032147 [2] http://www.amazon.com/Mercury-Falls-Robert-Kroese/dp/0578032147 [3] http://www.amazon.com/Mercury-Falls-Robert-Kroese/dp/0578032147 [4] http://www.amazon.com/Mercury-Falls-ebook/dp/B002TG43WO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1266981616&sr=8-2 [5] http://mercuryfalls.net [6] http://twitter.com/robkroese [7] http://marvel.com/universe/Angel_(Warren_Worthington_III) [8] http://www.whataboutclients.com/archives/tinkerbell-pixie-1.jpg [9] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajBCBBR8RWg [10] http://www.starringthecomputer.com/snapshots/angels_in_the_outfield_newton_2.jpg [11] http://www.crissangel.com/Mindfreak [12] http://forums.heraldtribune.com/eve/forums/a/ga/ul/7611077288/inlineimg/Y/Jar-Jar-Binks-Poster-Card-C10227315.jpeg [13] http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4665911752857370590&ei=DHtJS4OKKI-KrAKG98CsAw&q=city+of+angels+nic+cage&hl=en# [14] http://idolator.com/5235392/brooke-hogan-takes-airbrushing-to-a-whole-new-level [15] http://bricksandstonesgossip.com/2009/12/31/brooke-hogan-bikini-pics [16] http://www.amazon.com/Mercury-Falls-Robert-Kroese/dp/0578032147 [17] http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2139

Recently released on iTunes and DIY- musician bastion CDBaby.com, Philly Comp One: How to Make an Arrow is the latest milestone in a burgeoning niche music scene that’s been fiddlin’ with big ideas.

The disk, curated over the last year by local musicians Joe Duffey and Dan Gallagher (Crow vs. Lion), is a collection of new songs, alternative versions and live tracks. Featuring music from 10 local acts—Hezekiah Jones; Spinning Leaves; Wes Mattheu & the New Way Down; Sisters 3; Your Midway Host; Joe Duffey and Whatever’s Clever; TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb; Christopher Bohn; Crow vs. Lion and the Great Unknown—the compilation is a tidy little sample of an often overlooked corner of Philly’s folk revival.

“The cool thing about it for me is that everyone’s at a different point in their pursuit of music, though we all do play shows together. I just wanted to make a good CD, a good mix,” says Gallagher.

Though Philly’s Espers anchor a more psychedelic strand of folk musicians who were plunked, alongside Devendra Banhart, into almost every article written three years ago heralding the arrival of “freak folk,” there hasn’t been too much mainstream notice of Philly’s rootsier brethren. Yet. Inspired by L.A.’s Hotel Cafe, the straight-shooting down-home revivalists hope to eventually tour the country under one banner.

“It’s amazing, it really is. There’s so many things going on, somebody’s got to find a way to put it out there,” says Duffey. “Why or how, I don’t know. But it’s happening. Philly’s just jumping right now.”

This latest burst of folk revival is made up of a rotating cast of 30 to 40 like-minded musician friends who, over countless gigs, bring-your-own-instrument house parties and collaborations, snowballed into an ever-expanding collective they refer to “our little music community.” Philly Comp One offers a good taste of what’s cooking, though future compilations would be wise to include tracks by Chris Kasper, who has been quietly emerging as one of Philly’s most distinguished songwriters and the festival-friendly good-time bluegrass outfit Wissahickon Chicken Shack to get a more complete snapshot.

The colorful hodgepodge of folkie folk can be traced in some ways to a cold-call MySpace email sent in 2005 from gypsy pixie Barb Gettes (now of Ropeadope Records’ duo Spinning Leaves, then a nervous girl who’d never sung into a mic before) to Raphael Cutrufello, the one-man band behind Hezekiah Jones of Yer Bird Records—who for my iTunes gift-card money, has been making some of the best records coming out of Philly of any genre since 2006’s Hezekiah Says You’re A-OK .

“I stumbled upon his music and obsessed over it,” says Gettes. “We decided to meet at a park and we were both petrified as we sang in front of each other because he was just leaving his band and I never sang in front of anyone.”

Though any hint of hierarchy is anathema to these kids, who go to great conversational pains to sing each other’s praises with equal heaps of enthusiasm (at least around reporters), it seems like that email and subsequent meeting is what sparked the scene in motion.

Cutrufello was working the door and occasionally booking shows at the Fire on Girard Avenue. Since he was just starting to test solo material, he started booking Gettes and other friends to fill out the bill and lighten the vibe. “Instead of walking in and not knowing anyone, we were able to book shows we like and make nights for ourselves,” says Cutrufello.

“We discovered we had a lot of friends in common and knew a lot of the same musicians, so we put a lot of residencies together at the Fire,” says Gettes. Then, Cutrufello would trade bills with out-of-town bands who wanted to play the Fire and they started hitting the road.

The pair, who say they “still get emotional after gigs” because of how far they’ve come along on mutual support, basically just kept networking and collaborating and soon a handful of new friends gigging together bloomed into a permeable collective who regularly share band members, bills and tour vans as their sound branches out further and further west.

“There’s a good folkie energy in Philly, and I think we’re like the next generation of that,” says Michael Baker, Philadelphian by-way-of Kentucky and the other Spinning Leaf. “That’s why Philly Folk Comp is a good thing for us, because part of our band has everything to do with the people we play around, you know.”

Though they’re not yet packaged and touring the country under one banner Hotel Cafe-style yet, they got things moving by founding Miles & Maggie Fest, a DIY summer folk fest established in 2008, and kick-starting a series of showcases last year at World Cafe Live called Philly Folk Parade.

What Baker said about the people they play around is obvious at the two Parade shows staged so far. They dissolve into sprawling, rambling affairs where most artists also play in every other artists’ set, at least singing back-up or shaking a tambourine, with all-stops-out numbers where everyone gathers onstage together in one big old kumbaya “We Are The World”-style finale. They all know each other’s songs and all sing along.

Some of the musicians are literally in every show, like Phil D’Agostino, arguably the hardest working bassist in local showbiz, who head-checks the full catalogue of all the groups’ songs since he regularly gigs with about seven of the acts.

Sharing band members makes it easier to share tour vans, which makes it easier to tour—with all the cost of touring and promoters not generally willing to bet a Friday night’s worth of cover charges on a band they’re not sure can draw, it’s a lot easier to book a gig if you arrive with three self-promoting acts ready to fill a bill with shared backline, players and minimal fuss. The Philly Folk Parade set out on a maiden mini-tour voyage this past December, have a show coming up in April and hope to get back on the road in May.

“It’s finally starting to happen, we’ve been plugging away for a few years now,” says Gettes, who recently returned from playing a string of dates in Moscow. “We’ll be on tour and everyone will be musing off of each other. It’s a pulsing thing. It’s just alive.”

This is quite long so I apologize, but I said I was going to do this so here it is. Over my time on this board I’ve noticed there seems to be a lot of negative things said about ‘80s music. It seems to have a bad reputation and I think it gets unfairly bashed around here. To be honest, I really can’t figure out why. Music from this period has always been my favorite, and I can’t find very much wrong with it. This thread is to present facts as to why the ‘80s were the last great decade – and doesn’t deserve the bad rep it unfairly gets (and hopefully get people to stop bashing it as much as they do). *VARIETY*: To start, there was an incredible variety of music that hit the top 40 and was heard on the radio; from hard-rock, soft rock, dance (disco), “alternative”, country, etc.; you could hear just about all of that in a typical top 40 countdown in any given week. For the most part, radio still embraced most of this music. You could hear just about all of the top 40 on most “hit” radio stations of the period. It wasn’t really until the very late ‘80s and early ‘90s it started to become fragmented and you had to listen to specific stations to hear specific music. The ‘80s really was one of the best eras for top 40 hits - almost every song had a catchy melody with good pop hooks and lyrics most people can relate to – isn’t that what top 40 music should be about? With the advancing technology, I always thought it was more “polished” than previous decades. *ARTISTS*: Think of the artists who broke through with their biggest – and in many cases best – hits during the ‘80s. Among them, Bob Seger (“Against the Wind” is his only No. 1 album), Bruce Springsteen, Van Halen, J Geils Band, Foreigner, AC/DC, Steve Winwood, John Cougar Mellencamp, REO Speedwagon (“Hi Infidelity”, a huge No. 1 album), Journey, Tina Turner (her comeback “Private Dancer”), Kool & the Gang, Peter Gabriel, Queen – the list goes on and on. Then there’s a great list of new artists who rose to fame in the ‘80s, placed singles into the top 40 and had significant impact – among them, Madonna, U2, Bon Jovi (all three still going strong to this day), Guns N Roses, Cyndi Lauper, Asia, Joan Jett, Men at Work, The Go-Go’s, Whitney Houston, George Michael, Janet Jackson, Def Leppard, REM, Prince, Bruce Hornsby, New Order, The Cure, Eurythmics, and for the “MTV generation” Duran Duran and the Human League. Not to mention Modern English’s “I Melt With You” and the debut by Tori Amos, neither made the top 40 but are significant today. How could you look at that list and say it wasn’t good? There’s got to be something there that you like! You’ve got your pop/rock, but also a lot of “alternative”-style bands who broke big as well. Artists like Rolling Stones, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, Elton John, Chicago, Stevie Wonder, the Beach Boys, Cars, Police, Heart, Little River Band, Pointer Sisters, Paul McCartney and George Harrison all continued along with hits. A-Ha became a one-hit wonder with the catchy “Take On Me”. Christopher Cross became almost a one-album wonder. Yes and Boston came back from nowhere to score No. 1 singles. Genesis went top 10. Stevie Nicks, Lionel Richie and Don Henley went out on their own. Bette Midler hit the top with “Wind Beneath My Wings”; Mike & the Mechanics with “Living Years” – both very meaningful songs. *THRILLER*: No ‘80s list would be complete without mentioning one of the best albums of all time “Thriller”. It’s still the best-selling album in worldwide history – a record it’s held for over 25 years. Record sales were slumping in the early ‘80s, but came back in a big way in ’83 when “Thriller” hit big. Just about everything benefitted from it as sales increased across the board and approached the levels seen in the late ‘70s, pulling the industry out its slump in the process and creating excitement again. *THE CHARTS*: Being a chart fan, I was amazed at all the chart records set during the ‘80s. To start, the 7 top 10 singles from “Thriller” (prior to that, nobody had more than 4), and 37 weeks at No. 1 on the album chart – a record for a pop album. Later, “Born in the USA” would tie it with 7 top 10 hits, as would his sister Janet in the ‘90s. Michael also broke the record for most No. 1 singles from one album, scoring 5 from “Bad” late in the decade. That record still stands. Although it doesn’t necessarily equate to quality, several longevity records were broken in the ‘80s. The song “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell set a record by staying on the Hot 100 for 43 weeks in 1982, a record it held until the chart rules changed in the ‘90s (although the 43-week mark was tied by another song in 1989). Other long runs were enjoyed by Laura Branigan’s “Gloria”, Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” and Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”, all staying on the charts more than 30 consecutive weeks. One of the things that made it interesting for chart fans! *HIT SINGLES*: The success of these singles pretty well caused a change in how record companies marketed albums. Having 5 or 6 hit singles from one album was unheard of in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but became quite common in the ‘80s. Many of those later singles were still big hits on their own (many going top 10 or No. 1), proving the strength of the music released. It’s not like today where you’re lucky to get 2 or 3 good songs – back then you were almost guaranteed to have at least half a dozen on each album! It proves the strength of the albums themselves that there were so many catchy top-40 hits on them. The music was stronger from start to finish through most hit albums. For those fans of rap, it started to become more mainstream in the later ‘80s. Although I’m not really a fan of the genre, the early rap was actually quite catchy, and the lyrics were cute – not as “in your face” as it is today. Much of the early rap was still played by top 40 radio – Run DMC, Young MC, LL Cool J, etc. Many top 40/adult stations shied away from it when it became more “aggressive” and dark in the ‘90s. *VINYL*: For vinyl lovers (like me) just about everything was still available on vinyl right up until the end of the decade, and most hit 45s were released with cool picture sleeves making them more attractive for the consumer. For CD lovers, the birth of the CD occurred during the ‘80s. In the past I’ve heard it said that the “video generation” downgraded music, but a lot of the ‘80s videos, especially some of the early ones were really quite good and inventive – better than many you see today. Stuff like “Take On Me”, “Thriller”, “Tell Her About It”, “Heat of the Moment”, to name a few. *IN SUMMARY*: What's not to like? Now that I’ve presented some of the highlights, how can you say it wasn’t good? Just about any type of music you liked you could easily find. To me, it really was the best decade. I think it’s miles ahead of the ‘60s - I know this forum is really Beatles-centric, but can anybody reading this say that the Beatles didn't produce some "clunkers" as well? I cite "I Am the Walrus" as an example of this. There’s no comparing the '80s to the disappointing music of this past decade. It seems that rap and grunge ruled for a large part of the ‘90s, and rap (unfortunately) continues to be dominant to this day. The ‘70s had some good stuff but a lot of lacklustre stuff as well. As a whole, the ‘80s really were the last great decade – better than anything before or after. Well...maybe I won't change anybody's minds but at least I've gotten that off my chest and hopefully produced some good arguments about why the '80s were better than a lot of people here seem to think :)

With the tagline "Does for rock and roll what The Sound of Music did for hills," we wonder if you can possibly refuse this week´s SubCinema screening. The film in question is This Is Spın̈al Tap, a mockumentary about the fictional heavy metal band Spın̈al Tap. That is, a fake documentary about a fake band - that became real in the process. Well, kind of real anyway.

