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China Residencies hosted our very first Residency Knowledge Exchange this past spring with the support of Transnational Dialogues to bring a promising young residency coordinator, Hu Xinru, to visit counterparts in the UK. She kept a diary during her two week trip, accompanied by China Residencies' co-founder Kira Simon-Kennedy, across London, Manchester and Scotland.
Day 1 - London
After a very turbulent flight, the plane landed in London. I made it to the UK!!!
Although the long ordeals to get a visa were stressful, and I had to deal with rounds of customs during my layover, I finally made it through. Kira was waiting for me at the airport, and rode the subway into the city. It's so nice to have someone pick you up after a 20 hour flight.
We met up with the friends we were staying with at their pub, where we were welcomed with wine and oysters. My first realization: British people really love to drink! Our lovely host Richard treated us to dinner, and we headed back to his house in Walthamstow.
Day 2 - London
I woke up at 11 am super jet lagged, but felt better after some coffee and toast, and a walk through Walthamstow's streets under Britain's blue sky and fully white clouds. Kira described the city to me, it felt like I was going to be an artist-in-residence and this was my first orientation! The sensory overload was full-on as we rode a double-decker bus into town, with millions of new things whizzing by.
We got off on a main High Street draped in Union Jack flags, it really felt just like what I pictured of Great Britain!
We stepped into Sketch, a fantastical restaurant and café, just as it started to rain. The place is packed with strange artworks, fancy waiters, and colorfully impractical space capsule toilets.
We headed to the first stop of the Residency Knowledge Exchange Program: Phillips Auction Gallery, where the great Western art icons like Picasso, Pollack, Bacon, Duchamp, Warhol, and Ai Weiwei, greeted me en masse.
Prints on sale at Phillips
Next stop, Hyde Park. This vast area of green grass is great public gift to the people of London, and is also home to the very poetic Serpentine Gallery is located. The current exhibition in the interior space featured Alex Katz, an American figurative artist who paints many loving portraits of his wive, Ada. Outside the actually gallery was a grassy field full of site-specific architectural sculptures for the summer Serpentine Pavilions.
Geese in the park
After we wrenched ourselves from the playful ducks by the water, we headed to StudioRCA. This was the first exhibition opening we attended in London and it was for the artist [and past K11 Wuhan resident] Daniel Shanken's video work. Viewing the work inside the glass-walled gallery, sitting before a backdrop of the Thames River and a setting sun was an especially beautiful experience. This was made more pronounced by the exhibition set up as the audience was separated from the work, locked away inside the gallery, by the glass walls. We ran into Alia Pathan, an artist who had done at Red Gate Residency.
Opening reception + beer + snacks + art. Kind of felt like Beijing.
Day 3 - London
The weather was decent, so we wandered around Walthamstow, where a few families in the neighborhood held yard sales.
We stopped in God's Own Junkyard, an eclectic collection of neon sign.
We took the double-decker bus into the city center. Rehearsals for the Queen's birthday were happening on the steps outside of St Paul's Cathedral. We walked past the London Bridge strolling along the Thames, passing by Shakespeare's Globe Theater and stopping for fish & chips in the bustling Borough Market.
Peckham, in the South of London, has quite an interesting arts district and reminded me of 798 back in the day. At Bosse & Baume gallery, we caught another past Red Gate artist-in-residence, Nicole Vinokur's group show. The works were quite conceptual, Nicole's installation was a large constructed box with a tiny peephole allowing viewers to glimpse colorful flowers.
Then we went on to a group show of Latin American artists at South London Gallery. curated by Pablo Leon de la Barra, current curator at the Guggenheim Museum, and one of the jurors of the Davidoff Art Initiative. It's a beautiful gallery with an exquisite garden. There were many installations as well as a few political video and photo works, including work by previous Red Gate artist-in-residence Engel Leonardo. So nice to see old friends in new places! A punk band performed, the food was delicious, and there was plenty of to drink.
Pablo also curated the after party at White Cubicle Toilet Gallery, a roving pop0up art space hidden in the bathroom of a gay bar. It seems like openings are the same all over the world, always involving a group of people drinking, chatting, and having fun.
Engel Leonardo's "Plantano Power Bottom"
Day 4 - London
The V&A is by far the coolest museum I've ever been to. Now I think I really understand these two words: eclectic and dazzling. More antiques and artworks than I could even count! It's stunning. Nothing comparable in China comes to mind.
The plaster halls at the V&A
The V&A is not only marvelously massive in the scale of its history and collections, they also have an awesome team running the place. And their café is also excellent, and since the sun was out, we sat outside in the courtyard. We met with the V&A's Residency Coordinator Laura Carderera and Shekou Learning and Interpretation Manager Sara Green. Laura is the only staff member working on the residency program in the V&A's entire 900-person team. Having this huge vault of artworks and cultural artifacts is definitely a draw for artists-in-residence at major museums, like George Shaw did during his time at the National Gallery. Sarah will be heading up the residency program for the new V&A in Shenzhen's Shekou district.
V&A artist-in-residence Pauliina Pöllänen
It's easy to get lost in the V&A, each gallery leads to another marvelous one, I didn't even know where to start. There were countless rooms of the royal family's collection, as well as many precious antiques from China and elsewhere in Asia as reminders of the colonial empire's power and influence.
We walked through Regent's Park another one of London's huge beautiful green spaces. Ducklings and baby squirrels ran all around us, it was an adorable display of springtime. We then met up with Ming Lin and one of her friends for Indian food. It's almost as if London doesn't have any of its own culinary specialties, but it makes up for it in all its wonderful Indian, Italian, and Caribbean restaurants.
Day 5 - London
We started off the day by checking out the British Library, then attended a workshop at Art Catalyst titled "How to Speak." This was an event organized by Ming Lin, recipient of the 2nd Crystal Ruth Bell Residency at Red Gate in 2015 and current China Residencies board member.
At 4pm, we hurried off to Delfina Foundation and met with their artist-in-residence Emma Smith, who works in sound and performance. We just made it to her workshop, where she played a silent video of a performance streamed from the web, while dubbing over all the sound effects herself. This got the whole room laughing and comfortable. She then involved everyone in creating sound effects together in this very experimental and fun workshop. We talked to Residency and Program Manager Jane Scarth afterwards who told us that there are 6 artists-in-residence at a time who stay between two to three months. Not only does Jane work on everything to do with the residency program, she also works on research for exhibition curation.
We stepped outside and walked right past Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. Although I'd seen countless pictures, it's still stunning to see these buildings with my own two eyes. The architecture is really grandiose, and Big Ben chimed right on time at 6 pm.
We then went to see the work of Andrew Sunderland, previous Red Gate resident, at Hackney's LimboLimbo. Another former Red Gate artist Blanca Ulloa was also there, and we saw all kinds of crazy performances. The eccentrically decorated DIY space was overflowing with chaotic sound and video art -- it reminded me of a wilder Caochangdi.
We then headed to a lovely dinner hosted by Blue Curry for a dozen of artist friends from the US, the Caribbean, Spain, and China, all in town for different projects. Everyone was so friendly and got along effortlessly, it was a welcome break from the standoffish Londoners we encountered at some of the other openings, who admired the works from afar but only spoke to those in the "in" crowd. At Blue's place, we talked until late at night and finally all headed our own ways at 2 am.
Day 6 - London
The previous days were pretty exhausting, so we took it easy and spent the afternoon ambling around different markets, and later ended up at Whitechapel Gallery. The gallery is spacious but quiet with a wide variety of work that can be enjoyed for long periods of time, and seems to have a large staff. The newly opened exhibitions were of Mary Heilmann and Keith Sonnier's works. Whitechapel also does other programming as well: panels and discussions, workshops, book signings, and other publicly accessible and educational events. There are many things in common between modern art displayed in a historical chapel, and Red Gate Gallery that's situated on watchtower of a Ming dynasty wall.
We cooked dinner at home and I took the time to write a few postcards.
Day 7 - London
We visited the Barbican Centre, a fascinating planned city-within-the-city, known for its much-criticized bulky brutalist architecture and cement buildings. We then wandered through the fantastic National Portrait Gallery, the first museum dedicated to portraiture. Next door, the National Art Gallery was filled with groups of schoolchildren and their teachers. I recognized many paintings from my art history textbooks, like works by Jan van Eyck, Hans Holbein the Younger, Da Vinci, Van Gogh and more. These museums are endless and overwhelming, with so much food for thought that it kinds of melts your brain. It's more than I could handle in one day.
We decided to try the UK's version of Chinese food in Soho, which included a strange combination of fried oily things and prawn toast, and some the most expensive noodle soup I've ever had. Not particularly authentic, but interesting nonetheless.
We continued on to Westminster University for a screening of Fan Popo's short documentary "Mama Rainbow" about China's LGBT youths and their mothers. The audience was captivated, and asked all kinds of questions about why he hadn't yet been arrested yet, and how he deals with attempts at being censored or otherwise repressed by the undemocratic regime. I got the sense that there was much righteous indignation about China's rampant human rights violations and an ardent desire to rescue us, as if all Chinese people live in a constant abyss of suffering. I feel that people outside of China have a pretty one-sided and prejudiced understanding of what's happening in China today.
