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Category Archives: Journalism’s Emerging Narrative

Joplin paper editor finds tornado affirms mission of journalism and offers challenge of balancing stories of life and death

BRANSON, Mo. — Sandwiched between standing ovations before and after her 27-minute address, the daily editor from  tornado-ravaged Joplin, Missouri, offered a stirring endorsement of why newspapers matter.

Carol Stark

Carol Stark

“If people are saying newspapers are dead they don’t really know what stuff we are made of,”  Carol Stark told members of the Newspaper Association Managers gathered at a hotel here on Aug. 4, 2011. “This is a story that I hope people can take home with them because newspapers are very much alive because when it mattered . . . people turned to us, our local newspaper, and people should never forget that.”

Stark, editor of the Joplin [Mo.] Globe,  is alive six years after being told a typically virulent form of cancer would take her life within a few months.  And years ago she survived her car being picked up by another tornado and tossed to the ground — only to find 22 people in cars just ahead of her has been similarly tossed — and killed.

The Joplin daily’s editor said those experienced helped her on May 22, 2011, when a Category 5 tornado struck the city of 51,000 residents, killing more than 150 people and leaving at least a thousand others homeless – including 3,000 children, and almost a third of the newspaper’s own staff.

“When people were staggering around that night I understood what they were feeling,” Stark told a gathering of newspaper executives in her first trip from the devastated city and first public talk about what her newspaper and community have been through. “People say it sounds like a freight train. Well no folks, it sounds like evil.”

So traumatized by their losses, so committed to working, and so unwilling to ask for help for themselves after reporting what others had lost, it would be two weeks before some of The Globe’s own employees — 33 out of 117 — would acknowledge to fellow workers their own losses of cars, homes, apartments, and their need for help.

In a gripping personal narrative, Stark recalled the day of the tornado in The Globe newsroom. It was lightly staffed – a couple of reporters and a photographer. A third reporter was at the city’s high school covering graduation.  There was an ominous weather forecast. The first inkling of the devastation to come, Stark recalls, was when a local TV station they monitored carried video of the approaching storm.

“Don’t you think it would be a good idea for us to take shelter,” a colleague asked?  Stark and her staff took to the newspaper’s bomb-shelter-like basement.  Although she couldn’t make or receive calls, her phone soon started flashing short text messages from around the city. A hospital was hit. Across town, a major big-box store was gone. And at another location, the high school was ravaged –  after graduation ceremonies earlier in the afternoon.

When messages made clear the storm had passed, they went upstairs to the newsroom. Stark’s first instinct: “You have to start getting anything you can and just get it out on the Internet.”  Soon, the paper’s Internet site crashed from an overload of global traffic.  Stark’s children were texting to her phone their status – OK – but the phone network wouldn’t allow her to get out a reply.  She fretted about how to balance attending to her family to attending to her community’s news and human needs.

“Get your big girl panties on girl because you’ve gotta’ do both,” is what Stark recalls thinking. “The right thing is to take care of your people in your newsroom and take care of your readers, and there is no particular order.”

For the first week, she says, everyone at The Globe was “adrenalin driven.”  To help, the Kansas City bureau of The Associated Press assigned two of its reporters full time for two weeks to join The Globe’s newsroom and to write and take assignments from Stark over the paper’s byline.

The commitment to the community paid off for The Globe in skyrocketing single-copy sales. And it also vindicated the paper’s role as a community convener and champion. “Our readers for a period of time thought we hung the moon,” said Stark.  Because of deaths or disruption, the paper lost 1,000 subscribers immediately after the storm hit, but after two months it has regained all but 300, she said.  A normal Sunday pressrun serving about 31,000 people could have sold 50,00 papers for the first month, she added.

The life-changing event for Joplin cried out for some changes in editorial policies, especially about death. As with most newspapers in the last decade, The Globe has turned to charging to run obituaries. But now it decided to provide a free 10-column-inch obituary to every tornado victim – for free. Because authorities were not forthcoming, The Globe started to compile – and publish ahead of the coroner – a running list of deaths it could confirm on its own.  It compared and published the coroner’s list until they gradually matched.
Stark worried how politically conservative southwest Missouri would react when President Obama visited the city days after the devastation.  Her fears proved unfounded. “He came, and had just a wonderful, wonderful message,” she recalled. From immediately after the tornado The Globe and Joplin had played host to hundreds of national and international reporters, with mixed reviews. After Obama came, they mostly left.

