HP reveals two new desktop computer systems and a set of displays this week, all in the name of “desktop reinvention.” They’re aiming to hit the desktop universe hard with a few oddities – beautiful oddities, at that. The HP Elite Slice is a modular system which allows the user to add different sets of hardware slice by slice as … Continue reading
Sphero is ready to start selling Force Bands — wristwatch-like devices that will give you a way to control its BB-8 droids with a wave of the hand — and they sure look much better than the toy-like demo unit we tested at CES. Besides being able to…
I think HP’s completely sick of making traditional-looking desktops and is out to make them look like anything but. In addition to a PC that looks like it was shoved inside a Bang & Olufsen speaker, the computer maker also released the Elite Slic…
Korg continues to expand its Volca series of sub-$200 synths. Today it announced the Volca Kick, a drum machine with a 16 step sequencer and analog oscillator. To keep it all in the family, it links up to the rest of the Volca line and minilogue, ele…
Is that a speaker? Or a router? Those are questions my colleague actually asked me when I showed him my photos of the HP Pavilion Wave. He was wrong on both counts, but it’s easy to see why he was confused. The Pavilion Wave is a 10-inch tall desktop…
The microKorg has a pretty significant following thanks to its relatively easy-to-use interface and low price point. Today Korg announced the microKorg-S a companion to the nearly 15 year old instrument with more sounds, space for custom presets, a n…
Xiaomi’s sub-brand Huami has come out with with their new smartwatch namely the Amazfit. Specs-wise, this smartwatch (IP67 rated for dust & water resistance) is packed with a 1.34-inch 320 x 300 circular display (w/ scratch-resistant ceramic bezel), a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 512MB RAM and a 4GB eMMC.
Not only that, the Amazfit also comes with GPS + GLONASS support and a heart rate sensor on the back for real time heart rate measurement.
Powered by a 280mAh battery (up to 35 hours of usage in GPS mode or up to 5 days of battery life with normal use), the Amazfit provides WiFi and & Bluetooth 4.0 LE for connectivity. The Huami Amazfit is priced at 799 Yuan (about $120). [FoneArena]
The post Huami’s New Amazfit Smartwatch With Heart Rate Sensor appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.
Read Part I of the Glimmerglass Weekend reviews here.
With its commitment to producing an American musical in rep with three traditional operas, the Glimmerglass Festival next presented Stephen Sondheim‘s macabre Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Premiered in 1979 with a cast headed by Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, Sweeney, the story of a formerly-exiled barber with a vendetta and thirst for blood (and hunger for meat pies), is one of the musicals most commonly produced by opera companies and justifiably famous.
The blade-wielding barber was sung with great commitment by the veteran bass-baritone Greer Grimsley. The role of Sweeney is long, demanding, and incredibly complex, possibly too complex for Grimsley who, despite a dark, resonant bass-baritone, seldom deviated from a suave-yet-intense, anguished demeanor and delivery. His real-life wife, mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee, played his business partner-cum-paramour Mrs. Lovett more like a sassy diner waitress (especially as costumed in this production by Terese Wadden, whose other costumes were equally dowdy and unflattering) than Lansbury’s iconic, twitchy-yet-focused performance. She negotiated the character with relative ease (Mrs. Lovett doesn’t exactly require a pure, fresh voice or clean legato line – Bybee had neither), but fatigued as the evening progressed. Harry Greenleaf gave the evening’s only truly polished performance as Anthony, the sailor in love with Sweeney’s abducted daughter, Johanna. His assured, soft-grained, ringing baritone poured out a heroic reading of “Johanna” which won the night’s biggest applause. His Johanna, here costumed like a Barbie cake-topper, was the dreamy-eyed Emily Pogorelc whose voice seemed a shade too rich for the warbling ingénue. Peter Volpe lent a leathery, mellow voice and the requisite pomposity and predatoriness to the part of Judge Turpin and he was complemented by the slimy Beadle of Bille Bruley who had ringing high notes to spare.
Todd’s first victim is the faux-Italian barber Adolfo Pirelli, here sung and acted to the hilt with piercing, if not effortless, high C’s and ease with accents by Christopher Bozeka. His lackey, Tobias, who is eventually employed and them imprisoned by Mrs. Lovett, was given an earnest portrayal by Nicholas Nestorak, though there was some shakiness in his “Not While I’m Around.” Patricia Schuman rounded out the lumpy cast as an overly-vulgar Beggar Woman.With a production that robbed this dark comedy of many laughs and the all-too-smooth sounds coming from the pit (Conductor John DeMain seemed intent on highlighting absolutely every snippet of melody in Sondheim’s often jagged and murky score), this was an operatic presentation of a musical and though not wholly unenjoyable, just didn’t serve the piece.
