“'Perfect' book to read while watching baseball playoffs - Toledo Blade” plus 4 more |
- 'Perfect' book to read while watching baseball playoffs - Toledo Blade
- Hawaiian women offer intriguing collection - Honolulu Advertiser
- High School Alumni celebrate 60 years - Caymen Net News
- Author finds strength in family's difficult past - Columbus Dispatch
- Arts news - sign on sandiego.com
| 'Perfect' book to read while watching baseball playoffs - Toledo Blade Posted: 11 Oct 2009 06:59 AM PDT More than 600 World Series games have been played in the century-plus history of the Fall Classic. That means better than 1,200 starting pitchers have taken the mound on the sport's biggest stage, including many of the game's all-time greats. Each chapter represents a half-inning of the game. | ||
| Hawaiian women offer intriguing collection - Honolulu Advertiser Posted: 11 Oct 2009 04:57 AM PDT Since ancient times, offerings have come in many forms, from gold, cattle and prayer to, as Tamara Laulani Wong-Morrison writes in "Proper Offerings to Pele," " 'ohelo berries / Red bulbs complete with an offering chant." Wong-Morrison's poem is just one offering presented in "Ho'okupu: An Offering of Literature by Native Hawaiian Women," a new anthology of contemporary works by 18 Hawaiian women. Editors Miyoko Sugano and Jackie Pualani Johnson, both University of Hawai'i-Hilo professors, situate the anthology within a formal framework of ceremony and protocol. Before the first contribution, "Ka Waiho A Ka Mana'o" by Haunani Bernardino, readers are confronted by acknowledgements, a foreword, opening mele, lengthy greeting wherein the editors justify the use of English language, and a separate editors' "mahalo." Tacked on at the end is a substantial appendix including a second table of contents, biographies, a glossary, closing mele, and writer interviews conducted by the editors' students. While well intentioned, these bookends end up creating an impression of extraneous filler, detracting from the "meat" of the offering. The writers in the collection vary in age and background, live on O'ahu, Moloka'i, Hawai'i and the Mainland, and range from Pualani Kanaka'ole, who is from a long line of chanters and hula performers, to Cheryl Bautista, a recent college graduate who works for a general contractor. Intersecting themes such as taro farming, voyaging, 'ohana, paddling, death and even genetic engineering seep through equally varied mediums of verse, haiku, play, short story, chant and talk story. When it does get going, the collection happily opens with Phyllis Coochie Cayan's and Kanani Aton's haiku, both evoking the ghost of deceased local poet Wayne Kaumualii Westlake and standing alone refreshingly enjoyable bites of imagery. One example is "Hana i ka lo'i," where Aton writes with playful precision: "Cool pebbles of rain / Fall laughing on taro leaves / Wish I knew the joke." Later, in J.W. Makanui's longer, four-stanza poem "For Grampa and Gramma and Summers, with Love," the refrain "Makaweli red dirt" is smartly repeated throughout to provide momentum and increase a powerful building of memory and emotion. The most unique contributions can't help but stand out from the crowd. Doodie Cruz's one-act play "Whose Nose Dat?" is an energizing change of form and a tender yet tough depiction of tradition carried on in a new and changing Hawaiian family. Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl's courageous and engrossing short story "Ho'oulu Lahui" provocatively conjures Hawai'i in 2021, when a newly formed "Ministry of Hawaiian Culture" carries out a noble but misguided mission of water and land conservation and repopulation under the slogan "Increase the Race." And Eleanor K. S. Ahuna's "Mama" presents her mother's talk story, encompassing such captivating memories as teaching hula in Keaukaha and cooking on a tin can stove, and told in disarming everyday language. While primarily looking to the past, evoking ancient knowledge and tradition, this earnest collection showcases the diversity of Hawaiian women, their concerns and daily lives, and offers an intriguing mix of meditations on emotion and politics, nature and family, and both the real and the imagined. Find more of Thomas' writing at www.literarylotus.com. | ||
| High School Alumni celebrate 60 years - Caymen Net News Posted: 11 Oct 2009 06:30 AM PDT
By Kevin Shereves As part of a series of activities to mark the occasion, the group has launched a photo competition in collaboration with Cayman Net News. Past students and readers and alike are being challenged to identify some of the school's first students in photograph taken in 1956 in front of the original school building. "To celebrate this historic occasion readers are invited to submit the names of any person they may recognise in the photograph to Cayman Net News. The first person to identify the most students will receive an enlarged framed replica of this group photograph from Cayman Net News," said Grace Ebanks –Wright, a past student from the class of 1961. Persons may send their response to news@caymannetnews. Alumni members also gathered at Seaman's Hall on 26 September for a reunion and anniversary dinner party. Past students from the class of 1953, 1957, 1960 and 1961. were in attendance, Mrs Ebanks-Wright said. Many students living overseas were unable to attend the