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One of the country’s longest-running nonprofit arts centers has just announced that its “continued existence is in serious financial jeopardy.” While dispiriting announcements like this are common enough during the current economic recession, this loss promises to be particularly devastating. Founded in 1974, the organization has been a center of the San Francisco arts scene for the last three decades and more; it has served in that time as a vital laboratory for conceptual art, poetry, installation and performance – which practices found little purchase in mainstream institutions in the Bay Area in the Seventies and Eighties – as well as a crucial point of contact with the national and international artists who were shown there.
I hoped then that the board, and director Sandra Percival, might see Tercerunquinto’s project (and my review) as a kind of challenge: not only to raise money, but to re-imagine Langton’s role in the arts community, to locate and support forms of practice not addressed or exhibited adequately by larger institutions like SFMOMA and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and to pursue new audiences and new roles for itself. It doesn’t seem from outside that these questions were engaged within the institution; certainly they were not engaged effectively enough. Indeed it sometimes seemed as if the institution was moving in a conservative direction, considering its history (less poetry, less community, less chaos). And by largely showing artists who had been recognized and legitimated by institutions elsewhere, Langton lived problematically in those institutions’ shadow.
This was in many ways a losing gambit. Percival’s letter of resignation, which she sent out to many in San Francisco’s artistic community, attributes Langton’s current distress to “a ‘perfect storm’ that we have encountered since last fall’s climactic economic events.” Judith Williamson teaches us to be on our guard whenever the economy is naturalized in metaphor – you know you’re about to be handed a bill of sale. Percival’s letter rightly takes credit for the institution’s achievements during her tenure, including many compelling shows and events, and a stunning renovation by architect and board member Kyu Che. (It also includes some events whose credit ought to have been shared with the “small staff” who goes unnamed in her letter – for the record, Carrión, Sam Spiewak and Zoe Taleporos – or guest curators like Anne Colvin, Pamela Wilson-Ryckman and Jill Dawsey.) Yet if, as director, the achievements are hers, then so are the institution’s disappointments and missed opportunities; we can’t blame everything on the weather.
Her departure presents the board, and San Francisco in general, with another crisis, in its ancient sense of a “decisive moment” or “turning point.” Can Langton survive its current predicament? Should it? In what form? We must ask not only “what now?,” but “why?” and “for whom?” Proximity Magazine published in May Joseph Del Pesco’s interview with Renny Pritikin, who, with his wife Judy Moran, directed Langton for its first fifteen years or so. He says, “My friend Anne Focke, who started and/or gallery in Seattle around the same time we were building New Langton Arts, was visiting recently, and we asked ourselves: “If we were starting again today, what would we do?‘” This moment of crisis, and the “town hall” meeting Langton promises, will offer all of us the chance to ask their question with renewed intensity.
It’s devastating to see such an important local institution in this state. Still, I can’t help feeling that the first step down this hazardous path was the decision to import a director from outside the Bay Area, with a shift in focus from the regional to the international. The Bay Area has fewer and fewer spaces that support experimentation and innovation on the local level. There’s a misconception that turning outward, toward more market-supported art, is going to result in better revenues for these small organizations. These sad circumstances at Langton demonstrate why that’s not necessarily a solution.
This is not to say that we should exclude the world beyond the Bay Area, but that international trends and movements should be articulated by our local institutions through a healthy balance of local and international practices represented. Our artists and critics are well aware of what’s happening in the larger world, and can hold their own. If we don’t support them locally, we can’t hope to make any real impact on a national or international level as we’ll forever be copying what someone else did first.
I’m glad that this article appeared, as it at least should be noted with gravity that this often-vital institution is likely to pass out of existence. (I should say that I ran the organization with my wife Judy Moran for many years).
I wanted to point out that it is historically inaccurate to state that the field of artist-run spaces arose only because of the availability of federal funds. It may very well sound pollyannish to contemporary ears, but this movement arose out of both formal innovation, as Julian writes, with no outlet for artists working in that way, as well as a politicized desire to build parallel cultural delivery systems. The NEA Visual Arts program, under the brilliant leadership of Jim Melchert, responded to the rise of the movement with a grant program in the late 70s or early 80s, after the fact.
Thank you for this Julian. My projects The Colony Room and Sgt. Pepper’s were in fact a return to “more poetry, more community and more chaos” which in all fairness Sandra Percival embraced and fully supported. Perhaps too little, too late but I think it was a seed and hopefully one which we can build on.
I am a newcomer to San Francisco who, prior to moving to the city, had great expectations of New Langton Arts. I was coming from another alternative space in Texas that was built in the 1980s, inspired by The Kitchen and Langton.
When I first walked into New Langton Arts it was already remodeled. The first thing I noticed was the floors. The floors were wood polished floors that reminded me of some of the galleries off of Geary Street. This floor lacked the qualities of an experimental space. The New Langton that I saw seemed to be looking with obedience to the surrounding institutions, rather than imposing itself to the dogmas of 3rd street @ Mission all they way to Geary St.
But I must say that I had great experiences at Langton, such as The Colony Room organized by Anne Colvin. I also admired the dedication of the staff whose dedication to the organization was apparent.
Although it will be greatly missed, it is important to question what we are missing. Is it its prominent history, or the resistant nature embodied in its earlier years? That nature that was not afraid to take risks in order to address the concerns of the artistic community that other institutions always love to ignore.
Does anyone know if a time and place has been set for the Town Hall meeting?
The date and time of the meeting will be posted on NLA’s website (www.newlangtonarts.org) and their blog http://newlangtontownhall.blogspot.com/ in the near future.
Thanks for this, Julian – I’m much saddened by the current state of affairs at New Langton and glad to find the problematics of the situation up for debate.
I don’t want to derail the discussion with a discourse on flooring, but as I understand it, the recent refurbishment of the organization restored its galleries to more or less their original state, stripping out later decorative additions and removing the mdf boards, which covered the original wood floors. Thus what we are seeing is a more true to life version of the institution in its heyday, rather than the New Langton we may have gotten used to in recent years. In any case, I am not sure that the best argument for questioning New Langton’s credentials to show experimental art is that the space is too nice.
I’m also not too sure what the fact that a director was hired in from the outside has to do with New Langton’s current plight (which is not to say that I don’t think the director should take responsibility for both the good and bad, as Julian points out). Nor that Sandra Percival qualifies as “international.” Although based in the UK for 13 years prior to arriving in the Bay Area, Percival is a Washington state native and lived and worked many years in Seattle. I think that probably places her in the regional, or “at worst,” national category.
That said, New Langton’s history is anything but purely local – the lengthy list of artists who has shown there reads like a national, and in parts international, directory (and history) of conceptual and performance art – from Paul McCarthy to Vito Acconci, Nam June Paik, Tony Oursler, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Eleanor Antin, Joan Jonas and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, not forgetting artists closer to home like Tom Marioni and Bruce Conner. The salient point is that New Langton chose to work with these artists at relatively early stages in their career, supporting work considered too experimental for many institutions. An institution becomes great, dynamic, of interest when it has a clear mission, a clear sense of its community and audience – this does not have to be achieved by barring the doors to outside influences. But it does require focus, which in this case seems to have blurred, resulting in the failure to represent constituencies (whether literary or musical) traditionally associated with the organization, the alienation of many members of the local arts community, and schizophrenic programming with the occasional glimpse of lucidity provided by shows like “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” and “Small things end, great things endure.” The last title being somewhat unpleasantly prophetic in the circumstances.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YHkKo_ngfE&feature=related In hard times, it’s comforting to listen to good music.
Leigh, you bring up a really good point: the question of the institution’s mission and its commitment to it. Does anyone know if this is the original one? Has it been revisited in the past?
How might it be rewritten now, and does it need to be? This will inevitably be the primary challenge facing the Board, provided they are able to save it.
My wife Susan Crossley and I have served on the Board for 7 or 8 years during the Susan Miller / Sandra Percival eras. I served as Chair recently as well. In the past I lived in NY for 12 years and was involved with Avalanche, the Clocktower and the beginnings of PS 1. When I moved to San Francisco 15 years ago I found Larry’s wonderful Matrix program immediately but it took me about 4 years to find New Langton and I was finally home. I respect the large art institutions as they find, educate and convert wealth but they must be safe and simple. Langton and other smallish organizations can feast on today’s art which is conceptual, experimental, multi-disciplinary and difficult to fathom. There in lies the problem. It is not safe, easy, saleable, auctionable, historic, popular and that is why is is so good. It is bohemian art that may or may not be great art but it can be absorbed and felt now. MOMA et al. can not deal with it as it is not institutional. I think Susan did a good job of moving it along and Sandra had a difficult start and the program changed. The artists representing the disciplines left the board and Sandra became the voice and did the best she could. Times are tough of course and that makes everything more difficult but let me inform you that Langton has not failed; it is just in the process of being reinvented. Waves of new artistic energy will continue breaking on San Francisco’s shores and Langton is rising from the ashes as I write. The legacy of the large museums and schools are those who want to be on the cutting edge and want to judge for themselves and we are their place. Money and new board members will arrive through the leadership of the new leader yet to be named. Susan and I are not sad , we are excited and plan to continue to be a part of the 36th year.
Nice to see your name here, and thank you for your thoughts. I served on the board of New Langton in 2004-2005 as one of the “artists representing the disciplines.” Specifically, I co-curated the “Performance Writing” series with Jocelyn Saidenberg. My experience as a curator, and a board member at New Langton was really terrific, and I have always valued some of the relationships that emerged and work that we were able to do. And looking back, I am extremely proud of the series that we programmed.
But just to chime in for the record (SFMOMA blog, I guess, is “the record”): Sandra Percival made it very clear that the kind of programming we had been doing, despite its success, would not be allowed to continue under her regime. For my part, I took literary programming at NLA very seriously, appreciative of its rich history and importance for local writing and art–and after putting a lot of work into building a successful program and packing the house, it was surprising to be asked to stop. I can’t speak for any other board member who left, and I’m NOT, but for me, I would have been extremely happy to remain on the board because ultimately I believed in the possibilities at Langton, was learning a lot about that kind of service, and really enjoyed many of my sister board members. It was very clear, however, that the “conceptual, experimental, multi-discplinary and difficult to fathom” artists that we were bringing to Langton (and, not to make a blog comment into a brag but bringing to large and grateful audiences) were not going to be welcome under the new regime.
It is very difficult for any institution to change. And there is usually a period of discord and in the worst cases, total collapse before any change is possible. This is not a novel idea, we all know this, it constantly reoccurring theme. From our climate, to Obama, to the economy, to our banks, to the auto industry, we are surrounded by the word change. You could say change is the theme of the late 2000’s and to mollify the uncertainty of it we are told change is good. But this knowledge doesn’t lessen the sting and it doesn’t make it any easier to change. In fact, the hardest thing is knowing when to change, what to change, who to change and how. What does change mean if you can’t see it until it is too late?