Christopher Alden is known for pushing the envelope with his often-reinvented stagings of classic and obscure pieces (If only they had given him “Magpie”!), but this seemingly-midcentury Sweeney, which unfolded within Andrew Holland‘s efficient sets, eschewed the story’s supernatural element and left behind a sarcastic, sometimes-awkward husk that did nothing to alleviate or capitalize on some of the smugness that permeates most Sondheim shows.
A show decidedly void of snugness, though, would by Arthur Miller‘s scourging The Crucible, which was seen in its operatic adaptation by Robert Ward the following day. Miller’s play, a fiery allegory of McCarthyism by way of the Salem Witch Trials, is a massive, multi-faceted piece. The opera pares it down, sometimes omitting significant details (Elizabeth Proctor’s pregnancy isn’t acknowledged in Ward’s adaptation). Ward’s adaptation is a capable work – the music is atmospheric and ensembles effectively build to evoke the frenzy of finger-pointing that propels the opera; and though what remains is mostly cohesive and engrossing, it fails to yield any new revelations about the oft-discussed staple of American drama. Francesca Zambello‘s aimless production, though, dampened what could have been a wholly compelling presentation. Everyone in Crucible has a motive; love, revenge, fear, etc.. Here, the characters moved without purpose and scenes best left to the imagination for drama’s sake (say, the girls’ alleged dancing in the forest), were played out onstage and robbed of their mystery and ambiguity. Fortunately, conductor Nicole Paiement kept a lithe, motile touch over Ward’s hypnotic score and coaxed gorgeous, enveloping sound from the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra.
Vocally, the afternoon went quite smoothly, starting with Ariana Wehr‘s chesty soprano and arresting high notes as Abigail Williams. Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail’s “rival” for the love of the farmer John Proctor, was sung with ease and crispness by Jamie Barton who also showed off promising acting chops. However, it was Brian Mulligan who gave a tireless, tour-de-force performance of the demanding role of John Proctor. Solid across the role’s large tessitura, he sang with force, smooth phrasing, and unerring drama. Curiously, it took Jay Hunter Morris, a familiar face on the stage of the Alice Busch Opera Theater, some time to warm up as Judge Danforth; he initially competed with the orchestra for volume and struggled to find a firm musical line in Ward’s flowing score. He soon settled in to his villainous character, though, and milked it for all it was worth. John Pittsinger was a growling Reverend Hale. Among the smaller players, Mëroe Khalia Adeeb sang the wordless vocal line of Sarah good with gorgeous tone, Helena Brown was an earthy-voiced Rebecca Nurse, and Chaz’men Williams-Ali sang was a reedy-sounding Giles Corey.
Neil Patel‘s single-room set was a highly effective choice that highlighted the claustrophobia as well as the fear of nature’s encroachment on the people of Salem. And though Jessica Jahn‘s period costumes were effective, they couldn’t have been comfortable for the singers on sweltering days like the Sunday I was there. The Glimmerglass Festival Chorus delivered exactly the way they needed to when it came to scenes involving all of Salem.
The jaunt up to Cooperstown can have the tendency to be a slog – the drive is lengthy, the restaurant and hotel scene is bleak, and activities apart from baseball or opera are few and far between. But at Glimmerglass, even when there are bumps in a performance, opera in the United States gets an extraordinary opportunity to exhale.
All photos by Karli Cadel
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Earlier today, Donald Trump traveled to Mexico City to meet with the Mexican president. This meeting was pretty spontaneous, as it was only announced yesterday, and it took many observers by surprise. It was a risky move for Trump, with plenty of opportunities for it to turn out badly. But Trump exceeded expectations, as he appeared afterwards and read a prepared statement, then took a few questions from the press.
The bar for the Mexican meeting was set pretty low — all Trump really had to do was get out of it without a major gaffe of any sort. He cleared this low bar, appearing as statesman-like as he’s yet managed on the campaign trail. The Mexican president didn’t insult Trump in his statement, Trump didn’t insult Mexico and Mexicans in his statement, and the only real news from the meeting was that they didn’t actually discuss Trump’s outrageous proposal that Mexico is going to pay to build his wall. Well, according to Trump, at least. Within hours, the Mexican president insisted that he had indeed told Trump in no uncertain terms that Mexico wasn’t going to pay for any wall. But whatever the reality of what was said in private, the public part of the event itself seemed downright chummy between the two.
