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canmom · 5 months

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Animationo Night 177 - Kizazi Moto + Fatenah

Hey everyone. It's Animation Night again. We aten'nt dead!!

Huge apologies to European viewers that I couldn't stream this one earlier. Still, I'd like to get back into the swing of things, so we're back. (Bros. We're so back.)

So. tonight we're gonna be checking out Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire. This is a collection of scifi films created by studios from five different countries across the length of Africa.

The impetus came from the South African studio Triggerfish - originally a stop motion studio, but they switched over to CG a few decades ago. We saw some of their work back on Animation Night 166 in Star Wars: Visions, which came close enough to the stop motion feel as to leave me in doubt. There's no question they have a ton of talent.

Like Visions, this short film collection has the financial backing of the Mouse; it also has another American, Spiderverse director Peter Ramsey, serving as executive producer. But there's no monolithic franchise involved this time - the individual directors and studios were given considerable creative freedom. Styles range from anime-esque to Hanna-barbera; stories span aliens in high speed races through near future dystopias to apocalyptic stories about gods.

The creators are a little hands off towards the term 'afrofuturism'; in an interview with Skwigly magazine, producer Tendayi Nyeke asks us to interpret it just as scifi more broadly:

We don’t use the word Afro-futurist! Part of that is we are seeing science fiction, but through the context of Africa, and trying to demystify Afrofuturism. It’s not a genre for us. Because, you start to raise questions like can a French person do an afro futurist movie? And what does that even mean? So it’s an African filmmaker using science fiction as a medium to communicate. Science fiction allows them to imagine big futures. I love when a lot of Western science fiction is looking at a dystopian context, we’re looking at hope. It really comes from trauma in some ways, though we have a rich heritage prior to the trauma. And then we’re like, hey, technology is evolving. We’re evolving as human beings. If there was hope, what could that look like? Science fiction as a medium allows you to explore that just by its design.

Among the filmmakers, there is considerable ambition to change the general layout of the animation industry. Raymond Malinga, director of Herderboy, remarks:

But somehow, because of all these things like colonialism and everything, it’s almost like our creativity was stifled by that and we just keep on accepting the fact that we are supposed to tell mundane things, you know? Mundane. Normal. So with “Herderboy”, I just took one of the oldest professions of the whole continent. And I said if I can update that and Ugandans watch that, they can start saying, you know, if cattle herders can look cool, then what else can look cool?

It's a cool interview, he's very charmingly down to earth when he talks about how after working on the film for a year he has no idea what's funny or not. Isn't that a mood...

Of course, until fairly recently there were a lot more animated films about Africa, such as the French Kirikou series, than animated films created in Africa. Which is nuts when we're talking about an entire continent, right? Thanks, "legacy of colonial extractivism". But things are really moving now! African animation was the subject of Annecy 2021, and in the online version of the festival I got to see the impressively varied Mshini TV collection of the edgier end of the spectrum, which carried all sorts from Newgrounds-esque flashes to South Park-like comedy skits. And this year at Annecy 2023, I got to see the first feature-length animated film from Cameroon, The Sacred Cave. A bug is spreading!

With this field, Kizazi Moto stands out for its startlingly high level of technical polish. And of course, I just like scifi. From the Mouse's perspective, they have their eye on the long game - trying to capture an 'emerging market' and all that. But, I would far rather they spend their money this way than having animators add yet more weight to the sinking Star Wars boat, you know?

So let's go take a look at what they've put together! In total, Kizazi Moto comprises 10 films, typically about 10 minutes long each. You can get summaries here or just watch along tonight, and I'll be posting my thoughts on each one later~

And. For a dose of the heavy along with this fun stuff - the ongoing genocide has put Palestine and specifically the Gaza strip in the front of everyone's minds. While there have been a few animated films touching on the occupation from the Israeli side, like Waltz With Bashir, a celebrated psychological drama in a realist style in which a former Israeli soldier reflects on whether he did a warcrimes, and Seder-Masochism, in which Nina Paley attempts to lay out a story about how the patriarchical Abrahamic religions suppressed an ancient matriarchal religion (she is a terf, how did you guess!), which includes the undeniably conceptually effective but highly equivocating This Land Is Mine segment... there is less available from the Palestinian side for the obvious and sad economic reasons.

But, a couple of weeks ago, Animation Obsessive wrote an article to celebrate Fatenah (2009), a short film animated in the West Bank about a woman in Gaza struggling to get breast cancer treatment. It's available free on Vimeo:

It's directed by Ahmad Habash, a native of the West Bank who came to study animation here in the UK, and secured WHO funding after they saw his student film. But the film is not a one-note activist project, it's a careful character study trying to give a convincing portrait of the different facets of its title character's life. This film was completely new to me and I'm grateful to AniObsessive for highlighting some Palestinian art in my favourite medium. So I'd like to slot this into my little Twitch show as well!

I have a bunch of other short films I'm excited to show, between recent Gobelins works and another AniObsessive piece highlighting their favourite short films from the festival circuit which have become available online. But given the ludicrously late start, I don't want to pack too much in to this one. We'll save that for another week!

I know Animation Night has been very spotty recently. I've been going through it with the old brain a bit ('a bit' she says). I'm trying to get things back on track with sleep and stuff, thank you for all the kind things people have said, and for bearing with me.

So! Let's go! Animation Night 177 will be going live in just a moment in its usual home, https://twitch.tv/canmom!

#animation night #kizazi moto

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emmanuel-katto-uganda-blogs · 8 months

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I Emmanuel Katto shares Uganda's Thriving Music and Dance Scene: From Traditional to Contemporary

Uganda, a country in the center of East Africa, is home to many different cultures and traditions. The music and dance scene there is one of the liveliest examples of this diversity. Uganda's music and dance culture is an enthralling voyage through time and tradition, as a Uganda’s native and journalist I, Emmanuel Katto always enjoyed the indigenous rhythms resonating through the hills and the throbbing beats of modern Afro-pop.

Celebrating Tradition: The Musical and Dance Traditions of Uganda

Uganda is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, all of whom have a strong cultural connection to the country's traditional music and dance. Many groups, such the Baganda, Bakiga, Banyankole, and others, have distinctive musical traditions that are frequently accompanied by dance displays that depict their culture's history, heritage, and daily life.

