Prishtina to host exhibitions, lectures, screenings during Stacion’s summer school

A multitude of artists, writers and scholars from the Balkans and beyond will present in Prishtina as part of the public program of Stacion’s art summer school.

Plator Gashi

13/07/2018 - 10:17

https://prishtinainsight.com/prishtina-to-host-exhibitions-lectures-screenings-during-stacions-summer-school/

Philosophy and art buffs will have their hands full starting next week as Prishtina is about to host a series of talks and exhibitions as part of Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art’s summer school.

Starting from July 16 until August 2, Stacion is organizing the fourth edition of ‘Summer School as School,’ an interdisciplinary set of courses lectured by artists, philosophers and other academics. More importantly, the courses will run alongside a public program which includes a series of exhibitions and lectures by well-established philosophers, curators, and artists.

The public program contains presentations by local and international lecturers of the school, as well as artistic performances, film screenings, exhibitions and music events.

Albert Heta, director of Stacion, explained that the public program serves as an intervention to the courses, offering an interdisciplinary experience to non-participants.

“As a model it tries to create an opportunity of opening up certain fields that are studied within the courses,” he said.

The public program will kick-off  on July 16 with a presentation by Slovenian philosopher Mladen Dolar, one of the co-founders of the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis alongside Slavoj Zizek and Rastko Mocnik.

Other presentations include the German artist Felix Gmelin on July 26 and American writer and curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev the former art director of the renown dOCUMENTA exhibition on August 1. Another philosophy heavyweight, the Slovenian philosopher Alenka Zupancic, will also hold a lecture on August 1.

In addition to the presentations, Stacion will organize three exhibitions in various locations.

The first, Videoing by Jakup Ferri, will open on July 16 at 9:00 pm at Kino Armata. One of the well-established Albanian visual artists working today, Anri Sala will also present at the Boxing Club on July 17 and show his intervention If and only if at the same location on July 18 at 8:00 pm.

Participants and the general public will also be able to visit theMuseum of American Art in Prishtina at Stacion, a project dedicated to assembling, preserving and exhibiting memories primarily on the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

This year’s program will also have two presentations on the Yugoslav Black Wave, an experimental film movement in former Yugoslavia.

“We are going to explore artistic movies that are created outside of a [certain] industry. We are interested in looking into practices that are not impacted directly from the market. This is important, because we think that these [works] contain important social content that does not fit with the market,” Heta said.

The Black Wave movies Nevinost bez zastite (Innocence Unprotected) and Kad budem mrtav i beo (When I am Dead and Gone) will be screened at Kino Armata on July 21 and July 28 respectively, preceded by presentations and followed by DJ sessions from theorist and cultural critic Sezgin Boynik and writer and researcher Sami Khatib.

According to Heta, Stacion’s summer school endeavors to functionalize regional collaboration between artists.

“We have noticed in other endeavors, the scenes that emerged out of former Yugoslavia, [since] the countries are relatively small, and influences are partialized around broader issues… The idea of regional collaboration is that, if you combine the capacity of the region around certain issues, the possibility of influence is much higher,” he said.

On July 23, emerging artists from Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia will discuss potential collaboration between the countries.

“These artists are exposed to other lecturers and curators, museum directors, and so on, and this panel sort of exemplifies the nature of the project, which is about the creation of opportunities, the creation a space, people come meet in Prishtina, high-level professionals meet with new artists, lecturers, who have a common goal,” Heta concluded.

To read the full public program of Stacion’s Summer School as School visit their website.

Stone Movie Trailer (HD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evhh3NE3fyw

Love On A Budget

By Smoove B

https://www.theonion.com/love-on-a-budget-1827542914

Girl, you know I would do whatever it takes to make all your fantasies come true. I would cross a continent. I would cross an ocean. I would even tunnel to the center of the Earth just so I could find that one perfect gemstone, lobster, or ball of lava that would turn an ordinary night into an evening of ultimate perfection.

However, things are tight financially right now due to some unexpected expenses after I turned my apartment’s color scheme from scarlet red to ivory white with pops of violet. I think we can both agree my penthouse is seriously bumpin’. Yet the fact remains I don’t have as much liquid cash on hand as I would like.

I also made some poor investments.

This in no way means I will not please that booty. Instead, it means that there will have to be some regrettable but necessary cutbacks to our evening. Do not believe for one second that you will not feel like a queen. You will simply feel like a queen of a less prosperous country.

If anything, my desire is greater than ever before. If my love for you could be measured by the Richter scale, the intensity of my affection would be off the charts, leveling the tri-state area to powder. The rescue teams brought in to find the injured would be swallowed up by the Earth during the aftershocks. There would be no survivors. This is how serious my love for you is.

Let me break down how this evening will go.

First, my normal gleaming-white limo and backup Humvee limo will not be showing up to pick you up. I can no longer afford to keep them both on retainer, and my man at the garage says they are not available this week. We will, instead, be driven to our destination in a 2017 four-door Cadillac, which, I was told, was cleaned very recently so it will look and smell very nice.

Once I return to my seat after opening your door for you in a gentlemanly fashion, I will compliment you on your face and hair. I will say something like, “Your face and hair look very fine tonight.” You will be able to tell from the tone of my voice that this is true.

