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Help Venezuela Orphans & Clinic Patients
Caracas, Venezuela – Every single day a mother cries for her child and a family weeps for a loved one who has just passed away due to complications from malnutrition ─ a polite way of saying they starved to death.
The infant mortality rate has doubled because hospitals and parents have no food to feed them. In some cases, parents are forced to abandon their children and drop them off at orphanages because they simply cannot afford food.
Venezuela has become a country in desolation, many people have decided to leave the country and other people less fortunate have been forced to endure extreme shortages due to the economic impact suffered by the country.

domain: sociology


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UNDP and UK help Georgia’s public health authorities to draw lessons from pandemic experience
Georgia prepares a risk-communication strategy for future crises
June 10, 2020
Georgia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn widespread praise for protecting public health, but national authorities are still keen to incorporate lessons learned into the country’s policy framework. To enhance preparedness for future emergencies, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UK Government are assisting the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) to develop a national risk-communication strategy focused on crisis and post-crisis needs.
With USD 60,000 in UK funding, the new strategy will be prepared by the United Nations Association of Georgia (UNAG) working in collaboration with a wide range of interested partners and counterparts.
“The strategy will help inform people about potential risks, their consequences, related decisions and recommendations,” NCDC Deputy Head Paata Imnadze said. “It will be a guiding document to coordinate risk-communication across all respective agencies, partners and stakeholders.”
“One of the lessons learned during the pandemic is that effective and open communication with the public is key to addressing these kinds of crises,” said British Ambassador Justin McKenzie Smith. “This new communication strategy will help Georgia’s excellent public health authorities to reach the widest possible audiences, from decision-makers to citizens right across society.“
“The experience of other countries has shown the disastrous consequences when official guidance in an emergency is mistrusted or ignored,” said UNDP Head Louisa Vinton. “The new national strategy will codify the many things that Georgia did right on COVID-19 and adapt in areas where improvements could be made, for example on the need to design targeted outreach for minorities and vulnerable groups.”
The risk-communication strategy is designed to help Georgia’s Government make effective decisions during a crisis and communicate them to citizens, ensuring public trust and coordination across all sectors of society. The document will address both national and local decision-making while tending to the needs of all citizens regardless of their ethnic, cultural, social or economic backgrounds.
UNDP will provide NCDC with consultancy and technical support in developing the strategy, as well as assist in raising public awareness about this critical strategic document. Other partners to be engaged in preparing the strategy include the Government Administration, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and other national and international stakeholders.
The assistance to the NCDC is just one component of a wider initiative by UNDP to support the ongoing Public Administration Reform in Georgia, implemented in partnership with the UK Government.


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A Unicorn Cake Smash Carmen and Grant visited the studio for their daughter Raina’s first birthday. For the occasion Carmen spent the morning cooking a beautiful unicorn cake complete with sugar cone horn and a flowing icing mane. Raina, isn’t a fan of getting messy and when she started with the unicorn horn, she very Continue reading
A Sunset Session with the Szarmes Family [oscvideo type=”vimeo” link=”https://vimeo.com/247025105″ dimensions=”16by9″] For the Szarmes family session we headed down to Bowness Park near their home. Bowness itself has a fascinating history; once an independent town, it has since been absorbed by the ever-expanding city of Calgary. The recent streak of fantastic weather held up, and Continue reading
At the end of December the Boparai families youngest son Harfateh will be celebrating his first birthday. To commemorate the event his parents Gagan and Manveer scheduled a cake smash at our studio. They came in with their two older children and Manveer’s close friend for a family photo and then to watch Harfateh have a smashing good time with his cake.
With a few days to go before Christmas we met with the Pointon Family at Pearce Estate Park. Calgary has had such warm weather this winter we were beginning to wonder if we would have a white Christmas. Just days before their session the whole city was covered in a soft blanket of white snow, perfect for their session and for their ski trip at Lake Louise that they were heading out to after their photos.
My son had his pre-schools Christmas party today and I was lucky enough to photograph all the kids enjoying the party put on by Mrs. Nixon and her helpers. They even arranged a special visit from Santa Clause himself.
With Christmas on the horizon we met the Ng’s for their first family session with little Mason. Calgary has been having some incredibly warm weather this winter and this day was no exception. We met Jillian, Raymond, baby Mason and both their parents at Pearce Estate Park. The sun was shining brightly through the reeds, making a beautiful warm backdrop for their photos.
We met Dominique, Denny, and their daughter Selena at Tom Campbell’s Natural Park. This beautiful dog park sits on top of a hill in Bridgeland and features a stunning look out onto Calgary’s downtown. The Poulin family were blessed with some beautiful golden light as they strolled atop the hill and Selena played in the warm December weather.
A Warm December Morning Shoot We met Nicole, Brad, and their three sons Huxley, Bravyn, and Everett in their McKenzie Town neighbourhood. The weather has been exceptionally warm this winter and the morning of their shoot was no different. We had a great morning session in the sun capturing the whole family together and we Continue reading
Karen and Ken haven’t had any family photos since their wedding in 2011. They now have a beautiful 4 year old daughter Alexandra and they wanted to update the family photo album with her gorgeous smile. For their session we photographed them along the banks of the outdoor skating rink that is famous during the winter season. I had a wonderful time photographing them I hope all of you enjoy their Christmas photos.
A warm chinook pulled into Calgary the day we met with Meri and Paul, the two kids and their golden retriever Evie. For their session we visited the BP Birthplace Forest that was planted in the community Silver Springs in 2002. Since then it has become favourite spot of people around the community and their family to visit with their dog for family walks. I had a wonderful time photographing them and I hope you enjoy the photos we captured.

domain: geography


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268 deputies voted for adoption in principle and as a whole of the corresponding bill No.3822-d, amending the Law of Ukraine "On Television and Radio broadcasting" (in terms of the share of the Ukrainian-language music in radio broadcasts and radio shows), Censor.NET informs.
In the course of debate on the bill, People's Front faction MP Viktoria Siumar has explained that every third song broadcast by the Ukrainian radio stations would be in the Ukrainian language from now on.
Siumar has also said that the law stipulated for at least 60 percent of all radio shows to be held in Ukrainian. Besides the Ukrainian language should be mainly used and Ukrainian music should be mainly played in the morning and afternoon but not at night, when no one is listening to the radio.
It should be noted that almost the entire Opposition bloc faction did not support the bill. According to the Verkhovna Rada, only Yurii Pavlenko and Vadym Rabinovych (he has defected from the Opposition bloc but is still listed as its member on the website of the Verkhovna Rada) have voted for the bill.

