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Carlton Street, Suite 1032, Toronto, ON
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www.langfieldentertainment.com
LE NEWSLETTER
April 30, 2009
Hope you've got your taxes in as it's Tax Day! OK, well let's stick to weather
- starting to feel like summer is actually in our future ...
sometime.
Don't forget too, that you can check out any previous newsletters in my ARCHIVES
section. Or a little trick I learned from my techy friend Darryl, if you go to GOOGLE
and type 'site:langfieldentertainment.com'
and then whatever person or subject you want to find, it will bring up the
links to my site that match. Cool, huh?
And check out some new pics in my PHOTO GALLERY of a special night featuring Sean
Jones and friends, including Divine Brown,
at The Great Hall.
Now, check out all the exciting news so please take a walk into your weekly
entertainment news!
::TOP STORIES::
Funding Boost Confirmed For Arts Festivals
Source: www.thestar.com
- The
Canadian Press
(April
27, 2009) Organizers for the Toronto International Film Festival say they
won't be scaling back because of the recession.
Festival director Piers Handling says the same number of titles will unspool
when the annual movie marathon gets underway in September.
"We want to present the same size festival," Handling said Monday
following an elaborate press conference to announce federal funds for TIFF and
other cultural events.
"We're obviously being sensitive to the climate out there ... but we have
no plans to make the festival smaller. We think it feels very comfortable this
year – it's still a relatively cheap ticket for the audience to come to the
festival. That's important for us to keep it still accessible."
The assurance came as Peter Kent, minister of state of foreign affairs,
announced a $3-million boost for the film festival. The cash is part of
Ottawa's marquee tourism events program, designed to pump $100 million into
various festivals and attractions over two years.
Other funding recipients include the Calgary Stampede, the Edmonton Fringe
Festival, the Shaw and Stratford theatre festivals and the Montreal jazz
festival.
The Stratford festival recently announced it was putting 30 performances of
various shows on hold due to slumping ticket sales in the economic downturn. On
Monday, artistic director Des McAnuff said the new funds would allow Stratford
to restore all suspended performances of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Kent said the government believes tourism is a key driver of the Canadian
economy, and noted it contributes about two per cent annually to the GDP.
"Tourism has been one of the fastest-growing industries in the
world," Kent said as dozens of film industry guests noshed on popcorn and
mini-cupcakes while sipping wine at the media event, held in a window-panelled
ballroom at the top of a downtown hotel.
"Further expansion of Canada's tourism brand can increase tourism export
revenues at home and provide stimulus to the economy at a very critical time.
Given the global economic uncertainty, now is the time to act to strengthen our
investment."
Handling said the cash injection will allow TIFF to aggressively court U.S.
tourists, especially those in the border states. Festival co-director Cameron
Bailey said it will also allow TIFF to offer more free events, such as outdoor
movie screenings and music concerts.
Bailey said the federal funds come with clear guidelines as to what they can
and cannot be used for.
"This money is for marketing, to draw tourists," Bailey said. ``It's
not operational funding at all, so none of our regular activities can we put
this towards."
Although the economic downturn was not expected to curtail the typically
splashy red carpet events planned for the film festival, the financial meltdown
will likely colour the event in other ways, he added.
"The festival really is an arena to generate debate around films and
ideas, including the recession, including how the economy is affecting
people," Bailey said.
"You'll see this happening in the theatres, in the Q&A sessions and in
some of our industry events at the festival. We want to give people an
opportunity to just talk about what's going on and how the last year's been for
them."
Handling said it was too early to say what kind of films will come to TIFF, and
whether they will be influenced by the financial meltdown.
"Filmmakers tend to be ahead of the trend, to be honest, so I think the
last year or two you've probably seen work that's been a little bit darker, a
little bit more unsettled," he said.
"People are just less secure in terms of their position in the world,
their space in the world. I think we've seen that since 9-11, to be honest. I
think the economic downturn is just a continuing reflection of the general
uncertainty that everybody feels in the world around them."
TIFF runs Sept. 10 to 19.
Marquee Day For Arts Festivals
Source: www.thestar.com
- Martin Knelman
(April 27, 2009) Today will be an unusually happy one for the Toronto
International Film Festival, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and the Shaw
Festival, my spies assure me.
That's because all three will come out winners in a series of announcements
that will be made more or less simultaneously concerning the federal
government's recently created Marquee Tourism Events Program.
The upshot: a $3 million lifeline for TIFF and the same amount for Stratford.
The Shaw Festival will get slightly less, but well over $2 million.
In all cases, this money will be a huge financial boost for organizations
facing alarming shortfalls in their normal revenue streams and the prospect of
scary deficits.
But here's the twist. This windfall does not come in the form of arts subsidies
from the Canada Council or the minister of Canadian heritage responsible for
culture. Instead it comes from a tourism-promotion fund announced only a month
ago by Diane Ablonczy, the Ottawa minister responsible for small business.
So the recipients can't just use it to pay off their deficits. They have to
demonstrate the money will be used to achieve Marquee's stated goals.
The government, no doubt trying to get as much political mileage out of this
good news as possible, is letting the word out in a novel way. Instead of
holding one central press conference announcing the first round of winners in
the Marquee program, there will be a number of them scattered across the
country on the same day, possibly eight.
Each announcement will focus on a beloved local attraction and will feature a
prominent Tory member of Parliament making a speech.
So in Toronto, members of the media and friends of TIFF have been summoned to
Stop 33, the top floor of Sutton Place, where Peter Kent, former TV news anchor
and currently Stephen Harper's minister of state of foreign affairs (Americas),
will wax eloquent.
In the lobby of Stratford's Festival Theatre, Diane Finley, Harper's minister
of human resources and skills development, will deliver the happy news. And in
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson will do the honours.
Other winners, not all of them arts events, will be across the country, likely
including the Calgary Stampede and the Montreal jazz fest.
Marquee was set up to offer help to annual festivals that attract a significant
number of tourists. To qualify for funding, an organization has to demonstrate
the money will be used for some special initiative – possibly programming or
marketing – that is not part of its normal routine and is likely to help draw
more tourists. It has $50 million to hand out this year and another $50 million
next year. Large organizations are eligible for a maximum of $3 million each
year and small organizations have a ceiling of $1 million.
Considering how slowly the Ottawa bureaucracy has moved in the past, it is
downright astonishing that applications could have been received and acted upon
so quickly. This is merely part one of the 2009 list. Other festivals,
including Luminato, are almost certain to get Marquee money as well – but not
yet.
Marley's 'One Love' Voted
Jamaica's Best Song
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 23, 2009) *Bob
Marley's "One Love" sits atop a list of Jamaica's 100
best songs over 50 years that was unveiled Tuesday by a panel of musicians and
cultural officials associated with the University of the West Indies.
The reggae legend had nine songs in the
top 100 and two in the top 10, with "Simmer Down" landing at No. 9.
His popular "No Woman No Cry" was picked No. 12 and "Redemption
Song" No. 14.
"One Love" recorded the highest score, 726 points, well ahead
of the 540 points given to the second place song, "O Carolina," which
was originally recorded by the Folkes Brothers and redone by contemporary
artist Shaggy.
The panel was headed by former Finance
and Planning Minister Omar Davies and included businessman Chen, musicologist
Vaughn "Bunny" Goodison, Frankie Campbell, who heads the popular Fab
Five band, broadcaster Francois St. Juste, journalist Basil Walters, and
musician Sly Dunbar of the band Sly and Robbie fame. A limited number of
members of the public were also allowed to vote.
The Top 10 songs and the singers were:
1. "One Love" - Bob Marley & the Wailers
2. "Oh Carolina" - The Folkes Brothers
3. "54-45" - The Maytals
4. "Got to Go Back Home" - Bob Andy
5. "My Boy Lollipop" - Millie Small
6. "Many Rivers To Cross" - Jimmy Cliff
7. "Israelites" - Desmond Dekker and the Aces
8. "Cherry Oh Baby" - Eric Donaldson
9. "Simmer Down" - Bob Marley & the Wailers
10. "Carry Go Bring Come" - Justin Hinds & the Dominos
Bea Arthur, 86: Actress Was A One-Woman Maude Squad
Source: www.thestar.com - Lynn Elber, Associated Press
(April 26, 2009) LOS ANGELES – Beatrice Arthur, the tall, deep-voiced actress whose
razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star in Maude and The
Golden Girls and who won a Tony Award for the musical Mame, died
yesterday. She was 86.
Arthur died peacefully at her Los Angeles home with her family at her side,
family spokesperson Dan Watt said. She had cancer, he said.
"She was a brilliant and witty woman," said Watt.
Arthur first appeared in the landmark comedy series All in the Family as
Edith Bunker's outspoken, liberal cousin, Maude Finley. She proved a perfect
foil for blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker, and their blistering exchanges were
so entertaining that producer Norman Lear fashioned Arthur's own series.
In a 2008 interview, Arthur said she was lucky to be discovered by TV after a
long stage career: "I was already 50 years old."
Maude scored with television viewers immediately on its CBS debut in
1972, and Arthur won an Emmy Award for the role in 1977.
The comedy flowed from Maude's efforts to cast off the traditional restraints
faced by women, but the series often had a serious base. At one point Maude
underwent an abortion, which drew viewer protests. She became a standard bearer
for the growing feminist movement.
Golden Girls (1985-1992) was another groundbreaking comedy, finding
surprising success in a television market increasingly skewed toward a younger
audience.
The series had three retirees – Arthur, Betty White and Rue McClanahan – and
the mother of Arthur's character, Estelle Getty, all sharing a Miami bungalow.
In contrast to the violent Miami Vice, the comedy was nicknamed Miami
Nice.
As Dorothy Zbornak, Arthur seemed as caustic and domineering as Maude, but she
was unconcerned the two roles were similar.
"Look. I'm 5-feet-9, I have a deep voice and I have a way with a
line," she told an interviewer. "What can I do about it? I can't stay
home waiting for something different."
Arthur is survived by her two sons and two granddaughters.
Canadian Who Has Lived A Life Of Firsts Makes History Again
Source: www.globeandmail.com
- Mary Ann Colihan
(April 29, 2009) She attended a two-room
public school for black children in North Buxton, Ont., and was the first black
woman elected queen of the Beaux Arts Ball at the Ontario College of Art in the
1940s.
She has painted portraits of movie stars, captains of industry, presidents and
first ladies, including Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton and Jacqueline and John
F. Kennedy. She has made sculptures of Rosa Parks and Stevie Wonder.
Yesterday, at the age of 81, Canadian-born sculptor Artis Lane was part of history once again as Michelle Obama unveiled her sculpture
of former slave and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth, the first memorial
to a black woman in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
The ceremony took place in Emancipation Hall at the newly opened U.S. Capitol
Visitor Center. Ms. Truth was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree in New
York state in 1797, and escaped a harrowing early life to become an
abolitionist, preacher, utopian idealist and fighter for the suffragette cause.
"I hope that Sojourner Truth would be proud to see me, a descendant of
slaves, serving as the first lady of the United States of America," Mrs.
Obama said to loud applause at the ceremony.
Actor Cicely Tyson, a friend of Ms. Lane's, was also on hand to recite Ms.
Truth's legendary "Ain't I A Woman?" speech delivered at a women's
rights convention in Ohio in 1851.
Ms. Lane has another unveiling on the books this week - one more modest, but no
smaller in significance to her. The artist, who now lives in Los Angeles, will
make the trip home to Chatham, Ont., on Saturday to unveil a bronze of Mary Ann
Shadd Cary, her great-great-great aunt whose family immigrated to Canada in the
1850s and dedicated their lives to freeing slaves.
"Mary Ann Shadd Cary is my heroine, is my voice of protest that I pour
into my visual images," Ms. Lane said in an interview.
Ms. Shadd Cary was a well-educated abolitionist, a teacher and the first black
woman to publish a newspaper in North America; The Provincial Freeman was
published in Ontario in the 1850s, and Ms. Shadd Cary used it to promote Canada
as a haven for hard-working blacks. Ms. Truth and Ms. Shadd Cary were powerful
advocates for social justice. They both revered U.S. President Abraham Lincoln
and recruited black soldiers to serve in his army during the Civil War.
Artis Shreve was born on May 14, 1927, in North Buxton, a black village in
Southwestern Ontario. Her family eventually settled in nearby Chatham, a
community once called the Coloured Man's Paris, for its rich black history.
In 1942, at the age of 15, Ms. Lane won the Dominion of Canada award for
portraiture. She says Alice McCoig, her art teacher at the time at the Chatham
Collegiate Institute, helped her to win a scholarship to the Ontario College of
Art in Toronto. Segregation was a part of her everyday life.
"When I would go to Miss McCoig's home to do extra artwork I had to walk a
block behind her so that nobody would know," Ms. Lane said.
The move to Toronto brought more firsts, both good and bad. She was the first
black student to be chosen as the queen of the Beaux Arts Ball at the college
and "one of the rewards was that the top student who graduated did the
portrait of the queen," Ms. Lane said. "But he refused to paint me -
and he was a wonderful artist."
In her third year of art school, Ms. Lane met and married her first husband,
Bill Lane, a black journalist and civil rights activist living in Detroit. She
left the college, to the dismay of Miss McCoig, moved to the United States and
continued her education at the Cranbrook Institute in Michigan. It was there
that she started to gain notoriety, with early clients including members of the
Ford and Chrysler families.
Those portraits "helped augment my being able to study," Ms. Lane
said.
When her marriage fell apart in the mid-1950s she moved to California with
their daughter to do a commission, and never came back. She met her second
husband, TV and film actor Vince Cannon, and their celebrity circle of friends
gave her plenty of subjects to paint.
In the 1980s her work began to evolve, as she focused on the theme of social
justice.
"The two purposes in my work are social injustice and metaphysics together
- celebrating the human figure and freeing the human spirit," Ms. Lane
said.
Some of her seminal works from what she calls her "black heroines"
period include sculptures of civil rights activists Mary McLeod Bethune and Dr.
Dorothy Height that are installed in the National Council of Negro Women
Building in Washington, D.C.
Her long-time friendship with civil rights activist Rosa Parks also inspired
many of her important works, including a life-size bronze for the Rosa Parks
Museum in Montgomery, Ala., the Congressional Medal of Honor Ms. Parks received
from former president Bill Clinton (which Ms. Lane designed) and a portrait of
Ms. Parks that appears in the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery.
Even though she's had more than brushes with some of history's great
personalities, Ms. Lane says she was deeply touched to be asked to sculpt a
piece for a Chatham, Ont., park. Freedom Park, where Ms. Shadd Cary's bust will
reside, is across from Ms. Lane's childhood home and has been revitalized - a
project spearheaded by Ms. Lane's cousin and historian Gwen Robinson and
Chatham Councillor Marjorie Crew.
Ms. Lane says Ms. Shadd Cary was a self-effacing woman - so it may have
surprised her to be immortalized in bronze. "But for her this would bring
a kind of closure and signify redemption for the awful sin of slavery."
She acknowledges, however, that two trips of this kind in one week is a
challenge. "The only thing that gives me courage to come to Canada is that
I will be with my family."
Special to The Globe and Mail, With a report from Associated Press
Erica Scarff : Gymnast Surmounting Hurdle Of Losing Leg
Source: www.thestar.com
- Ashante Infantry, Staff Reporter
(April 29, 2009) Erica Scarff spent the Easter holidays like many 12-year-old girls – shopping and
seeing the new Hannah Montana film – but it was a bigger deal for her
than most.
It was the first time she'd been anywhere without her parents since last fall,
when she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. This rare form of bone cancer
resulted in the partial amputation of Erica's right leg in January. She's
recently been fitted with a prosthesis, but still needs a wheelchair or
crutches for mobility.
"I was very nervous," confesses her mother, Carmela, of the outings
supervised by big sister Kristin, 19.
But the Good Friday movie expedition (Kristin carried Erica to and from
upper-level seating because she didn't like the wheelchair stations), and the
spree at a mall the next day, were worth the worry.
"It's probably the best we've seen her in the seven months she's been
ill," explains Carmela.
The weekend also included visits by a coach and student from Futures Gymnastics
Centre, prompting Erica's promise to soon revisit the Mississauga facility that
houses some of her best and worst memories.
A competitive gymnast since age 7, Erica had collected an impressive number of
badges, medals and trophies from province-wide contests.
Last September, at a club practice, she was running to a vault when she heard a
pop and a snap, followed by a sharp pain in her right thigh.
"I stepped on my good leg and sat down," she recalls. "I never
cry and I was crying a little bit, so my coach knew something was wrong and
called my mom."
The emergency department X-ray confirmed a break just above her right knee in
the distal femur. Since there was no previous fall or collision, doctors
considered it an abnormal fracture, so Erica was referred to an orthopedic
pediatrician. After a week of tests, tests and more tests, she was sent to
SickKids hospital for the biopsy. The result upended the Mississauga family.
"My house is a mess," says Carmela about the comfortable two-storey
abode, which backs onto the Credit Valley River's nature trails.
Her crisis of vanity is misplaced. The home, which also houses Labrador Riley
and cockatoo Skittles, tells the tale of a catastrophic illness: the main-floor
family room turned into a bedroom, a physiotherapist's trappings are scattered
about the kitchen. Upstairs, 17-year-old Kevin's bedroom is being prepped for
painting, because he is trading his space for Erica's smaller one. Everywhere
are cards, notes and posters from well-wishers.
Just as weighty are the things you can't see: the financial strain borne by
Ron, an electrician, since Carmela, a nurse in neurosurgery, took a leave of
absence from work to help see their youngest through this trauma; Kevin's
unvoiced fears; Kristen's delayed year of college; Erica's broken heart at no
longer being a gymnast.
"Cancer affects the whole family," Carmela says. We are in Erica's ad
hoc bedroom. Weary from chemotherapy, the subdued girl listens keenly, quick to
correct her mother on the rare occasions she misstates any step of their
journey.
Because her primary tumour responded poorly to the three months of chemotherapy
prior to surgery, Erica has to continue the treatments until August.
When the C-word was first floated, Erica says two people came to mind: a
relative who survived prostate cancer and Terry Fox – she'd taken part in four
Terry Fox Run fundraisers with her school.
She turned out to have the same uncommon cancer as Fox.
"I was crying because I didn't want to lose my leg," Erica says.
"I didn't know if I'd be able to do stuff I always did, like
walking."
But the ever-thoughtful child still managed to assemble a care package for her
parents – a video message, sketches, tangerines – before the 10-hour operation
to amputate her leg at the knee.
