OH, MOTHER! Can this really be the end? To be stuck in J-Law's earhole with the Messiah blues again? Scene after scene, in tight closeup on Jennifer Lawrence's face, we peer into her eyeballs as if we were ophthalmologists. Watching Mother! you'd suspect that Lawrence was wearing a mechanical camera rig to follow her as closely as possible, some sort of selfie-stick cum halo-cast. She's been accused of overacting, but with the camera this close, it's Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) who imprisons her. Every bad thing that happens-rather, every thing that's probably going to turn out bad-follows with a cut to Lawrence so she can react to it. We know exactly how she feels at every moment. Some ambiguity would have spiced up this Kafka fable » Read More

It's an amazing story. A two-time divorcee from Stockton with 11 children battled the machismo of the UFW, as well as the growers who ran their fiefdoms with a squalor equaled only in the American South. The historical footage shows it all: filthy shacks, harvesters dipping water out of a barrel still stenciled with a pesticide label, and farmworkers in fields so freshly sprayed with poison that some San Joaquin Valley farm towns became host for birth defects and cancer clusters. Huerta was a shrewd, handsome woman and a commanding speaker. She brought in followers, many of them female: hard to resist the appeal of an activist job that offers $5 a week and all you can eat. San Jose's Luis Valdez, on camera here, joined the workers to » Read More

Don Alfonso counters, wagering that he can prove all women are fickle—even the officers' beloved Dorabella and Fiordiligi. The men accept, and soon they are pretending to be called off to war, then disguising themselves in Eastern European garb and false mustaches, as they attempt to seduce each other's lover. At first, Dorabella and Fiordiligi are perplexed at their new "Albanian" guests, and are just as quick to deny their advances. But with a little finagling, lying, and with the added support of Don Alfonso (along with the ever-changing personas of chambermaid Despina), Ferrando and Guglielmo soon get in over their heads, risking their lovers for the sake of a misogynist gamble. » Read More

"We want to showcase to people that play is something we all need in our lives," Kienzle says. "It promotes innovation, it keeps us happy and healthy. We're hoping to give people an opportunity to be playful, at least during the time they're in the gallery." The exhibit runs through Dec. 29. Over the course of the show, the art center will hold a series of public programs and hands-on activities for its first ever "Season of Play." The free kick-off event will feature mini golf, art activities, ice cream and a cash bar, among other things. » Read More

Anno Domini's new group show, "The ASARO Collective," brings together work from the Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca, a revolutionary artist collective dedicated to creating social change through its creations. The collective grew out of a response to the 2006 Oaxaca protests, a conflict between the Popular Assembly of Peoples of Oaxaca and the local government of the Mexican state. The protests resulted in the death of 17 non-violent demonstrators. In the fallout, the Mexican government was accused of violating human rights in its efforts to dampen the unrest. The ASARO Collective is made up of artists from all walks of life-from trained painters to self-taught graffiti artists and students. It is a group born out of » Read More

Shortly after finishing the first mile of my hike up Mount Umunhum, I look up at the large, mysterious rectangular structure at the top for the 20th time. It feels just as far away as it did at the beginning of the trail, effectively deflating any sense of progress I'd made. If you've spent as much time hiking trails in the backcountry as I have, you've experienced a "false peak," meaning you spot what you think is the top of the mountain, only to learn after much exhaustive hiking that the spot you had your gaze locked in on was only partway up. Mount Umunhum is the exact opposite: there's never any doubt about where the summit is. It's constantly reminding you-taunting you, one might say. I won't spend too much time complaining about how » Read More

With its third incarnation this year, Viva CalleSJ, an adventurous open streets initiative, will add more length of road and a wider smorgasbord of activities along the route. For 2017, the gig is titled, Downtown and Eastbound: El Corazon, and it will close off streets from Japantown to the East Side, and on to Lake Cunningham. Inspired by similar open streets initiatives throughout North America and the world, Viva CalleSJ is a temporary autonomous zone created by closing several miles of San Jose streets and shutting them off to cars for a day. People from anywhere can walk, bike, skate, play and explore the city in ways they don't normally get to do. Its not a race. » Read More

However, the skeptic in you might ask: If personality doesn't change after, say, three Sriracha margaritas, how come we've all seen people behaving differently when they're sauced? Well, according to research by social psychologists Claude M. Steele and Robert A. Josephs, the behavioral changes of drunken excess appear to be caused not by alcohol itself but by alcohol-driven changes in perception that they call "alcohol myopia." Alcohol appears to restrict attention, giving a person a sort of tunnel vision for whatever's right in front of them. » Read More

James Loewen wrote a book called Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. He said, for instance, that during the Europeans' invasion and conquest of the continent, it wasn't true that Native Americans scalped white settlers. In fact, it was mostly the other way around: whites scalped Indians. Here's another example: The famous blind and deaf person, Helen Keller, was not a sentimental spokesperson for sweetness and light, but rather a radical feminist and socialist who advocated revolution. I invite you to apply Loewen's investigative approach to your personal past, Gemini. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to uncover hidden, incomplete, and distorted versions of your history, and correct them. » Read More