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Review: J Mascis, Elastic Days
Elastic Days feels so natural to the artist that it may be easy to take for granted.3.5
Since his emergence in the mid-1980s as Dinosaur Jr.'s frontman, J Mascis has served as a paragon of the "slacker rock" aesthetic. Given his prolificacy over the last three decades, that label now feels like a bit of a misnomer, but it's also easy to see why it's stuck: Mascis, with his laconic drawl of a singing voice and mostly static pool of influences, makes music that exudes an untroubled placidity that's tempting to mistake for laziness.
Elastic Days, Mascis's third solo album, does little at first to dispel this impression. Like its predecessors, 2011's Several Shades of Why and 2014's Tied to a Star, the album finds Mascis in comfortable aesthetic territory, playing stripped-down, roots-flavored variations of Dinosaur Jr.'s ragged guitar rock. Even the pencil-based cover art by John Brattin—which simultaneously suggests a German Expressionist homage and a stoner's detention-hall notebook doodle—fits in neatly with the rest of Mascis's library, recalling not only Marq Spusta's whimsical designs for his last two albums, but also Maura Jasper's iconic sketch for 1987's You're Living All Over Me.
Beneath the surface, however, is some of Mascis's most accomplished solo work to date. Always an underrated craftsman, he brings his knack for seemingly effortless hooks to the fore on Elastic Days: Opening track "See You at the Movies" boasts one of his catchiest choruses since 1988's "Freak Scene," and the melodies on songs like "Web So Dense" and the poignant title track are surprisingly pretty. Mascis carries these hooks with some of the most emotive—and clearly audible—singing of his career, even slipping briefly into a fragile falsetto on the melancholic "I Went Dust."
The album also doesn't shy away from Mascis's reputation for guitar-shredding. Ten of its 12 tracks build to a signature ear-splitting solo, each of which seems to pour out of him so organically that it doesn't matter how at odds they sometimes feel with the otherwise mild arrangements. It's a welcome shift for purely utilitarian reasons: Mascis has always been a better guitarist than songwriter, and a better songwriter than singer. But his guitar heroics also add an appealing edge to the album's softer moments, as when a particularly fiery solo lights up the delicate chorus of "Sky Is All We Had."
Indeed, Elastic Days needs as much tonal variation as it can get: At times, especially in its latter half, the album threatens to succumb to its mellowness. Always the most hippie-adjacent of his generation of alt-rockers, the 52-year-old Mascis is now unafraid to make music best appreciated while passing a joint around a campfire; if the title of "Picking Out the Seeds" doesn't make his source of inspiration clear, then its laidback country-rock arrangement surely will. Luckily, Mascis peppers his songs with just enough stylistic shifts to keep them from sounding samey (the moody "Cut Stranger," with its finger-picked minor-key guitar line, is a particular late-album standout).
For better or worse, Elastic Days is vintage J Mascis—an album that feels so natural to the artist that it may be easy to take it for granted. Mascis is no stranger to being compared to Neil Young, but here the comparison feels especially apt, particularly the Young of 1975's Zuma, with exquisite melodies sitting alongside gnarled guitar excursions, presented with apparent indifference to their incongruity. Like Zuma, Elastic Days takes a little time to warm up to, but once it's sunk in, it's as comfortable as an old pair of jeans.
Label: Sub Pop Release Date: November 9, 2018 Buy: Amazon
Review: Ty Dolla $ign's Featuring Ty Dolla $ign Is Catchy but Lacks Clarity of Vision
The album highlights the artist's shortcomings as much as it does his sly appeal.3
Like many of his millennial pop contemporaries, Ty Dolla $ign, born Tyrone Griffin Jr., works loosely in the rap world, collapsing other genres into a mix of sounds tailored to his strengths, each strain recognizable enough to court a general audience. Like his first two albums, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign is sequenced rather starkly: a full hour divided between rap and R&B, the first half stocked with raunchy hip-hop and the second delving into more measured, slinky tributes to both sex and love. The album is a mostly enjoyable listen, but it highlights its maker's shortcomings as much as it does his sly appeal.
The songs throughout aren't quite as immediate as Ty Dolla's past work, and some of the slower jams from the album's latter half, like "Everywhere" or "Time Will Tell," would be better placed between "Double R" and "Freak," grating trap cuts made all the more so due to their back-to-back proximity. The tracks are also all so short—it's well over halfway through Featuring Ty Dolla $ign before a song exceeds the three-minute mark—that the album begins to feel like a half-baked mixtape. Most of these blip-like tracks adhere to a repetitive structural formula that doesn't give Griffin much room to stretch.
Griffin has a beautiful, throaty croon that's laidback and textured and needs none of the Auto-Tune that so many artists in the same lane count as essential. He has a way of imbuing even a one-word colloquialism or simplistic idea with sheer charisma; just the vocalization of his basic but frequently used tags "Dolla Sign!" and "Ooh yeah!" are way more lived-in and infectious than they ought to be. On the brassy banger "Expensive," for one, he repeats the titular descriptor over and over, demonstrating an expertise with a sing-song melody.
Griffin is skilled at bringing out the best in his collaborators, and using their energies to maximize his own abilities. "Track 6" and "Universe" find him duetting effortlessly with Anderson .Paak and Kehlani, respectively, and "Lift Me Up" (featuring Young Thug and Future) and "Your Turn" (featuring 6lack, Musiq Soulchild, and Tish Hyman) play as expressive collages of their guests' skills, which are amplified by Griffin's own swagger and confidence. Remarkably, he never gets upstaged by the expansive and varied list of artists.
As on his earlier albums, especially Free TC, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign's lyrics are often sexist or objectifying. We're greeted with such eyebrow raisers as "I just killed the pussy/Need a casket" and an exhaustive checklist of the nationalities of women he's bedded. But then the album takes a turn in its R&B section, with Griffin affirming a woman's agency on "By Yourself" ("You don't need a man/You do it by yourself") and guest Serpentwithfeet chiming in with a healthy "Your joy isn't tied to me" on the Skrillex-produced closer "Ego Death."
For all its contradictory pleasures, though, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign is absent of the sharp hooks and coherent vision of Griffin's past albums, which, though they have a similar basic structure, are more thematically tied to locations (Southern California and a faraway island vacation spot). By comparison, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign has the air of a haphazard playlist. Griffin is still a formidable center of gravity for a small army of eager collaborators, but the final product wants for some necessary fine-tuning.
Label: Atlantic Release Date: October 23, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Every James Bond Theme Song Ranked
From Shirley Bassey to Billie Eilish, we've ranked all 24 Bond themes from best to worst.
Each new James Bond theme is almost as eagerly anticipated as the films themselves. While the franchise's producers have often thought outside the box when choosing singers to headline each film's soundtrack, they've increasingly skewed toward newer artists like Billie Eilish, who joins the ranks of musical vets like Shirley Bassey, Paul McCartney, and Madonna to provide the theme for the newest installment in the series, No Time to Die.
A willingness to adapt to the times, straying from the established formula of bombastic orchestral pop, has produced both hits (Wings's art-rock-inflected "Live and Let Die") and misses (the adult contemporary schlock of Rita Coolidge's "All Time High"). Occasionally, the producers have returned to the template established by Bassey's "Goldfinger" with similarly mixed results, from Lulu's campy "The Man with the Golden Gun" to Adele's theatrical "Skyfall."
The world's most famous secret agent reaches a new milestone with No Time to Die, the 25th film in the official series, tentatively scheduled for release in April after being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. To celebrate, we've ranked all 24 theme songs, excluding the original "James Bond Theme" and the instrumental title song from 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, both performed by the John Barry Orchestra. Sal Cinquemani
Editor's Note: Listen to our Bond Theme playlist on Spotify.
24. Sam Smith, "Writing's on the Wall"
Sadly, the writing was on the wall as soon as Sam Smith turned in this narcoleptic take on a Bond song, from 2015's Spectre. Largely an excuse for the kind of self-loathing romantic navel-gazing ("How do I live? How do I breathe?/When you're not here I'm suffocating") and empty showcasing of Smith's vocal range that have become the singer's stock in trade, "Writing's on the Wall" has no real hooks or interesting textures. Instead, Smith relies on generic regal horns to announce an adult contemporary star at their commercial height who drank too much of their own punch. Paul Schrodt
23. Rita Coolidge, "All Time High"
The unfortunately titled Octopussy was the first Bond movie since Dr. No not to have a title track, and understandably so. Its theme, "All Time High," sounds like an ABBA ballad with the wind knocked out of it. While the song's lyrics gesture toward triumph and passion, its style is so languid that it leaves little impact even after repeat listens. When Coolidge sings, "Let the flight begin," she doesn't conjure the image of a pilot preparing for takeoff, but of a passenger popping a Dramamine. Her voice is soothing and pleasant, but ultimately the song's greatest fault is that it simply doesn't feel like a Bond song. Eric Mason
22. Lulu, "The Man with the Golden Gun"
Lulu's theme for 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun is a pale imitation of Shirley Bassey's imitable Bond vocal turns. Where Bassey embodied the films' mix of sex, sorrow, and violence, Lulu sounds like she's doing a highly unsteady stab at a coquettish burlesque routine—which, to be fair, could also describe the general aesthetic of numerous Bond films. Her attempt at a guttural low range is unlikely to unnerve a house cat, while her backing players try to revive the golden-age Bassey music with results that are quickly forgotten. Schrodt
21. A-ha, "The Living Daylights"
After a sufficient opening in which moody strings swell over a dark, driving bassline, A-ha's theme for the first Timothy Dalton Bond film falls victim to an irredeemable '80s musical trend: a noodling synthesizer riff that attempts "sleek and sinister" yet comes off as a show-offy try-out for an Emerson, Lake & Palmer cover band. "The Living Daylights" never recovers, mostly because A-ha—best known for the unabashed romanticism of "Take on Me" and "Crying in the Rain"—are lovers, not fighters, while Bond is, of course, both. When lead singer Morten Harket uses his upper register to belt the chorus ("I've been waiting long for one of us to say/Save the darkness, let it never fade away"), he sounds like a self-remonstrating lost soul, not a hardened international secret agent. Michael Joshua Rowin
20. Gladys Knight, "License to Kill"
The phrase "License to kill"—referring to James Bond's legal right as an MI6 agent to end the lives of human beings, and serving as the title of one of the grittiest, darkest 007 films—doesn't exactly evoke the name Gladys Knight. Not just because the legendary Knight's style is anything but raw and brooding, but also because her theme (as written by Narada Michael Walden, Jeffrey Cohen, and Walter Afanasieff) for Timothy Dalton's second and final Bond film in 1989 is fairly forgettable. Sounding more like an overproduced slow-dance number than an evocation of Bond's rogue mission of revenge, "License to Kill" is only memorable for nicking the famous musical motif from Shirley Bassey's "Goldfinger" and necessitating royalty payments to the writers of that far better song. Rowin
19. Sheena Easton, "For Your Eyes Only"
Sheena Easton's soft-rock power ballad matches the glossiness of For Your Eyes Only to deliver one of the franchise's peak-'80s efforts—which is to say, forgettable even when it's viscerally pleasurable. Easton gives her all like she's trying to steal Pat Benatar's career, and the hook is catchy, even when the bland come-hither lyrics sound like they're more appropriate for a Palm Springs timeshare brochure than a major feature film about a guy who kills people for a living. Schrodt