The rhythmic foundation of these performances is provided by traditional instruments like the adungu, engalabi, and ndingidi. Musicians and dancers dress colorfully to express their pride in their culture. As a result of the colorful energy of these performances, Uganda's cultural festivals attract tourists from all over the world.

The Development of Modern Ugandan Music

Uganda's current music sector is creating waves both locally and globally, in my opinion as a journalist, I Emmanuel Katto aka Emka Uganda would like to say that even if traditional music is still a treasured component of the nation's cultural heritage. Ugandan musicians have perfected the blending of traditional music with contemporary rhythms, resulting in a distinctive and contagious musical style that crosses national boundaries.

Afrobeat, dancehall, and reggae are three genres that are hugely popular in Uganda's modern music industry. Not only in Uganda but also throughout Africa and beyond, musicians like Eddy Kenzo, Sheebah, and Bobi Wine have become household names. In a world that is changing quickly, their music frequently addresses societal concerns through narrating tales of tenacity, love, and hope.

The Dance Revolution

An essential component of Ugandan music culture, the Dance Revolution Dance has seen substantial development in the modern music scene. Ugandan dancers are pushing the limits of creativity and expression with everything from traditional dances like the Bakisimba and Ekitaguriro to contemporary dancehall and hip-hop routines.

Dance competitions and showcases have grown in popularity, giving budding dancers a place to present their talents. Traditional and modern dance styles have been combined to create a distinctive kind of dance that enthralls audiences with its vitality and inventiveness.

Conclusion!

The thriving music and dance industry in Uganda reflects the nation's cultural variety and creative development. Although Ugandan musicians have been propelled into the world stage by the modern music industry, traditional music and dance are still valued traditions. Uganda's music and dance culture is a dynamic force that keeps evolving and captivating audiences throughout the world because to the blend of old and new, tradition and creativity. Therefore, Uganda has something to offer any music and dance fan, whether you're tapping your feet to the beats of traditional drums or dancing to the beats of modern Afro-pop. It's a celebration of the traditional and modern, old and new—a harmonious symphony of civilizations.

#emmanuel katto uganda #emmanuel katto #music #dance #emmanuelkattouganda #emmanuelkatto

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ghanashowbizonline · 7 months

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Online News - Angry Ugandan Minister of Finance takes back ambulance from constituents after losing election

Unveiling the Vibrant Ghana Entertainment and Showbiz Industry From the rhythmic beats of highlife music to the captivating performances of Ghanaian movie stars, the entertainment and showbiz industry in Ghana never fails to enchant both locals and tourists alike. With an abundance of talent, creativity, and a unique cultural heritage, this West African nation has established itself as a force to…

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ultra-maha-us · 11 months

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Adding Ethnic Jewelry to your Wardrobe

Ethnic jewelry is as unique as you are. Humans all over the world have worn jewelry throughout the ages. An unusual ethnic piece worn with a simple tee shirt and pair of jeans brings a completely different perspective to your own unique style. An ethnic piece worn with a skirt and blouse makes a memorable fashion statement.

Ethnic jewelry is an expression of the individual's creativity filtered through tradition and culture. The technique used in these pieces is usually passed from hand to hand through a culture and the pieces are often created of local materials. Ethnic jewelry is frequently symbolic relating to either the culture, the religion, the local industry or family relationships. Some ethnic jewelry is a talisman or worn to bring a certain outcome such as good fortune, strength, protection or courage, while other pieces show the wealth or position of the individual or family.

Ethnic can be either contemporary or rare antique jewelry. Some pieces have great value and are great investments. An example of this is the old pawn Native American pieces available as signed work by the artisans who created them. With modernization in the far flung regions of the world, some of the Colorful techniques used by certain tribes or ethnic groups is dying out and as this happens, these pieces become even more collectible. The turquoise found in some of the older native American jewelry is rare in itself because it comes from mines that have been closed to commercial mining, which makes these pieces quite valuable.

You can find symbolism in many different jewelry pieces. The Ankh is the Egyptian symbol of life. The Celtic Cross symbolizes the universe cut in quarters. The Chinese Ming Knot symbolizes cause and effect. And, most of us know the crow's foot as the Peace Symbol.

Some ethnic pieces are created to be worn as a talisman to provide protection or good fortune or other benefits to the person wearing the jewelry. An example of a talisman piece is the traditional African elephant hair bracelet. This bracelet is said to protect the wearer. The Scarab was worn in ancient Egypt for energy, courage and protection.

Some ethnic jewelry is helping the cultures that created it. The Bead for Life project in Africa helps the Ugandan women reach out of poverty and provide for their children by making beautiful paper beads. They recycle magazines by cutting long thin triangles and rolling them into paper beads. These beads are then chosen for color coordination and strung into necklaces and bracelets.

Caring for ethnic pieces is different from caring for contemporary jewelry. Many of the materials are not waterproof or stable in a cleaning solution, so cleaning can damage them. Some of them are made of wood or seeds and plant oils, not mineral based oils can be helpful in protecting and preserving them. If jewelry made of plant materials is shipped from outside the country it may have been sprayed with insecticide or other materials that can cause allergies.

In general the buyer, should use caution in buying any jewelry, and buy from reputable sources both for investment value and human rights issues associated with the buying and selling of jewelry.

Imagine how a Chinese Cinnabar bracelet, a Navajo squash blossom or hand carved scarab earrings can accent your basic wardrobe pieces with an expression of your own unique personality and style.

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tunoma · 1 year

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The Best Songs of Daddy Andre: A Must-Hear Collection

Daddy Andre, whose real name is Andrew Ojambo, is a Ugandan singer, songwriter, and music producer who has taken the Ugandan music industry by storm with his unique sound and style. He is known for his Afro-beat and dancehall fusion, which has earned him a massive following in Uganda and beyond. Here are some of the best songs of Daddy Andre that you need to add to your playlist.

"Sikikukweeka" - This is one of Daddy Andre's biggest hits and a fan favorite. The song's infectious beat and catchy lyrics make it an instant party starter. It's a song about having a good time and forgetting your problems, and its upbeat tempo will get you dancing in no time.

"Tugende Mu Church" - This is another hit from Daddy Andre that has become a fan favorite. The song is a collaboration with fellow Ugandan artist, Levixone, and it's a gospel tune that encourages people to seek refuge in God. Its soothing melody and inspiring lyrics make it a must-listen for anyone who loves gospel music.

