Unless it’s unusually bright, there’s no reason to be squinting if your vision is clear. Although squinting may briefly enhance your eyes’ ability to focus, if done for too long it can tax your eyes and surrounding muscles, which can result in frequent headaches.Are objects or signs more blurry at night? Do you experience halos or glare around lights while driving at night? These may be symptoms of a vision issue, such as myopia — though they can also be attributed to more serious ocular conditions, such as cataracts and glaucoma. To know the cause, get your eyes properly evaluated by Dr. Ben Giddens. If you’re having difficulty seeing objects at a distance, you may be myopic (nearsighted). Myopia is the most common cause of impaired vision in children and young adults. Consider a pair of glasses with high-index lenses, which are thinner and lighter than other lenses, along with anti-reflective coating. If you’ve been experiencing double vision, contact Dr. Ben Giddens, who will get to the root of the problem and provide you with a diagnosis. Double vision may be due to crossed eyes (strabismus), or a corneal irregularity, such as keratoconus, or another medical condition.
If you’re frequently losing your spot or skipping lines when reading, you may have a vision problem. This could be due to strabismus, lazy eye, or astigmatism.
Many people don’t realize they have a vision problem. Perhaps they’ve gone years without glasses and haven’t noticed the gradual change in their vision. Or they’ve noticed a change, but put off a visit to an eye doctor. Regardless of whether you’re experiencing problems, make an appointment with Dr. Ben Giddens to maintain your eye health.
If you have to squint while working on your computer or using digital devices, you may be experiencing not only headaches but also digital eye strain or computer vision syndrome. The cure is often a pair of computer glasses, or blue light glasses, which are designed to block out or filter blue light. This can reduce headaches and squinting when using your digital devices.
Even if you’re not experiencing any symptoms, it’s important to routinely get your eyes checked. Many eye diseases can be effectively treated before you notice major problems, so regular eye exams are important to maintain eye health. Contact Giddens Optometry in Georgetown to make an appointment with Dr. Ben Giddens. The sooner you get your vision checked, the faster you’ll be able to see clearly and enjoy a higher quality of life.If determined that it is indeed myopia, consider getting prescription glasses with anti-glare or anti-reflective (AR) coating, as they allow more light in and also cut down on glare. This can dramatically improve night vision and help you see more clearly when driving at night. If the texts on your phone or restaurant menu look blurry, you may be farsighted. While reading glasses are a great option for near tasks, you’ll need to take them off for other activities. Consider getting progressive lenses, which change gradually from point to point on the lens, providing the exact lens power needed for seeing objects clearly at any distance. Progressive lenses help you comfortably see near, far, and in-between all day long. There are many clues that your eyesight needs correcting, such as struggling to read up close, or having trouble seeing street signs, or barely deciphering faces while watching a film. If you’re still not sure you need glasses, consider these 6 questions.
If you are diagnosed with any of these, you’ll likely need a pair of glasses with a prism correction that helps correct alignment issues. Special lenses prevent you from seeing double by combining two images into a single one.
If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms listed above, it is essential to have a highly qualified optometrist examine your eyes to assess your vision and check for any eye diseases — and to do so as soon as possible. This is the only way to determine whether you need glasses or if something else is causing the problem.Rhiannon: When we went to Bologna, I had tortellini in brodo. I would eat this until I died. The idea of having them in a broth, I had never encountered. Before that, they would often be covered in a white or red sauce [in the US]. That was a revelation and turned around my expectation of what food was.
Musician Francesco Turrisi says he’s been on a cooking “frenzy” since the pandemic struck, becoming a regular at his favorite Italian food importers and diving into Italian dishes that remind him of home, like tortellini bolognese.
“I had never seen a cart like that in my life,” Turrisi says of the cheese presentation. “There was a plate full of Piedmontese cheese. In Piedmont, we have as many cheeses as in the whole of France! Nobody talks about it!”
It took one tasting menu at the restaurant to make Grammy award-winning singer Rhiannon Giddens realize that her American palate was as delighted by the artfully composed food as that of her Italian partner, pianist and multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. The flavors, she recalls, were complex, but balanced without being alienating. One course induced a state of pleasure much like the zone musicians enter while playing music, she says.
Francesco: The essential basic life ingredients! I cannot survive without olive oil. I would also say Parmigiano Reggiano. Decent dried pasta. When I first saw De Cecco [outside of Italy], I thought “Oh my god! You have it!” I always get upset when I don’t have Sale Grosso Marino for pasta, the big coarse sea salt. I love zucchini flowers to fry, and other things like Bottarga di tono—we always ate bottarga—and mozzarella. I love it so much.