domain: news


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A Summer of Searching in Montreal
I walked by the bathhouse building several times. It had a discreet entrance, a nondescript façade. On the few past occasions I’d gone into a gay bathhouse before—in gay old Barcelona, in gay old San Francisco—it had been this way: a last-minute mental fencing match, a wrestling with the bathhouse angel, Thinking Fast and Slow About Whether or Not to Enter the Bathhouse. Now I was in gay old Montreal, passing along Saint-Catherine Street again. I turned a corner, walking in an expanding spiral away from the bathhouse on the Plateau, then reversed course, spiraling back towards it. This prolonged little drama of indecision might, I thought, either exhaust my racing mind, which was eminently capable of talking me out of doing anything, ever, or successfully muzzle that sweaty, stinking animal curiosity that had gotten me moving in the first place. Of course I was kidding myself: during that part of my life, curiosity won out almost every time, at least when it came to the question of entering some gay lair or another. I craved a connection—higher, lower, however one came by it—and the craving mastered me.
A thunderstorm had passed through earlier in the day. Now, however, as I made my way back to Saint-Catherine, the sky was “clear,” which is to say: oceanic, dark, deep inasmuch as it stretched out and out into the great, grave beyond. I knew almost no one in town, and I’d be leaving soon. Straight couples and small groups strolled along the park, speaking Québécois French, West African French, English, blends of these, other tongues. Soon, the dotted, solemn, yellow-white lights of the park gave way to the cheerful ones of the boulevard, where people dined and drank en plein aire or in luminous rooms behind glass. A pleasing aroma of flesh and char and fat wafted from a brightly lit kebab shop.
Related: Summer Vacations
I went inside the bathhouse. Indigo bulbs gave the antechamber a warm glow. No attendant appeared to be on duty—just a nerve-wracking absence at the front counter. Keys on coiled red rubber bands hung from hooks on the wall. The ideal me wouldn’t need to wait, standing there with his want exposed; he’d know in his stride all the laws of movement between one world and the other. In fact, the ideal me wouldn’t even be an individual, differentiated body: the essential crisis, the cosmic crisis then driving my life, was a rampant desire to feel at home everywhere, to absorb and master all codes, all languages—from hieroglyphics to the hanky code to HTML—to devour everything and be devoured by everything and so become one with the world, never again so youthfully lost, so stiff with insecurity. A little relief from being human, or maybe a lot: was it too much to ask?
Just when I feared I’d have to call into the bathhouse in order to soldier on toward this goal, an unsmiling, sinewy man swept in behind the counter, running a hand through his messy black hair.
“Bonsoir,” he said. He appraised me with a certain flatness of manner, a tired eye.
A short exchange followed in French. Once I paid, the attendant switched to English. “Come this way,” he said. He opened a door into a second antechamber. There were a few plush-looking chairs. A man in his forties or fifties sat on one. At the far end of the room was a bar, unmanned. The attendant must have usually covered that too, flitting from one task to the next, head skeleton of the bathhouse skeleton crew.
With a tight-lipped, thin smile, head skeleton handed me a towel and key. “You are room number 19,” he said. A comforting reduction: I was a room now. He gestured down a dark corridor, nodded, told me to have fun, then returned to sit with his friend, who was watching me.
The halls seemed deserted. Many neighboring rooms waited, empty, open. I found number 19 and closed the door behind me. It had a hard little bench and a tall locker. I undressed, folded my clothes neatly, and put them all away.
Questionable thinking had brought me to Montreal in the first place. I’d been laid off from a job answering phones at the San Francisco Ballet, and so decided to celebrate joblessness by leaving the country. A friend deposited my unemployment checks for me while I was in Canada. At that time I was also infatuated with a drag queen who’d been sober for many years; the solid sense of identity he seemed to find in performance and sobriety fascinated me. So he had an irritating nickname for me (“The English Patient”—I couldn’t keep weight on, I was disappearing), so he criticized my coffee-stained teeth even though his were crooked, so he felt contempt and fear and incredulity in the face of my desire for him. So what? In some hidden chamber of myself I nurtured a hunch that taking shelter in intimacy could really roughly approximate the relief I’d found a handful of times in things like smoking heroin, before the ex who introduced me to that vice died from his addiction: relief from being human, from being a frightened, feeling animal.
And though I told myself I’d joined AA shortly after meeting the drag queen because of a pre-existing yen for substances of all kinds, the truth is that I longed to absorb any and all details related to his life. I wanted his life in my veins; too much of my own there. I’d failed to properly work the first of the twelve steps (“Admit you are powerless over alcohol”) by the time I left for Quebec, but continued my performance of sobriety for most of the trip—until, released from my obsession with a man I'd watched put on pantyhose and Kryolan makeup to lipsync Tina Turner and Bjork and Siouxsie Sioux on the stages of small, booze-soaked gay bars, I finally ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio on the terrace of a bistro during my last week in Canada and drank it alone. I recall wishing the wine would have some sublime effect on me—I’d held off drinking, after all, for months. But I only felt like I’d had a glass of wine again, and that the world was a chaos to which my having or not having a glass of wine brought no greater sense of order.
The queen liked Montreal and had a close photographer friend, a Montrealer, with whom he was collaborating on a book of high-gloss photographs of drag performers. I met the friend there, even went on a road trip with her and two Parisians to Quebec City. We visited her grandmother—“Grand-mère Quebec!” she told me to call her, in her melismatic French—who sat with us late into the evening on the terrace of her suburban home, drinking and smoking. At one point she turned to me after I’d declined several offers of wine, beer, and cigarettes, and said, “You don’t drink, you don’t smoke—what do you do?” I didn’t know what to say; I was watching her, trying to understand what it meant to become a person, to grow old and gradually become one’s irreversible self. I was—perhaps it goes without saying—25. Getty Images
In Montreal I sublet a one bedroom apartment in Laurier, on the French side of town. The tenant, a sprite-like young blonde, left me her boyfriend’s bicycle. I rode it all around the city (or “mill town,” as an older gay curator friend and mentor had called it back in Berkeley, as in, “Why are you going to that mill town?”), and often up and down the hills of Parc Mont-Royal, where I hoped to meet men. I was seriously off my game that summer, though—as evidenced, I guess, by the fact that, as an outgoing 25-year-old who had been told ad nauseam that he was handsome and charming and so on and so forth, I eventually resorted to the bathhouse—and I never managed to connect with any guys. Not in parks, not in cafés, not in bars. I wanted so much to have a summer fling in Montreal. It was the closest thing to a summer fling in Paris I could afford.
I did meet an attractive young French-Canadian woman at the park one day. She was sitting with a friend when I pulled up on my bicycle to a neighboring bench. I’d intended to gaze upon nature, to project my erotic fantasies on it like a sexually frustrated bourgeois living in the 19th century, and to read a bit of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin. As I settled in, the pair spoke to each other in French, glancing at me often.
“Excuse me,” the young male friend called. “Are you single?” When the young woman, whose name would turn out to be Marina, slapped his shoulder and apologized to me, I knew he had asked for her and not himself.
“Well, yes,” I said, “but I’m gay.”
A harassed look came over her. “Damn it!” she said. “Of course you’re gay. Of course!” Marina was tall and slender. She held herself with easy confidence, perched in good posture on the bench, but had an air of mild exasperation, too, as though my gayness represented only the latest in a string of absurd injustices. She wore a dark blue sundress, a color that complemented her pale complexion and the long, black hair falling over her shoulders. Flattered to have a ravishing young woman notice and admire me, I apologized for being gay. The truth is that I wasn’t the least bit sorry: being gay meant, if nothing else, theoretical protection against the possibility of physical intimacy between us—an intimacy that I felt might spring up, so to speak, in the natural course of things, which would in turn disorient me and expose my fractured humanity. I would’ve hated to have to face myself all over again, to reconsider myself, by wanting to sleep with a woman.
We got to talking, and though she lent her lament a comic air, there was a real ache behind her jokes about romantic frustration. “I can’t meet a good man in Montreal to save my life,” she said. “Everyone’s gay and I’m going to die alone.” I apologized for these things as well—first for being gay, then for her frustration, then for heterosexual men in general, who were all, we agreed, dogs. I knew her conundrum well: a state in which one’s intense desire for a thing only makes it more elusive, mutating into a desperation that does no one any favors.
We exchanged phone numbers. I felt isolated in Montreal, and was beginning to want to forget the drag queen, to forget that I’d longed to forget myself by forgetting myself all over again. The pleasure of a platonic and diverting summer friendship—a stopgap while I found another way to disappear, to chase that sweet relief from being human—beckoned.
So Marina and I met up now and then. She showed me another side of Montreal: she worked as an architect, and on strolls around town would point out noteworthy buildings. She took me to a favorite museum of hers where an exhibition of sculpture and ceramics was on. I don’t remember any of the buildings or the art, as I was too busy trying to be simultaneously present and unavailable. Because even though we were doing the gay friend-girlfriend thing, I couldn’t deny a certain physical magnetism between us. This made our hanging out feel date-like at times, a sort of inadvertent seduction, which gave rise to all-too-human psychic distress. Uncomfortable silences would descend. I might look into her eyes with more intensity than I could help, feel too keenly the heat of standing close to her. What on earth, I wondered—afraid, probably, of the most obvious answer—were our bodies for?
On these outings, Marina often circled back to her loneliness. “I don’t understand,” she would say. “I’m attractive, I’m intelligent, I’m an architect. I just don’t get why I’m alone. I want to have a summer fling!” She would then look at me with more intensity, more hope than she could help. Eventually one of us would change the subject. I asked a lot of questions about architecture that summer, though I couldn’t tell you today even one thing I learned about it.
It seems stupid to me now that I didn’t surrender to instinct. We were both dancing around the idea, both lonesome and hard up, both drawn to each other. And from a distance of ten years, it appears that the main thing holding me back was this protective conception of myself as a gay man and a gay man only—a fundamentalist gay, if you will. We could’ve just acknowledged the feeling and gone from there, maybe even talked the prospect into an early grave if it came to that, maybe shared a good laugh.
I do remember an afternoon when a chance for us to fall into bed together came and went. We’d run into each other at a coffee shop in Mile End where I often went to read and write. Marina asked if I wanted to see her apartment, which wasn’t far. I did, I said.
It was a one-bedroom, minimalist, clean—just how I’d imagine a young architect’s apartment to be. Inside, we chatted in a casual way, her seated on the white, rumpled bed, me leaning against the door frame to her bedroom. The sun was shining through the windows; particles of dust floated in the light. There came a moment when we both fell silent, when I watched her from the threshold and she watched me back. Instinct stirred; I resisted. Why? Fear guided my life too often. I wish I’d tried to face it, wrestle it to the ground, even just admit to it. “I’m a little frightened here,” I might’ve said. Or I might have just, you know, done something, moved through it and into the new.
What I said was this: “I’d better be going.” I’d better disappear, dear. I turned after a too-long beat—one during which I hoped, I think, that she would protest. That way I wouldn’t have to, and being human wouldn’t be my fault.
Here are a few selling points taken from the websites of several Montreal bathhouses:
10,000 square feet of high sensations
it’s up to you to get free of your clothing and take advantage of the pleasure of walking through an oasis of real men
Students always 50% off
To this I’ll add: Sex without lasting connection is the hopeful center to which all hallways and blind turns lead. The lighting is extremely low, which not only flatters tired features, but gives the place an air of fetishized sordidness, criminality, imprisonment. Depending on your mood, this may seem thrilling or banal or like one of those homemade haunted-house affairs at Halloween—as if something might jump out at the next pagan station, wailing, grabbing at you with a rubber hand. A far cry from how I imagined, as a teenager, winningly homoerotic Roman baths: august and marbled and clean, pure in the light of the Mediterranean world and my fantasies. All our bathhouses, back rooms, dungeons, etc. inherit part of their atmosphere of Gothic decay by operating in the long shadow of AIDS. They are, in their way, ruins. Entering one—for someone like me, who was born around the time this plague began ravaging the gay community, was raised on a small island in Seattle as this horror unfolded beyond his immediate sphere of awareness, and so can only be said to have stepped out, as a young man, into the wreckage left behind—is like crossing into a realm where the shades of recent history roam, and not only because a majority of the men there are often old enough to have lived through the annihilation by disease of so many of their friends and loved ones.
I once interviewed for a job in a bathhouse. I’d just turned 20, and after finishing a fine arts study program in France and Italy, I flew to Barcelona on my own. I was flirting with the idea of dropping out of school and staying in Spain, of disappearing there, and had temporarily moved in with a Colombian named Sergio who had a long scar across his upper lip—from being pistol-whipped by the secret police in Bogotá, he told me in Spanish—and who, since I’d started hanging out with a group of young, stylish Colombian male prostitutes, and since we first met on the street corner in front of Triangulo on Las Ramblas where I’d first encountered them, thought for most of our first date that I was a prostitute, too. It made sense; I just smiled and said, “No—soy estudiante.” He would later crack jokes—frightened, I think, doubting me—about how he was sure I spent all day with my clientes, an American college boy hustling in Spain, while he cut hair in a salon near La Sagrada Familia. In any case, I’d bombed an interview to become a busboy at a restaurant, and so inquired at a bathhouse that I’d heard, through my new professional network of Colombian prostitutes, needed a janitor. The job was mine if I wanted it, said the attendant. In the end, swayed by tearful phone calls with my family (I told them I’d found a job in a health spa) and arguments with Sergio, I decided to return to America and finish my degree. And so I disappeared from Spain, and from Sergio’s life, as suddenly as I’d appeared in it.
I digress. Back in the Montreal bathhouse, I wandered through the dark halls, puzzled by how empty the place seemed. I passed a couple of well-muscled men in their early forties who clenched their jaws and bulged their eyes with the unmistakable intensity of addicts. Their come-ons were so crazed, so famished, that I couldn’t bring myself to say yes. If only I’d been high, too. One, a tattooed, athletic dude with brown hair and wild eyes, squeezed his bulge when I saw him a second time, then whipped open the front of his towel. He said something I didn’t understand, though I assumed it wasn’t anything I might hear at a weekly French conversation group. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a pleading look. Getty Images
“Non, merci,” I said, pulling away. I put my hand up in the universal sign for “you’re on too much meth.” I sensed an aggressive turn coming. Sure enough, he started ranting at me, presumably taking issue with the fact that although I’d entered the bathhouse and had now been walking around for some time, I wasn’t having sex with anyone. He brought a vial of poppers to one nostril—he’d been keeping it clenched in his fist—then held it towards me. I shook my head and began to walk away; this pissed him off even more, and in one swift motion, he grabbed my neck and forced the vial under my nose. Enraged, I shoved him. The whiff of poppers left me unpleasantly light-headed, but I stood my ground, cursing him out in English while he berated me further in French. Finally, he retreated down the corridor.
Within moments another man appeared at the doorway of his private cell nearby, curious to see what the fuss was about. He looked friendly and reassuring—in his sixties, I guessed. I approached, and he gave me a pat on the chest. “Entrez,” he said, stepping aside.
He closed the door for privacy. We kissed for a couple minutes, caressed each other, sighed. The popper buzz faded. The man must have sensed my desire ebbing, too. “Ça va?” he said.
“Un instant,” I said, pulling away. We both sat on the bench, side by side. A conversation followed in which I described having the bottle of poppers thrust beneath my nose by the tweaking muscleman, and the fury I felt. It’d rattled me more than I let my companion see—the high of the poppers, combined with the adrenal rush of fighting them off, left me trembling. My new acquaintance shook his head, saying, “Non, non,” adding that sex should be natural. “Naturel, naturel!” he insisted, by which he meant free of chemical influence, and though that wasn’t my point, exactly. I half-agreed, saying in French, “Yes, something like that—something like natural.” Maybe, he added, “un petit peu de marijuana,” but he lamented all the meth, all the amyl nitrate, all the reliance on chemical highs.
I laughed a little and he rubbed my shoulder. There I sat in the cell of a man who’d no doubt come of age in the sixties, a quasi-Emersonian bathhouse hippie, a transparent gay eyeball who’d surely tasted his fair share of free love, seen no small amount of lesions, wasting, agony, disappearance. Sitting by him felt somehow safe, though as I told him that I wished we had un petit peu de marijuana right then, I wondered to myself: what was he still doing there, haunting this maze? What was I still doing there, foiled in my desire to escape from myself?
When I left, he told me to enjoy the rest of my visite a Montreal. I made my way down the hall to my room. I closed the door, and sat for many minutes on my own rented bench, rented towel wrapped around my waist. I dozed, unsure what to make of my life just then—my body, the freaked-out consciousness that inhabited it, the time I conceivably had left with that particular dynamic duo. What was it for? What an outrage, that time was always going by, stealing things away: opportunities for pleasure, that much more of the life left in the body, every single piece of everything in the entire world and universe. That’s right: I’d traveled many miles to be maudlin in a half-abandoned French-Canadian bathhouse, to sit alone, too, and speculate about what AIDS had wrought. And I hadn’t even been drinking—I was still pretending to be a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I never did know how to take a real vacation.
I changed back into my clothes, then stood in the middle of Room 19, looking around. Somehow it felt like I’d forgotten something important, like I still had unfinished business in the bathhouse. But maybe it’ll always feel like that, so long as history reaches forward, groping in the dark, grasping at us, forever unfinished, never sated.
My summer fling with Montreal, such as it was, was ending. I couldn’t wait to get back to California, made human again by my failure to find relief from being human. There I’d drift from the drag queen, my fantasies about sobriety and disappearance having passed like clouds across the open sky. I’d think of Marina now and then, but fall out of touch with her, too, aside from some stray messages traded through LinkedIn. Before I left the bathhouse, though, I had one more mistake to make.
Fully dressed, I returned to the antechamber with the low lighting and the chairs and the unmanned bar. Now there were signs of life there: the attendant and friend no longer sat chatting. Wanting to show good manners, I had the odd thought that I should find the attendant and say goodbye—say thank you, of all things. I also wanted to be witnessed leaving. One feels a little less sure one has left, otherwise.
I paused before a latticed metal door that I assumed was an exit. The door had some signage in French on it, the meaning of which escaped me. Or maybe I spent too little time trying to puzzle it out. Or maybe I knew, somewhere in my heart, what would happen if I opened the door, and wouldn’t admit it to myself. Maybe I wanted to cause a little trouble.
Whatever the case, the moment I pushed the door open, a high, shrill alarm pierced the air. I froze, holding the door while this deafening sound filled not only the front room, but the whole interior, the whole of the bathhouse.
The attendant stormed in then, a furious, horrified look on his face. He swatted toward me with his hand and shouted in French. I couldn’t hear him over the alarm, but started shouting back, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
The hateful look on his face suggested that the alarm meant more than having to run to some control panel, flip a switch, and shut the thing up—it seemed quite possible, in fact, that he didn’t know how to turn it off. Though maybe that, too, was just another fantasy read into a face. Later I’d picture a handful of souls still moving within the maze, either lusting after some passing body or entangled already, suddenly startled apart, bringing their hands to their ears, their faces contorting in confusion. I’d imagine someone in the heart of the bathhouse letting his semen fly just as the alarm tripped. Someone else, dozing and sweating in the sauna, jolted awake as if from a frightful dream. I stepped out into the hallway, the latticed door slamming shut behind me. I couldn’t help but look back at the scowling attendant, watch him disappear into the bowels of the bathhouse as though swallowed up by some powerful force. Some force other than my having introduced a major inconvenience into his work day, I mean. Later I’d imagine him making a full sweep of the labyrinth, checking every private cell, every scurvy corner, every shadow, the dry heat sauna, shouting to everyone over the alarm that they needed to get dressed and go, leave the bathhouse, some young fool, américain bête, went out the wrong door.
It was years before I’d wonder why I ever thought anyone would have to leave. It was, after all, no longer a world of raids and round-ups. Our sex was tolerated, in theory, to a greater extent than ever before, and soon there would be no reason to be alone, to be a ball-gagged slave in darkness, a confirmed bachelor, a strange man living by himself down the lane. Raid was just something we’d buy to kill insects. Roundup we’d buy to kill weeds. And while we pulled the dead weeds out, we’d tell each other stories about the things we’d done and seen on our trips to a vanishing world. “I went to Montreal once,” I’d say. “I was lonely in those days. So stupid with fear—so curious, too. I went into a bathhouse, but I barely touched anyone. On my way out I set off the emergency exit alarm.”
“How very fascinating,” a friend, alive, would reply. “What happened then?”
Evan James's work has appeared in Oxford American, Catapult, The New York Times, The New York Observer, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has received fellowships from Yaddo and the Carson McCullers Center for his fiction.