18. Tom Jones, "Thunderball"
After the success of "Goldfinger," Eon Productions sought to produce another eccentric orchestral pop song with "Thunderball." In fact, Shirley Bassey was slated to perform the original Thunderball song, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," which arguably was even more committed to the "Goldfinger" formula than "Thunderball." However, in a rush to replace "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" with a proper title track, songwriters John Barry and Don Black left Jones with little in the way of compelling lyrical content. The 1965 song would feel like a pale imitation of "Goldfinger" were it not for Jones's imposing vocal presence and impressive conviction (Jones reportedly fainted while performing the song's final note). Mason
17. Sheryl Crow, "Tomorrow Never Dies"
Sheryl Crow remains a surprising and controversial choice for a Bond chanteuse. Crow is best known for VH1-friendly rock, and her voice isn't exactly sultry or powerful, qualities possessed by k.d. lang, whose own contribution to the Tomorrow Never Dies soundtrack was relegated to the 1997 film's end credits. For her effort, Crow received opening-title honors but also a ton of flak: While appropriately breathy in the verses, Crow sounds strained when reaching for the high notes of the bombastic chorus. Still, "Tomorrow Never Dies," co-written with producer Mitchell Froom, is a somewhat underrated Bond theme, containing a complex yet classy orchestral arrangement that feels timeless compared to the other electronica-inflected themes of the Brosnan era. Rowin
16. Duran Duran, "A View to Kill"
Synth-heavy and melodramatic, "A View to Kill" is the most deliciously '80s Bond theme. Simon Le Bon's piercing vocals imbue the song with invigorating urgency, elevating an otherwise nonsensical collage of fire and ice and fatal kisses to a new wave banger. Like its accompanying music video, which predicted the advent of drone cameras, what "A View to Kill" lacks in timeless elegance, it makes up for in its undeniable, danceable charisma. Mason
15. Matt Monro, "From Russia with Love"
Matt Monro's "From Russia with Love" marks the first specifically tailored theme for a James Bond film, though with only two efforts under its belt, the franchise was still refining its trademarks in 1963: Rather than play over the opening titles, the song is first heard within the film and then over its end credits. It also doesn't possess the qualities audiences would soon come to recognize in Bond theme songs, with a sound more in the romantic vein of Frank Sinatra than in the adventure-oriented vein of, say, Tom Jones. In that sense "From Russia with Love" (as written by Lionel Bart) is a proficient number that nonetheless leaves the listener craving something with a little more muscle. Rowin
14. Louis Armstrong, "We Have All the Time in the World"
If Louis Armstrong's "We Have All the Time in the World" doesn't sound quite like a James Bond theme, that's because it isn't. It's actually the "love theme" for the most romantic of all 007 films, 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and appears during a montage sequence within the film, not during its opening titles. That said, the jazzy ballad (with music by John Barry and lyrics by Burt Bacharach collaborator Hal David) is perfectly lovely and, due to ironically foreshadowing the doomed fate of Bond's bride and one true love, effectively heartbreaking—a quality made all the more poignant by a tender vocal performance by the legendary Armstrong in one of his last major recordings. Rowin
13. Carly Simon, "Nobody Does It Better"
There are great Bond songs, and then there are decent tunes that happened to become Bond themes. From 1977's thoroughly dull The Spy Who Loved Me, Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" slots firmly into the latter category, as the low-key singer shows no interest in delivering the jolts or theatrics of the franchise, and a perfunctory mention of a spy in the lyrics comes off as a contractual obligation. But her piano bar-styled, true-to-brand saccharine vocals are undeniably sweet. Nobody does it better, indeed. Schrodt
With "Positions," Ariana Grande Aims to Set Her Status as Pop's Reigning Princess
The singer's new single is filled with plenty innuendo and feminist messaging.
Ariana Grande is clearly vying for the title of hardest-working woman in pop music. Her forthcoming album will be her third in just over two years—Sweetener dropped in August of 2018, followed by Thank U, Next five months later—and over the last year she's released collaborations with Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and Childish Gambino, just to name a few.
The 27-year-old singer aims to further solidify her—pardon the pun—position as pop's reigning princess with "Positions," the first single from the new album. The midtempo track, which clocks in at just shy of three minutes, features acoustic guitars, plucky strings, and lyrics filled with plenty innuendo and feminist messaging: "Switchin' my positions for you/Cookin' in thе kitchen and I'm in the bedroom," Ariana sings in her signature smooth, somewhat mumbly affect.
The music video for "Positions," which was directed by Dave Myers, finds Ariana in the role of president, dressed in Jackie O-worthy duds and effortlessly juggling both affairs of state (with an all-female cabinet, natch) and business in the bedroom. Interestingly, the object of Madam President's affections is nowhere to be found in the clip—though she is seen walking five of her dogs across the snow-covered lawn of the White House.
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Every Janet Jackson Album Ranked
We took a look back at the icon's catalog and ranked all 11 studio albums from worst to best.
Janet Jackson's music career can be easily partitioned into three eras, with her commercial peak (from 1986's Control through 2001's All for You) bookended by her early, pre-breakthrough period on one side and the years following her infamous Super Bowl performance in 2004 on the other. There's perhaps no better testament to the power of Janet's breakthrough album, Control, as a quintessential statement on personal and artistic self-actualization than the still pervasive misconception that it's her debut, with 1982's Janet Jackson and 1984's Dream Street relegated to the singer's "prehistory." But while it should surprise absolutely no one that the quartet of albums that Janet released during her imperial phase handily top this list, her most recent effort, 2015's Unbreakable, was an understated return to form, reuniting the artist with longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.
Janet's follow-up, Black Diamond, was scheduled for release this year before the Covid-19 pandemic dashed those plans. While we await word on the fate of Janet's 12th studio album—and accompanying concert tour—we've decided to look back at her catalog and rank all 11 albums from worst to best.
11. Dream Street (1984)
Before Janet struck multi-platinum with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, she briefly partnered with another famous production pair, Giorgio Moroder and Peter Bellotte. With the exception of the title track, though, the legendary disco duo's contributions to Janet's sophomore effort, Dream Street, fell far short of their iconic work with the likes of Donna Summer. Janet's least successful album isn't without its pleasures though: Produced by brother Marlon, "All My Love to You" successfully apes Off the Wall-era Michael, while the sexy, nearly seven-minute "Pretty Boy"—courtesy of Jesse Johnson, who, along with Jam and Lewis, was part of the Time—provided a glimpse of things to come in Janet's own oeuvre. Sal Cinquemani
20 Y.O. was the first Janet album that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced (this time only in part) after moving from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. As a result, their ice-cold beats melted into a lugubrious, lukewarm pudding (at under an hour, it still feels almost twice as long as janet. and The Velvet Rope). I don't know what co-producer and Janet's then-boyfriend Jermaine Dupri thought he meant when he said he wanted 20 Y.O. to sound like an old Human League record, but I'll readily admit that the evidence on display suggests he was the only one with the foresight to come up with some new old ideas, even if none of them work to Janet's advantage. The album's desperation is that of a dance icon who once sent one hot track after another to the top of the charts and is now deciding she liked the idea of being at the top of the singles charts better than creating immortal dance music. The grindcore "This Body" brings the fugly with surprising abandon, throwing hissing industrial clatter atop an admirably tuneless dirge (you hardly realize it's a way-late bid in the chopped n' screwed sweepstakes until the 16 RPM guest rap drops in). "Enjoy" is a seamlessly smooth step groove aboard R. Kelly's "Step in the Name of Love" boat, but its presence here only makes the likes of "Get It Out Me" and "Roll Witchu" seem all the more opportunistic. Eric Henderson
9. Janet Jackson (1982)
If on its own terms Janet's self-titled debut has nothing on what was to follow, it's nonetheless a pretty solid snapshot of the post-disco boogie sound. At least, that is, for the duration of side one, where singer-songwriters René & Angela (best known for their steamy funk workout "I'll Be Good") serve Janet with three equally perky-cute dance-pop ditties, and one halfway decent ballad. Janet was clearly still finding her voice, but the snappy backing track of "Say You Do" could easily have slotted into the Jacksons's 1980 album Triumph, and "Young Love" has the confident pristineness of a Patrice Rushen jam. Things get pretty generic on side two, but two or three deep cuts from an artist who came out of the gate only half-formed ain't half bad. Henderson
8. Discipline (2008)
The title of Discipline was encouraging for those who prefer Janet taking control and cracking the whip (both as leader of her rhythm nation and the boss of her bedroom) over the vapid, single-girl come-ons of her previous three albums. Disappointingly, though, the title track doesn't hark back to the self-empowerment of Control, but rather the S&M of The Velvet Rope. Lyrics like "Daddy, I disobeyed ya/Now I want you to come punish me" invite all kinds of psychoanalysis that only grow more disturbing when you remember who her daddy really is, which would be fascinating if she hadn't already written the sexier (and less creepy) "Rope Burn." If one were to try to identify some kind of evolution in Janet's latest bout of dirty talk, it might be sex with robots. Throughout the album, she talks to and interacts with a rather compassionate computer DJ named Kyoko, and her voice is robotic and synthetic on tracks like "Feedback" and the Daft Punk-sampling "So Much Betta"—not necessarily such a bad thing for an artist whose vocals often consist of unintelligible murmuring. Cinquemani
7. Damita Jo (2004)
At some point during the afterglow of adolescent sexual discovery, most people realize that there are more important things in life than getting off. Like Marvin Gaye, Janet got it backward, spending most of her post-Rhythm Nation career searching for, publicly relishing, reflecting on, and then lamenting one giant, decade-long orgasm. The singer's eighth album, Damita Jo, features a slew of the gooey, structureless sex ballads that had become her staple, including "Warmth," three-and-a-half minutes dedicated to describing how Ms. Jackson If You're Nasty gives a blowjob (and yes, she's a method actress, whispering sweet nothings with her mouth full). Even the dance numbers don't stray from her topic of choice. Janet's infamous wardrobe malfunction is commonly cited for her career's precipitous decline, but her inability to evolve beyond her sex kitten persona is more judiciously to blame. Cinquemani
Review: Beabadoobee's Fake It Flowers Evokes Nostalgia Like a Childhood Bedroom
Over 12 tracks, the singer-songwriter is haunted by older versions of herself and captivated by wishful daydreams.4
Twenty-year-old Bea Kristi is the first to admit that her music owes a great deal to '90s alternative rock, not so slyly hinting as much on last year's "I Wish I Was Steven Malkmus." But her output under the moniker Beabadoobee doesn't come down to mere derivation. Unlike Greta Van Fleet, the zoomer band notorious for aping their own revivalist referent, Led Zeppelin, Kristi molds the earnest, fuzzed-out yearning of the Cranberries and Veruca Salt for her own purposes. The Filipino-British songwriter speaks to the challenges unique to 21st-century adolescence, a tricky period in which emotions are impersonally mediated through screens and exes are only an impulsive text away.