Fan Popo speaking about his films
After the screening, we walked through Soho, where people gathered in the gay bars and in the streets to grieve in solidarity, giving speeches and dances in honor of the people killed in the shooting at a gay club in Orlando the day before. It's moments like these that make England strong.
Day 8 - London
I headed out to New Cross Gate first thing in the morning under a light rain for a studio visit with Alia Pathan, who came to Red Gate with support from the Red Mansion Foundation. We commiserated about how after paying rent for her apartment and studio, her oyster card and groceries, there isn't much left over. London is an expensive city, it's not easy being young there. People moving to Beijing face a similar situation, myself included, we're barely getting by in these big, crowded cities. We took the train from the edge of town towards the Slade School of Fine Art, for former Red Gate artist-in-residence Maud Cragie's thesis exhibition. The entire school's students had work on display. The work was innovative and bold, and for the most part, very interesting. The main difference with the graduate shows at CAFA was that here, each artist could install works in their studio spaces as they see fit, instead of showing all the works in a gallery setting. It makes more sense here, and gives the students more space and freedom. Then we went to the nearby gallery Wellcome Collection, which has a show up about psychology and philosophy, and another of large video works. The works were interesting, London's gallery scene is really solid.
The former Red Gate crew and I headed to a pub. People here drink every day, sometimes starting around noon. It's really astonishing how much the British like to drink, everyone I met suggested we "go for a pint."
Day 9 - London
It goes without saying that the British Museum is also excellent, with a stunning glass ceiling over the main atrium. My favorite part was the Egyptian wing, complete with intricately carved stone frescos, precious antiques and daily artifacts, and of course, mummies. Unfortunately, the Chinese collections were being re-installed, so I wasn't able to check them out. The former British Empire had the foresight to grab everything it could save for the land itself, but it took countless wars and sacrifices to bring back these glorious trophies. Since ancient times, everything grand and majestic was built on the backs of countless suffering, every advance paved in blood, sweat, and tears.
I met up with Nicole Vinokur again to wander around Camden Market, which was expensive and just like tourist spots you see in China. We walked into shops that sold funky clothes to wear to raves and BDSM sex clubs, it all looked a little like an art installation. We continued our peaceful stroll through Camden's flower markets, chatting about art and London's creative scene.
Day 10 - London
This trip to the UK felt like a great catch-up with friends from Beijing -- I met up with another former resident, Evelyn O'Connor, and we reminisced about our memories from China. The weather wasn't cooperating. Rain started pouring again from the dark and gloomy sky. We arrived at Southbank Centre to meet with Rachel Harris and Georgia Ward, who gave us the grand tour. The space includes a public areas where everyone can enter as they please, and use the space it for pretty much anything from conferences and meetings, panels and discussions, and even performances. Dancers rehearsed in the entryway, and there's a new performance in the theater basically every day. Outside, wide open areas are covered in graffiti and visually very striking. Across the way, the new Southbank is expanding rapidly and will include and support more spaces for the arts.
Posters from Meltdown, a festival series curated by artists like David Bowie, Patti Smith, and Yoko Ono
Around 4pm we went to meet another one of China Residencies's board members, curator Rachel Marsden, along with several curators and artists from CFCCA in Manchester before our meeting with the organizers of the Chinese Visual Festival, James Mudge and Dr. Victor Fan. After Xi met Cameron, relations between the UK and China became more intimate, and large amounts of money was thrown into cultural exchange, and China Visual Festival is one of the results of this investment into art exhibitions and media events.
We had dinner with Rachel then made our way to Trapeze Bar for the London Vogue Ball, where Kira's friend Sydney UltraOmni was DJing. All the dancers were amazingly awesome, it was so exciting to be there.
At 9 pm we went to the Tate Modern's opening reception for the inauguration of the Tate's Switch House expansion. The two buildings, old and new, are connected with an open corridor and museum shop. The opening festivities went on for close to a week, with different openings for patrons, artists, museum staff and so on, with a packed schedule of performances and artist interventions, and lots of champagne. We watched Benjamin Clementine's beautiful concert from the bridge overlooking the turbine hall, and took the steps all the way to the 10th floor of the new building since the elevators were overcrowded. The view of the brightly lit London skyline was well worth the climb.
Overlooking Ai Weiwei's sculpture in the Turbine Hall during the opening
Day 11 - London
We did a Q&A in Kensington Park to give people in the UK a better sense of artist residencies, and the current state of China's art scene. Our initial plan to have a meet up in the park turned into an online Q&A since it was still raining on and off. Except for a few questions about residencies, most of the questions were about the Internet. There were also some strange ones that came up about whether or not people can drink on the street in China.
Xinru & Kira's online Q&A
At 5pm, we went to Gasworks and met up with curator and residency director Alessio Antoniolli and got a better sense of Gasworks as well as Triangle Network. Gasworks was established in 1994 with the support of the British Council and other organizations, and helped to facilitate much of the cultural exchange occurring between the UK and other nations. It was great to hear that they're excited to work with Red Gate.
We then went for an opening at The House of St. Barnabas, a really interesting charity organization, as well as an exclusive not-for-profit member's club. Members donate their club dues to fund job training for homeless people, including working in the gallery and with artists. The space is huge, with many different rooms featuring a very international group of artists, including artists from China and Singapore. There were also live music and dance performances, and new media installations in beautiful chapel. There was a line forming around the block when we left!
We stopped by the Chelsea Undergraduate Show.
Again, impressed by all the work.
Day 12-13 - London
The National Natural History Museum was filled with children fascinated by the fantastic bird, insect, and mineral specimens, enormous dinosaur skeletons, and science dioramas. I climbed inside the "Earth" in the geology wing, so many people engaged with the participatory exhibits, interacting with the installations to learn about earthquakes and volcanoes. After spending the morning at the museum, we met up for a proper english breakfast with Zara Arshad. She's not only a curator but also a research assistant at V&A's Design, Architecture and Digital Department, as well as the founder of Design China. We chatted about Hangzhou and the upcoming projects around design she's been working on, as well as the upcoming V&A show around future technology. It's interesting to learn that exhibitions take at least two years of planning. We walked back over to the V&A to find the Rapid Response design collection Zara had been telling us about, but it was also closed for installing, so we got lost in the myriad of sumptuous rooms again.
Xinru in the V&A's music room
Afterwards we stopped by Camden Art Centre again for the opening of the "Making & Unmaking" show. The curator Duro Olowu is a renowned fashion designer and invited over 60 artists from all over the world who make work about fashion, textile, and craft. Camden Art Centre also has a residency program that is co-organized with Slade School of Fine Art, where students can spend some time during the summer as artists-in-residence. The garden was filled with a well-dressed art crowd, where people don't really feel comfortable chatting to others without an introduction. It felt a bit more formal than openings in Beijing, many of the artists were at the opening and stayed around to chat. We also met the very fashionable Michael Xufu Wang of Beijing's MWoods, a newly opened private museum, which is also hoping to start a residency.
Camden Art Centre's garden during the opening
The next day we came back to Camden for an artist talk between Duro Olowu and Glenn Ligon. We hurriedly headed off to board the train to Manchester. I watched the changing landscapes out the window while Kira caught up on the 200 unread emails that had piled up over the past two weeks (besides running China Residencies, she also works as documentary film producer.) In June, she had just recruited ten awesome new board members with all different kinds of skillsets from all over the world. I really admire Kira's dedication in running this organization.
It was still raining when we got to Manchester, which felt a lot quieter and less crowded than, but with a huge Chinese expat community. We made our way to Islington Mill, an art space in a former cotton mill in the neighboring town of Salford. The Mill is also home to an artist-run Bed and Breakfast, we slept in dorm bunkbeds sharing a room with young artists Racheal Crowther and Dan Szor working on their show, "neither happy nor an hour" at Caustic Coastal. They walked us into town, the city felt very empty after the streets had been closed off for Manchester Day. We end the evening by having dinner with China Residencies board member, An Xiao Mina who was in town for a conference.
Day 14 - Manchester
Met with the Mill's friendly founders, the artists Bill Campbell and Maurice Carlin. The space was started in 1999 when the artists gathered loans and collectively managed buy the 10-story building and renovated it into artist studios. There have been over 5,000 artists and creators coming through the space since its founding.
Islington Mill
We took a cab to Whitworth Gallery, where An Xiao Mina was to give a talk at the Picturing the Social conference later in the afternoon. We met with journalist and PhD researcher Linda Pittwood who writes about gender and feminism in art. We had an in-depth conversation about women artists in China and I invited her to do a residency with us so she could gather more material for her PhD.
The Whitworth Art Gallery was really cool, with a beautiful collection of textile works. The ground floor exhibitions were curated by artists around the themes of mourning and sleeping.
An Xiao's talk was titled "Diversity on the Internet: A Goat Thing", where she gave a lively and fascinating presentation about how internet memes don't just revolve around cats, since different cultures use different symbols to express themselves. For example, in Latin America, it's goats.
Day 15 - Manchester
A day of mostly catching up on work on our computers. I had quite a few things to prepare for when I get back to China: WeChat invitations for our open studio days, and the plan for our July residency.