Musician Rhiannon Giddens says she is more of a baker in the kitchen. Learning from her partner and artistic collaborator, Francesco Turrisi, she enjoys interpreting Italian recipes for pizza and grissini.
Rhiannon: My grandparents. Most of my real Southern cuisine comes from my mom’s side. I definitely had some on my dad’s side, too, but on my mom’s side there was deep stuff like chitlins and real hardcore Black Southern food.
These days, Turrisi makes the pasta sauce and Giddens handles the baking. By all accounts, they’ve found a balance in the kitchen, blending two different palates. Like music, their respect for tradition and deep inquisitive natures mean that each meal is like a journey. Here are their thoughts on Italian food and music.“I know I sound like I’m exaggerating, but it was like pure joy and anticipation of taste,” says Giddens. “When we’re in that space and the thing hits, the pleasure goes off in your brain. Francesco wasn’t even eating the cheese; it was the memory of cheese. That moment will always be one of my fondest memories of him. The cheese face.”
Francesco: My parents are from Sicily, but I grew up in Turin. My mom is an amazing Italian home momma cook, and even among the standards, which are quite high in Italy, she’s particularly good. She made mostly Sicilian food at home. My family is from the west coast, the Trapani area, and she made food from that region. She was also influenced by Northern cuisine in Torino, where there’s a lot of amazing stuff, although it’s very different food. So, when I have to identify, my mom made a lot of stuff with aubergines [eggplant]. It’s a really different approach [than Northern Italy]. She hardly ever used butter. But then she learned the local stuff, too, and was influenced by her auntie and friends. She’s a very dynamic cook. She came up with her own recipes from the north and south. She never taught me anything, but being around her and just absorbing helped to an extent.
Rhiannon: We both found that we are trying to replicate the piece of our cultures that can’t be found here in Ireland since we can’t go home. I learned how to make biscuits that I had never made before. We’ve definitely found some respite and comfort in trying to connect to our cultures and our homes through food. Rhiannon: In my fridge, I have things from recipes that I’ve worked out. Caputo Flour 00— because I make pasta or brioche—and semolina. I always mix the two. There’s a place nearby that makes a nice ricotta. I’ve also started keeping guanciale or pancetta, and my kids love the real carbonara pasta. My kids are starting to recognize quality, because I made a carbonara with a crappy pancetta, and they picked them out! I always have a mozzarella for Friday pizzas. I make the pizza by hand and stretch it out. I do a few things, and I stick to them. Rhiannon: I think it’s very reflective of the musicians that we are. When you look at the music he does, it’s improvisational. It’s jazz. It’s taking all those things and putting them together. It’s doing something that didn’t exist before or doing something that did exist, but you doing it your way. As a singer, I do a great interpretation, and I write music. What I do in the kitchen is more in that style. I take what’s given to me and make it really good.
This April, Turrisi and Giddens will release a new album, “They’re Calling Me Home.” Giddens recorded the songs in a period of deep longing for the United States, and some of them have Italian origins. As part of her artistic process, she writes, researches, and speaks about American history, in particular, the important contributions and lived experiences of Black Americans that were and are repeatedly excluded from stories, collections, and institutions, and thus, systematically, ignored. Turrisi also contributes to this mission, unearthing histories and connections between instruments, musical traditions, and communities that he is drawn to.
Francesco: I don’t know many things, just making things up from scratch. What I do with music is similar to what a chef would do. I think your life experience is about acquiring these flavors. Being able to discern and create an imagination for each one is very similar to me and music. I’ve played a lot of different genres and different instruments. So, when I’m presented with a situation, I have a catalog of stuff. I think what great chefs do is exactly like that — they imagine how the flavors work together, or fight each other, and they combine and execute. With music, sometimes it works completely, and other times it’s a combination of instinct and experience.The dining room of the Michelin-starred La Ciau del Tornavento offers a stunning panorama of the Langhe area with its rolling hills and white blur of fog that seeps in on winter days. But what happens in the kitchen leaves the strongest impression.
During the pandemic, music and Italian food converged for the couple, who searched for recipes that reminded them of home. And with that powerful combination, they realized how their musical personalities — Turrisi being an improviser and Giddens an interpreter — show up in their approaches to cooking. Over Instagram, Patreon, and seminars at Santa Clara University, where Giddens is the Frank Sinatra Artist-in-Residence, they share their musical and culinary collaborations, like a saffron risotto seasoned with pistachio and prawns.
