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Archive for the ‘Enlightenment’ Category

Pay-What-You-Can Russian House #1 in Jenner Is One of Californias Most Eccentric Restaurants – Eater SF

Posted: December 29, 2019 at 8:41 pm


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On the drive up Highway 1 along the Sonoma County coast, the road eventually begins to twist and turn and the landscape grows ever craggier, dotted with wind-battered homes. In the coastal hamlet of Jenner, about 80 miles north of San Francisco at the mouth of the Russian River, a quaint, shingled building with a sign that says Russian House #1 is perched along the road. Is it a restaurant? A community center? An experiment in spiritual development?

Yes is the answer.

Russian House #1 has no menu and no set prices for food. Its founders, Tatiana Ginzburg and Polina Krasikova, were inspired in part by their experience at Burning Man in 2014, where they witnessed an intricate barter economy in action. The restaurant also has no paid kitchen staff. Krasikova cooks most of the food and is chiefly responsible for the kitchen, though she relies on a revolving cast of volunteers. Some are neighbors. The owners do not use the word donation. Its not charity, Krasikova says. You pay according to your own sense of fairness. Some visitors pay with labor, staying to clean or chop vegetables.

In Russian Houses five-year history, Krasikova and Ginzburg have welcomed friends from all over the world, so the days flavors are liable to change depending on whos in the kitchen. Theyve hosted French, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, Indian, and Armenian friends. They cook whatever they want, she says.

Sonoma County may seem like an unlikely place to pass a sign reading Pirozhki to go, but Russian House is ten miles from Fort Ross, a rustic Russian outpost where fur traders settled in the nineteenth century. The compound is now a National Historic Landmark that draws visiting Russians and other tourists passing along this picturesque stretch of Californias coast.

The bright, windowed space inside Russian House has a grand quality, owing largely to the majestic view of the Russian River, where geese frolic. And though visitors are likely to get a good meal, Krasikova admits that eating is not the whole point here. The food, however good it is, is secondary to dialogue and communication. Thats what we want. People come for food and stay for something else.

That something else is hard to pin down: The place hosts philosophy and physics lectures and holotropic breathwork workshops, and a poster made by Ginzburg starkly lays out steps toward unleashing human potential. Its a sensibility that seems to combine 19th century Russian mysticism, a Soviet penchant for grandiose acts of bureaucratic classification, and a post-Soviet interest in New Age self-discovery. But the extra-culinary offerings can feel opaque, even to visitors well versed in West Coast wellness culture. One would have to really join the community to ascertain whether it delivers on its self-stated goal of global enlightenment.

That said, a spirit of playfulness is alive throughout the space, where complex wooden puzzles hang along the wall of a corner pantry designed to look like an old-fashioned Russian stove. Matrioshki Russian nesting dolls of various sizes and a miniature balalaika stand sentinel on a shelf above a poster featuring an 80s-style image of a matrix that says Meaning. Binders full of flyers for past events and one-day menus sit on a table near the entryway. The papers reflect the wit and humor that undergirds the Russian House project as well as a charmingly faltering grasp of English. Classical Piano Concert is Quite Possible reads one. An old menu for the Week of Consciousness Expansion lists food for the intellect (riddles and puzzles) as well as earth food (the actual buffet). Another from a past Labor Day lists prices for activities: the right to clean the floor in the kitchen costs $1; the right to bake one pirozhek costs $5; and doing a puzzle with Tatiana would run guests $10,000.

When guests arrive, they take a plate from the mismatched stacks below the table and serve themselves from a motley assortment of chafing dishes and ceramic bowls. A large insulated pot of steaming ukha Russian fish soup beckons as an obvious first course. The clear broth, flecked with dill, maintains its lightness in spite of large chunks of potato and cod.

Though Krasikova draws on traditional recipes, she spent her St. Petersburg childhood cooking and baking alongside her mother, who liked to experiment, and she calls the food she serves fusion. We get tired of cooking all the same all the time, she says, so we always experiment. She enjoys using seasonal vegetables and playing with ayurvedic spice combinations. Krasikova sometimes looks up classic Russian recipes from one of the vintage cookbooks she keeps on a bookshelf off the main room, but adds touches she thinks Californians will appreciate.

For example, when she realized guests didnt love plain kasha (or buckwheat groats, a staple grain dish in Russian cuisine), she added capers and seaweed. Instead of typical blini with buckwheat flour, she uses almond milk to make a lighter, crepe-like version. The resulting pancakes have an injera-like sponginess, and are delicious served lukewarm with a dollop of cold sour cream and a spoonful of raspberry jam. A tart cabbage-and-carrot sauerkraut (made by a neighbor) cut both the blandness of a medley of stewed vegetables and the richness of a braised dish of pork medallions and greens that Krasikova conceded was not very Russian.

Taken together, however, the meal felt Russian: heavy as a woolen blanket, warm, comforting, and filling. It was served with Ivan tea (made from fermented fireweed), an erstwhile export of the Russian empire, in delicate cups from St. Petersburgs Imperial Porcelain Factory. Krasikova refilled the cups as soon as they were emptied.

In a moment when Russian political intrigue dominates the news, it can feel quite radical and nourishing to spend a few sunny hours soaking in a spirit of Russian joy. That rare experience is whats on offer at Russian House #1, even if it isnt exactly for sale.

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Pay-What-You-Can Russian House #1 in Jenner Is One of Californias Most Eccentric Restaurants - Eater SF

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December 29th, 2019 at 8:41 pm

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Opinion | A collection of year-end reads to give you food for thought – Livemint

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A Silicon Valley-based friend, who heads a tech giants in-house academy for its engineers, has been trying to inculcate the habit of reading among his students. Last week, he mailed me, asking for suggestions, especially since apps like Blinkist and 12min now offer the gist of important non-fiction books in text and audio form that you can gulp down with a cup of coffee, and be/appear more knowledgeable.

Fact is, we were already short on time, and now, we also have Netflix and Amazon Prime, so it really helps when someone tells you that the 816-page Capital In The Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty can be summed up in one line: The rich have been getting richer at a rate faster than world GDP, and thats not fair."

