ST. JOSEPH Resiliency is a skill, and it's a state of being.

"Resiliency can be dealt by individuals and communities, and practiced through some very straightforward strategies," said Tami Miller,Krasl Art Center's deputy directorandcurator. "We're using the visual arts as a way to discuss this, and discussing the things thatresiliency is built from."

The Krasl willopen its new exhibit, aptly titled "Resiliency," tomorrow. It will be on display through Dec. 1.

The exhibit was developed with Spectrum Health Lakeland.

Resiliency is the process of adapting in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats and even stress such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stresses.

In 2016,Lakeland completed a Community Health Needs Assessment in which mental health emerged as the most urgent needin Berrien County.

The same year, KAC decided on a new mission to inspire meaningful change and strengthening the community.

"Through combining our expertise in art, and theirs in wellness, we developed a theme, and put out a call for artists," Miller said. "We reviewed the entries together and developed the exhibit."

The exhibition features contemporary artists from across the nation working in painting, drawing, illustration, dance and printmaking.

"It's not just one kind of art. It's so diverse," Miller said. "Some artists are using representational and some are actually using art making to make their own resiliency."

She said some pieces are calming, while other encourage positive coping skills.

"This is a positive and immediate way people can build their own skills," Miller said. "They're going to explore thisand find immediate ways to have them stay in the resiliency zone: staying grounded in a state of stress."

Christina E. Fontenelle, a Chicago psychotherapist and artist, will bring art pieces, a dance performance and dance/movement workshops to the Krasl Art Center as part of the "Resiliency" exhibition opening tomorrow.

A call she must answer

For Christina E. Fontenelle, a Chicagopsychotherapist and artist, resiliency isher theme in life.

"It just keeps coming up over and over again,"she said in a recent phone interview."It's just a call that I must answer.I like to do this to get messages across, and embody what I'm trying to get across."

Fontenelle will bring two pieces of art to the exhibition, as well as several dance workshops and a performance. The two art pieces focus around her work with migrant children.

"Theycrossed the border and experienced trauma," she said. "Movement was the only way to get through to them because they didn't speak Spanish or English. I created the pieces through my own self care."

To help others with their self care, she will put on two dance/movement therapy workshops at 11 a.m. Saturday at KAC, and at 6 p.m. Oct. 24 at Benton Harbor Public Library.

Through facilitation, she will lead attendees toward creative, nonjudgmental exploration of what self care means to them. The workshops include an ice-breaker, guided breathing meditation and skills/techniques that can be applied to everyday life.

"My workshops are based off my meditation journal, and I'd like to show people how that came about together," Fontenelle said.

Attomorrow's opening, she willhave a performance at 7 p.m.

"For me it's an honor to be able to be part of a space where we're able to acknowledge what's happening, and resilience as an individual and a whole," Fontenelle said.

She hopes people leave the exhibit with self awareness and self love.

"If I can have one person from the performance, workshop or my artwork leave, and they love themselves a little more, then I've done my job," Fontenelle said. "I want people to love themselves the way they were meant to be loved."

The space in between

Artist John Gutoskey believes that everyone is resilient, whether it's in the day-to-day spaces we're in or the world as a whole.

"It's a miracle we're not blowing each others heads off," he said in a recent phone interview. "We all sort of deal with it."

Gutoskey explores his own resiliency, and that of the queer community, in his eight mixed media mono prints he's bringing to theKraslfrom a collection he callsLiminal Landscapes."

"It's looking at queerness as this in between space," he said. "They are an exploration of what makes a space liminal or queer, and how queer space is different from heteronormative space."

The Ann Arbor artist said it was his own experience growing up gay that lead him to explore queer spaces.

"I was sort of grateful in my 20s for growing up gay because it forced me to deal with it, do therapy, grow up, and be resilient, rebound and believe in myself when people were telling me I'm useless," he said.

He said he also looks at the resiliency theme through the resiliency of others he's encountered through his therapeutic body work.

"When you're traumatized, a portion of our life force is taken away from us, we have to compartmentalize to move on, so it's not in our day-to-day," Gutoskey said. "As you move through the trauma, yourelease the traumatic energy, and you literally feel energy come back to you."

He said that's what he hopes people get from the exhibit.

"Ithink it's great some of the mental health issues we're talking about here and making it be about something more than the artwork," Gutoskey said."And how to seek out resources."

He said people these days need that with, for example, car accidents, surgery, abuse and veterans returning from war.

"You hope someone takes away something. If you see the work, there's a lot of arches and doorways and literal spaces," he said. "I'm just tryingto develop imagery that could talk about this luminality andjust trying to create images that are healing."

Other artists included in the exhibition are: Rachel Corbin, drawing, Nashville, Tenn.; Alli Farkas, painting, Dowagiac; Ginnie Hsu, illustration, New York; Olivia Hunter, photography, New York; the monarq, painting, Seattle; Sergio Goimez, painting, Chicago; and Martina Nehrling, painting, Chicago.

See the original post here:
Finding resiliency through art | Features - Herald Palladium

ONLY CONNECT! Edward Morgan Forster writes in Howards End, his enduringly powerful 1910 novel about class, morality, and love in Edwardian England; only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. In this line, the humanist Forster suggests the importance of linking what he describes as the Inner life and the Outer life: surface and depth, public image and private self. His books complex and vividly drawn characters are defined by their abilities to make these bridges, by their respective levels of hypocrisy, empathy, or compassion.

But in playwright Matthew Lopezs eviscerating and entirely absorbing new work, The Inheritance, the iconic line takes on an additional layer of meaning. The two-part, seven-hour play deftly connects Forsters novel to a pan-generational queer milieu in contemporary New York, effectively proving the timelessness of the novelists themes.

The play shattered audiences in a sold-out run at Londons Young Vic when it premiered in March 2018; The Guardians Michael Billington praised director Stephen Daldrys crystalline production and noted that the play pierces your emotional defenses, raises any number of political issues and enfolds you in its narrative. Before its transfer to the West Ends Nol Coward Theatre, it was lauded by The Telegraphs Dominic Cavendish as perhaps the most important American play of the century so far. It was subsequently garlanded with awards (the Evening Standards Best Play, the Olivier for Best Director).

