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Silicon Valley Bank collapsed after a stunning 48 hours in which a bank run and a capital crisis led to the second-largest failure of a financial institution in U.S. history. What do you think?

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CALGARY — CHFM launched a new weekday morning team who never play music or even speak; they spend their three hour broadcast block in constant laughter. “[Previous morning hosts] Billie Jo and Candice laughed plenty,” said station manager Jason Reid, “but they wasted so much air time talking. But [new morning crew] Benny, Chantal and […]

The post New morning radio crew doesn’t play music or talk, just laughs and laughs and laughs appeared first on The Beaverton.

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CALGARY, AB – Can’t get enough of HBO’s The Last of Us? Then strap a kid you just met into a pickup truck you inherited from a sweet gay couple, because it’s time to head on west. Dubbed by some as “the New York City of stuff that looks like it’s been abandoned for decades”, […]

The post 5 trendy Alberta attractions that are giving parasitic fungus zombie apocalypse vibes appeared first on The Beaverton.

Nuts are prevalent in the Journal of Nuts. Some (perhaps all) of its articles have interesting authors. One, at least, of the authors of the following article is notably, almost nuttily prolific. That article is:

“How Did Globalization Boost the Nuts Production in Indonesia?” Eko Hendarto, Sandhir Sharma, Maria Jade Catalan Opulencia, Mohammed Khudair Hasan, Aiman Mohammed Baqir Al-Dhalimy, Iskandar Muda, Mohammed Abed Jawad, Krishanveer Singh, and Noor Abdul Ameer Jabar, Journal of Nuts, vol. 13, no. 3, September 2022, pp.199-210.

Co-author Maria Jade Catalan Opulencia is mentioned in a new report, in the Retraction Watch blog, called “After a sleuth reveals a paper with authorships advertised for sale, it’s retracted.” That report quotes an academic detective named Nick Wise:

For example, Wise noted, Maria Jade Catalan Opulencia, one of the authors of the retracted paper whose affiliation is listed as the college of business administration at Ajman University in the United Arab Emirates, “suddenly published over 50 papers last year, despite having barely published before, and many of them have matching Facebook adverts on Pubpeer.”

Opulencia is listed as a coauthor on three additional retracted papers about cancer biology, fuel cells, and nanoelectronics for which Wise identified authorships for sale. Her most recent paper on Google Scholar indicates it was published in Linguistica Antverpiensa, a Belgian linguistics journal that we previously reported had been targeted by hijackers attempting to sneak paper mill manuscripts into databases like Scopus under the auspices of a legitimate journal.

Praise for Opalancia

We found a 2016 blog item (by Roger B Rueda) praising Opalencia. Rueda wrote: “She is indeed of the highest calibre. A gold laid waste by the university in the Philippines which didn’t understand her worth and importance.” Rueda’s blog item carries this headline: “Dr Maria Jade Catalan Opulencia and her other colleague nominees for the 2016 Global Top 50 Educators Award”.

It’s not just nuts.

Opalancia is credited with co-authorship on an impressively, delightfully wide variety of research papers, as you can see by doing a search with Google Scholar.

 

 

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Basement, Toronto – Your new Maytag washing machine has spent the last 2 minutes playing a longer than necessary tune to alert you that the laundry is done.  “It really could have just been one loud buzz,” said Todd Angles, another owner of the same washing machine you have. “Instead, when the laundry is done, […]

The post Local dryer really making a meal out of this “Your laundry is done” jingle appeared first on The Beaverton.