She's learning to walk with the leg prosthesis she received this month and
hopes the mental and physical disciplines of gymnastics training will shorten
the expected two-year recuperation. Erica badly wants to be back in school in
September.
She's also looking forward to Erica's Wish, an Aug. 16 fundraising walk/run to
be staged in Mississauga on her 13th birthday. It's being planned by family
friends to raise awareness and research funds for osteosarcoma.
"It's going to be the biggest birthday party ever," says Carmela.
Visit events.runningroom.com for information about Erica's Wish.
::TRAVEL NEWS::
St.
Martin/St. Maarten - The Friendly Island
Source: www.bocca-fina.com
(January 2009) Circa 800AD Settled by Arawak Indians who arrived from South
America, given the name Soualiga, or Land of Salt, St.
Martin/St. Maarten is a
tropical island in the northeast Caribbean [18°04’N 63°03’W], approximately 300
km (186 miles) east of Puerto Rico. The 87 km² island is divided roughly in
half between France (53 km²) and the Netherlands Antilles (34 km²); it is the
smallest inhabited sea island divided between two nations. The southern Dutch
half comprises the Eilandgebied Sint Maarten (Island area of St. Martin) and is
part of the Netherlands Antilles. The northern French half comprises the
Collectivité de Saint-Martin (Collectivity of St. Martin) and is an overseas
collectivity of France.
On January 1, 2006 the population of the entire island was 72,892 inhabitants,
37,629 of whom lived on the Dutch side of the island, and 35,263 on the French
side of the island. Collectively, the two territories are known as
“St-Martin/St. Maarten” or Sometimes SXM, the IATA identifier for Princess
Juliana International Airport (the island’s main airport), is used to refer to
the island. The main towns and capitols respectively are Philipsburg (Dutch
side) and Marigot (French side).The highest hilltop or point is the Pic Paradis
(424 m (1,360 ft)) on the center of a hill chain located on the French side.
The Density is 836 people per km2. The average yearly air temperature is 27 °C
(min 17 °C, max 35 °C) and sea surface temperature 26.4 °C. The total average
yearly rainfall is 995 mm, with 99 days of thunder. In addition there is an
average of 1,000,000 plus tourist visitors per year.
Neighbouring islands include Saint-Barthélemy (French), Anguilla (British),
Saba (Dutch), Sint Eustatius “Statia” (Dutch), Saint Kitts and Nevis
(Independent, formerly British). With the exception of Nevis, all of these
islands are easily visible on a clear day from St. Maarten. Saint Martin uses
the euro as its currency, while Sint Maarten is currently outside the Eurozone
and uses the Netherlands Antillean guilder, pegged at 1.79 per United States
dollar. It is unknown if Sint Maarten will shift to the euro some time after the
Netherlands Antilles dissolves.
Short History Review
• 11 Nov 1493 Claimed for Spain by Columbus, named Isla
de
San Martin, upon his arrival.
• 1624 Some French cultivate tobacco on French Quarter.
• 1631 Dutch small colony on Groot baai to collect salt.
• 1633 - 1647 Spanish army from Puerto Rico builds the first
military fort, but after a few years they destroy it and abandon
the island forever.
• 23 Mar 1648 Divided into French (north) and Dutch (south) zones [Treaty of
Concordia.] Dutch zone subordinate to Sint Eustatius until 1672.
• 1679 - 1689 French occupy entire island.
• 1689 - 1792 Dutch zone under Dutch West India Company administration.
• 1690 - 1699 English occupy entire island.
• 1699 - 1702 French occupy entire island.
• 1703 - 1717 Dutch occupy entire island
• 24 Feb 1779 - 3 Feb 1781 French occupy entire island.
• 3 Feb 1781 - 26 Nov 1781 British occupy entire island.
• 18 May 1793 - 5 Apr 1794 Dutch administer entire Island
• 29 Apr 1795 - 24 Mar 1801 French occupy entire island.
• 24 Mar 1801 - 1 Dec 1802 British occupy entire island.
• 09 Jul 1810 Annexed along with Holland by France (not affected).
• 1810 - 1816 British occupy entire island.
• 1816 French and Dutch zones resumed.
• 1919 - 1 Apr 1983 Saba, Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten united as Netherlands
Windward Islands.
• 1936 Dutch side officially adopted the Dutch spelling Sint Maarten.
• 04 September 1960 Hurricane Donna badly hit the island causing numerous
extensive damages.
• 05 September 1995 Hurricane Luis devastated the island at 80% causing very
extensive damages similar to Donna.
• 23 Jun 2000 Referendum supports a “status aparte” as a separate entity within
The Netherlands by 68.9%.
• 07 December 2003 The population of the French part of the island votes in
favour of secession from Guadeloupe in order to form a separate overseas
collectivity (COM) of France
• 2 Nov 2006 Sint Maarten and Curaçao sign agreement with The Netherlands on
“status aparte”
• 22 Feb 2007 French side becomes a separate an overseas collectivity (COM)
• 15 Dec 2008 Date set for dissolution of Netherlands Antilles. This date has
been postponed, although it is still planned.
Derek McKeith
: Meet Newest Baddest Funkiest Black
Rocker
Source: www.eurweb.com - By Kam Williams
(April 24, 2009) *About 10 years ago (my how time flies) Darrell McNeil
& I were having one of our marathon telephone conversations about the
state of Black music and the conversation turned to the topic of
"what is the definition of Black Rock."
Darrell insisted that "Black Rock" as far as the Black Rock Coalition
was concerned, wasn't what most people's perception was. He insisted to me that
while most people considered the band Living Colour to be the total
manifestation of the term "Black Rock", nothing could be further from
the truth.
Darrell said "Black Rock quite simply is the sh*t that we create. We use
the term "rock" because we refuse to let that be stolen from us. It's
our sh*t and we will define it however we want to."
To me that definition sounds a whole lot like "Great Black Music From The
Ancient To The Future," so that definition works quite well for me also.
So when Derek
McKeith first came to me about a year ago, describing himself as
a "Black Rocker," I wondered just what he meant by that? I listened
to his album and of course he's got all of the superficial characteristics
(based on what we think we know about Living Colour) of what a "Black
Rocker" should look like and sound like. He's a good looking &
articulate young man, who dresses like a cross between a 90's "grunge
artist" and a "60's hippie." And the original songs on his
excellent album called "The Signature" are largely stank nasty guitar
driven riffs with songs about interpersonal relationships and life in general.
All of that was cool, but I wondered if he really understood what the term
"Black Rock" meant? Well recently I had the good fortune to host a
live performance at Sweet Rhythm's in NYC and I found out that Derek McKeith
REALLY does understand what the term "Black Rock" means.
Derek did two sets, sandwiched between R&B star Alyson Williams and a
Russian folk/pop singer.
His music flowed nicely from covers of Jimi Hendrix ("Who Knows"),
Taste of Honey ("Boogie Oogie Oogie"), Rolling Stones
("Satisfaction"), Stevie Wonder covers (in a duet with Alyson
Williams) and of course some hardcore South Side Chicago Blues. In between were
a whole bunch of original songs that were from his previous albums that would
remind you of Led Zeppelin/Van Halen types of songs.
However Led Zeppelin/Van Halen aren't going to give you these songs with things
like James Brown splits or "30 seconds of human beat box" or 10 seconds
of a doo wop falsetto, or Joe Tex style microphone tricks or Jackie Wilson
begging or a Bobby Womack growl. He is truly a multi talented individual who
has obviously studied his culture well and more importantly absorbed it to the
fullest.
In other words, if Derek McKeith had wanted to he could have ...
-- Put on a Tuxedo and sang an hour of Jerry Butler Songs
-- Put on some high heeled shoes & a Purple Edwardian suit and
done an hour of Prince songs
-- Put on a suit and placed 3 Black men behind him and done an
hour of Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes songs
-- Put on a spacesuit and done an hour of P-Funk songs
-- Sit in a chair and done an hour of John Lee Hooker songs
-- Put a DJ behind him and he could do an hour of RUN-DMC songs
(he is just that talented)
Instead he dresses like a "grunge rocker," played his blistering
guitar and mixed in his own originals with legendary Blues, Rock, R&B/Funk
songs. And he did them all in the best traditions borrowed from the past 50
years of Black entertainment, overlaid with some Led Zeppelin/Van Halen style
guitar flash. When he was playing the cover of "Who Knows," it was so
off the chain I had to call Kevin Amos on my cellphone so he could hear it too.
I wanted to make sure I wasn't imagining just how good it sounded.
What Derek McKeith gave us that night was quite simply a Black music
history lesson, disguised as a rock n' roll show. As I walked from the club in
the chilly late night NYC air at 11pm to my awaiting chariot (the Christopher
Street PATH station) I thought about Darrell McNeil's definition for Black rock
and how Derek fits it to a tee.
Whenever the "white kids" find out about Derek McKeith he is gonna
become a mega-star. He is 'all that & a bag of chips'
(Take that to the bank!)
Tonex
Speaks Of 'Unspoken'
Source: www.eurweb.com -
(April
27, 2009) *Recording artist Tonex (pronounced tone-nay)
remains a genre mystery, wrapped in a puzzle, inside an enigma. The singer
released “Unspoken,” his Battery Records debut disc just last month and is
still uncategorized and undeniably eclectic.
The album is laced with inspirational R&B-pop-alt rhythm tracks underneath
motivation message driven lyrics. Describable in a mass of verbiage, but
indefinable in traditional gospel sorting, is just what makes Tonex one of
today’s most important artists.
The new disc comes on Sony’s newly formed RCA/Jive label group imprint Battery
after much label shuffling and record company controversy for Tonex.
His fame grew in 2004 (he’d been
recording since 1994) when his double CD “Out The Box” debuted at #1, snagged
six Stellar Awards, and garnered the most critical acclaim, but that same year,
the industry took its toll on the artist. He was sued by his then label, Verity
Records – the gospel arm of Zomba Records, for one million dollars for breach
of contract. That year, his father passed away and he divorced his wife.
Frustrated, TON3X decided to retire from the gospel music industry. An attempt
to reconcile with his label came in 2007, but the relationship was never fully
repaired, and he split from the label just three months later.
Since then, the artist has gone through
some souls searching and variations in spelling his name – though always
pronounced the same.
“Tonex is a derivative of Anthony.
Everybody called me ‘Tony’ in school, but I spelled it with an ‘e’. Then
[R&B group] Tony Toni Tone came out, so I knew that wasn’t going to work whenever
I decided to come out as an artist, so I added the ‘ex’. So the ‘x’ is silent;
part of a French swing to it. I think there is a little ‘ex’ something in all
of us,” he said. “There is something that we all overcame, but we don’t always
pronounce, but we know it’s there.”
Clarifying his name, Tonex told EUR’s
Lee Bailey the name he’s gave his music has a name, too – and it’s just as
profound an explanation. His music has been described as an amalgamation of all
types of genres including pop, R&B, jazz, soul, funk, hip hop, rock, and
electronica, but he’s most often described as a gospel artist. He calls his
style gospop.
“It’s good news, good messages, made
popular. I believe that gospel is more than a genre,” he explained. “It’s good
news. The world needs good news and why shouldn’t good news be popular?”
“I say gospop because of the foundation of what I do. Even though Ray Charles
was a soul/blues/R&B artists, no one can deny that the roots of what he did
was gospel. Same thing for Donny Hathaway to Aretha Franklin,” he continued.
“Usually you only get that feeling when it’s attached to a traditional gospel
sound. This is where you get this real, good gospel that’s anointed, from this
although it’s not a traditional gospel sound. I don’t hear it that often in
contemporary gospel and of course you don’t usually hear it in pop either. I’m
just bringing that element and presenting that feeling to a mass audience.
There’s a feeling you get when you listen to Tonex that makes you feel
different from anything else you hear.”
The lead single on the disc is called
“Blend” (an appropriate title for Tonex’s music and outlook on life).
“In this time of change and trying to
find truth, I thought this was the best time to let people know that
individuality and diversity can actually be celebrated. It doesn’t always have
to be considered a negative thing to be an anomaly. That’s what makes the world
spicy and wonderful,” he said of the track. “Everything is not black and white.
There are always shades of grey. God made it that way or else we’d all be
clones.”
“Of course we all have common
denominators between us all, but it’s those individual things that make the
world interesting. So when we try to make compromises o f who we are to fit in
with mediocrity. And those that are mediocre resent when we know someone is
original, trying to dilute their truth. The song is to encourage those who are
a little ‘left-field’. You’re unique in God’s eyes. Celebrate that.”
For more on the uniqueness of Tonex, go
to the Battery Records website at www.batteryrecords.net
and/or HEAR samples from "Unspoken" HERE.
John Legend To Go Green On Next Tour
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April
27, 2009) *John
Legend will keep things as green as possible while touring over 50
cities this summer in support of his latest album, "Evolver."
The R&B crooner is teaming up with
non-profit environmental organization REVERB to ensure that the trek is
eco-conscious, reports Billboard. Their efforts will include coordination with
venues and local caterers to facilitate the use of green products and
practices, along with neutralizing CO2 emissions from venue energy use, hotels,
flights and touring vehicles.
The tour's "carbon footprint" was calculated by REVERB and
neutralized by financially supporting the construction of new renewable energy
projects such as wind farms. Eco-friendly merchandise will be available for
fans and a John Legend on-line ride-sharing service will encourage and assist
carpooling to shows.
The tour begins June 27 in Muskegon,
Mi., and wraps up in Berkeley, Calif., on Labor Day. India.arie is scheduled to
open select shows.
Backed by 11-piece band, Legend will make stops at the Essence Festival in New
Orleans, the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, Chastain Park Amphitheatre in
Atlanta, Mann Music Center in Philadelphia and Merriweather Post Pavilion in
Columbia, MD.
Last month, Legend topped Billboard's Green 10 list for his increased efforts
on behalf of various environmental causes. In January, he performed at
the Green Inaugural Ball, a celebration of the Obama administration's pledge to
build a sustainable energy economy that was executive-produced by Live Earth
founder Kevin Wall.
His two-year-old Show Me Campaign is dedicated to improving life for the
residents of poverty-stricken Mbola, Tanzania, with clean water and
higher-yielding agriculture. Last year Legend teamed with professor Jeffrey
Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute for a speaking tour to promote
sustainable development in Mbola and other impoverished areas.
Legend's tour dates are listed below:
June 2009
27 - Muskegon, MI - Heritage Landing
July 2009
3 - New Orleans, LA - Louisiana Superdome
5 - Atlanta, GA - Chastain Park Amphitheatre
11 - North Charleston, SC - North Charleston Performing Arts Center
14 - Portsmouth, VA - Ntelos Wireless Pavilion
17 - Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavilion
18 - Albany, NY - Palace Theatre
20 - Toledo, OH - Toledo Zoo Amphitheatre
24 - Elizabeth, IN - Horseshoe Southern Indiana
25 - Windsor, Ontario - Caesars Windsor The Colosseum
31 - Cincinnati, OH - Paul Brown Stadium
August 2009
3 - West Homestead, PA - Riverplex Amphitheatre at Sandcastle
5 - Philadelphia, PA - Mann Center for the Performing Arts
7 - Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion
28 - Woodinville, WA - Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery
29 - Goldendale, WA - Maryhill Winery Amphitheater
September 2009
1 - Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theatre
De La
Soul Returns And Brings Nike Along
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April
28, 2009) *De
La Soul's first new music in five years is a series of tracks that
run together in one 45 minute-long piece that was crafted specifically for
runners as part of the Nike+ campaign.
Titled "Are You In? Nike + Original Run," the album is being released
today via Apple's iTunes music store for $9.99. ( Download it here: www.itunes.com/nikedelasoul.)
It's described by Nike as a "continuous full-length body of music that
reflects the arc a runner experiences during a run."
"We'd worked with Nike before, designing kicks and playing some of their
marathons," Kelvin Mercer, aka Posdnuos, tells Billboard. "We were
excited when they approached us because we're the first actual band to do one
of these tracks."
Commissioned by Nike, this is the fifth release in the Nike+ Original Run
series following releases by artists such as A-Trak, Aesop Rock, LCD
Soundsystem and Crystal Method.
"The set we did is an actual album, with eight or nine songs, not one long
DJ set," says Mercer. "We recorded the songs and took them to Nike
for feedback, and then brought in Flostradamous to mix it all
together."
Mercer says his participation on the tracks encouraged him to focus on his own
fitness. "I've dabbled in running before, but I got back in to it and
would run to test it out," he says. "Nike also has a team of runners
on staff who listen to it and give us their opinion."
De La Soul are also celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their debut,
"3 Feet High and Rising," and are planning tours of Australia,
Europe, and the UK. Mercer says the band is also in the process of working on
another full length release.
Source: www.thestar.com - Robert Everett-Green
(April 28, 2009) His new album is called Yes!, but K-os could just as easily have called it Home!, because that's where the rapper and singer has been headed for at least a year: Home to hip hop, and home to Vancouver, a city he had never lived in but that suddenly last summer revealed a claim on him that he couldn't refuse.
The return to hip hop is clear from the first moments of Yes!, in which K-os (Kheaven Brereton) comes back to the rhymes, rhythms and production techniques he put aside for his pop-oriented 2006 album Atlantis: Hymns for Disco. If only because of what it was not, Atlantis seemed to crystallize K-os's complaints against hip hop, and made him everybody's favourite source when the genre's flaws and future came up for discussion.
“I became this poster-person, the representative from my culture who's rebelling against my culture,” he said, during a conversation in Toronto. “I got sick of this question, ‘What do you think of the state of hip hop?'… When you become famous on your block or in your country for speaking out against hip hop, you have to realize that at some point you loved it. Rapping is the folk music and the punk-rock music of my people. If I don't have 808s [a drum machine], if I'm not bouncing, I'm not really being myself. I had to find a way to make hip hop music that I loved. I think I had to do Atlantis so that I could love hip hop again.”
It sounds straightforward, but it was a hard thing to come around to, because K-os is a bit of a fighter, who has sometimes put obstacles in his own way. He got a version of that diagnosis from his new manager, Nettwerk's Terry McBride, who let the news trickle in gently.
“I think he never said this, but this is sort of Terry's thesis: If you're an artist, why is there so much ego surrounding your thing?” K-os said. “If you're confident about what you do, if you're so different and original, why do I sense so much struggle?”
It turns out that struggle, in K-os's life, is partly a geographical thing. Some time last year, he realized that his recordings to date split fairly evenly between those made in Toronto and those made in Vancouver (with a bunch more from Atlantis made in Halifax), and that for him Vancouver was the place where he could most readily take the gentle path.