And then Stark faced a new challenge for an editor: How to help the community through the transition from cleanup and mourning to something else. “Then the real work began: Are we going to get things back to normal?” she asked.  Her concern was not to move the community on to a “new normal” too quickly without paying tribute somehow to those who had died.

That task fell in part to Missouri School of Journalism graduate Emily Younger, 26, a Joplin Globe reporter to whom Stark assigned the task of tracking down the story of every single person who had become a tornado fatality – beyond a mere obit.  There was the man who always played Santa Claus, and another who had taken enormous pride in being a near-professional whistler.  On a Sunday a month after the disaster, the paper published a multi-page spread of photos and life stories tracked down by Younger.

“People read that and they just sobbed and sobbed,” said Stark. “It was just the best thing we could do for closure.” From marking death, the newsroom moved on to celebrating life. After two months, the paper published another section – 22 miracles in May, celebrating those who had lived against the odds.

Throughout the aftermath, Stark recalled, The Globe also did its job to report all the news, including some ugly stories about looters, fake-church scams, insurance and mortgage struggles. “I am very proud that with our coverage we were able to get things changed, to get some people arrested . . . and to make things right,” she said.

The task of celebrating life and future while respecting the losses continues. Shortly after the tornado, the newspaper wrote a story about a father and son speeding in their car to reach home ahead of the tornado’s arrival. But the storm won – sucking the son out the open moon roof of the car, dislocating the arm of his dad who tried to hold him in. The teen – who had just graduated high school minutes earlier — died. Now, the paper is working with friends to create the story of his life, as told through his social-media tweets, posts and messages. Will’s story will become a story of the Joplin High School class that never had a chance to savor its own graduation.

The new normal now intrudes. On Aug. 17, public school resumes in Joplin in a hodgepodge of temporary buildings, including part of a shopping mall. Eleven schools sustained damage.

And what of the newspaper? On one level, things are still far from normal. “We’re all broke,” says Stark. “You know journalists.”  The kindness of strangers has helped, she says.  People have sent the paper’s employees cash in the mail.  On the other hand, Stark’s faith in the relevance of what she does has been reaffirmed. “Throughout I have felt this is the most noble thing short of saving firefighters lives,” she said. “This is the most noble thing we can do, helping our people.”

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Surfing the Tidal Wave of Change

It is official.  The good news is that there is now broad-based agreement that the news industry is in crisis, as clearly described by Mark Fitzgerald and Jennifer Saba in their SPECIAL REPORT: Turn and Face the Change — With Newspaper Industry in Crisis, ‘Everything’s on the Table’

While acknowledging that the situation creates tremendous opportunity for those who have a viable strategy for riding the waves of the unknown, Fitzgerald and Saba offer no specifics.  That is where Journalism that Matters can make a difference.

There are three common patterns that most of us use when responding to crisis. Two of them have passed their utility in this situation.  The third is the most radical and the most likely to succeed in today’s environment.

Pattern 1:  Just Do It
For most of us, our first response is to act from habit, to ignore everything but the symptoms that are in front of us, fix it and get back to business as usual.  When that isn’t enough, the crisis gets worse.

Pattern 2:  Take Charge
When the situation is so dire that it can no longer be ignored, the strategy perhaps most commonly employed is to act from certainty and try to manage it.  Study it, set targets and objectives, go to work, measure the results.  When it is a technical problem, this strategy works well.  When there is something bigger going on, as there is in an industry that is losing its audience and its sources of income, this approach will likely fail.