But some books need to be read in full. They cannot be summarized. So, here are five (actually six) that I loved reading this year (not all of them are 2019 publications).

Enlightenment Now: In his most ambitious work till date, Harvard professor Steven Pinker tackles every big issue that humanity facesthe environment, wealth inequality, sustenance, peace, terrorism, democracy, equal rights, happinesswith clean data, multi-disciplinary expertise and powerful logic. He has been criticized as being too optimistic, but he sees some existential threats" as figments of cultural and historical pessimism", and the genuine ones not as apocalypses in waiting, but as problems to be solved" through three weapons: reason, science and humanism.

War Or Peace: Prof. Deepak Lal is a formidable scholar. War Or Peace is a magisterial steeped-in-history analysis of current geopolitics, with the US resigning from its globo-cop" role, China pushing for global hegemony, wannabe imperial powers like Russia and Iran flexing their muscles, and India, another aspirant, caught in the middle. Lal even considers the possibility of a Third World War, and ends with his views on how India can cope with the new global disorder. This is a profound examination of the threats that the democratic world faces, and how they can be countered.

Savarkar: We badly needed an un-biased biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkarneither a hagiography nor a leftist hatchet joband journalist Vaibhav Purandares deeply researched and tightly written book is just that. Sourcing a wealth of new material, including previously untranslated Marathi documents, Purandare shines clear light on many controversies: the mercy petitions, Savarkars call to Indians to join the British Army during World War II, his decision to have the Hindu Mahasabha join Muslim League-led provincial governments, his views on the cow. Here is the charismatic visionary with all his quirks and wartsshort-tempered, stubborn, miserly when paying his eternally loyal staffers and, though acquitted by the court of any complicity in Mahatma Gandhis assassination, perhaps bearing some moral responsibility for it.

The Coddling Of The American Mind, and Woke: Im clubbing these two books together because both deal with the current wave of identity politics and social justice" sweeping a section of the worlds educated population, especially the young. Fed by theories of post-modernism and intersectionality, wokeness" sees the world only in terms of victims and aggressors, believes that feelings are more true than facts, often sees speech or content expressing opposite views as violence, supports actual violence to respond to such speech, and revels in cancel culture", where un-wokes are ostracized (the definition of un-woke" is broad: for example, if you are homosexual and dont feel you are a victim, you are a fake gay").

In Coddling, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff offer a sobering account of how fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play where the child has to take responsibility for the outcomes, the omnipresence of social media and a college system where dogmatic left-liberals, who have a stranglehold on the humanities and social sciences, indoctrinate rather than encourage openness to ideas, have created a fragile and angry generation with strong cognitive distortions. While Coddling deals only with the US, its insights and lessons are equally valid for India.

Woke, by Titania McGrath, the parody Twitter alter ego of British commentator (and fake gay") Andrew Doyle, is satire at its most biting. Samples: Socialism has been an unqualified success wherever it has been implemented. In Venezuela, a 2.4-kg chicken is currently worth a whopping 14,600,000 bolivars. So much for socialism making people poorer." My friend Tabitha has recently given birth to a baby boy After birth, one of the very first things this organism did was cry to be fed. Thats the kind of male entitlement were dealing with. Straight out of the womb, and its all me, me, me." Woke is the funniest book Ive read in a long time.

The Wandering Earth: I was also lucky this year to discover the Chinese science-fiction writer Cixin Liu. Earth comprises ten longish stories. Rock-solid science, dazzling imagination, sublime philosophical queries, and one hilarious end-of-the-world comedy. Sci-fi seems to be yet another field where China is ahead of us.

Sandipan Deb is former editor of Financial Express and founder-editor of Open and Swarajya magazines

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Opinion | A collection of year-end reads to give you food for thought - Livemint

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December 29th, 2019 at 8:41 pm

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Quit India Got Students on the Streets as CAA Has Now – The Citizen

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The strains of the Indian freedom struggles picked up dramatically when Gandhi made the call 'Quit India'. Till then, it seems to me, Gandhi was soft peddling/ negotiating/ speaking, but his patience was being misused. So he decided that now, there will be more than local satyagrahas and dialogues, and that he will generate what in fact could become conflict. Hence the 'Salt March' and the 'Civil Disobedience method, where picking up a state owned product like salt as a form of breaking the law changed the course of the freedom movement.

Of course many people have written about Gandhi's skills and intuition in knowing what would be the mesmerizing project or process. Picking up salt from the beaches, easily accessible over miles of coast, and in some sense privatizing a state owned essential commodity was nothing short of genius. But there was more to the Quit India Movement.

It was a peaceful resistance to the state and galvanized another section or slice of the Indian population- these were the students. Quit India resonated with them in ways beyond the various satyagrahas and other efforts. Students all over India, used the slogan 'Quit India' and marched and held meetings and gave the movement an extraordinary strength and voice. Simultaneously they, the students got politicized. The two words- Quit and India had the tang in them which touched the spirit of the young.

So while the act of civil disobedience spread, simultaneously India's students rose to the call Quit India in a way similar to what we see in India today. For students to rise as a political force there has to be a morally compelling call which can be adopted across difference. In India we are blessed, at the same time stressed by enormous diversity- language, religion, practice, everything varies to multiple amounts/ numbers.

Quit India resonated with the students, -strong, full of power like the voices today resonating, Azaadi. The word, the sound of the word as it is voiced, is so powerful .It has become the strum of the student uprisings in India today as was Quit India in the 1940s.

However what we are missing,- and that absence or empty box must be filled - not only because it would be a form of appreciation and reward for the persistence, brilliance, commitment, understanding of India and its Constitution by the students. It is also for the bigger or more formal reason that it represents the heart of India.

Much has been written and with great detail and with expertise on exactly how the CAA and the NRC contravene the principle and the spirit of the Constitution. So I will not go into that. But what needs to be thought out deeply by others, for example "the eminent persons and academicians" that have been recording their anxiety and disapproval of this initiative by the Modi- Shah combine, is how to channelize this extraordinary wide- awake knowledgeable community,- students from across India, into regenerating the 'India of our dreams'.