Now The Inheritance, commandingly directed by Daldry and with several of the principal actors from the London production, has begun previews on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. With AIDS as a haunting presence, inevitable and favorable comparisons have been drawn with Tony Kushners game-changing 1991 epic, Angels in America. (Daldry and the show's designer, Bob Crowley, even give one of their characters prop-house wings in the London production.) But it is Forsters novel that primarily informs Lopezs new work. Whenever we hit a roadblock in a workshop, he says, the answer was very often to be found in Howards End.

Lopez makes Forster himselfhe goes by Morgana central character. A donnish, avuncular figure in buttoned-up tweeds, Morgan, at the plays inception, is instructing a group of young men on the art of transferring life experience to paper. This circle of friends, serving as a kind of Greek chorus, questions Morgan about the seemingly effortless elegance of his books opening lineOne may as well begin with Helens letters to her sisterso dashed off, as if to suggest it doesnt really matter how you start, one of them comments. One may as well begin with Tobys voicemails... to his boyfriend, they conclude. And so it begins.

A closeted man from an age that criminalized homosexuality, Morgan (played by Paul Hilton) is filled with wonder at this younger generation, a tribe of unencumbered men able to live their individual truths buoyed by preternatural self-awareness, PrEP (the daily preventative HIV medication), and pop-culture drollery. What they are often less aware of, as they navigate the travails of Manhattan real estate, Hamptons house parties, and nightclub dark rooms, are the struggles of a preceding generation that fought for liberation and was decimated by the early years of the AIDS holocaust in the 1980s. How can we learn from the past to forge a greater future together? queries actor Kyle Soller, who plays Eric Glass, an earnest activist. Its just such a universal, human story about how we need to recognize our collective history: Theres a message I think we really need right now.

At the outset of the plays action, Toby Darling (a lost-boy playwright, electrifyingly played by Andrew Burnap) is living in a spacious, rent-controlled Upper West Side apartment, the childhood home of his fianc, Eric. Forsters novel revolves around an inheritance, the romantic country house (Howards End) bequeathed by the mystical Ruth Wilcox to the freethinking Margaret Schlegel, a mere acquaintance whom she nevertheless recognizes as a kindred spirit. In The Inheritance, it is a house upstate that decades earlier the young lovers Henry and Walter intended as a refuge from the disease that was ravaging their circle of friends and that is destined to become a sanctuary of a different sort.

Lopez had a thwarted inheritance of his own. Raised in Panama City, a small town in the part of the Florida panhandle known, he says, as the Redneck Riviera, he yearned for the Brooklyn of his parents childhoods. I think they must have seen in it a kind of paradise, he continues. My dad was raised in housing projects; now theyre able to own a home and land. Their son, however, did not see northwestern Florida as a paradise. It was baffling to me. (He has now reclaimed his parents urban roots, living in Brooklyn with his husband of four years, Brandon Clarke.) The solace I hadbesides my parents, who were loving and caringwas the movies and theater and reading, he recalls. The local community theater was my salvation.

The teenage Lopez saw Ismail Merchant and James Ivorys powerful 1992 adaptation of Howards End. I knew nothing about E. M. Forster. I knew nothing about Howards End, he remembers, but seeing that movie absolutely changed my life. It was the first thing that really struck a chord with me as a writer. I was just so enamored of the film and then later the bookand the love affair has not abated. The 1987 movie adaptation of Forsters homoerotic Maurice, published only after the writers death in 1970, was to prove a further revelation, although Lopez had to seek this one out. They were not showing it in Panama City; thats for sure, he says, laughing, and it was not available at the local Blockbuster. When he finally watched the film and then researched Forsters life, he recalls thinking, Holy shit, this is Howards End but gay! The revelation gave Lopez the notion of retelling Howards End as a queer story, and six years ago the writer (who won acclaim for his 2006 breakout play The Whipping Man) set out to re-investigate the book. Lopez wrote every word of his original draft at a Brooklyn writers space, often working until three in the morning and even on Christmas Eve.

The result, as Andrew Burnap discovered during one of four major workshops that spanned two years, was a beautiful mess that ran some 10 hours. Burnap had been starring as a sad-sack Elvis impersonator turned stellar drag queen in Lopezs comedic play The Legend of Georgia McBride in Los Angeles but knew nothing about the new play until his manager sent him the script. I read it at night, he recalls. I started at nine and finished at six. For the sake of my roommates, I was trying to keep the weeping to a dull roar and muffle the laughing as wellbecause I also found it wildly funny.

During the workshop, Burnap played one of the young men in the circle of friends, but he was eventually asked to step in and play the part of Toby. I even told him, Youre too young for the role, but youd be doing me a huge favor, Lopez recalls. Months later, Burnap got a call while he was driving in L.A. I pulled over and sort of felt that my life was about to change, he remembers. Burnap had never been to Europe before he traveled for the play; the new production will mark his Broadway debut.

His fellow cast member Kyle Soller received the 400-page script the day before his audition. Undaunted, he finished reading it on the subway en route to the audition. I felt there was something special in my hands, Soller recalls. The characters are so fully formed and three-dimensional, and Matthews writing is heartbreaking and poetic in equal measure. (Sollers performance won him both the Olivier and Critics Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor.)

It was something that hits you like a ton of bricks, says actor Samuel H. Levine of Lopezs writing. (The actor admits that he had no idea who Forster was when he embarked on The Inheritance. Now I feel like I know him, he says.) Levine plays both Adam, a young actor on a blazing meteors arc, and Leo, a hustler on the reverse trajectory. Having dropped out of school, Levine was working in a restaurant when he was called in to do the workshop. I thought, Theres no way in hell I am ever going to do this, he recalls, so lets just let it rip, and that unharnessed energy helped to secure him the dual roles of the very different characters. From those early stages, Levine remembers the constant flow of new pages. We must have killed a lot of trees!