Pattern 3:  Learn to surf

Some of our most cherished assumptions– and our ability to manage them – have broken down.  Many are throwing up their hands and saying, “I’m stumped.  I don’t know what to do.”  Business as usual is over. When there are no clear answers and the dynamics of the situation are in a state of flux, what strategies allow an organization to deal with the unknown effectively?
A strategy that has proven successful – and we have all experienced at some point in our lives – is to act from inquiry, in essence to make it up as we go along. There is information in the disturbances we face.  After all, bloggers are doing well.  What messages for our work are hidden in their success?  There is the promise of creative and innovative possibilities waiting for us within the realm we currently view as unknown.  To find them, we have to explore.
There is actually a field of practice, called Whole System Change, that has been studying and experimenting with handling the chaos of transformative change well for the last fifty years.  Designed to work with the unknown, it has developed practices that support people in understanding the dynamics at play in complex situations so that they can identify possible directions to pursue.  The industry will be in flux for quite some time.  Those who survive will most likely do so by learning how to have some influence while moving with the flow.

To do so involves working the unknown in ways that make clues to emerging solutions visible and actionable. Informed by theories of complexity science, promising practices apply the dynamics of self-organization to organizational systems. The interaction of diverse entities in a nurturing and challenging context generates the emergence of novel, more useful forms of organization.   As applied to organizations, this involves:

•    Asking ambitious, possibility oriented questions
Given the state of the industry, what is possible now?
What is the role of journalism in a digital age and how is it best provided?

•    Inviting the diversity of the system to participate in shaping responses
Who are the people with authority, resources, expertise, information and need? Who is affected?  Who cares about the future of journalism?
Bring together print, broadcast, new media, media reformers, media educators, citizen journalists, audience and others who care about the future of journalism.

•    Creating the conditions for an open dialogue
This is a complex system that is completely reformulating itself.  By creating hospitable conditions and bringing together people from different aspects of the system, each of which has pieces of the puzzle, entirely new connections can be made.  A picture that none of us can create alone will begin to emerge.
Journalism that Matters has begun to articulate an emerging story of the new news ecology.  It includes: journalism as a conversation rather than a lecture; high touch sourcing/high tech delivery; education that, in addition to the core practice of journalism, includes broad-based media literacy and the art of engagement.

•    Experimenting with promising ideas that emerge
This is not the work of  “take that hill” or “leading the charge”.  Rather, it is the work of asking questions that focus our attention towards deeply felt, collective aspirations, creating hospitable conditions that invite the diversity of the system to step in and take initiative, creating an organic boundary for action through inquiries that express clear intentions.  By following the energy of the exploration, sensing what patterns are emerging, and calling those patterns into collective awareness, novel and often utterly unpredictable responses appear.
That is what we have been doing with Journalism that Matters.  It is no accident that so many of the University of Missouri Fellows have all participated in JtM sessions.  Or that several Knight Challenge grant recipients had their ideas surface or be clarified at a JTM session.  Attendees keep coming back because we are providing a rich, nutrient environment, a diverse mix of participants, and the space to explore possibilities.

This strategy provides the means for a productive relationship with the unknown.  Care to join us?

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An ecology of story for the well-being of community and democracy

My friend and colleague, Tom Atlee, founder of the The Co-Intelligence Institute, developed a map of stories entitled Whole System Learning and Evolution — and the New Journalism that I think has great potential as a way of thinking about what is required for both great stories and great story-telling organizations.
In the version below, I changed a few terms (e.g., “community” became “connect” to create consistency of form) and I added four verbs (in blue) that, framed as questions, I think could provide a tool for assessing the likely effectiveness of a story or a news organization. The questions that Tom’s model sparked for me:

• Does it inform? (a primary focus of traditional journalism)
• Does it engage? (a primary focus of the emerging social networking sites)
• Does it inspire? (almost virgin territory, but hinted at by the idea of “possibility journalism”)
• Does it activate? (also exciting terrain)

An ecology of story

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Six Questions that Matter to Journalism

As I read people’s registration comments for NewPamphleteers/New Reporters – the upcoming JtM gathering in Minnesota, it struck me that people were asking questions and bringing expertise in six areas:

  • Business models
  • Cultivating community
  • Partnerships
  • Content choices
  • Craft
  • Technology

Here’s a picture of what seems to be emerging:

Six questions that matter to journalism

We’ve now got a twitter stream for Journalism that Matters: jtmstream. Join us from June 4-5.