In the private meeting (which, for some reason, included Rudy Giuliani and Jeff Sessions), apparently the Mexican president laid out his concerns about continuing NAFTA and stopping the flow of guns and money into his country from America. Trump addressed his concerns about shutting the border down and updating NAFTA, and reaffirmed America’s sovereign right to build a wall on its borders if it chooses to.
Both men, in their statements and demeanor, were diplomatic. This is perhaps the first time Trump has ever merited that description, but as I said, he did clear that bar in his public statement and his answers to the very few questions allowed. So the meeting was a clear winner for Trump, doing precisely what it was intended to, politically: present Trump as both presidential, and also as a tough negotiator with a foreign leader. Trump’s appearance was meant to reassure suburban voters that a President Trump wouldn’t be an embarrassing loose cannon on the world stage, and he may very well have provided a degree of this reassurance today.
I wrote all of the above before I watched his speech this evening, I should mention. Trump flew from Mexico City to Phoenix and gave a speech to a crowd of (according to CBS) “6,000-8,000 people.” From the announced location of the speech, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was held in the very same room I saw Bernie Sanders deliver a speech in, roughly one year ago (to a crowd of over 11,000 people).
Donald Trump began his speech tonight by promising it wouldn’t “be a rally speech,” but rather a policy speech. This may have been the intent, but it certainly turned into a rally-type speech several times over the course of the 70 minutes it lasted. Perhaps he was ad-libbing, or perhaps the written speech had lots of red-meat lines built in — it was tough to tell, at times.
Trump’s speech tonight was more coherent and detailed than anything he’s said previously on the subject of immigration, but it had relatively few new items or ideas contained within it. He obviously has given up on “softening” his stance in any way — something both he and his campaign have been struggling with for the past two weeks. Trump tried mightily to brush aside the entire question of what to do with the 11 million undocumented people already within America, both at the beginning and the end of the speech. Up front, he claimed that concerns about what to do with the 11 million were nothing more than a media conspiracy, because they refused to worry about the needs of American citizens. Trump promised not to worry about the needs of the 11 million at all, but rather to worry about the needs of Americans. He did toss in a line about treating them “with dignity,” but essentially dodged the issue from the start.
Trump spent a lot of time detailing how horrendous the immigration situation is (in his eyes), with plenty of gory stories about “criminal aliens” killing and raping and committing horrendous crimes. At the end, he trotted out family members of crime victims, just in case anyone had missed the point. Trump bashed President Obama and Hillary Clinton for all he was worth, claiming at one point that Clinton would give all undocumented immigrants “Obamacare, Medicare, and Social Security,” without a shred of actual proof. The crowd certainly didn’t seem to mind.
The meat of Trump’s speech was a 10-point plan for what he would do if elected. He promised to deport two million “criminal aliens” in “the first hour” after he took office, the most astonishing promise of the night. He had kind words, once again, for President Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback,” even though he refrained from using the label. He reiterated his plan to suspend all immigration from certain regions and countries, and promised “extreme vetting” for anyone attempting to enter the U.S. from them. The rest of his points were familiar, starting with his big “build a great wall” applause line. Even though the Mexican president had already contradicted Trump’s assertion that paying for the wall had not been discussed, Trump promised once again “they don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for it.”
The speech had wonky overtones, at times — including a dive into “287(g) partnerships” — which Trump carefully read off the TelePrompTer, but it also had plenty of freewheeling lines for the crowd, mostly on the subject of how Obama and Clinton are responsible for all the country’s ills.
Trump cleared up his shifting stance on the 11 million halfway through his list, promising to cancel all of Obama’s executive orders. He again didn’t specify what this meant in any detail, but it was clear that all the “dreamer” kids would once again be subject to deportation. Trump clearly stated “no one will be exempt or immune” from deportation among the 11 million. At the very end of the speech, there was some line about how people who were already here might get some sort of consideration — but only after the border wall was built, all “criminal aliens” had been deported, and everything else pertaining to immigration had all been perfectly solved, forever. But this “softening” line was weak and a virtual orphan, since it was actually a contradiction of what he had said earlier. The short version of Trump’s speech might have been: “11 million people will be deported, or they’re going to have to leave on their own. Period.”
