The Blog

Jill Andresevic: 'Love, Etc.' Director Opens Up About Love, New York City And Finding Inspiration

2012-02-11T17:17:52Z

Tune in to "Super Soul Sunday" this Sunday, Feb. 12 at 11 a.m. ET/PT on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network to see "Love Etc."

I made the film "Love Etc." because Jonathan Tisch (my executive producer) inspired me with his vision of New York City and Love. My producing Jeffrey Stewart and I put his idea on paper and gave it form, and that is how "Love Etc." came into being.

I was also inspired to make this movie because I am in love with New York City. Unlike any other place I have ever lived in, New York is where I feel most at home. It was the perfect city to "cast" the film, with the visual backdrop of five boroughs, 300 square miles, and 8 million people. If a filmmaker was ever going to examine love "in a Petri dish" so to speak, I cannot imagine a better city to do this in.

I love getting lost in the "everything" of the city, there is always so much to do, so many new places, ideas, and people to absorb. It is the most interesting city in the world to me. I love melting into the anonymity of strangers packed like sardines on a train as I listen to my favorite playlist of the day (my own personal soundtrack to the city). The images I see everyday on the subway always influence me as a filmmaker. In this city, I could shoot a thousand images a day and never get bored.

It was fascinating to document the personal and intimate journeys of the five real life stories that I followed for over a year. The close proximity that my subjects allowed me and my crew to have with them, opened a window into worlds I may never have known, and in turn my subjects changed me; perhaps without even knowing it, they shifted something in me at my core. I realized through the process of making the film how much more important life and love are than work. Not to say work is not important, but human connection and connectivity is the ultimate "gold ring," and without that, nothing else has the same content, weight, or meaning in life. This thought reminds me of one of my favorite quotes "we do not remember days... we remember moments." - Cesare Pavese

I was recently asked what inspires me to do my work. I am inspired to make films because I love story. I also happen to love images and the process it takes to capture them, create context and meaning through casting, editorial, shot selection, music choices and the overall design process of creating a film.

In work, I am the happiest when I am on set. Time disappears and at the end of a good shoot day, even though I am exhausted, I feel elated, so full of life from the camaraderie of the crew, and from the creative process of "making something."

There is something magical about starting with a blank piece of paper and ending up with a film, whether it is five minutes or 90 minutes. For me there is nothing better than that when it comes to having a "job" and doing work.

Making the film "Love Etc." was one of the most transformative things I have ever done. I am happy I had the opportunity to document the lives of these five real stories over the course of a year. I hope the film inspires the audience to remember something they may have forgotten about love and relationships. Making the film certainly did that for me.

For more on conscious relationships, click here.

For more programming to nourish your mind, body and spirit tune in to OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network's new "Super Soul Sunday," airing Sundays at 11 a.m. ET/PT and please visit www.oprah.com/supersoulsunday.

Marian Wright Edelman: Still Hungry in America

2012-02-10T23:55:19Z

“There were some times where, you know, we wouldn't have that much food, and I would tell my mom, ‘I'm not hungry, don't worry about it,’ and I lost a lot of weight. I remember I used to be a size five, and I went from a size five to a size zero,” a New York high school senior said in December.

In 1967, as a young civil rights lawyer in Mississippi, I was asked to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty in Washington about how the anti-poverty program in Mississippi was working. The Head Start program was under attack by the powerful Mississippi segregationist delegation because it was operated by church, civil rights, and Black community groups after the state turned it down. After defending the Head Start program, I told the committee I had become increasingly concerned about the growing hunger in the Mississippi Delta. The convergence of efforts to register Black citizens to vote, Black parents’ challenges to segregated schools, the development of chemical weed killers and farm mechanization, and recent passage of a minimum wage law covering agriculture workers on large farms had resulted in many Black sharecroppers being pushed off their near feudal plantations which no longer needed their cheap labor. Many displaced sharecroppers were illiterate and had no skills. Free federal food commodities like cheese, powdered milk, flour, and peanut butter were all that stood between them and starvation. I invited the Senators to come to Mississippi and hear directly from local people about the positive impact the anti-poverty program was making. They did.

I testified again with local community leaders in their subsequent hearing in Jackson -- again sharing the desperate plight of hungry people and urged the Senators to visit the Mississippi Delta with me to experience for themselves the hungry poor in our very rich nation, to visit the shacks and look into the deadened eyes of hungry children with bloated bellies -- a level of hunger many people did not believe could exist in America. “They are starving and someone has to help them,” I said.

Senator Robert Kennedy responded as did Senator Joseph Clark and Republican Senator George Murphy. So in April 1967 they visited homes in Cleveland, Mississippi, asking respectfully of each dweller what they had had for breakfast, lunch, or dinner the night before. Robert Kennedy opened their empty ice boxes and cupboards after asking permission. I watched him hover, visibly moved, on a dirt floor in a dirty dark shack out of television-camera range over a listless baby with bloated belly from whom he tried in vain to get a response. He lightly touched the cheeks, shoulders, and hands of the children clad in ragged clothes outside who responded to his question “What did you have for breakfast?” saying “We haven’t had breakfast yet,” although it was nearly noon. And he tried to offer words of encouragement to their hopeless mothers.

He kept his word to try to help Mississippi's hungry children and went immediately to see Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman the next day and urged him to get some food down there and to eliminate any charges for food stamps for people who had no income. Robert Kennedy's pushing, passion, and visibility helped set in motion a chain of events including a 60 Minutes documentary on “Hunger in America” that led to reforms. But change was slow and incremental. Secretary Freeman did not believe there were people in Mississippi with no income who could not afford to pay $2 for food stamps and sent his own staff back with Peter Edelman, Robert Kennedy’s legislative assistant, to retrace the Senators’ trip. A series of reports in ensuing months funded by the Field Foundation and visits by doctors, including Robert Coles, to examine poor children in Mississippi and other southern states documented that hunger was widespread not just in Mississippi but throughout the south and elsewhere in America.

But as more months passed without enough federal response, I complained in frustration during a visit with Senator Kennedy in Washington. When I told him I was stopping in Atlanta to see Dr. King, he urged me to tell Dr. King to bring the poor people to Washington to make hunger and poverty visible since the country’s attention had turned to the Vietnam War and put poverty and hunger on the back burner. Dr. King responded positively and immediately, and began planning for the campaign. After Dr. King’s assassination, the Poor People’s Campaign was carried on by his staff and I moved to Washington to help as Counsel and federal policy liaison. It was a watershed coming together of White, Black, Native American, and Latino poor seeking jobs and adequate income and an end to hunger.