Bill and Maury are friends with Dean Brierley, a young and driven art school grad who founded Caustic Coastal by renovating the warehouse next door to create studio and gallery space. He took us for a tour, the space is absolutely enormous, with room for up to 10 studios.
Around 2 pm we took a break and trekked from the West side of town to the East, where we found a huge, temple-sized Chinese food market. Dumpling wrappers, pork, green onion, mushrooms, Bok choy, eggs, chives -- we found everything! We walked back and got ready to chop everything up, then realized we didn't have the right knives. What a difficult task that was! We invited An Xiao to come by and share some this big batch of dumplings with us, and saved the rest for our talk the next day.
Day 16 - Manchester
I spent the earlier part of the day walking around town on my own, wandering into the Manchester Cathedral. I was a little hesitant to go into such an imposing building, but the church attendant was welcoming, the choir was singing and someone played the organ. The large, colorful stained glass inside was marvelous. As I made my way back through central Manchester, all the streets will filled with people trying to woo over voters and shift the polls in light of the upcoming Brexit referendum.
I mailed a postcard full of love and sunlight to the Red Gate team back in Beijing, and came back to the Mill for our presentation and Q&A. I was pretty nervous but thankfully, said nothing silly. Most of the artist in the crowd of about 15 were younger artists, and only Maury had ever gone to China before for a residency at Organhaus. They had pretty abstract ideas about China but all seemed interested to give going there a try, and all enjoyed the dumplings.
Xinru talking about Red Gate at Islington Mill
Maury and Bill then took us on a full tour of the Mill. The upper floors were worn down from years of disuse, but they are currently fundraising to renovate the Mill's top floors into eight brand new artist and maker residence spaces. They're both such honest and lovely people who've dedicated their lives to helping artists.
Day 17 - Manchester
Norwegian artist Lotte Karlsen, founder of the collective Alexandra Arts which runs an international residency program for female artists, Pankhurst in the Park, inspired by Alexandra Park's connection to the Suffrage Movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst. Lotte led us around the park and the adorable little building that functions as a residency space for feminist artists and place for public events. The exhibition area is outdoors, in an extremely lush clearing. It's a great idea to go "back to nature", it really felt like a whole other universe inside the city. Establishing a residency program here is such a genius idea! I really admire all the work Lotte has done in establishing and running Alexandra Arts. She's persevered for nearly ten years, even though she had almost no support or recognition at the start.
Lotte Karlen of Alexandra Arts showing us the exhibition space
We had a picnic on the grass in Piccadilly Gardens and called Emma in Taiwan, it was great to hear her voice and catch up, just like old times. We then headed to met up with David Hancock of Paper Gallery, a tiny artist-run gallery with a residency program for emerging artists making work with paper. Afterwards, we hopped over to the opening reception for Taiwanese-born Londonite and artist-in-residence Yu Chen Wang at the CFCCA(Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art). Her performance piece, "The Island", had to do with the politics and hegemony of islands.
Yu Chen Wang's performance "The Island"
Since arriving to London, the topic of voting permeated all of our discussions, no matter where we went. Everyone around us, being artists, all voted to "remain". I don't think I got a full picture of non-artist UK citizens whose perspectives lay outside of this circle.
Day 18 - Manchester & Edinburgh & Arbroath
We woke up to the news of Brexit. Sadness pervaded the air all through the Mill. We sat around the breakfast table in a gloomy stupor. The concept of direct democracy is pretty strange to me. What's even more confusing to me is that everyone we had met so far all voted to remain, yet Britain will still leave the E.U.
We went on to meet up with Hannah Hartley, operations manager at CFCCA, and told each other about our respective residency projects. Yu Chen Wang then made a delicious Chinese breakfast as part of her performance to celebrate CFCCA's 30th anniversary. I'm eager for the opportunity to meet her again. CFCCA's curator Ying Tan showed us the residency lofted living quarters, tucked away up a ladder above the studio attached to the art centre. We then ran to the train station to catch our to Edinburgh. We switched trains in Preston, and I bought Kira a chocolate cupcake, hoping that the sweetness would lift a heavy heart.
We arrived in Edinburgh, with an hour and a half connection before our next train to Arbroath. We met up with Patricia Healy McMeans, a PhD researcher at the Edinburgh College of Art focused on artist residency programs in Scotland. She took us on a whirlwind tour down the Royal Mile and through winding alleys to a great view of Edinburgh Castle.
Edinburgh Castle
We hopped back on the train to arrive at Hospitalfield just in time for dinner. We were treated to a delicious home cooked meal in the wonderful company of artists Lubaina Himid, Ingrid Pollard, and Rebecca Chesney, as well as the residency director Lucy Byatt and manager Laura Simpson. The windows looked out on green fields and the vast blue ocean, as far as the eye can see. After dinner, we chatted with Lucy and Laura about the residency. I had to concentrate extra hard to try to understand everyone's accents, I felt like my brain failed me millions of times.
Day 19 - Arbroath, Scotland
Since reading Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights as a child, I've always dreamed of staying in a castle by the sea. It was overcast when we woke up in the morning, but I rose with a soaring feeling.
The lightest drizzle floated down on the castle's expansive garden, complete with tidily trimmed lawns and beautiful flowers. The garden path leads to a greenhouse, and the artist studios are tucked away in former stables behind the greenhouse.
Lubaina Himid is one of the artists-in-residence and she invited several artist friends to take part in the most generous and lovely ways. Rebecca Chesney is an artist who bases her practice in biological and environmental research. She led a workshop inviting us to explore the area's plant and animal species, and led a group of us into the garden to catch and identify bees.
The rain picked up, but nobody minded. Everyone was well prepared and dressed for the weather in raincoats and umbrellas. I tried to stay dry by holding a sheet of paper above my head to no avail, ten seconds later I retreated to the greenhouse. My hair hadn't been dry for a minute in the entire time I'd been in Scotland.
The Open Weekend brought all kinds of people to visit beyond the residents and residency staff, people of all generations, including elderly couples and children, all came together for these lively events. Alec, a volunteer, took us on a fascinating tour of the castle. There's a story behind each and every carpet, wallpaper, moulding, and oil painting. Hospital Field's history spans over 700 years. In 1840, Patrick Allan-Fraser, returned to Arbroath in Scotland to marry into his bride's family and transformed the hospital into a place for the arts.
From that time onwards, the Frasers started collecting artworks, and hosted artist friends, which was in sorts an early version of an artist residency, until Patrick Fraser passed away in 1890. Then, after a few years of inactivity, the art school and residency was founded in close collaborations with art schools in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen. To this day, Hospital Field is a charitable organization dedicated to serving artists.
Tamara Henderson made an installation out of drinks. She is a Canadian artist who worked with a collaborator to create a visually striking and delicious fountain filled with beet and ginger juice.
Afterwards, Ingrid Pollard gave an artist talk about her photography.
A friendly artist from the residency who worked for 40 years in printmaking kindly showed me around the print studio's very cool printing equipment. He was also a devout Christian. Later that evening, Kira and I discussed race and dialectics. She shared her thoughts on how racial discrimination is due to ethnic groups in power develop longstanding assumptions that they are somehow superior to others.
After dinner, a group of us went for a walk by the seaside. We passed through fields of tall grass until we reached the water. The sea breeze and strong smell of kelp hit head-on, and as we walked, the clouds fluctuated endlessly. The sky and the sea were of one color.
Scotland was beautiful and peaceful.
We walked along the coast, jumping over rivulets, and didn't turn back until we lost sight of everyone else. We talked as we walked, and I learned about the work Rebecca made in 2012 called "I'm blue, you're yellow." She planted two vast fields in a public park, one with blue flowers and the other with yellow flowers. The fields change over time, as does the work's appearance -- it's a lovely artwork with an adorable title.
I chatted about residencies with Laura, who runs Hospital Field's residency program. Right now, Hospital Field has the space to host around 10 artists at a time. Besides Laura and Lucy, there are often university students working as interns and fellows to provide program assistance. They have one deadline per year [November 28 for next year] for their three scheduled residency sessions, but outside of these sessions, few artists apply individually, so the residency isn't too busy most of the time -- unlike Red Gate, which is always running at full steam. They also already have a very detailed plan for the residency's future, including expanding existing buildings to create more studios and making repairs to the castle.
We returned to the castle, grabbed red wine and glasses, and climbed the spiral staircase to reach the top of the south tower. It was spectacular to see the castle from such a high vantage point, and it didn't get dark until after 11 pm.
Day 20 - Arbroath, Scotland
We ate breakfast and packed our bags.
Ingrid Pollard lead us through the steps of making camera obscuras, and we stepped outside to look at our surroundings through these new lenses. Ingrid invited us to describe what we saw through our lenses to each other, so I described the scenery to Kira who wrote down and illustrated my descriptions: "green grass, blue skies, a dog rolling in the grass, a girl in a red dress doing cartwheels, the sun's come out again, shining light on the whole garden…."
After a delicious lunch, we said farewell to everyone. I gave small gifts I brought from China to Lucy, Laura, Molly, Alec, and Rebecca. We left Arbroath by train, it took over six hours to get back to London. I alternated between being sad about leaving after just a taste, and reflecting on our entire journey across the UK. In London, we met up with Ian Yang from Dutch Culture's China desk for the last dinner of the trip.