Francesco: I’ve gone into a bit of a frenzy of re-creating stuff. I almost don’t know at the time that this is happening until I do it. It’s a process of connecting me to where I’m from. It’s very emotional at times. It’s a taste of home, and I find a very strong connection to things of childhood in Sicily that my aunts used to make. I’m definitely trying to re-create in myself a little culinary space that’s comforting. It’s the process of being in the kitchen and making food.Since falling in love three years ago in Ireland, where they both live, Giddens’s appreciation for Italian food has profoundly changed. The North Carolina-born singer grew up eating Southern Black food of delicious rolls, grits, chitlins, and collard greens prepared by her grandparents, and convenient meals that were extra rich, salty and sweet. Now she’s cooking Italian, making pizza on Fridays, baking grissini breadsticks and rolling egg pasta from scratch. Her children prefer fried guanciale over crispy bacon and look forward to creamy carbonara. Much of this influence comes from Turrisi, who was raised by Sicilian parents in Turin and ate an inventive mix of Northern Italian and Sicilian dishes. Turrisi’s mother’s incredible meals were rarely laden with butter, but Sicilian olive oil shipped in barrels from a family friend. As an adult living outside of Italy for decades, Turrisi has kept the tradition going, bringing Italian ingredients, like olive oil, in suitcases back to Ireland.
Francesco: It’s very hard to pick one thing, but I really have a soft spot for a recipe that is my aunt’s from Sicily. It’s a parmigiana, but it’s way simpler. Traditionally, in Sicily, parmigiana is a heavy dish, and Sicilians put all sorts of things in it. My aunt was a very mysterious character, and she came up with the slimmest version. It’s fried aubergines and tomato sauce. I mix pecorino and ricotta salata together with breadcrumbs and tomato sauce. I used to miss this oven-cooked ricotta a lot, but now I can find it and often freeze it. The parmigiana is cooked in a pan—not an oven—at a low temperature for about 20 minutes. Then it’s served on a plate and sliced. I’ve had vegetarian friends cry when they tasted it because it was a revelation.On April 9, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi will release a new album “They’re Calling Me Home” on Nonesuch Records. Both musicians play multiple instruments, including banjo, viola, Italian tamburello, Persian Tombak, and the Calabash from West Africa. Rhiannon: For me, it’s different than being in a recording studio, because it’s still effortful to cook. I think Francesco is more of a natural cook than I am. I’m more of a baker. Together, we make a good team, because I hand make fresh egg pasta. He makes the sauce. I make the grissini and mafalde. Stuff like that is really interesting to me. But the act of creation is more what Francesco does. He’s making dishes like his Mom did, seeing this works, with this, and that works, with that. I see him thinking it out in his head. I don’t do that! [She laughs.] It’s not my strength. I’m looking forward to when we can combine our kitchens. At mine, you can get fat off of bread and cookies, and at his, you can find an amazing meal! Both musicians attended conservatory in an amusing cross-cultural twist. Giddens studied Italian Opera at Oberlin College in Ohio, and Turrisi pursued American Jazz piano and Early Music at the Hague Conservatory in Holland. Before their careers crisscrossed and they began playing together in venues including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Venice Biennale, Giddens headlined at Austin City Limits, performed at the White House, and acted on the TV series Nashville. Turrisi toured and recorded in Europe and played with many jazz greats, including Bobby McFerrin. Merging their knowledge of a diverse repertoire, from Monteverdi’s arias, Mediterranean tarantellas, and rhythms of the African diaspora, Giddens says that Turrisi is the first collaborator to meet her on all creative levels.Putting this right out there, we don’t have a public phone number. Due to the excessive amount of requests asking for holds and stock levels we had to discontinue that access to keep our shop moving. With that said, we are pretty quick to answer your questions via email! Fill out our form here, your message will get filtered to the best person for the job and they will be in touch ASAP! 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 FYI: We do not ship our desserts. We appreciate getting so many email requests but mail order Cookies & Cake isn’t our thing, no matter how much you’re willing to pay. Thank you!
In the year of our Covid, 2020, changes had to be made. We figured out how to get you the Cookie menu with a Next Day turnaround time! It worked out so well that we kept it around so silver lining! Visit our East End Market location tomorrow and have your Cookies waiting! Bonus : No anxiety over sold out items!
