#Federal Theater Project
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Rex Ingram as Jean Christophe in Haiti, by William DuBois, as a tempestuous liberated slave who led the people of Haiti in revolt and defied Napoleon Bonaparte.
The play opened at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem, March 2, 1938 and transferred to Daly's Theater on West 63rd St. on July 11. It ran until Sept. 24 (168 performances). It has been described as a "melodramatic recounting of the 1802 uprising, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, that Orson Welles used as a basis for his now-famous Voodoo Macbeth, but Haiti depicts the actual events that transpired to give the Haitians back their country and rule."
It was a production by the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Times's critic Brooks Atkinson called Ingram's performance "gusty" and noted, "Mr. Ingram has been a good actor for a long time. It is not very often, however, that he finds a heroic part like that of Christophe, the leader of a cause. Massive inside a gaudy uniform, active as a pole-vaulter, and gleaming with sincerity, Mr. Ingram gives a rattling good performance." He also noted, "What with one thing and another, there is enough history in Haiti to make it socially respectable."
Photo: Associated Press
#vintage New York#1930s#Rex Ingram#WPA#Works Progress Admin.#vintage theater#Federal Theater Project#William DuBois#1930s theater#vintage Broadway#political theater
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In 1938, the FTP experienced a funding cut — and once again eight thousand people were out of work in an instant. Its stunning theatrical legacy wasn’t just relief service, but artistic achievement of the greatest heights. Especially memorable is the so-called Voodoo Macbeth of 1936, an all-black production in Harlem that moved the action from Scotland to the Caribbean. An electrically revivified classic in terms both political and artistic, the director was none other than Orson Wells, who would later call the production the “great success in my life.”
...Wells paid for his daring [re: "Cradle Will Rock"] with his job, he and Houseman were fired from the FTP the next day and went on to found the Mercury Theatre. Their first production there was a little-remembered “blackshirt” Julius Caesar, a full blown anti-fascist staging featuring Wells as Brutus and Blitzstein providing the music. Caesar, it will be remembered was the first Roman to declare himself “dictator for life,” (Dictator perpetuo) triggering his assassination by Brutus and co. This staging coincided with Italy cosplaying a new Roman Empire, where all in that same year of 1937 this fascist state perpetrated: the “Yekatit 12” massacre of thousands of Ethiopians and the bombing of Guernica in Spain along with Nazi Germany.
#shakespeare#william shakespeare#federal theater project#ftp#theater#theatre#macbeth#voodoo macbeth#orson wells#cradle will rock#john houseman#julius caesar#mercury theatre
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WPA Poster for “A relatively short running but important play which featured Katharine Cornell and Luther Adler in the original Broadway run. Howard died in a farm accident in 1939. He was awarded a posthumous Academy Award for his screenplay for *Gone With the Wind* (making him the first writer to win both a screenplay Oscar and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama).”
The title quotes a stanza of the poem Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats:
“Perhaps the self-same song
that found a path
Through the sad heart of
Ruth when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the
alien corn.”
Image Source: LoC
Textual Source: Between the Covers
#wpa poster#wpa#Alien Corn#Sidney Howard#federal art project#federal theater project#interwar#1930s#1930s art#poster#john keats#ode to a nightingale#library of congress
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i registered to vote for the first time ( i feel old) now that im an adult but my state has closed primary elections which i was wondering if you have an opinion about. my initial thought was that its bad because i had to register democrat (rather than my states green party which represents my beliefs more) just so i could vote between democrat candidates, which feels like being pressured into supporting the weird pseudo two party system we have. but then i looked it up and apparently a reason for this is so that people from opposing parties wont purposefully mess up the votes just so that their preferred candidates have an easier time winning, and i think that makes sense too. but is that actually the reason theyve closed it or is it just to force us dem/republican?? cause it feels strange
Okay, look. I respect the fact that you're a young person, and I appreciate that you have not only registered to vote, but plan to vote in the primaries, so I don't want to lecture you too much. That said: I am taking you out for coffee, I am sitting you down, I am looking into your eyes, and I am urgently telling you the following:
The Green Party is a scam. It is a scam. It has existed for decades in American politics as an empty shell corporation weaponizing the good intentions of young people like yourself, because all it theoretically stands for "it's good to save the planet maybe." Which is not something that any non-insane person seriously disagrees with, but there is no world in which that cause is actually furthered by registering/voting Green (you mentioned that you did vote for Democrats, which -- good, but listen to me here, youngun, okay?) It ran Jill Stein in 2016 to siphon more votes from HRC, and this election it plans to run Cornel West, a pro-Russian tankie who positively equated Bernie and Trump, as another spoiler candidate. It does not stand for "protecting the planet" or America in any real way. It has never elected a single senator or congressman, let alone a president. It stands for empty performance/grievance political theater by those people who feel too morally superior to vote for/affiliate with Democrats, often because the internet has told them that it's not Cool or Hip or Progressive enough.