Yes, we had an India in our dreams. 'We' meaning the before midnight's children. People like myself engaged with India as adults in the early 50's. So I came to Delhi to work for an organisation which was building cooperatives and then joined the University and there were hundreds of people like myself.

What did we experience?

We experienced, to use a new term that has come into fashion now i.e. a Resurgent India. Across the country there was solidarity in affirming not only our freedom but drawing on our civilizational and economic experience. Gathering the resources that we possessed into a wide range of domains- culture, economic progress, political and social institutions and so on. However on reflection, we have to recognize that we do not have that icon- that North Star that would capture the Quit India Movement and translate it into affirming our freedom. Gandhi. A person or an institution that can engage and respond to the current articulation of the masses/students is needed.

This is a gap which has to be filled now, soon, if we are to give due respect to these brilliant, courageous, informed student communities of India. How to capture the space they have made in what looked like a rock which could not be cracked, and enter through that space into a wholesome democratic and enlightened India as designed and articulated by the Fathers and Mothers of the Constitution and the immediate descendants of that era.

This question requires immediate attention and needs some form of construction if we wish to respect and encourage the students. Otherwise the students protest, courage, fearlessness, and brilliant articulation of what is wrong and what needs to be corrected, can be swept away by a brutal government and by those sections of the society which have not had the experience of enlightenment.

So this enlightenment that came to us as a result of the attempt by the current central government to infiltrate/ corrupt our beautiful democracy needs to be a serious consideration. The 600 intellectuals who signed the letter, the other several hundreds who have come together in various ways to express support - civilians need to find the political platform on which the brilliant students efforts can be mounted.

This is the urgent need of the day. We have no Gandhi now nor do we have a Jayaprakash Narayan, nor can we suddenly bring out an individual as a pole.

It is not enough that many governments now will not be BJP. We can see the tumbling down. It is not enough to think that if the Congress party still appears here and there, when the citizens wish to reject BJP and its allies, it can lead this nation. We have to think of citizens forums, the movements coming together into some form of political formation and then bringing in leadership which is not yet there, but which could be brought out.

A challenging task but what the students have done cannot be allowed to go unrewarded.

Devaki Jain is a reputed development economist

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Quit India Got Students on the Streets as CAA Has Now - The Citizen

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December 29th, 2019 at 8:41 pm

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Fascinating, innovative, collaborative: Top Ten Moments of the Utah Enlightenment for 2019 – The Utah Review

Posted: December 20, 2019 at 6:50 pm


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Since The Utah Review started publishing in 2014, the emphasis on the Utah Enlightenment has dominated the coverage of what is new and original in the arts and culture landscape locally. Utahs natural beauty always has appealed strongly as a branding asset. But, as we have covered the arts and cultural scene, there is no question that when it comes to arts and culture, Utah has many strengths and on a per capita basis, the evidence confirms that the Salt Lake City metropolitan area is punching well above its weight (population) class.

Heading into 2020, several general characteristics can be identified with the Utah Enlightenment:

The Utah Enlightenment also lost a titan this year, when playwright Eric Samuelsen died in September at the age of 63 after a long illness. As The Utah Review noted in a tribute published earlier, he epitomized and clarified how this spiritually abstracted movement of creative expression arising from Utahs unique sense of place and meaning could be defined. Samuelsen did more than create extraordinary plays for the purpose of art for arts sake. His plays elevated the contemporary experience with the sum of its tensions, problems, conflicts, disappointments and crises to an enthralling sensation of healing and empowerment.

The following are the top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment for 2019, as presented in no particular order.

One of the strongest performing arts collaborations of the year occurred last winter with theRirie-Woodbury Dance Company, theFlying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratoryand the Red Fred Project in a work that evoked a vibrant, colorful, innocent, joyful, poignant and glistening landscape. For the Red Fred Projects young authors and their curator Dallas Graham,the live creature and ethereal thingsconcert was like an animated film made full in flesh and character. It heightened the senses evoked in the stories created by their young authors, who have rare diseases and chronic illness and who are mentored by Graham. The young authors creative voices are naturally poetic, full of innocence and vivid imagination. On stage, the six dancers were transformed into the bird characters of the Jolly Troop, joined by Robert Scott Smith, the narrator, who asked the audience if you could tell the world story, what would it be. Smith and Alexandra Harbold from Flying Bobcast guided the theatrical contributions to the production. The transformation was complete with the delightful costumes created by Jared Gold that accentuated dancers pitch-perfect character movement and the musical score by John Paul Hayward. A reenvisioned version of this shimmering world of fantasy and innocence will be presented in Allegory, Ririe-Woodburys winter season concert (Jan. 31-Feb. 1).

Julie Jensen is the most frequently produced playwright from Utah with her work being presented not just in the state but also nationally and internationally. For its season-opening production,Pygmalion Theatre Companypresented JensensTwo-Headed, directed by Fran Pruyn.

Written two decades ago, with previous productions in Utah as well as in other locations including New York City and the U.K., the play opens on the day in 1857 when the Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred. A decade after Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, a wagon train of 127 immigrants from Missouri and Arkansas were slaughtered in southern Utah by Mormon zealots. Seven were spared: all children. The specific reference to time anchors the play, as four decades pass through each scene and the memory of that horrific event is permanently etched in the minds of both characters, Lavinia and Hettie, who are 10 years old at the start of the play.

The production was stellar in every aspect and it communicated the poetic streams of Jensens writing to maximal effect. Most importantly, Haley McCormick Jenkins as Hettie and Brenda Hattingh as Lavinia delivered dynamite performances, particularly in their subtle mannerisms that evolve as they move from the ages of 10 to 50 in 75 minutes.

