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YES! We made it through the Winter Movie Season, where Hollywood unloads their junk on us, and now we're headed into the Spring!
Spring is a time for mini-blockbusters, and movies that Hollywood hopes will have decent runs. Last year, "The Hunger Games" was released in March, for example, and we all saw how well that did!
Click through to see all the movies that this Spring Season has to offer!
March 1st
"21 and Over"
Directed by: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
Starring: Miles Teller, Justin Chon, Skylar Astin, Sarah Wright, François Chau, Jonathan Keltz, Daniel Booko, Dustin Ybarra
I'm well on the record as being a fan of "party" movies. Put a bunch of young kids getting hammered on film, and I'm in. Whether or not this movie has anything else to offer has yet to be seen though.
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, Ian McShane
This looks outright stupid, to me, I'll just say it. Plus the one blurb I saw said "Kids will love it", which says to me "not made for adults". We'll see, but my bet is this is a big, silly spectacle.
Directed By: Todd Robinson
Starring: Ed Harris, David Duchovny, William Fichtner, Sean Patrick Flanery
Secrets spark a standoff in a submerged submarine!
Sorry, had to try to make it sound interesting somehow…
Directed by: Chan-wook Park
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode, Dermot Mulroney, Jacki Weaver
Wasikowska and Kidman are both great, and a number of people are clamoring to see what Chan-wook Park will do with his first American film. I bet its disturbed and violent, whatever it is. LOL
Directed by: Ed Gass-Donnelly
Starring: Ashley Bell
I like the fact that they went with "Part II", seeing how just plain "2" wouldn't have made sense. LOL. I haven't seen the first one, but it's on one of my cable channels on demand, so I could watch it free if I wanted to.
March 8th
Directed by: Niels Arden Oplev
Starring: Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Dominic Cooper, Terrence Howard, Wade Barrett
Colin Farrell and Terrence Howard co-starring? I like them both, but knowing their career arcs, this movie has the stench of flop on it. Plus that trailer doesn't do much for me. I hope I'm wrong though.
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Starring: James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz, Joey King, Zach Braff, Bruce Campbell
Ostensibly the Spring's biggest offering. A loaded cast, a classic property, a talented director. All signs say yes on this one. I hope this isn't another Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland", though (released at similar times). We'll see!
March 15th
"The Call"
Directed by: Brad Anderson
Starring: Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund, Michael Imperioli, David Otunga
This has a chance to be a decent thriller. But I'm not sold on it. The high concept of trying to stop a serial killer as a 911 Operator has potential, but I bet they blow it. Oh well. At least I can amuse myself thinking "Ch-ch-ch-Chia" every time I see Halle Berry's hair.
"The Incredible Burt Wonderstone"
Directed by: Don Scardino
Starring: Steve Carell, Jim Carrey, Steve Buscemi, James Gandolfini, Olivia Wilde, Alan Arkin, Gillian Jacobs
Please be good.
Seriously. I like this trailer. I like that cast. I think it's a funny high concept. I just want to be impressed when this movie finally says "Ta Dah!!"
March 22nd
Directed by: Paul Weitz
Starring: Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Michael Sheen, Gloria Reuben, Wallace Shawn, Lily Tomlin
For real? This is a test of my favorable status for Paul Rudd. With the exception of a small part in "Perks of Being a Wallflower" his movies have been terrible lately. As much as I like the guy, I'm beginning to cringe when I see his name attached to films.
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Dylan McDermott, Radha Mitchell, Aaron Eckhart, Ashley Judd, Melissa Leo
Well, at least we'll get to see the White House all blowed up.
Gerard Butler staring in a testosterone overdosed shooter? Ehhh… let's just say I'm not exactly psyched for this one.
Directed by: Harmony Korine
Starring: James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine
Oh, I'll say it. I'm looking forward to this one. Helllllll yeah. I'm almost looking forward to seeing James Franco in that ridiculous gangsta krunk lookin' get up more than I am watching this murderers row of young nubiles prance in their bikinis. Almost.
Directed by: Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Emma Stone, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman
Dreamworks Animation has brought us some excellent films. Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek. So I have a feeling that this will be good, in spite of the fact it's about cavemen and features Ryan Reynolds AND Nick Cage. Looks gorgeous…
March 29th
Directed by: Jon Chu
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Ray Stevenson, Jonathan Pryce, RZA, Walton Goggins
The ceiling for this… the absolute best that this one can achieve… is dumb, shoot 'em up fun. The trailer? With Bruce Willis spraying fire from the back of that El Camino? Lets just say that that has some Cheese-Tastic potential. Let's hope. Cause otherwise… what else has it got?
"Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor"
Directed by: Tyler Perry
Starring: Jurnee Smollett, Lance Gross, Robbie Jones, Vanessa Williams, Kim Kardashian, Brandy Norwood, Ella Joyce
Tyler Perry channels his inner Nicholas Sparks.
That's not a prospect that appeals to me.
Directed by: Andrew Niccol
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Diane Kruger, William Hurt, Frances Fisher
For those bemoaning the demise of the "Twilight" saga, Andrew Niccol brings you the latest Stephenie Meyer offering, "The Host". Aliens invade that can take over the world by taking over people's minds, but trust me, nothing will be more important than the teen romance at its core!
Directed by: Derek Cianfrance
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Rose Byrne, Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta, Bruce Greenwood, Ben Mendelsohn, Dane DeHaan
This genuinely looks good. Potentially the movie I'm looking forward to the most on this list. Gosling and Cooper are both riding high right now, and there's a lot of talent in that supporting cast, too. That trailer looks so bad ass. I have hopes that this will be a fantastic crime drama.
April 5th
Directed by: Fede Alvarez
Starring: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Elizabeth Blackmore, Jessica Lucas
Horror Hounds are salivating over this one. All signs seem to indicate that this will be a first-rate remake rather than a cheap cash grab. The potential is there for an update that stays faithful to the original. So far, all the marketing indicates a scary flick!
April 12th
Directed by: Brian Helgeland
Starring: Harrison Ford, Chadwick Boseman, Christopher Meloni, Ryan Merriman, Brad Beyer, Toby Huss, T. R. Knight, Alan Tudyk, Hamish Linklater
Great story. Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey. Aligned with the start of baseball season.
Does it get any better? Expectations are high.
Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee
Starring: Ashley Tisdale, Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, Terry Crews, Kate Walsh, Molly Shannon, Heather Locklear, Erica Ash, Mike Tyson, Audrina Patridge, Kendra Wilkinson
God… Can I just give this an F now and not go? If you can't even string together a 3 minute trailer that looks funny, what are you gonna do with a full length movie? I'm betting Scary Movie 5's answer is "suck".
April 19th
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo
"Oblivion" looks like it has all the ingredients. High production values. A great cast. An intriguing story. If it all comes together as promised, this looks to be a slick, intelligent sci-fi thriller. Let's hope the summer blockbusters start a few weeks early this year. With this one.
Directed by: Joshua Michael Stern
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, James Woods, Josh Gad, Matthew Modine, J.K. Simmons, Lukas Haas
While I respect the contribution that Steve Jobs made to technology, I'm not sure I'm enthusiastic about a biopic. Especially one with Ashton Kutcher as the lead. Can someone remind me if he's ever been in a good movie? I'm at a loss to name one.
April 26th
Directed by: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Ed Harris, Ken Jeong, Rebel Wilson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Rob Corddry
Looking forward to this. LOL I know, I know, it's Michael Bay, movies' most maligned director. Johnson and Wahlberg look like they spent all their preparation for these roles in the gym. So lets hope all that muscle translates to dumb fun.
Directed by: Justin Zackham
Starring: Robert De Niro, Katherine Heigl, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, Ben Barnes, Christine Ebersole, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams
I suppose there's an outside chance that this film winds up fun. I wouldn't count on it though. The "fake something for the sake of the family" schtick hasn't worked since "The Birdcage". I doubt it will here.
Well, there you have it folks! The movies to come over the next two months.
What do you think? Which are you excited for? Which wouldn't you be caught dead at? Is it a good enough crop to hold you over til the summer?
Let us hear it!!