It all started back in 1979, when Spın̈al Tap first appeared on a failed 1979 ABC TV sketch comedy pilot called "The T.V. Show", starring Rob Reiner, later the director of This Is Spın̈al Tap. The ABC sketch was a mock promotional video for the song "Rock and Roll Nightmare", written by Reiner and the band. The members were portrayed by Michael McKean (as David St. Hubbins), Christopher Guest (as Nigel Tufnel) and Harry Shearer (as Derek Smalls).

And so five years later, in 1984, the band became the subject of the film This Is Spın̈al Tap. A soundtrack album with the same name was released and ever since this the band has toured and released music under the name of Spın̈al Tap. Throughout the years the much devoted fan base have collected details about the band based on their fictional performances, films, albums etc.

There is even a fake history written about the band, including a list of the band's former members. This includes a succession of drummers, all said to have died in strange circumstances: one in a "bizarre gardening accident," another "choked on someone else's vomit," and two from "spontaneous human combustion" onstage. It has also been claimed that police described one of the deaths as "a mystery better left unsolved".

The trio of actors portraying Spın̈al Tap have occured in many other shapes and alter egos. One example was in 2003 when they reunited as the 1960´s American folk music revival band The Folksmen in the mockumentary A Mighty Wind. In June last year Spinal Tap performed at Wembley Arena with The Folksmen as support, or should we say as the opening act - anything else is impossible. Another fun fact you might not be aware of is that the man behind the voice of Ned Flanders, the next door neighbor to the Simpson Family, is the Spın̈al Tap member Harry Shearer.

The band has reunited several times, in 1992, in 2001, in 2007... at a concert aimed to fight global warming. "They're not that environmentally conscious, but they've heard of global warming" as Marty DeBergi, one of the fictional characters in This Is Spın̈al Tap (played by director Rob Reiner), put it. "Nigel thought it was just because he was wearing too much clothing - that if he just took his jacket off it would be cooler." In connection to this environmentalist reunion the band also released the new song "Warmer Than Hell".

One of the latest releases from the band was in August last year when they released a seven minute short film titled Stonehenge: ‘Tis a Magical Place celebrating their 25th anniversary. The film depicts the members of Spın̈al Tap as they make a pilgrimage to Stonehenge for the first time.

Well, the hilarious stories about Spın̈al Tap could go on forever, and for anyone interested there are loads of info and trivia about them and their film(s) laying around on the internet. One good portal to start from is this fan page or the so called official website. If you wanna become really well-read on the topic, you can read film scholar Ethan de Seife´s cultography about the film. We've done some research on the author and yes, he actually seems to exist. Enjoy!

Check out what other movies are showing in Shanghai this coming week. Links lead to info about times and venues.

MOVIE EVENTS

• 2010 Mexican Bicentennial Film Festival: Organized by the Consulate General of Mexico and Spain in Shanghai, this month-long festival will give viewers the rare chance to watch the best Mexican films ever. Over the four weekends, you´ll see movies made from the 40s to the 70s directed by Luis Buñuel and some of the country´s other great filmmakers. Go to our website to see a detailed screening schedule. RSVP required. In Spanish with English subtitles. Free. 7pm (Fri.), 5pm (Sat.)
• Secret Cinema at Vienna Café: Thursday 25 February will be Vienna Café´s Secret Cinema night. What film it is going to be won´t be announced until you sit down and the lights are out. Curious what film it's going to be? Sorry, Vienna Café can't tell you yet. English subtitles. Time: 19:30.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE MOVIES

• Gamer (天地逃生): Set in a future-world where humans can control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments, a star player from a game called "Slayers" looks to regain his independence while taking down the game's mastermind.
• Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (波西·杰克逊与神火之盗): It's the 21st century, but the gods of Mount Olympus and assorted monsters have walked out of the pages of high school student Percy Jackson's Greek mythology texts and into his life. And they're not happy: Zeus' lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect. Even more troubling is the sudden disappearance of Percy's mother. As Percy finds himself caught between angry and battling gods, he and his friends embark on a cross-country adventure to catch the true lightning thief, save Percy's mom, and unravel a mystery more powerful than the gods themselves. The movie is produced by Chris Columbus,who has formerly directed and/or produced "Home Alone", "Mrs. Doubtfire", "Gremlins" and the Harry Potter movies.
• Sherlock Holmes (大侦探福尔摩斯): Sherlock Holmes, the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who first appeared in publication in 1887 has made it to movie theatres in many different versions. This time under the direction of Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Detective Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart partner Watson engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis whose plot is a threat to all of England.
• Avatar: (阿凡达): James Cameron is back with this super expensive sci-fi thriller in 3D. Follow ex-marine Jack (Sam Worthington) as he explores planet Pandora as an avatar; a human mind in an alien body. On this paradise-like planet, he faces hostilities from exotic life forms and falls in love with a female alien. This movie used ground-breaking techniques and is being shown in 3-D. In English or Chinese depending on the cinema.

CHINESE LANGUAGE MOVIES

• Martial Spirit (武动青春): In "Martial Spirit", three young chase their dreams with martial-art. The film stars Ao Quan, Theresa Fu, Da Zhang Wei and A Wei, although a lot of Ao Quan´s acting gets neglected since, according to some disappointed netizens, his voice has been dubbed.
• Storm Rider - Clash of the Evils (風雲決): This animated feature film directed by Dante Lam is based on the Wuxia Chinese comic series Fung Wan by Ma Wing Shing. The film is a spinoff of the original story and the two protagonists Wind and Cloud. The residents of Sword-Worshipping Manor, which houses the best sword-smiths in the world, are brutally massacred after they are alleged to be plotting a rebellion against the government. The young master of the manor, Ngou Kuet, is the only survivor. Ngou Kuet vows to finish forging the "Kuet" Sword, a task passed down by generations of his family which has yet to be completed. Ngou Kuet attacks Tin Ha Wui and battles with Wind and Cloud to obtain the blood of the Fire Kirin which can unleash the power of the sword. As the blood of the Fire Kirin runs in Wind's veins, he becomes Ngou Kuet's primary target.
• 72 Tenants of Prosperity (七十二家租客): A "throw-in-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-oh-what-the-heck-throw-that-in-too comedy". The story is a love triangle - two men in love with the same girl. One wins, the other loses, and they become enemies. But something larger happens that forces the men to form an uneasy alliance, along with their 70 fellow shopkeepers on the street: An evil landlord is set to raise the rent on the 72 tenants, threatening their economic survival.The film is a Lunar New Year's comedy, a movie genre that is often unabashedly silly with a childlike playfulness, with the simple mission to instill 90 minutes of happiness. "72 Tenants of Prosperity" certainly aims for that, but producer-director-star Eric Tsang has something more on his mind. His inspiration is the 1973 classic "The House of 72 Tenants," a film that broke Hong Kong box-office records set by Bruce Lee and became something of a cultural phenomenon. Tsang opens his film with the same style of credits, the same opening gag, and a spot-on re-creation of 1970s Hong Kong filming style.
• Little Big Soldier (大兵小将): Little Big Soldier is a 2010 Chinese action-adventure/comedy film directed by Ding Sheng and produced and written by Jackie Chan, also starring Chan and Leehom Wang. An old soldier kidnaps a young general of an enemy state and takes him on a long journey to collect the reward.
• True Legend (苏乞儿): Set at the turn of 19th and 20th century, the story of begins with Su Can, a wealthy man who loses all his fortune and reputation as a result of a conspiracy against him. After being forced out onto the streets, he dedicates his life to martial arts and reemerges as a patriotic hero as he challenges foreign fighters at a boxing ring. The story is loosely based on the life of Su Can, nicknamed Su Qi Er (Su the Bagger), who developed his own fighting style, known as "drunken fist". This is Yuen Wo-Ping's first directorial work since 1996 and may also give a major boost to the career of 37 year old China's born martial-art star Zhao Wenzhuo.
• Hot Summer Days ( 全城热恋): "Hot Summer Days" unites a galaxy of stars in China's show business, including Jacky Cheung, Rene Liu, Nocholas Tse, Barbie Hsu, Daniel Wu and Vivian Hsu. The film consists of six intertwining love stories, all set in a stifling and sultry summer. As Valentine's Day this year falls on the first day of Chinese lunar new year, the release date for "Hot Summer Days", February 11th, was chosen to coincide with the big occasion, aiming for a lion's share of the movie market.
• Fortune King is Coming To Town (财神到): This Chinese New Year celebration comedy tells a story that is very similar to "Santa Clause is coming to Town". Fortune King is a Chinese god who comes down from heaven to the earth to give money to people, similar to what Santa does for children. In this flick The God of Fortune is rushing to Earth, and a congregation of people must first finish a hilarious joke of a financial task before he comes. Lead Actor Tan Yonglin says the Fortune King only help people who watch out. "Our film is more than fun. If you don´t work hard, Fortune King will know and refuse to help you. The movie also tells us to open our heart and love others."
• 14 Blades (锦衣卫): Daniel Lee´s martial arts epic stars certified Kung Fu badass Donnie Yen in the role of Qinglong, or Green Dragon. He is the best of the so called Jinyiwei, an imperial elite force of assassins recruited from street orphans. Jinyiwei were masters of the 14 Blades, eight being for torture, five for killing, and the last blade being reserved for suicide when a mission failed. When the emperor is kidnapped and the court taken over, Qinglong takes on the mission of restoring the emperor to power. Also starring Vicki Zhao and Chun Wu.
• McDull Kung Fu (麦兜响当当): In animated feature "McDull Kung Fu Kindergarten," Hong Kong's most iconic cartoon porker goes to learn martial arts at Wudang, birthplace of Taichi, to prove that pigs can fly-kick at a national championship.
• Royal Tattoo (Huang Jia Ci Qing, 皇家刺青): The film is a costume kung fu comedy with a mix of a Chinese version of Prison Break. It´s a humorous reinterpretation of a classic plot about a Qing Dynasty royal secret treasure and tattoo treasure map.
• Jing Tian Dong Di (惊天动地): Local directors Wang Jia and Shen Dong´s latest disaster flick was shot in the earthquake-stricken areas of Sichuan, "Jing Tian Dong Di" recalls the quake by following one of the PLA´s rescue troupes in this fictional retelling. The cast of well-known actors includes Li Youbin, You Yong and Hou Yong. Mandarin only.
• Sophie's Revenge (非常完美): This Rom-com, directed by ambitious U.S.-educated director Jin Yimeng, marks Zhang Ziyi's debut as a producer. The movie follows Sophie (Zhang Ziyi) and Jeff (Jisub So) as an engaged couple that rides an emotional roller coaster right before the wedding. Mandarin only.
• Empire of Silver (白银帝国): This Shanghai International Film Festival winner features Aaron Kwok, Hao Lei and Zhang Tieling. Directed by Christina Yao, the film is set in the late Qing Dynasty and follows a carefree young man who is the reluctant heir to his father’s banking empire. Mandarin only.