Thanks to all the support I’ve had from our community, Gideon’s gets to represent the Central Florida local food community in Disney Springs! It can get crazy out there so be sure to read “Things to Know Before Visiting Gideon’s at Disney Springs!” so you know what to expect and don’t send me a mean email when you’re surprised by a multi-hour wait to gain entry! 😅Giddens is a founding director of Bridges Ventures, a venture capital firm which Sir Ronald chairs, that invests either in businesses located in the poorest parts of Britain, or in enterprises with a social or environmental mission.She is proud her firm offers part-time, flexible working, something Giddens, who five months ago gave birth to her second child, benefits from. There are more women working in her firm than with her rivals. And she is not shy to speak out about the iniquities of large bonuses based on short-term performance. “We’re not even in [bonus territory] seven years later. I believe bonuses have their place when they’re matched with long-term sustainable success of a business but short-termism, not just in bonus culture, is a massive problem. Short-termism is one of the reasons we have an environmental crisis.”Giddens is in an awkward position. She cannot offend her private equity brethren, whose huge borrowings from banks to fund takeovers helped plunge us into financial crisis, but some of whom also invest in her company.
The daughter of Third Way academic Anthony, Giddens was concerned not to “trade” on her father’s name. After leaving Oxford, she did an MBA at Georgetown in Washington DC. After watching the Berlin wall fall, she had “an epiphany” and “dashed” to eastern Europe where she worked on privatisations in Hungary and Poland before working on small business lending programmes in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Romania and Russia.Maybe she is conscious of not offending her private equity backers, but call her a venture capitalist with a conscience and Giddens, and a stickler for precision, will slightly bristle. “A venture capitalist with social and environmental goals and purpose, I would rather say, because it makes us sound that we are good and others are bad.””What drives me is constantly innovating the types of investments we can make, so I’m hugely proud that when we were approached by social entrepreneurs who said ‘I really need capital to help my business grow’ we didn’t respond by saying ‘Sorry, that’s not our business.’ We said: ‘Let’s see if we can raise it’.”
With state spending likely to be slashed, the way is open, some argue, for social enterprises to come to the fore. There are concerns, though, that only a few are capable of handling such weighty responsibilities.
Giddens may not be altogether comfortable with the idea, but she is putting her father’s third way theories into practice. “I welcome a market economy, but I and many others recognise that although it fosters innovation, it does sometimes leave social or environmental problems unsolved. Put it this way, there’s a demand for social justice and environmental protection now. Our view is government and philanthropy play an important part. However, the power of utilising our market mechanisms as well can be really strong to complement those two.”
Backers include some of the biggest fish in the shark-infested private equity world. Alongside Cohen, Bridges is funded by Jon Moulton, Harvey McGrath and Nigel Doughty. Mainstream banks and pension firms also contribute cash.
A major part of Bridges’s focus is property regeneration. Among its businesses are low-price gyms and waste-to-energy centres. Its highest-profile investment is the 200-bed Hoxton hotel in trendy east London. It is hardly the most deprived area. Does this raise doubts over whether Bridges is stretching its social purpose credentials?
Bridges Ventures’ most spectacular deal was when the firm sold price comparison website Simplyswitch to the Daily Mail, making a whopping 165% return. “The investors got 22 times their money,” Giddens says proudly in the airy boardroom of her west London offices. Veteran private equity tycoon Sir Ronald Cohen talks glowingly of the transforming power of entrepreneurialism, which, he argues, represents the best ladder out of poverty. Putting his theory into practice is Michele Giddens. Social enterprise – like the Big Issue or Divine chocolate, which fulfil a social mission and plough back profits into the core business rather than shareholders’ pockets – is the one area of social policy that unites Gordon Brown and David Cameron. Both leaders want to involve them more in key public sector functions such as elderly care provision and getting the jobless back to work.Giddens’s focus on property has prompted the launch of its new £26m green real estate fund. The venture could be deemed risky, as it is unlikely to show growth over the next 10 years, but Giddens argues that recent steep price falls makes this the perfect time to go into the market. “I don’t think property will flatline,” she says. “We’re not making this investment because of the timing but I actually think the timing is really good. I think we’re probably at the bottom of the property cycle.”Last week, Giddens, 44, who has two children under five, marked a significant double milestone with the launch of a new £26m fund to buy properties in regeneration areas and refurbish them to high environmental standards, as well as the first investment in a new fund to take mid-sized social enterprises on to their next level.They met 10 years ago when Cohen was chairing a taskforce commissioned by Gordon Brown aiming to regenerate inner cities. Between them, they came up with the idea of a new style of venture capital firm. One that would invest in areas of deprivation – places mainstream venture capital feared to tread.