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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Manufacturing is in the state's DNA so there is no reason why it can't continue to drive the economy, according to Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Steven Grossman.
Grossman had an informal meeting with the Berkshire Brigades on Wednesday after filming a television show earlier in the day.
To the relatively small audience, Grossman pledged his support for the Brigades' efforts to place questions on raising the minimum wage and earned sick time on the ballot in 2014 while at the same time, asking for their support in his campaign for governor.
Grossman began a short talking portion by saying that requiring all workers be given earned sick time in case of illness is "long overdue."
The earned sick time question is one of two the coalition Raise Up, of which the Berkshire Brigades are a part, is trying to get on the ballot.
Grossman said, in the 35 years he ran his family's business, providing extra benefits made for better workers.
"You empower workers by providing benefits," Grossman said. "Earned sick time is one of the benefits people are provided in our company for 25 years and when people say to me 'I can't afford to do that and I won't support you as a small-business owner,' I say, 'you can't afford not to do it."
He said the family paper company has not gone to arbitration since the workers unionized in 1952 and that's because the owners provide those extra benefits and, in return, received better work.
"For me, fundamentally, the relationship between those who own companies and those who run companies is a symbiotic relationship. They fit together," Grossman said. "You can have a nice looking suit on and a nice looking car but if you walk into your place of business if you don't treat those who work in your company with grace and dignity, particularly when you are sitting across the table from them in a union negotiation, then they are not empowered. If you empower your workers, they give you flexibility, increased productivity."
Raise Up is also seeking an ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage, which Grossman says he supports because at $8 an hour currently, it isn't possible for a worker to be "self sufficient."
Meanwhile, Grossman is working to get his name on the ballot as well. As he harkened back to his business days to support those initiatives, he did the same Wednesday to explain why he is running for governor.
"I am running for a very simple reason. I believe the people in this commonwealth want a proven leader that will leave no one behind," he said.
As a businessman, he spoke with small businesses across the state about the "roadblocks" in the way of growth. He heard about the cost of health insurance and the need for technical assistance but even more importantly was the need for access to capital.
When he was elected treasurer he started the Small Business Banking Partnership, which took some of the state's reserves from overseas banks and transferred them into loans to businesses. Grossman said Starbase Technology, a Pittsfield molding company, was able to secure a loan through that fund and purchased three new pieces of equipment and added 17 jobs.
Across the state, Grossman says more than $308 million has been loaned to community banks specifically for local businesses while those loans are now worth more than $570 million.
He added that advanced manufacturing, life sciences and green technology jobs are high paying and are an opportunity for growth.
Grossman said he wants to continue to invest in education and rid the state of the waiting lists for early education programs and put more money into vocational programs. Locally, Grossman, who as treasurer is chairman of the Massachusetts School Building Authority, said he is fully supportive of building a new Taconic High School.
"That is the key to our economic future," he said. "There is no reason why manufacturing, which is in the bones, the DNA of this commonwealth for decades, generations — think Pittsfield, think Greenfield, think North Adams, think Chicopee, think Holyoke, think Fall River, think New Bedford — advanced and precision manufacturing. I've set a goal to create 50,000 new manufacturing jobs in this commonwealth in five years."
Overall, Grossman is hoping to pass on the values that were passed onto him. Grossman said his grandfather once told him that he only wanted four things in life — a healthy family, educated children, to own his own business and to give back to the community. And those four things are what Grossman said he wants all residents to have a chance to do.
Where to vote in Berkshire County
State Election
Tuesday, Nov. 4
Voting is from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Deadline to register or change party affiliation was Oct.15.
Candidates on the ballot in races for state office; all others on the ballot are unopposed. Links will take you to their campaign websites.
U.S. Senator
• Edward J. Markey, Democrat
• Brian J. Herr, Republican
Governor/Lieutenant Governor
• Charlie Baker & Karyn Polito, Republican
• Martha Coakley & Stephen Kerrigan, Democrat
• Evan Falchuk & Angus Jennings, United Independent Party
• Scott Lively & Shelly Saunders, Independent
• Jeff McCormick & Tracy Post, Independent
Attorney General
• Maura Healey, Democratic
• John B. Miller, Republican
Secretary of State
• William Francis Galvin, Democratic
• David D'Arcangelo, Republican
• Daniel L. Factor, Green-Rainbow
• Deborah B. Goldberg, Democratic
• Michael James Heffernan, Republican
• Ian T. Jackson, Green-Rainbow
• Suzanne M. Bump, Democratic
• Patricia S. Saint Aubin, Republican
• MK Merelice, Green-Rainbow
The cities of Pittsfield and North Adams will hold municipal elections for mayor, city council and school committee in 2015
You may vote absentee: if you will be absent from your town or city on election day, have a physical disability that prevents you from voting at the polls or cannot vote at the polls because to religious beliefs.
2010 Special Senate Election Results
Election 2009 Stories
Election Day 2008

subset: commoncrawl


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Oregon is favorite after Marcus Mariota's return
LOS ANGELES – Although Marcus Mariota knew he would be under a spotlight when he stepped onto the famed Paramount Studios lot Wednesday, the Oregon quarterback is getting quite comfortable in his starring role.
"I've had to get used to it and come out of my shell a little bit, but I'm trying to enjoy it," Mariota said at the Pac-12's media day. "I take it as an honor and a privilege, and hopefully an opportunity to provide a good influence."
Coach Mark Helfrich and Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott both used the league's first session of its two-day Hollywood kickoff event to praise Mariota for staying in school. The rest of the Pac-12 isn't quite as excited about the Heisman Trophy candidate's return after two dynamite seasons for the Ducks, but he's just one reason why they're favored to win their highly competitive league again.
Mariota and Oregon were picked to claim the Pac-12 title in the preseason media poll, topping that chart for the fourth time in five years. The verdict was an unsurprising vote of confidence in the mobile passer and the perennially powerful Ducks, who highlight an impressive list of contenders in the West Coast's power conference.
Mariota is the biggest reason for excitement around the Ducks, and the quarterback is working to raise his leadership skills to the level of his play after turning down untold NFL millions for another shot at a national title.
"A lot of guys talk a good game, but everything that guy does is gospel," Helfrich said. "If I'm the backup guard and I see that guy forgo what he could have made — it's not some lip-service dream, this is a reality of a ton of money. Like, 'That guy turned down how much? OK, I'll watch him.' That's huge. I think it speaks to the type of guy he is, and hopefully to the type of program that we have."
Mariota said he returned to enjoy university life in Eugene. Since he's only taking golf and yoga this fall to finish up his degree, he'll have plenty of time.
"First and foremost, I wanted to get my degree," Mariota said. "My family has always valued education, and that was basically the major factor that brought me back. Secondly, it was to come back and enjoy college. You experience so many new things, and I wasn't ready to leave all that just yet."
Mariota even has one more year of eligibility. Although he insists he still hasn't decided whether he'll head to the NFL next year, his family also took out an insurance policy for this season.
Otherwise, Mariota and the Ducks aren't thinking past what's certain to be another tough year in a rising conference built on impressive quarterback talent and depth.
"The Pac-12 is better than it's ever been," Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said. "Everybody is improving. There's a bunch of good players and coaches in this league, so how do you make that leap over everyone else? We talk about it as a staff. We've got to crank it up to another level, because the other teams aren't going backward."
UCLA is favored to win the South Division over second-place Southern California, but Oregon got 24 of the 39 votes to win the league title game in the Bay Area on Dec. 5.
Stanford, last season's league champion, finished second behind Oregon in the North Division balloting.
USC coach Steve Sarkisian received nearly as much attention as Mariota in Hollywood. Sarkisian left Washington in the offseason to return to the Trojans, and he thinks his sanctions-depleted roster will be an immediate contender.
"We're going to focus on what we do have, not what we don't," said Sarkisian, who will have a full complement of scholarships next year. "We have a really talented roster of about 65 scholarship players. That is not ideal. That's OK. We're still really good. … We've still got plenty of work to do, but if we can manage it the right way, we've got a chance."
At the Pac-12 Media Day on Wednesday, Oregon and UCLA were picked as the favorites to reach the title game. Following are the results of the preseason media poll, first-place votes in parentheses:
1. Oregon (37)
2. Stanford (2)
3. Washington
4. Oregon State
5. Washington State
6. California
3. Arizona State (1)
4. Arizona
5. Utah
6. Colorado


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AP source: Debut author gets 7-figure book deal
HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer
NEW YORK — A debut author who graduated from the celebrated Iowa Writers' Workshop has a seven-figure book deal.
HarperCollins announced Wednesday that it will publish Erika Johansen's "Queen of the Tearling," a fantasy trilogy inspired in part by Barack Obama.
A person with knowledge of the negotiations said Wednesday the deal was worth seven figures. The person was not authorized to discuss financial details and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The 35-year-old Johansen says she heard then-Sen. Obama give a speech in 2007 and was inspired to create the series' idealistic heroine, 19-year-old Kelsea Glynn. The publisher is billing the books as a female version of George R.R. Martin's "Game of Thrones."


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Study: Obama winning digital race
President Barack Obama can claim victory over Mitt Romney in the digital arena at this point in the campaign, according to a new study.
The Obama campaign posted almost four times as much content online as Mitt Romney's campaign did, and is active on twice as many social media platforms, a new Pew Research Center study found. The starkest contrast between the two candidates is on Twitter, according to the report. The Romney campaign tweeted about once a day, while Obama's camp tweeted about 29 times each day.
And that's not the only site where Obama holds a distinct advantage — his campaign also is much more active posting videos on YouTube and blogs on his website.
"As the conventions drew closer, Romney's campaign took steps to close the technology gap, and may well take more with the addition of Paul Ryan to the ticket," Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism deputy director Amy Mitchell said in a statement. "But there is a long way to go before the Romney team matches the level of activity of the Obama campaign."
The study found that about one-third of the Romney campaign's online posts were focused on Obama and attacked the president's policies or decisions, while about 14 percent of Obama's posts centered on the Republican nominee. The two campaigns do share one common digital thread — both have posted more about the economy than any other issue. About 24 percent of Romney's postings are about the economy, and 19 percent of Obama's content focuses on the issue.
The report also noted that while the campaigns are both trying to communicate directly with voters online, they're not doing much to engage their followers by sharing or retweeting their comments. Just 16 percent of Obama's tweets were retweets, and the Romney camp had only one retweet — from his son Josh — the study points out.
For this report, Pew analyzed online data from June 4-17. Pew examined posts, updates, tweets and videos from each candidate's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, as well as their main websites.