OTHER LANGUAGE MOVIES

• Yuet Gwong Bo Hup / Just Another Pandora's Box (越光宝盒): Hong Kong director Jeffrey Lau, the director of last years "Metallic Attraction: Kungfu Cyborg" is already out with another comedy. With "Just Another Pandora's Box" he´s trying to make fun of many classic movies, including one of his own, "Chinese Odyssey". The story revolves around a bandit and an immortal girl who is in love with him, as they travel back to the Three Kingdom Period, on the eve of the Battle of Red Cliff...Or as another plot summary tells it: an idiot embarks on an adventurous journey with the help of a magic box during the period of the Three Kingdoms in ancient China.
• Kandidaten / The Candidate (迷魂陷阱): In this Danish thriller directed by Kasper Barfoed we meet Jonas Bechmann, a defense attorney who is a man of the system, until the day he himself is accused of murder. Taking matters into his own hands, he throws himself into the hunt for a group of blackmailers who threaten to expose him as the killer. But nothing is what it appears to be, and the blackmail links back to his father's death under mysterious circumstances a year and a half earlier. In
• K-20 (变相黑侠): Set in a fictional Japanese city in 1949, a master criminal hones in on his latest victim. Screen idol Takeshi Kaneshiro is back and this time hes showing his respect for Lupin, Raffles and all the great thieves and masked penny dreadful heroes of the turn-of-the-century in this massive steampunk blow-out directed by Shimako Sato, one of the few female directors in the big budget end of the Japanese film industry.
• We Are From the Future / Back in Time (古墓迷途): This russian flick from 2008 takes place in sunny, groovy present day St.Petersburg and during the fierce defence of the city in 1942. Four friends, a student, a skinhead, a geeky gamer and a rapper make their cash looking for Nazi relics from WWII. Motivated by greed they are hip, cynical and have no respect for the past. During a dig they stumble upon a bombed out bunker full of valuable treasures but also something strange. Among the documents belonging to a Red Army officer they find a photograph of themselves. Trying to come to their senses they dive into a nearby lake and surface… to a spray of gunfire in 1942.
• La habitación de Fermat / Fermat´s Room (极限空间): Fermat's Room is a 2007 Spanish thriller film directed by Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña. Three mathematicians and one inventor are invited to a house under the premise of solving a great enigma, and told to use pseudonyms based on famous historical mathematicians. At the house, they are trapped in a room. They must solve puzzles given by the host, who calls himself "Fermat," in order to escape the slowly closing walls of the room.Four mathematicians who do not know each other are invited by a mysterious host on the pretext of resolving a great enigma...
• 7th Grade Civil Servant / My Girlfriend is an Agent (特工强档): This slick and tense thriller with comedic elements from South Korean director Shin Tae-ra concerns an aggressive unit of the Russian mafia, detached to infiltrate Korea and filch a cutting-edge chemical weapon. The Korean government issues two secret agents to stop the Russians - both masked by undercover identities: Ahn Soo-ji (Kim Ha-neul), a tough-as-nails female martial arts pro who continues to draw the envy of all of her colleagues, and her male counterpart, klutzy and inept rookie Lee Jae-joon (Kang ji-Hwan), whose unfortunate presence leads to a series of outrageous blunders. Complicating matters, it seems, is the fact that the couple (polar opposites, who hate each other passionately), were once romantically involved.
• Ne te retourne pas / Don´t Look Back (不要回头): A 2009 psychodrama about a photographer whose pictures tell a different story to that of her perception. Directed by Marina de Van and starring Sophie Marceau and Monica Bellucci. The film is in French and Italian.

The Conservative party's calls for immediate cuts to the economy have been met by a growing chorus of criticism, warning that this risks sending the economy back into recession (Report, 8 March). The government was right to stimulate the economy with a variety of measures last year and so offset some of the worst effects of the recession. Yet, as some of the world's leading economists have pointed out, the fragile nature of the recovery means that fiscal stimulus is still required. However, according to the IMF, Britain is one of only two G20 countries not currently planning any such fiscal stimulus in 2010.

A programme of government investment would not only stimulate the wider economy in the short term, but would increase long-term growth, thereby lowering the debt levels through a higher tax take. To this end, we encourage the chancellor to use the forthcoming budget to announce a second fiscal stimulus – especially in housing and transport, where investment has fallen most, and with a focus on developing a low-carbon economy – which would both help to secure economic recovery and create much needed jobs.

Colin Burgon MP

Alex Smith, Editor, Labourlist

Austin Mitchell MP

Anne Cryer MP

Alexandra Kemp, Chief Executive, West Norfolk Women and Carers' Pensions Network (personal capacity)

Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy, NUS National Officer

Billy Hayes, General Secretary, CWU

Byron Taylor, National Trade Union Liaison Officer, Trade Union & Labour Party Liaison Organisation (TULO)

Cat Smith, Vice Chair, London Young Labour

Chris Edwards, Senior Research Fellow, UEA,

Chris McCafferty MP

Chris McLaughlin, Editor, Tribune

Christopher Cramer, Professor of Political Economy of Development, SOAS

Clifford Singer, Director, The Other TaxPayers' Alliance

Colin Challen MP

Compass Youth Executive

Dave Anderson MP

David Drew MP

Dai Havard MP

Dave Prentis, General Secretary, Unison.

David Hamilton MP

Diane Abbott MP

Denis Murphy MP

Edward O'Hara MP

Ellie Gellard, Labour blogger

Grazia Ietto-Gillies, Emeritus Professor of Applied Economics, Director Centre for International Business Studies, London South Bank University

Glenda Jackson MP

Gerry Doherty, General Secretary, TSSA

Gordon Prentis MP

Prof. George Irvin, Univerity of London, SOAS.

Professor Ian Gough, Professorial Research Fellow, LSE

Hugh Lanning PCS Deputy General Secretary

Hywel Francis MP

Harriet Yeo, Labour Party NEC

Hilary Wainright, Co-Editor, Red Pepper

Ismail Erturk, Senior Lecturer in Banking, Manchester Business School

Janet Dean MP

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Jim Cousins MP

Jim Sheridan MP

Jon Cruddas MP

John Austin MP

John Ross, Editor, Socialist Economic Bulletin

John Weeks, Professor Emeritus of Economics, SOAS, University of London, and former director of the Centre for Development Policy and Research.

Jonathan Rutherford, Professor of Cultural Studies, Middlesex University

Katy Clark MP

Karen Buck MP

Keith Norman, General Secretary, ASLEF

Ken Livingstone

Kevin Maguire, Associate Editor, Mirror

Kelvin Hopkins MP

Martin McIvor, Editor, Renewal

Malcolm Sawyer, Professor of Economics, University of Leeds

Mehdi Hasan, Senior Editor (politics), New Statesman

Michael Connarty MP

Michael Meacher MP

Mick Shaw, President, FBU

Mike Wood MP

Michael Burke, Economist and contributor to Socialist Economic Bulletin

Neal Lawson, Chair, Compass

Neil MacKinnon, Chief Economist, VTB Capital

Paul Kenny, General Secretary, GMB

Paul Truswell MP

Paul Sagar, New Political Economy Network.

Pat Devine, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Manchester

Peter Kilfoyle MP

Peter Willsman Labour Party NEC

Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, University of Essex

Richard Ascough, Regional Secretary, South Eastern GMB

Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research UK

Roger Berry MP

Robin Murray, Fellow, Young Foundation, Author of Danger and Opportunity:Crisis and the New Social Economy

Roger Godsiff MP

Ronnie Campbell MP

Sam Tarry, National Chair, Young Labour

Sunder Katwala, General Secretary, Fabian Society (personal capacity)

Susan Himmelweit, Professor of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University

Terry Rooney MP

Tim Roache, GMB Yorkshire Regional Secretary

Tony Juniper, environmentalist

Tony Woodley, Joint General Secretary UNITE

Will Straw, Editor, Left Foot Forward

• Madeleine Bunting is spot on (Comment, 8 March). Why on earth is Labour stumbling into an election playing to Tory rules? Who decided the public were not capable of understanding it will take time – and a strategy of growth and investment – to recover from the disaster brought about by the clowns of finance? Instead we are supposed to choose between competitive cuts manifestos which are financially illiterate. The economy should not be subjected to a choice between losing an arm or a leg when it should be given a hand up.

Ric Carey

Southsea, Hampshire

• Reading Madeleine Bunting's article, I was struck by everyone's reluctance to ask the beneficiaries of the last 10 boom years – those who made money out of property and shares, or saw huge pay increases – to pay something back to help repair the public finances. It's perverse that low-paid workers should have to pick up the tab.

Scott Wilson

St Andrews, Fifeshire

Corey Haim, who starred in popular teen comedies including Lucas (1986), License to Drive (1988) and Dream a Little Dream (1989), as well as Joel Schumacher’s 1987 cult hit The Lost Boys, has died at 38 of what is believed to be an accidental drug overdose.

The troubled actor revealed in a 2004 interview with the UK Sun the extent of his longtime battles with addiction. Frequent co-star Corey Feldman, who attempted a comeback of sorts with Haim on A&E’s short-lived (but never less than fascinating) reality series The Two Coreys, mourned the death of his “brother” as a tragic loss.

Haim, who had a small but memorable role in last year's Crank: High Voltage, will not be remembered as his generation's greatest living actor, but to kids who grew up in the 1980s, myself included, he was, for a brief time, wildly popular. He made his big-screen debut in Michael Apted's Firstborn (1984), starring opposite Teri Garr, Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr.

Arguably, Lucas remains his best and most widely beloved film, though Lost Boys has enduring as an enjoyably goofy spin on the vampire genre. His last movie, the upcoming thriller American Sunset, will be released this fall.

Elsewhere...

Music by Prudence producer Elinor Burkett, who interrupted director Roger Ross Williams' acceptance speech at this past Sunday's Oscars, says she was "big-footed" on stage.

Farrah Fawcett was famously excluded from the Oscar telecast's tribute to the recently deceased. It was not an oversight.

Co-host Alec Baldwin says the Academy Awards overlooked (500) Days of Summer, and he's right.

Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, originally scheduled for an Apr. 23 release, will now open Sept. 24.

Evan Rachel Wood has walked away from Julie Taymor's new Broadway musical, Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark.

Writer-director Noah Baumbach (Greenberg) has been tapped to rewrite an upcoming heist movie long associated with Rush Hour 3's Brett Ratner.

The 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, which begins Apr. 21, has unveiled its lineup.

Robert De Niro has agreed to star in a proposed ESPN biography of legendary football coach Vince Lombardi.

Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) is preparing a second sequel to Batman Begins and a new Superman reboot.

A new John Hughes script has surfaced.

Could Warner Brothers be returning to the land of Oz?

The Pac-10 released its all-conference awards and California senior Jerome Randle beat Washington senior Quincy Pondexter for the Player of the Year award.

Here's the how the awards were doled out from the conference coaches.