Having worked at the non-proft gallery, Art in General (1), in New York City, a space that was also going through similar (though perhaps not quite so grave) challenges as Langton (not to mention being married to someone who is also dealing with the closing of another important bay area non-profit arts institution), I can somewhat contemplate the difficulties of keeping a non-profit institution, not only open and running, but germane and vital in a shifting art world. It was hard enough in New York. I can only imagine the difficulties of running a non-profit now and here, in the elusive and under-supported San Francisco Art World.
The most important question for me that has been asked here, and the one that requires the most change, was asked way before this blog exchange started, in Julian Myers’ Tercerunquinto article. And that million-dollar question was to ask Langton why they should survive? Which is actually a very existential question. I think Myers is basically asking Langton, if you want to live then explain why you are alive. What is your reason for being? And why should we the San Francisco Art world support that.
If we, as Sartre suggests, have a responsibility to each other perhaps we should use the condition of Langton as a mirror for the sustainability of the entire Bay Area art world. If is Langton flailing then our art world is flailing and we need a new model or models to sustain ourselves. So perhaps we should not simply be asking Langton why they should survive or in my existential translation, what is their reason for being, but we should be asking ourselves (as of course many of us have, if this blog post is any indication) what do we want Langton to be and beyond that what do we want the Bay Area art world to be and how do we get there?
This Langton situation is bittersweet. It has been horrible for the difficulties it has caused the staff, artists, and curators not to mention the audiences, who depend on Langton for support, both financial and inspirational. However I am quite excited by the dialog it has created within the arts community here. It gives me hope for the future. I look forward to the Town Hall meeting.
(1) At Art in General we realized that things had shifted drastically from the 70’s and 80’s when most of the NYC non-profits began (as many of the non-profits elsewhere have also realized and changed to try and meet the shifting demand). The need for non-profits to simply grant exposure to underrepresented and emerging artists had changed. Artists in New York needed more than exposure to survive, they needed financial and administrative backing. So we reduced the numbers of shows produced each year and subsequently the numbers of artists supported, and shifted to a commissioning institution, providing artists both a production budget and a separate honorarium to create new and complex projects that otherwise might not get made. This was not an easy change to make. It was difficult for our audience, the board, the funders and the granting organizations to understand the reduction in the number shows presented each year and numbers of artists shown, even though our support could help sustain an artist’s practice and thereby the New York art world, much more than our previous model.
Just a few quick responses.
My phrasing in the original review gave the wrong impression about Langton’s relation to the NEA. Renny’s version is believable, true, and inspiring, even for those of us with few Pollyannaish tendencies.
I concur with Leigh’s discourse on flooring, and what she says about “import(ing) a director from outside the Bay Area.” Yes, even a cursory glance at Langton’s history will reveal an abiding concern with national and international artists. I’ll just add that disaster wasn’t inevitable – and certainly wasn’t provoked by hiring a director from outside the Bay Area. Alongside the obvious economic limitations, the problems (as I argue above) were in the matrix of programming and in the sometimes troubled relationships amongst the director, staff, board, and the different constellations of creative people who felt a deep connection to the place. Brandon’s comment provides a case in point.
I am very appreciative that this discussion is taking place. Thanks to Julian and SFMOMA for providing a platform for this. I served as Program Director at Langton from 99-2004, and am now part of the Warhol Foundation in New York. Langton is/was a Warhol Initiative member, one of sixty groups in the nation that were provided with capacity support and professional development opportunities. (Intersection, Galeria, Headlands, Luggage Store, Camerawork, and Southern Exposure are among others locally). During my time at Langton, I worked closely with Susan and the artists on the board in all of the disciplines to generate programs and exhibitions. Along with other dedicated staffers, I spent a lot of time thinking strategically about Langton’s relevance and its future.
What been most frustrating personally is that Langton became so isolated, so quickly. With all of its efforts to reach beyond, the organization failed to reach out. It failed to maintain its extended network of supporters, crafted over the course of thirty-four years, and arguably its most valuable asset. What was cut off was access to funders, former staff and board members, fellow arts leaders, and legions of artists and designers who at one point or another were invested in Langton’s success. For example, of the sixty Initiative organizations invited to attend a national convening of peers, Langton was the only one to not send a single representative.
“Responsibility is not simply about an individual’s singular existence but about everyone else,” – Well put, Anthony and Sartre.
Given that many SF arts organizations are doing so well at remaining relevant and engaged, I don’t think that this is case of “so goes Langton so goes the Bay Area.” If anything it seems more like, “there goes the Bay Area, what about Langton?” If there is an opportunity here for a new-New Langton to emerge, my hope is that it both re-engages with its support network and that it considers the issue of responsibility first and foremost in its plans. Responsibility to its past, the future, and most of all, to the needs of artists.
i am really glad to see this discussion happening. i am always very curious on the behind the scenes aspect of cultural institutions in sf. in my experience access to it has been quite opaque.
even during a short internship at new langton, it was difficult to gain an insight in its positioning and goals.
i have lived in the bay area for only 5 years but have learned from long time residents that new langton had a much bigger role in bridging different cultural niches in sf. because i curated a sound series for a while i am particularly aware of the role new langton used to have in the bay area’s sound/music arena. it is greatly missed by many from that community.
also, having done some programming for a gallery recently i am acutely concerned on the possibilities of interaction between institutions and galleries and the viability of creating a dialogue that can further propel ‘a healthy art scene’.
so finding out what people involved in the community are thinking regarding these kind of matters has been extremely insightful experience for me.
We welcome your comments and ideas.
Since this has been referenced a few times here, is there going to be an actual, in-person town hall? Despite my not being able to make such a gathering, it seems like having something be virtual-only reinforces a sense that Langton has grown disconnected from its community. (As it is now, the virtual thing is being eclipsed by this blog, with a discussion already in progress.) I appreciate that the board is working on the funding side – but the artistic side, the role of artists, and some of the big questions being put forward in these posts merit serious consideration.
I was a literary curator and board member at NLA from 1997 to 2004. It was a terrific experience, unlike any other. This news makes me very sad.
My 2 cents is that there should be some sort of live town hall, if there is any possibility that NLA will re-emerge from these difficulties as a functioning arts organization. An in person meeting just might spark a resurrection effort from NLA’s old community of artists and supporters, if enough of that core group turned out and re-connected. I don’t see how a virtual meeting could galvanize such an effort.
I second what James is saying. The conversation has already migrated from http://newlangtontownhall.blogspot.com/ (where it actually never started) to Open Space.
I would like to ask Langton’s board what this “virtual town hall meeting” actually implies. Is this a call for participation in the decision making process? A think-tank format, just to let the community express themselves without any feedback from them? Or what is it exactly?
I think that the San Francisco art community–that has followed and supported Langton from so many different platforms—deserve to hear from the Board. NLA’s board need to take responsibility with the community, and explain what are they actually asking us to save here.
Could you please let us know, what do you imply when you ask us to help you secure NLA’s legacy? Are we talking about the institution itself and future programming? If so, of what sort? Are you asking for help to save the archive? To cover the current debt? Or are we trying to just pay respect to the legacy and propose a wake for what Langton once was?
From what I hear, it seems that the main problem at NLA has been a disintegration of community. I’d be interested to know how, if at all, that has had an impact on the finances. Did NLA under Susan Miller have a viable financial model? Was it somehow community-based? Can it be recreated? Or has NLA with or without its community been less and less viable anyway? I think a lot of us would love it to be the case that a strong grassroots community (+ solid grant writing and stewardship of relationships with Foundations, but without major individual giving necessarily) could sustain small arts non-profits in the Bay Area (I’m on the board of another one). But is it?
I’m just wondering whether the funds used for the facility renovation and the acquisition of the Garage space — though I’m unclear on what those financial costs were — would have been better used by being saved for the economic downturn.
I don’t doubt, Sarah, that the renovation and garage were part of the “perfect storm” that swamped Langton. But an autopsy of the kind your question (and Dominic’s question) requires is bound to be speculative, until the board further clarifies the situation. They might start by answering the questions posed by María del Carmen above.
I feel what Anuradha is saying, with zero disrespect to Sandra. The inflated art market pre-recession time unleashed an inferiority complex upon the San Francisco art community. The complex may also just be the side effects of rapid globalization. I agree that all of the institutions need to look inwards to what is happening and growing in San Francisco. I feel that when artists, curators, and institutions stop looking at San Francisco as a strategic move for their careers and as a real place to have a sustainable community that fosters real working relationships maybe things will start to happen again.
The “What next” question is important. Experimentalism needs to be protected and venerated and given a chance at the very least or else there wont be anything next.
@ Rebecca and Anuradha, I can’t help thinking it would be good if this whole local vs non-local issue (which seems to have preoccupied the Bay Area art scene for ever) was framed in some other way. Not so much as either/or, and without the equation (which is false) of non-local equals ‘the Market’ / local equals experimental. I’m sure it’s possible for art scenes in medium-sized-yet-global cities like SF/Bay Area to do without both the inferiority complex and the need to emphasize the local as such.
I am scheduling a townhall meeting for Thursday August 6 at 7pm.
Does anyone have keys to Langton?
If not where should we meet?
We would also be interested in helping/collaborating. is the idea of subletting on the table?
A response from the board and further clarification in a new post, here.
@Dominic, thank you for posing that question. I’ve been thinking a lot more about this since posting my initial reaction to the news. To step away from a binary local/international opposition seems wise, as you, Leigh and Julian are all correct that one is not inherently more supportable (or less market-oriented) than the other.
In my view, the decision which I initially characterized as prioritizing an out-of-town hire over a local one, was really a decision to pursue a more resource-intensive, more outward-focused plan of action overall. With respect to hiring a director, the choice to bring someone in from elsewhere means paying them more than you might pay a local person, absorbing relocation costs, and assuming a couple of years’ responsibility to run the organization with minimal new investment while your new director gets to know the local community from artists to donors to everyone in between. That is the concern I meant to express.
For clarification, I don’t presume that a local hire would not have faced many of the problems faced by Sandra Percival, nor that a local hire would necessarily have had better solutions to those problems. At best, a local hire might have meant less of a salary burden and less of an institutional learning curve. However, those factors are important in light of the very dire financial picture being painted by Langton’s board.
Another question to ask is, why did Langton choose to hire someone as established as Sandra Percival to direct an institution known for fostering emerging and experimental practices? Again, it’s not a given that such a person could have offered a better outcome, but perhaps by selecting a less-established person as leader, Langton might have been able to produce programming that was fiscally leaner and less dependent on big, expensive names.