domain: artistic


text:
Blog Posted on 04/12/2015 | Author: Karen Macarthur
What makes 3D slots so popular?
The fad of trying out new slots in 3D is getting to be the biggest trend in the online casinos that’s doing the rounds here. Mixing up the various slot themes of the online casino world; it is a roller coaster ride worth trying. No doubt, it’s the movie feel that gets you going when playing the 3D online slots. The only exception is the absence of the 3D glasses!
Actually, 3D slots are not in the true sense three dimensional. They provide 3D like feel with increased depth perception. Unlike the regular 2D slots, you can experience every line and stroke of the game with such amazing clarity and perception; that you will be forgiven to think it’s a real game.
So, what actually is making the casino world to go ballistics about 3D mobile slots? You bet the answer is its wide array of features, incredible storylines which brings alive the gameplay, and of course the well orchestrated sound track accompanying all this visual foreplay.
3D slots v/s Regular Slots
Moving over traditional slots, for the 3D slot is here to give you stiff competition. Quite like their cousins; they have the same template of free spins, bonus features and symbols to give you your winning payline and the jackpot. But, the exception is in its treatment that makes them stand out.
Tying all these factors together to weave an incredible storyline; you become totally involved in the gameplay and end up on the winning side. The very introduction of the game is enough to get you hooked up to the game. Exciting storylines which are in tune with the brisk and quick gameplay of the 3D slots are the backbone of the success of the 3D online slots.
The bonuses and promotions that the 3D online slots offer are exceptional to say the least. In order to pull the players towards the 3D slots; it is part of their gameplay to hold their attention and of course their pockets. Offering no deposit welcome bonuses, cash match bonuses for their real money deposits and their favourite game bonuses that they all love – free spins and bonus game features, is a sure fire way for grabbing their attention.
Play the 3D online slots from whichever Android or iOS platform that you choose. Not only compatible with both these platforms, it’s the ease of play, improved gameplay and feature rich aspects that is drawing the players. Enjoy the no download versions or play in the web browsers. The no deposit bonuses will let you check out the 3D games for free, before venturing with real money deposits.
It’s not only the desktops and laptops that will raise your 3D gaming experience a notch higher. The smartphones and tablets lets you experience the same while on the move. Be it a gunfight, a trip to the serene green lands, or the icy tundra; dig deep underground for hidden treasure or go out of space; everything pops right out of the screen, totally engrossing and interesting.
But, on the flip side, it can lead to tired eyes, fatigue and uncomfortable feeling if played for a long time. Enjoy the perks of playing a 3D online slot while taking regular breaks.
The list of online 3D slots is ever growing with the software game providers, realising its true potential. Expect amazing animations for every winning combination supported by the equally impressive background score. The future of online 3D slots looks bright and quite wonderful! Play on and enjoy the brisk gameplay and the terrific payouts.