Breaking news from CNN: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday instructed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to guarantee Silicon Valley Bank customers will have access to all of their money starting Monday. By guaranteeing all deposits — even the uninsured money customers kept with the failed SVB bank — the government can ensure public confidence in America's banking system, said Yellen, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg in a joint statement.... The FDIC opened an auction Sunday for bids to acquire the bank, the Treasury Department said in a briefing with lawmakers in the California delegation, two sources familiar with the briefing told CNN.... Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Jonathan Davidson led the briefing, during which they told members that the FDIC is prepared "to operate the institution" to ensure depositors can maintain payroll for their employees and that more operations will emerge in coming days, one of the sources said. The treasury secretary's statement clarified that "No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer." We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer. Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law. Finally, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors. Meanwhile, congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said there are multiple potential buyers for SVB, and "What we would hope to see by tomorrow morning is for some other bank to buy the bank." The UK arm of the bank has already received a bid from the Bank of London. From the treasury secretary's statement: The U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry. Those reforms combined with today's actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors' savings remain safe.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Federal officials made the emergency announcement Sunday amid panic from depositors over the state of uninsured deposits.

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Over the past year, dozens of shows have been disappearing from streaming platforms like HBO Max and Showtime. Shows like Minx, Made for Love, FBoy Island, and even big budget hits like Westworld have been removed entirely.

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At Galleri Urbane in Dallas, curator Benjamin Terry brings together three artists in a group exhibition centered around each artist’s unique method of pushing the boundaries in their creative process and challenging the materiality of their work. The silly-yet-literal title of the exhibition, Stack and Smoosh, refers to each artist’s technique of combining, layering, and flattening their materials together.

Claire Kennedy is a Fort Worth-based artist whose work hopscotches between painting, sculpture, collage, and installation. She uses a variety of mediums both traditional — oil, acrylic, and chalk pastel — and nontraditional, such as glitter, stickers, pom poms, and paper towels. It is the latter, more nontraditional materials that elicit a sense of casual artsy-craftiness, though there is clear intentionality in her work.

Within Kennedy’s compositions are many familiar shapes: sparkling stars, puffy clouds, crescent moons, plump raindrops, cutesy hearts, diamonds, waves, wings. The dreamy, childlike symbols make the little girl within me swoon. But just as there are recognizable motifs, there are also many unregulated forms that fit into no single category. 

In Spiral Dots, a slightly asymmetrical and somewhat awkward plywood base immediately sets the piece apart from Kennedy’s other larger pieces in the gallery. Though the butterfly-like shape originally felt comforting, the more I looked at the work, the more it began to morph into an entirely new entity. From a distance, the larger dots seem to connect together, forming their own hypnotic spiral which ventures into the abyss outside of the canvas. Kennedy says that the work is loosely based on a drawing of an angel that her mother created as a kid, which still hangs in her childhood closet today. Given the shape, the large red pupil in the center, and the overall hypnotic nature of the piece, I cannot help but see a biblical angel within the abstraction.

Although Kennedy’s larger pieces are what originally caught my eye, upon further inspection the entire gallery is littered with smaller pieces and vinyl stickers stretching to the very corners of the room. Many of the these pieces go completely unnoticed, and unexpectedly finding one feels like you just entered an epic game of I spy. “My work is a hierarchy of moments,” says Kennedy. “ There are big, medium, and small punctuations everywhere.” It is those ‘punctuations’ that ever so subtly transform the gallery space into an installation. In the same respect, they also enhance and give meaning to the negative space between the larger ‘main’ pieces and the punctuations between them.

One of the smaller and perhaps less noticeable works on the wall, Wobble Shape, is a prime example of Kennedy’s whimsical nature. The two pom poms on either side of the sculpture were added during installation to cover, or rather to embellish, the nails holding the piece to the wall. “I like being really intentional with the hardware. You’re probably never going to see a nail showing and if you do, I’ve probably decorated it,” the artist shares. “The hardware is important, it’s a mark just like anything else.”

Much of Kennedy’s oeuvre is defined by its simplicity and simultaneous frankness. It is both ironically and unironically naive, but it is this inherent contradiction that gives it both playfulness and joy. 

Niva Parajuli is an Austin-based artist who creates pixelated landscapes made from small bits of polymer clay crunched together and matted on a plywood base. Up close, the design appears systematic and geometric, forming a network of lines that cross in somewhat consistent intervals. But once you step back, the organic nature of the landscape emerges. Parajuli says he is inspired by his everyday environment. His piece Pink Blossoms derived from the cherry blossom trees that bloomed on the campus of Southern Methodist University, where he obtained his MFA in 2022.