Many have pronounced it a failure, but I differ and believe it made hunger a national issue and set into motion a number of positive steps that led to major expansions of the federal food safety net programs so many depend on today. After Robert Kennedy’s assassination, the bipartisan McGovern committee continued hearings around the country, a range of hunger activists kept pushing the Nixon administration and Congress to improve the nutrition safety net, and President Nixon appointed a task force headed by Pat Moynihan, his Domestic Policy Advisor, which affirmed hunger was a major problem. President Nixon gave a speech saying hunger had no place in our rich land. A prod towards these steps was a second quiet Poor People’s Campaign delegation, which came to Washington in 1969 and met with President Nixon and his Cabinet in the White House. In that meeting, Rev. Ralph Abernathy and other leaders urged action to end hunger and President Nixon kept responding by saying he was seeking peace in Vietnam. A contentious press conference followed and a series of Congressional visits criticizing the President’s weak response helped catalyze a series of steps including a White House conference on nutrition and incremental expansions of child and family nutrition programs that made a huge difference for millions until they came under attack from Reagan administration budget assaults and attempts to eliminate a range of federal safety net programs.

Today, crucial programs like food stamps, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program, and school lunch, breakfast and summer feeding programs continue working to combat child and family hunger. Their implementation could be significantly improved but in the current recession, they have proved to be indispensable lifelines for the millions of jobless families with no cash income in our rich nation -- about six million or 1 in 50 Americans, the New York Times reported in 2010 -- for whom food stamps are the only defense against the wolves of hunger. Last year more Americans relied on food stamps to eat than at any time since the program began in 1939 -- 46 million. Yet once again some voices are starting to wonder whether we really need robust anti-hunger programs in America, and whether there are really so many children out there who might otherwise go hungry. A recent skeptical Wall Street Journal article was titled “The Myth of Starving Americans.”

The safety net has indeed made it harder to find starving children with bloated bellies like those Senator Kennedy met in Mississippi in 1967 -- thank God. But the quiet pangs of hunger and the documented signs of chronic malnutrition are still here, from rural Mississippi to inner cities to middle class suburbs where families have fallen on hard times. Hungry boys and girls are not imaginary figures like the fictional Dick and Jane but very real children like Jane Soliternik, a New York City high school senior and the recent recipient of a Children’s Defense Fund’s Beat the Odds® scholarship award. Jane has overcome many odds in her young life, including cardiac surgery, her father’s death, and poverty -- especially after her widowed mother was laid off from her job as a medical assistant during the Great Recession and couldn’t find another job for more than two years. When unemployment benefits were exhausted, Jane and her mother lived on the Social Security payments Jane received following the death of her father. Jane was already facing multiple challenges, and then hunger was added to the list: “There were some times where, you know, we wouldn't have that much food, and I would tell my mom, ‘I'm not hungry, don't worry about it,’ and I lost a lot of weight. I remember I used to be a size five, and I went from a size five to a size zero. So, you know, I try to not eat too much. I try to eat in school. They give me free lunch in school.”

This makes Jane just 1 of 14 million children who participate in free or reduced price school lunch programs during the year and are often “at nutritional risk” and go hungry when those meals aren’t provided. Without this vital safety net, we might return to the scenes Senator Kennedy witnessed. Hunger in America is real and widespread and pretending hungry children do not exist or that families should be ashamed of their needs is shameful. Unemployed parents unable to find a job when jobs are scarce should not be blamed for their inability to put food on the table. Robert Kennedy always understood that in addressing the hunger emergency the real culprit was poverty, and lack of jobs, wages, training, and education to provide hope for restless youths trapped into failure and jail rather than given opportunities. The same is true now. Until we solve that crisis, we will still have jobless parents, poor families, and hungry children in America. For now, when more than 16 million American children, one of every four children, are not sure where the next meal will come from, we have urgent work to do.

The Food Research and Action Council (FRAC) did release one small piece of good news in January: a new poll showing American voters overwhelmingly oppose cutting food stamp assistance as a way to reduce government spending. “What this poll tells us is that, despite rhetoric and false claims about the program, Americans across the country see food stamps as a program that works and that is making a real difference for people,” said FRAC President Jim Weill. “American voters won’t tolerate hunger in our midst, and across party lines they support this valuable program.” You and I need to make sure our leaders hear this message loudly and clearly.

Rob Perks: House Transportation Bill Would Worsen Traffic

2012-02-10T22:12:52Z

House Republicans have an opportunity to pass transportation legislation that would help create new jobs, fix our roads and bridges, and improve our commutes. What have they decided to do instead? Load up their version of a transportation bill (HR. 7) with an ideological wish list that will prevent Congress from passing a measure that could provide real transportation improvements.

Unfortunately, House Republican leaders are doing exactly what they promised they wouldn’t do. In their “Pledge to America,” after taking control of the House of Representatives, the GOP promised it would not package unpopular legislation with must-pass bills. They promised they would take up major legislation one piece at a time, and not sneak in politically motivated provisions. They’ve done the exact opposite with the transportation bill.

Among many reasons, NRDC strongly opposes the legislation because it is a blatant bait-and-switch to boost drilling off our shores and even in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But another big problem with this partisan "poison pill" bill is that it essentially declares war on public transportation.

Everyone should be alarmed that the House transportation bill threatens to derail dedicated funding for mass transit throughout the United States. Currently, roughly 3 cents of every 18 cents collected from the federal tax on a gallon of gasoline goes to fund light rail, subways and buses in cities and towns all across the country. Since President Reagan created this cost-share arrangement in 1982, approximately $1 out of every $5 in federal funding has gone to transit, with the rest spent on highways. House Republicans are now seeking to undo the Reagan legacy by restricting gas tax revenues to highways and leaving transit projects to compete for shrinking general funds.

Less Transit, More Traffic

Make no mistake: It is a really bad idea to slash transit funding, not just for riders who rely on that system but for drivers too. After all, less money for transit means fewer alternatives to travel than by car. So the House bill perversely promotes congestion on our roads and highways. Washington Post political satirist Tom Toles captured this problem perfectly in his cartoon today.

