There’s no right way to close a stand-up comedy set. Some comedians go with what they believe is their strongest bit, while others go for their longest. Some opt for callbacks, while some save their dirtiest jokes for the end, knowing that if they told them too early on in the set, they wouldn’t be able to follow it with anything. Some want to challenge the audience, and others want their closer to serve as a “thank you” note to the crowd for bearing with them for however long they’ve been on stage.
“This is when the performer decides how you’re going to spend the rest of your evening, what your energy is going to be,” says comedian Guy Branum. “In the ’80s into the ’90s. I think comics particularly had extremely modular sets full of short jokes and put the strongest one last. Now, people think (or I hope more people think), What am I sending you away with? It’s such an earned moment.”
.
Clockwise from top left: Maria Bamford, Dave Chappelle, Bi
In 1998, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras launched the Intensive Community Program (ICP) as a response to the barriers keeping classical music training out of reach for many would-be musicians, including African Americans and Latinxs, who are underrepresented in orchestras.
The program lowers those barriers in Massachusetts by providing top-tier orchestra training to students in kindergarten through twelfth grade from underserved communities in and around Boston. ICP serves as an audition-based feeder program for BYSO’s six performance ensembles — 12% of BYSO musicians attend ICP.
First Republic spoke with ICP Artistic Director Nicole Cariglia and students Kensie Carroll and Noanddi Manigat to learn about their intensive music community, which adapted to virtual performances in the wake of the pandemic.
Waking up to music
As a very young child, 9-year-old Kensie Caroll woke up each morning to the sounds of cello and viola as her two sisters, twins six years older than Kensie, practiced their respective instruments for ICP.
“She was in a stroller, going to Sydney and Sadie’s auditions,” said Kensie’s father, Marc. Born into their music and the ICP lifestyle, when Kensie auditioned for the program at the age of four, she was ready.
But five years ago, as Kensie’s parents considered having her audition for ICP, Artistic Director Nicole Cariglia was a bit concerned: “I said, ‘Marc, she’s really young.’” Most four-year-olds don’t earn one of the selective program’s 90 slots. Kensie did. And as she began her own cello training, the demands didn’t surprise her. “By default, she knew what she had to do: Get up, practice, then go to school, and then go to the rehearsals and lessons,” Marc said.
Faridabad is the largest city in the Indian state of Haryana and a part of the National Capital Region of Delhi. It is one of the major satellite cities of Delhi and is located 284 kilometres south of the state capital Chandigarh.The river Yamuna forms the eastern district boundary with Uttar Pradesh. The Government of India included it in the second list of Smart Cities Mission on 24 May 2016. Faridabad has been described as the eighth fastest-growing city in the world and the third in India by the City Mayors Foundation survey. As per the 2001 Delhi Regional Plan, Faridabad is part of the Delhi Metropolitan Area (DMA).
It’s uttered in hushed tones during mommy-and-me yoga classes and at Montessori-school drop-offs, discussed ad nauseam in breastfeeding support groups and on parenting message boards.
It’s called tongue-tie, and it’s everywhere. In online mom groups, it’s blamed for all sorts of parenting woes. Baby isn’t gaining weight, or won’t take a bottle? Have you tried checking for ties? Kid won’t nap? It’s probably related to tongue-tie. Baby has a rash? Check under the tongue!
Tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, is characterized by an overly tight lingual frenulum, the cord of tissue that anchors the tongue to the bottom of the mouth. It occurs in 4 to 11 percent of newborns. A lip tie—a related condition—is an unusually tight labial frenulum, the piece of tissue that keeps the upper lip tethered close to the gum line. Tongue and lip ties often occur in tandem.
To breastfeed effectively, babies need to create negative pressure (in a word, a vacuum) on the breast. This differs from the compression that some babies with limited tongue mobility use, effectively squeezing the milk out rather than sucking.
In America’s bloody history of racial violence, the little-known Elaine Massacre in Phillips County, Arkansas, which took place in October 1919, a century ago this week, may rank as the deadliest. The reasons why the event has remained shrouded and obscure, despite a shocking toll of bloodshed inflicted on the African-American inhabitants of Phillips County, speak to a legacy of white supremacy in the US and ruthless suppression of labor activism that disfigures American society to this day.
Phillips County, located deep in the Arkansas Delta, was largely rural and three-quarters African-American; in the small town of Elaine, there were ten times as many black residents as white. The African Americans of Phillips County, like those throughout the South, were subjected to segregation and disenfranchisement, those twin pillars of white supremacy. But the black sharecroppers and tenant farmers there were also the victims of a particularly harsh form of repression known as “debt peonage.” Under this system, they were loaned money or rented land by plantation owners; they were then forced to sell their crops to the owners at below-market rates and to purchase their food and other supplies from over-priced plantation stores, trapping them in a cycle of perpetual debt, with the owners keeping—and often doctoring—the accounts.
In the spring of 1919, a group of Phillips County African-American sharecroppers and tenant farmers, many of them veterans who had recently returned from service overseas in World War I, decided to challenge this system by joining a union called the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America (PFHUA), which had been founded the year before by army veteran Robert Lee Hill, a black tenant farmer in Winchester, Arkansas. The union’s goal was “to advance the interest of the Negro, morally and intellectually,” and its constitution ended with a proclamation: “WE BATTLE FOR THE RIGHTS OF OUR RACE; IN UNION IS STRENGTH.”
.
Arkansas State Archives
The body of Frances Hall, one of the few victims of the massacre who can be identified by name, thanks to the journalists Robert Whitaker and Ida B. Wells, near Elaine, Arkansas, October 1919
Iceland is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, with a population of 356,99 and an area of 103,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi), making it the most sparsely populated country in Europe.The capital and largest city is Reykjavík. Reykjavík and the surrounding areas in the southwest of the country are home to over two-thirds of the population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active. The interior consists of a plateau characterized by sand and lava fields, mountains, and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle. Its high latitude and marine influence keep summers chilly, with most of the archipelago having a polar climate.
There are plenty of things we hold onto for good reason. Treasures from our travels, family heirlooms, sentimental birthday cards—all justifiable keepsakes. Then there are the odds and ends we accumulate just because we have the space to store them. You know, the “But what if I need this one day?” items. It seems like a rather harmless habit—until those nonessentials add up and turn your cabinets and closets into living nightmares. The chaos stops here. It’s time to repurpose, recycle, or kick ’em to the curb.
While we aren’t here to push a hyper-minimalist agenda, we do believe every object in your home should serve a distinct purpose or, at the very least, brighten your day a little. We doubt your excessive tote bag collection or rubber band–filled junk drawer is offering you much.
Weekends should be for recharging, not for catching up on work we didn’t get to during the week. This includes housework. While we like the end result, cleaning the house (for most of us) isn’t a fun or relaxing endeavor. To get to your housework to-dos before the weekend, commit to cleaning for 15 to 20 minutes five days a week. Then welcome freedom — and tidy home — when Friday night comes.
A successful weekday-only cleaning regime relies on two categories of cleaning tasks: ones that you repeat every day as a matter of habit and ones that you do once a week.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Clockwise from top left: Maria Bamford, Dave Chappelle, Bi
James' World 2 