Player of the Year: Jerome Randle, California
Coach of the Year: Herb Sendek, Arizona State
Freshman of the Year: Derrick Williams, Arizona
Defensive Player of the Year: Seth Tarver, Oregon State
Most Improved Player of the Year: Nikola Vuceviic, USC

ALL-PAC-10 TEAM
FIRST TEAM
Name! School ! Pos! Yr! Ht! Wt! Hometown (Last School)
Ty Abbott! ASU! G! Jr.! 6-3! 207! Phoenix, Ariz. (Desert Vista HS)
Patrick Christopher! CAL! G! Sr.! 6-5! 215! Compton, Calif. (Dominguez HS)
Landry Fields! STAN! G/F! Sr.! 6-7! 200! Long Beach, Calif. (Los Alamitos HS)
Quincy Pondexter! WASH! F! Sr.! 6-6! 215! Fresno, Calif. (San Joaquin Memorial HS)
Jerome Randle! CAL! G! Sr.! 5-10! 160! Chicago, Ill. (Hales Franciscan HS)
Michael Roll! UCLA! G! Sr.! 6-5! 200! Aliso Viejo, Calif. (Aliso Niguel HS)
Isaiah Thomas! WASH! G! So.! 5-8! 180! Tacoma, Wash. (South Kent School, Conn.)
Klay Thompson! WSU! G! So.! 6-6! 200! Ladera Ranch, Calif. (Santa Margarita HS)
Derrick Williams! ARIZ! F! Fr.! 6-8! 235! La Mirada, Calif. (La Mirada HS)
Nic Wise! ARIZ! G! Sr.! 5-10! 180! Houston, Texas (Kingwood HS)

SECOND TEAM
Jamal Boykin! CAL! F! Sr.! 6-8! 230! Los Angeles, Calif. (Duke/Fairfax HS)
Jeremy Green! STAN! G! So.! 6-4! 190! Austin, Texas (Bowie HS)
Calvin Haynes! OSU! G! Jr.! 6-2! 185! Reseda, Calif. (South Kent Prep)
Theo Robertson! CAL! F! Sr.! 6-6! 225! Pittsburg, Calif. (De La Salle HS)
Nikola Vucevic! USC! F! So.! 6-10! 220! Bar, Montenegro (Stoneridge Prep)
Honorable Mention (receiving at least three votes): DeAngelo Casto (WSU, So., F), Derek Glasser (ASU, Sr., G), Dwight Lewis (USC, Sr., G), Roeland Schaftenaar (OSU, Sr., F/C), Seth Tarver (OSU, Sr., G/F).

PAC-10 ALL-FRESHMEN TEAM
Name! School ! Pos! Ht! Wt! Hometown (Last School)
Tyler Honeycutt! UCLA! F! 6-9! 180! Los Angeles, Calif. (Sylmar HS)
Trent Lockett! ASU! G! 6-4! 211! Minnetonka, Minn. (Hopkins HS)
Reggie Moore! WSU! G! 6-2! 178! Seattle, Wash. (Brewster Academy, N.H.)
Reeves Nelson! UCLA! F! 6-8! 225! Modesto, Calif. (Modesto Christian HS)
Derrick Williams! ARIZ! F! 6-8! 235! La Mirada, Calif. (La Mirada HS)
Honorable Mention (receiving at least three votes): E.J. Singler (ORE, G/F).

PAC-10 ALL-DEFENSIVE TEAM
DeAngelo Casto! WSU! F! So.! 6-8! 231! Spokane, Wash. (Ferris HS)
Jorge Gutierrez! CAL! G! So.! 6-3! 185! Chihuahua, Mexico (Findlay College Prep (Nev.))!
Justin Holiday! WASH! F! Jr.! 6-6! 180! Chatsworth, Calif. (Campbell Hall HS)
Venoy Overton! WASH! G! Jr.! 5-11! 185! Seattle, Wash. (Franklin HS)
Seth Tarver! OSU! G/F! Sr.! 6-5! 205! Portland, Ore. (Jesuit HS)
Honorable Mention (receiving at least three votes): Eric Boateng (ASU, Sr., C), Patrick Christopher (CAL, Sr., G), Marcus Johnson (USC, Sr., F), Nikola Vucevic (USC, So., F).

The morning of the Oscar nominations, I got a surprise. None of the nominations themselves were very surprising, but when I was going through and counting the past number of nominations for each nominee, I was surprised to learn that Christopher Plummer, at age 80, and a full fifty years after his motion picture debut in Sidney Lumet's Stage Struck, received his very first one. And frankly, he has thrown a monkey wrench in all my predictions and prognostications. It's his first nomination, he's 80 and he's playing a real-life person -- Leo Tolstoy, no less -- in The Last Station (352 screens). It doesn't even matter that the movie isn't very good and that Helen Mirren steals the movie away from him as Tolstoy's long-suffering wife. Plummer has become a serious contender.

Plummer has enjoyed one of those amazing careers as a supporting actor, having appeared in a broad range of interesting movies, but never stealing anyone else's thunder. In his early days, he worked with Nicholas Ray and Anthony Mann. Both Spike Lee and Terry Gilliam have worked with him twice. He was in The Sound of Music, even if everybody remembers Julie Andrews. He was in The Man Who Would Be King as Rudyard Kipling, even if everybody remembers Michael Caine and Sean Connery. He was Hamlet, Cyrano de Bergerac, Sherlock Holmes, Santa Claus, and Mike Wallace (in The Insider). He can appear in movies as disparate as The Return of the Pink Panther, Dragnet (1987), or Oliver Stone's Alexander, and come away unscathed, still distinguished enough for casting consideration the next year.

Filed under: Oscar Watch, Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows

Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Calling the Plummer

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Tim Burton seems like the perfect director to bring the nonsensical classic Alice In Wonderland to 3-D life, but critics say the most surprising thing about the film, opening today, is that it feels like yet another CGI fantasy movie.

Alice In Wonderland has been reinterpreted in film numerous times since it the book it is based on was published in 1865, and here Burton creates a sort-of sequel to the original. The film starts with brief visions of Alice (Mia Wasikowska) as a child dreaming about the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), then flashes forward to Alice as a 19-year-old. At a party for her engagement to a dull Victorian aristocrat, Alice sees the rabbit again and follows him down a tunnel into Wonderland, which she learns is actually called "Underland." Since Alice last visited, the place has deteriorated under the rule of the evil and bratty Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and her henchman the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover). Alice is told by the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman) (the "smoking caterpillar" who earned the film a PG rating), that it's up to her to kill the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee), and return the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), the Red Queen's sister, to the throne. Along the way she encounters various outlandish characters from the original story, including the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Matt Lucas), and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp).

The reviews for Alice In Wonderland are mixed. Critics don't mind Burton making Alice an adult, and though some say it is a "refreshingly feminist version of the classic hero," others complain that the film feels too much like every other fantasy epic. Though the young hero charged with defending the world against the forces of evil is a woman for a change, many reviewers mention that the CGI battle at the end resembles Lord of the Rings too closely, i.e an action movie. In general the graphics are impressive, but the 3-D version of the film isn't as immersive as Avatar because it was shot in 2-D, then elements of each scene were converted.

Wasikowska is almost universally praised for her performance as Alice, and Bonham Carter's Red Queen is singled out as one of the movie's high points. Critics are divided about Depp's Mad Hatter — while he's proven numerous times that he has a knack for playing flamboyant, unhinged characters, reviewers say that this time, "it's hard to see anything genuinely moving behind his tics and mannerisms."

Below, the reviews:

Washington Post

[Burton's] most nervy decision — making Alice a 19-year-old young woman on the verge of a tiresome marriage — also proves to be his best. Alice in Wonderland is not just a refreshingly feminist version of the classic hero quest but a forum for a terrific breakout performance from newcomer Mia Wasikowska... Burton's signature gnarled, gothic aesthetic runs through Alice in Wonderland, which features Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, he of the oddly dilated pupils and accents that run from a lusty Scottish brogue to an upper-crusty lisp. It's worth the price of admission if only to hear Depp give sonorous voice to Carroll's slithy toves and borogoves, but it's the women who steal the show, from the somber, self-possessed Wasikowska (familiar to fans of HBO's In Treatment) to Bonham Carter's scenery-chewing tantrums, to Hathaway's very funny turn as a too-too good girl. Alice in Wonderland is being shown in 3-D, but the most stunning effects lie in the film's ingenious makeup and costumes, as well as tricks that elongate or fatten the characters' bodies (or, in the case of Bonham Carter, inflate her head to dirigible-like proportions).

NPR

Alice also has the misfortune of being the first major 3-D release to arrive after the Avatar revolution. Considering that Burton chose to shoot in 2-D and have the footage converted, this film plays like one of the last gasps of the old-school way of doing things. What's even more unfortunate is Burton's attempt to turn his film into a Wonderland version of The Lord of the Rings, complete with massed forces of good and evil headed toward a sadly generic CGI battle to end all battles. With those battle scenes to please the boys, the film has taken special care with the girls, providing images of Alice as a warrior princess in full Joan of Arc armor as an icon of female empowerment. That kind of thing is always in short supply, but it would be nicer if that image - and the movie as a whole - felt more authentic and original. That would really be a wonder.

The Boston Globe

It says a lot about this movie, though, that Carter's role is now essentially a reprise of the White Witch in the Narnia films, a beastly diva who needs to be vanquished for peace to reign once more over Underland (not Wonderland; apparently the young Alice was hard of hearing). Nor do you need to be a film freak to ID the movie's other elements and influences; you just need to have seen enough blockbusters and played a few video games. There are bits of The Lord of the Rings, Shrek, The Wizard of Oz, The Princess Bride, even The Golden Compass, all given a wash of chic Gothic gloom. I'm not accusing Burton of intentional theft, just of working within a profitable mainstream fantasy-action framework that by now feels over familiar even to the 12-year-old who sat next to me at the screening. In its big-budget extraordinariness, Alice is awfully . . . ordinary.

The Los Angeles Times

There's no denying Depp's gifts and abilities, but this performance feels both indulgent and something we've all seen before. What is even more unfortunate is the film's attempt to turn itself into an Underland version of The Lord of the Rings, complete with massed forces of good and evil inevitably headed toward a sadly generic CGI battle to end all battles... With those battle scenes in place to please the boys, Burton and company have taken special care to provide pictures of Alice as a warrior princess in full Joan of Arc armor as a female empowerment icon for the girls in the audience. While that kind of thing is always in short supply, it would be nicer if that image — and the movie as a whole — felt less like corporate moves and more like situations that came from the heart.

New York Magazine

Alice in Wonderland is (in many theaters) in 3-D, but Burton doesn't seem the least bit interested in Avatar-like immersion. The faker the better. The topiary and hedges create orderly layers of space, and the foreground figures often resemble cardboard cutouts-which strikes me as exactly how it should be, given the characters' playing-cards origins. The meeting of Red and White Queens on a great chessboard battlefield is gorgeous-and the clash that follows is choreographed and designed with such wit and elegance that it puts to shame the longer, more elaborate battles in other recent fantasy films (among them-dare I say?-The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Bonham Carter's bratty insouciance will impress you more if you haven't seen its obvious antecedent, Miranda Richardson's peerless Elizabeth I in Blackadder II ("Who's Queen?"), but it's still screamingly funny. And Burton made the right call in casting Mia Wasikowska instead of a swan-necked Keira Knightley type. The part of Alice is compromised by what showbiz people would call her new "character arc," but Wasikowska, as she proved on the HBO show In Treatment, can seem at one moment overdefended and the next poetically transparent. Burton, bless him, knows you can't CG a soul.

The Chicago Sun-Times

This has never been a children's story. There's even a little sadism embedded in Carroll's fantasy. It reminds me of uncles who tickle their nieces until they scream. Alice plays better as an adult hallucination, which is how Burton rather brilliantly interprets it until a pointless third act flies off the rails... Here I must apologize to faithful readers for repeating myself. Time after time I complain when a film develops an intriguing story and then dissolves it in routine and boring action. We've seen every conceivable battle sequence, every duel, all carnage, countless showdowns and all-too-long fights to the finish. Why does Alice in Wonderland have to end with an action sequence? Characters not rich enough? Story run out? Little minds, jazzed by sugar from the candy counter, might get too worked up without it? Or is it that executives, not trusting their artists and timid in the face of real stories, demand an action climax as insurance? Insurance of what? That the story will have a beginning and a middle but nothing so tedious as an ending?

Rolling Stone

Depp is a marvel as the Hatter, orange hair sprouting as a result of poisoning from the mercury used in making hats. He handles Carroll's language so well that you wish more of it had slipped into the script. Love for Alice shines out of his eyes. But those hoping for a peek into the alleged perversity of Carroll's interest in young girls won't find it here. Still, even Disney and a PG rating can't bury Burton's subversive wit. Like Carroll, he's a master at dressing up psychic wounds in fantasy. If you're looking for the trippy bounce of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" with its wisdom in the shrooms, it can be found. Like Alice, you just have to dig for it.