domain: hobby


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This luxury bridal party gift includes personalised robe, shorts & vest top pyjamas.
Perfect from hen party through to the wedding day morning preparations and on to the honeymoon for the Bride.
Our long length personalised satin robes and pyjamas are available in White, Pink or Black and in a range of size options too.
The set will be beautifully wrapped and packaged in a personalised gift box with satin ribbon bow to finish.
Gowns and pyjamas are 95% polyester & 5% elastane resulting in a smooth stain finish. They are personalised with black or gold lettering in a choice of font (options can be found within the images)

domain: design


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First publishedon www.AggBusiness.com
Jan Jenisch, CEO of LafargeHolcim, has welcomed the Group's encouraging Q1 2019 trading performance
, the French-Swiss building materials heavyweight, posted a 6.4% year-on-year sales rise to €5.959 billion in the first quarter of 2019. Profitability increased in all business segments, while there was a 20.6% increase in EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation). The Group also achieved a significant reduction in its debt.
Looking ahead, LafargeHolcim sees its positive momentum in Q1 continuing throughout the rest of 2019. This is expected to include continued market growth in North America, softer but stabilising cement demand in Latin America, continued demand growth across most countries in Europe, challenging but stabilising market conditions in Middle East Africa, and continued demand growth in Asia Pacific
Jan Jenisch, CEO of LafargeHolcim, said: “We had a very strong start of the year and I am especially pleased to see our strong sales growth and an over-proportional increase in profitability. Our momentum is very positive and the Q1 2019 is the third consecutive quarter with Recurring EBITDA growing faster than Net Sales.”
“Our strategic decision to divest South East Asia was executed with very attractive valuations allowing us to achieve a new level of financial strength. We have delivered on the promised strengthening of our balance sheet and we are on track to accelerate the execution of our Strategy 2022 – ‘Building for Growth’.”
“Our momentum in the past 3 quarters, a solid global market demand and the ambitions of our teams give us great confidence for reaching our targets for the full year.”


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Our traditional way of thinking about the immune system focuses on protection against viruses and bacteria. However, as research on the immune system continues, we are now finding that the contributions of the immune system to both health and disease are very complex. The immune system can be thought of as a highly diffuse organ that is integrated in some way or another with every other organ (skin, kidney, etc.) in the body. The immune system not only serves as a barrier against disease, but it is also has a routine role in the day-to-day function of various organs. The immune system maintains the health of the individual in many different ways. However, it is now understood that the immune system can also be involved in disease processes and pathogenesis. In breast cancer, T cells populate tumor tissue very early in the course of disease (e.g., T cells are detected in benign proliferative disease) and are among the most abundant immune effectors in early and advanced tumors. The typical idea, as modeled in other cancers, suggests that T cells are beneficial to survival and protect against malignancy. Indeed, this is the basis and rationale for the development of cancer vaccines. For example, in ovarian cancer, the more T cells in the tumor, the better the prognosis for the patient. Such findings have never been found in breast cancer, however. Rather, the presence of T cells in breast cancer tissues is associated with a worse outcome. This was first reported in the science literature in 1989 by investigators who found that as the numbers of CD8 T cells (i.e., cytotoxic T cells) in the tumor increase, the number of axillary lymph nodes with metastatic disease also increase. In contrast to other cancers, there has never been a clear association between T cells and improved survival or reduced tumor size in breast cancer. It is likely that any protective impact of the T cells is overshadowed by some kind of negative impact. It is not yet known what this negative effect is, but a recent publication suggests that T cells can increase the aggressiveness of the tumor cells by a long-known biologic process referred to as epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT). EMT is a natural biologic process by which cells acquire the ability to move from one area to another. For example, during development of a fetus, cells must move to form new organs, arms, legs, etc. Cells use EMT to move. Breast cancer cells also use EMT to move (i.e., invasion and metastases). We think that T cells and other cells of the immune system can cause breast tumor cells to undergo EMT.
Our hypothesis in these studies is that immune cells cause breast cancer cells to undergo EMT. Furthermore, we also hypothesize that the tumor cells that have undergone EMT are immunosuppressive and may limit any antitumor activity of the immune system. In support of this hypothesis, it has been shown, in murine models, that tumor-specific T-cell-mediated immune responses can cause epithelial breast cancer cells to undergo EMT, increase immunosuppressive capabilities, and downmodulate expression of signals that alert the immune response.
The objective of the proposed study is to define the interactions between T cells and breast cancer. We have two specific aims. In Specific Aim 1, we will determine if T cells and other cells of the immune system can directly cause breast tumor cells to undergo EMT. In vitro studies will be done to determine the mechanism by which T cells mediate EMT. We will also use a mouse model of breast cancer to identify the important immune effects, besides T cells, that may be involved in this process. In Specific Aim 2, we will ask if breast tumors cells that have undergone EMT have increased capabilities of immunosuppression compared to native epithelial breast cancer cells. Our goal in this aim is to determine if breast cancer cells that have undergone EMT produce immunosuppressive substances. The immune system interacts with breast cancer from the time of its inception through its most advanced stages.
Increasing evidence now supports the notion that the immune system, aside from its antitumor role, can also drive malignant progression and immune escape of breast cancer. In this proposal, the innovative goal is to define a newly identified pathologic interaction between the T lymphocytes and breast cancer. With very limited successes, much effort has been put toward developing immune-based therapies (e.g., vaccines) for the treatment and prevention of breast cancer. Further unlocking the natural interactions between the immune system and breast cancer will be required to improve our immunotherapeutic capabilities.
|Effective start/end date||1/1/06 → 12/31/06|
- U.S. Department of Defense: $111,000.00

domain: medical


UK - Rexam, the world's largest beverage can maker, has cut its global pension fund deficit by £51m to £332m.
The group’s first-half results to the end of June showed the fall reflected cash contributions of £12m into its defined benefit schemes worldwide - up from £8m in the first half of 2003 - as well as higher discount rates used to value liabilities.
The FCA and TPR have announced their joint strategy for tackling the key risks facing pensions in the next decade. Victoria Ticha explores the plan and the industry's initial reaction.
GKN has slammed Melrose for making 'misleading' comments relating to the engineering giant's two UK defined benefit (DB) schemes.
UK inflation fell to 2.7% in February 2018 from 3% a month earlier, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed, a larger decline than analysts expected.
In the latest in a monthly series of DC columns from Newton Investment Management, Curt Custard warns investors of the possibility of further volatility in the months ahead


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Sterling silver and cz pendant. The cz’s are in a halo setting with one large stone surrounded with 11 smaller stones, there is also one rub over set stone joined to the bale. It is 12mm in diameter. The chain is a spiga style chain & 20inches long .
This pendant can be purchased with any chain style and length. Please contact us if you require this.


New Kick Spindle
Fascinating! I've never heard of a kick spindle before. It looks like a step somewhere between a spindle and a wheel. I wonder how nicely it works compared to each?
(The Flickr photo has a link to a blog post plus the maker... I haven't checked either out... yet.)


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Determined to get to the breakfast buffet, it was up again with the alarm and quick showers to get downstairs. Not too impressed with the buffet at the Palace Hotel, but it was neat that they made toast and delivered it to the table in this neat little holder. The rest of the buffet was the usual assortment of fried and scrambled eggs, back bacon, sausage, and of course haggis. There was also a nice assortment of breads, rolls, and cereal for the taking.
We were of course under the impression that our room came with breakfast, but upon checkout we discovered a nice charge on our bill for breakfast. It made me glad that I we missed it the first day. Not wanting to be lost without a clue, before we checked out we used the free Internet to get directions to Balmoral Castle and then directions from there to our hotel in Edinburgh. Our weakness while driving has been finding hotels in the cities once we arrive, so I was determined not to let it happened again.
It was a pleasant 90-mile drive to Balmoral Castle. We took a direct, but through the countryside, route that took us up by ski resorts, farms (complete with sheep snacking on the side of the road completely oblivious to cars passing by), and wonderful lush landscape. I even let Daniel try driving, but after 10 minutes he gave up because he was tired of me squirming in the passenger seat. We arrived at Balmoral, but were disappointed since they only give tours on Saturdays in the autumn and we missed it by a day. I did manage to take some photos of the gates of the estate and then we made our way back down the road.
Before we knew it we were approaching Edinburgh via the Forth Road Bridge, a nice suspension bridge across the bay. It runs parallel to the famous iron bridge used for the railroads and it was a spectacular site despite the drizzle. Heading into the city center confident with our directions, we again got turned around and hopelessly on the wrong side of the city. I decided to pull into the Holiday Inn Express and ask for directions. The nice lady showed me the fact that it really wasn’t very far and as a matter of fact we had passed it on the way to Holiday Inn.
Our hotel didn’t have a spot for our beloved B150, but we found a spot on the street right across from the hotel. We have to move it before 8am tomorrow which works out because that is when the Europcar agency opens. This Hilton is way above the one in Blackpool and is very nice. They recently renovated the first floor and fortunately our room is on the first floor. Just like the other hotel, the internet is for pay only so access will be limited until we get to Paris.
We set off to walk around Edinburgh to find a place to eat and ended up settling on TGI Fridays since most other places were closed. The service was OK, but our food took forever to get to our table. After almost 90 minutes in the restaurant, we finally got to leave and head back to the hotel. Since I have to get up early in the am to return the car it was a quick night for me. Of course, I have planned to do that for the last couple of night, but have ended up watching TV until late. But tonight, I will make sure I am off early.
Tomorrow, we are going up to Edinburgh Castle and some of the other sights. We would like to do one of the hunted tours. There is even a group that features a “as seen on Most Haunted” picture in their ad, so I think that is the one we will do. Tomorrow is also Guy Fawkes Night so we need to see where the big pyro exhibit will be at tomorrow night. One last thing, we need to make train reservations for our trip to London to meet the Eurostar.