“I'd been dating Vancouver for 10 years, and when I went there to record last summer, I felt like I was home,” he said. “By January 1st, I had a place there.”
The kind of recording he did that summer was relatively unplanned and free-flowing. He got together a bunch of players he had worked with in the past, and they jammed for two days. Those improvised sessions were the basis for Yes!, which needed very little additional recording, he said. It was a way of working that he would find almost inconceivable in Toronto.
“It's very interesting what happens when you do something experimental in Vancouver, and then you come back and listen to it on your computer at your place at Richmond and Portland [in Toronto],” he said. “You start asking questions you don't ask in Vancouver, like: ‘What are you really trying to say? Get to the point. That's cool that you're jamming, but is there a song structure here? Is it radio-friendly?' You start unabashedly asking those questions.
“In Vancouver, it's easy, it's live music, it's the water, it's the mountains, and you can hear that vibe in the music. … In Toronto, when I come here, it's like: CMW, buzz bands, who's hot? The trends are coming in very quickly, and that affects your ability to trail off and improvise. So that's how Toronto affected those songs from Vancouver. It's very good for checks and balances.”
Being in those cities, in short, is for him a way of visiting or liberating different sides of his personality. It's also about plugging into different kinds of music scenes, because the players in those towns, he finds, display very different attitudes about collaboration and getting ahead.
“Musicians in Vancouver are like gazelles, you have to coax them out of the forest,” he said. “They're very wary of corporate stuff. Whereas people move to Toronto just to get a gig.” He has called musicians in Vancouver for a recording session, and been told that, no, that day won't work because the kids are around. Maybe next record.
You can hear K-os trying to embrace his Vancouver side in songs like Astronaut, in which he sees himself coming down from another galaxy to make hip hop new again; or in Burning Bridges, in which he recalls worrying about what other people thought, as if that were definitely a past phase. You can hear his Toronto mind breaking in on tracks such as Zambony, in which he defines his post- Atlantis stance: “I am not indie rock, I'm West-Indie hip hop.”
But though the compass needle has swung around, Yes! still includes ample traces of rock and pop, and even echoes of classical music – partly an after-effect of a 2005 collaboration between K-os and the CBC Radio Orchestra.
The connection with his new manager has also started to redefine K-os's relationship with his public. An open remix contest made songs from Yes! available in advance to fans to mess with however they pleased; the best of the results are coming out on a full album of Yes! remixes. Admission to K-os's first batch of cross-Canada tour dates, which begin tomorrow in Vancouver, is on a “pay-what-you-want” basis. After a transient period when K-os was between labels and between managers, he sees McBride (who he describes as “very Zen”) as a wise counsellor who arrived in the nick of time.
“Terry McBride and David Suzuki are like Obi-Wan Kenobi figures in my life, where the dark side is looming, and you can't find your way, and here are two guys who have seen so much,” said K-os, who got to know Suzuki through his daughter. He wishes he had met McBride five years ago, though he also thinks that things are working out more smoothly than if he had planned everything from the start. His years of struggle, of the inner-directed kind at least, seem to be over.
“I'm happier now,” he said, “because hip hop is in my life.” As he more or less says in The Avenue, the closing song on Yes!, hip hop is the girlfriend who waited for him to stop fooling around, and to start showing the unconditional love she deserves.
K-os's pay-what-you-want Karma tour begins at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver April 30.
Adele : Brit Singer's Got A Potty Mouth
Source: www.thestar.com - Ashante Infantry, Pop & Jazz Critic
(April 26, 2009) A fortuitous Saturday
Night Live appearance on the same bill as Republican vice-presidential
candidate Sarah Palin last fall, followed by two Grammy wins cinched Adele's U.S. crossover.
Not that she didn't deserve it on talent alone. The British singer/songwriter's
debut album 19, written when she was 18, is a bluesy collection of
stirring pop which includes hit single "Chasing Pavements."
"Everything has gone mad," said the performer by phone from England
ahead of this Wednesday's Massey Hall show.
"I'm doing a lot more shows now – which I love – 'cause since Saturday
Night Live my audience has got a lot bigger. It's tiring, but it's so much
fun getting to travel across the States and Europe and stuff. I don't really
have much time for myself anymore, but I get to have a friend with me now which
is good."
Adele dismissed the suggestion that all that touring should make her more
precious with her gritty pipes.
"There's no point in me trying to look after my voice, I smoke 30
cigarettes a day," she said. "I'm just going to kill my voice
anyway."This will mark Adele's third Toronto appearance. She's traded her
five-piece English band for American musicians. And the male photographer pal
accompanying is not a boyfriend, she maintained.
It's worth asking how things are going on the relationship front, since 19
was a break-up album and she said she already has five new tunes ready to go.
"I still have exactly the same problems with boys I've always had,"
she said. "It's more complicated now if anything. My (next) album is still
going to be about love and stuff like that and the new songs are much like that
already.
"I'm a lot more independent now than I was on the first record; I'm not as
pathetic. I've had a lot more experiences than I had when I was 18 and I think
that comes through in the new songs."
When she concludes her North American swing at the end of June – with a
Hollywood Bowl show co-headlining Etta James, her "favourite singer by
far" – Adele plans to enjoy her new London flat and catch-up with loved
ones. She'll pen new songs as her muse permits, but is in no hurry to deliver
the new disc to maintain buzz.
"I will always, in my career, be very stubborn with this, because you're
only as good as your next album. If you rush an album and it's shit, then
you're going to lose the little momentum anyway that you had going on. I'm not
having anyone put pressure on me, to be like `You got this little niche now,
don't lose it.'
"Yeah, people, they all forget about you, but if you come back with a hot
single on the second album and blow everyone away, then everyone's going to
remember you. I'm not going to try and fool my fans like `I got a new record
already in like three months' and they listen to it and it's f---ing
s--t."
Inspiration often comes in the wee hours.
"I usually get an idea when I get up in the middle of the night to go the
toilet. A phrase, or one lyric, or melody, or backing vocal comes into my head,
then I get the guitar and start writing it; or sometimes I just jam on a guitar
and come up with really nice chord sequence."
The loo is also where Adele keeps the awards she's racked up in the last year.
(She's still waiting for her Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal
Performance Grammys which are being engraved).
"It's a tradition in England to put your awards and memorabilia and plaques
in your toilet. I have a nice little cabinet that has all my awards (including
American Music Award and Brit Award) I'm not just sitting them on the
floor."
She professed a good rapport with the other wavemaking British songstresses –
Leona Lewis, Duffy, Estelle, Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen – despite reports
otherwise.
"I've met all the girls and they're all quite lovely. It's a shame when
some media try and make up stories that we're having a fight. I met Duffy for
the first time in November and months before we met the press in England was
saying that we had a huge fight in the toilet somewhere and I hadn't even met
her."
Along with bad, comes lots of good though, including being photographed by
Annie Leibovitz for the current issue of Vogue.
"I love them, especially because it was not a traumatic experience for me
like most photo shoots are," she said of the pictures which came out of a
"low-fuss, 30-minute" sitting.
"There were a few people on blogs saying how Vogue had photoshopped
it loads, but my thighs are very real in that photograph. I've lost a bit of
weight, because I've been so busy running around."
************
Adele's just one of a wave of female singers from
Britain. An update on the others:
Lily Allen: The diminutive pop singer/songwriter, promoting her new album It's
Not Me, It's You, played a well-received sold-out show in Toronto last week.
Before she left town, according to her own Twitter feed, "Had a massive
ice cream fight dressing room based, cost me $2000. End of tour, time to get
mashed."
Duffy: Alternately referred to as the new Winehouse and the new Dusty
Springfield on her way up, the blond soul singer won both Grammy and BRIT
awards for her album Rockferry (containing the smash, single "Mercy")
has received another, perhaps more significant honour. This month she earned a
place on the annual Times of London Rich List, with an estimated worth of four
million pounds ($7 million).
Estelle: The 29-year-old who cracked the charts on both sides of the pond with
"American Boy" (also a Grammy winner) is gathering songs for her new
album and recently won a "Fearless Fashionista" award from US
Magazine. Her reaction? "I feel famous. No, it's kind of cool."
Leona Lewis: The singer who won Britain's X Factor talent show and went on top
the charts with "Bleeding Love" keeps a low profile, but her family
can't say the same. Two cousins of singer Leona Lewis have been arrested after
they allegedly raided a London drug den.
Amy Winehouse: No news. Just kidding! The same wealth-list cited above chart
that Duffy entered suggests Winehouse has lost half her fortune in the last
year to a mere $8 million or so; the tracks she collaborated on last year with
Snoop Dogg (that is not a joke) are reportedly stuck in legal limbo.
Garnet Fraser
Brian
O’Neal Introduces 'Daisy'
Source: www.eurweb.com -
(April 29, 2009) *Meet Motor city native and star on the rise, Brian O'Neal. He's celebrating the release of his current CD “Daisy,”
which has tracked nearly one million spins on MySpace.
Brian started at an early age but it took a while to hone his skills.
From a high school music teacher to a paternal mentor in a rock band, Brian’s
guardians led him properly. The man nicknamed "Bean" had a void that
only music could fill.
"Any kind of band that was in school, I was in it; though at that time I
was not a decent player. My buddy Kem and I grew up together and did a
lot of songwriting. That’s where I got most of my experience for writing
songs.”
When Kem landed his deal with Motown, Brian had the good fortune of joining his
musical comrade as keyboardist and assistant music director. Their
kinship continues and Kem is mutually supportive of Brian’s solo
ascension. His first CD “Mood Swings” is followed up by “Daisy” which
tantalizes listeners with superb musicianship on songs like Mezmorized,
Autobahn, For My Mother and Room To Breath.
Today Brian masters many instruments with superstar charm and a prolific
writing ability; a sure formula for success.
"I am extremely grateful but it has taken a lot of work. I’d also have to
give a lot of credit to the internet; it gives people the opportunity to reach
millions when in any other time there was no way to do that.”
Brian’s resume boasts performances with Will Downing, Morris Day and The Time,
India Arie, Fantasia, Angela Bofill, Stevie Wonder, George Duke, Chaka Kahn,
Najee, Kindred the Family Soul, and Jeff Lorber to name a few. The very
humble Brian O’Neal asserts that it is indeed possible for an independent
artist to make an impact.
“I would like to think that I’m making music effectively enough to reach the
ears that I’m trying to reach and that the music is changing people. I see my
music global because we all know that music is the universal language.
In just a couple of years, Brian has gained the kind of world wide
appeal that would make his alma mater Alcorn State University very proud of the
full music scholarship that they afforded him. The Brian O’Neal team is
definitely Grammy bound, led by Mr. O’Neal, Kelly and Kimberly who are also
known as BCO Media. Brian is tracking five hundred new fans a day and the list
is growing. Brian joins Kem as one of the headliners on the Tom Joyner
Fantastic Voyage next month!
For a list of other upcoming performances check out new jazz sensation Brian
O’Neal at www.MySpace.com/BrianOneal.
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 29, 2009) *Second season "American Idol" champ Ruben Studdard is back with a new album he hopes will "reconnect me to the 20-some odd million people that voted for me and...are my fans from 'American Idol.' "
"Love IS," a collection of romantic ballads due May 19 from Hickory Records, gets back to the style of music that fuelled his "Idol" victory in 2003, and inspired guest judge Gladys Knight to famously title him "the Velvet Teddy Bear."
Studdard tells Billboard.com that with his fourth album – produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis -- along with Stargate and country artist John Rich – "[I] just wanted to do the music the fans always ask me for. Ever since I won 'American Idol,' people have always been saying they love the way I sing ballads and would love to have me do an album of love songs. I've been in the music business awhile now. I've had an opportunity to see exactly what the fans want from me and expect, and I think this is exactly the kind of album they've been waiting on."
"Love IS" also finds Studdard switching labels, from J Records to Hickory Records, which is still distributed by SonyBMG but, Studdard says, is more attuned to that fan demand for ballads.
"I think J Records didn't do a good job with connecting me to my 'American Idol' fan base," says Studdard, whose last outing, 2006's "The Return," was a commercial disappointment that's sold less then 240,000 copies. "I wanted to make sure we had an opportunity to make the music they want to hear, and we got that."
Studdard recorded "Love IS" during the first five months of 2008, before he went on the road with the musical "Ain't Misbehavin'." The first single, "Together," which was produced by Stargate, was the last track recorded for the album, he says. Studdard co-wrote several of the tracks, including "A Song For Her" for his wife, Surata, who he married in January of 2008, and "Footprints in the Sand," which was inspired by the Barack Obama presidential campaign.
"Love IS" also features covers of Michael Jackson's "I Can't Help It," Al Green's "For the Good Times," the Beatles' "The Long and Winding Road," Extreme's "More Than Words" and Johnnie Taylor's "Just Because." "They're all favourites of mine," Studdard says of the choices.
Currently finishing his run with "Ain't Misbehavin'," Studdard plans a full-scale promotional tour to support "Love IS," including TV appearances, in-stores and radio station shows.
Toronto-Bound Native Of Zaire Is Taking Baroque Opera World By
Storm
Source: www.thestar.com - John Terauds, Classical Music Critic
(April 25, 2009) Joao Fernandes' life sends us two clear messages: Don't write off the tone-deaf kid;
and inspiration really can come from the most unexpected places.
At age 35, the tall, green-eyed native of Zaire is the toast of the Baroque
opera world. The bass has worked for the best period-performance conductors –
William Christie, René Jacobs, Christophe Rousset – and is quickly building a
repertoire of critically applauded recordings.
Fernandes intends to have a long career, eventually graduating into the meaty
modern opera bass roles written by composers such as Giuseppe Verdi and Modest
Mussorgsky.
For his Canadian debut, he is doing what he already does best: singing a
principal role in a masterpiece of early opera.
This evening, the curtain at the Elgin Theatre rises on Opera Atelier's
production of Claudio Monteverdi's 1642 drama, The Coronation of Poppea,
with Fernandes in the role of Seneca. He sings alongside a strong cast that
includes American male soprano Michael Maniaci (as Nero), and a period
orchestra led by David Fallis.
Facing a gilded theatre didn't even seem a remote possibility to a boy growing
up in a Portuguese home in Africa.
"I did have a predilection for theatricality," he admits, smiling,
"but, in a religious family, playing a martyr in church was as far as it
went."
He didn't touch any kind of music until well into his teens. "I could never
sing in tune, so people were always asking me to please stop," Fernandes
recalls, laughing.
Everything changed one day when he was 17, thanks to an archaeological interest
in the ancient worlds of the Middle East. "I would read every book I could
find on the topic," the singer explains.
One day, he came home with a VHS tape marked Nabucco. "I thought it
was about the life of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II," Fernandez says.
"Instead, there was all this singing."
He had never heard an opera before. He didn't even know what an opera was. But
when he heard Verdi's grand work, with a strong baritone hero at its centre,
"I knew, at that moment, that I needed to make that
sound," the singer declares.
Fernandes persuaded his father to send him to Lisbon to study economics. Once
there, he signed up for some music courses.
"The secretary at the school said I would need to take some history and
theory courses," he recalls. "I asked her what that was."
The woman left her desk and returned with some printed music – something else
Fernandes had never seen before. "I remember thinking that I was never
going to be able to learn this strange language of dots and lines."
But he worked hard, discovering a strong ear, a rock-solid voice – and a
near-photographic memory. His teachers quickly unearthed his true bass range.
"A basso cantante," explains the singer, with an upper range
larger and more flexible than many ordinary basses.
He applied to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, England, so
that he could study with Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel's teacher, Rudolf
Piernay. "My teacher (in Lisbon) said, `What if you don't get accepted?' I
said, "If I don't, I'm going to go plant potatoes in Portugal,'"
Fernandes recalls.
Even after seven years of steady work, Fernandes acknowledges that his voice is
still developing. "People say that, on average, a bass doesn't reach his
prime until about age 45," says the singer, who notices small, beneficial
changes to both the quality and technical ability of his vocal cords with every
new project.
It's all part of a job that hardly feels like work. "Even those nights
when I go home absolutely exhausted, I still feel happy," Fernandes
declares.
That's more than many people can say after a day of toil.
Just the facts
WHAT: The Coronation of Poppea
WHERE: Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge
WHEN: Tonight to May 2
TICKETS: $30-$135 @ 416-872-5555 or ticketmaster.ca
MUSIC TIDBITS
My One and Only Thrill: Melody Gardot
Source: www.thestar.com - Ashante Infantry
(Verve) 
(out
of 4)
(April 28, 2009) The Philadelphia singer/songwriter gets heavyweight help on
her sophomore album from Joni Mitchell ex Larry Klein, who has similarly worked
his producer magic with singers Madeleine Peyroux and current wife Luciana
Souza. His stunning collages of strings and acoustic flourishes spice up
Gardot's intimate lovestruck and lovelorn lyrics and smouldering, bluesy pipes.
More stylish and varied than her 2006 debut Worrisome Heart, which had
her pedestrian guitar in the forefront. Can't wait to hear this music live; she
plays the TD Canada Trust jazz fest June 29.
Top Track: A surprisingly sexy samba version of "Over the
Rainbow," the disc's only cover.
The Russians Are Yummy, With Music To Savour
Source: www.thestar.com
- John Terauds, Classical Music Critic
(April 29,
2009) A box of fine chocolate truffles is the best metaphor for last night's
premiere visit of the 6-year-old Russian Philharmonic Orchestra to Roy Thomson Hall. Under founding
music director Vladimir Spivakov (who has conducted in Toronto before), the
visitors served up some Greatest Hits of Russian Music in a way that honoured a
rich tradition while making the pieces sound as fresh as wet ink on a sheet of
paper. To extend the truffle metaphor, each work was shaped by the same
elegantly wielded baton, but given its own subtle flavour. This wasn't music to
knock your socks off. Rather, it was a show of fine craft meant to be savoured.
The showpiece was Sergei Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 1, played with
a mixture of quiet intimacy and boisterous panache by Russian piano star Denis
Matsuev. He and the orchestra allowed the composer's lyrical side to speak,
while also satisfying thrill-seekers with bursts of pyrotechnics. In a
mid-program encore, Matsuev threw aside the velvet gloves to all but demolish
the piano in a blazing transcription of Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre.