"You and Me" - This song is a romantic ballad that showcases Daddy Andre's softer side. The song's gentle melody and soulful lyrics make it a perfect slow dance song. It's a love song that expresses the joy of being in a relationship with the person you love.

"Omaze" - This is another hit from Daddy Andre that has become a fan favorite. The song's catchy beat and upbeat tempo make it a perfect dance tune. Its lyrics celebrate life and encourage people to live in the moment and have fun.

"Andele" - This song is a collaboration with another Ugandan artist, Nina Roz, and it's a perfect example of Daddy Andre's Afro-beat and dancehall fusion. The song's high-energy beat and catchy lyrics make it a perfect party starter. It's a song about having fun and enjoying life, and its message is sure to get you moving.

Daddy Andre is a talented artist who has contributed immensely to the Ugandan music industry. The above songs are just a few of the many hits he has released over the years. If you're a fan of Afro-beat and dancehall music, then you need to add these songs to your playlist. They are sure to get you dancing and singing along. Daddy Andre is a force to be reckoned with, and his music is proof of his talent and creativity. You can also search for best of Eddy Kenzo if you want to listen his tracks.

#Best songs of Daddy Andre #Best of Eddy Kenzo

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drgreg · 1 year

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Dr Gregory Hough

There are conditions the place an organisation could later uncover that a given rule is properly past its time and require that it is dropped after a collection of optimistic outcomes arising from breaking of such a rule by the workers. This voyage into the Southern Ocean was very special indeed, the experiences will final a lifetime. From the moment we set foot aboard the MSC Orchestra we have been in good arms, professional service, nice entertainment and a birding spectacle. We will be first in line after they announce the subsequent Flock.

I wouldn’t wish to reside in a world with out birds. A truly incredible expertise fantastically put together amidst the present pandemic. Well accomplished BirdLife SA for organising such a prime notch event. With a household of 4 we had one of the best “working” holiday ever.

The concept of threat entails taking chances with hope that the finish result can be favourable, though being aware they do not seem to be sure that the outcome may be adverse. Individuals are said to interact in threat taking, however their stage of doing so differs. This distinction is what has come to be often known as threat propensity (Nicholson et al., 2002). Hopefully, Flock to Marion just isn't a once in a lifetime experience. This went to an uncommon destination and gave tourists a possibility to contribute to the conservation of what drew them to the journey.

There can be an opportunity to conduct an analogous research by employing a longitudinal research design. Because the design entails repeat studies, it offers extra comprehensive outcomes. Future researchers have an opportunity to carry out an identical study amongst private academics in other Ugandan districts and in addition in government colleges.

A as quickly as in a lifetime experience planned and managed regardless of the shifting Covid goal posts. An wonderful and unique birding adventure which supported conservation. A once in a lifetime experience for birders. Birdlife South Africa is an amazing organisation with superior occasions such as the flock. This raises awareness and generates earnings for all of south Africa’s tourism industries.

The free Adobe Reader is required to open and consider paperwork in PDF format. These naïve folks often level to the influence Satan holds over us. For instance, even when his name would appear within the name of a mountain or something dr gregory hough else. These people then argue that these names must be changed so that these influences on folks in that setting can be damaged, allowing them to grow spiritually routinely.

I was not on the flock….in hindsight …have missed an expertise of a like time.. But I have relived all the experiences with Peter and Ineke, upon their return and likewise the Conservation Conversations Zoom meeting. Congratulations Birdlife SA with dr gregory hough your sucessful mouse-Free Marion adventure. May there be many extra in the future to us who couldn’t go with. Activity that coupled an AGM with tourism and nature nature conservation and preservation.

Therefore, it is possible to infer that folks with excessive danger propensity are extra likely to demonstrate pro-social rule-breaking behaviour. Another indication that reveals the potential for danger taking being an antecedent of pro-social rule breaking can be to look at what the chance takers do. In respect to this, Block, Sandner and Spiegel noticed that risk takers in an organisation are involved in being artistic and attempting to provide you with the means and strategies of enhancing performance. Because such creativity can entail going beyond what is often the practice or anticipated norm, we can argue that it is a pointer that the extra danger an individual takes, the extra they're prone to exhibit pro-social rule breaking.

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bigeyeug · 1 year

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Barbie Jay drops Mango Tree

We all notice how fast the Ugandan Music industry is evolving, Outstanding creative minds are behind that positive change,and these are ones we title as the masterminds. On this track we see all the top most masterminds creating and producing together this amazing Afro Dance beat song titled “MANGO TREE” BARBI JAY is a well known artist, producer and songwriter with quite a number of hit song…

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#Barbie Jay #Entertainment #mango tree #Uganda

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nwdsc · 2 years

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(▶︎ Raw Space | Authentically Plastic | HAKUNA KULALAから)

Raw Space by Authentically Plastic

Authentically Plastic - RAW SPACE "RAW SPACE" is rooted in chaos and chance, sensuality and intensity - it's an album that's able to sound alarmingly freeform and tightly controlled simultaneously. Already established as a genre-disrupting DJ, and even dubbed "demon of the Nile" by Ugandan politicians after an exuberant performance at Nyege Nyege festival in September 2019, Kampala-based sonic hypnotist Authentically Plastic brings a digger's literacy, an activist's intent, and an artist's playfulness to their jagged debut album. As both a DJ and a producer, Authentically Plastic is drawn to the idea of chance as a creative tool - to push against the idea of the all-knowing genius, and approach artistry instead as a facilitator, unraveling parallel mismatched rhythmic events. Their musical process is to start with chaos, then attempt to mold those fleshy structures into polyrhythmic mutations, pulling influence from East Africa's innovative musical landscape and augmenting it with an exploratory sense of surrealism. On opening track 'Aesthetic Terrorism', rough-hewn industrial rhythms chug mechanically against course, dissonant synth blasts and acidic arpeggios. There's a faint sparkle of Detroit's chrome-plated Afro-futurism, but bathed in neon light, reflecting Africa's contemporary electronic revolution. Authentically Plastic's productions have a sense of thematic coherence, but their myriad influences are torched into cinders, leaving inverse impressions and ghost rhythms: the tuned overdriven clatter of 'Anti-Fun' echoes Ugandan kadodi modes, yet simultaneously mirrors the rugged out-zone grit of Container or Speaker Music; standout centerpiece 'Buul Okyelo' meanwhile is as rhythmically cross-eyed as Slikback or Nazar, but juxtaposes kinetic dancefloor thumps with chaotic microtonal ritual cycles. Writing "RAW SPACE", Authentically Plastic found themselves fascinated by sonic flatness. They realized that in Western art, there's an obsession with depth of field that carries into music, robbing it of intensity. The album is an example of the power that can be reclaimed when you let go of depth, letting sounds rub together carnally and spawn something fresh and unexpected

#2209 #WM #EL #africa

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buypropertyeasy · 2 years

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Top 10 Property Management Companies in Africa

Wanting to list your property for sale or rent it out but stuck with the hesitation of having to manage it? Worry no more, as these firms will help you get up and running in no time if your property is based in African countries like Uganda and South Africa.