If your main priority is climate/the environment, you're doing the right thing by registering as a Democrat and voting for Democrats. (Also: the adjectival form is Democratic. It is the Democratic party and Democratic candidates, otherwise you sound like the Fox News host who wrote a book literally entitled "The Democrat Party Hates America.") They are the only major party who has in fact passed major climate legislation and have made environmental justice a central tenet of their platform. As opposed to the Republicans, whose Project 2025, along with the rest of its nightmare fascist prescriptions, openly pledges to completely wreck existing climate protections and forbid any new ones, just because we weren't all dying fast enough under their death-cult rule already. That's the main logical fallacy I don't get among both the Online Leftists and the American electorate in general: "the Democrats aren't doing quite enough as I'd like, so I'll enable the active wrecking ball insane lunatics to get in power and ruin even the progress we HAVE managed to make!" Like. How does that even make sense?
On a federal level, the Greens have contributed nothing whatsoever of tangible value to American or international climate policy/legislation, environmental justice, or anything else, because as noted, they don't have any elected candidates and mostly focus on drawing voters away from Democrats. There might be plenty of good candidates on the local or city level, which -- great! Vote away for Greens if they're available, or the only other option is a Republican! But on the federal/primary level, please understand: once again, they are a scam. There is no point in affiliating yourself with them. You're welcome to register Green and vote Democratic, if that makes you feel better or if you prefer having another label next to your name, but once again, I'm telling you in my position as a salty Tumblr elder that they have done nothing but harm to the causes they claim to care about, because "environment" is such a nebulous priority and has demonstrably been hijacked to stop the American government entity, i.e. the Democrats, that is actually working to improve on it.
As for your question: nobody is "forcing" or "pressuring" you to vote in primaries. By your own admission, you made a conscious choice to register as a Democrat in order to vote for Democratic candidates. If you were just a regular registered voter of whatever party affiliation, you would vote in the general election for whatever candidate the primary process produced. But if you are sufficiently vested and committed to that process that you would like to have a say in who is running under that party label, it is not unreasonable that you would register as a member of that party. Nobody has twisted your arm behind your back and made you do so; you are taking a considerable level of initiative on your own. Likewise, open primaries can be both a good and bad thing. This falls under the "the political system we have is flawed, but we can't magically pretend it doesn't exist and act according to our own fantasyland versions of reality" thing that I keep saying over and over. So yes, if you want a role in shaping the Democratic candidates who emerge from a Democratic primary process, you will usually register as a Democrat, and nobody has forced you to do that. It's that simple.
Likewise as a general programming note: I'm trying to cut back on politics a bit right now, because I don't have the spoons/bandwidth/mental health to deal with it. I apologize. So if you've sent me a politics-related ask recently and haven't received a response, I'm not deliberately or maliciously ignoring you; I just am not able to handle it as much as usual and will have to put it on pause. However, I feel as if this is important enough to be worth saying, so, yeah.
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So with Oppenheimer coming out tomorrow, I feel a certain level of responsibility to share some important resources for people to understand more about the context of the Manhattan Project. Because for my family, it’s not just a piece of history but an ongoing struggle that’s colonized and irradiated generations of New Mexicans’ lives and altered our identity forever. Not only has the legacy of the Manhattan Project continued to harm and displace Indigenous and Hispanic people but it’s only getting bigger: Biden recently tasked the Los Alamos National Lab facility to create 30 more plutonium pits (the core of a nuclear warhead) by 2026. So this is a list of articles, podcasts and books to check out to hear the real stories of the local people living with this unique legacy that’s often overlooked.
This is simply the latest mainstream interest in the Oppenheimer story and it always ALWAYS silences the trauma of the brown people the US government took advantage of to make their death star. I might see the movie, I honestly might not. I’m not trying to judge anyone for seeing what I’m sure will be an entertaining piece of art. I just want y’all to leave the theater knowing that this story goes beyond what’s on the screen and touches real people’s lives: people whose whole families died of multiple cancers from radiation from the Trinity test, people who’s ancestral lands were poisoned, people who never came back from their job because of deadly work conditions. This is our story too.
The first and best place to learn more about this history and how to support those still resisting is to follow Tewa Women United. They’ve assembled an incredible list of resources from the people who’ve been fighting this fight the longest.
https://tewawomenunited.org/2023/07/oppenheimer-and-the-other-side-of-the-story
The writer Alicia Inez Guzman is currently writing a series about the nuclear industrial complex in New Mexico, its history and cultural impacts being felt today.
https://searchlightnm.org/my-nuclear-family/
https://searchlightnm.org/the-abcs-of-a-nuclear-education/
https://searchlightnm.org/plutonium-by-degrees/
Danielle Prokop at Source NM is an excellent reporter (and friend) who has been covering activists fighting for Downwinder status from the federal government. They’re hoping that the success of Oppenheimer will bring new attention to their cause.