Parajuli showcases the expressive power of color by arranging it in small fields of bright pinks, blues, greens, and yellows. Some of his work, like Pink Blossoms, forms precarious grids that feel woven together. Whereas other pieces, like Wildflowers II, are comprised of square plots of clay and astro turf, much like a patchwork quilt. His use of artificial grass, paired with his blocky clay compositions, feel straight out of a retro video game.

Megan Reed is a Los Angeles-based artist who reclaims discardable packaging materials, combining and reconstructing them into absurdist post-minimal relics. The irony behind the transformation of mass produced materials into symbolically significant and distinct art objects speaks directly to the consumerist, material-centered culture of the modern day. Although, this is hardly what would come to mind when you first approach the pieces with their chunky shapes and saturated color combinations.

When I first saw The Three Graces, which is one of two pieces propped on a dazzling yellow platform in the center of the gallery, my first thought was “that is the funkiest tombstone I’ve ever seen!” After learning that her work often references stone circles, cairns, and Cyclopean masonry, I realized I wasn’t too far off. The individual shapes within each work, each with its own bold color, have a distinct connection with one another; some shapes are actively stacked on top of each other vertically or horizontally, while others are given their own space to exist independently. But when merged together, they create a unique and striking form. Regardless of the compositions that Reed creates, it is the relationship between each block that gives the work its unmistakable energy and personality.

Despite Reed’s artmaking process of employing drawing and collage, her work may instinctively be categorized as sculpture. However, many of her pieces, such as Untitled (blue with red bar) are ‘wall-based.’ These pieces, jutting out from the pristine gallery wall, appear effortlessly suspended despite their bulky materials. Their plastic-like finish and lumpy texture are enticing and inviting, much like a shiny new toy.

Each artist in Stack and Smoosh comes from an entirely different mindset and process: Kennedy with her quirky yet sophisticated arts and crafts compositions, Parajuli with his puzzley, reminiscent landscapes, and Reed with her cartoonish bricolages of disposable debris. Together, their work generates a playful dialogue on disposition and materiality.

 

Stack and Smoosh is on view at Galleri Urbane in Dallas through March 25, 2023.

Emma S. Ahmad is an art historian and writer based in Dallas, TX.

The post All Work and More Play: “Stack and Smoosh” at Galleri Urbane, Dallas appeared first on Glasstire.

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The implosion of Silicon Valley Bank could force hundreds of tech startups to lay off workers or shut down completely. It remains unclear how much, if any, of depositors' money will be returned.

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Over the last year, more than 650,000 jobs have been added in Texas, marking an annual growth rate of 5%.

In the first lawsuit of its kind since Roe v. Wade was overturned, a husband from Galveston County seeks damages from women who allegedly helped his ex-wife obtain the medications to terminate her pregnancy.

With the viewership of the Academy Awards’ broadcast slipping by 35 million since 2000, The Onion asked Hollywood’s biggest stars to explain why the Oscars are still relevant.

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Eighty-one-year-old Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell suffered a concussion after tripping during a private dinner event at a D.C. hotel and remains hospitalized “for a few days of observation and treatment.” What do you think?

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Fans of Daniel Johnston are already versed in the late artist’s verses — though the countless collages with his sister Marjory in the last years of his life may come as a surprise. In Daniel & Marjory Johnston: The What of Whom at Lydia Street Gallery in Austin, scores of the siblings’ works on paper are presented along with a selection of Johnston’s early drawings, offering a fresh perspective on his protean arc. “There were different sides of being his sister,” said Marjory at the show’s opening in late January. “Some of it was so happy and joyful and fun […] and other times it was heartbreaking.”