Finally, I’m glad that Open Space can provide a public forum for this discussion. I hope that Langton’s board will understand that this is an opening they’ve been given, and that it reflects an outpouring of community support upon which they now need to capitalize, effectively and quickly. Let no one assume that the fact of this conversation means the responsibility of Langton’s overseers is in any way lessened.
Yes Thanks Dominic. I don’t feel that my input comes from the place that you are describing. I am a S.F. native and I am going to be attending Goldsmiths in the fall for post graduate studies. I have run an alternative art space from 1999-2007. My statement came from a place of love for the San Francisco art community. There is so much cool stuff in San Francisco that doesn’t even get a chance. Or its edited by the institutions and even by the alternative spaces. As of late it does feel like the S.F. venues have been working real hard to educate the locals about international art. What about whats happening here?
Langton’s board has not included artists for several years, and that speaks volumes about the devolution of its focus as an arts institution. Langton’s demise is an example of what happens when artists are aced out of the equation, and non-profit art spaces merely become social clubs for the privileged. For almost a decade, the work shown at Langton has felt bland and stale because curatorial decisions were being made by people who did not understand the necessity of challenging prevailing social norms through challenging aesthetics. When Langton decided to stop recruiting artists for it’s board, it made a statement that it no longer valued the opinions and experiences of artists and was not interested in supporting non-blue chip artists whose lack of privilege often rubs privileged board members the wrong way. It was an act of censorship, that makes it impossible for me to mourn the loss of Langton. I can mourn what Langton once was, but that Langton has not existed for a very long time.
Julien, SAFEhouse is available to help with admin support and we have room for storage. We can also host a community meeting at The Garage (975howard.com) if you decide to have one. Please contact us, I think there are ways for us to help you generate some community support.
I was Langton’s ED from 1993 – 2005. From my experience, Langton’s fiscal and artistic force came from its commitment to and practice of the artist-run model. It was the inclusion of committed, professional artists at all levels of governance, with full power to exercise their voices in both artistic and business matters. It was the interdisciplinary nature of Langton’s programming that encouraged the exchange and development of ideas across artistic boundaries. And it was bundles of resources that people voluntarily brought to the organization. Not just money, but also their time, energy, skills, goods, goodwill, and new ideas. This vision for Langton is fully articulated in the organization’s original by-laws. We drew strength, even in the most challenging moments, from the empowerment and vision that document provided.
I know Langton’s board is trying to sort through a mountain of issues. I do hope they find a place soon to actively engage the network of talent long connected to Langton. These people still care and have so much to offer. I am encouraged by the chorus of voices on Langton’s behalf and see, once again, an opportunity to rebuild from the strength and know-how of artists and friends both near and far.
@ Anuradha, I see what you’re saying the practical and financial consequences of Langton having made an out-of-town hire. Fair point.
@ Rebecca, yes, there may be some truth to that. I haven’t been here so long myself, you and others would have a better sense of how this issue has played out historically. I know similar issues get raised in other cities I have lived and worked, like Liverpool and Dublin. I guess I just want to get away from the flipside implication that SF/Bay Area art is not international. It might be that a side-effect of pushing Bay Area art spaces to show Bay Area art is to turn Bay Area artists into local artists. I think more traffic in all directions between the Bay Area and other artworlds would be great.
@ Rebecca, I can see what you mean, to an extent. Dom was right, however, in his original comment, to point to the perennial quality of this tension between “inward” local curating and “outward” cosmopolitan engagement. A good resource in this regard is Terry Smith’s September 1974 Artforum essay “The Provincialism Problem.” He’s talking about Australia, and it’s thirty-five years in the past, yet in reading his article you see just how the positions and terms remain almost exactly the same. Reframing the conversation would be helpful. I would also ask whether the Lab, Intersection for the Arts, SFAC, and Southern Exposure (among many others) do not fill the role you set out already. Langton’s relationship to the local, that is to say, has been constitutively different than the institutions above – in ways set out by Renny and Leigh above – and it is that distinction that matters.
@ Elizabeth, sympathetic as I am to the general drift of your comment, I find this sentence – “the work shown at Langton has felt bland and stale because curatorial decisions were being made by people who did not understand the necessity of challenging prevailing social norms through challenging aesthetics” – baseless. That you felt exhibitions were bland and stale I cannot dispute. But there were scores of exhibitions in the last decade put together by talented people, including artists, committed to challenging social norms through challenging aesthetics. On your larger point, that artists’ presence on the board is vital, and that their absence in recent years tragic, I could not agree more.
@Dominic, I could not agree with you more that we would do better to push Bay Area artists as international artists than turn inward and exclude ourselves from a larger context. I think that in the past, this has been a problem, but now we have so many international curators and artists, both moving here and working outward from here. My only quarrel is that I feel the bigger regional institutions too often ignore that fact, looking outward but neglecting to look inward. The common complaint is that artists who are based here feel they have to move to New York or Europe to get anyone here in the Bay Area to take them seriously.
To turn the lens on our generous host, SFMOMA, a case in point would be Mads Lynnerup, whose excellent work was not ever featured in an SFMOMA exhibition during the many years he lived and worked here, but who is now living in New York, and is currently showing a work he created back when he still lived here, in the Media Art galleries. I happen to know that curator Tanya Zimbardo was a strong supporter of Mads’ work even when he lived here, but I can also see how many artists would feel an example like this proves the point that you have to leave San Francisco to get any respect in this town. It’s an emotional response, but one based in some real experiences.
I confess to a strong personal stake in this conversation as well. So much of what’s happened at Langton also happened at the Headlands when I worked there: the hiring of a well-regarded director from elsewhere, considered aloof by many in the community; the emphasis on physical plant issues over funding for programming; the attrition of artists on the board; the discovery of previously unnoticed budget issues and dismissal of junior staff. Like that of my friend and colleague María del Carmen Carrión, my position at Headlands was a casualty of such circumstances. Thankfully Headlands is hanging on – but with serious soul-searching, and a major reprioritization effort underway. I bring this up just to point out that this conversation is not just limited to Langton, but in fact these are concerns that affect all kinds of institutions at that level.
I think it is important to point out that the above critique is a conflation of disparate issues. It is inaccurate comments such as these that propel this dialogue off course and foster many misconceptions that Bay Area institutions are not recognizing local talent. One can have an emotional response, but it is important to take into consideration that there are other factors that go into when and why an artist is shown regardless of whether they are local or not. But to clarify the above statement, this is not the first time Lynnerup’s work has been recognized by an SFMOMA curator. In 2005, Janet Bishop served as a juror who awarded him an Artadia grant and resulted in his inclusion in a group exhibition at the Wattis. Second, Zimbardo’s exhibition is a group show organized around a specific theme. The fact that he moved to New York has nothing to do with the timing of The Studio Sessions–these are very distinct circumstances and the confusion of them here only leads to greater misperceptions about this entangled issue. Furthermore, it is worth noting that the video on view in SFMOMA’s galleries also screened at New Langton a few years ago. And Lynnerup has previously performed at SFMOMA in conjunction with the Yes Yoko Ono exhibition, and has been widely supported (here and beyond) by other curators, artists, and organizations.
@ADQ, my goal was to point out the emotional issues inherent in this conversation. They do color the debate, and I think I was pretty even-handed in doing so. My point remains that there is a perception issue that colors a lot of the dialogue around regionalism and the local/national/international relationship issue in the Bay Area.
I said specifically that this was the first time Lynnerup’s work was featured in an SFMOMA exhibition, NOT that it was the first time his work might have been recognized by an SFMOMA curator. It’s important to understand that to many outside the museum, what is inside the galleries is all that matters. Not everyone has the more nuanced point of view that you present.
Could you please point out what in my actual statement was inaccurate? I would like to own any mistake I might have made and issue a correction if that is in fact the case. Thanks.
To clarify, my above comments were intended to point out that the implied argument presented (via Lynnerup) that “you have to leave San Francisco to get any respect in this town” is false; there is no logical causal connection there. That kind of slippery slope argument (based on an emotional conviction) perpetuates an unproductive myth. I mention the above examples to offer evidence that Lynnerup’s work was indeed respected and taken seriously by SFMOMA curators as well as other local organizations prior to moving, whether or not he was included in an SFMOMA exhibition at that point in his career. I go to lengths to explain this now not to take issue with you personally, but in effort to break down the stereotype for any artists following this discussion “who feel they have to move to New York or Europe to get anyone here in the Bay Area to take them seriously.” I would also encourage readers to keep in mind that there are always many different factors involved concerning why someone might chose to move away, or when and why an artist’s work might be included in an exhibition.
I think it is also worth mentioning here that New Langton did have a good history in the last four years of showing local artists, frequently mixing their presentations with artists living here and abroad. And it is that kind of programming that productively steps outside of the local and non-local dialectic.
Thanks for the clarification. What you’re saying is true. It’s an important enough conversation that I’m taking it on in a series of posts this week. I’d love to get your continued feedback as I think through some of these issues in a somewhat more formalized way.
I have found this whole conversation very interesting as a contemporary artist. I moved to the Bay Area (not SF, but Santa Cruz) just over three years ago. Before this I lived in New York City for eight years where I had a studio and owned and operated a very public (yet private) art space out of a storefront in Brooklyn. Its mission was to exhibit the experimental and emerging artists that I felt lacked a center. My point in outlining this is the strange disconnect I am observing in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is very territorial…SF, Berkley, Oakland, San Jose and the lesser cultural magnets like Santa Cruz. In NYC we looked at the program as a connected scene- Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Long Island City and Harlem. They all played together and are funded together by the entire scene.
My recommendation would be to restructure and cast a larger net across the Bay Area with a strong magnifying glass. Put the contemporary scene on the map. Create a more diverse board and funds from the greater Bay Area. Do satellite exhibitions in the smaller communities (we know they need it and have the empty space) and expand the true sense of contemporary art and the strength of the Bay Area creative sector.
In my opinion SFMOMA has replaced the need for New Langton’s programming. NL was relevant until the doors opened at SFMOMA. Years have passed and the economy has rippled, now exposing the shift. The question of local is funny when it comes to art in CA and specifically SF. I feel we need more non-local direction to help instill the local scene. Site specific is a better catch phrase. I see a great many local works in CA which are not site specific to the times and context we live in now.
SAFEhouse has decided to approach the landlord about the possibility of re-opening the space (its listed considerably lower than what NLA was paying). if anyone is interested in the upstairs gallery (we are primarily interested in the downstairs performance space), please let us know. thanks, j.
The Maltz Museum has been buying-up artworks of Marc Breed’s and destroying them.