https://sourcenm.com/2023/07/19/anger-hope-for-nm-downwinders/
https://sourcenm.com/2022/01/27/new-mexico-downwinders-demand-recognition-justice/
One often ignored side of the Manhattan Project story that’s personal for me is that the government illegally seized the land that the lab facilities eventually were built on. Before 1942, it was homesteading land for ranchers for more than 30 families (my grandpa’s side of the family was one). But when the location was decided, the government evicted the residents, bought their land for peanuts and used their cattle for target practice. Descendants of the homesteaders later sued and eventually did get compensated for their treatment (though many say it was far below what they were owed)
https://www.hcn.org/issues/175/5654
Myrriah Gomez is an incredible scholar in this field, working as a historian, cultural anthropologist and activist using a framework of “nuclear colonialism” to foreground the Manhattan Project. Her book Nuclear Nuevo Mexico is an amazing collection of oral stories and archival record that positions New Mexico’s era of nuclear colonialism in the context of its Spanish and American eras of colonialism. A must read for anyone who’s made it this far.
https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/nuclear-nuevo-mexico
There isn’t a ton of podcasts about this (yet 👀) but recently the Washington Post’s podcast Field Trip did an episode about White Sands National Monument. The story is a beautifully written and sound designed piece that spotlights the Downwinder activists and also a discovery of Indigenous living in the Trinity test area going back thousands of years. I was blown away by it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/field-trip/white-sands-national-park/
#oppenheimer#oppenheimer movie#barbenheimer#manhattan project#new mexico#los alamos#I never do posts like this#but I felt compelled#theres just so much like nuclear worship going on right now
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QSMP - Black Signs Masterpost :)
Every sign placed thus far by the unknown entity!
Day 45
Foolish was the first to see the black signs, after him and Leo were attacked at Vegetta’s house by the binary code that translated to 777.
One sign said "LAST WARNING" and another said "LEAVE"
He went back to his house afterwards and saw the sign "Don't Dig Down :)" - underneath that exact spot was a pit full of creepers that exploded.
Later, he went to deliver a record of the day's events to Cellbit, where a sign with a smile appeared to him in the office...
All of these signs seemed to be threats/warnings to Foolish.
Day 46
A lot of signs appeared on this day!
During an egg quest that took Fit, Dapper, and Ramon to the middle of the ocean, a black sign with a smile showed up right next to them, and the three ran away.
Foolish also saw a sign in Leo's room that said "Watching You Constantly :)"
Later that day, Roier and Bad were following Cucurucho. During this, Roier was shown a black sign with a smile:
Bad also got shown a sign with a smiley face, but got another sign that said "well done” …
??? Why did it praise him for spying on Cucurucho? This sign raises the most questions. the full clip
Maxo got a black sign later that day as well, when he was mining out a space underground for a project. I don't have a screenshot for this one sadly :(
Day 47
After the Ordo Theoritas was offically created and the team had a group meeting, a black sign with a smiley face suddenly appeared above the doorway to Cellbit's theater room, showing that the entity listened to their entire conversation.
Since then, the signs hadn't appeared again for a long time. Until…
Day 88
At the very top of the newly created Federation Election building is a small room that no one can access. In that room is 4 black signs, all with smiley faces, placed around a central shulker box...
Day 91
q!Bad got into the room and looked in the smiley shulker box. There was a book inside that said:
“I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE ISLAND.” …..
When more appear, I’ll update this post
#there’s theories that the entity is related to the codes#and theories that it’s related to the federation#but we don’t know yet#could even be a third party#qsmp#also the ‘bad man’ signs obvs aren’t here bc those are a prank#the one in cellbit’s castle is also a prank by foolish#all the ones here are 100% legit#long post
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Alvin Childress
Alvin Childress (September 15, 1907 – April 19, 1986) was an American actor, who is best known for playing the cabdriver Amos Jones in the 1950s television comedy series Amos 'n' Andy.
Alvin Childress was born in Meridian, Mississippi. He was educated at Rust College, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. When he initially entered college, Childress intended to become a doctor, enrolling in typical pre-med courses. He had no thoughts of becoming involved in acting, but became involved in theater outside of classes. Childress and Rex Ingram in the Federal Theatre Project production of Haiti (1938)
Childress's first wife was the former Alice Herndon, who established herself as a successful writer and actress under the name of Alice Childress (1916–1994); the couple was married from 1934 to 1957 and had a daughter, Jean Rosa. From 1961 to 1973, Childress worked as an unemployment interviewer for the Los Angeles Department of Personnel and in the Civil Service Commission of Los Angeles County.
Childress moved to New York City and became an actor with Harlem's Lafayette Players, a troupe of stock players associated with the Lafayette Theatre. Soon, he was engaged as an actor in the Federal Theater Project, the American Negro Theater, and in all-black race film productions such as Keep Punching (1939). His greatest success on the stage was his performance as Noah in the popular drama, Anna Lucasta, which ran for 957 performances. He also worked at Teachers College of Columbia University. Childress also operated his own radio and record store in New York City. When he learned about casting for the Amos 'n' Andy television series, Childress decided to audition for a role. He was hired a year before the show went on the air.