“It’s easy to say in 2009 that the Hoxton hotel is a success. But when we were looking to make the investment I think it speaks volumes we were the only investors willing to do it. People weren’t even building hotels then. It was just after 9/11. It wasn’t seen as a neighbourhood that could sustain a hotel like that. Because regeneration is our key focus, we could see that it was a very attractive area to invest in. Now the rest is history. It is a very successful hotel partly because it’s very well run, partly because it looks nice and is a good place and partly because others were investing [in the area] and it has really come up. What if no one put money into hotels and clubs and restaurants in that area? Would it be a playground for young people or would it be the poor, slightly worn out area it was 10 years ago?”Giddens advises politicians to proceed slowly down this path. “Government should seek to catalyse investment rather than seek to control or command,” she says. “So the extent to which social enterprises can step into this function is driven by the extent to which we can help social enterprises reach maturity.”The seven restaurants scattered throughout the Mid-Valley specialize in fresh burgers and hot dogs made to customers’ specifications on soft, delicious buns served with fries and a smile.In just a few years, Rick’s Community Support Drive has made significant donations to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Beaverton’s Home Plate, Impact Northwest, and the Maurice Lucas Foundation, to name just a few. “Our special recipe buns are three times more expensive than the average hamburger bun because we want folks to be able to taste the difference,” the Giddens said recently. “We take that kind of care with all our ingredients.” The pandemic made the restaurant business challenging, but the couple know they have a winning formula, and often-returning customers to the small business agree wholeheartedly.Open daily, Nancy Jo’s delivers great food at reasonable prices served by polite folks. That’s the way they remember food being served. Nancy Jo says her mother was fond of saying “the proof is in the pudding” and they believe firmly that, for them, the “proof is in the burger.” They’re so confident in fact, that they trademarked the words. Nancy Jo said the most popular burger is the Bacon Cheeseburger and it can be had (just like all the other burgers) with a choice of two types of lettuces and five different kinds of cheese. What burger-and-fries meal would be complete without a shake? Nancy Jo’s serves hand-crafted shakes made with hand-scooped (think big) premium ice cream. Smoothies, bottled beer and wine (served with chilled glasses or mugs) are also available for in store sale only.The Annual Impact drive aims to provide essential items to families experiencing housing insecurity across Oregon and Washington. Starting on May 25, all five locations of Rick’s will serve as drop-off points for donated items.
In addition to the Burgers, there are three sizes of fries, small, regular, and large. They never skimp on fries. They come with a fry sauce that is available at all their counters. Cajun seasoning is also available. For those looking to make a meal out of their fries, they can be asked for “Hogg” style. Hogg fries are served with crumbled bacon, caramelized onions, burger sauce and melting cheese. Don’t want bacon? Ask for Hogg fries “veggie” style.
The Giddens said one of the restaurant’s hallmarks is its ability to customize a burger to a customer’s personal liking. Confident in its branding that “the proof is in the burger” (which the pair has trademarked, by the way), customers can choose to have lettuce, tomato, pickles, freshly sliced onion, mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard on their fresh-ground sirloin burger. They can also have slathered on, upon request, fresh jalapeno peppers, jalapeno ranch sauce, fresh grilled onions, fresh grilled mushrooms, A1 Steak Original Steak Sauce, sweet relish, barbecue sauce, or Nancy Jo’s Secret Burger Sauce.
The restaurants are also accommodating. Craving a patty melt on Texas toast? It’s available at Nancy Jo’s even though it’s not on the menu. Any of our toppings that can be used to dress a burger can also be put on a hot dog or any other sandwich if desired.
Since 2013, when locals want a great burger and freshly cut French fries, they know to head to Nancy Jo’s Burgers & Fries. They know they’re getting a satisfying meal at an economical price.
Nancy Jo Giddens, owner of seven Nancy Jo’s Burgers & Fries restaurants in the Willamette Valley along with her husband Rich, knows hungry folks have lots of options when it comes to satisfying their appetites. She is confident her tasty burgers put on the baked-especially-for-them buns, will win over all of them when they give her restaurants a try.
It’s a formula that has worked well for Nancy Jo and Rich Giddens. From their first restaurant in Keizer which was opened in January 2013, the couple have worked feverishly to deliver great burgers on tasty buns without fuss.
