Phantasmagoria presents: A Christmas Carol & The Canterville Ghost

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If you are looking to kick off the Holiday season with a taste for the macabre, then join Phantasmagoria as they present  “Ghost Stories” this Christmas season. They will bring to life and the bitter sweet taste of death to not one but TWO whimsical classics. The well-loved A Christmas Carol, A Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens, followed by Oscar Wilde’s rollicking The Canterville Ghost.

I sat in on a dress rehearsal for the show at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. The set felt like an abandoned attic with carousel horses flanking the stage. Projections on a large screen behind the set changed the settings with ease. I fell in love with the faint flickering candle light that illuminated the various corners of the stage.  That meant I needed to keep the scene dark so the candles could shine.

A Christmas Carol is a well loved and very familiar classic. Phantasmagoria added its dark and vaudevillian steampunk styled flair to the story. John DiDonna as Scrooge lived in the old man’s skin. I have seen him perform this roll many times over the years. Daniel Cooksley as Marley, draped in chains did an amazing job filling the stage with his his twisted and agonized self. Of the three ghosts, the ghost of Christmas future was magnificently designed. Much larger that life, the dark draped figure gestured with gnarly black branches for hands.

The Canterville Ghost offered a much lighter tale full of light hearted dance. It was the yin to Dickens dark and foreboding Yang. There are two more performances December 3–4, 2022 at the Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater, in the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 8 p.m. and 2 p.m. Tickets are about $35.

Town Square

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Under Musk‘s ownership, Twitter stopped taking action against tweets breaching its Covid rules, as of Wednesday, 23 Nov 2022. Twitter had previously suspended more than 11,000 accounts for Covid misinformation as of September 2022.

The former president who promoted and supported an attack on the Capitol to stop the certification of the presidential election was also invited back. His account was permanently suspended after the insurrection. Apparently 62,000 suspended accounts have been re-instated. Twitter also reinstated the personal account of US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, banned in January 2022. Now that accounts that spread misinformation have been given amnesty, it is unclear if they will return, or new ones will be emboldened to share incorrect information, that could influence the decisions people make about their health.

I have used Twitter extensively throughout the pandemic to learn about the latest research and trends as the virus spread. I have been seeing these Twitter feeds report that they are loosing thousands of followers after Musk took control of the company. Republican politicians on the other hand are gaining thousands of followers. Notably Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Representative Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif.; and Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., lost about 100,000 Twitter followers since Musk bought Twitter, while Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, gained more than 300,000. Exactly what is causing these trends is not yet known.

Musk fired thousands of employees which will clearly result in far less moderation of hate speech and the resulting violence. He was forced to pause the initial launch of an $8 per month Twitter Blue service after users abused the system by purchasing blue check marks to impersonate brands and famous people. Drug company Eli Lilly, who manufactures Insulin, had to apologized for a misleading tweet in which someone pretending to be the company wrote, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.”  After that debacle, the drug company suspended advertising on Twitter worth millions of dollars. Musk banned some impersonators before he shut the service down, raising questions about his definition of free speech.

Experts have argued that there has been an exponential increase in hate speech, harassment and misinformation on the platform since the billionaire purchased the social media site. Barbara F. Walter, has written about the potential for social media to fuel a decentralized civil war. She studied civil wars and insurrections in foreign countries for the CIA and realized that eh United States is backsliding towards armed conflict as well thanks in part to social media promoting extremism. Extremism generates more clicks.

 

 

 

Foxconn

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Protests erupted at Foxconn the huge iPhone manufacturing plant in Zhenvgzhou China.Police in hazmat suits clubbed the factory workers protesting.

Last month, the factory was locked down due to rising COVID cases. Some workers scaled the fences to break out and go home. Former workers estimate that thousands have fled the factory campus. The company then recruited new workers with the promise of generous bonuses.

Rumors circulated that new recruits were being asked to share dormitories with workers who were Covid-positive. When new workers arrived they were told they would not get the bonuses promised until they had worked at the much lower pay for several weeks. One protestor via a live stream said, “They changed the contract so that we could not get the subsidy as they had promised. They quarantine us but don’t provide food.”

Foxconn has established closed loop operations at the plant, keeping it isolated from the wider city of Zhengzhou. Workers are not supposed to leave. The Zhengzhou plant employs more than 200,000 people. It is not known how many are infected with COVID. “It’s now evident that closed-loop production in Foxconn only helps in preventing COVID from spreading to the city, but does nothing (if not make it even worse) for the workers in the factory,” Aiden Chau of China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group, said in an email.

Foxconn has apologized for a “technical error” in its payment systems, a day after its iPhone factory in China was rocked by angry protests. The iPhone factory apologized for the violence against employees. One new employee was paid 8,000 yuan ($1,120) and was set to receive another 2,000 yuan ($280).