Beabadoobee's debut LP, Fake It Flowers, inhabits nostalgia like a childhood bedroom cluttered with toys, outgrown clothing, and wall posters that serve as relics of innocence and fantasy. Over 12 tracks, Kristi is haunted by older versions of herself and captivated by wishful daydreams. (Appropriately, she wrote the album hunkered down in her childhood bedroom in her London family home, where she also rode out a bout of Covid-19.) She gives voice to statements one would be remiss to utter outside the privacy of their inner sanctum. On "Dye It Red," she hurls out venomous lines with matter-of-factness: "Kiss my ass, you don't know jack/And if you say you understand, you don't." Throughout, momentous choruses and distorted guitars turn Kristi's sweetly sung barbs from the stuff of scribbled journal musings into booming anthems, fit for the soundtrack of a Y2K coming-of-age film.
Across the album, Kristi negotiates the tumultuous fallout of her mistakes, only to relapse, clinging to harmful vices. On the melodic, misty-eyed "Worth It," she confronts her own infidelity, unflinchingly aware of her wrongdoing but still unrepentant. "Together" sees her draw a parallel between crashing her car for the umpteenth time and getting back together with someone she's wounded one too many times. At several points during the tracklist, the specter of self-harm emerges as a response to guilt, like a self-inflicted retribution. On "Charlie Brown," which sounds like an homage to Hole and just as taxing on the lungs, Kristi spills about falling into "old habits that no one knows about."
Kristi's imaginative songwriting brings levity to Fake It Flowers. The singer opens "Yoshimi, Forest, Magdelene" by joking that an unidentified noise "sounds like a fart" before pivoting to the fanciful affirmation that she's so head over heels for a significant other that she can't help but chant the names of their three future children. Curlicues of piano and acoustic guitar give way to swooning strings on the tender "Horen Sarrison," an ode to Kristi's real-life beau. This romance isn't found in the familiarity of a well-worn routine, but in the adrenaline rush of charged chemistry: "And I want you to know that I'm in love/But I don't want you to feel comfortable." Kristi's vision of affection may be distorted by the impossible-to-replicate headiness of a first love, but it's an enthralling representation of its ephemeral beauty.
Kristi seems aware of society's history of ridiculing and undermining women for expressing their grievances in ways deemed too passionate or outspoken. While she pointedly entertains the pejorative "emo" in the title of the introspective ballad "Emo Song," she nonetheless refuses to understate the origins of her trust issues: "You call me up, and lie again/Like all the men I used to trust." Throughout the album, Kristi leans into her emotions, unconcerned about whether or not they might make her seem fragile or melodramatic. Songs like the Smashing Pumpkins-esque "Sorry" convey her fragility, buttressed by symphonic string arrangements and pounding drums.
Detractors may believe that alt-rock revivalism is more interested in merely serving up a '90s bricolage than breaking new ground. While this may be true to an extent, the songs on Fake It Flowers are far from superfluous. Rather, it's evident that Kristi revives the sound—which was predominantly represented by straight white men—in order to infuse it with her own life and experience as a Catholic school dropout and daughter of immigrants.
Label: Dirty Hit Release Date: October 16, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Bruce Springsteen's Letter to You Is More Homecoming Than Retread
The album has all the familiar hallmarks of the E Street Band's signature sound.3.5
Celebrated memoirist Bruce Springsteen's latest nostalgia trick: reconvening a little rock n' roll group he used to play with called the E Street Band. Letter to You isn't exactly classic Springsteen, and it isn't even the best studio album he's made in the last decade—though I know most don't share my affinity for 2012's Wrecking Ball. But it may be the first album he's made since Born in the U.S.A. on which he's fully embraced the E Street Band's signature sound for longer than a few intermittent stretches at a time.
Recorded live in the studio, sans overdubs, over just a few days in late 2019, Letter to You has all the familiar hallmarks of the iconic E Street Band's signature sound: Roy Bittan's roaming piano, bombastic shout-along choruses, creaky harmonies from Patti Scialfa and Steven Van Zandt, and gut-busting sax solos (Jake Clemons fills in ably for his late uncle, Clarence). Springsteen deserves credit for resisting the crowd-pleasing tug of this kind of album for so long that it feels like a warm homecoming rather than a retread.
It's only when Springsteen leans on the nostalgia with explicitly backward-facing lyrics that the album gets a bit too self-aware. Springsteen has never made an album this personal, filled with paeans to felled bandmates, fans, and rose-colored memories of days and nights gone by. Both his recent autobiography, Born to Run, and his hit Broadway show have demonstrated that Springsteen in a self-reflective mode can be highly effective and deeply moving. Which is why some of the songs on Letter to You are disappointingly mushy by comparison. Album bookends "One Minute You're Here" and "I'll See You in My Dreams" are cliché-ridden ruminations on life's impermanence, while songs like "House of a Thousand Guitars" are packed with smug self-mythologizing about the life-changing majesty of rock n' roll.
On the rousing "Ghosts," the E Street Band's thunderous power does far more to convince of the transcendent nature of their music than Springsteen's lyrics—penned for the late George Theiss, the singer in his first band, the Castilles. All slashing guitars and shouted-to-the-rafters refrains, the song has all the makings of a classic E Street anthem. Even if Springsteen has employed them sparingly in the studio in recent years, the band remains a tight outfit from frequent touring. Max Weinberg in particular continues to be a force behind the drum kit, and he's the focal point of the lilting title track. Springsteen himself turns back the clock with a howling vocal and searing guitar solos on the propulsive "Burnin' Train," which could easily pass for an outtake from Darkness on the Edge of Town or The River.
Barnburning new recordings of a trio of songs that Springsteen wrote in the early 1970s, before the formation of the E Street Band in 1972, provide Letter to You's most fascinating links to the past. With their epic multi-verse structures, Old West imagery, and country-rock inflections, "Janey Needs a Shooter," "If I Was the Priest," and "Song for Orphans" join "Ballad of Jesse James"—a similar 1972 outtake released on the 2016 compilation Chapter and Verse—in providing an intriguing window into an alternate history. In this timeline, Springsteen never gravitated toward the rock n' roll soul-circus style of the E Street Band and instead leaned hard into the "New Dylan" hype that surrounded him at the time.
It's no surprise that the guy who wrote the songs featured on Letter to You became one of rock's most celebrated storytellers once he discovered his own individual voice. That guy is also fortunate to have found his ideal compatriots. Whether playing 50-year-old songs or brand new ones, the E Street Band proves that when they're in their element—as they are on this album—they can elevate the Boss to his best.
Label: Columbia Release Date: October 23, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: The Mountain Goats's Getting Into Knives Is Overproduced and Under-Thought
The band's uniquely existential and observational approach to rock is, for the first time, beginning to wear thin.2.5
Over the course of two decades, the Mountain Goats have maintained a near-peerless level of quality even as they've evolved their distinct folk-rock sound in unexpected directions. But on the North Carolina-based band's 19th album, Getting Into Knives, their work manages to feel simultaneously overproduced and under-thought.
The songs on the album focus primarily on aging and those irretrievable things taken by time, with seasoned, older narrators imparting wisdom to less experienced counterparts. "Everything becomes a blur from six feet away/Get used to this," singer-songwriter John Darneille warns on "Tidal Wave," repeating "Get used to this" throughout the rest of the track. For every elegantly forlorn lyric on Getting Into Knives, though, there's a clichéd platitude or overdetermined metaphor. Compared to the incisive and quick-witted nature of typical Mountain Goats lyrics, a line like "It's not the destination that makes the difference/It's the freight" feels like a rather lazy observation.
At their best, the band foregrounds an interplay between warmth and darkness, as on "Getting Into Knives," in which the middle-aged Darnielle sings about taking up a new hobby over delicately strummed acoustic guitar and Jon Wurster's hand-drummed percussion. Darnielle emotes with just the right amount of knowing distance, and humorously doesn't elaborate on why "getting into knives" will be a fulfilling new activity or alternative to his current habits, while also promising its worthwhileness through softly yet convincingly performed vocals.
On much of the rest of the album, this tonal bifurcation leans too far in one direction or the other. "Get Famous," which finds Darnielle wishing celebrity on someone who's more suited to constant attention and exposure (read: someone with less integrity than him), feels overwrought, smothered by obvious production choices like the insertion of crowd cheers after the line "listen to the people applaud," as well as by its own suffocating irony. Elsewhere, "The Last Place I Saw You Alive," a ballad dedicated to a late friend, and "Harbor Me," about asking for shelter from a companion, are too tender and bald-faced, taking the band's capacity for rendering human frailty and turning it into sentimental mush.
Though the Mountain Goats's music still operates firmly within the folk-rock tradition, a few songs here display a jazz influence, such as the light-handed tapping of tom-toms that weaves throughout "The Great Gold Sheep," the featherweight percussive scene-setting at the beginning of "Bell Swamp Connection," and Matt Douglas's noodling saxophone on "The Last Place I Saw You Alive" and "Get Famous." You can also hear a jazz sensibility in the band's penchant for finding grooves and then departing from the structures at different intervals. At the other end of the spectrum, the bouncy panache of "Rat Queen" hews closer to the conceptual theatricality of the band's last few albums, yet the track comes off as little more than a B-side from the group's 2019 rock opera In League with Dragons.
Getting Into Knives does bear the distinction of being perhaps the most electric guitar-dominated Mountain Goats album to date. Despite the continued centrality of acoustic instruments within their sound, the growl of electric guitar is pronounced and expressive, especially on "Bell Swamp Connection," where it's slow and smeary, assisted with a pedal and married with piano. Of course, one wishes Darnielle didn't feel the need to underline its prominence on "As Many Candles as Possible," when a rumbling guitar prompts a redundant "There's plenty of distortion and it's not real clear…he howls in the night," which is followed by a screeching strum. Such literalness is unusual for the Mountain Goats, whose uniquely existential and observational approach to rock is, for the first time, beginning to wear thin.
Label: Merge Release Date: October 23, 2020 Buy: Amazon
The 15 Best Smashing Pumpkins Songs
The Pumpkins have transcended any one moment or movement, instead reveling in the entire tessellation of 20th-century art.
As Greg Kot of Guitar World once quipped, "the [Smashing] Pumpkins remain an island unto themselves." That was in 2001, when the band had spent a decade carving out an impressive art-rock niche, and long after a shortsighted music press had once smacked them with unenviable and laughably off-base label of "the next Nirvana." But even to this day, the two bands are often clumped together as vanguards of the scathing, grungy brand of alternative rock that defined the early '90s. And yet, there's little doubt that the group is much more than some also-ran grunge outfit chasing Kurt Cobain's shadow. Indeed, with 11 studio albums and dozens of EPs, compilations, and soundtrack contributions, Billy Corgan and company have proved to be expert evocateurs, stitching together their melodic pastiche from a diverse litany of musical, literary, and visual sources. Armed with a mosaic sound that includes hat-tips to glam rock, art nouveau, psychedelia, goth, vaudeville, new wave, and Victorian romanticism, the Pumpkins have transcended any one moment or movement, instead reveling in the entire tessellation of 20th-century art.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article was published on July 21, 2013.