In her blog "Seven Fatal Flaws in the House Highway Bill," Donna Cooper noted increased congestion as a big problem:

Increased access to affordable and reliable mass transit is a certain way to deal with congestion. Millions of Americans already spend the equivalent of a week of work or more a year sitting in traffic.[1] Frustration with gridlock is a raging bipartisan complaint. The late Paul Weyrich, a central player in the forming of the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council, said in 2009, “Conservatives are just as tired as everybody else of sitting stuck in traffic.”[2]

Yet this bill terminates the Reagan legacy of using a small portion of gas tax revenues to pay for mass transit. To assuage the pro-transit outrage, the bill cynically establishes a separate four-year fund for transit improvements. But that measure has been widely attacked by business leaders, mayors, and others who looked behind the curtain and found out that the special transit fund is far too small and worse yet dependent on imaginary annual appropriations of federal general-fund dollars. It’s a farce to think that general-fund dollars will be allocated for transit when the federal deficit is the Republicans’ favorite cudgel.

The inevitable result of this bill will be more Americans stuck in their cars, higher cost for American businesses that will pay truckers even more to sit in traffic, and higher fares for transit- and rail-reliant commuters.

A book I read recently -- Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation -- reinforces why transit is a non-partisan solution, not a partisan problem:

If transit suddenly ceased operating in any large American city, commuting would become almost impossible. Rush-hour traffic is already horrendous, to the point where in places like Los Angeles and Washington...the rush hour itself has become rush many-hours, even "permanent rush hour." In urban areas, there isn't any place to put more higways...If all the people now on trains, subways, light rail lines and buses suddenly joined the rush-hour drive, getting to work might take as much time as the job itself.

Consider this: every rail car has the potential to remove up to 125 passengers from our roadways (and every bus full of passengers removes 40 cars from traffic). Therefore, the more people who have access to trains -- as well as buses, carpool lanes, bike baths and walkable communities -- the less they have to hit the roads in their cars to get where they want to go. But aside from traffic reduction, there are several other societal benefits of transit:

More transit means more jobs: Spending on transit makes economic sense because every $1 invested in public transportation generates approximately $6 in economic returns. In fact, over 300,000 jobs and $30.8 billion in economic activity is supported through transportation spending in the recent congressional appropriations bill -- including some 6,200 jobs in Virginia.
More transit makes us more secure: Giving people the freedom to travel other than by automobile is good for national security because less driving helps lessen America's dependence on oil. On average each person riding transit rather than driving alone in a car saves 200 gallons of gasoline a year. It's worth noting that the House bill, by boosting oil drilling, would only feed our nation's fossil fuel addiction.
More transit means less pollution: Simply put, reducing the distance and frequency people may be forced to drive reduces dirty, harmful, unhealthy tailpipe exhaust that pollutes the air and cook the planet. Federally mandated vehicle-pollution controls help, but more cars on the road idling on congested roadways will drive up pollution and make it harder for all us to breath clean air.

NRDC is joined by environmental advocates, transportation experts, fiscal conservatives and even right-wing think tanks in calling on Congress to kill this bill for a variety of reasons. The threat to federal transit funding is a major concern of NRDC and many others who are fighting the bill. Feel free to visit our website to learn more about the bill and to take action. You can also make your voice heard by dialing 1-877-573-7693 and urging your representative to vote NO on HR.7.

This post was first published on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Brooklyn Flea: Who's on First? The Flea vs. Fashion Week's Runway

2012-02-10T22:00:49Z

By Marion Hart

The schedule for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which began yesterday and runs through Feb. 16, is jampacked with runway shows, parties, and events. But given Catherine Malandrino's recent Flea visit (not to mention Maggie Gyllenhaal, Padma Lakshmi, Ethan Hawke, and Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend making the rounds), don't be surprised if a few fashionistas steal away this weekend to see what's showing at Skylight One Hanson. And those who do will probably like what they see since many of the vintage looks offered at the Flea last weekend looked remarkably similar to those shown on the Spring 2012 Fashion Week runways last fall.

Peplums, which flounced down the catwalks of Jason Wu and Vera Wang among others, are in stock -- both from the '80s, when Thierry Mugler worked them into suits and dresses, and in their 1940s incarnations as the hip-grazing ruffled appendage to many a fitted jacket. And since it's hard to have one without the other, Flea vendors also brought to market the pencil skirts -- done up in leather by Versace and Miuccia Prada for their spring shows -- that usually go underneath.

Mad Men, which returns for its fifth season March 25, put the pencil skirt back on Flea shoppers' radar a few years ago, and vendors always keep a few in stock, mainly around Halloween when the search for Betty Draper costumes heats up. But since then, interest in the hip- and thigh-hugging skirt has grown. And that raises an interesting question: How does a vintage staple cross over from dress-up item onto store racks and onto people's backs?

Pop-culture phenoms help. But thanks also goes to designers who look to the past and markets like the Flea where flourishes like the peplum -- which had an earlier heyday in the 1800s as the topper for the bustle -- live to see another runway. It takes real vision to endow an old standard, like, say, a '50s cashmere sweater with have-to-have relevance for a new season. Valentino's Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli pulled that off beautifully by reimagining dowry lace as cotton canvas in some of their spring 2012 looks.

But as my grandmother, whose silk dressing gown I still wear, used to say, "Don't gild the lily" -- a caution I recalled upon noting the parallels between spring 2012 runway trends and what's on sale at the Flea now. The good news: vintage lovers wondering what to wear in the upcoming warmer months have a ton of choice: Shop the designer collections that reference the past or go for the real thing that inspired them. May the best dress win!

Alan Brown: The Courage of Private Romeo

2012-02-10T21:46:00Z

My new film, Private Romeo, which opens today in New York, is a contemporary, all-male adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, retaining Shakespeare's original Elizabethan language, but set in a high school military academy.

We cast the film in the late spring of 2010, and shot it that summer, when the battle over repealing DADT, the military's ban on gays serving openly, was still raging, and when mainstream media coverage of the "epidemic" of gay bullying in schools and teen suicides was at its peak.