1. Crane Management

The top real estate company in Uganda, Crane Management Services, provides real estate management, marketing, and consulting services

Office space, retail space, commercial space, residential space, storage, and consulting are all included in its real estate market

2. RealNet

With sales in residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural properties as well as sales in real estate developments, letting properties, and managing properties, this company has a national reach

3. Property Services Limited

In Uganda, Property Services Limited manages, buys, and sells real estate

Property Services Limited, a property and estates management company founded in 1990, has helped to build a number of properties that have grown to be recognizable landmarks in Kampala

With a large portfolio of properties under administration, Property Services Limited provides efficient management services

4. Eastlands Agency

Property management, brokerage, title transfer, property consulting, and development are all the services offered by Eastlands Agency

They specialize in managing properties owned by Ugandans who reside abroad

5. Rawson

In 1978, Rawson entered the South African real estate market

The company is named after Bill Rawson, a well-known figure in the real estate sector

The owner took action after conducting in-depth market research that indicated a rising need for safe, reasonably priced, and low-maintenance housing in special geographic areas such as the Western Cape, some of Gauteng, and Durban North

Currently, Rawson Developers has more than 200 franchisees, and 1000 agents, and is recognized for building more than 2500 homes and over 50 distinctive real estate complexes

Sales and rents, letting, bond origination, and auctions are all part of Rawson’s broad product and service offering

6. Firzt Realty Company

Since its establishment approximately three decades ago, Firzt Realty Company has been known for its in-depth understanding of property management, exceptional commitment to serving its clients, and creative introduction of new business methods

Denese Zaslansky, the company’s CEO and founder, provided innovative leadership that has helped it grow into a reputable supplier of specialized services for both residential and commercial premises

These services include leasing, auctions, and selling

7. Riverstone Africa

Riverstone Africa was established in 2015 in accordance with Ugandan law with a primary focus on property management

Since then, they have expanded into project planning, cost engineering, property appraisal and consultancy

8. Ecoland Property Services

Property sales, rentals, and leases are the focus of Ecoland Property Services

They are among the leading property agents in commercial, residential, agricultural and industrial property

They assist local and international real estate investors to buy properties in Uganda as a property management and real estate brokerage company

9. Seeff

Seeff is a unique property management firm that was built on solid family and business values of quality and integrity

Its founders have a genuine enthusiasm for helping regular people and established business people open the doors to their property travels

From very modest beginnings in 1964, Seeff has grown to have an impressive client and business portfolio of about 100 000 active buyers, 200 branches, and a staff of 1200 agents both within South Africa and in nations like Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Eswatini, and Mauritius

Seeff also has excellent knowledge and experience gained over the years

10. Donville Properties Ltd

Donville Properties Ltd provides professional property management services with individualized approaches

Donville’s management philosophy is based on professionalism, ethics, accountability, and quality service, all of which ensure the highest returns on your investment while keeping your property in top condition to draw in the best tenants and visitors

REFERENCE:

https://highwaymail.co.za/439858/top-property-management-companies-in-south-africa/

https://realmuloodi.co.ug/top-10-property-management-companies-in-uganda-in-2021/

DISCLOSURE:

None of these articles constitutes financial advice. Articles are highly summarised to make it easy for the reader and save your time, so please DYOR further before putting your hard-earned money into any product mentioned.

Please note that the tech industry evolves rapidly and this article’s information is correct at the time of publishing. As Heraclitus said, “Change is the only constant,” so if anything sounds old or off, please holler on the socials or comment here so everyone stays peeled.

Affiliate links may be included in these articles, and signups through these links are highly appreciated. These links support better research and quality writing and help you find the right products with less hassle, so it’s a win-win :) Great care is taken to ensure the links are from authentic, non-spammy sources.

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#real estate #property investment #africa #property management #property managers #buypropertyeasy

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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Something strange happened to the news over the past four years. The dominant stories all resembled the scripts of bad movies—sequels and reboots. The Kavanaugh hearings were a sequel to the Clarence Thomas hearings, and Russian collusion was rebooted as Ukrainian impeachment. Journalists are supposed to hunt for good scoops, but in January, as the coronavirus spread, they focused on the impeachment reality show instead of a real story.

It’s not just journalists. The so-called second golden era of television was a decade ago, and many of those shows relied on cliff-hangers and gratuitous nudity to hold audience attention. Across TV, movies, and novels it is increasingly difficult to find a compelling story that doesn’t rely on gimmicks. Even foundational stories like liberalism, equality, and meritocracy are failing; the resulting woke phenomenon is the greatest shark jump in history.

Storytelling is central to any civilization, so its sudden failure across society should set off alarm bells. Culture inevitably reflects the selection process that sorts people into the upper class, and today’s insipid stories suggest a profound failure of this sorting mechanism.

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Culture is larger than pop culture, or even just art. It encompasses class, architecture, cuisine, education, manners, philosophy, politics, religion, and more. T. S. Eliot charted the vastness of this word in his Notes towards the Definition of Culture, and he warned that technocratic rule narrowed our view of culture. Eliot insisted that it’s impossible to easily define such a broad concept, yet smack in the middle of the book he slips in a succinct explanation: “Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.” This highlights why the increase in “deaths of despair” is such a strong condemnation of our dysfunction. In a fundamental way, our culture only exists to serve a certain class. Eliot predicted this when he critiqued elites selected through education: “Any educational system aiming at a complete adjustment between education and society will tend to restrict education to what will lead to success in the world, and to restrict success in the world to those persons who have been good pupils of the system.”