The A.V. Club

The best adaptations have found ways to put a personal stamp on the familiar stories. Others have simply reproduced an Alice facsimile in the image of their own era. Surprisingly, Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland belongs to the latter camp. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad movie, just another frustratingly impersonal one from a director who once had trouble compacting his personality down to movie size. Filled with 3D-friendly CGI landscapes and roaring beasties, Burton's Alice borrows characters and settings from Carroll, but otherwise trashes Wonderland (or "Underland," as Disney veteran Linda Woolverton would have it in her screenplay). Gone: the liquid reality of dreams and a sense that anything can happen. In its place: another story of quests, destinies, and chosen ones. The Jabberwocky, March Hare, and Cheshire Cat all appear, but absent Carroll's hallucinatory playfulness.

USA Today

As Alice, Mia Wasikowska is pitch-perfect, looking the part and capturing her sense of innocence... But Burton also wisely calls upon his dual muses, Johnny Depp as the addled Mad Hatter, and Helena Bonham Carter as the imperious Red Queen. Depp is terrific as the carrot-topped, wonky-eyed Mad Hatter, a character given more depth than in previous clownish incarnations. Bonham Carter, though, steals the show with her hilarious verbosity. There's a lot more to her than fiery exhortations of "Off with your head!" However, heads loom large for her. She sports a particularly outsized and bulbous cranium, the object of much jesting. The Mad Hatter admires her protruding skull unabashedly: "I'd love to hat it," he burbles.

Salon

Depp, in particular, gets lost in the shuffle. The Mad Hatter, as Burton has reimagined him here, with a matted puff of red hair and perpetually dilated crazy-ass eyes, is something of a lost soul, the very type of character that Depp is generally so wonderful at playing. But it's hard to see anything genuinely moving behind his tics and mannerisms. Even though Burton and Depp have done some wonderful work together — in movies like Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow — it's gotten to the point where I prefer to see Depp in performances where he's not hidden under "Look at me!" makeup. There's a point at which perpetual collaboration between a filmmaker and an actor becomes a liability, and Depp and Burton may have reached it, at least for now. Alice in Wonderland does offer its share of slender pleasures: Wasikowska plays Alice as bright and unassuming, and watching her is never a chore, even when the story devolves into a "Girls can do cool stuff, too!" empowerment tale.

The New York Times

Mr. Depp's strenuously flamboyant turn embodies the best and worst of Mr. Burton's filmmaking tendencies even as the actor brings his own brand of cinematic crazy to the tea party. With his Kabuki-white face, the character seems to have been calculated to invoke Heath Ledger's Joker, though at his amusing best the Hatter brings to mind a strung-out Carrot Top. But Mr. Depp doesn't have much to do, which he proves as he wildly flirts with the camera. The only time the character hooks you is in the shivery moment when his gaze turns predatory as he looks at Alice, who, every inch a Tim Burton Goth Girl, from her corpselike pallor to her enervated presence, presents a more convincing vision of death than of sex. That queasy, potentially rich and frightening moment expectedly fades as fast as the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), which doesn't leave you with much else to hold onto, Alice included. Mr. Burton's heroine is a wan figure to hang an entire world on, and Ms. Wasikowska, who's a livelier, truer presence in the forthcoming The Kids Are All Right, barely registers among Mr. Burton's clanging and the computer-generated galumphing.

The Wall Street Journal

Ms. Bonham Carter's star turn in a secondary role is exquisite for its precision and economy. In writing about her performance as the pie maker Mrs. Lovett in Mr. Burton's Sweeney Todd, I admired her song-and-dance-woman's sense of timing, and that's vividly in evidence once again. When the Red Queen says "I need a pig here," it's a regal request for a footrest issued casually; she is clearly accustomed to comforting her feet with warm pork bellies. Mr. Depp can be a phenomenal performer too, but not this time. Like the production as a whole, his Mad Hatter is an agreeably whimsical yet unsurprising assemblage, while Ms. Bonham Carter's absolute monarch is a force of unnature and a triumphant illogician.

Entertainment Weekly

The challenge of adapting Alice in Wonderland is this: How do you create relationships, a story, a purpose out of a tale whose prime purpose is not to have one? Tim Burton, with his crazy love for rabbit-hole alternative worlds (Beetlejuice), baroque oddballs (Batman, Edward Scissorhands), and kiddie fables told with a cynical wink (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), would seem to be the perfect director to adapt Carroll's legendary tale and make a memorable, zany-dark movie out of it. But Burton's Disneyfied 3-D Alice in Wonderland, written by the girl-power specialist Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast), is a strange brew indeed: murky, diffuse, and meandering, set not in a Wonderland that pops with demented life but in a world called Underland that's like a joyless, bombed-out version of Wonderland. It looks like a CGI head trip gone postapocalyptic. In the film's rather humdrum 3-D, the place doesn't dazzle - it droops.

Inspired by the dancing of Pavlova and Fonteyn, Ashton's lyrical, restrained choreography created a very English kind of ballet

In short

Frederick Ashton was an outsider who became an insider. Raised in South America, he moved to the UK in 1919 and went on to embody the "English style" of ballet – lyrical rather than dramatic, preferring nuance over statement – and moved into the highest echelons of English society.

Backstory

Ashton was born in 1904 in Ecuador, and raised in Peru. At 13, he was smitten by ballet after seeing a performance by Anna Pavlova. At 14, he was sent to an English boarding school, which he hated, and where he was teased for his Spanish accent (he quickly lost it). He began taking classes in London, aged 20, first with Léonide Massine, then with Marie Rambert, both former members of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Rambert spotted his precocious talent for choreography, and Ashton made his first piece for her in 1926, the witty one-act A Tragedy of Fashion. In 1928, he went to France to perform with Ida Rubinstein's company, where he danced with both Massine and Bronislava Nijinska. Returning to London the following year, he made a string of further pieces, first for Rambert and then for Ninette de Valois, as well as working in revues and musical comedy. In 1935 De Valois invited him to join the Vic–Wells (later Royal) Ballet, where he encountered a young dancer called Margot Fonteyn. She was to become his muse, and together they embodied the Royal Ballet until Ashton's retirement in 1970.

In the early days, Ashton was forever hanging around with artists, aristocrats and assorted "bright young things" – a blithe spirit that his work reflected. That changed in 1939, with his mother's death and the outbreak of the second world war, during which Ashton served in the RAF. He returned to dance with a new depth, finding his mature voice in works such as Symphonic Variations (1946) and the first full-length British ballet, Cinderella (1948). He was made assistant director of the Royal Ballet in 1952 and director in 1963, presiding over its "golden age" until he was replaced by Kenneth MacMillan in 1970. The mishandling of his departure caused much bitterness, but Ashton continued contributing occasional pieces to the Royal repertory almost until his death in 1988, though he often felt more appreciated in America than in Britain. The question of how to preserve, maintain or revitalise Ashton's legacy remains hotly debated to this day.

Watching Ashton

Though Ashton's choreography encompasses many modes – mime, pantomime, pure classicism, popular and folk dances – you could see it as essentially influenced by three women. Foremost is Pavlova, who inspired his undying love of classical technique, and of all the "carry-on" that accompanies ballet: its airs and graces, its manners and mannerisms (Ashton's love of the pantomime dame is the flipside to this reverence). Second is Nijinska, whose innovative use of the upper body affected Ashton's technique, where the head, shoulders, arms and hands are much more articulated than in the more "leggy" Russian or American styles. Third is Isadora Duncan, for whom deep-felt sincerity, simplicity of action and seriousness of intent were the motives behind steps and style.

Ashton's early works tended towards witty, chic studies of modern mores. After the war, he turned towards abstract work, concentrating on formal composition in masterworks such as Symphonic Variations and Scènes de Ballet (1948). But there is always a sense of human subtext, and he soon began making more dramatic works, including Cinderella, Ondine (1958) and La Fille Mal Gardée (1960). But narrative drama was never his main interest, it was more a context in which to present nuances of character, emotion and relationship. His later works compress stories to these essentials: The Dream (1964, from Shakespeare), Enigma Variations (1968, a series of character studies based on the score by Elgar), and A Month in the Country (1976, from Ivan Turgenev).

Ashton often encoded his own biography in his ballets. Bisexual as a youth and later gay, the objects of his romantic and sexual desire – often distanced in terms of age, geography or affection – fuelled his work. Julie Kavanagh's definitive biography Secret Muses explains the background, though you don't need to know it to appreciate the ballets.

Whatever piece you watch, see if you can spot the Fred step, a little signature that Ashton put into many of his works, like a lucky charm. He got it from Pavlova.

Who's who

Other than Fonteyn, Ashton's favoured dancers included Nadia Nerina, Lynn Seymour, Antoinette Sibley and Lesley Collier among the women; Michael Somes, Brian Shaw, Alexander Grant and Anthony Dowell among the men.

His "dearest friend, closest collaborator" was Sophie Fedorovitch, who designed several ballets for him before her untimely death in 1953. Dancer and designer William Chappell remained a close friend from the mid-20s and throughout Ashton's life.

Fact

Ashton became good friends with the Queen Mum: they would have "zonking martinis" together after picnics at Sandringham.

In his own words

"The idea so often expressed that classical technique is hampering to artistic expression is erroneous and misleading."
Ashton, "A Word about Choreography" in Dancing Times (1930); quoted by R Glasstone (1994)

"I have been working to make the ballet independent of literary and pictorial motives … it must survive though its dancing qualities, just as drama must survive through the richness of the spoken word."
Ashton, "Notes on Choreography" (1951) in W Sorrell, The Dance Has Many Faces (1966)

"I believe simply that a ballet must be a good work of art, that it must express the choreographer's vision of experience as truthfully and beautifully as possible. Insofar as it does this, it will express his most profound sense of values and thus be likely to concern itself with matters of more permanent significance than topical issues. He should deal with that which is spiritual and eternal rather than that which is material and temporary."
Ashton (1959) in Ballet Annual, quoted by D Vaughan Frederick Ashton and His Ballets (1976)

In other words

"The steps do not look like school steps (though they are as a matter of fact correct); they are like discoveries, like something you do not know you can do, with the deceptive air of being incorrect and accidental that romantic poetry has."
Edwin Denby in Modern Music (1939), reprinted in Denby, Dance Writings (1986)

"The more trivial the subject, the deeper and more beautiful is Ashton's poetic view of it."
Denby again, Ballet (1952)

"We all know that he was a consummate storyteller when he wanted to be, but he told his stories and created his characters through the steps: you know what his people are like and what they are feeling because of how they dance."
David Vaughan in Following Sir Fred's Steps (1994)

"A note of charity pervades many Ashton ballets, as does charity's frequent partner melancholy. To that combination add wit … and restraint, and you have a fine bouquet of English traits – above all, the traits of the English novel, from Jane Austen down through Penelope Fitzgerald. Like those writers, Ashton used this equipment to unearth feelings that we barely knew we had but which, once he showed them to us, we realised we'd been living on our whole lives."
Joan Acocella, New Yorker (2004)

"Fred was not a happy man; much of his adulthood was spent half-consciously seeking unrequited emotional situations that would inspire him and activate what Petrarch called the resonance of sighs. But sorrow had its beauty: from it came the ballets."
Julie Kavanagh in her biography of Ashton, Secret Muses (1996)

Do say

"Posé en arabesque, coupé dessous, petit développé à la seconde, pas de bourrée dessous, pas de chat."

(The technical description of the "Fred step".)

Don't say

"Kenneth MacMillan was better." (Believe me, some people still find the Ashton/MacMillan divide a hotter topic than whether True Blood beats Buffy. Newsflash: they're not even playing on the same pitch.)

See also

Ashton is often considered the "other" choreographer to have defined 20th-century ballet, alongside George Balanchine. He is often also contrasted with Kenneth MacMillan, who succeeded him at the Royal Ballet. Ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and contemporary choreographer Richard Alston have both been inspired by Ashton. Merce Cunningham also shares an affinity with Ashton, in the fleet footwork and the articulate upper body (both choreographers trace a link, via teacher Margaret Craske, to the ballet master Enrico Cecchetti).