There was just more than we could ever stage, Lopez admits of his first drafts. A play is theoretical until you actually get it on its feet and watch it in a run. I dont think those early audiences knew quite how much power they had, he adds. They taught us everything. The first preview before a Young Vic audience proved, as Levine recalls, overwhelmingly electricit hit really hard, hearing the reactions. Burnap remembers sneaking into the back of the theater, during the wrenching conclusion of act one, and witnessing the sort of theatrical event where everyones life is changed, almost as if the entire audience is held in suspension, he says. Im just so moved in every performance, says Soller, because we can hear the audience audibly crying, full of the histories that theyre bringing to the story.

One member of the London cast who brought a particularly poignant past to the story was the legendary Vanessa Redgrave, who was a haunting Ruth Wilcox in the Merchant--Ivory movie and played a mother whose son has succumbed to AIDS decades earlier in The Inheritance. (The actress herself lost her ex-husband Tony Richardson, father of her daughters, Joely and the late Natasha Richardson, to complications from the disease in 1991.) Though Redgrave will not be appearing in New York, Lopez notes the power of her performance. It was an incredibly humbling thing to watch her examine her own trauma and to see her put her personal experience in service of the play, he says.

More changes are afoot in the new productiona new chorus and a subtle reconsidering. With this new American ensemble comes a new personality, Lopez says. I think that the last thing were interested in doing is putting up a carbon copy of the production in Londonotherwise, just show the video. One of the things that I learned from Stephen is always to question your assumptions, and always go with the desire to make it better.

Thanks to the Forster estates supportive trustees, Lopez even visited the authors rooms at Kings College, Cambridge University, and was able to study the writers original manuscripts. I feel a different, newfound kind of kinship with Forster, he says, and Id like to think that the cast came away feeling as possessive of Forster and his writing and his legacy as I was when I started writing the play.

Read the rest here:
The Inheritance, London's Epic, 7-hour Play of the Century Arrives on Broadway - Vogue

For many of us, when we make a mistake, self-criticism is often our default response. The voice in our heads that tells us that we are useless or worthless or that we are never going to amount to anything unless we pull our socks up. Surely, having such a coach on the side-lines, spurring us on, will make us perform better in the future? Many of us believe that self-criticism demonstrates our commitment to the highest possible standards.

If you had asked me 10 years ago how best to motivate myself, I suspect that self-criticism would have featured fairly high up the list. If someone had suggested I take a kinder approach to my setbacks or failures I probably would have laughed. Surely the only way toachieve the high standards that I had set for myself was to hold myself accountable by criticising my short-comings? That would ensure I didnt fall short again. It is certainly true that we dont like the feeling of being criticised. Criticism is painful. It feels bad, regardless of who is dishing it out. Yet, it would be a mistake to believe that self-criticism motivates us to keep moving forward.

Criticism hurts

When we criticise ourselves, the emotional pain we experience lights up the same pain centres of the brain as physical pain, namely the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. As a result of this overlap in neural circuitry, when our inner critic runs rampant inside our head, it can feel as if someone has quite literally punched us in the gut. Only, rather than a critical stranger, we are the ones inflicting the pain. In an effort to protect ourselves, we trigger fight or flight the very same mechanism that we call upon to help us defend ourselves from a predator. Only, in the case of self-criticism, we are both the predator and the prey.

Whereas the threat from an actual predator usually dissipates within minutes or hours, our self-criticism can last for days, months or an entire lifetime, slowly eroding our self-worth, self-confidence and our sense of safety. Yet, if we cannot find sanctuary in our own mind, where will we ever find refuge from the critical world we find ourselves in? As a result (and contrary to popular belief), self-criticism has been shown to have a negative effect on our long-term motivation. Our inner critic effectively undermines our self-esteem and, with it, our motivation to persevere.

A different approach to failure

Research into self-compassion shows that those who are able to cultivate greater compassion towards themselves, counterintuitively end up holding themselves to a higher standard and perform better than those who criticise themselves. A self-compassionate response has been shown to reduce anxiety, depression, stress, perfectionism, shame and pain. It has also been shown to increase life satisfaction, happiness, optimism, body appreciation and immune function.

Part of the reason is due to the fact that self-compassion doesnt induce our fight or flight response so there is no longer the fear of beating ourselves up if things go wrong. Instead, we tap into our parasympathetic nervous system, meditated by our mammalian caregiving system (also known as our tend and befriend response). It works by triggering the release of hormones such as oxytocin, which help to promote feelings of warmth towards ourselves and relieve any stress we may be experiencing. We become our greatest ally.

Cultivating greater self-compassion

When it comes to cultivating greater self-compassion towards our self, there is no silver bullet. It begins with mindful self-awareness of those moments when we are experiencing pain or suffering and learning to catch ourselves from mindlessly chastising ourselves. The second step is to be kind. A simple exercise that you can do to cultivate greater kindness towards yourself, which is an exercise from the Mindful Self-Compassion programme developed by Chris Germer and Kristin Neff, is set out below.

1. Think of a behaviour that you are keen to change and that is currently causing you problems. What happens when you display that behaviour? Do you get defensive? Do you close down?

2. What does the voice of your inner critic tell you? What words does it use? What tone does it use? How does it express itself?

3. Now get in touch with the part of you that feels criticised. What impact do those critical words have on you? How do they make you feel?

4. Finally, can you think of a kinder more compassionate way of acknowledging your pain in that moment? Imagine it was a close friend who had been berating themselves for a similar transgression, what would you say to them to help comfort them in that moment? Can you use similar words to comfort yourself?

Lastly, it can be really helpful to harness our common humanity. Reminding ourselves that we are not alone in moments of suffering can be a huge comfort. Humans are imperfect beings and all of us will have experienced setbacks and sorrow in our lifetimes. Reminding ourselves of this fact can help soothe the pain we may be experiencing in that moment. The more often we practise self-compassion the quieter our inner critics voice will become.