Plan-B Theatresefforts in inclusion and diversity establish an undeniable position as leader in the artistic community. Two of this years top 10 moments come from this extraordinary small theater company. The first comes from Olivia Custodios short play Drivers License, Please, that premiered last season as part of Of Color, featuring four short works by playwrights of color. A writer with natural comedic gifts, Custodio delivered the productions most audacious, ribald moments, riffing handily off the classically unpleasant experience of renting a car, the setup for a scene as women get justice for the wholly obnoxious behavior of a chauvinist male. Likewise, her short play Bombastic Blue with three characters in an underground shelter after a nuclear bomb attack brought roars of laughter in late August at the 8thannualRose Exposed!show.

The second moment from Plan-B comes from this seasons stupendous world premiereof Camille WashingtonsOda Might. The play, with superb examples of subtle foreshadowing, commanded absolute attention from the audience. The simplest description is that Oda Might is about two black women sitting and chatting at a table in a therapy session at a mental health institution in New York City. But, listen closely. The session starts conventionally enough, reflecting the sensitive, careful research the playwright conducted to fortify the credibility of a superbly crafted narrative. There are subtle ripples throughout the play that shake our expectations about the charactersa brief moment of nonverbal frustration in reaction to a spoken line, eye contact or a raised eyebrow reacting to an unexpected utterance, the growing sense that a puzzle is nearly completed but still missing the most critical piece or two.

WashingtonsOda Mightconfronts and takes command over the consequences of sadly familiar, condescending displays of casually tolerant inclusionary rhetoric and stereotypes that have engendered more negative than positive impact. The characters negotiate the narrative through the frequent intersections of contemporary culture, entrenched racism and black womanhood.

It is important to reiterate a point The Utah Review made earlier this year about Plan-Bs Of Color: For a critic who sees the creation of art, in its broadest terms, as framing difficult questions that pull us out of our comfort zones, creative expression that is fearless in taking risks becomes the most meaningful to consider. In Utah, we put a premium on civility, politeness and gentility that tacitly signals restraint and not just among conservatives but also many others of different sociopolitical stripes.

Likewise, Salt Lake Acting Company (SLAC) has advanced significantly the goal of inclusion and diversity. This season saw the premiere of Charly Evon Simpsons Form of a Girl Unknown, an outstanding work Tapped for a top 10 moment this year is SLACs production Will SnidersDeath of a Driver, with riveting performances by Patrick J. Ssenjovu and Cassandra Stokes-Wylie and directed by Alexandra Harbold.

Ssenjovu, a native Ugandan, was electrifying in his unquestionably credible portrayal of Kennedy. Stokes-Wylie equally was just as authentic in her role. The acting chemistry in this magnificent chamber theater piece was superlative.

Another top 10 moment came with the remarkableSackerson theater companys productionABrief Waltz in a Little Room: 23 Short Plays about Walter Eyer. This play opened in the late summer and continues through December with sold-out performances.

As The Utah Review stated in its review, the play is one of the most incisive renderings of the consequential meanings and impact of a sense of place in Utah. In breaking from practically every standard logistic of theatrical convention,A Brief Waltzpresents the unorthodox opportunity frankly, brilliant beyond expectation to transform what has been destructively judged as and perceived to be a moral failure into an emancipating expression of self.

However, the most extraordinary part of this experience is that each individual is immersed and, in fact, steps into the realm of becoming Walter Eyer, a forty-something Mormon man of familiar circumstances and conventional means but also who is embroiled in his own identity crisis.

The audience, limited to just 10 members for specific reasons that gives the performance its full spectrum of emotional impact, is introduced to Eyer (Robert Scott Smith) at the beginning with a short film projected on a wall in the back of theUrban Arts Galleryof the Utah Arts Alliance atThe Gateway, the shows venue. The audience convenes together in only three brief instances: the opening, the entracte and the conclusion.

Playwrights Morag Shepherd, Matthew Ivan Bennett and Shawn Francis Saunders wrote the 23 scenes. Its a dance that all of us might engage in, at one time or another, particularly when a consequential event or life decision faces us.A Brief Waltzopens a door for each of us to confront the collisions of superficially bright surfaces and dangerous undercurrents in our own lives.

Sackerson excels at innovation. Having secured support from the Utah Division of Arts and Museums and the Salt Lake City Arts Council, the company will hold its inaugural Micro Immersive Theatre/Experience Festival in June.

Age, indeed, is just a number for the Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT). Now in its 54th season, the nations oldest repertory dance company is as revolutionary as ever. RDT and Ririe-Woodbury enjoy international reputations and connections par excellence.

RDTs dance artists has delved quite successfully in the Gaga movement language, a specialty developed prominently by many Israeli-born choreographers. Danielle Agami, an Israeli native who directs theate9 dance companythat she founded in Los Angeles, has adapted the intense physical demands of Gaga movement as an effective story-telling device for dance. Agami returned last season to restage Theatre, a 2016 work.

In its restaged form,Theatresizzled and dazzled, as the dancers relished Agamis new take on the work. As The Utah Review noted in its review: In the intervening three years, one senses how both choreographer and the ensemble have matured to make the latest interaction ever more meaningful and confident. Gaga is not a choreographic style but it reorients the dancers to push themselves to new levels of stamina and physical possibilities all while truly enjoying themselves. Theatrebubbled with clear portrayals of the characters who happen to be RDT dancers. Like Plan-B, RDTs leadership in the mission of inclusion and diversity has been revolutionary.

For a moment it appeared that the Red Desert ensemble, the duo project of clarinetistKatie Porterand composer/percussionistDevin Maxwell, was set to leave Utah for other venues to continue its pioneering efforts in showcasing contemporary music. Porter and Maxwell emphasize how new music actually is accessible and approachable and offers as compelling and enriching a listening experience as any other music. The duo, however, are still in Utah, thanks to an artistic residency at Westminster Colleges school of music.

Last spring, at a concert at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Red Desert presented a glorious jam session featuring the musical village possibilities in Salt Lake City. Porter and Maxwell gathered an assemblage of local musicians gathered for a performance of Terry Rileys In C masterpiece. As previously mentioned in The Utah Review, the work is the global villages first ritual symphonic piece, as described by critic Janet Rotter. This Red Desert performance emanated with that precise spirit.

