Domino Park will host an outdoor performing arts series next month—and it's free!
Set against that stunning skyline backdrop, the month-long series is kicking off with performances by Nile Harris and dance duo Lena Engelstein & Lisa Fagan, followed by a kaleidoscopic parade of programming including drag-augmented puppetry (Evan Silver a.k.a. Tiresias), a celebration of horseshoe crabs and 'crabaoke' (Eli Nixon), and a live jazz-meets-minimal-electronics set curated by National Sawdust featuring Isaiah Barr, David Frazier Jr. and William Parker.
Organized by Public Assembly with creative direction by Ellpetha Tsivicos of One Whale's Tale, Sugar, Sugar! is the first cultural program staged at the brand-new Domino Square amphitheater. The space, just a short stroll through the five-acre waterfront park, is already a favorite for salsa nights and school graduations. Now, it's getting a full-on arts glow-up.
And the series isn't just throwing performances at a park—it's curating a vibe. Each night begins with Capicu! hosting dominos, DJs and dancing, and ends with something magical. Case in point: the two-night immersive spectacular QUINCE, which fuses a quinceañera, family drama and queer identity into a theatrical party with food, music and dancing under the stars.
A special Juneteenth performance from Troy Anthony & The Fire Ensemble promises an emotional high point, using nonreligious rituals and music to honor Black liberation and joy.
Expect a playful, participatory energy throughout, from time-traveling dance to foam-sculpted puppets made from salvaged materials. The festival closes on June 28 with a daytime blowout plaza party featuring live music, local food vendors, domino tournaments and family-friendly art activities.
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The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Bill Burr slams critics who call him 'woke'
The edgy funnyman told the outlet that Shapiro "doesn't even know what that word means," adding that their "definition of woke is white liberals' definition of woke, and they didn't even know what it was." Burr called the behavior "treasonous" and said Shapiro "went there" with his comments "so he can then have something to talk about and then he can make money off dividing his own country." When Vulture pointed out Shapiro's goal - getting certain people online to talk about Burr - "worked," the comedian called the critics "racists." Bill Burr takes on 'heartless' Elon Musk and billionaire 'tech nerds' in press tour "They send pictures of monkeys to me and my wife," Burr said, calling them "horrible people" and "cowards." Burr tied the knot with his actress and host wife Nia Renee Hill, who is Black, in 2013. The couple share two children. "There's an ugliness out there right now where if you're a racist, if you're an antisemite, if you're a psycho nationalist and you want a softball interview, there's podcasts out there where you can get one," Burr added, telling Vulture that they "they will laugh at" bad jokes and "give you this pass." Elsewhere in the interview, Burr - who called his brand of comedy "deliberately misunderstood" - said that "it's not just people with radio shows and podcasts" who misinterpret his jokes, adding that "fans do it" too. Burr said that if he discusses politics at his shows, "I trash 'em both because that is my job." He continued: "I'm not flying either one of their flags; it's the people who pay them that's the problem. And they're always distracting us with other stuff," telling Vulture that CNN and Fox News are also a "disease." Bill Burr slammed Elon Musk earlier this year Earlier this year, Burr made headlines during his "Drop Dead Years" press tour, which became an Elon Musk roast. The comedian, who has made a number of media appearances to promote his latest stand-up special on Hulu, has picked apart the Tesla CEO and former Department of Government Efficiency leader, calling him and other tech billionaires "nerds" and "heartless." Bill Burr takes on 'heartless' Elon Musk and billionaire 'tech nerds' in press tour "Why does Elon Musk dress like he just got out of a Hot Topic?" Burr told Jimmy Fallon during an appearance on "The Tonight Show" in March, adding that he was a "nerd, nobody banged you and now you have hair plugs in your laminated face." "Everybody is afraid of these nerds, I don't get it. They're horrible, heartless people. And then, for some reason, if you say that, you're like a communist, and then we're in bed with the Russians," he continued. Contributing: Taijuan Moorman
The Herald Scotland
3 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Mhairi Black: 'I underestimated how horrible my own side could be'