Filmmaking (particularly of the low-budget, indie variety) is always an emotionally roiling experience. For a brief time, a "family" is formed. Fiction and reality collide and overlap, as do actors and their roles. And by the time I'm in the editing room, a leitmotif -- not for the film, but for the making of it -- always becomes apparent. On Private Romeo, that leitmotif would be "courage."

It's not for nothing that Shakespeare refers to his own drama as the story "of Juliet and her Romeo." Romeo, from my perspective, was just a moody, horny, and impulsive teenage boy who behaved as teenage boys have since the beginning of time. Juliet may have been just as self-absorbed and rash, but she can take your breath away, with all the risks she took. To defy her father's marriage wishes, and to sneak Romeo into her father's house for sex, was unfathomably courageous for a girl in that society.

Making a low-budget, indie film also takes courage -- for all involved. It's physically and mentally exhausting, and the pay is low to nonexistent. In the case of Private Romeo, I also was asking eight young, male actors to commit emotionally to exploring gay identity and sexual love onscreen at a formative time in all their professional careers. Yet, from the moment my cast came together for rehearsals, I was touched by the courage of their convictions.

All in their 20s, a few just out of school, their sexual politics seemed completely divorced from their individual sexual identities, and career aspirations. As their director, I could speak with them at length about their characters' motivations and objectives, and how to adapt the contemporary circumstances to Shakespeare's language. But as a gay man a generation removed from theirs, I couldn't teach them how to inhabit teenage characters that had the courage to act on their sexual and romantic convictions. Nor how to play the friends of those characters who were less (or not at all) bothered by the "coming out" of their cadet friends than by how this unexpected revelation and romance affected the group.

I didn't have to. Straight and gay, and from very diverse geographic, economic, and religious backgrounds, they all saw gay civil rights and full equality as a no-brainer. I was constantly moved by their physical ease with one another, both onscreen and off, and their own insistence that we tell "our" story -- of two young military cadets in love -- in a responsible manner. They instinctively understood that as actors, they had a powerful opportunity to make a difference, to have an impact, through their work. And they almost desperately wanted to seize that opportunity.

My friend John and I have been meeting for lunch regularly for decades now. John is a composer in his mid-80s, so our conversations are frequently about politics and art, and, sometimes, about our unique responsibility and opportunity as artists. "Tend to your own garden first" is always his advice when we're both feeling particularly politically impotent. What he means is that we, as artists, do effect change.

In the midst of this Republic primary season, with candidates once again trying to turn gay civil rights into a cultural wedge issue, and flinging around hurtful, vitriolic rhetoric, I am once again conscious of tending to my garden.

The unquestioning courage of my actors -- and of a lot of young artists I encounter in New York -- can be deceiving. Their apparent ease with their and others' sexuality can lead one to assume that it wasn't hard-won, to forget that the "It Gets Better" video campaign (which some of Private Romeo's actors took part in) and the Trevor Project arose out of a real, desperate need.

The truth is, when I hear their individual coming-out stories, they're sadly not much different from my own a generation ago. What's different, of course, is that when I was a teenage boy grappling with my sexuality, there was no Internet, no television shows or films to turn to for solace and hope. While I don't consciously make agitprop, I do feel, with each film I make, more and more committed to telling stories and creating characters onscreen that will give courage to LGBT youth. And ironically, on each of those films (I just finished shooting another one), it's the actors who inspire me and give me more courage. I'm very, very proud of Private Romeo, of how we tell Shakespeare's story, and of how we portray young gay love on the screen. But most of all, I'm proud of my actors.

Dr. H. Woody Brock: American Gridlock: Why the Right and Left Are Both Wrong -- and What Can Be Done About It

2012-02-10T21:03:23Z

Pessimism is ubiquitous throughout the western world as the pressing issues of massive debt, high unemployment and anemic economic growth divide the populace into warring political camps. Right- and left-wing ideologues talk past each other, with neither side admitting the other has any good ideas. The time has come to silence this left versus right shouting match -- this dialogue of the deaf -- once and for all. Impossible? No.

In my new book, American Gridlock: Why the Right and Left Are Both Wrong, I outline ways to bridge the divide, illuminating a clear path out of our economic quagmire. Using rigorous deductive logic, I identify win-win solutions to many of those seemingly insoluble political problems.

There are five challenges critical to the nation's future: preventing a lost decade with permanently high levels of unemployment, sparing the nation long-run bankruptcy from exploding health care costs, preventing future perfect financial storms, standing up to "thugocracies" that take unfair advantage of us (China and its trade policies), and addressing the vital issues of distributive justice, or fair shares of wealth and income.

Most importantly, in the book, I demonstrate how deductive logic (as opposed to ideologically driven data-analysis) can transform the way we think about these problems and lead us to new and different solutions that cross the ideological divide. Drawing on new theories such as game theory and the economics of uncertainty, which are based upon deductive logic, I reveal fresh ideas for tackling issues central to the 2012 presidential election and to the nation's long-term future:

Demonstrating that the concept of government "deficit" is highly problematic since it blinds us to the distinction between a good deficit and a bad deficit -- where a deficit is good if it results from borrowing dedicated to productive investment rather than to unproductive spending

Deriving the need for a U.S. marshall plan dedicated to very high levels of profitable infrastructure spending as the solution to today's lost decade of high unemployment

Drawing upon a logical extension of the law of supply and demand to demonstrate how the health care spending crisis can be completely resolved by letting supply increase at a faster rate than demand

Utilizing the theory of bargaining inaugurated by the Beautiful Mind mathematician John F. Nash Jr. to help us avoid being repeatedly duped in our negotiations with China

Making use of a completely new theory of market risk recently developed at Stanford University to demonstrate why dramatically limiting leverage is the key reform to preventing future Perfect Financial Storms, whereas hoping to banish greed amounts to whistling "Dixie"

Deducted from first principles a solution to the contentious issue of fair shares of the economic pie, a solution that integrates the two fundamental norms of "to each according to his contribution" and "to each according to his need"

Ultimately, my goal with American Gridlock is to cut through the stale biases of the right and left, advance new ways of thinking, and provide creative solutions to problems that threaten American society.

Rocco Staino: Will Booze for Books Shake and Stir Communities?

2012-02-10T18:46:26Z

These days, to youth librarians, Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables and Hop on Pop are not just kid's book titles but also cocktails. The American Library Association's Young Adult Library Services Association has announced on its blog that April 12th will be their first national Booze for Books event. They ask that "people around the country, and maybe around the world, sponsor a Booze for Books fundraising event." The funds raised around these cocktail-centered parties will help get books into the hands of needy young adults.