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Britney Jean Spears, born on December 2, 1981, in McComb, Mississippi, is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. Known as the “Princess of Pop,” Spears rose to fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s, becoming one of the most influential pop stars of her generation.
Starting her career at a young age, Spears signed with Jive Records at 15 and released her debut album, “…Baby One More Time,” in 1999. Since then, she has sold over 150 million records worldwide. Throughout her career, Spears has faced personal and legal challenges but her impact on the music industry remains undeniable.
In this article, we will explore the remarkable journey of Britney Spears, delve into her artistry, discuss the public image and controversies she has faced, examine her legacy and achievements, and explore her ventures beyond music. Join us as we take a closer look at the life and career of this iconic pop singer.
The Artistry of Britney Spears
Musical Style, Influences, and Songwriting
Britney Spears has established herself as a versatile artist with a unique musical style that blends pop, dance-pop, electropop, and teen pop. Her songs are known for their catchy melodies, infectious hooks, and upbeat tempos that resonate with audiences around the world.
Spears draws inspiration from some of the music industry’s legends, including Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston. Their influence can be heard in her music, as she pays homage to their iconic styles while adding her own modern twist.
In addition to her vocal talent, Spears has also contributed to her songwriting, co-writing several of her songs. Collaborating with renowned songwriters and producers throughout her career, she has created a diverse catalog of music that showcases her creativity and artistic growth.
One defining feature of Spears’s artistry is her visually stunning music videos. Known for their highly choreographed routines and captivating aesthetics, her videos complement the energy and appeal of her music, creating a complete sensory experience for her fans.
Overall, Britney Spears’s artistry encompasses a wide range of styles and influences, showcasing her ability to continually evolve as an artist and captivate audiences with her music and visuals.
The Public Image of Britney Spears
Media Scrutiny, Controversies, and Rehabilitation
Throughout her career, Britney Spears has been under constant media scrutiny, which has often resulted in controversies and the invasion of her privacy. From her highly publicized relationships to her struggles with mental health and family dynamics, Spears has faced intense media attention.
In recent years, the #FreeBritney movement has gained traction, shedding light on the legal and personal struggles she has faced under her conservatorship. This movement, fueled by her fans and supporters, has emerged as a rallying cry to grant Spears autonomy over her personal and professional decisions.
Spears’s public image has evolved over time, shaped by the media’s portrayal and public perception. While she initially gained fame as a wholesome pop star, her personal challenges and the unwarranted attention she faced took a toll on her public image.
In response to the ongoing controversies, Spears has been vocal about reclaiming control over her life. Through social media posts and legal proceedings, she has expressed her desire to end her conservatorship and make her own choices.
The intense media scrutiny and resulting controversies have sparked a larger conversation about the treatment of celebrities and the importance of mental health advocacy. The public image of Britney Spears serves as a reminder of the challenges artists can face in the spotlight and the power of a united movement for change.
The Legacy of Britney Spears
|Britney Spears’s Impact on Pop Music
|Britney Spears’s legacy in the music industry is undeniable. She played a significant role in the revival of teen pop in the late 1990s and early 2000s, shaping the sound and style of a new generation of pop stars. Her innovative approach to music and performance paved the way for artists such as Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Taylor Swift.With her catchy melodies, energetic dance routines, and relatable lyrics, Spears captured the hearts of millions of fans worldwide. She brought a fresh, youthful energy to the pop music scene, establishing herself as the “Princess of Pop.”
Britney Spears’s influence can be seen in the success and musical styles of today’s pop stars. Her groundbreaking work set a precedent for artists to experiment with their sound and image, breaking away from traditional pop conventions. Many artists credit Spears as a major inspiration, paying homage to her iconic performances and contributions to the genre.
Despite the personal and legal challenges Spears has faced throughout her career, her resilience and talent have cemented her status as an icon in the music industry. Her influence on pop music continues to be felt, and her legacy will forever be remembered.
Achievements of Britney Spears
Awards, Records, and Chart Success
Britney Spears has established an impressive legacy filled with numerous awards, records, and chart-topping success. Her exceptional talent and undeniable impact on the music industry have garnered recognition and accolades throughout her career.
Among her many achievements, Britney Spears has won a Grammy Award, honoring her outstanding contributions to the music industry. She has also been recognized by the esteemed Guinness World Records, earning an impressive total of 15 records, solidifying her place in music history.
In addition to Grammy and Guinness World Records, Spears has been honored with six MTV Video Music Awards and seven Billboard Music Awards, highlighting her immense popularity and success in the industry.
Furthermore, Britney Spears’s albums consistently achieved remarkable chart success. Several of her singles reached the coveted number one spot on the US Billboard Hot 100, further solidifying her status as a chart-topping artist.
Notably, Britney Spears holds the distinction of being the best-selling teenage artist of all time, a testament to her widespread appeal and popularity among young audiences. Additionally, she is recognized as one of the best-selling music artists worldwide, with over 150 million records sold.
Through her remarkable achievements, Britney Spears has left an indelible mark on the music industry, solidifying her status as an iconic and influential figure in pop music history.
Britney Spears: Beyond Music
Britney Spears has proven herself to be a versatile and multi-talented artist, extending her influence beyond the realm of music. Throughout her career, she has explored other ventures and made meaningful contributions in different fields.
One notable aspect of Britney Spears’s career is her successful foray into the world of business. In collaboration with Elizabeth Arden, she launched her own perfume brand, which has become immensely popular and generated billions of dollars in sales. The Britney Spears perfume brand offers a range of fragrances that cater to different tastes and preferences, further solidifying her status as a pop culture icon with a keen entrepreneurial spirit.
In addition to her business ventures, Britney Spears has also been actively involved in philanthropic activities. She has shown a strong commitment to giving back to society by supporting various charitable organizations. Notably, she has worked with organizations focused on children’s welfare, using her platform to raise awareness and make a positive impact in the lives of those in need.
Britney Spears’s philanthropy reflects her genuine compassion and desire to contribute to the betterment of society. Through her involvement in charitable initiatives, she has demonstrated that she not only has a powerful voice in the music industry but also a sincere dedication to making a difference in the world.
The Discography of Britney Spears
Britney Spears has released numerous albums throughout her career, including “…Baby One More Time” (1999), “Oops!… I Did It Again” (2000), “Britney” (2001), and “Blackout” (2007). Her discography is filled with hit singles, including “Toxic,” “Gimme More,” and “Womanizer.” Spears’s music has resonated with audiences worldwide and continues to be celebrated for its catchy hooks and infectious energy.
|…Baby One More Time
|“…Baby One More Time,” “Sometimes,” “Crazy”
|Oops!… I Did It Again
|“Oops!… I Did It Again,” “Lucky,” “Stronger”
|“I’m a Slave 4 U,” “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” “Overprotected”
|“Gimme More,” “Piece of Me,” “Break the Ice”
Britney Spears in Film
In addition to her successful music career, Britney Spears has also explored the world of acting. While her filmography may not be as extensive as her discography, her foray into acting displays her versatility as an entertainer.
Britney Spears made her film debut in 2002 with the movie “Crossroads,” where she showcased her acting abilities in the lead role. This coming-of-age drama allowed audiences to see a different side of Spears beyond her music.
Following her debut, Spears appeared in other films, further expanding her acting career. In 2002, she made a memorable cameo in “Austin Powers in Goldmember” as herself, showcasing her natural charm and charisma on the big screen. She also appeared in Michael Moore’s documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” in 2004, addressing her views on politics and the media.
While Spears’ acting career may not have reached the same level of success as her music, her on-screen performances demonstrate her versatility and willingness to explore different creative realms. Her appearances in various films contribute to the overall breadth of her artistic endeavors.
|Austin Powers in Goldmember
Concerts and Residencies
Britney Spears has captivated audiences worldwide with her energetic performances and iconic dance routines in a series of successful concert tours and residencies. Performing in sold-out arenas and stadiums, Spears has solidified her status as a captivating performer and crowd favorite.
One of the most notable highlights of Spears’s career is her four-year concert residency, “Britney: Piece of Me,” at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. This residency allowed fans to experience her electrifying live shows on a consistent basis, further establishing her as a pop music icon.
With her powerful vocals, dynamic stage presence, and visually stunning production, Spears has left a lasting impression on the concert stage. Her performances are known for their high-energy choreography, dazzling costumes, and unforgettable moments, creating an immersive and unforgettable experience for fans.
The Personal Life of Britney Spears
Britney Spears’s personal life has always been a topic of public interest and scrutiny. Over the years, she has had her fair share of relationships and has been married twice. The first marriage, which took place in 2004, was to Jason Allen Alexander and was quickly annulled. She then entered into a marriage with Kevin Federline, with whom she has two children.
Related reading: How Old Is Britney Spears A Look At The Pop Stars Age
Spears’s relationships and custody battles have often made headlines, with the media closely following every twist and turn. Despite the challenges she has faced, Spears has managed to maintain a close bond with her family. Her mother and sister play an important role in her life, providing support and love during both the highs and lows.
Throughout it all, Britney Spears continues to prioritize her well-being and strive for personal growth. She has shown resilience in the face of adversity, using her experiences to shape her own narrative and move forward. This determination and resilience are a testament to her strength as an individual.
Who is Britney Spears?
Britney Spears is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress known as the “Princess of Pop.” She rose to fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
When did Britney Spears start her career?
Britney Spears started her career at a young age, signing with Jive Records at 15 and releasing her debut album, “…Baby One More Time,” in 1999.
What is Britney Spears’s musical style?
Britney Spears’s musical style is a blend of pop, dance-pop, electropop, and teen pop.
Who are some of Britney Spears’s biggest influences?
Britney Spears has cited Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston as some of her biggest influences.
What are some of Britney Spears’s most famous songs?
Some of Britney Spears’s most famous songs include “Toxic,” “Gimme More,” and “Womanizer.”
Has Britney Spears faced any controversies?
Yes, Britney Spears has faced various controversies throughout her career, including media scrutiny and personal struggles.
What is the #FreeBritney movement?
The #FreeBritney movement is a movement that sheds light on Britney Spears’s legal and personal struggles under her conservatorship.
What is Britney Spears’s legacy in the music industry?
Britney Spears’s legacy is marked by her impact on pop music and popular culture, as well as her role in the revival of teen pop.
What awards has Britney Spears won?
Britney Spears has won a Grammy Award, 15 Guinness World Records, six MTV Video Music Awards, and seven Billboard Music Awards, among others.
What other ventures has Britney Spears been involved in?
Britney Spears has launched a successful perfume brand in collaboration with Elizabeth Arden and has been involved in philanthropic activities.
What are some of Britney Spears’s albums?
Some of Britney Spears’s albums include “…Baby One More Time,” “Oops!… I Did It Again,” “Britney,” and “Blackout.”
Has Britney Spears appeared in any films?
Yes, Britney Spears has appeared in films such as “Crossroads,” “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” and “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Has Britney Spears performed in any concerts or residencies?
Yes, Britney Spears has embarked on several successful concert tours and had a four-year concert residency, “Britney: Piece of Me,” in Las Vegas.
What is known about Britney Spears’s personal life?
Britney Spears has been married twice and has two children. Her personal life has often been the subject of public interest.