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The conference will be held in Cuenca, Ecuador. Santa Ana de los cuatro ríos de Cuenca, the capital of the Azuay Province.
Cuenca is located in the highlands of Ecuador at about 2500 meters above sea level. The center of the city is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage. Cuenca is easy to reach. Direct-flights from Quito and Guayaquil, or by van services from Guayaquil (http://www.operazuaytur.com/).
Accommodation facilities for all budgets.
This is a list of hotels with a high score review (> 9) in booking.com and that are within a walking distance to the University of Cuenca.

industry_corpus2: Subject Education


text:
At SalesGym, we’re always on the lookout for sales executives that have interesting and timeless insights into top performers, coaching, and building better sales teams. In an interview with Jay McDonald, VP North American Sales at Alliance Laundry Systems, he shared some great insights into what he’s found separates the superstar salespeople from all the rest.
We’ve found, in working with top performing salespeople and managers over the years that the skills required to become a top producer literally demand a near full-time learning mentality, as Jay has noticed.
Often, when planning a sales meeting with a high potential decision maker, salespeople think carefully about what they want to present, what they want to highlight about their strengths and how their competitive advantages beat the competition. All of this is fine and important, but top performers tend to spend more time planning a strategy based on questions and breaking through resistance to get the decision makers and influencers to open up and honestly share what their needs, preferences, biases and key decision driving criteria are first. This is a major difference between top performers and the rest.
Most sales organizations would make progress faster if they would focus for an entire year on intense training and coaching to become better at asking questions, listening and summarizing before selling. This single focus area would produce better results with at least 70% of all salespeople than more training on technology, complex selling strategies and elaborate account development analysis tools.
Managers continue to get so much pressure from above that they feel it's all they can do just to work on those short-term priorities. You're always going to be in a crunch position with that mentality where you can never develop your people because you don't have time versus setting aside time for long term projects every week. A lot of people say, ‘well I don't have time for that’. Really, you don't have time not to do it. It depends on if you want to be the hamster running in the maze all the time or if you want to work long-term to make it happen.
If you are new to management, the most important thing you have to do is not try to be the super salesperson anymore. Listen to your people, understand how they do it, try to learn something from them. Just because you're the coach doesn't mean you're the teacher or the lecturer and you should really be able to gain Insight from talking to your team and continuing to learn. Secondly, one of your main functions is going to be the buffer between your employees and your senior management. You really need to understand your employees’ needs and at the same time, you also have to understand the needs of your management. You have two levels of selling so it makes it twice as hard.

industry_corpus2: Others


text:
No matter what part of town you live in, or what kind of camp you're looking for, you'll be sure to find it at L.A. Camp Fair 2018.
L.A. Camp Fair 2018 encompasses three different summer camp expo events throughout Los Angeles in March and April. With Camp Fair events at UCLA, Conejo Valley and Calabasas, you are bound to find the right program for you. Hope to see you at the Camp Fair!


text:
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industry_corpus2: Computing & Telecommunications