In 1951, he was cast as the level-headed, hard-working and honest Amos Jones in the popular television series, The Amos 'n' Andy Show, which ran for two years on CBS. Childress originally tried out for the role of The Kingfish, but Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden cast him as Amos. Since he had been hired a year before the show began, Gosden and Correll turned the search for an actor to play "The Kingfish" over to Childress. In a 1979 interview, Childress shared information about some of the candidates. Cab Calloway was considered but found wanting by Gosden because of his straight hair. Childress said there were many famous men, with and without actual acting experience, who wanted to play the role. Eventually, old-time vaudeville comedian Tim Moore was cast as the Kingfish.
Shortly after the television show had ended, plans to turn it into a vaudeville act were announced in 1953, with Childress, Williams and Moore playing the same roles as they had in the television series. It is not known if there were any performances. In 1956, after the television show was no longer in production, Childress and some of his fellow cast members: Tim Moore, Spencer Williams, and Lillian Randolph along with her choir, began a tour of the US as "The TV Stars of Amos 'n' Andy". The tour was halted by CBS as the network considered this an infringement of their rights to the program and its cast of characters. Despite the threats which ended the 1956 tour, Childress, along with Moore, Williams and Johnny Lee were able to perform one night in 1957 in Windsor, Ontario, apparently without legal action. When he tried for work as an actor, Childress found none as he was typecast as Amos Jones. For a short time, Childress found himself parking cars for an upscale Beverly Hills restaurant.
Childress also appeared in roles on the television series Perry Mason, Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons and in the films Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Day of the Locust (1975). When Childress appeared as a minister in a 1972 episode of Sanford and Son, he was reunited with two former cast members: Lillian Randolph of Amos 'n' Andy in the role of Aunt Hazel and Lance Taylor, Jr. of Anna Lucasta, with the role of Uncle Edgar.
Childress suffered from diabetes and other ailments. He died at age 78 on April 19, 1986, in Inglewood, California. He was buried at National Memorial Harmony Park in Landover, Maryland.
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by Dion J. Pierre
A famous theater in the Ontario province of Canada is facing widespread criticism over its “postponement” of the upcoming Hamilton Jewish Film Festival, a decision that many observers have interpreted as a cancelation motivated by anti-Israel animus.
“After receiving numerous security and safety related emails, phone calls, and social media messages, the Playhouse Cinema reached a difficult decision to postpone the Hamilton Jewish Federation’s venue rental,” the Playhouse Cinema, located in the city of Hamilton, said in a statement posted to X/Twitter on Tuesday. “On Saturday, March 16, our decision to postpone this venue rental was reached amid security and safety concerns at this particularly sensitive time.”
Organized by the Hamilton Jewish Federation, the event was slated to feature six films across three days, April 7-9, with each exploring different eras of Jewish history, from life in modern day kibbutzim bordering the Gaza strip to Poland during the communist purges of Jews in the 1960s. Several of the films were written and produced in Israel by Israeli creators.
On Wednesday, the Hamilton Jewish Federation said that Playhouse Cinema, in canceling the festival, has acted dishonorably and adhered to the wishes of antisemites.
“The Hamilton Jewish Federation is outraged by the recent decision made by the Playhouse Cinema to backtrack on its commitment to host the 2024 Hamilton Jewish Film Festival after the theatre received a small number of complaints and threatening emails objecting to the fact that Israeli films are included in this year’s line-up,” the group said. “The decision, coming just weeks before the scheduled event, is a lost opportunity to engage the Greater Hamilton community in a Jewish cultural event during the highest rise of antisemitism we’ve seen in recent history, and in the aftermath of the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.”
Antisemitism has skyrocketed in Canada since the Hamas terror group’s onslaught across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
The Hamilton Jewish Federation added that the films that would have been screened are culturally relevant and valuable for portraying the past and “contemporary Jewish experience,” as well as the “reality of co-existence” between Jews and Arabs living in Israel as neighbors and citizens. One of them, it noted, is the final project of a filmmaker Hamas murdered during its Oct. 7 massacre, a tragedy that has left an indelible scar on Jewish communities throughout the world.
Jewish nonprofits commented on the matter on Tuesday and Wednesday, describing the festival’s scrapping as an injustice and calling on lawmakers to intervene and restore the original agreement between both parities.
“Unacceptable and appalling,” tweeted HonestReporting Canada, a nonprofit that promotes fair media coverage of Israel. “Silencing Jewish voices in a time when Jews are the #1 targeted religious group for hate crimes in Canada is a dangerous precedent and only gives more ammunition to those who hide their antisemitism under the guise of ‘anti-Zionism.'”
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, whose mission is to combat antisemitism and spread awareness of the Holocaust, added, “We denounce Playhouse Cinema’s decision to reverse its commitment to host the Hamilton Jewish Film Festival this year, in the latest example of an organization yielding to threats and intimidation from anti-Israel activists.”
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Memorial Day
On this 2023 Memorial Day we present a Civil War-era uniform designed in watercolor by Milwaukee Handicraft Project (MHP) costume designer Mary Holan and scanned for our digital collection Wisconsin Arts Projects of the WPA from volume 1 “Period - Men” of our Costume Design portfolios, which were produced between 1935 and 1939 by artists working with the Federal Theatre Project. These original costume designs were created by MHP's costume design group for use by local theater and school groups. The designation "School Board" written in pencil at the top of the image seems to bear this out.