The program opened amidst the diaphanous, late-19th-century glow of Anatol
Liadov's The Enchanted Lake. Spivakov carried this lyrical spirit
through the Rachmaninov to Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky and Sergei Prokofiev
concert reworkings of their Romeo and Juliet ballet scores. The overall
effect was sweet, but never saccharine. The concert closed with the Prokofiev,
interpreted with a crisp clarity that highlighted every colourful orchestral
move in the cleverly written score. Although the music ended with Tybalt's
death, the concert was full of life itself.
Together Through Life: Bob Dylan
Source: www.thestar.com
- Greg Quill
(Columbia)
(out
of 4)
(April 28, 2009) If you're expecting some kind of metaphysical, late-life
rumination on the meaning of everything, you may be misled by this album's
title, and deeply disappointed. Compassionate Dylan fans, however, will understand that this blues-anchored,
Tex-Mex, R&B gumbo – the kind of love-and-heartache, pulp noir,
let's-get-drunk, go-to-hell-in-a-handbasket songs you might find in a Jim
Thompson novel set in a roadhouse – is very close to Dylan's heart, to his
musical origins and to his self-image as a latterday Americana-music carney.
"I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver and I'm reading James Joyce ... Some
people they tell me I got the blood of the land in my voice," he sings
with the self-deprecating wit that characterizes this set, driven mostly by
David Hidalgo's relentlessly rhythmic accordion. That's not meant to make too
much of this album , which comprises mostly groove-dominated co-writes
with Jerry Garcia's old collaborator Robert Hunter and suffers from a less than
lustrous mix. Dylan's production, under the pseudonym Jack Frost, sacrifices
some of guitarist Mike Campbell's best licks and Donny Herron on steel and
mandolin. But Together Through Life distinguishes itself as an
unaffected, hard-boiled, back-in-the-throat chuckle at people who take
themselves – and life – too seriously. Top Track: The bittersweet rocker
"It's All Good."
Usher
Officially Introduces New Artist
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 29, 2009) *Usher hosted industry folk in Los Angeles Monday to introduce
his new protégé Justin
Bieber, a 15-year-old who's currently getting radio airplay
with the Chris "Tricky" Stewart-produced single "One Time."
Ursh's sit-down lunch took place at The Sunset Tower Hotel and promoted the
Stratford, Ontario-born teen who was discovered on YouTube by manager Scooter
Braun, a former So So Def marketing executive, after Bieber began posting
homemade videos from his 2007 second-place contestant stint on a local singing
competition. A chance meeting with Usher
led to an audition and later to a recording contract offered last October by
Island Def Jam chairman Antonio "L.A." Reid, reports Billboard.com.
Bieber is currently in Atlanta recording "My World," his Island
Records debut due later this year. Songwriting/production collaborators
so far include The-Dream and Midi Mafia. A video for "One Time" was
shot on Monday. Staying at the lunch
event only long enough to introduce Bieber, Usher described the artist as a
"young phenomenon. He's definitely a priority for me and Island Def
Jam." A musician as well, the fresh-faced Bieber performed a short
acoustic set during which he played keyboards, guitar and the congas—adding
that he's been playing full drums since he was two years old. "I guess you
can say I've been blessed with talent," says Bieber.
::FILM NEWS::
Obsessed: Innocence Fatal To Action
Source: www.thestar.com - Greg Quill, Entertainment Columnist
Obsessed
(out of 4)
Starring Beyoncé Knowles, Idris Elba, Ali Larter and Christine Lahti. Directed
by Steve Shill. Written by David Loughrey. 105 minutes. At major theatres. 14A
(April 26, 2009) It's pitiful, I know, to complain about a job that entails
sitting in a comfortable theatre for a couple of hours assessing a movie's
artistic and/or entertainment value while workers in the real world are dealing
with all kinds of hardship, stress and crises on the first truly beautiful
afternoon of the year's promising summer.
And if the producers had done their work properly on Obsessed – the much-advertised Beyoncé Knowles star
vehicle about a happily married young mother whose upscale life is fractured by
a demented blond office temp with designs on her straight-arrow husband, which
represents itself as a racially spiked take on Fatal Attraction – I
would not now be wishing I could reclaim the two hours I wasted on this tepid,
sexless, thrill-free melodrama.
Accept my complaint as an attempt to save discerning movie audiences from
similar ennui.
For those who've never seen Fatal Attraction, the plot points in Obsessed
are flashed so far in advance that comparisons are unnecessary. For those who
admire Adrian Lyne's 1987 gripper, it's essentially the same story (without the
boiled bunny), but with a climactic cat-fight that's not nearly so cathartic.
The greatest of several astounding flaws in the design of the update, however,
is that British director Steve Shill – best known for his work on TV's sexed-up
The Tudors – and writer David Loughrey (Lakeview Terrace) have
removed all traces of moral ambiguity in their leading man, the tormented and
transparently innocent husband, Derek (Idris Elba, who did such great work as a
gangster with mainstream corporate ambitions in TV's The Wire). They
also stripped the drama of its potentially gripping – and obvious – racial
overtones.
Aside from his past record as a seducer of vulnerable female work colleagues
and an apparent acceptance of macho sexism among his male peers, Derek's worst
offence is not fessing up to them, or to his wife, Sharon (Knowles), when the
new temp at his Los Angeles office, Lisa (Ali Larter, from the TV series Heroes),
hits on him at the office Christmas party and in the parking lot a few days
later.
That oversight only encourages Lisa, who begins an aggressive stalking strategy
that gets only more rejection and sets up the inevitable violent conclusion,
but not before a laughably impressionable detective, played by a very confused
Christine Lahti, gets into the mix and implies – because the plot needs some
kind of jolt, any jolt – that Derek may not be as innocent as he appears to be.
Also missing from Obsessed are efforts to create any sexual heat between
Derek and Lisa, even between Derek and Sharon, or visceral terror. This donkey
plods along as if motivated by a stick across the rump, not by passion or
logic.
Obsessed offers its stars few opportunities other than to mouth lines
that often sound absurd, and little scope to display their chops. Elba, even
with the lion's share of screen time, is reduced to a cipher. Larter, as the
delusional seductress, gets no back-story to work with, and nothing in the
script that justifies her psychopathic behaviour.
Knowles, one of the producers, may have been hoping for a part with some grit
and emotional power, but she gets very little to do till she starts whacking on
the bad lady.
And when that happens, the relief is overwhelming. The end, we suspect, is
nigh.
Terence
Howard’s 'Fighting' Words
Source: www.eurweb.com -
(April 24, 2009) *Academy Award nominated actor Terence Howard is starring in the new film “Fighting,” with Channing Tatum (opening this weekend). Tatum
takes the lead as Shawn MacArthur, a young man attempting to make his way in
New York, who gets seduced by the idea of easy money in the world of organized
street fighting. Howard plays Harvey, Shawn’s troubled manager.
“Harvey is in a very dangerous,
dangerous place,” Howard said of the questionable character of his character.
Unfortunately there are so many of us walking around on the verge of becoming
Harvey. Every compromise you get one step closer to Harvey. Harvey is a
collection of a lifetime of compromises.”
Howard admitted that he certainly has been in situations in which he had to
compromise, though this particular character has made a career out of it.
“Every day each and every one of us is put in a circumstance where we’re asked
to compromise; whether it’s our values, whether it’s a principle, whether it’s
a truth – in order to fit in,” he said. “Harvey made the right choice 20 years
ago when he refused to lose a basketball game. And sometimes [we] get punished
when we do the right thing. He had made the wrong choice right before that
because he had agreed to lose that game and as a result had his dreams taken
away by his legs being broken and he never recovered from that.”
Howard described his journey to reporters, revealing a bit of misery in
becoming the role. Howard’s take on the role added complexity to the
characterized scam artist.
“It was like a mouse that every once in a while he’d be shadow boxing in front
of a candle. The closer he gets to the light, the bigger his own shadow and he
gets frightened. The further away, the smaller the shadow and he could beat up
on it,” Howard philosophized. “He was afraid of what would happen if he allowed
himself to stop being a nocturnal creature and come out into the light and
taste a bit of sunshine. But if you’ve been in the dark most of your life, by
choice, the sun burns your eyes.”
While fans of the actor will undoubtedly like his performance, Howard said that
he’s sure Harvey did not like himself. Howard admitted that he didn’t like the
character either, and continued that he didn’t have to like his character to
understand who he was.
“I loathed Harvey,” he said. “I hated that I had to go back to an abandoned
piece of me and allow that to grow; to allow Harvey to graduate to where I am.
You have to be careful with the characters that you choose. I didn’t know where
I wanted to take him to, but I knew Harvey; there was something a little more
fragile.”
Howard drew on his own down-and-out experiences to develop Harvey.
“When I was living in my garage, before I could get myself together after my
divorce, a really good friend, Michael Grant, came by one day; he was the
Heavyweight Champion and lost the championship to Lennox Lewis. This was about
two years before I did ‘Hustle & Flow,’ he opened up my door, and he looked
at me in my garage, sleep on my bed and he said, ‘You know, I don’t hang out
with people that ain’t doing nothing with themselves,’ and he turned around and
left. I looked up and I saw myself in this make-shift mirror and I said, ‘Wow.
I’ve lost.’”
That literal rude awakening got Howard back on his feet and back on his
ambition, but the actor recalled the event to find the place of emptiness that
he’s assigned the character. He also recalled days with his formerly
incarcerated uncle to shape the Harvey personality.
“My uncle ... is a combination of both Shawn and Harvey. There’s a monster in
him that enjoys the fight. He gave me a piece of Harvey,” the actor said. “I
don’t know where his (Harvey's) voice came from. I was worried about the voice
for a while, but I didn’t feel Harvey without that voice. It was like a full
possession. And it didn’t let me go.”
“Fighting” is now playing in theatres nationwide. For more on the film, go to
the official website at www.fightingmovie.net.
Will Expounds on Everything from X:Men to “Yes We Can
Source: Kam Williams
(April 27, 2009) William James Adams, aka Will.i.Am, was born on March 15, 1975 in the
City of Los Angeles where he attended the Fashion Institute of Design and
Merchandising. But by the time he got around to launching his own clothing line
(“i.am”) in 2005, the talented Renaissance man had already found fame as front
man for Black Eyed Peas, the multiple Grammy-winning hip-hop group with hits
like “Let’s Get It Started” and “My Humps.”
A versatile musician, Will not only plays various keyboards, the bass and
drums, but also sings and raps as well. Besides Black Eyed Peas, he’s produced
several successful solo projects, plus he has collaborated with a number of
other artists, including Sergio Mendes, Usher and Flo Rida.
Perhaps his most important cultural contribution came during the run-up to the
presidential election, when he released “Yes We Can,” [WATCH HERE], the Emmy-winning song
which ostensibly served as the Obama campaign’s unofficial theme song. Will
made his first foray into acting last fall when he provided the voice of Moto
Moto in the animated feature Madagascar : Escape 2 Africa. Here, he talks about
all of the above, and about X-Men Origins: Wolverine where he co-stars opposite
Hugh Jackman as John Wraith.
WiA: Hi Kam.
KW: Thanks for the time, Will. By the way, is this you or just a hologram of
you?
WiA: No, this is really Will.
KW: I remember when you were interviewed by Anderson Cooper as a hologram on
Election Night. [WATCH HERE]
WiA: Yeah, it’s wild being a hologram back then and now being teleported in
X-Men Origins.
KW: I believe that your song “Yes We Can,” played a pivotal role in getting
young voters excited about Barack Obama and that it helped him become President
of the United States . How do you feel about his first 100 days in office?
WiA: So far, he’s done great! People are enthusiastic about America like they
haven’t been in a very long time. He’s passed the Stimulus Bill… the Stem Cell
Research Bill… he’s closed Guantanamo Bay . Base on that, this dude has
overachieved already. It’s really too early to be judging him, but I’m super
thrilled that he won, and I think he’s doing a phenomenal job so far. The
people judging him now are the doubters who think there’s a possibility that
he’s going to fail. We can’t afford that. It’s all psychological. If he fails,
that means we’ve failed, too, to since he’s in the White House because of us.
If we’re going to judge him now, then we have to judge ourselves also, and ask,
what have we done since his inauguration?
KW: Attorney Bernadette Beekman asks what inspired you to write “Yes We Can?”
WiA: My passion. I was inspired by his speech, and by all the invisible freedom
fighters from the past who you never read about in school.
KW: Did you think it would help Obama become president?
WiA: No, I wrote it basically so teachers could teach his speech in school. I
wasn’t thinking, “I’m going to write this song to make Obama our president.”
That’s not logical. I was thinking, “I’m going to write this song so we would
have a politician’s words being taught in schools.” That was something I could
do that would have an immediate effect.
KW: That’s brilliant, Will!
WiA: Thank you. That was the real reason I did it, although there was the
possibility that this dude could become our president once he was already being
taught to the kids.
KW: As for X-Men, what a spectacular screen debut you’re getting to make by
being a part of such a popular film franchise.
WiA: Yeah, it’s more than spectacular. It’s unbelievable, and kind of crazy, if
you ask me.
KW: Did you base your approach to playing John Wraith on anybody?
WiA: I modeled him after my cousin, Earl. He used to be a very, very bad, bad
man. He’s done some bad, bad things, but he’s also a very approachable,
likable, huggable kind of guy. He has some bad friends who’ve done bad things,
too, but he has a conscience.
KW: How would you describe your character’s relationship to Logan , aka
Wolverine?
WiA: He and Wolverine are close buddies. They go off into the world, and mess
up things, but he has a heart, and knows when enough is enough.
KW: What was working with director Gavin Hood like?
WiA: Working with him was incredible. First of all, I love his movies. He’s
very talented and very endearing as far as making you feel comfortable about
tapping into all the emotions you need to deliver. He pulls the best out of
you, and that’s awesome.
KW: And how was it acting opposite Hugh Jackman?
WiA: Hugh Jackman is the nicest guy on Earth. I was like, “Dang, dude,” he was
so super nice.
KW: Are you planning to make more movies?
WiA: I would love not only to do more work as an actor, but to write and
direct.
KW: You’re an incredibly accomplished Renaissance man who has made a mark in a
number of fields. But you started out in fashion. Is it still your first
love?
WiA: Yeah, I love fashion. It is my love.
KW: I know you were born in Los Angeles , but where are your parents
from?
WiA: My folks are from Mississippi .
KW: “Realtor to the Stars” Jimmy Bayan wants to know, where in L.A. do you live
now?
WiA: [Sings to the tune of Hollywood Swinging] Hollywooooooooooood!!!!!
KW: Is there any question no one ever asks you, that you wish someone would?
WiA: It’s more the opposite. I’ve been asked a lot of questions I wish people
wouldn’t.
KW: The Tasha Smith question: Are you ever afraid?
WiA: Afraid about what?
KW: The Columbus Short question: Are you happy?
WiA: I’m happy every day of my life.
KW: The Teri Emerson question: When was the last time you had a good belly
laugh?
WiA: Last night.
KW: The bookworm Troy Johnson question: What was the last book you read?
WiA: Can I be honest.
KW: Of course.
WiA: I’ve never really read a book.
KW: Why not?
WiA: I can read pretty well, but my attention span is really short. When I
read, the first paragraph is great, the second is great, but by about the third
paragraph or so, I’m just reading the words and it’s no longer sinking into my
mind.
KW: What has been the biggest obstacle you have had to overcome?
WiA: I’m going through that right now.
KW: The Rudy Lewis question: Who’s at the top of your hero list?
WiA: I have many heroes. When it comes to moulding my character, my grandma,
Sarah Cain, is my biggest hero. We call her Nanny. And my mom, Debra, of
course, too. But aside from my family, my biggest hero is Quincy Jones, by
far.
KW: A big fan of yours, Marcia Evans, loves those CDs you made with Sergio
Mendes. [WATCH HERE]
She wants to know, how you liked working in Brazil .
WiA: I loved working there. Brazil is one of my favourite places on the planet.
KW: Marcia was also wondering what you think of the Brazilian culture.
WiA: I love the culture because black people in Brazil are Brazilian, whereas
in America , black people are black. The Brazilians have graduated and have
accepted pigment, so they all just celebrate Brazilian-ness. I’m not saying we
need to abandon our origins, but Brazilians are from Africa , too. America is
almost there. Most of us don’t know what part of Africa we’re from anyway.
KW: I recently read a book by a sister who went back to Africa to find her
roots and came back feeling more American than African.
WiA: Interesting. Brazil has faced the same issues we have, but the difference
is that they were conquered by the Portuguese. Sergio Mendes taught me a whole
lot about African culture and how we’ve evolved from slavery. He pointed out
that the Portuguese didn’t strip their slaves of their culture, so the
Brazilian people were able to grow together as a nation, avoiding what America
is suffering from.
KW: What advice do you have for anyone who wants to follow in your footsteps,
like my son who is majoring in music in college?
WiA: I would say just to continue to make music and to share it on the
internet. That’s the future, in just making it and sharing it.
KW: Thanks again for the interview Will, and best of luck with all your
endeavours.
WiA: Thank you so much, dude.
To see a trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, visit HERE.
To see Will.i.Am’s campaign video for Barack Obama, “Yes We Can,” visit HERE.
To see Will.i.Am’s duet with Sergio Mendes of Mas Que Nada, visit HERE.
Te see a hologram of Will.i.Am interviewed on CNN on Election Night, visit HERE.
Source: www.thestar.com - Peter Howell, Movie Critic
The Soloist
(out
of 4)Starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.. Directed by Joe Wright. 109 minutes. At major theatres. PG
(April 24, 2009) A movie about an improbable friendship set against the backdrop of urban and cultural decay, The Soloist strives for deep meaning and settles for gritty reality.
It's a rare instance of a film that is both calculating and nakedly honest at the same time. Based on the true story of schizophrenic musical prodigy Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) and his discovery on the streets of L.A. by newspaper columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.), the film aches from unrealized Oscar aspirations.
Director Joe Wright (Atonement), screenwriter Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) and stars Foxx and Downey clearly had golden ambitions for something that is really more human interest than high art. The 11th-hour decision to remove the film from last fall's Oscar derby suggests studio expectations were more grounded.
Nevertheless, Foxx and Downey deserve praise for resisting the urge to make their characters seem like angels with dirty faces. Neither savant Nathaniel nor scribbler Lopez are particularly likeable, which is what you'd expect in real life.
Nathaniel's emotional and mental problems are almost intractable, and he has trouble accepting any kind of assistance. Lopez is blunt about using "the violin guy" as fodder for his column in the Los Angeles Times. The two earn our respect more than our love as both come to realize that the need for friendship leaps all kinds of barriers.