Now watch this

Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell in Cinderella, with Ashton and Robert Helpmann in pantomime-dame mode as the Stepsisters

A recent production of the 1946 Symphonic Variations

Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in Marguerite and Armand (1963), introduced by Ashton

Tamara Rojo in Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan

Anthony Dowell and Lynn Seymour, A Month in the Country

Fonteyn in Salut d'Amour, choreographed for her 60th birthday gala – a memory of the many roles that Ashton made for her. Ashton joins her at the end for a gentle version of the "Fred step".

Where to see him next

La Fille Mal Gardée, Royal Opera House, London, From 9 March until 28 April 2010.

Filed under: Television

BV Buzz was surprised to learn that ABC Family has canceled its hit drama, 'Lincoln Heights.'

The show's star Russell Hornsby shared the news with BV Buzz at an NAACP Image Awards pre-gala last week; however The Walt Disney owned cable channel announced on Jan. 29 that it would not renew the series.

Incidentally, 'Lincoln Heights' took home a trophy for Outstanding Drama Series at the NAACP Image Awards, beating out 'Grey's Anatomy,' 'Cold Case,' 'HawthoRNE' and 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency!'

'Lincoln Heights' debuted in 2007 and aired for four seasons. The show starred Hornsby, Nicki Micheaux, Erica Hubbard, Mishon Ratliff and Rhyon Brown.

The series followed a Los Angeles police officer and his family as he uprooted them from the suburbs to the former inner-city neighborhood where he grew up.

Music stars like Angie Stone and Trey Songz guest-starred on the drama, which currently airs in re-runs on the cable network TV One.

*****

For related stories, read 'Pooch Hall: Talks 'Stomp The Yard 2' & Whether 'The Game' Will Air On BET'

& 'Vanessa Williams: Sad To See 'Ugly Betty' End.'

 

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• Naomi Campbell's driver says she hit him from behind and his head struck the steering wheel while they were on the road in Manhattan. When he pulled over, Naomi bolted from the SUV and police are still looking for her.

• Police are still deciding whether they'll charge Naomi, who has previously pled guilty to assaulting household employees and two police officers. Her spokesman said, "There shouldn't be a rush to judgment... Naomi will cooperate voluntarily, and there is more to the story than meets the eye." [AP]
• Police have interviewed the 27-year-old driver and Naomi Campbell's assistant, who hired him for the day. The driver said he has "bumps and bruises" from the attack. [N.Y. Post]
• Lindsay Lohan gave another British tabloid an interview. This time she told OK! that rehab was like a "vacation," and admitted that she still drinks. "When I was in school I didn't drink, or even try one, until I was probably 18. Literally, and I'm not lying about that. I'm just some sort of a target for some reason! I'm made out all the time to be the bad guy!" she said, adding, "I write a lot and it's very therapeutic for me because then I can see what's happening on paper. I've started writing a book. It's going to take a while, all my life experiences. I started writing it a year ago. There's a lot to put down, you know?" [OK!]
• Earlier, Randy Jackson said a stun gun Jermaine Jackson's 13-year-old son bought online was locked up by Katherine Jackson. Now sources say Michael Jackson's kids have been playing with it and security guards, "stopped Jermaine's kids from stunning Blanket." Social workers from L.A.'s Department of Children and Family Services visited the house and confiscated the stun gun last night, but sources say the kids stashed another stun gun somewhere on the property. [TMZ]
• DCFS social workers are still investigating the case. Katherine Jackson's lawyer says, "Mrs. Jackson is doing the utmost to safeguard the welfare of her grandchildren." [TMZ]
• Brittany Murphy's husband Simon Monjack wasn't shocked to find that he isn't named in her will. "I was not included in Brittany's will at my own request. I knew I would never need the money," Monjack said. "Brittany and [her mother] Sharon created Brittany's incredible career together. The high earning years were behind her at the time we married and I always wanted Sharon to have financial security if God forbid anything happened to Brittany. Sharon has offered to split everything with me and I have declined." [Radar]
• Lil Wayne's sentencing was delayed again today. He was ready to start serving his expected year-long jail term, but a fire shut down the court house. He may be sentenced tomorrow. [AP]
• Prison won't stop Lil Wayne from releasing new music: He filmed nine music videos in the past two days, and he'll release a new album soon after his release. [People]
• Sources say Tiger Woods and his family have returned from a week of family counseling in Arizona, and now he's living at his home in Isleworth, Florida again. [TMZ]
• Marie Osmond's son Michael Blosil was living in student housing at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising University when he killed himself. A classmate says, "The whole dorm is upset and most people didn't even know him. My roommate was outside when he hit the sidewalk and they tried to resuscitate him, but he fell from the eighth floor so there was nothing they could do. She's a wreck right now." [Radar]
• Bristol Palin is in L.A. filming an appearance on The Secret Life of the American Teenager and two PSAs about teen pregnancy. [Radar]
• Chynna Phillips has withdrawn the divorce papers she filed against Billy Baldwin. "They're not getting divorced," said her manager Lizzie Grubman. "She filed and withdrew. They are going to work out their issues." [People]
• Oscars spoilers: Neil Patrick Harris and Martin Short will open the show, not hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. [Deadline.com]
• Tom Cruise has been going out to dinner with Sumner Redstone, who ended his deal at Paramount a few years ago. [Showbiz 411]
• Gross: Hailey Glassman mocked Jon Gosselin by posting a photo on Twitter of a man's penis with a ruler showing how short it is and writing: "yes you know wh this...belongs to.I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit. EW the torture!" [Radar]
• Ashley Roberts and Kimberley Wyatt have quit the Pussycat Dolls. Roberts says she's, "gotten the acting bug and am falling in love with it." Wyatt declared cryptically, "money and fame can't buy happiness." [BBC]
• Good thing Taylor Swift's been practicing her surprised face: She's been nominated for five Academy of Country Music Awards, including entertainer of the year. [NYT]
• Today on the CBS Early Show, Howard Stern called Jay Leno a "lap dog," accused him of stealing material from himself and David Letterman, and announced, "The mere mention of Jay Leno's name makes me wanna vomit. I don't like this guy." Clearly! [TMZ]
• When asked what kind of husband Simon Cowell will be, Ryan Seacrest said, "Self-centered! ... "I hope that if they are building a life together, there aren't too many mirrors around to distract him from his girlfriend!" The article claims he was joking. [Us]
• In this commercial for The Marriage Ref, Larry David says it's "the most uncomfortable hour of [his] life" and Madonna responds, "Why? Is it because you're sitting next to a woman who's standing up to you?" [The Sun]
• Pam Anderson says of being a Dancing With The Stars contestant, "I'm having the best time. is will keep me out of trouble." [People]
• Sarah Polley removed her name from The Heart, a two-minute film she directed about female cardiac health that will air in Canada during the Academy Awards because she found out that it is being used to promote the Unilever brand margarine Becel. [Hollywood Reporter]
• A beer ad starring Paris Hilton has been pulled from Brazilian TV after people complained that it's too sexy. [AP]
• Sexually-active adult Ryan Phillippe shopped for condoms at CVS and this is news. [E!]
• Leona Lewis says the rumors that she got breast implants are not true. "It's weird that people look at you like that. I wouldn't go up to someone and say, 'Oh my God, look at your bust,'" she said, "That's very strange to me, it's just too personal." [Daily Mail]
• Robert Pattinson was given a "modesty patch" to use while filming sex scenes for Remember Me. "Mine was made out of half a bra and some wig tape, which took me 35 minutes to actually figure out how to stick on and then it just fell off immediately," he said. "You're so obsessed whenever you have to do any nudity stuff. You're like, 'Yeah, I definitely need this thing on.' ... And then you get there and as soon as you're standing naked in front of everyone you don't care anyway. It's actually quite liberating." [AP]
• Jeff Beck says the rumor that he was the inspiration for This Is Spinal Tap isn't true. "I think the hair was (based on mine) but it ends there. I knew that Christopher Guest had been watching me but Nigel is based on different characters from glam rock. Ironically, I was the only one who wasn't glam rock. I loved every minute of that movie," he said. [Daily Express]
• Nicole Richie doesn't give Joel Madden fashion tips. "[Men's fashion] is such a different world and something I know nothing about. If I said ‘Vans,' he'd probably be like, ‘No, no. It's Nike.' So, it's better not to even to go there," she said. [People]
• Stephen Moyer says he and fiancée Anna Paquin, "Haven't been working together that much this year and I kind of miss that... We met during the show, we met on camera, we met doing something that we love and that's what we do. And I really miss her when Bill's been taken [away]." [People]
• Chloe Sevigny says she actually likes the outfits she wears on Big Love: "It was always a fantasy of mine growing up - my favorite program was always Little House on the Prairie - so I always wanted to wear those looks. When I was a child, I wouldn't let my mom put me in anything but calico dresses and now ... whaddaya know, every day I'm in a calico dress, basically, so it's kind of funny." [NPR]
• 16-year-old singer Daisy Dares You says she was excited to meet Courtney Love recently in London, "I got to hang out with her which was great. I'm a huge, huge fan. She invited me to a Hole gig and told me I reminded her of herself when she was my age with my wild hair and babydoll face. She said she was a fan of my music and that I had beautiful hands to play guitar with." [The Sun]
• Ron Howard says, "My daughter Bryce has a son who's almost three. And I love being with him. I didn't remotely understand how profound the experience of being a grandparent is until you become one. It's interesting, when you become a grandparent you start bumping into other folks who have had that experience. And there's this sort of wink and a nod like it's sort of a club or something." [Parade]
• Donald Trump says he's boycotting Italy while Amanda Knox is in prison and may donate money to her family. "There's no evidence that links her to this crime other than she said some stupid things after being tormented for hours and hours and hours," Trump said. "It's amazing a lot of people in Italy think she's guilty, but the evidence isn't there. Even the prisoners think she's innocent. They have a better instinct than you or I." [UPI]
• "I've never done an easy movie, so I don't know what that would feel like. It's not that I try to find ways to make it hard, it's just that I go after goals that are by definition difficult. And I think that my crew loves that. I think they love the challenge-they know that they're going to be doing their personal best on the film and I know that it is going to be a personal best moment for me. I want to try and challenge myself beyond what I've done before. It makes it hard, it makes it stressful, but I find that I work best under stress. I work best at the solving of real-time problems that couldn't be anticipated. Maybe in another life I could have been an ER triage guy." — James Cameron [WSJ]
• Sean Penn says of Best Supporting Actor nominee Woody Harrelson, "The Messenger is one of those rare platforms for a familiar American actor to reinvent himself. Woody Harrelson conjures a heart and presence of previously untapped immensity and emotional power. He deserves a BIG nod. He's done the hardest thing an actor can do. He's made something new." [People]
• Cate Blanchett says, "With my film choices it used to be a question of, 'Who's directing it?' Now it's, 'How long is the shoot and where are they filming?' Recently I said yes to something because filming is in the Easter holidays. The children need to be in school now. The main priorities are the children. The day begins at about 5.30am - my youngest is an early riser. After breakfast, I walk the kids to school - they go to the state primary at the end of the street." [Daily Express]
• Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga says she still wonders if filming Up In The Air two weeks after giving birth was worth it. "I could never reclaim these first precious moments of maternity," she says. "[But] I needed to pay my mortgage. It wasn't an option. I had to do the role." [Us]
• When ask if Cosmo's tips on how to please a man actually work, Ed Westwick said, "I don't know, I don't read them and try pleasing men." [WSJ]

Just a reminder, if you haven't caught the latest, or any, episode of the Radio Shakesville podcast, you should do so now. I've links and playlists below for each show.

Plus they're available on iTunes if you're into that. If you don't like Apple, try Feedburner. The RSS is here, if you'd rather go that route.

You can put them on your iPod or Zune and listen to them on the subway or burn them to CD and listen to them in the car. Whatever. And if you've a request, call (641) 715-3900, extension: 44515. Also accepting: Insults, recipes, and declarations of love.