Day 21 - London, Heathrow Airport
These past 20 days were magical and enriching. The Queen's birthday, the Tate Modern's expansion, Brexit -- it seems as if we experience quite a few major events. I'm grateful to have met so many notable artists and to have heard and learned so many things on my first trip away from my homeland. I'm also grateful for Kira's considerate guidance and expertise, and to have had the chance to get to know all the people we encountered along the way. This trip marks a very special time in my life.
- All good things must come to an end.
- Flying from London to Beijing.
- Bye, UK.
Xinru wrote this diary in Chinese in July 2017. We'd like to extend our thanks to Transnational Dialogues for supporting this initiative, and to all the residencies, art spaces, and gracious hosts who helped shape this trip.
Translation by Fei Liu, photographs by Hu Xinru, Kira Simon-Kennedy & Ross Fraser McLean.


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Pat Speer's life will be celebrated Saturday, 1 p.m., in Turnbull Gym at Friday Harbor High School.
The event is open to the public. Flowers are welcome and can be delivered to Turnbull Gym on Saturday. A potluck will follow in the high school commons; Maude Cumming will accept potluck dishes before the celebration of life. If you have questions, call Nikkie Harling, 298-1995 or 370-5496.
Speer, who retired in June from Friday Harbor High School after 35 years of teaching, died in her sleep Oct. 26 in her brother's home in Plattsmouth, Neb. She was 62. Her ashes will be interred at a later date in Nebraska.
She is survived by her son, Zachary Speer (and Nicole Harling), of Friday Harbor; son, Kyle Speer (and wife, Amber), of Bellingham; grandson, Truman Speer, of Bellingham; brother, William Davis, of Nebraska; nieces, Andrea Reed and Dee Davis, both of Nebraska; as well as other family members and long-time friends in Nebraska.
Speer joined the school district in September 1973, when she was 27, and devoted her career here to inspiring students and utilizing art as a means for developing character, self-confidence and desire to learn.
"Her peaceful demeanor allowed students' artistic ability to flow was significant," said Liz Slusher, a long-time friend and former student of Speer. Slusher, a 1988 graduate of Friday Harbor High School, is a custodian at Skagit Valley College. Speer taught Slusher's children as well.
Holly Schutza, a 1991 graduate of Friday Harbor High School, said Speer connected with students who lacked guidance and direction from home. "She was a teacher of great compassion."
Head Start Director Sarah Werling, a 2002 Friday Harbor High School graduate, said, "Ms. Speer was that teacher that greeted her students with a smile upon her face and kindness in her heart … Although her passing is a shock to us all, her kind and gentle spirit will remain within our community and with the history of FHHS."
Speer was known for her ability to inspire struggling students. Tracy Roberson, Class of 1990, remembers Speer's ability to mentor students. Art was a means for keeping students interested in school, she said.
Former student Stacey Rude said Speer was much more than an art teacher. She helped develop Rude's self-confidence by giving her the opportunity to teach a mentally challenged student who needed one-on-one attention.
Rude said she will never forget the experience Speer offered her long ago. "It was the most life-changing experience I've ever had."
Ian Gatley, a retired art professor at Eastern Oregon University who frequented shared his expertise and talent with Speer's students, called Speer "a superb teacher" and a "fine artist in her own right."
Speer was known for pencil drawings, including the hilarious drawing, "Florence Nightinfish," an absurd image of a half-human, half-fish. "She had a one-of-a-kind sense of humor that never failed her."
Journal columnist Howard Schonberger said Speer was an avid supporter of a local cooperative art gallery, the now-defunct Sunshine Art Gallery. Schonberger, a director of the gallery for 20 years, remembers her participation in the student art show displayed in the gallery on Spring Street and Nichols Street.
Close friend Andrea Simmons, a ceramic artist and psychotherapist, said a high percentage of Speer's students went on to art college throughout the years.
Simmons is past president and founder of the Visual Arts Museum of San Juan County, a campaign to build an accredited museum on the islands. Speer was instrumental in the beginning stages of the museum campaign, in 2002. As a committee member, she was a proponent of developing art displays locally with George Johnson, Stewart Luckman and Marsha Rachlin.
The Visual Arts Museum of San Juan County organized art presentations in Friday Harbor and developed a relationship with The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. The museum merged with Westcott Bay Institute in July. Both organizations will work together to build an accredited arts museum in the county.
In response to Speer's many years of service, Simmons said she had a huge influence on young people and the community at large. Remembering dining out with her friend Pat, she said, "We couldn't get through a meal without someone coming up and sharing what her class met to them."
Friday Harbor High School Principal Fred Woods said his staff is considering ways of memorializing Speer.
Junior Emma Harley, junior Tristan Wood and sophomore Sam Asher expressed their thoughts on the passing of their beloved teacher: "Ms. Speer was always there to give us advice even when she didn't need to. She was everyone's favorite teacher and had a passion for art that everyone will remember."


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The New Year is here! All bright eyed and bushy tailed, filled with possibilities and exciting new opportunities. Many people will be finding new jobs, moving to parts unknown, or starting new relationships. But with all the uncertainties out there, the big question is… What does 2019 have in 'store-age' for you? This month we will be focusing on this theme to illustrate how easy it us to save money, time, and energy in 2019 with Big Box Storage.
Part one of our four part series, "What does 2019 have in storage":
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Lost in translation
There is something scarily irresistible about Will Ferrell's face. It's those twinkly eyes, which would look handsome on a mug less squarish and bloated. It's the blank smile that appears occasionally, though his lips are usually set in a sombre mould as his absurdly pompous characters are normally delivered straight, amplifying their hilarity.
Ostensibly a remake of the beloved 1974 children's programme, Brad Silberling's (City of Angels, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events) film is more of a parody of the original show which, in the vein of the Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson starring Starsky and Hutch, seems to want to walk that middle ground between spoof and earnest adventure, effectively attempting to have the cake and eat it. What ensues is, inevitably, a patchy experience. No slackness is evident on the technical front, however. The hokey amusement park feel of the series is transported into the noughties thanks to an excellent CGI team, though the art direction deserves most of the credit, as great care is taken to tap into the endearing kitsch that is the trademark stamp of the television series. The Sleestak antagonists are not men in green rubber suits, but digital reproductions of men in rubber suits. And therein lies the film's ethos: in updating the look of the series, it attempts to cash in on the nostalgia brought about by its very creakiness. Predictably, Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas' script plays as if it's been written in five minutes after a heavy session with the bong. While its inconsequentiality is not necessarily a bad thing – if anything it relaxes you into accepting the relentless wackiness of the world – there is something undeniably crass about stuffing a family-friendly property with profanity, references to sex and exotic drug taking and expecting the project to float on that basis, helped by Will Ferrell offering up his tried-and-tested schtick. It never quite achieves that wonderful balance Shrek had: where the adult and kid appeal was divided more or less 50/50, neither is it a completely daring, gross-out reinvention (it was edited down to PG-13 from an R-rating). Which kind of leaves you wondering as to what its target audience is. Sadly, it doesn't appear to have one at all: at the time of writing, it has made just over half of its $100 million budget.
Any comments?
MT Surveys
Only 35% will be taking a holiday this summer
Corned beef? a matter of class
Labour poised for absolute majority
Labour Party heading for absolute majority


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Groupe M6 Selects 4C to Monitor Use of New Video Bank Broadcast Archive
4C enables M6 Video Bank to track the use of its large online video asset catalogue
London – 24 May 2016 — Today, 4C, a data science and media technology company, announced that 4C Content Analytics has been chosen by Groupe M6, the major French media group and broadcaster, to monitor how assets from the brand new M6 Video Bank archive are being used around the world.
M6 Video Bank will use 4C Content Analytics to ensure that use of assets from the M6 Video Bank remains within contract. Additionally, critical data from 4C Content Analytics will deliver key insights about which M6 Video Bank assets are proving to be most popular to broadcasters.
"M6 Video Bank offers a selection of 10,000+ videos across a wide range of subjects, which means that we needed a service that would enable us to easily track where and how our content is being used," explained Martine Carouge, Director of Documentation, M6 Video Bank. "4C Content Analytics has a track record of monitoring video assets that spans both popular content and niche subjects, which perfectly fits our service."
4C Content Analytics leverages Teletrax, 4C's proprietary global TV monitoring network which tracks over 2,100 channels in 76 countries. The solution empowers media owners to understand precisely when, where and how long their video assets are being used around the world on television in real-time.
4C's solutions are built on more than 30 years of computational science research by Founder and Chief Scientist, Dr. Alok Choudhary, at prestigious institutions including Northwestern University. Its patented technology also leverages the Teletrax infrastructure and intellectual property acquired through Civolution following its spin off from Royal Philips Electronics.
"We are delighted to provide archive content distribution control for Groupe M6, one of Europe's leading broadcasters," said Helene Chabran, VP Sales EMEA, 4C. "Through 4C Content Analytics, we are enabling Groupe M6 to monitor assets from its video archive and ensure it is providing the best content as it grows its offering."