Nathaniel cuts quite the colourful figure, dressed in a collection of tossed-off clothing that includes an Uncle Sam hat, a Barney the Dinosaur costume and a yellow safety vest. Playing a two-stringed violin — we later find he's an Juilliard-trained cellist with an uncanny gift for Beethoven – Nathaniel performs in noisy L.A. traffic because he "likes how the city sounds."
Lopez, dressed like rumpled journalists the world over, chances upon Nathaniel and figures he's a quick hit for a slow news day. Readers respond to Lopez's column, and one of them sends a cello as a gift to the two-stringed tramp.
You can tell by the look on Lopez's cynical face that he knows he has a live one here, good for more columns. He doesn't want to get more involved in Nathaniel's life than absolutely necessary.
Yet something resembling a heart beats within his chest, and he finds himself drawn to the man's plight, recognizing a fellow lost soul. Lopez's own life has been on a downward spiral. His alcoholic ex-wife, Mary (Catherine Keener), is also his boss at the Times, and she's completely preoccupied with layoffs and tumbling profits at the paper, another part of the film that is true to life. Unfortunately, her character remains a cipher.
A note at the end of the film says there are 90,000 homeless people on the streets of greater Los Angeles. It's a staggering figure, and The Soloist leaves you with the depressing thought that even saving a single one of these people is an almost impossible task.
It's no small testament to the film's essential integrity, Oscar pretensions notwithstanding, that nobody tried to candy-coat the bitter truth.
Source: www.eurweb.com - By Kam Williams
(April 23, 2009) *29 year-old Nick Rosen was already a little sceptical about the value of yoga when he decided to embark on a personal quest to find out whether it could transform his nagging discontent into a state of bliss the way it seemed to do for so many other devotees.
So, he agreed to allow his friend, filmmaker Kate Churchill, an avid yoga enthusiast, to follow him around with a camera as he traveled from New York to India stopping at a variety of gyms, clubs and ashrams along the way in search of inner peace.
Were the yogis they encountered really capable of cosmic healing, or was the industry just a sham scamming millions of Westerners inclined to consume spirituality in the same way they way buy sneakers and hot dogs?
I think Nick was half-hoping to find a legit alternative to the life he'd been leading, since the Quebec-born journalist freely admitted to being unsatisfied with his current mainly materialistic path.
The upshot of his half-year endeavour is this charming little documentary called Enlighten Up!, an alternatively funny and revealing flick which dares to knock some seemingly sacrosanct gurus off their lofty pedestals. The movie succeeds primarily because of the contrast between the approaches to yoga taken by ever-battling Nick and Kate, the former being an irreverent Doubting Thomas, while the latter is decidedly deferential to the shamans they seek out.
In the end, alas, neither one's attitude changed much, leading the viewer inexorably to the conclusion that the answer to the question of whether the practice of yoga holds the key to nirvana just might be in the eye or the soul of the beholder.
Ommmmm..
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 82 minutes
Studio: Balcony Releasing
To see a trailer for Enlighten Up, visit HERE.
FILM TIDBITS
The Wrestler
Source: www.thestar.com - Peter Howell
(Alliance)
(out
of 4)
(April 21, 2009) Mickey Rourke's the Dickensian focus of Darren Aronofsky's soulful and
occasionally humorous portrait of life on the way down. Rourke's Randy "The Ram" Robinson
once enjoyed top billing and income, but now he plays for chump change on the
nostalgia circuit. His brutal passion has cost him his marriage, estranged him
from his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) and taken a toll on his health.
He still takes steroids, but now he's also addicted to painkillers for a back
problem. His heart tells him that he's living on borrowed time. His only
comfort is a stripper named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) whose interest in him may be
purely professional. The film is a
triumph on many levels, not least of which is Rourke's return as an actor of
reckoning; he should have won this year's Best Actor Oscar. Also worthy of
applause is Aronofsky's return, after the indecipherable indulgence that was The
Fountain, to the well-deep drama that Requiem for a Dream proved him
capable of. The Wrestler is suffused with sadness, yet also the wonder
of a spirit that refuses to be snuffed out. Pity the extras are so lightweight.
My review copy has just the Springsteen video of the title song. The Blu-ray
version also has a making-of documentary. Are they saving a Rourke commentary
for a deluxe edition?
Kodjoe,
Banner In Kenya Moore-Backed Film
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 24, 2009) *Boris Kodjoe, David Banner and Richard
Roundtree star in the upcoming thriller "The
Confidant," the first film to be released under former Miss
USA Kenya Moore’s Moore Vision Media company.
According to Allhiphop.com, the
story follows college buddies and longtime friends, played by Kodjoe and
Banner, who make a life-changing pact after Kodjoe's character mistakenly kills
a man in a gambling dispute. They both
agree that Jackson, played by Banner, should cop to the killing and serve the
prison time. Under their agreement, Kodjoe's character, Nigel, promises that
Jackson will be taken care of once released. However, Jackson becomes
twisted in prison, and upon his release he plots to take over his former
friend’s life, starting with the illicit seduction of his lonely wife. Principal shooting for "The
Confidant" begins in May, with a tentative release time for fall
2009.
Fox Searchlight Nabs Musical 'Black
Nativity'
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April
27, 2009) *The popular Langston Hughes musical "Black Nativity" will be adapted for the big
screen with filmmaker Kasi Lemmons writing and directing. Searchlight is fast-tracking the
holiday classic for a possible Christmas release, reports Variety. "Black Nativity," which was first
performed in 1961, is a retelling of the Bible's nativity story with an
all-black cast and features traditional Christmas carols sung in gospel
style. Writer-director Lemmons, who
burst onto the scene with 1997's critically acclaimed Southern drama
"Eve's Bayou," has been selective with her follow-up projects. She
most recently helmed the Don Cheadle starrer "Talk to Me." Celine
Rattray, Galt Niederhoffer and Daniela Taplin Lundberg are producing through
their Plum Pictures shingle. Joy Goodwin is exec producing.
Common, Taraji P. Henson Cast In 'Date
Night'
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April
27, 2009) *Rapper Common and Oscar nominee Taraji P.
Henson join the
ensemble cast of "Date Night," a comedy about a married couple who find themselves in harm's
way after their routine date night goes horribly wrong. Tina Fey and Steve Carell play the ill-fated
daters. The 20th Century Fox film, due in 2010, also includes Mark Wahlberg,
James Franco, Leighton Meester and Kristen Wiig. Wahlberg plays a successful and crazily buff
securities expert who flirts with Fey's character. Franco portrays a
not-too-bright con man and petty criminal. Meester is onboard as the couple's
babysitter. Henson plays the one good cop who believes the couple is in danger,
and Common portrays a villain. Wiig, who worked with Fey on "Saturday
Night Live," rounds out the cast as the actress' best friend. Director Shawn Levy ("Night at the
Museum 2") said he aimed high in casting "Date Night" with the
goal of populating all the supporting roles "with formidable actors." "And people just kept saying yes,"
added Levy. "I think people just really wanted to work with Tina and
Steve."
Ving Rhames
Snaps Up "Piranha'
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 27, 2009) *Ving Rhames returns to the big screen in Dimension Films' upcoming
"Piranha 3D," a remake of the 1978 film that followed the accidental
release of a genetically-altered species of piranha into lakes, rivers and even
swimming pools. According to ShockTillYouDrop.com, the update will have an
earthquake causing Arizona's Lake Havasu floor to open, setting free scores of
prehistoric piranhas. Rhames joins Richard Dreyfuss, Elisabeth Shue and Adam
Scott in the film. Director Alexandre Aja starts shooting next month in Arizona
for release next March.
Oliver Stone Making Wall Street Sequel
Source: www.thestar.com
- The Associated Press
(April 29,
2009) LOS ANGELES–Michael Douglas and Oliver Stone are going to show us the money again with a sequel to
their 1987 hit Wall Street. Douglas is reprising his role as Gordon Gekko and Stone
is on board again to direct the sequel, which for now has the working title Wall
Street 2, said 20th Century Fox spokesman Gregg Brilliant. Brilliant said
the project is timely and relevant given the state of the world. "We need
to keep the storyline under wraps, but it's literally ripped from today's
headlines," Brilliant said. "It's going to be very big and very
cool.'' With the economy and financial markets in a tailspin, it will be
different times for Douglas' Gekko. In the original film, corporate raider
Gekko was a symbol of Wall Street greed and corruption during the boom era of
the 1980s. Gekko has endured because audiences give him the "same kind of
respect we've got for the great white shark," Douglas said in an interview
Friday with Associated Press Television News for his upcoming life-achievement
award from the American Film Institute. "He's a villain. Gordon Gekko is a
great, old-fashioned villain," Douglas said. "And, interestingly
enough, if you look at most actors' careers, their biggest achievement, not
necessarily success, but (achievement), is playing a bad guy.'' Academy Awards
voters agreed. Douglas earned the best-actor Oscar for Gekko. The sequel is
scheduled to start shooting this summer. Edward Pressman, who produced Wall
Street, also is back for the sequel, while Allan Loeb wrote the screenplay.
::TV NEWS::
Cutbacks Altering What's On The Box
Source: www.thestar.com - Bill Brioux, Special To The Star
(April 26, 2009) Has bad economic news
started to seep into TV storylines? Consider the evidence:
Earlier this month on 30 Rock: Jack (Alec Baldwin) announces budget cuts and layoffs. This season on Law & Order: a stockbroker is beaten to death and, more
recently, the mistress of a Bernie Madoff-like banking weasel is murdered. This
past week on The Office: A competitor's low prices continue to bleed
business from Dunder Mifflin.
As Denis McGrath, a former writer for CBC's The Border sees it, it is all about networks feeling our
pain and not wanting to be behind the curve. "We've got to do something to
acknowledge what people are going through," he sees them saying,
"because there is a danger of being out of step with what people want to
see."
McGrath is about to take his own step toward the light. He leaves this week for
Newfoundland, where he will run the writing room on The Republic of Doyle, an upcoming CBC private-eye drama he
describes as retro and fun. But even darker shows like AMCs' Emmy-winning Breaking Bad – a show about a dying school teacher (Bryan
Cranston) so desperate to provide for his family he turns to selling drugs –
have had to adjust to the new economic reality.
"Reality does impact, and you can't help but pay attention to what's going
on in the newspapers every day," says Breaking Bad creator/producer
Vince Gilligan. He sees his show as being about "a good man who makes a
very bad decision" and then "the cascade of consequences, the domino effect
from that decision." It is an extreme example of what a lot of people are
dealing with today.
There seems to be two ways the networks are dealing with hard times as they
scramble this month and next to book shows for the fall – with a return to sitcoms
and with a shift away from dark crime procedurals and toward sunnier, more
relatable characters. Check out some of the pilots under consideration for the
fall:
Canned (ABC): "They're young, they're moving up ... and they've all
just been canned. Five friends are about to find out what happens when their
upwardly mobile lives turn upside down."
The Dealership (Global): A retired used car dealer (William Devane)
comes out of retirement to try and help his two children jump start the family
business during hard times in the auto industry.
Untitled Kelsey Grammer Project (ABC): "Wall Street legend Hank
Pryor (Grammer) and his wife Tilly have been living the high life in New York
City. That is until Hank is forced out of his CEO job and has to move his family
back to the small town of River Bend."
Untitled Debra Messing Project (NBC): The former Will & Grace star
is back as "a laid off CEO who is ill-prepared to be a full-time wife and
mother as her husband is to provide for the family."
This Little Piggy (ABC): "You can go home again, but what happens
when three grown siblings all try to go home at once?"
Suddenly, CEOs and bankers are the new bad guys on TV. The Canadian-born
creator of the American cable drama Leverage, John Rogers, says the
recession probably helped his show get a second season because many of his
stories focus on people going after corporate criminals. McGrath found it
interesting that the creators of the midseason ABC comedy Better Off Ted had
tapped into a growing cynicism and mistrust about the corporate world. "It
has finally sunk in that these guys have wrecked our economy," says
McGrath.
There is word leaking out from Friday Night Lights that job-loss
storylines will be on the agenda next season. "It's certainly on producers
and writer's minds and that means those kind of stories will be on the table in
the coming weeks," says veteran Canadian TV screenwriter Jim Henshaw (BeastMaster).
Reality TV is getting more socially relevant, too, although not all of it will
be fun. Fox, ever skilled at exploiting any situation, has a Survivor meets
The Office reality show in the works called Someone's Got to Go.
The series will feature real companies crushed by the recession, with actual
employees deciding which one will be canned.
Even HBO, long the home of grim, unflinching dramas such as The Sopranos
and The Wire, are lightening things up this season with the cheery,
uplifting The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency.
One of the most winning scripted shows in years, Glee, is set to preview
May 19 immediately following the American Idol finale on Fox. With
small-town Ohio as the setting, the series – from the unlikely hand of Nip/Tuck
writer/producer Ryan Murphy – puts a smart, adult spin on High School
Musical. Vancouver's Cory Monteith is among the fresh-faced stars.
Telling, too, that one of the least heralded midseason shows to debut this
spring – Bob Saget's Surviving Suburbia – is also the highest rated. It
is an urge that goes all the way back to The Honeymooners – viewers seem
to be looking for working stiffs they can root for.
"The only thing the networks want to see right now are what the networks
are calling `Blue Sky Shows,'" says McGrath, who has heard through his
agent and writer friends in L.A. that "Happy stuff` is all the rage.
"All those Criminal Minds, CSIs, dark, crime procedurals are
in real trouble.
"When the real news is all doom and gloom, the dive to comedy and escapism
is almost a reflex."
Some Change We Can't Believe In
Source: www.thestar.com
- Rob Salem
(April
27, 2009) See, the thing about suspension of disbelief, at least when it comes
to serial drama: if you do it right, the sky (for that matter, outer space) is
your limit. Done wrong, the whole thing comes crashing to earth.
Tonight, for the last time this season, we can compare and contrast the two
most extreme current examples of far-fetched television storytelling, airing
opposite each other at 9 in the States, conveniently scheduled back-to-back, at
9 and 10, in Canada on Global.
Fox's 24
and NBC's Heroes,
respectively, do have superficial similarities – both started off this season
coming off an all-time creative low, a season so bad even their creators had to
cop to it, and promised an immediate return to form. One succeeded, the other
didn't.
This may be 24's most outrageous storyline yet, and that is saying
something. (Anyone stockpiling recorded episodes is advised to skip the next
eight spoiler-saturated paragraphs.)
We have, by my count, now ascended to the fourth or fifth level of a
still-enigmatic global conspiracy, which started with a brutal African
dictatorship and came to embrace corporate American war profiteers, along the
way assaulting the White House and assassinating the First Son.
To say nothing of the thwarted nerve-gas attack – thwarted, with the single
exception of our go-to good guy, Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer, whom we left
last Monday night writhing on the ground in agony with turncoat ex-pal Tony
Almeida (Carlos Bernard) standing over him.
At least, we're pretty sure Tony has embraced the dark side. Sure, he did, at
considerable risk to his own life, single-handedly save the world. On the other
hand, he also smothered a high-ranking FBI agent with his bare hands, which is
never a good sign.
But who knows? Tony started out the season bad, then turned out to be good, and
now apparently has been really, really bad all along. Stranger still, we accept
that. Indeed, that's more than half the fun.
This brings us to the real secret of suspending disbelief: emotional
investment. You have to be invested in the characters, good and/or bad, to care
what happens to them and how they respond, patently ridiculous as things may
get.
It applies as much if not more to villains. A Batman without his Joker is just
a big-winged Pez dispenser with anger issues.
Let's face it, what really drove 24's best-ever fifth season – the one
before last year's fall from grace – was Gregory Itzin's Nixonian bad
president.
Don't get me wrong here: producer/star Sutherland remains the show's reliably
consistent solid rock (yeah, right, like he isn't going to survive the nerve
gas). But I for one was genuinely disappointed to see Jon Voight's CEO of Evil
pop the poison pill last week. Then again, he's a sneaky guy, and I haven't
given up on him just yet.
As it happens, this is precisely what's wrong with Heroes, which comes
to the overdue end of a very silly season tonight (24, gratefully, still
has another five hours to go).
Viewership has plummeted as the show effectively ruins its most popular
characters, one by one, Masi Oka's Hiro being particularly ill-served, with Ali
Larter, whoever she happens to be playing at the moment, freeze-dried and
shattered and sent off to a movie career that seems to have already fizzled
with Obsessed.
And what to make of villainous Sylar – in the first season, one of the best bad
guys ever. Last year came the fatal mistake of reforming him. This year has
further confused the issue by giving him the power to become other actors. No
wonder actor Zachary Quinto was in such a hurry to jump aboard the USS
Enterprise.
My theory is not perfect. Sometimes compelling characters don't do the trick:
for example, Zachary Levi's endearingly Zach Braff-ish (what's with all the
Zachs?) Chuck, also ending the season tonight, and very likely the
series itself, on NBC and City at 8.
Sometimes, as with Sunday night's Prison Break, it works all too well.
With characters such as Rob Knepper's addictively evil T-Bag compensating for
its woodenly stoic sibling stars, we have been drawn into a pyramid plot even
more ludicrous than 24's, capping off its final season (ending in June)
by tracing its own multi-layered conspiracy all the way up to their mother.
Jack Bauer would be appalled.
TV TIDBITS
Mary
J. Blige on '30 Rock' Season Finale
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 23, 2009) *Mary
J. Blige will join Clay Aiken, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow and
Adam Levine of Maroon 5 in the May 14 season finale of NBC's "30 Rock," the network announced. NBC is keeping quiet about
their particular roles, saying only that the finale will be a "special
episode featuring Alan Alda and surprise musical guests." Alda, the
Emmy-winning star of "M*A*S*H" and the final season of "The West
Wing," will appear in "30 Rock's" final two episodes, and Sherri
Shepherd will also reprise her occasional role as Tracy's (Tracy Morgan) wife.
New Crime Dramas Coming To Showcase
Source: www.thestar.com
- The
Canadian Press
(April
27, 2009) Actors Callum Keith Rennie, Luke Kirby and Clark Johnson are returning to
series television in two new dramas set for Showcase. Rennie is set to star in
the hour-long series Shattered, about a brilliant detective whose
multiple-personality-disorder has a major impact on his job. Edmonton's Rennie
was last seen in the U.S. series Battlestar Galactica and Californication.
Meanwhile, Johnson and Kirby will star in the tentatively titled, Lawyers,
Guns and Money, about a claims adjuster who must manoeuvre his way around
insurance scams and the criminal underworld in Hamilton. The Toronto-raised
Johnson was a regular on the U.S. series, The Wire, while Hamilton's
Kirby appeared on Tell Me You Love Me and Slings and Arrows.