'That's been a strange thing, to learn how to relax after nearly 10 years,' she says as we sit together in the offices of The Herald. And has she? 'About two weeks ago I cracked it. I'm definitely getting there.' She certainly looks relaxed. It is late morning, July 24, and Black has come into the office to have her picture taken and to talk about her new Fringe show. Read more She is fresh-faced, accommodating (she's not in the slightest put out when The Herald's editor chases us from the room we're in because she has a meeting booked), chatty and honest. But then she's always been chatty and honest. Over the next hour she will pose uncomplainingly for photographs and talk to me about life and politics and her new Fringe show. The Fringe is the future. Politics the past. It's in our time together that she will tell me she has left the SNP (you may have read as much in [[The Herald]] the other week). How has she been spending her time since she closed the door on her career in Westminster, I ask when we sit down to talk? 'I've been enjoying the bliss of domestic life,' Black admits. 'My wife's raging because I've got more time to go on social media and see all these videos. And the algorithm clearly knows that I'm spending a lot of time in the house these days. It keeps sending me: 'Here's how to make your own bleach.' Turns out, vinegar is the basis of all cleaning products. So now my house just smells like a chippie. 'So, yeah, driving my family demented has been a massive part of trying to relax.' Black hasn't just been waiting home for her wife Katie McGarvey to come home of an evening. Last summer she spent August at the Fringe with her debut hour Politics Isn't For Me, which she then toured around Scotland and even performed for five nights in London. And then there's a new show to prepare for this year too. Maybe things have not been totally languid after all. Mhairi Black during her Fringe show (Image: STEVE ULLATHORNE) Last year's show, Politics Isn't For Me, wasn't quite stand-up. It was more of a very funny Tedtalk, or 'Nedtalk' as she put it herself. It was an exasperated, amused discourse on why, in her experience, Westminster wasn't fit for purpose. This year's show will see her range more freely over life and politics. What that means in practice is not totally nailed down, she admits. This is, as the title suggests, a work in progress after all. 'I'd never heard of a work in progress until stepping into this world,' Black admits. 'Everybody kept talking about WIPs. I thought, 'I'd just left that world.'' (The ghost of Westminster still clearly haunts her.) 'The work in progress is basically, 'I've got a half-baked idea. Come along and help me figure out the rest of it,'' she continues. 'And that's really scary. I'm looking forward to trying something new, as in there's a bit where I don't know what's going to happen and that's half the excitement, I suppose. 'This is more talking about things I've experienced since leaving politics,' she adds. 'There will definitely still be stories I didn't tell the last time. But a lot more of me telling stories about how I'm figuring life out.' Figuring life out is what she has been doing for the last 12 months. Well, that and processing everything she's gone through over the last 10 years. Come election day last summer, I say, wasn't there even a tiny frisson of regret that she wasn't still in the fight? 'Oh, Christ, no. The minute he called that election I was dancing around the living room,' she says. (He being Rishi Sunak. Remember him?) 'Because I had already made my mind up in 2019 - I just hadnae told anybody that - so it wasn't fresh news to me. If anything, I'd been waiting for this day. Mhairi Black announced this week she had left the SNP (Image: Jeff J Mitchell) 'So, when he called the election before last year's Fringe I was like, 'Oh you dancer. Right, freedom.'' That's the word you'd use? Freedom? 'Oh, aye, definitely freedom. Freedom to be more myself.' Last year's show Politics Isn't For Me was really a show about institutional failure. She was part of that institution, of course. I wonder, does she feel she wasted those 10 years in parliament? 'No, I don't. I don't. 'It was an experience,' she adds. 'But I don't miss it. I still think I was right to leave when I did.' For all her criticisms of Westminster Black made a huge impact there. Her maiden speech was watched 10 million times on YouTube and she would go on to become the deputy leader of the SNP in Westminster. Mhairi Black at Westminster (Image: unknown) What does she think she achieved in her time in politics? 'When I think of the individuals that we helped, our little constituency team, that's what I'm proudest of, definitely; being able to put faces to these cases we had and going, 'I really did change their lives for the better, or I played a part in that,' which is great. 'In terms of actually changing laws, no. Didn't get anywhere close to it. The closest I ever got was a private members bill that was shot down in its first read.' It would presumably have been different if you had been in power? Maybe a little, she says. 'But even if in some magical world we had been in the UK government, I still think we'd have been, 'Rip this up, start again, try again.' 'The hours that are wasted doing nothing in that building is criminal. If it was any company it would be the first thing somebody would point out. 'What the hell are you doing this for?' So, the fact that parliament operates like that 'just because' was never a good enough reason for me. 'It suits the people in power. I imagine that's why it's not going to change anytime soon.' What would you now tell that 20-year-old Mhairi Black who got elected in 2015? 'Oh, that's difficult. I'd probably say don't doubt yourself as much and maybe be ready for how lonely it can be at times. I think that would probably be my two pieces of advice.' Lonely? Was that the case even within your own party? 