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"title": "And God Said, Let There Be Neon, And It Sputtered",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>Let There Be (More) Light\u003c/i>, the newest off-site exhibition produced by the Tenderloin’s \u003ca href=\"http://jessicasilvermangallery.com/exhibitions/let-there-be-more-light-curated-by-jens-hoffmann/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jessica Silverman Gallery\u003c/a>, is cleverly subtitled “An illumination by Jens Hoffmann.” Former curator of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Hoffmann organized the show of 22 pieces by 21 artists around a simple premise: all the work — save for one instance of fluorescent tubing — is made of neon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But besides the double-wide storefront at 508 Ellis Street, less than a block from the main gallery space, what exactly is being illuminated here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 40-page full-color exhibition booklet includes a curatorial essay from Hoffmann that attempts to answer that question: “There are many connections between light and art. The most direct one is that they both enable enlightenment — one literally, by bringing light into a dark space, and the other intellectually and aesthetically.” By this line of reasoning, art that uses light as its medium presumably kills two birds with one stone, providing literal \u003ci>and\u003c/i> figurative illumination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12227885\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800.jpg\" alt=\"Adriana Martinez, 'TODO LO QUE BRILLA ES INFORMACIÓN (EVERYTHING THAT SHINES IS INFORMATION),' 2016.\" width=\"800\" height=\"611\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12227885\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-160x122.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-768x587.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-240x183.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-375x286.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-520x397.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adriana Martinez, ‘TODO LO QUE BRILLA ES INFORMACIÓN (EVERYTHING THAT SHINES IS INFORMATION),’ 2016. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery; Photo by John Wilson White)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Yet without context (the curatorial essay mentions exhibition artists Joseph Kosuth and Keith Sonnier, but fails to specifically address works by any other artists in the show), the bright lights and glowing signs of \u003ci>Let There Be (More) Light\u003c/i>, however brilliant and self-reflexive, are utterly opaque.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sure, artworks exist free of exhibition essays, wall texts, or artist statements all the time. But the show promised enlightenment, and we can’t get there all by ourselves, even if the warm hum of neon provides a meditative soundtrack to the viewing experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wall-mounted neon text that dominates the show seems to promise meaningful messages, from Jonathan Monk’s monosyllabic but multicolored \u003ci>Fall\u003c/i> to Adrian Martinez’s \u003ci>TODO LO QUE BRILLA ES INFORMACIÓN\u003c/i>, translated as “everything that shines is information.” But not all information is knowledge, and so these free-floating fragments of text begin to blend together, differentiated only by a particular artist’s typeface and neon color choices. Alfredo Jaar favors a tall and slender font; Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, a perfect cursive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show’s standouts are its more abstract, wordless elements, where the pressure to derive meaning is relieved by pure aesthetic enjoyment: Mai-Thu Perret’s \u003ci>Uncle Toby (Yellow)\u003c/i>, Paulina Olowska’s \u003ci>Natascha\u003c/i>, and Keith Sonnier’s \u003ci>Circle Portal A\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12227882\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1080px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72.jpg\" alt=\"Keith Sonnier, 'Circle Portal A,' 2015. \" width=\"1080\" height=\"1440\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12227882\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72.jpg 1080w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-960x1280.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-240x320.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-375x500.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-520x693.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keith Sonnier, ‘Circle Portal A,’ 2015. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the artist and Maccarone, NY/LA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To see \u003ci>Let There Be (More) Light\u003c/i>, visitors must first stop by the main gallery (currently showing a beautiful collection of 1960s “portal paintings” by \u003ca href=\"http://jessicasilvermangallery.com/exhibitions/1960s_portal_paintings/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Suzanne Blank Redstone\u003c/a>) to get a key-holding gallery employee to open the project space. This process, though roundabout, has the benefit of providing visitors with someone to answer any questions they might have about works in the show. Because even though knowledge of Laurence Sterne’s 18th-century novel \u003ci>Tristram Shandy\u003c/i> isn’t necessary to viewing Perret’s elegant yellow flourish and identifying it as an illustration therein, it’s a good story, and it makes the work — in my opinion — far more intriguing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Further research — should the visitor be so inspired — can be undertaken via the internet after visiting the show. There, we read of Warsaw’s centrally planned “neonization” and \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/t-magazine/paulina-olowska-artist-poland.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">its influence on Olowska’s practice\u003c/a>. We refresh our memories of the myth of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_and_Eurydice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Orpheus and Eurydice\u003c/a>, referenced in Glenn Ligon’s piece. And we learn Steve McQueen’s \u003ci>Remember Me\u003c/i> is one of \u003ca href=\"http://mariangoodman.com/exhibition/2602/installation-views\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a set of 77 neon texts\u003c/a>, each rendered in a different handwriting. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12227884\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200.jpg\" alt=\"Steve McQueen, 'Remember Me,' 2016.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"801\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12227884\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-960x641.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve McQueen, ‘Remember Me,’ 2016. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris and London; Photo by Rebecca Fanuele.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, further research likely won’t help us understand why all these works were gathered into one double-wide storefront for any reason beyond their shared materiality. And maybe that’s enough of a curatorial premise. It’s just not a path toward intellectual or aesthetic enlightenment, even if God did provide a quote for the exhibition title.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Let There Be (More) Light\u003c/b> is on view at 508 Ellis Street in San Francisco through Nov. 19. For more information visit \u003ca href=\"http://jessicasilvermangallery.com/exhibitions/let-there-be-more-light-curated-by-jens-hoffmann/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">jessicasilvermangallery.com\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A group exhibition curated by Jens Hoffmann illuminates Jessica Silverman Gallery's temporary project space with 22 neon and fluorescent works.",
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"description": "A group exhibition curated by Jens Hoffmann illuminates Jessica Silverman Gallery's temporary project space with 22 neon and fluorescent works.",
"title": "And God Said, Let There Be Neon, And It Sputtered | KQED",
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"headline": "And God Said, Let There Be Neon, And It Sputtered",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>Let There Be (More) Light\u003c/i>, the newest off-site exhibition produced by the Tenderloin’s \u003ca href=\"http://jessicasilvermangallery.com/exhibitions/let-there-be-more-light-curated-by-jens-hoffmann/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jessica Silverman Gallery\u003c/a>, is cleverly subtitled “An illumination by Jens Hoffmann.” Former curator of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Hoffmann organized the show of 22 pieces by 21 artists around a simple premise: all the work — save for one instance of fluorescent tubing — is made of neon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But besides the double-wide storefront at 508 Ellis Street, less than a block from the main gallery space, what exactly is being illuminated here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 40-page full-color exhibition booklet includes a curatorial essay from Hoffmann that attempts to answer that question: “There are many connections between light and art. The most direct one is that they both enable enlightenment — one literally, by bringing light into a dark space, and the other intellectually and aesthetically.” By this line of reasoning, art that uses light as its medium presumably kills two birds with one stone, providing literal \u003ci>and\u003c/i> figurative illumination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12227885\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800.jpg\" alt=\"Adriana Martinez, 'TODO LO QUE BRILLA ES INFORMACIÓN (EVERYTHING THAT SHINES IS INFORMATION),' 2016.\" width=\"800\" height=\"611\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12227885\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-160x122.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-768x587.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-240x183.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-375x286.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Martinez_Todo-Lo-Que-Brilla-Es-Informacion-2016_800-520x397.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adriana Martinez, ‘TODO LO QUE BRILLA ES INFORMACIÓN (EVERYTHING THAT SHINES IS INFORMATION),’ 2016. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery; Photo by John Wilson White)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Yet without context (the curatorial essay mentions exhibition artists Joseph Kosuth and Keith Sonnier, but fails to specifically address works by any other artists in the show), the bright lights and glowing signs of \u003ci>Let There Be (More) Light\u003c/i>, however brilliant and self-reflexive, are utterly opaque.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sure, artworks exist free of exhibition essays, wall texts, or artist statements all the time. But the show promised enlightenment, and we can’t get there all by ourselves, even if the warm hum of neon provides a meditative soundtrack to the viewing experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wall-mounted neon text that dominates the show seems to promise meaningful messages, from Jonathan Monk’s monosyllabic but multicolored \u003ci>Fall\u003c/i> to Adrian Martinez’s \u003ci>TODO LO QUE BRILLA ES INFORMACIÓN\u003c/i>, translated as “everything that shines is information.” But not all information is knowledge, and so these free-floating fragments of text begin to blend together, differentiated only by a particular artist’s typeface and neon color choices. Alfredo Jaar favors a tall and slender font; Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, a perfect cursive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show’s standouts are its more abstract, wordless elements, where the pressure to derive meaning is relieved by pure aesthetic enjoyment: Mai-Thu Perret’s \u003ci>Uncle Toby (Yellow)\u003c/i>, Paulina Olowska’s \u003ci>Natascha\u003c/i>, and Keith Sonnier’s \u003ci>Circle Portal A\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12227882\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1080px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72.jpg\" alt=\"Keith Sonnier, 'Circle Portal A,' 2015. \" width=\"1080\" height=\"1440\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12227882\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72.jpg 1080w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-960x1280.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-240x320.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-375x500.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Sonnier_Circle-Portal-A-2015_neon-wire-and-transformer_80-x-78-x-13-inches_WEB_72-520x693.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keith Sonnier, ‘Circle Portal A,’ 2015. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the artist and Maccarone, NY/LA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To see \u003ci>Let There Be (More) Light\u003c/i>, visitors must first stop by the main gallery (currently showing a beautiful collection of 1960s “portal paintings” by \u003ca href=\"http://jessicasilvermangallery.com/exhibitions/1960s_portal_paintings/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Suzanne Blank Redstone\u003c/a>) to get a key-holding gallery employee to open the project space. This process, though roundabout, has the benefit of providing visitors with someone to answer any questions they might have about works in the show. Because even though knowledge of Laurence Sterne’s 18th-century novel \u003ci>Tristram Shandy\u003c/i> isn’t necessary to viewing Perret’s elegant yellow flourish and identifying it as an illustration therein, it’s a good story, and it makes the work — in my opinion — far more intriguing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Further research — should the visitor be so inspired — can be undertaken via the internet after visiting the show. There, we read of Warsaw’s centrally planned “neonization” and \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/t-magazine/paulina-olowska-artist-poland.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">its influence on Olowska’s practice\u003c/a>. We refresh our memories of the myth of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_and_Eurydice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Orpheus and Eurydice\u003c/a>, referenced in Glenn Ligon’s piece. And we learn Steve McQueen’s \u003ci>Remember Me\u003c/i> is one of \u003ca href=\"http://mariangoodman.com/exhibition/2602/installation-views\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a set of 77 neon texts\u003c/a>, each rendered in a different handwriting. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12227884\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200.jpg\" alt=\"Steve McQueen, 'Remember Me,' 2016.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"801\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12227884\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-960x641.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/McQueen_Remember-Me-2016_1200-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve McQueen, ‘Remember Me,’ 2016. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris and London; Photo by Rebecca Fanuele.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, further research likely won’t help us understand why all these works were gathered into one double-wide storefront for any reason beyond their shared materiality. And maybe that’s enough of a curatorial premise. It’s just not a path toward intellectual or aesthetic enlightenment, even if God did provide a quote for the exhibition title.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Let There Be (More) Light\u003c/b> is on view at 508 Ellis Street in San Francisco through Nov. 19. For more information visit \u003ca href=\"http://jessicasilvermangallery.com/exhibitions/let-there-be-more-light-curated-by-jens-hoffmann/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">jessicasilvermangallery.com\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Startling Daring of Shotgun Players' 25th Season",
"headTitle": "The Startling Daring of Shotgun Players’ 25th Season | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Often the best is over before we know it. This is especially true of theater and dance, where astounding productions will vanish after two or three performances, lost but for the lucky few who took a chance on the unknown. Even the well-publicized and reviewed eventually fade away. It’s a brutal equation, and works against art’s power to gain traction over time. A novel, film, or poem will wait for you, but the theater waits for no one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Shotgun Players this month, there are such things as second chances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a normal year, Shotgun Players’ 2016 season would be a fantastic memory: five great productions, three of them — \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/04/28/what-happens-when-you-cast-hamlet-by-pulling-names-out-of-yoricks-skull/\">\u003cem>Hamlet\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/06/10/shotgun-players-the-village-bike-is-a-reckless-obscene-wild-ride/\">\u003cem>The Village Bike\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/10/27/shotgun-players-whos-afraid-raises-edward-albee-from-the-dead/\">Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u003c/a> — \u003c/em>sharp takes on superb, daring plays. But starting Nov. 25, Shotgun reprises these productions and more in true repertory fashion, with the company rotating between the season’s plays — sometimes up to five in one week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12345289\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12345289\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-800x448.jpg\" alt=\"(L to R) Becky (Elissa Stebbins) and Oliver (Kevin Clarke) place their faith in live over fidelity in The Shotgun Players' production of 'The Village Bike' by Penelope Skinner.\" width=\"800\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-800x448.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-768x430.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-1020x571.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-1180x661.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-960x538.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-240x134.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-375x210.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-520x291.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L to R) Becky (Elissa Stebbins) and Oliver (Kevin Clarke) place their faith in life over fidelity in The Shotgun Players’ production of ‘The Village Bike’ by Penelope Skinner. \u003ccite>(Photo: Pak Han)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Instead of casting from play to play, artistic director Patrick Dooley has assembled an excellent group of actors, many of them Shotgun veterans, and created a true ensemble. This is an audacious and unusual move in today’s performing arts climate where the repertory theater model, once vital, has mostly become a thing of the past. It’s ridiculously demanding of the actors — many of whom will play several different roles in the course of a few days — not to mention everyone behind the scenes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shotgun’s present season is not just a trick or a dazzling stunt of acting and production. It is, more importantly, a way of thinking about what a season of theater means. We always look back and reflect, and yet that distance filters and distorts. Shotgun has narrowed the gap so that we can feel the logic and organization of the company’s choices in the most visceral way possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Is Penelope Skinner’s profane and obscene \u003cem>The Village Bike\u003c/em> a rebuke to the sturdy melodrama of Heidi Schreck’s \u003cem>The Grand Concourse\u003c/em>? Or are both plays just different paths to the same awful conclusion about our vast desires?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12345288\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12345288\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"George (David Sinaiko) thinks of rodents and humans as Nick (Josh Schell) stays drunk in The Shotgun Players' production of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' by Edward Albee.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-520x293.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">George (David Sinaiko) thinks of rodents and humans as Nick (Josh Schell) stays drunk in The Shotgun Players’ production of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ by Edward Albee. \u003ccite>(Photo: Jessica Palopoli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Are the post-modern hijinks of Christopher Chen’s \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/09/16/shotgun-players-clever-caught-gets-caught-up-in-its-own-lies/\">\u003cem>Caught\u003c/em>\u003c/a> an extension, a riff, or a pale imitation of the meta-theatrical aspects of Shakespeare’s \u003cem>Hamlet\u003c/em>, a reloading of the famous “mousetrap” that might “catch the conscience of a king” and perhaps an audience? And isn’t Edward Albee’s \u003cem>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u003c/em> one nasty rat trap of a play, loaded with enough tricks and illusions to snap the neck of any rodent that might pass it by?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a chance that you shouldn’t miss; a season of carnage and caring. After all, a theater company is not one production, but many. Here is Shotgun in the multitude, its strengths and weaknesses right out in the open, daring us to take them all in. And so you should take that dare, greedily, knowing that what this company is doing is rare, special, and will soon become — as all theater is destined to be — a memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Shotgun Players’ 2016 season runs from Friday, Nov. 25, through Sunday, Jan. 22, at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley. For tickets and information, \u003ca href=\"https://shotgunplayers.org\">click here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read John Wilkins’ individual reviews of ‘\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/04/28/what-happens-when-you-cast-hamlet-by-pulling-names-out-of-yoricks-skull/\">Hamlet\u003c/a>,’ ‘\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/06/10/shotgun-players-the-village-bike-is-a-reckless-obscene-wild-ride/\">The Village Bike\u003c/a>,’ ‘\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/09/16/shotgun-players-clever-caught-gets-caught-up-in-its-own-lies/\">Caught\u003c/a>,’ and ‘\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/10/27/shotgun-players-whos-afraid-raises-edward-albee-from-the-dead/\">Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u003c/a>‘ by clicking on the title.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Starting later this month, theatergoers will be able to experience a true repertory theater experience at its best, with the company rotating between up to five plays in one week. ",
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"title": "The Startling Daring of Shotgun Players' 25th Season | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Often the best is over before we know it. This is especially true of theater and dance, where astounding productions will vanish after two or three performances, lost but for the lucky few who took a chance on the unknown. Even the well-publicized and reviewed eventually fade away. It’s a brutal equation, and works against art’s power to gain traction over time. A novel, film, or poem will wait for you, but the theater waits for no one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Shotgun Players this month, there are such things as second chances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a normal year, Shotgun Players’ 2016 season would be a fantastic memory: five great productions, three of them — \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/04/28/what-happens-when-you-cast-hamlet-by-pulling-names-out-of-yoricks-skull/\">\u003cem>Hamlet\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/06/10/shotgun-players-the-village-bike-is-a-reckless-obscene-wild-ride/\">\u003cem>The Village Bike\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/10/27/shotgun-players-whos-afraid-raises-edward-albee-from-the-dead/\">Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u003c/a> — \u003c/em>sharp takes on superb, daring plays. But starting Nov. 25, Shotgun reprises these productions and more in true repertory fashion, with the company rotating between the season’s plays — sometimes up to five in one week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12345289\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12345289\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-800x448.jpg\" alt=\"(L to R) Becky (Elissa Stebbins) and Oliver (Kevin Clarke) place their faith in live over fidelity in The Shotgun Players' production of 'The Village Bike' by Penelope Skinner.\" width=\"800\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-800x448.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-768x430.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-1020x571.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-1180x661.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-960x538.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-240x134.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-375x210.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417-520x291.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview1-e1479159965417.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L to R) Becky (Elissa Stebbins) and Oliver (Kevin Clarke) place their faith in life over fidelity in The Shotgun Players’ production of ‘The Village Bike’ by Penelope Skinner. \u003ccite>(Photo: Pak Han)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Instead of casting from play to play, artistic director Patrick Dooley has assembled an excellent group of actors, many of them Shotgun veterans, and created a true ensemble. This is an audacious and unusual move in today’s performing arts climate where the repertory theater model, once vital, has mostly become a thing of the past. It’s ridiculously demanding of the actors — many of whom will play several different roles in the course of a few days — not to mention everyone behind the scenes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shotgun’s present season is not just a trick or a dazzling stunt of acting and production. It is, more importantly, a way of thinking about what a season of theater means. We always look back and reflect, and yet that distance filters and distorts. Shotgun has narrowed the gap so that we can feel the logic and organization of the company’s choices in the most visceral way possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Is Penelope Skinner’s profane and obscene \u003cem>The Village Bike\u003c/em> a rebuke to the sturdy melodrama of Heidi Schreck’s \u003cem>The Grand Concourse\u003c/em>? Or are both plays just different paths to the same awful conclusion about our vast desires?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12345288\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12345288\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"George (David Sinaiko) thinks of rodents and humans as Nick (Josh Schell) stays drunk in The Shotgun Players' production of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' by Edward Albee.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736-520x293.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Goreview2-e1479160255736.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">George (David Sinaiko) thinks of rodents and humans as Nick (Josh Schell) stays drunk in The Shotgun Players’ production of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ by Edward Albee. \u003ccite>(Photo: Jessica Palopoli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Are the post-modern hijinks of Christopher Chen’s \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/09/16/shotgun-players-clever-caught-gets-caught-up-in-its-own-lies/\">\u003cem>Caught\u003c/em>\u003c/a> an extension, a riff, or a pale imitation of the meta-theatrical aspects of Shakespeare’s \u003cem>Hamlet\u003c/em>, a reloading of the famous “mousetrap” that might “catch the conscience of a king” and perhaps an audience? And isn’t Edward Albee’s \u003cem>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u003c/em> one nasty rat trap of a play, loaded with enough tricks and illusions to snap the neck of any rodent that might pass it by?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a chance that you shouldn’t miss; a season of carnage and caring. After all, a theater company is not one production, but many. Here is Shotgun in the multitude, its strengths and weaknesses right out in the open, daring us to take them all in. And so you should take that dare, greedily, knowing that what this company is doing is rare, special, and will soon become — as all theater is destined to be — a memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Shotgun Players’ 2016 season runs from Friday, Nov. 25, through Sunday, Jan. 22, at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley. For tickets and information, \u003ca href=\"https://shotgunplayers.org\">click here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read John Wilkins’ individual reviews of ‘\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/04/28/what-happens-when-you-cast-hamlet-by-pulling-names-out-of-yoricks-skull/\">Hamlet\u003c/a>,’ ‘\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/06/10/shotgun-players-the-village-bike-is-a-reckless-obscene-wild-ride/\">The Village Bike\u003c/a>,’ ‘\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/09/16/shotgun-players-clever-caught-gets-caught-up-in-its-own-lies/\">Caught\u003c/a>,’ and ‘\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/10/27/shotgun-players-whos-afraid-raises-edward-albee-from-the-dead/\">Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u003c/a>‘ by clicking on the title.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt Fills Vast Spaces with Intimate Stories in ‘Certain Women’",