See the rest here:
Silencing the critic within - Thrive Global

3 October 2019, 14:26 | Updated: 3 October 2019, 16:06

Sorry, but we have no choice but to stan.

Sadly, receiving a dick pic you absolutely did not ask for is a regular occurrence for a lot of women. Astudy publishedin The Journal of Sex Research found that men actually think women like their unsolicited nudes and that they send them in hope that they'll receive something sexual back YIKES.

Faye Kinley, a trans woman from Glasgow, knows a lot about this topic because since she came out as trans, she has been hit with a barrage of unwanted dick pics. But when a random man decided to send her an explicit snap after finding her phone number online, she had the perfect response.

READ MORE: People are now "cockfishing" thanks to iPhone 11 Pro camera wide lens

Basically, the guy messaged her saying "hey girl you are so sexy" alongside his unsolicited dick pic, which had a croissant placed over it to keep it PG. Faye returned his gesture by sending back a nude photo of her own.

"This random guy somehow got my number off here and sent me a dick pic," she tweeted. "And I guess he didnt appreciate it when I sent a picture of mine back. Worked like a charm."

He responded: "What the hell? Why would you send me that? I'm blocking your number now. Bye. Delete this conversation."

Although Faye said the initial post got her banned from Facebook, it was a viral hit on Twitter and has been "Liked" almost 300,000 times.

See original here:
This trans woman has gone viral after her perfect response to an unsolicited dick pic - PopBuzz

To fellow comic Bo Burnham, she is the most influential/imitated comedian of a generation a millennial Lenny Bruce. As anyone who saw her Edinburgh fringe debut last year will know, Kate Berlant is the real deal a silly/clever impro-comic majoring in how identity and ego are performed in the too-much-information age. And yet here she is arriving in London for a short standup run, to zero name recognition and minimal fanfare.

That may change: after roles in Tarantinos Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and 2018 hit Sorry to Bother You, she now has a TV sketch show in development with sidekick John Early. Telly connoisseurs will identify Early as a star of hipster comedy-thriller Search Party, in which Berlant also appeared. The duo have posted a series of hilarious videos online skewering as Search Party did the smart, shallow and self-absorbed millennial way of being. But their TV projects have yet to escape in-development gridlock, obliging Berlants genius to remain, for a little while longer, a secret shared by comedy lovers alone.

But thats fine by her, she tells me, on the phone from LA. (Shes a Santa Monica native.) When I do a show and people turn up, that means more to me than anything, says the 32-year-old. Live performance is my favourite thing. Pause. That being said, please hire me for film or TV if theres anyone reading this.

In the past, shes been bullish in response to TV commissioners complaint that her and Earlys slippery brand of humour is too weird. So were supposed to try to make something that appeals to everyone, and by doing so make something that appeals to no one? We firmly reject all of that. Today, she doesnt accept the premise. I dont think what Im doing is niche. I cant stop making faces or crossing my eyes. Im embarrassingly lowbrow at times. Earlier in her career, her ambition was to be the new Jim Carrey.

The truth is that her comedy scrambles lowbrow and highbrow, as it does the distinction between the real Berlant and the character she may or may not be playing. On stage, she presents as a precious, preening comedian-cum-savant, hypersensitive to the atmosphere in the room and to every teensy indication of her own fabulousness. She barely seems to have any actual material, save for her stream-of-consciousness commentary on the gig and her experience of it. The vibe is: its our privilege to be in her presence the more so when the show devolves into (of all things) a demonstration of her psychic powers.

The clairvoyancy act, Berlant reports, is sometimes effective to a spooky degree: I think theres a connection between being psychic and improvising. Theyre both about following intuition and not trying to overthink things. But finally, its just a joke and an excuse, she says, to be more herself onstage. Most comics, I venture, dont need that much artifice just to reveal their own voice. But Berlant distrusts authenticity in comedy: Performance is always not you, I would argue. She will accept though that her stage persona is an extrapolation of the most annoying parts of myself, including my boredom with the idea of the self-deprecating comedian. Im more like: I very much want attention, thats why Im doing this. I just exaggerate how desperately I want to be seen.

Alongside that, she says, I wanted to confuse my legibility onstage. Is it a character, or a real person? Why is the language I use falling apart? Why indeed? Because it reflects the post-internet language that derives from half-reading a million articles, from hearing opinions regurgitated in a couple of sentences. That fragmented access to information that we all have. Berlant on stage is a person cobbled together from internet fragments. Wellness culture, corporate feminism, academic jargon: its all in there. Im playing a person so steeped in the cultural critiques that Im obliterated. Theres so much commentary on myself that I cease to really exist.

You could blame her time at NYU, where she did a masters in the cultural anthropology of comedy, and acquired a fascination with the performance of knowledge. Or you could blame the fact that her dad is the artist Tony Berlant, renowned for his collages of found metal objects which might just have inspired the provoking juxtapositions in his daughters comedy.

But youd have to admit that, just as it can be read through an art-intellectual lens, so Berlants comedy can simply be enjoyed for its ridiculousness and flamboyant liveness. Shes so totally in the moment, says her mentor Sarah Silverman. Berlant says: I have tremendous respect for comics who have their 60-minute act scripted in advance. But for me, it feels dead if I dont keep it open, and keep myself in a place of terror.

Maybe thats not wise for my mental state. But in performance, I just find it impossible to not acknowledge whats actually going on in the moment. At the core of her comedy so self-aware, so aware of the contexts is a hyper-awareness of the essential weirdness of performance, says Berlant, the brutality of the expectation of doing comedy. And how inherently bizarre that encounter is.

Kate Berlant is at Soho theatre, London, 7-12 October.

More here:
Kate Berlant: 'There's a connection between being psychic and improv' - The Guardian

The weather has dropped half of one degree, announcing to all Dallas residents that fall has arrived. Luckily, those who dont follow football can fight off some of that seasonal depression with one of the best comedy show seasons that Dallas has hosted in a long time. As always, comedy is subjective to each persons taste, so if you really hate one of these recommendations, please leave a comment and well be sure to send a letter to that comedian letting them know they dont need to come anymore.