'Oh aye, aye, because it's a very cut-throat world where there's people just always out to get each other. And that's just alien to me. I thought if you were part of a team you all work together. Mhairi Black and Nicola Sturgeon (Image: PA Archive/PA Images) 'But, of course, politics doesn't always attract team players. So, yeah, it took me a wee bit of time to get my head around that. I expected other opposition to be horrible or backstabby or whatever, but I underestimated how much of an issue it would be with your own side, definitely.' It's also worth remembering that Black was subject to death threats during her time in parliament. Perhaps it's no wonder that at the end of 2017 she had to take time off because she had effectively burnt out. 'From 2014 'til, say, 2020 even, it was just election after election after referendum. It was just constant, non-stop, and you can't maintain that level of energy and that level of responsibility at that intensity without having a proper break at some point. And that's what I got the hard way eventually. It got to the point where my body was like, 'We're making you take a break whether you like it or not.'' In the BBC documentary made about her around last year's election Black's dad Alan admitted that he feared she was drinking too much. When I bring it up she agrees. 'The way that parliament is, you can't leave the building because votes could be called at any point. So you're like, 'I'm stuck in here until 10 o'clock at night, but it's six o' clock and I've finished all my work. Do you want to go and get a pint?' 'And you'd sit and have one or two. I wasn't getting steaming every night … But you start to recognise, 'Oh, wait a minute I've been for one or two pints four days this week.' 'And I could see it even in my own colleagues or folk from other parties. This is how you end up in a state, or this is how you end up with a real problem. You can see it happening around you. 'I suddenly realised if I'm seeing you in here all the time it means I'm in here all the time.' 'That definitely got nipped in the bud pretty quickly.' And then of course she was given her ADHD diagnosis in the midst of all this. At the time she said it was a real positive for her. She still feels that way today. 'I see it as a real strength. I feel like someone's given me the map to the maze in my own head. 'I'm learning more about myself as it goes on. And this is the longest stretch of time I've been home for a good few years. I'm in the process of making new habits. It's quite fun and exciting, I have to say.' In the documentary you mentioned you were also being tested for autism? 'I've not had anything back officially yet, but … Given that my family is riddled with it everybody seems to be like, 'Yeah, you probably do have it.'' As for the world today, well, she's not hopeful. 'The speech that I'm proudest of giving is the one where I talk about facism. As time rumbles on I desperately want to be proved wrong.' But she's not seeing any evidence. 'We're still in this horrible, right-wing, creeping, authoritarian style of governance. 'Even when you're seeing just how much tech companies are being allowed to run wild and how inept our governments are at understanding the problem, never mind having a grasp on 'here's what we need to do about it,' it's terrifying. It's really terrifying.' We are speaking the day before President Trump arrives in Scotland for his private visit. Why, she asks, is the Scottish Secretary going to give him a warm welcome? 'This guy is a fascist. He is literally locking up children and people are dying on his watch and we're warmly welcoming him.' 'Why are we all pretending that we're in this cosy almost 1960s comic book world where we can rely on America to look after us? The world is changing and nobody's keeping up with it.' As for the SNP, she is largely circumspect today, but in last year's Fringe show she was, if anything, harder on her own colleagues than anyone else. 'Funny that,' she says, laughing. You're still a member of the SNP though? 'No, I'm not anymore.' Ah. 'Basically for a long time I've not agreed with quite a few decisions that have been made,' she explains. 'There have just been too many times when I've thought, 'I don't agree with what you've done there,' or the decision or strategy that has been arrived at. 'To be honest, I'm looking around thinking, 'There are better organisations that I could be giving a membership to than this one that I don't feel has been making the right decisions for quite some time.' 'The capitulation on LGBT rights, trans rights in particular.' She says, instead, she is going to back organisations such as the Good Law Project who are willing to fight on these issues in court. 'That's what I want to throw my money behind. She is still, she says, fervently pro-independence, though. There's another former big beast of the Scottish National Party in Edinburgh this month. Nicola Sturgeon will be appearing at the book festival. What does Black think the party's former leader's legacy will be? 'Time will tell. Undoubtedly no one can take away that she reached levels of influence and popularity and fear that I don't think anyone else has in recent memory … I can't think of anybody who has had that kind of impact, certainly on UK politics.' When you say fear …? 'Having been in Westminster at the height of Nicola's leadership, they were terrified of her, absolutely terrified. When she was in the building it spread like wildfire. You could see they're actually quite shaken at the very fact that she's here in person. 'So, there's no taking away from that. I've always said I think she is possibly the best politician I can think of UK-wide as to competency and being able to answer a question. I've never seen her shaken. She was always unflappable and I know from experience how difficult that is to do. 