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Whether it's the "connected home" or the "Internet of Things," many everyday home appliances and devices will soon feature some form of Internet connectivity. What form should that connectivity take? We sat down with Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance, to discuss his belief that Wi-Fi is the clear choice.
Options are plentiful when it comes to the Internet, but some are easily disregarded for most Internet of Things designs. Ethernet and other wired solutions require additional equipment or more cabling than what is typically found in even a modern home. Cellular connectivity is pointless for stationary home goods and still too power-hungry for wearable items. Proprietary and purpose-built solutions, like ZigBee, are either too closed off or require parallel paths to solutions that are already in our homes.
Bluetooth makes a pretty good case for itself, though inconsistent user experiences remain the norm for several reasons. The latest Bluetooth specifications provide very low power data transfers and have very low overhead for maintaining a connection. The result is that the power profile for the connection is low whether you're transacting data or not. Connection speeds are modest compared to the alternatives. But the biggest detractor for Bluetooth is inconsistency. Bluetooth has always felt kludgy; it's an incomplete solution that will suffice until it improves. It's helpful that Bluetooth devices can often have their performance, reliability, and features improved upon through software updates, but the experience can still remain frustrating.
Then there's Wi-Fi.
Figueroa wanted to highlight a few key points from a study the Alliance commissioned. "Of those polled, more than half already have a non-traditional device with a Wi-Fi radio," he said. Here, "non-traditional" falls among a broad swath of products that includes appliances, thermostats, and lighting systems. Figueroa continued, "Ninety-one percent of those polled said they'd be more likely to buy a smart device if it came equipped with Wi-Fi." Alliance's point: everyone already has a Wi-Fi network in their home. Why choose anything else?
One key consideration the study seems to ignore is power draw, which is one of Bluetooth's biggest assets. Wi-Fi connections are active and power-hungry, even when they aren't transacting large amounts of data. A separate study looking at power consumption per bit of data transferred demonstrated that Wi-Fi trumps Bluetooth by orders of magnitude. Where Wi-Fi requires large amounts of constant power, Bluetooth requires almost no power to maintain a connection.
In response to a question on the preference for low-power interfaces, Figueroa said simply, "Why?" In his eyes, the connected home isn't necessarily a battery-powered home. Devices that connect to our Wi-Fi networks traditionally have plugs, so why must they sip almost no power?
Bluetooth has its place in devices whose current draw must not exceed the capabilities of a watch battery. But even in small devices, Wi-Fi's performance and ability to create ad hoc networks and Wi-Fi Direct connections can better the experience, even if it's at the risk of increasing power draw and battery size.
In the end, the compelling case for Wi-Fi's use in the mobile space has more to do with what we want from our experiences than whether one is more power-hungry. Simplicity in all things is preferred. Even after all these years, pairing Bluetooth is usually more complex than connecting a new device to your existing Wi-Fi network. Even in the car, where Bluetooth has had a long dominance, the ability to connect multiple devices over Wi-Fi's wide interface may ultimately be preferred. Still, despite Figueroa's confidence, it's an increasingly green (and preferably bill-shrinking) world looking to adopt an Internet of Things lifestyle. Wi-Fi may ultimately need to complete its case by driving power down enough to reside in all our Internet of Things devices, from the biggest to the smallest.


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A convention center complex as big as a city block, with a 25-story hotel and apartments, may be coming to Queens.
Fleet Financial Group plans to build a roughly 106,000-square-foot convention center, the largest in the East Coast, at 112-21 Northern Blvd. in Corona.
The $200 million real estate project also includes 292 river-view hotel rooms, 236 luxurious apartments, a shopping center and a high-class restaurant.
"That area is really booming. It's going to be great for Queens," said Fleet president Richard Xia.
The site is near Citi Field, where a major $3 billion redevelopment project, including a mega mall, is slated for Willets Point. It is also by the Grand Central Parkway, about two miles from LaGuardia Airport.
"People pass by, but they never stop here," said Xia, who lives and works in Flushing. "It's going to be something that will create a lot of jobs and, in the meantime, bring a lot more business activity to Queens."
Fleet purchased the 1.67-acre property — currently the site of the DiBlasi Ford dealership — last month for $17 million, according to Xia.
The company is also in the midst of completing an 18-story Westin Element hotel, with a medical center, at 42-31 Union St. in Flushing.
Construction of the massive complex in Corona, dubbed the Eastern Emerald Center, would create nearly 3,000 jobs, Xia said.
Work is expected to start this June and end in 2017, though the proposal still needs approval from Community Board 3, the Queens borough president and the city.
The project has support from Queens Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Seth Bornstein and Queens Chamber of Commerce President Al Pennisi.
"It sounds like a really good idea," Bornstein said. "We lack quality, large-scale space for events. It would really be a benefit to the borough."
Pennisi said the city "could use more than one" facility like the Javits Center in Manhattan.
"[The Chamber] thought of this project," Pennisi said. "It'll bring conventions of all sizes into a modern facility. Everybody will benefit from it."
Councilmember Julissa Ferreras and Victor Rodriguez, a Corona resident who owns a mini market near the proposed complex, hope the development will be a boon for the neighborhood.
"I think it's good for us," Rodriguez said. "It'll bring more people here."
But a local educator, who did not want to be named, said the slated site is near too many schools on an already accident-prone portion of Northern Boulevard.
"To have something of that magnitude, and all these people coming to town, I can't see how that improves anything," she said. "Money is good and people need jobs, but there are so many other things not fixed as is."


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Sweet Potato Chicken Pot Pie Casserole
In honor of Thanksgiving today, I thought I would share with you a yummy fall recipe. This would be great with your left over sweet potatoes and turkey (substitute in place of the chicken). It is from my all time favorite recipe magazine,
Cuisine at Home
. Happy Turkey Day everyone!
1 pkg. frozed puff pastry thawed (2 sheets, 17.3 oz)
3 1/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth, divided
2 cups peeled, diced sweet potatoe
1 1/2 cups peeled, diced russet potato
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced celry
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3 cups dived rotisserie chicken
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diecd
1/2 cup frozen green peas
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro
2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste
For the crust, cut pastry sheets into 1" wide strips. On a parchment-lined baking sheet,weave strips into a lattice pattern; freeze while preparing filling.
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick spray.
For the filling, heat 2 1/2 cups broth, sweet and russet potatoes, onion, celery, and garlic in a large skillet over a medium-high; cook until vegetables are xlightly soft, about 8 minutes.
Whisk together remaining 2/4 cup broth, cream, flour, curry powder, and cinnamon. Pour slurry into vegetable mixture; cook and tir until thick and bubble. Add chicken, apple, peas, cilantro, and ilme juice; season with sale and pepper. Pour filling into prepared baking dish.
Bake filling until bubbly and crust until golden brown, 25-30 minutes. Place crust on top of pie before serving.
* Note: I didn't read the last step carefully enough, and placed my crust frozen on top of the filling to cook. It browned up and cooked alright, but for a crispier crust, I would suggest cooking the two separately.


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We're used to double dips when it comes to DVDs. A few months after you buy the movie you loved in the theaters the super awesome deluxe edition is released with more interviews, scenes, a better mix and transfer, etc. In the PC world the only real double dips are Game of the Year editions that usually include all the patches and maybe a mod or two. Sometimes we get packages with expansion packs like Neverwinter Nights or the Sims.
Now with Ninja Gaiden Black we get what may be the first console double dip. It's not a sequel, but it does have new weapons, new enemies, and a new mission mode where you simply get attacked until you die. The longer you live and the better you fight back the higher your score. A lot of this content was available for download in the hurricane packs on Xbox LIVE, but if you don't have that service or don't have the game yet Ninja Gaiden Black is a compelling deal. Priced at US$29.99 its also only ten dollars more expensive than a platinum hit.
The single player game has been tightened as well. A controllable camera, some new enemies, and the new "Ninja Dog" easy difficulty level for people put off by the demands on the first game make what was a great game even better. I can see a ton of other companies starting to do double dips, but as long as they make the game better and give us more to play, I'm fine with it. Team Ninja shows that this may be a money grab, but at least they were classy about it.