From arenas to comedy clubs, we have narrowed down some of the best comedy shows to see this fall. Be warned, there will be a two drink minimum required to read the entire list.

Mark NormandOct. 4-6Addison Improv4980 Belt Line Road, No. 250 (Far North Dallas)$20-$30

Mark Normand has quietly been amassing a following with his quick one-liners and approachable demeanor. Imagine the kind of jokes your uncle would tell at Thanksgiving; now further imagine they were actually funny, and youll get a good idea of Normands style. Hes becoming a fixture on television, appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbertand virtually any show Comedy Central produces. Hes probably even been on South Park. The Addison Improv will be a good fit for his energy, and with tickets starting at $20, it's a value deal for a name like his thats on the rise.

Eric Andre: Legalize Everything Tour 9 p.m., Oct. 10Majestic Theatre1925 Elm St. (downtown)$25 and up

The only thing predictable about Eric Andre is that nothing about his show will be predictable. The actor and comedian is bringing his unhinged brand of comedy to the Majestic Theatre for one night. Probably still best known for his run on Adult Swims The Eric Andre Show, the multifaceted performer was featured in this summers live action remake of The Lion King, on which he lent his voice to the hyena Azizi. Andre is an immensely talented performer who effortlessly pushes the comfort zone of an audience to both squirm and laugh in tandem, so buy a ticket and squirm with others.

Miranda Sings7 p.m.,Oct. 15Majestic Theatre 1925 Elm St. (downtown)$75 and up

Is the character Miranda Sings, brought to life by YouTube star Colleen Ballinger, meant for children or adults? You decide when Balinger smears on red lipstick and steps on the Majestic Theatre stage to share a revue of songs only the way Miranda can. (That is to say: poorly.) The fan base always come out strong forBallinger'soddball creation, thanks to the Miranda Sings YouTube channel and two seasons of Haters Back Off on Netflix, so even though the show is on a Tuesday, expect these tickets to not last long.

Cristela Alonzo7 p.m., Oct. 18Granada Theater3524 Greenville Ave. (Lower Greenville)$30 and up

Hometown hero Cristela Alonzo is returning for one night to make the audience in the Granada Theater laugh. Honest, charming and, of course, hilarious, Alonzo has become one of the top comedy stars in the last decade. Work on ABC sitcom Cristelaand her voice talents on Cars 3 have made her a household name, but where Alonzo still shines the brightest is in stand-up comedy. Her stop in Dallas is part of her My Affordable Care Act tour, in which she will also be promoting her new book Music to My Years.

Nate Bargatze7 and 10 p.m.,Oct. 25Majestic Theatre 1925 Elm St. (downtown)$35 and up

Quiet, low key and an absolute killer onstage, Nate Bargatze is doing two shows at the Majestic near the end of October. Bargatze is one of those rare comics who can isolate the funny in absolutely everything we see as normal and unexciting. He's a storyteller with traces of comedy legend Bob Newhart in his performer DNA, setting a pace that would otherwise appear slow if it didnt yield so many hard, genuine laughs from the audience. Go check out his latest Netflix special, The Tennessee Kid, to get a taste of his unique style. Youll be glad you did.

Dane Cook7 p.m., Oct. 26The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory300 W. Las Colinas Blvd., Irving$75 and up

Those who remember Myspace fondly can look back on a time when Dane Cook was king of all things comedy. While he may not be selling out arenas anymore, the fast-paced delivery and puffed-out-chest bravado of Cook are still present in an act loved by fans who never abandoned him. Theres also an appeal present in his shows to see what the voice of the dial-up generation has to say about our current state, as Cook's social observations were one of his calling cards to crowds of Smirnoff Ice-holding college kids. Cook was always an artist who possessed raw talent as a storyteller, and now armed with an older viewpoint and acute self-awareness this could very well be an excellent night of stand-up.

Bill BellamyNov. 1-3Arlington Improv309 Curtis Mathes Way, No. 147, Arlington$25.00 and up

If the television set was your de facto babysitter in the '90s, youll remember Bill Bellamy as a recurring smiling face. Bellamy was launched into the public eye thanks to HBOs Def Comedy Jam and as one of the first VJs on MTV. (Ask your parents.) You might not see the actor and comedian on your screen as much now, but hes consistently kept his stage act sharp touring around the country.

Tim Dillon 8:30 p.m., Nov. 14-16Hyenas Fort Worth425 Commerce St., Fort Worth$15 and up

Its very likely that you dont know the name Tim Dillon. Change that now, and be one of the people who said you knew him before he became famous. The New York-based comedian is one of the most white-hot talents in stand-up right now with his ability to provide a fresh take on even the most tired comedy tropes that comics refuse to let die. Hes appeared on Netflix as part of the The Comedy Lineup and you can listen to him weekly on his podcast Tim Dillon Is Going to Hell. If this list had to be whittled down to one comic to see this fall, Dillon would be the prime selection without a second of hesitation. Rolling Stone named him as one of the Ten Comics You Need to Know, and you really do.

Joe Rogan8 p.m., Nov. 15American Airlines Center2500 Victory Ave., Dallas$65 and up

It would have been crazy not that long ago to think that Joe Rogan would, very likely, sell out the American Airlines Center if he decided to do a show there. The NewsRadio and BattleBots alum got into the podcasting space before anyone even knew to call it a podcast, and now Rogan has one of the largest internet presences in the world, with his show, The Joe Rogan Experience, which hasmillions of weekly listeners. Sometimes decisive, but always provocative, Rogan is sure to spark as much debate as laughs throughout AAC in November.

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The Best Upcoming Comedy Shows in North Texas - Dallas Observer

Deepak Chopra, Special to SFGate

By Deepak Chopra, MD

Everyone is good at avoiding the elephant in the room, which refers to something everyone is aware of but cannot bring themselves to discuss. In some ways the ultimate elephant in the room is human nature. We all exhibit human nature, but we rarely discuss it for a simple reason: no one knows what to do with it.