Radio Shakesville:

Episode 17: Burn, Baby, Burn!
February 29, 2010
57 minutes

Marvin Gaye: Got To Give It Up
The Floaters: Float On
Parliament: Flashlight
The Temptations: Papa Was A Rollin' Stone
The Trammps: Disco Inferno


Episode 16: Upload With People
January 26, 2010
63 minutes

FraidyKat: Free Improvisation
Nancy Lorenz (AKA Napalmnacey): New Lovin'
The Matthew Show: The World Of One Percenters
HBB & The Special Guests: I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll
Sarah Bernard: A Sunny Day In Montreal
Clare Worley: Mariolina
Lady & the Tramps: Liberate Yourself
The Guilloteens: Evil Morning Kills Me
Space Cowboy: Tune Of Roger
Kate Saik: Allerseelen
Miranda K. Pennington: My Johnny Has Gone For Soldier
Suzanna Winter: Stars and the Moon
Shiyiya: Where Did The Cro-Magnons Turn Wrong
Meghan Bell: Girl Child
Jocelyn Craig : I Won't Go Back
Kathy McCarty: Raining
OK OK OK: Distance


Episode 15: Christmas In Space
December 15, 2009
71 minutes

Vince Guaraldi Trio: Christmas Is Coming
Elvis Presley: Santa Claus Is Back in Town
Mojo Nixon & The Toadliquors: Mr. Grinch
Otis Redding: Merry Christmas Baby
Booker T. & The MG's: White Christmas
The Emotions: Black Christmas
Rufus Thomas: I'll Be Your Santa Baby
The Staple Singers: Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas?
Eddie Dunstedter: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
The Mistletoe Disco Band: Jingle Bell Rock
Ray Anthony: Christmas Trumpets/We Wish You A Merry Christmas
Bessie Smith: At The Christmas Ball
Nancy Wilson: What Are You Doing New Years Eve?
Julie London: I'd Like You For Christmas
Al Caiola And Riz Ortolani: Holiday On Skis
Alvin Stoller: Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo
Dick Shawn: Snow Miser
The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Jingle Bells
Eels: Christmas Is Going To The Dogs
Death Cab for Cutie: Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Coil: Christmas Is Now Drawing Near
Tori Amos: Christmas In Space
Sufjan Stevens: That Was The Worst Christmas Ever
Badly Drawn Boy: Donna And Blitzen


Episode 14: Fever
December 14, 2009
71 minutes

Adam Lambert: Fever
Chemical Brothers: Orange Wedge
Flight of the Conchords: Fashion
Psapp: Cosy in the Rocket
The Brady Bunch: Frosty the Snowman
Ray Bloch Singers: Honey/Hey Jude
Earth, Wind and Fire: Serpentine Fire
April Young: Steady Boyfriend
Gary Stevan Scott: Mariachi de los Tres Ninjas
Fishbone: Just Call Me Scrooge
Johnny Cash: Look At Them Beans
George S. Irving: Heat Miser
The Klezmer Conservatory Band: Meron Nign
Wilhelm Gieseking: Piano Sonata No. 17
Annie Lennox: Heaven
Dubstar: Jealousy
R.E.M.: 2JN
Geronimo Jackson: Dharma Lady
Duran Duran: 911 Is A Joke


Episode 13: Saudade
November 30, 2009
79 minutes

Johanna's House of Glamour: The Unfolding
Love and Rockets: Saudade
Jürgen Knieper: Radio Berlin
Carter Burwell: Velvet Spacetime
This Mortal Coil: Song to the Siren
Peter Gabriel: Open
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Shadow
Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke: Sacrifice
Severed Heads: Wonder of All the World
Christophe Beck: Restless
Moodswings: Hairy Piano
Gary Numan: Down In The Park
William Orbit: Opus 132
Antony Cooke: Kol Nidrei
Kronos Quartet: Fratres


Episode 12: Goodbye Horses
November 16, 2009
67 minutes

Intro (Neu!: Für Immer)
The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir: One Night Stand
The Shangri-Las: The Train From Kansas City
The Righteous Brothers: Little Latin Lupe Lu
Patti Smith: The Histories of the Universe
Spinn: O Nutria
Lionel Belasco: Miranda
Brian Unger: Coldplay Accused Of Plagiarism ... Again
Coldplay: Viva La Vida
Break (Neu!: Hallogallo)
John Clarke, MD: H1N1 Rap
Essie Jenkins: The 1919 Influenza Blues
Kirk McGee & Blythe Poteet: C-H-I-C-K-E-N Spells Chicken
The Happy Moog: Saturn Ski Jump
Carol Steinel: Bad Karma
Dolly Parton: Jolene (Live)
Tom Waits: Get Behind The Mule (Live)
Q Lazzarus: Goodbye Horses
Outro (Neu!: Isi)


Episode 11: Werewolves On Wheels
October 31, 2009
65 minutes

Ted Cassidy: The Lurch
Los Straitjackets: The Munsters
Christopher Walken: The Raven
Kirsty MacColl: Halloween
Eels: My Beloved Monster
Born Losers: Werewolves on Wheels
David Lindley: Werewolves of London
Oingo Boingo: Dead Man's Party (Live)
The Pogues: Worms
Gothic Archies: Walking My Gargoyle
Gavin Friday: For Annie
Billy Murray: The Skeleton Rag
Swingtips: Grim Grinning Ghosts
Marianne Faithfull: Annabel Lee
The Cramps: Surfin' Dead
Dream Syndicate: Halloween


Episode 10: Oh What a Beautiful Morning
September 18, 2009
62 minutes

Eels live, Daisies of the Galaxy tour, 2000:
Feeling Good
Overture
Oh, What a Beautiful Morning
Abortion in the Sky
It's a Motherfucker
Fucker
Ant Farm
Climbing to the Moon
Vice President Fruitley
Hot and Cold
Grace Kelly Blues
Daisies of the Galaxy
Flyswatter
Mr. E's Beautiful Blues
Not Ready Yet
Something Is Sacred
Susan's House


Episode 9: We Sing In Time
September 1, 2009
77 minutes

Intro (Iggy Pop: Repo Man)
Arctic Monkeys: Cornerstone
The Lonely Forest: We Sing In Time
The Smiths: Shakespeare's Sister
Rhett Miller: Song for Truman Capote
Rupert Holmes: Escape (The Piña Colada Song)
Edison Lighthouse: Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)
The Bridges: Pieces
Allen Ginsberg: I Am A Victim Of Telephone
Seat Belts: Tank!
Ira Newborn: Weird Mama
The Three Suns: Colonel Bogey March
Martin Denny: Busy Port
Marjoe Gortner: Lover's Lane
Nita Rossi: Untrue Unfaithful (That Was You)
Morcheeba and Anthony Bourdain: Lisa
Chumbawamba: Homophobia
Woody Guthrie: Vigilante Man
Marlene Dietrich: Illusions
William S. Burroughs: Burroughs Called the Law
The Rattles: The Witch
Shakespeares Sister: Stay
The Cookies: I Want a Boy for My Birthday
Cat Stevens: Don't Be Shy
Outro (Iggy Pop: Nam Opera)


Episode 8: Moonage Daydream
August 5, 2009
65 minutes

Richard O'Brien: Science Fiction/Double Feature
Moby: We Are All Made Of Stars
Kraftwerk: Die Roboter
Tubeway Army: (When The Machines Rock) Praying To The Aliens
Les Baxter: Saturday Night On Saturn
The Velvet Underground: Satellite Of Love
Pray For Rain: Plutonium Card
MC 900 ft Jesus: UFOs Are Real
The Timelords: Doctorin' The Tardis
Sigue Sigue Sputnik: Aliens
Blur: Peter Panic (Beagle 2)
Vangelis: Tears In The Rain
David Bowie: Moonage Daydream (Weeping Wall)
Supergrass: Jesus Came From Outta Space
Richard O'Brien: Science Fiction/Double Feature (Reprise)


Episode 7: The Day The World Turned Day-Glo
July 17, 2009
79 minutes

Intro (Duke Reid: Loving Serenade)
Pearl Bailey: One Man (Ain't Quite Enough)
Elijah Black: Smile for Me
Soft Cell: Down in the Subway
Missing Persons: I Like Boys
X-Ray Spex: The Day The World Turned Day-Glo
Michael Mills: Satanic Messages in Rock Music (Part 5)
George Jones: Unwanted Babies
The Pretenders: Everyday Is Like Sunday
Rod Hart: CB Savage
Fountains of Wayne: The Valley Of Malls
Break (UB40: Dance With the Devil)
Haircut 100: Milk Film
Redskins: It Can Be Done
The Cure: The Blood
Cyndi Grecco: Making Our Dreams Come True
Michael Mills: Satanic Messages in Rock Music (Part 6)
Sugarcubes: Delicious Demon
Delta Spirit: Streetwalker
Johnny Depp & Come: "Madroad Driving..."
Laurie Anderson: The Fifth Plague
Glorious Din: Red Dirt
Outro (UB40: Dance With the Devil)


Episode 6: Woman Power
June 29, 2009
60 minutes

Yoko Ono: Woman Power
Jane Siberry: Hockey
Concrete Blonde: Tomorrow Wendy (Live)
Indigo Girls: This Train Revised (Live)
Pink: Dear Mr. President
Joni Mitchell: California
Joni Mitchell and Morrissey Discuss Female Songwriters
Pam Grier: Long Time Woman
Aretha Franklin: Think
Aimee Mann: Long Shot
Ani DiFranco: Untouchable Face (Live)
Sandie Shaw: Girl Don't Come
Peggy Lee: Fever
Sarah McLachlan: Do What You Have To Do
Mark Steel: Billie Holiday (Excerpts)
Billie Holiday: Strange Fruit


Episode 5: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
June 8, 2009
64 minutes

Intro (Ralph Marterie And His Orchestra: Skokiaan)
Shirley Bassey and the Propellerheads: History Repeating
Love and Rockets: Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man) (Remix)
Garbage: Vow
Eels: Dirty Girl
Radiohead: Stop Whispering (U.S. Mix)
Echo & the Bunnymen: The Cutter
Jobriath: Morning Starship
MC 900 ft. Jesus and DJ Zero: Spaceman
Break (Unknown (From the film Devil Doll))
KC & the Sunshine Band: Boogie Shoes
The Breakaways: That's How It Goes
Natacha Atlas: I Put A Spell On You
Frank Zappa: The Talking Asshole
Jarvis Cocker: Leftovers
Hole: Awful
Morrissey: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (Live)
Outro (Louis Armstrong: Skokiaan)


Episode 4: Blood, Graffiti and Spit
May 3, 2009
60 minutes

Hedwig and the Angry Inch: Tear Me Down
Intro (Suede: The Beautiful Ones)
The B-52's: Rock Lobster
MGMT: Kids
Two Nice Girls: The Queer Song
Michael Mills: Satanic Messages in Rock Music (Part 3)
Vikki Carr: The Silencers
Tones On Tail: Lions
Thom Yorke: Black Swan
Chris Connelly: Trash
The Shirelles: Please Go Away
The High Numbers: Zoot Suit
The Easybeats: Gonna Have A Good Time
Michael Mills: Satanic Messages in Rock Music (Part 4)
Boy George: My Sweet Lord
Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve: The Angels Want To Wear My Red Shoes (Live)
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Spellbound
Outro (Suede: The Beautiful Ones)


Episode 3: Not Enough Time
May 1, 2009
58 minutes

Angelo Badalamenti and Kinny Landrum: Dark Spanish Symphony
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
Neil Young: Harvest Moon
Bryan Ferry: The Way You Look Tonight
Queen: Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
The Proclaimers: I'm On My Way
The Woodentops: You Make Me Feel
Jude: Everything's Alright
INKS: Not Enough Time
The Jesus and Mary Chain: Sugar Ray
Bernard Butler: Friends and Lovers
Iggy Pop: Beside You
The Pogues: Haunted
Eels: Can't Help Falling In Love
Whoopi Goldberg: You Got It
k.d. lang: So In Love


Episode 2: This Woman's Work
April 19, 2009
67 minutes

Siouxsie & the Banshees: This Wheel's On Fire
Janis Joplin: Cry Baby
Tracy Chapman: All That You Have Is Your Soul (Live)
Emmylou Harris: Red Dirt Girl
Break (Danielle Dax: Big Hollow Man)
k.d. lang: Pulling Back The Reins
Bessie Smith: Black Mountain Blues
Dar Williams: The Babysitter's Here
Liss and Deeky on Women in Music (Laurie Anderson: Born, Never Asked)
Tori Amos: Silent All These Years
Kate Bush: This Woman's Work
Nina Simone: Young, Gifted and Black
Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand: No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)
Maria McKee: Absolutely Barking Stars
Heart: Barracuda
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts: Bad Reputation (Live)
Meredith Brooks: Bitch
Outro (Bond: Bella Donna)


Episode 1: It Started As An Accident
March 22, 2009
66 minutes

Intro (Deodato: Also Sprach Zarathustra)
Blur: I Know
Break (Radiohead: Meeting in the Aisle)
The Ting Tings: Shut Up and Let Me Go
The Smiths: The Headmaster Ritual
Michael Mills: Satanic Messages in Rock Music (Part 1)
Patti Smith: Piss Factory
Joe Frank: Fat Man Down (Excerpt)
Break (The Timelords: Doctorin' the Tardis)
The Pogues: I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
Lou Reed: Teach The Gifted Children
Liss and Deek Talk Movies (Primal Scream: Trainspotting)
Suede: We Are The Pigs
Brian Eno: The True Wheel
Michael Mills: Satanic Messages in Rock Music (Part 2)
The Postal Service: Nothing Better (Remix)
Elastica: Line Up
Outro (Milt Buckner: Late, Late Show)

‘Dream’ of stardom a 24/7 goal on Web

Reality programming is entering a new dimension.