"headTitle": "Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt Fills Vast Spaces with Intimate Stories in ‘Certain Women’ | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In her latest film, \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em>, opening in the Bay Area Oct. 21, director Kelly Reichardt continues to tell stories about people on the margins, the disadvantaged and social misfits. In three sections based on three short stories by the writer Maile Meloy, Reichardt depicts ordinary women (Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart) leading ordinary lives in and around the town of Livingston, Montana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vast American spaces populate all of Reichardt’s movies. It’s the territory of her imaginative life, and of the artists who have influenced her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do you know the photographer Robert Adams?” she asks during an interview in a San Francisco hotel suite. “I met him this summer. He photographed the West, and his photos really inspired me during \u003cem>Meek’s Cutoff.\u003c/em>” San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery, which represents his work, states: “His work is largely concerned with moments of regional transition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12222255\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12222255\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_7mar150295.jpg\" alt=\"Director Kelly Reichardt on the set of 'Certain Women.'\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_7mar150295.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_7mar150295-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Director Kelly Reichardt on the set of ‘Certain Women.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of IFC Films)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Reichardt uses those same open plains and prairies to capture the emotional transitions of her characters. The first story in \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em> concerns a lawyer named Laura (Dern) whose client, Fuller (Jared Harris), sued his company for worker’s compensation with limited success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Jared Harris character, he’s just someone who has made it into his 50s as a white man who completely can’t believe that the system isn’t going to work for him, and that it’s just not fair,” Reichardt says. Laura registers a mixture of disbelief, scorn and sympathy in response to Fuller. It’s a small moment writ large: Dern is both her character \u003cem>and\u003c/em> an everywoman who understands the man’s dilemma better and more intimately than he ever will.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some viewers might dismiss Reichardt’s carefully observed worlds as trivial, the dull provenance of adulthood. But she recreates a lost, provincial place, the opposite of the one she sees on her New York City commutes. “I ride the subway and all the adults are playing video games the whole way home,” she says, “sometimes ignoring their children to play them. Everybody has the sound on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em> has the sound turned way down, often on mute. The Absaroka mountains rest in the background. The gray sky never shakes off the dusk of winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12222256\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12222256\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKRP_DAY_19_1991.jpg\" alt=\"Michelle Williams as Gina in 'Certain Women.'\" width=\"720\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKRP_DAY_19_1991.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKRP_DAY_19_1991-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Williams as Gina in ‘Certain Women.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy IFC Films)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Reichardt’s films, she and her crew create an atmosphere that exists somewhere between the script and lived-in spontaneity. In her earlier work, narrative momentum was often sacrificed for that sense of spontaneity. \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em> achieves something new in her oeuvre. The director balances the almost wordless quality of a film like \u003cem>Wendy and Lucy\u003c/em> (2008) with more straightforward stories, ones that have easily recognizable beginnings, middles and ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reichardt dismisses the suggestion that only the director is responsible for a film’s atmosphere. “You’re starting with the base — whether it’s Jonathan Raymond’s writing [a frequent collaborator] or Maile Meloy’s writing — you’re starting with a good base,” she says. “Then all of sudden you see it unfolding. What I’m bringing to it is to not interfere with it, and to not get hung up on what I’ve imagined. Because the film has a life of its own outside everybody’s control, right? So you plan and you plan and you plan, till you’re completely ready, and then keep the door opens for what is going to surprise you in the scene.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lyrically surprising elements enter all three sections of \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em>, but it’s the third story, based on Meloy’s \u003cem>Travis, B.,\u003c/em> that is genuinely stunning. Reichardt gives credit to the unpredictable weather. “It was a crazy windy day, and everyone was like, ‘Oh, we can’t. We’ve got to reschedule,’” she says. “I was thinking if the brilliant sound guy can get the sound, the wind is going to help us. Because there’s something about them trying to do this scene. Kristen [Stewart] could hardly keep her dress from blowing up over her head.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12222258\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12222258\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_9mar150186.jpg\" alt=\"Lily Gladstone as The Rancher in 'Certain Women.'\" width=\"720\" height=\"479\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_9mar150186.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_9mar150186-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lily Gladstone as The Rancher in ‘Certain Women.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy IFC Films)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stewart plays Elizabeth, a law teacher commuting four hours at night to her class in a small town. Actress Lily Gladstone is a rancher with an irreproachable openness, and one of Stewart’s students. A rapport develops between them; the audience watches it take place in just a few short scenes. Unlike so many fictional depictions of hoped-for connection, the anguish of love is rarely this raw and without vanity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reichardt accounts for the intimacy of her work as if she owes it all to chance. “Perhaps the space is being created for it to happen, and then it was just the actors,” she says. “I was taken aback by both of them. I thought that they were just completely reacting to each other, and I think the wind of the day was helping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This deference to her collaborators (weather included) belies Reichardt’s hold on the psychological landscape — and on the inner lives of her characters — that brings the stories of \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em> into resonant coherence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/TU0caOeu_Ag\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Certain Women\u003c/b> opens at the Landmark Embarcadero in San Francisco, Friday, Oct. 21.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In her latest film, \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em>, opening in the Bay Area Oct. 21, director Kelly Reichardt continues to tell stories about people on the margins, the disadvantaged and social misfits. In three sections based on three short stories by the writer Maile Meloy, Reichardt depicts ordinary women (Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart) leading ordinary lives in and around the town of Livingston, Montana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vast American spaces populate all of Reichardt’s movies. It’s the territory of her imaginative life, and of the artists who have influenced her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do you know the photographer Robert Adams?” she asks during an interview in a San Francisco hotel suite. “I met him this summer. He photographed the West, and his photos really inspired me during \u003cem>Meek’s Cutoff.\u003c/em>” San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery, which represents his work, states: “His work is largely concerned with moments of regional transition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12222255\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12222255\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_7mar150295.jpg\" alt=\"Director Kelly Reichardt on the set of 'Certain Women.'\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_7mar150295.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_7mar150295-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Director Kelly Reichardt on the set of ‘Certain Women.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of IFC Films)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Reichardt uses those same open plains and prairies to capture the emotional transitions of her characters. The first story in \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em> concerns a lawyer named Laura (Dern) whose client, Fuller (Jared Harris), sued his company for worker’s compensation with limited success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Jared Harris character, he’s just someone who has made it into his 50s as a white man who completely can’t believe that the system isn’t going to work for him, and that it’s just not fair,” Reichardt says. Laura registers a mixture of disbelief, scorn and sympathy in response to Fuller. It’s a small moment writ large: Dern is both her character \u003cem>and\u003c/em> an everywoman who understands the man’s dilemma better and more intimately than he ever will.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some viewers might dismiss Reichardt’s carefully observed worlds as trivial, the dull provenance of adulthood. But she recreates a lost, provincial place, the opposite of the one she sees on her New York City commutes. “I ride the subway and all the adults are playing video games the whole way home,” she says, “sometimes ignoring their children to play them. Everybody has the sound on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em> has the sound turned way down, often on mute. The Absaroka mountains rest in the background. The gray sky never shakes off the dusk of winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12222256\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12222256\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKRP_DAY_19_1991.jpg\" alt=\"Michelle Williams as Gina in 'Certain Women.'\" width=\"720\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKRP_DAY_19_1991.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKRP_DAY_19_1991-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Williams as Gina in ‘Certain Women.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy IFC Films)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Reichardt’s films, she and her crew create an atmosphere that exists somewhere between the script and lived-in spontaneity. In her earlier work, narrative momentum was often sacrificed for that sense of spontaneity. \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em> achieves something new in her oeuvre. The director balances the almost wordless quality of a film like \u003cem>Wendy and Lucy\u003c/em> (2008) with more straightforward stories, ones that have easily recognizable beginnings, middles and ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reichardt dismisses the suggestion that only the director is responsible for a film’s atmosphere. “You’re starting with the base — whether it’s Jonathan Raymond’s writing [a frequent collaborator] or Maile Meloy’s writing — you’re starting with a good base,” she says. “Then all of sudden you see it unfolding. What I’m bringing to it is to not interfere with it, and to not get hung up on what I’ve imagined. Because the film has a life of its own outside everybody’s control, right? So you plan and you plan and you plan, till you’re completely ready, and then keep the door opens for what is going to surprise you in the scene.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lyrically surprising elements enter all three sections of \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em>, but it’s the third story, based on Meloy’s \u003cem>Travis, B.,\u003c/em> that is genuinely stunning. Reichardt gives credit to the unpredictable weather. “It was a crazy windy day, and everyone was like, ‘Oh, we can’t. We’ve got to reschedule,’” she says. “I was thinking if the brilliant sound guy can get the sound, the wind is going to help us. Because there’s something about them trying to do this scene. Kristen [Stewart] could hardly keep her dress from blowing up over her head.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12222258\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12222258\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_9mar150186.jpg\" alt=\"Lily Gladstone as The Rancher in 'Certain Women.'\" width=\"720\" height=\"479\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_9mar150186.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/UKR_9mar150186-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lily Gladstone as The Rancher in ‘Certain Women.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy IFC Films)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stewart plays Elizabeth, a law teacher commuting four hours at night to her class in a small town. Actress Lily Gladstone is a rancher with an irreproachable openness, and one of Stewart’s students. A rapport develops between them; the audience watches it take place in just a few short scenes. Unlike so many fictional depictions of hoped-for connection, the anguish of love is rarely this raw and without vanity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reichardt accounts for the intimacy of her work as if she owes it all to chance. “Perhaps the space is being created for it to happen, and then it was just the actors,” she says. “I was taken aback by both of them. I thought that they were just completely reacting to each other, and I think the wind of the day was helping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This deference to her collaborators (weather included) belies Reichardt’s hold on the psychological landscape — and on the inner lives of her characters — that brings the stories of \u003cem>Certain Women\u003c/em> into resonant coherence.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/TU0caOeu_Ag'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/TU0caOeu_Ag'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Certain Women\u003c/b> opens at the Landmark Embarcadero in San Francisco, Friday, Oct. 21.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "25 Years After the Rodney King Beating, How Have We Changed?",
"headTitle": "25 Years After the Rodney King Beating, How Have We Changed? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In the early hours of March 3, 1991, Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers after a high speed chase through a maze of residential neighborhoods and freeways. A video of the incident was filmed from a bystander’s balcony, making it perhaps the first viral piece of documentation of police brutality in America. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The clip of the four officers aggressively swinging batons and feet at King — while at least four officers stood by and watched — spread quickly from one news network to the next, igniting outrage that would erupt into a week-long riot the following year, when the officers were acquitted of using excessive force against King. The rioting fanned out across Los Angeles in a wild and dangerous wave, causing 56 deaths, over 2,300 injuries, nearly 7,000 fires and, some argue, a further racial divide across the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12218205\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200.jpg\" alt=\"Emory Douglas, 'Police Terror USA.'\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1600\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12218205\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-400x533.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-450x600.jpg 450w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-885x1180.jpg 885w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-1180x1573.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-960x1280.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Emory Douglas, ‘Police Terror USA.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Betti Ono Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Peering back over the last two and a half decades, \u003ci>\u003ca href=\"http://viral-rk25.squarespace.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">VIRAL: 25 Years From Rodney King\u003c/a>\u003c/i>, a multi-media art exhibit at \u003ca href=\"https://bettiono.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Betti Ono Gallery\u003c/a> in Oakland, asks the question everyone wants an answer to: \u003ci>So, America, how have we changed?\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Curator Daryl Elaine Stenvoll-Wells, founder of \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/VIRAL.RK25/?fref=ts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Art Responders\u003c/a> (a social media community that allows artists to share creative responses to police brutality, born at the rise of the \u003ca href=\"http://blacklivesmatter.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Black Lives Matter\u003c/a> movement), helps guide the conversation. The traveling show first debuted in Los Angeles last fall. The current exhibition closes, appropriately, on Oct. 22, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.october22.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Betti Ono, a timeline of incidents stretches along the gallery walls, highlighting significant laws and socio-technical developments related to police violence against people of color. \u003ci>VIRAL\u003c/i>’s timeline points to major turning points within the criminal justice system and corresponding rises in violent incidents by police. Among these are the \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/347736999/20-years-later-major-crime-bill-viewed-as-terrible-mistake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1994 Criminal Justice Act\u003c/a>, which called for tougher punishment of crimes and increased numbers of law enforcement (in lieu of education and other crime preventing measures).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12218208\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200.jpg\" alt=\"Zupa, 'Do Not Cross.'\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1595\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12218208\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-400x532.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-451x600.jpg 451w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-768x1021.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-888x1180.jpg 888w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-1180x1568.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-960x1276.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zupa, ‘Do Not Cross.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Betti Ono Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Commentary and fact sheets through the gallery discuss topics such as racial disparities in non-violent crimes, settlement amounts in wrongful death suits, and the inherent flaws in stop and search laws. Notes on violence against people with physical and mental disabilities are also included among the exhibition’s visual art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the names we all know by now, for all of the wrong reasons, are there too. Sandra Bland. Oscar Grant. Amadou Diallo. Michael Brown. Alex Nieto. Eric Garner. And too many more to include in this space. The loss and grief felt by their families is too immense to be held in a gallery, but it can be felt lingering between its walls. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since Rodney King, similar incidents have been captured on dash cams, body cams and the cell phones of passersby. Evidence of police misconduct is everywhere, yet few in law enforcement are held accountable for the deaths of unarmed men, women and children. \u003cem>So, America, what has changed?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With or without the \u003ci>VIRAL\u003c/i> fact sheets (and the three audio boxes with headphones playing songs by Bay Area favorites like The Coup, Dead Prez, KRS-One, Talib Kweli, Lauryn Hill and Yasiin Bey), the visual work is stark and at times gut-wrenching. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12218206\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200.jpg\" alt=\"Overstreet Ducasse, 'Winter Fashion.'\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1788\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12218206\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-400x596.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-403x600.jpg 403w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-768x1144.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-792x1180.jpg 792w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-1180x1758.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-960x1430.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Overstreet Ducasse, ‘Winter Fashion.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Betti Ono Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Featured artists include Alice Patrick, Sanae Robinson, Susan Mah, Tina Ybarra, Molly Segal, Overstreet Ducasse, Emory Douglas, Paul Barron, Not My Government, Ravi Zupa and many others. The work ranges from depictions of police brutality to portraits of those whose lives were lost, and everything in between. The show is ambitious and vast and touches on the complex and overwhelming emotions the subject matter evokes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the heaviness, a small spark of hope appears on the walls of Betti Ono, however overshadowed it may seem by the current political climate in America. More people are speaking up and taking to the streets. More groups are developing to push back against racism and police brutality, demanding accountability and an end to senseless killings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>VIRAL\u003c/i> is a critical piece of the historic moment we are all navigating, and calls, without subtlety, for action. It is an experience for anyone who cares about where we can go from here. To stand in the gallery — engulfed in a timeline of the last 25 years of documented police brutality against people of color — is to stand in equal parts rage and despair, asking again and again and again: \u003ci>So, America, when will this end?\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>VIRAL: 25 Years From Rodney King\u003c/b> is on view at Betti Ono Gallery in Oakland through Oct. 22. For more information visit \u003ca href=\"http://viral-rk25.squarespace.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">viral-rk25.squarespace.com\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the early hours of March 3, 1991, Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers after a high speed chase through a maze of residential neighborhoods and freeways. A video of the incident was filmed from a bystander’s balcony, making it perhaps the first viral piece of documentation of police brutality in America. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The clip of the four officers aggressively swinging batons and feet at King — while at least four officers stood by and watched — spread quickly from one news network to the next, igniting outrage that would erupt into a week-long riot the following year, when the officers were acquitted of using excessive force against King. The rioting fanned out across Los Angeles in a wild and dangerous wave, causing 56 deaths, over 2,300 injuries, nearly 7,000 fires and, some argue, a further racial divide across the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12218205\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200.jpg\" alt=\"Emory Douglas, 'Police Terror USA.'\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1600\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12218205\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-400x533.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-450x600.jpg 450w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-885x1180.jpg 885w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-1180x1573.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Emory-Douglas-Political-Gridlock-Police-Terror-USA-1200-960x1280.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Emory Douglas, ‘Police Terror USA.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Betti Ono Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Peering back over the last two and a half decades, \u003ci>\u003ca href=\"http://viral-rk25.squarespace.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">VIRAL: 25 Years From Rodney King\u003c/a>\u003c/i>, a multi-media art exhibit at \u003ca href=\"https://bettiono.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Betti Ono Gallery\u003c/a> in Oakland, asks the question everyone wants an answer to: \u003ci>So, America, how have we changed?\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Curator Daryl Elaine Stenvoll-Wells, founder of \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/VIRAL.RK25/?fref=ts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Art Responders\u003c/a> (a social media community that allows artists to share creative responses to police brutality, born at the rise of the \u003ca href=\"http://blacklivesmatter.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Black Lives Matter\u003c/a> movement), helps guide the conversation. The traveling show first debuted in Los Angeles last fall. The current exhibition closes, appropriately, on Oct. 22, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.october22.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Betti Ono, a timeline of incidents stretches along the gallery walls, highlighting significant laws and socio-technical developments related to police violence against people of color. \u003ci>VIRAL\u003c/i>’s timeline points to major turning points within the criminal justice system and corresponding rises in violent incidents by police. Among these are the \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/347736999/20-years-later-major-crime-bill-viewed-as-terrible-mistake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1994 Criminal Justice Act\u003c/a>, which called for tougher punishment of crimes and increased numbers of law enforcement (in lieu of education and other crime preventing measures).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12218208\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200.jpg\" alt=\"Zupa, 'Do Not Cross.'\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1595\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12218208\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-400x532.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-451x600.jpg 451w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-768x1021.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-888x1180.jpg 888w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-1180x1568.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Zupa-_Do-Not-Cross_1200-960x1276.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zupa, ‘Do Not Cross.