4C Content Analytics is available now as part of the 4C product suite alongside Advertising Analytics, Social Ads and TV Synced Ads. Please visit www.4Cinsights.com/solutions for more information.
M6 Video Bank can be accessed via www.m6videobank.fr
About 4C
4C is a global leader in data science and media technology with solutions for multi-screen convergence. Brands, agencies, and media owners use 4C to improve effectiveness on TV, digital, social and mobile. The 4C product suite includes activation on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram as well as TV Synced Ads across display, search, social and video. The company also provides advertising and content analytics leveraging its Teletrax global TV monitoring network and proprietary social affinity database. Founded in 2011 and based in Chicago, 4C has staff in 17 worldwide locations across the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Hong Kong, India and Singapore. Visit www.4Cinsights.com for more information.
About M6
Formed in 1987 around the commercial television channel M6, Groupe M6 became over the years a powerful French Media group, offering a large panel of programmes, products and services available on various platforms: TV, Internet, Mobile phone. It consists of a set of 9 channels including M6, the second commercial channel of the French market. Groupe M6 publishes content usable on all audio visual platforms. The group is also developing a diversification strategy via its subsidiaries, in particular M6 Web, Ventadis and m6 Films/SND as well as innovative offers such as 6play, its digital platform (100 million videos per month).


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2Faced Dance Company
Outlands: WHO?, It's Not Over Yet, Yashti
London, The Place
3 October 2017
There has been much discussion concerning the marked lack of opportunities for female choreographers. Tamsin Fitzgerald, Artistic Director of 2Faced Dance Company, has rolled up her sleeves and set to work over the last two years to do something practical about it. The result is Outlands, a triple bill which has been touring the UK this autumn.
In 2015 Fitzgerald founded The BENCH, a training and mentoring organisation for female choreographers, which has offshoots both in the UK and India, at the Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts in Bangalore. This production is part of the UK-India Year of Culture 2017. It's a disparate programme, with one UK based work very different in approach to the two pieces from Indian choreographers, but they all have an undercurrent of bubbling anger and resentment.
The programme opens with Ronita Mookerji's WHO? The stage and the action is dominated by a large box, inside and on which the two performers grapple with each other and their own issues. The soundtrack is a mix of industrial noises over which, from time to time, float ethereal Indian vocals.
Mookerji developed this initially as a solo and then added a second performer which does bring in more contrast and possibilities. The work opens with a woman and a man (Mookerji and Prashant More) inside the cramped space of the box, tussling. He escapes but she stays inside: consistently we see the male enjoying more freedom, running around the stage, or leaping and spinning on the box itself. Mookerji always appears more constrained. Her movement has a manic, spidery quality with a strange squatting run. Sometimes it seems she is trying to meditate and gets her legs into the lotus position, but it's as if her arms disobey her and flail about with a frenzied energy. The movement for the man is smoother and more flowing.
Unsurprisingly both end up in the box at the end, still trapped by life's constraints and still bickering. Mookerji is a focussed and compelling performer. The piece works well in an intimate setting, but in any larger venue the box itself would limit the audience's sight lines to what it contains.
The UK is represented by Emma-Jayne Park's It's Not Over Yet. This is a very personal solo piece, based on her experience being diagnosed with cancer two years ago. It's as much theatre as dance. She remains seated for almost all of it, clad in a long hospital gown, sometimes repeating fragments of text over and over again "How are you?", "I'm alright, I'm alright". Her movement is mainly in the arms. At one point it seemed she might be offering out her arm for a drip to be inserted. She steadily plucks at her hair as great lengths of it fall out about her feet. From beneath the gown she deposits what looks like a bucket load of pills onto the floor, and picks up a handful and chomps them. It's a fairly bleak in-your-face portrayal of chemotherapy. At the close she dons shoes and a dress, and contemplates a pink balloon with "Survivor" emblazoned on it. But the conclusion does not convince us she's "better" or feel at all upbeat.
There isn't a shred of self-pity, the overall tone is raw and angry, and she looks the audience defiantly in the eye. It is difficult to critique a work which is obviously so rooted in traumatic personal experience without sounding unsympathetic to the sufferer. I hope she recovers and goes on to make other works that harnesses her energies.
The final work was Yashti, a solo choreographed and performed by Hema Bharathy, from The BENCH India. This is more obviously Indian in some of its influences, though both she and Mookerji have a background in classical Indian dance forms as well as contemporary. It featured the most intriguing and atmospheric soundtrack of the evening, a collage incorporating snatches of percussion, classical Indian music, poetry (lyrical references to lilies and lotus flowers) and the vocal rhythms of Indian dance, which all matched well with the movement.
The choreographer's note tells us that the work reflects on the many facets of being a woman in Indian society and it does register as a series of different moods and sketched frustrations. It opens with the performer posing on the floor with a bowl balanced on her head. She removes it as if glad to get rid of the weight and will later tip the beads it contains over her head and onto the floor.
There are moments of abandon as she leaps across the stage, contrasted with much more deliberate sections. She carefully plants each foot with the movement slowly and fully articulated through the length of the foot and the sinewy toes with each disciplined shift of balance. Then later her costume billows out as she takes off in big swirling jumps. There's a good deal of floor based activity, as if weighed down by experience, and flashes of anger and strong feelings. Finally, the chanted rhythms return in voiceover. She responds to these, following their instruction, but they go faster and faster until she struggles to keep up any more. Yashti was the most absorbing work of the evening, and would repay further viewing to unpick the many moods and occasionally opaque references within it. Bharathy's committed and poised performance makes a strong case for her work.
The Outlands tour continues in the UK with further dates in Salford, Swindon and Hereford. Tamsin Fitzgerald and The BENCH are currently selecting more female choreographers for another programme to be created next year. Certainly, this programme offered three very different voices the chance to be heard more widely.


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Copley at Stoughton is a private nursing home in Stoughton, one of the last in the state, according to Steven Tyer, its administrator. The 123-bed facility provides long- and short-term care and rehabilitation services, and has been in existence since 1994. Its majority owner is the Goddard Foundation, which was created with the assets of the former Goddard Memorial Hospital in Stoughton. We spoke with Tyer for this story.
Q. What makes Copley at Stoughton so unique?
A. It's a standalone, one of the last locally owned and managed in the state. Most places are owned by giant corporations, but selling has never been an issue here. Goddard is solvent, and very committed to this. I came from a corporation, Wingate Healthcare, and was COO for years. Working here is harder than any job I've ever had; we're doing it all on our own, and we're very successful at it.
Q. What do you mean you're doing it alone?
A. We do everything and don't outsource anything, except for doctors and nurse practitioners; our dietary programs, nursing, housekeeping -- we do that all ourselves with people who live in our communities.
Q. What sort of activities do people have at the home?
A. What don't they have? We have bingo, of course; if we didn't, I'd have riots on my hands. They play cards, we have singing, they go shopping, out to dinner once a week, we charter a boat twice a summer for rides on the Cape Cod Canal, they go to Twin River Casino. They don't sit around much.
Q. You get a lot of business from referrals?
A. About 60 percent comes from referrals from places like the chambers of commerce, businesses, churches, family, and friends. We are very community-oriented; I'm a lifelong Stoughton resident and most of our workers are from here or nearby towns. Our referrals are unique: If you called and said, "My Dad broke his hip, can you help me out?" we'd help you out. It has that kind of small-town feel where everyone knows everyone because everyone does.
Q. Nursing homes are expensive: What advice do you have for people?
A. Plan early. And go see a place, see how you're treated. If they don't treat you well, how do you think they'll treat your mother or father? I give my cellphone number to families, and we go above and beyond with services they don't expect.
Paul E. Kandarian can be reached at email@example.com.


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The 2 Arab Writers Up for the Alt Literary Nobel
In the absence of a Nobel Prize for Literature this year — sunk, at least for one year, under the weight of allegations of sexual harassment, coercion, and violence against Jean-Claude Arnault — Swedes have organized an Alt Nobel:
Journalist Alexandra Pascalidou helped form a new academy of more than 100 Swedish writers, actors, journalists and other cultural figures, which will give out the "New Literature Prize" on the same schedule as the old Nobel: a winner announced in October, with a presentation and celebration in December.
Their mission is slightly different from the Nobel's. According to the Swedish publication The Local, "Literature is the antidote to silence and censorship – so we want to empower it in these turbulent times, when regimes around the world try to control not only the words but also the minds of people."
And their process is very different. Rather than a secretive list of authors, all 47 being considered have been published online, and audience vote will play a part in who makes the shortlist. According to the website, voting closes August 14, and:
Your votes will single out three authors for the final judging by the expert jury. A fourth author will enter the final entirely based on the nominations from the librarians. Of these authors, two will be female and two will be male.
The winner is set to be announced October 14.
Like the old Nobel, the list of 47 is considerably weighted toward Swedish writers. There are 12 Swedish writers out of 47; more than a quarter. That's a lot for the world's 91st most spoken language. The US — some of whose writers and critics have complained of being excluded by the Swedish Academy — has the most, at 13. The UK has 4, Canada has 3, and most of the others are Europeans, with the exception of Arundhati Roy (India), Haruki Murakami (Japan), Amos Oz (Israel), Ngugi wa Thiongo (Kenya), and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria).