This professional managerial class has a distinct culture that often sets the tone for all of American culture. It may be possible to separate the professional managerial class from the ruling elite, or plutocracy, but there is no cultural distinction. Any commentary on an entire class will stumble in the way all generalizations stumble, yet this culture is most distinct at the highest tiers, and the fuzzy edges often emulate those on the top. At its broadest, these are college-educated, white-collar workers whose income comes from labor, who are huddled in America’s cities, and who rise to power through existing bureaucracies. Bureaucracies, whether corporate or government, are systems that reward specific traits, and so the culture of this class coalesces towards an archetype: the striving bureaucrat, whose values are defined by the skills needed to maneuver through a bureaucracy. And from the very beginning, the striving bureaucrat succeeds precisely by disregarding good storytelling.

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Professionals today would never self-identify as bureaucrats. Product managers at Google might have sleeve tattoos or purple hair. They might describe themselves as “creators” or “creatives.” They might characterize their hobbies as entrepreneurial “side hustles.” But their actual day-in, day-out work involves the coordination of various teams and resources across a large organization based on established administrative procedures. That’s a bureaucrat. The entire professional culture is almost an attempt to invert the connotations and expectations of the word—which is what underlies this class’s tension with storytelling. Conformity is draped in the dead symbols of a prior generation’s counterculture.

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When high school students read novels, they are asked to identify the theme, or moral, of a story. This teaches them to view texts through an instrumental lens. Novelist Robert Olen Butler wrote that we treat artists like idiot savants who “really want to say abstract, theoretical, philosophical things, but somehow they can’t quite make themselves do it.” The purpose of a story becomes the process of translating it into ideas or analysis. This is instrumental reading. F. Scott Fitzgerald spent years meticulously outlining and structuring numerous rewrites of The Great Gatsby, but every year high school students reduce the book to a bumper sticker on the American dream. A story is an experience in and of itself. When you abstract a message, you lose part of that experience. Analysis is not inherently bad; it’s just an ancillary mode that should not define the reader’s disposition.

Propaganda is ubiquitous because we’ve been taught to view it as the final purpose of art. Instrumental reading also causes people to assume overly abstract or obscure works are inherently profound. When the reader’s job is to decode meaning, then the storyteller is judged by the difficulty of that process. It’s a novel about a corn beef sandwich who sings the Book of Malachi. Ah yes, a profound critique of late capitalism. An artist! Overall, instrumental reading teaches striving students to disregard stories. Cut to the chase, and give us the message. Diversity is our strength? Got it. Throw the book out. This reductionist view perhaps makes it difficult for people to see how incoherent the higher education experience has become.

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“Decadence” sounds incorrect since the word elicits extravagant and glamorous vices, while we have Lizzo—an obese antifertility priestess for affluent women. All our decadence becomes boring, cringe-inducing, and filled with HR-approved jargon. “For my Fulbright, I studied conflict resolution in nonmonogamous throuples.” Campus dynamics may partially explain this phenomenon. Camille Paglia has argued that many of the brightest left-wing thinkers in the 1960s fried their brains with too much LSD, and this created an opportunity for the rise of corporate academics who never participated in the ’60s but used its values to signal status. What if this dropout process repeats every generation?

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The professional class tells a variety of genre stories about their jobs: TED Talker, “entrepreneur,” “innovator,” “doing well by doing good.” One of the most popular today is corporate feminism. This familiar story is about a young woman who lands a prestigious job in Manhattan, where she guns for the corner office while also fulfilling her trendy Sex and the City dreams. Her day-in, day-out life is blessed by the mothers and grandmothers who fought for equality—with the ghost of Susan B. Anthony lingering Mufasa-like over America’s cubicles. Yet, like other corporate genre stories, girl-boss feminism is a celebration of bureaucratic life, including its hierarchy. Isn’t that weird?

There are few positive literary representations of life in corporate America. The common story holds that bureaucratic life is soul-crushing. At its worst, this indulges in a pedestrian Romanticism where reality is measured against a daydream, and, as Irving Babbitt warned, “in comparison . . . actual life seems a hard and cramping routine.” Drudgery is constitutive of the human condition. Yet even while admitting that toil is inescapable, it is still obvious that most white-collar work today is particularly bleak and meaningless. Office life increasingly resembles a mental factory line. The podcast is just talk radio for white-collar workers, and its popularity is evidence of how mind-numbing work has become for most.

Forty years ago, Christopher Lasch wrote that “modern industry condemns people to jobs that insult their intelligence,” and today employers rub this insult in workers’ faces with a hideously infantilizing work culture that turns the office into a permanent kindergarten classroom. Blue-chip companies reward their employees with balloons, stuffed animals, and gold stars, and an exposé detailing the stringent communication rules of the luxury brand Away Luggage revealed how many start-ups are just “live, laugh, love” sweatshops. This humiliating culture dominates America’s companies because few engage in truly productive or necessary work. Professional genre fiction, such as corporate feminism, is thus often told as a way to cope with the underwhelming reality of working a job that doesn’t contribute anything to the world.

There is another way to tell the story of the young career woman, however. Her commute includes inspiring podcasts about Ugandan entrepreneurs, but also a subway stranger breathing an egg sandwich into her face. Her job title is “Senior Analyst—Global Trends,” but her job is just copying and pasting between spreadsheets for ten hours. Despite all the “doing well by doing good” seminars, the closest thing she knows to a community is spin class, where a hundred similar women, and one intense man in sports goggles, listen to a spaz scream Hallmark card affirmations.

…

The bureaucrat even describes the process of rising through fraudulence as “playing the game.” The book The Organization Man criticized professionals in the 1950s for confusing their own interests with those of their employers, imagining, for example, that moving across the country was good for them simply because they were transferred. “Playing the game” is almost like an overlay on top of this attitude. The idea is that personal ambition puts the bureaucrat in charge. Bureaucrats always feel that they are “in on the game,” and so develop a false sense of certainty about the world, which sorts them into two groups: the cynics and the neurotics. Cynics recognize the nonsense, but think it’s necessary for power. The neurotics, by contrast, are earnest go-getters who confuse the nonsense with actual work. They begin to feel like they’re the only ones faking it and become so insecure they have to binge-watch TED Talks on “imposter syndrome.”