Today at noon, “American Idol” creator Simon Fuller’s Web-only show “If I Can Dream” goes live at ificandream .com and hulu.com.

Five aspiring entertainers, including Miley Cyrus’s ex-boyfriend Justin Gatson, will be filmed 24 hours a day, seven days a week in a Hollywood mansion as they attempt to make their dreams of stardom come true.

Boston Herald

Idol Headlines after the jump…keep checking back for more.

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Idol’ Finalist Elliott Yamin Needs to Get Out of Chile, Running Out of Diabetic Supplies

The 31-year-old was scheduled to play a 20-minute set at the at the 11th Annual Children Uniting Nations Awards Celebration during the Oscars this Sunday, but its unclear if he will even be back in time. Yet despite the dire situation, Yamin is trying to be optimistic as he prays for urgent assistance.

“I hope to get home before I slip into a diabetic coma. That would be nice,” he added. “I’m trying to be positive, I’m alive and well. I have all my limbs attached. I don’t know how we all got out of there unscathed. I’m very grateful we lived to tell about it.”

FOX News

Elliott has no idea when he’ll be leaving Chile, “I’m still stuck in santiago, with no clear idea as to when i’ll be able to get out…i think im starting to have post traumatic stress, as i reflect on where ive been over the last 2 weeks, and what ive been thru..altho im safe, alive,and well,still experiencing aftershox,and will b restless until i touch down on american soil” The American Embassy has advised he stay put, rather travel to another airport.

Biltmore Estate announces summer concerts – Ruben and Clay together again in Asheville, NC

ASHEVILLE — The shows are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band June 4, The Original Drifters June 11, Brandon Heath July 16 (all at the Diana), The Gaither Vocal Band July 17, Mary Chapin Carpenter July 22, Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard July 21, The Steve Miller Band July 29, The Legendary Temptations July 30 (all on the South Terrace), Christopher Cross Sept. 24 and Kathy Mattea Oct. 4 (both at the Diana).

Some of the shows will be held at the new Diana at Biltmore venue, with other performances at the traditional location on the South Terrace lawn. Tickets will go on sale April 6.

Citizen Times

Idol`s Casey James: Cute school pic is just Heaven-ly

American Idol hopeful Casey James is judge Kara DioGuardi’s newest crush and here he is as a fresh-faced schoolboy.

James, 27, who was a member of the jazz band and tennis team during his years at Millsap High School, in Texas, caught DioGuardi’s eye when he performed an acoustic version of Bryan Adams’ hit Heaven on the US talent show.

Monsters and Critics

‘American Idol’’s First Four Cut Talk to ET

America voted and Janell Wheeler, Ashley Rodriguez, Joe Munoz and Tyler Grady were all eliminated from the ninth season of “American Idol”’s Top 24. Now ET talks to the ousted “Idol” hopefuls about the disappointment of not making it another week on the singing competition.

“If there was any way to go out, I’m so proud of myself in the way that I did. Several of the girls have even texted me and just said, ‘Janelle, you had so much poise, you were a class act and we look up to you and we really admire the way that you went out.’ I felt like I kept it together, I sang my song better than I sang it the first time and I’m really happy with how it went,” Janell says.

ET Online

‘Idol’ threat

In the halls of Barnstable High School, they’re beginning to ask themselves what “American Idol’’ fans and judges may be wondering, too, as season nine of the Fox network’s star-making show unfolds.

Has 19-year-old Siobhan Magnus, a 2008 BHS graduate with no formal vocal training and little pre-Hollywood buzz behind her, become a legitimate top 10 contender? One of the favorites to wear the next “Idol’’ crown? What seemed unlikely a couple of weeks ago doesn’t seem so far-fetched today.

Boston.com

The Lambert Effect :: Is American Pop Queer-friendly?

When Adam Lambert made his man-kissing, leather-clad appearance on the American Music Awards late last year he subsequently ignited a backlash of viewer complaints, cancelled appearances and media criticism.

At the time, many in the music industry, including Lambert himself, questioned the degree to which the ensuing uproar had to do with his being openly gay, rather than simply overtly sexual. After all, numerous prominent, heterosexual female performers have performed equally, if not surpassingly, titillating displays on television in recent years. Unlike the provocative lineage these Madonnas and Britneys follow, Lambert does not enjoy the same luxury. When it comes to sexually explicit, openly gay American male pop performers, the precedent is practically nonexistent.

EdgeBoston.com

Danny Gokey’s ‘Best Days’ Full of Raw Emotion

Danny Gokey is gearing up to release his debut album, ‘My Best Days,’ on Tuesday (March 2). The former ‘American Idol’ contestant feels his fans will get to know him after listening to his CD.

“I think there’s gonna be a piece and a side they haven’t seen,” Danny tells The Boot. “They haven’t [seen] the artistry yet, inside of me. They haven’t seen some of the raw emotion that I’ve been able to put in this CD. I’ve been able to be really blunt because this is my own project. It’s really about everything coming from the inside.”

The Boot

Kellie Pickler will appear on ‘Charlotte Today’

Albemarle native Kellie Pickler will visit the NewsChannel 36 studios Tuesday and appear on “Charlotte Today” at 11 a.m.

Pickler is in town for 96.9 The Kat’s Concert for Hope, which also features Darius Rucker, Lee Ann Womack, Rodney Atkins and Jason Michael Carroll.

The concert is Tuesday night at Coyote Joes.

Before the concert, Pickler will shave 96.9 Morning Show host Paul Schadt’s moustache. Schadt pledged to shave his moustache if listeners raised $200,000 for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

Charlotte Observer

CMT Insider Interview: Carrie Underwood

Carrie Underwood displays her acting skills as a guest star in an episode of the CBS series, How I Met Your Mother, airing Monday night (March 1). She has also been filming a movie, Soul Surfer, and will be launching her Play On tour on March 11 in Reading, Pa.

Her continued advocacy of pet adoption and her own foundation in her hometown of Checotah, Okla., has led to a new promotion with the Pedigree dog food company to assist animal shelters and find homes for abandoned animals. For every person signing up as its Facebook friend, the company will donate 8 ounces of dog food to animal shelters.

“We’re going to raise a lot of awareness for the 4 million dogs that need homes that are in shelters now, that are in shelters every year,” Underwood told CMT Insider. “They not only need homes, they need food. They need things like that.”

CMT.com

‘American Idol’ Nick Mitchell (Norman Gentle) On Katie Stevens

Mitchell has been busy in his post-”Idol” life. He and some other former contestants are preparing to do a show in Las Vegas, and he recently finished work on a single, “Brit Slap,” with former Idols Kimberly Locke and Diana DeGarmo. The song, a playful jab at “American Idol” host Simon Cowell, should be released soon.

Mitchell says he still gets recognized by “Idol” fans, and it occasionally pays off. For instance, a cop recently pulled him over for speeding.

“He goes, ‘Wait a minute; you were on ‘Idol’! My wife and I watch that all the time,’” Mitchell says. “Then he gave me a pass. That’s been my paycheck from ‘Idol.’”

Courant.com

Taylor Hicks puts heart and soul into Teen Angel in ‘Grease’

n 2006, Mr. Hicks’ fans, the Soul Patrol, voted him into first place to win the coveted (and disparaged) “Idol” crown. Since then he has enjoyed the highs — No. 1 and No. 2 Billboard slots for his debut single and album, respectively — and endured the lows — getting dumped by Arista Records two years later — a pattern that now seems par for the course.

These days Mr. Hicks can be found wearing a costume he describes as “Liberace meets Elvis Presley meets Gram Parsons” and singing “Beauty School Dropout.” For the past two years he has been touring the country, playing the role of Teen Angel in Broadway’s version of “Grease.” Last week, he took some time out while in Milwaukee to talk about the show, his unlikely Broadway training and why being the greatest musician in the world won’t get you anywhere if you just sit in your room.

Post Gazette

Daughtry drummer entertains in classroom

Dave Fox and Neill Clegg’s students at Greensboro College have spent the past several weeks reviewing the history and stylistic nuances of pop music.

On Monday night, they got to see a chart-topping artist in the flesh.

Joey Barnes, drummer for the rock band Daughtry, sang a few songs and offered his insights on the writing process, digital music and Frank Sinatra.

The course, titled “The Top 10 Pop Songs of the Past 50 Years,” has, over the past semester, featured live performances by Clegg and Fox, as well as local soul singer Jay Bird. The two instructors have known Barnes pretty much his whole life through his father, Joey Barnes Sr., a musician they had played with many times.

News Record

Steve Lillywhite: I’m as handsome as Simon Cowell!

With production credits that include U2, Dave Matthews Band, the Rolling Stones, Jason Mraz, Matchbox Twenty, Talking Heads, 30 Seconds to Mars and the forthcoming Evanescence album, Lillywhite’s resumé pretty much blows the show’s current judges right out of the water.

For the past couple weeks, Lillywhite has publicly campaigned for a shot at the Idol judges’ seat being vacated by Simon Cowell at the end of this season. He recently made one video outlining his qualifications. He’s planning on making another soon.

USA Today

Steve Lillywhite Says He Can Improve ‘American Idol’

A few weeks ago, murmurs started surfacing from the camp of famed producer Steve Lillywhite about possible involvement with ‘American Idol’ next year — specifically, that he wants to be the next Simon Cowell. And he thinks there’s room for improvement.

“People know my music, don’t know my personality,” Lillywhite tells PopEater. “People who know my personality don’t see it as being a strange thing for me to do. I’ve been following the show closely and the more I see it, the more I feel I can do the job. I think I can improve the show. The current crop — certainly of guys — there’s been no real standouts, and I can’t believe that out of the thousands of people that auditioned, these are the 12 best guys. Simon knows that. You can tell by his body language that he’s embarrassed by the choices they’ve made.”

Popeater

‘American Idol’ + ‘Real World’ = New Web series ‘If I Can Dream’

Despite all of the cameras pointed at them — on a recent visit, PopWatch counted at least five in the living room alone and an average of 3 per bedroom — the Dream team say they aren’t nervous about living their day-to-day lives under the spotlight.

“There’s been times today where I’m like, ‘Oh, man, I’m on camera.’ I really have forgotten already,” said Amanda Phillips, a former NFL cheerleader from New York who hopes to become an actress/model.

“This is the worst place ever to play hide and seek,” joked Kara Killmer, an aspiring actress from Texas.

Popwatch