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Betti Ono Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Commentary and fact sheets through the gallery discuss topics such as racial disparities in non-violent crimes, settlement amounts in wrongful death suits, and the inherent flaws in stop and search laws. Notes on violence against people with physical and mental disabilities are also included among the exhibition’s visual art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the names we all know by now, for all of the wrong reasons, are there too. Sandra Bland. Oscar Grant. Amadou Diallo. Michael Brown. Alex Nieto. Eric Garner. And too many more to include in this space. The loss and grief felt by their families is too immense to be held in a gallery, but it can be felt lingering between its walls. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since Rodney King, similar incidents have been captured on dash cams, body cams and the cell phones of passersby. Evidence of police misconduct is everywhere, yet few in law enforcement are held accountable for the deaths of unarmed men, women and children. \u003cem>So, America, what has changed?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With or without the \u003ci>VIRAL\u003c/i> fact sheets (and the three audio boxes with headphones playing songs by Bay Area favorites like The Coup, Dead Prez, KRS-One, Talib Kweli, Lauryn Hill and Yasiin Bey), the visual work is stark and at times gut-wrenching. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12218206\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200.jpg\" alt=\"Overstreet Ducasse, 'Winter Fashion.'\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1788\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12218206\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-400x596.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-403x600.jpg 403w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-768x1144.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-792x1180.jpg 792w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-1180x1758.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Overstreet-Ducasse-_Winter-Fashion_1200-960x1430.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Overstreet Ducasse, ‘Winter Fashion.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Betti Ono Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Featured artists include Alice Patrick, Sanae Robinson, Susan Mah, Tina Ybarra, Molly Segal, Overstreet Ducasse, Emory Douglas, Paul Barron, Not My Government, Ravi Zupa and many others. The work ranges from depictions of police brutality to portraits of those whose lives were lost, and everything in between. The show is ambitious and vast and touches on the complex and overwhelming emotions the subject matter evokes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the heaviness, a small spark of hope appears on the walls of Betti Ono, however overshadowed it may seem by the current political climate in America. More people are speaking up and taking to the streets. More groups are developing to push back against racism and police brutality, demanding accountability and an end to senseless killings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>VIRAL\u003c/i> is a critical piece of the historic moment we are all navigating, and calls, without subtlety, for action. It is an experience for anyone who cares about where we can go from here. To stand in the gallery — engulfed in a timeline of the last 25 years of documented police brutality against people of color — is to stand in equal parts rage and despair, asking again and again and again: \u003ci>So, America, when will this end?\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>VIRAL: 25 Years From Rodney King\u003c/b> is on view at Betti Ono Gallery in Oakland through Oct. 22. For more information visit \u003ca href=\"http://viral-rk25.squarespace.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">viral-rk25.squarespace.com\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When a nuclear bomb is in danger of accidental detonation, established procedures are carefully followed, and cooperation takes precedence over assigning blame. Or so the hopeful viewer might think before seeing \u003cem>Command and Control\u003c/em>, a PBS \u003cem>American Experience\u003c/em> documentary now in limited theatrical release before its broadcast debut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The movie, developed by director Robert Kenner from Eric Schlosser’s book of the same name, reveals how a warhead atop a Titan II missile risked explosion in 1980 at a Strategic Air Command (SAC) silo near Damascus, Arkansas. Workers — one of whom was killed — scrambled to prevent disaster. But the force that prevented a wider catastrophe was sheer luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/LXPrJcFmqKg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not an unknown story; the fatal accident was reported at the time, though with fewer details than this film marshals. It’s also not the worst Titan II calamity, at least in terms of human loss. In 1965, 53 construction workers died when hydraulic fluid ignited at another Arkansas silo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> What gives \u003cem>Command and Control\u003c/em> its urgency are both its wealth of information and the implications of its story. The Titan IIs are gone — even in 1980 they were generally considered obsolete — but the U.S. nuclear-weapons program continues. Estimates of the number of near-misses (the military calls them “broken arrows”) range from 32 to more than 1,000, the movie reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Building on Schlosser’s reporting, Kenner mixes archival footage and reconstructions to achieve a minute-by-minute immediacy. He interrupts the tense chronology, not always effectively, with accounts of other nuke-bomb flubs as well as recent interviews and vintage news clips. (A Democratic Party convention was underway 46 miles away in Little Rock at the time, so a nuclear blast would likely have vaporized then-Vice-President Walter Mondale and future President Bill Clinton.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schlosser himself is among the talking heads. So is Harold Brown, who as Defense Secretary in 1980 knew that the Titan IIs had survived only so they could someday be traded away in arms-control negotiations. (They were deactivated in 1987.) But the most interesting commentary comes from members of the Propellant Transfer Team, notably Dave Powell, who dropped the fateful eight-pound socket from a socket wrench, which opened a hole in the missile’s fuel tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not on screen is anyone who explains why a nuclear warhead capable of killing 10 million people was placed atop a missile that could potentially be set afire by a dropped socket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kenner has demonstrated his skepticism of self-serving bureaucracies with such previous documentaries as \u003cem>Food, Inc\u003c/em>. — co-produced and partly narrated by Schlosser — and \u003cem>Merchants of Doubt\u003c/em>. He’s clearly sympathetic to the Titan II crew members, who were dedicated both to their jobs and the larger mission. (“I would kill 10 million people, and never hesitate,” says one.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For their extremely hazardous work, which included potential conflagration and possible asphyxiation, the reward was to be scapegoated. “To err is human. To forgive is not SAC policy,” explains one mid-level Air Force officer who served at Damascus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would be reassuring if the nuclear-weapon experts interviewed in the film claimed that procedures today are much better, and the chances of a similar mishap are significantly reduced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No such assurances are offered.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When a nuclear bomb is in danger of accidental detonation, established procedures are carefully followed, and cooperation takes precedence over assigning blame. Or so the hopeful viewer might think before seeing \u003cem>Command and Control\u003c/em>, a PBS \u003cem>American Experience\u003c/em> documentary now in limited theatrical release before its broadcast debut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The movie, developed by director Robert Kenner from Eric Schlosser’s book of the same name, reveals how a warhead atop a Titan II missile risked explosion in 1980 at a Strategic Air Command (SAC) silo near Damascus, Arkansas. Workers — one of whom was killed — scrambled to prevent disaster. But the force that prevented a wider catastrophe was sheer luck.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/LXPrJcFmqKg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/LXPrJcFmqKg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>This is not an unknown story; the fatal accident was reported at the time, though with fewer details than this film marshals. It’s also not the worst Titan II calamity, at least in terms of human loss. In 1965, 53 construction workers died when hydraulic fluid ignited at another Arkansas silo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> What gives \u003cem>Command and Control\u003c/em> its urgency are both its wealth of information and the implications of its story. The Titan IIs are gone — even in 1980 they were generally considered obsolete — but the U.S. nuclear-weapons program continues. Estimates of the number of near-misses (the military calls them “broken arrows”) range from 32 to more than 1,000, the movie reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Building on Schlosser’s reporting, Kenner mixes archival footage and reconstructions to achieve a minute-by-minute immediacy. He interrupts the tense chronology, not always effectively, with accounts of other nuke-bomb flubs as well as recent interviews and vintage news clips. (A Democratic Party convention was underway 46 miles away in Little Rock at the time, so a nuclear blast would likely have vaporized then-Vice-President Walter Mondale and future President Bill Clinton.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schlosser himself is among the talking heads. So is Harold Brown, who as Defense Secretary in 1980 knew that the Titan IIs had survived only so they could someday be traded away in arms-control negotiations. (They were deactivated in 1987.) But the most interesting commentary comes from members of the Propellant Transfer Team, notably Dave Powell, who dropped the fateful eight-pound socket from a socket wrench, which opened a hole in the missile’s fuel tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not on screen is anyone who explains why a nuclear warhead capable of killing 10 million people was placed atop a missile that could potentially be set afire by a dropped socket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kenner has demonstrated his skepticism of self-serving bureaucracies with such previous documentaries as \u003cem>Food, Inc\u003c/em>. — co-produced and partly narrated by Schlosser — and \u003cem>Merchants of Doubt\u003c/em>. He’s clearly sympathetic to the Titan II crew members, who were dedicated both to their jobs and the larger mission. (“I would kill 10 million people, and never hesitate,” says one.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For their extremely hazardous work, which included potential conflagration and possible asphyxiation, the reward was to be scapegoated. “To err is human. To forgive is not SAC policy,” explains one mid-level Air Force officer who served at Damascus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would be reassuring if the nuclear-weapon experts interviewed in the film claimed that procedures today are much better, and the chances of a similar mishap are significantly reduced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No such assurances are offered.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In the heady political maelstrom of the late 1960s, Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo released one of the most controversial and acclaimed films of modern cinema. \u003cem>The Battle of Algiers\u003c/em> was a big-screen recreation of the bloody mid 1950s Algerian uprising against French rule. The film was made on a shoestring budget with non-actors recruited from the streets of Algiers. It told the story of an insurrection against colonialism from the rare vantage point of the colonized. That shift in perspective was provocative enough to lead France to ban the film on political grounds. Elsewhere, it opened to rapturous acclaim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Battle of Algiers\u003c/em> won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 and eventually earned three Oscar nominations including Best Director and Best Foreign Language film. Today it is considered both a seminal work of world cinema and a textbook example of protest art. Fifty years after it was first released, \u003cem>The Battle of Algiers\u003c/em> is returning to movie theaters in an new digital restoration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seeing it in 2016, it is remarkable how much \u003cem>The Battle of Algiers\u003c/em> has influenced the vocabulary of modern Hollywood war movies. From the use of shaky hand-held cameras to shooting in real-life locations with real people, the influence of Pontecorvo’s style is evident in films ranging from \u003cem>Traffic\u003c/em> to \u003cem>Jason Bourne.\u003c/em> By using black and white film stock to mirror newsreels of the 1950s, the artifice of Pontecorvo’s frames bristles with an air of documented urgency. Directors from Steven Soderbergh to Mira Nair to Spike Lee have admitted borrowing from Pontecorvo’s techniques to infuse their own stories with greater authenticity. But more than form, \u003cem>The Battle of Algiers\u003c/em> has endured because of its politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its crisp two-hour running time, the film includes brutal scenes of torture, police brutality and racial profiling that seem ripped from this week’s headlines. In the winding alleyways of Algiers, Pontecorvo recreates the unleashing of guerilla warfare on a city-wide scale. The fact that it is the story of a mostly Muslim uprising against Western forces gives the proceedings an even more eerie resonance. The Algerians set off bombs at cafes that kill scores of civilians and the brutal French retaliations lead to countless executions and reprisals. It is not surprising that the Black Panthers and the IRA once studied \u003cem>The Battle of Algiers \u003c/em>as a roadmap to resistance. It is equally understandable why the Pentagon famously screened the film in 2003 as a toolkit to wage a better and more informed “war on terror.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the film’s Algerian producer and co-star Saadi Yacef says it is inappropriate to see the violence on screen through our current prism of terrorism. “What the film is showing is really different for me. Here you have people who are in a struggle against colonialism. Their struggle is to get the colonial power out of their country. To me this has a far greater difference than some terrorist who sets off a bomb or kills children in the name of having an Islamic State. It is not a human being who goes into a school and kills children. These are not human beings,” he says. Applying the film’s empathy for insurgents to today’s context would be irresponsible and fatal, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Middle East and North Africa have fundamentally changed from the anti-colonial uprisings of the 1950s and 1960s to a new age of Islamist politics and violence. While Gillo Pontecorvo’s landmark film may draw our minds to contemporary unrest, Saadi Yacef says the film has endured because it is a great work of realist cinema. Pontecorvo was already one of the most celebrated filmmakers in Europe when he was approached by Yacef to make the movie. His collaborators and cast were mostly non-actors who had lived through the real Battle of Algiers. The film emerged from a rare creative and cross-cultural alchemy between Europe and North Africa. Fifty years after the broader context that clearly gave \u003cem>The Battle of Algiers\u003c/em> urgency and currency in its day, the film now stands on its own as a work of cinema. Now, technology has allowed a new generation to see the film in a version that is as close as possible to the one audiences saw in 1966 … and to experience this landmark piece of cinema about resistance on its own terms. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Cinematic+Classic+Of+Resistance+Returns+To+The+Big+Screen&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Middle East and North Africa have fundamentally changed from the anti-colonial uprisings of the 1950s and 1960s to a new age of Islamist politics and violence. While Gillo Pontecorvo’s landmark film may draw our minds to contemporary unrest, Saadi Yacef says the film has endured because it is a great work of realist cinema. Pontecorvo was already one of the most celebrated filmmakers in Europe when he was approached by Yacef to make the movie. His collaborators and cast were mostly non-actors who had lived through the real Battle of Algiers. The film emerged from a rare creative and cross-cultural alchemy between Europe and North Africa. Fifty years after the broader context that clearly gave \u003cem>The Battle of Algiers\u003c/em> urgency and currency in its day, the film now stands on its own as a work of cinema. Now, technology has allowed a new generation to see the film in a version that is as close as possible to the one audiences saw in 1966 … and to experience this landmark piece of cinema about resistance on its own terms. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Cinematic+Classic+Of+Resistance+Returns+To+The+Big+Screen&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Berkeley Rep's 'It Can't Happen Here' is All Play and No Politics",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Tony Taccone reminds us in his program notes that he works for a not-for-profit organization, and that he is “forbidden, by law, to take political positions.” Though he quickly assures us that he and Berkeley Rep can overcome these limitations, “in the work we produce and the culture we create,” and rather wistfully adds, “there’s nothing to stop you from imagining my opinion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the Rep is opening its season with the premiere of Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen’s adaption of Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 anti-fascist novel, \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1617/10650.asp\">\u003cem>It Can’t Happen Here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, it seems impossible not to “imagine” what Taccone, the theater, Berkeley, or anyone else in the Bay Area thinks. Yet in raising that question, Taccone inadvertently uncovers a hornet’s nest of political assumptions that the production leaves unattended and unanswered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play begins with the actors prepping us on how to behave, respond, and think. We will be expected to perform the role of crowd energetically, no matter our true political feelings. We are told that the casting is not historically accurate in case anyone has “a problem with this,” and that “any resemblance in the play to current events is purely coincidental.” There are many winking asides after this last comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12192308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12192308 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-4-e1476248809102.jpg\" alt=\"Doremus Jessup (Tom Nelis) surrounded by his family and the community of Fort Beulah, Vermont in 'It Can't Happen Here' at the Berkeley Rep.\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-4-e1476248809102.jpg 560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-4-e1476248809102-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doremus Jessup (Tom Nelis) surrounded by his family and the community of Fort Beulah, Vermont in ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ at the Berkeley Rep. \u003ccite>(Photo: Kevin Berne)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s clear that the writers and the company have no idea of how to approach the material, and it speaks to the paucity of their theatrical imagination that their first move is an attempt at a faux-Brechtian engagement with the audience. Why bother to break the fourth wall to merely comfort and assure us that we all really understand what’s going on, that we all get the connections, and that we’re all in this together? I’m not even sure that’s a position from which you can think in a political manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From there, the play shifts registers to a rather old-fashioned mode of presentation, where everything is about the set-up, or, in the parlance of television show runners, “world building.” We meet our hero, the liberal, free-thinking journalist Doremus Jessup, his large family (almost impossible to keep track of or care for), and his community of extended family members and civic leaders. And we learn what might constitute a normal day in Fort Beulah, Vermont — a Fourth of July picnic — all the while catching glimpses (through a political meeting, a radio broadcast and other vignettes) of the rise of right-wing populist Buzz Windrip (a terrific David Kelly). It’s a long and laborsome slog to get to the beginnings of anything approaching drama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drama arrives at last, if only for a moment, about 25\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>minutes into the play, when Jessup’s eldest son Phillip argues that Windrip and his “lost man” movement are addressing real problems. Phillip uses his father’s handyman, Shad, as a ready example. It’s the first time in the play we get an inkling of real political stakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But sadly, Taccone and Cohen shut it down. Neither Phillip nor Shad are dramatically significant, and yet both are unnecessarily vile: Phillip treats his brother-in-law’s murder with a high-handed disdain, and Shad is portrayed as nothing more than a jack-booted thug. What the play fears most is not the rise of fascism, but rather the presence of any idea that might discomfort a moderately wealthy liberal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps Taccone and Cohen are unconsciously feeling the influence of the glut of Young Adult comics, novels, and movies depicting dystopian worlds. Like the teenage mind they’re produced for, these fantasies of rebellion are quick to equate rules and authority with corruption. That’s equally true of \u003cem>It Can’t Happen Here, \u003c/em>a work that’s not truly interested in eliciting debate, confrontation or thinking — only the fantasy of what it might feel like to play at politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without any real countervailing positions, all we’re left with is left-wing melodrama: the crusading journalist fighting an emergent fascist state. To say that Jessup suffers and fights is essentially to say that that’s what the fantasy requires. He must speak out, he must be threatened, he must be arrested, he must be tortured, he must survive, he must join the resistance, and he must go on. It’s a well-worn dream, and not anything close to political thought or critique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12192307\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12192307\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-3-e1476248097372.jpg\" alt=\"(L to R) Buck Titus (David Kelly), Karl Pascal (Gerardo Rodriguez), Doremus Jessup (Tom Nelis), and John Pollikop (Mark Kenneth Smaltz) are political prisoners in 'It Can't Happen Here' at the Berkeley Rep.\" width=\"560\" height=\"319\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-3-e1476248097372.jpg 560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-3-e1476248097372-400x228.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L to R) Buck Titus (David Kelly), Karl Pascal (Gerardo Rodriguez), Doremus Jessup (Tom Nelis), and John Pollikop (Mark Kenneth Smaltz) are political prisoners in ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ at the Berkeley Rep. \u003ccite>(Photo: Kevin Berne)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In producing \u003cem>It Can’t Happen Here\u003c/em>, the Rep is, of course, warning that it very well could happen here. If you view Donald Trump as an existential threat to American democracy, then the warning is true enough; it could happen here and we should be worried. Yet the threat, as the play presents it, is an unconvincing jumble of clichés, and its politics no more than a desire to play hero in a disaster. As such, it falls in line with all those aforementioned teenage dystopias — \u003cem>The Hunger Games\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Giver\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Divergent — \u003c/em>that require fascist regimes in order for their young heroes and the audiences who applaud them to feel alive, real, and significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last line of the Berkeley Rep’s mission statement says: “Berkeley Rep aspires to use theater as a means to challenge, thrill, and galvanize what is best in the human spirit.” The question is: whose human spirit? In this play, the answer is self-congratulatory: We are selfless heroes who see the unique threats to the American Republic, and those who might feel otherwise are monsters. For all the dangers that Trump poses, Berkeley Rep’s response feels equally dangerous and just as much a fantasy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘It Can’t Happen Here’ runs through Sunday, Nov. 6 at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley. For tickets and information, \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1617/10650.asp\">click here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Tony Taccone reminds us in his program notes that he works for a not-for-profit organization, and that he is “forbidden, by law, to take political positions.” Though he quickly assures us that he and Berkeley Rep can overcome these limitations, “in the work we produce and the culture we create,” and rather wistfully adds, “there’s nothing to stop you from imagining my opinion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the Rep is opening its season with the premiere of Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen’s adaption of Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 anti-fascist novel, \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1617/10650.asp\">\u003cem>It Can’t Happen Here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, it seems impossible not to “imagine” what Taccone, the theater, Berkeley, or anyone else in the Bay Area thinks. Yet in raising that question, Taccone inadvertently uncovers a hornet’s nest of political assumptions that the production leaves unattended and unanswered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play begins with the actors prepping us on how to behave, respond, and think. We will be expected to perform the role of crowd energetically, no matter our true political feelings. We are told that the casting is not historically accurate in case anyone has “a problem with this,” and that “any resemblance in the play to current events is purely coincidental.” There are many winking asides after this last comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12192308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12192308 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-4-e1476248809102.jpg\" alt=\"Doremus Jessup (Tom Nelis) surrounded by his family and the community of Fort Beulah, Vermont in 'It Can't Happen Here' at the Berkeley Rep.