The Giddens were also pleased to introduce their new online ordering app in 2022, and they invite their hungry customers to download it and use it. It’s convenient and personalized so folks can order their “usual” and have it ready for pick-up by simply hitting a “reorder” button. Credit or debit card information is securely stored, and tipping is permitted so customers can pick up a satisfying meal in almost the same time as driving through a chain’s drive-thru window would take. “It’s really easy for our regulars to make sure the kitchen has their order ready for them with just a few button pushes,” said the Giddens. “Our customers told us this is what they wanted and we’re thrilled to be able to deliver it,” they said.
“There are so many combinations and ways to get a burger at Nancy Jo’s,” said the Giddens. “But we can’t put it all on the menu or it’d have 10,000 items on it.” Synergize Auto gives the community the best in used vehicles without heavy-handed pressure tactics; it also excels in having an extensive selection and prices that appeal to all. There are Beyond Meat burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, grilled or fried chicken sandwiches, salads, hot dogs, German sausage corn dogs (which has a little kick to it), chicken corn dogs, and onion rings, too.Unlike some of their competitors, Nancy Jo’s Burgers & Fries will cook a burger to order because they know it’s “actually 100% ground steak (sirloin), said Nancy Jo herself. “Everything is cooked to order when it’s ordered and all our toppings are fresh cut every morning – the potatoes, veggies, all of it.”You’re the One features electric and upright bass, conga, Cajun and piano accordions, guitars, a Western string section, and Miami horns, among other instruments. “I hope that people just hear American music,” Giddens says. “Blues, jazz, Cajun, country, gospel, and rock—it’s all there. I like to be where it meets organically.”
“I’ve been able to create a lot of different things around stories that are difficult to tell, and managed to get them done in a way that’s gotten noticed,” as Giddens puts it. “I know who to collaborate with, and it has gotten me into all sorts of corners that I would have never expected when I started doing this.”Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field
Her song-writing range is audible on You’re The One, from the groovy funk of “Hen In The Foxhouse” to the vintage AM radio-ready ballad “Who Are You Dreaming Of” and the string-band dance music of “Way Over Yonder”—likely the most familiar sound to Giddens’ fans. Her voice, though, is instantly recognizable throughout, even as the sounds around Giddens shift; she owns all of it with ease.
Jason Isbell joins Giddens on “Yet To Be” as her duet partner and the album’s only featured artist. “He’s been such an ally in the industry to black women,” Giddens says. “He’s a great singer, and he’s uncompromisingly himself—also just a really good person.” “Yet To Be,” the story of a black woman and an Irish man falling in love in America, is meant to channel some of the optimistic flip side of the brutal, real, and undertold history that Giddens has so effectively brought to the forefront with her work. “Here’s a place, with all its warts, where you and I could meet from different parts of the world and start a family, which is the true future,” Giddens explains. “I think so much about all of the terrible things in our past and present—but things are better than they have been in a lot of ways, and this is a song thinking about that.”
“They’re fun songs, and I wanted them to have as much of a chance as they could to reach people who might dig them but don’t know anything about, you know, what I do,” Giddens says. “If they’re introduced to me through this record, they might go listen to other music I’ve made with a different set of ears.”
For her highly anticipated third solo studio album, You’re The One, out August 18 on Nonesuch Records, she recruited producer Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Solange, Alicia Keys, Valerie June, Tank and the Bangas) to help her bring this collection of songs that she’d written over the course of her career—her first album of all originals—to life at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami last November. Together with a band composed of Giddens’s closest musical collaborators from the past decade alongside Miami-based musicians from Splash’s own Rolodex, and topped off with a horn section making an impressive twelve-person ensemble, they drew from the folk music that Giddens knows so deeply and its pop descendants.Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable. A two-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased, and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art. As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration”—a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling her “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.” The album teems with Giddens’ breadth of knowledge of, curiosity about, and experience with American vernacular musics. Though it might be filtered through a slightly more familiar blend of sounds, You’re The One never forsakes depth and groundedness for its listenability.
Giddens also is exploring other mediums and creative possibilities just as actively as she has American musical history. With 1858 replica minstrel banjo in hand, she wrote the opera Omar with film composer Michael Abels (Get Out, Us, Nope) and, with her partner Francesco Turrisi, she wrote and performed the music for Black Lucy and the Bard, which was recorded for PBS’ Great Performances; she has appeared on the ABC hit drama Nashville and throughout Ken Burns’ Country Music series, also on PBS. Giddens has published children’s books and written and performed music for the soundtrack of Red Dead Redemption II, one of the best-selling video games of all time. She sang for the Obamas at the White House; is a three-time NPR Tiny Desk Concert alum; and hosts her own show on PBS, My Music with Rhiannon Giddens, as well as the Aria Code podcast, which is produced by New York City’s NPR affiliate station WQXR.