Also written on the front is "Infantry Overcoat Union Army." Because of its color, it looks more Confederate to us. On the back of the plate is written "Pageant of America v7," which we believe refers to volume seven, "In defense of liberty," from the 15-volume pictorial history of the development of the United States, The Pageant of America: A Pictorial History of the United States, edited by Ralph Henry Gabriel and published by Yale University Press from 1925 to 1929. We checked the digitized collection of The Pageant of America at The New York Public Library, but could not find the source. So, we will take the Union designation at face value to represent U.S. fallen service members on this Memorial Day.
The MHP was founded in 1935 by Harriet Clinton, head of the Women’s Division of Wisconsin’s WPA to help unskilled women laborers provide income for their families. Clinton hired Elsa Ulbricht, an art professor at the Milwaukee State Teacher’s College (one of UWM’s predecessor institutions), to direct the project. The MHP hired around 5,000 people in total throughout its highly successful seven-year existence. Read More about the Project.
The Wisconsin Arts Projects of the WPA digital collection was made possible with generous financial support from The Chipstone Foundation.
View more posts from the Milwaukee Handicraft Project.
View posts from Memorial Days past.
#Memorial Day#holidays#civil war history#civil war#uniforms#costume design#Milwaukee Handicraft Project#MHP#WPA#works progress administration#Wisconsin Arts Projects of the WPA#Mary Holan#Federal Theatre Project#civil war uniform
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Golitsyna Klara Nikolaevna (born. 1925) "With a bed." 2018.
Cardboard, acrylic
In the lower right corner is the author's monogram. On the back is the author's signature, date and title.
Clara Golitsyna's work includes different directions - from powerful realism to postmodernism. In 1949 she graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute, received a diploma as a book artist and left for Dushanbe, where she worked as an artist at the Tajik State Publishing House. In 1951, she returned to Moscow and married drama theater actor Ivan Vladimirovich Golitsyn. In 1962, she illustrated space projects at the Central Design Bureau of V.N. Chelomey. In 1982 he became a freelance artist. Participant of more than 140 group exhibitions. Member of the Moscow Union of Artists and the Professional and creative Union of Artists and Graphic Designers (member of the International Federation of Arts UNESCO). Works by K.N. Golitsyna is kept in the collections of GTG, State Russian Museum, MMSI, in regional museums and private collections in Russia, Europe and the United States.
Litfund
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Hallie Flanagan, the national director of the Federal Theater Project, and Fred Niblo, a former vaudevillian and Hollywood director, arrive for the opening of It Can't Happen Here, October 26, 1936. The play, about a fascist dictator who becomes president of the United States, was adapted from the novel by Sinclair Lewis.
Photo: RB for the Associated Press
#vintage New York#1930s#Hallie Flanagan#Federal Theater Project#New Deal#Oct. 26#theater#26 Oct.#Sinclair Lewis#fascism#Fred Niblo#vintage Broadway#vintage theater
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Publishers worried new 'gay propaganda' bill could outlaw classic Russian literature
On Friday, October 14, the Russian Book Union (RKS) sent a letter to Alexander Khinshtein, Chairman of the Committee on Information Policy of the State Duma, regarding a bill banning propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations. Kommersant has a copy of the letter; the RCC confirmed its authenticity. The letter asks the publishers to clarify whether certain plots in classical Russian literature included in the school curriculum will be banned if the bill is passed.
We are talking about a document submitted on July 18 by a group of deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, A Just Russia—For Truth, and Motherland. The Russian Book Union "receives a lot of inquiries from publishers" about the initiative, the letter says, and the union has collected submissions on the relevance of the book assortment to the project. “Please, if possible, explain whether the plots presented in the following works, including classical and included in the list of the school curriculum, are propaganda of the denial of family values,” the letter says.
The publishers provide excerpts from works that can be interpreted as prohibited in accordance with the text of the project. So, the publishers point out that the scene that can be attributed to the seduction of minors is described in the novel "Demons" by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and they cited an excerpt about how the hero of the novel, Nikolai Stavrogin, corrupted the girl Matryosha. Catherine's monologue from Alexander Ostrovsky's play The Thunderstorm, delivered before she threw herself into the Volga and died, could be interpreted as suicide propaganda or incitement to suicide, the letter says. The publishers continue that excerpts from the story "Morphine" by Mikhail Bulgakov, based on the writer's memories of the period of addiction to morphine, can be attributed to drug propaganda.
Scenes of sexual violence are described in Ivan Bunin's stories "Tanya" and "Galya Ganskaya", in Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Flows the Don", in Thomas Hardy's novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles", the RKS letter says. For example, one of Fyodor Sologub’s poems “On the Council” can be attributed to the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations, the novel by Vladimir Nabokov can be attributed to the propaganda of pedophilia, the novel by Leo Tolstoy “Anna Karenina” and the poem by Alexander Pushkin “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai”, polygamy - the story of Alexander Kuprin "Shulamith", noted in the RKS.