text:
H.J. O'Connell Ltd. has been a leader in the heavy civil engineering construction industry since 1931.
Originally, under the leadership of Montrealer Herbert John O'Connell, the company quickly grew into one of Canada's leading heavy construction firms, establishing Les Entreprises de Construction de Québec Ltée. (L.E.C.Q.) in 1937 and H.J. O'Connell Construction Ltd. in 1970.
On August 31st 2011, H.J. O'Connell was acquired by one of Canada's leading national general constructors: Bird Construction. With this expansion into new scopes of work related to the civil industrial business and Bird Construction's recognized expertise in industrial building construction, this strategic partnership creates opportunities to expand the services offered to both H.J. O'Connell's and Bird Construction's customers.
Our 80 plus year history ranks H.J. O'Connell Ltd. among the oldest of such firms in Canada. Our prosperity is a result of our innovative approach to business and our continued interest in growth and development. Since our establishment, we have grown to be a leader in the various markets in which we provide quality service. Our diversified business includes expertise in Mining, Energy, Roads, and Bridges as well as Municipal, Industrial, Northern and Project Management related work. Our clients have come to know us as an organization that continuously strives to find win-win solutions where projects are completed on time and on budget.
Our ability to identify opportunities, attract and retain the finest talent in the market and continuously serve and exceed our clients’ expectations will ensure our success for years to come.
1931 – 1950 General civil works for the Province of Quebec, the city of Montreal and various municipalities, QC.
1946 – 1951 Construction of mining road Notre Dame de la Doré to Chibougamau (185 miles), QC.
1950 – 1955 Development of Schefferville and mine for Iron Ore Company of Canada (I.O.C.C.), QC and NL.
1950 – 1957 Sept-Îles, La Tuque, Trois-Rivières and Rouyn Noranda airports, QC.
1951 Construction of the Chibougamau townsite, road to Chapais (40 miles) (OPEMISKA), and radar site at Schefferville, QC.
1952 – 1958 Route 11 (117) sections between Mount Laurier and Dorval, La Verendrye Park, Lac des Loups airport and O’Connell Lodges, QC.
1953 Transmission line from Notre de la Doré to Chibougamau, QC.
Constructed pot lines for Alcan at Île Maligne, QC.
1955 – 1958 Construction of Autoroute 15, QC.
1955 – 1959 Transported entire production of OPEMISKA copper mine to rail head at St-Félicien (200 miles) on 24/7 basis, QC.
1957 – 1959 Road St-Luger de Milot to Chutes des Passes and Chutes Savannes for Alcan, QC.
1958 – 1964 Highway 15, Route 11 (117) St-Jérome, QC.
1960 – 1964 Sept-Îles - Port Cartier - roads, sewers, aqueducts, Q.C.M. hangar services, Iron Ore Dumping Station, QC.
1960 – 1965 Gagnonville - infrastructure, Gagnonville airport, QC.
1963 Radar Site St-Sylvestre, QC.
1964 St-Jean river and Hâvre St-Pierre bridge (1200 feet), QC.
1964 – 1965 Beloeil - St-Hyacinthe Trans-Canada highway, QC.
1964 – 1968 Highway 10 St-Césaire - Gramby 3 sections, QC.
1965 Constructed the 18-hole Candiac Golf Course, QC.
1965 – 1966 Bridge on the Assumption River at Assumption, QC.
1965 – 1967 Highway 40, RN-4 Lavaltrie section, Highway 31, Joliette bypass, QC.
1966 – 1980 Churchill Falls hydro-electric project - permanent access roads to the various sites (about 200 miles), Churchill Falls airport, camp sites, C.F.L.C.O. office complex, management houses, apartment buildings, infrastructure and paved streets, NL.
1967 Highway 406 - St. Catherines for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, ON.
1967 – 1968 Roads and bridges (9) Churchill Falls to Lower Churchill, NL.
1968 – 1969 Jonquière - Kenogami bridge, QC.
1968 – present Stripping “Wabush Mines”, NL.
1968 – present Street Reconstruction and Upgrading, Town of Wabush, NL Labrdor City, NL and Fermont, QC.
1968 – present Overburden Stripping IOCC, NL.
1971 – 1972 Québec - Labrador border road at Mount Wright and Fermont, QC.
1972 – 1973 Access to the Lower Churchill hydro-electric project, temporary dykes, coffer dams and demobilization of all contractors, NL.
1972 – 1976 Constructed Fermont townsite for Q.C.M, QC.
1976 Management of the construction of 3 sections of the Olympic Stadium on behalf of the Régie des installations olympiques, QC.
1976 – 1987 James Bay hydro-electric project - access roads, campsite, infrastructure,crushing, LG-2, LG-3 and LG-4 maintenance, Caniapiscau, QC.
1976 – 2006 Various works for Q.C.M. - mine tailings containment system (including dykes, dams and retention basins), QC.
1980 Port Cartier prison - site access and preparation, QC.
1981 Caisson Project, Vancouver, BC.
1983 First contractor to begin construction of Trans Labrador Highway, NL.
1983 – 1998 Route 500 – Trans Labrador Highway, NL.
1984 – 1985 Ashuanipi Bridge, NL.
1984 – 1994 Various works for the Chisasibi Cree community: water supply, roads, drainage, excavation, municipal garage, arena and Chisasibi airport. Construction of access roads to Wemindji, QC.
1986 Hâvre St-Pierre airport - repair and improvement of the runway, QC.
1989 – present Overburden stripping ArcelorMittal, QC.
1991 Town of Wabush water supply system, NL.
1995 St. John’s Outer Ring Road, NL.
1997 Mill 13 Replacement IOCC, Labrador City, NL.
1997 – 1998 Sango Bay, Labrador - access road, airstrip, terminal building and water supply, NL.
1998 Luce Development IOCC, Labrador City, NL.
1998 – present Development of Dolomite Quarry for IOCC, Labrador City, NL.
2000 Demolition and foundation work for the new IOCC Mine Maintenance Facility, NL.
2000 Labrador West field operations worked 1000 days without a lost time injury.
2001 Zero Lost Time Accidents in 2001 company wide.
2001 – 2002 Cartwright Labrador - constructed the Marine Services Centre, NL.
2002 Labrador West Maintenance Department achieves 6 years without a Lost Time Accident.
2002 – 2003 Constructed the Beeton Hydroelectric station at Grand Falls – Windsor, NL.
2002 – 2003 No Lost Time Accidents company wide.
2002 – 2004 Iroquois Falls Rehabilitation Project at Iroquois Falls, NL.
2002 – 2005 Constructed Voisey’s Bay Nickel Project for Vale Inco, NL.
2004 Reached 500,000 hours without a Lost Time Accident in December.
2004 – 2005 Constructed the “Mountain Brow Blvd” bridge and surface water management facilities in Hamilton, ON.
2004 – 2005 Inco Hydromet Plant Residue Ponds at Argentia, NL.
2004 – 2005 Vale Inco Hydromet Plant Residue Ponds at Argentia, NL.
2005 Break Water Rehabilitation at Port Cartier, QC.
2005 IOCC Tailings Pipeline Project at Labrador City, NL.
2005 Hesse 4 Tailings Confinement Dam Project at Mt. Wright, QC.
2005 Township of Tay – Triple Bay Road Watermain at Township of Tay, ON.
2005 St. John’s office received ISO 9001: 2000 certification in February.
2005 Railway Spur & Access Road – Fire Lake Mine at Fire Lake, QC.
2005 Reached 700,000 hours without a Lost Time Accident in August.
2005 Replacement of North Bridge at Orma Lake for CFLCO, NL.
2006 IOCC Pumphouses, Labrador City, NL.
2007 Development of H.J. O'Connell Construction Ltd's new garage facilities, Wabush, NL.
2007 Trans Labrador Highway resurfacing and widening, Labador, NL.
2008 Construction of H.J. O’Connell Ltd.’s new office facilities.
2008 Construction of 3 ATO Traction Substations for IOCC, Labrador City, NL.
2008 IOCC Fine Tailing Foundations Pumphouses, Labrador City, NL.
2008 IOCC Dolomite Bridge Culvert upgrade, Labrador City, NL.
2008 Foundation work for IOCC’s Ball Mill 105, Labrador City, NL.
2008 – present Wuskwatim Generation Project, MB.
2009 Reached 500,000 hours company wide without a lost time injury on August 7, 2009.
2009 Development of the Labrador West Landfill site, Labrador City, NL.
2010 Concrete Placement for Neutralization Building at Long Harbour site, NL.
2010 Construction of Ro-Ro Facilities at Long Harbour site, NL.
Each year, O'Connell Construction Ltd. engages in various mining services such as crushing, overburden stripping, drilling and blasting for mines located throughout Newfoundland, Labrador and Quebec. Additionally, each summer we provide our construction and maintenance services to the towns of Wabush, Labrador City and Fermont. O'Connell builds and maintains roads, curbs, sidewalks, water and sewer lines for these communities.

industry_corpus2: Real Estate & Construction


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Sheet Pan Steak Fajitas is a fun and easy dinner ready in less than an hour. Everything is cooked in the oven on one sheet pan. You can also swap steak for chicken or shrimp.
I love fajitas but I rarely ever make them at home. It always seems like a lot of work. But it’s really not. Especially if you cook this sheet pan version.
If you want to get a little fancier, you can prepare the steak ahead of time and let it marinate in the spices. But if you’re in a hurry, you can skip the marination and just do a quick toss of the spices onto the meat and vegetables. It’s still flavorful, but the spices just won’t penetrate the meat as much.
I love how colorful this came out. The steak is thinly sliced so that it cooks quickly along with the vegetables. We enjoy our steak medium to medium rare, but feel free to cook all the way through if you want.
The tortillas are added the last few minutes of cooking, just to warm them up. I actually ended up toasting them slightly over an open flame on the stove to add some color. The ones in the oven will warm up just fine but they won’t have the toasted/charred look to them.
This recipe is one I’ll definitely be making often. Next time, I might make it with chicken, steak and shrimp.
Now updated with video! You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel for all the latest recipe videos.
Sheet pan steak fajitas is a healthy and fun dinner for the family ready in under an hour. Everything is cooked on one sheet pan for minimal clean-up.
In a large bowl, add steak, onions and bell peppers. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with minced garlic. Mix everything until it is evenly coated in oil and garlic. Sprinkle seasoning mix over everything. Mix again until everything is evenly coated.
Line a 2/3 size sheet pan with foil. This is a size up from the common half sheet pan used for baking cookies. If you do not have a 2/3 size sheet pan, you can use two half sheet pans. Lay all the vegetables and meat onto the lined sheet pan. Try your best to keep it to a single layer with no overlap.
Nutrition estimate does not include the tortillas.
i love sheet pan meals!
I made these a couple weeks ago and they were AMAZING!! We normally put sour cream, cheese, avocado, etc. on our fajitas, but not this time. We just put the meat and peppers in a corn tortilla and ate them like that. They don’t need a thing. I have been thinking about them ever since, so we are having them again tonight! The only thing I did differently was that I mixed the spices together and rubbed the meat with them and put it in the fridge overnight. Then the next day, I took the meat out, threw the veggies in the bag, then sliced the meat and put it back in. Drizzled a little oil and mixed it all up. Then straight to the sheet pan. I love this. Its sooo easy and soooooooo good! Thanks for sharing!
yay!! so glad you liked this. It’s one of my favorites too! I also like marinating the meat ahead of time but I know when people look at one pot/one sheet recipes, they are looking for something really quick and having to prepare/marinate early can be a turn-off so I wanted to make sure it could be done without that extra step, but if you have time, definitely marinating overnight is the best way to go!
Kirbie, I made This last night for dinner, and it was so good! I had some again today, but fixed as a salad with half an avocado and cherry tomatoes. Using a sheet pan makes the cleanup a breeze! Will definitely make this a regular meal in my rotation. Thanks for posting this.! If I would have had the time, I would have marinated the steak like Kelly did.
So glad you enjoyed it! I’ve made this several times since I posted this recipe and I haven’t gotten sick of it yet!
Oh my God ! I can’t belive it ! It took me exactly 1h from starting to prepare the ingredients till putting the food on the table. It’s so delicios that we can’t stop eating. Even my son, who rarely appreciates a meal, said ‘yummy’ more than once to this. Thank you for sharring it !
I’m so glad your family enjoyed it! It’s one of my favorite meals to make!
These are awesome! Great in a pinch or make ahead and cheap to make. Also great for large groups. Adding it to the meal rotation! Thank you!
Been meaning to review this…this recipe is so easy and always gives us consistently good results. My husband requests this often and I am happy to oblige. I put the rub on the meat only and just drizzle veggies with olive oil and salt. Top the fajitas with chopped cilantro, avocado and shredded cheese. Thanks for posting!
Thanks for taking the time to leave a review! I’m so glad you and your husband enjoy this!
We have 6 kids in our house and the night I made this, we had 8 kids. DInner was so easy and everyone loved it!! It is now in a regular rotation – we love it!! Tonight we are trying it with chicken!!
So glad you love it! it’s on my regular rotation as well!
I’ve made this dish several times. It’s quick/easy/delicious.
If you haven’t made this yet, I highly recommend it.