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From its beginning criticism has concerned philosophers. Plato raised the question of the authenticity of poetic knowledge in the Ion, in which both poet and performer are forced to admit ignorance about the source of their inspiration and the function of their craft. In his Poetics, Aristotle focused on tragic drama to discover its effect—the purgation of the audience's emotions (see tragedy). Roman civilization produced two critics who were poets rather than philosophers. Horace declared in the Ars Poetica (c.13 BC) that poetry must be
dulce et utile—
sweet and useful. In his On the Sublime (1st cent. AD) the Greek Longinus presented the view that poetry must be the divinely inspired utterance of the poet's impassioned soul. Interestingly, each of these pronouncements was an accurate description of the author's own work rather than a set of rules for all poetry. Thus, the ancients can be credited with delineating the two major types of criticism: theoretical, which attempts to state general principles about the value of art (Plato, Aristotle), and practical, which examines particular works, genres, or writers in light of theoretical criteria (Horace, Longinus).
Textual criticism, the comparison of different texts and versions of particular works with the aim of arriving at an incorrupt
master version, has been perhaps most familiar over the centuries in biblical criticism. Textual critics of note include St. Augustine and St. Jerome (the Bible), and later, Samuel Johnson and H. H. Furness (Shakespeare).
Renaissance critics ignored their recent heritage—the medieval attitude toward art as a form of prayer—and looked to the classics, Aristotle's works in particular, for usable models. Philip Sydney maintained in his Defense of Poetry (1595) that poetry must engage and uplift the emotions of its audience with
heart ravishing knowledge. In his Poetics (1561) the Italian critic Julius Caesar Scaliger transformed Aristotle's description of the dramatic unities of time, setting, and plot into exigencies, which were strictly adhered to by the neoclassical dramatists of 17th-century France and England. In his Essay on Criticism (1711) Alexander Pope added an important section on the criticism of critics: those who do their job best always
survey the Whole, not seek slight faults to find. Because the general tone of criticism of this period was prescriptive, it is called judicial criticism.
Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1779–81) was the first thorough-going exercise in biographical criticism, the attempt to relate a writer's background and life to his works. The revolution from neoclassicism to romanticism is seen in the works of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who emphasized the importance of emotion and imagination in literature. In his Preface to the Second Edition of the Lyrical Ballads (1800), Wordsworth described the lyric as
emotion recollected in tranquility, and Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria (1817), defined imagination as
the repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation, rather than as a mere mechanical flight of fancy. The radical shift in emphasis was further delineated by John Keats in his letters and by Percy Bysshe Shelley in his Defense of Poetry (1821)—
poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Some critics celebrated
art for art's sake, with no moral strings attached, such as Arthur Symons in The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899). Henry James, an important novelist and critic of the novel, stressed the possibilities of point of view for further developing the narrative form in his essay
The Art of Fiction (1893). The emphasis in criticism of this period on the reaction of the critic to the work under scrutiny led to the use of the term impressionistic criticism.
The 20th cent. has been called the Age of Criticism. Such major disciplines as psychology and anthropology, and such ideologies as Christian theology and Marxist dialectic, were found to have valid application to works of literature. Freudian analysis became a tool for literary biographers. Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious also became a tool, along with anthropological methodology, for critics like T. S. Eliot (in The Sacred Wood, 1920) and Northrop Frye (in Anatomy of Criticism, 1957), who sought to trace similarities of pattern in literatures of disparate cultures and ages. By means of the so-called New Criticism—the technique of close reading, which largely ignores biographical and historical concerns—such critics as Cleanth Brooks, Allen Tate, and Lionel Trilling revived the notion of a poem as an autonomous art object. Notable among academic and journalistic critics who used a combination of critical approaches to enlighten their readers are Edmund Wilson (in such works as The Triple Thinkers, 1938), W. H. Auden (in The Dyer's Hand, 1962), and George Steiner (in Language and Silence, 1970). Feminist and multicultural literary criticism also were important forces throughout the second half of the 20th cent. Structuralism in its literary critical form was a dominant theory from the 1960s into the 1970s, largely due to the work of French theorists Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. During the 1980s and into the 1990s deconstruction, influenced by such figures as Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, dominated academic criticism. In addition, the historical approach of such New Historicists as Stephen Greenblatt also found a number of adherents. In general, a critical eclecticism characterized literary criticism at the end of the 20th cent.
There have been a variety of critical trends in music and art criticism also. The approach has ranged from practical to theoretical, from G. B. Shaw's music reviews in the London press of the 1880s to treatises like Alfred Einstein's Mozart (1945) and Charles Rosen's Classical Style (1971). From the 1960s to the end of the 20th cent. new genres of music criticism emerged that took for their subject jazz, rock, ethnic, and other specialized forms of music. The spectrum of art criticism includes such works as Robin George Collingwood's Principles of Art (1938), André Malraux's Voices of Silence (1952), the writings of Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg, and the more recent criticism of such figures as Michael Freed, Barbara Rose, and Adam Gopnik. Newer areas for critical scrutiny include film, architecture, and urban planning. Notable film critics include James Agee, Andre Bazin, Pauline Kael, and Janet Maslin. Architectural criticism by Ada Louise Huxtable and others and studies of the city by Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs broke new ground for critical scrutiny.
See G. Saintsbury, A History of Criticism (3 vol., 1961); R. Wellek, A History of Modern Criticism (4 vol., 1955–65); W. C. Greene, The Choices of Criticism (1965); P. Barry, Issues in Contemporary Literary Theory (1987); B. Bergonzi, Exploding English (1990).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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text: Pico Alto Goes Today By Ed Temperley on 11th August 2011 1 of 2 LIKE it big? Today the world's top big wave crazies will compete at the Billabong Pico Alto 2011- Copa Burn. Stop two on the Big Wave World Tour. You can watch it live HERE. Legendary shaper and Big Wave World Tour Director Gary Linden said: "With a long period swell on the way with great direction and light winds, Pico Alto will provide some excellent waves for this year's event. While not quite as big as last year, the quality looks to be better and we can expect a very high level of big wave performance surfing." Last year's winner and current Big Wave World Champ Jamie Sterling will defend his title against personalities like Greg Long (USA), former World Champ Carlos Burle (Brazil), XXL award winners Danilo Couto (Brazil) and Grant "Twiggy" Baker (South Africa), as well as locals legends like Alvaro Malpartida, Rafael Velarde, Gabriel Villarán, Sebastian de Romaña and more. Gabriel Villarán, the highest ranked Peruvian, currently 3 rd in the world, has the opportunity to surpass current BWWT leader Marcos Monteiro (Brazil). © Piero Marota So what will the swell look at sunrise today? In terms of pure numbers the peaks we're seing on the models look incredibly similar to last year. The swell itself this year is greater in scale that 2010 but very similar in intensity and the forecast is calling for what amounts essentially to a re-run of last year with the majority of the sets in the 20-30ft face range and the largest waves running at the 30-40ft face mark. Check out the detailed forecast HERE. © Piero Marota Locations Peru - South Pico Alto Ed Temperley MSW editor. Instagram @edtemperley


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|Ashley Wagner performs in the ladies short program during
the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final at the Iceberg
Skating Palace on Dec. 7, 2012 in Sochi, Russia.
|Sarah Hughes won
the gold medal in
the ladies' figure
skating competition
at the Salt Lake City
2002 Olympic Winter
I sat down with 2013 U.S. champion figure skater Ashley Wagner the day after she successfully defended her national title in Omaha, Neb. By winning the night before, Ashley became the first American lady to defend an initial national title since Rosalynn Sumners struck back-to-back gold in 1982-83 – for those of you doing the math, that's right – it has taken 30 years for a first-time champion to win again the next year.
In a competition Ashley described as "the most stressful event ever," she said afterwards all she wanted to do was "talk to my mom and relax a bit." So it follows suit that we decided to talk about interests elite athletes, such as Ashley, pursue outside the arena – and how they're especially helpful following challenging competitions.
Q: Figure skating is an intense sport and there's no moment that's more pressure-filled than when they call your name and you skate out to take your starting position. There are tens of thousands of people in the arena and millions more watching at home. What's going through your mind between when they call your name and when the music starts?
A: For me, those are usually the most stressful moments of the entire competition. Just because you're nervous, you feel all the eyes on you, and for me, I'm usually trying to stay focused on what Mr. Nicks, my coach, is saying, and making sure that I tune everything else out and just focus on him.
Q: What about right before you start – when you strike your opening pose, before the first few notes take over. The moment the camera zooms in your face. So much drama!
A: Usually at that point, it's like, "Ok, breathe, breathe, breathe, you're going to be ok. Breathe." And then, the second that the music comes on, I usually get right into character. And then it's just muscle memory from there.
Q: After a competition like this, what do you do to relax, to take your mind off of everything for a few days?
A: For me, I love yoga. That's really what gets me to that nice, relaxed place. I love to do hot yoga – that's really what helps to calm myself down. Other than that, I live in California. There are beaches to go lie on and relax. I think I have a good setup back home so I can kind of get away from the rink.
Q: How do you enjoy training in California, where the atmosphere is so different outside compared to in the rink?
A: It's nice. It's a nice contrast because you'll go into the rink and it will be freezing because the rinks don't have heaters out there. And then you walk outside and it's 75 and sunny. And you can go and enjoy the rest of your day.
Q: You've been involved in a lot of activities off the ice and one of them is Classroom Champions. [Olympic champion and founder] Steve Mesler was just telling me, 'You have to ask her about a recent Skype chat she did with one of the classrooms.' So, I'm wondering, what do the kids ask you and what do you talk about?
A: They're so cute! I mean, Classroom Champions is an awesome program. I'm so lucky to be able to work with them. I usually just talk to them about my skating and how I handle the pressure and time management – things that I try to pick apart for them and help them apply it to their daily school life.
Q: What do they ask you about? Any specific questions?
A: They ask me if I play video games and what my favorite books are and if I like to read. Things like that. They're younger kids so it's not a lot of hard questions like, "how do you feel the moment before you perform or something like that." [Note: Uh oh, that was my first question when we sat down…] It's fun stuff like, "What's your favorite food? Do you like cheese?" Things like that. They're so cute.
Q: Do they ever tell you that they see or on TV or that they watch you skate?
A: They do. They let me know when they see me skate and they're always really excited. I was able to Skype, maybe about two weeks ago, and it was so cool to be able to put faces to all the classrooms and see how excited they were to be part of the program. I was really curious because I wanted to know how the boys were dealing with having a figure skater as a mentor and how they are doing with the glitz and the glam and the sparkles. I've been trying to explain to them that skating requires a lot of strength and you have to have a lot of speed, and more masculine qualities like that so they can really get into it.
Q: And do they seem to?
A: Yeah, for the most part, a lot of them seem to! I mean, sometimes when I'm Skyping them, you see some of the boys in the back, like, twiddling their thumbs! (laughing)
Page 1 I 2