Canwest says both one-hour dramas begin production this summer. Lawyers,
Guns and Money is produced by Whizbang Films Inc., the Toronto-based
company created by Paul Gross and Frank Siracusa. Shattered is produced
by E1 Entertainment and Force Four Films Ltd.
::THEATRE NEWS::
Cirque Rolls With Recession Punches
Source: www.thestar.com
- Richard Ouzounian, Theatre Critic
(April 29, 2009) With Sin City in a slump and
the recession weakening most Asian markets, the indefatigable Cirque du Soleil is shifting its focus to the Big Apple,
where the entertainment scene is showing no apparent signs of decay.
In an article in today's New York Times, Cirque revealed its plans to:
Continue its yearly Christmas production, Wintuk, at Madison Square Garden;
begin a new hopefully annual residency at the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West
Side next February; and become the summer tenant of Radio City Music Hall for
four months each year starting in 2011.
All of this will serve to take the sting out of several recent economic
setbacks for the Montreal-based juggernaut, which include the cancellation of a
second show in Macau and the postponement of a permanent home in Dubai.
And while Cirque's shows are down a total of 7 per cent in Las Vegas, that
seems mild compared to the 20 per cent decline in tourism being quoted for the
city as a whole. And in all other markets, Cirque's revenues are up 7 per cent.
Guy Laliberté, Cirque's founder and leading figure (whose personal wealth was
recently estimated by Forbes as $2.5 billion U.S.) is quoted as saying:
"we've gone through three recessions in Cirque history and they've all
been growth periods for us."
The show scheduled for the Beacon Theatre is tentatively titled Vaudeville
and will be directed by David Shiner, with an original score by Laurence
O'Keefe, who wrote the musicals Legally Blonde and Bat Boy. It
will preview for several months in Chicago this fall.
The Star has received reliable reports that the Radio City Music Hall
project will in all probability be a reworking of the variety-based show that
popular entertainer René Simard had been preparing for this summer's opening of
a new venue in Macau.
That show has since been cancelled because the hotel that was to house it is no
longer being built due to recessionary cutbacks.
The plan is to present that show during the summer months in New York (leaving
the winter for the omnipresent Rockettes) and to move it to European capital
such as London or Paris for the rest of the year.
All of this multi-venue activity in Manhattan has been caused by Cirque's
failure to acquire its long-time holy grail: a permanent Gotham residence of
its own.
"So instead," as Laliberté put it, "you come in by the back
door, or even a window."
In Canada, Cirque opens its latest touring show, OVO, in Montreal next
Wednesday, with a Toronto run scheduled for later in the summer at The Ports.
And, despite the economic downturn in Las Vegas, Cirque is still planning to
open its Elvis Presley spectacular at the new MGM City Center later this year.
Guy Laliberté has definitely not left the building.
Ben Elton : Takin' It To The
'Peg
Source: www.globeandmail.com - Patrick White
(April 24, 2009) Winnipeg — ‘My wife suspects I have a
girlfriend in Canada,” says Ben
Elton, winding his way through the labyrinthine back halls of
Winnipeg's Manitoba Theatre Centre. “I spend so much bloody time here.”
She may have a case. For the last two months, Elton – stand-up comedian, Blackadder
writer, Andrew Lloyd Webber collaborator, bestselling novelist and certifiable
tabloid fodder in his home country of Britain – has been living a bachelor's
life in the Manitoba capital.
Stationed at the drab Fort Garry Place, steps from the swollen Red River, he
has been leading a very different existence from the charmed, gossip-worthy one
he's used to. “I've had a great deal of success over the years and can't
pretend I've wanted for much,” says Elton, motor-mouthing at a pace you might
expect from someone who's written 12 novels, nine TV shows, three musicals,
four plays and a smattering of feature films over the last 20 years. “But here
I am, married with children, and I'm living in this little Winnipeg flat,
sticking me chips in the oven and trying not to open that second bottle of wine
every night.”
So what exactly is one of England's most prolific artists doing wandering this
flood-sieged Prairie city?
A lot, actually. On a recent afternoon, he sat in the cheap seats at the MTC
explaining his love for Canadian actors and Canadian bars and why the Winnipeg
theatre scene has become his latest Canadian mistress. Dressed in a bland grey
T-shirt, he propped his black boots on the row ahead as he described his main
priority here: to direct the world premiere of The
Boys in the Photograph, a
Belfast-set musical he wrote with his pal Lord (Andrew) Lloyd Webber.
If it sounds strange that a piece by the biggest stage composer in the world is
premiering in the Slurpee capital of the world, don't worry. It is.
The Boys in the Photograph is actually a revised version of a piece the
duo wrote a decade back. Titled The Beautiful Game, it premiered in
London nine years ago, ran for 11 months, won several awards, and promptly
disappeared. That it failed to catch Broadway's attention always bothered
Elton. He blames a faulty ending.
Set against the backdrop of the Troubles, The Beautiful Game follows an
Irish soccer team of Catholic and Protestant boys as they struggle to rise
above the corrupting influences of religious bigotry and tribalism that slowly
engulf them. In the original staging, the hero is irredeemably corrupted, going
off to become an IRA terrorist. That fate never sat well with Elton.
“Andrew and I debated that endlessly,” he says. “There was a feeling amongst
the producer, who was Irish, and the director, that we mustn’t compromise the
ending. But I felt we did just that by concluding that our wonderful hero –
with whom we'd laughed and cried, and seen play football and fall in love with
a beautiful girl – would go walking off into the darkness. It was a mistake.”
But how to fix it?
Elton knew London critics would treat a rewrite as warmed-over hash, so he
shelved the idea until 2006, the year he began working with Canadian talent on
the Toronto staging of We Will Rock You. During rehearsals, he was
stunned by the level of talent in the country. “It was sort of heartbreaking,”
he says, “because although we cast the very best cast, we knew we could have
cast it twice with all the brilliant people we saw.”
The Toronto sojourn also introduced him to impresario David Mirvish. Elton
quickly saw an opportunity for a Beautiful Game redo to escape the
gravity of British critics.
“David and I became friends, and I said to him one day, ‘This might seem a long
shot, but Andrew and I have always wanted to reinvent our Beautiful Game,'”
Elton explains. “He said he loved The Beautiful Game and always wanted
to put it on, which was wonderful.”
Just one hitch: “Mirvish had just one theatre available, the 2,300-seat Canon.”
Elton needed a more intimate venue. They looked elsewhere, and the choice soon
became obvious.
“The MTC is a world-renowned house,” says Elton, praising the 50-year-old
theatre's production staff and odd, asymmetrical design. “I'm not saying the
bloke in the chip shop's heard of it, but it is known. In the end, everyone
decided that Winnipeg would be as effective a shop window for the show as
Toronto.”
Elton and Lloyd Webber have changed one-quarter of the music and one-quarter of
the script, to make The Boys in the Photograph much more uplifting than
its predecessor. They also scrapped the old title, which had garnered the piece
a reputation as Lloyd Webber's football musical. “And who would want to see a
musical about [expletive] football? That's like saying South Pacific is
about the Second World War, or The Sound of Music is about Nazis. The
football team is just a vehicle. Basically, it's got [expletive] all to do with
football. I'm not even interested in sports.”
The MTC is co-funding the $1.4-million production, which premieres April 30.
In all, Elton will have spent four and a half months haunting its hallways. As
he showed off the set last week, he showed little sign that the time away from
family was taxing. Days away from his 50th birthday, he praised the healthy
options in Winnipeg's subterranean food courts. “I've just discovered this one
place. Have you heard of Oriental Wok? It's a wonderful way to get your
veggies.”
Elton likes to talk about eating almost as much as he likes to talk about
drinking, a pastime he has found he shares with many in Winnipeg's ample
creative class. “It's cold here, right, so you shag, drink or write. Shagging's
out of the question because my wife's in Britain, so I've done a fair bit of
drinking. I like to drink. I love it. I'm a great believer in speaking out
about the great pleasures of the grape and the grain. I had two pints of
Guinness and a whisky last night after we finished around 11. Fort Garry Hotel.
Very nice bar, very nice barman.”
Not to say he hasn't been writing. Winnipeg's reputation as an artistic
incubator has rubbed off on Elton quite gainfully. He has been working steadily
on a new novel (his previous 12 have all been British bestsellers) and on the
pilot script for a comedy-detective series for NBC. “I went to New York to talk
to the producer a couple of days ago, which is kind of exciting for me,” he
says. “I've done a lot of things in Britain, but I've never really done
anything over here.”
He has good reason to suss out North American opportunities. Elton has reached
that stage of celebrity in Britain where he and his work are under constant
scrutiny. He first rose to prominence as a foul-mouthed, Thatcher-bashing
comedian. Many Brits feel his rock-musical collaborations – We Will Rock You
with Queen, and Tonight's the Night with Rod Stewart – reek of a
sellout.
“I'm famous in Britain, and you're always going to get shit if you're
well-known,” he says. “But I've always loved musicals. I did my degree in
drama. I just happened to catch my first breaks in television, including the Blackadder
series. For what it's worth, what I'm doing now is much closer to what people
thought I was going to do when I was 18.”
That includes another highly anticipated collaboration with Lloyd Webber that
Elton doesn't like to talk about much. “I did it as a favour over a weekend,”
he says of writing the Phantom of the Opera sequel. “Andrew didn't have
the story in any kind of shape at all. He asked me to take a look. I did it as
a favour for a bloke. That's it. I don't take much interest in it.”
Lloyd Webber had been toiling over the project for years, and Elton says he
immediately saw where the holes were. The four-page plot synopsis he wrote will
form the basis for Love Never Dies, set to open later this year in
London, Shanghai, New York and, possibly, Toronto. “I'm not doing the lyrics or
anything,” he says. “I kind of did my job, and if it's a great success, that's
great for me.”
But he may soon have spare time to take a more active interest. The future of The
Boys in the Photograph depends entirely on how Winnipeg receives it. The
only other planned staging, in Toronto, was scrapped last year because,
according to a Mirvish Productions spokesperson, the company still hasn't
located an appropriate venue.
“We have to make it a huge hit here,” he says. “The audience is going to have
to love their night, and I'm confident they will.”
Great Teamwork, Strong Actors Make Cleverly Shifting Play A
Must-See
Source: www.thestar.com - Richard Ouzounian, Theatre Critic
(April 26, 2009) NEW YORK —The words
"savage" and "merciless" don't normally coexist with
"hilarious" and "entertaining", but that's exactly what's
currently happening in Manhattan where Yasmina Reza's latest assault on our
polite sensibilities called God of Carnage is currently playing to packed houses.
If a play ever mirrored the patterns of guerilla warfare, this one is it,
starting out as a seemingly innocuous comedy about two upper middle-class couples
trying to work out the problems their children had in a recent quarrel, only to
end 90 minutes later in an all-out, no-holds-barred assault on the very
foundations of our civilization.
Theatre this clever requires consummate teamwork from top to bottom and that's
what we get here. Reza's writing (superbly translated from the French by
Christopher Hampton) takes us along the road to hell step by step with gossamer
skill.
Director Matthew Warchus is able to modulate his staging from polite
coffee-table banter to full body-press violence and the four cast members –
Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden – are all the
kind of courageous troupers you would like to have with you on beach at
Normandy, as well as on the stage of a hit Broadway show.
One of the beauties of this play is the way the tectonic plates keep shifting.
The person you may find the most contemptible as the curtain rises is the one
you're likeliest to cheer as it falls. The most righteous turns out to be the
most prejudiced; the wimp turns out to be the viper and so on.
Nothing or no one is what they first seem to be.
That's what makes this such a constantly fascinating piece of theatre: a
dialectical Rubik's cube that invisible hands keep reshaping before your eyes.
While the writing and direction command our respect, it's the acting that
demands our total admiration. I urge you to run to Manhattan as soon as
possible to see this show in order to savour the sheer magic of the quartet of
artists joined together in this production.
It's impossible to decide who to praise first. Harden is front and centre with
the risks she takes, going from tight-lipped liberalism to free-swinging
anarchy as the play progresses.
There's nothing more hysterical or braver than the way Harden throws herself on
her opponents, or leaps up and down in anger when things don't go her way.
Davis has a fascinating trajectory, running from doe-eyed subservience to
projectile vomiting worthy of a character from The Exorcist, while
Daniels as her cell-phone-dependent husband works within a narrower margin of
hysteria, but still finds enough ground to frighten us as well.
And then there's Gandolfini, spending a large part of the evening radiating
that smiling benevolence we know so well from his days as Tony Soprano. But,
just like the former refuse manager from New Jersey, Gandolfini's character
here is capable of the most horrifying eruptions and if there's any doubt how
close our civilized society is to the jungle, his Neanderthal rantings will
eliminate them in a minute.
God of Carnage is that rare play which will not only surprise you and
entertain you, but give you plenty to discuss for hours afterwards. Put this on
the top of your "must-see" list in New York.
This Dinner Party Serves Up Comedy Delight
Source: www.thestar.com
- Robert Crew, Special To The Star
Le Dîner de Cons
(out of 4)
By Francis Veber. Directed by Guy Mignault. Until May 9 at 26 Berkeley St. 416-534-6604
(April 27, 2009) Each week, Paris-based publisher Pierre Brochant and his
oh-so-smart friends invite a complete idiot to dinner and mock him unmercifully
for the whole evening. And the unfortunate object of their derision hasn't a
clue what's going on.
François Pignon looks like one of their best dinner dates ever. He's a total
nerd who makes models of the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge out of
matchsticks and will provide every detail about how many matches and tubes of
glue it all took.
But in Francis Veber's Le Dîner de Cons, the final show of Théâtre français de Toronto's 40th season, now
playing at 26 Berkeley St., things don't quite work out as planned.
When François arrives at Pierre's apartment, he finds his host suffering. Not
only has he wrenched his back playing golf, but his wife has walked out on him.
François sets out to help ... and makes everything much, much worse.
What follows is a delightful little comedy about wives and mistresses, tax
inspectors and soccer fans, unkindness and friendship. And by the end (as
Pierre acknowledges), François has avenged himself and all the other nerds for
the cruelties heaped upon them.
It's very mainstream French, in the hallowed tradition of Molière and Feydeau,
satirizing the foibles of society and making us laugh at them. But Veber's play
– a cult hit both as a play and as a film – is gentle and forgiving. Pierre has
learned his lesson and there's a (probable) happy ending.
In the skilled hands of director Guy Mignault, and with Pierre Simpson leading
the way with a gloriously gawky performance as François, it's a delightful
evening of fun, with lots of twists and turns and a dénouement that is
surprisingly heartfelt and moving.
Paul Essiembre plays Pierre while Jean-Michael Le Gal is his best friend, Just
Leblanc. Both create well-rounded characters and the energy is excellent. René
Lemieux garners his share of laughs in a couple of cameos, but neither Marianne
Lambert nor Stéphanie Broschart manage to make much out of the roles of the
wife and mistress.
Performances with subtitles are on May 1, 6 and 9 at 8 p.m. and May 9 at 3:30
p.m.
All-Star Cast Delivers Deeply Moving, Rich Piece Of Theatre
Source: www.thestar.com
- Richard Ouzounian, Theatre Critic
(April 27, 2009) NEW YORK – Everyone knows the story about how
famed tragedian Edmund Kean, as he breathed his last, proclaimed "Dying is
easy; comedy is hard."
I wonder what he would have made of the extraordinary production of Eugene
Ionesco's Exit the King, now
on Broadway, which turns dying into a comedy and makes it both easy to watch
and hard to forget at the same time.
Thanks to a bravura performance by Geoffrey Rush that Kean himself would have
envied, and thrilling work from a supporting cast featuring Susan Sarandon and
Canada's adopted daughter, Andrea Martin, what could have been a dry and
intellectual exercise in Theatre of the Absurd becomes something richly
theatrical and deeply moving.
We meet Berenger (Ionesco's ubiquitous Everyman), who has been the self-centred
monarch of a once-great kingdom for so long that he's allowed his own pettiness
to destroy nearly everything.
He's left with only five subjects: his first wife (the chilly Sarandon), his
younger trophy wife (the electric Lauren Ambrose), his faithful guard (the
charismatic Brian Hutchinson), his doctor (the droll William Sadler) and his
one servant (the always-sublime Martin.)
There's no mystery here. In one of the biggest spoilers ever, Sarandon
imperiously announces shortly after the curtain rises that the king will be
dead at the end of the play.
And then we watch it happen. At first, it's full of brash vaudevillian strokes
and physical humour worthy of the best silent screen comedy. But the sheer
magic of director Neil Armfield's work is that as the Grim Reaper gets closer
to taking Berenger away, his proximity to us increases as well.
A chill falls over the audience as the once vainglorious monarch loses his
senses, one by one.
To watch Hutchinson attempt an 11th-hour defence of the man he's spent his life
serving, to see Martin meekly try to explain to her king the emptiness that
fills her days, to feel Ambrose trying to infuse her youthful vigour into him
like some kind of psychic CPR, to hear Sadler vainly try to explain away death
as a series of dismissible symptoms ... each actor's turn on the stage of
mortality is unforgettable.
But they're only setting things up for the one-two punch at the end, which
truly devastates.
It begins with Rush, delivering an almost fragilely pathetic account of how,
late in life, he connected emotionally with a stray cat, the only living being
who ever aroused such feeling in him. And then Sarandon is ready for her true
role, as the Angel of Death, who slowly guides Rush towards his final moments.
It's totally empty of any sentimentality and it touches us all profoundly. To
see a show like this in the marketplace of jukebox tune fests, tepid revivals
and movies-turned-into-musicals, gives you hope for the future of the
commercial theatre.
Premieres To Mark 40th Season
Source: www.thestar.com - Richard Ouzounian, Theatre Critic
(April 28, 2009) The 40th anniversary season that artistic
director Ken Gass announced for Factory Theatre yesterday
served notice that the veteran organization hasn't lost any of its fire over
the years.
Two new works by two of our country's most important writers will have their premieres
and, most significantly, each one shows its author heading in new directions.
And So It Goes will be George F. Walker's first new script for the stage
since Heaven in 2000.
"It's a very risky play for George in many ways," Gass said in an
interview. "It's quite different from his other works, more experimental
in structure. Edgier."
The other big news is the North American premiere of Brad Fraser's latest, True
Love Lies, which opened to smash reviews in Manchester this year and is
being steered toward a West End production.