industry_corpus2: Hospitality & Catering


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In software, our specialties, like testing or programming, may be the surface game, but usually there are other games going on. If what we need to build is vague or not thought through, the game suddenly gets a lot harder. For years, I’ve thought of project management and requirements as the meta-game of software delivery. The “shift-left” push seems laser-focused on setting things up to prevent rework in a meaningful way.
Meanwhile, another small revolution has been happening in software. It’s the DevOps movement, and it promises to be as influential as—possibly more influential than—project management and good requirements ever were in programming and testing.
At the turn of the century, we had one chance to “get it right” when creating software, which was burned on a physical disk and shipped in the mail. Get it wrong, and your company would end up on the front page of the newspaper—which people still actually read—until new disks came in the mail, which could take a week or more.
Because mean time to recovery (MTTR) was so long and so expensive, companies had to focus on the defensive side by increasing mean time between failures (MTBF). Extreme Programming, refactoring, and test-driven development hadn’t been invented yet, so for the most part, testers got bad code and had many cycles of test-report-retest before release.
Over the next decade we lost the physical disks and moved to the web, which meant a fix could take a day or two. More often than not the holdup for releasing a fix was testing, which was really a tradeoff of risk and time. If we calculate overall risk as risk exposure (badness) multiplied by the length of the time the defect was on the website, then reducing MTTR also reduces risk, arguably decreasing the value of testing.
By the time the web was mainstream and people were using social media, we began to hear about the “Facebook effect”—simply throwing features out that might not even work and letting customers sort it out. This happened particularly with software that was free for users. Gmail, for example, was in beta for its first eighteen months and incredibly buggy, yet MTTR was so low that few people noticed. Most of the time the problem would be fixed before you saw it, and if you saw the problem, it would be fixed the next time you checked mail.
Then along came DevOps, which pushed MTTR from a couple of weeks in Scrum to mere hours or minutes.
Imagine risks on a software project are gaps, like holes in a block of Swiss cheese. What we tried to do in the nineties was have one release, protected by one process—a long, painful test cycle. It’s not quite a law of science that as we try to improve test coverage, the cost of narrowing the gap by half doubles, but something like that does happen on software projects. We try to make cheese with no holes in it, but covering those gaps gets more expensive over time, which leads to longer test cycles and slower releases. Believe it or not, I once worked on a software project that “improved the process” by changing the ship period from monthly to quarterly!
Now imagine a different approach to risk. Instead of reducing MTBF with testing, we try a variety of techniques, like hard examples up front, test-driven development, code craft, isolating code into components, and an early release to a beta group. We also get better at detecting problems earlier, and focus on MTTR with feature flags that are easy to turn on or off, quick deploys, and so on.
Each method is a slice of cheese with different holes. With enough layers, we get the protection of classic test approaches with much less cost—plus we can wean off classic regression testing. Testing still continues all the time, for both new development and other risks, but now it can be a measured investment based on emergent risks, in production or not. By combining ops (deploys, monitoring) with programming (automated builds, automated virtual servers) and testing (risk management), we get something that is more than the sum of its parts.
I recently had a conversation with a director of test who was concerned that DevOps would “disrupt” testing the same way the web disrupted print media. His instinct was to dig in his heels and fight.
My advice was quite the opposite. Don’t fight. Lead the charge. DevOps success requires a series of components that integrate a bit like puzzle pieces, from on-demand virtual servers by branch to hooking automated checks into the build system, feature flags, staged rollouts, and continuous monitoring. Help the organization realize how to manage all of this (from planning to execution and metrics) and you’ll never have to worry about having a job.
While the emphasis of the testing organization might change a bit, it will be growing to include build management and manage crowdsourced testing, infrastructure, and support. That’s not a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still all in on software testing. Someone still needs to eat the dots and avoid the ghosts. It’s just that the game can get a whole lot easier.
It's very important to distinguish two kinds of bugs: Bigs that make stuff simply "not work" until you fix them and bugs that break things in an irrecoverable way, such as deleting data or making data inconsistent. We still need good QA processes to catch bugs of the latter kind. I find it important to mention this because otherwise the reader could get the impression that the goal is to do less and less testing altogether. But the reality is that it just needs to better align with the risks.


text:
On behalf of Larry P. McDougal posted in Drunk Driving on Wednesday, January 14, 2015.
A Trophy Club man was taken into custody on suspicion he committed an eighth DUI offense following his indictment on the charges on Jan. 8. The allegations stem from an accident that allegedly occurred in November 2014. He was named in the indictment in December 2014.
On behalf of Larry P. McDougal posted in Drunk Driving on Friday, December 19, 2014.
A man who was accused of causing two wrecks in Texas while under the influence of alcohol was taken into police custody on Dec. 11. The first accident occurred at approximately 11 p.m. while the second accident, which left a 40-year-old driver dead, occurred a short time later.
On behalf of Larry P. McDougal posted in Theft & Property Crimes on Wednesday, October 15, 2014.
A Texas man was taken into police custody on Oct. 10 after authorities alleged he stole money from a charity. The man, who was the treasurer of a charity toy event held in Tarrant/Dallas County, is now facing felony theft charges.

industry_corpus2: Law & Justice


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Situated in the old school the Porlock Visitor Centre is a great place to break your journey. In the grounds are the Coleridge Memorial Gardens dedicated to Coleridge.
Created by local artists and craftsmen they include a feature on the famous poem Kubla Khan and includes an arch way into the garden, a mosaic wall montage and a lovely picnic table.
At just over halfway along the route Porlock offers lots to do if you fancy a rest day and the Visitor centre can advise. But even if you’re pushing on call in to sign the Coleridge Way log book.

industry_corpus2: Travel & Geography


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Hello, Joslyn! You are right. Fashion Bomb Daily is a well oiled machine with several writers.
We typically take on interns, who receive a stipend for 3 months work, then we bring them on to the team. We draw up independent contractor contracts, have weekly meetings, and a schedule.
Fashion Bomb Daily wouldn’t be anything without our team. With the proliferation of red carpet events and celeb style moments, it would either be impossible or crazy to do everything alone.
I think a lot of celeb style and gossip bloggers make the mistake of not taking on help. It’s easy to be like: this is MY thing. But in order to grow, you must have the help of supportive staff that sees the bigger picture.
Finding the right people is hard to do, but I’ve learned quite a bit about being a good boss and leader over the years. A few tips: Pay people. Offer Incentives. Show Appreciation. Treat them like you care. Listen to their goals. And ultimately in order for you to be successful, help others be successful.
I have this dream of leading a pack of well heeled women. And one of my greatest inspirations, Oprah, pushed her career forward by creating stars of the people on her staff (Iyanla, Dr. Phil, and Suze Ormon are a few people Oprah has made famous by her cosign).
Build a great staff, then hold on to them. I’m still figuring this out, but making stars of the FBD team is my goal.


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Study Objective: To assess whether interleukin-2 has a role in the pathogenesis of scleroderma.
Design: Observe serum effect on the in-vitro growth of an interleukin-2-dependent cytotoxic T-cell line and determine serum level by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
Setting: Outpatient rheumatology clinic of a university medical center.
Patients: Sera were collected from 47 patients with scleroderma, 20 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and 14 matched control subjects.
Measurements and Main Results: A significant mitogenic effect was observed in sera from patients with scleroderma of recent onset; a lower proliferative response was seen in rheumatoid sera. Matched control sera had no mitogenic activity. Sera from patients with scleroderma of recent onset supported the in-vitro growth of an interleukin-2-dependent cytotoxic T-cell line. Matched control sera had no similar mitogenic activity. Interleukin-2 was found in sera from 41 of 47 patients with scleroderma (204 ± 356 U/mL, mean + SD), in 9 of 20 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (2.04 + 5.16), and in none of 14 matched control subjects. There was a positive correlation between serum level and the skin progression index (skin score/disease duration).
Conclusions: The presence of interleukin-2 in scleroderma sera strongly supports a role for T-cell activation in scleroderma. The association between serum levels and disease progression indicates that this T-cell process may participate in the progression of the disease.
Published: Ann Intern Med. 1989;110(6):446-450.

industry_corpus2: Health & Medicine


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Anyway, I say "possible" because A) it's not done yet (but it's getting there) and B) I'm not 100% sure it fits the fest (the idea actually came to me originally for TimeFest, but too late to do anything with). The working title is "One More Last Chance," and it's about a guy who gets the titular chance, but then of course it doesn't work out exactly as expected.
Should be fairly simple to shoot: two interiors, two exteriors (although one could use a special effect or two for a shot).
As a "writing sample," I can offer into evidence my entries into the DVXUser ScriptFests, as seen in my sig.
I actually have another idea that I think is pretty well started even though it's been written in about the last five hours. :D Haven't settled on a title, but it would be something like "Somewhere Between Frozen Foods and the Walk-In Beer Cooler."

industry_corpus2: Film & Entertainment


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Our company has very strong R&D capacity and a complete quality control system. We have a R&D team of 8 persons, after-sale team of 10 persons .The annualproduction capability is 7million measuring tapes, 5 million screwdrivers and 3 million art knives. We have built a complete sales channel in China and abroad with our best quality, good service as well as our great efforts in the past 10 years. Our products are sold very well in South America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa.
We can also offer OEM and ODM Service. We will take the time to understand your business, your objectives, and then work closely with you to reflect your brand identity.
We are the guys you can trust, talk to us!