celebration but sent in biographies to let the group know what they have been doing over the years. "Those who were in attendance included former students, Mr Benson Ebanks, a former MLA and a graduate of the class of 1960 and former Leader of Government Business Truman Bodden was in attendance representing the class of 1960," she also noted Mrs Ebanks-Wright said that one of the school's first teachers was able to join the celebration. "We were very pleased to also have Mrs Olive Miller who was well enough to celebrate with us. She is over eighty years old and is one of the original teachers of the Cayman High School." Mrs Ebanks-Wright said that the celebration was a very good way to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Cayman High School. The original principal of Cayman High School was the late Reverend John Gray, after whom the school was later named. Mrs Ebanks-Wright said that they were also very pleased to have Reverend Gray's daughter, Elizabeth Gray-Schofield in attendance, who was also a graduate of the class of 1961. | ||
| Author finds strength in family's difficult past - Columbus Dispatch Posted: 11 Oct 2009 04:00 AM PDT
When The Glass Castle was published in 2005, readers who knew Jeannette Walls as the feisty gossip columnist on MSNBC were astonished by details in the memoir of her impoverished childhood and erratic parenting. Walls, her three siblings, their alcoholic father and unconventional artist mother wandered throughout the country -- Arizona, California, Nevada and, finally, West Virginia -- often homeless and searching for food in trash bins. In the squalor of their lives, her father's pipe dream was a "glass castle." Her parents eventually lived on the streets of New York while their children moved on. Sixteen-year-old Walls attended Barnard College on a scholarship, then began a career in journalism. "People would say, 'She must have made this up,' but why would I do that? I wrote many of those scenes about scrounging for food with shame," Walls said. "I think I had a lot of survivor's guilt. Anyone who challenges that this happens in this country, I urge them to get more involved in their community. It happens all the time." Several years after her book became a best-seller, Walls left her day job to write full time. Her just-published second book, Half Broke Horses, is a "true-life novel" about her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, who by the age of 6 was training horses. She, too, survived a traumatic childhood, which included tornadoes, droughts, floods and the Depression. Walls, 49, will discuss both books when she appears Thursday in the Jeanne B. McCoy Community Center for the Arts in New Albany. She spoke to The Dispatch recently by phone.
Q: How hard was it to write about your childhood in The Glass Castle? A: I was so nervous about that. My husband had to push me to write that thing. I was convinced it would ruin my life, but I felt it was something that I had to do. I felt like I was a fraud, but readers discussed my family and me without judgment. The bigger shock is how there are people out there with stories like mine. I would go to these readings, and they would slip me notes and come up to me afterward in tears. These things that we carry around with us and think are shameful are actually our greatest sources of strength.
Q: Is there going to be a film version? A: Yes, but I'm not allowed to discuss it. There's a gorgeous little hottie who wants to play me, but she looks nothing like me. But what these starlets will do to deglamorize themselves is amazing.
Q: You wrote of your father's death in The Glass Castle. Is your mother still living? A: She's not only living, but she's about 100 yards away from me right now. She moved to live with me and my husband in Virginia. Several years ago, she was living in an abandoned (New York) building that caught fire. We begged her to come live with us in a little outbuilding. She said she wasn't a mooch. We told her we had horses, and she said she'd be there. She's now 75.
Q: Why did you decide to write about your grandmother's life in Half Broke Horses? A: When I was going around the country with The Glass Castle, one of the Ohio readers said that my next book should be about my mother. I proposed the idea to Mom, who said that it should be about her mother, my grandmother. . . . I was always told by my mother that I was just like my grandmother.
Q: Did you know her? A: Yes. She died when I was about 8. She made a very strong impression on me. She was always dancing and singing and playing the piano -- more like pounding the piano -- and shouting and pulling out her choppers. I remembered how she looked and moved, but I didn't have photos. After I finished the book, I got in touch with my cousin, who had this whole passel of photos.
Q: Why make the story a "true-life novel"? A: I love biographies, but I would have had to qualify my grandmother's story. I couldn't call this nonfiction because there were no family diaries; it's all from stories my mother told me. I wasn't trying to create a new genre with "true-life novel." I just hope Half Broke Horses encourages people to look at their own families. Lily was a wild and unique character, but every family has wild and unique characters -- tough old coots and tough old broads who did what they had to do to get by.