'So, as a politician I thought she was shit hot. 'As the leader of a political party, I thought she could have done so much better. The same is true of Alex Salmond when he was in charge and even John Swinney now. The actual structure of the party has never grown or adapted to that influx of membership, which I think has actually played a role in why a lot of folk have turned away from the party. It's because the structure just wasn't there to give people the kind of membership they were craving. 'So, there's definite failings and as time goes on I'm sure those failings will become much clearer. But I think for all the negatives that might be associated with Nicola Sturgeon I do think there are a hell of a lot of positives and there are a lot of folk who are now gunning for Nicola Sturgeon who at the time were clinging onto her coat tails for dear life. I'm not without cynically noticing, 'Oh, you've changed your tune all of a sudden.' 'Whereas there were people who had legitimate concerns and queries that were ignored for years, but they don't take it to the front pages of newspapers.' As for Black, does she have any idea of what she's going to do with the rest of her life? 'Genuinely I don't and for me that's half the excitement at the minute. I'm in a lucky enough position where for a year now I've been able to make a living out of just having a laugh. And I'll do that for as long as it suits me and as long as I feel that I can. 'But it's not like I've decided to do stand-up all my life. It's just trying on different hats and seeing what fits.' Next year she will be writing a book. Beyond that, who knows? 'I could see myself ending up in college lecturing, so maybe that's something that will one day come along. But for the time being I'm just enjoying sleeping in my own bed and being able to have a laugh because so much of that was missing for a good chunk of time there.' Mhairi, you've been in politics for a decade and now you're at the Fringe. It does suggest you might quite like a bit of attention. 'I know,' she says, smiling. 'That's what my wife says to me all the time. 'Do you not get enough attention? Was the theatre of people applauding you not enough? You need my praise?' 'Yes, I do.' Mhairi Black: Work in Progress, Gilded Balloon at the Appleton Tower, August 10-24, Midday Mhairi Black on Nigel Farage: 'He's the British Trump. Poisonous. I have absolutely nothing nice to say about him. How far have we fallen as a society when all it takes is a millionaire in a cravat holding a pint and suddenly we're like, 'Oh, yes, you must have my interests at heart?'' Mhairi Black on Keir Starmer: 'The guy believes in nothing. I've no doubt that he goes home and convinces himself that he's a very practical, reasonable set of hands who is guiding us through a very turbulent time. I just think it's rubbish. Naw, you don't believe anything. In order to guide people you've got to have an end goal and end destination. Keir Starmer cannae even make up his mind what that end destination is, so the idea that this guy is the saviour is nonsense.'
The Independent
18 hours ago
- The Independent
Michael Rosen says Allan Ahlberg was a ‘pioneer of great children's literature'
Michael Rosen has paid tribute to Allan Ahlberg and remembered him as a 'pioneer of great children's literature'. The author, known for books including Peepo! and Woof!, died at the age of 87 on July 29, publisher Penguin Random House confirmed. Children's author Rosen, 79, who wrote the book We're Going On A Bear Hunt, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter: 'Goodbye Allan. You were a pioneer of great children's literature, both in picture books and poetry. 'You were clever, funny and wise. My children loved your books. So did and so DO I.' Francesca Dow, head of children's literature at Penguin Random House, said: 'Allan was one of the most extraordinary authors I have had the privilege and pleasure to work with. 'His brilliant books – so many of them created with his late wife, Janet, the highly talented illustrator – have been described as 'mini masterpieces'. 'Allan's are some of the very best – true classics, which will be loved by children and families for years to come. Dear Allan, we will all miss you enormously.' Ahlberg was born in Croydon and raised by his adoptive parents in Oldbury in the Black Country. In 1975, he published his first children's book with his wife Janet, Here Are The Brick Street Boys. Together they went on to publish a number of books, including Each Peach Pear Plum (1978), Peepo! (1981), and The Baby's Catalogue (1982), their picture books Funnybones (1980) as well as the books in The Jolly Postman series. He wrote some books for older readers as well, including the poetry collections Please Mrs Butler (1983) and Heard It In The Playground (1989). Following his wife's death from breast cancer in 1994, he wrote a tribute to her in the form of Janet's Last Book (1997). Ahlberg and his wife Janet were among the most loaned authors in the decade leading up to 2010, according to figures from PLR (Public Lending Right). In 2014, Ahlberg revealed he turned down a literary lifetime achievement award because of the sponsor Amazon's tax arrangements. The author said it was 'unacceptable' to take the honorary award from reading charity BookTrust when the online firm's name was attached to it. Ahlberg is survived by his wife Vanessa, daughter Jessica and stepdaughters Saskia and Johanna.