Far from softening his stance, tonight Trump doubled down on it. After actually achieving “statesman-like” status earlier in the day, Trump reverted to form. Because he was reading from a prepared speech, the language he used was less insulting than he’s previously used on the same subject, but his positions remained just as hardline as they’ve ever been.
Trump had a choice to make — a choice he’s been struggling with for weeks. He could make a play for Latino, independent, and suburban white voters by “tacking to the middle” and softening his stance on undocumented immigrants, or he could ignore the advice to pivot and reassure his core base that he wasn’t going to change a thing. He chose the latter.
What this means with the voters will take some time to determine. My own guess is that any possible goodwill he might have created from his Mexican excursion was wiped out by his hardliner speech tonight. Anyone looking for a shift in Trump’s basic position on the issue would have been disappointed, even if they only saw soundbites or clips of that speech. Trump clearly doesn’t care about his standing with Latino voters, and he’s also clearly not all that concerned about his standing with suburban women, either.
Trump keeps faking the media out, I will give him that. His team keeps fanning the flames of “Trump’s going to pivot soon!” only to have Trump stomp all over the idea. There may have even been a power struggle within the Trump campaign over the past few weeks (perhaps we’ll see a few more resignations?), but quite obviously the “let Trump be Trump” faction won. He may shore up his support in Arizona, but I kind of doubt the speech he gave tonight is going to help him in many other regions of the country. Trump started the day by doing something he hasn’t yet managed — appear presidential — but his speech is almost guaranteed to overshadow his spontaneous trip to Mexico. What was clear by the end of the day is something that’s been fairly plain to see all along: Trump is just not going to pivot. Ever.
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Media chatter about how Hillary Clinton already has the election wrapped up was already fading before the new Washington Post/ABC News poll showing her favorability rating hitting an all-time low. Indeed, her favorable and unfavorable ratings among registered voters are now the same as widely reviled Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. How do they compare in the smaller universe of likely voters? The poll doesn’t say. Hint: She won’t do better among likely voters.
Most polls, as I discussed 10 days ago, were already giving Clinton only a mid-single digits lead nationally, even as much of the media went on about the supposed impossibility of a Trump victory.
Well, just because something I’ve been warning about for more than a year should be impossible doesn’t mean that it is.
Donald Trump pulled off a surprise visit to Mexico City, where he met and held a joint press conference with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
It is too soon to predict that Trump will actually win the White House, but anyone who thinks he can’t is whistling past the graveyard, or worse.
Trump maintained contact in the race even as he wasted weeks flailing in his own psychodrama, allowing an efficient but undynamic Clinton campaign to build real leads own a number of battleground states, spending massively while Trump spent next to nothing. But with Trump at least semi-functional after his latest campaign shake-up, some of those key state leads are sliding.
And now, with Hillary hurt by the sort of Clinton Foundation controversy I warned about, Trump is showing some big play capability internationally with a sudden successful strike south of the border.
Trump essentially punked Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto with his his sudden acceptance of the president’s de rigueur invitation of the two major party nominees to visit Mexico City.
Trump was careful to speak respectfully during his striking joint press conference with a man who had previously compared him to Hitler and Mussolini, giving Trump just the sort of presidential-style event on the world stage he has so desperately needed.
While Trump and Pena Nieto obviously differ on Trump’s ludicrous border wall proposal, Trump did get the Mexican president to agree to discuss ways to “modernize” the controversial NAFTA trade agreement.
Trump is clearly in position to make a play for the Latino vote, which in any event would hurt him with his own core supporters. But the visuals of what looked much like a state visit to Mexico City constitute a tremendous coup for Trump. And he can talk up his NAFTA “agreement” as he goes forward.
Hillary’s response — that Trump “can’t make up for a year of insults by dropping in for a few hours” — simply misses the point.
Trump isn’t trying to make up for anything. He’s trying to make his crazy-quilt aggressively know-nothing approach seem coherent and presidential.
He just got a real boost on that course, thanks to his own chutzpah and a huge unforced error by the president of Mexico, who granted him legitimacy he should never have been accorded. After all, there was never any need to invite Hillary to visit before the election.
And the one or two very conceivable bad things that could occur — more economic trouble, terrorist spectacular, geopolitical humiliation, more revelations from Russian intelligence — that would likely up-end what should be a Hillary victory, which I discussed nearly a month ago, have not yet occurred.
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