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MILWAUKEE - The Milwaukee Brewers announced on Monday, Feb. 5 a new parking system that utilizes license plate recognition technology. Officials say it is expected to provide seamless entry into American Family Field parking lots.
A news release says the Brewers will partner with Interstate Parking Company to implement the license plate recognition technology.
Officials say the Milwaukee Brewers will be the first professional sports organization in the United States to implement this technology to this scale. It will debut at the Brewers 2024 Home Opener on Tuesday, April 2 – when the Crew takes on the Minnesota Twins.
How it works
Once parked in the American Family Field parking lots, fans with prepaid digital parking will activate their parking session by simply typing in their license plate on the MLB Ballpark App. Fans purchasing day-of parking will scan a QR code posted on signs in the lot, enter their license plate and payment information. This expedited process will help alleviate backups that often occur during peak entry times. Parking ambassadors will be onsite to assist with traffic flow and help fans with the new process.
Fans will access American Family Field parking lots as usual. All entries remain the same with one additional entrance for Season Seat Holders and Suiteholders who have Gold parking, which can be accessed by entering from Brewers Boulevard. American Family Field parking lot times have not changed and typically open three hours before the first pitch (subject to change). For Monday – Thursday games that start at 6:15 p.m. or 6:40 p.m., parking lots open two and a half hours before the first pitch.
Parking prices remain the same as 2023. More information on the new process can be found at brewers.com/Parking.
Two options for parking at American Family Field: Pre-paid or day-of. Fans are strongly encouraged to pre-pay for parking to secure a parking spot at a lower cost than day-of parking rates.
Pre-paid parking passes will be digitally delivered via the MLB Ballpark app where fans will go to activate their pre-paid parking by simply typing in their license plate.
Day of game parking purchases can be made by scanning the unique QR code posted on signs in each lot, type in their license plate and then pay via Apple Pay, Google Pay or credit card. If a fan is unable to scan a QR code, parking ambassadors will be available onsite to assist or fans can visit a pay station at the ballpark.
Fans will enter American Family Field parking lots as usual; all entries remain the same with one additional entrance for Season Seat Holders and Suiteholders who have Gold parking, accessed by entering from Brewers Boulevard. Parking attendants will be onsite to direct people to specific lots. There will no longer be cashiers to take payment or scan a prepaid pass.
Fans must purchase day of parking or activate their pre-paid parking session before entering the ballpark to avoid receiving a parking violation.
Price rates for 2024 remain the same as last season.
The new parking process does not impact tailgating in the parking lots. Visit brewers.com/Tailgating for information on tailgating at American Family Field.