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Possibility Journalism: An Emerging Trend?

As I reflected on Journalism that Matters-Silicon Valley, it struck me that my favorite subject – the power of story to inspire and engage, was a very quiet theme at this particular gathering. It got me thinking about the need to say something about what is emerging is this arena.
It began for me with three threads of the Journalism that Matters-Memphis session:

  • Geneva Overholser, Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting, University of Missouri, introduced herself saying:

“I had been depressed. A couple of years ago, I resolved to find hope. When you open yourself to possibility you are willing to experience stuff you haven’t experienced before.”
What a fabulous discovery: finding hope is a choice. Could Geneva’s comment be indicative of an emerging trend?

  • Then I saw a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. at the National Civil Rights Museum:

“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. …”

What a profound insight when so much coverage is about the dark! Why not also look at the stars in the story?

  • The capper was witnessing two veteran reporters interview the mother of Josh Wolf — the video blogger who went to jail for refusing a federal grand jury’s request to turn over video he shot of a burning police car during last year’s G8 protest. The interview prompted me to ask her a question that struck me as a way to see the stars:

“Given all you’ve experienced, what the best possible outcome you can imagine?”

I was stunned by her powerful and cogent response — that she hoped Josh’s situation provided clarity about the application of first amendment rights to emerging types of journalists — because it shifted the interview’s tone from frustration and defeat to hope and possibility.

It made me wonder what would happen if the essential questions of journalism added something to

who? what? when? where? why? and how? — namely,
What’s possible now?

And then Stephen Silha and I interviewed Journalism that Matters alum Sarah Stuteville and one of her partners, Jessica Partnow about the Common Language Project, a startup that took shape at Journalism that Matters-Kalamazoo. CLP puts a human face on international stories.

To my surprise, Jessica told us that asking “what’s possible now” has become central to their style of reporting. Sarah then told us this story:

The first time I used “what’s possible now” was reporting in little Pakistan in Brooklyn. I was hearing about the experience of families of deportations, mostly young men. I was talking to that community and to the non-Pakistani community who had very different feelings. People felt strongly on different sides of same issues. I think the first time I asked “what’s possible now”, may have come out of frustration. It is hard to have conversations and not get anywhere. I threw my hands up and said ok, “what is your ideal solution?” And everything changed. (the interview)

Sarah then offered a second story:

We – Jessica and I – were in the Middle East, talking with a Palestinian about frustrating, polarizing material. He kept repeating the same ideas over and over so we asked that magic question: “given what’s happening, what’s possible now?” It shifted the interview completely, as our contact began envisioning the situation in a completely new way. (the interview)

The stories we tell ourselves shape the way we see the world. And that shapes our behavior. A trend towards asking “what’s possible now?” follows the energy towards our hopes and aspirations. Sounds to me like a trend worth amplifying!!!

A coda to this story: Josh Wolf attended NewsTools 2008. Here’s a video interview done by David Cohn during NewsTools. In a second interview, by From the Frontline, Josh describes an interesting idea for a live internet news network that harnesses live video broadcasting tools like Qik, Flixwagon and coupled with the microblogging tool Twitter and Skype call ins.

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Tuesday, 30 April 2013

I hate to admit this . . .

. . . but I cant remain in denial any longer, I've enrolled in U3A (University of the Third Age).

The only admittance criteria for U3A is to be over 60 years old. The trouble is that although I know that my body is over 60 (in fact its rapidly approaching 65!), my brain isn't yet there with it. I don't feel old, and I don't really want to socialize with old people - although having said that three of my dearest friends are roughly contemporary, and they're not old.

But I fathomed that if I don't feel old, and my friends don't feel old (well we/they may have the odd twinge here and there, but that's all), then maybe, just maybe, most of those other people over 60 don't feel old either, so it's possible they might be fun to be around.