“Due to the broad scope of the bill, publishers are unable to independently evaluate and exclude book titles that potentially violate it. At the same time, it is important to understand that the creative industries are firmly intertwined with each other - literature is inseparable from both cinema and theater, and the following examples of works have film adaptations and theatrical performances, ”the RCC added.
Alexander Khinshtein told Kommersant that he had not yet seen the letter. “In my opinion, classical plots do not fall under the proposed restrictions, since we are talking about the prohibition of propaganda, that is, the dissemination of information aimed at the formation of non-traditional sexual attitudes, the attractiveness of non-traditional sexual relations, a distorted idea of the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional sexual relations. In other words, “Lolita” definitely cannot be propaganda,” he comments.
READ MORE
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State of the Planet: 2023 Edition
Here we are once again. Hours to go until the new year is upon us. Even though when you read this you may very well be in the future, it's time once again to use the few hours we have left in 2023 to take a look at the state of the planet.
And...what a state it is. I said last year that 2022 may have very well been the inflection point for this decade, the moment that the 2020's truly began to come into their own. I think that's held true for this year, even though it still feels like folks are trying to find their feet in some aspects. But even in all this confusion and uncertainty, there is still progress to be had.
So let's take a look back at some of the good things that happened this year:
The European Parliment commited to ending the sale of petrol and diesel fueled vehicles in the EU by 2035 in an effort to push the adoption of electric vehicles.
The High Seas Treaty was signed by the member states of the UN, this treaty commits to the conservation of 30% of the world's oceans by 2030.
The ozone hole continues to shrink, projections have it on track to recover to 1980's levels by 2050.
Finland became the 31st member of NATO.
The World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 and Monkeypox are no longer a global health emergencies.
The first synthetic human embryo was created from the use of stem cells.
The African Union became the 21st permanent member of the G20 (wouldn't it be G21 now?).
Katalin Karikó & Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their contributions towards the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
The FDA approved of a treatment for sickle cell disease involving the use of the gene-editing technique Crispr.
Scientists announced the ability to use AI to decode people's thoughts from brain scans.
King Charles III ascended to the throne in the UK.
Pope Francis decreed that Roman Catholic priests would be allowed to bless same-sex marraiges.
Mexico decriminalized abortion at the federal level.
Despite projections of a recession, the United States economy experienced it's biggest growth since before the pandemic, adding 2.5 million jobs and inflation decreasing to 3.1%.
Spain won the Women's World Cup for the first time in a 1-0 victory over England.
SpaceX's fully stacked Starship flew twice this year, the largest rocket to ever fly (now if only they can get it to stop exploding).
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) was launched by the European Space Agency, it's expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2031.
The European Ariane 5 rocket flew its 117th and final mission.
India's Chandrayaan-3 landed at the Moon's south pole, the first spacecraft to do so.
Oppenheimer and Barbie released the same day in theaters and the internet had a lot of fun with that.
Michigan went 13-0 agian and won their third straight Big Ten championship (BEAT BAMA!)
The Pistons actually won a game before the end of the year.
Remember all that? It's okay if you didn't. But once again, this is where I'm at right now.
You are in the future. Every single word on this post is already confined to the history books. How you remember this year is ultimately up to you, but keep in mind that the reason I make these posts is a counterpoint to the many forces out there who have a lot to gain if everyone is under the impression that everything is always terrible all the time.
And that leads me to my word of the year. It's a bit unusual but I think it fits:
The word of the year is: Perception.
At our core, all of us are truth seekers. Whether it's objective truth or personal truth, we all want to find it. One of the benefits of the internet age that, in my opinion, gets taken for granted is that we now have more information available to us than at any time in human history. Our ancestors had to deal with incomplete and contradictory information, but now we can find out pretty much anything in a matter of seconds.
But with that information comes a host of issues. We unfortunately live in an age where a commitment to objective truth is being overshadowed by a desire for personal truth. We're putting less emphasis on what is true and more on what we want to be true. Unfortunately, as Carl Sagan once said, our preferences do not determine what is true.
And there are those who seek to exploit this. There are people in this world that are willing to alter your own perception on how things are. But not to benefit you, but to benefit them. They wish to take advantage of your desire for your own beliefs to be validated for time evermore and turn that against you, so that they can create a better world for themselves even at your own expense.
But you can stop them. All you have to do is be aware that perception doesn't always equal reality.
2024 will be a consequential year. For one thing, it's an election year in the United States which means the stakes are high enough as is. There will be a lot of consequential events over the next 366 days (yay for leap years!), and a lot of people that you've never met will be trying to tell you how to think and what to believe.
Remember that at the end of the day, the most important values are the ones you hold dear. Just because something gets a lot of engagement on your socials doesn't mean it's the best way to contextualize something. Don't allow your beliefs and values to be compromised for the sake of fitting in with trends or trying to cash in on some vague notion of importance; especially when there's people trying to exploit that at your expense.