Helen Highly Fears Ghostbox Cowboy, Talks to Writer-Director John Maringouin, Comments on Patti Smith and Horses, and Gives a Shout-Out to General Magic
I gotta start with an opening paragraph that will feed the Google search-engine monster the info it needs, and also give you a heads-up that I spend a long time railing against this film, but in the end… Helen Highly Recommends the movie Ghostbox Cowboy, written and directed by John Maringouin, which saw its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival 2018. And if Patti Smith (my hero) can use the word “motherfucker” three times in every sentence, which she recently did at the premiere of Horses, the new and intentionally-terrible documentary film about her, followed by a bizarrely-hostile live performance at Beacon Theater (yeah, I know she was a punk rocker, and she still can rock like no one else, but she’s 70 beloved years old now and has essentially accepted the role of Goddess Mother Earth, so… fewer “motherfuckers” out of her mouth might be in order)… all that and be only praised and worshipped by the press the next day, then that gives me permission to say this:
This motherfuckin’ movie is totally bat-shit crazy, and it plays like you took a dose of bad acid and had a terrible trip (and don’t tell me it was funny, motherfucker!). And just like an acid trip, you will finally come down and be exhausted and realize… there were an awful lot of potentially meaningful thoughts and images in that experience, which you may wish you never had, and it may or may not have changed your life, for good or ill you’re not sure… but it was kinda cool and yeah you’d do it again.
This movie had me running home, alone and in the dark, scared for reasons I didn’t understand, but definitely totally freaked out, looking over my shoulder for I don’t know who or what. Man, what a relentlessly grim, dark, bleak, terrifyingly phantasmagoric dystopian nightmare of a movie. I tried to shake it off before I went to bed. I couldn’t. I woke up in a wobbly and disoriented state, having dreamt about it, and then sat down at my computer and saw email from the film’s P.R. guy thanking me for attending the screening and asking if I would share my thoughts on the film. What the fuck, motherfucker?!
I sat down to write him a raging letter – blame him for horrifying me for no good reason, with his awful perverse movie and faking me out in the first place by giving me press notes that called it a comedy. A comedy?! This is a horror flick! For me, it was more disturbing than Get Out. And okay, Get Out did have some comic elements, and I even loved it for being such a genre-bender, but… this was different. I don’t have many horror films to compare this with because I tend to stay away from horror, but I know a terrifying movie when I see one. (For the record, I avoided the movies in the Tribeca “Midnight Series” – especially the zombie movies, and this should have had a Midnight Series warning label on it.)
Here’s how my email started: “You already asked me if I liked it and I told you NO! Don’t you remember that you tried to ask me after the movie last night if I liked it, and I pushed you aside as I ran out of the theater and down the stairs, visibly shaken, saying it was the creepiest movie I had ever seen?!” I fully explained the unpleasant circumstances: I was dutifully watching the back-to-back-to-back pre-festival press screenings, and this was the last film of the night, and I had my notebook in my hands but became so petrified as I watched the movie that I literally didn’t move and didn’t write a single word in my notebook.
And then, at some point late in the movie, I finally extricated my brain from its twisted grip and caught my breath and looked around me and realized that nearly all the other reporters had left the theater! They had the good sense to get the Hell out of there! And suddenly I realized I was alone, in the dark, with this hideous, evil film. (I couldn’t use enough adjectives to describe my very-visceral experience.) But I had stayed this long, so I gritted my teeth and stuck it out to its bitter end. And then, once outside, I was alone late on a weeknight on a deserted street in Tribeca, with this disturbing film breathing down my neck, and it followed me all the way home and into bed and even woke up with me in the morning. Sheesh.
I, a stranger and afraid, in world I never made. – A.E. Housman
And now I was writing an email about it. And as I typed and the more I detailed my experience, the more I pulled my thoughts together (as I always do in the process of writing), and I started considering exactly what was so upsetting to me about this movie. I was looking for a way to describe the depth of the horror and ugliness, and what I came up with was….
Remember that scary part of Pinocchio where he goes to Pleasure Island, which at first seems colorful and fun like an amusement park but quickly becomes dark and scary, as Pinocchio realizes that it is actually a land of sin and debauchery and brutality? And Pinocchio had just wanted to be a “real boy,” but he was tricked and robbed by false friends and taken to this place where everyone he meets is a soulless, ruthless exploiter of the hopes and dreams of others? (long pause. brain wildly racing) And there is one especially repugnant scene where they dress him up in a wig and costume and force him to perform for a miserable audience? O. M. G.
Ghostbox Cowboy is the Pinocchio story? Yes, it is! Well, if that’s true, then I guess maybe that lends some credence to this movie, because Pinocchio is considered a canonical piece of literature and has inspired hundreds of adaptations. I mean, that’s some worthy material from which to borrow, if that’s what is going on here. (FYI, according to Wikipedia, Pinocchio has been adapted in over 260 languages worldwide. That makes it the most-translated book, other than the Bible, and one of the best-selling books ever published.) But I only remembered the Pinocchio story from my childhood brain – the fear and horror I felt, which was so much like what this movie had made me feel. I didn’t immediately remember all the details.
I was remembering the visuals from the Pinocchio Disney movie more than anything else, which btw was made a lot more child-friendly than the original. Although it is significant that I also had the book as a child and so the book is lurking in my memory banks too, and my mother had a rule against abridgements, so all the childhood stories I read were the real deal. For example, I had to read the authentic Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, all 272 pages. In the Oz book, I think some of the most boring parts were left out of the movie, but the children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi, definitely included some dark and scary parts that didn’t make it into Disney’s film, including the brutal death of Pinocchio at the end, which was instead changed to a happy ending.
So, I Googled Pinocchio. In addition to the Wikipedia info above, what I found was amazing. For you to appreciate all the significant similarities, as I did as I sat there, I guess I need to first provide you with a synopsis of the Ghostbox Cowboy movie. But my major point is that suddenly I went from hating this movie to being fascinated by it. I had so many questions! I started my email as an angry rant and ended it with a request to interview the director, which I did and is included below. Here’s a short synopsis, provided by the filmmakers:
“This darkly comedic morality tale examines a wildly ambitious Westerner who tries to get in on China’s tech boom and finds that he may not be up to the task. Texan Jimmy Van Horn (David Zellner) is a cowboy huckster who arrives in the booming city of Shenzhen with a couple of bitcoins and huge ambitions of parlaying them into economic success. Lucky for Jimmy, he’s got a friend holding open the back door to this accidental “Shangri-La” – Bob Grainger (Robert Longstreet), who’s gotten new teeth, a blonde wig and looks twenty years younger. He promises to do the same for Jimmy in six weeks. Using a startling visual language, this film offers an excitingly fresh, complex perspective on China’s economic growth and the gold rush mentality it inspires.”
Sounds simple enough, right? Well, there’s a lot more to it, and it’s difficult to describe, at least for me, for whom the movie was a kind of blurr. (They’re not kidding about “startling visual language.”) Here is a bit more detail, written by China Underground Cinema:
America is dead. And washed-up tech entrepreneur Jimmy Van Horn is pushing the reset button. He’s moving himself and his shell company to Shenzhen, China. – China Underground Cinema
CUC continues: “Shenzhen: A fishing village 3 decades ago, now the biggest city you’ve never heard of. A fantasia of craven capitalists where wheels of industry spin so fast it’s ‘literally impossible to walk down the street without making money – if you know the right people.’ Lucky for Jimmy, he’s got a friend in Bob Grainger, who has been living there a long time. Bob’s got friends too, like Vincent X — a 25 year old Chinese tech heir who employs thousands of migrant workers making everything from iPhone knock offs to KFC toys. And his sidekick ‘ The Specialist’ – a 29 year old from the Mojave Desert turned Chinese Sourcing Lord with a profound disdain for his fellow Americans. With friends like them, who needs enemies? But in China enemies make dreams come true.”
Wow, right? So, I will take you to my interview with the writer-director John Maringouin (along with some after-the-fact commentary by me, in parenthesis):
So, I will take you to my interview with the writer-director John Maringouin (along with some after-the-fact commentary by me, in parenthesis):
… a post-apocalyptic dystopia, except there was no real apocalypse; it’s as if humanity is the apocalypse…
HH: Let’s start with the genre issue. You call it a comedy.
HH: How is it a comedy? I understand that all comedies aren’t necessarily funny, but the classical definition of comedy is at least a circular structure.
JM: Yes, it is circular: it goes from one blank region to another. (HH is surprised that JM does not flinch at my introduction of academic stuff like classical definitions of genres.)
JM: It starts at a Walmart in the desert and he ends up in the Chinese version of the same – a blank space in the desert. (Hmm. Okay. If you think of it that way, I guess.)
HH: (pushing my luck) But there’s no wedding at the end. Traditional comedies end with a wedding, or some type of happy union.
JM: (again, not even a pause) Yes there is. There is a wedding at end. He’s at a wedding. He performs at a wedding. (Well, sort of. I should have said in the interview that the wedding in the movie was not at all joyous; in fact it was a major humiliation and a kind of sadistic experience. But we only had 15 minutes, and I didn’t want to waste them debating the nature of comedy. I was eager to get to the Pinocchio thing.)
JM: The wedding is the very last thing that happens before, well … without giving away too much about the ending.
(Damn it. Is this the place I am going to have to write my treatise on “spoilers”? I always figured I’d save it for a more “important” review. Well, just briefly: I think the idea of spoilers is silly. We all know how every Shakespeare play ends, and yet we watch them over and over. We listen to the same songs we like over and over. Hey, we even recently watched the new version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – a murder mystery! It’s been done over and over, but the ending never changes. Still, we watch it. Knowing the ending does not “spoil” the experience. More on this subject another time. But for now, I am revealing a bit – not all – of the ending of Ghostbox Cowboy. Okay, motherfuckers?!)
HH: I can’t think of another comedy that ends with the death of the lead character.
JM: (laughs) That’s true. I think maybe it’s a comedy in the same way that Dante’s Inferno is – you know, part of the Divine Comedy. They call that a comedy.
HH: Well.. those are some lost brain cells for me. I can’t recall the exact dynamics of that story. I’ll have to look it up later.
[Hey, kudos to John for remembering so much from his dramatic literature class in college. I mean, this guy ain’t the least bit stupid. And I clearly got the sense that he knows what he’s talking about and that he was well aware of the type of movie he was making, and why, and how. This much I knew: Dante’s Divine Comedy detailed a soul’s journey toward God, which might also be considered true of John’s movie, sort of. So, it’s not a completely absurd comparison to make. Although that is not the real point. The real point is below (for those who are interested in a little historical literature lesson, which I just learned myself).
Here’s the deal: Dante called his dramatic poem a comedy because there were only two “genres” back then; in the ancient world, all literature was classified as High (tragedy) or Low (comedy). And according to what the internet tells me, the real key was the type of language used. Tragedy was written in the High style, using the language of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church – Latin. And they were usually epics with a structured progression into a tragic end. Thus, Latin and tragedy were the ideal combination for true – and serious – poetic expression. Whereas the Low style (comedy) was written with common vernacular and usually ended happily. So, Dante technically could not call his epic dramatic poem a tragedy, even though it contained a structured progression to a tragic end and did not end happily. If he didn’t write in Latin, it was by definition a comedy. If we stop here, then John is playing dodge ball and not answering my question with sincerity (because unlike Dante, he has a full spectrum of genres with which to identify).
However, there is more: Some academics theorize that Dante chose to title his epic dramatic poem a comedy, not because he couldn’t write in Latin, but in an intentional attempt to transcend the notions of High and Low styles and to challenge the belief that vernacular was incapable of true poetic expression. Dante was saying, by calling his epic a comedy, that poetic expression is not confined to parameters of a categorical language. Dante was making a point that mankind is naturally poetic and every man expresses themselves creatively as they etch their unique path through life with their choices.
So, Dante wrote using his native Tuscan dialect and created one of the single greatest literary feats in history, speaking to all peoples through this revered masterpiece, which was written in the language of the common man, with the intensity of a literary genius, uniting humanity through the commonality of Death (not High language). That’s some heavy shit. But, if we agree that John Maringouin is one Hell of an intellectual, which he just might be (despite this seemingly terrible horror flick), then our director was answering in full earnestness.
John knew what he was saying. He was saying that his movie spoke in a “common vernacular” (as in phantasmagoric trippy gonzo filmmaking) and … even though we get Death at the ending, the larger point is the style of “language,” which justifies calling it a comedy. To some extent at least, the medium is the message, and even shaky-cam bat-shit crazy horror can be a masterpiece of filmmaking and human expression. So be it John. I totally give you the Win on that point. Although, if so, I think you need to stop keeping the tragic end a secret; go full Dante. The idea of spoilers are for lessor thinkers.