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For years women have sought greater representation on corporate boards. And most boards say they want more diversity. So why did women hold only 16.6% of Fortune 500 board seats in 2012? And why, for the past six years, has that percentage been relatively flat, increasing by just two points, according to data from the research firm Catalyst?
Patience has started to wear thin, especially in Europe. Having seen little progress with voluntary efforts, several countries, including Belgium, France, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, and the Netherlands, have enacted legislation that calls for a minimum percentage of female directors on boards. The European Union is considering mandating quotas as well.
Quotas and the Men Who Like Them
It's unclear why women have not made greater inroads. Board appointments and dynamics remain largely a black box; not much research has been done on the selection and appointment process or on the differences between women's and men's experiences as directors. To learn more, in 2010 we began a series of annual surveys in partnership with WomenCorporateDirectors and Heidrick & Struggles. In this article we reveal the findings of an analysis of qualitative data from the first survey.
The View Outside the U.S.
We were especially interested in the backgrounds, trajectories, and interactions of female directors—who are the women who get onto boards, and what do they encounter there? So our sample was drawn mainly from female corporate directors; we included a smaller number of male directors as a benchmark. (Overall the survey had a response rate of 42%, with 294 women and 104 men from private and public companies participating.) Also, because the vast majority of the sample consisted of U.S. directors (80% of the women and 83% of the men), the findings largely present a picture of American boards. While our survey has these and other limitations, it still offers several interesting perspectives.
In the following pages, we'll share a profile of the female board member that emerged; what the directors surveyed had to say about the benefits of diversity and about the dynamics between men and women on boards; and some best practices for recruiting and managing diverse boards. In the process, we'll discuss three key themes we discovered in the data:
- Women had to be more qualified than men to be considered for directorships. Women also seemed to pay a higher personal price to become board members than men did.
- Although boards say they like diversity, they don't know how to take advantage of it. We found a stark disconnect between female directors' experiences and their male colleagues' perceptions. Women told us they were not treated as full members of the group, though the male directors were largely oblivious to their female colleagues' experience in this regard.
- Great talent alone is not enough to create a well-functioning board. Boards need formal processes and cultures that leverage each individual member's contribution as well as the directors' collective intellect.
Portrait of the Female Director
In our study, we observed some distinct patterns. The female directors tended to be younger than the male directors—probably because, on average, the women had joined boards relatively recently, whereas the men had served on boards longer. Seventy-six percent of the female directors (versus 69% of the male directors) were employed in an operational role; 68% (versus 51% of the male directors) were in a lead role, like CEO, president, or partner. These findings suggest that to receive invitations to boards, women might need to be more accomplished than men. They also contradict the popular belief that female board members have mostly nonoperational or support-function experience.
Another distinction we discovered between the backgrounds of female and male directors was that by and large, the women on boards worked for private corporations, not public ones. A majority of the male board members worked for private corporations as well, but a higher percentage of the men worked for public companies—likely a reflection of the fact that fewer women occupy the C-suites of public companies.
The data also indicate that female board members may have made different trade-offs on their way to the top. In comparison with male directors, fewer female directors were married and had children. A larger percentage of the women were divorced—suggesting they may have incurred greater personal costs. We found similar patterns in our 2012 survey.
We were curious to learn about the aspirations of corporate directors, who by most standards have reached the pinnacle of career success. We found that a somewhat higher proportion of women than men (92% and 86%, respectively) described themselves as ambitious. In addition, contrary to gender stereotypes, 91% of the women versus 70% of the men reported that they enjoyed having power and influence.
On average, the women in our survey were serving on two boards and the men on three. Given that, it wasn't surprising that over half the female directors wanted to serve on more boards. (A smaller percentage of the men did.) But the women also expressed greater overall career aspirations. Twenty-seven percent of the female directors wanted to lead or continue leading a company, compared with 19% of the men. Although female directors' younger age may account for some of the difference, it doesn't fully explain it: Twenty-nine percent of the women who actively aspired to the top job were age 60 to 70, whereas only 10% of the men with similar aspirations were. Such ambition at a time of life when most professionals are winding down their careers suggests that women, whose opportunities have consistently been more restricted, may wish to extend the length of their careers with an eye to finally attaining the most-coveted roles.
We also wanted to know what strengths directors would say they brought to their boards and, by implication, what skill sets and areas of expertise they thought were most important to board operations and dynamics. Asked to write in their strengths, the men and women gave remarkably similar answers. One significant difference was that a lot more women than men cited the ability to communicate effectively. Many female directors noted that they were more likely than their male counterparts to ask tough questions or move boardroom discussions forward in skilled and effective ways. (See the chart "How Female and Male Directors Perceive Their Strengths.")
How Female and Male Directors Perceive Their Strengths
Another notable difference was the greater percentage of men who cited global experience as a strength. In our work with directors and high-level executives, we've found that women are often not considered for international assignments, because of the assumption that women with families find it more difficult than men with families to relocate or travel for extended periods. The unfortunate consequence is that women don't get equal access to international roles.
Curiously, more men than women listed operations experience as a strength, even though a greater percentage of the women held operational roles or were leading a company. We cannot say why with certainty, but their answers indicate that women may place a higher value on personal skills, such as leadership and communication, than on role-related experience.
To learn more about the factors that may inform directors' perspectives, we asked about their outside interests. We found substantial differences between women and men. Though both named sports most frequently, men did so at a much higher rate. (See the sidebar "Golf, Anyone?") What was also striking was the higher percentage of women than men who named arts and culture, travel, and philanthropy and community service as outside interests. (See the chart "Directors' Outside Interests.")
Directors' Outside Interests
Golf, Anyone?
How might these differences affect the way female and male directors form and maintain connections with other directors? Could the lack of common interests make it harder for female and male board members to identify with and relate to one another? Or could these differences be enriching?
The Benefits of Diversity
According to research by our HBS colleagues Robin Ely and David Thomas, organizations have three major approaches to diversity. We've found that boards' approaches to diversity are similar. They may pursue it as a way to:
1. Institute fairness and rebuke discrimination. Government interventions, whether mandatory (quotas) or voluntary (targets or disclosure reporting recommended by the SEC), have sensitized most boards to the fairness argument for diversity.
2. Build a deeper understanding of and access to desirable customer bases and markets, such as female consumers.
3. Incorporate new perspectives and generate learning. When this is the goal of a board, diversity is integrated into all its practices and informs all discussions and decisions, producing the greatest impact.
To better understand what directors think gender diversity can offer boards, we asked respondents whether women bring special attributes to the role. Ninety percent of the female directors thought they did, compared with 56% of the male directors. Below are the attributes respondents cited, along with representative comments.
What Special Attributes Do Women Bring to Boards?
While slightly more than half of the male directors said that women bring a fresh perspective to the boardroom, 19% said that gender should not be a factor when selecting directors; instead, selection should be based solely on qualifications and experience. One male director explained, "Women—and any board member—should be judged on their background and skills, not because they have attributes based on gender, race, etc." Another stated, "People bring special attributes, and they are not related to diversity." And a third offered this view: "Any shareholder wants the most qualified board members they can get. Diversity is a plus."
Many people have no doubt that women account for more than 16.6% of the pool of highly qualified potential directors, so the question remains: Why aren't more women on boards? One female director offered this explanation: "Women are not thought of first as candidates unless a board is looking for gender diversity specifically." Another shared her experience: "I'm not part of the old boys' network. Directorships go to people who are known. I've been so busy leading my company and raising my family that I'm less well known." And a third lamented, "Boards still prefer pale, stale, and male!"
Gender and Board Dynamics
Though boards say they want diversity, what happens once women get on them? Eighty-seven percent of female directors reported facing gender-related hurdles. The obstacles fell into four major categories, listed below along with examples of the types of comments we heard most.
Four Types of Obstacles Women Say They Face
We also asked the male directors if female directors face hurdles that men do not. The majority—56%—said no. Those who answered yes named the four types of barriers listed below (with a sampling of their comments).
Four Types of Obstacles Men Say Women Face
According to some women's accounts, many male directors seem unaware that they may create hostile board cultures, fail to listen to female directors or accept them as equals, and require them to continually reestablish their credentials.
One female board member gave the following example: A highly successful and accomplished woman in financial services was asked to join the board of a growing multibillion-dollar public company. She was its first and, for many years, only woman director. She brought greatly needed financial expertise to the board as well as a deep understanding of the company's industry, yet she routinely felt shut out and stifled during meetings. Her questions were greeted not with respectful collegiality but as intrusions into the "real" conversation among the male board members.
In fact, the CEO and chairman and other male directors had taken her aside many times and asked her to be "less vocal" and to "stop arguing her point" during meetings. She related how this behavior surfaced during meetings, too, recalling one in particular at which she was pursuing a line of questions about a strategic decision when a male director interrupted her and exclaimed, "You're behaving just like my daughter! You're arguing too much—just stop!"
This story illustrates the kind of experience that may have led female directors to cite the failure of their board colleagues to listen to them more often than any other barrier. The fact that few men recognized this dynamic suggests a stark disconnect between female directors' experiences and their male colleagues' perceptions.
In addition, far more male than female directors (28% versus 4%) pointed to a lack of board experience and industry knowledge as a handicap for women, but our findings indicate that men and women may come at the qualifications question from very different perspectives. Men seemed to view inexperience as a fixed and disqualifying trait, whereas women saw it as surmountable—something that could be addressed through learning and development. The high percentage of female directors who held operational roles and were leading organizations implies another disconnect—this one between women's qualifications and men's perceptions.
Diversity in Practice
In their responses to our survey, both male and female directors repeatedly named open communication, well-run general meetings, a candid but collegial tenor, and productive relationships with senior management as attributes of a successful board. Yet research suggests that too many boards ignore the need for those qualities, and recent efforts to overhaul governance have clearly failed to address the question of how to compose a knowledgeable, inclusive body that possesses them.
We studied a large company that was being split into two public companies for which two new boards had to be created. The chairman, who had long championed diversity, was spearheading the process. He appointed a special team to create an objective, transparent method for selecting the directors. After reviewing the roles and responsibilities of each board and the natures of the new businesses, the team derived lists of the skill sets each board needed. Then it created a model containing the dimensions critical to a high-performing board, from functional and industry expertise to behavioral attributes. This approach led both companies to recruit boards that were diverse not only in gender but also in skills—demonstrating that when a firm builds a board using a rigorous assessment of the qualities it needs to carry out its governance task, rather than personal networks, the board is better equipped to execute its functions.
Though more research is needed to measure the impact of different practices on board performance, we have encountered several (detailed below) that boards have used to become more effective. Practices like these help break down obstacles that hinder directors from being fully integrated into boards and contributing to their potential.
Which Practices Improve Boards' Effectiveness?
After all, as our data suggest, it takes more than great talent to make a great board. Talent alone cannot overcome dysfunctional dynamics. Companies increasingly recognize the distinction between diversity and inclusiveness: Diversity is counting the numbers; inclusiveness is making the numbers count. Boards need to improve on both dimensions.