industry_corpus2: Manufacturing


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Skiing isn’t just a sport reserved for the Winter Olympics. Tens of thousands of people around the world hit the slopes as soon as a fresh blanket of snow covers the ground. The thrill of navigating runs and pushing their bodies to the limit keeps them coming back.
Since it is a rigorous activity, skiing always carries a chance of injury. You can take steps to minimize that risk, so it doesn’t impede your winter fun.
Skiing engages the whole body in strenuous exercise. That means injuries can occur anywhere on your upper body or lower body without warning.
Sudden twists or hard falls are often the main culprits behind these injuries. Such injuries can be quite severe and require lots of time and money to rehabilitate the injured body part.
How can you prevent ski injuries?
Using some common sense can go a long way toward preventing injuries when you go skiing. Taking precautions can help you stay safe and avoid life-threatening situations.
Never hit the slopes when you are feeling under the weather or dealing with fatigue. It slows your reaction time. When you are at full strength, take regular rest breaks and go at a pace that fits within your physical limitations. Always stay hydrated as well as dehydration can lead to cramps and fatigue.
Wearing gear that properly fits is essential. Bindings should not be too loose or too tight. Use protective gear like a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads and wrist pads. These can shield some of your most vulnerable body parts in case of a fall.
Never venture off onto closed trails. Always pay attention to warning signs and weather conditions around you. Snow and ice conditions are never static. When they change, it can quickly alter the terrain.
Warm up before your first run. Conditioning will strengthen muscles bones and joints. Biking, walking or jogging for 30 minutes at least three times per week will improve your endurance on the slopes.
If you or someone you know has experienced a ski injury on the slopes, contact Orthopedic Research Clinic of Alaska today at 907-644-6055 or online.

industry_corpus2: Sports


text: Citation: Cashman, Ray. 1996. "E. Estyn Evans and His Lasting Importance to the Study of Folklore." Folklore Forum 27(1):3-19.

industry_corpus2: Literature & Emotions


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Jam-packed with yummy retro sweets including Refresher bars and Love Hearts!
Whether they're fans of Sherbet Dip Dabs, Rainbow Drops or even Refresher bars, our Retro Sweet Hamper is bound to be an amazingly sweet treat! It's beautifully presented in an authentic-looking wicker basket and includes a personalised gift card message. It's jam-packed with classic sweeties and is ideal for a birthday, Christmas, retirement or anniversary gift!


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Some call us “EJIMAX BAND INT’L”, while others call us just “EJIMAX” but these good looking young men prefers to be seen as your best friend. No doubt these Nigerian born, Aba breed musicians has been able to carve a niche for themselves in the international music scene. The history of the Nigerian Music industry would not be complete without mentioning the name EJIMAX who is globally known for their creative style of delivery and their remarkable lyrics that cuts across all ages. Little wonder we had an ever increasing fan base. Join here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ejimax-Band-Intl/131452693574733?
The name EJIMAX MUSIC is a blend of two Native & English words . “Ejima” and “Music” which describes our style of music. Ejimax Music are currently running their undergraduate professional degree holder. In 2010, Ejimax recorded their first song. Over the years, Ejimax has grown from an upcoming artiste to a pace setter in their industry. Ejimax is in a world of their own.
Ejimax’s breakthrough in the music was with the eight tracks lyrics which they recorded in 2010 titled Gospel Highlife Xtra. Ejimax has worked with lots of international African artistes like Bro. Paul Nwokocha, Chinedu Nwadike, Bro. Collenuis Benjamin, Bro. Okwara Ezema, Bro. Tochukwu Nwadike and now plans to work with foreign artistes.
Ejimax are great stage performers with 100% stage presence. We are very humble and likable artiste.
Ejimax Music is Afrocentric in that it combines western and African rhythms in creating a marvelous blend of soul, Highlife and Ariaria songs. Our songs cut across various age genders and geographical boundaries indirectly making us the most popular and sought after artiste in Africa and beyond.
Since the release of the “Gospel Highlife Xtra” album (listen here: http://www.reverbnation.com/ejimaxworld), Ejimax has performed in several major concerts all around the Globe.


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Study Spanish at the premier Spanish School in the amazing city of Campeche, Mexico. Our Spanish school in Campeche, Mexico will offer Spanish students from all over the world the highest level of Spanish education available.
The Campeche Language School is part of the prestigious Teach Me Mexico network of Spanish Schools that are widely recognized as being among the best in Mexico and the World. We also work with LiveLingua.com to offer online Spanish lessons. Campeche is one of the hidden gems of the Yucatan peninsula. Its colonial downtown is an immaculately maintained and is surrounded by an ancient fortress wall. It is on the Gulf coast, and right on the edge of the ocean. It is known also for the fantastic castles of Cortez on the nearby hill overlooking the city.
The Campeche Language School is ideal for people who are looking to explore the amazing Yucatan Peninsula, but would like to stay away from the overcrowded and overpriced locations such as Cancun and Playa del Carmen.If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
The Campeche Language School offers a wide variety of Spanish packages, so you are sure to find what you are looking for.
You can also contact us to create a custom Spanish package.
All of our Spanish School look forward to the opportunity of servicing your Spanish learning needs.


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Ease Gill is a small valley which cuts the moors between Casterton Fell on the west and Leck Fell and Ireby Fell on the east.
The valley carries the infant waters of Leck Beck, parts of which feed the Easegill Caverns cave system which lies beneath the moors - and is currently believed to be the largest and most complex cave system in Great Britain.
Back on the surface intereseting features in Ease Gill include Easegill Kirk, a sheltered limestone ravine containing waterfalls and several entrances to the Easegill Caverns system.


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NABARD Himachal Pradesh, the vegetable production in the state is 19.5 tonnes per hectare, which is higher than the national productivity that is 17.5 tonnes per hectare during 2015-16. View more at #YesPahari.
Although Himachal Pradesh’s vegetable production is higher than the national productivity, marketing of the produce of small and marginal farmers is hitting it from making a benchmark. According to the data available with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) Himachal Pradesh, vegetable production is higher than the national productivity that is 17.5 tonnes per hectare during 2015-16.
Analysing information collected from the Departments of Horticulture and Agriculture, NABARD revealed that at present the area under vegetable farming in the state is 75,000 hectares and production is 16 lakh tonnes, with annual growth rates of 6.5 per cent in the area and 7.4 per cent in production.
Apple fruit farming comprising about 84 per cent with a production of 7.77 lakh MT.
5.62 lakh farmers engaged in horticulture and an annual employment generation of 1,000 mandays.
While, 57 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) have been promoted in the state, solution is also to form more FPOs and a state policy for promotion of FPOs needed, suggests NABARD.
NABARD Himachal Pradesh Regional Office, Shimla Assistant General Manger (AGM) Kuldeep Chand, who prepared a presentation for development of horticulture and agriculture in the state has underlined the need of improvement in marketing of both the horticulture and vegetable produce, which is the main problem to small and marginal farmers.
Highlighting the horticulture scenario, he maintained that in Himachal Pradesh per capita cultivated land is only 0.12 hectares (1.5 bighas) and the per capita irrigated land is a meagre 0.02 hectare (0.25 bighas). This situation necessitates a cropping pattern that would ensure a highest income per unit area/labour/ investment for which horticulture, vegetables, floriculture, mushroom, bee keeping, are options, stated NABARD.
Furthermore, suggestions point out improvement of productivity, quality improvements of horticulture produce, diversification of the horticulture industry, modernization of the nursery production programme, introduction of improved fruit varieties, change of medium and high density plantations, integrated pest management (IPM) and Biological control, use of IT solutions for reaching out to farmers and efficient use of water and to create Controlled Atmospheric Storages.
Creation of scientific post harvest management infrastructure, value addition and diversification in processing industry, market promotion through branding, advertisement and exports are other recommendations.

industry_corpus2: Agriculture & Fisheries


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Have you ever lost your wallet? If you have, then you know how stressful it is to be unsure if your identity is secure or not. Using a credit monitoring service is something you can do to ease your mind about your personal information. An Identity protection company in Alsip will monitor your credit history and bank accounts for suspicious activity. Identity thieves don't need your wallet to get your personal information. There are so many ways for a criminal to get your information, that it's a matter of time before it happens to you. Identity protection puts you one step ahead because you get information fast if there is a problem with your credit. By taking care of it with credit monitoring in Alsip, IL, you will be able to save countless hours of hassle if your identity is stolen.
Learning good credit habits now will help you be knowledgeable about what is going on with your credit and can help keep your accounts safe. What is the best way to do this? You can order a copy of your credit report for free once a year. But with the frequency of identity theft, monitoring once a year just isn't enough. Identity protection in Alsip, IL will provide you with updates a lot more often than once a year. They will notify you any time something looks suspicious with your bank account, credit cards or Social Security number.
Millions of people every year are victims of identity theft. Identity theft takes place when a criminal obtains your personal information and uses it to open a credit card, bank account, or pay for medical bills in your name. Identity protection in Alsip is important to keep you safe from this crime. Don't let your credit score be affected by someone committing fraud. Early detection from a credit monitoring service will reduce the amount of time you spend getting your credit back in good standing. Check out the identity theft protection services in Alsip, IL by calling us today.

industry_corpus2: Finance & Economics


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Lowyoyo is a software company dedicated to building custom mobile applications for businesses and individuals. We can operate under fixed fee or time and materials contracts.
The term "lowyoyo" is a fighter pilot maneuver. This follows the theme of the name of the first business started by the owner, which was also a fighter pilot maneuver. Fighter pilots are agile, aggressive, and determined to win. At Lowyoyo, we share those attributes. We are determined and will build a great product for you.
Bring your vision to the Apple ecosystem.
Leverage the most popular mobile platform.
Put your apps on TV.
Let users wear your apps.