So I joined up, sent off my £13.00 enrolment fee, and popped along this morning to a new members welcome meeting. After having a brief chat with a lady called Kay, the membership secretary, at the door (seemed friendly and welcoming) I made my way over to meet Anne, the lady I call my Photo Phairy, she runs the photography group and she lives just over the wall at the bottom of my garden. We had a nice long chat, the group she runs is very informal, not technical at all, and sounds like just my cup of tea.

I've also got a list of all the activities available to members, and there are a few others I wouldn't mind having a go at: local history, painting and drawing, textile crafts, creative writing, keep moving, gardening (probably not gardening, I do enough of that already), several languages and loads more.

So, if I'm not around much in the future, you'll know where to find me, I'll be out with all the other young oldies, drinking and partying and having fun.

Monday, 29 April 2013

April Scavenger Hunt

Thanks once again to Greenthumb, Made With Love, for this month's Scavenger Hunt list. Pop along to her blog for the linky to view all the other entrants.

Here are mine:

1) Pink

A little girl's glove lying on the grass at the bottom of the hill.

2) Six

a set of 6 tulip wine glasses, which I've had since 1968

3) Your city/town

This is where I live, Warminster, on the edge of Salisbury Plain (the white area to the top and right of the map).

4) Sport

We are armchair sport watchers

5) Night light

My studio entrance after dark

6) Something you collect

books, fabric, yarn, momentos, postcards, beer mats, you name it

7) Big

The hill I have to climb to get home from the park

8) Dinner

Cassie's, not ours.

9) Texture

Dining room curtain and tie-back

10) Curl

Morning Glory curling around the support canes

11) Take off

Gave GM a haircut

12) Plastic

One of our garden chairs, after a shower.

Friday, 26 April 2013

Just a quick look in my garden

Here are some of the things that are happening in my garden this week.

Thursday, 25 April 2013

This weeks challenge - resting and refreshment

Lynne at Lucky Snapping in 2013 has set the challenge this week, which is
 “ Make rest and refreshment a necessity, not a luxury”

This is quite an easy one for us, as GM and I are both retired from full/part-time employment we are able to indulge in R&R much more frequently these days.

Mid-morning tea and biscuits

GM and GT enjoy a drink in the sunshine

even Cassie joins in

Al fresco lunch, the first (and lets hope not the only) this year

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Daisy Row plus 365

Today is the first anniversary of our move to our lovely new home. It's hard to believe we've been here for a whole year already, but having said that, it's been a busy year and we've got quite a few things done.

We're going to have an easy day, out for a picnic lunch and steakwiches a l'Homme Vert for tea.

By the way, I'll let you into a little secret about how I came about the name for my blog. Last year, before the move I was counting down the days for the last fortnight or so, day 14, day 13, etc. etc. so that the last day before we moved was day 1. When we finally arrived at our new house, GM said to me "Welcome to Day Zero", to which I replied "Thankyou, that's a great new name for my blog".

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Simple Knits, Bags - book review

This book was sent to me by F+W media for review purposes.

What I like about this book:

An illustrated list of contents

Each project on a double page spread, with clear and precise instructions on the left, a full page colour illustration on the right

As with most of the books that I've been sent, this book is aimed firstly at the very much larger American market, and therefore some of the instructions may be a little confusing at first for UK readers, however, unlike the others that I've reviewed, this one has a list of abbreviations and US/UK terms at the front which makes it immediately apparent to the reader that this is the case.

At the back of the book are several pages on bag-making techniques, including how to design and make a lining (essential for a knitted bag), Interstasia technique and charts, and some basic knitting techniques.

Whilst the title of the book is "Simple Knits" I would suggest that, yes, the designs are simple, but for an experienced knitter rather than a beginner. I like this book, and although I hadn't thought about knitting a bag before, I may just give it a try.

The cover price on the book is £6.99 but it can be purchased here for only £5.23 (plus postage)

Sunday, 21 April 2013

Dare we hope . . .

. . . that spring is finally here?

Saturday, 20 April 2013

Fame in New Zealand . . .

. . . for Cassie, not me.

Cassie has featured in Adrianne's blog post, Saturday Cat Words of Wisdom. She is chuffed to bits to be recognised so far away, and is now aiming for global domination. Go, Cassie.