In preparation for the event the organization has posted recipes for various children's book-themed cocktails including such high school classics as Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird on the Pinterest Board. They even created its own cocktail, the YALSAtini, that combines Stoli orange, blue curaçao and white cranberry juice. It is unknown if Stoli will be a sponsor of the event.

Shortly after the announcement a debate broke out on the organization's blog on the wisdom of using alcohol beverages to promote reading. Kelly Czarnecki, a technology librarian in Charlotte, NC, raises her glass in defending the program. In North Carolina "the county ABC Board (Alcoholic Beverages Control) distributes 5% of their sales to the library." Janene Hill, a young adult librarian from Manhattan, KS, objected: "Do you want to be telling your teens, who you are supposed to be encouraging to have a healthy lifestyle and NOT drink, that you participated in "Booze for Books" to add to their collection?"

This is not the first time that drinking and reading has caused a stir in the library community. In 2009 a cover photo on School Library Journal picturing librarians and book bloggers in a bar holding cocktail caused a furor with librarians.

One wonders how communities across the country will support and react to this campaign?

Charles Garcia: Will Hispanic Voters Swing the 2012 Race?

2012-02-10T18:44:00Z

This post originally appeared on CNN.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush recently argued in an op-ed that Hispanic voters will represent the margin of victory in the 15 swing states that will decide who will win the race for the White House. Is his political intuition right? And if it is, how do both parties significantly increase their chances of winning the Hispanic vote?

Determining what qualifies as a swing state is not an exact science, but the best estimate nine months out is as follows: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The key for political parties is registering Hispanics to vote. According to the U.S. Census, 84 percent of Hispanic registered voters reported voting in 2008. In North Carolina, not generally considered a "Hispanic state," from 2000 to 2010 the Hispanic population grew 111 percent. Between January 2008 and November 4, 2008, Hispanic voter registration in North Carolina grew by 62 percent, from 42,000 to 68,000. Obama won the state by only 14,177 votes. Since then, Hispanic voter registration in North Carolina has nearly doubled to 130,615.

According to the U.S. Census, in 2010 there were 492,330 Latinos of voting age in North Carolina, representing a clear opportunity for both parties. In a tight race, Hispanic voters could be the margin of victory in 12 of the 15 swing states. (For more state by state data, click here)

Three important points about Hispanic swing voters:

Hispanics lean Democratic, but it's not a base Democratic vote. Hispanics cast their ballots on issues and in favor of the candidates rather than for the party, much like 40 percent of the population, which is now considered independent.
Campaigns need to communicate to Hispanics in both English and Spanish. A strategic move behind President Obama winning 67 percent of Hispanic vote was his campaign's outspending McCain in the Spanish language media by five to one.
Hispanic adults are more engaged in the social Web than non-Hispanics, over-indexing as creators, critics, collectors, joiners in and spectators of social networks.

In addressing the concerns of this demographic, no candidate can ignore the issue of immigration reform, particularly when it comes to young, first-time voters. Each month 50,000 Hispanics in the United States turn 18. These young voters power Latino social networks, connecting on Facebook and tweeting voters across the country. Imagine the response when the hardworking mom or dad of these young voters is called a "criminal" by a candidate.

A recent Pew survey found that Latinos, by 91 percent, support legislation known as the Dream Act that would give legal status to illegal immigrants who earn college degrees or serve in the military for two years. Imagine the waves across social media when the Dream Act is not aggressively pursued or summarily dismissed.

And immigration -- and its power to alienate or attract voters -- is the key for both parties, not just Republicans. Yet, so far for both parties, immigration has been kryptonite. President Obama broke his promise to introduce an immigration reform bill during his first year in office. He deported 1.2 million Latinos, including 46,000 parents of American citizens. His draconian policies left thousands of frightened children languishing in foster care, which brought an onslaught of negative Spanish-language media. Heading into the presidential campaign, President Obama's approval rating among Latinos has plunged 36 points since April 2009 -- from 85 percent to 49 percent, according to a recent Pew survey.

Obama's potential opponent, Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, wants to make life so unbearable for Hispanics working here illegally that they will "self-deport." Passing apartheid-like laws to pressure Hispanic undocumented workers to leave the country is central to Romney's platform. Witness the laws passed in Alabama, Arizona and South Carolina, whose chief architect, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, happily endorsed Romney, advises the campaign and acts as a surrogate.

To win over Hispanic voters, both President Obama and the GOP nominee need to smother the kryptonite that the issue of immigration has become with a lead blanket of comprehensive immigration reform, supported by strong majorities of Hispanic swing voters and a majority of independents and the general public. Tackling this issue in a thoughtful manner is supported by strong majorities of Hispanic swing voters and a majority of the general public. Only then can the conversation between Hispanic voters and the candidate really begin.

In the 2008 election there was a 30 percent swing of Hispanic votes away from the Republican Party's share of the vote in 2004. This swing vote was enough to elect Barack Obama to the White House and turn six states -- Colorado, Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada and Virginia -- from red to blue. Any candidate or campaign that ignores Hispanic swing voters does it at their peril.

Jeffrey Shaffer: Your Disaster Plan: Solid or Shaky?

2012-02-10T18:28:25Z

That was a big warning notice the eastern US got last August. You know what I mean -- the 5.8 earthquake centered in Virginia. My question for everyone who felt the ground moving that day is: are you okay for next time, all prepared for what could be a really massive shaker?

I know some people will read this and think, "Is he loopy? There's a presidential campaign going on, big trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economy is still dragging, and this guy is talking about earthquakes?"

That reaction is normal and pretty much explains why so many people have trouble getting ready for "the big one." Good intentions end up being pushed aside by a parade of other issues that dominate the daily headlines.

No criticism intended. Hey, when it comes to being unprepared, I'm the poster man. I've lived on the west coast my entire life, experienced numerous geological events, and my level of readiness for the big one is still just slightly above zero.

There's always a spike in public concern about this topic right after a major event like the August quake. The news media is filled with stories about "making a family emergency plan" and "what supplies every household should have." I appreciate the advice every time, and can truthfully say I now keep several flashlights on hand, plus some bottles of water.