Q: Do you miss doing on-the-air reporting? A: I don't miss it a bit. I started being a gossip columnist in 1987, so it was 20 years. The irony of pursuing other people's secrets while I was hiding my own does not escape me. I'm not going to bash people who follow gossip -- I think there's some psychology in its appeal. But it's very easy to make fun of rich and famous people, and we poor folks have not cornered the market on suffering. "I was convinced it (The Glass Castle) would ruin my life, but I felt it was something that I had to do. I felt like I was a fraud, but readers discussed my family and me without judgment." author • Jeannette Walls will appear at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Jeanne B. McCoy Community Center for the Arts, 100 Granville St., New Albany. Tickets cost $15 to $25. Call 614-939-2245 or visit www. mccoycenterforthearts. com. • She will also appear at 11 a.m. Thursday in the Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Easton Town Center. Call 614-476-8480. | ||
| Arts news - sign on sandiego.com Posted: 11 Oct 2009 02:12 AM PDT Axline Lecture books Picasso biographerOne of the great biographies of a major 20th-century figure is John Richardson's "Life of Picasso." There have been three volumes thus far, taking Picasso's career through age 51, and now, the 85-year-old Richardson is working on a fourth. Another 41 years of Picasso's prolific and complex story remains for him to cover. Richardson will be in town to speak for the 10th annual Axline Lecture, a series jointly presented by the San Diego Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. It alternates each year between the two, and this year it will be hosted by the SDMA at the Old Globe Theater at 7 p.m. on Oct. 26. In addition to his work as a biographer, Richardson has been organizingexhibitions of 20th century art for the Gagosian Gallery in New York. Roberta Smith of The New York Times called his April show, "Picasso Mosqueteros," featuring the artist's late works, "one the best shows to be seen in New York since the turn of the century." Richardson will be speaking about the biography in a conversation with a noted scholar of 20th century art, Sally Yard, a professor of art history at the University of San Diego. Tickets are available online at sdmart.org or mcasd.org . They are $10; $5 for museum members. You can also inquire at (619) 232-7931 or (858) 454-3541. The lecture series was established to honor the unprecedented funds for their endowments that the late Jackie and Rea Axline left to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the San Diego Museum of Art. Expect sizzlin' music (and food) at ViejasMore than 50 barbecue teams from across the nation will compete Saturday for $23,000 in prizes at Viejas Casino's fifth annual Smokin' in the Park BBQ Championship in Alpine. But for area music fans, the real heat will come from the 10 bands and solo artists that will perform free of charge on two outdoor stages in the casino's sprawling parking lot. Coincidentally, more than half of those acts — which include Los Lobos, Texas Tornados (Refried), Dave Alvin and San Diego's Dirty Sweet — have played at various editions of Street Scene. Also scheduled to perform at Viejas between 1 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday are JJ Grey & Mofro, The Mother Hips, Jesse Dayton & Billy Midnight, and Dusty Rhodes and The River Band. While the music is free, there will be a charge for the food-tasting and accompanying beer festival. Proceeds will go to the Alpine Union School District. For showtimes and more information: viejasbbq.com/ or (619) 445-5400. NCR 'See Me! Hear Me!' takes on global slaveryNorth Coast Repertory Theatre, which opens the romantic comedy "Talley's Folly" this week, is devoting one of its off-nights to a very different show: "See Me! Hear Me!," described as a "multimedia movement piece" on the subject of human trafficking. The piece is performed by Kathleen Ann Thompson, a San Diego State University MFA alum who heads the locally based Belleherst Productions and has worked around the world. She is touring the show throughout the United States to raise awareness of global slavery. "See Me! Hear Me!" takes place Oct. 20 at North Coast Rep, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. Tickets are $15-$20; to purchase, or for more details, call (858) 481-1055 or visit northcoastrep.org. Matisyahu tops the bill at Kick Gas festival Hasidic reggae star Matisyahu will headline the second annual Kick Gas festival on Oct. 24. The event will be at the former San Diego Chargers practice field, next to Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley. Billed as the "West Coast's largest Eco party," the 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. festival features 24 bands and nine DJs, including Matt & Kim, Shark Attack, Superunloader and Astra Kelly. It will also include an alternative-vehicle car show, a sustainable living zone, an interactive skate zone and — east of its regular location — the Ocean Beach Farmers Market. The Kick Gas festival is the first major concert to be held on the former Chargers practice field since Bob Dylan performed there in September 2008. Dylan's show turned out to be the last in the debut season of AEG Live's Concerts on the Green series, which did not resume this year. Tickets for festival cost $10 in advance and $15 at the gate. Information: kickgasfestival.com/ . Union-Tribune | ||
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