Friday, 19 April 2013

Twenty-first Century

Some time after the turn of the century, I cant remember exactly when, I made the decision to tune in to the radio station Classic FM one day, and I suddenly realized how much I'd been missing out on all those years because of not listening to or understanding classical music.

My transformation was instant, I just loved what I was hearing, and since that day I have steadily built up a collection of CDs to reflect my new passion. Three composers stand out head and shoulders above the others for me, they are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwick von Beethoven and Franz Joseph Haydn (the third being a mentor to both of the other two - can you just imagine being a mighty composer, he wrote over 100 symphonies, and also being friends with both Mozart and Beethoven, wow).

One of my favourite Mozart pieces is this one, the second movement of his piano concerto no. 21 (nick-named Elvira Madigan because of its use in the film of the same name)

and my favourite piece of all time is this, Beethoven's 7th symphony, 2nd movement.

This clip is slightly over 8 minutes long, but is well worth a listen, if it doesn't move you in one way or another I would be very surprised. Enjoy.

Many thanks to the ladies at Lucky Snapping 2013 for asking us about our Musical Memories, I've really enjoyed the past few days, looking up stuff on YouTube and listening to favourites old and new.

Thursday, 18 April 2013

For the times they are a-changin'

Despite the title, and a deal of respect for the great Mr. Bob Dylan, he doesn't actually feature in my musical memories. These three titles are from a time of great change and upheaval in my life.

The first is by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the clue is in the title "Breakdown"

The second puts into words the wonderful sense of freedom that I felt after I'd made the decision to walk away from a toxic marriage, Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird"

And the third tells its own story, after I met and fell in love with the wonderful GM

"You Make Loving Fun", another track from the Fleetwoood Mac Rumours album - probably the best album ever made.

Linking up to Happy Snapping 2013

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

More Musical Memories

I was a post-war baby, one of the now ageing baby-boomers. It was my generation that invented teenagers, fashion and pop music. As teens in the 1960s we enjoyed an amazing explosion of creativity, it was a great time to be alive and there seemed to be so much hope for the future.

In 1962 the Beatles arrived, and I think its fair to say that they made such an impact that music has never been the same since.

Most of my friends at the time had a favourite Beatle, there was a more or less 50/50 split between John lovers and Paul lovers, but my favourite was George, the quiet one.

This track blew my mind away when I first heard it, it was so unusual.

So many other groups had successful careers during those changing times, and its difficult to remember them all, but some of my favourites were Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Who (both of whom I saw in concert somewhere in East Ham, I think) and the Beach Boys, a real breath of fresh air from this enchanting place called America.

By the end of the 60s I was a married lady and during the 70s and early 80s most of my energies were taken up raising a family, fighting poverty (and my husband) and were generally not a particularly good time for me, and my musical memories are sparse, but then I discovered Fleetwood Mac and I was hooked again. To be fair, they had already been around for a while, but it was only in 1985 that I became aware of them, and the Rumours album just hit me sideways.

That brings me up to the mid-80s, when my life made a sudden turn for the better and music came back into it.

Come back for more musical memories tomorrow.

Tuesday, 16 April 2013

Musical Memories

Lucky snapping in 2013 sets us a new challenge each week, this is the first one I have made the effort to join in with.

Music plays such a huge part in all our lives, dont you think? Well, it certainly did in mine, anyway.

My parents weren't musically inclined, but back in the fifties when I was young, the wireless, as it was called, (which always confused me, because surely the electricity came to it through wires?) was always on, and I especially remember 2-way Family Favourites which was on at Sunday lunch time. It was a request show for English families with relatives serving in Germany. They played a lot of classical music, which I must have taken on board subliminally, as now I'm a huge, huge lover of classical music, most especially Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn. In those days though it didn't really do very much for me. We also used to watch TV, I remember Saturday nights watching Billy Cotton's band show, and shame upon shame, The Black and White Minstrel Show.