\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-4-e1476248809102.jpg 560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-4-e1476248809102-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doremus Jessup (Tom Nelis) surrounded by his family and the community of Fort Beulah, Vermont in ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ at the Berkeley Rep. \u003ccite>(Photo: Kevin Berne)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s clear that the writers and the company have no idea of how to approach the material, and it speaks to the paucity of their theatrical imagination that their first move is an attempt at a faux-Brechtian engagement with the audience. Why bother to break the fourth wall to merely comfort and assure us that we all really understand what’s going on, that we all get the connections, and that we’re all in this together? I’m not even sure that’s a position from which you can think in a political manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From there, the play shifts registers to a rather old-fashioned mode of presentation, where everything is about the set-up, or, in the parlance of television show runners, “world building.” We meet our hero, the liberal, free-thinking journalist Doremus Jessup, his large family (almost impossible to keep track of or care for), and his community of extended family members and civic leaders. And we learn what might constitute a normal day in Fort Beulah, Vermont — a Fourth of July picnic — all the while catching glimpses (through a political meeting, a radio broadcast and other vignettes) of the rise of right-wing populist Buzz Windrip (a terrific David Kelly). It’s a long and laborsome slog to get to the beginnings of anything approaching drama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drama arrives at last, if only for a moment, about 25\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>minutes into the play, when Jessup’s eldest son Phillip argues that Windrip and his “lost man” movement are addressing real problems. Phillip uses his father’s handyman, Shad, as a ready example. It’s the first time in the play we get an inkling of real political stakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But sadly, Taccone and Cohen shut it down. Neither Phillip nor Shad are dramatically significant, and yet both are unnecessarily vile: Phillip treats his brother-in-law’s murder with a high-handed disdain, and Shad is portrayed as nothing more than a jack-booted thug. What the play fears most is not the rise of fascism, but rather the presence of any idea that might discomfort a moderately wealthy liberal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps Taccone and Cohen are unconsciously feeling the influence of the glut of Young Adult comics, novels, and movies depicting dystopian worlds. Like the teenage mind they’re produced for, these fantasies of rebellion are quick to equate rules and authority with corruption. That’s equally true of \u003cem>It Can’t Happen Here, \u003c/em>a work that’s not truly interested in eliciting debate, confrontation or thinking — only the fantasy of what it might feel like to play at politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without any real countervailing positions, all we’re left with is left-wing melodrama: the crusading journalist fighting an emergent fascist state. To say that Jessup suffers and fights is essentially to say that that’s what the fantasy requires. He must speak out, he must be threatened, he must be arrested, he must be tortured, he must survive, he must join the resistance, and he must go on. It’s a well-worn dream, and not anything close to political thought or critique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12192307\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12192307\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-3-e1476248097372.jpg\" alt=\"(L to R) Buck Titus (David Kelly), Karl Pascal (Gerardo Rodriguez), Doremus Jessup (Tom Nelis), and John Pollikop (Mark Kenneth Smaltz) are political prisoners in 'It Can't Happen Here' at the Berkeley Rep.\" width=\"560\" height=\"319\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-3-e1476248097372.jpg 560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/It-Cant-3-e1476248097372-400x228.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L to R) Buck Titus (David Kelly), Karl Pascal (Gerardo Rodriguez), Doremus Jessup (Tom Nelis), and John Pollikop (Mark Kenneth Smaltz) are political prisoners in ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ at the Berkeley Rep. \u003ccite>(Photo: Kevin Berne)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In producing \u003cem>It Can’t Happen Here\u003c/em>, the Rep is, of course, warning that it very well could happen here. If you view Donald Trump as an existential threat to American democracy, then the warning is true enough; it could happen here and we should be worried. Yet the threat, as the play presents it, is an unconvincing jumble of clichés, and its politics no more than a desire to play hero in a disaster. As such, it falls in line with all those aforementioned teenage dystopias — \u003cem>The Hunger Games\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Giver\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Divergent — \u003c/em>that require fascist regimes in order for their young heroes and the audiences who applaud them to feel alive, real, and significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last line of the Berkeley Rep’s mission statement says: “Berkeley Rep aspires to use theater as a means to challenge, thrill, and galvanize what is best in the human spirit.” The question is: whose human spirit? In this play, the answer is self-congratulatory: We are selfless heroes who see the unique threats to the American Republic, and those who might feel otherwise are monsters. For all the dangers that Trump poses, Berkeley Rep’s response feels equally dangerous and just as much a fantasy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘It Can’t Happen Here’ runs through Sunday, Nov. 6 at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley. For tickets and information, \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1617/10650.asp\">click here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How I Survived Taylor Mac's 24-Hour-Long Musical History Lesson",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the annals of marathon concert experiences, Taylor Mac’s \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taylormac.org/portfolio_page/24-decade/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A 24-Decade History of Popular Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is right up there with legendarily lengthy sets played the likes of the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen and Chilly Gonzales. The acclaimed New York drag performance artist and Stockton native appeared at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York over the weekend, presenting a one-off, 24-hour-long musical journey through U.S. history comprising of no less than 246 songs. And I was determined to stay awake for every one of them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186884\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186884\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"Performer Taylor Mac and music director Matt Ray.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-1180x666.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-1920x1083.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Performer Taylor Mac and music director Matt Ray. \u003ccite>(Photo: Ves Pitts)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When Mac brought the first six hours of his magnum opus to San Francisco’s Curran Theatre last January, covering songs that were popular from the years 1776 to 1836, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/01/25/taylor-mac-preps-for-24-hour-singing-marathon/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I barely noticed the time shimmy by\u003c/a>. Still, I approached the full 24-hour extravaganza with trepidation. It’s been years since I pulled an all-nighter; these days, if I fail to get my full quota of zzz’s, well, I’m just not very nice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I asked my friend Matt Walker, a U.C. Berkeley neuroscientist who studies sleep, for advice. “After 16 hours of continued wakefulness, the functionality of your brain and the health of your body start to degrade rapidly,” he said. “Stay away from coffee and alcohol. Do not do operate heavy machinery or drive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okey dokey, then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the run-up to the performance, Mac \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1NnZ168S8fQGQBKG9NHJbqt/frock-around-the-clock-drag-cabaret-show-fits-24-decades-of-music-into-24-hours\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shared with me his own survival plans\u003c/a>, which included consuming Japanese rice balls, electrolyte water and apples, and every so often, giving his feet a break. “I’ve learned that changing shoes after every decade is very helpful,” Mac said. “And there are a few decades where I am not in heels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186888\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186888\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-800x459.jpg\" alt=\"The crowd settles down before the start of 'A 24-Decade History of Popular Music', a one-off, marathon performance at St. Ann's warehouse, Brooklyn, NY on Oct. 8-9, 2016\" width=\"800\" height=\"459\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-800x459.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-400x230.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-768x441.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-1180x678.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-1920x1103.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-960x551.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The crowd settles down before the start of ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,’ a one-off, marathon performance at St. Ann’s warehouse, Brooklyn, NY on Oct. 8–9, 2016. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Just shy of noon last Saturday, I showed up at St. Ann’s, in flats. The cavernous space on the Brooklyn waterfront was decked out for the occasion with hammocks, a medical tent and a kiosk offering snacks. I settled into my seat with a notebook and pen. What follows are my impressions of one of the longest — and greatest — feats ever to have unfolded on the American concert stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take heed; it’s long. Believe me, I know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1776–1786: Act I\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After making a public apology and offering his grandmother’s beat-up ukulele to a Native American person for the way in which the early settlers and their descendants screwed over the indigenous people of North America, Mac begins the first of his eight, three-hour-long acts with a discussion about the core values upon which our great nation is based. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11273115\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11273115 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-800x503.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac in 'A 24-Decade History of Popular Music: 1776-1806' as part of Curran: Under Construction\" width=\"800\" height=\"503\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-800x503.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-400x251.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-768x483.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-1180x742.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-1920x1207.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-960x603.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac in ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Jim Norrena )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The performer takes us through spirited versions of “Amazing Grace,” “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” “Yankee Doodle” and other period favorites charismatically arranged by the production’s formidable music director, arranger and pianist Matt Ray. (“Only 245 songs left to go!” Mac says after finishing the first one. Ray grins.) From these, Mac deduces that the United States’ founding principles, among others, include “hating Congress,” “liking black hair,” and “making things.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are several people knitting on stage throughout to underscore his point about maker culture. Mac’s getup sets the tone that will mark nearly all of the costumes for the show: he’s in a beribboned periwig and hoop skirt contraption that I imagine is what Marie Antoinette would look like if she lost her head at a karaoke bar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1786–1796\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A section on women’s lib involving a dress encrusted with disembodied doll’s heads, framed by a couple of smoking wooden chimneys — an homage to the decade in which steam-power was invented. Matthew Flower (a.k.a. Machine Dazzle) is Mac’s costume designer, and truly a mad genius. The man stands about seven feet tall in stilettos and has as many costume changes as the principal performer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11280233\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11280233\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-800x396.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac’s smokestack dress.\" width=\"800\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-800x396.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-400x198.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-768x380.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-1180x583.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-1920x949.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-960x475.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac’s smokestack dress. \u003ccite>(Photo: Jim Norrena)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this decade, Mac tells a long yarn about an unhappy love triangle that stops along the way for a feminist take on the tune “God Save the Queen,” as well as “Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be?” and a lovely harp solo-infused version of the ballad “10,000 Miles.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1796–1806\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A memorable decade, playing ribald drinking songs (“Nine Inch Will Please a Lady”) off against hymns performed by a sniffy, bonneted temperance choir (“Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes”) to provoke a discussion about the often strained coexistence between the puritanical and debauched in American society. Mac appears in an outfit shaped like a barrel with a headdress made of barley sheaths and wine bottle corks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186889\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186889\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac explores 18th century drinking culture in Act 1 of ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music’\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac explores 18th century drinking culture in Act 1 of ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He has us drinking ginger ale (the venue’s license won’t allow booze unless it’s bought from the bar in the lobby) and passing ping-pong balls mouth-to-mouth with our neighbors. I could have used an actual beer to get through this part. But once I had plucked up the courage to pop a ball between the lips of the nice, young woman sitting to my right, and she had returned the favor, I knew Mac could ask me to do almost anything and I would probably comply. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the hour, Mac asks audience members to share their their favorite puke stories. There’s also a gorgeous choral version of “Shenandoah.” Oh, and Mac’s monologue, about a performance artist who repeatedly pulls chicken legs out of her vagina, eats the meat and then throws the bones out to the audience, will likely stay with me for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1806–1816: Act II\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you haven’t already guessed, Mac takes audience participation in his shows seriously, and the floor is already a mess of ripped up paper, ping-pong balls, apple cores and empty ginger beer cans from the various antics of the previous three hours. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186890\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12186890 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The floor of St. Ann’s Warehouse, just a few hours into the show.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The floor of St. Ann’s Warehouse, just a few hours into the show. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I’m gratified to see how many Bay Area people are in the house. A few are involved in the production, including cellist El Beh, singer Brian Rosen and Sister of Perpetual Indulgence Rose Mary Chicken, and many more of us are in the audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mac devotes this section to staging what he calls a “heteronormative jukebox musical about colonization.” A lot of the songs over the hour sound boringly similar to the drinking songs in the last — they go “oom-pah-pah-oom-pah-pah” — and the story about young Irish lovers Harry and Jane separated in the old country and reunited in the new goes on for way too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But we get to sing along with the band for a bit, and Beh gets to perform a beautiful duet with Mac, “Bonnie Irish Maid.” As for the costuming, Mac looks like an ostrich had a collision with a candelabra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186892\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186892\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac looks like an ostrich had a collision with a candelabra.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-1920x1082.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac looks like an ostrich had a collision with a candelabra as he involves an audience member in a scene from Act 2 of his show. \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1816–1826\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mac’s helpers — whom he refers to as his “Dandy Minions”; Rose Mary Chicken is one of them — pass out eye masks. We dutifully move several hundred chairs to the side. The entire audience then spends the next hour stumbling about in the dark. Why? That’s the decade braille was invented. Also, Mac wants us to rely less on our sense of sight. So he has us feed each other grapes, smell carnations, and play a giant game of blind man’s bluff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I sit in more laps than I care to recall and exchange grapes with a large person with a bushy beard. All the while, Mac tickles our ears with songs. “Cherry Ripe” is a melodious thing. So is “Coal Black Rose,” or at least until Mac tells us it’s about a bunch of sailors looking forward to ending their shift so they can go gang-rape a black female slave. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1826–1836\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a relief to get the blindfold off, though I had more fun going sightless for an hour than I thought I would. The next decade deals with the Indian Removal Act. Mac wears a cartoonish milkmaid dress with what looks like small plastic figurines protruding from it. He’s lost a sparkly eyebrow somewhere along the way. As we learn about the Trail of Tears and one poor Native American orphan’s journey from Cherokee lands in Georgia towards Christian salvation in Oklahoma, the cast performs hillbilly, washboard-infused renditions of children’s songs like “Turkey in the Straw” and “Goosey Goosey Gander.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186894\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186894\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-800x452.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac and the band perform 19th century children’s songs a cappella.\" width=\"800\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-800x452.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-768x434.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-1180x667.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-1920x1085.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-960x542.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac and the band perform 19th century children’s songs a cappella. \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we reach our destination, Mac throws on the hideous white house lights (he says the lighting in Oklahoma is so bad, it’s “like shopping at Duane Reade”) and throws off his country bumpkin attire. Now he’s singing a murder ballad — “Banks of the Ohio” — in nothing but a pair of sequined crimson panties and a feathered headdress topped with a pair of angry-looking stuffed cockerels. I am in awe.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1836–1846: Act III\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Dandy Minions erect a runway from the stage that cuts the space in two. What follows is perhaps the most pensive and dream-like of all of the show’s sections, dealing with the subject of slavery and the underground railroad that brought captives to freedom. As Mac and his band perform songs like “I’ve Been in the Storm So Long,” “Wade in the Water” and “No More Auction Block for Me,” puppeteers illustrate the spirit of the music with ghostly shadow puppet, marionette, and mannequin sequences. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187078\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187078\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-800x452.jpg\" alt=\"Puppeteers provide haunting visual storytelling to the section of Taylor Mac’s show that deals with slavery.\" width=\"800\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-800x452.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-768x434.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-1180x666.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-1920x1084.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-960x542.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Puppeteers provide haunting visual storytelling to the section of Taylor Mac’s show that deals with slavery. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1846–1856\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The decades are all starting to blur into each other. I go to the bathroom, get some hummus and veggies from the snack bar and return to the fray. There I find Mac, dressed in another voluminous gown adorned with empty potato-chip packets (to mark the decade of the invention of the potato chip), cut-outs from gay porn magazines, and chess pieces, announcing an epic, lucha libre-style smackdown between Walt Whitman and Stephen Foster for the title of “Father of American Song.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mac doesn’t much like Foster, whom he feels is basically a good old boy, entrenched in the ideals of the Old South and undeserving of the musicological adulation he receives today. Whitman, Mac says, is much more progressive a voice. There’s now a boxing ring at one end of the runway. Mac hoists a befuddled young man from the audience to stand in for Foster.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187081\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187081\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac prepares for an epic smackdown between Stephen Foster and Walt Whitman to decide which of them is the true Father of American Song.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-1920x1082.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac prepares for an epic smackdown between Stephen Foster and Walt Whitman to decide which is the true Father of American Song. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then Mac pits chestnuts by the composer like “Camptown Races” and “Massar in the Cold, Cold Ground” against eloquently delivered samples of Whitman’s verse. We’re to yell “Oh Captain, My Captain” if we want Whitman to win, and the flaccid “doo dah, doo dah” for Foster. Of course, the Captain wins every round of the fight, and the audience collectively pelts poor Foster with more ping-pong balls. Still, when Mac performs one of Foster’s most beautiful and socially conscious songs, “Hard Times,” most of us vote in the composer’s favor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1856–1866\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m sitting by the runway, minding my own business, when I suddenly hear a booming voice above me saying, “You. Up on stage. Now.” It takes me a few seconds to realize the man is pointing at me. Before I know what’s going on, I’m up there, under the lights, in front of around 650 people, with the show’s makeup artist busily applying gobs of black makeup to my upper lip. A Dandy Minion plants a Union soldier’s cap on my head. And there are I am, in sweatpants, Chuck Taylors and a prize handlebar moustache, representing, Mac says, all the women who had to disguise themselves as men to join the army. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187082\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187082\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Selfie, shortly after being hoisted on stage and made up to look like a cross-dressed Union soldier.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-1920x1081.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Selfie, shortly after being hoisted on stage and made up to look like a cross-dressed Union soldier. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are lots of spunky war songs in this section, from both the Union and Confederate sides, including “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and that sickly-nostalgic idyll to the South, “Dixie,” which causes half the audience to hiss in disgust. I consider wiping the makeup off right away. But strangers keep telling me how great I look in a ‘stache, so I wear it for a few hours, with a mixed sense of pride and embarrassment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1866–1876: Act IV\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Somehow 650 people manage to turn St. Ann’s into a dining room complete with long tables and chairs and delicious food, all because Mac has decided it’s time for us all to have a “family dinner.” As we munch on delicacies culled from Catherine Beecher’s 1871 cookbook, Mac treats us to ditties of the era, like “Home on the Range” (done in a moody, Dave Brubeck jazz style), while a bunch of women circus performers make human pyramids and perform other tricks on stage — and even on the dining tables. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187084\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187084\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Dinner, 19th century style.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dinner, 19th century style. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1876–1886\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After our civilized family meal, things start to get really weird. We’re in the Gilded Age, and Mac decides to spend an hour performing an homage to Gilbert & Sullivan, who were as popular in the U.S. in the late 19th century as they were in their native England. Only he sets his abridged and thoroughly hilarious version of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Mikado\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, in which England’s famous operetta composers covertly satirized British politics, on Mars. Why? Because the appropriation of Japanese culture — or indeed any culture other than one’s own — is tricky territory today. (For more on this, take a look at \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/08/23/the-end-of-yellowface-and-blackface-or-not/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cy Musiker’s story\u003c/a> about how the Bay Area’s Lamplighters’ theater company tried to solve the problem for its recent production of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Mikado\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">).\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187085\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187085\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-800x452.jpg\" alt=\"Cast members play martians in Taylor Mac’s totally surreal but strangely effective version of ‘The Mikado’ set on Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-800x452.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-768x434.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-1180x666.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-1920x1084.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-960x542.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cast members play martians in Taylor Mac’s totally surreal but strangely effective version of ‘The Mikado’ set on Mars. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mac’s martian \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mikado\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is full of amazing glow-in-the-dark costumes and makeup, a spaceship, and reggae-style production numbers. Also, Mac and company sound like Teletubbies. I’ve never heard “Three Little Maids from School are We” and “Willow, Tit Willow” processed through Autotune before. It kinda works. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1886–1896\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This section deals with the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. I watch it all unfold from the safe distance of the upstairs balcony. It’s a relief to take a break from the shop floor, frankly. From my safe haven, I watch as the Dandy Minions release a cloud of colorful, helium-filled balloons into the space. Mac instructs the audience to make a run for the balloons, grab them, and then use them to stake out their turf. There aren’t enough balloons to go around, so those left without have to negotiate with the new “landowners” for space in their domain. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187086\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187086\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The Oklahoma Land Rush scene, observed from a balcony at a safe distance from the scramble.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-1920x1081.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oklahoma Land Rush scene, observed from a balcony at a safe distance from the scramble. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the musical selections in this decade are instrumentals, including Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” to which one of the Dandy Minions performs a striptease. Only he’s already completely starkers to begin with; the garments he removes are invisible. The connection between the privatization of land and this case of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” isn’t lost on me, even though I’ve been in the theater for around 12 hours at this point and am starting to feel it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1896–1906: Act V\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s midnight, or thereabouts. We’ve officially reached the halfway point and are entering unchartered territory for cast and crew; the longest performance of the show they’ve given to date is 12 hours (at Vassar College, in the summer). I return downstairs, to the sound of energetic Eastern European music from the band. Mac is wearing his most beautiful dress yet, a figure-hugging, Gustav Klimt-inspired creation of black and gold. It’s festooned with Stars of David and other Jewish symbology. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re exploring what it means to be a newly arrived immigrant to these shores. Over the next hour, we flop about on mattresses and think about what it’s like to have sex in a tenement within earshot of dozens of family members, while Mac performs tuneful renditions of popular songs by New York Jews of the time, like Irving Berlin’s ironical “All Alone.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187088\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187088\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-800x501.jpg\" alt=\"As the night wears on, musical director Matt Ray dons a beanie to keep himself warm.\" width=\"800\" height=\"501\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-800x501.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-400x251.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-768x481.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-1180x740.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-1920x1203.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-960x602.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As the night wears on, musical director Matt Ray dons a beanie to keep himself warm. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1906–1916\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now we’re in the trenches. Mac, who is wearing a headdress with a gas mask incorporated in its design, invites all the men in the house aged 14 to 40 up on stage, to represent the demographic of soldiers who fought in the Great War. There are a lot of bodies up there. Mac gives several female audience members bandages and they go around wrapping the men up as if treating their wounds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mac’s songs about life during wartime include a terrific feminist take on “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” I am trying to get comfy on the mattress I’m sharing with several people and am finding it hard to concentrate. Even Mac is starting to show tiny signs of wear and tear. For the first time in the show, the performer has a memory lapse and asks his musical director for a cue. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1916–1926\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this section about the Roaring Twenties, Mac, ever the upender, chooses to view the hedonistic excesses of the era not as victorious jollity in the wake of wartime deprivations, but rather as post-war trauma.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187281\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187281\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"A surreal dance-off between a group of ukulele-strumming Tiny Tims and a bunch of tap-dancers dressed in robes in a fanciful homage to James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-1920x1083.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A surreal dance-off between a group of ukulele-strumming Tiny Tims and a bunch of tap-dancers dressed in robes in a fanciful homage to James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though the hour is a loopy cocktail of balloons, good-time numbers like “Happy Days Are Here Again,” a conga line, and a surreal dance-off between a group of ukulele-strumming Tiny Tims and a bunch of tap-dancers dressed in Grecian robes in a fanciful homage to James Joyce’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ulysses\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Mac keeps reminding us that 16.5 million people died in the war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1926–1936: Act VI\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The act begins with a doctor joining the performer on stage to give him a vitamin B shot in his behind to help keep his energy levels up. That’s surely got to be a first for a public performance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now we’re in the Depression Era. Americans across the land suffered. But musically, those times were certainly inspiring. In a tight black velvet romper, blue silk cape and sparkling bathing cap à la Esther Williams, Mac feeds our souls with “Minnie the Moocher,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)” and other hits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187091\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187091\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Dandy Minions prepare to dole out soup to the tired, poor, huddled masses.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-1920x1081.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dandy Minions prepare to dole out soup to the tired, poor, huddled masses. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He also feeds our bodies: The Dandy Minions emerge with huge vats of delicious split pea soup and bread rolls. We get into snaking soup lines and gratefully accept this well-past-midnight snack.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1936–1946\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At some point during this act — I’m a little hazy on which decade exactly it happens, but it’s the conclusion of a monologue about Mac’s dumpster diving days — the performer transforms himself into a walking chocolate-vanilla ice-cream cone with sprinkles. A cherry-topped headdress provides the finishing touch. Only it isn’t a cherry at all, but a glittery red human skull. Nice touch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a bit lost though. “What decade are we in?” I ask a couple of couple of fellow audience members. No one seems to know. “It’s at that time when it all slips away,” I hear Mac say from the stage. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I listen to “Tea for Two” while sprawled out on a mattress with my eyes shut. I open my eyes to the sight of a couple of massive inflatable fish being gently tossed up and down in the air around the space and a scary narrative about the easy-listening favorite “By the Sleepy Lagoon” concerning the corpse of a dead baby. By the time Mac gets to a monologue about World War II Japanese internment camps and sings the song “Don’t Fence Me In,” I’m wide awake.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1946–1956\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This decade is all about the white flight to the suburbs and the threat of the atomic bomb. Mac wrenches the mattresses away from us, and we bring back the chairs. Then he orders all the white people sitting in the center of the room to find a seat — or, if there are no seats left, someone’s lap — to the sides of the room. That’s when I realize that the audience, though diverse in terms of sexuality, gender and age, isn’t so diverse from a racial perspective.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187092\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187092\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac as a Stepford-Wife-on-crack.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-1920x1082.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac in 1950s-inspired garb. \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mac now resembles a Stepford-Wife-on-acid, with a wig made out of cardboard 3D glasses and a shawl in the shape of a white picket fence. The songs are starting to become more recognizable to 21st century ears, ranging from Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” to The Platters’ “Only You.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m really tired. Wondering: can I get a vitamin B shot too?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1956–1966: Act VII\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only five more to go! Powerful guest singers from Detroit, Stephanie Christi’an and Thornetta Davis, join Mac for this section about the Civil Rights era and the March on Washington. Rambunctious performances of Nina Simone songs keep me going. When they get to “Mississippi Goddam,” I start to cry. Someone hands me a boxed breakfast. I gratefully dig in, with salty tears pelting my yogurt. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1966–1976\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An hour devoted to the disco era and the rise of gay activism, kicked off by an energetic rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up.” Then Mac brings on an entire marching band from Brooklyn comprised entirely of young black men. The performer now has an enormous peace sign on his back and an oversized, tie-dye-effect macram\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">é\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “bib” on his front. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187093\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187093\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-800x452.jpg\" alt=\"There’s no mistaking we’re in the 1970s with this getup.\" width=\"800\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-800x452.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-1180x666.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-1920x1084.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-960x542.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">There’s no mistaking we’re in the 1970s with this getup. \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the company stage manager dances in roller skates and a purple wig to David Bowie’s “Oh You Pretty Things,” there can be no doubt that we’re in the 1970s. We cycle through hits by Elton John, The Rolling Stones and The Clash. And I realize two things: one, just how much American pop music is actually British; and two, that we haven’t heard a squeak about The Beatles. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a sly act of genius, Mac re-appropriates the homophobic Ted Nugent hit “Snakeskin Cowboys” as a gay prom song. Mac instructs us to find a partner of the same gender, and I find myself slow-dancing with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New York Times\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> arts reporter, Jennifer Schuessler\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1976–1986\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This one’s all about a backroom sex party. It involves “Purple Rain” (which Mac, in a momentary but totally forgivable memory lapse, almost forgets to sing) among other great let’s-get-it-on tracks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At some point I nod off for five minutes and wake to find rose petals strewn over the floor. My prom date \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">tells me someone tried to give me petals to throw, but I was unresponsive. Am glad to be wide awake again for Mac’s mesmerizing rendition of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman,” for which the entire audience provides the backing track by chanting a staccato “ha ha ha ha” for the duration of the song.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187094\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187094\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac in his goth pop outfit, festooned with cassette tapes. Guitarist Viva DeConcini looks on.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac in his goth pop outfit, festooned with cassette tapes. Guitarist Viva DeConcini looks on. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1986–1996: Act VIII\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can’t believe we’ve come this far. My notes are almost illegible. In fact, my notebook is falling apart. I keep the pages together with an elastic band I find on the floor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re diving into the AIDS crisis. Mac is wearing a dress covered in cassette tapes. The music is a mad mixtape of goth-pop hits like “Blood Makes Noise” and “Addicted to Love,” with tracks like Whitney’s Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” mixed in to throw us off, I guess.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1996–2006\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This decade, devoted to radical lesbian songs, is a bit of a struggle for me. I’m exhausted. And I’m just not all that into “The Pussy Manifesto” and K.D. Lang. That said, I appreciate Mac turning this decade into a “lesbian tailgate party” complete with vagina decorations, mimosas, hot dogs cooked up on a George Foreman grill, lawn chairs, and several happy-looking dykes. I eat two bags of popcorn in solidarity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187095\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187095\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-800x460.jpg\" alt=\"The lesbian tailgating party in the final act of ‘A 24 Decade History of Popular Music’.\" width=\"800\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-800x460.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-400x230.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-768x442.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-1180x679.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-1920x1104.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-960x552.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The lesbian tailgate party in the final act of ‘A 24 Decade History of Popular Music.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>2006–2016\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I forgot to mention that Mac has been steadily hemorrhaging musicians for 23 hours, at a rate of around one an hour. Now there’s no one on stage but him. Showing clear signs of exhaustion, with a hoarse voice and almost slurred speech, Mac performs the last part of his musical journey solo, accompanying himself at different times on the piano, banjo, and ukulele. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The songs are alternately angry and funny, and consistently moving. Mac composed them all himself. One track is dedicated to the recent bloodbath at the gay club in Orlando; another, to the life of a “Rank and File Queer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 24-hour act of heroism ends quietly. Then the room erupts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Perfection is for assholes,” Mac told me in the run-up to the show. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s certainly a useful mantra to live by when you’ve got 240 years of pop music history to pull off. But it’s also not a bad way to approach life in general.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What Taylor Mac teaches us above all else with his exhausting, brilliant marathon of history and song is how a total breakdown can bring people together. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I’m going to be falling apart and the audience is going to be falling apart,” Mac said in an \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2016/01/19/taylor-macs-a-24-decade-history-of-popular-music-comes-to-san-francisco/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">interview with Rachael Myrow on KQED Forum\u003c/a> last January, expressing what he hoped would be the outcome of this weekend’s theatrical-anthropological experiment. “But as a result, we’re going to be able to create bonds and build connection.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wasn’t wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187278\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12187278 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"After performing for 24 hours straight, the cast and crew of ‘A 24 Decade History of Popular Music’ take a bow.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After performing for 24 hours straight, the cast and crew of ‘A 24 Decade History of Popular Music’ take a bow. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The Stockton-raised, New York-based drag performance artist undertook a heroic feat over the weekend, performing 246 songs covering 240 years of U.S. history.",
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"title": "How I Survived Taylor Mac's 24-Hour-Long Musical History Lesson | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the annals of marathon concert experiences, Taylor Mac’s \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taylormac.org/portfolio_page/24-decade/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A 24-Decade History of Popular Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is right up there with legendarily lengthy sets played the likes of the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen and Chilly Gonzales. The acclaimed New York drag performance artist and Stockton native appeared at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York over the weekend, presenting a one-off, 24-hour-long musical journey through U.S. history comprising of no less than 246 songs. And I was determined to stay awake for every one of them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186884\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186884\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"Performer Taylor Mac and music director Matt Ray.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-1180x666.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-1920x1083.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/credit-Ves-Pitts-e1476143027447-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Performer Taylor Mac and music director Matt Ray. \u003ccite>(Photo: Ves Pitts)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When Mac brought the first six hours of his magnum opus to San Francisco’s Curran Theatre last January, covering songs that were popular from the years 1776 to 1836, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/01/25/taylor-mac-preps-for-24-hour-singing-marathon/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I barely noticed the time shimmy by\u003c/a>. Still, I approached the full 24-hour extravaganza with trepidation. It’s been years since I pulled an all-nighter; these days, if I fail to get my full quota of zzz’s, well, I’m just not very nice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I asked my friend Matt Walker, a U.C. Berkeley neuroscientist who studies sleep, for advice. “After 16 hours of continued wakefulness, the functionality of your brain and the health of your body start to degrade rapidly,” he said. “Stay away from coffee and alcohol. Do not do operate heavy machinery or drive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okey dokey, then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the run-up to the performance, Mac \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1NnZ168S8fQGQBKG9NHJbqt/frock-around-the-clock-drag-cabaret-show-fits-24-decades-of-music-into-24-hours\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shared with me his own survival plans\u003c/a>, which included consuming Japanese rice balls, electrolyte water and apples, and every so often, giving his feet a break. “I’ve learned that changing shoes after every decade is very helpful,” Mac said. “And there are a few decades where I am not in heels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186888\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186888\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-800x459.jpg\" alt=\"The crowd settles down before the start of 'A 24-Decade History of Popular Music', a one-off, marathon performance at St. Ann's warehouse, Brooklyn, NY on Oct. 8-9, 2016\" width=\"800\" height=\"459\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-800x459.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-400x230.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-768x441.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-1180x678.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-1920x1103.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/IMG_5173-e1476143548801-960x551.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The crowd settles down before the start of ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,’ a one-off, marathon performance at St. Ann’s warehouse, Brooklyn, NY on Oct. 8–9, 2016. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Just shy of noon last Saturday, I showed up at St. Ann’s, in flats. The cavernous space on the Brooklyn waterfront was decked out for the occasion with hammocks, a medical tent and a kiosk offering snacks. I settled into my seat with a notebook and pen. What follows are my impressions of one of the longest — and greatest — feats ever to have unfolded on the American concert stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take heed; it’s long. Believe me, I know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1776–1786: Act I\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After making a public apology and offering his grandmother’s beat-up ukulele to a Native American person for the way in which the early settlers and their descendants screwed over the indigenous people of North America, Mac begins the first of his eight, three-hour-long acts with a discussion about the core values upon which our great nation is based. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11273115\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11273115 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-800x503.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac in 'A 24-Decade History of Popular Music: 1776-1806' as part of Curran: Under Construction\" width=\"800\" height=\"503\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-800x503.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-400x251.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-768x483.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-1180x742.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-1920x1207.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac-2-c-Jim-Norrena-e1453676397992-960x603.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac in ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Jim Norrena )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The performer takes us through spirited versions of “Amazing Grace,” “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” “Yankee Doodle” and other period favorites charismatically arranged by the production’s formidable music director, arranger and pianist Matt Ray. (“Only 245 songs left to go!” Mac says after finishing the first one. Ray grins.) From these, Mac deduces that the United States’ founding principles, among others, include “hating Congress,” “liking black hair,” and “making things.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are several people knitting on stage throughout to underscore his point about maker culture. Mac’s getup sets the tone that will mark nearly all of the costumes for the show: he’s in a beribboned periwig and hoop skirt contraption that I imagine is what Marie Antoinette would look like if she lost her head at a karaoke bar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1786–1796\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A section on women’s lib involving a dress encrusted with disembodied doll’s heads, framed by a couple of smoking wooden chimneys — an homage to the decade in which steam-power was invented. Matthew Flower (a.k.a. Machine Dazzle) is Mac’s costume designer, and truly a mad genius. The man stands about seven feet tall in stilettos and has as many costume changes as the principal performer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11280233\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11280233\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-800x396.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac’s smokestack dress.\" width=\"800\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-800x396.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-400x198.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-768x380.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-1180x583.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-1920x949.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/Taylor-Mac_cropped-e1454024086184-960x475.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac’s smokestack dress. \u003ccite>(Photo: Jim Norrena)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this decade, Mac tells a long yarn about an unhappy love triangle that stops along the way for a feminist take on the tune “God Save the Queen,” as well as “Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be?” and a lovely harp solo-infused version of the ballad “10,000 Miles.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1796–1806\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A memorable decade, playing ribald drinking songs (“Nine Inch Will Please a Lady”) off against hymns performed by a sniffy, bonneted temperance choir (“Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes”) to provoke a discussion about the often strained coexistence between the puritanical and debauched in American society. Mac appears in an outfit shaped like a barrel with a headdress made of barley sheaths and wine bottle corks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186889\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186889\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac explores 18th century drinking culture in Act 1 of ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music’\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Quick-17-1-e1476143797575-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac explores 18th century drinking culture in Act 1 of ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He has us drinking ginger ale (the venue’s license won’t allow booze unless it’s bought from the bar in the lobby) and passing ping-pong balls mouth-to-mouth with our neighbors. I could have used an actual beer to get through this part. But once I had plucked up the courage to pop a ball between the lips of the nice, young woman sitting to my right, and she had returned the favor, I knew Mac could ask me to do almost anything and I would probably comply. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the hour, Mac asks audience members to share their their favorite puke stories. There’s also a gorgeous choral version of “Shenandoah.” Oh, and Mac’s monologue, about a performance artist who repeatedly pulls chicken legs out of her vagina, eats the meat and then throws the bones out to the audience, will likely stay with me for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1806–1816: Act II\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you haven’t already guessed, Mac takes audience participation in his shows seriously, and the floor is already a mess of ripped up paper, ping-pong balls, apple cores and empty ginger beer cans from the various antics of the previous three hours. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186890\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12186890 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The floor of St. Ann’s Warehouse, just a few hours into the show.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/the-floor-e1476144050654-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The floor of St. Ann’s Warehouse, just a few hours into the show. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I’m gratified to see how many Bay Area people are in the house. A few are involved in the production, including cellist El Beh, singer Brian Rosen and Sister of Perpetual Indulgence Rose Mary Chicken, and many more of us are in the audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mac devotes this section to staging what he calls a “heteronormative jukebox musical about colonization.” A lot of the songs over the hour sound boringly similar to the drinking songs in the last — they go “oom-pah-pah-oom-pah-pah” — and the story about young Irish lovers Harry and Jane separated in the old country and reunited in the new goes on for way too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But we get to sing along with the band for a bit, and Beh gets to perform a beautiful duet with Mac, “Bonnie Irish Maid.” As for the costuming, Mac looks like an ostrich had a collision with a candelabra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186892\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186892\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac looks like an ostrich had a collision with a candelabra.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-1920x1082.