Lions suffer no inner conflict when they prey upon the weak, but we do, or should. Mating season doesnt send dolphins into an emotional tailspin, but human sexuality is fraught with psychological implications, and for some people these are unresolved for a lifetime. The essential problem, however, is that human nature is torn between opposites. We see ourselves as good and bad together, rational and irrational, peaceful and violent.

The divided self is a central topic in a new book Ive written titled Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential. In it I counter the general helplessness that people feel about human nature. Its a helplessness born of being human, quite literally. Just to exist as a human being involves an inheritance of opposites. As children we learn to curb the dark side of these opposites, but psychology hasnt gotten much beyond Freuds sad conclusion that civilization barely keeps a lid on our innate tendency to violence, sexual jealousy, hatred of others, and similar inherited woes.

If human nature has been in conflict since recorded history began, perhaps it should remain the elephant in the room. This seems to be a kind of silent consensus. People feel free to discuss almost anything except the presence of the divided self. Countries pass military budgets, cities support police forces, legislatures pass laws, all of which try to curb the worst in human nature, and yet the people passing the laws and paying for armies and police forces are afflicted with the same impulses they attempt to curb.

Despite the tendency to take these things for granted, human nature is not like the nature of a lion, dolphin, or any other creatureit isnt really fixed or innate. We go beyond our nature all the time, which is why I chose the Greek word meta, which means beyond, in the books title. There is a well-known dictum that you cannot fix a problem at the level of the problem. This would seem to stymie any solution to the problem of human nature, because most people assume they are stuck with being human and all the defects this entails.

Rationality, science, art, education, and lawmaking constitute vast areas where we do not simply accept our divided self but build constructs that shape reality in an orderly, predictable, safe, and even beautiful way. The streets of Renaissance Italy were rife with gangs and family feuds (think of Romeo and Juliet) that gave rise to daily violence and danger, and yet Leonardo and Raphael flourished at the same time.

Going beyond has its limits, however. One could say that science and art and laws compensate for our inner conflicts without actually solving them. This seems obvious, in fact. Caravaggio, a great Italian painter, was on the run for murder and eventually died by violence in some obscure way no one has gotten to the bottom of. Corruption in politics as well as the #MeToo movement are indicators that the worst in human nature lurks in places of the highest positions and power.

In Metahuman I argue that going beyond hasnt really been tested to the limit. There is a more powerful form of going beyond than art, science, laws, and even rationality. It involves going beyond human nature itself and undoing all the mental constructs that enfold us. The bald fact is that human nature is a self-created construct. The lower brain remains with us on our evolutionary journey, implanted with basic impulses like fight-or-flight. But Homo sapiens escaped from evolutionary jail thousands of years ago.

A lion is a lion because its a lionthere is no choice in the matter. Humans are self-created because we are self-aware. Thus we counter survival of the fittest by taking care of our weak, poor, and disabled. We educate ourselves to transcend instinct in favor of expanded awareness. In fact, expanded awareness is our whole purpose. Science and technology cannot exist unless you are aware that there is a challenge or problem to solve. Then you look inside for ideas that lead to a solution.

What this means is that awareness solves the conflicts inherit in human nature. Nothing can be changed if you arent aware of it. I am not addressing how difficult our problems are. My only aim is to point to the only true level of the solution that isnt mired at the level of the problem. We have constructed imperfect societies, imposed religious beliefs that are shot through with mythology, and funded armies to project our need to be violent when called upon.

Yet the things we most value are not mental constructs. They include love, compassion, creativity, generosity, joy, curiosity, and the potential to grow. Leonardo had the mind and skill to paint the Mona Lisa, but he didnt invent creativity. Einstein had brilliant scientific ideas, but he didnt invent curiosity. The foundation for what we most value lies at the source of the mind, which is consciousness itself. Human nature was invented at a distance from the source. We can be sure of this because consciousness per se is not divided; it is whole.

Wholeness is uncreated. We exist and we are conscious. That is a statement of wholeness. Metahuman is based on the claim that existence and consciousness are the same. To be fully conscious, you only need to be here now. Everything else is at the level of the problem.

Be here now is a good catch phrase, devised by the spiritual teacher Ram Dass, who is still alive. Beyond the catch phrase lies the hidden reality that transcends all of our mental constructs. There is no apparent limit to human potential. We have infinite thoughts to think and infinite ways to express those thoughts. Yet the most brilliant thoughts are still secondary to consciousness itself. The fact is that humans live from the level of thought rather than the level of awareness. This is like knowing how to use a computer while suffering from amnesia about where computers come from.

Ive only given a bare outline of what can be accomplished by going beyond. The essential thing is to go beyond human nature in order to find the source where human nature was invented. Only from there can we change human nature. Our other choice is to keep living with human nature and shrug off its defects as if they are inevitable. Which course seems better to you?

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder ofThe Chopra Foundationand founder of Chopra Global and co-founder of Jiyo, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His latest book is Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential. Chopra hosts a new podcast Infinite Potential and Daily Breath available on iTunes or Spotifywww.deepakchopra.com

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How to Change Human Nature - SFGate

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Imagine that youre in charge of landing a big account. You delivered a presentation that you thought was great, and you thought the potential client loved it too. But today your boss told you that they went with another firm. The boss had some tough criticism for you about the quality of your presentation. Which of the following best describes your reaction?

This is an actual question from the online test How Do You React To Constructive Criticism? and each of these choices represents a different style of reaction.

Choice #1 represents a fixer approach; when we get rejected, one of our first thoughts is lets find a solution or lets try this again. Choice #2 is a processing approach; when we fail or get criticized, we want to figure out exactly what went wrong. Choice #3 represents an empathizing approach; we try to understand why this person is rejecting us. And Choice #4 is an analyzing approach; we begin by analyzing the validity of the criticism.

You can see in the chart below that the fixer approach (Choice #1) is by far the least common, while the processing approach (Choice #2) is the overwhelming favorite.