15. "Knights of Malta"
The sweeping opening track of 2018's Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1/LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun bears the hallmarks of vintage Pumpkins: Bill Corgan's melodic whine, Jimmy Chamberlin's formidable drumming, and the intricate layers of guitar courtesy of Corgan, original guitarist James Iha, and Iha's one-time replacement Jeff Schroeder. Everything about the song feels grand and triumphal—right down to the lyrics, in which Corgan sings, "I'm gonna fly forever/We're gonna ride the rainbow," as if he's approaching the gates of rock n' roll Valhalla.
14. "Set the Ray to Jerry"
As complex as the band's arrangements and conceits often are, the Pumpkins frequently hit paydirt when relying on Corgan's ear for crafting simple melodies. "Set the Ray to Jerry" is that principle in practice, as a two-note guitar riff and constantly rumbling snares come together with Corgan's plain, passionate declaratives ("I want you" and "I need you") to form a lucid, seductive nighttime jam.
13. "For Martha"
Corgan's mother inspired plenty of animus throughout the Pumpkins' catalogue, but none quite as conflicted and harrowing as the kind that fills the song sharing her name. Inspired by her passing, "For Martha" is an eight-minute dirge of gothic piano that bursts into a wave of crying, razor-edged guitars at its halfway point. At the height of it all, Corgan finally delivers his raw, teary-eyed eulogy: "Long horses we are born/Creatures more than torn/Mourning our way home."
12. "Tristessa"
The riffs on "Tristessa" are some of the most efficient the Pumpkins have ever crafted. With four simple notes, Corgan and fellow guitarist James Iha lay down a bouncing, whiplash guitar hook that's strong enough to carry the song through its shattering conclusion, proving along the way that the band had two other weapons in their arsenal besides panache: power and rhythm.
11. "Eye"
Serving as a kind of thematic unifier for David Lynch's Lost Highway soundtrack, "Eye" was Pumpkins fans' first taste of the band's post-alternative offerings, where the remnants of their baroque, neo-Victorian rock tastes met Corgan's new obsession with Pro Tools. While that formula would meet with mixed success on the subsequent Adore, "Eye" remains a sublime slice of electro-goth, pairing Corgan's understated performance with a litany of chilling instrumentation—not to mention the wonderful angularity of that crisp drumline.
10. "Today"
In which the Pumpkins conclusively prove that great art comes from great pain. Purportedly on the verge of suicide, a desperate, perhaps somewhat deranged Corgan penned "Today," a facetious, goodbye-cruel-world lullaby that, when draped in the band's trademark cloak of mellow fuzz, becomes a triumphant middle finger to the crippling effects of depression.
9. "Snail"
There are many points on their 1991 debut, Gish, where the Pumpkins seem caught between their early metal influences (Black Sabbath, Judas Priest) and the art-rock band they ultimately aspired to be, but "Snail" isn't one of them. The track is perhaps the most obvious foreshadowing of the ambitious plans Corgan had for his group: sweeping, unapologetically romantic, and cinematically paced, its verse, bridge, and chorus structured in such a way so that the ultimate catharsis—in this case, a climbing sub-melody full of unbridled optimism—comes bursting through quite dramatically in its final minute.
Review: Laura Veirs's My Echo Is a Divorce Album That Trades Misery for Escapism
Against a backdrop of hopelessness brought about by personal heartbreak and global disasters, the album is an act of self-preservation.3.5
On the "divorce album" spectrum from Vulnicura to Utopia, Laura Veirs's My Echo falls closer to the latter. At just under 30 minutes long, the Portland-based singer-songwriter's 11th album is more concise than it is confessional, but Veirs imbues her lyrics with vivid imagery and gentle humor that trade misery for escapism. This lightness is by design, as she wrote these songs while she was straining to maintain her relationship with Tucker Martine, her collaborator and then-husband. In the album's press notes, Veirs claims, "my songs knew I was getting divorced before I did."
The impulse to leave things unsaid motivates My Echo's sound, which often involves a contrast between acoustic folk instrumentation and electronic flourishes—in other words, between Veirs's need to stay grounded and her tendency to drift off. It also informs her lyrics, which originated as poems she wrote for a "secret poetry group," a fact that's most apparent when she commits to describing her natural surroundings—leaves and rivers and trees—in depth. While Veirs's lyrics are consistently unsettled and sometimes apocalyptic, they largely sidestep concrete problems in her marriage beyond rare whisperings of infidelity and alienation. Perhaps any lurid drama would have undermined Veirs's escapist intentions.
Accordingly, when Veirs makes pivotal emotional realizations, they come from outside herself. On "Memaloose Island," she visits the tomb of Victor Trevitt, where a disembodied voice tells her, "Life is the exception/Don't you forget it." The voice, of course, is her own, implicitly acknowledging the negative space around the comfort of marriage or any other source of stability. She spoils this reveal, though, on the album's opening track, "Freedom Feeling," when she discovers that the liberation she sought in love was within herself all along.
In fact, Veirs spends a fair amount of time on the album explaining herself, keeping little beneath the surface. On "End Times," she compares her ill-fated relationship to Armageddon. On "Burn Too Bright," she asks, "Who were you running from?" and quickly answers, as expected, "yourself." Veirs gives us little work to do to exhume meaning from her images; she's experienced the struggle of sorting out her feelings, so she aims to spare us of that emotional labor. On the gorgeous "Vapor Trails," she reminds us that vapor trails, like people, disappear.
Veirs makes elegant use of her detachment on "I Sing to the Tall Man," opening the song by reducing her husband to objective descriptors—"the tall man in the red kitchen"—before admitting that his "dark eyes and scarred chin remind [her] we are living." She lets us in, pointing to the weight of her love and, as on "Memaloose Island," the love's interconnectedness with her faith in life itself. "I Sing to the Tall Man" neatly complements "Turquoise Walls," another song about confinement that contains some of the album's most immediate lyrics: "I could not sleep, thinking you were keeping someone else's pillow warm." These moments of candidness are welcome, especially when they're funny ("Have you considered maybe his phone just died?" she quips on "Turquoise Walls").
While many breakup albums explore the distance between the euphoria of love and the devastation of it ending, My Echo mostly sits somewhere in the middle. The album's opening lines—"I don't know where I am going/But I got you by my side"—are bittersweet, tinged by Veirs's sly sense of dramatic irony. Soon after, plaintive strings emerge, setting the tone for a mournful, grandiose album that never materializes. Instead, track two, "Another Space and Time," is a sonic outlier, embellishing bossa nova with glitchy electronics and lyrics about ditching the internet for "peace of mind." It's a diversion, a vacation to a California that isn't on fire (one of the album's many eerily portentous details—though any album about loneliness and destruction could be said to have predicted the events of 2020).
Veirs looks to paintings and sculptures for guidance and solace at key points on My Echo. She also displays a similar relationship to music on "Burn Too Bright," which is about the death of musician Richard Swift, and on the dirge-like "Brick Layer," which mentions the late Jason Molina. On the standout "All the Things," Veirs announces that she's a poet and, on a chorus that could be her artist's statement, says, "All the things I cannot hold/I cannot save." To Veirs, artmaking is a means of preserving memories of loves, people, and moments lost. While these things fade, her art doesn't. Against a backdrop of hopelessness brought about by personal heartbreak and global disasters, My Echo is an act of self-preservation.
Label: Raven Marching Band Release Date: October 23, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Matt Berninger's Serpentine Prison Is an Easily Digestible Solo Debut
The album is an enjoyable, if predictable, outing from an effortlessly reliable songwriter.3
The National spent the 2010s pushing the boundaries of their music, allowing for nervier, more impressionistic sounds and experimentations with song structure. Many of these evolutions are indebted to the far-reaching influence of members Aaron and Bryce Dessner on the stalwart indie band's songwriting. But something about the National's subtle brand of rock, lead singer Matt Berninger's buttoned-up baritone, and the band's sardonic lyrical ennui has prompted certain critics to label their music as "boring."
Serpentine Prison, Berninger's solo debut, is likely to spark a similar debate. The album distills the singer-songwriter's work with the National down to its barest form, as it mostly revolves around an acoustic guitar or piano and Berninger's signature vocal style. The result is a pleasant, if undemanding, album that diverges from the National's more experimental recent releases, 2017's Sleep Well Beast and last year's I Am Easy to Find. But while nothing here is as exciting or memorable as anything the National has released in the last 15 years, Serpentine Prison is an enjoyable outing from an effortlessly reliable songwriter.
Berninger seems to thrive under these lower stakes, as many of the album's songs evoke a wistfulness missing from his work with the National. The sentimental "Distant Axis" finds his usually biting lyrical deadpan replaced with a certain kind of longing: "I feel like I'm as far as I can get from you," he sleepily sings on the track. And on "Oh Dearie," Berninger shows off his penchant for richly drawn downtrodden narrators. His hushed final lines—"I don't see no brightness, kinda starting to like this"—stand in contrast to the song's acoustic lullaby quality, an understated but welcome variation of his standard form.
Booker T. Jones's production brings ornate dimensions to these songs. This isn't a particularly orchestral album, but the way that judicially placed drums and softly struck keys ring against Berninger's deep vocals makes it sound like the songs are reverberating throughout a theater full of rapt listeners. When the songs take on added flourishes, like the lush brass arrangement that appears halfway through "Take Me Out of Town" or the string solos that punctuate key moments in "Collar of Your Shirt," they swell organically with the rest of the arrangements.
These moments of indulgence are helpful in diversifying Serpentine Prison's tracklisting, which often falls into a monochromatic haze of slow, easily digestible sounds. Another such indulgence comes in the form of a duet on the album's best track, the bluesy "Silver Springs," featuring Gail Ann Dorsey in a beautiful back-and-forth with Berninger. Dorsey, who was previously featured in the National's triumphant "You Had Your Soul With You," steps in to interrupt what otherwise would have been the album's loneliest song, the track's chanting hook enlightening a straightforward, almost juvenile kind of isolation: "They'll never understand you anyway in Silver Springs," Berninger and Dorsey sing in unison.
Much of the rest of Serpentine Prison fails to engage the listener as effectively as "Silver Springs" does. These songs easily fade into the background, not unlike those found on so many adult contemporary-influenced singer-songwriter albums. But while Serpentine Prison may invoke familiar accusations of dullness, it's refreshing to hear Berninger's disaffected songwriting style take on a more grown-up perspective.
Label: Concord Release Date: October 16, 2020 Buy: Amazon
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Welcome to Focaccia Fiorentina
We Cater To You
Our mission is to sell hand-made, extremely fresh food, using none of the preservatives, additives or chemicals common to much of the "prepared" and "fast" food on the market today. High quality, genuine Italian food and value for money are the mainstays of our business. Our special recipe Focaccia bread is delivered fresh daily and our pizzas and calzones are made with hand stretched dough, prepared daily.
A part of downtown Phoenix for twelve years, we are proud to offer only the best for your breakfast or lunch. In addition to dining in our centrally located restaurant or carrying out, we also deliver and offer full catering! Visit us today to find out why we are a two-time winner of the New Times' "Best Downtown Lunch"!