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-30-e1476144868704-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac looks like an ostrich had a collision with a candelabra as he involves an audience member in a scene from Act 2 of his show. \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1816–1826\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mac’s helpers — whom he refers to as his “Dandy Minions”; Rose Mary Chicken is one of them — pass out eye masks. We dutifully move several hundred chairs to the side. The entire audience then spends the next hour stumbling about in the dark. Why? That’s the decade braille was invented. Also, Mac wants us to rely less on our sense of sight. So he has us feed each other grapes, smell carnations, and play a giant game of blind man’s bluff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I sit in more laps than I care to recall and exchange grapes with a large person with a bushy beard. All the while, Mac tickles our ears with songs. “Cherry Ripe” is a melodious thing. So is “Coal Black Rose,” or at least until Mac tells us it’s about a bunch of sailors looking forward to ending their shift so they can go gang-rape a black female slave. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1826–1836\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a relief to get the blindfold off, though I had more fun going sightless for an hour than I thought I would. The next decade deals with the Indian Removal Act. Mac wears a cartoonish milkmaid dress with what looks like small plastic figurines protruding from it. He’s lost a sparkly eyebrow somewhere along the way. As we learn about the Trail of Tears and one poor Native American orphan’s journey from Cherokee lands in Georgia towards Christian salvation in Oklahoma, the cast performs hillbilly, washboard-infused renditions of children’s songs like “Turkey in the Straw” and “Goosey Goosey Gander.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12186894\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12186894\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-800x452.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac and the band perform 19th century children’s songs a cappella.\" width=\"800\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-800x452.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-768x434.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-1180x667.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-1920x1085.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Taylor-Mac-Act-2-93-e1476145277832-960x542.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac and the band perform 19th century children’s songs a cappella. \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we reach our destination, Mac throws on the hideous white house lights (he says the lighting in Oklahoma is so bad, it’s “like shopping at Duane Reade”) and throws off his country bumpkin attire. Now he’s singing a murder ballad — “Banks of the Ohio” — in nothing but a pair of sequined crimson panties and a feathered headdress topped with a pair of angry-looking stuffed cockerels. I am in awe.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1836–1846: Act III\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Dandy Minions erect a runway from the stage that cuts the space in two. What follows is perhaps the most pensive and dream-like of all of the show’s sections, dealing with the subject of slavery and the underground railroad that brought captives to freedom. As Mac and his band perform songs like “I’ve Been in the Storm So Long,” “Wade in the Water” and “No More Auction Block for Me,” puppeteers illustrate the spirit of the music with ghostly shadow puppet, marionette, and mannequin sequences. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187078\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187078\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-800x452.jpg\" alt=\"Puppeteers provide haunting visual storytelling to the section of Taylor Mac’s show that deals with slavery.\" width=\"800\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-800x452.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-768x434.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-1180x666.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-1920x1084.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/puppets-e1476145553718-960x542.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Puppeteers provide haunting visual storytelling to the section of Taylor Mac’s show that deals with slavery. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1846–1856\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The decades are all starting to blur into each other. I go to the bathroom, get some hummus and veggies from the snack bar and return to the fray. There I find Mac, dressed in another voluminous gown adorned with empty potato-chip packets (to mark the decade of the invention of the potato chip), cut-outs from gay porn magazines, and chess pieces, announcing an epic, lucha libre-style smackdown between Walt Whitman and Stephen Foster for the title of “Father of American Song.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mac doesn’t much like Foster, whom he feels is basically a good old boy, entrenched in the ideals of the Old South and undeserving of the musicological adulation he receives today. Whitman, Mac says, is much more progressive a voice. There’s now a boxing ring at one end of the runway. Mac hoists a befuddled young man from the audience to stand in for Foster.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187081\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187081\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac prepares for an epic smackdown between Stephen Foster and Walt Whitman to decide which of them is the true Father of American Song.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-1920x1082.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/smackdown-e1476145834477-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac prepares for an epic smackdown between Stephen Foster and Walt Whitman to decide which is the true Father of American Song. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then Mac pits chestnuts by the composer like “Camptown Races” and “Massar in the Cold, Cold Ground” against eloquently delivered samples of Whitman’s verse. We’re to yell “Oh Captain, My Captain” if we want Whitman to win, and the flaccid “doo dah, doo dah” for Foster. Of course, the Captain wins every round of the fight, and the audience collectively pelts poor Foster with more ping-pong balls. Still, when Mac performs one of Foster’s most beautiful and socially conscious songs, “Hard Times,” most of us vote in the composer’s favor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1856–1866\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m sitting by the runway, minding my own business, when I suddenly hear a booming voice above me saying, “You. Up on stage. Now.” It takes me a few seconds to realize the man is pointing at me. Before I know what’s going on, I’m up there, under the lights, in front of around 650 people, with the show’s makeup artist busily applying gobs of black makeup to my upper lip. A Dandy Minion plants a Union soldier’s cap on my head. And there are I am, in sweatpants, Chuck Taylors and a prize handlebar moustache, representing, Mac says, all the women who had to disguise themselves as men to join the army. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187082\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187082\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Selfie, shortly after being hoisted on stage and made up to look like a cross-dressed Union soldier.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-1920x1081.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/selfie-as-soldier-e1476146006718-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Selfie, shortly after being hoisted on stage and made up to look like a cross-dressed Union soldier. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are lots of spunky war songs in this section, from both the Union and Confederate sides, including “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and that sickly-nostalgic idyll to the South, “Dixie,” which causes half the audience to hiss in disgust. I consider wiping the makeup off right away. But strangers keep telling me how great I look in a ‘stache, so I wear it for a few hours, with a mixed sense of pride and embarrassment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1866–1876: Act IV\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Somehow 650 people manage to turn St. Ann’s into a dining room complete with long tables and chairs and delicious food, all because Mac has decided it’s time for us all to have a “family dinner.” As we munch on delicacies culled from Catherine Beecher’s 1871 cookbook, Mac treats us to ditties of the era, like “Home on the Range” (done in a moody, Dave Brubeck jazz style), while a bunch of women circus performers make human pyramids and perform other tricks on stage — and even on the dining tables. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187084\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187084\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Dinner, 19th century style.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/dinner-e1476146541107-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dinner, 19th century style. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1876–1886\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After our civilized family meal, things start to get really weird. We’re in the Gilded Age, and Mac decides to spend an hour performing an homage to Gilbert & Sullivan, who were as popular in the U.S. in the late 19th century as they were in their native England. Only he sets his abridged and thoroughly hilarious version of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Mikado\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, in which England’s famous operetta composers covertly satirized British politics, on Mars. Why? Because the appropriation of Japanese culture — or indeed any culture other than one’s own — is tricky territory today. (For more on this, take a look at \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/08/23/the-end-of-yellowface-and-blackface-or-not/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cy Musiker’s story\u003c/a> about how the Bay Area’s Lamplighters’ theater company tried to solve the problem for its recent production of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Mikado\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">).\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187085\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187085\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-800x452.jpg\" alt=\"Cast members play martians in Taylor Mac’s totally surreal but strangely effective version of ‘The Mikado’ set on Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-800x452.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-768x434.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-1180x666.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-1920x1084.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/mikado-on-mars-e1476146955438-960x542.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cast members play martians in Taylor Mac’s totally surreal but strangely effective version of ‘The Mikado’ set on Mars. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mac’s martian \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mikado\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is full of amazing glow-in-the-dark costumes and makeup, a spaceship, and reggae-style production numbers. Also, Mac and company sound like Teletubbies. I’ve never heard “Three Little Maids from School are We” and “Willow, Tit Willow” processed through Autotune before. It kinda works. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1886–1896\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This section deals with the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. I watch it all unfold from the safe distance of the upstairs balcony. It’s a relief to take a break from the shop floor, frankly. From my safe haven, I watch as the Dandy Minions release a cloud of colorful, helium-filled balloons into the space. Mac instructs the audience to make a run for the balloons, grab them, and then use them to stake out their turf. There aren’t enough balloons to go around, so those left without have to negotiate with the new “landowners” for space in their domain. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187086\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187086\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The Oklahoma Land Rush scene, observed from a balcony at a safe distance from the scramble.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-1920x1081.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/land-rush-e1476147064156-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oklahoma Land Rush scene, observed from a balcony at a safe distance from the scramble. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the musical selections in this decade are instrumentals, including Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” to which one of the Dandy Minions performs a striptease. Only he’s already completely starkers to begin with; the garments he removes are invisible. The connection between the privatization of land and this case of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” isn’t lost on me, even though I’ve been in the theater for around 12 hours at this point and am starting to feel it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1896–1906: Act V\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s midnight, or thereabouts. We’ve officially reached the halfway point and are entering unchartered territory for cast and crew; the longest performance of the show they’ve given to date is 12 hours (at Vassar College, in the summer). I return downstairs, to the sound of energetic Eastern European music from the band. Mac is wearing his most beautiful dress yet, a figure-hugging, Gustav Klimt-inspired creation of black and gold. It’s festooned with Stars of David and other Jewish symbology. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re exploring what it means to be a newly arrived immigrant to these shores. Over the next hour, we flop about on mattresses and think about what it’s like to have sex in a tenement within earshot of dozens of family members, while Mac performs tuneful renditions of popular songs by New York Jews of the time, like Irving Berlin’s ironical “All Alone.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187088\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187088\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-800x501.jpg\" alt=\"As the night wears on, musical director Matt Ray dons a beanie to keep himself warm.\" width=\"800\" height=\"501\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-800x501.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-400x251.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-768x481.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-1180x740.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-1920x1203.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/matt-ray-e1476147411896-960x602.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As the night wears on, musical director Matt Ray dons a beanie to keep himself warm. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1906–1916\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now we’re in the trenches. Mac, who is wearing a headdress with a gas mask incorporated in its design, invites all the men in the house aged 14 to 40 up on stage, to represent the demographic of soldiers who fought in the Great War. There are a lot of bodies up there. Mac gives several female audience members bandages and they go around wrapping the men up as if treating their wounds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mac’s songs about life during wartime include a terrific feminist take on “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” I am trying to get comfy on the mattress I’m sharing with several people and am finding it hard to concentrate. Even Mac is starting to show tiny signs of wear and tear. For the first time in the show, the performer has a memory lapse and asks his musical director for a cue. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1916–1926\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this section about the Roaring Twenties, Mac, ever the upender, chooses to view the hedonistic excesses of the era not as victorious jollity in the wake of wartime deprivations, but rather as post-war trauma.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187281\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187281\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"A surreal dance-off between a group of ukulele-strumming Tiny Tims and a bunch of tap-dancers dressed in robes in a fanciful homage to James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-1920x1083.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/ulysses-e1476149574574-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A surreal dance-off between a group of ukulele-strumming Tiny Tims and a bunch of tap-dancers dressed in robes in a fanciful homage to James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though the hour is a loopy cocktail of balloons, good-time numbers like “Happy Days Are Here Again,” a conga line, and a surreal dance-off between a group of ukulele-strumming Tiny Tims and a bunch of tap-dancers dressed in Grecian robes in a fanciful homage to James Joyce’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ulysses\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Mac keeps reminding us that 16.5 million people died in the war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1926–1936: Act VI\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The act begins with a doctor joining the performer on stage to give him a vitamin B shot in his behind to help keep his energy levels up. That’s surely got to be a first for a public performance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now we’re in the Depression Era. Americans across the land suffered. But musically, those times were certainly inspiring. In a tight black velvet romper, blue silk cape and sparkling bathing cap à la Esther Williams, Mac feeds our souls with “Minnie the Moocher,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)” and other hits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187091\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187091\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Dandy Minions prepare to dole out soup to the tired, poor, huddled masses.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-1920x1081.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/soup-e1476147896533-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dandy Minions prepare to dole out soup to the tired, poor, huddled masses. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He also feeds our bodies: The Dandy Minions emerge with huge vats of delicious split pea soup and bread rolls. We get into snaking soup lines and gratefully accept this well-past-midnight snack.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1936–1946\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At some point during this act — I’m a little hazy on which decade exactly it happens, but it’s the conclusion of a monologue about Mac’s dumpster diving days — the performer transforms himself into a walking chocolate-vanilla ice-cream cone with sprinkles. A cherry-topped headdress provides the finishing touch. Only it isn’t a cherry at all, but a glittery red human skull. Nice touch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a bit lost though. “What decade are we in?” I ask a couple of couple of fellow audience members. No one seems to know. “It’s at that time when it all slips away,” I hear Mac say from the stage. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I listen to “Tea for Two” while sprawled out on a mattress with my eyes shut. I open my eyes to the sight of a couple of massive inflatable fish being gently tossed up and down in the air around the space and a scary narrative about the easy-listening favorite “By the Sleepy Lagoon” concerning the corpse of a dead baby. By the time Mac gets to a monologue about World War II Japanese internment camps and sings the song “Don’t Fence Me In,” I’m wide awake.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1946–1956\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This decade is all about the white flight to the suburbs and the threat of the atomic bomb. Mac wrenches the mattresses away from us, and we bring back the chairs. Then he orders all the white people sitting in the center of the room to find a seat — or, if there are no seats left, someone’s lap — to the sides of the room. That’s when I realize that the audience, though diverse in terms of sexuality, gender and age, isn’t so diverse from a racial perspective.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187092\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187092\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-800x451.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac as a Stepford-Wife-on-crack.\" width=\"800\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-1920x1082.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/3d-glasses-e1476148029524-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac in 1950s-inspired garb. \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mac now resembles a Stepford-Wife-on-acid, with a wig made out of cardboard 3D glasses and a shawl in the shape of a white picket fence. The songs are starting to become more recognizable to 21st century ears, ranging from Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” to The Platters’ “Only You.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m really tired. Wondering: can I get a vitamin B shot too?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1956–1966: Act VII\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only five more to go! Powerful guest singers from Detroit, Stephanie Christi’an and Thornetta Davis, join Mac for this section about the Civil Rights era and the March on Washington. Rambunctious performances of Nina Simone songs keep me going. When they get to “Mississippi Goddam,” I start to cry. Someone hands me a boxed breakfast. I gratefully dig in, with salty tears pelting my yogurt. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1966–1976\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An hour devoted to the disco era and the rise of gay activism, kicked off by an energetic rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up.” Then Mac brings on an entire marching band from Brooklyn comprised entirely of young black men. The performer now has an enormous peace sign on his back and an oversized, tie-dye-effect macram\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">é\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “bib” on his front. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187093\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187093\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-800x452.jpg\" alt=\"There’s no mistaking we’re in the 1970s with this getup.\" width=\"800\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-800x452.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-400x226.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-1180x666.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-1920x1084.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/peace-sign-e1476148222315-960x542.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">There’s no mistaking we’re in the 1970s with this getup. \u003ccite>(Photo: Teddy Wolff)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the company stage manager dances in roller skates and a purple wig to David Bowie’s “Oh You Pretty Things,” there can be no doubt that we’re in the 1970s. We cycle through hits by Elton John, The Rolling Stones and The Clash. And I realize two things: one, just how much American pop music is actually British; and two, that we haven’t heard a squeak about The Beatles. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a sly act of genius, Mac re-appropriates the homophobic Ted Nugent hit “Snakeskin Cowboys” as a gay prom song. Mac instructs us to find a partner of the same gender, and I find myself slow-dancing with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New York Times\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> arts reporter, Jennifer Schuessler\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1976–1986\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This one’s all about a backroom sex party. It involves “Purple Rain” (which Mac, in a momentary but totally forgivable memory lapse, almost forgets to sing) among other great let’s-get-it-on tracks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At some point I nod off for five minutes and wake to find rose petals strewn over the floor. My prom date \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">tells me someone tried to give me petals to throw, but I was unresponsive. Am glad to be wide awake again for Mac’s mesmerizing rendition of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman,” for which the entire audience provides the backing track by chanting a staccato “ha ha ha ha” for the duration of the song.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187094\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187094\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Mac in his goth pop outfit, festooned with cassette tapes. Guitarist Viva DeConcini looks on.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/goth-outfit-e1476148803948-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taylor Mac in his goth pop outfit, festooned with cassette tapes. Guitarist Viva DeConcini looks on. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>1986–1996: Act VIII\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can’t believe we’ve come this far. My notes are almost illegible. In fact, my notebook is falling apart. I keep the pages together with an elastic band I find on the floor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re diving into the AIDS crisis. Mac is wearing a dress covered in cassette tapes. The music is a mad mixtape of goth-pop hits like “Blood Makes Noise” and “Addicted to Love,” with tracks like Whitney’s Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” mixed in to throw us off, I guess.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1996–2006\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This decade, devoted to radical lesbian songs, is a bit of a struggle for me. I’m exhausted. And I’m just not all that into “The Pussy Manifesto” and K.D. Lang. That said, I appreciate Mac turning this decade into a “lesbian tailgate party” complete with vagina decorations, mimosas, hot dogs cooked up on a George Foreman grill, lawn chairs, and several happy-looking dykes. I eat two bags of popcorn in solidarity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187095\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12187095\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-800x460.jpg\" alt=\"The lesbian tailgating party in the final act of ‘A 24 Decade History of Popular Music’.\" width=\"800\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-800x460.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-400x230.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-768x442.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-1180x679.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-1920x1104.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/tailgate-e1476148928123-960x552.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The lesbian tailgate party in the final act of ‘A 24 Decade History of Popular Music.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>2006–2016\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I forgot to mention that Mac has been steadily hemorrhaging musicians for 23 hours, at a rate of around one an hour. Now there’s no one on stage but him. Showing clear signs of exhaustion, with a hoarse voice and almost slurred speech, Mac performs the last part of his musical journey solo, accompanying himself at different times on the piano, banjo, and ukulele. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The songs are alternately angry and funny, and consistently moving. Mac composed them all himself. One track is dedicated to the recent bloodbath at the gay club in Orlando; another, to the life of a “Rank and File Queer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 24-hour act of heroism ends quietly. Then the room erupts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Perfection is for assholes,” Mac told me in the run-up to the show. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s certainly a useful mantra to live by when you’ve got 240 years of pop music history to pull off. But it’s also not a bad way to approach life in general.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What Taylor Mac teaches us above all else with his exhausting, brilliant marathon of history and song is how a total breakdown can bring people together. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I’m going to be falling apart and the audience is going to be falling apart,” Mac said in an \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2016/01/19/taylor-macs-a-24-decade-history-of-popular-music-comes-to-san-francisco/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">interview with Rachael Myrow on KQED Forum\u003c/a> last January, expressing what he hoped would be the outcome of this weekend’s theatrical-anthropological experiment. “But as a result, we’re going to be able to create bonds and build connection.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wasn’t wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12187278\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12187278 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"After performing for 24 hours straight, the cast and crew of ‘A 24 Decade History of Popular Music’ take a bow.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/curtain-call-e1476149640443-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After performing for 24 hours straight, the cast and crew of ‘A 24 Decade History of Popular Music’ take a bow. \u003ccite>(Photo: Chloe Veltman/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>If you have a visible tattoo, you’re probably regularly asked if there’s a meaning behind it. I’ve only managed to sit under the needle once, for an excruciating 20 minutes, but the small Old English “V” on my right shoulder has led to a lifetime of questions. “What is that?” people ask, and I’m forced to come up with a pithy story about what was, honestly, a spontaneous, hazily thought-out decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-12168015\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/knivesinkx.jpg\" alt=\"knivesinkx\" width=\"194\" height=\"259\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos \u003c/em>\u003cem>(Bloomsbury; 2016)\u003c/em> is the latest collaboration from \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/IsaacFitzgerald\">Isaac Fitzgerald\u003c/a>, editor of Buzzfeed Books and former editor of The Rumpus, and \u003ca href=\"http://wendymacnaughton.com/\">Wendy MacNaughton\u003c/a>, the San Francisco-based illustrator and author of the quixotically beautiful \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Meanwhile-in-San-Francisco-by-Wendy-5358128.php\">Meanwhile in San Francisco: The City in Its Own Words\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>Their 2014 collaboration \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LUURP84/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1\">\u003cem>Pen & Ink\u003c/em>\u003c/a> explored the stories behind the tattoos of a spectrum of people, famous and ordinary. For this sequel, it’s no surprise Fitzgerald (who has 12 tattoos) and MacNaughton have shifted their focus to chefs. It’s apparently a requirement for chefs these days to get sleeve tattoos on the first day of work; spotting a tattoo-less chef competing on \u003cem>Top Chef\u003c/em> is like finding a feminist Mexican immigrant at a Trump rally. Fitzgerald mentions as much in the introduction to \u003cem>Knives & Ink\u003c/em> (just after confessing to being a terrible cook—I can relate):\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>What is it about chefs and tattoos? Whether you’re looking in a backwoods diner or a Michelin-starred eatery, it’s hard to find a cook who doesn’t sport some ink. A lot of chefs get a tattoo because they see it as a commitment to the craft. A neck tattoo or a hand tattoo – or maybe even a tattoo atop your head – is a way of ensuring you’ll never work a desk job again. Others get tattoos for the reasons so many of us get them, to remember a moment, or a person, to carry something with us for the rest of our lives. Still others get them for possibly the best reason of all: just for kicks. Wendy MacNaughton and I have attempted to portray these tattoos, some food-related and some not, as the beautiful works of art they are, and to share the fascinating personal stories behind them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12168203 aligncenter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Catherine-Doyle.jpg\" alt=\"Catherine Doyle\" width=\"360\" height=\"476\">\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>For the most part, the stories and anecdotes collected in the book are intriguing. Each page contains lovely black-and-white drawings of body parts, with the actual tattoos rendered by MacNaughton in full-color and fine detail. Some of the stories are short: “They’re just pretty,” says Sean Thomas, Chef De Cuisine at Blue Plate in San Francisco, about his pink daisy-like sleeve tattoos. Others are heart-breaking in their intimacy. Take the story about the angel wings on the forearms of Danny Bowien, owner and chef at \u003ca href=\"https://missionchinesefood.com/\">Mission Chinese Food\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>My mother was super religious and collected angel figurines. She was sick most of my childhood and passed away when I was in high school. At the age of twenty I moved from Oklahoma City, where tattoos were illegal, to San Francisco. I got these wings in a tattoo shop in the Castro. They were expensive and I was broke, so I had to get them one at a time, about a year apart. They were, and still are, my way of always keeping her with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12168204 aligncenter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Timmy-Molloy.jpg\" alt=\"Timmy Molloy\" width=\"362\" height=\"460\">\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Tattoos are a way to preserve a moment, a child, a lost parent, a spiritual understanding, a location, whatever it may be, with us always. Of course, you don’t necessarily have to subject your body to a hot needle to carry hope, meaning, and the mundane through life. Which leads me to Abbi Jacobson’s new colorful illustrated romp \u003cem>Carry This Book\u003c/em> (Viking; 2016). Fans of the Comedy Central show \u003ca href=\"http://www.cc.com/shows/broad-city\">\u003cem>Broad City\u003c/em>\u003c/a> will recognize Jacobson as one half of the bawdy, brilliant, feminist version of Cheech and Chong; it turns out that she’s also a talented illustrator, with two coloring books and a degree in Fine Arts under her belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12167816\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12167816 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Abbi-Jacobson-Credit-Patrik-Giardino-e1475777279137.jpg\" alt=\"Abbi Jacobson Credit Patrik Giardino\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1297\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abbi Jacobson (Photo Credit: Patrik Giardino)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Like tattoos, the items people carry around with them in purses and pockets can also reveal character, desire, hopes, dreams. \u003cem>Carry This Book\u003c/em> is chock-full of adorable, full-color marker and pencil drawings depicting what Jacobson imagines to be in the pocketbooks and purses of those both famous and fictional. “This book is my own sort of fan fiction — full of objects I think make people refreshingly interesting or refreshingly normal,” writes Jacobson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12168205 aligncenter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook.jpg\" alt=\"Cover.CarryThisBook\" width=\"318\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook.jpg 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-400x491.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-489x600.jpg 489w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-768x943.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-961x1180.jpg 961w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-960x1179.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 318px) 100vw, 318px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>I’ve always been intrigued with what people carry around with them. It can tell you everything. I like how people organize their things, their wallets, their cars, their bags, etc. We are curating our worlds almost constantly with the items we choose to bring with us.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>If \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=1089&q=anna+wintor&oq=anna+wintor&gs_l=img.3..0i10k1l10.1200.2510.0.2830.11.10.0.1.1.0.173.1048.7j3.10.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..1.10.914...0.s4do-UelIW8#hl=en&tbm=isch&q=anna+wintour&imgrc=_\">Anna Wintour\u003c/a> does indeed carry around a Chipotle burrito punch card, as she does in Abbi’s rendering, that would certainly push her in the direction of refreshingly normal. Likewise for Beyoncé with Cheerios in a Ziploc bag labeled “Blue Ivy.” Pages are also dedicated to David Bowie, Sigmund Freud, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Pee-Wee Herman, Leslie Knope, Banksy, and plenty others. Jacobson says she searched the internet for real information about each person (did you know that Albert Einstein never wore socks?), which adds a wily touch to the book. What’s real and what’s made up? It’s all part of the fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Isaac Fitzgerald and Wendy MacNaughton appear at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on Wednesday, Nov. 2. Tickets available \u003ca href=\"https://www.jccsf.org/arts-ideas/knives-and-ink/\">here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Abbi Jacobsen appears at the Nourse Theater as part of the City Arts & Lecture Series on Saturday, Oct. 29. Tickets, unfortunately, are \u003ca href=\"http://www.cityarts.net/event/abbi-jacobson/\">sold out\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you have a visible tattoo, you’re probably regularly asked if there’s a meaning behind it. I’ve only managed to sit under the needle once, for an excruciating 20 minutes, but the small Old English “V” on my right shoulder has led to a lifetime of questions. “What is that?” people ask, and I’m forced to come up with a pithy story about what was, honestly, a spontaneous, hazily thought-out decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-12168015\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/knivesinkx.jpg\" alt=\"knivesinkx\" width=\"194\" height=\"259\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos \u003c/em>\u003cem>(Bloomsbury; 2016)\u003c/em> is the latest collaboration from \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/IsaacFitzgerald\">Isaac Fitzgerald\u003c/a>, editor of Buzzfeed Books and former editor of The Rumpus, and \u003ca href=\"http://wendymacnaughton.com/\">Wendy MacNaughton\u003c/a>, the San Francisco-based illustrator and author of the quixotically beautiful \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Meanwhile-in-San-Francisco-by-Wendy-5358128.php\">Meanwhile in San Francisco: The City in Its Own Words\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>Their 2014 collaboration \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LUURP84/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1\">\u003cem>Pen & Ink\u003c/em>\u003c/a> explored the stories behind the tattoos of a spectrum of people, famous and ordinary. For this sequel, it’s no surprise Fitzgerald (who has 12 tattoos) and MacNaughton have shifted their focus to chefs. It’s apparently a requirement for chefs these days to get sleeve tattoos on the first day of work; spotting a tattoo-less chef competing on \u003cem>Top Chef\u003c/em> is like finding a feminist Mexican immigrant at a Trump rally. Fitzgerald mentions as much in the introduction to \u003cem>Knives & Ink\u003c/em> (just after confessing to being a terrible cook—I can relate):\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>What is it about chefs and tattoos? Whether you’re looking in a backwoods diner or a Michelin-starred eatery, it’s hard to find a cook who doesn’t sport some ink. A lot of chefs get a tattoo because they see it as a commitment to the craft. A neck tattoo or a hand tattoo – or maybe even a tattoo atop your head – is a way of ensuring you’ll never work a desk job again. Others get tattoos for the reasons so many of us get them, to remember a moment, or a person, to carry something with us for the rest of our lives. Still others get them for possibly the best reason of all: just for kicks. Wendy MacNaughton and I have attempted to portray these tattoos, some food-related and some not, as the beautiful works of art they are, and to share the fascinating personal stories behind them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12168203 aligncenter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Catherine-Doyle.jpg\" alt=\"Catherine Doyle\" width=\"360\" height=\"476\">\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>For the most part, the stories and anecdotes collected in the book are intriguing. Each page contains lovely black-and-white drawings of body parts, with the actual tattoos rendered by MacNaughton in full-color and fine detail. Some of the stories are short: “They’re just pretty,” says Sean Thomas, Chef De Cuisine at Blue Plate in San Francisco, about his pink daisy-like sleeve tattoos. Others are heart-breaking in their intimacy. Take the story about the angel wings on the forearms of Danny Bowien, owner and chef at \u003ca href=\"https://missionchinesefood.com/\">Mission Chinese Food\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>My mother was super religious and collected angel figurines. She was sick most of my childhood and passed away when I was in high school. At the age of twenty I moved from Oklahoma City, where tattoos were illegal, to San Francisco. I got these wings in a tattoo shop in the Castro. They were expensive and I was broke, so I had to get them one at a time, about a year apart. They were, and still are, my way of always keeping her with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12168204 aligncenter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Timmy-Molloy.jpg\" alt=\"Timmy Molloy\" width=\"362\" height=\"460\">\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Tattoos are a way to preserve a moment, a child, a lost parent, a spiritual understanding, a location, whatever it may be, with us always. Of course, you don’t necessarily have to subject your body to a hot needle to carry hope, meaning, and the mundane through life. Which leads me to Abbi Jacobson’s new colorful illustrated romp \u003cem>Carry This Book\u003c/em> (Viking; 2016). Fans of the Comedy Central show \u003ca href=\"http://www.cc.com/shows/broad-city\">\u003cem>Broad City\u003c/em>\u003c/a> will recognize Jacobson as one half of the bawdy, brilliant, feminist version of Cheech and Chong; it turns out that she’s also a talented illustrator, with two coloring books and a degree in Fine Arts under her belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12167816\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12167816 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Abbi-Jacobson-Credit-Patrik-Giardino-e1475777279137.jpg\" alt=\"Abbi Jacobson Credit Patrik Giardino\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1297\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abbi Jacobson (Photo Credit: Patrik Giardino)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Like tattoos, the items people carry around with them in purses and pockets can also reveal character, desire, hopes, dreams. \u003cem>Carry This Book\u003c/em> is chock-full of adorable, full-color marker and pencil drawings depicting what Jacobson imagines to be in the pocketbooks and purses of those both famous and fictional. “This book is my own sort of fan fiction — full of objects I think make people refreshingly interesting or refreshingly normal,” writes Jacobson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12168205 aligncenter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook.jpg\" alt=\"Cover.CarryThisBook\" width=\"318\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook.jpg 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-400x491.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-489x600.jpg 489w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-768x943.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-961x1180.jpg 961w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Cover.CarryThisBook-960x1179.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 318px) 100vw, 318px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>I’ve always been intrigued with what people carry around with them. It can tell you everything. I like how people organize their things, their wallets, their cars, their bags, etc. We are curating our worlds almost constantly with the items we choose to bring with us.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>If \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=1089&q=anna+wintor&oq=anna+wintor&gs_l=img.3..0i10k1l10.1200.2510.0.2830.11.10.0.1.1.0.173.1048.7j3.10.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..1.10.914...0.s4do-UelIW8#hl=en&tbm=isch&q=anna+wintour&imgrc=_\">Anna Wintour\u003c/a> does indeed carry around a Chipotle burrito punch card, as she does in Abbi’s rendering, that would certainly push her in the direction of refreshingly normal. Likewise for Beyoncé with Cheerios in a Ziploc bag labeled “Blue Ivy.” Pages are also dedicated to David Bowie, Sigmund Freud, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Pee-Wee Herman, Leslie Knope, Banksy, and plenty others. Jacobson says she searched the internet for real information about each person (did you know that Albert Einstein never wore socks?), which adds a wily touch to the book. What’s real and what’s made up? It’s all part of the fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Isaac Fitzgerald and Wendy MacNaughton appear at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on Wednesday, Nov. 2. Tickets available \u003ca href=\"https://www.jccsf.org/arts-ideas/knives-and-ink/\">here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Abbi Jacobsen appears at the Nourse Theater as part of the City Arts & Lecture Series on Saturday, Oct. 29. Tickets, unfortunately, are \u003ca href=\"http://www.cityarts.net/event/abbi-jacobson/\">sold out\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "a-man-and-an-amendment-are-re-examined-in-the-birth-of-a-nation-and-13th",
"title": "A Man And An Amendment Are Re-Examined In 'The Birth Of A Nation' And '13th'",
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"content": "\u003cp>In theory, the two new movies dealing with America’s racial history ought to describe a cinematic straight line: Nate Parker’s provocatively titled drama \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em> imagines the events leading up to an 1831 slave revolt, while Ava DuVernay’s documentary, \u003cem>13th\u003c/em>, examines the legacy of the constitutional amendment that outlawed slavery. A matched set…yes?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In practice, the underlying social narrative is twisty, and the films intersect in complicated ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em> begins with a young and inquisitive 1820s slave who discovers almost as soon as he learns to read, that there will be limits to his reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These books are for white folks,” the plantation’s mistress tells him. “They’re full of things your kind wouldn’t understand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What his “kind” would understand, she figures, is the Bible. And indeed, young Nat Turner takes to the Good Book as he grows up, and shares its teachings with his fellow slaves in sermons that interpret biblical passages about slavery (“submit yourselves to your masters”) in a light that pleases neighboring slaveholders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nat’s master (Armie Hammer) realizes there’ll be profit in renting Nat out to preach. But as the comparatively well-treated Nat sees brutality in his travels, he starts to doubt that the Bible could endorse it, and his sermonizing changes in tone (“execute vengeance on the demonic nations, to bind their kings in chains”) as he decides God wants him to lead a slave revolt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Filmmaker Nate Parker, who wrote, directed, produced and stars in \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em>, has been nurturing this passion project for the better part of a decade, and it shows in imagery that can turn oddly haunting even as the story lacerates — light streaming through slats in a barn, ripe cotton floating cloud-like in a field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parker’s directing style, though, while thoroughly accomplished for a first-timer, can sometimes feel over-emphatic, and as in-your-face as his script. He hammers home one slavery horror with a literal hammer, he leans far too hard on soaring strings, and his own performance is so central that it diminishes the surrounding characters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of which contributes to making \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em> feel more solid than shattering. Talk of Oscars would seem optimistic even if Parker didn’t have personal, off-screen controversies swirling around him. Still, it’s an impressive first feature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12174946\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Author Michelle Alexander in '13th.'\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12174946\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc.jpg 1917w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Author Michelle Alexander in ’13th.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Courtesy of Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In her documentary, \u003cem>13th\u003c/em>, Ava DuVernay cites the wording of the 13th amendment, which outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime,” and then forcefully argues that that loophole has been used for politics and for profit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will come as no surprise to those who’ve read Michelle Alexander’s 2010 bestseller, \u003cem>The New Jim Crow\u003c/em>, but DuVernay gives the argument enormous cinematic force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She uses scenes from D.W. Griffith’s original \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em>, a 1915 epic whose cinematic brilliance is irrevocably tarnished by its racism, to establish how discriminatory attitudes were deliberately shaped after the end of slavery — blacks depicted as monsters, rapists, criminals. Also how, in an age of mass-incarceration, that characterization has helped turn prisons into this era’s plantations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DuVernay uses a number of techniques to bring this argument alive on screen, none more effective than a surprisingly simple device: nearly every time someone utters the word “criminal” — whether the speaker is a president, a professor, neighbor, newscaster, anyone at all — the screen fills with the word “criminal” in huge block letters. The effect is to mark how often and how casually, criminality gets linked with black men in public discourse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another point made repeatedly: That the resulting incarceration of black men has been monetized, with black men put to work against their will. Think roadside chain gangs, or more recently, corporations helping “rehabilitate” inmates by paying them pennies to make sports uniforms. The movie’s list of companies that have benefited from cheap inmate labor is long, and damning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s also true of its recounting of how the War on Drugs created imbalances after “separate but equal” was otherwise banned. Mandatory sentences identical for one ounce of crack cocaine (used mostly in inner cities), and 100 ounces of powdered cocaine (the drug of choice in white suburbs). It’s a policy now condemned not just by prison-reform activists, but by such unexpected voices as law-and-order advocates as Newt Gingrich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12174947\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Newt Gingrich in '13th.'\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12174947\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b.jpg 1438w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Newt Gingrich in ’13th.’\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Matching archival footage that’s hard to watch, with political pronouncements that scald, DuVernay brings the same force to \u003cem>13th\u003c/em>, that she did to her Martin Luther King drama, \u003cem>Selma\u003c/em>. Only this time, she’s mapping the twisty road we’ve traveled since the events depicted in \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They called the end of slavery ‘Jubilee,’ we thought we were done then,” says lawyer/activist Van Jones. “And then you had a hundred years of Jim Crow, terror and lynching. Dr. King, Ella Jo Baker, Fanny Lou Hamer come on the scene. We get the bills passed, to vote, and then they break out the handcuffs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A hundred eighty-five years after Nat Turner’s slave revolt, a century and a half after the 13th amendment, and still, laments this powerful documentary, a people in chains. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Man+And+An+Amendment+Are+Re-Examined+In+%27The+Birth+Of+A+Nation%27+And+%2713th%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In theory, the two new movies dealing with America’s racial history ought to describe a cinematic straight line: Nate Parker’s provocatively titled drama \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em> imagines the events leading up to an 1831 slave revolt, while Ava DuVernay’s documentary, \u003cem>13th\u003c/em>, examines the legacy of the constitutional amendment that outlawed slavery. A matched set…yes?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In practice, the underlying social narrative is twisty, and the films intersect in complicated ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em> begins with a young and inquisitive 1820s slave who discovers almost as soon as he learns to read, that there will be limits to his reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These books are for white folks,” the plantation’s mistress tells him. “They’re full of things your kind wouldn’t understand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What his “kind” would understand, she figures, is the Bible. And indeed, young Nat Turner takes to the Good Book as he grows up, and shares its teachings with his fellow slaves in sermons that interpret biblical passages about slavery (“submit yourselves to your masters”) in a light that pleases neighboring slaveholders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nat’s master (Armie Hammer) realizes there’ll be profit in renting Nat out to preach. But as the comparatively well-treated Nat sees brutality in his travels, he starts to doubt that the Bible could endorse it, and his sermonizing changes in tone (“execute vengeance on the demonic nations, to bind their kings in chains”) as he decides God wants him to lead a slave revolt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Filmmaker Nate Parker, who wrote, directed, produced and stars in \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em>, has been nurturing this passion project for the better part of a decade, and it shows in imagery that can turn oddly haunting even as the story lacerates — light streaming through slats in a barn, ripe cotton floating cloud-like in a field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parker’s directing style, though, while thoroughly accomplished for a first-timer, can sometimes feel over-emphatic, and as in-your-face as his script. He hammers home one slavery horror with a literal hammer, he leans far too hard on soaring strings, and his own performance is so central that it diminishes the surrounding characters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of which contributes to making \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em> feel more solid than shattering. Talk of Oscars would seem optimistic even if Parker didn’t have personal, off-screen controversies swirling around him. Still, it’s an impressive first feature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12174946\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Author Michelle Alexander in '13th.'\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12174946\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/michelle-130000-copy_wide-2d04ee200a9477c5d3318922d089e701e44eb3dc.jpg 1917w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Author Michelle Alexander in ’13th.’ \u003ccite>(Photo: Courtesy of Netflix)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In her documentary, \u003cem>13th\u003c/em>, Ava DuVernay cites the wording of the 13th amendment, which outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime,” and then forcefully argues that that loophole has been used for politics and for profit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will come as no surprise to those who’ve read Michelle Alexander’s 2010 bestseller, \u003cem>The New Jim Crow\u003c/em>, but DuVernay gives the argument enormous cinematic force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She uses scenes from D.W. Griffith’s original \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em>, a 1915 epic whose cinematic brilliance is irrevocably tarnished by its racism, to establish how discriminatory attitudes were deliberately shaped after the end of slavery — blacks depicted as monsters, rapists, criminals. Also how, in an age of mass-incarceration, that characterization has helped turn prisons into this era’s plantations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DuVernay uses a number of techniques to bring this argument alive on screen, none more effective than a surprisingly simple device: nearly every time someone utters the word “criminal” — whether the speaker is a president, a professor, neighbor, newscaster, anyone at all — the screen fills with the word “criminal” in huge block letters. The effect is to mark how often and how casually, criminality gets linked with black men in public discourse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another point made repeatedly: That the resulting incarceration of black men has been monetized, with black men put to work against their will. Think roadside chain gangs, or more recently, corporations helping “rehabilitate” inmates by paying them pennies to make sports uniforms. The movie’s list of companies that have benefited from cheap inmate labor is long, and damning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s also true of its recounting of how the War on Drugs created imbalances after “separate but equal” was otherwise banned. Mandatory sentences identical for one ounce of crack cocaine (used mostly in inner cities), and 100 ounces of powdered cocaine (the drug of choice in white suburbs). It’s a policy now condemned not just by prison-reform activists, but by such unexpected voices as law-and-order advocates as Newt Gingrich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12174947\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Newt Gingrich in '13th.'\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12174947\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/newt-gingrich00-copy-497c6e7738a2fbd212b5cf044502c5c3a0e3434b.jpg 1438w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Newt Gingrich in ’13th.’\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Matching archival footage that’s hard to watch, with political pronouncements that scald, DuVernay brings the same force to \u003cem>13th\u003c/em>, that she did to her Martin Luther King drama, \u003cem>Selma\u003c/em>. Only this time, she’s mapping the twisty road we’ve traveled since the events depicted in \u003cem>The Birth of a Nation\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They called the end of slavery ‘Jubilee,’ we thought we were done then,” says lawyer/activist Van Jones. “And then you had a hundred years of Jim Crow, terror and lynching. Dr. King, Ella Jo Baker, Fanny Lou Hamer come on the scene. We get the bills passed, to vote, and then they break out the handcuffs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A hundred eighty-five years after Nat Turner’s slave revolt, a century and a half after the 13th amendment, and still, laments this powerful documentary, a people in chains. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Man+And+An+Amendment+Are+Re-Examined+In+%27The+Birth+Of+A+Nation%27+And+%2713th%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "With 'The Girl On The Train,' A Best-Selling Novel Jumps The Track",