The album opens with “Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad,” an R&B blast (complete with background “shoops” and a horn section) that takes a titan for inspiration. “I listened to a bunch of Aretha Franklin, and then turned to fellow Aretha-nut Dirk Powell and said, ‘Let’s write a song she might have sung!’” Giddens recalls. Her danceable, vivacious tribute to Franklin’s sound is a vocal showcase, spotlighting her soaring high notes and nearly-growling low ones. Another of the album’s highlights, “If You Don’t Know How Sweet It Is,” intentionally puts an edgier spin on the sass of Dolly Parton’s early work, which Giddens channeled in the midst of some real life frustration. “I was like, ‘I’m giving you everything, why are you leaving?’” she recalls of writing the song, which started as a poem.
“You Louisiana Man” blends Giddens’ banjo acumen with accordion, organ, and fiddle to create a Zydeco-funk classic. About a feeling that Giddens “turned up to eleven” during the songwriting process, the song shows the power of framing a record around banjo instead of guitar: “It just gives you a bit of a different vibe,” as she puts it.
Perhaps most potent is the song “Another Wasted Life,” Giddens’ composition inspired by Kalief Browder, the New York man who was incarcerated without trial on Rikers Island for three years. “People are making so much money off prison systems,” Giddens, who has performed for incarcerated people, says. “They just don’t want anyone to remember that that’s happening.” Inspired sonically by another musical icon—Nina Simone—the forceful, anthemic song channels Giddens’ rage at the broken system. “Doesn’t matter what the crime, if indeed there was this time,” she sings. “It’s a torture of the soul.”The album is in line with her previous work, as she explains, because it’s yet another kind of project she’s never done before. “I just wanted to expand my sound palette,” Giddens says. “I feel like I’ve done lots in the acoustic realm, and I certainly will again. But these songs really needed a larger field.” One of the album’s more sentimental songs, “You’re The One,” was inspired by a moment Giddens had with her son not long after he was born (he’s now ten years old, and she has a fourteen-year-old daughter as well). “Your life has changed forever, and you don’t know it until you’re in the middle of it and it hits you,” Giddens says. “I held his little cheek up to my face, and was just reminded, ‘Oh my God, my children—they have every bit of my heart.’” This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.Silver’s B
ar and Grill in Morwell has reinvented itself as a delivery service after it was forced to close and foot traffic from local office workers dried up.
In a bid to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Latrobe City Council has hired cleaners to go around to all of the main towns, Traralgon, Moe, Morwell, Churchill and Yinnar to wipe down and disinfect public surfaces.
“Staff have been working hard to implement new cleaning regimes and opening hours have changed, but the good news is that patrons will be able to get bac in the water,” Wellington Shire Mayor Alan Hall said.
“We don’t want people turning up for for a swim or to attend the library and then find that they can’t come in because we’re at capacity,” Cr Clancey said.
“Given we’ve already got people on JobKeeper, we’ve got no choice but to keep going until restrictions are down and we see what the post-COVID scene looks like.
Bicycle racks, traffic light pedestrian buttons, hand rails, park benches and playgrounds are all being wiped down, as well as street posts and even rubbish bins.
The Latrobe Leisure centres in Newborough, Morwell and Churchill will be open on different days for 20 people in four hour-long blocks for lap swimming, exercise and rehabilitation.We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
While some hospitality businesses have determined it is not worth their while to open yet, Cowwarr Cricket Club Hotel publican Jarrod Michael is opening his doors.
“There is just a lot of people who are looking forward to coming in, and I have actually had a lot of people who wouldn’t normally come into a gallery saying they’re looking forward to coming in, which is great .”
The restaurant’s owner Chris Giddens said he had managed to hold onto his staff despite not being eligible for JobKeeper because of the community’s support for his business.We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact [email protected] or call 615-790-6465.
Reservations are highly recommended for a great dining experience with our beautiful views, service and cuisine. We recommend booking our 4 pm seating if your table location is very important to you. After that time location requests cannot be guaranteed. We will hold a table for you for 15 minutes past your reservation time. We ask that you limit your experience with us to 90 minutes as a courtesy to the people waiting to be seated. If your plans should change or the number in your party should change we appreciate notice before your reservation time. Reservations are only taken by phone. We are currently booking through New Year’s Eve 2022. Please call the restaurant line any day between noon and close to book your reservation’s in advance 920-746-9460 . We appreciate your patience as the phone rings off the hook during the busy season. We look forward to serving you.