These two dispositions help explain why journalists focus on things like impeachment rather than medical supply chains. One group cynically condescends to American intelligence, while neurotics shriek about the “norms of our democracy.” Both are undergirded by a false certainty about what’s possible. Professional elites vastly overestimate their own intelligence in comparison with the average American, and today there is nothing so common as being an elitist. Meanwhile, public discourse gets dumber and dumber as elitists spend all their time explaining hastily memorized Wikipedia entries to those they deem rubes.

…

The entire phenomenon of the nonconformist bureaucrat can be seen as genre inversion. Everyone today grew up with pop culture stories about evil corporations and corporate America’s soul-sucking culture, and so the “creatives” have fashioned a self-image defined against this genre. These stories have been internalized and inverted by corporate America itself, so now corporate America has mandatory fun events and mandatory displays of creativity.

In other words, past countercultures have been absorbed into corporate America’s conception of itself. David Solomon isn’t your father’s stuffy investment banker. He’s a DJ! And Goldman Sachs isn’t like the stuffy corporations you heard about growing up. They fly a transgender flag outside their headquarters, list sex-change transitions as a benefit on their career site, and refuse to underwrite an IPO if the company is run by white men. This isn’t just posturing. Wokeness is a cult of power that maintains its authority by pretending it’s perpetually marching against authority. As long it does so, its sectaries can avoid acknowledging how they strengthen managerial America’s stranglehold on life by empowering administrators to enforce ever-expanding bureaucratic technicalities.

…

Moreover, it is shocking that no one in the 2020 campaign seems to have reacted to the dramatic change that happened in 2016. Good storytellers are attuned to audience sophistication, and must understand when audiences have grown past their techniques. Everyone has seen hundreds of movies, and read hundreds of books, and so we intuitively understand the shape of a good story. Once audiences can recognize a storytelling technique as a technique, it ceases to function because it draws attention to the artifice. This creates distance between the intended emotion and the audience reaction. For instance, a romantic comedy follows a couple as they fall in love and come together, and so the act two low point will often see the couple breaking up over miscommunication. Audiences recognize this as a technique, and so, even though miscommunication often causes fights, it seems fake.

Similarly, today’s voters are sophisticated enough to recognize the standard political techniques, and so their reactions are no longer easily predictable. Voters intuitively recognize that candidate “debates” are just media events, and prewritten zingers do not help politicians when everyone recognizes them as prewritten. The literary critic Wayne Booth wrote that “the hack is, by definition, the man who asks for responses he cannot himself respect,” and our politicians are always asking us to buy into nonsense that they couldn’t possibly believe. Inane political tropes operate just like inane business jargon and continue because everyone thinks they’re on the inside, and this blinds them to obvious developments in how audiences of voters relate to political tropes. Trump often plays in this neglected space.

The artistic development of the sitcom can be seen as the process of incorporating its own artifice into the story. There is a direct creative lineage from The Dick Van Dyke Show, a sitcom about television comedy writers, to The Office, a show about office workers being filmed for television. Similarly, Trump often succeeds because he incorporates the artifice of political tropes. When Trump points out that the debate audiences are all donors, or that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t actually pray for him, he’s just pointing out what everyone already knows. This makes it difficult for other politicians to “play the game,” because their standard tropes reinforce Trump’s message. If the debates are just media spectacle events for donors, then applause lines work against you. It’s similar to breaking the fourth wall, while the rest of the cast nervously tries to continue with their lines. Trump’s success is evidence that the television era of political theater is ending, because its storytelling formats are dead.

In fact, the (often legitimate) criticism that Trump does not act “presidential” is the same as saying that he’s not acting professional—that he is ignoring the rules of bureaucratic advancement. Could you imagine Trump’s year-end review? “In 2020, we invite Donald to stop sending Outlook reminders that just say ‘get schlonged.’” Trump’s antics are indicative of his different route to power. Forget everything else about him: how would you act if you never had a job outside a company with your name on the building? The world of the professional managerial class doesn’t contain many characters, and so they associate eccentricity with bohemianism or ineptitude. But it’s also reliably found somewhere else.

Small business owners are often loons, wackos, and general nutjobs. Unlike the professional class, their personalities vary because their job isn’t dependent on how others view them. Even when they’re wealthy or successful, they often don’t act “professional.” It requires tremendous grit and courage to own a business. They are perhaps the only people today who embody what Pericles meant when he said that the “secret to freedom is courage.” In the wake of coronavirus, small businesses owners stoically shuttered their stores and faced financial ruin, while politicians with camera-ready personas and ratlike souls tried to increase seasonal worker visas.

…

Ever since Star Wars, screenwriters have used Joseph Campbell’s monomyth to measure a successful story, and an essential act one feature is the refusal of adventure. For a moment, the universe opens up and shows the hero an unknown world of possibility, but the hero backs away. For four years, our nation has refused adventure, yet fate cannot be ignored. The coronavirus forces our nation to confront adventure. With eerie precision, this global plague tore down the false stories that veiled our true situation. The experts are incompetent. The institutions told us we were racist for caring about the virus, and then called for arresting paddleboarders in the middle of the ocean. Our business regulations make it difficult to create face masks in a crisis, while rewarding those who outsource the manufacturing of lifesaving drugs to our rival. The new civic religion of wokeness is a dangerous antihuman cult that distorts priorities. Even our Hollywood stars turn out to be ugly without makeup.

#james mcelroy #american affairs #read the whole thing

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insanityclause · 5 years

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Towards the end of 2017, Zawe Ashton quit acting. She was 33 years old, with a CV that included roles in the cult TV comedy Fresh Meat, films such as Dreams of a Life and Nocturnal Animals and a solid 12 years on the stage, with appearances at the Royal Court and the Old Vic. But something no longer felt right. “There was an artistic chasm opening up between the work I felt I was meant for,” she says, “and the work that was coming my way.”

Less than two years later, Ashton is on Broadway, receiving rave reviews for her performance as Emma in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. Tom Hiddleston plays her husband, Robert, and Charlie Cox her lover. “At the moment,” she acknowledges with a wry smile, “quitting acting is going very badly for me.”

It’s Friday morning in Manhattan and Ashton and I are talking over almond croissants in a French café around the corner from her digs. Being superstitious, she claims not to have read Betrayal’s reviews. But when I tell her that The New York Times called her the show’s “breakout star”, she grins. “Oh, that bit I have seen. It’s written above my massive head on a poster outside the theatre.”