The list was crowd-sourced from Sweden's librarians, and there are a number of crowd-pleasers, such as Murakami, Neil Gaiman, JK Rowling, Elena Ferrante, Nnedi Okorafor, as well as a few perennial Nobel candidates, such as Ngugi wa Thiongo.
There are no Arabic-language writers, although also none from China, no Indian-language writers, no Spanish-language writers, nor Russian or Farsi. It is a sort of world literature where the world is tightly focused on how the literary arts — mostly the novel — lives and breathes in Swedish and English, and, to a lesser extent, French.
The two Arab writers:
Algerian-French writer Nina Bouraoui is author of more of a dozen novels, many of them works of autofiction, with an emphasis on memory, childhood, and celebrity culture. Her Tomboy (2007) was translated into English by Marjorie Attignol Salvodon and Jehanne-Marie Gavarini — a novel of navigating an identity between Algeria and France. Her Forbidden Vision (1995) was translated by K. Melissa Marcus.
Popular and acclaimed Tunisian-Swedish novelist and playwright Jonas Hassan Khemiri is much more familiar to Anglophone readers; his work has appeared in The New Yorker, and he had an open letter to Sweden's Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask, about racial profiling, that went viral in Swedish and appeared prominently in 20-odd languages, including English.
His satiric, sharp-eyed novel Montecore was translated by from Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles and longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award. In 2013, Khemiri's play I Call My Brothers was performed at the Arcola Theatre in London in Swedish with English surtitles. There were closed captions in English, Arabic, and Swedish. Like Montecore, it's also interested in language, family, racism, and identity.
I Call My Brothers also received an English langague production at the Gate Theatre.
In the end, this new prize is an interesting experiment, although it falls into some of the same potholes as the International Dublin Literary Award, formerly known as the IMPAC, with a focus on the popular, the well-known, and those authors who have been translated into English. The prize's gender balance is certainly new, although far easier to effect than to show an interest in how literature lives in unfamiliar places.


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If you are starting out in the business industry or looking at improving an existing business, then you have come to the right place. The logo of your organization is much more than just an identity. It is a complete and powerful marketing tool. For that reason, your logo has to be attractive and unique. At WAO Host, we pride ourselves in the good quality logo designs we offer. We design you a logo that will certainly help your business stay ahead of the pack. Moreover our logo design prices Johannesburg are very affordable.
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Member Favorites: 8,223
Kousei Arima (有馬 公生)Age: 14-15
Birthday: March 28
Kousei is a prodigy pianist and was the youngest pianist to win the Saki Competition but quit playing after the death of his mother resulted in his inability to hear the sounds of his own playing. Following the death of his mother, he lived two years without playing the piano and saw the world through monotone colors, but this changed after meeting Kaori Miyazono, a beautiful young musician who pushed Kousei to his limits in an attempt to get his fingers back onto the piano keys.
(Source: Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso Wikia)
Voice Actors
This article will count down the top 20 anime of 2014, as decided by the users on MAL. There are fan favorites, surprise snubs and even hidden gems. Feeling nostalgic? Get ready for a blast from the past... and yes, by past I mean last year.
by 5camp
494,794 views
Top 15 Anime Guys/Boys with Glasses on MAL
I discussed the allure and appeal of the meganekko, or "glasses girl", in my last "Behind the Glasses" article. Now let's turn our attention to the male equivalent: the megane danshi. Smart, stoic, and sexy, the "glasses guy" will challenge your mind and steal your heart!
by Jankenpopp
345,847 views


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Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for sending the advanced reading copy of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Once I sat down yesterday to read, I found I really couldn't stop – so absorbed was I in Evelyn's story, how exactly and why she came to have those seven husbands, and become the powerhouse sex symbol she was in those glamorous Hollywood days. I read the bulk of this in just one day!
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life.
I did see this was available in audio, and it did have a multi-narrator cast, with great narrators like Robin Miles and Julia Whelan – but now, after reading, I think I enjoyed this more the reading experience more from the paper version. Being able to see and read the sections written up like they were in the tabloid pages, the gossip rag news and the letters, gave a greater sense of being in that time period, in that element. I really liked how the Evelyn would tell her part of the story, and how that particular event was then profiled in the gossip news. Also, it seemed to be better, or easier, to see where it would break from Evelyn's point of view to switching to Monique's.
Monique is given the plumb assignment of a lifetime when "the" Evelyn Hugo calls up Vivant magazine requesting specifically Monique for an exclusive interview with the aging movie icon. Vivant and Monique think she will be giving an interview concerning her auctioning off some of her most famous gowns. Instead, Evelyn informs Monique she wants to come clean, tell the truth, the complete truth to Monique, and she is to in turn sell this biography to the highest bidder. But why Monique?
Evelyn Hugo is certainly a study in contrasts – after sitting down to record Evelyn's memoirs, Monique realizes she's a person you hate, but can't help admire. Evelyn is a strong woman, there is no doubt about that, but is she painfully self-absorbed and selfish too? Everything she does is to make sure her star will rise no matter how many times, or how many people she hurts in the process. It's her way or no way. Evelyn feels she does this for solely for her survival and for the protection of her one true and great love, but you start to wonder / distance yourself from her sometimes because she only sees what she wants, not how other people are affected or hurt by her actions. She also does a great job of exposing the way it truly is in Hollywood – the falseness, the loneliness, how cutthroat it can be. It's a great read if you're reading for Pride month too. The multitude of issues and secrets surrounding sexuality in Hollywood is finely presented. All of these secrets and scandals make for some great reading!
When Evelyn comes to the end of telling her story, she throws Monique with a major revelation that affects her personally and she is now left with making painful decisions of her own, and again exposing Evelyn's selfishness and treacherous behaviour.
I thought a great companion book would be June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore. I read June last summer and like it, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a great summer read! And here is Miranda Beverly-Whittemore saying this about Evelyn Hugo:
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has big, juicy secrets at its heart– not just about the surprising identity of movie star Evelyn Hugo's true love, but of the lengths she has gone to protect that mysterious lover. Brimming with heartache, betrayal, and a lifetime of Hollywood gossip, this raucous novel will seduce you even as it leaves you wanting more. ~Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and June
Thanks once again to Simon & Schuster Canada for the paperback ARC! As always, it's greatly appreciated!
Another great companion read to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo could also be A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott. It too captures all the glamour and secrets of those old glamourous days in Hollywood.


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Jan. 7, 2015
Employees at Wolcott, New York, Dollar General store face locked exit
OSHA cites discount retailer for serious and repeated safety violations
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Dollar General store employees in Wolcott could not exit* the store swiftly during a fire or emergency because of a locked emergency door in the store's back room, an Oct. 24, 2014, inspection by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration found. In 2010, OSHA cited the retail chain for the same hazard at a store in Buffalo.
"A retail store may not seem like an inherently dangerous place to work, but hazards can exist and must be addressed by the employer," said Christopher Adams, OSHA's area director in Syracuse. "When emergency exits are locked or blocked by merchandise and materials, workers can be trapped or delayed should a fire or emergency occur."
OSHA's inspection of Dollar General's location at 6010 New Hartford Ave. also found several fire extinguishers were not inspected monthly and did not have an annual maintenance check to ensure they worked. Emergency lighting in the store's back room also was inoperative, leaving employees in the darkness, which would pose a problem exiting due to the locked door.
"This is not the first time that Dollar General has been cited for this type of hazard, but it must make every effort to make sure it is the last," said Adams. "The company owes it to its employees to address these safety issues and eliminate these hazards in stores."
Dollar General was cited for two repeated violations for the blocked exit and fire extinguisher hazards and three serious violations for the remaining hazardous conditions. OSHA has proposed $55,000 in fines.
A repeated citation is issued when a substantially similar violation is found at any of an employer's facilities in federal enforcement states within five years of a previous citation. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.
Based in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, Dollar General has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to comply, meet with OSHA's area director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
To ask questions, obtain compliance assistance, file a complaint or report workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency's Syracuse office at 315-451-0808.
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.
Media Contacts:
Ted Fitzgerald, 617-565-2075, firstname.lastname@example.com
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Release Number: 14-2277-NEW
U.S. Department of Labor news materials are accessible at http://www.dol.gov. The department's Reasonable Accommodation Resource Center converts departmental information and documents into alternative formats, which include Braille and large print. For alternative format requests, please contact the department at (202) 693-7828 (voice) or (800) 877-8339 (federal relay).
* Accessibility Assistance: Contact OSHA's Office of Communications at 202-693-1999 for assistance accessing PDF materials.


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Emojis are no laughing matter. Since their integration into mobile phone operating systems in the 2010s, emojis have become an indispensable part of modern-day communication, increasingly overriding text and changing language. A new Adobe study released on the event of World Emoji Day celebrated yearly on July 17, sheds new light on the indelible influence of the emoji phenomenon on culture, economy, and human interaction. And in keeping with the tradition of previous years, Apple has released a new batch of emojis to celebrate the annual emoji holiday.
In its first-ever "Emoji Trend Report," the multinational software company Adobe surveyed 1,000 emoji users in the United States to learn about their emojis usage and the role that these digital characters play in their lives and relationships.