When I reached my teens I suddenly discovered Radio Luxembourg, and spent many a long hour with my ear up against the old Dansette transistor radio my parents had bought me. My very first musical heart-throb was Buddy Holly, and I was devastated to find out that by the time I discovered him he was already dead, having been killed in a plane crash. However, it was his music which I remember most fondly from my early teenage years. I had all his albums, in mono, and drove my parents mad by playing them over and over again on the Dansette record player in my bedroom. I'm not sure what happened to these albums, as I dont have them now, but I do have a CD which has all of his music so I can listen to him whenever I choose. Oh Happy Days.

(hope this works, I've not uploaded a youtube clip before.)

Monday, 15 April 2013

Proper gardening

At long last it was warm enough and dry enough to get out and finish off my temporary raised beds. Another couple of days sunshine and I'm hoping to get out again and plant some stuff.

Saturday, 13 April 2013

Indoor gardening

Might as well, its far too wet to garden outside!

Hanging baskets planted up . . .

with some of these . . .

and some of these .

Waiting to go outside, if it ever stops raining and starts warming up

Top Sweetpeas, centre Morning Glory, bottom leeks (oooh! no pun intended there)

Hoping for some sunshine

Remember the seed disks (here)? This is what they look like now.

Oh come on spring, haven't we waited, patiently, long enough?

Friday, 12 April 2013

New Dining Room

This morning GM fixed the picture hooks on the wall, so we hung our pictures and the room is now complete. We are delighted with it.

We don't have a lot of pictures, just two originals and a limited edition print.

The first is by Lian Lilley Earley and is of Wisteria at Iford Manor. Lian is Warminster born but now lives in Devon, with her husband Mark, who has the somewhat flowery title of The Bard of Bath.

The second was painted by a neighbour of ours when we lived in Surrey, and is of a pub we used to frequent, the artist is Janet White.

Apologies for the odd angle, its the only one I could take without massive reflections on the glass.

The third is a limited edition print that we bought on our first visit to Bath in 2005

Now here are views of the room, one from each corner

As there are currently only three of us in residence, the table looks a bit overkill, but I look forward to many happy days when we have family and/or friends gathering and a table full of guests.

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New Audio: Thundercat’s Buoyant, Comic Ode to the Internet Age

Last year was a rather productive and prolific year for critically applauded bassist and vocalist, Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner, as he made guest appearances on two of the the year’s most critically and commercially successful albums — Kendrick Lamar‘s Grammy Award-winning album, To Pimp A Butterfly and  Brainfeeder Records labelmate, Kamasi Washington’s The Epic. Bruner also released what was arguably one of the best albums of 2015 The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam, which further cemented his reputation as a dexterous and playful bassist and songwriter, with material that sonically channeled Stevie Wonder’s incredible 70s output — or in other words it possessed a retro-futuristic leaning that made it all sound as though it came from straight from a rusty spaceship that’s traveled several hundred lightyears across the universe. In fact, if you had been frequenting this site over the past year, you might remember that I wrote about the wobbling and propulsive bass and arpeggio synth-led single “Them Changes” and its incredibly symbolic and surreal video, which emphasized the devastating heartache at the core of the song.

“Bus In These Streets” is the first bit of new music from Thundercat since the release of The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam and the single, which is a comedic and playful ode to both our reliance and dependence on technology — and the track has Thundercat pairing his dexterous and sinuous bass lines and his ethereal crooning with Louis Cole (keys, drums and programming) playing shimmering and twinkling keys, propulsive drumming and drum programming and Flying Lotus contributing more programming and editing in a song that evokes a dreamy, distracted  self-absorption as the song’s narrator spends their time staring at their smartphone, not noticing the world pass him by — or the inherent danger he might be walking into as he stupidly stares into his phone. Certainly, it’s one of Thundercat’s most playful yet cinematic songs he’s released to date, and every time I’ve heard it, I’ve thought about how it would be perfect in a It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World-like comic ensemble film.

You can catch Thundercat as he’s playing several tour dates including a set at this year’s Afropunk Festival. Check out the tour dates below.

