Callaway Conversations: One Garment at a Time: How Alabama Chanin is Preserving the Fading Tradition of Quilting in the South
The talk will take place at the Frist Art Museum on August 28 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Learn more HERE.
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Style Blueprint
07-08-2025
- Style Blueprint
Callaway Conversations: One Garment at a Time: How Alabama Chanin is Preserving the Fading Tradition of Quilting in the South
Join local fashion writer Libby Callaway and designer Natalie Chanin for a special conversation exploring quilting and sustainable fashion, inspired by Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories. In 2000, after years working in Europe, Chanin returned to her hometown of Florence, Alabama, where she collaborated with the local sewing community to create her first collection of hand-sewn T-shirts using traditional Depression-era quilting stitches. These designs evolved into couture garments — including wedding gowns — crafted from recycled organic cotton and sold to high-end retailers like Barneys. Her company, Alabama Chanin, has since become an international leader in the zero-waste and slow design movements, which emphasize responsible production and consumption. The talk will take place at the Frist Art Museum on August 28 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Learn more HERE.
Winnipeg Free Press
25-07-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Singer Cleo Laine, regarded as Britain's greatest jazz voice, dies at 97
LONDON (AP) — Cleo Laine, whose husky contralto was one of the most distinctive voices in jazz and who was regarded by many as Britain's greatest contribution to the quintessentially American music, has died. She was 97. The Stables, a charity and venue Laine founded with her late jazz musician husband John Dankworth, said Friday it was 'greatly saddened' by the news that 'one of its founders and Life President, Dame Cleo Laine has passed away.' Monica Ferguson, artistic director of The Stables, said Laine 'will be greatly missed, but her unique talent will always be remembered.' Laine's career spanned the Atlantic and crossed genres: She sang the songs of Kurt Weill, Arnold Schoenberg and Robert Schumann; she acted on stage and on film, and even played God in a production of Benjamin Britten's 'Noye's Fludde.' Laine's life and art were intimately bound up with band leader Dankworth, who gave her a job and her stage name in 1951, and married her seven years later. Both were still performing after their 80th birthdays. Dankworth died in 2010 at 82. In 1997, Laine became the first British jazz artist to be made a dame, the female equivalent of a knight. 'It is British jazz that should have received the accolade for its service to me,' she said when the honor was announced. 'It has given me a wonderful life, a successful career and an opportunity to travel the globe doing what I love to do.' Laine was born Clementina Dinah Campbell in 1927. Her father, Alexander Campbell, was a Jamaican who loved opera and earned money during the Depression as a street singer. Despite hard times, her British mother, Minnie, made sure that her daughter had piano, voice and dance lessons. She began performing at local events at age 3, and at age 12 she got a role as a movie extra in 'The Thief of Bagdad.' Leaving school at 14, Laine went to work as a hairdresser and faced repeated rejection in her efforts to get a job as a singer. A decade later, in 1951, she tried out for the Johnny Dankworth Seven, and succeeded. 'Clementina Campbell' was judged too long for a marquee, so she became Cleo Laine. 'John said that when he heard me, I didn't sound like anyone else who was singing at the time,' Laine once said. 'I guess the reason I didn't get the other jobs is that they were looking for a singer who did sound like somebody else.' Laine had a remarkable range, from tenor to contralto, and a sound often described as 'smoky.' Dankworth, in an interview with the Irish Independent, recalled Laine's audition. 'They were all sitting there with stony faces, so I asked the Scottish trumpet player Jimmy Deuchar, who was looking very glum and was the hardest nut of all, whether he thought she had something. 'Something?' he said, 'She's got everything!'' Offered 6 pounds a week, Laine demanded — and got — 7 pounds. 'They used to call me 'Scruff', although I don't think I was scruffy. It was just that having come from the sticks, I didn't know how to put things together as well as the other singers of the day,' she told the Irish Independent. 'And anyway, I didn't have the money, because they weren't paying me enough.' Recognition came swiftly. Laine was runner-up in Melody Maker's 'girl singer' category in 1952, and topped the list in 1956 and 1957. She married Dankworth — and quit his band — in 1958, a year after her divorce from her first husband, George Langridge. As Dankworth's band prospered, Laine began to feel underused. 'I thought, no, I'm not going to just sit on the band and be a singer of songs every now and again when he fancied it. So it was then that I decided I wasn't going to stay with the band and I was going to go off and try to do something solo-wise,' she said in a BBC documentary. 