I will then reach into my cooler and hand you a chilled glass of cava. This is like champagne except it is from Spain and not France. We are blessed to have three Spanish food and wine importers in our city, and this vintage is the finest available. I went to all three.

Since the days are now long, I thought I would use this occasion to take you on a romantic picnic. I know the most romantic spot this city has to offer. It may not be the finest and most expensive restaurant in the city, but you will be able to take a picture of us at this spot and use the hashtag #MyManTreatsMeRight or #SmooveNightOut or just simply #Bliss and mean it.

This spot is so good you will want to freak me wild right there.

This will be especially true as I offer you another glass of either cava or prosecco, which is from Italy but is also sparkling and quite good. You know I do not mess with wine without bubbles.

I should point out that I will not have my finest crystal champagne flutes on hand as I am concerned that they may be crushed by an unexpected fit of passion or stolen by raccoons with exquisite taste.

I will then take out the foods that will make up our meal. This will consist of a staggering array of cheeses, crackers, and three varieties of grapes. I will also have a variety of fresh herbs, smoked salmon, and a jar of something very closely resembling foie gras. This will also probably come from Spain or Italy.

I will also bring those candles that repel bugs.

Once we have had our fill of cheeses, soulful glances, and light, playful banter that will in no way be forced, we will clean up our picnic area. You may think that we are done with our outdoor adventure, but we are not. I will take you by the hand and walk you through the forest. You will cling to me, as the many sounds and movements will frighten and startle you. I will not say anything, but my confident stride will assure you that I know which path is safe to take.

I will also have a very good flashlight.

Soon, we will arrive at a clearing that rests on top of a hill. This hill will overlook a drive-in movie theater, which will be playing the most romantic movie France had to offer last year. Once we have placed a blanket down on the soft grass, sat down, and opened another bottle of cava or prosecco, we will hold each other tight and watch the film from atop this very romantic vantage point. I will gently stroke your hair in a way that will not mess it up.

Also, I will use an app on my phone to play the movie’s audio.

Again, you may want me to hit you doggy style at this time, but I will not. This will be to heighten our sexual tension, which will be brought even higher by both the movie and the romantic location.

After the movie is completed, we will call another car service to pick us up. I will hold you tightly from behind and whisper things into your ear like “You are my queen” and “I could never love another woman.” If you think I will run out of things to whisper into your ears while we wait, you have sorely underestimated this Love Man.

Once the car has returned us to my penthouse apartment, I will lead you to the bathroom. It is there I will draw you a hot bath and clean you with expensive soaps and the finest wash clothes Turkey has to offer. These were purchased in bulk during a more prosperous time, and I am glad to use them on my very special lady.

Once your amazing body has been cleansed and dried, I will lead you to my bedroom where I will begin to pleasure you in ways that will make you forget any small inconvenience during our evening out.

Our love will know no bounds. We will be like exotic animals on the run from love poachers who want to shoot us, but do not realize that every shot they fire will give us more sexual passion and energy than before. Soon, however, they will use nets, which will allow them to catch us, and then later mount our heads on their walls. Other hunters, from the most exciting lands in the world, will gaze upon our erotic visages, drink scotch, and listen to the thrilling tale of our love.

Now is also when I will finally hit you doggy style.

In the morning, I will prepare a breakfast for you that will be both cooked and served in cast-iron skillets. These will have the finest and most colorful potatoes available, along with cheese and chorizo from that meat market where the employees have either long beards, arm tattoos, or both. This breakfast will be the perfect way to start your day.

You will need the calories.

Once you are ready to leave, I will walk down with you to help you find a cab. If you give me a day or two, I would be happy to reimburse you for this via Venmo. Times may be tight, but Smoove will always pay for his lady’s cab fare home.

Smoove out.

Smoove B resides in the city of Cincinnati, OH, in a 10th-floor penthouse. He is a regular guest contributor at the Cincinnati Learning Annex, where he teaches the popular six-week course, “The Fundamentals Of Relationship Communication.” From 1998–2001, he wrote, produced, and starred in a semi-regular cable-access cooking show that focused on breakfast.

'Stone': Robert De Niro's Underappreciated Thriller

BENJAMIN MERCER

JAN 21, 2011

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/01/stone-robert-de-niros-underappreciated-thriller/69971/

Host Ricky Gervais made all the headlines with his scorched-earth jokes at Sunday night's Golden Globes, but Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Robert De Niro nearly matched him for irreverence, if not for comic timing. During his jarring stand-up routine of an acceptance speech, De Niro poked fun at other celebrities, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and his own latest film, the critically reviled Little Fockers. He even made light of the hard work that he felt had gone unnoticed. Responding to the introductory clip reel, the actor said: "I think you would've enjoyed seeing a few seconds of Stanley & Iris, Everybody's Fine, Frankenstein, Marvin's Room, Stone. Some of you would be seeing them for the first time. ... Most of you would be seeing them for the first time. ... You didn't even watch the screeners, did you?"