Salt Lake City has gained a unique reputation for one of Rileys most well-known compositions. In Cis based on a concept with stunningly deceptive simplicity. Each performer works from sheet music with the same set of 53 short musical phrases that range anywhere from a half-beat to 32 beats. As with any traditional musical composition, each performer begins on the first phrase repeating it an undetermined number of times before moving on to the second phrase and so on. The work has been rendered marvelously on a combination of electronically synthesized sounds and tones accompanied by electric and acoustic instruments, especially in a highly esteemed recording by the Salt Lake Electric Ensemble.

The Red Desert performance grounded the works sprawling soundscape with a cavalcade of acoustic touches. More importantly, it underscores the adventurous spirit that highlights Red Deserts educational and performing efforts this season. In the upcoming spring, the duo will premiere works that they have commissioned from various composers.

Last spring, just ahead of the Utah Pride Parade and Festival in downtown Salt Lake City, the inauguralQueer Spectra Arts Festivalwas held. Artists and speakers addressed the impetus and inspirations for the queer creative aesthetic or, as one organizer described, the chicken-or-egg question of which comes first when queer artists create. At a closing performance in the evening, featuring works by local and national artists, it was a good glimpse into the multifaceted nature of the queer aesthetic. The point was clear: there is no one stylistic definition for how queer artists and performers express their desires, presence or empowerment. The boundaries of their visibility can overlap into the larger mainstream or remain exclusive in a niche where perhaps an audience or community might appreciate the outcome more sincerely or genuinely than others.

One of the most memorable examples wasA Politics of Desire, a literary performance by Alborz Ghandehari. He weaved aspects of desire and longing from various dimensions of his personal narrative based in Iranian roots: the revolution 40 years ago that brought about the Islamic Republic, his sexual yearnings, the experience of an immigrant now living in the West, regrouping from a loss of national identity and the pains of war and conflict. Ghandeharis gift was an elegant synthesis, which flowed so seamlessly that one truly could be awed by how within such a terse, concise frame he developed so many rich narrative textures..

Rounding out the list for 2019 Top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment is the Utah Museum of Fine Arts fascinating exhibition titledPower Couples: The Pendant Format in Artthat closed earlier this month. Curated by Leslie Anderson, who now is the director of collections, exhibitions and programs at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, Power Couples featured 60 works representing 36 pairs, including several new acquisitions and a handful of works borrowed from other museums. Many of the works come from the UMFAs existing collections of European, American and regional art and 28 had not been seen since the UMFA reopened two years ago after major renovations were completed.

The concept of pendants for the exhibition was ingenious, as Anderson not only curated it to exemplify the representation of gender roles and social status but also to highlight arts potential intellectual, philosophical and story-telling powers. As mentioned in The Utah Review earlier, Power Couples was a first-class example of how museums can sharpen the relevant connections to contemporary audiences. Andersons innovative approach invites exhibition visitors to a fluid, expansive conversation that dramatically shortens the distance between the past and the present. The pendants inPower Couplesoffer a mirror, allowing us to see the extraordinary history encompassed in this exhibition and connect it to our own complexities and in our own relationships. Anderson curated the exhibition so that contemplating the emotional and spiritual paradoxes, as they are displayed, is less intimidating and more accessible. The historical background and contemporary contexts are clarifying, invigorating and enlightening.

The exhibition underscored a thrilling year for UMFA, including the current showing of four masterpieces on loan from the Smithsonian and Art Bridges collections.

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Fascinating, innovative, collaborative: Top Ten Moments of the Utah Enlightenment for 2019 - The Utah Review

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December 20th, 2019 at 6:50 pm

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Steven Pinker on how to use reason, science, and humanism to fight today’s problems – Quartz

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If youve only been reading news lately, youd be forgiven for thinking that the world is falling apart. News is how adults continue learning about the world we make our home. But news also has a strong bias toward highlighting the problems we are facing, rather than noting the incremental but important progress we continue to make.

Steven Pinker has an antidote in his 2018 book Enlightenment Now. The Harvard professor and prolific author of bestselling books says that reason, science, and humanismideals of the 18th century period called the Enlightenmentcan be used against the forces like populism, nationalism, and militarism that threaten to turn back human progress. The book has become a bestseller and received rave reviews from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

In a conversation with Quartz, Pinker spoke about why he wrote the book, what he would have changed in hindsight, and how to gain a more realistic picture of the world we live in. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Quartz: Enlightenment Now comes after your previous book The Better Angels of Our Nature. What inspired this follow-up?

Pinker: One motive was the realization that the kinds of progress that I had documented in Better Angels, namely the reductions of violence, were part of a larger picture of improvement in the human condition, such as longer lifespan, reduction in poverty, more leisure time, more education, more literacy. The story was not just that life had gotten more peaceful, but also longer, healthier, safer, and richer.

The other motive was that to remind people that there is a system of beliefs and values that is easy to take for granted. Thats not authoritarian populism, religion, or reactionary nostalgia for a golden age, but its the use of knowledge and science to improve human well-being. I call these the values of the enlightenment, just as a term for them.

I am certainly not arguing that we should go back to 18th century thinkers and do exactly what they recommend. I think a lot of people already are committed to these values, but they dont know what to call them. I was trying to articulate a set of values that had been left in the background.

You write in your book that these enlightenment values are under attack. What do you mean?

Note the rise of populism, militarism, and nationalism in many developed countries, including the United States with the election of Donald Trump. There is also a denigration of organizations of international cooperation, like the European Union, the United Nations, and the Paris Climate Accord. Were seeing a neglect of science. From the political right, it is in the form of denial of the evidence for climate change. From a lot of the academic left, there is a tendency to blame science for pollution, racism, and war. Both of which I think are wrong. There is often a denigration of reason, and of using logic and evidence in favor of gut feelings and intuition. For these reasons, a defense of reason, science, and humanism is timely and important.

What can turn the momentum against populism?