Jamie Lloyd’s pared-back production had already been a hit in London before transferring to New York last month, and the three primary cast members are making their Broadway debuts together. “Thank God,” she says. “It’s like losing your virginity with another virgin.”

The last time Betrayal was staged on Broadway, in 2013, it starred Rachel Weisz, Daniel Craig and Rafe Spall, and broke box office records in its opening week. “I’m obsessed with Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig,” says Ashton. The couple live nearby: I ask if she has she hung out with them while in town. “Absolutely not!” she cries, pulling a face as if I’ve just suggested we sprint naked up Ninth Avenue.

Despite barely being out of work since signing up, aged six, for weekend acting classes at the Anna Scher school in north London – and landing her first paid job, on Jackanory, that same year – Ashton says: “I don’t consider myself in the public eye at all. I still sit in the window of the threading place I’ve been going to since I was 15, and have a woman thread my moustache.”

How much longer that anonymity will last is open to question; news stories linking her romantically with Hiddleston – The Night Manager star catapulted to Hollywood heart-throb status by his role in the Avengers films – are already flooding the internet.

“We’re in a play called Betrayal – of course people are going to speculate,” she laughs, when I broach the subject, but refuses to be drawn on it. “Being in dialogue with that is just so weird to me. It’s surreal.

“Is [the speculation] selling tickets?” she asks, rhetorically. “I bloody hope so – it’s got to be good for something, hasn’t it?”

If the castmates are dating, Ashton must be a master of time management. Betrayal may be getting all the attention, but as of Monday, she will have a hand in three theatrical productions running simultaneously. for all the women who thought they were Mad, Ashton’s play about mental health in the black community and the overmedication of black women, is opening on the same night in the Hackney Showroom in London and the SoHo Rep Theatre, off-Broadway in New York.

Ashton wrote the play in 24 hours in a “fever dream,” at the end of a 2008 Young Writers program at the Royal Court Theatre – where her fellow students included playwrights Nick Payne (Constellations) and James Graham (This House, Ink) – and with the help of a group called the Black Women’s Mental Health Project (“Now defunct, of course, because: austerity measures”).

“A woman there gave me facts and figures that seemed to unlock parts of the play that I’d started to write,” says Ashton, “and it confirmed something I knew on a very deep instinctual level, about the cultural biases that happen on a daily basis.” Ashton has first-hand experience of those biases, not least since, as she notes, “this play has taken 11 years to produce. I can’t help think that if I were a 24-year-old white male, it would have been on in every theatre in the land.”

Ashton grew up in north London, the eldest child of an English father and a Ugandan mother, who met while teaching; her father went on to become a commissioning editor at Channel 4. Home was “an environment where I was very much allowed to be the creative soul that I was,” says Ashton – her younger brother is now an artist and musician and her sister, a producer.

At school (state, single sex) things were less rosy. "I was so badly bullied,” she says. “I was this tall, skinny misfit who was unapologetic about the things that I was passionate about. I had a sense of who I was and what I was into, and you’re not supposed to have that. You’re just supposed to blend in.”

Even in the face of “a huge physical threat, a lot of the time,” she refused to conform and instead developed a resilience that would serve her well at drama school in Manchester. “By the end, they couldn’t wait for me to leave,” she says. “I’d turned against the institution in such a major way; you can’t grow creativity in a vacuum like that.”

Creativity is not something Ashton lacks. In the past couple of years alone she has directed a short film for Tate Modern about the artist Lorraine O’Grady, presented the Channel 4 arts programme Random Acts, guest-edited BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, and in April, had her first book published.

Character Breakdown is a comic novel based “absolutely, one hundred per cent” on Ashton’s own experiences as a woman in the entertainment industry. It features a catalogue of bullying, body image issues, insecurity, objectification and misogyny.

She began writing it, “pre- pre- pre-” the inception of the #MeToo movement two years ago. “When I started writing it, I was nervous that no one would give a s--- – who’s going to want to hear about an actress’s problems? Then, suddenly, all anyone’s talking about are actresses’ problems – I was, like, I’ve got to finish this book!”

Although she describes herself as “not someone who’s always asking: what’s next?” she admits that directing something substantial is high on her to-do list. “I love putting all the components together,” she says. “I want to draw the map rather than follow the map.”

for all the women who thought they were Mad is  at Hackney Showroom, London N16 (020 3095 9747) from Mon

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nomaliqhwa · 5 years

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HERE'S WHY #HERSTORY IS ALSO OUR STORY

Nomaliqhwa Hadebe | Illustrations: Zinhle Sithebe

In our roles as rappers, radio hosts, executives, editors, DJs, VJs and patrons – it's women who are the custodians of the culture and who have helped hip hop in South Africa be more than just an imported passing fad.

Hip hop offers a space for reflection, ambition and comfort. It's competitive, raw, badass and nasty. And it can also be melancholic and emblematic, speaking to and for you. Simply put, hip hop belongs to women. And with Castle Lite bringing the first-ever all female line-up to Africa with the #HIPHOPHERSTORY concert, it's an opportune time to reflect on women's impact, starting with the trailblazers who will be on that stage.

Because for a genre that is shaped by many women's hands, the optics that currently represent hip hop still don't show the full picture. The way women are made to feel valueless within the scene, seen only as accessories to men's success is fraudulent. Women are the custodians of hip hop culture in South Africa right now, and it's about time we said it out loud.

"People generally think that with females sex sells and that's the only way you can get the message across. But that's not the case, that's what we are trying to eradicate in any industry that deals with entertainment and women. We are not here to sell ourselves, we are here to communicate with you. And in terms of transformation, that's happening more now." Ayanda MVP

There's a popular tag about Cape Town hip hop being excluded from the greater narrative, and you wouldn't be completely off if you bought into it. Similarly the women doing the work haven't fully received the props that they deserve, which has resulted in a massive oversight of the important conversations and themes that female MCs continue to bring to the forefront. Today, we are privy to rappers like Andy Mkosi and Dope Saint Jude using their narratives to make music that speaks to how race, gender, sexuality and class impact their lives. Legitimising their intersected identities within the bigger scope of the hip hop narrative and allowing that representation to cross over far and wide. Like with the project that was Andy Mksosi's intimate Bedroom Tour, it added an incredibly personal and immersive feel to the way we experience the genre. Demonstrating the different dimensions of what hip hop in South Africa is and can be – even to communities it's been previously known to subjugate.