That last entry in De Niro's list of unjustly overlooked movies, Stone, arrives on home video this week. The 2010 film, directed by John Curran (of the serviceable 2006 W. Somerset Maugham adaptation The Painted Veil) and written by Angus MacLachlan (of the superb Junebug), didn't even top $2 million at the domestic box office, despite its event-drama casting of De Niro opposite Edward Norton. The mixed reviews certainly didn't help. Too bad, because Stone is an unusually compelling film featuring performances—from De Niro, Norton, and Milla Jovovich—that stand shoulder to shoulder with much of the work currently being feted at coast-to-coast gala ceremonies.

Stone concerns the push-and-pull between a retiring parole officer, Jack Mabry (De Niro), and a corn-rowed arsonist and accessory to murder, Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Norton), who has done eight years out of 10-to-15 in a Detroit penitentiary. The tight-lipped Jack appears to enjoy golf and not much else. He's unhappily married, and he has just lost his older brother—the person who, as Jack says in his eulogy, taught him how to "live right." He is, at least, respected at work. For his part, Stone will do anything to ensure his early release. He sends his equally manipulative wife, Lucetta (Milla Jovovich), to make advances on Jack; sensing Jack will look kindly on a "reborn" convict, Stone goes shopping for faiths in the prison library.

He comes across a pamphlet, and an accompanying book, for something called "Zukangor," which Stone later describes to Jack as a striving, by way of chanting and listening, to become "God's tuning fork. ... But there's no priest or nothing. It's not like a religion. There's just this one dude named Arnold who's the Zuk-master." The Zukangor pamphlet later shows up in the hands of Jack's wife, Madylyn (Frances Conroy, in perpetual drunken tremor), who dismisses it as "junk mail." She nonetheless reads it aloud to Jack one night on the porch, as they sip their customarily enormous amounts of whiskey. "Did you know you started out as a stone?" she reads from a section of the New Agey pamphlet that describes the transmigration of souls, suggesting also why this particular message spoke to Stone in the first place. While Madylyn reads about the mineral stage of the soul, Curran cuts to what resemble actual rows of corn.

The jury is out on whether this shot is meant to subliminally evoke Stone the character and his coiffure or just as a quick canvassing of the Middle American soil. But Stone does sometimes lapse into ham-handedness—recurring symbols include relentlessly buzzing bees and hard-boiled eggs. The mood is likewise applied a little too thickly. The film's soundtrack, with uncredited contributions from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Jon Brion, drones rather lugubriously. The atmospherics really shift into high gear after Stone has what his paperwork describes as "a profound spiritual epiphany" while witnessing a brutal prison ambush. But it doesn't appear to be part of the angle he's working: As Stone shuffles around with an otherworldly look in his eyes (Norton, with the hardest role here, shifts on a dime from slick operator to space case), he appears to lose interest in becoming a free man. Meanwhile, Jack carries on an affair with Lucetta, with their black-background sex scenes appearing to take place in some sort of void.

For all its stylistic excesses, though, Stone asks genuinely provocative questions about belief and redemption. Jack is a nominal Episcopalian and a devout listener to Christian talk radio. He goes through all the motions, singing hymns at church and saying grace at home. But he lacks any true convictions, and—perhaps more crucially to the film's message—the will to confront his own misdeeds, past and present. He has passed judgment over others for a living, excusing his failings by comparing them to those of murderers and other miscreants, and thus essentially refusing to engage in any form of moral introspection. And so Stone has the power of Zukangor; Madylyn has the Bible; Lucetta, an atheist, nonetheless sees in life a pattern, a game to be played; and, not unlike A Serious Man's Larry Gopnik, Jack is simply cast adrift, left to weather the gathering storm of daily existence with only his own bitterness and self-pity.

Stone, anchored by the increasingly desperate and resentful character of Jack, is so serious and despairing that perhaps it's no real surprise that hardly anyone paid to see it in theaters last fall. But if it's a depressing film, it's rarely gratuitously so: Each misfortune is a vital part of its inquiry into the nature of absolution. De Niro certainly isn't wrong in asserting that the film deserves inclusion in any career-spanning clip reel, alongside his more memorable work.

We want to hear what you think. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

BENJAMIN MERCER has written on film for The Village Voice, The New York Sun, The L Magazine, and Reverse Shot. He is a copy editor at Bookforum.

NATO Shields U.S. From Its Military Adventures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDpCU5isieQ

Success and Mutation in the Soviet Union - RAI with A. Buzgalin (2/12)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=bpxHlgs779k

Candidate Turns To Focus Group For Position On Rape

https://politics.theonion.com/candidate-turns-to-focus-group-for-position-on-rape-1819566134































RICHMOND, VA– Wanting to "feel out the popular attitude before committing to a position," Virginia House of Delegates candidate Mark Earley turned to focus-group analysis Monday to determine Virginians' stance on the hot-button issue of rape.




"So far, results indicate that the state's residents skew heavily toward anti-rape," Earley said.




"A good 99.9 percent of Virginians say they feel strongly that the state would be a better place if rape were reduced."




Earley has not yet declared whether he will adopt a hardline anti-rape stance or take a more moderate position to avoid alienating the state's estimated 35 pro-rape voters.