subset: commoncrawl


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Space getting a lot cooler thanks to Mass. company
WILMINGTON, Mass. -- Astronaut Rex Walheim has been to the International Space Station three times, spending a total of 36 days in space.
As NASA's astronaut representative to the Orion spacecraft program, he's now working on a project that will take others deeper into orbit.
"There's something in humans that they always want to know what's over the next hill, what's beyond," Walheim said. "It's a spirit of exploration that's built into us."
Set to launch in 2017, Orion will take astronauts farther out in space than ever before, setting the stage for human exploration of Mars and missions to asteroids.
Astronauts returning from those ventures will face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as they reenter the Earth's atmosphere. When they do, it's work done at Wilmington's Textron Defense Systems that will keep them safe.
"At that moment, you're glad that you've got great navigation, all of the other systems ... but I think you would agree that at that moment, what you're most interested in is who put that heat shield together," said Jeff Picard, Textron's senior vice president of program execution.
The spaceship's heat shield, the largest of its kind ever created, attaches to the Orion's crew module, protecting the capsule -- and the people inside it -- from extreme temperatures.
Assembled in the Colorado facility of aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin, the shield arrived in Wilmington in late March.
Since then, crews have been at work 24 hours a day, six days a week, applying Textron's ablative coating, a material that protects the structure from extreme temperatures by lifting hot gas away from the shield's outer wall to create a cooler boundary layer.
The coating, the same used on NASA's Apollo capsules, is injected with "glorified caulking guns" into honeycomb cells on the shield, said Mike Kieran, Textron's vice president of integrated supply chain.
At a presentation with representatives from NASA and Lockheed Martin last week, Textron officials said the coating application is now more than halfway done.
Kieran said there has been a buzz around Textron's Wilmington campus since the day the heat shield arrived, in a convoy from Hanscom Air Force Base. That day, he said, most employees were too excited to do much work.
"All day long, there's people coming by that just kind of poke their head in and see what's going on, just from a curiosity standpoint," Kieran said. "People are excited to be a part of this. I can't wait for the launch. It'll be another no-work-getting-done day."
The launch Kieran is waiting for is a test flight in September 2014 from Cape Canaveral, when an unmanned Orion craft will circle the planet twice in 90 minutes.
The heat shield will travel to Florida this fall, though, to be added onto the rest of the spacecraft, which is being assembled in other parts of the country.
"It's like a great big puzzle, putting this thing together in steps," said Jim Bray, Lockheed Martin's Orion crew and service-module director.
Bray said managing components built in different states is complex but necessary to ensure quality.
"You go where the skills are," he said. "Textron did similar work on Apollo. They've done this on other spacecraft, and you have to go where the talent is."
To the Wilmington officials who toured the Textron plant last week, having a NASA project in their town has been a point of pride and a cause for excitement.
"I just love knowing that it's here," Selectman Mike Champoux said. "I live a mile and a half down the road. I drive by this building all the time."
In addition to seeking out the most skilled crews, it's that spirit and connection that NASA hopes to foster by partnering with different companies nationwide, said Charlie Lundquist, the Orion crew and service-module manager at NASA.
"We've found a lot of communities aren't even aware they're working on the space program," Lundquist said. "They think, 'Oh, that's down in Florida,' or 'Oh, that's in Houston at mission control.' But it's in your backyard. It's down the street."


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Grilled Chicken Honey Dijon Sandwich
|Poultry, Vegetables, Bread, Meat
|Day Part
|Dinner, Lunch
|Menu Part
|Cuisine Type
Strips of grilled honey-Dijon chicken, pancetta, fontina cheese, arugula and beefsteak tomato are served in ciabatta bread to make a mouth watering sandwich.
5 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
4 tsp. honey Dijon mustard
1⁄2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 (6 oz.) boneless, skinless chicken breasts
6 thin slices pancetta or bacon
1 loaf (8-x4-in.) ciabatta, split horizontally
1 tbsp. mayonnaise
4 oz. fontina or Crescenza cheese
10 arugula leaves
1 ripe beefsteak tomato, sliced
1. Whisk together oil, mustard, thyme, salt, and pepper. Add chicken; marinate 15 min.
2. Remove chicken from marinade and grill over med.-high heat or broil for 5 min. each side. Cool and slice chicken.
3. Cook pancetta or bacon until crisp.
4. Spread mayonnaise on both bread halves. On bottom half, layer chicken, cheese, pancetta, arugula, and tomato. Top with second bread half and cut into two pieces.


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1 search result
Practicum in Business Management/Extended Practicum in Business Management
Extended Practicum in Business Management is designed to give students supervised practical application of previously studied knowledge and skills. Practicum experiences occur in a paid or unpaid arrangement and a variety of locations appropriate to the nature and level of experience. Students...
- Grade Range: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, Postsecondary


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The All-Terrain AT800 TOW electric tug is perfect for safely towing loads where weight transfer is not possible, up to 8,000 kg. The tug is self-weighted and compact, providing excellent traction for effortless load towing whilst attaching to any load with a draw bar, towing eye or ball hitch fitting. It can be used inside or outside, including on slopes and less than perfect surfaces.
|Product code
|Recommended load weight - Castors
|8000 kg
|Recommended load weight - Rails
|32000 kg
|Machine weight including battery
|750 kg
|Drive type
|Electric AC
|Parking brake
|Drive wheel type
|Superelastic Solid Rubber
|Drive motor power
|2 x 2.0 kW
|Controller type
|Variable machine speed
|Ingress Protection
|Battery pack - sealed - 179Ah 24V - interchangeable
|Battery pack - sealed - 119 Ah 24V - Interchangable
|Battery pack - lithium - 118 Ah 24V - fixed
|Charger - external - 30A 24V - 85V-265V
|Charger - external - 20A 24V - 85V-265V
|Charger - internal - 20A 24V - 85V-265V
|Charger - lithium - external - 40A 24V - 265V
|Option - flashing safety light and motion bleeper
|Option - two speed selector switch
|Option - fifth wheel
|Option - wireless control handset
|Option - battery protection system
|Option - Lithium battery
|Coupling - male - pin
|Coupling - male - height adjustable tow ball - 50mm
|Coupling - male - height adjustable box
|Coupling - female - box