Leadership IQ

Now, heres the big discovery. When we match those responses to how people feel about their job, we see that while the fixer approach (lets just try this again) is somewhat rare, people who adopt that mindset love their jobs more than anyone else.

Leadership IQ

People who respond to failure or criticism by immediately looking for another chance to try again are 1.5 times more likely to love their job than people who respond by analyzing the validity of the criticism.

In other words, the faster you bounce back from criticism or failure, the more likely you are to love your job.

Now, theres a valid argument to be made that more people should take a processing approach and start reviewing every interaction theyve had with that potential client to assess if they made any mistakes.After all, this could represent a high level of self-awareness and self-correction; attributes that would putatively lead to improved performance down the road. And perhaps some people dont take long enough to analyze their mistakes, are too quick to try again, and risk making the same exact mistakes.

But Ive got other data that tells me that the problem is usually not a lack of self-awareness, but rather insufficient resilience.

One of my studies, called "Employees Need More Resilience," asked more than 30,000 employees a question thats a classic test of resilience: "When I really make a mistake, I immediately start looking for another chance to try again." We learned that while 27% of employees say they Always start looking for another chance to try again, 20% say they Rarely or Never do.

Whats clear is that no matter how we assess this issue, we find a gap in peoples resilience.And there are a lot of people who could benefit from bouncing back from failure more quickly; just getting back on the horse and trying again.

Interestingly, the leaders to whom we report can significantly impact our willingness to try again.If our leader is someone who responds to our mistakes by yelling and rebuking, it wont take us long to figure out that being risk-averse and avoiding the possibility of failure is easier than striving for greatness (and thus risking failure).

But there is a leadership style that responds well to, and encourages learning from, our failures; the Idealist leadership Style.

More than 500,000 leaders have taken the test What's Your Leadership Style?And we know from the data that about one in 10 leaders has an Idealist leadership style. This means they believe in the positive potential of everyone around them. Idealists want to learn and grow, and they want everyone else on the team to do the same. Theyre open-minded and prize creativity from themselves and others.

If youre working for someone with an Idealist leadership style, it doesnt mean that theyre going to celebrate every failure.But it does mean that theyre going to push us to try again, to get back on the horse, and ensure that we dont spend too long ruminating about our mistakes.

If youre lucky enough to have one of those leaders, congratulations.And if youre not, I would encourage you to try this approach.

The next time you make a mistake, and youre hesitant to immediately try again, ask yourself why.Are you truly expecting to find something you did wrong? And if so, how long are you giving yourself to discover your mistakes? I find that many people say they want to analyze their mistakes, but they dont put a formal cap on how long theyre taking to do so.So they get stuck in a never-ending spiral of rumination, which ultimately serves as a form of procrastination, rather than as a true problem-correcting endeavor.

Give yourself one full day to pick apart your mistakes and then, if you havent discovered a specific correction you can implement, force yourself to try again. By capping how much time you give yourself to process your potential mistakes, you force yourself to more quickly get back out there and try again.

And as the above data makes clear, not trying again is currently a bigger problem than not sufficiently analyzing our mistakes.

More here:
Are You Recovering From Failure Too Slowly? New Data Shows The Resilience Problem At Work - Forbes

Theres something inherently inhumane about the accumulation of unspendable wealth in a world characterized by the suffering of billions. Even more so when those billions come from, as Roman Roy glibly but accurately put it, hate speech and roller coasters, which goes beyond aprs moi, le dluge, by hastening le dluge itself.

Theres also something inhumaneperhaps purposely soabout having a billion dollars and ever showing up at the office again. There are many reasons not to trust the super-rich, but chief among them ought to be that if they had any sense theyd all be on a beach or in a ski lodge luxuriating in freedom from want. And yet these people work themselves to the bone, well into what ought to be their dotage, in the pursuit of ever more massive and unspendable piles of capital. Not just in the absurd farcical universe of Succession but in the real world that we inhabit.

(This also means Connor Roy is the only person in the world of Succession with a clue about why money existsto be used and enjoyedbut the man with one strand of joie de vivre is king in the land of Waystar Royco.)

Connor notwithstanding, the Roys and their courtiers have had their sense of reality warped by the massive sums of capital they control. With billions of dollars on the line, self-actualization is achievable only through the accumulation of greater control over more billions of dollars. Personaleven familialconnections become mere transactions and points of leverage. The successful players in this world, from dynastic figures like Logan and Shiv to self-made power brokers like Tom and Rhea, all lie, manipulate, and cheat to achieve their ends, then sleep soundly at night afterward. Loyalty is not a compact of trust in their world, but something powerful people can impose through intimidation on less powerful people.

Therefore nearly every relationship in the show is about amassing power over the other person in the relationship, and together amassing power over others outside it. Especially the ones we as viewers love, from Tom and Gregs hilarious buddy comedy to Roman and Gerris crackling I actually dont know what to call it, but I do know it crackles.

Not even the budding romance between Kendall Roy and Naomi Pierce is entirely genuine. In their drug- and drink-induced initial hookup at Tern Haven, Kendall persuades Naomi to cash in her share in the Pierce media empire because doing so would allow her to live life on her own terms with no pressure to continue to advance, inveigle, and accumulate. The episodes climactic meeting features several lingering close-ups on Naomis face as she, with great weltschmerz, watches her salvation drop away from her as the deal falls apart. Both she and Kendall know that the way they live, the way their families taught them to live, has rendered them unrecognizable to the billions of consumersnot human beings, consumerstheir family businesses treat as pawns and data points.

Like his father and younger siblings, Kendall has turned off his humanity in service of the pursuit of money for moneys sake, and like his father and younger siblings, hes suffered severe emotional damage as a result. I find Kendall is as detestable a character as there is on the shownot only does he sow callous destruction, even death, everywhere he goes, but instead of a swashbuckling heel, hes a weak and gormless sniveling coward. His internal demons cause him far less suffering than they cause others.