But moving beyond this first step has been an ongoing, embarrassing struggle. The process of disaster planning is to assume and then address worst-case scenarios, and once you start listing the possibilities, the task of preparing for all of them gets complicated.

Packing a box with a few more basic supplies is my next goal, but where should it be stored? Any part of your home, or all of it, might collapse in a major quake. It's probably a good idea to disperse supplies into multiple locations throughout the house, or even build a shed for them in the backyard.

A giant quake could strike while you're out driving, so it makes sense to get the car prepped to serve as a mobile survival pod. Should you keep a small tent in the trunk, and a camp stove? Now we're looking at two supply lists.

Children add extra calculations into the equation. If they're at school when the big one rolls through, you need a plan for retrieving them. Should you coordinate with other parents to do a group pick-up? What plan does the school have for allowing students to leave?

Do you have pets to deal with? Elderly relatives in the area who depend on you? As you try to sketch out the disaster blueprint, it's hard to set any boundary lines. And with each day that goes by quake-free the potential danger feels less urgent. The news cycle moves on. Your attention shifts to other issues that seem more important. It's a pattern I know well.

One of my resolutions for 2012 is to improve the household readiness, even if it just means buying an extra propane tank for the barbecue and some more bottles of water. Of course, I had the same intentions last year and didn't follow through. But this time I'm positively determined to make some real, measurable progress. I can almost guarantee it. Maybe.

Phil Ramone and Danielle Evin: Dog Ears Music: For Love Is Agony Playlist

2012-02-10T17:28:03Z

Sia

Song: The Co-Dependent
Album: We Are Born
Genre: Pop
Buy: iTunes.com

Of Montreal

Song: How Lester Lost His Wife (LP Version)
Album: Satanic Panic in the Attic
Genre: Rock
Buy: iTunes.com

Arthur Conley

Song: Is That You Love
Album: More Sweet Soul
Genre: R&B/Soul
Buy: iTunes.com

Soul Children

Song: Love Is a Hurtin' Thing
Album: Chronicle
Genre: R&B/Soul
Buy: iTunes.com

Bobby Womack

Song: I Can't Take It Like a Man
Album: My Prescription
Genre: R&B/Soul
Buy: iTunes.com

David Byrne

Song: His Wife Refused
Album: The Catherine Wheel (The Complete Score From the Broadway Production)
Genre: Alternative
Buy: iTunes.com

Yellow Ostrich

Song: Hate Me Soon
Album: The Mistress
Genre: Alternative
Buy: iTunes.com

Yogi

Song: Settle for Less
Album: Metta
Genre: Alternative
Buy: iTunes.com

Nina Simone

Song: The Other Woman (Live Version-Sept. 1959)
Album: Anthology: The Colpix Years
Genre: Jazz
Buy: Amazon.com

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals

Song: Dear John (Live in the Studio)
Album: Follow the Lights
Genre: Rock
Buy: iTunes.com

Gin Wigmore

Song: Too Late for Lovers
Album: Holy Smoke
Genre: Pop
Buy: iTunes.com

A Girl Called Eddy

Song: Somebody Hurt You
Album: A Girl Called Eddy
Genre: Alternative
Buy: iTunes.com

Jimmy Durante

Song: Try a Little Tenderness
Album: Hello Young Lovers
Genre: Vocal
Buy: iTunes.com

The Notations

Song: It Only Hurts for a Little While
Album: The Notations
Genre: R&B/Soul
Buy: iTunes.com

Wild Nothing

Song: Vultures Like Lovers
Album: Golden Haze - EP
Genre: Alternative
Buy: iTunes.com

Sparks

Song: Whippings and Apologies
Album: A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing
Genre: Rock
Buy: iTunes.com

Fiest

Song: The Limit to Your Love
Album: The Reminder
Genre: Alternative
Buy: iTunes.com

Squeeze

Song: Tempted
Album: East Side Story
Genre: Pop
Buy: iTunes.com

Michael Penn

Song: No Myth
Album: March
Genre: Rock
Buy: iTunes.com

André Previn & London Symphony Orchestra

Song: Romeo and Juliet - Ballet, Op. 64 Act I Scene 2: No. 13 - Dance of the Knights
Album: Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet
Genre: Classical
Buy: iTunes.com

Alan Singer: Cheating Students Who "Pass" the Test

2012-02-10T16:32:34Z

I hated high school English classes because teachers would not let me read what I wanted to read. My friends and I were into science fiction, especially Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Poul Anderson. I also liked John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway and after being introduced to their work I read all of their novels. But the teachers wanted us to read books by Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner, and I just was not ready to move on. However, what I really hated was Herman Melville and Thomas Hardy -- too many characters and too many words; boring. I also read newspapers everyday, especially the sports pages of The New York Times and the New York Post.

Reading selectively I managed to get 85s in my English classes and an 89 on the English Regents in 1967. I have a Ph.D. in history so the test must have somewhat adequately predicted my ability to do college-level work.

But we are now learning that with all the pressure on teachers, administrators, and schools to lift student test scores, standardized exams today, especially the New York State English Regents, actually measure very little.

Many high school teachers, especially in urban and minority communities in New York City and state, have long wondered why scores on the state English regents were higher than in other subject areas. English teachers thought it was just because they were better at what they do, although other content area teachers had their suspicions. Usually, a teacher never actually looks at state exams from other subjects.

The website Great Schools makes possible a quick examination of test scores for each high school in New York State on each state exam and shows the inflated English regents scores. A. Philip Randolph High Campus Magnet High School in Manhattan had a "C" as its overall grade by New York City in 2009-2010. Only 39% of students taking the Mathematics B exam passed in 2010, compared to a 61 percent passing average statewide. In Global History and Geography, 59 percent of the students passed compared to 69 percent statewide. Students did a little better in Living Environments/Biology. Sixty-one percent passed compared to 79 percent statewide. But a whopping 91 percent passed the English Regents. At Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, rated "A" in 2009-2010, 50% of the students passed Math B, 75% passed Living Environment, 77% passed Global History and Geography, and 90% passed the English Regents. Richmond Hill High School in Queens received a D rating in 2010-2011 and is now threatened with being closed. In 2009-2010, 27% of the students passed Math B, 65% passed Living Environment, 54% passed Global History and Geography, and an amazing 82% passed the English Regents.

