Psychedelics, dance steps and giant snakes: inside the ayahuasca show

 Posted on June 16, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  781 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

DanceIno Moxo, Peruvian choreographer Oscar Naters’s new show, aims to faithfully recreate the ritual experience of taking ayahuasca – so much so the performers took the hallucinogen in rehearsal How do you imagine a choreographer begins to create a new show? Trying out steps, exploring a chosen theme or taking the cast into the countryside to ingest a powerful hallucinogen? It was the last approach for Peruvian director Oscar Naters and his company Grupo Integro in the creation of Ino Moxo, a piece of visual theatre inspired by César Calvo’s 1981 novel The Three Halves of Ino Moxo, about a trek into the Amazon to visit a revered ayahuasca shaman. [Read More]

Recovery Boys: the documentary on what happens after opioid addiction

 Posted on June 16, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  938 words  |  Kary Bruening

Documentary filmsIn a new Netflix film, four men on the road to recovery talk about rehabilitation, hope and misconceptions Sitting on leather couches at a West Virginia farm, a father of two reckons with terrible news about his three-year-old daughter, who he just learned had been molested while in foster care. “I don’t know what to do,” says Jeff, who was at the farm to treat his opioid addiction. The silence lingers until addiction counselor Craig Cohen carefully asks the four men, each a portrait of masculinity in camouflage caps and tattoos: “Are we just talking shit every day? [Read More]

The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane review the lost boy

 Posted on June 16, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  950 words  |  Valentine Belue

FictionReviewOtherworldly sunsets, family tensions and Aboriginal lore collide in a blazing mystery set in the colonial outback Fiona McFarlane’s intimate and unnerving debut, 2014’s The Night Guest, described a woman’s mental disorientation as she reaches the end of her life. It was shortlisted for the Guardian first book award and won several prizes in the author’s native Australia. Her second equally distinctive novel also deals with our precarious place in the world, taking its title from the Swedish expression for the setting of the sun. [Read More]

Yakushima, Japan: an island of natural wonders

 Posted on June 16, 2024  |  7 minutes  |  1455 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

Japan holidaysRevered by the Japanese for its hiking, hot springs and cedar trees, Yakushima also provided the inspiration for Studio Ghibli’s anime hit Princess Mononoke. Now foreign visitors are uncovering this island delight Nestling in the warm, sub-tropical waters 37 miles south of Kyushu, Japan’s third largest island, the towering mountains and ancient forests of Yakushima make it a secluded and largely unspoilt paradise, which feels a world away from the hustle and bustle of Japan’s megacities. [Read More]

European pond turtle could return to British rivers and lakes | Rewilding

 Posted on June 15, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  936 words  |  Valentine Belue

Rewilding This article is more than 6 months oldEuropean pond turtle could return to British rivers and lakesThis article is more than 6 months oldConservationists say reintroduction of reptile could contribute to restoring ancient biodiverse wetlands The European pond turtle could be swimming in British rivers and lakes again thanks to a new crowdfunded campaign as conservation scientists seek sites for an experimental reintroduction. Global heating is believed to be making Britain increasingly suitable for the enigmatic species, which may have vanished because of global cooling thousands of years ago but is now threatened by droughts in southern Europe. [Read More]

Horse_ebooks creator Jacob Bakkila: 'Everyone just wants a good love story'

 Posted on June 15, 2024  |  8 minutes  |  1616 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

Status updateCultureThe man behind @Horse_ebooks and the video game Bear Stearns Bravo talks about the inspiration for his lauded spambotIt was a giant in the realm of weird Twitter: Jacob Bakkila masquerading as celebrated spambot @Horse_ebooks for two years, gaming the system and creating digital art. The tweets that had supposedly bubbled up from the ether through an automated system – thought to have been long-abandoned by a mysterious Russian spammer – were revealed as a real-life New Yorker's artistic " [Read More]

Italian priest struck off for calling Francis an anti-pope usurper | Pope Francis

 Posted on June 15, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  444 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

Pope FrancisItalian priest struck off for calling Francis an ‘anti-pope usurper’Priest in Tuscany compares Francis unfavourably with Pope Benedict in New Year’s Eve address shared online An Italian priest has been struck off after calling Pope Francis an “anti-pope usurper” in his New Year’s Eve homily. Father Ramon Guidetti’s speech to the congregation at St Ranieri church in Guasticce, a hamlet in the Tuscan province of Livorno, was a tribute marking the first anniversary of the death of Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI. [Read More]

New Zealand bushfires flare amid fears country becoming more flammable | New Zealand

 Posted on June 15, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  659 words  |  Aldo Pusey

New Zealand This article is more than 4 years oldNew Zealand bushfires flare amid fears country becoming more ‘flammable’This article is more than 4 years oldAbout 70 firefighters battle largest blaze on North Island’s east coast while power outages hit thousands of people on both islands Bushfire season has begun in New Zealand with hundreds of hectares of forest going up in flames at half a dozen separate blazes on the east coast of the North Island. [Read More]

Normal Rules Dont Apply by Kate Atkinson review food for thought but such small portions

 Posted on June 15, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  774 words  |  Jenniffer Sheldon

The ObserverKate AtkinsonReviewWhile brimming with ideas, the Life After Life author’s 11 interlinked stories aren’t given the legs they need to resonate Kate Atkinson likes to make stories that, long or short, disrupt time and consequences; she deployed the device of a constantly restarting narrative clock to particularly dizzying effect in the novel Life After Life, in which the protagonist, Ursula Todd, sees her trajectory from genteel Edwardian child to a would-be assassin of Hitler splinter into a myriad possibilities. [Read More]

Sabahattin Alis Madonna in a Fur Coat the surprise Turkish bestseller

 Posted on June 15, 2024  |  10 minutes  |  1932 words  |  Aldo Pusey

A freethinking man … Sabahattin Ali. Photograph: Filiz AlA freethinking man … Sabahattin Ali. Photograph: Filiz AlRereadingBooksWhy has a little known 1940s novel become a Turkey’s bestselling book? Maureen Freely on a writer who refuses traditional gender roles, and offers hope in an increasingly restricted society When it was first published in Istanbul in 1943, it made no impression whatsoever. Decades later, when Madonna in a Fur Coat became the sort of book that passed from friend to friend, the literary establishment continued to ignore it. [Read More]