Marjory says that Daniel — the youngest of the five siblings — knew from an early age he would be famous one day. The Johnstons doted on their baby brother, which made it even more difficult when he began showing signs of serious mental illness in his early 20s while making music and art in Austin. Marjory was particularly close to Daniel — who was 10 years her junior — later on in life, while living in Waller, Texas. Once their parents passed, she became her brother’s caretaker, helping to manage his health, his house, and the copious collections of records, comics, and toys that filled it.

It was Johnston’s penchant for thrift store items that actually led to their collaborations. In an effort to declutter her brother’s home, Marjory began tearing off all the covers of McCalls and Butterick sewing patterns Daniel had acquired (“he liked the pictures on the front of ladies in different poses”), placing the images in his notebooks and discarding the rest. A half-torn photo of a female model became their first collage after Daniel decided to draw in the remaining bits himself. “He turned these female legs into this creature like only he can,” his sister recalled during her gallery talk. Daniel insisted they continue with the project until it was no longer fun. It went on for six years, until his passing in 2019, at the age of 58.   

The show at Lydia Street Gallery features nearly 100 works — a small sampling from Marjory’s own collection, but a vast ocean of her brother’s imagination, from comic-book characters to biblical symbols to Beatles references. Media clippings take on mythical creatures of anthropomorphized acclaim. In one such collage, Jeremiah the Innocent Frog (of Hi, How Are You fame) struts in stilettos as a skinny-jean centaur. In another, a hybridized heroine — half McCall model, half Marvel muse — swims in a sea of lyrics from Johnston’s song “Scrambled Eggs” off his 1982 self-released album The What of Whom.  

A series of collages containing songs from that titular album — including the two just mentioned — are on display. It was Marjory who thought to start pairing collages with songs that most suited the mood of each drawing, bringing together Daniel’s kinetic, thematic oeuvre of words and visuals. Like everywhere else in his work, recurrent characters — often heroic or villainous in nature — cohere the tidbits of cultural references and symbolic messages that swirl on these sheets of paper, much like the lyrics themselves. 

Johnston was something of a cartographer, mapping out the topographies of his own mind. Standing in the gallery, one can’t help but appreciate the colorful coordinates that made up the map. His early ink drawings, for instance, feature symbols and themes that turned prolific in his body of work. One in particular catches my eye, a reference to his iconic Fly Eye — a winged eyeball seen on his 1985 album cover Continued Story. The eye rests on the head of a scantily-clad woman, with the words “No Brain No Pain” written in blue marker. (On the back of this drawing, and others like it from the early 1980s, a random clerical form doubles as art.)

The collages with Marjory make up most of the show: bright, busy, funny, yet melancholy. A poignant mashup of pop culture and personal revelations, both chaotic and poetic. “Vengeance Is Mine Says the Lord,” reads one from 2015, which includes a photo of John Lennon’s head, to which Johnston has added a golden halo with the words “The Pope Smokes Dope Every Day,”        

Every drawing lends itself to the harmony-cacophony that happily vibrates in the space. Most are 8 1/2 x 11 inches, matted and framed in black; an archival uniformity densely arranged on the walls to emphasize Johnston’s rapid-fire production. The collages brimming with Daniel’s lyrics, paired together by Marjory, and his early works that she’s held onto, which hang in the window like sun catchers, for both sides to be seen, speak to the tenderness of their relationship. All while his songs — 15 hours’ worth — play in the background, adding to the surround-sound of a continued story: the what of whom that’s never really gone. 

 

Daniel & Marjory Johnston: The What of Whom runs through March 19 at Lydia Street Gallery in Austin. 

The post Sibling Revelry in “Daniel & Marjory Johnston: The What of Whom” appeared first on Glasstire.

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LOS GATOS, CA—Emphasizing that the earlier they found out about the brutal homicides, the better the end results, Netflix officials asked Friday that any men thinking of killing their families just go ahead and contact them directly first. “If you have plans to orchestrate a deadly string of murders that leaves your…

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Presidential candidate Nikki Haley recently suggested that all elected officials over the age of 75 should have to pass a mental competency test in order to hold office. Could you pass it?

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