Of course, The Divine Comedy had three parts, only the first one being the Hellish Inferno. So, I might pose another question to John: Should we expect two more movies to flesh out the trilogy? I won’t press that point. The Win still totally goes to John, especially considering the rest of the interview.]
HH: It’s just that I was so freaked out and scared by it, and I was even haunted by the darkness later, so it’s hard for me to wrap my head around “comedy.”
JM: Well. I love that you felt that. That’s great. I wish it were more of a horror movie. I love horror. I love the genre. I’m glad that you reacted to it that way.
HH: When you say you love horror, what is it you like about horror? What appeals to you about it?
I have a problem with generic cinematic cuteness. – Maringouin
JM: Anything that’s psychological – very dark psychology, or emotional terrorism, like that.
HH: Yes, that is how I felt during this movie. That’s not what you were going for? I know I’m not your target audience.
JM: I hope it appeals to a wide audience. I hope it doesn’t fit into any one genre, really. I think it’s an action movie. I think it’s a thriller. It’s also got some documentary elements. And maybe horror. I love that it had such an intense effect on you.
HH: Well, we can move on and talk about the politics. Obviously there is a socio political component.
JM: Yeah, I think that’s in the background. But to me it’s funny. Ya know, the whole thing is just funny. Really. But I can understand how some of it comes off as being a little strange. (Very strange claim, indeed, calling this nightmare funny, IMHO, but… I believe he means it.)
HH: Okay, this is my other issue with the movie. There were no likeable characters.
JM: That’s my favorite thing about it! I don’t really like movies with likable people. Not that I root for bad guys. But I root for…bad characters, I mean I want to see guys that are grimy and sleazy…
HH: You want to see them succeed at being bad?
JM: I have a problem with generic cinematic cuteness. I want you to be able to see the pores in the noses of my characters. And also just see their worst sides.
HH: When I first thought of writing about this movie, I thought I might call it a post-apocalyptic dystopia, except there was no real apocalypse; it’s as if humanity is the apocalypse. Everyone is everyone else’s worst enemy. Do you think people are inherently evil?
Either way, it’s interesting as Hell (literally and figuratively).
JM: No, I don’t. I think people are inherently complicated. And I certainly think the film is inspired by a sense of crisis – a global crisis that is not necessarily … The question is, is it real or imagined? Is it something that the media is pushing forward? Is it a mass hallucination?
HH: You call it a morality tale…
JM: I didn’t call it a morality tale!
HH: Well, your PR guys did! It’s in the first line of the synopsis. (He laughs.) What’s the moral?
JM: I guess it’s a tale of morality in that we’re dealing with characters that have no morality. I think it’s morally ambiguous.
HH: So there is no moral to the story? Are we supposed to take some message away? Is it just “Life sucks and then you die?”
JM: There’s plenty to take away. But it definitely wasn’t intended as a lesson. I hope that you’re left with a feeling of… great mystery. (?)
HH: (Here is where I introduce the idea of the Pinocchio story. I will spare the reader my repeating myself, from above. But I explain how I came to think of the Pinocchio story and how amazed I was to find so many similarities. JM listens intently. He seems fascinated, but he insists he was completely unaware of any correlations.) So, Pinocchio was in no way an inspiration for your movie?
JM: Well, I think maybe whatever archetype Pinocchio is based on might have influenced me… some universal dynamic that both stories share.
HH: You know, Pinocchio was written during the beginning of the industrial revolution in Italy. Middle class values of discipline and hard work were becoming more important. And your story takes place, sort of…
JM: Yeah, it’s the industrial revolution for China. So that’s interesting, that parallel. Definitely. Although, it’s not so much about the Chinese culture as Americans reacting to it. There’s a gold-rush mentality. Americans think they can just go to China and get rich just by being an American in China. It’s about vulture capitalism; the characters are driven by a money-for-nothing mentality.
HH: Well, Pinocchio also suffers from laziness and is warped by the idea of free stuff that turns out not to be free. But he is driven by a big ambition. He has a big wish to be real boy. What is Jimmy’s wish?
JM: I don’t think even he knows what he wants except that he’s got this desire to… do what most Americans think they should be doing.. to get ahead …to kind of be somebody. And he finds that sort of American dream lacking. So he goes to look for it in China.
HH: You said he wants to be somebody.
JM: Yeah, he wants to be a real person.
HH: Real person/real boy.
HH: And he is tricked by false friends, like Pinocchio, and robbed, and exploited, and humiliated and…
JM: Yes, that’s another big similarity. That’s interesting. (laughs) After this I will need to go look up that story.
HH: Actually, there are a few other amazing similarities. Pinocchio has these gold coins, and his false friends tell him that if he plants them in a certain place and leaves them overnight, they will grow into a tree full of gold coins.
JM: And Jimmy has bitcoins! And he is being told they will grow into a tree of more money, but they are stolen from him. Wow.
Bitcoins in the News (click to read): Warren Buffett says bitcoin is “rat poison.”
HH: And you know how Jimmy is reduced to working as an “American model” for money, except he never gets paid? They essentially enslave him and force him to put on a wig and go out and sing and perform, against his will? The same thing happens to Pinocchio; he is bought and sold like a slave and forced to perform against his will. But what strikes me the most is that they both are forced to wear a ridiculous wig.
JM: It’s all about transformation. (laughs again)
HH: And Pinocchio gets turned into a donkey and you have a whole thing about “swamp donkeys,” which are not exactly the same thing, but still it’s … a coincidence.
JM: Well, our swamp donkeys are kind of wheeling dealing middle men – who, if anything, turn other people into dumb animals.
HH: Well, in Pinocchio, the guy who turns kids into donkeys ends up as a donkey himself, so… just saying. It’s just weird.
JM: (laughs) Yeah, it is weird.
I guess it’s true what they say: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. In response to failure, General Magic went for the stronger and Ghostbox Cowboy goes for the kill.
HH: Okay, so for Pinocchio it’s a morality tale. He acts like a jack-ass and he is literally turned into a jackass. You don’t think there is a similar lesson in that Jimmy acts like a stupid American and so he is turned into this grotesque cartoon of a stupid American – with the blonde wig and fake tan and big white teeth?
JM: Well, that definitely happens to him. I just don’t know if he learns any lesson from it. He’s chasing an ideal of … the tech entrepreneur … this sort of new masculinity.
HH: So he wants to be a NEW kind of real man?
JM: This new masculinity, as I call it, is embodied by Elon Musk. And those sort of guys… everyone is sort of chasing… they’ve been evangelized by Tim Ferriss and his idea of The Four-Hour Work Week, where if you work for a living, you’re a loser. It’s like they all aim to be an alpha male who has his whole life outsourced. His products are made in the third world and his secretary is in Pakistan and everybody works for pennies an hour, but he’s riding a jet ski and works four hours a week — this sort of new capitalist, which I feel is everything that is wrong with the world.
I was fascinated by characters who were trying but failing at this modern vulture capitalism.
HH: Okay, so have you heard about this other movie that is at Tribeca, called General Magic? It’s about a group of people who had grand ambitions about changing the world with their technological invention, which was essentially the iPhone but way before its time; there wasn’t even internet yet. This is a true story; it’s a documentary. So these people invested everything, money as well as heart and soul, in this venture and then failed spectacularly, in public, and lost everything, and were totally humiliated, and there were even elements of betrayal in the story too. And it’s also about how they sold this tremendous idea before they really had the product. The had an IPO on the stock market and everything fell apart. They failed in a huge way at big-time capitalism.
JM: Yeah, I know about that story.
HH: BUT… the movie shows that ultimately each of these people went on to do great things with their lives. The story of the movie actually challenges our ideas of what failure is and how we define it and respond to it. It’s about how failure is not the end. What do you think about that in terms of your characters who are failing?
JM: I think that is different in some very significant ways. I mean, yes they were trying to make it big in the tech boom, but … those guys in General Magic were truly working hard. They were building something. Those guys were at the beginning of creating this fantasy… this fantasy that outsiders had of magical success and easy money.
(Well, I guess it’s true what they say: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. In the face of failure, General Magic went for the stronger, and Ghostbox Cowboy goes for the kill.)
JM: But it’s a very different scene now. My story isn’t history; it’s current. It came from my own life, and things I saw.
HH: Tell me.
JM: I live in San Francisco where there’s nothing going on now but tech. And I’d been working a day gig shooting commercials for product videos for Apple Store products.
HH: The General Magic movie is about Apple products, just btw.
JM: (laughs) Yes, but that was early 90’s, right? It’s the preceding generation to my characters.
HH: Okay, so you were working on this commercial gig…
JM: Well, I was able to sort of see behind the curtain of that world, and everything pointed to a really murky, absurd underworld behind it and it seemed to have a real complexity of fraud and hijinks that I thought would make a really great crime film. So, that’s where I was coming from. And all roads pointed to China. I’d heard a ton of chatter about it being a land of dreams where all you had to do was show up and you’d be rich just for being a westerner. For Silicon Valley folks, Shenzhen was the new frontier – a world that pays you just to show up and be a fuck-up.
HH: Just as a sidebar: Your depiction of Shenzhen was incredible. You really shot on location, right? How did you manage that?
JM: Yeah, we shot there. We shot the street scenes kind of guerilla-style. But the China in the film comes very much from the character’s romantic illusions of it. It starts out as this fantastical place but then its dark side emerges slowly.
HH: Which brings us back to Pinocchio. You know, there was this one place where Pinocchio went that was called the City of Catchfools. That’s like the perfect name for the city in your movie.
JM: Ha! Yes, it is. And it’s a very warped reality. Because you’re talking about a POV story. It’s a POV movie for sure. You’re seeing through the eyes of a person who kind of ignores what’s in front of him and plugs in assumptions.
HH: Is that what made it feel so terrifying for me? It was definitely an askew perspective in what looked like a very true-to-life world, and it was so… completely alienating. You communicated that visually in an astounding way.
JM: I’ve had a few personal experiences with dislocation and disassociations. I believe our world is being converted daily into a new place, which isn’t tied to the past or to any kind of identity. There’s a kind of somatic feel. There’s a comfort in that and also a terror. There are places where you feel you can lose your soul. Empty parking lots. Brand new buildings, unfinished. Strip malls.
HH: Ah! See, you admitted terror.
JM: To quote Housman: “I, a stranger and afraid, in world I never made.” (He’s quoting Housman? Housman the English scholar and poet who died in 1936? Oh yeah, this guy is a big-time intellectual. Who’d have guessed it? He looks like a regular dumb jock.)
HH: Okay, so the movie had a totally weird and creepy atmosphere. That I totally get. And that actually was kind of cool – the cinematography. And I’m sure that’s a whole different subject for a different interview. But the characters… what part of your brain did they come from?
JM: Some of those guys were real guys, playing themselves. “The Specialist” lives and works in China and doesn’t want his name revealed. There was a true documentary aspect to the movie.
HH: But Jimmy was fictional, right?
JM: Fictional in my movie, yes, but guys just like him are plentiful.
HH: So, Jimmy is just a fake wanna-be big-shot who can only drop into China and fuck up? He starts and ends as a wanna-be big-shot who can’t make it happen? His character is static? He doesn’t learn or change? And that’s why he has that tragic end?
JM: Well, he changes. He definitely evolves through the film. He changes from an impenetrable cocky personality into a much more vulnerable and real person. In fact, the very moment that he realizes that he’s become real is the moment that he makes his big decision – at the very end.
HH: Ah, so in his case, he becomes real and it kills him.
JM: Well, Jimmy has a choice. He can become a real person, live as a real person, or stick to his… sort of…entitlement mindset, which is kind of the point – he is an American that… he doesn’t …
HH: Got it. (Okay. So I’ve spoiled part of the ending, but I won’t spoil the truly fascinating details about his death. It’s one of the most bizarre scenes ever. And it’s attached to this story that is told earlier in the movie… this incredible, long, convoluted, kind of shaggy dog story, which is beyond strange, and I guess it’s sort of comic when we first hear it, but it comes back at the end and is a key part of this tragedy – this tragic/comic death at the end.)
And for all the grotesqueness and horror and misery, and the greed and lust and selfishness (it really is the full litany of biblical sins)… despite all the that, and no one is a good or even a likeable character (but I must say, they are plenty colorful and peculiar), despite kind of loathing this man, I did feel for him at the end. Maybe I didn’t feel sympathy. But I felt his trauma. I felt his pain. I felt his shame and hopelessness. It’s a vary painful movie to watch. Or, at least it was for me. I guess if you’re more like John, you will think it’s hilarious. Either way, it’s interesting as Hell (literally and figuratively). Definitely get some booze and download this movie, wherever it ends up. You’ll have lots to talk about. It will certainly fill your entire evening, and maybe the next day too.
p.s. This is a Q&A I got from the press notes, but I think it’s something that an audience might wonder (as I did), so here it is:
Q: The American characters have a lot of “Trumpian” qualities – the “folksy” business talk, the love of the “deal,” the blonde wigs, fake tans and fascination with China. Was this planned or a semi-documentary reality captured in the process of shooting?
A: The Americans with tans and blonde wigs were shot in the summer of 2015, before Trump was really a thing. I had this idea of a middle-aged, bald con-man trying to appear young to fit into Shenzhen’s “under 30” culture. Nothing to do with politics. But when we got back to the U.S. after shooting…it instantly felt eerie and premonitory.