As in the case of rap supergroup and South African Hip Hop Hall of Famers Godessa. In our narrow perspective we forget to pay homage to these true OGs: three women out of Cape Town who charged forward in their role as pioneers of a mainstream movement at a time when the genre needed a buy in from women and the nation as a whole. Kwaito was at its prime as the urban culture, and reverberated with the South African experience in a way that hip hop did not. Yet Godessa's impact cemented hip hop's place in South African popular culture and ensured that it was more than an imported passing fad. They did that.

Godessa's presence was especially important at a time when the types of conversations we had about marginalised groups weren't as mainstream and as nuanced as they are now. Even while faced with the expectation that's still prevalent to this day – that women must compete with one another for limited seats at the table – they came through as three women of colour from Cape Town. In love with how rap gave them the ability to shape and control, Shame, EJ and Burni disproved the myth that women are each other's opponents by design. They also gave us bop on bops while providing one of South African hip hop's biggest lessons: if this thing is going to survive the early days it's going to have to be through the power of collectives. A call that was heeded nationwide by groups like Skwatta Kamp, Jozi, Teargas and more.

A significant scene in the Roxanne Shante biopic comes at the end when a little boy named Nassir desperately seeks out Roxanne to help him with his rhymes – alluding to a whole Nas needing to know that Roxanne thought he had the ability to one day be a good rapper.

It's worth considering that the reluctance to include women in the conversation may be hinged on an aversion to "women's issues". Perhaps it's the disinclination to rhymes that centre experiences that are not tailored for male consumption that fuels the myth that the quality of rap suffers when women pick up the mic.

But have you noticed how many women's nods a track needs for it to truly take off? In South Africa, one of the greatest examples of the power of women's co-sign is Lee Kasumba. It is her love of hip hop that has led to a career as one of the most prolific personalities in entertainment on the continent, and who has launched rap careers locally and throughout Africa. As a DJ and producer at YFM she created a space for South African hip hop to go mainstream, and then working as the Head of Channel O she now ensures that some of our faves stand a chance at being play-listed. Alongside this her work at Big Brother allows hip hop to leverage a wider audience. Then it is her being part of judging panels for BET Awards, Hype Magazine Awards and the South African Music Awards that has made it so that there are legitimate dreams to chase within the sorority.

Lee Kasumba's flexibility as a creative and conviction that not only does her opinion matter, but that it is important, has helped propel the growth of hip hop across the continent. It's her identity as a Ugandan woman living in South Africa shapes what she envisions and it remains important that she see her visions through because of how far her reach extends to. It's important she makes the career leaps giving her access to more resources and connections, like with the UN projects she is a part of as well as her charity that links African youth together through hip hop, Harambe. In doing so she has created more opportunities for many, broadening the scope and widening the cannon.

Passing the baton on to artists like Moozlie, who as a MTV VJ gave the nod that affected how viewers perceived things, it was her interviews and reporting that made the rest of the country aware of happenings in spaces like Braamfontein and the rap stars and fashions that emerged from those scenes. Her face helped brands integrate themselves into the local scene on a much bigger scale, while her presence as an MC at events brought people to clubs so that DJs could play the songs that in turn made them an integral part of the culture. Not surprising then that as a rapper Moozlie has released material in relatively quick succession that's challenged her male adversaries. Another game-changing move has been starting her own label to ensure that the deals suit her best interest as the artist she wants to be. This is beyond the question of inclusivity, it's a challenge for the crown.

Sure, there's no denying how women are part of hip hop's aesthetics: the booty-shaking, the bottle girls, girls getting sprayed with Champagne, faces on the flyers, bodies doing on campus promotions... That's hip hop too, but so is consistency.

And since the 'Amantombazane' remix, released a good four years ago, Nadia Nakai has consistently delivered. Her rap persona has consistently been the unrelenting foul mouthed rapper, unafraid of courting the crass and challenging whomever for the number one spot. On features she's upfront about her intentions, she isn't there to sing a hook or twerk in the background; she's there to kill that sh*t. Improving her pen game so that each verse is better than the last, Nadia knows that she won't be afforded the opportunity to be lazy or that the predominantly-male industry is waiting for her to be.

If how good she looks is going to grab your attention first then so be it; Nadia uses the agency of her body as a part of her brand and has no qualms tapping into that. Having been featured on some of the biggest and most commercially viable songs Nadia has become an ambassador of the new school and proves how our female rappers may be the hardest working of any of the main players today.

It's this visibility that has created a space for women writers, DJs, rappers and fans to claim ownership in a hyper-masculine space. A power that has given women the room to decide how they want to enjoy what comes from it, as well as the power to out problematic figures from performances while making a point of promoting inclusivity. It's the female buying power that indicates the taste levels in hip hop: the images women aspire to – be it overt sex appeal or boss bitch looks – the fashion we find appealing, and that is empowering. Women need know that we have that power.

We see this online in spaces like Twitter, which has become the first real go-to when one wants to see how well a project is doing. It's the women with the many followers, often brought on by teams as conversation drivers, tweeting out their opinions because their influence is the deciding factor over whether or not a hit will bang. It's the influencers who get asked to promote the big shows and yes it's the mention of Nicole Nyaba and Sophie Ndaba that make a line memorable, downloadable and dare I say, bearable. It's the memes, gifs, Instagram captions, snapchat videos. It's the girls, girls, girls, girls...

At the intersection of hip hop and identity politics women have found that they can create their own spaces that hip hop can live and breathe in. Pussy Party, founded by Phatstoki and Rosie Parade at Kitcheners where women and femmes dominate the space, learn to be DJs and ultimately feel safe enough to enjoy hip hop in the way they want.

What is most inspiring is that we have a new generation of women working their way towards being Lee Kasumbas in their own right. That we can listen to Loot Love on a prime weekend slot on Metro FM and be reassured that our voices matter. Knowing that the idea of collaboration isn't discouraged, that there's room for all of us to eat and still have healthy competition. Knowing that women have the clout to achieve on the same scale as figures who previously took up all the space. It's about acknowledging that hip hop is ours enough for it to be something we feel entitled to enough to hand over.

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