"Brad has found a way to not need outrageousness, although the play has
plenty of sexuality on its own terms," Gass says. "But I feel it's
his most mature work to date and I feel extremely lucky we got it."
Another world premiere from an A-list author is who knew grannie: a dub aria
by ahdri zhina mandiela, co-produced by Obsidian Theatre.
The world premiere of Linda Gaboriau's English language translation of Michel
Marc Bouchard's The Madonna Painter will also light up the season, as
will the Vancouver Playhouse production of Kevin Loring's Where the Blood
Mixes.
And on May 1, 2010, the theatre's 40th birthday, will come the first
performance of a revival of Featuring Loretta, which Gass calls Walker's
"most accessible and entertaining play. A perfect work for a
celebration."
THEATRE
TIDBITS
Suzan-Lori Parks Stars In Her Next Play
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 24, 2009) *Pulitzer Prize
winner Suzan-Lori Parks will star in the world premiere
of "Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 8 & 9)," a play she
wrote and that has the same name as a series of short works under her "365
Days/365 Plays" - but is otherwise unrelated. "Parks takes the stage to play the role
of our guide leading through a multimedia epic tale about slavery, war,
freedom, and the difficulty of family ties," according to press notes.
"Part 1 tells the story of Penny, a slave, awaiting her husband’s return
from the Civil War while resisting her own desire to flee with a band of
runaway slaves. Parts 8 & 9, set in present day, follow a Poet-General
struggling with the reality of his impending death while he plans his annual
celebration for the army troops."
Part of the Off Broadway theatre’s developmental Public LAB series, the
show runs June 5-28 at the Public Theater in Manhattan (425 Lafayette St.). A
LAB offering from Parks, who picked up a 2002 Pulitzer for her play
"Topdog/Underdog," was announced earlier this year, although no
title, plot or cast was given.
Parks fills the master writer chair at the Public, which has produced
Parks plays including "Topdog," "Venus" and
"Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom," among
others. For tickets phone (212)
967-7555 or visit http://publictheater.org/
::OTHER NEWS::
True Expatriate Love Brought Ignatieff Home
Source: www.thestar.com
- Sandro Contenta, Staff Reporter
(April 29, 2009) In his latest book, True Patriot
Love, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff describes growing up in a Canadian household with parents who believed
"life was elsewhere."
"This is how it is in small countries and provincial societies everywhere
in the world," Ignatieff writes. "My mother used to go about the
house humming a Judy Garland song with a line about how, if you haven't played
the Palace, you might as well be dead.
"The Palace theatre was elsewhere – not in Ottawa, where I grew up, but in
the big, bright world beyond."
The passage is a fascinating insight into a would-be prime minister accused by
some of being a stranger to his country. He found the bright lights
irresistible and spent almost three decades "playing the Palace"
abroad – first in London as a journalist and writer and then in the United
States as a Harvard University professor.
Ignatieff's return home becomes official when he is confirmed as his party's
leader at a convention that begins tomorrow in Vancouver. He became interim
leader, succeeding Stéphane Dion, in December.
True Patriot Love: Four Generations in Search of Canada sketches a
platform of sorts with infrastructure proposals to reinforce national unity in
the face of rising regionalism and pressures from free trade with the United
States.
Some might instead see the book – detailing the vision of Canada since the
1870s of his mother's family – as a response to those who question the depth of
Ignatieff's Canadian roots. The Liberal leader brushes off the suggestion,
insisting his main purpose was to "pay homage to my mother's people,"
two decades after writing about his father's Russian family heritage.
But he acknowledged, in a recent interview at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel,
that his time as an expatriate sparked a fundamental question: "My career
has been a bit of a focal point for a debate about what makes a good
Canadian."
"There's a funny idea out there that you can only be a Canadian if you
lived in the country the whole time. It doesn't seem to me to make any sense.
More than one million Canadians live and work outside of the country at any one
time. Are we saying they are less good Canadians than the people who never leave?
On the contrary," he said.
"Everywhere I go people say, `Well, it was good that you were out of the
country – you know stuff,'" added Ignatieff, who moved back to Canada in
2005, a year before his first bid for the Liberal leadership.
In leaving Canada, Ignatieff followed in the footsteps of three generations of
high-profile relatives from the side of his mother, Alison Grant. "And
then I did what they all did – my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my uncle:
I came home. Life was elsewhere all right, but this place was my place, my
problem, my obsession, my home," Ignatieff writes.
"The questions my family had always asked – Is there enough here? How do
we make this place worthy of our dreams? How do we fix what is obviously wrong?
– those questions became my own. It's why I came back. It's why I entered
politics. It's why I'm here."
Specific proposals in the book are bids to strengthen national unity by
removing provincial trade barriers, expanding the Trans-Canada highway,
building an east-west energy grid and constructing high-speed rail lines to
connect Vancouver to Calgary, Calgary to Edmonton and cities in the
Windsor-Quebec City corridor.
The book describes concern for Canada's survival as a Grant family trait.
Ignatieff describes Canada as a global example of bilingual accommodation.
He says his passion for preserving it is fuelled by having covered wars as a
freelance journalist. "You only feel that if you've seen people firing at
each other 200 yards away in little dugouts in Bosnia. That teaches you a lot
about Canada, believe me," he said in the interview.
He believes focus on Quebec as the central national unity issue has detracted
from the more threatening strains of five regional economies more integrated
with the U.S. than the rest of the Canada.
"If we want a country to hand on to the next generation, we will have to
strengthen those east-west linkages – of citizenship and common life together –
to offset the north-south drift that fragments us," he writes.
Passion for country should never be blind, he insists. A "true
patriot" should recognize Canada's failings – in the interview, Ignatieff
notes the plight of aboriginal people and low-income Canadians, lack of
adequate pensions for many, and the fraying of the immigrant dream.
He calls himself an "insider-outsider" – a Canadian who can see the
country with experience from abroad. It's a hybrid status that links him to the
relatives he writes about: His great-grandfather, George Monro Grant, principal
of Queen's University in Kingston; his grandfather, William Lawson Grant,
historian and principal of Upper Canada College in Toronto; and his uncle,
George Parkin Grant, the conservative Christian philosopher and author of Lament
for a Nation, the 1965 polemic on Canada's subservience to the U.S.
The Grant family emigrated from Scotland to Pictou County in Nova Scotia in
1826. The patriarch, James Grant, was an unsuccessful farmer. His son, George
Monro, became a Presbyterian minister. In 1872, he set out on a cross-country
adventure with railway engineer Sandford Fleming to trace the first rail line
survey to the Pacific Ocean. He became principal of Queen's University five
years later, a job he held until his death in 1902. He took a sabbatical,
travelled throughout the British Empire and supported the sending of Canadian
soldiers to fight on the side of the British in the South African Boer War of
1898.
"He was a puzzling paradox: a nationalist imperialist, a passionate
Canadian who believed that the country's survival next door to the United
States depended on strengthening the British connection," Ignatieff
writes.
His son, William Grant, spent several years living in Paris and Britain, where
he lectured in British imperial history at Oxford. In World War I, Grant was
wounded in France on his first day of battle. His unit fought at Vimy Ridge,
where 855 of its men died. The war defined both the man and the nation.
"Canadians like Grant entered World War I as loyal colonials. Having fought
for the mother country, they slowly realized they were actually fighting for
Canada, for its right to be considered a sovereign nation," Ignatieff
writes.
The book's most personal portrait is of philosopher George Grant, William's son
and Ignatieff's uncle. When World War II broke out, he was studying at Oxford.
He pronounced himself a pacifist, thereby breaking a family tradition of
service to country.
When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, thrusting the U.S. into the war, Grant
contemplated suicide. Then one day, while on a bike ride in the English
countryside, he had an epiphany and knew that God existed. He returned to
Canada in 1942, a bit of a wreck. He renounced his pacifism near the end of the
war.
In Lament for a Nation, Grant twisted the national visions of his father
and grandfather to back his view of a conservative, Christian Canada, Ignatieff
charges. But all three Grants shared the "illusion" that Britishness
defined who Canadians were, neglecting the founding role of French and aboriginal
people, he writes.
"And yet, Lament remains a masterpiece of grief and anger. It
continues to speak to an elemental anxiety about our country, that sense that
there is not enough here to make a country," Ignatieff writes.
He rejects Grant's thesis that subservience to the U.S. made Canada's
disappearance a matter of time. Canadians are "such captives of these
worn-out clichés of dependency" that they fail to recognize the country's
strengths as an energy powerhouse with a distinctive social and political
culture, he writes.
Jezebel Shows Burlesque Scene's Got Legs
Source: www.thestar.com - Bruce Demara, Entertainment Reporter
(April 26, 2009) Out with the old, in with
the new. Replace "sleaze" with "tease" and another piece in
the ongoing yuppification of Ossington Ave. falls into place.
On April 30, a new club called Jezebel, taking its cue from Toronto's long and storied burlesque past, opens
near the corner of Ossington Avenue and Dundas St. W.
"In the case of our vision, it was really to take all the good things that
burlesque represents and all the great things that Ossington now represents,"
said former magazine publisher and co-founder of Toronto restaurant/nightspots
Atelier and Brant House, Michael King.
"Think of it as the craziness of Studio 54 meets Dita Von Teese,"
King added. The second floor at 227 Ossington Ave. – with a back-alley entrance
opening onto a conveniently placed green P parking lot – was formerly a low-end
strip club called Baby Dolls.
With the collaboration of designer Marc Kyriacou, whose past work includes
Jacob's Steak House, Maro and Strangelove, along with a handful of partners who
collectively have about 60 years of restaurant/nightclub experience, King hopes
to add yet more buzz to the stretch of Ossington between Queen and Dundas Sts.
as it rapidly transforms from blue-collar old-school neighbourhood with a
Portuguese accent to a hot new strip of artistic spaces, boutiques and watering
holes. The only thing King and company have retained from the former strip club
is the adult entertainment licence, which will allow Jezebel to feature
tastefully erotic burlesque performers in a setting that features pale yellows,
grays and cream-coloured walls, velvet banquette seating, antique chandeliers,
a curtained stage and a backroom "boudoir" for private functions.
Giancarlo Spataro said he and the other Jezebel partners first started scouting
Ossington about two years ago.
"We wanted to find the right space with the right feel. We looked all over
the city, and we kept coming back to Ossington because it had a really `New
York' feel," Spataro said.
The burlesque theme, which has deep roots in the city's entertainment past,
emerged as the best fit for the site, he added.
"Burlesque is one of the oldest forms of entertainment and art, and we're
bringing that back," Spataro said, noting his team has consulted with
local burlesque/dance performers such as Coco Framboise and Sophie Luxton.
"There's a great burlesque community here that does performances ... maybe
one night a week or one night a month. What we're offering that community is
the opportunity to have a venue to perform in," Spataro said.
That's great news for the newly formed Starlight Burlesque troupe, which put on
a show at one of Jezebel's recent "soft" openings held to build up
word-of-mouth.
Anna Coquette said she and her co-performers focus on "classical"
burlesque, which she noted is a far cry from standard strip-club titillation.
"No. 1, we only go down to our g-strings and our pasties, and No. 2,
there's a lot of work involved in our performances. We're trained dancers and
our costumes cost thousands of dollars – we're addicted to sparkles,"
Coquette said.
"We don't do pole work. It's worlds apart (from stripping). It definitely
is an art form; it takes a lot of dedication"
Once upon a time, everybody understood the difference. The black letter of the
law through the 1960s dictated that the bosom be at least partially concealed.
As an art form, or at least a lively form of entertainment, dancing girls
persisted through the heyday of the 1920s and '30s at burlesque halls like the
Star Burlesque on Temperance St. and the Victory Burlesk at Dundas and Spadina.
Both halls are long gone (the Victory's site is now a bank), killed by the
arrival of straightforward strip clubs as elsewhere in North America. But in
the late '90s revival scenes sprouted up in New York and Los Angeles, and they
soon spread here, with troupes such as the Scandelles and Shameless Dames
taking over rock venues like Lee's Palace for regular shows. In some places it
may have proved a mere fad, but here burlesque is a scene with legs.
King has already tapped into his extensive contacts, bringing up performers
from the Crazy Horse Paris cabaret show at Las Vegas's MGM Grand for another
"soft" opening during last month's Toronto Fashion Week. The same
event featured "mixologists" from four top Vegas casinos
demonstrating their drink creations. Vegas performers will be featured once a
month at Jezebel, Spataro said.
The opening-night party (on Thursday) will even feature performers from Cirque
de Soleil's Vegas show, Zumanity.
King is already busy creating some international buzz. New York-based Black
Book magazine did a photo shoot at the club last week, and plans to run a
piece on Jezebel in its June issue.
He argues opening a new space in recessionary times is less risky than it
sounds. "More than ever, people are seeking an escape. In the past, one
might have escaped to Miami for a long weekend or Europe for a week's vacation.
"What I'm witnessing increasingly is that those people are saying, `I
can't afford to get on a plane ... what I can do is a crazy night out with my
friends.'"
Young Drinkers
Keep Clubs In Business
Source: www.thestar.com - Raju Mudhar, Entertainment Reporter
(April 28, 2009) With the recession in full swing, it's time to
look at how the arts and entertainment industry is coping, and how various
sectors plan to keep their audiences in the months ahead. This is the sixth
story in a series.
Despite all the economic doom and gloom permeating the news, Toronto's bar
and club businesses seem to be doing as well as ever, if not better.
Take this past Friday night, for example.
"I know it sounds callous to say but I've still got my job, so things
haven't changed very much for me," says Eric Savoie, a 26-year-old who
works in financial services and was on his way to meet friends at The Keg on
York St. "It's the weekend and that means I will go out and have a few
drinks."
Saturday's great weather meant patios were packed during the day but, later in
the evening, after the storm cooled things down, the usual cars, crowds and
young people looking for fun kept the streets of the Entertainment District
busy.
Established nightlife veterans in the city say they have noticed consumers
being a bit more careful with their dollars, but there is no need for a bailout
of any kind.
"I've gone through a couple of recessions and I've always found it doesn't
have a real impact on the bar, nightclub or casual bar scene," says Nick
Di Donato, president of the Liberty Entertainment Group, which own the C
Lounge, Phoenix Concert Theatre and Courthouse, among several other night
spots.
"I think what happens is that people are less inclined to go after
big-ticket items, like cars and homes, and they adopt a wait-and-see attitude.
And not doing anything, what happens is that they end up having a little bit
more spending money in their pockets. So, in terms of recessions and worries,
everybody still needs to have a break, and the bars and the clubs are that
break for people."
If there is an area that has been softer, it has been corporate bookings and
rentals of entire venues. The trend started before Christmas when many
companies saved money by cancelling holiday soirees, but that hasn't had an
effect on the average weekend night for the public.
One reason cited by Di Donato is that the younger clientele at most nightclubs,
who are just starting their careers, have not been as affected by the
recession.
"If there is an effect, it's typically that your spend-per-head may drop a
little bit. So, as an example, on average a person spends $15 instead of $25,
but people still come out."
The other sign that this branch of the entertainment business continues to do
well is the sheer number of new openings throughout the city: the Curzon and
The Roy in Leslieville; the Comedy Bar in Bloorcourt Village; and the white-hot
Ossington strip. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who think the best thing to
offer patrons in this downturn is a place to belly up to the bar.
"People are making choices," says Tara Hendala, director of public
relations for Ink Entertainment, the umbrella company that runs the Guvernment,
Ultra and other bars and restaurants in the city.
"Where, before, they might go out three to four times a week, now they are
being more conservative and only going out once or twice."
Hendala and Di Donato agree restaurants are probably feeling the pinch. As well
as having to deal with a high-profile closing like Perigee in the Distillery
District, that sector has put out more special menus and promotions.
But Hendala's Ink continues to grow, with the planned opening of a new
restaurant in Burlington and a music festival in Horseshoe Valley this summer.
Catching Up With … Daniel
Igali
Source: www.thestar.com - Randy
Starkman
(April
16, 2009) There’s Olympic wrestling champ Daniel Igali sitting with
his feet up in his hotel room, chilling for a bit in front of the television on
a recent swing through Toronto, intently watching his favourite channel – CPAC.
The topic is public policy and the 2000 Sydney Games gold medalist can’t seem
to get enough. Even when his buddies come over to his home in Surrey,
B.C., and want to watch sports, they can barely wrestle the converter away from
him.
He was in town a few weeks ago to help shoot a video for Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and had just
recently wrangled a promise of $1.7 million U.S. from the Nigerian government
for his school project there, but he’s still considering another serious run at
politics here.
Igali was unsuccessful in trying to win the provincial seat
for the Liberals in his home riding of Surrey in 2005, but now is toying with
the idea of running federally.
“I like what Ignatieff is doing,” said Igali. “I like how he has brought
supporters back to the Liberal party. I like the position the Liberal party’s
in right now in the opinion polls. I like his policies and his world view. It’s
something that is tempting.”
Right now, Igali is plenty busy trying to get the Maureen Matheny School project in his home
village of Eniwari firing on all cylinders. The school is in its second year,
but its operations were limited because they had only three teachers.
But the new government in Bayelsa State has put $1.7 million U.S. in its
budget to build a gymnasium, dormitories, teacher’s accommodation, a cafeteria
and a playing field for the school, as well as to provide 16 teachers.
They’re motivated by the crisis of youth violence in the Niger Delta region and are looking at education
and sports to help bring the children out of the current mess.
“The government is quite focused on ensuring we do whatever we can to arrest
that menace,” said Igali.
Igali has also kept himself busy with coaching in Nigeria and also Canada,
where his former coach Dave McKay has brought him and fellow Olympic
medalist Gia Sissaouri back on occasion to try to teach a new generation of
grapplers how to win.
But it’s clear the school and his work through the Igali Foundation is what drives him most. He
will be receiving an Amazing Aces award for courage on May 27 in
Toronto from the Herbert Carnegie Future Aces Foundation.
“I get a lot of pride in helping out with the less fortunate. To be in a
position to do what I do is almost what I would have crafted for myself. I
don’t know if I can do it forever. But I think at this time where I just
finished competing, it gave me an outlet to be able to do it without missing
competition so much.”
Mutombo
Injury Leads To NBA Exit
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 24, 2009) *Houston Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo has decided to end his NBA career after a knee injury
knocked him out of the team's playoff game Tuesday night against the Portland
Trail Blazers.