There are several forces that will naturally push back. One of them is urbanization. Populism is much more popular in rural regions and the global trend is for people to move to cities. Second is education. People who are more educated tend to be less sympathetic to authoritarian populism and there is a trend for people to get more education. But the most powerful trend is generational turnover. Populism is more popular among the baby boomer generation and the World War II generation than it is among the millennials and generation Z. As the elder generations die off and are replaced by younger generations, there will probably be a movement away from populism.

Enlightenment Now was published about 18 months ago. Has anything since then made you want to change something in the book?

I would not change anything major at this point. It hasnt been out that long. None of the trends have gone into reverse. I might have added some of the negative news that has come out about the environment and on species extinction. I did have a major section on climate change, but since I wrote it, the news has gotten probably a bit worse with more severe warnings on climate change. So I wouldve perhaps altered that.

Bill Gates saysEnlightenment Nowis his favorite book of all time. You have also talked about having a speaking relationship with Gates. How much of an impact did Gates have on the book while you were writing it?

Not directly. I had long recognized that Gates efforts have been a major force for human improvement. According to one estimate, the efforts of his foundation may have saved 100 million lives. But his approach would be an example of how an evidence-based focused attempt to improving human life can succeed.

Back in 2009, I had, almost as a joke, asked readers who is more moral. Mother Theresa, Bill Gates, or Norman Borlaug. This was before Gates had been famous for his philanthropy. Most people still thought of him as just the founder of Microsoft. The fact that almost everyone would say Mother Theresa is the most moral it shows how the human moral sense works. Namely we are impressed by super signs of austerity and self sacrifice. Whereas the amount of actual good that Mother Theresa is far less than what Gates has done through his philanthropic efforts. And both of those are less significant than the achievement of Norman Borlaug, who practically no one has heard of. Borlaug was the father of the Green Revolution. He did win a Nobel Peace Prize. He is credited with saving one billion lives but no one has even heard of him.

Why are you optimistic about the future?

The word optimism does not appear in the subtitle of the book. The argument that progress has taken place is not an argument for optimism. Its an argument for basing ones understanding of the world on trends and data rather than on headlines and stories. The rate of extreme poverty has declined by 75% in the last 30 years or the rate of death in war has fallen by a factor 20 since the early 1950s its not a question of optimism. Its a question of being aware of facts that most people are unaware of.

Its not optimism to know that fact, its being knowledgeable. The argument that I make in the book is that progress has taken place. It can be measured. Most people are ignorant of it because if you understand the world through news rather than through data, news gathers all of the worst things that are happening anywhere in the world on any given day and presents them to readers. And therefore provides a highly biased picture of the world.

The many positive developments consist of nothing happening, like a country that is not at war or a city that has not been attacked by terrorists. And many positive developments consist of gradual changes, such as a continuous but gradual reduction in extreme poverty. They never make the news, theyre not headlines.

There is an opening for optimism in the sense that since we have solved problems in the past, it reminds us that its possible to solve problems in the present. So it can encourage some degree of optimism, but what will happen in the future depends entirely on what we do now. And that depends on strengthening the values of what I call the Enlightenment, namely reason, science, and humanism.

How could journalism change to provide a fuller picture of the world?

All of news should borrow some of the practices used by those covering sports, business, and weather. All of which report quantitative indicators of the world. Not just things going wrong. So in the business section, if the stock market goes up, its reported. If the stock market goes down, its reported. If the stock market stays the same, its reported. Same with sports. The sports section doesnt just report when the team loses. They report whatever the team does and reports the standings of the whole league every single day.

There should be far more coverage in the news of weekly or annual indicators of data such as the rate of violent crime, rate of death in war, carbon emissions, literacy, school achievement scores. And then I think that it should be a part of the practice of journalism that any report of an incident that has some chance of affecting peoples impression of which way the country is going, be accompanied by a short summary of which way the trend has gone.

So if there is a plane crash, it should be accompanied by statistics on how dangerous plane travel is and whether its gotten safer or more dangerous. Likewise if there is a school shooting, it should be in the context of how many people are killed in school shootings versus other types of murder that dont get as much attention but they kill far more people. And for that matter, whether the trend has been going up or down. Better still, if its accompanied by an actual graph. Now of course, not every story can be accompanied by a graph, but if people were presented with graphs, say in the week in review section, theyd have a better understanding of the world than if they simply had isolated stories. Which is the current practice of journalism.

There is an opinion among many journalists that the responsibility in journalism is to report what goes wrong. That what goes right is corporate public relations, its government propaganda, its feel-good stories. This in particular would be easier to counter because it really is a philosophy, an attitude, a mindset. Just knowing the corrosive effects of negativity in journalism might encourage journalists to realize that reporting positive developments can be a progressive move.

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Steven Pinker on how to use reason, science, and humanism to fight today's problems - Quartz

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December 20th, 2019 at 6:50 pm

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The Path to Enlightenment with Trevor Hall | Review December 17, 2019 North Metro Diversions North Metro Diversions – Yellow Scene

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All images by Chris DeCicco for Yellow Scene Magazine

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What is the path to enlightenment?

Trevor Hall asked this question of his guru and shared the story at his Nov. 29th 2019 Boulder Theater concert. The path to enlightenment is through feeding and serving the people, says the guru. Thus the seed was planted and the vision started. Figuring out how to feed the people has been incubating since that conversation. The plan finally came together with the help of friends and the folks at Conscious Alliance, the non-profit that works with artists and festivals to collect food at concerts and distribute them to the needy.

Trevor and friends came together for the first of what he hopes are many such events like the Conscious Alliance community meal at the Sacred Heart Church in Boulder. The team over at Arcana, including chef Samuel McCandless, put together a simple meal to warm the hearts of fans and the unhoused alike. Trevor mingled with everyone taking selfies and being the humble dude that he is.

Friday nights concert kicked off with an opening by his close friends, originally from Hawaii, Amber Lily and Tubby Love. Their sweet mix of reggae island vibes and message of unifying the people and being a catalyst for change was well received by the Boulder faithful. They are now based here in Boulder along with Trevor, injecting a welcome infusion of conscious music to the local scene.