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In just five weeks' time, Michael McDonald (15-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) could very well become the youngest UFC champion in the history of the promotion. But until then, he doesn't want to talk about a belt.
"Honestly, it's not something on my checklist," McDonald told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "I don't think it's my job to say, 'I want the title. I want to be the youngest champion. I want to do this. I want to do that.' I feel like doing that just puts stuff in my head that doesn't need to be there.
"I feel like my job and what's in front of me is just fighting. I feel like that's what I'm supposed to do and what I'm supposed to stick at. I don't think I'm supposed to get involved in media and what they think. I just stick to fighting."
The approach has served the Californian well thus far, as he has downed Miguel Torres, Alex Soto, Chris Cariaso and Edwin Figueroa en route to a UFC on FUEL TV 7 bout with Renan Barao (29-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) on Feb. 16 at London's Wembley Arena. The two will compete for Barao's interim bantamweight title – a belt necessitated by champ Dominick Cruz's extended layoff for knee surgery and won by the Brazilian with a dominant decision win over Urijah Faber this past July.
McDonald, who turns 22 on Jan. 15, would make history with a win over the Nova Uniao product, but he refuses to discuss the importance of the moment. It's not that the power puncher is superstitious. Quite the contrary, in fact. Instead, McDonald doesn't want to bring any distractions to his preparation process.
"I don't want to think about it until afterward," McDonald said. "That's kind of how I do it. This whole fighting thing is very stressful. It's very overwhelming with the whole 'first-fight jitters' kind of thing. You can't think about it. You have to be a good judge of when to block your emotions and when to let them in.
"Emotions cloud judgment, and I don't want anything clouding my judgment when I go in there. I don't want to think about a title. I don't even want to see a title. I don't want to think about it. I just want to go in there. I want to go home, I want to train, be with my family – do what makes me happy, do my job and go back at home."
For McDonald, it's that simple. Fighting professionally since he was just 16 years old, the knockout artist has learned to separate what happens inside of the cage from everything else in the sport. Expectations, labels, legacies and even championships are all secondary measurements of the real goal: improving as a mixed-martial-artist.
"There's a fine line between knowing where you are and where you could be, and a lot of fighters know they can be here," McDonaold said. "I did, too. I knew that I could be here, but it's a difference between where you are and where you could be. Where I am right now, I just try to look at it only on the martial arts standpoint. I really don't want to look at the possibilities of where I can be in the media's eyes. I feel like it corrupts people when they take the media standpoint. The media blows people up. They're heroes. They're idols. They're indestructible and all these kind of things.
"Anderson Silva will hit somebody, and they think, 'Oh, crap. I got hit by Anderson Silva. I'm going to fall down now.' I'm not putting anything against him as a martial artist. He's a great martial artist, but there's also a vibe about these people that gets built up by the media. When you believe that image about yourself, bad things happen. I prefer not to do that."
If anything, McDonald seems to sell himself short. Similar to the way Georges St-Pierre recently described himself as lacking of any real athletic gifts, McDonald believes his impressive UFC run has been fueled by his understanding of martial arts and body mechanics and could actually be re-created by anyone willing to take the necessary steps.
"I'm not very big," McDonald said. "I'm not very strong. I'm not even very fast, but I understand the body. I understand martial arts, and I understand body mechanics. Anyone can do what I do. It's not me or something I was born with. It's the way that I do it."
Yet McDonald has done it better than just about everyone else at 135 pounds. Of course, Barao brings with him an incredible 29-fight unbeaten streak, as well as the experience of a UFC title fight. He's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and has shown dynamic striking and capable wrestling during his time under the Zuffa banner.
McDonald admits Barao is fantastic in those areas of the game, but he believes his own strengths will be evident in other facets of the fight.
"I feel like if I was going to match myself up against him, I would lose," McDonald said. "But if I match myself with him with my strength, I feel like I have a good chance. I feel like he's a better athlete than me. I feel like he has better cardio than me. He's faster than me. He does all these flying knees and spinning back kicks and all this kind of stuff like that. He's a world champion in jiu-jitsu from what I hear. I can't match myself with what he does, but I kind of see it as the whole David vs. Goliath thing. I'm not saying that he's a giant or I'm a boy or anything, but he has his weapons, and I have mine.
"David brought a sling to a battle with a warrior, a warrior who had been doing it his whole life. That was his weapon, and he was good at it. I feel like it's the same thing. My weapons are my basics and my defense. My fight with Miguel Torres, I think I got hit four times, and that's the most I've ever been hit in a fight.
"I consider defense more than anything a priority. I can't win if I'm unconscious. If I get it over with fast, I go home and get punched less. So everything I do is defensive and basic."
And potentially historic. Whether he wants to consider it or not, McDonald is on the verge of a special accomplishment. Just don't expect him to discuss it until the belt is wrapped firmly around his waist.
"I really don't pay attention to the sport and the media and what goes on in other people's eyes," McDonald said. "I just stick to myself and go home and do what I love."
For more on UFC on FUEL TV 7, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.


text: Converting standalone R710 to unleashed version at remote site Hi, as the title says, I have a remote R710 I want to change to unleashed. Is it possible without a factory reset? I'd like to do this re... Chris Gabel, 2 years ago Last reply: Chris Gabel, 2 years ago 1 1 me too 5 5 replies Question


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External Communication
ODNI's external communication component manages media relations as well as its websites and social media presence. This group identifies important ODNI unclassified information to provide to the press that will give the general public a better understanding of the role and mission of the ODNI. The media staff establishes professional relationships with print and broadcast reporters, responds to press inquiries, develops media strategies in advance of newsworthy events or announcements, and prepares press releases. They also keep the Director and senior management informed of prospective and breaking news stories about ODNI.
Internal Communication and Outreach
The internal communication component is charged with communicating key information to the ODNI workforce, as well as to the entire IC workforce. This group works closely with ODNI leadership to ensure the widest internal audience receives important information directly and in a timely manner. They are the primary liaison to other IC internal communication offices and work to share information and key messages.
This component manages internal and external outreach efforts to inform various audiences about the role and mission of the ODNI. This group directs community outreach activities with U.S. Government agencies and external stakeholders, ensuring key ODNI messages are provided directly to these audiences in an appropriate manner. Plans and community outreach also manages distinguished speaker events for the ODNI workforce.
The speechwriting component manages speechwriting efforts for the DNI, the Principal Deputy DNI, and the Deputy DNI for Intelligence Integration, and covers both their internal and external addresses. The team coordinates with speechwriters across the IC and the rest of the U.S. Government to keep key messaging consistent and deconflicted.
Innovation Team
The Innovation Team recommends and implements best practices for digitally-mediated communication, collaborating with offices across the ODNI on strategy, accessibility and transparency. This includes the management of policy, design, and content for ODNI's internal and external websites, as well as social media activities.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence Strategic Communications (SC) serves as agency's lead for all internal and external communications. SC develops communication strategies to help disseminate key messages to various audiences including members of the Intelligence Community, the internal ODNI workforce, members of the media, and the general public.
SC is led by the Assistant Director of National Intelligence for Strategic Communications, Amanda Schoch, and consists of three distinct areas: public affairs, internal communication, and multimedia. All components work in coordination to ensure that messages are consistent and are disseminated to the appropriate audience in a timely manner.


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DALLAS (AP) The Dallas Mavericks have requested waivers on guard Chris Douglas-Roberts after he spent only two weeks on their roster.
Dallas made the move Sunday, a day after the Mavericks tied an NBA record with their 10th consecutive overtime loss.
Douglas-Roberts was the D-League's top scorer when he was signed Dec. 23. He was added from the Mavericks' D-League affiliate after injured veteran point guard Derek Fisher was waived by Dallas at his request.
In six games for the Mavericks, the 6-foot-7 Douglas-Roberts averaged 2.8 points in 10 1/2 minutes a game. He averaged 22.5 points in 11 games in the D-League for the Texas Legends before that.
The move leaves Dallas with 14 players on its roster.


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October 1, 2007—Honda Motor Europe Ltd. announced its new 2008 motorcycle models for the European market. The models are on display at the Paris International Motorcycle Show, which is part of the Paris International Two-Wheel Show that opened on Saturday, September 29, in Paris, France.
This year the CBR1000RR super sports bike, popular for its high performance and stylish design, has undergone a full model change, featuring the latest in advanced technologies honed in Honda's MotoGP (FIM* Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix) machines. The engine and frame construction have been changed along with the fairing design for weight reduction and greater concentration of mass.
Also sporting a makeover this year is the XL700V Transalp, the dual-purpose sports model fitted with a 2-cylinder, V-twin engine that delivers powerful low- to mid-range torque for outstanding performance in all riding conditions. The Transalp's engine displacement has been increased from 650cc to 700cc for improved acceleration, and the headlight redesigned for a more aggressive look.
The CBF600 sports model, popular for its nimble handling, has been given a further boost in performance with a more compact, lightweight engine with enhanced output in an all-new aluminum die-cast, mono-backbone frame. Honda also announced that for the first time, the CBF600 will feature the ease of operation and superior performance of Honda's CBS (Combined Brake System), which works in synergy with ABS (Anti-lock Braking System) to ensure outstanding braking control for a safer, more stable ride.
* Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme
XL700V Transalp
This super sports model features a water-cooled, high-output 4-stroke, in-line 4-cylinder 1,000cc engine. For the new 2008 model, the number of components has been reduced to make the bike more compact, and the new lightweight, die-cast aluminum frame provides a smooth ride with just the right amount of rigidity. These and other modifications succeed in reducing overall vehicle weight by 4kg*compared to the previous model. The rear swingarm has also been lengthened for improved road holding and increased rigidity, and a gull arm design adopted to secure greater freedom for muffler layout. The exhaust system is positioned under the pillion step to bring it closer to the bike's center of gravity, with a short muffler that further contributes to the concentration of mass. This painstaking attention is to detail results in a highly sophisticated design. Other features that add to the bike appeal the motorcycle include the newly developed assist slipper clutch for easier clutch operation and an enhanced feeling of rider security thanks to the mitigation of abrupt engine braking during downshifting. The new model's styling features compact front and rear fairing designed to present an image of extreme compactness, combined with mirrors with built-in turn signals to achieve a cool, aggressive look. Manufactured at Honda's Hamamatsu Factory in Japan, it will be released successively in European markets.
* Correction: October 5, 2007
XL700V Transalp
The Transalp is a dual-purpose sports model with a water-cooled, 4-stroke, 700cc V-twin engine. For the new model, engine displacement has been increased from 650cc to 700cc and the bike newly fitted with Programmed Fuel Injection system (PGM-FI), for improved midrange output combined with the environmental performance required to comply with Euro 3 regulations. Other performance improvements include a new ABS system and a smaller 19-inch front wheel with a wider 100mm tire as well as a wider 130mm rear tire* for enhanced riding stability. New large headlight and distinctive new turn signal units replacing the built-in signals along with a newly designed chassis present a more intrepid look, set off with sportier styling around the front side fairing. Manufactured at Montesa Honda S.A., a local manufacturing subsidiary established by Honda in Spain which began operations in 1986, the XL700V Transalp will be released successively in European markets.
* Correction: October 5, 2007
Equipped with a water-cooled, 4-stroke, 600cc in-line 4-cylinder engine in a monobackbone frame, the CBF600 sports model is acclaimed for its nimble handling. To improve both performance and practicality, this year's model has been fitted with a more compact, higher-output engine based on the one used in the 2007 CBR600RR and CB600F Hornet, both of which were fully remodeled last year. New features including Programmed Fuel Injection system (PGM-FI) for precise fuel control and a lightweight, aluminum diecast frame help deliver superior ride performance and outstanding environmental performance. Comfort enhancements include an adjustable front suspension that allows the rider to choose the setting that best suits his or her own preferences and a newly configured Combined ABS (Anti-lock Braking System) featuring Honda's CBS front-rear brake-force distribution system for a more secure braking feel. Manufactured by Honda Italia Industriale S.P.A., Honda's Italian motorcycle and power products manufacturing and sales subsidiary, the CBF600 will be made available successively in European markets.