Aug 27 Brooklyn, NY – Afropunk Fest

Sep 10 London, UK – OnBlackheath Festival

Sep 15 Oakland, CA – Brainfeeder at Fox Theatre*

Sep 16 Oakland, CA – Brainfeeder at Fox Theatre (sold out)*

Sep 17 Los Angeles, CA – Brainfeeder at Hollywood Bowl*

*with Flying Lotus, Funkadelic featuring George Clinton, Shabazz Palaces & The Gaslamp Killer


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Monthly Archives: June 2014

Episode II of a “Splendid” Family. Teppi Starts to get the Screw Jobs.

Sorry folks about my lack of productivity but due to a broken bone I have had limited ability to type without being in extreme pain.  Where we left off with the Manypo family is that Teppi’s father is convinced that Teppi is in fact his half-brother because his father had an “encounter” with his wife.  Some sort of paranoia has taken over the head of the Manypo family is going to be overtaken by Teppi.

Teppi as we know is trying to get the family’s steel factory financing for the modern blast furnace to bring Japan into the modern industrial age.  Also remember that the father is believes that the Hanshin bank is the key to the wealth and power of the family and is trying to avoid being merged into a bigger bank.  Employing a desperate strategy of the small bank swallowing the bigger bank he asks his son-in-law (a high ranking treasury official) to get confidential data on the bank President Manypo thinks he can take over.  His son in law bribes one of his colleagues to get the information.  Not coincidently it is the same bank Teppi is seeking to get a major part of his financing through.

It dawns on President Manypo that if he can get his target bank to finance a major portion of the furnace and his son Teppi fails, the bigger bank with have massive exposure and losses that would make them vulnerable to a takeover.  So machinations begin to set up Teppi quest for a blast furnace to go bust.

Meanwhile, the younger members of the family are being set up for political marriages.  The youngest son is resigned to his fate to marry out of political needs to rather than love.  Teppi also runs into an old flame and finds out that, though he loves his wife and child, a woman he truly treasured (and still has feelings for) was told by the Manypo “butler” in no uncertain terms that there was no way she and Teppi could marry because she didn’t come from a good enough family.  Teppi is furious and returns to the Manypo family compound to demand answers.  He sees his mother running out of her bedroom.  Confused his younger brother explains that while Teppi was studying abroad he discovered that his father and the “butler” were involved in sexual relationship giving this witch even more power.  So hurt was his mother that she ran back to her family (and was promptly returned) then tried to take her own life.  Teppi’s brother said he has known for years but never said anything out of fear or retaliation.

The next day Teppi openly tells this “butler” to get the hell out.  The rest of the Manypo family see the conflict since they are about to leave for the arranged marriage meeting.  Teppie confronts his father directly who sides with the butler saying she is “indispensable” for the continuation of the Manypo dynasty.

About the only good news for Teppi is that due to his father in law’s intervention is issued the permit to proceed with construction with the construction of the blast furnace but even this has its downside because his father’s bank intentionally cut his funding by ten percent. So he has to go beg other banks for remaining 2 billion yen.

I really wish I could find the English translation of this novel.  The author has some serious insight into what money does to people—even family.  So afraid of losing their wealth these elite families engage in behavior that is truly despicable.  Their wealth gives them power to ignore the law and social conventions of acceptable and moral behavior.  These truly warped people have the veneer respectability and are the envy of those without this wealth and privilege.  Unlike the masses they get to have it both ways; that is, they can engage in deviant behavior but do not have to face any of the consequences that an everyman or woman would if they behaved the same way.  Anyone but the elite would be in jail for the way these people behave.

It reminds me of the relatedly recent news story when the heiress to the Mars candy fortune crossed the center line in her Porsche and killed a family coming home from wedding.  This old woman certainly has a driver but instead she killed a family and what happened to her?  I believe she was charged with a misdemeanor.  If you or I were behind the wheel of the car we would (and should) be in jail.

All this because of some fancy paper?

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Posted by on June 12, 2014 in Movie Reviews

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Five Keys to Victory: SJSU at K-State

Kansas State played an impressive game at Auburn, but left with a 0-1 record. San Jose State played a far from impressive game at Arizona State, but left with a 0-1 record. The teams not only have ...

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