Trevor came out barefoot and excited to play in front of his hometown and started off with a slow building beat that reached its peak just as the crowd did. His voice is like butter and his songs are straight from the heart. For those not familiar with his music, many of the songs have a mantra based chorus that is intentionally repetitive to help everyone connect with that highest part within all of us. When you sing along and let the words flow it can put you into an ecstatic state of oneness, if you let it. Trevor invites you to take a journey into your spiritual life along with him and find internal peace.

It was Trevors birthday the day before and his Dad was in the house. He was introduced and brought up to play drums with the band. Just seeing the bond between the two of them and the joy they shared on stage was worth going for. They played a couple of Blues based jams to the surprise and delight of the audience.

What touched me the most was Trevor sharing about his ongoing struggles with depression and anxiety. He joked with us and through his own vulnerability was able to help normalize the ups and downs we all go through. It made me think about all the rock stars and famous people who we have lost way too early to similar illnesses masked by addiction and the idea that we are all supposed to be happy on the outside and hide our pain. The real change comes from sharing your inner world with others and Trevor did that beautifully.

Trevor then brought out Tubby Love and Amber Lily to accompany him on a few more songs and their island connection and affection for each other made the song, O haleakala that much more potent. We heard some of Trevors biggest hits, including The Lime Tree, The Mountain, Green Mountain State, and some brand new tunes like Storm Clouds. The band is tight and each player brought their best, especially on the encore where we got to hear the individual magic of the musicians. The lead guitarist brought a fiery end to the show with a bluesy electric trippy sound that everyone seemed to love.

Trevor will be back at Red Rocks on May 1, 2020, with Citizen Cope and Rising Appalachia after a sell out show earlier this year. Hopefully they will be able to team up with Conscious Alliance again to bring the feeding people theme by serving up another community meal. Dont forget to bring canned food and non-perishables to donate.

All images by Chris DeCicco for Yellow Scene Magazine

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The Path to Enlightenment with Trevor Hall | Review December 17, 2019 North Metro Diversions North Metro Diversions - Yellow Scene

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December 20th, 2019 at 6:50 pm

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Fuel the Fight for Reason, Individualism and Freedom – New Ideal

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In the Ayn Rand Institutes 2019 annual report, Onkar Ghate explains how ARI is uniquely positioned to succeed in the worldwide battle for individual freedom. Alone among pro-freedom institutions, Ghate observes, ARI understands that philosophy determines long-term trends in any culture. Thats why the Institutes activities, including New Ideal, are aimed at making a difference in the long game, by injecting the right philosophic ideals reason, individualism, capitalism into our civilizations lifeblood. Join us. You can support our work by becoming an ARI Member.

When the Ayn Rand Institute was established in 1985, its founders understood they were playing the long game. ARIs founding documents quote Rand herself: The present state of the world is not the proof of philosophys impotence, but the proof of philosophys power. It is philosophy that has brought men to this state [of cultural bankruptcy] it is only philosophy that can lead them out. (For the New Intellectual, 1961)

ARI is the only institution fighting for freedom in the world today that understands this fundamental truth.

To the extent the world has moved forward since the 18th century, it has done so by implementing, however imperfectly, the ideals of the Enlightenment: reason, science, individualism and a government limited by the principle of individual rights. To the extent the world has stagnated or retrogressed, it has done so because of the ascendency of opposite philosophic ideas: mysticism, dialectical logic and other pseudo-scientific approaches, collectivism/tribalism, and unlimited government given the power to sacrifice the property and lives of individuals, when doing so is said to be in the public interest.

Rand viewed her new philosophy, Objectivism, as putting the Enlightenments ideals for the first time on a fully rational, fully defensible foundation.

Rand viewed her new philosophy, Objectivism, as putting the Enlightenments ideals for the first time on a fully rational, fully defensible foundation.

ARI exists to inject that philosophy into the lifeblood of civilization. The Institutes progress, accordingly, is not measured in days, but in decades. Perhaps the clearest sign of progress is that Rands ideas are following a trajectory similar to what J.B.S. Haldane outlined for the acceptance of radical ideas: first the idea is dismissed as worthless nonsense; then it is regarded as an interesting but perverse point of view; then it is regarded as true but unimportant; then it is said to have been everyones viewpoint all along. Arguably, we have moved into the second stage, as evidenced by the growing worldwide interest in Rands ideas, by how often her ideas are mentioned in the media and in ideological discussions, and by the growing difficulty of simply dismissing her ideas as nonsense.

This change over the last thirty-plus years is in large part due to ARIs activities: our essay contests, books to teachers program, educational talks, conferences and courses, media appearances, and published essays and books. We are trying to change peoples fundamental convictions and to normalize discussion of Rands radical ideas.

Our focus on the long-range dissemination of philosophic ideas does not mean there are no shorter-term successes. But it does mean that these successes are created through the impact we have on other individuals and organizations. For instance, one of ARIs long-standing, vital activities is educating individuals about Rands ideas and their application. Many of these individuals go on to do impactful work. We have helped train individuals who are now teaching and publishing at universities, are involved with legal think tanks like the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Institute for Justice, and the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, and have founded organizations like the Center for Industrial Progress and Higher Ground Education. We need thousands more individuals like these who are knowledgeable about Rands ideas and are working to apply them to forge a new culture.

Its an exciting journey, in which I hope you join us. If you already have, thank you for your support.

Become a member of the Ayn Rand Institute, starting at $10 per month, by December 31, and receive an invitation to an exclusive online Q&A session with New Ideal writers.

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Fuel the Fight for Reason, Individualism and Freedom - New Ideal

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December 20th, 2019 at 6:50 pm

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Could Americas Founders Have Imagined This? – The New Republic

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday invoked the nations birth in defending her decision to delay sending impeachment articles to the Senate. Our Founders, when they wrote the Constitution, they suspected that there could be a rogue president, she said. I dont think they suspected that we could have a rogue president and a rogue leader in the Senate at the same time.

