Strange Loop

Peter Pan edited by Anne Hiebert Alton (2011)

(sorry to interrupt joke post but) this is true!

Children not clapping did happen too, (and some were even expected to have hissed, which was later written into the 1928 playscript and 1911 novel). But my all time favourite anecdote about it is from Pauline Chase (who played Peter)'s intro to Peter Pan's Post Bag 1909:

Children love to clap their hands at the play because then they feel that they are really part of it, and you can see them holding their hands poised ready to seize an opportunity. Their great chance is when I ask them to clap their hands if they believe in fairies, and so save Tink's life. But they are very wrathful if any one claps who has the reputation of being a cynic, and once there was quite an uproar in the front row of the dress circle because of a girl who clapped. Those about her pulled down her arms angrily. "How dare you clap," they cried, "when you know you don't believe in fairies!" There was one dreadfully hard-hearted little boy who came to the theatre not to clap. That was his object for coming, and he came round "behind" to tell me so in the middle of the play. His teeth were firm set. "I won't clap," he said doggedly; "I'm not going to clap." And when the time came he didn't clap; above the clapping of all the others I could hear him shouting from a box, "Peter, I'm not clapping."

Mark Aeling of MGA Sculpture Studio

Chromorifice 2019

Made from over 10,000 Colored Pencils cast with Resin, Fiberglass, and Aluminum

Employees and developers working on Magic: The Gathering Arena say they were hired with promises of remote flexibility, so they bought homes and built lives around those assurances. But they say they are now being told they may need to relocate to Washington state — or effectively lose their jobs.

The tech and fossil fuel industries are two of the biggest sections of the ruling class backing Trump and the current transformation of the U.S. into a more openly authoritarian state. But fissures are starting to open up within sections of the grassroots MAGA movement. First, Steve Bannon and other MAGA activists expressed their racist, anti-immigrant opposition to Big Tech’s desire to grant visas to highly skilled workers. MAGA members have also expressed dissent for the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, as well as the broader U.S. policy of providing Israel with financial and military support, including throughout its genocide of Palestinians and its war on Lebanon. Now many people who voted for Trump several times are opposing the construction in their communities of the tech industry’s sacred data centers. As Indigenous people, union organizers, and those on the left come into contact with these disgruntled Trumpists, the opportunity exists to develop mutual understandings. Perhaps these encounters will widen the worldview of those who follow Trump and who are hostile to other working people, including those who have recently arrived in the U.S. looking for a better life. The process of widening a person’s worldview entails hard discussions. If we approach these with a strong understanding of the material grievances that draw people toward Trumpism, we can use the space of the emerging, imperfect coalitions against the data centers to create openings to redirect anger away from scapegoats and toward the systems of power driving ecological destruction, exploitation, and war. This presents an opportunity to cultivate a unifying understanding of the role of class oppression and how to resist capitalist exploitation.