China has recorded its highest number of daily Covid cases since the pandemic began,

 

After Pulse: Joe Saunders

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Joe Saunders is a former State Representative and a senior political director at Equality Florida and formerly staff at the Human Rights Campaign. He is an Orlando LGBT activist. Pulse opened while Joe was a student at UCF. The club anchored it’s outreach around college students. His roommate became a bartender at Pulse. His first apartment was just a few blocks from Pulse.

Joe was in North Carolina doing political response work. He had worked crazy hours like 15 hours a day. At 2AM his phone lit up with a text chat thread from a group of friends in Orlando. He was till working at 2AM. People were saying something is happening at Pulse. One friend was in an apartment within view of the club.  He kept hearing bangs which could be multiple gun shots.

The text thread search began, who was out and where they safe. After waking the next morning by 10AM he had to return home to Orlando. After a quick plane flight be got to the gay and lesbian center for a press conference held there. The Center is not a huge space. A huge bouncer was a the door directing people. The windows had fogged up. You had to carve your way through all the reporters and cameras that were packed into the room. The space was full to capacity. Equality Florida announced at the press conference that they wanted to do a vigil at Lake Eola.

Plans began for the vigil began right away. The city of Orlando was concerned about security. Could a copycat shooter show up at the vigil? The city ultimately decided the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts would be a safer option and easier for police to defend. Police snipers were on the roof of the Methodist Church and City hall just in case anything went down. Joe was the MC for the vigil. The vigil became one of the most important visual moments of the Orlando community response to Pulse and it came together in 6 hours.

After Pulse: Chevalier Lovett

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Chevalier Lovett didn’t go to Pulse often but the club meant the world to him. He would celebrate two events each year at the club, one was his birthday and the other was a celebration of identity. On June 11, the day before the shooting, friends were insisting he go out since he hadn’t yet celebrated his birthday, he decided they should go to Pulse. Everyone was on board. He changed his mind, later that night, and texted everyone that he was going to stay home. He suggested that they should go to City Walk instead.

Chevalier turns off his phone when he goes to bed. He woke up at 8AM to 101 text messages and about 72 voice mails. One message said, “I hope you are safe, turn on your TV.” He doesn’t own a TV, so he checked the news on his phone. People he hadn’t heard from for a while were texting and since his phone was off there was more anxiety to the messages.

He started searching his group texts to see which of his friends might have gone to Pulse. They were all a City Walk when the shooting happened at Pulse. On Sunday, there were so many phone calls and comforting. The names of the 49 victims came out Sunday and he knew five friends who were on the list. He went to the vigil, where multiple news outlets interviewed him. Of the seven or so interviews NPR stood out as the most genuine and heart felt.

in 2004 Hurricane Charlie hit. In a time of disaster that is when you see a community come together. The way the community came together after Pulse eclipsed that. Pulse changed his life. It is everyone’s history.

COVID Lung Damage

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Lungs are the main organs affected by a COVID-19 infection. A study published in Radiology showed that there is Persistent Lung Damage after recovering from COVID-19. The study of COVID’s long term effects are being studied as more people suffer from Long COVID. Researchers in Germany evaluated changes in lung structure and function in 54 pediatric COVID-19 survivors and nine healthy controls aged 5 to 17 years using low-field MRI. Twenty-nine patients (54%) had recovered from their infections, 25 (46%) had long COVID, and all but one were unvaccinated at the time of infection. Four COVID-19 patients had asymptomatic acute infections. The study findings show that lung abnormalities persist among children who have experienced COVID-19 illness.

Long COVID can cause lingering health problems and wreak havoc for months. Long COVId can include symptoms like, shortness of breath, fatigue and brain fog. The symptoms can come and go, but have an impact on the person’s everyday functioning, and cannot be explained by another health problem. Long COVID can happen in people who have mild symptoms. COVID can cause damage to the lungs, heart, nervous system, kidneys, liver and other organs.

A bad case of COVID-19 can produce scarring and other permanent problems in the lungs but even mild infections can cause persistent shortness of breath — getting winded easily after even light exertion.

Many people recovering from COVID-19 suffer from long-term symptoms of lung damage, including breathlessness, coughing, fatigue and limited ability to exercise. COVID-19 can lead to inflammation in the lungs due to the infection and the immune system’s reaction to it. The inflammation may improve over time, but in some people it persists. Lung recovery after COVID-19 is possible, but takes time. Experts say it can take months for a person’s lung function to return to pre-COVID-19 levels. Breathing exercises and respiratory therapy can help.

Egg

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I had an Elite Animation Academy student who wanted to learn how to draw realistic portraits. I picked a reference from the internet and we both sketched the face. I pointed out my basic premise of breaking the face into halves to get the general proportions right. My student got the general outlines in place and then didn’t know what to do next. This is true of many beginning art students, they get a few lines in place and freeze up. I suggested adding value.