text:
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text:
The administration of the CMI's scientific activities is conducted from its office in the Andrew Wiles Building at the University of Oxford.
The photograph on the left shows the main lecture theater in the Andrew Wiles Building. It was taken during the 2013 Clay Research Conference, which immediately preceded the formal opening of the building.
The photograph in the slideshow on the home page is an arial view of the Penrose tiling in front of the main entrance. The offices used by CMI are on the top floor on the right.


text:
I read your little letter—and I disagree, I fear—
Since you don't allow for comments there, I'll have to comment here:
It's written very clearly, and it isn't very long,
But your letter has a fatal flaw: its premises are wrong!
You paint us a position, which you eagerly refute
But the rights you say we fight against are nothing we dispute!
You can put religious symbols up, in prominent display;
In the schools and in the courthouse, you have every right to pray;
You have built yourself a strawman as the target of your rant—
You may practice your religion… it's the government that can't.
In your houses, in your churches, in the windows of your store,
You can spraypaint "Merry Christmas" till your fingertips are sore
In a restaurant, as in your home, feel free to say your grace,
It's your personal behavior, though it's in a public place.
It's the government's behavior that's restricted by our laws,
So the government's the target of that first amendment clause
Our founders had their different faiths, and with those faiths as guides
They determined that our government should not be taking sides
So if one faith is promoted, in the courthouse or the schools,
Then the other faiths are second-class… and that's against the rules.
You can see how this arrangement's in the interest of the church
And it wouldn't take you very long, if you should care to search,
To collect a load of cases where a church has been protected
From the power of a different church the government selected.
Should a town begin its meetings with a public "let us pray…"
But a handful of their citizens praise God a different way
Or are Muslims, Jews, or Hindus (but who live there nonetheless)
They can use the first amendment as the answer to this mess
It's protection of religion at the center of the fights
As we teach each local government our first amendment rights
So the "Apprising Ministries" blog doesn't allow comments, but pastor-teacher Ken Silva wrote an open letter to a "Mr. Atheist":
This nation in which we live was—beyond question—founded by religious people. Now, I'm not saying Christian—but certainly people of deeply held religious convictions. There's no way around that.
So, exactly what makes your perceived right not to have to view religious symbols in public places and hear people pray in public, trump my actual right to display such symbols and to pray in public?
There's a neat trick there–did you catch it?
I'm purposely avoiding the red herring about Christianity here as the founders considered "these truths self-evident," that men are created, which presupposes the Creator Who endows them with rights.
He tells us he's avoiding that red herring… but then goes on to present the real red herring, his second paragraph. No atheist I am aware of (even those who find such practices annoying, though I'll admit there are a few of those) wants to deny pastor Ken his right to view religious symbols or pray in public. Not in the slightest. He can put them in his lawn, on the lawn of his church, in the front window of his store, or anywhere where the property owners have given him permission to dos so. Mind you, he can't put them in my yard, but he doesn't seem to have a problem with that. He can pray in my yard, if he happens to stop by there while walking his dog. I can't stop him from that.
But if he is acting as a representative of the government–as mayor, councilperson, public school teacher, or judge, for instance, then he cannot, while acting on behalf of the government, favor one religion over another. He'll have to wait until he's on his own time.
Pastor Ken is right–our founding fathers were religious. They held different faiths, and saw what happens when one, but not others, of those faiths are chosen as the official faith of the government. For the protection of religious groups themselves, they chose to prohibit the government from taking sides.
Looks to me like the government likes to talk about selected views of America's founding fathers while conveniently ignoring the fact that the religious should prevail in such things, not the atheists.
Pastor Ken, your fight against atheists is a very recent thing. The first amendment establishment clause was meant to protect your faith against other faiths (and vice versa). Even today, for instance in Jackson, OH, one of the plaintiffs is a Christian. That person's Christian views are at odds with the Christian views held by the school board. Now, those school board members have every right to practice their religion. But when they are acting as school board members (a minority of their time, and under very specific circumstances) they are the government, and the government has no right to treat this Christian plaintiff like a second-class citizen because of his or her religious beliefs.
I should hope you would be in favor of protecting this plaintiff's rights. But it's tough, when you are in the privileged position of an overwhelming religious majority, to recognize that the giving up of some of your privilege is not the same as an infringement on your rights.
Atheists are not fighting against your rights. We actually fight for them. But rights belong to everyone; if you want special treatment (say, the ability to have the government support your view exclusively), that is not a right, that's a privilege.
So, back to your question:
So, exactly what makes your perceived right not to have to view religious symbols in public places and hear people pray in public, trump my actual right to display such symbols and to pray in public?
Let me fix that, because it's just not true.
What makes your perceived right to have government support for your religion, trump everyone else's actual right to be free from government intrusion into their religion?