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Empty snow-covered roundabouts: what are they for? Powerslides, of course, even in a GT-R.
You couldn't pay us to live in the frozen ice planet that is Scandinavia in the winter, but I guess one way to work off the Seasonal Affective Disorder is to get sideways in your beastly sub-arctic quasi-supercar. Not a bad way to do it, Team Ice_Ricers.
(Hat tip to Rx_37!)


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Jane Campion's much anticipated new mini-series Top of the Lake has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to glowing reviews. Screen industry bibles Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have both published lengthy dissections of the six-hour series, which was filmed in around Queenstown and Glenorchy, and have particular praise for Campion's vision, and the uneasy tone created by the juxtaposition of a beautiful landscape with morally ugly people.
"This multi-stranded crime saga ... is satisfyingly novelistic in scope and dense in detail. Yet it also boasts something more, a singular and provocative strangeness that lingers like a chill after the questions of who-dun-what have been laid to rest," says Variety's Justin Chang.
"It should prove an enticing proposition for fans of investigative dramas in the vein of Twin Peaks and The Killing, even though the yarn's less procedural-oriented nature and primary focus on a rape case provide early clues that Campion and co are treading different thematic territory here. But by far the material's most distinctive element is its setting, a wooded region of stunning natural beauty and surpassing human ugliness that lends a uniquely bleak and bitter tang to this well-worn genre format."
Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy also makes the Twin Peaks comparison, and calls the show "an edgy, disturbing and altogether first-rate crime drama ... A classic example of a story unfolding in a gorgeous setting that hides no end of squalor, depravity and corruption under the surface."
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
The show will begin airing in New Zealand on UKTV from 8.30pm on Monday March 25.
- TimeOut


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I'm proud to announce the launch of WishTales, a new independent publishing studio: www.wishtales.com
Once upon a time, the path for an aspiring artist/creator was clear: Get an agent. Get a publisher. Get that comic of yours syndicated. Go for the Big Time. But today, the publishing structure exists to say "NO"." NO" to new ideas. "NO" to new creatives. "NO" to anything that looks like a chance, anything that hasn't been tried before, anything that isn't a sequel or a sequel to a sequel to a spinoff.
I know some here have had success, but we've had a different path. So what to do about it? We had to do something. So we did.
In short, we didn't want to start a publishing company; They made us do it. If no one wanted to take a chance on us, OK. We'll do it. If no one wanted to let us choose non-standard formats for our books, OK. We'll do it. We're taking a chance on us, and if it works out, who knows? Maybe one day we'll take a chance on you. Somebody has to do it.
- Tom Dell'Aringa and Steve Ogden
WishTales announced
General Discussion
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Re: WishTales announced
Good luck guys.
- Mr. Average
- Posts: 194
- Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 5:43 pm
- Location: Amérique du Nord
Re: WishTales announced
Terriffic! Glad to hear this, guys, and the very best good fortune to you. Seems the only way to get really inventive and interesting comics "out there" these days is to take control of it yourself. I'll be watching your progress with great interest!
Re: WishTales announced
Thanks, you guys! We're very excited about it. We hope it will be good for us, and the community - unique voices are always good for that, eh - and that in time we'll be good for other artists, too. From tiny acorns...
Re: WishTales announced
I wish you all the best.
Good luck.
Good luck.
Re: WishTales announced
Sounds like a good idea. Best of luck!
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I have come again...Its been a while. I have this VB6 project i'm maintaining. I started having issues with a picturebox that ought to be a web browser. I now looked at my toolbox and saw it had no web browser control. Please tell me which component or reference to add to my project/toolbox so that it works.
Thanks in advance guys.


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Posted October 5 2011, 4:27 AM PDT by Tara Sharp
We did it! Building Better Communities Event HighlightsPosted in Events and Foundation in the news by Tara Sharp
A little over a week ago, more than 200 volunteers from Windermere Real Estate, Neighborhood House, the High Point Community Association, and the local community came together to build a park that will serve more than 500 kids in the area. We couldn't be more excited to share some of the highlights of the day!
This year, the Windermere Foundation is doing more for our communities, in neighborhoods where there are a lot of kids but not a lot of resources. To nominate a project or learn more about what is happening in your area, go to www.windermereandyou.org.
Or share your Foundation experiences at www.facebook.com/WinderemereFoundation


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Carolyn C. (Cygan) Anuszczyk
Funeral Mass
Boston - Carolyn C. (Cygan) Anuszczyk, 72, of South Dartmouth, died Thursday, August 15, 2013, at Brigham & Women's Hospital. She was the wife of the late Edward J. Anuszczyk.
Born in Acushnet, daughter of the late Joseph and Victoria (Kaleta) Cygan, she was a longtime resident of South Dartmouth. She was a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church and active in her church family.
Carolyn graduated from New Bedford High School. She received her nursing degree from Fitchburg State College and Burbank Hospital School of Nursing, and attended Assumption College. She was involved in nursing education and the education of certified nurses' aides for many years. Carolyn was an instructor and supervisor for various agencies. She retired from New Bedford High School where she was an instructor in Occupational Nursing.
Carolyn was an Ombudsman for Coastline Elder Services. She was a member of the Fall River Diocesan Council Catholic Nurses, the Polish Women's Business and Professional Club, the Burbank Alumni Association, Delta Kappa Gama and the Anthony Beach Association.
Her family was her pride and joy. She loved the time she spent with her grandchildren. Her students were very important to her as was the importance of educating CNA's.
She is survived by her 4 daughters, Christine Sparks and Wendy Anuszczyk, her caregivers; also Victoria Stowell and Kathryn Anuszczyk; and her 4 beloved grandchildren, Justin, Billy, Thayne and Cora.
Her funeral will be on Monday at 9 A.M. from the funeral home, followed by a Mass at 10 A.M. in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, 235 North Front St., New Bedford. Burial will be in Sacred Heart Cemetery. Visiting hours are Sunday, 4 - 8 P.M.
Arrangements are with Machnowski Funeral Home, 472 Ashley Blvd., New Bedford. For condolences, please visit www.machnowskifuneral.com
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Videos | December 31, 2009
Six Years on Mars!
On their sixth anniversary of landing on Mars, one of two scrappy rovers faces an uncertain future.
Transcript:Hi, I'm John Callas. As we observe the sixth anniversary of the rovers' arrival on Mars, let me update you on the status of Spirit.
We've been trying to get Spirit unstuck from this location on the west side of "home plate" but the going has been very slow. It's been very difficult, we've been having all these problems so we haven't actually been able to get going with the extrication process.
This is a really difficult time for Spirit. We're still in this very difficult situation - we're mired in Troy and we now may be a four-wheeled rover which is going to make getting out even more difficult than it would have been with a five-wheeled rover.
We're pretty sure that it's just not going to make it through the winter if we stay at this location.
Spirit's gotten herself out of tight spots before. There's been at least two previous occasions when winter was coming and Spirit was trapped and she managed to break her way free and get to safety. And we're certainly hoping that this will make three for three.
Spirit has definitely had some dramatic moments in her past and I think this will be another one to add to that, but we have a lot of things left to try so I think she has a very good chance of overcoming this obstacle.
She wouldn't be who she is without the people who designed her and built her, and who help to guide her across Mars to this very day.
You know, the rover has been on Mars for almost six years, we'll beyond its original 90 days, and its accomplishments are phenomenal.
We're facing a really tough situation but there's a saying among the team members - particularly the rover planners like myself, that you don't bet against Spirit. It's a good way to lose money.
I think I've started to think of Spirit as being the Indiana Jones of Mars, where she is just , you know, these just impossible challenges seem to be dumped on her and dumped on her and dumped on her and somehow she manages to roll under that closing door and go back for her hat and keep right on going.
Our job is to wear these rovers out and who would've thought that they would still be operating after six years on the surface of Mars. This is a great testament to the scientists and engineers who designed, built, and operate the rovers. It's a great adventure.