For some reason this idea of value as opposed to line is often a bridge too far for students. I scribbled in some darks with the side of my digital pencil, but then advised my student to just paint an egg. We painted the egg one color and then added a highlight and shadows. I then copied the egg and simply slid in under the drawing I had already created. All that was needed then were a few brush strokes to define darks on lips and the nose.

I don’t know if the lesson hit the mark, but it was fun to find new ways to simplify the creative process.

After Pulse: Barry Miller

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Barry Miller founded the 49 Fund, an LGBTQ youth scholarship in the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting. Barry believes he was at Pulse on opening night. It was a nice place to go, the white room was really exotic.

After the shooting his phone lit up. Everyone wondered what could be done. Monday was the vigil at the Dr. Phillips Center. The magnitude of what had happened didn’t really sink in until that vigil. He walked home after the vigil and just sat on the steps of his condo and it sunk in. How could this happen, and how could it happen here? Then he realized he needed to do something. The community needed to do something. How could some good come out of this? That is when he thought about the 49 Fund.

Barry came from an education family. His father was the first in his family who earned a college degree. Education was very important. What better way to memorialize those lost lives than to have their memories go on forever than to give college educations through scholarships.

The fund was founded through the Central Florida Foundation which manages about 400 non-profits in Orlando. He also partnered up with the Center to create the 49 Fund. Leadership is important, Infrastructure for that leadership is important.

The goal is to give out 10 scholarships for $4,900 each. One year after the shooting the first scholarships were given out. The ultimate goal is to raise 1 million dollars. With that much money, it becomes an endowment. Just the interest in the investment should raise the $50,000 needed for the scholarships. Most people didn’t thing it could be done.

AP picked up the story about the fund and we were in 600 news outlets around the county. There was a lot of attention. Most contributions were small. Students could give $4.90. A small business could give $4,900. Every dime raised goes into the scholarships. There is no overhead.

Anyone is eligible in the six county metropolitan area. Applications are online. The need needs to be shown and an essay and letters of recommendation need to be included. One of the questions asked of applicants is, ‘How did the Pulse tragedy affect your life?’ Anyone who gets the scholarship needs to commit to taking a role in the leadership of the LGBT community in the future. If something like the Pulse nightclub shooting happens again we need to have leaders in place who are ready. The age range was from 17 years old to 37 years old.

 

 

 

COVID Hairy Tongue

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The New York Times reported that There might be some COVID symptoms you have not heard about. Pandemic minimizes love to claim that the virus is no worse than a cold of flu. They are mistaken. COVID can manifest in strange and unexpected ways, such as pins and needles, purple toes and hairy tongue syndrome. These symptoms are less common but very real.

A loss of taste and smell was a confusing symptom from early in the pandemic. Other unexpected symptoms have included, ringing in their ears, sore eyes, rashes, red welts on their faces or lips, hair loss and unusual joint pains. So why do some people develop these rare symptoms? She short answer is that no one really knows. It is thought that the virus may get into the blood stream of some people and then harm other organs other than the lungs. Some think that simple stress of a COVID infection may result in such symptoms as hair loss.

Tongue cells are supposed to replace themselves often. In rare cases older cells linger forming a thick fuzzy growth across the tongues surface. The growth may be accompanied by a burning sensation in the mouth. A tongue scraper is then needed to trim back the growth on the tongue’s surface. The condition, with proper oral hygiene it believed to be temporary.

 

After Pulse: Quilts for Pulse Project

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Mary Whitaker is the community outreach coordinator for the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild. She is involved in the sub committee that is involved in the legacy for the Quilts for Pulse Project.

The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild is fairly new, having started in about 2012. It started small but now there are over 100 members. It has become a responsible non-profit. Meetings are once a month with the usual treasurers report and minutes for every meeting.

There are at least two dedicated outreach projects each year. They educate and push themselves through activities and supporting one another to finish projects. Each meeting ends with a show and tell so members can share what they are doing. Sometimes an instructor comes in from out of town.

Mary lives close to Pulse, she was out of town at remote spot when the shooting happened. When they went into town, her phone suddenly started exploding with messages when she got reception. They poured over the news and messages from a distance.

Every quilter in the guild immediately felt they needed to make quilts. It is how they show warmth, comfort and love. It is also a way for each quilter to work through their own thoughts about the situation. The quilters decided on a heart shaped block pattern, each being 2.5 inches in rainbow colors. The goal was to make 102 quits originally, one for each victim’s family, and one quit for each person injured. Blocks stared coming in fast along with finished quilts.

They hadn’t though of how overwhelming the repose would be. They didn’t realize they would end up producing over 1800 quits. A label was sewn onto every single quilt that points it out as being special to the project. Businesses and individuals made donations to the project. Support came in many forms. Thank you notes were sent to everyone. Every single state in the United States helped with the project along with 23 countries.