text:
Feb 1st — makes sense to link to this piece, which I had a small hand in, over at The Chiseler, for the sixtieth anniversary of the release of NIGHT TIDE. To the very day!
Archive for Curtis Harrington
Time and TidePosted in FILM with tags Curtis Harrington, Night Tide, The Chiseler on February 2, 2023 by dcairns
Stranger from VenicePosted in FILM, literature with tags A Woman of the Sea, Chaplin, Chaplin The Tramp's Odyssey, Charles Beaumont, Charlie Chaplin, Curtis Harrington, David Robinson, Henry Bergman, Josef Von Sternberg, Kid Auto Races at Venice, Monsieur Verdoux, Night Tide, Perchance to Dream, Robert Florey, Rod Serling, The Circus, The Magic Man, The Twilight Zone on February 16, 2022 by dcairns
I picked up Simon Louvish's book Chaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey, not sure what I could expect from it. David Robinson's Chaplin is so very, very good, it didn't seem as if Louvish could cover the same ground in an illuminating way. At least he had the decency to do it AFTER he's written about nearly every other comic of the twenties and thirties, I thought.
But the book is EXTREMELY good. Not a replacement for the magisterial Robinson work, but a very useful companion.
It reminded me that THE CIRCUS's sideshow opening sequence was shot in Venice, California, marking the Tramp's return to his place of origin (in KID AUTO RACES AT VENICE back at Keystone). Which connects up in a couple of weird ways to the new presence in Hollywood of Robert Florey, Chaplin observer and future collaborator (assistant/whipping boy on MONSIEUR VERDOUX).
Florey wrote of seeing Chaplin on his way to Henry's, the restaurant run by actor Henry Bergman, one night ~
"There was infinite sadness in the spectacle of Charlie, alone in the night. A man whom the smartest salons in the world would have fought to entertain, was quietly walking, alone in the shadows, his hands in his pockets and the brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes. It is true that the life of artists in Hollywood, especially in the evening, when the day's work is finished, cannot be compared to existence in Paris or London, but to see Charlie Chaplin, alone on the boulevard, like some little extra without a job or a place to live, wrung my heart."
It's also a very dreamlike, and a very Chaplinesque image. It's hard to not to imagine a bowler hat when Florey mentions Charlie's hat, but of course it wouldn't have been.
By coincidence — not even a meaningful coincidence, just a regular coincidence, I recently picked up Charles Beaumont's The Magic Man, a short story collection which includes the little classic Perchance to Dream ~
"Right away the dream started.I was walking along Venice Pier. It was close to midnight. The place was crowded, people everywhere; you know the kind they used to get there. Sailors, dumpy looking dames, kids in leather jackets. The pitchmen were going through their routines. You could hear the roller coasters thundering along the tracks, the people inside the roller coasters, screaming; you could hear the bells and the guns cracking and the crazy songs they play on calliopes. And, far away, the ocean, moving. Everything was bright and gaudy and cheap."
Perchance to Dream was adapted by Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone, and directed by Robert Florey. But the filmmaker who captured the exact mood of Beaumont's dream was Curtis Harrington in NIGHT TIDE. And Harrington met Chaplin at a party, and apparently asked him about, not THE CIRCUS, but his earlier Sternberg production, A WOMAN OF THE SEA ~
"I actually asked Mr. Chaplin about it in person, when I was very, very young. I went to my first Hollywood party and there were a lot of big stars there—Charlie Chaplin and Harlan Pressburger, who produced The Shanghai Gesture, so I spoke to him about working with Von Sternberg. I was very busy at this party, you know, to be in the presence of these people I'd only read about (laughs). Anyway, you can read about The Woman of the Sea. […] Robert Florey, the French film director, he also saw it. He wrote about it in his book but it's only available in France."
The full interview is here.
The Edinburgh Dialogues #6: Lynda MylesPosted in FILM, Politics with tags Alien, Bela Tarr, Chris Auty, Colin Young, Curtis Harrington, Dave Will, David Cronenberg, Douglas Sirk, Easy Rider, Edinburgh Dialogues, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Ellen Galford, Eraserhead, Forsyth Hardy, Hannah McGill, How the Movie Brats Took Over Edinburgh, Isabel Hilton, Jim Jarmusch, Joe Viola, Jonathan Demme, Lizzie Francke, Lynda Myles, Mark Cousins, Matthew Lloyd, Murray Grigor, Nick Nolte, Peter Bogdanovich, Radio On, Rebecca O'Brien, Robbie Coltraine, Roger Corman, Sam Fuller, Sandra Hebron, Shane Danielsen, Shivers, Simon Perry, The Hot Box, The Story of Film, Tilda Swinton, UCLA, Wim Wenders on August 19, 2011 by dcairns
Jason Isaacs, Lynda Myles, Ben Miller, at Edinburgh in 2010, under Lynda's plaque.
Lynda Myles ran Edinburgh International Film Festival in what some have called "the golden age of film programming," (1973-1980). As Susan Sontag said, "For fifteen years there were new masterpieces every month."
Lynda inherited a thriving Festival from Murray Grigor, who had turned it around from a moribund spell in the late sixties, with the help of Lynda and her then partner David Will. Grigor, a filmmaker himself, embraced the pair's cinephile vision and encouraged the Festival to celebrate mavericks like Sam Fuller and Douglas Sirk, who had been largely overlooked by mainstream criticism. Lynda continued this wholeheartedly when she took over as Director, augmenting it with a new focus on theory and ideology.
During this cinematic revolution, Lynda's critical acumen put Edinburgh at the forefront of the field, with retrospectives on Raoul Walsh, Max Ophuls and Jacques Tourneur, and helping discover both the New German cinema and the New Hollywood cinema. And Lynda co-authored with Michael Pye the first study of the post-Corman generation, film school generation, The Movie Brats, How the Film Generation took over Hollywood.
Since Edinburgh, Lynda has enjoyed a distinguished career as film producer, with DEFENCE OF THE REALM, THE COMMITMENTS and THE SNAPPER among her credits. Now she combines teaching at the National Film School with filmmaking: several new features are in development. No wonder a plaque in her honour is mounted outside Edinburgh's Filmhouse.
I spoke to Lynda via futuristic Skype machinery and managed to get most of the conversation recorded… then we met up and discussed the interview, enabling me to add more information in parenthesis —
DC: What I've been starting with, uncontroversially, is asking all the directors to choose their favourite memories of doing the job…
LM: If it's not going to complicate things too much, I think one thing to remember is I was actually there over thirteen years. Kind of missed the '71 Festival, but there was a kind of continuum: Dave Will and I were asked to go and work with Murray [Grigor, previous director], so I was at the Festival for about four or five festivals as programme editor and then deputy editor [before becoming director].
DC: So, during Murray's time as director, what was most memorable?
The first major, major moment for us was, it had been Dave's idea to do the Sam Fuller retrospective. It's very difficult to talk about such ancient history… I know when I talk to students, and I try to talk to them about a time when Sam Fuller, Douglas Sirk etc were not household names, it's hard. Post-Tarantino, everyone embraces Sam, but when Dave came up with the idea it was a very radical notion and it flew in the face of what the traditional British critical view of the cinema was, which was very much European art cinema. So the moment that Sam Fuller touched down at what we used to call Turnhouse [now Edinburgh Airport], and we met Sam – in a very kitsch way with a bagpiper – we got special permission to meet him with a piper on the tarmac – that was a major thing… we saw it as our intervention with Edinburgh.
Sam Fuller on a return visit to Edinburgh in 1992.
We were attacked by all sorts of people. I remember a BBC producer meeting Sam and saying, sniffily, "He's not an intellectual." But it was our first gesture of oppositional film culture to which Dave and I were committed. We were about twenty at this point, Sam was the first Hollywood director we'd ever met, and you couldn't have got someone more extraordinary, who threw himself into the Festival, checked out of his hotel, went to stay with Murray at Inverkeithing. So Sam was a major thing.
Probably the most important single person for me was Douglas Sirk. I was sort of in charge of setting up the Sirk event with Jon Halliday, and Jon Halliday and Laura Mulvey co-edited the book of essays on Douglas. And Douglas was one of the most phenomenal people I've ever met. He's remained an enormous influence in all sorts of ways. Roger Corman coming the first time, in 1970: again, when we also published a book.
[This was the period when Edinburgh really got into publishing a book with every retrospective and conference. The Sirk book is now extremely rare, as it was cheaply bound in a manner that caused it to self-destruct upon opening: if you have a copy (as Todd Haynes does), treasure it!]
These were all things that we loved, the directors, we loved their work, but also it had an agenda, which was our whole oppositional culture position.
DC: And it SUCCEEDED!
LM: I could go on and on…
DC: Do! And from your own years as director?
LM: John Huston attending with FAT CITY. And when Scorsese came. I had the privilege of having Robbie Coltraine as my driver that year, before Robbie really started acting, and Robbie had a habit of partying, and not turning up to get me out to the airport, including the morning Scorsese arrived, but moments like that, having Brian DePalma… There were all sorts of directors we loved… before talking to you today, I did look at most of the programmes except my last year which was a bit of a haze because it was mostly about parties… But it's interesting the recurring things: we showed David Cronenberg's early avant-garde features, David came almost every year, we got involved with Jonathan Demme when he was still a writer with THE HOT BOX, and then we showed his first film as a director. I think we had a Jonathan Demme film almost every year. And there was a whole New York underground, Amos Poe, Yvonne Rainer, Warhol, lots of that, lots of avant-garde… George Romero… I mean, one of my favourite nights was when we used to view at Filmhouse, we used to view all summer, films that had been sent to the Festival, and I'll always remember the night we started watching this film which turned out to be ERASERHEAD… which was an extraordinary moment.
[Many people have claimed they founded the Edinburgh Television Festival, but Lynda wants to stake her claim here: Gus MacDonald and Lynda Myles started the TV Festival, along with a committee including Clive Goodwin, Barrie Hanson and Brian Gibson. The Film Festival begat the Television Festival, partly because much of the best filmmaking in the seventies seemed to be happening on TV (Stephen Frears, John MacKenzie) but the work couldn't be screened at the Film Festival for legal copyright/licensing reasons. The TV Festival found a way round that, and John McGrath delivered the first MacTaggart lecture, trashing the TV industry for the "endemic naturalism" that still plagues it today.]
So there's endless stuff. But one of the things I wanted to say about my time there was, I think I was very lucky because I think the '70s is recognized as the Golden Age of Programming, so I was incredibly lucky because I hit New German Cinema. We'd actually shown some of Wim's [Wenders] shorts, we'd shown some Fassbinder from about 1970, but I was very lucky because the time I took over as director coincided with New German Cinema kind of exploding and I think one year we showed about 24 German movies. And they all came, and we all stayed very involved with them.
[There was also greater co-operation amongst festivals, with Edinburgh active in helping set up a support network of independent Film Festivals, so they could help each other instead of fighting over films — a great idea which, sadly, didn't last, but is perhaps due for revival in the modern age of thousands of competing festivals…]
So there were very clear loyalties at Edinburgh to a lot of these people. Very much the School of Corman, everyone to whom in a way Roger gave birth, Monte Hellman, Joe Viola, Jonathan, Peter Bogdanovich, Curtis Harrington. We liked the mavericks, what we didn't like was the sort of films the liberal establishment liked at that point. So we were the first film festival to show a lot of horror, B-movies, a lot of rock and roll – we got involved with Don [D.A.] Pennebaker very early on, and obviously things like THE LAST WALTZ, etc. And Bill Forsyth, Bill Douglas…
One of my favourite memories is, I think the best Festival party we gave was the legendary party at the Commonwealth Pool, when it had just opened. Where we rashly put on the invitation, "DO NOT bring swimming costumes as you will not be allowed to enter the pool." We had an explicit ban. And of course, at midnight, Chris Auty stripped off and jumped in, followed by about sixty people… I just remember it was a great party, I remember Nick Nolte was there, and his girlfriend of the time and his producer… we had good times.
And that's why, in a way, I was especially happy when Mark [Cousins] was there, and Lizzie {Francke], because Mark had that sense of the playfulness and the transgressiveness, and that was kind of what we were doing, I mean most of the time it was fantastic, so most of it's very happy memories.
Festival directors on parade: Mark Cousins, Lizzie Francke, Murray Grigor, Hannah McGill, Lynda Myles, Jim Hickey, and producer Ginnie Atkinson.
DC: So, balancing that, what were the frustrations of the job? I guess everyone has things that they wanted to do and couldn't.