The accuracy of that observation depends on how one defines the Founders. The Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution certainly predicted that the new Constitution would encourage the sort of corrupt behavior of which President Trump is guilty. But the Anti-Federalists were the losers, not the winners, in the struggle over the Constitution. The Federalist victors likely would have agreed with Pelosi.

The Federalist framers of the Constitution understood that it was vital to endow the new government they created with broad powers, but they recognized that this grant itself posed great danger. It was for precisely this reason that the Constitution was built on a system of check and balances. By creating coequal branches of government, the Framers hoped that ambition would be made to counter-act ambition.

These words, quoted by Pelosis colleague Congressmen Adam Schiff, point to the Founding generations Enlightenment faith in the human capacity for rational self-interest. Each of the three coequal parts of our government, the Founders believed, would seek to preserve its powers and authority, and the new Constitution thus would offer a means of checking the designs of demagogues and the sycophants and rogues who followed their lead.

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Could Americas Founders Have Imagined This? - The New Republic

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December 20th, 2019 at 6:50 pm

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LGBTQ non-discrimination protection legislation in W.Va. another step closer – WHSV

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ)

Sexual orientation is getting closer to becoming a protected class in West Virginia.

Senate President Mitch Carmichael hosted a hearing on Thursday to get input from religious and business leaders about the Fairness Act. It's a proposed law that would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.

It is currently legal in West Virginia to fire someone from their job or evict them from their home because of their sexual orientation. Race, religion, gender, age and national origin are currently protected in the state, but not sexual orientation.

"Whenever we see an employee that does everything right, but it happens to be discovered that they are gay, and they can be fired for that with no ramifications, that's simply wrong and West Virginians can't stand for that," Charleston business owner Chris Walters said.

There are currently 12 communities across West Virginia that have protections that would be expanded to the entire state under the Fairness Act. Supporters said the policy would help boost business.

"Unfortunately, our talented youth are moving out of state," Walters said. "I have more friends that I went to college with that are not in West Virginia than are still in West Virginia."

"I want to see them come back here," Walters continued. "I want to do everything we can to make them feel welcome."

Opponents of the law said it could open businesses up to more lawsuits and create more problems than it solves.

"I would argue that it would put undue pressure on business owners," said Pastor Jonathan Pinson with Grace Baptist Church. "I do not believe that this type of legislation is going to help West Virginia. I believe that if we were going to look at the vast majority of West Virginians, they are concerned about their religious liberty, and that liberty being infringed upon."

Religious leaders also questioned how someone could prove or enforce their sexuality in a complaint.

Carmichael has not committed to supporting the bill but has said he will not block it from coming up for a vote in the upcoming legislative session. The session begins on Jan. 8, 2020.

ORIGINAL STORY 12/3/19

A meeting Tuesday at the West Virginia Capitol is bringing together leaders from both sides of the political aisle in a push for comprehensive LGBTQ non-discrimination protections.

Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson County, described the roundtable as very informative, although he would not commit to bringing the Fairness Act up for a vote in the Senate.

"This may not be the right bill, this may not be the right time, it may not be in the perfect structure and we need to find that out," Carmichael said. "When you move a society forward, you have to bring everyone along, and we are trying to do that in the best way possible. These are incredibly difficult issues that need education, enlightenment and understanding."

Forty-four politicians across the West Virginia House and Senate have backed the Fairness Act. A version of this legislation has been introduced for multiple years, but leaders say its finally gaining traction.

"The votes are there, it's just a matter of making leadership comfortable," Fairness West Virginia Executive director Andrew Schneider said. "Like the Senate president said, we will go through a process where we talk about the language of the bill, and see if we can find language that will make the most number of people comfortable."

Currently in West Virginia, someone can be fired from their job and denied housing or public benefits based on their sexual orientation.

"At a minimum we need to be able to provide employment and housing protections," transgender activist Danielle Stewart said. "Public accommodations, especially for transgender individuals is an issue, and I won't deny that, but really the employment and the housing is what holds the LGBTQ community back.

State leaders say about 60 percent of West Virginians support this type of legislation. Twenty other states have passed comprehensive legislation like the Fairness Act, as theres no federal protections against this type of discrimination.

The U.S. Supreme Court has heard three cases on LGBTQ employment discrimination issues and rulings are expected in early 2020. That could create the first federal protections on these issues.

Opponents of the Fairness Act say it opens businesses up to frivolous lawsuits for discrimination, Carmichael said. That issue is one of the reasons similar bills have been brought up in recent years but have not been passed through the Senate.

There are currently 12 towns throughout West Virginia with non-discrimination ordinances. That includes Charleston which passed the first ordinance of its type in the state 12 years ago. Only two lawsuits have been filed under these ordinances and both plaintiffs won their case, Schneider said.

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LGBTQ non-discrimination protection legislation in W.Va. another step closer - WHSV

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December 20th, 2019 at 6:50 pm

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Temple of the Feminine Divine’s annual Yule Craft Bazaar – Bangor Daily News

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Event organizer: Temple of the Feminine Divine

Event Date & Time: December 21, 2019 3:00 pm until December 21, 2019 7:00 pm

Temple of the Feminine Divine | Contributed

BANGOR Join the Temple of the Feminine Divine for a Winter Solstice Pop-Up mini-craft fair! This 4-hour event will be jam-packed with local makers (no direct sales vendors) and magical items certain to delight even the most unique and crafty people on your holiday shopping list. We have lots of fun surprises and activities in store!

Vendors include: Sacred Products of Light,Wildly Inspired Soul Enlightenment, Jess Wade Arts, Made by Mudgi, Naissance Farm, Enby Embroideries, Switzers Jewelry and Sew Crafty Maine, Adventure Awaits, Oh My Goddess by Louise Shorette, and delicious chocolate goods by Hazel Littlefield.

This event will take place at theUnitarian Universalist Society of Bangor at 120 Park St. The public Yule Ritual will follow the Craft Bazaar, starting at 7:15 p.m.

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Temple of the Feminine Divine's annual Yule Craft Bazaar - Bangor Daily News

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