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The latest entry in an ongoing series devoted to magazines of the past.
I attended a fun and interesting meeting yesterday morning that involved a group of dynamic people discussing how to promote and support local performing arts using the Internet. Hopefully, I'll have more to report on that in the near future. In the meantime, here's a look at how things were done back in September, 1977.
I'm pretty sure I picked up this copy of TRIAD magazine at a store called Triangle Records, which was located on south Pulaski Avenue. Listed on the masthead as Volume Six, Number One, it featured G. Alonzo Oeuf's feature story on Yes, with photos by Dean Simmon and Dan Kompass. Judging from the "We're Back!" banner on the front cover, the magazine, which was the in-print companion to TRIAD radio on WXFM 106, must have been away for a while.
Newly appointed Editor Bill Paige (you've seen that name on previous Vintage Publication Spotlight posts) was overseeing the new format, and Cary Baker (likewise a VPS regular) was a contributor, along with Robin Cook, Mindy Goldenberg, Mark Guncheon, and Beth Segal. In addition to Simmon and Kompass, Jorie Gracen served as a photographer. TRIAD also used pics from Photo Reserve. Paige had a regular column, and also contributed an article on The Stranglers, in which drummer Jet Black noted, "We have to get the audience with us, jumping about, having a good time, or we can't play. There'd be no reason for it."
Bruce Meyer had an interview with Jackson Browne, while Baker devoted his entire Chicago Sha Boom column to Shadows Of Knight frontman Jim Sohns. There was a two-page spread of intriguing art by John Kurtz, plus movie reviews of The Spy Who Loved Me and Fire Sale. Christine Harmon reviewed the "lighthearted farce" Bleacher Bums, which was playing at the Organic Theatre, but didn't mention any of the actors involved. Guncheon reviewed a Mink DeVille and Blind John Davis double bill at Ivanhoe Theatre, Robin Cook reviewed Gil Scott-Heron, also at The Ivanhoe, and Simon Impleiz covered a concert by Alice Cooper at the Chicago Stadium. The record reviews included Linda Ronstadt's Simple Dreams; Robert Gordon's self-titled effort with Link Wray; Utopia's Oops! Wrong Planet; and Alan Parsons Project's I Robot.
Goldenberg found quite a few cranky people in her piece on Beatlefest, which was held at the Palmer House in Chicago that year. Attendees griped about the prices at the flea market, the authors who had come to hawk their books, and even the joyous reactions of other fans to The Beatles' flicks and music. "I enjoyed the films a lot," some guy named Dave related. "But I'd rather see them without the incessant clapping and singing along by people who can't sing as well as The Beatles." Here's a box of tissues, Dave. Now go wipe all that snot out of your nose. Others despaired of the current music scene. "The 70s has produced no music of note yet and I don't have much hope that it will," complained a 21-year old named Beth. Beatlefest, which was created by Mark Lapidos with a little help from his friend John Lennon, would later morph into Fest For Beatles Fans and find a new home in the Chicago area at the Hyatt Regency in Rosemont. Lapidos is still at the helm, and WXRT's Terri Hemmert has been the MC for quite some time. Fortunately, the vibe these days is much more upbeat.
Advertising in this issue of TRIAD included a full page from S&J Records in Hammond, Indiana, saluting the magazine's return; Swollen Head Records & Tapes in La Grange; a half page ad for The Grand Illusion LP from Styx; and the AmazingGrace venue in Evanston.
In his Radio Notes column, TRIAD radio Program Director Don Bridges proclaimed, "It's been a long time coming, but we're back, looking straight up Michigan Avenue and digging on the renewed thrill of spinning records over Chicago."


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(RNS) When Marguerite La Joy Washington, a freshman at Dillard University, was gunned down in New Orleans, it had all the appearance of business as usual. Thousands of young blacks are killed in America each year.
But if you had attended Marguerite's funeral at First Grace United Methodist Church, where she taught Sunday School, you would have realized that something was different.
Instead of the nearly all-black affair you would expect in too much of America, the crowd — so large that it spilled out into the streets — was half white.
"It was a defining moment for our congregation," the Rev. Shawn Anglim recalls. "The whole church was there. It was like they were saying, 'This is our family. Our child.'"
The Trayvon Martin case, and the events surrounding it, have reminded us that America remains a racially divided nation. And while our faith traditions sometimes enable us to stretch beyond our ordinary vision and frailties, 11 o'clock on Sunday remains the "most segregated hour" in America, as Martin Luther King Jr. famously put it. Even today, only about 5 percent of the nation's churches are racially integrated.
Then, there is First Grace.
First Grace is the story of two congregations — one black, the other white — that merged in the aftermath of a great storm and proved that King's dream of "the beloved community" remains a possibility.
In the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a circuit-riding pastor and several brave lay people decided to take a chance. They would merge these two churches. First Methodist and Grace Methodist would become First Grace.
The first Sunday they worshipped together, there were only 60 of them. Half black, half white, all a bit nervous. Today, there are hundreds. They are even more diverse than before, and they are joyful. The pastor is white. The minister of music and chair of the church council are black. Latinos and Haitians hold other positions of leadership. They have an intentional community of young adults, black, white and brown, who actually live at the church. No one is hungry. No one goes without legal or medical care. No one is alone.
"There's nothing special about the people at First Grace," Anglim says. "They're ordinary Americans just like anybody else. But they have decided to move in together. To become one body."
How has First Grace bridged this societal fissure that seems so daunting to the rest of the county? "We listen," Anglim says. "It is the first act of love." He pauses, then continues: "People don't realize how brutal they can be. We act according to the way our minds have been shaped by our parents, our culture, our personal experiences. For black people and white people, those differences can be vast. So we begin by listening. And we do things together."
The church's outreach ministries include a medical clinic, a halfway house, a feeding program and a new legal clinic. When you're caught up in the mission, you don't have time to worry about the color of somebody's skin.
Anglim tells me that the parishioners at First Grace still struggle. Even fight. "But," he says, "we know each other. We have names."
Religious people like to speak of the "Kingdom of God." First Grace could be what that kingdom looks like. It is black, white and brown. Rich and poor. Gay and straight. Democrat and Republican. I've visited their church, and when they "pass the peace," greeting one another in the name of Christ, it is difficult to restore order. That's how much they love being together. First Grace shows us that our multiracial nation not only can survive. It can thrive.
Oh, and there's one more thing. Marguerite's mother, Margaret Ferguson Washington, a civil rights veteran and pillar of the church, has a new friend. A young woman called Washington shortly after her daughter's death and asked whether she had anybody to accompany her to the arraignment of the man accused of the attack. She did not.
"Might I go with you?" the young woman asked. Washington said she could. Since then, the young woman has accompanied her to every motion, every hearing, every court appearance. Seeing them together, and their natural affection, you might even get the impression that the girl is Washington's daughter.
Except that she's white.
(Oliver Thomas is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and author of "10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You.")


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Baby Nursery Thursday, December 29th 2016.
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Rizzo's Thin Crust Sicilian Meets High Expectations on the Lower East Side
Pizza reviews in NYC.
Allow me to begin with some great words from a wise man:
Most Sicilian pizza is just too thick for me, but Rizzo's in Astoria is the home of the wondrous thin-crust Sicilian slice...homemade sauce (slightly sweet), full-cream mozzarella that lies ever so gently on top of the light—almost demure—crust, and just enough Romano cheese to give his pizza a little zing. —Ed Levine, Pizza: A Slice of Heaven
One of the first things you'll spot upon entering the small, bright interior of the new Lower East Side Rizzo's is a smattering of quotes on the wall. Yes, there's even one from Ed, pulled from the excerpt above. They're all glowing recommendations from respected magazines, newspapers, and food critics; they're also all written about the pizzeria's original location in Astoria, which has been around since the late '50s, and its sister joint on the Upper East Side.
Whenever I hear that an acclaimed pizzeria has expanded with a second (let alone third) branch, I can't help but let loose a skeptical eyebrow raise, a tilt of the head, a smirk of a shrug. Inconsistency can be the downfall of any restaurant, but the pizza industry has always struck me as especially vulnerable—great pizza is at once inherently simple and delicately balanced, meaning that errors in execution tend to be glaringly apparent.
Let's just say that while we placed our order with some trepidation, we needn't have worried. Rizzo's latest outpost is turning out pies that stand up to the original storefront's (and give them a run for their money, to boot).
Thin is indeed 'in' at Rizzo's. To the extent that when the Plain ($11) came out, my first thought was that it looked wan and sort of wimpy, the cheese disproportionately concentrated in the middle of the pie. But moments later, a string of that same cheese dangling from my lips, all was forgotten. The crust—buttery, crisp, and delightfully thin—gives way to sweet-tart tomato sauce and tangy aged mozzarella. The square pies are personal-size and made to order; you can buy 'em by the slice, but you'll probably regret it. This is the kind of pizza that's made for eating in volume, so light and flavorful that I could've easily plowed through two and then demanded a few more.
The Fantasia ($13) makes for a heftier pie, but it's no worse for the wear. The creamy base of ricotta is flecked with roasted red pepper, marinated mushrooms, and sliced olives. Shot through with pesto, it's a little milky-sweet and nutty; a little tart and grassy—the brightness of a salad, mingled with the warmth of comfort food.
Go for the pizza, but don't even think about walking out of Rizzo's without placing an order for the Garlic Knots ($1 for 3; $3 for 12). I'm not exaggerating when I say they're hands down the best I've ever had—fresh out of the oven, they're ethereally light and airy, with the tender, pull-apart chewiness of the best rolls. After a wait? I couldn't say, since nobody in their right mind would leave a crumb left over.
The diminutive knots come judiciously sprinkled with sea salt and shaved Parmesan, and even though the roasty garlic flavor is pretty pronounced, it didn't leave me talking with a hand over my mouth for the rest of the day. In fact, Max— longtime Queens resident and Rizzo's patron—will tell you that the Lower East Side garlic knots don't just rival those of the Astoria location—they crush the competition.
For those looking to make an afternoon or evening of it, you can get your hands on those same pies and sides—along with full wine and beer menus—at their sit-down establishment next door.
Oh, and one last thing: See that sign? See where it says 'Round Pies'? I have to close things out with a few more words from that same wise man.*
After years of maintaining Sicilian-only pizza purity, Rizzo's is now making conventional Neapolitan pizza. I can't tell you how it is, though, because I refuse to order it on general principle. I come here for the Sicilian slice only. —Ed Levine, Pizza: A Slice of Heaven
*If you really must know, though, we've got the write-up right here.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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