But imagine being raised by parents who think like billionaires. Weve had 17 episodes worth of evidence that Logan is callous, greedy, and abusive. But Sundays Return illustrated what kind of person CarolineKendall, Roman, and Shivs motheris. The most obvious example comes when Kendall is about to unburden himself about having accidentally killed the waiter at Shivs wedding, then Caroline, whod just complained about her lack of a relationship with her children, goes to bed and skips town before he can open up to her.

The more insidious example, however, is the price Caroline demands for her support at the Waystar Royco shareholders meeting: Instead of a $40 million or $50 million cash payout, she asks Logan to choose between a $150 million Hamptons house or $20 million, and sending the kids to Christmas with her each year. Logan chooses the house and gives up the kids, as everyone knew he would, and Caroline gets to take a victory lap by sending the message to her children that their father doesnt love them. But in so doing, she illustrates exactly why her children never visit willinglyeven people as emotionally damaged as Kendall, Roman, and Shiv know the difference between a mother who wants a genuine relationship and a mother whos willing to manipulate her children to spite her ex.

This inhospitable union of two entirely self-absorbed manipulators produced two childrenRoman and Shivtemperamentally suited to play Logans game, and a thirdKendallwith the ambition to do so, but with too much humanity to do it effectively.

For two seasons, Kendalls actions have been defined by cowardice. He knows the ruthless play, but when the time comes to execute it, as Logan would, he wavers. This quality comes off as weakness, to both friends and adversariesbut this being Succession, I repeat myselfas everyone from Logan to Stewy to Lawrence Yee views Kendall on some level as a failed scion on a latter-day Habsburgian scale, lacking in some ineffable quality that makes all the difference.

In Return, we see that Kendalls weaknesses and inadequacies are a bit more nuanced. Yes, Kendall is weak, and yes, hell never make Logan proud of him no matter how hard he tries, but every so often heand he aloneseems to see the entire picture. Logan brings Kendall along on the trip to apologize to the dead waiters family not out of a sense of responsibility but a desire to bully his son, and once there Kendall is confronted not just with the idea of personal consequences for his actions but the wider consequences, the loss of human life and the pain an unwitting and innocent family suffered so senselessly.

He knows he cant make amends, nor would it be wise to try to do so, but hes stunned into feeble token effortscleaning his drinking glass, coming back at night to shove a few hundred pounds in cash through the familys mail slotto appease his guilty conscience enough to draw the blinds on this painful window into real-world stakes. In these moments, Kendall seems to understand that hes profoundly alone and unloved, because he was raised by people who have traded in their humanity for a chance to play a fantastical game, and who are entirely insulated from the consequences of their actions.

Kendall doesnt experience perspective or humanity very often, and when he does, its almost like suffering some kind of fit. He always seems conscious of the weird box hes been raised to inhabit, and 99 percent of the time he can put on enough of a show to make it throughyou can see the amount of effort it takesbut 1 percent of the time the part of his humanity hes repressed takes over and locks up the whole machine.

These fits of humanity are fleeting and very, very rarely lead to him doing something positive or constructive; the Dont fucking touch him moment at Argestes was an outlier, as most of the time Kendall just ends up with a bottle in his hand and/or a tabletop covered in cocaine. But these momentary lapses in control illustrate a self-awareness that the rest of his family lacks, and even if his only reaction to seeing the full picture is to freak out, its a very human response.

I still dont like or respect Kendall, because as much as hes the product of his environment, hes still a willing participant in his familys inhuman business. But after Return, for the first time, I find myself hoping that hell realize how little he has to gain by playing his fathers game, and how much he stands to lose. I find myself hoping he and Naomi will find a sober and qualified pilot for their helicopter, cash out, and run away never to be seen again. Kendall is less likely than ever to win control of Waystar Royco, but for the first time, it seems like he might one day recover his soul.

Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.

See the rest here:
Kendall Roys 1 Percent of Humanity - The Ringer

Posted: Sep. 23, 2019 7:00 am Updated: Sep. 23, 2019 9:26 am

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, began their first official tour as a family Monday with their infant son, Archie, in South Africa, with Meghan declaring to cheers that "I am here with you as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of color and as your sister."

The first day of their 10-day, multi-country tour started in Cape Town with visits to girls' empowerment projects that teach rights and self-defense. Harry danced a bit as a musical welcome greeted them in the township of Nyanga, whose location was not made public in advance because of security concerns.

Violent crime is so deadly in parts of Cape Town that South Africa's military has been deployed in the city, and its stay was extended last week. Frustration over high unemployment and lack of services also has exploded into protests and attacks on foreigners elsewhere in South Africa in recent weeks.

"As someone who has visited this amazing country many times, and as someone who regards Cape Town as a uniquely special place in Africa, I wanted to ensure that our first visit as a family - with my wife by my side - focused on the significant challenges facing millions of South Africans, while acknowledging the hope that we feel so strongly here," Harry said.

The royal couple also was meeting Monday with former residents of District Six, a vibrant mixed-race community that was relocated from the inner city during South Africa's harsh period of apartheid, or white minority rule, that ended in 1994.

Their visit also will focus on wildlife protection, entrepreneurship, mental health and mine clearance a topic given global attention by Harry's late mother, Princess Diana, when she walked through an active mine field during an Africa visit years ago.

Harry later this week will break away for visits to Botswana, Angola and Malawi.

The couple arrived in a South Africa still shaken by the rape and murder of a university student, carried out in a post office, that sparked protests by thousands of women tired of abuse and impunity in a country where more than 100 rapes are reported every day.

This is "one of the most unsafe places in the world to be a woman," President Cyril Ramaphosa said last week, announcing new emergency measures and vowing to be tougher on perpetrators.

While the royal visit wasn't causing the kind of excitement seen at times in other parts of the Commonwealth, some in South Africa said they were happy to see the arrival of Meghan, who has been vocal about women's rights.

"We are encouraged to hear your president take the next steps to work towards preventing gender-based violence through education and necessary changes to reinforce the values of modern South Africa," Meghan said.

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Anna reported from Johannesburg.

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Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

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Harry and Meghan start 1st official tour as family in Africa - Herald-Whig