The first step to healthy civic engagement is a body politic that is informed and questioning. It will do you no harm to read up on whatever topic is trending on the socials. It will only make you informed and then you will be able to decide if a position or a policy is truly the right one for you, based on what you hold to be important.
Knowledge can be scary at times. It may cause us to reevaluate our position, as well as come to realize that something we felt or believed or even wished to be true now has to be totally re-examined in a new light. But all that is what helps us grow, that's what helps us evolve and become stronger.
They used to tell us that "knowledge is power." I can tell you that knowledge only makes you better.
Remember these words as you head into the new year. Rather than wishing for your perception to be reality, base your perception on reality.
And then those who thrive on the exploitation of ignorance will have no power over you.
Have a great New Year's Eve, friends. And I'll see you all in 2024.
Helios.
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Okay....so Tumblr got walloped by a spree of empty accounts pestering any active blog with shallow follows here for over two and half months. I mentioned to someone who brought this up, that these accounts are low-effort trolling, and that in my past experience, they usually act as ground cover distraction for something far more convincing (and worse) on the way.
-so, yeah, while we were swatting at gnats, Tumblr was bombarded by a lot (A LOT) of accounts shilling like crazy for the fake-ass QAnon conspiracy fiction film "Sound of Freedom" in that time. These recent accounts were good at appearing anime ("i aM An arTIsT!") or safely "gay" or appearing like Christian mom's who get gooey over Caviezel (the worst are these incredibly fake "Catholic" accounts who have never heard of Dorothy Day and think showing a generic pic of an icon will convince others-along with the word "Catholic" in their URL-that they are the real deal). The accounts were trying really hard to "appear Tumblr", and the fact there were so many of them makes this "the big hill they wanted to die on" for this year (so far). Chances are these accounts (many with goofy pop culture reference names) are ones you wouldn't even go near following, but they very likely lurked near any popular post you had lately to beef up their cred here.
One account aptly pointed out that they sound like cultists parroting the same things "everyone must see this film!", "this film really opened my eyes" (to what? trafficking? something human rights groups have been yelling about since the 70s and 80s?), and "God's children are not for sale!"....many went as far as to get conspiratorial saying that the movie itself was a victim of a plot to undersell it, to show it in poorly air conditioned theaters, or that outlets aptly critiquing the film, like Rolling Stone, are part of the "evil Soros (((elite)))" (actual dog-whistles in use) trying to suppress the film. If the film were suppressed, it simply would've not been released. You have guys like Musk, Trump, and that antisemite, Mel Gibson supporting it.
-by far the worst and most combative spew to come from these accounts is the false dilemma of "anyone who dislikes this film is a Pedo"-oh, like we haven't heard this ugly, slanderous drivel from scores of trolls on every platform over, basically anything, in the last eight years. This ranks with "If you criticize the state of Israel's actions in Palestine, you must be antisemitic." Oddly enough, the persons involved in the film are antisemitic, far-right POSs.
Now....
If anyone had a lingering thought that this movie was typically RW deflection and projection away from all the pedophilia found within circles of RW A-holes (There have been eight guys who worked under Trump called out as pedos....this is not including Trump's heavy ties to Epstein, or associations Trump has had with pedos like Roy Moore or Matt Gaetz....just recently, an anti-abortionist named Cole Wagner was arrested for child sex abuse, and a Patriot Front member in Utah arrested with child porn)....well, guess what, the above producer of the film, Hutchinson, was filmed in 2016 feeling up the breasts of a trafficked underage girl...y'know, to stay "in that deep cover". Recently, Tim Ballard was discovered using women to "pose as wives" (y'know, that "deep cover thang") in his self-indulgent crusade, and it involved him insisting the women must shower and sleep with him. A financier for the film, Fabian Marta, was found to be a child-kidnapper, and though it is not proven, there have been wild rumors that the far-right nut Caviezel was watching child porn "for research on the subject matter".
So, yeah, the call is coming from inside the building, and anything these dead-in-the-water accounts say by praising this film is complete BS (thanks for the extensive blocklist, Tumblr).
It's bad enough you had accounts here pushing the Wayfair conspiracy crap over two years go or some that actually shilled this phony "outrage" over oil-heiress-funded fake clean-cut "climate activists" causing disruptions at events (unmasked) and "vandalizing" art work at museums that chose to no longer allow support from BP, but to come on here and stir up a repackaged QAnon like a re-heated dogturd and use that as Carte Blanche to label critics with the worst things you could possibly label someone just to protect the name of a truly rotten political party that has been going down in flames for years now is unforgivable.
This fictional film does absolutely nothing to stop the real danger of human trafficking and child pedophila. It bolsters this "white Christian man" is gonna fight the "menace across the border", rather than look at what is going on in churches and cults and scout groups and locker rooms and Olympic gymnast training committees and with the family members, friends, and coaches we think we know. It has proven again and gain, such films engender misguided Satanic Panic style hysteria and hamper the efforts of real groups trying to fight this menace for decades.
-and again, I'm sorry for the clumsy comments I left elsewhere about who was involved with what and how, but the four (at least three) I mentioned involved in the film above are now getting exposed as the hypocrites that they are.