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Le Traon P.Y., E. Remy, J. Ballabrera-Poy, 2015: Assessesment of the impact of ARGO in Ocean models and satellite validation from E-AIMS Project. Mercator Ocean Quarterly Newsletter.
García-Ladona E., J. Salat, J. Ballabrera, 2013: Los océanos, los mayores reservorios de agua del planeta. .

industry_corpus2: Water Resources & Marine


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This video is one of the forty multimedia stops in a new “story-caching” application that allows users to visit and learn more about various historic events and landmarks in Georgia as part of sesquicentennial of the Atlanta and Savannah Campaigns of 1864 and the semicentennial of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Once installed on a GPS-enabled smartphone or tablet, the application guides users to a site with a “story-cache”–a streaming multimedia presentation that “projects” the past onto the present location. Atlanta high-rises yield to Civil War trenches; Martin Luther King, Jr. is suddenly standing and speaking just where he once did, giving users the illusion of being transported back in time to become a member of his audience. Content is activated simply by being in the right place and pointing your smart device at a particular sign or statue or object. This project is developed by ARwerks, an augmented reality design and production company (their web site isn’t fully operational, so they remain a bit mysterious).
This entry was posted in Historical interpretation, Technology and tagged ARwerks, Atlanta, Georgia on May 24, 2013 by Max van Balgooy.

industry_corpus2: Technology & Research


text: As one of the largest lifestyle brands in the country, KAS Australia is synonymous with innovative, quality homewares. The family-owned and operated business has an enviable longevity, and from humble beginnings has cemented its status as a leader in the competitive homewares market. Whilst the principal element of the KAS Australia product offering is bed linen, the brand also produces designs across the following categories: lounge cushions, beach, bath, outdoor, kitchen and home fragrance. Each category is represented within seasonal collections, forming cohesive and well-rounded ranges of modern lifestyle products. It is staying true to this that makes KAS Australia so unique - in a sea of simplistic and basic home products, the eye-catching KAS visual makes the brand stand out from the crowd. KAS Australia prides itself on a commitment to quality, with all products manufactured within the highest standard. Whether natural or man-made, each fabrication is guaranteed to be of a premium level. Based on these core values, it comes as no surprise that the Australian homewares brand has achieved such large-scale international success. KAS Australia's sheet sets, quilt covers, cushions, throw rugs, towels, napery, outdoor cushions and home fragrance can be found in destinations ranging from USA, Germany. Austraia, Belgium, Switzerland, to Mexico, Japan and the Middle East.


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I'm always a little bit wary of restaurants once we wander too far out of Taipei. For some, it's an adventure to discover local tastes and dishes, but for me, I usually think of menus only in Chinese, winding roads of unfamiliar restaurants and squat toilets. I don't like squat toilets.
But at least I'm with relatives who also love food and have picked some good places in the past. On this occasion, they want to take me to Yangmingshan where you can walk the field of cally lilies next to the restaurant, take photos and even pick some to take home. It's kind of a nice retreat from the city and not as far as some of the other places we've gone, like the sheep farm or aboriginal village.
The relatives order a dizzying array of food and before we know it, the red plastic covered table is covered with dishes. While we wait, there is a sweet potato soup (NT$30/bowl) that comes first with huge chunks of sweet potato infused with a sweet ginger flavor from the soup it was boiled in.
and the heaping plate of mian xian which are thin, wheat flour noodles that are surprisingly addicting, slippery with the rich sesame oil flavor and boiled to a soft, but not mushy bite.
So if you're looking for something different, you can find your way to Yang Ming Shan, enjoy the views and fresh air, and order away at this restaurant tucked in the mountainside.
One of the things I miss in Taipei is Thai food delivery. In LA, if I feel like some pad thai, tom kha gai soup or green curry, I just make a quick phone call and half an hour later, I'm eating my steaming hot food and I didn't have to fight traffic, find parking, or find other people to eat with. In Taipei, if I want Thai food, I usually end up at Thai Town or Mei Kung, both great, but more sit down and suitable for a meal for a larger group so you could have more variety. In Taipei, I have yet to find a Thai restaurant that delivers, or maybe I'm just missing some special code or place that you guys need to clue me into.
So the next best thing to delivery is to-go. So I decided on pad thai(NT$150) to-go after musing over Blue Spice's English and Chinese menu of curries, noodles, fried chicken and appetizers after catching a movie at Breeze.
The prices range from NT$55-$180 and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that with my to-go order I could choose either soup or thai ice tea. I chose thai ice tea and it was sweet and not watered down.
Another thing that surprised me was the complimentary mini appetizers on the side that were included- glass noodle salad, pork and egg which had strong sour and spicy flavors that complimented the pad thai. The portion was filling, but not quite enough to share.
I look forward to going back and trying some of the other things on their menu- the green or red curry with chicken or the fried chicken with chili sauce, which the friendly cashier said was a best seller.
I've had some pretty bad experiences with Southeast Asian food in Taipei food courts for some reason- the Singaporean/Malay stall near Jasons in 101 or Pho in Eslite and Breeze Main Station- but Blue Spice is definitely worth a try for Thai food lovers.
Steak lovers will enjoy tender, medium rare steak in a beautifully designed, open kitchen, upscale casual space in the Grand Victoria Hotel. Opened early this year, No. 168 Prime Steakhouse brings the expertise of A-Cut chef Danny Teng to bring the steakhouse experience in Taipei to another level. I never made it to A-Cut despite hearing about how it was "the best steak in Taipei", but after trying eating at a restaurant run by the former A-Cut's founder, I can see how he has a magic touch for steak.
The first thing I noticed when I entered into No. 168 Prime Steakhouse was the unique details of the entrance and dining room. Wood echoes prominently as a theme in the design, but in a modern, artful way.
The second thing was the large open kitchens and the chefs busy at work, making pizzas and preparing dishes. While they have six private rooms (the largest can seat up to a party of 50), it's a pleasure to sit in the main room.
The third and maybe the most subliminal thing was the open airy space and light from all the windows in the main room. Many of the other steakhouses I've been to are dark and enclosed- Ruth Chris, Robin's Grill, Lawry's- which give it a old fashioned feeling somehow; and No. 168 Prime Steakhouse is the opposite.
If you wander around, you'll see the dry aging room around the corner from the kitchen.
The first time I went was for a party, and there was a set lunch menu that the host selected. The lunch and dinner sets are the best deals, as they include a starter, salad, soup, main dish and dessert. I've heard that the sets are not as expensive as A-Cut's were, and are affordable at around NT$800-$1500 for lunch and NT$1600-$2000 for dinner sets.
We all found it really hard not to resist the complimentary bread- it's spongy and pliable, and tastes freshly baked.
The two starters we had to choose from were the sizzling hokkaido scallop or taraba crabcake. I chose the scallop, which was wonderfully sweet from the right amount of searing, carmelization and flavor from the parsley puree and beurre blanc sauces.
Though Mushroom Cappuccino soups seem to be popping up everywhere in Taipei restaurants, this has to be one of my favorite executions, with a sweetness and smokiness to the soup and airiness from the froth. If I didn't misunderstand the waiter, I think he said there was actually a touch of coffee beans in the soup.
Along with main dishes comes an elaborate set of salts, mustards and sauces to choose- from Himalayan Rose, Hawaiian or French sea salts; dijon mustard, grain and English mustard; to red wine, horseradish or Bearnaise sauces- it feels like the chef has traveled the world to bring you the best accompaniments for your steak.
On my second visit, I copy my friend, who smartly creates his own palette of sauces in a clockwise fashion. That's an engineering major's mind at work for you. I am not sure I could have ever came up with that on my own- and thus I could have never majored in engineering!
The USDA Prime Filet comes in a iron cast skillet with a roasted whole garlic and tomato. The garlic butter had melted already since the servers were running around serving everyone, but the steak is still amazing.
It was also probably the first time I noticed a steak knife like this, it sliced through the meat like butter.
I've never been that crazy about eating garlic (some of my friends in LA adore the Stinking Rose), but I try the roasted garlic clove and its practically melts in my mouth with a sweet creamy texture. Weird! I like garlic!
For those that aren't red meat lovers, there's roasted chicken, quail, king salmon and pork chop and lamb options. Here was a huge roasted chicken my friend couldn't finish.
Out of the three desserts I sampled, my favorite was the warm chocolate cake and after I research for this post, I understand why. Danny Teng was also the founder of Ben Teppanyaki which also had a memorable warm chocolate cake (not to mention the biggest piece of foie gras I'd probably ever had).
The Caramel Affogato looks and sounds good with brownies cubes and carmelized bananas, but the brownies are much drier and harder in comparison to the chocolate cake.
For lighter fare, there's the seasonal fruit tart.
On my second visit, I got a lot of the same- the scallop, the mushroom cappucino, the warm chocolate cake, but this time, I had the Black Angus Top Cap steak and I liked it even more than the filet. It was more tender and juicy and I savored every bite.
There's also pastas and pizzas, which are great to share or for kids. The Porcini mushroom pizza is as addictive as the bread, with its doughy crust.
From the presentation to the ambiance to the food, I can't remember another place where I've had as good steak. No. 168 Prime Steakhouse could be in Beverly Hills or Las Vegas, and it could compete with the best of them.