"For me, basketball is over,"
said the 18-year NBA veteran, who tangled with Portland center Greg Oden and
fell hard on his left leg late in the first quarter of Game 2. He stayed prone
on the court under the Blazers' basket for several moments before he was taken
away by stretcher. A preliminary examination revealed a knee strain.
Afterward in Houston's locker room, the
7-foot-2 veteran was on crutches and fighting back tears.
"Nobody ever thought they'd be
carrying the big guy out like a wounded soldier," he said.
Mutombo is an eight-time All-Star who
won the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year award four times and stands in
second on the NBA's career blocks list with 3,289. He has played for Denver,
Atlanta, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York and Houston. In 1,196 career games,
Mutombo has averaged 9.8 points, 10.3 rebounds and 2.7 blocks.
The athlete is also known for his
humanitarian work. He founded the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation in 1997 to benefit
the people of his homeland of Kinshasha in the Congo. In 2007, he opened the
Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital and Research Center there, named after his
mother.
"I've had a wonderful 18 years of
staying injury-free, so I just want to go out with my head up, no
regrets," he said.
Team Nestor Captures Second Straight Doubles Title
Source: www.thestar.com - The Canadian Press
(April 26, 2009) BARCELONA–Canadian Daniel Nestor and Serb Nenad Zimonjic have added another clay title to their resume.
The pair defeated Nestor's former partner Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and
India's Mahesh Bhupathi 6-3, 7-6 (9) to win the Barcelona Open doubles title,
their second clay championship in as many weeks.
"We're both playing on the top of our game," Nestor said.
``Everything's been working perfectly for us."
The trophy at the Real club came on the heels of last week's victory in Monte
Carlo, where they trounced the world No. 1 team of Bob and Mike Bryan of the
U.S.
The victory came in Nestor's 100th career final, and in the Toronto player's
first match against Knowles since the two split up prior to the start of the
2008 season.
Nestor and Zimonjic broke their opposition twice in a first set that lasted 33
minutes. A Zimonjic double-fault contributed to a break of the second seeds in
the third game.
The combative second set quickly turned into a grind, taking twice the time of
the first. Nestor and Zimonjic saved a set point in the 10th game and another
in the tiebreaker. The seeds finally earned the victory on their fourth match
point.
"We're playing at our best ever level as a team and we're very pleased to
get this victory," said Nestor, who won the Barcelona event with Knowles
in 2004 and 2006. "We had a slow start this season, but that's behind us
now.
"We've picked up our confidence again by just playing matches. We'd really
like to continue this roll."
Nestor and Zimonjic opened 2009 with back-to-back final losses in Doha and
Sydney, but have since captured titles at Rotterdam in February, plus their
pair of consecutive titles on clay.
The pair are 19-6 on the season and second behind the Bryans in the 2009
doubles standings. The win was Nestor's 58th career in doubles from 100
championship appearances.
Capitals Enforcer Brashear Suspended 6 Games
Source: www.thestar.com
- The
Canadian Press
(April
27, 2009) The NHL came down hard on Donald Brashear on Monday, suspending the
Washington Capitals enforcer a total of six games for two incidents during Game
6 of their playoff series with the New York Rangers.
Brashear was slapped with a five-game ban for a blind-side hit to the head of
Rangers forward Blair
Betts and one game for shoving Colton Orr during the pre-game
warm-up.
"Brashear delivered a shoulder hit to an unsuspecting player," league
disciplinarian Colin Campbell said in a statement after a hearing with the
player. "It is also my opinion that the hit was delivered late and
targeted the head of his opponent, causing significant injury."
Betts suffered a broken orbital bone and will be out indefinitely. He was hit
at centre ice well after dumping the puck into the Washington zone at 9:54 of
the first period of the Capitals 5-3 win on Sunday.
The injury will deprive the Rangers of one of their best players on face-offs
and penalty-killing for Game 7 of the series on Tuesday night in Washington.
"Bettsie is a huge part of our team," said Rangers forward Brandon
Dubinsky. "He brings so many intangibles to our team that are so often
looked over, so it's going to be tough.
"But we will all have to step up and rise to the occasion. Anytime a tough
competitor and a teammate goes down, you can use it as motivation."
Brashear will also sit out Game 7, plus the next five games, either in the
playoffs if Washington wins, or in the 2009-2010 regular season.
Before the game, the 37-year-old went to the centre ice dot to exchange words
with Orr. He gave the Rangers winger a light shove before skating away. Orr and
Brashear have tangled before, including a long slugfest during a game on Feb.
11.
A Capitals spokesman said neither Brashear nor general manager George McPhee
would comment on the punishment.
"He obviously has a presence and makes guys look behind them when he's on
the ice," Capitals defenceman Mike Green said of Brashear. "We're all
going to have to step up our game and be a little bit more physical, because
we're going to be missing that key component with him out."
Brashear's suspension is the second of this series. Rangers coach John Tortorella
sat out Game 6 after throwing a plastic drinking bottle at fans during New
York's loss at Washington in Game 5.
Earlier in the playoffs, Calgary's Andre Roy was suspended one game for a
pre-game incident with Chicago's Aaron Johnson, and Boston's Milan Lucic got
one game for high-sticking Montreal's Maxim Lapierre.
There was no word from Campbell on the Ranger's allegation that Caps defenceman
Shaone Morrisonn bit Dubinsky during a second-period skirmish in Game 6. The
Rangers said Dubinsky needed a tetanus shot after the game, but Morrisonn
denied biting him.
"I didn't do that," he said. "I was kind of shocked they'd say
that."
With files from The Associated Press
Messier, Moon
Enter Sports Hall Of Fame
Source: www.thestar.com - Peter Howell, Movie Critic
(April 28, 2009) The Canadian Sports Hall of Fame welcomed seven
new members including Stanley Cup winner Mark Messier and CFL quarterback Warren Moon.
Messier was part of the Edmonton Oilers teams that dominated the NHL during the
1980s and was captain of the New York Rangers' first Stanley Cup winning team
in 54 years, in 1993-94. His is second to Wayne Gretzky in NHL career points.
Moon joined the Edmonton Eskimos in 1978 from the University of Washington. He
played for six seasons with Edmonton and led them to five consecutive Grey Cup
championships (1978-82). He is the only player in history to be inducted to
both the CFL and the US Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Moon's coach during that Grey Cup string from 1978 to 1982 was Hugh Campbell,
who will be inducted in the Hall's builder category along with basketball's Ken
Shields.
Angela James was a player and a pioneer in the development of the women's game.
Dubbed the Gretzky of women's hockey, James began her career at a time when it
was difficult for women to find a place to play the game. Her intensity made
her the go-to player and one of Team Canada's greatest clutch performers. She
was a member of gold medal world championship teams in 1990, 1992, 1994 and
1997.
Kayaker Caroline Brunet won ten world championship gold medals. She competed in
Seoul, Korea in 1988 and Barcelona in 1992 before first stepping onto the
Olympic podium in Atlanta in 1996 with a silver medal in the K-1 500 metre.
Four years later Caroline repeated in Sydney and in 2004 she brought home the bronze
from Athens in the same event.
John Campbell is widely recognized as standard bred racing's all-time greatest
driver. He recorded his first victory at age 17 and in 1983 became the first
driver to top $6 million in purses in a single season. By 1991 he became the
first to record over $100 million (U.S.) in lifetime purses and ten years later
the first, and still only, to hit the $200 million mark. Campbell excelled in
premier stakes races as evidenced by 42 Breeders Crown victories. He won his
10,000th race in 2008. Campbell was named driver of the year by the US Harness
Writers Association in 2006.
Hugh Campbell's three years as a CFL player with the Saskatchewan Roughriders
earned him the nickname Gluey Hughie. After coaching stints in the NFL and
USFL, he returned to the Eskimos as general manager and one of the real forces
in CFL development. His 20 years as an Eskimo ended with his retirement in
2006.Ken Shields has more coaching victories than any man in the history of
Canadian inter-university sport. His University of Victoria Vikes won seven
Canadian Interuniversity Sport championships. A four-time winner of the CIS
coach of the year award, he coached the men's national team from 1990 to 1994.
His dedication was recognized in 1998 when he was made a Member of the Order of
Canada. One year later he was inducted to the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame.
With the additions, there are now 506 of members in Canada's Sports Hall of
Fame.
Source: www.thestar.com - Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press
(April 29, 2009) A former central midfielder whose career was cut short by injury, Chris Cummins grew up supporting West Ham United and their elegant brand of soccer.
The newly named Toronto FC interim coach, who succeeds the departed John Carver, looks for similar entertainment from his MLS side, which currently tops the Eastern Conference standings with a 3-2-2 record.
"I like the lads to play," Cummins told a news conference Wednesday at BMO Field. "There's going to be a freedom to play, to get the ball down (field), to look to pass the ball and put on a show as well as getting a result. Now that doesn't mean that we're going to be taking unnecessary risks, playing out from the back and causing ourselves problems."
Cummins, 37, has shown a taste of his brand of soccer the last two games when he was directing traffic from the TFC sidelines. Carver was watching from high in the stands April 22 in the 1-0 win over Chivas USA. He resigned unexpectedly prior to Sunday's 1-0 win over Kansas City.
TFC played an attacking 4-3-3 formation, which at times resembled more of a 4-2-1-3 Sunday with Amado Guevara in the hole behind strikers Danny Dichio, Chad Barrett and Pablo Vitti.
The laidback Cummins also offers the team a change from the unbridled passion of Carver, who by the end of his tenure had a hard time shrugging off the bad calls and other irritations that can plague the man in charge.
Cummins, who was brought on by Carver in May 2008, said those won't bother him.
"I take things as they come," he said. "I don't get too uptight when I don't need to. But I also set high standards and if things are not right, then I will jump on players at the right time."
Those around the English native point to his leadership qualities, confidence and charisma.
Mo Johnston, who hired Carver as coach, said he likes what he sees in Cummins.
"You can see he has a little bit of arrogance, plus a little bit of air in terms of being cool in front of the camera, which is good. Especially in this media," said Johnston, now Toronto's managing director of soccer. "The way he's conducted himself within the locker-room. The way he's handled the games. I think when you break it all down, he was the obvious choice.
"If I go out and bring someone else in here, then there's going to be a lot of changes. And that's not what we need because we have a very good young team."
Johnston said if Cummins gets the job done, he will get to keep it.
"Well why not? Look, it doesn't matter if you've got Jose Mourinho on your side or you've got Chris Cummins. Because at the end of the day if you're winning games, your fans are happy."
Said Cummins: "I'm doing it until I get told not to do it."
Cummins came from English League One side Luton Town, where he had worked with Carver. He began his coaching career with Watford.
"I'm only 37 but I've been in the professional game for about 16 years, I've worked with many, many managers," he said. "Many that I thought were terrific and obviously a few that were not so good."
Cummins singled out Graham Taylor, who gave him his start at Watford, as a particular influence. Taylor went on to manage England.
"I tend to take a lot of things off of him. I pick up the phone now as well and speak to him."
Cummins also spoke glowingly of Carver's talents as a coach, as did Nick Dasovic, who was elevated to first assistant coach.
Cummins played semi-pro soccer up until the age of 20. A knee injury, coupled with a realistic assessment of his talent propelled him towards coaching at an early age.
"And I got a little bit disillusioned with a lot of the managers I was playing for, to be honest with you," he said. "It was a little bit old-school, it was a lot of running and not a lot ball work. And I quite like getting on the ball, I don't enjoy the running as much. So I just decided to get into coaching, very very early."
He grew up supporting West Ham in the 1980s.
"I just thought the football they played was first-class."
He also still follows Watford because a lot of the talent he helped develop there is now in the first team.
Johnston said he does not plan on hiring a new assistant coach. Cummins and Dasovic will be assisted by strength and conditioning coach Paul Winsper and goalkeeping coach Mike Toshack.
Toronto FC hosts the Columbus Crew on Saturday.
SPORTS TIDBITS
We
Remember Greg Page: Former WBA Boxing Champ Dies At 50
Source: www.eurweb.com
(April 29, 2009) *Former heavyweight boxing champion Greg Page, a one time sparring partner of Muhammad Ali, has died
at his Kentucky home, said his wife Patricia Page. He was 50. Page suffered a
severe brain injury eight years ago at a fight in Louisville and his wife said
he died of complications from that fight, reports the Associated Press. Page was in a coma for a week following the
March 2001 World Boxing Association title fight. He suffered a stroke during
post-fight surgery and was paralyzed on his left side and received intensive
physical therapy. At the time of the fight against 24-year-old Dale Crowe, Page
was 42 and had a 58-16-1 career record. He hit the canvas after 10 rounds and
didn't get up. Page won a 1.2 million dollar suit two years ago over the lack
of medical help at the match. Page, who turned pro at age 20, knocked out South
African Gerrie Coetzee in 1984 to win the world championship title. He lost the
belt five months later to Tony Tubbs.
::FITNESS NEWS::
Ask the
Trainer: Lower Ab Exercises
Source: www.ediets.com
- Raphael Calzadilla
(April
24, 2009) Raphael, I would like to know which exercises I need to do in
order for my lower abs to get in shape. I'm very satisfied with all the other
recommendations! The videos are great! Thanks!
- Jezabel
Jezabel,
I’m glad you like the videos that I’ve created because my goal was
to make them instructional and
effective. Thanks for watching them!
Concerning your lower abdominal question, I want to dispel two big myths.
The first myth is that we have separate lower abs and upper abs. In reality,
the abdominals are one long sheet of muscle comprised of an upper and lower
region and not two different muscle groups as most people believe.
The second myth is that we have a six-pack – it’s actually an eight-pack. Internationally acclaimed research
scientist Michael Colgan provides the following description of the eight-pack
from his book, The New Power Program:
“The eight-pack is a long, thin muscle whose fibres run vertically down the
body from the breastbone and fifth, sixth and seventh ribs to the top of the
pubic bone. The eight sought-after bumps poke out through a grid of flat
tendons that run down the center and across the muscle at intervals.”
So now that we have that out of the way, we can focus on helping you to get
tight abs with a focus on the lower ab region, but now you know that the
abdominals are in fact one muscle group.
A lot of people think that hours and hours of abdominal work is the best
approach and some gyms and health clubs even offer one-hour ab classes. Talk
about a colossal waste of time!
Think about it. Would you work your biceps for one hour? Would you perform 500
reps for your triceps? The notion is ludicrous. The reason I mention this is
because I want to not only provide you with an effective ab workout, but I want
you to learn key information about the abs as well. This way, my recommendation
will make more sense to you. Brief but intense workouts are the answer.
Another truth we all hate to accept is that our bellies will not get smaller
unless there is a reduction in body fat. You must be using a
well-designed calorie reduced nutrition program such as eDiets Meal
Delivery or eDiets Glycemic Impact Plan as well as an
intelligently designed exercise program. If not, you won’t achieve the results
you desire.
In fact when an eDiets members asks me how to get a flatter ab area, I always
ask how far they are from their weight goal and if they know what their body
fat percentage is.
Assuming your nutrition program is on track and that you strength training with
weights 2-3 days per week and perform cardio 3-5 days per week, I recommend
the following routine three days per week on non-consecutive days. The
exercises are important, but the limited time between sets is the key to its
effectiveness.
A1. Weighted Fitball Crunches
Weighted fitball crunches are one of my favourite ab exercises. This exercise
developed my abs more than any I’ve ever performed. Position yourself on the
ball (with hands crossed over a weight plate on your chest).
Begin with your lower back positioned toward the front of the ball and with
your feet shoulder-width apart. If you’re performing this for the first time,
spread your feet wider for additional stability. Also, make sure you have a
spotter to assist you.
Next, lower your torso back on the ball. Your neck and head should be in a
neutral position and never extend. Focus on your abs and contract as you raise
the upper torso.
Do not swing back and forth on the ball (the ball should not rock). Focus your
eyes on the ceiling and crunch tight. Lower to just a bit below parallel and
repeat.
The added resistance is extremely effective in working the abs. Let’s
face it, people perform crunch after crunch and never really make a significant
impact on their abs because of a lack of resistance. One other tip to
effectively work the lower ab region is to slide back on the ball a bit.
However, be careful to not slide back too far. When you slide back and perform
the crunch, you’ll feel the lower ab area being worked quite hard.
When purchasing a fitball just remember that one size does not fit all. Follow
these size guidelines:
Under 5’ - 45 cm ball
5’1/4” to 5’6” – 55cm ball
5’6 1/4” to 6’0” – 65cm ball
Over 6’0” – 75 cm ball
Instruction: Perform 12 slow and controlled reps and immediately go
to A2.
A2. Bicycle Manoeuvre
Research consistently rates the Bicycle Manoeuvre as one of the most effective
abdominal exercises.
Lie on a mat with your lower back in a comfortable position. Place your finger
tips on either side of your head by your ears. Bring your knees up to about a
45 degree angle.
Slowly go through a bicycle pedaling motion, alternating your left elbow to
your right knee, then your right elbow to your left knee.
This can be a more advanced exercise. Do not perform this activity if it
puts any strain on your lower back. Do not pull on your head and neck during
this exercise.
The lower to the ground your legs bicycle, the harder your abs have to work.
Instruction: Perform 15 reps on each side and when finished,
immediately go to A3.
A3. Double Crunch
I like the double crunch because if performed correctly, you can isolate the
lower and upper region of the abdominals.
Lie on the floor face up and bend your knees until your legs are at a 45-degree
angle with both feet on the floor. Your back should be comfortably relaxed on
the floor. Place both hands crossed over your chest or gently place your finger
tips on the side of your head.
Contracting your abdominals, raise your head and legs off the floor toward one
another. Focus on the lower and upper ab region while you contract. Slowly
return to the starting position stopping just short of your shoulders and feet
touching the floor. Exhale while rising up and inhale while returning to the
starting position. Keep your eyes on the ceiling to avoid pulling with your
neck. Your hands should not be used to lift the head or assist in the movement
Instruction: Perform 15 reps or as many as possible. When finished,
immediately go to A4.
A4. Plank
Lie face down on mat with elbows resting on floor next to your chest. Push your
body off the floor in a pushup position with body resting on elbows or hands.
Contract the abs and keep the body in a straight line from head to toes. Hold
for 30-60 seconds.
Instruction: After performing the Plank, rest for 60 seconds and
repeat A1-A4 one additional time. In 3-4 weeks, add a third super set so that
you’re performing A1-A4 3 total times (with 60 seconds rest after A4)
Although it looks like a lot, you’ll be surprised how fast you can complete
this routine. Good luck, Jezabel!
|
Motivational Note |
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Source: www.eurweb.com — Martin Luther King |