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"content": "\u003cp>Based on the Paula Hawkins’ bestselling novel, \u003cem>The Girl on the Train\u003c/em> is a whodunit constructed through an ornate latticework of multiple narrators, temporal jumps, blackouts, constant misdirection, and out-and-out red herrings. There are a good four or five possible suspects, each waved at the audience like a red cape in front of a bull, with the lance awaiting on the other side. Perhaps it’s only fitting that a film about infidelity would rely on so many narrative cheats, but director Tate Taylor (\u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>) and his screenwriter, Erin Cressida Wilson, twist themselves out of the meaningful themes they’re attempting to develop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transplanting the action from England to New York, Taylor and Wilson have essentially made \u003cem>Rear Window\u003c/em> on rails, which is a sad testament to the pokiness of American commuter trains. En route from the suburbs to the city and back every day, Rachel (Emily Blunt) positions herself to gawk at the same upscale Westchester homes every day, imagining what might be going on inside. Nursing a water bottle filled with vodka, Rachel mingles bitter memories of her previous life with fantasies about the beautiful young woman she spots from the train, who surely appreciates all the blessings she lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or not. It turns out that Megan (Haley Bennett), the object of her obsession, isn’t the least bit basking in suburban bliss. She feels tethered to a domestic life she never wanted, shelving her ambitions for the sake of her controlling husband Scott (Luke Evans) and a nanny job that summons painful revelations from her past. Megan’s resentment spills over to her employers, Tom (Justin Theroux) and Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), who have their own narratively convenient history, and into her therapy sessions with Kamal (Édgar Ramírez), who has trouble maintaining his professional distance. When Rachel steps off the train and intervenes in their lives, she gets knocked unconscious and becomes a prime suspect in a missing persons case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The time between when Rachel loses consciousness and when she wakes up on her bathroom floor, bloodied and confused about what happened to her, recalls the recent HBO series \u003cem>The Night Of\u003c/em>, which is also about a suspect who blacks out during a period where a crime is committed. The question for both is the same: Is our hero capable of such heinous violence? \u003cem>The Night Of\u003c/em> allowed that question to linger even after revealing the answer, but \u003cem>The Girl on the Train\u003c/em> isn’t as interested in exploring the dark consequences of Rachel’s jealousy and rage. It’s too busy teasing out other scenarios for the sake of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along with a touch of voyeuristic kink, \u003cem>The Girl on the Train\u003c/em> smuggles a potent motif about women wriggling under the expectations men have for them and how it can chip away at their ambitions, their self-esteem, and even their grip on reality. In that, it bears an unmistakable likeness to \u003cem>Gone Girl\u003c/em>, which shrewdly rebelled against the “cool girl” acquiescence that forces women to play roles that don’t necessarily suit them. But it isn’t as purposeful or provocative, because it never challenges our sympathy for Rachel or the extreme measures she’s compelled to take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many respects, \u003cem>The Girl on the Train\u003c/em> feels like one of the sexy thrillers that flooded the marketplace in the mid-’90s after \u003cem>Basic Instinct\u003c/em>, only with the tawdry kick of eroticism and violence classed up by a feminist theme and an overqualified cast. Beneath all that gloss, Blunt’s unvarnished performance channels Gena Rowlands as a woman-under-the-influence type, perched between righteousness and madness, coming to terms with painful truths about herself and the life she left behind. But like everyone else in the film, her character gets chewed up by the plot machinery, martyred to a mystery that isn’t worthy of her. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR.\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Based on the Paula Hawkins’ bestselling novel, \u003cem>The Girl on the Train\u003c/em> is a whodunit constructed through an ornate latticework of multiple narrators, temporal jumps, blackouts, constant misdirection, and out-and-out red herrings. There are a good four or five possible suspects, each waved at the audience like a red cape in front of a bull, with the lance awaiting on the other side. Perhaps it’s only fitting that a film about infidelity would rely on so many narrative cheats, but director Tate Taylor (\u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>) and his screenwriter, Erin Cressida Wilson, twist themselves out of the meaningful themes they’re attempting to develop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transplanting the action from England to New York, Taylor and Wilson have essentially made \u003cem>Rear Window\u003c/em> on rails, which is a sad testament to the pokiness of American commuter trains. En route from the suburbs to the city and back every day, Rachel (Emily Blunt) positions herself to gawk at the same upscale Westchester homes every day, imagining what might be going on inside. Nursing a water bottle filled with vodka, Rachel mingles bitter memories of her previous life with fantasies about the beautiful young woman she spots from the train, who surely appreciates all the blessings she lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or not. It turns out that Megan (Haley Bennett), the object of her obsession, isn’t the least bit basking in suburban bliss. She feels tethered to a domestic life she never wanted, shelving her ambitions for the sake of her controlling husband Scott (Luke Evans) and a nanny job that summons painful revelations from her past. Megan’s resentment spills over to her employers, Tom (Justin Theroux) and Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), who have their own narratively convenient history, and into her therapy sessions with Kamal (Édgar Ramírez), who has trouble maintaining his professional distance. When Rachel steps off the train and intervenes in their lives, she gets knocked unconscious and becomes a prime suspect in a missing persons case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The time between when Rachel loses consciousness and when she wakes up on her bathroom floor, bloodied and confused about what happened to her, recalls the recent HBO series \u003cem>The Night Of\u003c/em>, which is also about a suspect who blacks out during a period where a crime is committed. The question for both is the same: Is our hero capable of such heinous violence? \u003cem>The Night Of\u003c/em> allowed that question to linger even after revealing the answer, but \u003cem>The Girl on the Train\u003c/em> isn’t as interested in exploring the dark consequences of Rachel’s jealousy and rage. It’s too busy teasing out other scenarios for the sake of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along with a touch of voyeuristic kink, \u003cem>The Girl on the Train\u003c/em> smuggles a potent motif about women wriggling under the expectations men have for them and how it can chip away at their ambitions, their self-esteem, and even their grip on reality. In that, it bears an unmistakable likeness to \u003cem>Gone Girl\u003c/em>, which shrewdly rebelled against the “cool girl” acquiescence that forces women to play roles that don’t necessarily suit them. But it isn’t as purposeful or provocative, because it never challenges our sympathy for Rachel or the extreme measures she’s compelled to take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many respects, \u003cem>The Girl on the Train\u003c/em> feels like one of the sexy thrillers that flooded the marketplace in the mid-’90s after \u003cem>Basic Instinct\u003c/em>, only with the tawdry kick of eroticism and violence classed up by a feminist theme and an overqualified cast. Beneath all that gloss, Blunt’s unvarnished performance channels Gena Rowlands as a woman-under-the-influence type, perched between righteousness and madness, coming to terms with painful truths about herself and the life she left behind. But like everyone else in the film, her character gets chewed up by the plot machinery, martyred to a mystery that isn’t worthy of her. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR.\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Five Most Revealing Things Bruce Springsteen Said Last Night",
"headTitle": "The Five Most Revealing Things Bruce Springsteen Said Last Night | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Outside the Nourse Theater before Bruce Springsteen’s appearance Wednesday night, one could tell that this was no ordinary City Arts & Lectures event. Dozens of hopeful fans paced the sidewalk, looking for tickets. A crowd of 30 or 40 people huddled at the back driveway, awaiting his arrival. A buzz was in the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here was a chance, after all, to hear one of America’s great songwriters offer more than his famous songs and the patter between them. In San Francisco to promote \u003cem>Born to Run\u003c/em>, his No. 1-selling memoir, the Boss sat down in City Arts & Lectures’ familiar orange chair to read excerpts from the book and to get personal with interviewer Dan Stone in front of a sellout crowd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12168612\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Bruce.CityArts.Reading-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Bruce Springsteen reads from 'Born to Run' with interviewer Dan Stone at a City Arts & Lectures appearance at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco, Oct. 5, 2016.\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12168612\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Bruce.CityArts.Reading.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Bruce.CityArts.Reading-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Bruce.CityArts.Reading-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bruce Springsteen reads from ‘Born to Run’ with interviewer Dan Stone at a City Arts & Lectures appearance at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco, Oct. 5, 2016. \u003ccite>(Gabe Meline/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Between discussing his literary inspirations (Dostoyevsky, James M. Cain, Chekov, \u003cem>Mr. S\u003c/em> by Frank Sinatra’s valet) and the current artists he’s excited about now (Kendrick Lamar), Springsteen revealed much about his early life, his battles with depression, and his family. Read excerpts below, and listen to the full broadcast on KQED radio on Sunday, Oct. 16, at 1pm. (It repeats on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 8pm, and Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 3am.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On playing in bars, and how it prepared him for his current, four-hour shows:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“Well, I played for \u003cem>five\u003c/em> hours a night at a bar. So what I’m doin’ now feels easy. But you know, you learned everything in the bars: you had to please an audience sight unseen, you had hours upon hours upon hours to work on your craft; you got used to being ignored, so that didn’t bother you too much. It was just a place where you could learn your business. I also enjoyed the social aspect of it, though I wasn’t a drinker at the time. But once we got pretty good at it, we’d get 150 people a night, three nights a week. That means you made $150 a night, there were five of you, so you made $30 a night. But you made $90 a week! And anybody who couldn’t live on $90 a week in 1968 just didn’t know what they were doing. So life was pretty good. I just remember it felt free as could be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On how it felt to be unrecognized:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“Those days, not only did things happen incredibly slow, if at all, but you were millions of miles from anywhere anyone would ever see you, or you would be discovered. An hour and a half out of New York was like Timbuktu. So we worked for years – \u003cem>years\u003c/em> – in that neck of the woods, and nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happened. We drew thousands of people to shows — nothing. A group drawing 5,000 people to a concert with no record album wouldn’t last three seconds out there right now, before somebody came and saw ’em. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I started, there was no cell phones, no entertainment media, no E! Television, no TMZ. None of those things existed. There was very little coverage of you in daily newspapers. Rock was still ghettoized. It was a completely different universe where things happened at a much slower pace, where you could go like we did for eight, nine, ten years, at a very high level, with nobody of import really seeing you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Borntorun.Book_-397x600.jpg\" alt=\"Borntorun.Book\" width=\"397\" height=\"600\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12168613\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Borntorun.Book_-397x600.jpg 397w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Borntorun.Book_-400x604.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Borntorun.Book_.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 397px) 100vw, 397px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On his reputation for ‘authenticity,’ over creating a persona:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“Well, you can’t \u003cem>help\u003c/em> but create a persona, the minute you walk out on stage. I didn’t change my name, because it didn’t feel like the right thing to me, but you do build a completely constructed persona – that, of course, is tied into your true inner self, and comes out of your roots, and your background. But on another level, it is a creation. I built something on some of the voices of my past, and the voices of my family, and I created what people see on stage, which was very different from my young self. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[As for being dubbed ‘The Voice of the Common Man’], well, nobody likes that stuff, because it pens you in, you know. I suppose it’s kind of flattering. But it does feel like the minute you’re the voice of anything, there’s an obligation. Most artists run from obligation. I mean, that was the whole point!”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On battling depression, and writing about it in the book:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“I think music was the way I medicated myself in the beginning. It was the first thing that centered me and chased away the blues. It was the way I made sense of my experience. Even with the length of the shows, I found out that exhaustion was my friend. Because if I got myself tired enough, I was simply too tired to be depressed. Your mind doesn’t have the energy to go searching in the weeds for the stupid thing today that you’re gonna be able to drive yourself crazy with. So I found that the experience of playing cleared my mind and gave me a brief moment of respite from the things that tended to disturb me. There’s a lot more to it than that – my family had a long history of mental illness, on the Irish side particularly, but some of the Italians too. It just picked people off here and there. And I got a little piece of it. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the book, I really went into it mainly because I felt like I needed to be fair towards my father, who I felt I had painted rather one-dimensionally in my songs. At the end of the day, our relationship was a lot more complicated. And I needed to flesh that out, so people understood a little more about him and our lives together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On his children growing up and slowly realizing their dad was famous:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t that hard, really, outside of needing to make that distinction, when the kids were very young, because they were puzzled, like, “What do people want? Why do they want you to scribble on a piece of paper?” These were all pre-selfie days. So once I explained to the kids that that was what my job was, it wasn’t a big part of our lives…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I used to ask my kids, “Does anybody ever bother you, or tease you?” And with the exception of a few times, really not. So they had a pretty relatively normal childhood. And we never made a big deal of it in the house. My kids, well into their teens, were probably relatively unfamiliar with most of the work that I’ve done, at all. Which is very normal! I mean, I wasn’t out there looking for three more fans. Your job as a parent is you’re supposed to be \u003cem>their\u003c/em> audience. They’re not supposed to be yours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Bruce Springsteen’s City Arts & Lectures appearance will be broadcast on KQED-FM on Sunday, Oct. 16, at 1pm, Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 8pm, and Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 3am.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Outside the Nourse Theater before Bruce Springsteen’s appearance Wednesday night, one could tell that this was no ordinary City Arts & Lectures event. Dozens of hopeful fans paced the sidewalk, looking for tickets. A crowd of 30 or 40 people huddled at the back driveway, awaiting his arrival. A buzz was in the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here was a chance, after all, to hear one of America’s great songwriters offer more than his famous songs and the patter between them. In San Francisco to promote \u003cem>Born to Run\u003c/em>, his No. 1-selling memoir, the Boss sat down in City Arts & Lectures’ familiar orange chair to read excerpts from the book and to get personal with interviewer Dan Stone in front of a sellout crowd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12168612\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Bruce.CityArts.Reading-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Bruce Springsteen reads from 'Born to Run' with interviewer Dan Stone at a City Arts & Lectures appearance at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco, Oct. 5, 2016.\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12168612\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Bruce.CityArts.Reading.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Bruce.CityArts.Reading-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Bruce.CityArts.Reading-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bruce Springsteen reads from ‘Born to Run’ with interviewer Dan Stone at a City Arts & Lectures appearance at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco, Oct. 5, 2016. \u003ccite>(Gabe Meline/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Between discussing his literary inspirations (Dostoyevsky, James M. Cain, Chekov, \u003cem>Mr. S\u003c/em> by Frank Sinatra’s valet) and the current artists he’s excited about now (Kendrick Lamar), Springsteen revealed much about his early life, his battles with depression, and his family. Read excerpts below, and listen to the full broadcast on KQED radio on Sunday, Oct. 16, at 1pm. (It repeats on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 8pm, and Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 3am.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On playing in bars, and how it prepared him for his current, four-hour shows:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“Well, I played for \u003cem>five\u003c/em> hours a night at a bar. So what I’m doin’ now feels easy. But you know, you learned everything in the bars: you had to please an audience sight unseen, you had hours upon hours upon hours to work on your craft; you got used to being ignored, so that didn’t bother you too much. It was just a place where you could learn your business. I also enjoyed the social aspect of it, though I wasn’t a drinker at the time. But once we got pretty good at it, we’d get 150 people a night, three nights a week. That means you made $150 a night, there were five of you, so you made $30 a night. But you made $90 a week! And anybody who couldn’t live on $90 a week in 1968 just didn’t know what they were doing. So life was pretty good. I just remember it felt free as could be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On how it felt to be unrecognized:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“Those days, not only did things happen incredibly slow, if at all, but you were millions of miles from anywhere anyone would ever see you, or you would be discovered. An hour and a half out of New York was like Timbuktu. So we worked for years – \u003cem>years\u003c/em> – in that neck of the woods, and nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happened. We drew thousands of people to shows — nothing. A group drawing 5,000 people to a concert with no record album wouldn’t last three seconds out there right now, before somebody came and saw ’em. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I started, there was no cell phones, no entertainment media, no E! Television, no TMZ. None of those things existed. There was very little coverage of you in daily newspapers. Rock was still ghettoized. It was a completely different universe where things happened at a much slower pace, where you could go like we did for eight, nine, ten years, at a very high level, with nobody of import really seeing you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Borntorun.Book_-397x600.jpg\" alt=\"Borntorun.Book\" width=\"397\" height=\"600\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12168613\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Borntorun.Book_-397x600.jpg 397w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Borntorun.Book_-400x604.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Borntorun.Book_.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 397px) 100vw, 397px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On his reputation for ‘authenticity,’ over creating a persona:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“Well, you can’t \u003cem>help\u003c/em> but create a persona, the minute you walk out on stage. I didn’t change my name, because it didn’t feel like the right thing to me, but you do build a completely constructed persona – that, of course, is tied into your true inner self, and comes out of your roots, and your background. But on another level, it is a creation. I built something on some of the voices of my past, and the voices of my family, and I created what people see on stage, which was very different from my young self. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[As for being dubbed ‘The Voice of the Common Man’], well, nobody likes that stuff, because it pens you in, you know. I suppose it’s kind of flattering. But it does feel like the minute you’re the voice of anything, there’s an obligation. Most artists run from obligation. I mean, that was the whole point!”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On battling depression, and writing about it in the book:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“I think music was the way I medicated myself in the beginning. It was the first thing that centered me and chased away the blues. It was the way I made sense of my experience. Even with the length of the shows, I found out that exhaustion was my friend. Because if I got myself tired enough, I was simply too tired to be depressed. Your mind doesn’t have the energy to go searching in the weeds for the stupid thing today that you’re gonna be able to drive yourself crazy with. So I found that the experience of playing cleared my mind and gave me a brief moment of respite from the things that tended to disturb me. There’s a lot more to it than that – my family had a long history of mental illness, on the Irish side particularly, but some of the Italians too. It just picked people off here and there. And I got a little piece of it. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the book, I really went into it mainly because I felt like I needed to be fair towards my father, who I felt I had painted rather one-dimensionally in my songs. At the end of the day, our relationship was a lot more complicated. And I needed to flesh that out, so people understood a little more about him and our lives together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>On his children growing up and slowly realizing their dad was famous:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t that hard, really, outside of needing to make that distinction, when the kids were very young, because they were puzzled, like, “What do people want? Why do they want you to scribble on a piece of paper?” These were all pre-selfie days. So once I explained to the kids that that was what my job was, it wasn’t a big part of our lives…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I used to ask my kids, “Does anybody ever bother you, or tease you?” And with the exception of a few times, really not. So they had a pretty relatively normal childhood. And we never made a big deal of it in the house. My kids, well into their teens, were probably relatively unfamiliar with most of the work that I’ve done, at all. Which is very normal! I mean, I wasn’t out there looking for three more fans. Your job as a parent is you’re supposed to be \u003cem>their\u003c/em> audience. They’re not supposed to be yours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"Q.Logo.Break\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
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"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
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"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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},
"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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