'When I said I was leaving, he said, 'Will you marry me?' That was a good ploy, wasn't it, huh?' They were married on March 18, 1958. A son, Alec, was born in 1960, and daughter Jacqueline followed in 1963. Despite her happy marriage, Laine forged a career independent of Dankworth. 'Whenever anybody starts putting a label on me, I say, 'Oh, no you don't,' and I go and do something different,' Laine told The Associated Press in 1985 when she was appearing on stage in New York in 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood.' Her stage career began in 1958 when she was invited to join the cast of a West Indian play, 'Flesh to a Tiger,' at the Royal Court Theatre, and was surprised to find herself in the lead role. She won a Moscow Arts Theatre Award for her performance. 'Valmouth' followed in 1959, 'The Seven Deadly Sins' in 1961, 'The Trojan Women' in 1966 and 'Hedda Gabler' in 1970. The role of Julie in Jerome Kern's 'Show Boat' in 1971 provided Laine with a show-stopping song, 'Bill.' Laine began winning a following in the United States in 1972 with a concert at the Alice Tully Hall in New York. It wasn't well-attended, but The New York Times gave her a glowing review. The following year, she and Dankworth drew a sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall, launching a series of popular appearances. 'Cleo at Carnegie' won a Grammy award in 1986, the same year she was a Tony nominee for 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood.' A reviewer for Variety in 2002 found her voice going strong: 'a dark, creamy voice, remarkable range and control from bottomless contralto to a sweet clear soprano. Her perfect pitch and phrasing is always framed with musical imagination and good taste.' Perhaps Laine's most difficult performance of all was on Feb. 6, 2010, at a concert celebrating the 40th anniversary of the concert venue she and Dankworth had founded at their home, during which Laine and both of her children performed. 'I'm terribly sorry that Sir John can't be here today,' Laine told the crowd at the end of the show. 'But earlier on my husband died in hospital.' Laine said in an interview with the Boston Globe in 2003 that the secret of her longevity was that 'I was never a complete belter.' 'There was always a protective side in me, and an inner voice always said, 'Don't do that — it's not good for you and your voice.'' Laine is survived by her son and daughter. ___ Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed. AP journalist Robert Barr, the principal writer of the obituary, died in 2018.
Toronto Sun
09-07-2025
- Toronto Sun
REVIEW: In ‘Superman,' the original superhero is back with a brisk new attitude
Published Jul 09, 2025 • 5 minute read David Corenswet as the title superhero in "Superman." Photo by Jessica Miglio / Warner Bros. Pictures/DC Comics Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. It's been almost 50 years since Christopher Reeve starred in 'Superman,' the 1978 movie that opened what is now an endless spigot of superhero movies. It didn't invent the tropes of messiah-like figures with supernatural powers or the building of elaborate on-screen worlds only to reduce them to apocalyptic rubble, but its contours have now been imitated, elaborated, iterated and just plain stolen so often that the original looks wan and generic by comparison. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account 'Superman' has been remade since then, with different actors in the role, and often with directors seeking to contemporize the hopelessly square Clark Kent and his upright alter ego by giving them a brooding, existential sense of solemnity. The impulse was understandable – hey, it worked for Batman! But the tone was all wrong for a protagonist who, since his inception in World War II-era comic books and then in an iconic 1950s television series, embodied American ideals at their most forthright, wholesome and optimistic. In 'Superman,' James Gunn's latest installment, David Corenswet comes closest to matching Reeve's inimitable – and still definitive – combination of innocence and casual brute strength. (Until now, Corenswet has been best known for TV roles in shows such as 'House of Cards' and 'We Own This City.') As the human and humane anchor of a movie that is often awash in frenetic action, jump-cutty narrative and pulverizing violence, he exudes his own brand of centred, self-confident calm: the Man of Steel as Man of Stillness. This 21st-century Superman is fighting all the evils of the era – technology, tribalism, fake news and his own messianic myth – but Corenswet keeps it all reassuringly old-school, making a convincing case that nice guys not only can finish first but can do so without bluster, bellicosity or constant bleating into the manosphere. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. To his credit, Gunn pushes a much-needed reset button on 'Superman,' banishing shadows and pretentious self-seriousness in favour of a bright palette, brisk storytelling and occasional jolts of bracing humor. He starts the movie in the middle of the hero's journey: Clark has already arrived in Metropolis, where he works as a reporter for the Daily Planet; he's dating a colleague, Lois Lane ('The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's' Rachel Brosnahan), who knows all about his red-caped persona. As 'Superman' opens, Gunn dispenses with the backstory in a refreshingly efficient few lines of on-screen text that bring the audience up to the present moment, when the otherwise indefatigable Superman has suffered his first genuine beat-down, from a hulking armored monster called the Hammer of Boravia. (Although Supe's origin story is recapped throughout the movie, it helps to know the begats going in.) This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. From left, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy and David Corenswet as Clark Kent. Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures/DC Comics What ensues is a two-hour battle between good and evil, the latter personified by the dependably venal Lex Luthor, here played as a swaggering tech-bro by a startlingly bald Nicholas Hoult. Luthor rarely refers to Superman by name – he calls him 'the Kryptonian' or 'the alien,' at one point convincing the Pentagon that the guy sent from another planet to save the world was really sent to control it. Meanwhile, Luthor is masterminding a military operation overseas reminiscent of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Gunn doesn't overplay present-day political echoes, but he makes sure they're unmistakable: In one of his most clever asides, he reveals Luthor's fake-news farm to be a room full of monkeys, typing manically into keyboards and sending increasingly preposterous lies straight into the social media hive mind. ('Superman doesn't have time for selfies,' the stalwart Clark declares sanctimoniously in one of the film's most amusing scenes.) This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures/DC Comics Gunn's de-mopeification of 'Superman' is undeniably welcome, although the zigging, zagging and bouncing around begins to feel like being trapped in an Adderall-fueled pinball game: One moment, Lois and Clark are having a tartly amusing argument-slash-interview in her apartment, the next they're in Luthor's 'pocket universe' being guarded by Bermuda-shorts-and-aloha-shirt-wearing minions. Characters appear out of nowhere, only to be ignored until they come in handy later; fans who know about the Justice Gang will recognize the Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mister Terrific (a scene-stealing Edi Gathegi), but others might need a crib sheet. Major plot points occur in a matter of minutes in 'Superman,' which blithely dispenses with the details in the time it takes for Superman's legions of fans to turn into haters; blink twice and they're back, asking for his help to repair crumbling buildings, mass panic and a world-splitting rift in the time-space continuum. Or, you know: another Tuesday in Metropolis. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The manic sound and fury of 'Superman' don't signify much, and the constant visual, verbal and sonic barrage feels like being pinned to the floor by Krypto, Superman's Milk Dud-eyed, cock-eared dog whom Gunn shamelessly enlists to recruit the audience at every conveniently adorable turn. (Alan Tudyk is just as cute as 4, Superman's C-3PO-esque robot helper.) But just when the movie threatens to pummel viewers into a hyperstimulated pulp, it locks into something genuinely enjoyable: The random mayhem and playfulness merge harmoniously enough to allow Corenswet's sincerity to take hold and for some fizzily satisfying chemistry to develop with Brosnahan, who infuses Lois with an appealing measure of skepticism, even when she's literally being swept off her feet. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Read More Still, it's impossible to ignore that, somehow, it all feels rote and regurgitated. And Gunn has only himself to blame: The quippy, sometimes snarky attitude he injected into 'The Suicide Squad' and 'Guardians of the Galaxy' at first invigorated the comic book form; now they feel played out. (The naughty bits he delights in sneaking into his movies also feel off-kilter for a character as wholesome as Superman: When he says the s-word, it's as if the world really might be crumbling.) By the end of 'Superman,' the title character has cheated death more than once, repairing body and soul by way of the yellow sun that gives him renewed life and vigor. He has battled a megalomaniac, a Kaiju-like monster, myriad bots and at least one semi-human buzz saw. And in a moment that earned appreciative guffaws at a recent screening, he has helpfully set up at least one more movie in the DC Comics not-so-pocket universe. In Corenswet, Brosnahan, Hoult and their co-stars, Gunn has clearly found a capable, congenial ensemble to usher Clark, Lois and Lex into a new era. The question is whether there are any new stories left under that yellow sun to tell. – – – Two and one-half stars. Rated PG-13. At theatres. Contains violence, action and profanity. 129 minutes. Rating guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time. Uncategorized Sunshine Girls Toronto Blue Jays Canada Crime