LM: Actually, very little. I got away with murder, basically [laughter]. I had a couple of things going for me – the ace up my sleeve was Colin Young. Colin, as you know, was Scots, who came back from being Dean at the film faculty at UCLA to start the National Film School. And Colin was my chair [chairman of the EIFF board] and he protected me. I find it quite upsetting, reading Matt Lloyd's book [How the Movie Brats took over Edinburgh], which I think is terrific, to remember all those ghastly board meetings when Forsyth Hardy was trying to get me fired, because the old guard, the Griersonian documentary lot, absolutely hated what we were doing. And there were endless battles, and Matt manfully ploughed through all the minutes of these meetings. They really tried to get me out after THE PARASITE MURDERS [AKA SHIVERS], which was Cronenberg, 1974. That was very frustrating. But Colin's background was in ethnographic filmmaking, and I don't think Colin was all that keen, certainly wasn't in tune with my taste, or lack of it as many people thought, but he saw it as his role as chairman to protect me, which he did, to an extraordinary degree.
Forsyth Hardy (right) with John Grierson at the first ever Edinburgh Film Festival.
[DC: I recall reading a '50s film book by Forsyth Hardy in which he negatively reviewed REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, saying that Natalie Wood's distress over her father's withholding of physical affection was impossible to sympathize with or even believe in. A very Scottish view.]
LM: And the other thing, which I think I've never had the chance to stress anywhere is, I had the most unbelievable diaspora of support. I was incredibly lucky. Obviously with Murray, Dave and I working together, and then Jim joining in '69, I think, and Jim is theoretically my deputy, but obviously we worked very closely together. But apart from that, I had Peter Wollen, and Laura Mulvey, and I think more and more in retrospect that Peter was probably the most brilliant mind of that generation. I mean, he was just phenomenal. And then people like Paul Willemen, Phil Hardy, the late Claire Johnston, Joe Medjuck in LA, Kay Armatage in Toronto, and in London, people like Simon Field, Dave Curtis… David Meeker at the BFI, without whom the retrospectives would have been impossible. Tony Rayns…
There was a phenomenal group of people, completely engaged with what we were doing, sharing the same agenda, so obviously although I was director for the last eight years, there was endless, endless, endless discussion about what we were showing, what we were doing. Maybe that was a phenomenon of the time, because in a way the political-aesthetic agenda was much clearer at that time.
One of the areas where I was blessed was I had an incredibly brilliant, committed staff, who were Ellen Galford and Isabel Hilton, Rebecca O'Brien, now Ken Loach's producer, Simon Perry for two years, Penny Thomson, Jane Balfour, Ginnie Atkinson and Archie Tait… I had an amazing group of people. We ran the Festival with a staff of about twelve, nobody was permanent apart from me and an assistant.
And actually, when I looked at the programmes I could see… my programmes really tail off. I mean, talking about '77, between Murray's period and mine, when we were very clear what we were doing, but by '78 it had got sort of hazier. Not that the festivals weren't fun, but they didn't have the clarity.
[After the interview, Lynda looked again at her collection of souvenir programmes, and asked to revise what she said above. Here's why –filmmakers whose work screened in '76: Hollis Frampton, Straub/Huillet, Yvonne Rainer. In '78: Bill Douglas (MY WAY HOME), Monte Hellman, Gabor Body, Ulrike Ottinger, Jonathan Demme and a Max Ophuls retrospective. In '79: King Hu, Chantal Akerman, Demme, Straub/Huillet, Les Blank, a Nick Ray tribute, plus ALIEN, SCUM, MANHATTAN,WISE BLOOD, THE TEMPEST (Jarman), MAD MAX, THAT SINKING FEELING (Forsyth), the new Philippines cinema, a celebration of the origins of the UK documentary movement, and a second conference on feminism in cinema. If that's tailing off, we need more of it.]
DC: I guess as well the maverick stance had almost become mainstream by the late '70s.
LM: Yeah. What happened, partly, was that the NFT in London started taking our retrospectives, so they'd move onto London. There's a tribute going on to the programming at the Scala. It's fascinating, looking at all their posters. [Scala programmer and later film producer] Stephen Woolley came to Edinburgh when he was very young, very bright, has very much the same taste… And by the late '70s, we'd kind of done what we wanted to do.
The other thing that's quite weird, looking back over the '70s, is that there's hardly any British cinema at all. Because that was when the pound had suddenly got very high against the dollar, and that was when the Americans pulled out. And I remember doing a programme for BBC2, on the Festival in 1979, because I had six British films: this was seen as amazing! We'd always shown some BFI Production Fund films, but '79 we had an incredible midnight screening of ALIEN, and RADIO ON, which was very important…
The other thing I should mention as a highlight: we did the first major women's film event in Europe, in '72, which was a lot of fun, and BBC2 wanted to make a film about it, and very much in the spirit of the times, we said "No, give us the means, give us the cameras and the stock etc," and we made a film, during the Festival. Which exists, somewhere.
DC: We should talk about how you became involved in it this year.
LM: I got involved because the Festival had interviewed people for the job of Artistic Director, and had failed to appoint anyone. So, in the vacuum, when it looked like nothing might happen, Mark came up with this ingenious plan of a festival which he described as being a cross between the Venice Biennale and Meltdown. And he got Tilda [Swinton] involved and they asked me to join them. And the final document, had it been possible to realise it, would have ended up in an absolutely extraordinary event.
We felt the Festival needed to be rethought, that it had got kind of a bit weary. Unfortunately, for reasons that are complex and difficult to describe, the blueprint wasn't followed up. The blueprint would have needed certain people on the ground to deliver it. It was always clear that Tilda was going to be doing the Jarmusch film, Mark finishing his epic [The Story of Film TV series] and June is one of my busiest times in my life at the National Film School, so we were never going to be there. But for some reason, it wasn't brought to life. So it remains this blissful, platonic ideal of an event which didn't happen. Except tiny bits of it: I mean, it was lovely having Bela Tarr there.
DC: Matt Lloyd talked in the comments section about how, really, when you're dealing with Mark Cousins ideas, maybe you need Mark Cousins to execute them. Was that an overall flaw in the plan? If you three couldn't be on hand to make it happen, who on earth could be trusted to see this through?
LM: I think there might have been people who could, but it wasn't the right combination.
DC: I think they've got a very good staff, but I think they were demoralized after having to reapply for their own jobs. And then I think James, coming in, didn't really speak the same language, because his staff are cinephiles and he speaks the language of brands, and low-hanging fruit… the language is different. I don't know if they saw him as a festival director. It wasn't clear when I spoke to him: something I'd heard is that he was hired as producer and then became the director…
LM: My understanding was that he was hired to be the producer.
DC: And a good choice in many ways. But maybe not the right man as director for this particular event. So, is there anything you can say, or would like to say, about this year, or shall we move on?
LM: One thing that slightly cheers me up is that [laughs] history has shown that Edinburgh can rise from the ashes. When we got involved in '68, the Festival had been absolutely appalling. One of the things we had to stop was, the films were selected by committee.
DC: Oh…
LM: When Murray had come in around '67, he inherited this, there was a committee which watched the films every night. The Festival was attacked in the Scotsman… The thing about what happened, in a way, from '69, was that it showed Edinburgh's reinvented itself before. So I'm optimistic. I think in some ways, having a year that goes… awry, like this, in a way maybe it's good.
I don't know if I've even got the energy to talk about the dates. I think it's an absolute no-brainer that the Festival should be back in August. I think the move to June was insane. Edinburgh, when it started, as you know, was the third film festival in the world. When you have 2,000 festivals out there, everything's looking for specificity. The fact that Edinburgh is potentially part of the world's largest arts festival seems to me a useful addition to making Edinburgh specific. Apart from the fact that no film students can go because everyone's shooting in June. When we had the 60th anniversary and Brian DePalma came back, for the first time since I'd invited him in '76 or whatever, Brian stayed quite a long time, going to three or four movies a day, and then going to stuff at night. I just think it's crazy when you've got the fantastic Book Festival, you've got all the shows… it seems to me it's a time when cinema's more engaged, when you've got people like Steve McQueen [HUNGER] coming from visual arts, lots of dramatists going into cinema, I just do not understand.
And the argument about space, well my God, if Teviot [University building and 2011 delegate centre], that ghastly – and I know that place because I was an undergraduate – it felt like a student event. It just felt amateur. If that's one of the glories of June, well, let me out.
DC: There must be other choices in June, you should theoretically have your pick…
LM: You might think so. The sad thing at the moment is, I dealt with about four directors of the Edinburgh Festival [the arts festival, as opposed to the Film Festival], and they weren't all terribly user-friendly towards film, but the irony is that with Jonathan Mills there, you've probably got someone who would be very open to collaboration.
Oh what a gorgeous cat!
DC: Yes, this is Tasha.
LM: Oh WOW. Anyway, I'm sorry, I can get very boring, don't get me started on August. I do think that there would be lots of possibilities for crossover.
The other thing is, the last time I went up in August, last year, I got a taxi at Waverley, and in two minutes in a taxi you get that unbelievable excitement. That Festival, I walked home on my own, at two in the morning, and it was fantastic. And I'm afraid you don't get that in June. I love that sense of excitement.
DC: This is great because you're the first Festival director I've spoken to who's come out strongly for August.
LM: Here endeth the first lesson. Hardwired. I went to the Festival when I was about 17, not the Film Festival, it was the theatre, music. I absolutely love it, I think it's unbeatable, it's crazy not to be part of it.
DC: What else would you say for the Festival's future?
LM: [small voice] I would move back to August – which also gives them more time. Which they're going to need. I would make it shorter, I think two weeks is too long. I would make it ten days.
DC: I think it is ten days.
LM: Is it ten days? It feels very long.
[It's twelve days. I think Shane Danielsen cut it to ten in the early 2000s, but it's spread again]
LM: Ten days would be fine. I think they've got to get someone who really has a grasp of international cinema, someone who can talk to directors, someone who can talk to distributors, and sales agents. Again, I was very lucky, when I was there I basically dealt with directors, to some extent with distributors in London, but it was basically pre- sales agent days, and I mostly just asked directors for their movies after I'd seen them.
I think whoever's coming in should be someone that the distributors trust, that they feel knows the business. It's quite a hard brief because the Edinburgh Festival I love was about ideas, it's more about ideas than anything else. But to keep the ship going, it's got to engage with the public. What I'd hate is for it to become a local event. Local festivals are fine but there are lots of them in Britain, and Edinburgh for many years was the festival that set the agenda for everyone else. If it shrinks into being just a local event, maybe that's OK at one level, but I think it's a terrible waste. Because the other thing that's very clear over what's happened this year is, I must have had hundreds of conversations since November, and what is interesting is how people care about it. Contrary to what certain people around the Festival think, there's a huge amount of concern about the Festival and what's going to happen with it from people who worked there, people who have movies there, people who've been there.
I could conjure up a brilliant advisory committee with ten people I've spoken to here who would immediately become part of that to help get it back on its feet. But I think you've got to get someone who can talk both to directors and to the industry. It's got to be someone with some sort of vision because it also ought to be different from London. I think Sandra [Hebron] did a brilliant job with London, but it's a different kind of Festival. And I think Edinburgh has to be about ideas, about innovation. But it has to be the leader of the pack in terms of what's happening in cinema.
Read more about Lynda's revolutionary role in film critical history: How the Movie Brats Took Over Edinburgh: The Impact of Cinephilia on the Edinburgh International Film Festival, 1968-1980
Read Lynda and Michael Pye's book: The Movie Brats: How the Film Generation Took over Hollywood
See a Lynda film: The Commitments [1991] [DVD]
From the 1978 programme:
"The following publications will be available at The Filmhouse:
Douglas Sirk £0.90p
Frank Tashlin £1.10
Jacques Tourneur £1.00
Perspectives on British Avant-Garde £1.50


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