The majority of respondents (65%) said they are more comfortable expressing their emotions through emojis than a phone call. That number rises to 83% among Gen Z users, who represent the largest segment of media audience, according to the 2017 Nielsen Total Audience Report. Nearly all emoji users reported using emojis to lighten the mood of a conversation (93%) and display empathy to their interlocutors (91%). A great number of them (81%) believe that people who use emojis are friendlier and more approachable.
To demonstrate just how ubiquitous emojis have become, 64% said they're willing to make a purchase with an emoji, most likely purchasing meals (19%), movie tickets (15%) and clothing (13%). As of now, Domino's Pizza leads the trend as it allows customers to order a pizza by texting a mere ? emoji. To further prove Domino's understanding of the zeitgeist, nearly half (44%) of emoji users said they are more likely to purchase products advertised using emojis. Over half (58%) of them said they are also more likely to open an email from a brand that uses an emoji in the subject line.
What are people's favorite emojis?
According to the survey, people's top three favorite emojis are the "face with tears of joy" (counted as one of the variations of LOL) emoji ? (1st Place), the classic heart shape ❤ (2nd Place), and "face blowing a kiss" ? (3rd Place). "Love, happiness, and sadness are the top three emotions users express through emojis," the report says.
When asked about the benefits of emojis, users cited the ability to communicate across language barriers (94%) and the ability to instantly communicate thoughts and ideas (90%). With all the diversification of skin tones and cultural backgrounds in emojis, 73% still wish they had more emoji customization options to better reflect their personal appearance and identity.
Emoji also have a positive impact on the work environment, according to the report. Among the emoji users surveyed, 61% reported exchanging emojis at work. The majority of users believe that emojis positively impact likability (78%) and credibility (63%), and render positive news more sincere (74%).
More inclusive and diverse emojis for 2019
As in previous World Emoji Days, the tech giant Apple released a preview of a new line of emojis scheduled to go live later in the year. In a move toward greater representation of all groups in society, the company's new emojis feature people using wheelchairs, canes, hearing aids, and other accessibility gear.
Up until now, emojis including more than one person were not permitted a change of skin tone on Apple's operating system (iOS). That has previously restricted emojis representing families (??????????????), couples (??❤??❤?), and a handshake (?) to yellow.
This year's emojis, however, will represent greater color and gender diversity. This change will manifest itself in a new design for the emoji showing couples holding hands, which will take into consideration non-binary couples in a variety of skin tones. These emojis will only be available later in the year.
In the clothing department, Apple will introduce a sari, a safety vest, a one-piece swimsuit, and a banjo, among others. Falafel, waffle, garlic, and ice cube are some of the new additions to the food emojis. And in animals, a flamingo, a guide dog, a skunk, an orangutan, and a sloth will join the list.


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Hardin Valley Elementary's Brooke Swaggerty is a seasoned veteran at eighteen years in the classroom but she's still finding ways to grow and keep things fresh! Ms. Swaggerty is a great one for sure!
Adam: Say your name for me.
Brooke: Brooke Swag-Ger-Tee, 1st Grade teacher at Hardin Valley.
Adam: Where were you born?
Brooke: In Knoxville, Tennessee at UT hospital
Adam: Nice! Two of my three were born there.
Adam: What was your elementary school mascot?
Brooke: I moved around in elementary school. My family moved to Alabama from age 4 until 3rd grade. Then we moved back. I went to Ritta Elementary here in Knoxville and they are the Rangers, but I didn't go there the whole time. Just for 4th and 5th grade.
Adam: What college did you go to?
Brooke: I went to Carson Newman for undergrad. Go Eagles! I went to UT for my masters, and then I went to LMU for my EDS, Educational Specialists License.
Adam: Impressive!
Adam: What were your majors for those various degrees?
Brooke: At Carson Newman it was Early Childhood Education and then at UT, it was Masters in Curriculum and Instruction and then my EDS is Educational Leadership.
Adam: Do you have aspirations of going into administration?
Brooke: I have the degree and the skill set, but I'm happy in the classroom. I decided that until I'm unhappy in the classroom, feel burned out, or need a change, then I'm just staying right here. Administration is a very stressful job. I've seen it be very stressful and I value my time outside of school.
Adam: How do you keep yourself refreshed as a teacher?
Broke: I think that's one of the things I like the best about teaching. It's different every single day, even 18 years in because the kids are different. You could be teaching the same lesson that you've taught 13 times, but it's going to go a little bit differently every single time because the kids are different. Also talking with your coworkers and planning with your coworkers and forming relationships there, that just makes it a better place to be.
Adam: Good answer!
Adam: How many years have you taught now?
Brooke: This is my 18th year.
Adam: How many years have you been Hardin Valley Elementary?
Brooke: 18 years.
Adam: What?!
Brooke: Yes. Every year that I've taught, I've been here. I graduated in the spring and starting teaching here in the fall, which was one year after the school opened.
Adam: Perfect. So is there anyone else at the school that can say as much?
Brooke: There are just a few other people, but not many. I would have to think really hard, but I think maybe two.
Adam: Have you taught first grade all 18 years?
Brooke: No, I started in kindergarten. I taught kindergarten for 8 years and around that time is when I got my EDS and wanted to try a different grade for experience. I went to 3rd grade for one year and begged to come back to the little ones. I came back to 1st grade and that's where I've been ever since.
Adam: What was the difference between the grades?
Brooke: 3rd grade specifically is harder. The academics are harder and the kids aren't as excited about being at school. In 1st grade and kindergarten everyone loves everything. You can say, "Hey look guys, the sky is purple." They'd say "Of course Ms Swaggerty, it's purple. We love it!" In 3rd grade they're like, "It's not purple, it's blue." Then they roll their eyes at you. I'm more about everyone being happy and everything is beautiful and we all love school. I think it's a big difference between primary and intermediate. You either love primary or you don't. I do, I love primarily so that's where I want to stay.
Adam: What clubs do you sponsor?
Brooke: I help with cross country. It's the 3rd through 5th grade. They went to the state this year and I unfortunately had to sit that out with my broken foot. I help with them every year. I am more crowd control than coach. I've also implemented an exercise class two days a week for our staff after school. On Wednesdays we have a total body class and on Thursdays we have a Zumba class for the staff members. We took a survey and learned it was just hard for people to get to the gym and it was hard to fit exercising in. We go to work, spend so much time here and then go home feeling tired. Once you sit down, you don't get back up.
Adam: That's an excellent idea!
Brooke: We have it here at 3:30 and the staff just has to walk down the hall, do it and then you can come back to your room, finish working if you need to and you're done for the day. You've gotten all your things that you need to go.
Adam: What's the participation like for you guys?
Brooke: It's a fairly new thing. We've had great participation on Wednesdays with the total body. It's pretty hard. We've had 8 to 10 people come. Zumba is a little bit different because it's a completely different kind of exercise and it's the day after the really, really hard one. So people are sore and that one's been a little bit less attended. However, they're both just starting out. It's maybe been a month at this point.
Adam: Why did you get into teaching?
Brooke: I didn't think I wanted to teach and then I started working at a daycare in high school and early college years. I just loved the way the kids can respond to adults and how much they can grow and learn just by something you say or do in the smallest way possible. You can say one little thing and a 5 or 6 year old takes it and runs with it. That's another difference for 3rd grade too. To say one little thing with our 3rd graders and they're like, "Okay. Whatever." I started working at a daycare and found that I really enjoyed being with the younger kids and seeing them grow and learn. I just fell in love with the kids and kept going with it.
Adam: What did you think you were going to do?
Brooke: I'm pretty authoritative as a person. So you can read into that as you will. *laughter*. I thought I was going to take over that daycare and be the boss. I always thought, "I can do this. I know how to run this. I can deal with the parents. I can deal with the administrative tasks." Then I noticed that the role took me out of where I really wanted to be. I wanted to be with the children. That's one of the reasons that I have my degree in Administration, but I'm not pursuing it because it takes you out of the role with the kids. We still get to see them, but you don't get to see that everyday relational interaction that you do in the classroom.
Adam: That all makes sense.
Adam: What would you do if you weren't teaching?
Brooke: In my dream world, I would be a broadway sensation. I would sing and dance my feelings on stage and everyone would know what to do. I'd be the star, or I'd be a backup singer. Completely different than teaching, but that's my dream world.
Adam: What if you had to find a new job?
Brooke: That's a hard question. I don't know. I don't want to do anything else.
Adam: I don't think you'll need to!
Adam: Who was your favorite teacher when you were a student?
Brooke: I had lots of favorites. I'm very big into high school chorus. I went to Central High where Beckye Thomas was the person who was very involved in that and I learned a lot from her. In elementary school I had a teacher in 5th grade, Miss Brock from Ritta Elementary. I loved her. She poured her heart and soul into our classroom and you could tell that. Being the new student in her class, she really helped me feel comfortable and deal with that as well.
Adam: For those who might not know her firsthand, what's so special about Beckye Thomas? [I taught with Beckye at Central High for 4 years.]
Brooke: She pushes people to be better than they ever expected they could be. Sometimes in nontraditional ways as well. She pushed people outside of their comfort zone.