These test scores matter because New York State uses student performance on standardized tests to evaluate schools and determine each school's accountability status. When schools do not reach test benchmarks but are subject to review, reorganization, and closing. In addition, in response to federal Race to the Top grant requirements there is now debate statewide over using student test scores as supposedly objective measures to rate teachers, determine tenure, assign bonuses, and fire teachers whose students perform poorly.

The tests also matter because students who score seventy-five or better on the New York State English Regents are exempt from remedial reading and writing classes in the City University of New York. But that is only part of the story. Three-quarters of the 17,500 freshmen at the community colleges this year have needed remedial instruction in reading, writing or math, and nearly a quarter of the freshmen have required such instruction in all three subjects.

Thanks to a recent article by Michael Winerip in the New York Times we now know why students score much better on the English Regents. The exam is much easier than the others. In fact it is so easy that it does not even measure basic student literacy. It also calls into question the reliability of standardized tests to measure anything about schools, let alone teacher performance, and the whole federal Race to the Top program.

Currently, the English regents, which takes three hours to complete, includes twenty-five multiple choice questions, an essay, and two short response questions that require a paragraph-long answer. Winerip examined the rubric posted online by New York State for evaluating student essays. He found acceptable answers were full of spelling and grammatical errors, conceptual misunderstanding, and often simply restated the question.

Fortunately for Winerip's sanity, he did not analyze the short-answer part of the test, probably because it has not yet been posted on the state website. However, the August 2011 exam is available and it suggests the problem is even greater than Winerip recognized. For part 1, a teacher read a passage to students about an individual concerned with recycling paper. Students then must answer eight multiple-choice questions about the passage. A typical question is "The speaker uses less paper in her kitchen by purchasing... " The choices are silverware, plastic bags, sponges, and pot holders. For the rest of the test, students read three one-page passages and a poem and answer questions about the content. In August, the first passage was about camping and comfort, the second offered brief biographies of Peter Roget and George and Charles Merriam, and the third was an excerpt from a novel. None of the passages were on technical material. None of the passages were on the difficulty level of the sports coverage in the New York Times. None of the passages in any way demonstrated the ability to do college-level work. Neither the reading passages nor the questions utilize high school, let alone college, level vocabulary. There were no questions about vocabulary, grammar, or books. Shakespeare remains in the high school English curriculum but not on the Regents. In more affluent suburban districts, middle school students should easily pass this test.

Based on Michael Winerip's analysis of the scoring rubric on the most recent New York State English Regents, and my examination of the August 2011 reading passages and multiple-choice questions, not only are New York State students who pass this test ill-prepared to do college level work, but those who are going on to college are being exempted from remedial programs they desperately need. Lying to students about the level of their work -- that is the real crime with the inflation of English regents grades.

Joseph Sutton: Where e-Books Fall Short, Print Delivers

2012-02-10T16:14:12Z

The recent news from Pew Internet that e-reader ownership has almost doubled over this past holiday season makes it tempting to say that print books are not long for this world; after Amazon realized that many e-book readers enjoy browsing for titles in a brick-and-mortar store only to download them on their devices, and then sought to capitalize on such a trend, indie bookstores fought back and claimed a minor victory. Today, many are framing Barnes & Noble as publishing's last stand against Amazon -- it feels as though anxiety and tensions are high as ever.

But I don't think we need to worry; as with the discovery that vinyl record sales have risen in the past six years in a market dominated by MP3 downloads, it's useful to put considerable thought in where each platform, digital or analogue, excel for each medium -- and publishers are going back to the drawing board to see where they can innovate with printed books to keep readers interested.

Some fun is lost in the e-book for those whom find reading to be a voyeuristic experience as I do. In a subway car or at a park, I take pleasure in seeing what is being read around me, for a non-confrontational glimpse at my neighbors' personalities or interests. Seeing someone read an e-book, nondescript and unrevealing of what's displayed on the screen, leaves little to the imagination.

Thankfully, where e-books fall short, print delivers.

Recently publishers have tried to refresh the way we consume print books by offering a whole new print format, the Flipback book. The Flipback was designed for the smartphone-toting generation, touting itself as "giving book lovers a real reading experience with the portability of a mobile phone" -- as if your mass market paperback were not portable enough -- and its being "always fully charged." The book opens vertically, rather than a traditional book's opening horizontally, making it easy to hold in one hand, ideal for the subway commuter.

But sometimes it's useful to look to the past for innovative solutions: reading for the first time The Medium Is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan (1967) (designed by Quentin Fiore and produced by Jerome Angel) felt life-changing -- not just for the ideas expressed by the late media theorist, but for how the book's design challenged the conventions of reading the printed page. The text, which many would likely find rather dense or difficult to parse, was made comprehensible by visual aids illustrating points made in the book: in one section, the reader was made to hold the book in front of a mirror to read backwards text; on the next page, you must rotate the book to read upside-down. These tricks may seem gimmicky, but actually make for an engaging reading experience that's pleasing for the eye, and with surprises beyond each page that push the boundaries of print.

Inventory Books, a series of books published by Princeton Architectural Press and designed by Project Projects, takes a lot from The Medium Is the Massage; in fact, the latest book in the series, The Electric Information Age Book: McLuhan/Agel/Fiore and the Experimental Paperback tackles the work as an example of books produced in the 60s and 70s that paired text and graphic design that "brought the ideas of contemporary thinkers to the masses." Paging through Street Value, the first of the Inventory Books series -- which is less unconventional than McLuhan, Angel and Fiore's production -- I found the use of primary sources like advertisements, imagery and newspaper clippings made the text more accessible as you would expect exploring a multi-media presentation to be.

So, obviously such tactics can easily be re-created in a digital format. But what makes them interesting in book form is the notion of the book as an object in itself, a set-piece with potential to spark, upon its being noticed, conversation -- not unlike my love for seeing what strangers read around me in public.

There are a lot of beautiful books being published today, notably Little, Brown and Company's Malcolm Gladwell: Collected, Melville House's Art of the Novella series, an assortment of graphic novels and really any issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. I won't deny that when I'm expecting company I'll leave out the best books for guests to be impressed by. After all, most books in our home are purely for decoration, no?

This piece was originally published on The Donnybrook Writing Academy.