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The Federal Art Project was a part of the New Deal which employed nearly 400 artists who collectively created over 100,000 works of art-- including paintings, prints, murals, photographs mosaics, sculptures, and more. The Federal Art Project also made art more accessible throughout the US by funding live theater and music and art classes throughout the country.
Federal Art Project of Works Progress Admin. The Art Story. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.theartstory.org/definition/federal-art-project-of-the-works-progress-administration/
Free art classes for children & adults under ... - library of Congress. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b49028/
National Archives and Records Administration. (n.d.). A New Deal for the Arts. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/new_deal_for_the_arts/#
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Q&A with Mary Ann Calo
The author of African American Artists and the New Deal Art Programs discusses the significance of New Deal art projects, the Harlem Artists' Guild, and more.
How were the New Deal art projects significant to the history of African American art?
Historians have tended to think of the New Deal art projects as having had a generally positive effect on the development of African American art. The immediate purpose of the projects was to provide financial relief in the form of employment for artists during the Depression. In practical terms, the projects gave Black artists who were eligible time to work and unprecedented access to materials and instruction. There was strong consensus among participating artists that opportunities offered by the art projects at least partially redressed the chronic disadvantages and isolation they had faced. These art projects thus functioned as mechanisms to advance their careers and facilitate their entry into the mainstream of American cultural life.
My primary focus is on the programs of the Federal Art Project (FAP), the largest New Deal arts initiative, administered by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) from 1935 to 1943. The FAP was a branch of Federal Project Number One, which encompassed multiple government-supported initiatives to provide work relief not only for artists but also for writers and creative practitioners in theater and music. In a departure from historical accounts that concentrate on individual accomplishments within the FAP, I shift the analytical focus to educational projects such as Community Art Centers. These facilities, some of which were established to serve racially segregated populations, combined opportunities for technical instruction and art appreciation with a social service mentality. While centers in Harlem and Chicago have long enjoyed public visibility and distinction, I expand the discussion to include lesser-known initiatives in the South, noting the vast differences between specific locales.
The book moves beyond accounts of artists who personally benefitted from the projects, and the works they produced, toward broader issues informed by the uniqueness of Black experience and circumstances. I argue that the revolutionary vision of the New Deal art projects must be understood in the context of access to opportunity mediated by the realities of racism and segregation.
Were the federal art projects fair? Were they equitable?
While other divisions of Federal One, such as theater and writing, had units dedicated to African American culture, by design the FAP was “race blind.” But historians of the New Deal visual art programs have long had to reconcile optimism about expanded opportunity and nondiscrimination with the fact of low African American participation numbers, especially in the creative divisions. I examine the skill and relief requirements of the FAP in terms of their impact on choices open to African American artists and the emphasis within project administration on the primacy of educational, rather than creative, work in the Black community.
The elaborate skill classification system of the FAP, which distinguished between various levels of preparedness to perform certain kinds of work, contained obvious (but unacknowledged) pitfalls for African American artists. For example, individuals seeking to qualify for the creative divisions, which would provide support for time spent in the studio, were asked to furnish information on their training as artists and their exhibition history. This was a challenge for Black artists who lacked opportunities to attend art school or regularly show their work. Administrators were preoccupied with ensuring equal access to the benefits of the projects but disinclined to challenge existing norms of segregation or examine their consequences.
How crucial are archives and documents in writing African American art history?
Archival repositories and primary documents have always been essential to writing the history of New Deal art projects. Accounting for African American experience within them is hindered, as in many areas of American cultural history, by insufficient interest and a fragmented archival landscape. Because Black artists were largely overlooked during the documentary phase of early research on the New Deal art projects, when statistics were gathered and standard histories were being written, the task of tracking and sorting relevant data has been an ongoing challenge. And while a great deal of progress has been made in recent years, participation and program records are dispersed and not easily aggregated for purposes of analysis.
How did the Harlem Artists' Guild function, and to what extent was it a Popular Front organization?
On its face, the Harlem Artists Guild’s (HAG) was a prototypical artist advocacy organization of the New Deal era. But its agenda was also rooted in discourses about race and culture that had evolved decades earlier. In that sense, while emblematic of the impulse to unite and organize in the 1930s, the HAG existed in a different space of cultural meaning and significance.
The activities of the HAG can, to an extent, be located within the context of Popular Front ideology, which emphasized coalition building in the interest of maximizing the impact of progressive forces. Traditionally, New Deal historians have tended tend to think of the HAG as an offshoot of the Artists’ Union (AU). This suggests that it derived its energy from the dominant activist organization of the majority culture. I describe the nature of its alliances with groups central to this period, such as the AU and the American Artists’ Congress (AAC), but also with the National Negro Congress (NNC) and local civic organizations. This is consistent with more recent historical approaches that raise questions about the extent to which civil rights organizations such as the NNC may have intersected with this cultural energy and stimulated it.
African American Artists and the New Deal Art Programs: Opportunity, Access, and Community is now available from Penn State University Press. Learn more and order the book here: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09493-9.html. Save 30% w/ discount code NR23.
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