Adam: And around her, there's just such a culture of excellence.
Brooke: Yeah. She demands more than the bare minimum, which is what high school students like to put in.
Adam: Which educator have you learned the most from?
Brooke: There's a teacher here at Hardin Valley that is retired now, but her name is Ms. Mae. We are good friends now, but when I first started working at Hardin Valley, I knew she was the teacher I wanted to be. She's so patient and loving and kind and her kids respected her. Her kids respected her and parents respected her. She is so good with the kids. She's coming here next week to help me make shirts with the kids. She taught me a lot and I say all the time, as an 18 year old veteran of this school, I want to be Ms. Mae when I grow up. She's just has this way about her. I've learned so much from her and got to team teach with her for two years which was incredible. I would do it again in a heartbeat. She is a great friend and mentor and I'm very blessed to have her.
Adam: Sounds like it!
Adam: What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Brooke: I will say that two things have happened in my career that have just happened in the last two years. My first classes were so young in early years of teaching. They're just now getting to be adults. Of those first kindergarten kids, I've had lots of them come back and be ACTS students, which is the program for the high school that comes over to help during the school day. I love having them come back. It's awesome. One in particular came back last year, was headed to college this year, didn't know what she was really going to do and she sent me a letter this summer. She told me that because of this class and because of what had happened, she is now in education. She is now in school to be a special ed teacher in Chattanooga. Then this year, the middle school opened next door. I walked over for a community gathering with all three schools and we got to open the middle school together. I looked over and one of my former kindergarten students is a middle school teacher there at the school. It's her first year. It made me feel ancient, but it was amazing. She said some really sweet things and made a really sweet post on social media about how the reason that she's there and the reason that she's a teacher is because of the way her school experience started out, which was in my kindergarten class. It feels full circle. There are some not so fun stories too, but those are the good success stories that make me feel like maybe I'm making a difference and doing something that matters.
Adam: I think will be interesting when you start having the children of your formal students. Brooke: That's happened to a lot of my colleagues, but because my kids were so young when they started, they're not quite to that point. If I taught fifth grade, they would have come back through. But since they were so young, it's different.
Adam: What do you consider a successful student to be?
Brooke: Someone who tries and is open and isn't afraid to make mistakes, because everyone makes them. It's someone that will learn from them and someone that is just open to the experiences that school brings.
Adam: I will say that is the most common thing that teachers talk about. No one's ever said, "To get an A in my class."
Brooke: Yes, to try and understand that this is a process. It's a process of how we learn and grow.
Adam: What improvement would you most like to see made to public education?
Brooke: For me, inside my classroom is what counts. It's what is happening within these four walls, right here is what drives me. There are things that I dislike about the rules that are put on some things. I'm testing 6 year olds in a certain way, as you know. I want the people who make the rules and the laws to come and sit in here for a day and do the things they're expecting teachers to do. That's what I would like to see because then they would have a better perspective, a better understanding.
Adam: When you say coming here for a day, would you actually like them to try to teach or to be a student in here, or a little bit of both.
Brooke: A little bit of both. I think to get the real perspective, they would have to be the teacher, possibly without the real teacher in the room.
Adam: What is something that you could use in your classroom?
Brooke: Something that I could use in my classroom is mostly supplies. I'm very lucky to teach here. I know that some schools have it way worse off. Mostly everything that I could use I could get on Amazon. Glue and Amazon cards or something like that. It's mostly glue, scissors, pencils, and crayons that we run out of. The pencils go dull and break all the time. We don't know how to use those appropriately at six. *laugher*. We have a great PTO here and we have a great administration that is understanding. Anything that we really, really need, they'll find a way.
Adam: Are there any more expensive items that'd be a real treat to have?
Brooke: A new active board. We're getting so that we're kind of a generation behind on them. We're happy to have them and they're great, but our boards are outdated for the technology. I'm not a very technology based person, but that's the center of the room. We use it most of the day. When it fails or goes off, it's a bad day.
Adam: What hobbies do you have?
Brooke: Well, is singing a hobby?
Adam: Yes!
Brooke: I like to sing.
Adam: Karaoke?
Brooke: Maybe when I was younger, but I don't really do that very much anymore. I sing at my church on the praise team and I love it. We sing in my classroom all the time. My coworkers make fun of me sometimes because we sing in here ALL the time and they're sometimes really silly. Sometimes it's a song that I just made up right then.
Adam: Anything else that you love to do?
Brooke: I also like to read and to travel. I like to go to new places. I haven't been to a lot of new places, but I like it. I like the idea of it. I teach school, so it's a little restrictive.
Adam: Do you like to travel locally or internationally?
Brooke: I would love both. And I have only traveled internationally in North America. I would love to take an adventure overseas and that's on my bucket list of things to do. Eventually. Somewhere that speaks English first, so probably the UK.
Adam: What is a good way for a student or a parent to spoil you?
Brooke: Well we can't leave for food, ever. So when people bring food to us and it's not a sandwich we had to make in our house, that's a great! Food is a great way to spoil any teacher, in my opinion. There's limits to that when you eat at 10:25am. *laughter*. But lunch is always a good thing or gift cards.
Adam: Where's your favorite restaurant?
Brooke: I love Aubrey's. I also like the Copper Cellar a lot too.
Adam: Have you tried a Corner 16?
Brooke: Yes I have. And I like that too. It's always covered up with people, which is hard. They have a really good meat and cheese tray.
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I read this in the BBC last week. Please take a moment and read this and let your heart be stirred. If you know anything about what is going on in N. Uganda and are praying for them over there I pray that this would encourage you to keep praying.
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What is it like to fly China Eastern Airlines?
If your travels are within China, there's a good chance you'll fly China Eastern Airlines.
When we recently visited Beijing, we flew out of Terminal 2 from Beijing (PEK) on China Eastern Airlines Flight MU 2106. Our destination: The city of Xian (XIY), home of the terracotta warriors. Because we had no idea what type of aircraft we would be flying and the skies were extremely foggy, I was a bit apprehensive. Yet, except for a very lengthy (four hour) departure delay, the 1-hour, 40-minute flight itself turned out better than expected.
About China Eastern Airlines
Headquartered in Shanghai, China Eastern Airlines is one of the three major state-owned transport companies in China. The carrier flies both domestic and international routes in Asia, North America and Australia, and has had codeshare agreements with WestJet, Ethiad Airways, Japan Airlines, Qantas and Virgin America (as part of the SkyTeam Alliance) since January 2013.
Living Room (as it's called in the trade)
Our Airbus A321 was a much larger plane than I had imagined, with a business class section followed by two large economy cabins configured with three seats on each side of the aisle. We were seated at the back of the plane in Seats 49 A and 49B (a window and middle seat).
The plane looked fairly new and clean but was pretty minimalist in design and decor. Legroom was ample. It would have been nice if the seats had been better padded but for a short haul, they were comfortable enough.
One interesting twist: The colors of contiguous seatbelts alternated between red and blue. Thus, you could readily identify your seatbelt and distinguish it from that of the passenger next to you. What a nice innovation—one that we had never seen before but which makes so much sense.
Service and Food
For lunch, we were served a hot, soggy-looking chicken sandwich wrapped in foil. I guess the meal might have seemed more appealing if we had been desperately hungry. Compared to most carriers in the U.S., we were quite surprised that any food was offered on such a short flight. Contrary to the Western convention, soda, juice and water were served after rather than before the meal.
The young flight attendants were dressed in attractive blue uniforms with big red elastic cinch belts, like those popular in the 50s. Although most had only limited English, they were generally responsive to passengers.
Entertainment and Technology
There were no seatback entertainment systems but a drop-down screen at the front of the cabin provided easy-to-follow, animated air safety instructions, first in Chinese and then in English.
The live instructions (also in Chinese first and then in English) from the flight crew were distinctly Chinese in style. The person speaking on-air welcomed us by saying, "It's great to have you with us, friends." When the skies became a bit choppy, another on-air announcement explained that we were experiencing some turbulence and reassured us repeatedly:
"Please don't worry."
Since we never heard a flight crew say that before, it was somewhat refreshing.
As one might expect, the glossy airline magazine, Aviation Culture, was written entirely in Chinese.
Bottom Line
We arrived safely, having felt comfortable and well taken care of on the flight. However, because the flight took off four hours late, we missed a good chunk of time that we had hoped to spend in Xian.
Just before takeoff, each passenger was given a cash payment of 150 Yuan, about $25, for the inconvenience of the delay. In the U.S., it's more common to get a voucher that you can use for a snack at the airport. The biggest problem (and frustration) with the flight, however, was the lack of any communication explaining the reason for the lengthy delay.
Locals we met warned us that most Chinese airlines routinely delay or cancel flights. A recent article in the China Daily (April 8, 2015) may explain these aviation problems, in part. It noted that the available air passage space for civilian flights in China is only one-third that of the U.S. and that the number of air traffic controllers is about one-half. Fortunately, our return flight back to Beijing left on time.
Although I didn't have any need to use the lavatory on the short flight, I did peek in before we deplaned. In case you're wondering, the plane had Western-style toilets with toilet paper rather than the squat toilets commonly found in public places in China.
For more information, see the China Eastern Airlines website.
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