Donny’s Glidden Lodge serves Midwestern cuisine. Our family-owned restaurant offers the perfect combination of great food with quality service. Our proprietors Don and Rita Zellner are committed to providing you with an amazing experience. We serve choice Black Angus cuts of meat and use the finest and freshest ingredients for all our food. Visit us today!Since its founding by Ma in 1998, Silkroad (previously known as the Silk Road Project) has sustained twin identities as a musically polyglot touring ensemble of up to 18 international musicians, and as a powerful social impact organization with a keen focus on cross-cultural collaboration and bringing music to underserved communities. Ma’s tenure lent Silkroad a high degree of name recognition, as well as associative proximity to the world of classical music. But the extraordinary variety of the music Silkroad brought to life onstage — its freely conversational crisscross of sonorities, tonalities and textures — couldn’t feel more removed from the cellist’s usual context in the concert hall: a collaboration with Mark Morris Dance Group based on a 7th-century Persian love tale; a mesmerizing song cycle by Osvaldo Golijov; a powerful multimedia show based on folkloric heroes steered by Iranian sociologist Ahmad Sadri. “One of the things we would talk about all the time [in Silkroad] is that culture can turn the other into us,” says Ma in a phone interview. “Nations don’t do that, but culture can. Music can do that.”Giddens is equally invested in Silkroad’s offstage initiatives. This year’s projects include a Global Musician Workshop to be held in August at New England Conservatory; a five-month internship program for young arts professionals of color; an Arts and Passion-Driven Learning Institute for K-12 educators; Silkroad Connect, a collaborative partnership between the Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts program and middle schools across the country; an artist development and commissioning fund; and a range of artist-response projects launched during the pandemic.
“Phoenix Rising,” which Giddens brings to Wolf Trap, is the first of many grand visions she has for the ensemble — and it’s not your standard firebird suite. Thirteen Silkroad artists will perform a full evening of new work, including three commissions by tabla master Sandeep Das, harpist Maeve Gilchrist and composer, flutist and taiko drummer Kaoru Watanabe. The program also features new arrangements by violinist Colin Jacobsen, bassist Edward Pérez, violinist/vocalist Mazz Swift and Giddens.Under Ma’s nearly two decades of leadership, Silkroad released eight albums, including 2016′s Grammy-winning “Sing Me Home” — a project adapted into Morgan Neville’s Grammy-nominated documentary, “The Music of Strangers.” Giddens, a Grammy-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist whose fiddle and banjo chops broke through as leader of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, is also something of a scholar onstage. She was awarded a MacArthur fellowship in 2017 for her work “reclaiming African American contributions to folk and country music and bringing to light new connections between music from the past and the present.” The pandemic plays a big part in what makes Silkroad’s return to the stage more meaningful to Giddens than her own taking of the reins. As globally minded as her work may be, Giddens is just excited to share space with people, make music once again and “feel all the feels.” The other stuff will take the time that big changes normally take.“There’s grief, there’s loss, there’s this sense that we’ve all gone through something — ” Giddens says, catching herself. “That we’re all going through something. The pandemic is still here. It’s important to point that out. There’s been a lot of loss, and the flip side of that is that we’re still here. We’re coming back together. We’re picking up the pieces. And we’re not just going back to business as usual.”
“She’s an original thinker, and she’s also a fantastic communicator with oodles of talent,” Ma says. “I’m now a listener, an appreciator. I want to see what new people she brings on, I want to see how organizationally it will change. I’m really curious! I’m a fan.”
Ma saw the classical footing he brought to Silkroad as “a starting point,” and classical music itself as “a form of literacy.” In Giddens, who studied opera at Oberlin Conservatory, he sees a similar capability: the ability to employ difference as a binding agent.“Even beyond music, who gets to say, I represent America?” Giddens asks. “Is it the fourth or fifth generation descendant of somebody who came over from Canton to work the railroads? Is it somebody who came over in the midst of World War II, fleeing the Nazis? Is it someone whose ancestor came over on the Mayflower? Is it somebody whose ancestor came on the Clotilda? Everybody has an equal shot, to me, of being the representative American story, because that’s the whole point of America.”“At least in the beginning, he’s going to be the elephant in the room — but he’s a beautiful elephant, the best elephant to have,” says Giddens, 45, in a phone call from her home just outside of Limerick, Ireland. “He’s not stepping away, like disappearing. He’s just stepping away far enough that we can get our own feet under us.”