Dr. Jeffrey H. Toney: Should I Sell My Car for NY Giants Season Tickets?

2012-02-10T16:00:35Z

MetLife Stadium: NY Giants vs. Washington Redskins, Dec. 18, 2011

This may be a sign of football withdrawal syndrome, but the day after the NY Giants won the Super Bowl I was searching for 2012 season tickets (more on that later.) I was reminiscing about last December when I took my son to his first professional football game at MetLife stadium. It was a bright, freezing cold day and the stadium was packed with more than 80,000 fans. The NY Giants were having a bad day battling the Washington Redskins; several times the announcer excitedly reported "Touchdown!" followed quickly by taking it away due to a penalty.

From USA Today:

On third down, Manning threw an apparent touchdown to D.J. Ware, but the call was overruled upon review, setting up a 4th-and-2. Then, Nicks' touchdown grab was nullified due to a holding penalty on David Diehl. On 4th-and-long, Manning was sacked, bringing to end the woeful series.

You can watch the highlights here.

Rex Grossman threw for a TD, and the Redskins put a hurt on the Giants and their playoff hopes with a 23-10 victory on Sunday.

By the third quarter, the score was NY Giants 3, Redskins 20. Despite dismal prospects for a win, my son and I were having a great time. For most fans, it was a different story; they were yelling insults at the NY Giants, and worse, almost our entire section emptied before the third quarter was over. I wonder how many of those same "fans" enjoyed the Super Bowl? At the end of the game, the Giant's record was 7 wins, 7 losses. Winning the Super Bowl after such an underwhelming record must be one of the great turnaround stories in sports! Woeful series, indeed.

Back to those season tickets -- not for mere mortals, it turns out. Being sentimental, I wanted to get the same seats. First, I would need to purchase two Personal Seat Licenses, at $12,500 each - $25,000 total, to support the construction of the new stadium at a cost of $1.6 billion. Then the price of the tickets are fixed at $500 each per home game. Since I am far from a "one percenter," that's not going to happen. I suppose I could sell my car -- who needs it, right? No wonder so many fans watch the games at home!

A version of this article was published at Dean's Corner at ScienceBlogs.

Marshall Fine: Movie Review: Chico & Rita

2012-02-10T14:34:00Z

The pickings among American animated features are so slim this year that they've allowed foreign-language animated films to slip into the category. But unlike American animated films, these aren't kiddie cartoons.

Instead, they're adult works of cinematic art like Chico & Rita, a love story that covers decades and continents, telling a distilled version of the 20th century history of jazz in about 90 minutes.

Or at least one strand of jazz history. But that strand touches on everyone from Woody Herman to Cuban legend Chano Pozo to Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk.

At the center of the story is a pianist, Chico, and a singer, Rita. When they meet in Havana in 1948, Rita is a singer with another band; Chico lures her to his side by filling in for a sick pianist for a Woody Herman performance at Havana's hottest club.

But Chico is a player -- and Rita is a climber, someone ready to hop on the next rocket that will take her to New York, Hollywood and beyond. She even tries to take Chico along with her -- but he chooses that moment to get drunkenly jealous of her career-advancing flirtation with a visiting impresario.

The story hops forward in time, following Chico as he becomes the go-to pianist for Cuba's biggest touring musical artists until his path crosses Rita's in New York. But it takes longer still -- and political comeuppances for both artists -- before they eventually catch up with each other at the right time.

The plot is easy-going and almost minimal, the backdrop to their musical fantasies coming true. They are like sidemen to the history happening in front of them, until those moments when history hauls off and slaps them down.

The music -- a blend of bebop, Afro-Cuban and cool jazz -- carries this film along, giving it wings even when there's not a lot of story happening. But make no mistake: This is a movie for adults, a story of love and passion and human weakness, told over several decades.

It's got a look that's part tropical, part New York graphic-design, as though filmmakers Tono Errando, Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal had animated drawings by Milton Glaser. There's a fluid quality to the hand-drawn images that gives off a surprising warmth.

Chico & Rita is like a graphic novel of a romantic drama, set to music that entices and inspires. It's the grown-up choice to win this year's Oscar for animated feature.

Find more reviews, interviews and commentary on my website.

Fern Siegel: Stage Door: Look Back In Anger

2012-02-10T05:33:04Z

When John Osborne's Look Back In Anger, his dramatic slam at his first marriage was staged in 1956, the English were stunned. The sight of a woman at an ironing board in a squalid flat was greeted with boos. As Jimmy spewed his contempt-filled rants at wife Alison, most critics and audience members were horrified.

What saved it, in large part, was powerful critic Kenneth Tynan, who championed a new realism in British theater -- and the era of the "angry young men" was born. The play's revival, now at the Laura Pels Theater, is a strong piece, but a mixed bag for Americans, who have little reference of post-war England or the nuances of class prejudice.

Jimmy's (Matthew Rhys) tirades against the middle-class underscore his unique post-war problem: He's a working-class British boy with a university education but limited prospects. He bemoans the loss of the "great causes" worth fighting for and attacks a system that favors the status quo.

Between rants, he works at a candy stall with his friend Cliff (Adam Driver), who lives with him. Despite his emotional abuse -- he dubs his wife (Sarah Goldberg) ''pusillanimous" -- Jimmy is attractive to women. Both Alison, whose odd silences speak volumes, and her friend Helena (Charlotte Parry), an actress who encourages her to leave her tempestuous husband, are drawn to him.

While Look Back has some passing similarities to A Streetcar Named Desire, this is a poor-man's version of the William's masterpiece. It has ample class warfare and sexual heat. What it doesn't have are the layered themes or poetic insights that made Streetcar so compelling and enduring.

Still, audiences will appreciate the powerful performances: As Jimmy, Rhys is a lithe tiger, waiting to pounce. He's amazing to watch, while Goldberg beautifully captures Alison's frustrations and longings. The scene where she chops vegetables, underscoring her domestic woes, is masterful. Similarly, Driver and Parry, drawn to and repelled by the Porters, are terrific.

Sam Gold has skillfully staged Look Back In Anger against a black wall; the space is dirty and cramped -- the lone wail of a trumpet punctuates the cycle of despair. The director has trimmed elements of the original play, zooming in on the dysfunctional love relationships. However dated, it retains its power to disturb, bolstered by an excellent cast.